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The sound of October rain sounded strangely melodic, following the rhythm of a song that had yet to be written. Ryouta let his eyes follow the descent of raindrops drumming against the asphalt ground to a steady beat. A small puddle was forming at a particular spot, reflecting a distorted image of the mundane scenery laid before it.
Ryouta lifted his wrist to check the time on his watch. It was almost 1pm. Anytime now. Ryouta let his wrist fall back to his side, before wrapping his winter blazer tighter around his body. There were many students walking a distance ahead of him, just far enough to make out the shapes of their bodies moving away. It was around lunch break for most students and everyone seemed to be heading towards the cafeteria for their meal, yet Ryouta was standing here, under a rather pathetic awning with a trashcan for a companion.
Ryouta was tempted to take out his phone and send out a message. He was the type that didn’t like to be kept waiting, but the building where he took his classes was not exactly at a very central location of the campus, so he decided to give it a rest. Five more minutes, he decided, before he would resort to using his text lifeline.
About three minutes in, one of the figures from the steadily moving trail of students diverged away from the group, descending down the shallow hill towards the rather desolate area Ryouta was standing at. The figure was holding up a black umbrella as shelter from the gentle rain, shoes incidentally kicking up puddles as they walked towards Ryouta. Ryouta kept his gaze fixed on the puddles on the ground, before the person was right in front of him.
“Sorry, did I keep you waiting?” Kagurazaka Soushi asked. Ryouta looked up at him. Soushi was standing in front of him, holding his black umbrella in one hand, and keeping his hand in the pocket of his jacket in the other.
“You take about five minutes to walk from your faculty to mine, so of course,” Ryouta replied in a matter-of-fact tone. His straightforwardness was something that made him difficult to approach, but Soushi was one of the few that was already used to his manner of speaking.
“I apologized for the wait already, princess,” Soushi said teasingly. “What do you want me to do, treat you to lunch?”
“Sounds tempting,” Ryouta smiled wryly. “Unless you’re talking about treating me to cafeteria lunch.”
“Ah, I got found out.”
“You have to try harder than that, Kagurazaka,” Ryouta poked Soushi in the elbow. “In any case, let’s get out of here. It’s getting cold.”
“It’s because of the rain,” Soushi eyed Ryouta from head to toe. “Are you holding up fine?”
“Me?” Ryouta was surprised. “Not any better than you, I expect.”
Soushi reached out and gently took one of Ryouta’s hands. Ryouta watched as Soushi ran his thumb over Ryouta’s knuckles. Ryouta’s hand was smaller than Soushi’s, with slender fingers and skin soft and cool to the touch. Soushi’s hand, at least, was warm and his grip comforting.
“Your hands are cold, for one,” Soushi pointed out. He entangled his fingers with Ryouta’s.
Ryouta blinked. “You want me to hold hands with you all the way to... well, wherever we’re heading to?”
Soushi shrugged. “Why not? I doubt we’ll run into anybody on the way.”
Ryouta pursed his lips, his fingers slowly dragging away from Soushi’s hand, before breaking contact altogether in a hesitant, jerking motion.
“I’d rather not,” he said rather curtly.
The moment the last word slipped out from his mouth, Ryouta was worried that he might have offended Soushi. They had been dating for a few months already, but Ryouta didn’t want to make their relationship public, mostly because while they weren’t exactly just friends, Soushi wasn’t his boyfriend either. Their definition of ‘date’ was meeting up whenever they felt like it or when they happened to bump into each other. Sometimes they caught a movie or went to a café or did something fun together. Most times they just walked around aimlessly and talked. A couple of times Ryouta spent the night at Soushi’s apartment.
Soushi shrugged. Judging from his expression, he didn’t seem at all fazed by Ryouta’s response.
“Alright then,” he said casually. “Do you have an umbrella, at least? Or do you want to borrow mine?”
“It’s okay,” Ryouta took out his folding umbrella. “I’ve got my own.”
They walked out of the awning and towards one of the campus entrances, keeping a respectable distance between each other. They moved without looking even once at each other, almost as though they were strangers. What was this kind of relationship anyway? Ryouta thought to himself. Not strangers, not friends, not lovers, yet all of them at once.
But then again, he mused gingerly to himself. A screwed-up relationship like this shouldn’t have a name.
They reached one of the bus stops near their campus, and wordlessly boarded one of the buses that went to the train station together. It was dismissal time, so the bus was a little crowded. Ryouta found a suitable standing space next the window. He leaned against the railing, his gaze shifting to looking outside the window. The sky outside cast a dullish grey filter over the moving traffic and buildings outside. He decided to focus on the racing raindrops on the cold window, not batting an eye as Soushi stood close to him.
Upon reaching their stop, they alighted the bus and headed towards the station. They took shelter at the station entrance. They dried off their umbrellas, and Soushi took plastic umbrella covers that were dispensed at the entrance of the shopping mall right next to the station.
“You asked me out this time,” Soushi remarked as he kept his umbrella in the plastic cover. “So what do you want to do?”
Ryouta looked at the raining scene outside. “Stay indoors, for sure.”
Soushi tilted his head. “How about the mall over here? It’s got a cinema.”
“That’s all it has. We’ve been there too many times.”
Soushi hummed in thought. “We could take the train to somewhere else. If we’re lucky, the rain would stop by then.”
Ryouta nodded. “Alright, let’s do that.”
They approached the board showing the railway map and quietly studied it together. They weren’t familiar with most of the stations, so it was taking a shot in the dark. Soushi suggested for each of them to pick a station and then decide on the destination with a coin flip. After they settled on their personal finalists, Soushi did a coin flip, swiftly catching the coin on the back of his hand. He removed his cupped hand to reveal tails.
“So you won this time,” Ryouta remarked.
“What does it matter?” Soushi took out his wallet to keep his coin. “It’s still a place we know nothing about.”
The sound of carriages steadily rattling over the rails greeted them as they arrived at the platform. Their train was next to arrive, and they boarded it, It was a bit of a ride, so they decided to take a seat. Seated across from them was a sleepy-looking elderly lady, a middle-aged man wearing a faded baseball cap, and a high school girl with a skirt too short for the weather.
The train lurched into motion and the sights of city began to move along with it. Ryouta watched as the raindrops pelted the windows of the train, their melody a tinkle compared to the cacophonic clatter of the fairly old train carriage.
As the train went past different stations, passengers got off and on the train. They were approaching unfamiliar territory, though Ryouta guessed that most of the stations were around more residential or quiet districts. After the elderly lady seated across them tittered off at her station with her shopping cart, only Ryouta, Soushi, and three other passengers were left in the carriage. The bench directly across from them was empty.
“We’ve got about four more stops,” Soushi murmured.
Ryouta sighed as he leaned his head onto Soushi’s shoulder. “Call me when we reach.”
Despite his words, Ryouta hardly drifted off to slumber before arriving their stop. The number of passengers who alighted could be counted on both hands. The sound of rain could still be heard as Ryouta and Soushi alighted the train.
“Is it me, or has the rain grown heavier?” Soushi wondered.
Ryouta looked at the shower over the buildings from the platform. The shapes of the cuboid buildings could still be made out, though their outlines jittered with the fall of the rain.
“Let’s go see what’s around here,” Ryouta said.
They went down the stairs from the platform and tapped their cards out at the gates. The station was smaller than how they had imagined. The service counter was more like a cramped cubicle, with yellowed papers stuck to the glass. A few middle-aged to elderly people were seated at the old benches. A couple of them were reading the newspapers.
“Well,” Soushi drew his umbrella out from its cover. “That’s all there is to the station, so I suppose we should go take a walk before the rain gets even worse.”
Ryouta let Soushi lead the way for their sad, rainy stroll. The rain wasn’t too bad, but they felt like they were the only ones walking the streets. It was almost like a bad parody of a post-apocalyptic set-up. The few establishments they passed by were dreary and quiet, the sound of their shoes against the wet pavement being enough to grab the attention of the workers inside.
As Ryouta suspected, Soushi didn’t seem to be walking with any plan in mind. It had been a while now and they had already ventured far enough from their starting point. There didn’t seem to be any sign of a place that provided any suitable form of entertainment, with mostly family-run businesses and old restaurants lining the streets.
They reached a junction, the road wide and empty save for the cars that drove past them, sending sprays of rainwater flying as they moved over puddles. Ryouta pressed the button at the traffic light. The button was wet and cold. Ryouta grimaced as he rubbed his damp fingers together.
“You must be bored,” Soushi remarked.
“What?” Ryouta looked up.
Realizing how loud the rain had gotten, Soushi moved a bit closer to Ryouta, before repeating himself. “I said, you must be bored.”
“I am,” Ryouta said, turning to Soushi. “You might have picked the location, but it’s not your fault that it’s a dead town.”
“Maybe we just came at the wrong time,” Soushi said. “Who knows, perhaps they’ve got some Halloween or Christmas game going on that we don’t know.”
“Sounds unlikely,” Ryouta scoffed. He gestured to across the road. “There seems to be a bench over there. Let’s go take a break once we cross the street.”
Time seemed to creep past painfully slowly before the tell-tale beeping of the traffic light signalled a green man. A single car drew to a half before the passenger crossing. Ryouta and Soushi crossed the street wordlessly, the rain beating on their umbrellas all the way to the small pavilion Ryouta had pointed out earlier.
Once under the shelter, they lowered their umbrellas and shook the water off them. The sound of the flaps of the umbrella flicking about was almost muted by the near-monotonous hum of autumn rain.
“Oh,” Ryouta said, noticing the small standing sign at the opening of the pavilion. “This is a footbath.”
“Is it?” Soushi turned to the inside of the pavilion, Sure enough, there was a squarish pool in the centre of the pavilion, with wooden planks hammered onto its perimeter. An open spring gaped at the edge of the pool, steaming water flowing out of it.
“Can you imagine having a footbath in this weather?” Ryouta said dryly.
“Maybe,” Soushi had already leaned his umbrella to the side and was in the midst of removing his shoes. Ryouta stared at him, taken aback, as Soushi left his bag on the floor next to his umbrella, before stepping up onto the wooden plank, shoes and socks in one hand.
“You’re joking,” Ryouta muttered, but Soushi had already found a spot, and set his shoes at his side before rolling the legs of his pants up.
“This beats walking in the rain, at least,” Soushi countered. He slowly sat down and sank his feet into the footbath. “The water’s not too bad.”
Ryouta couldn’t tell if he was bought over by the footbath alone, but he was a little tired from the aimless walking. He set down his things next to Soushi’s, before systematically removing his footwear and joining Soushi at the footbath. He placed his shoes at the side, before sitting down next to Soushi and placed his feet in the water. He flinched at the change in temperature, but kept his feet underwater.
“The footbath’s alright,” Ryouta commented. “Though I can’t say the same for the rest of the day.”
“I was kind of expecting you to say it’s a shitty date,” Soushi leaned back. “And I would have agreed with you.”
“It’s a shitty date.”
“Absolutely.”
Ryouta looked down, absently drawing circles on the floor of the footbath with his toe. “Not that I was expecting much from today, anyway. We really don’t do a lot for dates.”
“That’s true,” Soushi agreed. “But we keep going out like this, so there must be something fun about our dates, right?”
“Fun, huh,” Ryouta murmured. “Sou, we’re spending the afternoon in a footbath. I say that our idea of fun has gone to hell.”
Soushi laughed. “Alright, you’ve got a point.”
Ryouta sighed. He leaned forward, arms crossed on his lap as he stared at the water, as if admiring koi fish. The rain was beginning to sound like white noise.
“You know,” Soushi spoke. Ryouta turned to him. Soushi was smiling. “I think that’s the first time I heard you actually call me ‘Sou’ in a while.”
“Your point?”
“Feels friendlier, don’t you think?” Soushi mused. “It’s cute to see you address others more casually too.”
“Is that so,” Ryouta tucked a lock of hand behind his ear, trying to brush off Soushi’s (unfortunately successful) attempt at flattery. “You’re overthinking it. How about you go cool your head off in the rain or something?”
“Sure,” Soushi casually lifted his feet off the water, seemingly ready to just walk out in the rain like that. The unexpected compliance to something said off the fly threw Ryouta in a panic, sending him jumping to his feet.
“Wait!” Ryouta yelped as he managed to latch onto Soushi’s arm. “I was joking, you fool! Do you really think I’ll let you take a shower in the rain like that?”
Soushi looked at Ryouta in surprise, before chuckling into his fist.
“No,” Soushi replied, suppressing his laughter. “I was just pulling your leg, too.”
Ryouta was shocked for a split second, before he gave Soushi a shove. Just hard enough to send him stumbling so that some of him was outside of the pavilion and drenched by the rain.
“Hey!” Soushi exclaimed, hurriedly returning under the shelter. He glanced at his wet jacket sleeve.
“Don’t complain,” Ryouta folded his arms. “At least I didn’t send the whole of you out to get wet.”
“Alright, fine. That’s only fair,” Soushi picked at his wet sleeve, loosening the rainwater off it.
Ryouta sighed. He lifted his arm and used his sleeve to wipe the rainwater off Soushi’s cheek. “You do know the side of your face is wet too, right?”
Soushi waited until Ryouta dried his cheek off, and before Ryouta could withdraw his hand entirely, Soushi took a hold of his wrist.
“Hang on,” Soushi said. “There’s rainwater on my mouth.”
Ryouta squinted. “No, there isn’t.”
“Take a hint,” Soushi smirked. “I don’t need to submit a form for you to kiss me, right?”
“Why do you even ask?” Ryouta frowned. He lowered his hands so they were on Soushi’s shoulders. “You know that right in this moment I wouldn’t even care, right?”
“I don’t know, it’s just better to make sure,” Soushi wrapped his arms around Ryouta’s waist.
Ryouta stood on his toes and let Soushi close the distance between them for their lips to touch. Ryouta felt the bare skin of his feet dig into the rough ground as Soushi deepened the kiss. Something about the way Soushi’s tongue brushed against Ryouta’s was achingly familiar. Was this how it felt like to miss someone’s touch?
When Ryouta pulled away, he leaned his head against Soushi’s shoulder, slowly catching his breath. He forgot how it was like to kiss Kagurazaka Soushi. The thought that the hungry way Soushi had swept his tongue over Ryouta’s lips felt like a perverse way of a welcome back ate at Ryouta’s mind. He felt Soushi pull him in for a gentle hug and leaning his head against his.
“I wanted to tell you something,” Soushi said softly.
“What?” Ryouta asked.
“It’s endearing to see you care about others, Ryou.”
Ryouta felt a tingle run up his spine. His toes curled up.
“You mean you just like it when I show you even an ounce of care.”
Soushi’s laughter was almost melodic. “You’re not wrong about that.”
“You’re the worst,” Ryouta mumbled, but his words were muted by the steadily-falling rain hammering the ground and battering the roof of the pavilion, never reaching Soushi’s ears.