Sorry for the formatting errors for take 1, folks. Re-publishing was the only thing that seemed to fix the problem. Thanks to Kurayami-9 for the heads up about the issue!
The year after they graduated, Yukimura decided to move in with Sanada.
It wasn't a formal move-in. There was no moving van, and they weren't becoming roommates in any shape or form. Yukimura had the key – Sanada didn't remember giving it to him, but there it was, dangling next to the other boy's own set – and it became routine for Yukimura to arrive unannounced in the middle of the day, or night, or whenever. It even became routine for Sanada to come home and find Yukimura stretched out on the futon, reading a book from his own extensive library.
After the first few times, Sanada stopped asking questions.
It had already been over a year since Yukimura was officially delivered the news of his complete recovery, but Sanada came to find that it was taking him almost as long to get used to this again. This – Yukimura's strong voice, his ability to stand on his own, the flush of his cheeks – was not the Yukimura whose life had been put on hold. Even seeing him out of his sickly green hospital garb had its shock value. There had been a time Sanada had thought the only way he was going to remember his friend was with dim eyes, colorless cheeks and that disagreeable shade of green.
When this Yukimura – this new Yukimura to the world, but old and familiar to Sanada – when he smiled, Sanada thought those hospital hallways could've been a dream he only barely remembered.
He would know Yukimura was home by the lights from the kitchen window, or the smell of something cooking. He would know if Yukimura had been away for a while by the stillness of the house. He waited uncertainly for the resentment that would surely accompany the invasion of such a solitary creature's space, but it never came. Not when Yukimura rearranged his things, or took over the kitchen, or even moved the furniture. What had previously been an empty house was filled with some kind of essence that Sanada could not pinpoint or name – only feel. He watched as Yukimura drifted from one room to another, or from one state of being to another – a flawless transition that evoked sensations Sanada recognized as those he experienced when completing a perfect stroke in calligraphy. He thought if the house was a canvas, then Seiichi was the brush; though would later quietly scold himself for falling prey to such a maudlin metaphor.
At night, they would sleep facing each other, Yukimura a few feet away on the spare mattress, close but out of reach. Sanada wondered which one of them had positioned the mattress like that the first time, but acquiesced that it was for the better; else, he thought, he might not be able to help himself reaching over to catch between two fingers the silk of Yukimura's hair, awash with light from the moon. It was fortunate, he concluded, that it was Yukimura's face bathed in the light and his own lost in the shadow. Every other time of the day it seemed Yukimura could see right through him.
Sometimes they would lay awake for hours and exchange almost no words, instead listening to the rhythmic pounding of rain or the hush of falling snow. Yukimura never directly asked Sanada whether their living arrangement was fine. On a few occasions, he would squint through the darkness, looking for the sharp curve of Sanada's face, and simply ask, Is it okay?
Sanada would hold the silence few moments before answering, Yes.
Then he would dream of their freshman year, or the first time they held either side of the National Cup, or the end of his racket receiving one of Yukimura's fierce hits. Once in a while, he would relive the first time Yukimura collapsed, or the feeling of his face against Sanada's hand, a feeling he wondered if Yukimura shared with him in the nothingness of induced sleep. On those nights, he would find when he woke that his hand was much closer to Yukimura than he remembered placing it. It was only then that he might indulge and put a finger to his partner's lips, or let his palms brush thick eyelashes. To make sure all of it was real, he would tell himself.
To make sure Yukimura had truly come home.