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There’s someone standing in front of Jun’s house.
One proud back, with textbook-perfect posture, looking straight ahead at the riveting sight of Jun’s old wooden door. The paint is peeling and probably needed a fresh coat a year ago, but it’s too late for that now. The man’s head is perfectly aligned with the old brass knocker as if it was designed to be that way. A familiar duffel bag in nostalgic navy blue rests on his left shoulder. His arms are down by his sides, and Jun thinks of a soldier at ease.
“Tetsu,” he breathes out, and it tastes just like the sharp sea air already resting on his tongue.
Tetsu, and of course it’s him, perks up at Jun’s voice. The duffel bag doesn’t swing, held in place by a steady hand, as he rotates his whole body around to face Jun. His expression is completely unsurprised, as if the sight in front of him is one he’s seen everyday. Jun knows it isn’t. He also knows that the unusualness of this scene is reflected in his own wide eyes and disbelieving smile. He was never able to match Tetsu’s poker face, but he never saw the need to catch up with that.
Tetsu still has the same close-cropped hairstyle he’s worn since Jun first met him, gangly arms and boundless passion barely wrapped up in a 15 year old body. It looks newer though, still in the fresh stage where no eager strands peak out from behind his head. There are some new lines under his eyes. Jun wonders what else he’s missed.
“You weren’t answering the door,” Tetsu says in greeting, eyebrows furrowing the slightest amount deeper towards his steel cut eyes. Jun can’t help but laugh at a “hello” so utterly Tetsu. He’s missed this. Tetsu blinks in response, and Jun thinks he’s never heard a sweeter answer.
“I’m here now,” Jun says. He walks up to the steps, staying to the right, and takes the old key out of his pocket. Tetsu doesn’t move aside. He’s standing on the left side of the doorstep, and there’s the perfect amount of space for Jun to stand at his right, shoulders almost even in height. Jun doesn’t feel a sense of deja vu as much as he feels like he’s sinking into the ocean, salt water surrounding him and making his limbs weightless.
The key slips into the keyhole easily, and the door opens without any protest. Maybe it’s just as eager as he is. Jun wipes his feet off on the rough mat placed just off center of the door, sand settling into the bristles, ready to be swept out on a later day. Tetsu places his shoes neatly against the corner of the doorframe: perfect, proper, Tetsu.
They’re sitting on opposite sides of Jun’s coffee table. It’s actually just the upturned bottom half of a wooden crate, slates sanded down by time and ocean wind. The thought of a shogi board passes through Jun’s mind, but the only thing laid out on the table is the distance of years, countless unsaid things, and two navy blue tea cups.
“What type of tea do you want?” Jun asks, more for manners’ sake than anything. He knows what Tetsu’s answer will be.
“Whatever tea you have,” Tetsu replies. Jun grins. Tetsu’s not so much predictable as he is reliable. The words are the same wherever they are: an afternoon in Kanagawa, a late night in a high school cafeteria, or a calm morning in this house by the sea.
His voice is tempered by polite formality. Jun thinks about the way deference is required in a stranger’s house.
“We’ll have aracha sencha then,” he says and Tetsu’s eyes light up like the first rays of sunlight at dawn. Jun brings the teapot already full of yesterday’s fresh water from the kitchen. It fits in between the two tea cups, the barest suggestion of steam rising from the top. Green sencha leaves scattered in size, shade, and shape wait patiently in a basket to the side.
The boiling water is poured equally into the two cups. The leaves settle at the bottom of the teapot, sticking to the still-wet sides. Jun pours the cups back into the teapot. The water falls in easily. Together, separate, then together again.
Tetsu’s watching the teapot like it’s the most interesting thing in the world. Jun wonders if he should be offended for half a second’s fleeting thought. It’s quickly banished when he notices Tetsu’s eyes tracking the path his hands take to pour more water for the second infusion like it’s the last thing he’ll ever see.
They wait in peace. The third infusion takes longer, and the seconds passing by feel lazier. When the minute is up, Jun takes the teapot with both hands and carefully pours out enough tea to completely fill both cups, still sitting at opposite ends of the table. The spring green settles until it looks like it never moved in the first place.
“Wait,” Jun says right before Tetsu reaches a curious hand out. Jun takes in a deep breath, irrationally nervous, and then switches their cups. The action reminds him of the countless tables before this one, and the same switch of cup to cup. Tetsu’s eyes spark in delight and recognition.
Jun can’t remember when they started this tradition for just the two of them. All he knows is that he can’t afford to end it.
“You remembered,” Tetsu says, and the way his voice lifts up at the end reveals more than any smile ever could. His hands cradle the cup like it’s something precious, and not just a cheap imitation of what Jun desperately tried to remember when passing by the flea market on a long walk home. Maybe it was precious in Tetsu’s hands. Even as the thought crosses Jun’s mind like the first scent of seasalt in the morning, he knows it’s true.
He bought the tea set not in the memory of Tetsu, but for him. This is where it’s meant to be, in between Tetsu’s calloused fingers and warmed by his breath.
“Why would I ever want to forget?” The words float in the air like they’ll never want to come down. Jun thinks that he’s fine with them staying up there, in this air that they’re breathing in together. Tetsu doesn’t reply, but he doesn’t need to. They both understand the implication.
It’s another truth more honest than Jun thought he was ready for, but the words sound right in a way that nothing else in the past two years has.
Jun finishes his cup. Tetsu is still savoring his. Nothing before has tasted as filling as this one half of a navy teapot.
Jun knows this beach. He could talk for hours about the patterns you can find in the cliffs bordering the water, the way dawn never blooms but rather gently arrives under cover of clouds, the way seagulls circle above but hesitate to lower themselves to earth. He knows how you have to approach the water that erases all traces of you ever being there. He takes in the smell of pungent seaweed as easily as he lets saltwater slide through his fingers.
Jun knows you need to walk this beach barefoot. That’s the first thing he tells Tetsu, tongue still savoring the sweet freshness of sencha green tea.
The sand is rough beneath your feet, but only for the first two minutes. Your senses adjust with every next step you take. Sand is just an infinite amount of pieces of bigger things, ground up into something you can grab in one hand. Jun thinks love is like that too. A force too big for one person. You have to share it with someone else before you try to grasp it with hand and heart.
He wonders what Tetsu thinks love is.
They’re standing at Jun’s spot, the one that his path leads to even when he doesn’t plan to go there. It’s not marked by anything, but Jun always knows he’s there when he arrives. Tetsu doesn’t say anything when they stop at the edge of the water, but his shoulders lower an infinitesimal amount. The water has already washed away the footprints that followed them here.
The sea far away is calm. The water in front of them is laced with white seafoam and eager ripples ready to be swept away to the end of the world. Jun’s spot isn’t a place. It’s an emotion that threatens to be swept away with every day that passes.
“It looks like this time, you’re the one chasing after me,” Jun says, and the evening air nips at his words in time with the lapping waves at his feet. Tetsu’s not looking at him as much as he’s staring at his eyes, his nose, his lips. Jun wonders if he’s searching for the old whisper of a younger face or if he’s trying to memorize the new sight of older skin. He doesn’t know which one he’d prefer.
Jun can only look straight ahead. The horizon of this beach is a flat line below a sky eternally cloud-grey. There’s only the hint of the sun in shy strands of pure white cloud peeking through the overwhelming woolen grey. Jun has stared at the unchanging boundary between water and sky for an eternity, and then a minute more.
But that’s when he’s alone.
It’s sunset now. Tetsu is standing at his left side, and both their feet are sunk into the wet sand at the boundary between water and earth. The sun is a pinprick of brilliant gold, almost swallowed up by the endless blue sea. It’s still calling out from the distance between them and the edge of the world. Orange rays of light blur the line between heaven and earth. Between past and future.
Between Tetsu and Jun.
“You’ve always been at my side, Jun,” Tetsu says, and he makes it sound like a promise. Because that’s who Tetsu is. A man of few words not because he lacks them, but because each one is important to something or someone.
“I ran away,” Jun confesses with the weight of more than two years behind the statement. Guilt never tastes right on the tongue, and tonight is no different. Tetsu is still staring at him.
“You did,” he acknowledges because Tetsu is nothing if not honest. “But I knew I could find you. And I did.”
Jun thinks he could live off of Tetsu’s faith. He knows Tetsu wouldn’t let him, because he wants to give Jun more than just this intangible bond between them. Jun knows he’d accept anything Tetsu would give him. He hopes Tetsu knows that too.
“Tetsu?”
“Jun.”
“Can I kiss you?” The question is the crest of a wave, suspended in time before it crashes back down and is swallowed up by the endless ocean of possibility. Jun meets Tetsu’s eyes before gravity pulls the question and the wave down. He’s never seen anything as bright as Tetsu’s eyes in this moment between them.
The sand collapses between Jun’s toes as he stretches up to close the one difference he’ll never be able to reach. Tetsu’s hands, callouses as familiar as Jun’s own, duck beneath his hair to curl behind his ears. He dips his head in a way that Jun knows means yes, please, and thank you.
Their lips meet in the same way the sun is buried under the waves.
Jun probably tastes like seasalt and harsh winds and endless walks on rough sand, but Tetsu tastes like warmth and comfort and smiles in eyes. Together they make something uniquely Tetsu and Jun, with the aftertaste of sencha tea.
“Welcome home,” Jun breathes into the space between them.
Tetsu smiles. He closes the gap of 11 centimeters as effortlessly as he hit that first home run all those years ago. Two beginnings. Jun can feel this start deep in his heart, the place where he keeps his memories of home and him. They’re painted in the same color. Amber eyes and golden sun.
“I’m home.”