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The forecast didn’t call for a storm. It was supposed to be sunny and blue and summery, clear with sparkling stars and laughter welcoming them back home. Not this depressing, dark gloomy gale after Eiji's rhinestone-studded night.
The pleasant quiet of their town had become loud and angry with the harsh, diagonal descent of droplets; wind gusting past and shooting sharp water pellets at anything in its path. It turned their own bodies against them, hair whipping violently with the air currents, lashing out at the soft skin of their flushed faces. The red lanterns that led the way home are all but a hazy blur, like the world wanted them to stay right there, stuck under the beat-up awning of the mochi shop near the station. The left side of the cloth had collapsed under the pressure of the rainfall, forcing Eiji to huddle close to Ash on the other, dry end.
Ash stares down at his soaked coat and slacks, dress shirt and muddied Oxfords, mourning the ruination of his neatly tailored outfit. He watches through fogged lenses as the glitter of his attire sheds off of him, carried away by the rapid deluge at the tips of their pointed shoes. He glances at Eiji beside him with concern, uncharacteristically stoic and tight-lipped as he watches his reflection distort in the ripples before them. Ash wraps a cold arm around his waist, offering what little body warmth he had left to his shivering husband.
“Hope the rain didn’t rain on your big day,” Ash tells him lightheartedly, voice competing with the thundering clap of sky meeting land.
Eiji smiles and Ash knows all is well. “I’d rather be stuck out here with you than stay another minute at that gallery.”
“Don't like being the center of attention?”
“Believe me. I do,” chuckles Eiji. “But hipsters are another breed of people and chicken liver hors d'oeuvres should be a crime. We needed to escape, pronto.”
“After all that planning, that preparation, for your exhibition and yet you say that?” Ash feigns a gasp. “You're ruthless.”
“I only learn from the best,” Eiji tells him sweetly through chattering teeth, perching his chin up on his shoulder.
“Flattery gets you nowhere, Mister Okumura.” Ash cranes his face down, pressing his nose to Eiji’s. For a split second, the raindrops suspend in air, like little crystals embellishing this intimate moment— nature’s own diamonds hanging from gray clouds by a shiny thread. They’re caught in Eiji’s long, flattened hair, his brows, his lashes, and it kind of makes Ash think this downpour is a blessing in disguise. Sumptuous, even in the rain in his two-piece tailcoat all wrinkled and soggy. So debonair with his fetching grin and batted blinks and calculating gaze.
Even now, his heart beats vigorously, reliving what he thinks to be a first kiss every time he leans in close to him. This scene is almost too beautiful, too perfect to ruin. He reconsiders for a second, not wanting a crack of lightning to suddenly split the heavens as he smooches him. He thinks, despite all the flouncing Eiji will do in a few seconds, that he’d just like to admire him in his arms. Admire the way rain rolls off his skin like liquid silver and his childish pout and the slight furrow of his brows.
Unbeknownst to Ash, Eiji does not flounce. Eiji, instead, stands on his tippy-toes and brings the calm to him, pulling him down by the collar of his shirt. Eiji’s aim is absolutely terrible; he completely misses his mouth and instead pecks the dimple on the corner of his lip. It definitely feels like what a first feels like: awkward and wet and confusingly nice.
Though, it still fills him with butterflies. Underneath this awning is sunlight rushing in tides and sprawling meadows that go on forever. The pores of his skin are sprouting wild cosmos and zinnias; vines and leaves coiling around his beloved Eiji, intertwining their bodies, hearts, souls in vibrant hues. They’re connected as thread is to a canvas, pulled close together, breaths and yearnings apart. The flora draw them so close that Ash is one fell, tantalizing swoop away from capturing his honeysuckle lips.
He tastes him in sweet, short sips, letting his petals envelope around him. It’s a chaste caress of lips, a reminder of nerve endings that Ash had lost to the flood. He feels Eiji’s bunny teeth against him, smiling, taunting him to try and do more.
A challenge, is it? If it is, then it’d have to wait. He’d hate for his obituary to say he’d passed away from something as fatuous as holding your breath.
“You’re not a very,” Ash draws in some air, “good shot. Had to show you how,” kiss, “it’s done.” He licks the remnants of nectar from his puckered mouth, weaving his fingers through Eiji’s hair and letting it spill through the spaces as indigo ink.
“How romantic,” chirps Eiji, tilting his weight into Ash’s palm. “A kiss in the rain.”
“Check that one off your bucket list?” Ash jokes.
“Almost.” Oh. He’s serious. “Gene Kelly had an umbrella. And he knew how to sing and dance.”
“—I know how to dance!” Wait. Why did he sound so offended by that? “Hey. What’s with that pouty face? You had your kiss and I had mine.”
“Can we do it? Just this once?” Damned puppy eyes. Ash does not like where this is going. Not one bit. “Please?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” (He has a faint idea.)
“You know. Splash around and slow dance and get lost in each other’s eyes and kiss like in the movies?” So painfully honest and ineffably adorable. Ash has to rub the back of his neck and look the other way, surprisingly enraptured by the concept (though he would never admit it to Eiji).
“We can do that at home, where it’s nice and warm and dry—”
“A little water won’t hurt! C’mon!” Eiji interlaces their fingers, dragging him out of their refuge.
“Eiji, you better not—” And he tugs him toward him, forcing him out of his balmy paradise of butterflies and honeysuckles.
The water soaking his socks is what pulls him into reality as Eiji leads him off to nowhere in particular, spattering about just because he can. With every jump, he can see mud splatter at the hem of his slacks, but Eiji couldn’t care less. He lets the rain seep into his skin, letting tears worth millions of years stream down him like it’s nothing. Like it could never amount to the right now, this moment, as he has his party of one; thrashing about in his expensive suit and letting the ground soil him.
Ash’s vision narrows and it has those black borders; looks at the world in the ratio of an indie film, the artsy kind with striking colors and dramatic shots. Eiji is center stage in this little motion picture rolling in his mind, camera focusing in on his blissed expression and the minute detail of droplets slipping past the crevice between collar and neck. He gulps.
“Dance with me!” beckons Eiji, welcoming the storm with open arms and a grimace.
This is where Ash is supposed to say some off-handed comment about how this is stupid and a waste of time, or how Eiji could catch a cold. But oh, he can’t help but be enamored by him; so free-spirited and graceful and gorgeous. He traces the way his wiry body moves in zig-zags and squiggles, to and fro in an untimely jive. (A mating dance? He supposes it’s working.)
Ash takes a step forward, pulling in an imaginary rope toward him. “What kind of move is that ?” Another step, and an ungraceful twirl, a pirouette. Eiji erupts into laughter, letting his little ‘contemporary’ number abruptly end in an awkward, limp pose . “Oh my God, maybe you shouldn’t dance—”
Steps become the quickstep, shoulders square to his hips, chin angled up as he sloshes over to Eiji as a gentleman would in a ballroom. He snatches Eiji, presses him flush against his body, letting him pulse with the three-count metronome of his chest— allegretto. The pluck of a bass strum the strings of their heart, a nice jazz ballad made just for a romantic dance for two. Eiji’s slender waist rests on the hold of his arm. Ash strokes the side of his face with the back of his hand, watching him get hypnotized by that rapid swing of the pendulum. He’s warm, glowing a happy pink.
Eiji is waiting, expecting. Ash is willing to deliver.
Ash dips him down, securing him with both hands now, and it snaps Eiji out of it for a moment. He clutches onto his bicep and shoulder for dear life, staring at him with glassy fear for falling.
“Thought you wanted to dance?” whispers Ash, eyes hooded with wanting.
“You surprised me,” Eiji says breathlessly.
He bites his bottom lip and it breaks Ash, awakens something in him. Hunger effaces every sensation and all he wants to do is taste.
No, his paradise isn’t sunny with dulcet birdsongs. It’s a damned monsoon in the middle of rural Japan in drenched brand names; tangoing to the music of the earth here with Eiji. He wouldn’t have it any other way.
He captures him ardently this time, a fire that rips into Eiji’s flesh, melting him of all of his fears. Ash kisses him hot, not so innocent and not quite lasvisicious. His tongue is velvet, swiping him teasingly, never daring to go past his boundaries. But Eiji is aching with eagerness; opening himself up, inviting him inside. Ash plucks each pretty petal and swills him down thickly, like molten syrup; draining his love until he’s reduced to pleasant sighs.
They part ways when Ash has had his fill, thirst sated and desires realized. Ash helps him back up and hugs him close.
“What… What movie was that?” asks Ash, swaying him gently left and right.
“Hm?”
“The kiss.”
“Ah.” Eiji draws heart shapes onto his chest, pondering. “Not quite The Notebook or Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”
“Was it that bad?”
“Better.” Eiji looks up at him endearingly, grinning. “It was ours.”
“Never heard of that film before,” tells Ash cheekily.
“Really? It was pretty famous. Award-winning."
Ash places his index finger onto his chin, looking up at the lightbulb now flashing over his head. "Y'know, it's starting to ring some bells."
"Shall we do a scene reenactment? I'll be Eiji. You be Aslan.”
"Take three," Ash chuckles, angling his head to kiss him all over again. However, before he can make landing, Eiji sneezes in his face.
A kiss and dance becomes a slippery race, both of them sabotaging each other through gentle shoves and baseless taunts. Last one home is a rotten egg.
(Ash is the rotten egg.)