to kiss the sun

by mor (mornin)

Summary:

Tooru and Wakatoshi have been arranged to be married since they were barely more than boys. They've spent their lives writing back any forth, they know each other, possibly, better than anyone else. But after their wedding, everything goes wrong.

~ or ~

Wakatoshi and Tooru have to learn what really matters to each other when they aren't separated by the letters they write, and maybe they can win each others hearts in the meantime.

Notes:

this was supposed to be a short little drabble for ushioi week... it is not. i hope you all like it anyway !

 

fic tweet/graphic

Wakatoshi knew that their alliance wasn’t ideal. He knew Tooru had had as little choice in it as he had himself, that there was nothing to celebrate between them beyond the hope that old feuds might finally be put to rest. He knew that, and yet-

Tooru, as distant as he may have been, had always been… a companion to Wakatoshi. They had exchanged letters since they were just boys, before they had even presented. It hadn’t mattered at the time; they would be wed no matter what. Of course, when Wakatoshi presented, unsurprisingly, as an alpha, and then Tooru, somewhat surprisingly, as an omega, there had been celebration to no end. They could mate, they could have children, they could be compatible.

That was the theory, anyway. Wakatoshi had been twelve at the time, and Tooru, not even a whole month older, had been thirteen. Neither of them had cared, much less understood. Not really. They'd written their letters out of obligation (and maybe loneliness) and had formed a camaraderie like that. 

But now, a decade later, they were wed. And that lifetime’s worth of closeness… was gone.

Tooru had been stunning at their wedding. It had been the first time Wakatoshi had seen him in many years, and he’d been taken aback by how he’d matured. His unruly curls had grown long, and they’d been gathered at the nape of his neck and adorned with pins, heavy with flowers and little silver bells. He’d worn a plain white robe over an elaborate and richly embroidered kimono. Rather than the usual bridal red, his kimono had been the pale aquamarine of his house, decorated with patterns or rippling streams, young cherry blossoms, and ripe wistaria. The outer corners of his eyes had been painted a vivid red. He had not looked at Wakatoshi. 

They had consummated the marriage, because that was expected of them, but it had been perfunctory and uncomfortable, especially with the knowledge that they had witnesses on the other side of the thin paper screen walls. Once the rituals and ceremonies had ended, once the Oikawas and their people had returned to their home—except for their son; an Ushijima now—Tooru had all but vanished from Wakatoshi’s life.

He was used, of course, to the physical absence of him, since they had never spent any time together before (though that too was harder to bear now that he had Tooru close, now that he knew his warmth and his scent, and the shape of their bodies together), but he was not accustomed to the silence.

Though Wakatoshi could hardly say what all they had written about through the years, he knew that there was probably no one else he’d ever been so honest with, whether it had been about his love of cats or his concerns about his future as a ruler. He had shared almost everything with Tooru since they had been nothing more than children. And Tooru had, he’d believed, shared the same honesty with him.

The only thing that they had never spoken of was this; their marriage. And now, Wakatoshi found himself wishing desperately that they had.

He sympathized with Tooru. Of course he did, he’d been forced into this just as much as he had, though he certainly hadn’t had to give up so much. But their parents were not bad or cruel, they had believed that their joining would be one that could grow into love, or at least one that would be built on trust and respect. Wakatoshi, foolishly, had believed it too, after years of letters. 

But now, Tooru ran from him. No, that was a generous claim; Wakatoshi hardly saw enough of him to make him run. Tooru hid from him. 

Tooru didn’t sleep in the rooms that had become theirs after the wedding. His scent, which had permeated the walls during their one night together, had faded to almost nothing. Though Wakatoshi knew he should open the screens, air it out, he couldn’t bring himself to. 

He’d asked the servants where Tooru had been sleeping, if not their bed, and they had fluttered nervously and admitted that they did not know, but they sometimes saw him leaving the tea rooms, or the kitchens, or the stables in the early morning. 

Wakatoshi bit his tongue and went back to his old room. “Tell him that our rooms are his,” he instructed the servants. “I will not bother him in there, but he should have a place to sleep.”

The next night, Wakatoshi slept fitfully, but when he passed the doors to his and Tooru’s marriage chambers, he caught a whiff of his scent in the hall outside: crisp pear and spicy caraway over a creamy vanilla. He froze, and breathed, and then kept walking.

He’d promised Tooru a space for himself. He would not go back on his word, he would not trap him any more than he already had.

But he felt, as he walked away… quite lonely.

He had his duties to occupy him, and a few friends to accompany him, but he found himself sitting at his desk in the evening—the one in his old room, the screen open to the wild grounds beyond, where he’d sat countless times before—and writing a letter.

Writing to Tooru had always been his greatest comfort. Tooru had always been his greatest comfort, his source of peace. His sun, when the constraints of his reality kept him from seeing it. 

But he didn’t get to talk to Tooru now, much less see him, and it felt like he’d taken the last of his light with him.

Every morning and evening, he passed by their wedding chambers, and every time, he found them firmly closed, Tooru’s favorite guard and childhood friend, Iwaizumi, lingering nearby and watching Wakatoshi pass by. If it weren’t for the occasional ghost of his scent somewhere else in the palace or grounds, Wakatoshi would have assumed that Tooru simply did not leave his rooms at all.

It was like the sun itself had climbed down from the heavens and hidden itself away, squirreled in some cave somewhere where not one ray of light could escape. 

Wakatoshi missed him.

He wrote as much, in letters he could not bring himself to finish, much less send.

 

Tooru,

I hope you’re well. Congratulations on the marriage. Or condolences, I’m not sure which you prefer. I haven’t heard from you in a long time. 

I miss you. I hope that’s okay to say to you.

 

Tooru,

I sat through the dullest meeting today. I couldn’t help but think that you would have made the whole thing much more bearable. 

I don’t know if I’ll be able to write to you. Not really. Sending these feels like something you wouldn’t want from me.

I miss you anyway.

 

Tooru,

Did you know the palace has secret trails in the forest? One leads out of the palace grounds and to a small cove sheltered by cliffs. I want ed to take you there someday. I hope you might find it on your own, though the path is hidden. I know you love the sea.

It struck me that we’ve been exchanging letters since we were little. I don’t know the last time we went so long without speaking.

I miss you.

 

The letters were piling up, but Wakatoshi didn’t know how to get rid of them or how to send them. So they just sat.

Iwaizumi had initially looked at him with a carefully contained glare whenever he passed by Tooru’s door. Eventually, the hostility had fallen away. Now, he looked at Wakatoshi with something like pity. 

Wakatoshi resented it mostly, but a smaller part of him ached for it a little. More than wanting pity, or sympathy, he just… felt pitiful. He couldn’t show it, of course, what with his duties responsibilities and expectations, but it was enough to know that even just one person could see it: could look at him and tell that he was not strong or steady or proud, but rather that he was… incomplete, wanting in the void Tooru had left in his life, but not entitled to ask for more. 

To make matters worse, Wakatoshi actually prided himself somewhat on the control he had over his alpha. The Ushijimas had always been an instinctually powerful clan across all secondary genders, but stronger instincts, while admired, required a stronger will to overcome. Wakatoshi was a prime example. Usually.

Lately—since he’d caught Tooru’s scent, mature and sweet and oddly familiar; since he’d fucked him (not made love, not like that); since he’d given Tooru space to disappear—Wakatoshi’s alpha had been… distressed. Restless and unsettled, needy for things Wakatoshi could not give, and loud. Demanding. 

Wakatoshi hated the thought that some part of him might feel that he was owed Tooru, in some way or another, but that was what it felt like. his alpha felt like he was missing his omega, like he had earned some iota of attention or affection from him for the simple fact that they’d been wed. Wakatoshi didn’t want to feel that way; he certainly didn’t think that way. Tooru did not owe him anything, much less his alpha. Wakatoshi was a perfectly reasonable man, and if his own spouse wanted nothing to do with him, well…

Well…

At some point, someone might butt in, demanding heirs or appearances or some such thing, and Wakatoshi would only be able to do so much to hold them off, but in the meantime, he had no excuse to disrupt Tooru’s minimal peace, not even his own loneliness. 

It grew harder to remind himself of that, especially when he caught the occasional scent of him somewhere—on the cushions in the library, in the hall to the kitchen, in the gazebo by the pond—but Wakatoshi would appease himself by stopping and crouching down, bowing his head between his knees and taking long, deep breaths to calm himself. When he got back to his room, he would start another letter.

 

Tooru, 

You don’t know what you do to me, and I think that’s for the best. You would not want these feelings of mine, and I do not know what to do with them. I feel like you’re haunting me. I feel like I’ve lost you. I feel like if I lost you, I would follow you anywhere. If you ran to Yomi, I would follow. Do you understand? 

I hope you are well. Your scent is lovely, but sad. I don’t know what I can do to fix it, or if you’d even let me try. 

Tooru, I miss you. Why is it that now, when you’re the closest you’ve ever been, you feel so far away? 

 

A week later, a servant came to Wakatoshi’s room in the middle of the night, nearly wailing in distress, “His heat, my lord, his heat has come, you must tend to him, you must!” and Wakatoshi was tearing across the palace before his logic could deign to catch up, dressed in nothing but a thin yukata that had come loose around his chest as he slept. His servants knew he would not hurt them, but even they stumbled out of his way as he moved. 

And then he was at the door to Tooru’s- to their rooms, and he could smell the scent of heat, the way it made Tooru’s scent into something deep and rich and all too tempting. And then, the distress in it, the pain and shame and fear and anger, and-

Iwaizumi stood in front of the doors, teeth bared, weapons drawn. He held a tanto blade in each hand, short but sharp and gleaming with threat. He was short too, shorter even than Tooru, and certainly than Wakatoshi, but he held his ground. Wakatoshi could take him. He was well trained in combat, and though he’d suffer at the edges of those blades, he greatly overpowered the guard in pure strength. 

But not in will, he realized, and stopped short in front of him, chest heaving. He could hear Tooru inside, sobbing and- Wakatoshi looked down at Iwaizumi and steadied himself. 

“He does not want me,” he finally managed to say, his voice the low rumble of thunder. 

Iwaizuku stood frozen a moment longer, his blades still poised to strike. He would, Wakatoshi acknowledged with no small amount of gratitude, lay his life down to protect Tooru’s will. He nodded.

Wakatoshi caught himself before he could stagger back, the rejection stinging like something physical. He had never felt like this before.

“Alright,” he choked out eventually. “Alright, I will- I will go. Is he- Does he need anything, is there anything I can-”

“No,” Iwaizumi said firmly. “No,” gentler. “He doesn’t want your help.”

“Alright,” Wakatoshi whispered, his voice barely escaping him. “I- The house is at his disposal. Please… Do not let him suffer. Make sure he is fed, and has fresh water. A bath will be sent up-”

“My lord,” Iwaizumi interrupted  again, his voice as sharp as either one of his blades. “I have kept him safe this long. I will handle it.”

“Of course,” Wakatoshi agreed faintly, bowing his head. “If he… If he changes his mind, if he needs anything from me-”

“It will not happen. But, if it does, you will be informed.”

Wakatoshi stayed where he was for a long moment longer; collecting himself, reeling himself in, punishing himself with the bitter distress of Tooru’s scent. Then he nodded, turned, and walked away.

Tooru’s cries followed behind him.

 

Tooru,

Your first heat here started tonight. I don’t know what went through me, but I ran to you, I ran. Iwaizumi told me you did not want me, and though I knew it, I thought it might have been better to let him run me through with those knives of his. It might have hurt less. 

I cannot stand knowing that you are here, right here, in reach, in pain, and I can do nothing about it.

I won’t deny that there’s a part of me that wants to help you like an animal, to fuck you and breed you until you’re satisfied. I can’t deny it, but I resent it. You can’t know how much I resent wanting you. 

The other part of me, the most of me left over, simply wants to stop your pain. I still don’t know why you are so unhappy, or why you can’t stand to so much as see me. I had thought we were friends, at least, before all this. 

I worry about my friend, Tooru: who has left so much behind, who was denied a choice and now chooses to deny himself his freedom, who is afraid of me for reasons that I do not know.

I worry about him, Tooru, and I hope he knows that he still has a friend here, should he find the loneliness too much.

I know I do.

I miss you.

 

Two days later, another servant came for him. “My lord, he wants… your scent.”

“Has he been seen by a physician?” Wakatoshi  asked, already gathering anything he’d used recently: the blanket from his bed, the jinbei he’d worn that morning and the yukata he’d slept in that night, even a furoshiki cloth that had come wrapped around parchment (for his letters, which he could not stop writing).

“Yes, my lord,” the servant said. “Saito-sensei saw him. He is… He could be in better health, my lord, but he will not change his mind. This is the most he would accept. Saito-sensei warned him that his heat will be longer and more painful without my lord, but my lord’s mate is stubborn as well.”

“He is not my mate,” Wakatoshi corrected, sweeping out of his room. “Fetch me a robe. Any one, it does not matter.”

“My lord?”

“I will be giving him these,” Wakatoshi explained impatiently, nodding down at the clothes on his body. “Fetch me something else, or I will have no choice but to return to my room naked.”

The servant scuttled away with a yelp. 

Iwaizumi was once again outside Tooru’s door, his hands resting on the hilts of his blades. His grip tightened as Wakatoshi approached, but he didn’t draw. Wakatoshi nodded at him, and lifted the pile of fabric in his arms, carefully folded because even in a rush, it would not do to present Tooru with something messy and careless. Iwaizumi let him set them down in front of the door, and then arched an unamused eyebrow when Wakatoshi’s hands went to the knot of his hakama and began to untie. 

“I will give him everything,” Wakatoshi said firmly, baring himself shamelessly. “There is nothing else that I can offer, so I will give him all I can.”

At that, Iwaizumi clenched his jaw and gave a short nod of approval. He did not look away, though, but Wakatoshi assumed it had more to do with making sure that he didn’t make a lunge for the door while his head was turned. 

The servant finally returned as Wakatoshi was folding the last of his clothes and adding them to the pile. Iwaizumi did look a little amused then, like he hadn’t expected Wakatoshi to truly strip down to nothing like that. Wakatoshi accepted the new robe from the stuttering servant and pulled it on, tying it closed around his hips. It was clean and smelled like sunshine and clean air from being hung to dry. He would wear it until it was heavy with his scent, and then take it to Tooru. Then put on something new, and repeat. 

Once he was no longer naked, Iwaizumi resumed his job of glaring at Wakatoshi until he thought he might combust.

“I am leaving,” Wakatoshi promised. “But please tell me if he needs more. I will bring what I can tomorrow as well.”

“This will be fine for now,” Iwaizumi said cordially. “Thank you for your assistance.”

Wakatoshi, already turning to leave, hesitated. He looked back at Iwaizumi over his shoulder. “He is still my partner. Whether he likes it or not, I made an oath to him. And even if I hadn’t… I don’t know if you are aware, but we have been… friends for a very long time. I will always want to help him. I hope you understand.”

Iwaizumi stared at him for a long moment, and then nodded. He didn’t say a word, but that was okay. Wakatoshi turned away and left.

The rest of Tooru’s heat passed the same way. Wakatoshi took robes and cloths and blankets that had been thoroughly drenched in his scent of deep saffron, cedarwood, and musk, Iwaizumi watched him vigilantly until he was gone, and then he did it all again the next day. It lasted six more days, which was much longer than an average healthy heat, but the physician, when he checked on Tooru afterward, promised that he’d be perfectly fine with some rest, food, and hydration.  

Wakatoshi was relieved, of course, but some other part of him was… Well.

He opened his door one morning and nearly tripped over a pile of clothes and fabric. Everything he’d given to Tooru during his heat had been returned, freshly washed with not a trace of scent on it. Wakatoshi shut the door without bringing any of it in.

When he finally left his room—the unscented fabrics taken away at his request—he found himself beelining straight for Tooru’s rooms. And then he realized there was no reason for him to go, nothing for him to give. He hesitated at the closed doors. He could sense Iwaizumi nearby, but with Tooru’s heat gone, there wasn’t any reason to stay posted right outside the rooms. Stil, Wakatoshi didn’t so much as crack the door open. He stared at it, and then forced his eyes back onto the hallway ahead, and walked away.

But he was unsettled, he realized in the following days. Even though he hadn’t been able to directly help Tooru during his heat—or even see him—he’d been able to do something. His alpha had been unsatisfied at not being able to make sure his- make sure Tooru was well, but at least he was accepting his gifts, allowing Wakatoshi that much at least. Now, without that, Wakatoshi felt a little like he was going slowly mad.

So, with his instincts gnawing away at him like he’d never felt before, Wakatoshi decided he would simply have to give in. In as respectful of a manner as he could manage.

If Tooru denied him this much… Well, Wakatoshi wasn’t sure how he’d react, but at least he would have tried.

 

Tooru,

If you’re reading this, thank you for giving me a chance. I find it difficult to leave you on your own these days, but I promised you those rooms would be yours alone if you wanted, and I won’t be a liar to my own mate spouse. I hope that perhaps you’ll indulge me in this: I’ll leave a letter at your door on occasion; you take it in; you choose to read it, or maybe you don’t. 

If I can just believe that you know I am here, and that I still care for you, I think I would be able to sleep better. You do not need to write back, though I always looked forward to your correspondence before, and I will certainly do so again once I leave this with you.

I know this place is still new to you. Although it has always been my home and I love it deeply, a part of me feels ashamed of it lately. Since you arrived, I think it has felt emptier and colder than I ever remember. I wish I could show you what it’s like when it feels warm and full. I think you would love it, and I regret that you haven’t had the opportunity to see this place when it is a home and not just the place where you now live.

I know that you do not wish to see me, but if you ever wished to take a tour, or have an outing, or just wander during the day and relax, everyone here is more than eager to do what they can for you. That includes, of course, myself. Say the word, Tooru, and I will spend my day locked away so that you may have free rein of whatever you please. 

It may not feel like your home, but please trust me when I tell you that it is. Everything that was mine is now yours just as much. This palace, the grounds, everything in them. You are entitled to peace and comfort in your home just as much as anyone else.

If nothing else, I am certain that your guard, Iwaizumi, would be excited to stretch his legs.

I have tried to write to you many times since our weddi your arrival, but I’ve been thus far unsuccessful. If this is too much, or maybe not enough, please forgive my clumsiness. It has come to my attention that I valued our correspondence much more than I knew. I still do not know if I have offended you, or frightened or angered or saddened you, so I am not quite sure where we stand, or if this letter will make your day brighter, or darken it. 

I hope that it doesn’t ruin anything. I hope that it finds you content and recovered. I hope that you might read this far, and, against all hope, I hope that you might write back.

I am always here if you need me.

Yours, sincerely,

Wakatoshi

 

It was the first letter in weeks that Wakatoshi had been able to finish, to sign his name at the end, fold it up, and seal it shut. The next morning, he passed by Tooru’s doors. He hesitated for just a moment before giving in to the urge to scent the paper, just a little, and then he slid it through the door, knocked once on the wooden frame, and then left. 

He didn’t wait to listen for movement, or stand around to see if he might catch a glimpse or even a whiff of him. He didn’t let himself even think about it. He just dropped the letter, and left.

He spent all day envisioning Tooru the last time he’d seen him. It had been the day his family left to go back to their home. When they left Tooru nearly all alone in this strange, new place, with a husband he only knew through letters, and a promise that he belonged to him.

There had been something afraid and afraid-of-being-afraid written all over his face, but he’d hidden it behind a dispassionate smile as he hugged his mother goodbye. His soft brown curls had been tied in an elegant knot at the nape of his skull, and his kimono had been the rich purple-red of beauty berries. Ushijima colors. It suited him, Wakatoshi had thought, but he didn’t look half as alive as he did in his ocean blues. 

Tooru hadn’t looked at him, but Wakatoshi had admired his sharp profile, the faint freckles on the curve of his cheekbone. Tooru’s eyes were the same dusky brown as his hair, and they’d caught the violet light of the mountain sunrise, shining soft and radiant as he’d watched his family leave him.

Tooru had disappeared after that, and Wakatoshi hadn’t seen him since. He wondered if Tooru still looked like he had then—soft around the edges, fair skin tanned from the sun, straight shoulders and guarded eyes—or if he had changed in his isolation. Was he healthy? Was he eating well, exercising, getting fresh air? Wakatoshi could only guess, only wonder and hope.

Only now, he could also leave letters. Or at least, that was when he was hoping anyway. Assuming. If Tooru told him to stop, he supposed there was nothing really he could do about that.

But Tooru didn’t tell him to stop. When Wakatoshi went back to his room late that night, Iwaizumi gave him an odd look as he passed, but didn’t say anything. Wakatoshi didn’t let his alpha get too carried away. The absence of a rejection wasn’t anything to get excited about. But he found his fingers itching for a brush as soon as his door came into view. 

 

Tooru,

I was thinking of you today. Of the day the Oikawas left after our wedding. I remember thinking how strange it was that that was the first time you looked like you’d grown up to me, despite our ceremony two days prior and our wedding night . Until then, I think I still saw you as the boy I’d met so many years ago. 

I think, really, that I saw us as boys until then. All I knew of you was what I knew from our letters, and in them, you and I were, I think, always just those boys. I knew, of course, that you’d grown, just like I had, but our letters were the one place where I didn’t have to feel like I’d become a man, an alpha, a ruler. I could still be just Wakatoshi, and you could still be just Tooru.

Then I saw the way you watched your people leave, the way you didn’t waver or cry like you would have as a boy—I know you would have, I know you hated when things didn’t go your way, you hated losing—and I realized that, outside of our letters, you truly had changed.

I was sad for you, that you had to say goodbye to those you know and love, but I was excited too. I wanted to get to know you for the man you’d become while I couldn’t be there to watch it happen. 

I am sorry that everything seems stacked against you. I imagine that it may seem like I am stacked against you, like I am your opponent, or perhaps your oppressor. Tooru, please believe me when I tell you I am at your side, as I have always been. I don’t know what to do for you, because I am reminded of the fact that I do not know you, not as the man you’ve become, but I would do whatever you asked of me.

You are the eldest between us, did you forget? I feel, sometimes, quite lost without you.

Yours, faithfully,

Wakatoshi

 

The next morning, with Iwaizumi standing nearby and watching him cautiously, Wakatoshi slipped the scented, sealed letter back through the door, and walked away.

The next day, he did the same.

And then the next, and the next.

And then, one evening when he entered his room, ready to go to his desk and write another, he caught a hint of creamy, spicy pear. He froze, the door still wide behind him, and had to dig his nails into his palm to ground himself since deep breaths only forced that scent deeper into his lungs. 

There, atop his desk, was a letter. Wakatoshi recognized instantly the fold of it—the paper folded and tucked into itself to form a small, compact diamond, exactly how Tooru always sealed his letters—and he stared at it, unmoving, for a long time.

Finally, he forced himself to slide the door shut behind him, and cross the room to his desk.

Tooru’s scent, while faint, was too strong to come from just the paper. Tooru had not dropped the letter through the door like Wakatoshi did, nor had he asked a servant to deliver it for him. Tooru had come to his room, had crossed the soft-worn tatami mats, and set the letter there himself. 

Wakatoshi kneeled slowly onto the cushion at his desk, and picked the letter up with the gentlest touch he could manage. The paper felt too soft, like Tooru had worried it over and over as he’d folded it. But it held up when Wakatoshi finally began to untuck its edges and corners, slowly dismantling the locked letter into a normal, if creased, sheet of paper. 

 

Wakatoshi,

Iwa-chan made me read your letters. I didn’t want to at first. I can be quite stubborn, which I’m told is one of my less charming traits. 

I won’t apologize for needing space. I know it might have offended you, but I don’t care. 

I know you had no more of a choice than I did in this arrangement, or else we wouldn’t have been writing since we were children, but you must know that it’s not the same. Here, you are the king, sitting on your throne in your palace. Your guards and servants have been with you since infancy. Your parents’ shrines are here, and their parents’ before them. Everything you see, everything you touch, everything here belongs to you, and it always has. Here, I have nothing. You see, you may have intended our marriage as some bond meant to unite the two of us as equals, but I, who am older and therefore wiser, know what it really was.

In coming here, in letting you see me, touch me, I am now another thing here, in your home, that belongs to you. 

I have given up everything, Wakatoshi. I have given up my home, my family, my body, and my freedom. I will take this—my privacy, my stubbornness; any and everything I can— for myself. And I will not be sorry.

You are not my opponent, Wakatoshi. It is quite clear that you have always been the winner.

Yours, loathsomely, 

Tooru

P.S. Pardon the intrusion. You’re quite large now, you know, and I worried you might step on the letter on your way in, so leaving it on your desk was safer.

P.P.S. I am taking the letters you wrote to me. You may not have finished them, but they were all addressed to me. Since you could not bring yourself to send them, but also couldn’t bring yourself to burn them or tear them into scraps, I assume I am only doing you a favor by taking them off your hands.

 

Wakatoshi reread the letter four or six or a hundred times before he finally set it back down on his desk. His nearly empty desk, with his mountain of unfinished, unsent letters no longer darkening its corners. 

He could not bring himself to write a response that night, or the next.

After a few days, he returned to another letter in his room. This one was near his desk, but sloppily, like it’d been tossed instead of gently set. Tooru’s lingering scent was sharp and heavy with spice. Displeased. 

 

Wakatoshi,

In every letter you could not deign to send you waxed on and on about how you miss me, and yet one letter from me detailing the misery you have probably unwittingly put me through, and I am not worth a single word more?

I am not a fool, Wakatoshi. You may see me as a child, you may see me as some spoiled, immature, prideful omega who lets his feelings get the best of him, but I am not a fool. I know that you did not enter this marriage with the intention of hurting me. I know that you’d rather have someone else for your spouse, for your mate, and keep me as your distant and entertaining friend who sends you letters on occasion. I am aware of where we stand, and how you see me.

On the night of our wedding, you could hardly look at me. You could hardly touch me.

You tell me you miss me, that you want us to go back to how we were. Do you know how we were, Wakatoshi? Do you really? Because I have been in love with you since I learned how to hold a brush and write to you. I spent my life knowing that I would grow up to be this, yours, and I let myself fall for you.

During the ceremony and all the rituals, I was too nervous to even look you in the eye. I took your name, I gave up my family and my home and everything I’d ever known for you. And that night, you couldn’t even hold me.

I understand that you do not love me, and that perhaps it was foolish and childish and naive of me to hope you could, but to know that despite that, you want me, and that you resent wanting me- I don  You ar 

There is a part of me, some instinctual part that I wish I could be rid of, that longs for you. Hungers. I need you to know that that is all of me you will ever have. I will not be your dear friend, who you hate to want but can’t bear to touch, whose unhappiness you cannot stand but so carelessly cause. I will not.

I will tell you now, because my resolve, for you, is weak I don’t want there to be any doubt in your mind: I will not give you an heir. I will not take your mark. I will not let you touch me like that again, like you hate to do it. You may take concubines, if you wish. You may do whatever you want. Anything but have me. That is the one thing I can deny you.

Yours, in the way a ghost might be,

Tooru

 

Wakatoshi, distantly, thought that Tooru’s flair for the dramatic had never quite gone away. He reread the letter enough times to rival the last, and then set it down just as gingerly. 

This time, with steady hands and trembling breaths, he forced himself to write a reply.

 

Tooru,

I am afraid you have misunderstood me, and that I have severely misunderstood you as well.

At our wedding, you did not look at me. On our wedding night, your hands were shaking, and your cheeks were wet with tears. You bit your tongue throughout the whole endeavor, and I couldn’t tell if the sounds that made it out were pained or not. 

I know, objectively, what you’ve lost in this. I am aware of all the reasons you might have to hate me. I could not in good conscience, or out of the great respect and care I’ve always had for you, be the one to take more. I could not ask anything from you, Tooru, when I knew it would feel, to you, like a command.

When you did not come to sleep in our rooms, I thought that our wedding night had frightened you, had made you frightened of me and what I would demand from you. When you avoided me throughout the day, I realized that perhaps, more than frightened, you simply hated me.

I tried to give you what I thought you wanted: space, time, privacy. I determined that if my presence was what made you miserable, I would do my best to ensure that you could find some semblance of joy here.

I did not mean to insult you with my lack of response to your first letter. You cannot imagine the relief I felt when I saw it on my desk and caught your scent lingering in my room. My alpha, if you can believe it, has become rather desperate for you proof of life. And then I read it, and I realized all my fears about your misery and grief were confirmed, and worst of all, I felt that I had failed rather miserably at showing you how much I care for you, and how much I have cared for a long, long time.

I could not think of what to say to you. How to apologize, or if you’d even want that. I could only wonder if your feelings would ever change. Not towards me, as I felt—feel—that they’re rather deserved, but towards this place. And, partially, perhaps, towards me. I wondered if you’d ever feel free to walk these halls without wondering if I might cross your path, or if you’d ever look out the windows and admire the view rather than wishing you hadn’t left your old one behind. 

I am afraid that I was too cautious, too careful, too calculating. I am afraid you mistook me for careless—which I may have been, but never with you—or callous, or cruel. 

And it seems that I have been just as blind. I mistook your nervousness for fear, your longing for resentment, and your misery for hatred. I hoped, with time, I might win you over, not realizing that I had, all along, mistaken your precious and esteemed feelings for mere friendship.

Tooru, I hope you can forgive me for these slights, amongst the many others I have surely perpetrated against you.

I have never had any intention of forcing you to take my mark or bear our children if you did not wish it, though I imagine there would, at some point, be some call for it. I also have no intention of ever finding anyone else, much less inviting them into our home. I only ever had the intention, if I ever believed you’d allow me, of winning you over.

I had hoped that a relationship as long and intimate as ours has been might lend itself to a love match. I see now that I was, perhaps, slow on the uptake. As always, you are well ahead of me, and I do not know if you will let me catch up to stand by your side. I am not quite sure if I have earned that.

But if you can find it in yourself, my dearest Tooru, to give me one more chance, I am certain I will be better this time. If you decide that you would rather not, I will accept your decision, but know that the offer will stand for as long as we are both here.

In the meantime, I will state my intentions here: I would like to write to you, if you’ll allow it; I would like to take you to the sea through the forest, so that you might feel the waves and think of your home; I would like to make up for our wedding night, to give you a night, a day, a lifetime where I treat you how you should be treated, without witnesses pressing their ears to hear you I cannot bear for them to hear the sounds you make for me, because of me ; I intend to make this palace into a home for you, whatever it takes; I intend to make you fall for me again, not just for the child you’ve always known, but for the man I have become; I intend to let myself fall for you, as I have always denied myself, with no regard to your feelings towards me if you hate me, I will not love you less .

These are my intentions. You may find them lofty, but you’ll find that stubbornness has never been one of my more charming traits either. 

I will write you again soon, unless you tell me otherwise.

Tooru. I miss you greatly.

You looked beautiful. The day of our wedding, and the day I saw you last.

Yours, unceasingly,

Wakatoshi

 

Tooru did not respond, but Wakatoshi did not let himself worry. He kept Tooru’s two precious letters atop a box beside his desk. Inside the box were dozens upon hundreds of letters from years gone past. Wakatoshi sat beside them every night and wrote his own.

 

Tooru,

The weather is getting cooler. It is a lovely time to ride, if you want. There is a dark red horse in the stables named Hayate. He is mine, and can be a terror volatile and fierce. There is another horse, a blue roan stallion named Kaito. He had been intended for you since I first received him many years ago. If you wish to ride, please take him. He is loyal and steady, and he knows the ways around these mountains. Iwaizumi may take his pick as well, though I would not suggest Hayate.

I will be busy all day, so feel free to roam at your leisure. If I cannot enjoy the weather, it would be nice to believe that you are enjoying it on my behalf.

Yours, rather enviously,

Wakatoshi

 

Tooru,

I am writing to you very late—I hear the first birds beginning to sing, and I’m afraid that if I take too long, I may watch the sunrise—but it turns out that my day feels unfinished if I have not written to you, so here I am. 

There is nothing to report, unless you wish to subject yourself to all the mind-numbing drivel I had to listen to today, in which case I would point you in the direction of our recorders, who so diligently write every dull and pointless word that’s spoken. I imagine you would find them to be very skillful individuals, and you may even admire their ability to hang on to every word that comes out of your mouth. Though I’m sure, in comparison to what they normally listen to, anything you say would be a much welcome reprieve

I must be up early tomorrow today, so I will end this here. I don’t have anything else to do, but the physicians have always recommended a strict routine, and sleeping too late into the day is a very poorly regarded deviation from that routine. I suppose I’ll have to wake up, and then spend the day napping wherever I can until someone catches me.

Yours, in exhaustion,

Wakatoshi

 

Tooru, 

I believe I am coming down with something. The weather turning, as you might remember, always seems to incapacitate me for a day or two. It was, I’m told, endearing when I was a boy. Now, as a grown man, alpha, and ruler, I feel that it is… quite less so. No one would dare say such a thing to my face, of course,  but I see their eyes when they bring me soup and porridge. I am, to many of them, still just a boy with the terrible ailment of poor temperature regulation as the seasons change.

An older servant (you may have met her, Ina; she spends most of her time in the kitchens “tasting” the food) brought me baked honeyed pears as a treat, and to help with my throat. 

I’ll blame it on the fever that I am daring to write this, but I couldn’t help but wonder if you might taste like that, and regret the fact that I did not find out when I had the chance.

To clarify, I am not talking about your mouth, which I had the pleasure to kiss, however briefly, at our wedding, and then, only minorly less brief, on our wedding night. Rather, I have read about lovers using their mouths on each other, using their tongues and lips to pleasure each other, drinking down their slick or seed.

Don’t think that I regularly read such things—I only happened upon it because a servant stashed it away in the library, between some more relevant readings. But I did read it thoroughly, and I thought of you. I hoped that when the time came, I would be able to make you feel good.

I think that if I had the chance, you would taste like sweet, baked pears, dripping with honey.

You should probably not read this letter. Or maybe burn it, both in paper and in memory.

Yours, unwell,

Wakatoshi

 

Tooru,

I went to the cove today and found some shells that had washed up. I hope you like them. I know they might not be the most impressive, but I’m partial to the limpet shell. It is small and unassuming from the top, but the green of the underside reminds me of you. 

I am quite tired today for some reason. Physically, I feel fine, but for some reason I feel listless, like even walking to the sea and back was a chore. Writing to you, of course, is never a chore, but I’m afraid this is all I have the energy to do.

I miss you today, as always.

Yours, dearly,

Wakatoshi

 

Wakatoshi wrote everyday until his rut came, before which he delivered a letter warning Tooru that he would be unavailable for a few days, but that he would write to him when he was better. Tooru still hadn’t responded, but he hadn’t told Wakatoshi to stop, and now Wakatoshi was fairly certain that he would if he wanted it.

His rut, as always, was a painful and laborious affair that felt like it dragged on indefinitely. Wakatoshi, much to his indignance, had to be temporarily relocated to a storeroom on the other side of the grounds, where he could not tear through the paper screens and frighten unsuspecting servants leaving food and fresh water outside his door. 

The one relief, though that was too small a word for it, was when Wakatoshi opened the door for a meal and found, neatly stacked beside a tray of food, a pile of scented cloth, ripe with peach, spicy with caraway, ever so sweet with vanilla. 

With Tooru’s scent pressed to his mouth, well and truly smothering him. Wakatoshi rode out the rest of his rut in a daze. 

And then, finally done, he returned back to his room, and found another letter waiting for him.

 

Wakatoshi,

You’re quite dedicated to winning me over, it seems, which is quite silly considering I was always the one who was in love with you. (It feels so strange to say that to you so shamelessly, even if it is just in a letter. It’s always only been in letters, after all, so how else could I say it?) Perhaps you should worry more about falling in love with me. I am giving you the generous head start of my robes during your rut. Judging from some of your letters, I have the feeling that you rather like my scent, so perhaps this might make you fall in love with me.

I am only joking of course. Though if you did, it’d be only natural. 

I liked the shells. I liked the limpet. It’s my family colors, and the color of the sea. I like Kaito, and that he’s named ‘sea prince’. It suits him, and he suits me. We’ve taken a few long rides. And Hayate seems to like me just fine, though I only took him out once. 

I sent Ina with the pears. My mother always made them for me when I was sick. I did not intend for you to be quite so… excited by them.

Iwa-chan has informed me that I should inform you that I am prone to changing my mind. Like my stubbornness, my fickleness is one of my lesser qualities. But, as a counterpoint, it may work in your favor if you continue to be kind to me. My affection, much to my chagrin, can be easily bought. Not by anyone—do not think me weak-hearted or faithless—but perhaps by those who have already held it for so long.

All is to say, my foolish Wakatoshi, that I am giving you another chance. Do not let me down again. Do not make me regret it.

Yours, expectantly,

Tooru

P.S. For fear of you misunderstanding me once more, and only because you have said far more embarrassing things in your letters so you are not allowed to belittle me for it: I am afraid. I am afraid of you, and what you might do to me, and what might become of me if you hurt me again. Do not treat me as if I am fragile, but know that I only want you truly and wholly. If you cannot offer yourself to me as such, without holding back, without falsehoods or pretenses, do not punish me by taking this any further.

As it would appear, you are all I have. My future, and, reluctantly, my heart are in your hands.

 

The next day, between meetings while Wakatoshi was walking from one building to another, he caught a glimpse of soft brown hair in a nearby courtyard, a flash of ivory and lilac brocade. He froze where he stood, and as if in a dream, watched a head of curly brown hair lift, peer over a small, twisted tree, and find him.

Tooru, standing there in the courtyard, in plain sight. Tooru, with his dusky eyes and flushed cheeks, meeting his eyes. Wakatoshi felt an inexplicable urge to drop when he was doing, to leave behind the secretaries and recorders and attendants following him and go straight to Tooru instead, meetings and duties be damned. 

But he couldn’t. Not today, anyway. Instead, he bowed his head to Tooru, low and humble, and held it for a long while before straightening again. His entourage had gone silent, but he paid them no mind. Tooru’s eyes had widened infinitesimally, and Wakatoshi held them for another drawn-out moment before he dared, risked, a small and simple smile.

Tooru instantly turned away. The tips of his ears, slightly pushed forward by the hair tucked behind them, were blazing pink.

Wakatoshi went to his next meeting, but he could not make himself pay attention. All his focus was in that courtyard, wondering if Tooru had gone there knowing that he would be seen, and what would have happened if Wakatoshi had gone to him.

That night, he wrote a letter. 

 

Tooru,

You were more beautiful today than I remembered. Perhaps you’ll let me see you again to refresh my memory? 

I will be busy the next few days catching up on what I missed during my rut (thank you, by the way, for your scent), but if you could be so inclined, perhaps we could take a meal together, or perhaps go for a ride when I have the time?

If not, I will have to get by on glimpses of you from afar. I can only hope you’ll graciously linger somewhere I can find you. 

Thank you.

Yours, patiently,

Wakatoshi

 

The next morning, he dropped the letter through the door, and with it, a silk ribbon in a rich purplish brown, several shades darker than Tooru’s hair. 

That day he didn’t see Tooru, but the next, he saw two horses in the distance from an out facing window. One was a chestnut mare Wakatoshi recognized even at a distance because of her high stockings and nearly pure white face. The other was a faded blue gray that looked like it had been dipped in ink, with its mane, tale, and high points fading to dark, sooty black. Atop his back, in a hazy lavender robe with brown-black willow branches and soft green leaves, was Tooru. His hair was tied low on his back with a deep brown ribbon.

Wakaoshi returned to his room that night and found a small bouquet of wildflowers on his desk tied with a piece of twine. 

I found these in the forest, Tooru’s letter wrote. I am hunting for trails to the sea.

Wakatoshi felt fully and ferociously enamored. 

And thus began a courtship, of sorts, that pushed the boundaries of what either of them knew. Letters and gifts and bits and pieces of each other. Scents that lingered too close, a curl of brown hair in a garden or turning a corner down the hall. Wakatoshi wanted nothing more than to hunt Tooru down, see his face without the distance, hold his hands in his, cover him in his scent. He felt maddeningly possessive, and because he’d vowed (to himself, at least) to be honest with Tooru, he told him as much.

I know you don’t want to be owned, he wrote, and I know I do not own you. But the things I would do, Tooru, for you to be mine. I want you in a way I did not know it was possible to want. If I could spirit you away somewhere only I could bear witness to you, I would do it, Heavens help me. I would take you, I would make you mine in every way.

I would not let myself. I would never let myself take you from what you have, but I do not think my soul knows that. I want to consume you. 

Tooru, in turn, opened up with him as well, in his own time. 

As dismal as our wedding night was, he wrote one day, I cannot help but think about it. I wish I had looked at you more. I wish you had looked at me. I looked so perfect for you, and you didn’t even notice. I had been cleaned and polished and oiled like some sort of doll. I fit so well in your hands, when you dared to touch me, and, Heavens, Wakatoshi, you fit so well inside of me.

I tried not to think about you during my heat, but you were all I could think about. You inside me, you filling me up. If you had stood outside my door and said what you wrote to me, told me that you wanted to fuck me and breed me, I would have had no choice but to let you in.

Wakatoshi could not help but hunger for more. Tooru in glimpses and letters was not enough, he was to see him, speak to him, hold him.

I am finished with my work for now. Would you join me tomorrow? I want to take you to the sea.

The next day, Wakatoshi saddled up their horses, filled Hayate’s saddle bags with food and a large blanket, and waited. 

He didn’t have to wait long. Before he saw them, he heard their voices. 

“Why would you go alone,” Iwaizumi said peckishly, sounding every inch the stubborn guard and close friend Wakatoshi knew him to be. “What if something happens? We’ve been looking for the trail for weeks without finding it, how would I find you?”

And then, for the first time in so long, Tooru’s voice. It still felt novel to him, so unfamiliar when they’d spent their whole lives writing back and forth. But Wakatoshi hungered for more, more of that smooth low cadence, the way his tone rose and fell and lifted like the waves as he spoke, emotion spilling into every word. “Iwa-chan,” he hissed, “he is my husband.”

Wakatoshi’s brain shut off for a long moment at that. Tooru, unknowing, continued.

“Furthermore,” he said snootily, “he is courting me, and I simply will not let you be around to darken the mood like some scraggly mutt. You should take this time to- to take a bath, or something. Befriend a guard. What about those two, you know the ones… Yes, you do, the one has ginger blond hair, and the other one’s fluffy and gray… Yes, the ones who are always fighting, I told you you knew them, now go. Play mediator, or whatever. I formally swear to not die while I’m out with my husband. Off you go. Do not follow us, you thick-headed mongrel.”

Wakatoshi heard a few growled out curses, the kind that spoke of a friendship much deeper than any relationship between just a guard and his charge. And then, a few moments later, Tooru turned the corner and entered the shade of the stables.

His hair was tied up in a knot, fastened with jade pins that seemed to glow in the light filtering in behind him. His robes were simple for riding, with hakama pants in a deep marine blue underneath. The silk wool of the robes was a pale green with white wavelike patterns and, caught in the streams of water, purple, pink, and red flowers and their petals. He stared at Wakatoshi, who suddenly felt underdressed in his dark montsuki and berry-red hakama. He wondered if Tooru minded or if he liked the fact that if anyone saw them their eyes would certainly be drawn to him first, like a ray of light passing through dark storm clouds 

“Hello,” Tooru finally said, clearing his throat first. He was nervous, Wakatoshi knew now, and that was why his eyes were fixed on some point over Wakatoshi’s shoulder instead of him. He didn’t mind the opportunity to admire him more closely.

“Hello,” he responded, his voice low and gentle, how he talked to the horses sometimes when they were anxious. Tooru’s ears darkened slightly. Wakatoshi decided to spare him the awkwardness of them learning how to speak when all they’d ever done was send letters back and forth, and, on one occasion, get married. At least for now. “Kaito has been waiting for you. I think he’s growing used to your visits.”

Tooru visibly softened at that, and he finally approached, taking Kaito’s reins from Wakatoshi’s outstretched hand. “Good,” he said, and it lacked the haughty air he’d had with Iwaizumi, though he’d probably intended the same effect. “I plan to make him unrideable for anyone but me, like Hayate.”

“You told me you rode him,” Wakatoshi reminded him, standing close by as Tooru tested his grip and then swung himself onto Kaito’s back with practiced ease. Once he was comfortably settled, the stirrups level, Wakatoshi mounted Hayate as well. Where Kaito stood still and patient, one ear flicked back towards Tooru like he was awaiting a command, Hayate began to paw at the earth as soon as Wakatoshi was on him. He smacked him apologetically on the neck, feeling a pang of guilt at the realization of how long it had been since he’d truly taken him out. 

“I did,” Tooru muttered, “but that’s different. You could ride Kaito, if you wanted to.”

“Anyone could,” Wakatoshi told him, checking to make sure he was ready and then urging Hayate out, a controlling hand on the reins to make sure he didn’t take off flying. “He’s a very reliable horse.”

“I mean,” Tooru retorted, with enough inflection to light Wakatoshi’s eager heart ablaze, “once I become his favorite and he doesn’t want anyone else to ride him, he’d still let you. Like Hayate lets me, even though you’re his favorite.”

Wakatoshi tilted his head in thought. He was in the lead, and he thought it gave Tooru courage to not be seen yet, so he didn’t turn around. “Why is that?”

“W-well obviously,” Tooru stammered, “because you’re- You’re my husband.”

Wakatoshi was silent for probably a heartbeat too long, with Tooru’s nerves on the line, but finally he managed to take a deep breath, and his voice only sounded a little bit like thunder when he spoke.

“Tooru,” he said, because saying his name aloud tasted like sweet, honeyed pears, and he’d decided that his honesty should extend outside of the pages they traded back and forth. “I suggest you not call me that unless you’ve changed your mind about becoming my mate. You should know by now that I am constantly at war with my instincts when you are involved. I should like nothing more than to show you just how yours I am, but that is not,” he sighed laboriously, “what I had planned.”

It was Tooru’s turn to follow silently for a moment, before he let out an affirmative hum, higher than he’d probably meant to. They rode quietly for a few long minutes, slow and steady as they made their way to the gates that led to the forest. The familiar rock of Hayate’s walk and the sound of hooves on packed dirt make Wakatoshi release tension he hadn’t even been aware of, and occasionally catching Tooru’s in the air, just knowing he was right behind him, felt like a weight had finally been lifted off his shoulders.

As they finally crossed into the forest, Tooru finally spoke again. “You were right about the trails. Iwa-chan and I have been searching everywhere for the cove, and I don’t believe we’ve even come close.”

“What have you found?” Wakatoshi asked, because there were so many things to find in the forest. Like handsome men with curly brown hair, and little bushels of wildflowers. 

“A glen,” Tooru started, “with flowers growing all along the river. A grove of fruit trees. Iwa-chan wouldn’t let me eat them since he didn’t know what they were. A little shrine, further away but well maintained. One day we saw a pair of foxes chasing each other around. Another day we saw a buck with antlers as big as a tree!” Tooru quickly cut himself off, as if realizing how excited he’d gotten. He cleared his throat again, and when he resumed, he was poised and collected once more. “We’ve probably seen half the forest by now, and yet Iwa-chan is certain we’ll never find the trail to the sea.”

“You would,” Wakatoshi promised, “with time. But I’ll show you the way so you won’t have to get lost.” Tooru was quiet for a long while, and when Wakatoshi risked a glance back, he found him staring wide-eyed right at him. Rather than looking away like Wakatoshi assumed he might, Tooru held his gaze, his cheeks heating faintly as he did, and Wakatoshi couldn’t help but smile. At that, Tooru did blink hard and look down, biting his own lip in an all too tempting way. Wakatoshi turned back around and took a steadying breath. 

“You like to ride,” he finally said. “Do you like to race?”

Tooru’s scent spiked so instantly Wakatoshi could have laughed if he weren’t too busy gulping down a ragged breath to try to taste it. It didn’t come as much of a surprise that Tooru loved a competition. Since he was a boy, he’d written letters to Wakatoshi about practicing arms with Iwaizumi, about the dark haired mage’s apprentice who was far too good at his studies (which Tooru had always excelled at, not naturally, but through hard and strenuous work), about who, between he and Wakatoshi, had memorized more books. Even the not-quite-month of age he had on Wakatoshi was a contest, one Tooru had, of course, won.

“Here?” Tooru asked, careful to not let his excitement show. “I don’t know the way. Are you so confident you’ll win?”

“Hardly,” Wakatoshi said easily. “We’ll stay on this path for a while still. It’s wider from here until the wayside shrine. Do you know it?”

“Not the large one,” Tooru clarified, “that one’s further, isn’t it?”

Wakatoshi nodded, pulling at the reins to draw Hayate up short. Tooru stopped behind him, but Kaito huffed and plodded to his side, snuffling at Hayate’s face. Wakatoshi took the chance to look down at Tooru as they sat knee to knee. “Ushinatta Shrine is probably what you found. It’s a shrine for wanderers, but we maintain it, and pray there before journeys, physical or spiritual. I went twice before our wedding: once on the day you were meant to leave your home, and again the day we were wed. The one we’ll race to doesn’t have a name, and no one knows who or what you pray to there. It’s just a small stone shrine right in the fork of the path. You’ll see it. Would you like to race, then?”

Tooru looked over and up at him, and Wakatoshi was taken aback by the fierceness in his eyes, the wickedness in his smile. “Shall we?” Tooru asked, and then he tucked himself against Kaito’s neck, and before Wakatoshi could agree, he was off.

Hayate, greedy and quick, was in motion the second Wakatoshi lifted his weight, and a throaty laugh tore from Wakatoshi’s throat as he gave chase. Tooru, a blue-gray-green blur ahead of him, echoed it with a wild laugh of his own.

"You cheated,” Wakatoshi yelled after him, Hayate’s hoofbeats shaking the earth. 

“I won’t hold back,” Tooru called back, “just because you’re my husband!”

Wakatoshi couldn’t help the animalistic snarl that escaped him, but Tooru just laughed at him, gaining ground like he’d made Kaito sprout wings.

“I see it,” Tooru called back excitedly. He tucked himself lower, hovering just above the saddle like he was weightless on Kaito’s back, and Wakatoshi, knowing he had no hope of winning when Tooru was flying through the forest like an osprey to the sea, urged Hayate on regardless, giving him his head and letting him tear down the path with wild abandon.

Tooru drew Kaito up just past the shrine, letting him slow to a stop on the fork to the left, while Wakatoshi, two heartbeats later, shot off to the right before circling back when Hayate surrendered back to a walk. There, he found Tooru, silky curls falling loose from his hair as he turned towards Wakatoshi with a radiant beam of a smile. 

“I won,” he announced breathlessly, and Wakatoshi couldn’t find a single ounce of disappointment inside him. He smiled back, undoubtedly not as blinding, but every bit as proud.

“You ride well,” he said. “I’m thankful that Kaito is in such capable hands.”

Tooru’s smile was bright, his scent rich and joyous, and Wakatoshi almost lost the plot until Tooru took a deep breath and smoothed one hand down Kaito’s neck. “Next stop, the sea?” he asked, an air of nervous excitement to him, and Wakatoshi realized that he had been waiting for this, hungering for it. Wakatoshi would not prolong his wait. 

“Of course,” he agreed easily. “This way.”

The path to the cove was, as he’d told Tooru, tricky to find, and tricky to keep. It was hard to find, in part, because there was no real beginning to it. Even Hayate, who’d taken it many times, snorted with displeasure when rather than taking the path to the left or the path to the right, Wakatoshi urged him through the foliage around the wayside shrine and straight on behind it. 

He turned back and was Tooru looking equal parts aghast and annoyed, before finally settling on mildly offended and following after him. “How was I ever going to find this on my own,” he muttered darkly when the undergrowth cleared a bit and revealed something more like a true path between the trees.

Wakatoshi stifled a laugh. “I assume in some months, you’d realize you’d explored all the paths and you’d start going off them. That’s how I found this.”

“Well aren’t you clever,” Tooru mocked, and Wakatoshi didn’t need to look to know he was pouting, probably slumping in his saddle as he plodded along. Then, “I suppose it might be fun to task Iwa-chan with finding it on his own. He seems bored lately.”

“I have many guards here,” Wakatoshi informed him. “They are all loyal and capable. If you ever wanted to give Iwaizumi a day off to explore, or… take a bath. Any one of them could cover his post. Not that you need it, in the palace. It is very safe, I assure you.”

Tooru was quiet for a long while, simply letting Kaito follow Hayate along the trail, even when undergrowth hid it from view once more. “I don’t keep Iwaizumi with me because I’m afraid,” he said finally, and Wakatoshi wondered if this was his own moment of honesty. “I keep him with me because I am alone, except for him, and he is alone except for me. We’re both poor company, I think, but…”

“Poor company is better than none,” Wakatoshi offered. He understood. 

“Quite,” Tooru agreed. Then he laughed a little and the mood lifted. “I suppose I am not truly alone, as long as my husband is around, am I? Perhaps you should take Iwa-chan’s post. Maybe he’ll be able to go make some friends as well.”

“Tooru,” Wakatoshi chastised, because he truly couldn’t stand being called that and not being able to do anything about it. 

“You are quite simple, aren’t you, Wakatoshi? You try very hard to be a proper man, to be easy and gentle and polite, but you’re just an animal under all that, aren’t you? You just want to own me.”

Wakatoshi felt like an animal for a moment, felt like Hayate, gnashing uselessly at the bit, hooves tearing the ground below him. He reined himself in just like he would his troublesome horse. “Tooru, I am not fooling anyone. I am perfectly in control with everyone and everything else. You are the one who makes me… If you could wait, at least, to make me make a fool of myself.”

“I rather like you making a fool of yourself whenever I decide it,” Tooru commented, but he still agreed. “But fine. Since you’re the only one who can navigate this nightmare of a path. I hope the sea here is worth it.” He could not summon up enough derision to make it stick, and Wakatoshi had the feeling that any and all seas were worth it to him, as long as he got to see one.

Eventually, the path began to slope down. The trees beside them turned to cliffs, and the dirt beneath their horses' hooves became sand and pebbles. “Be careful,” Wakatoshi warned sternly. “The ground is unsteady and the horses don’t always find  their footing.”

Tooru didn’t answer, but Wakatoshi trusted him to listen, both to him and to his horse, and they made it down with no incidents and only a few short skids down the slippery sand. And then, finally, they emerged into the cove.

It was a small little bay, with only a few steps of sand when the tide was high, but at its highest, the tide sea was still shallow, and you could walk and walk and walk with the water barely to your waist. At low tide, it was dry almost to the inlet, but water pooled in long, deep tide pools that warmed in the sun, temperate even as the days got cooler. 

They emerged from roughly the center of the cliffs that circled all the way around to the narrow inlet that connected them to the real sea. It had been high tide just a few hours ago, so there was plenty of space to dismount and walk along the sand, collect shells, or feel the water, but they would be in no rush to leave before the tide came back in. 

Wakatoshi swung himself off Hayate, removed his tack, and hung it on an old, dry piece of driftwood, thick and sturdy enough to have done this multiple times. “They won’t leave the cove,” he told Tooru, “so you can let him loose. They like the waves, and they have shade by the cliffs, though I imagine it’s cool enough now that the sun won’t bother them”

Tooru, still atop Kaito’s back, was busy staring slack-jawed at the sea. 

“Tooru,” Wakatoshi called gently, stepping forward and easing Kaito’s reins from his white-knuckled hands. “Come down, go feel it.”

Tooru glanced down at him absently, and then slowly, finally, nodded. He came down distracted, and when he nearly stumbled, Wakatoshi caught him by the waist to steady him. They both froze for just a moment, but then Tooru simply nodded in thanks and hovered questioningly by Kaito’s saddle until Wakatoshi stepped back and tilted his head towards the water.

“Go ahead,” he murmured, “I’ll take care of him.”

Tooru didn’t need any further encouragement before he left, and Wakatoshi watched him out of the corner of his eyes as he took Kaito’s tack and draped it over the driftwood. As Kaito, tossing his head pridefully, sauntered off to join Hayate, Wakatoshi unrolled the blanket he’d brought and took it down to where the sand was slightly firmer, packed down from the tide, but no longer wet. He could follow Tooru to the water’s edge, where he had left his socks and geta safely out of the waves’ reach. The hem of his pants dragged in the sea as he crouched down, hugging his knees with one hand and reaching out with the other to feel the coming and going of the water and the ivory foam.

He looked small and at peace, and Wakatoshi was content to just admire him. He pulled the food out, but left the bentos covered in case Tooru wasn’t hungry yet, and then sat on the blanket and let himself, for the first time in months, finally relax. Tooru was in his sights, happy and safe, and Wakatoshi felt it like a weight off his shoulders. 

Wakatoshi lost track of time, sitting there reclined on his hands, lidded eyes drowsily following Tooru back and forth along the water, ebbing and flowing like the tide. The horses were content: lying in the sand, racing each other down the stretch of beach, standing still and calm with the water at their knees or in the slender shade of the cliffside. Wakatoshi felt that strange possessive feeling again, like he wished he could have this moment. But it was enough to just be there, to experience it, to bear witness. 

The sun was just past its peak by the time Tooru left the water, his skin flushed from the sun, his feet bare. His eyes brightened when he spotted the blanket Wakatoshi was lounging on, and he trailed over lazily, happily. When he sat beside him and began poking around at the bentos, lifting the lids off and peering in, humming appreciatively, there was none of the earlier tension.

“Do you like it?” Wakatoshi finally asked, once Tooru was finally still, his eyes shut and his face tilted towards the sky. One soft taupe brown eye cracked open to look at him, peering through equally dusky brown lashes. 

Slowly, a smile spread across his face. “It’s perfect,” he said quietly. “I’ll come here all the time, I’ll bring treats for Kaito and something to read, and I’ll just spend all day here until I waste away to nothing.”

“Don’t do that,” Wakatoshi chided. “You can’t waste away when I’ve only just gotten you.”

Tooru blushed, but didn’t look away. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he murmured, “I told you already, you’ve had me for years. And I don’t plan to waste away yet, just that when I do, I wouldn’t mind wasting away here.”

Wakatoshi hummed and reached for a bento. “Would you like to eat? Before you waste away?”

Tooru accepted eagerly, eating everything, even the foods with which he was less familiar—or would have been, anyway, back in his home—without complaint. He ate the sweet miso kiritanpo and grilled gyutan with as much enjoyment as he ate the yakiudon and mackerel. 

They emptied the boxes slowly but eagerly, taking their time and enjoying the cool breeze, the scent of the sea, and their oddly familiar company,

Wakatoshi set the empty boxes aside eventually, and turned towards Tooru. Tooru was already looking back at him. “Shall we walk?” Wakatoshi asked. Tooru thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. One hand snaked out and caught the sleeve of Wakatoshi’s montsuki between slim fingers. 

“Wakatoshi,” Tooru said, rolling the same around in his mouth like it was more foreign than the foods he’d just eaten. Wakatoshi, unused to hearing it, felt much the same, and also like he’d very much like to hear it again. “Wakatoshi,” Tooru repeated, “why did you bring me here?” It wasn’t angry or demanding, just curious. Wakatoshi tilted his head. 

“I thought you might miss it. The sea. And that you might feel more at home here knowing it was nearby. And you might want a place to go. To wither away.”

Tooru let out a soft laugh. “I see.”

“Does it help?” Wakatoshi asked.

Tooru hesitated, his head lolling back between his shoulders. “It doesn’t feel like my home, if that’s what you mean. It won’t, not like that. A new home, maybe… someday. But I need… I still need time. I still need-” He broke off with a sigh. His head rolled to the side to look at Wakatoshi. “If you could do it again, would you?”

“Do what?” Wakatoshi asked. 

“Our wedding. Everything leading up to it, perhaps. After.”

Wakatoshi stilled. After a moment of thought, he shrugged slowly. “I don’t know. I believe… If I could spare you the hurt I caused you, I would, but at the same time, I believe we’ve learned things about each other that we may not have otherwise. I am more honest with you because of what happened, and I think you are as well. I think that will benefit us more in the long run, despite everything.”

“I see,” Tooru murmured. “You’re probably right.” 

“There is,” Wakatoshi said, his gaze dropping from Tooru’s face to his bare feet, peeking out from his now dry but sandy pants, “one thing I would do differently.”

Tooru was silent, but he curled his bare toes impatiently. 

“If I could redo our wedding night,” Wakatoshi whispered, “I would have held you. Shown you how much I wanted you then. I would have made it better for you.”

Tooru sucked in a sharp breath and drew his legs in, knees pulling close to his chest. Wakatoshi resigned himself to staring at the corner of the blanket instead.

“Afterwards, I found myself thinking about it, wondering if I’d hurt you, or frightened you, or if you even- if you’d wanted it, or if you’d even want… If that night had resulted in a pup, would you have wanted that? And between that, I thought about the scent of you, and how you felt beneath me, and I worried that I had enjoyed something that you’d hated-”

“I didn’t hate it,” Tooru breathed. “I was so- You were so much more than I remembered, than I imagined. You- You’ve grown up a lot, you know? Since we’d last seen each other. You’re-” he broke off again, but this time, Wakatoshi caught the way his scent spiked. “You’ve grown up well,” Tooru whispered, like a secret. “I remember thinking that I was so lucky that my husband was so handsome and strong and gentle, and that I wished- I wished he might kiss me, just once.”

Wakatoshi swallowed a growl, but only barely. All that tension that had bled from his body watching Tooru with his feet in the water returned now, charged and aching. “Tooru,” he rumbled, but he didn’t know what to say. 

“Would you?” Tooru asked, his voice so quiet. “If you did it again, would you kiss me?”

Wakatoshi couldn’t hold himself back, though he wished he could. He wished he could be gentle and slow and tender, wished he could follow Tooru’s lead and win him back slowly, show him how he was falling for him, how he had fallen for him. But there was something hungry inside him, something too desperate to hold back. 

Tooru gasped when Wakatoshi grabbed him, one hand curling in the front of his robe, the other wrapping around his waist, and then Wakatoshi was on him, and Tooru was tumbling back, and they were suddenly flat against the blanket, Wakatoshi hovering just a hair’s breadth above him.

“I would,” Wkatoshi growled. “I will. I’ll give you a second wedding night, I’ll give you whatever you want.”

He could feel the unsteady pounding of Tooru’s heart beneath his, and those big brown eyes were staring up at him, and Wakatoshi could smell how much Tooru wanted this, wanted him, despite everything. “Here? Tooru asked, his voice breathy. Wakatoshi could feel the exhale of it on his lips. “Now?”

“Tooru. I will take you anywhere, but if you make me wait now, I may lose my mind.”

“You want me,” Tooru whispered. “You really want me.”

“I thought I’d been clear,” Wakatoshi mumbled, falling even closer, until his lips were brushing Tooru’s warm skin. “I thought you knew by now that you’re all I can think about.”

Tooru’s eyes fluttered shut, and his breath shuddered through him, shuddered through Wakatoshi where they were pressed together. “I- You’d told me, but that was- I didn't know if it was the same, like this.”

“Like this?” Wakatoshi asked, lips trailing down Tooru’s jaw. His scent was so close, so alive.  

“T-together,” Tooru stammered, his head falling back, his throat bare. Wakatoshi’s hand slipped beneath the belt of his robe, easing the knot loose. “I didn’t know- I thought maybe-”

“I want you,” Wakatoshi swore, pressing his lips to Toorus scent gland, opening his mouth and letting his teeth graze the skin. “I want you, Tooru, you can’t imagine how much.” 

“Yes,” Tooru said with a shiver. “You can- I want a second wedding night, I want you to- to make it right.”

It was luck, not care, that kept Tooru’s robes intact when Wakatoshi tore them from his body. He bared his teeth as he untied his pants with one hand, but Tooru curbed his frustration by taking his face between his own gentler palms and raising his eyes up. 

“Kiss me?” Tooru asked, and Wakatoshi did it, because how could he deny him?

It was nothing like the kisses they’d shared at their wedding. Tooru gasped, and Wakatoshi dove into his waiting mouth. There was no elegance to it, no slow build or easing together, it was just heat and desperation, a spark that Wakatoshi could track through letters sent and received, that had turned into a blazing pyre neither of them had been able to act upon until now.

And act they did, burning like kindling in the heat of a kiss neither of them had experience to compare. Wakatoshi had read—and seen—some books on the subject, and Tooru had admitted to gossiping now and then with their other omegas growing up, about others’ and then their own experiences (of which, Tooru had scratched out, he’d had none, before their wedding. But the lack of experience didn’t bother Wakatoshi. 

He had instincts and a body that knew what they wanted, and Tooru reacted to him just how he knew he would: arching into his touch, shivering as his clothes fell from him, whispering his name when Wakatoshi’s teeth bit his lips. Tooru also knew what to do, because his body knew, his instincts knew. They were made for this, on some level, and so it was easy, as their clothes fell from their bodies, to surrender themselves to whatever chase of pleasure their bodies demanded. 

Their clothes fell to the side in a messy pile of wool silk and thick cotton, and though Wakatoshi was fully covering Tooru now, the mid-autumn breeze pebbled Tooru’s fair skin and flushed nipples. He looked—because this time Wakatoshi was looking— stunning beneath him, his hair loose from the intricate bun it had been pinned into, soft brown curls mussed atop the blanket beneath them. When Wakatoshi pulled back from kissing him, his lips were swollen and red from Wakatoshi’s harsh treatment. He looked up at Wakatoshi through his heavy lashes, and Wakatoshi could see the want there as much as he could see the nervousness still holding him back.

“Tooru,” he called roughly, “I want you. I want to make you mine, and I want to be yours, I want you to possess me. Will you? Will you let me belong to you, will you let me be whatever you need?”

Tooru swallowed, and Wakatoshi ached to paint the curve of his throat with his lips. “You swear?” Tooru murmured, one hand cradling Wakatoshi’s cheek, his thumb tracing the shape of Wakatoshi’s lips ever so gently. “I will not let you own me like a thing. But- But if you swear that you’d be as much mine as I am yours-”

“Of course you will,” Wakatoshi promised. “You may have loved me longer, but, Tooru, I have known that I was yours since I wrote you my first letter.”

“Not because you’re supposed to be,” Tooru clarified, biting his already well-bitten lip. “Not because you have to be. Because you want to be, because you want to be mine.”

“I do,” Wakatoshi promised. He could feel Tooru’s every reaction like this, from the unsteady beat of his heart, to the tensing of his stomach, to the way he grew ever warmer, wetter, between his legs where Wakatoshi’s thigh had taken residence. He knew Tooru could feel him too: the heavy weight of him, the coarseness of the dense, olive brown hair that dusted his body, the heavy rise and fall of his lungs, the hardness pressing against Tooru’s hip. Tooru could feel how much he wanted him, more than just physically.

Around them, their scents tangled into a heavy, indecipherable web, their feelings too complex to parse when they were so drenched in each other, a  muddled cloud of saffron and caraway, cedar and pear, sweet vanilla and earthy musk. Still, Wakatoshi could sense it: the trueness of Tooru’s want. He knew Tooru could feel it too.

“Wakatoshi,” Tooru whispered. “Husband. Will you make me yours?”

“One million times,” Wakatoshi growled, his mouth already against Tooru’s once more. “I will make you mine until we are one and where I end and you begin loses all meaning.”

“Wakatoshi.” Tooru seemed to melt upwards, into the heat of him. “Wakatoshi.”

“I want,” Wakatoshi ground out, “to do this right. I want you to feel good.”

“I feel good, Wakatoshi. Toshi.”

Wakatoshi shivered at the nickname, delivered with such tender affection. He kissed Tooru hard. “I will make you feel better.”

Tooru protested wordlessly when Wakatoshi sat back on his heels, his hands firm and greedy on Tooru’s chest and waist as he straightened, both to keep Tooru still and to let himself keep touching him. Tooru was all bare beneath him, down to his round little toes that curled in embarrassment when Wakatoshi’s hands found his ankles and pushed his legs up until his knees hit his chest. With Tooru tucked all small and open, Wakatoshi pulled his lower back onto his lap, raising his hips towards himself and letting gravity do the work of holding Tooru’s legs up. 

Tooru whimpered softly at the exposed feeling, but he didn’t protest, didn’t move to stop it or to cover up. Wakatoshi took it as permission to admire him, every radiant piece laid bare. 

Tooru’s small cock was hard and wet, flopped against his pelvis and wetting the pale skin there with streaks of watery excitement. Beneath it, soft, rosy brown and glistening wet, was his cunt. A cunt that Wakatoshi had fucked before, but he had not appreciated it nearly as much as he should have, not nearly as much as Tooru deserved. Under his hungry gaze, a thick pearl of slick dripped back, down the crease of Tooru’s ass to collect in the tight furl of his hole. 

Tempting as it was, that was not where Wakatoshi would spend his attention; today, anyway. “Look at you,” he murmured instead, tucking one arm around Tooru’s thigh and hip to reach him from the front. He ran a thumb down the length of him—though it was, admittedly, not long at all—and then moved back to his waiting cunt. “You fit me inside here,” he wondered aloud, two stocky fingers beginning to explore his dark folds, slipping right between them easily with their dampness. 

It was like the chill couldn’t even reach them anymore. Wakatoshi felt fevered, heady with warmth, and here at least, Tooru was so hot, like all his blood was pulsing just under Wakatoshi’s fingertips. If Tooru felt the cold anyway, it didn’t show. His cheeks and chest were a deep pink, his eyes wide and fixed on Wakatoshi’s hand, on his own cock and dripping cunt. 

“You- You don’t have t-to look so much,” Tooru told him, though the quick rise and fall of his chest gave him away.

“You deserve to be admired,” Wakatoshi answered easily. “Here,” he thumbed over the seam of Tooru’s sticky lips, “here,” his precious little cock. “Even here.” Tooru clenched when Wakatoshi’s thumb pressed flat against the tight muscle of his ass, damp with errant slick. “But that will wait, if you ever want it. But I will stare, Tooru. I will watch and admire you every day, whenever you let me. As long- As long as you don’t hide yourself away again.”

“I don’t plan to,” Tooru panted, his chest heaving as Wakatoshi’s fingers toyed with his cunt, teasing and tugging at his folds, exploring all the sensitive parts of him to see what made him react. “W- Toshi, please just-”

“I want this,” Wakatoshi murmured, dipping just one fingertip inside Tooru’s waiting hole and feeling him react. “I want to learn you like this too. I want to feel you in every way, appreciate every part of you. You wanted this, did you not? Our first night?”

Tooru looked away, pressing the back of one palm tight to his mouth. His eyes were bright, damp, but Wakatoshi wasn’t worried. He could smell the overwhelming feelings Tooru was grappling with right then, mirroring his own.

“You can demand as much of my attention as you wish,” Wakatoshi reminded him. “I am your husband. I will be your mate. I exist for you, my Tooru.”

Tooru let out a long, low sound, and Wakatoshi took at his cue to begin. He hadn’t prepared Tooru much on their wedding night. Omegas were prepared before the ceremony, with salves and ointments that relaxed their muscles and helped them slick and overall eased the way, and Wakatoshi hadn’t wanted to draw the endeavor out, to subject Tooru to any more of his touch than he had to bear, so he’d gone in with a perfunctory two fingers, then three, and simply ensured that he wouldn’t tear anything on the way in.

Now, he had all the time in the world. The sun was slowly setting, but it wouldn’t be night for a while yet, and they were in no rush. Tooru liked his hands on him, liked Wakatoshi’s attention, and Wakatoshi liked touching him. So he would. So he did.

He let his middle finger go in first, his other fingers slipping between the labia on either side. His palm was flat against Tooru’s aroused clitoris, and the heel of his hand and inner wrist pressed against his cock, forcing a moan from Tooru’s lips. Wakatoshi himself felt like he could moan as well, just at the feel of him: tight and wet and hard, aroused in every way for him. Tooru’s scent of pears and spicy vanilla was so strong like this, every slow pump of Wakatoshi’s finger making it richer, riper as he grew slicker. Wakatoshi had a vivid memory of sweet, hot, honeyed pears, and his mouth watered unwittingly. 

It was a bit awkward in this position, but Wakatoshi was strong, and he could hold Tooru’s weight for a while. He hunched over at the same time as he lifted Tooru’s hips ever further, and his breath ghosted over Tooru’s heated skin once, twice, before he took a deep inhale and lowered himself into a kiss even filthier and hungrier than the last. 

Tooru gasped, then moaned, then shivered off into a soft cry of Wakatoshi’s name. He sounded like sunlight, Wakatoshi thought dimly, his eyelids falling heavy as Tooru’s sweet, tangy slick met his tongue. He sounded like sunlight, and waves crashing, and he tasted like spicy pears, honey-sweet and oven hot. 

“Toshi,” Tooru sobbed, his legs heavy against his chest, clenching reflexively around Wakatoshi’s head. His ankles crossed behind Wakatoshi’s neck, and if he’d had a free hand, Wakatoshi would have held them there, would have pressed his thumb to the arches of Tooru’s feet to hear him sigh and moan in relief. But “Oh, oh, yes, please- Please, like that, oh, please more,” was good enough for now.

Wakatoshi drank his slick like he had been craving it forever, like the purest spring water or the most fragrant tea. He dipped his tongue in alongside his finger to catch it from the source. He mouthed up to the head of Tooru’s cock and took his full length easily, suckling the watery pre-cum from the glans for a taste. 

Tooru trembled and gasped and tried to move, to rock his hips and take more of Wakatoshi, but there was nothing more to take unless Wakatoshi gave it. So he did. Another finger, and then another, rocking back and forth to press his calloused palm against Tooru’s sensitive parts when Wakatoshi wasn’t actively sucking on them. He continued with single minded abandon, chasing the swell of Tooru’s release. He knew it would come, he could feel it in the pulsing of his cunt and the twitching of his cock, the way all his muscles seemed desperate to make him move, if only he wasn’t secure in Wakatoshi’s hold. 

And then, with a final suck against his swollen clitorus, Tooru came, bucking uselessly and crying out as his legs tightened around Wakatoshi’s neck, pushing him ever deeper into his slick cunt. Tooru finished with a stream of Wakatoshi’s name, which had never sounded so beautiful, nor quite so impure, as it did then. Wakatoshi prayed he would hear it like that infinitely more times, until he couldn’t bear it anymore. He knew already that he would never tire of it, of the way Tooru’s voice broke as he said it, or the way he collapsed eventually, melted into Wakatoshi as the rush of it finally left him.

Wakatoshi slowly lowered him back to the blanket, rolled him onto his side, and took his place in front of him, chest to chest and holding him ever closer. Tooru reached for him desperately, clawing his arms around Wakatoshi’s wide back and clinging to him like he might disappear. 

“Now?” Tooru asked after a long moment, his voice ragged. He drew his head back enough to look up towards Wakatoshi, and Wakatoshi saw his eyes linger, darken, on the sheen of slick on his lips and cheeks and chin. He tilted his own head down and took Tooru into a kiss before he could protest, and Tooru, beautiful creature that he was, moaned filthily into it, before feelings Wakatoshi’s bare lips to kiss the rest of his messy face instead, open mouthed and hungry as he explored his own taste on Wakatoshi’s skin. 

“Now,” Wakatoshi rumbled in reply as Tooru sucked against the line of his jaw, “if you’re ready.”

“I am,” Tooru moaned, tossing one trembling thigh over Wakatoshi’s hips and rolling forward. “I’ve been wanting, Toshi, I’ve been wanting you so desperately. I’ve been dreaming of this, of you.”

It certainly did not make one of them—Wakatoshi had also been dreaming of Tooru like this. He’d dreamed of taking Tooru on this very beach, though his dreams had put them in the water, the waves washing around them and keeping Tooru buoyant. Perhaps some other day.

“Tooru, I will mark you,” Wakatoshi warned, because he’d promised himself honesty, and in this case that meant being painstakingly, ruinously clear with his intentions. “I will not be able to hold back, not when I have you like this.” Wrapped up in his arms, soft and close and secure, desperate and wanting, aching for him. Tooru was impossible to resist. 

“I want it,” Tooru breathed, his voice tremulous, not with nerves but with anticipation. “Wakatoshi, I want it, I want to mate with you.”

Wakatoshi choked out a growl, as close he could come to an affirmative, and all it took then was angling his aching cock up with Tooru’s eager hole, wetting it with his plentiful slick, and then, finally, pushing himself inside.

This position, close and tangled together on their sides, didn’t allow for much freedom of movement, but Wakatoshi didn’t want it anyway. He didn’t want to fuck into Tooru, or slip out of him, or pull out and tease him. He wanted to be buried as deep as he could go, to lock himself inside Tooru’s body and simply never leave. He wanted to bite and be bitten, to belong to Tooru, for Tooru to let himself be his in return. 

Tooru, already stretched by Wakatoshi’s eager mouth and thick fingers, didn’t appear to feel any discomfort as Wakatoshi slipped in, but he went slack as he was filled deeper and deeper yet. “Oh,” he murmured, his eyes hazy and lost as he fell away from Wakatoshi’s face to loll against the blanket, his breathing heavy and practiced. “Oh, Toshi, you-”

Wakatoshi nodded when Tooru cut himself off. “You too,” he swore between breaths. “Tooru, you feel as though you were made for me.”

“I was,” Tooru promised wildly, “I was, Wakatoshi, I am.”

“And I,” Wakatoshi answered in equal madness, “for you.”

They moved in time to the soft rush of the tide, low and distant now. Slow, idle, aimless. Despite the tension in Wakatoshi’s loins, the aching need to come, to fill Tooru and mark him as his own, to knot him and be marked in return, the desire to be close overwhelmed it all. The rush, the hunger, the need; none of that mattered. All eventualities were secondary to the nowness of having Tooru held close, tangled into him, wrapped around him. This was the moment, this was the outcome. 

Tooru made the sweetest noises, hot and damp against Wakatoshi’s skin, and Wakatoshi knew he was echoing them, gasping quietly, close enough that no one but Tooru would have been able to hear him. All of him belonged to Tooru anyway, especially the sounds Tooru pulled from him. Those, most of all, were his.

Wakatoshi was so lost in the weight of it all that he didn’t even realize he was close, that he was almost full, until he rocked and found he couldn’t move, he’d popped inside of Tooru and his greedy mate wouldn’t give him up.

“Tooru,” Wakatoshi gasped as he felt his pleasure suddenly begin to release, hot and insistent. Tooru was already nodding, already lining his sharp teeth up under Wakatoshi’s jaw, and by the next spurt of come inside of him, he was biting, and Wakatoshi shuddered with a flood of pleasure he couldn’t describe, the bond settling instantly, bone deep before Tooru even pulled his teeth out. 

“Now you,” Tooru rasped, his fingertips digging into Wakatoshi’s spine. “Show me, Toshi, show me you mean it.”

Wakatoshi didn’t need any urging to dip his head to Tooru’s throat, find his scent gland, dripping with that mouthwatering scent of his, and leave a bite of his own. Tooru tensed as the skin broke, and then absolutely dissolved as the bond set in, complete and instant. 

They stayed locked together for some long and indeterminate amount of time, until the sky was growing dark and the tide was encroaching, long after Wakatoshi’s knot had slipped free, leaving them locked simply by each other's limbs and the small universe they’d forcefully built around them.

There was sand stuck to their skin, blown onto the blanket by the breeze and stuck to them with sweat and- well. Any number of fluids, truly. They brushed off as best they could before slowly and carefully dressing. Wakatoshi tied Tooru’s robes shut, tied the firm knot of his hakama pants and the belt of his ocean green kimono. Tooru turned around and let Wakatoshi pin his hair gently into a much looser, much less elegant bun.

Tooru returned the favor for him, dressing him gently, like Wakatoshi was the kind of man who was in need of tenderness, despite his size, his power, his position. Perhaps he was right. Tooru usually was. 

Wakatoshi shook out the blanket while Tooru went to the water’s edge one last time, and then they collected their horses, dozing peacefully down the beach, and tacked them up once more. Tooru let Wakatoshi lift him atop Kaito, wincing slightly as he sat atop the saddle, and then smiling down at Wakatoshi when he hovered nervously, apologetic.

Finally, reluctantly, they made their way up the sandy path from the cove, and back into the forest. In the dark, they relied on the horses to lead the way, Hayate in front once more, sure-footed and steady as he made his way home. Tooru and Kaito followed, quiet and tired. Wakatoshi head Tooru muffle more than one yawn, and he bit back a smile every time.

By the time they reached the stables, Tooru looked dead in his saddle, and though Wakatoshi preferred to care for his horses on his own, especially after a long ride, he asked a stablehand to take them from there. Tooru tried to protest, but Wakatoshi shushed him, lifted him into his arms, and carried him towards the palace. The first servant he saw, he asked to prepare a warm bath in Tooru’s rooms. Their rooms, once more, he thought. 

Iwaizumi was waiting outside when Wakatoshi finally made it to their door, Tooru already dozing in his arms. He saw an initial flash of panic on the loyal guard’s face, but it immediately faded into a more neutral resignation when he caught their scents. Nodding his reluctant approval, he stepped aside and let Wakatoshi carry Tooru in, closing the door quietly behind them.

It took a few minutes before a handful of servants arrived with hot water to fill the basin that had already been set in one of the rooms, and one had the forethought to bring Wakatoshi a set of sleep clothes and robes for the next day as well. He thanked them and told them to not return unless they were called for, but to leave food outside if they could. 

Tooru protested weakly when Wakatoshi once more began to strip him of his robes, but the bath was warm and the steam smelled of milk and oats and it roused Tooru enough to step into it and let Wakatoshi handle the rest.

Iwaizumi knocked softly on the door some time later, announcing that some food had been brought, and Wakatoshi brought in bowls of rice and warm soup and radish and shogayaki, which he fed to a sleepy, rumpled Tooru with long, wet hair and a simple, cotton yukata, untied, around his shoulders.

Wakatoshi tucked Tooru into their bed before going to wash himself, and the scent of him was so sweet and gentle and comfortable that he couldn’t help but bend low to kiss him once more. Tooru hummed contentedly into it, but by the time Wakatoshi stood, he was already asleep.

Later, Wakatoshi lowered himself into the bed that had always been meant to be theirs, surrounded by Tooru’s sweet and perfect scent, and pulled him close. Their bond was alive, he could feel it under his skin, but more than that: Tooru had finally emerged from the cave of his solitude, bringing his light back into Wakatoshi’s life.

Wakatoshi, for the first time, fell asleep holding him.

Notes:

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