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Kiyotaka thought he might die.
“The California rolls here are to die for! Especially with the eel sauce… ohhh the eel sauce...”
He hears his daughter lick her lips from across the crackling line. His hands are closed around the earpiece of his Nokia phone, palm sweat rubbing off on it and muffling what she says next. He speaks anyway.
“But you’re back in your dorm now, correct?”, he presses the phone further towards his ear, “Kiko?”
The longer she doesn’t answer, the faster Ishimaru’s foot taps against waxy tiles. He hears the sound of keys jingling in a doorknob, and the muffled shift from a phone being held by a hand to a shallow pants pocket. Ishimaru thinks he’s going to have a heart attack and leave his poor daughter hanging on the phone line if the silence continues.
“Kiko!”
“Huh?”, more shuffling, “Oh! Yea Yea I’m home now. Sorry. Just had a little too much to drink, I guess.”
Ishimaru’s eyes almost pop straight out of his head. His voice cracks as his hands fly into the air, “You’ve been DRINKING?”
Kiko starts to apologize, but Ishimaru can’t hear her. His nails turn buttons yellow as he, unbeknownst to himself, digs into them with a surge of righteousness he hasn’t felt since his high school years.
“Drinking is not safe! Especially at your ripe age, Kiko! You just moved in 3 weeks ago. You should be focusing on your studies, not “living it up” with an American sorority!”
Though he can’t see it, he senses eyes rolling with great tiredness. “I know, I know…” Silence once again reigns over their phone call. He hears her breathing come out as crinkling static on his end. When she speaks up, Ishimaru can tell Kiko already has a finger hovering over the end call button with great annoyance.
“I'm an adult now, Dad. I can handle myself. I’ll call you tomorrow morning about our zoom call Saturday. Bye.”
Click!
Kiyotaka lets out a heavy sigh, letting his fingers find his way to his hair, tangling the gray strands into the few black he has left. This stress can’t be good for him, but what else could he do? His one and only flesh and blood was hundreds of miles away, getting drunk with university juniors that he swears have nothing but ill intention for him and his family. It seems the name Ishimaru brings trouble no matter where his family goes. He sets the phone down and uses his now free hand to massage the muscles that tensed up from his latest conversation with his daughter.
“She’s got a point, you know”
Ishimaru turns around to see a man with gray hair, quite similar to his, hustle towards him with two cups of coffee. He sets one in front of his husband, and one in front of himself.
“She was always the kinda kid that you could rely on.”, the man smiles, digging his left arm into Ishimaru’s side with soft affection. “She gets ‘hat from you, yanno..”
Ishimaru smiles, cupping the mug before him with weakened hands. He blows on the steam, watching smoke clouds dance to avoid touching each other as they swirl upwards. "Yes, I’m aware… but–”
His husband shakes his head, “Shush Shush. No butts. She’s on her own, and she’s gonna be just fine, 'cause we did one hell of a good job raising her. No talking to strangers and all that yadda yadda crap. She knows her way around, Ishi. She’s nothin’ like a baby no more”
Ishimaru frowns. “Mondo…”
Oowada extends an arm around his partner, gingerly resting his hand in the crease of Ishimaru’s exposed shoulder bone. “Plus, now that we’re technically living alone together again, I was thinkin’…”
Taka groans, squeezing his eyes shut as if to shut out whatever Mondo was going to say next completely. “I hate when you do that”
Mondo’s eyes hide themselves as he leans to rest his cheek onto Ishimaru’s shoulder, eyelashes dragging across the strength of Taka’s bare neck. He giggles, using his hands to push back against the 168 pound weight that is his husband, but Mondo remains put, as strong as rock against Taka’s fire.
“I’m thinkin’ maybe we could like… do something fun. Something to take your mind off the stress n stuff. Like we used to do, before we had Kiko.”
Taka’s arms move to hold Oowada’s waist, open palms holding fabric pinned to rough skin. He nods. “Such as...?”
“I dunno…”, Mondo rubs the back of his neck, suddenly sheepish. “We could go on a motorcycle ride. Just you and me?”
Taka’s jaw drops. “You think your old motorcycle still works? You haven’t used it in like…”, his eyes turn downward, a habit he picked up in old age, “fifteen years!”
Mondo let out a laugh so big Ishimaru was surprised to hear it, even though he had definitely heard it a few times before. How could something so herculean come out of something as small as a human being? He didn’t understand it, even after all these years of being married to him. There were a lot of things he still didn’t understand about his husband. The way he seemed to control the weather with his smile, the way his heart could feel so potent in his chest when he hugged him, how firmly he justified believing that everything would be alright, as long as he had Mondo Oowada at his side. Kiyotaka Ishimaru was still engrossed with the sensation of caring and being cared for by him, even after 42 years of knowing each other.
It’s those 42 years of built-up trust that gets him to believe in Mondo’s every word when he says he took a look at the bike and fixed it up, and it’s that care that gets him on the motorcycle, stiff as a brick wall, hands digging into each of Mondo’s sides with ever so increasing depth, one cold, December night later.
“And you sure we’re alright on gas?”
“Yes, sugar.”
“And coolant? It’s considered proper to always check the coolant before you leave!”
“Already did, sugar.”
“And–”
“Shut up you old geezer, you act like this is the first you’ve since of the road since 43 BC”
Ishimaru’s eyebrows pinched together with such ferocity that Oowada feared they just might pop off. He flippantly smacks his husband back, anger still coating the inner lining of his words, but his face morphed into something more relaxed, more fond. “Just drive before I change my mind!”
“Already on it, baby”, he cackled, its sound similar to the revving of a motorcycle engine. He reached over himself to hand a helmet over to Ishimaru and began to drive once he got the approval of two straps clicking together.
Groups of purples and blues slid into one another like oil paint on a wet canvas across the skyline. To Ishimaru, it was as if Claude Monet had died just to paint the heavens that curled together in a loose congregation above them.
With an open view like this one, anyone else would have thought this would be the highlight of his night. But as Taka looked over to his partner, cheeks pink from being nipped at by cold air and harsh winds, he would tell you that the highlight of his night resided in the glint that came off of Mondo’s wild grin. The sky was beautiful, but not as beautiful as the golden ring that sat on his left hand, reminding him that he’s married to the best man he’s ever known.
Shortly after, Mondo pulls into a parking spot by the beach. Sand crunches beneath the tires, and soon, their feet as they both hop off and head out to get a better view of the water. Ishimaru watches as his husband tumbles into the ground, knobby knees sinking into the earth as he begins to ride off his motorcycle high. He soon follows, sitting cross legged across from Oowada. His eyes drift to the sea as Mondo speaks.
“Ugh, I almost forgot how amazin’ that shit felt. Beats having to use that minivan, right Princey?”
Ishimaru begins to shrug off his jacket, using his thumbs to work sand out of the cloth that dragged on the ground. “Whatever you say, dear”
Though he couldn’t know for sure, Ishimaru knew well enough that there was a blush starting to creep onto the tip of Mondo’s ears. He heard him shift in the sand, arms mashing into a grainy surface. Ishimaru was sure imprints were already being left in the softness of Mondo’s palms.
“Yea, Whatever!”, he squawked. He turned his body away, attempting to keep his face hidden, “Whatever..”
He loved to make his husband blush, and he loved even more that he knew exactly how to do it.
They sat in comfortable silence for a beat or two. The waves rose up to meet the tip of Ishi’s toes, and then recoiled back into itself, as if repulsed by anything land. The both of them watched the gentle rise, and eventual descent, of the waves, finding amenity in the seemingly never-ending loop.
Rise, fall, rise, fall, rise, fall.
Kiyotaka began to cry.
Mondo jolted in his spot, hands staggering towards his lover, but stopping abruptly every few inches or so, movements unsure, uneasy. It’s moments like this where Mondo wishes he could fling himself off the empire state building or be smashed into Ruby Tuesday potato salad for never being well-versed enough to comfort Taka in these vulnerable moments. All Mondo had to offer was calloused hands to hold and heavy breath to feel against watery cheeks. Mondo wished he could do more, but Ishimaru would tell you there was no need. The hands and breathing were enough.
Taka’s body became weightless, his bones aching as he drifted into meeting Mondo’s wife beater, having no energy or will to keep himself sitting up right. Mondo pried open Taka’s hand, which was no challenge considering how spent he seemed, and let his inter palm meet his lover’s.
They sat in the sand, holding each other for 10, 20 minutes. They weren’t sure how long they were there for, but the sun had since set when they finally pulled away from each other, arms still intertwined with one another like wreaths.
“This adjustment… with Kiko…”, Mondo wiped a tear building up in the corner of his eye, “I don’t know if I can handle it.”
Mondo nodded with solemn, downturned eyes. ‘I get what yer sayin’. To be totally honest with you…”, he starts to wear down the insides of his cheek with crowned teeth, “I’ve been worrying like hell, too…”
Ishimaru looks up, tears ghosting over pale skin, eyes stinging with newfound dryness. “Pardon?”
Mondo can feel the strain of grinding teeth make its way to the very root of the bone. He looks away, finding counting sand a better alternative than looking Ishimaru in the eyes. “I’ve never been to America, and to think Kiko is over there all alone, doing who fuckin’ knows what–”
Another sob.
He looks back, hurrying to pull his husband into the warmth that sits in the beating hearth of his chest, hoping to stop the fresh stream of Taka’s tears.
“M’ Sorry… I didn’t mean to freak you out like that…”, Mondo says in an attempt at a whisper. He brings an arm up to his lover’s head, tousling hair shaped from years of dry scalp in his hand. “I’m just tryin’ to say, ‘m worried too, that’s all.” He can feel his eyes prick with tears similar to Taka’s, “That’s all...”
Taka offers one last sniffle before raising his head up for good, seeking out a shared look in his husband. Once he finds it, he offers no words, just the sluggish upturn of lips cracked with the passing of his golden years.
They sit in silence, searching for a feeling similar to their own in the dip of each other's brows, in the song of breath spreading out upon meeting matured skin, in each other. They both find it, and that’s when one speaks again.
“I love you.”
“Hm?”
“I love you!”
Mondo giggles. It’s short, and almost girlish. Taka wants to hear it again. His lips climb to a nook on his neck, created by sunken bone. He places a kiss there, then on his neck, and then to his face. He’s rewarded with laughter for each one, and for a moment, Taka thinks his heart might be made of rubber. Each sound like water that fills in his rubber heart until he thinks it might burst in his chest. Though, he can’t really say he would mind all that much. To die right here and right now would make him the happiest man on earth.
Mondo lightly pushes Taka off of him, staring at the dark sky. “It’s gettin’ late, loverboy. Whatcha say we get back on my motorcycle and grab some fries on the way back?”
He beams despite his eyes drooping with sleep, “Fries?”
Oowada returns the stare, dead set on grabbing their favorite midnight snack, “Fries.”
Ishimaru gets up from the sand, now cold from the ocean draft, and dusts himself off. Mondo does the same, grabbing his hand once he’s sure Taka has checked for every little speck of dust, once, twice, three times. They walk hand in hand back to the parking lot, only letting go when the sound of a growling stomach and a hungry Mondo Oowada insists on taking hold of the motorcycle’s handles and driving away.
It’s around one twenty-five when the both of them get back home. Mondo’s scrolling through his phone with his right hand and carrying an empty fry's packet that he’s been too lazy to throw away in his left. Taka sits beside him, letting a finger follow the words of a book he’s halfway through when he hears his phone buzz on the dresser. He sets the book down, not noticing the way Mondo inches closer to get a better look at his screen. He inputs his passcode, eyes widening upon recognition of who texted him.
Six Messages from Kiko -
Kiko: Sorry about earlier
Kiko: I promise I only drank a little. I did it w/ a friend of mine from the honors program.
Kiko: You’d totally love her btw. She’s super into that healthy lifestyle crunchy bs that you do
Kiko: I love you. Sorry for not saying that earlier
Kiko: & Tell papa I <3 him too
Kiko: :)
“See?”, Mondo grins beside him, “Nothin’ to worry about. Just like I told you!”
Taka snorts, “Uh Huh. Whatever you say, dear.”
A light smack sounds from his arm. “Stop callin’ me that!", His husband grumbles, “‘s embarrassing…”
Taka laughs. One of glee, one that he had long thought was past him since Kiko’s move. He felt lighter, warmer, and most of all, happier. It was as if his lover was the sun, and he could dance with him in the form of whisking clouds for eternity.
He laughed so hard, he loved so hard, that Kiyotaka thought he might die.