Chapter Text
A sudden tap! on the window directs Sunny’s attention to it, immediately rising from his bed. Just when he was about to go to sleep, too. In any other situation, he would be annoyed, turning away and pressing his pillow against his ears to muffle the sound. Not this time, though. Tossing the covers off of him, he sits up on his mattress, moving to take a peek through the framed pane that sat above the nightstand.
It’s dark out with the moon high in the sky, gleaming stars sprinkled all around like white paint on a black canvas. On the grass below, he spots a small silhouette hurling another pebble his way. It bounces off the glass with a light tap! before falling back down. The silhouette sends Sunny an apologetic smile after noticing him through the glass. Sunny just smirks fondly at his silly antics.
Lifting his window open, he sticks his head out, calmly greeting, “Hi, Kel.”
Bathing in the moonlight, Kel’s wearing a hoodie over some shorts paired with his neon orange crocs. Some would say he has an atrocious sense of fashion, but Sunny is rather fond of it. Besides, Sunny can’t judge, he wears a sweater vest and shorts on most days.
Kel’s eyes light up in an instant, waving at his friend as he loudly whispers, “Psst!! Hey!! Sunsun!! Let’s head to—!!”
“Hobbeez?” Sunny finishes for him.
Kel gasps, “How’d you know?!”
“You asked the same thing last week.”
And the week before that… and the week before that one. Every Friday, around the same time, Kel comes by to throw rocks at Sunny’s window. Every time it’s because he wants to sneak out to Hobbeez. It’s like clockwork at this point. Kel wasn’t kidding when he said he’d stick around every step of the way. Ever since that day in the rain, Kel has been a constant figure in his life. Knocking on his door to drag him out to explore the world he’s been gone from for much too long—and to see the friends he had left behind—or just to stay inside with him to keep him company. It’s like he can read his mind, sensing Sunny’s dislike for being alone.
Sunny still wonders what he did to deserve him. He feels… unworthy.
“Oh yeah! Anyways, you wanna?!” Kel asks a bit too loudly that it doesn’t even sound like a loud whisper anymore. He hopes he doesn’t wake Mom up.
Sunny nods. “I’ll be down in a bit,” he says before shutting the window closed again.
Too lazy to change from his pajamas, Sunny simply shrugs on a black, zip-up jacket over them. Though, he makes sure to put on his black eye patch rather than his usual white one. He likes to think it makes him look like Captain Spaceboy, but maybe that’s just him.
He exits his room, shutting the door as quietly as he can so as to not disturb his mom sleeping in the other room. Socked feet pad across the wooden floor, walking down the stairs in careful steps. The house would be pitch black if it weren’t for the light of the moon shining through the windows, brightening his path to the front door. He’s heard that the moon is able to shine at night because it reflects the sun’s light. The sun gives some of its light so the moon can shine too. He knows there must be some type of poetic message to be found in that small fact, but he thinks no further on it once he reaches the front door. His sun is waiting for him, after all.
As soon as he opens the door, Kel pounces on him, wrapping him in an enormous hug. It’s warm. Kel always has the warmest hugs. “Sunsun!” The brunet says as he steps away from the embrace—Sunny wishes it had lasted a little longer. “Dang, it’s like I haven’t seen you in forever!”
“It’s only been a few hours, Kel,” Sunny points out, laughing lightly at the tinge of red on Kel’s cheeks.
“W-Well, still! A few hours is a lot of time!” Kel argues with a small pout, crossing his arms over his chest.
They may be seventeen now, but Sunny swears, sometimes it feels like they’re still twelve. In a good way. Deep down, they’re still the little kids who snuck out at night to go to Hobbeez. They’re still the same kids who would play video games until daybreak. The same kids who would make a mess in the kitchen without care of the consequences. The same kids who danced with the whole world watching. With Kel, it’s like Sunny is a kid again, living out the childhood he had missed.
And, oh, he had missed this.
“Anyways, stop changing the subject!”— ‘Technically, you’re the one who brought it up, but okay,’ Sunny thinks to himself—“Let’s head to Hobbeez already! It’s cold out here, brr!” Kel exclaims, taking Sunny’s hand and pulling him along as they race down the street.
Kel’s hands are warm. Of course, he wouldn’t have expected anything different. Kel’s hands are warm, but they’re more than just warm. They’re big compared to Sunny’s smaller ones, engulfing them completely. Kel pointed it out once when they were playing video games once. He remembers the feeling of his palm against his when they compared hand sizes. It was warm.
Kel’s hands aren’t soft in the slightest. They’re rough and calloused. They get clammy easily, even now Sunny can feel sweat spreading into the grooves of his palm. Kel has the hands of an athlete. He has hands that have seen the scorching heat of many summers, endured the pressures of a tense basketball game, carried the weight of pounds upon pounds.
Kel’s hands aren’t soft, but they’re comforting and warm.
Sunny thinks Kel’s hands fit perfectly within his own.
They enter the main plaza still hand-in-hand. The bright, fluorescent lights from inside the open stores beams through the windows, spilling onto the pavement. Othermart’s neon sign glows an eerie, yet familiar red. Street lamps are posted evenly across the plaza, lit up with a comforting, yellow hue. Kel makes a beeline for Hobbeez, the ringing of the bell above the door echoes throughout the empty store.
Huh. It’s empty?
“Huh, looks like Pedro’s away right now,” Kel observes, releasing Sunny’s hand and taking a look over the counter.
“Probably because he isn’t expecting any customers so late,” Sunny reasons, sensing the warmth in his hand slowly fade away.
“Which means we get the whole shop to ourselves!” The brunet exclaims, turning back to face Sunny and spreading his arms out wide. He’s so stupid. In a good way. A cute type of stupid.
“No stealing, Kel.”
“H-Hey! I wasn’t going to steal anything!” Kel retorts as he walks over to the comic racks. “Pedro would kill me,” he mutters underneath his breath. Sunny chuckles at his comment, joining Kel in browsing through the comics.
Hobbeez’s selection of comics mainly consists of older editions and volumes. ‘Sweetheart’s Quest for Hearts,’ ‘Cosmic Chronicles,’ and ‘Small Snaley and his Hectic Journeys’ just to name a few. Not to mention the ‘Captain Spaceboy’s Space Adventure’ comic series, which was probably one of if not the most popular comic series when he was younger. Many of those comics are still here, but the prices are insanely high. It certainly was cheaper back then. Sunny’s glad he still has some of the older volumes, though they’re probably not in the best condition now.
Kel’s dramatic gasp catches Sunny’s attention. “No way! Dude, they made a reboot of Captain Spaceboy!” He waves a comic of Captain Spaceboy in a more updated look. The art style looks drastically different as well. ‘The Return of Captain Spaceboy’s Galactic Endeavors’ is written in sleek, yellow letters on the top of the cover. Sunny scrutinizes all the changes he can spot just from the cover. Wait, why is Captain Spaceboy wearing a sort of robot suit now? And he has pink hair now?!
“A reboot? It’s gonna suck,” Sunny comments pessimistically. Everyone knows reboots suck. Sunny can tell this already sucks.
“Don’t knock it till you try it!” Kel states, already flipping through the pages with intense interest.
Sunny rolls his eyes at him with a small smirk, opting to browse through a separate section of comics. Though, he doesn’t get much of a chance when Kel suddenly speaks up again, looking back at the cover of the Captain Spaceboy reboot.
“By the way, just so you know, I think you look really cool with that eyepatch.”
“Hm, really?” He inquires.
Sunny doesn’t usually get compliments about his eyepatch. Most people simply pity him, apologizing for his loss. He doesn’t understand why they would do that, it’s not like they’re the one who took his eye away. Sunny gets more than enough apologies from Basil—the one who actually stabbed it out—but Sunny hardly blames him for it. He doesn’t think he ever did. They both were not in the right state of mind. Besides, it was two years ago now, and Sunny has grown used to it.
Plus, Sunny thinks it makes him look sort of badass. Just think about it, he could make up a story that he fought off a mountain lion and has the scar to prove it. Not that he ever would do that, but he could if he so desired.
“Yeah man! You’d make a pretty good Captain Spaceboy!” Kel adds, tapping a finger at said character on the cover.
“…You’ll have to be my Sweetheart then,” he quickly says back without thinking.
“H-Huh?!”
“If I’m Captain Spaceboy, then you’re Sweetheart,” Sunny picks up a ‘Sweetheart’s Quest for Hearts’ comic from the rack, showing it to Kel. “I think you’d make a pretty convincing one.”
“Haha, r-really? Would I look good in pigtails too?” Kel asks, holding his umber strands up to mimic a pigtail hairstyle.
“You’d look adorable.” More than he already is.
Without skipping a beat, Kel interjects, “Hm, that’s kinda your job though!”
Sunny’s eye widen, bewildered and flustered, “M-Me?”
“Yeah! Well…” Kel awkwardly combs a hand through his long hair, gazing off to the side, suddenly looking embarrassed, “I-I think you’re pretty cute…” He whispers quietly, so quiet that Sunny barely caught it.
An uncomfortable silence lingers between the two of them as Sunny tries to turn away to hide the blush of red growing on his face. Him? Cute? Kel thinks… Kel thinks he’s cute…? His brain feels fried. What does… What does that mean? What is that supposed to mean? Does Kel really mean that in the way Sunny thinks?
What… What does Kel feel
about Sunny
?
Sunny bites the inside of his cheek, thinking. Thinking too hard, perhaps. The silence feels too thick between them and these feelings are burning a hole in his chest. So Sunny thinks…
‘Tell him. Tell him everything,’ the little bug in his ear whispers to him, intrusive and incessant. ‘Tell him his hands are warm and his hugs feel like home. Tell him to keep you company and to stay by your side until the sun rises. Tell him he feels like childhood and that he feels like the summer days spent relaxing underneath the shade. Tell him he is the sun and you are the moon, and you’ll follow him like the moon follows the sun.
‘Tell him you love him.’
And it’s like his thoughts take hold of him, words leave his mouth without warning, without hesitation. Sunny breaks through the silence because he’s done being quiet, “Can I tell you something?”
“O-Oh, uh, sure!” Kel blurts out, seemingly taken off guard from Sunny’s sudden question.
“I… don’t like a lot of things.”
“Hm, yeah I could see that!” Kel says bluntly, a dopey smile on his face. Sunny softly chuckles at such a candid response. That’s adorable.
Oh god, he’s adorable.
“Yeah… but, you have a lot of those things. But I… don’t not like you. It’s.. different when it’s you. For a long time, I didn’t know why,” he put away the comic he was looking at to pull out the one beside it instead. It appears to be a mix of romance and sci-fi. A ‘Captain Spaceboy’s Space Adventure’ and ‘Sweetheart’s Quest for Hearts’ crossover. He stares at the cover, amused. “I hate sneaking out,” he continues, “I rather sleep in my bed instead of going out somewhere at the dead of night, but… when it’s with you? When it’s with you… I look forward to it. I look forward to hearing the sound of pebbles hit my window, knowing that it’s you outside. I look forward to tiptoeing through the silent house to slip out the front door, knowing that it’s you waiting for me on the other side. I look forward to… seeing you.”
At some point, the topic has changed from more than just sneaking out. Sunny doesn’t know where he’s going with this. He’s talking more now than he has in the past few years of his life. But he can’t stop, not now. Not when Kel is here. Not when he has so much he wants to say.
After all, in the dead of night, it’s the moon’s time to shine.
“I… I look forward to seeing you everyday. Whether we’d be playing games, running around town, talking with the others, or just staying inside all day—I look forward to all of it because I know we’d be… together. And I… I care a lot about you, Kel. You are…” ‘the sun,’ Sunny wants to say, ‘you’re the light that brightened my whole life, you’re the one who stayed no matter what happened, you’re the one who understood me, you’re the one who never gave up, you’re the one who still cared, you are…’ “my best friend.”
His first friend, and for a long time, he was his only friend. Kel, the sun in his life, giving some of his light so that Sunny can shine too. Kel, his best friend.
But is that really all that Sunny wants?
“And I… I care about you… so much. I care about you in ways I can’t describe. I care about you in ways I don’t know how to show. I care about you so much and for so long, and I don’t want to stop caring about you. I want to care about you for as long as possible. I want to care about your eyes, your smile, your warmth, your positivity, your perseverance—I want to care about all of it. I want to care about all of you. And I… I want to be there for you. Just like you are for me.” ‘I want to be there for you in your lowest moments and your highest achievements,’ Sunny thinks, ‘I want to be there on the hottest days and the coldest nights. I want to be there no matter rain or hail. I want to be there whether you’re crying or laughing. I want to be there for you. I want to care about you.’
“I want to love you.”
And he does, doesn’t he? He wouldn’t be saying these things—-thinking these things—if otherwise. Sunny never has been good at expressing his emotions. He also isn’t good at understanding them. Emotions are confusing, they can change on a dime. Wild and unpredictable. But Sunny understands this feeling. Sunny understands why his heart races. He understands why his face reddens, why he speaks before he thinks, why his mind is suffocating with thoughts of Kel.
Because it’s love. Sunny is in love. Sunny is in love with Kel.
He wonders if the sun loves the moon in the same way.
Kel stands there, dumbstruck, and a smile stuck frozen on his face. Slowly, he nods yet Sunny can still see the gears turning in his head, “Heh, yeah… W-Wait, what’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I love you, Kel.”
He’s left speechless, and that’s saying a lot from a chatterbox like Kel.
“Like…” Kel slowly brings his hands up, pressing his fingers against his thumbs in each hand to act as mouths before putting them together to mimic kissing, “like ‘kissy kissy’ love?!”
God, this man is an idiot. No wonder he fell in love with him. Sunny just smiles, “Yes, Kel. Like ‘kissy kissy.’”
Kel doesn’t say anything for a moment. A long moment. He keeps opening his mouth as if he’s going to say something, but thinks against it and shuts it quickly. He’s not saying anything. He simply stares—staring at Sunny with those eyes that carry the blaze of a thousand suns, that gaze that covers Sunny like a warm blanket. But he’s not saying anything.
Why isn’t he saying anything?
Say something.
But in the end, he doesn’t need to. He smiles at Sunny, but it’s a softer smile. It’s a different smile. It doesn’t carry the brightness of the sun, but instead holds the comfort of the moon. A smile of realization—relief. It’s a different smile, but it’s Kel’s smile nonetheless.
Sunny doesn’t realize he’s been staring until Kel steps closer, and Sunny can almost feel his breath against his skin. Their hands just barely brush against each other, and Sunny feels a tinge of warmth from the brief moment of contact.
“I… Sunsun—Sunny, I…” The brunet frantically stumbles on his words, growing more and more flustered as he tries to gain his bearings. “I… Y-You…
“C-Can I kiss you?!” The taller teen suddenly blurts out, his face aflame with embarrassment. Sunny jumps in his own skin from the abrupt question.
‘You don’t even need to ask,’ Sunny wants to say, ‘You should have said that in the beginning,’ Sunny wants to add…
‘Yes, I would love to kiss you,’ he dares to reply but all those thoughts fade when his body moves before he can think, grabbing the collar of Kel’s hoodie and yanking him down to pull him into a kiss. It’s not the perfect first kiss—if one could ever consider this clumsy collision of lips a kiss. Kel lets out a sharp exhale of surprise through his nose and his arms hover awkwardly at his sides, unsure of where to put them. Sunny’s eye is shut firmly closed as he tries to stay on his tiptoes. It’s not a long kiss, lasting a bit over a second once Sunny pulls away, but god, did it feel like the longest second of his life. A whisper of warmth is left on Sunny’s lips,
Sunny looks back up at the brunet, one eye wide and his hands loosely gripping Kel’s hoodie, “W-Was that okay…?”
Kel just smiles, answering with laughter, and Sunny finds himself gazing at the way Kel’s face scrunches up when he does so. Gazing at the way his eyebrows raise up and how his shoulders shake ever so slightly. Sunny finds himself gazing, longing, loving. Kel doesn’t say anything after his laughter dies down, and only reaches to cradle Sunny’s face in his warm hands, calloused fingers against his skin.
And Kel leans in for another, and another, and another. Kel’s excitement and elation shows through his onslaught of kisses, sporadic and plentiful, none of them last longer than a small peck, but they feel like sprinkles of sunlight blessing his skin. He peppers them all over his face—his lips, the corners of his lips, his cupid’s bow, the corner of his eye, the tip of his nose, his cheeks, his forehead until Sunny is simply showered in warmth. It shouldn't be a surprise that Kel’s lips are just as warm as his hands.
Sunny finds it hard to stay up on his tippy-toes as he tries to plant another kiss onto Kel’s lips yet ultimately fails. Curse Kel for getting insanely good genes and becoming a 6 foot tall beast. Now it’s harder to kiss him.
“Ugh, you’re so… tall,” Sunny whines as he tries to tug Kel further down so he can actually reach him.
Kel chuckles, his hands still cupped around Sunny’s face, “Aw, but you’re so short and cute!”—He squishes Sunny’s cheeks—“you’re pocket-sized!”
Sunny’s face heats up in an instant. ‘Pocket-sized’?! Oh, Sunny will show him. The shorter teen swoops his foot around to lightly kick the back of Kel’s knees. The taller boy loses balance, stumbling and falling to his knees in front of Sunny, who now looms over him. Look who’s taller now.
“That’s better,” Sunny smirks, caressing bashful Kel’s cheek. He begins to lean closer when—
“Uh, can I help you guys?”
The sound of the shopkeeper's voice breaks them apart, staring wide-eyed and frozen at the man leaning over the store’s counter. Truly, what impeccable timing. Wait, was he there the whole time? Just… watching?! He’s glaring at the boys with a confused expression as he absent-mindedly adjusts his spectacles. The reflection of the fluorescent lights on his glasses make him look unnecessarily intimidating.
“P-Pedro!” Kel speaks up first, shooting finger guns at the shopkeeper in an attempt to seem casual (it’s not very effective, but A for effort). “Heyyyy man… uh, I uh, didn’t hear you come in!”
“I didn’t hear you guys come in either. I was just in the back room.” The shorter teen lets out a quiet breath of relief. Oh Sunny is immensely thankful that the shopkeep hadn’t heard or seen anything. Or… he hopes that’s the case. “Did you guys want to buy a comic or somethin’? Why—why are you on your knees?” Pedro questions, pointing at Kel, perplexed.
“Oh! Haha, about that—!”
Sunny cuts him off to save them both the embarrassment, taking Kel’s hand and pulling him to his feet.
“We’ll be out of your hair now,” Sunny assures Pedro as he exits the store with a waving Kel in tow. It’s official. Sunny is never stepping into Hobbeez again for the sake of his dignity. Seriously, who makes out in the back of a Hobbeez at something-o’clock at night? Sunny and Kel, that’s who.
“Aw man, I wanted to buy that comic though!” Kel fusses as soon as the door closes behind them and they’re well out of ear shot from any potential eavesdroppers.
“You should be glad I saved you from having to read that disaster of a reboot,” Sunny states which earns him a huff from Kel.
“You haven’t even read it yet!”
“Don’t have to. I already know it’s a disaster.”
Kel huffs again, and god, his pouty face is so cute. Sunny wants to kiss him again. And again and again and again until his lungs run out of air to breathe. Suffocating for kisses would be worth it though. If it’s Kel’s kisses, it’s absolutely worth it. Kel must notice how Sunny has been staring at him—his lips especially—since he quickly brightens up. That pout on his face soon fades into one of his iconic smiles. God, that smile is blinding—and Sunny would happily let it blind him.
Kel looks at him expectantly like an excited puppy. If Kel had a tail, it would be energetically wagging right now. His eyes appear as if they have stars in them, and perhaps that’s thanks to the night sky above them, but Sunny likes to believe Kel simply carries the aura of the stars with him. “Does… does this mean we’re… boyfriends now?!”
“If boyfriends make out in the comic section of a Hobbeez, then yes. Yes, I suppose that would make us boyfriends.” Sunny likes that word. Boyfriends. Kel is his boyfriend. Sunny is Kel’s boyfriend. Sunny likes that title on them. They’re boyfriends.
“Then… what should we do first as boyfriends?”
Sunny wants to say everything. He wants to say anything and everything all at once, because honestly at this point, what’s stopping them? No one can stop the sun and the moon from traveling across the skies after all. Maybe that’s a bit pretentious of him, but still. One day, they’ll do everything together.
Right now, however, Sunny just wants kisses.
Sunny wiggles a finger at him, beckoning him over. “Get down here,” Sunny says, and he does.
So he kisses him. He kisses him again. And again. And again. Lips full of warmth and heart soaring above the stars. And he kisses him again and again and again.
In the dead of night with only the moon as their witness.