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It was on a Saturday afternoon in Aran's apartment that Kita heard a question that appeared too infrequently in his life. A fearsome question. One that horrified him and brought complicated feelings to the surface:
"Are you okay?"
He wasn't.
Atsumu had served a shot of Shochu, a drink that he had only heard from the chatting of his once teammates. It left a light taste of barley on his palate after burning in his throat and after the glasses collided with each other in a toast: To memories, Kita said. To tomorrow, Osamu smiled.
He briefly glanced to see Atsumu smiling from under his glass, looking at his brother, and Osamu rolling his eyes after sipping the drink. Laughing at some inside joke of both, probably something that only they understand.
Osamu looked back at Kita, sitting at the other end. A slight smile that he captured, one more to add to his memories, those that he treasured so eagerly.
The glasses were emptied amidst the chatter. Everyone praising the dishes on the table, the smell floating above, and Osamu's skill. He is amazing. He felt his eyes watering at the single sentence in his mind. Probably nostalgia or tiredness.
He found Gin's jokes slightly hilarious, which was unusual. He didn't laugh but a smile broke out easily when he narrated, in a pun, how one of his clients had forgotten his phone. Kita is smiling?!, someone said in the room.
We should take a picture, I always look weird in photos, hey are there still buns? Remember when Kita-san made us take that photo in the gym?
Some poured more drink into their glasses. Laughter and a faint scent of barley flying again. Kita poured just one more. Perhaps two at everyone's insistence.
Aran was talking about the next league game and–
Osamu was glimmering. His eyes sparkling gently. His silky hair finally uncovered without Onigi Miya's cap.
Akagi said that he could go to Sendai to watch the game against The Addlers, maybe after work and–
Osamu reaching out to grab a bowl of salad, his arm muscles rippling at the simple action.
Someone, he can't tell who this time, makes a vague but humorous comment, enough to make him laugh out loud. The air escapes from his lungs and he can feel the hubbub increasing his happiness.
And everyone in the room laughs with him, although something is not quite right because under their smiles, there's hidden surprise and curiosity. A hint of concern.
When he finally notices it, panic runs like shivers down his spine and up his arms. The heat on his face flares, almost like a fever creeping up his skin.
He had always been cautious. This was the first time it happened, something he did not anticipate.
He was drunk.
No single word comes out after the revelation. Kita gets up and sees his surroundings stagger. Everything shakes and everything seems to want to bounce out of place.
"Kita, are you okay?" Osamu says standing up and stopping midway when Kita assured him that yes, everything was fine, that he needed to go to Aran's kitchen to get something, that he would be right back.
Haste pushes him and his body trips over an empty chair.
He is sure that he has left everyone behind on his way. Him mulling over a plan in his riotous mind without panicking further.
Not that it was the first time he had drunk. But he never thought this would happen as a result of being careless.
It wasn't the first time he had seen Osamu glimmering either.
It was, however, the first time….
The first time he felt, in all its fullness, this sensation when seeing him.
Kita began to assume that this was being in love. A feeling of tempered nervousness, affable and filling, that turned into a seductive comfort.
It sounded a little different than what he had heard since elementary school: butterflies in the stomach (an excessive metaphor from his point of view). An apparent oppressive feeling that would make you scream and your heart race. Something similar to anguish or anxiousness.
Kita is like a robot
All people were different. Different goals, different likings and expectations. Each one had something to pursue and to perform. Something to yearn for.
He understood it since he heard phrases like those. Where there was something peculiar or particular from someone else's perspective. Hidden between their habits and customs and upbringing.
And this was something like that. Everyone reacted differently to that. To that rumor about what everyone has to feel. A feeling sometimes describable, sometimes indescribable.
He listened to the side conversations of exaggerated and tender literary figures. And sometimes, the typical question sneaked up to towards him: "Who do you like, Kita?" people would ask, secretly. Trying to carry an infallible truth.
"No one"
It was all he could say. There was nothing more.
He did get to delve into his feelings for a few days. Wonder about the question. About those distant questions that the other children repeated.
Over time, the question morphed and it slowly let go of the assumption… “Do you like someone, Kita?”…
Until leaving him in a prolonged unknown that is temple to lead him to an answer.
No one.
He didn't feel any of that.
Kita is like a robot.
Sometimes the questions also resounded in the mouth of his grandmother. It shook him, despite being sincere inquiries. Questions about future and marriage. A pact with tradition and belief. But, these were schemes that did not resonate with him.
He tried to understand what they used to talk about. That thing about holding someone's hands and pretending they don't feel the sweat break out. Feel your pulse overflow while your words stumbled and the heat seized your skin.
But he didn't comprehend it.
Experiencing those things was fine, but it wasn't like everyone should arrive at the same destination as the parameters used to ensure.
So the thought left him. It was not worth thinking about the way each person reacted and assimilated something. He knew it wasn't worth it because when he went after those feelings that everyone talked about, it all led to the same results.
He did not feel it in any of the confessions that happened in the evenings after school or that couple of end-of-the-year ceremonies in which he received a second button of a uniform.
He never felt it when he held Hideki-kun's hand on his way home from middle school. Or when he kissed Azami behind the high school building, in first year.
He was grateful. He truly was. With all those small gestures and kindness. With those feelings, coming from others, existing at all. With the fact that he was foreign to them.
He had made peace with time and murmurs. With a linear reality, drawn opposite directions to others and parallel to other paths.
But not entirely.
He noticed something was different when, like any usual day, Osamu arrived to the farm and the wind was blowing his hair in different directions. And his mischievous look pierced his soul, in peace and without boasting.
He was beginning to enjoy Osamu's company in a particular way.
Osamu's energy was always captivating and admirable in a different way than Atsumu's. He was the kind of calm demeanor –with its more emotional moments and energy burst coming on very certain occasions– that made him unique.
Passionate. Kind. Creative.
An admirable kohai.
But years after they had first met, they hadn't had much knowledge of one or the other. They were teammates. Schoolmates.
Companions. Orbiting close to each other.
That their activities come to connect was not a surprise. It was all rooting since listening to Osamu passionately talk about dishes. And then, without looking for each other, they had ended up talking, in an empty locker room. So spontaneously.
Kita-san, do you think it'll work?
He still remembers the distant question, trying to keep from breaking.
It will.
And one day, like any other…they were partners.
It had been the natural progression of things. No plans, no intentions.
Since the first day that Osamu set foot on the farm, he saw every day a scene so similar and so different at the same time. Both moving through time without major complications. Or perhaps it was the more mundane complications that they quickly sailed through them.
And so many scenes, stored in his memory.
Osamu's hesitation when asking about the rice deliveries.
His expression when he found out that Kita had never been to karaoke.
The rain that left no option for Osamu but to stay longer.
Obaachan calling them to have a picnic on the field.
The sunset after going to buy supplies for the farm.
An impromptu volleyball practice near the paddy.
Osamu, nervous, when inviting him to a karaoke. Kita, nervous, when taking the microphone.
Osamu's gentle voice when Kita visited Onigiri Miya.
A laugh while trying to fix a broken down car in the middle of the road.
Osamu hesitant to call him Shinsuke, stumbling between words.
A long talk about prices in the supermarket and digressions that lead to more intimate questions.
Osamu looking at the horizon and closing his eyes to breathe.
He enjoyed every moment he spent with Osamu. But it wasn't extraordinary in the way everyone described him. He simply asked time for more time, while the most ordinary stayed with him.
It wasn't extraordinary… Or maybe it was but in the simplicity that it wasn't.
He was not sure. But there was something different about everyone else's company. Different from his grandmother, from Aran, from Atsumu, from Omimi. Particular and a little frightening in his unfamiliarity.
Mere presence, that was all he needed at the moment and then...
"Do you think we can stop by before we go to Aran's place tomorrow? There's a new Sukiyaki place I want to show you."
"Of course"
Sitting near the irrigation, Kita knows this will be another one of the memories that will last the longest. He can notice it in the aroma that surrounds them, in Osamu's slight blush and the reflection of the water in front of them, acting as a mirror of the sky. The moment opening his skin and impregnating its fibers with happiness and future melancholy.
They kept watching the horizon, no words in between, only the comfortable silence that spoke to each other, affectionately, patient and habitual. Letting everything pass around them, while their hands remained close to each other.
"I want to plant a sakuranbo like yours"
Kita can't help but grin openly at the thought of that little tree that has started to grow some small edible cherries.
"I didn't plant that one over there, it grew, unexpectedly"
Near one of the paddy fields, a couple of its leaves fell into the water and remained floating, with a slight disdain, for making their way into the planting but with all the delicacy.
"Woah, those are hard to grow"
"Right?"
He never believed in miracles or coincidences. He left that for the daydreamers. But, even without further explanation of this, he could live without the perfect answer that matched his way of seeing things.
"Some seed fell without me realizing it, perhaps." Sometimes, exceptions occurred, among a sea of concurrence; something happened without asking and was allowed to exist. One time only. "It made its way on its own."
"Does it disturb the rest of the seeding?" Osamu turns to see him genuinely worried, puzzled by what the little tree might imply.
"Not at all. It exists in peace"
Dusk falls on Osamu's shoulders. His affable and affectionate gaze dazzles. Yes, in this moment, in this company…
"Well, it wasn't something you wanted or planned...but it's beautiful" Osamu said, looking affectionately at that exception in the middle of the open field.
…There was something else.
An exception?
"It is," Kita says, unable to take his eyes off his kohai, his teammate, his business partner, his friend and…
"Kita-san, are you okay?"
Kita watches his hands, leaning on the kitchen sink, holding on tight so he won't be fooled by the wobbly, distorted view.
Osamu's voice becomes sweeter, removing the bitterness that his palate resisted so as not to let the alcohol act any longer and confuse him more.
"No, I'm…a little dizzy"
"Wait, let me–" Osamu tries to pull up a seat for Kita.
"It's okay, Osamu, I'm fine" Kita doesn't need it. He needs to not look in Osamu's direction so he doesn't get caught up in him.
"You are way too stubborn, you know that, Kita-san?"
He wasn't the only one. "I'm fine"
"This is your first time getting drunk, isn't it?"
He wasn't very adept at doing things on the spur of the moment. To the unforeseen. Things go out of the line of what has been meditated, what was planned or at least what was foreseen.
"I know how to handle it"
"I know you probably do, but–"
"I thought you were not going to call me Kita-san anymore" He feels a surge. His heart stirs. Feel the need to reproach a little. "I thought it was clear you could call me Shinsuke."
"Did that sober you up?"
"Osamu"
"...Shinsuke" Osamu. He is beautiful, he always is. Osamu. In his mind, more than ever. "Your resistance to alcohol is somewhat low-"
He almost never does these things. He is not very adept at improvising. Physical affection was not his strong suit. But the impulse dragged him to Osamu, drew him without stopping to think. He steals a light gasp from Osamu midway.
Their lips collide. The drunkenness, the speed and the angle are slightly awkward, he can tell, but it doesn't matter. Feeling the softness of his lips, a slight taste of Shochu and then Osamu's arms embracing his waist.
Maybe it's the alcohol still running in his body. Maybe it's the warm night and the laughter in the background. Maybe Osamu's lotion or the many memories. Maybe it's all, culminating in a slow, yearning kiss.
A kiss so uncertain and so right at the same time. Reciprocal.
When Osamu's lips stop moving. When the doubts stop counting. He knows something. He knows.
"Shinsuke–" Osamu says in a dismayed whisper. His lips had his full attention.
"I'm sorry" Kita apologizes with all the sincerity his dizziness can bestow.
"No, no-!" Osamu clings to Shinsuke's waist, as if fearing the next words that will determine everything as a mistake.
"I don't want to get drunk again…" Osamu's expression is apprehensive as Kita speaks. "But I do want to kiss you again."
Osamu looks puzzled for less than a second until his lips return to Shinsuke without warning. With all the yearning accumulated.
Everyone had scattered as they left the kitchen. There was no point in wondering how long they had been in each other's arms in the kitchen. Atsumu's cheeky gaze at his brother gave away the apparently extended time.
Does this mean what I think it means? He managed to hear Atsumu ask his brother with no discretion.
Aran was having a drink on the balcony; everyone else laughed standing near the stereo or in the middle of the room.
I won the bet, I have to call Shoyo right away-. It's the last thing he gets to hear as the others join in to ask Atsumu what's going on, while Kita walks out and is greeted by the faint rumble of the night.
"Oh, you finally came out of the kitchen" Aran who scrolled the screen of his phone, blocks it to give his entire attention on Kita. Both recharged on the cold railing.
"I had to go out for a few minutes, those guys kept making terrible jokes" Aran laughs and turns to see the scene behind him. Kita follows suit.
Behind the glass, Atsumu records himself with his phone and argues with Osamu. Suna also takes pictures of Osamu, and Gin laughs with a drink that ends up spilling on the floor. And then Osamu looks up at him and smiles.
"What did I miss?" Aran returns to look at the street and then looks curiously at Kita. "Because it seems like a lot".
"I'm not sure" he barely grasps the idea himself.
"You? Saying you're not sure?!"
He's not sure how to put it into words that equate to everything everyone had said since he was a child, a kid beginning to understand that not everyone felt things in the same way.
He looks for clear answers in the starry night, in Osamu's laughter in the background, and in Aran's patience.
"Osamu is something more to me" he was beginning to understand. "But…"
"But?"
But.
"I'm not sure if I want to call it infatuation or love or something of that sort"
Aran sighs so deeply. Almost letting out a groan for what is perhaps absurd to him. He understands-
"If you don't want to call it that way, you don't have to" Aran raises his voice a little exasperated. His enthusiasm reminds Kita of a distant scene: a sunset and a number one shirt wrinkling in his hands.
"Just be happy. You don't need a reason or a definition to do it"
He wants to laugh and let go of the remaining doubts and that's what he does. Laugh because sometimes exceptions are unsettling but also gratifying. Yeah…
So he came to the conclusion he was after for so long: Osamu was one of those few exceptions.
The only one, possibly.
He was an idea he enjoyed immeasurably.
Something blossomed within the habit. An unexpected company.
He wasn't sure if this sentiment had an expiration date. If it would wither on the way. But it didn't matter. He would treasure what he felt no matter how much he hated uncertainty.
Maybe this was the feeling that was talked about so much. Maybe it wasn't. And maybe that really didn't matter.
He had made peace with doubts and the beauty of singularities.