#fss2015

Morning! ᕕ(ᐛ)ᕗ Thank you to everyone who has posted their gifts for this year’s Free! Secret Santa! They all look super spectacular!

If you haven’t posted your gift yet, here are some helpful reminders for you:

1) Please get in contact with your assigned person to let them know when they can expect to see their gift posted! ^_^

2) When you’re ready, please remember to tag your gift with the tag #FreeSecretSanta2015. This will make it easier for both your gift receiver and myself to find the gift ^_^ (I need to find it because I’m marking off those who are done so I know where to focus my help!)

3) Thank you so much for your hard work! The creation time is different for everyone, so please know that you’re not being rushed, we’d just like to know a general timeframe in which you think you will be ready to post your gift ^_^

I have been contacting those who I have as unfinished and providing them with a super quick follow-up survey. This is the easiest way for me to keep track of progress. But I am just a slow turtle of an admin feesh, so if you’d like bypass me contacting you directly, you can skip the wait and take the follow-up survey here! 

This is my FreeSecretSanta2015 gift for @otp-tears It’s so late that I’m not even going to give any excuses, just an ‘I’m sorry’. I do hope it’s ok, although I’m not sure if it’s exactly what you wanted ^^; I went with the 'college au’ prompt, and it kinda evolved into something other than what I’d meant it to; thre’s a bit of domestic fluff, a bit of angst…

I’ll make sure to post it on ao3 a bit later when I’m not on mobile :) I really hope you enjoy it love ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The clock ticked.

He placed a pot on the stove.

Outside, a car was just passing by the building.

Inside, sweat was gathering on his forehead as food sizzled on the stove.

He gulped.

Another minute passed.

Did he have time to get dressed? - He was on schedule.

Turn off a burner.

Pour the boiling water in the sink and strain the food.

Another minute passed - the clock ticking would remind him that his flatmate would soon get home.

He needed to get changed.

There was still a pot on the fire; the oven was still on, too.

Five more minutes - Makoto was always on time.

Was everything else ready?

The house was clean; The food still had a few minutes.

Was the table set? - yeah, everything was in order.

He still needed to get changed; Another minute passed.

He stirred in the last pot. Did his hair sit ok? He checked in the mirror across the hallway; he was fine.

Another minute and the fire was turned off. The oven would be on for another 40 minutes.

A run down the hallway later and he was getting dressed.

Makoto was on time as usual - the front door clicked open, and with that the spell that seemed to have fallen over the previously silent flat was broken.

Sousuke could breathe again; His body stopped tingling and sounds weren’t muffled any more, although his heart was still beating like crazy.

“Sousuke?” his name resounded in such a familiar way through the place he had come to call home, Sousuke could almost forget his nerves for a moment.

“Yeh, I’m here.” The male answered, making his way down the hall once again. He took a couple of breaths, bracing himself for what was coming before entering the main hallway-

Just in time for his body to collide with an unexpected mass of weight. Or two, as he discovered upon looking down, only for his eyes to come upon two children; a girl and a boy, clearly twins.

“Hello!”

“Are you really big brother’s boyfriend?”

“Do you live here with him?”

“You’re really together? Like, you kiss and hold hands?” Sousuke could only blink at the sudden attention, and before he had even fully processed, he could already feel his face heating up at the bluntness of the questions - true to form, bluntness only specific to children.

“Ren, Ran!” Makoto called, and Sousuke was relieved to notice the same redness on his cheeks as well. “You can’t ask something like that.”

And as Makoto was taking the two children off of his lover, Sousuke found that he couldn’t hold back a small laugh at the other’s embarrassment, the tension he had been feeling breaking with that little interaction.

“How about we try that again, huh?” He chuckled, looking in turn at the kids, and at the parents respectively. “I’m Yamazaki Sousuke, Makoto’s boyfriend; it’s nice to finally meet you.” He noticed Makoto smiling from the corner of his eye, and felt a bit of that tension building once again as he awaited a reaction; he subtly grabbed his lover’s hand, feeling the reassuring grip as he stood there under the inspection of both adults.

It was a few long seconds for the male before someone broke it.

“Well, that won’t do.” Makoto’s mother frowned, and for a terrible second Sousuke could feel his heart stopping. “With all you’ve been talking of him, you never told us how handsome he was, Makoto!” The woman chuckled, walking closer in order to inspect the boy. “It’s wonderful to meet you, Yamazaki-kun.” She finally said, and Sousuke had to take in a deep breath, still frozen in place.

That was when the last person in the room decided to cut in, chuckling himself. “Please, Do not take my wife so seriously. She was merely making a joke.”

“I was most certainly not. Such a handsome young man, Makoto’s descriptions never did him justice. I will not stand by such injustice to Yamazaki-kun-”

And Sousuke laughed. He laughed at the silly statement, laughed with relief, laughed at himself for being so afraid when Makoto’s parents were obviously so nice. “Please, just Sousuke is fine.” He said through his chuckles, meeting the eyes of Makoto, who was smiling at him with the same relief Sousuke was feeling reflected in his eyes.

- Neither one of the boys would forget it, obviously. That horrible night at the end of their first year, when Makoto had opened the door to a rain-soaked Sousuke whose face reflected nothing but desperation and whose eyes were bloodshot from holding back tears.

Makoto had immediately pulled his boyfriend inside, seating him down on the couch as he went to Sousuke’s room. The male had been alone for a couple of minutes, sitting in silence as h drowned in a sort of misery he wouldn’t have been able to share with others. When Makoto had returned, no words had been spoken. The male had silently given him him a change of clothes and left him to take a shower; no questions had been asked, and Sousuke had been grateful for that fact.

He had spent half an hour in that shower, finding himself unable to wash away the bitterness and disappointment he was feeling.

Once he was out of the shower, there was already a plate of food -microwaved leftovers from the last meal he had cooked- waiting on the table for him. It had been a serving of food and a cup of tea later that Sousuke had finally broken the silence between them, voice cracking on the very first syllable, and began the retelling of the events that had occurred only previously that evening - going home for a visit to his parents, telling them that he was in a relationship, confessing that it was with another man- and how at that moment, it had all gone wrong. Things had been said that Sousuke would rather not recall even to this day, all leading down to the highlight of that evening.

“Don’t you dare step foot into our house again until you decide to be normal again.”

Those had been the last words his Father had addressed Sousuke as he had kicked his own son out of the house.

That night, they had slept holding each other tightly, and ever since then the two had been sharing a single bed, taking reassurance in the closeness. -

It was an unspoken fact between them, how both boys had held a certain anxiety about this evening, a fear of having those same events repeated with Makoto’s family. Thus it was a great weight lifted off of both their shoulders, the easy acceptance of the Tachibana family. Their grip on each other’s hands tightened for a second before letting go, Makoto instead picking up his little sister.

“Come on, how about we go to the living room? We better not let the food run cold. We can talk more there.” He suggested, turning to his parents who were both smiling at them.

“You go, Makoto.” Sousuke interjected. “everything is set, I’ll just bring the food over.” A small smile was set on his lips as he was looking his lover in the eyes.

“Yes, let’s go, let’s go! You always said how good his food is!” One of the twins, the boy, exclaimed as he jumped up and down, causing a full new blush to blossom on Makoto’s face.

“Ren!” The male whined,  Sousuke chuckling at his lover’s embarrassment.

“Well, I’m glad to hear that you’ve been bragging with me. Go in, I’ll be right there.” He grinned, ruffling Ren’s hair as he passed the boy on his way to the kitchen.

It was once everything was set and the food was on the table, steaming from heat and enticing everyone with it’s mind numbing flavour and smell that Sousuke took his seat next to Makoto, in the living room. The space was lightly decorated with typical christmas decorations in warm colors, and the tree raining gold light over the room added to the warm atmosphere; they even had mistletoe hanging to one side of the room.

As he sat down, Sousuke leaned over to leave a kiss on his lover’s forehead, still somewhat swept away in the earlier relief.was It only after that that he realised his action, thanking all the gods that the twins were too busy deciding what food to start with to notice the two college students. On the other hand, Makoto’s parents were giving the two a look that was meant to communicate that they had definitely noticed.

“Uh, Ren, Ran, don’t eat too much! We still have the main course and dessert!” Makoto hurried to change the subject, not very subtle but successful none-the-less. The parents decided to let it slide in favour of the food that was barely waiting for them to dig in.

As he was placing food on his own plate, Sousuke found himself revelling in the light interaction and easy acceptance that had come with the Tachibana family. Never had he been faced with such openness; the reality he lived in had always been one of strict standards and high expectations; one of everything or nothing. The easy interaction had been one of the first things to draw him towards Makoto just like it had Rin in the past, and to find such a warm space with this family put him in a place where he wouldn’t know how to act; the cold formality of his own family had been easy to deal with. He would always know exactly what to say and how to act, what was expected of him. This was different, and it was as exhilarating as it was frightful.

Conversation was light that evening; topics came easy, and laughter flowed. Formality was forgotten, and more than ever Sousuke felt like he could actually learn to belong there.

“I must say,” Meiko, for Sousuke learned that to be the woman’s name, commented at one point, “You boys did a wonderful job of cleaning up this place. I admit that I was surprised.” At which moment the two looked at each other, laughing awkwardly at the memory of that morning.

- Text books and papers covered every flat surface in the apartment. If the kitchen table was filled with books on ‘child psychology’, the couch was covered with papers about ‘the physics behind the front crawl’ and ‘the right movement for correct swimming’, topped off with notebooks filled with notes about ‘how to work your muscles to a proper level before you take on professional swimming’ and ‘groups of muscles involved in swilling backstroke: a biological guide’.

In between the chaos of butchered trees were cups half-filled with day-old coffee and a stack of plates with crumbs on them; that is not to mention the sticky notes with quick reminders and the images sticked just above the tv, on the fridge, above the stove and just about everywhere else to be sure that important facts would be stuck forever in the heads of the two boys.

Needless to say, upon waking up that morning, it was panic that had kept them moving enough to tidy everything up and stack every last notebook on the floor of their shared room, unpin every image of stick figures in awkward positions or highlights of muscle groups off the walls and stuffed under their bed.

Cleaning up had been an odd ordeal, to say the least, and including the washing of floors and dusting of shelves, it had taken just until Makoto had to leave to get his parents, meaning that for most of the day, Sousuke hadn’t had the chance to think in depth about what was about to happen.

It had been just as he was about tp leave that Makoto had turned over to him, a serious expression on his usually calm face, and taken his lover into an embrace. “It’s going to be ok. ” he had whispered, pinpointing the exact moment when nerves had began taking over Sousuke. “You’ll see, it’s going to turn out fine, trust me.” Sousuke had nodded, in an attempt to reassure Makoto more than anything “Yeah…” he had answered. “I know.” He had lied, and they both knew it, but Makoto had let it go and given him a single, lingering kiss before leaving. -

“I need to go take the chicken out of the oven; I’ll be right back.” Sousuke announced suddenly, standing up without another word and leaving the room. He needed to clear his head for a bit.

The male spent a few minutes more than necessary in the kitchen, gulping down a glass of water and taking a few deep breaths. The fear he had been holding onto for the last few weeks was finally leaving his body as the current situation was dawning on him, but the traces were still eating him on the inside; fear that Makoto’s parents wouldn’t approve of their relationship, far that they would force Makoto to chose between them. He knew that his lover cared a great deal for his family, and frankly, Sousuke was afraid because he knew that, were he in the situation to pick, Makoto would always choose his family. He had been afraid that he would lose Makoto, the one pillar of stability that had showed up in his life while he had been oh so lost after high school, when he had had no idea where he would go next in life.

- Meeting Makoto that one evening while he was walking aimlessly around had been nothing short of a blessing. It had started raining outside and he had run into the closest available space, coincidentally a coffee shop. “Sousuke?” He had heard the surprised voice, and upon turning around, found himself meeting the pools of comfort that were Makoto’s eyes. They had talked that evening as they waited for the rain to ease up, and Makoto had gone through no small amount of shock as he had found out that Sousuke had been ready to leave swimming behind entirely. It had only been later that same week that Sousuke had thought back on that fateful meeting. At that time, he had remembered Makoto mentioning his will to become a swimming coach for children, and found himself remembering the time he had been training Nitori in high school.

It was fate’s weird sense of humour that had made it so that on his very first lecture that following fall, Makoto had been there. He supposed things could have turned out worse; He was happy in a relationship with the person who had unknowingly helped Sousuke find a new sense of purpose in life, so yeah, sousuke would say that he had turned out pretty fine. -

He was carrying the plate with the main course out of the kitchen when he heard it; he wasn’t sure exactly how it had happened that the conversation in the living room had progressed into Makoto talking to his parents about Sousuke’s poor sense of direction; he blushed, remembering the exact event Makoto was referring to - it had, after all, been only two weeks prior.

- Well into their second year at college, Makoto had left early that morning to talk to the teacher about something before class. Sousuke had thought nothing of it until he found himself in a corridor he had never seen before, a good half hour before the lecture had started.

‘Where are you?! (・o・)’ Makoto had texted him, no doubt noticing his lover’s absence, but Sousuke was reluctant to let the other know that he was lost, so he opted to find his way on his own.

That was that he had told himself of course, until another half an hour and two panicked messages from Makoto later he had slumped down onto the floor of the hallway, finally giving up and texting his lover back. ‘I think I got lost…’ he finally answered, knowing that Makoto would come searching for him. -

“As soon as I left the lecture hall,” Makoto’s voice, filled with mirth, broke through his thoughts at that time, “the first thing I saw was Sousuke sitting on the floor right across the hall from me.”

Of course Sousuke would have loved to laugh along with everyone, were he not the very protagonist of the ridicule. Instead he found his face getting even hotter as he walked into the living room, placing the food in the middle of the table without saying a word, suddenly finding the shade of the carpet to be highly intriguing.

Obviously  even as he sat down the snickering around him hadn’t subsided, now fueled by his obvious discomfort at the situation. The male refused to meet anyone’s eyes for obvious reasons.

It was after several more seconds that Makoto finally turned to his lover and decided to spare him, grabbing the male’s hand and leaning over to give him a small kiss on the cheek. Sousuke, ignoring the giggles Ren and Ran didn’t even try to hide, finally looked his lover in the eyes. Makoto’s message hadn’t been spoken out loud, but it was there - ‘you may be a dork, but I love just as well’. Well, perhaps Makoto would have worded it differently, but that was the general idea.

Finally deciding to let go of his indignation, Sousuke angled his body close to Makoto’s and looked up completely, the two leaning onto each other now as they sat, and was a bit surprised to find his lover’s parents smiling gently at them after their little display.

Wanting desperately to change the subject and cut through the awkwardness, Sousuke, much to Makoto’s amusement, turned his attention to the wonderful course now sitting in the middle of the table, offering to cut up the meat for everyone, and thankfully soon enough they had all returned to eating happily.

“It’s really a relief that you are such a wonderful cook, Sousuke-kun.” Meiko Tachibana commented at a point. “Makoto is an awful cook so it’s nice to know that he isn’t eating takeout and instant meals all the time. Please continue to take care of him from now on.” The woman smiled earnestly, and Sousuke was once again hit by the wave of unfamiliar but not unwelcome warmth and acceptance from the Tachibana family.

Rather than giving a sappy response or becoming sentimental though, Sousuke chose to instead look at the male in question with a smirk, delighted at his flustered Makoto was just from his mother’s comment.

“Oh, I know that already; Remembers my last exam sessions?” he directed the last question to his lover, who called his name in protest because really, did they have to go and tease him like that?

Sousuke only laughed at his reaction. “It was sweet, really.” the remark was directed at the two adults, remembering how during his studying frenzy, Makoto had interrupted him for a break and offered to help him cook something. O course Sousuke had still been unaware at the time, but it was not half an hour later that one of their pots was officially rendered unusable, a wall donned a long black stripe that fanned out at the top from where it had been smoked by the burning pot, an otherwise perfect gravy was thrown away because of the unsalvageable seasoning, and Makoto had received a lifetime ban from the shared kitchen.

As he finished reminiscing, Sousuke leaned over to leave a kiss on his lover’s forehead. “Hey, as far as I’m concerned, that just one of your quirks. Besides. That was payback for the earlier thing.” He added deviously, and Makoto spluttered back.

“I-I wasn’t trying to make fun of you!” He exclaimed truthfully in defense, causing another laugh from Sousuke.

“Hey, hey it’s fine. I know.” He chuckled, leaving a peck on Makoto’s lips.

“Eep!” Both college students immediately faced the source of the sound, having disregarded for a second that there were still two children in the room, currently covering their eyes from the display. They both blushed,but smiled at each other none-the-less.

“Come on, kids, let’s finish this food before it goes cold, hu?” He offered, smoothly turning things around as the children easily shifted their attention to the feast before them.

Under the table, he felt Makoto holding his hand, and looked around at the people around him. The two children so easy to get along with, the parents, so warm and kind, and Makoto. There was nothing really right to say there, to really portray why the other was so important to him but the feeling of home he felt when around Makoto was unmistakeable.

A tad bit late gift for @positivelypotatoes who was so sweet with her request of MakoHaru and fluffy that I wanted to do something super cute for her.

I hope you enjoy your gift <3 Merry Christmas to you and to our favorite cute couple!

My secret Santa present for @rimmfire  Hope you like it. Here’s the first half for Christmas and the next half should be done before new years. SO sorry for the delay.