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It’s been years, now, that Kojiro has wanted to confess. He did, once, when he was in Italy—all of the stained glass and appreciation for tradition reminded him of Kaoru—but telling a priest that he had feelings for his best friend was much different than telling the man himself. Even when he got back to Japan, he didn’t manage to do it despite telling himself that he would. It would’ve been unreasonable, he figured. He didn’t want to be tied down when he was going to be so far away. He didn’t want to risk trapping Kaoru in a relationship that would be inconveniently long distance until he graduated, either.
So long as he didn’t think about Kaoru messing around, his heart wouldn’t sink like something too heavy to focus on.
Besides, they were young. Young people’s feelings could change on a dime, and he thought that surely once he went back to culinary school and was away again, his would fade. Maybe he’d find some Italian who would tempt him into staying there for longer than planned. He and Kaoru would lose touch with each other because the difference in timezones would get too cumbersome to bother with. Something was bound to happen that made him relieved that he didn’t confess.
Then he graduated. And still, somehow, he didn’t lose the way he felt about the most infuriating person in his life. The closest he’s gotten to confessing after years of liking him was that one time he sent Kaoru a post that said something along the lines of “I have feelings for you. Mostly rage and annoyance.” Kaoru had responded with an emoji that rolled its eyes.
Tonight, he’s going to change that. It might be cliché to bring flowers, but he got a bouquet anyways; besides, clichés are just traditions. There’d be a bit more romance to it, perhaps, if the rain wasn’t coming down in what looks like a solid downpour more akin to dumping out a bucket than anything else. He certainly shouldn’t ride his bike in it, he thinks. All of the petals will be powerwashed off of the stems if he doesn’t use an umbrella. It’ll be easier if he waits for it to let up a bit. There’s at least a chance of the weather improving, then, and it’s not that late at night yet; Kaoru will be up for a while still. He’s spent enough nights up late with him—and, when they were younger, enough mornings running late to school with him—to know that he’s a night owl.
-
Sakurayashiki Kaoru is a smart man. He’s considered himself to be as such for years now. His test scores showed it, and his business sense and passion for technology continues to show it. He’s smart, and he’s skilled, and yet as he looks in the mirror and gives himself a pep talk he has never felt like more of an idiot.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s Kojiro. Just because he’s a village bicycle everywhere he goes doesn’t mean that it’s impossible for him to have feelings. And, if he does reject you, then you can get over his stupid face and his ugly, gauche clothes and the way they fit his ridiculously muscled body. Just go. Go tell him. He’s an idiot if he says no.”
He’s a smart man, and every choice he’s made in life has shown that. He built an entire A.I. from scratch. He basically invented a new career path for himself. People love to talk about the A.I. calligrapher. And, at S, people love to talk about the skater with a board that can change sizes on a moment’s notice. Nobody could ever deny his intelligence.
He is a smart man who did not consider checking the weather.
Almost immediately he’s soaking wet. But in order to get an umbrella, he’d have to go back inside, and he knows himself; it’ll quickly devolve into acknowledgement that going on another day would be smarter than walking in the rain, and by then he’ll never be as bold as he is in this moment. He’ll never do it if he doesn’t do it right now, tonight. So, with a begrudging acceptance that he won’t be able to see where he’s walking from how wet his glasses are, he starts running. So what if he’s a mess when he reaches Kojiro? It’s not like he hasn’t seen Kojiro even more of a mess while drunk at 2AM. If he had a nickel for every time they saw each other in a way that they wouldn’t want a client to see either of them, they could afford a wedding. Not that Kaoru would’ve ever dreamed of such a thing. He’s never thought about traditional Japanese attire being worn in an Italian church, stained glass painting colour across the rows of attendees in the pews. He’s never thought about what that would look like, not even once, certainly not many times over the course of several years.
He’s never been to Italy, but he’s seen the photos that Kojiro took of everything. They could go together. It wouldn’t be so bad if they were on vacation together instead of him feeling like he’s intruding on a life that he’s not a part of. He always found excuses not to visit him in school. He was busy with his own life, with his own education, with becoming a renowned calligrapher. Never once did he manage to say that it was mostly because he couldn’t bear to be a voyeur on a life that he wasn’t a part of.
They don’t live that far apart, but it certainly feels longer in the rain with his energy strung high. He’s halfway there and to say he’s drenched would be a gross understatement. He’s sure his clothes are heavier than he is now. But that’s fine. It’s not like he’ll be at Kojiro’s long; all he has to do is get there, say his piece, then leave. Go home, wring out his clothes and hang them to dry. He can’t keep running, so he walks the rest of the way, trying to enjoy the feeling of the rain instead of focusing on how unpleasantly cold it is. It would’ve been faster if he could’ve at least brought Carla.
Before he knocks on Kojiro’s door, he decides to wait a moment and collect himself. He won’t be able to get any words out if he’s out of breath. He can spare a few moments to squeeze some of the water out of his clothes, at least, wringing out as much as he can without having to take anything off as he huddles himself in the overhang.
-
It’s time, Kojiro thinks. The weather isn’t going to get better. The flowers are going to start wilting too soon if he doesn’t give them tonight. They’ve surely endured countless downpours before; one more on their funeral march to the place that they will rot is surely not a big deal. He gathers them up in one hand and opens his front door, surprised by what greets him before he can turn to grab his umbrella. To him, Kaoru looks like a beautiful—drowned, but still beautiful—deer in the headlights. He has his glasses in one hand and seems to be trying to dry them off on his soaking wet clothes.
“Hello,” Kaoru says, trying to calm his shock.
“Do you need a hand? I don’t know if you noticed, pinky, but your outfit is soaked. You’re not drying off your glasses, you’re just changing where the water came from.”
“Oh, would you shut up,” Kaoru says. It’s much easier to relax once he’s reminded of exactly who it is that stands in front of him, still half inside of his house. Kojiro holds out what seems like a bouquet of flowers to him, and he rolls his eyes. “I’m not holding your date’s flowers for you, just let me use the edge of your shirt or something.”
“My date?” Kojiro asks, though he holds out the hem of his shirt in an offer swiftly taken. “I don’t have a date planned for tonight. Not yet, at least.”
“Ah, going to a bar and seeing what fool is going to fall for you pretending to be stood up by someone else?” He certainly feels like a fool. He didn’t even wait until he was shittily flirted with over cheap drinks before he fell for Kojiro; it, unfortunately, didn’t get to be blamed on inebriation.
“No, I wasn’t going to a bar, either.”
Kaoru puts on his glasses. He doesn’t want to admit it, but Kojiro looks good. He’d definitely be able to take home anyone at whatever place he’s gotten this cleaned up for—with flowers, no less. “Well, do you have a time constraint, then?”
Kojiro doesn’t know what’s going on at all. He’s never had his plans so quickly ripped away from him. Maybe the priest at that confessional had been right to tell him to repent for his sins. Probably not, though. “Not anymore?” he says, far too questioningly because the only plans he had for the night are standing in front of him dripping wet. At least he didn’t have to walk through the rain to get to him.
“Good. I have something to tell you.”
“I have something to tell you, too. But yours is weirder, so you go first.”
“You’re calling me weird?”
“You walked here in a seemingly torrential downpour without so much as an umbrella. Wouldn’t you call that weird?”
“And you’ve got a bouquet but no date. That’s poor planning.”
“It’s for a proposal.”
“Oh, someone wants to settle down with you?” Kaoru teases with a roll of his eyes. He wishes it would distract him from how weirdly it hurts. He knows that it can’t possibly be anything like that; at most it’s a business proposal. Kojiro would’ve told him if there was someone he was actually pursuing.
“Not that kind, numbskull.”
“Maybe you should go first if you feel like whatever you’re going to say is going to set such a good and normal example.”
“Maybe you should’ve kept your clothes dry instead of coming over at eleven at night with them half-transparent and clinging to you. Unless that’s something strategic on your part. There are easier ways to ask to borrow a clothesline, you know.”
“That’s not what I’m here for.”
It’s not like Kaoru to beat around the bush so much, and Kojiro knows that. He’s always been blunt to a fault, especially with him, even if he can manage to be nice to his clientele and strangers. “Then will you just tell me what you are here for? Or do I have to keep playing twenty questions with you?”
“I wouldn’t want to keep you from your proposal,” Kaoru says, bitter and not bothering to hide it. Maybe he should’ve stayed home instead of walking through the rain. He should’ve just jumped ship before he was forced to drown.
“Well, fine then.” Kojiro takes a breath and is about to hold out the flowers when he sees Kaoru turn and start walking away. “Wait!”
“Can’t I go home and dry off?” Kaoru says, incredulous as he turns to look at him.
“Not before I give my proposal,” Kojiro says. “I’m not going to follow you home like some creep.”
Through the blur of a downpour, Kaoru stares at Kojiro. It takes him a moment to process everything. “Oh.”
He steps back towards Kojiro, under the safety of the awning. Kojiro offers the hem of his shirt again, and he dries off his glasses once more. Perhaps his impatience needs working on. Though, if he hadn’t tried to leave, who knows if Kojiro would look slightly flustered behind the nice bouquet he’s holding. It’s a good look on him.
“Do you want to say whatever you came here to say first?” Kojiro asks awkwardly. He thought he’d get less nervous at some point, but the way he’s being stared at isn’t helping at all.
It isn’t that Kaoru didn’t spend hours thinking of what he was going to say. It would be an essay, really, if he sat and wrote it all down. But as he looks at Kojiro, and his grown-out wavy hair, and the flowers that he’s still holding gently but awkwardly, and as wearing soaking wet clothing continues to get to him, he just wants to skip to the end. “I like you,” he says. Plain, simple. Nothing to hide behind.
Kojiro tries to be more intentional when he holds out the flowers this time. “I like you too.”
He takes them. “You got me flowers?”
“I apparently should’ve gotten you an umbrella.”
“I would’ve grabbed mine if I knew it was raining,” Kaoru mutters.
“What, Carla didn’t tell you?”
He rolls his eyes. “I didn’t ask her.”
“Well, do you want to come inside, then? Change into something dry?”
“What, not a fan of the soaking wet look?”
“It’s about on par with any other choice you’ve made. A strong aesthetic, if not one that most people would wear.”
“I can leave,” Kaoru says.
“Please come inside?” Kojiro tries, and he’s sure he fails, to not sound somewhat pathetic. “We could have some wine.”
“I’m not someone you picked up in a bar.”
“You think I’d offer someone I picked up in a bar wine?”
“Hopefully you don’t ask them to c-“
“Oh, shut up. Don’t be crass.”
“Rich, coming from you.” His eyes catch for just a moment on the flowers that he now holds. Staying wasn’t part of his plan for the evening. “Fine,” he says, though it lacks any of the bite that a word so short ought to have.
Kojiro steps back and flicks on the lights while letting Kaoru in. “You’d think nobody’s ever given you flowers before,” he says, setting his keys back on the table as he slips off his shoes. There’s a silence that greets him past the sound of the door closing. “No way,” he says, looking at Kaoru. “Not once?”
“I’ve been given them as appreciation from clients before,” he says. “But outside of that, no. Other than that time you gave me a flower when I was in that stupid show at school in… it had to have been when we were little kids.”
“I pestered my parents for days for that,” Kojiro says with a quiet laugh. It’s such a solid memory; his parents told him to just pick something outside like he usually did, but he was unerringly persistent until they took him to the store to pick one flower out. He’d spent so long trying to make his selection that they were almost late for the show.
“And the ones you’d hand me that you just found.”
“Didn’t I give you one for graduation?”
“Yeah,” Kaoru says. “A cherry blossom branch.” He says it like he didn’t spend hours trying to figure out the best way to preserve it, agonising over search results from forums that were mostly inactive but still functioned. He says it like he doesn’t still have it, albeit with some flowers and petals missing. There will be more browsing when he gets home, he’s sure, to figure out how to preserve this new gift.
“Yeah,” he says softly. “Could never decide if that was too on-the-nose.”
“It wasn’t the worst idea you ever had,” he says, something undefinably tender in his voice. He wishes it wasn’t there. When everything comes falling down, it’ll be easier if all of the early memories aren’t so fit to be in a romance movie.
“I’ll get something dry for you, come on,” Kojiro says, heading towards his bathroom.
“I’m going to get your floor wet.”
He rolls his eyes. “It’s fine, I have a mop.”
Kaoru follows, trying his best to not get water everywhere, but he can’t really help it; he should’ve turned back to grab an umbrella. Even if it had killed any momentum he had and ended with him sitting inside, it seems there still would’ve been a chance for him to confess. But instead he’s here now, walking behind Kojiro and watching him barely break his stride to grab a towel from a closet. He takes it when it’s offered to him.
“I’ll go grab you some clothes,” Kojiro says.
Kaoru nods. He starts undressing after setting the flowers and towel on the sink, wringing out each piece of his outfit as best as he can before hanging it up to dry. Assuming that he doesn’t stay for longer than a glass or two of wine, he’s going to end up either back in wet clothes or wearing whatever Kojiro brings him for his walk back.
Kojiro rummages around in his closet for longer than he thinks he should. It’s easy enough to pick a pair of pants; any of his clothes are going to be way too big for Kaoru’s frame, so he just needs to find a pair with a drawstring so that they can be tied. At least that describes most of his pyjama pants. Shirts are a different problem entirely. He doesn’t keep clothes he can’t wear; everything is his size, or larger for the comfort of something baggy while around the house. He settles for just picking something soft but not too worn out, a t-shirt with a faded—but still very visible—design on it. A pair of socks and an internal debate about underwear later, he’s got a passable outfit put together for Kaoru. If he stays the night, he already has pyjamas. If he leaves, it won’t look out of place for him to be walking down the street in them, aside from how completely different it is to what he usually wears in public.
“Here,” he says, holding out the folded stack to him once he gets to the bathroom.
“Thanks,” Kaoru says, taking it from him with a towel wrapped around his waist.
“Wear what you want, toss the other stuff towards my room or whatever and I’ll get it later.”
“Is there stuff I should toss?” Kaoru asks sceptically.
“You’re a big boy, you know what clothes you want to wear,” Kojiro says as he turns to go grab another towel. He hadn’t lied before about having a mop, but it’s not like he really needs it for just wiping up a trail of water.
Kaoru half expects to find something completely ridiculous in the pile of clothes, but it’s all normal. Comfortable, too. Maybe unexpected rain isn’t such a bad thing after all. There are worse things than being temporarily cold, after all, and it seems unlikely that Kojiro would be against cuddling. He’ll be warm in no time at all if that’s the case.
As he steps into the hallway, he gets to enjoy for a moment the ridiculous sight of Kojiro shuffling his way to the door with a towel beneath his feet. “Having fun?”
“Oh, a blast,” Kojiro says. “Get the wine out, I’ll be done in a sec.”
Kaoru sets his flowers down gently on the counter, trying his best to not seem as sentimental as he feels about them. Of course Kojiro gave him flowers; he’s probably given countless bouquets to countless people that he liked. He probably has five different florists on speed dial. It’s probably an arrangement he’s bought a dozen times for a dozen spring crushes that, by summer, are gone.
But Kojiro didn’t give them flowers for graduation. He didn’t pick wildflowers from the side of the road to carefully bring to school just to give to them, finding the best ones with the most beautiful petals and being careful to not crush the stems in his grip. He cried one time when he fell just before walking up to Kaoru, not because his hands and knees were all scraped up from the pavement, but because he fell right on the flower. Half the petals were ground into the concrete with bits of skin and drops of blood. The petals were the only part Kojiro was upset about. They were far too young for Kaoru to have any reasonable response, but that was what adults were for. Their monitor, once she could understand Kojiro’s passionate explanation, decided that the best solution was for the two of them to go find another flower, Kaoru toddling curiously behind Kojiro as he tried to find a good one in the grass.
Kojiro turns around, glancing over at Kaoru as he goes to hang up the wet towel. He freezes for a moment as he watches Kaoru reach for the wine glasses. It’s not like he’s never seen Kaoru looking casual; they’ve been friends for years, they’ve spent countless days and nights together, gone on trips together. He’s seen Kaoru enormously jetlagged in foreign countries that neither of them knew the language of fluently. He’s watched him make an absolute fool of himself in an airport cafeteria area trying to order a sandwich because he didn’t sleep the entire plane trip and had been awake for over 24 hours by the time they landed in their destination. He’s seen him in all manner of dress, from formal to nothing at all, and it’s never been weird; not really, at least, even if he did have to pretend to get distracted by something to hide his blushing. But there’s something about seeing him in his clothes, in his kitchen, hair pulled back into a messy bun so that the still-damp strands don’t cling to his neck in a way that he’s always found unbearable. Maybe it’s because now he knows that they, in some manner or another, feel similarly about each other, but he doesn’t know if it’s that or if it’s just how absurd the whole night has been. He stands there nonetheless, frozen in his tracks like an idiot even as Kaoru turns and looks at him.
“White or red?” Kaoru asks.
“Either,” Kojiro says.
“Alright.” Kaoru looks at Kojiro and the ridiculous look on his face. “Why are you just standing there?”
“I’m allowed to stand in my own house,” Kojiro says. He wonders if Kaoru has ever looked at him the same way that he’s looked at him an uncountable number of times.
“Whatever,” Kaoru says.
Kojiro manages to leave and hang up the towel to dry, walking back in on Kaoru pouring wine for the both of them. “Why now?” he asks.
“What?”
“Why did you choose now to tell me how you felt?” Kojiro asks.
“Why did you?” Kaoru responds with a shrug. “Just felt like the right time.”
“How long have you…?”
“What, have you forgotten how to finish a sentence?”
“Kaoru,” he says, exasperated.
“You sound like a high schooler who’s friends have just found out they have a crush.”
“Fine. How long have you liked me for?”
“Years,” Kaoru says, simple and without hesitation. The hard part is over, he thinks. Kojiro knows his feelings; the past won’t change that. “And you?”
“Years,” Kojiro echoes.
“So why didn’t you make a move sooner?”
“Why didn’t you?”
“You’re the one who went through the trouble of buying flowers and checking the weather. I didn’t plan much.”
“You always plan too much,” Kojiro says. “Remember when you made a whole itinerary for a day trip and then it all got thrown off because one place was closed?”
“I wanted to make efficient use of our time.”
“And yet you just decided to confess to liking me for years without any planning? Just impulsively decided to do it?”
“Life has been hectic for years. Things are calming down. It felt like the right time.” He takes a sip of his wine, looking at Kojiro over the glass.
“And you didn’t even bother to check the weather?”
Kaoru shrugs. “Seems to have worked out fine.”
“I suppose, but what if it was colder and raining?” He’s too inclined to agree, biassed by the way his shirt is almost falling off of one of Kaoru’s shoulders.
“Well, it wasn’t. And what about you? Were you going to walk in the rain with flowers? They would’ve gotten wrecked.”
“I was going to use an umbrella,” Kojiro says. “Not everyone enjoys an impromptu shower.”
“As if you don’t intentionally get wet in the rain so your clothes stick to you,” Kaoru says with a roll of his eyes.
“Well, apparently you’ve been looking, so you’re welcome.” He smirks at the way Kaoru hides a blush by drinking more wine. “Damn. All these years, I could’ve known that you were looking.”
“I suppose so.”
“You always have been oblivious.”
“Have not.”
“I think the length of time it took for you to confess shows that.”
“Oh, then what does that make you? You waited just as long.”
“I’m oblivious too, then,” Kojiro says.
“Well, as long as we’re in the same boat.”
There’s a moment of silence as they both sit there, slightly awkward but unerringly familiar. It’s easy enough to just exist with each other, to sip wine as they sit in the lighting of Kojiro’s home kitchen on chairs that are comfortable but not as comfortable as the couch. Neither of them move to change locations, though, sticking to the simple mandatory separation of bar-height chairs at a counter.
“So,” Kojiro says eventually.
“No,” Kaoru says.
“You don’t even know what I was going to ask!”
“I’ve heard that tone of voice from you before. I’m not spending the night. I have work early in the morning.”
“Do you want to go on a date sometime?”
“That’s not what you were going to ask.”
“But do you?”
Kaoru looks at the flowers that sit just past his glass of wine. “Okay,” he says. “Yeah. I’d like to.”
“Are you free later this week?”
“I don’t exactly have an active nightlife outside of S,” Kaoru says dryly.
“Sometimes you travel for work.”
“Not this week.”
Kojiro nods. “Wanna get dinner before S?”
“Sure.”
After another glass, they’re at the door, Kaoru still in Kojiro’s clothes.
“Here, take my umbrella with you,” Kojiro says, grabbing it to offer it to him.
“But then you won’t have an umbrella.”
“So?”
“It might rain tomorrow, idiot.”
“It’s raining right now, dumbass.”
“You’ll need your umbrella if it rains again tomorrow, unless you plan on showing up to work drenched. I’ll be fine, I can change into dry clothes again when I get home.”
“But your hair just dried,” Kojiro says, running his fingers through a loose strand of it without thinking. He lets his hand linger for a moment, knuckles brushing against Kaoru’s neck lightly as he pulls it away.
“Fine, then, walk me home,” Kaoru says.
“Fine, I will,” he says, slipping on his shoes.
“You sound so angry and yet agree so easily. I’d almost think you wanted to walk me home.”
“So what if I do?” Kojiro opens his umbrella as he steps outside, waiting for Kaoru to follow.
Kaoru holds out the keys that sat on the table. “Don’t forget these.”
“I was going to grab them,” he lies.
“Sure you were. You definitely weren’t about to lock yourself out.”
They have to walk close together, they quickly discover, if they want the umbrella to serve any purpose. It results in slow walking that turns quickly into Kaoru riding on Kojiro’s back, safely pressed against him with the flowers held to Kojiro’s chest in one hand and the umbrella in the other.
“This seems undignified,” Kaoru says, his voice remarkably close to Kojiro’s ear. He at least has the sense to keep his volume down.
“Well, would you rather be carrying me?”
“I would’ve thought you had a larger umbrella by now.”
“It’s usually plenty wide when I don’t have another person underneath it.”
“I suppose that’s fair.”
“Besides, you wouldn’t be so undignified if you either brought your own umbrella or took mine for the night. It’s not like you’re never going to see me again.”
“Or you could’ve let me walk in the rain.”
“You would’ve gotten sick.”
“That’s not how that works.”
“Fine, you would’ve gotten home and bitched at me about being cold and wet, and I would’ve felt bad for sending you home in a ceaseless torrential downpour.”
Kaoru remembers his brief thoughts earlier about cuddling. “Perhaps.”
“So here we are.”
“I suppose there are worse ways to spend a walk than being carried by a space heater.”
He grins. “Oh, are you calling me hot?”
“Shut up,” Kaoru says.
Being set down at his door is more awkward than being picked up was, an awkward re-shuffling of objects and limbs while trying to stay beneath the umbrella or the overhang above Kaoru’s door enough for both of them to stay relatively dry. He’s more careful with the flowers than himself.
“Well,” Kojiro says. “Goodnight, then.”
“Goodnight,” Kaoru says, nervous in a way he hadn’t expected as he looks at Kojiro. To say he has butterflies would feel like an understatement.
Kojiro nods and turns, managing to take a step before a hand reaches out and grabs his arm.
“Wait,” Kaoru says.
For a moment, they just stare at each other, neither one quite ready to make up their minds and make a move. Kaoru is the one to lean in, kissing him and pulling back before he even has a chance to wrap his arms around him. Just brief enough for it to be sweet but chaste, and long enough for it to reply in Kojiro’s mind over and over the entire walk home.