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owletstarlet · 4 years

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19 shy, 27 giggly or 28 first for tanunatsu if you dont mind 💖

[#19, a shy kiss, from the 76 kiss prompts meme. Sorry it took so long! Established relationship because lord knows we need it right now–]

***

“Is that a new shirt?”

Whatever Natsume had been about to say never makes it out of his mouth. Instead he follows Kaname’s gaze down to where the triangle of soft pink is visible, flecked with bits of green, where he’s tugged at his scarf and begun to fiddle with the zipper.

“Oh,” is all he says, not quite meeting Kaname’s eyes. That, and a noncommittal “mm,” as he zips his jacket firmly back up and yanks the scarf back into place.

Kaname blinks, puzzled. “You can take your jacket off if you’re uncomfortable. It’s really warm in here.” His own jacket lies discarded across his knees; he’d needed it in the dim coolness of the aquarium where they’d spent the afternoon, but the little waiting room on the train platform is generously heated and getting stuffier by the minute.

“It’s fine,” Natsume says, expression now perfectly smooth, arms coming up to rest loosely across his chest. If Kaname didn’t know by now how to pick out the taut thread that the words rested upon, he’d have missed it.

And Kaname probably should have dropped it there. Except there’s high spots of color on Natsume’s cheeks, and he’s clutching a hot can of vending machine cocoa. “Are you feeling okay?” he asks, instead, hand hovering of its own accord above Natsume’s shoulder. He’s struck, then, by a worse possibility than him getting ill, worse and likely paranoid of him, that Natsume could be hurt and concealing it with the jacket and that Kaname had somehow missed the signs. He doesn’t think Natsume would do that, or at least that he’s a lot less likely to than he might’ve been even a handful of months ago, but it sets off a flurry of unwelcome images through Kaname’s head.

“No, it’s—I’m okay,” Natsume says, quickly, and he looks sincere enough that Kaname’s chest unclenches, a bit. He blows out a breath. “Just. The shirt’s a bit…much.” His mouth tugs into a brittle line. “It was Touko-san’s idea,” he tacks on. “…mostly.”

“Mostly?”

Natsume makes a tiny non-answer of a sound in his throat and shifts a little in his seat, now studiously avoiding Kaname’s gaze. And the picture he paints huddled there in the little plastic chair, cheeks dusted pink, is so frankly adorable that Kaname has to firmly remind himself not to let it show on his own face. Not if Natsume’s legitimately uncomfortable.

“You don’t have to take your jacket off if you don’t want,” Kaname says, slowly, “but it’s forty minutes until the next train, and I really doubt anyone else is going to show up,” he says, gesturing towards the deserted platform outside. A pause. “You know I won’t laugh at you or anything, right?”

Natsume doesn’t answer, but he does look up, and something has softened behind his eyes. It’s like there’s a few dozen honeybees trapped behind Kaname’s sternum, all knocking into each other and clamoring for escape, to see that look directed at him.

“O-or, um,” he continues, “If it’s really bothering you, you can wear this one.” He plucks at his own long sleeves. “I’ve got a t-shirt under it, and you could change in the station bathroom.”

The look Natsume gives him is just long enough for Kaname to think he should’ve just dropped it after all. But then his expression shifts into something considering. Very slowly, he reaches up and tugs his scarf loose.

“You said you won’t laugh,” he reminds Kaname, his tone just this side of defensive, and he unzips his jacket.

And it’s a near thing, for Kaname to hold back the sound that bubbles up in his throat, when he sees.

“I have this one,” he blurts, instead, finger coming up to lightly poke a spot just over Natsume’s stomach. “A-and this was the first I ever got—” he brushes just below Natsume’s collarbone, but the image printed in pale green onto the cotton is half obscured by Natsume’s jacket, still covering his slightly hunched shoulders. His fingertips catch the hem. “Can I—” he cuts himself off, upon realizing how very still Natsume is holding himself, like he’s been holding his breath. He lets his hand drop. “Sorry.”

When Natsume meets his eyes, though, he looks vaguely startled. “Wait, you. Want to see?”

“Yes.” The word falls all too quickly from Kaname’s lips, and he feels his face grow warm.

“…oh,” is all Natsume says, like he’s not sure how to parse this information.

“It’s just, um.” Kaname has to resist the urge to chew on the inside of his cheek. “I really like it. But you don’t have to.”

Natsume still very much looks like he’d rather melt into his scuffed-up plastic seat than take his jacket off fully, but to Kaname’s surprise, a pale smile touches his lips. “I know,” he says. And he shrugs off the jacket.

And…objectively speaking, it’s not all that different from many of the other shirts he owns, the newest of the several button-downs in the light colors and playful patterns that Touko seems so fond of selecting for him. He’s never indicated that any of those shirts are a little much, but then again Kaname knows that Natsume would deeply value anything chosen just for him by somebody who cares for him half as much as Touko.

But what’s got Kaname’s full and undivided attention at the moment is the shirt’s pattern. Spangled across the cotton, in splashes of green and purple and gray and darker pink, are an array of succulents and desert flowers, each no larger than a bottlecap. There are easily a dozen varieties, not fantastically detailed but not dissimilar to the ink-and-watercolor illustrations in the guide book he’s had the longest—a library book Dad had brought for him when he was twelve and laid up with pneumonia for the better part of a summer. A book which had, incidentally, ended up in a box of his possessions the next time they’d moved house. Natsume had flipped through that very book last weekend, sprawled out lazy and warm across Kaname’s bed. Kaname had kept tight reins on the impulse to volunteer entirely too much information as he looked at each page over Natsume’s shoulder, while Sensei offered his periodical commentary on which plants looked like they’d be the tastiest fried up in oil. Sensei had been entirely unmoved by Kaname’s insistence that they’d probably make him sick to eat, and had given Kaname’s own little collection of plants on the desk and windowsill enough long conniving looks that Natsume had cuffed him on the head for it. Kaname feels warmed to the core at the familiar images before him now, at the slowly-relaxing shoulders and the still-flushed cheeks of the boy wearing them.

“Where did you get it?” Kaname asks, tugging gently at one sleeve. Pachyveria exotica, his brain supplies, reflexively, at the sight of the pale green starburst beneath his thumb.

“That secondhand shop, the one near the post office across from the school. I was there with Touko-san. She chose it—well.” A sheepish twist of his mouth. “She saw me looking. And she said it’d be…nice, um. To wear. The next time you and me went out.”

“…Oh.” He thinks his own face must have gone a bit pink now, too. Then he asks, because it seems important somehow, “Did you want to get it? You know, for your own sake.”

Natsume smushes his lips together a bit, stares very hard at a spot on Kaname’s shoulder. Finally says, “…yes? I mean. Yes. I tried it on, and, uh, Touko-san said it looked nice. She said you’d think so too, and she sounded really really sure about it, and I guess I ended up agreeing with her?” His expression turns sour. “Then I tried it on when Sensei was around. He laughed so hard he choked on the eel he was eating.” His eyes narrow. “He’s not here right now because I threatened him.”

Kaname glances out at the platform, then, and the dark treeline beyond. Of course he’d noticed Sensei’s absence, but given that Natsume hadn’t seemed at all tense as he surely would if they were wholly unprotected, Kaname had figured that Sensei wasn’t far. If he wasn’t, then Kaname can’t quite help wondering what is out there watching over them. He forces his attention back to the matter at hand, though, saying, “I mean. Ponta doesn’t wear shirts, so I wouldn’t trust his opinion. And—” He closes the space between them, places both hands lightly on Natsume’s still-tensed shoulders. “Touko-san was right. I like it. So much.”

The twitch of Natsume’s lips, however slight, feels like an accomplishment.

Until he begins, “…but, ah—” before apparently thinking better of it, cutting himself off with a tiny shake of the head, looking of all things frustrated with himself. “Never mind.”

Kaname doesn’t press him, but he waits, not letting go of Natsume’s shoulders.

Eventually, Natsume huffs out a short breath, and glances down at his shirt. “I don’t remember the names,” he admits. “Of any of them. And I know you’ve told me. Probably more than once. And we’d even looked at your book together. The library over near the park didn’t help either, they only really had gardening books and—”

“You went to the library?” Kaname interrupts, unable to help himself.

“Um.” It takes a little longer to happen this time, as Natsume realizes exactly what he’s just said, but the shade his cheeks eventually land upon is spectacular, like they could scald Kaname’s fingertips if he touched them. “Just for a little while,” he mumbles, fiddling with the hem of the shirt where it sits on his thigh. “I just checked the one section.”

“You went to the library,” Kaname repeats, slowly.

“But I couldn’t find the—”

The rest of his words are lost, then, between Kaname’s lips.

He can taste chalky canned cocoa on Natsume’s mouth; and Natsume doesn’t quite kiss him back, but some of the tension bleeds out of his shoulders beneath Kaname’s palms. After a moment, he feels Natsume’s arms snake their way around his waist.

When they finally part, Kaname doesn’t even get the chance to see if that astounding blush has changed any, because Natsume promptly plants his face against Kaname’s chest. Kaname huffs out a chuckle and rests his chin atop the crown of his head, silky hair tickling at his throat.

“Are you hugging me just to hug me, or are you hiding?” he asks, grinning.

“…you’ve done it, too,” comes the muffled accusation.

“That’s fair.” He brings a hand up to smooth Natsume’s hair, so incredibly fond that the feeling’s practically risen up to stick fast in his throat. “…You know it’s not a test, though, right? This, I mean.” He taps a spot on Natsume’s shoulder, letting his finger trace the strand of pale green pods tipped in plump, pink buds. Sedum morganianum.

“Mm,” is the only reply.

“I mean. I know a lot of the names are a mouthful. The only reason I learned them is because I kind of had too much time on my hands when I was twelve, so. It’s really okay.”

At that, Natsume finally pulls away, just enough to tilt his head up. By now his blush has receded to something a little less alarming. “You can tell me again,” he says, quietly, but eyes alight in that way that never fails to make all of Kaname’s insides feel somehow all bunched up and ready to burst at the same time.

“I don’t want to bore you,” he says, once he finally locates his voice.

“You won’t.” The answer is immediate, certain. “I mean. I’m still not sure I can remember them all, but. You’re really happy when you talk about them. That’s not boring.”

Oh.

Kaname leans forward, tucks an unseen smile into Natsume’s hair. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Kaname peers down across what he can see of Natsume’s back, from this angle. “…it might be easier for you to see which of these is which if I show you in a book.”

“I’ll have to put my coat back on when the train comes,” Natsume points out. Regardless, he makes no attempt to untangle himself from Kaname, his face once more squashed into Kaname’s chest, arms still looped around his waist.

“Good point.” Kaname leans forward as much as he’s able, squints a little, and touches a spot just below Natsume’s shoulder blade. “This one’s sempervivum calcareum.”

He feels a warm huff against his shirt. “You know I have no idea which one you mean.”

“This one,” he says, and taps the same image where it’s printed over the edge of his sleeve.

“Thanks,” comes the dry response, and Kaname thinks his face might crack in two from the sheer and idiotic magnitude of his grin.

“You’re welcome. Here’s aeonium arboreum.”

***

[Pseudo-based on a thing I wrote about Tanuma’s hobbies: between Tanuma with his succulent collection and Natsume with his ugly button downs they make one(1) Disaster Gay. Notably I had @mayorofcattown’s awkward aquarium date piece firmly in mind while writing this one; not that this scenario was intended to have been after a first date, but I was very charmed by the idea of Natsume getting All Dressed Up for a nice aquarium outing… ]

#natsume yuujinchou #natsume's book of friends #natsuyuu #tanunatsu #owlet's fanfic #ask prompt #ask meme #nycnko #tanuma kaname #natsume takashi #is this great? no #is it done after three and a half months? yes

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