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The slow and gentle sway of the cherry blossom leaves catch Suguru’s attention as he steps into the secluded area of the campus, eyes moving on to the petals floating down onto the floor. Spring is in full force around Japan, and in their school it’s no different.
The boy looks around, eyes searching for the reason he made his way here in the first place. Upon not spotting any shock of white hair, he sighs, and slides down against one of the trees to sit. But before he could pull out a book from his bag to read, a loud voice sounds out from above.
“Suguru~! Up here!”
Turning his head to the source of it, he manages to spot the white he was looking for.
Satoru is sitting on one of the tree’s branches, legs dangling and kicking back and forth, his glasses perched on top of his head, leaving bright cerulean eyes to shine brightly as a wide grin spread across his face.
The pinks of the cherry blossom leaves seemed to frame the boy perfectly, painting an ethereal image in the spring breeze. Satoru looks happy. Suguru tries to not linger too much on the warmth in his chest at the sight.
“How did you even get up there?” he asks, surprise evident in his tone and expression.
“Uh, I climbed? Duh,” was Satoru’s simple response, as if it was obvious.
Which, it was, but that wasn’t exactly what Suguru meant.
“I know that, but how?”
Satoru sighs, frowns, and shrugs his shoulders as he slumps slightly, as if explaining was a tiresome action. “I grabbed a branch at a time until I got up here. C’mon, hurry up!”
“...You’re not expecting me to get up there with you, are you?”
“What else? We don’t got all day, you know!”
Suguru can’t help the eye roll as he sighs, adjusting his bag as he prepares to climb up to join his best friend.
Climbing up wasn’t necessarily difficult; Suguru had done this sort of thing since he was a young child, so he manages to reach the top in a matter of seconds. When he settles and sits beside Satoru, he quickly notices the look of shock on the other boy’s face.
“How’d you get up so fast!?” He gawks.
Now it’s Suguru’s turn to act smug, a smirk on his face as he replies nonchalantly. “Just practice. And skill, of course. How long did it take you to get up?”
Satoru pouts at him, crossing his arms. “It’s no fun if you have experience beforehand.”
The implication of his words doesn’t go unnoticed, though Suguru decides to not touch on it in case it upsets his friend.
“It’s still fun with experience,” he says instead. “You can make a game out of how fast you can climb, or how high you can get. The view and peace is a bonus, too, but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get the ‘peace’ part in this case.”
“Peace is boring anyways,” Satoru retorts. “Don’t you get tired of the quiet?”
Suguru readies the response of “yes,” but stops himself before the words leave his tongue.
Looking at Satoru again, he spots a few of the tree’s petals sprinkled around the boy’s hair, eyes focused solely on him, and a smirk back on his face. His presence is comfortable and makes Suguru feel indescribably happy, despite Satoru’s loud voice and tactless attitude. Suguru isn’t sure if he’d actually enjoy silence if it meant not having Satoru around.
But it’d be embarrassing to admit that, and could potentially lead to other feelings surfacing. Feelings that Suguru kept under lock and key.
So, he instead says, “Doesn’t everyone? But it doesn’t necessarily need to be quiet for there to be peace, you know. There’s still peace when we just talk.”
Satoru’s grin widens, seeming pleased with Suguru’s response. “Good.”
They then simply sit side by side for a while, talking about whatever came to mind. Satoru rambles about the new Digimon episodes he watched, while Suguru brings up random interesting things from the books he’s read. It is indeed peaceful and, not for the first time, Suguru wonders if they could have small happy moments like this forever.
At one point, Suguru starts talking about an English romance he was reading (translated to Japanese, since he wasn’t fluent enough in English yet), specifically about the confession scene and how Suguru thought it was stupid for it to have happened immediately after the male love interest almost died falling from a tree after being pushed by the protagonist.
“And she didn’t even apologize!” Suguru complains. “Just kissed him under the tree while his head was bleeding!”
Satoru frowns. “I don’t get why they have such a weird thing about trees and kissing in America.”
That stopped Suguru’s rant, making him tilt his head in confusion. “They do?”
“Yeah, haven’t you heard the nursery rhyme they have over there?” Satoru clears his throat, seeming to prepare himself as he begins to now speak in English. “First Name and Second Name, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”
Oh.
Suguru recalled the song from one of his conversations with Shoko earlier in the week. She was teasing him for his “obvious crush on Satoru,” using that song and inputting his and Satoru’s names into it. He isn’t even sure where she learned it from, but he knew it wasn’t really worth asking about.
He…really didn’t want Satoru to know about how he learned about the song, so he keeps quiet about that part. “That nursery rhyme? I really don’t get why it exists. You know anything about it?”
Satoru shrugs. “Not sure! I think it’s supposed to be something to tease kids or people that like each other? Like…”
Suddenly, Satoru pauses, and a smirk makes its way across his face.
“Nanamin and Haibara sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”
Suguru snorts, finding enjoyment in Satoru’s callout on their juniors. “They do seem to like each other, don’t they?”
“Seriously!” Satoru groans. “I get sick just watching them. I’m shocked they haven’t noticed that they like each other, it’s so obvious it hurts.”
Suguru laughs internally at that. If only he knew…
“I have a running bet with Shoko right now,” Satoru continues, his eyes glinting in the spikes of light that seep past the leaves. “If they confess this year, she owes me sweets until the day we die. If they don’t, I owe her cigarettes.”
“A risky play there,” Suguru remarks. Then, because he’s curious, “How did you learn about that nursery rhyme, anyway?”
And for some reason, Satoru’s face turns pink at the question, his eyes shifting away from Suguru and off to the side. “Uh. Shoko told me about it.”
Oh. Now Suguru’s interest has increased, along with a bubbling sense of anxiety that he tried to bury.
“I see,” he hums. “Why did it come up in conversation? Was it because of Nanami and Haibara?”
A laugh escapes Satoru’s lips, and Suguru felt as if there was an odd sense of nervousness behind it. “Yeah, that’s why,” he says, and Suguru can instantly tell it’s a lie with how oddly tense he suddenly looks.
The only question bothering him is why Satoru would lie about that.
“Satoru.” He waves his hand into the field of vision of blue eyes, garnering Satoru’s attention as he slowly shifts his eyes back towards Suguru, face reddening slightly as he does so.
“What?” Satoru huffs, a bothered expression on his face. Suguru keeps getting more confused.
The anxiety kept rising, but Suguru tried his best to remain unaware of potential implications. He doesn’t want to think about the potential real reason Shoko might have talked about the song to Satoru, doesn’t want to think about her potentially outing Suguru’s feelings to his best friend.
Lowering his hands, he frowns at his Satoru. “Did something happen between you and Shoko? You look bothered by whatever conversation you had with her.”
“What are you talking about?”
Suguru narrows his eyes, and Satoru sighs.
“Why do you pick now to be the time to be perceptive, huh?” he grumbles, looking away from Suguru again.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Suguru asks. The anxiety rises.
Satoru sighs again. “She…ugh, I don’t wanna say it.”
Suguru isn’t sure he’ll be able to take any more of this, each word cementing his fears closer to reality. Despite it, he keeps pushing. “What, did she pair you up with someone in the song and it embarrassed you or something?”
And Satoru turns back to look at Suguru’s eyes. “Why are you so interested, huh?”
“...Is that a yes?”
“Answer the question.”
“I asked first,” Suguru counters easily. “You’re dodging it, which isn’t helping your case.”
“And what if she did?” Satoru argues back. “You got a problem with that?”
And it sounded, almost, as if Satoru is the one worried about Suguru’s reaction. As if Satoru potentially likes someone, and Shoko teased him about it, too.
Oddly enough, the thought brings hope into Suguru’s mind, and he attempts to push further. “Depends on who she paired you up with. If you like someone, I don’t see why you’d tell her and not me.”
“I don’t like anyone,” Satoru denies, then suddenly, his eyes widen. “Hold on. You weren’t surprised when I first told you about it. You distracted me with your questions. How do you know the song, Suguru?”
And just like that, Suguru’s defenses were shot down.
“...Shoko also told me about it,” he admits.
Satoru blinks. “Oh!” Then, his eyes widen further, expression shocked as his face turns another shade of red. “Oh…”
And it takes Suguru a second to understand the implication on Satoru’s reaction, before he feels his own face heat up, heart picking up pace in his chest.
“...She told us the same thing, didn’t she,” Suguru says, trying his best to keep his tone as neutral as possible, burying the strong amount of hope inside.
He closes his eyes for a moment, opening them to see Satoru’s face again.
Satoru is simply staring at him and oh, the way his eyes crinkle and a soft smile crosses his face, cheeky yet enamored, and Suguru has to will his face to not catch fire as the hope inside him blossoms further throughout his body.
“Maybe she did,” Satoru responds. “Something along the lines of…
“Satoru and Suguru sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”
…Ah.
And Suguru’s hope feels validated, now, as his chest feels warm with the amount of bliss and love he feels towards the one in front of him. He allows himself to smile, most likely copying Satoru’s expression, and Satoru’s smile widens.
“So she did, then?” the boy asks for confirmation. Upon Suguru’s snort and small fits of laughter because of how ridiculous this confession played out, Satoru joins him. “You know, out of all ways I imagined this playing out, this definitely wasn’t one of them, but I’m not complaining.”
The words give Suguru pause, and he manages to stop himself from laughing. “...How long?” he asks, hoping the implication of the question was noticeable.
Satoru stops laughing as well, quieting down for a moment to think. “For as long as I’ve known you, I guess?” he finally replies. “Well, that’s how long I’ve had a crush on you, anyway. You?”
The specification of crush did not go unnoticed by Suguru, but he faltered slightly at the time frame Satoru stated. “That long?”
Satoru pouts cutely, and Suguru almost feels giddy upon the realization that he can just allow himself to think like that now. “You got a problem with it?” he asks, and Suguru smiles.
“I don’t. Just thought it was cute.”
And Satoru’s blush deepened. “Seriously? Uh- Anyway, you didn’t answer my question.”
“Started having a crush on you the moment you opened up about your Digimon obsession after our first mission together. Noticed I was in love when we were celebrating your birthday during our first year and you were crying over the cake Shoko and I got for you.”
“...Oh.” Satoru smirked. “You love me, huh?”
“You got a problem with it?” Suguru asks, mirroring the words his friend(???) said earlier.
“No,” he replied easily, eyes warm. “I love you too.”
Though he expected the response, relief and joy still spread throughout Suguru’s body, and he felt himself tearing up somewhat.
“Hey wait hold on are you crying—”
“Happy tears,” Suguru interrupted him, smiling happily as he rubbed at his eyes.
Satoru smiled back just as warmly, gently grabbing one of Suguru’s hands as he lowered them.
“...So. What now?” Suguru asks, and Satoru’s smile turns into more of a smirk.
“Well…we are sitting in a tree.”
Suguru knows where this is going, a mirroring smirk on his own face. “We are,” he agrees.
“Wanna…do something about it?”
Suguru feels his face slowly moving closer towards Satoru’s. “Maybe I do. And you?”
“Maybe I do, too,” Satoru replies, and meets Suguru halfway, both of their eyes slipping shut.
It is, with a late realization, that Suguru remembers he’d never kissed anyone in his life before. He didn’t know what to do, how to go about it, and yet.
Kissing Satoru felt as natural as breathing air, Satoru’s smooth lips against his chapped ones, and it felt warm and safe, like coming home.
They both moved their lips slowly against each others’, and in this moment, Suguru felt the happiest he’s ever been.
When they pulled away, Suguru opened his eyes to look at Satoru, and couldn’t help but smile warmly at his lovestruck and blissful expression.
He was truly home.