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He tends to wander around after school on the rare days he doesn't have plans. He likes sitting on a bench at the mall or at the station and taking in the world around him: the pulse of humanity, the ebb and flow of life.
Ryoji has made people watching into something of an art form; humans are just so fascinating in all their idiosyncrasies, their bonds so strange and malleable, and he observes as they strengthen or weaken or dissolve entirely, teenage heartbreak playing out publicly as two schoolgirls whisper harshly to each other, their brows furrowed and their mouths taut with pain. Ryoji's heart hurts for them. He hopes that one day they will find their way back to each other.
On one such day Ryoji's feet slow as his gaze snags on something on the sidewalk. A beetle, small and frail and twitching on its belly, trampled under the feet of a careless passerby.
It shouldn't have caught his attention at all, shouldn't have even been a footnote in his day, and yet Ryoji stands frozen in place, gripped by a truth that feels almost carved into the marrow of his bones: There is no escaping death. It comes for all things and this insect proves no exception but for all that the breath of life is faint in this creature it stubbornly clings to life anyway, refusing to let its existence be extinguished.
Overhead the sky splits open. Rain starts to pour but Ryoji makes no move to escape; instead he finds himself bending down on the sidewalk and cupping his hand over it, shielding the beetle from the torrents of rain. Water flattens the bangs he normally slicks back from his face and trickles into his eyes and he keeps blinking streams of it away, his throat strangely tight.
Time passes but Ryoji can't say how much. Could have been five minutes. Could have been fifteen. Could have been an eternity. But eventually it stops twitching. Eventually it dies, as all things do, as all things will. Humans or insects—what difference does it make? They all meet the same predetermined end. It doesn't hurt, exactly. He still thinks death is something you should just accept—the fate of all living things, inevitable and irrefutable—and yet—
And yet—
Suddenly the rain stops. An umbrella tilts over Ryoji, casting a shadow on the sidewalk, and Ryoji looks up, eyes and heart and throat aching, and who else would it be but Makoto crouched down beside him, shielding Ryoji from the rain?
Makoto looks at him evenly. His gaze darts to the hand Ryoji still has cupped over the now dead beetle and then back to Ryoji's face. Ryoji's hand twitches and he draws it away, awkwardly clasping his hands between his bent knees, but it's not from a self consciousness felt due to Makoto's presence. Calm Makoto, even keeled Makoto, so strange and inscrutable to people who can't see the kindness behind his eyes and his brusque manner but has always laid itself so bare to Ryoji's gaze, right from the very moment they met.
“You're going to catch a cold,” Makoto says.
A smile twitches on Ryoji's lips. It feels more genuine than it would have before he had caught sight of Makoto but then Makoto has a way of doing that to him. "Would you believe me if I said I've never gotten sick?"
"There's a first time for everything," Makoto says and holds out a hand and waits. Ryoji stares at Makoto's hand like he's never seen one before in his life and his breath hitches when his eyes flicker back to Makoto's face and catch on Makoto's mouth, the smallest of smiles curving his lips. Ryoji thinks he could look at him forever, Makoto smiling at Ryoji in the rain, and takes Makoto's hand almost as if in a daze, letting Makoto pull Ryoji to his feet.
“You're right,” Ryoji says. “Like our first time sharing an umbrella in the rain. Who knew you were such a romantic, eh, Makoto?”
“Shut up,” Makoto says but he's adjusting the umbrella so that it is still covering the both of them with one hand and loosely holding Ryoji's hand in the other.
Ryoji grins and nudges Makoto's shoulder with his own. "Don't worry. Your secret's safe with me.”
“I should have left you in the rain,” Makoto says but for all his grumbling he is here with Ryoji despite it all, making no move to drop Ryoji's hand, and Ryoji's heart is so fond, so full.
“Too late,” Ryoji says, cheerfully, and punctuates it with a squeeze to Makoto's hand before disentangling their fingers to push his wet bangs out of his eyes. Makoto shakes his head but doesn't say anything, that half smile still tugging at his mouth.
They walk in silence for quite a bit. It feels like they are in a world of their own, Makoto and Ryoji crowded close together and alone with only the sound of the rain battering against the pavement and the top of their umbrella. Ryoji can feel Makoto's gaze on him but it's not heavy with judgment or expectation; it's that gentle scrutiny that is so unique to him, like Makoto sees everything, every facet of yourself you're so desperate to hide, but is content with just the seeing and won't pry unless invited.
“You're not going to ask?” Ryoji says, that terrible irrepressible curiosity of his at work yet again, making Ryoji fundamentally unable to leave things alone. “About what I was doing?”
Makoto just looks at him and now it is Ryoji who finds himself laid bare under Makoto's gaze. He resists the urge to shrink away. The only danger here is in the danger of being known, of letting yourself be seen, which is a terrifying prospect for someone with as many hazy spots in his memories as Ryoji. “Do you want me to?”
“Yes,” Ryoji says, throat tight.
“Alright,” Makoto says, easily enough. “What were you doing?”
“I don't know,” Ryoji says, a half truth. He thinks about it, what had compelled him to stay riveted in place, to watch something so small and insignificant struggle against that which cannot be fought or conquered or denied. “I didn't want it to die alone. I felt like I had to…I don't know. Bear witness in a way.”
Makoto nods and makes a noncommittal noise, seeming to accept this like he accepts everything else about Ryoji. Could it really be that simple? But then this was Makoto, who for all his bluntness and disaffected attitude was the kindest and most nonjudgmental person Ryoji has ever known. "That's kind of you.”
“Is it?” Ryoji asks, his smile trembling on his lips. “Don't you think it's weird?”
“No,” Makoto says, plainly, something grave and strange and gentle in his eyes. “It's very you."
But who is Mochizuki Ryoji, really? It hurts if he thinks about it too deeply so he tries not to beyond the barest essentials, enough for a tidy introduction on the first day of school. He has an apartment but not a home in the sense that their peers at school would define it, room and board and money lining the pockets of his clothes whenever he is in need of it. His parents are salary men or overseas or maybe he has no parents at all, maybe he sprung into being one day fully formed, tethered to a sense of self that is as faltering as the wind.
But Makoto says this is like him, whoever or whatever Mochizuki Ryoji is, and Ryoji doesn't know himself but he knows Makoto and it's like a mirror or it's like a dream that he can just barely grasp in the last vestiges of sleep or maybe it's none of that, maybe it's just Makoto, beautiful and real and everything Ryoji has ever wanted, everything he somehow wants to keep for himself.
Makoto suddenly stops. Ryoji stops with him and watches with his heart in his throat as Makoto turns into him and pushes Ryoji's rain matted hair back from his face with his free hand, slicking in its usual style.
“There you are,” Makoto says, his fingers sliding over Ryoji's cheek, curling gently over his ear. “Ryoji.”
I never feel as real as when you say my name, Ryoji thinks. Maybe it's an odd thing to say, much less feel, so he swallows it and keeps it trapped behind his teeth but some of the sentiment must have leaked out on his face anyway because Makoto's smile widens by the most marginal of fractions. The curve of Makoto's mouth is tender and lovely and right there for the taking and Ryoji bends to feel that smile against his mouth, to taste it and learn its shape. He's never had the best impulse control when Makoto is involved and it only worsens when he familiarizes himself with how Makoto's waist fits in his hands, kissing Makoto harder when Makoto's hand drifts from his ear and curls over Ryoji's heart.
“There you are,” Ryoji murmurs back and can feel the exact moment Makoto smiles against his mouth. There they both are, two boys caught in the rain and the tides of life, kissing like a yearning or a wish or a reckless promise. "Makoto."