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Kaoru takes Rei on his first aquarium date when he’s 21 and Rei’s turned 22 a day prior.
In some sort of way, he dubs this outing as a celebration of sorts. Their birthdays are never a dull event, both of them considerably memorable as a consequence of being in the celebrated unit UNDEAD back in their days of Yumenosaki. Their birthdays are a celebration, but this outing is a more private one. Kaoru does not get to lace his fingers gently into Rei’s, like this, on their birthday celebrations.
Rei, Kaoru thinks, is an entity.
He still cannot, for the life of him, fathom what made him decide to stick by his side on their graduation. He’d not been half in love with him like he is now. He’d not found him endearing at all the way he does now. He remembers an empty classroom, a soft, inviting voice, and the evening sun filtering in the form of weak rays through the windows, and that is all. Nothing else remains.
Rei, Kaoru thinks, is an entity.
Someone as burdened and wise as him can still be curious. He’s 21 now, but it feels like yesterday when he’d been 18 and Rei had been 19 and they’d stopped by a tree outside the academy gates because Rei’d found a cicada and his bare red eyes had lit up in a blooming symphony of colors Kaoru had never seen before. Maybe this is what made him stick. Maybe it was an unpredictable addition to his inevitable resolve to stick. To see him like this, just one more time.
Rei, Kaoru thinks, is an entity.
The trip to France the last year should’ve stuck as nothing but an excuse to rest and sightsee from their usual busy schedules together. The trip to France last year should’ve stuck as nothing and yet Rei had crawled onto Kaoru’s bed and underneath the covers and taken his face into the palms of his hands. The trip to France last year should’ve stuck as nothing and yet Kaoru had kissed back. Felt something in his chest blossom. Was this how it was supposed to feel? Kaoru was no stranger to love. Was it supposed to feel so different, this time?
Rei, Kaoru thinks, for the last time, is an entity.
The date to an aquarium was supposed to be a joke. Kaoru had said it a few days before their birthdays, in the teasing manner that is so inherently Hakaze Kaoru when Rei had looked at him with the same blooming symphony from when he’d been 18 and Rei had been 19 and they’d been schoolboys on an early morning staring at a lonesome, loud cicada on the tree outside their academy gates. A cog in the spinning wheels in Kaoru’s chest had stopped moving, that day.
Rei’d mentioned something when they’d been schoolboys. Maybe cicadas are loud because they’re cursing the inevitable nature of things considering how the course of their lives run.
You were 17 last year, my dear Kaoru-kun. Cicadas spend up to 17 years underground to be able to emerge for only a couple of weeks before they are met with the inevitable curse of death. Isn’t it a curious thing? Can you imagine something such as this? Living a life so useless and cutthroat in its uselessness?
He’d laughed. It had been an intriguing laugh.
Surely, I would’ve been dead, by now, were I one. It is more of a comfort to me than it may be for those small creatures.
Rei is wearing a black turtleneck, today. Kaoru is wearing a pale skin-toned jacket over his own white turtleneck. Rei’s hands are shoved into the pockets of his skin-tight jeans. Kaoru itches to touch him.
They’d gotten dressed early.
“It’s helpful, see,” Kaoru had reasoned, brushing through Rei’s hair gently with his fingers when they’d still been in bed and he’d just succeeded in kissing him awake. “That way, we won’t have to deal with so many people and have the whole place to ourselves, ya know~”
“Kaoru-kun is very considerate,” Rei’d whispered, hands reaching up and around the blond’s neck to pull him down.
They’re sitting down in front of a tank spiraling with Betta fish and a few other species they do not seem to recognize with a respective iced coffee and carton tomato juice in their hands when Kaoru mentions, “Rei-kun, don’t we have that fish in Animal Crossing?”
“Animal Crossing?” Rei blinks. “Ah, the funny little game centered on animals that my dear Kaoru-kun adores so much?” He grins when Kaoru turns his head in embarrassment. “How can I forget when that game gets so much love from you, hm?”
“I was just a-asking-!”
Rei grins again like the devilish fiend he is, one arm wrapping around Kaoru’s waist to bring him close. “Would it be too shameful to admit that I’m a little jealous?”
“Of what? The game?” Kaoru laughs. “Rei-kun’s finally learned how to crack a joke, hm?”
The black-haired man whines at this, just a little. Kaoru gives him a kiss as a consolation prize.
“Weren’t you in the Marine Bio Club in our school days, Kaoru-kun?”
“Hm? Oh, yeah.”
Kaoru Hakaze believes himself to be a romantic. The ocean waves on particularly windy nights had been a source of calm, for him. Marine spots had been his specialty.
He remembers, the Mermaid Cove from his schooldays. Sometimes he thinks to himself about how he’d like to find it, again. Maybe. He doesn’t mention this to Rei because Rei has his own burdens and his own lamentations to take care of before he dives yet again into his selfish practice of refusing to care for himself until he cares for the rest. Kaoru dislikes this practice, and so he keeps this lamentation to himself. In any case, he would like to visit that Mermaid Cove, again. It had been pretty.
It had been one of the few times he’d let himself be vulnerable, and so he does not forget. The memories attached to the cove are strong, stronger than any normal memory the tiny amygdala in his brain functions enough to carry. It is within these memories that he had realized that UNDEAD had always been his anchor, and so he had taken this memory and plunged it into the deepest cabinet of his heart. He will never forget. The cove, the metaphorical attention-starved personality he’d thrown to the docks there, and his mother.
He wonders what his mother is doing, now.
The time on Rei’s wristwatch reads 13:23.
“I’m sorry I got distracted, Rei-kun.”
“It seemed to me that you really adore clownfish, Kaoru-kun. Is this a metaphor, perhaps?”
Home is nice, Kaoru thinks. Maybe he’ll just take Rei to the beach, one day. When the moon is high, and there is nothing but the sound of ocean waves and the stars flickering in the dark hues of the sky. Rei appreciates ocean waves. It is a habit instilled into him by Kaoru, and he has yet to tire of it.
“Kaoru-kun.”
Arms wrap around his waist from the back, and Kaoru registers Rei’s head burying into his neck a little later than he would like.
“Can I bite you, Kaoru-kun?”
“Ah, absolutely not, didn’t you just have tomato juice?”
Rei laughs, and his warm breath makes Kaoru shiver. Ironically.
“It seems as though you’re a bit too distracted today. Is there anything you’d like to talk about? I’m all ears for you, my love.”
Something about the affectionate term makes something akin to bile rise in Kaoru’s throat. When had it become hard to take in something so silly and easy? He places his hands over Rei’s resting on his stomach, and squeezes.
“I’m okay.”
“I can tell you’re not. You’re quieter than usual.”
From the day when he’d first met the entity that was Rei Sakuma to the days that led up to Today, Hakaze Kaoru notices one thing: Rei Sakuma is inquisitive. He’s curious, noticeable, and at any point knows anything and everything about the atmosphere and the person. He’s fearsome, and Kaoru grows to find comfort in the self-proclaimed vampire the more he sticks by him. It should be comfort, even now.
Kaoru is getting a little sick. Maybe it would be easier to let go of his selfish lamentations, for once, and talk.
And so, he spills. Like a dam being broken loose, his emotions come down in a catastrophe and he floods the veins of his sanity till they threaten to, and then burst, and yet, Rei Sakuma becomes his tank.
It’s a weird metaphor, Kaoru’s hazed sanity thinks, but Rei collects everything – from his smallest concern to his biggest, and he compresses him and takes him into his arms akin to a small, safe place. His warmth is unbearable - ironic and unbearable. Kaoru wonders what sort of fish he’d be if he were one.
Rei tells him he’d be a Betta, because he’s cliché like that.
“There’s always a next time, Kaoru-kun. There’s no need to be disappointed.” The cat-like grin is back. “After all, we’re not cicadas.”
“You’re so weird sometimes, Rei-kun. How’re your turnip prices, today?”
The sky is clear, that night. It is not so much of a worthwhile climax to the exhausting release of responsibility for the rest of the hours left, but they make do. Rei points out the stars, and Kaoru tells him their names. The ocean waves lull their quiet conversations, their quiet affections. Rei has always been clingy.
“Kaoru-kun,” Rei says, when he’s sucked a few patches of blotting purple on the skin of his collarbones and neck and rendered him absolutely useless on the crumbling sand beneath them. “Would it be a shock if I were to tell you something?”
Kaoru is all breath and nonsensical noise. “Go ahead.”
“It appears I might be in love with you.”
Kaoru blinks.
Rei does not say a word.
A laugh. “Oh, I thought you were gonna tell me, like, that you’re really immortal or something.”
“I’m immortal, though~”
Rei laughs back, breathily. “Then, do you-“
“Course I do, Rei-kun. Wasn’t it obvious?”
“I’m not well-versed in something akin to this, my dear.”
“Course you aren’t.” Kaoru is unnecessarily breathless.
Rei lifts him gently from the sand, and clutches him in his arms. Kaoru’s arms move to hug him back. It’s quiet, except for the ocean’s quiet song in the background.
Maybe aquarium spots aren’t their thing.