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It’s the winter of 2005 when they first meet.
Takahiro sees some kid wearing an Eeyore kigurumi when he and his parents get to Maihama station and has the strangest urge to steal their tail. Instead, he pulls his hood over his head and lets his Piglet ears flop to the side. He resolutely refuses to hold his mother’s hand as they wait. His father is in the bathroom again.
They’re in the train station next to Disney, but there are already so many people. It’s the happiest place on earth. They probably won’t get in for another half hour. His father probably lost the tickets and won’t admit it.
He told his mother that he didn’t want to go to Tokyo Disneyland, and that he didn’t want to dress up, and that he didn’t want them to take time off work for him.
It’s not even his birthday. They’ve never gotten anything for his birthday.
He sighs. Maybe he can find the Winnie the Pooh attractions and hide in a giant jar of honey. That’s probably unnecessary, though. He could swan dive into Snow White’s well and they wouldn’t even notice.
Takahiro’s father comes back eventually. Lucky them.
They get into the park at 9:30 and he wants to go home by 10:04 after his mother makes him ride the Tea Cups so she can take pictures to show her friends just how much she loves her son. She even buys him an ice cream cone and pats his head. He doesn’t really get a say in anything.
His father has to take a business call and leaves them in the queue for It’s A Small World. He’s not even outside when they get off. Takahiro had been so ready to wave his soaking wet hand in his father’s face after seeing the signs that explicitly tell everyone to keep all their limbs inside the ride, but he just wipes it off on his mother’s coat.
They meet up with his father somewhere between a Buzz Lightyear attraction and Space Mountain. His mother still won’t let him ride rollercoasters.
Between the three of them, lunch is more expensive than the new volleyball shoes he wants for Christmas. It doesn’t help that he’s a picky eater. The food is okay. He probably won’t get the shoes. Maybe a wristband if he’s lucky, or a left kneepad.
“Can we go home now?” Takahiro asks.
“Aren’t you having fun, Hiro?” asks his mother.
She’s not even looking at him. None of them are having fun. The tickets had been a gift from one of his father’s coworkers, but they would have been better off reselling them. What do gifts mean in the grand scheme of things? Haven’t you heard of the story of the man who sold his watch and his wife that cut off her hair?
“I’m gonna go to the bathroom,” he says.
His mother tells him to wait for his father to come back, but Takahiro won’t be surprised the day that man finally walks out of his life. And so, with all the crudeness of a ten-year-old boy, he declares, “I need to go poop.” People look at him strangely and for the first time all day, it’s not because of the Piglet kigurumi. He goes off on his own and she doesn’t try to stop him.
He turns a corner around a gift shop and pulls out a map of the park from his right pocket. He looks both ways and begins making his way back to Fantasyland. It feels like an adventure—an act of rebellion.
Takahiro isn’t particularly small. But there’s something daunting about Disney now that he’s exploring it alone. Maybe it’s all the tall attractions that loom over him. Maybe it’s the capitalism.
Just as he makes his way around Cinderella’s Castle, he bumps into a blur of black and orange and his map falls to the ground. “Sorry,” they say at the same time. It goes like this: Takahiro falls in love with his voice first, and then the way his hand feels when they both reach for the map, and then his eyes when they look at each other for the first time.
He’s dressed up as Tigger. Takahiro wants to marry him at the back of this very castle.
“Your hair,” says Tigger. He looks tired, a feverish blush spread across his cheekbones and all the way over the bridge of his nose. He looks perfect. “Did your parents let you do that? That’s so cool.”
“Uhm.” Takahiro tugs at his hood. “It’s natural.”
“That’s even cooler!” says Tigger. His face is too close to Takahiro’s now. He can feel the heat radiating off his body. Tigger furrows his brows and Takahiro wants to smooth out every wrinkle. He wants to wrap Tigger in a blanket and kiss him on the forehead. “Why are you hiding under your hood?”
“Can you, uh—”
“Sorry!” Tigger says, backing away quickly. Takahiro thinks it’s cute the way the pink tint of his skin turns bright red. “I’m sick right now, I shouldn’t have gotten so close to you.”
“It’s okay,” he says. He lets his hood fall and tentatively offers his hand. “I’m Takahiro. Do you want a face mask? I think my mom put a box of ‘em in my bag.”
Takahiro learns that his name is Issei while they rifle through his bag together to find said box. He’s here with his cousins who are dressed as Winnie the Pooh and Eeyore respectively, but they’re in the queue for some ride with a 45-minute wait and Issei wanted somewhere quiet to sit. “I think I saw your cousin,” Takahiro tells him, “in the train station. I wanted to steal Eeyore’s tail.”
Issei stares at him intently, but Takahiro just smiles at him. “What?”
“We should go to the Pooh ride,” Issei says in lieu of an explanation. “Kei-chan wanted to save it for last, but I can’t go on most of the rides without wanting to hurl in his jar of hunny.”
Takahiro laughs for the first time all day. It feels like a kaleidoscope of butterflies has just been set free from his stomach and he wants to eat every single one of them. “Did you actually?”
“They made me ride the Tea Cups!” Issei says, crossing his arms over his chest.
“You shoulda jumped out!”
“That’s what Kaname said, too.” Issei pouts as Takahiro continues to laugh. He stands up to dust of his kigurumi before reaching out his hand. “Are you coming with me or what?”
What else is Takahiro supposed to say? No?
“Okay,” he says. He lets himself be led all the way to Pooh’s Hunny Hunt, but it’s definitely not because the hand tugging his is warm. “But I should probably go back to my parents soon.”
“We’ll be back before they notice,” Issei says. He’s standing in front of floor-to-ceiling pages of Winnie the Pooh while they wait in line, one hand in Takahiro’s and the other to keep his tail from dragging on the ground.
Takahiro believes him.
There’s not a lot of people around, so they get into one of the giant honey pots within five minutes and the kind lady lets them go alone even though each pot can seat five people. Takahiro wonders if they look inseparable—if they look like a couple of best friends having the time of their lives in the happiest place on earth. He’s never had one of those before.
The ride is over before they know it. They both walk out with the smell of honey clinging to their clothes and Takahiro has to restrain himself from buying something from the gift shop just so he can remind himself years down the line that this moment actually happened and it was beautiful.
“I’m scared of bees now,” Issei says seriously.
“Oh, come on.” Takahiro giggles as Issei makes a show of shivering in fear. They leave the gift shop empty-handed. “It wasn’t that bad.”
“That’s easy for you to say! Piglet wasn’t getting swarmed by bees!”
“You’d look cute even if you were running away from a bunch of angry bees.”
“Eurgh! And now I smell like honey!”
Takahiro buries his face into the crook of his neck and knows this for a fact. “You’re family’s probably on that ride they were waiting in line for already,” he murmurs. He’s pretty sure he gets some of the orange fibers of Issei’s costume in his mouth. He’s pretty sure it’s worth it.
Issei slowly peels him off his body. His hands are clammy but gentle, and Takahiro thinks that’s the perfect way to describe him. “Yeah,” he says. “Thanks for making being sick at Disney better than I expected it to be. You’re probably the best thing that’s happened to me since we came out to Tokyo for the weekend.”
Takahiro suppresses the urge to tell him that he’s the best thing that’s happened to him since he was born. “I dunno, I think throwing up in your cousin’s hunny jar should be pretty high up there,” he teases with a laugh. Issei shoves his shoulder and he wishes he was made of superglue so he never has to let go.
“Stop bringing it up,” Issei grumbles. He shoves his hand into his pocket and pulls out the most romantic declaration of love that Takahiro will ever receive in his life. No contest. Issei hesitates, but he’s already crying. “You said you wanted to…”
“I love you,” he says.
They’ll probably never see each other again.
“I convinced Kaname to get the kirugumi with the removable tail,” Issei explains, rubbing the back of his neck. “I stole it during lunch and I kept sticking it places he couldn’t reach. I was gonna give it back, but…”
He wraps his fist around it so hard that his nails dig into his palm.
“Thank you for today!” Takahiro shouts out. There are tears streaming down his face as he proclaims, with everything he has, “You’re my best friend!”
Issei smiles at him like the world. He can tell, even with the facemask.
Takahiro pulls out every scrap of courage in his body and presses a stupid kiss to Issei’s stupid mouth before making a run for it. He can feel the adrenaline rushing through him the whole way back to the other side of the park.
His father asks if he had a good shit and his mother scolds his father for his language.
They spend five more hours at the park so they can watch the parade before leaving. He puts in his earplugs before it starts and his mother reminds him to wear his sunglasses for all the bright lights. Takahiro is halfway through his turkey leg when he sees a boy with messy black hair dressed up as Winnie the Pooh standing next to Chip and Dale on one of the floats. His father thinks it’s hilarious and he silently agrees.
All in all, it doesn’t end up as bad as he thought it would. He falls asleep on the train and barely remembers the ten-minute walk from the station to their house. He doesn’t bother changing out of his clothes before jumping face-down onto his bed.
When he sees the picture frame on his desk in the morning, he wonders if it would be appropriate to press their family portrait from Christmas five years ago between the pages of an old textbook and frame Issei’s gift instead. He reaches into his pocket to make sure it’s still there and shakes his head.
He wants to keep it close to him forever.