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Summer is sweet and slow this year. Warm rain and sunrays work in tandem to help the season in Miyagi flourish, and in turn, help flourish frivolous little things like morning glory and dewy teenage love. It seems as though every corner of the town is as languid as the weather. Takahiro revels in it.
He and Matsukawa are sitting out on the balcony; a rickety wooden one, leading out from Takahiro’s bedroom. It creaks loudly when they step on this one plank, and there aren’t any chairs, so they seat themselves on the ground by the railing. Two unfinished mugs of black tea rest on a table beside them, likely cold by now, even though it’s like 27 degrees outside and they’re sweating waterfalls.
They’ve been watching the clouds together. It’s pretty boring actually, and it’s something Takahiro’s sisters would definitely make fun of if they knew, but it’s a nice Sunday afternoon and they have nothing to do. He messaged Matsukawa while eating breakfast that morning to see if he wanted to come over. Two hours later, his best friend was at his door with three One Piece volumes in hand and a head of half-dried hair.
The clouds never stop moving. They’ve been outside for a good fifteen minutes, talking about how Sato and Higasa from Class 2 broke up (loudly) in the middle of the courtyard on Friday, how they really don’t want to go to practice early tomorrow morning, how fucking hot it is outside. And the clouds move on, and on, and on.
“You think we’ll still be friends ten years from now?” Matsukawa asks out of the blue.
Takahiro watches a weathervane swivel back and forth. “Probably. Unless I mysteriously die one day and you’re the first one to find me, left to handle my remains,” he says, almost completely deadpan.
“Well that’s morbid. What the fuck?” Matsukawa huffs out a laugh, tossing his head back as he does.
Takahiro likes making him laugh. It’s his strange way of saying I know what you find funny. I know my way around the little nooks and crannies of your humor. I know how to keep you smiling. I know you and I want you to know that.
He leans back against the balcony railing. The sun is covered for a few fleeting moments, granting him a moment of respite. “I mean, why do you ask? Don’t you think we’ll still be friends by then?”
Matsukawa thinks for a bit, silently. He does that a lot, Takahiro finds, when he’s trying to curate the right response. It makes him a little nervous at times. A breeze passes over them, then Matsukawa answers. “Yeah, I do. But I mean… a lot can change in ten years, you know? Don’t you ever wonder how long you have with people until you eventually grow out of each other?”
The inquiry is cautious, yet still direct and honest like they’ve implicitly swore to keep their friendship. No room for misunderstandings. No room for soaring to conclusions. The truth is this: Takahiro has thought about it, even if subconsciously. The years keep on flowing by; like rivers, like milk and honey, like traffic, like clouds. They were fifteen not even yesterday, and perhaps tomorrow they’ll be something new.
But today they’re seventeen, and there are some not-quite-secrets that they’re still not ready to tell. Takahiro attempts to deflect. He’s pretty good at it. “Look, it’s a heart-shaped cloud.”
“Answer my question,” Matsukawa presses, not even batting an eye at Takahiro’s point upwards. Not quite good enough to deter his best friend.
Takahiro sighs, arm falling and chin coming to rest on his hand. The truth is this: He never wants to grow out of Matsukawa Issei. He never wants Matsukawa Issei to grow out of him. He’s loved him and love-loved for too long now, and letting go is never easy. No matter how many times you do it all over again.
Matsukawa is looking at him with his hands in his lap, fiddling then dropping. Fiddling then dropping. He’s expecting an answer and Takahiro doesn’t know if he can give him the right one. These conversations are never easy. No matter how many times they’ve been here before.
Takahiro smiles anyway, squinting as the sun comes out shining again, ruddying their faces and warming their bodies. “Yeah. I think about it sometimes, I guess. But I think at times you just have to move with the flow of things. That’s all you can really do.”
Matsukawa seems satisfied with the answer. They settle back again, resting against walnut wood, crisping under the UV rays, breathing in home. “So. Where’s that heart-shaped cloud you were talking about?”
The sky has faded from celeste blue to sapphire, and the white flurries of synthesized water drops have blurred into wisps of nothing. Perhaps that’s just the movement of things. Takahiro looks up, mind sieving. “Hm. Must be gone now.”
They’re playing Twister in Iwaizumi’s living room. School let out for summer break a week ago, and already tired of passing volleyballs back and forth and playing two-on-two matches in the backyard, sweating through their shirts and staining them green, they've resorted to less strenuous activities inside—one being a large multicolored plastic mat operating as a base for physical maneuvering that, if the odds are not in their favor, may end up in an awkward situation for everyone involved.
Oikawa sits cross-legged on the couch, holding a plastic spinner in his hand. Four colors are divided up like a pizza. He insisted on sitting out to be the designated spinner and color announcer, explaining that his leg hurts. Though he seems to be free of pain and more than entertained watching the rest of them struggle on the floor. "Left foot red!"
"No, god," Iwaizumi laments, jaw clenched as he maneuvers his foot across the mat and over Takahiro’s shoulder.
Takahiro grimaces. He is currently positioned with his hands on red and blue, and without full support from his legs, they tremble slightly under his weight. "My arms are gonna be so sore after this.”
There’s a giggle behind him. "Okay, next one. Makki, left hand yellow!"
"How the fuck—" He crosses his left arm under his right until he touches the yellow circle. Matsukawa’s hand is right next to his. If he weren’t in so much discomfort, maybe he’d reach out and hold it. "Oh my god, this hurts so bad."
Oikawa bursts into laughter watching it all unfold, how Matsukawa curses while trying to readjust and incidentally elbowing Iwaizumi in the forehead, who then shifts backward and nearly knocks Takahiro off balance. Beautiful exclamations float through the air all the while.
"Right—" Oikawa struggles to say through his laughter, "right foot—green, Mattsun."
"No!" Iwaizumi shouts. "My hand's already right there, don't!"
Matsukawa laughs, though strained. "I have to, I have to."
He brings his leg up into a lunge and places his foot on the nearest green circle, narrowly missing Iwaizumi’s fingers. When he looks up though, he’s a mere few inches from Takahiro’s face.
“Hi,” Takahiro says haggardly, out of pure nerves if anything. “Come here often?” He tries to the best of his ability not to glance down at Matsukawa’s mouth, parted open to release labored breaths. It doesn’t work. He chuckles; a jittery, reflexive act.
“Hey,” Matsukawa responds in an exhale, looking at him right in the eyes.
Too much. They need to move.
"Oikawa, next color!" Takahiro yells, biceps burning. He looks down so he doesn’t have to drown in those eyes anymore. It should feel like coming up for air, but he’s instead suspended from the stratosphere, ready to fall any minute. "Shit!" he shouts suddenly. "Iwa, you just stepped on my hand! It's not even your turn!"
"My leg fucking hurts!" is the aggravated reply.
He tries to remember who suggested this game in the first place. Takahiro groans, yelling again, louder. "Christ, Oikawa, give the next color!"
"I can't hold myself up, oh my god," Matsukawa says. He makes a sound that—no. They need to end this game now.
Iwaizumi shoulders Takahiro in the hip. It’s hard to say whether it’s accidental or on purpose. "Dude, move your ass!"
"NEXT COLOR!" Takahiro demands, hopeless now.
"Shut up, Makki, you're so loud," Oikawa complains, laughter having died down, marginally.
Without warning, someone falls and knocks the whole trio down like a Jenga tower. They’re nothing but a mess of limbs now, and Takahiro is aching in so many places that are sure to bruise. There’s a torrent of curses—Iwaizumi, no doubt—as they recollect themselves, and Takahiro lies there with a warmth beside him. He knows it’s Matsukawa. He doesn’t want to move.
But he does. He sits up and crawls over to the sofa where his bottle of water rests, consuming the frigid water as if it’ll cool down his internal flame.
Matsukawa sits with his back against the wall, fanning himself with the collar of his shirt. His cheeks are rosy and radiant. He is ridiculously beautiful. “Is it hot in here, or is it just me?”
“It’s just you,” Takahiro says instantly, then he winces. He wasn’t supposed to say that out loud.
Matsukawa looks over at him, oddly startled. “What?”
“What?” Takahiro smiles and he hopes it isn’t trembling like he feels it is. He comes up with a diversion, this one hopefully able to pass him. "Did you just come from the North Pole? It's only 23 degrees."
An unreadable expression washes over Matsukawa’s face like watercolor, wrinkly like confusion, and it's gone quicker than it came. He rolls his eyes, then, but he's smiling too. “Yeah, whatever.”
They roll up the mat and Oikawa announces he’s going to make everyone iced lemon tea. Matsukawa comes and sits next to Takahiro on the couch. He looks left. Takahiro looks right. He realizes they know each other too well. He feels a little bit like melting.
Here is the truth: Takahiro really loves his best friend. He doesn’t know when this love changed from love to love-love, if there is even a difference between the two, but he knows that he loves him. And he doesn’t want to let go.
Here is the truth: Takahiro doesn’t mind if Matsukawa finds out, not really. He needs to unshackle the confession. He needs him to know. So he will move with the flow of things—that’s all he can really do.
It’s evening now, and the sun is close to setting. Their captain and vice-captain snuck off to the kitchen to make some late-night ramen, leaving Takahiro and Matsukawa to lie around in the living room until they return.
“We shouldn’t have played that Twister game,” Matsukawa says, resting his head back against a throw pillow, hair mussed and eyes wilting. He yawns, rubbing his forehead with the back of his hand. “I am so exhausted.”
Takahiro likes a lot of things, but there are few things that he loves. He likes sleeping in until his covers are spilling onto the floor. He likes sliding his hands into his shorts as he walks. He likes stuffing his face with cream puffs whenever he has the chance. He likes thinking about nothing but the present. He likes the movement of things, how one moment he can be bending over backwards for a little game of volleyball, or Twister, or mindless flirting, and the next he can simply be sitting and talking with his best friend.
He loves that sound Matsukawa Issei makes when he yawns, caught between a grunt and a sigh. It sounds a bit like relief. It sounds like blooming. It’s flowery and open and blue.
So, like any heartsick boy would do, he looks at his best friend of three years—the one who lets him wear his uniform, the one whose name means river of pine trees, the one who is looking very lovely in the lamplight—and solemnly asks, “Can I kiss you?”
You’re staring at your best friend’s lips and notice how they never stop moving. His name is moving in your mouth, transforming into one you can now use. The same way ‘like’ can transform into ‘love.’ His given name, given to you, given from him. It is a gift to be gifted something so meaningful that it’s meaningless. It is a gift how nothing ever stops moving, how everything never stops moving, how everything moves into nothing, how nothing moves into everything. How he is here, moving. How he is everything to you, and always has been.
Look up. The clouds never stop moving.
Takahiro’s been trying the name on his tongue. Issei. Issei. It means ‘quiet one.’ Pretty is what it is, really.
“How long have you liked me?” Takahiro inquires, settling his hand upwards on Issei’s open one. It’s like a starfish’s ray; soft yet coarse, leathery, secure. He wouldn’t mind staying like this forever, however long that may be. “Genuinely asking. I’m curious.”
There’s a moment of quiet as Issei thinks over his answer. Takahiro’s chest warms. I know you go quiet when you’re thinking. Who else knows that about you? The living room window is ajar, the flittering sound of summer cicadas pervading the air around them. Their confessions of love have already passed, but this feels different somehow.
“Since second year. Ever since you told Oikawa that his hair wasn’t all that.” Issei chuckles, and Takahiro smiles. “But I’ve loved you for longer, I think.” His fingers are now dancing along the rivers of Takahiro’s palm, his gaze faraway. “I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember. I think that’s different somehow.”
“I don’t know what I’m saying, and it’s a beautiful feeling, not knowing what one is saying. It’s a beautiful sense and feeling: the actualization of something—right there in the all there, not there in the right there. How does it happen, how to track it, put it down, the way one comes to be in the world?”
“Hey, Issei. Let me kiss you again.”
They’re back on Takahiro’s balcony. Summer break comes to an end in two days, but it feels like life has just begun to start.
Issei laughs softly, looking over at Takahiro beside him. Because he’s stubborn, he asks, “Why?”
Takahiro leans into his space. He smells vaguely like earth and honey. “Because it could be the last time you ever do. The world could end in five seconds and you don’t even know it. I think that’s a good reason, don’t you?”
He still doesn’t know what this is between them. An unspoken romance that doesn't quite feel like one. They’re neck-deep in high school and still call each other 'bro'; they sit with their legs entwined and arm wrestle at lunchtime; they’ve yet to call each other boyfriend and are still navigating this thing called life. He’s only had a crush on Issei since the end of second year. But he thinks that maybe, just maybe, he's always loved Issei. One way or another. That, if anything, has never changed.
"That's a stupid reason, but okay," Issei says, though his smile gives his affection away. It always does.
Something lovely and honest wraps itself around them, like a petal of morning glory, a morning sunray, something languid, something flourishing, this frivolous teenage love. It’s a little funny how they’ve been here before.
So Takahiro laughs under his breath, looking into Issei's umber eyes. Drowning all over again. Maybe they’ll grow out of each other, or maybe they'll move through these ceaseless waters together. They've done this all before. "Okay," he repeats, then grabs his neck and kisses him. Again, again, again. Sweet and slow.
You were fifteen not even yesterday. Perhaps that is the movement of things. Perhaps tomorrow you will be something new.