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Ibasho: (Japanese) "a place where one feels a sense of belonging and purpose, and is accepted as oneself"
Just a few days after becoming seventeen, Pina the dall sheep was kidnapped by Riz the brown bear.
And it took seventeen years more for them to finally realize that they were always meant to be together.
Since the moment he had turned thirty, Pina would admit that he had somewhat started to feel like an old man. Maybe even before that: there had been little to no excitement in his life, and time had seemed to go so quickly that, by the time he realized he was already an adult, he had felt like he had wasted the best years of his youth. That being said, he'd never understood why, after having made the confession of his life, he had felt completely rejuvenated.
"Ah, let's buy one of those!"
"... That's a ball." Riz says, raising an eyebrow at the chair Pina is pointing at. "And I doubt either of us would be able to fit in there."
"Maybe you don't, but I could."
The bear shakes his head. "Not with those horns, no. C'mon, let's search for something else."
He starts walking away, looking around and seeming to pick interest in a much bigger sofa. Pina pouts, though Riz doesn't take notice, busy as he is.
"You're no fun." The sheep complains. "I want our living room to look classy."
"I would rather it be functional before it is classy." Riz insists. "Besides, how is a ball considered classy?"
"Well, I am not sure. Maybe it is because it's unique, and you don't expect to see something like that in a common house."
"What's wrong with common? Our house certainly is."
Pina takes his gaze away from the sofa and raises his head to look at Riz with a serious face. It takes the bear a few seconds to notice, and when his eyes finally meet with Pina's, he almost takes a step back.
"W-what? Did I say something wrong?"
The ram doesn't answer right away, which almost causes Riz a heart attack, but soon enough he smiles, shaking his head. "Oh, no. I mean, I guess it is a little bit mean to say it is common, but…"
Taking his boyfriend by surprise, Pina holds the ursine's big hand with his, apparently not caring at all if they are seen.
"It makes me happy that we can finally call it our house."
After so many years of longing for something, finally achieving it might satisfy some people for a while, until they feel in need of something more to pursue. Pina would admit that he used to be like that when young: always in search of someone's love, but never willing to settle for long. He was the kind to grow bored soon, and it was certainly more fun to jump between relationships, to be free of commitment with someone he didn't actually know.
However, at some point he realized that he wanted that stability, too. He had longed for his best friend, wishing they could be together for the rest of their days. There had not been any particular reason, perhaps, or at least none he could think of. He had simply noticed that he was happy with Riz, and had wanted that happiness to last forever.
And yet, one often may be afraid of their own happiness. Even when he had known about his feelings, he had never truly acted on them, and over the years, he often had to ask himself why.
The answer, he supposes, has to do with that fear. Before Riz, he had never known the fear of being rejected, because the worst that could happen then would be just that: to be rejected. But the cycle would continue even if that possibility arose: he'd just jump to the next willing animal that happened to be interested in his face, and then he'd continue living in the same way he had all those years.
However, if, for some reason, Riz were to reject him, that'd simply ruin everything. Their friendship would never be the same after that, and Pina would have lost everything he had.
Because, at the end of the day, even a narcissist like him could admit that, when it came to a relationship, the only thing he had to offer was his pretty face.
"I'll start moving things here." Riz says, already rolling up his sleeves. "Why don't you start unpacking the boxes in our room?"
"Got it." He says with a wink, glad that Riz is taking care of the furniture. While he is at that, Pina can handle the small stuff, and they should be done in no time.
What a great team they are.
Chuckling to himself, he walks upstairs to their new shared room. They had been staying in Riz's small apartment for a while, until they both agreed that it wouldn't do for the rest of their lives. And after a long period of arduous search, they'd finally found a small house that would better accommodate their needs and style.
And, after so many years, his dream had finally become true: he and Riz have their own house, and they'll live together forever, sharing precious moments and accumulating fond memories in a place they could call home at last.
He starts placing his things around, then does the same for Riz's stuff, trying to remember how they had arranged their space before. Despite what other animals may believe, he never actually used many products to accentuate his most charming features. He was —as Riz sometimes told him— a natural beauty, one that needed nothing more than what he had to stand out from the rest and be admired.
Riz himself wasn't meticulous about his own appearance, which Pina thinks suited him just fine. Part of his charm was that despite the simplicity in which he carried himself, Riz still managed to look handsome and catch your eye. It was, maybe, an attractiveness that Pina could never even think of having, one that came not only from his looks, but also the way he stood and smiled. The bear radiated a different kind of warmth, one that made others around feel welcome. Pina, on the other hand, always thought that his presence was comfortable for a while, but eventually felt like a cold room in the dark.
Halfway through his thoughts, the ram shakes his head. If he starts thinking about everything he likes about Riz he might never finish his task (and, depending on how much he lets those thoughts slip, he might even try to interrupt Riz's as well). Deciding that they can do that sort of thing later, he opens another box to empty.
However, he almost stops breathing when he looks inside.
Distracted as he was, he hadn't read what they had written in the box, so he quickly closes it again to see what Riz wrote. Important. Fragile. Room.
Important.
With shaking hands, he opens it again, carefully reaching inside to take out an old battery-powered radio, one that he can recognize.
“Ah, I asked about what I could bring you… it appears they don’t have a problem with a lot of things, but they said the other kids might take them away from you. I thought I could bring you a portable radio, but I guess that one would be easily stolen.”
"A radio?"
"Yeah, you know, so you could listen to some music. You were part of the sound team, so I thought you might like something like that."
He had almost completely forgotten about that radio, but seeing it brings him back a lot of memories. He had bought that radio for Riz when he started visiting him in juvenile, a small gesture of kindness that, if he's being honest, had been more of an apology. It's not like he felt that he had done wrong back then, calling the police, as it had certainly been the most logical thing to do. However, Riz had sincerely apologized for everything he did, so it felt wrong not to apologize, too, for putting him in that place.
Running his hands through the device, Pina just stayed like that for a while. He didn't know Riz had kept it, hadn't, in fact, even crossed his mind that he would. It simply disappeared from his brain at some point, as he hadn't had a reason to think of it until now.
Important.
Riz wrote <<important>> in this box, yet this radio looks completely useless now. It doesn't have any batteries, and even if it had, Pina doubts they'd work now. It must be twenty years old, and, while it looks well-kept, it's clear that it has seen much better days. Now that he thinks about it, maybe Riz had to keep it hidden when he moved to prison, and it's surprising that it never got lost in all that time.
Lost in thought, he doesn't notice when Riz enters the room. "Hey, honey, I think it's done. You wanna take a look at it…?"
But Pina doesn't turn his head or even react to his voice. He's seated in the middle of the room, just staring at something in his hands and giving him his back.
"Pina?" Riz says, softer this time. "You alright?"
Slowly, the ram raises his head and finally turns a little, raising the object in his hands. "You kept this?"
The bear's eyes widen in surprise, although it's hard to tell if it is because of the object or because of the way Pina asked that. Maybe he sounded too confused, but he is, because, why would anyone keep some old thing like that and even place it in a box labeled as important?
Surprisingly, without having to speak any of his thoughts, Riz gives him the answer to all that:
"Of course I did. You gave it to me."
For what feels like an eternity, none of them say anything after that. They just stare into each other's eyes, trying to read whatever is in their minds. Riz doesn't understand if it was wrong to keep that radio, but the face Pina is making definitely makes him feel like it was.
"I… have given you a lot of things over the years." The sheep says after a long moment of silence in which he tried to process his thoughts. "Why only keep this?"
Riz frowns slightly, but instead of answering, he leaves the room without saying a word. Pina leaves the radio and quickly gets up, wondering if he somehow insulted his boyfriend, and follows him downstairs. "Wh—"
"Here."
He's barely able to catch whatever it is that Riz threw at him as soon as he entered the room they designated to be an office for him to do home office when needed. Once he's sure he's not being attacked, he looks down at the book in his hands, and again, is immediately able to recognize it as one of the many books he had gifted Riz while he was imprisoned.
"You kept this one, too…" He whispers, running his fingers through its spine. "Did you like it that much?"
"Not at all." Riz says, already taking out another book from the shelf. "You had a terrible, macabre taste."
Now it's Pina's turn to frown and feel insulted. "Then, why did you keep it?"
"Because you gave it to me." Riz repeats, showing the book in his hands. "I have kept everything you gave me."
Pina stays silent, so the bear takes that opportunity to search for more books. He places them on the desk, letting the sheep see the cover of every book he once gave him.
"I also have the scarf you gave me for Christmas, and that mug with the bees—"
"I thought you hated that mug." Pina interrupts, feeling suddenly overwhelmed by the memories brought by these things.
"I do. It looks stupid for a bear of my size to use a mug more suited for a child."
Frustrated, the ram opens his arms wide. "Then why did you keep it?! Why, if you haven't liked anything I gave you, have you kept everything anyway?!"
"I told you, it's because you gave it to me."
That doesn't explain anything, and the sheep is growing quickly tired of this. He doesn't understand, and this feels like something he should understand—
"You gave me all these things, and it is thanks to them that I felt less lonely."
"... What?"
Riz finally left the books, walking closer until he was in front of the ram, and gently took the book he was still holding, leaving it aside so he could take Pina's small hands in his.
"For a very long time, before I had even met you, I felt lonely in my heart. I just wanted someone to see me and accept me as I was, but after Tem's death, I thought I would never find someone that would deem me worthy of love."
Going down on one knee to be closer to Pina's eye level, he continues. "But then you appeared, and did just that. When I was imprisoned I thought that my punishment was to stay lonely for the rest of my life, but you didn't let that happen: you visited me, and even when you weren't there, I could still feel your love through all the gifts you left for me. Those books were not to my taste, but I did have a good time reading them, because in doing so I learned more about what you liked or not. When terrible thoughts invaded my mind, I listened to the radio and all I could think about was that you gave it to me, that maybe, you were listening to the same station at the same time, and that we could be connected by that. I kept the picture you gave me, from the day you had your coming-of-age ceremony, and I still look at it all the time, because you're beautiful, and I love you, and all I ever wanted was to be by your side. And I know that we will be together from now on, but at a time when I wasn't sure if that would happen, I just knew that all these little things will at least remind me of the good times I had with you."
Pina opened his mouth to reply, but all that came out was a soft cry. He took one hand away from Riz's grasp, trying to cover his face as he had started to cry.
"W-why are you crying?!" The bear asks, standing quickly and picking the ram in his arms. "Shh, it's okay honey, please don't cry, why are you even crying?"
"Idonnow." The sheep muttered against his chest. "I'm just so happy right now…"
Because for such a long time, he had thought that the only thing he could give to someone he loved would be his face, and with time, he feared that once he lost his beauty he'd be a useless partner. How could he have forgotten that one of the reasons why he had started loving Riz as a friend had been because he showed him that he could be loved without caring about his looks? That bear had always seen him as so much more than that, had always thought he was worthy of knowing, he was so kind—
"I love you." He whispers in the bear's ear. "I love you, I love you, I love you."
Riz nuzzles him before kissing his temple. "I love you too."
From now on, this house will be a place where they can keep the things that remind them of good times, while they build and collect more memories of their new lives.