Chapter Text
pt. 1 alchemy
yuta has begun to understand that there are certain things he is inherently good at, things he could improve about himself, and things that he will never understand no matter what angle he looks at them from or for how long. he marks these understandings with two fingers and a thumb against the cold, foggy glass, sliding down. little shapes appear in the wake of the dewdrops.
beneath him the train tracks are beaten loudly, wildly, relentlessly.
he is good at mapping out the sensation of his heartbeat in relation to his thoughts. he traces lines on the window and imagines they are the lines of his veins, where blood follows a pattern, predictable and automatic. he is good at knowing that this blood belongs in his body. sometimes, at least. he is good at remembering the scent of someone else’s blood on his hands. a certain anxiety fills his mind, and his heart pumps out more pain than it did a moment ago, stuttering and tripping over itself as that automatic pace increases against his will. yuta recognises this transition with ease, this slight uptick from resting to less than so.
he could improve his ability to notice the smaller things, the ones that occur outside his head. outer occurrences such as the sweetness in taking a moment to wake up and pause whatever task you were engaged in previously to look up when someone you know approaches. someone you love, or someone you have stood beside day after day after day after day.
hush, hush, says the train. rumble, rumble, say the tracks.
yuta closes his eyes and tastes sweetness on his tongue. he wishes he knew which subtly intimate moment it blossomed from, which memory he had to close his mouth around and bite into in order for this taste to wash over his tongue again. like the juice of ripest berries at the shore of a crystal river filled with rain. the rain tumbles down outside, and yuta sighs.
he is bad at letting go.
the things he will never understand include the softness his own hands express when he does not ask them to, but when the situation calls for it. cradling someone’s head in his bare hands. stitching a wound. they include the beauty of a tiny streak of sunlight painting white-blond hair white-gold even as darkness rests behind him, and the sun creeps ever closer to the underbelly of the horizon. they include wanting, and wanting.
yuta’s fingers have fallen away from the glass. he rests them in his lap, places his forehead against the dew-vanished window lines, and lets the wanting fill him up like boiled water in a tea kettle. overflowing, until his heartbeat races faster.
he checks his watch to find that there are approximately two and a half hours to go, and he is more bone-tired than he has ever been. it always seems that way in the moment, even if there’s no way to compare it to every other time he’s felt weary. nothing to compare to the sweetness in his mouth.
the window, the window, the cold.
he closes his eyes and thinks of toge.
pt. 2 sunkissed underground
the doors of the train open before him with a soft hiss that makes yuta’s shoulders sag with relief. his duffel bag hangs heavy on one arm, and the typical station stimuli prod him from all sides; shuffling footsteps on the tile, overhead announcements, blinking lights, some disembodied beeping, all keeping him mind-numbingly awake.
weariness dulls his senses and mutes his actions. he shuffles forward with everyone else.
but unlike them, yuta is looking.
and when he catches sight of toge, collar zipped up, hands in his pockets, waiting for him, suddenly the long journey feels worth it.
toge doesn’t move forward, but his eyes are soft with longing handcrafted for only yuta to see. one hand slides out of his pocket slowly, carefully, as if he’s not certain about what comes next, but wants to be ready. yuta watches this measured action, and it’s all he can do to keep himself from rushing forward.
the thin crowd ebbs and flows around him, people nudging each other’s paths from here to there, slight alterations in their evenings. immperceptible differences in the route they take to reach the stairs that will lead them up, up, above ground. but yuta remains firm, doesn’t let strangers jostle him. he moves forward with conviction. his blood traces lines in his veins that it has crossed time and time again, and it will run its course thousands of times more in the time he spends with toge. during the quiet moments, brushing toge’s sunkissed hair out of his eyes. in the heartache, when all they can do is think of each other, light years apart.
yuta holds his breath. they’re not light years apart now. toge is here. here in the underground, someone is waiting for him, just ahead.
the relief hits like the sparks of a wildfire when they touch.
yuta’s arm moves instinctively to wrap around toge’s waist, drawing him in, and the chill of toge’s fingers settles into him as they brush the exposed skin above yuta’s collar. two hands on his shoulders, sweeping down to his chest, and one of his is free to place on toge’s cheek. to hold him in ways he can only express physically, but that he feels rattling through his soul. he wants to be closer. so, so much closer.
they lean their foreheads together, and yuta’s heart stutters again.
the world stills around them. there is no more noise, no more people. it is only them in the vastness of an empty train station, their heartbeats echoing so loud they can both hear. the rhythms intertwine just as their fingers do when they let go enough to readjust and take each other’s hands. yuta slips toge’s collar down just enough and tilts his head one way, toge the other, and there is no longer any space between their lips.
toge quivers. not from the cold, but from a deep sense of connection, of feeling the threads of fate and belonging wrap around him and bind him to yuta. he pulls away to take a breath.
“mustard leaf,” he whispers into yuta’s mouth.
yuta can’t help but laugh.
he kisses toge one more time for good measure, a smile on his lips, then leans back a little to look at him. “I’ve missed you, too,” he says, sweetness in every word, resting on the tip of his tongue. emotions he can’t begin to tap into gush into that simple sentence.
he cups toge’s chin in his hand and studies the curve of his cheek, his nose, the tufts of his hair. and his eyes, speckled with countless glimmering stars.