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Riku could compose songs about love, has written poems about it. He’s danced (badly) to how many love songs, marvelled at how artists spilled it in rainbows of paint on canvas—messy, chaotic, endlessly beautiful. But if anyone asks him what love is, he would spend eons thinking of an answer.
He can describe it, certainly, but only from what vicarious experience he’s had with it. Tender, as he’d seen so many times in films. Long-lasting. Healing. Profound. These days he thinks the most suitable word is abstract. Terribly abstract. Horrifically subjective. Never the same for two people, never, and it should be surprising that there is only one name for this beast of an experience. How do we determine what love is? How do we recognize it? How do we know to know what it feels like?
Are there other people who haven’t come to know what love is? Surely there are, surely there must be, surely there is another soul out there like Riku, wondering if they’ve ever loved and been loved before. Maybe they’re also hoping that love—true, unyielding, selfless—is on the way. And yes, there’s a chance that it’ll never come, but in that case Riku would devise some way to afford himself the luxury of saying that he knows what love is, pretending that all these other sweet things could compare: affection, pleasure, anything.
Despite his worrying, Riku sometimes feels an inkling of love within his reach. Like starlight in the sky only to be admired but never to be touched, never to be held. He senses it—a confounding joy beyond words, a warmth that persists, an easiness to being and breathing that makes his life feel wonderful for a few fleeting moments. In those moments he begins to believe that this feeling is worth chasing and wasting years over.
Riku feels it now, sitting on the farthest beach from the city, looking out at the sky and sea. Sand has settled uncomfortably between his toes and the sun is toasting his skin. He looks over beside him. It is a space always occupied by Daeyoung.
Daeyoung holds a cone of ice cream in one hand. He takes his time with it, unbothered by the late morning sun. He’d taken it upon himself to hold Riku’s hand, and there in the space that didn’t exist between their palms, sparks still managed to come alive. Riku had gotten so used to the feeling of Daeyoung’s hand in his that he doesn’t feel it there anymore, only feels the absence of it when they’re not together like this.
“Let’s play a game,” Riku says.
This makes Daeyoung look at him, curious. Riku takes the opportunity to take off the sunglasses perched on Daeyoung’s nose. I want to see you is the thought that motivates it.
“Sure,” Daeyoung replied.
“I’ll ask you three questions, and in return you can ask me three.”
“I don’t think that’s a game,” Daeyoung laughs. He licks at his ice cream. “That’s just asking each other questions, which we do all the time already.”
“Okay, well since you know everything,” Riku rolls his eyes. “Turn it into a game.”
“Games have prizes,” Daeyoung says. He offers the remainder of his ice cream to Riku.
“The prize is the truth,” Riku says. He bites into the crunchy cone and some ice cream gets on his cheek. Daeyoung dabs at the smear with the edge of his shirt.
“But if we both get the truth, then who wins?” Daeyoung asks. “Games have winners too.”
“Can’t we both win?” Riku grumbles. All Riku wants is to ask Daeyoung some questions, but in that particular way of his, Daeyoung manages to make it harder than it should be.
Daeyoung leans back against the sand. “Yeah, but that’s boring.”
“Then we’re going to play a boring game,” Riku says with finality. “I’ll start. Why do you like holding my hand so much?”
Daeyoung blinks at the sky.
“Because you like it so much too,” he answers.
“You’re sweet, but give me a real answer,” Riku says. He takes pride in the way Daeyoung smiles at his reply.
“Would you like a simple answer or an honest one?” Daeyoung asks.
Riku contemplates it for a second. “What’s the difference?”
“You have soft hands,” Daeyoung says instead. Riku assumes this is the simple answer. “But also because when I hold your hand I feel like everything goes quiet. And I’ve never had a good day where I didn’t hold your hand.”
“You’re being honest?” Riku asks to tease.
“Why would I lie to you?” Daeyoung giggles. “Anyway, it’s my turn. Maeda Riku.”
“Daeyoungie.”
“If you could go and relive one of the days we spent together, which one would it be?”
“That’s a hard question. We’ve had so many good days.”
“Well, pick one,” Daeyoung says.
“Last year,” Riku declares. “Spring tournament finals.”
Daeyoung nods in approval, “That’s correct.”
Riku laughs, nudging Daeyoung’s side with his elbow. “And if I said anything else, what would you have done?”
“You wouldn’t have,” Daeyoung replies with much certainty.
Last year, Daeyoung had made a last minute decision to try out for their school’s volleyball team. It was prompted by Riku’s appointment as vice captain. “You’re going to train me,” Daeyoung said with an excitement Riku had never seen before. “I’m going to suck and coach will have no choice but to make you practice with me.” Riku didn’t understand it at first, but when Daeyoung’s prediction became true and they had to stay back for extra training, he realised that Daeyoung liked it when Riku would teach him things. “As expected, you’re the best,” Daeyoung would say, “You’re so good at this.” And with every compliment, Riku found his knees folding miserably quick.
Safe to say, Daeyoung’s eagerness paid off. They reached the finals in their province and won their high school their first provincial title in years. Riku felt as though they’d rediscovered each other over those few months of training and competing. They’d become closer than ever. Inseparable, so it seemed. The only possible way they could be.
“Your turn,” Daeyoung prompts.
“Have I ever made you regret anything?” Riku asks.
“Damn,” Daeyoung pulls his arms out from under him and fully lays flat against the sand. “Loaded question.”
“Answer honestly,” Riku sing-songs.
“No.” Daeyoung smiles at the raised brow he receives in response. “Ok, fine. Maybe.”
“Maybe?” Riku’s gut churns and he starts to wonder if there was a time he hurt Daeyoung without realising.
“I regret being your best friend,” Daeyoung says too quickly.
“What does that mean?” Riku asks, his voice not as sure as before. “This doesn’t count as a third question, by the way.”
Daeyoung makes a face at him before looking back towards the sky. His expression has turned vague.
“I don’t know,” he says quietly. “You’re just like that.”
“Do you regret it all the time?” Riku asks, which Daeyoung doesn’t answer. Riku presses forward, pulled by an unknown but all-encompassing force towards a cliff-edge. “Can I ask my third question now?”
“That’s cheating—”
“What if I love you?”
The sea crashes. It has been. The wind blows. It has been. They just hadn’t noticed until the silence made room.
Then, “I love you too.”
“No, Daeyoung, what if I love you—”
“Riku,” the smile Daeyoung wears is bittersweet and Riku hates that he recognizes it. Hates that they both know sweetness only when it’s fused with other gloomier things. “I know you love me. Why do you think I regret being your best friend?”
“Oh.”
The sharp pain that pierces Riku through the chest is unexpected. He stops breathing.
“I don’t mean it like that,” Daeyoung is quick to amend.
“How else?” Riku manages to ask. There were already tears in his eyes.
Daeyoung stares at him.
“Isn’t it clear as day that I want you? I want you in a way friends can’t want each other. More than anything.” Daeyoung closes his eyes suddenly. “It fucking hurts sometimes.”
“Then have me,” Riku finds himself saying, and it’s odd—why did I say that? It’s not like him to plead.
“But we can’t,” Daeyoung refuses.
Riku looks away. “Don’t say that.”
“Think of my parents, think of yours,” Daeyoung says. Riku closes his eyes and though he tries his hardest to fight it, his mind feeds him memories of bruises and beatings and slurs. “Think of our friends.”
How casually they make fun of a boy who loves a boy, how humiliating they think it is. Is it such a sin to love?
“I’m sorry,” Riku tells him. “I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”
“You’re being silly,” Daeyoung says, and when he’s met with silence he only sighs. “I still have two questions left, can I ask them?”
“What?”
“Can I ask my last two questions?” Daeyoung repeats. “This boring game isn’t supposed to have winners but you’ve gotten more truth out of me than I from you. So?”
“Okay,” Riku acquiesces.
“Can I keep holding your hand?”
“Why do you even have to ask—”
“Can I kiss you?”
Riku turns to look at him again, shocked. “What?”
Daeyoung pushes himself up from the sand. He looks scared. Why does he look scared? He leans in and Riku lets him. They’re two sunflowers convinced the other is their sun. Riku feels the soggy ice cream cone in his hand slip from his grip, but it doesn’t matter.
When their lips meet, Riku feels like the sun has just fallen on his lap. Then, he cries. He tries to cry quietly, not wanting to part from Daeyoung, and so he occupies his mind with all the words that remind him of love, all the feelings that make him feel like he has love in his palm, and he thinks—
How glorious is pain when it is rewarded by love; watch how easily the wounds heal, and god, Daeyoung kisses him so gently. Riku unravels at the force of Daeyoung’s love with a disastrous ease. The sand between his fingers, the sea crashing not so far away, his face in Daeyoung’s hands. It must be us, Riku thinks, slightly delirious, it must be us that tides the waves in, the sheer gravity of—dare he say it, their love.
Daeyoung parts from Riku with a gasp for air and a soft sob, and Riku clutches him close. Like this, entangled, it’d be impossible to lose each other, that even if the sea were somehow to swallow them they’d be welded so fiercely together that no riptide could tear them apart.
It must be noon by the time they rid themselves of the sand and trace their footsteps on the beach, only to watch them be washed away after a second or two. They act as if nothing happened, going about their day the way they usually do whenever they come here. They grab lunch, filling themselves up in between casual conversation, then they drop by the old theater to catch a film. The darkness as the film played felt safe, an odd refuge where no one will look at them or recognize them. This gives Riku the courage to hold Daeyoung’s hand (this time it’s different, this, they both know) and lay his head on his shoulder knowing they are no longer just friends, or best friends, but they will also never be lovers.
They take the bus home eventually, long after the sunset had split the sky open with its temporary blaze of glory, a beautiful thing cursed by the universe to never linger. Daeyoung sleeps on Riku’s shoulder, their hands clasped between them.
Now, if you ask Riku what love is, he’ll be able to give a caricature of an answer. Maybe other people have loved more fiercely, maybe their love will be far more beautiful and worth more songs and poems than this odd thing he’d built with Daeyoung, but still. Ask him what love is and he would say that love is the long way home and the hours in between, those precious few moments where they can be truthful without consequence. Love is the boy sleeping on his shoulder, the hand that takes his, the pair of feet that follows where he goes, and so he decides—
He will love. He will love. Daeyoung is worth loving. He will love him in silence, as quiet as possible, as delicately as he can. This love is a dream, a promise.