he can see the way rain slips down the bridge of your nose, watches the way it falls down the contours of your face and your cheeks, mixing with the color of your lips as you let out little breathless sutters.
and perhaps another night, mattsun never would’ve believed what he’d heard. another night, when the sky had not opened with the same kind of grace as the ocean, letting the earth feel the battering of the water on the land. on another night, when you did not stand in front of him and twirl your fingers around each other, whispers floating over your tongue until they twirled around his ears and lifted along his flesh.
on another night, mattsun would swear he heard you wrong.
but tonight, amidst the rain and the murmurs of something almost bittersweet, trapped in the fading sounds and lights of a city that is, for once, going to sleep, he knows what you’ve said.
in your determined eyes, in the crease of your brows, in the way your breath passes an almost-trembling bottom lip, you’ve said, in the sweetest tone, a little i love you.
and even still, though he knows what you’ve said and though he could let the words ring through his ears for as long as time may allow, he can’t quite bring himself to fall into it—to let the words wash over him and envelop him in the kind of warmth that would save him from whatever chill the rain provides.
“what?” he asks, gasps chasing after the syllables.
“oh, come on, issei. don’t make me say it again,” you reply, and there’s laughter in your voice and your eyes are crinkling at the corners and he swears this is nothing if not fiction.
“say it again,” he whispers, his hands moving to cup your jaw and push the soaked hair behind your ears. “come on, honey, for me?”
and though the nickname is so familiar, though it feels right when it passes his lips and even more so when your lips curl into that sweet smile of yours, he swears there’s something more behind it—like the timbre of his voice has changed and it’s for you. onlyyou, as though the rest of him has been washed away as the rain slips over his lips and now it’s just the version of him that was meant for you.
so far, he thinks he likes this version best.
“okay, but only for you.” and there’s the way your smile creeps further into your cheeks, the way it’s a little crooked and seems awfully proud for the moment, awfully proud for someone whose soles are half-soaked in a puddle. so you take a step forward, looking up at him through dampened lashes and eyes coated in the city lights. “you, issei, i am in love with you.”
“so you’re inlove with me now, huh?”
oh and you give him a look at that, an almost roll of your eyes and your tongue poking at your cheek.
“so you did hear me the first time,” you reply, flat and a little tired of his antics, maybe.
(but hey, you’re stuck with him now).
so he smiles at you, crooked and overly-confident and he’s sure that his hair is sticking to his forehead from just how soaked he is.
“i did,” he says, and then moves in closer to you, breath brushing against your lips, “i just wanted to hear it again to be sure.”
“you’re a dick,” you reply, but your eyes are fluttering shut and when he laughs, you capture it in your lips, kissing him until he can’t even be bothered to feel the rain settling into his skin.
and maybe he is a dick, because tonight, you met him outside of his office looking sweet as you stood in the rain, and tonight, he looked at the umbrella he brought with him to work and left it beside his desk.
because tonight he wanted to be special. because tonight, he wanted to believe you like he swore he never could.
