Chapter Text
A bustling rabble of people is alive with chatter in the bowels of an undisclosed metro station. Somewhere among them, two teenagers: Ryuji and Akira, stand on a platform following a frenzied exit from a train. Respectively, one holds a large bouquet of red roses tied with a thick, white ribbon, and the other frantically clicks through a navigation app, trying his best to figure out which way he should be facing to walk to Nagaike Park.
“Oh man. I’m gonna be late,” Ryuji grumbles to himself, rocking on his heels impatiently.
Akira, on the other hand, does not appear nearly as agitated. “We’re already late,” he remarks numbly. “Fifteen minutes late.”
Ryuji’s eyes widen dramatically. "No way. You’re kidding.”
A woman trailing a large, wheeled duffel knocks Akira on the shoulder, but with enough determination, he finds the patience to dismiss it with a huff and a discrete sweep of his hand through his hair.
This whole outing is a bad idea. He knows that, knew it from the very beginning, so how come his common sense proved so lacklustre when it came to refusing Ryuji’s puppy eyes? Honestly, it should have been a hard no, even without the disaster that was this entire morning, because on top of the fact Ryuji always leaves getting ready to the last minute, he insisted on dragging Akira to the market for a bouquet of flowers, too.
“No. You were supposed to be there for quarter to three, right?” he asks, and lifts his smartphone up to the sky, where it still struggles with a vapid, single bar. Among other instances of bad luck during the day, the capricious nature of his phone’s data is not lost on him.
“I should have been there for half past two!” The panic encasing Ryuji’s wide eyes and overzealous tone finds no reflection in Akira’s response.
“Oh,” he begins, as drearily and matter-of-factly as everything he’s said before. “In that case, you’re already half an hour late.”
With an irate gasp, Ryuji almost uses the bouquet to club Akira’s head. But bar his marginally more formal outfit (think: slightly less tacky shirt), the flowers are all that he has to his name in the intention of making a good first-impression (because punctuality is sure as hell a goner), so he thinks better of it.
“Well, now what?”
“I’m still trying to figure out where we are.”
“Shit, is there no like, map around here or somethin’?”
To tell the truth, Akira is still having a hard time trying to grasp why Ryuji didn’t offer to meet with you in a place he was familiar with. Sure, Shibuya square is kind of a busy place to find someone you’ve never met before, and maybe the fishing spot in east Shinjuku is a little shady for a first-timer. But there’s many places he can think of that don’t look like locations bookmarked by prolific serial killers, or places where it’s easier to get trampled than it is to find somewhere to sit down. The ramen restaurant in Ogikubo is a good place to start, but even aside from that, parks litter Shibuya left and right, and they’re all easier than taking a trek to some random park in the middle of nowhere just because it was the place you suggested first.
(“I just didn’t want to delay meeting her any longer,” Ryuji had justified, and Akira supposes he’s paying for his impatience now; if he’d been a little calmer about the whole thing, he wouldn’t have missed his stop.)
With a defeated sigh, Akira scours around for maps and notices a subway route outline that looks a little too oversimplified to be of any help. Still, it doesn’t stop a crowd of people from gathering around it, flocking like sheep and trying to figure out where and which way to go.
Among them, a girl that looks suspiciously like…
Like…
“Oh, fuck”.
“What?” Ryuji inquires, and barely has the chance to follow Akira to where he slinks away to hide behind a banner advertising men’s perfume. “Dude, what’s gotten into you?”
‘You weren’t supposed to be here,’ he thinks. ‘You weren’t supposed to see him. More importantly, he wasn’t supposed to see you.’
“Just --” excuses come through his head one hundred miles an hour: I’m tired (from what?); I just got hit with the crimson wave (wrong gender, genius); I owe dirty money to one of the bulked-up yakuza blokes standing on the side smoking cigarettes and if they see me they’re going to skin me alive like a -- “it’s just a leg cramp,” he finishes, and it’s so predictable and transparent that the little internal cringe he experiences helps him fake the pain he’s supposed to be feeling.
Thankfully, whether out of chance or genuine belief that Akira would never lie to him, Ryuji is gullible enough to fall for it.
“Oh. Do you need to sit down?” he asks, full of nothing but concern. “I guess we have been standing around a lot.”
Akira shakes his head through gritted teeth. “No, it’s alright. Go over to the map and figure out where we are,” he instructs him, and points to where he’s convinced he saw you, standing around looking lost.
This doesn’t go over as smoothly, and Ryuji frowns at him. “You sure? ‘Cause it kind of sounds like you need –”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
The force with which Akira shoves Ryuji in your direction almost makes him stumble over. He doesn’t quite understand what Akira’s problem is, but he neglects his over-eagerness all the same, giving him no more than a half-concerned, half-offended glance as he makes his way over to the map.
With a deep breath, Akira settles against the back of the advert and takes to watching you from the side-lines.
Truthfully, the map doesn’t help Ryuji's situation. It’s not even a map, not really, more of a subway outline that takes a lot of artistic liberties in terms of distance and location. The only thing he can infer from it is that he’s in Tamasakai Station, which seems to be a mysteriously undisclosed number of kilometres away from Minami-Osawa, the station he should have departed from. Still, he tries his best to figure out what general direction Nagaike Park is in, even if there’s nothing in either the enclosed environment of the subway station or the map that could provide foundation for a reliable guess. Eventually, as the people around him confirm their next route, the crowd thins, and he’s left standing there with someone who looks even more confused than he feels.
At first, he gives you no more than a precursory glance, more a reflexive reaction to being alone with you than anything else, but it sticks. He finds, with some gentle apprehension, that it’s a little difficult to look away.
So he stares (without prejudice or assumption), and takes note of your shoes, hair, and all the details he scarcely pays attention to, like the way your lips tuck into each other as you concentrate on deciphering what you can of the map. And then you turn to him, and he sees everything about your slightly troubled expression: like the way your frown tightens and straightens into a long, thin line, or the inquisitive curve to your eyebrow as you –
“Uhm, can I help you?” you ask eventually, and whoops.
He’s been caught.
“Uh, sorry! I just…” Oddly, he finds his eyes drawn to you even now, when he should be wrapping up his stray stares and pretending to find sudden interest in the map. “You just look kind of lost.” As justification, it feels like an excuse at best, but it’s the only explanation he has (bar just asking if you’re a magnet or something).
Understanding flashes across your face. “Oh, yeah. Absolutely,” you say, with such assuredness it’s almost funny. “It’s my first time in this area of Japan, so...” With a sheepish glance (shortness suggestive of a customary politeness), you take note of the bouquet of roses he’s holding. “To tell the truth, I don’t really know where I’m going. I think I got off too early.”
He laughs a little, a soft chortle that seems so genuine you feel a butterfly in your stomach awaken.
“Ditto,” he says. “But I think I got off too late.”
“So, in other words, we’re both lost?”
Now he’s smiling really, very widely. You like the way it takes over almost the entirety of his face, pinching his cheeks and dimpling his eyes into little slits.
“Looks like it, yeah.” He rubs the back of his head. “And to top it off, I’m really late.”
You snort. “If you think that’s bad, look at this.” With another little laugh, you pull your phone out of your pocket and present its black screen in his direction. You make a show of pressing the power button, which does nothing to change the display. “My phone ran out, so I don’t even know what time it is.”
There’s another laugh, but this time it’s both of you, together. A spark crackles through your neck, twisting into your chest – and with it comes a rush of excitement that fries the string in your throat dry. It’s strange; very strange. It almost feels like your own body is malfunctioning the same way circuits do. You take a deep breath to calm it: to settle all the stray sparks and ease the current to a steady ebb and flow, and you notice (with some strange version of hypersensitivity) that he does it too.
When you look away (for barely a second), it feels like a switch has been disconnected.
“Ah well, at least now we can use the old ‘I was helping a lost tourist’ excuse,” he says, a little sheepishly, and grins at you.
God, his smile.
(Another butterfly rouses.)
“I guess so,” you say, genuinely flabbergasted at the clarity of its appearance, like you could trace an outline of its silhouette just from the way it beats against the side of your stomach.
“Where you tryin’ to get to, anyway? I can’t promise I’ll know how to help, but…” When he speaks, flashes of images throw a blanket over you: of a fuzzy peach, delicious and lush, and intertwined feet beneath a blanket of warmth you feel an immediate need to burrow inside; not a bright neon light flashing ‘safety! safety!’ but an innate feeling – like you just know.
Barely, you find the strength to speak, but even then, you’re overwhelmed by the familiarity of someone who has proven himself to be nothing more than a stranger. (A stranger!)
“Uh, I – uh, a park.”
He looks at you, eyebrow jutted gently.
“A park?”
You scramble to think of the name, but it dangles from beneath the fold of your tongue, just out of reach. There’s a flash of something across his face, and then his eyes are open, wide, wide open, and his heart beats erratically, in pace with yours.
“It wasn’t –” he pauses. “It wasn’t Nagaike, was it?”
Your nod has a sharp, surprised quality to it, mostly out of genuine disbelief that he guessed correctly, because out of all the possible parks that exist around this area, surely it’s such a coincidence that he knows –
And then it hits.
“Oh! You must be –”
“Yeah! I’m Ryuji!”
“Ah! I’m –”
“Yeah! From the forum!”
“Yeah!”
“You mean that we both –”
“We were both late! Can you believe that?”
When the both of you burst into laughter, it’s a flurry: a rambling mess of squirming and feathery lightness that comes hand in hand with the flutter of your heart and feet.
You’ve never had this with anyone. Sure, you’ve had butterflies, but these things feel like giant atlas moths, like doves, and swans, and albatross of wingspans unseen (although when you see the blinding brightness of his shy grin, you think that maybe moths are still the most fitting metaphor. They are, after all, drawn to the light).
“So uh,” he starts, and the inner tug-of-war he has with his own eyes to stop staring at you is completely transparent. The plane of his face curves away in an attempt to focus on something else, but his eyes compromise the distance, following you like magnets. “These are for you,” he mumbles, softly, and lifts the bouquet of flowers up to his chest.
Shyly, you take them from him, and when your fingers ever so gently trace his, the intersection of skin where they meet erupts into bonfires and sparks, crackles and whips. Softly, he recoils, and it’s all it takes for you to be entirely sure he feels it too.
‘Wow,’ he mouths. “This is –” a gulp breaks it apart. “It’s strong.”
Your nod is haphazard, but all the more assured.
“I didn’t think it was gonna be like this,” you agree. “I’ve never –”
“Never felt it before?”
“No.”
He’s mimicking you now, nodding with such subtle movement you’re positive he can’t be aware of it. The urge to draw him in is overwhelming, but what little dapples of cologne you can smell from where you’re standing are already enough to bring a swirly wobble to your knees, so you keep your distance.
Oddly, you don’t feel insecure. You did this morning, when you got dressed into eight different outfits before making your mind up, and you did this afternoon, when you realised your phone didn’t charge overnight and you missed your first train.
It all feels for nought now, all so insignificant that you can scarcely remember what anxiety is supposed to feel like.
“It’s good though,” you add, because you sure as hell can’t pretend it isn’t.
“Oh yeah,” he responds enthusiastically, and offers his hand for you to take. “It’s great.”
(There are three swarms of butterflies.)
Akira smiles to himself.
It’s a good feeling, he thinks, to see the two of you finally meet.
Maybe it’d be nicer if he didn’t have to hide; if the support he felt for Ryuji (and you) didn’t have to be pressed against the side of a wall that you can’t see and buried in his little hidden fist pumps. Sure, it’s hard to pretend there aren’t little sprouts of feelings long buried when he looks at you, and there might be a little bit of distaste when the two of you smile at each other with thick congestions of saccharine.
But that’s the case for any ex, isn’t it? Resurfacing feelings are surely temporary. He’s just a little nostalgic, is all. It’ll be fine.
He’ll be fine.
A full twenty-five minutes of lively chatter come and go in the underground subway station before Ryuji thinks about Akira again. He can’t even remember what subjects have been breached, he just knows he’s having a lot of fun, laughing with you like nothing could put him in a bad mood.
“Oh, I forgot to say,” he begins, chipping at the end of a burst of laughter that tumbles all the way from your stomach (and he notes this with pride) at a joke he’d quipped a couple moments prior.
“What is it?” you ask, voice still a little raw with warmth. The rumble of another train lolls in the tunnel, so you make the effort to move and make way for the line of people around you to get on, and Ryuji follows cue.
“One of your old classmates is here with me,” he says, and proceeds to twine his fingers together. “I was kinda nervous, so I asked him if he could come with until I got to the park.” You look around, but there’s no familiar face in sight. Ryuji notices, and gestures nonchalantly to the banner Akira is hiding behind. “He’s waiting there, he says. “D’you wanna see him?”
“Yeah, course. Who is it?”
Ryuji leads the way, carving a path from the congested crowd of people that you closely trace.
“D’you remember Akira?” he asks.
You stop.
“Akira?”
Ryuji looks back at you to make sure you’re still following, but when he finds you stopped dead in your tracks, he takes a couple of steps back to get close to you again.
“Yeah. The one that called the ambulance for you a couple months back when the whole femur thing happened.” He looks back at you, sheepishly rubbing the back of his head with his arm. “Sorry ‘bout that, by the way.”
Still gobsmacked, you nod numbly, and hurry to answer him. “It’s – it’s fine.” It comes out a little disconnected, and Ryuji must pick up on it, because his look turns to concern.
“Nah, that thing hurt like shit.” His attempts for a comforting smile do not go unnoticed, and even without thinking about it, your own face reacts – pulled taut at the cheeks with how your grin spreads. “Trust me, I know.” It’s funny how fast your nerves ease, how fast you forget about Akira in favour of standing a little closer to Ryuji until you look behind the banner he’s supposedly hiding behind and see him slumped against it, scrolling through his phone.
At first, he doesn’t even notice you’re there, but when he sees you, it’s with a double-take that sends him to his feet almost immediately. His eyes are wide open, and everything about the stiffness of his form suggests he did not intend on being seen.
You’re not surprised, but it still hurts in an odd, distant way.
“Look who I found,” Ryuji says, and points to you, presents you, almost, like an item of extreme value from a museum. His gullible reaction to Akira’s helpless look is a clear enough sentiment.
He has no idea. Akira hasn’t told him.
“I was wondering where you went,” Akira says to him, in a casual tone that borders on sheepish just enough that you can read into it. He’s wearing a neutral expression, but it’s thinly spread, and all it takes to shatter the glass is one look at you. “Hey,” he says. “It’s been a while.”
You lift an eyebrow at him, just to let him know you’re onto his game. “Yeah, it has.”
He’s nervous, you can tell.
“I –” he begins, and the next thing he says is just innocuous enough to pass as an introduction to Ryuji, but it’s a desperate excuse to you, a plea for forgiveness that begs you not to slip details of your relationship. “I told Ryuji about you being his soulmate.”
It surprises you; he can see it on your face.
“Wait. You told him?”
Akira’s breath of relief when Ryuji cuts in to elaborate is audible; when you hear it, you pity it about as much as it annoys you.
“Oh yeah, he told me everything.” Ryuji says, almost shyly. “I really owe him one."
There’s a beat of pure silence, and it means nothing to Ryuji, who’s tone deaf to the bitter anger in your grimace and the guilty edge to Akira’s. It means a little more to you, who’s seeing your ex-boyfriend for the first time since he left and cut off all contact with you. But it means the most to Akira, who’s entire life hinges on what you say next. How you react. Whether you decide that now is a good time to hit him with the lecture you’ve probably been letting stew for the past five months.
“Thanks,” you finally say. “I owe you one, too.”
This time, even Ryuji hears him sigh in relief.
“How did it go?” Akira asks, two nights after the outing to Nagaike park.
Turmeric and cumin define the thick and heavy savour of curry about Leblanc. Ryuji shovels forkfuls of it down his throat as he looks up at him – and the brightness of his demeanour is so transparent that Akira doesn’t even need a verbal response to know the answer.
He is, of course, referring to the breadth of four and a half hours between Akira’s swift escape onto the next subway and seven-thirty PM, when darkness overtakes the sky and you sheepishly excuse yourself from Ryuji to catch the first train home.
“It was the best time of my life,” Ryuji says, and Akira rolls his eyes almost immediately. “Nah, for real. I could have died happy just holding her hand.”
“So cheesy,” Akira laughs.
Normally, Ryuji would get a little defensive, but there’s no hint of offence (not even in good humour) in this instance. There’s just an unrivalled good mood, so unshakable Akira doesn’t think he’d have the artillery to put a chip in it.
“You’ll know when you find yours, man,” is all he says, still with that dumb smile on his face.
Ryuji expects the soft sheen of awkwardness that comes with the next silence, but it’s more a conclusion drawn from subconscious pattern-recognition than it is out of genuine thought or scrutiny. He takes the chance to look at Akira, leant over his own plate of curry (almost untouched), and observe the pointless way his fork trails the side of the plate.
“How does it feel?” Akira asks, and looks up at Ryuji to notice he’s being stared at.
“How does what feel?”
“Her,” he answers, resolutely, and then corrects himself. “Being with her. What’s it like?”
“Oh.” Another bright smile (one singular instance in a series, like stars taking turns to line his teeth) takes him hostage. “I’ve never felt anything else like it. It just all feels… so strong, y’know?
He thinks he knows.
“Can you describe it?” The question is anxious and insecure, so much so that Akira needs to clear his throat before he allows himself to speak again. “In words?”
Ryuji has little skill in articulating himself; it probably has something to do with the disproportionality between how much he feels and how much he thinks about what he’s feeling, and it reflects in his momentary frustration, as he kicks gently at the air with his feet and scrunches his face in thought.
“Think, uh, really big butterflies.”
Akira laughs again.
“And maybe like, imagine an electric shock when you touch. But it’s not a bad shock. Just kind of, intense.”
Ryuji’s lost in a sweet haze of happiness, recounting the afternoon in Nagaike for the umpteenth time. Akira, meanwhile, is slowly sobering, little chortles trailing off into silence.
“Your eyes just – follow them, and when they find them, they’re just stuck in place.”
His smile falls from his face.
“Just, when you’re around them, everything feels right. Know what I mean?”
Not as a full realisation, but as a soft ebb muted almost entirely by denial, it strikes him, that he does know.
(Or at least, he did.)
“Not really,” he answers.
(Maybe, if he really, really tries, he still can.)
Akira likes Ann.
She’s pretty: her blonde hair looks gorgeous undone, when it’s falling in shambles around her collar and bare back; her lips are lush and plump when they caress him; her voice curls into itself (tight at the edges) when she’s close, and he loves swallowing her moans with his lips as she shudders against him.
When his eyes are open, she’s the prettiest girl he’s ever seen.
“Hey, Akira hold on --”
It’s satisfying to see her curl away from him when he doesn’t let up. His hand gets trapped between her legs when she crosses them tightly to stop him, and that, too, is satisfying, even if in doing so she displays the name of another splayed across her shoulder blades.
“Hold on. You’re not close yet,” she repeats, and how nice is that? Even on the throws of orgasm, she’s thinking about his pleasure.
“It’s fine,” he laughs, mumbles into her skin, and curves into her back to kiss her.
“No,” she retorts. She shoves his arm off her and to the side, where he grasps at the sheets as her legs hook around his waist. “You need to have fun, too.”
As someone to mess around with, she’s perfect; and if he was willing to open that can of worms, he’d be sure she’d make the perfect girlfriend, too.
So he listens to her. He lets his moans out, rocks against her, and closes his eyes.
(That’s where he makes his first mistake, really.)
“You’re perfect,” he whispers into her ear, because he’s skirting too close to the precipice to speak normally without cracking his voice. “So beautiful.”
His legs shake when his pace stutters, and Ann responds with more of her pretty little moans.
Pretty, so pretty.
Against the darkness of his eyelids he imagines her, feels the hot friction where she brushes against his skin. It’s difficult to concentrate with everything so hot and foggy, like his mind is trying to detangle his thoughts but there’s too many all coming at once: friction, and friction, and blonde hair and gasping and moans and everything all at once and he can’t think anymore.
And then it comes.
Among the flurry (while every bit of his mind is too distracted with sex and sweat), an apparition appears; takes the shape of love – the kind he hasn’t felt ever since you left, ever since you were taken from him. It bends, coils his heart and twists it so hard he can barely breathe, because God it’s strong, God it’s so much more than everything else, God he’s being swallowed up by fire; it’s up to his chest now, up to his collar, up to his nose and now he really can’t breathe because God he loves. He loves so much.
(When he peaks, his eyes are closed.)
“I love you,” he says. “I missed you so much.”
And then: a name.
It’s not Ann’s.
Akira doesn’t become aware of what he’s done until every remnant of the post-orgasm fades from his head and he opens his eyes to witness Ann’s hurt expression staring back at him.
“Shit,” he says, and pulls out of her in a frantic race, because as soon as it hits, it comes full force. “I’m sorry. That was, it was --”
“It’s alright,” she says.
The gasping anxiety chills into guilt and dread.
“No. I’m sorry.”
Ann turns her head away from him. He doesn’t know what to say, which is a shame, because the unbearable silence pushes a sore sickliness onto his stomach that would be far better gone. She sits up, and Akira notices with another surge of guilt that her legs are tightly closed and her arms are crossed self-consciously in front of her chest.
It doesn’t look like she knows what to say either. (How awful is that? Bubbly, chatty, lovely Ann doesn’t know what to say.)
She rubs her bare shoulder before standing up and reaching for her leggings, but she doesn’t do anything with them. Just holds them in her fingers awkwardly for a little while.
“I mean, I know I’m not your soulmate, but…” she finally speaks. Her tone doesn’t reveal significant sadness. In general, she doesn’t look particularly upset that he was thinking about someone else in his orgasm, but then, now that he thinks about it, why would she be? It’s not like she had any expectations for a future with Akira. Even at the beginning, Ann had made her own feelings clear. “It’s still kind of rude to be thinking about someone else, right?”
Akira just nods.
“Maybe you need to get together with whoever this other girl is?” she offers, and given how offended she’s probably feeling, it’s remarkable she’s trying to help him at all.
“No, it’s --” Akira begins, but to tell the truth he’s got no idea where that sentence would even go. “Just forget about it, please,” he asks instead.
With a deep breath, Ann shimmies into her leggings.
Ah, so she’s not staying the night.
(Not like it surprises him.)
“Alright,” she says. Briefly, she looks about the room, as though she’s deciding whether she should sit back down on the bed (and talk to Akira for a little while longer, help him figure things out) or put the rest of her clothes on and go back home. “I hope… uh, this thing sorts itself out, alright?” she says, and waits for Akira’s reply.
He doesn’t respond.
With another long sigh, she puts her top on.
Ryuji, 19.28:
Ann, text back asap. I wanna tell u something important.
Ann, 19.33:
What’s going on? Is everything alright?
Ryuji: 19.33:
You know how I’m supposed to be blank?
Ann, 19.33:
Yeah?
Ryuji, 19.34:
Turns out I’ve actually got a soulmate lol. We’re just bound through pain, not names.
Ann, 19.34:
Omg, no way!! I’m so happy for you!!
Ann, 19.35:
Have you met them yet?
Ryuji, 19.35:
Yeah. I hate to sound cheesy, but it was love at first sight. Everything about them is just perfect.
Ann, 19.36:
Awww!! that’s so cute. Congrats, honestly.
Ryuji, 19.36:
Thanks. I really can’t screw this up now, lmfao.
Ann, 19.36:
I’m sure they’ll like you even if you make a fool out of yourself, haha.
Ann, 19.37:
Before I forget to ask, what’s their name?
Akira can’t eat.
Nothing on his plate is worth the trouble of opening his mouth.
You don’t notice him; not as much as you notice Ryuji.
He sees this with excruciating detail, because during the short gasps of time where he waits with Ryuji for you outside of the school gates and he sees you skip over to them like you’re on top of the world, he’s always looking at you.
Usually, he excuses the genuine tearing he feels inside of himself as an expected feeling. This whole issue is a complicated mess, but at least he can declare himself the third wheel with confidence. Ann hasn’t texted him since the last time they met up, and although he’s certainly not blaming her, it’s made the empty space in his bed all the more obvious. In general, he feels like a loner clinging to the last few hints of romance he has, desperately squeezing every last bit of satisfaction out of his relationships (he and Makoto have been getting kind of close, and Kawakami still answers whenever she’s free) until they feel dry and pointless.
He knows what he wants. He’s got that far.
Surely, he’d have to layer denial on himself thickly enough to bury the majority of his intelligence not to. Ryuji drew the parallels for him a couple of weeks back, anyway, and he’s not keen on closing his eyes just so he can’t see his own reflection in Ryuji’s doe-eyed looks.
‘Everything feels right,’ he remembers Ryuji saying, and to tell the truth, now that he’s really looking at you, it doesn’t feel right, not really. But it definitely feels worse when he’s not looking at all, so he’s brave enough to admit it’s probably because you’re not looking back.
“Whenever I see you, it always feels like we’ve been apart for way too long,” he hears you say to Ryuji, and funnily enough, he finds himself agreeing, even though you’re not speaking to him.
Ryuji laughs. “Come on, we saw each other yesterday.”
“Still too long.”
You’re dipped into a kiss that tries to go somewhere further (mostly through Ryuji’s direction), but you push against his chest and move back before it has the chance to. Akira is grateful for it. His knuckles have already turned white, and the only thing Ryuji did was plant a kiss on your lips.
When the three of you walk to the subway station, you’re in the middle. It’s a curse, really, because whenever he catches himself spacing out he realises he’s walking a little closer to you than he was before, and he’s had to remind himself to step away countless times before you finally get there. He departs from you at the station, and he feels an odd levity that reveals itself as anxiety when Ryuji wraps his arm around your waist possessively on the crowded train.
It always surprises him how quickly memories from five months back turn invasive.
He swears he can feel the pressure of your skin against the tips of his fingers: a soft sweep, almost not there at all, as his arms (wrapped around you) run along the indentation down the centre of your back. He needs to coil the wires, solder your body to his, close the gaps and fix the circuit, so he reaches out.
And then he realises what he’s doing.
Like burnt, his hand jitters back.
It’s with a bittersweet thrum that Akira notes you don’t hate him for leaving you those six months ago. Even when Ryuji is turned away, and the two of you are alone in a brief second of (buzzing, fizzing) eye-contact, there’s no sense of anger or frustration.
Realistically, he should be happy about it. It means you’ve got no reservations, that you’re not going to hold his decision against him and the worries he had over your reunion will remain unrealised. But it doesn’t make him happy, not at all.
He knows the sheer absence of any resentment towards him is not a result of forgiveness, but of indifference. You don’t care about him. Not when you’re wrapped so closely around Ryuji on the way to the subway, and Akira has to remind himself to step away from you.
The past means nothing to you now that you’ve got him. He only wishes he could say the same.
Saturday evening date in Leblanc, nearly one month into your relationship with Ryuji. It’s a deceptively warm day. Rainclouds loll in the sky in thick cumulations of grey, taking turns to cover the sun like castle fortifications, hoarding it in ebbs until it peeks through and colours the alleys outside of Leblanc in brighter light.
Ryuji feeds you a little bit of his food, and you take it into your mouth shyly, giving a short, sideways glance over to where Akira is slumped over the counter. He pretends he’s not looking, but it’s not hard to see he’s unsuccessful in pulling the wool over your eyes. It’s not the first time you’ve caught him staring. Probably won’t be the last, either, he admits to himself, with long-established resignation.
When it comes to paying the bill, Ryuji is quick to insist on footing all of it. You try to argue otherwise, but he’s too kind, too insistent. Even when he realises he doesn’t have any cash on him, he runs out of the shop in search of a cash machine before you can say anything, telling Akira not to let you pay under any circumstances.
When he leaves, you stare at the door wistfully for a while (like having to tear your eyes from him is difficult even when he’s no longer in periphery) before you finally turn to Akira, and even then, it’s with an incredulous, confused look that has half the depth of the look you had when you were staring at a slab of wood.
“You’re always staring at me,” you say.
He smiles. “Am I?”
You nod, and he hums. Nonchalantly, he straightens from behind the counter and walks to the front of it, hands in his pockets.
“I haven’t noticed."
There’s a while where the two of you don’t say anything, so you settle into it, taking lazy bites of the cake Ryuji was feeding you.
“How have you been doing?” he asks. The relaxed slouch in his posture is betrayed by the expectant quality to his eyes. This same question was asked once before, the first time the two of you were alone after the reunion on the station.
Back then, you had bitingly told him to clarify what he meant. (“Are you asking out of curiosity, or just because you want to know whether I’m over you up and leaving?”)
“I’m good,” you say this time. “Ryuji and I are doing well.”
“I can tell.” With a slow sigh, he walks to your table. There’s been no customers for the past two hours bar you and Ryuji, (Leblanc is always slow on a Saturday,) so he forgoes his job at the front of the bar to sit in front of you. “You love him, don’t you?”
“Without a doubt.” Your head is propped up with one of your arms, in a relaxed pose that’s in no way discomforted or aggressive. For a moment, a flash of sadness crosses your face, and it’s there so briefly he would have missed it had he not already been staring. “You’ll find yours, too, you know,” you say, and he knows you believe it completely. “You pissed me off with the whole break-up thing, but I still know you’re too nice of a person to be blank forever.”
The things Akira wants to say toss and turn in his head, fighting for space until one wins and slithers slowly to the back of his throat.
“I think I might have already found her.”
Wide eyes. Your form straightens. You’re surprised, but you must not realise what he means, because you look happy for him.
“That’s great!” you say with genuine enthusiasm, as a smile flutters across your face. “It’s intense, isn’t it? So much more than just having a normal fling.”
When he realises what you said, it zips through his spine with a trail of goosebumps. A shiver rocks through his body, convulsing his insides in invisible tremors, like they’ve all decided to forfeit their jobs for making this feeling stronger.
‘A normal fling.'
Is that what he was to you?
Even his best fake smiles can’t cover up the heartbroken grimace that comes as a result of the piercing pain he’s feeling. Yours fades away in turn (your eyebrows jutting into concern), but you still don’t get it. You just don’t get it. He’s about to cry here, right in front of you; he’s about to stand up again and reach over the table to kiss you on the lips, and you just. don’t. get it.
“Yeah,” he says. “It really is.”
As soon as Ryuji finds out his mum has overtime, the group chat is abuzz with activity. It’s very short notice, but within three and a half hours, you and Akira both manage to make it to Ryuji’s house, with snacks and two six-packs of cider respectively.
Predictably, Ryuji’s room is a complete mess: books are tossed left and right; a towering pile of clothes sits on the chair in front of his desk, threatening to topple over at the slightest instigation; and not one or two, but three packets of insta-cook ramen remain un-binned on his bookshelf, without a single bowl in sight.
(“Did you just eat them straight out of the packet?” you ask, when you walk in, and he almost looks away in shame.
"Don't you think they taste better dry?" is his response, and it's so endearing that you can't help but laugh.)
“Wasn’t Ann supposed to be here by now?” you question, from where you’re curled up on Ryuji’s bed with a dark, green pillow beneath your head. An unopened bag of crisps is on the pillow beside you.
Akira is sat in the corner, reading the first part of a manga Ryuji insisted on recommending. It’s unfamiliar to you, but the cover depicts two men and a black and white, spotted dog. He’s been kind of quiet the whole night, and while you haven’t caught him staring (not yet, anyway) he hasn’t really moved on that far in terms of reading, so you think he’s probably just gotten good at not getting caught.
“Oh, did I not tell you?” Ryuji replies, peeking up from the PSP he’s been staring at for the past ten minutes. He’s sat on the floor, propped up against the side of the bed. “Ann couldn’t come.”
You sit up, and your pins and needles go through your legs in protest.
“Wait, how come?”
From what you can see from behind his shoulder, Ryuji is struggling with a difficult round of Tekken. (His character is getting combo’ed relentlessly.)
“Well, it seemed like she wanted to, at first, but then I told her Akira was coming and it turned out she had other plans.”
Suddenly suspicious, you lift an eyebrow up in Akira’s direction. You’ve only met her once or twice, but you can tell with confidence that Ann exudes an easy-going nature that immediately suggests she wouldn’t care to engage in petty squabbles.
“Did the two of you have an argument or something?” you ask him, and the stiffness that crosses his face is almost comically transparent.
“No comment,” he says, and flips the page.
“Oh, did you hear that?” You’re smiling ear-to-ear. “Lover’s quarrel.”
“Yeah.” Ryuji doesn’t look half as amused as you, but it still comes as a surprise when he dismisses your comment almost entirely and changes the subject. “What bit of that manga are you up to, anyway?” he asks him.
“Some guy with a mullet has just started throwing a weaponised top-hat at Jonathan.”
“Dude! That’s one of the best bits!”
Akira hums. It’s clear he isn’t mirroring Ryuji’s enthusiasm.
“I can’t really get into it,” he admits, turning the book over and scanning the cover again. “It feels a bit… old-fashioned.”
“Well, duh. It came out in 1987.”
“1987?” Akira looks at the back of the book to see the publishing date, which does, in fact declare itself as 1987. “You’re making me read a 30-year-old book?”
“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with appreciating the classics.”
“He’s right, you know,” you say, even though you’ve got no idea what book he’s even talking about. You shift back into a comfortable position on the bed, and your head hits the ‘Berserk’ manga you were reading before you got distracted. Silently, Akira goes back to his game, and Ryuji back to his manga.
“So, it’s just us three, then,” you say, absentmindedly, and finally open the bag of crisps beside you.
Akira follows cue, popping open another can of cider. “I can leave and give you guys some alone time, if you want,” he says, and it’s got the trademark monotone of the voice he uses for teasing. Eager to jump on the bandwagon, you smile, salacious and large, and speak to Ryuji with a sultry tone.
“Oh, I see. Was that your plan all along, Ryuji?”
The sound of a knockout coming from Ryuji’s PSP and the tinny voice of the announcer counting down in the continue screen gives exactly the satisfaction you were looking for. Sure, you and Akira might not get along as well as you used to, but the two of you have yet to miss a beat when it comes to teasing Ryuji.
“No! That’s not it! Don’t get the wrong idea.”
The urge to get up from the bed and kiss his embarrassed flush is overwhelming, so you listen to it, dragging yourself up and pushing your lips to his cheek. If anything, his embarrassment gets worse, but he leans into it nevertheless.
“I know. I’m just kidding.”
He hums something too quietly for you to hear, and then he rubs his head against the bed, like he wants you to stroke his hair. It looks like he’s burnt out and short-circuited, face still a little pink on the cheeks and eyes closed yearningly. When you gently brush you fingers through his scalp, he hums in appreciation.
It lasts a couple of minutes, and then Ryuji’s phone starts ringing out of the blue, and he jolts out of his seat.
“Oh crap,” he says, checking the ID. “It’s my mum.”
“Better answer it,” Akira suggests. Another page is flippantly turned.
“Yeah, hold on.” Ryuji jogs out of the room, closing the door behind him, and the silence that befalls is immediate. The only thing that breaks it apart is the muted sound of Ryuji’s mother instructing him how to prepare dinner, but eventually, even that fades away, as he walks downstairs to the kitchen.
It’s a little awkward, so you’re grateful when Akira cuts in, sarcasm at the ready.
“You never used to rub my hair like that.” Again, the trademark monotone is enough for you to know not to take his joke seriously. You laugh, and the smile that follows comes without effort.
“You never asked.”
The beginnings of a smile line his face too.
“How about now?” he asks, clearly still kidding. “Please with a cherry on top.”
You laugh again. “Sorry, boyfriend privileges.”
The smile on his face is a little wider now, a little more obvious, and he hums like he was expecting your response. This time, when the silence settles, it does so with tenfold the grace. Akira’s always had charisma, so you’re not surprised to see that the way he manipulates the atmosphere works to his favour. He takes another sip of his cider, and when you look to the side to see where the rest of the cans are, you notice with some vague semblance of shock that a full six-pack has already been completely downed.
Before you can comment on it, he speaks.
“Honestly,” he begins, and his voice is a little more sombre than the dry tone reserved for his witty remarks, “I get a little jealous of you two sometimes.” The atmosphere is barely shed of enough awkward stiffness that it feels natural.
“Don’t be. You said you found your soulmate, didn’t you?” you prompt. He remains silent, so you prod him a little further. “Is it Ann?” You don’t see the way he grits his teeth and flips the page prematurely.
“No, it’s not.”
Thoughtlessly, you finger the fleece blanket you’re curled around.
“Makoto?”
“No.” The sharp quality of his tone throws you off guard, but it’s not enough to discourage you.
“Is it anyone I know?”
He takes a deep breath so loud that you can hear it, and shoves the manga entirely to his side. His hands aren’t—shaking, exactly, but they’re certainly less deliberate than what you’re used to with him.
“Yes, it’s someone you know,” he says, and his frustration is clear. When he takes another sip of cider, you realise the only reason he put the book away was to have his hands free for alcohol.
It takes a little while for you to voice your next question, and even when it comes, your voice is tender and tentative. “Will you tell me who it is?”
“No.” (His, on the other hand, is completely definitive.)
You groan, and crawl across where you’re sprawled out on Ryuji’s bed to be closer to him. “Pretty please? With a cherry on top?”
“Why?” he asks, and it’s about as annoyed as it is amused. “Are you jealous?” It sounds like a joke, but all it takes for you to realise it’s not all that is the gentle tug on his amused (albeit not entirely genuine) smile.
“No, of course not!" you defend immediately. “I just… still care about you, you know? even if it’s not in the same way I used to.”
Another sip of the cider. He doesn’t look that drunk, but considering how good he is at underplaying these things, you can’t be sure.
“You’re going to regret it,” he says, matter-of-factly.
You consider that he might be telling the truth, but it's not nearly enough to stave your curiosity.
“Hit me with it anyway.”
A long silence follows. Anticipation builds as you watch him stall by finishing off his drink, and then by doing nothing more significant than staring at the wall ahead of him, like he’s deliberating whether or not to open his mouth. Internally, it feels like he’s teetering on the edge of a cliff, holding on with his arms, his hands, and then the tips of his fingers as his weight tries to pull him under.
Finally, he drops.
“I think you’re my soulmate.”
Your heart stops.
“What?”
When he realises that everything is out in the open, all the things Akira wants to say stop fighting for space. Instead, they line up, pushing and shoving to his mouth until they all tumble out in one long gasp.
“Ryuji told me that it feels like electricity. That he can’t look away from you. That big butterflies swirl in his stomach and everything just feels right.” Your breath hitches; heart skips beats again. “It’s what I felt for you back then. Word for word.” He corrects himself. “What I still feel.”
“You still feel?”
“Yes. Every, single thing.”
He can see the discomfort settle in your stiff shoulders, as you move into the wall behind you and away from him.
“But I can’t be with you, Akira. I’m already in love with Ryuji.” Your voice is exasperated, distraught, and it’s clear you’re nervous. It’s screwed up then, that the first thing that pops into his head is how to take advantage of it. How to guilt-trip you into listening to him. Before he can stop himself, he calls out your name and reaches out to touch your hand.
“But didn’t you say that you’d stay with me no-matter what?” he says, as though a promise you gave him six months ago (that he broke, first) held any weight now. “That soulmates didn’t matter.”
You swipe his hand away, as though his touch burns.
“Akira. Don’t do this.”
“Please,” he begs, and if any part of his mind is aware of how pathetic he feels, it’s desperately side-lined in the hopes you’ll take pity on him. “I don’t mind sharing. I don’t even mind being the third wheel.” It doesn’t look like you quite know what to say, so Akira takes the advantage and pretends it’s permission to keep trying to convince you. “Ryuji loves you; he’ll understand.”
“I can’t just, manipulate him like that –”
“I’ll never step out of line or ruin your plans with each other.”
“Akira, cut it out.”
“If you’re scared of hurting him, you don’t even need to tell him; I won’t.”
“Akira!”
He stops. The irregular beat of his heart thrums loudly against his ears, and the tense stiffness that comes about as a result of him holding his breath is all the more glaring.
(God, does he feel like a dog begging for scraps.)
“I just can’t do that,” you say, and take a couple of deep breaths to stable your pulse. You’re rubbing at your arm, slightly turned away from him. “It would break his heart, and he deserves better.”
Slowly, Akira’s becoming aware of what he’s doing, but he lets his mind cloud a little longer. This feels like the last chance: the last shot he has at happiness. He can’t just let it go.
“I don’t want what you and Ryuji have,” he explains. “I don’t want to take you from him.”
“I know, but—”
“After I broke up with you, I kept… trying to feel the same thing with other people, but it never happened. And now that you’re back, I can’t—I can’t do it. I can’t pretend anymore.”
Fortitude attempts to reign your expression. The frown on your face feels detached, unnaturally so, and he thinks you might just be trying to reel in your sympathy by steeling yourself.
“You should have never left me,” you say, quietly, numbly, and completely barren of emotion.
“I…” he starts, and he knows you’re right, that he’s the one that put himself in this position in the first place. (That it’s his fault.) He just - didn’t know, back then. He didn’t know it was going to hurt so much. “I did it for you.”
Whatever transparent detachment holds his tears back snaps in that moment.
“Oh, Akira.” Your steeled bearing melts in favour of climbing off the bed down to where he’s sat and tugging him in towards you, and when you do it, he sinks into it, grips you like a lifeline and buries his tears into the crook of your neck.
“I just wanted you to be happy.”
“I know.” The way you say it is utterly definitive and it breaks him, it really does; draws a line through the middle of his chest and pierces his heart, because in that moment, he realises it’s just not enough.
“I’m sorry,” you add. Your voice is choked up.
“It’s fine,” he replies, even though he’s completely shattered, torn into little pieces like a book with all the pages ripped out, sent flying in different directions with the whims of the wind.
He doesn't want this platonic pity; he doesn’t want you to cry. It rams into him a million miles an hour then, that he should have just kept his mouth shut, because now you’re hurt, and now he can’t even wait with Ryuji for you in front of the school and catch little glimpses of you, like a drowning man grappling for gasps of air.
The two of you don’t say anything else for a long, long time, so he takes the chance to brush up against your collar. He inhales every rush of your scent and lets it ease him, bit by bit with each breath.
(He’d stay like this forever, if he could.)
“What if –" he begins, but it gets caught in his throat, and he has to pause before trying again. “What if it was just up to you?” Before you can push him away (and his fingers curl into firsts around your clothes, keeping you in place) he hurries to explain himself. “It’s too late. I know. But I just need to be sure.”
He has no idea what exactly he’s looking for. He knows you don’t love him the same way that you love Ryuji (never did). You’re not his soulmate. Not right now. You must have loved him in some way, some distant apparition of it, at least. But nothing can come between the overwhelming bond that ties two soulmates together. He knows, because he’s tried, (with Ann, Makoto, Kawakami, Hifumi, Tae, Ohya, Chihaya and handfuls of others he can’t remember the names of) and none of them have ever come close.
“If it was just up to me?” You mull the answer over, because it’s difficult to be certain what the right thing to say here is. Should you throw him a bone? Should you be honest? (Would he believe you if you weren’t?) None of them feel quite right, because you don’t want to pretend like you feel nothing for him, but it wouldn’t be fair to say something that could give a false sense of hope. “Akira, I don’t think—"
“It is up to you,” comes a third voice.
It’s whiplash. Immediately, your stomach does somersaults.
Ryuji’s leaning against the open door to his room, arms crossed in front of his chest. For a second, you’re scared he’s heard the tail-end of your little spat and assumed the worst, but to tell the truth, he doesn’t look that angry. He doesn’t even look that surprised, not really. Compared to him, Akira looks like a deer caught in headlights. He’s too scared to move, too weak to pull away from you.
The silence is absolutely suffocating; it envelops most everyone in a thick, tight tension, tightening around your lungs until breathing becomes almost impossible.
“Ryuji, I promise this isn’t… He’s just—he’s just upset,” you scramble to answer. Your heart pumps blood erratically, throbbing like drums through every part of your body.
“I know, babe,” he says, calmly, and then sighs, long and deep. “I know.” The bed dimples where he sits on it, and Akira hurriedly unsticks himself from you to wipe at his eyes. In turn, Ryuji wipes at yours, and then places his head in his hands and stares down at the floor.
There’s only the sound of sniffling for what feels like a long while, and then Ryuji speaks again. “Akira, we’ve been friends for a while.” His voice is heavy. “I know we’ve had our ups and downs, and I know you’ve been cleaning up after my shit plenty.” He maintains a sort of distant nature to his voice. It’s not anywhere near monotone, but there’s an odd sense of finality about it. “But honestly, I can’t believe you’re pulling this crap on me.”
Akira is hiding his face in his hands. He’s half avoiding looking at Ryuji, but it’s almost unwarranted with how unaccusatory Ryuji’s gaze is. It’s not hard to imagine that Akira’s feelings don’t come as a surprise to him.
“It’s the drink,” Akira mumbles, but you’re not buying it, Akira’s not buying it, and Ryuji sure as hell isn’t buying it either.
“Sure. So what happened with Ann was just the drink, too?” he asks.
Akira stops, entirely, like he’s been frozen, and then he laughs woefully and shakes his head. “She told you,” he says, and although he’s not sobbing, his voice breaks into splinters of uneven pitch and size.
“You hurt her, Akira. She liked you more than she let on.”
Another laugh, this one wracked with guilt. Ryuji watches him for a little while longer, but he’s so broken and pitiful everywhere he looks that he stops expecting a response, and eventually, Ryuji turns to you again.
“Babe,” he calls out, and the favour in his voice comes as a sharp surprise. It’s not the case that he was angry when reprimanding Akira, (just kind of tired and exhausted) but this tone, tailored especially for you, is immeasurably sweeter all the same. “He didn’t threaten you, did he?”
The enthusiasm with which you rush to defend him surprises everyone in the room, most of all Akira.
“No! Of course not.”
You try to justify it by saying it’d be unfair to pretend he’s the bad guy. That while he might not be a great friend to Ryuji, you don’t doubt he loves you, and he’d never break his principles to hurt you. And while all of those things are true, it’s less about them, and more about how hard it is to forget the delicacy of his fingers against your skin, the way it dimples where his lips brush against you, even if he’s kissing to leave marks. The way he pushes into you with only a fraction of his body weight, softly in and out even if you’re asking him for more.
He’d called it ‘teasing’, then, but it’s more a case of fragility. Of being so scared of hurting you or losing you that he treats you like glass. Even if he wants to listen to your cries and envelop you completely (let himself be consumed by heat and push the burning of his body onto you), he can’t.
There’s a barrier, and it’s thick and heavy even now.
“Are you sure?” he asks, shifts a little closer (until he’s close enough to wipe your tears again), and scans you for any hint of dishonesty.
You nod, firmly.
One, two, three beats of absolute silence. The bad kind. The one that cuts your heart of oxygen and your brain of any thought bar fear and premonition. Ryuji’s still looking at you, analysing everything about your voice for fear, but to his frustration, all he sees is fondness.
After a while, he kicks at the floor in vexed concession.
“Shit, man,” he says, and brings his hand up to ruffle his hair. He looks conflicted, but less like he doesn’t know what decision to make, and more like he doesn’t like a decision he’s made already. He stares at Akira, long and hard, and then seethes under his breath. “I wish I didn’t owe this whole thing you."
It confuses you for a second, but when you see his frustrated gesticulation in your direction, you realise what he's referring to. After all, it is thanks to Akira that you and Ryuji met in the first place. If he hadn’t given himself up for your happiness: informed Ryuji of pain-bound soulmates, or pushed two two of you into meeting on that train station, the two of you could still be apart.
A deep breath comes and goes, and then Ryuji says something neither of you would have ever expected him to say.
“Just for tonight,” he begins, and has to take another deep breath before he continues, “she’s yours.”
Your heart drops.
With a jolt from your seat, you make a move to protest, but Ryuji cuts you off.
“But you’re only allowed to go as far as she lets you, do ya hear? If I come back and find her cryin’ or I see a single scratch on her, I’m going to kill you.” There’s no joke to it; he means what he’s saying. “And I’m gonna feel no fuckin’ remorse, regardless of how long we’ve been friends for.”
Akira nods, sharply. He’s stood up, too, heart beating too fast to sit still. He turns to you, and quickly finds he can’t turn away, even if you never give him so much as a glance.
“Ryuji, you can’t just --”
When he interrupts you with a kiss (a sharp tug to your chin and upwards, where he cups the back of your head with his hand), you’re concerned he’s going to ask you to give Akira what he wants.
But it’s not what he says. Not at all.
“I trust you,” he whispers, loud enough for Akira to hear. “I trust you’re gonna say no to everything he asks for, even if he begs on his knees.” Gently, he leans in for another kiss, and you realise with a heavy lurch to your throat the gravity of the situation you’ve found yourself in.
“Ryuji,” you try again, because you want to discuss this further, ask him what he’s doing and why he thinks it’s a good idea, but he cuts you off with another kiss.
“He’s not going to give up otherwise,” Ryuji offers lamely, and it’s better than nothing by a slim margin. “Or maybe he—” Ryuji swallows. “You know,” and there’s a lengthy period of hesitation. “Maybe he needs to get it out of his system. Maybe you need to get it out of his system.”
“How?” you ask, but Ryuji doesn’t answer, just pulls you in for another kiss. It’s a feeble attempt to distract at best, but it does its job, and you don’t pursue his statement.
“Just know I won’t give you up even if you start liking him again, alright?” he says, and by no means is it a question.
“I would never,” you exclaim, with such fervour that your hands tighten their grip on his arms. “Seriously, don’t even think about it.”
Another dapple of kisses, marking freckles where fresh eruptions of tingles tickle against your skin.
For a moment, Akira disappears.
Amongst Ryuji’s little touches and caresses, he feels like he’s sunk into the background (once again a jigsaw in the wrong box) a piece that doesn’t fit in with the rest. And well, isn’t it all par for the course anyway - that being blank leaves him with no other option but to be the third wheel?
It’s what he’s always thought; that even if you matched him perfectly: filled out every un-ironed crease in his life like a god-sent benefaction, ticked every box, made every bad thing good and every good thing even better, you were never meant to be.
Because why otherwise would the two of you be nameless?
But then –
But then he remembers what your blank skin looked like in the hazy moonlight when he had you on his parent’s balcony; he remembers the nonchalance when Ryuji told him he was blank, the twist in his gut that made him feel empty out of sheer, concentrated jealousy. (How could he even pretend it was anything else?) And now, he sees the dauntlessness of Ryuji’s arms, their assured and certain confidence as they crawl around your body, claiming your skin even if his name is nowhere to be found.
He realises, with more dread than anything else, that he was the variable all along.
(Because maybe if he’d stayed, loved you without the need for confirmation, if he wasn’t so obsessed with the idea of something as arbitrary as having his name on someone else’s skin, you could be feeling his pain instead.)
Hah, he thinks, and his heart gives out so fast he barely has the time to laugh again.
It was never about destiny, was it?
Against every single blow that’s hit him up to this point – this one is painfully neutral. Maybe it’s the finality of it, the way it makes him know without a doubt that this is the only way things can be. Compared to everything else (the jealousy, the bitterness, the guilt – and that one is by far the worst) it’s almost a positive feeling, one he’s glad to welcome into himself. Surely, this neutral rush of ‘eureka’ is better than every awful sludge of emotion that’s been sitting in his chest since he left you.
It’s why he smiles when you say, (sweet little voice freshly unearthed from the crook of Ryuji’s shoulder) “Akira? Is everything alright?”
He doesn’t give a verbal response for a little while, just looks on from across his tented hands with that same bitter-sweet smile, a tapestry of dimpled cheeks that never gets close to reaching his eyes.
“Yeah,” he says, eventually, and he wants to say more, (“I love you; everyone else feels like an in-between; If Ryuji wasn’t here I’d—”) but they all circle too closely around ‘I wish I could have you’ and there’s no part of him that thinks you don’t know that already.
Reluctantly, you unpeel yourself from Ryuji, pushing against his arms until he lets go with even more reservation. For a second, his hand hovers over you like it wants to pull you in again, but he draws it back, and it has no choice but to relent. When he stands up, the place where his weight used to be feels blank and empty. He walks to door, slumping tiredly against it, and you don’t need to be linked through pain to feel the absolute agony in his eyes.
He looks at Akira first, half-expecting him to change his mind and say it’s fine (that he doesn't need this), but he’s not surprised when nothing of the sort happens.
“Ryuji—” Akira begins, but quickly stops, because doesn't know what he’s going to say. ‘Thank you’ feels too big; Ryuji’s not exactly giving him permission, he’s just severing him of consequences out of nothing more than a feeling of obligation. But then what else works? What else can he say to show his appreciation?
“You’re a piece of shit friend, you know that, right?” Ryuji cuts him off.
With a start, Akira realises what he has to say.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
A half-hearted huff and careless wave is all it takes for Ryuji to swipe Akira's apology away.
“Whatever,” he says, and gives you one last (pained, very pained) look before leaving, down the stairs and through his front door till you hear it smash shut.
It doesn’t lock behind him.
The silence that follows is the worst yet.
It’s so powerful that Akira knows he has nowhere near the skill to break it apart: that no jokes, no sarcasm, no smiles, or any words in general can get him out of this quicksand.
In general, this feels like the worst-case scenario. Not only do you know about his feelings (about the pull they have on him, puppeteering him like a dandelion seed pushed in random directions through the air), but so does Ryuji. He can’t pretend anymore. It’s entirely possible that he’ll never be able to laugh with you again, not really, not without getting pitiful looks at his attempts to cling to you like a child clinging helplessly to their parent, or a dog circling its owner’s foot.
Oddly, he’s not as upset as he should be. He finds that his next words come with practised confidence, and the gestures of his hands stop feeling so stiff.
“I’m not going to do anything you don’t want me to,” he says. It’s a complete reiteration of his vow towards Ryuji, but it puts you at ease enough that you turn to him. “But I’m not leaving. I can’t make it that easy.”
When he looks into your eyes and sees no real love (not the kind he wants, anyway), he knows with certainty that he’s lost. There’s no doubt, no space to assume parts unfilled (like a liquid) where you and Ryuji meld. To make room for himself, he’d have to split you, and he’s got neither the heart nor ability to do that.
He’s lost, that’s for sure. It was over before the story even begun, long prior to the breakage of Ryuji’s femur. But as he looks closer and watches you scan over him, a look that drips pity with such putrid stench he can feel it on his skin even from here, he lets himself think, that sometimes, even losers get consolation prizes.
When Ryuji comes home at half-past four in the morning, it’s still dark outside. The lights are on in his room where you’re sleeping on his bed, and when he opens the door quietly (as not to alert), he can’t hear the sound of conversation.
Akira is nowhere to be found.
There’s a sense of dread inside of him, not quite premonition, but a soft fear all the same. He’s not sure how his heart would take seeing any evidence that you’ve actually slept with Akira, so his eyes hesitate when they skim over you. Because maybe, your clothes are a little ruffled. Maybe your hair is just a titch unruly (surely, it’s just because you’ve been lying on it).
He feels greedy waking you from your nap just to kiss you, but he does it anyway.
“Hm, Ryuji,” you say, through the kiss, and he closes his eyes and kisses you harder. “I didn’t do anything,” you mumble, tiredly.
“I know,” he says, so softly it’s on the verge of breaking. He crawls over you on the couch and buries his face into your neck, trailing soft, barely there at all kisses on every inch of your uncovered body, like he’s trying to wash something away.
He moves to take your top off and thinks about closing his eyes so he doesn’t see any marks that may or may not be underneath. Instead, he pushes himself off you and turns the lights off, so your form is coloured a vague black in the darkness.
“Ryuji?” you ask, as he places his hands on your waist and feels your body beneath him, painting an image of your clean, unmarred skin, free of any names or marks.
“Shh,” he whispers, just above your ear, in case he pays too much attention to your voice and notices any strange cracks or undulations, things that could point towards its overuse.
With a slurred movement, he drags your top off and kisses your chest, sucking on the skin enough to leave (what he hopes) are bright, red marks.
“I know,” he repeats, and he leaves so, so many, over on every single part of your skin: from your arms, to your legs, and your stomach, until not an inch is unmarked. When his eyes adjust to the dark, he’s left too many to count. Too many to remember. Too many to know for sure if they’re all his.
“I trust you,” he says, but his eyes close nevertheless.