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Yuki first finds out about the “Bell of the Dragon’s Love” on the drive to Enoshima, looking up the latest place he’s moving to. Okay, he thinks, looking at the picture of a bell hanging in front of a fence covered in small locks with brightly colored papers tied to them, and scrolls past.
He proceeds to not think about it again until he overhears a few classmates talking about it during a break between classes. “Did you hear, Aimi-chan went to the bell with her boyfriend,” Nakai-san says to – he thinks her name is Hayashida-san.
They both giggle, and Hayashida-san wistfully says that she wishes she had a boyfriend to go there with. “It’s so romantic,” she sighs.
Yuki doesn’t see the appeal. Isn’t it too embarrassing to display your relationship to everyone like that? And if you mess up and write something dumb for the message, can you take it off? And what about when you break up?
Well, that’s for other people to worry about, like the girls giggling about it at the desk next to his. Hayashida-san is cute and friendly enough that finding a boyfriend probably won’t be any problem for her. Yuki, meanwhile, is... Not as bad as he was when he first came to Enoshima, he’ll give himself that much.
Besides, the person that comes to mind when he thinks boyfriend went and flew off into space on a pink jellyfish-shaped UFO. It’s safe to say that a boyfriend isn’t going to be in Yuki’s near or distant future.
Then Haru comes back, and brings Urara with him, and somehow Yuki gets proven right in the most unexpected way: He doesn’t get a boyfriend, he gets two.
-
“Let’s go for a walk,” Urara suggests.
“Sure,” Yuki agrees. The weather is nice today: partially cloudy, not too hot, with a light breeze. A good day for fishing, if they hadn’t already spent all morning on that. Haru is busy helping out at the shop for the afternoon, and come to think of it, Yuki hasn’t had a lot of time alone with either of them for a while. Everyone is so busy with studying for upcoming tests and fishing. A break sounds really nice. “Where to?”
Urara hums and shrugs, and takes them on a meandering path, like there’s no end goal in mind.
Eventually, they go uphill around the shrine, into the woods around the top of the island. It’s peaceful. For the first time in what feels like weeks, Yuki starts to feel relaxed. “I missed this,” he says, and blushes because he hadn’t meant to say it out loud.
Urara smiles. “You missed me?”
“Y-yeah. I know we see each other every day, but everything has been so hectic lately and I like Haru a lot (of course I do) but sometimes he’s so high-energy, isn’t he?” Not that Yuki hasn’t been missing Haru, too. Maybe Urara’s quiet is what he needs more, today.
Urara hums, still smiling, and twirls a lock of hair around his finger. “You like me a lot too, don’t you?”
Yuki nods. “Yeah, I do.”
Then he sees, between the trees, an open phone booth-like structure. Around it, a fence; inside, a bell. “L-let’s go that way!” he says, pointing in a random direction away from the bell. There’s only one bell that it could be, and he is not going there, he’s not.
Urara pouts. “I want to go here.”
Yuki takes a breath to argue, sees the determination in Urara’s eyes, and deflates.
The fence has fewer locks than in the photo he’d seen on the internet. What’s the point if it’s just going to be cut down, he wonders, then looks out at the ocean for something else to think about. “It’s really pretty here, isn’t it?” he says, desperate to avoid what this particular viewing spot is famous for.
Urara smiles, hums, and takes something out of his pocket. “I heard about this bell,” he says. “They say if we make a wish and put a lock here, our love will last forever.”
Yuki sweats. “Th-that’s just superstition.”
“Don’t you want to try? Look, I found the perfect one for us.” Urara holds out the lock in his hand. The message card with it is in the shape of a dragon.
“Um.” He backs away from Urara. “N-not really. We don’t need to do anything like that, right?” He can’t tell whether it’s better or worse that there’s no one else around. Having witnesses would be the worst, but on the other hand if another couple was here first then it would be only polite to leave them alone and go literally anywhere else.
“I want to. I want to be with you forever, Yuki.” Urara smiles, small and dangerous and Yuki holds back a shudder.
For a second, he’s reminded of the disaster last year. He forces the memory away. Urara wouldn’t make him do anything he doesn’t want to. When Haru and Urara first came back there were a few times that Urara accidentally controlled someone, but that hasn’t happened in a long time. Both Haru and Urara understand how important it is to humans – to Yuki – to be in control of themselves.
What is more likely to happen is Urara talking Yuki into this. Because Urara sounds like he really wants to, and Yuki would hate to upset him.
“What about Haru?” he asks.
“What about Haru,” Urara repeats dismissively. “They said it’s for couples.”
Yuki’s embarrassed panic fades. “We can’t leave Haru out,” he says firmly. However upset Urara will be if Yuki doesn’t agree, Haru will be more upset to be left out – and Yuki couldn’t blame him. It doesn’t feel right to exclude him.
“You said you like me better.”
“Huh?” Yuki thinks back to what he could mean. “Are you talking about what I said before? Urara, that’s not what I meant. I like both of you. We talked about this.”
It was Haru’s decision to have them all date each other, and Haru who had thought that it would be easy. Akira has Disapproved when they told him about it, and asked Yuki if he knew what he was doing. Natsuki had been concerned as well, though less scandalized, and had been the one to suggest that they have a talk about each other’s needs and boundaries. (Sakura said they were cute, he explained when Yuki asked why he was so okay with it.)
During the conversation, Yuki had made sure to emphasize that neither Haru nor Urara was more important to him than the other. He didn’t want anyone getting jealous. At Haru’s prodding, he also admitted that he worried about them liking each other more – about not being good enough – which Haru and Urara had vehemently protested.
Maybe they should have another talk. He doesn’t like how Urara sounds now.
Urara thinks for a long time. “You don’t like Haru more?”
“Urara. I like you both.”
He only blushes a little saying that. Both his boyfriends like to hear him say things like that, so he’s been trying to do it more.
Urara looks at the lock he’s holding out. “You’ll do it if he’s here too?”
“Yeah,” Yuki says, and then his brain catches up to his mouth. “I- I mean! I don’t know!”
Urara smiles, almost bouncing in a very Haru-like way. Yuki is doomed.
-
Haru is ecstatic. He thinks the whole bell-lock thing is the Best Thing Ever.
Yuki talks him out of getting a lock of his own. If he has to do this, he’s going to do this the least conspicuous way possible, which means not creating a whole set of interconnected locks like Haru was working up to in his ramble of figuring out the best way to represent the three of them.
Downsides to one lock: they want him to write the message.
Yuki holds the pen, sweating nervously. The dragon-shaped message card (white with a red heart) is on the table in front of him. Haru looks over his shoulder on his left, and Urara on his right.
Let’s keep fishing together always. he writes in small, cramped letters. And immediately is filled with regret. “Ahh! No! That’s so bad!”
Haru hugs him. “No, it’s perfect!”
Urara hugs him too. “You need to sign it.”
“I’m getting a new paper,” Yuki says.
“No!” both Haru and Urara exclaim together.
Well. If they both like it that much…
He signs it. His boyfriends kiss him on both his cheeks and add their names to what little space is left.
-
The three of them go back to Lover’s Hill, where the bell is, together. It’s another bright sunny day. Yuki is sweating a little from the heat by the time they get to the top of the hill.
Haru rings the bell. (Yuki winces at the loud ringing and thinks that they should've known better than allowing Haru to be the one to do that part.) He beams as Urara puts the lock on the fence and Yuki locks it and puts the key in his pocket. “Now we have to go throw the key away,” he declares.
They go to the beach to throw the key into the water. Yuki throws it as far as he can and watches it plop into the sparkling water. Haru cheers and hugs them both so enthusiastically they almost fall over. Urara grins back, looking at both Yuki and Haru with so much affection that it makes Yuki blush.
Forever, Yuki thinks. No matter how much he tells himself it’s just a dumb superstition, his heart flutters and he’s smiling without meaning to. He can’t help it – seeing how happy Haru and Urara are pushes all his worries and insecurities away.
-
“You were right,” Urara says the next time they’re alone. It's after school and they’re fishing. Haru said he’d join them in about half an hour. “I shouldn’t have tried to leave Haru out. I was… worried.”
“Worried about what?”
Urara scuffs his foot on the ground. “You and Haru hug a lot.”
“Do you… want us to hug more?”
Urara nods.
“Okay,” Yuki says, then sees that Urara doesn’t look satisfied. He tries to think it through – the hugging isn’t the real issue. What could it be? “Haru likes to touch people,” he says. “That’s one of the ways he shows affection, I guess.” He keeps a straight face, channeling how Kate would explain Haru’s eccentricities to him. “But it’s not the only way we can show people we care about them.”
Urara frowns.
“You’re just as important to me,” Yuki says. “It just… comes out differently. Like in those romance anime you like, right? Some couples hold hands and hug and k-kiss.” H stumbles over the word. Kissing is something the three of them are still getting used to. “A-and other couples read books or listen to music together.” He’s drawing on a very limited idea of what romance anime are like, to be honest, having never been much of a fan. He hopes he’s not messing up and screwing up the entire point. “And they all like each other the same.”
Urara hums and casts his lure with a distracted, clumsy throw. Neither of them have been too successful getting bites so far today. “Okay,” he says.
Is it, Yuki wonders.
“Both of you have to stay with me forever now, anyway,” Urara says decisively. “We wished for it.”
“Yeah!” Haru yells loudly.
Yuki jumps and almost drops his fishing rod. Urara jerks his own fishing rod up, the lure swinging wildly.
Haru apologizes for startling them, hugs them both, and starts setting up his gear. He stands next to Urara to fish, humming a cheerful tune, and everything is as it should be: Urara, Yuki, and Haru, together.