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“There isn’t a single gray cloud in the sky, so maybe the weather forecast wasn’t accurate after all,” Ritsu said as he looked out the window. “It still looks a bit cloudy, though, but I doubt it’s going to rain.”
“That’s good news,” Takano said. “We could’ve gone any other day, but it’s the first time in many years that we get to even have a vacation, so I was willing to suck up the rain anyway.”
Onodera drew the curtain back and grabbed the small bag that was sitting on their hotel bed. Next to him, Takano grabbed the keys off the bedside table and went directly to the door.
“Let’s get going,” Takano told Ritsu, who was checking one of his bags pockets to ensure that he was bringing something with him. “Before it gets dark.”
“Yeah, I’m coming.”
It was, as Takano said, the first time in a long time that they were able to take a well-deserved, long-term vacation. In previous years, if they wanted to take a break, their only option was to take as much advantage of the holidays as they could, aside from the weekends, and none of those days had been enough to recover from their stress.
Two weeks wasn't exactly a “long” vacation either, but it was long enough for both Takano and Onodera to make plans together so that they could enjoy some quality time as the couple they were, and it was Takano's idea to visit Kagawa for a couple of days as their first destination.
Five years ago, Isaka, as president of the company, had given plane tickets to all the Emerald editors under the pretext that it was a gift from him in light of Chiharu Yoshikawa's sudden rise in popularity on social media, but as with everything that had to do with Isaka, their so-beloved president had hidden intentions behind the tickets so elegantly tucked into the envelope.
At least they weren’t coming back to Kagawa as glorified gofers. Instead, they were coming back so that Takano could show Ritsu his old hometown, back when he lived there after his parents' divorce, and to pay respects to his deceased grandmother. Ritsu could still remember how Takano had said back in the day how sad he was that he couldn't visit her as often as he wanted to.
He liked the place. It wasn't as busy as Tokyo. Like most prefectural capitals, Takamatsu still had an urban area, but it was far less overwhelming than back home, and the new environment was the perfect escape from all the stress they both carried from work. Ritsu still found the rice fields a mesmerizing view when they took the bullet train to Takamatsu, and Takano still insisted on teasing him for being a sheltered child.
The good thing about being in a relationship with Takano for the last five years (and counting) was that he'd become somewhat immune to his teasing. Even so, Takano wasn't a man known for giving up, not even on his teasing, and he was still able to find new ways to make Ritsu blush with embarrassment.
Takano leased a car as soon as they arrived there, and while it was technically a different car, it was exactly the same model as the one he had back in Tokyo, a coincidence that made Takano chuckle.
"I wonder how much the place has changed since the last time we went," Takano said, as he adjusted his glasses and fixed the mirror before him.
"I don't think it has changed much. Cemeteries are usually preserved," Ritsu replied.
"I meant the road, but you're right." He fastened his seatbelt.
"Oh."
"Did you check to make sure you didn't miss anything?"
Ritsu grabbed his bag and opened it. "Yes, I’m bringing everything, except for the incense sticks, although we can get them at a nearby temple.”
“Got the flowers?” Takano continued.
Ritsu put his hand inside the bag and quickly pulled two small bouquets he'd gotten earlier at Takano's request. Family graves weren't known for being spacious enough, so they couldn't get too excited and show up at Takano's grandmother's grave with those big bouquets like in American movies.
Takano once told him that his grandmother always dreamed of having a big backyard, so she could plant as many flowers as she wanted, a dream that was only thwarted by the fact that she lived in a traditional Japanese house that didn't have a backyard, and so Takano decided that he’d at least bring her some of her favorite flowers to her grave as a way to compensate for her frustrated dream.
“Yellow and white lilies, just like you requested.”
"Excellent," he said before starting up the engine, and soon enough they were driving down the road to the cemetery as the clouds hung over the sky.
The weather got significantly chillier as they both exited the car. They both felt the wind caress their faces and creep through the layers of fabric they were wearing, making them shiver slightly. To Takano’s surprise, the parking area was desolated, and so he was able to park the vehicle with no problem. A familiar landscape spread out across their field of vision, taking the two of them back in time to five years prior.
Just like Ritsu predicted, the cemetery remained the same, as if it was a picture, frozen in time. It was as beautiful as the day he first saw it, and the chilly weather rang a few bells in his head, making him recall his days in England. This is a déjà vu, he thought. He unzipped his bag again and took a polaroid camera out of it and took a picture of the landscape, before going inside the cemetery. Sure, he could’ve just used his phone to take photos, but it wasn’t the same as having a physical version of the picture right after taking it. He hoped to collect as many photos as he could and frame them back home in their shared apartment, as a memento of their first trip together as an official couple.
“So that’s what you were saving up for?” Takano asked Ritsu, surprising him from behind as he placed his hand on his shoulder.
“Ah!” Ritsu gasped. “Don’t do that! I almost dropped the camera.”
“Five years and you still get surprised by the same trick? Adorable.”
In a poor attempt to avoid getting annoyed, Onodera let out a small laugh. “Enough of this, we’re here to pay our respects.” After that, he put the camera away as well as the photo. “I’ll go get the incense sticks,” he stated, and went directly to the temple. It was not the time to be angry with him. Not when they were in such a place.
In the meantime, Takano went on and grabbed one of the wooden tubs that was resting at the entrance and waited for Onodera to come back. As he heard the distant sounds of birds going south, he started reminiscing of his teen years back in Shikoku.
When he first came, he hated Kagawa. He insisted to his mother that he could live on his own in Tokyo (he had been doing so for so long), and that he could just find a part-time job near him to sustain himself. A protest that fell on deaf ears, of course. To that day, Takano was still puzzled as to why his mother suddenly insisted on having custody of him when she was pretty much an absent figure to him (at least in an emotional sense).
His father didn't even bother to put up a fight and gave him to her. He wondered if his father ever loved him, even back when he didn't know he was his illegitimate child, or if he never cared about him at all.
His mother taking him to Takamatsu never felt like an act of love, but rather another way for her to hate her now ex-husband, as if she just wanted to tell him "I won" before parting ways. He'd been betrayed by the two people who were supposed to love him the most. Many years had passed since then, and Takano could still feel the same pain in his chest caused by the betrayal, although it wasn't as piercing as it used to be.
His stay at Shikoku lasted only one semester, as he went back to Tokyo for university once he graduated, but those six months became some of the most miserable of his life. He had lost not only his family, but also his first love. The only good thing about his time in Kagawa was his grandmother.
Unlike his mother, she was everything that Takano's inner abandoned child always longed for in a mother: she was kind, understanding, humble, and above all, caring. In those six months, she would always ask him how his days were or how school was going. She cared for him more than his own mother ever did in seventeen years. On top of that, she allowed him to keep Sorata. At home, keeping him had always been a source of argument with his mother, who was known for her animosity towards animals.
There was a part of him that wondered how different things would’ve turned out if he had stayed in Kagawa for college instead of moving back to Tokyo. He could’ve spent more time with her grandmother, and she wouldn’t have had to die alone.
“I got the incense sticks!” Onodera called out as he walked towards him, interrupting Takano’s train of thought. “Huh, Masamune, are you feeling alright?” He suddenly got worried over him, who was blankly staring at the rice fields.
“Huh?” Takano said, still trying to come back to reality. “Oh, yeah, I was just remembering some stuff.”
Fifteen years later, those memories were still able to lump in his throat. Time heals all wounds, some might say, but some wounds leave a scar, it seems.
"You looked a bit sad, so I got worried," Ritsu added.
So many things could’ve been different if he had stayed there. Hell, maybe his whole life would’ve been different. All his doubts dissolved into thin air when he stared into Ritsu's green eyes and remembered how much he'd wanted to find him again after their abrupt separation in high school. He had made many wrong decisions in his life, and some of them were still haunting him today, but if he hadn't made those decisions, he would have probably never met Ritsu again.
Maybe going back to Tokyo was the best decision he’d ever taken.
“Do you like Takamatsu, Ritsu?” Takano asked him out of the blue.
Puzzled by his behavior, Onodera stood by his side.
"Um, well, it's a nice place," he replied, tilting his head slightly to the side. "I could see myself living here."
"Would you like to move here?" Takano abruptly suggested.
The sudden proposition took Onodera aback. Was he being for real?
“As much as I like it here, I still have to go to work, and so do you.”
"What if we move here when we retire?" He rephrased the question.
Ritsu felt himself blush at the thought.
“Sure, but isn’t it a bit too soon?” Ritsu wondered.
Takano wrapped his arm around Onodera’s shoulder, holding him closer as they both looked into the landscape. He could already imagine the two of them, their faces and hands withered by age, still finding each other the most beautiful people in existence, and their hands still soft to the touch. Most people would find the idea of growing old terrifying, but Takano was willing to grow as many white hairs as possible and become wrinkled if it meant that he had lived many years with the love of his life.
“I can’t wait to grow old with you.”
Five years ago, Ritsu would've scolded Takano for saying weird things, but there he was, putting his head on Takano's shoulder, as if it belonged there.
“Let’s go,” Takano said as he carried the basket and went to the cemetery. Ritsu followed him with the incense sticks.
It didn’t take long for them to find Takano’s grandmother’s gravestone. After so many years, his feet kind of led him there, and soon enough he was right in front of it, with its engraved characters that read his family name.
The first thing they did after bowing to her grave was to clean the tombstone. Takano took a small brush and started scraping off the dirt off the grave, while Ritsu began pulling the grass blades that were growing around. After that, Ritsu offered the incense sticks and put them in their place.
Takano grabbed the wooden tub again and ladled some water.
“Hi grandma, it’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
Takano poured the water with the ladle while Ritsu calmly watched how the water quietly ran down the stone, washing away any remaining grime.
“It’s been five years, and so much has changed,” he continued. “I brought you lilies, your favorite flowers. White and yellow.”
For Ritsu, there was something fascinating about the way Takano talked to his grandmother. Only her gravestone remained, proudly standing with kanji carved on it, yet seeing it was like seeing another person for Takano. It seemed as if he could see her standing in front of him, like a toddler does when he sees his grandmother.
“I’m also in a relationship now, and I’m the happiest I’ve ever been, so you don’t have to worry about me anymore, grandma. I’m no longer the sad little boy you once knew.”
Once the grave was completely wet, Ritsu lit the incense sticks, and then placed the lilies on the grave. A light smoke began to rise, and he saw it make its way up before they each joined their hands in prayer.
A deafening silence reigned over them for a few minutes until the prayer was over, a moment in which Ritsu noticed that some gray clouds were approaching just as they were leaving the cemetery.
"Well, I guess the forecast was right.”
Takano looked up and noticed the gray clouds too and sighed.
"I know I said I was willing to suck up the rain, but I'd rather go back to the city and get an umbrella."
"I told you it would be good to bring one, but you didn't listen!" Onodera scolded him.
"I didn't bring it because it's too big, and we were bringing so much stuff already!" Takano insisted. "Whatever. I'm glad we came here first; now I have some peace of mind."
As they both made their way back to the car, Ritsu sneakily took his polaroid out and took a picture of Takano’s backside. The sound quickly alerted him.
“Hey, what the hell?!”
Ritsu smugly held the unrevealed photo between his fingers. "Surprised? That's cute," he teased, as he referenced Takano's previous comment.
“Oh, you little...!”
Before he could finish, another whir came out from the polaroid, and soon enough another photograph came out. He’d just taken another picture, this time of an angry Takano looking directly at him.
“Is it going to be like this for the rest of the trip?” Takano asked him.
“This is my payback for all the times you teased me before we started dating!” Ritsu smirked. The previous photo was already revealed, and he was waiting for the most recent one to do the same.
Ritsu had not only gotten used to Takano's antics, but he had also learned how to taunt him back. An impressive achievement, in Takano's honest opinion, but not one he was particularly proud of. Not when he realized how annoying it could be to be on the receiving end of the teasing.
"Oh, I'll show you cute!" Takano provoked by taking the camera out of Ritsu's hands and taking a picture of both of them, but not before Takano kissed Ritsu on the lips. The scene was quickly captured by the film and a photo came out. Before Ritsu could even grab it, Takano took it out and waited for it to reveal itself.
The black finally faded away, revealing an overexposed photo of a wide-eyed Ritsu being kissed by his boyfriend, cheeks completely reddened, with some gray clouds creeping into the frame, and some wind ruffling their hair. It was perfect.
“I’d say that this counts as cute, don’t you think?”
As much as Onodera didn’t want to surrender, he wasn’t lying. It was a very good picture. He took it from Takano’s hands and placed it alongside the other photos inside his bag, and then placed the polaroid camera back inside.
"Shall we go back to the city? Before it starts to rain," Ritsu suggested as they both got into the car.
"Sounds good to me," Takano replied. "We can get an umbrella at a nearby store, and then I'll take you to my old neighborhood."
Maybe it was because the music coming out of the radio was loud enough, or because Takano was focused on the road, but Ritsu managed to take another sneaky picture of him, and he hoped to take even more.
His only hope was that the camera film he had with him would be enough.