Hibino Shintarou is seven when his heart flutters and cheeks flush with colour in the hand of Miura Souta, who gazes at him with innocent, wide eyes a shade of brown, so brilliant a colour that it looks like molten gold as the sun dapples his pale skin. Souta's cheeks rise in a smile that can rival the sun, tall grass waving around the pair and a circle of red and swirling white in between his fingers.
In that moment, Italy evaporates into the air, and Shintarou is living again. That burden is brushed off his hands by the gentle way Souta brushes dirt off his soft, small hands, breath smelling like mint, offering the small circle sweet to the young boy.
The only person who can touch his head is he himself only, and the only person who can touch his hands is Miura Souta, with his sweet brown eyes and messy black hair, tied away from his face.
Hibino Shintarou is a child again, happy and unburdened and free and everything in between, when Souta pops the peppermint between his lips and tells Shintarou stories of living like a normal boy. When the sun sets, he watches the way radiant gold and red and orange sets his profile ablaze, colours his sweet brown eyes into gold more valuable than any metal in the world.
Come next morning, Shintarou wakes in the Tokyo Imperial Palace, and Souta is a memorial service.
✧࿓☾
Souta meets Shintarou when they are five.
"You smell weird."
That is what Shintarou first tells the raven-haired boy, sniffing at the area around him with a quizzical— and disconcerted— expression. Souta recoils, brings his shirt up to his nose, and then he remembers that his father had picked him up today, hugged him close. Apologised, and Souta looked up to find translucent glass bottles on the table.
(The house had smelled of his father. What was it that he had drank? It sounded something like ear, that was all he knew.)
Shintarou raises a brow, stepping away from Souta. "Did you shower yesterday?"
Souta's brows scrunch together. "What?! I did!"
Grey eyes fill with doubt. "Y'know, liars are carted off to get punished..."
Souta crosses his arms, huffing indignantly. "Maybe I used a different soap from you! Who knows, maybe I'm cleaner than you!" Souta turns on his heel, frowning unhappily, looking to make friends with someone else, anyone else other than this pompous rich brat whose father probably smelled like soap and cologne.
(The kindergarten teacher's face clouds over in worry when she smells the tang of alcohol on the long-haired boy's clothes. Later, she will find out that he is a Miura, and that the family's huge fortune had been gambled away by Miura Junichiro, he who fell from grace.)
✧࿓☾
Shintarou's face clouds over with annoyance when he is faced with the back of Miura Souta. It seems like the shorter boy has crossed his arms, and his hair, unusually long for a boy, is tied back into a braid, hanging below his shoulders. Miura smells different now. He smells like mint. As if someone had rubbed mint leaves all over his body.
Shintarou suppresses a groan when the boy refuses to face him. "C'mon, we have to go!"
"I hate badminton even more than I hate you." Is the sulky response from the boy. Shintarou bristles.
"I hate you more than I hate badminton, but I'm not gonna be childish like you!" The blue-haired boy reaches up, and yanks Souta's braid.
Souta cries out, and his hands immediately slap Shintarou's fist away. He spins around, regarding the navy-haired boy angrily. "That hurt!"
