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Kaoru found his first love in the late spring, well after the flowers had bloomed and the weather had broken leaving sunny spring showers in the wake of the dry chill of winter. Sat under a tree in his school uniform, finishing half of his bento and leaving the other to his closest friend, he realised it-
“I’ve fallen in love with him, Kojiro.”
Kojiro looked at him, and swallowed a mouth full of food before the warmest smile spread across his face.
“I’m happy for you, Kaoru.”
Kaoru looked up to the clear sky, the sun warming his cheeks along with the flush of blood to their surface at his admittance.
______
To say that Adam leaving Japan was his first heartbreak would on a technicality be a lie by omission. Adam had caused his heart multiple hairline fractures over the time he was a presence in his life, but him leaving Japan was his worst heartbreak. In some ways it still was the worst his heart had ever been broken as it had been shattered down to its infrastructure. As it caused him to reform it from its foundation and up, entirely new. But he’d done a novice job and was far too prideful to admit some of the work warranted reconstruction.
On nights when he would lean against Kojiro’s stable body and use the heat from his tan skin and the beating of his strong heart to relax him into sleep he could feel the warmth down into his own bones. Kojiro’s steady presence easing the pain, lending him comfort even after words were exchanged, disagreements were had, and tongues were sharper than they ever had been between them.
The issue with attempting to seal your heart is- what happens to those already in it?
The closest friend so dear to him he feared he’d crumble without.
He had slipped through the doors when they were left carelessly open, but now that they were locked and barricaded by Kaoru’s fancy footwork and steady hand, where was left to cast him out?
Kaoru never really could answer that. So Kaoru never cast him out at all.
Reluctantly or not, Kaoru kept Kojiro at the tip of his fingers and within the stone forged walls of his heart.
And miraculously for him, Kojiro would accept to float in the precarious orbit and lend him his warmth and the rhythmic beating of his heart. But it would be long before Kaoru would understand how miraculous that was.
___________
Adults tend to grow in separate directions.
Kojiro and Kaoru grew together.
Kaoru and Kojiro were lucky in the way that they kept a wide margin between them. Between them there was always space to grow. Flashback blurs of skating past curfew, past a property line, trespassing and butterflies in his stomach at either running from the cops or Kaoru’s hand in his were brought up by the warmth in the center of his chest at Kaoru grumpily picking at the food he served him. Pretending not to like what he would clear the entirety of the plate of.
A snide remark tossed at him as if he had held Kaoru hostage to come and dine at his for the third night that week. Like he, by force, had Kaoru stay past closing, split a bottle of wine and laugh three glasses in at Kojiro’s nonchalant teasings crafted meticulously to make him smile.
His smile feeding the warmth within him, the warmth Kaoru, on a more vulnerable night, would tell Kojiro was part of which he liked most about him. And that would overwhelm Kojiro as if he stood a chance, on the floor drunken and leaning back against the couch in his living room- Kaoru sat against him not in much better shape. Kojiro would take his hand and run his fingertips from his pulse point to meet his, five points of contact moving slowly to become intertwined. He would feel safe, and Kaoru would be against him telling him he loved his warmth and Kojiro would push the hair back from Kaoru’s face and lean in.
His mouth would press against Kaoru’s. Kaoru would let it.
Kojiro wouldn’t say, “I’ve fallen in love with you Kaoru.”
Kaoru would let his hand roam wherever it pleased and clutch back at Kojiro like he couldn’t believe he was able to. Kojiro would let Kaoru lead them, cognizant of not taking more than what Kaoru was willing to give. But Kaoru was ready to give everything Kojiro wanted to take.
The sun would rise the next morning and Kojiro wake alone.
The look on Karou’s face the next week when he showed himself, finally ready to stand in front of him again, told Kojiro enough to know that it would be something between them they didn’t discuss.
____________
Kaoru’s memory could never do justice how it felt to skate next to Adam and Kojiro. In its best attempt it replayed through his memory under a golden film, and it felt like the days on either end of summer. But when the film was torn, when the protective glass was shattered from in front of it the blemishes were hard, if not impossible, to ignore.
When it was Kojiro’s hands lifting him from the ground, holding him in the back of a car, wrapping his jacket around him as he shivered in the absence of cold- there were many things that were impossible to ignore.
What he ignored when they were kids and Kojiro didn’t mention it when Kaoru cried into his shoulder after Adam had left with a glance of a goodbye.
What he ignored every time he showed up at Kojiro’s restaurant because he was overwhelmed and every nerve ending in his body told him if he could just get there with Kojiro he would be ok.
What he ignored in his stomach every time Kojiro had another beautiful girl on his arm.
What he ignored the morning he woke up in Kojiro’s arms, safe and warm. Escaping quietly and wiping tears as they fell in the sunrise lit walk home.
What he could never ignore though was that Kojiro was someone he had no right to. He couldn't have him as much as he couldn’t let him go.
But he had to.
He’d been so selfish, keeping Kojiro stuck in the ebb and flow of his indecision. His preoccupation with someone and something that no longer existed. Kojiro deserved to be someone’s first choice, not some decade late revelation.
____________
Keeping his distance from Kojiro was lonely. It was self reliant in a way Kaoru forgot he was capable of being. It was full of deleted messages, ignored phone calls, and standing at the halfway point between home and Kojiro. It was full of turning around and heading back the way he came.
It became neither easier nor more difficult, it only lingered over him and filled the space in his lungs where air should be. Cold in the night and well into the day, missing the warmth that had been next to him for countless cycles of seasons.
Kojiro was the worst sort of person when it came to following instructions. Though they were never explicitly given, Kaoru felt they were largely implied. And nowhere in the instructions was Kojiro to show up at his door, unannounced and angry. An anger unfamiliar to being aimed at Kaoru in its genuine nature. A demand for an explanation.
“If you want me to leave then tell me to go, Kaoru.”
Kojiro was never instructed to get into his space, never told to hold Kaoru’s face more gently than he’d ever been touched. Nor to tell him he’d wait another decade if it was what Kaoru needed from him.
“Please don’t go.”
___________
Kojiro remembered his first heartbreak.
Sitting under the tree in the courtyard of their highschool, enjoying the freedom of being outside after a particularly harsh winter Kojiro knew. The second the words were spoken to him he knew the feeling they left him with could lend itself to only one unavoidable conclusion.
“I’ve fallen in love with him, Kojiro.”
Kojiro had fallen in love with Kaoru, too.
Not in the spring and not in the winter preceding, but over multitude of the four repetitive seasons and in their relentless cycle over the years he had been ifalliably at Kaoru’s side. He fell in love while finding shade for them to wait in, because Kaoru didn’t like the way the sun would tan his skin. In front of the warm hues that set the vivid back drops of autumn, taking the long way home to avoid the trees whose pollen Kaoru was allergic to. Bundled against the cold and being wrapped in a scarf Kaoru brought along at the prediction that Kojiro would regret bypassing his own. And as the cycle began anew in the bright blossom of spring time, pulling a petal from Kaoru’s hair Kaoru turned and looked expectantly. Golden eyes close to Kojiro’s own, open in a way that Kojiro wanted to be privy to forever.
“Did you have something to say?”
I’ve fallen in love with you, Kaoru.
“Nothing at all.”
___________
The ceiling blurred in Kaoru’s vision. Laid in his own bed, still warm from the other body that had just been in it. His mind was busy, and loudly so. A thought crept in- by no means new but troublesome all the same.
What if he had loved someone else?
In all the time Kaoru left him in suspension dozens upon dozens came and went, but no one stayed around for too long. Kaoru’s chest ached selfishly thinking of the time wasted, all of the possible times Kojiro could have closed the door on him for good. And being well within his right to do so.
Kojiro reentered the room bearing tea for the both of them, after catching the strange look on his face they were set to the side. Reading him easily as ever.
Regarding him wordlessly, concern clouded Kojiro’s face. Kaoru hated the way it distorted the softness of his eyes. His hand reached out to soothe the muscles beneath his skin, persuading them to settle out of their worry and into contentment. So many words remained unspoken between them, they’d be chipping away between unsubtle nuances for a while. There was so much water under the bridge between them, but Kaoru was ready to jump into it.
The unwavering look in Kojiro’s eyes left no question that he would jump in after him.
Kojiro kissed his palm, soft, warm lips kissing his skin like he was much more delicate than they both knew he was. Kaoru reached for him, pulling closer until they were breathing shared air. He wanted to speak, but couldn’t produce a word in the dense tension between them.
Kojiro never closed the door on him, and he never would. Kaoru trusted him with that.
After all the time spent at arms length Kaoru couldn’t help himself when pulling Kojiro closer, it could never be close enough to satiate him. His lips couldn’t be on his long enough, he could never say everything he needed to with them the way Kojiro was able to when kissing him. He hoped Kojiro felt half of what he felt as he kissed him. Hoped he felt how cherished, loved, and thankful as Kaoru felt.
He hoped he could return some of the warmth Kojiro had always spared him as he melted into him, holding each other as close as they were able to- nearly choked up with it. The calm in feeling Kojiro’s steady breath in and out against his neck finally allowed him to speak.
It was his first step off of the bridge, taking them both into the water.
“Thank you for waiting for me, Kojiro.”