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It was the second week of summer, when Ryushin decided to go out to the garden to play with the hose that connected to the water faucet. They didn't turn on the air conditioning inside his house because it wasted a lot of electricity, and he was bored of watching television, so he asked his dad to let him play with water outside.

So, there was 6"year"old Ryushin, sweaty and with all the energy that a child his age could have. So much energy that he accidentally threw the hose into the neighbouring garden and to one of the 3 kids that were colouring a book.

The boy didn't get mad though. He approached the limit of the house's garden and smiled at Ryushin, who did a ninety degree bow to apologize.

"My cousins and I are going to the pool in a while. Do you want to come with us? "the boy asked him.

Ryushin straightened up to look at him and smiled back. He uttered a quick "wait" and ran inside his house, receiving a scolding from his dad for coming in all wet and dripping water, and then returned a few minutes later with a small backpack with a swimsuit, clothes, and his towel.

Two hours later, Ryushin, Ren (the boy) and his 2 cousins were sitting in the shallowest part of the pool, throwing water at each other and telling kids stories.

In the way home the youngest of the 4 ended up so tired with his head leaning on his new friend's shoulder and struggling to keep his eyes open while Ren told him that, in fact, he was going to move into the house across the street in a week and that they could play together whenever they wanted.

They were 6 and 8 years old, they had known each other for a few hours, but had already bought friendship bracelets to promise to be friends for life.

.

It was December, a few days since Ryushin's 10th birthday, and they were at the eldest's house playing with stickers on each other's faces to entertain themselves. Ryu had specially asked for flower and heart stickers, while Ren had opted for the ones of cars and stars.

"This one, here," the youngest took a large red hibiscus flower sticker and pointed to his right cheek.

Ren smiled. The red contrasted with his skin and made him look pretty. He took a sticker of a red car and told him to stick it on his cheek too so they would look like twins.

The older boy put his arm around Ryu's neck and told him to smile so he could take a selfie with the small Samsung he had, which, despite its size, looked huge in Ren's little hands.

They took 5 photos hugging each other and 2 individually so they could always remember that moment.

When it got dark outside and Ryushin had to return home, the oldest suggested that he showed his parents his stickers.

Of course he did. He was happy with how the colours looked on him.

But his parents didn't think the same.

Hearts? Flowers? Why couldn't he choose something else like cars or some kid's cartoon?

Ryushin understood the look the two adults gave him. He didn't understand what it meant, but he knew that he should remove those stickers from his face and not use them in front of them again.

"You're a child, Ryushin. But soon you will be a teenager and you will need to stop acting so childish.

'Childish' was the word his mother used, but he knew that it wasn't what she meant, and his 10"year"old intellect couldn't figure out what it was.

The next day, a Saturday, he returned to Ren's house and burst into tears in his arms as soon as he saw him.

Ren didn't understand anything. What was wrong with him liking a red flower? He also had a red sticker on his cheek and his mother didn't say anything to him. His older brother even told him that he also wanted to buy those stickers for his notebooks.

"Maybe if you had shown them the pictures we took they would have seen that we both looked the same," he said to try to console his best friend. Or maybe they just don't like you wearing red.

Ryushin nodded into his shoulder and continued to cry for a while longer, thinking about the words that had been said to him and promising himself to never tell Ren about them.

A few minutes later, Ryoga, Ren's older brother, peeked insdie his room through the open door and decided to bring each of them a cup of chocolate with marshmallows. Whatever had made them sad would soon pass.

When he held out the cups to them, a red Christmas one and a blue one with stars, Ryushin took the blue one in his small hands and thanked the older boy.

That night, Ren dreamed that he was on the beach, playing in the sand, with hibiscus flowers lying around him.

Ryushin doesn't remember what he dreamed, but he woke up sad and, for the first time, wasn't excited about what he would do the rest of the day.

.

That morning was their first day together in high school and Ren knew, since he left home, that he would get a report at school. The reason? He had decided to dye his hair red with a temporary dye that he found in his brother's room.

All the way and at the entrance to the school he wore a black wool hat to hide his hair from Ryushin and the teachers, excusing himself that he had a cold, and he only took it off when he sat next to his best friend in the classroom.

A minute later he was outside the room, with a report in his hands, and a smile on his face. Ryushin's expression was just how he imagined it that morning, and it was the only thing he would care about for the rest of the day. That report didn't affect him at all if it meant that he had made Ryushin laugh.

At lunchtime, all his classmates were surrounding him and asking why he did it. "It's my favourite color" was the only answer he gave them.

On the way home, Ryushin's cheeks were sore from smiling and Ren kept saying that when they were old enough, he would dye his hair for real, with permanent dye.

That night, Ryushin took a red teddy bear that had been hidden in his closet and put it on his bed. He fell asleep hugging it. And the next day he decided not to put it away again.

.

College was like in all those dramas his parents watched: stressful. But it was also a place where they got to meet more people and were able to make a group of friends from various faculties. Ren's cousins also studied there, so they and their friends were part of the group. And there was another boy that Ryushin met on the first day of school when he got lost looking for his Macroeconomics I classroom. Jimmy was his name. It turned out that he too had gotten lost looking for the same room. They found it 10 minutes after the hour and had to sit together, in the back, so as not to interrupt the class.

Ryushin always knew he was different, and it wasn't thanks to the comment of his parents that time in his childhood. In high school, all his classmates had girlfriends and many of them had already had their first kiss; and at university they only talked about girls' bodies. It was (and still is) unpleasant to hear them express like that, and to see how the girls, completely unaware of those comments, fell in for them.

He has never thought that way about girls and now, at 19, he only sees his them because he likes how they do their hair and take care of their appearance. He believed that maybe he was asexual until he started paying attention to boy as they went through puberty and realized that he only felt those famous butterflies when he looked at boys.

And Jimmy makes him feel like he has a whole rack of butterflies in full flight inside him.

"I think I like Jimmy," he once confessed to his best friend while they were watching Spiderman at the cinema.

"Everyone likes Jimmy," Ren replied, sipping his soda.

"No, Ren. I'm serious. I like Jimmy," the youngest laughed quietly. "I think I'm in love with him."

Ren was about to put a handful of popcorn into his mouth when he understood what Ryushin was referring to. She stopped and turned her face to look at him. Ryushin wasn't paying attention to her, she had her eyes on Tom Holland saving Zendaya, so she just shrugged and replied:

"Good luck with that because you have half the university population to compete with."

Ryushin laughed at his comment and side eyed him.

"Thank you."

During the rest of the movie the younger was making comments about Peter Parker, and Ren even told him that they could dress up as him and MJ for Halloween.

"You would surely be the first male MJ in history."

Ryushin laughed so loudly that the other people in the cinema gave him dirty looks.

.

It never occurred to Ryushin that if he wants to kiss someone, he must first know how to do it. Of course he has fantasized about kissing boys and imagines what his first kiss will be like, but he never thought that to kiss Jimmy and not make a fool of himself he must have previous experience.

"How will I do it if I don't know how to kiss?" he says out loud. It's a Friday night after school, they're at a birthday party of someone they don't know at a bar a few blocks from the university. They separated from their friendgroup to look for the bathroom, but when they returned, they were no longer there and they decided to order a drink while they waited for them.

That drink turned into two, and then three, and then they remembered that the bill was on the birthday boy's and they stopped counting how many they had.

"You can practice," Ren answers.

"With who?"

"I don't know. A friend?"

Ryushin gives him a dirty look.

"You're forgetting the little detail that they have a girlfriend or are not available," the youngest laments, resting his chin on his palm.

Ren mocks his reaction and continues drinking from her cherry margarita that paints his tongue and lips red, and that would match his hair if it weren't for the fact that the red dye is already fading and is now coppery brown.

"It's Friday night and we are in a bar full of drunk college students. Why don't you find someone to kiss? You know that no one here is looking for something serious and they won't notice that you don't know how to do it. You won't lose anything by trying."

The younger considers it for a moment. Ren is absolutely right; it's the perfect place and at the perfect moment to find someone who is just as drunk as him to give his first kiss. Either way, he doesn't need it to be someone he knows, nor he cares if he remembers anything the next day. What does he have to lose?

He takes one last shot of vodka and looks at Ren before walking towards the centre of bar, which is where there are the most people. The oldest can only see him from time to time thanks to the crowd of people who seem to be dancing at the same time in the same direction.

For a moment, he sees him talking to a tall boy. Ryu laughs openly and tucks his blonde locks behind her ear while the other boy tells him something.

The next second, he can't see them again.

He could now be looking for someone to talk to, but he's not in the mood, so he stares at nothing, trying to decipher the lyrics of the song that's playing and continues drinking from his cherry margarita.

A few minutes later two boys sit down next to him in the seat.

Ren needs to look closely to realize that it is one of his friends with...

"Aren't you a minor?" he asks the black-haired boy directly.

"I'll be 18 in February," he says, eyes wide and cheeks red.

Kokoro, next to him, just sighs as if he had run 5 kilometres to get here.

"Yes, he is a minor, and I don't know how those guards at the entrance let him in. Didn't they ask you for ID or something?" he asks the younger kid who just shakes his head and smiles.

It takes only a few seconds for Ren to realize that Weesa is slightly drunk, and laughs, mocking Kokoro because he knows he'll have to take care of him.

"It's not funny," the other, also black-haired, boy reproaches, taking Weesa by the arm so he won't try to escape again.

"It is. Even here you have to take care of your Husky," he responds, pointing to the youngest who, in that state, looks more like an anxious Chihuahua.

Weesa doesn't even go to college and yet he spends so much time with them that sometimes they forget it. Since Ren met Kokoro, he learned that, along with him, came a hyperactive teenager who always waits for him when his classes end.

Despite being 4 years younger, he began to sneak into his friend group's weekend plans and soon began to get along with them as well.

He doesn't quite understand what the relationship he and Kokoro have is. At first, he thought they were brothers who didn't like eachother, but he discarded the idea when he heard their last names. And he once asked Kokoro what they were, but he only answered "he's just a high school classmate." They clearly didn't seem like just high school classmates, but he didn't insist anymore because he knows that Kokoro gets irritable easily, especially when the main topic is Weesa.

"Why don't you buy him some water?" Ren asked.

"I already did. He drank so much that he had to go to the bathroom twice."

"Kokoro-kun went with me," the youngest adds, smiling and leaning on his friend. Kokoro rolls his eyes but doesn't seem bothered by the closeness of the other.

"Where's Ryushin?" he changes the subject.

"He went to the bathroom," Ren answers after a moment.

Kokoro doesn't believe him, but also doesn't say anything.

"Do you still like him, Ren-kun?"

Ren chokes on his margarita and Kokoro has hit him on the back to prevent him from dying right there.

After what seems like hours of coughing, Ren stares at Weessa wishing he could choke him without facing legal consequences for a criminal act against a minor.

"Who told you?" he asks him.

Weesa just laughs, unserious, and shrugs.

"It's obvious," he says simply.

"It's not..."

"It is obvious," Kokoro interrupts without looking him in the eye.

Ren remains silent for a few seconds, thinking of some lie to divert attention from the fact that yes, he has been in love with his best friend since high school (or even way before then). But he can't think of anything, so he just falls back on seat, crossing his arms.

"How did you find out?" he asks, looking at his half-empty glass.

"You behave differently with him. I know you've been best friends for almost all your life, but the way you treat him is..." Kokoro makes a gesture with his hands, barely visible in the lighting of the bar.

"Quite romantic," Weesa says, completing his sentence.

"Exactly. I bet many girls and boys would like their partners to treat them the way you treat Ryushin."

Ren had never thought that how he acted with Ryushin was different from how he treats others. For him it is something so natural that he is even surprised that other people are not like that with their best friends.

"Who else knows?

Kokoro and Weesa exchange glances before the youngest says:

"Everyone... I think."

Everyone? Including...?

"Jimmy knows too?"

Weesa nods, his head resting on Kokoro's shoulder.

"I think Jimmy has known this since he met you two, but he's too decent to say anything."

Ren throws his head back and sighs. He is about to tell them that Ryushin likes Jimmy when the boy appears in front of them.

"Drunkards kiss so bad," he complains, sitting next to Ren.

Weesa and Kokoro exchange glances again.

"But you've never kissed anyone," the shortest of them says.

"I was... practicing," Ryushin smiles, looking at Ren out of the corner of his eye, but he's still staring at his glass.

"Practicing for what? Are you going to kiss someone?" Weesa asks, his voice still slurred a bit.

Ryushin seems a little surprised that the youngest is there but doesn't comment on it.

"Yeah. I'm going to kiss" he approaches the two boys over the round table and whispers "...Jimmy" all the color disappears from their faces when they hear it, but Ryushin doesn't notice because he sits back and sighs, looking at the ceiling "On January 29th on New Year's Day1. I plan to invite him to the fair in the afternoon so, when it gets dark, I can kiss him under the fireworks.

Wow, you really have it all planned, the two boys in front of him think.

"Do you like him?" Weesa asks, only because he wants to be sure about the information he just discovered.

Ryushin straightens up, suddenly becoming shy.

"Uhm yes. A lot."

The two black-haired boys look at Ren when hearing that, but he's still avoiding their gaze, now finishing what's left of his cherry margarita.

They don't say anything for a whole minute until the silence starts to get uncomfortable.

"I'm going to take Weesa home before it gets late," Kokoro answers, even though it's already midnight. The younger boy seems to want to stay longer, but he gets the older boy's gaze and remains silent.

They briefly say goodbye to their friends and disappear among the sea of dancing bodies to reach the entrance of the place.

Ryushin leans on the Ren's shoulder, who had not said a word since his return, and turns his head so that he can look at him through his eyelashes.

Ren can feel the youngest's insistent gaze and forces himself to speak.

"So... You didn't succeed?" he asks, with his usual tone of voice.

"No," the blonde boy pretends to cry. "One of the dudes licked my mouth like a dog before even kissing me, the other almost threw up on me, and the last one thought I was a girl."

Ren laughs because Ryushin makes a very specific expression when something disgusts him that the older boy loves to see.

"Well, with blonde hair and that length, anyone would think you were a pretty girl," Ren answers. Ryushin has long since come to understand that there is nothing wrong with being attractive or pretty like a girl, so he doesn't get offended when Ren tells him so, and he himself has accepted that he is pretty in that way. Plus Ren phrases it with such sincerity and adoration that he knows he means it in the best way possible.

"But that guy got upset that it wasn't," the youngest explains, frowning at the memory. He said "sorry, but I'm not that type of men, I only like women."

Ren smiles again at how Ryushin has imitated the guy's tone of voice in an exaggerated way and then puts a hand on his leg to comfort him.

"He has no idea of the opportunity he just let pass," he says in a sigh.

It's when Ryushin doesn't answear at all that he realizes what he just said.

Now he will think that I want to kiss him... and yes I do, but he can't know it. He gives himself a mental smack.

His hand remains motionless on his leg. He thinks about removing it to make it all les awkward, but Ryushin turns to kiss him on the cheek and says "thank you" quietly.

Ren doesn't say anything, he doesn't even move.

The kiss on the cheek is not something new. Having grown up together, they developed a close relationship, so close so that they both felt comfortable enough showing their affection through hugs and words. When they were younger it was common for them to kiss on the cheek as a 'hello' or 'goodbye' every time they saw each other, but they stopped when they realized that they were the only ones in the entire school and in the entire neighbourhood who did that.

So, being kissed on the cheek by his best friend makes him feel like they are kids again, with no worries other than thinking about what they would do the next day. Except now they're 21 and 22 and they're in a bar, at midnight, with the music so loud they can barely hear their hearts and with alcohol in their systems...

And Ryushin has taken out his favourite gloss from his jeans and is applying it to his lips and turning completely to look at him.

"Can I practice with you?"

Three words. A closed question with only 2 possible answers: yes or no. However, his brain is doing tricks so as to keep working and be able to process what he has just heard.

"What?" is the only thing he manages to formulate.

"Yeah. I don't know why I didn't think of it before, but you're the right person. We are best friends, we have known each other all our lives and you are the one I trust the most. Only with you can I have my first kiss."

Watanabe Ren wants to cry. He is usually a very sensitive person and has even cried at movies, but the feeling now is very different. He doesn't want to cry out of sadness or happiness, but out of frustration. He wants to cry because he can't believe that Ryushin is asking him to kiss without knowing anything about his feelings towards him.

Ryu it is just practice, kissing him just as if they were exchanging a candy. For Ren it is having his first kiss with the person he has loved for so many years, and then knowing he will go and kiss someone else as if their kiss had meant nothing.

But... Ryushin is looking at him with those wide eyes and a pout and Ren allows himself to be selfish for a moment.

If I don't kiss him now, I'll never be able to do it because he'll be with someone else.

So, without answering, he places a hand on the back of Ryu's neck and brings him just a few inches closer so as not to scare him. He caresses the hair on his nape for a second then slides his hand until it is placed on his neck, with his thumb caressing his cheek, he looks him in the eye a moment before joining his lips and kisses him. And, a few seconds later, Ryushin is kissing him back.

It's a simple kiss, they barely move their lips. The younger boy is unsure of what to do and the older doesn't dare to do more, fearing that Ryushin will decide it's a bad idea and walk away.

They part slightly, looking at each other and telepathically wondering if they should continue. The blonde smiles slightly and approaches him again to kepp kissing him. From what he has learned from movies, he has to open his mouth a little in order to deepen the kiss, so he does, and Ren gets the message immediately. He runs the tip of his tongue over his lips, tasting the peachy flavour of the lip gloss and making him sigh. Then Ryushin feels the same peach taste on his own tongue when Ren invades his mouth. From peach it turns to cherry because of Ren's margarita, and Ryushin thinks that he could kiss him for a lifetime just to feel the taste on his tongue. The alcohol makes their heads foggy, but this feeling of lightness is different, they both thinks. Yes, they are a little drunk, but now they are also intoxicated with each other, and they believe that they will never be able to experience this with anyone else.

Ren feels his heart beating in his ears, even louder than the music, and Ryushin's stomach is full of butterflies when they finally separate.

The older man's lips are still red from the artificial cherry, and now also from the short kissing session they just had. Ryushin can see how his lips they also shine and blushes when he thinks that they kissed so much that now they both are wearing gloss.

"I think that's enough to impress Jimmy," Ren says to remind himself that they're just practicing and to avoid getting his hopes up.

Ryushin stares a little and turns his face slightly towards the table.

"Uh... yeah, I think so too," he replies, because he doesn't want to admit that for a moment he forgot that they were just practicing. "Thank you."

.

That night, an hour later, walking to Ryushin's house, he stops them a few houses from his and quickly kisses the older boy behind a tree. When he asked him with his eyes why he had done it, he simply responds:

"I'm just thanking you."

Of course, he couldn't tell Ren that it was because he wanted to feel the butterflies in his stomach one last time that night, before they parted ways and had to forget what they had felt.

.

On the night of January 29th, Ren doesn't go out because he doesn't know exactly where Jimmy and Ryushin will be, and he prefers to avoid the possibility of seeing them kissing. So, he stays at home watching a series and waits for his brother to come home from the supermarket.

When the oldest arrives, he has a huge smile on his face and red cheeks. Ren's gossipy side can't help but ask what happened.

"I met someone," he says as he takes the groceries out of the plastic bags.

"When?" he asks, going directly for the bags of chips and bottles of juice that he asked for.

"Today, like an hour ago."

The minor stops his movements and stares at him.

"You just met her and you're already all shy and smiley?" he says, incredulous.

Ryoga rolls his eyes and ignores him, grabbing a bottle of orange juice from his hand to walk to the living room where Ren was previously watching TV.

"I wasn't a girl to start with," he comments, leaning back in the individual sofa and raising his legs.

Ren looks at him for a moment, debating whether to say something about it or not, but it's too late when he decides to because when he asks "was he a man?", Ryoga doesn't know what he's talking about.

"Eh?"

"The person from before. Was he a man?"

It takes his brother a moment to blush again and nod.

"I also like men... and women... both," Ren says in a very low voice that can only be heard because the episode has ended, and a new one is about to begin.

Ryoga is now the one who doesn't know what to answer. In a way, it's like he just came out to Ren, except it's the first time he's been attracted to a man. But for his younger brother it is different because he is sure that he likes both men and women.

"I know," he says simply, hoping not to sound too as if he doesn't take it with the seriousness it requires.

Ren exhales the air he didn't know he had held in his lungs until they start to hurt. With the exhale also comes one of his biggest worries, and the cause of some sleepless nights.

.

They are just about to finish the season when the doorbell rings. They look at each other for a moment because they don't know who it could be at this hour. Their mother was with her friends on a trip, so it can't be her.

Ren gets up from the floor where he was lying all night and walks towards the door. On the other side is Ryushin with a sad look on is face and a red wool hat with snowflakes on its top. Ren steps aside to let him in, and he silently takes off his shoes before heading straight up stairs to his room.

Ryoga watches it all from the living room, only nodding when Ren points toward the first floor with his chin.

Ryushin is already lying on his bed, still with his hat on and with the blanket over his body, lying in fetal position.

The older boy sits on the edge of the bed and runs a hand over Ryu's legs to comfort him from whatever has put him in this mood.

"I guess you couldn't kiss Jimmy under the fireworks," he says in a whisper.

The youngest shakes his head and then turns his head a little on the pillow so he can look at Ren.

"He told me he didn't like me. That he really appreciated my feelings but couldn't accept them because... because they aren't sincere."

Ren stares.

They are not sincere? Handa Ryushin is the most sincere person he has ever met. The only person that can love with all his heart.

How dare Jimmy say that?

"He doesn't even know you. How can he think that about you?"

The youngest shrugs and continues speaking in a low voice.

"He also told me that he would love to reciprocate my feelings but that he would be stealing them from the one they belong to... And that my feelings were not sincere because he feels that they are not directed towards him" he takes his eyes off the older boy and hides his face a little in the blanket to avoid looking at him. "I don't know what he means by that."

Jimmy also told him that he should find the person for whom his heart really beats, the person who owns the butterflies in his belly.

Ren doesn't want to think too much. He knows that, if he does, he will only hurt himself by creating scenarios where Ryushin feels the same towards him and they can both live without feeling guilty about their feelings. So, he ignores the hopeful little voice in his head that tells him that, maybe, there's a slight chance that Ryushin could fall in love with him or that Jimmy knows exactly what he's talking about and why he said it.

"Ren, can you kiss me?" asks the youngest, his voice muffled by the blanket.

The older boy looks at him, wanting to tell him that he won't do it because he doesn't want to get the wrong ideas or get his hopes high, but he knows perfectly well that he would do anything to see Ryushin happy, even if it means being miserable.

He removes his hand from his leg to move the blanket away from him so he can see his face. The blonde lies, looking at him expectantly and unsure. Ren has to move to the centre of the bed so that he can be on top of him, with his hands on both sides of Ryu's face, and finally kiss him.

They are both unsure. Not like before when they didn't know what to do, but unsure because they don't know how they will feel once they part, and they don't know if they will be happy with their feelings, whatever they may be.

Ryushin's lips are very cold and dry, something unusual since he always has a lip gloss at hand, but they still feel like heaven, just as Ren remembers. His puffy lips fit perfectly with Ren's thin ones, and soon they stop being rough and dry thanks to the warmth of his own mouth. The blonde realizes that the sweet taste that he had liked so much from the previous kiss was not exactly from the cherry, but rather from Ren; from the delicacy with which he kissed him, from the gentleness with which he touched him, and how warm he is with him. He has always felt that sweet taste when they are together, but he just now undesrtands that it is because of all of Ren and how he feels with him: happy, warm, sensitive, loved, sweet...

Ren is the one who parts first when his arms can no longer support his weight and his leg begins to ache from the position he is in, so Ryushin leans on his hands to be at his height.

"I always believed that feeling butterflies was a sign of falling in love and that if I didn't feel them with you was because I only loved you as my friend, but I didn't realize that with you it wasn't butterflies in my stomach that I felt, because every time we are together my whole body reacts. You don't make me feel nervous, you make me feel myself and that is the greatest happiness I can experience."

The oldest cannot answer. Just a few seconds ago he was kissing him with the idea that they would both forget about this the next morning, and now he has just heard a confession from the person he least imagined. He wants to speak, but he feels his heart in his throat and his eyes can't stop looking at Ryushin. Nothing he says now will make sense except to himself, and Ryushin still kisses him again. A short, soft, sweet kiss.

"Jimmy is right. All this time, all these years, my feelings have only been sincere when they are directed towards you. Not towards anyone else."

When he lies back down, he pulls the older boy with him and hugs him, inhaling the lemon scent of his hair. He feels Ren's arms wrap around his torso, his face buried in his chest.

"Ryu..." he says, but he can't complete the sentence because he doesn't know what he wants to say.

"I know. Me too," Ryushin says, kissing his hair.

The fluorescent stars that he once glued as a child and hasn't taken off shine on the ceiling, and Ryushin feels that they look even more beautiful than the fireworks at the fair, and that he wouldn't change them for anything if it meant being able to kiss Ren whenever he wants under them.

.

The next morning, they are still in a hug when they wake up. Ryushin's hat is lying on the pillow and, when he sees it, he remembers why he loves red so much: the fisrt time he met Ren, the older boy was wearing a red t-shirt and his swimsuit had red flowers in it. He used that sticker on his cheek because it reminded him of Ren every time he saw it. Since he stopped wearing red, he felt guilty for being himself and even ashamed; he avoided the color as much as he could because his parents' words flood his head, and it was only until Ren had the idea of showing up at school with dyed hair that he remembered that the colour not only meant anger but love and warmth he feels when he is with the boy.

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New Year1: refers to the lunar new year which is celebrated on January 29.

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Thanks for readingggg <3 <3