3. moving

The movers showed up on time. Tomoyo happened to be on the balcony (truthfully, she had made a point to be there) collecting her laundry when the truck pulled up. Her phone started to vibrate in her back pocket, and Tomoyo answered while trying to get the last towel bundled away with her other hand. She confirmed some details, including the notable "Yes this is where Eriol Hiragizawa is moving".

She unlocked the front door and slid a yellow, cat-shaped doorstopper against it, then buzzed the front door open. Apartment moving was always chaotic. Lifts not wide enough, stairwells with inconvenient corners. Tomoyo lingered in the doorway while she waited for the movers to make their way up to the apartment, and she called Eriol, feeling a little more light-headed and heavy-hearted than she had any right to be.

He didn't even bother with greetings, "I'll be there in a moment."

Tomoyo was a little taken aback, but recovered quickly, laughing a little as she hung up. She headed back out to the balcony when the movers go downstairs again, and scoured the street for Eriol.

She wasn't exactly sure what she was expecting to find – she still imagined that he has the same hair and glasses from when they were in school. Probably dressed the same too, in shades of blues and preppy silhouettes.

What she got wasn't entirely off, but it was certainly not what she had been expecting.

She was right about his hair and glasses – they weren't the same glasses of course, but they were still quite large lenses with a thin rim. But this Eriol wasn't wearing the jackets and button up shirts of his youth. In fact, he was wearing just a navy T-shirt and black jeans as he hurried down the street. This was an incredibly understated look, and Tomoyo liked it.

It took an achingly long few more minutes for him to make it up to her – now their – floor. Tomoyo understood that in the back of her mind he must have stopped briefly to speak to the movers, but it annoyed her a little, to have been kept waiting. She tried not give much credit to those feelings. They were misplaced.

And suddenly he was standing in front of her.

He was a little out of breath, and his hair looked a little dishevelled from his running. It was occurring to Tomoyo now that she hadn't seen him in person for many years, and he had really changed in that time. He wasn't unrecognisable – his eyes were exactly the same, grey-blue and piercing, knowing. But his jaw had grown more pronounced, and he must have grown many inches taller. "Not the same as three years ago?"

Three years wasn't a long time, and yet he was quite different now. "I guess so, you're definitely not the same as I remembered."

The poised, careful, gentle Eriol that had picked her up from her childhood home for their graduating dance was not the same Eriol that now stood before her.

It was becoming more apparent to her as they started to go about the business to moving his things in and getting the chaos in order. It wasn't that he wasn't cheerful and mischievous anymore – he still made mean comments and laughed at Tomoyo's exasperated reaction. But he moved with intention now, and there was a particular seriousness to him that Tomoyo had never seen before.

Only when Eriol went back downstairs to wrap things up with the movers did Tomoyo get a still moment to take stock of what she had gotten herself into. The mess of a moving day was one thing – she wasn't really fazed by the multiple cardboard boxes and bags and suitcases, nor the miscellaneous pieces of furniture that didn't have an obvious place in Eriol's room. Rather, her head swirled and she struggled to come to grips with the idea that she was going to be living with Eriol. It wasn't meant to be a big deal, and there wasn't anything going on between them.

But still, this meant something. It was somehow a big moment.

Eriol was back before she made more progress with her thoughts. He got to work systematically, always asking if Tomoyo was able to help him with the next thing. The bedding came first – and underneath his spare sheets was a fluffy, white throw pillow.

Tomoyo picked it up while Eriol straightened up his blankets. She couldn't help laughing.

"What?"

"This is so unlike you." To think that Eriol had an eye for this kind of decorative item.

Eriol shrugged, taking it out of her hands, "it's meant to be comforting. Soft and warm in winter or something."

Tomoyo made a mental note to try it out as she watched him deposit it on the couch, beside two of her coffee and caramel coloured pillows.

It happens a couple more times – unpacking surprising things about Eriol.

For one, he had a clear affinity for cute mugs. He was clearly quite selective about them – he only had a few, but they were all shaped like animals, with ears along the rim. Tomoyo quite liked the one shaped like an owl, blue-grey in colour and more rounded than typical mugs. Eriol was noticeably quiet as he added them to where the other mugs in the apartment lived.

Another surprising thing was the sheer amount of skincare that he started to unload. Moving beyond the uncomfortable but not entirely unwelcome idea of sharing a bathroom, Tomoyo realised that she was passing him a lot of bottles and jars to store away in the space Sakura had left. Eriol took notice of her studying the labels, "yeah, a lot of skincare for a guy, I know."

It seemed that he had clearly had this conversation before. Tomoyo tried not to think about with whom. "It's nice though," she insisted, "I'm impressed. I think it's a good thing."

He smiled at her, a cheeky look in his eye, "yeah, maintaining this gorgeous face is a lot of work."

Tomoyo narrowed her eyes at him, "that's definitely one of your more distasteful jokes."

"Ugh, I'm wounded."

It was a pleasant surprise that they're able to banter like this. Tomoyo wasn't sure what she had been expecting, but it was just so different and present compared to their late night or early morning text messages and voice messages.

They moved through Eriol's things, a mound of cardboard and scrap newspaper growing as they unpacked.

Some of the familiar and predictable things were his jumpers and shirts – he hung up all the professional-looking button-ups and blazers. But he also had a few hoodies and many more grey tracksuit pants. Tomoyo was starting to get a sense of what Eriol looked like on his days off.

He hadn't brought many books with him, presuming correctly that there just wasn't going to be much shelf space. He did have a lot of writing pads though – more than just the standard yellow legal writing pads, but also pink and blue, and a handful a promotional, watermarked ones he must have taken from various networking and university events. Tomoyo ended up leaving them in a neat pile on his desk, unsure of where exactly he would like to place them.

The sun was starting to dip when Tomoyo realised that she was hungry, and Eriol was in the middle of figuring out where to put all his shoes (he had a surprisingly large number of shoes). She pulled open her fridge door, scanning her options.

Eriol looked up from his squatting position near the apartment entrance. She'd thought differently about him, but in Eriol's eyes Tomoyo hadn't really changed much. Sure, what she wore was less feminine these days. She was all long skirts and ruffles in middle school, and high school was a time of pastel blouses and high-waisted jeans that he distinctly recalled looked excellent on her. Today, she was wearing a boxy-fit short sleeved top and black leggings. Comfortable, restrained.

Eriol tried very hard not to think about how great her ass looked. It's inappropriate, he scolded himself, annoyed.

It was starting to sink in for him too now, that they'll be living together. Together is a strong word. They're just sharing a space – more specifically they're sharing the living room, kitchen, balcony, laundry and bathroom – he gulped. Bathroom. He sighed quietly to himself, standing and resigning to store a few more pairs of sneakers in their respective shoeboxes under his bed. He wasn't a child anymore. Not a teenage boy with stars in his eyes.

And yet, as he stole another glance at Tomoyo taking a few eggs out of the fridge, he felt just like that foolish boy.

He hated that.

a/n 6 July 2019 - I've gone back and rewritten the first handful of chapters. I really wanted to refocus this - hopefully it's an improvement.