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i. barely okay
“Tch.”
“What?”
“Stop staring, Yamaguchi. It’s weird.”
“Sorry, Tsukki! It’s just that… You haven’t changed a bit.”
Kei squints, a wary look on his face.
Tadashi continues: “Um. Yeah. Same hair, same quiet manner, same… everything. You haven’t aged a day.” Tadashi seems suddenly out of breath, like he had been talking for hours. True to form, he begins to fidget, grabbing his bare knees beneath the folded hem of his denim shorts, and blinking too fast. Kei notices a light blush start on his cheeks that matches the pink logo shirt he's wearing. It said: #MoreFartsyThanArtsy. The whole package is cute. It’s really cute. But Kei shouldn't be thinking about that right now.
“Hmm. I haven’t?” he asks.
“Nope. You look straight out of high school.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I most definitely am not. The tch-ing, especially. The tch-ing you’ve still got down pat.”
“Shut up, Yamaguchi.”
The familiar quip cracks Tadashi up. Kei seizes at this; Tadashi’s laughter is lovely as it’s ever been. He had quite forgotten what the sound of it was, but now he remembers the near-musical tinkling like he heard it yesterday.
The truth is that it’s been nine years. The truth is that now they’re in a foreign country, five thousand miles from Miyagi where they saw each other last. But even at this hip, unfamiliar cafe in San Francisco, Kei need only take one look at Tadashi and everything feels like home.
“Sorry, Tsukki,” Tadashi chirps, still giggling. He sighs. “Remember when people gave you a hard time because you always told me to shut up?” Kei raises his eyebrows, slowly, as a hesitant affirmation. “I didn’t mind, you know. I knew you didn’t mean it that way.”
Of course Kei didn’t. He said it only because the other available, more truthful responses sounded lame. And Kei didn’t do lame—everyone knew that—or at least his younger self didn’t. Besides Tadashi often said things that made him look inside himself a little too closely. You don't want to do that very often, he thinks.
He changes the subject. “You still play volleyball?”
Tadashi nods fiercely, locks of his wispy hair bobbing up and down. “I do! Just every Saturday at the community center, though, which is not as often as I want to. You?”
“Twice or thrice a week. We have a league at my workplace.”
“That’s awesome! Middle blocker?”
“Middle blocker. Always.”
Kei will deny this if asked, but as he says that last word he looks into Tadashi’s eyes directly for the first time in a long time, golden brown gaze colliding with warm copper. Tadashi gives a start and looks away quickly, obviously embarrassed. They both breathe heavily as an unsettling silence starts to build up.
“Sorry, Tsukki. I just ran out of things to say,” Tadashi admits.
Kei snorts. “It’s okay. Me too, for a little while there. And Yamaguchi? You have to stop the constant apologies, okay? I’d been telling you that for years.”
“I know, I know. I’m still working on it. Be patient with me, Tsukki!” Tadashi exclaims, smiling. He sighs. “But you really do look good—look like you're doing good… Both. Yep, definitely both.”
Kei allows the tiniest of smiles to creep up, but looks away as pink blooms across his cheeks. What’s Tadashi on about, anyway? After all he looks pretty much exactly as Kei remembers, too: the same awkward gait, the same unruly hair atop his head, the same bright smile that would stretch across galaxies. And the same freckles, of course. Those freckles paint the same constellations they did so long ago.
ii. the universe upon your face
They were in their last year of high school, sitting in Karasuno grounds behind the volleyball gym after practice. Dusk gathered above and closed in fast.
“And Scorpius, where is it, Tsukki?,” Tadashi begged.
This was one of those times, you know? Those moments when things are as if they’re in a slowly moving painting: hazy blues, vivid reds, greens vibrant as the grass below, all moving to some languid rhythm of a hidden maestro. Even the passing of time feels like it ought to have a color. And you tell yourself, this will be a memory, a good one, keep it with you, always.
Kei scoffed. “Again, Yamaguchi? This is getting tiring. Let's just eat our pork buns while they’re still hot. Come on.” They started to dig in, but Tadashi wasn’t to be put off that easily. He said decidedly: “The stars, if you please, Tsukki.”
Kei set his half-eaten bun down and sighed, then gestured upward to Scorpius. The constellation was easy to spot; Antares was being especially bright of late. “There,” he says, resigning to the other’s requests after the usual, practiced refusal. Saying no to Yamaguchi is damn near impossible, Kei thought. He suddenly found his hand moving towards Tadashi’s face, found that he was powerless to stop what was going to happen. “And here,” Kei said softly, as gently he traced the constellation’s identical twin on Tadashi’s cheek. He pulled his hand back, suddenly, feeling defeated.
A universe of emotions flashed by on Tadashi’s face. Why now? But then again there was no malice behind the touch; no intent to confuse or seduce. Of that much he was sure. It was inevitable: like a moth to a flame, a flower to the sun, or oppositely charged particles, hurtling towards each other through space, any other ending out of the question.
Tadashi touched his face where Kei’s fingers had been: warm. Almost too warm. Uncertain of whether to acknowledge the physical contact, Tadashi continued, “And Libra is right next to it?”
“Y-yes. That’s right.”
“That’s the two of us, you know.”
“I know.” Kei knew, of course, remembering that he was happy on his birthday mostly because Tadashi’s was coming up. He smiled wistfully, then noticed that something was bothering Tadashi. He was about to ask what when Tadashi spoke suddenly.
“We're graduating soon, Tsukki. Should we talk about that?”
Kei had been trying to avoid this conversation. He was not ready to think of saying goodbye. He gazed toward the horizon, seeing several schoolchildren at play, their boisterous laughter audible from this distance. What were they so happy about, when a chapter of his life seemed about to close?
“Nope.”
“Tsukki. I know you’re not much into sharing about feelings, but we have to talk about this.”
“Nope.”
“Let's do, though. You're going away to university in Tokyo. I’ll be… here. Don't you want to stay friends?”
“Nope.”
Tadashi whipped his face towards him, anguished. “You don’t?”
“No, that's not—I'm just—of course I do, Yamaguchi. Of course,” Kei said firmly. “What I don't want is to talk about this right now. Won't you drop it? Please?”
Tadashi resigned. “I see. Yeah, sure, whatever you want, Tsukki.”
An uncomfortable silence settled around them, thick and nearly palpable, something that had not happened in years. Was this the end?
Kei chanced a glance at Tadashi but his expression was unreadable. Suddenly he couldn’t bear the quiet any longer. “I—I’m sorry about touching your face, Yamaguchi. That was clearly out of line.”
“What—oh. No. Don’t be. I’m… not. Honestly, I’m sorry only that you started just now,” Tadashi replied, flushing and surprised that he could get it out.
Kei had not expected that response. Or maybe he did, but now that it was out in the open he could not, for the life of him, figure out what to do with it. He and Tadashi did frighteningly well with keeping this what-if under the surface and now dealing with it directly was proving to be very difficult. An eternity passed before Kei found the courage to respond.
“Did we waste time, Yamaguchi?”
A sharp intake of breath. “I don’t know, Tsukki. You ask such hard questions sometimes.”
Tadashi inched closer and put his arm around Kei’s shoulders, as the taller boy hunched and hugged his knees, wrapping himself inside himself as he so often did. He turned away from Tadashi as stubborn tears started to fall. Later in bed, awake and away from his friend’s warmth, Kei would think that the scorpion in the sky looked especially threatening that night, ready to strike its steadfast neighbor and throw everything that once seemed fine off-balance.
iii. ta-da! shit
Tadashi taps nervously on the counter as the barista prepares their orders. He can’t help it; Yachi does seem to be moving at half the pace she usually does. Or maybe just everything feels dreamy right now? (Kei in a chequered shirt and navy chinos and smelling like fresh soap and clean sweat are definitely not helping.) Tadashi feels as though having an out-of-body experience, but simultaneously incredibly awake and aware, each nerve ending a live wire. He has not felt this way since… He can’t remember, really, though an image of warm pork buns eaten at dusk sidles unbidden to mind. He quickly shakes his head and pushes the thought away.
Yachi at last finishes with their orders and hands the heavy tray to Tadashi. He carefully takes it, graciously thanking her, turns, and hurries back to Kei’s side (doesn’t he always hurry back to Kei’s side?). He does not see her knowing smile.
“Here you are! An Americano for me and, for you, blended iced green tea soy latte, with half sweetener, almond syrup, and whipped cream. And a slice of strawberry shortcake, of course,” Tadashi says excitedly as he sits opposite Kei.
“You make me sound ridiculous when you say it like that.”
“Tsukki, please, you are ridiculous. I hardly have to put in any effort at all.”
Kei does a double take. “Aren’t you supposed to be the nice one, Yamaguchi?” he says, laughing a little. “Whatever happened to you?”
Tadashi giggles. He’s long made it a life goal to shock the unflappable Tsukishima Kei.
Kei suddenly grabs his backpack and fishes in it for something. “Ah!” he exclaims. “Almost forgot. This is for you.” He pushes an oily, brown paper bag with a bold red stripe and characteristic golden arches in front of Tadashi. The awestruck giftee claps a hand to his mouth.
“No, you didn’t. Tsukki. Tell me you didn’t.”
“I sure as heck did! Those french fries have been steaming in my backpack for about an hour, so they should be nice and floppy right now. Just the way weirdos like you like it.”
Tadashi chuckles and feigns flattery. “Oh, Tsukki. You shouldn’t have!” he says, making Kei laugh. He pops a chewy fry into his mouth. “So… What brings you to San Francisco, anyway? Sick of Tokyo?”
“That, yes, but it’s not why I’m here. I’m in town for business, as I mentioned in my email.”
“What do you do again?”
Kei blinks. Tadashi blinks. They pause as they wordlessly agree to pretend that Tadashi hasn’t committed every word of Kei’s emails to heart.
Kei finds his voice. “Oh. I work for a scientific instruments company. I’m here to check on our clients’ microscope issues and to do some training as well. There’s a ton of work for me while I’m here, what with the UCSF and Berkeley labs and the pharmaceutical startups in the Bay Area.”
“You’re so cool, Tsukki!”
“Eh. It pays the bills.”
“It’s so like you to say that. Such a way with words,” Tadashi says, eyes teasing. Kei looks away, cheeks pinking.
“And how about you? Your art, especially? Are your paintings selling well?” Kei asks.
“Yes, thankfully! This is a tough place to survive in for an artist, but I’ve had some very loyal patrons. Very wealthy patrons. I’ve been so lucky, Tsukki, I really have. I'm making the art I've always wanted to make. Oh, and we’re starting a collective next month to help the younger artists just starting out. Some of them are still in school, actually.”
Kei pauses and gazes back. “Well. You’re obviously the cool one.”
Touched, Tadashi starts to say thank you but doesn’t trust his voice to not break. He thinks of something from the past. Haven’t they had this conversation before, so long ago now?
There is a pause before Kei continues: “You know, I thought this would be harder, seeing you and talking to you again. It’s been too long, Yamaguchi.” His voice trails off for a bit. “But it’s not. It’s easy. It’s always been easy. With you, I mean.”
Tadashi’s face breaks into a smile: honest, open, brilliant, a supernova in real time. Next to it a helpless Kei is consumed completely.
“Oh my god. You’re talking about how you feel? Who are you and what have you done to my Tsukki?” he asks, incredulous and unable to hold back a chortle. Meanwhile the possessive pronoun colors Kei’s cheeks a royal scarlet. Tadashi smiles inwardly. Score.
They settle in to eat cake and fries in silence. But their eyes start to play a cat-and-mouse game, you know, the one where you look when you think the other isn’t looking, your eyes meet, and you both look away quickly, guilty and jumpy and giddy at the same time? Tadashi thinks he’ll melt faster than the whipped cream on Kei’s drink. Tsukki is so beautiful it’s hard to look directly at him for more than a few seconds, he thinks. Kei’s social media, whatever little of it he has, is another thing. His profile pictures are something that Tadashi, in a show of exemplary restraint, looks at only a few times a week. But here, three feet away? How does one do it? He remembers how Margaret Atwood phrased it so perfectly: Then there’s the eye problems: too close, too far, you’re a blur.
Tadashi takes another sip of coffee. He notices that a light rain had begun outside, and clears his throat. “I lied earlier, Tsukki.”
“Hmm? About what?”
“When I said I didn’t play volleyball as much as I wanted to? It’s not because I don’t have a chance. It’s… well, I think I have a bad left knee. It started hurting about two months ago. Not all the time though.”
“What happened? Did you injure yourself or something?”
“Not that I can remember. It just… happened.”
“What do you mean ‘it just happened?’ Yamaguchi, are you being clumsy again?”
“No, Tsukki!” Tadashi laughs. “It’s just old age, I suppose.”
“Yamaguchi, we’re twenty-four.”
“Nearly twenty-five now. Do you realize we’re almost as old as Ukai-san when he was coaching us?”
“Ah, well. Now that you say it like that, yeah. We’re a couple of old-timers.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Positively ancient.”
Tadashi senses something familiar coming, and goes with it.
“The dead walking among the living,” he says.
“A seed I planted in my youth is now a full-grown redwood,” Kei counters.
“Hey, Tsukki, remember when we marched out of Egypt and ate manna in the desert? I wonder how cranky old Moses is doing.”
“Yeah, okay, but remember when that asteroid hit and we mourned the death of our pals T-Rex, Steggy, and Emily Brontesaurus? God, that was a tough time for me,” Kei quips, and they both know it’s the finishing move.
A beat passes, then they break into wild laughter. Raucous laughter. The doubling over, howling, sides in stitches, teary-eyed kind of laughter. More than a few heads turn in their direction. Tadashi’s heart does a little dance: Kei giggling uncontrollably in public is a rare sight. Not that he’s seen it in private any time recently.
“Emily Bronte-fucking-saurus, really. Thanks for that, Tsukki. I’ve missed that.”
“Anytime, Yamaguchi. Me too.”
Kei suddenly reaches under the table, and touches Tadashi’s left knee in an obviously gratuitous act. “This one?”
“Yeah,” Tadashi says, voice catching a little at the touch, but he recovers quickly.
“You should get it checked. You’ll be able to play more often.”
“I will, I promise… Tsukki.”
“Yamaguchi.”
“We need to talk about something.”
“You start.”
“Right. Okay. I’m nervous. Tsukki, how… how is it that we lost touch?”
“Oh. We’re having this conversation now?”
“We are. Tsukki. We used to be so close.”
“We sort of still are, Yamaguchi! Did you realize that San Francisco and Tokyo are at about the same latitude?”
He did, oftentimes thinking if only he could stretch and reach out westward, over the great expanse of sea, and pull Kei in. To be close to him again.
“TSUKISHIMA. I’m different now. You can’t just floor me with trivia anymore, you know.”
Kei heaves a great sigh, suddenly irritated.
“Fine. You remember how it all went down, right, Yamaguchi? Your asshole friend moved to Tokyo to go to college, completely broke off any contact with you—with anyone—and went on living his life like nothing happened, right? Asshole ‘Tsukki,’ so cold and cruel. Was that all? Did I forget something, Yamaguchi?” Kei asks angrily.
“You are an asshole,” Tadashi spits, voice quiet but not without venom.
“What about you, huh? You didn’t even say goodbye. And then, what? You up and left Japan without a word!” Kei counters, accusing finger pointed at Tadashi.
Tadashi is nearly in tears now. “I had to distance myself. I was trying to forget! I couldn’t do that in Miyagi.”
“And did you forget, Yamaguchi? Did you adjust that well?” Kei asks, suddenly broken. “I was… I was barely okay.”
“I did not,” Tadashi hisses, voice on edge. “You know I did not, you idiot! Tsukki… You broke my heart.”
iv. i come undone
Yamaguchi Tadashi was familiar with many different kinds of pain. A self-proclaimed klutz, the number of cuts and bruises from slipping, falling, and bumping into hard, stationary objects rival his numerous freckles. He was used to that. That was physical pain, a mere moment of agony often accompanied by a choice swear word, but still a tangible wound that could heal or be kissed better.
The deeper kind of pain that came when Kei left he was completely unprepared to deal with. In this, youth had blessed him with zero experience. He could almost feel a literal ripping apart from the inside as he sat on the mountainside and watched Kei’s train roll away from the station. Tadashi had not shown up on the platform; he knew he was as good at hellos as he was bad at goodbyes. No, it’s better this way, he thought, aloud and to no one.
After pain came numbness, though unfortunately did not stay long. That was a much more welcome visitor than his next one: tears. They flowed and they flowed and, like the great rivers of which great stories are told, eroded everything in their path. His only consolation was going to art classes at a local junior college. He honed his craft for almost a year, but found that too often all he wanted to draw was the portrait of a young, blonde man with pale lips and honey eyes. That was when he decided to move to America. At first Tadashi shocked his family with this brash decision, but ultimately everyone decided that it was for the best. In the beginning he settled in with distant relatives in the Bay Area who were kind and charged nearly nothing for rent. They almost succeeded in making him feel at home, but Tadashi found it difficult to fend off a creeping feeling of loneliness and otherness. He used to scorn and laugh at himself regularly, asking what he was doing—what he was really doing in this foreign country in particular—when he felt neither free nor brave?
Thankfully, San Francisco was welcoming to creative types, and finally he found a group of similar-minded artists and apprenticed with them. The heartbreak of being apart from Kei and being unable to do anything about it never left him, not completely, and the ghost of things left unsaid continued to haunt his memory. Once again his watercolors and brushes saved him. He drew from within and painted the pain.
A couple hundred miles south of home, in bustling Tokyo, Tsukishima Kei most definitely was not thinking about pain. How could he? He simply had no time for it. There were classes to attend, projects to finish, papers to write, shallow friendships to maintain. How could he? He was always hurrying to do the laundry, hurrying to cook a half-assed warm meal on Akiteru’s hot plate, hurrying to catch the next bus before he was late to class, hurrying to forget that Tadashi chose to not say goodbye to him. How could he?
However hard he tried to keep it away, Kei’s stupid heart always caught up to his level mind.
He imagined things would’ve been better if an Archaeopteryx were to inexplicably come back from extinction, head straight for his chest, snatch the damn thing out with its sharp claws, and eat it while he watched. Being chewed and acidified in an otherwise defunct avian gut would certainly feel better than ending his friendship with Tadashi. But if he were honest with himself he would have to admit that, the day he taunted Tadashi’s bullies, he opened himself up to permanent damage. Every time he caught Tadashi crying because the blasted freckles won’t scrub off (an arrow to the heart). Or every time Tadashi fawned over him, saying how lucky he was that they were friends (not knowing that Kei was the lucky one: a dagger to the side). Or every time they were together, alone, and a magnetic force invites him to steal a first kiss from Tadashi’s lips—but of course he could not—what they already have is much too important, and what betrayal to feel this way about his best friend (though he did not himself fully understand what this feeling was: a boulder falling on his head).
It was not completely joyless when Kei finished college, but it would’ve been happier had his best friend, long lost now, been by his side. He got a stable job and good pay and more so-called friends. All seemed to be not bad which, if you were a glass half-full kind of person, was a version of good. Unfortunately (and to no one’s great surprise) Kei always saw the glass half-empty. He did eventually reconnect with Tadashi on social media. Their online conversations truthfully left him… wanting? They were mostly polite and did not at all acknowledge their parting and inevitable drifting away. It was too hard, too personal to type out on a keyboard and to have be read by the other on a dimly lit screen, an ocean away.
Until an opportunity arose and the storm clouds that had hung over Kei for years parted to let some sunlight through. He knew he could not let this pass by. He wanted to Tadashi to call him ‘Tsukki’ again.
v. mission dolores park
Tadashi fidgets with his fingers, hands on his lap, right thigh in thorough and unnecessary contact with Kei’s left, as they sat too closely together on the Mission-bound train. Kei notices his nervousness and wants to say something, but he could not find it in him to break the fragile silence. At least Tadashi had stopped crying and is now wearing an expression that resembles a half-smile. Kei hopes.
He feels that he had aged a lifetime in the past hour. Tadashi had stormed out of the cafe and into the rain in angry frustration. He had followed and out on the (thankfully, nearly empty) sidewalk Tadashi, in a high-pitch, high-decibel voice, let him have it . One of his rare outbursts that makes Kei think, in rapid sequence
oh shit it’s happening again
and
wow yamaguchi knows just what to say at these confrontations
and
but i hope the next one is directed to someone else for a change
and finally
though i’m sure i totally deserve it
Lost in thought, Kei nearly jumps out of his skin when the other hops up from his seat without warning.
“16th and Mission!” shouts Tadashi.
“Wh-what?!” Kei sputters.
“This is our stop, Tsukki!” exclaims Tadashi. He starts to run out the train doors but notices that Kei, still confused, is planted to his seat. He runs back to him, grabs him by the hand and drags him out of the car, out onto the grey tiled floors, running in earnest now, past the turnstile, past the archway exit, past the indifferent crowd, past the distant past. They don’t stop until they’re outside on the sidewalk, bathed in the gentle sunlight that only comes after a drizzle.
“The rain’s stopped.”
Kei’s heart is still racing, whether from the sudden sprint or from Tadashi’s warm hand still wrapped around his, he lacked the ability to tell. “Huh. Yeah. Why d’you take off like that, Yamaguchi? Have you lost your mind?”
“A little bit!” Tadashi says, laughing. He tuts. “Tsukki, you’ve been skipping cardio again, haven’t you? Come on, I want to take you to the park!”
On they walk. Kei thinks of things that he hadn’t thought of since they saw each other last, like exactly how tall Tadashi was. Their proximity now reminded him: he is the perfect height for Kei to kiss the nape of his neck if he holds him from behind. He had forgotten that thought, something he used to moon about everyday. Still daydreaming, Kei misses what intersections they cross and which turns they make, Tadashi’s guiding hand a better navigation system than any he’s experienced thus far. He begins to think whether he had met anyone else like Tadashi, someone who blurred the world around them?
He had not.
They reach the park in not a long while. Tadashi selects a nice, sunny spot away from trees, and Kei sits down beside him. Beside him, but unforgivably not quite next to him, so Tadashi draws closer. He notices that static was making the light hair on his forearms seem to reach out to Kei, which he finds extremely funny. Why, even my arm hair knows who I want! He chances a quick look at Kei, finds the other's eyes already trained on him. They make quick, muted gasps, though neither has the willpower to look away.
“Where are we exactly? This place is beautiful,” Kei asks, recovering.
“Mission Dolores Park. It’s one of my favorites. You can see downtown SF from up here, and there’s a lot of nearby places you can go out to for dinner and drinks.”
“Yeah? You… go out a lot, Yamaguchi? With friends or with…?” Kei’s voice trails off.
Tadashi does not feel any desire to help him out. “Finish that sentence, Tsukki.”
“Fine. Boyfriend. Girlfriend? Special friend. More-than-a-friend kind of friend.”
Tadashi laughs. “Please. I’m desperately single.”
“I see you hanging out with a flaming orange hair dude on Facebook. A lot.”
“Oh, Shouyou? He’s just a good pal.”
Cautious relief floods Kei’s chest. “Is he?”
“We play volleyball sometimes. We’re just friends, Tsukki.”
“Hmm. You sure?”
“Absolutely.”
“I hate him anyway. He always has this stupid look on his face in your selfies.”
“Come on.”
“He does, though.”
Tadashi laughs. “He does not. And you really don’t have to be jealous of him—”
“I’m not! Who said I was jea—”
“You don’t have to be jealous of him, Tsukki,” Tadashi says, cutting him off. “Because he actually knows about you. I told him about our… erm, history. Just for the record, I think he hates you too. But he’ll come around if he gets to really know you,” he laughs heartily as Kei bristles.
Kei responds with a grunt.
“What?”
“I’m jealous of this Shouyou guy, anyway. He gets to spend a lot of time with you.”
“You’re here with me now.”
“True,” Kei replies. He breathes deeply. “Would you like me to move to San Francisco, Yamaguchi?”
The air between them stills. A crow nearby caws and coos, but it is unheard by the two friends. Tadashi starts to speak, but the words get trapped in his throat before they could slip out. He chokes and coughs instead. “Uggh. Tsukki! You can’t tease me like that.”
“I’m not. Really. I’ve been offered a post here by my supervisor.”
“What?!”
“I have a final interview with the Bay Area director tomorrow. One of the reasons I’m in town.”
“Oh my goddess. They just offered you a job here?”
“Did I say ‘offered?’ Well, not offered. I asked my supervisor. Nicely.” Kei pauses. “Okay, nicely, but pretty much nonstop.”
A furrow forms between Tadashi’s eyebrows.
“Fine, I practically begged her for the job once I heard that the previous guy quit,” Kei admits finally.
“Why? Why would you suddenly want to move to the US like that?”
Kei pauses. “You know why. ‘Cause I want to parade down the street in my leather daddy outfit at Pride.”
Tadashi shrieks with laughter and punches Kei’s ribcage, maybe a little too hard.
“Ouch!” Kei half-yells, laughing. “Come on, Yamaguchi. Let’s don’t start pretending again.”
“Because you want to be with me?”
Because I can’t be without you any longer, Kei thinks is the more accurate answer. Because even now I’m still madly in love with you. He doesn’t say it, not today, but instead leans in and kisses Tadashi on his left cheek, softly, sweetly, gently. Tadashi feels his heart swell: oh, but I love you too, Tsukki.
“Yamaguchi, this is nine years too late, and I don’t have the proper words for it. But I’m sorry—I’m really sorry that we drifted apart. And the role that I played in it. Biggest mistake of my life,” Kei confesses.
“Mine too. I’m your equal in blame,” Tadashi says. Kei starts to argue but he holds up his palm. “I am. I moved to San Francisco without even telling you. That should be unforgivable, but here I am, asking you to accept me again anyway. Forgive me, Tsukki, please?”
“Only if you forgive me too.”
Kei takes Tadashi’s hand again and squeezes it. Tadashi responds with a squeeze back, and everything in the world feels right again. They spend a few quiet, surreal moments together, hands clasped.
“Love,” Kei says absentmindedly.
“What?” Tadashi replies. “Did you just call me ‘love?’”
Kei blushes hard. “I—no, I was just thinking back to a pivotal conversation we had in high school.”
“Which one?”
“You know the one. And it made me think: love. Love is the other thing we need besides pride.”
“Oh! Tsuuukkiii,” Tadashi says in a singsong voice. “You still remember that?”
“Of course. I think about it often.” Kei replies, smiling. “Incidentally, did you actually want me to call you ‘love?’”
“No! I mean—if you want to.” Tadashi pauses. “But I want you to call me by my given name. Kei, listen. You have to start calling me Tadashi.”
“Oh. Alright. Tadashi,” Kei says, mindful of how the name so easily comes off his tongue. He’s wanted to call him that for so long, and now he has… what, permission? “Is that what you’re going to call me too? Kei, I mean?”
“I’m going to call you… Kae. Like ‘Kei,’ but spelled like ‘bae,’” Tadashi says, giggling at his own joke. Kei is laughing, Tadashi’s stars reflected in his honey eyes.
“Wanna listen to some music, Yama—erm, Tadashi?,” Kei says, fishing in his backpack for earphones and offering the right bit to Tadashi.
“I'd love to. What music is it?”
“Just listen.”
Which he does for a minute. “Classical piano? I always took you for a hard metal fan… Don't go soft on me, now.”
Kei grins, eyes flashing mischievously. “Screw you, Tadashi. Franz Liszt was a total rock star in his time.”
“Haha, just kidding! It sounds magical. What is it called?”
“‘Un sospiro.’ It’s the third one of Liszt’s concert études, composed sometime in the 1840s. Lang Lang plays it so beautifully.”
“What does the title mean?”
“‘A sigh.’ It's Italian for ‘a sigh.’”
Tadashi pauses, a lump in his throat manifesting out of nowhere. “I’m glad you’re back here with me, Kei.”
Kei smiles but doesn't answer—he doesn't feel the need to. He resolutely wraps his arms around Tadashi’s shoulders and laces their fingers together, cold moon and warm star upon a California summer night sky.
They both sigh.