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Cemeteries have always freaked Kaito out.
Rantaro knows this, they’ve talked about it before, but Kaito comes anyway. It’s almost as though he can tell before Rantaro even says where he’s going what the day’s plans are. Even if Rantaro tried to hide it—and he couldn’t; the idea of Kaito not knowing where he is, of worrying about him, is unbearable—he would probably figure it out anyway. Kaito knows Rantaro better than he even knows himself, or at least, that’s how it feels some days. Especially on days like today.
As they weave between gravestones, every stray noise makes Kaito jump, his shoulders tensing and then forcefully releasing, loud breaths escaping him each time he relaxes. There is a knot in his brow when Rantaro looks his way, a hand clasping the back of his neck, but when they make eye contact, Kaito smiles. He gives a slight shake of his head. It’s as though he can read Rantaro’s mind. How else could he have known that Rantaro was going to offer for him to leave?
It’s probably for the better that he knew, though, because had Rantaro opened his mouth, he’s not sure that he’d have been able to make a sound.
Rantaro knows the journey to his sister’s resting place by heart: knows exactly the amount of steps to each of the surrounding headstones, knows every detail of the gravestone itself. It is this knowledge, the sort that runs deeper than his very skin, that guides him across the cemetery. He’s not sure he’d be able to find his way through without it, because the closer he gets, the more his knees start to shake, threatening to knock together and bring him to the ground.
He stops walking altogether about five feet away from the headstone. Kaito doesn’t. He continues his journey right up to the grave and bends down, placing their bouquet of white chrysanthemums, the type they always bring. Her favourites. Then he straightens up and takes a step back, lowering his head and closing his eyes. Presumably to give Rantaro his privacy—and Rantaro appreciates it—but as always, as he stands here, staring down at the gravestone, at the kanjis in his baby sister’s name, he finds himself frozen in place.
Amami Kikuko would have been fourteen years old the year that Rantaro and Kaito found her body, rotting at the bottom of a winding creek deep in the forest off Puerto Princesa beach. The mortician said she broke her ankle and fell, but didn’t die immediately; that while her ankle was broken, she didn’t sustain any other fractures, meaning more than likely she either starved to death or froze to death, alone and in the cold in the middle of a windy December night. At times, especially times like these, Rantaro can’t help wondering what she must have been thinking while she died, what she was feeling. Did she miss him? Did she think he was coming to save her? Did she call out his name? She must have; back home, when they lived together, when Rantaro never got a moment free from her company, she called his name for much less.
Now, staring hard at her gravestone, a hard and unforgiving shade of slate grey, Rantaro finds himself wishing that he could hear her calling his name one more time.
That isn’t possible, though, so instead of wasting another moment on it, he takes one unsteady step forward, and then another, dragging his heavy limbs over to the patch of grass her body rests under and sinking down to his knees. He falls all at once, nearly slumping forward into the gravestone, but he manages to catch himself with a hand thrust into the earth, nails digging into the soil. For a moment Rantaro is possessed with the overwhelming desire to dig, to dig and dig and dig, deeper and deeper down until he’s reached her casket, and then to crawl inside and cradle her broken, battered remains to his chest, and then allow them to be buried once more, the two of them, sleeping side by side the way they used to when they were kids.
Of course, that isn’t really what Rantaro wants, but some days it’s easy to believe that it’s what he deserves. He’s brought all of his sisters home now, every single one, including Kikuko’s body—but that doesn’t change the fact that she’s dead, that she’s been dead for a very long time, that she died believing in him and waiting for him to save her, that he failed her in a way he could never make up for, never take back. There are days when Rantaro believes that he has nothing left to live for. All of his sisters are found and accounted for. Perhaps Kikuko is dead, but she’s home. Rantaro will never get to bring her back. But he spent over a decade bringing them all back to Japan. Surely now he can let go of his burdens and rest…?
Even that notion, however, that Rantaro has nothing to live for, isn’t true. A warm, firm hand claps itself on his shoulder, and Rantaro breathes out through his nose, closing his eyes and leaning back against Kaito’s thighs. He’s not alone here, though he could have been. He’s never once asked Kaito to come, and he never would. He knows how Kaito gets around spooky things; being in a place full of dead bodies just isn’t the kind of environment he’s made to endure.
Yet Kaito is here, anyway, and Rantaro is too weak to ask him not to come, and even if he said aloud that Kaito doesn’t have to, he probably wouldn’t care. Kaito knows he doesn’t have to come. He chooses to, because he loves Rantaro, and… even now it’s such a novel concept, but Rantaro is far too tired, far too selfish to try and push him away.
He slumps further back into Kaito’s legs, one of his arms coming up to rest on the back of Kaito’s. He can feel his boyfriend’s warmth through the fabric of his own gloves.
“Hey,” Rantaro manages. He’s always struggled with judging the passage of time. Perhaps he’s been sitting here for five minutes, perhaps an hour. It isn’t as though Kaito will call him out on it either way. “How’re you doing?”
It would make sense for Kaito to turn the question around on Rantaro here, but he doesn’t. “I’m doing okay,” he murmurs. His jacket rustles as he bends down, warm lips brushing against the crown of Rantaro’s head and then pulling away. “I was really hopin’ for a white Christmas, though. This mugginess kinda blows.” He lets out an exasperated sound. “At least rain, goddamnit. Don’t just be all grey and cloudy.”
Kaito’s indignation, however exaggerated for Rantaro’s benefit, makes Rantaro laugh. He gives Kaito’s hand a squeeze. “Kikuko would have agreed with you. She loved the snow. Or at least, she loved it when it first fell, when it was all clean and white and uninterrupted. It made her happy.”
“That’s pretty in keeping with what you’ve told me about her,” Kaito chuckles. There’s a note of sadness in his voice, but neither of them call attention to it, and Kaito doesn’t say anything else. Rantaro can’t help but appreciate him for it. Sure, they’re here at Kikuko’s grave on not only her birthday but her death anniversary, but Rantaro… couldn’t stand it if Kaito looked at him differently today, if he looked at him with pity rather than kindness, if he treated Rantaro like a glass figure covered in cracks. He’s not fragile, he isn’t broken. There are things he’s done that he can never take back, but… he’s still whole.
With Kaito here, it’s easier to remember that.
“Snow or no snow,” Rantaro sighs, “it’s still cold. I’m feeling hot chocolate.”
“Oh yeah?” Rantaro can hear the grin in Kaito’s voice. A calloused hand is shoved into Rantaro’s sight and he hums as he takes it, allowing Kaito to hoist him to his feet before wrapping a strong, warm arm around his shoulders. “Let’s do it, then. There’s a coffee shop nearby. We can get an extra for Kikuko.”
She wouldn’t be able to drink it. Rantaro knows that. Kaito knows that. But the casual, easy way he says it, the warm and earnest way he says bye to Kikuko’s grave before they leave, the grin on his face as they start back towards the exit of the cemetery… despite everything, it all leaves Rantaro feeling just the slightest bit lighter.
Kikuko is dead. She’s been dead for years, and she’s never coming back, but… at least with Kaito here, Rantaro can do his best to live the life she would have wanted him to. And then, someday… maybe he can see her again, and maybe by then, he’ll be somebody she can be proud of.