Even when you're gone
Somehow you come along
Just like a flower poking through the sidewalk crack
And just like that
You steal away the rain
And just like that
Don't know how I lived without you
'Cause every time that I get around you
I see the best of me inside your eyes
You make me smile
While the rest of his class got dressed, Oda waved to Saga, his dancing costume in one hand, and then disappeared into the back room. Saga held up two fingers, watching him go, but wasn't two seconds later that Oda came back. Several audience members were already taking their seats, and beads of sweat ran down Oda's cheeks.
"…shouldn't you be getting changed?" asked Saga. Oda glanced at him. He'd left the back room and was about to exit the classroom to go into the hallway.
"Saga!" Oda smiled, blushing. "You came!"
When Saga didn't say anything, Oda scolded himself for his excitement. It wasn't normal. Of course Saga would be here; he was a student, and all students attended the Cultural Festival. Saga, pushing his hands into his pockets, wondered what Oda could be thinking. Of course he would be here; he was Oda's boyfriend. He wouldn't think of not going.
"The, um, girls are using the back room, so the boys are using the bathrooms." He held up his costume. "Do you like it?"
Saga coughed and put his hand over his mouth. Restlessly, Oda bounced from foot to foot, staring at Saga's face. His smile twitched. "…I'll go to the ba-bathroom. I'll be out in a s-sec…."
"…maybe you should get changed out here?"
"What?!"
"… Stay. I could help you get into it. "
"Saga! Don't joke like that!" Quickly he turned around, his feet fumbling to the door.
Some of the girls were already in front of the classroom, lined up in particular positions, talking, pulling at their dancing costumes and showing skin for the boys. Saga didn't have anything against the giggle of a girl, but he didn't like listening to it and twisted in his seat, hopeful to catch Oda coming back through the doorway. One of the girls gasped and pointed at him.
"Saga? You're really watching us perform?" When he nodded at her, expressionless, she giggled. "This isn't even your homeroom. Are you here for girlfriend or something? I bet that's it. Boys are so predictable."
Saga chewed on his bottom lip, thoughtful. "… no, I'm not here with my girlfriend."
"Then what are you here for?"
He gulped. "… for my boyfriend."
He looked down at the floor as she started to laugh. Oda came back from the bathroom, swimming in his ill-fitting costume, and came to the front of the classroom. He stood beside the girl, his arms glued to his sides. "Ew! Don't joke about this kinds of things, Saga!"
When Oda glanced at Saga, Saga shook his head.
"But seriously," said the girl. "Who's you girlfriend? The entire year talks about it."
"… I don't have..." said Saga frowned at him, turning away to glare at the wall. Saga sighed. "… I already told you that I have a boyfriend."
The girl's smile melted off her face as the classroom lights went low. Saga smiled at Oda, and Oda frowned at the Saga, and the girl gaped.
The music was starting now, and they hushed to dance. Saga sat back, watching every move. He contemplated in the silence his abilities.
He couldn't do many things. He couldn't hold Oda's hand on the street in public, he couldn't flirt with him in public, and he couldn't touch him in public. The walls that had ears made Saga's life a living hell. He couldn't just sit back and watch the world go around, ignorant of him and Oda. He couldn't just sit back, feeling like a ghost, his identity belonging to Oda, who ignored him in public. But they're telling me that you're not really mine, thought Saga. If I was a girl, I could kiss you and they'd love it. If I was a girl, this wouldn't be as hard as it is.
Oda's homeroom finished their dancing routine, bowing to the applause, and the audience rose to leave. They filed out of the classroom, the boys hustling behind them, eager to strip out of their sweaty dancing uniforms and the girls got into their changing room and closed the door. Passing Saga for the second time, Oda headed to the bathroom with his school clothes in hand.
Saga reached out to him. "…Oda, wait."
Immediately, Oda clamped his hand over his mouth as Saga went to kiss him. The girls from the changing room could have seen them, and they knew that the teachers could very well see them through the door, and they knew that the walls had ears and the ceiling had eyes and they knew this wasn't allowed. Not with them.
Oda's voice cracked. "S-sorry, I…."
"… why not?" asked Saga, frustrated. "…why can't I just kiss you whenever I want?"
"I wish that we could," Oda mumbled. "But w-we can't."
Saga grunted. "… because we're not common?" He let go of Oda's shoulders, frowning. Oda stuttered, fumbling with his clothes, and laughed nervously, choking. He ran away.
Saga sat down and waited for Oda to come back. Of course, what was he thinking? He, of all people- the world couldn't just let him be in love. This wasn't about being normal or common or being okay or accepted. It was because Saga always got the short end of every stick. It would be a disgrace to give him one small break. It was a challenge.
By the time Oda returned from the bathroom, the rest of the dancers had filed out. Saga taped his foot slowly, wondering if he should go looking. Oda had been gone for twenty minutes and the school was basically empty. Frowning resolutely at the floor, Saga got up but just as he was walking out, footsteps skittered down the hallway and Oda rushed in. He was still wearing his dancing costume and his stretched smile was nervous and wrinkled.
"Saga!" Oda dared to give him a hug.
The walls still had eyes, but there was no one to report this to at this time of night. Nobody could preach to God about the gays. Saga, stunned, wavered there as uselessly as a crinkled autumn leaf.
"…What happened to your clothes?" he asked.
"Sorry, I just… I wanted to wait until everyone else had left."
"… to get changed?"
Smiling, Oda shook his head, bashfully pulling away. "Um, I was just wondering. If you…. Do you want to, Saga, uh, do you want to…." Oda stuttered. He went over to the back room, reemerging seconds later with a tiny CD player, knowing exactly where it was and smiling at the disc inside. His plan was working perfectly. Saga stared at him, the corner of his mouth turned up.
"Do you want to dance with me, Saga?"
Saga was speechless. Peanut butter seemed to be on the roof of his mouth and he wasn't confident in his grasp of the Japanese language anymore, because Oda was really asking for Saga to hold him by the waist and breath into his ear and rock with him in harmony. Oda's smile twitched. It took him his entire stock of confidence to say that. He'd had the idea during the dance, when Saga had been staring at him fumble with the steps. His heart was in his throat. He was dizzy.
"… yes." Saga forced himself to speak, taking Oda's hands gently. Oda shivered, his lips pressed into a trembling line. He knew that if Saga looked at him a second more like that, he would cry. Quickly, Oda placed the CD player on the ground and pressed the play button, and Saga held his waist and Oda buried his face into his shoulder, hiding the tears.
They danced in that cold, crystal night, keeping each other warm, and their hearts beat to the rhythm of their new song.
They went home after the dance. It turned out that neither of them had known how to dance, and they realized how past curfew it was and went home the janitor turned off the last of the lights. It was one o'clock in the morning, and Saga knew just how nervous Oda got in the dark, so he reached for his hand, fitting his cold fingers between Oda's warm ones.
"H-hey-"
"It's dark so it's okay," Saga whispered.
When Saga brought Oda home, they went up to Oda's room, keeping the lights off. Oda had abandoned himself. He was still so messy with infatuation, giggling from their innocent dance, and he'd lost it. He stared at Saga, and now he knew that he could do it, in this moonlight. This wasn't some tiny little bitty crush he'd had for three years. He knew what this was. This love was big and it filled his heart. If Saga just loved him a little bit, then that was fine. He thought he knew the answer already to his question. Oda forgot to prepare himself for the crushing possibility of a negative answer.
"Saga, do you love me?" he asked.
If Saga didn't, then he had to break himself out of this illusion now. But Saga wanted him too, surely. Saga ogled at him. Then his lips parted and he laughed. "Why would I love you?" that laugh said to Oda. "You're disgusting."
Oda's eyes went wide. He remembered exactly what Saga had said to him days ago. "You're gross."
Oda took his hand and punched Saga in the face, his knuckles hitting his cheekbones. He yelled "Get out!" and shoved Saga straight out of the door. He heard Saga gasp, panicked, but he didn't know what he was saying. He couldn't hear him or see him.
God, this had all been just some stupid game. Some people can be so cruel. Saga, too. He hated high school.
For ten years after, Oda never accepted another dance.
Takano's promotional event at Emerald had lasted two hours. In reality, he and Onodera had party planned for three days, and now that it was happening they were groggy and sore. They were being approached by strangers and, in response, smiled with plastic in between their teeth and slurring words. The author had approached Takano and asked him where his girlfriend was because, after all, of all the editors present he must be the one to have a cute little girlfriend waiting at home. A few women had asked him to dance, but Onodera's eyes had shone with unspoken jealousy.
"Where's your girlfriend?"
"My boyfriend is right over there and I can't dance with him because of people like you," Takano imaged saying. Instead, he laughed.
Takano asked instead for Onodera's hand, but what Onodera had said drove into Takano's nerves: "What are you thinking? We can't do that!"
"Oh, she just doesn't like dancing," he'd said to the author.
Afterward, they were stuck with clean up duty. The karaoke guys, the last to leave, had forgotten their CD player under the concession table when they'd left. Takano put a sticky note on it. Return This. Takano half-smiled at the CD inside.
"Hey, stop playing with that," Onodera said.
"Doesn't this remind you of that Cultural Festival we went to together in high school?" he said, looking up at Onodera. "The one where your homeroom played Ode To You. It was really popular back then… by Strawberry Lemons."
"I remember that song," said Onodera over his shoulder as he walked past him, getting the broom. "Wait, isn't this... ?"
"It was that American one. Remember?"
"No!" Onodera hesitated. He coughed into his hand. "I mean, no."
"Well…." Takano sighed. "It was my favorite song. It was our song. I listened to it every night when I was in college because it reminded me of you."
Onodera stiffened. He glared at Takano, clenching the broom handle so hard his knuckles went white. "Well... hm, anyway. I don't remember any cultural festival," he insisted in a hard voice.
Takano waved the CD player at him pointedly. "Don't you? Or are you just saying that because of that fucking complex of yours?"
Onodera turned his back on Takano, starting to sweep from the farthest corner.
"Don't curse at me," Onodera muttered.
Takano sighed and put the CD player down on the now-bare concession table. "Don't walk away from me," he said, following him.
"Don't talk about high school to me," Onodera countered back. "You know I didn't like high school. I really, really, really didn't like high school."
Takano frowned. "That's it." He spun around and took wide steps to the concession table, then jabbed the button on the CD player. The track stuttered before the song played.
Onodera made a choking sound. The opening notes were too familiar, and he was having terrible happy flashbacks that softened his heart; slowly, he leaned the broom on the wall, and when he turned around, Takano was staring at him, looking him dead in the eyes. Slowly, Onodera shook his head in a quiet warning, as if to say Don't look at me like that.
"I'm staring because you're beautiful," Takano explained.
Onodera snorted.
"Really. You are-"
"Can you please refrain from talking to me like I'm your wife or something?" Onodera waved his hand dismissively.
"If anything, I'm your husband, right?"
"Can you not say those things out loud?" Onodera snapped. "First of all, it's not true. And second of all, it's just embarrassing when you say that out loud. Why do you say things like that?"
Takano paused the music. "When we were in high school, I never said those things," he explained. "Now, I need to say them or else you might leave me again. I need to tell you that you're beautiful, and that I love you, and that you're amazing and smart and wonderful."
"I'm not anything like that!" Onodera insisted, hiding a deep blush behind his hands. "You should get your eyes checked again, because you're obviously freaking blind! You can't see anything!"
"Aw, but Onodera, you're the only thing I can see," Takano drawled, carrying the CD player with him as he walked toward him, putting his hands on Onodera's hips. "Because I love you so much, and every night in my bed I think about you, not to mention all the dirty stuff-"
"Takano!"
Onodera frowned. He wanted to run out of there as fast as possible, but he knew that if he left, Takano would also leave with him, and that really wasn't effectively running away. He glared at Takano, but his heart was racing and he couldn't move his arms. He felt like he had ten years ago when he'd asked for a dance: dizzy, sick, numb, and frozen. Takano moved his hands, wrapping his fingers around Onodera's hips, and Onodera pressed his lips together. Takano was going to sway with him, breath in his ear, slow dance with him until his heart was so full that it blocked out his vision and made him see stars. It wasn't fair that he could do this. It wasn't fair that Takano could say all that, and Onodera still didn't have the confidence in him. What made Takano better? Why was Onodera losing this fight?
"Will you dance with me?" asked Takano. Onodera buried his face in Takano's shoulder and closed his wet eyes tightly.
They danced in that cold, crystal night, keeping each other warm, and their hearts beat to the rhythm of their old song.
Even when you're gone
Somehow you come along
Just like a flower poking through the sidewalk crack
And just like that
You steal away the rain
And just like that
Don't know how I lived without you
'Cause every time that I get around you
I see the best of me inside your eyes
You make me smile