Texture

by cloudcraft

Summary:

A series of Tenyuki one-shots sewn together through Yuki's career as Mankai Company costumer.
Scenes from everyday life: close enough to touch, yet always at a safe distance.

"It’s hard to forget the first time he laid eyes upon Sumeragi Tenma.

That is to say, the first time he saw Tenma properly. Not his first impression of a conceited boy looking down on everyone from behind a pair of shiny sunglasses. At that point, he didn’t think much beyond 'wow, sunglasses indoors? Pretentious, much?'"

Notes:

Thanks as always to bananashiro for editing.

Chapter 1: denim

It’s hard to forget the first time he laid eyes upon Sumeragi Tenma.

That is to say, the first time he saw Tenma properly. Not his first impression of a conceited boy looking down on everyone from behind a pair of shiny sunglasses. At that point, he didn’t think much beyond “wow, sunglasses indoors? Pretentious, much?”

No, the first time Yuki saw him, really saw him, was when Tenma took the sunglasses off and stood on the Mankai stage to deliver his audition. Standing beneath the lights, even the glint in his eyes changed with each shift in his expression. When he demonstrated “sad,” his eyes were a melancholy indigo. When he switched to “pleased,” a deep ocean blue.

Yuki could recall his outfit that day with perfect clarity. Tenma had been wearing a denim shirt over marine stripes, fitted drawstring pants, and red lace-up, high-top shoes.

Even with the stylish pant leg cuffs and the amount of ankle on display, it was an unpretentious getup. Especially in comparison to his obnoxious hair color and indoor sunglasses.

He had a good face. Broad shoulders. Real “boy next door” appeal, assuming you lived in a Friday night drama. The kind of features that were born to sell jeans in a monochrome ad on the side of a shopping bag.

Yuki decided immediately that he hated everything about him.

Chapter 2: satin

When Tenma stepped onto the fitting stand (a repurposed set piece from Romeo and Julius), he dispensed with his usual princely attitude. He simply stood with his arms raised slightly from his sides and gaze focused straight forward into the mirror.

After fitting a distracted Misumi, fidgeting Muku, and Kazunari—who had tried to take a kissy face selfie during his turn—Yuki found himself able to relax at last.

“You’re a hack actor but a good clothes horse.”

“Excuse me?” Tenma shot back. “I’m used to getting fitted because I’m a professional actor!”

“Yeah, yeah. Here, let’s start with the pants.”

Tenma barely moved a muscle as Yuki knelt on each side of him, pinching hems and pinning them shut, but Yuki could see him staring in the mirror. Every time their reflected eyes met, Tenma would clear his throat and turn his gaze up to the ceiling.

“What,” Yuki finally said.

“‘What’ nothing! There’s nothing else to look at!”

“You always were a restless boy, Alibaba,” Yuki sighed, effortlessly slipping into his Scheherazade falsetto, and tried not to grin when he saw Tenma turn pink in the mirror.

“What, are you my mother?” Tenma barked back, immediately in character. Of course he couldn’t resist the improvisation challenge. Yuki giggled, which was excusable as Scheherazade.

“Well, I certainly don’t remember raising you like this.”

Last came the shirt, the focal piece of the ensemble. Yuki leaned back for a good look, nodding in satisfaction at the way the lustrous fabric caught the light.

“So? How do I look?” Tenma puffed himself up with a smirk, still in character. Only someone with his ego would emphasize his chest in such an open top.

“Mmm... Maybe the V-cut was a mistake. We’re going to get indecency complaints.”

“HEY. Who’s the one who designed open midriffs for Scheherazade AND Aladdin?”

“Kidding. It’s fine, you can take it off now.”

Yuki stepped back from the fitting stand and held out his hand to collect the costume pieces, but Tenma didn’t take them off right away. Instead, he looked himself over in the mirror again, his expression suddenly serious.

“... It really does look good. The whole thing,” Tenma said, running his fingers across the sleeves with an appreciative, approving nod.

What the hell. Where did he get off sounding so sincere all of a sudden.

Yuki looked away and pretended to adjust his sewing belt.

“Obviously. Now give it back so I can make it perfect.”

Chapter 3: rayon

The costumes for Shi*No*Bi demanded both wild creativity and simplicity, a challenge that Yuki was more than happy to answer. His response boiled down to lots of patterned fabrics and bright palettes, nothing too crazy in terms of construction… with one exception.

“Move your stuff off the table, I need more floor space for the kimono.”

Tenma grumbled as he came down from his bunk to collect his stacks of bonsai magazines, but he had the decency to fold up the floor table and set it aside while Yuki laid out his supplies.

“Is this for Kuno’s undercover scene in the second act?”

“Mm. I’ve never made a kimono completely from scratch before, so I need to concentrate.”

Tenma hummed, clambering back up to his bunk and slumping against the railing to watch. Yuki sighed and sat up straight to start smoothing out the fabric and marking the seams.

“Aren’t kimono usually more…” Tenma squinted as he struggled to find the words. “...you know, kimono-ish?”

“Thank you for the informed commentary from our celebrity guest,” Yuki intoned, barely lifting his gaze. “For your information, I went with a solid lavender to match the rest of the characters’ color palettes, and it’ll look even better on stage with Kumon. As for the fabric…”

He let out a deep sigh, settling back on his haunches.

“I’m not happy about it either. Normally I’d want to work with silk or at least a more convincing synthetic, but there were already lots of pieces to prepare this time, and this outfit only appears in one scene, and I had to make it work with that money-grubbing yakuza’s budget…”

Yuki paused as he realized he was gripping his scissors like a murder weapon, and slowly lowered them to his side. Tenma didn’t seem to notice.

“Okay, I don’t really get the details, but.” Tenma shifted forward so more of him dangled over the side of the bunk. “It sucks that you can’t make it exactly as you want this time. You can make up for it when you make yourself a really nice kimono in the future.”

Yuki lifted his head properly this time, raising a brow.

“What, you mean whenever Villager C decides to write us another period piece? I doubt he’ll recycle settings that quickly, at least not for Summer—”

“That’s not what I meant. I mean…” Tenma coughed. “You know, for Coming of Age Day. You’ll get to wear a furisode, right?”

Yuki blinked. It would be a lie to say he didn’t feel a rush of envy and excitement to see all the cute kimono on the streets every February. But…

“Why are we even talking about my Coming of Age Day? You haven’t even had yours.”

“Wha—It’s not that far off!” Tenma barked. “And you’re not that much younger than me, so.”

A vision of the future where both he and Tenma were adults flashed in Yuki’s head, complete with a deep red furisode and a faux fur shoulder stole. When he was twenty, Tenma would be twenty-two…

“That’s—” he stammered, feeling his face grow hot. “What are you even talking about? I said I needed to concentrate on this.”

“Fine, fine.” Tenma threw himself back on his bunk, opening one of his stupid bonsai magazines. “Just don’t stay up all night.”

An awkward silence fell over the room. With no conversation to distract him, his mind teetered dangerously close toward furisode daydreams of five years down the road.

Before he could get lost in more of those thoughts, Yuki took up his pincushion and attacked the silence with the noises of work—all thoughts of himself attending his Coming of Age ceremony, clad in an adorable kimono, with Tenma and the rest of Summer troupe looking on, banished whence they came.

Chapter 4: wool

Notes:

I swear this was seasonal when I first drafted it.

Summer troupe had an important tradition when going out together. Whenever they met on-site instead of leaving the dorm together, someone would be tasked with escorting Tenma to the meet-up spot. (Oftentimes without telling Tenma himself, so as not to incur his fervent denial of his navigation issues.)

For the Christmas light festival, that task fell to Yuki. Before the meeting time, Kazunari had a group project meeting, Misumi had a work shift, and Muku and Kumon were visiting their family.

Despite whatever he’d say when asked, Yuki didn’t mind being Tenma’s babysitter. He vastly preferred it to hunting him down when he inevitably got lost.

Thus, this December evening found him standing beneath a big Christmas tree display with the world’s most insufferable actor, shivering and rubbing his hands together for warmth. Even Tenma, despite his persistent claims that he wasn’t cold, shuffled his feet and shoved his hands in his pockets.

Of course, everyone else decided to run late without texting in advance on one of the coldest days of the year . Because Yuki just had to be a member of the fun, zany troupe and not the mature, punctual troupe.

To make matters worse, the Christmas tree plaza was stuffed nearly to capacity with couples, or people obviously waiting for their other half. Every time someone’s glance drifted in his direction, Yuki couldn’t help but wonder if that person assumed that Tenma was his boyfriend.

It wasn’t like he’d dressed up cute for Tenma’s sake. He dressed up because it was a troupe outing, and Kazunari was going to take a bunch of photos, and he loved coordinating with red and white. That was all.

“Hey.”

Tenma’s voice jolted him out of his thoughts.

“What?” he snapped.

“I haven’t even said anything yet, what are you getting all mad for?”

Yuki wrinkled his nose and wrung his hands with extra vigor, readying his comeback when Tenma turned to him suddenly with an exaggerated sigh and reached into his jacket.

“I can’t watch you do that any more. Here, just take this.”

He withdrew his hand from his jacket holding a small wrapped package. A Christmas present, no matter how you looked at it.

Yuki looked up at him and narrowed his eyes.

“Quit looking at me like that!” Tenma barked, averting his gaze. “I was going to wait until later, but it looks like you could use it now, so just take it.”

Yuki maintained a distrustful stare as he plucked the package from Tenma’s outstretched hand. The contents were soft. Some kind of clothing? Interest piqued, he finally tore his eyes away from Tenma’s reddening face to pull back the wrapping.

In his hands rested a pair of knit wool gloves in cream, with fuzzy trim. Based on the construction and tag, probably very expensive. He glanced between the gloves and Tenma.

“This is a Christmas present.”

“Well, obviously! I bought it, I should know!” Tenma’s shoulders stiffened as he bit back another shiver in the cold. “Do you… like them?”

Yuki lowered his face to hide his smile as he slipped the gloves on. They fit perfectly, and the lining was silky-soft against his palms. Almost immediately, he felt a little less cold.

“It’s a good color choice. Did the department store staff say it would match any outfit?”

“M-Maybe. I have some basic fashion sense too, you know.” Tenma cleared his throat, shoving his hands in his pockets again. “Glad you like it.”

Yuki turned his hands over a few times, examining the fibers and stitching. If his suspicions were correct, these were possibly the most expensive accessory he’d ever owned.

“I don’t have anything for you,” he said suddenly.

“It’s fine,” Tenma said, so earnestly that Yuki had no rebuttal for once.

He could have asked a number of follow-up questions. Like whether Tenma had bought gifts for the rest of Summer troupe, or just for Yuki. Or why he had felt the need to get Yuki a Christmas present in the first place. Or when Tenma had been planning to give it to him, if not this very moment. Whether Tenma had been carrying it with him all this time, waiting for the right moment.

Yuki flexed his fingers in the gloves, admiring them again as he watched Tenma out of the corner of his eye. At this point, it was difficult to tell if Tenma was only red because of the cold. He kept looking off toward the station entrance, presumably looking for their errant troupemates.

“They’re taking forever,” Tenma said finally, sighing. “Let’s just go sit down somewhere warm. You want a hot chocolate or something?”

“Mm.” Yuki glanced around the plaza and pointed out the trendiest-looking cafe he could see. “That one. I want a gingerbread latte.”

Then, to his own surprise, Yuki let out an abrupt snort. Tenma didn’t miss a beat.

“What’s so funny?” he snapped.

“Nothing,” Yuki giggled. “Just that… if we were going to go inside anyway, you didn’t have to use the excuse to give me these.”

He wiggled his now-toasty fingers and grinned. Tenma groaned, his cheeks flushing darker red.

“Whatever. You have them now. Just be grateful.”

“Mm. Oh, and I want my gingerbread latte with extra whipped cream.”

“What am I, your butler?”

Yuki laced his fingers together behind his back as they walked to the cafe together. After that scene, anyone watching would have to assume they were a couple. There was no other logical explanation.

But maybe that was just unavoidable. It was Christmas, after all.