They're always focused.
They don't show the light in their eye often, tucked behind steel iris and lit low, candle pinched out and cracked light, glass casting a design over the wall's expanse. They hold themselves inside, heart between fingers and arms over rib cage – they are internal, thoughtful on matters beyond what most concern themselves with. They look troubled.
They don't like to smile, but they're at peace when their brow relaxes and their shoulders lower, no longer hackled at their ears, like they're braving every word spoken to them. They look their best when they're light, when they loosen their bones and walk where it's warm.
He sits on the counter, shoulders lax and ankles hooking together and pulling off what makes him the Sanada people expect, hope for, know. The moon sits in the crux of the sky, soft tooth and cut to semi-lunar peak, crawling over the expanse of night. He's feeling eight years younger and he knows he's not meant to sit here, but he can't watch their shoulders relax and their head tilt to the left from the common room's table.
He's off the counter, and Shinjiro moves their shoulders in again, holding their defensive posture like a bedside gun - a habit. Akihiko never tries to think on what they assume he is, what he'll say, expecting the worst before they realize who is talking to them. It's the waist first, pulling them close and stepping just the same, before he's found their lower abdomen. His wrists could rest in their skin, pulled and wasting. Their shoulder blades crook out, and Akihiko keeps his head between them.
"Not in front of the stove," Shinjiro says, and he wants to laugh. There's still humour in their words. A fondness that comes out only at the crawl of midnight, in private intimacy, in the last bit of light offered before the hours bleed and the earth moves to open a dead tower. The verbal brush of their fingers on his.
"I'm hungry." Akihiko would look for a spoon kept to the side, stretch one of his arms out and feel around, but he's either to grope the burning element (bad) or have his hand struck down by Shinjiro (worse). He smiles against their back, cheeky and projecting a false, innocuous hope, and they roll their shoulders back against him out of an instinct they've always had. Like their nerves are always raw, revealed and open, always letting things get to them. Akihiko runs a hand over them like it's the wire of a piano, and they shift like the last throes of death. His brushes with affection never come without the worry of something sick, but Shinjiro can smile through them. He's seen it.
Something like cooking beef, warm over the element – he can hook his chin over their shoulder, and he does, to see a rolling boil carrying onion, taro and mushroom. Shinjiro rolls their shoulder, digging the curve of their bone into Akihiko's chin, and the complaint is more childish than he's going for.
"Off."
But it's not irritated.
A grin, with soreness swelling in his throat. "I don't even know if I should be asking. You're not making nearly enough."
There's the tepid sigh, the decade old act of maturity they keep tucked behind their lung, showing only when they need to, when the dour shade lightens. He likes moments like these. He remembers what he must, and they do too – but Shinjiro isn't thinking on the past, future, or present. Only the boy with his elbows pressed into his sides and hands clutching around their torso, warm like the heart they can't keep. "I don't want to know what they've been feeding you if you think this isn't enough."
Akihiko steps back, but carries them with him – and he laughs and lifts his brow when they lean forward anyway, chopsticks stirring the contents of the pan. The distance means they won't get caught on the pan or the oven, so it's when he turns them around – steel meet steel and Shinjiro keeps the utensils lifted, hands raised like the last line of defence. Akihiko's smile is better, curved lip and teeth hidden, hands held together to keep Shinjiro where they need to stay.
"You're being sentimental," they murmur out, words kept together like poor patchwork, low and never steady but grounded all the same.
"I get moody when I'm hungry," is his response, and if it wasn't an oven he tempts them over, he'd lean them back, sit them down. The exhilaration at having them back in the dorm (with him) never left, never crawled from the cusp of his heart and found a new place to rest.
To anyone else, the relaxing of their mouth and the curve of the corners is nothing close to a smile. "You're always moody."
Shinjiro's hands rest on his shoulders, fingers light. The hand that holds the chopsticks rests against its side. It humbles them enough to watch him, thoughtful and careful. They do nothing but question what they did to deserve him, words they've asked themselves, asked him, too often. "It's a habit I can't break, then."
"A habit you don't try to break."
"A habit I don't want to break?"
The free hand finds the base of Akihiko's neck, freed of the stiff school uniform. Their hands are always cold now, and Akihiko doesn't know why - doesn't think he wants to know why no matter how it eats at him, but they've never lost the touch of intimacy. "Don't flatter me."
"You're doing better," finally passes his mouth, a thought pressing to the front of his skull, and they pause, one foot on the step to the hangman's noose. Their hand doesn't move, but then their thumb does, rubbing the skin beneath it. The smile is gone, but it kicks that warmth back into their eyes.
Less cut light, and back to the fire he knew.
"Thanks."