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The beach was empty when they arrived.
The car door shut behind Isagi with a soft sound. He stood by the railing for a moment, one hand still on the door, eyes fixed on the horizon.
It was early enough that the morning had not reached everything. The sky had begun to grow pale, blue at the top and gold near the horizon. Even so, the beach below still held long shadows. The dark water moved in the distance, glittering only where the low light caught the broken surface. The dull echo of the waves slowly pushed in from across the bay.
Kaiser watched him from the other side of the car.
The season would begin again soon. When it did, chaos would be invited back into their lives. Their schedules would be packed so tightly that there would hardly be any room to breathe, and everything would become noisy again. Isagi had wanted to come here before that happened.
Kaiser had not understood why a cold beach was worth waking up early for. It was not warm at all, and the sand was overly tedious to clean. But seeing Isagi now leaned over the railing with his hair moving in the wind, wide-eyed and awed in the dark morning—maybe he understood a little.
By the time they reached the sand, Isagi was already taking off his shoes to run along the shore.
“You’re getting wet in this weather?”
“Just my feet.”
“You’re going to catch a cold.”
“So be it.” Isagi rolled his pants up with quick, uneven folds and grinned. “We won’t get a chance like this for a while.”
He stepped into the wet sand. The water came in and covered his feet. Isagi made a small sound in the cold water, then laughed quietly to himself.
Kaiser stayed where the sand was dry.
“See?” Kaiser laughed. “Cold.”
Isagi huffed and kept walking along the edge of the water, shoes held in one hand, socks stuffed messily inside them. The waves thinned as they brushed Isagi’s ankles. Each time he stepped forward, his footprints remained black in the sand, then quickly softened and collapsed under the water.
Kaiser walked beside him on the dry sand where the sunlight had not fully reached. Close enough to follow, but far enough that the tide could not reach his shoes. Isagi noticed this, of course.
“Afraid of the water?”
“Don’t like the mess.”
“You’re at a beach.”
“And?”
“You should try having a little fun. There’s no place back in Munich where you can enjoy the sea like this after all.”
“Then you can enjoy it enough for the both of us.”
Isagi laughed, the sound disappearing into the wind.
Isagi would hum occasionally, but not enough for Kaiser to recognize the melody. Whenever the waves touched his feet, Isagi would glance down and smile at something Kaiser could not see.
Kaiser looked at the sea instead. The air by the water was clear enough that every breath felt as if the inside of his lungs were being remade. Near the shore, the rocks were dark where the water had struck them. Foam gathered in the hollows after each wave pulled back, trembling there for a few seconds before thinning into nothing. The wet stone changed color slowly, black first, then gray, then almost dry before the sea reached it again. Broken shells sat in the cracks, pale and useless, waiting for the next tide.
“Calming,” Kaiser muttered.
Isagi turned his head slightly. “The ocean?”
“No matter how violently it hits, everything settles again afterward.” Kaiser stared at the waves breaking against the rocks. “Nothing stays long enough before the sea takes it away. It must be peaceful, not having to resist it.”
The water pulled back with a low scraping sound as broken shells were dragged over the sand. The sound disappeared beneath the next wave before it could finish.
“A life like that does not seem bad at all,” Kaiser muttered under his breath.Isagi’s lashes lowered. His mouth parted slightly, then closed again.
“That sounds lonely.”
The thought had come naturally. He had not meant it as something sad. The sea ended itself constantly, and because it did, it never had to fear being ended by anything else. That was all. He did not see why Yoichi had to look at him like that.
Isagi was distracted easily after that, awed by the seaweed washed ashore and a seagull that stood too close, staring at them with round, stupid eyes. Each time Isagi stopped, Kaiser, for some reason, caught himself looking too.
Eventually, Isagi put his shoes down on the sand, crouched, and began drawing something.
Kaiser looked down at the crude shape of a head, a crown, and something that might have been a body if he squinted hard enough. Then, Isagi wrote 'Mihya' next to it, drawing an arrow directly towards that… thing.
“It looks shitty.”
“Probably because it has your shitty personality.”
“Keep making excuses for your shitty skills, shitty Yoichi.”
Isagi laughed and dragged one finger through the drawing before the water could reach it, sand clinging to the side of his hand.
The wind blew through Isagi’s hair. He stayed crouched there, watching his drawing disappear under the waves. Eventually, a small fragment of shell was carried in by the water, the rest of it had probably been left somewhere out at sea. It was a dull white color, void of any pattern or ridges, with brown and green moss crusted around the lumpy, uneven edges. For some reason, Isagi picked it up.
"A pretty little thing," Isagi whispered softly into his palm, cupping the shell as if wrapping something fragile.
Kaiser didn’t understand why Isagi didn’t toss it aside. It was hardly anything special. The beach brought in things like that all the time, dead, broken and worn down by water or careless feet. It was not beautiful, except for the way Isagi’s hands closed around it so carefully.
After turning it over a few times, Isagi gently returned it to a place where the waves could carry it away back to where it belonged.
Isagi grinned and stood up, wiping sand off his fingers against his rolled-up pants. It did not help. Even more sand stuck to the damp skin. When he reached for Kaiser’s hand, Kaiser looked down at it with visible distaste. Even so, he took it.
They continued walking. Their hands stayed joined between them, loose enough that either of them could let go.For a while, Isagi said nothing. He only looked up at the pale gold spreading over the horizon, his face quiet beneath the growing light. Kaiser did not know what he was seeing there. He only knew that when Isagi looked at it, the sky seemed to shine just for him.
Isagi’s thumb moved once over Kaiser’s hand, the ring on his finger pressed coldly against the warm skin.
“When you talk like that,” his voice was so quiet it was nearly taken by the wind, “it's like you’re going to dissolve into sea foam.”
Kaiser looked at him.
“You don’t have to keep talking like you’re going to disappear,” Isagi’s grip tightened.
His eyes were still fixed on the horizon, and he did not turn around. “We’re… family now, after all.”
Kaiser looked at the side of his face. At his reddened ears.
He could feel his own ears warming too…
The morning sun had risen slightly near the horizon.
It was not enough to make the morning warm. A thin path of light opened across the water, stretching toward the beach. It touched the wet sand first, brightening around Isagi’s feet. Then it stretched farther, until the boundary between light and shadow stopped near Kaiser’s hand.
Kaiser stopped at the edge of the light. A step ahead, Isagi stopped too, their hands stretching between them for a moment before Isagi looked back.
How did it feel to be in the sun?
He reached out and placed the tips of his fingers at the boundary between light and shadow. Even when he traced the outline, neither bent for him. His skin hurt faintly from the warmth.
Isagi tugged his hand, and Kaiser followed.