He's fucking with you. He has to be. Just the night before he was in Yokohama playing a match against VC Kanagawa. He should be in Nagano recovering from the brutal defeat they'd suffered, training so it doesn't happen again. Not here. Not in the little city the two of you had spent your youths together in in Hyogo. Certainly not outside your house.

"Shut up, Rin," you mutter petulantly. Maybe you'd be less affronted by his joke if you hadn't been missing him so much lately. If it hadn't been eight long weeks since you'd seen him last. If he hadn't been too busy as of late to call.

"What happened to that ramen place across the street? Did it close?"

"Yeah, a couple weeks ago, just moved a few blocks up--wait," your voice crackles out on the interjection as you interrupt your own reply. "Are you serious? Are you really here?"

You rise to your feet and your friends seated at the booth with you look at you curiously, noticing for the first time that your attention has been torn away from the girls singing at the front of the room.

"Too bad, I liked that place."

"Rintarou so help me god if you're fucking with me I--" your voice wavers, "are you really here?"

Suna laughs, breathy and fond. "Yeah, dummy. And it's fucking freezing out, y'know. Leave it to you to pick the one night I need you home to decide to be emerge from your hermithood."

"That's not a real word," you say quietly even though there's a million better things you could be saying.

"Oh, you're smart now too? A day of firsts for you."

"Rin, if you're lying to me right now I--"

"I'm not."

For all the noise surrounding you, all you can hear is your heartbeat thundering in your ears.

The karaoke bar is eight blocks from your apartment.

At a normal pace, the walk would normally take you 15 minutes--three blocks north and five blocks west.

Running there you make it in 9.

You turn the corner onto your street--out of breath, shoes clutched in your hands which you'd kicked off your feet a few blocks into your scramble, hair caught in your lip gloss--and you see him.

Suna Rintarou is perched on the stone steps outside of your apartment, his duffle bag at his feet and his arms wrapped around himself for warmth in the cool night. His face is illuminated by the cellphone he holds in his hand as he sits slumped on the concrete, but the minute you turn the corner his eyes are on you.

He smiles.

You start running again, right towards him.

Suna stands just in time for you to launch yourself at him; dropping your shoes to the ground as your arms wrap around his neck with his circling your waist in turn. He grunts as you make impact but doesn't falter, holding you tightly to him and never so much as wavering in place.

"Take it easy, killer," he laughs warmly against your temple, setting you carefully on your feet. Your hands clutch his jacket in your fists, refusing to be separated from him.

"How are you here?" you ask him--breathless from the run, breathless from the surprise, breathless from the tight squeeze of your heart in your chest.

"Took the last train here after practice let out," Suna says it plainly, like there's not more that needs to be explained.

"Why?"

Suna stares down at you, his hazel eyes looking greener than usual thanks to the pink of his nose as a result of the cold.

"You probably wouldn't believe me if I said I just wanted to see you, huh?"

You grip his coat a little tighter.

"Nope."

He sighs exasperatedly, but smiles as he tilts his head back. You watch the bob of his adam's apple as he swallows hard.

"You're impossible."

"Says the guy who showed up outside my apartment unannounced at--" you turn your wrist to get a glimpse at the time on your watch, "--eleven fifty eight PM on a Thursday!"

Suna drops his chin to fix you in a stare more serious than you'd been anticipating, and it's quiet for a moment as he just... looks at you.

"Didn't wanna miss it," he finally mumbles.

"Miss what?" you ask him, confused.

Suna takes your wrist in his hand. His fingertips are freezing--frigid against your body's heat--but warmth blooms underneath your skin all the same at the simplest brush of his touch against your pulsepoint.

Your breath catches in your throat as Suna's long fingers tilt your wrist up towards his face. He holds it there, holds you there, frozen.

It's agonizing.

Being this close to him.

Being held by him.

Wanting him in ways you know you shouldn't.

Having him in ways that aren't enough.

"Ah--" Suna's voice pulls you away from your spiralling thoughts, and his eyes flicker up to yours, "--there it is."

You blink, as though a few flutters of your eyelids might clear the confusion that's settled over you.

He smiles your favourite smile, the one you so rarely get to see; the one that shows his teeth, and how one of his canines is the littlest bit crooked if you look at it close enough.

"Happy birthday."

You lose your ability to speak. To blink. To breathe. To do anything that isn't just stare at him and his slightly crooked teeth.

"Come on, don't tell me you forgot."

Of course you didn't forget, not entirely anyway. It certainly hadn't been at the forefront of your mind for the past twenty minutes or so since his call had come through, but it was the whole reason you'd gone out with your friends that evening. The whole reason that you weren't home when he showed up unannounced at your apartment.

You'd been out to distract yourself from the fact that this was set to be the very first time since you were fifteen years old where Suna Rintarou was not the first person to wish you happy birthday.

He, evidently, had other plans.

Tears well up in your eyes before you can stop them--scalding hot against the wind-chilled skin of your cheeks.

"Hey," Rintarou says, eyes widening a little in shock. "I thought you'd be happy to see me."

You try to pull away slightly, but his grip on you stays firm.

"I am, I--" your voice breaks pathetically, "--I just, I'm overwhelmed I think."

"I travel halfway across the country and fight frostbite for you, and you're the one who's overwhelmed?" Suna asks flatly. "My phone is on 3% battery."

"Rin, please I just--" You fight against his hold, but it stays fast to you. An anchor, a tether, it keeps you bound to him. You give up, collapsing against his chest with your cheek pressed to his jacket. "I'm so happy. Thank you."

He relaxes slightly at your words, but still doesn't quite let you go.

"If you're grateful, I know how you can thank me."

You laugh against him, enjoying the way you can feel his words rumble through his chest as you're pressed to it basking in his warmth. You snake your arms under his jacket, pressing closer to him.

"Shouldn't you be giving me something? It's my birthday after all."

Suna's frigid hand takes your face in his palm, titling your eyes up towards him with his grip on your chin. You're about to ask him what he's doing when you see the look in his eyes.

He looks desperate.

"Don't hate me," he murmurs quietly.

And then he kisses you.

The world stops at 12:03 on your birthday.

At least that's what it feels like when his lips are on yours--cold and wind-bitten as they may be.

It's perfect. It's all you've ever wanted and more. You never want it to end.

Suna pulls away first, and takes a long step back to put distance between the two of you.

"I'm sorry," he says, a hand over his mouth. "I shouldn't have--"

"Rintarou."

He falters, his uncertain gaze meeting yours.

"Kiss me again."

He doesn't need you to tell him twice.

Suna kisses you for the second time at 12:05 on your birthday, only this time the world feels like it starts to spin a little faster than it had been before.