Generally speaking, I love fluffy friends to lovers stuff where they slowly realize they like each other and then have a hard time confessing. and then one of them does confess and the other is like the pikachu face meme. Mutual pining, as long as it gets resolved, is good food hehehe. There can be some conflict or drama, but there has to be a happy ending and it has to feel happy too, you know what I mean?
Specifically, I love fics that focus on post-game where they realize they like each other at some point after the ending and then try to make it work. Maybe they go to the same college or become roommates. Or maybe they don’t! But they still fall in love in the end <3
It took me a while to come up with an idea, but here it is :)
Shameless cross-post self-promotion first:
AO3 (Souji)
ffnet (Souji)
DW (Yu)
or read below the cut!
Yosuke dropped everything he was doing when he received a text from Yu that said ‘help’ and nothing else. He texted back a quick 'where’ while rushing down the stairs to Junes’s first floor (the elevator was far too slow), abandoning his shift without even telling his dad. He’d worry about the fallout later.
'Floodplain’ was Yu’s reply. Yosuke unchained his bike, hopped on, and pedaled like his own life depended on it. Yu hadn’t given him any details, so his mind was filling in the gaps with more and more extreme situations his partner could be in. He’d fallen in the river and couldn’t swim. A flirty girl was being too forward and he needed an escape plan. One of the feral cats had given birth and the kittens would need homes. Some school bullies couldn’t take the bowl cut anymore and decided to something about it with force.
Yosuke arrived at the flood plain in record speed. He scanned the area, but saw no sign of his partner. Yu would stand out, as tall and gangly as he was.
He whipped out his phone and sent another text, praying that Yu was in a situation in which he could text. Yosuke glanced over the river, rationalizing that he couldn’t text and drown at the same time, so that couldn’t be it… Distractedly, he looked at the sky. A few lazy clouds were drifting across the sky. One of them looked kind of like a popped collar.
After shaking his head to clear it, he rode his bike to the gazebo area. He knew Yu often met people there. No one was there right now, and there were no signs that anyone had been there today. Not even a candy wrapper left on the table.
It had been at least a minute since he’d sent the text and there was no response. In his growing worry Yosuke did what anyone would do in his place: he called instead.
“Come on, come on,” he hissed at the phone, as if that’d make Yu answer faster. Yu’s ringtone played faintly on the other end of the line.
Wait.
You weren’t supposed to be able to hear the ringtone.
Yosuke whipped his head around, seeking the source of the sound. He tracked it to a big tree near the gazebo. The ringtone stopped sounding out as the call went to voicemail. Yosuke looked around, but Yu wasn’t in immediate sight, and Yosuke didn’t find his phone lying among the grass. Though there was a cat relaxing against the base of the tree. It flicked its tail lazily as Yosuke stared at it. No… There was no way his partner had turned into a cat!
All of a sudden, something pinecone-sized fell out of the tree, missing Yosuke’s head by mere inches. It landed with a thunk on the ground. He picked it up. It was Yu’s phone.
Frowning, he shaded his eyes against the sun and looked up, and there was Yu, clinging like a koala to one of the highest branches of the tree.
“What the hell partner,” Yosuke called up to him. “What are you even doing up there?”
“A cat… stuck…” Yu’s voice was barely audible, and it trembled with a quality Yosuke had never heard before.
Yosuke glanced down at the relaxing cat. It was definitely on the ground and not stuck in a tree. “This one?”
“I climbed up to help it…” Yu explained slowly. “But then… It jumped down on its own… A-a-and now…”
It was hard to see from the distance, but it looked like Yu was grimacing.
“You’re stuck,” Yosuke concluded.
“…yeah.”
Yosuke considered the situation. He was pretty damn high up. He wouldn’t be able to jump down without hurting himself. And the way Yu was trembling–the wind picked up and he clung even tighter to the branch he was hugging as it swayed–he wouldn’t be able to climb back down the way he’d come up. He was just too afraid. Yosuke knew if he climbed up there himself, well, then there’d be two boys stuck in a tree. And the added weight wouldn’t be good for the branch.
He was considering calling the fire department to get a ladder when a simpler solution came to mind.
Yu opened his eyes to peer down at him. Yosuke held his arms invitingly open. “N-no,” he whimpered. “It’s too far… I’ll miss, a-a-and break my neck.”
“Do you trust me?” Yosuke asked.
Yu squeezed his eyes shut. A moment later, he whispered a soft, “yes.”
“Then,” Yosuke said, “trust me. I’ll catch you.”
Yu shivered on the branch, making it sway a little. Then, very slowly and mechanically, he sat up. “R-ready?” he asked.
“Ready!” Yosuke called back, positioning himself right under his partner, arms open and ready.
Yu hesitated for a long time. Then he sighed, closed his eyes, and let himself fall. Yosuke caught him with an oomph, staggering back a few steps from the impact.
But Yu was all right and in his arms. Yosuke tried to set him on his feet, but he wasn’t budging. Yu buried his face into Yosuke’s chest. It made Yosuke want to smooth down his windswept hair, but his hands were occupied.
“You okay?” Yosuke asked softly.
“Was scared,” Yu mumbled into his chest.
“Yeah, I bet. But don’t worry, partner,” Yosuke said. “I’ll always be there to catch you.”
