Won't You Kisu-Mi?

by IDespiseTragedy

With his feelings for his best friend unreciprocated, there was no better cure for the broken-hearted Makoto than the devotion of someone who loved him back. Before he readied himself, Kisumi had held his heart captive.

Credits: Thank you so much to Breather & Kleonlumi for beta reading

Disclaimer: Free! isn't mine, though, of course you knew that

Timeline: post-graduation; sequel to A Mizuchi's Royal Consort, in which Haru and Rin became a couple (but this fic will still make sense even if you read it as a standalone)

Cultural Notes:

Oshogatsu (New Year) is Japan's biggest holiday, with most people off school and work from December 29 to January 3. A few days after Christmas, the entrances to many homes, stores and buildings in Japan are decorated with a pine and bamboo kadomatsu. This decoration is prepared to welcome the Shinto gods and derives from the Shinto belief that the god spirits reside in trees. Furthermore, the display of pine, which stays green even in winter, and bamboo, which grows quickly and is ramrod-straight, expresses the desire to obtain virtue and strength to overcome adversity.

Oji-san & oba-san means "uncle" and "aunt" respectively. In Japan, these forms of addresses aren't used exclusively among relatives; it's perfectly normal to address strangers about as old as one's parents as such. In this story, this is how Kisumi calls Makoto's parents and vice versa.

Hatsuyume = the first dream in the New Year; believed to foretell the luck of the dreamer in the ensuing year.

---

Won't You Kisu-Mi?

I

'Has Haru left for the ski resort in Kawaba yet?' Makoto could not help but to think of his best friend as the skyline of distant buildings blurred past the train window. New Year was around the corner, but Haru wouldn't return to Iwatobi this holiday. In the old days, Makoto could easily check on Haru's activity. Now, however, college had changed their way of life—no, deep down, he knew that education should not be blamed; a particular boyfriend should.

Makoto couldn't believe his ears when Haru told him over the phone that he would participate in a ski trip with the university swimming club. The mystery resolved itself with his best friend's next sentence: "We're allowed to bring anyone, even outside the club members." Makoto could only guess that perhaps the swim team's number was too many for a van, but too few for a bus. Were they still at school age, Makoto would definitely have been Haru's choice for such an event, but after the popcorn incident, he knew without asking that this privilege would belong to Haru's boyfriend—Rin always returned to Japan from Australia every New Year, after all.

###

During the stay over at Haru's house in their final year at Iwatobi High, Nagisa, Rei, and Makoto, himself, had been witnesses to Haru's uninhibited impulse—shameless cuddling with Rin to the extent of exhibitionism. By then, the message was clear: Makoto's first love interest had no longer been a fair game.

That time, the rain poured so heavily that the dips in terrain were flooded. With this to convince them, Rei, Nagisa, and Makoto's parents allowed their sons to spend the night at Haru's hilltop house. Seeing Rin there when the three boys came, however, was unexpected.

The TV was showing a famous actor barreling through a time bomb-laden train when Haru came into the living room, carrying two bowls of freshly microwaved popcorn, their rich, buttery aroma wafting into the air. He set the big bowl on the coffee table for his friends to share but brought the small bowl with him as he nestled on Rin's lap. Rin's face turned bright red at once, although he made no attempt to move as the latter straddled him and fed him the popcorn mouth-to-mouth—not too different from a mother bird feeding her youngling. Except that this scene pierced Makoto's heart.

Rei squeaked before mumbling, "I've never guessed that Haruka-sempai would be so bold." Nagisa's eyes widened, and then cheered them on, though the guilty look in his face indicated that as much as he was happy for Haru and Rin, he felt bad for Makoto. It was him who had asked Makoto why he wanted to race Haru at the two-hundred-meter freestyle during the regional tournament. Makoto admitted that he was jealous of Rin.

"Haru, your head's blocking the screen!" Rin complained, but kept wordlessly demanding for more popcorn anyway—it was in all his body language, from his lips parting, to his torso leaning forward eagerly to meet Haru's front, to his hands steadying Haru's hips; his legs even rocked to accommodate Haru more comfortably, for goodness' sake! Makoto simply gave them a melancholic smile before excusing himself to the toilet.

Back then, Makoto had allowed himself a mere few minutes of sobbing in the toilet so as not to rouse any suspicion. Upon returning to the living room with red and puffy eyes, he forced himself to congratulate them. He knew from the start that he could never be enough for Haru. No matter how hard he chased him, his best friend would run after Rin at full speed. And no matter how far Rin gets ahead, he would always turn back for Haru.

As Makoto, Nagisa, and Rei descended the stairway in front of Haru's house the following day, Nagisa asked, "Mako-chan, you okay?"

Something within Nagisa's tone told Makoto that he knew, even though they had never openly discussed this. Makoto simply nodded.

"Makoto-sempai," Rei added, "One day, you will find your special person—I'm sure of it."

"Thank you, Rei."

###

The next morning, when Makoto arrived at Haru's house to pick him up, he let himself in as always, but paused before sliding the shouji closed. He used to come here at least five times a week, but now the interior of the house didn't seem real. None of the hallway, the wooden planks of the flooring, the shoe rack, or everything else seemed real. It was a jamais vu—the opposite of déjà vu; it was as if he were seeing everything for the first time.

Haru must be in the middle of his morning bath routine, but the thought of meeting him suddenly brought forth an urge for avoidance Makoto had never felt strongly before. As he made his way toward the bathroom with dragging footsteps, he found himself enveloped by grief. Haru would keep going farther than Makoto could ever reach.

With a muffled cry, Makoto raced back toward the front door, wrenched the shouji back open, and stepped back into the yard. He leaned his forehead against the wall, shoulders trembling as he tried to force down the sobs that engulfed him. A voice inside his head chastised him, 'What a fool you are, pining for someone who doesn't love you back!'

The words felt odd in his mind, like a foreign language.

Ever since then, an invisible barrier had appeared whenever Makoto was in Haru's presence. He even forced himself to address Haru with the honorific of endearment, "-chan," much to the latter's disapproval, just to remind them both of their status as childhood friends and nothing more. He would have felt like talking to a stranger in Haru's skin otherwise.

But that was fine, right? Haru finally got together with Rin. Haru, who had always ignored other kids who had tried to befriend him, opened himself up to only a small circle of friends. Makoto had known him since their bedwetting days, so it took less effort to interpret Haru's aloof nature. Nagisa had been too cheerful to feel dejected by continuous refusals, so he fit in. Kisumi had tried during middle school, and probably would have succeeded, if he had possessed Rin's tenacity.

Rin. In the end, despite the distance between them, it was to Rin that Haru had reacted most strongly. Haru, who used not to care about his swimming speed, started to look forward to racing Rin (not that he'd openly admit it). Whenever Rin was with him, Haru seemed to pay attention to his surroundings more than usual, as if trying to find something—anything—to please Rin while being careful not to offend the redhead. And when Haru assumed that Rin quit swimming, he also stepped back from all competitions.

With Rin gone to pursue swimming in Australia, Makoto promised himself to take care of Haru. He wanted to become a friend who wouldn't leave Haru, who wouldn't let him feel lonely, and who wouldn't give up supporting him. If he had achieved these perfectly, perhaps, one day, he'd gather his courage to confess his long-buried feelings to Haru. This plan, however, shattered when Rin returned from overseas and enrolled at Samezuka.

In their final year of high school, Makoto had vowed to himself to make Haru, who had eyes only for Rin, turn to him. The only way to accomplish this was by winning a swimming race. Hence, he decided to compete with Haru for two-hundred-meter freestyle at the regionals. Yet, no matter how hard he strived, he could never beat Haru. Along with that, he also lost the chance to tell Haru the depths of his true feelings.

It had been as clear as writing on the wall that Makoto had a slim chance from the beginning. For Rin's sake, Haru started to care about his swim timing and even quit swimming competitively. Whenever Rin's name came up in conversation, Haru's ears perked up and the rest of his body tensed.

After the popcorn incident, Makoto considered asking how Haru and Rin's romance came to be, but each time he opened his mouth, his heart leapt into his throat and he tasted bile. He resigned himself to the thought that as long as his two dearest friends were happy, it was alright if his own solitude became their collateral damage…

…right?

It was something of a relief that around this time Kisumi had apparently decided that he wanted to rekindle their middle school friendship and had started to waltz into his life more and more often with a guileless, "Makoto, what a coincidence, I've just dropped Hayato off at the pool. Wanna grab some yakisoba?" or "Hey, Makoto, have you seen this movie?" The distraction Kisumi provided was more than helpful, particularly as Makoto strived to find excuses not to hang around Haru as much as he used to.

Nothing Kisumi had done, however, transcended the boundary of friendship until that day at the airport. Teary-eyed Nagisa, Rei, Ren, Ran, Makoto's mother, airport staff, and hundreds of onlookers were made witnesses to Kisumi's shameless declaration of love. (Thank goodness, office hours had precluded his father from seeing him off.) Even though Rin and Haru, who had been consulting the Flight Information Display System for their boarding time, were late, they still got the gist of the situation.

Makoto had just told his twin siblings not to fight too often when he felt a yank at the front of his shirt. The next thing he knew, Kisumi's lips were pressed against his own.

Makoto could not move. The kiss stole his breath away. And even though it was merely his lips that Kisumi touched, his entire body tingled and fell numb. The drone of footsteps in the departure hall receded and the chatter of passersby melted from existence. The world had been reduced into him and the gorgeous redhead who snaked both arms around him. What power did this entity hold that a single kiss could plunge his entire body into a sudden fever?

"I've wanted to do this for years," Kisumi told him when they pulled away, cheeks flaming scarlet. "No matter how long it takes, I'll be waiting for you."

Makoto knew he had to say something in return, but his brain refused to cooperate. He did not trust himself to do anything other than scooting inside the passengers' area, his backpack swinging to-and-fro with each hasty stride he took. He didn't even want to imagine his mother's shock and his friends' dumbstruck expressions. Unfortunately, there was a line for the X-Ray and metal detection, so he could not flee as fast as he hoped. He heard vaguely how Ran interrogated Kisumi, "Are you onii-chan's boyfriend?"—to which Kisumi replied, "Not at the moment, but I hope he'll go out with me."

Half an hour was the reprieve Makoto received before Haru commented in his usual flat tone and tranquil face, once they had buckled their airplane seatbelts, "You're lucky Kisumi has no qualms with kissing in public; Rin would never do that with me in front of so many people."

###

Makoto's first few weeks in Tokyo had been refreshing. For a start, the college's tiered seat arrangement proved to be quite a convenience (at high school, the teacher had frequently swapped his seat with shorter students who complained that his head blocked their view of the blackboard). Food, books, movies, clothes, music, and everything else that a young adult needed were all available with greater variety, though at steeper prices. But what meant the most to Makoto was the freedom from responsibility to watch over others. While he had gladly taken care of his younger twin siblings—whom he loved immensely—it would be a lie to claim that he didn't miss those years before they had been born, the years when his parents' attention was entirely devoted to him and he was not forced to take on accountability beyond his years.

And then, there was also Haru; it was thanks to this apathetic boy that Makoto had grown so accustomed to attending to others' needs. As the years went by, reminding Haru of homework went hand-in-hand with reminding Ran and Ren to brush their teeth before going to bed, while taking Haru's hand to prevent him from diving into a fish tank could prove more challenging than taking the hand of an elderly person while crossing a busy street.

In Tokyo, Makoto still popped up in Haru's apartment next door from time to time, although less so ever since he barged in while Haru was having an online conversation with Rin and had become unfortunately privy to certain lurid details pertaining to the couple's sex life. That moment had been a notable milestone in the growing distance between him and his former best friend. Haru had his own world now. Moreover—call it a best friend's instinct or a sore loser's jealousy— Makoto had a hunch that Haru would be fine without his babysitting. As he and Haru grew apart, it occurred to him that Haru's communication deficit all those years might have been the aloof boy's mood of "can't be bothered to mention" as opposed to "don't know how to express the word."

Presently, an announcement that the train would arrive at Iwatobi soon ripped Makoto out of his thoughts. A jolt surged in his stomach as he gathered his belongings from the overhead compartment and prepared himself to disembark. Now that his hometown was only couple of minutes away, his mind reminded him of the matters at hand: how was he going to explain to his family about Kisumi? How was he going to tackle Nagisa's teasing and Rei's skepticism regarding the nonexistence of romance between them? Most importantly, how was he supposed to face the redhead?

After that kiss, Kisumi had frequently texted and mailed him. Despite the anxiety that each new message brought, the redhead never sent him anything flirty or outrageous, instead remaining friendly and sending tidbits about his life and day, like, "Hayato's swimming time has improved," "the dentist reprimanded me today," and "there was a huge sale at Yamashita-san's shop, so I bought a new pair of basketball sneakers."

Maybe if they both could pretend that the kiss had never happened…

The train skidded to a halt in front of a slippery platform with a metal signboard that read only "tobi," as an errant drift of snow blocked half of the town name. Makoto stepped onto the platform, thinking nervously, 'I'll keep my fingers crossed so that Kisumi won't contact until the end of the holiday. That way, I can say that I need to prepare for my return to Tokyo or want to spend the last few days with family, and can't meet him.' Makoto bit his lip at the uncharitable thought when the sight of a familiar figure made his heart do a backflip.

Standing close to the exit was Kisumi in the flesh, his hair the color of sunrise and his smile just as radiant. He waved one hand at Makoto, while his other hand held a brown paper package that smelled like roasted chestnuts.

"Um … hi," Makoto greeted him when they were just a few steps apart. The man who had taken his first kiss was here, with him, and the thought made him quiver at every intake of breath. He put down one of his bags so that he could shake Kisumi's proffered hand.

Yet Kisumi wouldn't have any of it. With a crushing hug, he embraced Makoto like an old friend thought to be dead in battle but reunited at the end of a war. "Welcome home, Makoto."

How strange it was, Makoto thought as the scent of Kisumi's shampoo wafted into his nostrils, that he would feel so at peace despite his racing pulse. The mechanism of the human body was too incomprehensible.

"I don't remember telling you my arrival time."

"But you mentioned you'd arrive in the morning of December 30, and Iwatobi's train timetable isn't complicated to figure out."

'Why did you come to fetch me?' Makoto wanted to ask, but when he opened his mouth, all he could articulate was: "How's Hayato?"

"He's doing all right. He has mastered three swimming strokes now—he still needs to work out on the butterfly. And he's currently at a friend's house, though he'll be back before dinner. What about you?"

At this question, Makoto became flustered with shame; he hadn't asked about Kisumi's wellbeing out of fear that Kisumi might start spouting 'I miss you,' or worse, the L-word. "I … uh, I've got lots of homework for this holiday, but other than that, life's good." He chose his words carefully and inhaled deeply before stating, "You seem to be getting on great."

Kisumi smiled sweetly. "Hungry?" he prompted as he shoved the bag of chestnuts in front of Makoto. "I can help you with those bags if you want to eat."

"I'm fine, thanks," Makoto mumbled, bending a little longer than necessary while picking up his bag from the ground. Heat was creeping up his cheeks; what if Kisumi assumed him to be an inefficient traveller who carried tons of luggage? A part of him wanted to explain, 'This bag contains gifts for my family,' but it'd be weird for him to do so without Kisumi asking the question.

They walked momentarily in silence. Then Kisumi cracked a chestnut open and pinched the de-shelled nut in front of Makoto's mouth. "Say aah~"

"I don't—oomph" Regardless of Makoto's protest, Kisumi pushed the chestnut in his mouth. The delicate, sweet, and nutty flavor pacified him despite himself.

A rumbling laugh left Kisumi's mouth when Makoto uttered, "I should have remembered that you're the type who won't take 'no' for an answer. But please, Kisumi, no more feeding. It's too … embarrassing."

"Since you ask so nicely," Kisumi chirped, and then pocketed the rest of the chestnuts.

Two pairs of footprints trailed on the snowy ground behind them.

---

II

Kisumi dropped Makoto off at the Tachibana residence and politely declined when Ran and Ren invited him in, insisting that Makoto ought to have some time alone with his family.

"Hayato is pumped up to show you his swimming progress. Mind meeting me at ITSC Returns tomorrow at three?"

"I'll be there," Makoto promised. Perhaps the naive boy assumed that as long as Hayato was there, Kisumi wouldn't try to jump him.

Hands inside his pockets, Kisumi whistled a happy tune on the way home. He had just secured himself a date. Plus, by going the extra mile of waiting for Makoto at the station just to walk him home, he had secured an impression that he was a good friend to Makoto at the very least, right?

A couple walked past, hand-in-hand, with a single scarf connecting the guy and girl's necks. How many times had Kisumi witnessed a happy couple like this in his at college and on the streets? How often had he wished it were Makoto's hand in his and made believe that geographical distance was the only factor that hindered his dream from coming true? Which one hurt more, him trying grasp someone beyond his reach or Makoto seeing his best friend every day without being able to touch him?

Kisumi de-shelled a chestnut and tossed it in the air, stretching his neck to catch it with his open mouth. 'How much longer will it take Makoto to think about me half as much as he thinks about Haru?'

At the prompt of that name, Kisumi recalled Haru's visit over a year ago, on a blustery November day.

###

"You and I both know that you aren't happy just being Makoto's friend, Kisumi," Haru began.

As though an invisible fist had struck Kisumi hard at the pit of his stomach, his breath stuck in his throat.

"Do you want Makoto or not?"

"What kind of question is that?!" a very flustered Kisumi sputtered, trying in vain to regain his usual cheerful composure. This was certainly not what he had expected when Haru rang his doorbell out of the blue and asked him to go outside to talk.

Instead of repeating the words, Haru gazed at him with those clear, blue eyes.

"Hmph! You've always wormed your way with that innocent look of yours, haven't ya? Well, that may work on Makoto, but don't think it'll be the same for me." Kisumi declared with a tone as stern as the one he normally employed to berate Hayato. Of course, he'd speak more cordially at any other time, but given the current predicament…

It was tempting to look away at the neighboring children's playground, at the front door of his house, or even at the clouds above, but he managed to keep his gaze at Haru, who met his tacit challenge with an undeterred stare.

"Argh, alright, alright! I give up! Geez!" Kisumi took a sharp breath and clenched his fists, using the last vestige of his control to prevent his tone from sounding too miserable. He knew that his fake smiles would not deceive Haru. "Yes, I want Makoto so much that it hurts, but he's got a thing for you."

"Makoto and I are going to study in Tokyo after graduation."

Kisumi clucked his tongue; it was getting harder and harder to believe that he had once been friends with this jerk. Suppressing the urge to grab Haru by the collar, he uttered sarcastically, "Thanks for rubbing salt onto my wound."

"If you want Makoto, give him reasons to come home," Haru replied with an unperturbed expression, the falling leaves from the tree above him scattering and dancing about his legs.

Kisumi squinted; he was not in the mood for a friendly conversation. "What are you playing at?"

Again, Haru showed no change in his expression or his tone. "Makoto deserves someone who'd devote an unconditional love to him."

"Why can't you be the one?" Kisumi asked, "Oh wait, it's Rin, isn't it? You can't return Makoto's feelings 'coz you're in love with Rin! Yeah, I figured, since you always had your eyes glued on Rin's empty seat after he left for Australia."

"Make Makoto happy," Haru said noncommittally and turned on his heels, leaving Kisumi with his mouth agape.

###

Twenty-eight hours couldn't come fast enough for Kisumi. The sluggish afternoon set in with the clouds drifting idly by. None of the dribbles, dunks, and shots he practiced in his backyard did anything to calm his heart. He had learned from experience, having never made it past the Inter High preliminaries, that he'd never gain glory from his skills. However, it wouldn't be beyond him to be a competent basketball player. He continued playing basketball during his college years and intended to keep practicing even when he became a salary man, perhaps with the folk in a local community. And if the sports center with the basketball court also had a swimming pool, perhaps he could walk hand-in-hand with Makoto from home all the way there…

'Stop daydreaming!' Kisumi smacked his cheeks with both palms.

Before such intimacy could exist between them, he had to secure Makoto's interest during their first date, which was three hours away. He planned on asking Hayato if he was hungry after swimming, and then ask Makoto to tag along so that the latter could comment on Hayato's strokes as they sat in a restaurant. Afterwards, if luck would allow, Hayato might take up Kisumi's offer to "go to have some fun."

Bringing along his little brother for a date might not be a sensible move, but Kisumi suspected that this tactic would work with Makoto. Having Hayato along might help Makoto feel less awkward about being "on a date." Plus, his desired partner was a family man, and showing affection to Hayato should boost his positive points. Family importance was also the reason Kisumi had approached Makoto's mother right after Makoto and Haru left for Tokyo for the first time.

###

"Oba-san," Kisumi bowed deeply at the airport's departure hall, disregarding the curious look from passers-by and Makoto's open-mouthed siblings. "I hope my action earlier didn't cause any misunderstanding. Until today, Makoto was unaware of my feelings. I swear there was nothing between us these past five years."

"And I…" When Mrs. Tachibana remained speechless, a scandalized look upon her face, Kisumi inhaled sharply before continuing, "…if possible, I'd like to get closer to Makoto from now on."

"Boy, what's your name?" Mrs. Tachibana addressed him at last. Formerly, she had appeared to be a harmless housewife—a subservient, mild-mannered woman—but when it concerned her family, the entire set of her body changed and the gentle look in her droopy eyes sharpened into the piercing stare of a lioness, ready and willing to protect her cubs from harm.

"It's Kisumi. Shigino Kisumi."

Kisumi's heart pounded in his ears as Makoto's mother spoke, "Shigino-kun, you seem like a good person. Know that it is for your own good that I cannot encourage you to pursue my son."

Kisumi searched for her gaze beseechingly, "I'm sorry I can't change the fact that we are both born male, but as long as it's Makoto, I'll love him regardless of our sex. I'll make Makoto happy."

Mrs. Tachibana shook her head melancholically. "As much as it warms my heart to know that my son is appreciated, I doubt that you will have any luck in this endeavor. He is firm in his feelings, and I haven't heard enough of you to suggest that your presence in his life supersedes the current target of his affections."

"Oba-san, I'm aware of the situation with Haru. In fact, he's the reason I didn't confess my love to Makoto before. Twice I tried to hook up with girls during high school, but in the end, it's always Makoto who stayed in my head. But things have changed now. Haru's in love with someone else and … and … I'll back down if Makoto rejects me for real." A lump appeared in Kisumi's throat, and he had to swallow it before he could voice his most dreaded supplication, "Would you give me your blessing to date him?"

Fear's icy fingers gripped Kisumi as Mrs. Tachibana regarded him for a few more moments of silence before deciding, "Makoto has grown into a person whose decisions I can trust and respect. Given his lack of interest for girls in the last eighteen years, I have mentally prepared myself to come to terms with my eldest son's sexual orientation, even if it isn't the way I would have preferred."

###

After bathing and grooming himself thoroughly (with an additional plan to comb his hair and floss his teeth again before he left home later), Kisumi took out a selection of clothes from his wardrobe: a pastel colored shirt, a cardigan that complemented the color of his hair, a knee-length coat that flatters the contour of his torso, and a pair of flat front trousers. Funny how he recalled choosing a getup for his dates with ex-girlfriends within seconds, but spent five weeks planning today's outfit. Kisumi glanced at the pile of fashion magazines by his table—today's outing was not even the first time he went together with Makoto, but this would definitely count as a first date since his confession.

He waited, glimpsed at the clock, paced his bedroom back and forth, twiddled his thumbs, and then waited again, counting seconds, repeating things he knew he should say, remembering things he knew he shouldn't. Perhaps it was in vain, because nothing, nothing could ever prepare him enough for Makoto.

###

Kisumi arrived at the ITSC Returns ten minutes early, yet Makoto had already been there, talking with Coach Sasabe. After exchanging a few greetings, Sasabe headed down to the pool, while Kisumi and Makoto proceeded to the viewing gallery, where they observed Hayato through a glass barrier.

After Hayato had emerged from the shower room with fresh clothes, he gave Makoto his full attention when the latter explained, "You held your head slightly too far up during butterfly strokes. This will only make it difficult to do a low, straight-arm recovery, and you'll struggle because of that."

"Yes, Coach Tachibana," Hayato replied obediently, earnest in committing each of Makoto's syllable into his brain.

"Ah, well, I'm not an assistant coach here anymore and I won't be a real coach any time soon." Makoto rubbed the back of his head, while flashing a genial smile.

"Um, then … Makoto onii-san?" Hayato hesitated.

Makoto chuckled and ruffled Hayato's hair.

"Is there somewhere else you want to go? Not the amusement park, though; it's closed this time of the year," Kisumi offered as the three of them came out of the ITSC Returns.

Hayato's eyes glittered with pure joy. "Then, can we visit the new planetarium? It's been the talk at school for a while now."

Suppressing his mischievous grin, Kisumi pretended to think hard. "Ask Makoto onii-san."

Needless to say, the brunet agreed without a second thought.

They chatted merrily during the bus ride. While the planetarium was nowhere near as impressive as those located in big cities, it was the paramount of entertainment in Iwatobi. It housed a forty-five foot diameter-domed screen with over a hundred seats. At the heart of the Iwatobi Planetarium was a star projector, which brought the stars and planets indoors, accompanied by spectacular surround sound, lasers, and multimedia imagery.

"Onii-chan, it's dark. What if ghosts start to appear?" Hayato whined, his fingers curled up a portion of Kisumi's cardigan.

"You have nothing to fear, Hayato. You're seated between two reliable big brothers, after all." Kisumi then glanced back at Makoto with a diabolic grin and said, "Let's keep an eye out for the ghosts!"

"That'd be a thrill," Makoto replied in the same jesting manner. He would cower in dark, solitary places with high potential for real ghosts, but not in a theater containing over a hundred people—the haunted house at their middle school's culture festival had taught Kisumi that much. Besides, no matter how wimpy Makoto could be with supernatural beings, he was first and foremost a reliable big brother.

'Haru wouldn't have that sense of humor,' Kisumi noted.

As much as Hayato adored the theatrical effects illustrating how Scorpio chased Orion across the sky dome, the combination of the planetarium' s soothingly dim lighting and the fatigue from swimming bore him down. He fell asleep within fifteen minutes.

At the end of the show, Kisumi gently woke his little brother up. However, between the bleary, half-lidded eyes and sleep-hazed mind, Hayato couldn't distinguish Makoto from Kisumi. Wanting nothing but continued sleep, he clung to Makoto's neck and buried his head against Makoto's chest.

"Hayato, wake up! That's Makoto, not me." Kisumi poked at Hayato's cheek.

The little boy stirred, but then snuggled tighter to Makoto's woolen sweater.

"Hayato, hey, Hayato!" Kisumi called again as he shook his brother's shoulders.

No reaction from Hayato this time; he was a heavy sleeper, after all.

"It's fine, Kisumi. He must be very tired to have missed the show he had been looking forward to. I can carry him to your house."

Kisumi couldn't prevent his Adam's apple from bobbing up and down; somehow, Makoto looked breathtakingly handsome when he said that.

Bringing his palms together in front of his face in an apologetic gesture, Kisumi said, "Sorry, Makoto. I wanted to take you and Hayato to my favorite café, but it seems we have no choice now."

"Don't sweat it. We can always go some other time," Makoto replied with a smile as they exited the planetarium.

'Some other time,' Kisumi repeated the phrase in his head, melancholy washing over him. How many times had he used the same phrase to turn down others' invitation?

A minute of silence prevailed on the way to the train station, in which Kisumi observed how Hayato was perfectly comfortable in Makoto's arms, looking so natural as if he had always belonged there. Hayato admired Makoto—no, he worshipped him. But how would Hayato react once he discovered that this was the one with whom his brother intended to spend the rest of his life? Would his adoration turn into disgust or disappointment? Would he regard Kisumi as the shame of the Shiginos?

"Are you free tomorrow morning?" Makoto asked, "I'll be skating with Rei and Nagisa. You can join us if you like. Oh, and bring Hayato, too; Ran and Ren will love him."

"Sweet! Count me in. But before that, what do you say to a hatsumoude tonight?" Kisumi offered. The Shiginos normally preferred to visit the shrine on the third of January, when the crowd would have quieted down, so he wouldn't miss going there with his family.

"Actually, I promised my family to visit the shrine with them. I'm sure they'll be glad to have you."

'Eek! Makoto, I'm not prepared to meet your dad. What if he strangles me after your mom tells him about my intentions for you?' Kisumi forced a smile. "Are you sure I won't be intruding?"

"Not at all. Since you left too early yesterday, the twins have been nagging me about how much they missed you. Mom definitely likes you, too. And dad wants to meet you."

'Ugh, bull's eye!' Kisumi gulped. 'Well, this was bound to happen sooner or later, so better brace yourself, Kisumi!'

"Erm, won't it be better if you call your parents first, just to make sure?"

This Makoto did as soon as they settled on the train seats. To Kisumi's dread and relief, the Tachibana family did not only confirm a green light for the shrine visit, but also invited him to dinner. The bright side was that he didn't need to invent an excuse not to let Makoto stay too long at the Shigino residence.

In his first year of middle school, as the Shigino family watched TV together, a quiz show featured a gay celebrity as its guest star. Back then, Kisumi's father had uttered his disgust about what he insinuated as "the disease of the society." Even his mother had been of one voice with her husband and expressed her disapproval of queer people who went against nature. Hayato, of course, had been too young to grasp their vocabulary. But Kisumi still remembered his parents' repulsed expression to this very day; there was no way he could confess to them about his sexual orientation. While he had brought home a number of schoolmates before, he feared his affectionate gaze on Makoto could rouse his parents' suspicion.

Kisumi's father was polishing a golf club when Kisumi took off Hayato's shoes at the entryway, the little boy still latched to Makoto's broad chest. The oldest man threw Kisumi a questioning look as to why he wasn't the one who carried the youngest Shigino home, but changed his mind upon seeing how tightly Hayato clung to Makoto. He remarked instead, "Thank you for carrying Hayato home. Sorry that my sons have caused you trouble, young man."

"Not at all, oji-san. Kisumi tried to carry Hayato himself, but Hayato wouldn't budge. He was exhausted from swimming, and I was impressed to see him work so hard."

Kisumi smirked. When it came to impeccable manner, Makoto would lack none in his parents' eyes.

After a brief introduction, Mr. Shigino remarked, "It's not often that Kisumi brings a friend as tall as he is. Are you in the basketball club, too?"

"No, I'm with the swimming club," Makoto answered.

Kisumi's mother invited Makoto for dinner, but he politely explained that Kisumi would have his at the Tachibana's instead. "Then you must dine with us next time, Tachibana-kun," she told him before allowing them to proceed to Kisumi and Hayato's shared bedroom.

Kisumi exhaled in relief that his orange-ambient room had been tidied up before he had left the house. Makoto did not seem displeased as his eyes found its symmetry. Each piece of furniture was in pair, from bookshelves to dressers. The exceptions lay in smaller details: an NBA poster hung on Kisumi's bedside whereas an anime poster hung on Hayato's, a basketball lurked under Kisumi's bed, compared with a box of LEGO under Hayato's, and college textbooks were stacked tidily on Kisumi's desk, whereas a clay figurine stood surrounded by tubes of watercolor paint on Hayato's.

Kisumi spread a quilt over the younger Shigino after Makoto gingerly laid the little boy upon his mattress. He lightly touched his brother's soft hair and bade him goodnight before switching the lamp to the night mode and closed the door. "Sweet dreams, Hayato."

---

III

A forty-minute journey brought Makoto and Kisumi to the Tachibana residence's doorstep. Kisumi did not fail to notice Makoto glance at the upper part of the hill, where Haru's unlit house was located, before opening the door.

'Makoto still hopes Haru's there, even though he's the one who told me Haru was away with Rin?' Kisumi's fists clenched.

"Hey, I'm sure Haru's having a good time in his ski trip now. He can even sit over a hot pot of nabe with the other swimming club members."

For a split second, Makoto looked abashed, but then he smiled and answered, "Speaking of nabe, that's also our menu tonight."

"Really? Yay! I love nabe," Kisumi chirped as they passed the pine and bamboo kadomatsu-decorated entryway.

Dinner at the Tachibana's was mercifully nowhere near as mortifying as what Kisumi had dreaded. Amid the wafting steam from the pot at the center of the table, no place on Earth could have felt more like home. Ren told Kisumi that this was the first time Makoto ever brought a friend during New Year's Eve, save for Haru, before Ran interrupted him to blabber about her dream of flying cookies, hoping that she'd receive an even nicer dream for tonight's hatsuyume. As far as Kisumi could see, Mrs. Tachibana treated him exactly the same way as she treated Makoto. No stabbing stares from Mr. Tachibana so far—he was a compassionate-looking man in his late forties, with brown hair and a pair of glasses.

When Ran and Ren quarreled over a slice of crab, causing the milk-based broth to splash out of Ren's bowl, Kisumi gave them his portion. Mrs. Tachibana giggled. "Makoto often does that, too."

"You seem to be accustomed to handling children, Shigino-kun," Mr. Tachibana added.

Kisumi laughed heartily. "My little brother, Hayato, is only a year younger than these two."

Still, other than that, neither of Makoto's parents started an interrogation. Despite the steam from the nabe pot, beads of cold sweat rolled down Kisumi's back. Did this mean Makoto had already fed them with enough information on Kisumi that they no longer needed to ask his background?

The cloudy sky was belching a heavy load of snow when they decided to leave the house. Ran and Ren bickered over who got to share an umbrella with their dearest elder brother, and their stubborn demands escalated into squawks until Mrs. Tachibana interceded, angelic smile upon her face, "You two should share an umbrella with each other. Makoto's walking with me."

"Not fair!" the twins muttered in unison, but poutingly obeyed their mother.

"That leaves us to share this umbrella, Shigino-kun." Makoto's father held up a purple umbrella before them, the twins' chorus of protesting whines in the background. "Incidentally, its color resembles your eyes—the color of wisteria."

Suppressing the urge to gulp, Kisumi offered, "Shall I hold that, oji-san?"

"No, it's fine, but thank you for offering," Mr. Tachibana answered with a smile.

A bundle of nerves as he was, Kisumi felt his heart hammering with every step he took. A lot of his friend's parents had praised him to be a well-mannered boy, but suddenly all his suaveness vanished before Mr. and Mrs. Tachibana. It was plain to see where Makoto's exemplary manners had passed from.

"Makoto sure is loved," Kisumi commented with one of his mirror-practiced smiles in attempt at small talk. In this cold, it was tempting to stride with hunched shoulders and hands inside his pockets, but he wanted to do everything within his capacity to impress the Tachibanas, so he chucked out that thought.

"Yes, he is a good big brother and a good son," answered Mr. Tachibana, his breath forming a smoke-like vapor before his mouth, "What about you, Shigino-kun?"

Kisumi inhaled sharply; his much-dreaded interrogation started less than five minutes after they had started off for the shrine. "Well, I … my brothers love me, but my elder one is seven years older than me and already moved out, so there has never been a fight over my attention."

"So, how did you get to know Makoto?"

"Uh, I was Haru's classmate in middle school," Kisumi began. 'Drop the "uh"; it'll make you sound as if you were lying!' he reprimanded himself. "Makoto used to visit Haru during lunch break, and sometimes we played basketball together."

"In addition to basketball, what are your other interests, Shigino-kun?"

"I'm into R & B music. And um … I love swimming, too, although I don't hold a candle to Makoto's skills in that field." 'The "um" … get rid of it, too, dammit!'

Kisumi chuckled nervously before continuing, "Would you tell me your hobbies, oji-san?"

"I go bowling with my colleagues once a month and tend the little garden in front of our house at weekends."

"Oh, my grandma was into gardening, too. She used to grow her own vegetables," Kisumi responded enthusiastically, glad to find a similarity between his family and Makoto's.

"Neither of your parents interested in gardening?"

"Sadly, no. But at least the buyer of grandma's house still maintains her garden well even now, years after her death."

"My condolences for your grandmother's loss. As for your parents, does this mean they prefer enjoying their spare time indoors?"

"Being a sales manager, dad often spends his weekends playing golf with his clients. Mom teaches cooking in a nearby culinary school, so she loves experimenting with new dishes almost every day."

"And how did the son of a sales manager and a cookery teacher become attracted to my son?"

Even though the question was spoken with the same gentle tone as its predecessors, Kisumi couldn't keep a lump from rising in his throat. He took a moment to gather his thoughts, and was grateful that Makoto's father didn't rush him.

"With Makoto, it wasn't love at the first sight. At first, I was simply curious of Haru's standoffishness, and since Makoto always accompanied him, I tagged along. Little by little, I started wishing that I could have Makoto for myself, without Haru around; he was the kindest, friendliest, most reliable person I'd met. But back then, I was a coward. I backed off when I suspected that he liked Haru and even dated girls in high school, hoping that it was just a simple crush that would fade as we went to different schools. But it never did. He was—is—always on my mind. Even when my girlfriend cheered for me during basketball matches, a part of me always wished it had been Makoto instead. Then I met him again, teaching my brother to swim in the final year of high school, and all my resolutions wavered. I wanted him again, though it was clear to me that his love for Haru had also gotten stronger. Months later, Haru told me, in his own way, to take care of Makoto. I don't want to be a coward anymore. I don't ever want to let go of Makoto again. "

Together, the six of them walked through the swaying foliage and snowy sidewalks. Before long, the temple gate, made of two horizontal beams perching atop of a pair of dark wood pillars, came into view. A chill was in the air, but it didn't dampen the children's spirit.

Mr. Tachibana turned sharply at Kisumi. "Do your parents know about this?"

Blood ran cold within Kisumi's veins. He tried to stall time by watching Ran and Ren scooping some snow from the stairway railings into balls and threw them at each other's coat (because their mother sternly declared that heads were off-limits). In the end, Kisumi's shoulders slumped into a resignation. "My parents wouldn't agree. The day I lift the lid intention about any interest in a guy would be the day they'll forever kick me out of their lives, I'm afraid."

Mr. Tachibana's eyebrows knitted. "That's a horrible thing to do. To your own child. Just because of that."

"I know, right?" Kisumi subconsciously dropped his keigo and grinned for a fraction of a second before he fixed his attitude and resumed speaking in the polite language, as was proper for a conversation with older generation, "I mean, I understand that both of my parents have reputations to protect—how many parents out there proudly admit that their children are transgender, have homosexual orientation, or belong to another minority group? But I don't want to live my life making believe that I'm what others consider 'normal,' deceiving myself and those who care about me. I can't picture myself living with a woman bearing a pained smile because she deserves better than a husband who can never truly love her and the children who are ignorant that they've been brought into the world just because their grandparents demanded so."

Kisumi licked his lips. They were dry in the icy wind. "Now it's even more complicated. Adding my wish to love into the equation now certainly make matters difficult. I don't know why there is so much fuss over who's going to love who. Love's love. It doesn't have a gender."

Mr. Tachibana responded, "A majority says otherwise. It's a harsh world. Still, two wrongs won't make one right."

"It'll be fine," Kisumi assured him, and then added in a jape, "Don't they say that 'love will find its way through paths where wolves would fear to prey'*?"

However, the older man did not find his joke amusing. Mr. Tachibana looked at him, if possible, even more sternly.

Inhaling sharply, Kisumi admitted, "I believe that everyone gets to meet their special someone only once a lifetime. And, even though it took me a while to realize it, I'm lucky enough to have already found that person."

Kisumi broke off with a faintly disbelieving laugh. "I'd have never thought to fall for a guy, especially if he's larger than me. But I'll never regret it, not when he makes my whole world a better place just by being near. He … well, he can be wishy-washy and a scaredy-cat, but he's so gentle and kind, and he cares so much about other people, and it always amazes me that he goes to such lengths to defend the people he believes in."

Kisumi tugged at the hem of his coat as they arrived at the bottom of the stairs to the shrine. The grip did nothing to steady the quaver in his voice. "Oji-san, I was indecisive and wasted too much time that I should have been using to get to know Makoto better. Please … let me spend the rest of my life fixing that."

"You seem to be a good kid. I don't have any power over my son's feelings, but if ever you'll end up with him, there's no problem in my part." Makoto's father closed the umbrella. The snow had ceased to tumble, leaving only a thick blanket of white that buried their ankles while they approached the basin by the torii gate to cleanse themselves. "I would enjoy sharing more of my family's traditions with you, Shigino … no, Kisumi-kun," the older man said through clattering teeth—though whether from the freezing water the middle-aged man had just ladled or from emotion alone, Kisumi couldn't tell.

They plodded past the bonfires that the shrine had lit to warm the crowds waiting for hatsumoude. Other than Ren yelping in pain when an old woman unintentionally stepped on his foot while ringing the bell that hung from a rope in front of the offertory box, the praying passed uneventfully. After they were done, Kisumi and the Tachibanas bowed before the altar and then purchased omikuji from the coin-operated dispensers. The twins' strips of paper revealed "small misfortune" and "great misfortune" respectively, so Makoto promised them he'd share his luck even though he received only "ending small fortune" himself. That was where Kisumi butted in, holding his scroll up high, "That's not gonna be enough for three. I'm also sharing my luck with you; it's 'half-fortune'."

As the Tachibana twins tied up their fortune-telling slips to a fence of metal wires in the shrine ground, Mrs. Tachibana said to her husband, "It sure is convenient to have these machines. In the old days, we had to queue for a long time to wait for a person to shake the omikuji container before drawing the stick and search for the corresponding drawer."

"But I miss the conventional way, too, sometimes," her husband bemoaned.

"We can always acquire our fortune slips that way when the shrine isn't too busy." She smiled and stroked his hair fondly.

Kisumi eyed them and wondered, 'Will Makoto and I be able to stay lovey-dovey 'til we're both old men?' It would be embarrassing to write such a wish on the ema.Hence, on the wooden votive tablet he scribbled instead: "Makoto's happiness; mom, dad and Hayato's health; and my success."

Makoto returned with a decorated evil-destroying arrow in hand. "Ran, Ren, here's a hamaya for you two, so don't pout about your bad luck this year."

As the twins hugged and thanked their brother, their father's gaze trailed to the files of people waiting for their allotment of amazake. Three priestesses were distributing cups of hot fermented rice drink dutifully, but the lines only grew longer. Mr. Tachibana remarked, "Let's head back and eat the year-crossing noodle before the crowd gets even larger."

Although Kisumi was stunned, he tried his best not to let this emotion surface. Hatsumoude, literally 'first shrine visit,' was the first shrine visit of the new year, so visiting the shrine but returning home before the clock struck midnight on New Year's Eve didn't count as a hatsumoude at all, merely a night visit. Nevertheless, he could not bring himself to find fault in the Tachibanas' habit. It was insensible to stand in the crowd and be unable to move for hours in the cold—which was why the Shiginos preferred to have their shrine visit after New Year's Eve in the first place.

Recognizing his cue to leave, Kisumi said, "Then I'd better go home, too. Thank you for the lovely evening."

"You're always welcome to eat the toshikoshi soba with us, Shigino-kun," Mrs. Tachibana replied.

"Thank you for the offer, oba-san, but Hayato will likely miss me at the dining table. Our family has never missed eating the year-crossing noodle together on New Year's Eve."

"Very well, we won't keep you any longer, but we'd love to have you join us for mochitsuki tomorrow morning before skating."

"Your family makes your own glutinous rice cake? Awesome! I'll be there," Kisumi enthusiastically promised her.

Makoto offered, "I'll walk you to the station."

Before the two boys left, however, Ran asked Kisumi to bend down and whispered sneeringly to his ear, "Be sure to kiss onii-chan, 'kay?"

---

IV

The station was located sixteen minutes' walk away from where they were. They passed merrily through a network of streets and alleyways before emerging into a narrow passage, lined with old houses, which led them into a side street, and so to a much wider avenue. Here, they turned down a dimly lit thoroughfare, passed through a deserted yard, and then arrived at a rather busy road.

On the stairs of the overpass, Makoto was asking whether Kisumi usually watched the Red and White Song Battle TV program on New Year's Eve when they caught sight of a girl leaning forward and slinging a leg over the railing.

Both Makoto and Kisumi rushed to prevent her from jumping off the bridge. As they were coming closer, the girl panicked and slung her other leg. Kisumi screamed, "HARUKA, NO!"

That put a pause to Makoto's step. Adrenaline rushing through him, he felt his heart about to leap out of his throat. The visualization of his best friend in her place invaded his head.

"Haruka, tell me what's wrong and I'll try my best to help!" Kisumi pleaded, his breath spilling in staccato bursts from the running and the burgeoning panic.

"No! Stay away, Kisumi-kun!" The low heels of her dress shoes were pressed against the bottom of the railing, but the balls of her feet stood on empty air. The curl of her fingers over the railing became her sole clutch against the flyover.

Makoto blinked, her voice yanking him back from the shock, and resumed running. Given that it was a common name, it wouldn't be strange to find his childhood friend's name all over Japan.

By the time Kisumi closed-in to catch her, Makoto at his heels, she released her grip on the railing. Yet Kisumi grabbed one of her hands with both of his own, refusing to let her body plunge right above an approaching truck.

"Let go!" She struggled, her feet kicking in the air, making her left shoe fall off to the road below.

Makoto grasped the air, striving to catch Haruka's other hand, but it was beyond his reach. He heard Kisumi plead, the girl's weight pulling him down, "What about your parents, your sister, and Kyouhei?! How miserable are they going to be?! Haruka!"

"KYOUHEI'S DEAD!" Haruka screamed. "He was hit by a drunk driver. He died saving me," she finished with a broken wail.

Kisumi's eyes widened, but he replied, "He didn't give up his life for you to die otherwise."

"I know!" she cried, "But I cannot live my life. Not without him!"

Passing below the flyover, the truck flattened her black shoe. At the sight of the crushed footwear, Haruka seemed to jerk in shock as she stared down, wide-eyed. She looked back up at the men, her face clearly regretful and beseeching. She raised her other hand for Makoto to grasp, and the two boys hoisted her back to the safety of the overpass.

The three of them were sitting out of breath when Makoto had the chance to look at her properly. The girl, whom he assumed as Kisumi's fellow college student, was garbed in mourning attire. She still looked pretty in spite of her disheveled hair, puffy eyes, and tear-stained face, though whether this was reality speaking or his biased view of her name, Makoto couldn't tell.

He was certain of one thing, though: he didn't wish to see his best friend in that state.

"Why…?" she wept.

Makoto couldn't even guess whether the why meant "Why is Fate so cruel and separates me from my loved one?", "Why did you two save me?", or something else. The Haru Makoto knew would never show his emotion openly, except … would he maybe cry if Rin were to die?

Makoto dispelled the grim thought from his head. As Kisumi consoled her kindly, Makoto looked down the bridge. A few more cars had passed by and ruined her fallen shoe even further beyond repair.

What if it were to be Kisumi who was at the verge of death?

Makoto suddenly had to insert his hands inside his pockets. He'd be overcome by the urge to hold Kisumi tightly and plead, 'Don't leave me!' otherwise.

Through his distraction, he heard Kisumi remark, "The way home will be uncomfortable with just one shoe. Shall I call a taxi for you?"

"I don't want to go home," Haruka sobbed, her fists clenching her skirt. "Every little thing reminds me of him. It's too painful…"

"You can rest at my house tonight," Kisumi suggested. "Hayato misses you."

The sight of Haruka shaking her head reminded Makoto of his old toy. When its battery was nearly empty, the bunny rabbit used to move languorously like this. Without energy. "It would make things easier if we didn't have a history."

"Sorry, I didn't think," Kisumi profusely apologized.

'History? What sort of history?' Now that was an eye-opener to Makoto. He saw Kisumi twitch uncomfortably, but decided to mention nothing of it.

"My parents and siblings would welcome you at our house but I suppose you'd rather not stay with a stranger?" Makoto offered her, "There's also a hotel nearby. It's behind that building." He pointed out at a karaoke with a blinking signboard.

"I'll stay at my cousin's house," she answered between sniffles, "Thanks."

"That'd be Risa, right?" Kisumi guessed.

As soon as she nodded, he turned his back at her, both arms swung at the back. "Hop on. You don't want to walk without your left shoe, do you?"

She hesitated.

"I won't try anything indecent—you know that. I assure you Makoto won't either; he wouldn't hurt a fly."

"Tachibana Makoto?" Her brow raised in a curious arc.

Makoto nodded. 'How much has Kisumi told her about me? What is she to him?'

Haruka smiled, faint and tired but sincere. "I'm glad to see that things have worked out for you two. At least one of us can be happy, Kisumi-kun."

As they descended the stairs of the flyover, with Kisumi carrying Haruka piggyback and Makoto walking two steps behind them, childhood reminiscence visited Makoto's head.

###

Makoto was seven years old when he experienced his first sprained ankle during P.E. Not wanting to cause trouble to anyone, he kept it quiet. He tried walking at his usual pace without limping too conspicuously, hoping that no one would notice, and no one did notice. Except that Haru came to him with a small plastic bag of ice cubes when school was over. Squatting in front of Makoto's seat, he wrapped the ice with his handkerchief, and then tied the bundle around Makoto's swollen ankle.

"I guess I can't hide anything from you, huh? Thanks, Haru."

Rather than standing up after finishing his treatment, Haru turned around, backing up to Makoto, his arms hung lose on either side of his body to allow room for a rider's legs.

"Haru, what are you doing?"

"It must be painful to walk with a sprained ankle. I'll carry you home."

"But…" Even at the age of seven, Makoto had a larger build than Haru and was taller than everyone in their class. How could this dainty boy carry him all the way home?

Yet, Haru wouldn't relent; he remained squatting down until Makoto agreed to climb onto his back.

"Okay, but you should let me down if I'm too heavy," Makoto warned him as he fumbled tentative arms around Haru's neck.

When Haru got to his feet at last, Makoto's spine quivered; his friend was really carrying him. Regardless of the deadweight, the taciturn boy didn't complain even once. Instead, he kept on trudging step by cumbrous step up the hill, until they reached the Tachibanas' door. During the journey, Haru's back became the warmest, most reliable place on Earth.

That had been when Makoto swore to become Haru's best friend his whole life long.

###

Kisumi and Haruka reached their destination sooner than Makoto expected. The house was of ashlar masonry and a girl in twin-braided hair opened the door for them. An understanding dawned upon her feature once she glanced at Haruka, and she threw her arms around her cousin without even asking what went wrong. Risa acknowledged Kisumi and gave Makoto a curt nod before thanking them for bringing Haruka. The reassuring pat of her hand on Haruka's back became the last thing Makoto and Kisumi saw before she closed the door.

It wasn't until the two boys were halfway to the station when Kisumi broke the silence. "I owe you an explanation about Haruka."

"You don't need to tell me anything you don't want to," Makoto assured him. "I understand you have a life—everyone does—and it's not like we're dating in the first place."

"I still want you to know about her, though," Kisumi's reply came in a murmur. Where he usually wore a mischievous smile, instead his mouth was contorted into a grimace, as though someone had just punched him in the gut.

"In high school, Haruka ended up making friends with superficial girls who'd compete for every single thing—fashion, their parents' social status, and, of course, boyfriends are included. She was worried that those girls wouldn't allow her in their circle anymore if they found out that she was the only one of them without a boyfriend, so she asked me to be her pretend boyfriend whenever we were in public. I personally didn't think that it was a bad idea, since mom had been nagging me on whether I dated any of my basketball fans," Kisumi paused, a guilty look upon his face.

"Long story short, I brought her home to meet my parents as proof that I was straight and she displayed me in front of her friends—it was for mutual benefit. And with so much we had in common, such as our similar tastes in movies and food, we did find comfort in each other's company. Before we started going out, I warned her about my unrequited feelings for you and she responded that our relationship might not last for long anyway, since she planned to stop dating me once she found her true love. That's why when she got herself a boyfriend for real, we parted on good terms."

Makoto opened his mouth, but unsure of what to say, and closed it again. As much as he knew that his denial that they were dating was a poor repayment for Kisumi's affection, he couldn't deny his feelings for Haru. With Haru, Makoto used to feel so natural, so at ease, so himself. With Kisumi, though, his time felt like nothing but restlessness from continuous anticipations.

Some distance off across the road lay a long straw-colored outbuilding. In every other direction, snow-tipped shrubs filled their sight, broken only by the multi-colored clothing of the travelers afoot and by a cluster of houses away to the south, which marked the Iwatobi Station.

"It's ten past eleven; you'd better hurry home if you don't want to miss the soba. See you tomorrow." Kisumi waved his hand, a smile plastered on his face. Makoto hoped that it was purely his imagination when he saw Kisumi's shoulders drooping as he went through the entrance without once looking back.

###

At any rate, Kisumi looked much, much better in the morning. In fact, he was so cheerful that it seemed forced. Singing an off-tune folk song while standing between Ran and Ren around the large mortar containing steamed glutinous rice dough, he took his turns pounding the mochi dough with the Tachibana children and Hayato. By the time the rice grains had lost their shape and turned into a smooth sticky rice paste, the beaters' hands were numb from hammering with the long wooden mallets.

Mrs. Tachibana divided the finished dough into parts, with one portion to be shaped into long, round, mirroring pieces. These would be the kagami-mochi placed on the family altar during the New Year as an auspicious gesture that signified hope for a happy and bright year ahead. She then set aside a part of the remaining for daikon mochi—a savory dish with radish and tiny shrimps—and another part in a container to be cured into rectangular shapes and eaten on later dates.

The rest of the dough was then pulled into various sizes and shapes and then dusted with rice cake powder. This was when Kisumi summoned the gall to dab a smidge of the sticky white dough onto Makoto's cheek, earning him a series of complaints and laughter. Their labor was rewarded by fresh mochi and their selection of fillings.

By the time Rei and Nagisa rang the doorbell, they had already cleaned up.

Seeing the bowls of half-eaten glutinous rice cake on the dining table, Nagisa exclaimed, "Ah, you've started eating mochi without us! Not fair!"

Rei stared at his boyfriend with an exasperated look that probably translated as, 'Technically, it's theirs and we're intruding. Worse, we didn't even help them make it.'

Mrs. Tachibana smiled and fetched two bowls for Rei and Nagisa. "Have no fear. There's still plenty left."

"Thank you, oba-chan. Got strawberries?"

"You're still a huge fan of strawberries as always, aren't you, Nagisa-kun? But sorry, we don't have them today. Can you make do with strawberry jam?"

Nagisa nodded vigorously, with his mouth full and its corners covered in rice cake powder.

###

"Alrighty, now that we've got our nosh, let's have a blast!" Nagisa chirruped as he threw on his duffel coat fifteen minutes later.

The seven of them plodded across the field of snow, plumes of wintry breath puffing in front of their mouths. Ran compared her otoshidama with Hayato's, and when the shy boy revealed the amount of the New Year money given by his family, the twins chorused an admiration of how lucky he was.

"It's riddle time!" Nagisa piped up, "What do you take out when you want to use it, but take in when you don't want to use it?"

Everyone took a couple of seconds to ponder, and then Rei pulled Nagisa to the side, his face beet-red. Somehow, Makoto suspected that this had nothing to do with the harsh air. "Nagisa-kun, how could you ask such a vulgar question in front of these children?!"

Nagisa blinked. "Huh? My riddle is suitable for all ages." His lips curled in a triumph. "Or could it be that you're the one who thinks of adult things, Rei-chan?"

"Ooh, I got it!" Kisumi gasped. "It's an anchor, isn't it?"

"Correct!" Nagisa affirmed before poking his boyfriend. "See, Rei-chan?"

Even at Rei's embarrassed look, Nagisa showed no mercy. Nudging the poor boy over and over, he nagged, "So, what were you thinking? Tell me. C'mon! C'mon!"

"Yeah, tell him. Tell him," Kisumi teased Rei, knowing perfectly well that the overly serious boy had been thinking of a penis.

Kisumi lived up his new title, labeled by Rei: the larger version of Nagisa-kun. As bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as Nagisa was, the redhead got along so well with the blond that they might have been long-lost brothers. Even though Nagisa kept his hand latched with Rei's throughout the journey, he chatted on and on with Kisumi; it was easy to picture them continuing for hours without pause, while Makoto and Rei floundered about, completely out of their depth. Among the information they exchanged were flirting ins-and-outs, cuddling 101, and the speculative hiding places for Makoto's stash of jerk-off materials—which, needless to say, was met with mortified denials from Makoto.

Mercifully, Makoto and Rei were soon spared from further discomfiture by the diabolical duo the moment they all needed to state their shoe size in front of the skate rental stand. Surrounded by trees wreathed in decorative lights and wooden benches lined up at the sides, the outdoor ice-skating rink had become Iwatobi's most sought-after winter recreational spot. Fortunately, the majority of the locals had not flocked there today, as the first of January was also the most popular choice for visiting relatives.

Although none of them saw any shortcoming from Nagisa's skating, the high-spirited boy wasted no opportunity to cling on Rei while pretending he might fall otherwise. Rei, who skated less skillfully than his boyfriend did, could only mumble about ice skating theories, his body stiffening with pleased embarrassment.

However, this strategy didn't work on Makoto. Kisumi almost appeared to cry as he was thwarted by Makoto's ceaselessly holding of Ren's hand to prevent the little boy from tripping, regardless of the child's safety helmet. Kisumi had anticipated that Makoto's attention would be stolen from him by his siblings, had considered that an acceptable drawback to inviting them along on the date, but he had not considered that so much of Makoto's attention would be taken. Lucky for him, Ran made fun of Ren's timidity and challenged him and Hayato to a race. Recognizing the increasing worry in the furrows between Makoto's eyebrows, Kisumi found a reason to empathize with him. Thus, when Kisumi wrapped Makoto's hands inside his own in a reassuring manner, the brunet cast him a grateful gaze rather than an alarmed one.

One of Makoto's neighbors arrived not long afterwards, accompanied by his friends. "Where's Haru nii-san, Makoto nii-san?"

Although Makoto thought he answered the middle school boy's question quite neutrally, there must be something within his voice or expression that indicated his unease at the mere sound of Haru's name, or Kisumi wouldn't have looked at him concernedly otherwise.

Makoto glimpsed at the distant church steeple bristling up from the grove of trees and announced, "I'll buy some drinks. Any request, guys?"

When he and Rei brought some hot drinks from the vending machine later, Kisumi, who had just finished adjusting Hayato's muffler, came after them. "Let me help you carry those."

This turned out to be a big help, since Nagisa pounced on Rei, monopolizing him. He faked a pout when his boyfriend informed him that the machine was running out of strawberry milk, so Rei had chosen hot chocolate with sprinkles and marshmallows for him—the same as Ran and Ren's choice.

"You're gonna be punished, Rei-chan." Nagisa's fingers skated over Rei's chest to taller boy's lips.

Just as Rei's face assumed a familiar blush, Nagisa removed his fingers and pointed at his own cheek. "Kiss me here."

"N-nagisa-kun! We're in public!" Rei panicked. There was nothing he could do to stop a blush from spreading across his cheeks.

"Well, if you don't want this punishment, I suppose I'll hafta make do with another."

Rei exhaled in relief, but Makoto knew from the little devil's sly grin that he wouldn't let Rei go. A second later, Makoto's suspicion was confirmed by Nagisa's declaration, "Feed me every piece of marshmallow mouth-to-mouth."

Needless to say, Nagisa secured the peck on the cheek from his red-faced boyfriend three seconds later.

'What would Haru and Rin's date look like?' Makoto pondered.

The long wooden bench where he sat was somewhat reminiscent of a ski lift. So, in his head, he visualized his best friend sitting with Rin in that ski lift. Disregarding the lift's capacity of accommodating three adults or four children, the only two passengers huddled up together. Despite their thick gloves, Haru still felt warmth radiating from Rin's fingers when they reached for Haru's. And perhaps underneath his ski mask, Rin was grinning non-stop like a madman, while Haru tried his best to steady his racing heart.

"What time will you leave for Tokyo on January 3?" Kisumi's voice ripped Makoto from his fantasy. The cheerful boy sat next to him on the long bench.

"My train's at two p.m.," Makoto answered, and then added as an afterthought, "Ah, but you don't need to see me off."

"Can't. My family will be visiting my eldest uncle's house tomorrow and we won't be back 'til the evening of the day after tomorrow."

At this statement, the visualization of the sports center's gym at the university swam in Makoto's head—one of the gym's barbells, to be precise. It was as though said barbell dropped inside his throat and kept rolling down his guts, making his entrails feel as heavy as lead. Ignoring this weird strange sensation, Makoto replied, "Have a nice trip!"

"Hey, hey, Makoto, let me have a taste of your coffee~" Kisumi piped in a sing-song.

As soon as Makoto surrendered his can of vanilla café latte, Kisumi made an obvious kissing gesture at the mouthpiece before gulping its contents. "Indirect kiss. Tee-hee!"

"K-kisumi!"

"What's that? Did I hear you asking me to kiss you directly?" Kisumi teased, his palm opened next to his ear.

A very flustered Makoto demanded, "Stop joking!"

The upward curve of Kisumi's lips curled at an even more oblique angle. "Then I won't joke about it. Will you let me kiss you for real, Makoto?"

On instinct, Makoto backed away. As much as he readily admitted that Kisumi was close to compassion perfected and devotion personified, the boy sitting next to him was not Haru.

Kisumi simply giggled and got up to his feet. "No, huh? My bad, my bad. I shouldn't have popped the question I already knew the answer to, but I had to ask it away since it's you."

Kisumi turned around, threw his empty can of caramel cappuccino at the hoop of the trashcan with a Three-Point Shot. He missed, and the can thudded gracelessly on the snow. Absent any complaint, he picked up the can and put it in the garbage before approaching his brother.

Makoto sighed. It had happened in just a sliver of a second, but he didn't fail to notice the look of a kicked puppy in Kisumi's eyes before he left.

The guilt that was now clutching to his insides felt somewhat more complicated than what Makoto had expected. Sure, the ache from hurting Kisumi was there, but something else was present, too. Was it—dare he say—disappointment?

###

Makoto spent the next day visiting various relatives with his family. By the time they embraced the coziness of their pillows at home that night, they were exhausted and out of count within minutes. Their time was spent exchanging the Happy New Year greetings with their neighbors the next morning, so Makoto could barely do anything else before his train arrived.

He reached his tiny Tokyo apartment more exhausted than the day before. There was a long delay with the Chizu Line due to rail maintenance and, with the combined traffic jams ubiquitously in Japan around this time of the year, the journey was condemned to end three hours late.

Before Makoto closed his eyes to sleep, the cellphone he set down on the nightstand vibrated. He slid the screen down to read the incoming text message. It comprised a single word sent from Kisumi's number: "goodnight." A smile passed across Makoto's face before he drifted off into slumber. Little did he know that the same text message would invade his phone mailbox every night from that moment on and that he'd even have trouble sleeping in some nights when the simple message failed to reach his inbox.

---

V

For the next four years, Kisumi visited Makoto in Tokyo time and time again. Since his freshman year he worked part-time in Iwatobi to save up for his trips, though he had never stayed longer than a weekend. Makoto took him to Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea the first time. For a change, Makoto enjoyed things with someone of his age who was enthusiastic about non-water-related objects. Plus, it would be a lie to say that he didn't find Kisumi's attention, mixed with childishness, endearing. The redhead could be shielding him from the gutter water splashed up by a passing car one moment and then laughingly accepting Makoto's help in wiping away smears of blueberry crêpe filling from his mouth the next. Nevertheless, what gave Makoto the most relief was that Kisumi never overstepped the boundary between friendship and intimacy.

Kisumi's frequent text messages, emails, and online chats became proof that he was determined in not letting their growing friendship languish in the roughly eight hundred kilometers that separated Tokyo and Iwatobi. On one hand, these exchanges occasionally eased Makoto's longing for friendly company. On the other hand, they could get distracting at busy times, especially when deadlines were closing in. Every time, it left Makoto torn between choosing Kisumi's words or the quiet solitude of his coursework.

On Kisumi's second visit, they went to Ikebukuro, Akihabara, and Harajuku. They enjoyed each other's company. Makoto was never picky, so they never clashed over food or clothing. Although Makoto merely listened to Kisumi's stories at first, his tongue gradually loosened after a while. He began sharing his own experiences—small talks about popular culture, his family, and later his childhood friends. Kisumi really made Makoto open up in that visit. In fact, Makoto would always find himself missing those times of simple conversations over a stroll or a hearty meal. Nonetheless, he shied away from admitting to himself that he was beginning to yearn for the friendly guy when he went back home to Iwatobi.

However, the wait was not long. In the summer holiday that followed, Kisumi invited Makoto to a vacation work on Hateruma Island—Kisumi's uncle, who owned a bed and breakfast there, hired additional employers for the tourist season. Situated in the Okinawa Prefecture, the island possessed insufferable heat, but its lush rainforest scenery and spectacular snorkeling and diving in the clear shallow waters and bright white sands of Nishi Himi Beach made up for it.

Secretly, Makoto couldn't help but feel flattered that Kisumi had come to know him inside out the next few weeks—his sleeping habit, his unrestrained yawn when he thought no one was looking, and even the foot he'd choose for stepping on the first stair, among other things. In return, he, too, learned how prone Kisumi was to mess up the lyrics of the songs he listened to just because it'd be funnier that way. Although they had to share their room with other employees on multiple bunk beds, the meals were generally decent and the work was enjoyable, so they planned to return there the following summers.

After their nearly two months of close proximity, parting proved to be more difficult than Makoto expected. A void emerged in his heart that very same moment they stepped aboard different trains at the station.

Going back to his routines in Tokyo, Makoto began feeling bouts of loneliness. He accomplished his duties but whenever he was, in school or inside his dismal apartment, there was always some strange haze in his mind that made him despise the stale silence of his surroundings. Kisumi might be the reason why.

He was the reason why.

Makoto tried curing himself of this by spending time with Haru more frequently. However, when his best friend sat in front of him at a fast food, his eyes just stared through. Without Kisumi, there were no attempts for jokes, no enthusiastic laughs, no picking fun at pop idols. With each passing day, Makoto's longing grew into paralyzing malady, of which no amount of coursework could break or mend.

Thus, when October came and Makoto boarded the train home to Iwatobi, it was Kisumi whom he called first. This time, it didn't matter to him if it were to be just the two of them. While a small town like Iwatobi certainly didn't boast as much entertainment as Tokyo did, even simple pleasures became cherished moments. Every little thing he used to do alone—from walking to the pharmacy for an errand to queuing for his turn in the post office—somehow felt more pleasing with Kisumi by his side.

A month later, Kisumi visited Makoto again, where they explored Epson Aqua Stadium and Tokyo Tower. As always when they toured, Kisumi latched onto Makoto's hand and pulled him around excitedly. Although Makoto allowed Kisumi to take his hand, he had never taken the initiative to do it himself. This, along with the melancholic gaze Kisumi gave him while peppering little goodnight kisses on Makoto's forehead that evening, caused him to suspect that Kisumi was convinced that Makoto's heart was still with Haru, and Makoto mentioned not a thing about whether he actively enjoyed or was simply tolerating these little gestures of affection. The conclusion Kisumi drew from his silence was obvious; after those late-night kisses Kisumi gave him, it was clear to see those defeated eyes were saying something—perhaps tomorrow, you'll see me … and not Haru.

To nobody's surprise, Kisumi was invited again to the Tachibanas to celebrate New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Even when Ran teased them as to whether they'd opt for haori or tuxedos at their future wedding, deep inside his heart, Makoto didn't find the idea truly disturbing.

Kisumi's fourth opportunity for visit came in February and both spent their sightseeing in Odaiba and Tokyo Skytree. Looking over the seemingly miniature world below, Makoto recalled all those times he daydreamed his future at Haru's hilltop house, amid the sizzling aroma of the grilling mackerel. That all his exhaustion from work would vanish each time he saw the apron-clad Haru welcome him home at their doorstep, and the joy of that notion dashed his distaste at having to live with grilled mackerel every day. But now as Makoto blinked his eyes and heard the voice of the man who had never been a part of his dreams, all of those youthful wishes faded into the horizon. Strange as it might be, his mind was starting to accept that a seashell in hand was worth more than a dolphin out at sea.

Early May proved to be the perfect time for Kisumi to travel to Ueno Zoo and the National Museum of Nature and Science with Makoto, except that the Japanese golden week holiday meant they had to tolerate long-stretching queues. They had a better luck in Kisumi's sixth Tokyo visit to Shinjuku and Shibuya in November, in which they bought a matching pair of mugs. Makoto didn't fail to notice Kisumi's gaze lingering a tad too long at a cashmere scarf with a steep price and was touched to find that very scarf among his Christmas presents—they had to save money for their back-and-forth travels, but Kisumi was always willing to sacrifice for Makoto's sake.

When Kisumi dropped by at the Tachibanas for another New Year's celebration, even the usually inhibited Ren became bold enough to sit on Kisumi's lap.

On the first evening of Kisumi's seventh visit the next March, while the two of them were sitting in front of Makoto's TV, there came a rap on the door. It didn't take long afterwards for Haru to enter.

The mist of panic crept into Makoto's mind and settled there, dense and murky. All these times, Kisumi had always coincidentally come to Tokyo without bumping into Haru, courtesy of the university's swimming pool. Now that the three of them were here at the same place, Makoto felt his heart about to burst. Haru didn't seem to be bothered at all, though.

Kisumi looked surprised, but was quick to put on a cheerful smile and greet Makoto's next door neighbor, "Haru, it's been a long time! Listen, we went to the Tokyo Dome City earlier. You must love the Wonder Drop water slide and the Water Symphony musical performance. We should do a double date there with Rin and paint the town red one day."

As always, Haru's eyes glittered at the mere mention of Rin's name. But his poker-faced expression came back as soon as he took a seat on the tatami next to Makoto. "Only if Rin's here when you're here."

Rin again.

Makoto bit his lip. How many more times must he convince himself that there was no spot for him in Haru's heart until the twist in his guts unknotted itself? Kisumi was here, beside him. Didn't he like this upbeat guy? Didn't those three summers and a handful of short breaks they had spent together matter?

Perhaps his indecisiveness was graver than his friends had claimed it to be. Hadn't he chosen to give Kisumi a chance? Instead of taking advantage of Makoto's broken heart, that guy was kind enough not to rush things until they both were ready to take the next step. He'd be a big jerk to push Kisumi away after pulling him. But…

His train of thought was interrupted by an arm snaking around his waist. Glimpsing sideways, he was met with a possessive look that Kisumi had never displayed before. Was it because of Haru? Makoto twitched, but didn't object verbally; only his stiffening body pronounced his discomfort more distinctively.

Haru peered at Kisumi in what Makoto hoped to be a don't-upset-my-best-friend warning.

Kisumi's expression turned conflicted now. Was he in a dilemma because Makoto still vacillated between him and Haru or…

Could Kisumi possibly be worried about Makoto's feelings because Haru had just given him another mental slap in the face?

Makoto's anticipations were betrayed the moment Haru took Kisumi's hand and directed it onto the small of Makoto's back. "Kisumi," the shortest of them admonished with his usual unpretentious deadpan, "You should hold Makoto here; he's ticklish around the waist."

"Haruuu!" Makoto squealed, cheeks flaming red.

Haru simply pressed the remote control to flick through the channels. He changed the slapstick comedy program into a deep sea documentary, even though his body still faintly emitted the smell of chlorine. Just how insatiable could this guy be when it came to water?

Some half an hour later, as Haru was perusing the photos of the day's outing on Makoto's smartphone, a tiny change in Haru's expression convinced Makoto that his best friend wasn't jealous at the slightest bit; he was happy.

"I'm going to forward these three pictures to Rin," Haru announced.

It was lucky that they were all seated on the tatami instead of standing up; Makoto wasn't sure if his knees could support him any longer otherwise. Even after all this time, every small hint of Haru's affection for Rin stung like new.

He was vaguely aware of Kisumi peeking over Haru's shoulder, asking, "Which ones?" and when Haru pointed them out, the redhead, "Noooo way! Those are the most embarrassing poses I made. Choose something else."

"What would it make any difference? Your poses are all embarrassing," Haru replied monotonously, "Besides, Rin will be happy to see you and Makoto having a good time together."

Despite Haru's less than friendly attitude when he met Kisumi at ITSC Returns in their final year of high school, he seemed to have accepted Kisumi completely now. Haru usually took his time becoming comfortable around someone new. Even during the first weeks Nagisa had tried to get close to them in the elementary school, Haru had been discomforted. Afterwards, the cheerful, loud-mouthed, whiny brat stuck to them anyway, and Haru had no objection about his presence. There had even been times, if memory served right, when Haru asked of Nagisa whereabouts when the latter came late to their swimming practice. And then there was Sousuke, whom Haru still had yet to warm to after all these years. Unlike the case of Sousuke with Rin, Haru was comfortable enough to have Kisumi around Makoto—much to Makoto's relief and displeasure.

"Family's approval … check. Close friends' approval … check. Best friend's approval … check." Kisumi's fingers crawled lazily along Makoto's shoulders up to the juncture of his neck a few seconds after the door closed behind Haru when the next door neighbor had excused himself home. "All that's left is your own approval, Makoto."

"What are you talking about?" Makoto tried turning away from him, but Kisumi placed his hand under Makoto's chin and gently turned it until Makoto was looking right back at him.

"Why, the permission to kiss you, of course," Kisumi's voice rang startlingly in Makoto's eardrums.

For a moment, Kisumi thought Makoto would withdraw from him. Instead, it was worse. Far worse. Makoto looked no less helpless than a deer cornered by a wolf. What was there wasn't only fear, but also desperation and unspeakable agony in equal measure.

Makoto bit his lip before resolving, "Then kiss me. Make me forget Haru."

Heaving a sigh, Kisumi pulled back his torso. Haru's obvious support of Kisumi's attempt to woo Makoto must have been a blow for such a gentle soul. With the softest tuck of the hair, he intoned, "Makoto, I don't expect you to forget Haru. Not like this. You've known him your whole life, and what right do I have to keep your best friend and first love away?"

Tears threatened to fall from the corners of Makoto's eyes.

"You know, it's not like simmered feelings are easy to just throw away even when and after they turn bad." Kisumi rubbed the back of his neck as he evinced a faint smile. "I've been through that too. A long time ago has passed but there's a reason why I can't forget it."

Makoto blinked.

"It's … well, back in the middle school when he and I were classmates, I used to think how cool he was. I tried to friend him, talk to him, hang out with him as much as possible … in fact, there was even a time I pretended to forget my pencil so that I could borrow his during art class … I even tried to feed him lunch from my chopsticks. But at the end of the day, my existence never really mattered to him. That's why I thought the best way to get his attention is through his best friend."

Makoto shook his head ever so slightly. "I never knew you loved Haru in that way."

Kisumi took a sharp breath before continuing, "I dragged said best friend to basketball games and monopolized him whenever possible and, yes, at last I got my first love's annoyed look. But then soon enough, I realized that the he was no longer the one I truly wanted."

At this, Makoto's tears really did fall.

Kisumi continued, "Somewhere along the way, I genuinely enjoyed your company. I liked you. I loved you. I desired you in ways dirtier than a middle school student was supposed to feel."

Makoto's mouth opened, but then closed again. He gripped the ledge of the low table.

"But I was a coward. I was afraid that being gay would ruin my future career, so I flirted with girls and made sure nobody knew about my true sexual orientation. I tried to forget you by deliberately disregarding Iwatobi as my high school choice, but the more days passed, the more painful it became. Then, when you became Hayato's swimming instructor, I faced the dilemma whether or not to tell you my feelings. But as soon as I saw the way you looked at Haru, I knew instantly that you were in love with him. Or rather … I'd had my suspicions during middle school, and your expression when the three of us were talking in front of the ITSC Returns just confirmed it."

Makoto looked away, chewing his lower lip.

"What I didn't expect even in my wildest imagination was for Haru himself to come to my house and encourage me to pursue a relationship with you."

"What?!" Makoto's gaze and full attention returned to Kisumi.

"It was five months before graduation. He wouldn't tell me why, and it wasn't until weeks later that I found out that he was dating Rin."

Now it all came back into Makoto's mind. The timing was too precise—the popcorn incident took place toward the end of October. Kisumi then started inventing excuses to hang out with him from November onwards. So … Haru realized his feelings after all.

As much as he knew that it was a misguided kindness on Haru's part, an awkward attempt to assuage his pain, Makoto could not quite tramp down on the anger broiling inside him at the knowledge that Haru had been interfering with his romantic circumstances behind his back. What right did Haru have?!

Kindness or not, it was twisted.

His fists trembling, Makoto soughed, "Why are you telling me this?"

"Makoto, I still want to embrace your wounded heart even though I'm aware that Haru is the wind in your sky, the waves in your ocean, and the beat in your heart."

"I don't…" Makoto sobbed, "I don't deserve your limitless affection…"

"Why not? Love is earned by those who conquer it each day anew." Kisumi smiled, his fingers brushing tears away from Makoto's cheeks.

"Kisumi…"

"Yes?" Kisumi hummed, still wiping Makoto's moist cheeks.

"Is it just me or do you sound terribly poetic?"

Kisumi fidgeted before he managed to answer, "Well, when you were a lonely teenager who couldn't get over the fact that your crush had hots for someone else, poetry could offer some consolation. I particularly enjoy Byron and Goethe's works."

Makoto gripped the shirt covering Kisumi's shoulder. "Kisumi, kiss me."

"Now, now, there's no need to call my name twice, is there?" Kisumi teased, his enthralling eyes lit with frolic spirit.

"Kuchizukete," Makoto reiterated his statement, his fist balling tighter. Unlike "kisu shite," which could be applied to any part of a person, this referred specifically to a kiss on the lips.

The moment the word reached Kisumi's ears, the listener felt as though the oxygen around him had vanished, leaving the room oddly airless. He wondered if Makoto felt it, too, for his eyes fluttered and his mouth parted as though suffocating. Only, if this truly were suffocation, it must damn well be a beautiful version of suffocation.

Makoto tilted his head, parting his lips just slightly and drawing a fleeting breath just before Kisumi's lips closed over his. Their lip contact sent a shudder down their spines to the tips of their toes. With fluorescent lamp light in Kisumi's hair and tatami straw beneath Makoto's feet, the world outside this tiny apartment suddenly no longer existed. Makoto's fingers dug into Kisumi's back and Kisumi's breath rushed down Makoto's throat in a strange sense of harmony and peace.

Breaking the kiss and breathing laboriously, Kisumi rested his forehead on Makoto's, studying his partner. They held each other's gazes for several more seconds before Kisumi pulled back and remarked, "You've just given me heaven. I can only hope it won't be the last time I can be in it."

If they lived in Dreamland, Makoto wouldn't be embarrassed to request, "One more time?" As it was, the bitch that was reality dictated that Makoto take a bashful turn and scurry to the kitchen, stuttering something about boiling water.

He was half-relieved, half-disappointed that Kisumi didn't come after him. Grateful as he was that Kisumi wasn't rushing things in their relationship, the honest part of him secretly wanted Kisumi to gather him in his arms and kiss him senseless.

Neither of them mentioned anything pertaining to that kiss afterwards, but when it was time for Kisumi to return to Iwatobi the following afternoon, rather than peck Makoto's cheek as usual, he kissed him fully on the mouth. Makoto's widening eyes, panicked gasp, and shivering lips didn't discourage his partner from chasing his head wherever it was inclined to, giving him no respite to withdraw. Kisumi's tongue darted out and flicked questioningly along the seam of Makoto's lips.

Kisumi's taste was just like how Makoto had pictured in his head the day before. No. This was better. Way better.

Kisumi began to pull back the moment ten trembling fingers found their way onto his shirt. Yet, instead of pushing him away, Makoto's hands clung tightly onto him. Makoto's lips parted more widely, too. And his tongue—hot and coy and moist—kept on teasing provocatively, but retracted as soon as Kisumi's tongue attempted to entwine their two entities.

It was with great reluctance that they parted. Kisumi would miss the last train otherwise and he couldn't afford not to submit his essay tomorrow at the college. Woefully, Makoto gazed at Kisumi's lips, now red and swollen, declaring, "To be continued."

Right before Kisumi closed the door, Makoto offered, "Let me accompany you to the station."

"No." Kisumi shook his head. "My resolution will waver and I may not be able to let you go."

###

The much-anticipated continuation, however, didn't take place on Kisumi's eighth visit in October, even though this time Kisumi spent longer in Tokyo. Makoto was bedridden with a cold, but Kisumi arrived at his doorstep regardless of Makoto's text message warning Kisumi not to come to prevent passing the infection. It was Kisumi who nursed Makoto back to health, even though this meant missing two days' worth of lectures at Iwatobi.

"Sleep," Kisumi assured Makoto within minutes after he first arrived. He then pulled up Makoto's quilt to cover him. "I'll be here when you wake up."

Perhaps it was the benevolent tone tumbling out of Kisumi's lips or his upbeat manner, but Makoto could feel weeks of absence being peeled off his skin just at the sight, the reassurance, the presence. All the same, this newfound relief confirmed one thing.

He had missed Kisumi. Again.

Despite the fever tormenting his body, Makoto felt the peace and quietness spreading over his tiny apartment. It was comforting, but strange. As far as he could remember, no one in the world had once been able to give him that feeling other than Haru. But then, without warning, Kisumi proved that outdated fact was no longer valid; he had ensured that Makoto gradually became accustomed to receiving affection by providing an ambience of domestic fluff.

Being the eldest child in his family, Makoto had always tried to be reliable as possible and cause little inconvenience to others' affairs. Hence, he had never even begged his mom to stay by his bedside that one time when his fever hit thirty-nine. But now, he tugged at Kisumi's sleeve. His blurry mind barely made out Kisumi's plea, "Makoto, I need to cook some porridge." He never let him go. Instead, his fingers clung to the sleeve, even in his sleep. He didn't allow his visitor from ever shifting away. Two hours later, Makoto woke up, and found Kisumi's sleeping face lying next to him.

Kisumi's ninth visit to Tokyo took place in mid-February, two days after St. Valentine's in the final year of college. He came unannounced and couldn't suppress his giggles seeing Makoto in brown-rimmed square glasses when the latter opened the door for him.

"Ah, this is … I was proofreading my dissertation. "

Makoto's hand moved to take off his glasses, but Kisumi held it, "Naww, don't stop on my account. I'd love to see this side of you. I want to know you better."

Makoto rubbed the back of his neck, a sheepish grin on his lips.

Winking cheekily, Kisumi added, "Plus, you look sexy with those on."

Kisumi let himself in, passing the flustered Makoto, and put his backpack at the corner of the living room. "Don't worry about me. I can make myself at home while you continue reading."

When Makoto hesitated, Kisumi convinced him, "Come on. I still remember where you keep your teas and mugs."

"Okay, but if you need anything—"

"I know, I know, I'll nudge you in a jiffy." Kisumi landed a small peck at Makoto's cheek before scooting to the kitchen, humming merrily.

Makoto heard the refrigerator door being opened shortly afterwards, but his mouth twitched into a smile and he carried on with his study.

Upon returning from the kitchen, Kisumi didn't turn on the TV. Instead, he took out a book from his backpack, propped himself on his elbows while lying on his stomach on the tatami, and began to read.

Not a single word was exchanged between them. It was nonetheless a comfort to each to simply exist in the same space as one another after their time spent apart.

Nearly two hours later, a rumble in Makoto's belly compelled him to cease his study. "Kisumi, we'd better eat out, and then do some grocery shopping."

"I wouldn't mind having just rice and salt, though, if it means I get to eat that meal together with you."

Makoto, obviously thinking this as a joke, merely smiled and picked up his coat from the garment hook by the entryway.

The eat out turned out to be an unregrettable experience, with invisible butterflies dancing inside Makoto's stomach the moment their chopsticks touched when they tried to pinch the same piece of pork from their shared subuta dish.

"Take it," Kisumi said.

Makoto insisted, "No, you take it."

A sly grin swept across Kisumi's face, and Makoto knew why only a second later, when Kisumi's chopsticks hovered right in front of his mouth. A part of Makoto debated whether he should accept this. Nothing could be more embarrassing than two grown men feeding each other in public, but considering the busy izakaya, he might be able to get away with it unnoticed if he gulped the food quickly enough.

Steeling himself, Makoto chose the second option. The moment the sweet and sour meat was clamped between his incisors, it whirled with new flavors that spiraled into a knot inside his stomach. He wanted to have more of the cuisine that had tasted mediocre until a second ago.

He wanted Kisumi to feed him again.

Inhaling sharply, Makoto picked up his chopsticks and severed a chunk of chilled hiyayakko tofu, only to serve it directly to Kisumi's mouth.

"It's only fair," Makoto said, rather too defensively for his liking, while he kept his gaze on the table, blushing up to the tips of his ears. He didn't even have the guts to peek as he felt Kisumi's tongue swirling around the chopstick tips. He could only hope that Kisumi didn't notice the way he tried to savor Kisumi's saliva when he shoved those chopsticks, along with a mouthful of rice, into his own mouth afterwards.

What was he thinking? He had never come across such indecency, even with Haru!

###

The kids' playground they passed on the way to the supermarket was noticeably vacant at this time of evening. Obscured in the shades, its merry-go-round, slide, chin-up bars, and overhead ladder had all lost their colors in night's dusky hue. The whispery breeze made the abandoned playground all the lonelier.

Kisumi pointed at a seesaw and exhorted, "Let's play!"

"Aren't we too old for this?"

But Kisumi was already scuttling to sit at one end of the seesaw.

"Come on, Makoto! No one's watching and it'll be fun. Let's play shiritori. If you can't think of the next word for the word chain before the seesaw drops again, you'll lose."

Without waiting for Makoto's approval, Kisumi started with the word for "person." A confident grin on his face, he declared, "Hito."

"Tomobataraki," Makoto replied with the word for "dual income" just in the nick of time before the seesaw touched the ground.

"Kiba." Lumberyard.

"Basuke," Makoto uttered, earning him a grin at the mention of Kisumi's favorite sport.

"Keihi," Kisumi rejoined with "expenses."

'Himehajime' or 'the first sex of the New Year' was what popped out in Makoto's head. Luckily, he managed to hold his tongue. By the time he realized that he should have just mentioned "hime," which meant "princess," the seesaw had hit the ground with a distinct thunk. Honestly, what was wrong with him today?

"I win!" Kisumi declared with a childish smugness as he stepped out of the seesaw. "Now you gotta do as I ask."

"Um, shall I treat you lunch tomorrow?" Makoto offered, following suit.

"Nah." Kisumi gestured at the swing set. "I want you to sit on one of those swings, facing that clock, while waiting for me. It won't take a minute."

"Huh, that's all you want me to do?" Makoto asked even as Kisumi escorted him toward the swings. He wondered if Kisumi was going to drag a dry leaf inside his collar and claim that it had been a crawling caterpillar, or some similar prank.

Literally less than a minute later, Makoto heard Kisumi's voice calling him, "You can come over here now."

Kisumi was squatting by the sandbox, a twig lying next to his right shoe. Two lines of squiggly writing had been engraved on the sand: "I'm head over heels for you. Move in with me after graduation?"

Makoto bit his lower lip.

"Um, I didn't want to give you the creeps," Kisumi tried to pacify him. "If you aren't ready yet…"

Makoto nodded his head repeatedly before Kisumi finished his sentence.

"Haa … and here I was, hoping for a one-word answer." Although relief was apparent in his eyes, Kisumi pretended to sigh, and then pursed his lips in an adorable pout. "Preferably containing my name in it."

His request was granted with a fond murmur, "Kisu-mi."

When Kisumi leaned toward him, Makoto became more conscious of him than he had ever been of anything else in life—the silvery moonlight illuminating Kisumi's hair, the prickling coarseness of the stubble across his jaw, and the softness of the crescent-shaped mouth against his own. And then the gorgeous face of Shigino Kisumi blurred out of focus. So, Makoto reached for him and devoured Kisumi's lips as if he would otherwise drown.

---

VI

Half an hour later, Kisumi struggled not to needle an obviously flustered Makoto as the latter tried to bury a bottle of lubricant and a box of condom under the fruits and vegetables in their shopping basket. In contrast to this shyness, Makoto was then upon him like a tiger pouncing at its prey, once the last grocery item had found its way into the crammed apartment fridge after they returned from the store.

Kisumi had assumed that he'd be the one to take initiative for their first time, possibly because Makoto would still be inhibited by his feelings for Haru. Yet here they were, the usually shy brunet eagerly shedding his clothes in the kitchen while kissing him senseless at the same time. It didn't take even a minute for their bodies to be fully divested of their clothing, hands and mouths everywhere in twists and turns.

"Do you prefer top or bottom?" Kisumi asked the moment they entered Makoto's bedroom, his heart jumping wildly in his ribcage.

"I…" Makoto balked. "What about you?"

Jealousy flared within Kisumi as he imagined how Makoto, selfless as he was, would have surrendered into any of Haru's wishes—whichever way Haru wanted, he'd do it, even if it meant he were to be blindfolded, tied-up, whipped, and penetrated at the same time or if he were to apply those to Haru instead, regardless of his own preferences.

"To me, your wish is my command."

Makoto placed both hands on Kisumi's shoulders. "Then I wish you to take me. In case I change my mind, don't stop no matter what I say. Tie me up if necessary; you can use the washing line in the bathroom."

"Whoa, whoa, easy tiger! That sounds like you're asking me to…" Kisumi swallowed, and then hesitatingly continued in a whispery tone, "…that sounds like you're asking me to rape you."

When Makoto averted his eyes instead of answering, Kisumi came to the conclusion, "This has something to do with Haru, doesn't it?"

Makoto nodded. In a quiet, guilty tone, he confessed, "I-I'm sorry, Kisumi, but even now I don't know if I can let go of my feelings for Haru completely. It's maddening, frustrating, especially since you've been so kind to me, more than I deserve. So, I have to take a step forward."

At Kisumi's hesitant expression, Makoto emphasized, "Please, Kisumi, I want to do this—no, I need to, so that I'll know for sure. I'm afraid that if I won't allow any drastic measures, I'll end up spiraling under this barrier."

With a gentle kiss on Makoto's forehead, Kisumi assured him, "Thank you for giving me this chance, but I don't want to do something that you don't. This isn't gonna be traumatizing for us, okay?"

He trailed his kiss down Makoto's nose, and then his lips. Really, what had he done to deserve such a blessing?

Pulling back from the kiss, Kisumi stopped in his tracks, completely unable to tear his gaze away from Makoto. The muscular chest contracted and expanded with the rapid, rhythmic breathing of arousal, utterly entrancing him. Kisumi yearned to burn this moment into his memory.

When Makoto gazed at Kisumi in this state, those wisteria eyes glittered with intense longing. The mask of geniality the people had grown accustomed to see had been removed from his face. Before him loomed a man bearing the expression of undisguised desire reserved only for him.

"Kisumi, this is too embarrassing … switch off the light, please?"

Kisumi's reluctance lasted but a few seconds. After taking Makoto's hand in front of his mouth to kiss its knuckles, he complied. "As you wish."

Yet, after darkness permeated in the room, Makoto questioned his own decision. The deficit of light heightened the sensitivity of his other senses, especially those lingering sounds in his ears. Even the uncapping of the lubricant bottle blared obscenely through the room. He seriously considered plugging his ears at the squelch of the viscous liquid being squeezed out of the tube. In the end, he settled with lying flat on his stomach, assuming that being taken from behind would be less embarrassing than from the front.

Fumbling on his way, Kisumi finally rested on his knees between Makoto's legs, his hand searching for the man lying in the dark. It took a moment for his eyes to get accustomed to the twilight ambience in which they were immersed before his hand found Makoto's own. He heard Makoto's hitched breath as he began to lace their fingers together in an easing gesture, and then—

That burning Kisumi had felt before, whenever he pictured Makoto in his debauched fantasies, was nothing compared to the sudden flames that ignited within him, pulsing through his veins every time his skin touched Makoto's. His skin was a perfect fusion of softness and musculature, and Kisumi was sure his own mediocre self wasn't worthy of the divine beauty underneath him.

Nevertheless, Kisumi's lips traveled languorously down the length of Makoto's spine, leaving a trail of little kisses in its wake. Kisumi's fingertips skated down from Makoto's shoulders, following the contour of his muscles, until they traced the dimples of his backside. He paused, as if tacitly asking for Makoto's permission, before his hand proceeded lower to cup one swell of Makoto's buttocks.

Makoto's head lulled backward as one of the slick fingers slid into the cleft below the rump of his body. The digit delved in tenderly, moving in and out, gradually stretching him, each journey deeper than before. His own body responded to the intruder. His muscles latched back onto Kisumi's finger, entrance clenching around it as if trying to keep it there, heat coursing through the slender flesh. The squishy sound produced by the water-based lube intoxicated him.

Makoto tensed up when Kisumi accidentally found his prostate. His seducer was surely taking his time with the twist of his fingers, which relentlessly caressed his insides. The thrill drove him crazy and he wanted more. His body felt it in the way heat gathered shamelessly between his loins as Kisumi continued to wiggle against him, instilling him with passion. When Kisumi added the second—and even third—finger, he no longer had control over himself; his body molded wherever Kisumi touched him. His lover's caresses were so sweet that it made his heart skip.

"Kisumi … make me yours…"

Kisumi stopped abruptly at that encouragement. As Makoto could not see his lover's surprise from his current position, he began to worry in case he sounded too pushy.

Yet a gentle kiss at his shoulder gave him a consolation, along with Kisumi's promise, "I'll keep it as painless as I can."

"I don't mind if it's painful … as long as it's you."

Makoto's heart beat faster at the ripping sound of the condom foil. This was going to happen. This was really going to happen. He was going to be penetrated by someone other than Haru—the one who had never been and would never be his.

He heard the rustling of sheets when Kisumi clambered back onto the futon. Little by little, an additional weight was closing upon him, culminating with an object nudging at the juncture of his thighs—thick, taut, blunt. Makoto had to take several gulps of air to calm himself, but the thought of Kisumi holding him down went straight to his groin and he spread his legs wider. This was all he could do, given that his befuddled brain was now blank of any verbal encouragement.

Kisumi pressed the tip of his appendage forward, dragging across Makoto's back as he adjusted his position. Then, diffusing his passion and affection into his beloved, he slid into the most intimate part of the prone man's body like they were meant for each other. A safe haven at last for his wandering heart.

Despite his intention not to sound too whiny and gave Kisumi unease, Makoto couldn't help but yelp at the foreign pain that shot into him from the breach of his vestal opening. His hands twisting in the sheets, he emitted a half-groan, half-plea. His body tensed around Kisumi's flesh, a strangled scream tearing from his throat as the agony ripped through him, every muscle seizing in a convulsive shudder as he fought to accommodate the invasive thrust. Kisumi's length nudged against the middle of his rump as it sank deeper, stretched him and held him open and radiated burns inside of him at the same time. The burns travelled deep inside him, as if trying to reach for his spine.

Despite the lack of intelligible syllables, his partner heeded him. Kisumi's hips stayed still. Instead, his soothing lips kissed Makoto's neck, from his hairline down to his shoulders. Even ten digits of trembling fingers were patting his arms.

How these gestures changed everything, Makoto didn't know, but whatever Kisumi did had caused the searing agony to evolve into something so unbelievably good that Makoto lost his breath. His sensitive inner walls wrapped around Kisumi's heated flesh like a ravenous mouth that would swallow it all in as soon as Kisumi willed it.

"Mako … to … it's so hot inside … you," Kisumi remarked, his tone belying his pleasure. His fervent breath tickled Makoto's ear, making all the hairs on Makoto's neck and arms stand on end.

"Don't say it out loud!" Makoto buried his face into the sheets, silently thanking the somberness that obscured his blush. Joined hip to hip like this, their position evocative of mating animals in documentaries—the male on top of the female—and to think that he himself had asked for the bottom role… If death could come from chagrin alone, surely tonight he'd had died many times over!

But then Makoto felt the Kisumi's shoulders shaking. The flesh that pressed inside of him was so careful. Everywhere on his body, Kisumi's caresses were reverent. Kisumi refrained himself from discomforting him. His partner would never betray his trust.

Kisumi pecked Makoto's upper back, and then murmured, "I'm happy … so very happy. We're finally connected."

Slowly, shyly, Makoto strained his neck to turn his head as much as he could. After seeing Kisumi's amiable smile, he relaxed and smiled, too—an opportunity that Kisumi immediately seized to plant his lips upon Makoto's.

At this moment in time, with Kisumi's lips upon him, everything was pure perfection to Makoto's dazed senses. To Kisumi, it was a kiss that transformed his brain into mush.

Although Kisumi didn't start thrusting until Makoto's body relaxed around his girth, Makoto felt impossibly full when Kisumi's length reached the innermost depths of his body, embedded fully and lingering there. Yet his lover's words of love and devotion between kisses drowned his own muffled whimpers. Strangely, his previous agony melded into delight as Kisumi slowly rocked his hips.

It was not until Makoto moved his hips in counterpoint that Kisumi added strength in his penetrations, every zingy thrust drawing a moan out of Makoto's throat.

Next, Kisumi entered Makoto in a quick movement that did not quite match the pace of their languid activity so far, causing Makoto to rasp louder.

"Are you all right?" Kisumi asked concernedly as he refrained himself from sheathing his erection deeper in Makoto's molten core.

'More than all right,' Makoto's eyes answered, but all his throat could emit was an unintelligible guttural moan.

Makoto quivered, his needs veering so sharply from those of a virgin to those of a creature of lust that he himself was barely aware of what had happened, save for the intense need to remain united with his lover. He wanted, needed, longed to draw from Kisumi a surcease to the complex desires.

It was too addictive—how Makoto's muscles tightened around Kisumi as if pulling him deeper inside and how Kisumi's flesh brimmed with pulsating urgency when he ensconced himself in the embrace of Makoto's inner walls. Makoto had never needed anything the way he wanted Kisumi now, never realized how he had ached for the intimacy of being held close to Kisumi without the barrier of their clothes. He tilted his hips higher to meet each thrust, urging Kisumi to move faster with a few motions of his own.

Kisumi nipped at him incessantly, sucking and biting all the way up from his neck to his shoulder, trailing bites in a territorial fashion in every shy moan Makoto garnered in response. To him, Makoto had always been entrancing in every regard, but especially now, in bed, where Kisumi alone had the access to see and smell and hear and taste and feel and appreciate this side of Makoto.

Again and again, Makoto groaned. He even grasped into the sheet when Kisumi's pace hastened, complying with his wordless demand and pounding hard into him.

"Makoto … my Makoto…" Kisumi murmured against Makoto's nape, his cloying whines sending his lover tumbling into the pit of desire he had been drowning in, leaving the brunet drowning in a tide of sensation he had neither strength nor will to resist.

Beneath Kisumi's hands, Makoto's back felt like home, with muscles compressing under the possessive drag of his partner's fingertips. Kisumi was no Haru, but somehow this was right. This was where he belonged.

In his unfettered ecstasy, Makoto mewled in return, having no mind for the noise uncharacteristic of somebody his size. How many times had Kisumi deeply penetrated him and jabbed his prostate? Those intense thrusts had completely washed away all his rationality and even straddled the line between reality and illusion. His mind became completely devoid of anything else. His opening wrapped itself tightly around Kisumi's girth, its passage contracting in relish for the flesh of the man it admitted.

Kisumi needed no lighting to see that at this moment, his world consisted of Makoto and only of Makoto—his beautiful figure, his desperate moans, his pleasured trembles, all begging to be taken. The knowledge made him accelerate his pace with pistoning hips, the vigorous slams of his thrusts against Makoto rocking the man beneath him across the futon and making him whimper. The immodest squelches of their union became the score to his rapture.

Holding on was all that Makoto could manage. His fingers scrabbled across crumpled sheets, twitching with each pulse of desire that channeled into him every time Kisumi rammed himself and with every slap of Kisumi's balls against the curve of his backside. He couldn't do anything besides receive the hot, pulsating erect flesh inside him, and concentrate on every bit of pleasure it induced.

When Kisumi's thrusts became even impossibly deeper and more erratic, Makoto's back arched as his mouth drawled out Kisumi's name. Their hips met, bodies slapping together due to built-up sweat. Soon, having lost their rhythm, the two men even thrashed against each other.

Suddenly, Kisumi bolted upright into a kneeling position. Makoto turned his head again to ask what went wrong, but before he could voice his concern, Kisumi pulled him up possessively against his own hips until his back was aligned with Kisumi's stomach. More kisses and nips trailed along the slope of his neck before Kisumi slid inside him again, his degree of precision higher than ever.

Only then did Makoto's brain register the purpose of their change of position. They had been so engrossed in each other that, in the wild abandon of their movements, Kisumi's erection had missed Makoto's entrance a number of times. This kneeling position was ideal for their similar height, allowing them to be as intimate as possible without straining. Better still, he became more aware of how closely Kisumi's heart was beating to his own. Besides, Kisumi's deft fingers were now free to tease his front, from pectorals, down to his abdominal muscles, his pelvic bones, and then…

"I-if you touch me there, I won't last!" Makoto squealed, sac twitching and hips bucking.

Nipping at the slope of Makoto's neck in an apologetic manner, Kisumi moved his hands from Makoto's shaft to his thighs.

Even though they had to work out the timing for their movements, the result was worth the efforts. Makoto circled his hips, brought them back against Kisumi, while Kisumi shoved his hips forward just in time to grind his manhood right into Makoto's backside, jostling into him so in sync that they both groaned in pleasure and couldn't wait to do it again and again and again.

"Kisumi, more…"

The wantonness in Makoto's plea instilled Kisumi with fresh passion, prompting him to give a sharp thrust of his hips that in turn caused Makoto to shut his eyes, shudder, and cry out a stimulatingly high-pitched wail.

Kisumi obtained a similar reaction when mimicked the motion. A smirk crooking his mouth, he pounded into Makoto's pliant body with increased ardency, imprinting himself into his lover's deepest recesses and reveling in his partner's velvety opening that gripped his manhood with equal fervor. He bent over to kiss Makoto once more.

Makoto thought he'd pass out from the pleasure when Kisumi's hardened length jabbed his most sensitive spot. His nipples peaked and he gyrated his hips more erratically, pulling Kisumi tighter and closer, the muscles in his stomach clenching and tightening as incessant "ah, ah, ah!"s kept dripping from his parted lips. His body trembled from the decadence he himself emitted, shaft throbbing and sac drawing tight. Orgasm was closing in; he sensed it in the tips of his fingers and toes, every muscle going tense as the heat rose from his groin and bubbled through his entire being.

Like the crack of a whip, pleasure jolted through Kisumi's body. He buried his masculinity to the hilt, his sac pressing zealously against Makoto's entrance. Clinging to Makoto, he stiffened…

Rocking his hips through shaky thrusts, Makoto, too, climaxed. His back arched and his toes curled, but most of all, his inner muscles contracted around Kisumi's equally rigid length in squeezing clenches. His own manhood twitched wildly, spilling liquefied lust over his futon, and he just came, came, and … came.

Kisumi gasped when Makoto clamped around him. He immediately ceased his every move so as to allow his lover to savor his orgasm. The pleasure reached to a different height from self-jerk-outs. The universe was wrapped in a white blanket that neither of them had known of existing before.

Still breathing in rapid bursts, Makoto snuggled close to Kisumi, resting his forehead against his boyfriend's throat. Part of him wanted their body contact to go on forever as they caressed each other toward oblivion. He had always been an elder brother who was required to give way to his younger siblings' wishes and set an exemplary conduct for them. Just this once, he wanted to be selfish. As long as their bodies were connected, there wouldn't be any room for thoughts of Haru and Rin. Kisumi's withdrawal left behind a gaping emptiness and a sensation of something missing that must soon be found again.

Yet certain biological precedence had to take place. There were stains to be cleaned and the condom to be disposed of. Although Kisumi was away briefly enough to do just those, Makoto seriously considered having them both medically tested for STD probability, just so that they could waive condoms for the rest of their lives with peace of mind and could cuddle without interruption right after each copulation.

The blinding brightness when Kisumi restored the light into the room disrupted Makoto from his train of thoughts. He allowed himself a few blinks to adjust to his senses.

Kisumi winked cheekily. "What's with that long face? Missed me already?"

Makoto didn't reply, only heat crept up his cheeks. He determinedly fixed his gaze to the futon because nothing could be less embarrassing than to lock eyes with Kisumi when he was naked and blushing like this.

He was prepared for soft derision and Kisumi ridiculing his clinginess, but instead, a pair of warm, strong arms wrapped themselves around him.

"Makoto, I'm glad that I'm not the only one who wants us to be together for as long as possible."

"You aren't bothered by my … uh, demand?"

Kisumi chuckled. "Why would I? It's not like I can ever get enough of you." And just like that, Kisumi tackled Makoto backward to the mattress.

"Hey, Makoto, does this mean the sex was good?"

The deepening scarlet shade that besmirched Makoto's cheeks was answer enough.

"Thank goodness. I was worried in case I'd mess up my first time," Kisumi replied cheerfully.

"First? But didn't you have girlfriends in high school?"

"With Haruka, I never had to display intimacy beyond handholding, hugging, and a few kisses on the cheek or forehead. With Kurumi, though, we … took the next step." Kisumi swallowed before continuing, "She was one off the cheerleaders who frequently livened up the basketball club's matches and she came to me about a year after Haruka and I were through. Kurumi had this reputation of jumping from one guy to another, so I thought we'd be able to break up with no fuss if our relationship didn't work. When she suggested going to a love hotel, two weeks after we started dating, well, I was really curious. When we got there, though, it was such a mess… I hesitated with every minute and when I finally got it up, it was because I was thinking about…" Kisumi's volume dropped. "…riding you."

Then he continued rapidly, too shy otherwise, "But then I thought it wouldn't be right for me to screw her when my mind was so full of you, so I told her to get dressed again. We…" he swallowed again. "…broke up. A rumor spread at school that I was a big narcissist jerk. Well, I was standing in front of a large mirror at that time, so it wasn't a wonder that she assumed I was moaning while looking at my own reflection and touching myself."

Makoto stole a glance at him. "You wanted to … ride me?"

"Still do. And feel you inside me and cling to you," Kisumi confirmed.

"Th-then, let's do it."

Makoto's tone sounded nothing but bashful, but his arms had already snaked their way around Kisumi's back long before his sentence was finished. How endearing could this guy be? So, Kisumi kissed his beloved again, sweet and tender, lingering for as long as Makoto wanted him.

To Makoto, Kisumi felt so warm, so safe, so comforting … and the scent of his after-sex body was so assuring that it gave him a newfound peace. Resting his head on the slope of Kisumi's neck was nothing compared to kissing it—Makoto found this out when Kisumi straddled him and their bodies were aligned so closely together. Makoto wished to stay like this, held in Kisumi's arms forever.

But then Kisumi slid lower. He dived and kissed and glided into the smooth expanse of Makoto's skin, making sure that no sanctuary of his lover's flesh would be left untouched. It wasn't long before his breath came quick, clouds of steam curling against Makoto's pubes when he stretched out over the recumbent man like a cat, lithe and nimble, ears brushing Makoto's inner thighs.

"K-kisumi!"

Pausing briefly to look at his recently roused partner, Kisumi explained, "I can't help it; you're impossibly adorable."

"But it's embarrassing!" Makoto panted through half-opened lids.

"Does it feel bad?" Kisumi asked in-between kissing the length of Makoto's semi-erect flesh.

"No—ah! You … you have a gifted tongue, but aren't we supposed to—" Makoto bit his lip before he let another squeal slip.

"Yes," Kisumi purred back, "but I'd like to get you into the mood first."

"M-maybe we should turn off the light again," Makoto squeaked.

Instead, Kisumi's tongue surged forward, exploring Makoto's sac with the same intensity that he had Makoto's length and his boyfriend fought not to moan and melt into the amorous siege.

To Kisumi's ears, there could be no better music than Makoto's breathy grunts as he started licking Makoto's hardening erection while massaging its twin spheres at the same time. He drew his tongue up and down the rigid flesh, licking it on the side and circling his tongue over the ridge below its tip before lingering on the slit there, all the while watching his boyfriend's face for his reactions.

Gasping and moaning throughout, Makoto watched Kisumi intently as he continued to lick and stroke his manhood, and then enveloped his entire girth into his mouth until it was deep down in his throat.

Too abruptly, Kisumi withdrew, coughing.

"Kisumi, are you all right?" Makoto gently stroked Kisumi's nape. "You don't have to do this."

After a few more hacks, Kisumi managed to reply, "I want to. I've been longing to do it for seven years now."

Makoto opened his mouth again, but Kisumi beat him into it, "Don't worry. I'll take it slow from now on. Just give me another chance, okay?"

Makoto nodded. Fascinated, he watched as a part of him gradually disappeared into Kisumi's red mouth again, only to be pushed deeper and deeper into Kisumi's throat, raising a responsive moan from Makoto. The redhead paused, and Makoto was once again seized by worry in case Kisumi would choke, but when he pulled back, it was only halfway, to give him enough room to suck, and then he deep-throated Makoto's full erection again. Rotating his head, Kisumi swirled it inside his mouth.

"Kisumi…" Makoto moaned in ecstasy, his breathing faster and shallower, while his hands instinctively grasped Kisumi's hair. Two seconds later, aware of the discomfort he might induce Kisumi, he let go and moved to Kisumi's shoulders, holding them gently. "That's enough. At this rate, I'll come before I enter you."

Kisumi stared at him sulkily, just like a child deprived of his favorite toy. Except that there was nothing childish about his gaze. Instead, he shifted slightly to allow the fluorescent lamp to illuminate Makoto's erect form for his pleasure.

A relieved exhalation broke from Makoto's lips when Kisumi started pulling away. However, that sigh turned into a protest as soon as his boyfriend's seductive mouth tightened around the tip, tongue flicking around the crown, orbiting him. Hollowing his cheeks as he sucked, Kisumi deftly rolled Makoto's sac with his hand, eliciting involuntary bucks from the reclining man's body.

"Aah!"

Makoto groaned as he felt his orgasm being drawn out of him, but he knew he could not hold back against one who had managed to rouse his dormant organ in a matter of seconds. Right now, he was fully turned into a creature of desire and the man sharing the futon with him was the cause. There was no more he could do other than tightening his grip on Kisumi's shoulders when he climaxed. Lolling his head back, he released his viscid fluid in continual hard spurts.

Kisumi's mouth tightened its grip on Makoto's girth, clamping harder, more insistently. That tipped Makoto over the edge; he bucked helplessly at the insistent onslaught, and the last of the sprays of white jetting forth into Kisumi's throat.

Makoto had not ceased trembling from his orgasm when Kisumi jauntily remarked, "So, this is what semen tastes like."

"I'm sorry!" Makoto panicked. He scurried to snatch a box of tissues, pulled three sheets haphazardly, and handed them over to Kisumi. "Spit it while you still can."

Grinning, Kisumi shook his head. "Tasting you was on my to-do list."

But Makoto looked like he was almost crying. "I'm a lousy, terrible lover, aren't I?"

"You must mean you're a cute and affectionate big baby that's prone to tears." Kisumi lightly pinched Makoto's cheek jokingly.

"K-kisumi, you … you're hard again," Makoto mumbled, averting his gaze. "If you want, you can … you know … have another go." He spread his legs, not overly wide, but enough to flank Kisumi's hips.

"Thanks, Makoto, but I'd rather not work your butt too hard, or your body will hurt tomorrow. I wanna try this instead."

The next instant, Kisumi lifted Makoto's legs and rested their ankles against his shoulders. His lips began to trace up the inside of Makoto's calf, knee, and inner thigh. His tongue flicked out and licked the base of Makoto's sac, right where they met the skin of Makoto's perineum. That touch sent shockwaves of pleasure throughout Makoto's body.

"Ahh! Kisu … mi, why do you … keep doing … embarrassing things to me?" Makoto whimpered, his hands gripping the sheets once again.

When Kisumi removed his head, a triumphant grin crooked his lips. He shifted his body until his sculpted torso was pressed right up against the back of Makoto's thighs.

"Kisumi, what…?"

But then Kisumi started moving and Makoto lost track of all thought. His mind was focused entirely on the slide of the throbbing organ, all pleasure and no pain. The head of Kisumi's erection emerged from between Makoto's closed legs, followed by the rest of Kisumi's veined length. Then Kisumi's manhood nudged at the base of Makoto's own, while his sac ground against the sensitive area between Makoto's genitals and rear opening.

Makoto shuddered. The delicious slowness of the movement compelled Makoto to bite down on his lip to suppress a moan; he was too ashamed to let out such a lustful noise when Kisumi was facing him like this. He managed to hold himself back once, twice, but after so many repetitions, the lewd sound he had tried to contain broke out at last.

Blowing Makoto must have been a highly erotic experience to put Kisumi so much on edge. His tip had been dripping with early desire even before he slipped between Makoto's thighs. Now he chanted the litany of Makoto's name as the pressure built and built, every nerve in his body screaming for release. Still, he moved quicker, thrusting his hips erratically while gasping for breath at the same time. It only took less than two minutes before climax ripped through him. His entire body spasming uncontrollably, he came all over Makoto's torso.

Makoto's body tensed in pleasure. His formerly spent erection was now fully revived. It'd be a lie to say he didn't want to run his hands all over those delicious collarbones, taut pectorals, and firm abdomen. As Kisumi slid back and forth, a lingering regret dogged Makoto's mind: why hadn't they done this sooner?

Now, though, he was unsure if Kisumi would last another round. "I'd better go to the bathroom."

"Not so fast, lover boy." Kisumi parted Makoto's thighs to allow himself to lunge onto Makoto's torso. He claimed Makoto's lips, jawline, and the sides of Makoto's neck while their bodies were grinding against each other's in delicious frictions.

"Let me show you my treasure real quick."

Makoto's brow arched when Kisumi stretched his arm to reach over the edge of the futon, and then returned to present him with an orange-and-black-cased iPhone, which had the similar texture to a basketball. "Your smartphone?"

"No, not the phone; it's what you see in it."

Obligingly, Makoto looked at the screen. A pair of olive green eyes was staring back at him—Kisumi had set it to a selfie app.

"Makoto, I love you with everything I am. I gave up on you once and that was the biggest regret in my life, but I'm not gonna repeat the same mistake. For years, you've been the most precious thing in the world to me, and, if you'll let me, I want to keep on treasuring you for years to come."

Makoto's chest tightened. Second by dragging second, he stared at Kisumi with unreadable expression. Fear rushed into Kisumi's being, gnawing his insides. Was he too upfront? Did this behavior unnerve Makoto?

Kisumi opened his mouth at last, the grim silence killing him. With a forced grin, he uttered, "Whew! That was cheesy as hell. Pay it no mind~"

Yet Makoto begged to differ. "I challenge you."

Kisumi blinked.

"Your previous kisses were out of this world. Will you be able to keep your kisses that way for the rest of our lives?"

His face melding into a smile, Kisumi nodded with joyous tears at the corners of his eyes. "Challenge accepted."

Kisumi leaned forward and this time, Makoto shifted to meet him, his pair of strong arms thrown around Kisumi's shoulders. Their lips interlocked in what they knew would be a mere prelude to the series of mind-blowing kisses.

"Now, are you still going to veto me from getting the ride of my life?" Kisumi rasped, voice husky and breath laborious from their most recent kiss, before he snatched the second foil-wrapped condom and impaled himself against Makoto's ardent erection.

###

Makoto covered his face with both hands the moment he opened his apartment door to check his mailbox the next morning.

"What's wrong?" Kisumi peeped over Makoto's shoulder from behind.

A Tupperware had been laid out on the floor, its lid stuck with a memo bearing Haru's handwriting: "To Makoto and Kisumi, congratulations." The container's transparency revealed the sekihan in it. And since sticky rice steamed with red beans signified celebrations, this could only mean…

"Do you think Haru heard us last night?" Kisumi queried.

In a wail-like tone, Makoto answered, "More like, this morning. His bathroom is exactly next to mine and the walls are thin here, so…"

The scene of their bathroom sex replayed in their mind—Kisumi's raspy groans while Makoto parted his nether cheeks and licked his opening, Makoto's eager lance welcoming Kisumi to lower himself onto the waiting lap, the water splashing over the tub, Kisumi moaning, "Nngh, Makoto … so deep…" amid his lover's thrusts…

"We should consider ourselves lucky it was Haru, not Nagisa, who overheard us, or half the Iwatobi would know about the pet names I gave you by tomorrow." Kisumi chuckled, though not without a faint blush on his face. "Come on, let's eat the fruit of Haru's labor and return his container. I wanna greet him properly as your official boyfriend."

OWARI

---

OMAKE

Hands carrying a tray of hot arrowroot tea swirling with steam, Kisumi peeked from the living room doorway. His beloved Makoto was sitting in the sofa, already in his tracksuit, flipping page after page of a sketchbook.

While the current distance prevented Kisumi from seeing which part of the book Makoto was reading, he knew perfectly that on its first page, it depicted a red-haired infant playing with his building blocks. On the second, said ankle-biter, now grown into toddlerhood, was tottering with a basketball. On the third, he was peeking at a baby crib between his father and mother. On the fourth, two children were playing a hero-and-villain role, with a cape draped around the younger boy's shoulders and a colorful plastic gun in the older boy's hand.

A smile graced Makoto's lips—the angel that gave Kisumi reasons to smile every day. Their hair, of course, had lost their color years ago, when streaks of gray budded across their heads. Wrinkles now creased their aged skin. Neither vigor nor agility lingered on their side, as pointed out by the time and distance they covered in their regular morning jogs. Yet life had treated them kindly; it blessed them with good health and nothing to beg for, in comparison with their contemporaries, who often complained about rheumatics or angina.

The sketchbook currently nestled in Makoto's hands was Kisumi's proposal gift. They both had been twenty-five years old when Kisumi landed on a job promotion and the athlete trained by Makoto won a regional tournament. Thus, the twenty-fifth page—the last picture on the book back then—depicted Kisumi kneeling in front of Makoto with a speech balloon that said, "Would you marry me?"

The preceding pages told the story about how they had met in the middle school, played basketball together, graduated and separated, reunited thanks to Hayato, swam together, went dating, and had interviews for their first jobs. All had been drawn with children's crayons singlehandedly by Kisumi, although his work was far remote from Haru's artistic skills. He had sought the various members of family and relatives, their friends, colleagues, and even neighbors to colorize a portion of each picture and leave their signature at one corner. Although he failed to gather his parents' approval, Hayato and a handful of cousins' signatures bore testament of the fond memory on some pages.

With the support of so many people, how could Makoto say no when Kisumi presented the ring after Makoto perused the book?

The pages that came after told Makoto and Kisumi's post-wedding life story, colored by Kisumi and, sometimes, Makoto. Makoto and Kisumi, both wearing formal haori, were exchanging the nuptial cups of sake in front of a Shinto priest. As agreed years before, Kisumi was adopted into the Tachibana family (because the Japanese law didn't legalize same-sex marriage) and Makoto's parents genuinely accepted him as their own son, and Ran and Ren used to vie for Kisumi's attention whenever the couple came to drop by. They stared the TV screen teary-eyed whenever Haru or Rin secured a medal for Japan in three consecutive Olympics. They attended Hayato's wedding, shortly after his college graduation. They drank themselves silly when Nagisa was elected Iwatobi Aquarium's Best Employee of the Year because the penguins he trained won the hearts of so many tourists. Makoto discussed the name of Ran's third child with the expectant mother while Ren's second child kept badgering Kisumi for a basketball lesson. They stood together in the mourning attire at the funerals of Makoto's parents, two years apart. They were there at the award ceremony for Professor Rei's greatest invention: the underwater de-pollutant system.

Presently, the two tea bowls of kuzuyu were waiting to warm them up, along with Kisumi's greeting, sounding as love-struck with Makoto as it had sounded in the old days, "Morning."

When Makoto looked up with his dazzling smile, Kisumi just couldn't stop ogling even though he was not supposed to avert his gaze while setting down two mugs on the low table, in case his aged hands slipped and the mugs crashed onto the floor.

Makoto set the sketchbook aside, still opened at the page that depicted them going on a triple date with Haru, Rin, Rei, and Nagisa at Shiraito Waterfall. A group of six girls flirted with them, bold enough to wave off Rei's refusal. So, Haru took the matter in his own hands: he grabbed Rin and French-kissed his fiancé in front of everyone. Encouraged by this instantaneous success, Nagisa started fondling Rei's butts despite his boyfriend's squeaks of mire. The red-faced Makoto didn't utter as much as a protest when Kisumi wrapped his arm around Makoto's waist and rested his head against Makoto's shoulder.

Kisumi smiled at the fond memory as Hagumi—their calico cat—stretched out lazily from her sleeping basket next to the foot of the sofa and rubbed her back against Kisumi's calf, expecting her master to bring her some treats if she kept up the adorable behavior. It was Kisumi who came up with the "hug me" pun, but Makoto adored it and decided to give that name to their adopted kitten five years ago.

"Have I told you how much I love you?" Makoto murmured as Kisumi settled next to him.

Kisumi japed, "Only twelve times this week."

"Yesterday was our golden anniversary—it didn't count."

"Of course it still counted, dear. Your every syllable counts as the fuel of my life." Kisumi encircled his arms around Makoto's waist.

"But the poem you composed for me was far more touching. It—hahahaha…" Makoto ended up giggling giddily because Kisumi chose that precise moment to tickle him.

"Ki … haha … sumi … hahaha … stop!"

"Nah, I won't. What'cha gonna do? Kiss this wrinkly gramps?" Kisumi teased although his fingers had ceased their action.

Makoto tilted his chin to meet his spouse's. "Actually, I might do just that."

After one last pat at Hagumi, the septuagenarian couple left for their usual jog.

THE END

---

I couldn't resist the idea of gramps' tooth-rotting fluffy ending … orz.

* Quoted from Lord Byron's The Giaour.