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Mayoi’s undoing comes in the form of a hot summer day, and one Kazehaya Tatsumi.
“Mayoi-san,” Tatsumi says, voice lilting in a way that makes Mayoi think he’s about to ask a question. It halts Mayoi in his tracks — Alkaloid had just finished practice, and Mayoi was looking forward to curling up somewhere cool in the vents for an hour or five — and he turns back towards Tatsumi.
(Despite how harsh today’s practice had been, Tatsumi still looks ethereal. Or maybe that’s just the way Tatsumi is backlit by the overhead lights, how it makes him glow in a way that’s practically angelic.) (Mayoi wonders idly if he could go to Hell for comparing Tatsumi to an angel, and how strict the unspoken laws are around mixing humanity and divinity. And then he remembers he’s probably going to Hell anyways, for a variety of reasons of varying relation to Kazehaya Tatsumi, and promptly stops thinking about Hell.)
“This may be a strange thing to say, but,” Tatsumi says, and Mayoi’s train of thought is sharply halted in its disastrous tracks. He almost interrupts Tatsumi — because nothing could be strange when it came from Tatsumi’s mouth, because Mayoi was strange and weird anyways and he probably deserved whatever Tatsumi was about to say — but Tatsumi continues before he gets the chance. “I couldn’t help but notice that you have a mole on your arm, just above your wrist.”
Tatsumi gestures loosely in the direction of Mayoi’s left arm, and Mayoi realizes that, likely for the first time since Alkaloid’s formation, he had taken off his jacket during practice. The practice room they had booked was on the south side of the building as well as near the top floor, which meant that all four of them were treated to a front-row seat of the sweltering sunlight and tendency of hot air to rise and collect in the rooms higher up. Which meant that his arms were on display. Which meant that yes — and Mayoi raises his arm on instinct to check, something akin to alarm and shock and fear flashing through him, lightning-hot, as he confirms that the mole is still there — Tatsumi could see some of the moles that littered the rest of his skin.
“A-ah!” Mayoi says — yelps , practically — and takes one, two, three quick steps backwards, farther away from Tatsumi. He takes a mental catalogue of his remaining visible imperfections — two on his right hand and one on his left, scattered between his knuckles and joints; one near his elbow on his right arm; another above that one, near where the hem of his t-shirt sleeve falls. Mayoi hopes with a vicious desperation that Tatsumi had not noticed these, as well. “I’m so sorry you noticed, they’re so disgusting, aren’t they? Just another worthless and ugly thing about me, I’m sorry—”
“Mayoi-san,” Tatsumi interrupts, voice still calm and light and steady. He doesn’t attempt to cross the new distance that has been put between the two of them, and a flicker of something close to appreciation, or to love, blooms in Mayoi’s chest. “Why do you think they are disgusting?”
Mayoi squirms under Tatsumi’s steady gaze, eyes flicking around the room to avoid meeting their weight directly. “W-well, they’re mine, aren’t they?” Mayoi says, and he studies the water bottle Tatsumi left at the front of the room with terrifying intensity in order to not think about what expression Tatsumi must be making right now. “That makes them— weird. Disgusting. And they’re imperfections. Imperfect things aren’t beautiful. They’re gross, aren’t they?”
There’s a moment of silence, and Mayoi chances a glance at Tatsumi’s face, already bracing himself for — well, he doesn’t know what exactly, but it can’t be good, can it? Surely Tatsumi’s endless patience and kindness will have run out now, and he’ll be looking at Mayoi with the same amount of disgust as if he were a bug — and maybe that would be better? Tatsumi seems like the kind of person to even care for bugs — and Mayoi thinks he’s going to pass out, maybe. Or vomit. Or vomit and then pass out. He wonders how quickly he can grab his practice jacket and leap into the vent near the door.
Tatsumi looks pensive. Mayoi prepares himself to make a mad dash for the jacket that he has now spotted right next to Tatsumi’s water bottle.
“I don’t think I fully understand,” Tatsumi says, and Mayoi freezes in his preparations for take off. “You claim that these moles of yours are ‘imperfections’, that they are ‘disgusting’; do you think the same about my own, Mayoi-san?”
If Mayoi didn’t already feel like a deer in headlights, he’s sure he would now. “Of course not!” he says, and he’s not sure whether to go closer to Tatsumi to show his guilt and regret, or farther away, to distance him and his horrible, awful thoughts from Tatsumi’s kindness. “It’s different on you,” Mayoi says, and he makes the mistake of looking at Tatsumi’s face. His eyes are drawn almost immediately to the twin moles that sit below Tatsumi’s eye, and the familiar flames of guilt lick at Mayoi’s cruel, wicked heart, because how could Tatsumi ever believe Mayoi considers this part of him imperfect? When Mayoi sometimes spends seconds, minutes distracted by how much he wants to swipe a thumb over the two dark spots, even press his own lips against them?
“How so?” Tatsumi says, and he takes a small step towards Mayoi. The desire to turn and flee is so strong, so overwhelming that Mayoi can practically taste it — but it’s Tatsumi, and Tatsumi wouldn’t do anything unkind. Mayoi probably also owes him for insulting his face, albeit second-handedly and through his own self-deprecation.
“U-um?” Tatsumi takes another step closer, and then another, and when Mayoi doesn’t flinch away he reaches out his hands, carefully taking Mayoi’s hands in his. “I’m not sure what you mean, Tatsumi-san,” Mayoi whispers, because anything louder feels like it would disturb whatever strange half-peace his brain had settled into upon contact with Tatsumi. Or scare Tatsumi off, maybe. That wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, probably — just something close to it.
“How are they different on me?” Tatsumi is close enough that Mayoi could probably fulfill his sick desire of brushing the pad of his thumb against the two small spots, if he wanted to. He doesn’t, for obvious reasons, but his eyes keep flickering down to glance at them every few moments, and Mayoi is certain that Tatsumi is aware of where his eyes keep wandering.
“They just— they are ,” Mayoi responds. “They’re— charming?”
Tatsumi hums quietly. One of his hands pulls free from Mayoi’s grasp, and Mayoi is almost terrified of what might come next, but the hand simply settles lightly against Mayoi’s cheek, the pad of Tatsumi’s thumb brushing lightly against the mole that sits beneath the corner of Mayoi’s mouth. “And they are not charming on yourself?” Tatsumi says, quietly and kindly. (Forget Hell. Mayoi thinks that in this moment, he has to have died and gone to Heaven.)
Mayoi nods meekly, if only because he thinks that the only sound that could possible tear free from his vocal cords at this moment would be a terrifying and unflattering squeak.
“Mayoi-san,” Tatsumi says, the words barely more than a breath, a prayer, “don’t you know that I find them beautiful?”
The terrifying and unflattering squeak chooses that moment to wrest itself from Mayoi’s mouth. Tatsumi, to his ever-growing and immense credit, doesn’t seem phased.
The hand lightly caressing Mayoi’s cheek moves, and Mayoi mourns the brief point of contact — only, Tatsumi is then using that hand to lift Mayoi’s left hand higher between them. His other hand rises up to meet it, and with that same feather-light touch he brushes his fingers over the mole near Mayoi’s wrist. “I’d noticed you have this mole,” Tatsumi says, the light touches sending an almost-imperceptible shiver down Mayoi’s spine, “because of how well they complement your natural beauty, much like the mole on your face.”
“A-ah,” Mayoi says, and it’s still somewhere between a squeak and a breath. He can feel his cheeks heating with a familiar flush. “And- and you really believe that?” Mayoi says. Believe that I’m beautiful? he cannot continue with.
Tatsumi seems to get the message anyways. Mayoi’s hand is lifted towards his mouth, and before Mayoi can protest, Tatsumi has pressed a light kiss against that mole, that disgusting mole. “Of course,” Tatsumi says, and Mayoi can feel Tatsumi’s breath against his skin, the sensation almost heady. “All of your moles, Mayoi-san, and all of you.”
A beat passes, and the closeness and intimacy and silence weigh too heavily, all at once. “I have moles all over my body,” Mayoi blurts out. To stop the all-at-once-ness. To drive Tatsumi away, to make him realize his mistake. “They’re not- not beautiful. Not all of them, they can’t be.”
Tatsumi lets out a soft hum that may or may not be in disagreement. He lifts Mayoi’s other hand, pressing a light kiss against the mole that rests on the second knuckle of his middle finger, and then another on the mole that sits where the base of his thumb meets his wrist. “I assure you,” Tatsumi says, voice still that barely-above-a-breath that makes Mayoi melt , “they are.”
Tatsumi leans in to kiss him, and Mayoi comes undone.