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Flick.
With a final flicker, the last streetlamp in the industrial-white line wastes into shadow. Faint afterimages of light melt into the darkness, then tuck into their grief-decorated coffins; the night for them is desolate, but they’re lucky enough to wake and breathe. In the end, nothing is promised a future– even flowers must wilt.
Every night, the city shrivels to a bud. Flashing billboards fizzle to a meaningless dark; the pictures they flaunt exist only to be watched, so like everything, they sleep. Distant windows flick from a warm yellow to a cool grey, telling the identical tale of countless lives. The last few commuters hop off the sighing trains to a home that warms their exhausted hearts, to people that wait behind the door, to tadaima and okaeri, and all the unspoken love simmering under the pretenses. But the night is not over until the moon sinks.
As the world starts to dwindle, there are still hundreds of things to do, even as the darkness seals the quiet. There are packs of untouched cigarettes to light, flowers to carelessly water, and curtains to shut. There are old phone numbers to let his finger freeze over, connections to cradle in his chest like they’re not dead variables, and silence to seal with a lock of the door.
There’s always something. Something to watch, do, or turn around in his head until there’s nothing left to pick out from the backdrop. Something to see, too, certainly– but Akito only watches what rests behind his eyes.
By now, it’s familiar. It’s the same faded dream he watches every night: a sweet memory cut into a horror movie. Now, it’s just as much a meaningless day as a meaningless nightmare. But once upon a time, it was scary– how lilies bloomed behind his partner’s eyelids, how the petals closed tightly over his irises, and, if he didn’t wake in a sheen of sweat from that, how the stems would eventually break through and steal his gentle eyes out of his head. But it became more like a wispy tendril of belonging.
Just out of view, just far enough to leave his blood cold, those empty sockets would watch him while blood trickled over the purple half-moons under his eyes. Akito would watch him die again and again, fingers as empty as a vase, all while grasping for the stupidly domestic ruse he’d fallen into. But after scaring himself awake enough, even the blood-weeping imposter started to look more like the angel he knew than a nightmare.
The part of him that knows his partner would never hate him aches at the thought. But even that reality is farther than he’d like to admit: after all, nothing is more real than the waking apologies on his lips. The happy memories are fading, but the guilt will never leave.
By now, it’s familiar. He’d wake from the dream, circled by the same lilies he’d just escaped, and watch the petals shift. The chains would dangle heavily from their place on the ceiling, the flower pots they hold filled with life. But they’d always swing back and forth like hanging bodies.
The listlessness permeates the air. Dreams turn into butterflies, but Akito is still a caterpillar, aimlessly chewing on his wishes. He used to do things–passionate, hopeful, and dreadfully stupid things–and now, there’s nothing else to do.
Back then, he selfishly wanted to watch him fall in love with him, again and again. He pulled in the figure of the person he adored and dreamed endlessly of devouring him. He’d bite his shoulders, savor his nectar-sweet heart, and love him more than anything. If Akito were just a bit greedier, he would have drunk every bit of blood out of all his familiar dips and crevices. He thought, then, that it would keep his salt-stained mouth from drying out. Now, he does not.
Now, something is blocking his eyes.
Tonight, the dream-catching web is too thin to burn away any nightmares. Spiders weave tapestries inside perfect circles and heavy plumes drip sugar, but the sweet nightmare is too deep beneath his skin to claw out. Not that he’s ever tried it: that would be as good as giving in. And he promised someone, long ago, that he’d keep trying.
The quiet hasn’t set into the city yet. But soon, not even the distant crickets will chirp through the long silence. Then, there’d be nothing to do but dream. Sunrise would peek through the cracks and watch Akito sleep, still as a statue, wrapped up warm in faded mornings.
A bed bursting with life, a seemingly infinite happiness– they’re painstakingly ordinary wishes, albeit pitifully naive. They’re the same things Akito used to have without gratitude– the things that used to be lighter than breathing.
The same things he used to love. The dreams he childishly believed would never end.
It used to be light. Music, love, and everyday affairs– with his heart at his side, even the ordinary things became unexpectedly beautiful. He’d pull in that fragile face to smell the abundance on his breath, to drink the heavy sweetness off his cool lips. The peace in his eyes would settle over the curve of his mouth, and like a dog to a meal bell, Akito would fall right into the trap. He’d absentmindedly chew the lips pressing over his like a declaration, eating away all the space between them until they fell into each other.
He wanted many things back then, but most of all, someone. He used to dream of a lot of things, they turned into simple wishes: the same as always.
The flowers still stole his eyes back then– as sweet as they whispered, they couldn’t quite match him.
The time between overtime and sleep grows shorter each day. Akito chases the hands of the clock around screeching livehouses and watches dreams turn to butterflies; he used to be there too, caressing their wings. Now he is nowhere, and there is never enough time to go somewhere . The face between his hands is too far away to touch and too close to look at– the red apples of those cheeks are still warm under his thumbs, but his palms are bitingly cold. It repeats again and again, roaming to the end of his pulse.
Ah. Even something as sweet as that is a dream– naturally, it ends ambiguously.
Every day is the same. He claws for a smile drowned in an hourglass and lets the cloudy dream’s edges disappear. Work and sleep, the silence between, the sand-dusted future– all of it presses his shoulders to a slump. It’s much too heavy to carry alone. The illusion always looks back with pity but never turns to salt– its saccharine is sick enough.
He doesn’t dare to look up from the dream, so no one can swallow his silhouette. But the more he pushes, the further he slips.
Akito takes a long breath. His shoulders are heavy, but his chest is empty, so he breathes hard to muffle the beating silence. It’s just a simple breath, but it forces down the dissatisfied screams bubbling behind his lips.
“Haah…”
There are only so many things to shriek before no breath is left to carry them. There is not enough room to scream, so there is not enough room to shake. But there’s just enough space to take a long drag of his burning cigarette and shut off his head. After an extended inhale, Akito’s lungs fill with smoke, and at once, it’s quiet again. The gentle noise of distant passersby fades into the night; the nicotine quiets the void in his chest for just a second. But a second is all he needs.
After a beat, Akito shoves out a short exhale– the momentary respite is too heavy to carry in his chest. Sound returns, the bustling world floods back in like springtime, and the little sanctuaries between his ribs shiver with a strangling loss.
A second is not enough to change the world. But it’s more than enough to beat the novelty away.
The final breath of his cigarette tastes the same as the first– like fake flowers and smooth wax. The familiarity roots in his blood, flowing in with a gentle heat. A glance is the same as a stare; a smile is a difficult frown. Nobody stares, and nobody smiles. And there is nobody to lick the vice off his mouth, to blow away the blaze on the end of the cigarette with a fond smile. There is nobody to kiss the flowers off his lips.
Akito’s mouth cracks with flame. He reaches up to grasp for the face he lost: if he were to stretch, maybe he could reach through the distant gate and pull back a sweet smile.
He can feel it already. The skin under his fingers, the fat on his cheeks, the stuttering smile beneath his thumbs. But the air between his palms is sobering.
Akito glances back at the ashtray. It’s overflowing– there’s too much to burn away and leave behind. The pile only grows– the ash mountain stinks of discarded dreams. If he were to look back at the wreckage, to turn his back on the flapping wings of salvation, he’d crumble to salt. A smile is a difficult frown; a human is a human. And he is painfully human.
It’s an easy fate. It’s the same for every last man. Everyone will become no one: it comes true in every life. Words will melt into sea salt, and feelings will turn to dirt. The final words they choke out will blossom into impossible roses and promises they will never fulfill. Men will eat sand and turn, burn, to ash. The bones they leave behind will blossom into fragments, the limitless ocean, and countless new faces. The cycle ends, and the same destiny slips back into new, clueless hands. Everyone will become a part of it. Endlessly, forever.
It’s an easy fate. It’s an imminent fate. Nobody can escape it.
For a moment, a flatline screeches in his ear. Its noise drowns out the distant city lights spotting the black sky. No stars line the darkness: if there were stars to be seen, the screeching death would have killed their smiles. Meanwhile, the moon, glowing silently over the skyscraper, is infinitely happy. Its smile is a difficult frown. Its shining face is forever gazing.
Akito scratches his eyelids– everything is too bright to look in the eyes. And the flatline has barely escaped his ears. He hastily crushes the cigarette into the ash pile, the small flame stinging his finger. He’d always chased the last few breaths of it, if not for the numbness, for the flame. If he couldn’t soothe the turbulence out of himself, he’d burn it away.
The fire that used to keep his heartbeat steady has burned to nothing. The moonlight presses his extinguished shadow, wanting a laugh to bubble from his lips. It, too, is always waiting.
Something like that is lost on him. A smile so snow-white, so littered with callow innocence, doesn’t fit his nicotine-bitten mouth. Nor is it loved. After all, the most beautiful smile is the one he lost, sitting behind a seashell-covered glass frame in a faded photograph flush with inexperience.
He thought it’d be forever back then. That clueless smile is disgustingly wide.
Akito was too young to understand eternity back then. His knees were still knobby. A bit of baby fat still clung to his cheeks. His eyes always gazed at distant dreams. To him, every new tragedy was the greatest of his life. He was immortal in those moments. There was nobody to crush his heart.
He was infinitely happy. Once upon a time, happily ever after, forever. The moon is infinitely happy, and the sun will never smile the same. It’s an easy fate; it’s an imminent fate.
He takes a deep breath. The taste of the air bites his tongue with verity, forcing it back into motionlessness. If there was anything to say, there’s no longer a mouth to do it. Akito tucks quietly beneath the covers, ignoring the discarded cigarette butts spilling over the ceramic edge of the ashtray.
There is so much to leave behind– the wreckage seems to be crying for him. But instead of turning back, he falls wordlessly into a weak sleep.
Tomorrow will come before today ends: the clock is always ticking. The calendar is ready for another day crossed out, for another number stacked upon the hundreds of unmemorable days lost. He must have lived through that time, must have breathed, eaten, slept, watered the lilies, looked at something, been looked at. On some number out of one hundred of those days, he must have smiled. A few times, laughed; only once, meant it. And unchangeably, a perfect one hundred in one hundred, he looked for someone. Someone beautiful, incomprehensibly special.
Someone whose words melted into sea salt, whose final breaths turned into roses, whose bones sway among the ceaseless waves.
That was the irrepressibly sweet thing about dreams. Even what is lost still exists somewhere, reflecting varying magnitudes of ambition. And Akito doesn't know how to dream anymore– not as much as he knows how to nightmare– but the face he lost is still there, shimmering in the sunlight.
It used to be scary. But it’s not anymore. Its haunting and hanging shadows were heavy, but its light was always warm. Now, it is quiet. Now, there are no new things to say or hear– he’s said and heard it all countless times. Rinse and repeat; nothing has changed.
But he is not the same man.
No, he is not scared anymore. Now, he wants to be afraid again.
There’s always something to see, but Akito only watches what sleeps behind his eyes– the same faded dream he watches every night.
It always starts the same. Tonight is no different.
Toya’s smile curls around his biteless teeth like fresh petals. Akito stopped trying to listen to the words falling from his lips long ago, but watched them fold and breathe around his idle words. By now, he’s memorized the conversation– tomorrow’s dinner, the pot of lilies, some quiet new cafe just past some quiet old corner. The breaths and pauses between each word fall on the same beat– a measured amount of time. Seventy-seven heartbeats in this minute, thirty-four words in the next– it’s formulaic down to the millisecond.
A calculated glance. An algebraic gaze, a geometric smile. His breaths come out as fixed coefficients, and Akito boils to an unfortunate, unequal variable. His whispers are discrete, his shifting continuous. Slopes turn over in his mouth, constants rolling off his tongue in linear strings. Its precision is mathematical. His unguarded, gentle eyes are irrational; his affections are predetermined.
It always ends the same. The morning will come, and his skin will become dust. His gentle gaze will become candy to roll over his tongue, and his mouth will curve into an impossible smile, with all his teeth in a neat, incomprehensible row. Toya will continue to be a memory, and Akito, the keeper.
It always ends the same. Tonight is different.
The apartment where Akito sleeps hovers just over the bustling cityscape. It’s high enough to dodge any details of the passing conversations but low enough to leave a buzz of voices coming through the glass. On nights when the nightmares leave his skin itching to pass the clouds, the hushed murmurs from the quieting streets bring him back to Earth. But inexplicably, the subtle hum of the city has disappeared.
The curtain is open to a squint. Just past the window, an unfamiliar ocean splashes peacefully. The waters are deep enough to roll cool over a set of sun-kissed shoulders and warm enough to beckon any watchers to enter a sweet embrace. It rocks selflessly, the deep blue’s stoicism cut by the pale moon’s face. But most uncanny of all, its love feels familiar.
Slowly, surely, the sea is swaying with redemption– the sky locks, swallows disruptions. Only the deep ocean’s churning restlessness makes it past the glass, the sound swimming from the depths to two unprepared ears.
It’s impossibly gentle. That sort of fragility is too vulnerable to show, Akito has learned. But the moonlight embraces the sea, and the shifting waves chase its descent. The perfect, effortless harmony makes his stomach turn.
The moon is infinitely happy; the sun is infinitely untouchable. And both shut their eyes to face a meaningless black. Then, nothing is left but the clouds to watch him stir with an unspoken mercy in their gaze. They sway with redemption as the sea reclaims the sand. The tide comes in slowly, and the foam eats the ground. Then, there’s nowhere left for two sets of weary feet to rest.
…Two sets of feet?
Oh. Something is different. Something is right. And that fact is unfathomably wrong.
The body slotted against Akito’s is warm, the clean edges fitting seamlessly into his vague graphite shape. The cool breaths falling against his mouth taste like life, and his head spins with the love that beats in time with his pounding heartbeat. And something impossibly sweet turns in his chest.
Lips move and breath forms. Lungs turn stiff and blood vessels empty– filling, turning, burning, with the wonder of an infant. The blanket is unspeakably warm. And the mattress dips with a familiar figure.
The bed is not empty.
He can barely believe his eyes.
Akito’s cheeks flush with a stinging heat and his mouth falls open silently. Then, after a few blinks, he lets his forehead fall hesitantly against the other’s, and something is right. His breaths are just slow enough to match Akito’s tear-filled blinks, and something is right. Two halves fit back into one, and something is so, so right.
A hand reaches to brush Akito’s hanging bangs out of the way. The air catches in his lungs, but he can only stare, mouth open, at the body beside him.
“Akito,” that mouth breathes. The way the syllables wash over his skin is a new sensation. But that’s it. The rhythm, the intonation, the breaths between, and the love– god, the love– are just the same. And as much as he knows these things, his heart pounds with novelty.
Ah. It’s not rebirth, then, but genesis.
The beginning: a bold offer on the sidewalk, a voice too composed to scream. A longing written in the dusktime clouds. The end: a quiet voice, a love greater than the earth could understand, and a body.
The beginning: a flush of warmth, a voice too gentle to scream. A heavy, flower-tinged scent. The end: never, if Akito has anything to say about it.
He is back, and he is Akito’s. The person is new, but the fact of his belonging is the same.
“Toya…?” Akito manages shakily. His greedy hand reaches up, tucking in the space between the sheet and a pale cheek. Like this, forehead firmly against Toya’s, he can hold onto the moment– skin beneath his fingers, eyes locked on his closed lips. “Toya, you’re…”
Here. By my side.
Where you’re meant to be.
Something is wrong. Something is right. Toya is right there (where he is meant to be), but Toya is dead. He is alive (how he is meant to be), and he is dead. He is Akito’s (what he is meant to be); he belongs to the earth. He shouldn’t be here (where he is meant to be), skin smooth, body warm, and heartbeat steady. He should be in the place where he was rotting.
Because Akito knows where he left Toya: lying dead in a coffin. The earth must have swallowed him by now, but he is here, and he’s breathing, and his smile curves up, and his mouth doesn’t spew poison. He’s real.
The crease in the mattress is filled with a gentle weight; a strong lily scent is inching closer to his face. The cheek in his hand is as warm as light, and Akito’s feet are heavy. How far he had to walk to find this moment, to turn his head and smell the bittersweet chocolate on his breath, he’s not sure. But he’s here now, and his heart pounds with some sort of invigoration– something cool twisted inside him. And the face he lost is before him.
“Akito,” Toya murmurs. His words are full of breath, like he’s been waiting years to release the air in his chest. His lips move shallowly; Akito watches them dip and prays they won’t turn into petals. “Tadaima.”
And that’s all it takes for Akito to move. Before he can think, his hands fall to Toya’s shoulders, gripping them desperately. Always, always, since that day, Akito has been chasing something– faraway dreams and better tomorrows– and he kept working to get there. And now, there is a dream in his hands.
There’s a delicate balance between their lips. If he disrupts the harmony, the gentleness of the moment will break. Akito’s not sure if Toya will still be there if he pushes at the edges, if he’ll turn into flowers or fall back under his headstone. But he’s certain Toya will try just as hard to stay there.
By his side, where he has always been.
“Toya, you’re…” Akito breathes quickly. Without further thought, he pushes his lips against Toya’s, wrapping his mouth around Toya’s lower lip, tangling them together. And at once, nothing is wrong, and everything is right. The Toya that left him is no longer a dot on the axis or an impossible rose, but an undefined memory.
The world doesn’t spin any faster; fireworks don’t explode behind his eyes. The lilies hanging over Toya’s dusty nightstand don’t bloom, and straw does not turn to gold. But a key slides into a lock, and the door inside him opens to sunlight. And finally, Akito is home.
“Toya,” he manages shakily. Then, Akito catches his lips again, pressing his own forcefully against them. He pushes hard against him so Toya knows the distance between them is meaningless– no matter where, no matter when, Akito will always find him again. From the top of the sky to the bottom of the ocean, if Toya hid or couldn’t find his way, he’d push earth and sea to bring him back where he belongs– right by Akito’s side.
Akito swallows his partner’s shaky breaths; he takes light away from dark and hangs the moon off his shoulder. His eyes shut to a heat-dazed darkness, and their mouths tangle with longing. His tongue dips into every crevice in his mouth and drags along the softest bits– the hunger for more, to have every bit of his partner for himself, is raging somewhere inside him. Toya’s lips are slow, and his cheeks are a quiet red– his love isn’t the same, but no less vast. Their desire for each other hadn’t ebbed, not for a moment– and it’s perfect, and it’s them, and it’s forever. It’s forever.
He pulls away from the kiss slowly. Akito feels Toya’s gaze following his receding figure, but he doesn’t quite look back. He falls back onto his partner’s body, face tucked into his chest, and finally breathes a response.
“Okaeri, Toya,” he mumbles, eyes flicking up to Toya’s. But they meet an unexpected obstacle.
A bouquet of lilies, haphazardly hanging over his partner’s head.
“Toya,” he starts, sitting up slightly. His mouth dries with the stupidity of his statement– it’s way too obvious. It’s the thing shielding his face, keeping his face distant from Akito’s. It’s the thing separating them. “There’s a bouquet. On. Your head.”
“Ah.” He pauses, as if his situation wasn’t clear even to him. His finger curls around a white lily, lips twisting with an apology. “I’m sorry. I forgot about that.”
To think, after everything, all the longing and tears, that Toya won’t even look at him properly– he’d almost forgotten about the stabbing pain sitting dormant in his chest, but the inequality twists the knife.
“…Are you even looking at me?” Against his wishes, his tone comes out annoyed. For all this time apart, Toya isn’t even taking the chance to meet his gaze, as if he were somehow more than Akito could ever comprehend. His hand impulsively flies to the bouquet, wanting to tear it away from Toya’s eyes. “Hey. Take it off. I want to see you.”
“No, I-” he leans away from Akito’s touch before his hand can meet the stems, leaving Akito’s hand to grasp the air harshly. He only stares in shock, hand dangling, as Toya nervously pulls the lilies back over his eyes– he’s hiding from Akito’s gaze. The very thing he shouldn’t be doing. “Please… don’t touch that.”
Toya has never moved away from him. Not since the day he swore he’d never run again. Akito watches, slack-jawed, as his partner shifts uncomfortably, the weight of his rejection sitting heavy between them as he adjusts the flowers over his head. As if in apology, his hands fall to Akito’s cheeks, cradling the bits of baby fat with his patient thumbs. He moves as if he’s floating far over the earth, but the flowers still shield him.
“It’s… just…” Toya swallows the air like it’s unfamiliar, and Akito’s eyes follow the movement like a predator. His thumbs rub circles into his partner’s face, trying to soothe the bite out of his teeth. Once Akito’s teeth tuck under his lips, they let themselves soften for a moment. “If I let you see my eyes, I know… you’d never let me go again.”
Akito doesn’t speak for a moment. The truth bites– even now, his hands swim with the urge to force his partner back where he belongs. But his unmatched gaze distances them: like this, they can never be equal.
Toya’s smile has burned to an afterthought. His face is centimeters away. He is dead, but he is here– the logical fallacy, the crux of his desires. And as much as Akito wants to smile over it, to kiss him until they couldn’t do anything but melt together, the reality lingers between them like a stubborn weed.
But instead of saying that, he falls back into Toya’s chest and mumbles a petulant, “So what?”
The child inside him is still gazing up. But something is different now: there’s nothing left standing over him but the sky. The face he wants to stare at is no longer over his head but by his side, and he can’t look back. Toya’s face is right beside him, but as hard as he stares at his plastic cheeks, he can’t find the easy things there– the twist of his bottom lip, the drop of his face, or the silver he used to drown in.
To Akito, it’s the most terrifying thing of all. Not the ghost in his bed nor the lilies obscuring his eyes, but the unclosable gap between them. The love is just the same; the distance is unequal. More than anything, it’s the truth that bites.
“It would be happy for both of us,” Toya sighs out after a long moment of silence, his fingers tangling into Akito’s locks to press his scalp. His fingers wind around like a vine– the thing still tying their pinkies together. “You still look for me every day, and-”
Akito cuts in, his voice blazing with frustration. “Don’t tell me what’s right for me. I know what I want.”
“…You want me,” Toya whispers back. His voice is quiet, but he says it like a fact. And it is– something so painfully natural and honest, as if it were merely a breath. His tone is clear; he has no questions under his words. There’s a confirmation nobody needs to give: the answer is obvious enough.
“Yeah,” Akito breathes anyway. “I do.”
Toya reaches down and lays his hand over Akito’s. His touch is gentle, but his skin is cool– the smooth skin over his fingers is the same, but the chill is new. He’d always been soft and warm, at least when they were lying beside each other. His head swims with unfamiliarity– something that never existed. Not with Toya, at least.
Then, the realization strikes him like a thorn in the finger. While Akito had been living as a skeleton, waking to survive and sleeping to live, Toya had been blooming away from Akito’s gaze. The one he knew to the breath, whose heartbeat pounded in sync with his, is a figment of the past.
This isn’t his Toya anymore. He’s a person who learned to be without Akito– that is, someone similar, but undeniably different. Someone who grew and moved while Akito was still poring over his grave, watering the lilies, and waiting for something to change.
Akito’s hand presses against his own ribcage– a perfect beat, just in time with the heart pounding in his ear. This much, at least, is the same. The texture of the skin over his hands, how he tenses slightly when Akito presses a kiss to his pulse without warning, the way he runs his fingers over his left cheek like he misses some old sensation, how his mouth curves down before it curls into a stupidly soft smile– that much, at least, he kept.
He lets his fingers settle quietly over Toya’s. His heart is pounding, his breath is steady, and his smile is gentle. Even if it’s just that, it’s enough to clutch– one way or another, he’d surely be Akito’s again. So he tells himself, at least.
“Me too,” Toya whispers after a moment. His foreign, familiar hand squeezes around Akito’s– whether it’s meant to be comfort or otherwise, it only compounds the devastation welling in his chest. “I wanted you.”
This isn’t his Toya– he’s not his to touch yet. But Akito reaches out to feel him anyway and listens to the slow, steady heartbeat like it’ll fade away. And maybe, it will.
The treble is weak, but the bass is pounding through his skin. And it’s just enough to keep him there– like this, Akito’s close to him. He’s allowed to touch, whether he deserves to or not, whether Toya stays here or turns into a pile of feathers: the pounding under his hands, at least, is real. If nothing else, Toya is next to him again– that much is a miracle, but he can’t help but want more.
Akito watches Toya as he continues under his breath, words slow. “I wanted to see you smile, even though I can’t smile back.” His lips turn up bitterly, and the irony stings like a burn. Toya’s fingers reach up to trace a long-gone bruise on his cheek as he breathes out another half-laugh. “Isn’t that so selfish?”
“You…” Akito swallows the painful words in his throat. Toya stroking that spot makes his stomach turn, but lights a sick fire in his chest. Even though Toya’s petals were spreading, turning him into a flower, he still held onto a seed tucked firmly in his shell.
Akito thinks he gets it, at least. Existing alone, chasing a dream with a lonely face– what sort of sick satisfaction would it be, reaching the stars while the person he loves can only breathe in the clouds? It’s meaningless.
He lets out a long sigh. After a moment, he musters something typical. “It’s alright, y’know. Bein’ selfish.”
He squeezes Toya’s hand back after a moment. It’s all he can do to bring the two of them together– as close as their faces get, the veil between them is not ready to come off. Akito watches how the pure white bouquet shifts in his hands and how his wedding gown fits into his shape. And suddenly, he is opposite Toya with a tie tight around his neck, clutching his shaky, gloved hands.
A bouquet, vows, rings, better or worse, sickness and health– he does, he does, they do. The declaration is next, the spark that would fill his hands with the right to tear away the white chiffon wall– but it never comes. So he watches, ears waiting for the confirmation.
But nothing comes. Instead, Toya speaks.
“You give me too much.” He sighs after a second. They are not the words Akito wanted to hear. Toya’s breaths are slow, quiet– they, too, are the same as ever. It only makes the changes more painfully apparent. “I’ve been spoiled by you since the beginning. I’ve become greedy, and…” He lets Akito squeeze his fingers like he’s grasping for life. Even as Toya releases his hands, letting them slip away like daytime stars, he doesn’t push Akito off. Instead, he speaks quietly. “I don’t think that’s what I should be.”
“S’alright,” Akito murmurs immediately, reaching up to squeeze Toya’s cheek between his thumb and index finger. He tries not to think of the silk-smooth feel, how it ducks under his fingers like a fragile petal. Veil, vows, they do– the balance is stable, but the scale is straining. He rolls his pinched expression through his head in time with his circling fingers, staring blankly at the way his lips twist in protest. “Being greedy isn’t wrong.”
“Of course it is,” Toya responds simply. That unshakable purity is cute. The lack of sin coloring his cheeks is admirable, but inimitable.
The angel’s white gown billows righteously over the sea, the purity reflected in the space between waves. That perfection is a masterpiece, as if his figure were created on a canvas. The gouache distances him– he’s just too far for Akito to keep. His wings quiver desperately behind his back as he hovers just out of Akito’s grasp, feathered appendages flitting back and forth as if they were his roots.
The curve means they’re real; the color means they’re ready to be torn to the bone. And Akito’s hands are still waiting to tear something.
It’d be easier to hold back if Toya were looking at him, at least. The urge to pull the flowers away from Toya’s face wells in his stomach. Do not touch, do not tear– but his hands are filled with desire anyway. The earlier horror tainting his partner’s pure voice still stings his fingertips.
“No.” He mumbles. His partner’s back is smooth– not a trace of feathers, bones, or extra flesh. Toya is unshakably pure, even with missing wings; Akito grasps for one anyway, seeking a nonexistent answer. “Just be greedy for once, damn it…”
“Then…” He stills momentarily before gently lowering his face to Akito’s ear, whispering something close to his head, petals pressing against his cheekbone. “Can you smile? It’s been a while, and… I’d like to leave without regrets.”
The way Toya speaks of separation with such indifference makes his heart shake in his ribs. He can’t leave again, not like this: not after Akito had just gotten him back. Here he is, back under his fingers. His chest is heaving, and his heart is beating. Like this, nothing can take him away.
Nothing but Akito.
“…You serious?” He sighs anyway. Toya’s requests are so simple, yet so impossible– smiling, now? Knowing Toya is gone and that he’s trying to leave, to let Akito be free of him? How could he possibly smile at that? “You’re goin’ to ask me to smile right now?”
“I’m sorry.” He turns away, but lets Akito pull his face close again seconds later. Their breaths mingle; their matching heartbeats press together. Akito’s hand trembles insistently over Toya’s cheek, but Toya only covers it with his own as he continues. “It’s selfish to ask, I know. But you promised me you’d keep going. And it’s all I wanted from you. So please, smile.”
“What are you sorry for?” Akito sighs. “It’s not like you chose to…”
To die. To move on from me. To leave me behind, looking for everything you could’ve possibly left behind for me, even though I know damn well there’s nothing left to find.
Instead of saying the damning words, he lets out a heavy breath. It’s no good like this– the truth catches on his tongue before he can even try to put words to the thought. So Akito just breathes, his chest welling up with sorrow.
“It’s not like you wanted to leave,” he mumbles. “You… did your best to… stay.”
Something painful chews his heart for a second. But he keeps his eyes on Toya’s shifting mouth, trying to keep his heart from shriveling.
“Still,” Toya murmurs, lips twisting to a frown. “I shouldn’t have left you alone all this time. I should have looked for you, the same way you were looking for me,” he breathes out shakily. “You woke up and you wanted me, and you chased after me, and you waited for me, and I… gave you space. I could have come to you sooner, but I left you alone. When all you wanted was me.”
“Yeah.” He swallows down the bitter words in his throat. He glances around, eyes falling onto Toya’s lips again. They’re the same color as when Akito used to bite them, coated with a familiar shining desperation– at least that’s the same. “I did. I do.”
“Yes.” He smiles softly, and it sinks slowly behind a lily. On anyone else, it’d feel like a shallow mockery– on Toya, it’s impossibly gentle. “I’m… really happy.”
His cheeks curve with the weight of his joy – like this, he looks like the man he once was. And Akito, foolishly, thinks he knows him.
“…Would it be too much to say that I… wanted you too?” Toya murmurs. “That… I still…”
“…Damn it,” Akito coughs before Toya can finish. “When you say it like that, it’s embarrassin’.”
“I’m sorry.”
“…Don’t be.”
Akito’s fingers move without thought, tracing down Toya’s spine in a familiar trail. The way the hairs along his bones rise like shadows almost feels unrecognizable. To be changed is to have a new face; to be the same is to pretend. And as Toya shifts beneath his hands, Akito knows the truth. But still, he lies.
“…I’ll smile next time,” he mutters, eyes settling on the lilies. The urge to tear away all the things between them– the lilies, the veil, the silent tongue– races through his fingers, but he just breathes and rolls onto Toya. “Promise. Today’s not… the time.”
“…You know this may never happen again,” Toya says quietly, as if resigning himself to his own words. The cry is quiet behind his words, and Akito’s chest tightens at the idea.
“I’ll make it happen,” Akito replies in a breath, grasping for Toya’s hair. “I swear I’ll make it happen.”
“…Okay,” his partner breathes, because he has never doubted him. He was made to fit into his side, and like this, it’s certain– they couldn’t be apart forever. Not with everything still tying them together. “I trust you.”
Together forever– they used to sing something like that. And what a dream that was.
For a moment, Akito basks in the silence. Toya’s heart is beating insistently despite everything. His breaths are slow and strangely floral, as if he’d gulped down a flower between each exhale. The tide is still distantly singing a quiet melody, washing starlight over the moon-cooled sand. The black night creeps over the horizon, ink smothering the last traces of daylight with an unnatural serenity.
For a moment, everything is okay, and nothing is wrong. After the sun goes down, the moon peeks in; the waves push off breezes and turn into foam; the light is there, and the dark chases its ascent; and Akito and Toya are together, their hearts beating in unison. The world is in order– everything is as it was meant to be.
Then, a quiet voice breaks the silence.
“…If I asked you to kill me, would you have done it?”
At the question, Akito chokes on a breath. Before he can even wonder what the hell Toya is thinking to ask something so ridiculous, his lungs wrench with shock. For a few moments, he disguises his coughs, trying to shove the misshapen breaths back into his chest with all the ashes. Then, Akito stares deeply at his face, trying to pick out the telltale signs of a joke– but there’s nothing.
He… really means it.
“Why the hell,” Akito breathes after a second, carefully maintaining his tone. “Would I do that.”
“Why wouldn’t you?” Toya replies without hesitation, as if it were the natural, logical response to the question.
“Why would I kill you?” He asks again. But he’s not sure it’s getting through Toya’s thick skull because his expression doesn’t even minutely shift: he just watches quietly, like Akito is somehow the anomaly.
After a second, Toya’s face turns slightly. His mouth folds into a tiny frown, like he doesn’t quite understand the implications of his words beyond the mouthfeel. But his head turns slightly, Akito’s chin falls against his neck, and the words finally come out.
“…If you did, wouldn’t I be… yours?”
Something pangs in Akito’s chest. Painfully, like a heavy pendulum swinging back and forth between his ribs, the familiarity of the idea hits him again and again.
“I wouldn’t do that,” he breathes out, like saying it will make it true. “I couldn’t…”
But he could. He could have wrapped his hands around Toya’s throat and squeezed. He could have pulled his greedy hands away and left bruises in the shape of his fingers; he could have held on until the air drained from Toya’s throat. He could have cherished the fleeting light in his eyes before it flickered out; he could have watched that damn shaky smile break across his purple cheeks.
And the idea hits like a rock, because he knows Toya wouldn’t fight back. Because if Akito wanted to kill him, then he’d hand him the knife. Because even if Toya were his, nestled safely between his lungs, it wouldn’t be enough. Because Toya’s heart wasn’t beating for him, but for life itself– and that somehow made Akito hungrier.
“I couldn’t,” Akito mumbles again anyway, even though he should know better. And he does.
If he’d just fed him more jasmine petals, sang him more ballads, or made him smile a bit more, maybe he never would have left. Maybe he would still be by Akito’s side, still watering his beloved lilies, still singing to the sunflowers on the balcony, still smiling over every day, and talking about the future like it wasn’t above the clouds.
We were going to be together forever, Akito thinks mournfully. Like everything with Toya, that was stolen, too.
“You could,” Toya says gently, like he’s trying to soften the blow. “Anyone could.”
He can’t even choke out a response– the roses dredge in his throat, and something sea-salted twists a nostalgic knot in his chest. As much as he wants to deny it, to insist that he couldn’t do that, he knows Toya is right.
“I wouldn’t be mad at you,” his partner continues, as if it could possibly be that easy, as if it were something so obvious it might as well have been one of the constellations peering through the window. “I know you wanted to strangle me. I’m sorry you couldn’t.”
Akito blinks at that. Even just the thought makes the blood drain from his face and his fingers go numb. Somewhere in his throat, bile rocks back and forth as if the moon were pulling it up until it crashes like a wave. A shaky rhythm starts in his chest– his heart beats in his throat, rocking his body like he’s on a boat, and he swallows down the salt tickling over his tongue.
“What do you mean?” He mutters, and his heart rate picks up until it rattles his ribs, like it’s trying to escape his chest. And maybe, it is.
Curse the damn flowers: Toya’s mouth twists at the question as if he wants to tell a secret, but his eyes are still hiding under the petals. Do not touch, do not tear– the restraint is just another weight to be buried under, and it almost crushes him.
“You wanted to kill me, didn’t you?” He asks in a murmur. “Back then.”
His jaw flexes, and somewhere in his throat, Akito swears he can taste lilies. He shuts his eyes, and the white petals dust over the darkness. Somewhere, spring is coming; somewhere, flowers are wilting. Everywhere, eternity is ending.
His face falls against Toya’s neck, and he noses the curve of his throat, resting his face against his partner’s neck. He breathes long to drink in his scent, but all he can smell is the bouquet and something like dust.
Akito’s heart pangs with the thought. For a moment, he almost let himself believe he was real.
“I wanted you to live,” he murmurs after a second. “I just wanted you with me. I didn’t wanna kill you.”
His partner’s sigh sounds slightly disappointed, like he can feel the truth hiding under the words’ surface. “I know you wanted to. At least once.”
His hands are still numb, so Akito barely notices when he grasps his wrists. As he leads their joined hands toward him, the lilies shift, as if whispering to their beholder. Lightly, so lightly, Toya places Akito’s hands on his throat and squeezes his fingers under his own.
Oh, he realizes belatedly. He wants me to kill him.
Akito loosens his grip, but the warmth of Toya’s neck thrums persistently beneath his palms and draws him in. Toya’s life is back in his hands, and as much as it terrifies him, it’s enthralling.
“Didn’t you want it?” His partner says quietly, the pressure on his throat making the words come out strained. As light as his words come out, the weight behind them makes them feel like rocks, threatening to crush him. “To take me away like this?”
“No,” Akito breathes out shakily, voice filling with frustration. Whether it’s due to Toya’s persistence or the truth in his words, he’s not sure. “ No, damn it. No, I didn’t want this.”
Toya’s breath hitches, and his lips stay open as he whispers a small, “Really?”
His naive belief in Akito’s every word hurts. To betray the trust of someone like that, who believes so wholeheartedly in every last word… makes him feel sick.
“Maybe a little,” he admits. “Just so you didn’t suffer.”
“Akito.”
Toya’s voice is clearer than he’s ever heard it. His mouth is smiling, but there’s no way to tell if it reaches his eyes. His cheeks are lifted as if they were on strings, and his teeth are sparkling in a thin row like little moons. The sky opens under his lips, and a gust of wind breezes through his mouth as he starts to speak.
“You wanted to have me,” he says simply. There’s no question in his words. “You wanted to be the last thing I saw. You wanted to take me so death couldn’t.”
The blood drains from his face. “I…”
“So go ahead,” Toya breathes out shakily, his voice weak from where it pushes under Akito’s hands. His fingers squeeze Akito’s wrists, pushing out his breath. “Take me.”
“Toya–” he tries weakly to interject.
“It’s okay, Akito,” he manages through quiet gasps for air, voice full of breath. “You can strangle me.”
And suddenly, despite their bodies pressing into one another, the bed feels cold.
Akito’s breath stops in his throat. The greedy part of him, the one that wants to blaze through his partner like a forest fire, is silently pleased. The gentler, more logical part wants to pull his hands away from his throat, to knock sense between Toya’s lips and drink away the sacrifice settling over his tongue until there’s nothing left but love. If he could just move, just gather the strength in his hands to pluck all the petals off each flower, it’d be easier. But now, there’s only one thing left to do.
For a moment, he hesitates. Then, he pushes Toya’s hands off of his and gently releases his throat from where it sinks under his fingers.
If Akito were just a bit greedier, he would have squeezed hard until his partner couldn’t even think. Like that, he’d have finished the job– Toya would be his in a way nobody else could replicate. Then nothing, not even death itself, could steal the fact of his belonging from Akito’s hands.
But he’s just not that selfish. Not enough to kill Toya when he’s barely just returned to his side. And hell if he’s gonna let Toya keep spoiling him: to think that even in death, he’s trying to give Akito everything he has until only his bones are left behind– ah, he’s really been far too greedy, hasn’t he?
“I can’t,” he murmurs, pushing out any lingering fantasy of wrapping his hands back around Toya’s throat. “Not now. ‘Cause you’re still here.”
“Oh…” The feverishness flickers out of his voice, tone evening to something far too fragile to even breathe against. “I’m sorry, Akito. I’m… depending on you too much again. I’m sorry.”
“Hey,” Akito scolds quietly, wrapping his hands tightly around Toya’s. “I told you before that bein’ selfish’s alright. So quit apologizing.”
“I can’t…” Toya sighs. His thumbs reach around to poke at Akito’s knuckles with the same precision as a piano key. “I can’t do that…”
His mouth moves back and forth, flicking from a little frown to a thin, unreadable line. Back then, it would’ve been easy to pick out his thoughts like thorns from stem, but with his eyes veiled and his unfamiliar face, it’s impossible– and that hurts more than anything. Like this, it’s hard not to wonder what sort of face he’s making under the flowers.
Without thinking, Akito reaches to tear the bouquet off. If he could just push away the lilies, just pluck off the petals and chew away the stems, love wouldn’t be such a faraway thing. It wouldn’t bloom in the distant mountaintops, wrapped in clouds too thick to gaze through; it wouldn’t hang in the sky like a temptation, shining distantly as if it were an impossible dream. It’d be close. Easy, as far as easy could go. It’d be the same as it used to be.
But before he can fantasize any longer about a love he’s already let slip through his fingers, Toya’s hand catches Akito’s just before his fingertips can reach the stems.
“Please don’t,” he echoes his earlier sentiment. Slowly, he moves Akito’s hand away from the bouquet before letting it fall against his chest.
Akito swallows hard and tries to suppress the urges along with his tongue. Wordlessly, he lowers the offending hand to Toya’s hip and squeezes, pressing a gentle kiss against the side of his neck before speaking. “Right. My bad.”
After a moment, Toya sighs. “I’m sorry. I want to let you have me. I want to let you have everything. I really do.”
“I get it, dude,” Akito sighs heavily and presses his lips together frustratedly. For all the things Toya used to say about being, he’s the damn spoiled one– if Akito didn’t pull Toya’s hands away, he would’ve torn his own chest apart just to give his partner his heart. His everything, if Akito let him. But even knowing that isn’t enough to quell the desire spinning hungrily in his chest.
“Just, y’know. Wanna see you.” He grits his teeth in his mouth, trying to make sure Toya doesn’t spot his clenched jaw. Because he’s disgustingly greedy. Because even though Toya had already done the impossible and returned to him, it’s not enough to fill his heart. Because his teeth are stinging and his flesh is singing, and if he bit into his neck, he’d never stop biting, again and again, until his teeth fulfilled his belonging.
Even having accepted the greed in his heart, the thought feels more vile than he can bear. Trying to shove his thoughts aside, Akito slightly growls his proposition. “If you’d just let me. Take off the damn flowers.”
“I’m sorry,” Toya says in a whisper, face turning to the window opposite Akito. Through it, the stars shine tantalizingly, drawing his veiled eyes away from his partner– more than beautiful, in that moment, it’s infuriating. “I can’t do that.”
He turns Toya’s head back to him; like this, they’re eye to eye, or at least some messed-up kind of equal. Pushing up a lily, Akito gently presses a kiss over his face, hand reaching up to hold his cheek. Even though it was meant to be soothing, it feels desperate more than anything, as if he were chasing a breeze to the end of the world. And maybe, he is. But Toya leans into his fingers, and Akito’s sure his eyes are locked on him: just the way they should be.
“…Why can’t you just take the thing off? Is it that bad if I see you?” Akito huffs, shutting his eyes hard. His hand reaches to tug slightly at one of his bangs, as if he were trying to suppress the urge to open the curtains.
“You know you wouldn’t let go,” he murmurs. “And… even if I hide my eyes, you already know it’s me.” The tiny smile that breaks across his face is pitifully sad. Gently, he places his hand between Akito’s clenched fingers, unfurling his fingers like a blossoming flower. “Can you feel it?”
Slowly, just slowly enough to prolong the fragile moment, Akito runs his fingers along Toya’s hands. And for the first time, he really feels it. The familiar divots in his palm. The tiny scar over his knuckle. The way his long, thin fingers curl like they’re reaching for another note on the octave rather than grasping onto his partner. How they’re cool and soft, and despite the distant body in the distant coffin, they’ve stayed just like that.
The familiarity is soothing enough. As much as everything has changed–the distance between their lips, the number of seconds between their breaths, the rate of their matching hearts, and even their voices–at least this feeling is the same. It’s almost enough to forget what’s still sitting silently between them, drowned out by their heartbeats.
As if a cloud washed over a willow, the curtains wave as a sea breeze wafts in. The cool air settles over their skin, and Akito can’t help but pull Toya in a bit closer, watching his face. The lilies rustle over Toya’s cheeks, just enough to leave his cover undisturbed, and he just can’t help himself. Akito lowers his lips to meet Toya’s thin knuckles; Toya lowers himself to meet Akito.
“I love you,” Toya breathes, and the sweet, subdued tone almost makes him choke out a dry laugh. Saying something so obvious like it’s a secret– the love floods his chest before his mouth. Toya drinks in the ocean-scented air, and as if he were drunk, his breath stumbles out with a tiny, hollow giggle. With it, the taste of life falls over his lips, and Akito moves in to swallow his vitality.
As he drinks down Toya’s gentle reciprocations, he can’t help but want more. So he takes more, as he was made to do, and Toya gives more, as he loved to do. Their lips move, and something blossoms painfully in their lungs, hastening their shared breaths until they could only taste each other.
If Akito were to pry open their chests, to pick out the flowers, the roots that followed the vessels, and the thorns that kept their other halves distant, they’d never meet again. And as much as it stings, it must be better like this. Toya knows better than to come back and tempt him over nothing, so it must be best like this.
At least they’re together.
“…You always look at me like that,” Toya says slowly as he pulls his face away, his cheeks red from all the breaths Akito stole from him. The petals tickle his cheeks as he rests his face close, eyes flicking over the reddish curve of Toya’s lips.
“Like what?” He whispers back, his words tickling his partner’s open lips.
“Like I’m the only thing that matters.”
And Akito can only cough slightly in response to that, because it’s easier than admitting how much truth there is to his words. That after losing Toya, even music hurt. That his voice wasn’t the same anymore because he’d picked up smoking to clear his head, and the numbness and the fire in his chest had become easier than thinking. That the smoke scent is more bearable than the lilies because in every breath, Toya is there and he’s singing to his flowers and he’s sleeping in afterimages and he’s smiling over nothing and he’s alive and he’s alive and he’s everywhere and he’s rotting somewhere Akito will never reach him and he’s dead, he’s dead. And the endless love drags in his chest more than the smoke ever did, so he buries the ache in vice.
Like I could say that.
“…I’m sorry,” Toya says quietly, breaking the difficult silence blooming between them and ripping Akito away from his thoughts. “I’m not trying to be so selfish.”
“You…” Akito exhales dryly, thinly veiling the frustration he feels. “You’re still not being selfish enough, damn it.”
“Sorry,” Toya repeats anyway, because it seems there’s nothing else to do today, like Akito couldn’t just forgive him for the fact of his existence and the love that aches in his chest. “I’m trying, but it feels… wrong.”
“Okay, hit me,” Akito encourages, wrapping his arm around Toya’s shoulder and lying back to his side. He pulls him in snugly against him, shoulders pressing together like twin buds, and stares at Toya’s anxiously shifting hands. “You ask for somethin’, and I won’t be mad. Promise.”
“…You know, they say praying to be loved is a sin,” he whispers, his mouth curling into a half-hearted smile. The soft launch makes Akito’s heart twist into something ugly.
“So what?” Akito scoffs anyway, because it’s easier than letting his worry show. “You got a problem with sinning?”
“It’s best I don’t, right?” He says softly, his face pointing to the window. Through it, the moonlight beams over their figures, and the stars cross the sky to watch them love one another. The sight feels painfully hopeful – that even the distant somethings hovering in the sky love them enough to stay quiet about their forbidden reunion.
He swallows anyway. He’s not promised this moment, but he covets it anyway, drinking down its taste like honey. And even as the waves crash and the moon sinks lower over the sea, he can’t help but clutch him. As long as Toya stays here, even that alone is enough. As long as they’re close, as long as their bodies are touching, as long as it’s forever, that would be happy. It’d all be okay, then, because things like righteousness and sin and life and death wouldn’t matter– they’d fall in love again and smile together, and the world would wilt around them.
Akito almost sighs contentedly at the fantasy—an ending (eternity) like that– what an idiotically happy thing.
“Just do what you wanna do and don’t regret it,” he encourages, squeezing his arm around Toya’s shoulder. “Don’t think of sin or grace or any shit like that. Just go for it.”
“…But I’ve sinned enough, I think,” Toya says under his breath, face turning down as he lets a mirthless laugh tumble past his lips.
“Huh?”
“You still love me, so it must have been my prayers,” he explains, as if it made any sense at all. “Repaying that blessing with more sin is unforgivable.”
He acts as if love is an arbitrary debt tugging at his shackles, something that can only be repaid in sacrifice after sacrifice. In that world, love is a heavy thing with too many repercussions, and selfishness is as good as death. And to Toya, it must be true, but Akito can’t help but scoff.
How ridiculous is that? The thought that Toya would ever think his love–the thing that scratched at his eyes every day, the thing he would’ve done anything for–is less than eternal. It would almost be funny if it weren’t Toya’s reality. After all, loving Toya had never been hard: keeping him was the problem.
“Like you needed to pray for me to love you,” he mumbles bitterly.
“I wish I did, sometimes.”
And with that, the quiet returns.
He doesn’t say that, for him, there’s nothing without or beyond Toya. That it’s impossible to live without him because he’s still hanging–no, haunting –over his shoulder, whispering of happiness like a liar. The winter snow is hard enough to look at without his name tracing behind his eyes, but the springtime is worse; March bites, and April is practically unbearable. The windows reflect Toya’s smile in every patch of sunlight, and the pot of lilies flourishes under the warmth in the way he never got to. He’s in the earth, the sea, and the sky, and his eyes are everywhere, watching Akito like little black stars.
And as much as it hurts, how his silhouette intrudes on every little sensation, at least Toya’s with him. But even just speaking so blatantly of his love makes his cheeks burn more than they should, so he doesn’t say a word.
The starlight flickers, and the world seems to mimic their silence. Over the windowsill, the moon sings a soft song to the distant, weeping clouds as it sinks into the coming morning. Somewhere, a beloved someone is lowered into the earth; somewhere, a beloved someone sees the world for the first time. The water trickles something solemn as the waves wash over the white tides and recede into the place they belong. The earth spins, the sun whispers life, and the universe breathes, back and forth, forever.
As Toya turns to face the window, lying vulnerable on his side, a lily drifts down his face. It falls past his lips and onto the pillow, smelling of pollen and something poignantly sorrowful. Akito tucks into his figure, wrapping his arms tight around Toya’s waist and pressing his nose against the base of Toya’s neck, and all he can smell is lilies. He pulls his partner’s body to rest against his, chest pressing against his cool back, and as his lips fall against his shoulder, the grief sets in.
“Sorry I wanted to kill you,” he murmurs. “I just thought if I did it, it’d be easier than watchin’ something else take you away.”
“I wanted it to be like that, too,” he mumbles back as an attempt at comfort. “To be so tied together that even the sky and earth couldn’t separate us.”
For a moment, the only sound is distant splashing. Somehow, somewhere past the sea, something is coming. And as the passing time ticks a painful rhythm into his brain, he squeezes Toya’s waist and tries to flip back the hourglass to cast away the future.
But when orange floods the sky past the distant waves, the sun follows the color up over the horizon, and his heart drops painfully into his stomach. Somewhere, some stupidly hopeful part of him thought that maybe the night would last. That maybe, just maybe, forever wouldn’t be such a distant thing.
Yet against his wishes, morning is already coming– another night down, and one day closer to spring.
“No,” he breathes in a panic, eyes widening at the sight of the rising sun. A cold sweat breaks over his skin, and his eyes start to burn. Instinctively, his arms squeeze around Toya’s torso, pulling him against him until the space between their bodies is nil and his partner’s skin blooms a vague shade of red from the force. “It’s…”
“I’m sorry, Akito,” he says gently, words falling weakly against the sheets. “I don’t think… we have much time left. I’m sorry.”
“You can’t go,” Akito declares, and the obvious panic in his voice startles even him. His heart leaps into his throat, and his grip tightens around his partner’s body. As much as he pulls his arms around him, he can’t get any closer to where he needs to be, and the irony almost hurts. He used to dream of being so intertwined that nothing could bring them any closer– now, it’s just another obstacle.
Toya stiffens, turning over to Akito with quiet urgency– the sight only makes his heart clench harder. Even though his gaze is veiled, the way his partner’s face twists says it all: he’s already crying.
“I’m sorry,” he gasps out almost silently, and his throat sounds blocked, the way his voice barely breaks over his shaky sob. “It wasn’t… I shouldn’t have… I’m so…”
As Toya starts to cry, Akito only squeezes him more and more. He can’t find any words inside him to patch over the broken spots where their bodies don’t fit together anymore. He can’t even soothe the cries out of his partner’s quivering chest, because his hands don’t know how to put all the pieces that fell from their hearts back together. All he can do is squeeze and grab, because that’s all he ever knew how to do.
He never learned how to bloom. He doesn’t even know how to stop his own tears.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers through a little sob, curling in on himself like a wilted petal. “I’m,” he hiccups, “Trying. To be strong. So you can go back and, stop thinking of me all the time. I want you to live again.”
“Like that’d happen,” he sighs quietly, eyebrows furrowing as he tries to blink back the tears blossoming in his eyes. “We’re partners, yeah? How the hell am I supposed to forget that?”
“I’m dead, Akito,” he says plainly, and the finality in his voice stuns him, breath halting in his throat. Toya continues anyway, murmuring, “I shouldn’t have come back. It was wrong of me. I was… being selfish. I’m just giving you false hope.”
“Toya,” he breathes. Then his lungs curl in his chest, stiffening to a stop, and his shoulders drop in time with his heart.
Right; of course, Toya is dead. He’d been trying to get rid of everything that could remind him of it– throwing old picture frames against the wall until the glass shattered over the screaming in his head, leaving all of Toya’s belongings in a box he couldn’t bring himself to open, and setting his lungs on fire to forget how they used to ignite the fire. And he tried not to think of the way he left him– lying in that cold, unfamiliar coffin to be abandoned in the dirt.
He shouldn’t have come back, it’s true. It shouldn’t have been possible, in any sense of the word. But it wasn’t wrong, either.
Toya had allowed himself a shred of desire, even at the cost of making himself selfish. And Akito made a promise.
“It’s… good,” he breathes, even though his heart can’t help but disagree. He can’t muster any real anger at Toya. Still, the thought of being left behind again, of Toya being more unfamiliar than he already is, makes his chest feel heavier than the clouds crowding over their eyes. Against his thoughts, he continues, muttering, “Not like I wouldn’t’ve done the same if it were me.”
“I’m sorry,” he chokes out anyway, and the few tears that stray down his cheeks catch on the lilies and drip down the petals like morning dew. Toya swipes at the ones that make it past the flowers, but only succeeds in reddening his cheeks. Instead, he just sighs and settles as he sits up, back to Akito, and rests his face against his knees.
Kicking the sheets off his legs, Akito shuffles over to hunch beside him, letting a quiet sigh ring into the remaining darkness. As the unshed tears start to burn his eyes, his fingers reach up to roughly rub them away, nails scraping gingerly over the corners as a thin, salty trail makes it past his fingers. And for that, he only rubs harder, until he can feel something stinging hot under his fingertips.
A gentle hand reaches up to pull his fingers away from his face.
“Please don’t do that,” Toya says softly, and his voice sounds startlingly clear even though the words curve against his legs. “If you… need to cry, you can. I… want you to rely on me more, at least for now…”
The statement feels startlingly selfish, at least coming from him. It almost makes his stomach hurt. Someone like Toya, who feared selfishness more than even death, who asked for little more than affection and reassurances even as he wasted away, asking for more feels uncanny. Wanting to be relied on is a familiar sentiment, but asking for that when he’s going to turn into dust– wouldn’t that be too much to ask from his eyes?
But Akito can’t find it in himself to say no.
His head turns to face Toya, aching eyes blinking open to capture his expression, and suddenly, his heart stops.
Akito blinks again. If anything, it wouldn’t be strange to think he’s imagining things. The sunrise is slow, the ocean is calm, the air tastes like sweet flowers, and Toya is alive: things this beautiful are rarely real. Hell, he fell asleep in that damn apartment, the smoke scent clinging to the walls while the lilies smiled down at him like they were laughing at his loneliness. The only nice things left there are the unwashed pillow where Toya’s fading scent still lingers, the taped-up photos in new picture frames, and that damn box, still untouched, still sweet-smelling and gentle where the cigarettes couldn’t reach.
But as his eyes reopen, burning a vague red from his attempt to catch his feelings, he sees it again: the bouquet, sitting in a meaningless pile on the ground. The top of Toya’s head, the warm color of sunrise catching each strand around his hairline like a halo.
Ah. Toya had ascended far beyond him, hadn’t he?
Beneath the orange morning sky, his translucent skin collects each ray of light, and his blood turns an ichorous gold under its gaze. Under his eyelashes, nectar drips from his shut eyes, rainbows bursting through the droplets as they slide down his knees. His fingers fall over each other, folding like a set of feathers. Past his back, the sheer white curtains billow gently in the breeze, and Akito can almost swear they turn into wings. The sun follows his face, the ocean slows as his hand sinks onto the bed, and the world bends around him like it’s his.
And as Toya’s bare feet fall to the floor, Akito knows it is.
“Toya, you…” He exhales, breath catching on the edges of his throat. The casual words he wanted to say just couldn’t come out– as if he were made to fall to his knees and pray.
“Akito,” he breathes, and suddenly, the north wind whistles past them, making his hair flicker and grasp the sunlight as if it were glowing. “I’m sorry, but can I ask you for something again?”
“Always,” he chokes out, eyes still settled stupidly over the slope of Toya’s shoulder where the sunlight makes him shine.
What else can he say? Toya hovers so far above him that there’s nothing to do but kiss his shadow and watch his breath turn water into wine. And though the disbelief is still stinging his throat, all he wants to do is duck under his grace and relish his partner’s immortality.
“Until morning comes,” Toya says after a moment, mouth to his knees, fingers pressing against his own shoulders. “If you would, please just… hold me. If I can be selfish, please…”
“…Got it,” he breathes, and the sighing world quiets.
The future is always coming, but as the sun gazes over their figures, Akito can’t help but think that, maybe, this moment could last. As he sits behind him, arms wrapping tightly around his partner, his lips press shallow kisses over his vertebrae like flower petals. And between the movements, he mumbles prayers like gibberish and wants, wants, wants. Because the future is uncertain and the one he loves is sighing into the depths of the night, and he can’t help but want more despite everything.
Even now, nose pressed against the curve of his neck, he’s still hungry.
“…Akito?” Toya whispers, and he reaches back to run a quick stroke through Akito’s hair. His fingers feel cool against his scalp: almost enough to soothe away the aches.
“Yeah?” He sighs contentedly, burying his face deeper into him.
“Please remember this,” he says under his breath, as if he were hiding the words beneath the gentle air. “If nothing else, I’d like you to remember I want you to keep living. I’m not sure… we’ll meet again for…” His voice breaks slightly. “For a while, Akito.”
“I’m not letting go,” he exhales heavily. “Just don’t go anywhere, and I won’t let go. We don’t have to leave.”
“Akito–”
“I’m not letting go,” he bites back.
“Akito, you can’t–”
“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do,” he finally snaps. Logically, he knows Toya is right: as much as he wants things to last, his partner is beyond the clouds by now. But his brain catches on the rejection first, and it makes the fire sting painfully in his chest. “I’m not givin’ up on you this time. You’re not going anywhere.”
“You know better, Akito,” Toya says, like he’s trying not to break something. As if even the wrong breath might shatter it beyond repair. “You know you do.”
At that, he tries to swallow back the frustration. After all, it’s Toya– his partner, whom he could barely exist without. The love of his life; his one and only. But all of that only makes the disagreement hurt more– weren’t they partners? Why doesn’t he understand how much it hurts?
“…You don’t get it,” he almost whimpers, because the feelings pile in his arteries and stop his heart. For the first time, it feels like he can’t reach Toya. “What would you do if you were left behind, huh?” He questions desperately. “Just, always missing, something? Always bein’ haunted?”
Akito runs a desperate hand through his hair, trying to ignore the beading sweat on his forehead, as his eyes settle on the patch of light resting on his partner’s thigh. “You’re still everywhere, damn it,” he continues, words growing more rapid with his panic. “Your flowers, your clothes in the closet, your… fuckin’, everything. Sometimes I swear I can hear you out singing on the balcony just to look and see nothing.”
He stops for a moment just to feel the wave of cold that brushes over his skin. It almost feels like a familiar hand. “Y’know what that feels like, Toya?”
“Akito–” he tries.
“It’s hell, ” he growls, and his hands thoughtlessly clench around Toya’s waist. “I can’t stop seeing you. I can’t let go of you. I can’t fucking stand it.”
“I’m sorry,” he says softly. “But I can’t–”
“Just… just stay here,” he swallows a choked breath down and shuts his eyes tight, nose pressed against the spot on his neck where the lily scent winds around his thoughts. “I’ll make you happy. I’ll work hard. I’ll quit smoking. I’ll sing you to sleep and I’ll study and I’ll… I’ll… damn it, I’ll do whatever you want.”
His voice sounds irrepressibly pathetic as he finishes. “Just, don’t leave me. Please.”
“Akito,” Toya murmurs, hands stalling in the air before gently, so gently, pushing Akito’s away from him. He pulls away from the shallow embrace, and Akito thinks he knows. Akito’s hands chase his silhouette, but only grasp air. Again, his fingers are left empty, and his throat dries with the emptiness.
He’s all alone again.
“Toya,” his chest shakes with the dry sob. His chest aches with emptiness: half of his heart is shaking painfully, and the other half is pulling away from his hands, clear eyes pitifully gentle, sunlight pressing his shoulders up to his chin. “Please.”
The sun follows each wave as it crashes into a pale foam over the white sand. Even as the clouds crowd the sun, watching its return to the horizon, he just wants to chase them from the sky until the light paints Toya’s back and his feathered wings fold over his spine. But as his partner rises from the warm spot in their bed, carrying his flesh with the movement, he almost looks… human.
Deep in his head, Akito can’t help but dream of a happy ending. And somewhere, reality whistles through his ears like a gust of wind, and his partner’s mouth folds as his eyes rest on the ground. Over Akito, he stands like a statue, marble face catching the sunrise. The sky sits bright over the curve of his shoulders, and Akito can almost taste the divinity emanating from his hunched figure.
Of course. Toya was never mortal. Akito can only gaze up at him.
“Please,” he breathes.
God does not move. He does not look down at the someone behind Him– the sun is begging His gaze, after all. His head falls forward with a crack, and the sun climbs silently to meet His eyes. He is everything, and Akito is not.
But that doesn’t stop him from wanting.
Akito will always be too young to understand eternity. His knees are no longer knobby, and baby fat doesn’t cling to his cheeks anymore, but his eyes have never strayed from his dreams. And just far enough, just perfectly out of reach, is a dream.
Something blooms heavy in his throat, and he tries to swallow it back, as if he were gulping down every last petal separating them. The fire in his lungs almost drowns out his pounding heart. Blood pulses red in his cheeks, and his breath turns rapid. And through it all, just past the drops forming along his eyelid, He is shining.
Akito’s mortality is irrepressible. And as his eyes catch painfully on his partner, his everything, He is immortalized.
Akito stands. His legs shake and his heart beats uncomfortably, but he braces his flesh and reaches for God. That boldness would probably do him better if it didn’t make him cling annoyingly to an icon like an irreverent worshipper, but he hears Toya’s breath hitch as he presses against Him– the place he’s meant to be. Gently, his arms wind around Toya’s waist, fingers squeezing the skin over His hips like it’d make Him look back at him.
“Until morning comes,” he echoes Toya’s sentiment. “Don’t go anywhere.”
“Yes,” He breathes into the air, and the sea shakes in time with His lungs. “I won’t.”
Akito buries his nose into Toya’s shoulder and watches the world. Sunshine floods the sky like rain, and the ocean flattens like a mountain of sand. The moon, warm under his shifting hands, stares through the glass and stains the clear surface with His face. And the sun, ever-distant, ever-smiling and unexpectedly cool, turns to watch the last of their forever.
In hindsight, it was obviously a dream. The room is too long where it shouldn’t be, and too quiet without the lively city beneath it. The walls reek of pollen more than long-extinguished cigarettes. The sun and moon are joined together, and God is quiet under his fingers. The very world used to bend around their love, so the idea of existing in a place like this– fateless, star-crossed, and impossible– is uncanny.
Even Toya, the only thing without a warping shadow, is different.
“Are you real?” Akito asks thoughtlessly after a moment. He certainly feels it– He’s solid, His flesh squishes as he squeezes His hips, and His tongue still tastes like bittersweet chocolate and unending desire. But the logic ends there– if nothing else is real, why would He be?
Toya is quiet. He almost lets himself think He didn’t hear him, but almost imperceptibly, Akito hears His breath halt.
Then, “Is anything?”
“It was a yes or no question,” he deadpans, sighing out a short, exasperated breath. The riddles make his head spin, but if it were always an easy answer, it wouldn’t be Toya. But he tries again, anyway. “So, yes or no?”
“You know it’s not always as simple as just yes or no, Akito,” He whispers, and the tone makes him bury his face deeper into Toya’s neck. “If everything were that easy, I’m not sure we could have met here.”
“I would’ve found you,” he grumpily mumbles against his skin, nose bumping the sweetest-smelling spot. As Toya’s scent floods his nostrils, Akito’s body instinctively relaxes. Despite everything, this much is the same. His hand catches Toya’s as he whispers a soft, “Together forever, right?”
“Yes,” He replies, and Akito can practically hear Him smile, the way joy shakes His voice. His hand– His practiced, merciful hand– brushes over his, and for a moment, nothing else matters. “That was what we said.”
“That’s what we’ll be.”
“…Of course,” He affirms.
“Y’know. If you’re real,” Akito can’t help but bite in reply. He doesn’t bother trying to suppress the disappointed edge creeping into his words– Toya always sees through him, anyway. He knows everything.
Maybe it’s not fair to snap at him, but Toya never protests, as if the idea that Akito is being too greedy with Him had never even crossed His mind. After all, fairness is a mortal concept; whether or not humans realize its rarity stems from its nonexistence is a separate matter.
If life were fair, Toya wouldn’t have to leave him again– no, rather, He never would have died at all. And if justice were real, the imaginary pieces of Toya’s voice just barely cutting through the tinkling windchime wouldn’t fade the second his head turned to look.
He tries not to stare at the vague reflection of Toya’s face in the window. It’s not Him, it’s not enough– but Akito can’t help but get attached to the damn thing, the way the image’s lips seem to turn downward as His shoulders fall.
As Toya slouches, the earth sighs with Him. The ocean slows, the wind stops, and the sun pauses over the horizon. For a moment, everything is still. Then His mouth opens, and the world spins again.
“I’m dead, Akito,” He says gently, and a breeze pushes His hair against Akito’s face. “My heartbeat… can’t match yours, anymore.”
It’s a nonsensical statement, really. From where his hand meets Toya’s, just under the place where His heart beats the clearest, he can feel the absurdity right beneath his fingertips. And as he breathes against Him, chest pressed to his back, the lie unravels.
“Bullshit,” he mutters as his heart beats perfectly. Just in time with His– the way it was meant to be. “It’s doin’ it right now.”
His little smile softens. “Right,” He mumbles, voice laced with fragility. “…Even death couldn’t separate us, could it…?”
“…Not like things’re the same, either,” he huffs.
“…Yes.”
Akito frowns at the confirmation. The truth is irrepressible, but that doesn’t stop his chest from feeling like it’s full of rocks. He turns his gaze back to the warped reflection of Toya’s face, trying not to stare at its unfamiliar eyes– it might just stare back.
Toya’s tone turns quietly mournful as He continues to speak. “One day, once my body is done rotting, I’ll just be a pile of bones. And the face you loved is… already gone.”
Toya’s hand tightens around Akito’s, thumb tracing down the knuckles, as if soothing away the distress furrowing his brow. “But… I’m still here.”
His shoulders are shaking, but His voice is firm. Toya sounds more confident than He’s ever been– real or not, He’s here. And at once, Akito’s heart stops.
As if oblivious to the shock He inflicted, Toya keeps talking gently. “I’m talking to you. Listening to you. Standing here next to you, with our hearts beating in sync.”
Lightly, so lightly, He places Akito’s hand over His beating heart. As if it’s not already unbelievable that he can breathe in His exhales– it’s just the most painfully sweet dream.
“I’m by your side, where I’ll be forever. And even if this isn’t real, that will always be true.”
Just past his eyes, where the glass bends his expression, Akito can almost swear he sees Toya’s lips curl up and his cheeks curve round under His eyes. And before he can think about those words, those damn words, his eyes catch Toya’s sharp breath as he slowly begins to rub along His jawline.
“So, if this is real?” He murmurs, fingers reaching to caress Akito’s knuckles. “This is… only as real as you believe. But our love…”
And when it happens, it’s so subtle that it barely registers in his head as a change. Toya’s head– His pretty neck, His soft hair, His smooth skin– turns to the right, and His body chases the movement. Distantly, the sun shines brightly and catches on the far side of His face, and just past Akito’s gaze, He glows yellow.
“Will never end,” He finishes.
To Akito, Toya will always be beautiful beyond words. In his head, He is immortal– too far to touch, but too close to forget. He’s as perfect as the day He left, and He’s nestled safe in Akito’s chest. His face does not blur or dust, and His smile never leaves His lips.
Reality isn’t quite the same.
His eyes must carry sunlight to make Him shine like that– as if He were a shooting star, as if He were the moon, as if He were life itself. His smile curls sweetly as if a flower were unfurling. His teeth peek from under His lips, and His cheeks curve red. His bangs fall over his long eyelashes, and the sun peeks through each one, dying the delicate blue a warm, pale orange.
But Akito’s eyes are watching something else.
As He turns His head, His face turns to the shadows, and His eyes– His impossible, beautiful eyes– settle gently over Akito’s for the first time.
He almost expects to feel something pang in his chest again– the same way it’d been all night– but shockingly, it feels light. More than change, it feels like belonging– like he’s finally home.
And he can hardly believe it.
For them, the impossible had become reality. The world had moved around them, and they fit together like two halves. And even if the world ended right now, if the reality crashed in on this impossibly sweet dream, it wouldn’t matter.
They would be together forever.
For the first time today, Akito thinks for a moment before he tries to speak. It’d be stupid to try and force anything out right now– right when Toya’s staring at him like the world hanging onto his shoulders, with all the love in the universe to offer.
But the answer is obvious. Their love will never end.
“Then real or not, I don’t care,” Akito says finally, and his hand traces over the rounded fat over Toya’s soft cheeks. “It’s still you. Whether your heartbeat’s real or not… it’s still matchin’ mine, yeah?”
Toya smiles softly, and His hands cover Akito’s like a promise. “Then that’s how it is.”
And He lowers himself, and He lowers himself, and He lowers himself, so much that it barely processes in Akito’s head that he was never above him at all.
No, Toya is not a god. He is not the world, he is not life, and he is not above mortality. He is not an angel. He is not the moon; he’s not even a comet.
He is Toya. He is Akito’s beloved partner, always and forever. He wants to be with him, too; he is selfish, too. And he is human.
And more than the separation, more than the love he chased into the clouds, realizing something so obvious so belatedly is the most painful thing of all.
“Ah, the sun…” Toya whispers, eyes shutting painfully. A tear slips down his cheek, and Akito’s thumb flicks out to catch it. His face is heavenly; his heart is mortal. “It’s morning already.”
His silver eyes open to a slit. Something heavy glimmers over his lower lashes, but despite everything, he smiles. “It won’t be goodbye, Akito. I promise. Because… I’m always by your side, okay?”
His eyes shut again. “Please… I don’t want you to feel lonely, anymore. We’ll always be together.” As another drop falls over his reddening cheek, his smile only widens. And one last time, he whispers a pitiful, “Together forever.”
“We were gonna be…” Akito whispers, the words familiar on his tongue.
“We will be,” Toya corrects quietly.
Even as tears slide down his cheeks and he stifles the sobs that shake his chest, he’s still trying to smile. This moment won’t last forever: it’s already ending. It’s already turning into an impression, an afterimage, a myth to whisper over the edges of a crawling night. But the love won’t end there.
He thought it’d be forever back then. And now, it will be.
Akito tries to smile too, and as the sun shines stiflingly in the sky, he blinks back his tears hard. His hands reach to rub them out, but he stops halfway to his face.
And instead, slowly, so slowly, he raises his pinkie.
“Promise?” He murmurs.
And gently, so gently, Toya locks his over it.
“I promise.”
And in the wake of their promise, their tears and smiles matching, the sun shines past them.
Morning has finally come.
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
Akito’s alarm shrieks painfully over the sweet noise that had settled in his head. Usually, it’s a cheap, guilty escape– another way to hide from the truth. Now, it’s only a shame: if only he could have dreamed forever.
By now, it’s familiar. He’d wake from the dream, circled by the same lilies he’d just escaped, and watch the petals shift. The chains would dangle heavily from their place on the ceiling, the flower pots they hold filled with life. But they’d always swing back and forth like hanging bodies.
And for the first time, it doesn’t happen.
As Akito stands, his fingers instinctively grab for the spot on the nightstand where his half-empty pack of cigarettes is still sitting. But as he reaches into the box, plucking out another smoke, his fingers start to ache with leftover guilt.
No. Toya wouldn’t want to see him like this, would he?
Instead, he turns to the table.
The two chairs are so impossibly different. A worn chair, faded with age, empty and distant. A space for someone that doesn’t– no, can’t– take it. And a chair filled with the past, yet unused, still holding the weight that Akito couldn’t shoulder.
That box. That damn box.
Even looking at it is enough to reopen the wounds. But he wants to be strong, too.
Because he’s not lonely. He is always with him.
Akito drops the cigarette back into the box, and before he can back down, before he can scare himself again, his hands reach for the cardboard flaps.
And lightly, so lightly,
he opens the box.