I got the idea for this weird AU awhile back and needed to get it out of my head. This will eventually have enough slash to warrant the M rating. You have been warned!
If the guy living in the park wasn't so young, Masamune doubted he'd have ever noticed him in the first place.
Their eyes had never met though. Usually the guy in the park was busy looking around on the ground or worse, digging through the trash. Masamune usually saw him at night. His job prevented him from going home any earlier than seven or eight in the evening most of the time. By the time he got dinner and drove home, it was close to nine or ten.
Today again, he spotted the brunette man in the park. He wore a thin hoodie despite the encroaching chill. Most of November had been unseasonably warm, but the weather had suddenly taken a turn for the worse.
But that guy wasn't his problem.
Masamune took the stairs up to his apartment. The apartment manager always kept the building warmer than Masamune preferred and the heat smacked him in the face the second he opened the door to his room. He threw his jacket over the nearest chair and dropped the takeout Chinese food on the counter.
He stood in the center of living room with his arms crossed. He could either strip down to his underwear or crack open a few windows and piss off the landlord. Although he lived alone, Masamune opted for pissing off the landlord.
His living room overlooked the park. From three stories up, he had a great view of softly glowing streetlamps lining the walkways and how they lit up the bare trees. It was peaceful even if it wasn't the most beautiful time of the year.
Masamune stared out the window. He was dead tired. He barely had time for friends let alone women after he'd taken his new job. He wouldn't call himself lonely. He was just tired of being alone all the time. Eating all his meals alone. Watching TV alone.
He sighed. His breath hung in the air as a white cloud until the wind whisked it away.
Alright. He was lonely. But only a little.
Just as he was about to turn away, he spotted a dark figure walking along the tree line. Eventually the figure separated and in a brief moment the edge of the light illuminated the sullen face of the guy who lived in the park.
Masamune hadn't noticed before, but the guy looked terrible. Pale and sickly with a vacant gaze. Maybe he'd gotten into drugs?
As Masamune watched, the man stumbled towards a trash bin. He gripped the edge to keep his balance, but still barely managed to stay upright. The man bent his head, looked in the empty bin, then let out a moan. No, not a moan. More like a whimper. The man's grip gave way and he collapsed into a pile.
Masamune's eye grew wide. The man wasn't moving. It was freezing outside and that guy wasn't moving.
"Shit," Masamune said aloud. He grabbed his jacket and phone and sprinted out of his apartment.
"Hey! You OK?" Masamune called as he approached.
The man flinched at his words.
"Just dizzy," the man whispered into the ground.
"You take something? Or are you sick?"
The man finally looked up at Masamune. He had warm, brown eyes. "I'm fine. I haven't eaten much and I got dizzy. That's all." He pushed his hands against the pavement and struggled into a kneeling position, but didn't try to move beyond that. "I'll be fine," he repeated. "Thank you for your concern."
"Can you even stand up?" Masamune asked.
The man looked down. "I just need to rest for a moment." He squeezed his eyes shut and leaned back against the garbage bin.
"You're going to die if you don't get up and out of this cold. You got someplace you can go?"
"I've got a…campsite in the woods."
"That's it?" Masamune barked. He glared at the man on the ground.
The guy didn't reply. Didn't even raise his head. His shoulders slumped a fraction and a length, when it was clear Masamune wasn't going to leave without an answer, he said, "Yes. That's it."
Masamune sighed. "Come with me then."
The man jumped. "Uh. N-no, thank you."
Of course he'd be scared. Masamune wasn't even sure why he was thinking the thoughts that were in his head, but there was no stopping him now.
"Come on. I'm taking you back to my place."
The man looked on the verge of panicking. "No! I won't do things like that for money and I don't want to become a host and I don't want to borrow money either!"
Masamune gaped. "The hell kind of people have you been talking to?"
"People usually want something in return for their kindness and it's usually something I don't want to give," the man murmured.
"Fair enough," Masamune said. "But I'm just some wage slave that works a normal job, not some seedy yakuza punk. I don't want anything from you. I just don't want to watch some guy die in front of my apartment tonight so you want a warm place to sleep for free or not?"
After a moment's hesitation, the man nodded. Masamune helped him up and half walked, half carried him back to his apartment.
"So how long's it been since your last meal," Masamune asked.
The man furrowed his brow and thought for a few seconds. "Um. Three days or so."
Masamune grabbed the now cold Chinese takeout on the counter and dumped the contents on a plate. "Hurry up and wash your hands, I'll heat this up for you."
The man nodded and carefully made his way to the bathroom, gripping the wall to keep his balance.
Masamune threw the plate into the microwave and sighed for the second or third time that night. What the hell had he been thinking? Inviting a stranger into his house and giving him his dinner on top of it. Masamune took his phone out of his pocket and dialed a local pizza place. After he placed an order and hung up, he heard a voice behind him.
"I'm sorry. Did you have to order food because of me?"
Masamune looked behind him. "Yeah," he admitted. "But this ain't gonna fill you up if you haven't eaten in three days. We can split the pizza. It's fine." He waved at the man to sit at the small dining table and placed the warm plate in front of him.
"Thank you so much."
Masamune smiled. He liked how polite the guy was and how his eyes sparkled at even the smallest gestures of kindness. "It's nothing. So what's your name?"
"Oh! I'm sorry for not introducing myself sooner! I am Yukimura Sanada. It's very nice to meet you."
"Masamune Date."
Yukimura smiled broadly and it lit up his weary face. He had such a childlike innocence to him, despite the obvious hardships he'd endured. Masamune found it hard not to stare at him as he ate. Eventually he turned on the news for something to distract him.
"That was so delicious," Yukimura said when he'd finished.
Masamune nodded. "Yeah, the place I got it from is one of my favorites."
"I'm sorry once again for eating your dinner," Yukimura said seriously.
"You needed it more than me. Anyway, we've still got some time before the pizza gets here. You can take a bath if you're feeling up to it. I'll give you some of my old clothes to sleep in."
Yukimura blushed and looked down. "I feel fortunate to have met you, Mr. Date."
Masamune choked on his laughter. "We're around the same age. Don't call me Mr. anything, OK?"
With even more blushing, Yukimura agreed then headed into the bathroom.
Even after he was out of his sight, Masamune realized he couldn't stop grinning. It was weird. Especially for him.
Masamune dug through his closet until he found a shirt and pair of drawstring pants he'd been meaning to get rid of. He knocked on the bathroom door before opening it a crack. "Just sliding in your clothes. You doin' OK?"
"Yes. I'm feeling a little stronger now. Thank you," Yukimura replied.
Masamune clicked the door shut and went back to the TV. Bored with the news, he flipped channels until he found a station playing one of his favorite movies.
The pizza had just been delivered when Yukimura walked out of the bathroom.
"Your clothes fit me so well!"
They did. They really did fit him well. Yukimura was lifting up the corner of the shirt as he commented on the fit, revealing his surprisingly well toned stomach. It raised more questions than answers, but mostly, Masamune was impressed. A figure like that didn't come without a lot of hard work. What had Yukimura been doing before he started living in the park?
Yukimura joined him at the coffee table, his plate loaded up with several slices thanks to Masamune's encouragement. He plopped down next to Masamune.
"Oh! This is my favorite movie!" Yukimura said.
Masamune glanced at him. "Seriously? I thought I was the only person my age that liked these old samurai movies."
"Not at all! They are some of the best movies ever made! When I was a child, I would always watch them whenever I could. There was also this two player fighting game I loved back then too. It had many samurai characters so it was immediately one of my favorites."
"Wait, wait," Masamune said. He crawled over to the cabinet under his television and threw the small doors open. He dug through a pile of discs, until he found one with a bright red cover and held it up for Yukimura to see.
"That's it! I can't believe you have it!"
They stared at each other for a second, then both grinned madly. Without saying a word, Masamune dug out his old game system, plugged it into the TV and turned on his old favorite game.
"I haven't played this in years, but I'm going to beat you every round," Masamune said.
"My skills have not faded! I will be the victor!" Yukimura declared.
They spent the night trash talking each other as they played round after round. Neither man could wipe off their impish grins the entire time. Masamune couldn't remember the last time he'd stayed up playing video games with someone else. It was stupidly fun and he wanted the night to go on forever. Unfortunately, he knew it couldn't.
"Alright, I gotta get up early so I'm going to sleep," Masamune said at length. It was already past midnight.
"That sounds good. I think I'll sleep too," Yukimura replied.
"You can take the bed then. I'll take the couch," Masamune said.
"If you have work, then you should have the bed!"
"I'm fine on the couch."
"I simply cannot take the bed after all your kindness!"
"Alright, alright," Masamune relented. "Wanna sleep together then?" He said it was a coy smile and got exactly the result he'd been hoping for. Yukimura turned bright red and stammered out something about Masamune being shameless.
Masamune smiled and clapped a hand on Yukimura's shoulder. "It was a joke. My bed's big enough for the both of us but…"
"Really?" Yukimura interrupted with wide eyed surprise. "I've only ever seen small beds big enough for one person."
Masamune opened the door to his bedroom. "See for yourself."
Yukimura poked his head in and gasped. "It's huge!" He ran up to it and placed both hands firmly on it. "It's really soft too!"
The bed wasn't all that big, but seeing Yukimura's reaction was too much fun. "Well, get in then," Masamune said as he crawled in ahead of him.
"R-really?"
"I don't care, Sanada. Besides, I can't be bothered with finding enough blankets to make the couch comfortable enough to sleep on."
"I see," Yukimura replied. It sounded like he still didn't trust Masamune completely, but he climbed into the bed nonetheless. He sighed happily as he settled in. "It really is soft."
Masamune turned off the light to hide his smile. "Goodnight, Yukimura Sanada."
"Goodnight, Masamune Date. Please wake me when you get up. I will leave at the same time."
That's a shame, thought Masamune as he drifted off to sleep. For some reason, he wanted Yukimura to stay. Maybe because they'd had so much fun earlier. It was so strange. There was just something about Yukimura and that made Masamune not only trust him, but like him.