“Hey, Ren-chan~” cheerfully greeted Itori. A foxy smile delved in her features as she rested a wine glass filled with blood against her plump lips. “How have you been lately?”
“Where’s Uta?” asked Renji, stomping inside of the bar with a certain rush. His eyes quickly scanned the room’s insides and as he was about to rush outside once again, Itori’s voice made him come to a halt.
“He’s inside, in the staff room,” leisurely said Itori, inwardly sighing a tired ‘of course’. If Uta was doing something like that, it went without saying that Renji would be involved in some sort of way - whether he knew about it beforehand or not. It seemed to be the latter than the former, by his current behaviour. She took a slow sip to the blood and placed the wine glass back on the counter. “Why not check for yourself?”
“...” Renji slowly turned his body around to face Itori. After a couple of seconds of deep silence between the two of them, he started walking towards the mentioned area.
“Have fun~!” said Itori, her voice half teasing, half amused. She waved her hand at Renji as he walked past her, enjoying the rest of her drink afterwards.
When Renji opened the backdoor and stepped inside of the staff room, he finally understood Itori’s relaxation and playfulness. He closed the door behind himself alongside a deep sigh.
“You sure were fast today,” remarked Uta, arching his pierced brows. His body was clad in a half-dressed dark grey yukata, large portions of his tattooed pale skin still visible.
“You sent me a text asking for help,” said Renji, his words accusing and admonishing. He took his phone from his coat’s pocket and turned the screen towards his childhood friend. “Just ‘help’.”
“Yes, I need help tying the obi,” acknowledged Uta, his face expressionless as he picked up the also dark grey obi belt from a nearby table and left it hanging down on his hand. “I didn’t expect human traditional wear to be so complicated to put on.”
Rather than tie the obi around his slender waist, Renji thought it would be better (and safer, in a general way) to tie the deceiving former clown up and leave him locked up somewhere. Then again, pulling this kind of stunt to gain his attention was a nearly daily incident in Renji’s life so he should have known better than to worry and rush outside to search for him upon receiving that message.
“What are you planning this time?” sighed Renji, walking closer to take hold of the obi. He then started the slow, careful process of wrapping and tying it around Uta’s waistline.
“Tonight, there’s a summer festival in the 13th ward,” said Uta with a noncommittal voice, his tattoed eyes downcast as he observed Renji’s hands skillfully putting the obi on him. “I thought it would be a good change of pace to go. With you.”
“If you want to go with me, you should have sent me an invitation text, not an SOS request,” bluntly pointed out Renji. Part of him was surprised by Uta’s meekness in asking him out - they usually asked one another to go here and there in a casual fashion. As two Ghouls who knew each other for years, there was just no other way to go about it. However, being tricked into going out somewhere with Uta was also so very much like him.
It was also so very much like Renji to allow himself to be deceived by Uta without kicking a fuss about it.
“I just said I want a change of pace, right?” said Uta in his own defence. As the obi was finally put in place, he gave the last few touches to the summer yukata, styling its dark grey fabric to his own taste. “If I invited you as usual, then it wouldn’t be much of a change.”
Renji could only wonder what the deceiving former clown was up to that time around.
-.-
“Human food is so colourful,” dreamily sighed Uta, crouched down in front of a food stall featuring cotton candy and candied apples. His expressionless black and crimson eyes gobbled up the concept that he could never savour for as long as he lived. “Clouds of pink and light blue made of sugar. The sensation of tasting a little piece of the sky in your mouth, feeling it melt and disappear against your tongue. And right next to it, the apple. The temptation of humans locked up inside of a cage of sweetness.”
Renji silently stood behind the fascinated Ghoul, attempting to prevent the endless crowd of visitants to run over Uta. He was also observing the same food products as him, but unlike Uta, all he could see was food that would ever only provide him with a terrible aftertaste in his mouth.
“Um… Will you be buying something… or not?” asked the street vendor, his face pale and expression frightened as he quickly glanced up and down at the expressionless creepy tattoed man dressed in a yukata that only stared and stared at his products and the mean-looking tall, buff man silently standing right behind him.
Uta shot up straight without any warning, lunging his index finger forward in the street vendor’s direction as if throwing a spear at his face. “I’ll take one cotton candy and one candied apple.”
“T-That’ll be 300 yen, please,” said the street vendor, taking one of each product from the display. He slowly, as if about to be bitten, motioned the cotton candy and candied apple towards his customer, receiving three 100 yen coins in return.
“Are you going to eat them?” asked Renji, curiously observing the two pieces of human food held in Uta’s hand. They once again dived inside of the crowded flow of movement between the food stalls so he made sure to stick as close as possible to Uta. He had the feeling it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to get accidentally separated from one another.
“It’s all about the aesthetics, Renji,” explained Uta, a satisfied small smirk on his lips. He used the candied apple to point at the colourful anime-themed mask resting sideways on top of his head. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have bought such a flimsy mask either. The ones I make are a world apart of difference from these easily breakable, uncomfortable cheap masks.”
“I still don’t get it,” sighed Renji, finding all of that pointless. If they couldn’t eat them nor enjoy them, then they should forget about their presence at the summer festival and enjoy the festivity in their usual way.
“When humans go to summer festivals, they eat food from the food stalls, purchase masks and other existing accessories, scoop goldfishes and try to find the best location to watch the fireworks,” said Uta, sideways glancing at the crowd of children and young women delving around the goldfish scooping stall. “I wanted to see what they see. A change of pace, even if it doesn’t change me at all in the end.”
“As I thought, all of this is really unlike your usual self,” confessed Renji, a small frown installing itself on his brows.
“Maybe being pierced by you, again and again, has made my insides change just a little bit,” pointed out Uta, a seductive smirk on his lips as he purred those words. He adjusted his hold to the cotton candy’s stick and motioned it sideways towards Renji. “Hold this for a bit.”
Without saying anything back to that unexpected suggestive confession, Renji took hold of the cotton candy as requested. Then, again, Uta blew Renji’s expectations.
“Hinami and Touka told me about a good spot to watch the fireworks,” said Uta, using his free hand to hold Renji’s also free one. After entwining their fingers, he pulled at his arm, slowly leading them across the crowd and into a more secluded area of the summer festival’s grounds. “They said few people go there because they’re scared of being attacked by Ghouls in the dark of the night. But what do we have to worry about that?”
Renji’s hand grew hotter still. It was just a little bit of physical contact, nothing that could be compared to previous occasions. Was it Uta’s mentioned ‘change of pace’ that made it seem bigger, larger than simply holding hands?
“We’re here,” announced Uta. They were surrounded by large trees, their midst dark due to the late hour of the night. However, the single bench placed in the area had a completely naked view of the night sky, making it possible to watch the fireworks in complete seclusion, the sounds of the summer festival mingling with the rustling of leaves and grass.
“It is a good spot,” acknowledged Renji, walking side by side with Uta towards the lonely bench. Hands still clasped tight, they took a seat next to one another. “We should thank Hinami and Touka for the information later.”
“You’re always so stiff with formalities,” chuckled Uta, sliding his body closer to Renji so he could reach for the cotton candy. That stiffness of his childhood friend had given him a certain idea. “I think I’ll eat, after all.”
“You’re going to regret it,” warned Renji when the cotton candy’s stick slipped out from his fingers. His frowning returned, together with a touch of incredibility. Uta had always been fascinated with human food but never attempted to eat it.
“I know but I don’t want to waste my 300 yen,” said Uta, bringing the cotton candy closer to his face. He took a bite of the fluffy candy and let it melt in his mouth. Then he proceeded to give a slow lick to the candied apple. His face of disgust was pretty noticeable, even in the dark of the night. “This little piece of sky only tasted like the ashes found in the ground. But the apple… Yes, that’s definitely the taste of sin. Ghouls are definitely not meant to eat it.”
“I warned you,” sighed Renji, readily removing both the cotton candy and the candied apple from his hands. He put them down on the floor and then sat back down on the bench again, relaxing completely as the two waited for the firework show to begin.
They didn’t need to wait for more than a couple of minutes,
“If you want colourful things to enjoy, then you have the fireworks,” said Renji, both him and Uta staring at the night sky. Their faces were illuminated in yellow, red, blue, green, a hundred colours more than couldn’t be found in a rainbow. He gently tightened his hold on Uta’s hand. “As a thank you, you should create a new series of masks to be used in summer festivals. Touka will say she doesn’t need it but Hinami will be plenty of happy with it.”
“Touka will get an apple-shaped mask and Hinami’s will be soft and fleecy like cotton candy, then,” acknowledged Uta, humming in satisfaction with his renewed inspiration for the mask making trade. “Yours will have a million colours, like the fireworks above us, and mine will be like a mirror.”
“A mirror?” repeated Renji, releasing a soft snort. “That has absolutely nothing to do with summer festivals. Shouldn’t it be with goldfishes or chocolate-covered bananas?”
“I’m someone who can’t change on his own,” confessed Uta. He leaned his body forward and changed his sitting position, pushing his torso against Renji’s at the same time he circled his neck with his arms. He brought their lips together, gently tasting the kiss before he teasingly bit down on Renji’s lip. Then the sweet of the kiss tasted even sweeter, drenched in the savoury warmth of blood. “You taste much better than cotton candy and candied apples, Renji.”
“...” Renji slowly licked his lower lip, stopping the little trickle of blood oozing out. With a small movement, he locked lips with Uta a second time, relishing on the sweetness, warmth, softness. He couldn’t enjoy human food but he was sure Uta’s lips always tasted like cotton candy and candied apples. They were clouds, sugar, sin and a cage all in one. Once their lips came apart, he dropped his head forward and leaned his forehead in Uta’s. “I think that goes without saying.”
“By the way, this yukata is a rental,” suddenly said Uta, his body curling up closer to Renji’s as his moist lips morphed into a mischievous smirk. “We can’t make it dirty beyond repair when we get back home.”
Yes, Uta, the deceiving former clown, was someone who should be locked up in Renji’s arms.
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