a quick one before the eternal worm devours Tokyo - kwiewi - 呪術廻戦 (2024)

♫: A day in November- For Tracy Hyde

Location: Shibuya Scramble Crossing

Tokyo at night is something of a fever dream.

The scene is familiar enough to him that Toji can trace the edges of the dazzling picture that the city makes with his eyes closed and his hands tied.

It goes something like this: bright, flashy neons smeared across the smog-hazed skyline. Smoke from the cars streaking by being lit pink as it curls up into the darkened sky. A veritable wave of people, jostling each other as they shoulder past, bumping elbows and brushing hands, heads lowered as they hurry from one busy street to another. Their shadows on the grimy sidewalks, blossoming like spilled violet ink in a sea of pulsing lights and frenzied footsteps.

Toji stands in the midst of it all, and it all feels a bit surreal. It never really stops, no matter how many times you’ve seen this exact thing play out: like a static-cracked vinyl that just keeps spinning on the record player, but you never really grow tired enough of the music to switch it out. It’s the same sounds, the same needle scratching over the worn grooves in the record, but it feels newer and more inventive with each repetition. An ever-changing melody, even as the streetlight-hazed notes and the footstep-drumbeats and the silhouettes of the people slinking by remain the same.

He’s at the Shibuya crossing, standing on one of the many edges of the sidewalks- where the footpath ends and the road begins. White paint runs in faded lines across the dark asphalt in front of him, marking the area as a crosswalk.

This, too, is familiar to him. The choices branch out in twists in front of him, the paths in his mind worn with countless repetitions and paved over years and years of building routines. He could cross the street, and take refuge in the Starbucks- though he doubts it's open with how late it is. He could go the other way, and end up at the bookstore or at a drugstore. Maybe buy some chestnuts from the tiny store that sells it, if he feels adventurous enough.

It’s an endless feedback loop of possibilities playing in his head, and he cycles through the options with practiced ease, discarding the more complicated and frankly idiotic ideas- take the train to Akiba, or Roppongi, it won’t take that long, it’ll be nice to let loose for once- and settles on the most lucrative and by far the least exhausting one: going home.

Home is an elusive concept for anyone to grasp; but for Toji, the meaning is more distorted than most. Maybe fifteen years ago he would’ve said the uncharacteristically beat-down vending machine next to his rich-people private school deep in the heart of Minato Ward. Three years after that, and maybe it would’ve been an arcade somewhere in Ikebukuro. At eighteen he would've said, without hesitation- Ryomen .

Now, it’s nothing so complicated. Not a single mysteriously dilapidated corner of an otherwise spotlessly clean area. Not a building filled with strobe lights and luck-highs and crushing crowds. Not something as intricate to grasp and difficult to keep as a person.

Now, it’s just a place. An apartment in Harajuku, and the rusted keys hanging by the door. It’s the gym he runs that’s about a ten minutes’ walk from his flat. It’s standing in Shibuya, and feeling the smog-thick, humid wind in his hair, and letting the tightness of his chest unravel slowly with noises of the passing cars.

Here, at the crossing, there’s always some sort of crescendoing noise, or pulsing lights. Loud and flashy adverts play on the screens of the massive billboards set precariously on top of the buildings. The Starbucks is, as always, swimming in a sea of people: tourists and locals alike taking refuge inside and around it. The smaller shops scattered around are crowded too.

Everything in Tokyo is always bustling, always in motion. There’s not a single point of rest, or of reduced movement. A whole city full of people, moving at light-speed and escape velocity.

Amidst this all, he manages not to search for a familiar flash of pink hair in the thronging crowd- a bad habit that he never quite grew out of. It’s a near thing, and for a moment the desire is almost overwhelming: a veritable storm of doubts washing in with the tides of his thoughts. What if it's him, what if it’s really him this time?

Toji grits his teeth, tucks his hands into his pocket, and turns around. His footsteps are a blur of blackness under him, and his shadow is a washed-out smudge of violet behind him- bleached neon by the lights. It steadily grows darker as he moves further and further from the crossing- though never truly losing its faded quality. There are always lights in Tokyo, no matter where you are.

He’s going to his apartment. And maybe, it’s not the home he imagined at thirteen, when he was a spoiled rich brat and resident Zen’in family reject. Nor when he was fifteen and balancing on the school roof, debating the merits of throwing himself off. And definitely not at eighteen when he was at the top of the world with Ryomen by his side.

And despite all of that, it doesn’t make the apartment or his gym less of a home. Because at twenty-five, home to him means lukewarm, microwaved leftovers for dinner. It means heading to the gym to open up at six in the morning, and feeling the buttery sunlight caress his skin with gentle fingers. It’s the weekends spent volunteering to coach the swim-team at the local pool. It means biking early in the mornings and seeing the hazy red disk of the sun rise over the blue-dark skyline.

It’s not something he ever imagined that he would have- his dreams as a teenager always leaning on the more grandiose and awfully complicated side- but that’s not to say it’s bad.

Sometimes, he thinks that it’s good because of its simplicity, and not despite it. And this is an important distinction to make. Because sometimes good is better than the best. The best never lasts, but good has at least a fighting chance.

He turns into a familiar alley, and there it is- lit in amber lamplight from the nearby izakayas. His apartment building. Small, a little run-down. But the closest thing he has to home, regardless.

♫: night is young- yuragi

Location: Harajuku

As soon as Toji pushes into the gym, hand smudging already fading fingerprints into the cold glass of the doors, Shiu- being as annoyingly perceptive as he is- clocks his irritation.

“You’re pissed.” He says dryly, arms crossed over his chest as he leans his hip against the cool wood of the front desk. As he speaks, the stick of the lollipop in his mouth- a pathetic substitute for his usual cigarette- flashes in the rusty morning light filtering in through the cloudy windows lining the walls.

Toji grunts, and lets his duffle bag, filled with his usual workout essentials, slide down from his shoulder and onto the counter with a soft thud . “I’m always pissed.” He says, and fixes Shiu with a flat sort of look.

Shiu shrugs it off easily, like water off a duck's back. After working in the gym for all of the three years it's been open, he’s used to Toji’s penchant for temperamentality and less than stellar attitude. “You’re more pissed than normal.” He amends and narrows his eyes right back at Toji in a mocking approximation of the glare he’s giving him. “What happened?”

“Don’t see why it’s any of your business.” Toji says, huffing as he breaks eye contact- he’s not in the mood to get into a battle of wills with Shiu at 7 f*cking AM in the morning- and swerves around the edge of the front desk to slip behind it in a single, practiced motion, easily settling himself beside Shiu with his elbows resting on the countertop.

“It is my business. You being annoyed is always my business.” Shiu says, arching a single, unimpressed eyebrow. His arms twitch, like he’s contemplating pulling Toji into a headlock and violently ruffling his hair like he used to do back in their highschool days. Toji leans away from him, just to be safe, even though he’s sure Shiu wouldn’t pull a stunt like that in the middle of a public gym.

“No it isn’t.” Toji glares. “f*ck off. I’m fine.”

Shiu doesn’t look swayed. “It is my business because I’m going to have to be the one to put up with your bitching and complaining all day.”

“Your shift here is like- five hours max.” He says, pointedly flicking a finger at the register sitting on the desk- it has all of the shift allocations and appointments meticulously written out in it in Toji’s spidery scrawl. Shiu sometimes gripes that he can’t read the terrible handwriting, but Toji knows that he’s just a lazy asshole. “And you’re all booked out for the day. So, you won’t be seeing me at all. I’m working the register today.”

“Really?” Shiu says, momentarily knocked off kilter. “I am?”

Toji bites back a snort. “Yes, you are. Did you not check the register before leaving yesterday?”

“I told you I can’t-”

“I know you can read it.” He says flatly. “You had no problem copying my homework in highschool, did you?”

“f*ck off. That’s different.” Shiu grunts, but it lacks any real heat. “Goddamn- all booked out - that’s new. Am I really that popular?” He says, wry amusem*nt leaking into his voice as he gives Toji his signature smirk- lopsided, a little sharp, and annoying beyond belief. The one that makes him contemplate why they’re friends in the first place, and what the easiest way would be to break all of Shiu’s teeth.

“Don’t flatter yourself.” Toji says, rolling his eyes and kicking at Shiu’s shiny sneakers lightly with the scuffed toe of his own. “We’re literally the only two employees qualified to work as personal trainers in this entire gym. Of course we’re going to be booked out.”

“I mean.” Shiu’s face creases as he slips into an uncharacteristic bout of thoughtfulness. “We didn’t have this many appointments before. At all.” His eyes narrow as a sort of revelation strikes him- rare for someone as brainless as him- and he gives Toji an appraising look. “Business booming, boss?” Shiu grins, teeth flashing white in the early morning light. “And you didn’t think to tell me? Your loyal employee, who has stuck by you through thick and thin?”

“Shut the f*ck up.” Toji groans, and resists the urge to really break his teeth this time. “It’s just a little busier than usual. It’s peak season, what do you expect? You’ve been working here for three f*cking years- you should know this by now, dumbass.” His tone comes out a little sharper than he intended, having more edges and knife-sharp points than is usual for their banter.

Shiu’s eyebrows steadily travel upwards as Toji speaks, and finally, he raises his arms up, palms facing outwards in a gesture of surrender. “Jesus- I get it. You don’t have to bite my head off. What crawled up your ass and died this morning?”

Toji swallows back another choice few words about privacy and too nosey rat-bastards and instead settles for watching the early crowd trickle by through the glass doors at the entrance of the gym. It consists mostly of frazzled college students running to the nearest konbini to buy something resembling breakfast food and to stock up on ramen cups, old couples going on their morning walks, and a couple of half-asleep highschool students in neatly-pressed uniforms. The kids are all blinking blearily up at the hazy coin of golden light that is the sun, and swaying unsteadily on their feet, like they could collapse at any moment.

If Toji lets his eyes travel further, he knows he’ll see the navy skyline, muzzy with smoke and dust, lit in soft shades of blue by the endless and dazzling sky. The clouds wind behind the silhouettes of the buildings in threads of puffy white, looking like torn apart cotton balls, the thin threads at the edges worn and a little jagged.

It’s a more than familiar scene to Toji, and it settles the turmoil swirling in his gut into something a little more tame so that he’s no longer choking on it.

“It’s- stupid.” He offers, a little defeatedly- even though some part of him knows that it would always have come down to this because Shiu is stubborn as a mule and never takes no for an answer. “It f*cking stupid, is what it is.”

“I mean, most things with you are.” Shiu snorts, cracking a sardonic smile that’s more than a little genuine. There’s something in his gaze, as he speaks- not quite sympathy because Toji doesn’t think Shiu even has the capability to feel that emotion- but closer to understanding. Because, despite how much they like to complain and gripe about each other, it doesn’t change the fact that they’ve been friends for years, and known each other for even longer. “I’m used to it, really.”

“You’re so f*cking annoying. Shut up.” Toji frowns.

“I will when you tell me what the hell’s up with you.” Shiu says, and leans over to knock his shoulder against Toji’s- a little too hard, likely in retaliation to Toji snapping at him.

It causes Toji to stumble, but he manages to catch himself on the edge of the counter at the last second. “God, I hate you.” He hisses, shooting a dark glare at Shiu. “Fine.”

Shiu grins smugly, and flicks a mocking little two-fingered salute at Toji. “Talk.”

Toji sighs, and sags against the countertop. “Someone’s moving into the apartment across from mine. No- don’t give me that look- I saw moving boxes outside of the door.”

“Did you?” Shiu arches an eyebrow. “Because you said the same thing-”

“Last April. I know.” He mutters.

“And December before that-”

“f*ck off , Jesus.” Toji says. “I know, okay? It really did look like people were moving in back then.”

Shiu wrinkles his nose. “How does it ‘ look like people were moving in ?’”

“The landlords were fixing up the sh*tty wallpaper.” He shrugs. “And the time before that they were repainting the walls. Why do that if someone isn't moving in?”

“But no one moved in. Are you sure it’s not the same this time?”

“Yes, you f*cking idiot.” Toji snaps. “I told you, didn't I? I saw moving boxes outside of the door.”

“It could be a false alarm again.” Shiu says, annoyingly reasonable. “Don’t get so upset about it.”

“No, I’m sure this time.” He insists. “People really are moving in.”

Shiu arches an eyebrow. “I mean, it makes sense. The place has been empty for what- as long as you’ve lived there? Three years? Four?” He purses his lips as another thought strikes him, mouth flat except for a thin seam of wetness where the lollipop stick still rests, flaky and wet with how long he’s biting at it. “Why are you so against people moving in, anyway? It can’t be that bad- you run odd hours anyway. You’ll barely see them.”

Toji swallows, and looks away- gaze drifting to the door and the city outside again. It’s a small comfort, if only because Tokyo is always in motion, not stopping for anyone’s heartbreaks or tragedies.

“When we-” He breaks off, and narrows his eyes, jaw clenching as an unnamed, but familiar ache overtakes him. He waits for the piercing pain to fade into a dull throb, before speaking. “When we were in highschool- way before we moved in together- Ryomen used to say that when he had enough money to move, he would get an apartment across from mine.”

An odd sort of look flickers across Shiu’s face- a little pained, veiled frustration bubbling underneath. It’s the same expression that he adopts whenever Toji brings up Ryomen like he’s still here, like he’s still going to come back. “Toji-”

“Don’t say sh*t.” Toji grits out. “I know how f*cked it is, okay? I don’t need you to tell me.”

Shiu closes his mouth obediently, likely sensing Toji’s cresting anger, but keeps watching him with that same look: a little pitying, vaguely confused about why he’s still not over a relationship that ended over three years ago at this point. “Man, you really need to get laid.”

Toji sighs, because he knows Shiu is right , and does his best to change the subject. “Your first client is arriving in fifteen. Don’t you have to get the machines prepped?”

“sh*t.” He says, eyes flying open with alarm, jerked out of the mellow, early-morning haze. “Fifteen? That’s so goddamn early.”

“That’s why you read the f*cking register, idiot.” Toji snorts. It earns him a scowl, and a flicked up middle finger as Shiu retreats into the staff lounge to get ready for his appointment. Toji flips him off in return, but settles back against the countertop when the door swings shut behind Shiu.

The rest of the day passes in a strange sort of haze. At the front desk, Toji mechanically greets the returning gym members with his customary nod, offers first-timers memberships and talks through payment plans with them with his customer-service resting bitch face, and jots down personal trainer appointments as they come in, the gym’s telephone caught between his shoulder and ear as he both writes and fields the incessant barrage of questions the clients have with practiced ease.

The morning rush lessens as the summer afternoon crests, bringing with it thick bars of rusted sunlight filtering across the dusty carpet of the gym and a dull sort of heat. Toji finds himself dialing the air-conditioner up as the day steadily grows hotter and hotter with each passing hour.

When the daylight finally fades, the sunset is a quiet revelation of blossoming golden across the sky and copper clouds, framed by a violet skyline. And despite its intensity, the dusk too, ebbs away and recedes into the darkened shadows. Entirely too soon, late evening light blankets the streets outside in sheets of pale blue, and only the bright, fluorescent lights flickering on in the gym saves it from the tide of darkness threatening to overwhelm the city.

Shiu leaves after finishing up his appointment with his last client with a careless flick of his fingers and a grunted later, Fushiguro , punctuated by his signature silver-flashing smirk. The last of the people still left in the gym trickle out in halting streams not long after him, and Toji is once again left alone.

He locks up quietly and with practiced ease: running his fingers along the switchboard to flick the lights off, putting the equipment away and wiping down the ones that need cleaning.

As he finishes up, sliding the key out of the final lock, he lets his mind untether, and drift.

The usual possibilities await him: it’s not too late- he could easily walk to the Shibuya crossing and watch the lights again; he could finally give in and go to Akiba or Roppongi like he’s always thinking about, or he could do something a little less adventurous- maybe wander into an izakaya and have a drink or two or go to a konbini and stock up on ramen and melon bread.

But, as they say, all roads lead to Rome. And for all of Toji’s dreaming, he never manages to follow through with his plans. He finds his footsteps blurring underneath him, blue-lined shadow stretching behind him as he follows a familiar path through the winding alleys of Harajuku and towards his apartment.

There’s leftovers in the fridge, and he’ll warm them up because he’s a little too tired to cook. And at the close of the day, it’ll end like it always does: Toji hunched over on his sofa, warm dinner in his hands, flicking listlessly between TV channels and streaming services as his food steadily cools. As always, with him- it’s same vinyl, perpetually spinning and the same needle, scratching over the grooves of the record. The same radio static, punctuating the beats between the faded music.

For Toji, there isn’t much break in routine other than the occasional trip to Ueno Park or Nakameguro during sakura season- and maybe it’s a little bit mundane, but it’s never really bothered him much. This life is comfortable, and fits him like a second skin, warm in all of the right places and tender to the touch if he gets to the heart of it. A little lacking in the places that matter, but that’s alright too.

He slides the key into his pocket, and turns around, letting the evening air swallow his hunched form down.

The walk home is quiet, as everything else nowadays is. He slips over the cracked pavement like a human shadow, silhouette lit violet with darkness and rusted copper where the streetlights bleed over his skin. He watches lanterns set into homes and izakayas alike flicker on as he strolls through the narrow streets of inner Harajuku, muscle memory carrying him towards his apartment. For him, it’s mind-numbingly easy despite the intricacies of navigating the deeper parts of Tokyo, especially this late in the day- when everything is suspended in a dream-like limbo of buttery gold street lamps and a cold late evening glow.

♫: Horizon- yuragi

Location: Harajuku

Toji clenches his jaw, huffing lightly as he fights to close the tupperware container on the kitchen counter across from him. The red lid is bendy, and more than a little worn under his fingertips, but decidedly stubborn. He desperately runs his thumbs over the grooves of the container in a fruitless attempt at pushing it closed, and when it remains staunchly open- the lid even going as far to pop back up at the places where he did manage to close it- he gives the unresponsive piece of plastic an acidic glare that would fell a lesser man.

It’s a Sunday, and the gym is closed today. And because he has nothing better to do, Toji comes up with the brilliant plan of welcoming the neighbor, who moved in yesterday, with a container of warm, homemade food. It’s what the old lady who used to live next door when he first moved in did for him, and he reasons with himself that he should carry the tradition on as well.

There are, of course, other less noble - and more obvious reasons- for his newfound cordiality, mostly having to do with his inherently nosy nature. There are also a couple other ones that run along the lines of Ryomen, Ryomen, Ryomen should be here- but those are the thoughts of a weaker, less rational part of his mind that he does his best to push aside in favor of focusing on the more logical explanation- being welcoming is important, hospitality is important - despite him never having shown much interest in the concept before.

But, there’s a first time for everything, Toji muses as he finally feels the lid of the tupperware click into place under his palms. With a triumphant noise, he gathers up the container in his palms, cupping the hot plastic surface gingerly between his curved hands and pushes out the door- staunchly ignoring the part of him that correctly dismantles the ‘hospitality ’ into the nothing more than the steaming pile of bullsh*t it is.

The dank, musty stench of mildew, rotting wallpaper and wet concrete hits him as soon as he steps out of his flat and into the low light of the apartment hallway. He has to blink once, twice to adjust to the amber-hazed dimness, and crosses the narrow hall with no more than two long strides, still juggling the too-warm tupperware between his stinging palms.

As he raises his hand to knock- he finds himself hesitating, gaze lingering on the scratched wood of the doorway. Something old aches inside of him, a dull blade that has grown too familiar to his flesh to feel the agony he used to, but one that hurts nonetheless, no matter how much time passes. The hilt is worn with the weight of unkept promises.

Toji knocks before he thinks himself into a downward spiral of nostalgia and pain. Two sharp raps on the wood is all it takes. One, two - clear, precise and unmissable, ringing out like a death knell across the dust-thick silence of the hall.

A stretching breath of nothing, where Toji contemplates turning back, and forgetting that this ever happened. He’ll eat the food he made, maybe even throw the container out to wipe this memory of his weakness clean from his mind-

“Coming .” A muffled voice inside calls, and he has very little time to think about exactly why the voice sounds so piercingly similar to something, someone he knew once, before the door swings open with a shrill creak of old wood.

A hazy- familiar, familiar, familiar- face comes into view, and Toji promptly drops his tupperware.

Immediately, his heart kicks into overdrive, beating double, triple time- and something like a thundercrack splits his chest open neatly. Fear, excitement and raw disbelief thrums through his veins, filling him with heady adrenaline. The twin urges to flee and to stay here basking in this moment, forever, eclipse him and battle in his gut.

The person in the doorway- achingly familiar silhouette bleached with the washed-out morning light trickling in through the windows somewhere behind him- bends to pick up the container from where it now rests: tipped over on the floor. Toji watches him with a numb sort of incredulity, watches his thick pink hair ruffling with the motion.

As he straightens up, he’s already talking; a deep, lilting rasp that’s as well known as it is foreign. Like an old, wet bandaid pressed onto a fresh wound- not quite enough to stop the bleeding, but something that feels just right enough for it to count. “Hey, I think you dropped-”

Toji sees, rather than feels the exact moment that he recognizes him. Their eyes lock, jagged crimson against dull green, and refuse to stray. His lips twist, and a myriad of complicated emotions passes over his face, each expression more difficult to pick apart than the last. The tapered lines tattooed onto his nose, cheeks warp with the motion, and his piercings glint like molten gold in the sun.

“Toji.” He breathes more than he says. Blinks once, twice- as if he can’t quite believe his luck or lack thereof to be meeting Toji here, like this. Without any sort of prior buildup or preparation.

“Ryomen.” Toji grunts, voice curt and more than a little biting as he speaks. Anger and elation alike swell in his chest, as complimentary as they are different from each other. “It’s you.”

“Hi. Toji.” Ryomen blinks again, a little stupidly. “Hey. What’s up?”

“You- f*cking hell , we’re not doing this here, I’m coming in.” Toji bites out.

“Okay.” Ryomen agrees, easily.

And that’s that.

Toji grits his teeth, letting out a low growl of frustration as he does, and shoulders past Ryomen’s broad frame and into the apartment. Ryomen doesn’t protest, and follows him in dazedly, like a f*cking dog to his master. His gaze is wide with- something , Toji can’t quite read him so well after so many years- but it’s a little disbelieving, a little raw. But completely unguarded, like he still trusts Toji with all of him. Even after three years, and so many broken promises between them.

Instead of dwelling on that earth-shattering revelation, Toji wanders deeper into the house, toeing his shoes off at the genkan and stepping onto the cold, scratchy carpet blanketing the floor. It’s crusty, and stained with odd hues in a multitude of places- very obviously not having been cleaned in years.

The living room, a little ways in from the genkan, is surprisingly spacious and airy, given the narrow street their apartment is in, filled with honeyed late morning light trickling in from the cloudy glass of the windows. There are still big moving boxes scattered everywhere, some still taped shut and others ripped open and half-unpacked, books and games and kitchen utensils alike strewn about across the floor. Amidst the chaos, there’s a leathery sanctuary in the form of a big, comfortable looking sofa with worn seats.

“Sorry about the mess.” Ryomen says, strangely subdued and apologetic- the old him would’ve argued up a storm of Toji dared to insult any single part of his house, no matter how messy. “I haven’t gotten the chance to unpack everything yet, and the brat is as unhelpful as ever.”

“I’m not your f*cking home inspector.” Toji says, trying to sound his usual brand of apathetic. It doesn’t work very well, and most of his words come out in a biting snarl that betrays the tide of raw anger mounting like a red dawn in the hollow of his throat. “I don’t give a sh*t about the condition of your apartment.”

Ryomen clenches his jaw. “I know.” It’s stilted; a little disjointed. Like he’s trying to find his own ire to fling at Toji, but coming up with his hands empty. “I know that. I’m just trying to be a good host.”

Toji makes a mocking, disbelieving little noise. It’s deceptively soft, but he knows Ryomen hears the outrage hidden in it anyway. “A host . Is that what you are now? A f*cking-”

“Toji.” Ryomen says, eyes narrowing just the slightest amount. His lips thin, brows furrowing as his entire posture pulls tight; like a taut bowstring, ready to fire. His previous hesitation falls away easily. “Toji, we’re not doing this.”

“We’re not-” Toji breaks off, whirling around on the heel of his foot to fix a piercing, incredulous glare on Ryomen. “We’re not doing what ?”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about - ”

“Oh, no I don’t . By this , do you mean having a conversation? Having a goddamn conversation about how we broke up, you left for a whole other country and then proceeded to cut contact for three f*cking years?”

Ryomen swallows, crimson eyes dulling in the daylight. He looks tired; so, so tired and it breaks Toji’s heart a little bit.

“Toji-” He starts.

Toji doesn’t let him continue, barrelling over him in a frothing tide of righteous fury and deep, knife-like agony. “No- you don’t get to do that, okay? f*cking- listen to me. I’m not moving an inch from your living room unless you sort this sh*t out with me and explain what the hell you’re doing here, and why you didn’t talk to me for three years- ” His throat burns like a wildfire, voice shattering like shards of glass in the heat. There’s a familiar ache that lances through him, scalding him with newfound vigor, and he almost bowls over from the force of it. He can’t do this, he can’t do this.

“Toji, Toji you’re-” Ryomen is crossing the room towards him now, gaze wide and brimming with concern, and what looks like traces of his own brand of heartbreak.

“No, goddamnit.” Toji grits out. “No- f*cking hell -” Calloused hands catch his shoulders, pressing a sorely missed warmth back into his skin. He shudders and hates, hates how weak it makes him. How he feels like he could fall apart under the weight of barely a touch. “Get the f*ck away from me. ” He pushes uselessly at Ryomen’s broad chest in front of him, not even really trying to extricate himself from his hold. Fighting back just for the sake of fighting, because he wasn’t taught how to do anything else- like a losing dog. “I hate you, I f*cking hate you-”

“Toji you’re crying.” Ryomen murmurs, and then there are warm fingers on the tender skin at his waterline, brushing away the stray tears that seeped out and caught on his eyelashes without him even noticing. “Why are you crying?”

Toji swallows, and tries not to choke on the grief, the heartache that fills his lungs like sticky saltwater. “I’m not. I’m not.”

“Idiot. Don’t cry.” Ryomen says, and he sounds like he’s holding back his own flood of anguish. His gaze is achingly tender as he looks down at Toji, and his eyes are a little glassy, shining like seas of fresh blood- there’s violence even in his sadness. “Don’t cry, I always hated it when you cried.”

“I never cried.” Toji denies, again. It’s useless, he knows, when Ryomen was the one to pull him back from the edge each time. When he used to be the one to press a warm mouth to the nape of Toji’s neck in the darkness of the night when all he could do was shake and shake with muffled sobs, as if he was trying to swallow Toji’s grief whole and take it for himself. “I never cried- you have a faulty f*cking memory.”

Ryomen sees past the defenses, the sharp words. The hands brushing across Toji’s eyelashes, coming up with wet salt, drop down to cradle the hinge of his jaw delicately, holding him like he’s something precious, something to be loved. Toji hates how he shudders, and leans into the touch. Hates how his tears keep leaking out, even faster now. Hates, hates this weakness.

“f*ck, you’re still crying.” Ryomen murmurs. His chest rumbles as the low rasp of his voice swells, thick with emotion, and Toji feels the vibrations in his fingertips from where his hand rests on Ryomen’s chest. He balls it up into a fist, and gives another useless little punch. Fighting, for the sake of fighting. “Stop crying. Or I’m gonna start crying too, asshole. And then we’ll both be a bunch of snotty, crying losers.”

“You’re already a loser.” Toji manages to choke out, despite the despair blossoming in his chest like dying flowers. “You always were.”

“No I wasn’t.” Ryomen argues, and sniffs. f*ck , he’s gonna start crying too, and they really will be a pair of snotty, crying losers. “I was cool when I was like- eighteen. When I wore those tank tops, you know. The ones that showed my arms off real nice.”

“I hated those shirts.” Toji huffs wetly, and doesn’t stop the memories as they rise unbidden, like phantom hands made of blue smoke: heat-hazed Tokyo summers, trips to Akiba and Ikebukuro. The swings in a dilapidated park in Shinjuku that’s long since been razed to the ground to make way for houses. “They were awful.”

“You didn’t.” Ryomen insists, still watching Toji, looking his fill. Eyes never straying. “I always caught you ogling me whenever I wore those.”

They sway together in the daylight, right in that mess of a living room, the silhouettes of their violet shadows intertwining somewhere on the floor behind them. “There would always be girls watching you. It was annoying.” Toji says, without an ounce of shame.

“You were always the jealous sort, weren’t you.” Ryomen murmurs, and despite the playful nature of his words, there’s a wistful lilt to his voice. The slow nostalgia of their youth, bleached white in their fickle memory like polaroids left out too long in the sun, catching up to them.

Toji hums, and with every word that passes between them, he feels the cresting anger, the agonizing heartache, seep from his body- steadily being replaced with a bone-deep sense of melancholy. And as the worst of his resentment recedes, he really isn’t sure what he should be feeling anymore. It seems that even after three years, Ryomen still knows how to say just the right things to catch him off guard, sweep the ground out from under his feet and leave him stumbling in the dark.

“I was selfish, yes.” Toji agrees, and they both know that’s not all he means. Those innocuous few words have varying layers of truth to them, each more anguished than the last, threaded into the guise of something more innocent than it is meant to be.

Ryomen’s mouth pulls tight, quiet grief caught in the silhouette of his mouth. “Toji.” He says, and nothing else. A vivid kaleidoscope of intentions caught into that single word. “Stop doing that. Stop blaming yourself for everything.”

“f*cker.” He breathes, a little faintly. There’s something like dying butterflies in his chest, rotting ivy weaving through the notches of his ribs. He missed it, he realizes. How Ryomen said his name, all clear and sharp like rainwater against a misty window: To-ji. Crisp, like pebbles being flicked into a lake and skipping into the hazy violet distance. “You know I’m right.”

“You’re not.” Ryomen narrows his eyes, and lets his thumbs come up again, pressing gently at the damp skin at Toji’s waterline. His tears have mostly dried up, ebbing into more mellow anguish, but a few stray ones linger, glimmering softly at the edges of his lashes. Toji feels them flutter as Ryomen brushes his hands over them, wiping the last of the wetness away. “You’ve never been more wrong, actually. And that’s a pretty big achievement considering the stupid sh*t you used to say.”

“f*ck off.” Toji says, voice hoarse. He feels like shattering glass, breaking into knife-sharp shards with every stuttering breath. Ryomen holds him anyway, uncaring of how Toji’s edges might cut him. “Stop pretending. I was the one that broke up with you-”

“For a good reason.” Ryomen interrupts, endlessly patient. His palm presses a gentle warmth into the hinge of Toji’s jaw, and in the thickening daylight, their shadow-dark silhouettes tangle like the tail ends of the same thought. Like they were always meant to come back together. “I was leaving. One of us would have had to do it.”

“We could’ve worked something out.” Toji says. “Maybe we could’ve- I don’t f*cking know- people do long distance sh*t all the time. Maybe we could’ve done that.”

Ryomen’s eyes are startlingly crimson where the sun blades them, flecks of rusted gold scattered in their depths, jagged like knives. Toji has learned to love the violence in them long, long ago. It’s a part of him now, too. “Do you really think it would’ve worked out?” He says. “You were sh*t with calling. And I was sh*t with picking up calls. I used to get pissed whenever we wouldn’t see each other for a few days, and then we would fight about it.”

“You had so much goddamn separation anxiety.” Toji huffs. “I remember.” There’s no way he couldn’t, not when Ryomen was everything for so long.

“Yeah.” Ryomen says, gaze steady as he looks back at Toji. “Imagine that but for like- three years straight.”

“We would never have lasted.” Toji murmurs slowly, and it’s not quite a revelation- but something he always knew, coming back up for air as he learns it all over again. “We would’ve f*cked everything up within a few months and then I would’ve said some dumb sh*t that would make you hate me forever, and everything would be even worse than it is now.”

Ryomen laughs. It’s raspy, and low and lovely. Toji wants to catch the edges of it within his mouth, and swallow its warmth. “Dumbf*ck. I could never hate you.”

Cracking a small smile back, Toji flicks his eyes up. “Not even when I used to mix up the laundry and all your white shirts would end up pink like Yuuji’s hoodies?”

“Okay, maybe then.” He amends with a furrow of his brows. “That f*cking sucked. I got made fun of for weeks at college.”

Toji bites back a snort, and lets his lips twist up into something a little wider, a little more knife-like and serrated- and more genuine for it. Teeth glinting in the sun. “They called you Pepto-bismol, didn’t they?” He snickers. “You came back home so mad.”

“It’s not f*cking funny.” Ryomen grunts, but his mouth is twitching at the corners with suppressed amusem*nt. “I got called Pepto-bismol , Toji. f*cking pepto-bismol. And then the nickname stuck around for months after because of my hair.”

There’s a steady point of warmth, rapidly expanding in Toji’s chest. It mounts like a second dawn in his throat, swelling red and fiery and beautiful, and it feels like wildflowers blooming in his stomach. In front of him, Ryomen is lit in sheets of amber and his skin suffused with a gentle gold, as the sunlight caresses his silhouette in a lover’s embrace. It brings Toji back to the days before - when he was eighteen, nineteen, twenty and in love. When he thought he could swallow the world whole.

Toji barks out a quiet laugh, and the dam breaks. Whatever residual tension had leaked over from their fight, hanging thick and heavy over the air like shadowy spiderwebs, dissipates like blue smoke into the distant horizon. He drops his head down onto Ryomen’s shoulder, and smothers his snickers into the rough cloth of his shirt, the motion pulling their bodies even closer together.

“Asshole.” Ryomen murmurs, as Toji keeps huffing out soft laughs. It’s low, and affectionate. He doesn’t even bother hiding the fondness seeping into his voice. “You’re a piece of sh*t.”

“‘Course I am.” Toji snorts. “Assholes attract assholes, you know? That whole thing.”

“I thought the phrase was opposites attract.” Is the amused reply he gets. Ryomen’s chest rumbles pleasantly as he speaks, and Toji finds himself turning his head to press his ear into the skin of Ryomen’s body in an almost instinctual motion, seeking out the familiar vibrations of his voice.

“Close enough.” Toji shrugs, hand coming up to fist in the sleeve of Ryomen’s shirt, and he stays there. Doesn’t let go.

In the gentle quiet that blankets them, Toji notices that he’s filling in the spaces between Ryomen’s breaths with his own. He exhales, and Ryomen inhales in just as he finishes. Like the tides of the ocean, when Toji pulls, Ryomen pushes back, the sand rushing under their feet. It’s a strange sort of music, and it’s not a choice that either of them have made- it just seems to happen. Their bodies fall back into step easily, picking up where they left off three years ago without a hitch or a stumble. A reunion waltz, but they never stopped dancing. They just forgot each other for a moment too long.

“Are we gonna talk about it?” Toji murmurs.

Ryomen huffs a sigh into the crown of his head, and Toji feels the warmth fanning out from it suffuse through the rest of his body in a pleasant shiver. “We should, shouldn’t we?”

“Dumbf*ck.” He grunts. “Of course we have to.”

“You know I’m not good at sh*t like- talking. Not where it matters anyway.”

Toji makes a quiet noise of displeasure, and tugs at the fabric of Ryomen’s shirt. “We’re gonna f*cking talk about it. Not right now, but we’re going to.”

“Okay.” Ryomen mutters. “Fine. Can’t have nice things, I guess.”

His mouth ticks up into a blisteringly fond smile. It sears deep, and he smothers it into Ryomen’s shoulder before it can burn right through him- candle flame over paper. “You’re a piece of sh*t.”

“And you’re an asshole.” Ryomen says, poking him in the stomach- which Toji hisses at.

“I hate you.” He grouses, but doesn’t let go. He doesn’t think he can, right now. He might just fall apart otherwise.

“I know, you told me before.” Ryomen says, more than a little dryly.

Toji huffs with disbelief. “I didn’t mean that, idiot.”

“Sure you didn’t.”

Toji is the one that jabs him in the stomach this time- bony fingers digging into tender flesh. Ryomen wheezes softly with pain, and Toji holds tighter onto him.

“God- fine - you didn’t mean it.” He grunts. “Jesus- f*cking- sharp-ass nails. Are you a goddamn animal? Do you not clip them?”

“Not everyone is a prissy bitch like you.” Toji mutters, and lifts his foot up to kick lightly at the jut of Ryomen’s ankle. It’s petty, childish, and so reminiscent of something a younger, more reckless Toji would do that neither of them can quite bite back their resulting snickers.

And even though he can’t see him, Toji knows that Ryomen’s doing that thing where he wrinkles his eyebrows in palpable disgust, mouth thinning almost comically with disapproval. “Hygiene isn’t prissy.” He says, voice laced with offense. Dramatic f*ck. “You’re just a smelly bastard.”

“I’m not, f*ckface.”

“You used to shower only like twice a week.” Ryomen grunts, sounding faintly revolted by the memory. “It was disgusting. You’re disgusting.”

“We literally used to exchange fluids on a daily basis.” Toji says flatly. “You were just as bad as me.”

Ryomen makes a quiet noise of offense, low and raspy, and Toji presses his ear closer to catch the residual vibrations in his chest. “At least I f*cking bathed.” He says. “You never used to shower after your workouts and smelled like a walking dumpster for hours afterwards.”

“Watch your mouth, asshole.” Toji says. “I caught you smelling my unwashed laundry too many times.”

“You- f*ck you- I was trying to figure out how much detergent we would need to wash off that godawful stench.” He says, and Toji pulls back to watch the pretty flush bloom across Ryomen’s cheeks. His tattoos carve black stripes across the tanned expanse of his face, dark with a ruddy blush, and they warp as Ryomen keeps talking. “It’s not whatever gross-ass sh*t you’re talking about.”

“I believe you.” Toji says, and bites back a snort as Ryomen’s expression only serves to grow more scandalized and horrified. “Really.” He says, extricating himself from their embrace to rock back on his heels, hands held up in mock surrender. “I believe you. You weren’t smelling my laundry because you had a thing for my sweaty, sweaty-”

Ryomen grunts, crossing his arms across his chest. There’s a flash of disappointment in his eyes as he watches Toji move away, but his veneer smooths over soon enough- unflappable mask sliding neatly into place. “Finish that sentence and you’re not leaving this house in one piece.”

“Sounds kinda kinky.” Toji narrows his eyes. “Didn’t know you were into that. Should’ve told me three years back, dumbass. Maybe we could’ve worked something out then.”

Something complicated passes over his face, and for a second Toji worries that he’s gone too far, crossing too many unlabeled and unmarked boundaries in the volatile minefield that comes with navigating a conversation with your ex.

The moment passes, and Ryomen groans, scrubbing a lethargic palm down the length of his face. “Oh my god. You’re f*cking impossible. How did I forget how annoying you were?”

“Maybe you were too busy thinking about my sweaty-”

“I’m going to kick you out of my apartment.” Ryomen threatens.

Toji calls the bluff with a careless tilt of his head, and a quicksilver smile. “I’ve lived in this building longer. You’ve barely been here for a day, f*ckface. You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

“It’s my goddamn flat-” Ryomen starts forwards, fiery gaze alight with a special sort of vividness- a look that Toji has only seen when the two of them are alone. It sears deep, and tugs a burst of sudden, dizzying warmth into Toji’s chest. Like wildflowers in full bloom, lit by the sun.

Several things happen at once.

First:

Ryomen jabs an insistent finger into Toji’s chest, eyes narrowed, and says something about annoying idiot and still in my house and never knows when to shut up . None of it has any real heat to it, and Toji can tell it’s just an excuse to touch him again, feel that he’s really here, standing in Ryomen’s flat: body-warm and blood-close.

Second:

The door unlatches behind them, swings open with an ominous creak. There’s a loud, cheery ‘ I’m home!’ that rings out across the house. And then: footsteps shuffling against polished wood and carpet as the person meanders in from the genkan and into the living room- punctuated by a sharp, disbelieving gasp from somewhere behind Toji.

Third:

Toji realizes- in an instance of sharp, painful clarity- that he is still completely, and irrevocably in love with Ryomen Sukuna. That he never quite moved on the way he thought he did- the ugly beast of the emotion only feigning sleep, ready to crawl out and fill his throat with cresting waves of acid the moment the crumbling dam between his ribs gives. Toji’s eyes catch on Ryomen’s, and all he can see is sunlit oceans of blood, and all he can think about is how they’re the colour of his favorite roses.

All three things of these do not hold the same weight, and he struggles not to bowl over with the sheer force of the unwelcome revelation

In the present, far away from the storm brewing inside of him, Toji whirls around and finds Yuuji gaping at him and Ryomen. His eyes are flicking back and forth between them in disbelief- settling on Toji for a bit, and then snapping over to Ryomen again. It lingers on the barely-there distance between them, as Ryomen leans forwards and presses his warm chest to the length of Toji’s back.

“What do you want, brat?” Ryomen grunts. Toji gives him an annoyed look out of the corner of his eyes. Stop being an asshole . Ryomen glares right back, as if to say you’re one to talk . It’s horrifying, how instinctual this silent exchange is, seemingly picking up right where they left off three years ago- no hitches or stumbles.

Yuuji’s eyes grow wider, and he turns sheet-white, about as pale as a ghost.

“Yuuji.” Toji grunts with a quiet nod of acknowledgement at his presence. It’s not approval, exactly- but it’s much more than he gives others. “Pick your jaw up off the floor. You’ll swallow a fly.”

Snapping his mouth shut with an audible click , Yuuji blinks- once, twice. Like he’s waiting for Toji to dissipate into smoke in front of him, fade away into a daydreamed hallucination. It’s the same way someone looks at a blurred afterimage of motion or a flickering shadow, caught on a stray polaroid, elusive and not meant to last.

He’s not so lucky, and Toji doesn’t disappear, no matter how much Yuuji blinks or gawks at him.

“Toji.” Yuuji says, a bit faintly. “You’re- hello! Um- is that you?”

Toji bites back a laugh, and kicks Ryomen’s shin when he opens his mouth to say something that’s probably useless and rude. “Yeah, kid. It’s me. You don’t have to look so surprised.”

“But you’re-” Another couple of disbelieving blinks. Yuuji resorts to angling his head to the side in his confusion, as if things will make more if the world is tilted and a little less disorienting.

“Right here.” Toji says, arching an eyebrow. “I’m right here.”

Something seems to click into place, and all of a sudden Yuuji’s face blooms into a dazzling smile. “Holy sh*t- oh my god - Toji!” He laughs, and starts forwards. He pokes Toji’s chest in a way that’s achingly reminiscent of his brother. “It really is you.”

“Yeah.” Toji grins back. “Happy to see me?”

“You kidding?” Yuuji beams, almost as bright as the sunlight streaming in through the windows. “Of course!”

And then Toji has his arms full of gangly sixteen-year old limbs, squeezing him into a crushing hug. Toji huffs out a winded breath as the air is wrung out from his lungs, and reaches an arm up to pat Yuuji on the back. With a pang, he notices that Yuuji is so much taller than the last time he saw him- back when he was thirteen and starry-eyed. He’s Toji’s height now, and maybe even an inch or two taller, having to tilt his head down to rest it against Toji’s shoulder.

“sh*t- kid, I can’t breathe. You can let go now.” Toji breathes, voice strained and more than a little hoarse. “You’re not thirteen and tiny anymore.”

Yuuji pulls back, and smiles again, just as bright as the first time. “I wasn’t tiny when I was thirteen.” He argues, and when Toji opens his mouth to retort back, he barrels on at breakneck speed, eyes shining with barely restrained excitement. Even now, at sixteen, it seems that he hasn’t lost his sunny disposition and childlike innocence that he’s held onto since he was seven or eight or nine and meeting Toji for the first time. “I can’t believe you’re here .”

“In the flesh.” Toji arches an eyebrow. “Want an autograph?”

“Oh my god, I wasn’t remembering things wrong.” Yuuji grins. “You’re still an asshole, thank god.”

“ Asshole - who told you to use that word?” Toji narrows his eyes, lips twitching at the edges, and barely holds back a laugh at the flat look Yuuji fixes him with.

Ryomen grunts somewhere to the side of them, and moves closer to press into Toji’s side. “Toji, you literally taught him half of the swear words you knew by the time he was like- eleven. You’re responsible for how much he swears now.”

“I didn’t do that, assface.” Toji grunts, and elbows him sharply, causing Ryomen to hiss in pain and clutch at his side, shooting an acidic glare over at Toji. “I’m not that terrible of an influence. Not my fault Yuuji was a nosy bastard and always listened into our arguments.”

Yuuji squawks out a loud protest, brows furrowing with blatant offense. “Hey! Not my fault you guys always decided to argue at the worst times.”

It’s Ryomen who frowns this time. “We did not -”

“Yes we did.” Toji says.

“Yes you did.” Yuuji says, and fixes Ryomen with an accusatory look. “You two always argued during like- dinner. How was I not supposed to listen in when you guys were glaring at each other across the table in front of me.”

“Oh.” Ryomen blinks, and then in an uncharacteristic show of self-reflection, winces. “sh*t. Did we f*ck you up as a kid? That sounds bad.”

Yuuji sighs. “No, you didn’t. How many times have I told you-”

“Yeah, yeah. You never expected me to be perfect, you just wanted me there, I get it brat.” Ryomen grunts. “It’s too early for that sappy sh*t.”

“Sometimes.” Yuuji says, a little helpless and entirely too worn out, like they’ve had this exact same argument a thousand times. “I wonder what it would be like to have a less emotionally constipated brother.”

“Don’t blame him.” Toji shrugs. “He was dropped on his head as a baby. He can’t help it.”

“That explains a lot.” Yuuji nods sagely, but he can’t quite hold back his laughter, and he ends up smothering a couple of snickers into the skin at the back of his hand.

“It does, doesn’t it?” Toji grins, sharp and a little jagged, arching an amused brow at Ryomen, eyes glimmering with suppressed amusem*nt.

He gives them a long-suffering look, and massages the bridge of his nose, as if to stave off a swelling migraine. “You know, I’m starting to remember why I hated when you two ganged up on me like this.”

“We’re not ganging up on you.” Toji says. “Are we, kid?”

“I mean- we kinda are.” Yuuji laughs, and rubs at the nape of his neck sheepishly when Toji gives him a flat look. “What! We are.” He says, waving his arms in front of his chest defensively. “I didn’t say that he didn’t deserve it.”

Toji bites back a smile when Ryomen’s expression twists with even more exasperation, and shrugs. “You’re not wrong. He is kind of annoying.”

“Right!” Yuuji grins, snapping his fingers and giving Toji an odd sort of half-fingergun, thumb and index splaying out wide. “He is, isn’t he? Uraume inflates his ego too much, I always tell them. Maybe that’s why he’s so annoying.”

“Don’t forget being dropped on his head as a baby. That has to contribute to how irritating he is.”

Ryomen gives them both a flat look, weary and filled with lethargy. Under the veneer of apathy though, there’s a glimmer of fondness glinting gently in his eyes, that not even he can suppress. Despite his jaded demeanor, Ryomen’s lips twitch up at the edges with contentment. When he turns away, silhouette blurring into the sun-lit window behind him with a blaze of gold, Toji can tell that he’s hiding a smile, unfurling slow across his face like a blooming wildfire.

“I’m making lunch.” He grunts. “Tell me when you assholes are finished with your bullsh*t.”

“Can we have udon? Please, please? Big bro, I swear I’ll owe you so hard- I’ll even do my laundry on time.”

“f*ck off, brat. We’re having what I’m making.”

“Come on - bro, please. Please, please please- ”

“Oh my god- fine . Stop screaming in my ear.”

“ Thank you. Love you, bro!”

“Shut the f*ck up or I’ll burn the food.”

“Sorry, sorry, yeah- what ever .”

♫: ハナシノブ; afloat storage

Interlude: Somewhere in Shinjuku

For people so strange, their story is surprisingly mundane.

It starts when they’re still in school- Toji is young and angry at the larger world for not being kinder, and Ryomen is not faring much better than him.

It starts with a vending machine, and the cracked sidewalk it sits on. It’s summer. He’s young. The sky is blue and electric, and the clouds are puffy like milk-candy as they crawl by, thick and slow like molasses, above him. The sun beats a relentless warmth down into the smoke-hazed skyline of Tokyo, and even standing in the blue shade of the small, dilapidated buildings lining the street doesn’t save him from the cloying heat. His school shirt sticks to him like a second skin, tenacious in the way it refuses to peel off no matter how much he tugs at the sweat-heavy cloth.

Toji feeds the vending machine a couple of coins, each dropping into the whirring-metal insides of the machine with audible clicking noises. Like pebbles, falling into a clear, rippling lake; or the soft ringing of a metal spoon against glass- clink, clink, clink. He measures out each coin carefully, counting up to a hundred yen. Enough for a can of co*ke.

The air fills with mechanical buzzing as the vending machine works to push the soda out, The metallic humming reminds Toji of the sky before a storm: deep, resounding rumbles ringing out across the grey city, filling the narrow alleyways and wider roads with sticky electricity.

Clink . The co*ke finally falls into the dispenser, and Toji sticks his hand into the flap to pull it out, the cold metal a gentle balm against his sweaty fingertips. He brings it up to his throat, and sighs with relief when he presses the can against the tender-red skin at the crook of his neck, rolling it over to his nape in a desperate attempt at cooling his heat-blistered body down.

There’s a shuffle of feet on cracked pavement behind him, and Toji doesn’t have to turn around to know who it is. There’s only one other student from his school who also likes coming to this vending machine.

“You know.” Ryomen says, his shadow eclipsing Toji’s silhouette as he comes up beside him. Back then he was still a little shorter than Toji, not having grown into his full height of entirely too f*cking tall quite yet. “You usually drink soda. Not use it as an ice-pack.”

Toji scowls darkly, but doesn’t give in to the urge to look over at him, watch the way the sun glints off of his new ear piercing. Later, much later, though he doesn’t know it then, he’ll help Ryomen put in another one while their faces fade into the half-darkness of twilight, standing in some back-alley parking lot deep inside Shinjuku, their hands and bodies and mouths brushing.

“f*ck off, asshole.” He grunts.

“I’m not doing anything to you.” Ryomen says, grinning crookedly, just on the edge of looking sinister, when Toji fixes a glare over at him. “Really. I just want a soda, same as you.

“Get your drink and piss off, then.” Toji grits out. Back in those days, Ryomen always annoyed the living hell out of Toji- he doesn’t really remember why, now. It could’ve been anything from his arrogant, self-important attitude, to raging hormones that always spelled a disaster for a closet case like Toji.

“Nah.” Ryomen says. “I think I’m going to sit here.” He angles his head at the busted curb at the edge of the sidewalk, caked with dust and debris and smeared dirt.

Toji’s glower grows even more thunderous, and he barely holds back from smashing his soda can into Ryomen’s perfect f*cking nose. “That’s my f*cking spot.”

The vending machine whirs, as Ryomen finishes dropping the final coin in. He reaches into the mouth of the dispenser, sticking his hand in through the flap, and draws the soda out, the can glinting orange in the sun- f*cking Fanta , of all things.

“No, it isn’t.” Ryomen says, and as if to prove his point, he whirls around and drops down into the curb, sitting with his legs parted and his elbows on his thighs, smirking up at Toji in barely hidden challenge. “It doesn’t have your name on it, does it?”

And for a moment, Toji really, really thinks about kicking Ryomen’s teeth in. It wouldn’t even be hard at all- his mouth is right there , and Toji’s school-issue shoes are dirty and scuffed and would probably taste like actual sh*t, just like Ryomen deserves. And maybe, on a different day, he would’ve done it.

Instead, Toji sits down on the curb beside him. Ryomen’s eyebrows tick up in surprise, but he smooths his expression over quickly, like the rippling surface of a lake, falling still all of a sudden.

“It’s my spot.” Toji insists. “I’m not letting you have it.”

“I’m not leaving.” Ryomen grunts, and pops the seal off of his can with a soft hiss . “Guess you’ll have to share.” He brings his mouth up to the soda, and drinks down a deep gulp of it with a satisfied hum. In a rare moment of contentment, his face clears of his usual traces of contempt and disdain that he wore so well back in those days.

It’s like watching the sun break through a cluster of particularly dense clouds, its golden light fleeting as it shines down through a patch of unusually clear sky, buttery with honeyed warmth as it caresses your skin. Toji finds himself a little bit entranced, his eyes snagging on the sharp jut of Ryomen’s Adam’s apple as he swallows.

“Why do you drink that sh*t?” Toji says.

“Drink what?” He says as he finally comes up for air, wiping away the sticky orange soda beading at the edges of his lips and his teeth with the back of his hand.

“Fanta.” Toji says, thickening the disgust in his voice to hide the way his stomach- for lack of a better word- flutters. “It tastes like donkey ass.”

Ryomen’s expression does something complicated, and he might be biting back a laugh. His eyes are crimson- Toji had never noticed that before. They glint like wet roses in the daylight. “You’ve tasted donkey ass before?” He says, and very valiantly muffles a snicker into the palm of his hand at the revolted look Toji shoots him.

“f*cker.” Toji grunts. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“I mean.” Ryomen shrugs, sun-bladed gaze glimmering with amusem*nt. Toji’s heart, always traitorous, lurches a little bit. He’s a little too young to go into cardiac arrest, he thinks, but his body is trying his best anyway. “You did say it tasted like donkey ass. I’m just wondering, man. How do you know what donkey ass tastes like?”

Toji groans. “Holy f*ck. You’re so annoying.”

“I do my best.” He says, and suddenly switches gears, reaching out to flick at the co*ke can caught between Toji’s fingers. It’s now pressed into the juncture of his shoulder as he lightly massages it over the blistered and sunburned parts of his skin. “You gonna drink that? You know, you could’ve just bought an ice pack if you wanted to use it like one instead of wasting a perfectly good co*ke.”

“Why, you want it?” Toji says.

“Nah.” Ryomen wrinkles his nose in vague disgust, mouth pulling thin and tight in an unusual show of honest disdain. “co*ke tastes like- I don’t know- f*cking sewer water or whatever. I swear it’s acidic, I can always feel it erode my teeth.”

Biting back a grin, Toji arches an eyebrow. “You make a habit of drinking sewer water?”

Ryomen, surprisingly, laughs. It’s a nice sound, not loud and booming like Toji expected, but something mellower, a little messier. Somewhat hungry. Huffing breaths, quiet snorts and ugly snickers. It’s desperately human, and Toji finds that he wants to swallow it. Feel it tinkling in his stomach like brushes of a windchime in a distant spring breeze, filled with sakura and ripped flower petals.

Toji feels a little faint, watching Ryomen like this. There’s something forbidden about it, and he feels like he might just scatter into pieces of himself in that same breeze.

“You know what.” Ryomen says, and snickers again. Like he can’t quite hold back his mirth, cresting like a second dawn in the hollow of his throat. “I think I set myself up for that one.”

“Yeah, you kinda did.” Toji snorts, and feels a rush of dizzying relief when his voice comes out steady and as knife-edged as usual, holding no trace of the butterfly wings brushing by in his stomach. “You’re a f*cking idiot, you know that?”

“You’ve told me, yes.” Ryomen says, and sips at his soda again.

Toji turns away, and finally cracks open his own with a soft bubbling of dark liquid. He knocks it back, drinking it down in a few desperate gulps. The rushing coldness from the soda seeps through him, flesh and bone, and for a moment- the heat-sticky city, the boy beside him and the threads of turmoil snagged between his ribs- it all kind of fades away. For the first time in a while- he feels clean.

When he looks back at Ryomen- he’s watching him. Their eyes catch, and Toji feels his breath hitch. The red of his gaze sears like a second sun, reminding him of a crimson dawn he saw once, hanging over the early-morning Tokyo skyline in a curtain of thick blood.

“We’re sharing this spot.” Ryomen says, and knocks his knuckles once, twice against the edge of the curb in emphasis.

Toji narrows his eyes. “f*ck you.” He says, but he fails to lace it with the usual amount of vitriol.

“We’re sharing.” Ryomen insists.

He doesn’t know why he agrees. Maybe it’s his hormones. Maybe it’s the exhilaration and subsequent dread that comes with a new crush at that age. Maybe he’s just tired of fighting.

“Fine.” He says.

And that’s that.

They stay there until sunset. Sometimes they talk, sometimes they argue, but most of the time they’re quiet, and Toji finds that he doesn’t hate it much. He watches the violet twilight steal over the city with a sense of dim urgency, illuminating everything in glowing sheets of rusting gold, cool violet shadows and blading Ryomen’s eyes in knife-like flecks of sunlight.

Toji doesn’t tear his gaze away from the sky the entire time, but sometimes he feels Ryomen looking over at him, studying him in the same way a painter might survey a particularly beautiful sunset. Maybe he’s looking for the same things too: the silhouettes and the lines and the light. The things that make Toji up, and what he is. Sketching a place for him into his memory.

Abruptly, Ryomen gets up, smoothly rocking forwards on the balls of his feet to slip into a brisk walk. “See you tomorrow.” He says, tossing a careless hand back at Toji, and leaves without another look back.

He doesn’t say anything back, but raises an arm in farewell anyway, even though he knows Ryomen can’t see him.

Ryomen’s blue shadow lengthens on the cracked asphalt road as he walks further and further, his silhouette eventually disappearing into a darkened alleyway or a narrow road or something equally unmemorable. The sun keeps setting, and the skyline looks like it’s on fire with how orange the clouds blaze.

Toji comes back the next day, and so does Ryomen. And the day after, and after, and after that too. They drift apart, like diverging lines, only to inevitably cross back together, intersecting at points and curves, their lives intertwining and twisting together irrevocably and forever in a single sun-lit moment of their youths.

That’s how things begin for them: a vending machine, a sidewalk. A heat-heavy summer’s day when everything is slow and crawling; sticky and cloying.

It’s mundane, but it’s beautiful- maybe not despite, but because of that unremarkability.

♫: Interdependence Day, PT-II; For Tracy Hyde

Yuuji pulls him aside after Ryomen disappears into the kitchen. He tugs Toji along as he steps gingerly across the minefield that is the living room floor, kicking aside stray books, threadbare old stuffed animals, and even a couple of lightbulbs that roll around across the carpet like stray moons that have lost their orbits.

Toji, sensing the uncharacteristic bout of solemnity that has stolen upon Yuuji, bites his tongue and follows. He’s familiar enough with Yuuji’s mannerisms- having both known him for years and beforehand and having lived with the two of them for two more before his and Ryomen’s break up- to understand that this, whatever it is, is important.

Eventually, they manage to clear a path to the other end of the room, Toji hissing every now and then whenever he steps on a scattered lego piece or photo frame or crumpled newspaper. Yuuji fares a little better than him, having had a chance to get used to the mess, and he deftly navigates them into a shadowed blue corner of the living room. There are two small armchairs jammed into it, threadbare and antique, likely one of those thrifted lost things that Ryomen used to love to take pity on and rescue.

Yuuji drops down onto a seat, exhaling out a long, ragged breath, cheeks puffing up with the motion. His gangly limbs are strewn about haphazardly as he leans against the cushioned back of the chair, head tilted up to the ceiling and face twisting with something quietly troubled. His eyes are- for a change- uncharacteristically unreadable.

All of a sudden, he seems to notice Toji still hovering there. He lurches up, and gaze widening and filling with apology. “Please sit- oh my god- I’m so sorry, I didn’t even notice, I swear to god I’m so out of it today-” He fusses.

“Kid.” Toji huffs out. “Calm down, I’m sitting. Don’t get so panicked.” To emphasize his point, he eases himself down into the other armchair, and arches an eyebrow at Yuuji. “See? I’m sitting. Chill out.”

For a moment, he just watches Toji, eyes flicking back and forth, mouth creasing with subtle pain. And then, with a sigh, he seems to deflate- his frame crumpling like a punctured balloon. His shoulders slump forwards, and his elbows come down to rest on his knees, and he leans his head against his hands, thumbs massing at the tender skin at the bride of his nose.

Toji feels his chest pang with an old, yet unfamiliar ache. It’s strange, seeing this kid he helped Ryomen practically raise so grown up and burdened with distinctly adult-esque troubles. Yuuji’s skin seems hardened now, with the newfound awareness that comes at fifteen, sixteen, seventeen. Like a sapling, growing new bark in preparation of what is to come.

“Yuuji. Toji says, and pushes down the tender agony that threatens to bubble over- you’ve grown so much, I’m sorry I didn’t get to see it, wasn’t there to help you through it. “What’s going on?”

Yuuji cracks a dry sort of smile. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “What gave it away?”

“You look like a kicked puppy. And you’re not smiling hard enough to blind me. It’s kind of a dead giveaway.”

“I do not look like a kicked puppy.” He huffs, but his mouth twitches up into something more genuine, a little bit closer to the carefree grins that are so characteristic of him.

“You do.”

“Do not -”

“Cut the sh*t.” Toji says, and narrows his eyes. “You’re deflecting. Something’s up.”

“I’m not.” Yuuji sulks. “Jesus, dude. I forgot how mean you were.”

“Yeah, well I used to put up with your brother so it’s kind of expected that I’m an asshole.” Toji says, and reaches out to rap Yuuji on the head once with his knuckles- hard enough to hopefully knock some sense into him. Yuuji hisses, and in a very younger-sibling like way, petulantly kicks a leg out to jab his toes into the jut of Toji’s ankles with a muttered “f*ck off .”

Toji leisurely bats his leg away, well-trained after years of dealing with Yuuji’s tantrums ever since he was a snotty toddler, and continues on seriously. “Listen, you don’t have to tell me anything. I know you probably don’t trust me anymore- and you shouldn’t, it’s been a long time and people change- but bottling that sh*t up isn’t gonna help anyone, alright? It won’t be good for you, it won’t be good for your relationship with your brother, and it’ll suck major ass in the long run. Find someone to talk to, or find some way to release the stress- or you’re gonna end up super f*cked.”

Stilling all of a sudden, Yuuji ceases his relentless attempted murder attempts on Toji, and lets his eyes flick up to meet Toji’s. They’re wide, like a deer caught in headlights, and he looks more than a little startled at the sudden bout of honesty from Toji. His gaze is filling with something raw and more than a little delicate, jagged like uncut ruby.

“Yuuji?” Toji prompts, and arches an eyebrow. “You there?”

And then- holy f*ck - he’s crying. Yuuji blinks once, twice, and then there are tears streaming down in rivulets down his face.

“Holy sh*t- kid?” Toji flounders, spine going ramrod straight with his cresting alarm. “You good?”

Yuuji is letting out hiccuping little sobs, and desperately trying to wipe the tears away from his face with the back of his hand and the rough cloth of his sweatshirt. Everytime he opens his mouth to speak, probably to spew some sh*t about how he’s fine and it’s fine , another choked sob leaves him.

It’s so reminiscent of a scene that Toji might’ve seen years ago, when he was a teenager himself and Yuuji was seven or eight and throwing a tantrum, while Ryomen desperately tried to calm him down with promises of udon and Akiba trips they couldn’t afford and konbini melonpan- and for a second he thinks he’s dreaming. That maybe, his memories have finally escaped the strict containment that Toji kept them under, and that he’s lost forever in their blue-hazed, sun-lit depths now. It’s not an unpleasant idea.

“Sorry-” Yuuji chokes out, and Toji is knocked right back into the present. This is real , Yuuji is here, and he’s crying. “I’m just- oh my god, I don’t know what’s wrong with me today. f*ck - sorry.”

Toji sighs. “Stop apologizing. Just- tell me what’s wrong. Do I- Should I get Ryomen?”

“No- no!” Yuuji says, and wipes another flood of tears away on the sleeve of his sweatshirt, scrubbing his forearm across his face while he valiantly fights to keep his shoulders from trembling. “I swear I’m fine. I just- missed you. I’m sorry, it’s a lot.”

This time, it’s Toji who’s dumbstruck. “What?”

“I missed you, man.” Yuuji says, and with relief Toji notes that his voice is already much, much steadier, despite the wetness still shimmering in his eyes. “You were- are - family, you know?”

“I’m- what?” Toji says, and feels his stomach pull with something complicated. Thick vines and flowers, wrapping around his ribs and squeezing his heart tight.

Yuuji sniffs damply. “You’re family. Even before Ryomen was dating you- I always kinda thought of you like another brother.” He shrugs, and his hand comes up to scratch sheepishly at the nape of his neck. “I mean- I was young then and I didn’t really realize that maybe you wouldn’t want to be family with two random orphans- but I guess it worked out, because you stuck around. And then you really did become family.”

Toji is still stuck on another brother. “You thought of me as- your brother.”

“I mean. I still did, and I still do.” He shrugs again, a little more embarrassed this time. “Sorry, I know you’re not like- legally married to Ryomen or whatever, never were and- oh yeah , sh*t - it’s probably awkward now because you guys broke up- um, f*ck- uh - it’s about the- vibes , it never really mattered to me that we weren’t legally family just- you’re there you know? Like in all of my memories of my childhood- the ones I can remember well, anyway- there’s no Mom or Dad but Ryomen’s always there and Grandpa was too for a little bit, and then you’re always also kinda there, next to Ryomen, making him and by extension me happy. I know it doesn’t make a lot of sense but- you stuck around, I guess. Sorry, this makes no f*cking sense-”

“Yuuji.” Toji says, and there’s something like a twilight mounting in his throat: red and fiery and beautiful. “I understand.”

Yuuji blinks, and risks sending him a fleeting look, expression uncharacteristically shy. “You do?”

“Yeah, kid.” Toji says, voice strained. “I do.”

“Really?” Yuuji says, and there’s a dangerous sort of hope dawning in his eyes. He sounds a little choked up as he keeps talking. “You don’t mind? Being family?”

“f*ck no.” He says, and bites back a smile when Yuuji practically beams. “Don’t mind at all.”

“Even after-” Yuuji breaks off, swallowing the rest of the words back- but they both know what he’s trying to say: the messy break up, the long three years in between it and this sunlit moment, locked firmly in the present.

“Listen.” Toji says. “I don’t give a sh*t about what me and Ryomen are- f*ck off , you little sh*t, you know what I mean-” He grunts in response to the disbelieving look Yuuji sends him. “But I think of you two as my family too, and that won’t change no matter what.” He pauses, and cracks a quiet half-smile. “Wouldn’t have taught you all those swear words otherwise, kid.”

Yuuji barks out a laugh, the last residue of his sudden burst of overwhelming emotion clearing with it- like the way, after a particularly violent rainstorm, the clouds part to let the sun through.

“Ryomen was right.” He snorts. “You were a terrible influence on me.”

“Nah.” Toji grins. “I was great. Still am. Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The air between them settles into a quiet hush. Toji swallows back the honeyed warmth pooling at the hollow of his throat, and turns to watch the sky through the windows. The day is clear and blue, visible in slivers and patches through the patchwork quilt of shadow-dark leaves rustling in the wind outside of the cloudy glass of the window. The sharp creaks of cabinet doors opening and swinging shut rings out from the kitchen, and the soft sizzling of oil in a pan hums a perpetual melody against the quiet of the house.

“Does that mean I can officially call you big bro now?” Yuuji says contemplatively, and when Toji turns to look at him, his eyes are glinting with barely restrained mirth, mouth twitching at the edges, struggling not to break into a full-bodied laugh.

“Don’t push your luck.” Toji grunts, and ignores the way his lips curve up as Yuuji snickers at him.

♫: starcharts- pasteboard

Location: Harajuku, Shibuya

They meet in the middle.

Ryomen extends an olive branch by proposing that Toji give him a tour of the general area their apartment is in, and Toji agrees on principle because it’s Ryomen and he has never really been able to deny him anything at all.

Toji comes back from the gym early that evening, leaving Shiu to lock up. Shiu gives Toji a strange look when he asks him to take over Toji’s usual late shift, but shrugs and agrees with only a shrewd tilt of his head and narrowed eyes, teeth chewing thoughtfully at the cigarette resting between them. Ryomen comes back from work earlier than he used to too- though Toji’s frame of reference might be overly warped because before means three years back.

Time stretches like golden sand at an endless shoreline, both behind and in front of him. Three years should be no more than a few scattered grains in that vast, ocean-blue lined infinity; but to him it looms between them almost like a perpetual, dizzying drop. Damage is a ceaseless, merciless river of ravines, carving through the rosy days of their youth and the few golden years after- and their time together feels like a cloudy mirror with cracks spiderwebbing across. Reflecting what once was, but distorted in a way that’s enough for it to feel subtly wrong , though he can’t quite pinpoint why. A shadow, a mockery of their past. A past that was once sunlit and sweet-sticky like cool mango juice on a hot day.

Eventually, there’s a knock on his door- once, twice, thrice- loud and booming, but precise in the way it cuts across the silence like a sharpened knife through tender-rotting fruit.

“You’re late.” Toji grunts without preamble, when he pulls the door open.

“You know.” Ryomen drawls, eyes narrowing with faux solemnity. He looks good: hair artfully tousled from the humid city breeze, his work clothes still on and a familiarly sleek watch draped across his left wrist- facing inwards, like always. “It’s polite to greet people when you first see them.”

Toji scowls, and tries not to let his eyes linger on the way Ryomen’s shirt pulls tight over his broad shoulders. “f*ck off. I asked you to come at seven, dumbass.”

“It’s seven-ten now, idiot.” Ryomen says flatly. “I’m only ten minutes late. Get over yourself.”

Scoffing, Toji pushes past him and into the damp hallway, ignoring the way his heart beats double, triple time as their sides brush. “Ten minutes is still too long.” He says. Almost as an afterthought, he pauses, and rummages inside of his pocket for his house keys, and tosses them behind him. There’s a soft jingle of metal, like wind chimes on a summer day, and a telltale thwack of the keys meeting flesh as Ryomen catches them. “Lock the door for me.” He says, and strides off.

“Lazy bastard .” Ryomen curses, voice pitched low and raspy. But stops to lock it anyway. Toji keeps walking, and he can’t quite suppress the smile that pulls at his lips at the sounds of Ryomen struggling with the busted lock.

It’s late evening, tipping over into a darker night, by the time they finally emerge from the apartment building and into the narrow street outside. Ryomen has caught up to him, handing him the key back with a glare and a muttered slew of curses and a dark glare, and they’re slipping across the sidewalk together, shoulders and sides comfortably bumping. Their elbows jostle, and the backs of their hands sometimes brush, and Toji doesn’t know what to feel other than relishing in the familiar warmth, long dormant, blooming once again in his chest like wrinkled flowers rejuvenated by the spring air after a cold winter.

“Where are we going?” Ryomen says.

“You’ll see.” Toji grunts. “Have some f*cking patience.”

Ryomen huffs with exasperation, but doesn’t argue, pressing his side once again to Toji’s. Their shadows, stretching behind them in a cool gradient of violets and deep blues, interlock. Missing puzzle pieces, coming back together.

Toji watches the sky as they walk, letting his feet and muscle memory carry them towards their destination. It’s a thick navy today, hanging over the skyline of the city like a sweat-sticky blanket, heavy and oppressive in the way it curls over the blocky edges of the skyscrapers. The clouds are a gentle pink, lit with soft oranges from the residues of the sunset.

The lane they’re traveling through is narrow, like many streets this deep into the city are. The buildings are choppy blocks of concrete, jammed up against each other in a haphazard patchwork quilt of cement and human tenacity, and the asphalt of the thin road is heat-cracked and a little run down. Lamps hung up from the edges of the roofs of stores and houses alike light their surroundings in shades of rusted gold, and like this, everything is a little hazy. Like a remnant of a half-formed daydream, or an uncut film reel, footage blurry and static-hazed.

When he glances to his side, he sees Ryomen taking in everything with wide, hungry eyes and parted lips- his face caught in a rare moment of unrestrained wonder. It reminds Toji a little bit of the way Ryomen looked at sixteen, when he saw the neon lights of the Shibuya crossing for the first time on a humid summer night, of how he held his breath while he craned his neck to watch the tops of the massive skyscrapers- like he was underwater and not quite ready to come up for air.

Toji finds himself slowing from his usual brisk pace, long strides growing into gentle footfalls- maybe to make the moment last longer.

“When did you come back? To Japan, I mean.” He says.

Ryomen’s face is still uncharacteristically tender, maybe with nostalgia, when he answers.

“The day before you came to see us.” He murmurs. His piercings catch the light and glint with amber light as he turns to look at Toji. “I made arrangements to rent the apartment from overseas, with Uraume’s help, and we moved in the day we came back.”

Toji blinks, and swallows the acidic sting that comes with the reminder that Ryomen chose to stay in touch with Uraume, but not him.

“Well, that explains the mess in the living room.” He says, and narrows his eyes at Ryomen. “Speaking of, have you two idiots gotten around to cleaning that up yet?”

“No.” Ryomen grumbles. “Shut the f*ck up, I’m busy with work and the brat is going through hell trying to adjust to the Japanese school system again. Give us a f*cking break.”

Sighing, Toji jams a sharp elbow into the warm skin at Ryomen’s side, causing him to hiss, and jostle Toji with his shoulder. “You’re so stupid. You could’ve asked me for help, dumbf*ck.”

“Oh.” He blinks. “sh*t- I didn’t think of that. You would help out?” Ryomen’s voice lilts strangely, something like hope blooming in his eyes.

“Of course I f*cking would, are you daft?” Toji scoffs. “I didn’t think it was possible for you to get dumber, but you keep surprising me.”

“Shut the f*ck up.” Ryomen grunts, but it lacks any real heat.

They lapse into silence, for a stretching moment. It swells between them, like an invisible orchestra, playing a symphony that neither of them can quite hear or discern, but blankets them in a wave of suspense regardless. It’s a precursor to the inevitable question, the one that Toji doesn’t quite want to voice, and Ryomen doesn’t quite want to answer, but they both know that sooner or later they’ll have to face the music.

Toji keeps his eye on the smoke-hazed sky as he parts his lips to talk, watching the way the lights from downtown seem to burn neon fires into the skyline.

“What made you come back?”

Ryomen’s breath hitches subtly, and he stops completely, suddenly. Toji lets his feet carry him a little further, enough for his shadow and Ryomen’s to pass by each other and separate, like two lone ships drifting on a vast asphalt sea, lit violet by the late evening darkness.

“Toji.” He says, voice raspy.

Toji sighs, clenches his jaw. “I just wanna know. I’m not- ‘m not gonna f*cking argue with you or blame you for what happened between us. It wasn’t your fault.”

He’s quiet, for a moment, and then-

“It wasn’t yours either.”

“I know.” Toji says, and turns his head to the side, so that Ryomen’s silhouette swims hazily at the edges of his vision. It’s a bit like looking at a shadow in the afternoon sun, not quite fully realized yet. Or a bleached Polaroid, the people in the picture ghost-like approximations of their real selves. “I know.”

More silence, heavier this time. It swells between them, thicker than blood rushing by in river water.

“Yuuji was struggling.” Ryomen says, at last. “I missed Japan too, but it was worse for him. He was just- really f*cked up there. I don’t know how to explain it.” He swallows, and lets his eyes drift up to the sky, their crimson depths filling with neon. “A job offer came around in Japan, and I just thought- why not? There was nothing for us there, and we were both f*cking miserable. Why not come back?”

Toji sways for a moment, hands tucked into his pocket and gaze still fixed on the tops of the skyscrapers, and then he’s walking again. The humid late-evening breeze ruffles his hair, lifting strands of it from where they were gently brushing against his face. By the telltale crunches of concrete being crushed under rubber soles, he can tell that Ryomen follows.

“That bad?” He murmurs. It’s quiet enough to be lost to the breeze, but Ryomen catches it anyway. He’s always been like that- observant, knife-sharp.

“Pretty bad, yeah.” He says, shrugging. His strides lengthen, and soon, he’s back at Toji’s side, their shoulders brushing once more. There’s still a bit of distance between them, not quite as noticeable as before- but still there.

Toji bridges it with a soft bump to his side, one that Ryomen readily returns. Once more, their shadows interlock on the sidewalk behind them, stretching tall and blue and proud, projections of a past that once was, and a future that could be, once again.

Even through their silence, there’s a language in the way their hands brush.

“We’re here.” Toji says, at last, jolting to a sudden stop. He angles his head at a door fitted into the front of a run-down building, the area darkened by the cresting night and unlit.

“And where is here , exactly?” Ryomen says, brows furrowing with confusion.

“It’s a f*cking tea shop, idiot.” Toji rolls his eyes, and knocks their elbows together, jostling him. “You can’t survive without that sh*t.”

“Oh.” He says, something close to wonder lilting in his voice. “You remembered.”

Toji scoffs. “You’re not so forgettable, you know.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Ryomen says, casting an unreadable look down at him. It’s a little tender, raw and curling at the edges like burning paper. “It’s just that I wouldn’t have blamed you, if you didn’t remember.”

Somewhere behind them, a lamp flickers on. Amber light throws the sharpened edges of Ryomen’s silhouette into jagged, golden relief.

“Three years isn’t that long.” Toji says. “Stop being stupid.”

“In the grand scheme of things, no. It isn’t.” Ryomen shrugs. In the lamplight, his eyes are as fiery as a mounting dawn. “But time has a tendency to erode.”

A little helplessly, Toji drifts forwards. Closer, and closer. “Things, or people?”

“Both.” Ryomen says. The metal of his piercings glint, catch the light, as he shifts. “People more so, though.”

Toji huffs out a quiet laugh. From this close, he can make each individual lash lining Ryomen’s eyes as they shimmer a soft gold.

Something catches Toji’s eyes: a stray lash, resting on the warm skin of Ryomen’s cheek. Almost instinctively, he reaches a hand up and swipes it off with the rough pad of his thumb. There’s a stuttering, hitched breath as Ryomen’s lips part with quiet surprise at the unexpected touch.

His hand freezes, and Toji wonders if he overstepped. He waits with. Bated breath- one, two - for the other shoe to drop. For Ryomen to tell him to back away, because they’re not together anymore, they don’t know each other anymore.

There’s nothing. Only the cresting, incessant droning of the crickets in the trees, and the distant sounds of car horns from the busier parts of the city. Ryomen keeps watching with gentle wonder as Toji brings his hand up to hover over his mouth.

With a soft huff, he blows away the lash off of his thumb. It glimmers in the light as it floats away into the air, and falls away, disappearing into the swelling darkness. It reminds Toji a little bit of the springs when he was thirteen, fourteen, fifteen: watching dandelion buds blow away with the sun-warm breeze.

The moment breaks, like froth-heavy tides at some distant shoreline. Toji swallows and steps back, Ryomen watches him go with shadow-dark eyes.

“Even after all this time, you still speak in bullsh*t riddles.” Toji huffs. “ Time has a tendency to erode- what the hell does that even mean?”

Ryomen shrugs, his smile crooked and jagged and lovely. “It’s a talent.”

“No, it’s a f*cking annoyance, is what it is.” He says, and without another word, strides off again. He tilts his head back, watching Ryomen scramble to catch up from this corner of his eye. “This is the best tea shop around here, they even have all of the weird and disgusting kinds you like. I’ll text you the address. Is your number still the same?”

For his part, Ryomen switches gears easily- without even batting an eye. Something warms in Toji’s chest, when he realizes that he’s still used to Toji’s abrupt changes in mood and topic, even after all of this time.

“Yeah, it is.” Ryomen says. “Yours is still the same too?”

“Nah, I changed mine.” Toji says.

“Oh.” He blinks, and tilts his head, eyes narrowing contemplatively. “Why?”

“Cut contact with my sh*tty-ass family.” Toji shrugs, waving a careless hand out. “They could still reach me with my old number, so I needed a new one.”

Ryomen’s eyes widen. “You cut contact with the Zen’ins?”

“Yeah. What? Don’t sound so surprised.” He huffs. “I’m not a complete coward when it comes to them, dumbass.”

“Stop putting words in my mouth, idiot.” Ryomen grunts, and bumps him lightly with his shoulder. Toji shoves back twice as hard, but it’s like trying to push a brick wall. “I was just surprised. Shut up- no - don’t make that face, it’s not an insult. I’m proud of you.”

Toji feels his face burn. “f*cker.”

Ryomen brushes off his less than stellar attempt at deflection with only a judgemental arch of his eyebrow. “What happened? That made you finally do it.” He says, cutting right into the heart of things.

Swallows dryly, Toji lapses into silence, turning the words over in his head, measuring their bitterness out on his tongue. Ryomen gives him his space, as quietly considerate as ever.

“There was a family gathering.” Is what Toji settles on, at the end. “You know what those are like.”

Face creasing unpleasantly, Ryomen huffs with palpable distaste. “Oh f*ck, yeah those. God, they were awful.”

“Yeah, imagine that- but ten times worse.” Toji says. When Ryomen gives him a puzzled look, he sighs and elaborates. “Naoya was there.”

“sh*t- the bigot?” Ryomen says, brows lifting, as he trails off into a low whistle. “That can’t have been good.”

“Yeah, it was f*cking awful.” Toji snorts, as the memory of that fateful dinner rises unbidden, and unwelcome, in his mind. “I got in an argument with him- he’s a condescending bastard, by the way, so he had it f*cking coming- and he said a bunch of terrible sh*t about my-“ He screws his nose up in disguist. “ Choices and tastes in romantic partners. Called me a failure for being gay, basically.”

“What the f*ck.” Ryomen says. “And your- f*ck- the family just let it happen?”

“Yeah.” Toji shrugs, shooting a sardonic smile over at him. “They were enjoying it, I think. None of them had the balls to say it before Naoya, but they were all thinking it.”

“f*ck, Toji. I’m so sorry.” Ryomen says, voice lilting and tender. He presses their sides together in a show of quiet comfort. Toji shudders almost imperceptibly, despite the wet warmth in the air, and leans into the touch. “That’s f*cked up.”

Toji barks out a laugh. It’s a little more genuine this time, softened by the warm press of their bodies jostling together. “It’s fine, dumbass. Don’t go soft on me.”

“I’m trying to be nice , you piece of sh*t.” Ryomen snorts. “You know, the thing you’re allergic to being.”

“Shut up. Nice doesn’t suit you. Go back to being an annoying idiot.”

“f*ck off.” Ryomen huffs, but it lacks any real heat, fondless crawling up his voice like fresh wisteria blossoms. “What happened after that?”

“I got pissed off, almost punched the f*cker, but that Mai kid held me back at the last second. I ended up storming off, and-“ He swallows, and thinks about the lost years of his childhood. The empty, blue-dark estates lacking warmth, lacking love. The sting of a blow being delivered against a youth-tender back. “And I guess that was the last straw. I cut them all off- deleted their numbers from my phone, got a new number, moved flats and changed my name and everything.”

Blinking, Ryomen’s mouth parts wetly with surprise. They pass by a lamp swinging from the overhang of an izakaya. Its soft glow drifts over the sharpened planes of Ryomen’s face, lighting him in a ring of rusted copper for a fleeting, breathtaking second.

“Wait so you’re-“

“Toji Fushiguro, now.” He grins, sharp and knife-like. His eyes crease at the edges as he smiles, pride blooming across his chest like warm honey in clear water. “Took my mother’s maiden name.”

Ryomen swallows. “Fushiguro, huh?” On his tongue, Toji’s name sounds like a temple chant, a prayer. Fu-shi-gu-ro. The syllables crisp, pronounced in staccato. Like coins dropping into a clay jar- click, click, click, click. “It suits you. I like it.” He says, mouth twitching up into a quiet smile too. Toji kind of wants to fit it against his own grin. Seal his mouth over Ryomen’s, and interlock their sharp edges together- see if they can make a more complete whole out of two fractured halves.

“Thanks.” He says quietly, and means it. Gently, pushes the sharp point of his elbow into Ryomen’s side where they’re pressed up against each other in a wordless gesture of thanks.

“You got it legally changed?”

“Yeah. It was kind of a nightmare but- at least I’m not a f*cking Zen’in anymore. Haven’t been one in over a year.” Toji says, and lets his eyes drift to the sky. There’s freedom in it- the way his name is truly his now, and doesn’t carry the acidic burden of distressing memories that the Zen’in title did.

“Well then.” Ryomen says, eyes creasing as he smiles wider. It’s a little crooked, a lot hungry, and desperately human for it. “Nice to meet you, Toji Fushiguro.” He sticks out his right hand, palm open and waiting for- something .

Toji stares down the offered arm with cresting bewilderment. “The f*ck?”

“C’mon.” Ryomen wiggles his splayed fingers. “Shake my hand. That’s what you do when you meet someone, idiot. Or have you forgotten everything about being polite in the three years I left you alone?”

“Oh my god. You’re so f*cking embarrassing.” Toji says, brows creasing with incredulity. “I’m not shaking your goddamn hand, you dork.”

“Shake my hand.” A bump to his shoulder. “Come on , Toji.”

“f*ck no.”

A shove, harder this time. “Shake my f*cking hand.”

Toji stumbles, and sputters, head whipping over to glare at him. “I’m not shaking your stupid hand.”

“You’re such a piece of sh*t. Shake my hand.”

“I said no , goddamnit.”

Ryomen rolls his eyes, and reaches out tugging him close by his shirt until their sides brush together again. He makes a desperate grab for Toji’s hand, and when Toji isn’t able to yank his arm out of the way in time, Ryomen’s fingers close in around his wrist. A triumphant, albeit smug, grin lights up his face.

“Got you.” Ryomen says, eyes glinting like yet unrisen dawns in the lamplight.

Toji’s cheeks burn at their proximity, arms pressed together and bodies exchanging heat. He scowls darkly to cover it up, but doesn’t bother fighting against Ryomen’s pull as he twists Toji’s unwilling fingers into a handshake, despite his reluctance.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Toji Fushiguro.” Ryomen says, as he jerks Toji’s limp hand into two choppy shakes- one, two . His voice brims with suppressed laughter, and it seems like it’ll spill over any second in a cascade of honeyed warmth.

“Oh my f*cking god.” Toji groans. “Oh my f*cking god , you’re so goddamn idiotic. I hate you.”

“Say it back.” Ryomen says, biting back another lopsided grin. “It’s not every day you get to meet someone new, you know.”

“No.” He scowls

“I’ll push you.” Ryomen threatens.

“You wouldn’t. I’d dust your ass in a fight.” Toji snorts.

He relents, rolling his eyes. “Fine, I wouldn’t. Just say it anyway, idiot.”

“You piece of sh*t- I’m not the idiot here. You’re the one that stopped in the middle of the f*cking sidewalk for this stupid ass- I don’t know- ritual of yours.”

“Toji.” Ryomen says, and oh god , his mouth pulls tight, lips thinning. Something like disappointment shimmers close to the surface- not quite having broken through yet, but still lurking underneath. “Say it.”

“Holy f*ck- stop looking at me like that.” Toji groans, again. “Fine, f*cking hell. I’ll say it. Just stop- making that face.”

“I’ll stop when you say it.”

Toji huffs in annoyance, but shakes Ryomen’s hand again- one, two precise jerks- albeit with much less enthusiasm. “It’s nice to meet you too, Ryomen Sukuna.” He says, and despite the flatness of his tone, he can’t quite keep the fond exasperation bubbling in his chest from leaking into his voice. “There, you happy now?”

Ryomen smiles, a little lopsided, curved at the edges, and all of a sudden- everything becomes worth it. Toji feels his heart speed up, beating double, triple time. Like a flurry of drums, all playing in different tempos, their dull, irregular rhythms mixing together to sound something like rain, and by extension, music.

All of a sudden, something gives. Ryomen’s smile dims, and he’s pulling away, an unreadable darkness passing over his eyes. Their hands, still intertwined in the distance between them, unclasp and fall away to their own sides. The streetlamps backlight his sharp silhouette in gilded lines, and for a second- he looks more shadow than man.

“Very happy.” Ryomen says- but it doesn’t feel quite right. “We should get going.” He murmurs, and there’s something a little distant about him. He’s going somewhere far away. Somewhere where Toji can’t quite reach.

“Alright.” Toji says, just as quiet.

When they start walking again- things are a bit different. The air is charged with a thick sort of heaviness, palpable in the way it lingers over them. Like electricity, before a rainstorm. Or the sharp, piercing smell of burning rubber before a wildfire.

Toji keeps gesturing at shops and local landmarks as he walks. His shoulders are tense, and his voice is a little more brittle than before- but he performs his job as an improvised tour guide effectively and precisely, despite the newfound tenseness between them.

Their conversations aren’t unaffected, either. They’re curt, laden with full-to-bursting emotions, brimming and bubbling at the edges- ready to spill over at any moment.

“This bakery sells gluten free stuff. You can get food for Yuuji from here.” Toji says, at one point. He gestures at a small door tucked into the side of a dilapidated building, unnoticeable to anyone except for those who are looking for it. “Their pizza is pretty good, and Shiu tells me their sandwiches aren’t half bad either.”

Ryomen blinks with muted surprise. “You remembered Yuuji’s allergy.”

Toji clenches his jaw, mouth pulling into a tight frown. “Of course I f*cking did. I helped you practically raise the kid, if you forgot.” He says, and whirls around, stalking off at an abruptly brisk pace.

Sighing tiredly, Ryomen follows, but doesn’t bother replying.

They meander through the streets for a little longer, and Toji leads an overwhelmed Ryomen into dizzying array of twisting and turning streets; all of them narrow, but undeniably vivid and lively with family owned shops, izakayas, restaurants and an impressive number of vending machines tucked into every nook and cranny.

Toji decides to finish off the impromptu tour at his preferred konbini- a Family Mart that’s only about a ten minutes’ walk from their apartment. It’s fitted into the bottom floor of a bigger building, likely filled with other small shops and offices. The doors are shadowed behind a smattering of trees, growing from holes cut into the pavement to reveal the dry soil below.

“This is the best konbini around here.” He says, as he pushes into the store. Immediately a burst of air-conditioned air hits him, nipping at his fingers and the edges of his jaw, and he shivers pleasantly, the cool almost-breeze caressing his skin, still warm and a little damp from the humidity of the city outside. “There are a couple other ones you can go to, of course, but this one has the most sh*t, and the quality of their stuff is pretty good too.”

Ryomen blinks disorientedly as he follows Toji in, eyes widening as he takes in the sheer amount of things stocking the shelves of the konbini. Food that he probably hasn’t seen in years- plastic-wrapped onigiri, pre-packaged bentos and towers upon towers of Ramen cups. There’s an entire aisle just dedicated to the sweet stuff: melonpan, anpan, dorayaki. He sees Ryomen’s eyes catch on it, and linger, a flood of nostalgia-tinged eagerness filling his gaze.

It reminds Toji a little bit of when they were sixteen, seventeen, eighteen- skipping class to sit on the curb outside of a dilapidated konbini in Shinjuku. Ryomen always with dorayaki or anpan or something equally as sugary clutched between his fingers, and Toji drinking down absurd amounts of co*ke, the can pressing a cool balm into his heat-tender palms.

In the present, the speakers of the konbini crackle with a flood of static, and a familiarly irritating song swells in volume.

“Holy sh*t.” Ryomen says. “Oh my god, is that the f*cking fish song?”

Toji swallows back a groan. “Yeah. It’s the fish song. I swear to god, it’s going to give me a headache someday- this konbini is great and all but they’re always f*cking playing it. I already hear it enough at the supermarkets.”

“Do they even sell fish?” Ryomen says, craning his neck to catalog the different sections of the store. “I thought the places that played it sold fish.”

“I have no clue.” Toji snorts, the charged mood between them disappearing for a moment, the weight of shared memory slotting easily into place. “It doesn’t stop them from playing it all the time, though. It’s so goddamn annoying.”

“It’s not that bad- it’s nostalgic.” Ryomen shrugs. “I like it. Reminds me of our highschool days.”

“Of course you’d like it, f*cking weirdo.”

“I’m not weird, idiot.” He huffs. “I just missed all of- well- this .”

Toji turns his head to give him a judgemental look over his shoulder as he trails deeper into the store, Ryomen following easily behind him. Almost unconsciously, he finds that his feet are carrying them to the back of the store, where the refrigerators are. The same shadowy corners they used to haunt when they were teenagers.

“You missed your ears being assaulted every time you walked into the market?” Toji says, voice flat. “Even by your standards, that’s f*cked logic.”

“No, dumbf*ck.” Ryomen snorts, and under the flickering, washed-out store lights, he looks a little bit immortal. A little bit like a distant daydream that Toji’s been chasing his whole life- a horizon, of sorts, if horizons could be people and lovers. “I missed Japan. Not the f*cking fish song .”

“Oh.” Toji says, blinking. “Alright.”

And there he is again: knocked off kilter, the ground rushing out from under his feet like the golden, surging sands at a flooding beach. The tenseness- that had dissipated like blue smoke the moment they walked into the perpetual familiarity that comes with every konbini- gushes back once more. The air between them thickens.

Toji’s not quite sure what to do with it.

All of a sudden, there’s a gentle tug at his sleeve. It jerks him out of his spiraling thoughts just in time for him to come to a dead stop, face inches away from the wide, cloudy doors of the refrigerators. He’s so close that his breath fogs the hazy glass, condensation accumulating on the cool surface in a damp puddle.

“Watch out.” Ryomen huffs, sounding dangerously close to his ear. A suppressed shiver catches at the hinge of Toji’s spine, and he pushes it down desperately. “Watch where you’re going, idiot. You were about to bust your nose open.”

“f*ck off.” Toji mutters. Ryomen’s fingers brush over the cloth at his sleeve once more, and skitter down the length of his arm, every touch featherlight. Eventually, they settle at his wrist, thumb pressing a steady warmth into the tender skin over his pulse. “I would’ve caught myself.”

“Right, sure.” Ryomen says. Out of the corner of his eyes, Toji can see that his lips are twitching at the edges as he fights back a smile. “I believe you.”

“You’re such an asshole.” He mutters, and feels his cheeks burn when Ryomen squeezes his wrist again- an involuntary motion that makes him awfully dizzy. “I really do hate you.”

“I’ll just let you break your face open the next time, then.”

“I’d rather bleed out than deal with your insufferable ass, so be my guest.”

And then- something gives. Ryomen’s eyes, shining with golden warmth despite the bleached and fluorescent nature of the lights above them, fill with amusem*nt. He snorts- once, twice- and starts laughing. A deep, raspy noise that booms, ringing out loudly across the store and violating the quiet sanctity that konbinis acquire this late at night. It even drowns out the fish song.

As Ryomen’s laughter swells, crescendoing beautifully, Toji is suddenly left standing in the wreckage of them, and everything they used to be. He’s reminded of heat-hazed summers, mango juice sticky on their palms. A cool, blue spring watching the cherry blossoms spin in a whirlwind of vivid colour at Ueno Park, their hands intertwined between them. Of Shinjuku evenings, the puddles under their feet dull with izakaya lamplight, and Akiba nights, everything electric and neon and head-spinning.

Years worth of memories, each stretching out like a single lifetime before Toji. A horizon of their own making, one that they’ll reach only if they hold on to each other.

“Hey, Ryomen?” Toji hears himself saying, and he feels a little delirious. A lot dizzy.

Ryomen manages to choke back the last of his snickers, and he straightens up again, hand falling away from Toji’s wrist in a gentle brush of skin against skin.

“Yeah?” He says, grin crooked and jagged. He sounds a little breathless, a lot happy.

“Do you think we could be good for each other again?” Toji murmurs. “One day.”

If he’s surprised by the question, he doesn’t show it. His eyes merely crease as his grin slips down into something a little softer, more somber. Tender at the edges, like sweetly rotting fruit.

“I think we can try.” He says, just as quiet. “That’s all we can ever do, right?”

This close to the refrigerators- everything is cold and white. The bulbs fitted into them, pulsing gently and flickering off every now and then, carve the edges of Ryomen’s silhouette in lines of frosty light. His piercings glint like miniature stars, as he moves.

“Do you want to?” Toji says. “Try again, I mean.”

He barely hesitates before replying. Like it’s instinctual, easy as breathing for him.

“If it’s you?” Ryomen says, and there’s something wine-bitter in the crease of his mouth. Irrationally, Toji wants to draw it out with his teeth. Bite the softness out of him.

Toji swallows. “If it’s me then what , asshole?”

His hand comes up, and traces the hinge of Toji’s jaw lightly- only to fall away once more. Toji shivers, and it’s not from the cold.

“Patience, love.” Ryomen laughs. Before Toji can come up with another biting retort, Ryomen’s thumb presses over the seam of his lips, effectively shutting him up. “Listen to me.”

Toji pushes back another tremble, and listens. The places where their eyes meet burn with small wildfires.

“If it’s you, then always.”

A thick lump, tasting like summer, lodges itself in Toji’s throat. With the jut of his knuckles, he gently pushes Ryomen’s hand off of his mouth, not allowing himself to indulge in the touch for a moment longer.

“You better mean that, idiot.” He says, and his voice is raspy, dry like sandpaper.

“Of course I do.” Another small smile: a little crooked, eyes fiery. “What about you?”

“If it’s you- then yeah.” Toji says, and means it. He hopes Ryomen hears his conviction, too. “I want to try. No matter how many times we f*ck up.”

“I’m glad, then.” Ryomen murmurs, turning away. Toji catches the flickering edges of another smile- and it’s different, a little more private. Something just for himself. As he begins, gesturing vaguely at the glass in front of him, he’s backlit in a halo of hazy white by the glow of the refrigerators. “Now, what flavor of ice-cream do you want? The mint, the matcha or the-”

“Stop being stupid, move your ass out of my way, and let me find the strawberry milk.”

“Stop being so violent- Jesus- alright- f*cking hell , I’ll move. Holy sh*t, Toji, that milk isn’t going anywhere.”

“Shut the f*ck up before I break your teeth with the bottle.”

“My teeth are so cool though- all sharp and sh*t. You can’t tell me you’re not even a little bit into them, still- oh my f*cking god, put the bottle away you piece of sh*t. I’ll shut up.”

“You’re on thin f*cking ice, Sukuna.”

“I believe you, goddamn.”

♫: I Want You By My Side- yuragi

Interlude II: three years ago / all the lovers in the nighttime

The beginning of the end for them was really nothing at all.

When Toji thinks back to that time, three years ago when everything crumbled- it’s an ordinary, almost mundane smear of slow summers and crawling autumns in his memory.

It starts like this: Ryomen gets a job offer from overseas.

He comes back from work looking uncharacteristically lost, his eyes swimming with a blurred haze of lethargy and gaze distant and too far away. Even Yuuji, who was still in the last year of middle school back then, noticed- his own youth-flushed face creasing with too-adult worry. Toji, never one for verbal reassurances or comfort, does his best to smooth it away with hot food, a can of Yuuji's favorite soda and a grunted allusion to go see that new gluten free bakery that opened in Shibuya; the one with the nice pastries that the kid has been talking about non-stop since hearing about it from his friends.

After dinner, Yuuji disappears into his room to do homework, and Ryomen and Toji are left alone with their thoughts.

Toji speaks first- a rare occasion, but the air of sharp-edged solemnity hanging thick around them compels him.

“What happened?” He says, eyes narrowing as he takes in the dark circles under Ryomen’s eyes. The way his hair is rough at the ends, and even a little split; the pallid blue that suffuses like heavy fog through his skin.

He has been working late nights, Toji knows- this is one of the infrequent days where he’s come home earlier than usual. When prodded, he says something vague about finances and making the ends meet , and refuses to look Toji in the eye. Usually, Toji takes it for what it is and lets it go, making sure to pay the extra bills lying around the apartment that catch his eye- the ones that Ryomen is too exhausted, fractured at the edges to tell him about.

Ryomen huffs out a quiet sigh, the fires in his crimson eyes dulled to black ash. In the half-light of the moon bleeding in from the windows, he looks like worn, eroded stone. Breaking apart and shattering in the cresting tides of an ocean that neither of them can quite see, only feel.

“I got a job offer. It pays a lot better than this.”

“What’s the catch?” Toji says, angling his head, black waters of dread lapping at the shores of his stomach.

“It’s outside of Japan.” Ryomen says, and looks away. The moon backlights him in sharp edges of burning silver. “It pays really well, but I’ll have to leave the country.”

And that’s the beginning of the end.

The days go on, and things get worse. The days go on, and they argue and scream, and since both of them are as stubborn as bulls and have the grace of one as well, all they do is destroy, break, shatter. Leave a path of razed ground in their wake, as they stumble through weeks of not talking, evenings filled with stilted dinners and TV static and watching the dark skyline glow fiery with neon and nights without the other by their side. Those few weeks, months are hell on earth- because everything is in freefall, caught in suspended gravity as their lives, everything they’ve built together over the years, unravel at the seams and then some more.

The breaking point is when, in the middle of one of their then-common screaming matches, Yuuji walks into the living room, sees the way Toji’s eyes are glassy and his teeth are bared, the way Ryomen’s face is drawn and pulled tight with anger- and bursts into tears.

It takes hours to calm him down, and by the end of it they’re both tired beyond belief. They have been, for a long time, but maybe it’s the first time they really feel the burden of it, pressing down on their chests like the heavy weight of the craggy boulders found at sea.

“Ryomen.” Toji says, when Yuuji has gone back to his room and the night curls her dark-satin fingers around the curves of their silhouettes. Standing an unbreachable distance apart, because coming together means they’ll fall all over again.

Ryomen lifts his eyes, and something unreadable, a little tender shines in their depths. He knows that it’s the end.

“I’m sorry.” He says.

Toji crosses the space between them as easy as breathing. Their mouths meet, like so many times before. In that kiss, he tastes universes. It’s soft, a little hungry. A lot desperate, like they’re trying to drink in each other: mind, body and soul. At the places where the skin of their hands meet, the moonlight gilds the sum of their flesh with silver.

He doesn’t remember who pulls away first. Toji remembers, though, how it feels like drowning and coming up for air at the same time. Flying and having his wings ripped out, at once.

“You’re leaving, aren’t you?”

Ryomen’s eyes flutter shut with quiet grief, but he steadies himself with a gentle hand on the back of the sofa. “Yeah.” He says, his voice raspy, a little cracked at the edges- like familiar radio static.

“Alright.” Toji says, and tries not to think of the blue summers of their youth. The violet shadows of their intertwined hands falling long and warped on Ikebukuro streets. Tries not to think of a distant Shinjuku sidewalk, busted and cut open, sitting cool in the looming darkness cast by an old vending machine. “I think it’s best if we end this, then.”

“I think so too.” Ryomen says, and it’s a soft, shameful little thing in the dark between them. Curdling and festering like rancid milk.

That night, Toji learns how it feels to have his heart broken in the force of a gentle storm of their own making.

He leaves the next day, packs up his bags and makes arrangements to stay at Shiu’s place for the time being before he finds another, more permanent flat.

Yuuji cries again, his head tucked into the crook of Toji’s neck and arms around his chest because he wasn’t quite so tall back then, and Toji feels like maybe, just maybe, this is what betting on losing dogs feels like. Or maybe, what it means to be a losing dog in the ring, jaw broken and bloody muscles torn from the shoulders.

He and Ryomen kiss again, before he leaves. It’s helpless, resigned and solemn. A dry press of their mouths, his tongue tasting of salt from both of their tears mixing in the hair-breadth of space between them, amber with dusk light. On the floor, their shadows intertwine for one last time- for one final dance.

“I love you.” Ryomen says, as Toji steps out the door. “Stay safe.”

Toji doesn’t say it back.

“I will.” He murmurs, instead, and lets the door swing shut behind them with a gentle creak of old wood.

Outside, there’s a window fitted in at the end of the apartment hallway. Looking out of it, the twilight is an apocalypse of humming reds, electric violets and fiery, burning oranges, blooming in angry smears across the endless sky.

When Toji walks closer to the window, presses his forehead to the cloudy, dust-hazed glass: in the sunset, Tokyo looks like a city on fire.

♫: Haze- The Spinning Plums

Location: Akihabara

Akiba is- if nothing else- disorienting.

Even this late in the evening, it’s filled to the brim with people and cars alike clamoring for attention with grating voices and shrill, honking horns. Massive skyscrapers jut out of the ground in bursts of vivid, eye-catching colour and dark glass, reflecting the bright lights lining the city streets- smears of flashing neons, over a starless canvas. He lets his eyes rove up the lengths of the buildings, gaze catching on the massive posters draped across them- advertising anime, games, and everything in between. Each and every poster is dense with characters in a dizzying array of vibrant, and impractical, clothing- none of which Toji recognizes.

He feels like something like a fish out of water here: a lone pillar of stillness amidst a crowd of giggling teenagers and barely-adults fresh out of highschool, all craning their necks to point excitedly at characters and shows they recognize, chatting with bright eyes about the manga they brought on sale for from a street side vendor, or an arcade that recently opened up that they just need to check out.

It really wasn’t his choice to come here- he only came because Yuuji begged him to.

In fact, despite all of his pointless, late-night dreaming- Akihabara is one of those places he prefers avoiding for exactly this reason: the dizzying intensity of it. The way the buildings, streets and the people all seem to move and coalesce and never quite stop to breathe. It doesn’t even inspire the same disconnectedness in Toji that Shibuya Crossing does- in Akiba, he always feels like he’s at the center of everything. Like everyone, even the skyscrapers and the vending machines and the blurred faces of the crowd, are looking right at him , and no one else. Waiting for him to trip up, make a stupid, stumbling mistake in an environment so unfamiliar.

It’s irrational, he knows, but he can never get comfortable in a place that’s so skin-crawling. Built for pleasure, for enjoyment, and nothing else. No practical purpose, other than the fleeting, all-consuming bursts of artificial joy that come with a good purchase or winning some tickets in an arcade game.

He tugs uncomfortably at the collar of his shirt- the heat already cloying and thick, despite it only being early summer.

They’re all standing on a sidewalk in the shade of an absolutely massive building- it’s a store, if Toji remembers correctly. Selling anime merch, manga and a variety of other things that he knows absolutely nothing about.

Next to him, Ryomen’s lecturing a very eager, very fidgety Yuuji. Two of his friends- some devil-spawn of a kid named Kugisaki and a mild-looking girl with dyed blue hair that he’s forgetting the name of- stand behind him in a sort of V-formation. Kugisaki is zoning out, shifting on her feet as she restlessly cranes her head to catalog the stores around her. The other kid- Mia? Muwa?- seems to be a little more attentive, listening to Ryomen’s words with a kind of seriousness that Toji’s only seen in classrooms and lecture halls.

“Don’t go anywhere you shouldn’t be going into, don’t do anything you shouldn’t be doing. If you get lost, pull up Google maps or call me or Toji-”

Toji sighs, and decides to intervene. If he doesn’t, Ryomen will never shut up. God knows Yuuji needs rescuing too. He looks like he’s about to vibrate out of skin with barely repressed excitement, his hands meshing together, and coming apart again as he twiddles his thumbs in gentle, restless little gestures. His beaten-up shoes scuff impatiently into the ground, and Toji worries that the fabric of the sneaker will tear open right then and there with how hard he’s kicking at the sidewalk.

“Ryomen.” Toji grunts. “Leave the kid alone. He’s sixteen, not six. He can handle himself.”

Ryomen’s expression shutters- something oddly close to panic overtaking his face for a second. It’s gone soon enough, more like a fleeting flash of a camera than a lighthouse beacon, but the fact that it’s there matters.

“Fine, yeah.” He says, more to himself than to Toji or Yuuji. And then, his eyes flick back over to Yuuji, gaze unreadable. “Don’t do anything stupid, brat.”

Yuuji groans. “f*cking hell , Ryomen I know! You told me like- fifteen times. It’s not like I’m alone either-” He flaps an arm behind his shoulder, where Kugisaki and blue-hair stand. Blue hair gives a little start, her eyes widening at being addressed, but Kugisaki bares her teeth- looking more like a f*cking guard dog than a teenager. Briefly, Toji wonders about Yuuji’s taste in friends. “I have my friends. And I have my phone, and it’s not like I haven’t gone out alone in Japan before-”

“It’s been three years-” Ryomen says, gruffly.

“Oh my god, I’m going to be fine.” Yuuji says, face creasing with rare exasperation. “Stop worrying so damn much.”

There’s a beat of silence, where the noises of the city swell. A couple arguing over the phone. A stray pigeon, pecking at the hot asphalt ground. The resounding symphony of cars and car horns- so many of them.

“Alright.” Ryomen says, and he seems to be at the edge of something. His patience, maybe- or maybe it’s a little more tender, a little more vulnerable. Like a fretful mother, watching a baby bird leave the nest. “All three of you. Meet us back at the station at ten. Remember to buy something for dinner.”

Yuuji nods, his own gaze softening when he notices Ryomen’s tenseness. He’s always been overwhelmingly empathetic like that, even when he was younger. “Yeah, will do.” He reaches out, and punches Ryomen’s shoulder meaningfully. “I’ll be fine, big bro.”

“Get out of here, brat.” Ryomen grunts, making a vague shooing motion with his hand. “I want my peace and quiet.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Yuuji snorts. Kugisaki is already dragging him by the arm as soon as Ryomen dismisses them, chattering rapidly about one store or another- something about Radio Kaikan?- and blue hair is following close behind them, watching them both with a quiet sort of smile tugging at her lips.

Toji watches them go, raising a hand briefly in farewell when Yuuji looks back to wave at them both, grinning wide, his eyes sparkling with sunlight and unfettered happiness. Soon, their silhouettes disappear into the crowd, blurring into the crush of people that overwhelms the street they’re crossing when the signal turns red.

And then- it’s just them and the bustling city.

“Stop worrying, idiot. Toji grunts, and then his hand finds Ryomen’s pulse, thumb pressing into the tender beating of the pulse at his wrist.

“I’m not worried.” Ryomen says, and in lieu of response. His voice is raspy, unconvincing in both tone and inflection. Toji snorts sardonically, and pulls him away from the curb. Their shoes scuff at the sidewalk, and they begin weaving their own way through the throngs of people. Beneath their feet, their shadows are twin currents of darkness outlining the edges of their silhouettes, slipping like water over the grooves in the night-black concrete of the footpath.

As they walk, in an almost natural movement- as easy as breathing- the distance between their palms bridge. Their fingers intertwine in a gentle, practiced motion, the calluses in their skin locking into place- and it feels like coming home.

“Yuuji will be fine.” Toji says, as he pulls Ryomen along. “He’s sixteen, he’s smart. He has his friends with him- stop being so concerned all the damn time. Twenty-six is too old to be worrying yourself into a heart attack.”

“I know that, f*ckface.” Ryomen says, with no real heat behind his words. Toji doesn’t need to look back to know that under the streetlights, his hair is lit in all sorts of eye-catching shades of hot pink and bright neons. “I know that he’s going to be fine. It’s just f*cking hard, watching him walk away.”

For a moment, there’s silence- broken only by the muffled talking of the people shouldering past them, fuzzy like radio static, and the swelling, grating symphony of car horns blaring by. Ryomen’s hand slackens in his grip, but he doesn’t let go.

With a quick sweep of his surroundings, and a narrow-eyed squint into the mouth of a low-lit alley, hazy and swimming in his vision, he manages to confirm his location. A couple more purposeful steps, and a swift deviation from their previously linear march forwards- swimming across the riptide of the crowd instead of against it- is all it takes for Toji to pull Ryomen along with him, breaking free from the masses of people swarming in a veritable sea on the sidewalk.

Ryomen makes a gravelly, surprised little noise when he’s tugged abruptly into the alleyway. Toji stumbles in beside him, and feels the corked-champagne tightness in his chest immediately loosen at the emptiness of it. Distantly, the city still buzzes behind them, humming gently like a droning symphony of people-crickets and streetlight-cicadas.

The air in the alley is damp, a little musty, filled with the taste of old, condensed water and dried, rusted metal pipes. A sign for a konbini- a FamilyMart by the looks of it- buzzes in the background, blinking on and off intermittently and washing out the alley in bursts of dull white, flickering like electric fireflies.

“Where the hell are we?” Ryomen says, eyebrows furrowed with muted surprise.

Even when they’ve sheltered themselves from the intensity of Akiba, the lights of Tokyo are unrelenting and seemingly perpetual, seeping in and smearing the dilapidated walls of the dead-end backstreet in blazes of hot pink, hibiscus reds and deep ocean blues. Ryomen’s piercings glint like stray moons and stars under the same lights, and Toji finds his eyes catching on them as he parts his lips to speak. His throat dries, a little bit.

“Dunno.” He grunts, shrugging. “I don’t have a f*cking clue. Somewhere. ”

“Piece of sh*t- why’d you bring us here, then?” Ryomen scowls.

“The middle of the sidewalk isn’t the best place to air out dirty laundry, I don’t think. Yours or mine.” Toji huffs dryly.

“Who says we’re airing out dirty laundry?” He says, frown growing more pronounced, verging on petulant. It reminds Toji of Yuuji when he was younger and a lot more prone to temper tantrums, and he finds himself biting back a laugh.

“I did.” Toji says, crossing his arms over his chest and making himself comfortable against the rough brick behind him. Ryomen’s leaning against the opposite wall, though he seems much more ill-at-ease as he thumbs at his rings in a familiar expression of his nerves. “We’re going to have to talk about something at some point. Now, choose- do we resolve your rampant separation anxiety regarding Yuuji, or do we talk about our relationship-f*ck up? It’s up to you, I don’t really care as long as we resolve something today.”

Ryomen’s eyes widen, lips parting in surprise. He flounders for a few seconds in an uncharacteristic bout of rare helplessness, only to snap his mouth shut in a sudden movement, letting a mask of cool neutrality lock into place. It’s obviously practiced- all defenses coming up at once so he’s an iron fortress, impenetrable even to the one who was the closest to his heart once.

“I don’t know what you want from me.” He says, and it’s not cold, but it’s a close thing. A little dangerous, a little serrated at the edges. Sharp enough for Toji to cut his tongue open on. If he were anyone else, maybe it would’ve been enough to scare him off.

Ah . So it’s going to be like that, then.

It stings- but it’s not like he didn’t expect it. Ryomen’s never been good at the talking and communication bits of a relationship, Toji always having to pry bits and pieces of his real emotions out of him with careful, meticulous cuts in his suit of metaphorical armor whenever they used to fight.

Toji frowns. “C’mon, I don’t have all day. Talk. Something, anything.”

“We’re not doing this here.” Ryomen says, expression drawn and crafted into a blank slate. “You’re f*cking insane. I’m not doing this sh*t in public.”

“We agreed that we had to talk about it.”

He scowls, dark and thunderous, “Not in goddamn public . Not outside, in the middle of the busiest f*cking district in Tokyo.”

Toji glares right back, never to be outmatched, eyes narrowed and gaze as sharp as knives. “If we don’t do this here, we’re never going to end up doing it. God knows we’ve been avoiding it for long enough, and I’m tired of walking eggshells around you. f*cking talk, or don’t.”

“So- what ? You decide we talk, and all of a sudden everything is solved? That’s it?” Ryomen says, eyes piercing and hard like uncut ruby. “I don’t think that’s how fixing relationships work, Toji.”

He lurches forwards in an aborted half-movement, teeth bared in a snarl. “It’s a start, at the very f*cking least. At least I’m trying, unlike you-”

“What would we even talk about?” Ryomen cuts him off, barrelling on at light speed like a bullet train to the stars. “The f*cking financial issues? The fact that I was failing at parenting my thirteen year old brother and needed my boyfriend to do it for me instead? The fact that we fought almost every day and never managed to resolve anything at all, and made everything worse-”

Something gives. Inside his chest, there’s a small wildfire, pulsing and growing with amber-lit, destructive heat. He grits his teeth in frustration. “Ryomen. Oh my f*cking god -”

“Or- wait. What about the fact that I didn’t contact you for three years, and cut you off, and you let me-”

“What the f*ck was I supposed to do? Leave Japan? Break down your door to make you listen to me? I didn’t have any way to contact you, if you don’t realize that. I don’t know what the f*ck you’re trying to say. Whatever it is, come out and say it to my goddamn face-”

“Toji-”

“No, no . You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to blame me for you being a coward. You don’t get to-”

“f*cking hell , listen to me-”

“No, you listen. You don’t get to blame me for your own shortcomings, for not being able to come to terms with the fact that we had to learn to be more than the goddamn wreckage of our relationship. You couldn’t trust me-”

“Who said I didn’t trust you?”

“You couldn’t trust me because you never thought we could learn to move past the breakup. You couldn’t trust me enough to realize that I would be beside you no matter what, and so you took the coward’s way out and cut me off-”

“Toji, that’s not-”

“You didn’t think past your own self, for a single moment and consider that maybe, maybe I needed you. Maybe I needed you as more than a f*cking boyfriend. Maybe I needed you because you were you , you were Ryomen who was my best friend since I was a teenager and f*cked up beyond belief, and not because of a relationship -”

“Stop- stop .” Ryomen says, and this time, it’s not his anger but weaponized grief that seems to be mounting in his throat like a second dawn. There’s a sudden drop, an odd lilt in his voice, and it snaps Toji out of the dizzying haze of anger that had enveloped him. “I didn’t- I didn’t mean it that way. God , this is all coming out wrong.”

“What did you mean, then?” Toji’s breath hitches. Grief fills his chest, thick and cloying like seafoam. “What could you possibly have meant?”

“I wanted-” Ryomen’s voice catches in his throat. Another dawn, more red light spilling like blood across his tongue; a massacre with words. “I wanted to apologize. To you.”

Distant buzzing like hummingbird wingbeats- the FamilyMart sign flickers again. “I don’t think that’s how you apologize, Ryomen. I don’t f*cking think blaming me is how you apologize to me.”

“Toji.” He looks pained now, mouth creased. His piercings are always glinting, orbiting his face like metal moons. “You know how I am about these things.”

Toji swallows back heartbreak, stale like old milk. “That doesn’t make it okay. Just because I know doesn’t mean that it ever gets any easier. Doesn’t mean that all of a sudden the way you treated me is okay. Knowing is different from trusting, from believing.”

“Did you, though?” He murmurs. By now, has ceased his restless tapping, and now his fingers lay motionless- a butterfly with cut wings- wrapped around the bulk of his upper arms as he crosses them over his chest, mirroring Toji.

“Did I what?”

“Trust me.”

“Of course I f*cking did, idiot.” Toji says, voice raspy and dry, there’s an endless shoreline in his throat. A horizon of their own making. “More than anything, I trusted you. You would’ve been stupid to think otherwise.”

A beat of silence, and it’s like they can hear all of Tokyo from this single alley: glowing and bright; dizzying and beautiful. Car horns, crowds like rivers cutting through the streets.

“What about now?” Ryomen says, at last.

“I think you know the answer to that already.” Toji says in lieu of response- and means yes . Yes , then, yes now, and yes forever.

“Toji.” His name, again. Ringing out like a death knell between the damp, neon hazed walls. Ryomen’s face is caught in a kaleidoscope of black light and grief. “Toji- I’m so f*cking sorry. I’m so sorry for everything. The sh*t I pulled- it wasn’t fair to you at all.”

“I’ve never cared about fairness.” Toji says, turning his head slightly. Through the mouth of the alleyway, he can see flashes of skin, of faces. Smears of people streaking by- families and their children, lovers in the nighttime. “I never cared about f*cking fairness , you piece of sh*t. That was the last thing on my goddamn mind.”

“I know.” Ryomen says, voice raspy, cracking and frayed at the edges. “I know, I’m so sorry.”

Toji’s eyes burn. He blinks rapidly, and tells himself that it’s the car exhaust seeping in. “Tell me why.”

“What?”

“Tell me why you did it. No- not why you left. I know why you left. I don’t blame you for taking the job, I understand that. I just want to know why you never called. Why you stopped responding to the messages. Why the phone number you gave me went out of service two months after you left and I had to find out from Shiu and his f*cking facebook account when Yuuji graduated middle school, when his birthdays were. Why I had to look at pictures of you but never hear your f*cking voice -” Toji’s breath hitches, and the burn grows into a wildfire. Something warm, a little wet, tracks down his waterline and collects at the hinge of his jaw: tears carving rivers into him. “I just want to know, Ryomen. That’s it.”

For a long time, Ryomen doesn’t say anything. Toji still doesn’t look at him, his eyes sweeping over the blurred hands, blurred mouths of the crowd passing by the low-lit opening of the alleyway. It’s like watching a stormy sea from a craggy island, the alley being less of a haven and more a place of quiet rest.

When he finally speaks, it’s with a heavy, resigned tinge to his voice. “What if the reason was f*cking stupid? If it was useless? Would you still forgive me?”

“I might not forgive you at all, if you don’t tell me.”

There’s a sharp intake of breath, but Ryomen doesn’t look surprised. His eyes squeeze shut, a fresh wave of pain breaking over the warm shores of his face.

“I was scared.” He confesses. It’s a little soft, a little shameful. Toji’s gaze lingers on the way his hair is shiny with early-spring dampness, suffused with a soft glow under the lights. “I was scared that I would have to watch you grow apart from me.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Toji blinks, narrowing his eyes in quiet disbelief. “Stop speaking in f*cking riddles.”

“I’ve known you for years, Toji.” Ryomen murmurs. “And we’ve never really been apart in that time- not before I left. Whatever happened, whatever sh*t life threw at us- you were always there. I never had to think of you separately from me. You were the only constant Yuuji and I had, for the longest time.”

Toji’s heart catches between his ribs, an invisibly hook tugging painfully at his chest. He doesn’t speak, but watches Ryomen. Watches the softer parts of him move with the late-evening breeze.

“I was scared that when I left, that we were going to drift apart. That I was going to have to watch you become someone else, while I wasn’t there by your side. And- I told you it’s f*cking stupid- it was this stupid, irrational fear that I couldn’t just let go of.”

His anger flares, and he starts forwards, face twisting with helpless emotion. “So you- what? Decided that it was better to cut me off? f*cking fossilize our relationship in your mind so that I was always the version of me that you watched grow in front of you, memorialize us in your head so that we were twenty-two and in love forever?”

Ryomen swallows, and refuses to open his eyes. He’s shaking, a little bit- it’s subtle, but the secret is that his hands always move more than the rest of him, and they’re trembling despite the heat. “If you want to put it like that, then sure. That’s what I was doing.”

Toji’s wipes a couple of stray tears away into the sleeve of his shirt, biting back a well of grief that threatens to flood his throat. “That’s really selfish, Ryomen.”

“I know. I know I was a piece of sh*t. I’m sorry.”

“Knowing and feeling isn’t the same. How many times do I have to tell you, asshole?”

“I’m sorry.” He’s a broken record, playing familiar static over and over, until it fades into dull meaninglessness.

“That’s so f*cking stupid, you know? You’re so f*cking stupid sometimes. All the time. I could’ve never- I could’ve never grown apart from you, Ryomen.”

Ryomen’s jaw clenches. “You don’t know that. I’m not saying what I did was right, because it wasn’t and it was horrible- but you can’t tell me that you wouldn’t have drifted away. It would’ve been inevitable, things like that are inevitable.”

“Oh my god- I hate you, I really do, you know?” Toji says, and his voice comes out wet. More tears, intensifying as suppressed sobs build. A swelling twilight between his ribs. “Listen to me- listen okay? I couldn’t have grown apart from you because sometimes I think that you’re all of me. Sometimes I looked in the mirror, even after you stopped talking to me, and saw the parts that you touched instead of the f*cking person that I was. After our break up, I went to Shibuya crossing every day for a year, you know? Just to feel something. And when I did, I always remembered how goddamn excited you were the first time you saw it. How you dragged me into the Starbucks even though we didn’t have money, and- what did you say back then? Tokyo’s a fever dream . And even now, when I walk past Shibuya crossing- and listen to this - I f*cking look for you in the crowd. I look for pink hair in the crowd, because I don’t know how to do anything else. How to be anyone else. And sometimes at night I walk through Shibuya crossing and I think- Tokyo’s a fever dream - and then there you are again, even on my best days. I can never let go of you, even if I tried. And I never did try, even when it would’ve been easier for me. Even when it would’ve stopped me from breaking my heart again.”

When Toji cuts himself off- there it is again. The noises of the city, rushing like river water to fill in the gaps and silences between them. A stray car horn, a baby crying. Music playing somewhere in the distance, and the perpetual buzzing of the FamilyMart sign, still flickering, still deafening.

When Ryomen’s eyes flutter open, they shimmer softly under the lights, gleaming and glassy with neon tears.

“Toji.” He says, voice raspy. A little low. Thick with aching grief. “Did you mean all of that? Tell me you meant all of that.”

“Of course I meant it, you piece of sh*t. I don’t say things I don’t mean.”

“Okay- okay. That’s good. Okay. I’m-”

“If you say that you’re sorry again I’ll break your f*cking teeth.”

“What else do I do?” He murmurs. “I am sorry. I hurt you, I hurt you so much. I hurt Yuuji, too. There’s nothing much else to do, is there?”

“Of course there is.” Toji says, teeth gritted, gaze burning. “There’s always something you can do. Apologizing is useless when it’s just meaningless words and promises.”

“Tell me.”

“What?”

“Tell me what to do.” Ryomen says, a little defiant. His eyes flick up to meet Toji’s, red and searing; crimson wildfires blazing low in their depths. There’s a new, tender firmness to him that Toji’s seen so many times before over the years, so much more familiar on him than his previous desperation. It feels, above all, right . “Tell me what to do- I’ll do it. Anything to make you forgive me.”

Toji swallows, but doesn’t back down. He holds Ryomen’s stare, even as more tears spill out, and he has to wipe them away from his waterlines with the rough pad of his thumb.

“Stay.” He says. “Don’t go. Stay.”

Ryomen scoffs. He’s still crying too, though he’s much more subtle about it, brushing his tears away with the heel of his palms before they can even track down to his cheeks. “You’ve never been one to settle for things. Don’t start now, idiot.”

“Who says I’m settling?” He fires back. “It’s that f*cking simple, asshole. Stay, or don’t.”

“Is that what you want, though? Is that all you want? I told you, I’ll do anything.”

He huffs, something sticky, like rotting peaches, catching at the hollow of his throat. “I don’t need anything else. All I’ve ever wanted was for you to stay.”

The low droning in the background intensifies, and FamilyMart sign blinks a last swan song- before flickering off permanently. The alley is plunged into sheets and seas of starless night, broken only by the artificial galaxies that the neon lights of Akiba paint on the damp, cracked walls. The crowd blurs past again, though Toji sees them vaguely out of his peripherals, this time. His eyes remain fixed on Ryomen, never straying.

“Toji?” Ryomen murmurs. The rawness in his tone catches Toji off guard, and he startles a little bit, spine straightening with muted alarm.

“Yeah?” He says, a little softer too. Mellowed by the shadows.

“Do you think we can be good for each other again? One day?”

Toji’s breath stutters. It’s a mirror, albeit warped, of the question he asked Ryomen that day in the konbini. Do you think we can be good for each other again?

I think we can try. That’s all we can ever do, right? And patience, love . And, most importantly, if it’s you, then always - That was what Ryomen had said then.

“I hope so.” Toji says. “I hope so, more than goddamn anything.” Because that’s all they can do, as humans: hope and try; have patience, and love.

“Okay.” Is the softened reply. “I’ll stay.”

The city sings again. The now-familiar buzzing of the FamilyMart sign is gone, though, and the darkness thickens in the absence of the whitened light. Somewhere outside, a baby’s cry rises above the din of the crowd like smoke from a half-lit cigarette. The car horns drown it out almost immediately, and then the city’s back to order. Crowds, cars, and neon light.

Toji grunts. “I’m still f*cking pissed at you, though. You’re a piece of sh*t. No- don’t apologize. If you say sorry again I think my eardrums will start bleeding.”

Ryomen’s lips pull down into a quiet frown, an aborted apology smothering itself back back into his tongue as he closes his mouth, and he shrugs. “That’s fair, actually. I deserved that.”

“You did. You still do.”

And that’s that.

The tense air drops down into something softer, a little mellower. Toji crosses the distance between them, rests his back against the opposite wall, and leans his shoulder against Ryomen’s. Ryomen shuffles closer to him, pressing their sides closer and closer until his body is a line of heat against Toji’s, curling close like a gentle wildfire. At their feet, their shadows interlock once again- twin masses of darkness merging into a single, violet island, swimming against a sea of flashing lights.

“You hungry?” Toji says, at last. “We should get something to eat before we leave. I ran out of leftovers yesterday, so my fridge is f*cking empty.”

“The konbini is only like a ten minute walk-”

“I’m not having konbini sandwiches for dinner again, asshole. Just because you haven’t had konbini food in three years doesn’t mean that you get to force me to eat it every day too.”

Ryomen glares at him, mouth screwed up with offense. Under the light, as his piercings glint and his hair sways in the damp summer night- there’s a glossy quality to him. Like the photocard of a washed out celeb, or an old polaroid. “I’m not forcing you to do anything, f*ckface. It’s not my fault that the brat drags you over to have dinner every day, and it’s definitely not my fault that I’m too busy to cook most of the time so Yuuji just buys whatever the hell he wants to eat.”

“At least buy some f*cking groceries, so I can cook for the three of us.” Toji grunts. “Konbini food is not nutritious, and Yuuji’s a goddamn teenager. You need to feed him properly.”

“I feed him just fine.” Ryomen snorts, but there’s something tender, a little sharp, in his eyes when Toji mentions cooking for them- like he used to do before. “You sound like a fussy housewife sometimes, you know?”

“No wonder Yuuji eats junk all the time.” Toji scowls. “He learned from you . Caring about proper nutrition isn’t the same as being fussy, you piece of sh*t.”

Ryomen huffs out a small laugh, and irrationally, Toji wants to swallow the warmth of the sound down.

“Think whatever makes you feel better about your mother-hen tendencies, I suppose. C’mon-” He peels himself away from the wall with a sudden push, and starts walking deeper into the cresting darkness of the alleyway. When he looks back at Toji, he’s backlit in a thin ring of hot-pink, and he looks a little bit immortal in all of the neon. “There’s probably a vending machine in here somewhere.”

Toji hurries to catch up, and tries not to let his eyes linger on the familiar curve of Ryomen’s nose, the way his lips are a little flakey, a little dry. “What the hell are we going to get for dinner from a f*cking vending machine?”

“Have you never been to Akiba before?” Ryomen says, raising a single eyebrow.

“I don’t make a habit of it.” He grunts. “I’m not much into anime or games, so there’s not much here for me to do. And it’s way too f*cking loud and crowded.”

A laugh, tossed out carelessly to the wind. “Yeah, yeah. I know. You’re boring and hate fun-”

“Liking my peace and quiet doesn’t mean that I hate fun, dumbf*ck. You’re so goddamn annoying-”

“But I already knew that.” Ryomen grins. It’s sharp, crooked. Cuts like a knife, and it’s everything Toji wants. Has wanted for years. “That’s not the point, though. Vending machines here sell ramen in cans. They’re pretty small, so we’ll both need a couple cans to call it dinner, but it’ll work out.”

“Canned ramen- I’m not having canned ramen for dinner.” Toji says, eyes widening with sheer incredulity. “That’s so f*cking unhealthy- hold on, is this the bullsh*t you and Yuuji have been eating for the past three years?”

Ryomen’s smile grows sheepish, and he reaches up to rub at the back of his neck. “I mean- I did learn how to make a couple dishes eventually. And we had a rice cooker- stop giving me that look, asshole, not everyone is a health freak like you.”

Toji scowls darkly, and elbows Ryomen sharply in his side. Ryomen bears it with a sharp hiss and wince, but doesn’t even fall out of step. “Eating normal and healthy food doesn’t make me a f*cking freak . How are you not dead yet? How the hell haven’t you keeled over from a goddamn heart-attack? Actually- you know what? I don’t need to know. I’m making you two food from now on, since you’re clearly useless at it.”

“That’s really not the threat you think it is.”

“I don’t give a single f*ck. I’m revoking lunch and dinner privileges from both you and Yuuji. Not until you two get your sh*t together and figure out what a proper, balanced meal looks like.”

There’s a beat of silence, where Ryomen looks at him. His gaze is unreadable, soft and raw and fraying at the edges. Eventually, he looks away, biting back what looks like a quieter, more private smile. Something just for himself.

“Can we still have canned ramen today, though? I haven’t had it in so long- it’s just one day.”

Something locks into place, in Toji’s chest. Warm and blooming like late-summer flowers. It crests at the hollow of his throat, and it feels like there’s a violet sunrise swelling between his ribs.

“Fine.” He says, because he can’t deny Ryomen anything. “I’ll f*cking kill you if I see any konbini food in your fridge from tomorrow, though.”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Tell that to the brat, he’s been buying up half of sh*t in the aisles everytime we go there.”

Toji snorts, and from there, their conversation devolves into pointless bickering. It’s familiar- the push and pull of tides at his feet, the water a thing that he knows intimately. They’re standing on a distant shore, watching their own horizon. The shadows of their bodies aren’t as far away as they used to be.

In the present, sounds
of Akihabara fade as they venture deeper and deeper into the alley. Run down izakayas light amber lamps, and a couple of smaller stores with clouded glass windows and no names stand stoically in the ruins of their abandonment. Everything’s shiny, covered with a layer of thick gloss and hazy in quality. It’s like watching the film from an old camera, footage blurry and hazy: everything lit in dreamy blues and pinks, laughter blurring into mumbled words into silence, and back again. Radio static, always familiar.

Ryomen’s warm at his side, and somewhere along the way, their hands find each other. Their palms press together, smothering the shadows that pool in the distance between their bodies. In it, there’s a promise, and an apology. Stay, stay . Stay this time. And I’m sorry, I’ll stay. I really will. Another language, with their touch alone.

Tokyo at night is something of a fever dream. It’s not really a bad thing, though. Not when Ryomen is here with him.

♫: The SEA- Kinokoteikoku

Interlude: Take me away, take me away!

Toji learns that one of the windows in Ryomen’s apartment is a little defective. It slides open at first, smooth as a knife through warm butter, only to stutter to stop after hitting a certain point. No matter how much he pulls or tugs at it- it refuses to budge, as stubborn as stick in drying cement.

This is the first of many mundanities.

Then comes the busted bathroom door that doesn’t lock properly and always swings open with a passing breeze. After that there’s the washing machine that acts up and just about floods the apartment when Yuuji puts too many clothes in at once, and then the closet in the big bedroom with the massive spider that Ryomen calls Toji in to kill at one AM on a quiet Tuesday. And then there’s more, more, more. More innocuous, everyday things that just keep adding up. Puzzle pieces, locking together slowly but methodically, precise but deadly.

The bigger picture formed is something like this: sunlight, white like diamonds, streaming in through the window- the busted one. Toji’s jacket thrown over the back of one of those strange armchairs that Ryomen has been so keen on collecting. An empty, crumpled bag of chips on the low coffee table sitting in front of the armchair- trash that Yuuji probably forgot to throw out. Next to it, damp condensation dries on the shiny wood of the table. Droplets of water, yellow with daylight, form a ring around a bottle of half-finished strawberry milk. The cap is half-unscrewed, and if it tips over, all of the milk will spill out and make an inevitable mess of the carpet on the floor.

That’s what Toji sees, when he quietly steps in through the entrance to the living room of Ryomen’s apartment. His shoes have been toed off at the genkan, and his coat is hung up next to Ryomen’s, swaying gently in an invisible breeze- the perfect picture of domesticity. Dust motes dance in the air, bright like stray stars. They’re the only moving things in the humming silence of the house.

It’s a Sunday. Yuuji is out with his friends again. Ryomen is at the supermarket, buying the groceries under Toji’s careful instructions. No junk, no konbini food, buy less potatoes and more actual vegetables, I need better ingredients to work with - that’s what he had said to Ryomen before sending him off.

In the present, Toji’s crossing an invisible threshold.

So, he takes another step forward. And then another, another, and another. Until it feels like his heart might burst open with how full, how warm it is. Until it feels like there are wildflowers blooming in his chest, between his ribs.

When he reaches the middle of the room- where the armchair is, and the coffee table- he dips an arm down low to wrap his fingers gently around the bottle of strawberry milk. It’s cool against his skin, and a little damp. It’s still wet enough that it just might slip out of his hands if he isn’t careful enough with it.

He sways there, for a second, feeling a kaleidoscope of strange fireworks burst somewhere in his stomach. He’s not really sure why it’s significant, and maybe it isn’t but he just can’t help the feeling.

And then, Toji straightens. He lifts his arm and holds the bottle up to the light. The milk inside swims in a clumsy haze of clouded pink, the sun blooming in a blurry smear of buttery gold across the glass. The manufacturing date, stamped on the bottle: Manufactured on- the expiry date: Use by-

He tips the bottle back, touches his mouth to it, and drinks the rest of it down. A river of sweetness flows into his throat, and warms him from the inside out. A few, slow sips is all it takes for him to finish off the rest of the milk. It leaves a sticky feeling on his tongue, like gooey taffy, but the taste is as subtle as soft milk candy.

The door unlocks with a quiet click . Toji wipes the cool wetness collecting in a milky ring around his lips off with the back of his hand, and forces himself to step away from the armchair, the window. He sets the now-empty bottle down again next to the crumpled bag of chips, right back into the puddle of condensed water. The glass clinks once, gentle as windchimes, when it touches the wood of the table.

“I’m home.” Ryomen calls from the genkan. His greeting trails off into a mumbled string of curses as he struggles to pull off his shoes, balancing a veritable mountain of plastic bags in his arms.

Toji’s heart beats like a trapped hummingbird in his chest. Helpless, a little desperate. A realization dawns, slow like a mounting twilight, and pools like sunlight on his tongue.

Home.

Home .

“Toji?” Ryomen says, his voice a little louder. “You there?”

He startles, and whirls around. And then there he is- Ryomen, with his hair mussed from the early spring breeze. With the top two buttons of his shirt unbuttoned, and clutching a bunch of grocery bags to his chest. He stands at the entrance of the living room, and the sunlight makes him look like something right out of a decade-old photograph: washed out, smeared at the edges from suppressed movement, but undeniably human.

“Ryomen.” Toji says, voice raspy with quiet wonder.

“Hey. I’m back.” Ryomen says, grinning in that crooked way of his. His teeth are a little too sharp, and his smile always feels a bit dangerous, but to Toji it feels like watching a sunset, something he can’t quite tear his eyes away from. A pretty firestorm, beautiful destruction.

“You’re- home.” He says.

“Yeah.” Ryomen hums, and steps forwards, thrusting a few of the bags at Toji. He takes them dazedly, arms sagging under the new weight. “I got a few extra vegetables, other than the ones you asked for. There’s this recipe the brat has been on my ass about making, and I thought we could do it today- well , only if you agree. I’m still kind of a f*cking disaster in the kitchen, so I’ll definitely need your help if I don’t want to burn it down- Toji?” He says, narrowing his eyes. “You listening to me?”

Toji’s throat is sticky with- something . He thinks it might just be love, or an echo of it, collecting like sakura in a storm drain. A picture they might have once seen, in blue-tinted springs of their youth.

“Hey, asshole. Are you ignoring me?” Ryomen grunts, mouth quirking down into a petulant frown. “Stop that- hey , listen to what I’m telling you.”

“I am listening, f*cker.” Toji grunts, and his voice comes out steady, despite the storm building inside of him. “And- yeah, I’ll help. God knows you’ll burn this f*cking building down if you get the chance. It’s like leaving a toddler without supervision in the kitchen- I think even Yuuji cooks better than you, and the kid has the attention span of a fly.”

Ryomen’s frown pulls tight into a full-blown scowl, and in place of a retort, he dumps all of the grocery bags into Toji’s arms, and stalks off into the kitchen. Toji stumbles, hissing and cursing low under his breath at the sudden weight- but when he trails after Ryomen, his heart feels full. Warm and sated, like a predator gorging itself on sticky, sticky love.

Home doesn’t seem so far away, anymore.

♫: ヘヴンリイ; For Tracy Hyde

Location: Nakameguro

It's a warm day in early spring when they visit Nakameguro.

The sky is a thick, electric blue, and the clouds are bursts of puffy white blooming like pillow-soft flowers against its endless depths. Sakura blossoms dance in vivid whirlpools, like pink hurricanes, blowing in a gentle breeze that makes the branches of the trees creak and curtains draped across windows of countless houses flutter.

Toji’s hand is in Ryomen’s, his palm brushing sweet electricity into Toji’s skin. The shadows of their fingers intertwine on the sidewalk, stretching long and warped and violet, like spiders made of flattened darkness. They’re walking along one of the raised concrete embankments that snake along the edges of the Meguro river. Trees grow out of the wet earth lining the stone footpath, their crooked arms heavy with bark and flowering sakura blossoms.

Toji is watching the river: the murky green water crawls by slowly, seemingly as thick as molasses with how lazily it flows. The green, vine-like plants weaving up the black bars on the railing obstruct his view at certain points, and he’s forced to crane his neck in order to keep his eyes on the water. Instead, the lanterns strung up on a line between the trees, striped with alternative shades of pink and white, fill his gaze. He curses low with annoyance, and tugs at Ryomen’s hand, pulling him closer to the railings.

Ryomen huffs with amusem*nt, and when Toji looks back over his shoulder to glare at him, his eyes are filled with red daylight, sparkling with mirth.

“Stop laughing at me, asshole.” Toji grunts. “I can’t see the f*cking river, it’s not funny.”

“It is kind of funny.” Ryomen says, voice raspy and lilting, and all the more sweet for it. “Most people come here to look at the sakura, not the river, you know.”

Toji scowls, and in retaliation, crowds himself as close to the railing he can get without stepping on the soft green plants lining the edge of the sidewalk. Ryomen is pulled along forcibly with him, their hands still tangled in the space between them.

“I don’t give a f*ck, I’m not most people . Let me look at the goddamn river.”

“Fine. Alright, you f*cking weirdo.” Ryomen says, biting back a laugh.

Toji ignores him, and despite his impressive height, he has to get on his tip-toes to see the dark currents of the river beyond the lanterns blocking his view.

The water glimmers a rusted gold under the light of the late-afternoon sun, taking on a dream-like quality. It reflects the sakura blooming in every tree in hazy, warped lines of pink. A few petals drift down in the gentle breeze, and touch down softly on the dark surface of the water, sending rings of fractured light rippling delicately outwards.

While Toji watches the river, he’s conscious of the warm weight of Ryomen’s gaze on him. He’s looking at Toji with unconcealed interest, crimson eyes never straying, locked firmly on the sharp planes of Toji’s face. There’s a strange sort of stillness to him- not even his hands, usually the most restless part of an even more restless man, are moving. It’s a sort of concentration that comes with sharp tunnel vision, the kind seen on predators- but on him it feels softer. A little more tender at the edges, like chewing on a still-sweet, rotting fruit.

“What the f*ck are you looking at?” Toji grunts, tearing his eyes away from the water to fix Ryomen with an unreadable look.

Ryomen doesn’t even blink at the sudden intensity. He smiles lopsidedly, teeth sharp and the silhouette of his mouth jagged. “You.” He says, unabashedly.

Toji’s traitorous heart picks up speed, beating like a faulty drum- no rhythm or melody: just deadly noise. “You’re a freak.” He snorts, and hopes that his voice comes out steady. “Why the hell are you staring at me? Most people come here to look at the sakura, not people.”

Biting back a laugh, Ryomen straightens, and sends Toji a wink, exaggerated enough that it makes him cringe. “What can I say? I’m a freak, like you said. I just happen to find you more interesting than a bunch of flowers.”

He tries to swallow back his amusem*nt, but fails, and ends up smothering a few stray snickers into the back of his hand. Ryomen follows the motion with hungry eyes, making Toji’s cheeks burn.

“How the hell is your flirting so bad?” Toji says exasperatedly. “It was already bad enough before, what the f*ck did you do to make it even worse?”

“I haven’t had anyone to practice on in three years, give me a break.” Ryomen snorts, but he’s still grinning at him, his gaze glimmering with happiness and daylight. “I’m just rusty.”

Toji blinks, knocked off kilter all of a sudden. His eyes catch on the way the sun, filtering in through the canopy of sakura, dapples Ryomen’s skin: golden and hazy.

“You haven’t dated anyone in three years?” He asks, blatant surprise lining his voice.

Ryomen blinks right back at him incredulously. “No? What the f*ck, why would I?”

“I just thought- nevermind. Why would you not date?” Toji says. “Did your sh*tty flirting scare everyone off?”

“No- Toji .” Ryomen says, face creased with confusion. “Are you more of an idiot than I thought? Of course I didn’t date anyone else- you were the only one for me.”

“You’re joking.” Toji says, and his heart does something complicated. Like diving off of a cliff, without wings. “Ryomen, you’re f*cking with me.”

“You’re so stupid. Of course I’m not messing with you.” Ryomen scoffs.

“But-” Toji breaks off, blinking rapidly again to clear his thoughts. “Ryomen, it’s been three years. We broke up three years ago, and we weren’t in contact for over two. It’s reasonable- hell , it’s normal- for you to have dated. The alternative is unhealthy as f*ck.”

“There you go again, with healthy and unhealthy . Why the hell are you always on about that?”

He scowls. “Because it’s true- ”

Ryomen looks at him, something knowing and a little lethal glinting under the depths of his gaze. “Did you?”

Toji’s breath hitches. “What?”

“Did you date? In the three years that we weren’t together, weren’t talking- did you date?” He says, and it’s like he knows. A predator, carefully guiding the prey towards a beautiful trap, a lamb to lovely slaughter.

“That’s not the point.” Toji says, and he feels a bit faint. Sakura swims at the edges of his vision, pink and fleeting. Caught in smears of impermanent motion. “Ryomen, that’s not the f*cking point.”

“Is it not?” Ryomen murmurs, and then there’s a hand coming up, cupping his cheek softly. Ryomen’s thumb brushes over the tender skin, reverence in his every touch. “Is that not the point?”

Toji swallows around the thickness building in his throat, sticky and urgent like an impending firework explosion on a distant New Year’s eve.

“Why did you wait?” Toji says, instead. “Why did you wait for me? That’s what you were doing, wasn’t it?”

Ryomen sways closer in an almost instinctual motion. On the sidewalk, their shadows fit together comfortably once more. Body against body, flesh against flesh. The wind tousles Toji’s hair, lifting dark strands off from his forehead, and for the first time Toji notices that there’s a stray sakura caught in the tangles of Ryomen’s hair.

“It wasn’t really a conscious decision, on my part.” Ryomen is saying. “It just kind of- happened, really. I thought- maybe I’ll find someone else - and that was all. I never tried to find someone, or go out of my way to date.”

Toji’s in some sort of a daze, still looking at the sakura petal. Without thinking, he reaches up, and plucks it off gently. Ryomen’s gaze follows the motion, his breath hitching when he sees how the petal fits between Toji’s fingers: caught between his index and thumb. It’s fragile, and more than a little delicate, glowing with a layer of soft, buttery pink under the sun.

“Did you want to?” Toji murmurs, stare fixed firmly on the sakura. It’s a little damp against his skin, and he dips his head down to press the petal to his nose. A lingering sweetness blooms in his throat at its scent, spreading curling warmth down to his chest.

When he straightens back up, it feels like coming up for air. “Did you want to find someone else?” He says, a little less softly, his gaze flicking over to meet Ryomen’s.

Ryomen’s eyes are tender-soft. Like bruised peaches in the summertime. “No.” He says, honestly. “I never wanted anyone else- it was always you. I could never really think about anyone else in that way, and maybe that makes me a bit pathetic but- Toji. It was only ever you.”

Huffing out a quiet laugh, Toji flicks the sakura petal off of his fingers, and reaches up to caress Ryomen’s waterline with his thumb, the skin tender under his touch. “That’s kind of sad. You shouldn’t have waited so long, idiot.”

A hand curls around Toji’s wrist, holding it in a tenuous grip. When he speaks, Ryomen's eyes are creased at the edges with a small, but heartbreakingly gentle smile- Toji’s favorite kind. “I would’ve waited much, much longer to find you again, if I had to.”

“You’re so f*cking sappy.” Toji says, and his heart feels bruised too. “I don’t know how you say these things with a straight face.”

“It’s all true, isn’t it?” Ryomen says, and leans his cheek further into Toji’s hand, nose brushing the lines of his palm. His piercings are cold under Toji’s touch, digging into his skin. “I don’t have a problem saying it because it’s all the truth. I think I would wait forever for you, if I had to.”

Toji flicks him softly. Ryomen doesn’t even flinch, his eyes warming over, and presses even closer to him. “Stop talking about forever, asshole. Forever is too long. Think about right now, think about the present. Stop getting stuck in hypotheticals and riddles.”

“I would, though. I would wait for you forever.” Is the response murmured into the tender skin of his hand.

“And I’m not asking you to.” Toji says, matter of factly. “You’re not going to have to wait forever for me- not now, not ever. No one has that much f*cking time.”

Ryomen lets his eyes flutter shut, swaying in the gentle wind blowing in from over the river- and for a moment, he looks more banner of surrender, than man. “Now who’s the one speaking in riddles?”

“Not me.”

“Yes, you.” He says, huffing out a quiet laugh. Below their torsos, legs tangle together, and so do their shadows. “I have no idea what you’re trying to say. Quit being so f*cking cryptic.”

Toji can’t help the smile that pulls at the edges of his lips. “You’re stupid if you don’t understand. It’s easy.”

“Spell it out for me, still.” Ryomen says. “I want you to say it, whatever it is.”

Ryomen follows willingly, swaying forwards like he’s helpless to do otherwise. Toji keeps tugging him closer- closer- closer -

Contentment curls low in his chest, warm like the clouds at sunset, when their mouths brush. Fragile electricity sparks in the places where their lips meet- fleeting, but important.

“I love you.” Toji murmurs. He tilts his head, lets their noses fit against each other neatly, foreheads pressing together, heat passing between them as easy as breath. “I loved you three years ago, and I love you now. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

Ryomen smiles, and Toji wants to press his lips to it. Drink down his happiness like sweet wine and make it his own.

“Yeah.” Ryomen breathes. “That’s what I wanted to hear.”

Toji hums, pushing his fingers up so that they twist into the smooth tangles of Ryomen’s hair. “You’re not even going to f*cking say it back?” He says, voice lilting with softened amusem*nt. “I might go and get the wrong idea, Ryomen.”

“Like you would do that.” Ryomen laughs into his mouth. “I’ve been so obvious with you, you probably f*cking knew from the moment you saw me again in that apartment that I was just as gone for you then as I was three years back.”

“I didn’t know that early.” Toji says, and gives Ryomen’s hair an experimental pull. Ryomen follows his motion willingly, happy to go wherever Toji leads him. It sends an unexpected burst of happiness sparking down his spine. “It took me a little more time than that.”

Ryomen makes a soft, delicious little noise when Toji gently tugs at his hair again. “When did you figure it out, then?”

“There wasn’t an exact moment where it happened, idiot. It wasn’t a revelation, or anything.” Toji murmurs. “I just realized that I was in love with you too, and figured that maybe, you felt the same way.”

“That’s a bold assumption to make.” Ryomen says, eyes glinting with deadly mirth. “What if I wasn’t hadn’t still been in love with you? What if you ended up making an ass of yourself?”

Toji snickers, and presses closer to him. Their shadows are a mess of tangled limbs and warped violet on the sidewalk. “I trusted you. I knew you wouldn’t hold it against me if I was in love with you still, even if you didn’t feel that way about me anymore.”

“You trusted me?” He says. “Even after everything?”

“Of course I did, dumbass.” Toji says, easily. “Why wouldn’t I? I spent half of my life, all of my youth, learning how to trust you. That doesn’t go away so easily, you know.”

“Still.” Ryomen’s brows crease. “I broke your trust. I don’t understand why you would give it away to me so easily, again.”

A bar of dusty light pierces through the canopy, as the sun shifts. It falls on them, like a cloudy limelight, and illuminates their intertwined silhouettes in fierce brushstrokes of rusted gold. The spring air tastes sweet, tastes like coming home.

“You made a mistake.” Toji murmurs. “And it was a stupid one. A really, really f*cking stupid one- but that doesn’t mean that you’re irredeemable, or whatever stupid sh*t you’re thinking. You’re not beyond forgiveness.”

Ryomen blinks, a little stunned. His mouth parts wetly. “But-”

“Shut up.” Toji says, voice soft despite the sharp nature of his words. “You’re not an idiot, not a monster. You’re allowed love.”

The tide breaks. The sea is at their feet, and somewhere far away from this place, they’re running towards an infinite horizon of their own making.

“Kiss me.” Ryomen says, voice raspy, a little wet. Toji’s a little afraid that he might start crying at any moment. “Kiss me, you piece of sh*t.”

“I don’t think that’s how love confessions are supposed to go.” Toji laughs, but obliges.

Their lips press together, and at first, it’s the faintest of touches- a little cautious, a little exploratory- like a beached sailor, relearning how to love the water. It’s tender, and feels like coming back to the sea. Like familiarly loved surrender- giving your body to the current, and learning how to let go.

Even when it deepens into something a little hungrier, a little more desperate and helpless- like they’re trying to make up for lost time in the span of a single, lingering moment- they hold onto each other. Toji’s hands in Ryomen’s hair, and Ryomen’s fingers pressing an insistent warmth down into the dip of his spine. They hold onto each other, and Toji doesn’t think that he ever wants to let go of this again. Not again, never again.

When they break apart- everything’s a little blurry, a little hazy- having a strange sun-shimmer, glossy quality to it. Like a freshly printed polaroid, ink still glimmering and wet under the sunlight.

He pulls away, and Toji’s mouth tastes like a distant summer in Shinjuku. Like countless springs, just like this, where his and Ryomen’s hands and bodies never strayed too far from each other. Where their shadows knew better how to be together than apart.

“Hey, Toji?” Ryomen says, eyes golden and filling with the sun.

There’s a hand, thumbing at the hinge of his jaw with heartbreaking gentleness. Toji leans into the touch, body slack and pliant, and watches Ryomen. “Yeah?” He murmurs.

“I love you.” Ryomen says, grinning: crooked, too jagged at the edges, and a little dangerous. Everything that Toji has ever wanted. “You know that, right? You’d be stupid to not realize it.”

“Yeah. I know, idiot.” Toji laughs, letting his head drop down and nestle into the crook of Ryomen’s neck. “You’ve always been kind of obnoxious about it.”

“Good.” He says. “Now, say it back.”

“What?”

“I love you. Say it back.”

“I already did before, if you didn’t notice.”

“Well- say it again.”

“You’re so f*cking needy, you big baby.”

“C’mon- Toji . Stop being an asshole for a second. This is serious. Say it again.”

A laugh. “Foot the bill for our lunch and I just might.”

“You know how expensive that Italian restaurant you picked out is?”

“I cook for you every f*cking day- this is the least you can do, you ungrateful bastard.”

“God, fine. You’re such a stubborn piece of sh*t.”

Silence. Birds, and sakura blossoms rustling in a humming wind. The soft, swishing currents of the river, and the gentle murmurings of the people walking by on the street above.

“Hey, asshole. Look at me.”

“What now, Toji?”

Birds. Their song is louder, this time. Sweet and keening, plaintive and heartbreaking. A car passes by with a quiet woosh . The resulting breeze sends more sakura tumbling into the river, into their hair and their hands.

Toji smiles, and lets his eyes flick up to meet Ryomen’s. They’re twin crimson seas- and he feels like he could drown in their depths. Give himself over to the blood rivers caught in his gaze without a second’s hesitation.

Surrender doesn’t sound so bad, not when it’s with him. Not when they’re drowning together, swimming towards a horizon that they built with each other, for each other.

“I love you.” Toji says. “I’ve loved you for years, and I love you now. You’d be an idiot to not realize it.”

Ryomen laughs, loud and unabashed, and Toji wants to swallow the sound- so he does. Presses his mouth to Ryomen’s lips, and they lose themselves in the sun-warmed tides of another kiss, another exchange of breath and heat and flesh.

There’s surrender in this kiss- and there’s surrender in love, too.

♫: A hill on the moon; Ichiko Aoba

“and man the day fell hours ago / and you ask me to slow down

something shifts in the bushes / a rabbit / an eternity / a bull snake

there is a meteorite in my hand / a bird in yours”

-Jake Skeets; A walk in Tsaile