Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

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We have both known loss like the sharp edges

of a knife. We have both lived with lips

more scar tissue than skin.

- Clementine von Radics, “Mouthful of Forevers”

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It comes to him in the form of a stack of papers neatly set with a black paper clip and a pen placed gently on top. His manager doesn’t meet his eyes when he says,

“Don’t you think it’s time you moved on, Sakuma-san?”

He is quiet at first, mind a fuzzy, blanketed haze, struggling to understand the events before him. The side of his temple thrums with soft, repetitive pangs. He focuses on the feeling of his feet in his shoes, his heels against the floor, his hands adorned with old rings. 

He is standing in his manager’s office, empty save for himself and the other (the pictures on the walls, they used to be of him, all of those pictures on the walls), and a stack of paper sits, neatly placed, before him. There is a task at hand that requires him to ‘move on’, if he even has it within him to comprehend whatever the hell that may be, and in a throbbing confusion he glances up behind his manager’s head and notices an UNDEAD poster tucked in the corner of the room beside the potted plant, its former vivid purple faded to a dusty lavender grey. 

It dawns on him too late.

“I do not see the need in moving on,” Rei eventually says, his voice grating his throat like sandpaper against skin. “I am doing just fine. We are doing just fine.”

“I can assure you that you are doing fine, Sakuma-san, but we have spoken about this far too often already. You must realise that I am being as honest as I possibly can.”

“And I am here to tell you again that I don’t need to move on.” His nails dig tightly into the palm of his hand, leaving a sharp tingling pain that only stings in something akin to humiliation as the conversation continues. He wants to forget that pain, in the slightest, equates to misery. He wants to bury himself, run from all this conflict, all this noise, it chokes him, it’s too much- “What are you proposing, then? That I work with you in management? I don’t have a business degree.”

His manager taps on the stack of papers before him. “This is what these are for.”

Rei steps forward, picking up the stack and watching the pen slide off onto the table. It rolls languidly across the glass before falling quietly to the carpeted floor. His manager sighs before stooping down and picking it up. Rei directs his gaze back to the papers, flicking through them and scanning their contents. 

His face pinches. “What is this?”

“The company made a job proposal. Unfortunately, it seems that-“

“You have to cut me. Is that what you’re implying?” Rei thumbs the spine of the papers. Something burns in his stomach, and maybe it is rage, maybe it is something else. “So, what, you’re telling me I should leave entertainment and, instead, sell entertainment? Are you aware of how ridiculous this sounds?”

“Working in retail is not that bad. Most people work in retail as their first job. Besides, you can give it a shot-“

“Work in retail after, what, I’d sold out arenas and made a name for myself? You don’t need me to tell you this is ridiculous. I have a fanbase, I have people who look up to me, and you’re telling me I should work in retail. Is there truly nothing else I could do?”

“Don’t put it that way…” his manager starts awkwardly. “Um… ah, look. Let’s look at Wataru-san for example.” 

His manager cringes the second Wataru’s name slips out of his mouth. It is evident that he regrets it. After all, it was a bad example. Rei feels like his manager just shouldn’t have said anything.

“I could do what he did.”

“Ah, but… can you act? You don’t have much experience in acting.”

“I can sing.”

“That’s not enough, Sakuma-san. When have you been an actor?”

“Entertain me, if you must, but why did you raise Wataru as an example, then?” 

“I’m trying to point out that Wataru hasn’t performed in years. Maybe it’s time you retired as well.”

“That’s absurd. I still have fans. I’m not going to stop performing just because I’m not in my teens anymore.”

“Your fans are only here out of sentiment, Sakuma.” His manager is firm now, his fingers heavy on the contract that he plucks from Rei’s hands. He speaks in finality, and Rei hears the words he doesn’t say. “Give it up. You’re far past your prime.” You’re too old. “No one’s going to listen to your sad love ballads.” Your songs just aren’t good anymore. “If you’re so reluctant on giving up singing, start a YouTube channel or something. Post guitar covers, original songs, anything. Your fans will listen there. That is enough.”

“You speak as if I’m okay with that,” Rei mutters, “but what if I’m not? What if I want to keep performing?”

“Why are you still performing? You don’t enjoy it.”

It’s said so matter-of-factly that Rei’s at a loss for words. He didn’t think anyone could see through him so clearly. He sputters, faltering, dignity shattered, an expression that says enough to encourage his manager to continue. 

“Who are you still performing for, then?” His manager’s face scrunches up in disbelief as he, too, ponders the question. “You’re not the teenage heartthrob anymore. Sakuma-san, I’m sure you don’t need my reminder, but you’re turning twenty-nine next year. Who can you still be performing for?”

Rei grits his teeth, but his manager’s not done. “Look at your fans. Are they young? They’re all the same age as you. You haven’t been selling out arenas, especially not after Kao-“

“After he left, I know,” Rei interrupts, the familiar sense of bitterness dripping in its languid succession, ice in his veins, threatening to spill out of his throat. It surfaces every time they touch this subject, and Rei hates it. “So I’m going to wait. We promised each other. He’ll be back.“

“You’re not going to wait. We’re not going to wait.” His manager is firm, and he sets the papers down in finality. Rei stares at the papers, now blinding white under the bright overhead lights. “Kaoru’s not part of the entertainment industry anymore, and it’s time you took your leave.”

Rei says nothing.

“Think about it.” His manager’s voice softens like a mother to a child. Rei feels violated. “I don’t say my words lightly.”

Neither do I. There are a billion things Rei wants to say, wants to fight for, but he only adjusts the strap of his bag on his shoulders and turns to the door. He’s essentially jobless, will be jobless the day his manager decides to dump his contract when the time comes. His headache pounds in its disgusting disposition. He tries to ignore the shiver that slinks like a parasite through his body, cold and hauntingly reminiscent of something he doesn’t want to think about. Something akin to disappointment. Something akin to loss. Something akin to faded memories of the seaside. Of the train station at eleven in the evening.

When the time comes. Isn’t that in about four months? Four months, and Kaoru-

“I am not ready to move on,” he mutters to unhearing ears. He, against all circumstances, is starting to feel alone.

As he shuts the office door behind him, the room adjacent opens to reveal the Aoi twins. They’d been (at the best of their ability behind soundproof doors) eavesdropping, and they straighten up when Rei meets their gaze. Brazen, they hide nothing. Rei almost admires them for that.

“Sakuma-senpai,” Hinata greets. “Good afternoon.”

It’s an attempt at carefree chatter before they toss the billion-dollar question at him. Rei can see the brimming curiosity in the restlessness of their hands, in the way they shift their weight from their left feet to their right. They were just like everyone else, after all. Caring for the details, uncaring for the aftermath. He’s starting to feel isolated, even amidst the people he's known for over a decade. Feeling irritation rise in his throat, he jumps straight to the point, tired and cold after the unwelcome thoughts seeping into his mind, intrusive and damp. He doesn’t even know what he’s supposed to feel anymore. He just wants to get everything over with. 

“He told me to quit. Doesn’t think I have the potential to remain in the industry. Thinks I should go sell CDs at malls or count change at department stores. Good afternoon to you as well.”

Hinata’s jaw slacks open before he can control it. In some other situation, Rei would’ve teased him about it, maybe snapped a photo for laughs. Today just isn’t the time for such things. Blushing, Hinata quickly picks himself up and walks over, moving his hands anxiously. “Don’t think this way, Sakuma-senpai! I’m sure there’s another-“

“Rei,” Yuta interrupts from behind him, voice scarily monotone. His next words grab Rei by the throat. “Why did you give up so easily?”

Rei looks over at the other Aoi twin, still standing motionless by the doorframe. Baffled, his words come out in an awful stutter that he tries to patch up, albeit roughly. It is humiliating. “I… I didn’t give up easily. Did it seem like it? I just said that-“

“Your eyes,” Yuta meets his gaze and Rei wants to run. “Your eyes say it all. Do you not love music anymore? Where has your passion gone, then?”

For once, Rei can’t seem to find the answer to their questions.

Maybe he’s burnt out, Rei decides as he walks down the hallway to the elevators. Along the walls are framed photographs and vinyl of charting albums, many of which belonged to UNDEAD in their early years. He sees one right beside the elevator buttons, one from his high school days, sporting their signatures in metallic silver paint pens they’d giddily purchased at the stationery store. They were so naive, overjoyed at the prospect of signing their names on their first officially printed vinyl, acting like big hits in a time when they were no bigger than any other group their classmates were in. They had been so happy about such ridiculous things. This one glows with all of their names - his loopy hand (smudged in the corner where his pinky had grazed wet paint), Adonis’ shaky, blocky lines (he’d been so nervous, and Rei smiles to himself when he remembers Adonis’ protest when the lines came out wobbly), Koga’s silly wolf with its fangs (to their dismay, he’d added a sound effect as he scribbled on the vinyl), and Kaoru’s elegant cursive-

Kaoru, Kaoru, Kaoru, it’s Kaoru all over again-

They say that it is because he’d had the best that he can’t accept any less. 

It’s a shame that he was part of a duo. It was truly half and half. Fans slipped away when Koga and Adonis announced that they wouldn’t pursue music professionally after they graduated, only as guests in future UNDEAD albums, and more died out when Hakaze left six years ago. The remaining ones are growing old, too.

The saddest idols are the ones who can’t grow up with their fans. Those even sadder are the ones who can’t grow up with their fans and lose their partners and their teams, remaining in solitude by themselves. Rei, trembling from the weight of memory, finds himself in both.

He looks at a signed poster of Subaru Akehoshi and he can only smile, regardless of how bitterly it stains his face. How lucky Subaru is to have grown with his listeners. That is the best. He can’t do the same. He doesn’t know how to perform anything other than his ballads, doesn’t know how to step out of his comfort zone anymore, not when he’s alone, where he only knows how to run. He's locked in his own music, locked in the constraints of the notes and the rhythm, and it's been a long time since it's ever felt freeing for him. Each concert shows a dwindling crowd, and bringing in Adonis and Koga, which had once sparked skyrocketing enthusiasm, barely holds any more extra excitement. After all, the old choreography made his back ache and the songs had to be pitched lower and lower after his voice grew deeper, and in rehearsal the three of them always froze when Kaoru’s part came up, unsure of how to write over it or who to distribute the parts to. 

It is much worse now that he’s on his own.

A gentle ding! interrupts his thoughts. Rei tears his gaze away to focus on the present. He steps into the lift, clears his throat, and releases the sigh he’d been holding in all this time.

He leaves him with memories of yellow, violet, and red in high saturation. The film is blown with violent explosions of the coming sunset, the glittering phthalo of the sea, and all the dreams he didn’t get to bring to manifestation. In his dreams he sees him, his bright figure rimmed in perfect eyeliner against the blue and orange sky, like the familiar winter’s soothing cold, his golden hair adorned with all the god-kissed colours of the setting sun. And in this beautiful forsaken dream, the words fall neatly on his tongue in perfect alignment, and he says to the boy blessed by the sky’s orange silhouette that he wishes things were clean, wishes that life handed blessings to those with the strongest wills in their hearts and that choices didn’t have to be made, because making a choice always meant making a sacrifice, and with the sand in their toes and the wind against their collars he knows that sacrifices are no foreign thing, and that they’ve already made far too many.

When he meets with his manager again, the older man reminds him of the dwindling four-month contract.

“You will not renew it?” Rei stares. Some part of him had wished that evening when he returned home that all this was a sick joke. It’s not.

“I’m sorry,” his manager says quietly. “The label is losing money. We have to lay you off.”

“Lay me off? I’m one of the seniors here. Please.”

“It is… too inconvenient now to renew a contract once made for two people, as well.”

“Then let’s make a new one. A contract just for me. How hard can it be?” Rei hates how his words sound like a whine, like a child begging for a toy, and he hates how he’s cast in this position of pleading when it shouldn’t have been left to him alone to start with. A long-abandoned promise rings in Rei’s ears and he grits his teeth, hoping to forget it. He was supposed to do this with him. When was the last time he’d seen him, even? Years ago, a little over six years ago, behind the plastic panel of a Cartier advertisement, his wrist poised delicately in front of his face, adorned with beautiful rubies on a frail silver chain. Adonis had stopped them, pulled on Rei’s sleeve, and said, “Isn’t that Kaoru-senpai?”

“So that’s why he didn’t show up all these weeks,” Koga commented. Their voices sound far away in his memory. “He could’ve just told you, Rei. You wouldn’t have been upset.”

“He’s running away again,” Rei muttered, so quietly that his two friends turned with curious gazes (“Sorry, Rei-senpai, what did you say again?”), but he only shook his head and continued down the street. He didn’t look behind him, nor at any of the other Cartier posters on the street. The city was painted in saturated hues, the blend of sunset into evening. In the back of his memory, Kaoru’s plastic gaze never burned any brighter. 

“No, I won’t renew the contract, nor write another one. I won’t be helping you look for another stand-in, either. I’m sorry.” The manager slides the paper over. “As I said-“

Rei’s eyes flick over to meet his manager’s gaze directly. The other man looks away. “Please. Two more years.”

“Two more years? That is an inconsiderate demand-“

“One more- no, not even one. Six months. Please. Until he’s back.”

“Sakuma-san. You keep begging for time, but are you doing this for yourself or for Kaoru?“

The question strikes an ugly chord in his heart and Rei pushes it away, fearing for the answer because a part of him knows, of course it does, and he doesn’t want to know it exists-

“I’m performing for my fans,” Rei says now and he knows he’s lying. But what else does he have? How else can he still convince someone who’s already made up his mind? Desperation seeping out of his bent posture, he drops to his knees on the floor, bent so low beside the coffee table he’s shaking from the unfamiliar weight of his body folded in this submissive position. His knees dig painfully into the flattened carpet, and he looks up wildly, frantically. He’s staring back into his manager’s shocked, baffled face, searching for compassion, for patience, for anything, and he’s never felt more humiliated than in this moment right here. His insides shrivel and he feels disgusting. He feels like he’s lost his pride and his dignity. “Please. Let me carry this to its end.”

“You’re a spark that has already burnt out,” his manager says softly, and Rei’s heart crumbles. “It’s too late. Give it up, Sakuma-san. I’m not renewing our contract.”

Rei straightens up. It takes all his strength not to tip over. His body trembles in shame.

“Very well, then. I’ll find someone else.” The words fall from Rei’s lips like he’s trying to convince himself, squeezed out of his aching heart. When it lands, splattered, on the table, neither of them bothers to wipe it up.

He gets home with his entire body aching. His joints feel like they’ll snap any minute, his neck pulsing from carrying his bag, and the rims of his eyes burn from being blasted by the autumn wind. It certainly wasn’t his day, he decides as he drops onto the couch, unravels his scarf, and heaves out a long sigh. 

The weather is getting cooler. September passed in too much of a hurry, faster than he could properly comprehend, and as he gazes out to the hundreds of windows on the apartments adjacent he notices the faint blinking orange lights, the black silhouettes of decorations, all the start of Halloween celebrations.

Halloween, he laughs meekly at the memories that, despite his will, spring up. UNDEAD in their high school days performing at underground live houses, Koga in a wolf T-shirt, Adonis practising makeup on his face, Kaoru with a chain around his neck- then there’s UNDEAD, only Kaoru and him, at a gig at 10 P.M. on a Wednesday evening at their university, the two of them standing close together to share the one lonely mic on the podium, their backing track blaring- then there’s Kaoru, the Halloween before he leaves, lying on their couch, candy corn in his hands when he says, “Rei, Rei, I love this, I love all of this, I love-“

He tears his gaze away. Thinking such thoughts- they’re not worth it anymore. 

What even is he still doing? Koga and Adonis have far left stardom behind them, pursuing ambitious careers he couldn’t even imagine himself in. Their classmates and his own classmates have done the same. Few have remained in the idol industry save for the occasional two or three that still show up on his television, Subaru Akehoshi’s cheerful grin now only the ghost of a past that leaves an ache in his chest every time Rei hears his songs. Now, flicking through the active channels and seeing an advertisement for Akehoshi’s tour, Rei almost believes his manager’s words from that afternoon, that maybe it’s too late for him, maybe it’s just time to give up-

No. For some reason, he just can’t escape his mind. He is everywhere, on the ceramic bowls in his kitchen that had once belonged to them both, on the ugly glass vase that holds old rolled-up banners from their concerts, and on the clothes at the bottom of his drawer, clothes he hadn’t been willing to throw out. He is on the rusty guitar with the missing strings, on the poorly done watercolour portraits hung up in his room, in the gaps between the seashells he kept in a jar on his desk, on this, on that, here, there, everywhere-

He thinks of Kaoru in the Cartier ad, thinks of Kaoru in the interviews on TV, thinks of running, of him running in circles, running like he always does until the circle breaks and he’s hurled out of orbit, gone. 

He’s gone.

The idol dream the two of them shared is only a thing of the past, after all. Six years in themselves is the answer he’d received. 

Rei looks over at the calendar on the coffee table, at the concert on January 3rd, his last, a few weeks before his contract ends. His manager had told him to perform as many songs as he could in the three hours given to him. After all, he wouldn’t be returning to the company after that. 

Next to the calendar is a paper of his discography, songs he’d written in the past six years, of duets Kaoru wrote on the margins of his notebooks, of songs from his high school days, rewritten for a solo voice. His throat chokes up at the idea of having to sing any of them. He recalls moments on the stage, standing before his dwindling audience with agony and dullness in his heart, having to force a smile on his own face, and he recalls the passion that has seeped from his voice until he feels like a dull husk just standing there singing, singing, singing for no purpose-

He looks at the songs and, sighing, picks up his pencil. He should write one more ballad before he retires, he thinks. He should go out like a firework, beautiful and grandiose, if it is his last, anyway. 

He picks up his phone and dials a number. 

The other picks up in two dials. “Sakuma. What’s up?” 

“Tenshouin,” he greets, twirling his pen in his hand. “Still alive?”

A breathless scoff. “I’m hanging in there, okay? You calling me at five in the afternoon just to remind me of this?”

“I actually need a favour from you.”

“If the favour doesn’t require me to leave this pod I’ve found myself in for the past three months, Sakuma, then maybe I will agree. What is it?”

Rei sighs. “I want to write a song for my last concert. Please offer your gracious assistance.”

There’s a long silence from the other end, punctuated only by Eichi’s short, fleeting breaths that assure Rei he’s still alive. Finally, Eichi says quietly, “Your last, huh?”, and it sounds like he understands, like he gets it, his desperation, everything. 

The pain he’s felt, the anger, the agony - Rei shuts his eyes, rubs his temples with his thumb and index fingers, and nods. “Yeah. I… I won’t be renewing my contract.”

“What about Hakaze?”

“I don’t know. I’ll find another label if it comes to it.”

“So, what, you’re going to quit if it doesn’t?”

“I don’t have much of an audience anymore-“

“You sound so self-pitying and pathetic that I don’t want to help you,” Eichi drawls, and Rei’s eyes fly open. “What, the company won’t renew your contract? Find another. It’s not like you’re some rookie. It’s not hard.”

“I…”

“Don’t pity yourself. That’s selfish of you.”

“I don’t want to.”

The words come out without him meaning to. They hang in the air, lifeless, their significance punching Rei in the gut until his eyes cloud over in desperation. 

The realisation chokes him inside, that maybe this whole time he’d never loved himself nor loved music enough to perform it for his own enjoyment.

All those concerts, all the ballads forced out of him by sheer will, all the photoshoots and promotions-

Had it always just been for nothing?

Eichi’s ragged breathing grates his ears. “What do you mean you don’t want to?”

Rei takes a long look around the apartment, at the posters on the walls, the concert tickets he’d collected in a tiny wooden jar, the makeup lying haphazardly on his dining table, at the sticks of cough syrup in his kitchen, and he’s shaken, he’s tired, he doesn’t-

“I-I don’t know. Forget I said that.”

“What the hell do you mean?”

And Rei realises how selfish he had been, saying such a thing to Eishi Tenshouin. Eichi, still lying on that hospital bed, his arms chained to an IV drip, eyes staring blankly in reminiscence of the music in his ears that he can no longer sing. He thinks of Eichi’s own final performance that no one save his friends knew was his last, and he remembers the outcry from the media when Eichi started a live stream, smiling that charming smile, except that time he was in a hospital for good, on that ugly white bed, smiling and waving while doctors hooked him up to the monitors beside him. 

He takes back his words. The saddest idol is the one who is stripped of his ability to sing.

Eichi clears his throat, and Rei is forced back into the present. 

“I’m just so burnt out, Eichi. I… I don’t think I’ve been singing for myself in a long, long time.” 

He can only be honest. After all, Eichi would see through him if he said anything else. 

And maybe it was time for him to be honest to himself, too, that maybe he had burnt out a long time ago, and he was just pulling at the loose strings of a career he no longer enjoyed.

A pause. “It was for Hakaze, wasn’t it? That you hung around for so long?”

Rei stares at his cuticles. He sees his anguished gaze in the chipped black nail polish and he grits his teeth. “I just want him back. I just want to perform with him again, I just want to feel breathlessly happy on that damn stage-”

“I’ll help you write the song,” Eichi interrupts. Maybe he’s had enough as well, or maybe he’s heard enough. Either way, it doesn’t matter anymore. “Give me a few days, okay? And then drop by for a visit. Let’s make your final performance a stellar one. When is this?”

“January 3rd. You think you can make it?”

Eichi laughs. “Four more months are nothing to me.”

The first four months were everything to Rei.

The first four months after Kaoru disappeared, he felt everything and nothing all at once. There was hot, unresolved anger, denial, confusion, insecure fear, and cold-shot pain that started at his icy fingertips and chilled him down to the marrow in his bones. At the same time, he’d find himself sitting on their couch in their empty apartment, eyes staring meaninglessly at the framed photographs on the walls. Empty and raw, the hole in his heart grew and grew with each passing hour, threatening to cast a darkness as deep as the midnight sky over his body if he so even tried to address the problem at hand. 

Why did he leave?

What did I do?

Was it my fault?

Where is he now?

Does he even want to see me?

Despaired, he called every person Kaoru knew, then called every person again. He would not give up. After all, what can one do when the person closest to them disappears? His parents knew nothing. He didn’t even bother trying to call Kaoru’s father, knowing the man would’ve preferred it if his son was dead anyway. Kaoru’s siblings promised they’d try to help, but they had their own families to tend to, and a runaway brother already at the ripe old age of twenty-two didn’t rest high on their priority list. Rei doesn’t even think they took him seriously.

Rei tried their friends. Koga’s phone rang unanswered for days, Koga unwilling to pick up a call after the fifth time from a frantic man who wouldn’t listen to any semblance of logic or reassurance presented to him. Adonis, Kanata, Souma - they fared no better. No one could give him the answers he needed. He demanded and demanded of people who knew no more than he did, and his desperation made him cruel. When Ritsu showed up at his apartment a week in, hands tightly clutching a bag of vitamins, Rei wanted to scream at him. He didn’t want Ritsu’s pity. He didn’t want anything. He only wanted answers. No one understood anything.

“Tell me!” He’d shouted when Ritsu tried to hand him a glass of water. His brother flinched, red eyes narrowing in irritation at the volume. “Tell me where he is! Tell me why he didn’t leave me with anything!”

Ritsu croaked, setting the water down and stepping safely out of Rei’s reach. 

“Why won’t anyone say anything?” Rei continued, and at this point he wasn’t sure if he was talking to Ritsu, himself, or to anyone at all. His grief had emptied him completely, drained and hollow inside. He was so tired. “Why is it that I never know anything? What had I done in my past life, in any life, to have deserved something like this-“

“I don’t know, God damn it!” Ritsu raised his voice, interrupting him and shaking Rei out of his thoughts. “Stop pitying yourself! He’s not a child, and he doesn’t need you to baby him. Stop treating people like… like you’re their God-blessed caretaker or something. No one needs that responsibility of yours! You’re tiring me.”

His brother slammed the door shut behind him, and Rei was left to the suffocating silence of their empty apartment and the noise in his head. 

He knew not what drove him to this point. Picking up his phone, he’d dialled the last number he wanted to call. The phone rang twice before the other picked up.

“I heard about Hakaze,” Eichi said, skipping his greeting with Rei’s ‘hello’ still lodged in his throat. “I’m trying to reach him as well, but I don’t think he wants to be reached. I think you need to understand and respect that, Sakuma.” 

“What the hell am I supposed to do?”

“Let’s try, okay? And if we don’t succeed, let’s accept it, alright?”

It was in these four months that Rei relied on, out of everyone, Eichi the most. He would show up at Eichi’s front door at three, four, five in the morning, phone in his hands and heavy shadows under his eyes. And Eichi would reach out, pull him in, and stroke his back while he cried. 

“They can’t find him. They don’t know where he is,” Rei sobbed. Simply mentioning Kaoru set him off into distress, and Eichi stood, freezing, at the door in nothing but his pyjamas for five, other times thirty, minutes, waiting patiently for Rei to heal. “I can’t help him if I don’t know where he is. Soon, the public will know. The public will know and I still won’t have him back in time. What do I do?”

They were all matters like this where Rei panicked until he could not focus. It was the end of the world as he knew it. He could barely breathe. It was as if the air had been yanked unforgivingly out of his lungs and tossed out of reach, and each time Eichi would stand there, helping him pick himself back together.

“I’m sorry,” Rei would apologise after every encounter. “I did not mean to disturb you so late.”

I did not mean to act so shamefully in front of you, was what Rei meant. 

“It’s okay. I was not hassled.” 

It’s okay to cry when your heart can’t take it, was what Eichi meant.

And so he looks for a job.

He has to, to pay his bills. Besides, he’s not old enough where retirement is a choice. Anything else would be a waste of a life.

Koga insists on coming with him (“I feel partially responsible for this so let me, okay?!”), and as a thank-you, Rei hands him a cup of coffee for their drive downtown. 

“What the hell is that?” Koga asks, taking the rather intimidating cup and peering at the label.

“Iced pumpkin spice latte with extra whipped cream and caramel sauce,” Rei responds, to which Koga scrunches his nose. “You’ve been digging these recently. Don’t lie. Don’t pretend Adonis and I never notice your eyes drifting over to the giant blackboard sign outside the shop every time we get coffee together.”

“Yes, but I’m trying to be healthy,” Koga protests, still taking a sip anyway. He gasps in delight, leaning back and shutting his eyes. “Oh, damn. This hits the spot.”

“You’re very welcome,” Rei chuckles, sliding into the passenger seat next to him. “Okay. My first interview is at the musical instrument retailer. They were interested when I told them I could play bass and guitar.”

“That doesn’t sound like any fun,” Koga groans. “If all they do is make you change guitar strings for teenage girls buying their first Fenders, quit, okay?”

“Second stop is at the vinyl store in the central mall,” Rei continues, ignoring him. “They need a cashier for their evening shifts.”

Koga gawks, horrified. “You are not succumbing to working as a cashier for some vinyl shop!”

“Honestly, I wouldn’t mind,” Rei counters. “It could be a nice break from this life, you know? I would die happy, lonely, and rich. A perfect tragic bachelor.”

“Stop that,” Koga mutters, starting the car. “Fail that interview. I’d rather you change guitar strings.”

“I did consider being a vocal coach,” Rei says as they pull out of the parking lot. “Do you think I could do it?”

Koga cringes. “I feel like your students might drive you insane, but that job is infinitely better than being a guitar string fairy and a slave working in retail. Why don’t you try the vocal academy in the central mall? Since you’re already famous, they might consider.”

“It’s just that I don’t have a proper degree in voice training,” Rei sighs. “Would they even hire me? I don’t even meet their basic requirements. Wouldn’t they turn me away?”

“I mean, it doesn’t hurt to try, right?” Koga reasons. “We can stop there first. Get that out of the way. What do you say?”

Rei takes a long look at the towering apartment buildings and feels so, so small. “Alright. Sure.”

It’s safe to say that the vocal academy rejected him. The staff were shocked when he walked in, greeting him enthusiastically, but the smiles quickly drooped when they heard his request. Trying to not look as dejected as he felt, he and Koga walk out of the shop and head toward the instrument retailer.

“We tried,” Koga mutters, “though I don’t see why you can’t teach. You’re probably better than they are.”

“Koga, I don’t have an official teaching license,” Rei sighs. “I cannot teach there regardless of my skill.”

“That’s absurd, then!”

“Ah, how I wished the world was full of simple-minded thinkers like you.”

They stopped outside the instrument retailer, Rei sighing deeply as he sees the rather intimidating selection of guitars and basses along the wall. Koga busies himself with the pianos, tapping in a gentle, familiar tune that Rei recognises as an old UNDEAD song, while Rei walks towards the counter, counting his steps in his head. The woman behind the counter looks up and, upon recognising him, smiles enthusiastically.

“Sakuma-san!” She grins. “We’ve been expecting you.”

“Thank you for the interview,” Rei bows slightly. “Should we get started?”

He stills when the words come out of his mouth. It was a trained response after attending so many interviews for all his albums and concerts. Such a response was far too… righteous of him to say, especially in this situation. They were interviewing him to hire him, not to create paid content. He had to check himself again, and he digs the nail of his thumb deeply into the pad of his index finger, face aflame.

The woman, however, laughs. She waves it off casually. “A bit different from your usual work, isn’t it?”

“I’m sorry,” Rei apologises. “That disrespect won’t happen again.”

“Barely disrespect,” she says, coming around from behind the counter and leading him into a practice room. “Don’t overthink it, Sakuma-san! Yes, let’s get started.”

When Rei comes out, Koga’s playing a full-blown concerto on the grand piano on display by the window. Even the staff at the reception were watching him. A few young kids have gathered around, intrigued, peering at his hands and posture as Koga bangs out the third movement from Beethoven’s “Pathetique”. Rei stops behind him, leaning against the wall and admiring Koga’s talent, his musicality, and the way his mouth curves into a brilliant smile as he follows the climaxes and waves of the piece. He looks surreal, like he belongs to the music, and in the cold instrument retail shop with its high ceilings and bright lights, Koga looks like a man putting on a performance, a concert, stealing the gaze of everyone around him like the way they used to, together. 

And Rei is struck by a sudden sense of nostalgia, of something he can’t really place that tingles the tip of his nose and sends salty tears to his eyes. It is so quick - he doesn’t see it coming at all; one second he’s smiling at the way Koga’s silver hair shines under the bright lights and the next his tears cloud his vision in a kaleidoscopic haze. Shocked, he reaches up and quickly wipes them away, just as Koga finishes the piece, lifting his hands in triumph while the kids cheer and clap for him. Not noticing Rei standing in the corner, Koga turns to the children, leaning over so his elbows rest on his knees.

“How was that?” Koga asks, and his face is bright and full of joy. Rei thinks that he hasn’t seen that face in months. “I told you Beethoven was great, didn’t I?”

“I want to play like you!” One of the kids says, eyes mirroring Koga’s glee. “I want to play that piece one day, too!”

“If you practice, you certainly can.” Koga reaches over and ruffles the kid’s hair. “Passion and dedication. That’s all you need. Well, maybe some lessons too, but you don’t need to stress it.”

“Who taught you to play?” Another kid asks. “I want to find them!”

“My teacher retired a while back, but I am sure any teacher here will do. You know, it wasn’t as much my teacher who encouraged me, but my friend. I would probably have quit if it was only my teacher around.”

“Your friend?” The first kid gasps, the same time Rei freezes where he stands. 

Because he knows who that friend is. He knows the person Koga’s referring to. And he’s shocked, slightly stunned, that Koga can speak of him so easily now. It sends a tremor of something akin to pain through his heart, because every mention of him does, and he’s long since learned how to properly cope with loss or whatever the hell this is. Against all odds, Koga is speaking of him so calmly, when the violent thumping in Rei’s own chest betrays his emotions so well. A part of him feels battered because he has never healed while others around him moved on so easily. 

“Yeah, he’s a far better pianist than I am! He’s better at singing, too.” Koga’s voice bubbles from somewhere far away, barely entering Rei’s consciousness where he’s drowning, where he can’t grasp anything to hold on to. “And, you know, I miss him a lot, so you rascals better promise me to stay with each other forever, okay? It’ll save you guys in the future.”

The kids nod and cheer before, upon hearing the familiar calls from their parents, waving and bouncing away. Koga sits, still, in the silence, brushing his hand absentmindedly up and down the keys. Rei, still slightly shaken, counts to ten, taking a deep breath before walking over.

“Koga.”

Koga whirls around. “Jesus! You scared me. How long have you been there?”

“Not long,” Rei lies. He hopes Koga won’t notice his breathless appearance. “I just got out the second you finished. What tragedy. Will you play it for me again?”

Koga scoffs and jumps off the seat. He dusts his hands on his shirt and falls into even steps with Rei as they leave the store. “You can hear me play any other day. The kids wanted something incredible. They commissioned it.”

“Commissioned?”

“They begged me. The pleads of children is gold like no other. I had to comply.”

“How evil. And “Pathetique” was your go-to? Interesting choice.”

“Do you think eight-year-olds would appreciate Scarlatti?! No. And- hey, I almost forgot to ask, how was the interview?”

Rei hums. “I basically have the job if I can come in around five days a week.”

An apprehensive look. “Are you fixing guitar strings?”

“They promised me a bit more than that.”

Finally, they step inside the vinyl store. 

Koga wrinkles his nose at the smell or the appearance, Rei can’t tell. Either way, Koga’s clearly disliking the decorations - or, rather, what little decorations it had. “It looks like they tried too hard to be vintage or whatnot. It looks awful.”

Rei stands in the centre of the shop, walls littered with patches of peeling paint and swathed in far too many shades of flushed pink, painted over and over to cover the endless mass of chipped wall. Along the walls are rows and rows of old vinyl, many by idols and artists he doesn’t recognize (a distant part of him wonders if he’ll find UNDEAD on there. Maybe not today. Maybe not ever) anymore. He sees familiar albums scattered mindlessly across shelves - Giant Steps by John Coltrane, Sketches of Spain by Miles Davis, Rubber Soul by the Beatles. The eeriness of the fluorescent lights, teal and humming like a broken machine, stretches its wide fingers across the album covers, painting long shadows into the walls and the floor. Somehow, amidst all this, he feels at home. He decides he loves it. 

“I think it looks great, actually,” Rei replies.

Koga shoots him a blank stare. “Are you serious?”

Rei ignores him, stopping by a wooden cabinet and browsing through the albums. Pieces of print and paint peel off, staining his fingers. He dusts the peeling paper off, the scattered bits falling to the floor (and the flattened, dull grey carpet) like snow. 

Koga clears his throat. “I would like to tell you to not touch those, but how else are people supposed to buy them, right?”

“They’re old,” Rei says like it’s obvious. He wonders why they aren’t protected by plastic. “It’s quite fantastic.”

“The fact that there are only four people in here, including you and me, speaks otherwise.”

He’s right, Rei hums in his throat. Vinyl are not so popular anymore. He and Koga stand by the door, fumbling with the albums, while an old lady dabbers around Latin jazz a few shelves away. The other stranger, a tall man in a black coat, stands down the aisle from them, his body hidden by his large overcoat. Upon hearing Koga’s remark, he shoots a brief look at them, before freezing and, out of the corner of Rei’s eye, drops the album he’s holding. Startled by the noise, Rei glances over just as the man spins and takes a proper look at them.

Perhaps it is the nature of coincidence. Perhaps time is good, or perhaps it is not so kind. Maybe the universe wants to play some sick joke on him, because Rei would recognise him anywhere - in darkness, in bright light, in motion and in inevitable stasis.

Rei does not miss the way the man’s eyes widen in horror. He barely has time to feel any semblance of disappointment.

After all, he, too, mirrors the expression on the stranger’s face. He wishes the sinking feeling in his chest could mean something different.

I wish the first emotion in my heart was not this pointless disappointment. I wish it wasn’t that you’d let me down. I wish hatred did not find so much comfort in my veins, especially towards someone I haven’t seen in six years.

He recognises that coat. He’d given it to him for his twentieth birthday. He knows it’s the same one because of the paint stain at the hem, where the two of them had failed miserably to paint the kitchen ceiling. He recognises the necklace around his neck, too. He’s wearing one as well - the waxing crescent and the waning gibbous belong to each other. After all, they’d gotten it together. They match. His blonde mullet, of which Rei used to run his hands through all too gently under the dappled early sunlight, is gone. In its place is his old brown hair, cut shorter than Rei has seen in a long time, and those eyes, those familiar brown eyes that never sported an unreadable expression-

Why are you scared?

The stranger’s name is a familiar tremor at the back of his throat and he opens his mouth unconsciously to croak out the fluctuations of a spell he has not addressed in a long time. 

As if the other man knows his intentions, he turns on his heel and runs.

Rei doesn’t even try to stop him. His heart is beating so loud in his ears (he can’t hear a thing), his blood rushing to his face and his hands (he wants to run, move, do something), and he barely feels the wisp of air against his face when the man passes him and darts out of the store. All he knows is that he feels like crying, and that the hum from the flickering fluorescent lights does little to soothe his pain. Of what he loves and does not love - he doesn’t know anymore.

“Hey!” Koga shouts, but the glass door trembles, signalling the stranger’s departure.

But he’s not a stranger at all, is he?

Stunned, Rei stands rooted in the record shop, trying to piece together the fragmented events of the last minute like a frantic, broken machine. He’d seen Kaoru again. He’d seen Kaoru again, and Kaoru looks nothing like he used to and exactly as he used to. At one point in time, he could reach out and touch him and feel warm skin on his hands. He feels like breaking and falling apart. His hand reaches out to grip the wooden cabinet to steady himself while Koga’s hand wraps around his elbow. The only sign that Kaoru had been there at all is the album on the floor a couple of feet away, Rubber Soul lying dejectedly on the grey carpet, and the sound of the trembling door. He falls to his knees, seeing nothing, only the visions of a fading sunset, hearing only the sounds of the sea against the wind.

+

“‘The sun has entered me. The sun has entered me together with the cloud and the river. I myself have entered the river, and I have entered the sun with the cloud and the river. There has not been a moment when we do not interpenetrate. But before the sun entered me, the sun was in me — also the cloud and the river. Before I entered the river, I was already in it. There has not been a moment when we have not inter-been. Therefore you know that as long as you continue to breathe, I continue to be in you.’”

+

[21:08 P.M.] Rei, are you doing okay? I know it was pretty unexpected to see Kaoru there today. I didn’t expect it, either. Read.

[21:13 P.M.] Rei. Look. Try not to let it bother you. He’s probably back for a visit. Delivered.

[21:13 P.M.] Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. Family matters. Passport. Citizenship. It could be anything. Don’t let it bother you. Delivered.

[21:19 P.M.] He didn’t ask to see Adonis or myself, either. Delivered.

[21:34 P.M.] You’re almost thirty, for goodness’ sake. Don’t let such things get to you. Delivered.

+

He leaves him with memories of yellow, violet, and red in high saturation. The film is blown with violent explosions of the coming sunset, the glittering phthalo of the sea, and all the dreams he didn’t get to bring to manifestation. In his dreams he sees him, his bright figure rimmed in perfect eyeliner against the blue and orange sky, like the familiar winter’s soothing cold, his golden hair adorned with all the god-kissed colours of the setting sun. And this beautiful forsaken dream haunts him for so long, this tint of the sea and the chime of his voice.

It is a memory he had stowed away for safekeeping. It is a memory he cannot forget.

“Look, Rei,” the man with the sun in his hair says, and he points to a place far beyond the horizon. The cuffs of his jeans are soaked in seawater, the whites of his sneakers turning brown with the sand. “Do you see it?”

He squints, admits that he sees nothing.

“It’s the passing,” the man whispers, “the passing of time. It’s like sand in my hands. It trickles through my fingers and when I try to piece it back together I cannot recognise past from past. Time blurs and fades together into memory. And, despite it all, it keeps going.”

He stands in silence, waiting for the man to finish. He knows there is a lot on his mind - he recognises it, in the draw of the other’s eyebrows, in the gentle tap-tap of his foot on the sand. The man turns to look at him, and there is something unspeakable in his eyes. It looks like hesitation. It looks a lot like grief. It looks a lot like- 

“Do you know, Rei,” the man continues, “do you know how much I love you?”

Rei hums. 

“And, in the midst of all this love for you - do you know how selfish I want to be with you?”

Rei doesn’t answer.

“I want to be selfish. I want a green light. I don’t want to be stuck in this dazzling dream, because in a dream nothing changes. The us in dreams - we are forever in stasis. I want to breathe again.”

Then breathe, Rei wanted to say. Why are you not breathing?

“Choices… when it comes to choices, let me make them for us, alright? You’ve carried the burden of them for far too long, leader.”

At the time, Rei had no idea what he meant.

Now, Rei watches the two of them, illusions of his past, as they stare wordlessly out to the same horizon. He understands now. He wishes he could’ve said something then. He wishes things were clean, wishes that life handed blessings to those with the strongest wills in their hearts and that choices didn’t have to be made, because making a choice always meant making a sacrifice, and with the sand in their toes and the wind against their collars he knows that sacrifices are no foreign thing, and that they’ve already made far too many.

Why do you run? We have all the time in the world.

A million apologies. A million beautiful little lies. 

Autumn arrives too gently, the breeze in his skin saccharine and soaked in something that soothes his heart. When he steps off the bus, the air is cooler outside than inside, and he dips his nose into his scarf, warming himself up. When he exhales, he no longer feels the prickle of sweat on his lower back.

Rei is thankful for this weather. It clears his mind, if even just for the slightest bit, and as he turns to walk down the familiar street he can’t help but notice the other smiling faces around him, nursing the same cups of coffee and wrapping light scarves around their necks. The evening is approaching, the sky blending from the grey afternoon to a deep lapis lazuli. For once, Rei is glad for a sky without the sun.

October is the kindest month, he decides, as he stops outside a familiar vintage bar, the yellow lights illuminating the large brass letters across the top. 

He hasn’t been back to the Foo Birds in months, almost a year, give or take. The last time he was here they came to celebrate Adonis’ 26th birthday, and Koga had gotten so drunk amidst a particularly sentimental conversation that he made a fool of himself and the three agreed to never repeat the event. He still remembers Yuzuru’s horrified expression when Koga, completely wasted, stood atop a stool, legs wobbling as he balanced himself. Screaming with a voice worthy of a concert, he’d yelled, “I’m so fucking grateful for you, Ootari Adonis! And you too, Sakuma Rei, the best leader I’ve ever known, thank you for taking care of me, and Hakaze Kaoru, the traitor who left me behind to grow old on my own! Fuck you! I love you! Fuck!” Shaking, he barely made it down the stool before he threw up unceremoniously on the table. 

Short brown hair and a long black coat cloud his mind, hinting at the beginnings of a headache. Rei blinks the memory away now and pushes the door open. 

The Foo Birds is packed this evening. Soft chatter floats from the polished wood, bounces off the gold and brass of the bar’s interior, and strangers’ voices bounce off each other to create an unfamiliar harmony. Clutching his guitar case tightly, Rei shuts the heavy wooden door behind him, searching for a familiar face behind the counter. The bartender looks up at the chime and grins. “Sakuma!”

“Fushimi,” Rei greets, walking over. “You look well.”

“I spend most of my time here. There’s really no reason I’d look worse for wear,” Yuzuru snorts. His face smoothes into a soft smile as he greets the other. “My, I haven’t seen you in person in forever. How have you been?”

“I’ve been doing alright,” Rei settles down on the barstool in front of him, wincing when his lower back cracks. “Koga and Adonis have blossomed into fine young gentlemen, if you are wondering.”

“I wasn’t,” Yuzuru laughs, “but thanks for letting me know. They dropped by the other day, actually. I made sure not to give Adonis more than he could bargain for.”

Rei cringes, remembering the drunken accident from a year ago. “Don’t remind me. I’d tried unsuccessfully to wipe the event from my memory, but anything of heavy emotional value seems to weigh down on one’s mind anyway. Regardless of the disaster, thanks for inviting me tonight.”

“It’s no problem,” Yuzuru sets down the glass he’d been wiping and leans against the bar, arms folded. “I heard from Eichi that you’re retiring soon. It’s the least I can do. Besides, why don’t you pop by for the open mics a bit more? I’d always have room for you.”

“Retiring. I hate that word,” Rei scoffs, but his face remains light. “As for the open mics, I’ll consider it. Seriously. I appreciate it. You don’t have to do all this for me.”

“Don’t mention it,” Yuzuru waves his hand. “I gave you the 6:30 slot. It’s already unfair, being too early.”

“I find beauty in performing in the early hours of the evening,” Rei drawls, looking up dramatically as Yuzuru chuckles. “Besides, others had lined up before me. Some bands would prefer a 6:30 slot to no slot at all, so it’s really my gratitude you should wholeheartedly accept. But let’s move on! I know neither of us are fans of flattery.” (To this, Yuzuru nods.) “Do you still have the scotch?”

The other frowns immediately. “You’re drinking scotch before you perform? Really?”

“It helps calms my nerves, didn’t you know? A shot is absolutely necessary before every concert.”

“You’re crazy,” Yuzuru mutters but pours him the drink nonetheless. He’s about to hand the glass over when he stops and arches an eyebrow. “You sure?”

“Yes!” Rei swipes the glass from him as Yuzuru cackles. Amused at the other’s wild laughter, Rei sets the glass down before noting, “What’s this? You’ve been rowdier than you’ve ever been. Never thought I’d hear a laugh from Fushimi at this decibel.”

Yuzuru shoots him a look. “I’m not a high school kid anymore. I’m prone to change.”

“Sure, sure,” Rei tips the glass into his throat, wincing when the alcohol burns on its way down. “My god. I forgot how strong that was. Just a couple of years ago I couldn’t take anything past a beer.”

“We’ve grown up, haven’t we?” Yuzuru remarks softly. “I noticed it just now, with you sitting in front of me and ordering that scotch so offhandedly. I didn’t even realise it.”

“You sound far too sentimental,” Rei says, but agrees nonetheless. “We’re twenty-eight. We’re old geezers. Let’s just accept it and grow old together.”

“Sometimes, when I see Subaru perform, I wonder how his bones haven’t broken yet,” Yuzuru chuckles. “I haven’t been on the stage in years.”

“Do you miss it?” 

“…not particularly, honestly. I think I miss the joy of rehearsing, of dancing and singing with my friends more than the joy of performing. I haven’t seen Wataru in years, actually.”

“Years?”

“Yes. We were never that close to begin with and after Eichi retired, we disbanded because we couldn’t do it with just the three of us. Eichi was the glue that held us together.”

The words shoot something nasty into Rei’s heart, something painful that he’d been avoiding all these years. It was a reminder that he was the complete opposite of the leader Eichi was. He couldn’t hold his team together. They all drifted away until he remained, solitary, on that lonely stage, with no way of getting them back. A solo career heavy with the weight of everyone else’s names wasn’t what he’d wanted.

Seeing Rei’s sudden change in demeanour, Yuzuru waves his hands quickly. “It was not a jab made to you, Rei. I, in all honesty, respect you for making it so far on your own.”

“It does something to people,” Rei mutters, swirling the alcohol in his glass. “This feeling of being alone. It’s like I can conquer anything and nothing all the same. I didn’t ask for it, but circumstance gave way to whatever this is, right? I am proud because UNDEAD hasn’t disappeared. We are still out there somewhere, in the hearts of our fans, and I’m proud that I can carry our dream so far. On the other hand, I’m like you. I think I liked rehearsing with them more than performing itself.” He chuckles lightly at this. “Isn’t this strange for someone like me to admit? I should be an idol first, a sappy drunkard second, but it seems my priorities have become mixed up over the years.” 

“And there’s nothing wrong with that,” Yuzuru says firmly. “After all, that dream was never yours alone.”

“You’re right,” Rei smiles, setting the glass down. “I’m just… a little regretful that it has to end like this. I was hoping the two of us, maybe even the four of us could perform together again before it was over. Things just end too quickly, don’t they?”

“That’s why you can’t take any more of your stages for granted, not that you do so anyway,” Yuzuru reaches over and flicks him on the forehead, to which Rei reclines in surprise. “Perform your best for all of them, right?”

Rei laughs, rubbing the spot on his forehead that now stings with the weight of Yuzuru’s nail. “You’re full of surprises, Fushimi.”

The other only grins and points his chin at the stage. “Get set up and do a soundcheck on your own. I’ll be looking forward to it.”

The music of the previous bands float in one ear and out the other and, before he knew it, they were packing up, leaving the stage empty. When the time comes for him to perform, Rei’s suddenly hyperaware of his heartbeat that thrums in his neck, his hands, his ears, everywhere. He tells himself not to trip like a child on the way to the platform. Up there, he shuffles on his feet awkwardly, unsure why he feels so nervous when he’d done this so many times before in front of a larger audience, nonetheless. Looking up, he sees some of the guests already turning his way, intrigued at the new presence on the stage. He meets expectant eyes and he coughs, calms his nerves, and introduces himself.

“My name is Sakuma Rei. You might know me as UNDEAD,” he starts. He attempts a chuckle to ease the tension in his arms. Finds that it doesn’t work. Ends up looking past the handful of people before him to focus on the dull yellow lights by the door. “I’ve prepared a few songs for a gig tonight. It’s nothing like a concert but… please enjoy my performance, nonetheless. Sit back, relax. I hope you have a wonderful evening.”

Claps ring out from those seated in the bar. No cheers. He feels lacking, losing the old charisma he could so easily sport. He’s overwhelmed with an urge to run, but he forces his fingers to form chords on the neck of his guitar and he strums. He clears his throat and, summoning whatever courage is left in him amidst the doubt that churns his stomach, he sings. 

His throat burns. His voice sounds like sandpaper - but only to him, because Yuzuru is smiling and the audience is smiling and the songs pass by way too quickly, he’s just singing them, he’s not feeling them, and maybe his manager is right, maybe he should really fucking retire right about now, he’s so fucking tired-

When he drops his final note, the audience cheers, clapping over the sound of the fading guitar. Rei smiles, ignoring the hot burn in his throat and the sticky warmth of the intimate bar atmosphere, and he bows, low and respectful, his cheeks aflame with something that’s not quite pride or disappointment. When he looks up, his gaze roams through the audience, giving a proper greeting to every-

He stops. His arms grow rigid, because not again. Not this again. He can’t take this again.

Why must he be haunted everywhere?

His gaze narrows into a sharp, glassy gaze, the now-dark hair curled at the base of his throat, and he recognises the set eyes, the cross around his neck, the faded blue button-up beneath the black coat, the beautiful, lonely smile on his face-

The other notices his sudden attention and, in one swift motion, drops his smile and stands up. He opens his mouth and silent words tumble out.

Everything is white noise. He finds that it is just him and himself against the world.

Rei finds that he can’t breathe.

The man takes one final look at him and slips out of the bar.  

Why do you run?

Rei’s feet hit the bottom of the platform and his every movement becomes automation.

The guitar strap slides past his neck - “Oh, I’m sorry, someone’s outside so-“ and an instrument is hastily shoved at an unsuspecting Yuzuru “-please take care of this for me!” - and Rei all but tumbles out into the street, where the early rim of the rising moon is peeking out from the looming buildings tainting the ultramarine sky. Underneath the beautiful canopy of the darkened clouds stands the familiar stranger that has haunted Rei’s dreams for years. 

Hakaze Kaoru, as beautiful as the first time I saw you in the vinyl store, aged with the brutality of time not experienced together.

The man has one hand against the wall of the bar, feet planted, almost as if he’d expected Rei to come out as well. His shoulders are tense, risen next to his ears, and he has one foot pointed in Rei’s direction and the other pointed elsewhere, ready to run away. Their eyes lock. Rei fights to form a sentence, but the other beats him to it.

“Rei,” he greets, and it looks like it took all the effort in the world to say his name. His voice is lower than he remembers, a deeper tenor far more mature than the memory of the boyish lilt he’d tainted Rei’s memories with. Under the waxing moonlight, Rei takes a good look at him and, heart pounding, notices all the beautiful little details. He’s healthier, his cheeks fuller and his bones sturdier. His hair is healthier too, void of the bleach he’d used for years. His wrists are thicker, his body more certain of itself, and he’s-

He is like the sunset, the passing of time, the illusions of the past. He is old and new and old and new all the same.

“Hakaze Kaoru,” Rei whispers, and he feels like throwing up. 

Kaoru winces. Rei wants to walk towards him, wants to throw his arms around his waist, his neck, anywhere, and laugh in his ear and tell him about his day, about his week, these six fucking years, but he holds himself back because he’s scared. 

Some things were, after all, no longer appropriate. From the look on the other’s face, Rei knows he’s -

“You did well,” Kaoru chokes, and his eyes are glassy because - oh, God, the way Rei recognises fear now, and it hurts him - he wants to cry. “You did so well.”

Rei stands, unmoving. He wants to scream. He wants to beat the ground with his fists until he’s bloody and dead, and then maybe tear himself apart. Maybe that’s the cruel fate he deserves.

“I’m so proud of you. I haven’t heard you sing in person in years.”

At his words, Rei takes a tentative step forward. 

“I’m happy, you know. I haven’t been this happy in a long, long time.”

He’s in arms reach now. One more step and Rei will be able to dig his fingers into his hair and pull.

“I’m glad I got to hear your voice again, so please. I’ll be going now. Please don’t come after me.”

“Kaoru,” Rei reaches out and grabs his elbow. The other is trembling. His arm is so thin. “Kaoru, stop.”

“I didn’t come here just to find you, in case you were wondering. This is a coincidence, so I’m going to take my leave. It was- it was great hearing your voice again, really, I’m so happy, really-“

“Kaoru. Calm down.”

It doesn’t even take a complete second for Rei to regret the words that drop carelessly from his lips. In an instant, Kaoru’s face darkens and Rei’s heart sinks, because how could he forget, he knows, he knows not to say that, because it doesn’t help anyone, and he knows that. 

He hates wearing the expression of regret. It is ugly, useless, and self-pitying. Yet regret is the only emotion he feels now. Maybe that was the feeling he could never place a finger on.

He can only wonder what his face looks like in Kaoru’s eyes.

“Why are you everywhere? Why is it that the second I find myself near you I just want to be there?!” Kaoru yanks his arm away, the corners of his eyes watering. “I- I come back after God knows how long, and the first person I see in that God-forsaken record shop is you. Why is it always you? Why can’t you be free?”

And Rei is properly scared now. He takes a step back and straightens up before Kaoru, drawing his arms back to himself.

“Kaoru. I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I want you to explain. Please. Let’s go somewhere and talk if you’re ready. Please.”

“You’re so persistent!” Kaoru snaps. “Why are you so selfish? Why the hell haven’t you changed?”

It strikes a chord in his heart somewhere hidden and disgusting, and Rei feels his anger rise. Perhaps all those mornings and evenings alone, suffering with the same unquenchable turmoil in his mind, had done something to him, and he feels his temper break. “Selfish?! Me, selfish?! Who’s the one who packed up all his shit and disappeared without a word? I left to go to an interview that morning and when I came back after a hell’s worth of a schedule that day you were gone! I- I went to the train station at eleven in the evening and you weren’t there!”

“I had my reasons!” Kaoru’s eyes blaze, a hard set in the line of his jaw. “Did you think I’d just up and leave for- for fun?”

“Yes!” Rei answers without a pause. He feels like he’s going to burst from the seams, and in his frustration, he forgets about the beach at sunset, forgets about Kaoru’s questions, Kaoru’s demands, Kaoru- “Yes, because that’s exactly what you did, and I had to suffer for six years, wondering what the hell I did to discomfort you so much that you’d leave without a word. And guess what, Hakaze? I still don’t know what I did wrong! When all our friends, when my family, when those interviewers ask me why you left I never knew how to answer because I didn’t know!”

“Well, maybe some things just weren’t for you to know!” Kaoru spits out, tears flowing freely down his cheeks, and Rei has never seen him so ugly, so hideous, and so pathetic. “Maybe I couldn’t tell you because you’d come blundering after me like a fool, and I can’t afford for you to do that.”

“You-!” Rei wants to shove sense into him. Rei wants to shove him on the floor and force him to look into his eyes, look into the desperation that seeps like overflowing ink out of his heart, thick and painful and blotting his conscience incomprehensible. “You’re such a coward. So what, you run? You just leave me here without telling me anything?! You- hey, hey. Kaoru, were we never as close as I’d thought we were? All those years of friendship, maybe even something more if I dare let myself imagine it - what am I to you, truly? What am I?”

Kaoru says nothing, only curls his lip, fighting back more tears that sprout in his eyes, and Rei thinks he looks like a teenage girl, a stupid girl experiencing her first heartbreak, vulnerable and stupid and weak. It digs into his chest and carves out a piece of his heart. He sees his life, his career, and his reputation, all stacked in a pile at Kaoru’s feet. What he would’ve given up just to get him back. His mouth immediately curls and shapes his hateful words. “Why can’t you answer? Why did you tell me you were proud of me back there in the bar, then?”

The tears- they’re falling like rain, streaking Kaoru’s beautiful face with shiny, shiny lines. They reflect the bitterness and sorrow in Rei’s heart, the anger, the years and years of tormenting anguish, and against everything inside him Rei wants to reach out and wipe them away.

No. He doesn’t deserve it.  

And even if Rei’s heart aches to the very core, a stupid indication that he’s learned nothing from his past, Rei stands his ground the best he can. He takes a deep breath in the stuttered stops between a throbbing headache.

“You… you’re the one who hasn’t changed,” Rei says softer now. His chest heaves from his heightened anger, and he takes a step closer to Kaoru. The other doesn’t move away. “Don’t come… and say such things to me, when you are still the same.”

“I am not the same,” Kaoru mutters weakly.

“Then tell me why you left. Tell me why you dropped off the face of this world for six years, only to come back here and haunt me two months before my last concert. Are you trying to rile me up?”

“What?” Kaoru looks up now, a horrid, frantic terror worming its way in his expression. “What last concert?”

Rei bites the inside of his upper lip because Kaoru doesn’t know. “I’m retiring. My last concert is in January. Now, will you care to explain-“

“No,” Kaoru whispers, and when he takes a step back Rei feels like they’re back to square one. The whites of his eyes against the brown of his irises are like the outlines of a cruel eclipse as he waves his hands frantically in front of him. “No, no, you’re not retiring.”

His anger surges back up. “Well, that’s not really something you get to decide, Kaoru. By the way, did you know they wouldn’t renew my contract? I’m as good as a jobless man. Did you expect that to happen when you decided to take your six-year solitary world tour?”

“Why did you let it get to that state?!” Kaoru demands. “Why did you not fight-?“

“I did fight! In fact, I begged our manager on my fucking knees, Kaoru, I did that! I even begged him to wait until you came back to me and, still, he wouldn’t agree. As much as it pains me to admit it, he won’t renew it because I’m just not good on my own!”

The silence rings in their ears. Kaoru tears his gaze away again, biting his lip, and he looks frail under the cold wind, timid beside the warm yellow lights outside The Foo Birds. Rei almost doesn’t recognise him, the tall man in front of him reduced to a hideous, upset child. For a long time, they do not speak.

It’s ridiculous, Rei realises, what they are doing now. After not having spoken to each other for six years the first thing they do is bicker outside their old friend’s jazz bar. Gone is the chance for some peaceful reconciliation after he’d thrown his temper to the wind and tossed years and years’ worth of regrets at Kaoru’s face. How he wanted to stop and apologise, take a proper look at Kaoru and say, “I’ve missed you. You look healthier, but your eyes are so tired. You don’t look so well at all. Have you been alright?”

Of course Rei wants to know why he ran. He wants to know everything, but he already knows that people are never obligated to give him their answers. That’s a selfish mindset, expecting other people to hand explanations to him on a silver platter. He wants to put that down, get to know Kaoru again from the six years they didn’t get to know each other better, and maybe allow himself some closure when Kaoru’s ready.

“I’m sorry,” Kaoru finally says, shaking Rei out of his reverie. His voice is thin against the growing evening. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left without a word. I should’ve trusted you. I… have a lot to explain, but it’s not time yet. Forgive me.”

Rei stares, but Kaoru never looks back, only keeps his eyes set forward, his jaw tight. And Rei can’t help but feel relieved, the burden lifted off his chest. It’s unfamiliar and familiar all the same. He and Kaoru haven’t fought like this since middle school and, now, they’re doing it almost fifteen years later, men in their late twenties, supposedly mature but no better than children inside. Out of the sheer ridiculousness of the situation he laughs.

Kaoru’s gaze flicks over to him in disbelief. “What?”

Rei can’t stop laughing. “My goodness. How old are we to even fight like this?”

Kaoru looks as if he wants to stay angry, his face still pink, but a giggle escapes before he can catch himself.

And soon they are laughing, all of their past anger gone to make way for old familiarity. They’re laughing and crying and gasping in the cold autumn air, the wind chilling their noses red, their laughter warming their cheeks. Exhausted, the two of them lie with their backs against the glass window of the Foo Birds, echoing each other’s laughter like a broken stereo. The sky is descending into the deep evening and the world above them is slowly growing dark again. 

Under the deep cerulean blue tinged with gold from the fading clouds, with dried tears leaving long marks down Kaoru’s face, Rei decides that he loves him. 

Such feelings couldn’t be so easily removed, after all. Kaoru’s hideous and he’s beautiful all the same, and they are just two people trying to find their rightful orbit around each other again.

“Rei,” Kaoru interrupts. “The sky. It is like lapis lazuli. The sky is so, so blue.”

You are so beautiful, Rei thinks, and he sees him in a new light, so, so beautiful that you break my heart, again and again.

In the end, Rei gets up first and tells Kaoru to wait outside the Foo Birds as he packs up his guitar. He does so in a hurry, stuffing wires and music into his case and thanking Yuzuru with a deep bow before rushing out of the bar.

When he comes back outside, breathless in his frenzy, his eyes scan an empty street. Kaoru was already gone.

That same evening, Koga’s in the middle of a puzzle party with his seven-year-old niece. They’re on a 1500-piece puzzle she snagged off a garage sale and Koga is certain that a majority of the pieces are missing.

“This doesn’t go here!” His niece declares stubbornly, plucking a piece Koga had just set down and jamming it between two other pieces that certainly didn’t go together. “It goes here!”

“Listen,” Koga mutters, running out of patience. “For the last time, darling, I am, with absolute fuc-“ 

At that very moment Leon, with as much genius as a corgi could muster, descends into a raucous barking fit. The dog is facing the door, screaming with the ferocity of some automated machine, and Koga’s eye twitches with irritation, his fingers ready to rip his hair out.

On the other side of the door, a brown-haired man with one hand raised, just about to knock, winces at the sound of barking. He’d forgotten that Koga’s dog could recognise his smell anywhere. He’d forgotten to check if he was even welcome. He grips the strap of his bag tightly, a nervous knot forming deep in his throat, and dreads the moment his old bandmate would open the door and shove him away. 

Would he shove him away? Would he welcome him with open arms? Even he wouldn’t welcome himself with open arms.

He hears the shrill shout of a young girl and his eyes widen in surprise. He staggers back, unsure if he’s even welcome. A child? A daughter? There’s no way Koga’s a father already, is there-

“Why the hell do you keep barking, you stupid loaf?!” The front door swings open and he’s met with damp grey hair still dripping into a white towel, Koga grabbing his dog’s collar to hold him back. “I’m sorry. My dog’s a little rabid- Kaoru. Wait, Kaoru-san?!”

“Hi, Koga-kun.” Kaoru’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes. He tries to ignore the horrified? shocked? disgusted? expression Koga sports, and stares a hole into the floor. He notices a smudge on the toe of his leather shoe. He brings his foot back and rubs it against the back of his leg to hide his embarrassment. “Can I stay here for a little bit? I-it’s hard to explain, but I’m not exactly welcome back home anymore- ah. But you know. I-I guess I don’t really have a home, actually, but-”

Koga’s completely frozen to his spot, eyes staring unblinkingly at Kaoru. Kaoru shifts his weight from one foot to another, getting increasingly more embarrassed as he rambles, spilling words he himself doesn't even understand before Koga interrupts in a whisper, “What the hell, yeah, yeah, of course you can,” and all but throws himself around Kaoru’s neck, burying his face in Kaoru’s shoulder. Surprised, Kaoru stumbles backwards, hitting the wall awkwardly behind him as his arms come around Koga’s ribs, resting gently on his upper back. Koga stands unmoving, muttering repetitions of what the hell and yeah and oh my god to himself as Kaoru tentatively strokes his back, daring himself to hold the younger man this way. He's terrified. He's relieved. He feels the burden on his chest fade. His shoulder dampens with Koga’s wet hair, his hand finding a resting place on the top of his head and patting him gently. Leon looks curiously from the doorway.

“Koga? Who is it?” The shrill voice peeps from inside the apartment. Soon, a young girl walks to the door, eyes wide with curiosity.

“Ah-!” Koga lets go of Kaoru immediately, shaken to his senses, but his hands linger on Kaoru’s forearms, gripping his elbows tightly. “I’m sorry. I got carried away. Kaoru, this is my niece.” 

He turns to the little girl and flicks her on the cheek, to which she protests with a loud whine. “This is Kaoru, my old friend. Be nice to him, okay?”

The little girl whines and stomps her foot but she’s smiling, and Koga’s smiling too, and when Koga reaches over to take Kaoru’s bag from him he doesn’t say any more than what’s necessary (“You can sleep in my room-“ “No, I can’t intrude.” “…alright. I hope you don’t mind sleeping on the couch. Adonis is visiting family this weekend. The bathroom is beside the kitchen, but I’m sure you remember. You can ask me for anything”) Kaoru almost lets himself enjoy this warmth, enjoy this familiarity.

He steps inside the apartment, revelling in its warmth. He toes off his shoes, holding the cabinet to steady himself when his eyes flick to a framed photo beside a small ceramic plate holding Koga’s keys. He stops. 

Th smiling face of a dark-haired man, nestle between Koga and Adonis’ laughter, stares right back at him in a haunting silence.

He’s drifting in and out of consciousness, his eyes fluttering open and shut. There’s a soft buzz in his body, the aftermath of too much wine at the dinner table. He talked a little, sang a little, thinks he maybe spilt some secrets- who knows? In this floating universe he's distantly aware of the fluffy blanket under his fingers, the leather couch under his back, and the hum of the fridge in the kitchen, as well as the padding of feet as someone - Koga - walks around. These domestic sounds of someone else in his living space - how long has it been since he’s heard something like this?

He’s tired, he knows, and he can’t force himself to stay fully awake. It’s been a few days in this apartment, warm from the chilly winds of the street and warm from the company of Koga and his niece, who dropped by occasionally to say hello to the funny man on the couch who liked to tell her stories. These scenes only faded into a soft haze in Kaoru’s mind - people were so kind, he did not deserve this sort of kindness - and soon the exhaustion from his long journey catches up with Kaoru and he’s knocked out on the sofa, spending the better part of the day sleeping.

For the past few days, Koga has left for his job in the morning - he teaches music at the elementary school a few blocks away - and returned in the late afternoon with groceries, whipping up some strange concoction he calls dinner at every meal. Kaoru suggested he cook instead (“I can’t leech off of your kindness forever!”) but Koga refused rather adamantly, might he add, every time (“How else am I going to learn independence, Kaoru-senpai?”). Now, it’s a Friday night, the clock hitting the double digits, and Kaoru’s exhausted.

He barely hears the front door open at a quarter past ten. There’s a shocked gasp, and Kaoru groggily opens his eyes to peer at the door, only to meet the stunned gaze of none other than Otogari Adonis himself, the same friend who’d been a ghost in his memory for the past six years. Suddenly awake, Kaoru forces himself upright, only for Adonis to drop his bag, run to his side, and coax him back down. Firm hands rest on Kaoru’s shoulder and the back of his head, entangled in his hair, and when his back touches the leather couch Adonis reaches below him to pull the blankets back up. The scent of a painfully familiar cologne, mixed with the metallic tint from the subway, wraps itself around Kaoru's body in a hug that feels too holy for someone like him.

“You look exhausted, Kaoru-senpai,” Adonis says softly, and Kaoru’s heart hurts for reasons doesn’t want to acknowledge. His voice is achingly recognisable, his amber eyes as gentle as the last time Kaoru’d seen them, and he is kind like he always has been. Kaoru’s struck with the urge to cry. “It’s okay. Let’s talk in the morning.”

“Adonis,” Kaoru croaks. “I’m sorry.” For what? Even he himself is unsure.

If Adonis is surprised, he doesn’t show it. He settles down on the chair beside the couch and, smiling, says, “What are you apologising for?”

Kaoru doesn’t answer. He doesn’t know how to. He thinks of Adonis post-travel, all dishevelled hair and reeking of public transport. He thinks of Koga, watching the scene from the dining table, and he thinks of wasted words. He closes his eyes and falls asleep.

When Kaoru’s breathing has evened out, Adonis releases a long sigh before looking up, meeting Koga’s eyes from across the living room. Koga stands up quietly and makes his way over. He settles on the floor by Kaoru’s head and the two of them sit, watching Kaoru in silence, neither moving lest they break the fragile atmosphere. 

It is, to them, a moment far too surreal.

In the end, it’s Adonis who speaks first. “He can take my room.”

“I offered mine. He wouldn’t take it. This will be fine for now.”

Adonis hums in acknowledgement before standing up. “Should we tell Rei-“

“No.” Koga’s voice is hard. Adonis agrees in silence. “Not yet. It is too much, I think, for even Sakuma Rei himself.”

It’s a little past three in the morning when Kaoru hears footsteps in the living room. After knocking out like the dead, he woke up again two hours after midnight, suddenly wide awake. Since then, he’s been struggling to sleep (it’s another one of those evenings again) and he’s been counting the blades on the fan above his head, hoping the repetition would bore him to sleep. It didn’t. He can only now focus on the new figures in the room. It’s Adonis and Koga - he recognises Koga’s heavy tread and Adonis’ lighter steps - as they’re making their way to the kitchen, Koga humming as he shuffled around the cabinets. Adonis shushes him, a soft thump sounding when he hits Koga’s shoulder, and Kaoru can picture Adonis jerking his chin in his direction. There’s the clinking sound of glass and water being poured. The fridge door opens and a thin beam of yellow light dances across the floor, rising to cross over Kaoru's legs before disappearing behind the coffee table. Thinking Kaoru’s asleep, they talk. 

“Has he been well?”

“Define ‘well’.”

“… I’m assuming it’s been rough, hasn’t it, then?”

“You wouldn’t believe it.”

Koga’s voice cuts off as he lifts the cup to his mouth and takes a sip. Adonis shuts the fridge door.

“I didn’t know what you meant by ‘don’t ask questions’. Your text was so vague. I thought something horrendous had happened. If you told me everything as it was, maybe I could've prepared myself better.”

Koga snorts. “Sorry. I had no idea how else to say it. I don’t think it needed an explanation,”

“No,” Adonis agrees. “You're right. How else do you explain?"

There's a brief pause before he continues, voice softer, "I’m glad he’s here, if anything. It’s been so long. I wish we’d kept in touch over the last six years, but I didn’t want to be intrusive.”

“Me neither. I was shocked when I saw him the other day. A part of me wanted to hug him and cry. Another wanted to punch his face.”

“What did you do?”

“The former, of course. Who do you think I am?”

Light chuckles float in the air, hovering above his face. Kaoru’s eyes hurt. He shuts them tightly. Seconds pass before Koga sets the glass cup down, and all of a sudden there’s an unfamiliar graveness in the air.

“He was talking about so many things before you came home, Adonis. Rambling. I could barely keep up.”

“What sorts of things did he say?”

“…I can’t tell you. I don’t think he meant to tell me himself, honestly, but he was so out of it that it came out of him like some ridiculous fever dream.  But… he was so lonely. The stories he shared were simply unbelievable to me. I couldn’t imagine anyone going through that sort of loneliness but here we were, right? Here we fucking were. And… and I felt so awful, but what could I have offered but my ignorant sympathy? What else could I have done in this situation?”

And that’s the end of the conversation. The footsteps fade away, Adonis mutters a good night while Koga grunts, doors open and click shut, and the living room recedes to silence. Kaoru opens his eyes, stares at the fan on the ceiling, and tries to breathe again.

He’s stayed at Koga and Adonis’ apartment for a little over a week when Adonis finds him rummaging through his suitcase at six in the morning. Confused, Adonis had assumed he was looking for something and ignored him for the better part of it, making himself a pot of coffee in the meantime, but it’s only when Kaoru places a stack of shirts inside the suitcase that realisation dawns on him. Controlling the rapidly accelerating fear in his chest, Adonis smoothes his expression over.

“Where are you going, Kaoru-senpai?” He asks, walking over and placing the coffee cups on the table. 

Kaoru freezes, hands against the sides of the suitcase where he’d reorganised the shirts. “I… I can’t overstay my welcome. I’ll find somewhere to go. A motel, maybe.”

“You’ve lived here long enough to know just how unsafe those places are,” Adonis says matter-of-factly. His voice is void of judgment. “Don’t go there.”

“Where else can I go, then?” Kaoru argues. He refuses to look at the man standing over him. “There’s nowhere to go. I don’t have a choice.”

“You know,” Adonis sits down on the couch and, reaching across Kaoru, toes the other side of Kaoru’s suitcase. He pushes the cover shut. “You can always just stay here. I don’t mind letting you stay in my room.”

“I can’t possibly,” Kaoru flips the cover open again. “I’ve overstayed my welcome. You and Koga have your daily lives to go back to. I am only a nuisance.”

“How much of a nuisance can you possibly be, Kaoru-senpai, when you’ve caused no trouble for us? Until you get everything sorted, please stay here. Koga and I don’t mind. I’m honest.”

“It is not fair,” Kaoru grits out. “I contribute nothing. I need to find a job. I need to get my life together. Honestly, I don’t even know why I’m back here but I need to pull myself together, and I can’t afford to be doing that while burdening you both.”

“Need I say it again? You aren’t a nuisance to us.”

“That is… not the only reason.” 

Adonis only stares, the weight of his gaze heavy against the side of Kaoru’s face. “Then what else is on your mind?”

“I am… an upperclassman who has let you both down. I am a friend who has abandoned you both, and I’m supposed to be a role model that you can live up to. I’m not that at all. How can I treat myself as your guest, then, if I can’t even live up to these things?”

“We’re all adults. We don’t need you to look out for us anymore.”

“So why do you look out for me?” Despair slips out like an unwanted demon in Kaoru’s voice and Adonis stills. “Why are you all afraid, too? Everyone has been walking on eggshells around me since I got back. Koga especially. It’s like he thinks I’ll snap. I’m not a guest here. I don’t want to be.”

Adonis drums his fingers along the side of his cup. “Truth be told, I don’t know how to walk around you either, you know.”

“Is it childish of me to ask for you to regard me like you used to? Before I left?” Kaoru laughs heartlessly. “Of course it is. Only a child will expect unconditional love from people he has hurt. Don’t you see that this is the reason I can’t stay here anymore? I’m choked to the throat with guilt. I don’t even know why I came here in the first place.”

“If I must be completely transparent with you, the fear that you will leave again permeates every face I show you, Kaoru-senpai.” Adonis’ voice is grave, and Kaoru wants to die. “That’s why you can’t leave. If you leave, there is no guarantee that I’ll see you again.”

“I’m here for good, you know,” Kaoru mutters, but even he himself sounds unsure. “I don’t know where else I can go.”

“Then stay here until you figure it out, okay?” Adonis taps him on the shoulder, and Kaoru finally looks up at him. The smile Adonis wears is sad, barely reaching his eyes, and Kaoru feels his confidence slip. He drops the chargers he’d been holding and he rocks back, slumping against the couch. Exhaling a breath heavier than life itself, Kaoru leans his head against Adonis’ knee, closing his eyes. The smell of coffee intrudes even the darkest crevices of his mind.

At seven in the morning, Rei receives a call from a number he has never seen before.

Grunting, he assumes it's another advertisement and denies the call. He drops an arm over his eyes, irritated that he was woken before his alarm, before his phone rings again. When it rings for the third time, Rei picks up just so he could tell the caller to 'shut the fuck up'.

Groggy from sleep, barely comprehending anything but the irritated race of his pulse, he taps the green circle and holds his phone up to his ear. "Fuck off."

He hears a hitched breath on the other side before the caller whispers, "What?"

Rei freezes and his head rings with too-sudden realisation. His heart threatens to spill out of his throat and worm its way through the receiver until it reaches the other side. Amidst his groggy disposition and shaky fingers he wonders if this is what karma feels like.

“Kaoru?” He chokes out, his throat as thick as cotton. He doesn’t even flinch at the way Kaoru's name is croaked out unattractively. What barely-concealed desperation reveals itself revoltingly through the timbre of his voice.

It is a whisper of surrender, after all. It is tossed into the early morning air, hovering on little cloud feet, tentative and afraid. His heartbeat is louder than the soft shuffling on the other end.

“Rei,” Kaoru’s voice drifts in a gentle lilt. “I’m sorry. It is so early. I told myself that if you didn't pick up by the third dial, I would stop calling. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

You did, and I swore at you. “It’s okay. What is it?”

“Oh… I- I don’t know. Ah- I had it all planned, too. I’m sorry, I seem to have… oh.”

From what should seemingly be awkward, Rei doesn’t feel awkward at all. He hangs on to every sound, every vein in his body imprinting his moment in permanence into the crevices of his mind. Like a young kid to a childhood lover, knowing not what to say, the line is quiet save for the breathing on both sides. In the background of Kaoru’s end, Rei hears the beeping of a microwave. He stills, recognising the sound. “Kaoru?”

“Ah… yes?”

“Are you at Koga’s place?”

Kaoru coughs in surprise. When he speaks again, he sounds almost embarrassed. “Yeah. I’m, um, I don’t have a place to stay. I’m crashing at theirs for the time being.”

Rei’s eyes scan his empty apartment, his quiet home that’s never really felt like his anyway, scan all this empty space. The words come much too naturally for him. He doesn’t have the consciousness to simmer in their warmth. “Why don’t you move back in with me?”

The other coughs again. “How- how can you say that so calmly? I- we haven’t spoken in years. Isn’t this awkward? Isn’t this wrong? Isn’t this-“

“I’ve known you for two decades, Kaoru,” Rei interrupts, and his heart aches (from loneliness? From grief? He doesn’t even know what it is anymore). With one hand he grips his comforter tightly, shuts his eyes, and clutches his phone tighter.  “After all these years, I think you know that you can always come back to me.”

The line stills - and the silence, the silence is smouldering, it is so heavy - before the other whispers quietly, “Okay.”

It is one word. It is a word that has only ever meant one thing but to Rei now, means everything. He hangs up in a daze, sitting in his room unseeing, heart pounding, struggling to find gravity. He feels alive. He feels something like repentance. 

It is only one word, amidst everything. Despite that, even then, it has always been the only thing he’d ever needed.

He leaves him with memories of yellow, violet, and red in high saturation. The film is blown with violent explosions of the coming sunset, the glittering phthalo of the sea, and all the dreams he didn’t get to bring to manifestation. In his dreams he sees him, his bright figure rimmed in perfect eyeliner against the blue and orange sky, like the familiar winter’s soothing cold, his golden hair adorned with all the god-kissed colours of the setting sun. And this beautiful forsaken dream haunts him for so long, this tint of the sea and the chime of his voice.

It is a memory he had stowed away for safekeeping. It is a memory he cannot forget.

It is a memory that, now, returns in beautiful blasphemy. It is something he wants to patch over and rewrite. 

“There is a poem I came across the other day,” the man with the sun in his hair says as he squats down by the shore. His shoes dig into the sand, burying themselves in some secretive silence. The waves rush up, chasing the pull of the moon, and drenches his shoes. “It’s a beautiful piece. It makes me sad, knowing I didn’t write it.”

“It must be special for the Hakaze Kaoru to admit something like this,” he smiles. He walks over and stops behind where the other squats, his partner tracing his finger in the damp sand. 

“I memorised it,” the man says. “I am, after all, learning beauty.”

Rei picks up a seashell and holds it up to the sky. Grey enshrouds the shell’s white waves in a velvet cloak. “Recite it for me.”

The man holds up a palmful of sand, watches it trickle through an opening between his fingers. In this world, he looks almost melancholy. In this world, Rei exists in perfect harmony with the sky’s grey cloak, the shell’s white waves, and the sand tipping out of the hands of the sun-drenched man. 

“The sun… ‘The sun has entered me. The sun has entered me together with the cloud and the river. I myself have entered the river, and I have entered the sun with the cloud and the river. There has not been a moment when we do not interpenetrate. But before the sun entered me, the sun was in me — also the cloud and the river. Before I entered the river, I was already in it. There has not been a moment when we have not inter-been. Therefore you know that as long as you continue to breathe, I continue to be in you.’”

Rei thinks that it is beautiful. Rei thinks that the man next to him is beautiful, just the same. Rei thinks that he loves him.

“Look, Rei,” the man with the sun in his hair says, and he points to a place far beyond the horizon. By now, the cuffs of his jeans are soaked in seawater, the whites of his sneakers turning brown with the sand. “Do you see it?”

He squints, admits that he sees nothing.

“It’s the passing,” the man whispers, “the passing of time.”

Rei feels that he is a stone on the beach, a few steps too close to the water’s edge, and that the man is the water rushing over him with each greeting. After all, warmth only has one feeling, and it is indescribable.

Kaoru. Isn’t it beautiful to keep things the way they are?

“Do you know, Rei,” the man continues, “do you know how much I love you?”

I do not know, yet, if I want to let things go.

“And, in the midst of all this love for you - do you know how selfish I want to be with you?”

If love had a landscape, it may be this. It may be beauty. It may be the sea. It may be interbeing. It may be everything and nothing all at once, them against each other and them against the world.

Loneliness, in this case, has no serene space. They can stay together. They can be with each other forever if love is truly all that anyone has ever needed. Loneliness will never need to prevail, to exhaust itself. They can decide together.

“Choices… when it comes to choices, let me make them for us, alright? You’ve carried the burden of them for far too long, leader.”

At the time, Rei had no idea what he meant. He could taste nothing on his tongue save for this heavy, saccharine adoration.

Now, Rei watches the two of them, illusions of his past, as they stare wordlessly out to the same horizon. He understands now. He wishes he could’ve told Kaoru he loved him, then. He wishes things were clean, wishes that life handed blessings to those with the strongest wills in their hearts and that choices didn’t have to be made, because making a choice always meant making a sacrifice, and with the sand in their toes and the wind against their collars he knows that sacrifices are no foreign thing, and that they’ve already made far too many.

You know… you can always come back to me, right?

What does it mean to belong to another person? Is love, in the end, only a selfish contract?

How did love, amidst everything, become love?

Why do you run? We have all the time in the world.

A million apologies. A million beautiful little lies. 

Chapter Text

+

whether it’s the days you burn

more brilliant than the sun

or the nights you collapse into my lap

your body broken into a thousand questions,

you are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

- Clementine von Radics, “Mouthful of Forevers”

+

“Ladies and gentlemen, good evening! Welcome back to another session of Artist Q&A! We have with us a special, special guest tonight. After releasing their third album in just four years as a duo, with almost two hundred thousand copies selling out in one night, UNDEAD’s Kaoru and Rei are sitting at the brink of international, well-recognised fame. We are so lucky to have one of them here with us this evening. Thank you for joining us, Hakaze-san, and please introduce yourself!”

“Thank you for the warm welcome! I’m Hakaze Kaoru, one-half of UNDEAD. We just released our third studio album with our title track “Feather Heartache”. Please give it lots of love! It’s a privilege to be here tonight. My partner couldn’t join us today due to some personal reasons, so please take care of me in his place. Shall we jump right into the questions?”

“Welcome, Hakaze-san! Actually, we were curious about that. You see, fans reported that, though you have been quite active on social media, Sakuma-san hasn’t been posting anything at all. Did anything happen, if you don’t mind us asking?”

“Well… I’d actually rather not talk about it. It’s not a big deal, so please don’t worry! For all the fans wondering- Rei is okay. We are all right. He just needs some time to himself, but don’t we all sometimes? He’s probably gotten sick of me, having spent so long with me all these years - haha! Anyway, what’s our first question?”

Click. 

With shaky fingers, he lowers the volume again. This time, he’s reached the softest bar his computer could give and, with one last press of the button, the room plunges into a still emptiness.

There is an ironic cruelty in the way that darkness envelopes him so kindly. The room is illuminated by nothing but the pale light from his computer, leaving him to strain his eyes to read the subtitles on the silent video. His body is flooded with the distortion of total silence. It tears at his skull. His skull - it itches from his matted hair, from dark locks unwashed in days. The apartment reeks of dirty clothes and unkempt hygiene. Disgusted with himself, he folds his arms over his knees and digs his fingers into his elbows to prevent himself from scratching, scratching, from leaving more red marks everywhere, from tarnishing the canvas of his skin with more unwelcome marks. The clothes on his back are agony. He is writhing in discomfort-

He drops his forehead on his wrists. The burning smell of rosemary toes at the edges of his sanity. He breathes into the coldest silence he’s ever known.

When he hangs up, his ears ring with the sound of silence. The only indication that any of that had been real is the pulse of his heart in his chest, the pulse of a heartbeat that remembers, that knows there is no other reason why he now scrambles to pick himself together.

Right. He needs to clean. His apartment is, in all truthfulness, filthy, having not had anyone over in weeks. Taking a peek at the kitchen, he winces at the dirty dishes in the sink and the bags of groceries left sitting on the countertops, not put away. Feeling a headache coming, he decides to worry about those things later and heads to the bathroom. He opens the door and, for the first time in months, takes a good look inside.

He stares at the filth before him and feels the inclination to throw up. My god. Since when?

He steps uneasily through his dirty bathroom, wincing at the aftermath of weeks of mindless existing. Dust. Dust everywhere. Dirty clothes. Drain flies. Uncleaned floor. Empty shampoo bottles. Liquidised bar soap from floating in water for so long. Makeup, neglected, sporting a thin film of dust on top. The rancid smell of a wet bathtub after hours of smouldering in the summer heat, now basking in the cooler autumn air. Goodness. If his mother saw him like this, she’d never let him live by himself again.

How he’d let it get to this point without physically hurling into the toilet surprises him. Back then, Kaoru had always been the fussier one and some part of it had rubbed off on him over the years. Cleaning wasn’t so daunting. He did his laundry while the previous batch dried on the hangers. He wiped down the kitchen with a wet wipe after every meal, rubbed a damp towel across all their windowsills every Saturday morning, and changed his bedsheets once a week. 

He doesn’t remember when the last time he changed his bedsheets was.

I’m twenty-eight. I need to get my shit together.

…is what he thinks, but he’s so overwhelmed by the sheer amount of dirt that he sits down, back against the wall, decides he’ll clean up later, and pulls out his phone with a heavy sigh.

He’s greeted with a text from Koga, dropping a message that Kaoru would arrive in the late afternoon. He types out a quick response, looks back up at the dirty bathroom, and tosses his phone aside. 

At this age, he didn’t have much excuse for putting any of this cleaning off. It’s something that he was supposed to already be doing, yet here he was, living like a man elbows-deep in something that evoked superficial pity. He can’t stand that, either. He forces himself up, dusts off his pants, and exhales loudly.

After all, losing himself helps no one.

“Our first question comes from Mia! ‘We know that you and Sakuma-kun have been friends since your schooldays, but just how long have you two known each other?’”

“You know, I’m surprised this question never popped up any earlier. Rei and I have known each other since birth.”

“Seriously?!”

“Yeah. We grew up in the same neighbourhood. He lived in the apartment right across from mine. His voice was probably the first sound I heard coming into this world.”

As he tidies up the (oversupply of) hair products on the shelf behind his mirror, he spots a familiar bottle of deodorant nestled between his cleanser and hair gel. It’s the last of the bottles he hasn’t sorted, and everything here sports the copper splashes of old, rusty products far from their prime.

The nostalgic blue bottle makes him laugh as he tugs it out of its place. There’s a film of dust on the top, evidence of years of ignorance, and he recalls the fond memory of why it’s even there.

He doesn’t use this brand - Kaoru does. He’d bought it for Rei years ago as a joke when they were still in high school, encouraging him to use it, but Rei could never stand the smell. It was too boyish, reeking of dollar store fragrance that bit at his nose the wrong way. It was something Kaoru’d been using since middle school and Rei had once preferred if he could grow out of it. Eventually, Kaoru stopped, switching over to various brands of cologne and leaving the old deodorant behind. Now, he’s seized with the sudden desire to smell it on him again. Peeking at the label behind the bottle, he realises it’s a couple of years past its expiry date already, not in any way safe for anyone to use. He holds it absentmindedly over the trash can, ready to toss it in, before his hand stills, as if it has a mind of its own.

He laughs lifelessly. “You have abandoned me too, haven’t you, my own hand?”

He places it back in its spot behind the hair gel and shuffles the rest of the saved bottles back onto the shelf.

He’s in the middle of scrubbing his bathtub when he hears gentle pattering against the glass. Peeking through the window behind the shower curtain, he sees that the sky has clouded over, drenching the morning in misty grey. In the distance, Rei can see the blurry yellow haze from the various lights his neighbours turn on, early risers who didn’t believe in wasting the sunlight. Rain, splattering in flaccid explosions, throws itself against the living room windows of the apartment. Strangely, the sight brings melancholy to his heart.

Dropping the brush in his bathtub, he shuffles over to the balcony and throws the door open. The rain has already made its way to the balcony floor, drenching the wooden boards and darkening the ground to a shade almost black. Bending down, Rei moves his plants indoors, checking each pot to see if any of the leaves have been damaged. No such thing so far.

He makes his way to the very corner of the balcony, where a large plant stands in a giant pot, proud even against the pouring rain. Wincing when rain infiltrates his shoes, wetting his toes, Rei picks up the rosemary plant and holds it up, checking for damage. As proud as it has always been, the plant remains intact.

Rei wants to laugh at something - the gods, himself, Kaoru, anyone. “You just won’t die, won’t you?”

“Hakaze-san, Ellie wonders what gift you consider the worst one you’ve ever given.”

“Gosh, my worst gift, huh? I think it has to be... ah! Back when we’d just graduated, I gave Rei a rosemary plant as a housewarming gift. We’d just moved in together. He liked to cook, so I thought that gifting herbs would be nice. Never did I imagine that I’d end up buying one beast of a plant. We didn’t take very good care of it, but it just wouldn’t die. The plant grew into such a big shrub that we had to repot it twice every year. It was such an inconvenience. I wish I gave him that dollar store mug instead.”

The apartment looks significantly neater when three o’clock rolls around. Despite the ache in his joints, Rei had cleaned up the entire apartment, mopping the floors and wiping the surfaces of countertops and closets. He trashes old grocery receipts and scattered wads of tissue he finds lying around his bedroom. He sweeps the freckles of dead leaves that made their way onto their balcony in the storm. He changes the lightbulb of a table lamp that hasn’t worked in a few months, reorganises the blankets he’d stuffed at the back of the closet. When the rain recedes, he opens the windows and blasts the air conditioning to filter the house. He feels like he’s finally breathing clean air for the first time in years. 

Initially, he’s worried that Kaoru won’t be able to find his way over. He’d moved out of their old apartment the year the lease ended, unwilling to live in a place that reminded him so heavily of the one who’d left him, and found a place downtown near the train station. It’s loud in the evenings as trains pull in and out, but it’s something he’s learned to drown out over time. The apartment itself is not big, only large enough for at most two people, even after Rei had tossed out the mountains of expired and unused things still sitting around. Rei frowns at his flattened couch, wondering which one of them (himself, he knows) will have to sleep on that unfortunate thing he lugged off the return corner of the local furniture store.

He’s still deep in thought when the doorbell rings, jerking him out of his pondering. He immediately springs to the peephole, excited and anxious like an animal. He doesn’t know why he is so excited, so nervous, so anything at all. He tries to keep his composure, steadying his breathing and patting his hair down with his hands. He peeps through the glass and recognises Kaoru’s figure waiting outside. So he found the place, after all. The Kaoru outside his apartment is dusted pink in the face and slightly abashed, looking awkward next to the tattered suitcase on his left. Words caught in his throat, Rei decides not to ask him any questions. After all, there will be a time for that.

He’s fiddling with the handle of his suitcase when Rei opens the door. He looks up, gentle brown eyes wide in surprise, before clearing his throat and saying, “Hi. Um. I’m here.”

And Rei laughs at the awkwardness that has fallen in that short moment, taking the suitcase from his hands and lugging it inside. Despite it all, he knows he's missed it. “Come in, Kaoru. Make yourself at home.”

When Kaoru steps inside, it’s like he’s thrown back into the apartment of the past.

Not much has changed. Rei kept all their old furniture, bought a few new decorations (like the dark wood radio on the table, as well as the pink glass art installation on the cabinet), and chose an apartment with a layout similar to their old one minus a bedroom. He still kept his habit of littering the walls with printed photos hanging on for dear life with wads of Blu-tack. The large plant on the balcony betrays its identity when the smell of rosemary drifts into his nose as he walks closer (he's shaken, because how did Rei even keep it alive for so long?). The house, too, stinks of cleaning supplies and musty air conditioning, and it reminds Kaoru of a memory so painful he’d kept it buried for years. It resurfaces now, grabs him by the throat, and he feels bile rise.

Rei’s voice lulls him out of the hallucination. “How did you get here?”

He forces himself to focus on the present, stopping by the door and toeing his shoes off. “Adonis drove me. We took a while because of the rain. Sorry for making you wait.”

“It’s no problem. Gave me a chance to clean up, too. Wouldn’t want you to see an unsightly apartment.”

“I’m already grateful for you giving me a place to stay. You know I wouldn’t mind.”

Rei hums. “I suppose so. Say, can this lowly old man treat the princely Kaoru to a nice cup of tea on this unusually chilly autumn day?”

Kaoru snorts. “Don’t call me that. I’d appreciate the tea very much though, thank you. Do you happen to have-“

“Chrysanthemum, yes.” Rei opens a cabinet in the kitchen and takes out a pale yellow tin, shaking it slightly. “This is the one, isn’t it? I went out to the store earlier and got it specially for you.”

“I’m honoured,” Kaoru says flatly, walking over and peering at the tin. His heart stutters slightly when he recognises the label. “My, my. I can’t believe you even remembered which brand I liked.”

“But of course,” Rei answers easily, filling the kettle with water. “How could I forget? Get settled. I’ll call you over in a bit when the tea’s ready.”

“Thank you,” Kaoru says quietly before unravelling the scarf around his neck. “Really. I-“

“Ah, ah!” Rei tuts, shooting a glance at him from the corner of his eye. “I didn’t ask for compliments. Go get changed. We can be sentimental some other time.”

Kaoru stifles a grin. He remembers how Rei has never been good at these things, anyway, and thanks the gods above that neither of them push for a conversation they don't want. “Yes, housemaster.” 

Rei gives a satisfied hum, and Kaoru turns away to start unpacking. He didn’t bring much - he never owned much, and a couple of years on his own taught him that personal belongings were essentially useless. The less he had, the better, as his constantly travelling could never allow too much. He unzips the suitcase and starts piling his folded clothes beside the coffee table. Then he pulls out his sleeping bag and sets it on the carpet. 

Rei returns from the kitchen, holding a sleeve of cookies in one hand and the kettle, two mugs, and a tea tin in the other. He frowns at the sleeping bag. “What on earth is that old thing?”

“Ah,” Kaoru blinks, surprised, before straightening up and helping Rei with the mugs. “That’s my sleeping bag. I’m just bringing it out because it’s taking up space in my suit-“

“What? Throw it out. It’s tattered and old.”

Kaoru stares at Rei as if he’d just said the most irrational thing on Earth. And Kaoru believes he has. “I can’t just throw it out. Where else will I sleep?”

“My bed,” Rei says as if it’s the most normal thing anyone can say. “Where else?”

Kaoru feels a hot flush creep up the side of his neck and blossom across his cheek in seconds. “Rei, I- what?”

“Huh?” Rei’s attention is on the mugs and the tea, carefully dropping the chrysanthemum blossoms into each mug. If he turned around right this moment, he would notice Kaoru’s madly reddening face, an embarrassing image Kaoru would rather Rei not remember.

Kaoru’s ears are aflame. His voice comes out strangled. “Rei, d-do you even realise what you just said? I’m not sharing a bed-“

“Oh!” Rei spins around, eyes wide in realisation. He takes in Kaoru’s flustered appearance, tips his head back, and laughs maniacally, of which Kaoru curses him for in his head. “No, what the hell? You’ll sleep on my bed alone. I can’t let you sleep on the damn floor. I can sleep on the couch. I know it looks like some disgusting old thing, but it’s not that bad.”

Kaoru shoots one look at the couch (and it is old and disgusting, honestly) and shakes his head. “You can’t do that. I’ll sleep on the couch if anything. I’m a guest here.”

“It’s precisely the reason why you’re a guest that I can’t allow you to sleep on the couch, Kaoru,” Rei says and reaches over, flicking him on the side of his head. Kaoru’s hand shoots up to rub at the sore spot, frowning. “It’s okay. I changed the sheets today.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about. It’s not fair. You’re already giving up so much for me. I can’t take your bed as well.”

“You make me sound like I’ll die after one night on the couch,” Rei straightens up and hands Kaoru his mug. “If we need to, we can get you a mattress, okay? But you’re sleeping on my bed. It’s not going to kill me. Also, wait a few minutes for the tea to seep in. Drinking it now would be like drinking boiling hot water, and neither of us enjoys that.”

He dries his hands on his pants and, humming, picks up the plastic bag carrying Kaoru’s dirty clothes and heads to the bathroom. Kaoru, still in disbelief, stands frozen in the living room, holding the warm mug and burning holes through the wooden coffee table with his eyes. He hears beeping from the kitchen, a cabinet opening and closing, and then the gentle rumbling of the washing machine starting. 

What is he even doing? He reappears after six years of silence, shows himself haggard and weak to his friends, and is now living off their kindness, a kindness he doesn’t deserve. Worst of all, his friends are still treating him like the best friend he didn’t allow himself to live up to, and he’s leeching off of their generosity; living in their apartments, eating their meals, and now letting them wash his clothes. How pathetic can he be?

The worst thing is, he knows that Rei doesn’t expect anything back from it. It has always been unconditional kindness on his end, even from the very start. And Kaoru can’t live off of that forever. It’ll just be another unforgiving cycle: he gets scared, he runs, runs until he returns and Rei patches him back up again. And all this time, Rei would wait in shambles, suppressing his agony every time Kaoru showed his face because he needed to be the stronger person.

This time, Kaoru needs to be the stronger person. It is what he owes him, after all.

He just doesn’t know how.

Rei comes back out after a few minutes, humming to himself, and stops when he sees Kaoru still standing there, frowning. “What’s up? You look like one of those statues off Easter Island.”

Kaoru snorts, coming out of his dazzled haze and readjusting his grip on the (now very hot) mug. He sets it down, scared to burn his hands. “Thanks. I was just thinking about some things.”

“Well, by all means, keep thinking then, but do so inside my room.” Rei points his chin at the door at the back of the apartment. “You can at least get some privacy there. I’ll be going out in a bit, so you can take a nap or just do nothing for a few hours. Should we have dinner together?”

It’s too much to take in at once. “You’re- you’re going out? What for?”

“I’m meeting a friend,” Rei says casually. “Nothing to worry about. I’ll be back at seven, so I was thinking you can come outside and we can eat somewhere casual. I don’t really feel like cooking.”

“O-oh,” Kaoru stutters like an overgrown teenager. “Yes. Let’s eat together later. I hope you have fun with your friend.”

Rei shoots him a strange look and grins. “What’s this, middle school? I’ll be fine. I’ll see you in a bit, yeah?”

Kaoru sits down beside the coffee table and watches as Rei shuffles around his room, bringing out a beige coat that he tosses over his sweater. Humming again, he picks up the bag hung on a hook behind his door and sifts through its belongings, dropping his wallet inside. He makes his way to the living room and starts packing his guitar.

Kaoru stares in interest. “Are you going busking?”

“I’m writing a song,” Rei says over his shoulder. “Won’t be busking today.”

“Writing a song? That’s new. Is it for one of your concerts?”

“Mhm.”

Kaoru drums his fingers on the pale wood before picking up a cookie. “Who are you writing with? Koga?”

“Eichi.”

The cookie freezes in midair. Kaoru’s mouth, open in invitation for the dessert, stays open. Spluttering, he chokes out an inquisition. 

“I didn’t really have anyone else I could ask,” Rei says, zipping the guitar case and turning around. He looks slightly abashed. “And I felt like he could help me the best with this one. So, yeah. I’m going to see him for a bit. I’ll be back, okay?”

Kaoru doesn’t understand this bitter throbbing in his heart, doesn’t understand why his soul suddenly squeezes itself tightly before letting go. His fingers feel numb. His arms feel useless. For some reason unknown to all but God Himself he feels hurt, left behind, another foreign emotion he doesn’t want to acknowledge as something akin to jealousy. He doesn’t get it. He shouldn’t be feeling like this. He doesn’t understand.

His words come out clipped. “O-oh. Yeah. I’ll take a nap. Have fun. I’ll see you later.”

Rei notices. Of course he does. “Hey, Kaoru-“

“Don’t worry about me,” he continues as he stands up, cookie forgotten on the table. “I’ll rest up. I’m a bit tired.”

Rei walks over and grabs his elbow. Kaoru forces himself to meet blazing eyes pulsing with concern. With those eyes as clear as day Kaoru shudders, knowing that every emotion he feels has already been uncovered by the other. “Kaoru. Hey. He’s not a replacement, okay? I will forever believe that you write the best songs.”

“You will believe,” Kaoru mutters, and he loathes the way his words come out bitter. Why do they always argue? Where even is his right to feel angry at a completely normal thing? “You will believe, but what if you don’t want to? You know it’s false. You know it inside of you, yet you force yourself to believe, like some devoted, delusional follower of a stupid god.”

“You have always written the best songs,” Rei says firmly, and Kaoru’s voice catches in his throat when he hears his resolve. How can he be so certain? They haven't spoken in six years. “In my eyes, you will always write the best songs.”

“I haven’t written a song for us in six years.”

“Doesn’t change the ones you have already written. You write my favourite songs. Don’t forget that, alright?”

“… you’re just saying that.”

“Now’s not the time to be petty.”

“You’re right,” and Kaoru agrees. He’s being childish. All this time, he’s been a jealous, selfish prick. Such childish emotions - why is he even so overcome by them? Why won’t they go away? 

He looks up to Rei and hopes to hide this bitter conflict with himself. Rei smiles gently at him. “Are we good now?”

Kaoru nods slowly. “Yeah. I’m sorry. That was rude of me. Immature.”

“You’re only jealous because of Tenshouin, it’s okay,” Rei laughs, letting go of his arm and slinging the guitar over his shoulder instead. He walks to the door, not looking back as he slips his feet into his shoes.

Kaoru doesn’t have the heart to tell him that he’d be jealous anyway, no matter whom the partner ended up being.

“It says here that you and Sakuma-san write all of your songs.”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“Wow, it must be such a rewarding feat, then, when you hear all your songs as a final album, as well as hearing them from the cheers of fans on stage!”

“It is! But I think the main reason pushing me to write songs isn't just those things. They’re quite nice memories, as you say! But what pushes me to write songs is truly seeing Rei’s reactions and hearing him sing the lines. That's really what makes the song beautiful for me.”

“Oh? From the sounds of it, it seems like you write more of the songs.”

“Yeah, I do. It’s okay. I may not be as meticulous as Rei, but he really loves my songs. He lets me write most of the tracks for our albums. I’m very grateful because, without him, these songs would probably never be shared. And he sings them so well, too, that it feels like he is a God-given gift to these songs. He’s what makes them music, I believe. Without him, they’d just be sound- I'm sorry, am I speaking too much? I'm rambling, sorry!”

“No, no, it's okay! You praise him so highly, Hakaze-san!”

“Yes, yes. I believe he deserves this recognition.”

Kaoru’s eyes follow the back of Rei’s coat as he prepares to leave. The other checks all his necessities once, turns, and shoots Kaoru a wave, before opening the door and letting in a gust of chilly air. Both of them wrinkle their noses at the sudden cold, Kaoru pulling a throw cushion onto his lap as Rei steps outside. When Rei shuts the door softly behind him, Kaoru’s left with a still silence. He hears the sound of passersby chatting on the street, hears the dull hum of the fridge running, and hears the occasional rumble of the washing machine as it tosses and cleans his dirty clothes. These domestic sounds fade into the background as he exhales softly. He feels so tired.

It's an exhaustion past physical weariness. He'd rested much over the past few days, sleeping time away in Koga's apartment. But now the emotional weariness of the journey, of settling down, of all of this has caught up with him, and he's left stripped of any inner strength he'd had.

Digging through his suitcase, he pulls out his evening clothes and changes into them in the bathroom. Washing his hands, he stares at his hollow, exhausted reflection, noting the dark shadows under his eyes and the ruffle in his hair. He tears his gaze away, considering himself rather unsightly, and wonders what Rei felt when he laid eyes on him earlier. He shuffles over to the bedroom, yawning as he stretches his arms above his head and blinks back the tears that sprout in his eyes. He barely takes in the room, sweeping a glance over empty mugs on the table, dog-eared books piled high on the shelves, and the many UNDEAD posters that cover the walls here (as well as framed photographs of memories that Kaoru recognises). He heads straight for the bed, sighing as he flops unceremoniously across the sheets. Face-down, he breathes in deeply, inhaling the scent of clean linen and the faint tint of Rei’s cologne. It’s familiar and so warm, as comforting as a hug, and he rolls around in contentment as he settles himself in. When he shuts his eyes, his body surrenders to sleep in seconds. 

That late afternoon, his dreams are still. He dreams of the silver chain of a familiar necklace, of the moon around another’s neck, and of pale fingers reaching out to touch his cold hands, of red warmth amidst freezing dusty brown. He falls into the best sleep he’s had in years.

“A fan asks: do you have a favourite song? Artist? Album?”

“Hmm… I have a few favourite songs, but I think one of my favourite music-related things, at the very least, is my Murakami playlist.”

“Murakami playlist?”

“Yeah. It’s a collection of all the jazz pieces he mentions in his novels. My friend compiled them for me back in high school as a gift. It’s my favourite playlist.”

“Mind if you sing an excerpt from one of the songs?”

“Haha! I haven’t sung these songs in ages! I wouldn’t want to disappoint my fans!”

“Please entertain us, Hakaze-san! Your declining is a disappointment in itself!”

“Argh, okay, okay! Give me a second…

“… ‘I once had a girl

Or should I say she once had me

She showed me her room

Isn't it good Norwegian wood?

…

And when I awoke I was alone

This bird had flown

So I lit a fire

Isn't it good Norwegian wood?’”

When he awakes, the sky is already dark. The room is completely black save for the sliver of light peeking out from under the door, creeping tentatively in like a sleepy cat to light up the silhouettes on Rei’s desk and the outline of Kaoru’s body in the sheets. Outside, something is boiling in a pot, and the scent of soup drifts under the door and fills the room with a languid warmth. Groggily, Kaoru takes in the soft edges of the evening and the gentle sounds that wake him.

He gasps.

It’s already almost eight thirty. He did not mean to sleep this long. He didn’t even set an alarm, for goodness’ sake, because he’d expected to only sleep for a few minutes before getting up and finishing unpacking. Before he knew it, it was already way past dinnertime, which means that he was late for dinner, he’d left Rei waiting, and he’d disappointed Rei all over again.

Scrambling out of bed, he flings the door open, wincing as the living room light pierces his eyes. It’s too much to take in at once, suddenly jabbing at a spot in his head, and he wobbles a bit, holding on to the door to steady himself. A surprised gasp bubbles over the boiling soup and Rei is immediately at his side, hands reaching out to hold onto his shoulders.

“Why are you so frantic? The world’s not ending tonight,” Rei laughs, shaking Kaoru gently. “Perhaps you had some strange epiphany that you wish to tell me? At least give me some time to get my bearings before we plummet headfirst into the apocalyptic world.”

“You’re very funny,” Kaoru says flatly. He shakes his head and straightens up. “I’m sorry. I overslept, and I didn’t set an alarm. Sorry for making you wait. I was irresponsible. I didn’t mean to… to treat you so carelessly on the first night I stay here.”

Rei’s brows furrow. “What’s this about?”

“It’s inexcusable. I didn’t- I wasted your time. I shouldn’t have done that. It’s on me. It’s my responsibility.”

“What are you saying?” 

And Kaoru looks up to find Rei peering into his eyes with unmasked concern. He looks away. Of course. He’d never been able to hide his heart so well, after all, especially in times as urgent as this. And Rei’s eyes are digging into his soul, trying to pull something out of him or trying to force something in, something he doesn’t yet understand.

“You don’t have to apologise for something like that, Kaoru,” Rei continues, brows still drawn together in deep confusion. “We’re both adults. You don’t have to prove anything to me. I get it. It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay. I wasted your time.”

“Why are you so infatuated with wasting my time?”

“Because… wasting another person’s time makes me an unworthy person.”

“Is that what you believe?”

Kaoru is unable to speak. His voice gets lost in the domesticity of his surroundings, and he feels like he belongs and stands out all the same. The soup boils in the background. The fridge hums. Rei’s neighbour is playing a piano piece. And they are standing here, shoulder to shoulder, discussing a matter that means everything and nothing all at once. Kaoru meets Rei’s eyes, and he is filled with despair.

“I don’t know. I don’t know what I believe. What can I still believe?” And he’s off on a tangent, his mouth working for him, his coveted emotions speaking for himself. “I don’t know what I can still believe. I don’t think I am worthy, even, to speak on behalf of my desires. I don’t think I deserve to be happy, really, and I don’t know where to start. I don’t know anything. I just don’t know. I don’t know.”

And Kaoru thinks he’s lost, that he’s always been lost, ever since the first day he and Rei met, ever since the day he left. The tides of the world are so brutal against the sailboat he resides in and there is no anchor, there is no safety, there is only a storm, an unending pelting of rain and cruelty that bashes itself against his head and his heart. 

And it scares him that he still feels this way, because he’d wanted to find deliverance and safety somewhere, but he’d always been proved wrong. There’s nowhere to begin. There’s nowhere to end. Safety, in the end, is a painful illusion.

Do you think you deserve this?

Kaoru’s afraid. He’s so scared, and he addresses the tremble in his body and the shiver in his spine. His heartbeat pulses at the back of his neck, in the junctions of his fingers, and he’s aware, suddenly, of everything that’s wrong with him, and everything that’s wrong with this moment now. It is an image framed in contemporary art, of a gentle domestic scene punctuated sharply with him, someone who doesn’t belong. 

He can’t find footing.

And then someone grabs him. 

“Let’s start here, then,” and Rei reaches out. Warm fingers envelope his hands and Kaoru steadies himself against dark crimson, against black hair, against the current that has always driven his world.

Once, long ago, it had scared him to depend so mindlessly on the other.

Now, he realises that it’s truly all he needs. It terrifies him. How could it not? He’d thought he could be independent on his own, but maybe some bonds just never can be severed. 

“I can’t depend on you,” Kaoru whispers. “It’s so dangerous for you.”

“Think of yourself first, would you?” Rei responds. “What do you desire, above all else?”

What does he desire? After all this time, what does he want? He’d run away to no avail, learned everything about himself that left him reeling in disgust, and maybe he’s learned nothing all the same. He’s been caught in this tangence of yeses and nos, and all this time he’s felt like change has made him unstable and it has made him dull, stripped him of his shine, until he became less than the ordinary.

He despises it all.

“…stability.”

Rei doesn’t flinch. He takes it in as if Kaoru’s discussing the weather, face calm and breath steady. The soup boils slowly behind him. “Then let’s start with that, shall we? You can root yourself here. If you need to run, you can do that too, but come back to where you find leverage, alright?”

Slowly, Kaoru nods. Slowly, he accepts it. He lets himself believe.

Rei smiles that brilliant smile at him, soft around the edges but bright as the midnight moon, and Kaoru lets himself be happy.

“Celine asks, ‘do you have a favourite food’? Rice, pasta, anything?”

“Favourite food…? I don’t think I particularly have a favourite… I like desserts. Pancakes.”

“How about one food item that you’ll never get tired of?”

“…ah! Rei makes this stellar kimchi soup. I guess you can say that’s the one. He likes to crack an egg into it, and I think that’s what makes it the best. Maybe I’ll share his recipe with you guys sometime.”

He sits at the table with a steaming bowl of soup in front of him. Various dishes are laid out in a colourful array, and Rei looks rather pleased with himself when he sets two cups of tea down and says, “Eat whatever. You’re probably starving.”

“I am,” Kaoru admits, picking up a pair of chopsticks. “Thank you for making all this. I’m sorry I made you wait until now.”

Rei waves his hand. “It’s no big deal. It’s not even that late, anyway.”

He’s lying. It’s almost nine in the evening, and from the growling in Rei’s stomach, Kaoru can tell that he hasn’t eaten in hours. Wincing at himself, Kaoru picks up a large piece of meat and places it into Rei’s bowl, adding a few vegetables after he sets it down. 

Rei’s eyes widen slightly. “Thank you. You don’t have to do that. Get whatever you want for yourself.”

“I’ll do that,” Kaoru nods, and smiles to himself. He takes a sip of the soup and all but grins, revelling in its warmth and familiarity. “Wow. This tastes exactly as I’d remembered.”

“I’m not a great cook. I haven’t improved much.”

“It’s still good, nonetheless,” Kaoru argues. He tries to hide his satisfaction, though he is embarrassedly aware that his emotions are probably showing on his face. “Thank you.”

“Stop thanking me,” Rei scoffs. “You’re going to blow up my ego.”

Kaoru guffaws while Rei throws his head back and cackles. “Now why would you say that?”

Rei shakes his head, still smiling as he takes a sip from his cup. “You humour this old man far too much, Kaoru.”

Dinner proceeds in a comfortable silence, both of them too hungry to really say anything. It’s only after the first sip of soup that Kaoru realises how hungry he was (and, though he’d never admit it out loud, how much he’d missed eating with Rei, a familiar routine he’d forced himself to break during the past six years). The air is punctuated with occasional ‘this is good’s and ‘thank you’s, and soon they’re finished, Kaoru leaning back in his chair and sighing with contentment. 

He looks up at the lights on the ceiling and counts the bulbs. “I think that’s the most I’ve eaten since I got back.”

“When did you get back, actually? I’m curious.”

Kaoru looks at Rei from across the table, where the other has busied himself with pouring more tea into his cup. He watches as Rei tips the kettle, pours the tea, and sets the kettle down in one smooth motion, and he thinks of familiarity, this painful familiarity he’s found himself in. “I moved back for good roughly two weeks ago.”

“For good?” Rei echoes. His eyes meet Kaoru’s own. “So you’ve been back for, what, visits?”

Kaoru swallows the lump in his throat. “I had to. I came back to visit my family.”

“Is that so?” Rei takes a sip of the tea. He doesn’t look away. “Weren’t ready to see me yet?”

He digs into Kaoru’s core so unexpectedly that Kaoru’s caught off guard. There is no malice in Rei’s voice, only a calm inquisition. It encourages him to reply. His voice stutters when he answers, “Yes, you’re right. That’s why I didn’t tell anyone I was back.”

“Must’ve been hard to avoid everyone on the streets.”

“I bumped into Akehoshi a couple of times- well, more like his posters. I don’t think he ever saw me.”

“If he did, the whole city would know,” Rei muses. “Then you would have a rough time explaining to everyone.”

“Indeed,” Kaoru mutters. “I wouldn’t like that.”

“I’d imagine not,” Rei hums. “How is your father, by the way? My parents said he moved out of the old apartment less than a year after you left. We haven’t heard from him since.” 

“He’s…” not okay. He’s in the hospital. I haven’t been able to speak to him normally in days. I think he’s dying, Rei, and I don’t know what to do. “…alright, I guess. I’m due to drop by tomorrow for a visit.”

“It’s good that you two are still in contact,” Rei says in a nonchalance that only Rei can muster. Kaoru lets him, because Rei knows him better than himself. “It would be rather sad, I think, to sever contact with the first man you learned to love, even if he had disappointed you all these years.”

“I don’t have it in me to hate him so wholly. The filial part of me will forever be connected to him. I can’t shake it off.” The words burn like acid in Kaoru’s mouth. He’s disgusted with himself.

“It’s not that you can’t,” Rei swirls the tea in his cup. “It’s that you don’t want to. And, if I were you, I wouldn’t want to, either.”

“Even after he’d beat you and left you in the hospital?”

“Even after that. Even after that happens for the billionth time, even after that prolongs past the first eighteen years of my life,” Rei concludes firmly. He laughs a little when he hears his own words. “We’re crazy, aren’t we? Normal people aren’t usually like us. Normal people hate the ones who mistreated them. I hate Hakaze-san’s actions through and through, but I don’t hate Hakaze-san at all. Maybe what I feel is thinly veiled resentment hidden in bare tolerance. I don’t get to tell you how to feel, but I think you already know that that’s not my intention.”

Kaoru stares at his fingers, twists them in strange patterns. “I understand, completely, what you mean.”

“Erin’s wondering if there’s a prominent memory from your childhood that’s stuck with you until today.”

“…hmm, I would say- probably the first time I learned to play guitar? I was five, and the instrument just clicked with me. I think that’s when I really learned to love music.”

“Playing guitar? I didn’t see that coming.”

“Yeah, Rei’s usually the one who plays at our shows. Fun fact, though. He learned to play guitar from me.”

“You two really are close!”

“He’s been with me my whole life. It’s inevitable that he makes up a lot of these memories, haha!”

“I’m glad that the two of you share such a special bond. You seem to never mention your family much though, Hakaze-san. Is this because you intend to keep family matters private?”

“…you can say so.” 

He stands in the shower, head parallel to the floor, letting the water run over his hair and the back of his neck. It trickles down his body, cascading in rivers to the floor, and he watches as the water washes away the grime from the past decade. He’s receiving a baptism in the solitary safety of Rei’s bathroom, and he feels like he’s drowning while being burnt anew.

He stands there for a long time. He knows, because the playlist he put on is starting to loop the songs. He hears ‘The Star-Crossed Lovers’ for the third time before shutting off the tap, taking a deep breath, and stepping out.

The bathroom is enshrouded in mist. The mirror is cloudy, blurring his reflection, and he looks like a ghost, a pale illusion drifting aimlessly through the room. He looks like a man with no purpose. He thinks that that’s probably who he is.

He reaches out and wipes a hand on the glass, coming face-to-face with his own reflection. His skin is tinged red from the hot water, his hair dripping onto his shoulders, and he reaches out to wipe the entirety of the mist away, clearing the air to see his reflection wholly. 

He takes a good look at himself, frowns when he drags his fingers across faded white lines across his chest and arms. His fingers stop at the dip in his shoulder where his collarbone protrudes, and he draws a circle around the long scar that severs his collarbone like a junction at a road, white and haunting and disgusting.

Out from this erupts memories that he no longer tries to suppress. Why should he? It is a part of him. So are the plentiful other little white lines across his body. Such is the long one that starts from his ribcage and winds itself across his back. In the crevices of each one are stories he doesn’t tell, are reminders he cannot forget, and are catalysts of pain that have long since dulled by now. 

When he saw his father in the hospital for the first time two weeks ago, he felt nothing but an ache in his heart. It was something like misery. It was something akin to resentment. It was, worst of all, something like pity. 

Disgusting.

He towels himself off and gets dressed quickly, already having hogged Rei’s shower for far too long. He ignores the way his skin burns as it chafes against clean clothes that aren’t his, ignores the way he dumps his dirty evening wear in the basket, mixing it with someone else’s things, and he opens the door, noting faintly at how his skin glows bright red.

He hears water running in the kitchen and when he walks out, sees Rei hunched over the kitchen counter, wielding a large knife as he cuts into a green fruit. The other doesn’t hear him, humming a tune to himself as he carves away at the pink flesh of the fruit, tossing the fruit peels into the trash can as he does so.

There’s a lump in his throat. His eyes can’t find Rei’s so he stares instead at Rei’s hands, at the way he peels the white skin off each layer, at the way he pushes his thumb between the fruit and the skin to pop it out. He memorises the veins on the back of his hands that travel up to his arms, memories the fingernails cropped short, and memorises the carvings on the beaded bracelet on his wrist. He busies himself memorising useless things, just so he can stop thinking about the important ones.

If Rei notices he’s there, he says nothing. He’s perceptive enough to know. No one stays in the bathroom for so long, after all. Kaoru is grateful for it. 

He leaves after a while, not wanting to stand hauntingly like a ghost behind Rei’s back. He shuffles into Rei’s bedroom and shuts the door softly behind him, careful not to make a loud noise so as not to disturb the other. He hangs his towel on the back of the chair and lies down on the bed, eyes staring upwards at the ceiling.

What is he even doing?

He glances over to the pillow, where Rei had placed Kaoru’s clothes, neatly folded, in two stacks. On the bed are all sorts of his belongings that Rei must’ve taken out of Kaoru’s suitcase while he was showering, arranging them in separate piles. His books are here. So is his jewellery. His wallet, too, and his passport and the keys to his father’s apartment. He sighs, gets up, and starts arranging them in piles on the table. Rei had cleared the clutter that had first been on the desk when Kaoru first entered the apartment and now it’s all his, the desk clean and empty. The wardrobe is also open, one side cleared for Kaoru’s own things while Rei’s old coats and jackets are jammed in a tight squeeze on the other.

It’s a gentle reminder that he’s here to stay.

After putting everything away, he realises he’s rather thirsty and decides to go outside to say goodnight to Rei before he coops himself back up in the bedroom, privy to his own head once again. He steps into the living room, still fluffing his hair with his hand, when he notices a new appearance on the dining table. His heart catches in his throat and - no, there is no way - he makes his way over, picking the plate up and heading to the kitchen. His legs tremble when he walks back to Rei’s figure, still standing by the counter as he mixes a drink with his hands. Kaoru is, despite everything, scared of something.

He clears his throat once he makes it next to Rei, but there really was no need. Rei’d looked up and smiled when he sensed Kaoru’s presence, an invitation for conversation. However, noticing the saucer and the pink fruit in his hands, Rei frowns and says, “Do you not like pomelos anymore?”

“N-no, it’s not that,” Kaoru says as he places the fruit on the counter. It blares a hollow ceramic sound when he sets it down. “You shouldn’t leave fruit in the living room uncovered like that. The ants will get to it.”

Rei pushes the plate over. “No, I already ate some. That’s for you.”

Kaoru blinks, the hammering in his throat an indication that he was correct. “Oh, no, I can’t possibly-“

“Why not?” Rei picks up the drink with his hand and knocks the base of it against the side of Kaoru’s head. “If you don’t eat it, no one’s going to. What, you’re going to waste my hard work?”

He’s chiding, grinning as he walks away. Kaoru stares abashed after him, nose betraying him and tingling greedily with the smell of the familiar fruit. Rei, feeling his gaze hot on the back of his neck, spins around.

“You don’t have to finish it if you can’t,” he says gently, sensing Kaoru’s hesitation. “But I peeled that bit for you.”

“Please eat some.”

“I already did.”

Liar, Kaoru whispers in his mind. You’re a liar, because you don’t like pomelos at all.

But Rei’s already turning to bathroom, picking up his own clothes and shutting the door behind him, leaving Kaoru to the emptiness of his apartment. Faint music starts up, and then Kaoru hears the water run. Sighing, he turns to the fruit, thanks Rei in his head, picks it up, and begins to eat it.

He doesn’t understand Rei. He’s known from the start that he deserves none of this, yet here it all is. He’s never been so lost before.

When he’d returned, he had not been expecting open arms from anyone. He’d kept radio silence with all of his friends and classmates since he left six years ago, watching as their frantic messages died, one by one, on his phone. They, too, learned not to bother someone who didn’t want to be bothered, so now that he’s returned he expects the same attitude.

He did not expect Koga and Adonis’ kindness, a love that went beyond duty and obligation and traversed into the realms of unconditional support. They’d worried about him the entire week. He knows, because the two of them looked dog-tired, and that’s when he knew he couldn’t keep that act up, leeching off of them. He dug around for the cheapest motel, shrugging off the disgusted reviews that littered the motel’s page, and had planned to book at least a few weeks there before he found a job, settled down, and was able to afford an apartment of his own.

Moving back in with Rei was not something he’d even considered. The last person he’d expected to welcome him back with open arms was Rei. He understood Rei’s anger that night outside The Foo Birds and took it in too deeply, thinking that their friendship was unsalvageable at that point. The laugh they shared was only a haunting reminder of what could have been. It was not anything. 

And so he’s at a loss now. He doesn’t get it. Doesn’t understand how people can be so good. Doesn’t know what he had done in any past life to deserve this.

He stills when he notices the light weight in his hands. He’d already eaten almost all of the pomelo, only a small wedge of the fruit left. Pausing mid-chew, he turns around and shouts, “Rei, I’ll finish this, okay?”

“Go for it!” The other calls back, voice muffled by the shower, as Kaoru’s phone dings, and he looks down curiously at the message that pops up.

Shinkai Kanata :: We have an opening! Can you drop by tomorrow morning, roughly 10AM, for an interview? But it’s quite chill. I’m sure you’ll get the job. ^^

Hastily, Kaoru reaches down to type a response, heart beating excitedly.

Hakaze Kaoru ::  yes, i can make it! thank you so much, kanata

Shinkai Kanata :: It’s my pleasure ^^ see you tomorrow

People are so kind, he acknowledges again. As the water in the bathroom runs, as the evening closes in upon them, Kaoru breaks into a soft smile. 

It feels like coming home.

When he wakes up the next morning, the sky is barely turning blue. It’s still early, the morning passerby still shuffling on their way to work, and he stretches languidly on the bed, basking in the cool air and the sounds of the strangers outside. How nice it would be to wake up like this every morning, he thinks, as he blinks the sleep out of his eyes. He registers the distant sound of snoring and chuckles to himself. Rei is still asleep.

He checks on him first thing when he walks out. Rei’s curled up, asleep, body too long for a couch too short, and Kaoru winces at the position he’s in. There’s no way it’s comfortable. The couch itself looks deflated already, and with the thin blanket Rei’d tossed over himself he looks almost homeless in his own home. Kaoru feels awful, straightening out Rei’s blanket and aligning the corners with Rei’s shoulders.

In the bathroom, he takes in his appearance. He already looks healthier than he’s been the day before, his face less puffy and his expression brighter. Gone is the dusty, crinkly man who’d slept haggardly on Koga and Adonis’ couch, waiting for mayday, and in his place is someone who at least has the slightest bit of his life together.

He’ll go for an interview today. He’ll aim to get a job. Then he can pay for his father’s hospital bills, for half of Rei’s rent, for their groceries and maybe a bunk bed so Rei no longer needs to suffer on the couch.

Then maybe he can, finally, pay Rei back for everything.

He cleans himself up and makes his way to the kitchen, scanning the ingredients in the fridge to make them an omelette. He wrinkles his nose at the canned tomatoes that sit proudly on Rei’s shelf. He decides he won’t be using that, and rummages around the bottom of the fridge for fresh tomato fruits. He’s chopping mushrooms when he hears a grunt behind him, and he turns to come face-to-face with Rei’s groggy morning expression.

“You’re up so early,” Rei comments, glancing at the clock on the fridge. “It’s only seven-thirty.”

“Seven thirty is about time to get up, Rei,” Kaoru chastises. Without thinking, he reaches out and smoothes Rei’s messy hair, starting from the back and bringing his hand towards his bangs, a familiar motion he’d repeated far too many times when they were younger. His eyes widen in panic when he realises what he’s doing. 

Rei doesn’t notice, only shuts his eyes and hums with contentment, leaning into the movement of Kaoru’s hand. “What are you making?”

Distracted, Kaoru draws his hand back and burns holes with his eyes into the mushrooms on the cutting board. His face is aflame. “Omelettes. I have toast in the oven, too. Go get washed up. You’re stinky.”

Rei laughs but turns to the bathroom nonetheless. “Thank you for being honest.”

Hearing the door shut behind him, Kaoru brings his hands up to his cheeks, holding his burning face in shock. Why had he done that? It came so naturally, so expectedly, that he didn’t even register what he was doing before he’d already done it. He releases a wobbly sigh before shaking the embarrassment from his mind. Rei didn’t seem to notice anything. He shouldn’t, either.

He’s setting the plates when Rei finally comes out, the other stopping momentarily by the oven and checking the bread inside. “Oh, you added cheese, too!”

“The pack you had was going to expire,” Kaoru says. “I figured I might as well toast the bread with it.”

Rei hums in excitement. “I haven’t had a meal made by you in so long.”

It brings a dull ache in his heart, a reminder that in the ‘so long’ that had separated the two of them Kaoru had missed so many years of Rei’s life. He’s only trying to slot himself back in now, tiptoeing around Rei’s established life and peeking for an entrance.

Upon Kaoru’s silence, Rei glances over quickly. “Sorry. I didn’t mean anything by that, if-“

“No, no, I know,” Kaoru interrupts, setting the cutlery down. He smiles softly. “It’s on me. Don’t worry about it.”

Rei looks like he still has things he wants to say but Kaoru waves him off, heading over the oven to take the toast out. He hears Rei shuffle around the fridge and turns back around to find a large carton of orange juice on the table. 

He stares at the packaging, placing the toast down carefully. “Orange juice? Really?”

“What?” Rei grins. “It’s a morning staple.”

Kaoru snorts but carries two cups over nonetheless. Rei claps his hands twice, overtaken by his joy, and Kaoru is suddenly struck by an overwhelming feeling of adoration, of sentiment, of something akin to-

A memory of them at the aquarium when they were in high school. They were young, Kaoru still growing out of his middle school uniform pants, Rei still trying to find a balance between his skinny limbs and tall frame. They looked awkward, as most high schoolers did, but they were smiling against the cold and fishy scent of the seal exhibit, and Kaoru had one hand in Rei’s coat pocket while Rei beamed excitedly at the seals.

He swallows it down and forces it out of his mind, because some things just never go away, and he’s learning that for the very first time.

“There’s this stupid thing Rei does when he’s happy. I think a lot of our fans noticed it on our tours and vlogs.”

“What is it?”

“He smiles really big and claps his hands like a seal. We saw a seal when we went to an aquarium once, and he looked exactly like the one that was putting on a show. I told him to try to mask his happiness, really, because he looks like a kid.”

“Did he listen?”

“…more like I caved in the end. Our fans thought it was adorable, so I told him I was just kidding because they loved seeing that pure happiness on his face. It’s so stupid.”

“But Hakaze-san, you’re smiling, too!”

“Do you have any plans for today?” Rei asks over the rim of his orange juice.

Kaoru nods around a mouthful of omelette, swallows it down. “I’m going to a job interview in the morning, then stopping by to pay my old man a visit. I’ll probably be back at around four in the afternoon. What about you?”

“A job interview!” Rei interrupts, eyes wide. “Already?”

“They just texted me last night. I figured I should look around… if I’m planning to stay for the long term, anyway.”

Rei’s smiling, and Kaoru wants to bask in its warmth forever. “I’m happy for you. I hope it goes well.”

“I hope so, too,” Kaoru admits. “It’s a job I’ve been looking at for a while.”

“What will you be doing?”

“There’s a temporary opening in the aquarium’s souvenir shop, so I think I’ll work behind the counter for a bit until they move me elsewhere. I’d really like to give guided tours… if that’s eventually possible.”

“The aquarium!” Rei’s eyes shine, and Kaoru wonders how someone else can possibly be so happy for his own success, for his own achievements. “Wow! You’re going to love it so much. I’m so happy.”

“Pay me a visit if you miss me, then,” Kaoru chides jokingly, to which Rei cackles. “Anyway. I’m just going for an interview today. If I get the job, I’ll be there from ten in the morning until four in the afternoon, so I’ll be back home at five.”

Home. It slips out of him without him realising, hangs awkwardly in his mind, and he wants to run.

But Rei doesn’t notice. If he does, he doesn’t say anything. “That works. I work at the vinyl store from one to five, so I can pick up something for dinner on the way back.”

“Oh, there’s no need,” Kaoru says quickly. “I can do it. You have work, anyway. It’ll be faster for me.”

“Are you sure?” Rei asks, frowning. “Won’t you be a bit tired? I can carry it home, it’s not that far for me anyway. And I’m driving. That reminds me- would you like a lift to the aquarium?”

“I’ll be fine,” Kaoru reassures. “And no, it’s alright. Driving me would take so long for you. I can take the subway, don’t worry.”

But Rei’s already getting up, cleaning up the dishes and rinsing them in the sink. Kaoru follows clumsily, finishing the last of his orange juice before taking the plates from Rei and placing them in the dishwasher. “Give me ten minutes. I’ll drop you off.”

“You really don’t have to, Rei,” Kaoru flounders as he stoops down to arrange the plates in the dishwasher. “It’s really too much of a hassle for you.”

“Nah,” Rei grins, peering down and meeting Kaoru’s eyes. “What kind of a friend am I if can’t even spare an hour of my day to send you off? It’s not like I was planning to wake up any earlier, anyway.”

Friend. 

The word sends a cold chill through Kaoru’s body and he tears his gaze away. They had been more than that. He was certain of it. But time does wonders, and it’s all his fault as well. 

He focuses on slotting in the last of the plates as Rei gets changed, rummaging through his wardrobe. He walks out in a low-cut striped shirt, the moon necklace clearly visible, dangling from his neck, before he picks up his bag and keys and slips his shoes in. When he moves past Kaoru, Kaoru doesn’t smell the cologne that he usually wears when meeting people, and he’s rooted to the floor in this tiny, intimate display of domesticity. 

He’s going insane. 

“You coming?” Rei calls from the door, and Kaoru nods as he follows.

“You really didn’t have to drive me,” Kaoru says for the tenth time as Rei makes his way down the street.

Rei shoots him a look. “We’re in the car, Kaoru. It’s a bit late for me to turn back now, isn’t it? Unless you want me to leave you on the side of the street, that’s okay too.”

Kaoru guffaws as Rei grins at his own joke. “You’re crazy.”

“Hey. Accept the offer,” Rei merely says. “There are only so many chances for me to drop you off, anyway. Who knows what tomorrow brings?”

Kaoru nods in silent understanding. “Thank you, then.”

“You’re very welcome, Kaoru.”

They sit the rest of the ride in silence, interjected only by the switching of songs from Kaoru’s Murakami playlist. When they arrive at the gates of the aquarium, Kaoru thanks Rei softly before opening the car door.

“You have everything? Did you double-check?” Rei calls as Kaoru sifts through his bag.

“I have everything,” Kaoru nods, and Rei shoots him a thumbs-up before raising his hand in a wave.

“See you tonight!” He calls as he rolls his window back up, and Kaoru shoots him a smile as he starts driving away. Kaoru waves at him, hopes he can see through the rearview mirror, and heads inside the aquarium.

Shinkai Kanata stands by the gate, yawning as he flips through the many pamphlets on display outside the doors. He looks up when Kaoru calls his name, and Kaoru is hit again by this painful familiarity. 

Nothing about Kanata has changed except for his taller build and stronger stance. He still sports the cyan blue hair. His eyes still slope in that gentle, soothing gaze. He looks just as Kaoru remembered, and maybe this is a good thing, because he doesn't know if he can take any more than what he's already been fored to get used to.

“Kaoru!” Kanata waves before bouncing up to him and throwing his arms around Kaoru in a tight hug. It snatches the air out of Kaoru's lungs as Kanata laughs in his ear, squeezing him tightly. “Awh! I missed you!”

“What is this?” Kaoru laughs as he brings his arms around Kanata’s back. “I missed you too. Goodness.”

“I haven’t seen you in so long!” Kanata reaches up to grab Kaoru’s cheeks, shaking his head left and right in excitement. “How have you been? You look so different!”

“I’ve been okay,” Kaoru slaps at Kanata’s hands as the other laughs and pulls away. “Been taking my time exploring the world. How’s working in the aquarium?”

“You’ll see for yourself, soon enough,” Kanata gives Kaoru’s hair one last ruffle before his face morphs into an expression of surprise. He gestures with his chin to the road behind them. “Was that Sakuma? That was Sakuma just now, wasn’t it? I didn’t know you guys reconnected- ah, but what would I expect? You’ve been friends for so long!”

It’s more like a monologue to himself, Kanata answering his own questions, but it leaves Kaoru gaping in confusion. 

“Sa- how did you know?” Kaoru furrows his brows, turning around to see Rei’s car drive off into the distance. 

“He drops by here every so often,” Kanata says like it’s nothing, like it doesn’t send a pang of guilt through Kaoru’s heart. “I recognise his car.”

Kaoru has a million questions he wants to ask, a million things he wants to know the answer to, but Kanata is already turning away, chatting as he heads into the aquarium, so Kaoru shuts his mouth and says nothing.

With no one else interested in the position of a lowly cashier at an aquarium souvenir shop, Kaoru gets the job. His first day starts tomorrow, and with a new uniform, name tag, and funny octopus hat in hands he heads to the train station, checking his phone for the map to the hospital.

A dark foreboding seeps through his lungs, permeates the happiness that Kanata had left in him earlier that day. He hates the bitterness in his soul, hopes that he can feel, if even only a pint of it, some sort of filial attachment. 

But it doesn’t come easy. Not anymore.

The ride to the hospital is dreary, a stark contrast against the bright blue sky. When the hospital comes into view, the white building looming over the train tracks, Kaoru swallows his bitterness and heads inside.

“Twentieth floor, 13A,” he tells the staff by the entrance.

“You’re here for…?”

“A family visit. He’s my father.”

“You do realise that this is the-“

“Special ward, yes. I understand.”

The staff glances at him with an expression heavily doused with pity. Kaoru wants to run. “I’m sorry.”

“There’s no need to be.”

He waits for the lift, staring emptily as the red numbers spiral down to the ground floor. He trips over someone’s wheelchair as he walks in, mutters an apology the patient doesn’t hear, and presses the floor number in numb repetition. He ignores the whispers from the two other visitors behind him - “Isn’t that Hakaze’s boy? He’s here every other day…” “I feel sorry for him with his father in such a condition and all.” - and all but runs to the ward, heart heavy in his chest.

The nurse takes one glance at him and lets him in, guiding him to the bed. His father sits, thin and pale, on the bed, facing the large glass windows that reveal the cityscape outside. He doesn’t turn around when Kaoru pulls a chair and sits down beside him, doesn’t flinch when the chair squeaks under Kaoru’s weight.

“Hi,” Kaoru greets him, looks anywhere but at his face. “How have you been?”

His father grunts. “Why are you here again?”

“You’ll get lonely without me. Don’t pretend.”

“I get other visitors. I don’t need your pity.”

“If ‘other visitors’ include the nurses, then I guess you have quite the party, don’t you?”

His father never looks at him. He hasn’t done so again ever since the first day Kaoru dropped by. On that day, his father had hurled a tissue box at his face, screaming for the nurses to take him away. Two nurses restrained him by the arms while his sister grabbed Kaoru by the shoulders, moving him safely away as his father screamed and yelled, face reddening in fear and anger, eyes blazing with heightened terror and mistrust. 

It hurt Kaoru more than it should’ve.

“Party or no party, I don’t need your sympathy.”

“I’m sure you don’t. I’m not giving you sympathy.”

“I know.”

“Then why do you say those words?”

“What else can I say? I don’t know you. I don’t know your intentions. For all I know, you can murder me here and now, and I wouldn’t expect a thing.”

Kaoru’s heart pulses in his throat. His nose tingles. “I won’t murder you.”

“That’s right. You can’t murder me here, so you can do us a favour and stop coming.” His father rudely taps the bed of the patient next to him, who looks up from their phone in confusion. “Hey. You. Tell this man to stop visiting. It irritates me.”

The patient’s gaze flicks over to Kaoru in recognition before looking back at his father. “I can’t do that.”

“You can’t do that. Why can’t you do that?”

“He’s your son, Hakaze.”

“My son?” His father turns to look at him and Kaoru sees emptiness. Kaoru’s heart breaks.

He leaves after five minutes in the hospital ward. 

He can’t bear it any longer. He thought he could, thought he could take the news when his sister finally tracked him down one day, and had come to the hospital with a ready heart. 

But any ready heart breaks after being beaten long enough. He didn’t think he would cave so easily. 

There are many things, he realises, that he is not ready for. Perhaps knowing that the stranger in the bed beside his father could recognise him before his own father could hurt him the most. 

He heads for a bathroom stall, curls in on himself, and cries. 

He doesn’t know how long he’s been there for. Before he knows it, his throat ached with an unforgiving pain, and his eyes were dry with tears completely shed. After he wipes his eyes and tidies himself up, finally leaving the hospital, he sees that the sky has lost its strong afternoon shine. Swallowing the pain in his chest, reminding himself that his father will remember in due time, he prepares to head home.

Home. It’s a new word for him now, a new word for someone who has been everywhere and lived nowhere. Whatever he had with his father he couldn’t consider a home. Whatever he had while traveling he couldn’t consider a home, either. Even now, he is still in disbelief at how he settled in so easily, how he and Rei had slid into a rhythm so comfortable so quickly, and a part of him wishes he never left, wishes that he could’ve lived and loved this for the six years he will never get back. It’s strange to have a place, even if only temporarily, to return to, to familiarise himself in again, and as he pulls out his metro card and beeps his way through the gate he can’t push away the excited pounding in his heart, the ecstatic tempo of his walk, as he imagines what it would be like to walk into a warm apartment and tell Rei about his day. The painful memory of the hospital fades, and he lets himself be healed by even this small thing.

It’s sickening how he feels such childish joy at such an old age, but it’s truly what he feels. He can’t imagine anything happier for him right now. As he waits for his train, he pulls out his earphones from his pocket and shuffles through his songs for the familiar Murakami playlist.

He sees Rei’s name underneath the title, remembers what it was like being gifted the playlist years ago, a small link attached to the bottom of a page-long email, a gift Rei had to give him online because they’d been apart.

That’s right. They were turning twenty-two, and Kaoru had been abroad in New York, giving interviews while Rei, passing their birthdays alone, had been in their old apartment, sick and-

The train rushes to the stop, sending a gust of air into his face and messing up his hair. Frowning, Kaoru reaches up to hold his scarf in place as the train slows into the station, the doors coming into focus as they open to let him in.

He sits down by the window, looks out to the sky, and notices how the sunlight is slanting in like liquid gold. He pushes the memory out of his mind and focuses on the present.

It’s not worth it to think about things like this anymore.

He opens his messages and shoots Rei a quick text.

Hakaze Kaoru :: i just got on the train! I’ll stop by the grocery on my way back. do you want anything?

Rei’s reply is instantaneous, almost as if he’d been anticipating Kaoru’s message.

Sakuma Rei :: I’m running out of butter, but the rest you can decide. Remember to give up your seat for the elderly :)))

Hakaze Kaoru :: sorry, you’re not on the train. i’m going to have to wait a bit

Sakuma Rei :: >:(

Kaoru laughs, and it’s only when the man sitting opposite him looks up that Kaoru realises he’d laughed aloud. He clears his throat to mask his embarrassment and turns back to his phone.

Hakaze Kaoru :: i’m going to stop talking to you now. you made me laugh out loud and the old uncle in front of me just glared at me

Sakuma Rei :: that is literally not my fault but ok. 

Sakuma Rei :: See you tonight!

Unknown even to himself, Kaoru smiles at the text on the screen. Again he is filled with the warmth of belonging, of familiarity, of routine. He lets himself believe he can have this forever, wishes that he can.

Hakaze Kaoru :: see you! ^^ ~*

They’ve settled into the evening, the day slipping languidly as they familiarise themselves again with the rhythm they’d built up from the past twenty-four hours, similar to the one the lives they lived six years ago. After checking that all the plates and bowls were arranged neatly in the dishwasher, Kaoru headed for the shower, finishing in a much shorter duration compared to yesterday as Rei took the clothes out of the dryer and set them on his bed.

Folding the laundry, Kaoru hears the sound of classical music sifting through the falling water behind the bathroom door. He smiles to himself, shakes his head when he remembers that Rei has always loved classical music, and turns to the task at hand. He’d finished the folding, setting the clothes back into their respective sides of the wardrobe, and had made himself a cup of tea and settled on the couch when the shower stops. He looks up from the book in his hands, a short novel he’d picked up at a bookstore beside the grocery, as he waits expectantly for the other to walk out. 

“Rei,” Kaoru calls as Rei shuffles out of the bathroom. He sets the book down, careful not to spill the hot cup of tea he’s cradling in his hands.

The other pauses, towel still in his hair, and blinks. “Hm?”

“You don’t need to send me off tomorrow morning,” Kaoru says quickly. “I can take the train. I don’t want to disturb you.”

“Are you sure?” Rei frowns. “It’s really not a hassle. Your train ride is around an hour, too.”

“It’s okay,” Kaoru nods reassuringly. He holds up a book he’d set down earlier. “I can get some reading done, too.”

“You can read while I drive,” Rei argues, still not buying it. “It’s fine, really-“

“It’s so early,” Kaoru interrupts, and Rei’s voice falters. “You don’t need to wake up until much later, so I’ll let you get some more sleep. You’re on this nasty couch already, anyway. It’s the least I can do.”

Rei’s clearly fighting with himself in his head, gnawing on his bottom lip as he weighs the choices. It’s obvious he would like to get more sleep - who doesn’t? - but he fiddles with his towel, ready to reject Kaoru’s proposal again for the sake of being a good friend.

“Please?” Kaoru adds, and when Rei looks at him Kaoru knows he’s already won. “You don’t have to take care of me like this, if that’s what you’re worried about. You’re already doing so in so many other ways.”

“…alright, then.” Rei sets the towel down on the balcony but quickly shoots Kaoru an apprehensive look. “But if you need me to drop you off-“

“I’ll be fine,” Kaoru reassures. “I’m not a kid.” 

“I know, I know.”

Kaoru stands up from the couch, picking up the book as he heads for the bedroom. He passes Rei in the living room and taps him on the shoulder with his knuckles. “I’ll be sleeping now, okay? I know it’s a bit early but… I want to get a good night’s sleep before tomorrow. My first day, after all.”

“Good night, then,” Rei says softly, and Kaoru smiles before turning to the bedroom.

He sets the mug down on the bedside table and opens the book, marking two more chapters with the bookmark to finish for the evening. He hears Rei arranging the couch, dumping a comforter on the cushions, and he thinks of Rei’s horrid posture from this morning, as well as the way he’d visibly winced getting into the car. After settling himself in, he throws a leg over the covers, and a voice in his head remarks that the bed is big enough for two.

He stops, book lying flat on his lap. He doesn’t even question why his heart is pounding so loudly in his chest.

The bed is big enough for two.

He knows that feelings never go away so easily, especially feelings for a man he’s known for the past twenty-eight years of his life. He knew that it wouldn’t be so easy, after all, especially with how well the two knew each other, but he didn’t think that it would resurface after six years of trying to forget everything. 

He’d even dated people in-between, even tried to forget him for the sake of their friendship, their families, their band. He’d tried, yet every single person reminded him of the other until he couldn’t take it anymore and ended whatever measly relationship he’d strung along.

Except for the last one. 

The last one.

He feels like throwing up.

Without even finishing the two chapters, he slides the bookmark in and turns off the light. Enshrouded in darkness, he stares at the ceiling, at the dim light that comes from the gap under the door, and he thinks about Rei, about sacrifices, about love.

He thinks about love. He thinks that, against everything he’s told himself, he still loves the man sleeping on the couch in the living room of an apartment that’s not his own. He thinks that he’s an idiot for even thinking of such things. He thinks that a part of him deserved to be hurt.

Suddenly, he finds it hard to breathe. He’s gone too far with the voice in his head again, and he’s trembling because a nasty memory is resurfacing again, one that he’d tried so hard to forget but just couldn’t. He feels exposed, cold, as if he’d been thrown out into icy air, clothes stripped off of him and body ripped open. The voice in his head is vicious again, it’s back in its full cruelty, and he notes dully that this is why he’d never returned because he’s still not strong enough. It grabs him by the throat and chokes him and suddenly his eyes water, his hands clench the comforter, he’s drowning, he can’t focus on anything-

And all of a sudden the room is suddenly bright, the darkness dissipating. The scent of shampoo and aftershave floods is nostrils, grounds him ever so slightly, and he recognises the smell in the air, the smell of a familiar person, the smell of the room and the bedsheets and the smell of love. A figure walks in tentatively, heading for the wardrobe. “Sorry. I forgot something. Hope I didn’t wake you.”

“Rei.”

Hearing the tremor in his voice, the other turns sharply. The word slips out of him, breathless, remains suspended in the air for a second before the other is by the bedside, kneeling, peering down at him. 

Ah, how could I have forgotten? He knows me better than myself.

“Kaoru.”

“Are you here?” Kaoru whispers, eyes unfocused, still drifting and following the shadows on the ceiling. “Rei, are you here?”

“I’m here.”

“Are you… are you okay?”

“I am okay.”

“You’re not hurt anywhere, are you?”

“I’m not hurt.”

“Nothing came at you, right? Nothing came at you?”

“Nothing came at me. I’m not hurt. I’m okay. I’m here.”

“I’m not going to hurt you, am I?”

He feels warm hands enclose his own and he realises how cold he is. He’s shivering. His whole body is trembling. And Rei is still kneeling by his bedside, scared to touch him any further.

Is this the aftermath of what he’d done?

“You’re not going to hurt me.”

He’s lying. Kaoru hears it in the lilt of his voice. He’s hurt him, he’d hurt him years ago when he left, so why is he lying? Why is he lying? Why does everyone lie? Why is this world filled with nothing but lies? Why is not a single person in his life trustworthy anymore?

“You’re not going to hurt me.” Rei’s voice cuts through the vicious vines in his head. “I’ll repeat it for as long as you need.”

“I hurt you,” Kaoru whispers. “Our hearts have always been in different worlds. It’s all my fault. All of this. UNDEAD disbanding. Your retirement. My condition. Whatever the hell is left between us in scraps. All of this.”

“Kao-“

“How can I ask for your forgiveness? How can I ask for forgiveness? What can I do?”

“You’re only hurting yourself at this point, Kaoru,” Rei says. His hand feels like an anchor but his voice sends him underwater. “When will you realise that keeping this all in with no closure is the only thing stopping you from moving on?”

And all of a sudden he’s gone. The room clears up but Kaoru drowns. Kaoru doesn’t even ask him to stay. He thinks he’s unworthy of such a thing. 

“What’s your biggest fear, Hakaze-san?”

“Should I be revealing this to how many hundreds of thousands of people online?”

“You can give the answer that is the least embarrassing, then!”

“Or, I can throw Rei under the bus and tell you his biggest fear. Is that okay?”

She laughs. “Yes, that is perfectly okay as well. We take no responsibility.”

“Alright! I’m sure no one knows this because Rei hides it so well, so listen closely, okay? He hates the water - the ocean, the pool, anything related to it, you name it, because Rei’s biggest fear is drowning.”

When morning dawns, Kaoru gets ready in total silence. He didn’t sleep well. He’d woken with a tightness on his face and a crustiness in his eyes, signalling that he’d cried throughout the night. He’d had nightmares, nightmares of the past, of memories he’d tried to forget, of emptiness in the most crowded places in the world, of a heart-wrenching loneliness he can’t bear.

He didn’t think those ghosts could chase him this far, but maybe this is what he deserves, in the end.

When he steps out to the living room, he sees Rei curled up on the couch, breathing steadily. He pads quietly over to Rei’s sleeping form and peers down at him. 

His posture is horrid again. His eyebrows are drawn and his mouth curves down in a frown. There is no way it is comfortable.

It leaves a bitter taste in Kaoru’s mouth. He wants to hit himself. 

Staring at his reflection in the bathroom, Kaoru winces at his red eyes and hideous appearance. Washing his face, he takes out his eye cream to save even a shred of his dignity, hoping to patch himself up before Kanata and his manager sees him later that day. He heats up two pieces of toast in the oven, prepares the coffee, and scribbles a note on a post-it that he sticks to the counter. Picking up his belongings, he leaves in silence.

Hearing the door close behind him, Rei opens his eyes. He stares at the ceiling and releases a heavy sigh. 

Sitting up, he glances around the apartment. Kaoru had left so quietly that he’d almost been unaware that he’d left, if not for the quiet curse he let out when he hit the table. 

He couldn’t sleep all night because Kaoru couldn’t, either. All this time, he’d expected Kaoru to have secrets to hide. He just didn’t know what those secrets were.

Fumbling around for his phone, he calls the first person in mind. The dial rings twice before the other picks up.

“Hello?”

“Kanata.”

“Good morning, Rei! I didn’t think I’d be hearing from you today.”

“Kaoru had a nightmare last night. Multiple nightmares, actually. He didn’t sleep well. Can you take care of him today?”

There’s a still silence as Kanata takes in the information before the other clears his throat and responds. “Yeah. Yeah, I can do that. Thanks for letting me know.”

He dials Adonis next. 

“Kaoru had a nightmare last night. I don’t know what to do. Help me. What do I do?”

“Shouldn’t you be the one who knows what to do in this situation, Rei-senpai?”

“I don’t know what to do at all.”

“You can start by not treating him like a child,” Koga’s voice drawls from the background. “You have a tendency to treat people like kids. Kaoru’s almost thirty, might I remind you? He doesn’t need you to-ow!”

“Don’t ask him about it,” Adonis’ voice drifts back into the speaker. “If Kaoru-senpai didn’t say anything to you, he probably doesn’t want to talk about it.”

“I’ll bring it up if it happens again, though.”

“I’m sure you will.”

Adonis pauses, before sighing heavily. The microwave beeps behind him.

“He had nightmares when he was staying with us as well. I didn’t bring them up because he never talked about it. I thought you’d want to know.” 

“Molly wonders when the last time you had a nightmare was.”

“A nightmare? I haven’t had one in years… maybe in middle school? I’d watched a horror film with my dad. I didn’t enjoy that very much.”

“That’s a long time! Has it really been so many years?”

“Yeah! I don’t get spooked out very often, and I sleep quite well, so… it’s been a while for nightmares, I’d say.”

He takes the train ride out to the aquarium, located near the outer perimeters of the city. In the early morning, the ride is much more serene, much more soothing, and it heals the exhaustion in Kaoru’s limbs and sends a bit more warmth back into his cheeks. The cityscape starts to thin out about half an hour in, and he turns to stare at the mountains and the neighbourhoods, at the shorter buildings and the small shops that litter the street. He sees a school in the distance, notes the students in uniforms climbing their way up the hill, and smiles to himself when memories of his own high school days come to mind.

He looks up at the sky, at the clouds that litter a beautiful blue, and he exhales.  

The next four days pass in a dreadful silence. They coexist around each other, neither of them saying much. Kaoru doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t think Rei does, either. They still eat dinner together, still navigate their chores while making small talk, but they say little apart from what’s necessary. Kaoru leaves every morning without saying ‘good morning’. They rarely text throughout the day. Rei starts spending his evenings at the hospital with Eichi until he’s gone for hours in the evening, only home at some time past midnight, leaving Kaoru to go to bed before him without a word. 

He hates it. He hates it, because he’s stuck in this tangence of detachment and insane adoration. Seeing Rei again, being with Rei again, has sent all of his past emotions hurling back like a catastrophic wind. He finds himself choked to the throat with love - what else can it be? He’d loved Rei for twenty-two years before he left him and, now that he’s back, finds that he loves him still, because such love doesn’t go away so easily. He wants to be detached but he yearns, he yearns so bad, and he thinks he’s just as weak and stupid as he had been the day he left, that he hadn’t grown up at all.

What cruelty, the way his body betrays him. He misses him. Yes, he’ll admit it - he misses Rei so much now that he knows what it’s like to have him and lose him, and he doesn’t want that again. 

Because now, against everything Kaoru had wanted, Rei starts to become another body in Kaoru’s life. Rei starts to grow distanced, and Kaoru lets him. 

A part of him encourages it. The other resents him for it.

Whatever it is, he can only feel hatred permeate his vision and himself. Kaoru, against all odds, tries to go along with it, tries to live through the loneliness like he’s done for the past six years.

But he is like a starved and greedy man. Given one taste of happiness, he only yearns for more, until the day he breaks, until the day he can no longer take it anymore. 

“This is a question about you and Sakuma-san! Ryan asks when the longest time was that the two of you didn’t speak to each other.”

“Hmm… resulting from an argument? Or…”

“Anything is okay.”

“Then… maybe in high school? I went to my sister’s wedding in the countryside and the service was awful. I couldn’t use the internet anywhere. I ended up ghosting him for about three days.”

“Three days only?! The two of you must communicate so well when you fight, then!”

“We don’t hold grudges! I think that’s what made all of this work so well, really.”

For once, Rei doesn’t run.

He’s not necessarily given a choice. Eichi told him not to visit this evening. “If you keep avoiding him, you’re never going to solve anything,” he’d snapped, and was even more adamant upon it when Rei had protested. 

So Rei sits alone in the apartment now, watching as the clock ticks half past five. He’s wondering where Kaoru is, considering he’s usually back by now. Maybe he ran away. No, his things are still here. Maybe he’s genuinely avoiding Rei now. Or maybe he’s hurt. Maybe he’s been mugged. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

He pulls out his phone, ready to give Kaoru a call, only to be met with a glowing screen signalling an incoming call, muted by his silenced ringer. Upon glancing at the name flashing across the top, Rei fumbles as he accepts the call and brings his phone up to his ear, heart pounding.

“Rei.” His voice is brisk over the phone, cut and static through the invisible lines between them. 

Rei rubs a spot behind his ear, tries not to ignore how much his voice bothers him, and rambles. “Sorry for giving you the silent treatment. I was just going to call you. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to say. Sorry. I didn’t-” 

“Are you busy right now?” 

Rei glances at the pile of laundry sagging beside the washing machine, at the hangers dumped haphazardly on the ground, and at the dark hairs littering his bathroom floor. A drain fly makes its ascent up his bathroom wall. He exhales. “Not particularly.”

“Um. Can… ah.”

“Spit it out, Kaoru.”

“Can we take a walk?

He meets Kaoru in the park by the swing set, the other already rocking slowly, staring at the floor. He’s holding something in his hands, one that Rei soon recognises as a bottle of Bacardi that Kaoru drinks straight. Seeing Rei approach, he raises a hand in a wave, Rei nodding as he sits beside him. They settle in submerged silence until Kaoru speaks.

“Sorry for the past few days. I didn’t mean to be so distant.”

It comes out breathless, like the autumn wind. Rei suddenly has the urge to hold him in his hands, tether him down.

He stares at his hands instead. “I was distant as well. It’s not just you.”

“What do you think it means?” Kaoru asks. “The second anything… wrong, anything unknown comes up, I just want to run.”

“You weren’t always like that.”

“Have I been trained in some ill manner? The world was always so unfair. It was one catastrophic moment after one catastrophic moment, and I think I got lost in the midst of it all.”

Kaoru’s gaze is still so far away. Rei knows they are thinking of the same thing.

“What were we, ever?” He asks quietly.

Kaoru doesn’t respond. All he does is rock slowly on the swing, hands gripping the chains tightly, face turned to the sky. When Rei looks over, he sees Kaoru’s nose dusted with pink, his cheeks soft like the skin of a peach, and Rei fights his words.

He looks too vulnerable here. He looks like a child, like he did at five, like they did the first day they met Adonis and Koga, up until that day at the beach before he left. And Rei wants to reach out and choke him, grab him, make sure he is alive, make sure he will stay.

Kaoru takes a shot from the Bacardi in his hands. His rocking stumbles as he chokes it down, and he shakes his head as he steadies himself. “We were everything. How did you not know?”

“How could I have known? You loved me and then you were gone.”

Kaoru’s eyes are shut. From the way his foot taps anxiously on the ground Rei can tell his mind is a mess. He’s quiet for a while, thinking, thinking, and the sunset is fading, fading, and they are swaying, swaying, under the haziness of unrevealed truth.

“The sun…” Kaoru finally starts. Rei fixes his eyes on the waning sunset. 

“‘The sun has entered me’,” Kaoru’s voice is barely above a whisper. Above them, the sky is the colour at the birth of the world. 

Rei’s breath catches in his throat. He recognises those beautiful, beautiful words, the same ones Kaoru had recited years ago at the seaside, the wind blowing him backward into Rei’s embrace, those beautiful eyes glowing with such reverent praise. 

“‘The sun has entered me together with the cloud and the river. I myself have entered the river, and I have entered the sun with the cloud and the river. There has not been a moment when we do not interpenetrate.’” 

Thus it is so, isn’t it, Hakaze Kaoru? And when Rei smiles, his body alive with this recognition, he feels a hand reach out and grip the chain of his swing. Kaoru’s looking at him now, a hard set to the lines of his mouth and certainty and determination alive in his face. The air is rancid with the smell of alcohol wafting off of them both, maybe even a testament to the ridiculousness of their actions, this childishness, and if Rei was any more sober maybe he could’ve interpreted this a bit more romantically. But his blood is aflame. He’s wide awake and his face is warm. Kaoru reaches out and grips the chain so tightly that it jolts Rei out of the comfortable rhythm he’d set. 

“‘But before the sun entered me, the sun was in me- also the cloud and the river. Before I entered the river, I was already in it. There has not been a moment when we have not inter-been.’”

Rei dares not interrupt. He can’t, anyway. His words brim to his mouth, swim in his jaw, and fade away before he can toss them out into the cold atmosphere. So he listens, and each familiar word from Kaoru’s mouth sparks warmth in his belly, in the crooks of his elbows and the back of his neck, in the depth of the corners of his heart. 

“‘Therefore you know that as long as you continue to breathe, I continue to be in you.’”

“Is this farewell, then?” Rei finds leverage somewhere, anchors himself down, and his hand reaches up to close around Kaoru’s fist gently, tentative, as if afraid. “Will you disappear again?”

Kaoru’s breath hitches when Rei’s hand covers his knuckles in this familiar warmth, this sensation so familiar it feels like salvation, and he shakes his head. 

“‘Do not say that I’ll depart tomorrow because even today…’”

Rei’s trembling. He’s shivering all over, not just because of the fading light of the sky, nor because of the cool chill of autumn, not even because of the unfamiliar incantation but, too, because of the way Kaoru’s looking at him, the way he’s looking at him now.

It’s like a promise. A confirmation of something left hanging. It’s desire that mirrors Rei’s own, because now they can be honest.

“Even today… I still arrive.’”

“Kao-kun,” Rei whispers, the nickname slipping out faster than he can register. Chills run through his arms at this icy familiarity, and Kaoru’s shaken out of his recitations, eyes blown wide. 

The silence between them speaks volumes. 

“I didn’t think I’d hear that from anyone ever again,” Kaoru finally chokes out, but he is not angry. Rather, he is smiling, his eyes crinkle at the corners, his face is aglow, and Rei can breathe. 

And when he pulls the chain of Rei’s swing closer (and Rei can feel every movement, every assertion, like a covenant, like a blessing), Rei closes his eyes, smiles against the freezing air, and they allow themselves to bask in the light of this new warmth, this new ignition in their hearts again. They meet each other halfway like they should’ve done all this time, like they should’ve done years ago, like they should’ve done always. Kaoru’s smiling against Rei’s mouth and Rei’s free hand has found itself in the hair at the back of Kaoru’s neck, his palm against his throat, Kaoru’s heartbeat echoing like a drumbeat throughout his body. 

They do not say anything. Nothing needs to be said, after all.  

“Here’s one! By any chance, is there a nickname you like to be called?”

He grins. “There is, but you’re not allowed to know it. It’s special.”

“Aw, you’re so selfish, Hakaze-san!”

When they stumble back home, the cold in their fingers and the chill in their cheeks, Kaoru stops Rei by the bedroom door, mentioning something he wants to show. Kaoru opens his suitcase and pulls out an old cardboard box, worn at the edges and dented in various places. Rei stands, hesitant, over him, washing as Kaoru pries the lid off and tips the box down. 

Tickets spilled out, and Rei’s hands tingle in shock as he recognizes them all. Tickets from his first solo concert, tickets from his later shows, tickets and tickets and tickets that speak volumes of an emptiness he’d questioned all these years.

“I’ve been with you all this time,” Kaoru mutters, face aflame. “I’ve never left you.”

“Then why didn’t you see me?” Rei whispers. He’s confused. His heart is wrecked, scattered like the tickets on the floor, and he picks them up in a frenzy, scanning their dates, recognising every one. It is so absurd to him, knowing that Kaoru had been so close all along, knowing that he had always been in the audience, even during the shows where Rei missed him most.

“I felt undeserving. I wanted to know if you would be successful without me, just as I’d predicted. I wanted to see you shine, like a star, at your brightest.”

Rei stills. Kaoru’s still not looking at him. Squatting down, Rei leans in and pulls Kaoru’s face towards him, close enough to see the fine lines of Kaoru’s lashes, close enough to see the tremble in his sweater where his heart hammers against his chest. His voice is low in his throat. “And did I?”

Kaoru releases a shaky breath. Brown eyes meet scarlet and he smiles, so gentle that it warms his heart, and this shared moment becomes memory. “Yes. I wouldn’t have left if you couldn’t.”

“One final question from Amy! Hakaze-san, what’s one thing you’d like to change about the world?”

“I think… I’d like it to be, if even just slightly, a bit more fair to some people.”

The final answer drags on for a beat too long before Kaoru turns, grinning and lifeless, to the camera. He and the interviewer finish off the video, and he raises his arm in a wave, smiles that princely smile, and the editing enshrouds him and he disappears. The music stops. The video ends. The subtitles fade, and the screen blacks out until a grey replay button shows on the screen.

Rei lets out a deep breath he didn’t know he was holding. Somewhere in the pit of his stomach, yearning aches. 

Kaoru had been so busy lately. As if inflicting some sort of punishment on Rei’s hiatus, the company has overworked Kaoru, sending him to multiple interviews a week across the country. Rei hasn’t seen him in almost two weeks. In the silence that Kaoru leaves him with, Rei has taken this time to properly look at their apartment, and he is astonished at just how empty it is.

There is fundamentally nothing of their own inside. Kaoru never had many things to begin with (and he never spent a penny on himself, either, all of which stems from a habit beaten into him by an unloving father), and Rei hoarded things only to shove them in boxes stowed under beds and tables. Without Kaoru here, the apartment is bland and empty and it enshrouds Rei in a loneliness he cannot bear. 

Especially now. He’s never known how much he hated being left alone until it was forced upon him. He realises too late that he can barely breathe.

What is he, even? Kaoru was out there carrying the weight for the both of them while he sulked in his body’s unforgivable despise like a mediocre man. He was unfit to be called Kaoru’s partner. He was nothing but a monstrous demon crawling beside Kaoru’s being, grabbing his ankles with claw-like fingers, slowing him down. 

Maybe he should just give it up.

His hands reach up to grab the strands of his hair. He opens his mouth and screams - the first sound he’s made in weeks. His voice comes out like scorched wallpaper, broken in shards and ripped in unbecoming patterns. First, he only comprehends his breathing. Then, he comprehends his pain. Finally, he comprehends the unbearable anguish.

In this ringing white noise, he hears a click that sounds like salvation.

The key turns in the lock and the door opens. Despite all things, Kaoru looks into the filthy room that houses a filthy man, hands on the doorknob, sees the interview still looping on Reis computer. He has heard Rei’s scream. In his chest, too, is the terrified beat of his heart. There are a thousand and one things he wishes to say, a thousand and one things he wishes he hadn’t done. 

But, if he has learned anything by now, it’s that time has never slowed its steadfast tread towards the future, and lessons learned are lessons learned. He can only love what he has done and despise what he hasn’t. 

“Rei,” he whispers, and he is home. The sight brings tears to his eyes. Rei looks up through matted hair, through the strangled webs, and breathes.

Staggering up, Rei whispers a greeting. “Ah. Kaoru. Forgive my unsightly appearance. Welcome back. You must be tired. I’m so sorry, let me make you something.”

“Rei.” And in a split second, Kaoru’s across the room and in his arms, wrapping around him in a tight embrace. He is suddenly beside him, all over him, arms around his neck, hands in his hair. He kisses Rei’s throat, the back of his neck, the line where his hair meets skin, his cheeks, nose, everything. His body trembles when he presses himself against Rei’s figure and Rei can smell the rain, the earth, the sunrise and how the world fades. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken up those interviews. I could’ve said no. I shouldn’t have left you here alone. Happy belated birthday. I’m sorry I wasn’t here. Happy birthday. I’m sorry.”

It is your birthday too, Kaoru.

Rei doesn’t even cry. He doesn’t have it in him. He only holds the other tighter, doesn’t say that ‘it’s okay’ because it isn’t, because he didn’t want to be left alone in the first place. But who can he blame? He can’t blame anyone. No one is to blame. And maybe that’s just the aftermath of things. Sometimes, all the time, he doesn’t get to decide.

The rain pours in its heavy grief outside their windowpanes. Rei thinks the sky, too, is crying for him.

This is how we heal.
I will kiss you like forgiveness. You
will hold me like I’m hope. Our arms
will bandage and we will press promises
between us like flowers in a book…

…And I will not be afraid
of your scars.

- Clementine von Radics, “Mouthful of Forevers”

Chapter Text

+

Our love came

unannounced in the middle of the night.

Our love came when we’d given up

on asking love to come. I think

that has to be part

of its miracle.

— Clementine von Radics, “Mouthful of Forevers”

+

He is twenty-two, and he is in Hong Kong.

It is a city they’ve only visited once, back when UNDEAD still consisted of the four of them and Adonis and Koga had no long-term plans apart from charming the hearts of everyone they performed for. It was the December of Adonis and Koga’s senior year and they were popular then, all popular enough to hold a tour around Asia. Hong Kong had been the fourth stop on their ambitious list, after the saturated neons of Yokohama, the glistening blues of Osaka, and the star-swept evenings of Seoul. They’d only stayed in the bustle of Hong Kong for two days, and Rei had gotten so terribly sick on their first day that they didn’t have many chances to tour the city at all. They were headed for Taipei next, and Kaoru couldn’t afford Rei’s sickness to follow them across the ocean.

“I’ll take care of him,” Kaoru had said to the two younger boys as they all crowded in Kaoru and Rei’s shared hotel room, gazing at the sleeping man anxiously. “You two go out and have fun. Send some pictures back for us.”

“Are you sure?” Adonis had asked, walking closer to Rei’s bed tentatively. He reached out and wrapped a hand around Rei’s arm, stroking his wrist with his thumb. Rei stirs beneath him. “Sakuma-san looks really unwell. I can stay behind. You and Koga can-“

“We can have this debate for hours,” Kaoru interrupted, keeping his eyes on Rei’s sleeping form, “and we will get nowhere. It’s okay. Rei and I can always visit again, anyway. Go and sightsee, the two of you. Go drop by Victoria Harbour, we’re quite close anyway.”

“Are you-“

“Go!”

“Okay, okay!” Adonis stepped back and motioned for Koga to leave. The other boy got up from his chair obediently, and the two of them bowed slightly in Kaoru’s direction to indicate their departure. 

“Get well soon,” they said to Rei before they turned, grabbing their bags and preparing to head out.

They were crowded at the door, putting their shoes on, when Kaoru turned and called, “And bring some egg tarts back for us!”

“Okay!” Koga shouted back, and the two of them slipped out of the hotel room, the door clicking shut softly behind them.

Hearing their departure, Rei opened his eyes, gazing at the door. Kaoru scoffed. 

“They left?” Rei croaked out. His eyes widened at the state of his voice. “Oh- oh, god. My voice. How unsightly. Can I have some water, Kao-kun?”

Kaoru leaned over to the bedside table and handed Rei a bottle, sighing. “Pretending you’re asleep so you can hear them worry about you? Classic move, Sakuma.”

Rei grinned, leaning forward so he can sit up. He took the bottle gratefully, wincing as he tried to unscrew the cap. “I’m simply taking advantage of the situation.”

He tipped his head back and took a long gulp, opening his eyes and looking down when Kaoru made no noise. Rei took in the sight of Kaoru standing beside his bed, arms crossed, a tight expression on his face, and said, “You didn’t have to stay with me.”

Kaoru glared at him. “Nonsense. You know it. You would’ve done the same for me.”

“I could’ve kept myself easily entertained. We got a nice hotel. The TV here has a lot of channels.”

“Can you speak Cantonese?”

“I can learn.”

“In, what, four hours?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“You’re ridiculous. Of course I’d stay.”

But Kaoru was still barely grown up, still more teenager than adult, and Rei knew that he was harbouring an increasing amount of regrets as he stayed in this stuffy hotel room with him. The impatient tapping of his foot, muffled on the carpeted floor, as well as the constant shifts in posture, were dead giveaways, plain as day. “What’s wrong, Kao-kun?”

Kaoru sat down on the bed, sighing as he flopped onto his back. He stared at the reflection of the lights on the ceiling, concealed by the plaster they were tucked behind, and brought his arms behind his head. Rei tapped his waist with his foot through the blanket. “Rei. Know that I’m not blaming you or whatever.”

“Of course.”

“But I would’ve liked to see Victoria Harbour as well. The sea and the lights by the harbour at Christmastime… doesn’t that sound beautiful? Wouldn’t you want to see that, too?”

Rei hums in response, and Kaoru hears clicking from his phone as he types something in. Rei nudges him with his feet again, and Kaoru looks up to the phone held over his head, only to be greeted by overly edited photos of Victoria Harbour flashing across Rei’s Google search. Some were of the harbour during the summertime, bright blues and whites flooding the sea and sky. Some were taken during the evening, the contrast enhanced to bring out the yellow lights and beams from the buildings. Others, snuggled in-between the tourist-targeted edits, were of the harbour taken on an ordinary day from someone’s phone, the blurry pictures amidst the fog lacking the edited glow the others sported. Failing to control himself and finding the pictures absolutely absurd, Kaoru laughed. 

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Rei grinned as Kaoru reached up to swipe at his phone, missing and landing unceremoniously on Rei’s legs. They morphed into an entanglement of limbs, arms both their own and the other’s, and both ignored the rapid beating of their hearts and the tingling in their fingers that indicated they were something more.

If only he’d addressed it back then. If only he’d addressed it earlier.

Now he is twenty-two, and he is in Hong Kong. The events from four years ago seep through the webs of his mind like sand. He is scared he will forget.

Forget what, exactly? Adonis and Koga’s ecstatic smiles when they performed without regrets, when they were still idols? Rei’s goofy attempts to cheer him up in that lonely hotel room, despite the headache that raged like an unforgiving war in his own head? The feeling of Rei’s heartbeat under his hands? The feeling of his own heartbeat in his throat?

“Hey,” he taps the shoulder of a stranger crossing the street next to him. The man turns, arches an eyebrow as he regards Kaoru’s hesitant hand. “I’m sorry. Do you know how to get to the seaside?”

“The seaside?” The man frowns. “It’s a bit of a walk. Are you sure-?”

“Yes, yes. Please. How do I get to Victoria Harbour?”

The man sighs and takes a quick glance around the street before pointing down a path leading toward a park. “Follow the street beside Kowloon Park and just keep walking forward. It’s a fifteen-minute walk. That okay?”

“Yes,” Kaoru bows, adjusting the strap of his bag on his shoulders. “Yes, that’s okay. Thank you. Thank you.”

He sprints down the road, darting between the Friday afternoon crowds, and ignores the anticipatory thumping on his chest. The summer sun blares down at him, paints the expanse of his forehead with a shiny sheen of sweat, and he pulls at the front of his shirt, cooling himself off. He sees couples holding hands, families and children buying treats from ice cream trucks, and schoolchildren still in their uniforms sharing earbuds as they walk down the street. The dappled shadows under the trees paint the city in a pattern of blues and dark greens, vibrant beside the red taxis and rusty gold buses. The city itself, with its busy air and its crowds, almost swallows him up completely until he’s but an insignificant dot amidst thousands of others, a stray leaf on the ground picked up by the feet of strangers and moved far from home. 

After all, no one knows him here. He is twenty-two and he is in Hong Kong and he is alone. His loneliness seeps like a tidal wave through his body, coursing through until he comes up for air in a frenzy, barely afloat. 

+

“What is this for?” 

They’re lying with their backs on the carpet, Kaoru holding up a piece of sheet music he’d pulled from Rei’s bag, Rei having jammed the zipper shut when he left the hospital in a hurry. The paper is crumpled, a haphazard collage of folds and lines that intersect the grey graphite on white canvas. Rei looks over, recognises the crossed-out scribbles of notes and lyrics that make up the second verse of his and Eichi’s song, and cringes.

“My last concert,” he answers. Kaoru hums in response, a gentle sound from the back of his throat that reminds Rei of running water. “We hope to have it ready by late December when I’d be performing my second last show. It’s not quite done yet. It’s sort of on me as well.”

“That’s in a little over a month,” Kaoru muses. “Will you be able to get it ready by then, with production and recording and everything?”

“It’s a bit ambitious,” Rei admits, “but I really don’t have much left for me these few months. I’ll be wrapping up my contract, preparing to work full-time at the vinyl store, so… I might as well.”

“You can do it,” Kaoru says, and his voice is much softer. Rei tilts his head to hear him better. “You always could. I never worried about you.”

Rei glances over at the box of tickets still sitting on the floor of his bedroom beside them and swallows the wave of something akin to affection rising in his throat. “Well… thank you.”

“Rei,” Kaoru starts, and Rei looks over in time to see the expression on the other’s face before it disappears. It lasts for only a split second but Kaoru’s gaze is so soft, his eyes are so kind, and the adoration in his smile is so clear and blatant that it snatches Rei’s breath from him in an instant. It’s everything he has ever wanted to see, and he locks that image into his heart, a memory he doesn’t want to lose. “Will you really give this up?”

Rei turns to look at the music Kaoru still holds up in the air, at the familiar black dots penciled in amidst the lines. His heart aches as he recalls his humiliating act in front of his manager, at how desperate he was to keep this thing in his grasp. He keeps his face impassive. “I have to.”

“Do you want to? Really want to, even without me in the picture? Do you love music enough to fight against that?”

He pauses because he’s never been asked that before and now, with his heart out in the open, he doesn’t know how to respond. He doesn’t have a ready-made answer in hand because he, too, has been avoiding a question like this ever since he’d formed UNDEAD.

A part of him knew the answer to it. That same part of him rejected the answer since he’d discovered it.

The answer he would have to give - it would debunk all the love he’d thought he had for music for years. For music to be so intimately connected to someone else, a person - it would mean that maybe his love for music was never one that could afford a solo career. It would mean that being by himself was not enough.

If that was so, then what had he been doing these past six years?

Because, and Rei knows, it’s always been Rei and Kaoru, Kaoru and Rei ever since they were children. Kaoru learned the guitar first, brought the instrument to him first, and Kaoru sang for him first. Music was Kaoru’s before it was his, and then it became theirs together, never theirs alone. Wherever he went, Rei was always close behind.

Music was, at its very core, never for Rei to love on his own. 

And maybe has regrets about that, too.

“Without you for the past six years, I’d tried to learn to love music for myself,” Rei answers softly. “I’d tried to accustom my music to my pace.”

“But you didn’t answer my question. Do you want to give it up? Even if I was never in the picture, could you give it up?”

I could. I don’t want to admit it but I could.

“Do you want the nice answer or the truth?”

“Always the truth.”

“Of course I would give it up. I love music enough to not need it for the commercial success expected of me. Truth be told, my ambitions were never as high as yours. Besides, you were the one who taught me everything I know,” Rei says matter-of-factly, much in contrast to Kaoru’s stunned expression. It comes out easier than he’d imagined. “I would give it up because I wouldn’t know a thing about it without you. In the end, you make up a fundamental part of it.” 

“How can you say that? Did these past six years mean nothing to you?”

“It’s because it meant everything to me that I can let it fade, you know. I’ve… I’ve learned much since you came back. I don’t think I need a longer career to be happy.”

“Don’t say that.” The panicked edge in Kaoru’s voice draws Rei’s attention to his frenzy. He realises the other’s hands are shaking as he holds the music above their heads. “Don’t discard all your hard work for nothing.”

“I worked hard. I love music. I still love music. But maybe it’s just not everything to me. To worry about my retirement to this degree… such is a useless burden on my memory, isn’t it?”

“Won’t you miss it?”

Rei looks at the music suspended in the air, looks at Kaoru’s wrists as he holds it above them, and thinks of cheering in the audience, of flashlights moving as his ballads played. He thinks of the thrill, of the nervousness before the stage, and he thinks of the adoration of people who don’t know him but love him all the same. 

There is never a clean farewell. Someone always loses something.

“Maybe so.”

There’s a reason why every dream ends, eventually. 

He is twenty-seven, and he is in Nagoya.

Rei is performing tonight for a small crowd. Nagoya was never a place the two of them visited when they toured but it held a special spot in Rei’s heart, having known some of their dearest, earliest fans from the city. If it wasn’t for that one tweet he swiped across after Rei’s last performance in Osaka, he wouldn’t have known that there was a performance in Nagoya at all.

The venue is not big. They didn’t even sell tickets. It’s in a small underground bar where many newly budding artists perform, and it’s dark enough that Kaoru can hide at the back and still manage a good view.

So that’s what he does. Shoving his hands deep into his coat pockets, he stands by the entrance, waiting as Rei sets up his guitar on the small stage. His fans have already crowded the stage, waving banners and glow sticks as they cheered for him, and the sight brings a soft smile to Kaoru’s face.

How familiar it truly is. There’s a dull ache in his chest but he’s long since learned to push it away, treat it as secondary to his own heartbeat. Just watching Rei on the stage, singing his heart out, makes him happy enough.

“Good evening, Nagoya,” Rei says to a crowd of no more than fifty. The audience cheers. “How has everyone been?

Kaoru drowns out the noise, focusing only on Rei’s features as he greets his audience under the dim lights. Now that the venue is more intimate, Kaoru’s able to get a closer look at the other’s face not hidden behind mass photo editing and makeup. He looks much older, laughter lines starting to etch in around his eyes, and the bones on his face are sharper, losing their youthful roundness he’d been accustomed to growing up.

Under the fluorescent lights, Kaoru thinks that Rei looks like a man, like someone who had aged without his company. 

He is almost nostalgic. He is almost sad.

The strumming of the guitar brings Kaoru out of his reverie, and he focuses on the dance Rei’s fingers make across the wooden neck. Rei clears his throat, starts the first bar of his acoustic set, and sings.

His heavy voice, echoing through the small bar, loses its brightness that the arenas had carried. Instead, Rei’s voice wraps itself around Kaoru like a warm hug, husky and dull behind a cheap, old mic, sounding just like he once did back when they were still trainees singing in UNDEAD’s old practice room. Kaoru’s eyes sting with sudden tears. 

The songs trickle by like old memories, raindrops against a dusty earth, and Kaoru clutches his arms tightly to prevent the tears from spilling.

It’s when Rei announces his last song that Kaoru's breath hitches.

“This is ‘Brand New Stars’, from back when I was a student,” Rei says, laughing slightly as he shuffles the music on the stand in front of him. “Sorry. I need the lyrics for this one. I haven’t sung it in a long time. Consider this a scuffed treat for you guys only.”

He gestures to the musicians behind him, and the drummer and bassist quietly shuffle off the stage. He adjusts the guitar around his neck, sighs as he scans the lyrics. “I’m warning you guys. It’s different from what I usually sing.”

Testing the first chord, Rei grabs the starting note. A distant voice in Kaoru’s head recognises the start of the tune instantly.

“Sorry if it sounds empty,” Rei adds before he starts. “I’ve never sung it alone.”

Kaoru feels so pathetic.

Rei starts the song, and the emptiness of the guitar and his voice rip from Kaoru a violent wave of nostalgia and bitter regret. He knows the song like the back of his hand, he knows every single note because they’d practiced it together for months. 

Yume ga kasanaru,

His fingernails dig through his coat so deeply they hurt. He leaves crescent moons upon the pale skin of his arms, tarnished like the moon amidst the dark evening sky.

Uta ga umameru,

A dull ache starts up at the back of his head, warnings of a headache that he will soon sport after he leaves. 

Hibikasetai ne Brand New Beat

Right. He’d ad-libbed this part when they sang it together. He remembers those notes clear as day.

Mirai o sagashi ni ikun da

He squeezes his eyes shut, and it’s only then that he realises he’s crying.

Atarashii suteeji e

He is twenty-seven, and he is in Nagoya. He is weak, because he still has not gotten over the ghosts of his past. He is asking himself, what went wrong? What went wrong? Why does it still hurt, even after all these years?

Rei opens his eyes to a darkened room.

He blinks a couple of times, lets the light from the apartments outside his window filter into the cracks of his eyes, and tries to gather his bearings. 

He’s lying on his back on the floor of his room. Someone has tucked a pillow under his head. His arms are sprawled across the carpet, his ring finger on his left hand touching the smooth glossy surface of one of Kaoru’s tickets. His mouth feels like someone had sucked all the air and moisture out of it.

He turns his head to the side, sees that it’s almost two in the morning. The evening is folding in on itself, the darkness only getting darker, and he has to blink a couple of times and adjust to see the room completely. That’s when he notices the body beside him.

Kaoru’s sitting up, back towards him, face turned towards the window. He’s thrown a black hoodie over himself, hood down, enshrouding him in a dark mass that stands out like memory against the passing of time. His brown hair glows rose gold under the moonlight and it is the only thing Rei recognises in his haze. He rocks slowly, backwards, forwards, and his fingers tap an unfamiliar pattern on his kneecaps.

“Kaoru,” Rei whispers.

The other doesn’t say anything.

“Kaoru,” Rei tries again. His heart yearns, stretches, tries to hook itself onto something tangible, but even the concept of grounding seems to be unfathomable underneath the weight of the other’s desperation that sends a cold chill through the wires of his heart. “Kaoru.”

Silence.

That’s when Rei knows that he’s in another of those moments again, those fleeting moments that seemingly last years where Kaoru’s so deep in his head that Rei can’t pull him out. It was him on Rei’s bed that second evening, asking Rei all those questions Rei didn’t understand. It is him now, it is him not knowing, it is him in the world of the tainted sublime.

And he’s watching as Kaoru goes through that again. Helpless, he can do nothing, and he hates it.

“I love you,” Kaoru croaks out, and his voice is drowning in pain. “God damn it, I love you, though.”

“What?” Rei forces himself to sit up, pushes away the fear that seizes him in its unforgiving chokehold, the fear that Kaoru is drowning, drowning in rain, drowning in the cerulean tint of his nightmares all over again. He moves closer until he’s right behind Kaoru, until he can see the ends of his hair lit up by the moonlight like the grass underneath the feet of angels, and he thinks that Kaoru is sublime. Unreachable. Detached. “What are you saying, Kaoru?”

“It’s so hard,” Kaoru mutters, and he sounds like he carries the chorus of all the pains in this universe. “It’s so hard when I don’t know anything myself. How am I supposed to protect you? Keep you safe? I am so weak.”

Rei sits silently, watches Kaoru reaches up to swipe at his eyes. He wonders how many times he’s seen the other cry since they’d met. He wonders how many times the other has cried by himself in the years they were apart. He wonders what tears can even mean at this point.

“I’m so lonely. I look at myself and I wonder, how did it even get to this point? How could I have let it get to this point? If I’d done something different, would it have been better- ah, no. It wouldn’t. It would always lead to this. There would always have to be something between us.”

Rei hears the cacophony of harmonies in the tremors of Kaoru’s voice, hears the drifting waves of all his pain, and he finds grounding in the unstable, finds home in the tear tracks of the man he loves.

“I’m so lonely,” Kaoru’s voice drops to a whisper. Illuminated by the light from the apartments outside, his tears travel like the Milky Way down his cheeks, painting his face the expanse of the universe. He is a star in Rei’s eyes. He has always been a star. “You can’t save me. Even I can’t save myself. I’m so lonely.”

Rei moves onto his knees and circles his arms around Kaoru’s neck from behind. He feels the other tremble in the vibrations of only someone like Atlas himself could tremble, someone who had carried the weight of the world for a lifetime without relief. He strokes Kaoru’s shoulders with his palm, pulls Kaoru’s head against his chest, and ignores the tears that fall on his forearms like diamonds on cloth. He drops his face into Kaoru’s hair, smells sweat and tears and pain, and says nothing.

“I’m so lonely. I’m so lonely. I’m so lonely.”

Why can’t you tell me everything?

“I’m so lonely. I’m so lonely. I’m so lonely.”

Kaoru eventually falls asleep, his head leaning against the crook of Rei’s elbow. His breathing softens, his face serene under the waning moonlight, and Rei pulls him onto the bed, covering him with the sheets in silence. Remembering that Kaoru has to work tomorrow, he sets an alarm on his phone before getting ready for bed. 

When he walks out of the bathroom, towelling his hair dry, he sees that Kaoru had moved in his sleep. The comforter is on the floor. Laying on his side, his arms are tight around his stomach, head tilted down so his chin is almost touching his chest. The position is scarily protective, tightly closed in, and it lodges something deep at the back of Rei’s throat. He moves over and pulls the blanket over Kaoru again. Reaching up, he moves Kaoru’s bangs out of his face, fingers ghosting the surface of Kaoru’s skin, and he catches a glimpse of a white line beside his eyebrow, the scar from an old cut that never healed properly. He exhales softly. 

Because what is loneliness, right? Estrangement, isolation, rejection - what is it, if not all these at once?

And he recalls what Kaoru said, about protecting him and about being a man unable to be saved. He wonders if he’s finally starting to understand the intricacies that make up the love within the human heart.

In this world between them, there is still so much that Rei doesn’t know.

He is twenty-four, and he is in Athens.

He’s sitting on the bed of a man he’d just met that evening. He feels the lingering pain of hands that had clutched him too hard, of nails that scratched the expanse of his back too deeply. At the base of his neck is a throbbing pain - the other had held him by the chain of his necklace, and Kaoru had slapped him when his hands had closed around the moon pendant and pulled. The man’s eyes were silver when they glared back at him incredulously - or were they blue? Were they green? He can’t seem to remember, even after having just seen him leave the room.

He hears something slam shut in the bathroom and he jolts. Startled by the sudden noise, he drops the shirt he’d been holding. It lands on his knees, whispers its farewell, and slides to the ground. Shaking, he bends down, winces as his back stretches, and picks it back up as the man in the bathroom curses. He clutches the fabric of his sleeves and counts to ten.

“I don’t understand you.”

Kaoru looks up to meet the eyes of the tall stranger who took him home - ah, yes. His eyes were blue. Illuminated by the midnight moon, they look almost white. His body, translucent in the dark room, glows like paper, and his hair shines ashen even at the roots. He looks surreal, like some sort of angel come for atonement.

He thinks of when he first saw him at the bar only a couple hours earlier, at how his body had been bathed in liquid gold, and ponders how easily people can change in the course of one evening. With the angel the colour of guilt standing before him, he realises he’s never missed the colour red more in his entire life.

“You let me kiss you. You let me touch you. You’ve got me thinking you were interested this entire evening. You let me do all those things in the club, then refuse me the second we get back here.” The man’s eyes narrow. “What’s your deal?”

“I’m sorry,” Kaoru mutters. His throat constricts, and he doesn’t have it in him to say any more. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry. Do you lead everyone else you meet on like this?”

Dark hair and red eyes flash through his mind and he wants to die. “Maybe. I don’t know. You’re not the first one.”

“Do you like wasting other people’s time?”

He didn’t mean to. The man wasn’t even cruel. He was proper, put together, clean and respectful. It was all his fault, all his fault that he couldn’t get a certain person out of his mind. 

He thinks he’s been ruined for life.

Kaoru stands up, tosses the unbuttoned shirt over his head, and picks up the bag he’d cast aside on the couch. He doesn’t look the other man in the eyes again as he heads for the door.

The man clicks his tongue and calls after him. “You’re so sick.”

Kaoru’s hands shake as he turns the doorknob. He hitches the bag higher on his shoulder and walks away into the night.

When the morning alarm blares, Rei awakens to Kaoru already sitting upright on the bed, eyes staring blankly at the wall. Groggily shuffling over, Rei sets his phone on the table and ruffles Kaoru’s hair. He draws his hand back almost instantly. 

“Good morning.”

Kaoru blinks up at him. “You didn’t have to set an alarm for me.”

“It’s okay. I have plans today anyway.”

“No vinyl shop today?”

“Not today.”

They talk as if nothing had transpired between them last night. Just as they were at eighteen, they walk around each other and what is obvious in tangence. They wait for the other to address the elephant in the room, knowing that the other expects the same.

In the end, nothing is said.

“I can’t send you off this morning.”

“That’s all right. I was planning to take the train, anyway.”

“Should I pick you up?”

“I’m going to visit my dad before coming back. There’s no need to. Thank you for the offer, though.”

“Alright. Is there anything you’re craving tonight?”

“Not particularly. Maybe something will come up later.”

“It usually does.”

Rei ignores the redness around Kaoru’s eyes. Similarly, Kaoru ignores the dark circles underneath Rei’s.

“What time should I expect you tonight?”

“Same time as usual.”

“Okay.”

Kaoru gets up, and Rei steps into the kitchen to prepare breakfast. They say nothing more. It sends Rei’s skin crawling, because just as he’d thought they’d finally gotten somewhere Kaoru was closing himself off again. 

They eat in silence. They clean up in silence. It’s only when Kaoru’s pulling a scarf out of the wardrobe, fixing it in front of the mirror in the bathroom, that Rei finally breaks the silence.

“Why were you crying last night?”

Kaoru stills, and Rei thinks that maybe that wasn’t the best question to start off with. But what’s said is said. He’d rather not beat around the bushes any longer.

“It’s not of concern,” Kaoru mutters. He unravels the scarf, winds it back around his neck again. “You don’t need to worry.”

“That’s not a command I can follow. Please tell me why you were crying at two in the morning.”

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing. Please stop running away.”

“Sorry. I will try.”

But Kaoru’s voice drops somewhere monotonous, somewhere cold, and Rei senses that they’re at opposite sides of a ravine, toeing the edges with their words. Soon enough, someone will slip, and the warning bells blare in Rei’s head to stop.

But he’s so sick of it. He’s so sick of being kept in the dark, being kept in a place unreachable, and maybe his way of showing concern has always been slightly intrusive. Maybe he’s just not used to being kept at arm’s length by his own best friend, no matter how many years have come between them.

“Please tell me,” Rei steps closer. He sees Kaoru’s hands still on the scarf, his fingers frozen mid-adjustment. The other is pointedly not looking at him. “Please don’t push me away.”

“I’m sorry.” 

It’s not a reassurance at all. It’s plain rejection. Kaoru just keeps apologising and apologising and nothing will change. Rei feels like falling through a world with no bottom, suspended in this eternal descent, and the tightness in his chest constricts and suddenly he’s desperate. This anxiety, this frustration - it’s too much. It’s always been too much. He thought they’d finally gotten somewhere last night only to come back in this loop. He doesn’t want to not understand any longer.

“Will I never understand you?” Rei demands. He sees the distance between them, so jarring against the white walls of his apartment, and he wants to do nothing but run close to Kaoru and grab him and shake some sense into him. “Will there be parts of you that I’ll never understand?”

“You can’t force me to say these things to you, not when I’ve never told anyone else.” Kaoru bites back. His head is turned away, refusing to meet Rei’s stare, and Rei feels anxiety bubble up in his chest like a bottle of soda shaken to hell and back. He wants to scream. He wants all this to go away. “Why don’t you get it? I’m not ready to tell you these things yet!”

“I’ve known you for so long!”

“So what? So what?” And Kaoru’s suddenly right in his face, right in front of him. His eyes are wide with desperation and anger, with a sort of frustration that Rei, damn himself, has never seen in his life. It’s unreadable, unfamiliar, yet blatantly obvious in its warning signs. It scares him. “So what if I’ve known you for so long? Can you help me? Can you give me the salvation I need?”

“I can try-“

“No!” And Kaoru takes one step back, and Rei feels the ravine between them only crack wider. “No, you can’t try. You can’t do anything. So let me handle this myself. You have… always been so demanding. You have always treated the rest of us like children to be taken care of.”

Rei opens his mouth to argue, but Kaoru’s not done. “It wasn’t a bad thing back then. I’m sure Adonis and Koga felt safe with you. I did, too. But I don’t need that now. I love you, okay? That much I am certain. I love you so much. How I’d wanted these emotions to go away all these years because I’d only hold you back, only create danger, but it seems that even my own body hates me!”

“So why can’t you love me properly? Why can’t we go back to how it was? I don’t get it!” And Rei truly, truly doesn’t understand at all. There are simply too many holes in Kaoru’s life that he can’t patch, and maybe he’s still naive for thinking that he can be the one to sew them all back together. Perhaps this saviour complex he’d carried all throughout his life is coming back to bite him in the ass, because Kaoru’s keeping him at a distance he can’t overcome, and he realises while flailing in empty air that closing this distance isn’t up to him anymore.

“What is the point?” Kaoru’s voice drops to a low whisper. His body slumps forward, and he looks defeated, exhausted, tired. “What even is the point, when all that could come out of this is tragedy? There is no point. You’re not the hero or whatever the hell you think you are. Some things aren’t your responsibility to fix.”

“We were good before. We were so good. Why-“

“It wasn’t us,” Kaoru bites his lip. His eyes are everywhere. His hands are shaking. The apartment suddenly feels so much colder. “It was never us. If it was, don’t you think we would’ve solved it by now?”

“So what is it?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“There you go again, keeping things to yourself! I just want to help us.”

“You’re not helping! Interrogating me, bugging me - God damn it, you’re not helping at all!” Kaoru shouts, and it’s the first time he’s raised his voice since he’d gotten back. Stunned, Rei’s mouth snaps shut and he takes a step backward out of surprise. Kaoru sees it. Kaoru’s face morphs from anger to a terrible, terrible guilt. He wears an expression like he wants to die.

“I’m sorry. I ruined our morning,” Kaoru whispers, more to himself than to Rei, before picking up his bag and walking out of the apartment. “Don’t wait for me tonight.”

The door slams shut behind him, and Rei feels like he’s back at square one, understanding absolutely nothing again.

“Stop.”

Rei’s hands still on his guitar, slapping a palm over the trembling strings. His voice cuts from the note he’d been singing and the melody drops, ugly and awful, from its suspense in the air. He hears Eichi’s disapproval in the command and he doesn’t look up because he knows.

“The past phrase was entirely flat. How you couldn’t sing a single note in tune is beyond me. You missed the jump from the B flat to the F and sang a D instead, but it might as well have been a D sharp for all it sounded like. The melody was wrong as well, and we’d just gone over it before you started. Your strumming is off, your rhythms are all off, everything is off,” Eichi snaps, and Rei tightens his grip on the guitar as the words flood over him in a shameful wave. He knows, all this he already knows.

He hears shuffling across the room, and Eichi stands up from his bed to walk closer to Rei. He sees the innocent, fuzzy brown teddy bears on Eichi’s slippers come into view as the other treads over, then sees as one foot rises to tap the floor in a familiar, irritated fashion.

“What has been on your heart?” Eichi asks from above him, but the cold edge in his voice betrays all the warmth the words can possibly carry. His feet start tapping an impatient rhythm on the floor, his growing frustration flooding uncontrollably out of his body in a manner so unfamiliar to Rei, so far from the composed way Eichi had once held himself. “There’s something bothering you and we need to resolve it before we continue. It’s messing everything up. We’re getting nowhere at this pace, not with you screwing up every verse we’d just written.” 

“I don’t know,” Rei says in reply. He’s staring coldly at the hard hospital floor. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know.” It comes out not as a question but as a statement, an ironic lilt teasing the words. It’s spit out in a disbelieving voice, the edges of the statement curling like flames around Rei’s throat. “What don’t you know, Sakuma?”

“He’s so detached, Eichi, and I don’t know what to do.”

“Who’s detached?”

“Kaoru. We fought this morning. I think it was my fault- no, I do not think. I know it was my fault.”

The tapping stops. Rei looks up to meet eyes wide in disbelief, round like saucers, round like the surface of the moon.

And he feels sick himself, seeing the way Eichi reacts to such news. It leaves anguish the size of a crater in the pit of his stomach, like the manifestation of his guilt in its most vulnerable form that eats him up from the inside. It’s treading the lines of his deepest insecurities, leads him to dig the pads of his fingers into the strings of the guitar, pulling back to reveal haunting red lines. 

I’m sorry, too. I’m sorry.

“You fought,” Eichi repeats, coughing around a hanging mouth, composing himself as quickly as his shock came. “Okay. He’s only been with you for, what, five days? You’re messing with me right now.”

“I’m not. You can ask Kanata. I said and did something wrong and I think we’re back to square one.”

“How can you fuck up so fast-?”

“I’m losing myself, you know,” Rei interrupts, heaves it out with his next breath, and the insult falls from Eichi’s lips. The other watches him, freezes them in their eye contact, before sighing softly, his shoulders moving with the exhalation of his breath. The other shuffles over to a chair across the room and sits down, crossing his legs and giving Rei his full attention as Rei continues. “I… we kissed last night. He was honest with me, if even for just a little. He’s not going to leave. But this morning we didn’t talk much at all until I interrogated him too far. I’m avoiding him, and I think he’s avoiding me as well. I don’t know what to do. I want to know what he’s hiding from me. He’s hiding so many things, but I don’t know what they are. And it disturbs me because I can’t help him and I just want him to be okay, I just want him to be better because I care about him.”

“It’s this problem again,” Eichi whispers. 

Rei’s gaze flickers over to him. “What do you mean?”

“If there is one thing you’ve never understood, Rei, it’s that no one is ever entitled to tell you anything.” Eichi leans back in the chair and pulls his legs up to the seat. Curling in on himself, he meets Rei’s gaze with a steady stare, and Rei feels scrutinised under the gaze of someone who knows him better than himself. “You’re in some sort of self-imposed crisis because you think Kaoru’s troubles are yours to share. They’re not.”

“How could they not be? I never want him to suffer on his own. He knows that. He knows that he doesn’t have to hide anything, he knows that I’ll do my best to help him, he’s my-“

“He can be your partner, lover, anything and whatever the hell you want him to be, and he will still not be entitled to tell you anything,” Eichi interrupts. “People are not yours. Their hearts and their minds aren’t yours to pry into. Of course he knows that he doesn’t have to hide anything. You grew up together, after all, which makes the reason why he’s so quiet all the more important. If he chooses not to tell you, you whom he has known his entire life, then it’s clearly something important to him that he needs to solve alone. You have no right to force him to say any more than he is ready to.” 

It’s a slap to the face, really, no matter how many times he’s heard these things from Eichi or from Kaoru himself. It is truly just the verbal manifestation of his greatest weakness, something innate that he struggles to control. All this time he’d been tangled up in his own web of lies that make up the rules of a world no one else lives in. Maybe he needs to understand the scope of the situation now. Maybe he’s still trying to understand. Maybe he never will.

“Rei,” Eichi says, softer now. His eyes crinkle at the corners as his frustration fades. “You need to know that not everyone wears their hearts on their sleeves. It’s not so easy being vulnerable to other people. I admire that about you, but not everyone can do the same. You know Kaoru is like that, so respect his space, would you?” 

“In all honesty, I just don’t want to lose him again,” Rei admits, and it’s a confession squeezed out of the darkest, most bitter edges of his heart. It feels like weakness. It feels like the part of him that’s lacking, a projection of his care that ended up being too much. “I’m scared that I’ll do the wrong thing and he will run away. I’ve already done the wrong thing. He has already run away. He is so close to me now, so close that I can touch him every single day, and yet I feel like I’m holding on to nothing but a mirage. He’s so far away. I feel like I’m holding onto mist, fog, like I’m holding onto memory. Maybe tomorrow I will wake up and none of this will be real. Maybe I am just so in delusion with myself that I’ve conceived a world of lies.”

“You’re thinking too far,” Eichi interrupts and Rei pauses, still knee-deep in his insecurity poured out on the floor, thick like tar. “You always think too far. Stop worrying about what has already happened. Go home. Greet him. Isn’t his birthday - and yours - a week from now? Ask him what he wants for dessert tonight when you stop by the supermarket and stop running away. He’s back for a reason, isn’t he? Whatever you do, don’t pry it out of him. When someone needs your help, they’ll let it be known.” 

“You make it sound so easy. You make it sound like it’s all plausible.”

“Isn’t it?” Eichi asks easily and Rei stares at the ground because it is. Why can’t he just trust Kaoru, let time take its process? After all, he didn’t even know why Kaoru was back. He knew nothing, yet was worrying about everything as if he could do something. Kaoru’s battles weren’t even Rei’s own to fight, yet he keeps forcing the other one to reveal perhaps what has been disturbing him the greatest all this time.

“You’re right,” Rei says softly. “It’s plausible. I’m just fooling myself.”

“Exactly. It’s been this all along.”

Rei stands up and walks over to his guitar case, sliding his guitar inside. He starts packing up at record speed, hastily shoving sheet music and pencils into the pockets of his bag. 

“And… if you can say all these concerns so easily to me, why not say it to him directly? It is that simple.” Eichi yawns and stretches his arms above his head, before rocking himself off his chair and walking back to his bed. He pats Rei’s arm on the way back as a farewell. “I’m going to rest now. Don’t you dare come tomorrow. Don’t come for those two days next week, either. You should spend your birthdays together.”

“Then I’ll do that. See you soon, then.”

He’s far more hopeful when he leaves the hospital, turning down the street for the drive home. He feels liberated, his body a lot lighter, his face a lot brighter. He pulls out his phone and prepares to text Kaoru, then decides that he wants to give him a surprise and tucks his phone away. He knows Kaoru’s favourite dessert, anyway. He wonders what they should do for their birthday. 

Yet, on his way back, he sees a familiar figure outside of the train station, on the exit on the street opposite the Foo Birds. He recognises the messy brown hair, recognises those brown eyes that look up when he hears the sounds of the street and starts walking towards the downtown. At the red light, the other barely glances at the cars before hurrying across the street, clutching his bag tightly with one hand. Confused, Rei watches him go, wondering why he’s getting off here-

The light turns green, and Rei drives away.

He is twenty-three, and he is in Chicago.

The fumes of the city rise in languid waves, a sort of greeting and farewell that intertwines itself into the hazy backdrop of easily forgotten memories. The world around him moves like glue, a contrast to the hustle and bustle he’d immersed himself in just that morning. People seem half-alive, hands barely touching hands and words spoken without intention. The lights on the street flicker, releasing a low hum that grows softer and softer the longer Kaoru stays, and he glanced up at the lights above him, wondering how on earth he ended up here.

He’s almost black-out drunk, his head pillowed on the arm he slings across the tabletop. He stares out in a straight line dully, comprehending little of the evening, and wonders how he’s going to get himself home.

It is almost one in the morning, which means that he is twenty-four. He’d turned twenty-four an hour ago. He is twenty-four, and he is in Chicago, and he is drinking away the memories of his birthdays since childhood.

Why is his heart so heavy? He should’ve gotten used to this by now. He’s been to so many places, met so many people, been around communities new and familiar. Just a few months ago he’d even met a man who cared about him, a man who told him in the hazy light of his bedroom lampshade that he’d love him forever, that he’d give anything just to see his body underneath his hands every single evening. If the man had been pretending to love him, he sure was good at it. If only he hadn’t seen the man in an inhumane rage, raising his voice and his fists at a stranger at a restaurant for bumping into his arm and knocking his wine all over their table. If only he hadn’t seen his lover at his worst. Maybe he could’ve had a chance at love again. 

He wants to laugh at his weakness. 

The smells of the bar curl into his nostrils, seize his senses with an almost predatory hold, and Kaoru reaches up to rub his nose, trying to clear the fumes. He furrows his eyebrows, blinks away the tears that had coated his eyes ever since the stench of tobacco drifted from somewhere in the bar (he has always hated the smell of cigarettes). He coughs, digs his head deeper into his arm in the hopes of smelling something different, something more tolerable. Distantly, almost as if it’s crawling out from the back of his mind, he catches a whiff of almond vanilla. 

His eyes widen and he shoots up, body tipping slightly at his sudden movement. A headache suddenly pangs, slamming itself mercilessly against his temples, and his knees are trembling so hard he swears he is shaking but he recognises that smell, he will recognise it anywhere-

Because where that smell is he is there also, he will be there, and he will save him, because he needs to be saved.

He sees black hair cropped close to the neck on a man that had just stood up at a corner near the entrance, hands deep in the pockets of a leather jacket as he talks to another man standing in front of him, this one sporting grey hair that’s metallic silver under the fluorescent lights. Their faces are obscured in the dim lighting and it is Rei and Koga. It is Rei and Koga. It is Rei and-

He scrambles towards them and reaches out, grabbing the other’s elbow in a desperate act of repentance, nails sharp and digging so deeply into leather that he swears the other can feel it through the sleeves of his jacket. The other jumps in shock, yanking his arm back in surprise as they register each other, and Kaoru is lost in red, red, that beautiful blessing, the colour of salvation.

The other doesn’t recognize him at first, up until the moment he looks up at the man with frantic, bloodshot eyes, reeking of scotch and tugging nervously at his moon pendant, that Sakuma Ritsu gasps and all but shouts, “You!”  

“Rei,” Kaoru pleads. “My head hurts. I’m so cold. I want to die. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. Rei. Please.”

“What the hell?” Strong hands grip Kaoru’s shoulders, yanking him away from Ritsu, and Kaoru is spun around to meet the narrowed, disgusted gaze of Izumi Sena, a man he has not seen since he left Yumenosaki all those years ago. Kaoru feels himself deflate, feels himself fall in a crestfallen descent, and he wants to die. “Hakaze?”

“Kaoru,” Ritsu’s voice floats above Kaoru’s head but he’s already drowning. The lights of the bar enshroud him like water, like bubbles over his face, and he sees light warping itself like the movement of the sun and its shadows, and he doesn’t know what is real anymore. “Oh my god, it’s Kaoru.”

“He’s drunk,” Izumi says, voice stoic and uncertain. “What do we do with him? Should we bring him back?”

“I should call my brother,” Ritsu replies, and Kaoru feels a new pair of hands on him, gently pulling him away from Izumi’s far too aggressive hold. “He thought I was Rei, didn’t he?”

“He was saying your brother’s name.”

“Right. I should call him. Can you grab my phone for me? It’s-“

“No,” Kaoru chokes out, and the other two still. He feels an anxious red gaze turn down on him and he wants to scream because the tint is wrong, the shade is wrong, everything is wrong. 

He hates this pity. He hates the way Izumi and Ritsu are looking at him, hates the sadness and anxiousness that slips through cracks in their complexion, and he feels useless and weak. He feels like he hasn’t grown a bit, feels like all he’ll amount to is nothing. 

He thought he’d grown. He thought he’d moved on, yet the second he recognised anything familiar he was back to square one, scrambling for the love of someone whom he’d abandoned. 

How can he deserve for the other to still want him, expect the other to still care for him, when he was the one who’d left? How can he be so selfish?

“Hakaze-san-?”

How can he be this cruel to those who love him? He is a traitor to those who’d opened their hearts to him. He doesn’t deserve any of this. He deserves to be alone. He doesn’t deserve anything.

“Hakaze-“

“No, no, don’t touch me, don’t touch me!” Kaoru tears himself away, backing into the wall, hands flat against the surface behind him as he shuts his eyes tightly. “Don’t call him. Don’t call anyone. I don’t… I don’t want that. I don’t want to be saved. I don’t…”

His vision clouds itself in black, and he succumbs. 

Kaoru falls on his knees in the corner of a dusty bar in the middle of Chicago, in the middle of a city that knows not him and knows not anybody, and he hears the sound of the lonely jukebox in the corner wailing an old jazz song, as if telling him ‘this is how you died’, ‘this is how you die’, ‘this is how you will die, when the world comes to its end’.  

He doesn’t know how long he stays unconscious, doesn’t register the movement underneath his body until he wakes up in the couch of an empty hotel room, the place littered with the contents of suitcases belonging to the two younger men he’d met. They’d dragged him all the way back. He’d ruined their evening. Ashamed, Kaoru scrambles out of the room the second he’s alert, leaving his departure in the form of a ‘thank you’ note on the hotel’s notepad. He doesn’t look back. He books a flight out of Chicago the following day, doesn’t look twice at the location he’s going to next, head chanting that ‘this is how he died’, ‘this is how he dies’, ‘this is how he will die, when the world comes to its end’.

The clock hits eleven-forty, and Kaoru is still not back. 

Rei stares anxiously at his phone, sitting immobile on the coffee table, where not a single notification flashes by. Kaoru’s late. He’s never been this late before. The rice cooker beeps occasionally, only punctuating the time left in solitude, and Rei is getting scared. 

He tells himself that Kaoru’s a grown adult who can take care of himself. He tells himself that Kaoru did say not to wait for him; maybe he had plans. Maybe he had some personal matters to attend to. He tells himself that there’s no need to worry about someone who didn’t ask to be preened and cared for. 

But it’s eleven-forty, and Kaoru’s still not back, and Rei can’t help that he’s getting scared. He thinks of Kaoru telling him that he treats others like children, thinks that he should just stop moping around, when his phone lights up with a call. Rei jumps up from the couch immediately.

It’s not Kaoru. It’s Yuzuru. And Rei frowns, because he doesn’t have a gig until about two weeks from now, so why-

“Hello?”

“Rei,” Yuzuru’s voice floats in-between the piano-sax duo from the bar, “thank goodness you picked up.”

“What’s up?”

“You free right now?”

Rei glances at the clock. “Yes, why?”

“Can you come to pick Kaoru up?”

Rei stills, and his heart is suddenly somewhere very far away. He feels it in the sounds of the midnight traffic, hears it take a seat in the middle of Yuzuru’s bar, and he feels so isolated. 

What is he supposed to do? 

He wants to run, of course, but run where? To him? Away from him? Where should he even run? 

Kaoru can take care of himself.

I want to take care of him.

Kaoru can take care of himself.

He looks up at his reflection in the silent TV, looks at the useless hopelessness and pitiful desperation on his face, and he’s not sure what he’s staring at anymore. The shell of a man who’d wanted too much and understood too little. The face of someone provoking and disgusting. The illusion of someone who will never understand. 

When someone needs your help, they’ll let it be known.

“Rei?”

“Yeah, yeah. I can come. Is he okay?”

“Sort of extremely out of it? I’d forgotten his tolerance and didn’t realise how much he could take, which is not much. Other than that, he’s fine. Please pick him up.”

“Okay. I’m coming.”

“Thank goodness. He’s been calling for you.”

Rei’s blood turns to ice, and the door slams shut behind him.

When he finds Kaoru, the other is slumped in a boneless heap on a table at the back of the bar. Yuzuru’s hovering beside him, looking rather awkward for a bar owner, and almost brightens in relief when he sees Rei walk through the door. Kaoru barely recognises him when he gently takes one of Kaoru’s arms and slings it around his shoulders, using his other arm to pull Kaoru up from his seat. Kaoru’s body is cool under his touch, and even in the dim light of the bar and in Kaoru’s drunken state Rei thinks he’s the most beautiful man he’s ever seen.

His heart aches, because he knows he’s part of the reason behind this, and he feels so inadequate as a friend, as something more.

“Rei?” Kaoru mumbles, and Rei turns his attention to him. The other’s looking up at him with brown eyes hazy from confusion. “Oh.”

“Let’s go home, shall we?” Rei asks, to which Kaoru nods, grunting as he stands up.

Yuzuru and Rei bid each other good night before Rei all but drags Kaoru’s body into the backseat of his car. He shuts the door behind him, exhales deeply, and prepares to drive home.

“I’m sorry,” he hears Kaoru mumble from the backseat before the other knocks out. He counts to ten in his head before turning slowly, peering at Kaoru’s body from the front seat, and sighs. 

“I’m sorry, too” Rei mutters, tearing his gaze away. His hands grip the steering wheel tightly, knuckles glowing white under the evening lamplight. “Sorry, Kaoru. I’m sorry.”

Dragging Kaoru into the apartment is less of a feat, as Kaoru has slowly come back to consciousness by the time the car pulls up to the apartment complex. Kaoru manages to walk an entire fifteen steps before staggering by the elevators, Rei reaching out to grab his elbow before the other drops.

“Sorry,” Kaoru laughs slightly. “My knees gave out as I walked. That’s really funny.”

“It’s not funny, Kaoru,” Rei says apprehensively, and the two of them go up the escalator in silence. Kaoru grips the handrails tightly, leans his forehead against the metal walls, and exhales deeply. He looks like a man drained. Rei’s heart clenches.

He opens his door with one arm, the other holding onto Kaoru’s elbow. The other is quiet, silently padding around the apartment before suddenly lurching, and Kaoru all but runs to the bathroom. It happens so fast that Rei barely registers anything before he hears the sound of retching, and he’s suddenly chasing Kaoru down to the bathroom as well. 

The other is hunched over on the floor, hands on his knees in the dark. Quietly, Rei shuts the door behind him, clears his throat to indicate his presence, and watches Kaoru for any signs of rejection.

There are none. 

“Rei,” Kaoru starts, before gagging into the depths of the toilet. “Sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologise,” Rei says, walking over to drop to his knees behind Kaoru. He reaches over to Kaoru’s face and pulls Kaoru’s bangs away, fingers stroking his temple, damp with sweat. “It’s okay.”

“I wanted… to open the Bailey’s… with someone special…”

“The Bailey’s, huh?”

“I… bought a bottle of it… for my dad… as a gift. And he didn’t want it. So I drank it.”

“All of it?”

“No,” and Kaoru lurches forward again.

Under the waning evening, the moonlight casts a silver shine on Kaoru’s hair, turning it an ethereal silver. It is so beautiful. He is aglow, he is fire in Rei’s hands, and Rei is letting himself be burnt by this aching pain and he’s letting himself be hurt, and he is okay. The moonlight reflects off the gentle curve on the back of Kaoru’s neck and Rei adjusts his hold on Kaoru’s bangs as he vomits into the toilet, back arched and chest heaving as he throws up everything he’d eaten that evening into the bowl. The fingers that come up to grip the sides of the toilet are bloodless and pale, and there’s a slight tremor in Kaoru’s body, in that space where the sides of his back meet his spine, as he hurls. Kaoru’s crying, Rei realises, and he clutches Kaoru’s hair with one hand and, with the other, rubs the bare skin above the fabric of Kaoru’s sweater. 

“Kaoru,” Rei says in-between the symphony of pain. “I love you.”

Kaoru hurls again, accompanied by the sobs wringing themselves out of his throat. He doesn’t hear him.

He is twenty-two, and he is in Sapa.

He’s never been to Vietnam before, much less the countryside, so when he saw a notice for a bus heading for the wayside town he went and booked the first trip there. 

The town is beautiful. The patchwork pastels of the buildings along the street mirror a faded mosaic, the vintage mirage of an artist’s masterpiece. The paddy fields are enshrouded in mist in the early morning, and when he woke up at the crack of daylight earlier today he was able to see them in their full beauty. He wondered what he had done to deserve this, to be able to see the world in such a beautiful light. He took the cable cars up to the mountaintops later that day, hiked the steps up to the Buddha statue, and took pictures of the countryside landscape. It is so beautiful. The world can be so beautiful.

It rained on his way back, and as he sat in the cable car with another tourist family of three, he eavesdropped in on their conversation.

“The mist is so mysterious,” the father said, one hand on his daughter’s back as the child leaned against the glass. 

“It looks like a place from a fairytale!” The daughter exclaimed. She suddenly turned from the window and bounced up to Kaoru, the cable car tipping under her footsteps. Her father reached out to steady her, maybe to bring her back to her seat, but he was too late when she’d already stopped in front of Kaoru, looked him in the eyes, and said, “You look like a prince!”

The girl’s mother reddened in embarrassment. Kaoru felt his cheeks heat up just the same. “Do I?”

“Yes!” She nodded enthusiastically and, to Kaoru’s surprise, reached out to touch the ends of his hair. “Your hair is so pretty! The princess is locked up in a tower in the forest, and you, the prince, come and save her!”

The prince saves her. Kaoru, sitting by himself against the glass, looks out to the expanse of paddy fields and green and thinks that no one will ever save him.

He’s sitting alone in the hotel now, looking at the clock on his phone, while setting up the birthday candles. 

He’s about to turn twenty-three. It’s his second birthday alone. He thought it’d be a bit easier now, considering how he spent his last birthday on the plane back, with only his manager tapping his shoulder and giving him the birthday greeting.

He knows no one save for the hotel, who’d brought up a slice of cake and a bowl of fruit upon seeing the date on his passport, will be wishing him a happy birthday tonight. The loneliness seeps in through the wax dripping underneath the wavering flames.

His eyes trace the icing on the cake. The flickering candles cast long shadows across the white cream, creating mirages like drifting ghosts. The warmth from the flames does little to warm the emptiness Kaoru harbours inside.

He reaches for his neck, toys with the necklace around his throat. Wouldn’t Rei already be twenty-three, now? Would he seem any more mature? Would he be better, be someone Kaoru’s proud of, be someone he has chased in his memory for months now, now that he’s older?

His alarm chimes. It’s midnight on November 4th. He is twenty-three, and he is in Sapa, where he blows out the candles to a birthday spent in silence, to a birthday spent alone.

“I am… not good with hospitals, Rei.”

“I know.”

“I hate them. I hate them so much. Ever since… you were there, I couldn’t. I couldn’t go in peace.”

“I know.”

“My father, Rei…”

“Yes, Kaoru?”

A hand reaches out across the bed, icy in its fingers as it searches. Another hand reaches over, laces their fingers together in a quiet assertion.

“My father is there. My father is in the hospital.”

The hand squeezes the icy fingers. The body knows not what to say.

“He’d been in a coma for two months before he woke up in September. He could barely remember anyone. My sister begged me to visit him before he forgot me for good. That’s why I came back.”

“…I see. And did he-?”

“No. He doesn’t know who I am. Maybe it’s for the better, really.”

“What about you?”

“I… I am still learning how to be okay.”

He is twenty-two, and he is in Seoul.

The city lights filter through his window, creating a kaleidoscope of memories on the carpet of his hotel room. He’s sitting up in his bed, staring at the way light dances across the ground, across the ceiling, and he’s wide, wide awake.

He hasn’t been able to sleep at all in the past month. Ever since he’d packed up his things and left, he’d found it difficult to get any sleep, and a part of him knows he only has himself to blame.

He tries knocking himself out. He tries working out until two in the morning, trying to exhaust himself into slumber, but nothing works. He tries downing coffee, reading novels, watching documentaries, but everything comes up elementary and he is left with himself and his mind, until all that is left of him is a man stripped to the bone with exhaustion but without comfort.

He learns to hate himself the most. He runs from himself only to come face to face with himself again. It is as if his life can only persist with his own arms around his neck. 

He hates himself.

Sometimes, when the night is darkest, he thinks of warm arms around his waist, thinks of steady breaths against his neck, and thinks of dark hair and red eyes that are silent in the evening. He thinks of fruits peeled for him, coffee made for him, of laundry hanging on their balcony side by side. He thinks of his body in a shirt he didn’t buy, thinks of socks jumbled together in a basket, and thinks of scarves that have found a home around both of their necks. He finds himself staring at photos of the man he loves more than anyone, finds himself listening to songs on repeat, finds his hands tracing familiar patterns down his skin that the other had drawn on him. He thinks of love like artwork, his body a tapestry, hands on him that feel like worship. He thinks of love in its most devoted form and thinks about how he has ripped himself from masterpiece and forced himself into ash. He thinks of company, of someone else that is so dear, and then he remembers why he left, and he forces himself to forget.

On nights when he forgets about dark hair and red eyes, he remembers the company of a man who always towered above him. He remembers what it means to be filial, remembers what it means to be a son. 

He remembers the origin of the world as he knows it. He has only ever loved one man at birth, and this love was always innate, no matter how hard he’d tried to forget it. It was something he couldn’t forget, something carved into his core, something that only a father and a son could share.

And he resents it because it weighs him down. Forever he will be subject to this rope around his neck, this love that should feel like liberation but instead feels like atonement, where he is the sacrifice. 

He is, after all, subject to the tide of his upbringing. How he wishes he can be more assertive than he is now, but all he has known to be able to do is run. He left his siblings to cower at the expectations of their father, ran from the man who’d destroyed him as a youth to a job that brought him a happiness his siblings couldn’t ever get. He only knows how to run. He has only ever run. He is still running, now.

And now he feels ashamed. 

All his problems, everything that he has ever worried about, feel trivial compared to what his siblings would’ve gone through. This turmoil that plagues his mind now is not something he should even complain about - after all, what gave him the right? If he voiced his problems now, if he gave his heart and expected someone’s hand, he would only be laughed at because he’s being a child. How could anyone understand? How could he expect himself to open up when his problems are, at their core, not even problems?

His troubles are certainly not the same as the troubles of others. He ought to be grateful.

“You ought to be grateful.”

He can’t forget. Some things are not easily forgettable, after all.

“Rei. Are you awake?”

The question, spoken aloud to the cold stillness of late October, surprises him.

He is, but he chooses to remain silent. He has a feeling that Kaoru wants to be vulnerable tonight, so he keeps his eyes shut and does not stir. 

He had put Kaoru to bed after the other had thrown up the entirety of his stomach, dozing beside him and muttering words in-between his drowsiness, before Kaoru woke up again much later into the evening. The breeze filters through his curtains, ruffling the hair on his forehead and brushing against his lashes. He tries to focus on these things, and not on the voice of the other across the room where he had gotten up to brush his teeth.

“Rei…” A drawn-out sigh. The shuffling of blankets, the fluffing of a pillow, before the other lies down beside him. The bed bounces slightly as he gets comfortable. Then, the evening air is still again. All Rei can hear is the Murakami playlist that Kaoru had put on, muffled where it remains in the mug on the table. All he can taste is the bitterness of the evening mixed with toothpaste, rinsed with some dentist-grade mouthwash, a carnival of flavours that linger soothingly, ironically, at the back of his throat. All he can smell is the faded scent of Bailey’s on Kaoru’s breath, hidden behind the tingling scent of mint. All he can touch is the soft sweater under his fingers where his hands cross over his stomach. His chest aches.

Kaoru doesn’t say anything for a while. Rei counts the seconds between his breaths, waiting for the other to speak. 

One… two… three… 

“Rei, I’m sorry.”

One… two… three… 

“I feel like… ever since I’ve seen you again, I’ve been happy. A part of me tells myself that I don’t deserve that happiness.”

One… two… three… 

“I shouldn’t have blamed you for everything that went wrong. After all, my problems have always been my own, and I was too proud to share them with you anyway. Even when you offered to sit and listen I never took you up on it. I felt like I didn’t deserve the right to. I’m sorry. I regret it now. I want to be honest with you. You deserve that, at the very least. You don’t have to take my troubles very seriously. They are inconveniences that don’t deserve to be called troubles, anyway.”

One… two… three… 

“You know… all those years ago, I thought I’d finally found the person for me. We’d been dating for a little over two years. You remember him, the one from the foreign country. He didn’t know that I sang, didn’t know that we sold out concert halls. He didn’t know that I modelled, didn’t know my name flashed over magazine covers and banners. He never questioned when I had schedules, when I couldn’t see him for days on end. He didn’t know anything about me, and… and I felt that, maybe, I could live the life of a normal young man with this dude, you know? Maybe I could finally be happy without someone trying to take advantage of my name. I was naive enough to think that happiness like that existed. What the hell?”

One… two… three… 

“You remember why we broke up, don’t you? He hadn’t respected my boundaries and, looking at it now, I don’t think he ever really valued my happiness at all in his heart. I’m glad I broke up with him back then. You and I had always been happier. All this time, I’d at least been reassured that he didn’t know anything about me, so I could be happy with you without worrying about him.”

One… two… three… 

“Then I found out it was all a lie. He knew about me. Of course he knew about me. A simple Google search and he would see everything. We didn’t make it big for nothing, Rei, and I found out he knew about me when I started seeing his name pop up in my messages again. He was sending me Google map locations of the places we grew up in, of the schools we attended, of our favourite malls we visited, and basketball courts where we played with the neighbourhood kids. All these personal things. I was so scared. I told our manager, and I blocked him wherever I could but it wouldn’t stop. It didn’t stop for months, lasted through the entire winter. I couldn’t take it after the last one. It was when we came home after our trip to the seaside and I found binders and binders full of pictures in our room when you went to shower. They weren’t just any pictures, either. They were pictures of me. Not the ones on magazines and banners but pictures of me outside my apartment, pictures of me in restaurants on our days off, pictures of me waiting at a red light in my car, pictures of me from college, secondary school, even pictures of me from kindergarten. And you know what else was there? Pictures of you.”

One (I can’t breathe)… two (What the hell is this, Kaoru?)… three (Why did you not say anything to me?)…  

“And… and, when I saw a picture of the two of us from when we were five, catching ladybugs in the apartment complex gardens, I lost it. I couldn’t do it. I packed everything up and left without a word. Changed my phone number, changed my address, moved to a different city altogether. I couldn’t bear it anymore. I was so, so scared and sick of that life. I couldn’t be happy with anything.”

One… two… three… 

“And… I’m sorry I left without a word. I was worried he would track my phone down, hack into my messages, and see what I would say to you. You would be in danger. Hell, he could find pictures of the two of us from kindergarten, what could he not do? So I decided to run. I was just so sick of it, and I knew more than anything that you were finally starting to be happy again after your grandfather’s death. You were finally happy with making music that could convey everything you felt. You were so happy and content with where you were and I couldn’t take all that away from you. I wanted you to love music forever. You were the closest thing I had to family and I didn’t want to stain you with anything that could come out of me. To tell you these things, to strip you of the only source of joy back then for you, would’ve been so cruel. It would’ve been inhumane. If… if I left, I figured he’d come after me, chase me down, while you would still be able to thrive on your own and be safe. I’m sorry. I am a disgusting person.”

One… two… three… 

“I’m pathetic. I didn’t think any of it through because I was so scared. I can’t even say all of this to your face because I’m scared. I’m scared of a lot of things. I’m scared you’ll hate me, or that you’ll resent me, betray me, throw me away, just as I was starting to feel happy again. And, even if I know these aren’t problems at all, I’m scared to hear you say that they aren’t, because then I’d really be all alone. Then I would really have no one but myself.”

Every part of him that even has the capacity to feel alive aches with a pain that starts in his heart and breaks him. He’s yanked in an inner tidal wave, fluctuations of grief, hurt, and most of all apology, apology that he couldn’t help him. His body is alive with the rhythm of anguish, of sorrow so deep in his veins that he feels like he can explode. It takes every single cell in his body not to open his eyes and throw his arms around Kaoru, bring the other closer, give him the reassurance he couldn’t give years ago. 

“I’m so pathetic. I’m twenty-eight and no one in this world loves me. “

When the evening wanes, when the last of the cars stop dashing down the street and they are left with only the endless loop of the Murakami playlist, Rei opens his eyes and turns to face the other.

He’s asleep, the last of his tears leaving dry streaks down his cheeks. His breathing is even, almost as if he didn’t just break down a few hours ago, and he is serene and surreal in Rei’s eyes.

Rei reaches over, gently places his hand along the nape of Kaoru’s neck, and presses his lips against Kaoru’s hair. His fingers tremble on Kaoru’s skin, leaving butterfly shadows along the tapestry of Kaoru’s body. Love, love, love. It is so foolish. It is so cruel. It is so full of an emotion Rei cannot bear on his own.

He reaches out and pulls Kaoru closer, trying to steady the rhythm of his heart and the aching in his limbs. He lies back down on his side and, memorising the canvas of Kaoru’s features, forces himself to sleep.

+

I am not the first person you loved.

You are not the first person I looked at

with a mouthful of forevers.

… I know sometimes

it’s still hard to let me see you

in all your cracked perfection,

but please know:

… I will love you when you are a still day.

I will love you when you are a hurricane.

— Clementine von Radics, “Mouthful of Forevers”

+

Kaoru is twenty-two, and he is in Hong Kong. 

The sky is a cotton candy grey, with the brushstrokes of the blue sky barely peeking out between the clouds. Along the water boats drive past in a languid rhythm, dotting the deep blue water with accents of black, white, and green. He hears the sound of the Tsim Sha Tsui traffic behind him, hears the song of the birds above his head, hears the wind beating against the trees, and he looks up to see the way the world spins around him. He chases after the sea, chases after the ocean that is both a symbol of his drowning and his being alive.

He stands still in Victoria Harbour, sees the Hong Kong skyline before his eyes, and stays behind the railing, hands resting on the wood. Behind him, soft music plays, and he hears the buzz of families and friends walking along the waterfront, the symphony of companionship.

He stands, alone, by the water, and he feels so very small. 

He wonders what it feels like to drown in a place that’s not home. He wonders what it feels like to drown alone.

Would it be beautiful? Would it be lonely? It would be lonely. He would feel so isolated. Would that be beautiful?

By the harbour, there is no sand. His feet dig into cement. He doesn’t feel the ocean on his arms.

The ocean is an illusion. The ocean is but a mirage. Standing behind the fence, he feels detached, feels like a dot amongst the hundreds of other heads along the waterfront, and he feels like he can drown and no one will come to save him. 

The world is blue, blue, blue. There is so much blue, and when he closes his eyes, the red is jarring. 

He remembers the colour of the sun. He remembers the colour of the world at its birth. The universe was red.

He opens his eyes, the world is blue, blue, blue, and he walks away. 

When disbandment was brought up in Koga and Adonis’ senior year, Kaoru did not take it well.

Maybe it was due to the easy ignorance that prevailed in the age of the two younger members. Or maybe they just didn’t know Kaoru well enough. Even now, Rei doesn’t know why they brought it up to Kaoru instead of himself, because they should’ve known that Kaoru would explode.

(Or maybe the things that Rei knows about Kaoru have always just been for his ears alone, for his ears only. Sometimes, Rei wonders just how well the other two knew Kaoru in all their years together, if they even really knew him at all.)

Koga had sent a nonchalant text into the group chat - Meet at my place tn at around 8. We need your advice on something - and neither Kaoru nor Rei had overthought it. Rei thought it had something to do with university plans. Kaoru thought it had something to do with girls. Either way, they sat calmly at the dining table, noticing the awkwardness between Koga and Adonis that hadn’t been there before but choosing not to speak about it.

It was Koga who started the dreaded conversation. They were seated in Koga and Adonis’ dorm, Koga and Adonis on one side of the table, Kaoru and Rei on the other. Kaoru had his legs drawn up on the chair, bent at the knees where he idly fiddled with the loose string of his ripped jeans. Rei had his arms crossed across his chest, humming the tune of UNDEAD’s new single to himself, waiting patiently for what the youngsters had to say.

“Adonis-“ Koga started, but he quickly stopped, his voice stuck in his throat. Kaoru and Rei looked up expectantly.

“Adonis and I-“ Koga tried again, but the words would not come. Reaching up, he circled his hand around his neck, eyes darting around the dining table. “Well, he and I- ah, how to say? I…”

“Yes?” Kaoru prompted, leaning forward. He was clearly surprised. “Wh- why, what’s this? The cool and confident Koga at a loss for words? Come on, come on, what’s bothering you?” The stray threads dropped and landed, unceremoniously, on his knee as he moved.

“I-“ But Koga could not say it. He made a few guttural sounds at the back of his throat, rubbed his arms tightly, and tried again and failed again.

Adonis, who had been quiet until now, placed a gentle hand on Koga’s arm, rubbing Koga’s wrist with his thumb. He looked up to Rei and, in that split second of eye contact, Rei knew the topic would be graver than they’d imagined. 

Sensing that nothing would come out of Koga as they were now, Adonis sighed and said, “We want to quit.”

Neither of them had expected it to be that. Kaoru’s smile dropped instantly. Rei’s blood ran cold. 

Had he and Kaoru not been good upperclassmen? Had they unknowingly mistreated the other two, abused them, pushed them too hard? Were the tours too hard on them? But they’d always enjoyed travelling, even if they’d gotten sick. Was it the pressure? But nothing came to mind. He didn’t think he nor Kaoru were cruel. They’d all always been like brothers, so why-

“You want to disband?” Noting the chilling silence, Rei started the first inquisition. He had to clear up the uncertainty in his head, anyway, and he ignored the way Kaoru’s jaw tightened at the words.

“Not disband,” Adonis shook his head. “We can still sing covers and songs together. Koga and I could occasionally show up. But we… we would like to pursue different futures if given the chance.”

“You can do that with us,” Rei interjected, tensely aware of Kaoru’s rock-solid silence that now burns like acid in his throat. “We won’t stop you from creating your own projects. You can write your own songs, choreograph your own dances, anything is alright, if that is what you were afraid of. We can talk to the company-”

“No, we were not worried about that…” Adonis started, but upon seeing Rei’s frenzy he trailed off, dismayed.

“I wouldn’t dream of taking your creative freedom away from you. You can do all this with us, and Kaoru and I would gladly support you,” Rei kept going, his hands waving wildly in the air now. “In fact, we already have connections, don’t we, Kaoru? We can use these to help you. There’s no need to disband. You’re, in fact, worse off without us. We don’t have to strictly come out with new albums every two years or so. We can take it at our own pace. We-“

At this point, Rei knew he was rambling. He was scared. Things were slipping out of his grasp faster than he could comprehend and he, at nineteen, didn’t know how to control himself. 

“Leader.” Koga must’ve realised this too, because he addressed him firmly, and Rei’s arguments stilled in his mouth. “What Adonis and I have in mind are different from simply being idols. We don’t… want to stay in the entertainment industry anymore. I don’t think I can, at any rate.”

“What do you plan to do, then?” Rei asked instead. A part of him dreaded the answer.

“Adonis wants to be a school teacher. Math, maybe.” Koga looked over at Adonis, who nodded to reaffirm his answer. “He won’t be studying music in university but he really likes kids. I think it’ll make up for it.”

“And you?” Rei turned to Koga who, baffled by the sudden attention, quieted.

“I… I don’t know what I want to be yet. I haven’t thought it through-“

“And so what?” Kaoru spoke for the first time since the news was dropped on him. His face was stony, impassive, and Rei was almost impressed at how he could keep such a physically calm exterior when, from the tremor in his lips and the watering in his eyes, Rei knew he was about to break into pieces. “You haven’t thought it through yet but you already want to leave? Is that rational?”

Koga fought the bitter bite in his throat. “Kaoru-senpai, I told you that I felt burnt out-“

“Well, so have I!” Kaoru interrupted and, out of nowhere, stood up, slamming a hand on the table. The force of his movement was not hard but was certainly shocking enough that it startled them all out of their trance, the three of them gawking at Kaoru and his sudden outburst. “You think I haven’t gotten burnt out? Do you think I haven’t almost broken myself to pieces on days where this job killed all the happiness in me?! Koga, I’m nineteen! I should be like my normal friends in those normal schools, going to arcades and bubble tea shops after class and playing video games on the weekends. I shouldn’t be working my ass off to write songs and record music and practice dances just to prove I am worthy of my title because, if I don’t, I can so easily be replaced! I want to live a normal life, with a normal group of friends, with a normal family, in a normal setting without the worries of being an idol! But I can’t, because I chose this life and I love this life, too! And it insults my pride and my hard work when you declare so offhandedly that you- you want to leave, just because you feel burnt out!”

“That wasn’t my intention!” And now Koga stood up as well, eyes ablaze, glaring at Kaoru with how many years' worth of suppressed anger, Rei doesn’t even know. “You can’t force me to love this job! The longer I stay, the more I will despise it, and I don’t ever want to despise music and I sure as hell don’t want to despise you, nor Rei-senpai!”

“This is your responsibility, Oogami,” Kaoru snapped.

“This is not serious, Hakaze,” Koga shot back, “and I’d like it if you didn’t take all this so seriously. We’re just a group of kids who met in high school and liked creating music together. Fine, yeah, we did tours, but who hasn’t? We’re not big shots in the industry, and what label we have attached to our name is from the embarrassingly generous pockets of Tenshouin’s old man! You don’t have any obligation to stay if you don’t want to!”

“But I do!” Kaoru yelled, and his hands clenched into fists beside him. “I don’t care if you think this is just some fun, stupid, tedious pastime tacked on to your high school years, but this band is everything to me! I worked hard because- because I love creating music with the four of us, and I want us to create music for many more years together! I don’t care if we aren’t big shots, if we don’t have fancy labels to our name, and I don’t care if all we will amount to is just a small group that lasted a few years and got replaced by those after us. The important thing is that we are doing this together, so we can make music we love and music our fans love!”

“Fans!” Koga clenched his jaw. “You are so blind, Kaoru, that you don’t even realise that none of this is permanent! The second any of us fucks up will be the day those fans give up on us, and I know they’ve certainly already given up on Adonis and myself!”

Kaoru stilled, eyes wide, looking as if he’d just gotten slapped. Rei stood up as well, walking out from his seat and towards the other two. Finding his voice, Kaoru muttered venomously, “What the hell do you mean?

Adonis stepped in, placing a hand on Koga’s shoulder and gesturing for him to sit down. “I don’t think you know, Kaoru-senpai, but the majority of our fans are only here for Rei-senpai and you.”

“That’s not true,” Kaoru interrupted. “I’ve seen the banners. They have your names as well. All of us… all of us are equally loved.”

But he knew. Rei knew that he knew. Some things just couldn’t stay filtered.

“It is an obligation,” Koga muttered, “an obligation because we are in the same ensemble. Without us, it would make no difference.”

“What the hell are you saying-“

“It’s… tiring, feeling as if our fans have to be forced to love us. It must be miserable for them,” Adonis said quietly, and the anger seeped out of Kaoru’s face as fast as it’d come. “It is not fair, Kaoru-senpai, to perform for an audience with an unwilling heart.”

“So you’ll go?” Kaoru’s voice was barely above a whisper now. He looked like a child abandoned, standing by himself on one side of the table, all these distances away. The tears he’d fought to hold back made their way down his cheeks and, bashfully, Kaoru raised his fists to swipe at them. Seeing him cry, the two younger members stilled, shocked. “What- just like this?”

“We’ll stay until the end of the school year,” Koga responded. “Before we leave for university. I… I think the two of you deserve that much, at the very least. Besides, all this time… I just wanted to make music with you too, Kaoru-senpai, for as long as we could.”

“This isn’t some permanent farewell,” Adonis added. “Just because we aren’t in a band anymore doesn’t mean we will be gone forever. We’re still here.”

There was a severe pounding against the side of Rei’s head. He needed air, needed time, needed space. “Now, now, everyone, let’s settle this calmly, okay? Let’s calm down and sit down-“

“How can I be calm?” Kaoru spat. Koga and Adonis flinched at his words. “They fucking betrayed us, Rei.”

“They didn’t betray us. We are just misunderstanding them. If we all calm down, I’m sure there’s an explanation somewhere-“

“Shut up!” Kaoru shouted the same moment Koga whirled on Rei.

“You-!” Koga snapped, shoving Adonis’ hand off his shoulders. He stopped in front of Rei and Rei took one glance at him and felt weak to his knees. “You treat us like children, Sakuma-senpai! I can’t feel close to you because you patronise me! There’s no misunderstanding! No explanation! I’m sick of this and I’m sick of this, okay? That’s the end of it. And Kaoru-senpai, you never tell us anything, but we know you always have so much on your mind. How can you expect us to know everything you feel and want to say?!”

But Kaoru had had enough. Wiping away the last of his tears, he grabbed his bag from the table and, in one swift motion, swung the front door open and disappeared into the night.

As he’d always done, Rei followed, leaving the other two behind.

Kaoru didn’t make it very far. Right by the lifts, he lost his balance and crumpled to the floor, heaving sobs out of his body as he desperately wiped his eyes with his hands. Hooking an elbow under his arm, Rei pulled him up, swung an arm around his shoulders, and led them home.

Kaoru cried all night. He held Kaoru as he cried. He felt Kaoru’s tears soaking into the worn fabric of his sweater, and as the evening turned to dusk and as the dusk turned to day Rei could only think about how sorry he felt, how sorry he was for Adonis and his wish to be a teacher, how sorry he was for Koga who was sick of the one life he’d once loved and above all, how sorry he was for Kaoru, his family, his dreams, and his loneliness. It was, after all, a sorrow that could not be compared.

“They always leave,” Kaoru sobbed. “Why do they always leave? Tell me… why, why, why does everyone always leave? Why am I always alone?”

Rei wanted to tell him that he would never leave. He wanted Kaoru to know that Kaoru could rely on him forever, that if he needed him Rei would come the moment he was called. Rei wanted Kaoru to know that he was Rei’s entire world, that what he felt for the other person now is beyond that childish, elementary love that had tinted their childhood. It’s far more deep-rooted than he’d liked for it to be. The two of them - they were planets without a star, revolving around each other in their solitary orbit only because of their loneliness. More than that, he wanted to tell Kaoru that this was enough for him, just to be content in what made Kaoru happy, that he would never ask for anything more and that he wished, too, that it would be enough for Kaoru as well.

“I don’t have an answer for you,” was all Rei could say as tilted his head down, dropped his chin securely on Kaoru’s head, and, with his arms folded tightly around Kaoru’s shoulders, breathed together with him in his silent reassurance. 

At that very moment, with Kaoru’s tears dyeing his sweater the tragic colours of loneliness and sorrow and the sun just coming up, waving its greeting to the city, Rei felt that even the harsh rays of the dawn and the heavy weight in his heart felt painfully soft that morning.

He wakes with a start, much before Kaoru does. It’s been a while since he’s dreamt of that, a memory he’s kept suppressed for years. It’s not something he likes to think about. Yet it rings, vivid in his mind, wanting to be remembered, and to distract himself he forces his eyes to stay awake. 

The early sunlight streams through the sheer curtains, painting the walls a soft beige much too akin to the sunlight that very morning, and he realises he’s not alone. He’s on his bed and, lying still beside him, is the man he’d heard pour his heart out to him in the early circles of the morning. 

A part of him feels warm that the other didn’t run away. A part of him feels like they’re finally getting somewhere, and he can allow himself to be happy. 

He turns his eyes, still fuzzy from sleep, towards the man next to him.

He’s in the same position he was in when he fell asleep, except this time one of his hands, raised on the pillow, is curled into Rei’s hair. The sunlight splashes across his face, paints the tips of his eyelashes a gentle caramel, and his cheeks glow from the autumn chill and the warm sun. Suddenly Rei is aware of how much older he has gotten, how much older he himself has gotten, and he wants to grab the other’s face in his hands and memorise every feature because he won’t look the same tomorrow, ten days from now, ten months from now. Illuminated, he looks ethereal in this God-kissed moment, like an angel, like something blessed that Rei shouldn’t touch. 

How beautiful you are.

Absentmindedly, he reaches down and strokes Kaoru’s hair with his hand, curling a lock around his finger and watching it unravel back. He yawns, basks in the early sunlight, and allows himself to enjoy the precious hour before the world wakes up.

A few heartbeats later, Kaoru stirs underneath his hand, and he slowly blinks open his eyes. Rei dares himself to catch his gaze, searching for dusty brown. Kaoru looks up.

A beat of silence passes as they hold each other’s stare. Rei feels suspended, trapped, in the middle of the atmosphere, as Kaoru looks back at him as if he knows everything about him. For a while, he doesn’t move, and then he opens his mouth to speak.

“I heard you last night,” Rei says when he knows Kaoru’s not going to run. The corners of Kaoru’s mouth tip down into a frown, but Rei moves his hand down to hold Kaoru’s hand. He squeezes his fingers. “I’m not going to leave you.”

“You’re not?” Kaoru whispers, and for the first time in days, Rei sees a glint of something like hope in Kaoru’s eyes, the way he brightens if even just by the slightest bit.

“No,” Rei says firmly. “Never had I once considered that even during the years you were gone.”

“I would not hate you if you left me. You have… so much to your name.”

“Did you forget that we built this up together?”

Kaoru’s mouth closes into a straight line, his eyes still looking up at Rei with a heart-gripping urgency. He struggles to come up with a response, bottom lip curling in as he bites it in concern. Rei feels himself smile.

“I’m not going to leave you, especially not after hearing all that. Your problems aren’t my problems… but I want to help make them easier for you, if you’d let me.”

“My problems are-“

“They are problems. Don’t tell yourself otherwise.”

“How can I compare to what my siblings have to face? How can these things compare?” Kaoru protests. “My troubles are so trivial.”

“Why do you need to compare? And you were being harassed. You were putting so much blame on yourself. These are troubles. If you feel hurt, let yourself feel hurt.”

Kaoru tears his gaze away, lets it fall on his fingers. He breathes, and allows himself to heal.

Time, then, passes in fragments, in Band-aids that patch Kaoru up, that heal his hurt and allow him to breathe.

Rei is twenty-eight and he’s standing beside Kaoru, one hand placed gently on his hip to steady him, the other over his hand, palm against his knuckles, guiding the toothbrush through his mouth. The other is rocking on his feet, tipsy from the headache that plagues him that morning, and he grips the side of Kaoru’s eyes are shut, hidden behind the unruly mop of his bangs, and he is compliant. The silence is comfortable, soothing, exactly what they both need to sort out the thoughts buzzing like a thousand bees in their heads. 

Kaoru makes a soft croak in his throat and Rei snaps back to the present. Pulling away, his hand rests on Kaoru’s back as Kaoru spits into the sink. The other coughs, turns the tap, and the voices in his head are drowned out by the sound of rushing water.

Kaoru whispers something that’s buried under the water.

“What is it?”

“Do you love me, Rei?”

Emotion seizes Rei by the lungs. He exhales where he leans against the bathroom wall. “Of course. Of course I love you. I love you.”

“You still love me, even after all this?” Kaoru whispers.

“How can I not?” Rei croaks. “Every vein in my body’s been conditioned to love you.”

And perhaps these were the words that Kaoru needed to hear all this time, because it’s what leads him to look up and meet Rei’s gaze that had been on him all this time. In the depths of soft brown are shadows of an old flame he’d set aside, are mirages of memory he’d kept locked up in a special place in his heart.

“Can you love me now?” Kaoru asks, a command thrown to the wind. 

Rei swallows the lump in his throat. Wordlessly, he nods.  

They stumble back into the bedroom together, clutches on tapestry and gazes locked like medium, like art threading its way across fabric to create its confident, beautiful, colourful stitches. Their hands trace familiar patterns on skin they’d once known, something carved into their lifelines so that, together, they intertwine, they are interbeing.   

And they inter-be. They have been one without the other for the longest time, and now when they come back to each other they are the collision of a million worlds, of a million universes that are complete yet still yearn for something more. 

Because, Rei now knows, people can be such. People can be two and one. People can be selfish, and if loneliness has taught either of them anything it’s that they can be whole on their own, and they can most certainly be whole together.

Rei drags a hand across Kaoru’s body, and Kaoru closes his eyes in silence. He feels Rei’s hands along the scars on his back, the cuts along his shoulders and thighs, and he forgets about how the strangers around the world, distant now like fading planets, have touched him in a manner so different, so reckless and so far from love. He feels adored now, feels like he’s the only thing keeping the world from collapsing in on itself, and he is the universe as they know it, he is love as they know it, he is everything. He breathes in, smells the sharp tang of aftershave, soap, and love.

He lets himself live. He lets himself accept that he won’t have to be lonely any longer.

“You’re beautiful, you know?” Rei whispers in his ears. A tear slips down Kaoru’s cheek. “I love you in everything that makes you the person you are, because all of these combine to create what makes you beautiful.”

“My body is hideous. I know it is. I’ve been told-”

“It is beautiful. When I hold you, you look like the evening sky. There are a hundred constellations that float through your skin like the reflection of the universe in water, and on nights like these, you are tangible to me. I think you are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

Kaoru’s chest aches, and for once it is not out of pain. “I have yet to understand… love in its entirety. What do you love about me?”

“Should I show you?” Rei’s voice is no louder than the beating of their hearts.

“Show me,” Kaoru nods, and he looks down and smiles.

And it burns through everything that makes him beautiful. Here, Rei replaces everything with praise-soaked adoration. When Kaoru smiles, he lights up the city with a million beautiful little truths, and all of these combine to a wonderful beauty that contains the world and eats the world whole. 

“I love you here,” Rei whispers, fingers tracing the white gash on Kaoru’s shoulder. He looks at the array of scars that litter Kaoru’s body and breathes them in like worship. “And I love you here.”

His thumb behind Kaoru’s ear. “I love you here.”

His index finger grazing the base of Kaoru’s throat. “I love you here.”

His ring finger on Kaoru’s spine. “I love you here.”

His pinky moving to Kaoru’s waist. “And I love you here.”

And Kaoru opens his eyes. He looks up at the ceiling, at the sunlight that warms them, and he breathes.

Together, they resurface. They are no longer drowning.

+

He is twenty-eight, and he is in Hong Kong.

It is October. It will be his birthday soon. It will be Christmas soon.

Kaoru, Father is not well. He doesn’t remember anything.

It is October. The air is still damp with moisture, humid enough that his skin prickles. 

Kaoru, please come back and see him again.

He wonders what it will be like to return. He wonders how he can survive.

Kaoru, he may not live to see you again next year.

He is standing by Victoria Harbour, which has not changed in the many, many times he has visited. Hong Kong seems to be locked in its permanence, locked by the blues of the ocean and the greys of the sky. 

His body longs for red.

Kaoru, you can learn to forgive him, can’t you?

He decides to go home.

+

I will write sonnets to the salt of sweat

on your skin. I will write novels to the scar

of your nose. I will write a dictionary

of all the words I have used trying

to describe the way it feels to have finally,

finally found you.

— Clementine von Radics, “Mouthful of Forevers”

Chapter Text

+

Meanwhile, flowers still bloom.

The moon rises, and the sun,

Babies smile and somewhere,

Against all the odds,

Two people are falling in love.

- Tom Hirons, “In the Meantime”

+

The stranger in the grey suit notices a tall figure standing in front of the aquarium’s giant fish tank, his hair lit by the blue reflections dancing off the water in a gentle caress. The tall man hasn’t moved in the past seventeen minutes, simply standing with his hands in the pockets of his jeans, his shoulders relaxed as he tilts his face up to watch the fish. The heavy air conditioning sends shimmers through the back of his shirt, the white fabric moving like the waves of the ocean, the man a child of the sea as he stands before creation as he has known it. A stingray passes by, catching his eye, and the tall man finally moves, walking three steps closer to the tank before bending down. His knees crack as he lowers himself to rest on his ankles in a squat, and he folds his arms over his legs as he tilts his head to try and meet the gaze of the stingray. The stingray pays him no notice, drifts in a lazy arc towards him before changing its mind and, diving, swims out of view. The man raises his hand, pressing it against the glass, and his reflection smiles.

In such a place, the stranger thinks the tall man looks surreal, otherworldly, like he’s from a place incomprehensible.

From his spot in the restaurant above the souvenir shop, the stranger watches as the tall man stands back up, wincing as his back cracks as he arches backwards. He raises his arms above his head in a cat-like stretch and the stranger sees a flash of light on his wrist; the reflection of jewellery, probably a nice bracelet he’s wearing- no. Upon further investigation, he realises the bracelet is not nice. It’s a plain seashell bracelet, an awkward accessory that contrasts the dark coat he’s slung around his elbow and the expensive shoes he sports. The tall man moves his wrist and, glancing at his watch, raises his eyebrows in surprise as he spins, turning away from the fish tank. He sets his feet firmly on the ground, shoving his hands back in his pocket, and stares at something out of sight in the stranger’s direction. Perhaps something outside the aquarium, maybe even someone at the exit? The stranger is still pondering when, suddenly, he sees the man smile and raise his hand in a wave, the bracelet reflecting rays in a blinding dance, and he’s surprised at just how fast the man’s eyes crinkle in a big smile, dark scarlet brightening with light. The man’s entire complexion changes, the previously sullen expression completely gone as he greets his guest expectantly. The stranger wonders who the lucky other is, the one that moved such an unpredictable reaction out of the tall, stoic man.

Another person now comes into view - a brown-haired man only a little bit shorter, sporting the teal button-up and white name tag the aquarium staff wears. The stranger recognises him as the cashier in the souvenir shop who had greeted him on his way out earlier, gesturing to the restaurant and saying something along the lines of, “The chamomile tea upstairs is very good if you want to stop by and give it a try.” 

The cashier heads towards the tall man, muttering something that the stranger misses but leads to the tall man releasing a loud cackle, a stark contrast that eases his cold complexion. His laugh echoes in the aquarium, bouncing off the glass and the walls and causing several other heads to turn, to which his companion glares at him and shushes. The tall man steps closer and they meet in the middle, reaching out to give the other a gentle hug. His hands meet behind the other’s back, watch clinking against the bracelet, as he draws the other close, resting his chin on the other’s shoulder. He whispers something to the cashier, and the cashier shoves him away, scoffing.

Yet they are both smiling, not a single hint of malice in their actions, and the stranger wonders just how much they adore each other. At their distance now, he manages to hear bits of their conversation as it twirls through the air, landing in gentle feet amidst the tables of the aquarium’s guests behind the two. Their voices are light, playful, and occasionally gentle and occasionally teasing, and he tries not to eavesdrop, considering it disrespectful, but he can’t help but pick up sections of their exchange.

“The track… almost finished. I can’t wait to let you hear it.”

“I can’t wait… you’ve worked so hard… ready by later this month?”

“Of course. I got the news… vinyl store today, asked for my input. Adonis said… adored it. I’d asked Koga to come… couldn’t make it, though, he was at a bakery… did you know he’s taking baking lessons?”

“Koga… picking up baking?! That’s unbelievable. Can you believe it?”

“I never… he’d be a baker, you know? When… ever been a baker?”

“I feel… high school self… never forgive him.”

“Kao-kun… maybe we had him wrong this whole time…”

Their voices dissipate into shared giggles as the tall man breaks away from their embrace, standing back upright as he slides the coat over his shoulders. The cashier reaches around his neck and takes the white name tag off, twisting and folding it carefully before dropping it into the canvas bag slung around his arm. 

“Ready to go?”

“Yes. Thank you… picking me up.”

“Of course.”

As the two of them head out, the stranger smiles to himself as he picks up his teacup on the table. The brief exchange he’d witnessed sent a warmth through his heart, coaxed with the gentle heat of the tea he’d sipped earlier. He believes he’s just witnessed love in its finest, finest form.

He takes a sip of the chamomile tea. It is very good. 

+

“You look happier.”

“Huh?” 

Kaoru looks up and comes face to face with Kanata, who’s leaning against the wall while shoving potato chips into his mouth, an attempt at looking suave. Kanata’s legs are crossed at the ankles, left over right, and his left pant leg is pulled higher from his posture where Kaoru can see his neon green socks that stand out awkwardly in the deep blues and whites of the souvenir shop. Catching Kaoru’s gaze, Kanata stumbles slightly, elbows poking everywhere and inevitably knocking over a row of seal plushies on the wall beside him. “Aiya.”

Kaoru huffs out an amused breath, setting down his knitting on the counter and making his way over to the shelf. Kanata clutches the chip bag clumsily as he stumbles around, trying to balance himself, and reaches over to grab Kaoru’s shoulder when he comes into grabbable distance. Kaoru’s rearranging the plushies when Kanata bounces over to his old seat, peering at the desk. “What’s this? Knitting something?”

“Ah… yeah. It’s a-“

“Not doing your job? Slacking off?” Kanata turns around, face flat and eyebrows expressionless, and Kaoru’s voice falters. The dead expression scares him and Kaoru flails, guilty that he’d been caught slacking on his first proper job. He hastily shoves the plushies upright, stammering out an apology, before Kanata’s face splits into a wide grin and tilts his head back and cackles. 

“I’m just messing with you. It’s fine, there’s no one at this time anyway,” Kanata, much to Kaoru’s chagrin, wheezes, waving his hand in the air carelessly. “My goodness, you should’ve seen your face!”

“You scared me, really!” Kaoru whines, reaching up to massage his chest where he’d sworn his heart was about to jump out. He remembers Kanata’s playful behaviour and scoffs at himself for falling so seriously for his antics. “Oh my good- hey! Don’t touch that with your crummy chip-encrusted fingers!”

Kanata jerks his hand back from where he’d been reaching for the ball of yarn. “Oops. What is it, actually?”

“I’m knitting a scarf,” Kaoru huffs, hurrying over to the counter to stuff the project back into his bag, away from Kanata’s itchy, curious hands. “It’s a gift.”

“A gift!” Kanata claps. He peers curiously into Kaoru’s face. “For who? Sakuma?”

His face reddens, and Kaoru can’t help his stammer. “M-maybe. I-I don’t know. Does it matter? Merry Christmas.”

“Ha!” Kanata barks out a laugh suffocating in glee. He can’t control the giant grin that morphs his face into something (in Kaoru’s humble opinion) creepy. He almost coos, shoving his hand back in the chip bag and talking over the sounds of crushed plastic. “Kaoru, that’s adorable. Does he know?”

“No. I want to keep it as a birthday surprise.”

“Good choice,” Kanata nods. His goofy grin melts into something much softer as he leans on the counter, arms folded and propping his chin up with one hand. He watches Kaoru take his position behind the counter again, then fiddles idly with the bobblehead turtle on the countertop before saying, “I’m serious, though. You look much happier now. Did you guys make up?”

Kaoru hums, smacking Kanata’s hands away from the bobblehead. “We talked it through. I think we’ll be okay.”

“That’s what I want to hear,” Kanata shoots Kaoru a cheesy thumbs-up, to which the other snorts. “When you first came here, I thought I’d have to get to know you all over again.”

Kaoru freezes. “Huh? Was I-“

“Ah!” Kanata’s phone rings, and the other hastily rummages around his pockets for the device. Kaoru’s words stay lodged in his throat as Kanata glances at the caller and exclaims, “My ride is here! Sorry about this, Kaoru. I’ll see you on Monday, yeah?”

“Are you not coming tomorrow? It’s Friday…” Kaoru starts, but the question falters as Kanata bounces out of the shop, green neon socks peeking out with every step as he shuts the heavy glass doors behind him. “Goodbye, I guess.”

He glances up at the clock and sighs when he realises he still has a good hour before he’s done for the day. Taking a peek around the store and seeing no one, he takes out his phone and, without even thinking twice about it, dials a number he memorised the minute he got it.

The other picks up on the second ring. “O Mighty God of the Heavens above, what hath I done to deserve the honour of a phone call from Thou Majesty, Hakaze-“

“Okay, shut up,” Kaoru interrupts as the other laughs, a deep and heavenly sound drifting through the receiver. It embraces his heart in a warm hug, soft salvation from the chilly November air, and, unable to stop himself, Kaoru cracks a smile as well. “Hello, Rei.”

“Hello, Kaoru. Aren’t you still at work?” 

“I am. The kids aren’t done with the tour yet, though, so there’s no one inside the souvenir shop. I’m expecting a swarm roughly eighteen minutes from now.”

“And so you slack off on your job? That’s not very professional,” Rei drawls amusedly. 

“You’re sounding an awful lot like Kanata right now. By the way, he left. He was wearing these shocking green socks today.”

“Shocking green socks? Describe them. I’m intrigued.”

“Green highlighters on feet.”

“Sexy. Would you like me to buy you a pair?”

“Rei!” Kaoru scoffs into the receiver as the other laughs again. “No!”

“Sorry, sorry, I was joking.” Rei’s laugh dies down into a low chuckle, his smile evident from the lighthearted lilt in his voice, until he asks, “So why did you call?”

A part of him wished Rei wouldn’t ask that billion-dollar question. It’s embarrassing to admit, even more embarrassing to admit to the other directly, and Kaoru falters as he tries to make an excuse. He comes up empty-handed. He picks up a pen from the counter, setting it down on its tip and, with one finger on the other end, starts twirling it around as Rei hums expectantly in the background. He chews on his lip before admitting, “I don’t know. I just… wanted your company? In a way?”

“My company?”

“Y-yeah. I didn’t have anything to do and I… I just-“ Kaoru flounders in his excuses, stumbling over himself, and he feels his face heat up. How glad he is that Rei isn’t here with him. “Whatever! No reason. I just wanted to call you. I’m sorry if you were busy.”

“I wasn’t busy,” Rei answers, and Kaoru mentally hits himself when he hears a sly grin in the other’s voice. He’d just given himself away, raised an extra opportunity for teasing that he didn’t need. “Well, in any case, I’m glad you called.”

“Y-yeah.”

“I missed you too, Kaoru. I can say it first since you’re such a wimp and all.”

Shocked, Kaoru almost coughs out a lung, to which Rei starts cackling again. Flustered and certainly starting to regret calling Rei to begin with, Kaoru feels like he’s withering as he protests, “You can’t just say that! When did I say that? When did I-?!”

But Rei’s laughter doesn’t cease, and even with his flaming face and shredded dignity Kaoru can’t help laughing himself. He’d sounded so foolish, so love-struck and childish, that even he can’t believe he’s twenty-eight, much too old for stupid jokes like this. And, though he hates to admit it, Rei’s laugh is infectious. He drags a hand down his face in embarrassment. “Let’s pretend I never said anything, okay?”

“Sure, sure,” Rei says after he calms down. There’s a brief pause before he asks, “Say, do you have plans after you get off work?”

Kaoru frowns. Knowing Rei’s tricks, he probably has something ridiculous planned, and he’s not particularly in the mood to play along. “First, tell me why you ask.”

“I’m thinking of driving over to pick you up. I’m wrapping up soon, anyway.”

Kaoru thinks of Kanata glancing at his phone, thinks of that familiar ringer that Kanata only sets for one person, thinks of the cliché of couples and love, and he reddens. “Ah… no, there’s no need. It’s so far from your apartment. You can go back and relax first. I don’t mind taking the train.”

“Yes, you do,” Rei doesn’t miss a beat, and the teasing way he’s speaking now digs annoyingly at Kaoru’s skin. “You hate sitting next to people who watch videos without earbuds. You hate kids. You hate people who smell. You also hate not being able to get a seat.”

“Well, yes, but some things I can’t avoid-“

“So I’ll come and pick you up so you can avoid all of them, right?”

“I’m stopping by the hospital tonight. I’m thinking of going directly there.”

Rei pauses for a second too long, perhaps thinking it over, until he says softly, “Can you give me the address if you’re okay with it? I can take us home. Or we can go for dinner outside, up to you.” 

Kaoru swallows, and his face breaks into a small smile. He doesn’t ever want to admit how warm he feels, because then it’d be like giving a part of his heart away. He is happy with the way things are now, already much happier than whatever he’d once expected. “Yes. I’ll text it to you.”

“Okay. I’ll see you later, then.”

“I’ll see you. Bye-bye.”

“Bye, Kaoru. I love you.”

“Wait, Rei, what-?”

He hears a beep, and the line cuts before he’s delved back into a calm silence. Pulling the phone back, Kaoru stares at it in horrifying surprise, his open mouth slowly morphing into an astonished grin. He laughs in complete disbelief, feels the way his fingers tingle and his heart ricochets in his chest in its furious, foolish happiness, and he curses Rei in his head as he puts his phone away. There is no way. There is just no way. There is no way I can be so happy. 

He spends the rest of his shift and the journey to the hospital in this unquenchable bliss, pulling his steps a bit lighter and his expression a bit brighter, because how despicable, really. What the hell.

Unfortunately, this same bliss is quelled the second he reaches the medical ward, where a nurse pauses when he gives her his name and his father’s bed number. Her hesitancy makes Kaoru nervous and when her fingers hesitate over her computer, he expects the worst. 

“Here’s the situation,” the nurse starts, glancing at her monitor. She looks almost awkward, tentative, almost like a child confessing their faults. “I know I’m not in any position to say this… but we’re not sure if we want to continue letting family visit Hakaze-san.”

“What?” Kaoru furrows his eyebrows. “Why- why not?”

“Well, you know about his condition.”

His blood is heavy in his arms. “Yes.”

“It may seem like a waste of time.”

“It’s not a waste of time!” Kaoru interrupts hurriedly, his voice coming out louder than he’d expected. “Please let us continue to visit.”

“His memory is locked at forty years ago and only lasts for a total of sixty minutes per cycle, Kaoru-san. Most families consider it easier to simply forget and move on. When you leave, he will forget you visited. We are worried about the emotional impact it will have on you and your family in the future.”

“It’s okay. It’s okay. I want to keep visiting.” Kaoru grips the sting of his shoulder bag tightly, digging his nails into his palm. His chest heaves with incoming panic, a part of himself that he doesn’t want to explain to a woman who doesn’t know him. It brings back horrible memories, something not worth addressing in the bleached coldness of the hospital ward. He forces himself to focus. “If I don’t visit now, I don’t know when else I’ll be able to visit again. I will regret it for the rest of my life, seeing him alone.”

The nurse casts her eyes away, and she almost looks guilty. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t in my position to say anything.”

“It’s okay,” Kaoru says again, even though it isn’t, and he walks past her towards the room. “You were simply looking out for us.”

She doesn’t say anything, and Kaoru takes a peek at the visitor chart in her hands as he moves past her. 

His father’s row is empty. Again. For the fourth time this week. His siblings haven’t paid their visits. 

He touches the scar under his bangs and he understands. As wicked as he is, he makes excuses for his brother and sister who don’t show up, haven’t shown up since the first day they were all here together. He makes excuses when he wants to be angry and demanding because he knows he was the same. Running away, running away. All the Hakazes have ever known is how to run away. 

Generational trauma doesn’t really go away, does it?

He heaves out a sigh, reaches down to rub the skin above his heart where it aches, and walks into 13A.

After all these visits, the patient in the bed next to his father is not a stranger anymore, and the man raises an arm to greet Kaoru as he comes.  The familiarity in his gesture makes his head pound, a painful reminder of what familiarity even means, of what family should even mean. Kaoru waves back, making his way to his father slowly as he shrugs his bag off his shoulder and sets it on a chair beside him. His father, with his eyes previously closed, opens them now to look at him. 

Again, there is that isolation. Again, there is that estrangement. They don’t say hello. They simply stare at each other. 

At the very least, the part of him that sports white scars - the constellations in the sky - is grateful that his father is no longer violent. He doesn’t know if he can take that anymore, not after everything else.

“What are you doing here?” His father asks. 

Asks is the wrong word. The words are spat out in hostility, in confusion, in the failure of recognition. They grip Kaoru by the throat, and he succumbs and smiles that same tight-lipped smile. His cheeks hurt where they bunch up, and his eyelids feel heavy. “Good afternoon, Dad.”

“Dad?” His father stares at him, eyes cold and mouth turned down in a frown. He doesn’t remember.

“Yeah.” He leans over and adjusts the blankets on his father’s lap. His movements have become emotionless repetitions. He has done the same thing for the past four visits. “You’re my dad.”

“How can I? I don’t have children.”

He reaches over to the table, reaches for the kettle and the mug. He touches the side of the metal to check the temperature, before opening the top and peeking in. “You have children. There are three of us.” 

“Is this what they meant by things I can’t remember?” His father’s gaze burns like the searing sun, his voice the drifting humid wind. They graze the back of Kaoru’s neck, sending tremors of discomfort throughout his body that pulse in unforgiving waves. “They told me to watch out for that a couple of minutes ago. When they were giving me my medicine. Are you someone I should remember?”

“I am.” He tilts his wrist, watches as hot water rushes into an empty mug. The lights above him threaten to blind him. “You should remember me.”

“Did I not write your name down? What was your name?” Hostile no more, his father’s hands shake as they reach for the notebook on his table. He flips through the notebook, eyes scanning past important dates, dosages, tidbits of personal information, messages from doctors. The pages crinkling as they move, each agonisingly slow page flipped over another, accompany the sound of rushing water in an organised cacophony, sounds that Kaoru has since associated with the unchanging blue walls of the hospital, of the thick glass, blaring red numbers, green charts on papers, and heavily sanitised floors.

Kaoru sets the mug down. He takes the notebook and flips it to the very last page, where every centimetre of remaining space has been filled with black ink. His name in tens, hundreds, thousands, glaring back at him in a cruel reminder. So many of them, so many mirages of his identity, yet he remains none of them to the one who had given him this very name.

He doesn’t know if it hurts anymore. He has familiarised himself with this, and he hates it.

“Here. You wrote my name here.”

He can see the whites around his father’s eyes. Never has he seen this man in so much fear, in so much distress, as right now. But, yet again, hasn’t he looked like this for a while now? He is no better than a child, exploring the world for the first time again every sixty minutes, and a part of himself wants to laugh at this irony, that the man who has never taken care of him is forced to be taken care of now.

“Kaoru,” his father whispers, tentative, as if tasting his name for the first time. It cuts through the darkness in his head, and the pure pathetic ring to his voice reminds Kaoru of why he’d been so unwilling to return. “You are Kaoru. Kaoru. Kaoru. Kaoru.”

“My name is Kaoru. I’m your youngest.”

“Kaoru. Kaoru. Kaoru.”

“I graduated from Yumenosaki eleven years ago. I studied English literature and music composition at university. You didn’t like that. I was a singer and an idol. You didn’t like that, either. I played the guitar. I retired when I was twenty-two after I’d been stalked by a past lover.”

“Kaoru. Kaoru. Kaoru.”

“I like the sound of the ocean waves. I like to cook, too. I work at the aquarium downtown. I used to read shoujo manga for fun. I learned a couple of years ago that I cry easily when I’m honest with myself.”

“Kaoru. Kaoru. Kaoru.”

“My favourite food is strawberry pancakes with whipped cream. My best friend is Sakuma Rei. He and his family lived next door for eighteen years. You threatened to disown me when I told you I loved him.”

“…did I, Kaoru? I don’t remember.”

“I’ve travelled the world. My favourite city is Hong Kong. I would visit Vietnam again if I had the chance. I was arrested for driving under the influence when I was twenty-five. I nearly lost my life. I’m traumatised to hell and back. My favourite colour is red.”

“Why didn’t you tell me, Kaoru?”

“I did. I sent you a million messages. I called you a million times. I was hospitalised for almost two weeks, and in those two weeks you never picked up.”

I’m sorry. “I’m sorry.” I won’t forget you the next time you come. “I won’t forget you the next time you come.”

Kaoru shuts his eyes. He’s so sick of it all. It is the fourth time he has relived this experience, the fourth time his father has heard all of this, the fourth time the patient in the bed next to them has heard the confessions of his life story. And yet nothing, nothing, can ease the gaping hole in his heart. Nothing can heal him. Nothing can save him.

When he leaves the medical ward, the hole in his heart has only grown wider, the flames from his immeasurable disappointment licking and eating away at its corners and leaving him burnt and empty. Unmasked expression, he has soon realised, is something he’s found so hard to read until now. He hates the way his father’s face always falls to its anguished arcs, a face so full of pity for him that it disgusts him. He is not used to it. He hates this unrecognisable ghost that haunts the bed in 13A, a person he can’t speak to, a person he can’t learn to love. His father is supposed to be stoic, strong, cold. His father isn’t supposed to feel sorry for him. Nothing in his life makes sense.

Perhaps this is why his siblings have never visited. The sheer shock of a man who can even pity him has sent him running to the bathroom after and throwing up the contents of his stomach. It is all so unfamiliar. He doesn’t even know how he has kept this up for so long.

He’d once assumed that in the six years he was gone he’d manage to understand (if even just slightly) love and loneliness in their most frenzied, disoriented states. He thought that, ever since he’d come back, ever since Rei had welcomed him home with arms like the warmth of a winter sun, he’d been able to love others himself, just how he wants to, and been able to accept the love given to him generously.

He thought that it was possible for him to finally, finally love his father, finally love someone without the heavy hand of filial piety forcing its duty. He thought it was possible to love someone freely. 

Just when he’d embraced everything that’d held him back, he finds himself thrown back in a world turned sideways, its familiarity spilling out like mixed paint, unable to be separated again. He is love lost and love patched up together again and lost again. He is, at the very end of it all, lost. 

He’s been here so many times and now, against all odds, he only wants to let himself break. 

He’s so tired.

When he walks out to the lobby, he sees a figure in his peripheral vision stand up from his seat by the wall. Across the cold space of the hospital, his eyes meet that safe, familiar crimson, and his knees feel like giving out after having held himself up for so long. He stops where he stands, arms hanging uselessly by his side, and his face pinches up and he fights the urge to cry.

Rei’s gaze softens, and he shoves his phone into his pocket as he walks closer. Wordlessly, the other reaches up to hold Kaoru’s face in his hands and even though it’s November and the world is cold Rei’s palms are warm, soothing patches on Kaoru’s icy cheeks. They breathe in and out together and Kaoru squeezes his eyes shut, counting to ten, as Rei reaches down and takes his hand. He holds him gently and tilts his head down to meet Kaoru at eye level when Kaoru opens his eyes again.

In the cold hospital lobby, his heart is a bit warmer, and he is a bit more at ease. He doesn’t think about his father. He doesn’t think about anything. He doesn’t break.

“Shall we go home?” Rei asks. 

Kaoru nods, and Rei leads the way.

“What would you like to do for our birthdays?” Rei asks the second Kaoru’s seatbelt is buckled, interrupting the silence they’d found themselves in as they left the hospital. His voice is loud in the quiet car, booming through the small, enclosed space. It’s a sort of olive branch, a foot in a doorway, easy conversation that could ease into something a little lighter. 

Kaoru looks over in surprise. He hadn’t expected that question at all, and he pauses, unsure. “What’s with the sudden question?”

“I’m trying to decide if I should book a fancy place to treat ourselves, or if we should order a greasy pizza and watch Ouran with cool ranch Doritos and cream soda in front of the television,” Rei muses. He taps his finger on the steering wheel, then shoots Kaoru a grin. “What do you think?”

“Anything is okay,” Kaoru looks away. “I don’t really mind.”

“Think. I want your opinion. Savoury Italian delights in a spotless restaurant with the air buzzing with jazz or cheap and greasy pizza on the flattened carpeted floor of our living room?”

Our living room. It’s embarrassing how giddy he feels simply thinking of that one word and the prospect of a soft evening together. He turns his face away, hiding any semblance of joy that might’ve slipped into the creases of his features, and hums as he pretends to think.

“Honestly?” Kaoru fiddles with his seatbelt. He’s known his answer since Rei suggested it, and knows that Rei knows that too. “I’d prefer the cheap and greasy pizza. I can order a cake and grab it on my way back from the aquarium.”

“Good idea. Exactly as I wanted,” Rei nods, smiling to himself. He starts the car, tossing his phone at Kaoru to pick a playlist for their way back. “Good to know.”

Sifting through the songs, Kaoru settles on slower piano ballads, to which Rei hums his approval. The gentle chords of Chopin’s Nocturnes tinkle through the speakers in the car, a melody that overpowers the sound of the pavement under them and the chatter of people on the street. The sun has already set by the time Rei pulls onto the highway, and the lamps beside the road leave long beams of light that travel through the dashboard and light up their hands and arms. They seem to glow, the two of them, and when Kaoru casts a glance over at the other Rei seems to be framed by the evening, a piece of art came to life in aching chiaroscuro. In the soothing flashes of the world, Kaoru leans his head back against the headrest and blinks slowly, feeling the drowsiness from the long day sink in. He doesn’t think about metal kettles and fluorescent lights. He doesn’t think about anything. He simply sits, watches as the lamplights pass by in their dizzying repetitions, feels the car rumble beneath him, and breathes. 

Rei glances at him before saying, “Take a nap. I’ll wake you when we get back.”

“Are you sure? I want to keep you company,” Kaoru hesitates, but the low lull in his voice gives him away. Rei notices it, grinning as Kaoru’s face, embarrassed, heats up. 

“I’m sure. Rest up.”

“Then… I’ll do that. Thanks.”

“No worries.”

Kaoru shuts his eyes, exhales softly, and lets himself drift away. He feels a lot lighter. He feels a lot better.

When he dreams, he dreams of nothing.

It’s not ‘nothing’ in its normal state. It’s a blank field of emptiness, vivid white bleached against a cold world, yet in front of him, he sees grey smoke. Ashes litter the ground and swerve to create a trail, the whispers of pencil markings against blank paper, and in his dreams Kaoru follows the trail of ash into the foggy distance. 

He’s a little unsteady on his feet. He feels like he’s walking barefoot on ice, where one wrong step would send him tumbling somewhere that even colour cannot touch.

As he walks, the pencil markings get darker. What had at first seemed like soft whisks of graphite on paper suddenly turned to purposeful, hard lines, etched into the ground as if begging to be remembered, and seeing those grating lines all over the ground scared him. The drawing underneath him becomes violent, and here is when he figures out that this is a memory-turned art piece, the cruel lines clear signs of lingering prominence. It doesn’t want to be forgotten.

He is in a dream. He knows he is in a dream because he’s been here before. His skin tingles with fear, because when he’s here he knows he won’t be able to wake up so easily.

And so he only walks forward.

White is kind, he’d once told himself. White is kind. White is the absence of colour, pure in its form, and if things are pure it means they can be mended. 

Now, suddenly, amidst the harsh pencil landscape, white feels suffocating, white can mend nothing because white is nothing, and as he continues to walk he finally comes across a scene that has haunted him for the past three years.

He stops. His feet remain on icy ground, his toes tangled in the ashes, and his chest constricts because he can only stand and see. Before him is the rancid smell of burning metal. The air turns frenzied with heat, the world moving in churning waves and irritating distortion. The sky is alive with flames, the fire licking away at the pristine white. 

It’s something right out of a novel, right out of the climax of Kawabata’s “Snow Country” and he’s thrown back to his university days, thrown back to reading Japanese literature in their cold studio in the after-hours, thrown back to a familiar face framed in the darkness next to him that yawned when class started and whispered, “Wake me up when it ends”. He expects the world to snow. He expects the fire to eat at his body. He expects someone to die. He expects something to happen amidst the grey and the orange and the white. It always happens. Someone is crying. He hears screaming. His blood turns cold when he recognises it as his own. 

He’s running to the car wreck where he sees himself under melting metal, under blackened silver, his body crushed and tarnished and red has never looked so cruel, and when he pulls himself out of the wreckage he sees nothing but crimson. His body is not his own. He’s not himself anymore. He’s a broken man, body aflame with red scars that look like markings on test papers (and they will be white soon, they will be the colour of absence when the world ends), red everywhere against beige and silver, and he feels the guilt, feels the pressure of a crime against himself, that bitter disrespect. The air smells like gasoline and alcohol and heat, and his body shrieks because there’s just too much going on, too much, he doesn’t know.

Wake me up when it ends.  

That evening in the cell, he had already promised himself that he’d piece himself back together. He’d been aimless and detached for too long. He needed to be fixed.

Wake me up when it ends.

But he thought he’d been able to fight his demons. He thought he’d gotten better. So what is this? Why is he thinking of this again? 

Wake me up when it ends.

Why is death on the horizon, squatting beside his broken self, fixing his bangs, touching his neck and his arms, patching up those vicious red cuts, whispering their condolences to his unresponsive body? Why?

Wake me up when it ends.

He thought he’d gotten better. He thought everything had been fixed. He’d opened up. He was honest. Was all of it for nought?

Wake me up when it ends.

Was this all nothing? Nothing? Did it all amount to nothing? He thought-

“Kaoru. Hey. Kaoru.”

He opens his eyes with a start, jolting awake as his fingernails dig into the surface of his knees. When he relaxes, little moon-like crescents appear in the sunken flesh, stark crimson against his pale skin. The world is still white, still incomprehensible, which he soon associates with the bright light from the parking lot shining into the car and directly into his eyes. His heartbeat roars in his ears, his cheeks pulsing with his fear because the dream is still there, and he forces his eyes to adjust, to recognise the space they are in. The car had stopped, parked in its usual spot in the parking lot, and the only movement in the air around them was Rei’s hands hovering over his face and the steady rising and falling of their shoulders, indicators that they’re both alive. Red eyes are set on his own, creasing at the bottom with worry, and the other’s gaze flickers everywhere on his face, taking in everything. The light illuminates Rei from behind him, his face a dark shadow hiding anything Kaoru may try to pick out, but for once Kaoru reaches for the darkness. He blinks twice to get his bearings. 

The confusion fades, something he can only be momentarily grateful for before what feels like the heavy hand of doom crashes into him, a tidal wave that offers nowhere to resurface. Suddenly, everything is too much. The world is too bright. Rei is too close. His gaze is too much. Rei will see everything that’s still wrong with him and laugh at him because he can’t fix himself, even after he’d been given all these opportunities to, and Rei will leave him because he’s hopeless. 

Rei reaches forward, gently brushing his bangs out of his face. Against all odds, Kaoru doesn’t flinch, doesn’t pull away, and lets Rei smooth his hair down. Here, Kaoru finally dares himself to take a better look at the other man, and he doesn’t find pity but he doesn’t know what it is, because his gaze is so intense and I am so scared. “Are you alright, Kaoru? You were crying.”

“Was I?” Startled, Kaoru reaches up to swipe at his face, feeling his fingers stain with warm tears when he pulls away. He can only stare in shock, staring at the glistening reflection of water on his hands. Water is clear, yet everything feels tarnished. His tears are permanent symbols of his immaturity, his inability to grow up, his inability to fix himself despite how long it has been. It’s water and yet, even if he were to wash them away now, the memory of tears on his fingers and cheeks will remain, and he hates it. “Oh. Oh my god.”

Rei’s hands fall from his hair and head for his hands and Kaoru knows, he knows now, that he’s about to be criticised. It is going to be another unwanted therapy session. It’s going to haunt him.

Please don’t say it. I don’t want to hear it. I’ve heard enough.

Never has he hated the shape of Rei’s hands more than this very moment. Suddenly he wants to be very far, wants to be somewhere those fingers can’t reach. He squeezes his eyes shut so he won’t have to see him, won’t have to know another face that pities him, because he knows far too many already. 

To Kaoru’s surprise, Rei pulls Kaoru’s hands towards him, wiping his fingers on his sweater before enclosing them in his palms. All the while, his hands are gentle. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. He was supposed to be laughed at, ridiculed, mocked, and yet here was love again, here was-

When Kaoru looks up at him, his face says all that Kaoru needs to know. 

“Kaoru,” Rei whispers, and this is when Kaoru finally realises his fears, realises that they can be shared. “Where were you? I couldn’t reach you. I couldn’t reach you again.”

“You couldn’t reach me?”

“I couldn’t. I didn’t know what to do.”

Kaoru tears his gaze away and stares blankly out of the dashboard, staring at the cold white and grey of the parking lot, and wondering when the colours in his world have started blurring together. Things make and don’t make sense. He can make amends with himself. All is white. All is white again.

White. Purity. Absence. 

Renewal, if he lets himself believe it.

“Let me know, Kaoru. Where do you go during times like this?”

“I’m sorry. I thought… I don’t know. I don’t know where I went. A nightmare. I was in a nightmare- no. It’s not a nightmare. It had already happened.”

Rei’s arms tighten around his body, and Kaoru feels like he could crumble any second now, fade into ash. He is so scared. For once, he doesn’t want to go. He has learned permanence, learned how to belong, and he has learned how to be selfish. He wants to believe in assurance, because assurance is right here, and it’s an open invitation.

Tentatively, he reaches up and circles his arms around Rei’s neck. He squeezes him once, then he squeezes him again, just to be sure. He can still feel. He’s not completely gone. The world is tangible underneath his arms. 

He’s going to be okay. He’s going to let himself be okay. 

“I have nightmares… about the past. I hadn’t dreamt of them in a long time. I don’t know.”

Rei hums, low in his throat, encouraging him to continue. Kaoru releases a shuddering breath, doesn’t pull away so he won’t have to look Rei in the face, and continues.

“I’m scared of death. I’m… scared of being alone. I’m scared that I’ll break down one day and no one will be there for me. I guess that’s all this has been. Is this… ridiculous of me?”

“No,” Rei’s reply is instant. His voice is firm, assertive, and Kaoru finds it easier to breathe. “No. Not at all. It’s not ridiculous. I’m scared of death, too. I’m also scared of being alone. But I’m here for you, I promised I won’t leave you, so can you do the same for me? If I will be here for you, can you be here for me? Can you be here with me?”

Kaoru nods. His arms are shaking but he’s no longer scared. The air still hangs heavy between them, a thick atmosphere that remains impossible to be crushed, but his heart is a little lighter. He tells himself that it means his body is letting itself be healed, that it wants to be healed from that tainted dream. “I will be here with you.”

Shiina Niki had his hands on the piano, playing the beginnings of Schumann's "Traümerie", when he hears the crash. The world had been white, blue, cold, and before he could even register what the sound was the sky erupts into red. Dropping his books in a frenzy, tripping over his feet as he staggers to the door, he runs to the wrecked car that’s now turning a vivid orange, the flames eating the canvas of the sky. He hears coughing and, in a frazzled, frenzied state, peers inside the wreckage.

He didn’t know he could feel compassion for a stranger but when he sees the man inside, barely keeping himself together, his stomach churns and he screams for help. He sees how the blood from an open gash on his head seeps into his hair, scarlet mixing with caramel against the backdrop of some horrible, horrible sunset.

He wants to throw up, and his heart threatens to hurt itself out of his throat as he looks around desperately, meeting the shocked gazes of the strangers on the street beside him.

“There’s someone!” Niki yells. “There’s someone inside! He’s alive!”

“Where?!” Someone calls from behind him, and Niki staggers up, gesturing at the door. “Oh my god, how did he survive?”

“Please save him! Please help! Someone!" Niki's lungs constrict with the smell of smoke, and he breathes in relief as many other strangers crouch down to pry the car door open, hopefully pulling the driver out. They succeed, and the five of them manage to drag the nearly unconscious man out of his seat, before others start calling for an ambulance.

In the wreckage, Niki hears a voice underneath him.

“Would it have been worth it?”

Niki peers down at the unconscious figure on the ground, and a part of his heart stops when he recognises the slope of his nose, recognises the high cheekbones on his face. He dares not believe it. “Pardon me?”

“Would it have been worth it,” the man mumbles, and in his eyes, Niki sees all the colours of the vast, endless sky. The white haze in his eyes leaves him in an almost translucent state, as if he were an angel seeing the world's sin for the very first time. The man’s gaze flicks over to him, a kaleidoscopic array of what looks like lifetimes and lifetimes of untold stories and, in a breathless voice, Kaoru finishes, “to see the sunset at the end of the world?”

When he sits up on the morning of November 2nd, still groggy from his sleep, he looks outside the window to see the world suspended in white.

White. Absence. Renewal. 

It seems to be a scene from that nightmare all over again, but he focuses on the sound of the bedroom, on the feeling of skin on skin and a blanket over his legs, and the initial fear and panic fade away until he simply exists. Collecting his senses, he looks down at the man still sleeping beside him. Rei’s eyes are shut, his eyelashes fluttering over the space under his eyes like swaying reeds in the wind, casting soft shadows across the planes of his face. One of his arms lies heavily across Kaoru’s lap, fingers twitching occasionally as he dreams, and in the stillness of the November sky and the cold world he is the only thing that is warm. He is the only thing that is tangible. 

Kaoru thinks that this is okay.

Looking down, eyes glazing over the delicacies in Rei’s figure, Kaoru absentmindedly takes Rei’s locks in his hands, combing through his messy hair and massaging his scalp and neck, before finally pulling away and getting ready for work. Mondays are always the worst and he’s always the most tired but he has the day off tomorrow and he will come home tonight to the loving smile of the man next to him, so he figures that he really doesn’t have much to complain about.

As he walks to the bathroom, he finds that the world is a little more solid today. He can register the cloudy sky, understands that it’ll be a bit colder this morning. He will need a scarf, and he will wear his cashmere sweater under the aquarium jacket. He looks at the humming filter in the kitchen, sees that the water is a bit low. He will need to pour some more in so Rei has enough for his coffee later. The washing machine has long stopped rumbling. He will do the laundry before he leaves for the aquarium.

Everything is in place. He belongs.

He’s still brushing his teeth when he hears the bathroom door open behind him, and he turns in surprise as Rei stumbles in, eyes still shut in dazed half-moons, black hair unruly and clothes wrinkled. The other yawns, registers Kaoru standing by the sink with a toothbrush in his mouth, and he smiles lazily as he waltzes over and languidly wraps his arms around Kaoru’s torso. Kaoru snorts, spits out the toothpaste in his mouth, and says, “You don’t have to be up for another two hours.”

“I know,” Rei’s voice comes out muffled from where he buries his face in Kaoru’s shoulder. The vibrations from his voice send tremors down Kaoru’s body, and Kaoru fights the urge to shake him off. “I just wanted to see you.”

“Did you now?” Kaoru can’t suppress the smile that snakes its way onto his face. “Well. Good morning, then, Rei.”

“Good morning, Kao-kun.” A pause. “Do you know what day it is today?”

Here it comes. “Monday?” 

Rei shakes his head. The fabric of Kaoru’s sweater rubs against his shoulders. “What else?”

“It’s the first Monday of November.”

He taps his fingers on Kaoru’s waist. Through the fabric, Kaoru’s skin burns. “Try again.”

“Hm. I don’t know. Is it a special day? Groundhog Day?”

Rei raises his head and his gaze meets Kaoru’s in the mirror, flat and unimpressed. “You have three more shots.”

“It’s a public holiday.”

“No.”

“It’s your mother’s-“

“Better not mess the last one up, darling.”

Kaoru grins, spinning around in Rei’s arms and flicking his hands in Rei’s direction, sending droplets of water across the other’s face. Rei reels back, surprised at the sudden movement, before Kaoru leans in and places a delicate kiss on the underside of Rei’s jaw. The other’s breath hitches as Kaoru whispers, “Happy birthday, Rei. I have a gift for you.”

“Ah!” Rei suddenly pulls away, reaching out to grab Kaoru’s arms. His face is furiously red, and what effort he’s putting in to hold his composure is quickly slipping away. He clears his throat, refusing to meet his eyes, and stutters, “D-don’t give it to me yet! Let’s exchange them tomorrow. Like we usually do. Yes.”

Like we usually do. “Okay. I’ll give you your gift tomorrow.”

“Okay.” And, as fast as he’d come, he’s gone, shuffling back to their bed as he releases another yawn. He flops face-down unceremoniously across the mattress, the bed squeaking as he bounces. His voice comes out muffled where his face is hidden in the sheets. “I’m going to sleep for a bit more. See you this evening. I love you.”

Kaoru watches him go, faintly aware of the warmth spreading across his chest. He shakes his head, sighs, and turns back to the bathroom mirror, where he realises the corners of his mouth have tilted upwards in a soft smile. His cheeks redden at himself. “See you, Rei. Love you, too.”

He packs up slowly, occasionally peering out at the other man as he falls back asleep. He’d wiggled into a more comfortable position on the bed again, tucked with his back against the wall and an arm slung across the pillows. Despite his relatively concealed appearance, the backs of his ears are still tinged red, victims of Kaoru’s earlier teasing (it makes him smile, but he’ll never admit this aloud). Rei’s mouth is slightly ajar, gentle snores floating from the room throughout the apartment, and it warms Kaoru with how soft it all is. He hums softly to himself as he hangs the clothes on the balcony, folding shirts into hangers and clipping the tangled mix of their socks to the hanging dryer. When he’s about to leave, he steps back into the bedroom to check up on Rei again before noticing how stuffy the room is. He pushes the window open, smiling as fresh air hits his face, almost immediately making the room a little brighter with its arrival. The cold air wafts in waves, and Kaoru reaches across the bed and adjusts the blankets, tucking Rei in so he wouldn’t wake up cold. As he folds the blanket under Rei’s nose, he sees the other smile in his sleep, and his heart is warm, so warm that it encourages him to dip down and press a kiss to the side of Rei’s head. He pulls back, blushing and smiling to himself like someone freshly in love, and shuts the door softly behind him. 

When he leaves the apartment for work, heading to the train station, he looks up to see that the sky has turned from its milky white to a pale blue. Colour seeps in through the tint of the cold world, and he feels a little more at peace.

The sky above him is a violent white. 

It hurts him. It sends pulsing tremors of anguish and icy frustration through his veins, lingering at the tips of his fingers and the joints in his elbows and knees until it manifests somewhere darker, somewhere in the corners of his heart, etched against its clay walls. He feels so weak, just a mere speck of a human being under the vastness of the atmosphere above him, a body useless, an entity meaningless. He is so insignificant, he can never make an imprint on the smooth pane of this world, and so he glares at the sky, glares at the world, glares at everything, glares because he doesn’t want to be here, not anymore. 

He’s in so much pain. He didn’t know pain could reach him even here, not in the locked space he’d confined himself in for the past three years. After all, he didn’t know that something as simple as a news article could cause him so much misery. 

He’d reasoned with himself in his hotel room. He’d told himself that it was okay, because it wasn’t as if I had been a better person, and he knows he has no right to judge someone else, especially not someone who has cared about him for their entire life.

Then that nasty part of himself told him that it was exactly because Rei had cared him for his entire life that he had all the right to judge. In this dark space in his head, he could give himself all the authority he wanted. They had even, if he lets himself believe it now, loved each other once. 

But did Rei even care?

Did he?

How could he prove-?

He stumbles towards the parking lot, his steps unsteady and his breathing ragged. His mouth throbs with the disgusting aftertaste of cheap wine. His footsteps are light, lighter than he can fathom, and the floor seems to come quicker than he’d imagined. He’s tipsy, he’s not in the right state of mind, and he wants to die. 

He is so pathetic, he realises. Something so small could drive him to so much despair, even after all this time alone trying to strengthen himself. He thought he’d patched himself together, thought he could finally breathe by himself without the need for someone else- but was this even small? If this was small, how could it taste so much like betrayal? It wasn’t as if he begged himself to feel hurt, so why did it hurt him so much? What was it? What was he?

He gets to the car and opens the door, sliding into the driver’s seat. He buckles himself in and stares unseeing at the dashboard, hands in his lap. His heartbeat chokes his throat, almost a pulsing warning to what he’s about to do, a warning for him not to do it, there are other, better ways to-

Don’t drive.

He knows.

Don’t drive.

He knows. 

Don’t drive.

He shoves the key into the ignition and yanks the gearstick down. 

Everything hurts. Everything hurts so, so much, and he just wants all of this to end.

Is it bad, he reasons, to want to run away from pain? Is it bad?

It’s not bad. It is human nature, he knows, to want to avoid pain. It is what humans were always honed to do. It is not bad. It is why he does this now, because he can’t face the pain directly, because he is still the same weak person he had been before. 

Congratulations. You’re amazing. He tells himself these things, and he laughs because he doesn’t believe any of them. How could he? His means of salvation was running away, and in running away he tried to forget, and in forgetting he found solace in the dirty hands of strangers, and in finding solace he ends up crying because Rei loves someone else. 

He is so dirty. He is so disgusting. He is a hypocrite through and through, and even though some part of himself whines at his attitude now - the disrespect to the past him, how could you hate yourself so much? - he can’t shake the hatred. Self-loathing had already simmered in its pot for too long (he had let it, he had let it destroy him) and it boils over now, manifesting in the shaking urge in his limbs to reach out and slam mercilessly against something.

Congratulations.

The car drives out to the main road, and his conscience kills him for himself. 

Is it bad?

Is it bad?

Rei, is it bad?

“Kaoru!”

Bored, he looks up from where he’s wiping down the shelves with a wet rag, hand still resting on the white wood sporting many stuffed sting rays. Kanata’s standing by the entrance of the souvenir shop, already changed out of his staff uniform, where he’s adjusting the thick puffy orange jacket around his shoulders. His hood is stuck under his shoulder bag, and Kaoru reaches over to help straighten it out, tugging the hood until it wriggles out from where it’s squished under the strap. He pats Kanata on the shoulders, the other man ‘ah!’ing in surprise and quickly voicing his thanks. 

“What’s up?” Kaoru says, taking a step back and reaching for the wet rag again. 

“I have some good and bad news.”

Kaoru hums. “Good news first.”

“We’ll have an opening for a tour guide soon!” 

No way. Kaoru whizzes around, almost dropping the rag in his badly concealed excitement. His arms tremble, joy coursing through his veins as he takes in the information instantly, the pure shock and bafflement making him forget the boredom he’d felt when he was wiping down the shelves. His face lights up and he feels a smile tug at the corners of his mouth, and he has to mentally remind himself to calm his heart before he says, “Seriously?!”

“Yeah!” Kanata grins, nodding enthusiastically. He’s sharing his excitement, his smile genuine, and his voice dips into an excited whisper as he continues, “It’ll start in late January. I recommended you for the position. You’ll get an interview soon!”

“Kanata!” Kaoru all but yells, reaching over and shaking his shoulders, Kanata laughing as he allows his head to loll back and forth. They look like two idiots, the two of them jumping at the entrance of the souvenir shop, bouncing on their feet, as they rejoice over the stupid simplicity of a tour guide position offer. “Kanata, what?! Really?! I’m so happy!”

“I knew you would be!” Kanata claps. “Tell Rei! Tell him now!”

“Okay!” Kaoru’s hands are shaking when he pulls his phone out of his pocket, mistyping his passcode the first time as he scrambles to share the good news. His heart feels like it’s on fire, a warmth spreading across his chest because this day is just going so well, and he didn’t think he could be this happy but he is, I am so happy. “Argh! I can’t believe it!”

Kanata peers over his shoulder, jumping on his feet to read over Kaoru’s shoulder as the other shakily stabs a message to Rei, mistyping almost half the words in the sentence out of excitement.

Hakaze Kaoru :: they hav a postion for a tor guirde in te aquarium! I’ll get an intervioew son!

The reply is instantaneous. 

Sakuma Rei :: You’re kidding!! Congratssss!!!!! 

Sakuma Rei :: All the more reason to finish the entire cake tonight

“It’s his birthday today too, isn’t it?” Kanata adds after the message is sent. “You two can celebrate tonight!”

“We can! Oh my goodness, I’m so glad!” Kaoru tucks his phone away, unable to hide the smile now. He feels so light on his feet as he grabs Kanata’s hands in his own, laughing as he jumps like a child. “Why am I like this?! I’m so happy, Kanata, you don’t get it! Why am I- oh my goodness!”

“Kaoru! I’m happy too!” Kanata jumps with him, the two of them bouncing as if they weren’t twenty-eight and supposedly far too old for this. Neither of them cares, anyway, and perhaps that’s what’s so freeing about this shared moment of happiness altogether.

In the safe confines of the souvenir shop, Kaoru allows himself to act childish, allows himself to be visibly, visibly happy, and when they finally calmed down Kaoru blinks away the happy tears to ask, “What were you going to say for the bad news?”

“Oh!” Kanata’s face falls, and Kaoru feels his own smile fall when he notices the other’s almost guilty expression. “Argh! I feel like I should’ve told you the bad news first.”

“Why? What is it?” Kaoru’s heart is still madly beating in his chest, though for a far different reason this time. He’s, strangely enough, scared. He doesn’t know why he is. “What’s the bad news?”

“You know how we have an opening for a tour guide?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s my opening. I’m moving away for good.”

What?

Kaoru stills as the words register in his mind. A part of him understands what it means completely - how could it not? The words are as clear as day, and if the uncomfortable stare that Kanata is giving him right now means anything it means exactly as he imagines it. A part of him dares him to reject it, wants him to delude himself that things aren’t changing, that he’s allowed to keep the normal, that-

Kanata chews his bottom lip anxiously before taking a deep breath and adding, “I’d already planned this for a long time. It’s not a last-minute decision. Chiaki and I decided to move to Chicago last year, and we’d been making preparations for a while now. I thought it was a miracle that you came back this year because I feel like this position has always been made for you.”

“But you won’t be here,” Kaoru says, trying to ignore Kanata’s anxious eyes. He feels goosebumps rise along his arms- out of fear? Hesitancy? Shock? He doesn’t even know. He’s a little bit on edge, a little bit unstable. “I can’t- I don’t know how to do this. I need you here.”

“You’ll be trained, don’t worry!” Kanata quickly interjects. The other is trying his best to meet Kaoru’s gaze, and Kaoru refuses to look at him for fear that he might just break down. “Our manager is really nice. He’ll prepare you really well.”

“But you won’t be here,” Kaoru repeats quietly, and Kanata’s voice falters. “I can’t do this alone. I don’t want to do this alone. It’s- it’s scary. And I’ll be lonely, and I want you here.”

“I’m sorry, Kaoru,” Kanata says instead, but to Kaoru’s ears even he sounds uncertain now. He reaches up with his right hand to rub at his left elbow, a bad habit Kaoru has long realised he does whenever he’s nervous. 

And now, suddenly, Kaoru feels awful, because he’s making Kanata feel awful about something he can’t change. How could he be so selfish, telling Kanata to stay when he’d already made plans of his own, especially such drastic plans as moving to an entirely new country? He’s insane, probably, assuming that people’s lives revolved around him, being so selfish as to even add his own irrelevant opinions that change nothing about reality and only add pain to fact. His stomach drops somewhere low and pitiful in the depth of his soul and he reaches out to pry Kanata’s hand away from his elbow, releasing it by his side again. He doesn’t look at him when he says, “No, I’m sorry. I’m being selfish. I shouldn’t say that.”

“No!” Kanata all but shouts, startling Kaoru so much that the other looks back at him to check if he’s okay. And he suddenly sees the wild look in Kanata’s eyes, the way Kanata’s eyebrows are raised high, disappearing into his front locks, and he’s in disbelief because Kanata is smiling. “No! Don’t apologise! You shouldn’t apologise!”

“Huh-?!” Kaoru stares at him, long and hard, because there’s no way he’s being serious. Maybe his eyes are deceiving him somehow. Maybe. “Kanata, what are you saying?”

“Don’t apologise!” Kanata repeats, and a wild grin locks itself onto his mouth and Kaoru thinks he’s insane. “You-! Wah, Kaoru!”

“Kanata, what-?” 

“I’m happy,” Kanata whispers, and he grabs Kaoru’s hands in his own. Kaoru’s heart is experiencing its own turbulent ride of emotional whiplash and he’s so confused until Kanata says so gently that Kaoru barely hears him, “I’m happy that you finally spoke your mind.”

He stills. “What?”

“I’m just so happy,” Kanata continues, “that you finally said what you were thinking. You haven’t done that. I’m so glad. Thank you for letting me know.”

“I-“

“I’m sorry,” he finishes, and when he smiles again it is both sad and happy all the same. Kaoru can only watch, squeezing Kanata’s hands in his because he doesn’t know what else to do. “Now that you’re here, you make me a bit reluctant to leave. I’m happy, though. You’ve made me happier. I’m glad you came. Now I know that you’ll be okay.”

When Kanata leaves, shooting a wave behind him as he skips to the entrance, Kaoru only sits in his spot behind the counter, still dazed from the entire interaction. He feels both hurt and healed. He feels like he’s finally taking a proper step in the right direction somewhere, even if the path ahead feels foggy and a bit intimidating. He doesn’t know what this means. 

He thinks he’s going to be okay.

He looks at the clock, sees that he has a little less than fifteen minutes left before his shift ends. He will visit the hospital, tell his father about Rei, and he will go home, where Rei will be waiting for him. They will spend this evening together, just like they’d done all those years ago, and he may be able to finally make up for some regrets he’d had. Life goes on, after all. It would be foolish of him to try to slow it down, try to let it wait for him to settle before moving everyone else along. Kanata will move in January. Rei will retire in January. In January, he will be okay.

He will be okay.

He is twenty-five, and he wants to die. 

He sits on the balcony of his hotel room, half a bottle of cheap wine in his stomach, staring at his phone as a news article blares across his screen. His head pulses with a horrible headache, and though he tries to calm himself he finds it’s all to little avail. 

He doesn’t register the words- no. That is not true. He’d already registered the words. He doesn’t want them to be true. He prays, he begs, he tells himself they are not true.

He shuts his eyes tightly, grips the edge of his chair, and counts to ten. He opens his eyes.

They are there. They remain. 

Lover? A New Romance on the Horizons? Sakuma Rei, teenage heartthrob from solo unit UNDEAD, seen with mystery girl downtown!

They remain, despite all things. He shuts his eyes and counts to ten again. 

Lover? A New Romance on the Horizons? Sakuma Rei, teenage heartthrob from solo unit UNDEAD, seen with mystery girl downtown!

An anguished sob wrings its way out of his throat and he grips the railing, dropping onto his ankles as he glares at the floor with bottled-up hatred. The loathing comes from a place deep in his soul, a loathing towards the cruel world, the cruel people in it, and a loathing towards himself most of all and his cruel, horrible behaviour. His jealousy, his nonsensical attitude - he has no right. He has no right. The white marble under his feet looks so much like a taunt, something pure and clean, a reminder of what he is not, a reminder that others are always happier without him around and that he was foolish to imagine anything different. 

This is the only explanation. He sees no other way anything else could possibly make sense.

The article won’t go away. He clicks out of it and sets his phone down and still, still it flashes in his head in unforgiving pulses. It is all he can think about. He is going insane. 

There’s something wrong with him, he knows, because such news shouldn’t be new. Such news shouldn’t be unexpected. It’s not like they’ve never seen other people themselves. There’s nothing wrong with finding a lover, especially at their age. It’s time to start finding people, time to start settling down soon enough. 

But there’s everything wrong with Rei finding a lover, his head hisses at him. It’s because it’s Rei that there’s a problem.

Because, if it’s Rei, it means that Kaoru’s not number one in his heart anymore. Whatever they’d had, whatever was between them all their lives that Kaoru had disillusioned himself into believing was something close to love, to a possible romance, has faded away. They’d lived their whole lives putting each other first, a bond blossoming from a childhood merged without borders, and moving on from a bond like that was something Kaoru couldn’t do. Rei was - no, he is family. Rei is family before even his father is, so it should’ve always been him by Rei’s side. It should always have to be him. It should be him, from now until the end of the world as they know it.

But if it’s Rei, it means that Rei has found someone else to love forever, and Kaoru is only number two. Maybe he’s not even number two. Maybe he’s nothing.

Maybe he’s not wanted anymore. Maybe he’s unwanted even within the heart of the only person who has ever really cared about him. Maybe he’s just not wanted. Maybe it’s what he deserves, having disappeared all these years. Maybe he deserves it. Maybe he deserves to be stranded here at the mercy of his head, at the mercy of himself.

Maybe he’s alone. 

The realisation grips him in the chest, hurls him forward, and suddenly he staggers at the knees because he’s so weak. He feels his eyes water, and he curses himself in his head because he’s been alone for so long, so why is this still a problem? Why is he not healing? Why is he not-

Why can’t he just be fine? 

The world hates him. The world hates him so much. Everything hurts - the afternoon sun hidden behind the clouds, the taunting heat of a summer in a far-too-humid city, and the roar of the traffic and the cruelty of his twentieth-floor hotel room.

He’s so alone. He’s so alone. No one knows what he’s feeling. No one will ever come for him. He can disappear right now, disappear into the imageless perfection of the clouds above him, into the glistening blue of the waters of Victoria Harbour so close by, and no one will know he was gone. 

Lover? A New Romance on the Horizons? Sakuma Rei, teenage heartthrob from solo unit UNDEAD, seen with mystery girl downtown!

He staggers away from the balcony, keys in his hand, and he questions if he’s insane. 

Lover? A New Romance on the Horizons? Sakuma Rei, teenage heartthrob from solo unit UNDEAD, seen with mystery girl downtown!

He makes his way to the parking lot, and he questions if he’s insane.

Lover? A New Romance on the Horizons? Sakuma Rei, teenage heartthrob from solo unit UNDEAD, seen with mystery girl downtown!

If he yelled loud enough, if he went out like a beautiful, bright firework, he questions if Rei will hear him. He questions if the other will care. 

Maybe then, and only maybe then, will he let himself believe that he’s loved. He needs someone to prove it to him. He is so weak, and he knows nothing, and he needs someone to prove to him that they love him.

There’s something wrong with him, he tells himself, and he thinks there’s no way he can be fixed now. He’s already so far gone. He can’t be repaired. 

Everything hurts. One day he can be here, solid and alive and hurting, and another he can be vapour in the wind, travelling elsewhere, travelling somewhere happier, where he can simply exist. He can exist as water, land gently on Rei’s skin as he sticks his hand out to welcome the cool drops, and Rei will look at the rain in his hand and laugh like he usually does, tell the people he loves that “Spring is coming, isn’t it beautiful?”

Isn’t that beautiful?

“This is Sakuma Rei. He lived next door. It’s his birthday today.”

“Is it? Happy birthday to your friend.”

“What do you think of him?”

“He’s very… cool.”

“He is, isn’t he? He sings really well.”

“He’s a singer, too? Just like you?”

“Just like me. He can dance, too, and he cooks really well. He makes really good kimchi soup.”

“You know so much about him.”

“He’s my best friend. He’s my lover, too.”

“Your lover?”

“…is there something wrong?”

“No, no. There’s nothing wrong. I’m just surprised.”

“Are you?”

“It feels like… it feels like you’ve grown.”

“I’ve grown? How?”

“A part of me feels warm, despite all things. I don’t really understand what it is, but I think I’m happy for you. Are you happy, Kaoru?”

“…yes, Father. I’m happy.”

Lover? A New Romance on the Horizons? Sakuma Rei, teenage heartthrob from solo unit UNDEAD, seen with mystery girl downtown!

Spring is coming, isn’t it beautiful?

Lover? A New Romance on the Horizons? Sakuma Rei, teenage heartthrob from solo unit UNDEAD, seen with mystery girl downtown!

Spring is coming, isn’t it beautiful?

Lover? A New Romance on the Horizons? Sakuma Rei, teenage heartthrob from solo unit UNDEAD, seen with mystery girl downtown!

Spring is coming, isn’t it beautiful?

He rests his head against the walls of the elevator, feeling the cool stone under his forehead. He shuts his eyes. He dares himself to breathe, and wonders if his lungs will betray him, just like he expects them to. 

They don’t. They allow him to move forward a second longer. He hates that they do. 

He takes in a shuddering breath, then another. He curses himself for functioning. He curses himself for feeling. He curses himself, over and over again, until he has forgotten all the reasons why he ever deemed himself loveable. 

Lover? A New Romance on the Horizons? Sakuma Rei, teenage heartthrob from solo unit UNDEAD, seen with mystery girl downtown!

Spring is coming, isn’t it beautiful?

The descent is so slow. 

He wonders if the lift will stop somewhere and people will come in. He wonders if strangers will see his pitiful stature and ask him if he’s okay. He wonders if they can help him. 

Then he remembers the article, and laughs because he can’t even help himself. He is truly so pathetic. He is still stuck in the past, craving to be saved, craving to be cared about. 

He is so insecure. There are so many things wrong with him. 

Lover? A New Romance on the Horizons? Sakuma Rei, teenage heartthrob from solo unit UNDEAD, seen with mystery girl downtown!

Spring is coming, isn’t it beautiful?

He’s alive. 

Every single breath feels cursed and undeserving. 

He doesn’t realise he’s crying until he sees the droplets on the glass handrails, doesn’t realise his eyes hurt until he reaches up to wipe them dry. His breath catches in his throat when the tears keep coming. He can’t stop crying. The elevator descends. 

Lover? A New Romance on the Horizons? Sakuma Rei, teenage heartthrob from solo unit UNDEAD, seen with mystery girl downtown!

Spring is coming, isn’t it beautiful?

He breaks into a bitter sob. An ad rolls out from the small speaker in the elevator about a discount for wedding and birthday cakes. The elevator descends. It reaches the parking lot, and he wants to die.

Lover? A New Romance on the Horizons? Sakuma Rei, teenage heartthrob from solo unit UNDEAD, seen with mystery girl downtown!

Spring is coming, isn’t it beautiful?

He walks into the cake shop, scanning the counter for the nice lady who he’d ordered the birthday cake from two days ago. She’s there, scribbling something in a book, and he reaches the counter tentatively, pulling out the receipt from his wallet. Sensing his presence, she looks up, recognises him, and smiles widely.

“The cake for two, right?” She asks. 

Kaoru nods, sliding the paper over. “Yes, please. We’ll be celebrating tonight.”

“Adorable!” The lady squeals, taking the paper and checking the number. She calls out to one of the staff behind her for the cake before she tucks the receipt away and leans over the counter, grinning as she asks, “How many years?”

His daydreaming grind to a halt. Kaoru blinks, not understanding her. “Years?”

“How long have you two been together?” She tries again. “Is this your fifth anniversary? Second? Congratulations, by the way!”

“Anni- oh! No, no, you’ve got it wrong!” Kaoru’s face heats up instantly as he recognises her misunderstanding. The poor lady tilts her head, frowning, as he stammers, “W-we’re not… ah, no, um, this isn’t for that! Our birthdays are a day apart s-so we celebrate them together. That’s- that’s all there is to it.”

“Oh!” Now the lady’s face reddens in embarrassment, the poor woman reaching up to adjust her bangs in an effort to hide her expression. Kaoru grips the counter tightly, wincing. “I’m so sorry! I thought, well, since the chocolate icing-“

“Ah, I can see how-“

“I’m so sorry!” She’s probably about to combust now, Kaoru observes.

“It’s okay!” He croaks out, not much better. 

She packages the cake and hands it to him, almost throwing both of them out the door as she raps her farewell and come-again. 

Kaoru thinks that he probably won’t, not for a long time.

The cold air hits his face, chilling his cheeks, as he clutches the paper box tightly in his fingers, reaching up to tug his scarf over his nose as he starts on his way home. As he makes his way down the street, he notices the tints of red, yellow, and green in the shops nearby, and with a start, he realises that their storeowners have started putting up Christmas decorations.

Christmas. It’s only November, and he hasn’t yet thought about what he plans to do this Christmas. 

Christmas used to be his favourite holiday. The music and decor were only the tips of the iceberg, and what he’d always loved most was the coldness of the outside juxtaposed with the warmth from home and family. In their university days, it would be the time friends returned from abroad, and he’d jam-pack his schedule with meet-ups, always beginning with a warm embrace and ending with a melancholic farewell. But one could never be melancholic during Christmas, because he’d return home and Rei would be there in their apartment, either asleep or humming along to himself while he read a book or prepared a drink, and he would never be alone.

For the past six years, Christmas had felt alienated. Walking into malls and watching families complete their Christmas shopping together, baskets in hand and laughter on their faces, always made him feel like a part of himself was never really complete. He’d tried to move past it. Some things just can’t be patched up.

But it’s different now. He knows that. This may be the first Christmas he won’t spend by himself in a long, long while. The prospect of buying something for Rei for the holiday season sends a thrill through his body, a small butterfly of joy that blossoms when he walks into the train station and sees the familiar board for destinations, recognising one name amidst many, and he thinks about the seaside town. 

Rei will be having a concert soon. It will be a while before they can see each other at their regular hours now. He should make the most of it.

When Kaoru makes it home, hurriedly opening the door to the apartment seeking a cosy warmth, his face is still hot, vibrant with both the lingering embarrassment from the bakery encounter and the train board. Rei, in the middle of watching something sizzle in a pan, looks up from his spot by the stove, an intrigued expression on his face as he asks, “Now what’s got you smiling so much?”

“You won’t believe it,” Kaoru mutters, toeing off his shoes and shaking his head as he walks to the fridge to put the cake away. He places it delicately over the containers of yesterday’s leftovers, careful not to let the cake tip over, before shutting the door. The scent of good food wafts into his nose and he smiles, coming up to tiptoe behind Rei, leaning over the other to plant a kiss on Rei’s temple. “It’s just the funniest thing in the world.”

“What is it, though?!” 

Kaoru picks up the spatula from the counter, stirring the bubbling sauce. “You seriously won’t believe it. Wait, what’s this?”

“I got the pizza but I’m craving pasta, too,” Rei admits, gesturing to the spaghetti sitting on the counter. “Sorry. What happened earlier?”

He recites the encounter, to which he earns a boisterous, full-chested laugh from the other, and as they settle down at the dinner table with both of them sipping delicately on the birthday wine he can only think about how warm his heart is this November, at how happy he is to be here. The meal passes with soft conversation and gentle chatter, recounts of their days so far, cheers from Rei about Kaoru’s ‘promotional’ news, and shared sighs when Kaoru reveals that Kanata will be leaving. 

“Where did you say he was going?” Rei asks, looking at Kaoru over the wineglass.

Kaoru stabs at his pasta, watching as the noodles flop unceremoniously on his fork before falling off altogether. “Chicago.”

“Chicago. I’ve never been.”

“It’s a lonely city.”

“Is it?”

Kaoru shoves the pasta into his mouth, tastes the bitter aftertaste of cheap alcohol and smoky nights in a foreign bar. Memory is rather distant now, fading into a grey haze, and maybe it’s been a while because it seems that he doesn’t want to remember. He is content now. He drowns the images out with the wine, only nodding in return. Rei doesn’t ask any more. 

They clear the pasta and the rest of the pizza, leaving the crusts behind (“It seems you haven’t gotten over your habit of not liking these, have you, Kaoru?” “Be quiet”) as they clean up the table, sweeping the crumbs into their palms and chucking them in the bin. Standing next to each other, they scrub out the dishes in a shared silence. The hot water runs over Kaoru’s hands as he rinses the soap from the plates, watching the bubbles trickle down the drain, and he sees himself and Rei in round reflections amidst pale white lines and murky pinks and greens. They look like people trapped in a snow globe world, tens and hundreds of them staring back at him before they pop and disappear. Chicago comes to mind and, just like the soap suds, makes its way down the drains, swirling as it reaches the plug, memory becoming violent before dissipating. It burns out like a spark of light, bright before it is gone, and Kaoru remembers Christmas decorations on the streets and he lets it go.

He decides he must let other things go as well, whatever the cost. There is, after all, no other way to move on.

“Rei.”

“Hm?” The other acknowledges, passing him another plate.

“I saw your brother five years ago.”

Kaoru braces himself, expecting a violent reaction. How could he not? He expects himself to be yelled at, berated, scorned, because that’s what he’d been used to, because that’s what he’d been conditioned to believe. Anger can only sprout from betrayal, and if he needs to fix himself and move past his fears he needs to make amends for where he’d been wrong. If this means disdain, then it means what it means.

Yet, despite all things, it doesn’t come. No one raises their voice. No one is angry. The world is still as it is, with nothing broken, nothing hurled his way. He feels himself relax, his mind still buzzing with confusion, when Rei continues to scrub away at the plate. He hands it over to Kaoru as if nothing happened, as if they were merely discussing the weather. 

“Did you? Ritsu?” Rei says, voice no louder than it was before. “Where did you see him?” 

“Chicago. It was the night of my birthday. I was turning twenty-four.”

He has forgotten. He has forgotten what it means to be cared about. He has forgotten what it means to be loved like this. Things like that can’t come, not with Rei, because Rei is not like his father and Rei is not like his last lover. Rei is Rei, Rei is someone who has cared about him before he could even understand what caring about someone else was, and it was foolish and horrible and straight-up disrespectful for him to even think that Rei could do what his father and past lover had done. Memory is Chicago and he finally lets it go, swirling down the drain. Like Chicago, Kaoru can finally relieve the burden on his back. He is foolish but he’s learning, he’s allowing himself to associate things with what they should be associated with. 

“Did he say hello?”

“…more like I forced myself upon him.” Kaoru smiles softly at the memory. “It’s so embarrassing. I thought he was you because it was so dark and I was so drunk, you see, and I threw myself on him begging him for something I can’t even remember. He and Izumi-san were mortified.”

“Izumi was there? You probably scared him.”

“I did. I’m still embarrassed to this day.”

Rei chuckles, passing Kaoru a pair of chopsticks and shutting off the tap on his side. He leans his hip against the sink, watching as Kaoru rinses off the last pieces of cutlery before sliding them into the drying rack, flicking his hands to swat away the last of the droplets on his skin. The kitchen falls into a soft silence, Kaoru squeezing out the kitchen towel before hanging it over the tap. He looks over where Rei is still staring softly at him.

Unable to help himself, Kaoru lets out an amused laugh. 

Rei stares. “What?”

Kaoru shakes his head, smiling. “Nothing. It’s just that you’ve changed.”

“Changed?”

“A couple of years ago, you probably would’ve thrown a fit knowing Ritsu saw me and told you nothing.”

“Would I have?”

“Would you not have?”

The corners of Rei’s lips kick up in a smile. “Fine. You win.” 

He pushes himself off the counter, heading to the fridge and opening it with a soft tug. Bending down on his heels, his knees crack miserably, and both of them laugh at the sudden sound. Peering through the contents, Rei glances over his shoulder as he asks, “What would you like to drink with the cake later? The champagne or the tea?”

“The champagne, please.”

“You’ve changed too, Kaoru.”

Kaoru stills, watching as Rei shuts the fridge door softly. When Rei looks at him over the distance across the kitchen, he feels something delicate in the air, something tentative and something he’s unwilling to break. Maybe it is a shared understanding of some sort. He can’t really feel his fingers.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re more assertive now, you know,” Rei murmurs, and it’s more to himself than anything but Kaoru hears all of it. “You say what you want to say. I’m happy. It’s like… I can finally see you in your entirety. You’re a little more solid to me now, and perhaps I’m just not as scared as I used to be. It feels like I can get to know you authentically.”

“You already know me,” Kaoru’s voice shakes a little, pitchy in the shortness of his breath. The kitchen seems to fade away until it is just the two of them, standing in a liminal room, treading on the satin fabric of their spaces. It’s delicate. It’s tentative. “You’ve known me for a long time. I don’t think I’ve changed all that much.”

“You hold yourself back because you think it’s what you deserve. You’ve probably done things you regret, and if some of them are inexcusable then let them be. You don’t have to forgive yourself for everything. You shouldn’t, either. You carry… a lot of burdens on your shoulder, and maybe I will never get to understand any of them. That’s okay. Know that I will never hate you for what you’ve done, nor will I judge the choices you made in the past. I don’t have the right. After all, they’re fundamental elements that make up who you are now. As long as… you know who you are, and how the you of the present will move on from those scars, I think you are already the best you can be.”

“I’m still imperfect. I’m still tattered somewhere. I’m still learning how to stitch myself together.”

“And that’s okay. You’re human. The you standing in front of me is a you that I’m proud of. I love you right now. I love you as you were. Do you love yourself as you are?”

Kaoru looks away, because he doesn’t know. There are so many nuances when it comes to love, and for so long he’d tormented himself with the idea that he was unloveable until he wasn’t. Until he was proven by so many people around him that he wasn’t unloveable at all. The road isn’t dark. He is not drowning. He can breathe, because his head is above water and he doesn’t smell metal now. Maybe he’d been blind. Maybe people are good. Maybe his greatest enemy has always just been himself. Even if he hates himself, others will love him as they believe he deserves to be loved.

Life moves on, after all. He doesn’t know if he loves himself at all… but he’s willing to try. 

“Know that I’m not here to fix you,” Rei whispers. “I can’t do that. You have to love yourself first.”

“I want to. I don’t know how. I’m only allowing myself to enjoy things as they are. I’m applauding myself for my small efforts.”

“Then you’re already taking a step forward in the right direction. I think… you’ll get there. I’m no god… but you’ll get there. I’ll be here for you.”

“Will you? Will I get there? Will I get better?”

“You are already getting better,” Rei argues, and he’s smiling and the atmosphere isn’t as choking as it was and the world is at peace. “Give yourself some credit. I love you.”

Rei walks towards him, where Kaoru’s still standing motionless by the sink. Rei’s hand reaches up to rest against his jaw and his breath tickles Kaoru’s neck as Rei kisses him gently on the width of skin right under his ear, a kiss so soft it seems like it could break. Kaoru casts his eyes upwards, stares at the lights on the ceiling as Rei rests his cheek against Kaoru’s neck, arms winding around his waist and holding him tightly. Rei laughs, and the tremors send waves of healing through his body, soothing everything that had been painful within him, allowing him to understand what this finally is. Maybe he won’t need to be so cruel to himself anymore. Maybe he won’t need to hate himself anymore. 

Before he can register it, Kaoru’s laughing too, eyes fixed on the fluorescent lights, arms coming around to hug Rei around the neck. He rests his head against Rei’s, smiling at himself and for himself, and he allows himself to enjoy this moment of intimacy as it is:

Love, with no boundaries. Love, as a place where he can patch himself back up. Love, because someone finally understands. 

Love, because he has to love himself first.

Shiina Niki waits in a bone-chilling silence outside the medical ward. All he can hear are the sounds of various trolleys rolling down the hallway paired with the low humming of the white fluorescent lights above their heads. Occasionally, a doctor’s voice drifts from somewhere down the hall, before it disappears, too, into the thick quiet air. Trying to ignore the terrified pounding in his chest, he pulls out his phone to occasionally sift through his messages, a way to only distract himself from what he can’t possibly believe is reality. 

The door to the medical ward opens and a nurse walks out, only to jump in surprise at him sitting outside on the bench. She stares at him, glances quickly at her watch, and frowns. 

“Sorry, you’re past visiting hours,” the nurse starts. Just that second, a doctor walks out of ward 19A and, noticing Niki still sitting on the bench, gestures for him to come inside.

“It’s okay,” the doctor tells the nurse. “It won’t be long. This is a special case.”

Following the doctor, he walks in hesitantly, lingering a couple of steps away. The medical ward is a stark white, bustling with nurses helping patients take their evening medication, footsteps heavy on the hard, rubbery floor. Every step Niki takes seems to be a distraction, as every patient in each sector turns to stare at him as he passes. He casts his eyes forward, swallowing the thick sensation in his throat as the doctor stops by a sector at the very back of the ward. Walking in, Niki notices that the ward is empty safe for two people: a middle-aged patient with thick, dark hair, and the young man they’d saved. On the bed furthest from the door, right by the windows, he sees Kaoru lying there, eyes open but unseeing, his hair a dull, dark brown matted with sweat and blood. He looks like someone who died and was forced back to life. 

He probably was.

Niki’s chest hurts. 

“Kaoru. How are you doing?” Niki asks, sitting down in a chair by his bedside.

Kaoru’s gaze flickers over to him, and his eyes are so, so dull. If not for his name tacked above his bed, Niki wouldn’t even recognise him. It scares him, casts a bone-chilling cold over his body, as Kaoru spits out, “Why did you save me?”

Startled, Niki pauses, unsure of how to answer. He’d disillusioned himself into thinking it was an accident. It had to be. 

But what if it wasn’t?

Beside him, the other patient says, “If he didn’t save you, you would’ve died. You would’ve burnt to death.”

“That would’ve been a good way to go,” the injured man mutters. He looks down at his hands, looks at the bandages that surround the entirety of his right arm. “Look at me now. Look at how useless I am.”

“Do you have family in Hong Kong?” Niki asks urgently. “You need to let them know what happened. You need someone to take care-“

“I don’t need anyone to take care of me,” Kaoru grits out, his voice soft but his words loud enough to stop Niki from his urgent rambling. “There’s no one to call.”

“You’re expected to be here for a few more days,” Niki argues. “Surely you’re not thinking of staying here alone?”

Kaoru looks back at him, and his eyes are caves of sorrow. In their dark depths hides some secret that Niki doesn’t know, and it makes him want to run away. In the years they’ve been apart, Kaoru had built up so many walls around himself, shielding himself from the prying eyes of other people. Now, Niki finds himself on the other side, and he stares back at a man he doesn’t recognise, a person who looks like he loathes the very idea of being alive. 

“Is being alone out of the ordinary?” Kaoru asks, and Niki shuts his mouth. He doesn’t know how to answer him anymore.

When he finally pulls the cake out of the fridge, it’s already almost midnight, the clock above their heads ticking down each second as it passes. Rei grins as he arranges the candles on the cake’s surface, stabbing right through the icing with their names in pretty cursive and trying to squish all twenty-nine candles on top. 

Kaoru scoffs. “You’re destroying the cake. How barbaric.”

“We’re not young anymore, Kaoru.”

“I know.”

To Kaoru’s horror, all twenty-nine candles fit on the surface of the cake, and Rei looks triumphant as he pulls out the lighter. He sits down across from Rei, still towelling his hair dry, as they wait for midnight to hit. Rei drums his fingers on the table anxiously, smiling a gleeful, childish smile, and Kaoru’s heart is warm and he thinks that this is enough, that this is all enough, that he’s happy just the way they are.

The clock ticks 11:59, and Kaoru claps his hands. 

“Happy birthday, Rei,” he sings, before Rei laughs and blows out the candles. The two of them hurry and light them all back up before the clock strikes midnight, Rei’s fingers shaking he struggles to light up the last remaining candle. 

“Hurry! This is why you shouldn’t have put twenty-nine candles!” Kaoru urges as the other whines, clicking away furiously at the lighter as it thins out over and over. 

He’s able to light up the final candle at the very last second, just enough time where Rei can lean back and shout, “Happy birthday, Kaoru!” before Kaoru dips his face over the cake the second the date changes to November 3. 

“Happy birthday to me,” Kaoru smiles, and leans forward to blow out all the candles again. The smoke curls in soft waves to the ceiling as the two of them laugh, Rei quickly pulling out the candles before the dripping wax leaves its neon marks all over the cake. 

“My gift!” Kaoru announces, picking up the bag on the chair beside him and shoving it in Rei’s direction. “I’m so excited to show you.”

“What did you get me?” Rei peers into the bag, gasping as he pulls out the long-winded scarf, unravelling it as it falls onto the table. “Oh my God. Did you make this?”

“Yup,” Kaoru nods proudly. “I got caught by Kanata while knitting it at work… but I hope you like it.”

“You’re so ridiculous,” Rei laughs, but he drapes it over his neck anyway and bounces over to the mirror. Kaoru hears his surprised exclamation before he comes stumbling back, throwing his arms around Kaoru’s neck and burying his nose in Kaoru’s hair. “It’s pretty! Do you think it suits me well?”

“I think the crimson brings out the glow in your eyes, actually,” Kaoru says, tilting his head back so he can catch Rei’s gaze. The other has an awfully large smile decorating his face, and Rei reaches up to grasp the ends of the scarf upon hearing the compliment. “I made it. Of course I think it’ll suit you well.”

“Then I’m glad,” Rei says, and he steps away to bury his face in the ends of the scarf like a child. “You make me so happy, Kaoru.”

“Don’t compliment me like that,” Kaoru mutters, feeling the heat rise to his face. “You’re too old to say things like that.”

“I mean it,” Rei says softly, and Kaoru’s caught in that same breathless wind again. Rei clears his throat, blushing furiously, before heading over to the table, picking up the cardboard box he’d set down earlier. “This is for you. I hope you like it. It’s… not the same as your gift, of course. I didn’t put that much effort into it. But-“

“Shut up, Rei,” Kaoru interrupts, grinning as he pulls the box over. “Don’t ramble. I’m sure I’ll love it.”

“You haven’t even seen it yet.”

“I will now.”

He tears open the cardboard, revealing a sleek, carved wooden box underneath. He stops, brushing a hand across the beautiful carvings of a Chinese mountainscape and tiny cranes atop a sea of clouds. The wood is a polished oak, shiny enough to catch the ceiling light above them but dark enough that it looks heavy, as if thickly embodied with the determination of the gifter.

Rei’s voice is no louder than a whisper. “Open it.”

Slowly, Kaoru pulls the lid off the box, revealing a delicate glass Chinese tea set. The entire thing is made of glass, pure where he can see his own reflection as his fingers graze the sides of the cha hai and teacups. A clear glass teapot sits in the middle, crystalline and light to the touch as he picks it up and rounded in its handle and corners. He gasps when he sees the saucers beside the teacups, small plates no larger than his palms, decorated in the shape of a Bauhinia flower. He sets everything down, afraid to touch it further.

“Do you like it?” Rei asks hesitantly. Kaoru only now realises that Rei’s been watching him this whole time, peering at him from across the table anxiously as Kaoru unwrapped the tea set. 

Kaoru feels like crying. Everything is so delicate, so pristine, so clear. It seems to reflect the heart of the one who gave it to him. “It’s so beautiful. I don’t know what to say.”

“I’m glad. I was worried you wouldn’t like it.”

“How could I not?” Kaoru picks up a teacup delicately. It is light in his fingers, and it feels like nothing. “It’s… it’s so much. I don’t know… I don’t know how to top this. Rei, really, thank you so much, I…”

“Look, Kaoru,”

Kaoru looks up from the teacup, where Rei has moved from his seat and is now standing in front of the window. He reaches over to the wall and taps on the light switch, the room plummeting into darkness before he returns to his spot in front of the glass. One hand rests on the sheer white curtain, pulling it back to reveal the scene of the sleepy city outside, while the other is pressed to the window, a few inches away from where his head rests alongside it. He takes a deep breath, exhales, and Kaoru sees the glass fog up under his nose. He looks like a watcher of the skies. In his eyes, Rei looks like a god. Setting the teacup down gently, Kaoru walks over, draping a hand around Rei’s waist as he stands beside him and follows his gaze upwards.

There, above them, is the dash of the moon, the sliver lying on its side like the Cheshire cat’s smile. It glows yellow, merges into the soft hues of the midnight city, and, with the wind blowing through the streets in its ghostly whispers, seems like it’s much further away than it already is. In this serene space, Kaoru keeps his eyes on the moon, tightening his grasp on Rei’s waist, as he allows himself to address the warmth and sincere joy in his body. 

He’s happy. He hasn’t been happy in a long, long time, and now he is. He has everything he wants. He’s growing up, he’s letting his hurts be his hurts, and he’s letting himself be okay with that. 

Most of all, he’s letting himself be loved. He thinks he can move on from his hatred. He thinks it is a brave thing, to let himself have what is given to him.

Rei removes his hand from the glass and presses it over Kaoru’s own, still resting on his waist. He slides their fingers together, then brings Kaoru’s hand up and kisses his palm. 

“The moon,” Rei’s voice is soft, almost bleeding into the cityscape like it is a part of it. He releases the curtain and brings his fingers up to his neck, where he touches the pendant on his necklace gently. The crescent shines where the moon reflects its gaze upon it. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

Kaoru looks at Rei’s reflection in the glass, a soft mix of yellow and white that seems to blend into the cityscape, and Rei disappears as part of the world before them as well. The lines of his body soften into the city, rests languidly between buildings, and the evening is spread out before them like a gift, until Rei and the universe are one, a realisation that makes Kaoru’s chest cave in, a realisation that he will not leave me, he is a part of me, and I am able to love him freely and able to love him so, so much. 

“Beautiful?” Beautiful? “The moon…” You, “it certainly is.” you certainly are.

+

There were such precious times between,

In which everything was radiant

And we loved, again, this world. 

- Tom Hirons, “In the Meantime”

As he’d predicted, Rei’s concert starts coming around and Rei, consequentially, starts spending most of his time at the studio, practising and rehearsing before the final day in early December. Kaoru’s getting busier as well, as the interview had been successful and he’s been offered the tour guide position. He says an ecstatic farewell to the cash register, and now he follows Kanata around the aquarium as he receives his proper training. 

Rei and Kaoru celebrated the news the Saturday of the week he’d received it, heading to a nicer restaurant in the downtown as they clinked glasses over wine. It was then that Kaoru noticed the shadows under Rei’s eyes, noticed that Rei’s been a lot more tired recently, and asked Rei what he could do to help. Rei only shook his head then, telling Kaoru not to worry about it, only to clear up December 4th on his calendar for the day of Rei’s concert. The issue was brushed aside, and the two moved on with their lives. That was almost three weeks ago.

It wasn’t until Kaoru received a call from Koga that he realised he’d been too dismissive about it altogether.

“How’s Rei doing?” Koga asked after they’d exchanged formalities. 

Kaoru, in the middle of folding the laundry, sets a shirt down to put Koga on speaker. “He’s been working hard. He looks a little tired, but I think he can manage.”

“Are you sure?”

Kaoru stills, hands hovering over the shirt. It wasn’t what he’d expected to hear, and perhaps sensing his confusion Koga continues, “Have you checked up on him recently?”

Kaoru’s hands drop to his sides. “Not entirely. We see each other in the evening, but I’m usually about to sleep by then anyway.”

“So you haven’t really been checking up on him.”

“No, I haven’t.” Sensing a bitter defensiveness lodging his throat, Kaoru adds, “He doesn’t need to be babied.”

“He doesn’t,” Koga agrees, “but don’t you think he’d be a bit tired now? After all, you’d understand. You’ve done it before.”

“…probably. I should ask him tonight.”

“That’s a good idea.”

Yet, that very evening, even after Kaoru asks Rei directly, the other only waves it off. 

“I’m okay!” Rei smiles. “You know how it is this time around. I can’t really do anything.”

Kaoru frowns, walking up to Rei and touching the skin under his eyes. “Have you not been sleeping well?”

“I’ve been sleeping fine.” He hasn’t slept well.

“Are you stressed out? Exhausted? You should ask for a break if you must. Even just a day is better than nothing.”

“I’m okay. It’s not unfamiliar.” I am exhausted. I don’t think it’s appropriate to ask for a break.

And so they head to bed, the two of them facing different sides of the room, and Kaoru’s head pangs with an unforgivable headache when, at around two in the morning, he hears Rei get up and shuffle around the kitchen, drinking warm honey water as his remedy for nights when he can’t fall asleep. The light from the kitchen slides across the room, illuminating the chairs and table and whispering tentatively as it crawls into the darkened bedroom. Kaoru flips onto his back, eyes opening as he takes in the clock by the bedside, thinking distantly at how Rei still has to wake up early the next morning. He makes his way back half an hour later, sighing as he lies down on his back and slings an arm over his eyes. 

“Rei?” Kaoru whispers.

The other hums. 

“You’ll be okay, right?”

Rei’s arm leaves his face, slides across the blanket until it finds Kaoru’s hand. He slots their fingers together.

“Maybe.”

Kaoru shuts his eyes tightly. Sometimes, he wishes Rei would just let himself be taken care of for a change. 

So, the following morning, Kaoru waits until Rei leaves for the studio before getting up and digging around the fridge. He chops up some vegetables, narrowly missing his fingers by a centimetre, and leaves the soup to simmer as he asks Adonis for the address to Rei’s studio. The other responds almost instantly, choosing not to ask the why that Kaoru is certain he is dying to know, and Kaoru thanks him internally as he plugs the address into his GPS.

It’s still the same one, he realises when he pulls the location up on his phone. He stills, wonders if he can even make it inside before he smells the aroma of the soup and shoves his thoughts away.

He’s being selfish, thinking of thoughts as ridiculous as this. He prepares a cup of coffee, packs the soup in a Thermos, and heads out before he can reconsider his actions.

The entire way there he forces himself not to think of anything. He fixes his eyes on the street, takes in the Christmas decorations, blasts music in his ears to distract himself, and when he reaches the building he swallows his fear and steps inside. 

At just that moment, a familiar face walks out of the elevator into the lobby, and Kaoru freezes when he recognises the bright orange hair framing the wide grin. Aoi Hinata, however, has eyes as sharp as a hawk, and when he sees Kaoru across the lobby the other stops as well. 

Kaoru raises a hand awkwardly. His limbs feel like iron bars. He wants to run away. “Hi, Hinata-kun.”

“Hakaze-san?” Faster than he can register, the twin makes his way over until they are face-to-face, Hinata’s eyes comically wide as he takes in Kaoru’s appearance. The other twin reaches out and touches Kaoru’s shoulder tentatively, fingers tapping the fabric as he gasps, “No way!”

“How have you been?” Kaoru asks when Hinata steps away, a brilliant smile alive on his features. “I take you’re doing well?”

“I’ve been good!” Hinata’s eyes are still rounded globes. His entire body seems to be buzzing with disbelief. “I’m shocked! I didn’t know you’d be back!”

“Rei didn’t tell you anything?”

“No, we haven’t talked since he told us of his retirement.”

Ah. Right. Kaoru had almost forgotten, and as he looks around the building he notices how most of the old posters from the idols of his generation have been taken down, replaced by new faces he doesn’t recognise. Hinata, noticing his gaze, catches the posters as well, and the other hums softly to acknowledge the new idols. 

“They’re very good,” Hinata says, gesturing to a large poster by the door. “He’s only sixteen. He’s very young.”

“We’re too old, aren’t we?” Kaoru laughs softly. “I guess it was about time.”

“But!” Hinata spins around almost wildly, and Kaoru freezes as the other grabs his wrists. “Will you and Rei continue as a duo? You can, right, now that you’re back? You can! Rei had been waiting for you, and if you see your manager now maybe he can reconsider! Right, right, you can do that, right?”

He’s on a rampant chatter, the words spilling from his mouth in hurried sentences, a desperation so intense that Kaoru almost feels sorry for him. It’s clear how much Hinata doesn’t want the other to retire and leave, and a part of Kaoru feels guilty because he feels as if he has a part in all of it. He feels bad, truly, but before he can open his mouth to try to say something he’s interrupted by a familiar voice behind Hinata.

“You’re scaring him, Hinata-kun,” Rei says, tapping Hinata on the shoulder to acknowledge his presence. He looks up and smiles at Kaoru, and he looks tired, almost haggard in his appearance. “Sorry about that. Hello, Kaoru.”

“Rei,” Kaoru greets awkwardly, and his hands tighten on the bag he holds. “When did you get here?”
“Just now. I’m on my way to grab a coffee for my break when I heard Hinata’s voice across the lobby.” 

He doesn’t even ask why I’m here, Kaoru realises, and a pang of guilt shoots through him because, once upon a time, this was normal. Them in this building together, walking out during lunchtime to get coffee on the days they were busier than normal, and perhaps Rei had unknowingly assimilated himself into this belief again because it’s just so familiar.

As if thinking the same thoughts, Rei freezes, a furious blush spreading across his face before Kaoru interrupts, “I brought you lunch, actually. It’s not much. I-I thought you would be tired, and this might help a bit instead of you just eating energy bars. You can eat it in the studio.”

Now Rei’s reddening for an entirely different reason. “Wait- you did?”

“Yeah. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to catch you, actually, but…” Kaoru hands the bag over, growing consciously aware of Hinata’s piercing gaze burning through his head, “here you go. I made soup and there’s a coffee in there. I hope it’s still warm.”

“You didn’t have to,” Rei says softly, taking the bag from him and peering inside. “Wow, I… thank you. You didn’t have to.”

Hinata’s still staring at them. 

“I’ll see you tonight, okay?” Kaoru mutters as Hinata’s eyebrows shoot up, disappearing into his bangs. “Um. Goodbye.”

“Y-yeah. See you,” Rei responds, and he hesitates for a second before reaching out and giving Kaoru’s hand a reassuring squeeze. He smiles, bows slightly to signal his departure, and then he’s gone. 

Kaoru doesn’t meet Hinata’s shocked gaze as the other gasps, “Wait. You two are an item?”

It doesn’t solve everything. When Rei gets home that evening, he’s still exhausted, if him slumping over the dining table with his head pillowed on his arm is anything. However, he smiles reassuringly at Kaoru’s frustrated nagging, and promises that they can go out for some Christmas shopping the week after the concert is over. 

“Oh, by the way, here,” Rei says as Kaoru clears the table after dinner. He reaches into his bag and pulls out a slip of paper, handing it to Kaoru as he shuts his wallet closed. “A ticket. For my concert.”

“Oh!” Kaoru takes it hesitantly. “Are you sure? I can pay for my own.”

“I got you a good seat. Zone A. Please take it.”

Kaoru holds the ticket up to the light, watches it as it reflects the evening world, and smiles at Rei’s name on the paper. He forgets about retirement and what isn’t important. There will be a time for that. “Okay.”

He’s driving aimlessly around the city with no destination and no purpose in mind. His head pulses with a headache, consequence of the wine he’d downed just half an hour ago. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He doesn’t know why he’s doing it.

All he knows is that he’s sick. He’s so sick, and there must be something wrong with him somewhere, because he’s just so sick. 

The news article flashes across his mind. Rei had found somebody. Or maybe somebody had found him. Or maybe it was all made up. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. 

Maybe Rei doesn’t need Kaoru anymore. It was entirely feasible.

It was sickening how this was his immediate reaction upon hearing the news was this insane dissociation. What little of himself he’d built up on his own just came crumbling down like ash, and he thinks he can’t live without anyone. 

It’s so unimportant. None of this really matters. 

He’s driving down Argyle Street in… was it Jordan? Tsim Sha Tsui? He doesn’t know, it doesn’t really matter. His hands are on the steering wheel, his fingers gripping leather, and he doesn’t really know what he’s doing anymore.

He’s floating, he soon realises as he runs a red, he’s floating in space, in some unbearable hell. He hates himself for it. 

What is he doing?

A car honks in front of him and he hits the brakes, stopping in the lane as a man curses at him in Cantonese. He doesn’t get it. He’ll apologise to someone tomorrow. He’ll apologise. For what? When? Tomorrow? What is tomorrow?

In his mind, tomorrow doesn’t exist anymore. It is pathetic of him, it is so cruel, but he’s so unbearably lonely and now, now he’s really alone. It doesn’t really matter anymore. 

It doesn’t really matter anymore.

He drives, and it doesn’t really matter anymore. He turns into a small lane beside the main road and he thinks that it doesn’t really matter anymore. 

The world is white. It is full of absence. If tomorrow doesn’t come, everything might be a little easier.

It doesn’t really matter anymore.

He already knows. He has already known. 

His body doesn’t feel like it’s here. He feels like an onlooker, looking at his life and laughing at how pathetic it all has been. He is so pathetic. It doesn’t really matter-

On impact, his first cohesive thought is that he’s surprised at how he’s still alive. How is he not dead yet? 

And, against all odds, he thinks of dark hair, warm eyes, of long, pale fingers and neatly trimmed nails. 

How embarrassing. How fucking embarrassing. 

He hears shouts, he hears someone and it’s a familiar voice and he sounds like he’s crying, and when the door is yanked open beside him he turns, dazed, and meets the eyes of a man who he’d never imagine to be here, of all places. 

Niki, do you know what heartbreak feels like?

It doesn’t really matter anymore.

Later, he finds out from that same man that the article had been false. The girl Rei had been with was only a fan, and she’d merely gotten lost and was asking for directions on the street. But it was too late already, wasn’t it? 

It doesn’t really matter anymore.

The night before Rei’s concert, Kaoru gets a message from Adonis. 

Otogari Adonis :: Should we meet up before the concert? We can go in together.

Hakaze Kaoru :: r ur seats also in zone a? 

Otogari Adonis :: Yeah, Rei helped us get them. 

Otogari Adonis :: Also, it would be inconvenient to find you after the concert, especially with all the people in the stands. Best to just stick together.

Hakaze Kaoru :: ok. should we meet by the train station at 5?

Otogari Adonis :: Sounds good.

He’s smiling. He can’t help himself. He shuts his phone off, shakes his head, and places it under his pillow again, before covering his mouth with his hand and breaking into a full-blown grin. Next to him, Rei looks down from his book and slots a bookmark in, before dropping the book on the floor and sliding down under the covers. He flips the light off, and the two of them become enshrouded in the darkness.

“You’ve been smiling so much recently,” Rei says. He gives Kaoru’s leg a nudge under the blankets. “Care to share?”

“Nothing,” Kaoru responds. It’s too embarrassing. “I won’t share.”

“So cruel,” Rei mutters, but he smiles as he presses a kiss to Kaoru’s cheek before turning away. “Good night.”

“Good luck tomorrow,” Kaoru says, reaching down and squeezing his hand. “It’s surreal that I get to say it to you like this now.”

“I’ll do my best,” Rei murmurs. He squeezes Kaoru’s hand back. “I’ll be looking for you.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Before he knows it, Kaoru’s dozing off, eyelids heavy over his eyes as he slowly slips into unconsciousness. Above him, the stars peek out from behind the thick clouds, as if saying their first winter greetings, and the world starts to snow. 

“Kaoru!”

He looks up from his phone, fingers still hovering over the keyboard where he’s about to text Adonis, and recognises Koga’s enthusiastic yell from across the train station. The other is waving frantically, cheeks red and ashy hair framed with large, puffy white earmuffs, a rather comedic addition to his otherwise dark outfit and boots. Adonis stands beside him, sporting similar puffy white earmuffs, and Kaoru quickly understands that Koga’s surprising fashion decisions were probably not entirely his own.

“I love your earmuffs,” is the first thing he says when he comes into proximity. Koga scowls as Adonis beams. “It’s very cute on you.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Adonis interrupts, pulling out his phone and showing Kaoru a photo displaying a (rather extensively) large collection of similar puffy earmuffs in various colours. “I saw these at the department store the other day and I had to buy them. I told him they were adorable, but he kept refusing to put them on.”

“They make my ears itch,” Koga whines, to which Adonis only snorts and shoves his phone back into his pocket. “I didn’t want to wear them, but this guy started throwing a fit.”

“It’s cold today!” Adonis fights back, shooting Koga a look as he leads the way to the concert venue. “See? He complains a lot. Nothing has changed.”

Koga looks like he’s about to throw another one of the fits Adonis had warned about, but Kaoru slips a hand between both their arms, pulling them close as he beams. “Let’s have fun tonight, okay?”

Both his friends’ eyes widen at the sudden contact, Koga faltering, mouth open mid-sentence, but Adonis quickly regains his composure and smiles back warmly. “Let’s have fun.”

They make their way through check-in smoothly, only stopped by security upon noticing Koga carrying an ungodly, controversial amount of water bottles, and as they wait outside the concert hall with sodas in their hands Kaoru realises just how different it is this time.

He’s been to his fair share of concerts, even before his own retirement. Yet, those had always simply been the concerts of his friends, and every concert he’d attended afterwards was only Rei’s. In those, he often hid at the back, picked the seats closest to the exit, and always watched at a distance, alone. He’d never gone with anyone else, never lingered at the venue before the concert started and after it ended, and so he sits here now, listening to Koga and Adonis complain about the icy temperature inside the concert hall, and he can’t help himself from smiling. 

It’s different this time, Kaoru understands, and he takes a sip of his soda as he focuses on his friends. It’s different this time, and he likes it because it feels so much warmer. Perhaps he could even momentarily forget everything that bothers him - Rei’s exhaustion, his father’s illness, Kanata leaving - and simply focus on the moment now, and let himself live in the moment. He's happy now. He knows that. It is the little things, because the people he's with love him, too, and they want him to be happy. It is enough.

“Oh! Rei mentioned one thing,” Adonis starts when they enter the concert hall. “He’s performing a new song today.”

Kaoru stops. He’d completely forgotten about that, the song Rei had been writing with Eichi when he first got here. “I didn’t know he was performing it today.”

“He’s performing it as the closing act,” Koga adds. “He wouldn’t let me hear it! I’m excited. He said he worked pretty hard on it.”

“Do you think it’ll be like what he usually sings?” Adonis muses. “After all, this is probably his last official release with the company.”

“Probably not,” Kaoru says as they find their seats. He sets his bag down and glances at the ticket in his hand. “He wrote it with Tenshouin. I think it will be different.”

“Have you heard it yet, Kaoru-san?” Adonis asks.

“Not yet. Today would be my first time as well. The last time I saw a draft, he said he wasn’t ready yet.”

“So none of us knows, huh,” Koga muses, and he leans back in his seat as he yawns. “Well. He doesn’t disappoint.”

“No,” Kaoru agrees, and he casts his eyes to the vast stage in front of him. It is so empty, so void of anything, and he waits for it to come alive, where he’ll see the man he loves the most sing his heart out to the world. “He doesn’t.”

When Rei comes on stage, the hall erupts in cheers and screams. Now in the front, Kaoru turns around and jumps at how loud the sound is, but his eyes turn quickly back to the man now walking to the front, a calm smile on his features as he raises his hand. The cheers subside, and Rei holds the mic up to his mouth before he yells, “Good evening, everyone!”

The speakers beside him boom with the sudden sound and Kaoru gasps, reaching one hand up to rub at his ears. Beside him, Adonis laughs. 

“That was me the first time I got a Zone A seat as well,” Adonis says before he tugs gently on Kaoru’s arm and directs his gaze upwards. “But look at him from here. He looks like a god.”

Kaoru looks up, and his breath hitches because Adonis is right. Because beautiful things exist in this world, and he’s just understanding them. 

Standing there above them, Rei doesn’t look like the Rei Kaoru knows. Maybe it’s consequence after taking shelter in the wings for so long, but now that he’s right in front of them, he doesn’t look real. He looks like a star. He looks like what an idol should look like, and Kaoru finds it hard to really breathe now that he knows what Rei looks like in the moments when he shines the brightest.

The music starts, and the place erupts into chants. 

Above him, Rei sings into the music like his life depends on it. Every lyric out of his mouth is the music of his soul, every thump of the drums behind him the beat of his heart. His voice pierces through Kaoru’s ears, rests somewhere comfortable in his body, and Kaoru breathes along with the music, singing along with the crowd until he becomes part of the many, many others around him who all love the same person. 

It is shockingly nostalgic. Now that he stands so close to the other, he can almost imagine himself on that stage with him, looking at Rei like they are equals, their voices twisting together to create a harmony of sounds. His fingers tingle with a long-forgotten adrenaline, his feet bouncing as he recounts the choreography and footwork he'd once memorised and seared into his mind, and it is all so, so shockingly nostalgic. The part of him that holds on to the past yearns to relive a moment like this, but the part of him that is the now, that is the present, knows that it's not really what he wants. 

He knows that he's happy the way he is now. There are things he would change about the past, and there will be things he will want to change about the future, but he's okay with himself now. He's okay with himself as he is.  

Beauty, he knows too, is different for every single person, and to him, Rei is beautiful as he is now. Gorgeous is the sun when it sets, and gorgeous is the midnight moon above the clouds upon the waves of the harbour, and in his heart Kaoru reaches out with his hands open like a golden urn, awaiting Rei’s beauty in all of its sunbathed glory. He has always been a star, a god, and above him, Rei looks intangible yet Kaoru knows the cadence of all his tears and the chords of all of his happiness. 

How lucky he has been to know these things about someone so untouchable. How lucky he really is. 

Before he knows it, an hour has gone by, then two, and Rei is approaching his final song, and the hall has calmed down. Kaoru’s throat feels parched, dry after singing his heart out with Rei on the stage above him, and so he doesn’t expect it at all when Rei sets the mic on the stand, pulls out his guitar, and says, “This is my final song. It’s dedicated to someone I cherish deeply in my heart. He’s with us today.”

His gaze scans Zone A before landing on him, and Rei meets his eyes with a determined stare. They soften into something Kaoru doesn’t dare interrupt as Rei continues, “Thanks for saving me. You can have my entire life, if you deem that as a gift worth receiving in exchange for the love you’ve given me. I love you as well. Please hold your head a little higher.”

Beside him, Adonis gasps, a red blush spreading across his face as he hisses, “Kaoru-san, did you just hear what he-“

“Yes,” Kaoru’s breathless. He can’t stop staring at the sun. “Yes. I heard it.”

You can have my entire life. What has he done to deserve this? What has he done?

And when Rei finally breaks their gaze, looking out at the audience in front of him before singing the first notes of the song, Kaoru feels his eyes water in a kaleidoscopic haze, and the lights of the stage blur together to create a beautiful, beautiful image, an image of the sea at sunset, and Kaoru remembers Rei’s gift by the ocean, the coldness of the seashells as they slide onto his wrist, remembers the feeling of sand under his feet and the impressions of love against the water’s surface. The waves of the ocean create their own mirage of what love means, and he's sent back to the water at wintertime, and some things have never made more sense than they did right now.

Rei looks back at him, and Kaoru meets his gaze steadily. He doesn’t run away. 

Everything is a little easier now. The water is tangible.

I’ll continue to be in you. You, too, can have my entire life also.

Grace occurs on unlikely streets

And we hold each other fast

Against entropy, the fires and the flood. 

- Tom Hirons, “In the Meantime”

Chapter Text

+

The most beautiful part of your body 

is where it’s headed. & remember, 

loneliness is still time spent 

with the world.

- Ocean Vuong, “Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong”

+

Good evening, Dad.

I’m Kaoru, your youngest. I’m twenty-nine, and I work as a tour guide at the local aquarium. I like strawberry pancakes, the sound of the sea, and Japanese literature. No, I’m not married yet, but one day I would like to be. I just went on a short getaway for the past two days, and now I’m home. I think that should answer all the questions so far.

Writing this letter - it’s strange. I don’t remember the last time I wrote you a letter. I think I was six, and I think we had a school activity. I think I told you about my day. I don’t remember what you did with it. I won’t say that it didn’t sadden me.

I hope the transfer process was smooth. I’m sorry I can’t take care of you. I don’t have the resources. The hospital agreed that the elderly home would be for the best. I will visit you. I hope you won’t hate me.

It’s five in the morning right now, so I’m sorry if this is scuffed. I can’t really sleep. I don’t really know what to say. I don’t even know why I’m doing this, but I guess I want to let you know that I’m really happy. Genuinely. I haven’t been this happy in a long time. I want it to last forever. Do you understand this feeling? I think you do, because everyone was genuinely happy once, and a part of me likes to believe that you were happy when Mom was still around. I like to believe that. If she were here right now, I’d tell her that I’m glad she gave birth to me. I’m glad that I exist in this world. I’m glad that the universe aligned the way it did, and I’m glad that everything happened as it did, because it means that I can finally understand what it means to be genuinely happy now. I’ll tell her that you’re not as happy as you used to be and that you’d like her company, wouldn’t you? And when I tell her this, we’ll be in that dusty apartment with the broken sink in the old complex, and it’ll be raining outside. She’ll make us a cup of coffee, that ‘instant shit’ you used to call it, and she’ll sit us down and everything will be okay. I think we’ll be able to fix something then.

+

He wakes to the sound of rain.

There is a gentle splattering against the windowpanes, a soft rhythm that floats on little cloud feet throughout the otherwise quiet apartment. Raindrops fall from where they’re suspended in the leaves of a rosemary plant, plopping down into a puddle at the base of the ceramic pot. The sky outside is a murky grey, a mix between a pale bleached white and a dull ash, and the buildings nearby, enshrouded by a late December mist, resemble shadows along a path blanketed by snow. The sounds of the raining world echo like a suspended mirage, the raindrops decorating the glass in an organised chaos before they combine and they slide down, where they will land on the wood of his balcony, beside the potted plants he has forgotten to bring in this morning. When he turns his head, he can barely see the balconies of the apartment complex next to them, and he briefly registers the feeling of someone’s thighs beneath his head, as well as a jacket thrown over his chest, as he reaches up to rub the sleep out of his eyes. He slowly sits up.

An amused giggle sounds from beside him, and Rei turns to see familiar hands sliding a receipt between the pages of an old book, shutting the novel closed. His companion sets it on the coffee table before picking up a mug of tea without steam, the warmth already dissipated in the winter air. He holds it in his hands anyway, as if chamomile tea without steam is normal. Perhaps it is. It is familiar. 

“Good afternoon, Rei.”

Natsume Soseki’s Kokoro stares back at him. “Good afternoon, Kaoru. How long did I sleep for?”

“You dozed off at around one thirty. It’s almost three.”

Rei hums. “A nice nap.”

Kaoru takes a sip from the cup before setting it down again. “I could tell. You were snoring.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You were. I recorded it. Would you like to hear-“

“You did not. Delete that.”

“No,” and Kaoru giggles again before springing up from the couch and stuffing his phone in his back pocket. Rei glares at him playfully from his seat on the couch. “You don’t get to decide.”

Rei huffs, before shifting on the couch to lean against it properly. He’ll have to find some time on his own to snoop through Kaoru’s pictures and delete the embarrassing footage himself. In the meantime, he stretches his arms above his head, releases a massive yawn, and rubs his eyes again before glancing at the clock. “It’s good to finally have a few days off. I’ve been so worn out.”

“It’s understandable,” Kaoru agrees as he walks over to the window. “You’ve been so busy lately, preparing for your last concert and all. It’s sort of surreal, isn’t it?”

“I didn’t think this day would come so soon, really,” Rei admits softly. He reaches over and picks up Kokoro, flipping the book open and thumbing the pages. Words fly past as paper turns, scattered mentions of the beach and the water and Sensei and- “But maybe I’d been prepared all along. I’m not as sad as I’d imagined.”

“Prepared? You’re always prepared. You’ve always taken such good care of us, after all,” Kaoru turns around in Rei’s peripheral vision and now leans against the glass. Rei’s eyes do not waver from the pages. “You always put us first. You were always ready, even when you didn’t have to be.”

“I never wanted you guys to get your hopes too high. I didn’t want to ever disappoint you either, Kaoru,” Rei adds. Modest. Sea. Indifferent. “It is good to be cautious. It means I hurt less now.”

“Have you… ever considered speaking to your manager?”

“About?” Grave. Sympathy. Divine punishment.

“About finding a way to renew the contract with me in it. I’m back now, right? It would be the logical course of action.”

“But that’s not what you want.” It is a confident statement. Home. Happiest. Wait.

“No,” Kaoru agrees, and Rei looks up to meet a gentle smile, rimmed by the dim light reflecting off the droplets. Kaoru almost disappears into the raining world, but his smile binds them together. Looking at him now, Rei wonders how he ever thought Kaoru could leave him again. “It’s not what I want.”

“It would be selfish of me to tether you down, after all,” Rei finishes. Silence. Flowering. Love. “You left for a reason. It would be disrespectful to the person you have become.”

“Can I be selfish now?” Kaoru asks quietly.

Rei shuts the book, holding it in his hands, before leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. His skin is cold but his chest is oddly warm, his heartbeat dangerously quickening. He hums. “What is it you want to ask for?”

Kaoru straightens, before sitting down beside Rei and taking Kokoro from him. He flips to the bookmarked page. 

I left Tokyo by train that night.

“Let’s go on a trip.”

Rei takes two days off, just in time for Christmas. His last concert is the week after, forming a bit of an awkward schedule, and Kaoru’s surprised that he managed to obtain permission without much conflict.

“How did you do it?” Kaoru asks, incredulous, when Rei shoots him a thumbs up after hanging up.

Rei shrugs. “My manager trusts me.”

He doesn’t mention that perhaps it’s the pity points that got him this far. 

They pack up their things that evening, only a suitcase and a bag each, and they head for the seaside town. 

Kaoru books a train at three in the morning, the two of them set to arrive at seven, and sometime after midnight as they sit on the subway on their way to the main station Rei notices that Kaoru’s failing to keep his yawns to himself. With watery eyes, he reaches up occasionally to rub the blur out of them, blinking frantically afterward in an effort to hide the tears. He tries to stay awake, thumbing through Kokoro, but his page turns get slower and slower and his head starts drooping forward in an indisputable fatigue. Soon, he’s rocking in rhythm to the train, Kokoro forgotten as his head dips dangerously close to the window. He manages to pull himself together right before the collision and mutters something inaudible to himself. 

Rei hides a snort and, facing him and watching this spectacle with great amusement, casts a sly look from the seat in front. “Sleepy?”

Kaoru’s face scrunches as he stifles another yawn. He tries to discreetly adjust his grip on his book and mutters, “It’s almost two. It’s understandable.”

Rei’s face breaks into a grin. 

“Fair enough,” he sings as he casts his gaze away, glancing out the window. Through their reflections in the glass, Kaoru follows his gaze. 

The world outside is completely dark, lit up only by the matchstick street lamps that rush by like the smoky ends of a cigarette. There are only two other people in the train cabin along with them, all four of them rumbling along as the train speeds through the late hours of the evening, and at a time like this Rei feels exhaustion catching up with him, draping its languid arms across his back. Packing hadn’t been tedious and it isn't as if they're going for a long time, either, but it’s late and he’s tired and, from his earlier attempts at staying awake, it seems that Kaoru’s tired too. Perhaps that’s why the lonely scenery outside seems so soothing, a calm melancholia that looks like something right out of a Hopper painting, and isolation has never really looked as picturesque as it did now.

“It’s so peaceful, isn’t it?” Rei asks. He turns to look back at Kaoru, where the other is already awaiting his gaze. “I’ve never seen this road so empty.” And just because he’s a jokester at heart, he adds, “It’s kind of scary if you think more about it. It’s something right out of the backrooms.”

“You’re crazy,” Kaoru mutters, but his lips quirk up at his last statement. “Scared of ghosts?”

“You’re the one who’s always been afraid of ghosts,” Rei snorts, but his playful attitude quickly disappears when he notices Kaoru peek at the back of his hands, setting Kokoro aside and holding them up, rubbing at his skin with his fingers. Rei reaches into his bag and rummages around for a pale pink tube, where he quickly unscrews the cap and holds out his own hand. 

“Kao-kun, c’mere.”

“Huh?” 

Before Kaoru can comprehend, Rei’s already reaching forward and taking Kaoru’s hands in his own. Kaoru’s hands are cold, his fingertips red and icy from the chilly train interior paired with the scraggly coat he brought along with him. The other freezes, startled, as Rei holds him gently before unscrewing the cap of the pink tube and squeezing a dollop of white on Kaoru’s skin. Rei frowns. “Your hands are so dry.”

“I-I know that,” Kaoru protests as Rei massages the cream into the back of his hands and the skin at the junction of his thumb and index finger, where Kaoru’s skin has dried enough to leave dusty white patches. Kaoru winces. “Ouch.”

“Sorry,” Rei whispers, even though he has no idea why he’s apologising. The soft scent of roses floats into the space between them, a soothing aroma that lingers and leaves Kaoru’s eyes to droop again, and Rei peeks up at Kaoru’s drowsy figure as he chides, “Don’t fall asleep on me, love.”

“I’m not falling asleep,” Kaoru stifles a massive yawn. 

Rei gives Kaoru’s hands a squeeze before leaning back. Kaoru’s hands remain folded in-between Rei’s own. “Do you have everything? We’re getting off soon.”

“I’m not falling asleep on you,” Kaoru repeats drowsily, very much falling back asleep. Rei stares amusedly at him as he shuts his eyes, muttering, “Thank you, Rei. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Take better care of yourself.”

“Yes. I didn’t know how I missed that. It’s not like I see my hands every day… or something.”

Rei shoots him a look, but his lips are already quirking up and he’s smiling soon enough. He looks back out the windows again, looks back out at the cigarette lamplights, and he leans his head back against the seat before exhaling softly. They share a comfortable silence, not needing to say anything more, and Rei’s fingers find a slow, steady pace on Kaoru’s wrists, caressing him gently as he warms Kaoru’s fingers in his palms. The announcement for the next stop blares above their heads, jarringly loud in the quiet space of the train interior, and that’s when Rei finally lets Kaoru’s hands go, the two of them slowly standing up to grab their bags. 

“Are you excited?” Rei asks as they steady themselves in front of the train doors. The train creaks as the station comes into view.

“You have absolutely no idea,” Kaoru responds, grinning as he tucks his hands into his pockets. 

The doors open, and they step out. 

On the long train ride to the seaside town, Kaoru tries his very best to stay awake. Rei watches as he fails.

It’s quite impossible. The seats are much softer, the compartment much warmer, and the express train a lot less noisy than their previous commute. There’s a soft classical tune playing on the speakers, and with Kaoru sitting by the window, watching the scenery, it’s no surprise when Rei hears a soft thud on the floor a few minutes into their journey. 

“Kaoru,” Rei scolds gently as he leans down, picking Kokoro up where it had fallen on the floor. He dusts the book off. “Take care of your things.”

The other stirs, mutters something incomprehensible, and yawns miserably.

Rei only sighs, smiling as he sets the book on the little table in front of him. 

Cute.

His eyes widen.

A part of him thinks that Kaoru is so endearing like this, and another part of him immediately curses himself for being so sappy. It’s ridiculous. His cheeks flare up and he turns his head away, staring a hole into the floor of the train compartment as he desperately tries to shake the stupid thought from his head. Disgusting. He’s being so sappy. He fumbles as he tries to busy himself with another task, a desperate attempt at distraction, and he notices Kaoru’s phone on his lap, threatening to slip into the gap between their seats. He takes Kaoru’s phone from Kaoru’s lap and is in the middle of plugging it into the wire when he feels a hand wrap around his elbow. The warmth from the other’s palm seeps through the fabric of his jacket and tethers him to stillness, and he’s all-too-quickly reminded of his embarrassing observation and his voice comes out strangled as he asks, “Kaoru?”

“Sorry… I’m so tired.”

“Sleep,” Rei plugs Kaoru’s phone in and sets it on the table. “It’s a pretty long journey anyway.”

“I want to keep you company.”

“I’ll rest too, okay?” 

“…okay.”

The hand on his elbow tightens and, within a few minutes, he feels a soft weight on his shoulder, where Kaoru has finally fallen asleep.

+

Do you know what it means to be relied upon? To be depended on?

I never considered myself as someone worth either of these things. I have always been hesitant, indecisive, and when Rei (my lover and our neighbour back in our old apartment) was announced the leader of UNDEAD (the band I was in) I immediately thought, ‘Ah. This makes sense. There is no other person better for the job, especially not me.’

And I’ve allowed myself to believe this ever since. I’ve never questioned myself because I have always been scared of what would happen if I did. Would I end up resenting the life I lived? Would I end up resenting Rei, and Koga, and Adonis (my bandmates and my best friends)? What would happen to me if I did?

It’s not that I thought I would make a better leader. It’s not that I thought I would make a good leader to begin with. I just didn’t want to challenge the image I’d already created, and so I let myself become a person who needed someone to rely on and someone to depend on. I guess you can assume that I never really grew from that. 

Even during the years I was alone, I sought the attention of other people. I felt like I could never completely be myself without someone to chain me down. And through every instance of trauma, every wave of self-loathing, I just clawed desperately for other people without even caring about myself. Maybe I would get better if I just forgot about it. Maybe other people can be a distraction. I didn’t know that that wasn’t necessary. I didn’t know that I could let myself heal if I’d only learned to accept myself as I was and face my problems head-on. No more running away. 

I may not be a leader. I’m still no leader right now. But I can keep myself afloat. I can rely on myself, and I can depend on myself. I think this is enough.

There is a sense of freedom in a well-earned happiness. It’s not heavy, not tethered and chained down by burdens. After all, I’d worked hard for it. I think I deserve it.

I realise I’ve grown. I’m going to be a better person to myself. I think that’s important. 

+

He doesn’t know when he himself had dozed off, but he wakens to the gentle rumbling of the train and a paling sky. 

Rei blinks his eyes open, watching as the landscape outside the train rushes by in its faded greens and browns of the countryside, a world still in soft slumber in the early hours of the morning. Above them, the sky is still a deep blue, but somewhere on the horizon cerulean is melting into a hazy lavender, and Rei realises that the sun is rising. 

On his shoulder, Kaoru doesn’t move. Rei had tossed his jacket over Kaoru’s shoulders before he let himself rest up, and he looks down to see that it has fallen, crumpled, on Kaoru’s lap. He reaches over to tuck it over Kaoru’s torso again. Sensing his touch, the other stirs softly but doesn’t wake up.

Leaning back in his seat, Rei watches as the train rumbles on towards the seaside, the dim houses slowly brightening as the day waxes. Before he knows it, the lavender has spread, creating a brilliant ombre of yellow, purple, and blue above them, and he leans over to shake Kaoru’s shoulders gently as he whispers, “Hey. Wake up. The sun is rising.”

The weight on his shoulder lightens as Kaoru stirs. “Wh…?”

“The sunrise. Look. Look outside.”

Kaoru sits up, the jacket falling off his shoulders again, as he takes in the scene before them, and Rei hears a hitched gasp from his side as Kaoru shuffles closer to the window. He’s suddenly awake, previous exhaustion forgotten as Kaoru presses himself against the glass, hands gripping his armrest as he takes in the rising sun. 

“The sky is so pretty,” Kaoru murmurs. He turns around suddenly, and the early sunlight reflects off the moon pendant dangling from his neck. Suddenly, Kaoru looks surreal. “Rei, look. It looks like a painting.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” Rei agrees as the sun peaks out over the hilltops and the white houses. It casts a beam of light outwards to the expanse of the sky, lighting up Kaoru’s silhouette from behind him, and immediately there comes the fleeting thought that Kaoru looks like a god, like something angelic, his figure rimmed in gold against the rising sun. What other words he could’ve possibly said fall silent on his tongue, and Rei drinks in the view before him, of the man he loves most against the beginnings of a new day in an old world, because he doesn’t know what to say. 

You are beautiful to me. I adore you completely.

Suddenly, Kaoru’s hand shoots out to grab his wrist, and Rei’s shaken out of his trance as Kaoru says excitedly, “Look! In the distance! I can see the ocean!”

It’s true. Between the rolling hills, the staccatos of white houses and scattered neighbourhoods, the ocean peeks out in a tiny strip, a shimmering, promising blue reflecting the sun. It’s still a good distance away, disappearing occasionally between the houses, but it’s there like a reassuring promise, and the world is endless and everything is so much easier to understand. 

Right. It will be his last concert soon. He will retire for good. He will start his new job at the vinyl store, and he will perform gigs at Yuzuru’s bar and upload covers and videos when he wants to.

Right. Kaoru lives with him now. He’s not going anywhere. They’ll take their time with each other. They can love each other properly, the way they weren’t able to the past six years.

Right. The sun is rising, and he is content. Everything makes sense. 

Everything except one thing. It lodges itself in his throat, and suddenly Rei needs to hold on to something. His hand reaches across the armrest only to find Kaoru’s already waiting for him, their fingers intertwining like the threaded roots of an old tree, the promise of something steadfast, of something eternal. 

To watch the sunrise together as their worlds are changing. It is something like reassurance. It is something like adoration. It is something haunting, and it is something completely, utterly, overwhelmingly beautiful.

+

The first book you gave me was The Little Prince. In it was this quote:

“You see, one loves the sunset when one is so sad.”

Do you remember this?

I watched the sunrise with my lover two days ago, and it was then that I realised my sunsets have only ever been sad because I’d let them be. I’d always seen them as motifs of departure, a permanent end to something final, and I guess I never realised that, no matter how many bad days I’ve had, the sun always came up the following morning. 

It has, hasn’t it? I’ve never lived a day where the sun didn’t rise again. Perhaps there’s hope in that. Or maybe I’m just romanticising my own life for the sake of letting myself be happier. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, either. 

The sun is coming up now. Beside me, Rei is still sleeping, and I don’t think I’ll wake him up to watch this one with me. It’s okay. We’ll have many more sunrises. We’ll have many more years where we can wake up early and watch one together.

There are beautiful things in this world. It has taken me twenty-nine years to learn this, and I’m just now learning how to appreciate them all.

+

Their morning goes a little something like this:

After they leave the train station, all exhaustion seems to completely evaporate from Kaoru’s body. He’s bounding down the street towards the inn by the sea, throwing an excited grin over his shoulder occasionally to check if Rei’s keeping up before shouting, “Hurry!” over and over, quickening his pace. Rei sighs, shaking his head every single time as he trudges behind at a much slower pace, and complains that his bones can’t keep up. He hides his smile, though. It’s embarrassing if Kaoru sees it. 

After they check in, Kaoru flops down onto the couch belly-first. He kicks his legs and arms up, laughing as he expresses his joy, and Rei sees a glance of the old Kaoru from their schooldays, a boy who could barely contain his excitement when he was happy, and it sends a nostalgic warmth through his body that lingers at his fingers and leads him to reach over and plant a kiss on the top of Kaoru’s head. The other chokes in surprise, reddening madly as Rei ruffles his hair giddily, before placing their bags on the carpet and unpacking their things. They don’t talk about the heart-shaped swan towels on the bed. 

After they’d settled, Kaoru suggests a picnic for lunch, and Rei pushes away all his concerns about the freezing temperature and the cold sea and agrees. He doesn’t know why he does, especially when he hates the freezing weather so much. When Kaoru gets ready in the bathroom, he packs a blanket and a hot thermos deep into his bag. He throws in a few hand warmers while he’s at it. They head to the market nearby, where Rei has to swat the box of sushi out of Kaoru’s hands in lieu of the freshly baked warm pastries. They walk out of the store with the croissants, sandwiches, and the box of sushi anyway, because Rei doesn’t know how to say no.

And so they arrive here again, in the quiet town by the seaside in the wintertime. They are like two people in a dream, standing shoulder to shoulder, not quite touching but not quite apart.

It is the afternoon, and the wind is picking up. The gusts rush over them so quickly it threatens to take the entirety of the beach with it, and Rei reaches up to clutch his scarf tighter, burying his nose in the fabric.

“It’s cold, isn’t it?” Kaoru laughs. He’s shuddering, shaking his head as he rubs his hands together. “Maybe I shouldn’t have suggested a picnic.”

“No, no,” Rei takes the bag from Kaoru’s hands and feels the ice in his fingers. Kaoru draws back quickly, embarrassed, before Rei frowns and reaches up to tuck Kaoru’s hand into his own pocket. He fumbles for his hand warmer as he says, “We’re already here. Let’s have one anyway.”

“You’re kind of ridiculous,” Kaoru mutters, but he laces their fingers tightly together over the hand warmer nonetheless.

They find a dry patch a little bit further up from the water, and Kaoru releases his hold to spread the picnic blanket. He gives it a shake, giggles when the gust of air sends sand flying into Rei’s shoes, and lays the blanket down. Rei kicks his shoes off before picking one up, threatening to aim it at Kaoru’s head, and the other cackles as he ducks and runs away. Rei watches as Kaoru stumbles in the sand, laughing as he hobbles on the uneven mounds, and Rei wonders why his cheeks suddenly feel so hot, a feeling so comforting in the cold winter that chills him down to the marrow in his bones. He sees Kaoru stop a fair distance away, the other waving playfully, and the words suddenly form at the tip of his tongue, threatening to spill out in their clumsy revelation.

Every part of me will forever be in love with you.

He stares at Kaoru instead, before waving his hand to motion for the other to come back. Sitting down, Rei takes out the thick comforter from his bag and spreads it over his legs, shoving the thought into the back of his mind. It’s too embarrassing to say. It might scare him away.

“I’m so glad you brought that,” Kaoru muses, walking back and shuffling closer to Rei before tucking the corner of the blanket under his own feet. “I didn’t think it would be so cold.”

“Of course. You never check the weather before going out.”

“Well.”

“It’s okay,” Rei smiles before taking out the thermos of coffee from the basket. “I came prepared.”

Kaoru sighs, before tilting backwards and falling on his back. With his eyes turned towards the sky, he says, “It’s nostalgic being back here, isn’t it?”

Rei cracks open the lid of the thermos, and the scent of strong coffee wafts into the air between them. He pours himself a cup before leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and saying, “The last time I came back here was four years ago.”

“Four years?” 

Rei takes a sip, shutting his eyes as warmth seeps into his cold body. “I didn’t have the heart to come back. After my uncle moved in to the house, I figured it was a new leaf for everyone.”

“It would seem so,” Kaoru mutters in response. He pulls himself back up, before taking the cup from Rei’s hands and taking a sip himself. “How has your family been?”

“Alright, I suppose. Other than my parents, I don’t talk to the rest of them very often.” 

“Consequence of settling down in a different place?”

“I guess. It’s awkward. I don’t really know what to say to them anymore. Ever since the funeral… I guess I just never really knew what to say. What can I say? I feel like all of them moved on much faster than I did.”

“I would assume so,” Kaoru whispers, before reaching over and taking Rei’s hand in his own. His delicate fingers trace over Rei’s cuticles in a reassuring pattern, drawing circles near the tips, before he asks ever so gently, “Should we pay your grandfather a visit later?”

Rei stares out to the sea, watching the waves as they pull in and out in their eternal chase for the shore. He wonders what’s still unchanging in this grey and blue ambiguity. “Yeah. Let’s do that.”

+

In the entirety of the years I lived with you, you didn’t have any friends. I’d always wondered what you did when Mom would go out for a coffee, or when a holiday would roll around and none of us would be home. It seemed like you were always by yourself, waiting for us to come back. Ever since Mom passed away, I’ve found it harder to understand you.

Sorry. I’m sorry for avoiding you for the better half of my life. There’s a past between us you can’t remember, and it’ll make me a dick to bring it up to you now, so I won’t. I’m just sorry. I find that it’s easier to say this to you now, now that I don’t have to worry about the consequences of saying something that would stir up your temper. I don’t think it makes me any braver, but I’m sorry nonetheless.

Were there ever things you wanted to say to me? I guess it’s a bit too late now. Maybe some things will always be better left unsaid. I think we can start anew from here.

There’s nothing inherently wrong about being alone, of course. I just wondered if it ever got lonely. To be lonely is a sad, sad thing.

+

He is twenty-one, and he is sitting at the dining table, finalising a summer term paper, when he gets the news. 

At first, he doesn’t register his mother’s voice. All he hears is the distant rumble of telephone static where she calls him from somewhere across the ocean, and it’s only when she says it again that Rei finally registers that yes, his grandfather is dead and no, no one expected the sudden heart attack that would take him this morning and I’m sorry, I know you were close to him. 

He thinks it’s some sick joke. That’s always been the reaction he has given to news that he didn’t want to hear. But then he hears someone crying in the background, realises that his mother would never joke about something like this, and it sucks the breath out of his body until he’s someone only half alive.

His whole body is shaking. His heartbeat is in his mouth, and he can taste the sour tang of anguish. He is so cold. The heater must be broken, he must not be wearing enough - no, that’s not right, it’s the dead of summer, it is late August and the air conditioning is blowing at the back of his neck. His mother’s voice is fading out into the distance, the words on his paper blurring as his computer seems to constrict and break down. His vision burns. The world is water. The world is a mirage. The world is-

He reaches up to rub his eyes and realises that he’s crying. 

The late summer sun seeps in through the windows, the bars of yellow illuminating the specks of dust in the air. It looks like speckled snow, an ironic coldness in the heat of summer, freckles that remain suspended in their slow descent and Rei is so cold, he can’t comprehend anything, all he knows is grief. He wants to bury himself and hide. He wants everything to just stop. Nothing seems to be gentle. Why is that so?

“Rei? Are you there?”

His mother’s voice cuts through his mind like a blunt knife, lodging itself at the back of his skull where he feels nothing, and Rei grips the edge of the table in some sort of desperate attempt at grounding as he asks, “When will the funeral be?”

“Next week,” his mother says quietly. “Please try to make it. I know you are busy with university and your career but-“

“I’ll be there. How is Dad?”

“Not doing well. It would be good if you can stay for a few days.”

Rei finds himself mindlessly agreeing to everything, his fingertips aching where he grips the wood too tightly. The corners of the table dig into the curves of his hands, digs into his palm, and he draws his hand back when he comprehends pain. Two sharp lines stare back at him, vivid red against pale skin. 

When his mother hangs up, he stares back down at the smooth wood, unseeing, and he wonders why everything hurts so much and why nothing hurts at all. 

He knows first and foremost that he regrets something. He doesn’t yet know what it is. Maybe his lack of filial piety, maybe the fact that he hasn’t been home in a long time, especially now that his career has been soaring. Perhaps it was his wicked list of priorities, how family has never really been at the top, even though it was his grandfather who had raised him, it was his grandfather who had taught him music, it was his grandfather who had cared about him and his brother most when his parents weren’t around-

Suddenly, fear seizes his chest as his eyes widen in a horrible realisation that oh my god, Ritsu, Ritsu, are you alright? How is Ritsu doing?

Fingers trembling, he picks up his phone again and dials his brother’s number, fumbling around and messing up twice. He listens as the call beeps twice before the other picks up. 

“Rei?”

Ritsu’s voice slinks into the background, almost evaporates into thin air.  It is so quiet. He hears almost nothing. His voice is a vacuum as he asks, “Ritsu, did you get the news?”

There’s a long silence before the other answers. “Yeah.”

“Are you alright?”

“…”

“Ritsu?”

“…no.”

It’s really all it takes. Someone else needs him more than his grief needs him right now. His emotions need to be secondary. He can’t be obsessed with himself. He can’t afford to wallow in his own pain while those he needs to take care of struggle and drown in their own. Rei grabs his wallet, slips on his shoes, and he’s out the door before Ritsu even gets a chance to hang up. 

Ritsu’s on the floor of his bathroom where Rei finds him, hugging his knees to himself as he rocks gently next to the bathtub. He’s murmuring something to himself, incomprehensible phrases that Rei doesn’t bother trying to decipher as he shuts the door gently behind him and walks towards the bathroom.

As he pulls his brother towards him, the other crying as he grabs the back of Rei’s shirt tightly, Rei shoves down the bitter taste of agony blossoming in his throat. He lets the other sob, lets the other grieve first, because I’m older and I need to take care of him, and he doesn’t understand why his body is shaking too, doesn’t understand why he feels so useless even though he’s right here, just where Ritsu needs me the most.

He wants to protect the ones he loves, yet his grandfather is dead and his brother is so sad. His own heart aches where it’s been left neglected, and Rei thinks that he hasn’t been able to protect anyone.

When Kaoru returns that evening, he’ll find Rei’s computer still open to his term paper, a mug of tea half-finished in its cold ceramic cup. He’ll sit on the couch and wait all night, wondering why the other isn’t picking up his phone, and the two of them will find each other at six o’clock the next morning, sharing each other’s red-rimmed eyes, one exhausted and one worried and scared. Looking at Kaoru still sitting there, concern laced into every corner of his expression, Rei will feel the exhaustion of the past evening catch up with him before it sends him tumbling forward, collapsing on his knees in front of the couch, where he’ll let himself cry and hurt, because a human being was never meant to hold up the weight of the world. Kaoru will reach around him and hug him the way he hugged Ritsu last night, and he’ll let himself be comforted, because it’s hard to comfort oneself when oneself is so sad.

+

Kaoru is trying to unwrap a tuna sandwich when Rei asks him, “Do you still remember the day of your mother’s funeral?”

The other stills, hands still hovering over the paper box, before laughing lightly. “That caught me off guard. Yes. Why do you ask?”

“How did you get through it?” Rei waits until Kaoru has completely opened the box before stealing a sandwich. He grins as Kaoru shoots him a dirty look before adding, “I wasn’t much help back then. I was a kid. I always wondered how you moved on from that. Losing a parent at that age… isn’t it a lot to handle? I can’t imagine it myself.”

“I kind of had to deal with it,” Kaoru shrugs. “I didn’t really have a choice, with my dad being the way that he was. He was grieving as well. I guess I had to pardon his neglect. It’s hard.”

“You’re right.”

“Yeah.” Kaoru takes a bite, chewing slowly before swallowing and asking, “Are you thinking of your grandfather?”

“Not as much that as my hiatus,” Rei admits, noticing Kaoru’s eyes widen slightly. “I took a good while off. I’ve always been slightly apologetic that you had to do everything without me. It’s embarrassing to tell you this, you know?”

“What nonsense,” Kaoru scoffs, before reaching out and hitting Rei’s leg lightly. “I understood. It’s okay. You would’ve done the same for me. It’s hard to lose somebody close to you.”

“I’m sorry that you had all those schedules. I’m sorry you had to carry the burden of our group for so long. It was hell. I could’ve helped you with some of them.”

“Wh- what? Why are you saying these things now?”

“There’s no better time. If I don’t say it now I will never say it again. Sorry that I was moping around. Sorry that you were all alone. I’m sorry for all of that. I’ve learned how to move on from that now. I’ve learned a lot of things.”

“Don’t say that. You know I didn’t mind. Why are you-?”

“Sometimes love is all we need. Sometimes love is a burden. How do you tell the difference? For so long… I couldn’t tell the difference. But I’m glad you’re here right now. I’m glad you let me know.”

“Rei, what-“

“Sorry for leaving you alone for six years. I’m sorry for all that wasted time- no. I’m not sorry. We are different people now. We’re people capable of loving each other as we should be loved. We’re changing and we’re coming back together. I’ll never leave you, so I’m not sorry. I’m grateful, actually. I’m grateful for you. I’m so fucking grateful for you.”

“I don’t under-“

“Kaoru.”

The other looks completely baffled, struggling to keep up with the conversation as Rei shifts. He sets his half-eaten sandwich down, pushing the comforter off his lap, before standing up and adjusting his clothes. His heart thumps ecstatically in all the unlikely places - in his ears, his wrists, ankles, the balls of his feet, and he feels so alive, he feels like he can run and conquer the sun. Kaoru watches in confusion as Rei pulls his socks off, sets them on top of his shoes, and rolls up the cuffs of his jeans.

“What are you doing?” Kaoru’s voice is no louder than a murmur, mixing with the wind and drifting off into the distance. 

“You know… even today, I still arrive.” 

Rei takes a step forward, two steps, and bolts for the sea. 

+

My lover is afraid of water. 

It feels a little odd to be telling you this, right? You might never need to know this information. But it’s a fact that’s been rooted in me since the beginning of time, seared in me with the traumatic memory of a child watching his best friend drown in a swimming pool in our classmate’s backyard. 

None of us knew. He didn’t tell anyone. I think he’d always been ashamed to. It wasn’t until Kanata decided to push us into the pool for fun that we realised Rei couldn’t swim. He’s never learned how to. He just screamed and flailed his arms frantically, his tears mixing with the pool water, his misery washed away by chlorine until I couldn’t tell if he was really crying or not. He was. Kanata’s parents had gone out to buy snacks for us and we were alone. Kanata realised what was wrong first and dove in to pull him out, even though he didn’t know how to swim, either. It was just the two of them in the water, slapping at each other and heaving and gasping for air, and Chiaki and I were so scared we couldn’t even move. Kanata had hurt his shoulder a few days prior and, after getting Rei out of there, had to rest up for the next month. 

I thought that memory left a permanent mark on all of us. There are memories like these that do. I thought Rei would be afraid of water forever. I thought Kanata would blame himself forever. I thought Chiaki and I would always wonder what would’ve changed if we hadn’t been so idle, only watching the scene unfold while we did nothing. I thought of all these things, and nothing changed. We can be brave in the face of adversary, but we eventually cave back to what has always chained us down.

At least, that’s what I thought. I didn’t realise I was the only one who thought that. I didn’t realise that the only one who didn’t believe in me was myself.

+

“REI!” 

Rei laughs as he runs, kicking up sand underneath his feet. The sand grows damper as he nears the shore, his footprints searing their marks into the ground in a trail that will be washed away by tomorrow. It’s freezing. The beach is icy, void of any lingering summer warmth, and it’s not the beach as they had known it back then but it’s the same one altogether. He can barely feel his toes. He turns around, shoots Kaoru a wave, and feels the other’s gaze burn into his face. 

Kaoru shoves the comforter aside and stands up. “What are you doing?!”

Rei’s feet bring him close to the sea, the waves rolling out towards him in their steady rhythm of dark blue and grey. The tide is rising, the sea running towards him, and as he wades closer he feels the sand where it’s wet, where each step he takes enfolds his toes in water. He walks in.

“Ah!” He’s completely unprepared for when the water hits him, an icy chill that feels like a thousand needles, but he rolls the cuffs of his jeans up further as he walks deeper. His heart is pounding mercilessly, the tides morphing into giant monsters that threaten to swallow him whole, and his old fear almost seizes him entirely. Maybe you’re not brave enough to do this, a cruel part of his brain whispers. He pushes it away, focuses on the sensation of sand under his toes and water licking at his ankles. He’s done this before.

“Rei!” Kaoru shouts, and Rei hears sand crunch as Kaoru runs towards him. “What are you doing?! Come back!”

“It’s okay!” Rei doesn’t look behind him as he takes another step. The water engulfs his ankles now, rising higher as the tide comes closer, and Rei laughs loudly as cold shivers run over his body.

“Rei! It’s dangerous! Come back!” Kaoru pleads, and it’s the desperation in his voice - he sounds like he’s damn near crying, this worrywart - that has Rei stopping where he is. He can’t bear the heavy anguish that he hears, suddenly sending a pang of guilt through his heart, and he remembers that Kaoru’s always held himself accountable for something that wasn’t his fault.

“Kaoru! It’s okay!” Rei calls back instead, turning around to face Kaoru now, still standing uncertainly on the beach. There’s a safe distance between them, only a bar of the ocean that looks like miles and miles, but Kaoru’s made it close to the shore, his shoes approaching the sand where it’s damp. Rei exhales deeply, watches as his breath leaves him in a cloud suspended in the cold air, and memorises the image before him.

Kaoru, in what seems like planets away, is a hazy figure amidst the greys of the beach in the wintertime. His hair is blowing away from his face, revealing the curve of his cheeks, the slant of his jaw, and the scar above his eyebrow, a pale white now that stands out jarringly against his darker hair. His features are so familiar, and he looks both young and grown as he is now, an image that transcends the boundaries of time itself. The beige trench coat on his shoulders merges him into the background and he is no longer rimmed in perfect eyeliner, and the sun is not setting. The only colour in the world before him is the vibrant scarlet blush on Kaoru’s cheeks from the cold and the dark red on his bottom lip where he’d chewed persistently, nervously, and it’s all Rei can focus on. It is all he can see. If he blinks now, he swears Kaoru might disappear. They are there on a cold winter afternoon, the world grey and about to rain, Rei ankles deep in the seawater and Kaoru’s shoes digging into the sand as he steps closer, and Rei suddenly realises that he has never loved the other as much in his entire life than he does now.

No. That’s not right. Rei has always loved him. His love has never changed. What has changed now, Rei then realises, is his attitude.

Fear death by water. But he is not afraid. Behind him, the ocean threatens to pull him in, but he knows he won’t drown now. No, it has been a long time since he’s drowned. He is afloat. He is rooted. He’s holding something in his hands tightly, something that won’t disappear, because he’s not alone.

And then, all of a sudden, Rei understands. He understands everything.

Loneliness. That is it. It has been that all along, and only now does he realise. 

His gaze snaps back to Kaoru still standing by the shore, his arms outstretched in uncertainty as he shuffles closer to the water. He straightens one of his arms, extending it to Rei and beckoning the other to come closer. A heavy gust of wind rushes at them from behind Rei and Rei stumbles slightly, resulting in a panicked yelp that sounds from Kaoru’s spot on the beach, seemingly tugged out of his chest by the cold. Suddenly, Rei’s aware of the rising tide, of the rising water, and oh, maybe I shouldn’t have done this now, not at this time, and he’s fumbling as he tries to make it back to the shore because Kaoru looked like he was going to cry, and I don’t want to make him cry, not anymore-

And all of a sudden he feels arms around him, steady, strong arms around his waist as someone pulls him back against a warm chest. He looks down and sees Kaoru’s legs in the water, drenched where the waves roll over his feet, the hem of his coat, and the lower half of his jeans, the denim turning deep blue where it meets the water. Kaoru’s tugging them back, shivering as he stumbles through the water, and he is repeating something under his breath that is stolen by the heavy winds.

“Not safe…” Kaoru’s murmuring. “…so cold… let’s go back.”

“Kaoru,” Rei brings an arm around Kaoru’s back hesitantly, and Kaoru reaches down to lace their fingers together. Kaoru’s hand is freezing on the back of Rei’s fingers. “You’ll get sick.”

“Shut up,” the other says, much louder this time. He turns and shoots Rei a heavy look, still failing to disguise his concern and worry. His cheeks are scarlet, and he’s both relieved and pissed at the same time, and it makes Rei smile. “You’re not the one I want to hear this from.”

“It’s okay,” Rei squeezes Kaoru’s fingers gently. “I’m not so scared anymore.”

“You can prove it to me some other time,” Kaoru squeezes back, but he continues his tread towards the shore. Rei feels the tremors that course through Kaoru’s body, sure signs of just how cold and afraid the other is, and yet he’s still walking, yet he’s still-

“Why are you-?”

“I don’t want you to get sick before your last concert,” Kaoru interrupts, and he struggles through the water a beat longer before he finally reaches the shore. “I want you to be healthy. I want you to be happy when you sing those songs. You can’t afford to get sick. You know this.”

“I won’t get sick,” Rei protests, walking with Kaoru back to the dry sand. “It’s okay.”

“You can prove it another day.” Kaoru doesn’t let go of his hand. “You can do that, alright? I believe you. You’re so special. But don’t get sick. I didn’t come on this trip to watch you get sick. I don’t know what will happen if you fall ill, or if you get hurt or-”

Rei stills, rooting his spot in the sand, and Kaoru spins around when he realises Rei has stopped. Kaoru’s brows furrow. “What? Rei.”

And it’s as if Rei is knowing Kaoru for the first time. It’s as if everything he has known about Kaoru is only a sliver of the person he is, because even now he’s still learning about him. Even now, twenty-nine years into whatever it is that’s between them, Rei’s still learning something new. 

Kaoru is insecure. He is afraid. He’d wanted to be stronger, but the world was not so kind. His body is shaking from the cold of the air and the fear in his heart and he’s scared of being alone, and it has tethered him down for years because he thought it was something he needed to overcome. He wants to tell Kaoru that these things can take time, that he doesn’t need to always be on edge, that time will fix as many things as it can and, if it still can’t fix this, then it’s okay to tell other people about your weakness. 

After all, Kaoru’s not alone anymore. Rei knows he’ll be around Kaoru for the rest of their lives. 

He loves Kaoru so much. He loves Kaoru in his childhood innocence, in his teenage rebellion, in their youthful playfulness and, finally, in the pieced-together mosaic that he is now. Every inch of his glass heart has been shattered and smashed together to create a speckled masterpiece, and it is beautiful. 

That’s right. Kaoru is beautiful. He’ll let this cold winter afternoon and the high tide and the sand beneath them and ocean behind him stand for love, for an adoration that’s been nursed in his heart for as long as he’d been alive. What he feels is so heavy, it’s so expensive for what it is worth, and he knows that all of this, whatever word can even embody love, is difficult, but he knows it is worth it. He’ll never find someone else as beautiful as the man in front of him now.

“You’re beautiful, Kaoru,” Rei says aloud. “I think I will forever be in love with you.”

Kaoru’s mouth drops open in surprise, and he makes a low noise in his throat where words fail. His face burns, and he chokes on his phrases before stabbing his foot into the ground and kicking up a wave of sand at Rei’s legs.

It’s not romantic at all. And yet Rei falls in love with him all over again.

“Rei, please,” Kaoru mutters. He fails to hide his blush. “You don’t need to say it out loud.”

“You’re beautiful. I love you. How can I prove myself to you, so that I can deserve you?”

“You don’t need to do that,” Kaoru protests. He walks back to Rei slowly. “You don’t need to prove yourself. We deserve each other.”

“I’m sorry for letting you hurt for so long. I want to make it up to you. Please be with me. I promise you that you’ll never be lonely again.”

Something changes in Kaoru’s complexion, the other’s face morphing into something akin to disbelief and wonder, and Kaoru chokes on nothing.

Every cell in Rei’s body seems to flame alive now, burning as he chooses his words carefully. He’s never been more afraid in his entire life. “I’m sorry. Please let me love you for a long time. I swear, it’ll be enough. I’ll become someone who is enough for you.”

“You don’t need to say that,” Kaoru whispers, and his eyes suddenly water. He looks like someone made of glass, a beautiful ice sculpture before him, and Rei steps closer until they almost touch. Kaoru’s hands reach out and close around his wrists. “You have always been enough.”

“Have I?”

“You have. I am so thankful for you.”

“I won’t leave you. I promise you.”

“Okay. I don’t plan on running away anymore, either.”

“I want to be happy with you. Will you let yourself be happy with me?”

“Of course. You don’t even have to ask.”

“Kaoru. Was it painful, these past six years?”

“It was.” Kaoru’s hands tighten where they grasp Rei’s sleeves, and the weight of his hold drags both of them down. Rei’s knees hit the sand, damp and cold under the winter air, as Kaoru’s cries mix with the sound of the ocean. The other hangs his head, his tears dropping in dark brown splatters on beige, and as the wind blows the sand away the dots disappear underneath the new tide. It is, in one way or another, a way of healing and starting again. “I was so lonely. I felt like my heart was breaking, over and over again, for as long as I breathed. I was so lonely. I know you understand.”

“I understand.”

Rei’s arms wrap around Kaoru’s shoulders and he holds him fast, holds him against entropy, and his embrace melts into golden chains that sets them free.

+

People change; moment by moment. What strange creatures we are. 

- Nakajima Atsushi, “Light, Wind, and Dreams’

+

They decide to visit the Christmas market that evening. 

It’s a small fair set up right beside their inn, the townhouses strung up with fairy lights and green and red decorations. The scent of fruit wine and cinnamon drifts amongst pastries and other baked goods, and the market comes alive through the chatter of families and couples stopping by for their last minute Christmas shopping. There are booths selling trinkets and keychains, mulled wine and cheese, handmade soap and tea and cookies and mosaic ceramic ware. A live performance is happening somewhere at the very back, and the sounds of Christmas carols paired with acoustic guitars and loud singing float through the air. Beside him, Kaoru’s fingers are intertwined with his, shoved deep in his pockets, and occasionally Rei feels the other tap his index finger on the back of his hands, signalling a sudden point of interest. 

“Look!” Kaoru grins, stopping beside a stall selling ceramic figurines. With his free hand he reaches out and picks up a small orange cat, on which there are reindeer antlers painted at the top of its head. “Isn’t this adorable?”

“You should get it if you like it,” Rei says, picking up another cat beside it. “Don’t you think the black one is cuter?”

Kaoru groans. “Don’t show me another one! These are all adorable!”

They set the cats down before moving on to the next stall, where a girl stands on one side, holding a face paint pen in her hands. She leans forward and draws a huge red dot on the face of a boy sitting behind the stall, grinning as she pulls back to admire her handiwork. Upon a quick glance at the mirror, the boy looks far less ecstatic about her endeavour and mutters a quiet, “Can we go now?”

“Would you like face paint?” Kaoru asks, jerking his chin to the couple. “I’ll be more than happy-“

“No,” Rei interrupts, to which Kaoru throws his head back and laughs. “I don’t trust you.”

“Are you sure-“

“Yes. I’m sure. Let’s go.”

He’s still laughing as they walk past a stall selling small bottles of coloured sand. The layers are arranged in various colours, and Rei picks up a vial containing black and purple sand before turning to Kaoru. “Do you think Adonis and Koga would like these?”

“Sand vials?” Kaoru frowns, narrowing his eyes as he inspects the vial. “Hit or miss. Aren’t we a bit old for these as well?”

“We are. They’re not.”

“Rei, they’re only a year younger than us.”

Rei picks up another black and purple vial. “I’ll get them. I think they’re quite cute. It’s a good souvenir, too.” 

“A good souvenir, huh,” Kaoru mutters quietly as Rei pays for the gifts. Rei drops the tiny bag into his pocket before looking up, where Kaoru’s now scrutinising the vials and shuffling through the solid coloured selection.

“Are you getting it for them as well? Isn’t that a bit extensive?”

“It’s not for them!” Kaoru protests hastily, eventually picking out a bottle with blue sand. “I still think we’re a bit old for these, by the way.”

Rei laughs. “It’s rude to turn down a gift.”

Kaoru tucks the vial into his pocket before folding a hand around Rei’s elbow. He looks up at him, smiling, as he asks, “Where to next?”

They manoeuvre around the soap stalls, Rei stopping and, much to Kaoru’s embarrassment, holding a few blocks up to his nose for a curious sniff. He ends up asking for Rei’s review anyway, and eventually decides on buying a block of citrus-scented soap for himself. 

They stop by a stall selling wood-crafted keychains, where Kaoru picks out a puppy and owl keychain for Koga and Adonis respectively. Rei doesn’t fail to notice when Kaoru’s hands linger over a (rather unattractive) keychain of a fat toad, before finally picking the puppy.

“You should’ve gotten the toad for Koga,” Rei says as they make their way over to the live performance at the back of the market.

Kaoru holds the keychains up in the air, watching as the Christmas lights surround the wood in a soft yellow glow. “He’d kill me, honestly.”

Before they reach the guitar player, however, Rei notices a stall selling tea, and tugs on Kaoru’s arm to bring them closer. On the wooden bar, roughly a dozen kinds of tea leaves are on display, creating a surprisingly harmonious mixture of scents that pair nicely with the smell of mulled wine from the stall right next to it. However, even amidst the various scents, a sharp tangy fragrance catches his attention, and Rei’s eyes scan the labels hurriedly as he tries to recognise it.

“What?” Kaoru asks as he notices Rei’s concentration. “What are you looking for?”

“This,” Rei says as he picks up a small plate of black tea leaves. He holds it up to Kaoru, who leans in to stick his nose over the saucer. “Cherry tea. Your dad really liked cherry tea. It reminds me of him.”

Recognising the scent, an unreadable expression crosses Kaoru’s face. He leans back, hand tightening on Rei’s arm, and smiles sardonically. “You’re right.”

Rei sets the plate down, before picking up a small tin of cherry tea leaves. He’s unsure of what he should do. He wrestles with himself, wanting to buy the tea leaves as a gift but, at the same time, wondering what Kaoru would think. 

He’d already heard about the transfer to the elderly home from Kaoru. It wasn’t the best news to give, and he didn’t miss the way Kaoru’s expression morphed into something alike agony, as someone who never knew what the right choice to make was. He turns the tin over and over in his hands, debating, until he hears Kaoru whisper, “It’s okay.”

“What?”

“It’s okay. You can get it. I’m… thankful that you thought of him. It just surprised me that you considered getting him a gift, that’s all.”

Rei holds the tin tightly. “He’ll be lonely in that elderly home, don’t you agree?”

“Yeah.” Kaoru adjusts his grip on Rei’s elbow. “He would. Thanks.”

When they leave, the scent of cherry tea lingers at the back of Rei’s nostrils. It remains there for the rest of the evening, a haunting, permanent reminder of legacy, and of what a second chance means.  

On their way back from the market, Kaoru gestures to the shore again. “Can we stop by really quick?”

“Again? What for?” Rei asks, but Kaoru’s already turning away, heading down to the beach. Kaoru stops by the staircase, hands on the railing, where he turns around, smiling briefly before raising his hand to beckon him with a wave. He then turns to the trash can beside the stairs and, pulling out a small vial out of his pocket that Rei recognises as the coloured sand he’d bought earlier, he dumps its contents into the bin.

“What are you doing?” Rei gawks as Kaoru shakes the vial empty. “Isn’t that a gift?”

“I have something I need to do,” Kaoru explains briefly when Rei finally catches up, bounding down the steps until he reaches the sand. The sand crunches under his feet, the familiar sounds of this afternoon in their ears as Kaoru walks towards the spot where they’d had their picnic, and Rei watches at a distance as Kaoru bends down and jabs his vial into the sand. He shakes it a couple of times before holding it up, where the glass bottle catches the flickering lights of the Christmas market behind them and glows briefly.

Rei stays where he is, his feet rooted to the ground. He watches Kaoru in what he can only describe as a silent amazement, watches as the other fills empty vial with sand from the beach before standing up, plugging the cork back into the glass. Kaoru turns around where he stands and smiles, and his joy lights up the water, the sky, and the air around them in some silent blessing. 

+

I’ve attached a few gifts with this letter. They may seem random to you, but I hope you treasure them nonetheless.

The first is a small glass bottle filled with sand. It used to hold the coloured stuff you’d sell to children, but I dumped it out and returned to the beach to scoop up the sand for you. I know it sounds ridiculous, but this beach is meaningful to me. It holds a lot of special memories. By giving this to you, a part of me can be with you even when I’m not here. 

The second is a novel. Kokoro, by Natsume Soseki. I don’t remember how many times I’ve read this. Each time I finished it, I was overwhelmed with a bitter disgust towards the protagonist for spending so much time with his family when his father wasn’t even critically ill. When his father died, I even considered it a blessing, really, because that was one less burden he had to worry about. I never felt as if his father particularly loved him.

I finished it two weeks ago. For the first time, I didn’t think that way. This time, I was rather sad, actually, because I suddenly realised that love is not entirely linear. I don’t know how to explain it. Perhaps when you read it you’ll understand.

The last one is a tin of cherry tea. It’s a gift from Rei. He bought it at the Christmas market, and he said it reminded him of you. Do you remember? You used to love cherry tea. It was perhaps the first thing you loved after Mom passed away.

+

This is how they spend Christmas Eve, the few hours before it hits the 25th of December:

It’s freezing, and the two of them huddle in front of the heater after their shower, feet clad in socks and Kaoru’s hands outstretched towards the warmth. He leans his head back where Rei’s quietly towering his hair dry because he knows how much Kaoru hates the hair dryer, and when he’s almost done Rei leans down and plants a kiss at the top of Kaoru’s head, right where his hair meets skin, and Kaoru smiles in content. 

They shut their windows until only a sliver remains, and then they snuggle with each other under the sheets. Kaoru’s flipping through Kokoro again, this time much more awake than the last, and Rei has his earbuds in, listening to music quietly as he closes his eyes and rests. The room is silent save for the occasional shuffle of blankets and the flipping of Kaoru’s pages. The ocean waves crash into the shore, again and again like a dedicated prayer, and Kaoru leans his head against Rei’s and tells him that he loves him.

When it’s late enough that the town has gone to sleep, Kaoru sets his book on the bedside table and makes his way to the balcony. He slides open the door, winces when the cold air hits his face, and smiles when Rei drapes a coat over his shoulders. They stand in silence, shoulders barely touching, hands intertwined under the starry sky, where Kaoru tells Rei every story about the scars on his body and waits as Rei bends down to kiss every single one.

When they’re finally tired enough, Kaoru confesses that the sunrise was beautiful and that he wishes things could be eternal. They didn’t see the sunset that night, after all, consequence of the icy sky and the cloudy air. With his arm around the other’s waist, Rei holds him tighter and mumbles that sunsets are only sunsets, but that their lives are fleeting, and time spent together is time spent together. We have been apart so many times, yet we always came back to each other. Don’t you think there’s some sort of beauty in something like this? Kaoru looks up at the ceiling, eyes tracing the markings in the wood, and whispers, “I think there’s beauty in growing up. I think… I don’t need you to heal me anymore.”

The sky above them is clear. They can see the stars. Rei holds Kaoru tightly, and tells him that he’s happy now, he hasn’t been so happy in a long time. Kaoru laughs, hands meeting hands, and mirrors his words across the cold winter atmosphere. They’re happy now. They haven’t been so happy in a long time. They promise each other love with a mouthful of forevers through their hazy, drowsy eyes, the world morphing into their own as even the stars seem to fall from the heavens above.

+

I’m no longer afraid, even of a darkness, as fathomless as that is. I’m sure true happiness can even be found within it. Let’s search for it, however long it takes, or however far we must go.

- Miyazawa Kenji, “Night on the Galactic Railroad”

+

We visited Rei’s grandfather yesterday. He carried with him a bouquet of lilies, and we laid them in front of his grandfather’s grave. 

There are so many memories I’ve since associated with lilies. It was the scent of his grandfather’s funeral, and I’d been young and I hadn’t understood what it meant to die. It was the scent of the funeral parlour where Mom lay and where I saw you cry for the first time. It was the scent of the perfume of a girl I dated in high school in an attempt to get over my love for a boy. It has always meant death and rejection, in one way or another.

When we visited the grave, Rei didn’t say anything to me. We stood in silence for almost an hour, as Rei crouched in front of the tombstone and rested his head on his hands. There are still so many things I don’t know about him. It’s also okay not to know. 

It’s no good carrying guilt for so long. I think this is what I’ve learned after all this time. I think Rei’s learning to let some things go as well. 

You, too. I wish that you won’t be tethered by your grief. I wish that you can be happy, just as I am now. I wish life will be good to you from now on. 

Love, after all, is not the lover of hatred. Love has never needed to hurt.

+

With his coat draped over his elbow, he walks into the aquarium, letting the dark blues of the tank cast its long shadows across the floor and over his body like some royal drapery. The glass beside him is huge, the top disappearing into the light, and the underwater world before him is painted with a myriad of colours, of corals and fish and marine-life that move past him without a second look. Despite its busy atmosphere, he feels completely alone in this vast, vacant space with nothing but cold stillness. It’s early, eight in the morning, and the only person who will be here at this time, out of his own will, is none other than the man lying on the floor in front of him, staring up at two species of corals on the tank floor. As he gets closer, the other hums to regard his presence, and waits for him to stop right beside him. Rei keeps a good distance away from the bright cyan, careful not to tread right on his hair. 

“Those two are beautiful species of coral. Darkness, brightness, they pair together so well.” He looks at Rei through his fingers, spread out over his face as he shields himself from the light. His eyes peek out like green gems amidst beige, and they shine under the reflections of the moving water. “What brings you here, Sakuma Rei?” 

“Kanata,” Rei greets, setting his coat down and sitting on the floor beside him. The other sits up, stretches languidly like a cat, before shuffling closer to Rei. “How have you been?”

“Don’t ask such formal questions when you saw me only a week or so ago,” Kanata snorts. “Don’t act like I don’t see you picking Kaoru up sometimes.”

“Okay.” The side of Rei’s mouth kicks up. “Fine. Hi.”

“Hello, Rei. What brings you here today?”

“Nothing. Sentiment, maybe. I just wanted to see you.”

“See me?” Kanata casts a glance out of the corner of his eye. “You wouldn’t want Kaoru hearing that-“

“Don’t take my words the wrong way,” Rei shoots Kanata a sharp look, to which the other grins gleefully. “That’s not what I meant. I heard you were leaving, and I wanted to see you before you moved away.”

“Ah. Kaoru must’ve told you.”

“Yeah.”

“Thank you for wanting to see me, then,” Kanata’s big smile softens, and he reaches to fiddle with the beaded bracelet on his wrist. “I’m glad to have your company. No one really shows up until nine-thirty, so it’s a little quiet. I didn’t really feel like being quiet today, anyway.”

Rei hums in response, casting his gaze away and towards the great tank before them. A stingray glides past before he asks, “Will you come back again?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. My friends are waiting for me here, aren’t you guys?” Kanata grins, but his smile doesn’t really reach his eyes. Rei waits as Kanata fumbles for the words in his head before he sighs and adds, “I think I’ll be happier putting a few things behind me. Moving abroad could be a good start. That’s all, really. I can grant myself that.”

“I’m glad you’re going with Chiaki. It’s good to have a familiar face.”

“You’re right. I don’t think I can do it alone,” Kanata chuckles. He pulls his legs up to his chest as he watches the marine life in the aquarium, humming softly to himself, before he asks, “Say, have you learned how to swim yet?”

The question catches him off guard, but Rei guesses it’s not expected. He exhales through his teeth. “I have. It was horrifying.”

“You have? I’m glad,” Kanata smiles. He turns so that he faces Rei now, his back to the tank, and he adds, “I’ve learned as well. I think I can beat Chiaki in a competition if I tried.”

“Chiaki? You’re being a bit confident there.”

“I’m only being honest!”

Now that they’re talking in a proper conversation, perhaps for the first time in a long while, Rei finally notices just how much the other has changed. The Kanata he remembers from their childhood was a lot more distant,  a lot more quiet, and spoke in what sounded like riddles that he could never really understand. A faint ache pangs in his chest as he realises now that these years have been full of missed chances, that he’d let his friendship with Kanata fade away and that it may be a bit too late now to earn back what they had. Maybe this was just the nature of things.

As if he can tell what Rei’s thinking, Kanata reaches out and prods Rei’s elbow. “It’s not as if I’m dying or anything. I’ll come back to see you guys. And it’s not like I’ll drop off the face of the earth, okay? I’ll let you and Kaoru know how we’re doing.”

“How did you know I needed to hear that?”

“You wear your emotions on your sleeve, Rei. How could I not know?” Kanata pulls his hand back, sighing as he turns to face the tank again. “And… as I said, I’m not dying. We can pick up where we left off, okay? We won’t be absent forever.”

“So many things have changed,” Rei says softly. Kanata stills, looking up at him curiously. “Really. There are sides of people that I don’t recognise anymore, and people who have their own ambitions I’d never imagined. Seeing our old classmates and friends in the places they are at… I feel like it’s only hitting me now that we’re all our own individual people. You and me included. I think it’s a part of growing up.”

“You just realised it now, huh?” Kanata muses. “Look at all the sea creatures in here. Look at how beautiful all of them are when placed in an ecosystem like this. Beautiful, aren’t they?”

“Indeed,” Rei echoes.

“I look at them almost every single day. I am so familiar with all the tanks here. I could give you an introduction to all the fish species living here if you wanted me to. And yet,” Kanata reaches up to fiddle with his bracelet again, “they won’t remember that I was here at all. All of my sea friends will continue living on with their own short lives as their biggest and only concerns, and only I will know just how much they’ve all meant to my colossally longer, far more tedious life.”

To this, Rei finds that he’s at a loss for words. He doesn’t know what to say and so he says nothing, only waits as Kanata stares at the marine life before them, eyes hungrily drinking the sights in. 

“I’ve always wanted to leave my mark on the world in one way or another,” Kanata says quietly. “I was an idol, after all. These ambitions will never leave me for as long as I live.”

“And that’s okay, isn’t it?” Rei adds. His eyes follow a starfish as it crawls across the tank floor. “I have my ambitions also. It makes it hard to live the life of a normal person… but I’ll try. I have to.”

“Then, Rei,” Kanata looks back at him, and his eyes look like glass under the morning light shining into the water. “Whether this is an ambition or not… will you be happy from now on?”

Will I be happy from now on?

He thinks back to everything that has happened, all the changes in his life and all the things he has lost and earned back. He wants to laugh out of a simplistic sort of joy, because it’s a question he can answer now. He can answer it in full confidence, and he’s no longer grieving over the end of a contract and the finality of a life he has been so used to living. 

He feels like he can take a deep breath, and he can cleanse his lungs out anew.

“Will you miss performing?” Kanata’s voice drops.

“Of course.”

“How will you… proceed from here?”

“What will you suggest, Kanata? How should I proceed from here?”

“…float, Sakuma,” Kanata sighs as he throws his hands up and leans back into the bench. The reflection of the water and the fish dance like shadows across his face, an eternal waltz that roots them in their quiet space. He smiles softly, smiling at no one, and he almost becomes part of the aquarium himself, a man blurry into the world’s hazy lines. “Don’t stop floating. I’ve often found that just by letting life take you by the hand… you get the farthest.”

+

Rei will be performing for the last time soon. I am full of mixed emotions.

A part of me is sad. He has always been an amazing performer and I’ve been by his side long enough to know that he’s someone worth keeping on the entertainment scene. But life doesn’t always work the way we want it to.

Another part of me is excited for him. He’s excited, too, and I hope he gives the performance of a lifetime. I’m happy he doesn’t have any regrets left. I’m happy that he’s been able to see this to its end, because I wouldn’t have been able to do it with him. 

(When I see you again, remind me with this letter to show you a video of him in concert. I have many. I think you will love him as well)

In many ways, the turbulence of our existence as human beings is something I don’t think I will understand. I will never understand just why I am haunted by my past, nor will I understand how time will slowly let me heal. Yet both are very real and honest things. And in the same way, my own mixed emotions are real as well. In a way, the fact that I’m paradoxical makes me real. 

And so, I can only say honestly that I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to love you without fear. Yes, it’s possible. Maybe I’ll reach it one day. But maybe I won’t. I don’t think I will. And it’s something we will have to live with. 

I cannot erase my past. I cannot erase what has brought me pain, and if I could I would’ve already done it. I cannot, after all, control the impact a lot of things have had on me. This doesn’t make me weak. 

Since I was like this, I used to think that I needed to be saved. It’s not the case. I’m perfectly fine as I am now, even with all of my paradoxes and even with every part of me that doesn’t make sense. It’s okay. I’ll exist anyway. I may not move on from some things, but that’s okay. I’m already better than I was yesterday. I hope you will understand.

I’ll see you soon. I hope you, too, can learn how to love yourself again.

All the love, 

Kaoru

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When he stands on that stage for the very last time, he feels oddly calm. 

His guitar is slung around him, the familiar weight of his strap pressing into his neck. His fingers trace the strings gently, remembering all the songs he’d played on it as practice and in concert, and he’s thrown back to memories of him growing up in Yumenosaki’s practice room, Adonis and Koga and Kaoru with him as they prepared for the shows of the past. He’s reminded, too, of him and Kaoru in their university days, playing gigs in dirty bars and larger halls, and he’s most reminded of his years alone as a solo artist, wondering when Kaoru would come back so they could finish what they’d started together.

As he walks out now, the air closest to him is silent. That’s right. They’re not with him on this stage tonight. He’s alone, and he’ll give the performance of a lifetime.

The cheers of the audience are so loud tonight. The screams seem to send a new weightlessness into his body and he feels like he’s almost floating, like this is almost a dream, and he’s only half-alive as he walks out here. In a way, nothing seems to be entirely real, and as the lights on the stage shine and focus on him he’s thrown back into so, so many memories of the past. 

There’s him and Kaoru when they were still toddlers, meeting each other for the very first time as his mother says, “Kaoru-kun likes jazz, just like you!”

There’s him and Kaoru when they’re in elementary school, sitting in the music classroom together holding recorders in their puny fingers, trying to learn the duet to “Greensleeves” and failing miserably. The two of them giggle when they finish, Kaoru muttering that it’s the worst thing he’s ever heard and Rei agreeing silently. 

There’s him and Kaoru when they’re fourteen, “Flight of the Foo Birds” playing out of Kaoru’s phone speakers as Rei stands behind him in his bathroom, watching him pierce his ears with a needle and an ice cube. The other winces in pain as the needle goes through, then opens his mouth to scat along with the jazz piece as it plays. 

There’s him and Kaoru meeting Adonis and Koga for the first time, jamming together with guitars and microphones, and the two of them hollering obnoxiously into the speakers when their favourite song plays. He remembers the intimated looks on the two younger boys’ faces, until Koga breaks into a shout and breaks the ice. 

Everything comes like rapid fire, memories of his practice room days at Yumenosaki, memories of all of his shows, of his interviews with Kaoru, of their first CDs, events, of everything-

And the cheers do not go away. The cheers remain, the audience still waving their light sticks in the air, and Rei reaches out to clutch the microphone on the stand in front of him and he feels his legs shake. The air is so cold. The lights are so bright. Everything is so alive. He wants to cry, because his heart feels so, so warm.

He dips his head down and bends his body until his torso is parallel to the floor. He yells, “Thank you!”, and listens as the audience only cheers louder. He hasn’t even sung anything yet, and he is already sad that this will end. 

Maybe it’s a masked melancholia. Maybe it’s a rather bitter longing, a sad nostalgia for something he won’t have again. He is sad. 

No, he shouldn’t be sad. No, he should enjoy it. He should let his final moments be their final moments, and he’ll let himself float from now onwards. He’s a star, isn’t he? It is what he practiced. It has always been what he was.

He stands back up and looks out at the audience, takes in the hundreds and hundreds of people with awe in his eyes, and he lets himself have this moment. They are everywhere, in front of the stage, in the back on the row of bleachers, and their light sticks shine in their multicoloured patterns that create something truly alive. 

It is so beautiful. It is truly, truly so beautiful.

His eyes finally fall on the zone in front of him, where he searches and searches until his eyes make contact with the one other person he’d been looking for this whole time. 

Warm brown eyes meet a crimson gaze, and the other smiles as he waves his light stick higher. That’s right. He’s here. He’s with me here. Without breaking his gaze, Rei cups a hand to his mouth and wordlessly addresses the man he loves more than anyone else. 

Right at the second his words are tossed out, the lights in the stadium dim as the concert begins, and Rei is thrown into a world of darkness. In this dark world, he holds his guitar tighter and looks out at the lights from the fans, each one shining in their place in the audience, a mirage of constellations and constellations that mirror the evening sky. 

It is so beautiful. It is truly, truly so beautiful.

He thinks of the words that Kaoru had told him that late evening by the seaside, hears Kaoru as he says, “It’s okay, you can cry. We have lost our youth to this. It would be strange not to be sad to watch it go.”

It’s okay to burn out like the end of a golden decade.

He opens his mouth, and he sings with the heart of a man who has loved everything and earned it back. He sings with the heart of someone who is finally happy, who can conquer himself with the music of his own song.

And he sings. He cries, if he admits it. He doesn’t know if people can see the tears that spill down his cheeks but he cries. He’s happy. Unbeknownst to him, outside the venue, the sky is the colour of a rainy day clearing up, and things start to become beautiful.

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He leaves him with memories of yellow, violet, and red in high saturation. The film is blown with violent explosions of the coming sunset, the glittering phthalo of the sea, and all the dreams he didn’t get to bring to manifestation. In his dreams he sees him, his bright figure rimmed in perfect eyeliner against the pale grey and lavender sky, embracing the familiar winter’s soothing cold, his golden hair adorned with all the faded colours of the setting sun. 

And in this dream, he realises that they are seven years older. They’re a little more solid, a little more beautiful, and they are not strangers. Kaoru is holding his hand in his own, their fingers intertwined, and they are thinking of a sunset that isn’t here anymore. They’re thinking of a sunset of their past, and when Rei squints hard enough he can almost imagine the grey sky washed with reds and oranges, burning with the aftermath of a fading daylight. 

Kaoru speaks out first. 

“Do you know what it means to watch a sun set behind the ocean?”

Rei answers that he doesn’t. 

“The sunset,” Kaoru whispers. “It is the painting of the sun’s sadness. The sun doesn’t want to leave us, so it douses its farewell in the beauties of purple and orange and pink. And, most of all,”

He’s in front of Rei now, hand grazing Rei’s cheek. Rei’s heart burns in his chest, blossoms like an open, eternal flower, and he realises he’s baring his heart open to the man standing before him. He finds that he doesn’t mind anymore. “And… red, Rei. Red. Like your eyes. Like the passion in the way you sing. Like the way I feel whenever I see you, and you could be doing everything and nothing and I would love it all. Like love. Like the way I love you.”

It is the way I love you as well. It is the way I have always loved you, even when you didn’t love yourself, even when you ran from yourself to return here. I am glad fate brought us together again. I am glad that the world is good to us. 

He doesn’t say any of this, only smiles because they are words that don’t need to be said. Kaoru knows them, anyway. Because they both know that this is how love became love, that they don’t need an answer to everything, and that this is the heart of a person, in the tedious and tiring way they will live in a push and pull and in the way they will never mind any of it. They will be content. And, in the end, all the sacrifices would be worth it. They will be free. 

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He is twenty-nine, and he is freezing as he waits for his lover outside the aquarium. 

This November is much colder than the last, and as he checks his phone for the message from the baker he ponders if he should buy a heater once he moves into his new apartment. Maybe it’ll help with the cold. 

He hears someone shout his name and he looks up immediately, grinning when he recognises the mess of brown hair that belongs to an ugly staff uniform. He waves and heads up the stairs to meet the other man running down. 

Kaoru throws his arms around Rei’s shoulders, grinning into his neck as he muffles his ‘hello’ into Rei’s skin. Rei laughs, feels that same, familiar warmth blossom in his chest just as it always has all these years, and reaches up to ruffle Kaoru’s hair as he asks, “How was the aquarium?”

“I brought some children around,” Kaoru muses. “They were so loud today! A whole class! They really liked the starfish.”

“That’s no surprise,” Rei says as they let each other go. He laces their fingers together before saying, “I have a gig tonight at The Foo Birds.”

“Ah, yes. You told me that last week.”

Chuckling, Rei smiles bashfully at his forgetfulness. “I’m sure you didn’t mind hearing it again.”

Kaoru’s fingers squeeze his own. “Certainly not,” he agrees as he pulls gently. He turns and heads for the subway, down the familiar street that’ll soon lead them to the familiar jazz bar. “Come on. I’m tired. Impress me tonight.”

Rei squeezes back and they revel in their shared peace, content with running out of words to say. Hand in hand, they walk together in their sacred rhythm, so small yet so beautiful all the same, diving towards the everlasting light of their world.

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The time will come

when, with elation

you will greet yourself arriving

at your own door, in your own mirror

and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart

to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored

for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,

peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit. Feast on your life.

- Derek Walcott, “Love After Love”