Chapter Text
“Where is it?” Rain asks the empty air as if it will respond with the answer he needs. “Come on, it has to be around here somewhere,” the panic of not finding it has him panting and looking around the room with frenzied movements.
A little voice in his head, that sounds an awful lot like Phayu, bids him to take a deep breath and reset so that he can solve the problem. “Calm down, Rain,” he tells himself. His breathing slows gradually as he falls into the pattern Phayu always has him follow when he guides him through it. Then he opens his eyes, “where did you last see it? Retrace your steps. There was my bag, but already checked there,” he says, seeing the contents of said bag upended on the bed. “The desk,” he says next but that was clean of everything aside from the paper he had laid there. “Then I was on the bed, before I fell asleep!”
He practically dives to the floor, phone already bright with the flashlight function active, and looks under the bed. With a triumphant grin he pulls the pencil from beneath it.
He breathes a sigh of relief at having found it, and hugs the writing utensil to his chest.
It was probably silly to panic and feel such relief over a pencil, but he’d been using this particular mechanical pencil for the better part of the last year, and he’d done so well on all his tests and exams that he had deemed it a lucky pencil, and with the final exam approaching he had to make sure he had every advantage he could get.
Now he just had to-
Wait…
Rain frowns.
There had been something else under the bed. In his relief over the pencil he hadn’t spared it a thought a few seconds ago, but-
He looks under the bed again, and sure enough there is a journal right there on the floor.
Curiosity gets the better of him, and he opens it.
He instantly recognizes Phayu’s work, he could never mistake it for anyone else's, and it takes him only a moment longer to realize just what it is.
These are the plans for a house.
Not for two, but for four.
There is a shared room planned for each couple, individual offices, kitchens, even a room for Kuma and Usagi.
Rain sets the book aside as the tears fill his eyes.
He knows Phayu wants him. They’ve been through so much together the past couple of years that it’s a well established fact on the level of birds having wings, and the sky being big. The love they have is expressed through action and with words so often that it has settled into his heart like a cement foundation on which to build more relationships.
But seeing this, knowing that Phayu is planning so long term for them, for all of them, it just makes him so happy.
“Rain? What’s wrong?”
Rain blinks hastily, trying to clear his vision.
When did Phayu get there?
Oh no! The room was a mess! He was going to clean up as soon as he found his pencil, but the house plans had distracted him before he had gotten the chance.
Phayu’s kneeling in front of him now, his expression showing how concerned he is. It makes sense, he’d be pretty worried too if he got home and Phayu was sitting on the bed, crying his eyes out.
“Breathe with me, darling, you can do it.”
Rain nods, feeling an amalgamation of joy, humor, and deja vu , because inner voice Phayu had just walked him through this as well.
“Sorry,” he says once he regains his ability to speak.
“You don’t have to apologize for your emotions, my sweet one, but what caused this? Is it just the stress from university overwhelming you or something else?”
Rain flushes. “I… I thought I had lost my lucky pencil,” he admits. “I found it under the bed, and I also found those,” he says, casting his gaze at the plans beside him.
“I see,” Phayu says, not seeming the slightest bit upset, “And what did you think of them?”
“They’re wonderful, and P’Pai and Sky will love them too! Although Sky might be kind of pouty because he was making plans too.”
Phayu grins. “Perhaps we can combine some of the ideas.
“We should start soon then, Sky told me that P’Pai was mansion shopping,” Rain laughs. “Here look.”
Phayu takes the phone handed to him, and looks at the messages Rain has scrolled to for him.
‘37 rooms Rain! The place had 37 rooms! That doesn’t even include the kitchens, basement, and a yard big enough to have a basketball court, and a swimming pool, and still have room left over!’
‘Sounds like P’Pai’ .
‘What would we do with 37+ rooms?! Is this revenge for not letting him buy me an island?!’
‘I think so*crying laughing kitty emoji*’
‘Rain! This is no laughing matter. I literally had to beg him not to buy us a mansion! The compromise we reached was 25 rooms. I had to ride him so hard he went brain dead to get him to go down to 20. The place he found was even bigger and had WINGS! 20 rooms per wing. It was practically a CASTLE! How is this my life? What did I do to end up here? Why am I being punished like this?’
‘First off eww I don’t want to know what you two do in your private time. But also awww! P’Pai loves you so much!’
‘*eye roll emoji* After all the dreamy-eyed fantasy stuff I’ve had to listen to from you about Phayu Charming, you should be happy I don’t give more details just to make you squirm, you prude. And this isn’t love it’s torture. You have to help me design a place for us. Otherwise we’ll end up in a castle, and I don’t know if I can take that.’
*multiple crying laughing kitty and puppy emojis*
‘Rain!’
Phayu is laughing too hard to read any further. “We better get to work for Sky’s sake.”
“For P’Pai’s too. Sky really might attack him if he bought a castle.”
“And I’d be left to deal with the fallout,” Phayu sighs. It wasn’t often Sky, and Prapai really fought, but the few instances where it had happened, he was the one left to care for a sulky puppy who watched him with the most sorrow-filled eyes, and not even that cursed squeaky bone was able to bring him any happiness.
Rain was able to get him moving by nature of being sunshine incarnate, but it was always muted. Although if Usagi was there instead, he would feed off of Kuma’s sadness, and Phayu would be followed by two sets of sad eyes instead of one.
“P’Phayu?”
“I’m alright. I was just thinking about how sad everyone is when they fight.”
“Oh. Well we won’t let it come to that. Plus Sky is probably too tired to fight with P’Pai because exams are exhausting.”
Phayu laughs. “I know that feeling quite well, my sweet boy, trust me.”
“There’s been a lot of times where I just looked at you just to remember it was possible to survive,” Rain tells him.
“I know it’s been hard, but you’re doing so well, and I am very proud of you.”
Rain smiles at the praise even if he doesn’t feel it is completely deserved. “I don’t think I would have made it if I didn’t have so many people helping me.”
“And that is more than alright. Needing help isn’t a weakness, and neither is asking for it. My parents were a huge help to me, and for all my complaints about him I wouldn’t have been half as successful without Saifah there to help me.”
“Do you think I helped Sky any?”
“Of course, you have. He may have had to keep you on task, but that made him focus too, and I know for a fact he has a bad habit of putting too much of his energy into his studies, so having you and Pai around to offset that is a good thing. That’s without even mentioning all the emotional support you’ve given him.”
“Sorry for getting all worried over nothing.”
“Punishment lines.”
“What! Why?”
“Invalidating your feelings.”
“Phi,” Rain whines. “I already have enough work to do. Why would you give me more!”
“I didn’t make this rule,” Phayu says smugly.
Rain flops onto the bed with a pout. Bit in the backside by his own rule. “Fine.”
“You only have to write it ten times,” Phayu allows.
“Ugh,” Rain groans.
“You can do it in that crazy language you and Pai made up.”
Rain can’t help smiling at that offer. It was a nonsense language full of woofs, meows, and adjacent sounds. Kuma and Usagi had to communicate somehow after all, and Prapai had been the one to suggest a written form of it.
It drove Sky crazy once he figured out that they had effectively created their own language and hadn’t simply been playing at understanding what the other was saying.
It also helped when they wanted to make plans without anyone else overhearing, and it was worth the exasperated looks given to them by Phayu, Sky, and on one memorable occasion, Namtan.
“Nap first?” Rain asks.
“No,” Phayu says, “cleaning this mess first, then a nap.”
Rain groans.
Phayu gives him a quick kiss for encouragement. “I’ll help you.”
It was still a big job for someone half asleep, but he got up anyway. The sooner he tidied up the mess the sooner he could rest, and maybe if he didn’t fight it, Phayu would give him a kiss or two for being good.