zukkokya | FIC - Cold Sand

Title: Cold Sand
Pairing: Ryo/Massu
Written for the one-hour challenge.

anamuan | jackoweskla | nihongofrancais | pearljemz | procreational

This is what I got done in the hour, but I plan to continue it. ;)

Before she left for her three-month sabbatical in Korea, Massu’s grandmother hid the key to her beach house in a tree. She didn’t say where in the tree, or even which tree, just “tree.” When he accepted her offer of renting her beach house for the summer, Massu made the mistake of assuming there would only be one tree on the property, or that it would be a particularly noticeable tree.

There are twenty trees, all unremarkable and difficult to climb.

None of the branches are low enough to reach from the ground, and the trunks are smooth. Massu’s only partially successful strategy so far has been hugging the tree with his arms and legs and shimmying his hips. Even then, he only gains an inch before he loses his grip and drops flat onto his back. The cicadas are snickering.

Resting in the hot sand, Massu marvels at his grandmother’s hidden strength. The woman is eighty-two years old and looks like she weighs less than a pineapple.

Massu frowns. He is not the kind of person who will take being shown up by his grandmother.

He approaches a new tree. The branches are just out of his jumping range, but the trunk is curved and looks like it might be easier to climb. He imagines koalas and cats and squirrels and other animals that climb well. He gets as far as wrapping his arms and legs around the trunk when he hears a car door slam.

Ryo is leaning on his yellow ’04 Crossfire, head bent as he consults his digital camera. When he looks up, he grins.

Massu hangs onto the tree stubbornly. “Have you taken any?”

Ryo says, “Seventeen.”

Massu scowls. “I’m just – ”

“Don’t ruin it,” Ryo interrupts. “I like what I’m imagining more than whatever the truth is.”

“My grandmother left the key in a tree,” Massu explains. “But she didn’t say which one or where it is. Imagine how strong she must be to climb one of these! Though she doesn’t look it at all…”

Ryo chuckles. “What?”

“A tree! She said she left the key in a tree!”

“Did she literally mean a tree? Maybe there’s a box with a tree on it somewhere.”

Massu shakes his head, sliding down the trunk back onto the sand. “She said ‘tree,’” he insists.

Ryo pushes off his car to inspect the house. Massu follows him. Both the interior and exterior are painted turquoise, the color of the gemstone in Massu’s grandmother’s wedding ring. Her husband brought her to Egypt to select it, the first of many vacations they took together. The house sits close to the shore, the only one in the bay.

Ryo says, “Are any of the windows open?” and presses against the pane of one. It doesn’t budge.

“No,” Massu says, “she locked up everything.”

“And the key is in a tree.”

“Yep.”

Ryo glances at him. “You don’t think that’s weird?”

Massu shrugs. “She’s old.”