Suki's room was dim except for the warm lamp on his desk. The walls were their usual riot—movie posters, Polaroids pinned in chaotic constellations, a string of fairy lights that blinked like lazy fireflies. There was a soft, domestic hush to the house; out in the living room, a blanket pile breathed gently, the shape of Kenji and Miyako passed out mid-planning session. Somewhere farther off, the heater hummed.
Ryuzí sat on the edge of Suki's low bed, smoothing his palm against the duvet as if he were calibrating himself to the softness. His hair was still a little mussed from the night air. He looked good like that—loosened, off guard. "Come here," he said quietly, opening one arm.
Suki, who had been fussing with the window latch, blinked and brightened all at once. "Needy," he teased, but he went—crossing the room in three barefoot steps and dropping into Ryuzí's space like it was his own gravity. Ryuzí slid his arm around Suki's waist, pulled him in, and tucked his chin over Suki's shoulder. Suki's hoodie smelled like cinnamon and laundry soap.
"Where've your sisters been lately?" Ryuzí asked, voice low against Suki's hair. "Feels like I haven't tripped over them in a while."
"Work," Suki mumbled into his collarbone. "Rika's filming a collab in Kyoto, and Mei's on night shift again. They left me a list of chores as long as your legs." He pulled back, eyes shining. "Also a note that said 'Don't burn down the house if your boyfriend stays over.' Which I feel is targeted slander."
"Accurate slander," Ryuzí said.
Suki gasped. "Traitor."
Ryuzí's mouth quirked. He kept Suki close, thumb rubbing slow circles at the small of his back. The whir of the heater made everything feel cocooned. Suki sighed happily. "Okay, okay," he said, as if he'd just remembered something, "before we get distracted—which we will—stay right there."
He wriggled out of Ryuzí's hold, sprang up, and padded to his bookshelf. "I want to show you something important." He crouched, rummaging. "No, not my manga tower of doom—though, behold, the complete collection. Aha!" He pulled out a thick, battered album with stickers peeling off the corners: stars, a lopsided dinosaur, a glittery "S."
"My junior and elementary photo album," he announced proudly, carrying it like treasure. "Contains precious artifacts. Me with a bowl cut. Me with a recorder I didn't know how to play. Me weeping over a goldfish I overfed."
Ryuzí tried not to smile and failed. "This seems weaponized."
"It is!" Suki hopped onto the bed, folding his legs under him. He opened the album; plastic film crackled. "Behold—tiny Suki."
Ryuzí leaned in. On the first page, a five-year-old Suki beamed with half his bangs stuck to his forehead, one tooth missing, holding a paper sun. The caption read (in someone else's tidy handwriting): Suki's first school play: "The Weather Parade." He was the Sun. He took the role seriously.
Ryuzí tapped the picture. "Some things never change."
"Compliment accepted," Suki said, grinning. He flipped more pages—Suki in patched-up overalls; Suki scowling at a taiko drum twice his size; Suki in a school relay, face pure lightning. "I used to be a menace with a whistle," Suki said wistfully. "They banned me from leading stretches after The Incident."
"What incident?"
"I shouted, 'One, two, noodle!' and six kids fell over. The PE teacher almost cried."
Ryuzí choked down a laugh. "You're impossible."
Suki preened, then grew tender as he turned to a photo of himself and two girls—older by a few years—pinching his cheeks on either side. "Rika and Mei," he said softly, tapping the edges. "They practically raised me."
Ryuzí glanced sideways, listening. Suki's voice had that particular warmth to it—fondness edged with gratitude. "They'll like that I'm here tonight," Ryuzí said. "I mean, they already tolerate me, but—"
"'Tolerate,' he says," Suki mocked gently. "They love that you look at me like I'm a person and not a walking hurricane." He turned another page. "Okay, wait for it—this is my award-winning year-six invention: the Self-Mixing Cocoa Cup."
There was, in fact, a photo of Suki holding a mug with a chopstick taped to a spinning pencil. His grin took up the whole frame.
Ryuzí shook his head, smiling. "Genius."
"Arson-adjacent genius," Suki said, shrugging happily. He closed the album halfway, and his eyes flicked up to Ryuzí, alive and soft. "I like showing you this," he admitted. "It feels like… the parts I never got to say out loud."
Ryuzí tightened his arm around him and brushed his nose against Suki's temple. "I like hearing them."
They might have stayed there all night—turning pages, trading small histories—if Ryuzí's gaze hadn't drifted past Suki's shoulder to the top of the cupboard. A plain, matte shoebox sat up there, tucked just far enough back to be invisible unless you were sitting exactly where he was.
"Hm," he said.
Suki followed his gaze. Froze. "Hm," he echoed too brightly. "That? Nothing."
Ryuzí arched a brow. "A very suspicious nothing."
"Storage," Suki said instantly. "Memory box. Dead pens. Ancient socks. A cursed eraser."
"A cursed eraser."
"Terrifying," Suki confirmed. "Haunted by algebra."
Ryuzí slid off the bed in one smooth motion, that slow, catlike curiosity lighting his features. "If it's algebra," he said mildly, "we should definitely destroy it."
Suki made a sound like a swallowed shriek. "Wait—no—Ryuzí!" He reached out as Ryuzí stood on tiptoe, fingers brushing the edge of the box. "It's—really, it's nothing."
"Now it has to be something," Ryuzí said, and tugged the box forward.
Suki lunged.
They collided—the album slid, the mattress tilted, and both of them stumbled. Ryuzí caught Suki around the waist out of instinct; Suki grabbed the box out of desperation. Gravity did what gravity does. They toppled backward onto the bed, the box jostled, the lid half-popped—
—and something soft and silicone and very obviously not a haunted eraser rolled out and bonked Suki on the shoulder.
For a beat, the world held its breath.
Silence. Lamp hum. Two pairs of eyes. One (Suki's) very, very wide.
Ryuzí looked down. Then up at Suki.
Suki's ears turned the color of a summer tomato. He made a strangled, mortified noise. "Okay! Okay. That is—wow, that is—not—um—"
Another item slid into view, then another—packaging crinkling, the subdued chaos of a "sex toys" box toppled open. Nothing… lewd in motion; just a riot of embarrassment in still life. A blindfold. A coil of soft rope that looked more like an art supply than anything else. A small bottle of something labeled in cursive and aggressively discreet. A carefully folded note card with a coupon code clipped to it.
Ryuzí blinked once. Twice. Then looked back at Suki, who had, in sheer panic, thrown the nearest pillow over the pile.
"Say nothing," Suki begged from under his own hands. "We will never speak of it again. We will burn this house down and move to the mountains and—"
"Breathe," Ryuzí said gently.
Suki inhaled like he was learning how for the first time. "I can explain."
"You don't have to."
"No, I do." Suki sat up, palms splayed, cheeks aflame. "I—I haven't used any of it. I swear. I just—saw things. Online. And it was a sale. And I panicked. And then I kept them in the box because if I opened it I would… I don't know. Set off a confetti cannon. Emotionally." He dragged a hand through his hair. "And I didn't want you to think I was—" He flailed. "—too much."
Ryuzí was quiet for a second, eyes soft in that way that always slowed Suki down. "Suki," he said, careful. "Look at me."
Suki peeked over his fingers.
"It's okay."
Suki whispered, tiny, "Is it?"
"Yeah." Ryuzí's mouth tilted. "You're allowed to be curious."
Suki's shoulders dropped a centimeter. "You don't think I'm a weirdo?"
"Oh, you're definitely a weirdo."
Suki groaned and face-planted into the duvet. "Kill me."
Ryuzí laughed under his breath, reached over, and smoothed a palm between Suki's shoulder blades until the tension uncoiled. "You're a weirdo I like," he amended softly. "All of you. The sun costume, the algebra curses, the panic-bought mystery box."
Suki rolled onto his back and covered his eyes with his forearm, mortified and melting at once. "I was going to show you my bowl cut," he muttered. "Not my secret shame."
"It's not shame," Ryuzí said. He reached for the toppled lid, setting it back over the box without fuss. "It's just… a thing you bought, and a thing we can talk about. Or not talk about. Your pace."
Suki peeked again. "You mean that?"
"I don't say things I don't mean."
Suki swallowed. The relief was visible—like a stitch had been pulled and he could breathe deeper. "Okay," he said, exhale shaky and honest. "Okay."
Ryuzí nudged the box aside with his knuckles, casual as moving a stack of notebooks. "What made you… curious?" he asked, voice light, leaving all the exits open.
Suki bit the inside of his cheek. "You," he said finally. "Being with you." The words were soft and embarrassingly naked. "I wanted to… I don't know. Be prepared? Or be brave? Or just understand my own head. And then I clicked on one too many blog posts at 2 a.m. and—boom—checkout."
Ryuzí's gaze gentled. "Thank you for telling me."
"Do you… freaked out?"
"No."
"Promise?"
"Promise." He hesitated, then added, "I have… questions, obviously."
Suki groaned into his sleeve. "Of course you do. You're you."
"They're not interrogation questions." Ryuzí's lips quirked. "They're… 'do you like the idea of…?' questions. 'Does this feel safe? Good? Funny?' questions. The kind where you tell me to shut up if I'm saying the wrong thing."
Suki's laugh surprised itself out of him. "You asking permission is weirdly hot."
"Noted."
Suki's eyes darted, then softened. He pushed himself up to sitting again and scooted close until their knees touched. "You don't feel… pressured?" he asked, searching.
Ryuzí shook his head. "I feel… trusted." He leaned forward and pressed his forehead to Suki's. "And I trust you."
Suki's breath hitched. He closed his eyes, soaking in that weightless, quiet joy. "I like this," he whispered. "Not the box. The part where you stay."
"I stay," Ryuzí said.
They stayed like that, foreheads touching, air shared, while the room recalibrated. When Suki finally opened his eyes again, he looked at the box, then at Ryuzí, then back. "We don't have to… I mean, tonight…"
"We don't," Ryuzí agreed. "We can put it away and laugh about your bowl cut. Or we can pick one thing up and read the boring instruction card like old men."
Suki snorted. "God, we're so hot."
"Tragically."
He reached for the box, but only to set it fully closed and slide it onto the far corner of the bed. "How about," Ryuzí said, "we make some rules. Not forever rules, just… us-right-now rules."
Suki perked up, relieved by the framework. "Okay. Rules."
"Rule one: you never have to pretend you're comfortable when you're not."
"Easy. Same back at you."
"Rule two," Ryuzí went on, "we talk. Even if it's awkward, even if it's halfway through, even if it kills the mood."
"I excel at killing the mood," Suki said gravely.
Ryuzí's mouth twitched. "Rule three: if one of us says 'pause,' we pause."
"'Pause' is so… educational video. Can we pick a cooler word?"
"You pick."
Suki considered. "Uh… 'Sunlight.'"
Ryuzí blinked, then smiled, the slow, fond kind. "Of course you picked that."
"It's on brand," Suki said, entirely pleased with himself. "Okay. Rule four: no surprises. Like… if we ever want to try something new, we say so ahead of time and put it on a 'maybe later' list, not a 'right now while panicking' list."
"Good rule," Ryuzí said. Then, gently: "Rule five: tonight, we don't try to be anything except us."
Suki's face softened. "Us is my favorite part."
Silence, warm and whole, settled again. The heater clicked, the fairy lights blinked, and Suki's gaze dropped to Ryuzí's mouth like gravity was personalized. "Can I kiss you now?" he asked, voice gone sweet around the edges.
Ryuzí brushed a knuckle along Suki's jaw. "Please."
They kissed—slow, careful, like an answer. No rush, no performative heat; just the softness that made Suki's shoulders loosen and Ryuzí's breathing deepen. Suki's hands cupped Ryuzí's face; Ryuzí's fingers slid into Suki's hair, and they moved closer, a gentle, inevitable magnet. Between them, the world narrowed to peppermint breath and the faint, electric shiver that always lit up Suki's spine when Ryuzí tilted his head just so.
When they parted, Suki rested his forehead against Ryuzí's cheek and laughed quietly at himself. "I thought I'd combust from embarrassment."
"You handled it," Ryuzí murmured. "With style."
"With chaos," Suki corrected. He glanced at the closed box on the quilt; his blush resurged, but softer now, not edged with panic. "Can we… put it up there again? Out of sight? Not because I'm ashamed. Just… I like this right now." He tapped Ryuzí's chest with one finger. "You. Here."
"Done," Ryuzí said. He stood, slid the box lid snug, and set it back on the cupboard with the ease of returning a book to a shelf. No fanfare, no joke to undercut it. When he turned back, Suki was watching him with a look that made something in Ryuzí's chest go warm and fierce.
"What?" he asked, half-smiling.
"You're… annoyingly good to me," Suki said.
"Occupational hazard."
Suki patted the bed. "Come back."
Ryuzí did. He lay down on his side; Suki folded into him, head under Ryuzí's chin, their legs tangling the practiced way of people who had learned each other's corners. The fairy lights flickered across the ceiling like distant fireflies. Suki traced mindless shapes on Ryuzí's shirt—circles, a wobbly star, their initials smudged by the heel of his thumb.
"Hey," Suki mumbled after a minute. "You really want to see my bowl cut?"
Ryuzí pressed a smile to his hair. "Desperately."
Suki snickered, then turned serious in the tiny way he could be. "Thank you," he said softly. "For not making fun of me. For… being steady when I'm scattered."
Ryuzí's answer lived in the way he tightened his arm. "Thank you for letting me see you," he said. "All of you. That's the part I don't take lightly."
Suki swallowed and nodded against his chest. "Okay." A beat. "If we ever—like, not now, not tomorrow—but if we ever wanted to… try one thing, the smallest thing, we could… talk about it again. With sunlight."
"Sunlight," Ryuzí echoed, like a promise.
"Right now," Suki went on, almost shy, "can we just… kiss a lot and then pass out like old men who had too much cake?"
"We're eighteen," Ryuzí said, amused.
"Which is practically fossilized when you've pulled two all-nighters planning a trip."
"Fair."
They kissed again—still gentle, still unhurried—until the heat settled into something drowsy and golden. Suki's hands migrated to Ryuzí's shoulders, his sigh softened, his eyelids drooped.
"Tomorrow," Suki murmured, halfway gone to sleep, "I'm showing you the award-winning cocoa contraption."
"Can't wait," Ryuzí said.
"And the picture of me losing my front tooth on Sports Day. It's gruesome."
"Looking forward to it."
"And if you tell anyone I cried over a goldfish, I'll stage a heist and steal your hoodies."
"You already steal my hoodies."
Suki grinned, eyes closed. "True."
The house was quiet again. In the living room, someone turned over in the blankets and sniffed, then settled. The heater clicked and hummed. The rain from earlier had passed; the window glass showed a clear slice of night.
Suki's breath evened. "Hey," he mumbled, one last tremulous thought surfacing, "you know the thing I'm best at?"
"What?"
"Putting my whole heart into things." He nudged his nose against Ryuzí's throat. "You're… one of those things."
Ryuzí's throat worked. He kissed Suki's hair. "I know," he said. "Me too."
"Ugh," Suki muttered, smiling into his shirt. "We're disgustingly cute."
"Tragically."
"Good night, Ryu."
"Good night, sunshine."
The fairy lights blinked once, twice, and settled. On the cupboard, the plain box sat where they'd left it—no longer a secret, no longer a threat—just a closed chapter waiting for a day when conversation and courage would open it together.