Work Text:
Space had been terrifying. The first voyage on the Galaxy Nauts Gou had left his joints locked in place for hours. The sight of the black hole hovering high and infinite above the palace of Faram Orbius had shaken him to his core. The fear of losing everything to the vengeance of Ixal Fleet had torn at his hands and knees.
But there was nothing in the whole entire universe scarier than the sight of Tenma waiting expectantly in front of him.
Tsurugi Kyousuke liked to think himself a fairly confident person, but the faint blossom-pink dusting Tenma’s cheeks had his palms sweating and his flight response plucking at his nervous system like an instrument. Tenma was close. He was so close. Tsurugi raised his hands, lowered them again. Tenma blinked up at him and Tsurugi felt the tips of his ears burn. God, he was so cute. Who allowed this? Who allowed this perfect human being to exist in this universe? It just wasn’t fair to everyone else.
One of Tenma’s hands tugged at his wrist. His palms weren’t sweating, Tsurugi noticed. But there was a shyness in his grip that wasn’t very Tenma-like at all. Tenma was pulling his hand forward, around his waist, up to the middle of his back. Tsurugi flexed his fingers, rested it there. He’d touched it before, friendly and congratulatory, but this felt like touching a sacred creature.
A pegasus, a flat voice in his mind helpfully supplied. It sounded suspiciously like Ishigashi Gorham. Tsurugi willed it to kindly shut up.
Tenma was so close and now he was touching him. Heck.
He could not bear to look at Tenma’s face right now. His eyes strayed to the stands, the goals, the kicked-up grass where he had shot Devil Burst into the net. Why were they still out here. Why were they standing in centre circle with no one around.
There was too much and far too little space for them on the ground.
Tenma’s arms looped around his neck and Tsurugi’s knees almost gave way. He snapped back to attention and-- wait, of course they were out here, this was Tenma. Where else would this possibly be happening.
“Are you nervous, Tsurugi?” Tenma asked, in the softest voice possible. He shifted, rose on his toes, and laughed a little. “...I am.”
Critical hit. Tsurugi’s heart skipped one beat. Two. “Yeah,” he replied at a pained whisper. Like it wasn’t glaringly obvious.
Tenma laughed again, a pitched little sound between them that may as well have been the chorus of the heavens to Tsurugi’s ears. His fingers curled in the fabric of Tenma’s shirt.
“Um, then...” Tenma started and never finished.
His arms tightened around Tsurugi’s shoulders and pulled him down the last few precious inches and Tsurugi’s last lucid thought was how clearly he could remember the reflection of Grand Celesta Stadium’s harpsichord cannon, lighting vivid auroras in Tenma’s eyes, and that’s how his nerves felt, strings plucked overtaut.
Their lips met, finally. It was so simple. It was as complex as the web of stars in the sky. It was nothing and everything, a black hole eclipsed by light it could not swallow. It lasts a moment and forever.
And then - two moments and two forevers. Three. Tsurugi’s face burned like the sun but Tenma is the star and he is in orbit, at the perihelion, and he wanted so badly to tidal lock himself right there.
But he’s passed the point, for now, Tenma’s arms loosening and his own neck beginning to ache. For a moment he thought he should step back, give Tenma some room. But Tenma grabbed his jacket and buried his face in his chest and laughed, now so loud and giddy with relief.
It’s the sound of Earth, not the heavens. The sound of two dumb teenagers in love standing in the middle of a dew-grassed soccer field and not knowing where to put their hands. Tsurugi knew where to put them now, around Tenma’s shoulders, holding him closer, joining him in laughter, and they’re grounded together with as much space as they could ever possibly need.
God, he was so cute.