Hajime checked his clock for the umpteenth time and cursed himself and his stupid ideas. Of course, Tooru wouldn't be home at this time of a Friday night. What had he been expecting? That he would seal himself behind closed doors and spend his free nights knitting and missing Hajime?

Actually, the needy and clingy part of him had kind of thought like that.

In the train, he had played the scene of their surprise reunion in his head and savored what a good boyfriend he was, selflessly sacrificing one of his few sparse weekends to travel halfway across the country to spend time with his appreciative boyfriend.

So far, he had spent almost two hours with his luggage in front of Tooru's front door, and the romance had given away to trying to keep himself warm in the crisp autumn evening and feeling like an idiot.

A shiver ran through him, and he buried his hands deeper into the pockets where his fingers wrapped around a small satin box. Regardless of everything, he was still happy he had come. He was on a mission, and this was just a measly obstacle to test his spirit and commitment. Although, the longer he waited, the thinner the time stretched his confidence.

What if he says no? What if this is too soon? What if he takes one look at it and laughs at my face? What if I'm the only one who has been thinking this is the direction of our relationship? What if he's been just waiting for the right moment to break up with me? I mean, he must have met a ton of new people here, so I'm sure…What if he…What if…

No. Come on, self. Hajime straightened his defeated slouch and took a deep, thought-cleansing breath as if to bodily break the discouraging mindset. You must not waver. It will be fine. Hopefully.

His silent pep-talk was interrupted by voices of an enthusiastic conversation from the bottom of the stairs. Hajime perked up to appear less suspicious because one of Tooru's neighbors had walked past him twice already and he didn't want anyone to call the police on him. But he sighed in relief when he caught Tooru's scent. A whiff of what he imagined a meadow full of wildflowers must smell like. Heavy, overwhelming, and intoxicating. The voices got closer, and soon two tops of heads appeared popping up and down behind the ridge of the top stair. A sudden realization of oh-god-this-was-a-stupid-idea dipped the bottom of his stomach when he got up to his stiff feet.

For the past two hours or so, he had thought the waiting was the worst part, but this was way worse.

"Hajime?" Tooru had stopped abruptly mid-step, and his companion – a short, tanned boy with a buzzcut – had ceased his flood of speaking, too. "What are you doing here?"

"H-hi," Hajime said but had to clear his throat for being quiet for so long. "There was a mix-up at work and I got the Friday off, so I thought I'd come to see you."

"Wha – you should've called! How long have you been waiting here?!" Tooru strode over to Hajime and caught him in a tight embrace all the while scolding him. "Stupid, you must be freezing."

"Nah, I didn't wanna spoil the surprise." Hajime glanced at the other boy standing a few feet away from them openly staring and patted Tooru's back awkwardly before untangling himself. Public displays of affection always made him a bit uncomfortable.

The buzzcut boy shuffled his feet, and the shoes scraped against the concrete floor.

"Oh yes, sorry!" Tooru turned to sign at his direction. "Hajime, this is Watachi, we go to the same anatomy class. Watachi, this is Hajime, my boyfriend."

They exchanged polite bows, and the boy – Watachi, was it? – smiled at him a little. Hajime noticed he had the same kind of big, oval eyes as Tooru.

"I promised to lend him my notes from yesterday, it'll only take a minute." Tooru unlocked the door to his apartment and nodded them to follow him. Watachi held to door for Hajime to carry his suitcase inside. He wondered what he had been so animatedly talking about with Tooru a minute ago because now he barely said two words.

While Tooru was sorting through the notes at the door, Hajime took a closer look at the apartment. This was his first time at Tooru's new place. It was the typical small and standard cheap room the university rented for the students. A shared bedroom and living room area, and a small kitchenette in one corner. It was uncharacteristically untidy: there were clothes and books and all kinds of stuff littered around the room. And it seemed he hadn't emptied all the boxes yet either.

Tooru's mother would have a fit if saw this mess, Hajime thought to himself satisfied.

The front door clanked shut, and in the next moment, Hajime had an armful of Tooru almost knocking him down when he leaped to hug Hajime. Hajime returned the embrace just as fiercely, pressed Tooru as close as possible and immersed himself in the familiar scents and feelings now that they were alone.

"God, I missed you," Tooru mumbled against the hollow of his neck and rubbed his face there. "Missed you so much."

There was a sudden tightness around Hajime's throat, so he didn't dare to speak.

After giving him one last squeeze, Tooru finally pulled back and wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his hoody. Hajime locked his fingers behind Tooru's back, so he couldn't retreat too far.

"Sorry," Tooru said with a little sniff and a smile.

"You okay?" Hajime rubbed the small of his back gently with his joint hands.

"Yeah, it's just…I've been having a bit of a hard time getting used to all this. Not seeing you. Facetime and Skype just aren't the same. That's why Watachi was here, I invited him over so I wouldn't have to sit through another night by myself because I thought you'd be working."

Oh. Hajime wished he was a bigger man, but he couldn't help the sting of jealousy in his chest.

"He seems like a nice guy."

"Oh, don't give me that look." Tooru rolled his eyes. "He's just a friend, and he has a girlfriend. He's also sick of listening to me going on and on about you."

So, it seemed he had spent all his nights at home knitting and missing him. Hajime leaned in for a kiss which Tooru returned eagerly. For a while they stayed like that; locked as close to each other as possible.

When their lips began to tingle and tire, Tooru pulled back and started to pick up clothes and books off the small couch so Hajime could take a seat. After sitting through the long train ride and in the cold night after that, the soft cushion felt heavenly under his battered behind, and almost immediately Hajime's eyelids started to grow heavy.

"Sorry, it's so messy. With all the orientation I haven't had time even to unpack. You must be pretty ragged after the train ride. Wanna take a bath? Have you eaten anything?" Tooru hollered over the rattle of dishes. He had moved on to the kitchen area to clear away the dirty plates and cups. "I have some leftover takeout from last night, but I don't think it's gonna be eno – " He turned to glance at Hajime over his shoulder and found him nodding off. "How about I just whip something up real quick, and we call it a day?"

That night they both slept better than they had for a long time.

~~oOo~~

They slept in the next morning and spent the whole Saturday having sex. First, hurriedly before even getting up to brush their teeth, and both of them came in a record time after just a couple minutes. After that, they had squeezed themselves in the tiny bathtub and scrubbed each other clean and fresh. In the steam-filled bathroom, they had stroked and sucked each other for an encore before Hajime had spun Tooru around and fucked him against the cold tiles. Between rounds, they lazed around in bed and talked about their new schools and what classes they had been taking so far and what their classmates were like. Around noon Tooru had made a quick run to the close store for some snacks and dinner supplies.

It had been one of the best days of Hajime's life, despite the occasional nagging feeling somewhere in the back of his head that soon they would have to say goodbye again.

Surprisingly he had managed to keep his mind off the other thing. The satin thing. Or more like the round thing inside it that was now burning through his pants pocket when they were standing side by side doing the dishes after dinner. He hadn't been thinking about it the whole day, but it seemed the moment of truth might be at hand. It had to be tonight because his train left early tomorrow, and he didn't know how soon they'd see each other again.

Or he could just cancel the whole thing. Abort the mission. Tooru would be none the wiser, and Hajime would perhaps avoid shattering the perfect weekend they had had. Quietly backing off sounded almost too tempting.

"…and Watachi told me some guys had drunk too much and been real jerks to the staff and the senpais had to carry their asses home. The next morning half the class was absent, and the professor…"

Hajime was washing up the cups and plates and handing them over to Tooru on autopilot. He accompanied the ramblings with absentminded hhms and ahas whenever there was a lull in the conversation.

"…many seem to think that class is a waste of time but I don't know. The teacher seems to really know her stuff and – "

"Let's get married."

What?

"What?" Tooru froze in the middle of drying a rice bowl and looked at Hajime. "What did you say?"

So much for canceling.

"Will you marry me?"

Tooru fell silent and just kept staring at Hajime. Hands dripping with the foamy washing water he dug the ring out of his pocket and left dark wet stains on his grey sweatpants. Tooru's eyes nailed to the ring, and his lips pursed. Never before had silence between them felt this crushing, and Hajime hurried to fill the void.

"I know it's not much. Actually, it's the cheapest ring they had, but it was the only one I could afford. Even though I've been saving for…But once I get a fulltime job I'll buy a real ring, a better one. Or if you want we can go look for another one right away. I might be able to loan some money…I guess I shouldn't have done this before I could…I kinda wanted to wait but then I thought…"

"Why are you doing this?" Tooru asked from the ring.

"Huh?"

"Why do you want to get married?"

The longer Hajime clutched the ring in his fingers awkwardly, the stupider he felt.

"Are you saying you don't want to?" The hurt of rejection bumped out of his heart and rushed through his shoulders spreading the ache all the way to his fingertips.

"No, I'm asking you why." Tooru glared at the ring one last time before going back to staring at Hajime. "Why would you want to marry me? You know I can't have kids, and getting married won't magically change that. And you've always wanted kids, you said so yourself, so I really don't see the point – "

"Then why have you stayed together with me all this time? Huh?" The hurt quickly soured into anger. Tooru flinched at his more aggressive tone, and somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew how badly this was going wrong. "If you never wanted to make us official, but still knew I did, why did you never say anything? You just kept leading me on, even though you never wanted to – "

"I do want to, I do!" Tooru raised his voice as well. "But I can't give you what you want after that ring."

"Do you really think that's the only reason why I'm with you? Yes, I want to have kids one day, but that's not why I wanna marry you! I know your mother has spewed your head full of her hateful shit about omegas, but you can't honestly think – "

"Don't always bring her into things! She's got nothing to do with this."

"Oh, please, she has everything to do with this, and then some! Well, good for her," Hajime spread his arms and let them come down with a thud against his thigs, "she finally got what she wanted, and apparently you, too."

The silence resumed, and they sized each other up. His body tense with hurt and disappointment Hajime shoved the ring back in his pocket to get it out of sight and put an end to his humiliation. The sinking realization that this might be the end of them strained his self-control. To hide that the emotions were getting the better of him he turned his back to Tooru and busied himself pointlessly with folding his laundry off the clothes horse.

"I never said I didn't want to," Tooru said quietly behind him.

"Let's just forget it, okay."

"I never said anything because…even though I knew…I was too scared to think about the future because what choices did I have? I didn't want to break up but I knew you'd have to settle with me and – I was…stuck."

"You could've trusted me. Do you really have that little faith in my feelings for you? That I'd – " Hajime combed through his hair and took a deep steadying breath. He turned to face Tooru again and noticed he was on the brink of crying. His eyes were red and pooled with unshed tears, and he was worrying his bottom lip. "I don't care if you can't have kids. So, what? There are other ways. I should know. But I guess, we never really talked about it, the future. I just assumed you knew somehow…For that I'm sorry."

Tooru wiped off a couple murky tears that had rolled down his cheek. A need to comfort and protect came over Hajime and he wanted to take him in his arms, but it felt too soon to touch yet. Instead, he took out the ring again and got down on his knee. Tooru's eyes widened.

"So, let me make this clear once and for all. I'mma make it proper this time."

"Come on, get up, you don't have to – "

"You wanted to know why, so I'll tell you why. We're gonna be apart for the next couple of years. After this weekend I don't know when we'll see each other again. But, as far as I'm concerned, this is just one phase. Something that we just gotta get through. It's not going to be the end, because this ring," Hajime raised his hand for emphasis, "is going to be my promise to you that we have a lot to live through together after this part. You know why?"

Tooru shook his head.

"Because you're it for me. It has always been you, and it will always have to be you. So," Hajime shifted closer to Tooru and reached for his left hand, "I'm gonna ask you again. Will you marry me?"

Tooru looked down at him and the moment his rare soft smile broke out, Hajime already knew the answer. "I told you already, stupid, I do."