Writing practice II - More Ryokame~
Kame dragged his luggage up the staircase, disregarding the fact that it must seem uncool and unmanly as compared to lifting it along the way. But since it was damn heavy - there were more than just his clothes in there-he thought that dragging it up was pretty much justified. Plus, it was late at night, and he was too tired to go and show-off his cool demeanour. He just hoped that his landlord wouldn’t mind those scratches on his shiny, wooden stair planks.
After what felt like an eternity, he finally reached the second floor. His room didn’t seem half-bad, it was kind of spacious: there was a single bed in the middle of the room, a closet, a TV, a study table and a nightstand. He left the suitcase by the door and headed to the end of the room, pulling the two pieces of plain turquoise curtains apart to reveal a French window that allowed him the access to see the full view of... the room of his next door neighbour. Who, incidentally, also had French window as large as his (and Kame thought that it must be one of the housing areas where the design of the houses were all the same) and the curtains were also wide open.
He didn’t mean to peek or anything really, it was there for him to see without even trying. He saw a guy -short black hair, tanned skin-marched into his line of sight and tripped on something (he couldn’t see, it was hidden by the bed) and fell unceremoniously on the floor, face first.
“Ouch.” Kame flinched, even though he was not the one who took the fall.
The guy took a full ten seconds to gather enough energy to roll over on his back, before trying to stand up, and he succeeded, albeit a little bit wobbly.
Kame could not help but to snicker at the man’s expression: he was half-frowning, half-pouting as he bended down to retrieve something from the floor (it was a pizza-take-away box, and Kame suspected that it was the very thing that trip him over). He briskly moved towards his window and push it open, ready to throw the box with the pose of a baseball pitcher...before he realized that somebody was watching him from the other side of the window.
He gasped, his eyes wide open, and he involuntarily let go of his hold of the box. With his face flushed red with embarrassment, he pointed out to Kame’s general direction, shouting something that Kame couldn’t quite hear.
Kame frowned, and tried to pry the window open, but the panes stubbornly stuck together like some kind of super glue. He shook his head, trying to get his message across. The guy from the opposite side posed in this adoringly cute way: his head cocked to one side, biting his bottom lips and his hands were crossed against his chest. Kame figured that he was thinking hard.
A few seconds later, he went back inside his room and appeared back brandishing a sketchpad and a blue marker pen. He scribbled something on the sketchpad, and held it high up for Kame to read. Kame squinted his eyes a little, since he did not have the most perfect vision.
‘NOBODY IS SUPPOSED TO BE THERE.’
Kame chuckled, splaying his palm close to the window’s glass as a sign to say “Wait.” He quickly rummaged through his suitcase, letting out an accomplished “Aha!” when he found a stack of A4 size papers and a black marker pen.
‘JUST MOVED HERE TODAY.’ He wrote.
The other guy formed an ‘O’ with his mouth while nodding his understanding. A sudden thought must have hit his mind because he was scribbling something yet again.
‘TELL NO ONE OR ELSE I’LL KILL YOU’.
Tell what? Oh-must be the Humpty Dumpty’s great fall that he witnessed just now. Wow. Death threat on his first day here. How exciting. Kame smiled and hold up his paper.
‘I WON’T. LOVE MY LIFE TOO MUCH.’
The other guy laughed, (and damn, his laugh was infectious that Kame laughed too) and showed him a thumbs-up before disappearing into his room, pulling his curtains close.
---*---
Kame had the habit to pull his curtains open, as he liked his room to be basked in light. He spent his days in the campus; new students had lots of programmes to attend anyway. By the time he reached his room, the moon had already shone brightly, its light penetrated the glass window and showered his room with a soft glow. He threw a look at the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of his death-threatening-neighbour, but to no avail as his neighbour had keep his curtains shut. It had already been a week, and yet he still had not the chance to know the guy living on the opposite side of his room.
Leaving his curtains open, Kame switched on the light and proceeded to take off his clothes. He would just forgo bathing, he will do that in the morning, but now...bed was his priority. He was about to jump on his favourite furniture already when he heard the sound of stone hitting his window. The first-year quickly grabbed his papers and marker pen.
He leaned his body against the wall for support as he was too tired to even stand on his own two feet.
He wrote a ‘WHAT?’
And he got a reply of ‘JUST MAKING SURE.’ Kame would’ve thought that he was seriously paranoid about him spreading the word of the great fall if not for the grin the other guy was sporting.
‘HAVEN’T TOLD A SOUL.’
The guy’s grin grew wider in satisfaction and he did a little twirl. ‘YAY.’
‘NAME?’
His neighbour shook his head and pointed to him instead.
He sighed in defeat. ‘KAME.’ More scribbling. ‘YOUR TURN.”
‘SECRET.’ The neighbour flipped his sketchpad. ‘PERSONAL SAFETY.’
‘WON’T TELL ANYONE EVEN IF I KNOW YOUR NAME.’ Kame seethed as he wrote in big, bolded letters. ‘IDIOT.’
The guy stuck his tongue out. ‘YOU’RE THE IDIOTIC ONE.’
‘WTH?’ Kame replied.
‘SLEEP.’ A flip of page. ‘LOOK LIKE ZOMBIE.’ Another flip. ‘IDIOT.’
‘WAS ABOUT TOO.’ Scribble, scribble. ‘UNTIL YOU INTERRUPT.’ More scribbles.‘IDIOT.’ Kame stuck his tongue out too, just for the effect.
---*---
They had been window-messaging for over a month but Kame still didn’t know his name. He called -wrote, really-his neighbour Humpty Dumpty and Secret Agent Man just to irk him off so that he would finally tell him his name, but all he succeeded in doing was just irking him off, and still no name.
To make things worse, he never bumped into his neighbour. They were practically living side by side, though their gates were on totally different direction. Kame’s gate was on the east side, while his neighbour’s was on the west side. But still, they live in the same neighbourhood, right? It was almost like...his neighbour was avoiding meeting him face-to-face on purpose.
On the plus side, though, he knew other things about his neighbour. He knew that the guy liked to play guitar, hated to eat fish, enjoyed reading and can be somewhat mean yet caring. He learned that the guy loved green but was forced to be the yellow ranger, and he had a super-sentai like gang called Eito Ranger (Kame was warned to not ask further about this, so he never had the chance to ask about the history of this ridiculousness). He was easily excited, quickly embarrassed, short-tempered too, and hid his adorable side by saying nasty things. But the cutest thing ever was the fact the he would apologize for it, albeit being more than a bit too late. And while the exchanged window-messages, Kame could not help but to notice what a cute smile he had when he was happy, how his eyes twinkled when he was excited, how his brows almost touch the other when he frowned and how luscious his lips looked when he pouted.
By then, Kame thought that maybe, maybe just maybe, at that time, he was already in love with this guy.
---*---
Uchi was a great friend, and he had always thanked the Gods for giving him such a great friend. But on the days like this, Ryo thought, he could live without such a friend.
“So, so, how does it go?” Uchi asked excitedly, like a hyper puppy on sugar high.
Ryo groaned in annoyance. “Just the usual, Uchi. Now quit pestering me.”
“Nuh uh. I want details, full details. What did you talk about last night, what did you do, what did he wear?” His friend insisted.
Why, oh why did he tell Uchi about Kame?
~~~
It all started on fine, sunny day, when they were required to do a sketching project by the lakeside. Uchi saw a mother duck with its five ducklings and squealed at how cute they were before proceeding to sketch like no tomorrow. Ryo took out his sketch pad too, and noticed that he had no empty page left: all his pages were filled with the texts that he wrote to Kame.
Uchi noticed that his classmate had not begin sketching when he was about halfway through his. “Ryo, what are you waiting for-OOOOOOOH. Oh. What’s this?”
“Uchi, stop, give it back! Give it back or I swear I’ll kick you into this lake!” Ryo tried to snatch his sketchpad back in vain.
“You won’t, because Ryo-chan loves me so much, nee? Sleep. Idiot.” Uchi muttered as he flipped through the pages. “Green. Yellow ranger... Super sentai ... Eito? Yes. I’m not as dumb as you. Eat more. You look like a stick. I’m not a skinny monkey.”
“Stop reading it out loud!”
“Spill, Ryo-chan. I want to know aaaaaaaaalllll about this.” Uchi demanded, holding onto Ryo’s sketchpad like it was his shiny, new toy.
~~~
Ryo was fighting his inner desire to throw his best friend into the lake and let him join the school of ducks. “Nothing happened last night okay? We chatted about our days, we insulted each other’s intelligence as always, and he wore-Wait, why do you care about what he wears?”
Uchi shrugged. “Just curious. Maybe if he were topless, I’d ask what’s your reaction towards that, what do you feel and how would you-“
“I don’t like him that way okay? Now stop convincing me that I’m gay.”
“You liked me before.” The slightly taller boy pointed out with a straight face, and yet it hit Ryo like a slap on the face.
“You’re different.” He mumbled.
“Because I’m special?” Uchi said, in his special Uchi I’m-totally-adorable way, and Ryo tsked as he rolled his eyes.
“Because you’re nosy.”
“So you like nosy guys?”
“No I don’t like nosy guys. I decided to un-like you because of your nosiness.”
“So you might not like this Kame-guy if he’s nosy?”
“Yes!”
“But if he was not nosy, you might like him?”
“Yes, Uchi, now shut the fu-”
“Aha! So, that means you should stop sneaking around your own house and just face him. Talk to him for real, and find out if he’s nosy or not. And then, you might like him.”
“Uchi Hiroki, do you really want your best friend to be gay?”
“Mmm...” Uchi stopped a moment to ponder on the question. “Yes. We look gay enough anyway.”
---*---
After much convincing from his best friend, on that fine, breezy morning, Ryo grudgingly walked out his front gate at 7.30 am -the usual time for people to go out to school-instead of being fashionably 50 minutes late to class. And true enough, as he walked his usual route, he bumped into his neighbour.
“Hi.” He started, waving a small wave with his right hand.
“Hi to you too.”
Without Ryo expecting it, Kame held out his hand, gesturing for his neighbour to shake it. “I’m Kamenashi Kazuya.”
Ryo let out a small laugh before grasping Kame’s held-out hand. “Nishikido Ryo.”
“Finally I got your name! Now I wouldn’t have to call you Humpty Dumpty anymore.” Kame smirked.
“I just fell once!” Ryo retorted in his defence, his face was in an interesting shade of something between tomato red and brilliant maroon. But he recovered quickly. “Besides, it’s not as if you don’t have embarrassing secrets too...”
Kame stuttered, “Wh-whatever could that be?”
Haha, now it was his turn to smirk! “There’s a certain someone who likes to pretend that he’s a singer and sings with his hairbrush as a mic, and his bed as his stage!”
Kame looked scandalous. “You saw that? But you had your curtains closed!”
“Who said I couldn’t peek?” Ryo huffed.
“Cheater.” Kame muttered under his breath, tightening his grip on Ryo’s hand, his glare was oozing threat all over it.
Ryo gripped Kame’s hand just as tight, if not tighter. “I’m not a cheater if there’s no rule in the first place.”
And then they both burst out laughing.
Kame loosened his grip on Ryo’s hand. “Hey, Nishiki-”
“Ryo.” Ryo did the same.
“Okay. Ryo.” There was just something...special in the way that Kame pronounced his name that made Ryo held his breath.
“Yeah?”
Kame’s gaze was intense, but Ryo didn’t dislike it. “Have you ever thought that maybe, just maybe...” The younger man let go of their hands before linking them again in another position, fingers alongside with fingers, palms pressed together, “You belong with me?”
Ryo smiled.