Chapter Text
“Remind me, Yu.”
They stumble into the wardrobe, an expansive room inside the venue rented by the Tokyo Literary Journal for tonight’s reading of the thirty-third issue. As one of the youngest poets to have been published in the journal this year, along with Nobara, Toge’s been asked to perform his senryū in front of the crowd coming to tonight’s launch. The event won’t be like any of Sorcery’s ones - there will be professional writers, authors, editors, even publishers in the audience this time. Toge asked Yuta to help him prepare for the recitation with some vocal exercises.
Fifteen minutes before showtime, they got a little sidetracked.
“Of what?” Yuta asks, voice breathy, question muffled by Toge’s lips as he presses him into the locker, where the steamed suits are hung. He caresses Toge’s hip bones as if they were beach glass.
“How to speak clearly.”
Yuta sighs into their kiss. His tongue presses against Toge’s with fervor. He tastes like a maddening flavour between green tea and grape throat medicine.
“You’ve been practicing,” Yuta muses.
Toge hums appreciatively, tilting his head, hand caressing Yuta’s hair at his nape. It feels like a field of forest burrs on a dewy morning.
“You should relax your jaw more, Toj.”
“Help me.”
Yuta wants to, really really wants to - he wants to nip at it, to take the phrase literally, to make Toge melt under his touch, but Yuta knows a hickey on the face isn’t quite the look Toge’s going for, what with prospective publishers sitting metres away from him. He settles for gently pecking at his jawline, only with his lips, taking his time at the angle.
His fingers brush over Toge’s neck. “You’ve been keeping this warm.”
“Not enough,” Toge retorts, pulling down the fabric.
Yuta’s dug his own grave and is lying in it. By this point it’s nearly impossible not to kiss every inch of his skin there, but Yuta restrains himself, nuzzling first with his nose, then licking up one of the tendons.
He vaguely starts to register that they’re pressed up against one of the clothes racks now, that their hands are wandering, when a voice shrieks from behind the door.
“Oi, lovebirds! Toge, you dufus, get out here! You’re on in five minutes!”
In their sixth months of knowing each other via her dating Maki, Nobara has gotten a lot closer - and likewise, snappier - to Toge.
He grumbles at her command and kisses Yuta’s nose instead.
“And Yuta-”
Yuta pauses at the mention of his name through the door, tongue still at the dip of Toge’s collarbone-
“-your boyfriend’s suit better be as ironed as I made it this morning, or I’m making Gojo pull your act from prom!”
That sobers them up. Nobara’s threats are as real as her girlfriend’s.
Yuta and Toge laugh, quietly, to themselves, a little giddy, before pulling apart. With great effort, Yuta forces Toge to change into a white turtleneck and don his suit for the evening. It’s a light lilac, matching the new studs that Yuta had gotten him for their semi-anniversary. He rolls up his sleeves as a final touch - much to Yuta’s delight.
Toge hurriedly ushers them both out of the room.
“I love you,” he whispers as they walk down the hall.
“Love you too,” Yuta whispers back. It took them months but they can finally say the words without inducing earth-shattering silence.
He presses a (quick) kiss to Toge’s lips before continuing towards the auditorium door. Toge turns the corner and meets an unimpressed, hands-on-hip Nobara. Beside her is Maki, who, once she sees Toge appear, gives her a good-luck kiss (on the mouth - to which Toge complains, “At least we got a room!”) before going in the same direction that Yuta did, leaving Nobara to lead Toge backstage at a furious pace.
“I swear…” she mutters, then quiets as the curtain begins to rise.
The publisher walks onto the stage, members of the editorial board flanking her. She introduces herself before saying the opening sentiments. Toge knows that in a few short phrases, he would be out there as well. The thought alone is enough to make his hands tremble by his sides. He looks around, noting how the other presenters are calm and composed. Even at a distance, he can feel them buzzing with excitement underneath it all, impatient to reveal their creations. It makes Toge feel even wearier.
He barely has time to school his face into a smile when an usher motions towards him from the wings.
“Please welcome our first contributor of the night, T.U.N.A. M.A.Y.O.!”
If this had happened ten months ago, he would’ve been on a plane by now, flying to another continent, away from everyone who’d ever seen or heard him and could put the two together. Ten months ago he couldn’t have imagined being presented to a room full of people who were about to not only see his face, but also hear his voice. Albeit, none of them, except for Nobara, Maki, and Yuta, are from his school, but still; he used to have an iron grip on his anonymity. He’s astounded by how much it’s loosened since then.
The creaks of Toge’s footsteps are drowned in the applause. He’s at the podium before he even realizes it. He bows his head involuntarily, only now registering the swaths of people sitting in front of him. Something cold drops in his lungs. His throat starts to feel unbearably itchy.
The moment he looks at the words in front of him, though, it all goes away. There is his poem - black on white, laminated, its lines looking as at home as they ever will on the first page of the journal. This is what he’s here for. To voice the story he’s written.
He looks up, briefly, to see Yuta smiling up at him from his seat in the frontmost row, eyes filled with bright blue emotion, the same one that flickered during their very first encounter. He’s listening intently. Toge’s not one to fantasize - he can’t ‘feel’ Yuta beside him, or in the mark on his collarbone under his shirt, or in the letters strewn between his hands. He senses only himself on the stage.
But, Toge senses his newfound readiness, too.