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It’s been snowing for the past hour.
Satoru has been watching the snowfall from the comfort of Toji’s lap, sitting between his legs as the big dog hybrid sleeps curled half-around him with their legs underneath a kotatsu that’s turned to full blast. It’s so cold that they’re all wearing way more clothes than usual, and the door that leads to the little private garden outside has been shut since the day before.
“Do you think your parents would let us move somewhere warmer?” Suguru asks idly without lifting his head from where he has his cheek mashed to the side of the kotatsu’s tabletop. “Okinawa doesn’t snow like this during the winter, ‘Toru. We could go there.”
Satoru snorts out a quiet bit of laughter and then leans over as best as he can without leaving Toji’s lap and disrupting the big dog hybrid as he dozes. Satoru pats his best friend’s head, scratching lightly at his scalp and through the silky spill of his ink dark hair, before replying that, “You know my parents won’t let us do anything of the sort, Suguru.”
Huffing, Suguru finally shifts so that he can look at where Satoru is sitting in Toji’s lap as if the older man’s body is a throne. His purple eyes narrow and a disgruntled frown tugs at his mouth.
“It’s not fair,” he mutters and, at first, Satoru can’t tell if his best friend is talking about the fact that Satoru is infinitely warmer than he is as close as he is to Toji. “I heard the maids in the main house talking about the fact that your parents are currently in Greece. Greece. While I freeze my scales off?”
Satoru blinks. “Why were you in the main house,” he asks. “You weren’t in any trouble, were you?”
It’s not that he and Suguru aren’t allowed in the main house, but that the main house has never felt welcoming to either of them.
For all that Satoru is the only possible heir to the Gojo clan’s wealth, power, and prestige… the main house has always felt like a space that isn’t for him. His parents are rarely home, the clan elders eye him (and Suguru and Toji) with distrust, and the maids aren’t even smart enough to hide the fact that they look down on Satoru because he stays in the annex.
In fact, in the past year, Satoru can count on one hand the number of times that he’s been in the main house. Mostly, he only goes when he’s summoned to receive a scolding from his parents or the elders. He doesn’t even think that they’ve had him visit the main house to get his birthday presents. Usually, they take him out to dinner and present him with gifts then… before flitting off to wherever ridiculously wealthy people go when they don’t want to be bothered by their children.
Suguru is quick to shake his head.
“There was a food delivery for us at the main house and you know how people get when Toji tries to go do anything there,” he manages a slight smile for Satoru. “I didn’t stay there very long, don’t worry, and no one yelled at me. It was only on the way back that I heard the maids talking and it’s not like they saw me.”
Satoru exhales sharply, feeling tension bleed out of his limbs.
“As long as you’re alright,” he says, hating the sullen note to his voice. He leans back, resting his head on Toji’s broad shoulder and jostling the big dog just enough that he starts to wake up. His arms squeeze Satoru gently, but with a strength that reminds Satoru that Toji is the strongest hybrid Satoru has ever met but so soft for Satoru. “Maybe we can get Toji to take us somewhere warmer in a few days.”
Suguru perks up at that. “Okinawa?”
Satoru has to laugh at that. “I was thinking a hotel, somewhere with heating?”
Behind Satoru, Toji rumbles a sound of agreement, and he nods his heavy head. “We’ve got plenty of options if we time things right,” he offers. “’s long as you don’t mind checking into a hotel with a dirty old dog like me.”
Both boys burst out laughing at that. Satoru with his bright, braying giggles that shouldn’t be as charming as they are and Suguru with a more muted chuckle that causes his face to scrunch up cutely.
“How else would we even get a hotel room at our age,” Suguru points out, forcing himself to sit up instead of trying to become one with the kotatsu. “Even with the little prince over there and his power, we’re still children. We don’t have any money. We can’t rent hotel rooms on our own.”
Satoru joins in on the light teasing, twisting about in Toji’s lap so that he can get a better look at his guard dog’s face.
“Yeah, Toji,” he says, drawing out the syllables of his name. “We’re children. You have to spoil us or else.”
Toji snorts, shaking his head.
“Pains in the ass,” he mutters, voice light so that both boys know that he doesn’t mean it. “That’s what you two are.”
He ducks his head so that he can nuzzle the side of Satoru’s face, where he has a stray ivory-colored feather sticking out from his head, and then leans over (half-crushing Satoru in the process) to ruffle Suguru’s already tangled black hair.
“Does that mean –”
“I already booked a suite for us for the rest of your winter break,” Toji says, completing Satoru’s half-finished question. “We’ll leave tomorrow morning and come back the day after we visit the temple for the new year.”
At that Suguru bolts up, his eyes wide. “Tomorrow? We leave tomorrow?”
He wriggles out from underneath the confines of the kotatsu and immediately dashes to the storage closet in the farthest corner of the room, wrenching the doors open and dragging out two suitcases with a clatter that makes Satoru flinch and then cling to one of Toji’s arms.
“Not three?” Toji asks, eyebrows lifted.
Suguru spins around and then scowls, the expression somehow terrifying despite his small, pretty features.
“I’m Satoru’s attendant, not yours,” he bites out, anger cutting into his frantic energy as his long dark hair swings over his shoulder and briefly reveals the pattern of brown and purple scales at his throat. “Maybe if you’d clued me into this trip earlier, I’d already have your things packed.”
Toji, ever an instigator, merely grins.
“I wanted to surprise both of you,” he insists. “Are you really gonna punish me for that, kid?”
Suguru scowls. “Trust me,” he grumbles. “I’m thinking about it.”