#wooooah

the band on sae's left ring finger glitters. polished gold, catching the golden hour, it blinds you. a ruby is set in the center of it, not very large, but beautifully cut if you get close enough to see it well. your own ring is older, a polished up antique that sae found at some seaside curio store while visiting his hometown.

(you remember him telling you about the journey to find your engagement ring.)

(he'd returned home. something he seldom did after he moved to europe and started playing professionally. you know he doesn't enjoy his hometown. memories cling there, a tinge in the wet air that sticks to the craggy rocks that line the seabanks.)

(and yet, when he decides to marry you, he disappears for two weeks, essentially uncontactable, and returns with an old ring and an even older diamond tucked into a velvet box, kept on his person from the moment that the obaasan packaged it for him with a twinkle in her eye and an earnest wish of good luck to the handsome, determined man who had dragged himself to her shop's doorstep.)

(there's something to be said about returning home. (home, home, home.) sae itoshi has many wounds to lick, you wouldn't call your relationship one of them, but you're certain that the closeness that love requires cracked something open in him that could only be settled on the asphalt of the parking lot of his childhood convenience store. or, on the grassy kiddie soccer field near his elementary school. it's not that sae itoshi died when he went to spain (well, he did, in a way, sort of), but rather that a part of himself, the part that loved, loved, loved, stayed by the sea to listen to the gulls, rather than following his body to the sound of turf and cleats and screaming cheers.)

(and he could not love you properly until he found that piece, still by the sea.)

being by the sea now, you suppose, must be nostalgic for him. it's not his sea, but still. sae booked a coastal cottage on a lush grecian island for your honeymoon. the sea here is a different blue. it’s topaz here, not sapphire, like his sea. you wonder if it makes him nostalgic still.

you don't ask him. perhaps you will later.

you rub your thumb along his arm as you walk the length of the beach. seabirds cry, swooping into the water farther out, just beyond the little cove that your cottage sits near. they divebomb the water, collect a fish, and shoot into the sky once more.

sae watches them, and you watch him. his gaze only shifts away from the birds when he feels your eyes on him. he raises an eyebrow, only the slightest bit cheeky, and presses a kiss to your temple.

"do you like the birds?" you ask.

"they're interesting to watch."

you would agree.

then again, you have a bias, because you're watching sae more than you're watching his seabirds. but still, it is interesting. he's more cleaved open, after running off, going home, finding this ring, and returning to your side, somewhat wounded but somehow healing, thrusting the twisting metal and old stone into your hand. sae would never plead, but he got close to it when he opened that velvet box on one knee for you, however many months ago.

you're not sure what he was pleading for. he already had you, has had you, for so, so long. you wonder if he knows that. you wonder when, or if, you'll tell him.

(well, he is your husband, so you probably should tell him that you've been more than enamored with him for a terribly long time. since that first wretched night, dragging him home from the bar, one arm around his waist while his face had been tucked into your neck on the subway. you remember patting his back and how he melted into you, like part of him was begging for permission to not be so wound. it just took alcohol and a near stranger's gentle touch to coax it, coax him, there.)

(you've spent many, many more nights than just that one attempting to coax that part of sae back into a puddle since.)

sae interrupts your thoughts. "you're pensive."

"only a little." the sun is sinking into the sea. down, down, down, into the horizon, swallowed up by the deep. "it's easy to be, out here."

"are you going to be like this the whole trip?" sae asks. "we'll be here for three weeks. that's a long time."

you frown at him, pout, really, because you know sae is teasing you. he confirms this when the corner of his mouth twitches up. you're half tempted to lob him into the water, just for the hell of it.

"i'll try to remain contemplative for only choice periods of time," you roll your eyes in an easy jest back. the sea drags your attention back to it, a wave lapping at your bare feet, swallowing up sae's to the ankle. the mother is never ignored, not really. "it's just easy to be, out here. don't you think?"

you know sae's answer before he speaks.

"yeah," he turns toward the sea, the seabirds, the sinking sun and the bleed of gold into the incoming indigo of a starry night. "i would agree."

he looks beautiful like this. it's criminal. all the ankles of his face, softer than harder in their construction, are haloed by gold. the sea and his irises are almost the same color. sister shades, not twins, both beautiful.

you can't help yourself; you're a glutton. you cup his cheek, easily, and sae's attention, all of it, white hot and unignorable like it always has been, is turned to you. you smile, so easily. sae must see you in the sun gold too, because his entire self softens (softens, softens, softens, let the thing grow that never was given a chance to) and he presses his lips to yours. there's reverie in it. there's something sticky and hurt that's all yours to devour too. sae has chosen to give it to you, bound up in the skin-warmed ring that's on your finger, resting on his cheekbone. it's easy to take. it's easy to push forward, leaning into him. he catches you around the waist. he holds you.

he kisses you back in the same way that the sea would. endlessly, pushing and pulling, deep and full until you're almost gasping for air. but unlike the sea, sae itoshi is a man, a man who loves, so he pulls away, mingles his own hurried breath with your own as the last bits of golden hour paint the tips of his eyelashes amber.

"you're beautiful," you tell him. it's so easy to see. sae used to hate it when you called him beautiful. now, you think, he covets the fact that you do.

his cheeks feel warm in your hands. he kisses you, pressing words against your lips like they're a prayer that needs to be drank, not solely heard.

"you're everything."

you've permeated his life, you think. he got upset with you once about it. he cornered you so skillfully that you explain how you simply infiltrated all parts of his life. sae wouldn't marry someone that didn't worm their way into every part of his mind. you know that now. the only way that sae itoshi knows how to experience is all or nothing. zero or one. disinterest or entire interest.

(you're everything.)

what a spot to occupy in his mind?