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In his second year of high school, Rintarou loses his cat. His sister makes posters for it, and he helps tape them up all over town. The cat was a small thing named Jiji, with black fur and big yellow eyes that spent too much time staring longingly out the back patio door. There was nothing remarkable about Jiji– you really couldn’t tell the difference between Jiji and any other average black cat in Japan, but Rintarou had perhaps developed an attachment to Jiji, not that he’d admit it out loud.
That first week after the posters went up, Osamu helped him look for Jiji after practice, peering under overgrown bushes and into dark alleyway corners behind konbinis. They never found him, and after a while, Rintarou simply wished that Jiji was living his best cat life somewhere out there.
When you love something, you search for it.
–
In the fourth month of his fourth year of college, Rintarou cannot stop looking. Or rather, it’s the fact that he comes to the slow realization he cannot stop looking. He holds his thumb on Osamu’s bi-monthly instagram story to make it last 3 seconds longer, and looks. Sometimes it’s an inanimate object, like a zoom in of a giant hilariously vacuum sealed Hamtaro plushie on the top shelf of some store, or pictures of ridiculously good looking food without the restaurant location tagged so Rintarou has to ask him for it all the time. Sometimes, it’s Osamu himself, and Rintarou looks at those stories extra long, catalouging in every detail, even if the expression on his face is stupid or if Osamu isn’t even facing the camera at all.
And well, he’s been looking all along hasn’t he? Only that in their teenage years it was the sort of thing that was just there, equal parts freely given and freely taken, without needing to think about it.
Rintarou futilely tries to not think about it too much– it’s rather stupid of himself to only just come to this understanding, and in the end, it might be too late anyways. They don’t even talk as much as they did back then, and he hasn’t seen Osamu in months. These things happen, Rintarou supposes. Separate universities, separate cities.
When he was little, his father told him about his father’s father. Said he used to work in this mining city, built on an island, and that back then, it was the biggest city he’d ever seen. An island without green, just concrete stretching into the sky. Thousands of people, packed into tight, tight spaces. And then the mines were emptied, and the people left. There was nothing there for anyone anymore. Bit by bit, the abandoned facades on Hashima Island crumble. Memories are carried on the breeze that blows through empty windows.
This is not so different. It’s a kind of inevitability. He hasn’t talked to plenty of people since high school, like he hasn’t talked to Hinako-kun since their last day of class, and hasn't seen Tatsunori in three years– since freshman orientation, despite the knowledge that they go to the same university. Maybe high school memories are somewhat insignificant compared to everything else one faces in life, but he remembers those teenage years fondly, like the way the wind on Hashima Island remembers the memories of its residents.
It’s the reason why Rintarou keeps searching for Osamu in his dorm kitchen at midnight, in the vacated seat next to him in class, in dark alleyway corners behind konbinis. He takes pictures of himself buying Calpico and other drinks Osamu likes and sends them to him for a response. Maybe Osamu’s in another Family Mart somewhere, looking into the same corners, and maybe someday, Rintarou will find that elusive something he’s looking for.
In pitch black darkness, he looks up at the popcorn ceiling and looks for Osamu there too. Maybe he has the same popcorn ceiling, or maybe he doesn’t, but he knows that if Osamu stared at the same spot in the darkness for too long, he’d see dots just like Rintarou does, and he knows this because they tried it at Interhigh one year, just to see who could do it longer. He reaches a hand out over the edge of the bed, even though Osamu is not there to roll over in the middle of the night and brush against it.
There are four hundred and forty four kilometers between Nagano and Osaka. What an unlucky number.
–
Six weeks before the school year ends, Rintarou finds himself stepping off the shinkansen at Fukui Station, blinking at unfamiliar surroundings. The station’s got that specific train terminal smell, and he walks in tandem with the flow of people moving along the platform.
Lets go to the Echizen Coast, Osamu had said yesterday night out of the blue. Rintarou told him he was insane, but in the end, he agreed anyway.
The mezzanine level of Fukui Station is narrow, but in constant motion, especially when trains going to Kanazawa and trains coming from Osaka arrive almost simultaneously. He finds an empty pillar to lean up against as he fiddles with his phone. A new text slides onto his screen, telling him to turn to his right, so he does, and he can make out Osamu’s form as he makes his way through the crowd.
“Hey,” Rintarou offers as Osamu is close enough, and hopes his voice does not betray the tiny bit of uncertainty he feels.
In response, Osamu roots around his inner jacket pocket and holds out a half finished box of strawberry Pocky to Rintarou. “D’ya want some?” Any unsurety fades away after that. There’s a comfort in knowing that they’re exactly where they left off, whether it’s been months, weeks, or days, knowing that you’ll meet each other where the other is. Rintarou takes the box and begins to eat the remaining Pocky sticks in twos.
“C’mon, we have a bus to catch,” he says after he swallows.
The journey to Ayukawa Beach is long, but not boring. The seemingly never-ending landscape of Fukui’s suburban sprawl rolling past the bus’ shaky windows, and the way the wind slips past the top of one of the not quite closed windows is refreshing. Rintarou only spots a few people the entire journey, not counting the ones who work inside the roadside Lawsons or the gas station along the way. It’s a sleepy town, with low roofs and expanses of green, like a long exhale. In the seat next to him, Osamus nodded off, head tipped back against the headrest. He hasn’t changed at all in this regard, like a picture right out of their teenage years.
As the bus nears their stop, Rintarou nudges Osamu awake. They thank the bus driver as they step off, inhaling fresh air with a hint of salt. At this time of the year, the beach is empty. It’s not yet tourist season, and it's still a little cold. The wind, when it blows especially hard, cuts through their hair and loose clothing. Osamu makes fun of the way Rintarou’s hair sticks up, and Rintarou tells Osamu that he’s just jealous ‘cause he’s balding. Osamu makes a face, and tugs them closer to the waiting ocean.
Ayukawa Beach is more rock than sand, marked by time and erosion, but the Sea of Japan lies wide open before them, and the water meets the rocks at Ayukawa the way it always has, and Rintarou understands.
When you love something, you search for it, and if you find it, then it’s truth. The way Osamu loops his fingers around his wrist, the way he offers his snacks, the way he spots Rintarou in a crowd– are all the truth.
When Rintarou tugs Osamu closer, Osamu goes willingly, the way he always has. Nervousness makes a pit in Rintarou’s stomach. He meets Osamu’s eyes, and there is no surprise or question in them.
Osamu leans in, and swallows Rintarou’s emotions whole in a soft press of lips against lips.
This too, is truth.