Work Text:
It is spring, and Yumeno Gentaro is in love.
He is in love, and Ramuda watches with cattish curiosity as to whether Gentaro will ever confess it to him.
He thinks he’s being subtle, coy in both his prods and hints. Summer is indulgence, ice cream brought to his studio as the sun sets golden over Shibuya, the two of them sitting on the roof and taking in the Saturday crowds with strawberry on their lips.
Autumn is thrilling, chasing Dice down back-alleys after a gamble gone wrong, running for their lives as if it had always been an adrenaline rush and not some of the most desperate days of their lives.
Winter is warmth, Gentaro asleep at the kotatsu with his head in his arms, laptop pushed neatly to the side where he’d left it. Just for a moment, he’d insisted. Just to watch Ramuda add color to his sketch. Ramuda reaches across the table and plays with strands of his hair, and they both pretend not to notice when Gentaro stirs.
(Just like Gentaro is pretending not to love him. Like he’s been shying away from putting it to words, to any action in his control. For the fear of loss? The desire not to ruin what they already have? Ramuda doesn’t know, can’t hope to guess. But it’s always shown in his eyes, honest even when his words can’t manage the same.)
“I’m searching for something very specific,” Gentaro says, looking anywhere but Ramuda on the brick-paved street, “A particular sort of inspiration. Something different than my usual fare.”
Ramuda hums loudly, begging for more. But Gentaro gives nothing, and so walk on silent they do.
Today’s excursion is for people-watching, for someone eye-catching amongst the crowds--a model search and a play for inspiration, in which remarkably more crepes have been consumed and window shopping done than people actually watched. Harajuku is unusually empty for a Friday afternoon, and while Ramuda has long since given up on his own chances, Gentaro’s refusal to elaborate is making it terribly difficult to help him.
That girl there in neon isn’t right-- she’s but a dock for the ships to return to, far from a traveller in her own right. Nor is that foreign man watching as his wife takes pictures of anything and everything that catches her eye-- he’s a journeyman, certainly, but the stars are far from his sights. Neither is that worker dressing the mannequin in the window, or the group of teenagers skipping school on the corner, or anyone that they seem to find, really.
Ramuda huffs as Gentaro dismisses yet another of his suggestions. He’d thought the sweet foreign girl who’d come up to them asking directions would’ve been at least worth a second thought. “Gentaroooo! When will you know what you’re looking for?”
Gentaro hums, but doesn’t answer--their attention is stolen from each other by water on their cheeks, warm and unwelcome.
“Ah!” Ramuda turns his gaze to the sky, searching for the clouds. “Rain!”
Gentaro turns up his palm to the blue sky, droplets landing there obedient to pool warm across his lifelines. His eyes glimmer with mischief, as if they hold the world in their gaze. “A fox’s wedding. It seems someone would rather we not intrude. Shall we head back?”
They could. They could duck into the nearest boutique and grab an umbrella, share it all the way home, laughing politely about cliches and misplaced context clues. They could walk side by side, having said nothing, their fragile balance preserved another day.
Or.
Ramuda snatches Gentaro’s hand and tugs him away, ignoring his protests as they dash through the streets. The lacklustre crowd parts before them, seeking shelter in nearby shops as a few umbrellas bloom to their sides. They turn down the footpaths; Ramuda knows these streets better than his own face in the mirror, these days. Brick and concrete and pavement that cars so rarely touch. It might not be what Gentaro’s searching for, but it’s what Ramuda loves. If there’s any worth in it, then Ramuda wants to show it to him, tinged in this sunshower like the prologue to one of his novels.
The rain lasts but a moment; by the time they’ve stopped beneath the awning of a closed-up cafe, there’s nothing but the wet prints of their shoes to remind them that it had ever been raining at all.
They pause to catch their breath, deep and heaving, and Ramuda turns back to him, ready with apology and teasing in turn. Their eyes meet. The moment holds. Then, as if struck by spring lightning--all at once they laugh like fools, drunk on life as prisoners of a moment they don’t want to leave. Ramuda clutches at Gentaro’s hand as Gentaro doubles over, laughing in that rare, full-bellied way that’s such a treat to hear. Ramuda files it away for later as they slowly calm, wiping away tears they’re lucky enough to be able to dismiss as rain.
“Ramuda,” Gentaro asks, name unbearably fond on his lips even as he plays at exasperation, “What in the world was the purpose of that?”
Ramuda hums. Because you were beautiful probably isn’t what he wants to say, even if it’s what he wants to. Gentaro needs a little more subtlety, a slower build. “For fun!”
Gentaro smiles at him fondly, exasperation but a faint afterthought in the teasing curl of his words. “For fun?”
“You know!” Ramuda chirps, “To feel alive!”
A sharp inhale. The hand still held in Ramuda’s tightens, ever-so-slightly. And as the air between them shifts, Ramuda is powerless but to take Gentaro in.
He is stunning, then, rain dripping from his bangs and laughter on his lips and that light, always that light in his eyes. When did you start looking at me like that, Ramuda wonders, knowing the answer would be earlier than either of them could ever know.
(Yumeno Gentaro is a fool for falling in love with someone just barely clinging to life. An even greater fool, for giving him the magic words that convinced him to live.)
“Ramuda,” he breathes, “I--”
And suddenly Ramuda can’t let him finish--can’t stand the thought that his next words might be just another deflection, another could have been in their long line of false starts. No more, he decides. The journey starts now.
Ramuda surges up on tiptoe and seizes Gentaro by the lapels to drag him down to his level. They stagger off-balance; Gentaro’s hands land on his shoulders, dig into the fabric of his coat. Ramuda reaches up and sinks fingertips into his damp hair, holding him in place as he tilts his head just so.
When their lips meet it’s inelegant but electric, seasons worth of longing sparked sudden into everything their words could never say. Because it is spring, and Yumeno Gentaro is in love--but Ramuda has loved him just as long, and he’s willing to ruin everything, if only for the chance for something more.
They break apart breathless, less so to do with the kiss and more the laughter of the moments before. Or perhaps it really is just the catharsis, stealing all the air between them. The world tries to intrude with the smell of flowers on the wind, the taste of spring humidity on their lips, but nothing can break the hold they have on each other.
“So?” asks Ramuda, watching with pride as Gentaro’s shock melts into satisfaction, “Did you find what you were looking for?”
A thousand things flash across his face, then. Ramuda can only catch a few, but it’s more than enough to understand that, no matter what happens next, it’s going to make this new world shine.
“No,” replies Gentaro, leaning in to steal his lips again, “Not a thing.”