Archive of Our Own ^beta

All along the Lonely Coast, the sea deposited its debris twice a day. The whole bay area stretched half a mile: a clear shot from the lighthouse’s outcrop to the craggy rock pools that enclosed the beach on either side. If one timed oneself correctly, they could make the walk from one end of the coast to the other as the tide receded, collecting its forgotten gems along the way.

Issei had his morning walk scheduled to a fine art. He, of course, had the fortunate advantage of having been raised on the tidal comings and goings, his mother’s old calendar a comforting if unnecessary reminder. He picked his way along the shoreline, kelp and seagrass sticking to his scuffed wellies, one eye on the blip of the lighthouse on the horizon, the other scanning the sand beneath his feet.

It was an overcast morning, the chill hanging in pockets and leaving a damp smudge in the air. Issei retracted his neck like a tortoise inside the collar of his oversized coat. His best woolly hat had gone missing a month ago and he missed it sorely as the breeze cupped the back of his head. He had a worn, brown satchel slung over one shoulder, thumping against his thigh with each step, its interior clacking together every time it did.

He paused, watchful gaze having caught on something, and shifted a clump of brown algae with the toe of his boot. Beneath it, a round, pink shark eye glinted. Issei crouched to pick it up and dusted the sand out of the shell’s crevices. It was smooth and light and surprisingly unchipped, a grain of rice in the centre of his palm. He tucked it carefully inside his satchel and got to his feet.

In the summer months, when the tide ebbed with the languid sun and everything was painted orange and warm in the mornings, Issei would take his time along the beach, sometimes rolling up his trousers and paddling through the shallows as the little fish skipped and darted between his ankles. But on days like today, when the dreariness swaddled everything, he made the journey as efficiently as possible.

He cut his losses for the last few metres (may his mother forgive him wherever she was looking down on him) and jogged through the dry sand to the path of flattened grass jutting through the dunes beside the lighthouse. This was as far as the coast would take him before it turned into cliff face and breakers.

Issei doubled back instead, weaving through the cobbled streets that led into the heart of the town. His cottage occupied its own plot of land out near the rock pools, but his mother’s shop was a blissful midway point and, today, a reprieve from the murky air.

It didn’t hurt to check in anyway. Issei had entrusted Kindaichi with his very own key the week before, which gave Issei mornings off three days a week, and, though he trusted Kindaichi’s capabilities, he was wary of letting the poor boy drown in his own nerves.

The shop was a very green affair: the whole front painted in something between moss and forest, if Issei had to guess. Above the door hung an old sign that had once proclaimed the name of the shop, but the letters had faded so long ago that not even Issei could remember what they’d read. Everyone just called it Kanako’s. The window displayed a selection of sculptures and portraits, frames and jewellery, all rendered entirely out of material that washed up on the Lonely Coast. Issei had mismatched the display with a collection of his mother’s irreplaceable works and some of his own gaudier pieces: classic attention grabbers for touristy eyes. The souvenirs brought in enough traction to keep the shop afloat during the holiday periods, but the real specialty that Kanako’s offered was his mother’s seaweed-based herbal remedies. Most of the townsfolk swore by them.

The cockle shell mobile—that had come from the great mind of a six-year-old Issei—jangled and clattered as he pushed open the door. Everything seemed to be in order; the floors were swept, the shelves neatly stacked and dusted, Kindaichi was seated behind the small counter at the back, and the place was devoid of customers save for the man draped over the counter, chatting to Kindaichi.

Oikawa glanced up when the door clicked shut but, upon realising it was just Issei, he dove right back into his conversation. Issei took his time browsing through the shelves to make sure nothing had been left out of place, then paused beside his two friends, one hand on the strap of his satchel and the other tapping the countertop for their attention.

“Everything go okay this morning?” he asked Kindaichi.

The boy gave him two thumbs up.

“It was fine. We’re out of the winter cold tealeaves though.”

Issei frowned. “Already?”

He turned to scan the shelves of mixed teas and, sure enough, there was an empty space where the jars of the cold medicinal blend usually sat. They always became popular as winter started leaking into the days, but that they’d already run out, that it wasn’t yet December and he’d already have to blend more, was a worrying thought.

Issei had inherited the artist from his mother’s fingertips. He had grown up moulding abstraction between his palms and it came like second nature: here, the curve where a tulip shell could hold a baby’s ear; there, the overlap between two shards of sea glass to catch the light just right. Her remedies and teas, the recipes she had developed through trial and error, he had learned by rote, practising over and over until his hands familiarised themselves with the script. But he’d never had Matsukawa Kanako’s natural affinity for it, how she could tell by smell alone if a tea needed a pinch more ginger or the exact moment the pyropia was finished stewing.

Some days, Issei missed her like a heartbeat.

“I think I’ve got some stored at home. I can bring them in this afternoon.” Issei lifted his satchel by the strap, waving it slightly. “I’m only here to drop these off in the workshop.”

“Seriously, Mattsun, does it ever get too cold for you?” Oikawa asked. “It’s not good for your joints.”

He had straightened up, now stood with one hip against the counter and his arms folded over his chest so his fingers caused ripples in the sleeves over his biceps. It reminded Issei implicitly of Iwaizumi; he wondered if Oikawa was doing it on purpose.

“I’m twenty-six. My joints are fine.”

They weren’t though. They ached something terrible in the winter. Overnight, they cramped and turned tender and raw come morning.

“You know, I could take over some mornings for you, if you showed me what to look for. You do kind of pay me to be your assistant,” Kindaichi said.

Issei pressed a hand lightly to Kindaichi’s shoulder as he squeezed past to get to the backroom-turned-studio.

“Oh, don’t bother. He is his mother’s humble son, Yuutarou. He’ll never let anyone work a day for him as long as there’s blood in his veins.”

Issei smiled as he pressed down on the doorhandle, slipping out of sight into the workshop. He was his mother’s son, raised on art and absurdism and the tug of the tide like a knot in his gut. He didn’t think he could keep his body away from the shoreline if he tried.

The workshop had a single, ancient, and terribly dim overhead light and seven lamps that Issei had placed at intervals around the workspace. He switched on the one that rested precariously on the edge of what was loosely the sorting table. There was order to Issei’s chaos, but only just.

He scooped the day’s spoils out of his satchel one by one, laying them to rest in the appropriate trays. Tourism would be low until March, which meant that the coming months were dedicated to Issei’s passion projects. Amongst his findings that morning were the perfect pink shark eye, which had been an auspicious spot, and several coloured glass pebbles worn smooth by the ocean. Issei’s sea glass collection had been dwindling since his last session on the sculpture he was currently designing, but a couple more lucky days like this and he would be back on track.

Satisfied that everything was in its rightful place, Issei reshouldered the now empty satchel, flicked off the lamp, and let himself back out into the open shop.

Oikawa was nowhere in sight anymore, but Issei had no doubt he would hear from him later. Oikawa’s apprenticeship at the auto repair two shops down and across the street made dropping in on one another mid-shift dangerously convenient. Two more customers had replaced Oikawa; Issei recognised Enaga Fumi, who would be looking for a refill on her arthritic pain-relieving paste. Kindaichi was wrapped in some sort of Q&A with the other customer, a teenager whom Issei definitely recognised but whose name escaped him, so Issei rounded the counter with only a wave in his direction and a bow towards Enaga.

The quickest route from the shop to his cottage was only an eight-minute walk and it was too cold for Issei to consider detouring, so he followed the main street for a stretch, before turning right down an alley and cutting across the field that separated the town centre from the houses in his area.

His was the nearest to the sea, set apart slightly from the others because of a dip in the topography. Issei had grown up in this house—had, in fact, been born in the little bathroom, though he tried not to think about that too much. It had always been his mother and him: the two of them in their friendly cottage against the world. After she had passed away, bits and pieces of Issei had overgrown her lingering presence until the cottage was no longer theirs in his head but just, simply, his. The thought gnawed at him if he prodded it too much, but Oikawa assured him it was very healthy not to maintain the cottage as a tomb to her memory.

He’d let the garden grow wild after that. While his mother was a meticulous green thumb with a love of well-trimmed hedges, Issei liked letting the grass grow uneven, the wildflowers peeking through in misplaced patches and the hedges overflowing with twigs and leaves. He picked his way through it now, the path mossy and slimy and barely visible through the undergrowth, all the way to the front door.

Here, he paused.

A pair of steel-toed boots lay scattered on the doorstep. The laces were mismatched, one a hideous neon orange, the other in stripes of faded green and blue, and the heel of the right one was held in place by electrical tape. Issei looked at them for a long, burning moment. Then, he set them upright and lined them up neatly at the end of the doorstep. He stepped out of his own wellies, pressing them close to the steel-toed boots, and twisted the doorhandle. All the while, a candle blazed slowly to life in his chest.

Takahiro had come home.

“You’re out of the biscuits I like,” a voice called as soon as the door clicked open.

Issei took his time hanging his satchel from the hook on the back of the door and sliding his coat off, one arm at a time.

“No, I’m not,” he said as he rounded the corner where the corridor turned into the kitchen.

The first thing he saw was his missing woolly hat, bobbing at waist height. Beneath it, the long stretch of Takahiro’s pale neck, wisps of hair tickling at the nape, shoulders in a pre-emptive festive peppermint swirl jumper, Takahiro’s spine curved over his core as he crouched in front of the open cupboard.

“I had to move them. Celery figured out how to get into the low cupboards.”

Issei leaned over Takahiro to reach into the cupboard above the worktop. He braced himself with a hand on the juncture of Takahiro’s neck and shoulder. His skin was chilly despite the fire Issei had left heating the house that morning.

Issei pulled the jammie dodgers out from behind a box of rice cakes and held them out to Takahiro. Takahiro didn’t take them, tilting his head back instead so that it brushed against Issei’s stomach. From this angle, his smile was upturned, his tongue pink-headed and peeking out from the gap between his front teeth. Issei memorised the dip of his bottom lip to accommodate his canines.

“Hi,” Takahiro said.

“You’re wearing my hat,” Issei said and dropped the jammie dodgers into Takahiro’s lap.

He left the kitchen, crossing the corridor to the living room opposite. Celery was curled up in a cardboard box beneath the coffee table, making the most of the smouldering fireplace. Takahiro’s rucksack lay on its side on the floor by the sofa, unzipped so that Issei could see a pair of binoculars, a battered poetry book, and a half-empty jar of his mother’s analgesic balm spilling out. The sofa cushions were rumpled and squint, one of the pillows discarded on the floor. Issei automatically began straightening them out.

“First winter rain—I plod on, traveller, my name.”

Takahiro climbed over the arm of the sofa and settled into the cushion Issei had just finished smoothing out, dropping crumbs from the dodger in his hand. Issei squinted at him.

“That’s impressive,” he said. “How long did it take you to memorise that one?”

Takahiro laughed.

“You don’t know where I’ve been. I could have become someone who quotes Basho off the top of my head.”

Issei took the other end of the sofa, kicking his feet up on the coffee table. There was an itch under his ribs, on the left side of his chest, and he rubbed his fingers across the tender spot before beckoning to Takahiro.

“Give it here, then.”

Takahiro leaned over to extract the poetry book from his rucksack and placed it in Issei’s outstretched hand. He crunched on another biscuit, filling the silence while Issei flipped through the pages. The verses were filled with pencilled underlines and exclamation points in the margins, but it was impossible to tell if they had been done by Takahiro or whoever had owned the book before him. Issei paid careful attention to the dogeared pages anyway, just in case.

Takahiro wiggled his toes underneath Issei’s thigh. “I can do one more.”

Issei closed the book around his index finger, resting it in his lap and nodding. Takahiro looked at the fire crackling away and twisted the plastic jammie dodger packet between his hands.

“Peony,” he said, his voice soft and liquid. “The bee can’t bear to part.”

Issei followed his gaze to the fire. He slipped his finger out of the book and put it on the empty cushion between them, underneath Takahiro’s bent legs, because he felt like ripping it in half. He felt like crying. Takahiro was right. He couldn’t, he couldn’t bear it.

“I have to find some tealeaves,” he said eventually. He got up, stepping carefully over Takahiro’s rucksack and adding over his shoulder, “I’m going into the shop this afternoon.”

“Ooh, can I come?”

Issei paused in the doorway, one hand on the frame. He watched his knuckles tense and relax as he flexed his fingers, thought about the cold morning seeping into his joints. He thought, no, I can’t bear to part.

“’Course. Come help me dig through the cupboard, though.”

They pulled everything out of the old linen cupboard that had become a storage for Kanako’s remedies. Going through his mother’s things was always a double-edged blade for Issei; he loved cupping a jar in his hand and knowing a piece of his mother’s heart had been tenderly packaged inside, and yet with each shelf they cleared he had to tighten his tamp on the urge to smash them all to pieces. He missed her and for that, he both loved and hated her.

“How does it work though?” Takahiro asked abruptly. He was cross-legged on the floor, sorting through the stacks they had made while Issei rooted around through what was left in the cupboard.

When Issei didn’t say anything, Takahiro added, “The recipes. Did you, like, inherit her magic?”

“It’s not magic. Just good old-fashioned TLC.”

He finally found the box of tea he knew he’d shoved down here once upon a time. He dragged it out and picked his way over the jars scattered on the floor to deposit the box in the kitchen doorway, where it couldn’t accidentally get packed back in with everything else. He slid down the wall opposite Takahiro, knees bent up to his chest, and picked up two of the unorganised jars.

“When you do something with love, for someone you love, it makes its own magic,” he said, peering at the label on one jar. It was written in his mother’s hand.

Takahiro twisted the lid on and off a jar of sleep ointment, letting the scent of cedar escape into the air between them. Issei knew he would recognise Kanako in the phrase; he’d never met her, but Issei spoke of her often enough. He wasn’t sure why he’d even said it. He didn’t feel like talking about her today.

“Your mum sounds about ten times cooler than you.”

Issei smiled, his fingers brushing his mother’s handwriting on the label, but he didn’t say anything, so Takahiro continued:

“What’s this for anyway?”

“Helps you sleep.” Issei reached for Takahiro’s wrist when he made to unscrew the lid again. “You’re letting the aroma out.”

“Can I use it?”

Issei frowned. “I’ll see if I have the recipe written down. I don’t think I’ve made that one before. Are you having trouble sleeping?”

“Not really.”

Takahiro set the cedarwood ointment aside and began collecting one of his piles of jars into his arms, transferring them to an empty shelf in the cupboard. Issei quietly followed suit.

Takahiro had first shown up on the Lonely Coast two years ago. He’d been rougher around the edges back then, less comfortable and always looking over his shoulder. He had ducked into Kanako’s to get out of the January wind and Issei had just never let him go. (The bee can’t bear to part.)

Issei had learned Takahiro in bits and pieces: he was always moving, running, towards something or away from something it was difficult to say; he didn’t have a last name, at least not one that was important enough for Issei to know; he liked jammie dodgers and cats and stretching out on Issei’s couch; his canines caught in his bottom lip when he smiled; and if you tried to hold him in one place for too long, he would disintegrate through your fingertips.

So Issei always touched him with an open palm.

So Issei let the conversation slip away without pushing.

Takahiro kept Issei’s woolly hat for the walk into town, despite the wind having relaxed its grip on the afternoon air. They took the shortcut through the field again because it was still chilly and because Takahiro liked spinning through the grass, his arms outstretched to catch the open air between his fingertips.

When they passed the auto repair, Issei spotted Oikawa behind the counter that fronted the shop. Takahiro stood on his tiptoes behind Issei’s shoulder and, in the glass, Issei caught sight of the faces he pulled at Oikawa, who waved them off without breaking his conversation with a customer.

Issei’s phone pinged just as he was settling behind the counter, having sent Kindaichi on his way.

“Tell Takahiro he’s banned from the mechanic,” Issei read aloud. Takahiro laughed but didn’t look up from where he was poking through a collection of bracelets.

dont think u have the authority, Issei texted Oikawa, and tell him urself we’re ten metres away.

Takahiro always loved being in the shop. Issei knew it was at least in part because he really did think Kanako was ten times cooler than her son, but he didn’t mind because he equally loved watching Takahiro in the shop. He was interested in everything.

Issei was familiar, usually, with the imbalance in their experiences; Takahiro knew the world intimately in all of its grandeur, and Issei knew only the stretch of land between the rock pools and the lighthouse. But in his mother’s shop, Issei held a corner of the world that Takahiro had yet to touch and, for those few quiet moments, Issei was allowed to watch his face scrunched in curiosity, in discovery.

He wanted to know everything always about Kanako’s ointments and remedies, but he’d developed an interest in the art pieces tucked into the other side of the shop when he had learned the vast majority of them were sculpted by Issei’s hands. He spent the first half hour running his fingers over magnets and picture frames, and Issei watched him privately out of the corner of his eye.

“Here, stick these on the shelf for me,” Issei said when the shop was empty but for the two of them.

He held up a jar of the winter cold tealeaves and gestured to the collection on the counter that he’d just finished packaging. Takahiro scooped up as many as he could hold in one hand and went on a hunt for the empty space on the shelves, while Issei spooned the rest of the leaves from the box into the last jar.

The shop was quiet for the afternoon, the biting air keeping the streets mostly empty. Issei let Takahiro poke around the workshop when he got bored of the display section, and Issei spent the better part of a few hours going through the few of his mother’s notebooks he kept behind the counter. He found a recipe for a jasmine-based sleep ointment, but not the cedarwood one Takahiro had grown attached to. He shoved the notebook into his satchel anyway, figuring he’d just need to trial and error the modification.

Takahiro was still in the studio when Issei started closing up the shop, turning down the blinds and storing away the remedies that needed to be refrigerated overnight, and Oikawa showed up at the glass door.

Issei unlocked the door again to let an oil-stained Oikawa inside, dragging Iwaizumi behind him. He bumped fists with them both and pushed the door closed once more.

“Where are you hiding the delinquent, Mattsun?”

Issei didn’t get a chance to respond before Takahiro appeared in the doorway to the backroom. He had pulled off Issei’s hat at some point—his hair was staticky underneath, longer and more unruly than last time Issei had seen him—and he’d changed out one of his earrings for a dangling string of groatie buckies that Issei recognised as his own work.

“Well well, look what the cat dragged in,” Takahiro said and Issei caught his canines glinting when he grinned.

Oikawa gasped. “That is so rude! I can’t believe you would say that about Hajime.”

Issei nudged his elbow against Iwaizumi’s bicep and they shared an eye roll. He left Takahiro to catch up with their friends while he finished packing up the shop and making sure the cupboard where he tucked his current work in progress was still safely locked. He never minded Takahiro picking his way through the inside of Issei’s brain, but until the sculpture was complete, it was his first well-kept secret.

When he slipped back into the main shop area, Iwaizumi had a hand in the pocket of Oikawa’s jacket and one foot out the front door.

“Come on, Tooru,” he was saying. “They probably have plans.”

“Mattsun, you’re always whisking Takahiro away as soon as he gets here. What if I want Takahiro time?”

Even as he spoke, Oikawa was sliding his hand alongside Iwaizumi’s in his pocket, which meant the argument was already won.

“Issei’s cooking me dinner,” Takahiro said. He had taken over Issei’s stool behind the counter and he was leaning his chin on one hand, smiling with his tongue between his teeth.

“I am not. You ate my jammie dodgers, you can cook dinner.”

Issei could see the jut of Takahiro’s bottom lip out of the corner of his eye so he resolutely stared at the shop window. Iwaizumi pulled Oikawa another step out the door.

“I’ll see you Sunday,” he said to Issei and offered Takahiro a wave. Takahiro returned it with a wiggle of his fingers without removing his chin from his palm.

“I’ll see you before Sunday,” Oikawa said.

The door clipped shut on Iwaizumi growling, “It’s not a competition, Shittykawa.”

Takahiro was still smiling fondly at the closed door, so Issei hooked his hand under Takahiro’s bicep, dislodging him from the counter.

“C’mon, I’m hungry.”

He swung his satchel over his shoulder and let Takahiro out the door first, locking it behind them. The light was waning beyond the horizon as evening drew across the coast, so they stuck to the streetlamps of the main street instead of cutting through the field. Takahiro glued himself shoulder to hip to Issei’s side. He had Issei’s woolly hat on again, pulled down low over his ears, and his shoulders were hunched against the cold. Issei switched his satchel to the other arm and hooked their elbows together, keeping Takahiro pressed up against him.

Takahiro kicked his shoes off outside the house and let himself in while Issei was still unlacing his trainers. His wellies were still on the doorstep from that morning and he returned Takahiro’s boots to the empty space beside them, taking his own shoes to the shoe rack just inside the front door.

He followed Takahiro to the living room, where he was stood with his hands stretched out in front of him over the fireplace. Issei’s fire from that morning had burned itself to embers, but the room still held the warmth of the day. He nudged Takahiro to the side so he could stack kindling on the dwindling fire, stoking the ashes a few times and chucking a log on top.

“It’ll catch in a minute,” he said, turning around on his knees to look for Celery who had abandoned her fireside bed.

Takahiro leant against Issei’s shoulder with one hand, bending down so he could pick up Issei’s wrist and tug it towards him.

“What time did you get up this morning?” he asked as he pulled back Issei’s sleeve.

“About seven. Why?”

Takahiro tapped the glass face of Issei’s watch and dropped his hand.

“Go take off your binder. I’ll cook.”

He squeezed between Issei and the coffee table and disappeared across the corridor. Issei hadn’t really been serious about Takahiro making dinner, but he did as he was told because at least now they were home he could wear the biggest hoodie he owned, and because the itch underneath the left side of his ribcage had progressed from annoying twinge to dull ache.

They ate steaming bowls of soba on the living room floor in front of the fire and Celery crept out from wherever she had been hiding to sniff at the hard-boiled egg in Takahiro’s bowl and Issei’s quiet cottage felt lived in once more.

Issei took the bathroom first, so while Takahiro was washing up after him, he spread several drops of the cedar sleep ointment over the pillow on the left of his bed. They had long since given up the pretence of Takahiro sleeping on the sofa. For one thing, he was too long for the cushions and always woke with a cramp in his calves; for another, it was easier to keep warm on winter nights when you had a living furnace beside you; and mostly, there was no point pretending that either of them would rather sleep apart. Issei knew he couldn’t keep Takahiro for long, so he settled for closeness on the days that he was allowed to hold onto him.

“Mm, smells nice,” Takahiro said as he crawled underneath the blankets.

Issei was stretched out on his back, but he turned his head to the side to watch Takahiro curl up facing him and press his nose into the linen pillowcase. Issei didn’t say anything, just let himself look for a long, peaceful moment, until Takahiro closed his eyes and Issei took it as permission to turn onto his back again.

“Can you cut my hair tomorrow?” Takahiro asked, the words warm and honeyed with sleep. “It’s tickling my neck.”

“Tomorrow,” Issei agreed with his eyes squeezed shut.

At least there was that. At least he had been promised a tomorrow.

Issei only had Takahiro for five days. His visits could range anywhere from an evening to a week, depending on how restless he was feeling. On one memorable occasion he had stuck around for two whole weeks while he became particularly invested in the outcome of Oikawa and Iwaizumi dancing around their feelings. (Issei had bought the two of them a cake after that and pointedly ignored the squint Oikawa gave him in return.)

This time, he showed up on Tuesday morning and slipped out on Saturday evening with a still warm bento that Issei had shoved into his arms. Five days was better than none. It was better than spending the week curled up by the front window and watching the frost climb the pane, waiting for someone who never came.

Truthfully, Issei was grateful for five days.

On Sunday, he took his walk along the beachfront at a stroll, letting the air bite his bare hands until they were red and stiff. His hair was cocooned under his best woolly hat. The tide had offered very few treasures and the sky was grey and heavy with clouds, which Issei thought was a bit on the nose for the morning after Takahiro had left.

When he made it to the other end of the beach, he climbed up through the sand dunes and picked his way along the cliff to the lighthouse. Iwaizumi had left the door propped open for him, a walking boot squished against the jamb, so Issei let himself in. He flexed his fingers in the sudden warmth and slowly unravelled himself from his winter gear.

Iwaizumi was in the large kitchen, one of only two rooms at the bottom of the lighthouse. He had a fire roaring in the grate under the stove and he was steaming bok choy with his back to the door when Issei entered.

“Smells good,” he said by way of greeting.

Iwaizumi glanced over his shoulder and Issei didn’t miss the way his gaze flickered to the empty doorway behind Issei.

“Takahiro’s gone?”

Takahiro had an open invitation to Sunday brunches when he was in town for them, much to Oikawa’s chagrin as he’d never been invited to one in his life. Sometimes Takahiro would chat with them over food or help out with the cooking, but more often than not he would leave Issei and Iwaizumi to their own devices and wander upstairs, where Oikawa was usually spending a lazy morning in Iwaizumi’s bed.

“He left last night. What can I help with?”

Iwaizumi had both hands full, scraping minced garlic into the steamer, so he inclined his head towards the kitchen bench beside him.

“You could put some rice on.”

Issei plugged in the rice cooker and the morning slipped into its easy routine around him. He loved Sunday brunches because no matter what kind of mood he was in, Iwaizumi would set him to work in the kitchen like nothing else mattered. Issei rarely had very much of anything to say and Iwaizumi was the only person who really seemed to get it. Talking at Sunday brunch was an optional extracurricular, the way it was an obligation with everyone else.

Issei cooked rice and found some oranges in Iwaizumi’s fridge, cut them into thin slices and laid them out on a glass plate. Iwaizumi left his garlic bok choy steaming while he chargrilled two fillets of red seabream. And all around them the lighthouse was filled with the quiet sound of sizzling and slicing.

After his mother had passed away and his cottage had become overwhelmed with neighbours calling to force tinfoil-covered meals into his arms or sit holding his hand at the kitchen table, Issei had hidden himself away in Iwaizumi’s lighthouse for a week because he had been desperate for some quiet. Iwaizumi had let him grieve in silence, which was the way Issei liked to do everything, but never ever on his own. So he came back every Sunday and they were quiet but they were together and it was how Issei knew best to process the week.

Because Takahiro had been in town for five days, Iwaizumi let Issei choose when they would talk and he waited until they had a full spread between them on the table and Iwaizumi’s mouth was full of fish.

“I’m going to try some more of my mum’s recipes,” he said. He was trying to catch an evasive chickpea between his chopsticks instead of looking at Iwaizumi.

Iwaizumi swallowed. “That’s good. You find something in particular?”

“Takahiro likes this sleep remedy I’ve never made.”

It was true; Issei hadn’t seen him slip the jar into his rucksack, but it was gone by the time Issei was climbing into bed. He was pretty sure it was the last of the stuff so he’d have to figure it out before Takahiro came back.

It wasn’t the whole truth though. He’d found another recipe. It was scrawled on a loose sheet of paper tucked into the back of one of Kanako’s notebooks, messy and criss-crossed with revisions and only half complete like she’d never gotten the chance to finish it, but it had made Issei well up like a little kid when he realised what it was for. This was his second secret.

Iwaizumi tapped his chopsticks against his plate, before reaching to snag a piece of bok choy. He didn’t eat it, just held it halfway to his closed mouth and stared at nothing. Issei finally trapped his chickpea against a wall of rice and scooped it into his mouth.

“Is it any good?” Iwaizumi finally asked. “I think Tooru could probably use some.”

This was how Sunday brunch worked: they never had to talk about anything they didn’t want to, but anything they did had to be honest. Sunday brunch was where Issei had explained his mother’s diagnosis, how it felt to watch someone you loved being eaten from the inside out. It was at Sunday brunch that Iwaizumi had admitted he was scared one day Oikawa would wake up and not like him anymore. It was easier, sometimes, to be honest unprompted.

“He’s not sleeping?” Issei was careful with his words, trying to make them an invitation without turning them into a question.

Iwaizumi shrugged, mouth full of bok choy.

“He never sleeps well. He’s just trying to hide it from me now which, you know, means something’s wrong.”

Issei thought about the few times he’d seen Oikawa the past week, flitting between Kanako’s and the auto repair, always with a smile and a peace sign and a sparkle in his eyes. He couldn’t pinpoint any sign of Oikawa spiralling and maybe Iwaizumi was right, maybe that was the problem in and of itself.

“Takahiro was cagey about it. Told me he wasn’t having problems but took the ointment anyway,” Issei offered.

Truth for a truth; this was how Sunday brunch worked.

“Idiots,” Iwaizumi said and Issei smiled and took another stab at a chickpea.

Their conversation was cut off by a shuffling on the spiral staircase outside the kitchen doorway and Oikawa appeared, barefoot and dragging a hefty blanket around his shoulders. He didn’t so much as greet them as he crossed the kitchen, beelining for the fridge.

“Oi,” Iwaizumi stuck his leg out to kick Oikawa’s ankle on his way past, “no cis people allowed at brunch.”

Oikawa turned around with the fridge door open, one hand fisted around the ends of the blanket to keep it tight across his shoulders.

“I’m just here for milk. Are you going to start gatekeeping milk now?”

“I might,” Iwaizumi said into his next mouthful of rice.

Oikawa hooked his fingers through the handle of the milk carton and brought it to the table, sitting in an empty chair between Issei and Iwaizumi. Issei flipped over his left hand to check his watch; technically it was after midday which meant technically Sunday brunch rules no longer applied.

“Takahiro didn’t come see me this morning,” Oikawa said. He unscrewed the milk and took a giant swig straight from the carton. Iwaizumi made a face but didn’t reprimand him.

“Takahiro is probably halfway to Canada by now,” Issei said.

He didn’t know, really, where Takahiro was headed. He never knew where the next stop on Takahiro’s map was after he left the Lonely Coast. Sometimes, Takahiro would tell him about towns he had visited, trainlines he had crossed, doorways he had slept in. A lot of times, he would say nothing at all and Issei would never ask. The knowing was worse, somehow, than the not knowing. Issei tried not to think about the other boys in other coastal towns whose beds Takahiro might have borrowed for a night or five.

“Already? What’d he leave you for your shrine this time?”

Across the table, Iwaizumi looped his hand around Oikawa’s wrist to get his attention, ever the tact to Oikawa’s bluntness. Issei didn’t reply but he thought about the collection of Basho poetry tucked between two sofa cushions, his woolly hat discarded beside it. He thought about the cedarwood ointment and the groatie buckie earring disappearing in their place. He thought about give and take, about Takahiro patching a hole in Issei’s favourite jeans whilst Issei cut Takahiro’s split ends. He thought about the pieces of Issei’s hometown Takahiro always carried with him, and how he always found his way to bring them safely back home.

This was Issei’s shrine: the bedroom that once held his mother’s quiet existence and now housed the entire world besides. It had started as a Curtea Veche pen, carved into the shape of a wooden stake with Home of The Impaler! scrawled along the side in English, which had hurt too much to look at. But Takahiro had come back (again and again and again) and Issei had stopped treating the spare room as a hidden time capsule and instead turned it into a monument to the world that Takahiro tracked through his cottage, like mud caked on his steel-toed boots.

He didn’t think Takahiro was deliberately collecting souvenirs, but he was a scavenger by nature and he could never resist a cheap, gaudy pen in a museum shop or a forgotten poetry book on an empty train seat. So maybe it was a shrine; Issei wasn’t embarrassed about it.

After brunch, after accepting the plastic container of leftovers from Iwaizumi, after trudging through the cold and dewy field on his way home, Issei cracked open the door to his shrine with the poetry collection in hand. Because Takahiro had left yesterday and because Issei knew best how to grieve in silence, he curled up in the armchair beside the frosted window.

The armchair was the only thing left from his mother’s bedroom; the rest of the room was all Takahiro. Issei drew a blanket that he was fairly sure someone on a remote Scottish island had actually knitted for Takahiro across his knees and opened the book. Although he’d read a good third of it already, he started from the beginning again. Whoever had pencilled in their annotations was heavy-handed, leaving dents in the yellowed pages. Issei brushed his fingers along the lump of an underline and thought about how the emphasis had fallen on Takahiro’s tongue when he read haikai aloud.

This was Issei’s shrine: a quiet place to sit when Takahiro wasn’t home and watch the frost climb the windowpane and wait in silence because it was the only way Issei knew how to do it.

Three weeks after he left the Lonely Coast, Takahiro wrote to him. It was one of only a handful of letters he had sent Issei over the years. Usually, Issei wouldn’t hear from him in the months of absence, but he recognised the slant of Takahiro’s kanji immediately.

He took the letter into the kitchen, unfolding it carefully as the kettle boiled and smoothing out the creases with his fingertips.

Peony, Takahiro had written at the top of the sheet and it was enough to give Issei pause. He pressed his fingers to the characters, as if he could memorise the shape of them, as if he could know them better by touch alone.

Issei had assumed that he was the bee, constantly reaching for Takahiro, dragging him deeper inside the cottage as if that would keep him there longer, because Issei couldn’t bear to part. But he thought about Takahiro being drawn back to the coast by some invisible force. Takahiro with the entire world laid out before him, grabbing what he could and bringing it home to Issei the way Celery would drag skua corpses across his doorstep like a gift.

And that was something, wasn’t it? To be the flowering bud at the centre of Takahiro’s apian flight.

Issei read on.

I’m in Paraguay writing this but I won’t be by the time it gets to you. I think I’m going south—as south as I can—for now. A lovely pub landlady let me kip behind her bar for a couple nights so rest assured I am feeling very humbled. I never miss your bed more than when I’m on the road.

I am learning Spanish in bits and pieces as I go. So far I can say “hello” and “do you have a spare seat in your truck?” and “can I pet your dog?”. I’m travelling now with a group of tradesmen going south to look for work and we’ve a handful of English between the six of us, so we make do. We drove by a mural of graffiti yesterday and I had one of the guys translate a quote into English. (Here, Takahiro had transcribed the original Spanish of which Issei could make neither head nor tail.) I’ve totally butchered it into Japanese and it probably lost a lot of the flavour along the way but it made me think of you:

“Your hands, which are not. My years, which have already been.

And a dream on its knees after the unspoken word.”

Anyway, your mission should you choose to accept it is to tell me everything you’ve learned about Josefina Plá next time I see you.

Give Celery an extra treat from me and tell our boys I miss them and I’ll try to be home for brunch next time.

Love,

Your reluctantly parting bee

Behind him, the kettle whistled shrilly but Issei blocked it out, reading snippets of Takahiro’s letter over and over again. I miss your bed. It made me think of you. A dream on its knees. Your reluctantly parting bee. Your, your, your. He spread his hand open on the countertop, pressing his palm to the cool wood. Takahiro wasn’t his. Takahiro wasn’t anyone’s, because he never stayed anywhere long enough to belong.

Then Issei thought I’ll try to be home three times in a row, thought this is Takahiro’s home, and the kettle screamed a crescendo and Celery went skittering across the flagstone floor in a panic so Issei finally flicked off the gas.

He took his tea into the front room that held his shrine, along with the letter and the battered copy of Basho’s poetry. He brought up the webpage on his phone first, typing in Josefina Plá just to see what it would give him. He scrolled through her Wiki page, but beyond that most of the sources were in Spanish and he couldn’t find any translations of her poetry.

He dismissed it for tomorrow’s problem, when he would walk down to the library and pick Michimiya’s encyclopaedic brain. He turned, instead, to the letter spread open on the small table beside the armchair, the poetry book, and the blank sheet he had ripped from a leatherbound notebook Takahiro had picked up once in Alaska.

This was what he knew: Takahiro thought of him, missed him, when he was gone; Issei didn’t care for visiting the world at large so Takahiro brought the world to his doorstep piece by piece; he was the peony from which Takahiro’s bee couldn’t bear to part; and Takahiro was coming home (home!) again.

Issei picked up the poetry book and let it fall open in his lap. He’d made new cracks in the spine over his favourite pages. He reread the verse on the page it had opened to—this one Issei had underlined himself. He didn’t know where Takahiro was, who he was with, whose bed he might sleep in that night, but he knew Takahiro was always on his way home, no matter how roundabout the route.

On the blank sheet, Issei wrote You are the Mogami river, yanking the burning sky into the sea, but he had no address to send it to.

It was another month before the book Michimiya had special ordered for him arrived. It was a translated copy of a textbook on South American art and literature, and it was more than worth the wait.

Issei picked it up on his way into town after his tidal walk and brought it into the shop, thumping it down on the counter while he cleaned and prepared to open. He was grateful for the quiet morning, the lack of customers allowing him plenty of time to flip through the glossy pages. He glanced briefly through the index and skipped straight to the chapter on Plá. The first section was much the same information as he had found on Wikipedia. She was Spanish by birth but a naturalised Paraguayan, a poet, an artist, and a cultural phenomenon. There were several lines from her poems, the hiragana transposed next to the Latin script, but nothing that hinted at the quote Takahiro had found spray painted on the wall.

Issei flipped the page and stopped. This hadn’t been on Wikipedia. The double spread was filled with photographs of Josefina Plá’s artistic work. He hadn’t realised she was a sculptor. His eyes travelled down the page, marvelling at her detail, the smooth edges of her pieces, and her colour contrast. She worked primarily in ceramic, he could see, and several prominent pieces were either busts or portraits. He wondered if Takahiro had known this, if maybe the tradesman who had done the translation for him had turned around and said, “and by the way she’s a sculptor so you can tell your little artist friend to look her up for inspiration”. It seemed unlikely.

It seemed even less likely that Takahiro would have guessed Issei’s first secret, the one he kept locked away in the shop’s work studio. Even still, looking at the Josefina Plá sculptures sent a thrum through Issei’s fingertips, eager to wrap around clay and earth.

Business wasn’t exactly booming at this time of year, so Issei took a half day. At noon, he flipped the closed sign in the front door, turned out the main shop lights, and disappeared into the backroom. He upended his satchel, sorting through the bits and pieces from his morning’s foraging, with the textbook open on the table beside him.

Amongst the sea debris, he found the crumpled sheet of Kanako’s notebook paper he had taken to carrying around with him.

Well, Issei figured, two birds.

Kanako had had an old stove installed in the workshop so she could leave seaweed stewing while she served customers. Issei generally made the remedies at home and brought them in pre-packaged for fear that he might do something wrong and set the whole shop stinking of burnt pyropia, but he’d left some of the dried ingredients in the cupboards just in case.

He dragged out a heavy, steel pot, filled it with water, and set it to boil on the stovetop. He found a jar of dried red kelp and chucked the whole lot in, leaving it to soften out in the hot water. On top of the pot, he put together a makeshift bain marie out of a heatproof bowl his mother used to caramelise sugar. He crushed handfuls of dehydrated strawberries into the bowl and let them simmer over the heat.

While the berries were melting, Issei unlocked the cupboard and carefully removed his half-finished sculpture. He set it on the only tabletop free from the clutter of debris and ingredients and smoothed his fingers along the mortar between each glass shard. He hadn’t had a chance to really look at it since he’d finished the sea glass base. The grouting had dried grainy and rough to the touch, but he hoped a few coats of paint and a glaze would clean it up.

Once the strawberries were more liquid than solid, Issei mixed them with water and a cup of corn starch that had been sitting in the workshop for who knew how long. He refilled the bain marie with blackberries and tipped half of the red paint into an empty jar. The rest he diluted until it faded to a peachy pink, then turned his blackberries into a deep blue paint. He cracked mustard seeds into another mixture to make a yellow paint and mixed and matched his colours until he had enough shades to begin painting along the mortar, careful around the edges of the already coloured glass.

He had finished two coats by the time he realised the sun had disappeared behind the tiny workshop window and his kelp was soft and bloated in the pot. He turned off the heat, fished out the seaweed and packed it into jars to be blended and turned into his second secret at home.

He left the shop with the textbook under his arm, a buoy in his step, and the knowledge that Takahiro would be coming home soon. And when he did, Issei might just have two secrets and a dissertation on Josefina Plá waiting for him.

Issei had handed the shop off to Kindaichi for the afternoon the next time Takahiro showed up, so he was lying on the sofa with Celery kneading her paws against his stomach when the door creaked open. He knew it was Takahiro by the footsteps in the corridor and he shifted the arm over his eyes up his forehead to peer blearily at the figure in the doorway.

“Hiro,” he said. He’d only been half asleep but his voice came out all blurred around the edges and soft in the middle. Celery dug her claws in for a moment at the sudden vibrations through his chest beneath her.

Takahiro climbed over the arm of the sofa—because he could never just round it like a normal person, the heathen—and nudged Issei’s legs apart so he could slide in between them. With his back to the arm and his own knees crushed up against his chest, Takahiro leant into Issei’s right leg, his hand cupping the underside of Issei’s thigh.

“I’m back,” he said, rather obviously.

Issei was still riding the wrong side of consciousness and he hadn’t seen Takahiro in nearly three months, so he didn’t have the energy to reign in his smile. He reached with the hand that wasn’t covering his face, snapping his fingers against his palm until Takahiro obliged. He stretched his leg over the top of Issei’s so that Issei could hold him by the ankle, rub his thumb over the knot of bone there, remind himself that Takahiro was home, that they both were.

“It’s only three pm,” Takahiro said. His fingers tapped out an abstract rhythm against Issei’s thigh.

“Mm, I’m ‘wake.”

Issei forced himself to rub the sleep out of his eyes with the heel of his palm. He tried to shift into a little more upright position without dislodging Takahiro, but as soon as he moved Takahiro retracted his limbs like a spooked octopus and Celery shot off his chest and underneath the coffee table. Issei sighed and pulled his own legs onto his side of the sofa.

Takahiro wound one arm around his knees, resting his chin in the dip between them, and pointed at the coffee table.

“I see someone did his homework.”

Issei smiled at the textbook he had been using as a coaster. He’d definitely renewed it from the library more times than he should have been allowed, but Michimiya assured him that South American culture textbooks weren’t in high demand and as long as he brought it back eventually, she didn’t mind.

“I couldn’t find the quote you saw,” Issei said.

He scratched his nails against the sofa cushion between them until Celery leaped up to see what he was doing. She quickly lost interest in Issei’s fingers, rubbing her head against Takahiro’s shin instead. He dropped his hands from around his knees to scratch behind her ears.

“No? Did you find anything else?”

“A few things.” Issei leaned forward, sliding his empty glass onto the coffee table so that he could pull the book into his lap. “Did you know she was a sculptor?”

Takahiro blinked at him, his hand paused hovering above Celery’s head. Issei took it as a no. Between them, Celery let out a plaintive mewl and Takahiro lowered his hand, releasing his surprise in a breath of laughter.

“Are you serious? I have a type.”

It should have been a joke but the way Takahiro said it, all air and quirked lips, made it sound more like a revelation. Issei folded the corner of the page he had open back and forth just for something to do with his hands. Takahiro didn’t seem to notice; he scooped Celery into his arms, shifting onto the vacant middle cushion, and deposited her in his lap.

“Let’s see them,” he said. His breath was warm against Issei’s neck as he leaned in to see the textbook.

Issei thought about tilting the book so Takahiro could read it from his own personal space, decided it wasn’t worth the effort. Instead, he flipped to the doubled spread of Josefina Plá’s artwork which he had tabbed with half a receipt. Takahiro whistled a breath through his teeth and slouched until his cheek squished against Issei’s shoulder.

“These are awesome.”

Issei could feel the shift and tense of his jaw as he spoke.

“Just tell me you wish I was her,” he said, just to feel Takahiro’s smile through his skin.

“I wish you were her.”

Issei shrugged his shoulder so that Takahiro jostled against him. He slid his fingers around the inside of Issei’s elbow in response, holding him in place. Celery flicked her tail against Takahiro’s thigh and yawned as she curled up against his stomach.

Issei thought, yes, this is home.

“Maybe if you wrote me some dramatic poetry about my hands, then you would be my favourite artist,” Takahiro said, words misshapen around the press of Issei’s shoulder.

Issei tilted his head to knock his temple against the top of Takahiro’s.

“I already am. You’re still wearing my jewellery.”

Takahiro’s free hand raised to fiddle with the groatie buckie earring dangling from his right ear. Issei gave himself three seconds to watch the twist of Takahiro’s long fingers around the string, before he made himself look away.

“Cocky bastard,” Takahiro muttered.

Issei thought, and yet you can’t bear to part.

He didn’t say anything though, just slid his hand into Takahiro’s lap to run his fingers through Celery’s fur. Against his shoulder, Takahiro’s breath slowly evened out. Issei couldn’t tell if he was drifting asleep, but he didn’t want to risk dislodging him by trying to check. Instead, they were quiet, Issei’s hand resting against the curve of Celery’s spine, Takahiro’s still wrapped around the inside of Issei’s arm.

“Here,” Issei said when the silence had stretched long and thin between them, “I have something else for you.”

“Mm-mm, I’m not moving.”

Issei laughed and jiggled his shoulder again, Takahiro’s cheekbone bumping against it.

“What happened to it’s only three pm?”

Takahiro’s head twisted and he wiped his nose sleepily against the sleeve of Issei’s jumper.

“It’s definitely after four by now.”

Issei slid his arm carefully out of Takahiro’s hold and got up, saying, “Alright, don’t move then. I’ll be back.”

He crossed the corridor to the kitchen, fishing his second secret out of the cupboard he had tucked the finished jar into. When he stepped back into the living room, Celery was stretching her paws on the rug and Takahiro had slumped into Issei’s abandoned seat, curled up with his head against the arm of the sofa.

Issei kneeled on the floor by his head and held out the jar. Takahiro took it from his fingertips, twisting the lid and peering at the paste inside.

“What is it?” he asked, raising the jar to his nose.

“I found a recipe. Or, well, I found half a recipe.” Issei fiddled a loose thread of the rug between his fingers and watched Takahiro. “It was for a homemade scar cream, and I think my mum was writing it for me, for when I…”

He gestured vaguely at his chest. Takahiro had paused with the jar open in front of his chin and his mouth had dipped in the centre, the softest smile winking back at Issei.

“I don’t need it yet obviously, but I finished the recipe and,” he shrugged, “I know you said every oil you tried irritated your chest so I figured you could use an alternative.”

Takahiro closed the jar, set it down on the cushion beside him, and pushed himself upright.

“You made this for me?” he said softly.

The thread snapped in Issei’s fingers.

“It’s paraffin-free,” he said instead of answering.

Takahiro smiled, then curled his fingers around the hem of his jumper and pulled it over his head. Issei blinked. He had seen Takahiro’s tattoo in pieces—the tendrils of ink that snuck out of his collar when he wore V-necks, or split-second glimpses while he was changing—but Takahiro had never shown him the whole thing before. In full, it was a garden blooming across his chest, the vines stretching from his ribcage, entwining over his pecs, and reaching under his collarbones where Issei had seen their leaves peeking out. Along the twin scars underneath his nipples, the branches blossomed with flowers. Issei wanted to follow them with his fingers, find the place where the vines started on Takahiro’s lower back, press his lips there to feel how tender the skin was.

Takahiro unscrewed the lid again and dipped two fingers into the cream. He handed the jar to Issei to hold for him while he pressed his fingers to the tip of one scar under his left armpit. He rubbed them slowly across his chest to his sternum until the cream soaked into his skin, and Issei held out the jar so he could repeat the process on his right. The scar tissue stood out in faded red between the ink, from years of refusing proper care because it made his skin itch and breakout.

“S’cold,” he grumbled as he smoothed his fingers over the moisturised skin.

Issei put the open jar down on the coffee table and picked up Takahiro’s discarded jumper, offering it to him. When he reached out, Takahiro grabbed Issei’s wrist instead.

“Hey,” he said, his voice gone all quiet and gentle again. “Thank you.”

Issei counted one, two, three seconds and tore his eyes away from Takahiro’s fingers against his skin.

“It’s my mum’s recipe,” he said, even though it was only half-true. “Tell me if it gives you any problems.”

“It’s your recipe.”

Takahiro unwrapped his hand from Issei’s wrist and took his jumper, tugging it back on. Issei watched Celery’s tail swish from where she sat on the windowsill so that he wouldn’t be tempted to stare at Takahiro’s chest like he could see the tattoo through the cotton.

“Anyway,” Takahiro kicked at Issei’s knee, “can we nap on the sofa now?”

Issei laughed and raised up on his knees to replace the lid on the scar cream before Takahiro pulled him up to reclaim his seat. As soon as he was settled, Takahiro returned to collapsing against his side.

“That can’t possibly be comfortable,” Issei said. Takahiro flicked his thigh.

“Shut up. I’m sleeping.”

Issei shut up.

Takahiro took advantage of the silence to turn his face against Issei’s shoulder and say, “Seriously, thank you.”

The words were muffled into the material of his sleeve but Issei could feel them coursing warm and loving through his skin and into his veins.

“You’re annoying me now,” he said, although he really meant anything for you. “I wish you would sleep.”

Just for that, Takahiro pretended to bite Issei’s arm, but he wound his own around it in the same movement, his fingers gripping Issei’s forearm and his elbow digging slightly into Issei’s hip. When Issei tilted his head forwards, he could see Takahiro’s eyes closed and his mouth returned to the soft dip of a smile as he pressed all his weight into Issei’s shoulder.

Slowly, Issei let himself lean back.

Issei counted his blessings when Takahiro stayed through the weekend, stayed through Sunday brunch, and stayed well into the following week. On the eighth night, Issei took a quiet moment before bed and prayed for a miracle.

“Do you think,” Takahiro interrupted on his way into the bedroom with a glass of water in hand, “if I stayed for another Sunday brunch Iwaizumi would be surprised enough that I could win an arm wrestle?”

Issei bit down on the inside of his lip, a forceful reminder not to get his hopes up.

“I think that wouldn’t be a very honest win.”

“Who said anything about honesty?” Takahiro pulled back the covers on his side of the bed, climbing under them to sit facing Issei. “I’ve always been a liar and a cheat.”

Issei laughed as he rolled onto his side, his head in line with Takahiro’s knee. He looked up at him and the hope swelled huge and warm in his chest. He closed his fist underneath the blankets.

“Why are you being cooler than me in my own bed?”

“Get used to it.”

The worst thing was that Issei could. He could see a whole future of getting used to Takahiro in his bed, of Takahiro not just coming home but staying until Sunday brunch and forever after that. He could get used to Takahiro poking around the shop and Takahiro running through the field and Takahiro stealing all his winter clothes and looking so much better and being so much cooler and making Issei fall so much in love with him every day.

He could get used to all of it, but if he let himself start he wasn’t sure he would know how to stop before Takahiro left again.

So, he did the next best thing: leaned his forehead against the knob underneath Takahiro’s kneecap, closed his eyes, and hoped blindly for that miracle.

Takahiro slid his hand into Issei’s hair, his fingernails grazing over Issei’s scalp as he tucked the curls back behind his ear.

“Made some more of that sleep ointment too if you need it,” Issei said. He could feel Takahiro’s joggers shift and tickle against Issei’s nose as he spoke.

Takahiro let out a long breath through his nose.

“Thanks.”

Issei twisted his head, forcing the hand in his hair to cup his temple, so that he could peer at Takahiro in the gap between his wrist and his shin. Takahiro was already looking back at him.

“Did it not help?”

“Maybe a little.”

Takahiro started scratching again and Issei watched his eyes track the movement. He knew that maybe didn’t mean yes, the same way that not really hadn’t meant no all those months ago, but he also knew better than to grab, better than to do anything to spook Takahiro when he already walked around with one foot out the door.

“If you tell me what’s going on,” Issei said gently, carefully, his phrasing practised from countless Sundays spent picking his syntax to be as unintrusive as possible, “I’ll have a better chance of helping you.”

“I didn’t ask for help,” Takahiro said, then stilled and added, “I don’t think you can.”

Issei leaned into his palm again until he continued stroking.

“I wouldn’t be so sure. I’m very handy with a kettle and I make a mean blanket fort.”

Takahiro’s nails dug, just a little. In response, Issei slid his hand out from beneath the blanket, cupped it round Takahiro’s calf, and squeezed.

“A cup of tea and a blanket fort isn’t just going to fix it.”

“So? I never said I could fix it, just that I could help.” He waited a beat before saying, “Fix what exactly?”

Takahiro pushed his hand all the way through Issei’s hair to curve around the base of his skull, cradling his head close against Takahiro’s knee, so Issei rubbed his hand up and down Takahiro’s calf and closed his eyes.

“I can’t sleep. Or, I mean, I can but I don’t ever want to. There’s this awful moment, every morning, before I open my eyes, when I don’t know where I’m going to wake up.” Takahiro’s voice had gone breathy and squinted, like it was rapidly folding in on itself. “I’ve been moving for so long, I know what it’s like to wake up in unfamiliar places, but lately it’s like I don’t…I don’t know where to put everything inside my head. I’m so tired. I miss your bed.”

Issei kept his eyes squeezed shut tight and for a moment he could imagine it, the brief, earth-shattering fear of what he would find when he opened them, because he didn’t know if Takahiro would still be whole in front of him.

“That doesn’t sound like a sleeping problem. That sounds like anxiety.” His hand had stilled on Takahiro’s leg, but he kept brushing his thumb. “Cedarwood probably won’t help with that.”

“Does your mum have an ointment for people who keep doing something even though it might be the thing that’s making them miserable, because they don’t know how to do it any other way?”

“Don’t know. But I have a house and a bed that’s always in one place. You could…” Issei had to trail off, had to think about what he was about to offer, had to remember how quickly Takahiro would trickle through his fingertips if he got it wrong. “If you stayed in the same place for a while—not forever, just long enough to get used to it—maybe you would feel safer to go to sleep. Maybe your brain is trying to tell you that you’re scared of all the uncertainty.”

Issei opened his eyes when Takahiro was silent for a second too long, but he wasn’t looking at him. He was staring at the wall behind Issei, his mouth a thin line, and the hand wrapped around Issei’s skull suddenly felt like a crushing weight.

“I’m not.”

He pulled his hand out of Issei’s hair, lifted his knee into his chest so that Issei’s hand lay empty and cold on the mattress between them. Issei tucked it under his chin and watched Takahiro lie down, his back to Issei, his shoulders tight and quivering. The miracle began to dissipate.

“I’m not scared,” he said quietly. “Uncertainty is the only thing I know.”

Issei didn’t have anything to say to that. He closed his hand into a fist but already he could feel everything slipping out of the cracks between his fingers. So he didn’t reach out, didn’t grab, didn’t push, just let Takahiro lie stiff in the bed beside him until he fell asleep.

In the small hours of the morning, Issei woke up to Takahiro’s retreating back.

On Fridays, Issei took the mornings off, so he followed the path through the sand dunes up to the lighthouse. When he let himself in, the building was quiet and dark despite the late hour of the morning. In the kitchen, he found the hunched over figure of Oikawa at the table, sitting alone in the dark. He looked up, blinking in surprise, when Issei flicked on the overhead light.

“Mattsun! What are you doing here? It’s not Sunday, is it?”

The warm glow of the kitchen light highlighted the blue-black circles under Oikawa’s eyes. His hair was knotted in places, half of it spilling out from a kirby grip, and he had a blanket around him, slipping off of one shoulder.

“It’s Friday. Are you okay?”

Oikawa blinked and asked again, “What are you doing here?”

“I was looking for Iwaizumi.” Issei rounded the table and pulled out the chair opposite him. “Oikawa, are you okay?”

“Hajime went to get some shopping. Can I help? Or he should be back soon, I guess, I’m not too sure when he left.”

Issei watched Oikawa’s fingers twisting in the ends of the blanket, watched his eyes darting everywhere except for Issei’s face, watched how his whole body slumped forward like a question mark.

“Alright.” He swung his satchel into his lap and rooted around inside until he found the jar he had brought for Iwaizumi, pulling it out and knocking it down on the table between them. “I came to bring him this.”

Oikawa’s gaze stopped and focused on the jar. He blinked twice.

“It’s a lavender sleep ointment, because he told me months ago you hadn’t been sleeping and you weren’t talking to him about it. He said it over brunch, so I know he was serious, and I also know it’s not my place to ask. But this…”

He waved a hand at all of Oikawa, hunched over the table, looking like he’d dragged himself halfway back from hell overnight.

“I hope you’re talking to him about this. And if you’re not, then you can talk to me. Or I can go off and find wherever the hell Takahiro ran off to and drag him back home so you can talk to him. But either way, you are talking to one of us.”

It took him a few seconds to realise Oikawa was crying, because he was being unusually quiet about it, one hand fisted against his mouth and the other reaching out to curl around the jar of sleep ointment.

“Oikawa,” Issei started to say, but Oikawa shook his head.

“I’m talking to him,” he said after a slow, deep inhale. “He knows. It’s not, you know, a whole thing. I’m just tired.”

Issei had been hearing that a lot lately.

He was his mother’s son, raised with gentle hands and tender loving care, so every time he touched the world he tried to make it a little better. But Takahiro was right: not even a good herbal remedy and a hand to hold would fix this. He was her son, but he wasn’t Kanako. He missed her suddenly, wildly, angrily, because she would have known what to do, because he had never brought her a problem she couldn’t fix.

But Issei’s options were limited, so he reached out to cup his hand over the back of Oikawa’s, gave it a tight squeeze, and said, “I’m glad you’re talking to him. If the ointment helps, I’ll make you more.”

It wasn’t enough. Issei remembered Takahiro sneaking out in the middle of the night, remembered turning his whole cottage inside out trying to find anything missing that he might have taken with him, remembered the cold crawling up his spine when he realised Takahiro might not be coming home. He remembered being told he couldn’t fix it and trying anyway.

“Thanks, Mattsun.” Oikawa wiped his nose on the corner of his blanket and gave Issei a wobbly, watery smile. “I mean for the ointment and for being here. For always being here.”

Issei squeezed him again and offered him a small smile in return and stayed to wait with him for Iwaizumi, because that was what he did. Because he was always there.

He remembered asking Takahiro to stay. He remembered the stiff line of Takahiro’s shoulder against the mattress. He remembered knowing that asking was stupid and doing it anyway, because he was stubborn and tired and maybe a little bit in love. And because he just couldn’t bear to part.

Issei finished his first secret in the summer. The days were long and busy as June brought a constant stream of tourists to the Lonely Coast, and Issei spent the evenings after close holed up in the workshop well into the middle of the night. Takahiro hadn’t been home in months so, most of the time, Issei avoided it as well. His cottage felt empty these days—even Celery had taken to slinking around with her body pressed to the wall as if she was afraid to disturb the oppressive silence.

So, Issei worked and after work, he sculpted and he painted and he didn’t imagine a thousand ways he could have reached out to Takahiro’s back before it slipped out of his grasp (except when he did).

His first secret had taken on a life of its own in his hands. He had used up his entire sea glass collection adding to the sculpture and bought out half the general store’s berry selection for his paints. What had started as an open palm, five long fingers, and bluebottle nails had grown and shifted the more time Issei spent hiding out in the workshop where the emptiness couldn’t touch him and he could pretend Takahiro was coming home.

He finished the last coat of paint filling the cracks between adjoining pieces of sea glass and pushed his stool back from the workbench to stare finally, properly at the face smiling back at him.

It was Takahiro as Issei had first known him, when he’d blown into Kanako’s out of a gale, spotted Issei behind the counter and leaned over into his space, chin in hand and canines spilling out of his mouth, to say, “Damn, what do they put in the water around here?” Issei would have ribbed him mercilessly for the terrible line if he hadn’t known that Takahiro still remembered Issei blushing rosy all the way down his neck.

“Holy shit,” a voice said over Issei’s shoulder, and he almost fell off his stool with how hard he jerked around.

Blurred by the shadowed light in the doorway but still unmistakeable in his familiarity, Takahiro stood, one hand fisted around the strap of his rucksack, staring straight past Issei. He stepped into the workshop and Issei leaned out of the way as he passed to inspect himself rendered in glinting pieces of sea debris.

“What are you doing here?” Issei asked when his brain finally caught up to the fact that Takahiro was here in Issei’s shop and here at the coast.

“You weren’t home,” Takahiro said. “What the fuck is this?”

Issei looked between the Takahiro in miniature and the real flesh and bone Takahiro who had come home at last.

“It’s a bust.”

“I can see that.” Takahiro lifted one hand and hovered it over the sculpture, not touching but tracing the features in the air above them, then turned to Issei. His canines had slipped out over his bottom lip. “You are so obsessed with me.”

Issei turned his back, pretending he needed to clean the palette he had been using, because there was something caught behind his eyes and he didn’t want Takahiro to see it. Issei hadn’t seen him in months and he was here, he was home, like nothing had happened at all.

“Hey.” Takahiro folded his arms over Issei’s shoulders and hooked his chin over the top so he could speak directly into Issei’s ear. “Don’t act all embarrassed now. This is fucking incredible, Issei. Much better than Josefina Plá.”

Issei laughed and it came out watery around the weight in his throat. He knew Takahiro heard it because he unfolded his arms, crossing them over Issei’s chest instead, and pressed his forehead into Issei’s shoulder.

“I love it,” he said, the words spilling down the curve of Issei’s shoulder blade and pooling at the base of his spine.

“You do?”

“Yes. You’re my favourite artist again.”

Issei leant his cheek against Takahiro’s bicep and let it swallow his smile. It was so easy, always, between them. When Takahiro was home, he didn’t have to think about what to say or where to put his hands. The answer was always wherever Takahiro could reach them. But Issei remembered the months of emptiness, of preparing himself to never see Takahiro again.

“Does my favourite artist want to take me home so I can sleep in a real bed?”

Issei raised one hand to grip Takahiro’s forearm over his chest.

“Yeah, come on,” he said, because what else was there to say? Because where else could he put his hands if not next to Takahiro’s?

They walked most of the way in silence. The June nights were warm and light so they took the shortcut and Issei kept his hands in his pockets and thought about being Takahiro’s favourite and not about how Takahiro had left without taking a piece of Issei with him.

“Alright. Yeah,” Takahiro said suddenly, halfway across the field, as if they were already in the middle of a conversation.

Issei glanced over his shoulder like maybe he would catch sight of a previously invisible person with whom Takahiro was engaged. Takahiro cupped his hand around Issei’s elbow to draw his attention back.

“I’ll stay,” he said. “If you’re still offering.”

Maybe they were in the middle of the conversation, just one that had taken three months of late nights and radio silence and picking the whole thing apart in his head.

“You’re staying? Like, for how long?” he heard himself ask distantly but everything had turned static and foreign inside of him.

Takahiro tightened his grip on Issei’s elbow and he latched onto the contact, to the four sharp pinpricks grounding him in the moment.

“For as long as it takes. I don’t know. Forever.”

Issei had asked for this, had been imagining it like a private, quiet thing for years, but he didn’t know what to say, so when he opened his mouth, the truth came out.

“I didn’t think you were coming back this time.”

That brought Takahiro to a halt and the tug on his arm forced Issei to pause as well. Takahiro stared at him like he’d sprouted antlers and started cartwheeling on the spot and grabbed Takahiro by the shoulders and screamed in his face.

“What exactly did you think this was? Of course I was coming. As long as you’re still here waiting, I’m still coming back to you. My peony, remember?”

Issei did remember, but it was like a memory locked up inside barbed wire. It was like a revelation that had always been a foot out of reach.

“To me?” he repeated. His tongue felt numb in his mouth.

“To you,” Takahiro agreed. “Why did you think I kept coming back?”

“Something in the water,” Issei said vaguely. Takahiro’s forehead screwed up in confusion.

“You, Issei. You. I’ve been across half the world and this is the only stupid town I came back to because it’s the only one that had you.”

“Me,” Issei said again and Takahiro laughed, sliding his hand up Issei’s arm to cup around the back of his neck.

“You are so stupid. How did you not realise? It’s give and take. You wait and I come home. I make you dinner and you let me sleep in your bed. You learned how to make sleep ointment and scar cream for me. I’ve been bringing you the most interesting and exotic gifts I could find for years. You made a sculpture of my fucking head, and you didn’t know we were in love?”

“We’re in love,” Issei said quietly, privately. It wasn’t a question this time.

“We’re in love,” Takahiro said. He used the hand around Issei’s neck to pull him down slightly until their foreheads pressed together.

“If I stay,” he said across Issei’s lips, “does that mean I’ll get my very own bed?”

Issei closed his eyes.

“You’re sick for even suggesting that. Stay in mine.”

Later, they kicked the blankets to the end of the bed and spread out in the heat that hung low in the room. Takahiro, in nothing but his boxers, rolled to face away from Issei, shoving his face into the smell of cedar on his pillow. His bare shoulders were loose and languid and, beneath them, Issei could see the vines crawling over his ribcage.

He reached out with two fingers, mapped them along the branches with the lightest touch. Takahiro shivered against it. Issei followed the ink until the two lines met over the facet joint of his spine. Here, he bent forwards to press his lips over the spot, his hand creeping away to wrap around Takahiro’s stomach.

“I’m trying to sleep,” Takahiro grumbled, but they were in love, had been in love for years, and Issei knew what feigned annoyance sounded like in his voice.

He smiled and, beneath his lips, the skin was tender and warm and loved.

When Issei woke up, it was to something tickling the tip of his nose. He went cross-eyed trying to make out what it was and reached up to pull a yellow sticky note off his forehead. The bed beside him was empty, nothing but a dip in the mattress, and something cold started creeping in Issei’s spine.

He flipped over the sticky note to find a familiar slanting scrawl and read:

Wake, butterfly—

it’s late, we’ve miles

to go together.

He recognised Basho in the lines and the something cold was bitten back by a warm, familiar comfort. He pressed the sticky note onto the bedside table and crawled over the mattress, stepping into his binder and replacing his shirt with one that smelled less like sleep, before tiptoeing out of the bedroom and down the corridor.

In the kitchen, Takahiro was humming as he tipped cat biscuits into a bowl. Celery was wound around his ankles, head tilted back so she could watch him with wide eyes. Issei leant against the doorframe and watched as well.

Takahiro caught sight of him when he turned to put Celery’s biscuits on the floor and he stood up, smiling, with one hand outstretched. Issei admired the pinch of his canines.

He was still shirtless and Issei took the offered hand, spreading his other, palm open, over Takahiro’s scar.

“These look a little better,” he said, tracing his fingertip around one of the petals. The pink had started leaking out of the scar tissue, fading back to their natural tan. Takahiro slid his hand over Issei’s on his chest, tucking the tips of his fingers into the underside of Issei’s palm.

“Yeah. Your cream’s a miracle worker.”

Issei hummed and tapped his fingers against Takahiro’s chest. “Not a miracle.”

“Just tender loving care, I know,” Takahiro said.

Issei smiled. He wanted to kiss the freckles on Takahiro’s shoulder.

“So, I’m a butterfly now?” he asked instead. “What happened to your peony?”

Takahiro shrugged. “I thought I was your bee but turns out I’m your Mogami river.”

Issei paused, then took a careful step backwards, his hand sliding away from Takahiro.

“You read that? You read my letter?”

Takahiro tilted his head to one side and said, “I took it with me last time. It was for me, right? Unless there’s some other guy you’ve been quoting Basho love poetry to.”

“You read it?” Issei repeated. Takahiro laughed.

“You’re like a broken record when you’re surprised,” he said, and pulled Issei back towards him.

Issei followed willingly, because he was too busy thinking about Takahiro finding the letter, about Takahiro bringing it with him. He hadn’t even noticed it was gone, but the last time Takahiro had left he hadn’t just taken a piece of Issei; he had taken the inside of his head with him.

“Are you over this yet?” Takahiro asked. He was winding his arms over Issei’s shoulders and locking them behind his neck, so they were pressed almost nose to nose. “And if not, can you hurry up? I’m trying to kiss you.”

“I can’t believe you read my letter,” Issei said. Up this close he could see the faint dusting of freckles across Takahiro’s nose. He could see the pink rising up beneath them. “I wasn’t even finished writing it.”

“Shut up,” Takahiro said and his hot breath was everywhere.

Issei shut up.