Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

“En-chan. En-chan.”

En felt his dream slipping away quickly as he was shaken awake by a gentle hand on his shoulder. He groaned, rolling over and pushing his face into the pillow. It had been a nice dream. Maybe if he went back to sleep quickly he could catch it again.

“En-chan!” He could hear the huff in Atsushi’s voice – could almost hear the hands-on-his-hips-and-frowning in it too. “We’re going to be late again.”

En turned his face, opening one eye to look up through his hair at Atsushi – who was frowning, but only barely, and it soon melted into a small smile – and groaned again in protest before sitting up. Glancing at his clock he saw that he’d managed to sleep through his alarm again. Or, much more likely, he’d hit the snooze button without really waking at all every time it had gone off.

And anyway, who was the idiot who decided that school should be so early in the morning when people were sleepy? It just made no sense really.

“I’m awake,” he tried to say, but really it just came out as a yawn. Atsushi sighed quietly, patient as ever, when he made no move to actually get up. Knowing that he wasn’t far from being physically removed from the comfort of his bed, En threw off the covers and lay back down to stretch with his eyes closed, arms reaching out above his head and toes curling in the sheets, making a satisfied noise when he felt his muscles tightening and then relaxing into the mattress again. Stretching was really the only good thing about waking up.

He opened his eyes in time to see the back of Atsushi’s head disappearing through the bedroom doorway as he hurried from the room. “I’ll be downstairs while you shower.”

“Yeah,” En muttered, not moving. He considered going back to sleep, knowing that Atsushi would only come back in to wake him up again, which definitely didn’t sound as bad as it probably should have, but he’d already lost the warmth from his blanket when he threw it off and he was feeling more awake now anyway.

He stared at his clock again for a few seconds before he heard Atsushi calling his name and he forced himself back up and off of the bed, rolling out until his feet hit the floor. He started down the stairs, too busy rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms and seeing bursts of colour blooming behind the lids to realise at first that he’d met Atsushi half way, until he was stopped by a small pile of folded towels being pushed against his chest to prevent him from going any further. He dropped his hands to hold the towels and let himself be pushed around, too sluggish to complain even if he cared to.

Atsushi wasted no words, only manhandling En by the shoulders into turning around on the step before marching him back up and into the bathroom. He turned on the shower and shut the door behind himself, leaving En with nothing to do but grumble internally to himself and strip out of his pyjamas.

He woke up a lot faster when he found out the unpleasant way that Atsushi hadn’t checked the water temperature first, but it did at least force him to shower and step back out faster than he would have done otherwise.

The scent of breakfast cooking hit him before he reached the kitchen, making his stomach growl noisily. Atsushi was busy plating the eggs when he looked up and almost dropped the pan in surprise.

“En-chan, you’ll freeze!” He cried, averting his eyes from where En stood in his towel while he continued putting the food out.

“Couldn’t find my clothes,” En shrugged, still squeezing water out of his hair with another towel. At least he’d mostly dried himself already. “Besides, it’s very warm today anyway. Definitely warmer out here than it was in that shower.”

“Is there something wrong with the shower?” Atsushi asked, frowning.

“No, it’s just that you put it on too cold.”

Atsushi blinked at him for a moment before laughing. “Couldn’t you have just turned up the hot water, En-chan?”

En opened his mouth to argue that point, but then Atsushi gave him that smile and whatever excuses he’d had were gone. He shrugged again, rubbing the back of his neck with the towel. “Yeah, I guess I could have done that.”

“En-chan, please get dressed before you eat so you don’t make yourself ill,” Atsushi said, still smiling though his voice made it clear that he was only saying ‘please’ to be nice. En wasn’t getting that plate until he put on his uniform.

“You aren’t going to eat?” En asked, folding his arms on the kitchen counter to lean over it and search for a second plate. There was nothing put out for Atsushi.

“I already ate,” Atsushi said, eyes on the pan he’d just finished using and was now scrubbing in the sink. It made En feel equal parts pleased and annoyed at the same time.

“What did you eat?” He asked.

“Breakfast, En-chan, now please,” he pointed to where En’s uniform had been left folded on a chair, still smiling as En heaved out a sigh and pushed off the counter to get himself ready.

They had to hurry to school once En had finally dressed and eaten his breakfast. They walked quickly, not wanting to run because of the steadily rising temperature, but somehow still made it in time for morning registration without too much panic. Classes went by far too slowly as usual, teachers’ voices droning monotonously and becoming background noise to En, and the heat of the room making him even more lethargic than usual, meaning his attention often wandered from his work to the seat at his right where Atsushi sat. Slouching over on his desk with his head resting on his arms and watching the morning light from the window highlighting the features of his best friend’s face, En supposed that there was one other thing on the very short list of things worth waking up for.

Every now and then Atsushi would notice his gaze and look over at him. Atsushi would smile, and En had long since given up any embarrassment at being caught staring, so he’d only return a grin and turn his eyes back to the page in front of him for a few minutes before they strayed right again, watching Atsushi’s lips moving silently along with what he wrote as he worked.

By lunch time it was too hot to eat in the clubroom or on the roof, so they met up with Ryuu, Io, and Yumoto to eat under the shade of a tree on the grounds. The others each took out their own lunch and began eating, but Atsushi, who sat cross-legged beside En where he lay propped on his elbows in the grass, took out two boxes and presented them both to En.

“They’re both different,” he said cheerfully, “so you can pick which you’d like.”

Io’s brow raised slightly, but he didn’t look up from his tablet as he checked the stocks, missing the amused look Ryuu sent them. Yumoto, however, leaned over to see the bento boxes as En accepted the one nearest to him, knowing he’d like whatever Atsushi made for him.

“Atsushi-senpai,” he gasped, staring down at the food, “those look delicious! Do you make them yourself?”

Atsushi smiled, nodding.

“Why do you have two? Do you always bring two?”

“Kinugawa-senpai makes extra bento for Yufuin-senpai every day,” Ryuu told him, his false show of innocence failing terribly, if he was even trying.

“Not every day,” Atsushi argued, cheeks dusting pink.

“That is true,” Io joined in. “There was that one time they fought and … Oh, actually,” he finally looked up from his tablet, “I believe you did make an extra, just in case. Right, Kinugawa-senpai?”

“That’s awfully nice of you, senpai.”

“Really, it’s not that often.”

En stared up at Atsushi where he sat laughing shyly in the grass, and his chest tightened. Atsushi didn’t look at him.

“Gora-an-chan makes my lunch every day,” Yumoto said, smiling brightly as he sat back and opened his own lunch. “I tried making my own one time but that … that didn’t go so well …” Yumoto stared blankly at the grass in front of his knees for a few seconds, lost in memory, and then shrugged and began eating up.

“He’s your older brother though,” Ryuu pointed out. “That’s different.” He turned to Atsushi again. “Don’t you ever get sick of doing so much for Yufuin-senpai? Aren’t you growing tired of it?”

“I am right here,” En muttered, sitting up to eat. The air was becoming stifling and he could hear a bug buzzing somewhere nearby, but couldn’t see it. He crossed his legs and his knee pressed against Atsushi’s. Neither of them tried to move away.

“En-chan is my best friend,” Atsushi shook his head. En’s chest tightened again, but he kept his eyes down on his food.

Yumoto finished his lunch before any of them, but then produced two extra rice balls from his pocket and began on them too, his eyes scanning the school yard. Probably searching for Wombat so that he could tackle him with hugs, En guessed.

En finished his bento and lay back in the grass, closing his eyes and silently cursing the suffocating humidity. He wondered how long of a nap he could get away with if he just slept right there under the tree. Would anyone even bother to come looking for him if he slept into the afternoon? Atsushi would, he reminded himself.

“It’s too warm,” Atsushi sighed, putting down his bento. En opened an eye, looking into the box. He’d only eaten maybe half of it.

“You’re not going to finish that?” He asked.

Atsushi shook his head. “Do you want it?” Without waiting for a reply he picked up his chopsticks again and held out a piece of hot dog in front of En’s mouth, expectant and insistent.

“That wasn’t what I meant…” he began, but Atsushi’s expression didn’t change and his hand stayed right there in front of En’s face, waiting. The hot dog was cut up like an octopus; the kind of thing Atsushi did for En but wouldn’t bother for himself. He’d probably made both lunches with En’s preferences in mind. He could be a little too selfless sometimes.

Giving in and accepting that Atsushi wasn’t going to eat the rest of his lunch – and not wanting to bring up that discussion in front of the others right now – En figured that it was a waste for him not to eat it, so he opened his lips and let Atsushi pop it into his mouth.

“It’s good.”

Pleased, Atsushi offered him another.

“How nice it would be if I also had a girlfriend who would make lunch for me every day and feed me,” Ryuu sighed theatrically, staring wistfully off into the distance like he was picturing it.

“Girlfriend?” Atsushi almost yelped, his voice climbing higher than usual and pink cheeks growing redder. He dropped the chopsticks quickly, looking like he’d only realised what he was doing. “Just what are you saying?”

Ryuu was only joking, but Atsushi looked uncomfortable, cross even at the suggestion, which only made En feel offended on Atsushi’s behalf. Or maybe on his own. Or maybe he was still just irritated that Atsushi wasn’t eating enough. He wasn’t even sure.

“Of course,” Ryuu went on, “I could never be tied down to only one woman.”

“Maybe you should try it,” En suggested. “Then perhaps we could see one of your ‘dates’ ourselves some time, since I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen you with a girl. At all.”

“Just because I don’t bring them with me to school to parade them around for you all to see!” Ryuu folded his arms, turning his face away like that settled the matter. “Besides, I wouldn’t want people getting jealous.”

“Could it be you really are just making them up to compensate for something?”

His tone was light, purposefully teasing, but Ryuu flushed angrily – so much that En could hardly tell his roots from his face. Ryuu glared, making spluttering noises of outrage.

En, successfully holding back a grin, opened his mouth to comment on it, but Atsushi cut across him before he could get a word out.

“En-chan,” he chided quietly, his voice gone suddenly soft.

“Huh?”

Io coughed, drawing En and Ryuu’s attention before turning his eyes to Yumoto, whose gaze was flicking between them both almost nervously. It was odd, En thought, that the kid who didn’t blink at the appearance of strange pink aliens or the walking corpse of their teacher or monsters and magical suits, would look so perturbed by a little playful bickering. Or maybe not quite as odd as those other things, he decided.

“Sorry, I was only joking,” En sighed, lying back again in the grass.

They were silent for a few seconds until a loud commotion from nearer the school grabbed their attention and they all looked up to see a fight break out between a pair of guys En recognised as third years. He didn’t know them well enough that he’d ever bothered to learn their names.

A teacher, flustered and stressed, quickly separated them and forced the fighting pair back inside the school building. They all looked at each other.

“Could it be another monster?” Yumoto asked, jumping quickly to his feet eagerly. “Do we need to do the thing and transform now?”

“You’re far too energetic about this,” Ryuu whined. “All this sweating isn’t good for my image. Or my hair.”

Io shook his head, holding up the silent loveracelet on his wrist. “We’d know if it was a monster. It may just be the heat. It does fray tempers.”

“Hm,” Atsushi nodded in agreement, frowning thoughtfully. “My grandmother says that young boys in large groups are like dogs in that if you let them get too hot or hungry they’ll turn aggressive and moody.” His frown deepened a little. “Which seems unfair… hmm, maybe rude even, but –”

He stopped when a chorus of yelling suddenly started up close by.

“Perhaps we should find some way to cool down,” He recommended. “And go somewhere quieter.”

“Look!” Yumoto cried excitedly, beaming and pointing towards the entrance gate. “Ice cream!”

After getting to their feet, they saw that there was indeed an ice cream van pulling up to park on the roadside by the open gates. Yumoto was already half way towards it by the time they started to head the same way, followed by many students who now heard the jolly music box jingle from the van.

“What incredibly suspicious and convenient timing,” En mused, exchanging a grin with Atsushi as they joined the rapidly growing queue at the window.

Yumoto emptied a handful of small coins from his pockets onto the counter, and then another, and then dug out a few more, and bought himself a multi-coloured ice cream with three different flavours and a rocket shaped ice lolly, which he put in his pocket “for later”.

“But it’ll melt,” Atsushi tried to tell him as he skipped away.

“You’re wasting your breath,” En said, turning to the window.

The man in the van grumbled to himself in a constant stream of muttered complaints while counting out the large pile of coins on the counter, not once seeming to care at all if the ‘brats’ heard him, and not once acknowledging that he heard them at all apart from to take their money and shove their frozen treats into their hands.

“…driving around all day too hot up front, standing around too cold in the back freezing my balls off having to hand out ice cream to loud brats day after day, noisy squealing, squirting water pistols…”

En shot a look at Atsushi, who shrugged, and then – when the man had eventually finished counting out Yumoto’s coins – he bought them both a double cone of vanilla with a chocolate flake. The irritatingly cheerful tune from the speakers on top of the van continued playing the whole time in contrast to the man inside who looked like he’d rather be anywhere else in the world but right where he was. He shoved the cones into En’s hands and slammed his change on the counter.

“I don’t think I would like to make my living driving around serving ice cream to others while they enjoy the weather either,” En admitted when they’d walked away with their cones, wandering rather aimlessly now. “Though I can’t really say I am actually enjoying the weather.”

It was just the two of them, Yumoto and the second years having gone elsewhere to find shade after buying their treats. It was silent for a while, until Atsushi broke it.

“What would you like to do?” He asked. For a moment En really wasn’t sure how he could answer that, but Atsushi saw his confusion. “If you could do anything, even if it was a completely unrealistic goal, what would you want it to be?”

“That’s not a very you question, is it?” En teased. They’d have to think seriously about their future one day soon, but for now it was easier to just avoid that worry. Besides, he’d probably only end up going to whatever college Atsushi decided to go to. He was happy to humour Atsushi though, and didn’t need to spend a lot of time thinking about his answer. “A mattress tester.”

“A what?” Atsushi’s eyes widened.

“I’d like to get paid to sleep on a bed and rate its comfiness,” he elaborated. “I can’t think of any nicer job.”

“Hmm,” Atsushi chuckled. “That does seem like a very you answer.”

En was about to ask “What about you?” but as they turned the corner he caught sight of three figures in white under a sun parasol, drinking iced lemonade that made En’s throat feel parched to think about. Kusatsu glared in their direction, but whether it was directed specifically at them or they’d just walked into its path, En wasn’t sure, but Atsushi didn’t seem to have noticed them either way just yet.

“Hey, Atsushi,” he said, holding out his ice cream. “Would you try this? Does it taste right to you?”

Atsushi did try it. “Mnm, it tastes fine to me.”

Glancing over one last time at the student council table, he saw that Kusatsu’s glare had increased dramatically, and this time his seething outrage was clearly aimed directly at En. He had to admit to himself that teasing did give him a rather warm, slightly smug feeling inside.

The feeling was a little petty, maybe, but sometimes the small pleasures in life were.

“Would you like to try mine? Just in case?”

En leaned down to it, holding the cone over Atsushi’s hand so that he could lick the quickly melting ice cream.

“Does it taste the same?”

En nodded his head, releasing Atsushi’s hand. He began on his own again, saying, “It tastes fine now. Must have been my imagination.”

“Then would you like my flake?” Atsushi asked, pulling it out of the ice cream and holding it out. “I don’t much feel like eating chocolate right now.”

En frowned at it.

“I’ll take half if you will?” He offered, and after a moment of hesitation Atsushi agreed.

He took the chocolate from Atsushi and, instead of snapping it in half with his hands, En simply bit his half off. Atsushi held out his hand, but when En ignored that and held out the ice cream covered half of the chocolate to his mouth, he opened up without thinking and blushed when En slipped the chocolate into Atsushi’s mouth, his fingertips dragging on Atsushi’s lips before he pulled back his hand.

“En-chan!” Atsushi covered his mouth with his hand when he spoke, his voice pitched and admonishing, but not quite raised.

“What?” En asked, feigning obliviousness. “You did the same thing earlier.”

Atsushi waited until he’d swallowed it before replying, quietly, “That was different.”

“Was it?”

Atsushi looked as though he was going to say something, but then he shook his head – more in reflection, En figured, than in answer to his question. His smile looked a little strained though, and En hoped he hadn’t pushed too far.

The school council members were already gone from their shaded table by the time they turned around to go back inside for classes, but the ice cream van was still there, the man inside serving stragglers and passers-by and looking like he’d rather just throw the ice cream at them instead.

Thankfully the afternoon passed a little faster than the morning, and the day got a little cooler so that they were able to sit in the club room after their last classes ended. Ryuu was typing away on his phone while Io did homework and Yumoto cuddled Wombat in the corner. Atsushi looked up from his book as En dropped heavily into the chair next to him and let his head fall onto his arms on the desk with a drawn out sigh, absolutely ready for a long nap.

“It’s only Tuesday, En-chan,” Atsushi said, amused.

“School should be only two days out of the week,” En complained. “To match the two days of the week that we get for the weekend.”

“What about the other three days?”

“For lying in bed,” he declared, very seriously. He turned his head, still lying on his arms, to look up at Atsushi. “And nothing else.”

Atsushi opened his mouth to say something, but seemed to change his mind and only smiled instead. His hands, still holding his book open in front of him, had lowered to the table, leaving his attention free to focus fully on En while the others continued the conversation around them.

“That wouldn’t be very profitable,” Io argued. En saw movement out of the corner of his eye that he thought was Io shaking his head.

“Are you saying you’d refuse that if you were given the choice?” Ryuu asked.

“I’m saying I’d rather use my time productively. If the work week would still reflect the school week then that would be taking more than half of the working week away! The amount of money time costs means it couldn’t be cut down to only two days without making a major reduction in intake. Especially if everyone is spending three of those days off in bed and not out spending money towards the economy. That sort of thing causes problems for everyone.”

“You sound like you’ve already considered something like this…”

“I am always considering how any given situation will affect my earnings and losses. Besides, you can’t fit nearly as much education into only two days.”

“But it would be much easier to manage my busy social schedule that way,” Ryuu countered. “There’s no one saying you have to spend all of those days in bed alone, or that it has to be your own bed, right, Yufuin-senpai?”

“Right,” En agreed, not really listening. Atsushi was still smiling at him, and he couldn’t bring himself to turn his attention to anything else.

“Hmm,” Io tapped his pen on his chin. “Well, I suppose there are actually some people who make quite a lot of money that way. Not that it’s something I would personally consider, of course.”

“Who makes money from that?” Yumoto asked, piping up from the corner of the room and still clinging onto Wombat’s pink fur. “What kind of job pays people for lying in bed with someone?”

“Io!” Atsushi cried, snapping out of a daze and almost dropping his book. Io looked confused about what he’d done wrong for a moment, but then put a hand to his lips. Ryuu only barely stifled a laugh.

“Mattress testers,” En said, covering with the first thing to come to mind. He took one last long second before tearing his eyes from Atsushi to look at Yumoto, who was staring in wide-eyed anticipation and with rapt attention. “They get paid to make sure the mattress is good and comfortable. You know, for sleeping in. No one wants a lumpy mattress.”

“Ooh! Is cuddling allowed?”

“It is, but they have to use rubber covers to keep everything clean.”

He felt Atsushi kick his shin under the table, but luckily Yumoto missed his wince because he’d already looked away. En grinned at Atsushi, who covered his mouth to hide a smile and shook his head.

“Hm, I think I’d get bored anyway,” Yumoto decided. “Cuddles are important but I don’t know if I could lie in a bed all day for three days just to get paid for it.”

“Good idea,” Ryuu told him, grinning even as he went along with it. “Cuddles should be free or they’re not from the heart.”

Atsushi returned his attention to his book, but then stopped and put it straight back down again. He looked around at them all, shivering as the sunlight from the window quickly grew weaker and weaker, until the sky was a horrid, miserable grey.

“Is it just me,” he said, hugging his chest, “or has the temperature suddenly dropped around here?”

The chill spread across the room, hitting En just as Atsushi’s teeth began chattering loudly, and he shoved his hands under his armpits. A shiver seemed to run through the whole room and their breath was coming out in clouds of steam. Ryuu yelped and jumped down from where he sat on one of the tables. He snatched his blazer from the back of a chair and threw it over his shoulders. Yumoto clutched Wombat even tighter.

“This certainly wasn’t on the forecast for today,” Io muttered, rubbing his hands together to warm them.

“M-my lips are t-t-turning blue!” Ryuu stuttered, panicking. “My tears are going to freeze on my face!”

“Why are you crying?” Yumoto asked.

“I’m n-not crying; my eyes are watering ‘cause of the c-cold!”

“At least Mr Tawarayama is on ice now,” En pointed out, nodding his head towards the lifeless form of their teacher where he lay on the floor. They still weren’t sure if he was actually dead or alive.

“I don’t think now is a good time for that, En-chan,” Atsushi said weakly.

The blinking light from En’s wrist caught his eye, and they all checked their loveracelets. There was a nod of general agreement around the room before Yumoto leapt to his feet, eager to start, and began his transformation.

It happened, as always, in a blur of only semi-consciousness where their bodies were temporarily taken over by whatever this thing was that made them able to be what they were. ‘Superheroes’ Atsushi had called them. Wombat called them ‘Princes’. Sometimes En felt that they should maybe be more inclined to consider the words ‘slaves’, ‘prisoners’, or ‘unwilling soldiers’. In truth those were hard titles to be convinced of when you’re wearing an outfit that looks like a tacky cosplay from some obscure anime, carrying a magic wand that shoots actual beams, and being directed by a fuzzy ball of talking cotton candy with huge teeth. But what can you do, right?

The transformation complete and their speeches of love made – despite the total lack of audience – they all zoned back in to reality. Ryuu immediately bumped his hip against the corner of a desk and yelped, Yumoto tripped and almost fell to the floor, somehow managing to save himself by landing in Atsushi’s arms, and Io had to back quickly against a shelf so that he and En didn’t bash their heads together.

“This space is too small,” he said, though it was hardly worth mentioning now.

“Don’t things get smaller when they get colder?” Yumoto asked, still held in Atsushi’s arms and clinging to him with his arms around his neck.

“I don’t think the room would have been that much bigger to begin with,” Atsushi said, carefully lowering Yumoto to the floor while looking around. There was nothing inside the room with them, but they couldn’t hear anything either. Usually this kind of thing came with loud yelling and explosions so that they’d know where to go for the trouble. “Should we just go outs there and start looking?”

Ryuu almost sobbed, his whole body shaking with cold and stamping his feet to keep warm. “This definitely isn’t an improvement on the comfort side! These things don’t happen have a version that looks just as cute on me but made with cooler climates in mind, do they?”

“They weren’t designed for that, but anyway that’s not what’s important right now!” Wombat yelled, waving his arms.

“Of course it’s important! There should definitely be a winter uniform!”

“Shh!” Io hushed them, his eyes closed like he was concentrating hard on something. Everyone stepped closer, staring at him. Waiting.

It was a moment before En realised he was hearing something and another moment before he realised what it was. The slow twinkling tune was distant and echoed hauntingly, but it was obvious what it was.

“A music box?” Atsushi frowned, taking another look around the room. They still saw nothing.

“Maybe we should just go out and start look–”

“LOOK!” Yumoto screeched, suddenly excited and bouncing up and down on his feet with his hand outstretched, pointing to the window. He ran to it, wiping the condensation that had quickly built from their breaths with a gloved hand so that they could all see more clearly what was so thrilling.

En narrowed his eyes, not seeing it at first, until he noticed tiny specks of white floating down from the grey sky.

“SNOW?” They all yelled together, their jaws dropping. En flinched at the sudden unexpected loudness of their voices, and he saw the others do the same.

Without needing to discuss it they all ran for the door, taking the stairs that would lead them to the nearest exit. The corridors felt empty and cold in a way that definitely wasn’t just about the temperature. Everywhere remained silent apart from the echoing slap of their shoes against the hard polished floors.

They passed a classroom with several students inside – the manga club, En realised. They were huddled in the corner, wrapped in thin summer coats and shivering but mute. He stopped at the door and opened his mouth to ask if they were hurt, but every one of them put a finger to their lips in sync, and his jaw snapped shut.

“Cerulean,” Atsushi doubled back, grabbing En by the wrist and tugging him along.

In their hurry to get to the doors, none of them noticed the shimmering floor until it was already too late to stop themselves. Ryuu glided almost gracefully, stopping in front of the door, and Yumoto glided less than gracefully, but still managed not to fall. The others weren’t so smooth with their stop.

His feet sliding on the ice, En slipped and reacted without thinking, grabbing out to hold onto Atsushi with both hands when he felt gravity take him down. Atsushi did the same at the same time and, clinging to each other despite it making the situation worse, they skidded a few feet, before tumbling over themselves and landing in a small pile on the slippery floor.

En landed flat on his back, miraculously without hitting his head hard enough to knock him out. He was winded, but glad that at least he broke Atsushi’s fall, and not the other way around. Although he’d been lucky enough to land mostly sitting on En’s stomach, Atsushi’s knee still managed to hit the floor hard with a crack. He winced and mouthed ‘ow’ noiselessly, screwing up his eyes. At first En thought Atsushi was leaning over him because he’d hurt himself badly enough that he couldn’t get back up, but then realised it was Atsushi’s hand cupped behind his head that had stopped it from breaking against the icy floor. Tilting his head back, he saw that Io had managed to avoid tripping over them by grabbing onto a window ledge.

Atsushi picked himself up again quickly, offering a hand to help him up and his embarrassed smile to En as an apology as though somehow it was his fault.

En wanted to say they’d both caused the fall, but couldn’t make himself speak. He nodded his thanks and accepted the hand, taking a moment to get his breath back when he got to his feet.

“It’s locked,” Yumoto said, pulling on the door.

Much more cautiously than before, En followed Io and Atsushi to the door and saw that it wasn’t locked, but frozen shut. When he explained this, Yumoto took up his ‘love stick’ immediately, pointing it at the doors. They barely had time to step back before the blast blew the doors open, leaving one of them hanging on its lower hinges.

The slow chiming melody grew louder in the distance as they stepped outside, giving the empty school yard a sinister, haunted feeling. The cold mist that gathered around their feet and the fog that blurred their vision of anything further than a hundred or so feet around them didn’t help either. Even in the middle of the day as it was, the sun couldn’t be seen at all. It all made the building itself look eerie and deserted, though they knew the students and teachers were still inside there, frozen silent in fear… or possibly just frozen.

“I think we played a video game that looked like this once,” En whispered to Atsushi as he came to stand close by his side, still not sure why he had to keep his voice down.

Atsushi turned quite pale at that.

“It makes you almost miss the heatwave,” Io said, his voice starting out normal, like he was determined not to be hushed by the atmosphere, but by the time he got to ‘heatwave’ he also was whispering.

“Almost?” Ryuu hissed through his clenched teeth.

“Don’t you go snowboarding a lot?” En asked him. “Aren’t you used to the cold?”

“Not in shorts!”

“My toes are turning numb,” Atsushi whispered. It didn’t have the anger behind it that Ryuu’s complaints did. He leaned down and used his hand to waft away some of the mist, but it came back straight away. “Even the grass is frozen.”

“You have to keep moving!” Yumoto told them, his voice as loud as ever and almost managing to shatter the creepy mood. “Let’s run so we can warm up and find that monster!”

He charged ahead, followed shortly by the others. En’s shoulders sagged miserably for a second before he heaved a sigh and forced himself to jog after them, hoping that they wouldn’t lose their balance on the frosted grass like they had inside the school. They did warm up, but had to stop to rest before they’d found anything they could have had a hope to stop the cold by fighting.

“Maybe there isn’t one this time?” Yumoto wondered out loud. His usually smiling face looked concerned; his jaw set determinedly and eyes narrowed as they searched around in the fog for something to draw his weapon against. It was odd to see him so frustrated over something. His hand on his wand tightening before he answered his own question. “No, there has to be a monster!” He tipped his head back to look up at the roof of the school building. “Maybe there’s something on the…”

Yumoto paused for a moment, holding so still that En almost worried he’d been frozen too, but then his face split into a wide excited smile. He laughed, his voice ringing delightedly and loudly. With his mouth wide open he stuck out his tongue and tipped his head back even farther, making an ‘aaahhhhhh’ noise. He made another childish noise of glee and turned on the spot like he was trying to catch as much snow in his mouth as he could. It was coming down heavier now. Large clumps of it floating down around them and laying out on the ground causing more of the chilly mist around their ankles, untouched but for where their own shoes had disturbed it.

“Yu… moto…” Atsushi took a step closer to him, hand out like he wanted to hold him still, but changed his mind and looked around at the others. Yumoto danced in joyful circles, happily ignorant to their concern.

“Yumoto,” En said. Yumoto didn’t stop. “What are you doing?” He asked slowly. He knew exactly what Yumoto was doing – he could clearly see what Yumoto was doing – he just couldn’t believe he was doing it right now.

Yumoto stopped then and stared at them, his tongue still half stuck out, before his eyes lit with understanding and he laughed again.

“Try it!” He told them all urgently. “You have got to try the snow!”

“We’re about ten years too old for that, Scarlet,” Ryuu said, shaking his head. “We have to fix this before it gets worse.”

“No, really!” Yumoto insisted. “You have to try it!”

He looked at them all seriously, waiting. Atsushi frowned, but was the first to give in. They all stood around waiting and watching while Atsushi, looking like he felt rather foolish, tipped back his head to do as Yumoto instructed. A few seconds passed before he gasped and turned to gape at Yumoto. In a stunned voice, he said, “It… it’s chocolate.”

Yumoto beamed at him. “I got strawberry!”

“WHAT?” Io and Ryuu cried out at the same time, looking excitedly at each other before copying Yumoto and Atsushi who were both catching snow in their mouths again, turning as Yumoto had done.

En watched them for a moment, and then held out his hand, looking down at the little flakes that landed on his gloved fingers. It had looked white against the dark grey of the sky, but only almost white on his white gloves. When he rubbed it they smeared pink, green, brown, blue – all melting not into water, but into cream. Dumbfounded, he stuck out his tongue and tasted vanilla.

“I taste raspberry,” Io said in awe just as Ryuu merrily declared that he’d gotten mint.

With all of them looking up into the sky at the falling flakes, no one missed it when a dark shape passed over, carrying the tinkling notes of what En now recognised as a nursery rhyme with it. The louder the music got, the more En felt he desperately needed absolute silence.

Even Yumoto was still and noiseless…

Until a moment later when he pointed his love stick into the clouds, firing a beam at the dark shape and making the dull grey of the sky and grounds around them light up with colour again for just a few seconds as though a firework had gone off, outlining the large shape of the monster hidden above them.

The music cut off instantly, breaking whatever spell it had had over them, and the dark shape broke through the clouds to take a sudden dive towards the earth. At first En thought that Yumoto’s hit had been on target enough to knock it from the sky, but it soon became clear that its fall was deliberate, and as it got closer he also realised that it was a lot bigger than he’d thought.

Its metal wings were painted with multi-coloured stars and bright swirls, making it seem almost cartoonish against the dull hues it had turned the world around it. The rotor blade spun furiously on the nose, buzzing loudly, but even over that they heard the angry screaming voice of the person trapped in this new monster form, though En couldn’t make out a word he was saying.

“What kind of plane is that?” Ryuu asked, his voice weirdly calm.

“Hard to tell,” Io replied, squinting up at it through the falling ice cream flakes. “Possibly a Nakajima make, but I can’t tell the model from this distance. It’s moving quite fast. But it’s likely a made up design. Does it matter?”

“Is it going to shoot at us?” En asked, also still feeling the odd hushing effects of the music, but just as he said it they saw a door opening up on the belly of the craft and a large black tap shaped object with a handle came out and pointed right at them.

“I think that’s more than likely,” Io nodded.

“I think we should move,” Atsushi suggested, but none of them did. They stayed frozen to the spot and staring up at the monster hurtling through the sky towards them, larger and more frighteningly intimidating than any they’d had to fight before.

The plane levelled out as it came closer and what was obviously its gun on the underside pointed directly at them.

Snapping into action at the machine gun sound of ice cream cones being fired at them, the battle lovers ran from the fighter, which was still yelling at them. En heard something about ‘noisy brats’, but he was too busy being shocked by the way a few ice cream cones had just ripped through a tree, shearing off two whole branches as easily as if the tree were made of butter.

At this rate they’d only end up either running around forever or until they got cut in half. Neither were terrifically appealing options.

En stopped running, taking up his own love stick as he turned on the spot and fired a blast towards the monster. The cones that had already been fired passed through the water beam and kept on heading straight for him, but they splattered harmlessly around him, too wet and soggy to do any damage. The monster, going too fast to manoeuvre out of its path, flew straight into the blast taking it right in the face and gurgling when it took a mouthful of water with its complaining.

“You got it, Cerulean-senpai!” Yumoto cheered, jumping on the spot as the plane flew away. It wasn’t gone for long though and turned, glaring menacingly down at them with the huge eyes where its windscreen should have been.

“I think all I did was piss it off,” he said, holding the wand out ready again as the plane turned to make a second attack. But instead of shooting ice cream cones at them, a panel on each wing opened up to reveal a set of ten brightly coloured missiles. It wasn’t until the first one was fired at them that he realised what they really were; giant water balloons, frozen into a torpedo shape.

They dodged it, diving out of the way as it hit the tree they’d been standing by. Seconds after it was hit ice formed on the trunk of the tree, growing around it like a glassy cocoon.

“Don’t get hit!” Someone yelled. As though that wasn’t obvious enough already.

A second missile fired towards Io. The bench that he had to take cover behind survived the hit intact, but ended up encased in ice just like the tree. He had to leap away from it in case the ice spread far enough to reach him. Ryuu, his face set angrily, jumped in front of the next one with his love stick pointed at it. The blast of fire left nothing to be seen of the frozen balloon, but the plane swerved to the side and dodged it easily, ready for their attacks now after the first one.

They tried to regroup, but were scattered again when another missile came at them. Atsushi’s beam missed and the ice hit right in the centre of them, making the ground freeze up under them as they ran away.

En’s feet slipped and he skidded straight into the frozen bench. He braced for impact, but wasn’t prepared for the way the entire bench cracked and crumbled to tiny icy pieces under him the moment he touched it. He sat there on his ass in the ruin of what used to be the bench, too stunned to move for a moment.

“What the…” He was sure he couldn’t have landed on it that hard.

“CERULEAN-SENPAI!”

He looked up from the wreck to see four panicked faces, and then up into the sky where he saw a bright red balloon tearing through the air towards him. Without having time to think or move, he raised his wand and fired at the missile, but instead of blasting it away, it just froze into a giant spear of solid ice.

Another blast from one of the others hit it, smashing it into pieces before it could reach him. En had time to look over and see Io with his love stick held up before shards of ice came raining down on them. He jumped to hit feet, beating the shower of icicles away with the end of his wand.

A cry of pain as the monster passed over above their heads made him turn. Most of them were lucky enough to avoid being hit, but Atsushi was kneeling on the ground, his face was twisted in pain and one hand holding his knee tightly. It wasn’t frozen over, but it looked like he’d been hurt bad. His love stick was lying by his feet – he must have dropped it when he was hit. En started towards him, but Atsushi held up a hand and forced a smile.

“I’m okay,” he said weakly, like that was supposed to reassure him.

“The hell you are!” En growled, stomping forward. He helped Atsushi up from the ground, checking his knee for damage, but Atsushi moved his leg just fine and put his weight on it – what little weight he had, anyway – insisting that there was nothing wrong and that the ice hadn’t even hit him.

“It’s coming back!” Ryuu called out, poised to defend, but before another missile could come for them Yumoto fired a beam of light that hit the tail of the plane, knocking it off course and causing the balloon to be fired off harmlessly to an empty patch of grass.

Once it had righted itself in the air though, the monster glared down at Yumoto, screaming senselessly in rage. The slowly falling ice cream snow became thicker, and the wind grew harsh and biting. If it wasn’t pissed enough before, it sure was now. The next missile was aimed directly at Yumoto, but, being the most light footed of them all, he skipped easily out of the way, firing another shot as he did. Another missile fired right at him and missed. Then a third.

En was so busy watching Yumoto dance around that he hadn’t bothered moving from where he stood. He waited for the next missile, but it didn’t come. Confused, he counted the shots in his head, sure that there should be one more.

“EN-CHAN!”

“Huh?” En didn’t get the chance to turn around before two hands slammed into his back and shoved him roughly out of the way. He tumbled, landing several feet away on his front in the ice cream frosted grass, and looked up in time to see Atsushi slip, his leg buckling under him before he could get out of the way, and the ice missile hit him square in his back.

Atsushi didn’t yell or cry out. He just froze, falling to the ground with his mouth open in a pained expression, but he still didn’t make a sound as the ice grew around him. When it stopped growing it was covering almost half of his body, his chest, back, and left side of his face getting the worst of it.

A sick feeling of nauseous horror filled En’s stomach as Ryuu, Io, and Yumoto ran to help Atsushi, and he flung himself in front of them with his wand out, barring the way to Atsushi.

“Wait! Don’t touch him!” He roared at them. They all stopped, shocked.

“Cerulean… senpai?” Yumoto said softly, staring down at the end of the love stick pointed at them; not afraid, only confused. En only realised then how that looked and quickly lowered it.

“You can’t –” He stopped when the plane came headed back towards them again. He saw that the cone gun was out again, and glanced between Atsushi and the broken up bench. There wasn’t time to explain. “Stop the ice cream monster, I’ll protect Epinard.”

When it flew back over again, spraying razor sharp cones everywhere, En blasted them again, standing over Atsushi and using the end of his love stick to bat the soft cones away. His eyes flicked down once, taking in the quickly bluing lips and glassy-eyed expression of shock, but he couldn’t have bared to look for longer even if he’d had the time. Atsushi was generally always pale, so it was kind of hard to tell how much worse it was just by looking. He didn’t even know if it was safe to touch the skin that wasn’t covered in ice to check for warmth. Even his eyelashes looked dangerously brittle; holding still, rigid in the wind and covered in white frost.

The others chased the monster, firing relentlessly while avoiding the cones. Yumoto got another shot, hitting a wing this time and almost managing to knock it out of the sky. Ryuu got two hits, but it was Io’s shot that brought it down for good.

En’s love stick vibrated in his hand for a moment before he felt it pull away from him. Atsushi’s wand clattered across the ground a few inches before lifting off and following it, both of them joining with the others on Yumoto’s wand where he held it up.

The blast from the love attack sent the monster, tumbling towards En and Atsushi. En ran out in front of it, ready to throw himself at it if he had to – not that it would probably work, but he had no better ideas – but it stopped before getting too close to them. The moment Yumoto’s love shower turned the man human again, the clouds cleared and everything began to thaw. He turned back around, splashing through the melted ice cream to where Atsushi still lay on unconscious on the ground.

The others came after, Io and Ryuu stopping behind En instead of approaching Atsushi, and Yumoto coming to stand beside him. The ice around him was already melting fast, leaving Atsushi’s hair and suit soaking wet, but he still hadn’t moved. Even when it was all gone, he didn’t move at all.

Every nerve in En’s body felt on the edge of shattering him into pieces just like the bench had. Like he was just going to pop or fall apart, but only the outside, because the inside felt entirely too empty. He wanted to sprint forward, to scoop up Atsushi in his arms and rush him to a hospital, but he was too afraid to touch him until he knew for sure that he wouldn’t break from it. He’d stay standing there for as long as he had to. He’d wait forever.

En couldn’t breathe, not until Atsushi did.

It felt like forever had already passed by the time Atsushi blinked, gasped in a lungful of air, and then rolling over onto his side as a harsh fit of coughing took over him.

Yumoto rushed forward to him, and En fell to the ground, not realising that he’d been using his hand to grip Yumoto’s shoulder and hold him up. He was dizzy with relief, putting his head to the floor, in spite of the mess of cream that was still there, and thanked whatever gods were listening for the sound of that coughing.

The emptiness inside was replaced with something that swelled up in his chest like an inflating balloon. A burning one. It made his eyes sting and his breath catch in his throat.

Io passed En where he still knelt on the ground to go to Atsushi, and then Ryuu, but Atsushi’s first words once he’d gotten his composure back were, “En– ah, Cerulean, are you okay?”

The feeling inside got stronger until it threatened to crush his lungs against his ribs and he thought it might burst out of him. And then it did.

It took him a few long seconds before he realised that he was laughing, and that the wet on his cheeks wasn’t just from the results of the fight melting around them. He went on like that for several minutes, letting it out until he calmed down and looked up, seeing everyone staring with varying degrees of concern and confusion.

“Has… has Cerulean-senpai lost it?” Yumoto asked.

“I am absolutely fine,” he lied, sitting back on his heels with a sigh and wiping the tears from his face. Ryuu exchanged a disconcerted glance with Io, but Atsushi only blinked at him, confused.

He waited until the others went to help the man from the ice cream van before he moved closer. Part of him wanted to grab his friend by the shoulders to shake him and scream about how stupid he was, but he settled for wrapping his arms around Atsushi’s shoulders in a hug and tucking his head into his neck, whispering, “Atsushi, please don’t ever do that again.”

“En-chan, why are you crying?”

“I’m not,” he lied again, not wanting Atsushi to feel responsible. “It’s melted ice cream.”

Atsushi wasn’t buying it and En knew it, but he just lifted his hands to En’s back to return the hug before letting En help him up. He tested the pressure on his leg.

“We should take you to the hospital,” En decided, ready to scoop him up and carry him all the way there if he had to.

“I don’t think that’s necessary.”

“You weren’t breathing,” Ryuu said from behind them. They turned around and saw that whatever had been happening with the man was over now, and Yumoto was holding – or restraining – Wombat in his arms. “You were frozen solid. How did you survive that anyway?”

“The battle lovers outfits aren’t just for show,” Wombat informed them. “You already know it makes you stronger and faster, but it also protects you from things that would cause a lot of damage to any normal person.”

“Oh!” Yumoto gasped. “You mean we’re invincible in these, right?”

“I don’t think he means they make us invincible,” Ryuu hummed, “just less … vincible.”

“I don’t think that’s a real word,” Atsushi said.

“New words are invented every day,” Io pointed out. Ryuu smiled. Wombat huffed in frustration, looking ready to set them all straight about it.

“He should still go to hospital,” En said loudly, jumping into the conversation before they could really get themselves going into a debate about the validity – or lack thereof – of the word ‘vincible’.

Wombat shook his head. “There are technologies working on your body right now that your human doctors couldn’t hope to understand or measure up to.”

“That sounds … intrusive,” Atsushi said.

“Absolutely not!” Wombat bristled, obviously offended. “The technology from my world are far superior to yours; we need nothing like that. You’ve all been given powers that will help you take more damage and heal faster.”

“Wait a moment,” Atsushi started suddenly, troubled. “Was I dead?”

“You were frozen,” Wombat admitted, “but just in stasis. Sleeping.”

“So I was alive the whole time?”

“Yes.”

“You mean alive like human alive, or alive like…” he looked over at Mr Tawarayama’s greyed corpse lying on the ground. Wombat yelped and jumped down to him.

“Human alive,” he confirmed as Mr Tawarayama sprung to his feet with surprising agility for any person his age, never mind a probably dead one.

Atsushi sighed with relief. “Let’s just go now.”

When they’d transformed back into their regular school uniforms and gotten their stuff back from the club room, they passed students on the way out who were pointing in absolute confusion at the melted cream spread across the school grounds and roof. En looked determinedly forward.

“Just keep going,” he told them. “We got rid of the monster, there’s no way I’m doing that too.”

“But then who will have to clean it?” Yumoto asked, his voice muffled around the now oddly shaped ice lolly he’d found refrozen in his pocket.

“Fortunately there’s heavy rain forecast for tonight,” Io supplied helpfully. “So, hopefully, no one will.”

Atsushi walked a little slower than usual, and En walked a little closer than usual, absolutely ready to pick him up and carry him at any time. He’d said his leg was sore, but that it was nothing really. He kept it up until they reached Kurotama Bath and he hesitated before going in.

“Actually,” he said quietly, “I think I’ll go home.”

They all stopped to stare at him, concerned. En’s fingers tugged on Atsushi’s sleeve at the elbow, but wasn’t sure how that was supposed to help at all.

Atsushi smiled at him. “I’m just tired.”

“Then I’ll walk you home.”

“You don’t have to do that, En-chan! You should stay with everyone. It was kind of a rough day and you’re sore too so just stay and relax.”

He was a little achy, but that wasn’t the point.

“Would you prefer to be alone?”

“It’s not that,” Atsushi shook his head. He didn’t want to be a bother or cause any more fuss than he already had.

En shrugged. “Then I’d rather go with you.”

Atsushi didn’t argue back. He sighed, but looked relieved, and gave the others a small wave before they left. They took their time, walking shoulder to shoulder and grateful for the warm sun and the cool afternoon breeze.

En wanted to offer to help somehow, though it was only a short walk, but he already knew the answer would be. Atsushi looked too exhausted to hold a conversation anyway, so they walked the rest of the way in silence until they reached Atsushi’s front door.

He went inside with a smile and an almost cheery “I’ll call you later to talk, En-chan,” and En left to walk home alone with a promise from Atsushi that he would be fine with rest.

Atsushi sent only one email that night, just as En was thinking of getting up from his bed – where he had lay doing nothing at all for the past three hours – to maybe do his homework. He read the message, stating that Atsushi wouldn’t be calling after all because he was going to bed early. Quickly typing out a short response, En replied immediately. When he didn’t get a message back after several minutes he typed out a slightly longer one and sent it again.

After half an hour of staring at his phone, opening it every few seconds just to check, and sighing at it, he figured that he wasn’t going to get a reply for the rest of the night. He heaved himself up to get his homework and make a start on it. Atsushi was probably just asleep already. He never just didn’t reply for no reason. There’s no way he’d just ignore En because he couldn’t be bothered with him. Atsushi wasn’t like that.

He spent the rest of the night tapping his pen on the blank sheet of paper in front of him, listening to the light rain patter against the window and determinedly definitely not checking his phone every few minutes.

*

En woke up at the sound of his alarm blaring, but promptly slapped a hand down on the snooze button, rolling over to go back to sleep. There was plenty of time yet.

The alarm woke him twice again, and each time he hit the little button to shush it for a few more minutes. There was no point in getting up too early. Being well resting before the school day is important, after all.

He woke up again later at the sound of a car door slamming outside and tried to go back to sleep, but something felt off. Checking the time, he realised Atsushi must be running behind today because he was usually there to walk to school with him by now. There was still time though, so he lay in bed, listening for the sound of the door opening.

Minutes passed and En felt too oddly awake to go back to sleep now and got up from bed to check his phone.

No messages.

He frowned at the time again, but figured he might as well get ready for school and wait for Atsushi by the door. He was half way down the stairs before he stopped, sighed, and turned himself around to go shower, hoping that by the time he got out to get dried Atsushi would already be there.

When he got down the stairs however, the house was still empty but for himself. He threw on his uniform, rubbing his hair with the towel until it was acceptable enough not to soak his shirt – it would dry properly in the sun anyway – and grabbed a bread roll from the kitchen for breakfast.

He stood outside, staring down the street, waiting to see Atsushi turn the corner. There were still no new messages from him and En was beginning to get an uncomfortably anxious feeling in his stomach. So much so that he was put off the rest of his bread and threw it to the crows.

He could send an email himself to ask, but he wasn’t sure that wouldn’t be too pushy, so he refrained. Had he been too clingy lately? Maybe he should have let Atsushi walk home alone last night and given him some space, but it was only natural for a friend to worry after something like that. What if Atsushi had thought on what Ryuu asked him the day before and had begun to feel like he did do too much for En, and had decided to ease off a bit? What if he’d already gone on to school without him?

“What a pain in the ass,” he muttered to himself, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands until he saw colours. Going on ahead on his own, he decided that if there was something wrong he would just ask Atsushi what it was and then do whatever it took to fix it.

When Atsushi still hadn’t shown for their first or second class he excused himself to the infirmary to search for him, but was greeted only by the school nurse who gave him and two other students there a lecture on staying hydrated in this heat and sent them all away with water. Atsushi wasn’t there.

By lunch time he’d sent three messages and received no replies, asked around the rest of their class and been told that no one had seen him that morning, and found the others in the club room who had also heard nothing. In the end he called Atsushi’s parents.

“Flu,” he told the others flatly when he sat back down in the club room after ending the call in the hallway.

“So he’s okay,” Ryuu said, relieved.

“It’s normal, of course, to get sick after what happened,” Io nodded.

En felt irritated.

“Hmm,” Ryuu frowned, thoughtful. “Why was that monster so much stronger than the others, anyway?”

“His age of course,” Yumoto said cheerfully. “When we were made younger our powers were a lot weaker, weren’t they, so if someone is older they’ll be stronger.”

“I suppose that makes sense…”

“I’m taking the rest of the day off,” En decided, getting to his feet again. He picked up his bag and turned to leave, but Mr Tawarayama and Wombat were in front of him barring the door before he’d even noticed them moving.

“You can’t just leave!” Wombat yelled, panicked and flapping around in Tawarayama’s arms.

“Huh?”

“Why not?” Yumoto asked. “He’s going to visit Atsushi-senpai, aren’t you?”

“There’s already one battle lover missing, we can’t afford to lose another one!”

“It’s only one afternoon,” Ryuu shrugged.

“If your friend isn’t well it’s only natural to want to go check on them,” Io said, receiving a bright smile from Yumoto.

“He’s fine,” Wombat told them, not budging. “If there was anything seriously wrong I’d know about it already.”

“How?” Ryuu and Yumoto asked at the same time.

“By… uh… Superior technology!” Before any of them could press further, he added, “And what if there’s another strong monster that three of you can’t fight on your own? What will you do with only almost half your members?”

They all exchanged a look, clearly concerned now that Wombat had brought the question up. En sighed and dropped back down into his chair. “What a pain. Can’t your ‘superior technology’ just fix him up again? Or is it just not that good really?”

“He’s not broken or injured,” Wombat huffed. “He has an Earth virus that –”

“Wait, so,” Ryuu interrupted before Wombat could launch into an excuse for why the suit could make them stronger while not being able to protect them from a simple flu while still being superior, “if the strength of power is decided by age then how come the youngest of our group is the strongest?”

Everyone looked at Yumoto. Yumoto turned his head to see who they were staring at before realising what they were saying. “Who? Me? I’m the strongest?”

“He hasn’t noticed,” Io chuckled. “But maybe it has to do with personal potential too…”

En let his attention zone out of the conversation, dropping his head down onto the desk and muttering for someone to wake him when it was time for classes to start again. He considered sending a message to Atsushi, but his parents had said he was sleeping and he didn’t want to disturb his rest.

The afternoon crawled by. No monsters attacked, nothing out of the ordinary happened, and Atsushi’s seat in class remained empty no matter how much En stared at it or how melodramatically he sighed with annoyance. En had planned to visit Atsushi by himself after school, but as they passed the baths everyone continued walking with him, apart from Yumoto who called for them to wait a moment for him as he ran inside. He emerged a moment later with a small plastic bag, filled with what En strongly suspected would turn out to be onions, and together the four of them carried on to Atsushi’s house.

At first his parents were reluctant to let them all in, worried that they’d be exposed to it and that Atsushi wouldn’t be feeling up to having visitors, but gave in when Atsushi’s sister reasoned with them that he’d been feeling restless being stuck alone in his room all day. After giving them a warning not to stay long and that Atsushi needed his rest, they left En to lead the others up to his room.

Yumoto gaped in awe as they went through the large house, staring around himself at the place until they reached Atsushi’s bedroom and knocked. There was no answer at first, but a weak, raspy voice told them to come in after another knock.

Atsushi lay in bed, eyes bloodshot and nose red and looking surprised to see them there.

“Did we wake you?” Ryuu asked as they all filed in.

Atsushi shook his head, clearly lying as he rubbed the sleep from his red eyes and sniffed. He sat up, looking as though he was going to try getting out of bed, but Yumoto dropped a bag onto his blanket in front of him with a beaming smile and said, “It’s from my big brother. For you to get better.”

After a moment of staring, Atsushi picked up the little bag and asked, “It isn’t onions, is it?” En would have pointed out that the strong smell was a giveaway, but realised from the sound of Atsushi’s stuffy voice that he probably couldn’t smell anything anyway.

“It is!” Yumoto told him brightly, sitting cross-legged at the bottom of the bed.

Atsushi managed a smile and placed the bag next to a pile of tissues on the floor next to the bed, telling Yumoto to pass on his thanks.

“You didn’t need to come,” Atsushi said to them all, his voice nasally.

En shook his head. “Of course we did.”

“It’s not the same without you, senpai,” Yumoto told him. The others readily agreed and Atsushi smiled again despite looking like he felt like a wreck.

They weren’t there for very long before Atsushi was falling asleep again already and his mother shooed them outside to let him rest. The others went their separate ways to go home and En dawdled back to his own place, dropping straight into bed and leaving his homework ignored when he got home. His mind was too occupied with Atsushi lying sick, memories of his frozen face and the smashed pieces of the school bench stuck at the front of his mind no matter how hard he tried to banish them.

Although he’d gone to bed hours earlier than usual, En couldn’t fall asleep until much later, and he spent the night waking from strange dreams. Frustrated in the early hours of the morning – some time when the sun was just rising and he’d woke up for what felt like the fortieth time to turn over – he turned off his alarm so that it wouldn’t wake him for school in the morning, deciding that there was no point if he was going to be too tired anyway. However, when he woke up and looked at the time he found it was around the same time Atsushi would have been there to wake him and drag him out of bed anyway.

He tried going back to sleep, turning over to face away from the sun peeking in through the window. Another few long minutes of lying there awake and once again remembering Atsushi lying sick in his bed told him that he wouldn’t be getting any more sleep.

Still sleepy, En heaved an irritated sigh and forced himself up out of bed. He showered and got dressed slowly, eating dry cereal by the handful right out of the box as he did. By the time he left he already knew he had no chance of getting to school on time, but started off anyway, kicking stones as he walked. He changed his mind and turned around to go back home and then turned back towards school twice before deciding he’d go check on Atsushi first instead. It’s not like he had any hope of getting to class on time even if he ran, so he figured he might as well.

No one answered at the Kinugawa home when he rang the doorbell, but the front door was unlocked. He called out before entering just to make sure Atsushi’s parents and sister weren’t home, and then kicked off his shoes and made his way up to the bedroom.

Atsushi lay sleeping on his bed still, his face pale and clammy. When En put a hand to Atsushi’s forehead he found it sticky with sweat and burning dangerously hot. A moment of panic seized him before his sense took over and he went to get a cool damp cloth to put over his friends head. As he lay it over the heated skin Atsushi’s eyelids fluttered a little, but they didn’t open. Making his mind up, En sat himself in the chair in Atsushi’s room, determined to watch over him until his parents came home from work.

He must have fallen asleep at some point, because the next thing he knew he was being jolted awake by the sound of Atsushi having a coughing fit and the clock on the wall told him that it was almost midday already.

He rushed over to the bed, but when the coughing stopped Atsushi was already asleep again. The cloth had fallen off his head while he was sleeping, so En ran it under the tap again and replaced it. Atsushi frowned in his sleep, his eyes darting around under the lids and his entire body wracked with tremors. Whatever was happening to him it was clear that either his battle lovers’ power wasn’t doing a damn thing to help him get better like Wombat said it would, or it was helping and Atsushi would have been even more dangerously ill without it. Either way, En didn’t want to leave his side, just in case.

Being careful not to disturb him, En climbed onto the bed to lie next to Atsushi. He stayed on top of the blankets, tucking them around his friend’s shoulders to keep any chill out and watching his chest rise and fall in short, quick breaths. Atsushi turned his head to the side, now facing En where his head lay on the pillow, strands of sweat soaked hair falling over his eyes. En brushed them away behind his ears, letting his fingers linger on Atsushi’s cheeks that were somehow a terrifyingly sickly grey that looked as though it should have been frosty to the touch, but burning hot at the same time. His fingers brushed down over Atsushi’s usually soft lips – they were dry and cracked, and En wondered if he should put something on them for him.

“Nn,” Atsushi muttered in his sleep, shifting ever so slightly closer.

Feeling a rush of affection bloom warmly inside his chest, En’s mouth tugged into a smile and, in a quiet breath, whispered, “You’re so beautiful.”

The warmth burst into hot panic when Atsushi’s eyes flickered half open for a moment, looking like they were trying to focus, and En snatched his fingers back. His eyes fell shut again before a second had passed, but before En could breathe easy again he heard a barely audible mumble that sounded an awful lot like… there’s no way, but he thought he heard “love you”.

En stilled as if frozen, forgetting to breathe at first, and then not feeling certain that he could even if he tried. Atsushi didn’t speak or move again except for the constant – but thankfully no longer as violent – shivering.

“Atsushi?” He whispered. His chest felt like someone had wrapped a bunch of elastic bands around it to crush him. Atsushi didn’t react, so he leaned a little closer and put a hand on his shoulder, shaking it just slightly as he raised his voice. “Atsushi?”

Still nothing. Atsushi slept on.

En almost laughed at himself. Atsushi was feverish, unconscious, and possibly even delirious, and probably thought that it was his mother beside him or something. And in any case, it was so quiet that he most likely had only said ‘thank you’ and En simply misheard through his own wishful thinking.

Relaxing back down on the bed, he felt himself falling asleep again and he did nothing to stop it. Since they were lying so close, if Atsushi stirred at all he figured he would wake straight away.

He didn’t wake, and Atsushi didn’t stir.

Next thing En knew the warm afternoon light was coming in through the window and the sound of a door slamming shut downstairs dragged him back into the world with a jolt. A glance at the clock on the wall told him it was past time for them to be out of school anyway, and he sat back down on the bed with a huff.

“En-chan?”

He looked down at Atsushi, who must have been jostled and woken when En jumped up from the bed, and smiled. “Feeling any better?”

“I thought I was dreaming that you were here,” Atsushi muttered sleepily.

“Nope,” En said. “Definitely really here.”

Atsushi struggled for a moment to hold his eyes open, but gave in and let them slip closed again. “I feel much better,” he lied weakly. “You should have gone to school.”

“I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“I’m fine, I’m just –” whatever else he was going to say was lost in a fit of painful sounding chesty coughing. He doubled over, holding his stomach gasping for air between coughs. En, having no idea how else to help, rushed to the bathroom to bring back a glass of water. When he was able to take it without spilling water everywhere, Atsushi drained the glass and collapsed face down back into his bed. After a moment of gathering some strength back, he admitted, “Well, okay, I guess I’m not totally better yet.”

“Not totally,” En echoed, rubbing the flat of his hand in firm circles over Atsushi’s back and between his shoulders. He knew he should really be getting back now; his homework was beginning to pile up and much as he loathed to do it he knew it would only come back to bite him if he didn’t. There was also the fact that Atsushi’s parents were due home and his own parents would be expecting him in time for dinner, which was a very welcome thought given that all he’d napped the entire day away and hadn’t eaten a thing. His stomach growled loudly as if to agree with him, but Atsushi was slowly falling back to sleep, smiling slightly as the steady, rhythmic rocking from En’s palm massaging his back soothed him, and En felt content to sit there all night if that was what he needed.

Well, he was until he realised that Atsushi hadn’t eaten all day either. He frowned, wondering if he had enough money to order something in. He checked his pockets and found a few loose coins and a crumpled old receipt. Definitely not enough.

He got up and left the room, heading straight to the kitchen. Although Atsushi spent plenty of time in the kitchen cooking no matter which of their houses they were in, and En subsequently also spent a lot of time in there, he actually had no idea what to do or where to find anything. If he were being totally honest he’d have to admit that the entire time he spent in there he was no help whatsoever and was too busy watching Atsushi to actually pay attention to what Atsushi was doing anyway. But he wasn’t going to admit that.

What he knew how to cook was anything that could be simply opened and eaten, or thrown in the microwave for a few minutes, or cooked by someone else and ordered from somewhere with a menu. What he found was fresh vegetables and strange packets of things that had to be added to other things and odd ingredients he wouldn’t really trust himself with. He searched every cupboard, determined to find something. In the end he thought of what his mother would do when he was sick and, finding what he needed, decided that this would have to be good enough.

Going back up to Atsushi’s room he made sure to climb the stairs gingerly. He held the steaming bowl in a towel between both hands and pushed the door open with his hip, careful not to spill anything.

“Atsushi,” he whispered, putting down the bowl on Atsushi’s desk. He sighed. He should have realised that whispering wouldn’t work. He called again, louder this time, giving Atsushi’s shoulder a tender squeeze and shaking him just a little.

Atsushi’s eyes opened. And then they closed again. En deliberated over whether he should try harder or just leave him be, but Atsushi groaned as he began to wake properly. “But it’s not time for school yet.”

Well, okay, maybe not properly.

“No, it’s not,” En said, amused. “It’s time to eat.”

“Huh? En-chan?” Atsushi opened his eyes again. It seemed to take him a little while to remember why En was there. “Sorry… I must have fallen asleep again…”

“It’s fine,” En said, picking up the bowl again. “Sit up. You need to eat.”

“Oh…” Atsushi blinked and tried to focus. “Thank you, but I’m not hungry.”

“You need to eat,” En insisted. “Please? Just a little bit?”

Atsushi stared for a moment, and then sighed, prepared to give in, but when he tried to sit up he seemed to lose balance somehow even while sitting in bed. He let himself flop back down again, holding his head.

“I don’t think I can,” he said.

“But I made it myself,” En said, holding the bowl closer and hoping the smell would entice Atsushi to at least try it.

“Did you? Really?” Atsushi sounded so surprised and impressed that En actually felt guilty for the lie.

“Well, no, I didn’t,” he admitted, shrugging. “It was soup from a tin. But I heated it in a pan on the stove instead of in the microwave so that’s got to count for something, right?”

Atsushi actually laughed, and it was the most wonderful thing En had heard all day until it turned into more coughing.

“I’m sorry, En-chan,” Atsushi told him, when it eventually stopped. “I just can’t eat right now.”

En shrugged again, putting the bowl down on the desk out of the way and dropping the towel down next to it. “It probably wasn’t very nice anyway.”

“You didn’t have to use a towel, you know.” Atsushi mumbled through a yawn, turning over to sleep yet again. “You know we have trays.”

“Oh,” En looked down at the towel. “Yeah, it was just easier after I burned my hand.”

“You’re hurt?” Atsushi tried to sit up again, but En came back to the side of the bed and put a hand gently on his shoulder to stop him.

“Stay down and rest,” he told him, rubbing Atsushi’s back like he had before. “It’s nothing big. You can kiss it better another time.”

“But–”

“I’m fine, really,” En promised, showing Atsushi his hands. “They’re not even red. Would you just worry about yourself for once?”

Atsushi looked like he was considering keeping up the argument, but he couldn’t even keep his head up off the pillow for that long. He lay back down on his front and let En continue rubbing his shoulders for a little while. Until the prickling heat all over his skin became too much and he suddenly pushed himself up and pulled his pyjama shirt over his head, letting it fall carelessly to the floor and collapsing down again.

“It’s just too hot!” He complained, his shoulders rising and falling with his laboured breathing. En wasn’t surprised; Atsushi’s shirt was almost soaked through and his skin red and blotchy, damp with sweat. En reached out automatically to continue, but pulled backed from Atsushi’s burning skin immediately. “Don’t stop,” Atsushi murmured sleepily, shifting his shoulders a little. En hesitated, his hand hovering over Atsushi’s bare back and his own temperature rising. Atsushi frowned, not bothering to open his eyes. Or maybe he just couldn’t anymore. “En-chan? What’s wrong?”

En opened his mouth to speak, and then shut it again. He took in a sharp breath, his hand shaking a little while he deliberated. It’s not as though he hadn’t seen Atsushi’s bare back before. In fact it would pretty untruthful for either of them to say they hadn’t seen the other completely naked for the amount of time they spent together in the baths, but it wasn’t like he’d had his hands all over Atsushi in there.

Suddenly felling guilty for even thinking of it like that when Atsushi was so unwell, he looked away.

“Nothing,” he said eventually. He picked up the now nearly dry cloth from the floor where it had fallen. “I’m just going to cool this for you again.”

After running the cloth under the cold tap, En wrung it out and headed back to Atsushi, surprised to find him still awake. He pressed the damp cloth to the back of Atsushi’s neck, but pulled away again when Atsushi shivered and let out a tiny gasp.

“Too cold?” He asked.

Atsushi shook his head. “It’s nice. It just surprised me.”

“Oh,” En muttered, pressing the cloth back down.

“Thank you,” he said softly, smiling as En continued. “You really are taking good care of me, aren’t you, En-chan.”

“Well,” he drew in a sharp breath and then sighed, letting it all out slowly, “you’re always taking care of me. And others. You’re always taking care of everyone, I mean. So I just want to…”

What he wanted to say is that he also wanted to be an equal in this. That he wanted to be as good for Atsushi as he was for him. He wanted to be of some use at least when Atsushi needed someone to take care of him. That he always felt that Atsushi was the better of the two of them, and he certainly wasn’t the only one. He was pretty sure that everyone else thought he couldn’t put in as much as he took out, and maybe he couldn’t – he certainly wouldn’t put in that effort for most other people – but he wanted to try for Atsushi. That Atsushi was worth taking care of and worth any amount of effort. But after a quiet pause he simplified it all to, “If you’re not going to put yourself first, then someone has to, don’t they.”

Atsushi hummed, and then giggled quietly to himself.

“What’s so funny?” En asked. His arm was starting to ache, but he kept it moving.

“Just thinking…” Atsushi mumbled.

En smiled at his sleepy voice, but Atsushi’s eyes remained closed. He waited for a moment before asking, “Thinking what?”

“Maybe Ryuu was right.” Confused, En tried to think back to what Ryuu might have said lately. Had he missed something?

It took a moment for him to think back over Ryuu’s comments lately, but remembering “Don’t you ever get sick of doing so much for Yufuin-senpai? Aren’t you growing tired of it?” his whole body froze, feeling like he’d suddenly fallen and then landed in an icy tub. He felt sick. Atsushi had always known him better than anyone else. En supposed Atsushi must have understood that last comment better than he’d anticipated. And it looked like he finally agreed.

“If I were a girl, maybe you would be my boyfriend,” Atsushi said, yawning widely.

The statement took En so much by surprise that his disappointment hadn’t even finished setting in before he had to try to figure out if in his panic he’d somehow missed half of what his friend had been saying to him. A sudden memory of Ryuu teasingly implying that Atsushi was his ‘girlfriend’ made En feel relief bloom inside of him so strongly that he barked out a loud laugh and then slapped a hand to his mouth, listening out for anyone coming towards the room to see what the noise was.

“What are you laughing at?” Atsushi frowned, his eyes still closed. “Is it really that absurd?”

En shook his head, but then realised that Atsushi couldn’t see him. He resumed rubbing Astushi’s back. “I’m sorry, Atsushi, but I just don’t think that would work.”

“Oh…” He almost whispered it, burying his face into his pillow as though he would fall straight back to sleep. En thought that maybe he’d seen a little bit of a healthier colour coming back to his cheeks though and hoped that that was a good sign for Atsushi’s condition.

Without thinking about it first or knowing why he said it – maybe trusting the fact that Atsushi would most likely forget it anyway, since he seemed too confused from his fever to remember much of anything after a short time – En said, “I prefer you just the way you are.”

Atsushi tried to look up at him, but his eyes were too heavy. He seemed to be almost back to sleep already. En brushed back the hair sticking to Atsushi’s brow and hanging over his lashes.

He stayed a few minutes longer, gently brushing his thumb over Atsushi’s cheek until Atsushi was breathing evenly again, but when he moved to get up and leave Atsushi’s hand gripped his wrist with surprising speed and pulled him back with what little strength he had.

“Don’t go,” he mumbled, tugging weakly.

En couldn’t refuse him – there was even a shadow of a pout there and that just wasn’t something Atsushi ever did when he was well – so he let himself be pulled down again to sit back on the bed where Atsushi lay his head on En’s chest and wrapped his arms around his waist.

“Am I a stuffed animal?” En huffed, pretending to complain, but he couldn’t help smiling. Atsushi shushed him, but hummed peacefully when En reciprocated the cuddle, threading his fingers into Atsushi’s hair with one hand and pulling the blanket up over Atsushi’s shoulders with the other, gently rubbing his back again when he was covered. He stopped only to pick up his phone and send a message to his parents telling them that he would be back late, and fought the urge to lean in and press a kiss to Atsushi’s head, even after he’d fallen into a restless sleep.

Warm, comfortable, and content – and even after sleeping away the majority of the day already – En dozed, drifting in and out of consciousness, and dreaming bizarre dreams that he never could seem to remember, except that Atsushi was involved and that they left him feeling cold and anxious until he woke again and remembered where they were.

Atsushi squirmed and fidgeted, twisting himself as he tried to get comfortable despite the fever and the aches. By the time En woke properly the covers were thrown off them and Atsushi was almost cradled in his lap with the sheets tangled around his legs and his head tucked between En’s neck and shoulder. His hand had made its way under En’s shirt at some point, his hot palm pressed flat on En’s chest where his heart was doing some strange kind of jig against his ribs. At least his fever seemed to have gone down now, En decided, and he was sleeping peacefully, breathing so much easier than before.

The low evening light told him it was getting late before he looked at the clock.

He checked his phone and found several new messages; one from his father replying to his earlier message with a single word answer, and the rest from Yumoto starting with asking how Atsushi was feeling and then voyaging into other assorted and unrelated topics. A few minutes into replying to the ones he deemed important enough the bedroom door suddenly opened.

“Atsushi, have you seen my–”

En jumped in surprise, his phone slipping from his hand and hitting Atsushi’s shoulder on the way down before bouncing off the bed and landing on the floor with a loud thump. Atsushi’s father stood in the half open doorway, just staring. His eyes went from En’s face, to his son, shirtless and curled up on En’s lap, to his son’s hand under En’s shirt, to En’s fingers still tangled in Atsushi’s hair, and then back to En, who could do nothing but stare back and swallow loudly.

The jolt had disturbed Atsushi and he stirred, pulling himself in closer, but he didn’t wake. He sighed audibly against En’s collar, his lips and breath warm against En’s neck. En, feeling himself heating up more by the second, quite seriously deliberated over the idea of transforming into his battle lover suit and jumping out of the window, but that would mean having to shove Atsushi away. He absolutely did not let out a very small sound that could maybe be described as an embarrassing squeak as he tried to force out a totally nonchalant “hi” before he bit his tongue painfully while snapping his mouth closed to stop himself from saying something stupid.

“You know what,” Atsushi’s father said, looking away and clearing his throat uncomfortably as he turned around to leave, “I think I… I actually remember seeing it downstairs.”

He made a hasty exit and shut the door behind himself, leaving En feeling as though he needed to restart his own heart somehow.

“Mhm?” Atsushi murmured, stirring again when the door clicked shut. It was another few minutes of wriggling and sighing before he actually woke up, blinking away the sleep. It was another minute before he finally looked up – confused, pink in the face from the heat of lying together with someone, and bleary eyed. “En-chan?”

En took Atsushi’s glasses from the bedside table and held them in front of Atsushi, waiting for a sudden fit of coughing to pass before putting them into his hand.

“So you really were here,” Atsushi said, taking the glasses from En and putting them on. He blinked again, much more alert than he’d been through the day, but still very sleepy. There was a red patch on his cheek from where it had been pressed against En’s shirt for so long and in the low light En could only barely see the moisture clinging to his lashes from where his eyes had been watering. More obvious was the dampness of his sticky hair and the sheen of sweat covering his face. He still looked so cute that it was almost a struggle not to tell him so. “But it’s so late! Shouldn’t you be home?”

“You asked me to stay,” En shrugged, “so of course I wasn’t going to walk away.”

“I did? I’m sorry I was a bother, En-chan.”

“No, you weren’t a bother at all,” En said. “I really don’t mind, but I just…” he shifted a little, wincing in discomfort. “I’m sorry, I really need to go to the bathroom and you’re kind of… on top of me.”

“Oh!” Atsushi seemed to suddenly realise how he was sitting and quickly climbed off En’s lap back onto the bed, blushing now with more than just the heat of his fever. “Sorry, En-chan!”

En walked a little awkwardly to the bathroom, splashing his face after he washed his hands and taking a moment before he left again. When he came back into the bedroom Atsushi’s sister was sat on the end of his bed talking with him. She had something in her hand and it took En a moment to see that it was medicine. He frowned, irritated with himself for not thinking of that earlier.

“Oh, hey Yufuin-kun,” she said, smiling. “It’s getting late, shall I give you a ride home?”

“It’s okay I don’t –”

“Don’t be silly, I don’t mind. Besides, I need to go to the store and I’ll be passing yours anyway.” She clearly wasn’t taking no for an answer, and before En could figure out how to protest further she was already getting up to leave and pulling her car keys from her pocket. “Come on, let’s go before it gets too late.”

Having no good enough reason to refuse, En thanked her and followed dutifully, pausing at the door to say goodbye to Atsushi. It stuck in his throat before he could say it when he looked back to see Atsushi lay down again, his face half pressed into the pillow and struggling to keep his eyes open.

He still managed a warm, sleepy smile when he saw En watching, and it made En feel as though his chest was being crushed by it. Atsushi’s eyes fell closed and En swallowed, forcing himself to shut the door and walk away before he gave in to the urge to march himself right back in there and refuse to leave his side.

The ride home in the back of the car was short but by the time he reached his front door it was totally dark out. He thanked Atsushi’s sister and stepped inside, calling to his parents that he was home. When there was no answer he went through to the kitchen and found his dinner in a covered bowl with a note by it and he sighed, too tired to be bothered to warm it up.

One cold meal and hours of lying in bed awake later and En found himself staring at Atsushi’s name on his phone, a message open but still blank. He couldn’t think of anything to write down, but felt that he just needed to say something anyway. There was nothing wrong with wanting to check up on a friend though, right?

Several times he began a sentence only to delete it. He was sure he’d never spent so long on a message before in his life, but every time he put down his phone and decided to give up and just sleep, telling himself he would speak to Atsushi again in a few hours anyway, he ended up picking it back up and trying again like he just couldn’t help himself.

With a lack of anything to say in a message at all, speaking directly was probably an even worse idea, but he’d hit the call button before he’d given himself a moment to think about it, and Atsushi answered before he could talk himself out of it and hang up.

“En-chan?”

En swallowed. He said nothing.

“En-chan, what’s wrong?” There was a pause. “It’s past midnight.”

“Sorry,” he croaked eventually. He cleared his throat and tried again, trying for a more casual and blithe tone. “Sorry, I was just… I wanted to ask…” he searched for something to fill the gap, “if you were okay,” he finished lamely.

“I’m okay,” Atsushi said slowly. “Are you okay?”

Obviously blithe wasn’t working.

“Sorry,” he said again, sighing heavily as he decided he might as well tell the truth. “I couldn’t sleep. Did I wake you?”

 “No, I’m awake,” Atsushi said, a yawn punctuating his lie. En couldn’t help smiling.

“I can hang up if you–”

“No!” Atsushi said quickly. “No, it’s fine. Really. I’ve slept so much already so it’s fine.”

They lay in silence for a minute. En would have been satisfied with that, but he still kind of wished that if they were going to lie in silence together that they could at least be in the same room.

“Was there any other reason you called?” Atsushi asked.

“Uh, no, not really,” he admitted. “How are you feeling?”

He grimaced, realising that he’d already asked if he was okay once.

“Mhm, I’m much better now.” He sounded better. En closed his eyes, smiling even though Atsushi couldn’t see it. “Um… thank you. For staying with me today.”

“I’ll come round again tomorrow.”

“You should really go to school,” Atsushi said. “I’ll be fine. Please don’t miss any more school for me.”

En didn’t really know how to reply to that without lying or arguing, so he stayed silent, playing with the drawstrings on the front of his pyjama bottoms. He still planned on going to see Atsushi the next day, and Atsushi probably knew that.

“We should probably try to sleep now,” Atsushi suggested after a stretch of silence, and En had no good enough reason to disagree and keep him on the line any longer.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” he sighed.

“Goodnight, En-chan.”

“Yeah. Night, Atsushi. I love you.”

They sat a whole thirty seconds in utter silence. En – in petrified horror as it dawned on him that he really had said that out loud – opened and closed his mouth like a gaping fish out of water.

“E-En-chan… I–”

En never found out what Atsushi was going to say. He panicked, fumbled with his phone for a few seconds, smacking it several times until he managed to hit the ‘hang up’ button, and dropped it onto the bed like it had burned him.