Scattered light

Sing To Me My Ashes

You belong among the wildflowers
You belong somewhere close to me
Far away from your trouble and worry
You belong somewhere you feel free
You belong somewhere you feel free

-Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers

Chapter Text

It's funny how you never know how incredible it feels to fall asleep with someone wrapped in your arms until they're there, so close to your skin that to separate would be like removing a limb, and you decide that you can never return to sleeping alone under empty sheets and lonely dreams. One little thing; one invisible exhale against my collarbone as sleep sits just on the edge of my vision, one quick tug of my shirt in the middle of the night as he pulls me closer, as if there was a closer, one lock of hair falling across his forehead in the moonlight when there is no color but only two hearts beating in the pale glow; and I am hooked. I'm addicted to something I spent my whole life without and never felt the need to have. I guess "it only takes one time" is true about every intoxicating substance.

I've slept next to Hinata before but it had never felt the way it did that Sunday night, my head still swimming the next morning in the afterglow of love, coming down from my high.

"Hey!" Hinata's voice, so much bigger than himself when he wants it to be, pulls me to the surface. He's standing at my stove, a spatula in one hand and the other on his hip as he tries to get my attention. This has happened before, I think, remembering a morning not unlike this one that feels as if it happened in a separate lifetime. Oh how far we've come.

"Yeah?" He shakes his head at me, his eyes betraying his affection, and lifts his hands to repeat himself for what I'm sure is the third or fourth time.

"How many pieces of toast do you want?" The sleeve of his shirt falls down his scrawny arm and as he pushes it up I realize that it isn't his shirt at all. When did he manage to steal my clothes? I can't complain, it looks better on him than it ever could on me, falling well past the waist and exposing a good amount of smooth pale skin between his neck and shoulder.

"Two," I answer, and he nods, apparently satisfied as I pull an almost empty jar of jam from the door of my fridge (and some milk because damn am I thirsty). Minutes later we're both sat at the table in the living room, steaming plates of eggs and toast in front of us.

Hinata, as it turns out, is a great cook, and I am thoroughly convinced that the scrambled eggs I'm chewing on are the most perfect eggs ever to be cooked; and I'm not just saying that because my boyfriend cooked them.

Boyfriend. It still feels odd to say; that Hinata Shouyou is my boyfriend. That I have a boyfriend in the first place.

"So what's your schedule today?" Said boyfriend asks, the movements of his hands barely catching my peripheral vision in time to read them. He has jam on the corner of his mouth, a swipe of color across his stuffed cheeks, and I leave it there. It reminds me of paint, though I'm sure it tastes much better.

"My classes are over around three, but I need to record my new song before I go see Yamaguchi this week so I'll probably be a few hours later than that," I tell him, shoving another forkful of eggs in my mouth. This sure beats cereal. "How about you?"

"I don't know yet," he answers, pausing to wipe at his cheek and looking surprised when his fingers come away sticky. He just licks them and continues. "I'm all caught up on commissions right now, which is what I usually do on weekdays. Maybe I'll clean or something. Natsu will like that."