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"Woooo! Did ya see that Saimon, Tsubaki-san??? That was fucking epic!"
Yohei jumps up and down like an excited teenager at his favorite band's concert. In a way, he kind of is. Saimon smiles, high on the aftermath of a concert. The backdrop of Buraikan's emptying stage becomes an open maw with Yohei's grinning countenance front and center. His aura burns with fire as he and Tsubaki flank his sides like a layered flower, its soft petals strong enough to withstand such passion.
"What a dream, isn't it, Naoakira?" Tsubaki glides up to his side, grasping his arm. She has the same passion flowing through her veins, the passion of connecting people through hip-hop. They all do. "To be up there, so close to the legends themselves,” she turns an angelic smile to Saimon. "It'll be us one day."
"Yes." Saimon has to keep his voice from wavering at the strength of her conviction. "Quadra X, on the same stage as Buraikan…"
He can see it happening, can see them achieving their dream, all three of them, together. He leans his head down to Tsubaki, sealing their future with a kiss…
"Yoooo! Check it out, guys! I'm almost up on the stage– WAGH–!"
The couple breaks apart at the yelped cry – then immediately run in Yohei's direction when they hear him thudding to the packed ground.
"I'm fineeeeeee," their Yohei-shaped lump continues to moan a few minutes later, when the two of them slide to Yohei's side and thoroughly examine him for any injuries.
Saimon puts a large hand on Yohei's chest, stopping him from moving. "I know you are, Yohei, but just stay there for a few more minutes until your head stops spinning. It was a direct hit from what I saw."
Yohei squirms under Saimon's hand but mostly complies. At least he stopped complaining as soon as his head was lifted into Tsubaki's lap. “What were you thinking, my little Yohei? You may be young, but don't go hopping around like you're an invincible kitten you know.”
Her finger swipes down the bridge of Yohei's face to the tip of his nose, tiny shockwaves tingling Yohei's skin. “D…don't call me that!”
“Right. You're an excitable kitten,” Saimon adds unhelpfully. Their laughter complements each other; one deep, one sweet, both angelic. They're a match made in harmony.
Despite his thoroughly embarrassing state, Yohei smiles with youthful determination. “We’ll get on that stage someday. Right guys?”
Yohei lifts a shaky fist up to the sky. Saimon and Tsubaki meet it with theirs. “You're right, Yohei. We will,” Saimon's voice rumbles, the conviction getting hitched in his throat as he looks upon the two beloved people in his world–
“Lemme climb that dang stage again, I’ll fuckin’ do it right this time–”
Yohei falls again. This time, Tsubaki gives him a kiss to the cheek while Saimon scoops him up to tow him home.
______
“Ryu, stop doing cartwheels in the bar and lemme help you strap on your equipment.”
It’s a nice day out, and Yohei is up before two PM, so TCW are going to the skate park to satisfy Ryu’s latest obsession. Yohei catches the boy by the waist as he passes by the bar master, stopping the boy’s momentum and trapping him by snapping his legs shut.
After enduring a grueling ten minutes of Ryu wailing into his ear (“Waaaaaaa, Master is killing Ryu-kun!”) they make it to the park. Ryu had insisted on decorating the second-hand skateboard he dug up from the trash earlier that morning with stickers, which have already begun to peel in the strong mid-afternoon sun. He totters up with his board in full protective gear: helmet, shoulderpads, kneepads, shin guards, and steel-toed boots.
With a slap to his back, Yohei sends him off. “Fuck up those pipes kid.”
Ryu does indeed fuck up those pipes. Impressively so, even. He gathers a large crowd of skateboard enthusiasts to cheer him on. Even still, Ryu’s is the loudest laughter of them all as he soars into the sky, tongue out and eyes bright, brighter and clearer and more lucid than when he makes ungodly concoctions and yowls his strange screechy laughter as he forces the other three to taste test it. It makes this outing worth it, Yohei thinks, though he'd never admit it out loud. The little fucker probably knows anyway with his freakish clairvoyance.
“Master!!!” Ryu sprints to him, still a bundle of energy this late into the evening. “It’s your turn!”
“My turn? Turn for what?”
“For to skateboards!”
“Can you speak normal for once in your– No! I’m not doin’ that deathly shit!”
Skateboarding is hardly deadly, but the years have turned Yohei from the one being fussed over to the fusser. Ryu pouts.
"But Master! Shiki and Boss had their turn!"
Shiki must've gotten bullied into popping an ollie but… "Saimon seriously humored you?"
"Not just humored," Saimon's voice whooshes past them. His posture is perfectly proper, book in hand as the wind whips his hair like a Greek statue come to life.
"This is surprisingly relaxing Yohei. Try it."
Saimon skates circles around Yohei – did he nab some kid's board or something? – and then Ryu joins. Yohei only has eyes for Saimon though, following his gliding movements as if hypnotized.
It takes him too long to shake himself out of the hypnotic trance. "Fine, I'll do it! Just gimme the damn thing."
Yohei takes up the proffered skateboard at arm’s length like it's a baby who has just freshly soiled its diaper. Yohei drops the skateboard on the ground, rolling it experimentally with his right foot.
He climbs aboard. He can already picture how many different ways he could break a bone. Just roll around for a few minutes ‘til they get appeased, he repeats like a soothing mantra, burying down his irritation at getting roped into this even as his heart secretly warms at the watching stares of amazement of Ryu, Shiki, and Saimon combined.
“Oh Master! Don't forget this!” Ryu bounds up to plop a helmet on him. He gives him his most serious thumbs up.
“That's good of you to think about Yohei's safety, Ryu, but you forgot to strap it on him.”
Saimon, having no such reservations, steps up on the skateboard Yohei is on to take hold of the straps to buckle the helmet in. Yohei freezes as he gets a face full of broad chest and his vision is tunneled for a brief few moments to a blissful plain of pecs under a tight cable-knit sweater. His cologne is as potent as a punch he knows Saimon is capable of giving despite his peaceful tendencies, his feather-light touches gentler than the breeze that's blowing.
Saimon, Saimon, Saimon. His senses are assaulted by Saimon. Saimon asks him a question but all he can hear is the deep vibrations of his low timbre penetrating his eardrums straight to his brain, and he nods dumbly. Saimon suddenly breaks into a bright smile.
“Wonderful! Then I have complete faith in you.”
“Yeah yeah yeah, let's go already!!”
Two bony hands shove him from behind and he speeds forward towards a deep bowl, where he picks up even more speed before soaring high into the sky. It's peaceful up there, for a brief moment as he hangs an epic ten, clutching onto his board for dear life. And then–
“Ryu,” Saimon asks mildly. “Why did you push him?”
“Master's gonna say ouch.”
“WHOEVER PUSHED ME YOU'RE GETTIN’ IT WHEN I'M–”
Yohei tumbles to the ground very much unlike a cat his group takes their motif from.
“Biiiiiiiig ouch. Good thing Master didn't hit his funny bone! Not like he has one anyway, keeheehehe.”
“Ryu-kun, that's mean to say…” Shiki wimpers though it gets lost under the enraged screams of Yohei promising the wringed neck of his apprentice bartender.
Saimon sighs, lifting up a well-used medical kit. “Let's go fix him up, shall we?”
______
Bar 4/7 shines in the winter. A beacon of shelter year-round, its aura warms the weary souls of travelers, regulars, friends, and everyone who walks through its doors.
That has remained true over the years, and it is the one thing that has stayed constant even after all the change it has gone through. Saimon and Yohei sit in their personal nook in the bar on Christmas Eve, facing the grand piano that has been as constant a companion as Tsubaki, upon which an eternal camellia sits.
Saimon puts his long, elbow length salt and pepper hair into a ponytail. It's more salt than pepper these days; formally passing on the bar to Ryu and Shiki hasn't been without its stresses. Then again, a retirement without surprises is boring. A chuckle bubbles up as he swipes through a digital photobook looking back at their memories.
Yohei looks up, one eyebrow raised. “What's so funny?”
“Heh heh. If there's one thing we can count on, it's that you have always been quite the klutz.”
“Klutz? Me??” Yohei bristles with familiar passion. “Ryu may be an adult now, but he still pulls his stupid-ass pranks on me. No one tests their shoes out to see if they're covered with slippery shit before goin’ out! Of course I was gonna fall on my face, you woulda had the same fate!”
Yohei’s rough manner of speech is a habit too hard to break, but no longer is he carried away by his explosive emotions, so he just expels a huff to show how unamused he is. He'd rather be spending that energy enjoying Saimon's smile anyway. “Can't believe you're still laughin’ about that even though it happened a week ago…”
“That's not what I was referring to, but that was very funny. I was just thinking back on all the times we all got used to patching you up because you'd be the one the most willing to get into harm's way for TCW. For your family.”
The smile that replaces Yohei's scowl shows his affection more openly now. “Yeah. Anythin’ for the weirdos I call my family.”
“That's why I got you a helmet for Christmas this year.”
“Yer jokin’, right?”
“...”
“Dude, you're jokin’. Tell me you're jokin’!”
“...”
“Of all the things, what kinda gift is a hel–”
Saimon lets out a snicker.
“Goddamnit! Yer spendin’ too much damn time with Iori again aren’tcha?? I'm gonna kill that fool…”
Many times has Yohei sworn vengeance on Iori, but never has he followed through with his threats besides a thwack on the head much like how he gives one to Saimon right now, whose laughter only bubbles out more.
“He's delightful company, and whip smart. But I don't spend nearly as much time as his husband does with him.”
“Right, Gazen, the muscle guy.”
“Come now, Yohei. At this point in time isn't it time for you to call him Zen? We've all grown very close over the years and you know he has hobbies outside of his muscles and his Waka.”
“The only time I spend with those two is forced, I tell ya. Forced!”
Saimon knows this for a fact that this is untrue. Should anyone wrong the two men from Akan Yatsura, it would be the same as wronging the members of The Cat's Whiskers. The fondness he has for them goes beyond their rivalry from Paradox Live, and they've forged an unbreakable bond in the years after.
But he wouldn't say that out loud, even after decades of opening his beaten and mended heart up. But Saimon notices it all. He rubs the tip of his nose up and down Yohei's neck in a teasing motion, amusement puffing over his skin. “Like how I ‘forced’ you to finally call me Naoakira?”
Yohei makes a weak noise, curling a hand behind Saimon's head to both push him away and also to bring him closer. “Tch. Quiet, you…”
The bar grows silent. The snow falls peacefully to the ground. It'll be Christmas soon.
“Wanna talk to Tsubaki tomorrow night? We could visit her.”
For all of Yohei's brashness, he touches the subject of Tsubaki with a grace that Saimon is endlessly thankful for. He plays the cords of his heart so gently, so delicately – like the keys of a piano, or the strings of a harp. His Yohei has always been so good to him. He joins their foreheads together, hoping he can feel how grateful he is to have him in his life.
“Yes. I would love nothing more.”
Yohei lifts his chin, smiles his timeless boyish smile. The one burned into Saimon's memory, as potent as Tsubaki’s passion for music. “Then let's go, Naoakira.”