tobio on my mind.

It's not that you didn't want to stay, because god would it be nice to settle. To buy a house with a fence and a dog waiting for you when you get home. Maybe even a partner patient enough to rewrap wounds that you ripped open by yourself on a random saturday night. Who memorized your new drink orders because like everything else, you could not stay consistent with that either. And so badly- so badly you wanted that. But there was something else about wanting that felt akin to a fire. 

Some time when you were younger, you might have thought you were meant to be born in an elemental sense, since every emotion crawled up your throat and you were coughing up dirt from conversations months ago that still rotted in your head with regret and worry. Wanting was like twiddling your fingers over an open flame, dancing on the hiss of heat and daring to let it sting. You had heard the tell tale warnings, don't put your hands on the stove. Except the stove was wanting, a greedy feeling which had laid kindling in your belly and never an ounce of oxygen to light it. To put it simply- it was easier to refuse yourself the ability to want or yearn when it was easier to swallow it with the very air you breathe. 

When you were 15, you stopped going to school, your parents begged you to continue and threw you from therapist to psychiatrist to figure you out. Instead relying on online schooling where you sat in a dark room with a too bright laptop learning one thing only. Running got you exactly what you wanted. And it was a lesson too easily learned. You had finished high school and applied to college. Through the fights with your parents and longing looks in your siblings eyes you had learned to scorch out in the name of regret, you had booked a flight with an admission to a college hundreds of miles away. Somewhere only a plane could reasonably take you. The freedom felt like the cold wind off the brisk water, like jumping into a cold lake and letting it wrap its freezing hands around your neck and squeeze. The freedom felt visceral, and it was close to an addiction when you realized that no one had to know who you were. For once you now could decide that for yourself, you could write your own story and no one could stick their branch in and grow a poison in your heart that you would spend months loathing. So you spoke to no one, emailed professors and took classes you knew required no participation. 

Graduated early and when you walked out of the auditorium doors, you fell flat on your face. 

The thing about running is that you have forced all the doors shut behind you. The curtain is closed and there is no stage crew whispering in your ear piece telling you to slow down. No divine guidance to hold your hand and fulfill your prophecy for you. The cold truth about running is that there is no time to look behind you and hope, because nostalgia is something you learned long ago to be a foe, and the door jam keeping it all behind you is easier to swallow than accepting you could have endured it a little longer.

The door chimes. Your eyes gently lift to the noise, the sun blaring through the stained glass and paint a pretty story you think your mom told you once onto the floor. You can't remember it anymore, nor can you remember what she looked like when you were that young anymore. A customer walks through the door, they order the same coffee you had just made, your hands work like clockwork and you smile the same smile you had to the last customer. Your coworker hands you the ingredient you need, just like they had before. You hand them the coffee and you tell them to have a good day, you stumble over the last word. Different from the last customer. 

That's all. 

There is water in your shoes, and you have known for some time that this is the familiar feeling of being dragged under the water. Akin to drowning. Something like a snake in the hiss of danger. The type of snake that had the perfect camouflage to not raise any flags, yet, it wrapped itself around your calf and led you to water warm enough to feel safe. But this was not a sanctuary, and you were not going to drown. 

You ask your coworker to watch the counter with shaky hands and a wobble in your voice enough for their eyes to try to read your face and you force your feet to move and move until they reach the back door. Pressing against the metal is a stark contrast to the warmth, fresh air fills your lungs and the assault of daylight on your eyes is enough to bring you back, well, until all you feel is wet.

You feel liquid spill down your front, something sweet and almost syruppy as it continues to drown your front and runs down your legs. You open your eyes to see its wake, a pink ocean like stain blossoming over your white shirt and jeans, apron now drenched in some fruity substance. You blink a few times in shock, swallowing down the bile that threatened you just moments before and daring to look forward.

Kita Shinsuke was much like the ocean. He had eyes that promised kindness and a good time, but underneath it all you knew that there was something more sinister. Something that made your heart clench and fingers tremble. Now, he stands in front of you with his mouth agape and his previously full container now dripping over your front. 

You both stand there for a moment, the stale noise of dripping on the pavement loud enough to deafen nearby passergoers. You blink, you feel your chest rising and falling but your heart beats fast enough that you are sure you are getting no oxygen. His face is red, almost as red as your shirt but you're sure no natural pigment could surpass it. 

"Pomegranate" you say, smacking your lips together as you now taste the remnants that made their way up your neck and dwindling on your tongue. It was sweet, and you finally put two and two together to realize that it was the pomegranate syrup that was probably prepped out in said container.

Kita Shinsuke wasn't a distributor per-se, rather a farm hand on his grandmother's fruit tree lot that he then delivered products to the cafe you worked at. You had interacted minimally, snapping at him because you don't have to refrigerate the bananas you'd be using for spreading later, and he would roll his eyes at you and slam the door a little too hard behind him. Or he'd park his delivery truck too close to your bike at the end of your shift, ending in you leaning against his car door with angry eyes and a few harsh words fresh on your tongue.

It was easy to say you didnt like kita, didnt like his stupid loud work truck and the way he always showed up in your way when you needed things. You didn't like his dark brown eyes that reminded you of oak trees and you especially didn't like the way his shirts rode up when he set fruit crates on higher shelves. You didn't like the way you could see his sharp canines when he talked and you hated how he always honked at you while you biked home, and he was somehow always driving past you. The annoyance burned and loathed itself around your chest when you spoke to coworkers about him. You never said much to anyone, but god forbid anyone brought him up.

The words would come tumbling out, expressions of disgust and terrible coldness splitting into your fingertips as they counted the cash till at the end of the night. Your coworkers listened intently, because when else were they going to hear you speak, but then would give each other this knowing look which felt like you were buried 6 feet under, and they were talking above you. 

Something that you were invited to, something that again felt like salt residue left from the water just above your sock line, so you swallowed down the tang and finished with, "whatever, hes just fucking annoying. I don't care." slamming the till shut and riding your bike faster against the night wind with every burning thought of kita's honey brown eyes left burning into your mind. 

Now, drenched in pomegranate juice and staring at what you can assume is a remorseful look on Kita's face, you almost crack a smile. You bring a now no longer shaky hand up and swipe your hair behind your ear. "This is great, actually" you sigh out. Feeling the preemptive stick begin to settle in from the sugar. 

"Oh my god-" he starts, your eyes dance on his bewildered expression and it warms something in your chest. You laugh, your eyes crinkle and you giggle at it all. The absurdity of where you were three seconds ago and now. 

"I can go home now, this is perfect. Another Kita fuck up but this time- I am benefitting!" you exclaim, a smile similar to something of a villain daunting your face. He brings a hand up to his nose bridge and pinches it. 

"You could at least let me apologize before we get to the insults" he says, voice already slightly annoyed with the situation. One hand sits on his hip, his jeans dirty and distressed against his legs. They look good. He is so annoying.

Your smile does not falter, it does not falter when you watch pink fade into the white fabric of your shoes, a genuine smile. Because they are no longer drenched in ocean water, and the only thought on your mind now is going home, is going home and eventually getting into bed to forget the day. To spend your dreams running through fields that do not know pain or chronic longing for a life far from the one you have, where you actually used your college degree and kept in contact with your mom. One where you weren't afraid to cut your hair and one where you kept flowers alive because you wanted to. Not because you felt guilty. One where a smile just similar to the one you wear now feels normal, and not like an oddity in the simulation. 

"No, really" you sigh, your cheeks are pink and it's not from the juice. Kita looks back at you and you watch his eyes flicker to the way you smile as if he had never seen it before. It may be true that he hadn't. "Thank you" you say, and push past him into the back alleyway where your bike remains locked against the raggedy fence. You don't bother to tell your coworkers you're leaving, because you don't taste soil in your throat and the kindling has rested itself in ashes in your belly for the first time in weeks. 

Kita watches you climb onto your bike with clothing now stained a pink only produced by squeezed pomegranate seeds that he had spent hours pressing, mouth agape in shock as he blinks a few times. You're about to ride your bike past him, and as the air begins to swoosh past him something squeezes in his chest, much like a fruit press and he reaches out for something that feels like you, something he has no knowledge of but when he sees your smile and the way your shirt clings funny to you in the absence of being dry, he thinks he can't look away. 

"Wait" he says, grabbing onto the back of your bike seat. Effectively stopping you in your tracks as you were getting ready to press hard into the pedal.

There is no practiced smile you have for this. No character voice you created, no way you have trained your eyes to look up like you do at customers, so now, only feet away from kita, your breath dancing in the same space, you look at him truly.

Kita Shinsuke was much like the ocean. But this ocean did not dare pull you under, no, it relieved the earth's pressure of gravity and alleviated buoyancy that physics could not explain, and when his eyes meet yours, you think that it would be okay to drown, because he would not allow it to last forever.

"I promised I'd come to her party, I'd owe you big time! I promise, whatever you want!" your coworker pleaded, continuous mention of a party you were not invited to, which aches in a way not strong enough to let anything be said, huffing a sigh, "sure, i’ll stay late for you." your coworker jumps a little, hesitating but deciding to just squeeze the top of your shoulder in thanks.

The cafe gets quiet at nights, people slowly shifting between booth spots as they work quietly on their computers. Sitting at the front stool as the time passes, it becomes easy to think of what they're working on. Whether it be homework, or processing paper work or writing journal entries. Everyone's lives seemed to move, seemed to have direction and purpose and intentionality. You rub at your temples, eyes scanning the way the late afternoon sun skids across tiles on the wall and makes everything feel a lot warmer than it should be. Another week of working, of coming home to your apartment and picking at leftovers you didn't enjoy that much. Another week of keeping the water at bay, at feeling the lick of salt remain on your ankles.

It would be better if you ran, if you picked up the application and you applied to grad school and you left. Like you knew, like how you left when you were eighteen and suddenly the feeling left for a while. And then college finished and it lay awake at your calves at night when you realized you had made friends, friends who expected things of you and knew you. So you left again, booked a flight and reestablished in this little small town. Got a job, nothing to do with your college degree and it subsided. But slowly, when you lay awake at night in your twin bed, in your studio that had nothing specific to you, you felt the all too familiar taste of salt on your tongue and the coldness on your toes. It was coming back, and the itch to run burned in the back of your throat, while roots grew over your feet and made you feel stuck in it.

The small chime of the bell pulls you out of the spiral, a shorter woman with beautiful long hair. Her eyes were crescent with a smile, and she wore happiness like it wasn't a burden. Her shirt, adorning a college logo. A college you knew was far, far from here. You took her order, your heart beating faster and faster as the inspiration took root and planted itself in your field of dreams. You handed her her drink, pulling your phone out from under the desk. Typing the college into the search bar, and the application link, quickly filling in all the information you could. 

"Hardly working?" a familiarly agonizing voice pipes in from behind you. Rolling your eyes, you set your phone down onto the counter with a dulling thud. The stool spins towards him, an unamused face adorning your features. You raise an eyebrow, chiding back

"Remind me when you were paid to manage me?" he stares back at you, a look on his face you can't quite place. You step off the stool, languidly moving to the side and making yourself look busy with something. Anything at all, filling a sugar shaker that's already almost full. Tying off a garbage bag that definitely didn't need to be taken out yet. Hands eager to move, to do anything except sit idly with him behind you. 

He rests against the edge of the door frame, towel thrown over his shoulder with the typical look of a working man in those shows you hated growing up. The type where women settled for less and men only wanted more. His shirt was dirty with smudges of soil dirt and small stains of fruits across them. Blue jeans distressed from working, small tears here in there. Worn in, much like how he acted.

Kita Shinsuke grew up on his grandmother's farm. A farm hand, a grandson who worked under her gentle hand. He biked to school and played in their high school volleyball team, but he came home to the fields and spent hours in the peace. One could assume it would make you appreciate the quiet life, picking and tending to hundreds of vines and trees destined to make Kita set for life, but instead he craved the opposite. 

After high school he had finally put his foot down, and somehow managed to land a catering deal with local restaurants and cafe's, pressing juice and delivering fresh fruit as a vendor. Life became a little less quiet, a little less just him outside and the sound of wind blowing through trees, a little more learning the parts of yourself that came with interaction. He hung out with friends sometimes, when they came home from college and watched them play at the local bar after begging to turn on a different sports station. 

But it was lonely. It was lonely and kita always yearned for more. Yearned enough to start imagining himself with a degree, moving far away, making sure grandma was taken care of and trying again. Trying to rewrite the life he was so sure he wanted. He looked into a few programs here and there, and decided that if he were to ever pull the trigger it would be agricultural engineering. Somewhere he could make it easier for someone like his grandma, a special ode to his humble beginnings. 

And then there was you. You who started working at the cafe soon after he began vending. You who barely spoke and looked at him like he was the last thing you wanted to see. You who didn't treat him like someone who never got the hint to move on from their childhood life. You who treated him like you had treated everyone else. It was exhilarating, it was a game and a dance in pushing buttons. He liked to see the urgency in your eyes when he had finally pushed enough, and loved to see the small smirk when you had finally gotten him back.

You in the same three work tee-shirts and jeans an entire size too big. With zero indication of where you came from and where you were going. He hadn't even known your name through you, because you refused to wear your name tag. He had found out only when overstaying his welcome and the manager had pulled you aside to talk by name. Storing it away like a piece of ripped paper in old jeans. Settling softly over his consciousness, something that you had begun to take hold over with each weekly shipment he had made sure to drop when he knew you were working. Usually around closing time, when he could slip in the back door, when you were a little less irritated with the day and mostly tired. 

The way your hair framed your eyes, your hat sat a little too far back and your apron untied. Less of a guard, although you never gave him any breaks from your typical antics. Firing back at him with come backs made of fire on your tongue, unkind and scalding in their meaning. But something about the way your eyes never carried the same feelings told him differently. The way your hands would shake when you took orders or when you'd look at your phone, presumably reading a text and your eyes would wander off and stare for just enough time to be concerned. There was more to you, and although you irritated him with your pointless antics and seemingly one sided annoyance. 

That day, when he had poured the entire prepped container of pomegranate juice over you, something had fundamentally shifted. It had turned from a curiosity to something bordering on honeyed crushes. Something that when you were near his chest got warmer, his eyes crinkled with a smile and his palms would sweat. The way you'd feel in high school over a silly crush, advancing into something like aged barrel wine. Turning into a curiosity he had to know you. This proved to be ultimately difficult, you were guarded. You made sure to never mention any type of personal details, you had no public facing social media, no one at work had your personal cell phone number and to make matters worse, you drove a bike. So even if he wanted to somehow bump into you in your small town, there was little way for it to happen melodramatically. 

So he settled for the small interactions, much like this one. Late nights at the cafe where your tired eyes laid kindness to resigned exhaustion. Which he knew was beyond this job, a type of 'done' found in people twice your age, a smile that didn't meet your eyes and a laugh that sounded to be of necessity rather than enjoyment. It crinkled something in his chest, the desire to know you. To sit in comfortable silence and let you coexist.

He took what he could get, though. "Thought about applying for that manager opening," he teases. Smirk pulling his lip up to expose a canine that doesn't sit quite right in his row of teeth. You notice it, part of it tugging at a part you tell yourself is annoyance. You glance up at him with skeptical eyes, dancing over his face and praying to read the lie. Which he assumes comes off pretty easy in the way you roll your eyes, spinning and planting your hands on the edge of the counter, facing him fully. More than he'd usually get from you. His heart skips a little. "Dont you dare," you say, wiping your hands on the edge of the curtain. "Might just have to quit," you add. Raising an eyebrow and crossing your arms over your front. "Well at least you wouldn't get in my way at the back door" Kita huffs, feigning fake annoyance. You shake your head, hair falling softly over your features and covering your eyes, in the same way you do when a customer gets you a little worked up or you mess something up. Something soft and pink dancing across your cheeks. Staring down, you shuffle one foot over the other, you tilt your head. 

"Im not the one who had to make up for the missing item, delivery boy" you chide, pushing off the counter to flick at the rim of his hat. Brushing past him to move to the small kitchenette behind the counter, pressing steam over the espresso mold and not daring him another glace. Instead, you move quickly to steal the towel off his shoulder and use it to press water stains from the metal device, a look of satisfied achievement flashing across your features. 

He simply makes a small effort to reach for it, but retreats to watch you instead. "Delivery boy who covered your ass when she asked what happened to it, by the way." Your eyes flit up to him, almost in panic, "I never asked you to do that" and your shoulders drop, back to the reserved part of you that he tries to melt off. To try to get you to let him in, "i know you didnt- i was kidding." he tries, walking after you when you set the machine back and throw the towel back onto the counter. Not even at him. You huff and swing a leg over the stool, instead sitting back to him. Ending the conversation presumably. 

"Hey," he starts, heart beating in sudden anxiety. The need for the conversation to continue. "Did you need a ride back home today?" he asks. You turn to him in suspicion, slowly spinning the stool to face him again. The question was out of place and almost annoying, because he knew you rode the bike to work. He saw you get on it and leave just last week when he bumped into you. Almost feeling like a mockery, you curl your lip over your teeth in offense. 

"Why would I need a ride home?" you ask, biting back the residual heat that sizzles on your tongue. The familiar feeling of burning from the inside out charring its way up your throat. The venomous need to defend, to keep people out. Itching and burning under your skin and threatening a less than friendly fire. Kita opens his mouth to say something but nothing comes out, sucking in a breath when realizing his mistake. 

Kita might be making the dumbest decision of his life, but he clamps down on it and twists it into submission. "Your bike-" he hesitates, pointing to the front of the store where its usually set up against the brickfront to enunciate what he's talking about, you take a second to follow his hands. The pointedness of them, the softness of his skin and the way the sun dances on his tanned skin like a divine command. You blink yourself out of it, 

What is it like to fall in love, you think quickly. You push your eyebrows together, the train of thought confusing and out of place. But it continues like a river without forgiveness, like the breakthrough of a small stream that leads way to a bountiful quarry. Is it noticing the small details, is it the small freckle next to his eyelid. Is it annoyingly pleased with his presence? 

This is not love, surely it is not because love makes you ache. It makes you yearn and ache and want. You want none of those things, but as he continues to talk your ears are full of fire and your throat is full of dirt. And all of the senses are there but there is one thing you notice, your feet have remained dry. The ocean remains at low tide and he looks at you with eyes that are not demanding. So you drop the furrowed eyebrows and drop your shoulders. The raging ocean is not coming for you, and it doesn't when he is around. Maybe because he is the ocean himself, but you didn't know that. How could you have known? How would you assume the ocean had kind eyes and a softness to his figure that promised comfort under the infuriating nature of his humor. 

"Anyways, to get to the point." you hear him say, finally the fires fusing out to dull ash in your head and allowing you to hear, "its going to rain and I just thought-" he rubs at the side of his neck. A nervous habit you now realize you recognize in him. You're recognizing things in him, is this a crush? "just wondered if you wanted a ride home.. Is all." you blink at him a few times, your face trained to a stoic emotionless state as you take it in. As the fresh breeze blows in from behind him, no water still, and nod slowly. Your fingers don't tremble and it all seems to come together.

But you don't quite realize how slow you are to respond, because he nods a few times and takes it as a sign to back off. Side stepping off the door frame and towards the back door with an awkward okay before moving to grip the handle.

"Wait" you say, it sounds above a whisper, but it is a sound only meant for you and him at this moment. You take a moment to look around, the quiet cafe around you resounding this moment as if it were sacred. "Yea- i think i do need one, actually" you say. He has a smile on his face that remains imprinted in your mind, small and discreet. Like hes hiding the meaning of this moment, shy to the reality of what is steadfast and blooming. What grows in dark alleys and forced swallows. What blossoms deep in your chest and learns your tells through late night thoughts. It grows like grape vines over the side of the house you passed hundreds of times as a kid, it roots into the ground like the weeds you spent summers ripping from the ground to no avail. It does not ask for permission, as most things don't. It grabs on and begins to transform into something illegible, into something you never asked for. But on those quiet nights, when it's just you and your overworked brain, it opens its arms and presents you the choice, will you accept this, or run from it?

And that was the beginning of falling in love with kita shinsuke. An unwilling heart meeting an able heart, transfixed in the possibility of trying something new, of falling into each other over and over again, until you both became anew.

A week later, you're stepping out of your apartment and down the steps in flats that have aged with your feet, creases telling stories of a person you once were, and now were becoming. A long skirt dancing around your ankles, the lacy details of your top decorating your collarbones. The night is quiet, aside from Kita's truck which sits buzzing in front of the curb. The light from his radio bouncing off his features, off his gray hair and long eyelashes. You slip into the front seat before he realizes you have come out, jumping to try and get out to let you in. Beating him to it, you take in the surroundings. The buzzing radio station, the smell of florals and fruit from years of transport, the leather warmed by the daylight now drowned to the darkness. Kita, his cologne soft on your nose. His gentle eyes that take you in, the bench seat that would allow you to scoot closer if you were perhaps a little bolder, a little more confident in yourself. You sigh softly as you settle into the seat, bouncing a little "Hi" into the silence. A tilt of the head, the same sly smile you've convinced yourself you hate. He mouths a soft reply, which falls on deaf ears because it is like the surroundings have melted around you. It is only you and him, the stars and the sky. There is no dirt under your feet and only the faint sound of the ocean in the distance to drag you back to reality. 

A short drive, filled with small talk and shy glances, his hand that twitches on the gear shift with longing to push boundaries neither of you were sure of. The truck parks outside of a sandy lot, a beach. You can hear people in the distance, the sound of kita's door clicking open and opening yours in turn, a hand offering you out. This foreign dance others would call learning each other, shifted something within you.

You're walking the length of the beach, you let kita walk closer to the edge, he insisted on holding your shoes for you, and you let him. You smile as he talks, you respond kindly, a part of you he was yet to know. Walking until the familiar space became something new. The sand is cold under your feet, and Kita walks close enough that the water covers his feet when the tide comes in with pushing waves. You try to swallow the fear that arises with it. You try to push away the buzzing in your ears as you remember, as you let the fear turn your breath icy, as it feels like you should run into the water and let it claim you whole.

You suppose it would always be this way, that this is what happens when people get close, they are drawn to the water because that is what you were always made of. Salt water and a chilling cold that only the ocean promised. You could lose him this way, you are tricking him and he is allowing the water to feel like a safe harbor. But you know that one stormy night in your mind could lead to torrential downpour that carries him to a landless sea, on a journey of no return. You feel his pinkies skim across yours while you walk side by side, and you feel him stop in his tracks. You step a few more steps forward, until you stop as well. It feels like your mouth is full of sand.

Everything tonight had gone so well, Kita was so sweet and gentle. He led the conversation even as you eased in and out of it. Even as you had gone silent in the last few paces, as if detecting it, he followed in suit. Allowing you to work through it in your own head. A silent reminder of staying.

"Kita-" you start, and it feels like nails on a chalkboard. Feels like biting something wrong, feels like hiccuping with liquid in your mouth, like taking too big of a breath.

His hand links through your fingers. His hand is so warm in contrast to yours. "I know" he replies, and your face turns to him in confusion. Knows what, knows you are beginning to drown, knows you are a promise of demise if he gets too close, but when you turn to him you are met with kind eyes, with soft glances and a feeling washed over you close to nostalgia. Like this is where you were supposed to be.

He tugs you closer with his hand. Till you're standing side by side with him, and he looks up. "Look how beautiful the stars are tonight," he sighs through his nose. You take your turn to look up. Thousands of small lights shining through the atmosphere. You are here with him and you are looking at the same sky. "Just focus on the stars". So you do, you focus on the twinkling light, you focus on the feeling of his thumb caressing the top of your hand. You focus on being here, on existing in this moment as well. Eventually, when the pressure on your chest doesn't feel so lethal, when the sound of the ocean is quiet on your senses, you look back at him, and find that he was looking at you all along.

Later, a soft smile dances on your lips when you shuffle back into the truck. You drive back in mostly silence, but it's not suffocating. It's soft, it's new. You unbuckle your belt across your lap, and he looks at you with a scuffled brow. You scoot across the seat until your hip sits flush to him, you will wrap your arms around his and you lay your head on his shoulder. Tonight, Kita is the north star. Tonight, the ocean is distant and forgotten behind the lines. A mere ghost on your shoulder, a whisper of what was. You do not look back.

The weeks begin to blur, the summer heat becomes warmer as july turns to august, as late season fruits come into bloom, you remember your first night at Kita’s,

"Just come spend see the fields-" he begins to ask. Following you as you walk throughout the kitchen of the cafe and methodically set down dishes on the correct shelves. "Kita" you sigh, brushing your hands off on your apron, his figure a mirrored shadow behind you as you try to ignore the way you want to say yes, to give in.

"What? You can even stay for dinner" you blink. The small olive branch in the admission is deafening in your ears. "Meet grandma, see the fields, whatever." He rubs at his neck, nervous. Cute. "Or we can do something else, we could go back to the beach or I could come over, or we could just drive. You can choose the radio station this time. Or just let me drive you home." The rambling becomes less and less put together and more like a plea. You finally stop, turning fully towards kita and staring up at him, he rests an arm at a shelf above you, effectively trapping you in the doorway. You peer up towards his eyes, the way his overgrown hair dangles over them. Lightly sweat covered in the heat. "Just let me see you" he whispers, as if admitting it too loud would scare you for good. Something akin to softness curls in your gut. "Okay" you agree, nodding along with it, convincing yourself against the bile that twirls in your stomach. "Okay" you repeat.

The fields were expansive, and he walked at your pace as he talked to you about each tree, the behavior of the vines. The way some fruits had already begun to reach the end of their season, about difficult customers who complained of under ripened fruit when they ordered it with warning of such issues. You followed a little behind, eyes twinkling at the curiosity of another life. Letting his words dance in your ears and convince you that this could be your life too. That you could be fully enthralled in this life of his and settle, as if, you scoff. 

Walking back up towards the main house, you see a elderly woman. Your heart begins to skip at the realization before you. Of meeting her and creating a permanence you weren't even sure you could commit to. It's like walking the glass edge, like opening a part of yourself you weren't ready to. Like saying there is more to this, opening another person to your heart that he could in one moment rip away.

As if sensing your tension, he reaches between you and slips his fingers between yours. The warmth of his hand effectively shushing the voices, "just trust me" he says, the words transformative and gentle on your senses. You nod, allowing yourself to be pulled along.

Kita’s grandmother is kind. She is warm and she invites you in with gentle hands and phrases that rest on your heart with the weight of someone who has only known how to love. She grabs your hands and kisses your cheekbones. She pulls you inside, opening canned peaches and peeling back grapefruit to feed you, slapping kita's hands away when he reaches for slices. Something slowly melting in your chest. A mothers kindness. Your eyes sometimes fill with salty yearning for a love like this to last. You yawn to excuse the tears, making way for them to come from something else. But she looks knowingly at you, and says each time "you will rest more, take care of yourself better my dear". And slides an aged palm over yours. You listen to her tell stories, you listen to her embarrassed kita in which he just shakes his head, but he listens too. Like this was normal for him, and part of you hopes it does become normal. 

She tells stories of his childhood and how he always had big dreams, big dreams of changing the world. That she was sad when he applied to that college program.

College program. 

You quickly look between them, confusion drawing between your brows. College program? Something he had never mentioned. His eyes sharpen as he turns his head to the older woman, a look in his eyes that ends it there. And your gaze is dragged away from them when she clears her throat and pulls you away to go look at his childhood photo binders.

When you leave that night, the sky is bright and orange and pink. It makes his hair glow and illuminate. You remember the softness. You swallow the bitterness in your throat that tells you something is wrong. You are missing something. You ignore it and you stuff your head in between the crane of his neck just as you had done last time and you would do again. You ignore it. Please let me win this time. You think, please let this be nothing. He kisses the back of your hand goodbye, and you force your eyes shut as the ocean noises begin to ring a little louder in the distance. It is nothing, it has to be.

"The city is putting on a firework show, you guys should come!" your coworker nearly yells at the both of you as you step out of the door. Rolling your eyes, "I don't like fireworks" he says, but he knows you both will go anyway.

You'd both started spending more time with coworkers, started loosening up at bonfires on the beach where coworkers shamelessly told stories of their past and dragged you into current ones to be told in the future. At least two nights out of the week you'd go home smelling of bonfires and your eyes tired from smiles and laughter. Neck craned from sitting almost sideways so you were always resting on him. He'd draw small circles on your knee with his knuckles and you'd let him. Because it was easy.

Some nights you'd think about how you never talked about it. How neither of you dared to weather the conversation of what are we? Instead choosing the peace of not knowing. Of existing in this space where you just were.

"So what," one of your friends would say, "you guys dating now?" with a smirk on their face. Both of you stilled the first time, his hands frozen in their spot and seemingly both of you forgetting how to breathe. It wasn't like you didn't expect the questions, not like you were afraid of it or the way you'd answer, no. Part of you was afraid of what he would answer. Of what he would say, so you let him. You trained your focus to the ground, swallowing harshly in the reality of it all.

What are we? Are these friends? Are we even friends? Did we let this get out of hand? Does he think of me as a friend? Does he think of me as more than a friend? Is this how he treats all his friends? Who are his friends? Are we dating? Are we not? 

Something angry and flushed blooms in your chest while your heart rate picks up, the solemn sound of water on rocks splashing and grinding up against stone deep in the ocean tries to pull you back to reality. It doesn't matter. Things like this have never mattered to you. Kita is just Kita, Kita is the ocean. He is something that is inevitable and something that at the end of the day, will leave you choking for air on the shore one day. But for now, kita is a tideless pool. A warm lagoon baked in the sun, for now, you can stay. The sky has not darkened and the red flags from the shore have not risen. For now, you can-

"No" he says, but his hand doesn't leave your leg. For some reason, it isn't hard to hear that. For some reason it's easy to take in that information and let it settle. For some reason it's similar to when a candle burns and the wax pools just enough to let off a comforting scent, but not enough to burn its own wick out. It's safe. Everyone around you in their chairs goes quiet for a while. But your breathing returns with ease and you relax a little. You look up again and reach over to sip from Kita's cup that sits in the holder between you both. A peace offering. An olive branch. You nod in reply, and slowly the space around you fills again as people move on. The pattern drawn over your leg returns. You let it wash over you. You can be nothing, it's better this way. Safer.

You blink and snap out of the memory from last week, your coworker expectantly blinking at you. You look over and offer a smile to kita, but say, "we'll be there"

You should have known when I became we, that the danger had already begun.

The fireworks are loud in your ears, your tongue heavy in your mouth. You had both arrived at the firework show, sitting on a blanket with your pinkies intertwined. It was easy, it was Kita. Your friends are nearby somewhere but you don’t seem to care, not now at least. The sky is dipping into the bottom of the skyline and you wonder what kind of peace it would be to know you don't have every person around you to please, even if just for a few hours. You feel Kita’s gaze on your skin, but you don’t look at him. 

He calls your name, it sounds soft on your ears, but you detect the alarms from miles away. The lighthouse is blaring a signal from light years away and you can see it. You can feel it in the way your hands always tremble when you know the worst is yet to come. He latches his pinky around yours harder, as if to try to get you to look. But you don't, because you can't. The water creeps up in your senses, as if your body knows. As if it prepares for destruction. His gaze is hot on your face, and you blink a few times to try to shed away some of the warmth. Instead, he calls your name again.

“I actually- wanted to talk to you. I've been thinking about it for a while-” he starts,

All the blood in your body rushes to your throat. You can hear the next words, ‘I wanted to ask you to be my girlfriend’ but they sound wobbly and unfit. They seem like they don't belong to be asked of someone like you, so instead you build the dam as far around yourself as you can. You tie the flags around the hull and scream for saviors. 

"Oh my god- you like me, don't you!" you accuse. Threading your hands through your hair. Hunching down in disbelief. Fireworks begin to go off around you, but they're quieter than the persistent humming that rings in your ears. As if you hadn't known this already, as if the little girl in you hadn't wished on the bright stars at night for you to win this time. For you to be right about it just this once.

“I thought it was obvious- I thought you knew!” he says, his eyebrows scrunching together and seeking relief in your face, but you turn your face away and try to swallow the sand on your tongue. 

He moves towards you, his face red in both annoyance and guilt. "What would be so bad about it, if I did?!" he exclaims. "For once in your life, you could just let someone in." he adds. Throwing out his arms to his sides, away from you.

You bite at your lip, blinking away evidence of any sort of emotion forming in your waterline. "it isn't that easy, Kita-" you start. Your hands are shaking, the water is rising and it's at your neck, and you need to run and get away. You need to accept the offer and go, before it pulls you under once and for all. 

"Then tell me how to make it easier," he says, and like ice cracking the air is suddenly so cold. It's so cold, and the fireworks are silent and it's just him and you. It is you and him and nothing else in the world is making noise. "This was going so well, kita, no, just take it back. Please." You try, exhaustively. Pushing off your knees to stand and face him, dread seeping in between the lines and prying at any self reserve. 

"This is going so well, it doesn't have to end. Can't you just try, cant we try this. Let me try" he pleads. Reaching forward, you flinch, hugging your arms to your chest. "Let me try." he says again, stepping once closer. "Please"

"You were the one that said we weren't dating" you huff, looking away. It feels ridiculous to be here now, this conversation weeks late and feelings already solidifying. Creating space where the heart feels funny and the 

Kita Shinsuke is much like the ocean, but right now he is the ocean on the sunniest of days, when you run into the water to absolve from the heat. And it is so warm, and his eyes are bright with the explosions of fireworks, and every emotion is running off your skin like sweat, and god forbid an exhausted heart doesn't take sanctuary at some point. So you let him

You let him step forward until his hands pull yours out from inside the bark you have guarded yourself with. His hands are cold, wrapped around yours and harmonious. The ringing is dying, you can hear the faint booming of the celebration around you, but he is standing in front of you and he is not running. He is not blurring under the waves, he stands strong against the current. He is there, and so you meet his eyes, those honey ambered honest eyes that scare you so, and you let the rip tide take you.

Letting go is much like drowning. Except there is an acceptance, there is a willingness to see it through, an understanding that there must be something better on the other side. Kita shinsuke makes you want to let go. When he holds your hands now, you stand on the cliffside together. You can hear the booming of crashing waves beneath you, hard against rocks that do not promise brighter days. The stars and moon are so bright that it is not scary, but that is not where you are looking.

The sun is within his eyes, and they dance between yours with empty promises and trust that has not yet been built. Yet it feels safer, it feels safer than everything you have known yet, so you fall. You hold onto his hands back, and you squeeze them between yours. 

"Okay" you sigh out, and it is icy against your lips which feel like they are on fire. And he nods in reply, "we can try" you obliged. You try not to smile when nothing short of a grin breaks out on his face. Your eyes trace the small freckles on his features, the ones next to his eyes and on his cheeks, more pronounced because of the summer sun that reveals every late night secret. "Okay" he whispers back. 

There is nothing left to ring in your ears, because on the edge of the cliff he is falling with you. And he is not afraid, and neither are you. All you see are his eyes, and all he sees is yours. And you are falling and everything will be okay. Because he will not allow you to drown. 

You can't help but pull him closer, and he lets you. An unwavering yearning from deep within him satisfied in the breakdown of all barriers. You pull him closer by his hands until your chests press together, and your eyes dance down from his eyes to his lips, red and stained with things left unsaid, promises to be made and a prophecy so red it burns. "Kita" you whisper, and before you know it both of you are sharing proximity only known in an intimate fashion.

His lips are on yours and the world explodes in the spring blooms, it feels like a summer campfire burning its blazing heat. He kisses you hard, as if to make sure it was real. His hands release yours only to tangle in your hair behind your head, pulling you closer and you let him. You take in the sanctuary of his hands and kiss him back. 

His mouth is soft, like you had thought of in passing time. Breath minty and addicting all in one moment, melting into each other and creating the perfect sacrifice. 

You kiss for what feels like hours, breathing in each other's breath and tilting into each other's space. The firework show has finished, and you feel the faint breeze of people walking beside you, but you don't pull away. You walk in this field of daisies with him where your hands tangle in his hair and pull him closer and closer, stepping on each other's toes and dancing the fine line of, is this too much? Have we gone beyond coming back? When will this end?

You blink your eyes open and smile against his mouth, and you swear something has grown much like orchid branches between you, grasping for something to keep climbing, for something stable. You feel your heart tumble in your chest. You smile, and it's real. You feel his smile grow against yours, turning your head away shyly. You think this might hold over the tide for now. Your brain closes the grad school application tab, the deadlines far and distant now in your mind. The restless feet in your running shoes stay calm, and the ocean feels far from here. There is only you and him, and the sky is so bright. You smell pomegranates, and all you see is him. All you see is the cherry trees and lemon branches, and the way that sunset weeks ago looked through his hair. You think about the scent on his shirt when you would press your head between his neck and let him drive you home. You think about it and then you do not think about it anymore. It drowns in the ocean miles away from you, and all you will remember from now on is his lips. 

The first time Kita spends the night at your apartment happens by accident, really. A not so happy accident. It's past midnight, and you wake up in a cold sweat. A nightmare, one of the usual that leaves you gasping for air and feeling fire burn down any forest of resilience you had been trying to build. A nightmare of everything crashing and burning. And it was all your fault, and you should have learned last time what happens when people get too close to you. You should have known that it would end like this, and the nightmare is only a forewarning. Your mind giving you a chance to call it quit's before its too late. Before you ruin everything, just as you had before.

Your hand blindly fumbles over your nightstand, knocking a few stray items off of it before it grabs your phone. It turns on and nearly blinds you when you click it on and press a few more clicks until it stumbles over his contact. You don't mean to actually click the call. You only meant to imagine what it would be like if you did call what he would say.

But this time you really don't have to imagine it, because you do a click call and it's buzzing in your hand, your heart rate quickly picking up to match the fervor of the dial tone when the call clicks through after a few rings.

"Oh- sorry!" you whisper yell into the phone. "Sorry i didnt mean. I. Sorry i meant to just shut off my phone-" and it might be the wobbliness to your voice or the way the ends of your words slur into each other. Or the small panic in your intonation or the sharp intakes of breath. But now, you don't think about that. You only hear the sleepy breathing on kita's end of the phone and the groggy voice that comes out. 

"I'll come over if you need it, my love." and you try to swallow down the panic in your chest but your mouth is dry and you have never been good at hiding from him. 

"It's so late, I feel so bad. I'm so sorry- m' such a bother like this." you hurriedly speak as you silently curse yourself. Hating that he could read you so well. Hating that someone else knows you so well. 

"I'll be there in 10, unlock the door and just wait on the porch for me." he says softly into the phone and you hear the ending tone beep a few times before you drop the phone onto your chest. You sit paralyzed for a minute, drowning in your own worries and doubts.

But you force yourself up, out of bed. Every joint aches under the pressure of living with the grief of being yourself. Your skin throbs as the idea of just escaping it all flees your consciousness. You pad into the kitchen and unlock the deadbolt, the metal cold under your fingers, and it's more grounding than you would imagine.

Sitting on the porch, a warmth still in the summer air, you stare into the sky and wonder if it will be like this forever. Forever wishing that someone, something, would save you from this. Save you from the way you can choke yourself out with your own thoughts and cut yourself dry when the happiness becomes too much.

There's short footsteps before someone sits in the chair next to you. You know it's him. You don't have to look. If your nose wasn't plugged from crying you would smell his cologne but the idea of it being there anyway does something to your heart, it skips a little. He doesn't say anything at first, and you can feel the soft scratchy material of his sweater against your bare shoulder. You hear his breathing through his nose and the way his entire energy exudes sleepiness. It makes something pang in your rib cage and the guilt claws away at you, "sorry for waking you," and you move to just rest your hand next to his, the edges of your palms barely gracing each other.

He takes the bait and you try not to notice the faint color on his cheeks, both from the action and the sleep he was torn from earlier, and he slides his palm into yours. The feeling of his soft palm in yours is undoing. It melts you from the inside and suddenly it's not such a big deal that he knows you because the facade of needing to be a mystery crumbles away from you. "dont apologize" he eventually whispers, his voice tired. He leans into you then. "don't apologize for needing me." he adds. Presses a small kiss into your hair. He doesn't press further, instead he lets the howling of loons in the distance and swaying of the trees fill the silence. You don't add anything either, but your eyelids become heavy eventually. Sitting here under the sky with him, you think everything might end up alright. It just might.

Eventually after a few, "cmon, lets go back to bed." and "i know youre tired, lets just sleep in bed baby"'s, you move to your room which makes you blink a few times, and he pulls you through the door frame and into the mess of blankets and disturbed sleep without another thought. He tugs you against his frame and slides his leg between yours. You don't remember much after that, your mind is weak to the calming effect he has on you, but you do pick up on a faint admission before unconsciousness takes you again.

"I need you too," he says, and you smile. You don't have another nightmare that night, and you don't for a long time after this.

Slowly, the overnights become a routine. Sometimes when you come home from hanging out with friends a little too happy from the interaction, kissing him silly until you're falling into bed and kissing over every inch of skin. Sometimes it's dragging each other off your worn couch and fumbling for the tv remote to shut it off after a night in with movies on for hours. Sometimes it's after you've gone quiet for too long at work, and he doesn't have to ask, instead driving you home and silently pulling you into his chest and sleeping there with you. It becomes unsaid, as most things do. And you get used to it, the rare nights without him mean fighting off the urges to text him and bombard him with I miss you and come back. Sometimes you give in, to which he hears your messages and tells you he will 'come over tomorrow', or, 'you're so cute baby'. 

Some nights you tell him with a hushed tone that you feel like you deserve to be alone. That you don't deserve him. Other nights he tells you he is afraid to lose you, some nothing is said at all. Some nights he tells you he is afraid that his grandma is going to die soon and others you read your book aloud to him.

Kita shinsuke becomes a part of your life quickly, like how invasive plants bloom beautifully under the care of another plant. You are the parasitic weed in your own mind and sometimes it takes multiple routes of reassurance from Kita to tell you that no, you are allowed to want and need. You are allowed to love him as he does you. But eventually it begins to settle in over your bones, you start to allow the compliments and you don't pretend to shy away from the affection.

The love comes in soft warm waves, washing over you while you tangle your limbs in sleep. It comes in quiet downturned voices when the week was long and you were both too tired to sleep.

The love was soft, but it was there.

But sometimes love isn't enough.

Sometimes you wake up after a night of laughter and your world flips itself upside down, it reminds you how fragile connection is. And how small hints all along, you missed, now regretfully push a knife even farther into your back.

You remember the morning.

Your feet padded into the kitchen, soft wooden planks pressing ice into your toes. It doesn't scare you anymore, and when you sit at the table overlooking the yard, something settles inside you like the feeling of becoming welcome. Kita's white shirt lays over your shoulders, sheer and stark with the smell of him. Warm and musky, like summer and nothing like what you remember from home. It slips over your shoulder, and you feel the warm sun on your skin. The yard overlooks fruit trees for yards, the birds sing, it is as if from painting. When life imitates art and you have learned to sit subject, complacent to your own life. You blink slowly at it all, you hear the rustling of the branches, you don't remember what you and your mom used to fight about. It all feels so far behind you. 

A now cold cup of coffee sits on the table, no steam eluding from the top, rings of stain lining the inside of the cup. Remnants of a person who sat there before you. Papers scattered across the wicker design. Your fingers scan the corners of envelopes, letters, and newspapers. You play with the corner of one envelope, gently reading over the contents of the address. 

It was addressed to Kita, and stamped important mail. Peaking your interest, you pick it up. 

In hindsight, you should have kept to yourself. You should have put it down and let the morning fade into evening, you should have walked out into the field and found kita, and picked the ripest plums like you had been doing for the last weeks. You should have asked him what figs were in season, should have asked if he could work your shift for you at the cafe yet, you should have gone to bed with him the next night and let life move you like the waves on the ocean.

Kita Shinsuke was much like the ocean. The ocean had secrets, and maybe thats why it stuck to you like glue. Why the high tides always seemed to find you regardless of where you had gone. Where you tried to outrun your fate, as someone who was always going to drown in their damnation. Instead, you chose the latter.

The letter head opens to kita, addressing him in a manner you weren't familiar with. Something you didn't know he was even involved with. Your eyes scan the contents, mouth running dry. Eyes focused and zoned into the lettering. 

Congratulations on your acceptance, we welcome you to the school of agricultural engineering….

Your term status is to begins the fall semester. Please contact..

Your eyes run across the page as if it weren't real, as if reality was deceptive and it was all a cruel prank. The letter shakes in your hand, and it becomes blurry. Maybe from staring for too long, maybe to account for the salty liquid running down your cheeks. You don't know, 

There is one thing you do know. There is something so innate and natural in your blood it takes you off your feet and you're slipping your shorts on, sliding your shoes on and heading for the door. You barely recognize kita's figure coming in the back door when the cold metal of the door handle slides with your own. You don't hear him when it opens and you walk-fast. You walk and you begin to run down the sidewalk, you run. Because it is what you know best, and suddenly you are in the middle of the ocean.

You are stranded in the middle of the ocean and there is no land in sight. There is no home and there is no Kita, because you should have known. There is no safe harbor for someone who belonged to the water since they were a young girl. There is no flare gun possible to save someone like you. Someone so readily consumed by their own willingness to drop everything, surely this is your final consequence. You had signed away your final testament and wishes when you had asked him to try. When you cracked open your pomegranate heart and said, please do not tear me apart. 

You were no fool, and you were no victim. Your mind races and you panic in the water, and the scenery is a mess. You are flailing in the water and no one is coming to save you. Your feet move from under you but there is no where to go. No where to run and no arms to find sanctuary in. No loving brown eyes that tell you of a future he never intended on keeping, no. There is no end in sight. 

A hand as hot as burning coals grabs your shoulder, the force of it spinning you around on your heels. You are gasping for air, panicking like prey in an ocean of sharks that you had planted there. Kita is in front of you, because you'd recognize him from miles away. You'd know it was him on a boat thousands of nautical miles away. Recognizing his soul as if it were intertwined with yours. But today, water and fire are mixing and there is only steam. There is only a chemical combustion of passion, love and betrayal. Three that should never be mixed. 

"No- fuck you." you say, grabbing his hand and throwing it off of your shoulder. It burns, it hurts so bad. "you- l-lied." You gasp, eyes frantic as they look around. The morning sun is still not peaking over the edges of the buildings. Most people are still asleep in their home, a place you have never had. His eyes scan you, hurriedly and worried. His hands grab at your frame and attempt to look you over, as if you were hurt. As if he could detect drowning when you were surrounded by air.

That is what your relationship's fatal flaw was, that you were only afloat by the wish of making it work. Of fitting a puzzle piece where it did not belong and not opening the image to see. The flood gates would stay shut, the dam would remain intact, because you were not ready yet. You weren't ready to release the ocean onto someone who you wanted to keep safe. 

"What are you talking about? Baby, just breathe. Hold on." he says, brushing a hand over your head, smoothing the hair now tossed by the wind. Your breathing erratic, eyes unfocused and tears spilling. A mess. A mess tossed around only by the cruel tide. 

"n-no." you cry, shoulders falling forward in place. "you don't get to-" you sob, breaths wracking through your lungs. Shipwrecked. "You lied to me." you repeat, pushing out a hand to punch at his chest. To make the distance, to tell the relief boat to go home. That it was hopeless at this point, the leaks in the shipfront had become too severe and it was better declared a loss. The water up to your neck, the cold setting in. The knife is bleeding out in your back.

He blinks at you, wiping thumbs over your wet cheeks. You welcome the contact, maybe because you realize this might be the last time you get that. The last time warmth touches your skin before you seek deep below. Forgotten in the vast water. "cmon now, here. Just tell me." his voice is soft, it sounds like a siren song, like a lullaby before you take your last breath. 

"Youre leaving" you sigh out, and your heart beats so hard against your chest, it sounds like a drum. It sounds like the booming fireworks when you had first kissed. It sounds like the back door of the cafe slamming shut. It beats to remind you you are alive. Alive but fighting, fighting against the cold reality of an end that was forseen. A story told before. 

"Youre leaving me." you gasp between the syllables, finally blinking your eyes open. Met with amber eyes on the other end of you, as if an ellipsis meeting your end of the deal. Of an eternal galaxy that started with you and ended with him. His eyes flicker between yours, and you feel the burning of his hands again, the silence enough to make you want to tear away. To make you throw up in the street, the water filling your lungs and making you want to vomit it out. To fight against every will and urge to run, to give it a chance and change the pattern. Because it's not working, it's not working, but he's leaving. He's leaving you. 

It's an insatiable feeling to feel tectonic plates move from under your feet. To know that nothing will ever be the same and nothing will ever be the same and nothing. There is a hand on your shoulder, you recognize it. The calloused hand is a familar feature known to your skin. The pads of his fingers are memorized onto yours like a sacred bond. Like the water knows the air and how fire knows earth. It feels safe, a treacherous thought. Something you thought you had known. 

His face remains a cruel stoic facade. His eyes are wandering and searching, scanning over your face like it may be the last time. Like the weight of the world had finally shifted and he was too far now, he could not save you. Besides, it wasn't his job nor did you want him to. In fact, you didn't want any of this. You didn't want to find someone here, you didn't want to stick around, you wanted to leave. You wanted to run like your instincts told you to, proven again to be an impossible root to manage. Nothing would ever stick, you belonged nowhere and everywhere, you would never thrive in another's garden. Pomegranate juice is spilling out the sides and you are below water. Your hair is soaked and when you open your eyes it burns off salt. You can hear the call of gulls, it is familiar. This is safer, this is safer than looking him in the eyes and admitting defeat. So you don't, you raise your hand and you try to shuffle his down yours. Goosebumps under the pads of his fingers on your arm, you blink away tears, at least you try. 

"Just let me explain, hey" he starts, his voice is incredibly soft. Like when he'd talk to you in the mornings when the sun crept over the ledge of the balcony or at night when you thought no one would hear you except the stars. "no-" you huff. Pushing against his chest, but he pulls you like gravity, like matching magnets, he pulls you and you push. Weak to your defenses, you're pulled flush against his chest. 

"You were just going to leave without saying anything," you stifle, a soft hand pets at your hair. It all feels so wrong, it feels more and more like a goodbye, and your heart begins to race at the thought of it. This isn't how it was supposed to happen, your face is burning and your heart set aflame. The water is filling your lungs but nothing will extinguish that fire. "this isn't fair" you gasp, enunciating each syllable while trying to push away. To let yourself go afloat. 

"I was going to tell you" he starts, his voice is shaky while he attempts to keep you close. I was afraid you'd leave- afraid I'd lose you." he adds. His hand stopping just below the nape of your neck, fingers twining in your hair. A gentle reminder of what it feels like, in case he were to never feel it again.

Kita Shinsuke is an abyss. He watches the small shake of your stature, the reddened eyes distraught by the weight at hand. The things he caused, the fear shining brightly in your demeanor. The way your lungs take in gasps of wet air, watches the way your eyes swim with endless thoughts he can't hear, that you keep to yourself. So he does what he knows he can, he holds you close, he doesn't let you slip between his fingers. And he speaks,

"When I first met you- I thought you were stubborn." kita says, the rhythm of his voice stopping you in your tracks. "I thought you were stubborn and you came off as if you felt you were better than everyone." you turn towards him, "but I know it's not true. I know you do it to protect yourself, and part of me wanted to be different. I wanted to be someone you didn't put your guard up for. At first, I just wanted to be your friend. I wanted you to laugh when i picked on you and then.-" you move from the embrace to face him fully, shiny brown eyes staring back at you. "i didnt know- i didnt know -" watery eyes shaking while they fought the urge to look away. "you'd become this important." his hand shifts down to press into his own chest. Your eyes still downturned, stray tears dropping onto your shirt every few moments. "I thought I knew what I wanted." he continued.

"I wanted to get out of here, to try school again." His eyes are so brown in the morning light. "but then i met you, like really met you."

"I applied because I was scared. Because I've gotten to know you, and I know you never stay where your feet land. And it's not fair, it's not fair because I love you." he chokes on the last few words, poison in the mouth of a killer, solitude on the tongue of a savior. "I love you and I don't know how to stop loving you," he bites down on his lip as his eyes continue to well and fade. 

"I don't know how to love you enough to leave, I don't know how you do it."

"but i need to get out of here, I need to get out of this town and I need-" he continues into a frenzy, your swallow audibly cuts him off. "you didn't even talk to me" you say. "thats not fair, kita" 

For once, you may have thought you could compare yourself to sand. Unable to stay solid and always falling through the cracks. Filling up the area until there becomes a shift, a seam, a break, and then the sand is falling away until it becomes something new. Years of being ground in the ocean and on land until it becomes soft and malleable. When is my turn, you think, when do I become less of the ocean and more of sand? 

Everyone likes sand.

"I don't know what to say" you shakily breathe. Rubbing your hands together in attempt to self soothe. "so you're going?" you ask, and as much as you hate it, a small part of you has hope. A part of you thinks you might have read this wrong and jumped to too many conclusions too soon. 

You watch Kita and it is as if time slows down. Like how people say there is such a thing as vacation time, but this time you would label it 'this may be the last time i truly look at you' time, or 'let me memorize every detail of you in case i forget this moment' time. He has a small freckle under his bottom lip, slightly off center to the left. You remember seeing it for the first time when you woke up the first time you slept over. His eyelashes are long, brushing his cheeks when he blinks hard enough. The whites of his eyes are extra bright today, you wonder if it just looks that way because of the panic in his gaze. He wets his lips with his tongue and you see the small indents and cracks. You can feel the way they would press into yours and fit perfectly. Part of you hopes you might get that one more time. His eyebrows are furrowed, but you know he's not angry. Kita isn't an angry guy, and that's something you were always thankful for. 

Even when things got too loud, when your mind went numb and the ocean was in your eyes, he never got angry when you drifted away. He found ways to navigate the sea of you.

The realization of it sits heavy on your chest, crushing and demeaning knowing its fading away. It's as if he is sitting at the departure gate for the farewell tour, looking back at you, he has no luggage, no intention of leaving but he goes anyway. 

Before he gets the chance to explain himself, you feel the words spilling out and you cough on them. You cough out the water for lungs and think no, no I am choosing this time. This is my choice and I will not drown today. 

"I don't want you to go," you start, your lip wobbling under the vulnerable admission. "But I understand if you have to go." you blink away the tears, even as Kita's begin to fill with salt water as well. "I understand because I know you're not running. I know-" a tear runs out of the corner, and he reaches up to swipe it away with his thumb. Kind, he has always been so kind.

"I know what we had was real." you finish. Breathing in a shaky breath through your nose, trying to get your heart rate to regulate. He looks at you with eyes that feel like a blanket, eyes that hold promises for your future that now fall from the sky and crash. 

"Come with me," he breathes out. Your eyes snap to his with a type of brief panic only felt between the two of you. A match lit in the dark. A moth to a flame. A boat to the lighthouse. A rescue ship to a flare. Your heart beats heavily against your chest, as if it begs to get out and escape. To pour itself out in front of you and show your intentions, pure and true.

"What?" you ask, shaking your head. "what are you talking about i dont-" you look up to see him. Fully serious, a smile on his lips close to humor, realistically probably a smile of remorse or pleading.

"You hate it here, and I know it's crazy. But maybe you would like it- I know you've never been to California and maybe we would like it. If you don't want to live together we could-" he heaves a huff out before you can finish. Your arms wrapped tightly around his neck, hugging him close. Your chest pushing onto his as if to meld skin. To let him in and say yes, us. It's always been us.

"You can say no," he adds. Weakly, readying himself. His hands fold over each other. 

For a minute, you ponder it. You wonder what it is to let yourself be taken away with the sea himself. Would it be so bad, would it be so bad to trust someone to take you instead of leading your own voyage. Something warm blooms in your chest. Something that feels like possibility and yearns. Something that feels like deception and a trick. You swallow the feeling, and it is as if you stand on the edge of the plank. 

You are the captain of your own ship, and you have sailed dangerous waters all your life. When ships nearby became too close, you sped away to captivity. But you learned one cold hard lesson this way. No one can help a drowning voyager when they are alone. Now, kita stands next to you on this plank, where you are deciding a fate between falling and trusting it all, or getting back on and going far far away. To somewhere the ocean can swallow you whole and leave yourself to drown. To erase yourself from the memory of everyone because you thought you never mattered anyway.

You take kita's hand in yours, "okay" you said, "we can try,"

You take his hand standing on that plank together and you fall back into the cold water. And you only look at one thing, his eyes. Even as the water thrashes around you and you gasp for air, you realize he is the air you need to breathe and you have been running from sanctuary all along. You blew the flare months ago and he saw it, and he pursued you with stained shirts and sweet fruit on his lips, and you followed him like a ship to harbor.

And you trusted him. For the first time in your life, you trusted, and you fell.

2 years later

Water pours from a ceramic can you bear the weight of on your wrist, dousing potted plants that sit on your porch thousands of miles away from where you were just two years ago. There is a sprouting limb of a tree peeking out from the dirt pot. A pomegranate tree.

You turn, setting down the can to pad inside the foier, the small apartment serving optimally for vines to sprout over the walls and grow where they see fit.

It's ironic, really. You have learned to see yourself also grow alongside all of it. The way people learn to hold their ghosts at bay, to let the ship sink in the waves and to leave it all behind. You stare into a nearby mirror and see a version of yourself you never thought you would see. And for what feels like over a year now, your socks do not feel wet and you cannot hear the ocean coast. 

A mop of grey hair appears behind you in the mirror, only slightly above your head, and your face covers his. You hide a shy smile when his arms wrap around you from behind and he sway's you back and forth. 

"So I've been thinking," he says, whispering against your sun warmed shoulder, his hand reaching down to grab yours, and you bite back an even larger grin when his fingers press into the gold band that now is gold against your finger. New, six months ago. Under the stars in a random alley. 

"Never a good thing." you joke, pressing your elbow back into his ribs as he moves to run his hands gently down your sides. He pinches the skin above your hip and you move to crane your neck up at him, gazing at his clear eyes from under his hair. 

"Where should we go next?" you've had this conversation a few times now. As if he feels the itch crawling under your skin, as if he knows what it is like to not know how to sit still. You pause for a moment, keeping your gaze glued to him.