The sky was an angry ocean. Hanae watched as water flowed over the flower shop awning like waves that never receded. The heavy summer air permeated the shop and made the flowers' smell thicker. No one would come to buy flowers today, he knew, but he didn't want to leave the warmth of the shop just yet. Hanae closed his eyes and imagined himself stranded in a tropical forest. The dense air and rushing sound of rain were a convincing backdrop.
I wonder what Abeno-san is doing… He hadn't seen Abeno since summer break had started, and he hadn't been asked to accompany him on any jobs as of late. Maybe youkai take summer vacations too, he thought idly, knowing, though, that this was unlikely and that Abeno would have scoffed at him if he'd heard.
Hanae sighed aloud and walked around the counter to close the door to the shop. After he'd swept up a bit and made sure the flowers were all in good health, he headed toward the entry to his home. But when he opened the door, he found himself on the threshold of the Mononokean.
Abeno sat kneeling in the middle of the floor, dressed in full Mononokean attire and hands folded primly in his lap. Anyone who experienced Abeno like this for the first time would think him a patient and refined sort of fellow, though his bright blond hair would paint him as a bit eccentric. Hanae thought the same when he first met the Master of the Mononokean almost a year ago, before he discovered his true personality was surly, unpredictable, and sprinkled with occasional fits of cluelessness and narcolepsy.
Abeno's gold eyes flashed at him. "You're thinking something bad about me, aren't you."
Hanae almost jumped, but had enough presence of mind to remember that although Abeno possessed many spiritual gifts, telepathy was not one of them. He laughed lightly. "I was not. Why would you say that?"
Hanae shucked off his shoes and stepped into the room. The tatami felt soft beneath his sock feet.
Hi, Hanae! \^o^/, read the Mononokean scroll. Hanae grinned and greeted it back.
"Where's Fuzzy?"
"Somewhere," Abeno said, and when Hanae's expression made it clear how unhelpful this response was, he looked around and then jerked his chin toward the corner of the room. Fuzzy was snuggled up on a cushion there, sleeping.
Hanae smiled fondly at the little youkai and sat down across from Abeno. "So, what's up? Is there a job?"
Abeno stared at him for so long that Hanae wriggled uncomfortably, but in the end it was Abeno who turned away first. "No," he said. "No one's called on me."
"Oh." Hanae blinked. "Then…" He thought it over, trying to work through every other viable possibility for Abeno's presence than what first popped into his head. But he could find no other explanation than what he was thinking, unless for some reason Abeno came to borrow a cup of sugar. "Then this is just a social visit?" It came out as a question, because despite his reasoning, he was still afraid of sounding presumptuous.
Abeno wore a sour face, but said nothing. A cautious bud of warmth blossomed in Hanae's chest. He leaned forward.
"Guess even the Master of the Mononokean gets lonely, huh? You could have texted me, though, rather than bringing the whole Mononokean to my door."
"Texting takes too long."
"Texting takes minimal effort."
"So does opening doors."
Hanae laughed. Abeno's brow furrowed, which only made Hanae laugh harder. Abeno clicked his tongue and crossed his arms.
"Okay, so what do you want to do, then? I admit, my summer vacation has been pretty boring too…" Hanae's spirits flagged as he thought of Saga and Fusshi. They hadn't contacted him and he had been too nervous to try reaching out to them first, considering the amount of times he had to suddenly ditch them in the middle of plans to attend to Mononokean business.
Abeno shrugged a shoulder and Hanae sat back on his hands. "Come to think of it, have we ever hung out outside of work or school? I don't think we have! Weird."
"Do you have any ideas or what?"
Hanae considered. He was pretty easily pleased, he wouldn't mind just sitting around or going out to eat, but he wasn't sure what kinds of things Abeno liked to do.
"Uh… Do you like fish?"
Abeno tilted his head. "To eat?"
"No, no. Like an aquarium. The weather's pretty awful, but there's an aquarium closeby, and I think it's cheap on Sundays. Could be fun?"
"Okay, I guess?"
Abeno's tone was not altogether convincing and Hanae felt a sudden wave of sadness. He and Abeno were both humans who could see and use Influence on youkai, but that was where their similarities diverged. As far as Hanae knew, Abeno didn't have any other human friends and his interest in the human world was so little he can't have had many childhood experiences such as going to the park or zoo.
Hanae had done these kinds of things often in his youth, with family and friends. It was normal to him, even boring by now. But whenever he talked about such things with Abeno, the other teen's eyes took on a faraway sheen, as though Hanae was describing a hypothetical concept.
I've decided, I'm going to give Abeno-san a great human memory! Hanae's chest flared with determination.
"Alright!" He shot to his feet. "Aquarium it is."
Abeno rose. "I should change, I guess. Mononokean, open a door to my room."
Hanae's ears pricked. "That's right… You have a house."
"What, did you think I lived in this room?"
"Of course not! I just… I've never really thought about it."
"Hm."
Abeno crossed to the door and opened it just enough to fit through. Hanae took a step and strained his neck to see room beyond.
"Um… Can I see…?"
Abeno's golden eyes burned at him through the cracked door. "No." He slammed it behind him.
Hanae pursed his lips, but wasn't surprised. He padded to where Fuzzy was napping and gently woke him. Fuzzy's tails wagged manically when he realized who was before him, and he jumped up onto Hanae's shoulder to nuzzle his cheek. Hanae scratched the top of Fuzzy's head, relishing the feel of his downy fur.
He considered bringing Fuzzy along to the aquarium, but at last decided against it. As much as he loved the little youkai, he couldn't balance entertaining both Fuzzy and Abeno.
Abeno came out of the door in a white button down and slacks. It was in reality the most nondescript outfit a person could wear, but Abeno made it seem fashionable. He was the type that looked good in both traditional and modern clothes, and sometimes Hanae envied him for it.
"So, we'll take the bus and buy tickets when we get there."
Abeno's brow pinched. "Why can't we just open a door?"
"No." Hanae jabbed a finger at him. "We're taking the bus there and we're taking it home too. I'm going to force you to be a regular human today. No Mononokean."
Aww… the Mononokean's scroll read. But then quickly flipped to, It'll be fun, Itsuki. Do it Hanae's way.
Abeno did not look convinced, but he allowed Hanae to corral him outside and onto a bus with minimal glaring or complaint. Hanae had to pay for the tickets when they arrived at the aquarium, since Abeno only had Underworld currency on him. Abeno then grew morose from embarrassment, despite Hanae's assurances that the cost wasn't much, that it was his treat. Even saying he could take it out of his debt didn't help. He tried to bring Abeno out of his sulk by taking him to see the prettiest tanks first.
"Look, Abeno-san!" He pointed at a bloom of luminescent jellyfish. "Aren't they cool?"
Abeno sidled up to the tank and studied them. "They look like youkai." The comment was neither positive nor negative, more a statement of fact.
"Yeah, I bet a lot of the things in here would resemble youkai. They come in all shapes and sizes, huh? Some jellyfish are poisonous, did you know?"
"Everyone knows that."
Hanae's hackles rose. "Well, did you know," he glanced quickly at the plaque next to the tank, "that jellyfish have no brain, heart, bones, or eyes?"
Abeno turned sharply to him. "What?" He looked shocked, maybe a little terrified, and Hanae felt satisfied.
"Yeah. They only have a mouth and tentacles with stingers on them. Crazy, right?"
Abeno glanced at the jellyfish with suspicion. "How are they even alive if they don't have a brain or heart?"
Hanae shook his head. They stared at the jellyfish for a long while, and it started to dawn on him how odd the jellyfish's existence really was. The luminescent creatures just drifted through the ocean, eating automatically, stinging thoughtlessly. They had no capacity for anything else; they didn't even know there was anything else. Hanae couldn't decide if this was sad or spooky.
"I take it back," Abeno said quietly. "They're not like youkai at all. Let's go somewhere else." He walked toward one of the other shadowed tanks, and Hanae followed without a word.
They walked from spot to spot, following the flow of people. They experienced the tropical fish, eel, and shark displays in almost total silence. Abeno didn't look mad or bored, but Hanae couldn't help but feel that the jellyfish tank had knocked the mood askew. If he didn't set it right soon, this attempt at making a positive human memory for Abeno would turn into a disaster.
Hanae stopped to check one of the lit signs. His eyes went immediately to the entry with paper hearts all around it and a notice saying "Special Performance! Today Only!" Penguins! Perfect! Everyone loves penguins.
"Abeno-san! Let's go here."
Abeno squinted at the sign. Hanae grabbed his arm and drew him in the direction of the penguin enclosure. Abeno made some testy noises and tried to pull away, but Hanae tightened his grip and kept pulling. Abeno would have a good time, even if he had to force it on him.
They passed through a tunnel in one of the large tanks, and Hanae felt a drag behind him. He slowed and glanced back. Abeno had his head tilted up to look at a massive whale shark as it drifted over them. The shadow darkened the passage for a good ten seconds. Several large fish swam by in its wake and Abeno's eyes followed them.
Hanae studied the way the blue and white lights filtering through the tunnel danced over Abeno's face. He looked younger like this. Softer. But then he was only sixteen, wasn't he? So young and he already had the hopes and dreams of an entire world on his shoulders. It was a lot to ask of one person, but he had never heard Abeno complain. From the snips of stories and comments from youkai and the Legislator and Justice, Abeno had been working for the Mononokean since he was very young.
Did he ever have a proper childhood? Maybe not. Maybe Abeno's disinterest in humans was not disinterest at all, but lack of understanding. A child raised by the Underworld would of course shrink from the mundanity of the real world.
Hanae's heart ached to think of it, and he was seized with a powerful urge to pull Abeno to him and hug him tight. But just when he thought it, Abeno's eyes flashed toward him. Hanae's heart bumped in his chest.
"That," Abeno said flatly. "What is it."
"A-ah…" It took him a moment to sort through the panic of his pounding heart, but Hanae realized Abeno was not staring at him, but beyond. He turned. "Oh, uh… That's a stingray," he managed.
What was I thinking just now? He could only imagine how weirded out Abeno would've been if he just pounced on him and started squeezing.
Abeno's gaze followed the stingray as it fluttered against the side of the tank. The gills and mouth on its underside made it look like it was wearing a dopey smile as it glided on.
"Oh!" Hanae hopped a little as a memory struck him. "This aquarium has a petting pool. Do you want to go?"
"A petting pool?"
"Yeah! You can touch starfish and crabs—and stingrays! You can pet them."
A flicker of interest passed over Abeno's face. "...Do you want to?"
Hanae laughed and announced that he absolutely did, since Abeno obviously wanted to. They walked in that direction, and after about a minute or so, Abeno spoke again, "Why are you still doing that? I'm not going anywhere."
"Hm?" Abeno nodded down and Hanae realized he still had Abeno by the wrist. "Oh!" He immediately let go and tucked his hand underneath his other arm. "Sorry," he mumbled, feeling suddenly hot and ungainly.
Thankfully, Abeno didn't seem to notice. Or if he did, he didn't let on.
The petting pool area was clogged with children. The littlest kids were especially fond of plunging their arms into the shallow pools and pulling them out, screaming with delight, the minute anything brushed their hands. Patient parents and employees shushed and reminded them not to scare the animals.
Abeno looked daunted by the crowd, and even though Hanae felt intimidated as well, he drew in a breath and muscled them a spot at one of the pools.
"No stingrays over here yet," he said to Abeno. "But one should come around soon…. Look at those weird fish!"
"They're horn sharks."
Hanae looked up at Abeno in wonder. "Really? How do you know?"
"Says on the plaque." He nodded to the wall, and sure enough there was a plaque that had the names and pictures of everything you could experience in the tank.
"Wow…"
Hanae cautiously ran a finger over the little shark's back. Its skin was smooth, but felt tough at the same time. It was very strange, and he encouraged Abeno to try it for himself. His companion obliged and looked rather bemused at the texture of the shark as well as the spiny starfish he picked up next. But an oncoming stingray soon arrested his attention.
Abeno pushed past Hanae and slipped his hand into the water to skim the ray's back as it swam by. He looked pleased by this alone, but the beginnings of a smile perched in the corner of his mouth when the stingray pivoted around and swam back under his hand. The other children seemed frightened of the stingray's size and speed, so Abeno had the sole pleasure of the stingray's fly-bys. The creature was delighted by the attention.
Hanae smiled at his friend's happiness, and felt quite accomplished in his goal of creating a positive memory for Abeno.
"Ashiya. I thought you wanted to pet this."
"Huh?"
"We came here because you wanted to. Aren't you going to pet the stingray?"
Hanae blinked at Abeno, but he didn't appear to be joking around. He almost laughed then, but he held it in. "I'm the one that wanted to pet the stingray. Right," he said and approached. "Oh. Weird. Feels like wet rubber."
Abeno's mouth quirked. They petted it a moment and Hanae grew bolder. When the stingray drifted sideways and exposed its belly, he went to rub that too.
The stingray opened its mouth and sucked his hand in. It didn't actually hurt. It felt like someone clasping your hand in theirs, only very fast and very suddenly. But Hanae expected it to hurt, and before his mind could rationalize, he went with the first primal response available to him.
Hanae screamed—loud—and snatched his hand back. Everyone around him jumped and backed away.
"What the hell, Ashiya?" Abeno hissed when he realized that he wasn't hurt at all.
"I'm sorry! It sucked my hand up and I panicked!"
Abeno muttered some choice words about him being ridiculous and crossed his arms. Hanae flushed and tried not to make eye contact with anyone. He could hear a group near them giggling, and when he finally mustered the courage to look up, he saw that two teenage girls were watching him. They were each pretty in their own way and he felt even more foolish to know that they saw his mistake.
"What are you staring at?" Abeno said, trying to follow his gaze. Hanae ducked his head.
"Nothing… Can we see the penguins now?"
Something like pity passed over his friend's face—but then it was only a small flicker in his impassive expression, so he could have been mistaken. Regardless, Abeno led them out of the crowd and toward the penguins.
An aquarium employee was stationed at a table at the entrance of the enclosure, beneath a sign that read "Penguin Love Fest! Couple's Event - Today Only." Hanae stared at the sign as they approached, but by the time his mind put two and two together, they were at the table already and the woman was staring up at them.
Her smiling face faltered when she looked at the two male persons before her. "Hello. Can I help you?"
"We're here to see the penguins," Abeno said without an ounce of awareness.
The woman's face turned apologetic. "Oh, well, today we have a special event for couple's only. I'm very sorry. You'll have to come back another time."
Hanae wanted to curl up and die. Worse still, through the burning embarrassment, he heard familiar giggles from behind them. The teenage girls had followed them into the room by some horrible design of the universe. They hovered by the clownfish tank, their eyes sparkling with schadenfreude as they watched him sweat and blush at Abeno's side.
Later, when he had a moment to reflect, Hanae credited their laughing presence plus his own heightened discomfort for his subsequent lapse in sanity.
"We're a couple!" The words burst out of his mouth, louder than was necessary and full of tortured emotion.
The giggling cut off abruptly. The aquarium employee gaped at him. What Abeno looked like, he didn't know, because he didn't dare look. He needed to escape now.
"We want to see the penguins," Hanae said, trying to adjust for his outburst and ending up speaking barely above a whisper. "Please."
"O-oh," the woman managed, her cheeks pinkening. "I'm… I just assumed… I'm so sorry, of course you can go in." She got up in a flutter and held open the door to the penguin enclosure for them.
Hanae walked quickly inside.
"Ashiya."
He pretended not to hear and to be very interested in picking a seat instead.
"Ashiya..."
Hanae walked faster.
"Slow down, will you?" Abeno's voice was angry now, and Hanae's sense of self-preservation kicked in reflexively. He stopped and cowered.
Abeno didn't immediately abuse him with insults, though, and after a second of expecting death, Hanae lifted his head. Abeno was a long way behind him and was walking no faster than his dignity would allow to catch up. When he finally reached Hanae, he huffed.
"Geez. What is wrong with you? Are you that excited to see the stupid penguins?"
Hanae blinked at him and said dumbly, "What?"
"What's so great about penguins anyway?" Abeno side eyed the little birds wobbling around their enclosure. "They can't even walk straight."
"You… You're not mad?"
"Huh?"
"About the…" Hanae swallowed hard. "About the c-couple...thing?" Abeno stared at him, and Hanae desperately searched for some hint of what must be going through his head, but as usual he couldn't tell if he was angry, considering, or uncomprehending.
"I mean, I'm not thrilled you used me as an excuse, but obviously you really wanted to get in here, so I guess it's okay… Right?" The mild look on Abeno's face sharpened in an instant and his eyes flickered like molten gold.
Hanae's stomach squirmed. "Of course! I didn't mean anything weird by it!"
Abeno's expression relaxed, but Hanae's nerves were in ribbons. What was that face Abeno made? It felt like a warning, but I… Why am I being like this? I really didn't mean anything weird by it, but I feel so embarrassed and awkward now.
They found seats somehow and watched the show. It was a delightful performance, and Abeno's opinion of penguins' worth seemed to have risen after it finished, but Hanae could hardly focus.
He couldn't stop thinking about how fast his heart raced, and about the look on Abeno's face and the glint in his eyes when he asked what Hanae meant about their being a couple. In the distress of the moment, he had thought the look was suspicious, even angry, but when he recalled it now, it seemed more...afraid.
They rode the bus back from the aquarium with some poorly masked confusion on Hanae's side.
"That was fun," Abeno said as they stood at the crux of parting. "Thanks for inviting me."
The rain had stopped and the air smelled clean. The light summer breeze played with their hair and made ripples across Abeno's button down.
"Sure, no problem. I'm glad you had fun." Hanae tried a carefree smile, and was reasonably assured it looked convincing. He rallied his spirits and chirped, "I'm glad I was able to give a good memory, even if I did some weird stuff."
Abeno tilted his head. Hanae's chest constricted, but after a moment the other teen just said goodbye and walked in the opposite direction. Hanae watched his back until he disappeared around the corner, not knowing quite what he was feeling, but sure he had never felt it before.