Work Text:
When you woke up that morning, a chill from your half-open window sent a shiver down your spine. Dense morning haze enveloped the buildings of your apartment complex, and there wasn't a single patch of blue sky to be seen.
It was early. Much too early to be awake on a day off. Especially since you had barely gotten any sleep, having stayed up late into the night gushing over AoG fanfiction with Moth. Even as you snuggled deeper into your warm sheets, you were unable to fall back to sleep and soon gave up on it.
Groaning, you groggily rolled out of bed, slowly felt your way forward on the cold wooden floorboards, and stood at your still slightly fogged-up window with your blankets heavily wrapped around yourself.
You took in a deep breath of the cool air that pooled through the gap.
The world outside felt strangely empty, silent apart from the distant hum of a few passing cars and the faint sound of the ocean.
You had nothing planned for the day beyond moping around your apartment and continuing to read fanfiction. Standing there rooted to the spot, you felt as if the thick fog outside was creeping into your head and settling heavily in your chest.
You were tired.
You glanced back at your bed with heavy eyes, contemplated for a moment, and then made your way slowly to the bathroom, losing your blankets somewhere in the hallway along the way. You just knew that lying in bed all day was pointless, other than dragging you deeper into your low mood. Pushing past the weariness, you mustered up whatever energy you had left, deciding to treat yourself to whatever made you feel a little better.
Maybe a walk would be nice, you thought.
You brushed your teeth while rubbing your eyes and went to the kitchen to check your fridge, only to find that it was even emptier than your stomach right now, and you couldn't help but grumble through the foam of toothpaste in your mouth with dissatisfaction.
You merely slipped on a light jacket before leaving the house, hands buried deep in your pockets, hair briefly combed with your fingers and the remnants of yesterday's eyeliner still clinging subtly to your eyes. For a moment, you just stood still at the small entrance to your building.
A cool, almost piercing gust of wind hit your face, carrying the scent of salt.
Looking at the time on your phone and the weather above, the beach would definitely be barren of any visitors. So you decided to stroll leisurely toward the beach. Whether summertime or autumn, fair weather or overcast sky, the beach would always be a cherished place of refuge for you, compelling you to return regardless of your circumstances. It was the view you missed most back in the city and the thing that made you feel most homesick. No matter how many times you pulled your hair out over the state of your neighborhood, and especially the building you lived in, the ten-minute walk to the beach always made up for it.
Soggy sand crunched under your feet, the occasional cry of seagulls chiming above you, joined by the sound of the waves rolling over the pebbles, shells, and sand washed up along the coastline.
Right where the waves were receding from solid ground you came to a halt.
As a teenager, the sight of the sea often overwhelmed you.
An endless dark expanse, impossible to cross, trapping you in a state of natural confinement.
You hated that feeling of being trapped. It brought a tightness to your lungs, like the foam that crowned the cusp of the waves was stuck in your windpipe, taking your breath away.
It was a sense of helpless loneliness that seemed to swallow you whole.
It had already been multiple months since you've moved back to Corland Bay, yet something about this new chapter in your life refused to settle. You were greeted with the familiarity of childhood that clashed with the new perceptions of adulthood; it was both a blessing and a curse.
Violet was a better neighbor than any you’d had in the city, Elanor was the sweetest co-worker, Conan probably the best employer you could wish for and you knew you would always have Moth to rant and confine to if needed. Apart from that, many of the faces that had left the deepest impressions on your life had somehow all ended up here again.
Still, it appeared as though these puzzle pieces were only barely fitting into the picture.
That feeling of hollowness when you came home late, worn out from work and lacking motivation to do anything, weighed heavily on you. You had long accepted that this feeling was part of you. Moments when you feel alone, your thoughts going round and round in circles, fear eating away at your chest. For you, there had never been any other option but to accept that this feeling was part of your life; that you had no choice but to put up with it, that it followed you through your best days and your worst.
But around this time of year, when the summer’s gold slowly washed away to the duller shades of autumn, memories would always surge back, making these moments suffocating.
Your childhood was filled with blurry images of bright sun, colorful classrooms, soft sand and the ocean kissing over the shores of Corland Bay.
You still remembered the house you grew up in, the street where you played every day with some of the neighborhood kids. Every single seemingly picture perfect memory of those days had Leon in it.
While you weren’t entirely sure, it was still evident that you never had that many friends, yet you never felt lonely with Leon by your side.
It had been in the beginning of the following school year after he so suddenly moved away that you had truly realized just how different your life was without him.
It was right at the time when the mornings were gradually getting chilly, just like at the present moment. Most kids were driven to school by their parents, while you still walked all the way from home, without Leon walking alongside you to shield you from the misty autumn rain with his umbrella, having forgotten your own umbrella back at home. Upon arriving at school, you would sit down and wait for class to start, hair and clothes damp, shoes soggy.
Your former classmates had practically all switched out, and at first you were full of hope that you would make new friends.
But a month had passed by.
Then two.
Eventually three and four.
You still sat without company, not knowing what to do with yourself.
You were barely twelve years old when you were confronted with the existential conflict of being an outcast among your peers, a loose end in a so-called tight-knit community.
Sometimes you wondered if your memory exaggerated it. Had you truly been alone? Or had it only felt that way? It seemed so... abrupt.
So laughable.
You may have felt at times as though you could no longer remember accurately, but in the end to wonder was all that you could do. Because regardless of whether your memories were accurate or not, something about those days of solitude had burned themselves into your memory, leaving their marks and edges on the surface of your heart.
You had turned into the student who sat quietly in the back of the classroom, the kid who drifted from group to group without ever really belonging. You were the overachiever and later the one struggling to keep their grades up. You were the cringe anime kid, the nerd, the odd one out.
It had been within the swirling colors and sensations of the city that a sense of companionship returned in messy, dazzling waves. Those days were but a fuzzy commotion of crowds, cramped subways and lights, the achievement of graduating from university, the exhaustion of working early shifts and the simplicity of binge watching anime in the evening with a cup of noodles. You were out at clubs, you pushed the boundaries that you had shied away from as a teenager stuck on an island; you fell in love, blinded as you were.
You lived through what seemed to be your highest highs, only to plummet down and have your mirage shattered.
Given how fleeting the endeavor with Teo ultimately proved to be, he was a mistake you preferred not to revisit. Now that you knew him and yourself better, you were well aware that you shouldn't have let yourself get involved with him considering your circumstances and mental state at the time. Considering how your love-life expectations were simply so vastly different.
Deep in thought you watched as the dark clouds above seemed to get heavier by the minute, looking like the sky would break open any moment under the pressure.
As past and present blurred before your eyes, you couldn’t help but feel your thoughts stray to a certain blue and pink haired individual.
From that first awkward encounter in the library, the captivating blue of his eyes, that could be as gentle as the blue of the heavens and as vivid as the finest of gems, appeared to steadily fill every nook and cranny of your life.
Frankly, the guy put you off at first.
Ren's whole demeanor struck you as so odd that it almost seemed comical: the stuttering, the blushing, that whole meek attitude that immediately gave you a Haruko-esque impression, especially when paired with that haircut. After a while, you just let it go. After all, what was it to you? You knew what it looked like when someone put up a facade; you knew that there was a reason for it. To you, it didn’t matter that some— or better said— most people would call it creepy.
Ren would often mutter under his breath, showed sudden bursts of assertiveness, or occasionally let hostile glares and frustrated curses slip through the fine cracks of this soft, enigmatic persona; it was an unmistakable shift in his personality when he spoke to someone who wasn't you. Simply put, some kind of mannerism that you considered to be his true self would reveal itself every now and then. After spending more time with them, which was mostly less awkward, you found that you no longer felt so estranged by that fact. Maybe it was because you saw a part of yourself in them—a part that was always looking to appeal, a part that was just as messed up.
Perhaps it was the overwhelming adoration burning in his gaze, one he thought went unnoticed, yet was breathtaking in the most unexpected moments.
It was downright ridiculous.
Tooth-rottingly sweet.
Bone-chillingly unnerving.
A thrilling experience in its own right.
How could anyone look at someone with so much affection? You didn’t know what you had done to deserve such unguarded devotion. They trusted you so blindly and surrendered themselves to you so willingly. You had never met anyone like him before.
But maybe, maybe, it was simply the fact he was there, seeing you, without terms and conditions, that made your heart flutter.
You didn't know exactly what you felt for them.
A soft drizzle had soon dampened your jacket, the waves of the roiling sea ahead licking over the shore and hitting the base of your shoes with increasing vigor, their previously white soles dirtied with damp sand. You ignored the shivers running through your body as the cold slowly seeped into your flesh.
Only now did it occur to you that you had forgotten your umbrella.
A subtle rustle broke through the rain.
Then, suddenly, warmth.
Your vision darkened; an almost overwhelming, yet soothing scent mixed with a hint of mint wrapping around your senses. You startled, breath catching in your throat. A second later, the weight of rain above you disappeared.
Ren stood at your side, holding an umbrella over you both. His impossibly comfortable cardigan had slipped over your shoulders, falling comically large over your frame, sleeves dangling at your sides and the fabric still warm from his body. Your eyes met and you felt your lungs tighten.
His gaze flickered, a blush creeping up his face as he started to stutter.
“H-hi.”
His voice was quiet, almost lost beneath the rain.
He swallowed, a long pause stretching between you. The rain blended with the sound of the waves, filling the space around you as white noise.
"Hi…"
The sound scratched almost painfully out of your throat.
Water clung to your hair, crystalline pearls tracing slow paths down your face as they dripped from the dark strands.
Ren bent slightly to keep the umbrella over you, close enough that you could see the fine droplets clinging to his lashes, the golden ring dangling freely from Ren’s neck with a soft shimmer. You quickly turned your gaze to the ground as you felt a sudden rush of heat tingling through your body, making a shiver run down your spine.
“Are you cold?”
You stiffened, shaking your head no.
His voice was so tender you almost missed it. You sneakily glanced in his direction. The leg of his pants was soaked with splashes of sea water. The sight made your heart involuntarily twinge, you bit your tongue and hesitantly lifted your eyes to his again, their rims now slightly reddened.
You found him still intently staring, his gaze never leaving your face.
“Angel?”
“Mn?”, your eyes betrayed you, flickering briefly to his cherry-tinted lips before returning to his eyes.
“I-ah-...”
His free hand rose to the back of his neck, fingers curling into the damp strands of his hair.
“I'm sorry. For scaring you, I mean.”
He seemed uncharacteristically calm, despite averting his gaze, a gesture that seemed rather reluctant, and despite the red flush that crept up the tips of his ears.
“I was just about to go grocery shopping,” you said, the words leaving you before you could stop them.
He blinked, surprised.
Then, slowly, he smiled and you returned it.
“What a coincidence,” they said softly.
“Me too.”
The rain continued to fall around you, steady and endless.
But beneath their safeguarding umbrella, it didn’t seem all that suffocating anymore.