hounds of love

“Rise.” Slow, the shifting strands of Beidou’s hair, the brush of her fingers against the varnished pine as she draws her hands to her knees, pulls herself up from the anchor of her flexed toes. Not so much as a wobble. Slow, how she blinks up at Ningguang, knowing she is watching. Ningguang’s throat is parched. “Tianquan, if I may”—of course, she does not wait for permission—“would you tell the esteemed chefs that Captain Beidou of the Crux enjoys stronger seasoning?”

Ryuunosuke sees, slowly and then all at once, the colour suffusing his cheeks, resting high over the fine bones of his face, drawing prettily upwards—though serious as ever, the slightly unfocused set to his eyes. “Did you—” “Not drunk,” Asougi mutters, but at the petulant knit of his eyebrows, the jut of his mouth, Ryuunosuke has to cover his laugh.

He’d kissed his best friend. Too winded to make noise and facing the serious possibility he’s maybe not going to be able to pull himself up, perspective floods him with much greater ease when he’s plastered to the floor. His best friend had kissed him. And okay, at least his arms can move since he’s able to draw them up well enough to unleash a silent scream into the dark of his hands.

Asougi’s smile broadens; Ryuunosuke hadn’t realised the sight was rare until a classmate had huddled close to him last year and hissed, in a whisper, “He’s laughing. Naruhodou, are you going to be okay?” Well, there’d have been scarce reason for fear if his classmate had seen Asougi now, leaning close, and drawing his hand into his cloak. Cat’s cream grin, Asougi dangles a flask in front of Ryuunosuke’s face. “Share a drink with me, will you? I have felt bad for that time last week, Partner…”

“Shall I tally the gyuunabe? The sweets? The rampage you went on at that new bakery last week?”  How can he think of that right now?! Ryuunosuke balks, hears the nervous fall of his own laughter and only laughs more nervously as a result. It’s alarming; he hadn’t realised Asougi might be deeply bothered enough to keep track. But then Asougi buries his head into Ryuunosuke’s shoulder, his hair tickling Ryuunosuke’s neck. “S’okay. I can’t have you without your energy, now, can I?” Often, Ryuunosuke feels there’s only two states of being with Asougi. He forgets to breathe. Until he doesn’t because he laughs, drawn from him, puffing out in the cold air and dissipating, another secret just for this night.

“That’s a much better answer.” A reward, the whisper of movement. Asougi kisses the pad of Ryuunosuke’s thumb. And then: I didn’t want you to stop either, Naruhodou.”

The blush, Ryuunosuke knows, is a lost cause. He wants to thank the guy, he wants to tap a finger to the hand clasped around his face, he wants to make sure the guy’s rib is alright, he wants to go home and fall asleep on the sofa and forget all of this. He needs to take his hand off the guy’s thigh. What he does is say, switching back to English: “Just Ryuunosuke is fine.”

It’s a lie that water remembers everything and yet—

So Kasaki Nozomi is pretty, or something like it, something that makes Mizore not want to blink. And suddenly, Mizore is agreeing to join the concert band.

“Turn on the flashlight and shine it onto the pond, close to us.”

Now it seems Eiji’s always searching for Ash. He’d felt the absence in the house between the noise of all the others, saw the sun burning down into the reddening light leaking through the gap in the curtains, and so he’d slipped out the door to find Ash standing in the distance. The shape of his back the only thing breaking up the golden expanse of sky. Always Searching. Mm, Eiji thinks. It’s like that. And Japan feels a lifetime away when he considers having never known Ash.

(Or, Makoto sees Rin in dreams while they’re apart)