jeanne ✨️

#krtsk

"Since when are you an avid forager?" Tersuhima grins at him under his hat. His bucket is chock full of fungus, too many to name and count.

Tetsurou looks at the little mushroom on his hand, unassuming, like most of its species, but deadly.

"With age comes the thirst for new hobbies," he shrugs.

Kei looks at him. Looks at him and hums. Whether in agreement or not, Tetsurou does not care.

—

"I'm tired," Kei mumbles on his chest. "It never goes away, Tetsu."

He cards his fingers through blonde locks and gives him a reassuring kiss.

"We can always go back to Sendai," he offers. "Restore your mother's summer house, just as you promised we'd do."

In the morning, he gives him the mushroom tea Yuuji helped to prepare. Kei takes it with measured sips, asking him to pass his thanks to the mycologist. Tetsurou promises.

In the evening, he gives the same tea, and Kei gladly takes it, thankful for his husband.

—

He answers Kei's feverish apologies, 'I'm sorry' and 'Please don't leave me' and 'I love you.'

He's soft and malleable, unable to let go of him for even a minute, and Tetsurou loves it.

He answers to his every beck and call. Bathes him, eats with him, wraps him on his arms, and hums the same lullaby he heard his brother in law sing to his daughter.

Kei was not able to receive his prize personally.

Tetsurou sends the committee a formal email on behalf of his husband as he holds his hand. Kei is pale and weak and needy, advised to take a long bed rest after he overworked himself.

"You will never understand," Kei scoffs, mean and vile, and it starts Tetsurou, just what he wanted.

"Because I'm not as smart as you? Because your work is more important than mine?" he challenges.

Kei never replies. He didn't have to.

—

"You dare to suggest I stop? To give up when I am this close?" he snarls like a cornered animal.

"I only wish that you pause." Tetsurou tries to reason. "It's like you're never here, love. You make me feel like I'm alone in this house. In this marriage."

"How dare you," he snarls, offended that Tetsurou, his husband, had the audacity to take care of him. To remind him to stop and rest and eat. He's consumed by work, so into his mind that he is neglecting his well-being.

That he is neglecting his husband.

In his lowest, Kei bites and lashes. A god walking amongst humans, unforgiving and indifferent of their defects. He screams and fights, weilding his words like a knife.

Some days, no, most days, despite Kei's self-deprecation and doubts whispered in the middle of the night, Tetsurou is reminded of his almost inhuman acuity.

Tetsurou never wishes to share the vision before him to anyone, after all.

—

They don't see Kei when he's happy, shining, and open, nor when he has tears on his eyes, crystal drops like a morning dew hanging on blades of grass.

They don't see Kei when he drops on one knee and opens the box that contains a family heirloom.

They don't see Kei in his most vulnerable, when he's lying close to Tetsurou, their breaths mingling, when he locks his fingers against his, reassuring and steady.

People rarely believe him when he marvels at Kei's softness.

All they see is his sharp edges. The thorns he wears proudly. The brashness and brutal honesty.

That night, under the soft, mellow light of the pub, Kei glowed like the warm summer sun. As Tetsurou leaned close and whispered heady praises, as his hands wandered, Kei explodes and shimmers like a supernova.

And what an honor, to see this god unravel and be human, only for Tetsurou.

—

He offers him a way out, a casual invite to try out a special drink at the bar, and Kei, ever brilliant, picks up the cues and goes with him.

Tetsurou sees the tightness of his shoulders, hears the pointed silence and the forced replies even before he introduces himself to the crowd surrounding his muse.

Kei is withdrawn and tense, his countenance screams for isolation. Tetsurou sees the challenge, and he gladly bites.

Kei might have been a celebrated mathematician, but this is the first time he will wade through the waters of an academic institution as an educator. His students, far older than him, are chasing the same recognition he reached before hitting eighteen.

Like a lighthouse, Kei's burnished gold light leads Tetsurou to him. He stands in the middle of their colleagues, professors, and experts in their respective fields, all welcoming a novice.

From what he knew back then, Kei has always faced recognition with a glib attitude, unaffected by his own prestige and brilliance. Fame is a fly he constantly swats away. Admiration is something to be shrugged off.

He meets Kei shortly after he wins the Abel Prize.

Three years earlier, he was awarded the Fields Medal.

There had been rumors of a Nobel. Tetsurou is not surprised if it's the next thing Kei would achieve.

Tetsurou shrugs off the critique, grabbing the offending papers back. "I think it's promising. Bold."

He is leveled with a gaze that feels like a thousand winters, and oh, how Tetsurou loves the numbing cold.

—

"It's callous," his Kei frowns in distaste. "Crude. Pretentious. I had the impression your program picks only the best. You must be losing your touch." He finishes with a sneer.

No matter how much his peers have fawned and simpered and froze in awe over this otherworldly being, he is different. Tetsurou refuses to be told otherwise.

Before Tsukishima Kei, your flaws are exposed, your ego beaten and forced into submission.

But Tetsurou is not a lesser man. He is Kei's equal. His North Star. The compass that keeps him in check.

[toxic #krtsk]

He reads the papers, critical and judging. A lesser man would've cowered in fear, and who wouldn't? Before this omniscient being, this god, who sees through the stars and the dust of the universe? He who gazes right back at the time of creation and entropy?