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Yu had barely seen Yosuke for four days straight, and he was getting a little antsy.
It wasn’t Yosuke’s fault. Every time Junes was short a couple of people, Yosuke got roped into helping out, even though he’d been working in HR for going on two years now. (Yu suspected that Yosuke volunteered, to take the pressure off of everybody else.) Which was great for the other employees, but bad for Yosuke, because—especially at this time of year, coming up on Christmas Eve—it saddled him with twelve- and sixteen-hour shifts, often for days at a time. Yu had offered to pitch in too, but Yosuke had turned him down, so Yu was stuck waiting for the storm to pass.
Not that Yu couldn’t distract himself. He could hang out with their friends; he could focus on his internship or schoolwork; he could read or clean their apartment or cook something extravagant, with plenty of leftovers for Yosuke to take to work the next day. And it wasn’t like he never saw Yosuke. Yu could visit during his breaks; he could text him, especially now that they both had smartphones; he could wake up in the middle of the night to Yosuke’s solid warmth beside him, or be kissed awake in the morning so Yosuke could whisper a goodbye before slipping out the door. They were fine. It was fine. And it would pass. If prior years were any indication, the zaniness would last right up until Christmas Eve, and then everything would go back to normal.
But while it was happening, Yu worried about his partner. Yosuke liked his job, but running around like this was exhausting, and Yu could see it—when he saw Yosuke at all—in the slouch of his shoulders and the dark circles under his eyes. Yu could hold down the fort at home, make sure Yosuke had enough to eat, text him happy things all day, but he couldn’t do much else, and that rankled. He was the Leader. He was supposed to help people, especially his partner, and not being able to—being helpless—stuck under his nails.
So it was a pleasant surprise when, right around 8:00, the front door slid open and Yosuke called sleepily, “I’m home.”
Sitting forward, Yu set his behemoth laptop aside. “Hey.”
A brief shuffling, and then Yosuke padded into view. Yu’s heart throbbed at the sight of him. His khakis were wrinkled; one shirtsleeve was stained with something yellowish; the top button of his collar was undone or—Yu peered closer—missing. His hair was a mess, swooped into a kind of pouf from being raked back out of his face too many times. And he looked exhausted. His mouth was slack, his eyes heavy-lidded and ringed by shadows. His right eye was red, and for a terrible moment Yu thought someone might’ve hit him, but then Yosuke rubbed the heel of his hand against it and Yu relaxed.
“Hey, Partner,” Yosuke said, starting to smile but breaking off on a jaw-creaking yawn. “What’re you doing up?”
“It’s only 8:00.”
“Oh.” Yosuke slumped onto the couch. “Feels like it should be later.”
“Normally, it would be.” Yu slipped his hand around the back of Yosuke’s neck, pressing his fingertips into the bunched muscles there. “Why are you home so early?”
Humming, Yosuke leaned into his touch. “Power went out.”
“What? At Junes?”
“Yeah. Dunno what happened. Dad’s really upset.” Yosuke heaved a sigh as Yu added his thumb to the mix. “The electrical guys were there for…two hours? Still hadn’t figured it out when I left.”
“Why did you?”
“Nothing else to do.” Yosuke lolled his head toward Yu, smiled. “Wanted to see you.”
Scooting closer, Yu put his arm around Yosuke’s shoulders and kissed his forehead. “I wanted to see you, too.”
“I know.” Yosuke wrapped both arms around Yu’s waist and buried his face in his chest. When he spoke, the words vibrated between Yu’s ribs. “I’m really sorry, Yu. I know how much you hate this.”
Yu smoothed his hands across Yosuke’s back, kneading his shoulderblades. “I don’t hate it. It’s your job.”
Yosuke’s laugh was a warm puff of air against Yu’s shirt. “You hate it. It drives you nuts.”
Yu had now reached the base of Yosuke’s neck. He pushed his thumbs into the knots he found there, making Yosuke first jolt and then groan with relief. “I just wish they wouldn’t lean on you so much.”
“They know they can ‘cause I’ve got you holding me up.”
Massaging the soft spot underneath Yosuke’s ear, Yu murmured, “I wish I could do more.”
Yosuke had been melting into him, warm and heavy, but now he tensed. Tsking, he lifted his head and glared.
“I did it again,” Yosuke said, batting Yu’s hands away. “The whole way home, I told myself I wouldn’t let you distract me—”
Yu blinked. “Distract you—?”
“—and the second I got in the door, I did it anyway—”
“Yosuke,” Yu said, and broke off, because Yosuke had clambered into his lap.
“I see you, you know,” Yosuke said, planting his palms on Yu’s shoulders, his forehead against Yu’s. “You think you’re so subtle, but I see you.”
“What are you—”
“I used to wonder why everything seemed so much easier when you were around,” Yosuke said. The bright, clear amber of his eyes was all Yu could see; the sturdy heat of his body all Yu could feel, pressing him into the couch. “Why I worried so much less, why I felt so much safer. For a while I thought it was just part of loving you. Now I know better.”
“I,” Yu said, but Yosuke silenced him with a kiss, quick and sweet.
“It’s easy,” Yosuke said, drawing back just enough to speak, his lips still brushing Yu’s, “because you make it easy. Because you run around smoothing down the edges of my life.”
Yu didn’t know what to say, but he opened his mouth anyway. This time Yosuke kissed the tip of his nose.
“It was my turn to clean the kitchen this week,” he said, lifting his hands to cradle Yu’s face. “Every night I came home dreading it. But it’s spotless.”
“You were busy,” Yu said, grasping Yosuke’s waist.
Yosuke kissed Yu’s forehead, ran his thumbs along Yu’s cheekbones. “Every night there was an outfit hanging in the bathroom, all ready for the next morning. I didn’t even know how much I liked those shirts until you picked them out.”
Yu shut his eyes against the sudden, inexplicable burn of tears. Yosuke kissed each of his eyelids.
“I had to get up at the asscrack of dawn, but somehow there was always coffee ready and waiting, even though you were still asleep.”
Another kiss to Yu’s forehead, to his temples, trailed down one cheek. Yu squeezed Yosuke’s waist, swallowed around the lump in his throat.
“I was always running late, so I flew out of here like my ass was on fire, but these handy little notes everywhere reminded me to check the fridge for my lunch and breakfast and dinner, too.”
Several more kisses traced the curve of Yu’s jaw, the point of his chin; strong fingers massaged along Yu’s shoulders to his upper arms, squeezing his biceps.
“All day long, I could feel my phone vibrating. And whenever I got a free second, I could scroll through your texts and feel like an actual person, for once.”
Guiding Yu’s arms around his midsection, Yosuke slipped both hands beneath Yu’s shirt and trailed his nails across his skin, light and soothing. Shivering, Yu leaned into him, burying his face in his neck.
“You always showed up for my first break, and man, Partner, seeing you walk through the door was the best goddamn thing.” Yosuke’s voice tightened, pitching up into a croak. “No matter how shitty things had been, once you were there—”
“I just wanted to make you happy,” Yu murmured into Yosuke’s throat, into the pulse thrumming against his lips.
“You did.” Yosuke tipped Yu’s face up and kissed him, over and over and over, chanting, “You did, you did, you did,” until Yu caught him and held him still, his mouth warm and soft and trembling.
And when Yosuke broke away once more, he looked Yu firmly in the eye and said, “You do.” Yu’s heart was so full that he couldn’t answer. “You take such good care of me and I know how hard you work at it. You have no idea how much it means to me.”
“I love you,” Yu whispered.
“You have no idea,” Yosuke repeated, and kissed him again, and they didn’t say much after that.