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Save for the dimly echoing sound of rain on the roof, the night was quiet. They tended to be, of course, without anyone to interrupt, which few people ever seemed to do. It was no matter -- Kazuma didn’t mind the quiet. In a sense, it had become a friend, and if nothing else facilitated productive study. If every now and then he paused in his reading to reach for the pen and diary sitting to the side on his low desk to record his thoughts and observations, it was purely for efficiency’s sake. Record-keeping was important, after all, and one never knew when something they’d chronicled would become important for later reference.
Of course, inked characters on pale parchment were also something stranger -- a conversation with oneself. A break from the silence; companionship in the form of kanji.
The hours were growing late, light long since faded from the sky, and Kazuma was debating whether to turn in early or stay up for another long night of study when a rare sound broke the silence to which he’d grown accustomed. It was a knock on the door that had broken the rhythm of the rain, and he wasted little time in rising from his seated position to answer.
Somehow, he’d known what he’d find even before the door had fully slid open. Somehow, still, the state of the man on the opposite side managed to surprise him.
“Ryuunosuke! You’re soaked --”
“I know.”
The dripping wet young man cut him off quickly, and it was impossible to miss a tremor to his lips as he pressed them tightly together, clearly fighting to gain composure. Ryuunosuke’s hair was plastered to his head, save for a few perpetually unruly cowlicks, and the strands left trails of water streaking down his face. By the way his eyes stayed wide open even as they shifted to the side, gaze unfocused, shaking, and looking anywhere but to meet Kazuma’s own gaze, rain may not have been the only thing to fall. Ryuunosuke had always had such a telling face.
“It’s . . .” he continued before Kazuma could speak, head tilted down and face somewhat hidden beneath the collar of the heavy, drenched coat that covered him, “. . . been a very long night. Could I stay over tonight? I really need to study, and . . . “
“Of course.” It was Kazuma’s turn to interrupt -- Ryuunosuke needn’t say more. After all, it wasn’t the first long night, nor his first time appearing at Kazuma’s door. More than once had the sound of his knocking broken the empty silence, and he’d never been turned away -- nor would he be. While it was still unclear what exactly it was at Ryuunosuke’s own home that made the nights so long, Kazuma had never needed clarification in order to offer solace. In truth, he’d much rather remain in the dark than force his best friend to speak aloud what he’d so painfully endured.
It was all he had to offer, but Kazuma’s home would remain a place where such thoughts needn’t follow Ryuunoske inside.
“Let’s get you dried off and warm, first,” he said with a calm smile. As he spoke, a hand rose to brush through Ryuunoske’s dripping hair and gently down the side of his face before coming to rest upon his shoulder as Kazuma led him indoors, appearing not to care how he dripped upon the floor. At the touch, the first hint of a smile appeared on Ryuunosuke’s lips, and his tense, trembling shoulders relaxed a fraction as he leaned nearly imperceptibly towards Kazuma’s hand.
They spoke not a word as Ryuunosuke busied himself hanging up dripping garments to dry and Kazuma briefly departed to retrieve a towel and blanket. The latter he deposited by the table where he’d been sitting before Ryuunoske’s arrival while he carried the towel towards where the other man was standing, arms wrapped around his chest as his eyes stared distantly through the wall.
In greeting, Kazuma tossed the towel over his head from behind, earning a startled cry which he ignored as he began to dry his best friend’s hair back to its normal fluffiness. “I can -- do that myself, you know --” he insisted, though his voice trailed off into a laugh.
“I know,” was Kazuma’s only smug reply as he finished his task, relieved to find Ryuunosuke both sounding and looking more like himself. His drying hair had fluffed outwards into unruly spikes in various directions -- which was, of course, its normal appearance.
The pair then made their way back towards the light of the candle Kazuma had been using to study, as well as the blanket beside the table on which it sat. Said blanket was tossed in Ryuunosuke’s direction as they settled down next to one another in front of the table, and he wasted no time at all in bundling himself up in its warmth. He’d been shielding a book underneath his elbow, presumably to keep it dry, but pulled it out then to settle it on his lap.
“. . . I still don’t know how you can sit like that . . .” he muttered, his own bundled, hunched over form rather different from Kazuma’s straight-backed cross-legged posture.
Kazuma laughed in reply, arms crossed over his chest. “Practice and discipline, Ryuunoske,” he replied, but the scolding tone to his voice was far too gentle to be genuine. If the faint smile that appeared on Ryuunosuke’s lips even as he huffed and rolled his eyes was any indication, it had had the desired effect.
For a few moments, they read in silence, all the while of which Kazuma’s diary sat to the side untouched. A minute passed, then another, and on the third Ryuunosuke shifted closer, both to the light of the candle and Kazuma’s side.
“. . . Ugh . . .” he muttered with a grimace, at which point Kazuma looked up from his book while pretending he’d been looking only at it all along.
“What is it?”
“I brought the wrong book,” Ryuunosuke said while pulling the one he’d had in his lap back under the blanket. “I meant to study for our English test tomorrow, but . . . I guess I was in a hurry.” With a sheepish smile, he rubbed the back of his neck.
“I’m surprised you didn’t forget your own head,” Kazuma teased in reply, though he busied himself simultaneously with lifting his own book from the desk. “Luckily, I’m working on the same thing. I don’t see any need for both of us to have books.”
With little preamble, he put the book in Ryuunosuke’s lap and shifted closer to his side, now somewhat behind him with his legs to the side. “I’m a generous host,” he continued. “I can read over your shoulder.”
“Thanks. . . I owe you one,” Ryuunosuke replied with a sheepish smile, then looked back down to the book.
Silence, again, far less lonely than before. A minute passed, another.
And on the third, Kazuma’s hand found its way to Ryuunoske’s opposite shoulder, receiving no protest. Another minute, another few breaths in the dim candlelight, and Kazuma’s chin gently lowered to rest on the shoulder beneath it.
He’d long since closed his eyes, but his lips twisted in a smile as his best friend shifted closer to the warmth of his body.
They would stay just as they were until morning, studying until one or the other inevitably succumbed to the pull of sleep. The other would quickly follow and, unwilling to move and disturb their sleeping friend, they’d stay tangled up together until the sun rose, just as they’d done during so many other long nights before.
For now, they’d stay in comfortable silence, warm and dry in their haven from the storm outdoors and elsewhere. There, in their own little world, with comfort and candlelight, and with Ryuunosuke’s English text under the blanket.