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Maki never liked the snow. It’s cold, impractical and uncomfortable. She didn’t like being outside in it as a child and standing out here in it now, she quickly realizes that it hasn’t changed one bit. Her coat and scarf feels almost suffocating, but she knows taking it off will only be even more annoying.
There’s also the snow that has somehow managed to get into her boot. She doesn’t like that either.
Closing her eyes and letting out a deep sigh, Maki continues to contemplate her choices. Why did she agree to go here in the first place? (She knows the answer to that one). And why, why, did she agree to go even though Shuichi and Kaede got sick and cancelled last minute? (She knows the answer to that one as well).
The answer, obvious as it is to her, Shuichi and Kaede, is standing right in front of her, oblivious (of course) to the fact that he’s the reason she’s here. He’s standing with his back turned to her, looking out over the mountain side, and she can see his shoulders rise as breathes in the fresh, cold air. He’s probably smiling at the simple, boring sight of white, white, white as far as the eye reaches. Idiot.
Sure enough, there’s a smile on his lips when he turns to face her again and it only seems to grow wider. “So what do you think, Maki Roll?” He swiftly makes his way over to her and she instinctively takes a step back as he steps into her space. It doesn’t stop him and he only takes one step more (she doesn’t mind) until his arm is around her shoulder.
She tenses up, but only briefly, and she’s pretty sure he doesn’t notice. She doesn’t mind. It’s not like she dislikes physical affection, especially not from him, it just always manages to catch her off guard, which is unfortunate when her best friend (and crush) is the most casually affectionate person she’s ever met.
His free hand, the one that isn’t resting on her shoulder, gestures out towards the snow. “Isn’t it beautiful?” It’s clear that he wants her to look and so she does, but her mind is elsewhere. His chin is pressed against the side of her head and she can feel his chest moving up and down.
She almost forgets to breathe, but then she remembers that she isn’t the idiot here so she settles for blushing instead. “It’s snow,” she states and he laughs and she smiles and shakes her head and untangles herself from Kaito’s grip. “Are we leaving or what?”
“Well we could,” he says as his hand meets hers. Not in that way. They’re simply both reaching out for her bag at the same time, but she’s quick to retract hers. A mistake, she realizes, as Kaito manages to scoop it up before she has the chance to react. “But it’s breathtaking here. We could stay here for a while. Enjoy it.”
“It’s a bus stop,” she says. “Also I can carry that myself, you know.”
“Nonsense.” Kaito takes a step back as she tries to snatch it from his grasp. Of course these are the kinds of things he is prepared for. “It’s a man’s job to carry the bags. Seriously, I got this.”
There is nothing in this world that could have stopped her from sighing. “Fine. Carry it then,” she kicks a little snow in his direction as she gives in. Arguing with him is a waste of time; time that could be spent walking to their cabin.
He flashes a big smile at her, then starts walking with the confidence of someone who knows where they’re going.
It quickly becomes clear to her that Kaito “I don’t believe in maps” Momota has no idea where they’re going and maybe she’s thankful he offered to carry her bag, because that means she can trail behind, pull out a map on her phone and subtly point him in the right direction without deflating his ego. There’s plenty of time for that when they’re not out in the cold.
On her phone, it says the walk from the bus stop to their cabin should only take 30 minutes. In her opinion, 30 minutes is a long time. Too long. It sadly doesn’t surprise her that the trip ends up taking longer than that.
“You’re like a dog sometimes,” she sighs when Kaito once again tells her to stop. “You know that, right?”
Either Kaito doesn’t hear her or he just chooses to ignore what she’s saying. He lets their bags fall into the snow and kneels down in it himself, right in front of a snowman they encounter. “Look at this guy.”
Of course he’s the type to get distracted by a snowman. Whatever. She looks at the thing, but the bags are in the corner of her vision. “If you’re going to insist on carrying our bags, the least you can do is keep mine from getting wet,” she states.
“Oh, right.” He grabs her bag out from the snow and hugs it to his chest instead. “Hey Maki Roll. Do you want to build a snowman with me?”
“Here?” She asks and he nods. She glances down to her phone. They still have 15 minutes before they reach the cabin, maybe 20 if he keeps holding them up at every single sight they see. “No.”
“Oh, come on. It’ll be fun!”
She promises him they’ll build one later, after she’s had a chance to warm up, and it’s enough to get him to agree to come with her. He thankfully lets her lead the rest of the way, suddenly more interested in enjoying their surroundings than leading the way.
And sure, it’s pretty, she can admit that. Tall trees and snow banks surround them, footprints and the occasional small path leading off to a cabin somewhere the only evidence they’re not alone up here, bird song only being cut off by the sound of Kaito’s voice telling her about how he once won a toddler skiing tournament. She wants to ask him how he can be so excited about the snow when he’s apparently already spent so much time in it, but she doesn’t want to interrupt his story. Her questions can wait.
They reach their cabin, and Maki feels as if she and Kaito are the only people in the entire world. Everything is so far away, or at least it feels that way. He looks around, again in wonder, until she reminds him that he has the key.
The inside is both smaller and bigger than she imagined it’d be. It’s small enough for her to consider it cozy, but the addition of the big room that Shuichi and Kaede were supposed to share servers as a reminder that it’s really just her and Kaito up here for an entire weekend.
Kaito offers to let her have their friends’ room since they won’t be using it, but she declines. She’s fine sticking to the single room she was supposed to stay in. Besides, he seems pleased when he announces that he’ll be staying in it if she’s sure and she’s becoming painfully aware of how happy just seeing him smile makes her (and he smiles a lot when he’s around her).
While he gets a fire going, she calls the restaurant they’re dining at tonight to inform them that they’ll need a table for two rather than one for four. She’s close to asking Kaito if they can’t just eat at home since it’s just them, but then she remembers that he’s the one who suggested they’d eat out to begin with. Besides, they still need to go pick up groceries for the weekend.
She tries to delay the inevitable, but her friend is an unstoppable force and so, once she’s finished up the call, he drags her outside.
“So what exactly are you doing?” She asks, staring up at him with a stern look.
It earns her a chuckle. “Well, Maki Roll, we are building a snowman.”
After a moment of silence, she sighs. “Fine.” She follows his lead and reluctantly joins him on her knees in the snow. “How… exactly do you build a snowman?”
His jaw falls open, only slightly but it’s visible enough for her to notice. “Hang on. You’ve never built a snowman?” She shakes her head which only makes him raise his brows in surprise. “Huh. That’s alright! We’re building it together, after all.”
And so, they start building it together. They build the “legs” together (Kaito calls them legs but it looks absolutely nothing like it). Maki tells herself that she expects it to be awful and ignores that she’s lying to herself. Kaito might be an idiot, but he always manages to drag her into seemingly silly activities that she missed out on when she was younger.
Being with Kaito makes her feel alive. It’s like she’s always lived in darkness and suddenly someone came along and dropped a million glow sticks, and for the first time she sees the world in color. So many beautiful colors from such childish things.
As they roll the torso onto the thing, Kaito puts an arm on her upper back and flashes her another big smile. It’d be nice if it didn’t mean he was letting her pull most of the weight. It doesn’t matter. She’s strong enough to handle it and being close to him is never a bad thing in her book.
Everything about him is breathtaking and there’s always a sparkle in his eyes. Usually, it’s a reflection of the night’s sky (it’s a little cliché, seeing as he is an astronaut trainee who thinks stargazing is the perfect way to spend his, and anyone else’s for that matter, time).
Right now, the spark is a childlike wonder mixed with the brightness of the snow surrounding them. The wonder never fails to captivate her and if she didn’t refuse being caught blushing, she’d look into them more often.
She has no idea how long they stand like that. Even after the torso is safely in place, Kaito’s hand is firmly placed on her back and her hands are still on the thing.
“What’s up?” He asks, finally retracting his hand to scratch the back of his neck.
No one tells her she has to think quickly (well, no one but herself anyway), but she does. “Oh, um… you have something on your face.” It’s a lie, but it feels like a harmless and necessary one to throw him off from the fact that there was something more to it.
Both of his hands raise to his face and he brushes the sides of his face in an attempt to remove whatever thing he thinks there is. “Thanks for letting me know. I knew I could always count on you. Is it gone now?”
I knew I could always count on you hurts a bit. She closes her eyes and tries to think of a way to salvage this. “Not… not quite, no.” She takes a step closer to him and her breath gets caught in her throat for a second as she slowly reaches her hand upwards, resting it on his chin. Slowly, softly, she runs her thumb over the corner of his mouth, very briefly brushing over his lips.
He doesn’t seem to mind, doesn’t seem to move, but he’s holding his breath and–
She takes another step and he still doesn’t show any sign of moving. She could kiss him. It’d be so easy to slip her hand around his neck and pull him down. But what if she’s just telling herself that the moment seems right and that rather than caught up in it because he wants to kiss her as well, he’s intimidated by her and standing still because he doesn’t know what to do? If it goes wrong, they might never be able to finish their snowman. The rest of the weekend could end up painfully awkward.
Instead of kissing him, she proceeds to give his shoulders a firm push and while he’s falling to the ground (away from their snowman), she too dives into it. His landing is sudden and inelegant, while hers is calculated and accompanied by a roll.
“Hey!” He shouts (he often forgets not to shout). Before he has a chance to get up, to do anything really, Maki has grabbed some snow and she proceeds to (carefully) throw it at his face. “What was that for?”
While he wipes the snow off of his face, she forms a snowball. “I told you, you had something on your face. Maybe I simply spoke too early.”
His face softens up and he reaches for some snow to get started on his own, but it’s too late. She throws her snowball first. It hits his shoulder and when he’s finally ready to throw his, she’s ready to dodge.
Their fight goes on for a while as they navigate around the half-finished snowman, careful not to knock it over or somehow ruin it. It’s a surprisingly good time and Maki can’t remember the last time she’s smiled consistently for so long. To be fair, every single one of her shots hit and about half of his miss.
Eventually, he gives up. Well, he gives up in his own way. He tackles her into the snow and while she might be stronger than him, she’s also much smaller. She ends up on her back in the snow and when she tries to get up, Kaito’s suddenly on top of her. He’s got her pinned to the ground and he’s holding her arms over her head and it’d be so easy for her to get out of this position (his grip isn’t strong and she knows exactly what to do), but she finds herself not wanting to.
So she just lays there.
“I can’t believe you’d play dirty like that,” he breathes out. “Breaking the snowball fight protocol like that? Not cool.”
She blinks. “I didn’t realize there was a snowball fight protocol,” she says, her voice devoid of emotion but her eyes almost drowning in them. “This was my first time.”
“This is your first snowball fight and you’re so good at it? I should have seen that coming.” He laughs and– is it wishful thinking or is he leaning in? “Man, I wish Shuichi and Kaede were here so we could have teamed up and destroyed them.”
Okay. Probably wishful thinking. That’s the least romantic thing he could have said. Who talks about wanting their friends to be there when leaning in for a kiss? Especially the first one? (To be fair, Maki wouldn’t know, not for certain. This would have been another first for her).
“Don’t tell anyone…” he whispers. Oh, yeah, he’s definitely leaning in. She holds her breath until he lets go of one of her hands. “... but I’m about to break s-”
Before he manages to scoop the snow in her face, Maki uses her free hand to push him over. She rolls with him and ends up on top, and this time it’s her turn to hold onto his hand (her reasoning is better; he’s forming a snowball and this is self-defense). “Quit rolling around in the snow, idiot. What are you, five?”
She narrows her eyes at him and then she gets up, kicking just a little snow at him before extending her hand to help him up.
They roll the head and place it on top of the torso without incident and Kaito tells her to remember that they need to buy carrots to give the thing a nose. She tells him that he can remember that himself and then they head inside.
Their dinner isn’t too special, but Kaito insists on paying and for once it’s not because it’s a man’s duty or whatever; instead it’s because he wants to. They share a look that perfectly conveys what they don’t say, so they skip the argument and she lets him pay.
Only a small part of her regrets it when he walks out ahead of her and she finds her cheeks heating up and a small smile forming on her lips. It’s unfair that such a small gesture has such a big effect on her.
The grocery run is even less special, but they stock up on the few things they need. Maki ends up reminding him they need to grab that carrot. It’s no surprise, really.
For once, Maki allows herself to sleep in. That is to say that she doesn’t get up when she wakes up, but rather she turns around and tries to fall back asleep. But it’s hard and she’s almost about the give up when she starts hearing sounds from outside her room.
There’s something oddly comforting about waking up in a space where someone else is clearly present. She wants to be annoyed that Kaito’s taking a shower so early in the morning when her room is right next to the bathroom, she wants to be annoyed that he’s singing in the shower and that he doesn’t stop humming to himself as he leaves for the kitchen.
It pretty quickly dawns on her that she can’t, so she falls back asleep to the sound of him messing around in the kitchen.
How long has it been? 15 minutes? An hour? Maki honestly isn’t sure, but she doesn’t have time to care because Kaito is knocking on her door. “Rise and shine, sunshine.”
“Sunshine?” She questions, raising an eyebrow in the direction of the door despite knowing he can’t see her through it. She gets up and quickly gets into a pair of the pajama pants Kaede insisted she brought. Then she opens the door. “Good morning, idiot.”
She’s met with a bright smile, as she so often is when Kaito’s around. “Good morning! And yes. Sunshine.” His hair hasn’t dried yet, it isn’t even up in the usual stupid spike, and he’s wearing a purple pajamas with a star design (of course there’s a star design). He freezes for a moment and she can practically see him doing mental math. Then his smile drops. “Hey! I told you to stop calling me an idiot. I’m not an idiot.”
“Why exactly are you at my door?” She decides to brush over his comment and go straight to questioning his intentions.
“Glad you asked. I–” he says, taking a step back and grabbing something from outside the room. It doesn’t take long for him to step back. “Brought breakfast.”
And sure enough, in his hands are two plates of delicious looking breakfast food. It’s surprising, actually. Kaito doesn’t exactly strike her as the type who’d be good at cooking, in fact she expected him to be awful at it; he seems more like the ‘burn the kitchen down’-type. To be fair, this is the first time he’s had the chance. Whenever they eat together, it’s always takeout or at Kaede and Shuichi’s place.
Rather than arguing, Maki gets back in bed. She leans her back against the wall and gestures for Kaito to come join her. And he does.
The food doesn’t taste as good as it looks, but their knees rest against each other and Maki gets overwhelmed with a nostalgia for something she’s never experienced. She’s still not exactly sure what home means to her, but she imagines it’s something like this. Sitting in a bed with someone you love, doing something mundane and not just feeling comfortable, but happy too.
The rest of their day isn’t all that interesting. They go ice skating and Kaito buys them hot chocolate. He insists on paying (this time they’re back to it being a man’s duty) and she lets him, and maybe it’s not just because she knows he’s stubborn. Maybe it’s because she wants this to be something more.
Once they’ve warmed up, Kaito manages to drag her out for a walk and she manages to drag him back inside after less than an hour.
They cook dinner together. The kitchen isn’t all that big and they have to navigate closely around each other. Kaito grabs his phone and puts some music on in the background and he hums along. She turns her back to him to chop vegetables and to smile to herself.
She doesn’t know if she's ever felt this close to another person and she doesn’t know if she ever wants to. She’s well aware that she often gets caught up in the fantasy of normalcy and she’s well aware that she never thought it possible. But as a reckless idiot once said, the impossible is possible. He makes her think that maybe, just maybe, he can make it so.
It’s dark out and Maki’s considering going to sleep. She’s been reading in her room for a while and it’s getting late and it seems like the logical next step.
Of course, her cabin mate doesn’t work in logic. He works in passion and in desire, and when he knocks on her door and tells her to get dressed and go outside, she can’t argue. Well, she can and she does, but she knows it’s a lost cause because… well, first of all, it’s Kaito. Getting anything through his thick skull is a mission on its own.
And secondly? She wants to.
Well, she doesn’t want to. It’s late and it’s already cold here in the first place, so why would she want to be outside at night where it’s even colder? It doesn’t make sense. But she wants to spend time with him and she wants to make him happy, and even though her knowledge about the night’s sky doesn’t go further than what he’s already told her, she’s starting to see the appeal.
So they go outside and Kaito spreads out a blanket and lies down and when she refuses, he pouts. She sighs and lays down anyway.
“Why exactly are we looking at the stars again?” She asks.
“Are you kidding me? Look at them, Maki Roll. They’re so much clearer out of the city.”
“So? It’s still the same sky.”
He chuckles and gently nudges his shoulder against hers. “It’s pretty, okay?”
“Sure.”
For a while, the two of them lay side by side and just look up at the night’s sky. Maki occasionally glances at him but every time, his eyes seem glued to the stars. And of course, they’re sparkling. Idiot.
Eventually, she breaks the silence. “Aren’t you going to tell me any of your stupid space facts?”
“One: They’re not stupid. They’re fun and interesting. And two: Aww, finally ready to admit that you want to hear my cool space facts?”
“Shut up.”
He turns his face towards her and flashes a big smile. “Did you know that the fourth person to ever go to space is also the youngest person to ever go to space?”
She shakes her head, because obviously she doesn’t know cool, fun and interesting space facts like he does. “Really?”
“Really,” he confirms. Then he turns back to look at the sky. “Gherman Titov. Fourth person in space, second to orbit planet earth. First person to ever throw up in space. He was twenty five at the time.” After a moment of silence, he continues. “In October, they’re sending up Haley Arceneaux. She’ll be twenty nine when she goes, making her the youngest American up there. Not that that matters. When I beat Titov, I’ll easily beat her too. Still, it’s pretty cool. She’s a cancer survivor, y’know?”
“You’re saying y’know like it’s common knowledge. I didn’t even know she existed before just now, why would I know she’s a cancer survivor?” She asks and rolls her eyes. She turns her attention away from Kaito to look back up at the stars. “Why do you keep up with this stuff anyway?”
He laughs. “I gotta know my competition. If all goes well, I’ll be going up there when I’m twenty two. I am the first teen to ever pass the exam,” he says as if she doesn’t already know.
Whatever. She’s used to him slipping that into their conversations every now and again. “You’re turning twenty two in a few months. If Arceneaux is going in October, don’t you think they’d have made plans for you to go within the next year or so?” She avoids the fact that twenty two seems ridiculously young to go to space.
“Well, my birthday is April 12th. That’s the International Day of Human Space Flight, y’know?” She does know. He tells her every year. “Maybe they’re keeping it a surprise until then. I’m sure it’ll happen.”
She snorts and turns to look at him to roll her eyes at his face; it’s a lost cause as he’s still looking at the sky, but the sentiment is there. He doesn’t say anything either, so after a minute of silence, she decides to speak up. “I sometimes admire your blind optimism.”
When he turns to face her, she immediately looks back up. “Why, thank y– are you blushing?”
“Do you want to die?” She says and it’s partly a joke, but mostly deflection. “I’m just cold. That’s all. We should head back in.”
And so, they go back inside. Maki’s shivering and Kaito offers her a hug to warm her up, but his body is cold from being outside so it doesn’t help much. And apparently, he recognizes it, because he goes to grab his duvet.
“You can’t seriously be suggesting we cuddle for warmth,” she says.
He shrugs. “Why not? It’s not a bad idea.”
Weighing her options doesn’t take long because she already knows that she’s going to say yes, but she still takes her time. “Fine. Whatever.”
And that’s how Maki somehow manages to fall asleep on the couch next to Kaito Momota.
She knows for a fact that she didn’t fall asleep in Kaito’s arms but when the light from the window wakes her up in the morning, that’s exactly where she finds herself. He’s still asleep, snoring lightly with a stupid look on his face, and for a moment she forgets to breathe.
But not breathing is highly impractical, so she quickly stops doing that and instead she decides that there’s no harm in resting her head on his chest and closing her eyes. She’s not sure she’s ever felt safer.
Eventually Kaito stops snoring and starts moving a bit under her, but then she feels him tightening his arms around her and giving her a little squeeze. “Hey,” he whispers. “Are you awake?”
She nods.
“Good morning, then. How’d you sleep?”
She smiles and shuffles a little closer to him. He’s the one who suggested cuddling last night and he’s the one who ended up wrapping his arms around her and he’s the one who tightened them when he woke up. She’s allowed to reciprocate. “Good morning. I slept well. How did you sleep?”
“Better than I have in a while,” he admits.
Her cheeks heat up. “... Me too.”
None of them make a move to get up so they end up spending a good fifteen minutes silently cuddling on the couch, her cheek pressed against his chest and his thumb brushing over her arm and their breaths synchronized.
Someone has to be the one who ends the moment and not wanting Kaito to make that decision for them, Maki announces that she’s going to the bathroom to get ready. But he makes a good point (‘Not if I get there first’) so instead she finds herself sitting around on the couch, waiting for him to be done.
Once he’s done, he heads back to the couch and so Maki joins him there when she’s ready. She might as well, right?
He slips his phone into his pocket and turns to face her with a bright smile. “Hey,” he says as he moves over a bit and gestures for her to join him on the couch. She does. “I know we have to be out of here in a few hours, but how would you feel about watching a movie or something?”
She doesn’t mind so they find a movie to ignore as they talk about Maki’s experience working in retail and about how nice it is to have a weekend away from everything, about how nice it is to spend time together.
“Yeah,” Kaito says and pushes himself up a bit. It isn’t until she looks straight up into his eyes that it fully dawns on her that somewhere along the way, they found their way back to laying together, cuddling on the couch. “I wish we could do this more often. Just you and me.”
Words escape her but she manages to nod and eventually, she whispers a quiet ‘ me too’. He’s hovering above her, all his weight being held up by the arm he’s resting above her head and she can’t look away, can’t take her eyes off him.
Luckily, it seems he’s in a similar position and she can’t help but notice him glancing at her lips for a second before looking back into her eyes with a raised eyebrow, almost as if asking for permission.
Permission.
He’s asking for permission to kiss her.
She slowly pushes herself up towards him a bit and that’s her sign that he’s allowed to go on. She doesn’t want to nod, because what if she’s reading the situation wrong?
But she isn’t, because Kaito smiles and nods, and then he leans down closer to her and–
And then his phone rings. They both freeze and look at each other with wide eyes, until Kaito reaches for the phone in his pocket and picks up. “Oh, hi Shu–”
She cuts him off by snatching the phone out of his hand. She doesn’t mean to be rude, doesn’t mean to be impatient, but she doesn’t know what else to do. “Can we call you back later?” She asks. She doesn’t wait for an answer before hanging up and tossing the phone somewhere above them on the couch.
For a moment, they’re back to Kaito looking down on her and Maki looking up at him and the distance between them being so small yet too big. But she didn’t hang up on Shuichi just to stare at him, so she slips her hand behind his neck and buries her fingers in his hair.
She takes a deep breath.
Then she pulls him down.
Kissing Kaito is nothing like she imagined it’d be and at the same time, it’s exactly like she expected. His lips are rough, and he’s far too eager and she’s far too impatient. It’s not elegant, it’s messy and awkward and far from perfect, but it’s theirs.
It isn’t until their teeth accidentally clash against each other that they pull back. When she opens her eyes to look back up at him, she can see his cheeks are burning red. She’s sure hers are exactly the same.
“That was…” She starts, but she never finishes because she has no idea what exactly to say.
“Yeah,” Kaito says and laughs awkwardly. “Do you want to try again?”
She nods and then they try again. And again. And again and again and again and again, and eventually they get the hang of it. Even before they do, it’s nice because it’s Kaito. His body feels warm pressed against hers and somehow, being in his arms feels like being home.
On their walk to the bus, he asks if he can hold her hand. She says yes. Five minutes after they get on the bus, he asks if he can put his arm around her. She says yes. When they make it to her apartment building and they’re saying goodbye, he asks if he can kiss her again.
She says yes.