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Tsukishima Hajime’s life is simple. But for the longest time, it hasn’t been this simple. His life has been full of anger, resentment, heartbreak, and loneliness. Which is why he treasures moments of quiet contentment like this.
Koito-san had just returned from a week-long business trip with the CEO. He had been complaining about it the weeks prior to the flight on how it would be filled with stuffy meetings with potential business partners in Iceland. “I won’t even get to enjoy the hot springs, Tsukishima!” Koito-san repeated this particular annoyance of his for the umpteeth time the past week before his trip to the Scandinavian country. “Papa wants me to be onii-sama ’s shadow, and you know how boring it can get with onii-sama!” He cried, still choosing between the two very similar three-piece suits he’d been eyeing for the past five minutes. Hajime knows he'd been keeping track.
“Koito Heinojou-sama has invaluable experience and knowledge about the company,” Hajime replies, aiming to soothe ruffled feathers. “He will look after you, you would not have anything to worry about, Sir.”
“But Tsukishima!” Otonoshin had whined then. “The hot springs! I wouldn’t be able to go to the hot springs if I had to accompany onii-sama in every meeting! Imagine if you can’t go to a really nice long hot bath after a long day of work! Especially a hot bath in Iceland.”
Hajime thought about it a bit more. He conceded to the fact that it would be nice to enjoy a nice bath after work, but surely he can go to another onsen when he returns from his trip if he wants to soak for a longer period of time. “If Tsurumi- san permits, then maybe I can take you to an onsen after your arrival. It’s been a while since we have been to Noboribetsu.”
Otonoshin placed both suits on top of his bed for Hajime to pack later. Figures he chose both in the end. Otonoshin turned towards his lover. “Tsukishima, what do you know about Icelandic hot springs?”
Hajime feels the heat rise from his neck. While he had good quality education, he admits he wasn’t that familiar with places outside of Japan. “Forgive me, Koito- san ,” Hajime started, bowing his head in both apology and a tactic to prevent the younger man from seeing his flush. “I am not too knowledgeable about Iceland, nor about their hot springs. Surely it couldn’t be that different from onsens here?”
At the time, Hajime regretted admitting the point, as it had distracted Koito- san from packing. The second Koito Conglomerate heir had rushed towards his side and animatedly talked about what’s special about Icelandic hot springs. Something about geothermal pools, volcano-heated hot springs, a place called the Blue Lagoon. Koito-san concludes by saying, “one day, I’ll take you there so you can see it for yourself!”
“It’s expensive.” Hajime blurted out his knee-jerk reaction to Koito-san’s lack of financial sensibilities. “Noboribetsu is already quite nice.”
“Then let’s go to Noboribetsu immediately when I come back! At least three days! Once you pick me up from the airport, we’ll drive there.”
Hajime hesitated, mind reeling. Despite having dated Koito for almost two years, he still could not believe how…willfully child-like he can be. “You are expected to return to work the morning after you get back.” Hajime deadpans.
Otonoshin waved him off, rolling his eyes all the while. “We can work from there. Papa’s suite in Noboribetsu has stable enough wifi.” The Koito suite in the onsen actually has fiber speed connections, but Hajime doesn’t need to point that out; it would be pointless.
“You would need approval from Tsurumi-san.”
“Tsurumi-san loves me,” Otonoshin said non-ironically, as if that would be reason enough. Knowing his superior, Hajime had to admit that it would be reason enough. Dammit.
“...And what would your father think?”
“Papa would think that I deserved to spend time with my partner after working hard in Iceland.” Koito-san’s eyes roved up and down Tsukishima’s body, jolting the shorter man with sudden heat then. “He’d understand if I needed to…recharge after such a long trip.”
After numerous tries and excuses, Hajime couldn’t shake Koito- san from his decision. So now here they are, one Icelandic business trip done with Koito-san in the backseat of the van dozing, and himself driving up towards the onsen. The older man allows himself a second to look at the rearview mirror, and to take a peek into his lover’s peaceful visage. He smiles afterwards.
“Brat,” he whispers, affectionately, before returning his focus towards the road.
It is already night. The day and afternoon had been spent relaxing and soaking in the onsen, eating delicious meals, and re-christening every nook of the Koito Noboribetsu suite with semen, lube, and other bodily fluids that is too gross to fully talk about. Now, Hajime is attempting to stargaze with Koito- san on his lap, eyes closed. With the cool autumn breeze flowing into their room, low ambient light keeping their room bright enough for sleepy eyes to see and not sting in the process, it is peaceful and content.
“Tsukishima,” Otonoshin blearily whispers. After a day spent in traveling via various methods and vivaciously fucking his lover in multiple rounds, the younger man is bone tired. “Tsukishima,” he repeats.
“Hm?” Calloused hands gently touch raven-colored locks of hair, and start running through them.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m attempting to see if I can recognize a constellation, Sir.”
“Tsukishima,” Otonoshin grumbles tiredly, turning his body towards his side. He does not lift his head from its fleshy, warm cushion. “I literally fucked you so hard and long, you had a dry orgasm on the last round. You don’t have to call me ‘sir’ when it’s just us — I’ve told you that before.”
“Of course, Sir.”
Otonoshin takes a deep sigh, and becomes quiet once more. Tsukishima does not stop his fingers from combing his lover’s hair. He also does not stop looking at the night sky.
“Tsukishima?”
“Yes, Sir?”
“How do you look like right now?”
Hajime is…perplexed with the question. Does he want Hajime to admit that he feels sore and well-used, that he can still feel the hickeys Koito-san placed on the softer skin inside his lush thighs? Does he want to know how his scarred body is a masterpiece of love and lust underneath his yukata? “...What do you mean, Sir?”
Otonoshin lazily points his finger up. “There. What do you look like right now, there?”
Ah, so he meant the moon. Of course. “Tonight’s a new moon, Sir.”
Otonoshin hums, and silence fills the room for quite a while. It takes so long that Hajime assumes that the younger man had fallen asleep on his thighs already. He is about to stop the slow caresses of his fingers when he hears a “marry me.”
What?
“W-What?” In his bewilderment, Hajime asks in a very casual way.
“Marry me.” Otonoshin replies, nonchalantly, arrogantly — like he would when he was sure he’ll get something.
Hajime’s hearts starts beating like he’s a secretary currently working at 7:00 AM with no sleep, rather than a man who got proposed by a rich heir in his fancy suite of a high-end onsen after multiple bouts of good sex. “Koito-san , I…I was pretty sure you didn’t have too much sake to drink-”
“I’m not drunk.”
Hajime’s skin starts to flush. “Then why are you asking, and joking-”
“I’m not joking.” Otonoshin firmly states. Before Hajime gets to utter another word, he feels a cool hand on his warm cheeks. “Hajime.” His name uttered with that rich baritone, with so much finality. “Hajime, look at me.”
Hajime peers down to see his lover’s dark eyes looking at him, eyes that glisten underneath the night sky. Lush, moist lips that worshiped his broken skin part to speak. “Hajime, let me speak.” Oh, what can Hajime do but obey that firm, confident voice? The older, flustered man nods, not trusting himself to speak. With a hand cupping his cheek, Hajime listens to Koito Otonoshin’s proposal.
“I don’t have a ring right now, nor all the right words. I’ve been trying to find them for weeks, months….and still the words aren’t enough to convey everything I feel about you. Maybe I’ll never find them, or maybe I can spend the rest of my life making up for these lost words by staying by your side and loving you with every heartbeat and breath I still have. Either way, in the end, I still want the same thing.
“I want to watch you walk down that aisle, I want you to wear my ring and tell other people that you’re married to me. I want all your days and nights, all your tears and laughter, all your frustrations. Even though you take care of me more, I want to at least give the same care you’ve given me when you need it. I want your damn future to be mine alone, until you grow even more breathtaking as you age. And I’ll want all of this the next day, and the day after that, and all of the days until these bones need to rest one last time.
“And I want you to have the same things I have from you. But you needn’t worry about that — you already have my heart, mind, body, and soul. Anything else you want from me, though, just name it and you can have it. I want to see you take your life and destiny into your own hands and make it your own. I’ll be the luckiest man alive if I can walk with you alongside every step of the way.
“I’m saying this to you now — no ring, no formal announcement — because I know you. I know you’d hate the attention, the carnival of it all. So this moment, of just the two of us, is for you and I only. They can have the ring, the engagement party, the wedding. This moment is me laying my heart and soul in the open, and wishing you’d hold it close and gentle like you have been for the past two years.
“Tsukishima Hajime…marry me and I’ll make you the happiest man in the world. Well, maybe second happiest because I’m sure I’ll be the happiest man in the world if you choose to marry me.”
Hajime is….still. Head spinning, heart in his mouth, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t know his answer. But he has to ask, “I’m an older man from the countryside who’s the son of a social pariah. I’ve already been engaged once and it failed. The public would think I’m spoiled goods already, perhaps unworthy of your affections. A gold digger at kindest. Would you still want that?”
“The public can go fuck themselves for all I care,” Otonoshin spits. “They don’t know you like I do. They don’t know how lucky I am to have you; they’ll all think it’s the other way around, but really it isn’t.”
“How about-”
“Hajime, my heart,” Otonoshin gently says in his voice. “Nothing you say can ever change my mind. Even if you tell me no, I’d never love anyone like I love you. I’d let you walk away, but I’d never stop loving you.”
Hajime couldn’t help it as tears started to spring up from his eyes. “You know I love you, right?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t say it enough.”
“And I’ll do it enough for the both of us.”
“I love you.”
“I know.”
Hajime quickly grabs Koito-san’s hand on his cheek and bursts out laughing and crying at the same time. “Koito-, no. Otonoshin- san .” He pauses to take a breath, “I love you. Thank you for wanting to marry me. Please marry me too.”
Hajime realizes at that time that he hadn’t seen Koito-san’s smile in the entirety of his speech. But now his ever radiant grin shows and he feels the other’s happiness in his own body, bubbling up and springing like water bursting from the ground. Hajime laughs, before taking Koito’s cheeks in his own hands, lifting his lover up, and kissing him. The two of them took their time kissing each other and whispering all kinds of nothing underneath the pale moon’s glow.
Tsukishima Hajime’s — soon to be Koito Hajime, life is simple. But sometimes, in these rare, treasured moments of peace, love, and life like this, he finds that maybe it can be extraordinarily blessed too.