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This music. It wasn’t exactly what Kippei usually listened to, but the rhythm of the drums and bass echoed in his chest like the beat of a taiko drum. Even if it was not his to his usual taste, it didn’t wipe the grin off his face or stop the way his body moved with the beat under the summer sun. It didn’t get much hotter, or more humid than Kumamoto in August. The misters of cool water spraying over the crowd weren’t enough to counteract the direct sunlight or the heat radiating from the blacktop below his feet.
They weren’t here for him. It was all Akira’s idea. The music festival, the trip to Kumamoto, the time spent with Kippei’s extended family in the town where he grew up. We have to go! Akira had yanked on his arm, nearly pulling it out of its socket in his enthusiasm. It’s like… the biggest music festival in Japan and we can like go eat your grandma’s cooking! This was the first time Akira even met Kippei’s grandmother, he wasn’t sure what Akira thought he knew about her cooking.
Much more fluidly, deliberately, Akira was also dancing with the music - his dancing accompanied by little hops and skips as he tried to get a better view of the stage. Other than the women in the audience, virtually everyone was taller than him. Kippei had offered to muscle their way forward in the crowd, but again, It’s about the music, not the view!
Kippei supposed he was riding the rhythm, even if after many years he still wasn’t entirely sure what that meant.
His outstretched fingers brushed a beach ball that was being bounced through the crowd out of Akira’s reach, sending it floating off to another set of hands somewhere behind them. Even though the ball was out of his reach, Kippei knew Akira’s fingers could touch the clouds. He could reach higher than anyone Kippei had ever known.
It was on the plane down to Kumamoto that Akira’s true intentions were finally revealed. It wasn’t about the music or the summer sun. It wasn’t about beach balls or grandma’s cooking. He had anxiously bounced in his seat the moment he was buckled in as though there was anywhere to go on the prop plane other than his seat. With a gentle hand to his thigh, Kippei had attempted to urge him to be still.
Huh? Oh! Hey! Akira leaned closer to him, abruptly taking Kippei’s hand in his. He had that focused look in his eyes that he got only sometimes but it meant that he had something important to say. Kippei.
Yes? Amused, or bemused, Kippei just watched Akira’s face. His face that had grown up so much since they first met, but still had the same vibrancy and passion of their youth. A face that he had seen through every stage of love from meeting, to the stirring in his chest, to passion, to the warmth of something old and familiar.
This is really important! Akira had pulled a bit on Kippei’s hand, pulling him closer. This is when I can finally ask!
Kippei caught a glimpse of the sun glinting off the golden ring on his left hand. It was the clumsiest proposal possibly ever, especially since it was shouted in his face on a crowded plane, but if that wasn’t Akira’s rhythm, he wasn’t really sure what would be.
And so in the summer heat, cooled only by a light mist from above, his body swayed with the beat of the music and his heart beat in time with his fiance’s like the steady beat of the taiko drum.