Archive of Our Own

The rain fell in sheets so thick that the mountain pathway was barely visible as it twisted over the bare rocks, winding ever upward. With the rain came the lightning, burning its afterimage upon the sky like hot metal upon wood. After the lightning came the thunder, which boomed and echoed off the cliffs as though threatening to split them in half with its reverberations. It was all noise, light, and shadow, as the heavens raged down toward the earth.

Through it all climbed a single figure, a small one—a boy. He pulled himself forward along the path, frozen fingers hoping to find purchase on the rock wall next to him. Every flash of lightning made him flinch, and every roar of thunder made him long to scream in response, to give in to the fear that was colder around his heart than the rain on his skin.

But he didn't stop, for in one of his pockets he carried the precious key to making the storm disappear, once and for all. The key to the boats being able to leave their tethered posts, to the fields drying, the crops seeing sunlight, to the village no longer being flooded. It was the key to their survival, if only he could reach the door.

And then, the boy knew, he would have to hope his key could unlock a god’s heart. The simple offering—a beautifully carved, but perfectly ordinary wooden flute—was supposed to be enough. The elders had said it was the act of delivering it, more than the object itself, that was important. ‘Through great effort, we show great love.’

They had sent the boy on a journey that would require the greatest effort—a journey to the top of the 'Eye of the Storm', the towering mountain which loomed over the village nestled at its base. This mountain was the highest point in the entire world. Only there, where the mortal realm touched the divine, could the god of sky and storms accept the offering.

The boy knew he must be close. He had to be. It had been days since he’d eaten. Longer since he’d slept. His limbs had ached so painfully and constantly that they had gone numb. And so, he must be close, or he’d never make it at all. He must be close…

A streak of lightning caught the edge of his vision. The wind and rain were so loud, the following thunder so deafening, that he didn’t hear the treacherous crack of rock as the ground crumbled away beneath him. The lightning had struck right beneath his feet.

The world tipped sideways as the earth fell away from him. He fell with it, without making a sound, down into darkness which swallowed him whole.

*

The boy woke slowly. His limbs felt heavy, his eyelids heavier. He settled for lying still, as perception came to him. First, he noticed he was warm—a sensation he’d nearly forgotten. Second, he realized he was dry, and that was almost stranger. And there was a noise, far off, something like the odd cry of a bird. He didn’t want to open his eyes yet to look—but there was light, just beyond. That seemed impossible because…

Memories returned to him. He had fallen, down into the dark.

The boy sat up, his eyes flying open. At first, everything was so bright that he had to close them again, wiping away tears while they adjusted. He peeked out from between his fingers.

A small gasp escaped him, the sound drawn forth unbidden as he took in for the first time the wonder of the world around him.

He was in some sort of garden—or no, a forest? He couldn't say, for the land around him looked both cultivated, yet wild, somehow at the same time. It spanned as far as he could see in all directions, out from the meadow in which he sat. There was waving grass and tall trees and streams and beyond those a far, blue expanse of sky, dotted with clouds, endless. The sun shining soft and gold down upon all of it, not a drop of rain in sight. The boy had grown up knowing grey skies and dark clouds. He had never seen anything like this in his entire life.

“Is this heaven?” he wondered. Had he died in the fall and found himself here?

And in response, someone laughed.

The boy spun, shock and fear flooding him again, his heart thundering in his chest. And then came the reply,

“No,” along with a flash of white teeth in a grin below large brown eyes as bright as a clear day, “you’re not in heaven.”

The boy stared. And staring back, was another boy. About his age. A little shorter. His hair stood straight up, adding a few inches to his small frame. And in the center was a peculiar yellow streak.

So many questions. “Where is it? Here?”

“Here is here, yes,” the shorter one laughed again.

“No, I mean—”

“You’re at the top of the mountain.”

This seemed so outrageously impossible that the boy couldn’t speak to form any more questions. How could he have ended up at the top after…?

“What’s your name?” the little one asked him.

That answer, at least, came easily. “A-Asahi.”

The other boy’s wide grin softened to a smile. Pleased. Fond, though they had just met. “Asahi,” he repeated, and the way he said it reminded Asahi a little bit of the gentle sound of light rain on water. The kind he liked that had lulled him to sleep in the years before the storms became an angry thing.

“What’s yours?” Asahi asked, all the other questions tumbling about in his head subsiding for the moment.

“My what?” the other boy asked.

“Your name.”

The boy blinked at him, as though surprised. “Oh,” he said. “You can call me Noya. Or Yuu.”

“Noya,” Asahi nodded, and the other boy was back to smiling. “Noya, do you know how I got up here? The last thing I remember, I was…”

“Falling.” Noya nodded. “When the lightning struck.”

“How did you know that?” Asahi asked. Noya winked at him.

“Figured it out when I found you.”

“You found me?” Asahi repeated, shocked. “Did you bring me up here? All this way?”

“It wasn’t hard!” Noya boasted, looking quite proud of himself. Asahi couldn’t help but grin, a bit bashfully. 

“Well—thank you,” he said. “It was… it was really important that I get here.” It was only then that he fully remembered—the offering. His hands flew to his pocket inside his cloak, searching, coming up empty, no—

“Asahi…” came the singsong voice and he looked up to see Noya holding the flute. Relief overwhelmed Asahi as he reached for it, but Noya pulled his hand back. “I didn’t say I was finished with it yet.”

“That’s not—” Asahi began, a little desperately. “That’s special, please be careful.”

“I am being very careful,” Noya informed him, putting his lips to the reed and blowing. His cheeks puffed out. The sounds he managed to produce were not musical in the slightest—in fact, Asahi realized he could now identify the almost-bird-sounds he had been hearing earlier.

“That’s for the storm god!” Asahi said, wringing his hands. Should he take it away? But he couldn’t be that rude, not to the person who had saved his life…

“Do you see any storm gods around?” Noya smirked, before continuing to toot away happily.

Well, when put that way… Asahi glanced around the beautiful expanse of space. It was so large that it made sense he wouldn’t be able to see the god, but then again, he had thought a sky god would be very imposing and easy to spot. But there was only Noya, and he was taking up all of Asahi’s attention, currently. Asahi frowned.

“Why are you up here, Noya?”

Noya stopped playing the flute. “Maybe for the same reason you are.”

“Did you bring an offering, too?” Asahi asked, finding himself eager for more information. Had the other boy come from another village? “Are you waiting for the storm god?”

Noya shrugged. “I am waiting.”

“How long have you been waiting?”

“Only as long as it took you to come.”

Asahi pondered this. It had taken him a few days to get up the side of the mountain. But he hadn’t reached the top on his own—he wondered how long it had taken Noya to climb up. Still, a few days wasn’t so bad. The trees and plants around them were in full bloom, and the streams were clear. They would have plenty to eat and drink.

“Well,” Asahi asked hesitantly, “would you maybe want to wait together, then?”

Noya gripped the flute tightly in his hand and grinned up at him as though he’d never been asked anything as wonderful in his life. “Yes!”

*

For a few days, Asahi rested, regaining his strength. The two boys did not have to go very far for food or water, and most of the plants they could identify by sight. Asahi stayed away from the ones he couldn’t. Noya had convinced him the water was safe early on when he dove headfirst into one of the clear streams and drank his fill. He clambered out afterwards to shake his wet hair all over Asahi, despite the taller boy’s protests. He looked even smaller with his hair plastered to his forehead.

Some mornings, they would wake with the sun, watching it climb rapidly in the sky as though it were racing to be there. It seemed to Asahi to rise much faster up here than it did on the ground below, though that could just be because there was nothing at all in the way to block his view. Noya always made a point of waving at it while it did, stretching up on his tiptoes as though this would let him outreach the ball of light.

It was on one of these mornings, finishing their meal while the sky turned bright, that Noya turned to Asahi and said, “Let’s go look around a bit, today.”

Asahi wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve. “We’ve looked around already.”

“I don’t mean around the meadow,” Noya said impatiently. “This place is huge, who knows what might be up here?”

Asahi swallowed nervously. “Doesn’t that mean that we should stay here? Where it’s safe?”

“It’s not dangerous!” Noya laughed.

“You should go,” Asahi said. “I can stay here. That way if the storm god comes, we won’t miss him.”

“If the storm god comes, I promise you, you’ll be the first to know,” Noya said dryly, then put his hands on his hips when Asahi’s expression became no less convinced. “Asahi, I promise. Just trust me. You trust me, right?”

And Asahi was reminded again that this was the boy who had saved his life. “I—I do.”

Noya held out his hand. “Good.”

Asahi let himself be pulled to his feet. And then he let himself be pulled along in Noya’s wake.

The small boy was like a tempest himself, one that never ran out of energy. Together they ventured further out, climbing over trees, wading through deeper and wider streams, walking the edges of quiet lakes. Asahi marveled at the fact that there could be so much, up there on the mountaintop. He thought they might look and look and never see all of it.

As days stretched to weeks, it took less convincing to bring him farther from the meadow.

“Do you really think a god who rules the whole sky would have trouble finding you if he wanted to?” Noya pointed out one day as they neared the boundaries of their previously explored territory. Asahi was always struck by how much sense things made when Noya put them into perspective.

“I guess it's okay...” he said, but Noya was already laughing and pushing him onward.

One night spent away from the meadow turned to two and then three, and eventually Asahi realized it had been days (only days?) since they had left it, and they had traveled far, and they had looked and looked and seen many things.

The meadow had become ‘home’, but there was no need to return to it every night. They had wild fruit to eat wherever they looked, and fresh water to drink as they swam in the lakes, and soft grass to pillow their heads when they slept. And Noya taught him how to make a fire, so they were always warm as they dozed off, talking about the days that had come before, and the days that would follow after.

One morning Noya woke him and said, “Come with me.”

Asahi blinked the sleep from his eyes and looked around himself, and realized that the green grass in that area was thinning, something he hadn't realized during the night. It was giving way to mountainous rock, uneven and hard, and Noya was walking out in front of him, surefooted and steady.

He followed Noya, as he always did. They walked for some time, and the land around them changed, and Asahi was reminded that he was not still on the ground, but instead high in the sky, higher than anywhere else in the world.

And suddenly, the earth before them ended. It was so abrupt that he almost didn’t notice at first, but Noya put out a hand and they both stopped walking, and there, right in front of them, was the edge of the mountain.

“We made it…” Asahi breathed.

“To where?” Noya asked.

“The edge.”

“Is that where we were trying to go?” Noya wondered.

Asahi stopped to consider this. He had never had a destination in mind, but now that they were here, it felt like he had reached one.

Noya dashed toward the edge so fast it put Asahi’s heart in his mouth. He reached out, started to shout, “Don’t!” but the other boy stopped right at the edge, filled his lungs with air, and cupped his hands to his mouth, yelling,

“HELLOOOO! WE’RE HERE!”

There was no echo. There was nothing in sight to bring the sound back to them. Noya turned to him, his eyes bright in a way that Asahi had come to know very well. Asahi was already shaking his head.

“Asahi, come here!” Noya demanded. When Asahi took a step backwards, he stretched out his hand. “It’s not dangerous!”

This was something Noya said to him a lot, and he wasn’t sure why it was so easy to believe him. Eyes averted, he reached out and felt Noya clasp their hands together, pulling him so they could stand together at the edge. Asahi refused to look as he inched toward it, instead keeping his eyes fixed firmly on what ground was left below his feet. Somehow, he made it into a sitting position, and then his feet were over the edge, dangling. His heart was pounding. He couldn’t look forward, or down, so he looked at Noya.

Noya’s smile could have split the heavens. He was staring straight in front of himself, without a hint of nervousness.

“Look, Asahi, look!”

“I can’t,” Asahi said.

“You can,” Noya insisted. He held up their hands with fingers intertwined in front of Asahi’s face. “I have you. It’s fine.”

A tingle was buzzing from Asahi’s hand, up through his arm and through the rest of his body, making the hair on the back of his neck stand up. When it stopped, he darted a glance forward, thinking to blink his eyes shut again.

But he didn’t. Now that he was looking, he couldn’t stop. There was nothing but sky, sky, sky in front of them, blue and never-ending. He looked down before he could think better of it, to see that the cliff traveled on below for ages, before hitting the top of a large cloud and continuing beneath it. He couldn’t see the ground.

“There’s so much of it,” he said, awestruck.

Noya grinned. “Enough to share.”

“It’s amazing!”

“I told you,” Noya said, sounding very satisfied. Asahi looked back at him and saw that he was satisfied, his expression somewhere between content and smug.

And now that Asahi was looking at him, he couldn’t stop.

Noya beamed at him and then they were both smiling, grinning uncontrollably, holding hands at the top of the world. And Asahi’s heart raced so, so much faster when he looked at Noya than it did when he looked out at the sky around them.

*

“My flute!” Noya cried as they re-emerged into the meadow many days later. Their usual sleeping spot was marked by a large sturdy tree and a few convenient tree stumps (who had cut them, Asahi could only guess) and upon one lay the wooden instrument. Asahi had given up trying to tell him that the flute didn’t belong to him, and now settled for convincing him not to bring it on their explorations. Noya had not improved at playing it in the slightest.

“He didn’t come…” Asahi said, looking around the meadow as if he could spot anything to give him some kind of clue as to the storm god’s whereabouts. There was nothing.

Noya pointed with the flute in the direction opposite the one they’d just traveled. “Well, nothing stopping us from heading that way. We can get some rest today, head out tomorrow morning.”

He looked Asahi’s way expectantly to see the tall boy looking at the ground, brow furrowed.

“Noya… how much time have we spent up here?”

Noya tilted his head to the side. “I don’t know. Why?”

“Doesn’t it seem like it’s been a long time?” Asahi continued. “But then sometimes it feels like it hasn’t been long at all…”

“Asahi, you’re thinking too hard about something,” Noya said, poking him in the side with the flute and laughing as Asahi flinched and wriggled away. “What are you thinking about?”

“My village,” Asahi admitted. “I want to—I need to see if they are okay.”

Noya stared at him. “How do you mean to do that?”

“The path, where you found me,” Asahi told him. “I could use that to get back down, right?”

“You’ve been thinking about this a lot,” Noya observed. Asahi nodded. “You’ve been thinking about leaving.”

“Not for good!” Asahi said, suddenly guilty. He wasn’t sure why. “I can’t, not until I meet the storm god. Besides, don’t you want to go back down?”

Noya sat down on one of the tree stumps, turning the flute over in his hands. “I can show you the path,” he said at last. “It’s not far from here.”

“That would be perfect!” Asahi said, searching around on the ground for the little pack he’d brought up the mountain with him. “We can go down together.”

The bag was nearly untouched. He could fill it with food for the journey that day. He was rummaging through it, checking for holes, when a few drops of water splashed on the backs of his hands and on the cloth of the bag, darkening the material. It had started to rain.

He turned to Noya to see if he’d noticed and found the other boy with his face upturned toward the sky, eyes closed as the rain fell on his cheeks.

“This is the first time it’s rained since we got here,” Asahi said.

Noya nodded. “What will you do when you go back down?”

Asahi considered. “Well, I want to let everyone know I’m alright. I want to see my family.”

“They were probably worried sending you up here alone,” Noya said, then kicked out gently, nudging Asahi’s shoulder with his bare foot. “Maybe not though, since you’re so big and brave.” Asahi grabbed his foot in retaliation and dragged his knuckles up the underside. Noya fell off his tree stump as a fit of giggles overtook him.

“Don’t be mean, Noya.”

“I wasn’t,” Noya protested. “You are both big and brave.”

“I’m not brave, and you know it,” Asahi laughed, settling down in the grass next to where the other boy lay face down, mock-defeated. “But you’re coming too, aren’t you? Won’t your family be worried about you?”

“So many questions!” Noya rolled onto his back and held up one hand to keep the rain out of his eyes. “Isn’t it enough to know that I, your fearless companion, will help you go home?”

Asahi nodded slowly. He wanted to go home to his small village, the thatched hut he shared with his parents and brothers and sisters, and the smell of fish and the water, and always the howl of a storm at his doorstep.

But… now the word 'home' brought to mind a green meadow and blue skies forever, and streams and lakes, and a spot at the top of the world, and…

He turned his head to look at Noya and found himself already being watched.

“I won’t be gone long,” he promised.

Noya shook his head, opened his mouth and closed it again, and looked away. When he looked back, he was smiling like always, but it was different from the wide, bright smiles Asahi was used to seeing on his face. It was so small.

“Okay,” Noya said.

*

The path back down was narrow, some ways away from the clearing. Noya led him there confidently but Asahi was sure he would have never found it on his own. It was a simple road, well-hidden by underbrush. It also looked rather steep.

“You got up this while dragging me with you?” he asked, bewildered.

Noya clapped him on the back, nearly sending him careening down the path, probably to his doom. “You’ll be fine! Don’t worry about a thing, you won’t fall.”

“How can you be sure?” Asahi asked, not a small amount of desperation in his voice. Noya gripped his arm reassuringly.

“Because,” he said. “I chose this path. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

There it was again. Asahi’s fear subsided. Suddenly the path didn’t look so lonely, or so steep. It was brightly lit, and the overgrown brush on both sides provided many handholds. It looked safe.

“Okay,” Asahi said, and to his great surprise, his voice was steady. “Here I go. See you soon.”

There were a few times when he looked back behind him, to see Noya still standing at the top of the path, waving down at him. But eventually he rounded a corner and his friend disappeared from view.

It was strange, how time seemed to pass while walking down the path. Asahi couldn’t tell how long he’d been on it, but it seemed like it was much faster than when he had headed up the mountain. Maybe it was because he was going downhill—or because the path was steeper, more direct. All in all, it seemed to take much less time to reach the foot of the mountain than it did the top.

And then he was down. The path let out very close to the boundaries of his village. As he picked his way around the side of the mountain, he realized something wonderful.

It was no longer storming. Though a light rain misted the air around him, it was sunny and warm, diffuse light shining off the waters of the rounded bay. He came around the side of the mountain, which would bring his village into view.

Asahi stopped in his tracks, astonished. For a moment, he thought he’d taken a very wrong turn—but no, he’d recognize the backdrop of craggy mountains, the spread of the forest trees anywhere. He had arrived at his village.

But his village wasn’t there.

In its place stood a town, a city, even—the kind he’d only heard of from the occasional wanderer who stopped in their harbor for shelter from the winds. It was huge, sprawling, so big Asahi was afraid he could lose himself in it.

He passed many small huts on the water as he neared the new center of the city. They reminded him of his own, and he realized slowly that this was where his family’s home had stood—yes, over by one of the outcroppings there—the city hadn’t ousted the village; instead the village must have grown, expanding into the wilds of the forest behind it.

There was a city square near to the water and he wandered into it, turning in all directions, mind still frantic. How was any of this possible?

In the center of the square was a tall statue. He walked passed it, glancing up at the face as he went. It was of a boy, the figure itself small, carved standing on what looked like rocks. The boy held a flute to his lips.

Despite the sun on his back, Asahi felt a chill run through him.

“New in town, are you?” someone asked from behind him, and he spun around. A kindly woman holding the hand of a tiny girl stood there. She smiled. “You look a little lost, child.”

Asahi gaped at her. “Where… where am I?”

Now the woman’s expression turned concerned. She told him the name of the city—yes, that was the name of his village, but she pronounced it strangely, accented. “Who are you with? Where’s your family?”

His family. “The Azumane family,” he said, pointing out towards the water. “Are they—do they still live out that way?”

The woman shook her head, thinking. “Azumane… can’t say I’ve ever heard the name. Not in these parts, and I know all the fishermen on the bay.”

Her daughter pulled on her sleeve. “Mama,” she said, “mama, the Azumane family is the same as the family of the boy with the flute.” 

The mother shook her head absently. “No, Saki, those are just stories…”

But Asahi leaned down to look the girl in the eye. “What stories?”

The girl gave him a toothy smile, clearly excited to have someone to share with. “It’s not a story! A long, long time ago, when the storms wouldn’t stop, the village sent a little boy up the mountain as an offering to the storm god. The storm god accepted the offering, and the storms stopped, and because of that the village was able to grow biiiig!” She held out her little arms as wide as they would go.

“A long, long time ago…” Asahi whispered. The girl nodded.

“The family’s name was Azumane,” she said, “and the little boy’s name was—”

“Asahi,” he choked, his face growing pale.

The girl’s mother reached out for him. “Are you alright?”

He fell back from her, panicked, and his back brushed the statue. Immediately, he was on his feet. “I’m sorry,” he said, and it was hard to breathe, so hard to breathe. “I’m sorry, thank you for—”

He wasn’t even certain what he said as he ran, ran as fast as he could out of the city and past the water and back into the shadow of the mountain. He found the path easily and was relieved—he almost believed it wouldn’t be there. And then his legs were carrying him up it as if by their own accord, and this time he knew, knew for sure that it took barely any time at all before he was back at the top, racing into the meadow. He stumbled and fell to his hands and knees, listening for the sound of a warbling flute, but there was nothing, just the stillness of the wind and the soft sound of running water over rocks.

“Noya,” he shouted, the volume of his own voice startling him. “Noya! YUU!”

And then there were hands on his back and his neck, small and gentle, and with just the slightest tingle where they brushed his skin.

“Asahi,” Noya said, voice urgent, “Asahi, what’s wrong? What happened?”

“They’re gone,” Asahi gasped. “My family, my village, it’s all gone.” He managed to look up at Noya, saw the expression on his face, and felt somehow even worse. On top of everything else, he’d frightened his fearless friend.

“What do you mean?” Noya asked him, failing to understand. He rubbed Asahi’s arms, trying to calm him, but his worry was palpable.

“I knew things felt different, up here,” Asahi said. “I should have paid more attention, I’m sorry, Noya, I’m so sorry—”

“What are you talking about?”

“We haven’t just been here weeks or—or months, I don’t know…” Asahi looked at him miserably. “It’s been years. Maybe hundreds of years.”  

His friend’s hands stilled on his arms. “Your family…”

Asahi nodded, and now the tears began to fall. Hot and fast, and flowing freely. “Gone. Dead, or moved on, I don’t know. But there’s nothing down there that I know anymore.”

Noya’s hands fell to his side. “Time,” he said, his voice empty. “I forgot… time.”

“I’m sorry,” Asahi said again. Noya looked at him sharply.

“For what?”

“I should have said something sooner. I should have climbed down sooner—” Asahi’s voice broke and he couldn’t look at Noya, because— “You saved me. And now, because I didn’t say anything, you’ll never see—”

“Stop,” Noya commanded, so forcefully that the sob died in Asahi’s throat. “Do not apologize to me.”

He looked up into Asahi’s face, his eyes wide and sparking with fury. Asahi thought he heard something—a low sound, a rumble in the distance. He wanted to look away from Noya’s eyes, wanted to hide from the anger there, but he couldn’t.

“Asahi,” the smaller boy said, “go back down.”

“What?”

“I can’t,” Noya explained. “I can’t, but you should.”

“But why?”

“You should never have stayed up here in the first place,” Noya told him.

Asahi reeled back. This he could not handle. He had been afraid Noya would be angry, but he had also hoped he would forgive him in time. To not even be given the chance to apologize… He had lost so much so quickly. He couldn’t lose Noya, too.

“You don’t want me here anymore?” he asked, his voice small, like it was fighting against leaving his body.

Now it was Noya’s turn to look stunned. “What are you talking about?”

“You want me to leave,” Asahi said.

“You don’t?” Noya asked.

They stared at each other. Asahi shook his head slowly.

Now it was Noya’s turn to ask, “…Why?”

“You’re the only person I have left,” Asahi said. “And I’m not leaving you up here by yourself.”

Out of the two of them, Asahi cried easier. But as Noya ducked his head, Asahi could have sworn his eyes looked wet. When he looked up again, however, they were only determined.

“Then as long as you’re up here, Asahi,” he said, “I swear you won’t be alone.”

Asahi stretched out a hand to ruffle Noya’s hair, but the smaller boy ducked under it and threw himself forward, arms reaching out to wrap around Asahi’s neck as they fell backwards into the grass.

After a moment, Noya spoke quietly. “That path. You can use it any time. But if you go down without meaning to come back, you won’t be able to find it, ever again.”

“Then I guess it’ll always be there,” Asahi told him. He held Noya tight, feeling his soft hair tickling underneath his chin, pretending not to notice the slight wet patch spreading over his shirt right above his heart. Ignoring the way Noya’s tiny frame shook in his arms.

“Thank you,” Noya mumbled into his shirt.

“For what?” Asahi asked, not understanding why he deserved to be thanked. Noya didn’t answer him, so maybe he never would. For now, that was okay.

*

Though at first it was nearly unbearable to keep going in the wake of his discovery, Asahi kept the confusion, and the sadness, tucked away and hidden from Noya. And yet, Noya seemed to know anyway, like it was impossible for him not to see everything once he had Asahi in that captivating gaze of his.

For all Asahi’s efforts, Noya was the stronger of the two of them. There was perseverance in how he roused Asahi out of his sleep every day, made sure he ate and didn’t stay too long lying listlessly in one place. There was kindness in the way he combed his fingers through the tangles in Asahi’s hair after they bathed, laying it smoothly over his back. Though he was so much smaller, there was strength in how tightly his hand gripped Asahi’s through the night, through the tremors that meant Asahi was remembering his family, his rain-soaked village, and how he could never return.

Noya had taken to bringing him things, as well. Asahi wouldn’t have called them gifts—they were more like tokens, brief, bright spots of happiness. Sweet berries from the bushes in the forest. Smooth speckled stones from the rivers. Colorful flowers woven into bands by thin, deft fingers, small in Asahi’s hands; but they made him smile when Noya insisted on him wearing them, around his neck or wrists or ankles.

Asahi found that his happiness was slowly becoming less brief, more bright. The grief brought by the night began to fade, to be replaced by the relaxing cool of the dark and the reassuring feel of a small hand in his own. There came a night when, looking up at the sky, he realized he hadn’t thought about it at all in the daylight—his home, his village, his family. All of the space for those thoughts had been filled with other things. The meadow. The sky beyond the edge of the mountaintop. And always…

Noya lay sleeping next to him, close to his side. Asahi smiled to himself. When he was awake, the smaller boy seemed to take up so much space—but now, chest rising and falling gently, curled in on himself, he was tiny. Their hands were clasped tightly together but Asahi wanted to reach out, to keep Noya close as the other boy always kept him. For all Noya had done for him, he wanted to do something in return.

It was hard to sleep that night, with the way his mind was buzzing.

For the first time in ages, it was Noya who awoke to an empty space by his side. Asahi had risen first and was sitting with his back to the tree trunk in the middle of the meadow, his attention focused on something in his hands. He hid it when he saw Noya coming.

“What’s that?” Noya asked immediately. Asahi shook his head with a faint smile and was rewarded with his small friend instantly attempting to climb on top of him to pry it out of his hands. “Let me see it! You have to show me!”

“Alright, alright,” Asahi laughed. He opened his hands to display his secret. In his palms sat a small, roughly hewn wooden carving. Noya stared.

“What is it?” he asked.  

“Ah…” Asahi rubbed the back of his head. “It’s supposed to be my family’s home.” He could see where the confusion lay. The carving looked less like a hut and more like a formless ball with occasional knobs jutting out of it at odd angles. He’d never attempted to carve something in his life, and the tools he had to work with (a rough stick and a second, slightly sharper stick) were not as useful as they could be.

But Noya was looking at it with wide eyes, as if suddenly he was staring at a work of art. “I can see it now! That’s the door, right?”

“That was… supposed to be the roof,” Asahi admitted.

There was a moment of silence, and Noya put a consoling hand on his shoulder. “You’ll get better.”

“Thanks.”  

Asahi went back to his attempt, struggling to shave down more of the bark with the dull wooden stick. Noya folded his legs underneath him in the grass and watched.

“Why did you suddenly decide to do that?” Noya asked, after they had sat in comfortable silence for some time.

“It was supposed to be for you,” Asahi said absently, concentrating on his work. “But it would be better if you could identify what I’m giving you.”

“You’re making that for me?” Noya asked.

“The next one’s for you,” Asahi told him. “This one’s practice, now.”

He hadn't looked up, so it wasn’t Noya moving that made him pause—instead, the press of a warm forehead to his temple made his hands stall. The feeling of thin arms wrapping around his shoulders made his heart pound. Then Noya was sitting back, hooking his arms under his knees and resting his head on top of them. He grinned at Asahi, wide and elated.

“Better keep practicing,” he said.

Asahi couldn’t stop himself from grinning back. He returned to his work with Noya’s eyes on him, where they stayed for most of the rest of the day.

Attempt number two was not much more successful, but Noya was not there to witness it. Instead, he ventured out of the meadow early in the morning, and was gone for some time, before coming back and presenting Asahi with a handful of perfectly sharpened wooden sticks.

“Where did you find these?” Asahi asked, delighted.

“Took some searching,” Noya said, plopping down in the grass next to them. “Now come on, let’s see what you can do with those.”

It wasn’t much—even with better tools, Asahi was still unskilled. But slowly, very slowly, each attempt revealed a little bit more as he chipped away at the soft wood with his hands steadier, more confident. After many, many attempts, details began to take shape—the rounded windows, the shape of the door, the pattern of the thatched roofing.

It was then that he started work on his second project—and this one, he kept hidden from Noya, working on it out of sight, or while the other boy was sleeping. He almost felt guilty, knowing Noya trusted him enough not to keep secrets that he never suspected a thing—but the end result was worth it.

“Asahi, Asahi!” he could hear the boy shouting from across the meadow. Asahi closed his hand tightly over the smooth object in it, then turned to his friend.

“Look, look,” Noya was saying excitedly. He had Asahi’s pack slung over his shoulder, and opened it to reveal an astounding amount of sweet berries. “They’re good today, too, I think they just started to get ripe.”

Asahi smiled nervously. “Noya, I—”

“Open!” Noya ordered, pressing his fingers straight to Asahi’s lips to press the berries onto his tongue. The sweetness lingered on his fingertips. Noya shoved nearly a handful into his own mouth next, but Asahi’s train of thought was gone, his lips feeling as though they were buzzing. “Sorry, what were you going to say?” Noya asked around a mouthful of the fruit.

“I…” Asahi blinked to clear his head. “I wanted to give you something.”

Noya cocked his head. Before he could lose his nerve, Asahi reached out, curling Noya’s sticky fingers around his carving. He lingered only a second, Noya's hands warm under his, before pulling away to let the other boy look at it properly. Noya sucked in a breath.

A perfect wooden lightning bolt sat in his palms, each jagged edge precise and defined. The surface was smooth, almost shiny. It looked like the work of an expert, not a fumbling boy—but then, Asahi had learned to the best of his ability, so he, too, could give Noya something in return.

“It reminds me of you,” he said to Noya quietly. “Or, you remind me of it, I guess. Of lightning.”

Noya turned the carving over in his hands, his fingers running carefully, lovingly over every edge. “I thought you said you were afraid of lightning.”

“I am, but,” Asahi shook his head, “I don’t think I would be as scared, if you were with me.”

Noya looked up at him then, his expression so fierce, so filled with some emotion Asahi couldn’t quite identify, that Asahi thought he felt his heartbeat skip. And then Noya was smiling, his fingers wrapping tight around Asahi’s gift. He didn’t have to say how perfect the small wooden carving was, because Asahi felt like he could hear the thunder rolling in his ears.

*

The mountaintop never stopped growing—of this, Asahi was sure. The boys (though one day Asahi realized they could hardly be called boys anymore) had explored it from end to end many times, and each foray away from the meadow took longer than the last. They knew where all their favorite spots were, could find them with their eyes closed and walking backwards, and yet there always seemed to be a new clearing, a new hollow tree, a new outcropping. The meadow stayed always in the center.

Asahi had stopped hoping for the storm god to appear. What was the point, now? Soon, he stopped trying to keep track of how many weeks, months, years had passed. Sometimes the days seemed to fly by as fast as the colorful birds he glimpsed nesting in the trees. Other times it felt as if a single hour was stretched out into a lifetime, spent sitting next to Noya with their feet in the cool waters of a stream, seeing who could catch the first fish (Noya, it was always Noya).

The only way he knew that time was passing—in some sense of the word—was because they, themselves, were growing. Noya had hit a height barrier early on but Asahi seemed to sprout upward limitlessly, and the once minor height gap between them was almost comically big now. And Noya still had the same thin arms and legs, even if he had gotten wiry and strong. But Asahi was broad, well-muscled, with large hands and feet that dwarfed Noya’s own.

“Asahi, I’m jealous,” Noya would say. “You’re leaving me behind!” This was usually followed by him leaping bodily on top of Asahi, no matter where they were or what they were doing. He loved trying it when they were swimming, sending Asahi spluttering and flailing into the water when he least expected it.

“Not safe!” Asahi would gasp, hauling them both to the surface.

And sometimes Noya just laughed, but other times he wrapped his arms around Asahi and pulled him close, and whispered against his neck, “So drown with me.”

Maybe he knew, Asahi thought, how much it felt like drowning with Noya pressed against him, bare skin on skin, his lips trailing electricity over the blood rushing in Asahi’s veins. Maybe he knew how hard it was to breathe. But then he’d let out a yell and throw himself back into the water, leaving Asahi too chilly and shivering in the shallows.

They walked next to the sky together, hand in hand, Noya always too close to the edge and Asahi always there to tug him gently backwards. Somehow Noya had taken to convincing Asahi to let him cut his hair right over the cliffs—Asahi’s long legs hanging over the side, now unafraid. Noya would kneel behind him and gently cut away with the rock he had sharpened, and Asahi would watch the strands flutter past, carried aloft by the wind. Noya never cut it too short. He liked when it was long, still liked to comb through it with his quick fingers after they bathed, sometimes pulling, sometimes tangling, but never hurting (much). When they were younger, this had nearly always sent Asahi into a sleepy, comfortable stupor. Now it made him feel alert, wide awake, restless—it wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy it anymore, just the opposite. But he wanted to respond and he wasn’t quite sure how.

At night, in the meadow, they watched the stars. Like the sun, they seemed so much closer on the mountain than they did down below. Asahi knew now that this probably wasn’t just his imagination.

“They’re so bright,” Asahi had said to Noya once, when they were still small, “And there’s so many.”

“They do get jealous of each other,” Noya grinned. “But I know all their names.”

Asahi had turned to him wonderingly. “Every single one?”

Noya nodded. “Want me to teach you?”

For years, Asahi had learned, and still he felt he knew barely any of them. But they had time.

“Who’s that one?” Noya asked, pointing upward, on a night like any other.

“Zara,” Asahi said confidently.

“And him?”

“Patrio.”

“And…?” Noya squeezed one eye shut and pointed in a random direction.

Asahi frowned. “…Onven?”

“Wrong!” Noya elbowed him. “Umesh.”

“Ahhh…” Asahi sighed.

Noya smirked. “I’d be worried. She’s vengeful.”

Asahi pulled a face. “Sorry, Umesh.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll protect you,” Noya said. “She won’t try anything if I’m around.”

“You always sound like you’ve met each one,” Asahi smiled, and Noya laughed.

“Do I?”

As he often did, he reached out, finding Asahi’s hand in the grass. Even before Asahi had climbed back down the mountain, he'd had trouble sleeping, out in the open with only the dark and stars above to shelter him. It was only with Noya curled into his side, grasping tight to his hand, that he managed to get any rest at all.

Now his grip was looser, his fingers sliding in and out of Asahi’s own, thumb brushing against Asahi’s palm, over his wrist, playing with Asahi’s long fingers. Asahi held the rest of his body as still as he could, so he could feel every small movement, every touch.

“It’s… strange,” he said quietly. “Don’t they seem closer than the ground, somehow?”

“The stars?” Noya asked.

“Yes.”

As usual, Noya didn’t actually answer his question. “Do you want to go back to the ground, Asahi?”

“I never want to go back to the ground,” Asahi said forcefully, and meant it. He could feel Noya’s eyes on him now, and along with that, warmth rising up his neck and cheeks. He definitely was not going to look in Noya’s direction.

“Then,” Noya said, “what if you could go up there?” He pointed at the stars.

“No…” He was surprised the answer wasn’t obvious, but at least it was an easy one to give. “I wouldn’t want to go up there either.”

“Why not?”

Asahi smiled even though he was embarrassed, because he meant this too. “Because you’re not up there. You’re right here.”

Noya’s hand stopped moving on his. Asahi was afraid he had actually said something very wrong. His face was not just warm now, it was hot, burning.

His view of the stars was suddenly blocked by Noya leaning over him. His eyes were big and dark like the sky, and maybe it was just because Asahi had been staring up for so long, but he swore he could see stars in them, too.

“Noya…?”

He got no more words out, because then Noya’s mouth was on his, and oh, oh.

This was what he wanted. This was what he’d been wanting.

Like so many other things, Noya knew what to do even when Asahi was at a loss. He tugged at Asahi’s sleeve, lowering himself until they were both lying on their sides, close together, so that Asahi could reach out and touch him like he had yearned to, for so long. He ran his hand up Noya’s side, slowly, feeling the fabric of his shirt catch and rise with the movement. His palm smoothed over warm skin and he felt small fists clench in the front of his shirt, pulling him even closer.

Hesitantly, he trailed his fingers back over Noya’s skin, brushing low against his soft stomach, and Noya moaned against his lips.

Asahi rolled his hips reflexively. Without even realizing what he was doing, he pushed Noya onto his back, settling on top of him, careful not to rest his full weight on the smaller boy.

“Is this—” he started to say, before Noya flicked his tongue at Asahi’s bottom lip, slipping it inside Asahi’s mouth, and Asahi let him in, like he always did and always would. The way Noya kissed him felt incredible, just like the warmth of his body and his hands in Asahi’s hair. It felt like lightning striking right at his heart, but he was not scared.

By the time the clouds rolled in to cover the stars, they were both breathless, cheeks flushed, lips red and wet. A deep rumble heralding the incoming storm made Noya pull back and Asahi chased his mouth, teeth nipping, a low noise to match the thunder escaping him. He could finally breathe again when he was close to Noya, close to the heat. He didn’t want to stop, not just for some rain. Not for anything.

He put his lips to Noya’s throat, worked his way upward, until he felt the rush of blood below the skin.

“Noya,” he murmured. “Drown with me.”

He felt, more than heard, the hitch of breath, the small gasp, before the sky opened up and threatened to do its best to help them. Noya kissed him again and again and Asahi could do nothing but let it all finally take him, let it pull him under.

He didn’t know how many lifetimes passed on the mountain or down on the ground below before he came up for air. He didn’t think it really mattered.

*

Life was not so different after that than it was before—except everything became much, much simpler.

It was so simple for Asahi now, to catch tiny Noya up in his arms and mark his face and neck with kisses, to smile instead of hold his breath when Noya touched him. It was easy to pin each other down in the grass or against the trunk of a tree carved with their drawings and rough lettering, to spend long moments slowly driving each other wild.

Asahi knew, in the back of his mind, that there were things to do beyond kissing—though admittedly, beyond long faded memories of bawdy fishermen’s tales and whispered stories swapped between his older brothers when they had thought he was asleep, he had very little knowledge of what they were. It was only in the way his body reacted that he recalled these things. But Noya seemed to be in no hurry, and so neither was he.

Fittingly, they were out walking along by the sky when things changed again, when they went tipping straight over the edge without the chance to grab on and keep from falling.

Noya always walked too close. Asahi loved and hated it, loved how bold he was and hated how little regard he had for his own safety. Asahi was overly cautious, always trying to coax him in and away. Noya was sure on his feet and had never so much as stumbled—unlike Asahi, whose ever lengthening limbs did not lend themselves to gracefulness.

That day, they walked along the edge and Asahi was, for once, not worried. He was laughing at something Noya had said, head tipped back and eyes crinkled shut and Noya couldn’t take his eyes off him. In a split second, Noya walked too close, his foot missed a step, missed the ground, and he was tipping sideways with an expression of mild surprise.

For the smallest moment, he was looking straight up. Then a hand grabbed his arm, pulled hard enough that it should have been painful and he was tumbling back, right side up. Asahi twisted and forced them both away from the edge, taking Noya’s weight as he fell hard to the ground. They ended up with Asahi on his back, Noya sprawled on top of him.

He stared with wide eyes at Asahi, who was silent, save for his heavy breathing. After a moment, Asahi said,

“I told you that would happen someday.”

Noya crushed their lips together hard enough to bruise, and Asahi’s hands shook as they held him. “You could have fallen,” Noya whispered.

“Me?” Asahi repeated, voice rising. “You did.”

“I’m always fine,” Noya insisted, leaning back down. Asahi winced and shifted his weight off of his leg. “You’re not fine.”

“It’s not bad,” Asahi said, hands moving down to his ankle. “Probably just twisted it.”

Noya bounced to his feet. “Don’t move.”

Asahi raised his eyebrows.

“You know what I mean. I’ll be right back!”

He took off for the trees and was gone for quite awhile, long enough for Asahi to lay back on the sun warmed rocks and begin to doze off. He woke again when he felt hands on his ankle, something cool spreading over the inflamed area, the pain subsiding quickly. He propped himself up on his elbows.

“I said I’d be right back and you fall asleep on me?” Noya asked absently, more focused on whatever he was doing to Asahi’s injury.

“Sorry,” Asahi said, lips twitching. “What is that?” he asked of the clear substance being spread on his ankle. Whatever it was, it was cold on his skin, doing wonders for the pain. He swiped his fingers through it and found that it made them glide over each other smoothly.

“I don’t know,” Noya shrugged. “From some plant, I forget the name of it.”

“You don’t know?” Asahi balked, shaking his hand. “What if it’s poisonous?”

“It’s not poisonous, it’s edible,” Noya laughed at him. “We’ve been eating it for years with those crushed berries, the ones you like.”

“That’s what that is?” Asahi asked interestedly, because yes, he was fond of those. Experimentally, he touched the tip of his tongue to one of the fingers he had coated in the gel. Paused, smiled, and licked again. “Ah, it’s sweet. Okay.”

He noticed then that Noya was staring at him, his expression strange. He grabbed Asahi's hand. 

“What?”

“Let me taste,” Noya said, his small pink tongue darting out to lick at the excess between Asahi’s fingers.

Before Asahi could ask why he didn’t just taste some off the small stone he had crushed the plant on, Noya took two fingers past his lips, swirling his tongue around them and sucking until they were clean. With his eyes closed, he hummed, and the slight vibrations sent answering shivers up Asahi’s spine. Noya held tight to his hand as he slowly pulled his mouth off, and when he opened his eyes to meet Asahi’s, they were half-lidded and dark.

Asahi felt his body reacting.  

“Noya?” he stuttered helplessly, because this was different than what they usually did. When he started to feel pressure like this was when they slowed down, but Noya wasn’t slowing down, he was shushing Asahi gently and pressing on his shoulder.

“Lie back,” he instructed. Asahi lowered himself down and Noya crawled carefully on top of him to peer into his face. “Are you in pain?”

Asahi shook his head.

“Good,” he said, before brushing his lips over Asahi’s eyelids, his nose, his cheeks. “I wanted to be so careful with you. But—”

“Then you nearly dragged both of us off the edge of the tallest mountain in the world?” Asahi supplied.

Noya kissed his lower lip, then the peak of his upper lip, hiding a smile. “Fine, that too. But I also can’t wait anymore, Asahi, I need—” his voice stalled out. “Let me know if you want me to stop.”

Stop what? Asahi wondered, and then the other boy pushed his shirt up to his chest, before sliding down the length of his body. He squirmed as Noya brushed his nose over his stomach, feeling a faint tickle as the smaller boy breathed in and out against his skin.

“Did you have a seer in your village?” Noya asked out of the blue.

“What?” Asahi asked, feeling, if possible, even more confused.

“A seer. Is that how they picked you to climb the mountain?”

“No…” He couldn’t remember how they’d picked him. And it was so hard to think, with Noya’s breath ghosting over him, so low on his belly.

“So, I just got lucky, then,” Noya said, and Asahi could feel him smile.

“What do you-ohh—” Asahi cut off with a groan as Noya ran his tongue from hip to hip, huffing out a laugh that warmed the stripe of wet skin.

“Asahi, look at you.”

From his position flat on the ground, Asahi said, “I can’t.” He wasn’t sure he would even want to—he’d be too embarrassed.

“Fine, I’ll look for the both of us,” Noya told him, before he licked his way back up Asahi’s body, careful not to jostle his injured ankle. This was fortunate for Asahi, because the rest of it was torture. Asahi could feel his lips as they brushed over every one of his ribs, his teeth as they nipped at his skin, and then his tongue as it slid over his chest where his shirt was hiked up, lapping and sucking at one of his nipples.

Asahi pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes. “Noya, I can’t— ”

“Do you want me to stop?”

“No, but—” Asahi raised his hips off the ground a tiny bit, weakly. They had never gotten that far, had never been in any kind of rush but suddenly, suddenly— “Please.”

“Look at me.”

Asahi shook his head, eyes still covered. He knew he must look broken already, if Noya was asking if he should stop so soon. He wished he could be stronger than that.

“Asahi. ”

Slowly, Asahi pulled his hands away. He caught sight of Noya’s face and his breath stopped in his lungs.

Noya was looking at him like he never had before. Whenever they were together, when he kissed Asahi, he was bright, his smile was everything. He was open.

Not now. Now—he looked like Asahi felt. Raw and desperate, but more than that, dangerously close to losing control. Like the moments right before a storm, before all hell broke loose.

“Don’t be embarrassed,” he said. “I wanted to see you like this more than anything.”

That was enough. Asahi pulled him down to kiss him and had his mouth ravaged in return, lips bitten and drawn through Noya’s teeth, tongues tangled and sucking. They had never kissed like this, not to this point, with Asahi rocking his hips off the ground, needing more, hoping for more, and Noya, Noya always had him, always knew what to do.

He barely noticed when the other boy slid his pants away, but he noticed, oh, he noticed when Noya’s hand came down on him, still slippery from the plant gel. He noticed the coolness on his burning skin, and then Noya starting to move his hand, pulling in long, firm strokes from the base of his cock over the tip, and Asahi lost the ability to think rationally or breathe properly, or do much of anything at all but moan his approval into Noya’s mouth.

“Louder, please,” was Noya’s only direction for him, murmured at the corner of his mouth, and it was not hard to follow.

“I’m—” Asahi said, then stopped. Not only was it immensely difficult to speak, but he wasn’t sure what he was. All he knew was that right then, it felt like when the two of them stood right next to the edge, and he could look straight down, and feel as though he were about to fall. “Noya, I’m close, I’m—”

“Not yet,” Noya commanded, removing his hand, and Asahi whimpered, pushing up out of the dirt.

“Yuu,” he begged, and Noya’s eyes flashed.

“I’m not done with you,” he growled, before sliding himself between Asahi’s legs to spread them further apart. He ducked his head.

If he still wanted Asahi to be louder, he had his wish. As he brought his lips to the head of Asahi’s cock, the tall boy gasped and then cried out when he felt Noya ease himself down slowly, swallowing him whole. Asahi’s legs trembled uncontrollably as he was taken in, disappearing into the wet heat of Noya’s mouth.

Noya worked back up, tongue sliding flat against the underside of his cock before swirling around the head and Asahi blinked back stars and propped himself up on his elbows again.

“…You may want to lie back,” Noya said. The hint of a confident smirk on his face made Asahi huff out an uneven breath, but he shook his head.

“I want to see you, too.”

Noya’s face went pink. “Okay, then,” he said, breathlessly.

He dipped his head, tongue curling out to lap at the head of Asahi’s cock before he wrapped his lips around his length again and closed his eyes, gripping Asahi’s hips with both hands to steady him, thumbs rubbing circles into his hipbones.

He may have been right about wanting to lie back. Just the sight of him, with his lips red and wet, cheeks hollowing out as he sucked and throat moving as he swallowed, the occasional glimpse of pink tongue every time he pulled off…

When he backed away, a tiny trail of spit and wet from the head of Asahi’s freely leaking cock dragged with him. Asahi couldn’t stop the pained gasp that escaped him when Noya caught his eye and lapped it up, almost delicately.

“You can move,” Noya told him. “While I’m on you.”

Asahi threaded a hand in his hair, fisting tightly to push Noya back down, rougher than he intended. But the other boy went eagerly, helping by pushing on his hips until Asahi was rocking upwards on his own. Noya bobbed his head quickly now, taking Asahi deep, deeper than before—he could feel the head of his cock hit the back of Noya’s throat and tried to still his movements, but Noya moaned around him, squeezing his hips, pulling him upward into his hot mouth as far as he could go and—

Asahi gasped and shook, his hips shuddering out of rhythm uncontrollably as Noya threw him over the edge, leaving him to fall. Noya stayed where he was, swallowing him down rapidly as he came, only pulling back at the very end to give a small cough and wipe his mouth as the incredible tremors rocking Asahi’s body subsided. He felt limp and spent and utterly, utterly satisfied.

It was only then he realized it was raining, blessed and cool upon their overheated bodies.

Noya crawled up to lay beside him while he came back to himself, squeezing into his favorite spot against Asahi’s side, dwarfed by the tall boy’s height. Asahi’s arm wrapped around him automatically, and he tried to speak.

“I’m—that was really—” Hmm. “You had—we just—”

“Seems like that was a success,” Noya observed.

“Yes,” Asahi agreed. Then, “What about you? Can I—”

Noya shook his head, smiling. “That was for you.”

“Why only me?”

“Because.”

Asahi tilted his head to look at him. “You don’t want me to?”

Noya smiled, hiding his face in Asahi’s neck. “Just be quiet. That was what I wanted.”  

Asahi held him closer. “Okay.”

They lay in silence for a moment.

“Besides, there’s no way you could top that, I’m incredible.”

Asahi decided he would settle, for the moment, on kissing away the irritatingly wide grin on Noya’s face, because he couldn’t argue that last point.

*

The days on the mountain were starting to get darker, and the nights colder and wetter. Asahi barely noticed. Maybe even the mountain had seasons, whatever its own strange rules to the passage of time. He had so many other, better things on his mind.

If he had thought Noya’s energy was boundless before, now he was discovering he had only seen the smallest fraction of it. Some days it seemed like he spent from sunup to sundown catching his breath and trying to keep up. Not that he’d ever admit it—or want to. Because it was Noya in front of him, next to him, who seemed to want more than anything else in the world to please him endlessly. Seemed to want to spend hours and days uninterrupted, making Asahi smile so much it hurt one minute, and the next turning him into a flushed, breathless mess.

Asahi had no idea what he’d done to deserve this. He supposed saving an entire village might have been enough, but when Noya took his face in his hands and kissed him languid and slow in the shaded meadow, he couldn’t be sure. Because Noya was, undoubtedly, perfect, and Asahi knew he himself was very much not so.

So there were many reasons why, though the changing weather failed to catch his attention altogether, Asahi began to notice when Noya started to go missing.

At first, it would have been nearly unnoticeable, if not for how well Asahi knew him. Sometimes, he wasn’t there when Asahi woke in the middle of the night, reaching out for the smaller figure at his side. But the grass would be cool and Noya was gone, though he usually returned by the morning.

But his absences started to grow longer. At first, Asahi went looking for him—out of curiosity, wondering where he could have gone. But he wasn’t in any of their favorite spots, and eventually, Asahi stopped searching. Sometimes there were days when Asahi didn’t see him at all, days that he spent sitting by a bubbling stream quietly by himself, whittling a small carving of some animal out of the fallen branches of a tree.

The first, and only time he’d asked Noya about it, he’d only gotten that familiar mischievous grin in return. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder, doesn’t it?”

Asahi knew he had no cause to be worried, not with Noya. But it was something different, after all the long, long years they had spent together, and it was starting to play at the back of his mind. Especially given the circumstances under which Noya seemed to disappear most often.

After all the times they had been together, all the times Noya laid him down and worked him until his mind was nothing but need and pleasure, Asahi still had yet to return the favor. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to—he wanted to more than anything. But they always stopped before they got to that point, and Noya would bring him down gently and burrow into his side and tell him that was what he wanted.

And Asahi knew that trust was one of the strongest bonds they shared, so he never questioned it.

Not until one night, darker than usual, as the wind picked up and sent a slight chill over his skin. Asahi curled on his side in the grass of the meadow, alone, feeling as though he should sleep but unable to force his eyes closed.

Noya had been gone for days. Maybe weeks. Asahi wasn’t sure. The absences were starting to weigh more on him, and this was the longest he had ever gone without seeing Noya, or hearing his laugh, or just touching him. He missed him.

He looked up at the sky, knowing how a night like this would normally go, one of the nights when they couldn’t see the stars and ended up learning each other’s bodies instead. Something about the dark clouds, the faint hum over his skin—lightning gathering in the air—made him… ache. Left him wanting. On a night like this, Noya would…

Asahi let his hand straying lower, over his stomach and fluttering to his waistband. He didn’t do it often, but sometimes Noya would tell him to touch himself while he watched, with Asahi’s head resting in his lap, curling his small fingers in Asahi’s free hand. Or other times, with Noya behind him, lips on his back and fingers gently sliding inside him…

He bit his lip and wrapped a hand around himself, letting out a small groan at how sensitive he was after so long without any physical contact. He tried to imitate the way Noya touched him—alternately light and barely there, before taking him full in hand and stroking him until he was begging incoherently. More sounds began to escape him as he realized, desperately, how much he wanted Noya. It didn't feel anything like it did when Noya's hands were on him. But if he closed his eyes, Asahi could nearly see him, hear his quiet encouragements—

A hand closed on his wrist nearly hard enough to bruise and his eyes flew open. For the first time in a very long time, he felt afraid—then his eyes adjusted and he could just make out the person kneeling over him.

It was Noya, looking down at him with a fierce expression. Asahi sat up immediately, too glad to see him to even be embarrassed at the state he'd been discovered in. Noya immediately tangled a hand into his hair and kissed him hungrily.

“Where have you been?” Asahi whispered when they finally broke apart. Noya shook his head, and Asahi took his face into his hands. “Noya.”

“I shouldn’t have come back yet,” Noya said. “But you needed me, didn’t you?”

Asahi pulled him fully onto his lap, grit his teeth as Noya’s body rubbed up against his still-hard cock. And to his surprise, Noya gasped and pushed down, grinding against him. Asahi buried his face into his neck.

“Noya, let me touch you,” he pleaded, voice edging into broken.   

The other boy stilled in his arms. “I don’t need you to do that.”

“But I want to,” Asahi said desperately, and then finally voiced the fear that had been growing at the back of his mind. “Why don’t you like it?”

Noya jerked away from him, his eyes wide. “I love it when you touch me.”

Softly, Asahi brushed his thumb over his cheek, and Noya shivered with pleasure from even that tiny gesture, leaning into the light point of contact as though afraid it would disappear. He wasn’t lying.

“Then why won’t you let me?”

Noya swallowed. “I don’t know if I can handle it for very long.”

Asahi laughed in surprise. “Noya… has it ever looked to you like I handle it very well, in that case?”

“It’s different, Asahi, it’s different,” Noya said. “Please trust me.” His voice was climbing into frustration, but there was another element to it—doubt. He was unsure of himself. This was rare, and Asahi knew not to push it, but…

“I’ll never ask again, if that’s what you really want,” Asahi said. “I promise you.”

Noya looked up at the sky hopelessly, biting his lip, and Asahi saw his opening. He dropped his hand to stroke Noya through his thin pants, palmed the head of his cock, and breathed, “Is it really want you want?”

The response was immediate and unmistakable. Noya gave a moan like nothing Asahi had ever heard out of him, rising up off his lap to arch into his touch, head tipped back, mouth falling open, breathtaking.

Asahi had him down in the grass in an instant, kissing him, teeth grazing his skin, sucking at the hollow of his throat—tasting him, irresistible and pliant beneath him and so, so wanting. Noya didn’t resist, he just held on, fingers dragging up Asahi’s back under his shirt, breathing over and over into his ear, “Asahi, Asahi, Asahi.”

He could feel Noya rocking up against him, rubbing their cocks together through thin fabric, hardly a barrier, too much of a barrier. Noya was stuttering and gasping, and Asahi had a fleeting thought pass through his mind, that he should slow down, that he wanted this to last—

There was a sudden, blinding flash right at the edge of his vision—a crack and the roar of thunder as though it were a beast next to his ear—terrifying and absolute, and more shocking, the realization that he still did not want to stop, he had to have Noya, needed to have him in his entirety—

But Noya was gasping and pushing away from him, and then Asahi saw that there was fire, and the tree by which he had awoken that first day on the mountaintop was aflame, blackened and split right down the middle, victim to the lightning.

He rolled onto his feet, to grab Noya and pull him away, but Noya was already moving. To Asahi’s horror, he ran toward the burning remnants of the tree.

“Noya, stop!”

The boy reached for something in the flames, snatching his hand back suddenly and turning to face Asahi, who was racing up behind him. He grabbed Noya’s hand and was relieved to see he was miraculously unburned. Then he saw what he was holding.

It was the little wooden flute—pieces of it, anyway. Noya was staring down at it, stricken. He was saying something, in a voice so small Asahi had to bend down to hear him.

“…broke it. You brought this up the mountain and I…”

“It’s alright,” Asahi said. “I can make you another one. It wasn’t your fault.”

“Yes,” Noya said harshly—and there was a quiet fury in his voice that made Asahi take a step backward. “It was.”

He raised a hand to make a fist and the rain, which had been falling all the while, thundered down upon the burning tree, extinguishing the flames. Asahi had to use his hands to push his hair out of his face to see the other boy. Noya put a hand over his heart and took several deep breaths, his eyes closed, calming himself. Then he held out both hands, palms up, before lowering them slowly.

The rain slowed, then stopped. So did the wind, the flashes of thunder in the sky, the answering thunder. They all stopped as Noya commanded.

Asahi stared at him, at his boy, his fearless and forever companion with the lightning bolt in his hair.

He stared into the electric eyes of the God of Storms, of thunder and lightning, whose dominion was the sky.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. When Asahi did, it was carefully.

“I think… I just made sense of a lot of things,” he said.

“You really didn’t know?” Noya asked. “All this time?”

“No,” Asahi shook his head. “Because… I thought you would tell me anything.”

Noya’s expression crumbled. “It’s not that I didn’t trust you.”

“I know that,” Asahi said. He did know. But… “Why couldn’t you tell me?”

“I was scared you’d leave,” Noya whispered. “When you fell here—”

“Fell… here?” Asahi repeated.

“This mountain is mine, I can change it however I want,” Noya waved his hand. Before Asahi could even begin to wonder about that, he continued. “But I can’t leave here. So when I saw you in the meadow, I couldn’t tell you who I was. You did what you had come here to do, you would have gone back down. And by the time you finally wanted to try again, it was—”

Asahi recalled the painful time after he had descended the mountain and found his old life gone, the days spent sitting with his legs hanging off the edge, careless not out of confidence but despair. The sleepless nights wrapped up with Noya in a tangle of limbs, shaking and sobbing, and how Noya had never once let him go. He remembered tears on his cheeks, not his own, but his friend’s, and how Noya had never asked whether he was alright, because he knew he wasn’t. But he'd needed time.

I forgot time, the boy had said to him. And Asahi thought Noya had been crying for himself and for what he had lost but that wasn’t the truth.

“You didn’t know,” he said.

“I didn’t,” Noya admitted. “But it’s still my fault.”

“It’s not—”

“Asahi!” Noya silenced him, an echo of thunder in his words. “I brought you here. I kept you. I isolated you! All because I was too scared, too scared and angry to be alone any more. And I couldn’t tell you it was my fault, because instead of hating me, you loved me.”

They had never said that before. There was no need. What was love when only two people existed in the world?

“I still—”

“Don’t,” Noya squeezed his eyes closed. “If you’re not scared—” he cut off, and a humorless laugh escaped him. “Asahi, if for once, you’re not scared, then you just haven’t understood yet.” He opened his hand and the flute pieces fell from it. “I could break you.”

“But you won’t,” Asahi said, taking a step toward him, but Noya backed away.

“I could have broken you,” he whispered, his eyes too big in his pale face. And the wind started to howl.

“Noya, DON’T!” Asahi shouted, ran forward, but he was brought to his knees by the force of the gale.

When he looked up, Noya was gone.

*

When the storm finally cleared, Asahi was left with nothing to do but think. And wait.

He waited a long time. And he had much to think about.

There was first the crushing fear that Noya had abandoned him, had realized the limitations of being tied to a human and escaped while he had the chance. But that thought was pushed aside as quickly as it came, because those realizations must have long since occurred to Noya. Never had Asahi’s mortal frailty been more obvious than the time they had spent growing side by side, when Noya had stayed with him all the while.

Then the sadness, and the adoration, in tandem. How hard Noya had tried to keep him safe, how much it must have weighed on him. How terrified he was of being alone, while trusting Asahi not to leave him with his entire being.

But slowly, the one emotion to overtake them all was… guilt. Because as he replayed their last conversation in his mind, over and over, each time more painful than the last, Noya’s words began to ring clearer and clearer for him.

“If you’re not scared, you haven’t understood anything yet.”

And the more he thought about those words, the more he understood, and the more afraid he became. Not of Noya hurting him, breaking him.

But because of all the ways he could break Noya.

Just like it was difficult for a god to grasp the concept of mortality, it was nearly impossible for a mortal to understand what it meant to be eternal. But that was the fundamental difference between them. It wasn’t all of Noya’s power, his strength, or even his bravery. In the end, Noya would live forever. And Asahi…

Asahi wouldn’t.

However much time they had on the mountain together, whether it was hundreds of years, or thousands, or longer—none of that would matter once Asahi was gone and Noya—

Asahi felt a sob catch in his throat and grit his teeth to keep it from escaping. He sat in the meadow, the fractured pieces of the wooden flute in his hands. The grass of his home, this place in the sky that existed only for them, waved gently in the breeze. He didn’t want to leave it. But there was no use in being scared now. Because he understood why Noya kept leaving, had disappeared and essentially told him to run. He would have to run, he would have to be brave, to leave when all he wanted in the world was to stay.

How could he be selfish enough to make Noya watch him die?

He had few belongings, but he made sure to pack every single one away, so that he would leave nothing of himself behind. No reminders. No memories. He left the meadow with the grass rustling behind him and ducked into the forest. He ached to visit a few of their favorite places one last time—the carved tree, the stream with its clear water and colorful rocks, and of course, the sheer drop at the edge. But instead he walked straight toward the one place on the mountain that could deliver him back down to the ground.

It was still there. After all this time.

He stood frozen at the top of the path, unable to move forward. Downward lay a world he didn’t know—one he may never understand. But the uncertainty was nothing compared to the knowledge that the longer he stayed, the deeper the pain he would inflict on Noya. Nothing was worth that, not even the rest of his own life, short as it may be on the ground. He breathed out, trying to work up his nerve.

He was leaving for good—the path would disappear behind him, knowing his intent. If he took one more step, he could never come back. He’d never see Noya again.   

He picked up his foot.

A bolt of lightning lit up the sky so bright, it left him blinded. The ensuing crash of thunder was so loud it disoriented him, made his head pound. And somehow, through the awe-inspiring, terrifying din, he still could make out a distraught voice carrying across to him on the wind.

"NO!"

Asahi spun, shocked. The sight before him made his breath come in gasps. For now he finally witnessed the storm god in all his glory.

He was suspended in the air, the center of the storm, his eyes flashing a blinding white like the lightning he commanded. Sparks rolled across his skin as if craving to be unleashed, and when he spoke, it was in a voice that pulsed with the fury of thunder, harsh enough to shred the very air through which it traveled. Asahi had to cover his ears. His eyes were watering trying to stare directly at the god, but he dared not look away.

“If you take that path, you can’t come back!”

“I know!” Asahi shouted back, his voice pathetically small when compared to the ferocity of the storm.

“Then why?” the god questioned, as another boom of thunder split the air.

“You won’t have to worry about me! About hurting me!” Asahi told him. “You’ll forget about me this way!”

“You think that?” asked the god. “I can’t come down from the sky, but I see what happens on the ground. I would see you, and know how much I loved you. I will never forget you, not even after gods and men have ceased to exist.”

Asahi grit his teeth and took a step forward—away from the path. It was nearly impossible to force his way through the wind. “You have to, Noya! Otherwise you’ll have to—to watch me die, and I can’t bear that. I can’t leave you alone again!”

“I don’t care about being alone anymore!” the god raged, and Asahi winced, but continued walking, getting closer and closer to the eye of the storm. “All I care about is being with you! That’s enough. That will be enough, always.”

“What do you mean?” Asahi asked. “How?”

“I didn’t know what being alone meant,” said the god. The howl of the storm sounded quieter—calmer. “Until one day, someone explained what it was not. And I thought I would never have anyone to care about me.”

Asahi wondered who that someone was, whether to hate them or thank them, but now he had reached Noya, was looking straight up into those lightning eyes—and found that they were cooling, saw a familiar gaze staring back at him.

“I care about you,” he said, and held out his arms.

Noya dropped into them, light as air before he fully settled into Asahi, so light to hold despite the immense weight of his power. His small form buzzed from the remnant energy of the lightning, but it was fading into a soothing hum.

“And that’s enough,” Noya said. His hands were gentle on Asahi’s face. “I was afraid before, but I was wrong. You found me, and you—you love me, and that’s something I’ll always know until even I am gone. I’m not alone, I never will be again.”

There was a distinct ache in Asahi’s chest, an ache borne of longing and love that threatened to overwhelm him.

“I want to show you something,” he told Noya. “Will you trust me?”

“Always,” said Noya.

Asahi carried him back to the meadow, Noya’s legs wrapped around his waist. The path was so familiar that they could trade slow kisses the entire way, and Asahi could bury his face in Noya’s hair, which no longer spiked upwards like his angry lightning and instead lay soft and tousled over his forehead, and held the clean scent of rain.

They reached the meadow and Asahi went wide eyed at the sight of their home. The blackened tree stump was gone, and in its place a new tree grew. He walked to it, folding himself down into the grass with Noya in his lap.

“Your heart’s beating fast,” Noya smiled. “What do you want to show me?”

“I think we can pick up where we left off last time,” Asahi admitted. “Before…”

He expected Noya to protest, or even to get angry. But the little god just stared at him.

“You won’t hurt me,” Asahi said with certainty. “And we can stop any time you want.”

Noya’s fingers clasped in his. “I won’t want to stop.”

Asahi felt heat rise in his cheeks, and nodded. Then he leaned forward to capture Noya’s lips with his own.

It was like kissing sparks—however much things had calmed on the surface, Noya was raw on the inside, was keeping the roiling emotions inside him clamped down tight. His legs tightened on either side of Asahi’s hips as he opened his mouth, inviting Asahi in. Noya pulled off his own shirt, then let his fingers trail heat up Asahi’s back, dragging his shirt off in one smooth motion so his hands could roam freely, over Asahi’s broad shoulders and muscled arms, back up his stomach—

Asahi trapped his hands with one of his own, holding them tight together. As the familiar sound of growing thunder began to rasp through the air, he pinned Noya to his chest, stroking his hair, soothing him as best he could.

“I almost let you go,” Noya said, disbelief heavy in his voice. “Am I stupid?”

“It’s okay,” Asahi reassured him. “Calm down, it’s okay.” When he carefully released Noya’s hands, Noya slid them behind his neck, fingers interlaced. “Good,” Asahi said, and easily rolled them over so he was lying in the grass with Noya beneath him.

They looked at each other for a long moment. Noya brushed his hands lightly over Asahi’s neck to trace his fingertips down Asahi’s chest. “I want you,” he breathed.

Asahi swallowed hard, and nodded. Slowly, as even the smallest movements seemed to make Noya tremble underneath him, he slid a hand in between their bodies and nudged at the small of Noya’s back.

“Lift.”

Again, to his surprise, Noya did as he asked without protest. Asahi pulled down the thin pants he was wearing, pushing them aside.

For a second, he heavily reconsidered his plan. Noya was looking up at him with trusting eyes, completely naked now, his breath coming in tiny gasps already, hair falling over his face. Asahi couldn’t help but let his gaze travel downward, over Noya’s stomach where a red flush was starting to creep and then… narrow hips, and the pale skin on the inside of his thighs, and he was half hard and—

Asahi was going to have to be so careful, because Noya was right. Once they started, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop.

He reached out to feel around the base of the tree and found, to his surprise, what he was looking for: a small, smooth wooden jar, still intact (though a little singed). He heard Noya’s intake of breath.

“Trust me, trust me,” Asahi repeated like a mantra, before lowering himself between Noya’s legs. Carefully, he put one of his hands on Noya’s thigh, brushing his thumb lightly over creamy skin. Noya gave a full body shudder, his fists clenching and unclenching in the grass.

When Asahi’s lips found a hesitant place there as well, Noya cried out, writhing beneath him. He was oversensitive, his skin practically crackling with the dormant storm’s energy. So instead of moving to a new spot or drawing away, Asahi licked at him, teeth grazing lightly, letting him adjust to the slight sensations on that small patch of skin.

“Ah—Asahi—”

“You’re okay,” Asahi breathed onto his skin. He kissed a little higher, and higher still, working his way to the place where Noya’s hips dipped sharply, rubbing his tongue over the area. He had to keep reminding himself—careful. Be careful.

And Noya was doing his part, too—he was wordless, panting, but his directions came in the form of his hands in Asahi’s hair, tightening whenever the sensations became too much, relaxing to massage his fingertips into Asahi’s scalp when something felt just right.

It was incredible to have him like this, almost disorienting. The magnitude of Noya’s power was such that, despite his small wrists and soft lips and wide eyes, he could bring down the mountain, could stop or start Asahi’s heart with the slightest touch of his fingers. Yet he allowed Asahi to hold him down, feel the all too human beating of his heart, and drink in the sight of a god laying himself bare and open and willing to a mortal who had never and would never fear his divine nature.

When Asahi found himself able to suck hard enough to leave a bruise on the highest part of Noya’s thigh, right next to his cock, he reached out for the jar again.  

He pulled himself so they could lie with their heads next to each other, down in the grass. Noya’s eyes fluttered open, and when he glanced downward, he made a noise like a tiny whine.

“I have you,” Asahi told him. “You’re mine, and I have you.”

He set a finger slick with plant gel from the jar against Noya’s entrance, the lightest touch. Noya’s entire body spasmed and a harsh gasp escaped his lips. A light breeze started to pick up, then died down again as he took several deep breaths.

“Stop?” Asahi whispered. Noya shook his head.

“Hurry.”

The desperate need in his voice made Asahi inadvertently shift against his side, his own cock straining against the cloth of his pants. Noya moaned low and pressed his hips down, the demand clear. Asahi pushed one finger inside him, painfully slow, and watched as the god laying with him came undone.

Noya arched his back off the ground, a silent plea on his lips. Asahi grit his teeth, wanting to kiss him, to touch him everywhere, but he couldn’t—it would be too much.

“More—” Noya choked, collapsing back to the ground. Asahi shook his head.

“Not yet.” He eased his finger all the way in before pulling out completely, then pressed back in, setting a gentle pace. “Is that okay?”

“Yes—no—” Noya’s eyelids fluttered, his normally sharp gaze cloudy and unfocused. “I need—” He broke off with a stuttering moan as Asahi added a second finger, quickened the pace the slightest bit. “That’s good, that’s—”

His hands strayed down toward his cock, fingers sliding through the little bit of fluid that was already leaking onto his stomach. Asahi caught him just in time, pinning his thin arms above his head while continuing to open Noya up with his free hand.

“Just a little while longer,” he promised, as Noya let out a small cry of longing, his hips straining upward, trying to find release. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He pressed his forehead to Noya’s and Noya turned to look into his eyes.

“Don’t be sorry,” he said. “I waited this long, I’m used to it.”

“I don’t want to make you wait.” Asahi brushed his lips over Noya’s chin, his cheek, the side of his nose. When he curled his fingers inside of Noya, he felt him tighten as he stared into his eyes, and could not look away.

“I would—ah… would have waited for you,” Noya managed to gasp, “forever. And having you for one day would have been enough.”

And Asahi had no response to that, except to give him what he wanted.

Noya’s breath caught in protest as Asahi pulled his fingers away, but his eyes followed the movements, watching as the tall man shrugged out of his pants, leaving them both naked in the faint light of the moon. He dipped his fingers into the jar again and then pulled them over his cock, which was painfully hard.

Noya spread his legs for him, reaching his arms up to wrap around Asahi’s neck as Asahi lay back down. He ran his hand down one soft, flushed thigh, lifting it over his hip, before lining his cock up to Noya’s entrance and looking into his face again.

The little god was looking past his shoulder, his eyes dark and intoxicating. He had the faintest smile on his face as he stared upward. “Clear skies,” he said softly.

Asahi loved him so, so terribly.

He claimed Noya’s mouth as he buried himself deep. Tight heat enveloped him, mind-blowing. Was it like this for everyone, some small, still functioning corner of his mind wondered. It couldn’t be, not with the way Noya’s body seemed to send those powerful tingling sensations dancing over his cock as he tightened around Asahi, not with the way his mind was already going blank with pleasure when he wasn’t even doing anything.

Noya’s arms tightened around his neck. “Are you—” he panted, “—trying—to get struck by lightning? Move.”

Asahi smiled against his lips. It seemed like he was done waiting after all. And although it wasn’t a serious threat, Asahi obeyed—rolling his hips and thrusting heavy and slow inside of Noya, the god’s entire body rocking with the movements. Noya’s cock, pressed between them, slid against his skin, and Noya’s moans broke off into gasps every time Asahi drove inside him—

The very lightest hint of rain began to fall, and Asahi slid his tongue over Noya’s neck and throat, licking the cool droplets off hot skin where they gathered, his hands slipping easily now over the small body beneath him, both of them slick with rain and sweat.

“Please go faster,” Noya begged, desire making him submissive, and the coil of heat low in Asahi’s belly threatened to engulf him. He had to work to keep his hips from snapping forward.

“Not this time,” he said—but the next, maybe. Maybe he would take Noya apart roughly, with his tongue and his fingers first, before entering him like this and having his fill. But for now…

He slid one hand between their bodies to fist Noya’s cock and the husky moan this drew forth was enough of a motivation to keep going. As he stroked Noya, he withdrew himself from him completely, until only the tip of his cock was inside. Then, in time with the slow motions of his hand, he pushed back in, making Noya take him all the way until their hips were pressed together, grinding against one another.

He pulled out again and heard Noya bite back a sob.

“Asahi,” he said, the name a plea on his lips. “Asahi, please—”

Asahi slid all the way back in, felt Noya clenching around him, swore he could see that familiar edge, so close.

“Let me—I’m going to—”

“Noya, Noya, come for me,” Asahi told him.

It was the first time Asahi had ever been allowed to see Noya lose himself. His eyes flashed like the lightning he commanded, opening wide to catch Asahi’s mesmerized gaze, neither of them quite able to believe that it could feel like this, as good as this. Noya ran his hands down Asahi’s arms slowly, reverently, and Asahi rocked deep inside him once more—and Noya fell.

He had gone soundless, mouth fallen open in stunned pleasure, his eyes sliding back and closing. But now his voice returned to him, a broken whisper, one word over and over, “Yes, yes, yes—” and his legs squeezed tight around Asahi’s waist. Then his small hips were jerking unevenly, helplessly in Asahi’s hands as he finally came, warm and wet between their bodies. Asahi splayed his hand over Noya’s stomach, the skin under his fingers slicked up and warm, and moaned as the shudders rippling through Noya’s body forced him to clench around Asahi, even tighter than before.

Noya bit his lower lip and shook his hair out of his eyes, sitting up shakily to grip the back of Asahi’s neck. He rolled his hips up into Asahi’s now erratic thrusts and pressed their foreheads together, still out of breath.

“Was I what you wanted?” he murmured.

Asahi buried his face in Noya’s neck as he came inside him, gasping, unable to answer the question to which the answer was an overwhelming yes, a thousand times yes. Noya wrapped his arms around him tightly, and Asahi could hear the smile in his voice when he supplied his own answer.  

“Kind of seems like it.”

Asahi could only groan as he pulled out. He didn’t move any further, breathing in Noya’s scent, feeling hands in his hair, then rubbing over his back, until his heartbeat had returned to normal. It was a long while before he could speak again.

“You trusted me,” he murmured, his words muffled against Noya’s skin. When he finally looked into Noya’s face, the god was smiling.

“Since the first time I saw you, Asahi,” he said.

“Oh,” Asahi whispered, and smiled, too. “I think that was right before I fell in love with you.”

*

The top of the 'Eye of the Storm', tallest mountain in the world, was not easily reached, and remained the dominion of the sky god, lord of storms. It was ever changing, like and unlike the two beings who resided upon it, one a mortal man, who by nature had to grow, the other a divine god, whose fate it was to endure.  

Together, they found they could do both.

“Asahi,” Noya said one day, staring off into the cloudless blue. “Didn’t you say you were going to make me another flute?”

Asahi rubbed the back of his head guiltily. “I… may have, at some point.”

“Well, where is it?”

“It’s in progress,” Asahi told him, before wrapping his arms around Noya’s waist to drag him away from the edge. “I’ve been distracted.”

Noya looked at him accusingly. “By what?”

“Does it matter?” Asahi laughed broadly and kissed him. “Next time we’re home.”

Noya’s smile then was like his sky on a clear night.

Open and endless, and filled with the promise of countless tomorrows.