Work Text:
Sanemi’s pretty sure he’s the only one who saw it happen.
Set up at Uzui’s dining table in one of his creaking, mismatched chairs (Sanemi thinks his sense of decoration is really shit, but trying to argue with him about it is worse), peeling potatoes (the guy can’t even be bothered to prep his own food before his guests arrive, but whatever), he has a pretty clear view of the front door. So, naturally, then, when Urokodaki and Tomioka arrived, had a quiet little spat in the entryway (ending in Tomioka turning right around and leaving again), Sanemi had a pretty clear view of the whole thing. Not that he was paying attention to it—because it’s none of his business, really. He didn't hear anything they said. He kept his eyes on the potatoes, just a humble peeler with a good seat.
Urokodaki wasted no time after that shucking off his coat and making his way into the apartment proper. And, since Sanemi’s not Uzui, he spares Urokodaki any interrogation, pretending he doesn’t notice the tired edge to his half-smile when he waves hello, the way it doesn’t really reach his eyes.
“Hey,” he waves back with two fingers, potato in hand.
“What’s up?” Urokodaki snorts. “He’s got you working already?”
Sanemi wordlessly salutes with the potato peeler; it doesn’t take long after that for Uzui to notice his arrival.
“Hey, hey, Urokodaki!” He spreads his arms wide with a grin, nearly whacking Iguro behind him with the wet dish towel draped over his wrist. “Welcome! Where’s Tomioka at?”
He laughs. “I dunno, man, if you don’t know then neither do I.”
“Nahh, come on!” Uzui balls up the hand towel and lobs it at him through the gap over the breakfast bar, and Urokodaki catches it easily, grimacing when he realizes how damp it is and dumping it on the table opposite Sanemi’s work station.. “You two are like, attached at the hip, right?”
“Who told you that?” Still smiling, Urokodaki pulls up his phone, scrolling his home screen.
“Come on, dude, we need him here for the games. We can’t start without him!”
“Don’t cry to me about it!”
“Would you stop yelling? You’re three feet away from each other,” Iguro hisses through gritted teeth, chopping vegetables next to Uzui at the countertop. “As if I didn’t already have a headache…”
“Oh! Ibuprofen’s in the bottom drawer there if you need it, Iguro,” Uzui pats him on the head, and Sanemi tries not to laugh—it gets harder when Iguro catches his eye and brandishes his chopping knife at him, narrowed eyes all but hissing after Uzui, you’re next.
Uzui’s already moved on: “Well, can you text him, at least?”
“You’ve got his number too! Would you quit pestering me? Why does he need to be here for some stupid games, anyway?”
Uzui straightens then, his grin melting into a narrow-eyed glare. “I’ll have you know, my three gorgeous girlfriends planned those games, painstakingly, with everyone in mind. Are you really going to disrespect my girls like that?”
Urokodaki snorts. “I think you need to reprioritize—”
“Shut up, both of you,” Sanemi stands, kicking Uzui’s weird old dining chair back and making a show of dropping the peeler on top of the empty produce bag. He wipes his hands dry on the front of his pants. “Your stupid potatoes are all peeled, so I’ll go look for him. All right?”
"Oho," Uzui adapts without missing a beat, brow lifting in surprise. “Really, Shinazugawa? What a lifesaver!”
“Don’t mention it,” he grumbles under his breath.
Urokodaki doesn’t spare Sanemi a glance as he legs around the table and past him to the entryway.
It’s been snowing since mid-afternoon; Sanemi takes three steps outside and knows his sneakers are going to end up soaked and freezing, snow light and blowing over his feet like powdered sugar each step he takes. He zips his coat up to his chin and goes slower than usual down Uzui’s front stoop to avoid slipping, one hand on the railing. It’s bright out for the late hour, snow catching the glow from the streetlamps and holiday lights strung over people’s houses up and down the street. Pausing on the sidewalk, he takes it in, otherworldly and soft. He wonders what the kids are up to back at home, if they’re already sledding down the hill near their house, or holding their celebratory first-snow-of-the-season ugly snowman contest. Nah, they wouldn’t do the latter without him, he thinks. After all, he’s an esteemed judge.
Here he is now, though, stuck looking for Tomioka. With a final shiver and a cloud-puffing exhale, he plods through the fresh-fallen snow.
Tomioka and Urokodaki arrived together, and Tomioka doesn’t drive, so they likely took the same car; if he wanted to go back to his own place, he’d have to find some other way. Thus, the bus stop is the first place Sanemi checks, thankfully only a block or so from Uzui’s place.
He’s… not there. Okay. Sanemi stands in the empty shelter, glass foggy and streaked with filth, and tries to rack his brains for anywhere else he could look.
With another heaved exhale clouding up before him, he concludes: he has no fucking clue where else to look. Should he text Urokodaki to ask what places Tomioka usually haunts in this neighborhood? Sanemi’s never really caught him outside the gym or campus or the grocery store, and when they take the bus together after Sanemi gets off work, Sanemi’s stop is before Tomioka’s. It’s not like they usually have really in-depth conversations about shit he could draw on, either. Mostly, Sanemi berates him for sucking at his calculus homework over sandwiches when he’s on his break, then helps him out with it anyway.
So, he turns around and heads back to Uzui’s, retracing his own steps in the snow. When he reaches Uzui’s stoop again, he stops.
There’s a narrow path of footprints descending the steps and crossing the street. Were those always there? Did he just not notice them before? Looking up at the warmly lit windows of Uzui’s house, Sanemi weighs his options. It’s warm inside, and he can just pretend he gave up and sit in the heated living space, have a drink and some snacks and sink back into Uzui’s couch for a few hours, or something. That’s what he came to do, wasn’t it? What he was sent here to do, more like. He shifts his weight from foot to foot while he thinks, just to keep warm and moving.
Then, from inside, he hears: “Let the games begin!”
It’s Uzui’s voice booming, loud and clear even though all the windows are closed, followed by some of the worst noise-music Sanemi’s ever heard, blaring so loud he’s sure the floors must be vibrating.
Well, that’s the decision made for him. Sanemi turns right and follows the footprints.
They lead down the opposite side of the street, and Sanemi passes the bus stop, eyes on the footprints pressed into the snow. They take him down a few blocks, to a clearing, a park in between all the residential buildings. Streetlamps line the square of land, including a playground at one corner. Nobody else is around, save one lone figure sitting on the inner bench of the playground’s merry-go-round, hunched over with their back to Sanemi. He doesn’t bother following the footsteps anymore, shoving his hands in his pockets and starting towards it.
When he reaches the merry-go-round, he grips one of the freezing metal bars in one hand and shoves his weight into it, giving the thing a spin. Tomioka’s head snaps up as he’s thrown into sudden motion, whirling around until he sees Sanemi; he relaxes, slouching forward again, and slows to a stop just to the right of him.
With a gloved pinky, Tomioka scratches his nose, looking somewhere over Sanemi’s shoulder.
“That was a weak push.”
Sanemi’s lip twitches; he crosses his arms. “You never have anything nice to say, do you?”
Tomioka’s lips curve up at that, smiling small, eyes flickering to meet his for a moment. Sanemi grabs a bar, both hands this time, and heaves it along, dragging troughs through the snow. He runs it around a few times to pick up speed, well-practiced from how demanding his younger siblings are, and he’s gotten up a good speed, about to let go when Tomioka says
“Watch—!”
And Sanemi’s foot skids over a bit of slick pavement he unearthed—he lets the merry-go-round go with a hard faceplant into the snow, arms thrown out a second too late.
“Oof,” he pushes up to his knees. “Shit.” With an incredulous laugh, he brushes all the snow off his coat and shakes it out of his hair, the fronts of his pant legs already soaked through.
Still on his knees, he watches Tomioka spin around at lukewarm speed, his stupid-looking winter hat, with its little pom-pom on top, going in slower circles as the merry-go-round loses momentum.
“Are you okay?” Tomioka looks over his shoulder at him.
“Fine,” Sanemi clambers to his feet again. “I’ve had worse, trust me.” He gives the merry-go-round another weak push before it’s able to come to a complete stop, and around Tomioka goes again. His navy coat is zipped up past his chin, hair spilling out into his hood in its usual low ponytail. Sanemi pushes him around a few more times before speaking up again.
“Aren’t you cold?”
“I don’t mind it.” Tomioka doesn’t look at him, and is quiet for another moment. “… Sabito sent you to come get me?”
“No,” Sanemi wipes his nose on the cold, slick fabric of his coat sleeve, and sniffs. “Uzui did.”
“Hm.” He passes Sanemi slowly, and goes around again. Sanemi keeps the merry-go-round going, giving it another push whenever it really starts to slow. “Shouldn’t we be heading back, then? You found me.”
“We could,” Sanemi gives it another push. “But we don’t have to.”
Tomioka makes another full rotation. He nods to the soaked spots down the front of Sanemi’s pants as he passes him and repeats Sanemi’s earlier question: “Aren't you cold?”
He sniffs again. “I’ll live.”
After another spin, Sanemi climbs up onto the merry-go-round, brushing snow off the bench and sitting with his back opposite to Tomioka’s. Eventually, they slow to a stop. He doesn’t want to get up, even though he can feel his ass freezing against the soggy wooden bench, and his thighs are actually starting to go numb. They’re close enough that if he leaned his head back, it might land on Tomioka’s shoulder.
Even facing away from him, Sanemi can still picture Tomioka’s shitty shrimp-posture. His mild expression, dull and tired, cheeks just-visibly pink in all the orange streetlamp-light scattered by the snowfall, his gaze flicking to Sanemi now and again as he went around and around. The childish silhouette that stupid pom-pom hat gives his head.
There’s the zwwp of a zipper, some crinkling behind him, then a poke to his shoulder blade.
“Here.”
A plastic sandwich baggie appears over Sanemi’s shoulder, and he takes it. It’s got two cookies in it, both around the size of his open palm.
“My sister made them yesterday. They were originally for Sabito, but he’s being an ass, so you can have them,” Tomioka explains.
Sanemi snorts, examining the cookies through the plastic before prying the bag open with his frozen fingers and pulling one out. It’s cold when he bites into it, but when the flavor hits his tongue, his eyes nearly flutter shut.
“Holy shit,” he says around a mouthful. “Did she put crack in these?”
“They’re just chocolate chip. She likes to brown the butter so it tastes more caramely.”
“And you said she’s looking for a husband?”
“Someone a bit more presentable in public, maybe.”
“Oi, shut the fuck up.” He’s too overcome to shoot back a proper insult; he licks a smear of chocolate off his thumb and tastes rust from the merry-go-round. Breaking the second cookie in half, he hands one half back over to Tomioka, who takes it after a tap on the shoulder and an extra urging.
“Thanks,” Sanemi finally says, mouth full with the last bite. “Tell her if she needs any more cookies eaten, I’m off work on Wednesdays and Saturdays.”
“Sure,” he replies. “She’ll be happy to have someone with an actual sweet tooth around.” A pause. “You really don’t mind that we’re not heading back?”
Sanemi remembers his mother’s urgings, from earlier in the day, when he made the mistake of mentioning Uzui’s stupid party to her: go on, go on, have fun with your friends! You’ve been working too hard, these days. Genya and I’ve got everything under control tonight.
Sanemi wipes his nose. “Nope.”
He hears Tomioka sigh behind him. “…It’s nice out. I like the snow.”
“Mm. It’s good,” he swallows down the last dregs of cookie in his mouth. “After a long day.”
At home, an evening like this becomes a special movie night, he and his mom and the kids huddled together in blankets arguing over what to watch, Sumi crawling into his lap and falling asleep there halfway through it, Koto and Shuya on their stomachs on the rug in front of the TV, their mother up on the couch with Teiko and Hiroshi, who are always bickering over who the best character is, or who has the best superpower, Genya sandwiched somewhere in the middle between them all. Sanemi’s seen…a lot of kids’ movies.
Or, on the rare nights where the kids are all occupied making up special movie snacks, Sanemi gets to the couch first and takes it all up lengthwise, legs crossed at the ankles and arms behind his head. They all pile high over his legs and whisper-giggle at him when he falls asleep not ten minutes into whatever they pick to watch.
For a moment, he imagines what it would be like with Tomioka in that maelstrom, squeezed in next to him on the couch or acting as Sumi’s chaise lounge on the floor, because she’d inevitably crawl into his lap one time or another—she’s gotten to be a real lap-time fiend.
Is he the type to fall asleep during movies too? Or does he stay up and watch the whole thing in earnest?
“Yeah,” Tomioka echoes faintly. “Long day.”
Sanemi turns in his seat on the merry-go-round, peering over at Tomioka. He watches his eyelashes flutter, his eyes falling shut. He’s got crumbs on his face. Sanemi remembers, back at Uzui’s, how Urokodaki had tried to reach out and touch him, and Tomioka’d tensed up, turned-away and closed-off, hugging his arms close as he ducked out the door. He hadn’t even gotten his coat off.
Without thinking, Sanemi reaches over and plucks that stupid hat right off his head by the pom-pom. This wakes him up, and he jerks around.
“Hey—”
Sanemi pulls it over his head and tugs it down by the ear flaps—it’s warm, smells like him. Possibly-horrifyingly, it’s not too bad a smell. Like hair, and a bit of cologne, different from the one Sanemi uses. Boy-smell.
“Give it back,” Tomioka glares at him.
Sanemi dodges when he grabs for it, ducking off the merry-go-round and pushing it around again.
“Give it back,” he repeats, holding his hand out each time he passes Sanemi, hair all fluffed-up and out of place. “Please give it back.”
“I appreciate your politeness,” Sanemi replies, heaving his weight with each push to keep the momentum going.
“Shinazugawa.” It’s got no heat; he’s made no move to get up. It comes out more like a sigh, long-suffering.
Yeah… he’d said. Long day.
Sanemi feels his phone vibrate in his pocket, and pulls it out to check: it’s Uzui.
Whatth hell’s taking so long????
“Uzui wants us to head back,” Sanemi relays.
“Please, shoot me in the head so I don’t have to,” Tomioka says, and Sanemi grins, grabbing the bars to finally force the merry-go-round to a stop. He ends up blocking Tomioka’s exit, braced on either bar that surrounds the slice he’s sitting in.
“I’ll stand between you and Urokodaki so you don’t have to see each other.”
Without a word, he plucks his hat off Sanemi’s head, securing it back over his own head. He leans forward then, head resting against the still-soggy collar of Sanemi’s coat, and Sanemi sort of forgets that his hands are so cold they hurt, gripped around the merry-go-round’s metal bars. He gets another whiff of that cologne, and it rolls all through his body, sticks to the inside of his throat. He exhales unevenly.
“We can have a shootout right here, so neither of us have to go,” Sanemi offers.
“You don’t want to, either?” Tomioka’s voice muffles between their bodies.
“Well, I,” he makes a face. What does it even matter that he tells Tomioka this? It’s not his damn party. “This wasn’t my first choice for how to spend tonight.”
“Hmn,” Tomioka hums. “We don’t have guns.”
He snorts. “What?”
“For the shootout, we don’t have guns,” Tomioka leans back again, and yawns. “I’m tired.”
“You’ll probably sleep better out here than at Uzui’s.”
“My butt is cold.”
“Yeah, well how d’you think I’m feeling, then? Get the hell up, would you, or I’ll steal your hat again.”
Obediently, Tomioka takes him by the shoulders and maneuvers him out of the way before he’s out in the snow, swaying on his feet. Without waiting for Sanemi, he starts back the way they came.
“You’ve got a wet spot on your ass,” Sanemi calls out, watching him stop and try to look down at himself over his shoulder with a faint grin, before shoving his hands back into his pockets and starting after him.
Tomioka waits for him at the park-entrance gate, and they walk through the mostly-quiet residential streets together in silence, close enough their arms brush now and again, coats making shwf-shwf sounds against each other.
“Did you see me leave?” They’re close to the bus stop when Tomioka finally speaks up again. "Before?"
“Hm?”
“You were sitting right there. I thought I saw you.”
“You don’t need to explain yourself to me, Tomioka. It’s none of my business.” He sniffs, ducks his head to wipe his nose on his shoulder. “I didn’t see shit.”
“Do you wanna, um,” Tomioka blurts. “Do you want to go out with me?”
Sanemi stops dead on the sidewalk, even though he should probably keep moving—his feet are frozen solid, toes somehow both numb and stinging. Tomioka makes it a few steps further ahead before realizing he’s stopped, and stalls there too, kicking a line in the untouched snow.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to, I just, I…” he doesn’t meet Sanemi’s eyes. “I wanted to, um. Ask.” He goes quiet for a while, but when Sanemi doesn’t respond he picks up again, like he can’t stand the silence anymore. “I’ve never been on a date before, so I don’t even know where we would go. I only ever see you at the store or at school, so I don’t really know what you like to do, um… I… actually don’t like going most places, and if it’s far I’d have to have my sister drive us, but—”
“Sure.” He swallows, ending Tomioka’s spiral. “Yeah, sure.” His heart beats fast, he feels it all the way up in his throat.
“Really?” Tomioka looks at him then, his mouth tucked into the zipped-up collar of his coat, eyes wide.
“Yeah,” he repeats. And they just kind of stand there, hovering near each other. “So, um, we can just, get food, or something. We don’t have to do anything crazy.”
“Now?”
“No, you—” Sanemi snorts, head ducking to hide his smile. “When we, y’know.” He waves his hand around. “Go out.”
“Oh,” Tomioka blinks. He turns a step, in the direction of Uzui’s house. “Well, I’m hungry now, too.”
“Let’s go back, then.” Sanemi shivers then, and it becomes a full-body, teeth-chattering shudder. “Shit, come on, I’m fucking freezing.” Without waiting, suddenly too-cold or too-hot or too-something, he speeds towards Uzui’s place, leaving Tomioka in the dust behind him.