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Rui calls, and Tsukasa picks up the phone in three rings.
“Did you know, Tsukasa-kun,” Rui begins when he hears the phone click, “that there is no scientific definition for a vegetable?”
A brief pause from the other end.
“What?”
“The term ‘vegetable’ is a social definition. It refers to any edible plant matter excluding fruits. But how can we agree on a given definition of ‘edible’?”
Admirably, Tsukasa picks up the subject after only a slightly longer pause. “Maybe… by whether or not it’s harmful to us?”
“Now see, that’s where you’d be wrong. Consider that the human being could—though perhaps not comfortably—process lawn grass, or oak bark. Yet we don’t consider either of these things vegetables, despite being edible and plant and matter.
“And,” he continues, not allowing any interjection, “you can’t even necessarily say, ‘contributing to daily life,’ because some vegetables have such a nedli—negligible caloric content that they would have been an absolute waste of time to cultivate in the average twenthy… the aberage twenthy-four… the average day of a hunter-gatherer.”
He hears a muted exhale from his phone speaker, like someone letting out a laugh through their nose. “We’re a bit past the hunter-gatherer era, though.”
“Excellent point,” Rui agrees. “We’re into the era of ingredient fortififification and supplemtation for… for micronutrients, rendering them functionally useless. So, when all is said and done, the critt… the critseri… the criteria we should be fortunate enough to use for edible in the modern era is matching one’s taste, and from there the conclusion is evident.”
“What’s the conclusion?” asks Tsukasa, amusement obvious and uncalled for.
“There is no tasty plant matter outside of fruits,” Rui takes his hand off the train’s pole to wave an emphatic finger at no one. “Ergo… there is no such thing as a vegetable.”
For a moment, there is only dead air on the other end, interspersed with glitchy microseconds of what sounds like a police siren caught through a low quality mic.
“I think,” begins Tsukasa in that particular tone he has, the one where he desperately wants to laugh but thinks he should disapprove of the joke, “your meals are just going to have to be inedible from now on.”
Rui stares, crestfallen, into space. “You’d subject me to this?”
Tsukasa breaks—there's a low chuckling, followed by a delightfully familiar ha!
"Rui," he says fondly, "where are you calling me from right now?"
"Mmmm… The train."
"Which train?"
"The right one."
"The— what do you mean? Right from where?"
"The correct one."
"I'm sure, but the name would really be more—"
He's interrupted by the sound of the overhead announcement, going abruptly silent. After it finishes (assumedly, Rui sort of tuned it out after the second word), Rui hears a breath of relief. "Okay! Okay, you're on the right train."
Rui frowns. "I know how to ride trains."
"I know you do."
"It's just that you don't seem sure."
"You can ride trains," Tsukasa says placatingly.
"Do you really believe that?"
"Don't miss your stop, okay?"
Rui ignores the giggling group of university girls standing a few feet from him to look at the display over the train doors. The blurry text resolves just in time for the train to slow—he needs to get off here.
He ambles off the train and onto the platform, a cold wall of winter air crashing into his flushed face. It barely registers, mind still stuck on the voice at the other end of the line.
"I didn't," he assures as he sticks his other hand out to beep his pass at the ticket gates. “Miss it.”
“I heard,” says Tsukasa wryly—there’s an odd sort of echo to his voice that Rui can’t place. “And see.”
Rui stops, staring. There’s foggy gold in front of him slowly clearing into the shape of a human being. The figure stares back at him, nose reddened from the cold, and Rui hears the click in his ear as they put their phone back in their pocket.
“Hi," Tsukasa grins at him, breaths making puffs of white over his teeth. "You made it!"
“Am I hallucinating?” Rui asks him, feeling a smile stretch his own lips.
“Should you be?” Tsukasa demands. “I thought you were only drinking.”
“Yes. No? Yes drinking, no hallucinations.” He tilts his head, smile widening as he contemplates the conundrum and blessing that is getting to see Tsukasa exactly fifteen minutes earlier. “You didn't need to come get me.”
“Try again.”
Rui blinks, and does. “I have a hold of my faculties.”
“Try again. I was already on my way before you called,” Tsukasa puts his hands on his hips, looking unimpressed. “Do you know how many emojis you used in your last text?”
Rui does not remember sending a text. He decides not to mention this. "A reasonable amount, presubab… presumably?"
"Rui, you typed back am coming followed by six lines worth of heart emojis and… the Serbian flag?"
"Population of 7.1 million as of the 2023 census," agrees Rui. "This sounds like it was reasonable to me at the time, so you see, I'm still right."
“How are you so stubborn even now?!” he exclaims, but Rui finds he’s already moved on.
Instead, he contemplates the space between them, and the broad distance between him and burrowing his face in Tsukasa’s neck. Frowning, he asks, "Why are you so far away?"
“I’m two feet from you. Can you still walk?” Tsukasa tilts his head, frowning as he holds out his arms. “Try! One step.”
Rui takes the step.
“Wait, put your other foot down too—!”
Tsukasa catches him with a heavy oof as Rui slumps his full weight into his arms. At last, Rui finds his senses enveloped in the scent of detergent and the silky softness of Tsukasa’s scarf, a few stray strands of hair tickling his nose.
“You reek of alcohol,” says the scarf.
“That would be the me drinking it,” Rui affirms, inhaling deeply with his eyes shut. “You reek of…. good.”
“What?”
“Good,” he repeats, nuzzling further into the folds of the scarf until—
“Ah!” Tsukasa yelps, flinching away. “Stop that, your nose is an ice cube—”
Rui hooks his chin in so he can't be moved. “Why are you being so cruel to me?”
“Are you listening to yourself? Look, just…”
He feels warm hands grip under his shoulders to pull his balance more securely onto his feet, and even his mousetrap chin doesn't stop him when those same hands grab his face and wrench him carefully away. Blinking, he finds himself staring Tsukasa in the face again.
“Mmnm,” he protests.
“We need to walk home,” Tsukasa tells him, and takes one of his hands to squeeze tight. As mentioned before: Tsukasa's hands are very warm. Rui decides he is appeased.
“Okay,” he says. “Let's walk.”
Together they begin the short trek back to their flat from the station, Tsukasa leading him along. Rui looks over their surroundings, gaze coming again and again to the bobbing yellow head next to him, and suddenly he feels a burst of giddiness over the state of affairs.
“Walking home,” he comments in a murmur. “Walking home with Tenma Tsukasa.”
Next to him, Tsukasa blinks up at him, something odd in his expression.
“What is it?” Rui wonders.
“No,” Tsukasa's brow furrows, but there's a tug at the corner of his lips. “I just thought that you don't really say my full name that much.”
“Tenma Tsukasa?” Rui repeats, considering. “Don't I? I'm walking with Tenma Tsukasa. Here's Tenma Tsukasa next to me.”
“That wasn’t a challenge,” Tsukasa laughs, smile spreading wider as he shakes his head.
It sparks a curious effect, this shake of his head. It isn’t quite snowing, but the cool white left behind by the morning draws odd patterns and reflections in the dark, like the air is still lingering on how it felt to be so full of flurries. Rui’s eyes and ears tell him the pavement is tired of being still, and Tsukasa’s shake of head—mm, it’s rather momentous. It catches the movements and the patterns and the reflections all at once, and there are a few seconds where Rui is completely and utterly convinced the ground has flipped, the world upturned like a snow globe for—
Isn’t that a beautiful idea? A star who brings the snow.
“Rui,” he hears Tsukasa call, something like a worry in his voice. “Are you sleepy? It’s just a bit longer.”
“It’s snowing,” Rui tells him seriously, watching the buildings tilt to and fro.
“It’s… not?”
“It ought to be. What a disappointment of a morning. All that… fuss of a grey sky, and it’s barely stuck at all.”
“It really ought to have followed through!” says Tsukasa, confusion vanishing under a fatally opinionated nature. “It'd make for a more exciting December, for sure!”
Rui’s head sways heavily as he looks around the cleaned up patches of snow. They’re much closer to home than he thought. Perhaps they’ve teleported the last few blocks, and Tsukasa forgot to let him know. It’s more than excusable, considering how tightly their fingers are wound together.
A teleporter… Rui should try making one of those. Urgently, it seems, if Emu is going to keep insisting on her jet-setting heiress ways.
“Emu isn’t just an heiress,” he corrects himself.
“That’s right,” Tsukasa agrees, sounding bewildered but still whole-hearted even now. It’s a sweet quirk of his personality. “What brought this on?”
“Teleportation.”
Tsukasa snorts, an aborted pffha! that seems to startle out of him. His hand squeezes briefly around Rui’s, and Rui smiles again. “Teleportation? Do you miss her?”
“What a straight, straightforward question.”
“What a non-answer.” There’s a poke against his bicep. “Are you sure you’re drunk?”
“As sure as it is snowing.”
A huff of breath. “It’s not snowing.”
“Such a shame.”
“Is this going to be our refrain for the night?”
“I do,” Rui hums, stepping a little longer on his right foot. He sways dangerously, and Tsukasa hurriedly breaks to brace his hand against his chest. “Even when she’s here.”
White relief puffs out of Tsukasa’s mouth, barely needing to rise to tickle Rui’s slumped chin. They’re so much closer all of a sudden. Rui can see the silhouette of their apartment block in the backdrop of his vision, the shape of it out of focus so that the lens can zero in on Tsukasa’s nose.
Rui’s steps are no longer the consequence of his own choices—the sky and ground remain convinced they are a snow globe—but he’s surprisingly alright with that. This serendipitous little human construction with himself the leaning bar and Tsukasa the supporting base should qualify as the eighth wonder of the world.
“I see,” says Tsukasa softly.
Rui’s head slumps or swings down, skull falling to rest against Tsukasa’s with a mostly-gentle thud.
“Teleport me home,” he whines, plaintive.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Tsukasa agrees.
Tsukasa wraps a firm arm around his waist as they move up the stairs, Rui’s awareness skipping across enough steps that the teleportation hypothesis begins to gain ground. He hears, distantly, Tsukasa murmuring something under his breath in a tone of relief. Despite his attempts at kindness towards their neighbors, Tsukasa’s murmurs are not subtle things, so it worries him a little at how difficult it is to understand.
“What was that?” Rui asks.
“What? What’s wrong?” Tsukasa asks. He’s fumbling with his pocket now for his keys, Rui leant against the wall next to a familiar door. Hm. He remembers doing this, of course, but the exact sequence of events are really far too undiscernable for something so recent—
“Ah, there we are!” Tsukasa murmurs, audibly this time, and Rui supposes that’s enough.
Warmth blows out of the open door the moment he opens it, pulling Rui quickly inside so he can close it shut behind them. The heat hits Rui so abruptly he feels feverish, sobering winter energy slipping out of his limbs in favor of blissful and very drunken comfort.
Eyes drifting lazily shut, he tugs at his scarf, only for a firmer hand to pull it off the rest of the way. He submits to the careful push against his shoulders for his jacket, eyes only drifting open again once the suffocating heat recedes.
In the thin slip of light, Tsukasa’s peering into his face, brow slightly furrowed. “It’s a wonder you got yourself over here.”
Rui blinks, alert again. “Winter helps.”
“Thank god for that!”
At the sight of their tiny living room, Rui feels himself light up once again in another smile. He pads (shoeless) with renewed purpose towards the low table, stumbling only twice before he half-collapses onto one of its cushions.
“Arrived home,” he mumbles to himself, leaning his crossed arms over the table.
“Arrived home with Tenma Tsukasa,” Tsukasa calls playfully from somewhere that might be the kitchen.
“With Tenma Tsukasa,” Rui agrees, smiling brighter into space. “Come sit with me.”
“Give me a moment!”
Some seconds later, a very tall glass of water thunks down in front of him. Then it lifts again a moment later as Tsukasa hastily shoves a coaster underneath it, before he finally slips cross-legged by the adjacent side of the table.
“Do you think you’d handle a shower before bed?” Tsukasa leans his cheek onto his palm to look at him. “It might help.”
Rui subtly tries to sniff at his own sleeve.
“I mean for clearing your head,” Tsukasa giggles, shaking his head. “Never mind. Drink?”
“I’ve done plenty of that today,” Rui tells him, but bobs his head to reach for the glass. When he puts it down again after tipping it back, half the water is gone and his head is still spinning.
He looks up again to meet Tsukasa’s eyes, but Tsukasa’s still looking at the glass, an odd purse to his lips. Rui follows his gaze down again, slightly concerned, but, no, the glass is firmly back on the coaster.
“You’re bothered by something,” Rui deduces with confidence. “Should we kiss?”
Tsukasa coughs a laugh. “Rui!”
Rui smiles, points at his upturned mouth. “Four times.”
“Four times of what?”
“You’ve called my name four times this evening.”
“How can you keep track of that and not climb stairs?”
“That’s obvious, Tsukasa-kun. Stairs require finer motor skills, which are the first to go under the influence. The mind, on the other hand, affects it— is affected in smaller steps. Like how I can still speak to you perfettly.”
“Perfectly,” Tsukasa repeats nonsensically.
“Did I say something different?” frowns Rui.
Tsukasa laughs again, ducking his head. It’s the way he often laughs in the space of their flat, wall-to-wall neighbours less forgiving of his volume. Rui meant to propose soundproofing tiles across the entire length of their walls, but ultimately the new habit is very cute, so he leaves it be.
“I should’ve known you’d be this kind of drunk,” Tsukasa muses. “I feel like I can see the gears in your brain turning even faster than usual. You know, like when that wind-up toy you made the other day exploded.”
“On purpose,” Rui feels the need to clarify.
“Your cheeks are so red, too,” Tsukasa continues thoughtfully, without paying him any heed. He reaches out to touch his fingertips gently to Rui’s skin, and Rui blinks at him long and slow. “I thought it was the cold, but it seems you’re just like this naturally?”
It’s an interesting novelty, being studied rather than studying. Interesting in the way it makes his cheeks flush further. Rui takes some time to enjoy the sensation, but then he refocuses.
“You’re bothered by something,” Rui tells him. “We should kiss. Why haven’t we kissed? Is it because my lips are numb?”
Tsukasa blinks. “Are your lips numb?”
Rui pauses. Rubs his fingertips together. Wiggles his toes, touches his cheek, then pats his own lips. “No.”
“Are you lying, or did you really think they would be?” Tsukasa huffs, half-laugh and half-sigh, touch slipping from Rui’s skin. “You’re very drunk.”
“That may be true,” Rui agrees, catching Tsukasa’s hand in the air. “Won’t you answer my question? Are we perhaps swapping roles for the evening? I have to commend your portrayal of me, but I’d still like an answer.”
Tsukasa’s lips settle into that odd purse again, not quite a frown. “Rui, you’ve never been drunk before.”
“That’s certainly true,” Rui agrees again. “It’s never come up.”
“It’s come up plenty!” Tsukasa disagrees, and now that Rui’s pried the key piece of information that must’ve been lodged in his throat, it’s like he’s finally been freed to be outraged in his truest fashion, rather than quietly bothered. While the conversation isn’t necessarily turning in Rui’s favor, this is cute. “You’ve been invited to these things plenty, and you come home sober each and every time. You always say you weren’t interested, maybe next time, or you didn’t enjoy the people, maybe next time, so what was so different about this time?”
More of Rui begins to connect together. Some isolated corner of his mind is watching himself with almost clinical fascination, the evening full of new discoveries—like the fact that rather than a loss of memory, the earlier parts of the night are starting to come back on a delayed recall.
He’s remembering now, pieces of the things he’d thought. Things like, maybe tonight I should try to and so Yamada-san is the type to get giddy, hm and an oolong highball may be more dangerous than anticipated and maybe being this tall doesn’t mean my tolerance is good and Tsukasa-kun and Tsukasa-kun and Tsukasa-kun is going to ask.
“Impulse,” says Rui.
“Impulse,” echoes Tsukasa, deflating to turn slightly away. “I suppose I can’t argue with that.”
Rui leans all the way down over the table to better look into Tsukasa’s face, his hand still grasped in his own. “Do you dislike it? I’ve thought that you…” He trails, words lost behind the straight files of the matter—Tsukasa has laughed in so many different ways tonight, even with the color of exasperation, and Rui has catalogued them all. “You’ve been smiling.”
Tsukasa’s fingers drum gently where they’re resting in Rui’s palm. “Of course I have,” he says, almost disgruntled. “You’re very cute, Rui.”
“Hm,” says Rui, pleased. “Then what?”
Tsukasa emits a conflicted groan, still turning his face away. Why? What is it exactly that still remains? There’s not the impression of genuine upset or bother, but Rui still gets the odd sense that Tsukasa’s a bit put out.
A bit… Put out.
A… p… out?
“Tsukasa-kun.” Rui blurts with urgency, because this is suddenly a time-sensitive matter.
“Mm.”
Rui pulls on his hand, allowing a plaintive note into his voice. “Tsukasa-kuun.”
“Mmn.” Tsukasa doesn’t move.
“Tsukasa-kun, please let me look at your face?”
“Mmngh,” Tsukasa’s shoulders rise to his ears. “I suppose that isn’t a privilege to deny anyone…!”
He finally turns, and sure enough, behold his bottom lip, pushed ever so slightly into a pout.
Rui tries to think many things, and questions, and analyses, and conclusions. Why is there a pout? How precious. His hand is so warm. Is he bothered, after all? Rui’s still so dizzy. Will he be able to stand up? So cute. Maybe it’s the smell. Tsukasa likes clean things. Is that what he’s put out about? Why haven’t they kissed yet?
Rui pushes his face into the table with a low groan, the sudden onslaught of thoughts going absolutely nowhere.
“Rui!?”
“Have pity, Tsukasa-kun,” Rui whines into the wood. “That toy wasn’t supposed to explode.”
A long, long pause. Then, a sudden and bright laugh. Tsukasa’s other hand finds his hair, fingers carding through the locks.
“I’m not used to avoiding making you think,” he says, sounding amused.
“We’ve established this is an evening of firsts.” Rui tries to lift his head again, but Tsukasa keeps him where he is, nails scraping gently against his scalp. “Tell me?”
He doesn’t, at least not immediately. His fingers continue, though, the darkness in front of Rui’s eyes ensuring that they keep the entirety of his focus.
Some moments later, he stills: “Could you lift your head, Rui?”
As he does, Tsukasa shifts his hand in Rui’s grip to slip his fingers in between his, clasping them tightly together. The one in his hair slips a smooth caress down to cup Rui’s cheek, pulling his face forward, and forward.
Rui closes his eyes.
Tsukasa’s lips press insistently against his own, familiar warmth and familiar softness. He closes around Rui’s bottom lip once, twice, pressing his thumb more firmly onto Rui’s cheekbone alongside the quiet wet sounds each time they pull momentarily apart. Rui braces his free hand against the table, the world a thousand times dizzier and a thousand times clearer all at once.
Overwhelmed is not— is not where Rui usually tries to be, when kissing Tsukasa. When he catches Tsukasa’s lips next, he presses down with his teeth. Tsukasa murmurs a soft moan, and swipes his tongue into Rui’s mouth.
It stutters him. First his breathing, then his fingers, digging even tighter into the table. Holding on. Licking back, Tsukasa tasting so warm in his mouth, the wet sound louder in his ears yet not loud enough to hide the breathy voice in the spaces between.
Rui sighs, a quiet haah as his eyelids flutter ever so slightly open. Filling his vision, Tsukasa’s eyes remain shut, his brow smooth with gentle pleasure right up until the moment he pulls away.
“You would’ve caught on by now if you didn’t taste of highball,” Tsukasa tells him softly in the space between their lips, molten eyes still trailing down. “If you were going to have an impulse, it should’ve been with me.”
A blink, and this time it’s Rui who chuckles, hushed and a little stunned. “I should’ve known.”
“If you were going to give up your firsts, it should’ve been with me. Don’t take these half-measures in spoiling me. I thought that’s what you were putting it off for to begin with.” Tsukasa’s pout is back, though it’s far less alarming at this distance.
“I hadn’t put that much thought into it.”
Tsukasa gives a hmph. “Well, do!”
“If it’s any consolation, everything I drank was quite disgusting,” Rui admits. “From the bottom of my heart, I don’t understand why you would cut an already bitter drink with tea.”
“It’s not,” Tsukasa frowns, pulling back even further, though he at least keeps Rui’s hand in his own. “What kept you going if it was so unpleasant?”
Oops. “I had some ramune on the side.”
“You had a chaser for a long drink? It was that bad?”
Oops. “So we’ll have something better, yes?”
The almost-tension of earlier is long-gone, dissipated by the kiss, but now Tsukasa’s focus zeroes, trying to puzzle him out all over again. He doesn’t ask another question, simply staring as though willing Rui to speak with the sheer force of his gaze alone.
And perhaps it’s the kiss, or his hand, or the leftover spinning at the edges of his vision, but Rui finally gives in.
“There may have been a particular thought behind the impulse,” he admits.
“Aha!” Tsukasa’s eyes sparkle. “Of course, of course! So that’s why you couldn’t have it with me.”
“It’s still bothering you?”
Blinking, Tsukasa shakes his head. “No! Enough about me.”
“I’ve never heard you say that before.”
“Your thought, Rui.”
“It’s the thing at the front door.”
“What thing at the front door? Your shoes?”
“No, the,” Rui pauses, frowning, and draws a right angle in the air with his finger. “This thing.”
“The step?” Tsukasa curls a finger to his chin, seriously considering him. “So drinking is like a step?”
Rui stares back at him, a bit baffled. “...In ways, certainly. Perhaps into alcoholism.”
“Don't look at me like that! You led me there to begin with!” Tsukasa exclaims.
“I did nothing of the kind.”
He narrows his eyes, but lets it go. “Then what's the step?”
“I'd have thought it was obvious.”
Tsukasa gapes at him, before letting go of a slightly disbelieving laugh. “Rui, you might be the only person in the world to leave even more in their head drunk than sober.”
Despite the obvious exasperation it's wrapped in, Rui can't help but smile, charmed as always by Tsukasa drawing conclusions about him. Then explains, “I missed the step, you see?”
“But I caught you?” Tsukasa tilts his head. “Since you're compromised,” he adds helpfully.
“Thank you. I miss it often.” Rui taps a nail on the table. “The step.”
Tsukasa frowns. “Do you? I've never seen…”
He trails off as Rui continues the idle tap, gaze in half-comprehending gaze. Tsukasa's brow furrows slightly, hand moving to press to his own cheek.
“This is… not about the front door,” Tsukasa finally gathers.
“In some ways, perhaps it could be,” Rui offers. “But principally, no.”
“Missed steps,” Tsukasa muses, leaning forward to give him a sweep of a glance, as though he might be able to identify them etched somewhere in Rui's clothes and skin. “Steps you've missed.”
“Often,” Rui says again. “Precisely.”
“You missing steps,” Tsukasa tries again, leaning in further to look at him, looking for—not etchings, Rui supposes. But he looks for him all the same. “Were you trying to right something you thought you missed?”
“Maybe. Or prevent myself from missing it again.” It strikes him that Tsukasa is still looking thoroughly puzzled, and that none of Rui’s own responses have moved the conversation all that far. So while it feels off, and wrong, and uncomfortable, he finds more words.
“How old am I?”
“Twenty,” Tsukasa answers promptly.
“I’m a working adult, functionally speaking. It’s part of… it’s the fact of socialising, isn’t it? All of this.”
“It doesn’t have to be if you don’t want it to be.” Tsukasa argues. “I thought you’d be the first to say that yourself.”
It’s a sweet thing to say, and Rui’s glad to hear it, but neither is it what he’s getting at. He smiles gently, unsure of formulation. “It’s not that it has to be. It’s just that I’ve never considered if it should be.”
Brow furrowing, Tsukasa says nothing—his silent prod for more.
“I often think… I’ve spent much time keeping to myself, where possible. You know well that I didn’t work too well with others, at first, but even apart from that, in casual situations, or small talk, or…” Rui tilts his head, the unusual weight of his skull rolling the motion more heavily than usual. “I stopped.”
Tsukasa’s hand squeezes around his own.
“When we first met, and I agreed to introduce you to Nene, it was…” Rui runs a finger through the condensation on the water glass, fragility of the moment dulled by how little he can feel in his fingertip. “It was a magnificent bit of fortune to me. But I wouldn’t have asked for it, do you see? I wouldn’t have ever said yes were it just for myself.”
“I’d have kept chasing you anyway.” Tsukasa insists.
It sends a little thrill of warmth through him. Rui nods, a smile playing at his lips. “I know. You’re you.”
But it doesn’t stop it from weighing on him, just a little, even still. This old insistence on the word no. There’d been a time when drawing a new connection for anything less than complete understanding had felt unbearable. Where he refused to content himself with a relationship that could not keep up. He’d wanted to move forward: neither leaving behind, nor being left behind.
Nothing less. He’d remain empty with anything less. But he’d refused to look for it.
Rui’s filled that space inside of him now, of course. Nowadays, he finds instead the other, smaller spaces. The spaces of dropped cues, of avoiding casual acquaintances, of walking serenely past a thousand tiny overtures.
“I like people,” Rui says sincerely, a touch of realization in it. “I really do. Now there’s even an extra responsibility in connecting with them that I… That I really don’t mind at all. And it turns out there are natural… natural steps in life that allow you to surround yourself with people. I just wonder how many of them I’ve—” he catches himself, shakes his head with a slightly rueful laugh.
“I know I’ve missed many of them.”
Tsukasa watches him for a long moment, expression contemplative. He opens his mouth a second like he might say something, then shakes his head a little.
“So, drinks,” he surmises instead.
“Drinks,” Rui sighs, stretching out over the table again. “Well. For all that I said, it was nothing all that momentous, and all I learned today was that I will never enjoy an oolong highball. As I said: an impulse.”
“Hm.” The flat, unconvinced sound catches his attention, and he finds Tsukasa looking up at the ceiling, tapping his mouth with his index finger in thought.
“You disagree?”
“It’s just…” Another thoughtful hum, and Tsukasa looks back at him seriously. “Do you really think that?”
Rui thinks about it. Really thinks about it.
About a crowd of laughter and friendly happiness, about the simplicity of a tossed “Kamishiro, you free after this?” to invite him into the fray. About more fond laughter, again, when he chased his drink—
“You sure you don’t want to swap drinks? I’m pretty sure Suzuki ordered a kahlua milk…”
“No,” Rui insisted, “I’ve ordered the base material, so I’ll transform it until it’s viable.”
“Pfft! We’re really learning a lot about you today, huh, Kamishiro?”
—and finally, the now. Being here with Tsukasa.
The answer is clear: he does not regret getting drunk today.
“Hm,” Rui echoes. The sudden little burst of elation feels too fragile to put into words, but his smile stretches even trapped behind the hand he presses to his mouth.
For Tsukasa, at least, it’s enough. He grins, satisfied, and rests his chin back into his hand. “One day, I swear I’ll turn you into an optimist.”
“Am I not one already?”
“Not when it comes to yourself!”
More drawn conclusions. The last of the unease slips from his body, and Rui shakes with the laughter that bubbles out of his mouth, slumping entirely against the table.
Some moments later, “Not here,” Tsukasa is saying. “Go to bed, come on.”
Rui blinks, darkness clearing from his vision in a way that makes him suddenly suspicious of the last few ‘seconds.’ He accepts Tsukasa’s pull of his arm, their hands having let go somewhere in the time between. When his feet find the ground, the blood rushes from his head in a surge that turns the world over again.
He steadies, and the half-full glass of water is being pushed into his hands, Tsukasa staring at him in amazement. “Still?”
“I’m learning many things about my metabolism today,” says Rui.
“And if I say this is because you don’t eat v—”
“They’re inedible, Tsukasa-kun.”
Tsukasa snickers, taking the empty glass and leading him with ease to their made bed. Rui has half a mind to collapse into it, but when Tsukasa catches him by the arm, settling him gently, his head informs him that that was probably the better outcome.
As Rui lays flat on his back, well-hydrated and warm and under no strain, the clear white of the ceiling spins mercilessly round. He blinks a few times, swallows, blinks, and it still doesn't steady.
I am not going to enjoy my morning, he realises with an idle kind of resignation.
There's a click as the ceiling goes dark, followed by the soft padding of feet over the floor. The duvet rustles as Tsukasa slips into bed next to him, his warmth slowly spreading through the space between them. The world continues to spin in dizzying circles as Rui feels the light touch of a forehead to his shoulder.
With monumental effort, Rui rolls over.
“Gah!”
“Why?” asks Rui, amused and wounded.
Tsukasa, wide eyes meeting his own, holds a hand to his own chest in a steadying press. “I thought you’d passed right out.”
“Soon,” Rui promises, because it's true. Amid the lazy turns of his vision come little slips of darkness to join the dance, unconsciousness not far behind. He isn't going to last much longer.
“Well, go on,” Tsukasa tells him. He lets go of his chest to reach towards Rui's head, thumb tracing his temple in lazy affection. “You'll feel better in the morning.”
Rui's being lied to, but that's alright. He had something else to…
Something else to…
To…
…
…He traps Tsukasa's hand with his own, ceasing the soothing so he can focus. “Do you think I took it?”
“Took what?” asks Tsukasa with profound patience.
“The step.” A moment, then he helpfully adds: “The one I missed.”
For a long moment, Tsukasa only stares at him, amber eyes blinking at him in the thin strip of light peeking between the curtains. Then, he laughs softly under his breath.
“Rui,” he says, in a tone that would boom were he not using it now, in a hush under the covers. “Ever since the day I met you, there hasn't been a single moment where you were moving anywhere but forwards.”
He moves his thumb in spite of the press of Rui's palm, another firm stroke over the side of his face. Likely because Rui's hands are rather weak right now.
“...You didn't answer the question,” he muses mournfully.
Tsukasa laughs again, punctuating it with a fond kiss to the perfect center of his forehead. “Good night.”
The joke is beyond him to understand, but Rui can only acquiesce, vision blurring with finality. If he can't have a good answer nor the promise of a good morning, then he’ll have to content himself with just this:
In the end, he did have a good night.