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Si on me presse de dire pourquoi je l'aimais, je sens que cela ne se peut exprimer, qu'en répondant :
« Parce que c'était lui ; parce que c'était moi. »
— De l’amitié, Michel de Montaigne
If a man should importune me to give a reason why I
loved him, I find it could not otherwise be expressed, than by making
the answer: because it was he, because it was I.
In that sense, Kyouya’s life doesn’t go into shambles from the first day. Rather, knowing that not all stories begin when things go into shambles, he has chosen his starting point as this morning at the Charles de Gaulle airport, because otherwise he would have to go thirteen years back, when he saw Suoh Tamaki for the first time.
And then again, with Tamaki— golden, hurried Tamaki— loud, laughing Tamaki—
‘You look like a mess,’ he gasps, but he stops short a breath away from Kyouya, arms stiff by his sides like he doesn’t know what to do with them if not all the holding that is three years overdue. ‘Your bedhead’s terrible. One’d think you got here by tornado. Here, give me your bag—’
It’s the last one, too, which is probably why Kyouya hands it over, and why Tamaki takes it. Probably why Tamaki came in person instead of sending the car. And Kyouya had imagined it already too— the car, the hour’s drive into the heart of Paris, the muffled velvet silence of the walk down the hallway. The chime of the doorbell, E to C. And then more piano inside, Kyouya had decided on the flight, curled up in his seat with three spreadsheets open on his laptop. Tokyo to Paris, twelve and a half hours, ears pulsing with pressure-pain.
The white piano, he’d decided, swallowing cold water and wincing. Tamaki would be waiting there. Playing a solemn welcome piece, probably Nocturne, and turning with a flourish, or maybe pretending he wasn’t expecting company. Why, Ootori-san, what a surprise. And never mind all the things Kyouya had sent over two weeks ago, all the boxes Tamaki wouldn’t stop complaining about every time they called. You need to hurry up and get here, I’m sick of tripping over antiques.
As soon as I can, Kyouya’d replied accidentally once, when it was well past midnight and he wasn’t watching his words. Only Tamaki’s sudden silence on the other end had alerted him. I mean, as soon as I— But there was no recovering.
Three years have done nothing to Tamaki. Three more won’t, either, unless he decides to start dyeing his hair at thirty; or worse, start wearing Derbys. But this morning he’s twenty-seven and golden and hurried, and loud and laughing, and most of all, he is here. As if it’s the first time Kyouya is seeing him, and thinking, ah, so this is how everything is supposed to look.
x
‘You shouldn’t have,’ he finally says, when the unassuming white car blinks at them under the Roissy sun, the worst thing about it the missing chauffeur. ‘Also, I really don’t trust you in Parisian traffic.’
‘It’s this or the RER B,’ Tamaki sings. ‘The choice is yours. I’ve got your tea waiting too, don’t be a bore, now.’
He does. A Ladurée cup sitting in a sleeve, and though the tea must’ve gone cold despite it, Kyouya smiles. Tamaki grins wide and brilliant, caught you, and opens the passenger door. Ducks low just to give Kyouya another smile before pushing it shut.
It’s an hour’s ride; of course the tea’s gone cold. Of course Kyouya doesn’t have a word to say under the rushing back of it all. The sun, the bustling highway. Tamaki’s sharp, weightless profile. Light curls perfect down to his neck, the blue joy of his eyes. Lips smiling around the terrible French song on the radio, of course, the radio.
In the thick of the périphérique, Tamaki turns to him, a hand still on the wheel, and takes a deep, smiling, shuddering breath.
‘Salut,’ he says. ‘Bienvenue en France.’
‘Comme si c’était ma première fois, oui.’ Kyouya sips his cold bitter tea, takes a deep breath of his own. ‘Don’t stare at me.’
‘I’ll stare at you all I want. This traffic isn’t moving for at least twenty minutes, believe me.’
‘Then be more discreet.’
‘It’s a small car,’ Tamaki says. It isn’t, but he makes it small by leaning forward, nothing but roses in Kyouya’s lungs. ‘And it’s a big world. And you were so far away, and now you’ll be sleeping on my couch forever.’ Forever.
‘I do hope you’ve spared a room for me,’ Kyouya says, raises an eyebrow. ‘My name is on the deed.’
‘And on the mailbox, and on the buzzer. And on the little golden plaque above the doorbell, and on the towels, and—’
x
And on the coffee mugs, and on the bathrobes, and on the boxes. All of the boxes, so many of them, stacked perfect in a corner of the penthouse like a contemporary installation. Ootori Kyouya, the large labels on each of them say, every single piece of his life worth wrapping up and carrying across continents packed in tight. Tamaki hasn’t touched any, hasn’t let anyone else do it either, as if he really believes the two of them are going to sit in the living room with a pair of scissors and unpack it all themselves. Knowing him, he might just insist on doing one or two for the ceremony of it, before giving up and calling the staff.
For now, they block out all of Paris’ southern light, turning May into October. Tamaki turns a lamp on as they slip inside, then thrusts Kyouya’s bag back into his hands before rushing ahead, and behind that cardboard pile.
‘Wait, don’t walk further!’
Kyouya waits where he is, takes in the penthouse. So much bigger in person, of course, with its high ceilings and dramatic carpets, and the dining table with more chairs than they will ever have guests. That was half the point, after all, for both of them— a place to be and breathe, home and away all at once. A home and away Tamaki’s been working on for all seven years he’s been back in the city, ever since he realised razing down his birthplace was empty rebellion, that real rebellion would be reclaiming it.
No, no guests, except for Christmas when they’ll drag the others from Tokyo, and Haruhi and Mori will load the table up with so much food it’ll creak, then crack, then break—
Piano, finally, filters through to Kyouya from behind the boxes that Tamaki hid it with. Nocturne in C-minor, of course, because what else would he play? Perfect sparkling notes, the world’s most solemn bienvenue, and no one to chide him his answering smile, the way he adjusts his glasses to give his free hand something to do while his other one clutches the bag that’s full of every last homemade cookie Haruhi could stuff into it.
Five minutes of music later, Tamaki steps out from behind the boxes. Kyouya sees him for the first time again. His loose white shirt, beige pants, the watch Kaoru got him for his twenty-fifth birthday perfect on his wrist. No sun lighting him up from behind, fortunately, but Kyouya’s chest tightens anyway. Because behind Tamaki is a tower of boxes that all say Ootori Kyouya, and by tomorrow evening they’ll be put away, and Kyouya will be living here. His life’s worst decision, come at the best time. Because fourteen, as it was, was too young.
x
Haruhi was the first to say it, because who else would dare?
She didn’t care to point it out until three years in, like she’d been waiting for Kyouya to reach the appropriate age to learn such information. That age was twenty, apparently, because then she waited not a day longer. Pulled him aside at his own surprise party— as surprise as anything organised by Tamaki got— and looked at him gravely, like she was about to break terrible news. Are you sitting down? Good. You’re in love with Suoh Tamaki. Sorry you had to find out like this.
Or, well, in slightly different words, which were: Are you waiting for him to leave before you tell him?
A few metres over, Tamaki was opening all of Kyouya’s presents, taking ridiculous, exaggerated care to preserve the wrapping paper because he knew Kyouya hated ripping it. The last time he’d do it for— a while, probably. Paris was looming, only weeks away, flights booked and bags packed, admission papers signed. Sciences Po of all places, when he should’ve gone to Inalco, or even the Sorbonne if only for the romance of it.
I’m going to use my charm and money for evil policy making, he’d laughed to Kyouya. Before you know it I’ll have Macron wearing sweater vests and saving the bees. Then, lower: If you’re off to Cambridge, I’ve got to keep up.
No, Kyouya answered Haruhi, watching as Tamaki carefully folded a sheet of wrapping paper and stuffed it under a box. I don’t plan on telling him.
Why not? Haruhi leant her chin on her hand. You’re scared?
Of what? Kyouya asked. That he’s leaving?
No, she’d said patiently. Warm eyes glowing. That he’ll stay.
x
But he’d left, and theatrically. Tamaki, back then— when he knew he’d see Kyouya again in months— always cried. Exaggerated that first time, throwing himself on Kyouya in the living room and then the car and then the airport dropoff. Discreet the other times, always laughing at himself for tearing up so easily, saying I know, I know to Kyouya, as if Kyouya was going to point it out, be cruel about it.
But that August morning three years ago, his eyes hadn’t so much as filled. Like he’d known to keep them clear because the way ahead was long. Because Kyouya would be far this time, each of them back to where they’d been ten years ago. Paris and Tokyo, sunrise and sunset, the distance impossibly wide now that they’d known the luxury of not having it. The distance ridiculous, actually, because they were choosing not to close it.
Kyouya had been the one to leave that day. Lie. Tamaki had flown in to see him off, their flights nudging so close that he had to run across Heathrow to get to Kyouya’s terminal. Out of breath, leaning against a pillar and laughing weakly, relieved at the sight of Kyouya and the bemused check-in officer. Holding up— a crumpled packet of strawberry Haribo, Kyouya’s favourite.
Oh, thank God, he’d gasped. Golden, hurried Tamaki. Almost missed you.
That was when Kyouya had lied. Smiled, squinted. Said well, we’d have met soon enough, as if he didn’t know how difficult it was all about to get, how almost missed you would become almost caught you, every greeting a missed connection, every phone call mistimed as they both tried to build careers and earn accolades and please and defy fathers in the same breath.
Yeah? Tamaki had smiled, clear-eyed, whisper-voiced. Soon enough?
Soon enough, Kyouya had wanted to say again, lie again. But the sun was right in his eyes, bringing out the absolute azure of Tamaki’s, and it wasn’t about to get difficult— it already had. All of it. The twelve hours he’d spend breathing through aching ribs on the plane, wondering where Tamaki would have dinner in London that day. If he’d even stay that long, or if he’d leave for Paris within the hour, not even pretending that he’d come for anything other than one last look at Kyouya.
It was already over. Kyouya had claws around his throat and five minutes to walk away, and Tamaki refused to cry. Only looked and looked from that distance before surging forward and crushing Kyouya into himself for an endless, heaving second: lips pressed fiercely to Kyouya’s temple, fingers harsh in his hair.
But it was already over. Kyouya could squeeze his eyes shut against it but he couldn’t stop his chest from caving. Couldn’t stop Tamaki from— knowing.
That was why Tamaki waited, he knew. Still knows, three years later, that it was why Tamaki had waited. Why he didn’t say a word until they were almost out of sight, before suddenly calling out.
x
Lunch is at— home, because Tamaki’s booked Lasserre for dinner, and never mind jet lag. Kyouya nibbles his way through petits fours and warm lasagna, and refuses the rouge for the time being, knowing full well what the Montmartre walk Tamaki has planned reserves.
‘And she really refused to believe me until I showed her a copy of your contract!’ Tamaki’s chirping as Kyouya carries the dishes to the bright, pale-rose kitchen. ‘I swear to God she thought I was mixing up conservator and donor. Like, signora, I speak better Italian than that.’
‘I’m quite sure that’s what’s going to happen to me on Monday,’ Kyouya smiles. ‘I don’t think Musée Guimet’s ever had a conservator my age, let alone.’ No halt or ellipsis; let alone is enough. Let alone Ootori Kyouya, son of Ootori Yoshio. Even Hani, when Kyouya told him about it, had lowered his sunglasses, looked at him, and bluntly asked, have you been disowned?
Not yet, Kyouya’d replied. I’m working on it.
The kitchen is beautiful. Sunlight beams off its golden accents and sparkles on its white marble, and though it’s clean and quiet, it looks lived-in like their households seldom do. Yes, there isn’t a stray spoon or dishcloth, but the fridge is cluttered with Polaroids and Tamaki’s incomplete magnet map of France. He’s got two copies of Bas-Rhin and at least five of Rhône, and has been looking for Hérault for the past year, but looked so scandalised at Kyouya’s proposition of just buying the entire collection online that Kyouya dropped the topic.
It’s all beautiful. Not enough mess to romanticise, and not enough life to pretend Tamaki doesn’t get lonely. But right now, after three years apart and six months of but what if we just lived together when you move here for your conservatorship and twelve and a half hours of imagining what standing in here with Tamaki metres from him would be like, Kyouya will take just about anything. Empty marble counters and a tower of boxes, and five cutout magnets of Rhône. Even the couch.
‘Besides,’ Tamaki’s saying as Kyouya thinks I love you, I missed you, I, ‘I figured we could just send that downstairs for dry-cleaning. They already know about your fragrance allergies, of course, so the sheets—’
Six months ago, Kyouya’s phone rang at one in the morning, when only Tamaki would dare to call.
Your highness? he’d asked, finally putting his screen down.
Only to bring it back up as Tamaki said without greeting or prelude, come live with me.
Kyouya had stared at his screen for a good minute. A multi-page colour-coded spreadsheet his realtor had updated just half an hour ago with the latest listing, something nondescript in Puteaux that made his stomach cold to imagine living in. But then again, that was every listing, from the charming renovated ones by Rivoli to the penthouse in the 16e with a chandelier so hideous that even his realtor sent a separate email saying I saw the chandelier, before you mention it.
Come live with me was the only apartment listing that didn’t make Kyouya’s stomach go cold. In fact—
Don’t be ridiculous, he’d said through the fire licking all the way to his throat. You’ve already bought the place.
If you think I’d buy a single house on this planet without saving room for you in it, you’re mad. Come live here.
I’ll think about it.
Then think about it, Tamaki’d replied. The most serious Kyouya had heard him sound in ages. Not a hint of a joke in his voice, not a smile. The 7e isn’t that far from the 16e. Look at the map. You’ll be at work in half an hour. Less if you just take the metro.
You think I’ll take the metro to work? But Kyouya was already smiling. It was already over. And he could’ve started this story there, but it had already been over by then. Long since over.
‘—but they couldn’t find it anywhere. I wasn’t even trying to be precious! I called up four stores myself, and Camille was like, man, just order some from Germany, it’ll get here faster— which, she’s probably not wrong, but—’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Kyouya asks. Tamaki blinks, narrows his eyes, puts on his most affronted pout.
‘It’s not even been three hours and you’re already tuning me out! See if I tell you now. It was so cute too, and now you’ll never know. You really are sleeping on the couch tonight. No bedroom for you.’
Kyouya doesn’t rise to it. He wishes it was the jet lag, but it’s only dinnertime in Tokyo, and he’s never felt more awake. That, actually, might be it. That it’s real time, finally. That even though his things aren’t unpacked yet, his bedroom shares a wall with Tamaki’s. That tomorrow morning he’ll wake up and step out and be a door away from Tamaki. That tomorrow morning he’ll wake up, and Tamaki will be here. Just like he is right now, sky-blue eyes and open smile, how everything is supposed to look.
So he doesn’t rise to it, only looks at Tamaki, and takes a deep, long breath. Like the one Tamaki took in the car on the way here, like he was finally looking at Kyouya. And it was new, Kyouya realises, now. Easy to understand— it has been three years, and they are best friends— but new all the same. Just like the look Tamaki’s giving him now, new in that for the first time, it feels like Tamaki, too, is realising it: the mild inconvenience of Kyouya still, still, still being in love with him.
x
He’d waited to be far enough, that day at Heathrow three years ago. Just far enough for words to be pointless, to absolve them both of having to say anything. Just far enough that Kyouya could see the way his lips parted and then closed, but none of the pity. All of the so you’re in love with me, is it, but none of the sorry I had to find out like this.
x
Because fourteen, when they first met, was probably too young to fall in love, and twenty-four was terrible timing to get there. Inasmuch, Kyouya thinks, as love is a destination. Because inasmuch as love is an idea, his blinked and bloomed so close to Tamaki that it wouldn’t even have existed if not for him. Every age, then, would’ve been the right age. Any age he met Tamaki. Fourteen or twenty or twenty-four: he would never have invented love until he invented it.
x
Paris, actually, is the perfect place for it. So many bells and bridges and nooks and crannies, and so much wine to be had. There’s no time for them to really speak, and just as well: Tamaki’s always been gifted at talking, and Kyouya at listening. The chatter of Montmartre swallows them right up, Tamaki trailing words down every winding street like glittering sundust. Oh, we went to that bar for Agathe’s twenty-sixth and stayed there for twelve hours! Just had brunch forever!
Aurélien— remember him? Curly hair, glasses?— he’s planning to propose to his boyfriend just about here. I told him he should do it in the funicular, just imagine. If someone proposed to me in the Montmartre funicular I’d have the entire RATP shut down, I’d be so angry.
Oh, we have to go there when it gets colder— they have the most amazing hot chocolate—
It’s all right, Kyouya wants to say. Nothing has to change— nothing ever has. But he lets Tamaki talk; he’s gifted at listening. And looking. At the way the afternoon breeze curls Tamaki’s hair, flutters his collar, tugs his smile. At the way Tamaki never looks at him, keeps his eyes focused elsewhere, squinting through the sunlight, smiling at the street.
x
Only at sunset does he cave, almost like he’d scheduled it. Tamaki would pick the perfect time and place, every other table at Lasserre fading into the walls the moment the sun catches the glass of the sky at the perfect angle, and showers gold and roses on them.
Tamaki is so beautiful under it that for a second the world stops making sense. For a second everything makes sense, everything that led Kyouya here. Everything carving that look into Tamaki’s face, so brilliant with longing, the sun setting right in his eyes.
‘Please give me your hand,’ Tamaki whispers. ‘I haven’t seen you in three years.’
Kyouya stretches his arm, trains his eyes on the line it cuts across the tablecloth, perfect black over perfect white. The gleaming silver of his watch, the sapphire he wears on his index. Kyouya sees his own hand for the first time, thinks, as Tamaki takes it, ah, so this is how hands are supposed to look.
Tamaki’s fingers are slender as ever. Sweet as ever, his grip the same it was when they were fourteen and twenty and twenty-four, somehow so sure of itself and so scared all at once. Like Tamaki’s hands never had anything to be sure of, before.
Kyouya could say it.
‘I dream of Heathrow all the time,’ Tamaki whispers, before he can. ‘And this time I say it. Each time.’
The world stops making sense, and then starts right up again, the hiccup so small it was only a caught breath. Only Kyouya’s fingers twitching in surprise, then going still again. Only the last of the sun disappearing, turning everything glimmering purple.
When he looks up, Tamaki’s smiling. Rare and secret. ‘You didn’t know what I wanted to say.’
‘I can’t always be the smart one,’ Kyouya says through the petals in his throat.
‘I hope you’re being smart now, at least.’
He is. A little too smart for his own good, maybe, the way it’s always been. Because though his hand is still caught in Tamaki’s, and though the world will always look like this now, he looks up and raises an eyebrow.
‘I am,’ he says. ‘I know what this is all about.’
Tamaki raises an eyebrow of his own, but he’s never been able to keep a straight face. He’s already smiling when he asks, ‘Oh? And what is it all about?’
‘The bedroom,’ Kyouya says solemnly. ‘You only have one. You’re trying to make it work—’
Tamaki bursts into bright, beaming laughter. Lets go of Kyouya’s hand to flick his wrist, closes his eyes before they overrun with honey. ‘Just for that, you are sleeping on the couch.’
And before he can reply to it, Paris interrupts. The wine is here, and so is the sunset, and they wait for no one. Least of Tamaki and Kyouya. There’s no outwaiting the two of them, after all.
x
But he doesn’t. Sleep on the couch, that is.
Instead, after dinner, Tamaki mentions something ominous and obscure about running errands. Then gives Kyouya a strange, soft smile, and says, ‘You should go get some sleep. Besides, you haven’t used your key yet.’
No, he hasn’t. The badge is nondescript enough, the key the same. But Tamaki did find him the most hideous rhinestone-studded gold K keychain, and it’s been sitting heavy in his pocket all day. When he reaches to wrap his hands around it in the quiet hallway, for a second, it feels like playing house. Like he is ten, and his entire life is ahead of him, which it is.
His bedroom is next to Tamaki’s, and the same size, though he’ll gripe in the morning and say it’s smaller. Big windows behind the bed opening up into the jewel lights of the city, slippers by the bed. Scentless soy candles on the nightstand. Two blankets even in the summer. He can almost see Tamaki here, talking in worried whispers with the head of staff, asking are you sure, very sure, that it’s all hypoallergenic? Perfect, thank you so much, it’s just, he’ll kill me otherwise, you know. Can almost see the whirlwind of Tamaki— can almost see him, right now, in the last Franprix open at this hour, picking up a packet of strawberry Haribo for Kyouya. Right about now, he must be proudly scanning it at a self-checkout machine, thinking he’s the most romantic man in the world, which he is.
Kyouya unpacks the weekend bag he’d brought over on the flight, gets changed, and slips under the blankets. Closes the curtains but lights a candle, and waits for the jet lag to put him to sleep.
x
It doesn’t. Because every time he closes his eyes— and every time he doesn’t— all he can see is that last smile of Tamaki’s under the purple-black night sky, something so frustratingly magnanimous about it. Something as silly as Kyouya’s goodbye at Heathrow three years ago, when he wasn’t smart enough to understand that Tamaki’s too-loud, desperate Kyouya was going to be followed by I’m in love with you. Sorry you had to find out like this.
That day, Tamaki hadn’t said it. Only blinked at Kyouya in surprise, like he wasn’t the one who made Kyouya turn around. Only stared, as Kyouya smiled and raised a parting hand.
That’s why it’s all Kyouya can think of. Because he remembers thinking, when he smiled, it’s all right. Nothing has to change. Remembers thinking it just earlier today, damn it, walking the crowded streets of Paris with no clue Tamaki— that Tamaki— that Tamaki was thinking it too, thinking, it’s all right. Nothing has to change.
If only someone had sat them down. Haruhi, or Hikaru, or the sommelier at Lasserre. Said sorry to break this to you two, but. But they’re stupid. But they’ve waited enough. But they’re both here now— but they’re both here now.
Kyouya throws the blanket off, sits up, slides his feet into the slippers. Blows out the candle, then realises it’s pitch dark without, and opens a curtain. The city’s still alive— it’s only one in the morning, after all— and somehow, that’s what finally makes him get up. The fact that the day still isn’t over, that if someone asks, they can always say they did it all today. That all in one day, Kyouya flew from Tokyo to Paris, and tested his key, and went to Sacré-Cœur, and told Tamaki. This time, told—
The sensor lights in the hallway are on; Tamaki must’ve walked past moments ago.
Kyouya doesn’t bother knocking on his door, then. Follows the lights down the hallway and past the moonlit living room, and into the too-bright kitchen—
Tamaki is there, like he would’ve been anywhere else when Kyouya was looking for him. Leaning against the counter in his silk pyjamas and staring absently at the floor, skin still glowing from whatever face mask he must’ve put on before bed, hair still damp, curling over his forehead. Arms crossed, a glass of wine in his long perfect fingers.
He looks up at Kyouya, then just looks.
But Kyouya looks beyond him for a second. Just a second, just to see, and there it is— a perfect packet of strawberry Haribo, bright pink, out of place on the spotless counter.
Kyouya looks back at Tamaki, whose lips are parted, ready to say it.
Kyouya says it first.
‘I’m not satisfied with my accommodation,’ he says, stepping forward. ‘I’d like to be shifted to a bigger room, or—’ No, it won’t do, he’s right here, and he’s the most beautiful thing in the world— ‘Or a refund—’
But Tamaki’s already straightening up and putting the glass away, just in time for Kyouya to stride into him, kiss his stupid rose of a mouth. Tamaki moans immediately, and it’s not even arousal, not even surprise. Just relief. Oh putain, Kyouya, he whimpers, like his life is finally righting itself. Like he has been waiting for years, years, full of a golden patience Kyouya scarcely deserves. All of it fluttering in his throat now, as his lips give so easily under Kyouya’s, as his arms go around Kyouya’s waist, how everything is supposed to feel.
‘Why’d you wait so long?’ Kyouya asks, hands trembling and tight on Tamaki’s jaw. ‘Why’d you wait for me?’
‘I wasn’t waiting—’ Tamaki kisses the corner of his mouth, his cupid’s bow, his lower lip. ‘I was getting the couch dry-cleaned for you— you freeloading—’
‘Oh, God,’ Kyouya groans, love rising so urgent in his chest, so acute he’s going to die. ‘Shut up. Just shut your mouth.’
But Tamaki doesn’t. He drags his open lips down Kyouya’s neck, pressing him into the marble edge of the counter, pressing a sound out of him. Only then does he rip away to laugh incredulously before kissing Kyouya again, bending him backwards until the sharp corner of a cabinet looms dangerously over their heads, and Kyouya straightens them both up. Backs Tamaki into the fridge, dislodges his magnet map; Finistère and Morbihan flung into the Atlantic, and to hell with Savoie. New maps, physical and political; capitals blooming over Tamaki’s chest with each touch of Kyouya’s fingertips, rivers running to where their legs are folding into each other. Both pairs shaking with the world they’re finally making, as they fumble through the apartment to find the couch, even as they lay on it.
‘Not here,’ Tamaki tries, ‘we deserve a bed—’
But Kyouya pulls him down, hooks a leg around his waist. Tamaki comes along, and the first push of his full weight is something Kyouya will never forget. How right it feels, elbows nudging ribs, knees pressing into thighs, lips on lips. Kyouya feels— powerful again, childlike, like he’s playing house, like his entire life is— and it is, it is; it’s Tamaki in his arms. It’s how everything is supposed to be.
‘Bed,’ Tamaki says again. ‘Our bed.’ Kyouya’s stomach tightens. ‘It’s big. And cold.’
‘Then we’re going to warm it up,’ he replies. Then, hit with the unreality of it all: ‘You. I’m going to open you up in it.’
‘Yeah?’ Tamaki gasps, grins. ‘Warm me up?’
Warm him up, in their bed. It’s not bigger than Kyouya’s— nor is the room— but Tamaki will have another ordered soon enough, he knows, now that he has an excuse. You have cold feet, he’ll gripe to Kyouya. I need a safe distance.
Wear socks, Kyouya will tell him. Don’t you dare keep away from me now. Socks, yes, he’s thinking, as he lays Tamaki down in the soft white pillows, stares at the play of the city lights on his face, in his bright eyes. Socks, as he works at the fragile buttons of Tamaki’s nightshirt, silk slipping through his fingers and falling open to everything Kyouya deserves to kiss and kiss. And in the winter, he’s already thinking, because their lives are ahead of them and he has all the time in the world to catalogue the sounds Tamaki makes when his skin is kissed and kissed— in the winter, when the wind is bitter and freezing, he’ll take Tamaki to the museum and have terrible hot chocolate served to him. And Tamaki will sip at it, make a pained smile, say and my dear husband drinks this every morning? My, they don’t pay you enough. Because he’s going to start saying it tomorrow, Kyouya knows, to friends and acquaintances and the caviste down the road. My husband. My darling. L’amour de ma vie, vous savez, madame. Pourtant il n’en avait aucune idée. Loud and unbearable, and loudly unbearable—
‘I love you,’ Kyouya says, if only to cut himself off. Presses his forehead to Tamaki’s hipbone, closes his eyes for a second. ‘Suoh Tamaki.’
‘Good,’ Tamaki says, and when Kyouya looks up, his eyes say there you finally are. ‘Now, I’ve been horribly lonely and empty— don’t make that face— so if you’ll kindly make some love to me.’
x
Kyouya does, long and slow, until Tamaki is in frail, sparkling tears. How everything is supposed to be done.
x
And he does say it, the next morning; Tamaki. When Kyouya’s jet lag is finally pushing him through the meat grinder, head throbbing, throat scratchy, the coffee doing nothing to help. He can barely keep his head up, pillows it on an arm and raises it every once in a while to take a morose sip, picking at the flakes of his croissant like the world’s worst neo-Parisian.
That’s when Tamaki chooses to say it. When Kyouya is still in his nightclothes, bedhead so terrible he can feel it. Glaring at the sunlight coming through the sheer curtains, gentle and faint though it is on Tamaki’s face, awake and glowing, and Kyouya’s to look at every morning for as long as he wants.
‘Kyouya,’ Tamaki murmurs on cue, as he pours his tea. ‘You’ll marry me, won’t you? Not right away if you don’t want, you’ve got enough on your plate. But maybe next year? We could reserve—’
‘I wanted to propose,’ Kyouya says, narrowing his eyes further. ‘And please make at least one argument.’
‘I’ll drive you to the museum. Every morning. And I won’t even play Johnny Hallyday in the car.’
‘Compelling.’ He straightens up finally, clears his throat, makes a show of sighing. ‘I’ll consider it.’
Tamaki glares at him, all golden indignation in Kyouya’s morning sunlight, all golden everything. ‘Much obliged. What was your proposal going to be, wise darling?’
Kyouya pretends to consider, then puts on his glasses, and his most serious face. ‘There’s a funicular at Montmartre—’
Tamaki moves fast; before Kyouya can blink a hot wet teabag is hitting him square on the forehead and falling to the table with a miserable splat, and before he can react, Tamaki’s pushing his chair back, stumbling over, and climbing onto his lap. Staring down at him with monumental seriousness, the blues of his eyes as striking as they’ve ever been, before kissing him wild and rushed and— Tamaki.
‘I love you,’ he says, that morning; Tamaki. ‘I love you. I love you.’
‘I know,’ Kyouya gets in, before more kisses rain down on his face; forehead, temples, the tip of his nose where a droplet of tea is still shivering.
‘Then you promise never to take me to the funicular.’
‘And if I don’t?’
Tamaki takes a deep breath, and puts on his most serious face, only that’s never worked. Before he even gets the words out he’s giggling again, and he can barely finish his sentence, so proud of the joke he’s about to make. ‘I’ll make you— I’ll make you actually sleep on the—’
He points to the stupid, stupid couch. And Kyouya takes his hand, and lowers it, and says it again. Says it again. Says it again.