everything comes back to you;

[sunshowered]

“Ow! Who put that there?! Enemies?!”

“You mean the lounge chair that’s been here since we moved in?” Izumi questioned grumpily, his arms tighter around Chiaki’s neck after he’d been jostled on his back when the other stumbled. Since Chiaki didn’t think to do anything about it, Izumi reached out and did not at all fumble to click on the lamp on the side table. (Also what the fuck, the switch kept dodging his hand – they would have to get that fixed in the morning.)

The living room of their second year suite was bathed in a warm light from it and Chiaki shifted again in surprise. “Whoa – ahaha, and let there be light!”

“Shut up,” Izumi sighed as he buried his face into the back of Chiaki’s neck. It was warm and comfortable there. “Stop shifting around.”

“A-Ah,” Chiaki cleared his throat. Izumi opened one eye again, feeling the other’s hands tighten their grip on his legs. “But we’re – back? Here Sena, I can, um, put you down... Hm…”

Once he figured out how to, apparently.

Izumi realized he wasn’t making this any easier, considering the fact that his arms remained laced around Chiaki’s broad shoulders and neck with zero intent of letting up. If he really wanted to go to bed, he could probably hop down from Chiaki’s back on his own, but.

But.

Tilting his head and perching his chin on Chiaki’s shoulder so that he could get a look at his profile was really entertaining. He could see the confusion hazed over in his glassy eyes, the way his brow furrowed, the way he sincerely could not figure out how to put Izumi back down on the ground if Izumi wasn’t helping. It was like watching a chimpanzee try to solve a puzzle.

Izumi let his forehead fall on Chiaki’s shoulder. His shoulders shook as he tried to contain his laughter.

He didn’t find this idiot entertaining or endearing at all, dammit. Not even a little bit.

“Are you suffocating?!” Chiaki gasped, confused and slurred.

“No, you moron,” Izumi snapped. Probably. It was a little muffled to his own ears, probably because he didn’t lift his head from Chiaki’s shoulder. “Just – mind your own business!”

“Hmmm? I – oh right, my task! Yes, you’re right, Sena.” Chiaki paused. He actually turned around in a little circle as if getting a glimpse at his surroundings would help him figure out a solution and—

It sort of did. It sort of didn’t.

“What the fuck are you—”

The way that Chiaki proceeded to flop face first on the couch was incredibly ineffective but at least some sort of decision had been made, even if it managed to pull a swear right out of Izumi’s throat.

And that’s how about a week after they met in the exact same position, Izumi Sena and Chiaki Morisawa were once again tangled in a pile of limbs on their couch. The only saving grace Izumi could think of was that Arashi wasn’t here taking pictures again.

“Nailed it!” Chiaki shouted.

“Wrong.”

Yet Chiaki still laughed like he was a winner, belly flopped on the couch as he was. He shifted, squirmed, and turned until Izumi found himself no longer sitting on Chiaki’s back but rather straddling his abs.

Hm.

Not what he planned for his Saturday night but – Chiaki’s face was illuminated softly by the sole source of light by them, his expression still contented and sweet, and he laughed softly to himself like Izumi had missed a punch line – there were worse things.

“Sena, I was just thinking…” Chiaki hummed, cheeks still rosy red and voice a melodic singsong. That was the start of a sentence that Izumi did not trust but Chiaki continued anyway. “You’re really great. I’m really lucky to know you.”

Izumi raised a brow. There were worse ways to spend his Saturday night, like he said – apparently Chiaki thought so too, despite the fact that he’d been turned into a workhorse for the last half of the night.

“That’s true,” Izumi hummed before finding that it was too much work to keep himself upright. He leaned forward until he and Chiaki were chest to chest and did his best not to let his thoughts linger too much on the hard muscle that rested beneath his fingertips. God, Chiaki felt so warm too. “It’s good of you to recognize that.”

“I do! Don’t worry,” Chiaki hummed, promising as if the idea of disliking Izumi was foreign. “You’re just - really great? People are really great…”

Oh. Well, generalizing it and putting Izumi on the same page as other people didn’t sound as fun.

He sighed. “You’re really the type of person who’s in love with the world, aren’t you?”

“Mm, of course, of course,” Chiaki affirmed. “The world is wonderful and as a hero, I acknowledge this fact willingly…. but well, I guess I do wonder what being in love is really like…”

And maybe it’s because the alcohol made Chiaki’s tongue looser, but Izumi wasn’t expecting that.

“It’s my dream to have a girlfriend, you know?” Chiaki continued and for some reason Izumi felt himself stiffen ever so slightly as he recognized the position he was in, laying on top of Chiaki so possessively. Except Chiaki pressed even further on, “Oh! Wait. No, that’s wrong. It was my dream to have a girlfriend buuuut then I realized – that’s kind of limiting? So I think I’d be okay with having a boyfriend…. but I guess I’m really busy right now—”

And he rambled on a little less coherently after that, something about double majors and basketball, then talking about the development of the human brain and whatnot and – okay in all honesty, Izumi tuned it out.

Izumi tuned it out because he was still fixated on that word – love – and what it meant to him and all too suddenly he couldn’t help but feel that he wasn’t drunk enough for this conversation.

Or maybe he was too drunk for this conversation.

“Anyway!” Chiaki’s rambling came to an end as he looked up at Izumi, eyes bright despite their glossy appearance, “I think that I could fall in love with anyone.”

“You don’t want to,” Izumi breathed out.

Definitely too drunk for this conversation.

Chiaki’s head tilted, his posture shifting beneath Izumi to get a better look at his expression, brown eyes searching in their confusion. “I… don’t?”

And didn’t he sound so confused? Of course he would be – love was something that was meant to be cherished, adored, sought after like in those stupid movies that girls would fawn over. Izumi would know. Sometimes he was in the business of selling that love, selling the illusions of it in pictures and moments captured on film.

Not that he was ever meant to actually receive it.

“… maybe it’s different for you,” Izumi acquiesced even as his eyes refused to meet Chiaki’s, despite how he could feel the other staring. “Maybe it’ll work out if you manage to fall in love with someone – anyone.”

It would suit Chiaki. Izumi could agree with that much. That feeling of being next to someone that you could trust whole-heartedly, seeing the world with one person and finding that it was enough – to find one person and realize that you’re enough – yeah, that sounded right up Chiaki’s alley.

Something like that just wasn’t meant for people like Izumi.

Calloused fingers curled around Izumi’s jaw, guided his chin up and Izumi was still too loose-limbed to resist. Instead he found himself diving into the warm brown of Chiaki’s eyes, ignoring the concern that he found there.

“Were you…. Have you been in love, Sena Izumi?”

A quiet inhale. “Probably not.”

Being in love implied that his feelings were returned, that there was something to fall into in the first place that would catch him when the ground opened up beneath his feet.

But where did that leave Izumi now? He never hit the floor again but he’d never been caught either – was he still freefalling?

(God, he wasn’t sober enough for this at all.)

Izumi found himself shutting his eyes then, his head and heart beginning to throb in unison. This was why he didn’t think about this – opted instead for burying it away where it wouldn’t bother anyone, least of all him.

“But it was… a type of love, right?”

He could feel the beating of Chiaki’s heart beneath the palm of his hand, the careful way that his mouth shaped the words as if he was really thinking about them, the morbid curiosity that dripped from every question.

“Maybe… but not like that,” Izumi answered and he knew it was nonsensical but—

‘But he could never love me like that. We were never meant to be like that.’

He thought of bright laughter in blinding sunshine, the unabashed warmth and acceptance in green eyes, a smaller, ink-stained hand gripping too tightly onto his.

Izumi’s heart caught in his throat.

He thought of foolish declarations of like and love and whirlwinds of days going by that he should’ve held onto more tightly and those ephemeral moments of his heart feeling so full and leaving no room for doubt that he was loved and how he’d wanted so badly to hold on and never let go—

‘We were never meant to be like that,’ Izumi repeated. Again and again and again until it would stick. ‘… not for lack of trying though.’

When blue eyes opened again, clouded over in something closer to longing than intoxication, they almost closed again automatically.

They’d met a week ago, logically speaking. As such, it didn’t make sense for Chiaki’s eyes to be filled with heartbreak, his mouth curled into an ugly frown that didn’t belong there as if he’d been personally affected by Izumi’s stupid struggles. The hand that curled around his face brushed up, fingers running through Izumi’s hair in a gesture that was probably meant to be soothing. Izumi didn’t mean to lean into it.

“Izumi…” Chiaki breathed and Izumi didn’t think that he could be faulted for the way that his eyes darted up, his breath catching briefly at how his name sounded on the brunette’s tongue. “I don’t think… It was just once…”

As if just once – one blinding, world-changing, all-encompassing once – wasn’t enough to ruin Izumi in ways that he was still discovering.

Like now.

He shook his head and regained himself, realigned the pieces of his composure enough to pose a dangerous question:

“Do you think that you could love me, Chiaki?”

Like holding a stick of dynamite out to an open flame.

And Izumi saw it – the way that fire itself flickered and faltered in Chiaki’s surprised gaze. He hesitated, just like Izumi knew he would. Chiaki was so similar to him that way. In the end, even those who claimed that they could ‘love anyone’ wouldn’t be able to take up the challenge. Even that love would fall short. Everyone had their limits.

Izumi’s lips curled into a sneer.

“Wait.” Chiaki sat up suddenly, shifting their positions and covering Izumi’s hand with his even where it lay over his own heart. “Wait, no, I—don’t make that face, I…”

Chiaki’s eyes met Izumi’s, panicked and searching and a tinge fearful.

‘Ah,’ Izumi thought. ‘Are you afraid to love me?’

Chiaki gulped, his lips pressed together in a thin line before he broke the silence between them.

“I’d try, Izumi… I’d really, really try.”

Could anyone really blame Izumi if he forgot how to breathe for a few moments? Whatever he was expecting, whatever catch he thought he would find with his bait – it wasn’t an answer like that.

Chiaki was saying stupid things again, probably motivated by alcohol and his impossibly bleeding heart. Izumi thought that he should be spared from that. It was only what was right.

It provided enough motivation for Izumi to lean forward, canting his head to the side to slot their lips together, covering Chiaki’s mouth with his own. He could feel the surprised gasp from the other until arms snaked around his waist – it couldn’t be that bad, then. Chiaki tasted like alcohol still, something fruity and stinging, but Izumi couldn’t bring himself to care as his own arms looped around his neck and pulled him closer as he tried to lick the taste of it right out of his mouth.

Maybe this would be a bad decision that he would regret in the morning, but that didn’t cross Izumi’s mind in the slightest.

For the moment, Chiaki felt like home.