Work Text:
It’s getting cold already, colder even than a few weeks ago, the last time Makishima sat in the outside bath at Toudou-an. It’s quieter this time, too. Toudou doesn’t seem to want to squabble or lecture him today. Maybe he’s saving it all up so he has something to call Makishima about next week when he’s gone.
For now, they sit in relatively companionable silence as Toudou slowly, meticulously works a wide-toothed comb through Makishima’s thick hair. He starts at the ends, unclipping a section at a time and leaving the rest of it up out of the water, carefully working out all the tangles, apologizing softly when he hits a snag. It feels strange to sense Toudou near and yet not hear him, but he seems satisfied enough focusing on his work.
He’d insisted. It’s not the first time he’s asked to comb Makishima’s hair, but it’s the first time Makishima has said yes. He’d seemed so serious about it, and if Makishima kept resisting, he’d have to think about why it matters so much to Toudou. And he’d rather not have to think about that too hard. Even accepting Toudou’s invitation for one last visit before he leaves was taking a risk. And of all the fussing Toudou might want to do over him today, hair care seems the safest; this way, Toudou is sitting behind him. If he smiles, Toudou won’t be able to see it.
Makishima’s hair is so thick and long it takes him forever to chase down all the tangles, even when it’s just been washed. He does think about cutting it sometimes. It hasn’t been that long since it was above his shoulders. But it turned out to be a good year, a year where he could be a little bit proud of being Makishima Yuusuke. He feels a little reluctant to get rid of part of that self, even if it is just dead proteins and hair dye. There’s enough he’s leaving behind already.
It’s a surprise to learn that Toudou can be quiet and gentle after all. He’s better at this than Makishima is at doing it himself. He doesn’t tug at the tangles in frustration like Makishima does; he pulls it close to his face, deft fingers softly unpicking the knot. He works as if Makishima’s hair was a treasure instead of something to be bleached and dyed and cursed into semi-submission. The intimacy of it sends chills down Makishima’s spine. It’s for the best this will be the last time.
The hair treatment Toudou applied for him probably helped with the tangles. Toudou had ushered him solemnly to a cupboard full of carefully hand-labeled bottles and made quite a show of picking one for him. “Camellia oil, seaweed, and horse fat,” he’d announced proudly. “For deep conditioning! It’ll help repair your cuticles after all that bleach.”
“What about this one?” Makishima had asked, reaching for a bottle of dark liquid with “JINPACHI” inked carefully on the side.
“Ah, not that!” Toudou had grabbed the bottle back, looking a bit guilty. “Elderberries, for a violet tint. Don’t try that over green hair, Maki-chan!”
“K’ha! So you dye your hair too!” He’d sometimes thought Toudou’s hair looked just a little bit purple, but he assumed he’d just been imagining. He didn’t think Toudou had secrets.
“I never said there was anything wrong with helping out your natural beauty,” Toudou pouted. “I didn’t get this beautiful without work, after all. A hint of violet accentuates my natural mystique. You just need to take better care of your hair’s condition while you do it, that’s all! At least this is natural and doesn’t take any bleach.”
He’d frowned a bit and tried to press a second bottle of the mixture he’d offered into Makishima’s hands. “Take some with you, I’ll feel better if I know you’re looking after yourself.”
“I’m pretty sure they have hair products in London. And I don’t want to explain to the customs agents why I have a bottle of horse fat.”
“At least take some camellia oil, who knows what sorts of things they have over there. They won’t understand your hair, you know, Maki-chan. I don’t understand your hair either, of course, but…”
“I’m definitely not the first Japanese person to move to London,” Makishima had grumbled, but he’d taken the camellia oil and made sure Toudou saw him tuck it into his bag.
Toudou had talked more then. At least before the conversation had turned to London.
Had the news shocked him that much? Did he think so confidently that the two of them would be able to stay the same forever? Makishima had always assumed Toudou’s overconfidence was at least partly an act, but from how shell-shocked he’s acting, maybe he really did never consider the possibility that Makishima wouldn’t always be around to keep him amused.
It’s not a very fair thought. He knows this as soon as it forms in his mind. He might not have realized how unfair it was before today, but the hands now carefully arranging his hair over his back so they can work their way through the hair closest to his scalp aren’t the hands of someone who’s only upset that he’ll have to find someone else that will pick up the phone. He touches Makishima like he’s a spun-sugar statue that might melt under a lingering hand. Makishima hates it. Toudou’s never treated him like he was fragile before.
Maybe he didn’t know how he would feel before now, either.
You can’t fault him for treating you like you’re going to run away, Yuusuke. You are running away. Not from Toudou precisely so much as from everything, himself especially. It had seemed like a better idea when he made the decision a year ago, before he’d found things about himself that he didn’t want to run from. Before Onoda taught him that he could be a better senpai than his own had been, before he’d become a person who was worth making a promise with.
It’s still a good opportunity and he’s not sorry, but he wonders if it would have been as easy to make the decision if he’d thought then that anybody would miss him.
Is Toudou thinking now about this being the last chance he’ll have to brush Makishima’s hair and that’s why he has to take it so seriously? Makishima’s not ready to be that for anybody. He thought he was just drifting through life without much to give. Mattering to someone, even off the road, is a weight he’s not ready to shoulder.
He should say something. He should have said something long ago.
But Makishima’s not willing to be the first to say it, so he lets it go, feels the heat seeping into his bones, the teeth of the comb on his scalp, and the hands fluttering at his back instead of feeling the lump in his throat.
Toudou-an is beautiful. Hundreds of years of footsteps have worn the floorboards to a polish. The furniture, the dishes, even the draperies are solid and exquisite, chosen with care and perfect down to the smallest detail. Everything is proper. Makishima sticks out like a mismatched piece of furniture.
And yet despite that, Toudou brought him miso soup and egg and rice this morning in chipped bowls from the family cupboard, with a smile entirely different to the Good Host smile he’s been practicing since childhood. He treats Makishima like he belongs here. It’s an expectation he can’t live up to.
Makishima’s hair dries smoother and straighter than normal under Toudou’s ministrations. He could be a distant cousin. It’s still like that the next morning when he leaves to finish packing.
*
“I’m going to the salon today,” Makishima announces over the bowls of cereal that he thinks pass for breakfast and which Toudou is too constrained by proper guest etiquette to complain overmuch about the nutritional value of. “You can come along if you want.”
“Salon?” Toudou asks, puzzled.
“It’s not my fault you booked your visit for the week I need to get my roots done,” Makishima says defensively.
Toudou thinks of chiding him about his cuticles again and decides that’s not how he wants to start his day, even if he is a little hurt that Makishima is wasting what little time they get together now that he lives here in London. Surely eternal rivalry takes precedence? But it is hair, and he can understand that. It would be dreadful to ruin that expanse of green. He can see the brown growing in, although he’s been gracious enough not to mention it very often, and it would be a shame to let that get out of hand.
“I’ll just be sitting around in foils most of the time,” Makishima continues. “You could get a trim and restyle. My treat. It’ll keep Jack busy.”
“Jack?” Toudou hasn’t overlooked the implied insult to his hairstyle, but the unfamiliar name is more pressing right now.
“My hairdresser. Don’t look at me like that, it’s a perfectly normal phrasing.” He twirls a lock of hair around his finger. “He knows what I like and how my hair works. I bet he could do nice things with yours, too.”
“I want to know what you like and how your hair works, Maki-chan,” Toudou replies immediately, and Makishima gives him one of those looks he hasn’t figured out yet but he will, he just needs more opportunities.
“Well, all the more reason you should come along,” Makishima says with a shrug after a silence almost but not quite long enough to make Toudou reconsider his outburst.
The salon is about half an hour’s walk away, down streets filled with people all trying to ignore each other. They pass a few barbers along the way, but Makishima shakes his head. “You can’t just go in anywhere,” he says. “Most of those guys will just run a set of clippers over your head and kick you out five minutes later.” He grins. “You’d come out with no hair left at all.”
Toudou shudders.
“Finding a good hairdresser is hard. It’s worth going a little further to get the right guy.”
“Like a rival?” Toudou perks up.
Makishima rolls his eyes.
Jack turns out to be surprisingly normal-looking for someone Makishima would go out of his way to visit. His hair is short and honey-blond. Of course, he probably wouldn’t dye his own hair, so maybe it doesn’t mean much.
“It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Toudou introduces himself in his best English. He hasn’t been striking up too many conversations with the locals on this trip - it’s Makishima he’s here to see, after all - but he’d done his best to study before coming here. A champion should be able to conduct himself with politeness and dignity wherever he goes, and anyway, it wouldn’t hurt to make himself more appealing to potential European sponsors and teams.
“Nice to meet you,” Jack replies in accented but confident Japanese.
“I tutor him a bit in exchange for doing my roots,” Makishima says with a smirk when Toudou gapes at him. “Another good reason to keep coming back.”
“A friend of yours from home?” Jack asks Makishima, thankfully still in Japanese, and Makishima shrugs. “You should make him model for you. You have that knitwear project due soon, right?”
“He’s full of himself enough already,” Makishima scowls. “Give him a haircut while I’m waiting, let’s see if you can make him look good enough to be my model.”
They’re bantering about him, Toudou realizes. And - knitwear project? Is that what Makishima’s been scowling into his notebook about? He won’t tell Toudou when he asks.
They’ve switched to English without him. Discussing Makishima’s roots, it sounds like. They both look over at him suddenly, and he prepares for his chance to make himself heard again.
“What are we doing with your friend’s hair?” Jack is asking, and Makishima is smirking next to him. Toudou has to resist the urge to flinch. Two on one is a little unfair. At least Makishima’s not arguing with the description.
“I have him do a bit of layering,” Makishima tells Toudou, ruffling a hand gently through the hair framing his face to demonstrate. “It’ll give you a little more volume without sacrificing length. It’d look good, if you’re not willing to do something more daring.”
He does look different. Toudou hadn’t quite consciously realized it before, since in general his hair is still as long and green and red-streaked as always. But it does hang a little differently, it frames his face more flatteringly than before. He still looks as free as ever, but a little more focused, more certain. More himself, if anything.
Makishima is changing here, far from Toudou’s eyes. He’s changing and Toudou hadn’t even noticed it. He’s supposed to know everything.
“Challenge accepted,” he tells Makishima. Taking Makishima’s aesthetic advice is accepting a challenge, whether or not Makishima admits it.
“Always glad to hear it,” Makishima replies with a smirk.
Toudou doesn’t even get to find out the secrets of how Makishima gets his streaks done, which had been half the appeal of this trip for him. They always look flawless and strangely natural, even though he knows they must be built up bit by bit through constant touch-ups. But an assistant whisks him away to wash his hair almost as soon as Jack wheels over a cart of mysterious brushes and tubes and varying rectangles of foil, and while soft hands and warm water on his scalp are always pleasant, it keeps Makishima out of sight until all the magic is done. By the time he’s ushered back to the chair beside Makishima’s, the other boy’s hair is already full of foil twists and sheets.
The actual haircut is surprisingly quick. Toudou’s never really gone out of his way for a fancy haircut; his cut is very simple, for all the effort he puts into the quality of each individual hair, and he’s never really thought much about the art of cutting hair beyond trimming in a straight line. But he admires skill when he sees it, and Jack certainly seems skilled. He runs a comb through Toudou’s towel-dried hair, lifting up a layer here and there and snipping into it without hesitation. Toudou can’t tell what, precisely, he’s doing, but Makishima is watching and nodding in approval, the gravure magazine in his lap untouched.
Jack holds a bottle in front of Toudou and says something he didn’t catch. “No product, please,” he tries to reply, hoping that maybe Jack had studied some hairdressing-related Japanese. He doesn’t like hair gels and sprays, they weigh his hair down and leave it feeling fake. Toudou is many things, but all of them are real.
“It’s salt spray,” Makishima interrupts to say. “Sea salt. Try it.”
Toudou scowls. “I’m god of the mountain, Maki-chan, not god of the sea.” Beside him, Jack tries to disguise a laugh without much success.
“Branch out a little. It’ll be a good look on you. Trust me.”
It strikes Toudou a little more seriously than it was probably meant, because he does trust Makishima absolutely, although mostly that means trusting him to always catch up even when it seems impossible. Makishima’s never asked out loud for that trust, and Toudou’s never revealed how much he gives it. It’s just a rhetorical flourish, surely, but it feels weighty in Toudou’s ears.
“Okay,” he says, and Makishima does something with his face that might very well be a smile.
It smells more like coconut than like the ocean, but it’s not objectionable. A little nice, even, if he thinks of the scent as a gift from Makishima. His hair feels different with it in, a little less soft, but not heavy.
In the mirror, he looks different, more different than he would have expected from how little hair has actually fallen to the floor. His hair is the same length, but lighter, more textured. Not tamed into perfect straight lines like usual. It’s lifted on top, making him think somehow of the way a hawk’s shoulders rise as it begins to take flight, and falls from there in soft swirls. Gone is the ruler-straight line across the back of his neck, although it seems like it might still be there if he straightened it again.
It feels strange, but not unpleasant. Toudou as styled by Makishima. He doesn’t think he’ll keep it this way, and he’s not about to let Makishima have any further influence on his style, but maybe he’ll take something away from it. The waves are too bold a departure for public appearances, but it makes him think of tousled hair after a hard ride, and that makes him think of the two of them fighting for the goal and becoming stronger and better together. For this week, when it’s only Makishima looking at him, that feels right.
There have always been sides of him that only Makishima had ever seen. Only he’d ever been fast enough to draw them out. It feels surprisingly good to offer him this one, too.
On the walk back to Makishima’s flat, Toudou’s distracted by the way the wind brushes the back of his neck. It’s been longer than he realized since the last time he changed his haircut. The breeze feels good.
“You look nice like that,” Makishima volunteers, breaking Toudou’s reverie, and he almost trips over his own feet. He does look nice, of course, but Makishima never says as much, not even when it would just be a meaningless social nicety. Not that he’s ever been good at those, either.
“Wahaha, of course I do! Or are you just proud of your own advice?”
“I’d been thinking for a while it might be a good look on you.” Makishima shrugs like he’s trying to play it off as nothing, but the arc of his long bones always imbues his shrugs with portent. “You have nice hair, but your usual cut isn’t doing you any favors.”
“You were thinking about me, Maki-chan?” Usually he’d brag - of course you were, who wouldn’t? - but the truth is sometimes he wonders if Makishima thinks about him half as much as he thinks about Makishima. He finds that it matters to him beyond the ordinary level of wanting everyone to care about him. He’s wanted to know everything about his uncanny rival ever since he realized that their first race wasn’t a fluke, but the more time passes the more he wants Makishima to offer that knowledge to him willingly and ask for the same in return.
“You never go away,” Makishima says, looking away, and it could be a complaint or an expression of wonder. Another thing he wants to know Makishima well enough to understand.
“I wish I knew as much about you as he does,” Toudou says, because thoughts do no good if they just rattle around alone in his head.
“Jack?” Makishima blinks. “It’s just part of the job, asking people about their life. He’s good at it, and we have some common interests. But it’s boring stuff, you’re not missing out on anything.”
“It isn’t boring. Tell me too.”
“Why would you want to know?” There’s a river of people streaming past them, but for once Makishima is looking only at him. He wants to keep it this way as long as he can.
“You’ve grown up so much here already,” Toudou says, the words forming on his lips almost as quickly as they form in his head. He’s not sure where he’s going with this; he’ll find out when he gets there. “You have a whole life here and I’m not part of it.”
“You could be,” Makishima says after a moment, so quiet Toudou thinks he might have imagined it.
And in his own clumsy, curled in on himself sort of way, Makishima has been trying, hasn’t he? He’d volunteered to let Toudou stay at his place before Toudou had even asked. He’d let Toudou eat his cereal instead of pretending to anything fancier. Today he’s let Toudou see him with countless sheets of foil in his hair like an overachieving conspiracy theorist and let him overhear the conversations he doesn’t know how to start without someone else creating the opening.
Maybe he’s trying to say that even if he doesn’t always pull Toudou towards him, he doesn’t want to push him away, either.
“Maki-chan?”
“Let’s go back to mine.” Makishima tugs nervously at one of the locks of hair framing his face. “I don’t want to have this conversation out on the street.”
Later on, when Makishima’s slender fingers are weaving fondly through his now even more tousled hair and pulling him in for their first kiss, he’s very glad he agreed to the haircut.
*
Makishima sleeps with his hair tucked up in a sleeping cap, but there are always a few wisps that come undone and curl softly at the nape of his neck. Toudou likes to nuzzle at them when the first light of morning comes through the window, when there’s still plenty of time before the other man wakes up and tells him to stop. Makishima usually showers in the mornings, to fight off the grogginess, so at night his hair still smells faintly of sweat from the previous day. Toudou never tells him how much he likes the smell - Makishima tells him he’s gross often enough already - but after all the time they’ve spent apart over the years he’s still grateful for the reminder that now, finally, he can wake up next to Maki-chan every morning.
Well, not every morning. Their schedules don’t always overlap, and often one or another of them is away at a training camp somewhere. It keeps them from getting in one another’s way too much, or they’d get tired of each other. That’s what Makishima says, anyway. Toudou would be willing to take that risk.
But there are still mornings like this, where even though they need to get up soon to go to their race, they can lie in the first rays of sun and enjoy peace that’s the mirror image of the hard work and noise of their competitions. Where Toudou for once doesn’t feel the need to rush all his words out, because there’s always time later.
When they first met, ten years and thousands of miles away now, he never could have guessed he’d come to love staying in one place together, too.
“Maki-chan,” he murmurs, not sure if he wants an answer.
“Jinpachi,” Makishima replies without turning around, his voice noncommittal about how awake he’s willing to be.
“Let me braid your hair.”
“You’re waking me up for that?”
“I’m waking you up because we have a competition to go to,” Toudou reminds him, twirling a wisp of green hair around his finger. “I’m waking you up early so I can braid your hair.”
“I don’t want a big braid swinging around when I ride.”
“I’ll just do a half braid, enough to keep it out of your eyes. Since you still haven’t seen the sense of wearing a headband.”
Makishima snorts. “I’m not that desperate to match with you. What would people think?”
“The truth?” Toudou lets the hair untwist from his finger and fall back across Makishima’s neck. They’ve been living together for four years now, building their careers in public as rival cyclists while building their life in secret as lovers and partners. It’s not how he would have wanted to do things. The division feels artificial. He loves Makishima because of the person that he is, and he knows the person that he is from competing with him.
Makishima asks him sometimes if he really wants everyone to think of them first and foremost as the rivals who are also lovers, instead of as individual athletes, and he can’t understand why that doesn’t sound as wonderful to Makishima as it does to him. They aren’t just any two athletes, that’s the point. Together they make a beautiful story.
But Makishima isn’t ready, so Toudou does his best to keep from letting the truth slip. He’s learned to compromise sometimes, when he really needs to.
He knows that Makishima knows how he feels, and that that’s why Makishima isn’t saying anything now. “I used to braid my sister’s hair for her all the time, I know what I’m doing,” he says instead, letting the subject go. Growing up involves so much more not saying things than he’d expected.
“I’m not your sister,” Makishima retorts, acquiescing to the subject change. They’ve learned to dance around each other over the years, which openings to take and which would only drag them both down.
“I should hope not, Maki-chan.” He reaches to undo the sleeping cap and Makishima inclines his head slightly to allow it. “Anyway, I won our last race. You owe me a forfeit.”
“You’re going to spend it on my hair?”
“I am.”
Makishima sighs like he’s doing a huge favor, but he smiles as he sits up and shakes his hair out before Toudou. Toudou drops a grateful kiss on his shoulder and gets up to grab a hair tie and the surprise he’s kept for just such an occasion.
A pack of little roses made of satin ribbon and wire, each the size of the tip of his finger and the same bright red as the streaks Makishima still gets done after all these years. But then, Toudou still wears his headbands despite his own admission that there are other ways of keeping his wispy hair from blowing into his eyes. He understands the importance of branding. Sometimes it’s more important than anything to look like yourself. And while he still thinks the look is objectively pretty weird, it’s Makishima’s, and so he’s come to love it like everything else about his singular, wonderful rival.
He makes two thin braids running along the sides of Makishima’s skull like a crown, joining into one in the center and weaving the roses in as he goes. The green wire stems disappear into the wild verdance of his hair, leaving only the roses springing out here and there like wildflowers. Toudou had intended to evoke the winner’s bouquet - “for luck, Maki-chan!” he would have said, “but not so much luck that I won’t still beat you again!” - but contact with Makishima transforms them into something freer. More irregular. It’s good. As always, they’re better together than they would be apart.
“Flowers?” Makishima asks when Toudou hands him a pair of mirrors so he can see the back of his head.
“I saw them in a shop and I needed to get them for you. Because you’re beautiful,” Toudou says with a smile, and Makishima scowls at him, but he must know by now that it’s the best and the truest thing that Toudou can say.
Today’s hill climb competition is a fairly relaxed affair, a local race without much of an international presence. But they’ve been going for the last few years and they’ve made friends with the organizers, who appreciate having a bit of star power around. Most of the other competitors are ambitious amateurs rather than the sponsored professionals they usually race, but it gets more eyes on the beginners than they’d be able to draw on their own, and they seem to enjoy having the opportunity to overtake the local big shot professionals even if they don’t stay in front of them for very long. It doesn’t count for anything except their own private standings, but everybody has fun.
And it’s a little nostalgic, too, when they break away from the pack and the mountain belongs only to the two of them. Now that they’re professionals and up against the best the world has to offer, it’s rare that they end up alone in the lead. There are even races where neither of them makes it to the pedestal. Those are good too - that’s what pushes them forwards. They’re still getting better as they chase each other and anyone else who gets in their way. But today they can laugh together over their memories as they race up towards the clear blue sky and it makes Toudou’s heart swell.
This time Makishima’s the first to get his wheel across the finish line, hair streaming behind him like his very own victory banner. The roses are all still in place when he takes his helmet off and shakes his hair out. Placing second stings a little - he never wants that to change, it’s what keeps them both going - but that sight soothes Toudou’s disappointment.
They’ve attracted enough attention over the years with their dramatic rivalry that there’s always a few reporters hanging around looking for interviews. After Toudou finishes his own photo ops - fewer than last time, thanks to the second-place finish, but he still smiles and poses because the measure of a champion is in his grace under disappointment - he goes to look for Makishima so they can coordinate their return home while not looking like they’re going together. They don’t try all that hard - Toudou’s been dragging Makishima off to lunch since long before either of them ever thought about more - but it makes Makishima feel better if they keep up some level of plausible deniability.
When Toudou finds his partner, he’s been cornered by a grinning journalist with spiked hair and seemingly very little respect for personal space. Not that Toudou’s one to talk, but he can tell Makishima’s annoyed. He hates when this sort of journalist ends up interviewing Makishima, who hates it, instead of coming to see Toudou who would be happy to talk their ears off.
“Are those flowers in your hair?” he can hear the reporter asking, making Makishima turn around so the camera can see his braids. Makishima’s gotten a little better at the post-race fanservice thing, out of necessity more than willingness. He doesn’t try to smile, but he tolerates the attention a little. “Did your girlfriend do that for you?” The reporter nudges Makishima in what he probably thinks is a knowing way.
“It was me, actually,” Toudou interrupts as he walks into frame, counting on his own eloquence to keep this conversation on the light banter side even though he’s itching to sling an arm around his Maki-chan and tell the reporter to keep his hands and assumptions to himself. Makishima is not always as impressed by his protective streak as he might hope. “He lost a bet.”
“Aw, what a shame,” the reporter teases. Toudou has to hand it to him, he’s handled the interruption with grace. “You must be disappointed you don’t have a cute girl to do your hair for you in the mornings instead, huh?” He throws a wink at the camera; maybe he’s got a female audience he’s trying to pander to? Or maybe he just thinks he does. There’s so much Toudou could teach this guy. “I bet there are plenty of girls who’d volunteer for the job.”
And Makishima looks back at Toudou, and while they’re anything but telepathic, Toudou could swear he can see what’s going through his mind right then - the moment this morning, all the moments before, the way that hiding anything chafes at Toudou, much less hiding the thing he’s happiest about in the whole world.
Makishima says that hiding is safest for Toudou’s career, but they’re not in Japan anymore, they could get married tomorrow and any sponsors that dropped them for it would probably get publicly shamed. “Why not your career?” Toudou always asks, and he laughs, “I’ve got a fashion degree. Everybody already thinks I’m gay.” And once, he’d cupped Toudou’s cheek softly in his hand, letting the silky black strands fall over long fingers, and whispered, “And what do I really have to lose besides you?”
He must know, after so long, Toudou still feels the same. He’s been saying it since before he knew himself what he meant.
“No, actually,” Makishima says slowly, one side of his long mouth already turned up into a crooked smile. “I’m not disappointed at all. If I wanted a lover who’d do needlessly elaborate things to my hair, I couldn’t have picked better.”
As the reporter gapes in astonishment - Toudou’s frankly a little hurt that it’s that much of a surprise - Makishima shrugs, long bones and skinny shoulders rippling in an eloquent expression of “it’s a funny old world sometimes.” He turns, letting the tiny roses sway in front of the camera, links his fingers tightly with Toudou’s just in case there was any doubt as to his meaning, and leads the other man away.
“Maki-chan!” Toudou blubs as soon as they get out of sight of the cameras and the spectators. He’s happier than he’s ever been, but he also thinks he might start crying and the instinct to stay composed in front of the audience is strong.
“You’re welcome,” Makishima teases, but something in the set of his shoulders is lighter, and he’s playing fondly with the end of his braid.
“Maki-chan!!”
“I’m making you do all the interviews about this, you know.”
“Leave it to me, Maki-chan!!” Toudou hides his face in Makishima’s shoulder so nobody can see him bawling. He’s hiccupping and sobbing and giggling and waves of green hair are falling all around him as Makishima laughs and puts his arms around Toudou like he never does in public. He’s probably getting snot all over Makishima’s hair; he’ll have to wash it for him when they get home.
“Can I put your hair up again for our wedding?” Toudou asks once he’s managed to stop sniffling long enough to form a sentence.
“Don’t push your luck,” Makishima groans, but the way he winds his fingers through Toudou’s hair and pulls him in closer makes him glad he’s never known when to stop.