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Gonta was the first to awaken in the morning.
After such an exhausting night spent with Kokichi in the privacy of their bedroom, Gonta always found himself waking up at the crack of dawn. He always did, ever since he was a child—and now well into adulthood, it was a habit that never broke. Even as Kokichi continued to slumber, resting his head on Gonta’s shoulder, trapping him from getting up—Gonta knew that he wasn’t going to be falling back asleep.
So instead, he started to grow a new habit—of watching his lover peacefully sleep in his arms.
Rarely did Kokichi make such a relaxed expression, always so tense and stressed about the world around him that he couldn’t find many moments to feel at ease. Only with Gonta did he ever make such faces, especially more so as he slept.
Kokichi was always an honest man when he slept.
Yet this new habit of Gonta’s came with a consequence—one that he didn’t know how to express. Kokichi’s thin, small body was littered in scars—abnormal scars. Round burn scars that had a horrible similarity to the shape of the cigars his uncle would sometimes smoke, a long scar on his back that resembled that of a belt, several random nicks and who knows what else. Kokichi had asked him the first night they slept together not to even look at his scars. Gonta did his best to ignore them, but each and every romantic night ended with these morning rituals where he memorized each and every time a painful memory had been branded on his lover’s body.
He wondered how many other painful memories Kokichi had that didn’t leave a mark.
The thought made Gonta whimper, and Kokichi stirred. His heart skipped a beat, not ready for Kokichi to wake up when his own thoughts were filled with so much sympathetic pain and unable to tune them out. Kokichi normally didn’t wake up so soon, but Gonta knew his lover was an extremely light sleeper, and that any small, sudden noise would stir him.
So as Kokichi’s eyes fluttered open, Gonta averted his, trying to pretend he had just been staring at the ceiling. Kokichi yawned, making a small squeak that reminded him of how kittens yawned, before he nuzzled his face into Gonta’s chest.
“G’morning,” he murmured, voice raspy. “Too early…”
“You should go back to sleep. It is very early,” Gonta insisted. “I know you do not… sleep well.”
“Mmm…” Kokichi yawned again, but then his eyes fluttered open, a tiny grin splitting his face. “Well, when you make good on your promise to keep me up all night…”
Gonta’s face burned at the teasing, but the worry settled into his stomach. He had to keep his eyes away from Kokichi, less he look at those awful scars that Kokichi was so ashamed of. “That—that is why I let you sleep in… most days.”
Kokichi hummed and tilted his head, and from the corner of his eyes, Gonta could see his smile fall. “Mmm… Something wrong?”
“N-no!” Gonta exclaimed, and immediately he knew he had made a mistake. He answered too quickly, too abruptly and loudly. Clear signs of a lie.
Kokichi eyes narrowing with suspicion only confirmed that he had been caught. “Hmm… a rare attempt at lying from Gonta. Not something you see every day.”
“Guh…” His eyes closed, both in shame and to prevent himself from staring. “Sorry…”
“C’mon love, you can talk to me,” Kokichi murmured. Then, he felt Kokichi shifting around, and when Gonta opened his eyes, Kokichi was looming over him, his face right in front of him. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”
“I…”
Gonta didn’t know what to do. Kokichi had asked him not to even acknowledge the scars, and yet now, he was asking Gonta what was upsetting him. What should he do?
Unintentionally, his eyes flickered to Kokichi’s shoulder—where one of those round scars were, and where several other round scars were on its back. That shoulder harbored four out of ten of those awful round scars, and Gonta could only imagine what happened to Kokichi that made them.
Kokichi tilted his head, and just as Gonta turned his attention to Kokichi’s eyes, he noticed the other’s gaze flicker to where he had been staring. His face twisted.
Panicked, Gonta immediately blurted out, “I—I wasn’t staring! I wasn’t…!”
Kokichi flinched, his expression pinching into a scowl. It made Gonta scared, but instead of being scolded, Kokichi sighed. “Yeah, that figures…”
Gonta blinked, his eyes widening slightly. “Um…?”
“I knew asking you not to stare at them was just asking for trouble,” Kokichi clarified. Yet now it was him that was averting his gaze, the warm and relaxed expression long gone as his body tensed. “They’re not exactly easy to ignore…”
“Guh…” Gonta whimpered. “I’m very, very sorry…”
“Well, it’s not like it can be helped,” Kokichi grumbled with a sigh. “You… you don’t have to ignore them, but I don’t wanna…”
Kokichi’s voice trailed off, and he slowly lifted his gaze to meet Gonta’s. Upon doing so, he winced, and immediately turned away.
When he didn’t continue, Gonta did for him. “You don’t… you don’t have to talk about them. I won’t make you. I just…” Tears welled up in Gonta’s eyes. “I just… I just wish they never happened. I know it’s silly, but I wish… I wish I could have… done something. Anything. I just… I feel…”
So useless.
Kokichi had been helping him with those horrible feelings he felt in his chest, but they still reared their ugly heads from time to time—and every scar reminded him of how his lover was hurt. It reminded him that despite this, he couldn’t help Kokichi.
The feelings of uselessness and worthlessness started to make Gonta think of all the other times he felt that way, each instance of being underestimated, each time someone dismissed his questions when he wanted answers—and how he felt like it was all his fault, for being so stupid and useless.
Kokichi grunted, which distracted Gonta enough from the mess in his heart to notice that he had properly sat up. Then, Kokichi straddled his waist, and the soft, bare skin of his legs brushed up against his hips. It would have flustered Gonta, if not for the sad expression Kokichi was wearing.
“I… don’t want to avoid it forever,” Kokichi admitted. “Talking about them, I mean. It’s… just a lot, you know? But—”
Kokichi leaned over, his face so close to Gonta’s that their noses brushed by one another, and his sad expression turned into something warm—and all at once, Kokichi relaxed again.
“I feel safe with you,” he whispered. “I know that, when I’m ready, you’ll be right there to listen. That you won’t judge me, or whatever…” Kokichi started grinning. “When I’m ready to talk about it, I know you’ll be right there, holding me so tight my head’s nearly gonna pop off my shoulders!”
Gonta grimaced. “I will not hold you that tight!”
Kokichi snickered. “I know, I know. Still…” Kokichi leaned in closer, tilting his face slightly to plant a kiss on Gonta’s lips. They were so soft and warm, that just the action made Gonta’s face hot. When he pulled away, Gonta had chased the kiss to the point where he was now sitting up. The sunlight from the window revealed that Kokichi’s face was also dusted with a light blush. “I don’t want you to worry about them for now, okay? They’re just… bad things that happened in the past. Now, though? I know things like that will never happen again, ‘cause I have you.” Kokichi cupped Gonta’s face, his smile growing even warmer and more genuine than before. “You’re smart and gentle, kind and soft—but you’re strong, too. In more ways than one. I know if I ever got myself into trouble like that again, you’d be the first to my rescue.”
Gonta’s heart skipped a beat. “Like… a knight in shining armor?”
Kokichi snorted. “Ha! Yeah, just like a knight. Man, you’re such a nerd,” Kokichi teased. “… Yeah. Just like a knight in shining armor.”
Gonta wrapped his arms around Kokichi’s waist, but he was smiling. “So… you’re the prince, then?”
“Gah! Corny, cooooornyyyy!” Kokichi whined, making Gonta snicker. “I’m gonna die! Seriously, I’m gonna die from all the corny!”
His lover was so dramatic, wasn’t he? Gonta couldn’t help but to love that about him though—how he managed to save him from drowning in his own heart, and lightened the mood right back up.
His silly little lover, he deserved a kiss for that, didn’t he? So without thinking, Gonta planted a kiss on the first thing his lips could make contact with—and that just so happened to be Kokichi’s cheek.
“Kisses aren’t going to save me when they’re full of corn!” Kokichi complained, but he didn’t shove Gonta away. “I’m gonna need the biggest bowl of the most sugary cereal we have to wash it all away, stat!”
“Oh, are you already hungry?” Gonta asked. “You usually don’t want to eat so early…”
Kokichi huffed. “Yeah, well—you worked me extra good last night, so I’m hungry this morning. C’mon, lets get dressed and get something to eat, before I dieeeeee…”
With a big smile on his face, Gonta planted one final kiss on Kokichi’s lips. “Okay. After we eat, maybe we can cloud gaze…”
“Ack! That would ruin the sugar wash to free myself of the corny!” Kokichi whined. “Geez! You’re trying to kill me! Assassin, corny assassin!”
Kokichi said those things, and yet, Gonta could feel it—how Kokichi’s body continued to relax into his arms. Kokichi’s tongue told many lies, but his body always told the truth.
So Gonta smiled, not responding to the banter, but cherishing it as a mark on his heart. The mark of a wonderful, loving memory—and he could only hope that Kokichi’s heart was full of those marks, too.