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The weather was pleasant, if a little hot for Laios’ taste. A perfect day for a picnic, he thought, and Kabru must have read his mind somehow – or arrived at the idea totally independently, which was just as cool – because he suggested it when they talked on the phone. They agreed to meet up at the park in the afternoon, and Laios immediately got to preparing everything they would need for the picnic. A blanket, obviously, but not the one from his bed; after careful consideration, he picked out a thin, striped one without any frills, figuring that it would be good enough for the job. He folded it up and placed it at the bottom of the backpack, and ultimately took it out again after considering the logistics of having to dig it out from underneath everything else he'd have to pack. What else? Well, mostly food. A lot of food, sandwiches and snacks and fruit, and a bunch of water bottles to make sure that they'd stay hydrated in the heat. He packed his sketchbook and pencil case in case he got an opportunity to draw something, a first aid kit – better safe than sorry – and went on to hesitate on whether he should bring his Nintendo DS, ultimately deciding that he might as well, in case Kabru wanted to watch him play Pokemon. With all of that taken care of, he could finally pack the blanket and zip up his backpack. He picked it up and was momentarily caught off guard by how heavy it'd gotten, but thankfully managed not to drop it directly on his foot.
Laios was the first to arrive at the entrance to the park, a little ahead of time. He considered doing reconnaissance in the park to find the best spot to set up their picnic, but ultimately decided that it would be better to stand by to make it easier for Kabru to find him. And so, he busied himself by walking back and forth whistling to himself while he waited for Kabru to show up. At last, Kabru's silhouette appeared in the corner of the street and approached him at a steady pace. Bouncing excitedly on his feet, Laios reflexively stretched his arms in anticipation of a hug, and was promptly pulled down by the weight of Kabru's body hanging off his neck, and rewarded with a series of kisses pressed to his cheek, all of which made him a little light-headed and very happy. Now that Kabru came closer, Laios could make out the smell of his shampoo, sweet and fruity, like peach or mango or something like that, and his perfume, sprayed on the nape of his neck, a more warm and woody kind of scent that reminded him of cinnamon and, for some reason, a campfire. Somewhere under the layer of perfume, he could still make out the natural smell of his body, earthy and musky and a little salty, and this one he liked more than anything else. He responded to Kabru's affection by licking the corner of his mouth, which seemed to surprise and please him.
Once Kabru decided that he'd had enough of standing around and kissing Laios, he instead grabbed his hand in both of his and nodded suggestively towards the entrance to the park. They dedicated the following five minutes or so to scouring the park for an optimal picnic spot. As it turned out, they weren't the only people to get the idea to spend their afternoon this way, which made the task even harder. Eventually, they settled under a large oak tree which provided shade and shielded them from direct sunlight without entirely obscuring their view of the sky. Laios rolled out the blanket so that Kabru could sit on it, and proceeded to lay out all of the food and drink he brought before finally sitting down himself, leaning his back against the tree and placing the backpack in his lap. He took off his shoes, and then his socks, and dipped his toes in the grass with a relieved sigh. It was always nice to be able to go barefoot, at least for a little while. Obviously, there was always a risk that he would step on something nasty, which would instantly ruin the fun, and however much he enjoyed the idea of dipping his feet in the sand on the beach, knowing that he would have to deal with the sand getting everywhere was a little discouraging. Maybe it wasn't all that fun to go barefoot, after all. If only he had paws instead of feet! It would make everything way easier.
When presented with a wide selection of food, choosing what to eat first was an important decision. Laios carefully considered his options, and finally chose to go with a cheese sandwich, mostly because he feared that the cheese would melt and the butter would start to go bad if he left it out for too long, and he didn't really want to have to put the sandwiches in the fridge. Besides, sandwiches always tasted better fresh. He took a large bite and let out a hum of pleasure as he chewed, giving Kabru a thumbs-up. Kabru followed his lead, grabbing a cheese-and-tomato sandwich for himself, but unlike Laios, he didn't immediately bite into it, instead holding it in his hand while he stared off into the middle distance. Laios followed his line of sight, but didn't notice anything interesting. Some people were walking their dogs, which was pretty cool, but unfortunately none of them ever came close to their spot. Otherwise, there wasn't much to see. Except for the clouds.
“Nice clouds, huh,” he prompted, attaching himself to the idea. Indeed, there were a lot of clouds in the sky, the white, fluffy kind that always reminded him of sheep and made him want to touch them to check if they'd be as soft as he thought. “That one looks like a bear, see?” he said, pointing at a large cloud passing by. “It's raising its paws like this,” he insisted, mimicking the pose.
“Really? I thought that it looked more like someone sitting in an armchair.”
Laios knitted his eyebrows. “Armchair? Where did you get that from?” He squinted at the cloud, tilting his head this way and that in an attempt to see Kabru's vision. “I guess you read the paws as the armrests, huh? But what about the head? It totally has ears!”
“I suppose you're right,” Kabru admitted. “Perhaps it is a bear-man sitting in an armchair.”
“Now that, I can totally see!” Laios said cheerfully, nodding his head. “Oh, oh! And that one over there, that looks like a piece of cheesecake with whipped cream! And that's a dragon!”
Kabru chuckled softly into his sandwich. “Your imagination is truly unmatched. I tried with the first one, I really did, but I can't come up with anything better than you. Please, continue to tell me which cloud is which. Perhaps I will be able to see it.” Suddenly he let out a sigh. “You know, this feels oddly familiar,” he added, furrowing his brow as he looked down at his sandwich. “As if we'd already had a picnic once before, even though we haven't. Not in this life, at least.”
Laios stopped chewing and sent him a suspicious glance. “...What do you mean by that?”
Kabru thought for a moment, stroking his bottom lip. “Well, I suppose you could choose to interpret my remark in a number of ways. The obvious one would be reincarnation,” he went on musing, wagging his index finger, his lips curling into a smile. His eyes had a strange, bright glow to them. “I trust that you're familiar with the concept. Life is an endless cycle of death and rebirth, our current bodies being the latest in a series of vessels inhabited by the immortal element of our being that some would call a soul, or vital energy, or something like that,” he went on gesturing with his free hand. “Well, some believe that, even though we typically don't retain knowledge of our previous lives, we might nonetheless be able to access certain memories without understanding that that is what they are. This idea has been used to explain certain phenomenons that are otherwise difficult to fully understand. Have you ever had a dream that felt all too real, even though it did not resemble any event from your life? Have you ever, upon being introduced to someone, get the sense that you knew them intimately, even though the two of you had never met before? The idea is that those feelings may be a result of something that you'd experienced in a past life, or are yet to experience in a future one. I suppose it would make sense for our other incarnations to affect the current one, assuming that they all share a consciousness. Of course, that kind of thing would be quite difficult to prove.” He turned to Laios with a wink. “Assuming that there is something to it, though, I can't help but wonder if the reason why we were instantly drawn to each other is that we'd already met in another life, in a different time period and geographical location, in a form that is no longer recognisable, and retained the sense of familiarity through that. Who knows, perhaps we are fated to find each other in every new life. I would like to believe that.”
“Yeah, I guess that would make sense,” Laios said, and took another bite out of his sandwich. He'd never given much thought to that kind of stuff before – spiritual and metaphysical matters never held much interest for him – but something about what Kabru said scratched his brain. “Do you think,” he enquired, “that the reason why I wanna be a wolf so badly, and my dreams about it feel so real, is that I used to be a wolf in a previous life or something?” The thought of that made him kind of sad. How badly did he mess up as a wolf to be reborn as the most boring kind of animal?
“It might well be the case, yes,” Kabru confirmed with a slight nod, and snorted with laughter. “I had a feeling that you would ask about that. As I said, though, that kind of thing would be quite difficult to confirm. Really, it's a matter of whether you'd like to believe that or not.” He tore off a tiny piece of the sandwich and popped it in his mouth. “The other interpretation would fall within the concept of the multiverse, if you're familiar with that. In short, the idea is that the known universe is only one of countless parallel universes that differ from each other based on a number of factors, including the choices of the individuals that inhabit them. Every time you are faced with a decision of any kind, no matter how small, your choice will determine the course of your timeline, while the version of you that made a different choice would proceed down his own path in a parallel universe. A version of you and I would exist within all the universes where the conditions of our birth were met, but their lives would likely look very different from ours, depending on when the split happened, as well as the decisions of the people around them. Your life would be quite different if your parents decided not to have a second child, for instance. Hypothetically, a version of you that never left the village exists somewhere out there, in a parallel universe, as does a version of me that was never disowned by my father. Assuming that all of that is true,” he mused, stroking his bottom lip, “the phenomenons I mentioned earlier could be understood as glimpses into parallel universes. After all, it would make sense for all versions of you to be connected via a kind of cloud storage... But I digress.” He fell silent for a moment, kneading the sandwich in his hand. “I know it's highly unlikely, given everything I just said,” he said softly, “but I would like to believe that all versions of ourselves would eventually find each other.”
“I wanna believe that too. It sounds really nice,” Laios said absent-mindedly, stroking the side of his nose. Usually, he preferred not to think about all the ways his life could have gone differently. For one, it was too depressing, and besides, there wasn't really much of a point to it. Torturing himself with all the different choices he could have made with the hindsight he now had, and all the circumstances outside of his control that he wished would change, did nothing to undo the impact they had on his life as it currently was. Sure, life wasn't great, but one had to learn to make the most of what he had. That was what kept him going through the most miserable years of his life, even though he still often wished that he were dead, or potentially a huge monster that could destroy everything that hurt him. Kabru's explanation, though, really put into perspective just how much worse things could truly be. What if Falin was never born? What if he never left the village? What if he never met Kabru? All of those possibilities made him uneasy. What if all of his traumatic experiences, and all the choices that he previously thought were bad, were necessary for this outcome to occur? Maybe this really was the best timeline of them all, however hard that would have been to believe just a year or two ago. “To be honest, though,” he said, idly scratching his cheek, “I don't really care what happens in all the other universes. I'm just glad that I've got you next to me and we're having a picnic in the universe I'm actually in, you know.”
“Ah!” There was a curious glint in Kabru's eyes, a smile tugging on the corner of his mouth as he covered it with his hand. “Well, in that case, that's the only thing that matters, I suppose.” Laios always wondered why Kabru would hide his smile like that. It wasn't as if he had crooked teeth or rank breath – if anything, Laios was the one who should worry about stuff like that. Kabru had soft, plump, very kissable lips, and straight, pristine white teeth, and his breath always smelled as if he'd only just brushed his teeth, warm and fresh. His smile was the most beautiful one Laios had ever seen. Kabru had no reason to be insecure about it. Granted, the reason why he put his hand over his mouth may have had nothing to do with insecurity at all – it seemed more like he needed something to do with his hands, and would default to touching his face when he didn't have anything better available (Laios was much the same way – except for the fact he was also pretty insecure, unrelated to that specific habit). One definitely got the sense that he didn't want anybody to see his smile, though. Maybe he just wasn't used to outwardly showing his emotions. That would make sense. It was still obvious that he was smiling by his facial muscles and the look in his eyes, though, but that may have been because Laios learned to recognise it. In any case, he was lucky that Kabru smiled at him at all – and didn't always cover his mouth when he did so.
Laios' gaze subconsciously slid across Kabru's body, admiring the small bump in the middle of his throat, his clavicles visible above the collar of his low-cut T-shirt, his muscular arms coming out of the short sleeves and his hairy forearms leading into his slim, dainty hands with their long fingers, neat fingernails and pinkish palms, his flat tummy with dark fluff around the belly button, just barely visible between the bottom of his shirt and the waistband of his pants, his hairy ankles showing above his low-cut socks, feeling his face grow warm, bursting into flames by the time he looked into his face again and met Kabru's gaze. Laios instinctively averted his gaze and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to focus on his sandwich, only to unthinkingly open his eyes when he felt Kabru's hand on his knee. He watched from the corner of his eye as Kabru's hand moved up his thigh, sliding inside his cargo shorts, only to withdraw just before it could reach his groin. Laios glanced at Kabru, his blush deepening when he realised that he had been watching him the entire time with good-natured amusement and curiosity, leaning towards him in a way that exposed more of his cleavage, his other hand resting in his lap along with the half-eaten sandwich.
It was still a little hard to believe that he was allowed to look at Kabru like this, with shameless desire and open appreciation of his features, and not just allowed but encouraged, too, with Kabru deliberately guiding his eyes towards the parts of his body that would get him the most aroused. No wonder he was so happy to see the effect it had on Laios. It must have been pretty flattering for him. Then again, he was probably used to it. There was no way that people would be able to stop themselves from staring at Kabru – in fact, many of the people around them did just that when they passed by earlier, and some of them would still occasionally glance at the two of them, probably wondering how they ended up together. Kabru, for his part, didn't pay any attention to them. It really seemed like Laios was the one person he wanted to look at him, which was pretty flattering in its own way, too. It was going to be pretty hard to get used to this after a lifetime for being punished for staring at people, or even being suspected of staring at people whenever he spaced out without focusing his gaze on something specific first, but it definitely made for a welcome change of pace.
Laios finished his sandwich and wiped his hand on the blanket before grabbing Kabru's hand with it. He put it up to his lips and kissed each of the knuckles, all the while maintaining eye contact with Kabru, who seemed very pleased and amused, stroking Laios' chin with his fingertips. Laios cupped his own cheek with Kabru's hand and put his own hand on Kabru's hip, cautiously watching for his reaction as he slowly moved it down his thigh. Kabru scooted a little closer, pulling up his knees, and began stroking Laios' cheek with his thumb. Laios subconsciously leaned into his touch, letting his eyelids droop. The pressure in his groin, combined with the closeness of Kabru's body, was getting harder and harder to ignore. “By the way,” he prompted, idly running his hand up and down Kabru's leg, “it would probably be illegal to have sex in the park, right?”
Kabru's eyes twinkled mischievously. “I'm afraid so, yes,” he said, a hint of amusement in his voice. “Unless you manage to do so without getting caught, which would be quite unlikely with so many people around. At a more opportune time, however, in a carefully chosen hiding spot, it would likely be possible to pull off. I'm not sure that it would be worth the risk, though.”
“That's what I figured,” Laios sighed. It was a little mean of Kabru to tease him, knowing full well that he would have to wait until they got home to relieve himself, but that was probably supposed to be a part of the training he mentioned a while ago. Still, it was a pretty risky move, considering how much trouble it would give them if he couldn't make it. “I've always wondered what it would be like to have sex outdoors. It would feel amazing, I bet. We'd probably have to get out of town for that, though. We should take your car and go on a road trip sometime, just the two of us.”
“I really like that idea,” Kabru said, rubbing his bottom lip with his index finger. “We have to wait until the end of the semester, though. Once the responsibility of passing my exams is no longer hanging over my head, I would love to take you on vacation. Our own little honeymoon, so to say.”
“Yeah, something like that!” Laios said enthusiastically, his heart leaping in his chest. “I'm so glad that you're down for that! There are so many places I wanna show you. I used to go there on my bike, but it would probably be easier to get around in a car. I should get my bike fixed just in case, though. Aah, I'm so excited!” he beamed, shaking his hands. “Honestly, no matter where we go, I'm gonna be happy as long as we're together,” he added sincerely.
“Right,” Kabru said softly, regarding him with a fond smile. “For now, though, let's focus on the here and now, shall we? We will attend to other matters in due time,” he said, sending Laios a suggestive wink. “In the meantime, let us enjoy this picnic while it lasts.”
Laios cleared his throat, feeling his cheeks grow warm. “R-right! By the way,” he blurted out excitedly, pointing at a particularly fluffy-looking cloud, “that cloud looks like you!”
Kabru turned to look at the cloud, and regarded it in thoughtful silence for a moment. “Really?” he said finally, tilting his head. “I think that it looks more like you.”