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Sasara likes to watch people.
He sits on a bench in the middle of the city and takes in the thousands of people passing through—parents and their children, teenagers up to mischief, salarymen running around for this and that, and pretends that he doesn’t do anything more than stare at the occasional pair of lovers that come by. If you happened to recognize him as he does this and ask him what he’s up to, as has happened before, he—in a voice too well practiced and stiff for comedy—would tell you that he’s looking for comedic inspiration.
The hand that comes up to cradle his face belongs to him, but it used to be someone else’s.
It is on one of these people-watching expeditions that he happens upon one of his teammates.
Friends? No, not yet, or… ever, really. The bonds of most teams are forged from flames or birthed by blood, but the chains that hold them together are flimsy and rusted. And here he is, the one who pulled them (heh, he’s yanking their chains—there, that was funny) back together, though Sasara is far too sharp to believe that Rei simply wanted to see their comedy routine again.
He would like to, though.
If Sasara had to describe Rei, he would call him a one-man show—to pair him with anyone else would ruin his spectacle. He belonged and answered only to himself, but his eyes—especially the green one, the one that looked too familiar to be a coincidence—betrayed that narrative.
Narrative? If he kept using these words, he’d have to start calling himself Gentaro Yumeno—but it’s not like Gentaro calls himself that, anyway. There, that was funny too.
But he isn’t the one laughing—it’s Rei, off in the distance. Whoever he’s talking to isn’t amused in the slightest, but Rei is cackling like a Saturday morning cartoon villain. It figures that he’s the type to laugh at his own jokes. Of course, so is Sasara.
The crowd has cleared a little, and he gets a better view of his partner. Huh—Rei was into bikers. That fit him, somehow, although he knew so little about him that almost anything would make him think, Ah, yes, that makes sense.
Sasara can’t read lips, but the conversation they’re having is so animated, he had to look around for cameramen, because the only way he could believe that Rei does normal people things is if he were being filmed. He recognizes Rei’s self-satisfied grin and flapping around of his arms, and the drawn out eye-roll and crossed arms of the man he’s talking to, and it’s as if he’s watching the best two years of his life through a funhouse mirror.
They come closer, and Sasara thinks he’s been found out—usually an unfounded feeling, as all he was doing was watching, but there’s something about this that feels intrusive in a way that it never is—but the heaviness in his chest lightens when they instead take refuge on a different bench, far away from him.
He sees the way that the man in the leather jacket rests his head on Rei’s shoulder, and he’s bewildered at the fact that this person isn’t turned off by the stench of expensive cologne and cigarettes. Then he watches Rei plant a kiss on his forehead and all he can think is, Where are the hidden cameras? because the only way he can rationalize this chain of events is if it’s a prank at his expense, as if the crew of this imagined show will pop out from behind the bushes and Rei and that man will point and laugh at him.
That would be fine. That would be funny. He could laugh at that.
(Rule of threes. He was being funny. He couldn't laugh.)
But instead, they just sit there. Rei looks like he’s at peace in a way that he doesn’t deserve at all, and Sasara is left dumbfounded when they finally part.
Rei generally uses his mouth for rap battles, drinking, smoking, and if Rosho were there (a thought he hated dwelling on), he would add being annoying to that list, circled and written in red ink.
Guess giving soft kisses went on there, too.
They walk away from each other, and Sasara gets the urge to call Rosho. Just a quick Hello, to which he will reply It’s late. Go to bed. but neither of them will hang up. Their stint as a comedy duo ended long ago, but their routine is embedded in their minds.
And if Rei gets to be happy, then Sasara deserves this too.