When Kin leaves the bathroom, he doesn't go far at first. He lingers for a second in the hallway, listening to the faint sound of water sloshing in the tub on the other side of the door, just long enough to reassure himself that Sute is still there and not slipping again into one of those quiet, frightened spirals.
Then he turns and walks toward his room.
The house is quiet now, the kitchen light still on behind him, the faint smell of curry lingering warmly in the air. Kin pushes open the door to his bedroom, dumps the dirty clothes in his hamper and goes straight to the wardrobe instead of his dresser, sliding it open with a soft wooden creak. Inside hangs row after row of clothes, most of them neatly arranged, all of them blue in some shade or another.
He begins rummaging through them and almost immediately he realizes the problem. Everything he owns now is far too big.
At some point in the last few years he had grown—first gradually, then suddenly—until he had shot past six feet, stopping at six foot three with limbs that no longer matched the proportions of his childhood clothes. Anything he wears now would swallow Sute whole.
Kin frowns thoughtfully and pushes past the newer clothes, digging deeper into the wardrobe where the things he never quite got around to throwing away still linger.
Finally his hand lands on something smaller. He pulls out a faded blue shirt then a pair of old blue athletic shorts.
He holds them up, squinting slightly as if judging them by sight alone.
These are from middle school. Before the growth spurt. Before he became tall enough that teachers started asking if he played basketball.
He turns the shirt around in his hands.
'It might work. At least it won't drown Sute the way everything else would.'
"Sigh, good enough."
He mutters to himself.
He tucks the clothes under one arm and reaches into the drawer beneath the wardrobe for socks. He doesn't bother searching for a matching pair—he just grabs the first two long ones he finds and tosses them over the top of the pile.
Then he pauses.
'Underwear…'
Kin stands there for a moment, staring blankly at the open drawer as if the answer might materialize if he looks hard enough.
He knows immediately that he doesn't have any of his old underwear left. That was the first thing he threw out when he grew out of them years ago.
He thinks about it, considering possibilities then sighs quietly.
"…I'll just wash the ones he had."
The boxers Sute had been wearing when Kin first brought him home are now somewhere in the laundry pile. It won't take long to clean them.
Decision made, Kin gathers the clothes and heads back down the hallway.
When he reaches the bathroom door he places the folded shirt, shorts, and socks neatly on the floor just outside it. Then he knocks lightly.
"Sute-chan?"
There's a faint splash from inside before Sute's voice answers, muffled slightly by the door.
"Y-Yes?"
"I left some clothes outside the door for you…"
Kin says.
"When you're done. Take your time, there's no rush."
"Ah-alright."
Kin waits until he hears the small shift of water again, satisfied that Sute understood, before turning away.
The kitchen still needs attention.
He moves through it quietly, washing the pots and pans that had been soaking in the sink, drying them carefully before returning them to their proper cabinets. The first aid kit gets packed back together and, instead of returning it to the bathroom, he takes it to his room and sets it on his own shelf instead. Just in case.
When he returns to the living room he spots Sute's favorite blanket crumpled across the couch. Kin folds it neatly and sets it down on the couch's back.
That's when he notices the notebook. It's lying on the coffee table exactly where Sute must have left it earlier.
Kin hesitates but then curiosity gets the better of him. He picks it up and opens it and the first page stops him.
The handwriting is… terrible.
Not just messy—genuinely difficult to read, as if someone had taken a pen and tried to imitate writing without ever being shown how letters were supposed to look. The lines wobble and twist in uncertain shapes, words leaning unevenly across the page like they might slide off entirely.
Kin blinks, uncertain on what he is looking at.
'This looks like something a five-year-old might do.'
But he knows it belongs to Sute. He's the one who gave him the notebook in the first place when Sute shyly asked if he could have something to write in.
Kin flips to the next page and the writing somehow gets worse.
Letters collapse into each other, sentences slant downward across the page, entire words becoming nearly impossible to decipher. He leans closer, squinting, trying to make sense of one particularly tangled line. It takes him almost a full minute to decode it.
"…Did he really make it to high school like this?"
Kin murmurs under his breath. The thought lingers longer than expected.
'Maybe I should teach him.'
He had just taught him how to hold a spoon, after all. Teaching him how to write properly might not be that different.
Kin leans back against the couch, notebook still open in his hands. Somewhere along the way, the role he imagined for himself has started to blur. He had taken Sute away to keep him safe, to keep those brilliant blue eyes where they belonged.
But now he's teaching him how to eat. Considering teaching him how to write. Making sure he bathes and sleeps and eats enough.
Kin exhales quietly.
"At this point I sound more like a parent than a kidnapper."
He mutters in self-deprecating disbelief. The thought unsettles him more than he expects.
'Would teaching him more actually help him?'
'Would understanding how badly the world had treated him make those eyes shine brighter… or dim them completely?'
Kin doesn't know.
He stares down at the messy handwriting again, trying to picture Sute carefully shaping those letters, tongue probably peeking out slightly in concentration the way it does when he's focused.
He's still thinking about it when he hears the bathroom door open.
Kin looks up just in time to see a small, pale hand slip around the corner of the doorframe.
The hand darts forward, snatches the folded clothes from the floor and disappears again just as quickly, the bathroom door shutting with a soft click.
The entire exchange lasts less than a second. Kin blinks then a quiet laugh escapes him.
The way Sute had done it—quick and cautious and shy—reminds him suddenly of a frightened kitten darting out to grab food before retreating back to safety.
A faint blush creeps onto his cheeks before he realizes it. Something warm bubbles up in his chest, a strange soft feeling he doesn't quite recognize.
It's not the same sharp thrill he feels when Sute's eyes turn that brilliant shade of blue but it's close. Just as addictive in its own way.
Kin closes the notebook and sets it back on the table, the corners of his mouth still curved faintly upward.
'Teaching can wait. For now…'
He decides.
'It's probably better to take things slowly. One day at a time.'
The bathroom door opens quietly, and a moment later Sute steps out into the hallway, fully dressed in the clothes Kin had left for him. He pauses there for a second as if deciding whether to walk into the living room or retreat again, and when he finally does step forward it's obvious something is bothering him.
He keeps tugging lightly at the hem of the shirt, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Kin looks up from the couch.
"What's wrong?"
He asks, his gaze naturally moving over Sute as he tries to figure it out.
The shorts, he notices first. They actually fit fairly well—short, yes, but not absurdly so. On Sute's smaller frame they look almost like athletic shorts, though the hem rides a little higher on his thighs than they had on Kin years ago.
The shirt, however, is another story. Because it came from middle school, it fits his shoulders but stops short of his ribs, leaving a strip of pale stomach exposed. On Sute it ends up looking suspiciously like a cropped top. Kin blinks in a dazed-like state, unsure whether to laugh or cry.
Sute notices the look and immediately flushes.
"I—I'm sorry…"
He blurts, tugging the shirt down even though it won't stretch any farther.
"It's just… you didn't give me any underwear, and it feels kind of… embarrassing."
Kin tilts his head, thinking about it for a moment before the obvious answer comes out in an easy tone.
"My underwear wouldn't have fit you…"
He explains.
"But don't worry about it. Tonight I'll wash the ones you were wearing earlier so they're clean for tomorrow."
That only makes Sute blush harder.
The idea of Kin handling his clothes—especially something like that—makes his ears burn with embarrassment.
"I could… wash them myself."
Sute says quietly. Kin raises one eyebrow.
"Oh?"
He says with a small teasing smile.
"And you know how to use a washing machine?"
Sute opens his mouth.
Then closes it again.
Silence stretches between them as he realizes he doesn't actually have an answer. He's never used one before. All his life, when he needed to wash something, he had just taken it to the river along with the rest of his washing up supplies he could get his hands on which mainly consists of a used bar of soap, an almost empty tube of toothpaste and a tooth brush he's had for far too many years—it's bristles nearly all fallen off.
Kin watches the realization dawn on his face and quickly understands.
"Hey, it's fine…"
Kin says lightly, brushing the concern away with a wave of his hand.
"I need to wash my clothes too anyway. If you want, you can watch how it works and try next time."
Sute nods eagerly at that.
"Okay."
He walks over and sits beside Kin on the couch, his movements a little more relaxed now.
That's when he notices the notebook. His notebook. Kin is still holding it loosely in one hand.
Sute tilts his head in that small, curious way he has when he doesn't understand something.
"What are you doing with my journal?"
He asks innocently.
Kin pauses for the smallest fraction of a second.
"Oh—this?"
He says casually, closing it and setting it back down on the coffee table.
"I was just moving it out of the way."
Sute accepts the explanation without question. Kin stands and stretches his arms over his head, letting out a long yawn that seems to ripple through his whole body.
"Well…"
He says, glancing at the wall clock.
"I think it's time for bed."
As if the suggestion alone triggered it, Sute yawns too, covering his mouth with the back of his hand.
"Okay."
He murmurs sleepily.
Kin bends and lifts him again, the motion so familiar now that Sute barely startles anymore. He simply wraps his arms around Kin's shoulders while being carried down the short hallway to the bedroom.
Kin sets him down on the twin-size bed.
Sute slips under the covers almost immediately, the blanket rising up around his chest as he settles into the familiar spot. Kin walks around the other side and climbs in as well.
The bed is small and it always forces them close together beneath the covers, their shoulders touch and bump each other with every shift of movement.
Kin reaches over to his bedside table and opens the small bottle there, shaking two sleeping pills into his palm. He swallows them with a sip of water, then turns off the lamp beside the bed.
The room falls into soft darkness.
Before lying down completely, Kin pulls the covers up properly around Sute, tucking them in the way he has started doing every night without really thinking about it.
Then he lies on his side as Sute also shifts to his side allowing them to come face-to-face.
Their eyes meet.
The ritual begins.
It started the very first night Sute had stayed here. Kin had insisted he sleep in the same bed, and he had asked Sute to look at him and think about things that made him happy.
Sute never fully understood why but Kin knew.
When Sute was happy, his eyes turned that brilliant, shimmering shade of icy blue that Kin could stare at for hours.
The first night had gone badly. Kin had been so fascinated that he never slept at all, waking Sute whenever he started to drift off just so those eyes would stay open. The next day Sute had been so exhausted he collapsed while walking and banged his leg on the coffee table.
After that, Kin changed the routine. Now he takes the sleeping pills first. Then Sute tells him about the happiest moments of his day while Kin watches those bright blue eyes until the medication pulls him into sleep.
Sute begins quietly.
"Today…"
He says softly, thinking it over.
"I liked cooking dinner with you. And the bath. And learning how to use the spoon."
As he talks, his eyes brighten. That familiar, glistening icy-blue returns, catching what little light remains in the room.
Kin feels his body slowly relaxing as he watches them. Those eyes. That color. They're the last thing he sees before sleep begins to pull him under.
His breathing deepens, the tension leaving his shoulders as the medication takes hold, and within minutes he drifts off completely.
Sute watches him for a while longer.
He thinks Kin's eyes are actually very pretty too, even if they're darker. And he likes this quiet little ritual they share at night, because he can see how calm Kin becomes when he relaxes like this.
He shifts a little closer beneath the blankets, instinctively seeking warmth. Their legs brush, then tangle together again in the small bed, which makes him flush faintly in the dark.
Still, the warmth is comforting. But tonight something else stirs.
The absence of underwear beneath the borrowed shorts leaves every slide of fabric against skin startlingly direct. The soft cotton clings and shifts with the slightest movement, and when Sute presses his thigh more firmly along the length of Kin's leg, the friction sends a quiet shiver up his spine.
He doesn't mean to keep moving.
Or maybe he does.
His hips roll once—slow, tentative—nudging the warm cradle of Kin's hip. The thin shorts do nothing to hide how sensitive he is there; the bare head of his cock brushes against Kin's thigh through the fabric, already half-hard from the closeness, the heat, the quiet safety of being held like this every night. A small, involuntary sound escapes his throat—barely a breath.
He freezes, cheeks burning, but Kin doesn't stir.
Emboldened by the steady rhythm of Kin's sleeping breaths, Sute lets himself move again.
This time it's deliberate.
He drags the inside of one smooth thigh up along Kin's leg, then down again, the motion rubbing the soft, swollen length of his cock against the firm muscle of Kin's thigh in long, lazy strokes.
The shorts ride up farther with each pass until the hem bunches uselessly higher until they settle on his hips, leaving only the thinnest barrier between sensitive skin and Kin's warmth.
Pre-cum beads at the tip, darkening a small patch of fabric, making every glide slicker, hotter.
Sute's breathing turns shallow, whether due to fear or arousal he wasn't sure.
He presses closer still—chest to Kin's chest, one knee sliding over Kin's hip so he can grind more fully against the dip of his pelvis. The blunt pressure against his cock makes his toes curl beneath the sheets. His free hand finds Kin's shirt and curls into the fabric over his ribs, anchoring himself as his hips rock in tiny, needy circles.
Each movement is slow yet frantic, almost reverent.
He watches Kin's face the whole time—peaceful, slack with sleep, lashes dark against his cheeks—and something tender and desperate twists in Sute's chest at the sight.
'I want to stay like this forever.'
Just this quiet friction, this secret rhythm, Kin's body warm and solid beside him while those sleeping pills keep everything safely distant.
Sute's eyes flutter half-closed, icy-blue dimming to something softer, hazier.
A final, trembling roll of his hips presses him flush—cock trapped between his own stomach and the hard plane of Kin's side—and he lets out the smallest, broken whimper.
Then he stills before climax. Breath shuddering, skin becoming slick with sweat but he doesn't finish. Not tonight, not when it would make a mess.
Instead he simply stays there—wrapped around Kin, thighs trembling faintly, heart hammering against Kin's ribs—until exhaustion finally wins.
Sute exhales one long, shaky breath, closes his eyes and lets sleep take him, still pressed close, still flushed and aching in the dark.
—
Morning arrives quietly. The light that slips through the edges of the blackout curtains is faint and gray, the kind of early light that suggests the world is already awake even if the house itself still sleeps. In the small bedroom, the air is warm beneath the blankets, and for a while nothing moves at all.
Sute wakes first. He doesn't move immediately when his eyes open. Instead, he remains exactly where he is, nestled within the loose circle of Kin's arms, the warmth of another body pressed flush against him in a way that still feels unfamiliar enough to notice but comforting enough that he doesn't want to disturb it.
Kin's arm is draped over him almost protectively, one hand resting near Sute's waist beneath the blanket, the slow rhythm of Kin's breathing steady and deep against the crook of Sute's neck. Sute lies there quietly, listening to it.
A faint flush creeps across his face as he realizes just how close they are, how naturally his body has tucked itself into the space beside Kin's without hesitation.
And the strange thing is… he likes it.
He likes waking up here.
He likes knowing exactly where he is.
For a long moment he simply watches Kin's sleeping face, noticing small details that always seem different in the quiet softness of morning—the way his blond hair has fallen slightly across his forehead during the night, the way his lashes cast pale shadows along his cheeks.
Sute's thoughts wander. Without meaning to, his mind drifts back. Back to the first time he ever saw him.
—
It had been early spring.
One of those cold mornings where winter hadn't quite let go yet, and the air carried a sharp bite even though cherry blossoms had already begun falling in soft pale flurries along the sidewalks.
It was Sute's first day of his final year of high school. He remembers the uniform.
A crisp blue jacket, neatly pressed trousers, a white shirt that still smelled faintly of detergent. It was the nicest thing he owned—really the only nice thing he owned—and the reason it stayed that way had nothing to do with luck.
His parents made sure of that.
The moment he came home each afternoon he was ordered to remove the uniform and fold it away carefully. They did not want blood stains on it. They did not want lashes and burns bleeding through the fabric. It was meant to look respectable when he wore it to school which meant he only wore it for a few hours each day. And during those hours he had to be careful.
Careful that his bullies didn't smear dirt across the jacket, careful that they didn't shove him into something messy, careful that if anything happened he could clean it in the school bathroom before returning home.
Otherwise…
Otherwise there would be consequences.
That morning he had walked his usual path to school, shoulders hunched forward as if apologizing to the world for existing in it. His long black hair hung forward like a curtain around his face, hiding as much of him as possible. It helped. Sometimes.
His gaze stayed fixed on the ground until he heard laughter. Bright laughter.
The kind of easy, carefree sound that felt so foreign it made him look up almost instinctively. Through the narrow gaps between the strands of his bangs, he saw him.
Kin.
Walking a little further ahead along the path with a small group of other boys, his posture relaxed, his smile effortless and warm as sunlight itself.
Sute had never seen someone like him before.
Kin's hair looked almost golden under the pale morning sun, soft and fluffy as it shifted with the breeze. His skin was pale and clear without a single mark, his expression open and cheerful in a way that seemed impossible.
And his smile—
It was so bright that Sute had actually stopped walking for a moment, watching in quiet disbelief.
He had thought then, in that strange way a lonely mind forms comparisons, that if someone could embody the sun itself, it would look like Kin.
Warm, radiant and completely unreachable.
And if Kin was the sun…
Then Sute was the new moon. Dull and unseen, existing only to be pulled around by something brighter.
But strangely enough, that thought hadn't made him sad. Because when Kin smiled like that, when laughter spilled easily from him into the air, Sute had felt something warm touch the edges of his chest.
Like sunlight reaching somewhere it had never quite reached before.
—
The memory dissolves slowly.
Sute blinks, returning to the present just as Kin begins to stir beside him.
The sleeping pills have long worn off by now, and Kin wakes naturally with the slow groggy awareness of someone climbing back out of deep sleep. A quiet groan escapes him as he shifts, arms tightening instinctively around whatever warmth he finds within reach which happens to be Sute.
The sudden squeeze catches him off guard and a small yelp slips from his mouth before he can stop it.
"Eep."
He clamps both hands over his lips immediately, eyes widening in panic. He hadn't meant to make noise. He hadn't meant to wake him up.
But Kin is already becoming aware of what he's holding. His arms loosen slightly as his mind catches up with his body, and when his eyes finally open—
They meet the most brilliant blue he has ever seen.
The effect is immediate.
Kin's grogginess evaporates in an instant, replaced by a sharp surge of awareness that floods through him like electricity. His heart kicks hard in his chest.
'That color! That impossible, shimmering icy-blue! Incredible!'
His blood feels like it's boiling.
Before Sute can even react, Kin pushes himself up and shifts his weight forward, moving quickly enough that the mattress dips sharply beneath them. In the next moment Sute finds himself completely caged beneath him, Kin's taller body hovering over his smaller frame with an intensity that makes the air between them feel suddenly thin.
"What were you thinking about just now?"
Kin demands, his voice low but urgent, almost desperate.
Inside his mind a single thought repeats over and over.
'Tell me! Tell me so I can make it happen again!'
Sute's face flushes instantly, startled by the sudden movement and the closeness.
"I—I—"
He stammers, scrambling to find words.
"I was just thinking about the first time we met! T-the pink flowers were so pretty a-and you in blue…"
Kin freezes. For a brief moment he actually tries to remember.
He searches his memory carefully, flipping through the moments he associates with Sute, but the first one that truly stands out—the first one that matters—is the moment he saw those eyes turn that perfect shade of blue.
Before that…
Everything feels blurry. But he doesn't want Sute to notice that.
Because if Sute thinks he doesn't remember, if disappointment dulls that beautiful color even slightly—
Kin forces a smile.
"Oh!"
He says softly, as though the memory has returned easily.
"Of course. That day."
He leans down a little closer, pretending to search his mind while actually constructing the story from the fragments Sute has already given him.
'Pink flowers might be…'
"The cherry blossoms…"
He continues, voice gentle.
'Me in blue? The school's uniform maybe?'
"You were walking to school."
Sute's entire face lights up.
"Yes!"
He says quickly, relieved.
"You remember!"
Kin nods calmly. Inside, he feels the tension melt away as he watches the transformation happen right in front of him.
Sute's eyes brighten. The blue becomes brighter, clearer, sparkling like sunlight across clear water.
They stare at each other.
Kin lifts a hand slowly and cups Sute's cheek, his fingers resting carefully against the fragile bones beneath his skin. His thumb brushes just beneath Sute's eye socket, tracing the delicate line there.
For the briefest moment a strange thought flickers through Kin's mind.
'How long would it take to get into medical school?'
'How difficult would it be to learn the procedures necessary to transplant eyes?'
The idea lingers there, half-formed, dangerously fascinating.
Under the dim morning light his own black eyes look darker than usual, almost hollow within the shadow of his brow.
But Sute doesn't find them frightening. To him those eyes are beautiful. They belong to the one person who saved him when no one else did.
The person who took him in when everyone else had already decided he was disposable.
Sute smiles shyly beneath Kin's gaze.
A deep blush spreads across his pale cheeks, vivid against skin so light that even the faintest color becomes striking.
And in that moment, with those brilliant blue eyes shining up at him, Kin feels the world narrow down to exactly what he needs it to be.