Taichi is asleep on your shoulder.
He had fallen asleep on the three hour car-ride into the deep Tuscan countryside despite the rough, unpaved road and lack of air conditioning. There are no seatbelts in the backseat-- you had grabbed onto him after a particularly rough lurch and he had, in his sleep, curled into your touch.
He's breathing quietly and as still as you've ever seen him, without the hot and wild sandstorm of restlessness that has been blowing around him in a constant, private wind for the past month.
It's your last summer-- before everyone leaves for different universities and different countries and different friends. But Taichi had announced, suddenly, last week, he wanted to spend the summer in Tuscany and you offered to go along.
You've driven through a deep valley, its hillsides dotted with tended vineyards and olive groves, and now the landscape has given way to toasted fields of sunflowers. The house begins to appear in the distance-- tall and square, a sun-soaked apricot-color with faded green shutters and an ancient tile roof.
Taichi lifts his head and turns to look at you with a soft, sleepy face, half-open mouth and warm eyes. It's warmth that is always there, but kept up especially for Hikari and-- at one time-- you.
He's your best friend. You're not quite sure if it began when you started dating Sora last year but he had grown quieter and quieter around you and the underlying distance in his eyes when he'd meet your gaze had grown wider and wider.
He gives you a small smile and turns to look out the window. The setting sun has painted the horizon with broad streaks of deep gold and saturated saffron and bright flares of scarlet. A slab of sunlight falls into the car from the side window so that Taichi squints when he turns to look at you. When he opens his eyes again they are-- for a brief moment-- the same color as the dust-dry plain outside and the emotion on his face makes you want to straighten and look to the sky.
The car lurches again, violently, as you drive into another deep dip in the road.
This isn't the first time you've thought about kissing Taichi, but pressed knee-to-knee with him in the hot yellow sunshine and surrounded by the ancient dust of the Tuscan plain, this is the first time you hadn't thought about stopping yourself either.