every shade under the sun, unraveling

 “ For now. But it’s a record I’m eager to break. ”

There’s the after-taste of cider in those words, but maybe it can slip just today, because it’s night, it’s summer, it’s Mirio’s birthday, they’re nineteen and in love. He stays where he is, just holding, smiling, breathing. They’re swaying a little, and he can’t tell who started it. 

He’s washed the lingering stutters away with drink,ramen, walking, chatting, vending machine tea,kisses. Now, he’s simply just holding, it simply just feels good, maybe he’s vaguely hoping to wake up next to the man with the sun long high.

 “ I don’t know if I can say I’m surprised our parents had already talked about it. But really, Mirio, I’ll be waiting. Just, whatever you do, I’m coming with you. No need to decide now. ”

 Ten years ago we promised each other we’d become Heroes, remember?

 Three years ago we promised we’d get into U.A.

 I know we’re not at the field today, I know that’s how I worded it back then, but...

The glass against which the door closes reflects the two of them, black silhouettes against a dark grey. The shelter above them is drumming, dripping. Nobody is around, because it’s raining, because it’s night. Some class-rooms still have lights on, open windows letting out voices. 

 Tamaki knows he’s not okay. He can’t expect him to be. But it’s different now, isn’t it? He can help more now. He can be honest. And he knows, more than anyone.

 “ Hey, ” he slips a hand into that of his. “ Eri will be fine. She’s strong. ”

 He follows the other’s gaze to the rain-drenched grounds of the school. Its large expanse is outlined with a pale lace of rain, as are the distant buildings peeking out of black shrubbery.

 “ She looked good-spirited at the hospital. The way she was smiling, it reminded me of you. That is, because I saw a lot of myself in it. Most of the courage I have is simply from you. I recognized that in her, as I watched. And also, that she will come to find more courage on her own than I ever have.

 So many people visited her, too. She’s got Aizawa-sensei, and the gifts everyone left her. She won’t forget, that she isn’t alone. ”

 Tamaki glances up at the other, then to his own free arm. “ I brought your jacket, as well as an umbrella. We could go for a little walk. I could stay with you over-night. Just... I’m here, Mirio. I... ”

 First names weren’t an issue, because he was beginning to realize his voice colored anything lovely. Because it would’ve felt somehow wrong if he’d called him anything else. Skipping all these intricacies was so easy, maybe exactly because they felt out of place, like this was a reunion instead of a coincidence.

 Still, Tamaki hadn’t become a different man in the past twenty-four hours. So the word ‘date’ practically choked him. Perhaps, he’d find in hindsight, it had been about the most pleasant way that could happen. But his red-colored head was hitting empty. It pressed against the table as he muttered an okay.

 He stood in the shower. It sloshed in his shoes, skittered between soaked skin and cloth, along his scalp. Traffic lights blinked at nothing. Their wet reflections filled the street on which the two of them stood. Only them, and the foggy drumming of rain. That hand still clutched at his, hot, pleading. He couldn’t look.

 I’m a fake. A stage show. There you go– the headline you were after. You no longer have to pretend.

 Why are you still holding on?

 Why are you… kissing me?

 It was a touch. A probe, question. The man was trembling, the exhale, the hands on Tamaki’s shoulders. The way he held on, it eroded the reserve he’d held onto for so long. Cracks, leaks of the hope and love and everything buried under.

Tamaki leaned in. He felt same astonishment on the other’s lips, the same relief. The same awakening of hope.  Encouraged, a second step on the ice, the man tilted his head, claimed another kiss. Gesture mirrored, his arms wound around the slimmer form. Closer, closer to the shattering point. Everything hidden under, they’d submerge in it.

 Another kiss, another– Tamaki lost count, because they didn’t part. Drops, drops, and Tamaki couldn’t tell if they were rain or tears. Their noses and smiles bumped gracelessly, and Mirio’s hands slipped under his shirt. They felt like kisses. Everything, his very soul felt kissed by him.

 Tamaki brought fingers over his lips. Warm water poured onto his back. The walls of the shower were all misted over. When he toweled himself, it smelled of the man, everything in this home did.

 Are these feelings mine, or some hallucination?

 In the afternoon sun of Brussels’ streets, he stole glances at the man’s lips, wondered why he felt a shiver like rain-drops. Why the sight resonated with something that eluded him. Why are you so familiar? Who are you, Mirio?

 His smiles were more captivating than butterflies or meticulously crafted buildings. Maybe I’m just afraid this’ll remain a chance-encounter. I connect with you so well. And I don’t want it to be a dream, because I feel like I’ve seen you so many times, always awoken, never remembered.

 The city was almost too small to contain the man’s radiant spirit– a meadow or a mountain-plateau seemed more fitting. He fit perfectly among the flowers and fruit-stacks and tents, completed what was missing from shots without him. Tamaki reminded himself to make sure he transferred the photos in the evening, reminded himself of Mirio’s request– cooking a surprise. He eyed the produce available.

 The yellows, reds and oranges jumped out in lovely contrast to the rich green they sprung from. Tamaki was sure his face was at least a medium shade of red, and that his hair didn’t compliment it so excellently, but bowed to the friendly lady in thanks. He eyed the flowers in his grasp, sort of awe-struck, before handing them to Mirio, to place in their basket.

 Their fingers brushed as he did so– and in that blink, an image passed his mind. Yellow, orange, red, green; all of them fragrant, all of them rich in their own ways.

 He suddenly knew what to make for dinner.

 He blinked dumbly a few times, Mirio’s quizzical look adding fire to his embarrassment. He managed to ask him to wait at a coffee stand for a short moment, while he fetched key ingredients. His back felt chilly in the absence of his arm.

 On the way back home, he laughed at the man’s absurd attempts at guessing what he’d bought, turned down even the most indirect offers of repaying. He told him of the Victor Horta buildings he’d intended to visit, told him half-joking how he’d hoped to know he’d meet someone beforehand to have had the courage to book a table at L’Archiduc. He told him he felt he was missing out on things because of the way he was.

 He noticed only as they stepped inside, as their hands parted, that they’d been holding one another.

He’d squeezed Tamaki’s shoulder once more before they parted way. Mirio told Tamaki he’d meet him where they usually met-a familiar trail they’d spent less and less time on since getting into U.A.-but he left himself little room for mistakes-and even less for wasting his time.

Yet here he was, standing alone in his room with his bag half-packed, staring at his phone. Time was precious, he knew it was. But. But.

The ray of light through his window was colder than it ought to be, but such was the atmosphere. Any more afraid and Mirio would swear he would be able to see his breath coming in puffs of mist despite the actual, physical temperature. He didn’t have time, he was still upset. He wanted to ignore all of the misery that came into his life with One for All-run off into the woods like it was really just another weekend. A brief and vivid fantasy-fireflies dotting the woods and the smell of campfire cooking. Tamaki’s laughter coming to him warmer than either the fire or the balmy near-summer air. Everything was fine, everything was normal.

But that wasn’t how a hero should think, right? Every day since he settled on becoming a hero had been made of hard work. He couldn’t give that up just to be selfish. Tamaki wouldn’t right? Mirio fisted his hand in his pocket and hit call with the other before bringing the phone to his ear. It rang, and for a hollow second the coward that lived in his heart hoped it would just keep ringing.

The line picked up and there was the emptiest, most nauseous moment in Mirio’s whole life before he heard Sir gather up his own courage to speak, ’-I’m sorry’. How immediate, but Sir wasn’t one to mince words, was he?

Mirio made it to the head of the trail only 10 minutes late-he’d warned Tamaki with a text, blamed it on his dad not ending a conversation (it wasn’t entirely incorrect, just, perhaps, a different father figure than the one he painted the picture with). He was red-faced and he blamed it on running (that one a blatant lie-the new quirk made running effortless. But another lie wouldn’t make the pyre burn any worse, would it?) and he made it up by slinging an arm around Tamaki’s neck, squeezing him close as much as their packs would allow.

“Okay! There’s still plenty of daylight! We’ll take the first good clearing we find, yeah?” He felt better, post-cry and all. Not perfect, in some ways it was kind of worse, but as they made their way up the path and he set onto driving stakes for their tent he at least felt centered.

“Hey, can you hold down that other one? I think the rope is pulling it up-” He lankly wiped his forehead, his other hand gripped tight around the mallet’s worn handle. He felt it starting to splinter under the pads of his fingers. If it wasn’t one thing-

“Yeah, like that.” The mallet didn’t break, but Mirio didn’t know if he’d hidden the damage before Tamaki could see it. Picking out the bits of wood, however. There was no point hiding it-they lay close together in the oven-like radiant heat of the tent, make-believing that the shade it created was cooler than the direct sun. Mirio picked the slivers from his hand one at a time, foot giggling excitedly, “We still wantin’ a nap?”

 The letters on the screen were like the sand in a time-glass. The breezy sway in his hair, its gentle tug on his T-shirt– he felt like they were asking him why he lingered. He couldn’t answer such a question. It would’ve been like asking the wind why it tousled the canopies above him. 

 He retraced his step from the worn torii that marked the beginning of the trail. He found a boulder to sit on, in that border where the mountainous forest met the field. He watched the distant traffic before he noticed the ladybug on the leaf of an adjacent bush. He eyed it, offered a finger to climb onto. Are you waiting for someone, too? It buzzed away. 

 He was usually the one demanding patience of everyone around him, too slow to open up, too slow to muster courage. He turned his gaze to the sky. It was dotted with fair clouds at the edges. Mirio had always been ahead of him. He still was, and Tamaki felt he might no longer know how to reach him. 

 He caught in his left ear a running step against dry grass and shrubbery. He slid his gaze from the deep blue, and the green and yellow among which Mirio ran towards him looked more vibrant than he recalled. He stood barely in time to to be conveniently in the way of the man’s outstretching arms. They spun a half-circle, and all Tamaki knew was his smell. His own arms wound around him. It felt apologetic, like so much of him as of late. He didn’t know what to forgive him for.

 They climbed the swaying path along the forest ridge. This place was most unchanged of everything in Tamaki’s unchanged life. More unchanged than the train station he still walked to with Mirio, the playground on the way there, the onsen they visited each month, the classrooms that molded together. It was here, that he’d first looked at the blonde nape and the backpack swaying from side to side, and promised himself he’d reach him someday, tell him. It felt too rosy now, as he thought of the color Mirio’s face had been when they’d parted from the embrace. 

 They stopped at the near-forlorn Shrine some way into the trail. As Tamaki clapped his hands and bowed, he felt selfish for what he prayed for.

 Some of the greens around them were still skeptically sour, untrusting of the early heat. The grass smelled sun-bathed as they set up the tent. On Mirio’s expression was the ever-present tension, the desperation of concealing it. It stained his smiles, made Tamaki’s own heavy to keep up. Not that they had been spotless to begin with.

  Tamaki watched Mirio’s scratched palm as they laid in the tent, how he picked at it. He placed his own atop the bicep of his hurt arm, silently soothing. At the suggestion of napping, he shuffled closer, rested his forehead against the curve of the other’s shoulder. His eyes slid closed. Just some of the gestures that came so natural to him while nobody was looking, of which they never talked.

 Maybe he shouldn’t have asked. But just like Mirio plucked at his palm, he did. 

 The man smiled at him, and Tamaki knew it was not at all so. Nothing was missing. Everything only paled in comparison to him.

 He’d smelled it before his eyes instinctively settled onto it. The batch was still shiny and fragrant with sea water and healthy blood. Yet, he didn’t doubt for a moment, that Mirio outshone the scales of those fish he’d just caught.

 Tamaki smiled back at him, failing to reciprocate even the least of the loveliness the other’s rendition carried. Earnesty wasn’t something he could offer him. And for that reason, he’d have to go. After all, the Shadow was following him, for he was Suneater. He couldn’t lead it here. To him. He inhaled to speak, but the man cut him off– Let’s eat first, okay?

 The sky phased through shades each mellower than the previous, before it dimmed into a murk against the black canvas of night. The splash of shores was constant, yet seemed pronounced in nightfall. As if the sea rejoiced its freedom of ever-watchful daylight. Mixed in with the raw odor of fish were now herbs, steam of simmering vegetables and roots, an oven-mouth filled with carefully shaped batters.

 Tamaki sat in the kitchen, watched as Mirio opened the iron hatch, as orange glow bathed his features. They were soft despite of this hard, simple life. There was more understanding of life in them than in all of the books Tamaki had read, and he wondered if he’d truly learnt anything in all those years. His life had been dedicated to spells, yet this one was beyond him. 

 As they sat together to eat, he felt a knot in his throat. The gentleness of Mirio’s touches still lingered in the bindings he’d replaced on his waist. On his cheek ghosted the print of his thumb from where he’d wiped a tear of pain. And now, he sat across him around the small table in dim candle-light, foot soothingly stroking against his. Tamaki’s mouth wobbled. The sight of pastries browned golden in the glow of coals, a pan bathing the room in its rich fragrance, the wine bottle Mirio had been saving for half a year, because he felt he’d meet someone to share it with– it all began to sway.

You can keep staying here, yeah?

Tamaki’s eyes shot up at him. There was only the nape of blond hair, the sizzling of frying crepes. The clock. The engines and shoes and fleeting French on the street. Why did his throat feel tight?

 When he was faced with a curious look from the other, he was blinking glazed eyes. A laugh slipped his lips, an embarrassed sound. Or relieved? No, no, I’m okay, he assured him. It’s nothing. Sorry! Sorry for startling you.

 He left his proposal unanswered.

Apricot-halves, strawberry-slices, raspberries, vanilla, cream, butter. It was beautiful, smelled so good. Heart swollen just by the sight of it, he doubted eating it would offer any greater fulfillment. Startlingly, a part of him argued it would, because he’d see Mirio’s reaction, could show him how much he treasured the effort. He lifted him a glance, a shy probe accompanied by a quick smile, and grabbed his utensils. Ah, his heart fluttered. This next smile was a genuine slip-up.

 “ It’s good. Very good. “ A pause. “ And it looks so beautiful as well. Although I’m afraid I went ahead and spoiled it just now. “

 They chatted idly– how much of your heritage is Japanese? From which prefecture? What’re you doing tomorrow? When’s the seminar?

 It’s the day after tomorrow, Tamaki told him. I wish you could come with me. I  wish I could show my project to you. I don’t know how, or why, but I know it’d calm me. You… calm me. But I can’t bring myself to ask, and it’d be absurd because we’ve only known for a day.

 His hair was an inky mess fresh from bed, and his fear was ten times as black and tangled. Less than twenty-four hours ago he’d been convinced he couldn’t do it. Now, it seemed reasonable– because if so many things had aligned all at once, would it not be a hint at something? Did miracles ever happen without a reason? The bite he’d taken of that crepe had been telling him, this is a miracle you should hold onto.

 “ Could we… if you, if you only have the time and it isn’t a bother… g-go for a small walk after eating? I can’t propose anything more than a quiet evening, since you must be tired. I would gladly see what kind of grocery stores there are, since… i-if you really are fine with me staying, I want to at least attempt to repay the kindness. So I’d like to cook for the time I stay… It is only reasonable, since I am the one with more free-time. ”

 Tamaki’s knees wobbled as the man spoke on his phone. His own, Japanese phone. The man had found him pressed against a wall on a side-street at midnight, so it was no wonder he’d had questions. It was no wonder he was a police. It was lucky he was so insistent to help.

 The friendly stranger’s free hand was compensating for the movement of the occupied, emphasizing each word with such an animation it was shame the hotel manager in the end of the line couldn’t see it. But Tamaki could, and he was somehow glad. It was the cherry on top of all the hospitality he’d been shown so far.

 He was in a foreign country. Yes, he’d been before. But not alone. And oh, how splendidly it had worked out for him thus far. Instead of even the promise of inspiration and references and a clearer future, he’d discovered a new kind of horror. One of being stuck in a place where all he could say was excusez-moi, merci, je vous remercie and baguette, and he had a housing catastrophe to solve at one in the morning.

The notion of the misfortune being unlinked to himself offered some relief. But it was still misfortune. He tried to catch some words in the conversation that he might recognize from his beginner French course. (It could justly be called a conversation, for the manager’s rampaging tone broke through even on the device’s lowest output.) It was futile. But that could in part be accounted to his current state of dread. Or the jet-lag.

 The stranger, being finally cut off by the furious manager, looked palpably agitated, before he very overtly pushed the feeling aside to smile apologetically. Tamaki took his phone as it was handed back to him, and they exchanged names.

 He’d never dared to dream, never in even the most remote of his speculations, that he’d end up in a stranger’s apartment in Brussels at two in the morning. He wasn’t that kind of person. And this wasn’t that kind of situation. 

 The file he carried under his arm was comically large in comparison to his thin frame, and apologetic didn’t even begin to describe his expression. His eyes darted around helplessly, and once more, he was aided with a smile. He stared at it a second too long. 

 The place was bigger than he’d expected, but not big enough to comfortably house two. Then again, Tamaki’s preferences in personal space were a little unusual, and he was never at ease in foreign homes. 

  The clock on the wall was louder than he was used to, the ceiling higher, rooms narrower. He sat at the kitchen table, looked up at the man as he talked. He was in his undershirt, behind him a pan of water heating. The cherries on the table, in their best season, tasted mature. Like they’d been on the table for a day.

 They set him a mattress onto the floor beside the man’s bed. Tamaki insisted it be so, insisted he was fond of futons and it was thus very okay. Soon, they laid in the dark room. Tamaki wondered if his accent sounded as odd to the man as Belgium’s tap water tasted to him. Some shuffling, the clock in the kitchen. The man spoke first.

Why do you study architecture?

 Tamaki told, first briefly, like he told everybody. That he’s just drawn to it. But it was like Mirio could see right through it, because he continued asking. And Tamaki told him. How his father was a doctor, how his mother had given birth to him at home. How there hadn’t been time to reach a hospital in the rural area they lived in. How he wanted to be the one to design one there, one day. How it was the way he could help people. Of course, it was silly to frame one’s dream so narrowly. But it was a pointing arrow. 

“ Why are you a police, then? “

 He told him, and asked, what’s your favorite place?

 The sunflower field in his childhood neighborhood, he told him, and didn’t catch his reply, because sleep took him.

 It veiled him in an airy shroud. It was light, feather light. He felt it before he sensed it as a gentle glow of red on his eyelids. A cacophony was threaded into it, distant like constellations. An unspeakable plethora of sounds and places and all their sensations like a book paged through, all of it eerily comforting, like he belonged in each blink of a scene. It all condensed, condensed, and his eyes could finally flutter open.

 The room was a sepia photograph, seeped with color and depth until it became reality. The window was open, letting in the rumbling of vehicles and foreign voices and heels against street-bricks. The curtains heaved, like sighing. It was warm. Tamaki felt stuffy, like he’d sweated during the night, and immediately craved a shower. 

 The front door... had it opened? Closed? It hit him, that he was still at a stranger’s home. Too late did he clamber to sit on his mattress, Mirio’s eyes were already on him. The man stood by the door with a grocery bag, and something in his smile made Tamaki hold his breath, made his embarrassment flutter in a way it shouldn’t.

 Loathe to leave the man waiting, he found himself helping him unload the groceries, setting the table with him. Well, it was almost a table. Almost a desk. As they sat, he tried to keep their knees from touching. It was very difficult, credit to everything expectable. But there was a foreign tension to the unease. Something... magnetic. He didn’t want to dwell on it, so he listened to the man laugh about preparing breakfast in the afternoon. Tamaki was again embarrassed, and the new tinge in that feeling persisted. Or was it only accentuated by it? He complimented the food, then changed the subject.

 Would it be embarrassing to continue from the night? It felt so remote now, so free from all social structures and intricacies. They’d somehow skipped all that. Speaking to each other as just people. As just souls. Tamaki had never spoken with such ease to... anyone. Scarcely so even to Nejire. Maybe it was just the culture barrier.

Mirio wondered briefly if he could die from guilt. Maybe, after all he sometimes felt like his whole circulatory system was on fire when One For All kicked in. Maybe he’d have a heart attack or something.

Tell me, once you feel ready.

How frustrating. He was ready right now. But Tamaki pushed on, Tamaki was so incredibly, incredibly brave. Mirio couldn’t see his face-the tall fence of Tamaki’s anxiety was too much in the way-but he swore he could hear a fragile smile that wreathed the encouragement he ended on. Always so smart, always so capable. Tamaki could do anything, no matter how scared he was.

And here Mirio sat, rotting under the fear of disappointing the people who had trusted him with this secret. He was a coward compared to Tamaki. Clouds that took sun’s light and selfishly refracted it a hundred times down to Earth as if the light was their doing. An impostor. A liar.

Mirio smiled so wide it almost hurt-pushing the limits of what he really should be making himself do in that dizzy moment, “We can talk about stuff tonight. In our tent! But, I dunno. I think the most important stuff is stuff I should say now. I really don’t want you worried.” At least that was true. Mirio reached over and touched Tamaki’s back with more care than he had, perhaps, ever touched it with. It was a combination of guilt telling him he wasn’t worthy of telling his closest friend and the genuine fear he’d begun to feel for what One For All was capable of. Tamaki was strong and brave, but his body was thin and slight-but Mirio knew that was a patronizing thought. Even with this ‘gift’ his gut instinct remained in the opinion that Tamaki could overwhelm him without a thought in a real fight.

He craned to try and catch Tamaki’s eye-all but doubling in half to do so. He shouldn’t press Tamaki, and he didn’t have the intention to. But he would, as always, give Tamaki the option, “If you can, can you please lift up your head for me?” His palm drew an encouraging circle on Tamaki’s back. It was almost like everything was normal. But Mirio didn’t wait too long to speak. If Tamaki straightened up, he would. If not, no big deal.

“You’re still my best friend. I’m just going through some… stuff right now, okay? You mean as much to me right now as you have the whole time we’ve known each other. I don’t wanna make you feel weird or, Iunno. Anything bad. I wanna go campin’ with you, I wanna have fun.” I still wanna spend every waking moment with you, I wanna tell you everything, it’s killing me that I’m lying. Please, listen to me.

“And, hey. Since we’re still best friends we can totally go take a nap while we’re camping, can’t we?” 

Mirio’s hand felt like the first pillar of sunlight after a storm. Tamaki exhaled, and it was like a wind on which the fear, so pervasive just the previous moment, sailed away. Only, not far enough to be out of sight in the periphery of his mind.  His heart, still easing into its normal amble, fingers still cold and clammy. But it was all much better because he had Mirio.

 The folding and sliding of fabric, as well as some indescribable warming glow, told of the man leaning closer. Ah, he always did that. Tamaki’s heart would never get a chance to beat purely around him.

 Anxiety was a balancing act– it spurred to do one thing, could maybe be undone with another. Where Tamaki could only hang his head lower and produce not a sound, his hand slid shyly between the two of them on the bench, to touch a knobby pinkie against the other’s thigh. He’d become apt at this– finding some creak in the petrification to let his true feelings leak out. Or maybe, to reject Mirio was simply an impossibility too great for even his anxieties.

 The admittance, however, made him snap to look at him, so urgently he couldn’t register moving. Well, it hadn’t taken much, the man was so close. Yet, at the same time it was as amazing to him as ice suddenly becoming flexible.

 Shock melted to resignation in an instant as he looked at him, became tinted with that something he kept hidden from him. He retraced the involuntary gesture, but only half-way, rested his gaze on the folds of the shirt he could see from behind his fringe. The hand he rested against Mirio pursed into a fist. 

 Why were his eyes glazed over at the words? Trying to understand was like trying to track leaves in a whirlwind– he knew he was happy, and that it was scary to simply wait, and that the everything of him which wanted to protect the man was frustrated. And beyond that, the words reached somewhere untraceably deep. He smiled, nodded, reached to wipe his eyes with his free hand.

 “ We are best friends. You don’t have to add the still to it, “ he noted, too gentle to be a reproach. The term was, however, very loose to him when it came to Mirio. Otherwise, it would’ve felt too choking in his throat. “ And… I suppose that does entail this particular combination. “ A smile. He could manage one now.

 He remained like that for the rest of their time on the bench that simmering afternoon. He didn’t say much, and his hand didn’t move from where it touched the fabric of the man’s pants. 

I don’t know?

It was an unsettling feeling, like the crickets and the early-waking cicadas all stopped to listen. For Mirio there was only gentle breeze turned roaring wind and the dull, surreal thrum of his own heartbeat in his ears.

Some things came back quicker-the whip-cracks of the bottle crumpling under pressure. God, he wished he were the thing caving in. Then the sheer heat of the arid day around them. The odd color in Tamaki’s face-as if it had done a lot of flushing and draining. Ah, he’d turned to look at Tamaki in that black, silent second, hadn’t he?

Last before the world came back to normal was a ghost in his head-his own strained voice harsh and accusing ’Am I just a puzzle piece or not?’. Sir’s brows shooting up, a look in his eye that made Mirio felt the guiltiest that he ever had.

Well, second most guilty. The cries of a thousand insects and the distant noise of traffic were no more comforting than this uncomfortable, non-Permeated deafness and blindness he kept feeling. Tamaki’s brow was knit in a way that might as fell have punched Mirio in the gut. Was it paranoia? Was it exhaustion from weeks of breaking his body a string of muscle at a time? Or was Tamaki… Angry with him?

His throat was as dry as the air it tried to take in to steady his voice, “You not feelin’ okay…? We can stay in, I don’t mind.” Anger wasn’t it-it couldn’t be. Right? Mirio wasn’t completely daft-Tamaki knew something was wrong. He had to, they had always been so wound up in each other’s everything that the chasm that Mirio had dug between them had no chance of staying unnoticed but. But.

Unconsciously, Mirio slid his bandaged wrist out of sight-like it’d tattle on him. It ached, maybe Tamaki would know how bad it hurt and why it was hurt in the first place if he looked for too long. His breath was hitched funny, too. Nervous-nervous like almost kissing him or brushing off Hadou’s teasing ‘you told him yet’s. But so, so much worse.

“Maybe we should take a nap when we get home or something.”

 Tamaki’s heart stomped against his ribs. The thumping of it was all he could hear. In his hands the hollow plastic clacked in half, under a grip more tense than anything he’d been conscious of. 

 A nap sounded good. He was pitifully glad to be offered these things-- to hang out in this park, to go camping. It was evidence, that Mirio hadn’t, for now, drifted away from him. But that had become a noteworthy fear in his mind, now that there had emerged this sinister air to him. 

 It was perhaps absurd to fear, that Tamaki’s inherent importance to the man was diminishing because of something he was unwilling to share. It was most likely unrelated to their relationship, given his willingness to spend time with him. But there had never been secrecy between them, and that gnawed at Tamaki’s insides. That former statement could, of course, be argued against, as Tamaki hid his true feelings from the other daily. But he considered that appropriate courtesy in protection of the man and the friendship they shared. Maybe Mirio’s case was of the same principle?

 Well. That nullified his own excuses to keep on doing what he was. 

 Mirio’s knees were as much as he could regard of the man, now. Cowardly... but such a petty notion would never come before him.

“ Sorry, Mirio. I’ve... I’ve been worried. About your well-being. And our-- I feel like, r-recently... “

 His voice diminished, tremoring just as his shoulders were-- it was with effort, but equally with the nervous relief of unveiling the shadow he’d harbored for weeks now. Part of it, at least. It would suffice for now. Speaking was hard like this, and yet, it was easier than leaving Mirio in the dark, so he continued.

 “ But you’re still asking me to do these things with you. That hasn’t changed, and a-as such, I’ll wait. Tell me, once you feel ready. ” Well, he was assuming. But he trusted, that if this uneasiness was so palpable to himself, Mirio would have recognized it as well.