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Kazuha has been raised to bring honor to his family name. He’s been raised with it tucked behind his ear, curled under his tongue. He’s been raised with it pushing at his ribcage, clawing and clawing and clawing, yet another reason to keep quiet, to smile pretty and pretend nothing inside him feels irreparably twisted.
So.
He says yes. When they tell him he’s to be married off, Kazuha says yes.
Even though he’s never met the apparently esteemed General his family keeps mentioning, he says yes. It’s the right thing to do. It’s what’s expected of him as a dutiful son of the Kaedehara name.
It might just be trading his chains for newer ones, for shinier ones, but—Kazuha has always wanted to travel, to see the world. He’s never been to Watatsumi before. He’s usually not even allowed to leave the family estate unaccompanied.
If he might be permitted to steal a taste of freedom amidst everything else—well. It might just be worth it. Worth whatever awaits him after.
…
Watatsumi is—different.
Despite the many, many words that feel like they’re going to fill him up to the brim and spill over if he doesn’t write them down, if he doesn’t make something from them, if he doesn’t pluck a bit of himself and scribble it on paper, when he gets off the boat, all Kazuha can think is different.
The wind smells different here. Sounds different. Brushes his cheeks differently.
Kazuha lets the feeling of it settle, roll over him, only to realize that for the first time since he can remember, he isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do. No one has handed him an itinerary, no one has told him where he’s supposed to be or what he’s supposed to say. He’s not free, exactly, but he is—unengaged for the day, ironically enough.
He decides to make the best of it.
Tomorrow, he will go where told and say what he needs to, but today—today the sun is bright and the wind is kind and Kazuha wants to chase it. He can allow himself one small indulgence, just this once.
…
Kazuha walks. And walks. And walks some more. He visits the small shopping stalls run by kind grandmothers whose eyes close all the way when they smile, looks through their wares and pays extra even when they offer him discounts, and then he visits the shrine, sees the shrine maidens doing their daily chores and asks if he can help with anything only to be politely but firmly rebuffed.
It starts getting dark by the time he makes his way down to the beach.
He wants—
Well, he wants to listen to the sound of the waves and curl up and rest, let them lull him into tranquility, deceive him into believing tomorrow is further than it truly is.
But he’s not alone.
Someone is already sitting with their knees tucked to their chest, staring out into the infinite blue. And that someone turns when Kazuha’s footsteps approach. Oh. Good hearing, then. People rarely spot Kazuha when he’s not trying to be spotted.
The stranger turns to face him, and something foreign lodges itself in Kazuha’s throat.
“Hello,” he says, his smile kind and honest. “You must be new around here.”
Kazuha’s heart starts beating faster. He breathes in slowly. “Yes,” he says. “Yes I have—I have only just arrived, as a matter of fact, but I decided to take the opportunity in order to—sightsee, I suppose? I’m not sure, I simply—I can’t say I’ve gotten to do this kind of thing before, and I thought—”
“Yes?”
Heat crawls up Kazuha’s face. “I’m rambling.”
He barely speaks at home unless he’s directly addressed, let alone—archons, this is—well. It’s new and foreign and Kazuha has the distinct impression that he’s doing it wrong.
“You’re cute,” the stranger says, only to immediately slap a hand over his mouth. “I mean—I meant you’re—you’re very, um, you seem very—ah, I apologize. I really didn’t mean to—”
“It’s fine,” Kazuha says. Just keep looking at me like that. (What a thought to have. Especially about a man you’ve only just met. About someone you don’t know.) “I could use some company.”
The stranger rubs at the back of his neck. “Me too, probably.”
“Is something troubling you?”
“You could say that.”
“Perhaps,” Kazuha says, taking a seat next to him on the white sand and looking out at the sea, “I could be of some assistance?”
Problems that don’t belong to him have always been much, much easier to put into perspective than the ones he’s had to carry around, tuck right next to all he’s hoped and dreamed for, and hope the two don’t get tangled.
The stranger laughs. It’s a nice sound. “You must have your own troubles,” he says. “People don’t—they haven’t been coming to Watatsumi just to sightsee, recently.”
“I’m getting married,” Kazuha says.
That’s the first time he’s said that out loud.
“I’ve been told that’s cause for joy, though, so maybe it’s—maybe it’s simply not as important that I have yet to meet him.”
The stranger’s eyes go wide. “Oh,” he says.
Kazuha tucks his knees under his chin. The sea is vast, vaster than all the trivial issues of a single lifetime. It’s—a good reminder. “He’s a general. I don’t even know his name. Then again—I don’t know your name, either, and here I am, sharing my woes with you.”
“Gorou,” the stranger says. “It’s—my name is Gorou.”
Kazuha turns to face him. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Gorou,” he says. “I’m Kaedehara Kazuha.”
Family name first. Because he’s never just—Kazuha. Never just a person. Always a legacy, a status, a burden.
“Kazuha,” Gorou says, and—
Different. Warm. So, so inexplicably warm.
“Yes?”
“Nothing, I just—I just wanted to say it. It’s a pretty name.”
“Ah,” Kazuha says, cheeks warm, “thank you.”
…
They talk.
They sit there on the beach, two strangers carrying the weight of being human however they can manage to, and they talk. Kazuha learns that Gorou has four siblings, that he likes to cook for his family when he can spare the time, and that he goes extremely still when Kazuha’s hand accidentally brushes against his tail.
His face gets red. It’s—cute.
It makes Kazuha want to give in return. So he tells him about his childhood, about growing up alone in a house too big and too filled with people, about falling in love with words, about wanting, desperately, to be something other than chains holding up a human. (Not in those words, exactly, but—)
He talks, and he talks, and he talks, and Gorou listens and gives him small, kind smiles, and—and every horrible thing feels a little further away.
It’s enough. It has to be. After tonight, they aren’t likely to ever see each other again.
…
Kazuha wakes up alone.
Well—
He wakes up with sand in his hair and a blanket that he doesn’t remember having the night before thrown over his shoulders and a hastily scribbled sorry, I had to go left behind on a scrap of paper in what must be Gorou’s handwriting.
Kazuha should return the blanket. But he doesn’t have a clue how to do that, and his stomach rumbles in protest of him going anywhere without stopping for breakfast first. In a couple of hours someone will be showing up at the inn they booked for him to spend the night so that Kazuha can be accompanied to meet his future husband for the first time.
He’s allowed skewed priorities, all things considered. So he folds the blanket and tucks it under his arm before he heads off in search of food.
…
Kazuha is stuffing his face full of grilled fish in a manner decidedly unsuited to his theoretical noble status when Watatsumi’s high priestess approaches him.
“You must be Kazuha,” she says, and—
Kazuha immediately chokes on his food. “Your—ahem, your Excellency,” he manages eventually, because social graces have been ingrained so deep inside him that it’s an instinct, at this point. Bow your head. Be polite. Never transgress. Never, ever say what you think.
“No need for such formalities. You may call me Kokomi. You are about to become rather familiar with my most esteemed general, after all.”
She winks conspiratorially, and Kazuha feels strangely guilty, even when he can’t pinpoint what the guilt is for. “Your Excellency—”
“So,” Kokomi interrupts, “did you like him? He’s cute, isn’t he?”
Kazuha blinks. “Excuse me? I fear I fail to understand who you’re speaking of.”
Kokomi laughs. “Gorou, of course,” she says.
Oh. That’s—unexpected. Kazuha swallows and takes the time to wipe his mouth with a napkin before admitting, “Yes, he’s—he’s rather pleasant to be around. Like the autumn wind.”
At this, Kokomi latches onto his arm and squeezes. “I knew you two would learn to enjoy each other’s company,” she says joyfully, and then Kazuha is being dragged along before he can even say anything about needing to pay for his food, before he can figure out how to ask why a stranger he met on the beach is important when he came here to—when he came here to fulfill a duty.
…
The preparations are surprisingly pleasant. Kazuha is well aware they’re symbolic more than anything else, but—it’s nice. To be looked after with no expectation. The shrine maidens help him put on the ceremonial garments, paint his mouth red and his eyelids in muted tones of gold, and when Kazuha looks in the mirror he doesn’t feel like he’s being put up for display.
He feels, well, he feels like himself, just—more. A little brighter. A little louder. Not necessarily too much, only—different. A different shade of who he is.
Kazuha takes a deep breath, and steps outside.
He can do this.
…
Kokomi smiles at him, and Kazuha is so focused on trying to reap courage from the kindness in her eyes, so focused on trying to rummage for the determination he needs to see this through, not to flee, that—
He’s almost made his way to stand in front of her, at the center of the shrine, when it registers that someone is already waiting for him.
“Gorou,” he says. “You’re—” Here.
Gorou raises a hand and waves sheepishly, like a child caught in the middle of doing something he’s not supposed to. “I did really have to go,” he says. “The preparations for this kind of thing are rather, uh, elaborate.”
“I see,” Kazuha says. He feels the corner of his mouth twitching as he attempts to fight a smile. It wouldn’t do, really, it would be unseemly to start arguing with his fiancé in public before the necessary ceremonial practices to even officially refer to him as such have been fulfilled. “Might I suggest you provide a more detailed explanation in the future?”
Gorou smiles. “I’ll see what I can do about that,” he says.
(When no one besides Kokomi is paying attention, Kazuha very deliberately steps on his foot.)
It’s—so much further from horrible than he had expected, and Kazuha might not know what the future holds, but the thing inside his chest—it feels a lot like hope.
Bright. Endlessly warm and bright.
…
“So,” he asks, later, once they’ve both shed the ceremonial garments and he’s wiped off the make-up and they’re just walking together along the shore, two boys trying to get to know each other, and nothing more, “can I touch your ears now that we’re officially committed to one another?”
Gorou sputters, but he doesn’t say no, and his fingers tangle with Kazuha’s, so.
It’s not that bad, as a beginning.