Come trick or treating in my inbox! Leave a “Trick or Treat” and a character or ship in an ask, and I’ll treat you to some autumn-themed fluff or trick you with some twisted spooky aus!
Treat
“No.”
Haru ignored Sousuke’s words, but continued staring at him. Sousuke deliberately did not make eye contact.
“I said no.”
Haru was getting closer. He wasn’t pouting, not really, but the intensity of that stare wasn’t letting up, either.
“It’s not happening, Haruka.”
“Give it up, Sousuke, you know he’s gonna win,” drawled Rin from his spot draped across Sousuke’s armchair.
“Why are you even here?” Sousuke shot in his direction.
“Dunno, but that’s not gonna work to distract him,” Rin replied, flipping a page in his magazine.
“Sousuke.”
Fuck. When Haru said his name like that, Sousuke didn’t have much chance of withstanding. All three of them knew he had already lost, but he held on valiantly, anyway.
“You’re such a basic bitch,” Sousuke groaned. “You’re a thirty-year-old Japanese man, not some white teenage girl. Why do you even want it so bad?”
“It reminds me of you.” Haru’s voice was uncharacteristically soft underneath the scowl and the grumble he slapped on top to cover himself. Sousuke looked at him a little closer, cataloging the genuine vulnerability underneath the displease twist of his lips.
“…Why?”
“Because it’s what he ordered on your first date,” Rin chimed in.
“How do you even—“ Sousuke shook his head. “Rin, get out. Go bother someone else.”
“Mkay.” Rin closed his magazine and scooped his bag, not even bothering to say a proper goodbye as he left their apartment. Sousuke rolled his eyes and turned back to Haru.
“What aren’t you telling me?” Sousuke asked, trying to keep his voice soft but not mushy. Haru huffed. Now he was outright refusing to look at Sousuke at all, as though the staring contest he’d started hadn’t even happened.
“It just makes me think of you, okay?” he muttered. “We went on that date and you bought me that latte and then we walked around the park and the leaves were changing. Happy?”
And, really, Sousuke was. It wasn’t often that he or Haru admitted anything that sentimental to each other, and each time it happened that same giddy rush of joy and contentment flooded every ounce of Sousuke. He reached out to cup Haru’s jaw, nudging until he reluctantly looked up.
“Where do you want to go get it?” he asked.
“The closest coffee shop that sells it is that one over by the train station,” Haru answered. Sousuke bit back a groan. He fucking hated that coffee shop and their outrageous prices and the baristas that tittered like they’d never seen a gay couple before even though Haru dragged Sousuke in there at least three times a month. Instead, he shook his head with a rueful smile.
“Go get your coat,” he said. “I will pay for one pumpkin spice latte and that’s it. Any desserts you want are on you.”
“That’s fine,” Haru said, climbing off the couch and padding over to the genkan. “I make better pastries than tham anyway.”
At that, the well-disguised promise of baked goods as a reward for his good behavior, Sousuke got off the couch as well. He found, as he walked down the street, bundled up against the autumn chill and holding the hand of the biggest asshole he’d ever met, that it was more than worth the price he paid. Especially when Haru took a sip of his latte and settled into a blissful ease. Sousuke would pay much, much more than this, just for a moment longer with him, and still think he was getting away for a steal.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
So, um.
I've been working on this fic for over two years now. It's not long, but I poured my entire heart into this thing. This is the only piece I've worked on longer than I did Anatomy, and I hope it shows how much of myself I bled into each word.
This started as a little revenge project, a way to get back at @ezzydean for Stop the World, but it grew into so much more than that. This fic has helped me work through a lot of the turmoil I've been through, and I realized tonight that it's time to let it out into the world.
So, yeah. 26k of hitting your lowest point, and the slow climb back out of that. I hope you find something in it, be it simple entertainment or something deeper.
Come trick or treating in my inbox! Leave a “Trick or Treat” and a character or ship in an ask, and I’ll treat you to some autumn-themed fluff or trick you with some twisted spooky aus!
Other it is, then.
“Haruka.”
“Hm.”
“My love.”
“Yep.”
“Light of my life, my sun, moon, and stars, the very thing which gets me out of bed in the morning.”
“Uh-huh.”
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“Carving pumpkins.”
Koushi stared at Haru, at the paintbrush in one hand and the egg in the other, neither of which was a pumpkin by any definition of ‘pumpkin’ that Koushi was familiar with. He stared a moment longer, waiting to see if an explanation would come. But apparently, whatever had triggered this bout of stubbornness and chaos was not something conducive to Koushi getting answers. Haru was in a mood, which meant it was best to just nod and let Haru do whatever he was doing.
When Haru started muttering under his breath, sometime around the sixteenth egg he painted, Koushi looked up from his crossword and stretched his arms above his head.
“You’re not Christian,” Koushi pointed out.
“Keen observation.”
“I just mean that, outside of western, Christian countries, most people don’t paint Easter eggs.”
“Most people don’t have a point to prove.”
“Points are generally easier to prove with backup.”
Haru huffed out an irritated sigh, but the tension in his shoulders was not the type that came from Koushi bothering him. There was something deeper there. Koushi draped his arm along the table, his fingertips just brushing the back of the hand that held the egg.
“Stress?” Koushi asked.
“Trying to take my mind off of that review,” Haru sighed, settling the egg onto a drying stand and his brush into the water cup. Koushi rested his hand more fully on Haru’s and squeezed.
“Is this you attempting to hyperfocus on an artistic endeavor, or are we fucking over the asshole who left that review?” he asked. Haru’s lip twitched at that, amused at the blatant ‘we’ in Koushi’s question, but he shook his head.
“The review was anonymous, so I don’t actually know which of their writers left it,” he said. “I was planning on hiding these around Kisumi’s.”
Koushi hummed.
“You’re going to need a distraction,” he said. “Kisumi’s on guard lately, since it’s been about two months since you last got him. And you’ll need someone small, probably Nagisa or Noya, to get into the really good nooks and crannies.”
Haru’s lip twitched again, and this time Koushi read gratitude in it. “I have six dozen of these left to paint,” he said.
“How many have you done so far?”
“I decline to answer.”
Koushi smiled, shaking his head. “Okay. Finish that one, then take an hour break. We’ll make some phone calls and set up logistics with the strike team, then you can go back to it.”
“You’re not going to help?” Haru huffed, and Koushi had known him long enough to know that it was an offer couched in the only face-saving method Haru felt he had open to him. He sighed dramatically.
“I suppose I can help,” he groaned. “Since it’s in the name of revenge and fucking with Kisumi.”
“You’re going to have to let that grudge go someday,” Haru mused as he shook his hand free and picked up his egg once more. “It’s not healthy to be so petty.”
“Yeah, well. Maybe someday I will.”
“See to it.”
Koushi smiled, settling in to watch Haru finish the fine details on the egg he was painting. Haru was weird, and he had his strange methods and habits and coping methods. But god, Koushi would not trade a single bit of it, not for anything in the world.
TRICK OR TREAT TIME - first one shall be Tanaka and Haru :D
Come trick or treating in my inbox! Leave a “Trick or Treat” and a character or ship in an ask, and I’ll treat you to some autumn-themed fluff or trick you with some twisted spooky aus!
LMAO I WARNED YOU. I TOLD YOU YOUR BABY MUSE FINGERS WERE MAKING ME WANT TO DO THINGS. WELL HERE YOU GO. ENJOY THIS TREAT MY FRIEND. ENJOY IT WHILE YOU CAN.
(under the cut because it is, somehow, over two thousand words. Oops?)
Sometimes, Ryuunosuke played this game where he would sit and stretch his mind back, trying to remember the beginning.
Not the Beginning, he wasn’t quite that old, but near it. Maybe a few centuries after.
The thing about time was that it didn’t work in quite the same way that humans thought it did. Their lifespans were so short. They thought a year was a long time, that eighty of them made an eternity, and that made a funny little thing happen. Their lives would end and then the next batch would begin and that next batch would think they were so much more advanced than the ones before them. But then they would do the exact same things as the previous, and the ones before them and the ones before them.
As Ryuunosuke walked down a bustling Tokyo street, he watched a pair of little girls hop around and sing some chanting rhyme, the same way little girls had been doing as long as he could remember. The words had changed, the language Ryuunosuke had been born to long dead, but the action, and the spirit of the game, remained. Humans, for all their adaptations, never really changed.
Ryuunosuke had been human, once. And since humans never changed, he was pretty good at playing the part now. When the woman at the fish stand tried to set him up with her granddaughter, he laughed and flirted with her instead and no one knew any better. He walked away with a smile, his bag of fish bouncing against his leg.
“You get too close to them.”
A shudder ran down Ryuunosuke’s spine, his smile going a little smaller and a little quieter and a little more sincere.
“You’re one to talk,” he replied, thanking the stream of time for the invention of headphones to disguise his conversation. People had long stopped giving him weird looks when he spoke to something they could not see or hear.
“That’s why you shouldn’t.”
“I know,” Ryuunosuke said. He turned into a park and sat on the bench there. “Keep those cold for me?” he asked as he set his bag beside him. There was no answer beyond a vague sense of irritation and a patch of cold air forming next to his hip. “Thank you, love.”
“Something’s different, this time.”
“You know we’re not supposed to look,” Ryuunosuke chided. “And even if you see by accident, you really shouldn’t be telling me. I’m not supposed to know.”
“They think you’ll warn the humans.” Ryuunosuke nodded. “Will you?”
“I don’t know,” Ryuunosuke sighed. “For a while, I thought I would. A few hundred years ago, when it almost happened that one time, I nearly did. But…” He looked around the park. “They’re so small, and that’s their blessing. They don’t know, and in ignorance, bliss. I can’t take that away from them.”
There was a sadness to the breeze that ruffled Ryuunosuke’s clothes. “Do you ever miss it?”
“Nah. It’s right there, you know?” He jerked his chin in the direction of a mother scolding her kids, and then again toward a pair of high schoolers clearly on a date. “People are still building families and walking through parks and laughing and singing and hurting. It didn’t stop just because I stopped.”
“You wish you hadn’t stopped.” But Ryuunosuke was already shaking his head.
“You know I don’t,” he said. “You know I wouldn’t trade you for anything, not even a human lifespan.” This time, the sadness in the wind took on a petulant tone and Ryuunosuke laughed. “Stop pouting,” he said. “It’s almost autumn. We’ll see each other again soon.” He smiled, leaning his head back, and let fall from his lips a word so ancient that its very mother tongue had been lost entirely, but its sentiment had been shattered into a hundred other words. Words like home and love and partner and friend, and a hundred more that, together, came close but didn’t quite hold it all. Soulmate came close, sometimes. When it was said with the right weight. That breeze tugged at his clothes once more and he smiled.
“Your fish are going to get warm.”
Ryuunosuke rolled his eyes. “You’re getting lazy if you won’t even hold them for me,” he muttered, getting to his feet. “I should trade you in. They have actual refrigerators now. They’re more useful, and they tend to sass me less.”
A gust of air nearly knocked him over and he laughed.
“Hey, what’s with the wind lately?” he asked. “That’s not usually your go-to.”
“It’s easier to follow you like this.”
Ryuunosuke frowned. “Are you having trouble—“
“I thought you weren’t supposed to know.” The teasing note to the wind’s voice had Ryuunosuke relaxing somewhat. He rolled his eyes.
“Following rules is all well and good when it comes to humanity at large but you know it’s different when it’s you.” The fingers of Ryuunosuke’s right hand moved without thought to trace a half-minded line down between his ribs. This body didn’t hold scars, didn’t take well to change. But Ryuunosuke knew there was a mark there nonetheless, left by something outside of the control of time. He sighed. “You don’t have to tell me any details, just let me know that you’re okay. Or if you’re not, let me know which of the gods I need to track down and have a talk with.”
It was all bluster, they both knew. Ryuunosuke was no longer human, but that didn’t make him powerful by any stretch of the mind. In fact, it took away much of the power that came with things like mortality and curiosity and that unique sort of hubris that stemmed from knowing you wouldn’t live forever. Still, as Ryuunosuke unlocked the door to the apartment building he’d been staying in for a while now, the wind settled along his shoulders, almost like a body leaning its arm there and dropping its head against Ryuunosuke’s neck. The breath caught in Ryuunosuke’s throat for a moment before he smiled.
“Okay,” he said, and opened the door. “You want me to light the fire when I get in?”
He didn’t get an answer in words, but that didn’t mean he didn’t hear the affirmative anyway.
It had been difficult to find a place with a fireplace in modern Tokyo, so difficult that Ryuunosuke had almost given up on the city. It wasn’t quite the sunken irori he had been looking for, but the western hearth in the living room was built for wood burning and that suited their purposes fine. So before Ryuunosuke even paused to put the fish in the fridge, he stooped by the hearth and struck a match. It was only when the fire was catching, spreading from the kindling to lap at the larger logs that he turned and finished putting everything away.
“You know, it may be time for me to be moving on soon,” Ryuunosuke said. The logs creaked in question and he shrugged, not even bothering to turn and face the hearth before answering. “I’m probably imagining it, but I think the old man who lives below us was looking at me a little longer than usual the other day. And it’s been, what, seven years? This body is young enough by today’s lifespans that people will start to notice soon that I don’t really change.” He smiled, picking up his cup of tea and moving to sit cross-legged in front of the fire. With the tea cup balanced on his knee, he reached out to flirt his fingers through the flames, laughing at the playful response he got.
“Where will we go?” crackled the fire. Ryuunosuke shrugged.
“Europe might be nice again,” he said. “Not England, we’re never going back there. And North America just feels… off right now. We could go south, though. It’s been a while since we visited… what’s it called these days… Peru.” The fire was warm where it wrapped around his wrist, tracing down the lines of his fingers before flicking up in between. “Oh, hey!” Ryuunosuke said. “I just remembered. I picked up the paperwork today. What do you want your name to be this time?”
The flames crackled, growing dimmer for a moment, before the answer came.
“Haruka.”
“I like that one,” Ryuunosuke said with a smile. “Haru for short?” The fire gave an affirmative. “You want me to pick a surname at random, like we did last time?” The response he got was irritation, but not a no, so he just grinned. “Hmmm. I think I read about a Nanase the other day. Nanase Haruka, then?”
“I like that.”
“Okay. I’ll fill out the papers so we’re ready when the time comes.”
“I think it will be early this year.”
“Yeah? Any particular reason?”
In answer, the flames grew brighter, one branch reaching out as though toward Ryuunosuke. Ryuunosuke laughed and threaded his fingers into the fire, curling as though to hold another hand. “Yeah, okay,’ he said. “I can see that. You’re stronger than you have been at this time the past few years.”
“The leaves will change soon.” It was a promise.
“And when they do, I’ll meet you beneath a maple,” Ryuunosuke promised in return. “Or should we find an oak this year?”
“Maple. Smells better.”
“Okay,” Ryuunosuke laughed. “Can’t wait.”
And he didn’t have long to wait, after all. September began hot and vengeful, but it retreated into a sudden autumn with a whimper. And, the day Ryuunosuke saw the first of the red on the trees, he knew it was time. So he followed the color as it trailed from tree to tree, winding a path through Tokyo until he found a secluded-enough park, with a large maple standing in a forgotten corner. He smiled up at it, certain that it was the right one.
The leaves were a crown of fire, gold and red and orange and every color laid out in between. Ryuunosuke reached up to touch one, and it fell away in his hand.
“Is this a gift?” he asked, laughing. He turned his head to see the figure standing at the base of the tree, raking his eyes appreciatively up their form. “I like that shape,” he said.
Haru rolled his eyes, pushing away from the trunk of the maple to walk over to Ryuunosuke. He was slender this time, and pale, with dark hair falling in blue eyes, gorgeous from tip to toe. He reached out to link his fingers with Ryuunosuke’s, letting that same ancient, forgotten word float on his voice, familiar from the wind and the fire and the passage of water in a stream, but half-forgotten in a more human form. Ryuunosuke closed his eyes and smiled, leaning his forehead against Haru’s and taking in the dust-and-magic scent of him.
“Hey, there,” he said, and Haru hummed.
“Hey. Ready to get started?”
Ryuunosuke looked around, at the amount of green still hanging from the trees around them. He looked back to haru, reaching up to brush some hair out of his eyes.
“I’m ready,” he said, and let Haru’s answering smile fill his senses the same way his autumnal magic filled the air.
Time, it seemed, always stood still for them in these moments. Since the first time Ryuunosuke had looked at his reflection and wondered why he still looked so young, the omnipotent march of time had carried him ever-onwards. But each year, there was a pause. A breath. A moment to simply be Haru’s and let Haru be his.
They would not have long together like this. When Winter came to bully away the dying into the dead, when it drove the sleeping things deep under the ground and the waking things huddled themselves close for warmth, Haru would retreat once more into the elements. But Ryuunosuke would always have him. No matter what name he took, no matter where he was, no matter how the years crept on, this was always certain. And it always would be. From the beginning all the way until the End.
Ai and your choice with: touching foreheads after their first kiss.
This turned out so much longer than I expected, because your little shit tried to steal the show.
Anyway, here we go, two characters forcibly extracted from the groupchat as usual, let Rei say fuck agenda, you know the drill.
The thing about Haruka-senpai and Nitori-kun was that they were both absolutely fucking gorgeous. Rei knew he had a bit of an obsession when it came to beauty. He knew that physical form was important to him. He knew that there was more to romance than that, but the fact still stood that he was surrounded by obnoxiously pretty people far too often.
It didn’t help that, on top of being pretty by themselves, Haruka-senpai and Nitori-kun were pretty together. They were the world’s most attractive couple, two pairs of big blue eyes, a contrast of light and dark hair, smooth pale skin. Nitori-kun’s bubbly personality just barely disguising a depth of snark that rivaled and complemented Haruka-senpai’s.
“Fuck my entire fucking life,” Rei groaned, to no one in particular. Nagisa answered anyway.
“Not that you’re not pretty, Rei-chan, but you and I both know you gotta be at least a level twenty-three friend to unlock my unpicked flower garden.”
“Your euphemisms need work,” Rei commented.
“Excuse you, my euphemisms are perfect, and you’re deflecting,” Nagisa countered. “Why are you asking for an existential deflowering?”
“The usual,” Rei said with a shrug.
“Dude. You gotta ask them out already. This is getting hard to watch.”
“Right,” Rei said, rolling his eyes. “Because that’s the way to solve all my problems. Tell the two most beautiful men on the face of the fucking planet that I want nothing more than for one of them to suffocate me by sitting on my face while the other rails me into next week.”
“You wanna hold their hands and make them breakfast, don’t lie to me and pretend this is all sexual, Rei-chan,” Nagisa scolded.
“Feelings are disgusting,” Rei said.
“I mean, I’m not disagreeing with you there, Rei-chan. But it’s just gonna get worse if you keep this up!” Nagisa’s voice went sing-song, a clear sign to Rei that he was not getting out of this conversation unscathed.
“What do you want to make you drop this?” Rei groaned.
“You don’t really want to know.” Rei glared at him, and he put his hands up as though to calm Rei, though all it did was trigger a pavlovian rage. “I’ll drop this, if you go up to one of them right now and kiss them. Don’t care which one, just. Grow a pair and do it.”
Rei was about to tell Nagisa in no uncertain terms that he already had a pair, thank you very much, when he was interrupted by the most beautiful sound he had ever heard. It was not uncommon to hear Nitori-kun laughing. He giggled as easily as Rin-san cried. Usually it was accompanied by a smirk or even occasionally a snort from Haruka-senpai. But this time?
Oh, this time.
Haruka-senpai’s head was thrown back, his eyes scrunched shut, and music incarnate was pouring from his lips, babbling like water from a Roman fountain. Rei’s mind went blank in the center and fuzzy around the edges. He knew Nagisa was smirking at him, but he couldn’t focus on anything other than the universe dawning from Haruka-senpai’s mouth.
“Fuck,” Rei whispered. Nagisa snorted.
“You got it so bad,” he said.
“Yeah,” Rei agreed.
“So, what’re you gonna do about it?”
Rei saw it all laid out before him, the two paths diverging. One leading toward some fairy-land nonsense where all his dreams came true, and the other rooted in harsh reality. He didn’t bother answering Nagisa. They both knew he would do nothing about it.
Nagisa watched him, watched the doors shut in his eyes, watched him strengthen his resolve to live his life pathetic and unloved. He rolled his eyes and cupped his hands around his mouth, then shouted, “Ai-chan! Haru-chan! Put me out of my misery already!”
“What do we get out of it?” Nitori-kun hollered back.
“A gorgeous hunk of man?” Nagisa answered. “Or, well, another gorgeous hunk of man?”
Nitori-kun shrugged, said, “Mkay,” and sauntered up to Rei. Rei’s life flashed before his eyes, a series of images of his worst mistakes and most mundane triumphs. He knew his face remained utterly passive as Nitori-kun approached, planted his hands on Rei’s shoulders, and leaned in slowly. He bypassed Rei’s lips to brush his own against Rei’s ear, whispering, “Consent is sexy, Ryuugazaki-kun. Is this how you want to do this?”
“Yes.” It was a thready, breathy thing, barely there at all, but Nitori-kun heard it. He pulled back to smile at Rei, his eyes swirling with something as unnameable as it was utterly familiar. He leaned in slowly, slowly enough to give Rei time to back out, to lose the game of chicken they were apparently playing. Then Nitori-kun’s lips quirked, and then they were pressed to Rei’s.
As kisses in reality went, it was probably pretty damn average. But as kisses in Rei’s life went, this one? This one was magic. This one was fireworks and fireflies and everything that first kisses were supposed to be. And then it was ending, Rei letting out a soft whine and trying to follow Nitori-kun’s lips as they pulled away from his. Nitori-kun breathed a gentle giggle and rested his forehead against Rei’s.
“Hi,” he whispered.
“Hello,” Rei replied. Nitori-kun’s eyes were full of laughter, and light, and maybe something else, maybe something that Rei had only ever seen directed at Haruka-senpai, because he had never let himself look for it directed at him. Never let himself imagine, because his daydreams would destroy him.
A pissy huff drew Rei out of the bubble that had formed around the two of them and he looked over Nitori-kun’s shoulder at Haruka-senpai, standing with his arms crossed and his lips pouted.
“Ai,” he growled, and Rei’s blood went cold.
“Fuck off, Haru, I told you I had dibs.” Nitori-kun didn’t pull away from Rei to say it, still staring into Rei’s eyes. “You can have the next one. If he wants it.”
There was a question there, a question that Rei wanted nothing more than to answer in the affirmative. But all he could say, all his scrambled brain would let out was a distressed little, “Fuck.”
“Not yet, beautiful, but we’ll get there someday,” Nitori-kun said, giggling again. He pulled away from Rei at last, just enough to clamber into Rei’s lap and nuzzle his head against his shoulder. One hand reached out behind him and with a huff and a roll of his eyes, Haruka-senpai strolled over. He took Nitori-kun’s hand and settled in beside Rei, leaning against the shoulder not occupied. Rei closed his eyes against the onslaught of emotion welling up in him.
“Hey,” Haruka-senpai said, bumping his shoulder more firmly against Rei’s. “You good?”
Rei clutched a little harder at Nitori-kun’s back until Haruka-senpai reached out and claimed one of his hands for his own. He breathed, and it seemed all he could manage to do just then. Then, against all sense, against all knowledge that this couldn’t possibly be real, he relaxed. A snort burst out of him, and it was a breaking of the dam that held back the hysterics. By the time he realized what was happening, the laughter was mingled with tears.
“Sweetheart,” Nitori-kun said, but whatever he was going to say after that was lost in the frantic way Rei leaned up to slam their lips together again. Nitori-kun made a confused noise, but relaxed into the movements of the kiss, one hand threading through Rei’s hair. Rei pulled back only when he heard the petulant whine coming from Haruka-senpai, laughing still in little fits and stops. He turned his head, ready to say something snarky and probably profane, only to have it cut off by Haruka-senpai taking his turn.
“Finally,” Haruka-senpai said, still sounding petulant, but he was smiling. Rei found he rather liked that smile, would like to see it some more.
“You know you could have kissed me literally any time from the day we met, right?” Rei laughed. Haruka-senpai said nothing, only pouted deeper when Nitori-kun started giggling. “That goes for you too, you know,” Rei said, jostling his legs to bounce Nitori-kun a bit off-balance.
“You say that, but had I done that any earlier, you would have run,” Nitori-kun replied.
“Well,” Rei said with a shrug, “I’m not running now.”
“No,” Nitori-kun agreed. “You’re not.”
And, Rei knew in that moment, he probably never would.
Send me a ship and a color and I’ll write you a ficlet that feels like that color.
The thing about Nagisa wasthat he was a little shit, but Haru never minded. Nagisa knew this, so he wasalways less of a little shit to Haru than to anyone else. But there were times,when both their thresholds were low, that Haru just wanted to absolutelydestroy him.
“Nagisa,what the hell are you doing?” Haru growled, standing in the doorway to theirbedroom and staring at him. It was a prank, or a joke, or something There wasno way he was serious. There was no way Haru’s one secret dream was comingtrue.
“Nothing!”Nagisa cried, jerking and hiding what he was holding behind his back. But thedamage was done. One eye was awkwardly lined in black, a streak of it danglingdown his cheek from where Haru’s voice had made him jump. He looked on theverge of tears.
That wasn’tright. Nagisa was a shit, sure, but he was usually an unrepentant one. This wassomething new. Haru stepped closer, slowly, like he was approaching a wildanimal.
“Whatwere you doing?” he asked, his voice calmer and gentler.
“Nothing,”Nagisa sniffed, and the first tears fell.
“Hey,”Haru crooned, reaching out for Nagisa and pulling him close. He wiped the tearsaway with his thumb and pressed a kiss to Nagisa’s forehead. “I didn’t mean toyell at you. I thought you were messing with me.”
It was something he wasworking on, the whole using-his-words thing. But Nagisa knew this, knew himbetter than anyone else. He shrugged.
“Ijust thought you were judging me,” he whispered.
“Iwould never,” Haru said. Then he smiled. “Except maybe for how shit you are atputting it on. Can I show you how?”
Nagisa considered him for amoment, then nodded, handing him the little stick of eyeliner.
Haru lifted him onto thedresser and stood between his legs, taking a wet wipe from the package sittingnearby and wiping gently at the black smeared across Nagisa’sface. Then, when he was clean, Haru cupped his cheek and whispered, “Close youreyes.” Nagisa obeyed, and Haru pressed the tip of the eyeliner to Nagisa’seyelid.
His breath caught in histhroat. Nagisa’s eyelashes were long and curledbeautifully, and he was so trusting between Haru’s palms. It was a heady thing,having the trust of someone like Nagisa. He shook the thought away as best hecould and moved on to the other eye. He ordered Nagisa to open his eyes andswiped the eyeliner along the bottom lid. Then he took a step back. Nagisalooked at him and he went weak.
Bright pink eyes staredholes into his soul, like he could see everything Haru had ever been and wascurrently and ever would be. Like he could see Haru for what he was, and lovedhim anyway. Haru reached his hand up to brush Nagisa’scheek with his fingertips.
“Beautiful,”he whispered, and tears gathered in Nagisa’s eyes again.
“You’rejust saying that, Haru-chan,” Nagisa said, and Haru shook his head.
“Youknow I’m not,” he said.
“Iknow you’re not.”
They were going to have totalk about it later, they both knew, about what had prompted the entire thing,and what it would mean for their relationship. About how Haru reacted and howhe would need to react in the future. About how Nagisa’strust was the most important thing Haru had.
About how Nagisa was themost beautiful creature in the world.
But for now, they would just exist, one lover with another, andthat was all that mattered.
@cattatonically asked for NagiHaru breakups. Might mess around and turn this into a long fic, might not. Anyway, have some angst!
Haru opened the door to the apartment with a sense of foreboding in his heart. He couldn’t place why at the time, but a part of him must have known then.
The apartment was half empty, almost exactly. One of the chairs, gone. Half of the books. Half of the mess. Picked up and moved out like it had never been there in the first place. Haru walked calmly into their bedroom, slowly, like if he never reached it he would never have to know what he would find.
The bed was there. The sheets were gone. The closet was half empty, all of Haru’s clothes hung neatly in place.
None of Nagisa’s.
“Nagisa?” Haru called softly, like Nagisa was still around to hear him. He knew better. He knew what he could not admit to himself.
Nagisa was gone. And Haru had not seen it coming. Haru dug out his phone and dialed Nagisa’s number. A busy tone, and then a click. He checked Nagisa’s social media pages, but all of them led Haru to the same roadblock. Nagisa had blocked him, on everything. In a frantic attempt to reach him, he dialed Nagisa’s mother’s number. Another busy tone, another click. Numb, he walked out into the living room and started really looking around.
It was on the third pass through the apartment, spent cataloging every item of Nagisa’s that was gone, that he found it. The note was left in an obvious place, right there on the counter where Haru was sure to find it if he wasn’t so busy looking at the way Nagisa had taken everything that had belonged to him and left only that which was Haru’s alone.
Haruka-
And oh, how that hurt, to have Nagisa’s handwriting with his full name, not the nickname, not a diminuative, not a pet name, not-
Haruka-
I hope this letter finds you well, though a part of me wonders if you will even notice it.
I’m leaving. I’ll never be what you want or need me to be. I’ll never be him. Please don’t try to find me. I don’t want this to hurt any more than it has to.
I wish you all the luck in the world. All the happiness I was never able to give you. Maybe you’ll even find it.
-Nagisa.
Haru read the note again and again. He had no idea why Nagisa would leave, or who that him was he was talking about. As far as he had known, everything was fine. Their anniversary was coming up.
The first tears were so small and so warm that Haru didn’t even notice them until they fell on the page. The tears that followed were nothing close to small. Haru wept bitterly, clutching the paper and howling his pain to the ceiling.
That was where Makoto found him. Sobbing on the floor with a piece of paper full of words that could no longer be read, they were so smeared with tears and crumpled.
“Haru-chan?” Makoto asked, and Haru howled even louder. Makoto coaxed the story out of him, then sat in front of him with one hand on Haru’s shoulder and one hand on his knee. He stayed there in silence until Haru found his words.
“Get out.”
“Haru-?”
“Get out!” Haru shrieked, throwing himself away from Makoto. “You can’t fix this! Just leave already!”
Makoto was the only person who had never left Haru. But in that moment, when Haru needed him most to stay, he drove him out with a flurry of shoves and shouting. He slammed the door behind Makoto and sank against it with a sob.
Nagisa was gone. And Haru would never see him again.
-
He had done it. The very thing he had been promising himself he would for months. He had packed up all his stuff and moved out of his and Haru’s apartment. He was free.
So why did he feel like the world’s biggest pile of shit?
“Nagisa?” Rin’s voice echoed down the hall. He didn’t acknowledge it. There were footsteps, and then the bedroom door opening, and still Nagisa stared at the wall through his tears. “Nagisa, I made dinner if you want any,” Rin said. “It’s okay if you don’t, but if you do, I’ll keep a plate for you.” When Nagisa didn’t say anything, Rin left in silence and Nagisa felt the pile of shit get a little bit bigger.
Haru would have no idea what was happening, he knew. He would see it as coming out of the blue, with no warning. But Nagisa had been miserable for the entire three-and-three-quarters years they had been dating. Because Haru wasn’t his. Haru belonged to Makoto, and Nagisa was kidding himself if he thought he would ever be that important to him. So he had packed up his things and he had left and he had blocked Haru on everything and he had hidden in the one place he had known he would be safe.
Except he hadn’t counted on how much Haru loved Rin, too. Trusted Rin. Knew Rin wouldn’t lie to him. The pounding on the front door matched the pounding of Nagisa’s heart. Rin answered the door with low tones, but Haru had no such qualms.
“Where is he?” Haru sounded desperate, in a way Nagisa had never heard him. “Rin, please, I don’t know where he went, I don’t know if he’s okay-”
“Calm down, Haru, where is who?” Rin asked, and it was the most brilliant lie Nagisa had ever heard from him.
“Nagisa! He’s gone, and he blocked me on everything, I don’t know why, or-”
“He blocked you? Even your phone number?”
“Everything.” It was close to a sob. Haru was a good actor too, Nagisa supposed.
“Look, man, I haven’t heard anything,” Rin said. “I can help you look for him if you want, but-”
“No. I’ll find him.” It wasn’t a snarl, wasn’t a growl or a shout or anything like that. It was simply, devastatingly sad. And it broke Nagisa’s heart.
But he was strong. He wasn’t the same person who had fallen into Hrau’s trap and into his bed. He knew better than to come crawling back. So when Haru left and Rin came creeping back into the bedroom, Nagisa was sitting up. There were fresh tears pouring down his cheeks, but he was calm. Rin climbed onto the bed beside him and wrapped him up in his arms.
“Thank you, Rin,” he said simply. Rin nodded.
“Nagisa, you wanna tell me why you’ve cut yourself completely out of his life without telling him why?” Rin asked.
“Because if I talked to him, he would pull me right back in,” Nagisa said.
“What will you do now?” Rin asked.
“Stay here for a few days, and then I’m headed to my sister’s place.”
“In Tokyo?” Nagisa nodded. “…I’ll miss you.”
A fresh sob tore itself from Nagisa’s chest. “I’ll miss you too, Rin-chan. I’ll miss all of you. But this is for the best.”
“If that’s what you believe, then I’ll help you however you need.”
“I know you will.” Nagisa smiled up at Rin, and Rin smiled down at Nagisa, and in that moment, when everything was pretending to be all right, Nagisa was almost okay.
i’m constantly dragging all my friends to your hockey games because i think you’re so much fun to watch and i don’t think you’ll ever notice me - HaruMomo
“Haru-chan, why did you drag me here again?” Makoto whined. Haru ignored him, pulling him into his seat. They were good seats this time, right near the ice. They were early, because this time Haru was determined not to miss a single moment of the action. “You don’t even like hockey,” Makoto continued.
“I love hockey,” Haru muttered, watching the players stream onto the ice for their warmup.
“That’s news to me,” Makoto droned.
“Shhhh,” Haru shushed, smacking at Makoto’s shoulders. “Watch.”
“I’m watching…” Makoto said. “I don’t see anything worth coming down here every other day for. What’s got you so obsessed?”
Haru didn’t answer him, too busy watching the spastic little center pull off his helmet and shake out his mop of red hair. His teammate skated up to him and shoved him playfully, and he laughed, throwing his head back. Haru watched the line of his throat, the joy on his face, the way the bright lights of the rink shone in his hair. Then all at once Mikoshiba Momotarou looked up and locked eyes with Haru.
The joy did not leave those golden eyes, but rather transformed into something brighter and somehow more excited. He shoved his teammate away and skated up to the wall.
“Hey!” he shouted, knocking on the glass. “You came!”
“Haru? Is that hockey player talking to you?” Makoto asked, leaning back slightly. Haru ignored him in favor of giving Momo a surprised look. Momo held up one finger and skated around to the opening in the wall. He clumped around the rink until he could stop in front of Haru.
“You came!” he repeated. “Minami and Uozumi said you wouldn’t, but I knew you would!”
“I didn’t think you would notice me,” Haru said with a shrug.
“You’re here for every game!” Momo said. “And half the practices. Of course I noticed you!”
“Oi, Mikoshiba, ask him out already and get your ass back on the ice!” shouted one of Momo’s teammates. Haru felt his face heat slightly, but it was nothing in comparison to the blush that spread across Momo’s face.
“Well, that ruined everything,” Momo muttered. Haru stared at him for a moment, then smiled.
“I’m free on Thursday,” he said. Momo lit up brighter than the rink lights.
“Really?” he asked.
“Really,” Haru said. Momo cheered.
“Wait for me after the game, and I’ll get you my number and stuff,” Momo said, and started clumping back over to the door. Haru sat back with a self-satisfied smirk.
“That’s why you dragged me here?” Makoto asked. Haru raised an eyebrow at him in challenge. “You owe me, Haru,” Makoto said.
Haru looked at Makoto, then back at the ice, then back at Makoto.
