Work Text:
Hanta tucks himself tight under his umbrella as he walks the last few meters to the bus stop, holding his cape closed around himself with his free hand. The spring rain is cold, but it’s at least falling straight down, and not whipping Hanta’s cape away from him. It’s always hard to find zip-up coats with full sleeves that fit over his elbows. Hanta nods to the other regulars he recognises, all huddled under their own umbrellas as they wait for the morning bus.
And then, he sees someone new.
Hanta has been taking this bus every workday for three years, but he’s never before laid eyes on the man standing just a little way away, a satchel held over his head to try and protect himself from the worst of the rain. Hanta blinks, unable to stop staring, because despite the rain, and his turned-up collar, and his rather soggy red and white bangs, this man is the most beautiful person Hanta has ever seen in his entire life.
One blue and one dark-grey eye look up, and Hanta doesn’t even have it in him to feel guilty about being caught looking.
“Hey.”
“Hello,” says the beautiful young man, polite and crisp. His lips make lovely shapes, and the hint of teeth is super white.
Hanta shivers under his cape, then inclines the leading edge of his umbrella. The stranger glances up, one dark red brow arching as he takes in the bold batik-inspired design of Hanta’s umbrella in obvious rainbow colours.
“Please…” Hanta gives the pretty stranger his best smile. He knows he’s biased, but he thinks it’s a pretty good smile. “Share my umbrella?”
The extremely attractive man with bi-coloured eyes and two-tone hair bites his lip, eyes flickering with indecision. Just then, a large raindrop rolls down the side of his satchel and splats wetly inside the turned-up collar of his coat. He makes a face like an affronted kitten.
“Yes please.”
Hanta tries not to grin with too much obvious delight as the pretty stranger ducks under the edge of his umbrella, his satchel returning to it’s usual position at his side. He tries to stand with all his limbs together, but Hanta can see that his other shoulder is still getting wet, so he sidles half a step closer with the umbrella, containing both of them within the circle of shelter. The pretty man looks at him, and suddenly his face, his eyes, and soft skin of his cheek and jaw seem incredible close.
“Thank you,” he says, ever so softly, like it’s a secret.
Hanta is captivated.
“You’re welcome?” he manages without his voice cracking, then wonders why he made it into a question.
“Shoto,” the pretty man supplies.
Hanta commits the way his name sounds to memory instantly; he feels like he’s never heard a more wonderful word.
“I’m Hanta.” He holds out his hand automatically, then realises how cramped they are under the umbrella.
Shoto manages to turn his shoulders – they are so nearly but not quite touching – and shakes Hanta’s hand with his own. His touch is incredibly, unnaturally warm, and Hanta feels himself swoon, just a little.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Shoto says, sounding genuine.
He blinks, and Hanta stares at the pretty sweep of his long eyelashes against his cheek. Oh, he’s so gone for this gorgeous man already. Hanta knows he’s an idiot.
Just then, with a bit of a splash, the bus pulls up.
Shoto moves with Hanta, keeping under his umbrella until the last moment, then steps up onto the bus. Hanta gets on backwards, shaking out his umbrella before folding it up. He scans his e-ticket and greets the driver – it’s the one with the tiger-quirk as usual – and turns, looking for Shoto.
But the gorgeous man is gone, sat somewhere obscured from Hanta’s view, and Hanta is pretty sure that hunting someone down through a bus full of wet commuters borders on rudeness. Just because they shared an umbrella does not entitle him to someone’s attention or conversation.
Hanta sighs, and takes an available seat on the right hand side of the bus near the front, by the window where he usually sits.
Already, he knows he’s going to think about Shoto and his lovely smile all day.
*
The usual crowd are waiting for the bus. The sky is overcast, but it’s not raining. Hanta has his closed umbrella in one hand along with his phone, reading the rest of the chat his friends were having on their shared server overnight when he was sleeping. It’s a mess of gifs and silliness, but it makes him smile.
Hanta looks up, and sure enough, there is Shoto.
Without the rain, his hair is silky and fine, his bangs fluttering very slightly in the light breeze, making him look ethereal. Hanta slips his phone in his pocket and gives Shoto a little wave.
Shoto blinks, like he’s surprised to be remembered, then nods curtly.
Hanta drops his hand, feeling stupid. Shoto was happy enough to shelter from the rain with him, but obviously isn’t interested in striking up a friendship-
Shoto looks back at him again, and this time his lips twitch. Hanta’s breath catches in his chest as he is treated to a whole, small, soft, perfect smile.
Oh… that feels really nice.
The bus comes before they break eye contact, and Hanta carries that warmth around in his chest all day.
*
It’s raining, that annoying light drizzle which doesn’t feel like rain until you realise you are soaked through. Hanta is irritated that he chose only a light jacket instead of his cape, but at least he has his trusty, bright umbrella. He walks with his shoulders hunched, trying to keep warm.
He hasn’t been at the bus stop more than sixty seconds when he sees Shoto arriving from the other direction – still without an umbrella of his own – though he is holding a carrier bag from the little konbini on the corner. Shoto smiles at him, and Hanta gestures quickly with his umbrella.
“Share?”
“Thank you, Hanta.”
Shoto huddles in close, and Hanta stands up straighter to give them more room. Not that he needed to, Shoto doesn’t move away.
“You’re welcome.”
Shoto smiles at him, bright and happy, and opens the bag so that Hanta can see inside.
“I didn’t have time to make lunch, so I thought I’d improvise.”
Shoto’s improvised lunch is apparently onigiri and aloe juice, accompanied by the latest issue of JUMP. Hanta gestures to it.
“What are you looking forward to reading most?”
“There’s a new chapter of Ruri Dragon this week,” Shoto replies instantly. “I really like her story so far.” He tilts his head to one side, and Hanta has to resist the desire to tuck the fine strands of his white bangs back behind his ear. “What do you read?”
Hanta grins.
“I am very much enjoying Undead Unluck. The story is great, but the running gag of Andy constantly needing new clothes has me in stitches every time.”
“Oh?”
“The guy who can regenerate? But he can’t make more clothes, so he’s often in danger of being naked. I love how the artist uses handily-placed speech bubbles to er… how do you put it? Oh, preserve his modesty.”
“I’m guessing the fan-artists don’t have the same qualms?”
Hanta beams.
“Nope!”
Shoto giggles behind his hand, and it’s only because Hanta is holding the umbrella and needs to keep them dry that he doesn’t swoon. It’s not fair, how can anyone be so effortlessly sexy and cool and cute all at the same time?
Shoto is flicking through the magazine now, the grocery bag held in the crook of his elbow, and he leans into Hanta’s shoulder to get his attention, because he no longer has any free hands.
“There’s a new Fantasy Heroes popularity poll drawing!”
“You follow that too?” Hanta does not try and contain his excitement. “It’s my favourite manga right now. I have up to volume twelve.”
Shoto holds out the spread and the pair of them pour over the drawing, heads together. Hanta takes a deep breath of Shoto’s scent – crisp and clean with soft white musk. Damn, the guy even has good taste in cologne.
“Who’s your favourite character?” Hanta asks him.
“The dragon!” Shoto beams, and uses his thumb to smooth lovingly over the character in the image proudly holding out four fingers to show his popularity ranking. “I love how his character has developed! From just being ‘guy who happens to also be a dragon’ to now when he’s an important part of the cast and he’s worked so hard to train his skills.”
“He’s really cool,” Hanta agrees. “I really like this new skeletal headpiece he’s got going on here, and all the feathers. It’s always fun to see how the character designs evolve too.”
Shoto glances at him sideways, and pouts a little.
“Who’s your favourite?”
“The barbarian, for sure.”
“Really? But he’s so vulgar!”
“He’s interesting! I think as we find out more about his backstory, it’s going to become clearer why he is the way he is. And you can’t say that he doesn’t care about his friends, even if he swears at them all the time.”
Shoto hums thoughtfully.
“He does put a lot of effort into doing the right thing, that’s true.”
“He grows on you-” Hanta begins, but someone prods him in the shoulder.
“The bus is here,” says one of the regular commuters who Hanta only knows to nod to when he arrives in the mornings.
The pair of them glance up properly from under the umbrella, and sure enough, the bus is there and they – and the person who prodded him – are the only one waiting to get on. The tiger-quirked driver is peering at them quizzically from under their peaked hat.
“Oops,” Shoto says, with a self-deprecating little smile. “Sorry.”
Shoto gets on before him, Hanta makes sure to let the other last commuter on, and then gets on the bus backwards and shakes out his umbrella before folding it. He smiles at the driver, apologises and sits down on the first seat he sees, eager not to hold everyone up. The bus lurches into motion, and before Hanta can even look around, Shoto is sliding into the seat beside him with a ready smile.
“It would have been bad if we missed the bus,” Shoto says, “but it’s been a long time since anyone wanted to discuss manga with me.”
Hanta grins.
“And we’re out of the rain. Come on then, who else made the popularity poll spread?”
Twenty minutes later, Hanta hates to have to get off at his stop, but as much as he would love to trade anecdotes with a beautiful man about their favourite manga series all day, he does have to go to work.
Graphical layouts have never seemed so dull when compared to the dancing lights in Shoto’s heterochromatic eyes.
*
It’s raining again. Hanta knows spring is the rainy season, but he really thinks this might be the wettest one he can remember. His umbrella has seen much more action than any of his nicer, slightly flirtier outfits, that’s for sure. But he smiles through the rain as he approaches the bus stop, because Shoto is hurrying towards him from the other direction, with his satchel over his head.
“When are you gonna buy an umbrella?” Hanta asks, laughing, as Shoto slides in next to him.
“Never,” Shoto replies, smiling. “I got something for you.”
Hanta perks up. Gifts? Have they reached the stage of friendship where they get to give each other gifts?
“Oh?”
Shoto slips his hand into his coat and brings out a folded sheet.
“This week’s JUMP came will a colour pull out poster,” Shoto says with a small, sweet smile. Hanta thinks he might be blushing, just a little bit. “I thought you might like it.”
Hanta takes the poster and unfolds it, careful to keep the whole thing within the shelter of the umbrella, and laughs out loud the moment he sees the image.
It is Andy from Undead Unluck, proudly giving the viewer a thumbs-up, with much of his outfit deteriorating from his perfect physique.
“Oh my gods, I love it.” when Hanta looks up from the mini poster, Shoto’s face seems very close. Once again Hanta is trapped by the sweep of his eyelashes, the perfect dip of his pink cupid’s bow. “Thank you Shoto.”
Shoto doesn’t leave Hanta's side until Hanta has to get off the bus and go to work. When he reaches his cubicle, Hanta grabs a piece of tape from his elbow and sticks the poster of Andy up about his computer.
He smiles at it, and the whole time, he sees Shoto’s sweet, gorgeous smile in his head.
*
All week, Hanta doesn't see Shoto.
It rains three times, and Hanta looks at the space beside him in the little circle of dryness created by his umbrella, and sighs, because Shoto isn’t there to share it with him.
He buys his own copy of the newest JUMP issue and mopes, because there isn’t anyone to share it with.
Did Shoto move away without saying anything? Did Shoto get hurt? Hanta doesn’t even know his last name, or where he gets off the bus, or where he works. Hanta frets and resists the urge to bite his fingernails.
On the fourth day of no Shoto, all the other regulars offer him understanding smiles and he even gets a ‘you alright there, champ?’ from the driver. Hanta tries to put on a positive attitude when he responds with a thumbs up, but he knows everyone can see that his heart’s not in it.
Hanta misses the warmth of Shoto standing beside him, misses the feathery touches of his silky hair when they would both lean in close over the same page. He misses those lips, that smile, Shoto’s gentle quiet laugh, and the way he says Hanta’s name.
Hanta knows he’s a hopeless romantic, that he doesn’t have a shred of evidence to prove that Shoto feels the same way, but it doesn’t matter.
On the fifth day he pines so hard under his umbrella that none of the others even try to reassure him.
*
Hanta is so early to the bus stop on Monday morning that he actually could have caught the bus before his usual one. But he shakes his head at the driver – one he doesn’t know – and watches the bus leave without him.
It starts raining. Hanta opens his umbrella and stares up at the rain falling onto the bright fabric from underneath. He knows otherwise that he’ll just stare so hard down the street that he’ll cry.
“Hanta?”
Hanta flinches so hard that he manages to get rain on himself and turns to the soft, welcome, perfect sound of Shoto, giggling quietly behind his hand.
“Hi.”
“Shoto…” Hanta only doesn’t scoop Shoto up in both arms because he is holding the umbrella, and Shoto is already tucking himself under the umbrella beside him. “I missed you.”
Shoto blushes. From this close, Hanta can tell. He definitely blushes.
“I brought you- um…” Shoto is holding a grocery bag, but he bites his lip, hard enough to indent and blanch the soft flesh for a moment. “I’m sorry. The kids were on break last week and I forgot not everyone lives on an academic schedule.” Shoto looks away, then down and their feet, then back to Hanta. “I brought you a mochi?”
“Thank you Shoto.” Hanta takes the little white cake and breaks it in half. “Share with me?”
Shoto beams, and tucks himself closer to Hanta under the umbrella, touching Hanta from shoulder to elbow. He radiates heat like a furnace, and Hanta loves it. He watches Shoto tuck the long strands of his dark red hair behind his ear and take a tiny bite of mochi.
“I’m glad you’re back.”
“Me too. Though the students are always very tired after a break. I’m sure they will have good stories to tell me though.”
“You’re a teacher?”
Shoto nods.
“Yes! But my students are too small for me to share JUMP manga with. Did you see the latest issue?”
Hanta beams at him.
“Yes! And you weren’t here so I had no one to geek out with! There was a Fantasy Heroes update!” Hanta prods Shoto in the shoulder, and only afterwards realises that it is the first time they have deliberately touched. “The adventurer went off on his own to fight the black wizard! The others are so worried! There’s so much drama and tension.”
Shoto’s eyes go really wide, and he scoots a little closer under Hanta’s bright umbrella.
“Do you think the barbarian and the dragon guyI will go after him?”
“I hope so!” Hanta replies.
They pause in their conversation long enough to get on the bus and greet the driver, and Hanta spends the best twenty minutes he’s ever had, wrapped up entirely in everything Shoto says.
*
It is windy as Hanta approaches the bus stop. He keeps his umbrella angled into the weather. It’s not until he sees a pair of feet in familiar navy suede loafers that he stops. Almost immediately, Shoto ducks in under the umbrella, the wind whipping his hair into his eyes as he holds up the collar of his coat. Hanta reaches out and tucks the strands of his white bangs behind his ear.
“Good morning.”
“Good morning.” Shoto bites his lip, and smiles. “Thanks for letting me share your umbrella.”
“Always,” Hanta replies. He rearranges the way he’s holding it and brings out a slim volume from inside his cape. “Here, I brought us something to read.”
“Oh?”
“Volume one of Komi Can’t Communicate. It was my favourite manga last year. I think you might like it.”
“Hanta… that’s really nice of you.”
And now it’s Hanta’s turn to blush.
They read the first chapter together whilst waiting for the bus, and every time Shoto's fingers brush his, Hanta feels a little shiver run down his spine that has nothing to do with the weather. Shoto’s hair tickles his cheek whenever the wind picks up, and Hanta feels warm right the way down to his toes.
*
Hanta could kick himself, but that would mean he has to stop running, and if he stops for even a second, he’d going to be even later than he already is. He didn’t even sleep in - he just ran out of time. Took too long picking a shirt, took a little longer brushing his teeth, pondered over breakfast for a moment more than usual, and suddenly, he’s late and sprinting for the bus.
Thank fuck it isn’t raining.
Hanta pauses just long enough to check for traffic before he crosses the street, wishes for a split second that he could just use his tape and swing himself to the bus stop like a fictional superhero, but he thinks he might go crashing into the side of building if he tried. He hates that he missed out on his time with Shoto.
He rounds the corner. The bus is there at the stop. People are getting on.
Hanta speeds up.
If he misses the bus entirely, he’ll be late for work. And that’ll suck, but being late for work isn’t anything like as awful as it will be not to have those precious twenty minutes of Shoto’s company.
Hanta skids, flails, rights his balance, and sprints forward.
He leaps for the open door of the bus, right as it starts to close, and trips up the step and into the driver’s booth. Panting, Hanta digs around in his pocket for his e-ticket. The driver leans on the edge of the booth and smiles at him in a conspiratorial manner.
“That was close. Your pretty boy has been fretting about you.”
Hanta gapes at them.
“He’s- He’s not my-”
The driver shakes their head and chuckles.
“Yeah, yeah, go on with you.” The smile again, whiskers twitching. “He’s waiting on you.”
Shoto is sitting right near the front of the bus, back straight, knees together, fingers twisting in the handle of the carrier bag in his lap. When their eyes meet, relief flashes across Shoto’s face. Hanta is sure his expression is the same.
“You made it,” Shoto says a little breathlessly.
“I’m sorry.”
Hanta slides into the seat next to him, and even though they aren’t outside and it isn’t raining – and there is no excuse – Shoto shuffles close until their knees and shoulders and elbows are touching. Shoto opens the bag in his lap and rattles a little plastic topped tin.
“I brought wasabi peas?” he offers.
Hanta beams, and takes one, crunching the spicy snack. Shoto looks away whenever he glances over to find that Hanta is still looking at him, and Hanta just can’t resist the sweet pink blush of his cheeks any longer.
“Hey Shoto… it’s a Saturday tomorrow.”
Shoto’s brows furrow. Hanta wants to touch his skin.
“Yes?”
Now it’s Hanta’s turn to fiddle with his fingers in his lap.
“So… do you, um… maybe we could… take a different bus, tomorrow? And get lunch?”
“Hanta…” Shoto meets his gaze, and his two-coloured eyes are big and round and Hanta never wants to look away. “Like… a date?”
Hanta beams.
“Yes, a date. Please?”
Shoto drops the tin of wasabi peas and grabs for Hanta’s fingers.
“Yes!”
Hanta feels joy bubble up inside him like a physical thing, his cheeks hurt from smiling, and around them, several of the other regular commuters cheer. Hanta gulps, blushing hard, and Shoto ducks his head, his red bangs falling into his eyes.
From the front, Hanta sees the driver check their mirrors before calling out:
“Oh sweet lords, kiss him already!”
Hanta lets out a breathless laugh and reaches out, cupping his palm around Shoto’s cheek. This time, he allows himself to tuck Shoto’s bangs out of his face, touching the flushed-pink tips of his ear.
Shoto’s lips are soft and sweet, and it’s the best first kiss Hanta’s ever had.
*
It rains on their date, but it’s OK, because Hanta’s umbrella is the perfect size for two.