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The first time Gentaro falls in love, he’s nine years old.
He’s standing on the balcony– the one for staff members and equipment, of course, not to be mistaken with the fancy viewing box for esteemed guests. His older brother has a hand on his shoulder, and they’re watching the ongoing act intently.
In the center of the stage– or, rather, above it– is their mother, graceful like a butterfly in the breeze. As if she were a bird in flight, she circles the ceiling, shrouded in endless spools of silk and ribbon.
The Yumeno brothers had a lot to learn if they were to master the art of trapeze that their adoptive family took so much pride in.
Gentaro was usually most attentive during his mother’s act. But today, through no fault of his own, he finds himself distracted. Across from him, in the booth meant for the special guests, sits a boy with stars in his eyes. His messy mane of hair is a rich shade of blue, and his wide eyes twinkle like amethysts in the sunlight (not that Gentaro ever had the privilege to view such precious gems, but he had read about them in an encyclopedia once.) He’s flanked by two people, beautiful but not so much as the boy himself: a well-dressed man and a woman with a waterfall of dark hair. They smile fondly at their son, more preoccupied with the way he peers over the railing with an ear-splitting grin than with the show itself.
They must be important people, Gentaro notes. They exude an air of poise and regality that was no doubt impossible to replicate.
The blue-haired boy lets out a loud shriek of delight as Gentaro’s mother swings past him, leaving a flurry of glitter and confetti in her wake.
Now, Gentaro was only nine, but he’d seen his fair share of the world if he did say so himself. Every day, he watched hundreds of strangers come and go in this very building.
Another thing worth understanding about him was that he wasn’t the most honest boy, either, having grown accustomed to spinning tales on the spot to explain away even the littlest things in life.
And yet he could say with complete honesty and certainty that this boy across from him, the boy with the royal blue hair and amethyst eyes, was the most beautiful boy he would ever lay his eyes on.
Then, in an act of what Gentaro could only describe as a miracle, the boy catches sight of him. Purple eyes positively light up, and a little hand lifts itself in an excited wave. Gentaro’s stunned. He responds with a nervous gesture– one that was less of a wave back, and more of an awkward twiddling of his fingers.
The boy flashes a blinding smile, just for Gentaro, his pretty eyes crinkling into adorable little crescents, and Gentaro wonders if this is what it feels like to stare directly into the sun.
The second time Gentaro falls in love, he’s twenty-four.
(If it were accuracy that he was aiming for, he’d say that it was a reignition; a reawakening of buried feelings. But Gentaro was a storyteller at heart, and falling in love all over again sounded infinitely more romantic.)
This time, he’s no longer watching from the sidelines. Instead, he’s airborne, like his late mother had been, weightless and inconsequential to the rest of the world.
It’s just the way he likes it. Twenty feet up in the air, floating amongst threads of cream and lilac, bathed in the blinding white spotlights, a perfect imitation of the heaven that Gentaro doubts he’ll ever reach.
The feeling of flying had become something of an addiction. It was as if nothing in the world could touch him or taint him when was so high up, and the adrenaline pumping through his veins was a thrill he could never experience elsewhere. Ever the people-watcher, Gentaro observes the scene below him, the faces in the crowd microscopic and minuscule– and for a brief moment, he wonders if this is what the angels saw when they looked down on earth.
A subtle but strong swing of his legs is all it takes to send him spinning across the hall, a graceful entanglement of white silk. Preparing to ricochet himself off of a balcony rail, he pauses to catch his breath. His gaze lands on a flash of bubblegum pink in the opposite booth.
In all his sequinned glory stands Ramuda, the ringmaster, whose personality manifested itself in an eclectic mix of fearless leadership and childlike exuberance. He looks his usual, happy self; surveying his show with pride, rocking back and forth on his heels, lollipop in mouth. Instead of the usual congregation of wealthy guests, however, today’s guest roster appeared empty save for a man in a form-fitting three-piece suit.
The emptiness is truly a rare sight, Gentaro muses to himself, wondering what the occasion was as he hooks a leg around the trapeze bar.
He relaxes his arms and lets himself fall.
It’s liberating, the way he’s light as a feather, wind whistling past his ears. The pendulum swing launches him up until he’s face-to-face with the guest booth, face-to-face with a gleeful Ramuda, face-to-face with–
Him.
Wide, amethyst eyes lock into his own, and the world around Gentaro comes to a stop. The spotlight fades to black, and the music muffles itself into white noise, drowned out by the tell-tale thump-thump-thump in his ears. The stands around him are empty; no cheering children, no grinning Ramuda; just the blue-haired boy– no, the blue-haired man with his beautiful eyes and beautiful smile and beautiful everything.
He lets out a gasp of surprise– professionalism be damned– but before he’s able to drink in the sight, capture it and store it in his memory forever, he plummets. He curses gravity as it whips him back from his arc, until the man on the balcony is a mere outline at the tip of his outstretched finger.
(It takes a decade and a half for Gentaro to finally see those wondrous eyes up close. Gentaro thinks that it's well worth the wait.)
This time around, the man of Gentaro’s dreams gets a name.
His name is Arisugawa Dice, Ramuda sings as he drags Gentaro backstage, and it occurs to Gentaro that his younger self had been correct to assume that the blue-haired family was one of utmost importance.
“Yumeno Gentaro.” He drops into a bow when he’s asked to introduce himself. “I perform the trapeze act with my older brother, Arisugawa-sama.”
Ramuda, who had been clinging onto the young nobleman’s arm, whispers something to him before taking off, disappearing into the swarm of behind-the-scenes activity, smirking. He leaves an awkward silence hanging behind him, punctuated only by the shuffling of Arisugawa-sama’s clearly expensive leather shoes.
“D-Dice is fine,” he says eventually. Gentaro wonders if the faint pink dusting the bridge of his nose means anything.
“That would be improper of me. I insist, Arisugawa-sama.”
“O-okay.”
The pregnant silence rears its head once more, staring Gentaro right in the face. Desperate to ignore it, Gentaro keeps his head downcast, picking at the stubbornly tight bandages around his hands in a futile attempt to appear nonchalant and occupied.
If Arisugawa-sama intends to make himself a common presence around here, Gentaro doesn’t know what he’ll do. He’s incredibly aware that he’s coming off as disrespectful, blatantly avoiding eye contact, but the truth of the matter is that he’s physically incapable of looking.
(In Gentaro’s dreams, the boy had always been beautiful; otherworldly, even. How ironic it was that now, despite being two feet away, despite how Gentaro finally had a name to call him by, he had fallen even further out of reach, becoming so entirely untouchable–
Unattainable.)
One more glimpse at those twinkling eyes that Gentaro adored so very much, and he’d be blown apart into a million little pieces until he was nothing but cosmic dust, trapped eternally in the sun’s orbit.
It’s not until he feels larger, warmer hands on his own that he realizes, with embarrassment, that his fingers were trembling.
“Let me.” It all happens too quickly for Gentaro to register, but he’s undoing the bandages gently, each tender touch leaving a permanent blaze on Gentaro’s skin. His toes unwittingly curl into the floor, an inefficacious last resort to keep himself grounded before the world around him spun off of its axis.
“You, uh, seemed to be having trouble untying those,” Arisugawa-sama stammers. Gentaro prays to the high heavens that the heat radiating from within him isn’t as noticeable as he thinks it is.
It takes what feels like an eternity for the final strip to unravel. Unbecoming of an individual known for his loquacity and wit, Gentaro only manages to stutter out a weak word of gratitude.
(He’s their newest, biggest investor, Gentaro finds out later that day. Ramuda only had to show him a single act before he was completely sold.
Gentaro doesn’t get a wink of sleep that night)
Gentaro doesn’t know if it's fate, destiny, or merely persistence on Dice’s part– nor does he care to know, frankly. All that matters is that it’s cumulated in this; sitting on the roof with Dice’s head in his lap, idly carding his fingers through beautiful blue tresses.
(The whole charade of formality lasts only a week.)
Their attraction is instant, electric. At first, Gentaro wills himself to ignore it. But Dice has the patience and loyalty of a saint, watching every rehearsal and waiting after every show until there’s no way for Gentaro to turn a blind eye to his intentions.
He’s doing this for Ramuda, he tells himself initially. A honey trap, if you will– keeping the big investor interested and begging for more.
And yet, even for the most seasoned of liars, disguising the truth from oneself proved to be an almost Herculean feat.
It isn’t long before they know each other, learning their interests and intricacies; their vices and virtues. Dice is a gambler; he recklessly bets numbers and horses and everything in between. He smokes cigarettes, he likes cheap liquor, he runs off to shady gambling dens in the rough parts of town; he does nothing befitting of parentage, and yet Gentaro’s thoughts constantly zero in on that very part of him.
Dice, despite his iniquities, is a man of morals. He’s a believer in free will, refusing to succumb to the tyranny of his widowed mother and her twisted politics. He goes his own way, unwilling to be controlled. He pictures life through a lens of childlike sincerity that Gentaro’s never had the privilege of having. All in all, Dice is young, wild and free in ways that Gentaro can’t be.
(But Gentaro’s one to talk, for he’s got his own angels and demons. Dice takes his time in memorizing them, though. He appreciates Gentaro’s stories, the ones he’s taught himself to write by candlelight. He goes along with Gentaro’s whims, playing into his compulsive lies with a faux-annoyance that does a poor job of concealing his endearment. He holds a pleasant compliance in regards to Gentaro’s vagueness; his inability to speak the truth. He respects Gentaro’s admittedly unorthodox mode of self-preservation, never prying and never forcing down Gentaro’s walls.
Dice makes Gentaro feel cared for, and in all his twenty-four years, it’s only now that Gentaro realizes how much he needed it.)
“Say, Gen, are you ever going to tell me that story?”
“Which one?”
“The one about the princess and knight, all the way in the Far East.”
“Why, I’ve no clue what you’re referring to!" Gentaro lifts a sleeved arm to hide his smile. “How could I possibly write about the great Orient without ever having been there?”
“And that’s a lie, right?” As if to prove his point, he traces the outline of Gentaro’s smile with his thumb. Gentaro’s body reacts traitorously, leaning into the touch.
“Perhaps.” He hums pleasantly. “But it’s true that I’ve never visited the East. You must remember that most lack the birthright to be as well-traveled as you are.”
“I’ve never been there, either,” Dice says, folding his arms behind his head. “Ma refuses to take me. Says she left for a reason. She doesn’t like the way they treat her or something. It’s better here.”
(Disillusionment, Gentaro muses to himself. But perhaps it was a reality for the wealthy and powerful; maybe this truly was a land of freedom and endless opportunity, as long as you had enough riches to your name.)
“Someday I’d like to see the Orient with you, Gen.” Dice smiles up at him. “Then maybe you’ll have enough inspiration to write that story of yours.”
It’s oh-so naive of Dice to think they’d have a ‘someday’ outside circus walls, but Dice’s eyes are so full of hopes and dreams and conviction that even a pessimist like Gentaro wants to believe.
And so, Gentaro believes.
It only takes one dance for his world to come crashing down.
To say that the ballroom was lavish would be a cruel understatement, what with its gilded columns and the colossal, cut-crystal chandelier that spun in the center of it all, promising more glamor and decorum than Gentaro’s likely to see in a lifetime.
It’s ironic, how the beauty of Dice’s home plants nothing but hideous thoughts in the depths of Gentaro’s mind; thoughts of the impropriety of their almost-relationship.
He’s perfectly content to be standing in his corner, observing from afar as Dice mixed and mingled with the upper-crust circle, the visage of a young god even in his simple tuxedo.
Just where he belongs, Gentaro thinks, only a hint of bitterness. It strikes him that no matter where Dice went, his magnetism would pull in even the most stubborn of individuals.
And yet, even in the sea of beautiful, adoring people, Dice finds his way back to Gentaro, offering his hand in a chivalrous show of invitation.
“I can’t. I’ve never learned to–”
“A lie, right?” Dice’s hand is as unwavering as his grin, and it’s criminal the way Gentaro’s breath hitches, the way his vision blurs, the way it hits him that he would burn bridges and fight wars just to see that smile every day for the rest of his life.
But the whirlwind of thought stays just that, and Gentaro chooses to humor the younger man instead.
“Only partially. Nothing that Lady Tohoten would be impressed to see offstage, though.” Of course, Gentaro’s had dancing lessons, just not of the variety befitting an occasion such as this.
“We ain’t tryna impress anyone, Gen.”
“No.”
“Please?” he pouts, eyes wide and glimmering with hope, and Gentaro can’t help but lament the unfairness of it all; his non-existent immunity against anything that Arisugawa Dice does or has ever done.
And so, Gentaro finds himself in the middle of the golden dance floor, coaxed into spin after spin by the gentle hand on his. Admittedly still in a state of wonderment at the grandeur of the hall’s interior, Gentaro tilts his head up, taking in the sight. Elegant marble vaults, meticulously painted with dreamscapes of saints and angels, as if the old masters of the Renaissance had come back to life, just to fresco heaven itself onto this very ceiling. A cherub, all bright-eyed and rosy-cheeked, winks at Gentaro from behind the clouds.
“Should I be insulted,” Dice begins, the pout in his voice still all-too evident to Gentaro. “That you find the damn light fixture more interesting than your dance partner?”
“Has it ever crossed your mind, Dice, that I am too flustered in your presence to even look at you?”
Dice laughs at that, lightly tucking a stray lock of hair behind Gentaro’s ear. The act sends millions of little butterflies fluttering in Gentaro’s stomach, and he’s positive that the scatter of pink blooming across Dice’s pretty cheekbones mirrors his own.
“Trust that I don’t find anything in the world more fascinating than you.” He adds, voice a tone quieter. “I was merely observing the art on the ceiling. It reminds me of something I’ve seen before, is all.”
“Ma says it’s something Italian, I ain’t sure, though.”
A hum of faux recognition. “Italian! That must be it. It certainly takes me back to my younger days, when I trained as the apprentice of a renowned Florentine sculptor.”
“Really?” Dice lifts their interwoven fingers closer to his face as if inspecting them. “Nah. Too soft and pretty. No way these are the hands of a sculptor, Gen.”
The “that’s a lie” goes unsaid between them, in its place the exchanging of knowing smiles, as if they had just shared an inside joke.
And Gentaro likes to think they have; likes to think that they share something exclusive.
(Of course, it’s a lie; Gentaro hasn’t so much as left the country before, much less been to Florence, of all places. He’d seen sketches of a Renaissance cathedral once, with its grand domes and vaulted arches that were windows to heaven. There was mention of a special technique, in which the painters created a three-dimensional, open sky on a flat surface. What did the passage describe it as?
Ah, right–
Illusionistic.)
As the live orchestra begins to slow down, so does their dance. Dice lifts their interlocked hands again, and Gentaro follows the movement, thinking it another simple twirl. To his utter surprise, Dice moves their hands slightly further than before, the sudden pull not forceful enough to send Gentaro falling, but strong enough to make Gentaro trip, stumbling forward–
Right into Dice’s chest.
Before Gentaro’s able to make any sound of protest, there’s a hand on the back of his head, stroking his hair lightly and an arm circling his waist, locking him in place.
“I’ve got you,” Dice sings, and Gentaro doesn’t have to look up to picture the smug grin on the younger man’s face.
He’d rather die than admit how stupidly happy he feels right now, safe in Dice’s embrace, even if he wouldn’t have stumbled if not for Dice in the first place.
They stand this way for a while, Dice humming to himself, pleased with his own suavity; Gentaro pressed against his chest, face coloring like a sunset, the sound of Dice’s heartbeat doing nothing to temper his own. Gentaro’s thankful for their position, for his incriminatingly scarlet blush was obscured from its instigator.
When the music comes to an end, Gentaro, albeit unwillingly, finally struggles out of Dice’s hold, huffing and turning away to smooth out his clothes. Dice, intentionally oblivious to the way he’s reduced Gentaro to a wide-eyed mess, flourishes his arm in a dramatic bow and plants a light kiss on the back of Gentaro’s embarrassingly limp hand. In an attempt to not appear completely helpless, Gentaro drops into a hasty curtsey before immediately spinning on his heels to retreat to his corner, desperate to clear his head and recollect his thoughts before he makes an even bigger fool out of himself.
He doesn’t get the chance to.
“Aren’t you the acrobat boy from Amemura’s Circus?” An old lady asks, too loud for Gentaro’s comfort.
Gentaro gulps, the blood in his cheeks rushing to his ears, and all he hears is the frantic pounding of his own heart. He only manages a weak nod as, to his dismay, a couple of other guests begin to gather around, peering at him like he was some sort of exotic, caged animal.
“You must be mistaken. No boy performs the acrobat act!” Another adds, discussing Gentaro as if he weren’t standing right in front of them.
“I wasn’t aware of a private performance tonight.”
“It can’t be him, he looks nothing like that!”
“Nonsense, I know a circus freak when I see one!”
Suddenly, there’s a firm hand on his shoulder. “Actually, he’s with me. He’s my date for tonight.”
Dice’s proclamation sends another shockwave through the crowd.
“Gen, let’s go,” Dice hisses through gritted teeth. Gentaro’s too stunned to react, his body frozen in place, too afraid to make a single sound. He feels like prey, a mouse hiding in the brush, knowing that one slight movement would be enough to send the snakes lunging at him, eating him alive.
Dice, grip growing tighter and tighter on his shoulder, begins to steer him in the opposite direction.
“His date? I never pegged Arisugawa-sama to be the type.”
“Young men these days, they’ll sleep with just about anyone, won’t they?”
The bile rising in Gentaro’s throat gets a bit too sour to ignore. His hands fly to his mouth, fighting down the urge to throw up all over the fancy shoes of the already horrified guests.
“Gentaro, ignore them,” Dice says again, forcefully this time.
Then, someone clears their throat, and as if on cue, the chatter falls silent, the crowds dissipate, and the music picks up once more. Gentaro hadn’t even realized that it had stopped in the first place.
The bow he instantly drops into has his torso parallel with the ground. Uncharacteristic of him to be so in fear of someone, he knows, but something about the woman before him terrified him, and he didn’t know what it was.
“Ma,” Dice says curtly, suddenly void of emotion. The light behind his eyes is snuffed out in an instant, a candle in the wind.
“Dice,” Lady Tohoten’s porcelain features are marred by an ugly scowl, and Gentaro, suspecting himself to be the culprit behind this, cannot help but go weak in the knees. Even with her short stature, her presence towered over them, not a single trace left of the adoring mother that Gentaro had seen on the balcony all those years ago.
“Ma, this is my–”
“You’re twenty. You don’t have the time to be fooling around anymore, Dice.”
“I’m not–”
“I host this party for you to meet all these beautiful, educated young women, and tell me– have you so much as spoken to a single one of them?”
“I don’t–”
“And what have you been doing this whole time, Dice? Parading around with this, this–” She turns a shaking fist to Gentaro, livid. “This circus freak.”
When Lady Tohoten raises her fist, Gentaro instinctively recoils, making no attempt to retaliate. After all, he thinks, he probably deserves it, for daring to show himself here in the first place.
“MOM!”
Dice moves to stand between them, stance protective as if he alone could shield Gentaro from all the hurt in the world. Gentaro almost believes it.
With strength impressive for a woman her size, she shoves her son’s arm out of the way, advancing on Gentaro until they’re standing eye to eye, if only in the most literal sense of the phrase. Gentaro squeezes his eyes shut, bracing himself for the impact.
It never comes. Instead, she leans in until she’s inches away from Gentaro. His body goes rigid.
Gentaro’s never felt this small in his entire life.
Then, voice low enough for only the two of them to hear,
“If you know what’s good for you and that freak show of yours, you better keep your filthy hands off of my son. I won’t have him looking like some kind of f–”
Gentaro doesn’t hear the end of that.
The looks, the whispers, the judgment– it’s too much for him.
So he runs, and he doesn’t look back.
(And on the way home, tears camouflaged in the pouring rain, Gentaro realizes that he’s a fool; the biggest fool in the history of all fools.
After all, good things aren’t made to last.)
He doesn’t need to look up to know who the footsteps belonged to– not just because it could, technically, only be one person, but simply for the fact that he’s long since memorized every step, every sound, every single thing that had to do with him.
Stubbornly, he fixes his gaze downwards, the bandages feeling tighter and tighter and tighter until his fingers go numb at the loss of circulation. As stupid as it sounds, he hopes that losing his physical senses would dull the sharp stabbing in his chest.
(Briefly, he wonders if this is what Juliet felt when the dagger plunged through her heart. The difference, of course, was that she got to spend eternity with her star-crossed lover, one way or another.
Gentaro doesn’t think they’re star-crossed. Truth to be told, he’s starting to doubt whether any of their strings were meant to intertwine at all.)
“Gen, listen to me. She’s small-minded. She’s crazy.” A hand firmly cups his cheek, and even in his fit of anger and distress, he craves the other man’s touch so desperately that he can’t bear to push him away.
“If only it were just her.”
“Gen, please–”
He stands up, making a beeline for the circus ring. The only place where people would ever look at him with admiration; the only place where he belonged.
“I apologize, Di– Arisugawa-sama, but I have a routine to practice. It would be improper for us to engage any further.”
Unwinding the rope from its anchor proves to be an exceptionally arduous task today; it’s much heavier than usual. Gentaro’s aware that Dice is following him into the ring, surely unsure of what else to say, much like Gentaro himself. And really, what was there left to say?
He doesn’t even spare Dice a glance. No– he was sparing himself the hurt of it, because who was he to look at Dice? Who was he, thinking himself deserving of looking at Dice at all?
“Why do you care what they think?”
Gentaro flinches.
“You wouldn’t understand. You’ll never have anyone look at me the way your mother did tonight.” How traitorous it was of his body, to tremble and shake at a time like this. “Your mother was right. You shouldn’t have been fooling around with me.”
“I ain’t fooling around! I never was!” Dice exclaims, tugging at Gentaro’s wrist, a move which Gentaro shoves away with such force that it startles even himself.
“I’m only happy when I’m with you, Gen. And I know you feel that way, too.”
“I don’t.”
“Liar.”
Gentaro doesn’t refute it.
Never before has he felt such a need to be off the ground, to climb so far up that none of his earthly problems could catch up with him. He prepares to pull and launch himself into the air, but there are hands on the curve of his waist, firm and gentle, holding him in place. For a fleeting moment, he feels Dice’s breath on his ear, hot in all the ways that Gentaro’s shamelessly imagined before; then it’s gone, and he finds himself staring up at Dice, having been spun around to face him.
“Gen, we were perfect.” The ‘until tonight’ goes unspoken. “We can be that way forever, just the two of us.”
He can only laugh at that. Giving in to the primal urge within him, he extends a tentative hand up to caress the younger man’s face, perhaps for the last time, twisting a lock of his beautiful blue hair around his finger– something which he had grown to love so much. As naive, as quixotic as Dice’s words were, it filled him with bittersweetness to know that he still possessed innocence; a light within him left untainted by the darkness they lived in.
He lets his touch linger on Dice a little longer, less for the other man’s sake than his own. Reflected in amethyst, he sees his own smile, sad and scared. Pathetic.
Dice closes the distance between them as he leans forward to rest his forehead against Gentaro’s. In such close proximity, Gentaro’s able to feel each shaky exhale, each flutter of his unfairly long eyelashes.
Enveloped in silence, he’s so tense, that he doesn’t realize how tightly he’s been gripping the rope until he senses a slight burn on his palm.
And then, finally–
“It was you, wasn’t it?”
Gentaro’s breath hitches.
“The boy on the other balcony.”
His expression must tell Dice everything he needs to know, because Dice’s boldness grows tenfold as he tilts Gentaro’s chin, ever so slightly.
Oh, and how desperately Gentaro wants to give in to this, to melt into Dice’s embrace and feel his lips against his own.
But Gentaro’s had enough of being the fool. He knows this is his downfall, that this will be the only thing he ever dreams of in this life and the next, that once he gets a taste of what it’s like to be kissing Dice, he won’t be able to live his life without it.
So he curbs the addiction before he starts it.
An inch away, Gentaro takes one last, longing glance down at Dice’s mouth.
Then, with a flick of his wrist, he’s flying.
“Gen-Gentaro?” Comes the comically panicked voice from below. The thump of the sandbag informs Gentaro that he’s twenty-five feet in the air and, for the first time that night, Gentaro can breathe.
“Do you think this is easy for me, Dice?” Gentaro asks, more rhetorical than inquisitive. The steel of the slowly descending aerial hoop is cold against his bare legs. Dice is instantly at his side, so close to him that they’re nose to nose.
“Everyone accepts us here because we’re all–” There’s bile in his throat again, and it’s not just because he’s hanging upside down. “Your mother’s right, Dice. We’re just freaks, aren’t we?”
“Please don’t say that,” Dice pleads, cradling Gentaro’s face in his warm hands. The vibrations of his voice are absolutely tantalizing against Gentaro’s skin.
“It’s for the best, Dice. You saw what happened when we were outside. We can’t be together.”
“And who are you to decide that?!”
Gentaro doesn’t answer, choosing to respond instead to the tug of the trapeze that yanks the hoop upwards. It’s only then that he feels Dice’s grip on the bottom, surprisingly strong– but he’s no match for the weight at the other end of the pulley.
“Dice, just let go.”
“Never!”
A sigh. “No, I mean it. Let go of me.”
“No!”
A little laugh escapes him, finally finding something comical about their predicament. “You really should let go, silly. Of the hoop. Or else you’re going to get hurt.”
In the heat of the moment, it must’ve slipped from Dice’s attention that he was holding onto the hoop at all, since it takes another beat of recognition for him to realize he’s a couple of feet off the ground.
He lets go, and without the extra weight, the rope recoils with ease, launching Gentaro back into the light.
Gentaro relaxes when he reaches one of the balconies and jumps off the ledge, trusting in nothing but the knot around his wrist and years of experience. The only time he ever feels some form of power, some type of agency is when he’s soaring like this, bending speed and gravity to his design. He can’t help but chuckle at the cynicism of it; that the very act that labeled him was the only thing that made him feel unrestrained.
He spins through the air, the way he does when he’s performing. It’s such a familiarity that he feels the phantom touch of glitter and confetti raining down on him. As it always seems to do, his arc sends him flying towards Dice. Dice reaches out to stop him, but he’s so quick that the momentum knocks Dice out of the way.
“You think I can’t get to you, just ‘cuz you’re flying around real fast, huh.” He can detect the frown in the other man’s voice as he rushes past again, the swing of his legs only narrowly avoiding another collision. When the pendulum pulls him back in the opposite direction, he doesn’t know if it’s wind or tears that sting his eyes.
Then, without a warning, a solid weight comes crashing into Gentaro, and he can hardly keep a steady grip on the rope as he and Dice go tumbling across the sandy floor. They finally come to a halt, and on any other day, he would’ve been beside himself to know what it felt to be straddling Dice like this.
Just not today, he thinks bitterly when he feels the tears threatening to spill.
Their position’s so compromising, but Gentaro’s too distraught to even feel scandalized.
It’s treacherous, the warmth of Dice’s hand as it finds Gentaro’s face again, brushing away a stray line of tears.
“Don’t you think we’re worth the risk?”
“I think you’re forgetting.” He chokes back a sob. “That I’m not the gambler between us.”
“You’ll never know until you try.”
And, Gentaro thinks, it would be so easy for him to just lean down right now, feel Dice all over his skin, memorize the way Dice’s lips fit against his. But the universe has other plans, because the sound of the sandbag hitting the ground reminds him that it’s time to go, and in an instant Gentaro’s shooting skywards again, manipulated by the rope around his wrist as if he were a puppet on strings.
Below him, Dice stares at his form in awe, those amethyst eyes filling with wonderment as if Gentaro were the most ethereal thing he’d ever seen. Gentaro wishes he could cherish that look, photograph it and keep it in a heart-shaped locket close to his chest forever.
As if electrocuted, a spark of something courses through Gentaro, and it’s with this shock that an epiphany comes; the epiphany that he would set the whole world and himself on fire if it meant having another day to call Dice his own. Dice’s words ring in his ears.
“You’ll never know until you try.”
Maybe Dice was right. Did it matter who Dice was? Did it matter who Gentaro was?
What’s in a name?
Gentaro knows this is dangerous, that he shouldn’t be doing this alone, without his brother– this isn’t a one-man show, after all. But it’s worth the risk. So he lets go of the rope around his waist, lets his arms hang free, and plummets.
Gentaro drops, like the morning star falling from grace, knowing that once the coil unravels completely, he’s likely to die on impact should he hit the ground. Yet something tells him that he won’t, that he’ll be fine because someone’s always going to be there to catch him.
It’s when he’s halfway through the fall that he realizes– he’s never put so much trust in anyone before.
And sure enough, strong arms cushion his fall and he knows that his trust hasn’t been misplaced.
“I’ve always wanted to do that,” Dice says, sounding almost smug.
“Do what?”
“Catch you when you fall. I’ve seen it enough times to know how to do it.”
Gentaro has always found Dice’s eyes beautiful, but the shade of amethyst looks exceptionally radiant right now. Maybe it was the bridal-style embrace that was making his vision hazy; maybe it was the stage lights; maybe it was the heat. Gentaro’s not particularly keen on finding out right now.
“Dice.”
He spares Gentaro the burden of explanation.
Gentaro feels velvet and teeth, he tastes champagne and cigarettes, and, as cliche as it sounded, his world explodes into color. The air’s electric, the way it is when Gentaro’s spinning on his trapeze. He melts into the kiss, stomach pooling with heat and adrenaline that he’d only ever felt when in flight. It’s so much better, so much more exciting than anything Gentaro’s dreamed of.
Dice smiles against Gentaro’s lips, and suddenly the term euphoria gains new meaning in his head, and he finally understands why people were willing to die for love– what Juliet meant when she proclaimed “O happy dagger!”.
Eyes closed and heart ablaze, Gentaro lets himself dream.
Good things aren’t made to last. Gentaro, of all people, should know best.
All he sees is smoke. The ringing in his ears drowns out all the noise, but he knows he’s screaming; his throat aches, and his lungs are on the verge of collapsing, but he can’t stop.
The arms around his shoulders anchor him in place, begging him to stay put, but all he can think of is how he needs to go in there. He doesn’t care if it chars his skin, doesn’t care if it crushes his legs, doesn’t care if it burns him alive.
Dice is in there, lost somewhere in the flaming rubble, and it was all because of him.
Dice heard that he was still inside the circus, and had run inside without a second thought, someone had said to Gentaro. It was a miscommunication, they reasoned, but to Gentaro it was all a sick, twisted joke. Call it karma. Call it divine retribution.
This is what he gets for dragging Dice down with him.
Gentaro struggles, but his legs give out. The last thing he remembers seeing is nothing but an unforgiving blackness.
How selfish it was of him. Dice was trapped in the inferno, risking his life for Gentaro, yet all Gentaro could do was stand outside and fall unconscious. He wasn’t even strong enough to return the favor.
(Gentaro had always pictured Dice to be his knight in shining armor. Just not like this.)
Gentaro doesn’t know how long he’s been asleep at Dice’s bedside, but it’s the gentle thumb strokes on his cheek that startle him awake.
“Morning, beautiful.”
Even when covered in soot, dressed in hospital rags with a crimson-stained bandage tied haphazardly around his crown, Arisugawa Dice still knows how to take Gentaro’s breath away with ease.
There’s too much that Gentaro wants to say, but he’s run out of words to articulate them. Instead, with a boldness he didn’t know he possessed, he leans down and presses his lips against Dice’s, drinking him in like a man denied hydration in the burning desert sun.
He’s aware that they aren’t alone, that the hospital wing is bustling with busy nurses and pacing doctors, but Gentaro doesn’t care. He needs to feel him, feel his warmth and his radiance so he knows he’s real and alive.
Dice tastes like smoke, he tastes like ash and blood and tears Gentaro didn’t even know he was crying, and it would be an unsavory mix to anyone else but for him, it’s the most wonderful feeling, so much so that not a single word Gentaro’s ever read even comes close to describing it.
“I love you,” he whispers when they finally break apart, their need for oxygen the only thing in the world that still stood in their way.
Dice laughs a hearty laugh, one that’s sweet music to Gentaro’s ears. “If all it takes is a near-death experience for you to say those words to me…”
Gentaro rolls his eyes fondly, leaning in to silence him before he finishes the stupid joke, but the finger on his lips halts him.
“Actually, I’ve got something for you…” Dice is smiling, a mischievous glint in his eye. “Is my stuff still around?”
Gentaro reaches over him, retrieving his dark green jacket from the bedside table.
“Yep. Left pocket.”
Curious, Gentaro sticks a hand in, fishing around until he feels something–
It couldn’t be.
“Well?”
He runs his hand over it again. It’s a small box, he’s sure of it, and he can make out the smoothness of velvet on his fingertips. He’s so sure of it, that he doesn’t even try to stop himself when his shoulders begin to tremble.
“I would’ve gotten down on one knee, but…”
Dice doesn’t get to finish his question, but with the way Gentaro’s crying into his shoulder, clutching him like a lifeline, he doesn’t think he needs to.
(That night, on the way home, the diamond on Gentaro’s ring finger twinkles in the moonlight, pure and brilliant. And, for the first time, Gentaro sees the same brightness in his future.)
Dice has always been radiant. He’s like the sun, and the rest of them are merely planets, rocks, stars; whatever else there was in outer space, drawn into his orbit. Gentaro’s never seen Dice glowing the way he does now, in the center of the circus tent, all eyes on him just as he deserves.
Perhaps it’s his endless enthusiasm and undeniable charisma that makes him such a natural performer; as if he were destined for the spotlight. That’s why Ramuda passes on the top hat to Dice, thinking himself more suited to crafting sets and sewing costumes than performing for an audience.
(That, and the fact that Dice is really good with a knife and can put on a good show.)
Their opening sequence is an elaborate one, featuring every single act, but it’s well-rehearsed. At the end of it, Dice gives Gentaro a twirl, but instead of their usual bow, his hands find their home on the curve of Gentaro’s waist, and then he’s dipping Gentaro in a deep, swoon-worthy kiss.
“My, my, getting bold, aren’t we?” Gentaro huffs, knowing full well that the quirk of his lips betrays his delight.
“Can’t blame a man for having a gorgeous husband!” Dice grins back. “I’m gonna miss this, Gen. What are we gonna do while you’re gone?”
“I’m sure my brother can handle a solo act for a couple of months.”
“You know that’s not what I meant!”
Gentaro belongs on the circus stage, this he knows. But he has other dreams; he’s got tales to tell, and he’s got stories to write. He doesn’t know where it’ll take him, but if Dice has taught him anything, it’s that he’ll never know until he tries. Besides,
“Dice, didn’t you want to read about the princess and the knight?”