Memories of Wind (Love Mode, Seiichi/Tomoki)

Seiichi isn’t one for maudlin thoughts, not normally, but his memories, at least the ones his mind favors on nights like this, are not his happiest. Even the best of them, the ones where he pictures Tomoki alive and smiling, brimming with the vibrancy of life that would soon leave him, even those are tinged, tainted with regret and the bitterness of loss.

He closes his eyes, leaning back in his chair, and lets the warm summer breeze play across his face. There’s a glass of red wine ignored in one hand. The lights are off. Soft jazz croons from his sound system, barely audible. The wind rustles the curtains as it blows in through the open balcony, and the sound reminds him of laundry and one particular summer day.

In the short while that he’d lived with Tomoki, before Tomoki had passed on, he’d developed a fondness for the simple act of doing chores. There had been a washer but no dryer in the house they’d lived in, and thus they’d made good use of the clothes line strung between two T-shaped posts in the backyard. Seiichi would carry the basket out, smiling softly while he ignored Tomoki’s protests that he was well enough to carry the basket at least. He had been overprotective, he knew, but with reason.

Tomoki would hand him a piece of laundry and Seiichi would hang it, pulling wooden pins from further along the line. Shirts and clothing first, then a load of towels and sheets, until all three lines were full. Tomoki was still too short to reach the line on his own, though there was a small step ladder, now tucked away in a corner of the porch, for when he needed to reach the laundry on his own. Seiichi would gladly have done it on his own, along with the rest of the chores, but Tomoki insisted on helping. It made Tomoki feel alive, knowing there were still things he could do. When they finally emptied the basket, Tomoki would take the basket back to the porch before Seiichi could get it, smiling at the look Seiichi would shoot him, a look that mixed exasperation and fondness.

It was a bright and sunny day out and they had nothing planned for the day, which lead to the two of them stretched out just inside the house, the doors out onto the porch wide open. They lay snuggled close. Tomoki’s head was pillowed on Seiichi’s chest. Minutes passed with only the sound of the wind chimes near the doorway and the distant traffic from the street to disturb them.