Sasebo
His knuckles are white against the edges of the sink where he clutches for support. His reflection in the mirror has its eyes closed. Deep breaths. In, out. In. Out.
His fingers tighten hard around ceramic for one last time before relaxing, before he lets go and steps back, checking his own appearance in the mirror.
He seems alright. Not like someone who feels overwhelmed at the prospect of going home for Obon.
He isn't going to the manor. He's cut them out of his life already. No, he's visiting his grandparents on his mother's side.
It's always a cheerful time. The house is warm. There's always something delicious cooking and his grandparents are lovely people.
But it's not regular life. It's not his house. It's not an environment he can easily take control of. He always feels slightly off kilter whenever he visits his family. Irrespective of which side it may be. Slightly unsettled.
He hates holidays.
"Ready?" Tala's voice booms in the hall and travels past the door into the bathroom. Kai takes one last deep inhale before unlocking the door and walking out.
Tala is right before the foyer, a bag of his stuff packed beside his leg as he ousts everyone out.
Another reason why Kai doesn't like Obon in particular: the gang won't be there. They all go home to their respective families, Julia goes to one of her girlfriends' houses. It would just be Kai and his grandparents in a small city for three days.
Obon sucks.
He's quiet as everyone makes their way out of the house, loud and busy and chaotic as usual. He's going to miss them. Kai grits his teeth as he turns around and moves towards his car, without participating in any of the exaggerated hugging and kissing (Ian and Bryan fully make out for a hot minute), but they catch up to him and give him brutally affectionate pats on his head and back before letting him go.
It isn't like he's contractually obliged to go home. No one's going to disinherit him or stop talking to him or tell him he isn't welcome in the house anymore if he misses one Obon, but his grandparents have always been there for him and his mom. They were his only refuge right after his mom…did what she did and he ran away from the manor.
So he feels obliged to visit them as much as he can. If he doesn't go he'll feel bad about that too.
The car purrs to life and the sound briefly reminds him of the night before. The ride with Granger. Flashing streetlights, happy eyes, empty roads and Granger's firm warm body wrapped around him. He doesn't dwell on it though, following Tala's jeep out of the driveway.
His mother used to bring him around to her parents' home in Sasebo a lot back when he was still a child and she was a tightly-wound, high profile corporate attorney.
He didn't get to spend much time in the company of his parents as they were both extremely busy people so while he put up a fake front of annoyance and dismay (for no reason other than for attention) at being whisked away to Sasebo all of a sudden, he secretly loved the time he got to be among doting grandparents and a relaxed Mera.
The Setos weren't wealthy, not like the Hiwataris. His parents were from two different worlds and while Kai enjoyed the luxury of being a Hiwatari he preferred the warm and cozy atmosphere of the Seto household over the cold and proper one haunting the walls of the manor. If little Kai had had a choice he would have loved to live with the Setos.
If for nothing else other than the happy girl his mother turned into in the presence of her parents. She showered love and attention on him too when she was there unlike when they were at the manor. Kai hated the manor so much as a kid he had a habit of constantly running away and being gone for hours. The older he got the longer the hours he spent away till he started staying over at the Valkovs or Kuznetsovs (who had much warmer homes) for days on end.
Sometimes he'd simply go on walks (he was an odd kid, liked being by himself an absurd amount), hang out alone in parks, stargazing, anything to minimize his time in that dull sterile house.
He cooks now, having successfully convinced his grandmother to stay off the stove for one afternoon. She complains, saying that she should be the one feeding him and he says, "You cook for yourselves year round. Eating a meal prepped by your grandson once every blue moon shouldn't be a problem."
"It's every holiday season," points out his grandad, sitting next to his wife at the kitchen table. They're doing that thing again where they admire him with their eyes while chiding him relentlessly.
"Said grandson is also noticeably lacking some fat in his cheeks," adds his grandmother. "It's worrisome."
"I haven't lost weight," he tells her, sautéing the vegetables.
"And so you lie."
He wasn't lying. He rolls his eyes with his back turned to them.
"Saw that," teases his grandmom, clicking her tongue. He's sure she didn't see it but they know him enough to accurately predict his reactions. "What a disrespectful child." He can hear the fondness in her voice past the disapproving tone.
"Rolling his eyes at us while he thinks we can't see. You see how audacious he's grown up?" His grandfather turns to his wife with an accusatory tone. "This is all your fault."
"Don't pin his behavior on me, old man. You have corrupted him enough. You offered him a cigarette at the age of-"
"Oh for the love of- That was one time! It was one time!"
"To a ten year old baby still learning how to do mathematics in his head. You offered a cigarette," the word rolls off her tongue with such force, all 'r's and 't's jab the air.
"As a joke. Did I give it to him? Did I let him take a puff? No. When will you let this go?"
"Why would I let it go? Why should anyone?"
Kai sighs. They've started and they won't stop for a good while. The bickering can go on for hours but there's never any real bite in their back and forths. It's all good-natured ribbing. Flirting even. There's love beneath it all. Kai's never seen love in his parents' arguments. He knows they must have loved each other once. His father did marry his mother despite her not coming from a family with a powerful name but that love must have died soon after Kai was born. Whenever they talked they argued. Loudly, destructively, aiming to injure and tear each other down.
And tear they did.
Kai finishes cooking in about another hour and they all sit down to have a hearty meal, full of fun facts from his grandfather, acrostic poem challenges from his grandmother, and raucous, pervasive laughter from the both of them.
Kai loved their laughter.
"Shit, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. It's all my fault-"
Kai was buying snacks. Getting some rice cakes for himself from one of the stalls lining the street after covering up the patch of grass directly in front of his grandparents with all kinds of festival food because they were big fans of it, when he felt a faint pull at the loose fabric covering his arm and a voice that sounded so eerily familiar apologizing profusely.
Kai turns around and sure enough, it's him.
He's not even all that shocked. Because it's written in his stars that he should never have more than two consecutive days of peace.
Granger's eyes are wide with surprise. He's wearing a yukata like Kai and has an almost bloody red tanghulu in his grasp. "I'm not sorry at all actually," he says slowly when he realizes he hadn't bumped into a random stranger.
Kai pulls at his sleeve to inspect the damage. Red sticky syrup is obnoxiously staining his white yukata. That's not going to come off easily. "Of course your niceties are all a fake act you put up in front of strangers," he says, turning to face him.
"Whoa. My niceties are all real. I'm nice to most people. I'm just not nice to assholes," he emphasizes the last word, saying it loud enough that an old woman nearby hears it and casts Tyson a disapproving look. Granger doesn't notice. Oblivious to his surroundings as usual.
Kai uses one of the tissues he got with the rice cakes to carefully dab at the offending smear.
"What are you doing here?" asks Granger with a touch of wonder in his tone. "You look so…"
Kai cuts him a scathing glare and he stops himself from whatever he was going to say and settles on a difficult, "…different."
"Celebrating Christmas" he answers drily, before resuming his efforts to fix his yukata.
"Haha" Granger rolls his eyes. "I'm asking why you're here in Sasebo. Don't the Hiwataris live in Nagasaki city?"
The stain is not that glaringly obvious anymore. Kai figures that's the best he can do for now.
"They do, the Setos don't," he says and starts walking towards the riverbank where his grandparents are.
"Wait, you have family here?" Granger asks, catching up to him. The tanghulu in his hand coming dangerously close to his clothes again.
Kai gives him a warning glare. Tyson moves it closer to his own chest.
He sees his eyes lighting up with recognition of the name. "Your mother's side of the family," he observes astutely.
Kai catches himself nodding and stops. Why is he talking to Granger about his family? What the hell is wrong with him? He picks up his pace.
"Wait" he says, falling into stride with him again. "Is this your first time spending Obon in Sasebo? How come we've never seen each other here before?"
"The same way we didn't today till you bumped into me," says Kai, implying that he's come here many times before.
"Makes sense. You look damn near unrecognizable in traditional clothes." Then he says in a softer voice with awe, "So we've really been coming to the same place for Obon all these years and didn't even know it. That's crazy."
Kai needs to escape this conversation. He quickens his steps. Again. Winding between people this time, hoping to lose him in the thickening evening crowd.
He hears Granger catching up to him again. Coming to him with yet another prying question.
Kai's patience is wearing thin. "Please stop following me," he says to him with clenched teeth.
"Ew, I'm not following you," Granger rears back with disgust. Kai holds his gaze steadily till Tyson becomes self-aware and has the decency to look ashamed.
Then he turns around and walks forward. Granger doesn't follow him but he feels his eyes on him as he approaches his grandparents and sits next to them on the grass.
The sound of music and fireworks fill the air and it's only after another three rounds of acrostic poems and people watching and finishing off all three rice cakes that he bought that he lets himself think about what he'd learned a half hour or so ago.
Granger's been celebrating Obon on this side of the river for the past six years that Kai's been coming here. But they'd never met. And just like he'd said earlier, they wouldn't have met this year either if Granger had been any less clumsy.
"That's crazy" he replays the memory of Granger saying with astonishment in his mind.
He agrees.
"I'm going to go and look at our lanterns," Kai says to his family, getting up to his feet.
His grandmother pauses the conversation she was having with her husband to say to him with a fond smile, "Okay, love."
He quietly smiles at them and heads to the bridge where people have gathered to watch the lanterns carrying the souls float by on the river. He leans on the railing to look for theirs.
It doesn't take long to find them.
It's peacefully drifting out from under the bridge. Traveling among hundreds of others making the river glow with the light they carry. The sun had set just a few minutes ago and the sky is lit by the illumination of bonfires and lanterns.
He feels the presence of someone beside him then.
"Your great grandparents?" asks Granger gently, following Kai's line of sight.
"Hm and my sister," he answers.
Granger goes slightly stiff beside him. Kai glances at him to see the troubled look on his face. "Stillborn" he clarifies before turning back to the lanterns.
Kai recalls the time after his sister's death, how everything went to shit. His mother falling depressed. His father cheating.
"I'm sorry" says Granger, softly.
Kai shifts his gaze to him and sees him earnestly tracking the path of another set of lanterns down the river, and since he's tired of talking about himself, he asks, recalling that fact about him, "Your mother?"
He nods. "And my grandma." His face is solemn. No traces of the usual bullshit. He has his hands on the railing, folded one on top of the other. Kai had seen him talking to an old man earlier who seemed to be teasing the fuck out of him, cane and all. Granger had interacted with him animatedly, familiarly. But there didn't seem to be any other family around him.
"What does your father do?" asks Kai. Because he's not here with his son for sure.
"He's an archaeologist," says Tyson, glancing at him.
"Is he here today?"
"No, he doesn't get a lot of time off," says Granger, slightly fidgeting, leaning away from the railing. "He'll be home for Christmas."
So his father doesn't visit often. What about his siblings? Doesn't he have siblings? "Are you an only child?" asks Kai, curiously.
"No, I have a brother," says Tyson, looking away from the horizon and meeting his eyes. "He's older than me and he's also an archeologist. They work together. Him and dad."
Kai's looking at him and he gets a distinct feeling of loneliness from him. Or may be he's projecting his own sense of loneliness upon Granger. Though he can't be too wrong with his assumption. Tyson was hanging out with his grandfather and he seemed excited to see Kai of all people today. Kept trying to talk to him. Is talking to him now.
Kai's talking to him too.
They're both two miserable lonely fucks on Obon, aren't they?
"Tyson!" comes an inhumanly screech from his right. Kai looks toward the end of the bridge and doesn't see anyone the voice might have belonged to at first but then he does. It's a kid with wild hair and too much energy, running up to them. "I got fireworks! So many of them! What are you doing staring off into the sunset like a heroine in a movie instead of setting off firecrackers with me?"
He jumps right onto Tyson. They promptly fall on the ground. Granger groans. "Daichi, get off!"
"Don't be boring. Stop pretending to be an adult." He sits on top of him and starts shaking Tyson's shoulders. "Come finish these firecrackers with me."
"Stop freaking jumping on me. Daichi, if you don't get off-" He throws the kid off his lap and sits up. Daichi springs onto his feet and attempts to haul Tyson up.
"Stand up, old man!"
"Alright, alright, I'm coming," he gets to his feet with the kid's help and looks down at him. "Why are you so annoying?"
"Tyson, your whole face is annoying. Your voice is annoying. I'll stick a sparkler up your butt if you don't move."
Kai's kind of liking this kid. Daichi looks at him at the same time Tyson does.
"You look like you already have a sparkler shoved up your butt," comments Daichi.
Granger snorts looking at the kid then glances at Kai again. "Do you want to come set off some fireworks with us?" he asks with a slight smile and it's a very polite offer. A friendly, polite offer.
Kai doesn't answer but he doesn't turn him down either. Daichi narrows his eyes at him.
"Man, I really don't like you."
Granger slaps a hand over the kid's mouth and nudges him forward admonishingly. But he's suppressing a laugh. "We'll be over there," he tells Kai, pointing towards a spot along the riverbank. Then they walk away, arguing. The kid gripping Tyson's hand and jumping up and down like he wants to snap his arm in two.
Kai watches them go and gets that lonely feeling again.
He talks to his grandparents and asks them if they'd like to stay here some more or go home. They tell him they'd like to hang out by the riverside some more and that they'd seen him talking to 'those two kids' and that he should go set some fireworks off with them.
He says he doesn't want to at first but they say they're going to sit and talk on the grass for another hour and since he doesn't want to be bored he leaves them there and heads for the two lunatics going crazy over fireworks.
It's loud and colourful. They have a big and varied collection and they run through them with speed. Kai chooses incense fireworks and watches them burn out. Tyson and Daichi set off the big ones, exclaiming when they go off and then laughing at each other's reactions.
"You jumped," Tyson barks a laugh. "You got scared."
"I wasn't scared. You had a whole 'brrr' reaction." He makes a shuddering movement with his body.
His grandmother wasn't wrong when she called both of them kids.
Some time later, while Daichi's exhausting the last of their stash, Tyson comes to sit next to Kai. Spreading his legs out before him and sighing contentedly.
"How do you know him?" asks Kai referring to Daichi.
"He's my neighbor," says Granger, looking fond for a moment. He hides the expression as soon as Daichi looks over his shoulder at him for a moment as if he sensed they're talking about him. "His family's here somewhere," says Tyson, craning his neck to look around the place for a second. Trying to see if he can spot them. He doesn't. "We don't have big celebrations where I come from. It's a small town so some of us come here during Obon. The energy back home is totally different. It's a quiet, serious affair."
"You don't live here," notes Kai.
"No, my house is in the town nearby. We took a bus here. Your grandparents' house is close?"
Kai nods. "Just a couple of blocks down."
"Wow, I really had no idea." He laughs, shaking his head.
Daichi sets off a group of spinners on the ground together and all three watch it with fascination.
Granger crosses one ankle over the other. Tilts his chin to regard Kai. "You're an only child right?"
Kai nods. "My mother got depressed right after she lost my sister. Severely. Their marriage died right there." He realizes he's talking about his family again. Private matters. But it's what they've been doing all day after all. What difference does it make? Granger knows about his mother's condition anyway. And he has a feeling Julia told him stuff about his family situation too. "They buried her in Sasebo. Not on the company site where all the other Hiwataris are buried. They covered it up, as if it's more shameful than cheating on your wife."
Tyson's eyes are on him. But it's not a pressing or invasive gaze. It rests on him lightly. Kai feels it but the weight of it is non intrusive. He reaches into a fold in his yukata and draws something out, holding it out to Kai.
It's a tiny bottle of sake. "Want some?" he offers.
He can be nice to assholes it seems.
Kai accepts it.
He would never do this if they were back on campus. It's the holidays. It's the loneliness. It's the unsettled, off-kilter, feeling in him. He's seeking companionship in the first person who offered it. This moment doesn't feel real. Like it isn't a part of his reality. He doesn't feel like himself whenever he's in Sasebo and he knows he might regret talking so much about himself when he goes back to college tomorrow.
But right now, the sky is full of fireworks and music and laughter, and he doesn't think it's strange that he's having a drink with Tyson Granger.