Fic: Camping
Jan. 17th, 2026 07:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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beagoldfishTitle: Camping
Ratings & Warnings: G
Fandom: Kemutai Hanashi
Relationship(s): Takeda/Arita
On AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/77809831
Arita watched the little bugs flitting around the inside of the tent’s low dome. It felt like a bit of a cliché, comparing these tiny creatures to humans, thinking about all the busyness and confusion and delusion and self-importance that appeared so comical and poignant and insignificant when viewed from enough distance...but this weekend had given Arita that distance, and now he found himself thinking about how absurd it all was, all the arbitrary norms and habits that characterized human existence, that created equal parts order and anxiety.
Here in the woods, it was easy to forget all that, to believe that he and Takeda were really the only people on an otherwise uninhabited planet. Here, they didn’t have to explain or hide anything; there was no one they had to make themselves legible to, no one watching them but the animals and the trees, all mercifully and wonderfully indifferent to the two men on a weekend sojourn through the mountains.
It had been Takeda's idea that they only bring one tent. They'd stood in the sporting goods section of the department store, looking at the miniature tents on display above the shelves of bundled nylon. Arita wasn't even sure that they were going to like backpacking enough to justify an investment in the surprisingly expensive equipment, so he was relieved when Takeda found a cheap lime green one stuffed in the corner of the bottom shelf.
"We don't need two, right?" Takeda had asked, bending down to pick up the purse-sized duffle bag the tent and all of its accouterments were ostensibly stuffed into.
Arita had balked at first, the way he usually did when Takeda said something like that, making something that seemed so burdened with significance in Arita's mind feel suddenly weightless.
Arita had been thinking about that question since Takeda had proposed the hiking trip in the first place, and it had consumed him on the whole subway ride and walk to the store where they'd pick up their supplies for the weekend. But to Takeda, the question of their sleeping arrangements seemed way less significant than the question of what they were going to eat and how they were going to eat it.
"There's no sense spending twice the money when we can just share one," he'd said, tossing the bag into Arita's arms. "And we're not going to have much room to spare in our packs if we're going to bring that mini-stove."
Arita couldn't argue with that...but part of him did want to argue, to ask whether the idea of sharing a tent was an entirely practical, economical one, or if there was something more to it.
Part of Arita wanted there to be something more to it.
On the trip back home, their newly-purchased backpacks bursting with newly-purchased gear, Arita kept turning Takeda's words over and over in his mind, hoping to spot some subtext there that he could interpret...but as usual, there was none to be found. Getting one tent instead of two just made sense--it didn't mean anything.
That night, lying in his own bed, in his own room, he'd kept thinking about what it would be like to spend a night so close to Takeda in that nylon bubble. Part of him wanted something to happen in that tent. For it to mean something. For it to change something.
But a few nights later, lying in that little tent, Takeda breathing heavily beside him, deep in sleep, Arita realized that that wasn't what he'd wanted at all. When he'd thought about this trip meaning something, changing something, it hadn't actually been him and Takeda he'd been thinking about--it had been everyone else, all the acquaintances and family members and strangers on the street who would be able to understand what they were to each other once their relationship fit into a familiar frame of reference. The fact that Takeda so clearly didn't want that--or rather, didn't even care about it enough to not want it--was one of the things Arita loved most about him.
It had taken getting away from all those other voices and other eyes to make Arita realize that what he really wanted was exactly this. Their little tent felt like a pocket reality of their own, a world apart, where nothing had to mean anything more or anything different than what it meant to him and Takeda.
Arita watched the bugs on the ceiling of the tent as the sun started to come up, shining through the green nylon with its criss-crossed poles like it was a veiny leaf. Takeda rolled onto his side and draped his arm across Arita's chest and Arita left it there, heavy and warm and slightly sticky with dried sweat from the previous day's hike, as Takeda's eyes slowly began to flutter open.
Arita closed his eyes and pretended to sleep a little longer.
Ratings & Warnings: G
Fandom: Kemutai Hanashi
Relationship(s): Takeda/Arita
On AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/77809831
Arita watched the little bugs flitting around the inside of the tent’s low dome. It felt like a bit of a cliché, comparing these tiny creatures to humans, thinking about all the busyness and confusion and delusion and self-importance that appeared so comical and poignant and insignificant when viewed from enough distance...but this weekend had given Arita that distance, and now he found himself thinking about how absurd it all was, all the arbitrary norms and habits that characterized human existence, that created equal parts order and anxiety.
Here in the woods, it was easy to forget all that, to believe that he and Takeda were really the only people on an otherwise uninhabited planet. Here, they didn’t have to explain or hide anything; there was no one they had to make themselves legible to, no one watching them but the animals and the trees, all mercifully and wonderfully indifferent to the two men on a weekend sojourn through the mountains.
It had been Takeda's idea that they only bring one tent. They'd stood in the sporting goods section of the department store, looking at the miniature tents on display above the shelves of bundled nylon. Arita wasn't even sure that they were going to like backpacking enough to justify an investment in the surprisingly expensive equipment, so he was relieved when Takeda found a cheap lime green one stuffed in the corner of the bottom shelf.
"We don't need two, right?" Takeda had asked, bending down to pick up the purse-sized duffle bag the tent and all of its accouterments were ostensibly stuffed into.
Arita had balked at first, the way he usually did when Takeda said something like that, making something that seemed so burdened with significance in Arita's mind feel suddenly weightless.
Arita had been thinking about that question since Takeda had proposed the hiking trip in the first place, and it had consumed him on the whole subway ride and walk to the store where they'd pick up their supplies for the weekend. But to Takeda, the question of their sleeping arrangements seemed way less significant than the question of what they were going to eat and how they were going to eat it.
"There's no sense spending twice the money when we can just share one," he'd said, tossing the bag into Arita's arms. "And we're not going to have much room to spare in our packs if we're going to bring that mini-stove."
Arita couldn't argue with that...but part of him did want to argue, to ask whether the idea of sharing a tent was an entirely practical, economical one, or if there was something more to it.
Part of Arita wanted there to be something more to it.
On the trip back home, their newly-purchased backpacks bursting with newly-purchased gear, Arita kept turning Takeda's words over and over in his mind, hoping to spot some subtext there that he could interpret...but as usual, there was none to be found. Getting one tent instead of two just made sense--it didn't mean anything.
That night, lying in his own bed, in his own room, he'd kept thinking about what it would be like to spend a night so close to Takeda in that nylon bubble. Part of him wanted something to happen in that tent. For it to mean something. For it to change something.
But a few nights later, lying in that little tent, Takeda breathing heavily beside him, deep in sleep, Arita realized that that wasn't what he'd wanted at all. When he'd thought about this trip meaning something, changing something, it hadn't actually been him and Takeda he'd been thinking about--it had been everyone else, all the acquaintances and family members and strangers on the street who would be able to understand what they were to each other once their relationship fit into a familiar frame of reference. The fact that Takeda so clearly didn't want that--or rather, didn't even care about it enough to not want it--was one of the things Arita loved most about him.
It had taken getting away from all those other voices and other eyes to make Arita realize that what he really wanted was exactly this. Their little tent felt like a pocket reality of their own, a world apart, where nothing had to mean anything more or anything different than what it meant to him and Takeda.
Arita watched the bugs on the ceiling of the tent as the sun started to come up, shining through the green nylon with its criss-crossed poles like it was a veiny leaf. Takeda rolled onto his side and draped his arm across Arita's chest and Arita left it there, heavy and warm and slightly sticky with dried sweat from the previous day's hike, as Takeda's eyes slowly began to flutter open.
Arita closed his eyes and pretended to sleep a little longer.
