under the moon with &team

harua had claimed the left side of the couch before anyone even realized he was horizontal. k took the right, one arm thrown over his eyes, already gone.

yuma had folded himself somehow into the armchair, legs dangling over the side at an angle that would definitely hurt in the morning, but he was smiling in his sleep so presumably he'd deal with it then.

taki, maki, and nicholas had migrated to the floor at some point during the third movie, a shared blanket pulled up to their chins, maki's head resting against taki's shoulder.

jo and fuma were out cold against the wall.

which left you standing in the middle of the living room, blinking in the dim blue light of the tv's idle screen, holding your phone and realizing with a very specific kind of tired-person's clarity that you had absolutely nowhere to sleep.

"...oh."

"yeah."

you spun around. euijoo was standing behind you, arms crossed, looking at the occupied couch and the floor situation with an expression that could only be described as the face of a man doing rapid mental calculations.

you'd known euijoo for two years. long enough to know he made that face a lot.

"you can take my room," he said immediately. he was already turning toward the hallway. "i'll find a spot out here, it's fine—"

"there are literally no spots out here."

he paused. looked around the room again. absorbed the full scope of the couch situation, the floor situation, fuma's specific configuration against the wall.

"...i'll find a spot."

"euijoo."

"i will locate a spot—"

"there is no spot," you said. "i'll just take your floor. it's fine, i don't mind—"

"you're not sleeping on my floor."

"it's literally just for one night—"

"you're a guest."

"i'm not a guest, i've been here like forty times—"

"then as someone who has been here forty times, you know the floor is hardwood and you will feel it in your entire spine tomorrow." he crossed his arms. "i'll take the floor. you take the bed."

"euijoo, it's your room—"

"exactly, so i get to decide—"

"that is not how that logic works—"

"it works fine, it's my floor—"

"i'm not letting you sleep on your own floor—"

"then neither of us is sleeping on the floor," he said, and then immediately seemed to realize what he'd said, because he stopped.

you stopped.

the room was suddenly very quiet except for yuma's distant, peaceful snoring.

his ears went pink.

you looked at him while he looked at a point slightly above your head.

"there's a bed," you said, carefully. "that fits two people."

"...yes."

"and we have known each other for two years."

"...also yes."

"so."

a pause. a long one.

"so," he echoed. and then, with the energy of someone accepting a situation they had absolutely created themselves: "yeah. okay. that's — yeah. it's fine."

it was perhaps a little bit not fine — for you specifically, for reasons you were absolutely not going to examine right now — but you kept that very much to yourself.

—

the pillow wall was constructed with genuine architectural dedication.

you sat on the edge of the bed and watched him work, and you were not smiling, you were absolutely not smiling, except you were, a little, behind your hand.

"okay," euijoo said, stepping back to assess. he had arranged four pillows down the center of the bed in a neat, firm line. he nudged one slightly to the left.

"so — this is your side. i'll be on this side. and then this is the, um." he gestured vaguely at the pillow barrier. "the middle."

"the middle," you agreed.

"it's just — i move around sometimes. when i sleep. not a lot, but." he picked up a pillow, considered it, set it back down. "i just want to make sure you have space."

"euijoo. it's okay."

"i'm going to keep my socks on," he announced. "that way if my feet end up near yours, it's — it's less weird. there's a layer."

you pressed your lips together very hard.

"that's very considerate," you said.

he finally seemed to hear himself, because he laughed — a short, embarrassed sound — and rubbed the back of his neck. "i'm being weird about this."

"you're being sweet," you said, and watched his ears go pink again.

"do you need another blanket? i have an extra one in the closet."

"i'm good."

"are you sure? it gets kind of cold in here around three am, i think the building's heating is—"

"euijoo."

"yeah?"

"come to bed."

a pause. then, very quietly: "...okay."

he turned off the light. the room went dark and soft, the distant sound of the city outside the window, the faint sound of someone's deep, even breathing in the living room. nicholas, probably. he'd always been a loud sleeper.

you lay there in the dark, very aware of the pillow wall. very aware of euijoo approximately two feet away on the other side of it.

"comfortable?" he asked, into the ceiling.

"very," you said. "you?"

"yeah." a beat. "are my — are my feet near yours? i can't tell."

"they're nowhere near mine, you're on the other side of the pillow fortress."

"right." another pause. "good. great. that's good."

"goodnight, euijoo."

"...goodnight."

silence.

warm, quiet darkness.

you fell asleep embarrassingly fast.

—

the first thing you were aware of, before you were fully conscious, was warmth.

specifically: warmth on all sides. a solid, comfortable weight against your back. something draped over your waist. the slow, steady sound of breathing very close to your ear.

your brain came online in stages.

warm. cozy. heavy. very comfortable. why is—

oh.

oh no.

you opened your eyes.

the pillow wall had been completely annihilated. one pillow was on the floor. two were somewhere in the vicinity of your feet. the fourth had been pushed toward the headboard and was doing nothing for anyone.

euijoo had found you somewhere across the wreckage of his own good intentions.

his face was tucked against the back of your shoulder. his arm — heavy, warm, extremely there — was around your waist. his knees were curled behind yours, and he was, there was no other word for it, clinging.

oh, but thank goodness he had his socks on.

the ones he specifically kept on so things wouldn't be weird.

thank goodness for that one extra layer.

you stared at the wall across from you.

you were aware that your heart was doing something that couldn't be medically healthy. you were also aware that you should probably move.

create distance.

restore some version of the original defensive architecture.

you tried to assess whether you could wiggle free without waking him.

his arm tightened slightly in his sleep. he made a small, unconscious sound, something between a sigh and a hum, and pressed you closer.

okay, you thought. okay. that's — that's fine. i'm fine. this is fine.

you were not fine.

you were so very, crushingly, hopelessly not fine, because you had been trying very hard for approximately eight months not to have feelings about this specific person, and those feelings were currently being held hostage by his arm and his warm, sleepy weight and the fact that he smelled, very unfairly, like clean laundry and something faintly cedar.

you took a careful breath.

and then, because you were apparently a person who made decisions like this before 7 am, you thought: it's still early. he's asleep. the others are all asleep. nothing has to happen right now.

you let out the breath.

you let yourself relax, just slightly, into the warmth. your heart rate, after another thirty seconds, started to do something approaching normal.

you told yourself it was just because you were comfortable.

you told yourself that very firmly.

you fell back asleep.

—

the second time you woke up, you were alone.

for a moment you just blinked at the ceiling, warm and soft and a little disoriented. the space behind you was empty but still faintly warm. morning light was coming through the gap in the curtains.

then you heard a sound and turned your head.

euijoo was sitting on the edge of the bed. his hair was doing several things at once. his hands were in his lap. he was staring at the floor with the expression of a man who had just mentally reviewed the last eight hours and arrived somewhere very alarming.

you watched him for a moment.

"hey," you said.

he stood up so fast he nearly knocked his lamp over.

"i'm so sorry," he said. the words came out in a rush, like he'd been holding them, organizing them, waiting. "i don't — i'm not usually — the pillows were right there, i built them specifically so — i don't know how i—" he pressed a hand over his face. "i'm really sorry. that was so — i should have just slept on the floor, i knew i should have taken the floor—"

"euijoo—"

"you were probably so uncomfortable, i'm sorry, i know that was — i should have thought of a better solution. i—"

"euijoo, stop."

he stopped. his hand was still half-over his face.

you pushed yourself up slowly onto one elbow. still half-buried in the blankets, hair probably terrible — and then you reached out and lifted the edge of the blanket.

"come here," you said.

he didn't move.

you sat up. you held out your arm, and then, because he was still frozen with his hand over his eyes and his ears had gone so red they were nearly a different color, you said, very gently: "come back."

something in him seemed to — give, a little. loosen.

he crossed the room. he sat back down on the edge of the bed. his shoulders were up around his ears, and he was still not quite looking at you, and he looked so miserable and flustered and painfully earnest that your chest ached with something you couldn't quite name.

you reached out and pulled him in.

he went stiff for a moment — all of him, a full-body hesitation — and you thought he might pull away, might apologize again, might rebuild the pillow fortress out of sheer nervous energy.

but he didn't.

his shoulders dropped, one inch, and then another. you let the blanket settle back over both of you. he hovered there, not quite relaxed, not quite sure where to put himself.

you solved that by gently pulling him down, and he went — carefully, cautiously — until his head was resting against your chest.

his hair was a disaster — sticking up on one side, flattened on the other, a complete document of the night.

without really thinking about it, still half in the soft fog of almost-asleep, you reached up.

you pushed his hair back. slowly, gently, just your fingers moving through it.

euijoo went very still.

not the stiff, anxious stillness from before.

something else.

something quieter.

you did it again. slow, gentle, your hand passing through his hair, tucking a piece back behind his ear. gentle, unhurried.

his breath came out — long and careful, like he'd been holding it.

you felt the moment he stopped hovering. his weight settled, really settled, sinking into you.

and then, slowly, his arm came around your waist. light at first. then easier.

his head tilted, the smallest degree, into your hand.

you kept going. slow and easy, back and forth, while his eyes, you realized, had closed.

"sorry," he murmured, and it was thick with sleep, barely a word at all.

"don't be," you said quietly.

a pause. long and warm.

"...was it actually okay?" the question was drowsy, soft, stripped of all its earlier panic.

you smiled, and he couldn't even see it.

"yeah," you said. "it was more than okay."

a small sound from him. not quite a word. just something settled and satisfied, and then the slow even pull of his breathing told you he was already gone again, his arm a comfortable weight across your waist, his hair soft under your hand where it had finally, gently, stilled.

outside, something dropped. a muffled ow that was almost certainly yuma.

you didn't move.

the morning light stretched long and gold across the floor, and your hand was still in his hair, and his arm was still around your waist, and you thought about eight months of very careful not-feeling and how spectacularly that had worked out for you.

you thought about the pillow wall. the socks. are you comfortable. six times.

you thought about the way he'd said is that okay just now, quiet and careful, like your answer actually mattered, like he'd have respected whatever you said — and somehow that was the part that got you.

not the clinging, not the warmth, not any of it. just that.

is that okay.

you were in so much trouble.

you closed your eyes, and his breathing was slow and even under your hand, and the morning was soft and unhurried and going absolutely nowhere, and you thought —

yeah. okay. this is okay.

—

outside, yuma unfolded himself from the armchair, winced at what his spine had to say about that, and shuffled toward the kitchen.

he stopped at the hallway.

looked at the closed door.

looked back at the living room.

"hey," he whispered, pointing. "hey. they're still—"

"we know," said k, from the couch, eyes still closed.

"should we—"

"no."

"but what if they—"

"no, yuma."

yuma lowered his arm. he looked at the door one more time. he looked deeply, personally delighted about something.

"i'm just saying," he whispered, to himself, shuffling onward to the kitchen. "i called it."

nobody asked him what he called.