Archive of Our Own

Present day 

Harua woke to the sound of rain and the betrayal of silence.

His alarm hadn’t gone off.

His life had.

Eight o’clock.

He turned. Maki was asleep next to him, one leg flung across the sheets like a crime scene chalk outline. His face was soft with dreams, lips parted just enough to look kissable if you didn’t know better. Harua, unfortunately, did.

“Why aren’t you at work?” he snapped.

Maki cracked one eye, unbothered. “Because I called in heroic.”

“You mean sick.”

“No, I mean heroic. I spared the office my toxic energy.”

Harua bolted upright. “You turned off my alarm.”

“You were frowning in your sleep,” Maki said, already halfway back to unconsciousness. “I intervened.”

“I had a meeting!”

“Then you should probably get up.”

“I am up!” Harua yelled, legs tangled in the sheets like he was fighting a ghost. “Because someone decided we live in a goddamn commune now.”

From the living room:

“Keep it down, I’m manifesting inner peace!”

Taki. The third wheel that showed up and never left. Harua’s own live-in spiritual parasite.

“Get a job, Taki!” Harua shouted. “Or at least get a hobby that doesn’t involve our couch!”

“I am the couch,” Taki mumbled. “We’ve merged. It’s tantric.”

Maki chuckled, face buried in the pillow. “He’s right. We should respect his transformation.”

Harua stumbled over a pile of mismatched shoes,none of them his,and nearly sprained his dignity. “This is what my life has become. A sitcom with no laugh track and terrible lighting.”

“I like our lighting,” Maki said. “It’s very forgiving.”

“You’re twenty-three! You can’t just opt out of adulthood!”

Maki stretched, unrepentant. “That’s where you’re wrong. I’ve opted out so hard.”

“You’re a man-child.”

“I prefer emotionally liberated.”

Harua yanked a shirt over his head with the grace of a man drowning in cotton. “You don’t contribute! You don’t clean! You don’t even replace the toilet paper,”

“I like to leave something for the next person,” Maki said serenely.

Harua froze, teeth gritted. “You think I’m the next person, don’t you?”

“You are the next person,” Maki said. “In every lifetime.”

“Dr. Yamamoto says co-dependence is not romantic!”

“Dr. Yamamoto has never seen us spoon.”

From the couch:

“Dr. Yamamoto is my new God. I would die for her.”

“Taki, you’ve never met her,” Harua snapped.

“Doesn’t matter. I feel seen.”

Maki sat up, hair a mess, smile lazy. “Come back to bed. It’s raining. The world doesn’t need you until at least noon.”

Harua’s heart ached, because he wanted to. God, he wanted to be someone who could ignore everything and just stay in that warm, stupid bed. But he wasn’t built like that. He was built like an email draft that never got less aggressive.

He caught his reflection in the mirror. Eyes tired. Tie crooked. Aura: frayed.

“Do you ever feel guilty for making me do everything?” he asked, voice quieter.

Maki didn’t answer right away. When he did, it was soft. “I used to. But now I mostly just feel lucky.”

Harua hated him. He hated that he meant it. That he could mean it so easily.

He grabbed his bag and his anger. “Tell Taki if he doesn’t pay rent this month I’m staging an exorcism.”

“Too late,” Taki called. “This body is already claimed.”

Maki reached for Harua’s wrist, a quick touch. “Tex the therapist. Don’t implode on the subway again.”

“That happened once.”

“Twice.”

Harua opened the door, hesitated.

Maki was already lying back down, curled into the blankets like someone who didn’t fear the world. Like someone who trusted Harua to keep it running.

And Harua would. Because someone had to.

“I’ll text Dr. Yamamoto,” he muttered.

“Tell her I’m ascending,” Maki murmured.

“Tell her I want a refund on my whole chosen family,” Harua replied, slamming the door behind him.

The subway smelled like wet socks and existential despair.

Harua found a seat and stared at his reflection in the dark phone screen, half ghost, half burnout.

To: Dr. Yamamoto

Emergency session. Today if possible.

I live with a toddler in a boyfriend costume.

Send.

Outside, the rain kept falling. Inside, Harua wondered if love was just what happened when you were too tired to move out.

** 

Present day 

8:03 p.m.

The rain had finally stopped, but Maki’s hair still looked like he’d wrestled a humidifier and lost. He twirled another forkful of tortellini and pointed it at Nicholas across the table like a teacher scolding a student.

“I’m just saying,” Maki said, “if a nine-year-old is quoting Nietzsche, something’s gone wrong.”

Nicholas raised an eyebrow. “You’re the one who taught him ‘God is dead.’”

“It was context!” Maki protested. “We were discussing The Lion King!”

Nicholas didn’t even blink. “Again. He’s nine.”

They were halfway through a bottle of sprite, sitting at Nicholas and Euijoo’s apartment across the hall, warm lighting, Ella Fitzgerald on vinyl, real napkins. Maki had brought exactly none of this. He’d just shown up.

“You also weren’t at work,” Nicholas added casually. “Which, I assume, was not approved by the head of school.”

Maki made a face. “Mental health day.”

“You were on TikTok dressed as a frog.”

“Therapy takes many forms.”

Nicholas snorted into his wineglass. “You’re lucky the kids think you’re cool. If you were ten years older, they’d eat you alive.”

Before Maki could respond, a voice cut in,

“This tortellini is fire.”

Nicholas froze. Maki blinked. Then, slowly, both turned toward the living room.

Taki was spread across the couch like a Roman emperor in sweats, bowl in hand, sauce on cheek.

“Where the hell did you come from?” Nicholas asked.

“Your bathroom,” Taki said. “Very plush towels, by the way.”

“I thought you left an hour ago!”

“I did. But then I came back. Vibes felt unresolved.”

Maki stared at him. “You’ve been here the whole time?”

“Since you got here, yeah.”

Nicholas pinched the bridge of his nose.

And then. 

“He means my tortellini is fire.”

Euijoo emerged from the kitchen in an apron, looking mildly betrayed.

“It was meant for two,” he added.

Maki’s face fell. “Oh god. This was a date?”

Euijoo held up the wine cork with a dramatic flourish. “You thought we just spread out a tablecloth and lay out the fancy silverware for you?” 

“I thought it was weird there were candles,” Maki muttered.

“I thought it was weird you were here,” Nicholas said.

“I brought a bottle of wine!”

“You brought a bottle of Sprite,” Euijoo corrected. “And then drank half of it before dinner.”

Taki licked his fork. “Still a better vibe than my last breakup.”

Maki ignored him. He checked his phone for the fifth time that hour.

Still no message from Harua.

Nicholas leaned in. “Why don’t you just go to his job?”

Euijoo shook his head immediately. “That’s how you get tackled by security.”

“He’s not answering me,” Maki said, voice quieter now. “He left mad, and I thought, if he came home and I was gone, maybe he’d miss me.”

Nicholas raised a brow. “You passive-aggressively punished your boyfriend by going on a surprise double date?”

“I’m very unevolved emotionally,” Maki said.

Euijoo sighed and handed him a napkin. “Just go home. Wait for him. Let him yell at you. Then make him tea.”

“Or cry,” Taki added. “Crying works. I cry and I get free pastries.”

Nicholas and Euijoo turned to stare at him.

“What? It’s a valid strategy.”

Maki glanced at his phone again. Still nothing.

“I just wanted to spend the day with him,” he said, eyes on the table. “That’s why I turned off the alarm. I thought maybe he’d laugh. Or stay.”

There was a beat of silence.

Then Nicholas said, “You’re lucky you’re cute.”

“We’re lucky he’s cute,” Euijoo muttered.

Taki held up his fork. “To Maki. King of unannounced emotional bombings.”

They all clinked glasses,except Maki, who realized he was still holding his Sprite.

He stood, stretched, and grabbed his coat. “Thanks for the accidental hospitality.”

“You’re not getting more tortellini,” Euijoo called.

“I wasn’t going to ask!”

“You were definitely going to ask,” Nicholas said.

Maki paused at the door, then glanced back.

“If I die of heartbreak, tell Harua it was his fault and I left all my student loans to him.”

“You’re not dying,” Euijoo said. 

“And wash your fork!” Nicholas shouted after him.

The door shut with a soft click.

Back in the apartment, Taki sighed happily and slumped deeper into the couch.

“God, I love when other people’s relationships are worse than mine.”

Euijoo arched an eyebrow. “You don’t have a relationship.”

“Exactly,” Taki said, beaming. “I’m undefeated.”

**

2019 

The first time Maki saw Harua, he dropped his sketchpad.

Literally dropped it. On the floor. In front of an entire advanced typography class.

Harua didn’t look up. He was perched on a stool near the windows, hunched over a tablet, one AirPod in, one out. His hair was silver then, an impulsive bleach job he later regretted,and he wore a long black sweater that made him look like an angsty character from a Korean drama.

Maki, meanwhile, looked like he belonged on a beach. Or in a shampoo commercial. Or not in a second-year elective he’d somehow talked his way into by flirting with the registrar in three languages.

He was nineteen, cocky, and fresh out of international school. Half-German, trilingual, and too pretty to be trusted. Everyone noticed him the second he walked in.

Everyone except Harua.

Maki noticed him immediately.

Not because of the hair, or the cheekbones, or the silent stormcloud energy. But because when the professor asked a question about grid alignment, Harua said, without looking up,

“Maybe if we didn’t let freshmen in here, we wouldn’t be stuck reviewing the basics.”

Ouch.

Maki grinned.

Later, he sat next to Harua and tried to strike up conversation while unwrapping a protein bar.

“You know, in German we say ‘ordnung’,like, cosmic order. Very grid-related. So technically, I’m contributing.”

Harua didn’t glance up. “Do you ever stop talking?”

“I’m very charming in small doses.”

“I’m allergic to small doses.”

Maki chuckled and bit into his bar. “You’re mean. I like it.”

Harua finally looked at him. Expression flat. Eyes sharp. “Are you flirting with me or just lonely?”

“Can’t it be both?”

Yuma thought it was hilarious. He kept egging Maki on from the sidelines.

“You’re not his type,” he whispered in the cafeteria. “Harua’s boyfriend looks like a haunted painting and hates loud noises.”

“That’s fine,” Maki said. “I’ll just whisper.”

The thing was, Maki was seeing a couple of girls. Nothing serious. But that stopped mattering the second Harua rolled his eyes at him for the first time.

It wasn’t love at first sight. It was impact trauma.

Like falling down stairs. Beautiful, painful, inevitable.

Harua, on the other hand, thought Maki was a golden retriever with a gym membership and a death wish.

“He’s not even in the class officially,” he told Yuma one day.

“He shows up, snacks on protein, and misuses the word ‘iconography’.”

“Sounds hot,” Yuma said, chewing a muffin.

“He’s ridiculous .”

“He’s into you.”

It took six weeks. Six weeks of Maki showing up early to claim the seat beside Harua. Six weeks of exaggerated sighs, coffee offerings, and accidental compliments like, “Your critique voice is so hot, I mean smart. Smart-hot.”

Six weeks of Harua saying no.

And then one rainy Thursday, Harua showed up late to class, wet, annoyed, and very single.

“Where’s haunted oil painting?” Maki asked.

“Dumped me,” Harua muttered, sliding into his chair.

“Because you deserve better,” Maki said without missing a beat.

Harua didn’t smile. But he didn’t tell him to shut up either.

Which, by that point, was basically foreplay.

**

Present day 

Dr. Yamamoto’s office smelled like herbal tea and compromise.

A diffuser hummed in the corner, releasing “calming” lavender mist that only made Harua’s eyes sting. Maki sat on the couch beside him, legs sprawled wide, wearing a hoodie that said Art Is Dead. Harua had ironed his shirt for this.

Dr. Yamamoto smiled in that way therapists do, halfway between empathy and exhaustion.

“So,” she said, clipboard balanced on her knee. “How have things been since our last session?”

Harua spoke first. Of course he did.

“He’s still immature.”

Maki snorted. “Wow. That was fast.”

“I’m being honest.”

“You’re being dramatic.”

“You forgot my birthday dinner.”

“I had food poisoning!”

“You were at karaoke!”

“With food poisoning! That’s commitment!”

Dr. Yamamoto held up a hand. “Let’s slow down. Maki, how do you feel when Harua calls you immature?”

Maki crossed his arms. “Like he’s my dad.”

“I’m not your dad,” Harua said tightly.

“You act like it. You schedule my dentist appointments.”

“Because you won’t!”

“I’m busy!”

“Doing what? Mixing protein powder into coffee?”

Dr. Yamamoto scribbled something on her notepad. Possibly terminal dysfunction.

“Harua,” she said gently, “what do you need from Maki right now?”

Harua exhaled through his nose. “I need him to grow up. Get serious about something. Anything.”

Maki’s jaw tightened. “Translation: make more money.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“That’s what you meant.”

“I meant you have no ambition!”

“And you have nothing else!” Maki shot back. “You talk about work like it’s a religion. You measure love in hours billed.”

“That’s because rent exists!”

Dr. Yamamoto interjected again. “Maybe we can reframe—“ 

But they were past reframing.

They were mid-collapse.

“You think I’m lazy because I don’t want your life,” Maki said, voice rising. “You want everything neat and productive and perfect. Even your emotions have bullet points.”

“And you think irresponsibility is a personality trait,” Harua snapped. “Newsflash, it’s not charming at twenty-three.”

Maki leaned back, scoffing. “At least I’m not miserable.”

“I’m not miserable!”

“You’re Olympic-level miserable!”

“Enough,” Dr. Yamamoto said softly , but it was like whispering to a storm.

The silence that followed was raw, ugly. The kind that made the lavender smell sour.

Dr. Yamamoto tried one last time. “What do you love about each other?”

Neither answered.

Harua looked at his watch. Maki looked at the floor.

“Okay,” the therapist said finally, closing her notebook. “Maybe we pause for today.”

Outside, the rain had started again.

They walked side by side down the block , close enough to share the awning’s cover, far enough not to touch.

At the corner, Harua stopped. “Do you want to get dinner?”

“No,” Maki said. “You’ll just tell me it’s the wrong restaurant.”

Harua nodded once. “Fine.”

Maki shoved his hands in his pockets. “Fine.”

They split at the crosswalk , one left, one right , both convinced the other was the problem.

And for the first time since they’d met, neither one looked back.

**

A few days later 

The door creaked open just as Harua finished pouring his coffee.

Maki stepped out of the bathroom, hair damp, cheeks flushed from the steam. He was already in his uniform, denim shirt, black pants, silver ring on his pinky that he always claimed “made him feel professional.”

He smelled like grapefruit soap and cologne, like he always did after a shower. Like he was trying.

They hadn’t spoken in three days.

Not since the fight about the rent. Or maybe it was the dishes. Or the fact that Maki had missed Harua’s team dinner again and hadn’t texted until 1 a.m. to say he’d “forgotten.”

It didn’t matter now. Not really.

“Morning,” Maki said, voice soft.

Harua didn’t answer. Just nodded once, eyes still on the mug in his hand.

Maki grabbed his backpack and paused at the door. “Parent-teacher conferences today. Won’t be home ‘til late.”

Another nod. Harua’s jaw ached from clenching.

Then Maki stepped closer.

And kissed him.

Not a quick brush. Not the kind you give out of obligation.

It was slow. Familiar. Sweet.

His lips warm. His mouth clean.

And Harua melted, just a little. Because he always did. Because Maki still knew how to kiss him like he meant it. Like he remembered everything about them.

When they pulled apart, Maki lingered a second longer than usual. Then he stepped back, like nothing had happened.

“Bye.”

Harua didn’t say anything.

He just stood there, holding his coffee, listening to the door click shut.

He forgave him, quietly.

Again.

But he didn’t say it.

Because he was tired of being the one who said it first.

** 

Sometime in 2023 

Maki was stabbing a piece of sashimi like it had wronged him personally. Taki was drinking plum wine like it was soda. Nicholas was organizing the soy sauce dishes into a triangle. Jo hadn’t spoken in twenty minutes. He was trying to understand what was going on. Yuma looked far too entertained.

“So,” Jo said cautiously, eyes flicking between Maki and the rest of the table, “are we allowed to ask why Harua’s not here?”

Nicholas didn’t look up. “They’re broken up. Again.”

“Again?” Jo blinked. “Didn’t they just get back together?”

Taki raised his glass. “Ten times, baby.”

Maki groaned and dropped his chopsticks. “Can we not do this tonight?”

Yuma leaned in with a grin. “Ten times in six years. That’s impressive, statistically. That’s, like, a breakup every, what? Seven months?”

“More like five and a half,” Nicholas muttered. “If you count the sub-breakups. The mini-ones.”

“Mini-ones?” Jo asked.

“You know,” Yuma said, “like the time Harua left for a weekend and said ‘don’t text me,’ and Maki thought it was over so he posted a thirst trap with a sad poem in the caption.”

“That was performance art,” Maki snapped.

“It had the caption ‘rose petals bruise too,’” Nicholas added.

“It got three hundred likes!” Maki said.

“And one comment from Harua that just said ‘what is wrong with you.’”

 “I remember that post. The lighting was bad,” Taki said. 

Maki slumped down in his seat.

“They’ve broken up in every season,” Taki said, counting on his fingers. “Spring, summer, winter, the one time during monsoon season.” 

“That’s not even real,” Maki muttered.

“Emotionally, it is,” Nicholas said.

Jo turned to Maki. “How do you survive this many breakups?”

Maki shrugged. “I go to work. I go to therapy. I cry in public bathrooms. Normal stuff.”

Yuma was scrolling on his phone. “I still have the group chat from the fourth breakup saved. The one where Harua said, and I quote, ‘if I wanted to date a sentient hoodie, I would’ve picked Taki.’”

Taki beamed. “He still thinks about me.”

Nicholas leaned back. “The sixth breakup was my favorite.”

“Oh God,” Maki groaned.

“No, hear me out,” Nicholas said. “You guys weren’t even officially back together, but you were still sleeping together and going on dates and holding hands in public.”

“Not dates,” Maki said. “Coincidental dinners.”

“You booked a table for two and got him flowers.”

“They were apology flowers!”

“It was Valentine’s Day.”

“It was February!”

Jo raised his hand. “So, are they together or not?”

“No,” everyone said at once.

“Not today,” Taki clarified.

“But probably by Wednesday,” Yuma added. “They always bounce back mid-week.”

Nicholas tapped his chopsticks against his glass. “The pattern is: Harua gets overwhelmed, Maki spirals, they both stop texting, one of them posts something cryptic, and then someone, usually Yuma, locks them in a room together until they make out or cry.”

“I have rented hotel rooms for this purpose,” Yuma said proudly.

“It’s exhausting,” Maki said.

“It’s theatre,” Taki said.

Jo  still looked lost. “So, no one’s concerned?”

Everyone exchanged a look.

Then Yuma said, “It’s just who they are.”

Nicholas nodded. “They break up. They get back together. They fight. They cook dinner together. They don’t talk for two weeks. They send memes instead of apologies. They go to therapy. They quit therapy. They make out in stairwells. They forget birthdays. They remember anniversaries. They love each other. Aggressively.”

“They’re like two weather systems crashing into each other over and over again,” Yuma added.

“They’d die of boredom if it were easy,” Taki said.

“I wouldn’t,” Maki muttered.

“Yes, you would,” Nicholas said.

Maki pouted into his beer.

Nicholas pointed his chopsticks. “I saw Harua last week. He said you still make the best eggs.”

Maki blinked.

Yuma grinned. “Aww.”

Taki leaned over the table. “You’re making up by Wednesday, right?”

“I don’t know,” Maki said, but his voice had gone soft. “Maybe.”

Nicholas tilted his head. “You know he still has that ugly mug you made him?”

“The one with the lopsided handle?” Yuma asked.

“The one that looks like it’s melting,” Jo said helpfully.

“He uses it every morning,” Nicholas said. “Takes it to work.”

Maki looked away. Smiled a little.

“Fine,” he muttered. “Maybe Wednesday.”

“Or Tuesday,” Taki said. “If you send another poem.”

“No,” Maki said. “No more poems.”

Nicholas raised his glass. “To inevitable reconciliation.”

Yuma clinked his glass against it. “To off-season love.”

Taki lifted his beer. “To sentient hoodies everywhere.”

Maki groaned. “You guys are the worst.”

Jo raised his cup last. “To six more years.”

They all stared at him.

Jo blinked. “Too much?”

Nicholas shrugged. “If they make it that long, I owe Yuma five bucks.”

**

2019 

The theme was “no theme,” which, in Maki’s words, made it “effortlessly cool.”

In reality, it was a half‑organized dorm party with a Spotify playlist titled Funky But Sad and a bunch of mismatched string lights borrowed from three different roommates. The hallway smelled like weed, cheap beer, and body odor. Someone was already passed out in the bathtub by 10:30.

Maki kept looking at the door.

Every time it opened, every single time, he looked up, expecting him.

Harua.

Who wasn’t coming.

“Who are you waiting on?” someone asked at one point, slurring into their Solo cup. “You keep checking your phone like he’s your parole officer.”

Maki laughed too hard and changed the subject.

He hadn’t even said it was for Harua. Not really. He’d just “casually” told Yuma to tell him there was a party. That it would be fun. Chill. That maybe he should come. No pressure.

But Maki had worn cologne. Cleaned his room. Made a playlist that just happened to include that one song Harua liked. (The xx. Something moody. Maki didn’t even like it, but he’d added it twice.)

And still, no Harua.

By midnight, the party was thinning. The Bluetooth speaker had died. The snacks were gone. Someone was crying in the stairwell. Typical Thursday night art school disaster.

Maki was very drunk. He sat on the floor with a half-eaten bag of marshmallows in his lap and his phone face‑down beside him.

That’s when the door creaked open.

And there he was.

Harua.

Backlit by the hallway fluorescents, hair tousled, jacket slung over one shoulder. He looked tired. And beautiful. And very much like someone who hadn’t planned to stay long.

Maki blinked. “Oh. My god. It’s you.”

Harua looked around at the mostly-empty room. “Did the party already end?”

Maki gave a half-laugh, half-sob. “No. It’s just emotionally exclusive now.”

Harua stepped inside slowly, shutting the door behind him. “Yuma said you throwing a party?”

“No,” Maki said. “I threw a vibe.”

He stood, too fast, and stumbled forward.

Harua caught him, hands warm on his arms. “You’re wasted.”

“I’m emotionally available.”

“That’s worse.”

Maki grinned. “Did you come because of me?”

Harua hesitated. “…I came because I felt bad.”

“Oof.” Maki pressed a dramatic hand to his chest. “Stab me harder.”

“I didn’t mean,”

“No, it’s okay,” Maki said. He looked up at him, eyes glassy, voice softer now. “I just really wanted you to come. Even if you didn’t know why.”

Harua’s brow furrowed. “Why?”

Maki leaned in, just enough that it made the space between them too full.

“Because I like you,” he said. “Like, really like you. And you drive me insane. And I don’t understand half the things you say, but you’re hot when you’re mad, and you make fun of my art in this really mean, flirty way, and I know you think I’m annoying but I’d change my entire personality if you asked me to.”

A long pause.

Then, softly:

“I wouldn’t ask you to,” Harua said.

Maki blinked. “What?”

Harua’s voice was quiet. “I like you annoying.”

Maki opened his mouth. Closed it again. “So does that mean,”

“No,” Harua said. “It means I’m thinking about it.”

Then he helped Maki to the couch, gave him water, and stayed for two hours while Maki fell asleep mid-sentence, marshmallow in hand.

**

Two weeks later 

Harua didn’t even want to call it a date.

He told Yuma it was “a casual hang.”

Yuma responded by sending him a selfie of himself making the world’s most sarcastic heart hands, with the caption:

“tell ur casual hang not 2 rawdog your heart xo”

Harua didn’t reply.

Maki picked the restaurant. Of course he did.

A tiny seafood place on a side street near the station, the kind of place with mismatched chairs and paper menus taped to the walls. The chef was also the server and also, apparently, some kind of local legend.

“Trust me,” Maki had said, “you’ll love this place.”

Ten minutes in, Harua deeply regretted trusting him.

They sat at the counter while a cheerful older woman prepped food right in front of them. The conversation was fine. A little stilted. Maki kept knocking his knee into Harua’s. The lighting was aggressive.

And then.

The woman pulled a still-wriggling prawn from a tank, smiled like it was nothing, and dropped it directly into bubbling oil.

Alive.

It sizzled. Twitched. Curled.

Popped.

Harua froze.

Maki leaned forward, fascinated. “Whoa. That’s the circle of life right there.”

Harua turned, appalled. “That was murder.”

“It’s dinner.”

“It looked at me.”

“It’s a shrimp.”

“I have trauma now.”

Maki tried to suppress a laugh, eyes watering. “You want to go vegan together? Be one of those couples who cries over mushrooms?”

“I’m serious.”

“I know.” Maki smiled. “That’s why it’s so cute.”

The rest of the meal wasn’t bad , if you could ignore the shrimp ghosts. The food was good. The woman was kind. But Harua couldn’t shake the image. And Maki, who started the night all sunshine and charm, got quieter as it went on.

By the end, he was just sort of staring at his empty plate.

Nodding. Smiling at nothing.

On the walk back to the station, Harua finally asked, “Hey. What’s wrong?”

Maki shrugged. “Nothing. I’m just I guess I thought tonight would feel different.”

“Different how?”

“I dunno. Less awkward. More romantic.” He glanced sideways. “Less shrimp-based tragedy.”

Harua stopped walking.

Maki kept going a few steps before realizing.

Then Harua grabbed his sleeve, tugged him gently back.

And kissed him.

It wasn’t long. Just soft. Surprising.

But it was real.

Maki blinked, stunned. “What was that for?”

Harua smirked, cheeks pink. “You looked sad. I’m fixing it.”

“Oh,” Maki said, voice very small. “Okay. You fixed it.”

They walked the rest of the way in silence, hands brushing but not quite holding.

And Harua thought , maybe next time, he’d pick the restaurant.

Just in case.

** 

Present day 

The room was quiet, save for the faint hum of the air conditioner and the soft, uneven breaths against Harua’s collarbone.

Maki was trembling.

Not violently , not like fear, but in that way he always did afterward, when his body was spent and his heart had cracked open just enough to let everything else in.

Harua had pulled out moments ago, slow and careful, and now Maki was curled into him like something weightless. Still flushed. Still catching his breath. His spine curved like a question mark against Harua’s chest.

Harua hated how much he loved this part.

This exact moment. The smallness of Maki. The softness. The way his lashes stuck together with sweat, and his fingers clutched at the blanket like it could anchor him back to earth.

It made Harua feel ruined.

He kissed the top of Maki’s head. Let his nose rest in the damp crown of his hair.

“It’s okay,” Harua whispered, voice raw from effort, from emotion, from all the things they never quite got around to saying. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

Maki didn’t respond, not in words, but he nodded once, barely perceptible, and his hand found Harua’s forearm in the dark.

They didn’t talk about the silence from earlier that week. They didn’t talk about how close everything sometimes felt to falling apart.

But right now, Maki was here. With him.

And Harua’s heart was so full it ached.

He wrapped his arms tighter around him, pressing every inch of his body into Maki’s, grounding him, holding him together.

“I love you,” Harua said softly. “Even when it’s hard. Even when I’m tired.”

Maki was quiet.

Then, faintly: “Don’t let go.”

“Never,” Harua said.

And they fell asleep like that, tangled in sweat and silence and all the words they didn’t need to say, because this, this warmth,was the truest part of them.

** 

2019 The first break up 

It started with a notification.

Harua hadn’t even meant to look. He was just borrowing Maki’s phone to queue a song while Maki was in the shower. Then, ping. A preview banner. A name he didn’t recognize.

And a photo he could never unsee.

He froze. The image was quick, blurred skin, mirror, caption in hiragana with a heart, but it was enough. Enough to feel the blood drain from his face.

By the time Maki came out of the bathroom, towel low on his hips, still humming something stupid, Harua was sitting on the edge of the bed holding the phone like it had burned him.

“What’s wrong?” Maki asked.

Harua didn’t answer. He just turned the screen toward him.

Maki’s smile dropped instantly. “Okay. I can explain.”

“Don’t,” Harua said, standing. “Don’t say ‘it’s not what it looks like.’ You sound like a bad drama.”

“It’s not! I didn’t ask for that, she just sent it.”

“Do you reply to all your fan mail naked?” Harua’s voice cracked, sharp and ugly. “Or do they get premium access?”

Maki groaned. “I swear I didn’t even open it, well, I did, but just to delete it,”

That was the wrong thing to say.

Harua hurled the phone. It hit Maki’s arm, bounced off the wall, and spiderwebbed across the screen with a sick crack.

“Oh my god,” Maki stared at the damage. “You broke it!”

“I broke your phone?” Harua’s voice rose, brittle and furious. “You broke my trust, you idiot!”

“It was just a picture!”

“That’s the point!”

They stood there, soaked in silence except for the sound of rain against the dorm window. Maki, bare-chested and bewildered. Harua, shaking with anger that was really heartbreak.

“Get out,” Harua said finally.

“I’m naked.”

“Get out.”

Maki left barefoot, clutching his cracked phone, shirt forgotten on the floor.

The next two weeks were hell.

Maki showed up everywhere Harua was, hallway, cafeteria, print lab, even outside Yuma’s apartment like a tragic pop-up ad.

He texted daily.

He called nightly.

He sent memes, voice notes, songs in three languages. Nothing worked.

Harua ignored him.

Yuma, naturally, thrived on the chaos.

“He’s camped outside the cafeteria again,” Yuma reported one day, sipping his iced coffee. “He’s wearing sunglasses. Indoors.”

“I don’t care,” Harua muttered, pretending to focus on his design draft.

“He’s crying.”

“Good.”

“Still hot, though.”

“Yuma.”

“What? I’m just saying, if you don’t take him back, I might.”

Maki finally got through by sheer persistence,or exhaustion.

He showed up to class with a new phone, a handwritten apology, and a bento he actually made himself.

The rice was shaped like a heart. Badly.

Harua stared at it for a long time. Then sighed.

“You’re impossible.”

“I’m learning,” Maki said softly. “Slowly. Like Windows XP.”

“You’re not funny.”

“Then why are you smiling?”

“I’m not.”

But he was. Just barely.

Yuma still brings it up years later. Usually over drinks.

“Remember when Harua threw Maki’s phone? Peak romance.”

“It was toxic,” Harua always says.

“It was iconic,” Yuma corrects.

And maybe it was both, two stupid, beautiful boys too young to know the difference between passion and punishment, too in love to stop trying anyway.

**

Present day 

It started with something small.

Dishes in the sink. Again.

Harua came home from work exhausted, stepped into the kitchen, and saw the same bowl with dried ramen stuck to it that had been there since Tuesday. It was Friday. There were socks on the couch. Clay on the counter. A bag of chips inside the fridge.

“Maki,” Harua said, voice flat, “what is this?”

Maki looked up from his laptop on the floor, stylus in his mouth, hoodie half-on. “What’s what?”

“The kitchen.”

“Oh,” Maki said. “Right.”

Harua waited.

Maki didn’t move.

Twenty minutes later, it had escalated.

“,You don’t even try anymore,” Harua snapped, pacing. “I’m working twelve-hour days and coming home to a trash tornado. And you just, what? Sculpt all day and forget how to function?”

“I’m working too!” Maki shouted back. “Just because my job doesn’t require a tie and a daily existential crisis doesn’t mean it’s not real!”

“You’re freelancing two gigs a month and your teachers salary barley covers utilities.” 

“Oh, I’m so sorry my life doesn’t revolve around KPIs and passive-aggressive Slack messages!”

Harua threw up his hands. “You treat everything like a joke!”

“And you treat me like a burden!”

Silence.

That one landed.

Harua’s voice dropped. “That’s not fair.”

“It’s not?” Maki said, laughing bitterly. “You barely look at me anymore unless something’s wrong. You don’t touch me unless we’re having sex. You’re mad at me even when I’m trying. I don’t know how to win with you.”

Harua looked down. His chest was rising and falling too fast.

Then, quietly, too quietly,

“I’m thinking about moving out.”

The words hung in the air like a dropped plate. No shatter. Just the echo of it.

Maki blinked. “You’re what?”

“I’ve been looking,” Harua said, voice stiff. “Just options. Short leases. Somewhere quiet. I don’t know. I can’t keep,”

“Are you breaking up with me?” Maki asked, stunned.

“I don’t know.”

Maki stared at him. “Say it.”

“I don’t know, Maki.”

“Bullshit. You don’t look for apartments unless you’re already halfway out the door.”

“I’m not trying to hurt you,” Harua said, and hated how small his voice sounded.

“Well, you’re doing a great job anyway,” Maki said.

Later, the apartment was quiet.

Maki locked himself in the bedroom with his sketchpad and a playlist Harua hated. Harua sat at the kitchen table in his work clothes, staring at his untouched dinner, thinking about how silence can be louder than screaming.

They didn’t talk for the rest of the night.

But they also didn’t sleep.

And when the sun came up, they were still two people in the same apartment,

but not in the same place.

**

2021 

Long‑distance was supposed to be temporary. Just until Maki graduated and joined Harua in Tokyo. 

Two hours by train, that was nothing. People in dramas survived oceans. Harua and Maki could survive the Saitama line.

That’s what they told themselves.

At first, they tried.

Harua called every night from his new marketing job , the one with the view of the skyline and the kind of salary that made his parents proud. He’d talk about campaigns, deadlines, brand synergy, all those grown‑up words that made Maki’s head spin.

Maki would listen, sprawled across his futon, nodding even though Harua couldn’t see.

“That sounds great, baby,” he’d say.

“You’re not listening,” Harua would reply.

“I am!”

“What did I just say?”

“…Something about fonts?”

“Media segmentation.”

“Same thing.”

It used to make Harua laugh. Now it just made him sigh.

They started running out of things to say.

The calls got shorter.

Ten minutes became five.

Five became I’ll text you tomorrow.

When Harua came down on weekends, he was polite, efficient, distant. He’d kiss Maki hello, drop his bag, and immediately start answering emails.

He’d tell Maki he was “so tired lately.”

He was always tired lately.

Maki told himself not to take it personally. Work was stressful. Tokyo was expensive. Harua was building a future for both of them.

Except he never said both anymore.

He just said I’m busy.

Then there was Jun, the senior from the sculpture department.

Jun had a messy smile, chain‑smoked, and laughed like everything was slightly stupid. He wasn’t Maki’s type, except maybe he was exactly Maki’s type right then, alive, nearby, uncomplicated.

They started sharing cigarettes after class. Then lunches. Then whole afternoons in the studio, sitting too close, saying nothing they should.

Jun never asked about Harua, and Maki never brought him up.

It wasn’t cheating.

Not really.

But when Jun brushed paint from his cheek one afternoon and Maki didn’t flinch, didn’t move, didn’t stop him, something in him shifted, small but irreversible.

He didn’t tell Harua.

Because Harua never asked.

The next call, Maki tried to flirt again, just to test the temperature.

“Remember when you used to beg for nudes?” he teased.

“I’m at work, Maki.”

“It’s ten p.m.”

“I’m still at work.”

“Oh.”

Silence. Harua sighed. “Can we not do this right now?”

Maki smiled even though his throat ached. “Sure. Sorry.”

After they hung up, he sat in the dark for a long time, phone still warm in his hand, realizing he’d said sorry more times than I love you that month.

When they finally broke up, it wasn’t a fight.

It was a pause that neither could fill.

Harua said, “I think we need space.”

Maki said, “We already have it.”

Harua said, “This isn’t forever.”

Maki said, “I know.”

And meant the opposite.

They didn’t hang up so much as drift apart , one in Tokyo, one in Saitama, both pretending they were doing the adult thing, that love could survive being rescheduled.

Later that week, Maki found Jun smoking behind the sculpture hall and took the cigarette right out of his mouth.

“Bad day?” Jun asked.

Maki exhaled. “Graduation season.”

Jun nodded. “Congrats?”

Maki laughed, one short, hollow sound.

“Yeah. Something like that.”

**

Maki’s graduation day 

The art school courtyard was full of bad hats, sweaty hugs, and half-finished sculptures covered in glitter and regret.

Maki stood at the edge of the crowd, gown unzipped, mortarboard askew, blinking against the sun. He was holding a warm can of soda and trying not to cry, not because he was sad, but because he was exhausted. And maybe a little lost.

Jun had kissed him earlier and said, “Don’t get all sentimental, okay?”

Maki didn’t. He just said, “Thanks for being around.”

But now the crowd was thinning. Faculty lined up for photos. Parents held up signs. Someone was playing a cover of “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” on an out-of-tune acoustic guitar.

And then,

A voice behind him.

“Hey.”

Maki turned.

Harua stood there holding a bouquet of white daisies and sunflowers, Maki’s favorites, stupidly, and wearing a shirt that was slightly wrinkled, like he’d taken the train without sitting down.

They just stared at each other for a long second. Two months gone.

A hundred things unsaid.

“I didn’t think you’d come,” Maki said finally.

“I didn’t plan to,” Harua admitted. “But I missed you.”

His voice cracked on the you.

Maki didn’t say anything.

Harua took a shaky breath and held out the flowers. “Please don’t make me do a whole speech. I’m not good at those.”

Maki reached for them. “Are these real or apology plastic?”

“Real. For once.”

Pause.

Harua’s fingers hovered just near Maki’s wrist.

“I know I messed up. And I know you probably moved on.” He looked down, swallowed. “But I haven’t. I tried. I went on dates, I did everything right, but all I wanted was to hear you laugh at your own dumb jokes again. Or show me some terrifying sculpture in progress. Or,” his voice wavered “just come home to your arms. That was my favorite place in the whole damn city.”

Maki blinked fast. “You practiced this, didn’t you?”

“Half of it. The crying part’s improv.”

They both laughed. Quietly.

“Can we not talk about the breakup?” Harua said, eyes shining now. “Or who we were with or what we did when we were stupid and alone. Just can we start from now?”

Maki looked down at the flowers in his hands.

Then he dropped them on the bench beside him, stepped forward, and wrapped his arms around Harua like it had been a year instead of eight weeks. Like they hadn’t lost each other at all.

Harua buried his face in Maki’s shoulder.

“You smell like clay,” he mumbled.

“You smell like desperation,” Maki whispered back.

“Still want me?”

“Always.”

Behind them, Yuma, who had been taking selfies nearby, muttered,

“Oh my god, again?”

But Harua and Maki didn’t hear either of him.

Because for the first time in months, they weren’t apart anymore. And that was enough.

** 

Present day 

The chair across from Harua was empty.

Dr. Yamamoto didn’t comment on it. She just offered him tea like usual and clicked her pen softly before asking,

“Do you want to talk about today?”

Harua looked at the couch where Maki should have been. Legs crossed. Smiling awkwardly. Making a joke to cut the tension.

But Maki wasn’t there.

And Harua was tired of pretending that didn’t matter.

“He said he was sick,” Harua murmured. “Texted twenty minutes before. No follow-up.”

Dr. Yamamoto nodded. “How did that make you feel?”

Harua laughed. Just once, dry and sharp. “Tired. Which I already was, so,bonus.”

A pause. Dr. Yamamoto waited.

Harua rubbed the bridge of his nose and exhaled. “It’s always like this. Maki’s extremes. He’s either cleaning the entire apartment at two a.m., folding the towels into origami, reorganizing the bookshelves by vibe—“

“You mean theme?”

“No. Vibe. Like ‘books that feel orange.’” Harua shook his head. “Or he’s sleeping on the couch surrounded by empty mugs and chips. Wearing the same shirt for three days. Missing class.”

“Have you told him how that impacts you?”

“Yes. I’ve told him. He always says sorry. He always means it. And then it happens again.”

Dr. Yamamoto nodded again, jotting something down.

“And it’s not just the apartment,” Harua went on, voice cracking at the edges now. “It’s everything. He’s either winning Teacher of the Year or calling in because he got wasted with Taki and forgot it was Monday.”

He stopped. Looked at the ceiling like the words might make more sense if he aimed them upward.

“I know he’s depressed,” he said finally. “I know. But I don’t know how to reach him. I try to give him space, I try to be gentle, I try yelling, I’ve tried everything. I don’t even know who I’m talking to half the time.”

Dr. Yamamoto waited a beat, then said softly, “Do you feel alone in the relationship?”

Harua closed his eyes.

Then opened them again, slower this time.

“Sometimes I think the only time he really sees me is when we’re having sex. Or when I’m about to walk out.”

“That sounds painful.”

“It is.”

He ran a hand through his hair, still in his work clothes, jacket crumpled on the chair beside him.

“I came today,” he said. “Because it mattered to me. Because we matter to me.”

Dr. Yamamoto gave him a small, compassionate smile. “That’s why this still has a chance. Because you still care.”

Harua let out a breath. “I just wish I didn’t feel like I’m the only one fighting for us.”

Silence stretched between them again.

And Harua wished, more than anything, that Maki had walked through that door.

Even if he was late.

Even if he was hungover.

At least he’d be here.

** 

Two days later 

Harua was slow tonight.

Not gentle, not soft, slow.

Like he knew exactly what Maki could handle, exactly when to give more, exactly how long to keep Maki right there, trembling and undone, without ever letting him fall apart completely.

Maki’s legs were still around his waist, thighs shaking, hips open and aching. Harua was inside him, deep, steady, maddening, and Maki couldn’t think straight.

God. He always forgot how good this was. Not just the sex, but this.

The way Harua held his gaze.

The way his hand stayed pressed flat against Maki’s stomach, like he was grounding him.

The way Maki felt, split open, endless.

That’s what it was.

That’s what he always thought, every single time:

Endless.

Like his body had no end and Harua could just keep going, filling every hollow place that life or time or past fights had left in him. Like there was no shame here. No distance. No arguments or missed calls or cracked phones or slammed doors.

Just this.

Just them.

Maki arched his back and moaned, high and helpless, and Harua leaned down instantly, lips brushing his cheek, breath hot.

“I’ve got you,” Harua murmured. “I’ve always got you.”

Maki squeezed his eyes shut, chest shaking with it. “Why do we break up so much?” he whispered.

Harua stilled for a second, like the question had knocked the air out of him.

Then he kissed Maki’s shoulder and thrust again, slow, deep, ruinous.

Maki gasped, nails digging into Harua’s arms. “We’re so good at this,” he said, half-laughing, half-crying. “Why do we keep fucking it up?”

Harua didn’t answer right away.

He just moved again, hips rolling slow and heavy, like he could love the answer into him instead of speaking it.

Maki’s breath hitched.

He didn’t need a reply.

Because he already knew it.

They were good at this.

But this wasn’t all there was.

**

2019 

They had been dating for six weeks.

Officially.

Unofficially, Maki had been obsessed for longer, and Harua had been pretending not to be obsessed for slightly longer than that.

That night, they were alone in Maki’s dorm. The lights were low. There was bad jazz playing on a Bluetooth speaker. Someone in the hall was yelling about losing their charcoal pencils.

Harua pushed Maki back onto the bed, straddling him with more confidence than he had any right to wield. The room was too hot, the air thick with anticipation and cheap citrus candle smoke, but Harua didn’t care. His hands planted firmly on Maki’s chest, lips meeting his in a slow, deliberate kiss that made Maki’s fingers twitch against the sheets.

Maki let out a pleased little hum , all teeth and heat , and dragged his hands up Harua’s thighs.

“You’re really hot when you boss me around,” he murmured.

Harua smirked. “I’m always hot.”

Then he leaned back down to kiss him again, but,

“Wait,” Maki said breathlessly, “are you, do you want to,?”

“Yeah,” Harua said, flushed but determined. “I want to. Do you?”

Maki nodded, dazed. “Absolutely. I just, uh, I kind of assumed you were…”

Harua blinked. “What?”

“Y’know. The one who, like…”

Maki made a vague, floppy hand motion. The universal sign for “I’m about to say something stupid.”

Harua stared at him. Unmoving. Unblinking.

“…bottoms,” Maki finished, voice pitching up at the end like he hoped that made it sound less offensive.

Harua pulled back like Maki had just insulted his taste in fonts.

“Excuse me?”

“I didn’t mean, I just, you wear skinny jeans! And you have feelings!”

“Wow,” Harua said flatly. “You sound like a bigot.”

“I’m not!” Maki held his hands up defensively. “I just thought, you know, you are, emotional, polished, generally terrifying,”

“I’m a top,” Harua said, arms crossing over his chest.

“Oh. Okay. Wow. I love that for you. Surprise twist! Plot development!”

Harua narrowed his eyes. “Are you mocking me?”

“No! I’m adjusting my worldview in real time!”

“You’re such an idiot.”

“Your idiot,” Maki said quickly, trying to recover. “Your very adaptable, sexually open-minded idiot.”

“Shut up,” Harua said, but he was already leaning back in.

Maki grinned against his mouth. “See, this is why I assumed.”

Harua pulled away again. “Why?”

“You’re bossy and moody. It felt like classic bottom behavior.”

Harua let out a long, exasperated breath and shoved Maki’s shoulder. “Say one more word and I’ll make you beg.”

“Oh no,” Maki said, already breathless again, “so tragic for me.”

They stared at each other. The room buzzed with tension, heat and want and the wild, stupid feeling of being young and naked with someone who made you crazy.

Harua kissed him again, harder this time. “You’re lucky you’re cute.”

Maki beamed up at him. “And you’re lucky you’re hot and emotionally repressed. Truly the full package.”

“Maki.”

“Right. Shutting up now.”

Ten minutes later, the sex was…

Fine.

Mostly.

There was a lot of fumbling. Some mismatched rhythm. Maki said “ow” once and then immediately apologized. Harua’s foot cramped. They knocked over a bottle of Gatorade on the nightstand.

At one point, Maki said, “Is this, are we doing it?” and Harua nearly got up and left.

Afterward, they lay side by side, staring at the ceiling like they’d just survived a minor earthquake.

“Well,” Maki said eventually, “that happened.”

Harua pulled the blanket over his face. “Don’t ever speak to me again.”

“I thought it was kind of nice. In a traumatic kind of way.”

“Shut up, Maki.”

The next day, Harua marched into the campus café, dropped his bag, and slammed his hands on Yuma’s table.

Yuma didn’t look up from his croissant. “So, how was it?”

“I’m never having sex again.”

“That bad?”

“Do you know how much lube is required? Because I didn’t! And Maki talks during. Like, narration.”

“Oh my god, he does that during critiques too.”

“I think I sprained something.”

Yuma took a slow sip of his coffee. “Try again.”

Harua glared. “What?”

“You heard me. The first time is always a mess. Try again. Have a do-over. Learn the choreography.”

“We’re not performing Swan Lake, Yuma.”

“Could’ve fooled me with how dramatic you are.”

They tried again two nights later. No jazz. No Gatorade. Less pressure.

Maki lit a stupid candle. Harua laughed. They kissed slower. Smiled more. Talked less.

And that time?

It was good.

Not perfect. But better. Real. Warm.

When it was over, Maki curled into Harua’s side, breath slowing, and whispered, “That felt like something.”

Harua didn’t answer. He just kissed the top of Maki’s head.

He’d tell Yuma it was “still mid,” but he’d say it while smiling into his phone.

**

Present day 

The breakup didn’t come with screaming.

No doors slammed. No one cheated. No one threw anything, for once.

It was just late.

A Tuesday.

Harua was folding laundry. Maki was sitting on the floor, cross-legged, drawing with headphones in.

And Harua said,

“I don’t think I can do this anymore.”

Maki looked up, startled.

His stylus fell out of his fingers while he waited for the punchline.

But there wasn’t one.

Harua moved out the following week.

He took the ceramic mug he made at that one couples’ pottery class, his three nice sweaters, and most of the clean towels.

He left the plants. The couch. A note taped to the fridge that said:

please try to eat real food

• H
  
  

Taki moved in a week later.

With a suitcase, a pan, and a vow to keep Maki “physically alive and emotionally attached.”

The friend group fractured like glass under pressure.

Yuma made a shared Google Calendar so people could schedule time to see Harua and Maki separately.

No one said the word custody, but it hung in the air like secondhand smoke.

Harua stopped going to house parties. Maki stopped going to brunch.

Yuma refused to take sides, but one time Taki posted a photo of Maki laughing and Harua didn’t like it.

It stayed that way for a while.

Maki tried dating.

Half-hearted, nervous. People who were kind, or hot, or both, but none of them tilted their head like Harua when they didn’t believe something.

None of them knew how he took his tea.

None of them loved him through the silence.

So he stopped trying.

He started working out again.

Started therapy.

Started meds.

And slowly, achingly slowly, he got better.

Some days still sucked. Some weeks, even.

But then one morning he woke up and it wasn’t awful. The air wasn’t too heavy. The room wasn’t too loud. He didn’t miss Harua so much he forgot how to move.

He just got up.

Made eggs.

Laughed at something stupid Taki said.

And didn’t cry about it.

Then Nicholas and Euijoo got engaged.

Then they planned a wedding in a castle or a vineyard or some equally dramatic location.

And suddenly, everyone was flying in, dressing up, showing up.

Maki didn’t think about it too much until he walked into the rehearsal, and saw him.

Harua.

First across the room. Talking to Fuma. Wearing a black suit jacket rolled at the sleeves. Laughing at something.

And it was like time crumpled in on itself.

Not in a flashback way.

Just in a heart-hits-the-wall-of-your-ribs kind of way.

Harua turned.

Their eyes met.

And for a second,

just a second, they were nineteen and eighteen again.

The night of that party.

The first kiss.

The worst fight.

The morning after sex when Maki cried for no reason and Harua just held him until it stopped.

All of it.

Maki looked down.

Then back up.

And smiled.

Harua smiled back. A little tired. A little warm.

Like maybe he was okay too.

It didn’t mean anything.

Not yet.

But it didn’t hurt.

And that was something.

Maybe even enough.

The castle had a terrace.

It overlooked a garden of white flowers that glowed under the moonlight. The wedding planners had strung lanterns along the stone railing, casting soft gold across the flagstone. Somewhere inside, Nicholas was drunkenly toasting to “found family” while Euijoo told the caterers exactly how to plate the cake.

Harua stepped out for air.

And Maki was already there.

Leaning against the railing. Alone. A champagne flute in one hand. Hair mussed like he’d been running his hands through it all night.

He looked back when he heard the door.

Their eyes met. Not like earlier. Slower. Softer. No audience this time.

“Hey,” Maki said.

“Hey,” Harua replied.

No one moved.

After a moment, Harua joined him at the railing.

The silence wasn’t awkward. It was familiar. Worn in like a hoodie you forgot you loved.

Maki didn’t look at him when he spoke next. “They’re really doing it.”

Harua nodded. “They are.”

“Think we could’ve pulled that off?” Maki asked, voice light but not joking.

Harua didn’t answer right away.

“I think we tried,” he said finally.

Maki nodded slowly. “Yeah. We really did.”

Another pause. Then:

“You look good,” Harua said.

Maki smiled into his glass. “So do you.”

“I saw the photo of your students painting that mural. That was amazing.”

“They’re better than me already,” Maki said. “Which is either inspiring or offensive.”

Harua huffed a laugh. “Definitely both.”

The silence after that stretched a little longer. But it wasn’t empty. It was heavy with almosts.

And then,

“I’ve missed this,” Maki said. Quiet. Raw.

Harua looked at him.

Maki met his gaze.

“I’ve missed you,” he said.

Harua’s chest tightened.

He looked away first. “Don’t say that unless you mean it.”

“I always mean it,” Maki said.

“And it always breaks us anyway.”

“I know,” Maki murmured. “But right now, standing here, it doesn’t feel broken.”

Harua closed his eyes.

The breeze was cool. The lanterns flickered. Inside, someone dropped a wine glass, and a round of laughter followed.

“I’m not saying let’s try again,” Maki said. “I just… I wanted to be near you tonight.”

Harua opened his eyes.

And turned toward him.

“Then stay,” he said. “Just for tonight.”

Maki nodded.

They didn’t kiss.

They didn’t touch.

But they stood there for a long time, side by side, looking out at the dark garden like it still held something worth waiting for.

** 

2019 

It was raining. Of course it was.

Maki’s studio window was cracked just enough to let in the sound of it, and Harua was sitting on the floor, arms crossed, watching Maki try to clean his potting wheel and argue at the same time.

“I just don’t get why you shut down like that,” Maki said, not looking at him. “It’s like, the second I ask you how you feel, you turn into a cryptid.”

“I’m not a cryptid.”

“You are definitely a cryptid,” Maki muttered. “You disappear emotionally, you hiss when touched, and no one’s sure if you sleep.”

Harua rolled his eyes, hard. “Jesus, Maki.”

“I’m serious! I tell you things. You don’t tell me things. That’s not a relationship, that’s a performance review.”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Being here isn’t the same as being real, Haru.”

Maki always got like this when he was sculpting, open, soft, volatile in ways Harua never quite knew how to answer. Harua liked lines. Clean ones. Edges. Definitions. Maki liked mess. He lived in mess.

And Harua had been fine with it.

Until he wasn’t.

Until tonight. Until the feeling hit him like a brick to the chest while Maki was talking about some fourth-year student who mixed tempera wrong and laughed about it.

And Harua just sat there thinking:

Oh. God. I’m in love with him.

And it scared the hell out of him.

So now he was picking a fight, because fights felt easier than truth.

“Why does it matter so much to you what I say?”

“Because I want to know you!” Maki snapped. “Is that so horrible? Is it so weird that I want to know how your brain works when you’re not pretending everything’s fine?”

“I’m not pretending!”

“You are! You shut down the second things get real! You act like it’s wrong to care about anything!”

“That’s not fair.”

“It’s true! I tell you I like you, you flinch. I compliment your work, you deflect. I say I miss you when you’re not around, and you,what? You ignore it, like it’s clingy?”

“I don’t,”

“Then say something! Say one real thing!”

“I’M IN LOVE WITH YOU!”

Silence.

Rain. Breathing. Paint water dripping from a brush onto the floor.

Maki stood there, stunned. Eyes wide. Mouth slightly open.

Harua looked like he’d been electrocuted by his own voice.

“I…” he tried. Then stopped.

Maki blinked. “What?”

Harua swallowed hard. “I’m in love with you. Okay? There. I said it.”

Maki didn’t speak.

Harua ran a hand through his hair, frustrated. “I didn’t plan to. I didn’t want to. I just, suddenly I knew. And it freaked me out, and now I’m yelling, and, God, I’m bad at this.”

Maki stepped forward, very slowly. “Say it again.”

“No.”

“Please?”

Harua’s throat burned. “I’m in love with you.”

Maki smiled. Soft, stunned, like it hurt.

“Cool,” he whispered.

Harua blinked. “Cool?”

Maki nodded, eyes glassy. “Yeah. Because I’ve been in love with you for months and it’s been so hard not to say it first.”

Harua stared at him. “You have?”

“Of course I have,” Maki said. “Have you met you? You’re infuriating and hot and smart and terrifying and you make me want to be better. Even when I hate you a little.”

“I hate you a little right now,” Harua whispered.

Maki stepped closer. “Still love me?”

Harua nodded. “Unfortunately.”

Maki grinned. “I love you too.”

And just like that, the fight was over.

Maki pulled him up from the floor and into his arms, and Harua clung to him like the room had tilted.

And outside, the rain kept falling, loud, steady, familiar. 

The moment stood like a mountain. Vast, immovable, and certain to outlast them both.