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It wasn't as if they hadn't gone drinking together before.
The light in the bar was dim and cozy. Since it was a Friday night, it was relatively packed and a multitude of voices filled it with booming laughter and all sorts of discussions. It wasn't a bar he frequented before but they'd been walking and looking for a place and it had seemed cheap and convenient so they decided to give it a chance.
It might've also been the way the early, colourless sunset set quietly behind a thick layer of clouds and deprived the city of the illusion of warmth. Gin's cheeks had looked flushed by the harshness of the cold, giving the impression of an alert desire to seek shelter from it.
They sat away from the crowded bar, where drinks were requested and girls hung out, exposing skin and batting fake lashes.
"You're quiet all of the sudden," Hijikata started, setting down his third drink. The ice cubes clanked against each other with a mute sound.
Across from him, Gin was staring out the window.
"It does look like it's going to snow."
There was this thing about Gin. Whenever September started to fade into days growing shorter and the wind sharpening its teeth, howling through cracks and narrow alleys as if it was missing a part of itself, his usually loud and in-your-face personality quieted down a notch. Even now, there was a palpable distance between them as he was contemplating the dull display of closed shops and leafless trees. Hijikata's curiosity had been piqued but he didn't know how to ask without giving himself away.
"How do you know?" He finally asked, leaning back into his comfortable seat and waved to a waiter.
"You see how the clouds look silent?"
With a heavy blink, Hijikata turned to the window, catching a glimpse of their faint reflections. The buildings were shades of blue now and the sky a darkening lid but there still was enough light for him to note the uniform arrangement of the clouds, like a neat blanket.
"There's a difference between how the sky looks when it's about to rain and when it's about to snow. Rain makes the sky look furious. The clouds spin as if they're trying to keep something from escaping. Snow is silent, breathless like a looming omen."
Gin sat there, motionless, chin in the palm of his hand, the sleeve of his white kimono fallen and pilled up around the base of his elbow on the wooden table. His air messy but brushed away from his eyes.
"It's almost as if the sky is keeping a secret from the world."
The waiter took away Hijikata's empty glass and when he left after setting a fresh drink in front of him, he took a greedy gulp from it. The tightness in his throat didn't subside.
"The city's been uneasy today, don't you feel it?" Gin turned to look at him, and Hijikata drank down the tingling in his chest when their gazes met. It left his stomach hollow. In the dim light, Gin's eyelashes were pale and white, surrounding his dark eyes. "And the air is still, vibrating as if something is about to happen. The tension disappears once the snow starts falling. It takes everyone by surprise with a wave of relief."
"I've never thought that long about snow."
The corners of Gin's mouth stretched slowly into a small smile and with a strange disappointment, Hijikata kept staring even when it faded from his thin lips. "It should snow by midnight."
A cheery song started playing in the background and it was followed by the rapid thud of shoes on the floor as people got up to dance. They seemed far away, their bodies clad in flashy colours, twirling around and shaking their hips, oblivious to anything else.
"Does snow remind you of something from your childhood?" There was a relatively long pause, and Hijikata felt awkward for asking, he shifted in his seat not knowing where to look because as the night grew fuller, the window turned black and he saw Gin's face clearly in that opaque darkness.
"Why does it have to be childhood?"
"I don't know, we all have those things."
"Is that why you love mayonnaise, it reminds you of someone dear?"
Hijikata grinned. But the flat humour wasn't accompanied by the usual carefree attitude or silly, teasing comments.
"It just feels like you have a shadow clinging to your back."
Maybe that was unnecessarily deep, and too cheesy but it had always been how he'd thought of Gin. The over-exaggerated personality and everything that came with it. Like a big, fancy defence for what was bottled up inside.
"It'll be my treat next time," Gin reassured, wrapping a white, fuzzy scarf around his neck as they stepped into the cold. His breath - clouds that rose up into the black. Hijikata followed with wide eyes. "I don't have more than 300 yen on me. You can have them if you like."
He always said that. The sky seemed oddly bright, as if it was lit up from behind and the clouds were tightly woven together. Cotton.
There was no wind.
Maybe he had drunk a little too much. His eyes felt warm in their sockets, his skin burning and although they were walking leisurely through the narrow streets, he felt a numb, racy sensation in his muscles. Overhead, the streetlights cast their golden glow. Somehow, the sky seemed to acquire a tint of red because of it.
"You'll go drinking again with me, then?"
Gin turned his head, and Hijikata noticed his eyes had that swimmy shine to them, they glistened. In the silence, with his parted lips he hummed a soft, approving sound. It seemed to linger in his ears.
And when he felt Gin's cold fingers grabbing ahold of his, he clenched his teeth, fearing how his heartbeat drummed against his ribs, pulsing in his throat. All around them the houses were dark. He squeezed back, enjoying the feeling of sharp bone and knuckles pushing against his skin. As their fingers entwined, he let his gaze wander into the distance, where the tall O-Edo Central Terminal cast a ray of light, cutting across the foggy horizon in a swift motion.
That's when he noticed, tiny snowflakes floating lazily in the air. They'd broken something, but not the sky.
"What secret does it hold?" Their shoulders brushed as they walked. Aimless.
The streets opened into a square and Gin stopped walking.
"Who knows," he said. The snowflakes fell larger and faster and it didn't seem as cold anymore. "It might be some ancient secret from the beginning of the universe or nothing at all."
Hijikata wondered what kind of secrets Gin buried behind those empty smiles and those endless glances he sometimes gave the bleeding sunset. And he wondered why, as he closed his eyes shut, feeling lips against his, this longing disarmed him completely, scared him. The kisses still made him shutter, made his knees weak, made his finger cling and hold Gin against him, they were still fresh and raw. It hadn't been long since they started being a secret shrouded from the others, from the light.
Hijikata kissed back hard, the buzz of the alcohol sweetened his mind, making him give in. He had the same sensation now, as he felt the snow wet their faces and pile up on their hair, as on that first night when he slept with his arms around Gin's body as if he was keeping him from breaking apart. Pieces scattered in the disorganized sheets around his limbs.
Gin, too, seemed silent like snow, descending upon him, unannounced but with the unnerving allure of premonition. "Stop thinking," warm words against his mouth, sweet too. He always drank that sweet stuff.
"I'm not."
"You stopped kissing me."
It snowed many times after that night, and every time it did, Gin's eyes became possessed by a gentleness that caressed the heavens. As if he was waiting for the snow to bring back something and when it pilled up on the ground, covering houses and trees, he walked through it like he was walking through ashes.