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When Takumi gets up to grab another drink, he absentmindedly casts his eyes across the yard.
One, two, three… Without even thinking, Takumi does a quick headcount of the people surrounding the campfire. Every last one of them is accounted for, their figures backlit in a golden, sweeping glow from the flames, and Takumi wants to take a picture of this moment. He wants to freeze this second, trap it in a photo frame and immortalise everyone.
If time could stop, what a relief that would be.
Instead, the living proof of the passage of time stands. He moves slowly, a new habit born from necessity; there is always one hand slightly outstretched in front of him, fingers flexing, angled so gently that one could almost mistake it for a crick in his arm. His footsteps are steady, far steadier than Takumi’s would have been if he were in Eito’s shoes, but Takumi can see the indents his fingers leave on the canvas back of the foldable chair he was sitting in.
For some reason, Takumi forgets about his drink. He stands there, a little distance away from the heart of the party, and watches as Eito gradually finds his way to what Takumi imagines is another seat.
There is a very slight hesitation in his movements, Takumi realises. Eito pauses sometimes, head tilting in one direction as if to listen for something, then he continues on his path. Takumi has to admit, it’s impressive that Eito can move around the messy schoolyard without any guide.
Eventually, Eito’s fingers find the creased surface of another foldable chair. He runs his fingertips along the rough canvas, trailing down the metal frame, and Takumi watches as he pats down the seat, pressing gently to test the give of it. Likely to make sure there aren’t any holes, or any spikes sticking out through the fabric to tear a hole in his ass.
Gingerly, Eito lowers himself into the seat. He’s a distance away from the campfire, far enough from the main gathering that the glow of the flames is only a brief dusting over his frame. His silhouette goes from golden to silver, bright and pale under the night sky.
It looks better on him. The thought crosses Takumi’s mind, and he doesn’t let himself linger much on it before he tosses it out of his head.
Takumi looks up. The sky is clear. Midnight blue bleeds into black, stretching out far and wide before him. It’s breathtaking, knowing that this is a real sky. With genuine stars that flicker, planets too far away for Takumi to name. There are supposed to be stories trapped in the clouds, written in the stars, and as Takumi’s gaze drops to Eito, watching Eito tilt his face up to the heavens—there is something about this scene that makes Takumi’s heart skip a beat.
He doesn’t know what it is. The feeling is foreign, so stuffy in his chest that it feels difficult to breathe. Eito sits away and alone, draped in the dark cloak of the night, and Takumi’s body moves before his mind catches up.
There is another empty chair a short distance away. Takumi is halfway across the schoolyard, one hand reaching out to grab the chair by the armrest. It’s lighter than expected. It’s also a hideous orange, and Takumi sets it right next to Eito.
He takes a seat. The night sky spills out above him, like those interactive picture books that could unfold into a bigger page. Takumi looks up, watching the sky and imagines it beneath his fingers, paper stars littering the page as he unfolds and unfolds and unfolds. A piece of origami that unfolds into a mobius strip.
What does Eito see? Is he imagining the sky? Is he imagining the stars, pulling from his memory to fill in the blanks? Is his mind wandering, like Takumi’s mind is, thinking about everything and nothing all at once?
“Takumi,” Eito murmurs, his voice soft but clear in the quiet away from the crowd. “Aren’t you interested in joining the festivities?”
Takumi, who decided to ditch his idea of grabbing a drink and rejoining the group to gossip about their sordid stories from their fake past entirely on a whim, shrugs. He doesn’t even question how Eito knows it’s him. Probably something to do with his unique stink, even if Eito’s tried burning his olfactory nerves a few times over.
“… I wanted some quiet,” he replies. You looked lonely, he doesn’t say. His lips form the words, mouthing each one like he’s whispering it to himself, but his voice fails him.
Eito hums. “How coincidental. For once, I find myself craving some peace as well.”
It’s quiet. It’s even kind of… pleasant, Takumi admits to himself, disregarding how acknowledging that felt a lot like pulling teeth. Too many things have happened in the short span of a few days, too many revelations that made Takumi wonder if it would be better if he took himself out back and prayed that Shion’s power would let him try it all again. Now, under the endless expanse of the night sky, it’s quiet.
“Eito,” he says suddenly. “I’m going to tell you something and I need you to keep your mouth shut until I’m done.”
Eito stills. The boy typically has an excellent grip on his reflexes, but maybe it’s the shock of the truth, or the uncertainty of having his vision stripped from him, or that Takumi well and truly caught him off guard, but Takumi spots the way Eito’s fingers twitch, squeezing into tight fists before relaxing just as quickly. A flash reaction that Takumi would have missed if he blinked.
“A warning, perhaps?” Eito’s voice is lazy and light. He sounds like he doesn’t care at all. Takumi’s gaze flickers from Eito’s calm face to his hand, index finger scratching lightly at the armrest, and his lips tick up. “Of course, I’ll listen to whatever you have to say. It’s unfortunate, however, that you’ve already accepted me into the team.” Eito tilts his face to Takumi, a faint smile hanging off his mouth. “You can’t take that back now.”
Takumi settles further into his chair. It’s not very comfortable, considering the stiffness of the canvas and the chill of the metal frame that pokes out at the side. The campfire is far enough that he can’t really feel much warmth, unlike when he was standing right next to it, minutes earlier; the blazing heat up close made it feel as if his blood was boiling from the inside. At this distance, the temperature is cool. There’s a gentle wind blowing, ruffling the strands of Eito’s hair, and the urge to reach over and push those stray locks out of Eito’s face rises up in Takumi.
“I won’t take it back.” His voice is firm. “It’s time for you to shut up now. I’m being serious.”
For what must be the first time in Takumi’s whole life, previous hundred days included, Eito keeps his mouth shut. He hums instead, gesturing into thin air that Takumi has the floor, and Takumi barrels on before he can think twice about what he’s about to say.
“My hair is red. Some people have told me it has the color of a ripe tomato—I like it better when they say it looks like fire, but it’s fine. I have a fringe swept to the left; my left, your right. There’s a streak of dark blue running vertically down, somewhere in the middle. Don’t ask me why it’s that color; it just is. And I’ve been told my hair is always a mess. Some parts of it stick up, and my mom always complains about that, but I refuse to gel it down.”
Takumi doesn’t glance at Eito. He looks up, blinking at the stars twinkling at him, and exhales. “It’s nothing like yours. Your hair is flatter and straighter. I don’t comb through my hair, so maybe that’s why it’s always messy. Your hair is also longer than mine—I can’t stand it when the sides of my hair get into my face.”
Eito doesn’t make a sound. Takumi isn’t sure if he’s even breathing. “I’m also shorter than you. Not sure if you can see that—not sure what you see at all, to be honest—but I’m around your shoulder height. A little taller if I’m in my class armour.”
What would someone who can’t see want to know about how Takumi looks? He racks his brain, trying to think of other descriptors. “My eyes are blue. A much darker blue than your eyes.”
Next to him, there’s a sudden screeching sound, like someone shoved their chair back and the metal legs skittered across the uneven ground.
Takumi takes a look. Eito’s lips are pressed tightly together. His entire body is fraught with tension, like he’s bracing himself for something. What, Takumi doesn’t know.
Whatever, Takumi thinks. He has a few more key descriptions to hit. He can’t just let Eito wander around thinking he’s short with messy red hair and a blue streak, and blue eyes. Who knows what kind of creature Eito is conjuring up in his mind? It’s probably an improvement over what Takumi actually looked to Eito, but still.
“My friend said there were red specks in my eyes. She always said it was interesting how my eyes looked like someone reversed the color palette of my hair, but my eyes are a different shade of blue from the streak in my hair. More… vibrant, I think. My eyes are also sharper than yours. My lashes aren’t as long. My face is a little more rounded—my mom says my baby fat will haunt me forever, and maybe she’s right.”
“My eyebrows are mostly hidden behind my fringe. I don’t have any piercings. My nose is, er, normal, I guess. I’m not ripped. I have some muscle, but I don’t look anything like Takemaru. Oh, yeah, Takemaru has a six pack. He also usually goes around without a shirt. If you ever saw a monster more exposed than other monsters, that’s likely to be Takemaru.”
Eito makes a sound. It’s soft, but it sounds like it could be anything from a cough to a laugh to a faint cry. Takumi looks over again, a little alarmed, but Eito has his face turned pointedly away from Takumi.
“… Hey, you okay?” For all that Takumi wants to get this off his chest and hold Eito as his captive prisoner for a while, he doesn’t actually intend to upset Eito.
Eito tilts his head. His sunglasses slide down the sharp bridge of his nose— I should tell him my nose isn’t as sharp, Takumi thinks idly—and Takumi catches sight of Eito’s closed eyes. That pallid skin, long silver lashes sweeping over the delicate curve of his cheekbones.
“I’m not supposed to talk.” Eito clears his throat, a blatant attempt to cover up the strange hoarseness in his voice. A very weak attempt, considering what Takumi knows of Eito.
“Hm.” He eyes Eito. “Anyways, I’m not super built. You could probably take me in a fist fight. You’re built like a brick wall.” Takumi pauses, then adds on quickly, “I can carry you, though. Carried you on my back for what felt like hours before.”
It wasn’t hours. They took frequent breaks, in part because Takumi genuinely isn’t capable of carrying all of Eito’s useless muscles for such an extended period of time, but this Eito doesn’t need to know that.
Eito presses the back of his hand to his mouth. “Hm,” he murmurs, and Takumi knows enough about Eito to know this is the sound he makes when he’s trying to stop himself from laughing. He heard it once, a genuine cut-off noise from Eito, in the first 100 days when they were in the leisure room and Takumi slipped on the floor and fell headfirst into the pool.
Looking back, maybe Eito was busy fighting the urge to pop confetti and celebrate the possibility of Takumi drowning himself.
“And your hands are bigger,” Takumi says out of nowhere. “They’re massive, just like you, I guess. Your fingers are much longer than mine.”
Eito has one hand at his mouth, hiding his face. If he were still wearing his old glasses, Takumi would be able to watch Eito’s eyebrows and see if they twitch. Now, behind the sunglasses, Takumi can’t read Eito at all.
He drops his gaze to Eito’s other hand. It’s the one closer to Takumi, gripping the armrest so tightly that it looks like Eito’s about to snap the metal cleanly in two.
Silence falls over them like a blanket. Eito’s fingernails dig into the armrest, his hold on the metal so desperate that Takumi can see his veins pop on the back of his hand, thick lines visible even through the latex of his gloves.
A little concerning. Takumi has half a mind to reach over and undo Eito’s grip, pulling at each finger like he’s unravelling a tightly spooled thread, picking it apart until he gets to the swirling core. He contemplates it, weighs the odds of him getting thrown to the ground and pummeled, and decides that he’ll bet on these odds.
He reaches over, palm landing firmly on the back of Eito’s hand. Eito freezes like Yugamu nicked him with a dart laced with a neurotoxin to turn someone paralytic. It’s as if every single muscle in his body goes on high alert, tensing up sharply, and Takumi gets this weird desire to drape himself over Eito’s back so he can feel the way Eito locks up below him.
He doesn’t do any of that. That would be too difficult to explain with Sirei and the rest of the team just a short walk away. The fire is still burning merrily, fed to the brim with firewood by a diligent Gaku. At this distance, the rest are nothing more than faint blimps on Takumi’s radar—they barely register in his mind. Enough to make him cognizant of the fact that Eito and him can’t just start brawling on the schoolyard, but not enough to make him stop whatever he’s accidentally set into motion.
Eito doesn’t move. He doesn’t even breathe. He looks like he’s holding his breath, holding his entire body taut, holding the space around his body open and loose for Takumi to invade. Takumi slips his hand under the armrest, curling around Eito’s long fingers. Just as he imagined, the latex of the glove clings to his skin. It’s a little elastic in the way latex always is, and Takumi finds his way to Eito’s index finger.
He digs his nails under the latex, tugging gently at first, then harder when Eito doesn’t move. It’s more than a little frustrating when he doesn’t succeed. Eito has some kind of death grip on the armrest, the other hand still pressed tightly to his mouth—at this point, Takumi is starting to suspect Eito might be asphyxiating himself—and Takumi has to come to terms with the stark reality that Eito is much stronger than him.
“Let go,” Takumi orders with no small amount of irritation threading through his voice. He expects to have to engage in a further tug of war with Eito’s hand, and he’s accepted the possibility that he might need to get up and put his body weight behind this endeavour, but Eito immediately releases the armrest.
His fingers go loose, twitching intermittently as they hover over the covered metal—it looks a little deformed, in all honesty, and this should alarm Takumi more than it does. But Takumi takes the win for what it is and he settles back in his seat.
And the thing is, he really needs to think more. Takumi isn’t winning any awards for guy who thinks before he acts, but he’s at an all-time losing streak. Every single thing he’s done in the past half an hour has been on the spur of the moment or a poorly calculated decision, and his next decision follows stunningly in the wake of his past actions, like the trail of sparks left over in the sky after a firework explodes.
“Good boy,” Takumi says without thinking too much. He slides his palm under Eito’s open hand, their fingertips touching for a second before Takumi forces his fingers into the space in between Eito’s fingers. Their hands are interlocked, fingers still outstretched, and Takumi can feel the way Eito’s hand shakes.
Takumi closes his hand, his fingers rubbing against Eito’s raised knuckles. He grips Eito’s hand and twists it until the back of Takumi’s palm is facing the grand, empty sky.
Throughout this entire endeavour, Eito is deadly silent. He might be suffering from a self-induced heart attack. But as long as Eito is tense and upright, Takumi figures he’s doing fine.
He releases his grip on Eito’s palm but doesn’t lift his hand. Takumi presses down lightly with the tips of his fingers, skating down the springy latex surface of Eito’s palm. The fact that Eito’s hand doesn’t sag in response to the pressure is telling. It speaks volumes. It’s indicative of something.
Takumi doesn’t have enough brain cells online right now to figure out what this is indicative of, but he knows it means something, alright.
His fingers slide down Eito’s palm, pausing at the end of his glove. It’s clear that the glove is well-used—the base is a little worn through, the latex has lost its elasticity, and it hangs loose around Eito’s wrist. There is a sliver of pale skin peeking out, right at the jut of Eito’s wrist, and Takumi watches the vein pulsing beneath the skin. Eito must be flexing his hand, so slight that Takumi can’t actually see the movement of his fingers in the dark, but he can see the way Eito’s vein jumps.
He puts the tips of his index and middle finger on that spot, that flash of skin, on the twitching vein.
Eito’s entire body jerks. He bucks, his body spasming as he folds himself in two. The seat lets out this horrific screech as Eito shoves it back again, the chair scraping against the gravel from the sheer force of Eito’s reaction.
Across the schoolyard, the rest of the team falls silent. Eyes are suddenly flying over, heads swiveling around as everyone stares at them. Takumi faintly sees Tsubasa gasp, her hand flying up to cover her mouth in a loose mimicry of Eito’s position.
“All good!” Takumi shouts back, waving his free hand. Like this, with his body angled to face Eito, his back to the crowd—they can’t see him, can they? They can’t see the way his fingers have slipped under the glove, forcing the rubber to stretch far more than it usually does to take the intrusion of his fingers. They can’t see the way Eito is trembling, hand shaking so violently that Takumi would also suspect some kind of physical ailment if not for the fact that Eito is still holding his hand up, the back of his hand hovering over the arm rest.
They can’t see the way Takumi leans in, crowding into Eito’s space, his calloused fingers sliding up and over the smooth surface of Eito’s palm, into the gaps between Eito’s fingers. The latex glove only stretches so far; it only accommodates so much, and Takumi can barely force half of his hand into Eito’s glove before the latex stops giving way.
Takumi takes the rim of the glove between his thumb and index finger of his other hand and peels it off at a glacial pace. Eito has all the time in the world to stop him. Eito has all the power in the world to throw him off. All Eito has to do is say stop, or pull his hand back, and the dance is up.
Eito doesn’t move an inch. His other hand flexes against his mouth, fingers spasming as if he can’t decide whether he wants to clench them into a fist or have them splayed out across his lips. He sits there, ramrod still, and lets Takumi do whatever he wants.
This kind of power could go to a guy’s head. If Takumi were a worse man, this sort of implicit surrender would have emboldened him to take far more liberties than he currently does.
The glove comes off. Eito’s fingers are long and spindly. They’re even paler than his skin, hidden from the rays of the sun, and his fingernails are a very faint pink. For someone who wields a massive scythe and swings it around like it weighs little more than a feather, Eito has shockingly few calluses littered over his skin.
“Yeah. Your fingers are longer than mine,” Takumi says in a voice that doesn’t belie any of the strange emotion roiling in his gut. Play it cool, he thinks. You only get one shot at this. Make it matter.
He presses his palm down on Eito’s hand. He does it so quickly that Eito doesn’t have any opportunity to resist—barely a second passes before Takumi has his palm flattened against Eito’s, the wide expanse of their skin touching in a way that feels almost too intimate. His fingers line up with Eito’s, and Takumi comes face to face with the truth that his fingers are indeed shorter by the length of one entire joint.
Eito can feel this too. Surely, he can feel the tips of Takumi’s fingers; he can feel where they end against his own fingers, Takumi’s fingernails scratching lightly at Eito’s skin.
All Takumi has to do is shift his hand slightly and his fingers are sliding past Eito’s own, interlocking their fingers as Takumi closes his hand and holds Eito’s palm gingerly in his own.
“Mmmphh.” The sudden, stifled sound is the first noise Takumi’s heard from Eito in a while. He reluctantly drags his gaze away from the sight of his hand closed around Eito’s—Eito’s long fingers outstretched and refusing to bend around the back of Takumi’s hand—and looks up.
Eito’s flushed. Takumi sits up so hurriedly that he feels dizzy. He can see it, the redness peeking out from under the dark cover of his sunglasses, above the shadow cast by his hand over the lower half of his face. Crimson spreads over Eito’s face, the bridge of his nose, the apples of his cheeks. Takumi leans in, a little awed by the sight, and absentmindedly uses his free hand to touch the flushed skin, fully intending to trace the blush down the back of Eito’s red-tipped ears and the back of his neck.
How far down does it go? His collarbones? His chest? Takumi feels like he’s seen all the sides there are to Eito by now, but this one is new. Brand new, like the skip of his heart on the first day of school in a new class with new students.
The touch of Takumi’s cold fingertips to the shell of Eito’s warm ears is what finally springs Eito into motion. He makes this twisted, hurt grunt, like a wounded invader dragging its splintered body away from the schoolyard, and he jerks his head away.
Eito turns, his hand finally falling away from his face, and Takumi watches, entranced, as Eito pants. He lets out these desperate, raggedy gasps, like he’s been holding his breath for too long and his self-preservation has finally executed a forced takeover of his mental faculties.
“You’re really—taking advantage.” Eito heaves weakly, voice cracking right down the middle of the sentence. “Do you do this with all the traitors you hate, or am I just special, Takumi?”
Takumi stares. There is sweat beading at the top of Eito’s brow. His sunglasses are slightly askew. His lips are parted, mouth open as he greedily inhales oxygen. His hand is still loose around Takumi’s.
It’s quite a sight. Takumi feels his mouth dry up. There’s something terribly wrong with his stomach—it twists like he’s just been punched in the gut. There is a pounding in his chest, right at his sternum, and it feels like he’s going to be the one having difficulty breathing in no time at all.
“Just you,” he says without thinking. “How’s it feel?”
Eito swivels his head around to stare at Takumi head on. Despite the glasses, Takumi imagines Eito’s giving him a bewildered look. His forehead is scrunched up, a deep furrow in between his brows. His mouth is open in a little o-shape, like Takumi made his jaw drop.
“W-what?”
Takumi squeezes Eito’s hand. The tap-tap-tap of Eito’s pulse jumping under the layer of skin, his blue veins so stark against his pale hand. Takumi hasn’t held a hand in a hundred and eighty-six days. He can’t really remember how Karua’s hand felt in his—not that it really mattered, considering everything was conjured up by scientists in a lab, but he thinks it was warm and small. His hand could fully envelop hers. It felt like he could crouch over her and hide her in his shadow, cup her in the heart of his palms and protect her from every last scary thought in the world.
Eito’s hand is different. It may be nothing more than a reflex, but Eito closes his fingers and squeezes back. His hand feels even bigger like this, like Takumi could drown in his grip.
He gives their interlocked fingers a little shake. “How’s it feel?”
Eito’s eyeless gaze bears into Takumi. He’s facing Takumi with such fierce intensity that Takumi considers letting go. If Eito is about to throw up, Takumi wants to be far away from that mess. God forbid Eito lean over and throw up in his lap.
Then, as if they were locked in a blinking game and Eito let him win, the boy looks away. He turns his head towards the fire, towards the boisterous cacophony, and doesn’t say anything for a while.
He squeezes Takumi’s hand again, as if testing the give of Takumi’s bones. As if checking how much pressure he can exert until Takumi’s—admittedly weak—skeleton gives way and crumples like wet tissue. It’s his non-dominant hand, so at least a broken left hand wouldn’t cripple him too much. Might get him punched by Hiruko, though, with a scathing I told you so. But those are punches (literal and figurative) he can roll with.
“The fire is warm,” Eito says abruptly. The flush on his face has faded, but Takumi feels like he can see it if he squints. Like a set of blueprints marked in red, sketching out the fastest way to take Eito apart. A secret only for Takumi’s eyes. “It’s so hot it feels like I’m being burnt.”
Takumi hums. Another gust of wind blows by, forcing its way into Takumi’s open jacket, and he deftly pulls one side of his jacket close to bury his face in.
Eito’s hand is freezing cold. It’s kind of exactly what Takumi imagined. He hadn’t even known he’d imagined the temperature of Eito’s body until he forced his hand into Eito’s, and immediately realised that this fit perfectly within his expectations.
“That’s good,” Takumi says. “That’s really, really great, actually.”
Silence falls, like the first drop of rain after a stretch of days filled with blistering heat. It stretches like a tapestry of gossamer silk, silvery and bright. Takumi can’t help stealing a glance at Eito’s profile, his features coming into greater focus the longer he looks at him. The slant of his jaw, the curve of his Cupid’s Bow. The soft empty space right below Eito’s ear, the bridge of his nose. The shape of his mouth, like two half-moons meeting in the middle.
The words come before he can stop them. “Hiruko’s tall. She’s only a little shorter than you, which makes her one of the tallest people here.”
A pause. Takumi racks his brain, trying to think of ways to describe Hiruko that goes beyond she’s pretty and fierce, and pretty fierce too. Before he reaches any conclusion, there’s a squeeze around his hand.
Takumi looks down. Eito’s hand really is huge.
“She wears glasses,” he continues, and doesn’t stop talking for the rest of the night.