Chapter Text
There was a cart selling gelato at the head of the Kyoto train station, and the pistachio flavors inside the tin were suspiciously green. But Geto buys a ball anyway, and sits on a bench at the station, ready to say goodbye to his youth with Gojo's favorite ice cream.
After two licks, Geto gave up and left the little blue carton on the other side of the seat, letting the syrup melt in it.
Shadows cast silent shadows on his face, and Geto jerked straight up and turned his head.
Gojo, a panting, damp-haired Gojo who gasped loudly, sat down on his butt next to Geto.
"Why do you buy the ice cream here, it's awful."
Geto stared straight at him.
Gojo was wearing a black cowl-buttoned coat that he had worn many years ago, his chin submerged in a camel-colored scarf. He seemed to have run all the way here, the ends of his hair wet against his scalp, and as he gasped for air and untied his scarf, he turned his head to stare at Geto.
They just stared at each other, and no one opened their mouths for half a day.
Finally, Geto decided to make the first move.
"Satoru, I'm leaving, you're busy, there's no need to come over."
"Who's coming to see you off," Gojo interrupted him grimly, "Suguru, go and return the tickets now."
"Huh?"
"Go return the ticket now."
"That's impossible," Geto laughed dryly, "I don't want to attend your wedding."
Gojo fanned his collar impatiently as he bit his lip and said, half-heartedly, "…There is no."
"No? No what?"
"…no wedding."
"How can it be? Yesterday you said that the shrine is all set and the honeymoon place is also chosen…"
"When I say no, I mean no!" The white-haired man shouted, but the end of the voice with a little reluctant twang, "there is no wedding, of course, there is no wedding rehearsal, plane tickets naturally did not buy ... but the resort hotel is set, I think if successful, I will go with you, not successful, I will go alone … "
This time it's Geto's turn to be puzzled, "What success, what go with me? I don't know anything about that."
Gojo scratched his hair impatiently, he looked like the same boy again ten years ago, time had never changed him a bit.
So the boy who had never changed stammered, "Suguru… the wedding and all that, I paid someone to lie to you."
"I just wanted you to come, I just wanted you to say that you love me, that you want to be with me - I know you probably think I'm both mean and childish, but I don't just care, I just want to know what you think."
Geto's heart pounded wildly once again, his feet seemed to suddenly float up into the clouds, while his head was inverted and sagging to the ground, and his whole body surged upward with a rush of heat.
"…So, you're saying that all the days I've been on tenterhooks are actually because, you tricked me." He tried to calm down and said it word by word.
Gojo chose to be defensive, "I'm not tricking you…I'm just, I'm just having a little fun with you."
Geto sneered with a stiff expression, "Yeah, it was funny."
"You're not really mad, are you?" Gojo suddenly softened his attitude again, his eyes widened and he pleaded, "Suguru, don't be mad at me, I just… I just wanted to…"
He suddenly couldn't go on, he could only flutter his almost transparent white eyelashes and fawn over Geto with those sky blue eyes.
So Geto's heart was suddenly wrapped in warm chocolate again, and his anger was gone. He sighed and smiled at Gojo.
"I'm not mad at you," he whispered, "I'm mad at myself."
"I was wondering how I could be so gullible, knowing that you love to play tricks on people, and still fall for it… I don't understand, Satoru, if you wanted to ask me, you could have just asked me."
Gojo, however, did not smile again, and he looked at Geto with a cold face.
"Do you really want me to ask you, Suguru, if you would have answered if I had asked you, you would have answered me ten years ago when I asked you why you had to leave-"
He said.
"But you didn't."
"Every time we went on a date to Ikebukuro, that's when I tried to hold your hand, and you were the one who would shake me off every time."
The white-haired man frowned at him. gojo was tall, but clearly curled himself up on one end of the bench like a drenched kitten.
"Every time, you never give me an answer and never let me hold your hand in crowds."
"All I know is that you love me, but loving doesn't mean we can spend the rest of our lives together, does it？"
"You rejected me once, Suguru, before we were eighteen," Gojo sighed at last, "and I know it's a ridiculous word coming from me, but I was really afraid - I was afraid that you'd reject me a second time."
"I'm afraid that we'll both miss out a second time… or maybe that's actually how we're supposed to miss out, because we're not even close in the way we think we are?"
Geto was silent.
He suddenly realized that he could only be silent: for even though they always talked and danced about each other's lives, they always chose to avoid talking about it when it came to the point; they were clever wise men and emotional fools, wishfully putting emotions and identities into place, but in the end forgetting their initial sincere passion.
Or, they assume that their existence is more precious than this emotion, but forget the most important point: they are connected to each other by this very emotion - they deserve and must be fearless teenagers, as long as they are not separated from each other.
...When, since when is we unknowingly becomes what one hates most?
Gojo's cheeks are still beaded with sweat, his originally snow-white cheeks are mottled with blood from the cold wind, and his white hair shines with crystal colors in the sunlight. But his gaze would not dodge as before, his pale blue eyes stared straight at Geto, and he grabbed the other man's hand savagely.
A thin sweat of tension oozed from his palms.
Geto suddenly felt cheerful, as if the iron on his heart was melted by the heat wave, his veins were driven to bulge and beat. He was joyful and nervous, as incoherent as the moment of his confession ten years ago.
He suddenly felt reborn, as if his seventeen-year-old self had once again descended upon him.
So Geto said.
"Satoru, I still hate marriage as much as I did when I was seventeen. I hate marriage, I hate the so-called 'normal family' …"
"I want a big family, all over the place, wandering the world - so there's no way I can marry you."
"But… I also want that home with you in it, where you can be wherever you want to be, and as long as I see you, I'll have the courage to say so."
Geto finally took Gojo's hand back and he moved his body towards the other side of the bench, finally leaning his forehead on Gojo's chin.
"I am yours, and you are mine - as long as that is your hope."
Gojo finally laughed out loud.
"Then I'll never get married either," he said, lowering his head and brushing the tip of his nose against Geto's, "because that's my hope…"
They finally kissed again, as they had ten years before, and Gojo's lips crashed into Geto's crown. Luckily it didn't hurt too much and Geto opened his lips to meet him. He tasted a creamy hazelnut hot chocolate in Gojo's mouth, and Geto couldn't tell if it was because the other man had actually drunk hot chocolate while he was in a hurry, or maybe it was just a psychological effect on him?
Gojo was so raw that it seemed like he hadn't been kissed in years, but he was so reckless as to break in, and Geto pulled the tip of his tongue without moving, thinking how he was using the same old kissing technique.
Anyway, Geto and the creamy hazelnut chocolate tasting tongue fought for a while before finally releasing each other.
Gojo curled up in his arms, her eyebrows, nose and eyes smiling like a prickly white pom-pom.
"Suguru, it's my birthday tomorrow," Gojo said, grinning at him again, "and now I think this is the best present I've ever received."
Geto was so incensed by his smile that he didn't know what to do, and could only think dizzily: that's keeping the promise, right?
So he said.
"Happy birthday, Satoru, I'm your birthday present now."