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The beach felt warm despite the winter— the snowflakes that patterned the ground, soft breeze, a haze of what was just before— yet, a soft red hue spread across his cheeks, and a warmth flooded, spreading amongst his body like blood coursing through his veins. His fingertips like ice, yet his face and neck a burning blaze, shoes digging into the sand and snow mixture below with a crunk and crack. The boy beside him, cold, he shivered, yet, he still placed his body into the snow, allowing the snow to engulf his body as he sat, his arms wrapped tightly around his knees, his chin placed a-top— his own face shared the same pink dusted hue as the boy standing beside him— instead of heat, it was merely because of the cold snow, and the effect it had on his rigid body. There was silence, broken up by the occasional crunch of snow if either moved, the waves were slow and only produced quiet crashes as it swam towards the shoreline. The beach itself empty as the sun began to set, earlier as December arrived, leaving the summer in its wake. Eventually, the silence would be interrupted by the white haired boy sitting beside him, “Do you still consider leaving?” He asked, although it was a question he already knew the answer to.
“I hate the sticks.” Was the plain response he got in turn, “Ain’t nothin’ to love about people in your business, Hikaru.”
The boy only released a chuckle, “Haha!” He blabbed as the sides of his dark eyes crinkled like they always did, a hand coming up to cover his mouth as the sound escaped, “I shoulda’ expected that from you. Yer’ never changin,’ Yoshiki.”
Yoshiki raised a single eyebrow, masked by his growing bangs on his forehead, “Hah?” He asked.
“I dunno. I can’t really explain it. You’re just you, and you’ve always been.” Hikaru shook his head, “Haha, that makes no sense, of course you’re you, not like a ghost possessed you or anything of the sort.” He joked, his pink on his face grew with embarrassment, as the confusing words escaped passed his lips with ease.
The silence returned, falling between them like a barrier. Yoshiki kneeled down, touching the snow with his fingertip, and feeling the icy sensation before placing both his hands flat on the surface. The feeling cooled his hot body, almost sweating despite it being winter, and he leaned back, allowing his legs to curl, and his knees to stick out in front of him. He let his hands sit in the snow even as the frost made its way up, hands like ice cubes that almost burned by now. It was a nice sensation, one that brought focus, that took him away from a conversation he couldn’t comprehend. The heat ate at him, he wanted to take his coat off, maybe kick off his shoes, dive into the water, but he sat, with a comfortable distance between him and Hikaru.
For an odd reason his mind ran back to Hikaru’s father. To a conversation long forgotten with his own father soon after, and to the mountain nearing Hikaru’s estate. Then he snapped out of it as noise filled his ears again, “I don’t want ya’ to go.” A vulnerable, unfamiliar, uncharacteristic sentence leaving his friend's mouth as he let his head fall against his own shoulder, Hikaru hid his face, and let his eyes gaze upon the orange ocean, and fading sunlight.
“Are you going to be lonely or something?” Honestly, I might have it worse than you. He thought without speaking aloud. He wasn’t good with people, he had Hikaru, and those who were attracted to him, and those who surrounded themselves with Hikaru and him. On his own, his gloomy aura, the way he presents himself, the overgrown bangs the neighborhood ladies comment about would drive any sane person away. In Tokyo—in any big city for that matter— he would be alone, lost and wandering. Away from the sticks, the countryside he hates, a place where everyone butts into each other's business, but all on his own. Most nights, he finds that reality better than another convenience store lady commenting on his parents fights, and Kaoru’s absence, men and women alike ostracizing those who are openly homosexual, and all who don’t fit into the same little category of person they adore and appreciate. Yoshiki bites the inside of his cheek as his mind continues thinking, he feels warm again— this time with frustration— and he just gazes, staring at the slow ripple of the wave, so similar to the way time was passing as this conversation dragged on for an eternity. An appreciated eternity. One away from home— his parents' arguments, his lack of a relationship with his father, his neighbors, the ladies who are too involved in gossip, and every other folk and thing he hates about the countryside. Then he speaks, as Hikaru’s lips part, he cuts him off, and Yoshiki says what he feels before gaining a response, “I think I’d be more lonely there,” He confessed with a pitiful smile, “I hate the countryside, but I don’t hate Asako, Yuta, Yuki… you. I don’t think there’s people like you guys beyond the sticks.”
The seriousness he portrayed as Yoshiki’s eyes continue to gaze upon the ocean is destroyed when dark eyes fall upon him, “Haha! You’re a sap.” Hikaru was difficult to discuss anything with, not in a bad way, but in a “I want to cheer you up" way. It was like he took the gloominess away from any conversation with sparkling laughter or teasing after anything was said, then he would follow it up with an apology, “Sorry. I appreciate it… I don’t want you to leave.” He repeats. Hikaru released a long sigh, dragging out the word, “God.” As he lets his head rest a-top of his knees. After a moment, a long drawn out repetitive silence, he raises his head, and turns it towards Yoshiki once more, “That’s selfish isn’t it?”
Yoshiki turns towards him, finally meeting his gaze as he tilts his head, “What do you mean?”
“You’re smart and I’m sure you could get into any big college with ease, but I don’t want that.” The sentence was confusing, not the beginning—Yoshiki himself realizes the way he excels academically— but the end, the hope, the almost wish of failure, “I’m going to be stuck here my whole life, probably working on my grandpa farm or something… all by myself.” Hikaru chuckled, the last part a faint whisper, like an escaped thought only heard on the quiet coast.
“I’d categorize that as selfish, but everyone's a little bit selfish so I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily bad.” Yoshiki answered his original question before following it up with a question of his own, “Are you jealous that I may have an opportunity to leave?”
Hikaru shot up, shaking his head, “It’s not that!” He exclaimed before turning away, and sulking once more. Similar to himself before he placed his head against his knees, and hugged himself with his arms. Hikaru just stayed like that, not moving, not answering his question, just faintly breathing.
After about a minute Yoshiki spoke up, “We can change the conversation.” He suggested.
Hikaru just shook his head, the first movement he had made, before he raised his head up again, “I’m just…confused that is all, and I was hoping speaking to you would bring me some answers.”
Yoshiki tilted his head, his hand arose from the snow, and balled into a fist before the freezing sensation was placed against his cheek, “I could give you clarity if you explained what’s confusing you a bit more. I mean even if I go to Tokyo, I am sure you’d end up there frequently, and hang around my place— so what is the confusion?”
Hikaru got flustered, his head facing the beach, but not masking his emotions as he shook his head, “That is not what I am confused about.”
It was times like these that he almost resembled a younger version of himself, and Yoshiki wanted to follow up with a frustrated remark, “Then just tell me!” Or a similar sentence in a purely exasperated tone, maturely, like an older version of himself to a childish Hikaru he stayed silent for a moment. He let himself watch the sun fall behind the shoreline, and the sky turned a dark blue illuminated by the shining stars.
“This has just become embarrassing, I feel like an idiot.” Hikaru commented, he swatted his hand as he spoke, but still he avoided eye contact, it was so unlike him. This entire interaction was nothing like what Yoshiki typically expected.
Yoshiki, confused himself, replied, “It’s okay.” There was a pause before he continued, “We should probably head back before it gets pitch black.” He cautiously suggested. He pushed his hands back into the white snow, and stood up, as he brushed the dirt off of himself, and went to start heading back he felt a hand on the corner of his shirt that pulled him down, back into the sand and snow, and closer to Hikaru than before. Now shoulder to shoulder rather than the regular distance he kept apart from him, “Come on…” Yoshiki said in an almost whisper, he was feeling the heat rise again, it was uncomfortable now, almost unbearable as it began to boil.
Hikaru let out a long sigh, “Do you remember when that girl confessed to me?”
Yoshiki raised an eyebrow “The one I made you apologize to, yes I do.” He remarked, “Are you nervous because you’re here to tell me that you didn’t actually apologize?”
Hikaru shook his head, extended his arms as he waved his hands, “No, no! I did apologize! I promise.” He ushered his responses hastily, “It was just her confession, I think it made me realize something that had been on my mind all this time… what has been “confusing” me.”
Yoshiki felt the heat leave, it escaped his body in a singular swift motion, and he was left with a freeze that instantly made his body chill, and begin to shake. He could predict where this conversation was headed, and for some reason he felt disappointed, dread, as his stomach dropped, and his heart lumped in his throat. It was as if Hikaru was taking years to speak a singular word, each passing second—millisecond agonizing, excruciating as he waited for the response he knew was coming. So long, much later, Hikaru had finally realized he was wrong for rejecting the girl, his confusion gone as he realizes he knows what love is, those feelings trickling down for her. He stared at the horizon, the sun, the light dim, gone, out of his grasp, and he tugged his hands closing to himself, extending his arms to clutch around his knees, mimicking the position Hikaru was just in, and he clung to the fading warmth, the heat draining, the red leaving his once burning neck and face as he turned ever so slowly to gaze upon Hikaru that could make eye contact. He himself stared at the dark expanse of water, no longer glistening as the light escaped amidst their conversation.
Finally, as if forever passed the words returned, noise once again heard an audible in Yoshiki’s ears, the red of Hikaru’s face, spreading to the tips of his ears, the heat once from Yoshiki traveling to him in an instant—growing, morphing, taking new shape— Hikaru spoke, quick and simple, a shift, a flip in a conversation that even Yoshiki himself failed to predict. Failing to read the boy he knows better than himself, a person beside him since he could first recall his memories. Hikaru’s face shifted, his eyes were half-lidded and focused on the twisting waves in front of him, he spoke quiet for almost the first time ever, the energy usually seen in his words missing, a missing piece, that almost made it seem that it wasn’t Hikaru, “…I think I finally understand why I’ll miss you so much…”
Yoshiki’s eyebrows furrowed in response to the first sentence, his lips swelled as he listened, he turned his head that was still pressed against his knees, and watched not daring to interrupt as the conversation derailed off tracks long ago.
“…This is still embarrassing…” Hikaru stated, softly, unlike him, “I think I like you— in the same way that girl liked me because the thought of you leaving reminds me of the way she felt when I turned her down. I can’t even describe it.” His words were still soft, but they were jumbled as if they were being pushed out of his lips as soon as possible so he could stop talking. Yoshiki immediately understood what he met, the feeling of rejection, it was so similar to the draining heat from his body only a minute earlier as he braced for impact, only to release himself from his brace, and allow the heat to return and run its course once more. Hikaru shook his head again, and ran a hand through his hair as he dropped his head in embarrassment, “I am always so good at teasing you, but for once I feel as if you have the upper hand.” He commented, he chuckled softly as he spoke, and he raised his head again, his movements a constant repetition as his mind spiraled to wrap his own head around his feelings. Feelings that have always confused him, and ones he was only beginning to understand. He turned, and he finally met Yoshiki’s gaze, “Are you going to tease me?” He asked, looking more like Yoshiki than Hikaru— their roles reversed.
Yoshiki shook his head, and just allowed himself to relax, he dropped his bodyweight against Hikaru, and let his head sit in the space between his neck and shoulder. Hikaru was wrong, he was far from having the upper hand, his lips were pursed, his face almost stone as his features failed to change, and his breathing was so intense he thought he’d consume all of the oxygen available. His face glowed, the heat reaching a boiling point, as he finally put his finger on the reason for it. He was embarrassed, more so than Hikaru, and he couldn’t speak, he tried to hide the blush on his face, his embarrassing expression, and the way he was almost suffocating. It was futile, it was easy for Hikaru to pick up on it the second he turned his wide eyed gaze down towards him, but for once he didn’t speak, didn’t tease, didn’t pop an unneeded joke to quell the awkwardness. Instead, he leaned his head against Yoshiki’s and allowed himself to stay like that for a moment. Many moments, minutes, what it took for the two of them to overcome the rush of feelings that swarmed them so soon.
Although, his remarks couldn’t be caged for too long as he said, “So, you aren’t rejecting me?”
“Why would I do that?” Yoshiki asked in return, he still stared forward at the night sky, but this time with new weight pressed against him.
“You could barely look at me!”
“You don’t think I was embarrassed as well, I didn’t expect this… honestly, I thought you realized your feelings for that girl.” He confessed feeling himself get embarrassed at the thought of his odd fantasy.
“Pfft as if.” He laughed, and there was Hikaru once again, cheery Hikaru. The same boy that's always been by his side.
Yoshiki grinned, he felt himself try to push himself closer to him as he said, “Y’know, “like” is a childish statement, I’d still be embarrassed if I were you.”
“Oh, shut up.” Hikaru laughed, “This is what I mean by you’re smart, you need your “practical” terms not these childish ones.” He rambled as he made quotation mark movements with his fingers.
Yoshiki felt the smile on his face widen, around Hikaru he didn’t have that dark persona that Yuta commented on. He wasn’t scaring people off, and he wasn’t in need of escape when he was by the boy's side. Eventually he would want to leave the countryside, but on the beach all alone in the nighttime he was alright— it became bearable for once.
Yoshiki sat up, and the closing distance between them soon became apparent. He could feel Hikaru’s breath against his own face, more fuel to the fire, but he stayed, relaxed himself, and stared. He was sure Hikaru could see every mole and blemish on his face from this distance, as their eyes met, and drifted, but he held back those embarrassing feelings that threatened to rise, and felt a new warmth upon his lips. Whether it was he or Hikaru who made the first move— he couldn’t quite remember— it didn’t matter because he was okay, on the beach, in the night. As his cold hands rose to cup Hikaru’s face, swelling now with warmth, Hikaru giggling at the opposite cold contrast, he continued to kiss him, happily, and okay with staying in the sticks a little longer.
Although, in a few weeks, he’d once again wish for escape.