Sweet Admiration (MewGulf AU)

🌻Chapter 42

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There wasn't a cloud in the sky. Next week it would be Junr, and the heat of the sun was getting stronger in the early summer. Shielding his eyes from the bright sun with his right hand, Gulf breathed in the salty sea air. It was around lunchtime, and he was relaxing in Odaiba Beach Park. He watched families playing in the sand together, and young people that were windsurfing. Everyone's faces looked so happy. The looked like they were having so much fun. Even though he was watching them from afar, Gulf felt comforted by them.

Gulf had ended up staying so late the night before at work that he just laid on the couch in the lounge and had fallen asleep. When he had woken up, he finished his work and left the office without an idea of where he was going. He had left a message that he was going to a friend's house that day, so he didn't return to the condo.

He wandered around town for a while, wondering where he should go. He really didn't feel like going anywhere. Since he came to Tokyo, he had hardly gone out by himself at all, so he didn't know his way around very well. However, his legs had somehow taken him to Odaiba. Odaiba---where Mew had shown him around. That day, they had paid their respects at the temple in Asakusa and boarded the ferry. He remembered fondly how Mew had smiled and called their outing a date.

This time he boarded the Yurikamome, and, after getting off at the station, had followed the road Mew and he had gone up before.

Everything looked pretty much the same as it had then. But maybe it was Gulf that had changed.

That spring day, he had spent the day with Mew, and he had thought that their hearts had connected. Ever since that day, he had felt Mew getting closer to him. Even Mew, whom he had once thought of as a cold-hearted, had acted like he had felt the same and treated him so kindly.

"No matter what happens, I can't stop loving Mew..." he murmured to himself.

The ocean view stretched out in front of him and his words floated up to the sky.

He loved Mew. Even if what Art had said were true, he couldn't lie about those feelings. Feelings that had continued inside of him for 12 whole years had to be real. Twelve years...Gulf thought. He had spent those 12 years yearning for Mew, but he realized that Mew had spent 12 years differently. He didn't know amything about what had happened during those years. He didn't know what had happened between Mew and Art. He didn't know what their history was. They shared a bond no one else knew about. Gulf couldn't come between them.

Gulf thought back on those 12 years. He had longed for Mew throughout elementary school and junior high. In high school, he had basically given up on ever seeing Mew again, so he had started dating a classmate. In college, he had sex with a woman for the first time, but it had been sex without love. It had felt empty.

Come to think of it, Mew had said his kiss with Art meant nothing to him, too. A kiss without love means nothing. Sex without love means nothing. Gulf somehow felt like he understood what Mew had meant when he said that.

He ordered a drink on the cafe terrace inside the park and killed time. After leaving the cafe, he wandered around the promenade, and sat down on the same bench he and Mew had sat on that day.

The sun was starting to sink into the sky.

What should I do tonight? Maybe I should just go home, he thought, but his back felt heavy and he couldn't get up. As he worried about what he should do, the faint pink sky began to darker and darker. There were a lot of couples on the other benches around him, and he began to feel uncomfortable. He felt like he was getting lost in the darkness, as he looked up at the sky. He felt like a child who had been scolded by his parent and didn't want to go home.

Just then, he heard a voice from behind him.

"Gulf."

It was a familiar voice.

TBC