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“Then… what is the point?”
“Of fighting?”
“Yes, but… of all of it. Fighting, painting, sleeping, eating. Why sustain yourself for your own sake if that’s all you’re doing? If there’s joy in life in spite of purpose… How could one find joy aimlessly?”
Sonoi sounded… not as hopeless as his words rang, but more contemplative. His stare into the night sky wasn’t empty. Full of curiosity. It was one of Tarou’s favorite looks on him.
“I guess there isn’t one,” Tarou replied, sounding as casual as if he were only stating the answer to a simple question. Sonoi lifted an eyebrow at this, glancing down at Tarou who had been laying on the concrete steps with his back enclosed on either side by Sonoi’s legs.
“You mean to tell me my powerful enemy Don Momotaro finds life pointless?” Sonoi poked playfully. He tried not to wince at remembering the man at his side as his enemy in this moment, but relished in it anyway just to call him his own.
“Not what I meant.” Tarou continued to stare forward at the moon, low and looming in the sky. Sonoi stared at him awaiting a response, taking a moment to appreciate the low light causing their contrasting signature reds and blues to appear more alike than different.
“There… doesn’t need to be a point, I think. Life is a neutral thing to have or not to have. It is not immoral to exist, nor is it to cease to exist, or have ever existed at all. But it is a gift despite that, and there is a happiness found in knowing you get to receive this gift with seven billion others, or alone, or even just…” He glanced up gently, looking up through his brow to meet Sonoi’s eyes. “...The people right beside you.”
Tarou smirked, a face Sonoi was becoming rather fond of seeing, and Sonoi looked away to shield himself from getting stuck there. After a breath, he looked back down.
“And that’s enough?”
“For some. Some people want more, or think they need more. It can be good to want more sometimes, you know.” Tarou turned his head forward sometimes.
“...In moderation, I suppose. It’s a hard line to walk. A dangerous one.”
Tarou felt Sonoi tense behind him, even if just slightly. He took a deep breath and turned his whole body this time, sitting as upright as he could doing so.
“It is okay, Sonoi. It’s okay to want.”
Despite the fact that his mortal enemy was kneeled at his feet, Sonoi found it ironic that he was the one who felt vulnerable in this moment.
Sonoi couldn’t process the thought. He wouldn’t allow it past his walls. It felt like a single twig somehow breaking down an entire dam, like acknowledging the idea would cause an unsurvivable flood. Something deep in Sonoi knew Tarou was right, that it was okay to want.
“Its… okay to want.” Sonoi parroted, sounding uncertain. He only meant to feel how the words felt, to note that if he said it himself, it would most definitely feel wrong. But… nothing in him stirred. Nothing in him stirred the way it did when he looked at Tarou. It was nothing like the stab he felt so viscerally upon cleaving the heir to the Don clan in twain, something so painful he truly believed it was his end, instead. Nothing in him stirred the way it did when his last vision before a final breath was of beautiful blurring red and rainbow neon lights in the dark, the helm of the man he-
“It is okay, Sonoi.” Tarou spoke, putting his hands gently on either side of Sonoi’s face. He snapped out of it, looking into Tarou’s deep brown eyes whose power rivaled that of the sun’s. Tarou had been leaning closer, up and fully onto his knees in front of Sonoi, trying to gently hold him together like one would a fearful animal.
“It’s okay, Sonoi.”
He brought a single hand up to one of Tarou’s that gently caressed the side of his face, meeting it there and leaning in to the touch, if only by a millimeter. He felt a slow tear fall down his cheek as Tarou reached a thumb up to wipe it away, gently. Their faces were so close, Sonoi knew the second either of them moved he’d miss the warmth of Tarou’s breath. They leaned in impercetibly slowly, Sonoi allowing his eyes to almost flutter shut. He began to close the gap, leaning almost all the way in for a kiss before reverently whispering,
“Is it?”
His eyes fluttered all the way shut and he held the whisper there between his and Tarou’s lips as they met, barely touching but meeting together like puzzle pieces, perfect opposites. Before Sonoi could even think to pull away, he felt Tarou’s eyes close as he confidently pushed deeper into the kiss, adjusting his hands from framing his face to weave through Sonoi’s lightly curled hair.
After a long moment, Tarou pulled back, struggling to follow Sonoi deeper into the kiss while still on his knees. They both slowly looked up, both desperate not to lose the feeling they were chasing and eager to look into the other’s eyes once again. Sonoi feared to move, not wanting to disrupt the peace he had found here beneath the moon.
“You mean something, Sonoi.” Tarou responded.
There was a new sharp pain Sonoi felt, somewhere in the middle of his ribcage below the heart, in the viscera, infatal. He couldn’t bear to look down, for he was more scared he’d see what he knew was true, that he hadn’t been physically attacked, and that Tarou’s words were instead inflicting something real unto him. There was no weapon Tarou wielded better than the truth. The undeniable fact that Tarou stood here telling him that he deserved life outside of purpose, and it was undeniable because of Tarou.
Sonoi scrambled to his feet, letting his instinct take over and pull his walls back down. As he stood, the streetlight behind him reflected off his suit, outlining him in a bright, saturated blue. Tarou was again reminded of the sky and the sea, of the way Sonoi retreated as the waves did when the moon was full or new. Before he passed into the dark, Sonoi turned on his heel to perform a hasty goodbye.
“I must go, Momoi Tarou.” This lie was not beautiful.
“I wish you’d stay, Sonoi.” This truth was.