Archive of Our Own ^beta

The air is orange. The modes of dust dance in the air, casting almost imperceptible shadows across Baji’s eyes. The light flickers over the heavy summer air, dust turning into glitter as it ripples from the artificial wind made by the rattling air conditioner. Baji raises his hand up, watching the dust curl around his fingers. He fans himself, disrupting the balance of the air as the dust turns chaotic, frantically twisting and turning in the air. It's too hot. And the remote for the air conditioner is all the way across the room. 

If only Chifuyu could get here faster. 

Baji sighs, looking over his room again from atop his bed. His room is messy. And dusty, clearly. He should clean it. But the air is oppressing his body—pushing him down and making his muscles loose and tired. Baji swears in his head, but even that is lackluster. The air is shiny and the room is glowing in the light. Hopefully it'll rain tomorrow. The air conditioner rattles and hums more, grating on Baji’s melted nerves. 

A car honks outside. Voices yell. Baji rolls out of bed, and pulls open his window. It seems like Chifuyu has arrived. He was currently arguing with Omaka-san, a cranky old lady who had tried more than a dozen times to convince Baji’s mom to send him to reform school. She made stellar cookies. 

Chifuyu flips a middle finger at her, and strides into the apartment complex, Omaka-san looking with dismay at Chifuyu’s bike parked and chained up on the sidewalk. Baji smirks. Chifuyu’s pretty cool.

“Baji-san!” Chifuyu’s voice sounds through the small apartment, and three knocks rap from the front door. Baji shuffles through the apartment. His pants are too long on him, and fold under his heels as he opens the door. 

“Hey,” Baji mutters, turning back around and pulling out some popsicles from the freezer. “Saw you yelling at Omaka-san.”

Chifuyu exhales a laugh, grabbing a popsicle from Baji’s hand. Their fingers brush against each other. The crinkling of the popsicle wrapper squeaks in Baji’s ears. “Yeah. S’hot out though. I wanted to see you… didn’t want Oma lecturing me.” 

Baji’s ears felt hot, and he bit a bit of the popsicle off, reveling in its coolness. “What took you so long, though?”

“To yell at Omaka-san?”

“What? No, to get here. I was waitin’ around.”

A drip falls to the ground from Chifuyu’s popsicle, and Baji leads him into his bedroom, hitting the air conditioner as he walks in. “I was just running errands.” 

It’s an obvious lie.

“Cool.” Baji sighs as the air conditioner sputters and chokes. “Wanna head to the beach?”

“Um. Sure?” Chifuyu probably doesn't want to go. But as Baji tosses his now empty popsicle stick, with an annoying little scribble on it saying you’re a winner! Chifuyu scrambles up after him, sticking the popsicle in his mouth and quickly follows after Baji. The front door closes with a bang, Baji lazily locks the door, and trips down the stairs.

—

The beach isn’t hot. In fact, the breeze blowing off of the murky water makes Baji shiver. Chifuyu glances over at him, then down at the ground. Baji breathes in deep, feels his lungs hurt from the cold air in them. 

“Chifuyu.” Chifuyu starts, looking at Baji with alert eyes. Funny guy. “What’s your favorite color?”

Baji already has an idea of what Chifuyu will say. He may have not known the guy for that long, but for some reason, Baji feels like he knows… a lot about Chifuyu. 

“Dark blue.” 

Chifuyu likes birds and cats. He gets embarrassed easily, but still makes a fool of himself without regret. He doesn’t like melons or blood. 

“Why?”

Baji had thought Chifuyu’s favorite color was light red. When Chifuyu had watched the sunset instead of paying attention at a Toman meeting a few weeks ago the sky had been a rainbow of red. Chifuyu’s never looked at blue things that much.

Chifuyu doesn’t respond to Baji’s question, which is rare. Huh. Baji will need to pay more attention to Chifuyu and the color blue now.

A yelp down at the beach grabs Baji’s attention. There’s a gaggle of teenagers crowding around each other, all in varying styles of bathing suits. Baji doesn’t like teenagers. Neither does Chifuyu. 

“Baji-san. Why’d we go to this beach?” Chifuyu shuffles on the fence they sit on.

“‘Cause it’s cooler, dumbass.”

“Oh, yeah. Yeah. It’s cool.” Baji sighs internally. Chifuyu’s endearing.

“I meant that it’s not as hot.”

“Oh. No, no, I got that. Yeah. Um… are you cold?”

Baji cocks his head. “Huh?”

Chifuyu looks away from Baji and pauses for a moment, before almost yelling out, “ARE YOU COLD?” Baji chuckles. Chifuyu’s funny.

“A lil’, I guess.”

“Nice, nice. Well, no not nice, but like…” Chifuyu swears under his breath. “Do you want my coat? I have one that I keep in a compartment in my bike so maybe if you’re cold—which you are—you would want it? Maybe?” Baji nods, and Chifuyu scrambles up, speed-walking back to their bikes.

Chifuyu just might be worming his way into Baji’s heart. “ Fuck .” 

“What was that, Baji-san?” Chifuyu unceremoniously drops his jacket in Baji’s lap. 

“Nothin’,” Baji mutters, “Thanks for the jacket, though.”

He tugs it on. It’s kinda short on his arms, but the warmth is undeniable. They sit in silence together for a while, as the tide slowly goes out. 

“Um. Baji-san?” Baji hums. “Do you like Ri-chan?” Ri-chan ? Who is that? And why bring them up now?

The winds whistles past Baji’s ears, and he shivers, the heat of an hour ago far away in his mind. The teenagers down on the sand holler to each other, packing things up. A guy shrieks as the wind grabs his hat. Two girls share a blanket as they stumble through the sand.

“Why do you ask?” Ri-chan was in Chifuyu’s class, he remembers. Once when he was skipping with Mikey, he had peered into Chifuyu’s class to point him out to Mikey, and a girl named ‘Ri-chan’ had been solving some number problem thing on the board. “Do you like her?” Baji doesn’t really want Chifuyu to like her. She seemed annoying, for some reason. 

“Oh! No, I don’t like her. She asked me about you, though, so I just thought I’d ask…”

Baji feels angry for some reason. Sorta wants to punch Ri-chan. Or Chifuyu. Not really Chifuyu. Maybe just some random stranger. “Well I don’t like her, so there.” 

“Oh, okay.” Chifuyu smiles, “Good.”

“Huh?” What does Chifuyu mean, good ?

“I just… I didn’t want you to like her,” Chifuyu brazenly states. There he goes again saying dumb stuff and not caring about the consequences.

Baji thinks about consequences. The consequences of burning cars? Don’t matter. The consequences of continuing this conversation? They might matter. 

But who even cares. “Why not?” If Chifuyu says something Baji doesn’t like, then he’ll deal with it.

“I— ugh.” Chifuyu tries several more times, to no avail, and Baji’s honestly starting to get a little cranky. 

“What is it? Do you have a crush on me or somethin’?” Chifuyu’s eyes widen in terror, his mouth opening and closing several times. He sits, frozen and balancing on the fence like a wave before it crashes. 

“Uh-huh.”

Baji thinks about consequences some more before replying.

“Good.”

—

That evening, when the sunset is pink and blue, Baji and Chifuyu arrive back at the apartment. It’s not hot anymore.

Rain falls on Baji and Chifuyu like the drips of a melting popsicle, and they smile. Good.