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The night has hardly started yet, but Tsukasa is already getting kind of sleepy. He could excuse one yawn, but two was the threshold. He's got to stop it with that, else call it a night early and go home.
Their most recent show had been a smash hit. The Wonderlands×Showtime group had gone out to a cutesy cafe a slight ways away from their town, on Emu's recommendation, to celebrate the success.
It was a fun excursion, and the food was really good! It really hit the spot, they had some of Tsukasa's favorite dishes and he'd had trouble deciding, but the one he chose was so good that he's probably going to ask to come back some other time.
But, the night isn't over, and he knows it's not. It's not even all that dark or late, but he gets tired really early on in the day -- and a great meal isn't really helping. He knows that everyone had expected to go out and do more things than just sitting and eating, and he doesn't want to drag that down or interrupt them. He also doesn't want to bother the others by being obviously sleepy through the whole thing.
He's not entirely sure how to bring it up, but manages it into a conversation somehow.
“It is rather dark out, isn't it!” he looks towards the window. It's not pitch black, but the street lights will be turning on soon, he's sure. “Actually,” Tsukasa looks back at the group. “Would you all mind if I were to call it early? I- we don't have to all go home! Just me.”
Emu tilts her head and frowns. “Aw, you'll leave already?”
“Well,” he puts his hand on his chest, aiming for a silly pose that'll put a smile on her face again. “a rising star like me needs his recommended hours of sleep, doesn't he!”
Nene takes a glance at her phone, across the table from Tsukasa. “Mn, it's not very late.”
“Yes, well, it's getting dark, I don't like to walk when it's dark out.”
Nene shrugs, making a face that says 'fair enough.'
Rui turns to him, resting his chin on his knuckles. “Ah, and a rising star shouldn't need to walk home alone, should he? Why don't I accompany you?”
“Ehhh? Both of you!”
“We'll catch up on a different day!” Tsukasa jumps in, hardly letting Emu finish her sentence. “Our schedules just barely matched up today, maybe there'll be a better time when it's not so dark.” He does feel bad about it, honestly, but it's not like it isn't sort of true. It had been an awkward scheduling -- Nene and Rui both already had something planned for the day Tsukasa suggested, and Emu's want to go to this new cute cafe rather than someplace local made it a bit difficult. Too close and awkward a place for a train, a bit too far for comfort to walk.
Well, Tsukasa was going to walk home anyway, but he's fine with doing that. Especially with someone by his side to ease his anxieties.
They have a ride home like they had a ride here, but it's in a few hours and at a different location, and Tsukasa thinks he'll fall asleep standing up if he has to wait for it. It should be a comfortable temperature outside, anyhow.
“Mm,” Rui hums in agreement, “I don't have anything planned for next week, perhaps sometime then?”
Nene nods. “I don't think I have anything either. I'll have to make sure all my work is done though.” she clicks her tongue in annoyance, then visibly decides she's going to not think about schoolwork right now.
Tsukasa surveys the others' faces, smiling about the fact that he doesn't seem to have caused too much disturbance. This was a celebratory dinner, and they get to spend a day somewhere else doing something else fun! They could also end that with dinner… maybe at this same place, Tsukasa really wants to try that seafood curry. It looked so good on the menu, it really was a hard choice.
Tsukasa pays for his food. He pays for everyone's drinks as well, as repayment for leaving early. He puts his coat on and walks with everyone to the door, and waves to the girls as they head off on their own way, a separate direction from where he and Rui will be heading.
Tsukasa exhales, maybe a little louder than he meant to, when they turn the corner and are out of sight. He sees Rui tilt his head towards him from the corner of his eye.
“I still feel a little bad.” right on cue, a yawn scrunches up his face before he covers his open mouth.
Rui makes a humming noise as he shakes his head. “I'm sure they'll understand your reason.” he puts his hands in his pockets. “I was going to think of a way to get home early, myself.”
Tsukasa raises a brow at him. “Well, I know it's not because you're tired.”
“Hey, you don't know that. Maybe I am.”
They both make eye contact for a moment. Tsukasa's deadpan breaks first, the corner of his mouth twitches, then he starts to laugh, and it makes Rui laugh, and they both break into that ridiculous giggle-laugh they'd like to pretend they don't have.
Tsukasa didn't do much laughing like this before he met Rui. It makes the air feel a little less cold than before.
The two start walking, and Tsukasa quickly has to skip a step to catch up with Rui's long strides. “So, why did you want to leave..?”
“I would like to start this answer by saying I love our troupe very dearly and I would not trade them for the world. However, after a long day, my battery has all but run empty.” he sighs a little. “Even if not to sleep, I would like to lay down and relax a while, listen to some music..” he trails off, muttering something about coding.
Tsukasa nods, making a little hum of understanding. It's silence for a little while longer, both boys finding it easy to settle into a comfortable quiet.
--
Rui doesn't know the exact way back home. It would be less of a long walk if he knew. They wouldn't have to walk to somewhere familiar, then use that familiarity to make their way to their respective homes.
But, even though it may be dark out, the chill of the air isn't stifling. It's rather comfortable, actually. More than bearable for the walk home.
It's also comforting to not need to come up with anything to talk about. With Tsukasa, he could talk for hours on end, or he could not say a word, and Tsukasa would listen and understand. There was nary a moment when Rui felt compelled to start speaking, or to stop speaking, he always felt at ease around him.
Well, aside from one thing.
“Rui, look!”
Rui's thoughts are interrupted by a rather audible gasp, and a shake to his arm. Rui shakes his head briefly, blinking to get himself out of the melancholy, trying to figure out what Tsukasa is having him look at.
“What? The playpark?”
“The playpark, Rui!” his eyes light up with such child-like joy that Rui can't help but break a smile. Tsukasa takes Rui's wrist, leading him towards a break in the plastic outlining of the sand. You can easily just step over them, but Rui supposes, as a child, you'd want to go through the entrance…?
“I haven't been on a swing set since I was a kid..” he says, with a little smile. There are two swings right close to the entrance, practically begging the two of them to go and sit a while, take a break. “C'mon, this is the perfect opportunity! We have to, it's been so long.”
Rui chuckles, absolutely charmed. “What about your beauty sleep?”
Tsukasa scoffs, smiling. “There's always time for swings, even when it's late. It'll only be for a little while, still!” He turns to Rui and points at him -- it looks like he's mimicking a character from a show, shaking his hand almost like he's trying to threaten him, just that Tsukasa is the least threatening thing in the world. “I know you want to! Swings are so fun.”
Rui nods, he caves, due only in small part to the way that Tsukasa takes his hand and leads him into the park, following the path.
Tsukasa turns and falls back to sit on the swing closer to the edge - and, also, closer to the ground. Rui is a bit thankful he got the taller swing, because he doesn't think he'd be able to get his legs underneath it properly.
The chains clack against each other as Tsukasa drops his weight onto them, and even though Rui wasn't really a swing set enthusiast as a kid, the sound brings him a little nostalgia. He was often around play parks, so he heard that sound a lot.
… Sometimes, but not often, it was him on the swings, sitting alone, not really trying to have fun.
Rui wished that wasn't his only childhood memory that took place on the swings, but it is. He takes his seat next to Tsukasa, watching his features as he swings forward and backward, seeing just how happy he looks. It makes him smile again. Tsukasa obviously has some great memories from them.
“And no one's here to judge us for being 17 and on kid's swings.” Tsukasa says, proudly. His shoes thump against the ground as he gives himself a sort of running-push into the air. The swing squeaks a little at the hinge, both of them wince at it, but it's a sound that quickly fades into the background.
“This place is rather deserted, isn't it?” Rui looks around. “Of course, no children are playing at this time of night, but it doesn't look very played in.”
“Hm, you have a point.” Tsukasa looks around, though he can only see so far while on the backswing. “The sand doesn't look very disturbed, near the slide exits..”
Rui chuckles. “Sherlock Holmes two, over here.”
“Of course!” Tsukasa does a little pose, tips the front bill of his imaginary deerstalker.
They both start laughing again. This time, Tsukasa trails off into giggling. He's really having fun here, smiling ear to ear.
“Sherlock Holmes II and the case of the,,” he furrows his brows, “missing,, uh… no-! The case of the mysteriously deserted.. playpark.”
“Magnificent! I'd read that.”
Tsukasa snickers. He hands onto the chains, leaning back on them to go a little faster on his forward swing. When did he get so high up? Rui pushes off as well, feeling the need to meet him up there. He can put a little more effort in than just sitting there.
… he does not have the ideal technique for this. Tsukasa got up there in, like, ten seconds, but Rui finds himself having to work for it.
Tsukasa watches him, changing his position again, to something that you can only really achieve on the swings, but it looks like you still definitely shouldn't. He puts his feet down to the ground and scrapes against the sand, heels kicking up a healthy amount of it behind him, on the back swing, to match their height better.
He reaches his hand out.
Rui smiles and gives him a little laugh, confused, testing to see if this was a joke he was supposed to laugh at. Tsukasa swings past him a few times, but he gets the message that he's supposed to be grabbing his hand.
“I don't think that's going to work.”
“C'mon, I've wanted to do this for forever!”
On his next forward swing, Rui grabs his hand, and he yelps as he's immediately dragged forward by momentum and is almost pulled right out of his seat. He should have really done this with his arm behind the chain. He stabilizes himself, though, and he just has to grin as he hears Tsukasa burst out into laughter. He has to let go of his hand, he laughs so hard.
It's laughter that is so contagious, Rui just has to laugh along with him. He resituates himself, so he does not fall, and finds himself settling into a grin. He feels all warm and nice, thankful, mostly. He feels like the two of them could be kids again, even though they'd never met.
He could contribute this feeling to nostalgia, but he really wasn't very big on swingsets as a kid, so he just can't be content with it. It's not really like nostalgia anyway, though it's not like Rui has too much to be nostalgic about.
It's something else.
It's not like Rui can't identify that he's felt this same feeling multiple times. Where he's done the same thing he's doing now, slowed down and watched Tsukasa in slow motion, always in his element and having fun. That stupid, beautiful grin on his face, having the time of his life.
The real grin, the one where his eyes squint and his gums show -- that's the one that makes Rui's heart squeeze like this.
He knows what this means, he's not stupid.
Well, maybe he is. He did need to have this spelled out to him in lots of sort of condescending detail from Nene, then Mizuki after that, because he needed a second opinion. Mizuki even laughed and made a comment about how they sometimes have to help him in identifying certain emotions, but never one this obvious.
He's not really hurt, of course. He was laughing! Just felt a little silly, maybe. It makes so much sense, of course it does! What else could it have been?
Rui has trouble identifying what he's feeling when they're confusing feelings, but this isn't even close to confusing. Not the realization, at the very least.
What… love, is it?
He mentally stutters thinking about it, gives pause even when he is not thinking aloud. There's something about the term that's too foreign to him in this context, too unnatural in his mouth, in his thoughts, to be easy to think about.
Rui only remembers the existence of that squeaking noise when it finally stutters to a stop. He looks over, snapped out of his train of thought, at Tsukasa, who's excitement seemed to have finally died down and succumbed to his tiredness again. He yawns, shuts his eyes tight and covers his mouth, then rubs his eyes. Rui thinks he might have mumbled something about how late it might be, but he didn't catch the whole of his exact words.
He watches as Tsukasa looks around, just surveying the park and the area around it. He looks up at the pole the swing chains are connected to, the slides and climbing fixtures a few paces away from them, the street lamp affixed to a pole right beside them on the outside sidewalk.
He lingers on that for a while, and Rui follows his gaze to see what he's looking at. There aren't any moths, but Tsukasa wouldn't be wanting to look at those for an extended period of time anyway. Maybe, he's just sleepy, and that's where his eyes decided to rest. Rui looks back down.
By the looks of it, he is just tired. He leans his head slightly on the chain, holding onto it with both hands. He doesn't get to doze for long, though, as the street light suddenly flicks on. The rest of the lights down the street quickly follow suit, and Tsukasa yells, and in his comical panic to cover his eyes with his hands, nearly knocks himself off the swing and onto the sand.
Rui just has to laugh at him, and Tsukasa shoots him a look, also smiling.
“Those are really bright.” he says, softly.
There's something about the little smile on his face and his beautiful, droopy eyes. His slightly hunched frame, outlined by a warm light contrasting the darkness surrounding them; brilliant backlighting from their personal spotlight provided by the lamp. He, literally, looks like a star, all glowing and bright and charming, twisting and swaying on his swing just slightly, if not a little drowsy.
Something that makes Rui say something he normally would never have said.
“Hey, Tsukasa, can I tell you about something..?”
As it comes out of his mouth and Tsukasa's expression shifts to suit the tone of his proposal, he realizes this might have been a big mistake.
Well, ‘might’ is an understatement, because he has absolutely no idea what to do. He had told Mizuki he would confess under the conditions that he could memorize his lines, and that everything went smoothly, and that included a way out if things went sour. He's got none of that right now, but the heat of the moment had him bringing it up. He doesn't think he can save this.
Apparently, he had taken too long to think about it, and Tsukasa looked away from him and stopped twisting, to give him a little privacy. Rui clears his throat awkwardly. “Sorry.” he quickly apologizes, then gets on to frantically thinking about how he could save this.
Or, conversely, how he could continue on.
It was a rather nondescript question he'd just asked, yes, but in his head, there was absolutely no denying what it meant. He could come up with an excuse, a diversion, a pivot, but he would need a pivot that would have also required this level of deliberation.
Maybe it would just be easier to say it.
Well, maybe not, but surely it would have some merit! Right?
Maybe he won't get a better chance.
Maybe this opportunity is all he's going to get.
What if it goes wrong, what if it goes wrong, but what if it goes right?
“S- so,” Rui forces himself to speak up, because if he keeps dwelling, he'll never speak. He looks down at his lap, twiddles his thumbs. “I wanted to tell you, that, uh.”
‘Be direct, he won't understand you otherwise. It'll just be build-up to make you more nervous.’ Said Nene.
“I, for a while, I,”
‘Take a little while to actually say it, pump yourself up! Be specific!’ Said Mizuki.
His voice just won't let him say it, and he hopes Tsukasa is still looking away from him, because boy would this be embarrassing if he was being watched struggling this hard.
He quickly glances. He's not. Tsukasa is looking right forward. Still giving him the modicum of privacy he needed to build up the courage.
“I've had… f-feelings, for you.”
Tsukasa puts his feet on the ground to still himself. Rui swallows past his dry throat.
“R- romantic ones.”
He doesn't dare look over in Tsukasa's direction, the monkey bars ahead of him acting as a rock to stare at. Those don't emote. He doesn't have to worry about those.
Rui returns to his default defense mechanism: rambling.
“I-- I really didn't know when I should tell you, for a couple of reasons, but I t. I told a few others beforehand, and- they said that my 'worst case scenario' could be even worse if I just waited and waited, so, I'm… spontaneously, yes, telling you now.” he shuts his eyes tightly.
Rui turns his head towards Tsukasa, prying his eyes open, hardly able to bear being perceived. “Hopefully this will not be to any detriment… of…” he trails off, realizing Tsukasa is looking at him. He straightens a bit, and swallows thickly.
Wearing an odd expression on his face, one that Rui can't quite place, Tsukasa stares at him, into his eyes. Then, the corner of his mouth quirk up, and his brows pull together, and he starts laughing.
He starts laughing.
Rui's heart switches places with his stomach. Hus expression drops. He might've even physically backed up a couple inches.
“Sorry!” Tsukasa wipes a tear of mirth from his eye. “I- I just, I never thought..!” he scratches idly at his lip, catches himself, and rubs at it instead. “Wahaah, oh my god, I've been stressing about this for so long, but I just had to wait for you to say it first?”
Rui furrows his brow, processing. Then, he smiles. He has to let out a little chuckle, too, it's all that he can do. His heart feels like it's beating a mile a minute, this revelation and all this emotion combined with that scare.
“So,, wait- does that mean..?” He needs a little confirmation.
Tsukasa nods. “...yeah.” He offers a little smile in return.
“Well, I'm. I'm glad.” Rui sighs, relieved, and is the first to break eye contact, looking up at the sky, at the stars. One star to another, he supposes.
There's another short pause. Rui doesn't know what to do with himself! Of course, this is the scenario he'd always wanted, this was what he was reaching for, but he doesn't know where to go from here. He just sits there silently smiling, mulling it over in his head, on this swing at this random deserted playpark. Thankfully, Tsukasa picks up his slack.
“So,” Rui looks back down at him. He sounds more awkward than before, visibly a little squirmy. The chains clatter against each other as he twists. “What, uh, what does this mean exactly?”
“What do you mean?”
“I dunno,” Tsukasa makes a wild gesticulation between the two of them. “Like-- is it, do you want it- like, boyfriends..? Or is that the term you want to use, or?”
“Do you want to be..?” It takes Rui a moment to formulate his response, and, in turn, gives Tsukasa absolutely no time to actually respond before he follows up. “Because. I would. Just, just so you know.”
It's Tsukasa's turn to look away and stare forward now, smiling warmly. He fidgets with his fingers.
“Yeah. I'd like that a lot.”