[closed]

[iaijutsu]

Who: Saitou (iaijutsu) & Okita (tuberculosis)
When: Backdated to when everything was getting frozen over, because I am still dead from December but this conversation was super overdue and needed to get posted already.
Where: Their apartment.
What: Some much needed clearing of the air about their respective CRAU baggage and that time they accidentally made out and whatnot.
Rating/Warning: Nothing yet. Will edit.

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[Saitou has never been the kind of person to complain needlessly, and his first reaction to damned near anything is to 1) fix it, if it is a problem that can be fixed (or a problem that can be told to shut up, as the case may be), and if that fails, 2) ignore it.

The problem of the weather, despite his well-intentioned but clumsy attempts to coax something out of the heater, seems to be falling firmly in the category of Type 2 Problem.

But this isn't the first time he's been in an unfamiliar place that got unnaturally cold, and the results of that particular trick of the weather in Zelien don't instill a great deal of confidence in him that it is indeed a trick of the weather alone, or one that he can afford to simply ignore as he'd rather.

He spends nearly a full day trying, though - and the fact that he hasn't felt an overpoweringly irrational urge to set himself on fire is certainly a good sign, but it's not enough of one to be convincing, and by the end of the day, whatever barely-noticeable signs of slight discomfort he's been showing have given way to far more clear-cut uneasiness. (As clear-cut as anything ever gets with him, at least, but if anyone knows the signs, it ought to be Souji.)

He knows full well what he's going to open himself up to if he asks, but annoyance is the lesser evil, with the possibilities running through his mind right now, and so after another fruitless attempt to get the heater to turn back on, he - doesn't turn to look at Souji.

They're not that good at looking each other in the eye lately.]

...Souji.

Are you cold?

[Understatement of the century? It might be.]

Comments

[tuberculosis]

[well, it's definitely not as if souji's unfamiliar with the notion of weather going haywire—considering that in haven, it was all machine-controlled and they'd figured out how to modify that at will? it's not unheard of. he remembers this brand of cold too, though he'd considered it a tolerable annoyance at worst in haven.

here, it feels significantly worse. part of it is definitely attributed to being spoiled by things like heaters, but much more of it just lies within the awkward air that settles in the room whenever he's alone with saitou these days. usually, he just avoids extended time together or plays it all off. today, though, there hadn't been anywhere to go, and with the cold really settling in, it seemed like a waste of effort to try and avoid saitou. he's mostly been laying around idly, fiddling with his cerevice, and casually looking over to saitou every so often.

he's noticed, definitely, that saitou isn't quite himself in light of the cold. it's been largely subtle, enough so for souji to not feel much need to question it (he knows that he'll be met with it being brushed off, anyway). besides, with how hard he's been trying to avoid talking to saitou about anything serious, it doesn't seem like a good time. he'd avoid discussing the kiss-and-kill situation for the rest of his days, burying it under piles of assholery and bad jokes if it were possible.

it's not though, of course, and when saitou speaks up, souji knows that whatever attempts to completely avoid the topic he's been making are likely to fall to the wayside. he's going to try and keep it light, avoiding the deeper aspects of this... even if seeing saitou's visible discomfort with things means he already knows how it'll really go. he peers in saitou's direction, grateful that they don't yet have to make eye contact, but still noting just how stiff he looks right now. he responds, and while it's as light and airy as he usually speaks, there's a definite distance to his tone that normally wouldn't be present when talking to saitou.]

I think even snow bunnies would be cold when it's like this, Hajime-kun. [yes, he's cold. he's colder than he really cares to admit, but it's almost refreshing in a way and it doesn't seem like enough of an issue for him anyway. they have blankets, and as it stands, it's not that much colder than patrolling outside during a kyoto winter.]