Archive of Our Own

Izumi has never spent New Years with a friend before, and he’s not sure why his first time doing so is spent with Hamada. 

‘Because you have a big stupid crush on him,’ Izumi thinks, and tries to hide his too-warm face in Hamada’s hair. 

It’s not his fault that he’s so close to the older boy, Hamada is sleeping on him, draped all over him on the steps of the local shrine, sleeping through the embarrassment he should be feeling over such a shameless display so Izumi has to feel it for the both of them. 

“Geez, why do I have to like such a useless senpai?” Izumi murmurs, and he hopes Hamada hears that, he really does, because the blonde ought to know how much trouble he puts Izumi through. 

“’M not totally useless.”

Izumi takes it back, he takes it all back, Hamada should never ever hear a thing he says again.

“Well, I guess you’re an okay space heater.” 

‘Nice save Kousuke, nice save.’

“Aaand?” Hamada’s weedling, Izumi hates that (in a sort of dumb, infatuated way), and he can feel the heat of the blond’s breath against his cheek. 

“And what?”

“Well I must have some special charm, t’ make you like a senpai as useless as me.”

Maybe it’s not too late to throw himself dramatically down the shrine’s steps. 

“No, that’s pretty much it.”

It occurs to Izumi that a more opportunistic soul would’ve taken this as an opening to confess, but he’s thirteen and not quite brave enough to stare heartache in the face before the first sun of the new year even rises. 

“Oh, that sucks,” Hamada says, his voice decidedly flippant, “’Cause I was kinda hoping you’d be my first kiss of the new year?”

There’s no playing it cool this time—Izumi sucks in a quick breath through his teeth, tension running up his spine like copper wires. 

“First kiss,” Izumi repeats, the words slow and deliberate, “Of the new year?”

“Of any year,” Hamada admits, burying his face in the crook of Izumi’s neck.

(The tip of his nose is cold, and that’s why Izumi shivers.)

“Oh.”  This isn’t a joke, this can’t be, Hamada’s not that sort of cruel.  “Um.”

Hamada shifts away, “Sorry, that was—“

“—No,” Panic, this is an actual chance and he’s thirteen and totally ready to get his first kiss from the guy he has a stupid big crush on.  “I mean, yes!  Uh, yeah, I’ll be your.  Yeah.”

‘Smooth.’

“Oh.”  Hamada’s face all but melts into the most ridiculously happy expression Izumi’s ever seen.  “Uh, then we—now?  Or, uh—“

“Now,” Izumi’s not eager, he’s not, he just wants to get this over with before he dies of embarrassment. 

“Okay.”  Hamada’s hands feel heavy and warm on Izumi’s shoulders, and suddenly their faces are too close, too quickly, cold noses bumping almost painfully. 

“Uh, lean—“ Izumi tries, “Lean right?”

“Right, righ—“

Their lips touch, and it’s not—it’s not magical, or anything, but Izumi can’t seem to close his eyes and the sun is rising, the first sunrise of the new year and—

And it’s turning Hamada’s eyelashes to gold.