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Toya Aoyagi usually sleeps early, following a routine of returning home, eating dinner, completing his homework and any necessary chores, reading for an hour, then going to sleep early. Today however, was not a routine day.
A few hours earlier, Akito and Toya had arrived at Ken's doorstep, and were welcomed in by An, who was in the middle of reorganizing the furniture with Kohane, freeing up some space for them all to relax and stay for the night. Right now, Toya was lying down in front of the TV in An and Ken's lounge room, staring attentively at the screen, two hours after midnight. After a delectable dinner prepared by Ken, who had taken the opportunity to test some possible new menu items, all four members of Vivid BAD SQUAD spent a considerable portion of the night watching and mocking the various infomercials that aired as a steady stream of content on a channel they had found. Some of the products advertised were tailored to such specific circumstances, that any demonstrations seemed ridiculous and unrealistic. An in particular had found much entertainment in parodying the various pitches, coming up with increasingly specific products that an average person would never need or want, such as a device designed to help someone give a cat a dinosaur looking haircut.
Toya, looking away from the infomercial he had been watching for the last 15 minutes, had his attention drawn towards two individuals, noticing that at some point, all of his friends had gone silent.
An and Kohane were asleep on the floor next to him. Despite An's boasts of how late she'd stay up, and her warnings of incoming pranks, the moment a half-asleep Kohane grabbed her by the sleeve of her shirt, she was rendered incapable of keeping her word on any of those claims. The two, lying on their sides and facing each other, had their fingers laced together. Kohane, curled up, had pulled An's hands close to her, unintentionally placing a soft kiss on the taller girl's knuckles. An took up more space on the lounge room floor, with her legs sprawled out, and her pillow somehow halfway across the room. Toya wasn't sure how it got there, though he was mildly impressed. Even while asleep, their personalities were distinctive, reflected even by the ways they curled or sprawled.
What about Akito? Toya thought about his partner, recalling the amount of variation in the way he would have his naps.
The ginger had dozed off during school on occasion. Once after working himself to the point of exhaustion, dedicating himself to improvement whilst disregarding his gradually deteriorating state, Akito, already disinterested the topics being taught that day, made the mistake of resting his head on his palm, the closest thing he had to a pillow. Then, his eyes began to close, prompting him to force them open once more, repeating this process of closing and opening, until he drifted off. Toya learnt of this incident from one of Akito's classmates, who found some degree of amusement in the sleeping boy's barely audible requests for pancakes. It was a wonder that he wasn't caught or punished for this, though perhaps his teacher had noticed, but sympathized after seeing those dark rings around his eyes.
Another time he had fallen asleep during school was during lunch. This had happened multiple times and was an occurrence Toya welcomed. Toya, sitting in a quiet area, with his legs outstretched in front of him, usually reading a book, would be snapped out of his book induced trance by the sudden sensation of his partner lying down on his lap. Akito would usually be napping peacefully within minutes after lying down like this, leaving Toya to wake him up near the end of their break. During these moments, Akito would look up at Toya with awe in his eyes. Once, Toya had asked why, and received an honest reply, accompanied by the visual of a slight blush beginning to form on his partner's cheeks.
"You look happy when you read those books. It's a good look on you."
Akito had failed to realize the real reason for that subtle smile on Toya's face.
He wasn't always a calm sleeper. Once after losing a competition that took place late at night, Toya, Ken, and An overheard a string of statements from the fourth person in their car, whose hand was clenched tightly. "Damn that sucks... really sucks... ugh..." Akito, leaning against the window, grumbled, his eyes tightly shut, brows furrowed, and vocabulary simplified in his unconscious and unsatisfied state. An peeked over her seat to look at her two friends, and saw Toya with his hands half raised in an awkward manner, and a distressed expression, as he struggled to decide whether he should wake his partner. Though, this ended up being a choice he didn't need to make, as Ken hit the brakes, thanks to the driver in front of them.
So, where was Akito right now?
Toya had been thinking under the assumption that his orange haired counterpart was already asleep, since previous examples made it seem like he could achieve that with ease, but when Toya looked behind him, he saw that Akito's pillow and blanket were where he expected, unlike Akito himself. He had been there earlier, lying on his back with his arms crossed under his blanket, a pose he would often adopt during his naps. Toya hadn't heard him leave, serving as a reminder that the informercial was still playing on the TV at a high volume. With slight guilt, Toya turned down the volume, silently apologizing to An and Kohane, even though it didn't seem to have impacted them in the slightest.
He stood up, careful not to make any excessive noise. For some reason, some sort of childlike curiosity, he wanted to know where Akito had gone at an hour this late. Noticing a slightly open door, Toya walked over, looking through the gap, as a breeze came through, blowing some strands of hair in front of his narrow eyes. His slightly obscured gaze fell upon the sight before him: Akito, sitting on the balcony, his legs swinging off the edge at a calm pace. Toya followed his line of sight, which was directed towards the cloudless sky above them, which seemed to open up into an endless expanse of stars. Was the night sky always like this? Looking back at his partner, Toya saw what was in his hand: a small plush toy, a blue sea slug that Toya recognized as one from a claw machine at the arcade. It too was looking upwards (really, was there some sort of meteorological phenomenon happening today that Toya hadn't heard about?) With his other hand, Akito gently patted the slug on the top of its head, as if he was handling a small pet.
Toya had been staring for a while. Probably too long, he concluded, so his lips parted, but his words refused to leave his mouth, something he would soon be grateful for. He watched silently has Akito looked down at his plush sea slug. he fumbled with the soft creature, rotating it to make eye contact, an adorable scene that Toya burned into his memory. Wait- were Akito's cheeks slightly redder than usual? Toya noted this resolving to catch more sea slug plushies for his partner. Toya himself had one, though in a different colour, though he planned to keep this one. It was one of the only plushies Toya had kept, with its small size allowing it to fit in his bag, away from the prying and disapproving eyes of his father. Akito's parents didn't seem to have any issues with the shocking amount of plushies Toya had given to Ena, with Akito acting as the middleman for the plush transfer. The corners of Toya's lips curled up slightly, as he realized that both he and his partner had held onto the same type of plush toy, despite usually passing them to others. Akito must really like sea slugs.
After a few moments of observing the aforementioned plush, Akito leaned back, while shuffling away from the edge of the balcony, and was now lying on the floor. Holding the slug with both hands wrapped around its waist, (could that be called a waist? Does that term apply to sea slugs?) he straightened his arms, raising the slug above his head. Cue another brief moment of slug observation.
Eventually, he broke eye contact with the slug, tilting his head to the side, before pulling the slug close to him again, wrapping his arms around it, in a pose Toya recognized as one of his more common napping poses. This was Toya's cue to fetch Akito's blanket and pillow. Lying on the floor whilst exposed to the cool nighttime breeze might lead to him waking up with a sore neck or a cold, neither of which Toya would let happen. He went back to where An and Kohane slumbered, still clinging to each other's hands. He picked Akito's blanket off the floor, struggling to find its corners so that he could fold it tidily so that it wouldn't drag across the floor as he carried it. The pillow was much less of a hassle, able to be simply picked up and carried with his other hand. Almost stepping on Kohane, who had begun to sprawl out on the floor similarly to An, though to a lesser extent, Toya snuck past the two, back to where Akito was either asleep, or soon to be.
Or at least, that's what Toya expected. Akito, now lying on his side, had the sea slug plush placed on the floor in front of his face. He was doing it again, establishing prolonged eye contact with his plush, though this time, his brows were creased, and his eyes narrow. Toya opened the door, stepping lightly onto the balcony, pillow and blanket in hand. Akito, finally noticing the taller boy's presence opened his eyes wide, as Toya crouched down by his side.
"Toya...? How long were you there?"
"A few moments." Toya's reply was quiet and gentle, as he delicately lifted Akito's head, sliding the pillow underneath. "You'll hurt your neck like that. What are you doing out here?" "Hmm. Just... thinking. Yeah, I was thinking." A vague reply. Toya wasn't good at figuring out what people were thinking, and this was no different from usual. Should he pry a little? His partner didn't seem stressed or otherwise uncomfortable like the last time he was being this vague.
Akito propped himself up, once again looking upward.
"Hey, Toya."
"Yes?"
"It's weird. Even out here, no pillow, no blanket, wind blowing my hair into my eyes, it's comfortable. How are you doing this, Toya?"
"What am I doing?"
Akito once again grabbed the plush sea slug, looking into its eyes as he squeezed it softly. "Ya know... being all calming and nice. Sometimes I can't stay awake around you, it's like you're some sorta sedative. Like, when you're reading, and you do that thing where you get kinda smiley and it's nice, and then moments later you're waking me up to say that our lunch break is almost over."
"But I'm not doing anything in particular?"
"That's what I don't get. It's not even anything specific, it's just you. You're comfort to me. You're doing something like that by just being around." Toya took a few seconds to process what he had just heard. Just by being around? Comfort? At some point during the conversation, Akito had stopped looking at the plush, with his gaze settling on Toya, drifting between his eyes, narrow and angled, his lips, pink and soft, and the spot under his left eye, a decoration on the boy's smooth skin. Seemingly simultaneously, the two partners realized how intently they had been staring at each other. Those shared and maintained glances were something An had joked about before, with Toya's usual blank stare often directed at Akito, whose discerning gaze naturally homed in on Toya's often unreadable expressions. Though, this time it seemed different, somehow it seemed more intimate. Neither of them knew when that gentle breeze had settled down, or when their faces, tinged with a darkening pink, had gotten so close to each other that they could hear each other's barely audible breaths. Somehow, all they knew was each other's presence, as if the rest of the world had dissolved into that immeasurably vast sky, leaving them as the center of a universe made only for them.
"Akito, can I try something?" Akito felt the gentle tap of Toya's finger on his lip. Those grey eyes looked at him so earnestly, reflecting his feelings back towards him, those warm ones he couldn't put into words.
He swallowed, taking a deep breath before replying in a shaky voice, "Yeah... Go ahead."
Toya's eyes, wide in his flustered stupor, narrowed as he moved closer, shutting lightly as Akito cupped his cheek.
Akito's eyes were still wide open. Was this really happening? Toya was right there, and now... they're really going to do this? He squeezed his eyes shut, holding his breath in anticipation, and leaned over.
Soft, warm, and gentle. If either of them had to describe how it felt when their lips made contact, those are the words they'd choose. It lasted only for a moment, a fleeting sensation that would linger even after they pulled apart. Their lips had met with a delicate hesitance stemming from a refusal to push each other too far, only pressing together lightly in this newfound and unfamiliar closeness.
When their eyes finally opened, all they knew to do was look at each other like they were being shown all the stars in the sky. Toya knew that if neither of them said anything, they might just end up spending the next half hour in their stupor.
"It's really late. We should get some rest..." He started to get up, planning to retrieve his pillow and blanket.
"Toya..." A hand wrapped around his wrist, trembling slightly. "Could you stay here?"
Akito was barely thinking when he reached out to grasp Toya's hand, barely missing, managing to grab his wrist instead. He had become rather clingy, though Toya clearly didn't mind. Akito, embarrassed, tried to take back his request, mumbling something along the lines of "never mind, it's better for you to sleep in the house like the others..." but Toya, glad to be wanted by Akito's side, sat back down, and leaned over. He grabbed Akito's blanket, unfolding it in a few swift motions, draping it over the ginger, who took the action as a prompt to lie back down on his pillow.
Toya lifted the blanket enough that he was able to shuffle under it, adjusting the oversized cloth sheet until he was comfortable. Once satisfied, he leaned back, and laid his head down on Akito's chest. The single pillow he had brought over earlier wasn't wide enough for both of them, and Toya wasn't planning to rest his head on the floor, though he quickly realized he preferred his current situation over any pillow. He preferred having an arm wrapped around his waist, holding him close, and the sensation of fingers running through his hair, easing out the few knots that had formed throughout the day. He preferred the sound of his partner's fluttering heartbeat gradually slowing to a calm lullaby, as the boy drifted off to sleep. He even preferred being called the "real thing" that was "better than the slug version" and somehow "cuter," and all the other things Akito had muttered before his voice, already much quieter than usual, trailed off.
Toya was comfort to Akito, but usually Akito was invigoration for Toya, He was the excitement over a simple plate of pancakes, the warmth of the overhead lights, and the sounds of music echoing throughout the night. But even if he could be all these things, right now he was safety and warmth. He was the feeling of being cared for, and caring in return. He was a silence without emptiness, with this peaceful moment they shared needing no words. Maybe this is what Akito meant when he mentioned comfort.
A few hours after dawn breaks, dyeing the horizon in shades of vibrant orange gradually fading into blue as the sun rises in the distance, they would wake, and be met with friendly jest from An, accompanied by Kohane, who had taken a photo to send to them at their request. They'd have a few more hours to spend as they please, and the end of it all they'd part, knowing they'd see each other the day overmorrow, and then Toya would return to that house. That cold building of dull memories, where he would miss the person currently wrapped up in an oversized blanket with him, and the other two who were currently just a room away.
But that didn't matter, because in this moment, it all disappeared into the night, because all he knew was the comfort of his partner, Akito Shinonome.
