Work Text:
ᨒ↟ 𖠰
“This is stupid, we aren’t going to find a ghost,” Kuni rolled his eyes.
“Not with that attitude we’re not,” Sethos replied.
Sethos had dragged Kuni into the woods for an impromptu camping weekend. At this point, Kuni was used to Sethos's antics; they had been dating for just over a year. Kuni rolled his eyes and sighed, but he knew deep down he would follow Sethos to the edge of the Earth if asked to.
When Sethos told Kuni he had everything packed and ready to go, Kuni followed with no hesitation.
Though Sethos’s true motivation was revealed in the car on the way to the campsite when Sethos started talking about being prepared to find a ghost.
“Ghosts aren’t even real,” Kuni asserted. They found a suitable spot within the campgrounds to claim as their own and were setting up their camp.
“Shh!” Sethos shushed him. “Be quieter, babe. You’ll upset them.”
“Sethos…” Kuni whined.
Sethos set down the tarp he was fiddling with and walked over to his boyfriend. He reached out and grabbed Kuni’s elbows, so he had nowhere else to look. Even after a year, something about making eye contact with those bright green eyes sent butterflies to Kuni’s stomach.
“Don’t worry, I’m fully equipped to fight off any ghosts that try to flirt with you,” Sethos said, stomping away the butterflies.
“That’s not funny,” Kuni shoved Sethos’s chest, forcing him back a step. Sethos was laughing.
“I’m not joking,” Sethos said. He turned to rummage through one of the duffle bags on the ground. Kuni crossed his arms over his chest, wondering what kind of “equipment” Sethos had prepared. A moment later he pulled out a can of salt. “See!” Sethos exclaimed, proudly displaying the salt as if it were an Olympic medal.
“I always knew you were a psychopath. This is your plan to kill me, isn’t it? Lure me out into the forest with a promise of s’mores and making out under the stars, just to brutally murder me and make it look like an accident.”
Sethos laughed at his boyfriend’s theatrics. “If that was my plan, wouldn’t I have done it a long time ago?”
Kuni shrugged, “You had to make it look believable or else Cyno would put your ass in jail so fast.”
“Cyno would never betray me!” Sethos declared, indignantly.
“Oh, so he’s in on it too?”
“Kuni, I promise my priority is making out with you, okay?” Sethos said. “I am just also prepared to record the paranormal activity that is bound to happen under a full moon in this very obviously haunted forest.”
“Why couldn’t we have gone camping in a non-haunted forest? And next weekend when the full moon is gone?” Kuni pouted.
Sethos shrugged, “The weather was really good this weekend. I think it’s going to rain next weekend anyway.”
Kuni rolled his eyes, but got to work setting up the campsite with Sethos. He grabbed a corner of the tarp to stake down into the ground. He tried his best to ignore the ghost scanning equipment that Sethos took the time to set up.
Once they were finished with the campsite, Sethos took the salt and created a perfect ring of salt around everything.
“You’re just going to attract bugs with that,” said Kuni.
Sethos shrugged, “Maybe it will keep them away, too.”
The sun was still up for now, so the two of them decided it would be a good time to eat the sandwiches they packed before preparing a fire for dinner and s’mores later.
They packed a couple of folding chairs and a table in the car that made their meal a bit more comfortable. Kuni was just about done with his when he heard a twig snap behind him. He stood up instantly and snapped his head around, in a panic.
Sethos stood up and looked in that same direction.
“What?” Sethos asked, coming to stand next to Kuni.
Kuni furrowed his brow, “You didn’t hear that?”
“Hear what?” Sethos shook his head.
“Something just stepped on a twig,” Kuni explained.
“We are in the forest, my love. There could be deer out here.”
Kuni sighed, “You’ve got me all on edge with this ghost stuff.”
“The ghosts in this forest are supposed to be mostly friendly,” Sethos said.
Kuni turned back to his boyfriend, raising an eyebrow. “So you did your research? What do you mean mostly friendly? Wait- no nevermind. Ghosts aren’t even real. I’m more concerned about a wild bear or a wolf.”
“If a wild bear comes, I’ll fight it off,” Sethos said confidently.
Kuni rolled his eyes, “Can you remind me why we’re dating because I’m having a hard time remembering right now.”
“It’s because I’m so strong and I’ll protect you,” Sethos flexed his muscles.
Kuni couldn’t help the rush of affection for the idiot posing in front of him. He really did have rocks for brains sometimes, but he was his idiot.
“You’re cute,” Kuni said, despite himself.
Sethos gasped, bringing his hands up to his mouth. “Kuni!” he exclaimed. “Are you saying you like me?”
Kuni snorted. “Of course I like you.”
He was reminded of the first time he confessed that to Sethos. He was being similarly idiotic, and Kuni let it slip that he was endeared by other’s actions. Sethos seemed to be remembering the same event because what he did next was also what happened back then.
“Can I kiss you?” Sethos asked in barely above a whisper.
Kuni couldn’t help the grin that spread on his face. It was important to him that he and Sethos were thinking of the same thing. Normally, if Sethos asked that question these days, he would roll his eyes and call him some form of affectionate insult. Today, he decided to play along.
“Please,” he said, repeating the same thing he said back then.
Sethos kept up with the act and also did what he had done next. He closed the distance and kissed Kuni, but just on the cheek.
Kuni sighed, reaching forward to cup Sethos’s face. Back then his hands had been shaking. Now they were steady.
“That’s not what I meant,” Kuni whispered, enjoying every second of this. He pulled Sethos forward and connected their lips for a slow, sweet kiss before pulling apart again. Kuni sighed with a smile on my lips, finally breaking out of their reenactment. “I still don’t understand how you asked to kiss me, but didn’t actually do it.”
Sethos smiled back, “I was scared.”
Kuni snuck a quick kiss on Sethos’s nose. “Brave enough to fight off a bear, but not brave enough to kiss a man on the lips.”
“I’m brave now, though. Watch.” Sethos leaned in and kissed Kuni on the lips, though it didn’t last long because the former started giggling.
Kuni kept their foreheads pressed together and let his eyes roam all over Sethos’s face. Up close like this, he could count every eyelash and he would if Sethos would let him. The golden rays from the setting sun illuminated Sethos in brilliant gold. He really was beautiful like this. Kuni felt so lucky.
ᨒ↟ 𖠰
When it came time to make a fire, Sethos proudly bragged about his scout training from when he was a child.
“You don’t even need to worry, babe, I’ll make us a fire in no time,” Sethos told him. Kuni helped where he could, but he knew Sethos wanted to do it mostly on his own. He felt a sense of pride taking care of Kuni, as he had told him before.
Thankfully they weren’t completely just in the wilderness. Sethos had the sense of taking him to an actual campsite, so there was a firepit and wood for them to use. They weren’t starting completely from scratch.
Sethos did actually get them a fire started. Kuni could tell from his groans of frustration it hadn’t gone exactly as he was hoping, but it wasn’t long before they were roasting some kebabs on the fire.
“Ooh! Did you see that!” Sethos exclaimed, as Kuni munched on some roasted vegetables. Kuni followed where Sethos was pointing and frowned.
“The fire?” he asked. “You did a really great job with it, baby.”
“Thank you!” Sethos said. “No I mean I totally just saw a spirit flame.”
Kuni took a breath, knowing he would regret asking, “What’s a spirit flame.”
“It was in the fire just now. It was a small green flame. Legend has it that spirit flames are the souls of people who died with too much passion. If they wander near an open flame like a campfire, their burning desire can change the color of the fire momentarily,” Sethos explained.
“Hmm,” Kuni hummed. “Or a bug just flew into our campfire.”
“No, it was definitely a spirit flame!” Sethos said.
Kuni nodded, “Sure.” After a moment of silence, Kuni decided to entertain Sethos’s ghost hunting fanatic side. “They don’t sound very dangerous.”
“They aren’t!” Sethos perked up at this. Kuni didn’t often inquire more about the supernatural things that interested Sethos. “In fact, most spirits aren’t vengeful ones, and don’t want to hurt other living things.”
“How exactly do we know that? Have we talked to the spirits and interviewed them?”
Sethos laughed. “We know from the stories where ghosts originate from. The only reason ghosts get a bad rep is because the more famous ghost stories are the scary ones.”
Sethos then launched into a lengthy explanation about the ghosts of this forest. Kuni prepared the s’more ingredients and listened.
According to Sethos, the ghosts here were mostly helpful ghosts. A long time ago, a group of scouts came to this forest for their annual camping trip. The group consisted of scouts and their dads. The boys wanted to surprise their fathers by starting the campfire all by themselves. However, the firepit was not properly set up and the fire quickly spread to the dried out leaves coating the forest floor. Within minutes, the scouts had been engulfed in flames, with no way out.
That was until some flash of blue light appeared. The boys who had been trapped by the fire all recount a similar blue light, but at this same moment, most of them passed out from a lack of oxygen. The dads rushed to the scene when they smelled the smoke, but the fire had already been put out.
No one saw how the fire was extinguished, but the damage around the firepit made it evident the fire had been massive, burning away large patches of dried leaves and underbrush.
Sethos finished retelling the story as Kuni finished preparing his first s’more.
“That sounds more like a cautionary tale they tell to young scouts about starting a fire without adult supervision,” Kuni said before stuffing the toasted marshmallow into his mouth.
“Then how do you explain the fact they all saw a similar blue light?” Sethos questioned.
“Probably one of the boys made it up, and the rest of them just went with it.”
Sethos pouted, “You’re no fun sometimes, you know?”
Kuni rolled his eyes and passed his second toasted marshmallow to Sethos. “Eat a marshmallow.”
ᨒ↟ 𖠰
After some more ghost stories, s’mores, and extinguishing the fire completely, the pair were getting ready for bed. Sethos announced he would use the bathroom first while Kuni finished cleaning up their materials.
The campsite supposedly had nice bathrooms with running water and showers. The only downside was that it had no electricity and was completely in the dark. Kuni wasn’t technically afraid of the dark, but the idea of showering in the dark gave him the creeps.
He would let Sethos go first to the bathroom with a lamp so that Kuni could go after without panicking about what was possibly hiding in the dark.
Now that Sethos was gone, Kuni could hear faint beeping coming from one of the machines Sethos set up at the edge of their salt ring. Curiosity got the best of him and he went to check it out.
It had way too many buttons on it for him to know what it was supposedly reading. Though in one corner he saw it read the time and showed the current temperature. There was also a faint red light that blinked every few seconds, likely to indicate that the machine was on and working.
“Ke… bab…”
Kuni practically jumped out of his skin as the machine spoke to him.
“SETHOS!” Kuni belted, scrambling back and finding his way into the tent. He zipped it up behind him and wrapped himself in their blankets. If he knew one thing about ghosts it was that they couldn’t get him if he was under the blankets.
Kuni scrambled for the flashlight that he knew was in the tent. He didn’t turn it on, but he needed to have it on hand just in case.
Suddenly he heard footsteps outside, steadily growing closer. He cursed Sethos and clutched onto the flashlight harder. Sethos was likely too far away to hear him now, and Kuni wasn’t sure how long he would be. The footsteps stopped right outside the tent. Kuni held his breath.
“Kuni?”
Kuni breathed a sigh of relief. He unzipped the tent door to see his boyfriend standing there. Kuni grabbed onto his arm and pulled him inside the tent, before closing the door again. He latched onto Sethos’s side and buried his face in his neck.
Sethos used his free hand to rub Kuni’s back.
“Hey. What happened?”
Kuni breathed in, and felt himself relaxing from the smell of Sethos. Sethos always smelled like cinnamon and oranges.
“Your stupid ghost reader spoke,” Kuni mumbled into Sethos’s shoulder.
Sethos gasped, “Really? Do you know what it said?”
Kuni raised his head to frown at him, “Kebab.”
At this, Sethos giggled. “Oh, it was just a ghost that liked the smell of our dinner, I suppose.”
“Ghosts aren’t real,” Kuni said.
“Hmm… if that’s the case, can you come here for a second?” Sethos asked. He peeled away from Kuni’s side and motioned towards the tent door.
“There’s a ghost out there,” Kuni said with a frown.
“Hah! So you admit ghosts are real?” Sethos said with a victorious grin. Kuni shook his head again. The logic of it all didn’t make any sense, but it was what he was sticking with. Ghosts were definitely not real, but there also was a ghost outside their tent for sure.
“I’m staying here.”
Sethos frowned. “I promised I would keep you safe, didn’t I?”
Kuni stared back, unmoving for a few seconds before caving in. Sethos could tell him to jump off a cliff and he would. Finally, he nodded. Kuni held out his hand for Sethos to take it. Sethos unzipped the tent and led them back outside. Kuni spared a weary glance towards the monitor that was several meters away, but still blinking with that red light.
Sethos pulled him gently along, down a forest path. Kuni tried to focus solely on Sethos and not any of the other sounds that came from the forest.
“I knew you were taking me here to murder me,” Kuni joked, trying to ease his still fast beating heart from his earlier fright.
“We’re almost there,” Sethos said, which did nothing to assure him that Sethos wasn’t about to brutally murder him in the forest. Then suddenly the trees thinned out. There was a grassy clearing filled with clover and little white flowers. However, that wasn’t all.
The clearing was glowing, filled with dozens of fake little candles. A few more steps closer and Kuni realized they were arranged in the shape of a heart.
“Happy anniversary,” Sethos said.
Kuni gasped, “You’re early.”
“I know,” Sethos gave him a shy smile. “The real reason I brought you out here this weekend was so that you wouldn’t suspect anything. I made up that thing about the full moon.”
Kuni smiled so widely at his boyfriend before placing a kiss on his cheek. “Was all the ghost hunting stuff just to throw me off as well?”
“Maybe a little,” Sethos said, but his smile told Kuni that perhaps the ghost hunting stuff was serving a dual purpose on this trip after all.
“You’re so ridiculous sometimes,” Kuni said.
“I love you, too,” Sethos replied with a quick peck on his lips. Kuni was smiling, and he couldn’t stop.
“You know I was promised some making out under the stars,” Kuni reminded him, unsatisfied with the little peck.
“Don’t you worry about that for one second,” Sethos grinned. He stepped closer until there was no more space between them. He wrapped his hands around Kuni’s lower back, and brought their foreheads together. Sethos kissed him again. It was longer this time, but only lasted for a second. “Kuni?”
“What’s up?”
“Do you want to dance with me?” Sethos asked.
“Definitely,” Kuni answered, and they began to sway together to music that no one could hear but them.
Kuni laid his head on Sethos’s shoulder for a moment. It was so comfortable being held so firmly by Sethos.
“Kuni?” Sethos asked again after a few moments.
“Hmm?” Kuni lifted his head and looked Sethos in the eye.
“I can’t wait to dance with you at our wedding.”
“Our wedding?” Kuni echoed. Sethos had expressed that he wanted to get married one day before. This was the first time he implied he wanted to marry Kuni. “Is this some kind of proposal?”
“No,” Sethos shook his head, pausing, “unless you want it to be.”
Kuni smiled at this. “For what it’s worth I would say yes, but… I do not want a marriage proposal that has anything to do with ghosts, or I might actually say no.” Sethos giggled, and Kuni rolled his eyes. “I’m serious,” Kuni reinforced.
“I know,” Sethos nodded, but he was still laughing.
Kuni pursed his lips. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing,” Sethos answered. “I just can’t believe you want to marry me.”
His words sent Kuni’s heart into a frenzy. “You want to marry me too,” Kuni pointed out.
“I do!” Sethos agreed.
Kuni couldn’t wait any longer and went in for a kiss. It started slow and choppy because Sethos kept smiling too much in between kisses. But as he deepened his kisses, they became longer and more passionate. He felt all of his emotions through this kiss with Sethos. He felt every kiss they had shared over the last year. He felt the joy and happiness they experienced together, but also the fear and anxiety that cropped up from time to time.
Every emotion came and went as the two of them pressed up against each other in the middle of this open field. The stars twinkling above and the fake candles twinkling at their feet. They were surrounded by starlight and emotion, but most of all, they were surrounded by each other’s love for one another.
Kuni felt his heart echo the words Sethos had just moments before. He couldn’t wait to marry Sethos one day and dance together at their wedding.
ᨒ↟ 𖠰