fusion baby

Shun rubbed at his face. He had jolted out of bed when he noticed the time, but Sora’s hands on his shoulder’s pushed him back down. Shun would probably never admit it, but Sora had also kind of caught him before he fell flat onto his face from the head rush standing so quickly while his sinuses were jammed caused.

“I already called them. I also already told you, and you were like,” Sora plugged his nose, taking on the voice of an old man or something else distinctly off from his standard Shun impression, “‘Yeah.’ That’s proof you’re not well enough to go, anyway.”

Shun relaxed a little, somewhat glad Sora had already taken care of the work situation and not wanting to fight him. “Are you going to be my nurse, then?”

Instead of getting embarrassed, Sora suddenly looked excited. “Ruri told me what foods I should make. I’ve never taken care of a sick person before.”

Shun let himself settle back into his bed, rubbing at his eyes. “Have you ever been sick before?”

Yuuri pulled his hoodie off, dropping it in the middle of the floor. His shirt was splattered with blood, and as he got closer the smell got worse.

“I missed you.”

Sora laughed again, backing away when Yuuri got too close and putting his hands on his hips to keep him at a distance when he was backed against the kitchen counter.

“I missed you too,” Sora said, not sure if he meant it, and Yuuri wordlessly grabbed his hands, pulling them to the sides so they were chest to chest as Yuuri caught his lips, his knee edging between Sora’s legs.

“Knife,” Sora muttered, and Yuuri laughed, pulling it out of his pocket and tossing it onto the counter.

“But isn’t it fun?”

“It’s kind of pretty, I guess.”

“It reminds me of when I was little. Making snowmen with my mom and- well, you know, all of that stuff.”

Sora shrugged, pulling up the zipper of his jacket. “I’ve never really done any of that.”

Yuuya gaped. “You’ve never made a snowman?”

“Well, no…”

“Let’s go, right now!”

A small noise of protest escaped out of Sora and Yuuya started pulling him toward the door.

“Oh! I should call Gongenzaka!”

“Hey, you two-”

Shuzo’s appeal was ignored as a handful of the other kids caught wind of what was going on, clamoring and even stopping duels in the middle to pull their coats on and scramble outside.

The ground already had a good coating by the time they got out, the younger kids already in the middle of a snowball fight. Yuuya finished leaving a message to Gongenzaka as Sora stood next to him and rubbed his hands together, brow furrowed.

“Why’d you call him, isn’t his duel school really strict?”

“He might still come! I’m sure he hasn’t made a snowman in a while either.” Yuuya was beaming, cheeks dusted pink in the cold. Sora side-stepped a stray snowball.

“Yuuya, Sora, come be on my team!” Ayu called, just barely flinching away to avoid Tatsuya’s snowball hitting her face.

“Why would I willingly get frozen water thrown at me?” Sora muttered, and Yuuya laughed.

“Not today, guys!” he replied for them both, much louder, and then grabbed Sora’s hand. “Come on, let’s go somewhere with more space, it’ll be easier.”

“Sorry. My professor’s strict about that sort of thing, so I shut it off before I left.”

Sora’s eyes widened. “Your duel disk?”

“Well, yeah.”

Sora procured a towel at record speed, swinging it up to pull Shun’s head down to his level, Shun letting his soaked bag drop to the floor. “You’ve relaxed more than I thought.”

“I suppose. I was in class, anyway.”

Sora busied himself trying to dry off Shun’s neck and hair. The frown was set in Sora’s face now, pensive. He didn’t even carry his deck with him anymore, keeping it in a case in a closet like a relic of childhood, and he didn’t like to think about why that was. He didn’t like to think about that whole business at all, and Shun letting the weapon he clutched at for so many years fall out of his hands so nonchalantly was clearly unsettling to him.

“Well, you should get out of those clothes.”

“If you insist.”

Shun only got the first button of his shirt undone before Sora threw the towel over his face.

“Change into something warmer, dinner’s almost ready.”

“Where’s Ruri?”

“She’s staying over with Yuzu, her place is closer to her school.”

“Ah.”

“She didn’t bring an umbrella either. Honestly, did it never rain in Heartland?”

Shun paused, pulling his shirt off as he walked into the bedroom. “I guess it had to’ve. I haven’t checked the weather since we moved to Standard, though.”

Truthfully, when he was young his parents had paid attention to the weather for him, and when they were gone he decided the weather couldn’t stop him, and now he just hasn’t really thought of it. He guessed Ruri had a somewhat similar mindset.

“Well, if it’s supposed to rain I’ll write it on your forehead before you wake up.”

“Don’t joke about that, you’d do it.”

Sora didn’t answer, busy getting the food. It was then that Shun’s eyes wandered to the window. He pulled his soaked-through socks off, noticing how pretty the city was in the rain, lights glistening through the water droplets on the window.

As Shun settled, he realized how cold the place was. Ruri would probably complain when she got home, but he and Sora never minded the cold much, so it could wait until the morning.

When he finished getting dressed he found himself sitting next to the window. The gentle sound of rain was oddly peaceful now, rather than the sound of a nuisance.

“You hungry?”

“Of course.”

Sora padded into the room with two bowls in his hands. Upon further inspection, Shun had no idea what it was exactly, but it was stew, warm, probably spicy knowing Sora, and he smiled.

“Thanks for the food.”

Sora hummed, settling down next to Shun with his own bowl.

“This is nice,” Sora said, blowing on his food.

“Well, yes, but Sora and I-”

“Didn’t Sawatari give Yuuya chocolates on White Day last year?”

“That’s different too, Yuuya’s not a boy.”

“Neither is Sora.”

Yuuto kicked his feet against the coffee table almost triumphantly, and Shun realized he hadn’t taken his shoes off when he came in. He was gonna make him pay for cleaning.

“Why don’t you just ask Sora?”

Another withering look. Shun didn’t even grace Yuuto with a response this time.

“Ask Yuuya then.”

“You ask him.”

“What? Seriously?”

“You’re friends with him.”

Yuuto swore under his breath, rolling his eyes and pulling out his d-pad.

About thirty seconds later, Shun’s phone rang, and he glared at Yuuto as he answered it.

“Yes?”

“Sora would be happy if you gave him chocolates both days!”

“You didn’t tell him, did you?”

“No! I have good intuition with this sort of thing.”

“I don’t trust your intuition, Sakaki.”

Yuuya began speaking, but Yuuto snatched the d-pad out of Shun’s hand. “Sorry Yuuya, Shun hasn’t seen Sora or Ruri in an hour, so he’s cranky.”

Yuuya laughed, loud enough for Shun to hear, and then Yuuto proceeded to have a loud, jovial conversation with him on Shun’s d-pad, in the middle of his apartment.

Valentine’s Day felt like a normal day, which Shun didn’t expect since it was his first one while in a relationship, and his first real one at all since the war had torn his life in two, since he had started trying to live a normal life again.

Sora woke up before him, like always. It was still dark and Shun didn’t bother to look at the clock. He heard him moving around in the kitchen a little, politely quiet, and Shun almost fell asleep again by the time Sora came back in, sooner than usual.

“Five more minutes.”

“We have an hour.”

Shun’s eyes opened a crack as Sora crawled on top of him, curling into his chest. He reached his hand up to play with his hair, breathing in Sora’s cotton candy shampoo.

“You should stay home.”

Shun laughed. “Don’t say that, I might do it.”

“You should come home early.”

“I’ll try.”

They stayed like that until they heard Ruri knocking around, politely loud because if she was the first one up everyone else was late. Sora kissed Shun once and then launched off of him, stretching as he pattered off to the kitchen.

Shun’s back popped as he finally sat up, Sora’s proposal that he just stay home tempting him to roll over again and wait for Sora to come back, maybe wait for Ruri to come nag at him. But Sora and Ruri’s hushed conversation beckoned him to standing.

As he walked through the threshold, Sora pushed a small bag into his hands, a new ridiculously cutesy phone charm hanging from the twine closure. “I know you don’t like sweets much, so I only made a little, but,” Sora was blushing a little, and Shun wanted to kiss him, but Ruri was right there, giggling. “I hope you have a good day. And don’t accept chocolates from anyone else but Ruri!”

Shun’s sleepy frown curled into a smile. “Thanks. I won’t. Here.”

It was just a small box of store-bought chocolates but Sora’s eyes widened when he saw it.

“Thank you!”