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He ends up studying IV’s face, that night when he's trying not to think about Kaito (which is almost every night, for a week or so; Ryoga finds himself studying IV’s face a lot), and he’ll never admit to that, either, so really it just sort of becomes part of an ongoing list of things in his head that he won't admit to, but he does look.
They're only a foot or so apart and even with the dim lighting he can make out the outline of IV's jaw, the curve of his nose and the way his ridiculous mess of hair falls over the right side of his face and almost hides the scar, when he’s asleep on his side like he is right now. He notices IV’s stupidly long eyelashes and thick eyebrows and the way the corner of his mouth turns down into a scowl and his eyebrows draw together when he dreams of something bad.
When Ryoga starts noticing IV’s face when he’s awake, notices how even though his eyes are fucking pink he somehow manages to make it work and notices the stupid smirk Ryoga wants to get rid of and notices how he'll idly mess with his hair sometimes - when he starts doing that is about when Ryoga and Kaito make up and stay friends and when IV and Chris start fighting (when IV tells him to call him Thomas, and Ryoga hadn’t even known that was IV’s real name in the first place). And it's right around the time IV starts giving him aggressive hugs when he thinks Ryoga is sad and around the time he starts just putting his head on Ryoga’s shoulder without any excuse or reason at all (and Ryoga lets him, even) and it’s around the time he finds out IV was mad at Chris because of Chris dating Kaito, because he thought it upset Ryoga, and so really it's all around the time Ryoga starts realizing he has a problem.
(not that he didn’t already have a few hundred of those, but)
Kaito says it’s "not so much 'mad at my other partner' as 'I want to be with Ryoga'", when III takes Chris’ place in a game and IV ends up teamed with Kaito and he spends the whole game pouting at his screen, and Ryoga’s - Ryoga’s not even sure what to make of that, like, obviously he figured IV wanted to be on a team with him, they’d been doing that since he and Kaito broke up, but the way it’s phrased makes his chest do an annoying thing where it falls somewhere into his stomach and then jumps into his throat. "I want to be with Ryoga" is weirdly specific phrasing, and Ryoga kind of thinks Kaito did it on purpose. It doesn't help, really, when after the game IV is still upset but he gives Ryoga a hug, what the fuck is that, probably to assure him that IV isn't mad at him but -
Maybe letting IV move in was kind of a bad idea, when Ryoga notices all the details of his face and gets weird chest lurches at Kaito’s implications and gets hugged when he doesn’t really want a hug a lot. Bad for his health, or something, because having so many dumb feelings in the timespan of, like, two weeks is ridiculous, he literally just broke up with his first boyfriend ever, aren’t you supposed to need time or something, what the hell are his stupid emotions even doing?
He thinks the problem only worsens, because, you know, getting used to calling him Thomas and not IV and getting used to random hugs when he’s not expecting them and getting used to all of it, really, is still making his chest do stupid shit and he kind of wants to hurl himself off a cliff or maybe cut himself in half with a catapulted sword like in their games. He’s sure the problem only worsens when half the time they’re playing IV is curled up with his head on Ryoga’s shoulder and Ryoga really doesn’t mind at all (kind of welcomes it now, actually, because it’s - well, it’s soft and it’s kind of nice to have someone who even wants to do that, Ryoga’s elbows hitting him in the stomach when he types aside), when it’s minutes away from being too dark to see past his face and Ryoga doesn’t even want to move to get the remote for the lights because IV is warm and it’s kind of sleepy and comfortable and this is. Definitely a thing, he thinks to himself, and wonders what, exactly, he thinks he’s doing.
(again, aren’t you supposed to need time to get over a breakup, rather than just someone else who makes you want to punch yourself in the face every time you say anything even slightly awkward)
He’s vaguely curious when IV sits up one afternoon, but he’s not really paying attention because the light’s shining through the windows at just the right angle to hit all the walls and it’s warm in the room and he sort of wants to just go to sleep - but then there’s a soft oi, Ryoga so he turns and looks and IV (Thomas, he thinks, even though he’s still not really used to it) just looks at him for a second, and Ryoga frowns and shifts to face him fully, opening his mouth to ask what he’s doing - he doesn’t actually get the words out, because Thomas leans forward and touches their foreheads together, and it makes his chest do the lurching thing, and that makes his frown deepen further and man, he’s just confused, now, and this really isn’t helping.
And then Thomas laughs, quietly, and it only barely shakes them but Ryoga can feel it where their foreheads are pressed together and it’s soft and that only confuses him more, makes him mutter out Thomas, what - but he doesn’t get to finish that sentence, either, because then Thomas is kissing him, only for a few seconds but he can feel the grin against his mouth and even after Thomas pulls away his eyes are still shut for a bit and that’s (not cute, Ryoga doesn’t think things are cute, but it’s definitely cute). And so maybe when he opens his eyes again Ryoga is still frowning, but it doesn’t last before he starts returning that stupid grin - he thinks that, probably, he shouldn’t be so...happy, about that, but it’s easy to forget about all his other problems when this one is staring him in the face with his stupid pink eyes.
He remembers all the times he’s heard “number one fan” from this moron and has to fight not to snort, because now when this is happening it’s really just ridiculous, and more like - well, more like number one idiot. So he says exactly that, more like number one idiot, but low and under his breath and he doesn’t even know if Thomas hears it but really he doesn’t care, because this time he leans forward and kisses Thomas himself.
And he’s kind of embarrassingly bad at it, too, knocking their noses together and having to take a second to try again and getting his fingers legitimately tangled in Thomas’s hair so that he has to take a second there, too, to get them out of the knots, and the first time he feels Thomas’s tongue on his lips he laughs abruptly because it tickles, and it just sort of goes on that way, because it doesn’t stop tickling so he keeps laughing at weird intervals and that should make it awkward, except Thomas is laughing right back, and in a way that should be gross because they’re literally laughing air back and forth into each others’ mouths but it isn’t and he thinks that’s probably because he’s too busy being...well, being happy about it to care.
(it’s easy to forget that he’s got problems outside of this room, that there’s an empty room in his apartment where there shouldn’t be, that he doesn’t know how Yuma’s doing or that he doesn’t even know who he is, really - it’s easy to forget because this is real, and grounding, and it reminds him of killing people in a video game for no reason other than it’s fun, and that makes him ache in a strange way because there’s so little now, that any of them do just for fun)
It’s not really pulling apart, when they do, because they sit there for a second and they’re still just as close, foreheads still pressed together and fingers still getting tangled in hair and it’s almost dark outside and Ryoga really doesn’t want to turn on the lights, so he doesn’t, and even when they move it’s only to lie down in their stupid pillow fort that they still haven’t gotten rid of and that he really doesn’t ever want to get rid of, and it’s quiet but it isn’t when they both make noises every time they breathe and their hands just sort of trail along the other’s and Ryoga sort of feels like he could cry, because this is - it’s gentle and soft and it would almost hurt and there’ll never be another day exactly like this, except crying is stupid and this isn’t anything to cry over anyway, even if the weird tightness in his chest is trying to tell him otherwise.
After the room is too dark to see each other anymore is only when they say anything, Thomas with a quiet hey, Ryoga, I… that he doesn’t finish, and his thumb brushes against Ryoga’s lower lip instead and really, he’s glad he didn’t turn the lights on, because if Thomas can’t see his face that’s probably better when he can feel it stretching into a stupid smile even as Thomas shifts to put his head against Ryoga’s shoulder. And, you know, he doesn’t need to say anything else, not really, since Ryoga’s pretty sure he got the picture - he moves so his chin is on top of Thomas’s head and it tickles when he breathes because really, the only person who has more hair than Thomas is probably Chris, and even though the words are muffled just a little he breathes out Yeah, I know, and he does.
It’s easy to forget, that he has problems beyond this, right now when there’s a little bit of a lump in his throat, and so he lies there in the dark and doesn’t bother trying to stop his smile.