It's dark. Their humour and the room.
Disappointment has fogged up the glass in the windows. Atobe can't see straight anymore - and they're not even high. Ryoma isn't, either, but they've both long since stopped thinking that they're both sane; pretending they're mad feels so much better - a dash away from reality, an anchor untethered from the ship. He murmurs, "Where are we?"
They shuffle a bit on Ryoma's bed, sprawled out, legs wide apart, hands touching.
He can hear Ryoma's grin beside him, and says, "Stop being so fucking creepy, making audible expressions and tangible sounds, saying words I can smell and doing things to me that I can taste."
"My room," Ryoma drawls, sliding an arm under Atobe's back. Atobe arches it for ease of access. "Fucking curtains," he adds. "So fucking disgusting."
Atobe snorts lightly. "Keep them drawn across the windows so you don't have to see the fucking ugly pattern."
"It's half the reason my room's so dark."
They're talking like they're half-asleep. They are, for all intents and purposes. But they're not. They're both treading across a sea of glass with no shoes on. Their tongues are shards cutting red threads into each other's bodies.
"What's the other half of the reason?"
"I don't want to see your face," Ryoma purrs. "I hate your just-fucked-Ryoma face."
"You brat," Atobe bites out, and then starts laughing, a lazy laugh that makes Ryoma shiver in delight. "I love it when you laugh," Ryoma says, "I love it when you shape sentences with your lips and your syllables float through the air, you're so fucking posh, and rich, and what the hell are you doing to me?"
Atobe shifts onto his side so he can kiss Ryoma once.
"I'm here to kiss you and pretend nothing else exists."
"But nothing else does."
"That's the spirit," Atobe kisses Ryoma again. He likes to call it 'warring' for one particular reason.
After Atobe retracts his tongue from Ryoma's mouth, Ryoma says, "Please don't say that our tongues were battling for dominance."
"They obviously were, but my superior kissing skills suppressed yours soon enough," Atobe preens. "Warring with you is nice."
"It better be, because you're mine for all eternity, you're mine for however long this planet lasts, you're mine for as many seconds as it takes to die."
"I'm yours for however many reincarnations we undergo."
"Do you think we'll have a half-happy ending in those other lives, too?"
Atobe buries his face in the crook of Ryoma's neck - Ryoma sighs happily - and replies, voice muffled, "We have a wholly happy ending here."
"No, we don't. We shouldn't. The best love stories are the tragic, bittersweet ones, where one of them dies or forgets about the other."
Atobe's fingers trail lightly, slipping under Ryoma's skin. Ryoma twitches. "Don't tickle me."
"I thought you weren't ticklish."
"I'm not."
"Then you shouldn't be associating me touching you like this with 'tickling', yes?"
Ryoma's arms wrap tightly around Atobe. So do his legs. He starts trembling.
"You upper class bastard."
"Did I tell you I love the way your fingers dig into my skin? The way your hair feels when you're sleeping and I'm pretending to hate the way you carve your space in my arms?"
"The way you stare at me turns me on and makes me want to fuck you wild all night."
Anything romantic Atobe was going to say dies out as he begins snickering, intermittently kissing Ryoma's shoulder and collarbone. "You stupid brat," he laughs. "When you go to college, I'm forcing you to take English just so you can say sexy things to me in better language."
"When I go to college, I'll be going to college."
"You're going to live with me."
"You're going to ignore the mess I'll make in our room."
"We'll pick better curtains for the windows."
"Agreed."
They kiss to seal the deal.
"I was just kidding, though. I don't like seeing your after-sex face because it makes me want to tell you that I love you and that I'd do anything for you even if you hated me because sometimes I'm a needy and clingy asshole who can't see past his emotions and - "
"Stop analysing yourself. You're terrible at it. Maybe you should also take Psychology in college, while you're at it."
"Fucking curtains make me say sappy shit. You're fucking heavy."
"Blame gravity."
"Nine point eight metres per second squared, times some physical constants that for the love of God I can't remember."
"I fell for you with that much acceleration," Atobe sighs. Ryoma doesn't unwrap his body from Atobe's.
"I thought you'd fallen slowly, then all at once."
"Physics would disagree. Are we drunk bastards?"
"Drunk on love," Ryoma adds.
"Come break me down, bury me, bury me." Atobe licks Ryoma's neck, mumbling the words as if he's trying to hide their meaning. Ryoma bites his lip, and tries to stop himself from telling Atobe the confessions he makes to himself when he can't close his eyes at two in the morning. But then he lets himself go, and says, "Secrets I have held in my heart, are harder to hide than I thought, maybe I just wanna be yours."
"Why are we quoting rock bands?" Atobe whispers into Ryoma's ear.
"Okay, we won't. Minna saiko arigatou, k-k-k-kawaii - "
Atobe sinks his teeth into Ryoma's skin, hard.
Ryoma pushes Atobe off him with a scream.
"I like your face, fuckface."
"I like yours, too."
Atobe pushes his glasses up his nose. "Let's pretend we were crazy; how far would we have to go to fall off the edge of the earth?"
"I fall off you all the time."
"Two seconds?"
"Whoa, how the mighty fall, the mighty fall, the mighty fall, they fall in love," Ryoma begins the song from the chorus.
Keigo's hands thud on his desk (technically, Ryoma's desk, because they're still in his room) to give rhythm to the Fall Out Boy lyrics, moving his shoulders, tapping his feet.
Ryoma smiles. "I think we're better off being sane."
"Me too," Keigo says, grinning. "Malibu, ooh, ooh."
Ryoma laughs. "I read all your college textbooks when you weren't looking. They're pretty interesting. I might take the same courses as you."
Atobe looks at Ryoma. "I'll go with you wherever you go, genius."
"We never hold an on-track conversation."
"Your crooked love is just a pyramid scheme. And we do. We're just trying to wear the cloak of insanity to see if it fits. It doesn't. Except at night when we're both asleep and dreaming of the same things, the same colours pouring into our thoughts, making you kick me, making me wake up and then fall back asleep."
"Can we get married?" Ryoma blurts out.
Atobe pauses.
Then takes out a small black box from his pocket, which he's been carrying around since forever, and throws it at his boyfriend with the words 'I can't stop it when there's chemicals keeping us together'.
Ryoma takes out the ring and puts it on his fourth finger. His hand begins to look beautiful, and he starts crying.
"Mada mada dane," he sobs.
Atobe closes his textbook and gets up from his desk, going over to the bed on which Ryoma is sitting and shedding tears.
"For eternity," he tells Ryoma. "For as many seconds as it takes to die. For every reincarnation."
"You forgot 'for however long this planet lasts,' " Ryoma says, curling himself around Atobe. His tears seep into Atobe's shirt.
"You forgot to close the fucking curtains."
"Who fucking cares, you're my wife now." It sounds pretty cute when it's said in a hoarse voice.
Atobe smiles into Ryoma's hair at being called 'wife'. He's fine with that. The sea of glass can never cut their soles, and their tongues may draw red threads into the other's body, but they're just red threads. They don't bleed.
They drop all pretences of insanity, and grow content with a wholly happy ending. Because maybe those are the actual best love stories in the world.