fic for bellemelody (2/3)
Part 1
And just as magically as Jin has once appeared into the Kamenashi family’s life, he has also vanished, leaving behind no trace to find him -except, maybe, the ones he so carefully placed inside Kazuya’s heart.
Kazuya wakes up startled by a weird dream, though his body doesn’t betray him in the least. He snaps his eyes open and raises one shaky hand to his forehead, his furious heartbeats threatening to break his ribcage with their force.
The spot is dry under his touch, of course, but he still feels the tingling sensation of soft, plump lips brushing gently against him. He can even feel it almost burning softly from under his skin despite his stoic façade.
Years and years have passed since he has last heard the fairytales Jin would make up for his entertainment, until both the stories and the man himself have blurred themselves into an almost forgotten passage of his past.
So, why? Kazuya asks himself, torn by so many intense emotions and thoughts he has woken up to on his birthday. It’s so bizarre that a dream -even such a weird one- can arouse such a stormy reaction in his body.
But he isn’t about to dignify it with anything more than a huff, he decides after getting a hold of himself. After all, Kazuya has believed he has gotten over it for so long, moving on from those years he has spent every single candle on his birthdays’ cakes wishing to see him again.
“Mou~ I won’t even say his name!”
He closes his eyes, pretending to be asleep only to wake up for real and get out of bed five minutes later.
Kazuya is determined not to let anything ruin his eighteen birthday. He isn’t aware he’s been chanting the same name over and over again in his sleep for the past decade.
Kazuya has grown up to be a pragmatic young man, so far from the innocent boy full of hopes he once used to be. The abandonment of his father has left a bitterness in him nobody has been capable to cure.
He is frustrated and resentful his father has never played a role in his life, and that imprinted a scar in his soul that has only gotten deeper over the course of the past years because of that second time he has felt abandoned by a dear, close person.
At the age of 18, Kazuya has never trusted again enough in a person to let them in.
Kazuya checks his watch and hurries his steps when he realizes he’s already ten minutes late.
On the way to the appointed meeting place he ponders over and over again about the same subject: Why does he have to meet with this senpai on his birthday, of all days, when that guy makes such a fuss about punctuality?
Kazuya can see the silhouette of the boy a few steps away and mentally prepares both a greeting and an apology to say.
“What the hell is that?” leaves his mouth instead of the cheap excuse he has prepared in a matter of seconds about broken alarm clocks.
Ueda Tatsuya looks at the finger pointing so rudely at his face with a death glare, thinking there should be a limit to how much this guy can annoy him.
“You know? For a kouhai, you show no respect to your Senpai… I don’t see what Yuichi could have possibly seen or liked about you.”
Kazuya isn’t really taken aback by the words and the harsh tone the other uses with him. It actually entertains him, instead of terrifying him like it used to back in High School, but he isn’t about to voice that thought out loud.
Ueda’s angelic looks can deceive almost everybody, but Kame knows the strength in his fists.
He still remembers.
Nevertheless, he looks at the older male with inquiring eyes, expecting a proper answer to his rather improper question.
His eyes shine in victory when Ueda heaves a sigh.
“My sister thought it was funny to come to my place first thing in the morning and stick a butterfly sticker in my face.”
“Why don’t you just take it off?”
By all answer, he just receives a light snort and Ueda starts making his way forward to the agreed place for Kazuya’s Birthday Extravaganza Party Day Yuichi has planned such a long time, but that will probably consist of a nice day shopping and a good meal with a strawberry cake at the end.
Kazuya quickly follows his senpai’s steps, silently mocking Ueda’s cute side from time to time by pointing in his own face the spot where the butterfly sticker is placed whenever the other turns around to check on him.
There’s a sort of flashback that hits him and halts his stride, however, the moment Kame walks in front of a window shop with his hand raised to his face and he gazes at the spot he’s still pointing at, as if the image of another boy -a taller one with darker hair, piercing eyes and broader shoulders that him- has suddenly taken over his own reflection.
Slowly, and as if losing track of time and reality, Kazuya lowers his hand and stares in astonishment at how the boy in the mirroring surface does the same thing at the same pace, revealing a beauty mark just like the one adorning Kazuya’s skin right under his right eye.
“I believe… this… will connect us… forever…”
“Kamenashi?”
The light punch on his shoulder and the almost distant call of his name finally brings Kazuya out of his reverie. But his heart remains pounding at the same fast beat for the rest of his special day.
Not even Nakamaru’s blunt comment about how Tatsuya has left that butterfly sticker on his face because of the resemblance of its wings with a certain Fairy he claims to know can take Kazuya’s mind out of the ethereal figure of him.
“On your 18th birthday, Kazuya… On that special day, a butterfly of light will find its way from me to you…”
Kazuya hurries his pace on the way back home, not eager to reach his destination, but for the day to end already. He knows well enough his anxiety is related to the vision he had in the morning, but he is still trying to come up with another explanation.
He doesn’t slow down the slightest when, checking his wristwatch, he takes notice that there are mere thirty minutes left of this disastrous day to be finally over. Instead, Kazuya tries his best to focus on the happenings of his birthday before his mind decides to wander to a more dangerous territory.
So Kazuya mentally goes through the day of shopping he had predicted to have with his Senpais, much more fun that he could have expected, and then, when he had thought they’d go to Nakamaru’s apartment to wrap the day with a movie and a simple cake, the surprise birthday party they have prepared, inviting old classmates from High School, had come. The nature of the party, however, has been rather clear to Kazuya, just like its planner.
Ueda has been nagging Kazuya to get a girlfriend since they first met, and the obvious discrepancy in the number of boys and girls has been enough of a clue for him.
He had ended up dancing all night long with virtually all the girls in Nakamaru’s place and talking shallow subjects with everybody as if he was the host instead of the birthday boy. It had been more like a punishment to him than a present.
Kazuya takes another look at his watch and sighs loudly when he notices only five minutes has gone by since the last time he has checked.
Something under his left foot makes him stop his walk and when he moves his foot to take a look at the foreign object, Kazuya gasps in awe at the sight. There is a pink flash that takes him back to a sunny day in the park and shared secrets in the hidden.
After what feels like an eternity, but is nothing more than a mere minute, Kazuya squats down and takes the object -which turns out to be one of those common butterfly-shaped glass keychains- into his hands for a closer look. It almost feels as if there is a pink light shining warmly from the inside of it, even when Kazuya knows that’s rather impossible.
His heart, however, hammering painfully inside his chest seems to have a different idea about the little keychain and the reason why Kazuya has just found it. Or was it the other way around…?
Funny, how his mother has always told him he was born at that exact time he finds the pink butterfly in the middle of a deserted street.
“How did he even…?” he cuts himself off by shaking his head “You can’t start believing in fairytales just now, Kamenashi” he reproaches himself, but picks up the butterfly-shaped crystal nevertheless and shoves it in his pocket as he starts walking back home.
The next day there’s a new butterfly-shaped phone strap attached to Kame’s cellphone.
It almost seems like a magical charm Kazuya can’t take his eyes away from, despite the constant mocking of his little brother.
The moment Kazuya realizes he’s been religiously staring at the new phone strap he has found on his birthday every morning when he wakes up, every night before falling asleep and almost every hour in between while considering the fact that, somehow, somebody has sent this present especially to him, he can’t help feeling panic creeping up his body.
The chill breeze from winter has long ago died and the Cherry Blossom trees adorning beautifully the streets all around Japan welcome the people into a season of new beginnings, new promises and fertile means to achieve, but Kazuya can’t see any of that.
Locked in his room as much as he can with all the free time he can enjoy now, Kame spends his hours and days and weeks pondering over his new favorite item, scaring himself with all the whimsical “what if…” displaying in his head almost against his will, threading his present with a part of his past he should have long forgotten. That he has already, he repeats over and over again.
However, he can’t help to take the little piece of glass into his hand as the most delicate and valuable object he would ever possess. He can’t help the smile blossoming on his face.
And yet, he decides, he can’t allow himself to fall again into such an obsessive behavior. Not after all the grief and pain he had experienced the first time. And not, especially, after the hard time it had supposed to overcome it.
Restless as he is with the whirlwind of emotions and thoughts and blurry memories messing with his life, there is only one solution Kazuya can come up with.
He texts Ueda Tatsuya in a moment of anxiety and asks the older guy to set him up with one of the girls from his birthday party, anyone, as soon as possible.
It has been his own decision, he knows that.
However Kazuya can’t help but feel forced to be there with Kaoru-chan, one of the girls he has talked the most during the party. But as the gentleman he has been raised to be, he’s not about to let it show in front of the girl anytime soon.
He just smiles and leads the girl through the attractions of the Festival, playing some games and buying some of her whims with a smile as they engage in small talks.
Before he realizes, though, the night is over and he’s agreeing to take her on another date before they take separate ways.
Kazuya knows he has the right to search for love, even if he actually believes love is just a simple invention from those fairytales he hates so much.
What Kazuya doesn’t understand, though, is the feeling of guilt and remorse slowly growing up in him alongside emptiness as he spends more time with the girl.
Her hands are cold when he holds them and they are too small. Her hair isn’t silky enough, her eyes don’t have that sort of special sparkle shining in them. And, as much as Kazuya tries to, her lips don’t arouse in him the desire to kiss them, to kiss her.
Kazuya doesn’t even take in he is comparing the girl with a memory engraved in his heart.
Whenever he’s been facing a hard decision in life, Kazuya feels a compelling force dragging his feet to a park nearby his house. He can’t point out the reason behind this behavior, he can’t even remember when he has done it for the very first time or why it has to be this park.
But it’s only in this place that he feels calm enough to make the hardest of choices.
Today, he feels extremely nostalgic just by sitting in a bench close to the sandbox where little kids keep playing random games. His mind wanders through passages of his life he’d rather forget about; but, for one reason or another, he doesn’t have the strength to take his mind out of it and think about any other thing. Not even the one that has brought him to this park in the first place.
Kazuya doesn’t realize he’s been twirling, yet again, the little butterfly-shaped crystal strap on his hands while he’s at it and that there’s a faint smile curling up his lips.
When he leaves that place, a couple of minutes after sunset, Kazuya understands he has taken his decision long before going there.
Breaking up with Kaoru-chan takes Kazuya one step closer to the truth he still refuses to acknowledge.
Pragmatic as ever, Kazuya doesn’t linger in feelings of guilt after the break-up, especially because he has always known he wouldn’t harbor deeper feelings for the girl no matter for how long they would have dated. Kazuya is sure he did the best and so he simply moves on with his life.
After finishing High School, Kazuya has decided to stop his studies and take on a full time job, helping his mother out with the bills and maybe his little brother will be able to enter a good college if that’s what he wants.
With a newspaper in one hand and a folder full of resumes in the other, the eldest son of the Kamenashi family walks around the city under the bright sun of summer in search of a job that would allow him to achieve his personal goal and that would take his mind off this nagging feeling that has left him since his birthday party, all those months ago.
Kazuya feels dishearten by the amount of ‘no’ he has received all day long, followed by all kind of explanations as to why he doesn’t fit in for the jobs he has applied.
“You are too young.”
“You lack experience.”
“We’ve already hired somebody.”
“You need a driver’s license and a motorcycle.”
The world seems to be telling Kazuya constantly he has nothing to offer and, by the end of the long day, he feels defeated and ready to give up on his hopes.
He checks the time on his cellphone and sends a quick mail to his mother not to worry about his whereabouts; but then, the always shining warmly piece of glass attached to his mobile catches his attention and Kazuya finds himself unable to tear his eyes apart of the object.
Realizing he’s been smiling while daydreaming with a fantastic world filled with magic in a matter of minutes, Kazuya immediately shoves the device back to his pocket with sharp moves.
He sighs loudly, but, before he can start reprimanding himself for such childish antics, there’s a light bathing him all of a sudden.
It’s just a simple establishment right in front of him -one of those small cafés around town- flicking on the lights for the night shift that is about to begin, but Kazuya hasn’t taken notice of it before. His frustration hasn’t allowed him to, yet Kazuya indulges for a second in the thought of such a cozy place appearing magically before his eyes just for his sake.
“Maybe it was conjured by…”
He shakes such a thought before it evolves any further into someone magically invoking the coffee shop just for Kame.
“I don’t even like coffee,” is the lame excuse Kazuya has to mumble to cast away the terrifying fear to get inside the store invading his whole body at the moment.
The next minute, though, the boy is stepping inside the warm place and asking to a smiling guy around his age about a sign of “Help wanted” he has spotted hanging in the front door.
“You came for the job too? It would be awesome getting to work here, right? I mean, the coffee they serve here is the best in town, just like the pastries. I come here almost every day just for it. And plus, I’ve talked to some of the staff already and they all say the owner is really nice with everybody, especially to his employees. He should be here any minute now for the interviews, but it seems like it’s only you and me,” the tall boy says all in one go. He pauses to let some air to fill his lungs, his smile never falters meanwhile. “I’m Junnosuke, Taguchi Junnosuke. Nice to meet you.”
“Kamenashi Kazuya.”
“Can I call you Kame? I bet everybody does.”
There is not enough time for Kazuya to deny the question, as the two boys are called to the front counter where a handsome man in his mid-thirties with brown hair and friendly smile seems to be waiting for them.
“I knew I’d see you here as soon as I’d hang up that sign, Taguchi-kun!” the man says as soon as he spots the two guys approaching the counter. Kazuya doesn’t feel ready to face another rejection and, even when everything seems to point out he’s about to, he walks alongside the other boy nevertheless.
He doesn’t fully notice he’s gripping the butterfly-shaped glass hanging from his phone in search of comfort.
“Why would you say that, Yamashita-san?” Kazuya can’t believe the guy is actually blushing.
“You come here almost day after day and, didn’t you tell me last month how much you’d love to work here once classes were over?”
“You remember?” Taguchi’s eyes sparkle at the words and Kazuya can hardly suppress the desire to palm his own face at the sight.
“Of course I remember! I’ve been thinking ever since then how great it would be having our biggest fan working here with us. Do you know how much you’d save me in advertizing?”
Kazuya silently curses his luck, convinced he wouldn’t get this job either.
“And you even brought a friend, I can see…”
The guy named Taguchi doesn’t deny it, instead he just simply takes one step aside for the owner to take a better look at Kame. Kazuya doesn’t understand where all that kindness to a stranger comes from, but he can feel himself hating it. It makes him feel as if his own flaws only stand out more next to that guy.
He bows to Yamashita-san.
“My name is Kamenashi Kazuya. Nice to meet you.”
When he straightens up, there’s a certain light of recognition in the owner’s eyes, as if he could recognize Kazuya from somewhere, even when Kazuya is sure this is the first time they’ve ever met or his first time stepping inside this shop.
An unsettling feeling sinks from the pitch of his stomach.
“I see… Nice to meet you, Kazu-chan…” the man says with a sweet smile, as if greeting an old friend.
Kazuya is taken aback by the sudden call of that pet name, as if the whole atmosphere has abruptly changed. It’s been so long since somebody has used it that Kazuya can barely remember who and when that was and the simple sound of the nickname stirs a number of emotions that render him speechless.
He regains some control over his body before he spills some tears. One thing was to be ready not to get the job because of the other guy, but Kazuya feels it harder to accept it now. The knot on his stomach seems to have moved to his chest.
“I’m sure you two will be great additions to our team. Can you start tomorrow morning already?”
Kazuya can hardly believe his ears.
As happy as Kazuya finds himself working in the café for Yamashita-san and his wife, he can’t help being bugged by the feeling he gets from the owner, especially because the man hasn’t stopped calling him Kazu-chan.
He doesn’t want to face the implications, so he tries his best not to dwell much on the matter.
The feeling keeps bugging him against his will, persistently circling his head every couple of minutes a day. It gets worse when he learns his boss’ story about his marriage.
Yamashita-san’s wife is in the coffee shop that day, taking care of the costumers’ orders while her husband is brewing the coffee in the backroom as he used to in his young days, as he calls them.
“He loves to reminisce old times,” she tells Kazuya with a hint of secretive in her voice.
Kame is cleaning one table that has just gotten unoccupied while listening to the lady, as young as her husband, talking about the time they have met while working together in a small coffee shop just like the one they own nowadays.
“Tomo stole my breath away since I first saw him. And my feelings only got deeper and deeper as we worked together and shared so many things closely, but he wouldn’t look my way back then,” the lady pouts childishly and gets closer to Kazuya to continue with the story as the café keeps empting slowly. “And when I had already lost my hopes, he asked me out.”
Kazuya smiles to her excited tone.
“May I ask what made him change his mind?”
“I asked Tomo the same once I became his official girlfriend, of course, and I almost didn’t believe his words.”
“What could you possibly not believe about it, Shiori-chan?” in that moment Yamashita-san comes out of the back store and butts into the conversation, hugging his wife from her back in an intimate, affectionate gesture.
“But doesn’t it sound weird, Kame-chan, that when I asked him all he told me was that his friend told him to?”
“I think I had already told you that Jin had his ways, hadn’t I? And when he told me you were my fated lover, I couldn’t help giving it a try…”
“You don’t even believe in fate.”
“And yet, here we are, still together after all these years…”
Kazuya ignores the sweet kiss they share between smiles, his heart shrinking with every word and his mind so fogged by the information that the cloth almost falls from his hand due to the sudden shock.
“Did- Did you say…?”
Yamashita-san smiles at him knowingly.
“I know it sounds silly that I took his word so seriously, but like I said, that guy had his ways. Since he started rooming together with me I noticed there was something weird about him and he kept on proving it right until the last day I saw him,” Yamashita-san keeps on telling Kazuya, as if he is talking about a friend they have in common. Kazuya is more than sure it somehow is, and his heart is jamming uncontrollably in his chest, almost making him faint.
“Are you still telling that story?” his wife teases him a bit.
“It’s the truth. When he said goodbye, he made me promise him that I’d open a coffee shop when I marry Shiori-chan, and by that time, we had barely started dating.”
“See, Kame-chan? Seems like I owe my happiness to a guy I only met a couple of times. Isn’t that unbelievable?” the woman asks with a happy smile before she detaches herself from her husband and goes to check on something in the back.
Yes, unbelievable indeed. Kame couldn’t agree more with it.
In the always magical realm of dreams, Kazuya can’t control the flow of his true feelings and they overwhelm his senses, forcing out of his lips the name he refuses to acknowledge on daylight.
He chants the said name repeatedly through the night like a desperate prayer that never gets answered. Such is the intensity of the emotions tearing him inside.
Jin… Jin… Jin…
It’s Taguchi-kun who points out there is a costumer visiting the café every day just to get a glimpse of Kazuya.
“You couldn’t possibly know that for sure,” Kazuya objects.
“Well, yesterday he came when you were running out an errand for Yamashita-kun and when I told him you might take a while to come back, he left. I mean, he just left like that, without asking anything else.”
Soon enough, though, Kazuya himself notices the costumer Taguchi has mentioned and who comes almost every day to the shop. It doesn’t matter the task Kazuya takes care of every time he visits the café, but the costumer always takes his time to chat a little bit with him about trivial stuff.
Kazuya feels flattered, but he can’t help to realize he would be more excited about it if the costumer would share the same beauty mark as his.
“You should give him a chance,” Taguchi says without a hint of teasing in his voice, without the slightest sarcasm or disgust and Kazuya, who has never questioned his sexuality, decides to follow the advice with the same practicality he resolves everything else.
If he doesn’t hurry his pace, Kazuya’s sure he’ll be late to his date with Saito-kun. Again. They have had to reschedule it a couple of times because, against all odds, Kazuya always has something to do instead and cancels.
A sudden family meeting.
Extra hours in the coffee shop.
Nakamaru needs his help and he runs to his side.
No matter what, and even when Saito-kun keeps going to the shop and they talk on daily basis, Kazuya seems to be too busy to meet the guy outside working hours. But today, he has gotten to leave a bit earlier and he hurriedly called the boy to meet up.
He isn’t really excited about this particular stage play Saito-kun has promised to take him in such a short notice or even with the prospect of meeting the guy that day, but he doesn’t want to come across as such a rude guy either.
A young guy around his age -one of those street performers ready to take all you money with their scams as soon as you blink- invites him to play a simple game with him.
“You just need to spot the ace card,” says the black-haired guy as he signals the three cards on his table and turns them facing down.
Kazuya stops and takes a look at the dozen of dogs cats and even rabbits standing still at the guy’s feet under the table while he shuffles around the cards and asks Kame not to take his eyes away from the ace card. But the two birds resting tamely on each shoulder of the street performer have made him forget about the purpose of the game by now.
The other guy seems to forget as well when he looks up from his cards to Kame’s face.
“I’m sorry, but I’m in a hurry,” Kazuya says when the intent look from the other guy makes him feel uncomfortable.
“Then, just one real quick!” the man says cheerfully and, before Kazuya can even begin to refuse, he reaches out his hand and takes one coin out of Kazuya’s ear.
Kame blinks a couple of times in silence.
“That is one lame trick,” Kame spits unimpressed and resumes his walk without adding anything else.
When he considers he is already to a certain safe distance from the man surrounded by animals, he hears a shout that forces him to stop on his tracks and makes him forget all about his date with Saito at the theater.
“Mou~ It was funnier when that trick used to freak the hell out of you, Kazu-chan!!”
That night, Kazuya dreams of a bald guy walking around with a rat in his pocket and a parrot on his shoulder, making him cry by taking out coins out of his kid-self’s ears.
Then, there is a warm, big hand patting his head softly until his cries subdue and asking the bald guy in a low tone not to terrify him.
With a sweet but firm voice, the owner of the big hand also asks the frightening bald guy to stop calling him Kazu-chan.
Saito-kun’s hands are a bit bigger than Kazuya’s, but still feel cold to the touch. Besides, he doesn’t like holding hands much, even after the first dates they finally have. His short hair doesn’t invite to be touched and even when Kazuya looks past this detail and reaches out his hand to caress it, he twitches and withdraws.
Kazuya is still comparing and, this time, there is not use in hiding it anymore.
In spite of everything, he refuses to acknowledge the name present in every one of his heartbeats, even if it feels like burnt with fire in every fiber of his body.
Kazuya manages to sneak some time in between his load of work and the time he dedicates to his family and Saito-kun to meet Nakamaru in a park nearby his house. He feels melancholic whenever he steps into that place, but it also fills him with a peaceful feeling he can’t get in any other place.
They’ve been talking about everything and nothing, catching up with the latest events in their lives. Kazuya omits to mention he’s been dating a guy he met at the coffee shop he works, even when he knows Nakamaru wouldn’t judge him for it. Somehow, he just feels to keep it secret for a while.
They fall into a nice, comfortable silence and just stare at the little kids playing so happily around.
“Kids are keys to magical worlds,” Kazuya says, but it feels as if somebody else is pushing those words out of his mouth. He doesn’t know whether he agrees or not with what he has just said, but it’s such a foreign phrase to come from him, Yuichi looks at him dumbfounded.
The phrase itself works as a magical key, taking him to a very precious passage of his life.
“Kids themselves are keys to magical worlds, Kazu-chan,” says a gentle, soft voice.
“Are you calling me a key, Jin-kun?” Kazuya’s squeaky voice breaks as he understands the words he’s saying and, before Jin-kun can do anything about it, there are tears in his eyes. Even as a kid, Kazuya cries as an adult ¬-gradually and with a terrifying vulnerability he desperately tries to hold before it gets too much. “But I’m a person, Jin-kun. Look! I’m a boy, I have hands and feet and a face… I’m not a key, Jin-kun! Look!”
There’s tenderness in Jin’s eyes as the kid’s tears overflow his and before the sobs get too loud, Jin picks him in his arms and softly rubs his little back, apologizing for his words and saying he has been wrong.
It’s the first time in Kazuya’s life an adult apologizes to him and admits some wrongness. And, in a very profound way, it makes him feel as if finally, finally, his existence has been recognized.
When Kazuya returns from his mental trip to the past, Nakamaru’s look has changed to a worried one and he can’t help but chuckle.
“I read that somewhere…” he opts to lie, wanting to guard his memory deep in his heart for nobody else to look or know about it.
He lies and keeps it secret from Nakamaru and from the rest of the world, but the reasons for it are totally different as to why he has kept quiet about Saito-kun and Kame can’t help to wonder about that discrepancy.
In their fourth official date -or maybe the fifth, Kazuya isn’t sure anymore about it as the time simply slips out of his numb hands-, Saito-kun fixes his eyes on Kazuya’s for a good ten seconds and Kazuya knows what’s about to happen, even before the other leans in and closes his eyes.
The kiss never happens, though, as Kazuya breaks apart before their lips meet.
Blushing, he quickly bows down and mutters quick apologies, as he furiously tries to erase the image he clearly has seen behind his eyelids when he has closed his eyes just a moment ago.
Damn that beauty mark under the piercing eyes for ruining his first kiss!
Kazuya wakes up startled in the middle of the night, his heartbeats frantically beating on his chest and echoing through his body and the walls of his bedroom. His senses are fully alert, but his eyes need some time to recognize the whiteness of his own room’s ceiling instead of the strokes of purple, orange and blue dancing brightly on the sky.
He barely regains his breath before realizing everything has been nothing but a dream, a reminiscence of the world he saw in his childish days when a soothing voice told him magical stories.
But something in his inside -something that sounds akin to that soothing voice from his past- tells about the truth of such a fantastic place.
That dream is only the beginning of a series of events in the span of a week that pushes him to the path of his destiny, the fate he has refused to acknowledge until now.
“You must be really in love with your boyfriend, ne~” Taguchi-kun teases him one time they’re asked to close the shop.
It’s almost time to call it for the day, and the two young boys are cleaning tables and putting things in order, the last costumer having left a couple of minutes ago.
Kazuya doesn’t understand where that statement comes from, especially because he has been thinking seriously about breaking up with Saito-kun. He realizes that, whenever he has to choose between being with the guy and doing anything else, he never chooses Saito and that speak louder than anything else.
“Why do you say that?” he still asks, feeling a bit curious about it as Taguchi-kun has proven to be quite a good observer.
“Well, Kame-chan, that’s because you look really happy whenever you look at that phone strap of yours like it’s something precious to you, full of happy memories,” Taguchi points at Kazuya’s cellphone that he’s holding at the moment and the younger guy blushes because, for the past couple of minutes, he has been staring at the butterfly-shaped glass while playing with it in between his fingers.
Kame feels as if caught red-handed and he doesn’t know how to react.
“That was a gift from him, right?”
Kazuya stays silent for a couple of minutes, not able to come up with a lie for it and yet refusing to state the truth. He settles with mumbling a quick excuse and moves to the back store for a last check-up, his heart racing at the thought of what Taguchi has just said.
This time, Kazuya doesn’t even visit the park close to his house with the excuse of making up his mind.
He has long ago made his decision, and finally decides to act on it even when he has never meant to hurt Saito-kun.
“You don’t look happy, Kame,” Nakamaru says one evening they share together under the chill breeze of late autumn.
The younger boy doesn’t even try to deny that fact.
“You look tired, like you’re always running away from something. Are you having problems with money? I could help, you know I could totally help you.”
He’d like to accept the help, especially coming from such a considerate Senpai and friend as Nakamaru. But deep down inside, he knows he can’t.
More than anything, Kazuya realizes he’s the only one who can help himself, only if he finally faces his true feelings.
Kamenashi-san goes to her son’s bedroom and tells him he has a friend waiting for him in the front door, whom Kazuya doesn’t really wait for so early in the morning. Still, he gets up from his bed and drags his feet to where the unexpected guest is.
Ueda Tatsuya surprises Kame with an unannounced visit. The moment Kazuya appears on his doorframe, he reaches out and sticks a butterfly sticker on his face, barely avoiding the tip of his nose.
“There you go, now it matches that ugly, girly phone strap of yours,” Ueda then turns around and seems to be more than ready to leave. Kazuya blinks a couple of times completely in awe before asking what the hell is going on.
Ueda sighs loudly and turns to face Kazuya.
“Yuichi sent me here.”
“Nakamaru?”
“Do we know another Yuichi? Seriously!” but Kazuya still looks at him with a puzzled expression, not understanding anything. It’s been two days since he has last talked with the older man. “If you say one word, even to Yuichi, I’ll deny everything and give you a black eye.”
Kazuya nods, a bit scared with the whispered words.
“The thing is, Kame, we all need some magic in life, and you’re no exception… I’d say quite the contrary.”
The words arouse tears to Kame’s eyes, tears that Tatsuya decides to overlook. It’s rather obvious even for Ueda who isn’t really interested in him to notice Kame’s deed emotional issues and how they’re taking a toll at him.
So, convinced he’s done what he has been asked to, Ueda nods one last time before leaving.
Kazuya walks in the middle of snowfall, white flakes of frozen water falling from the sky in beautiful forms and shapes, painting everything in a pearl white color that makes the world looks a bit more magical. It’s not the bright sky that he has been once described in the form of a fairy tale, but somehow, Kazuya can’t deny the magic floating around him.
He just simply can’t deny it.
Kazuya doesn’t remove the snowflakes falling on his face that night. The slowly melting snowflakes masking the flow of sudden salty tears.
Kame spends Christmas Eve searching desperately in between tons of boxes filled with old toys and dust-covered books of fairy tales, all his hopes up to find the tiniest clue that leads him back to Jin.
Nothing works and so Kazuya has to start forcing memories out of that safe box compartment in his head he has once locked them up inside to survive, chanting prayers for Jin to return to him instead.
He also prays this to be the last lonely Christmas he has to spend.
Kazuya doesn’t even realize when he has detached the butterfly-shaped crystal and has attached it instead to a necklace he never takes off.
That park, his secret hideout when he was a child, is the last place he has expected to meet that street performer again.
It takes him more than a moment to recognize him, his once black hair is now golden blond and with a totally different style from what Kazuya can recall from last time he saw him. The animals following him wherever he goes are the ones that give him up for Kame.
“I was looking for you,” he lies as he approaches the guy.
“Oh, Kazu-chan, so you finally remember?” Kazuya remains silent, not sure what the still stranger means by that. “Lies are not good, Kazu-chan, you’re gonna break Jin’s heart if you tell lies.”
The name confirms his first suspicion about this guy and the relationship he might have with Jin. But most importantly, Kazuya feels like finally he is on the right track to make peace with his past.
“Who are you? Not even my closest friends call me that.”
“See? You haven’t remembered yet, but let me give you some help… I’m Koki. Though Jin still likes to call me the animals’ enchanter. And, as you must suspect, I’m a wizard.”
“Like Jin?” he can’t help to ask.
“No, I don’t think anybody is a wizard quite like him. And I think it’s rather obvious my powers are different from his…” Kazuya doesn’t know how to respond to that. Even if he could remember every little detail of his life next to Jin, he is sure he hadn’t been told of such details.
The man -he asks to be called simply Koki and scolds Kazuya when he uses honorifics with him- tells him about his comings and goings from the Capital of Stars, how his powers had come to him from his love to magical creatures and how he can never be without animals around him.
“That’s why Jin calls me like that… But you see, the thing with every living creature-”
“Have you seen him?” Kazuya interrupts and he earns a harsh reply.
“Haven’t you?”
Kazuya hates how his questions aren’t answered and he gets the feeling he should get used to it when talking to this man.
“As I was saying, the thing with every little creature is to know what they’re fond of.”
“Yeah, and I bet fairies are fond of scary boxers, right?” he replies with sarcasm, feeling annoyed at the obvious fact that this guy is not going to be of any help.
“Fairies are too shy and rarely allow to be seen,” Koki replies, not understanding a word of what Kazuya says. But Kame looks at him suddenly interested, finally, and so he decides to share just a bit of harmless information. “But even they are fond of beautiful singing voices and beautiful flowers.”
Kazuya breaks into a fits of giggles. The image of a certain scary Senpai singing in the midst of a field of flowers seems like the most hilarious image anybody can come up with. When his laughter subsides, though, he holds the information close to his heart, finally having a way to confirm the truth behind all those stories Jin have once told him.
A tiny piece of information strikes him all of a sudden, and so he can’t help asking another question to Koki as the guy is patting one little fox.
“And what about unicorns? Are they all in the Valley of Unicorns?”
Koki looks up at him from his squatted position next to the little fox, a mocking expression fully directed at Kazuya.
“Are you stupid or what? Unicorns have never existed. Is this one of those stupid jokes Jin loves to tell everybody?”
Kazuya likes observing the stars every night since he was a child as if his fate is written on them, as if happiness is intimately related to them.
It’s only now when he has recollected almost all the tiny bits of information about the Capital of Stars Jin has ever told him that he can grasp why he has felt that way all his life.
“You can sing,” Kame blurbs rather rudely the next time he meets Ueda.
The other glares at him for a full minute before answering back, even when it hasn’t been a question.
“How the hell do you know? Did Yuichi tell you about it? I swear I’m going to-”
“He didn’t!” Kazuya hurries to say, realizing only then it must be some sort of secret for his Senpai as he has never mentioned it before and Kazuya has never been to karaoke with them. The next thing Kame says comes as a surprise for both himself and Ueda. “It’s the fairies… They come to you because of your singing skills.”
Ueda frowns. And nothing good comes when Ueda frowns, so Kazuya can’t stop a shudder running down his spine.
“Are you fucking mocking me?” he whispers in an ice-cold voice.
Kazuya stares at him with wide open eyes. Never in his life has he confronted such an upset Ueda Tatsuya.
“I’m not, I swear!” he shields himself with his hands, knowing it would be fruitless if Tatsuya decides to throw a punch at him, so he braces himself for the worst.
“Somebody told me…! You sing for them, right? This person told me you must, that’s why they come to you. For your voice and flowers, maybe…”
The panic he is feeling forces all those things to come out of his mouth unfiltered, his brain shutting down from all its basic tasks ad his body frozen in the same spot.
Some of his words, however, seem to function as a tranquilizer for Ueda, whose features go back to their usual softness, his rage finally tamed.
“Who?” at the lack of reply he gets, the Senpai sighs and tries to form a more complete question. “Who told you about fairies, Kamenashi?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I say it,” Kazuya hurries to say, not really up to tell stories about an animal enchanter and the world of fantasy where Jin supposedly is. Not even to Ueda Tatsuya, who believes so strongly in fairies. “But I want to see it, Ueda, the way you sing for the fairies.”
Ueda tsks and opts to finish the conversation with that as he couldn’t care less about what Kazuya might want or not. But this time, Kazuya is not willing to give up. Something inside of him stops him from giving up.
“You say everybody needs magic… Me, more than the rest,” Kazuya tries, and receives an uncertain gesture from the oldest guy. “Please, Ueda.”
He is pulled over to the back of Tatsuya’s family house, a beautiful garden full with all kind of different plants and flowers appearing before his eyes for the very first time.
Kazuya stays aside and watches from afar how Tatsuya walks to the center of the garden, closes his eyes and starts humming a lovely melody with a soft voice. Little by little, though, his voice gains volume and his expression turns passionate as the melody becomes words that chain one after the other into a beautiful tune Kazuya has never heard before and thus, he’s sure Ueda has composed it.
And, suddenly, there they are.
It is as if the sight of colorful winged fairies flying around Ueda Tatsuya is the living proof of Jin’s existence as well of the Capital of Stars, even beyond his own memories.
Kazuya doesn’t realize there are tears running down his face and, when he does, he doesn’t understand the reason behind his cries. Whether he is crying of happiness or out of relief is as much of a mystery to him as the sudden urge to find Jin filling his soul.
Kazuya asks his mother and, when he doesn’t get an answer, he finds himself asking to his own boss about that weird roommate he once had and that he now claims is the reason behind his happiness.
“Took you long enough, Kazu-chan.”
His hopes rise to the sky the moment Yamashita-san says those words. But soon they are crushed by the hard reality and the seemingly impossibility of his heart’s selfish desire.
“Truth is, I don’t know what happened to him after he moved out. I tried searching for him, I wanted him to be my best man but it’s almost as if the Earth swallowed him.” Kazuya feels defeated even if he isn’t willing to give up. Somehow there’s something inside of him urging him not to stop on his search as hard as it might get. “But I remember him saying one thing before he left…”
“I’m not sure why I’m saying this to you, but I haven’t been sure of many things that I’ve done and I don’t regret anything,” Jin has said to Yamapi as he has gotten closer to the door of the apartment, his backpack safely hanging in his back. “But, if Kazuya ever wants to find me… Please tell him to remember what I taught him about catching dragonflies.”
“Is that supposed to make any sense to me?” Kazuya asks, more confused than ever with what seems to be the last and only message Jin has left for him.
“I think so. I mean, why would Jin choose to say such a random thing if it wasn’t important?” Yamashita-san stares earnestly at Kazuya, probably hopeful to reunite with his old friend after such a long separation, but unfortunately Kame can’t make anything out of those words.
Dragonflies appear to be the new obsession Kazuya adopts, as he stares closely to those insects whenever he finds one on his way back home in hopes to give some sense to what Jin has said.
But Kazuya still can’t find the answer to any of his questions, and they seem to pile up more and more.
Kazuya hates the starless nights the most. As if the darkness of the sky is nothing but a bad omen of his own life.
Part 3
And just as magically as Jin has once appeared into the Kamenashi family’s life, he has also vanished, leaving behind no trace to find him -except, maybe, the ones he so carefully placed inside Kazuya’s heart.
Kazuya wakes up startled by a weird dream, though his body doesn’t betray him in the least. He snaps his eyes open and raises one shaky hand to his forehead, his furious heartbeats threatening to break his ribcage with their force.
The spot is dry under his touch, of course, but he still feels the tingling sensation of soft, plump lips brushing gently against him. He can even feel it almost burning softly from under his skin despite his stoic façade.
Years and years have passed since he has last heard the fairytales Jin would make up for his entertainment, until both the stories and the man himself have blurred themselves into an almost forgotten passage of his past.
So, why? Kazuya asks himself, torn by so many intense emotions and thoughts he has woken up to on his birthday. It’s so bizarre that a dream -even such a weird one- can arouse such a stormy reaction in his body.
But he isn’t about to dignify it with anything more than a huff, he decides after getting a hold of himself. After all, Kazuya has believed he has gotten over it for so long, moving on from those years he has spent every single candle on his birthdays’ cakes wishing to see him again.
“Mou~ I won’t even say his name!”
He closes his eyes, pretending to be asleep only to wake up for real and get out of bed five minutes later.
Kazuya is determined not to let anything ruin his eighteen birthday. He isn’t aware he’s been chanting the same name over and over again in his sleep for the past decade.
Kazuya has grown up to be a pragmatic young man, so far from the innocent boy full of hopes he once used to be. The abandonment of his father has left a bitterness in him nobody has been capable to cure.
He is frustrated and resentful his father has never played a role in his life, and that imprinted a scar in his soul that has only gotten deeper over the course of the past years because of that second time he has felt abandoned by a dear, close person.
At the age of 18, Kazuya has never trusted again enough in a person to let them in.
Kazuya checks his watch and hurries his steps when he realizes he’s already ten minutes late.
On the way to the appointed meeting place he ponders over and over again about the same subject: Why does he have to meet with this senpai on his birthday, of all days, when that guy makes such a fuss about punctuality?
Kazuya can see the silhouette of the boy a few steps away and mentally prepares both a greeting and an apology to say.
“What the hell is that?” leaves his mouth instead of the cheap excuse he has prepared in a matter of seconds about broken alarm clocks.
Ueda Tatsuya looks at the finger pointing so rudely at his face with a death glare, thinking there should be a limit to how much this guy can annoy him.
“You know? For a kouhai, you show no respect to your Senpai… I don’t see what Yuichi could have possibly seen or liked about you.”
Kazuya isn’t really taken aback by the words and the harsh tone the other uses with him. It actually entertains him, instead of terrifying him like it used to back in High School, but he isn’t about to voice that thought out loud.
Ueda’s angelic looks can deceive almost everybody, but Kame knows the strength in his fists.
He still remembers.
Nevertheless, he looks at the older male with inquiring eyes, expecting a proper answer to his rather improper question.
His eyes shine in victory when Ueda heaves a sigh.
“My sister thought it was funny to come to my place first thing in the morning and stick a butterfly sticker in my face.”
“Why don’t you just take it off?”
By all answer, he just receives a light snort and Ueda starts making his way forward to the agreed place for Kazuya’s Birthday Extravaganza Party Day Yuichi has planned such a long time, but that will probably consist of a nice day shopping and a good meal with a strawberry cake at the end.
Kazuya quickly follows his senpai’s steps, silently mocking Ueda’s cute side from time to time by pointing in his own face the spot where the butterfly sticker is placed whenever the other turns around to check on him.
There’s a sort of flashback that hits him and halts his stride, however, the moment Kame walks in front of a window shop with his hand raised to his face and he gazes at the spot he’s still pointing at, as if the image of another boy -a taller one with darker hair, piercing eyes and broader shoulders that him- has suddenly taken over his own reflection.
Slowly, and as if losing track of time and reality, Kazuya lowers his hand and stares in astonishment at how the boy in the mirroring surface does the same thing at the same pace, revealing a beauty mark just like the one adorning Kazuya’s skin right under his right eye.
“I believe… this… will connect us… forever…”
“Kamenashi?”
The light punch on his shoulder and the almost distant call of his name finally brings Kazuya out of his reverie. But his heart remains pounding at the same fast beat for the rest of his special day.
Not even Nakamaru’s blunt comment about how Tatsuya has left that butterfly sticker on his face because of the resemblance of its wings with a certain Fairy he claims to know can take Kazuya’s mind out of the ethereal figure of him.
“On your 18th birthday, Kazuya… On that special day, a butterfly of light will find its way from me to you…”
Kazuya hurries his pace on the way back home, not eager to reach his destination, but for the day to end already. He knows well enough his anxiety is related to the vision he had in the morning, but he is still trying to come up with another explanation.
He doesn’t slow down the slightest when, checking his wristwatch, he takes notice that there are mere thirty minutes left of this disastrous day to be finally over. Instead, Kazuya tries his best to focus on the happenings of his birthday before his mind decides to wander to a more dangerous territory.
So Kazuya mentally goes through the day of shopping he had predicted to have with his Senpais, much more fun that he could have expected, and then, when he had thought they’d go to Nakamaru’s apartment to wrap the day with a movie and a simple cake, the surprise birthday party they have prepared, inviting old classmates from High School, had come. The nature of the party, however, has been rather clear to Kazuya, just like its planner.
Ueda has been nagging Kazuya to get a girlfriend since they first met, and the obvious discrepancy in the number of boys and girls has been enough of a clue for him.
He had ended up dancing all night long with virtually all the girls in Nakamaru’s place and talking shallow subjects with everybody as if he was the host instead of the birthday boy. It had been more like a punishment to him than a present.
Kazuya takes another look at his watch and sighs loudly when he notices only five minutes has gone by since the last time he has checked.
Something under his left foot makes him stop his walk and when he moves his foot to take a look at the foreign object, Kazuya gasps in awe at the sight. There is a pink flash that takes him back to a sunny day in the park and shared secrets in the hidden.
After what feels like an eternity, but is nothing more than a mere minute, Kazuya squats down and takes the object -which turns out to be one of those common butterfly-shaped glass keychains- into his hands for a closer look. It almost feels as if there is a pink light shining warmly from the inside of it, even when Kazuya knows that’s rather impossible.
His heart, however, hammering painfully inside his chest seems to have a different idea about the little keychain and the reason why Kazuya has just found it. Or was it the other way around…?
Funny, how his mother has always told him he was born at that exact time he finds the pink butterfly in the middle of a deserted street.
“How did he even…?” he cuts himself off by shaking his head “You can’t start believing in fairytales just now, Kamenashi” he reproaches himself, but picks up the butterfly-shaped crystal nevertheless and shoves it in his pocket as he starts walking back home.
The next day there’s a new butterfly-shaped phone strap attached to Kame’s cellphone.
It almost seems like a magical charm Kazuya can’t take his eyes away from, despite the constant mocking of his little brother.
The moment Kazuya realizes he’s been religiously staring at the new phone strap he has found on his birthday every morning when he wakes up, every night before falling asleep and almost every hour in between while considering the fact that, somehow, somebody has sent this present especially to him, he can’t help feeling panic creeping up his body.
The chill breeze from winter has long ago died and the Cherry Blossom trees adorning beautifully the streets all around Japan welcome the people into a season of new beginnings, new promises and fertile means to achieve, but Kazuya can’t see any of that.
Locked in his room as much as he can with all the free time he can enjoy now, Kame spends his hours and days and weeks pondering over his new favorite item, scaring himself with all the whimsical “what if…” displaying in his head almost against his will, threading his present with a part of his past he should have long forgotten. That he has already, he repeats over and over again.
However, he can’t help to take the little piece of glass into his hand as the most delicate and valuable object he would ever possess. He can’t help the smile blossoming on his face.
And yet, he decides, he can’t allow himself to fall again into such an obsessive behavior. Not after all the grief and pain he had experienced the first time. And not, especially, after the hard time it had supposed to overcome it.
Restless as he is with the whirlwind of emotions and thoughts and blurry memories messing with his life, there is only one solution Kazuya can come up with.
He texts Ueda Tatsuya in a moment of anxiety and asks the older guy to set him up with one of the girls from his birthday party, anyone, as soon as possible.
It has been his own decision, he knows that.
However Kazuya can’t help but feel forced to be there with Kaoru-chan, one of the girls he has talked the most during the party. But as the gentleman he has been raised to be, he’s not about to let it show in front of the girl anytime soon.
He just smiles and leads the girl through the attractions of the Festival, playing some games and buying some of her whims with a smile as they engage in small talks.
Before he realizes, though, the night is over and he’s agreeing to take her on another date before they take separate ways.
Kazuya knows he has the right to search for love, even if he actually believes love is just a simple invention from those fairytales he hates so much.
What Kazuya doesn’t understand, though, is the feeling of guilt and remorse slowly growing up in him alongside emptiness as he spends more time with the girl.
Her hands are cold when he holds them and they are too small. Her hair isn’t silky enough, her eyes don’t have that sort of special sparkle shining in them. And, as much as Kazuya tries to, her lips don’t arouse in him the desire to kiss them, to kiss her.
Kazuya doesn’t even take in he is comparing the girl with a memory engraved in his heart.
Whenever he’s been facing a hard decision in life, Kazuya feels a compelling force dragging his feet to a park nearby his house. He can’t point out the reason behind this behavior, he can’t even remember when he has done it for the very first time or why it has to be this park.
But it’s only in this place that he feels calm enough to make the hardest of choices.
Today, he feels extremely nostalgic just by sitting in a bench close to the sandbox where little kids keep playing random games. His mind wanders through passages of his life he’d rather forget about; but, for one reason or another, he doesn’t have the strength to take his mind out of it and think about any other thing. Not even the one that has brought him to this park in the first place.
Kazuya doesn’t realize he’s been twirling, yet again, the little butterfly-shaped crystal strap on his hands while he’s at it and that there’s a faint smile curling up his lips.
When he leaves that place, a couple of minutes after sunset, Kazuya understands he has taken his decision long before going there.
Breaking up with Kaoru-chan takes Kazuya one step closer to the truth he still refuses to acknowledge.
Pragmatic as ever, Kazuya doesn’t linger in feelings of guilt after the break-up, especially because he has always known he wouldn’t harbor deeper feelings for the girl no matter for how long they would have dated. Kazuya is sure he did the best and so he simply moves on with his life.
After finishing High School, Kazuya has decided to stop his studies and take on a full time job, helping his mother out with the bills and maybe his little brother will be able to enter a good college if that’s what he wants.
With a newspaper in one hand and a folder full of resumes in the other, the eldest son of the Kamenashi family walks around the city under the bright sun of summer in search of a job that would allow him to achieve his personal goal and that would take his mind off this nagging feeling that has left him since his birthday party, all those months ago.
Kazuya feels dishearten by the amount of ‘no’ he has received all day long, followed by all kind of explanations as to why he doesn’t fit in for the jobs he has applied.
“You are too young.”
“You lack experience.”
“We’ve already hired somebody.”
“You need a driver’s license and a motorcycle.”
The world seems to be telling Kazuya constantly he has nothing to offer and, by the end of the long day, he feels defeated and ready to give up on his hopes.
He checks the time on his cellphone and sends a quick mail to his mother not to worry about his whereabouts; but then, the always shining warmly piece of glass attached to his mobile catches his attention and Kazuya finds himself unable to tear his eyes apart of the object.
Realizing he’s been smiling while daydreaming with a fantastic world filled with magic in a matter of minutes, Kazuya immediately shoves the device back to his pocket with sharp moves.
He sighs loudly, but, before he can start reprimanding himself for such childish antics, there’s a light bathing him all of a sudden.
It’s just a simple establishment right in front of him -one of those small cafés around town- flicking on the lights for the night shift that is about to begin, but Kazuya hasn’t taken notice of it before. His frustration hasn’t allowed him to, yet Kazuya indulges for a second in the thought of such a cozy place appearing magically before his eyes just for his sake.
“Maybe it was conjured by…”
He shakes such a thought before it evolves any further into someone magically invoking the coffee shop just for Kame.
“I don’t even like coffee,” is the lame excuse Kazuya has to mumble to cast away the terrifying fear to get inside the store invading his whole body at the moment.
The next minute, though, the boy is stepping inside the warm place and asking to a smiling guy around his age about a sign of “Help wanted” he has spotted hanging in the front door.
“You came for the job too? It would be awesome getting to work here, right? I mean, the coffee they serve here is the best in town, just like the pastries. I come here almost every day just for it. And plus, I’ve talked to some of the staff already and they all say the owner is really nice with everybody, especially to his employees. He should be here any minute now for the interviews, but it seems like it’s only you and me,” the tall boy says all in one go. He pauses to let some air to fill his lungs, his smile never falters meanwhile. “I’m Junnosuke, Taguchi Junnosuke. Nice to meet you.”
“Kamenashi Kazuya.”
“Can I call you Kame? I bet everybody does.”
There is not enough time for Kazuya to deny the question, as the two boys are called to the front counter where a handsome man in his mid-thirties with brown hair and friendly smile seems to be waiting for them.
“I knew I’d see you here as soon as I’d hang up that sign, Taguchi-kun!” the man says as soon as he spots the two guys approaching the counter. Kazuya doesn’t feel ready to face another rejection and, even when everything seems to point out he’s about to, he walks alongside the other boy nevertheless.
He doesn’t fully notice he’s gripping the butterfly-shaped glass hanging from his phone in search of comfort.
“Why would you say that, Yamashita-san?” Kazuya can’t believe the guy is actually blushing.
“You come here almost day after day and, didn’t you tell me last month how much you’d love to work here once classes were over?”
“You remember?” Taguchi’s eyes sparkle at the words and Kazuya can hardly suppress the desire to palm his own face at the sight.
“Of course I remember! I’ve been thinking ever since then how great it would be having our biggest fan working here with us. Do you know how much you’d save me in advertizing?”
Kazuya silently curses his luck, convinced he wouldn’t get this job either.
“And you even brought a friend, I can see…”
The guy named Taguchi doesn’t deny it, instead he just simply takes one step aside for the owner to take a better look at Kame. Kazuya doesn’t understand where all that kindness to a stranger comes from, but he can feel himself hating it. It makes him feel as if his own flaws only stand out more next to that guy.
He bows to Yamashita-san.
“My name is Kamenashi Kazuya. Nice to meet you.”
When he straightens up, there’s a certain light of recognition in the owner’s eyes, as if he could recognize Kazuya from somewhere, even when Kazuya is sure this is the first time they’ve ever met or his first time stepping inside this shop.
An unsettling feeling sinks from the pitch of his stomach.
“I see… Nice to meet you, Kazu-chan…” the man says with a sweet smile, as if greeting an old friend.
Kazuya is taken aback by the sudden call of that pet name, as if the whole atmosphere has abruptly changed. It’s been so long since somebody has used it that Kazuya can barely remember who and when that was and the simple sound of the nickname stirs a number of emotions that render him speechless.
He regains some control over his body before he spills some tears. One thing was to be ready not to get the job because of the other guy, but Kazuya feels it harder to accept it now. The knot on his stomach seems to have moved to his chest.
“I’m sure you two will be great additions to our team. Can you start tomorrow morning already?”
Kazuya can hardly believe his ears.
As happy as Kazuya finds himself working in the café for Yamashita-san and his wife, he can’t help being bugged by the feeling he gets from the owner, especially because the man hasn’t stopped calling him Kazu-chan.
He doesn’t want to face the implications, so he tries his best not to dwell much on the matter.
The feeling keeps bugging him against his will, persistently circling his head every couple of minutes a day. It gets worse when he learns his boss’ story about his marriage.
Yamashita-san’s wife is in the coffee shop that day, taking care of the costumers’ orders while her husband is brewing the coffee in the backroom as he used to in his young days, as he calls them.
“He loves to reminisce old times,” she tells Kazuya with a hint of secretive in her voice.
Kame is cleaning one table that has just gotten unoccupied while listening to the lady, as young as her husband, talking about the time they have met while working together in a small coffee shop just like the one they own nowadays.
“Tomo stole my breath away since I first saw him. And my feelings only got deeper and deeper as we worked together and shared so many things closely, but he wouldn’t look my way back then,” the lady pouts childishly and gets closer to Kazuya to continue with the story as the café keeps empting slowly. “And when I had already lost my hopes, he asked me out.”
Kazuya smiles to her excited tone.
“May I ask what made him change his mind?”
“I asked Tomo the same once I became his official girlfriend, of course, and I almost didn’t believe his words.”
“What could you possibly not believe about it, Shiori-chan?” in that moment Yamashita-san comes out of the back store and butts into the conversation, hugging his wife from her back in an intimate, affectionate gesture.
“But doesn’t it sound weird, Kame-chan, that when I asked him all he told me was that his friend told him to?”
“I think I had already told you that Jin had his ways, hadn’t I? And when he told me you were my fated lover, I couldn’t help giving it a try…”
“You don’t even believe in fate.”
“And yet, here we are, still together after all these years…”
Kazuya ignores the sweet kiss they share between smiles, his heart shrinking with every word and his mind so fogged by the information that the cloth almost falls from his hand due to the sudden shock.
“Did- Did you say…?”
Yamashita-san smiles at him knowingly.
“I know it sounds silly that I took his word so seriously, but like I said, that guy had his ways. Since he started rooming together with me I noticed there was something weird about him and he kept on proving it right until the last day I saw him,” Yamashita-san keeps on telling Kazuya, as if he is talking about a friend they have in common. Kazuya is more than sure it somehow is, and his heart is jamming uncontrollably in his chest, almost making him faint.
“Are you still telling that story?” his wife teases him a bit.
“It’s the truth. When he said goodbye, he made me promise him that I’d open a coffee shop when I marry Shiori-chan, and by that time, we had barely started dating.”
“See, Kame-chan? Seems like I owe my happiness to a guy I only met a couple of times. Isn’t that unbelievable?” the woman asks with a happy smile before she detaches herself from her husband and goes to check on something in the back.
Yes, unbelievable indeed. Kame couldn’t agree more with it.
In the always magical realm of dreams, Kazuya can’t control the flow of his true feelings and they overwhelm his senses, forcing out of his lips the name he refuses to acknowledge on daylight.
He chants the said name repeatedly through the night like a desperate prayer that never gets answered. Such is the intensity of the emotions tearing him inside.
Jin… Jin… Jin…
It’s Taguchi-kun who points out there is a costumer visiting the café every day just to get a glimpse of Kazuya.
“You couldn’t possibly know that for sure,” Kazuya objects.
“Well, yesterday he came when you were running out an errand for Yamashita-kun and when I told him you might take a while to come back, he left. I mean, he just left like that, without asking anything else.”
Soon enough, though, Kazuya himself notices the costumer Taguchi has mentioned and who comes almost every day to the shop. It doesn’t matter the task Kazuya takes care of every time he visits the café, but the costumer always takes his time to chat a little bit with him about trivial stuff.
Kazuya feels flattered, but he can’t help to realize he would be more excited about it if the costumer would share the same beauty mark as his.
“You should give him a chance,” Taguchi says without a hint of teasing in his voice, without the slightest sarcasm or disgust and Kazuya, who has never questioned his sexuality, decides to follow the advice with the same practicality he resolves everything else.
If he doesn’t hurry his pace, Kazuya’s sure he’ll be late to his date with Saito-kun. Again. They have had to reschedule it a couple of times because, against all odds, Kazuya always has something to do instead and cancels.
A sudden family meeting.
Extra hours in the coffee shop.
Nakamaru needs his help and he runs to his side.
No matter what, and even when Saito-kun keeps going to the shop and they talk on daily basis, Kazuya seems to be too busy to meet the guy outside working hours. But today, he has gotten to leave a bit earlier and he hurriedly called the boy to meet up.
He isn’t really excited about this particular stage play Saito-kun has promised to take him in such a short notice or even with the prospect of meeting the guy that day, but he doesn’t want to come across as such a rude guy either.
A young guy around his age -one of those street performers ready to take all you money with their scams as soon as you blink- invites him to play a simple game with him.
“You just need to spot the ace card,” says the black-haired guy as he signals the three cards on his table and turns them facing down.
Kazuya stops and takes a look at the dozen of dogs cats and even rabbits standing still at the guy’s feet under the table while he shuffles around the cards and asks Kame not to take his eyes away from the ace card. But the two birds resting tamely on each shoulder of the street performer have made him forget about the purpose of the game by now.
The other guy seems to forget as well when he looks up from his cards to Kame’s face.
“I’m sorry, but I’m in a hurry,” Kazuya says when the intent look from the other guy makes him feel uncomfortable.
“Then, just one real quick!” the man says cheerfully and, before Kazuya can even begin to refuse, he reaches out his hand and takes one coin out of Kazuya’s ear.
Kame blinks a couple of times in silence.
“That is one lame trick,” Kame spits unimpressed and resumes his walk without adding anything else.
When he considers he is already to a certain safe distance from the man surrounded by animals, he hears a shout that forces him to stop on his tracks and makes him forget all about his date with Saito at the theater.
“Mou~ It was funnier when that trick used to freak the hell out of you, Kazu-chan!!”
That night, Kazuya dreams of a bald guy walking around with a rat in his pocket and a parrot on his shoulder, making him cry by taking out coins out of his kid-self’s ears.
Then, there is a warm, big hand patting his head softly until his cries subdue and asking the bald guy in a low tone not to terrify him.
With a sweet but firm voice, the owner of the big hand also asks the frightening bald guy to stop calling him Kazu-chan.
Saito-kun’s hands are a bit bigger than Kazuya’s, but still feel cold to the touch. Besides, he doesn’t like holding hands much, even after the first dates they finally have. His short hair doesn’t invite to be touched and even when Kazuya looks past this detail and reaches out his hand to caress it, he twitches and withdraws.
Kazuya is still comparing and, this time, there is not use in hiding it anymore.
In spite of everything, he refuses to acknowledge the name present in every one of his heartbeats, even if it feels like burnt with fire in every fiber of his body.
Kazuya manages to sneak some time in between his load of work and the time he dedicates to his family and Saito-kun to meet Nakamaru in a park nearby his house. He feels melancholic whenever he steps into that place, but it also fills him with a peaceful feeling he can’t get in any other place.
They’ve been talking about everything and nothing, catching up with the latest events in their lives. Kazuya omits to mention he’s been dating a guy he met at the coffee shop he works, even when he knows Nakamaru wouldn’t judge him for it. Somehow, he just feels to keep it secret for a while.
They fall into a nice, comfortable silence and just stare at the little kids playing so happily around.
“Kids are keys to magical worlds,” Kazuya says, but it feels as if somebody else is pushing those words out of his mouth. He doesn’t know whether he agrees or not with what he has just said, but it’s such a foreign phrase to come from him, Yuichi looks at him dumbfounded.
The phrase itself works as a magical key, taking him to a very precious passage of his life.
“Kids themselves are keys to magical worlds, Kazu-chan,” says a gentle, soft voice.
“Are you calling me a key, Jin-kun?” Kazuya’s squeaky voice breaks as he understands the words he’s saying and, before Jin-kun can do anything about it, there are tears in his eyes. Even as a kid, Kazuya cries as an adult ¬-gradually and with a terrifying vulnerability he desperately tries to hold before it gets too much. “But I’m a person, Jin-kun. Look! I’m a boy, I have hands and feet and a face… I’m not a key, Jin-kun! Look!”
There’s tenderness in Jin’s eyes as the kid’s tears overflow his and before the sobs get too loud, Jin picks him in his arms and softly rubs his little back, apologizing for his words and saying he has been wrong.
It’s the first time in Kazuya’s life an adult apologizes to him and admits some wrongness. And, in a very profound way, it makes him feel as if finally, finally, his existence has been recognized.
When Kazuya returns from his mental trip to the past, Nakamaru’s look has changed to a worried one and he can’t help but chuckle.
“I read that somewhere…” he opts to lie, wanting to guard his memory deep in his heart for nobody else to look or know about it.
He lies and keeps it secret from Nakamaru and from the rest of the world, but the reasons for it are totally different as to why he has kept quiet about Saito-kun and Kame can’t help to wonder about that discrepancy.
In their fourth official date -or maybe the fifth, Kazuya isn’t sure anymore about it as the time simply slips out of his numb hands-, Saito-kun fixes his eyes on Kazuya’s for a good ten seconds and Kazuya knows what’s about to happen, even before the other leans in and closes his eyes.
The kiss never happens, though, as Kazuya breaks apart before their lips meet.
Blushing, he quickly bows down and mutters quick apologies, as he furiously tries to erase the image he clearly has seen behind his eyelids when he has closed his eyes just a moment ago.
Damn that beauty mark under the piercing eyes for ruining his first kiss!
Kazuya wakes up startled in the middle of the night, his heartbeats frantically beating on his chest and echoing through his body and the walls of his bedroom. His senses are fully alert, but his eyes need some time to recognize the whiteness of his own room’s ceiling instead of the strokes of purple, orange and blue dancing brightly on the sky.
He barely regains his breath before realizing everything has been nothing but a dream, a reminiscence of the world he saw in his childish days when a soothing voice told him magical stories.
But something in his inside -something that sounds akin to that soothing voice from his past- tells about the truth of such a fantastic place.
That dream is only the beginning of a series of events in the span of a week that pushes him to the path of his destiny, the fate he has refused to acknowledge until now.
“You must be really in love with your boyfriend, ne~” Taguchi-kun teases him one time they’re asked to close the shop.
It’s almost time to call it for the day, and the two young boys are cleaning tables and putting things in order, the last costumer having left a couple of minutes ago.
Kazuya doesn’t understand where that statement comes from, especially because he has been thinking seriously about breaking up with Saito-kun. He realizes that, whenever he has to choose between being with the guy and doing anything else, he never chooses Saito and that speak louder than anything else.
“Why do you say that?” he still asks, feeling a bit curious about it as Taguchi-kun has proven to be quite a good observer.
“Well, Kame-chan, that’s because you look really happy whenever you look at that phone strap of yours like it’s something precious to you, full of happy memories,” Taguchi points at Kazuya’s cellphone that he’s holding at the moment and the younger guy blushes because, for the past couple of minutes, he has been staring at the butterfly-shaped glass while playing with it in between his fingers.
Kame feels as if caught red-handed and he doesn’t know how to react.
“That was a gift from him, right?”
Kazuya stays silent for a couple of minutes, not able to come up with a lie for it and yet refusing to state the truth. He settles with mumbling a quick excuse and moves to the back store for a last check-up, his heart racing at the thought of what Taguchi has just said.
This time, Kazuya doesn’t even visit the park close to his house with the excuse of making up his mind.
He has long ago made his decision, and finally decides to act on it even when he has never meant to hurt Saito-kun.
“You don’t look happy, Kame,” Nakamaru says one evening they share together under the chill breeze of late autumn.
The younger boy doesn’t even try to deny that fact.
“You look tired, like you’re always running away from something. Are you having problems with money? I could help, you know I could totally help you.”
He’d like to accept the help, especially coming from such a considerate Senpai and friend as Nakamaru. But deep down inside, he knows he can’t.
More than anything, Kazuya realizes he’s the only one who can help himself, only if he finally faces his true feelings.
Kamenashi-san goes to her son’s bedroom and tells him he has a friend waiting for him in the front door, whom Kazuya doesn’t really wait for so early in the morning. Still, he gets up from his bed and drags his feet to where the unexpected guest is.
Ueda Tatsuya surprises Kame with an unannounced visit. The moment Kazuya appears on his doorframe, he reaches out and sticks a butterfly sticker on his face, barely avoiding the tip of his nose.
“There you go, now it matches that ugly, girly phone strap of yours,” Ueda then turns around and seems to be more than ready to leave. Kazuya blinks a couple of times completely in awe before asking what the hell is going on.
Ueda sighs loudly and turns to face Kazuya.
“Yuichi sent me here.”
“Nakamaru?”
“Do we know another Yuichi? Seriously!” but Kazuya still looks at him with a puzzled expression, not understanding anything. It’s been two days since he has last talked with the older man. “If you say one word, even to Yuichi, I’ll deny everything and give you a black eye.”
Kazuya nods, a bit scared with the whispered words.
“The thing is, Kame, we all need some magic in life, and you’re no exception… I’d say quite the contrary.”
The words arouse tears to Kame’s eyes, tears that Tatsuya decides to overlook. It’s rather obvious even for Ueda who isn’t really interested in him to notice Kame’s deed emotional issues and how they’re taking a toll at him.
So, convinced he’s done what he has been asked to, Ueda nods one last time before leaving.
Kazuya walks in the middle of snowfall, white flakes of frozen water falling from the sky in beautiful forms and shapes, painting everything in a pearl white color that makes the world looks a bit more magical. It’s not the bright sky that he has been once described in the form of a fairy tale, but somehow, Kazuya can’t deny the magic floating around him.
He just simply can’t deny it.
Kazuya doesn’t remove the snowflakes falling on his face that night. The slowly melting snowflakes masking the flow of sudden salty tears.
Kame spends Christmas Eve searching desperately in between tons of boxes filled with old toys and dust-covered books of fairy tales, all his hopes up to find the tiniest clue that leads him back to Jin.
Nothing works and so Kazuya has to start forcing memories out of that safe box compartment in his head he has once locked them up inside to survive, chanting prayers for Jin to return to him instead.
He also prays this to be the last lonely Christmas he has to spend.
Kazuya doesn’t even realize when he has detached the butterfly-shaped crystal and has attached it instead to a necklace he never takes off.
That park, his secret hideout when he was a child, is the last place he has expected to meet that street performer again.
It takes him more than a moment to recognize him, his once black hair is now golden blond and with a totally different style from what Kazuya can recall from last time he saw him. The animals following him wherever he goes are the ones that give him up for Kame.
“I was looking for you,” he lies as he approaches the guy.
“Oh, Kazu-chan, so you finally remember?” Kazuya remains silent, not sure what the still stranger means by that. “Lies are not good, Kazu-chan, you’re gonna break Jin’s heart if you tell lies.”
The name confirms his first suspicion about this guy and the relationship he might have with Jin. But most importantly, Kazuya feels like finally he is on the right track to make peace with his past.
“Who are you? Not even my closest friends call me that.”
“See? You haven’t remembered yet, but let me give you some help… I’m Koki. Though Jin still likes to call me the animals’ enchanter. And, as you must suspect, I’m a wizard.”
“Like Jin?” he can’t help to ask.
“No, I don’t think anybody is a wizard quite like him. And I think it’s rather obvious my powers are different from his…” Kazuya doesn’t know how to respond to that. Even if he could remember every little detail of his life next to Jin, he is sure he hadn’t been told of such details.
The man -he asks to be called simply Koki and scolds Kazuya when he uses honorifics with him- tells him about his comings and goings from the Capital of Stars, how his powers had come to him from his love to magical creatures and how he can never be without animals around him.
“That’s why Jin calls me like that… But you see, the thing with every living creature-”
“Have you seen him?” Kazuya interrupts and he earns a harsh reply.
“Haven’t you?”
Kazuya hates how his questions aren’t answered and he gets the feeling he should get used to it when talking to this man.
“As I was saying, the thing with every little creature is to know what they’re fond of.”
“Yeah, and I bet fairies are fond of scary boxers, right?” he replies with sarcasm, feeling annoyed at the obvious fact that this guy is not going to be of any help.
“Fairies are too shy and rarely allow to be seen,” Koki replies, not understanding a word of what Kazuya says. But Kame looks at him suddenly interested, finally, and so he decides to share just a bit of harmless information. “But even they are fond of beautiful singing voices and beautiful flowers.”
Kazuya breaks into a fits of giggles. The image of a certain scary Senpai singing in the midst of a field of flowers seems like the most hilarious image anybody can come up with. When his laughter subsides, though, he holds the information close to his heart, finally having a way to confirm the truth behind all those stories Jin have once told him.
A tiny piece of information strikes him all of a sudden, and so he can’t help asking another question to Koki as the guy is patting one little fox.
“And what about unicorns? Are they all in the Valley of Unicorns?”
Koki looks up at him from his squatted position next to the little fox, a mocking expression fully directed at Kazuya.
“Are you stupid or what? Unicorns have never existed. Is this one of those stupid jokes Jin loves to tell everybody?”
Kazuya likes observing the stars every night since he was a child as if his fate is written on them, as if happiness is intimately related to them.
It’s only now when he has recollected almost all the tiny bits of information about the Capital of Stars Jin has ever told him that he can grasp why he has felt that way all his life.
“You can sing,” Kame blurbs rather rudely the next time he meets Ueda.
The other glares at him for a full minute before answering back, even when it hasn’t been a question.
“How the hell do you know? Did Yuichi tell you about it? I swear I’m going to-”
“He didn’t!” Kazuya hurries to say, realizing only then it must be some sort of secret for his Senpai as he has never mentioned it before and Kazuya has never been to karaoke with them. The next thing Kame says comes as a surprise for both himself and Ueda. “It’s the fairies… They come to you because of your singing skills.”
Ueda frowns. And nothing good comes when Ueda frowns, so Kazuya can’t stop a shudder running down his spine.
“Are you fucking mocking me?” he whispers in an ice-cold voice.
Kazuya stares at him with wide open eyes. Never in his life has he confronted such an upset Ueda Tatsuya.
“I’m not, I swear!” he shields himself with his hands, knowing it would be fruitless if Tatsuya decides to throw a punch at him, so he braces himself for the worst.
“Somebody told me…! You sing for them, right? This person told me you must, that’s why they come to you. For your voice and flowers, maybe…”
The panic he is feeling forces all those things to come out of his mouth unfiltered, his brain shutting down from all its basic tasks ad his body frozen in the same spot.
Some of his words, however, seem to function as a tranquilizer for Ueda, whose features go back to their usual softness, his rage finally tamed.
“Who?” at the lack of reply he gets, the Senpai sighs and tries to form a more complete question. “Who told you about fairies, Kamenashi?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I say it,” Kazuya hurries to say, not really up to tell stories about an animal enchanter and the world of fantasy where Jin supposedly is. Not even to Ueda Tatsuya, who believes so strongly in fairies. “But I want to see it, Ueda, the way you sing for the fairies.”
Ueda tsks and opts to finish the conversation with that as he couldn’t care less about what Kazuya might want or not. But this time, Kazuya is not willing to give up. Something inside of him stops him from giving up.
“You say everybody needs magic… Me, more than the rest,” Kazuya tries, and receives an uncertain gesture from the oldest guy. “Please, Ueda.”
He is pulled over to the back of Tatsuya’s family house, a beautiful garden full with all kind of different plants and flowers appearing before his eyes for the very first time.
Kazuya stays aside and watches from afar how Tatsuya walks to the center of the garden, closes his eyes and starts humming a lovely melody with a soft voice. Little by little, though, his voice gains volume and his expression turns passionate as the melody becomes words that chain one after the other into a beautiful tune Kazuya has never heard before and thus, he’s sure Ueda has composed it.
And, suddenly, there they are.
It is as if the sight of colorful winged fairies flying around Ueda Tatsuya is the living proof of Jin’s existence as well of the Capital of Stars, even beyond his own memories.
Kazuya doesn’t realize there are tears running down his face and, when he does, he doesn’t understand the reason behind his cries. Whether he is crying of happiness or out of relief is as much of a mystery to him as the sudden urge to find Jin filling his soul.
Kazuya asks his mother and, when he doesn’t get an answer, he finds himself asking to his own boss about that weird roommate he once had and that he now claims is the reason behind his happiness.
“Took you long enough, Kazu-chan.”
His hopes rise to the sky the moment Yamashita-san says those words. But soon they are crushed by the hard reality and the seemingly impossibility of his heart’s selfish desire.
“Truth is, I don’t know what happened to him after he moved out. I tried searching for him, I wanted him to be my best man but it’s almost as if the Earth swallowed him.” Kazuya feels defeated even if he isn’t willing to give up. Somehow there’s something inside of him urging him not to stop on his search as hard as it might get. “But I remember him saying one thing before he left…”
“I’m not sure why I’m saying this to you, but I haven’t been sure of many things that I’ve done and I don’t regret anything,” Jin has said to Yamapi as he has gotten closer to the door of the apartment, his backpack safely hanging in his back. “But, if Kazuya ever wants to find me… Please tell him to remember what I taught him about catching dragonflies.”
“Is that supposed to make any sense to me?” Kazuya asks, more confused than ever with what seems to be the last and only message Jin has left for him.
“I think so. I mean, why would Jin choose to say such a random thing if it wasn’t important?” Yamashita-san stares earnestly at Kazuya, probably hopeful to reunite with his old friend after such a long separation, but unfortunately Kame can’t make anything out of those words.
Dragonflies appear to be the new obsession Kazuya adopts, as he stares closely to those insects whenever he finds one on his way back home in hopes to give some sense to what Jin has said.
But Kazuya still can’t find the answer to any of his questions, and they seem to pile up more and more.
Kazuya hates the starless nights the most. As if the darkness of the sky is nothing but a bad omen of his own life.
Part 3