Chapter Text
It had been a long day.
The view on the horizon was obscured in darkness, the sun having long since dipped below its skyline, leaving only faint dots of colour from miles away. The dim lights within rows of houses and scattered streetlights, hinting at the sort of life and vitality that only came out at night, with a chill in the air that made one feel alive despite the cold; excited and uncertain at the same time, but simultaneously never wanting it to end. The city at night always had the strongest romantic air to it, and it practically tore his heart in two: the love of adventure and being whoever he wanted to be, but the hollow and bitter feeling as he ached for the comforts of home.
His shades were a common accessory for any occasion, but he was truly thankful for their presence now. It hid bloodshot eyes that he felt the need to blink consistently against the risk of them drying out from fatigue, the hint of dark bags underneath, and the moments of weakness where they closed entirely and he completely drifted off until a particularly bulky thud of the train jolted him awake. Taking a moment to yawn into the palm of his hand, he turned his head to glance over the other patrons of the carriage, all similarly exhausted, most likely on their journey home from work.
He could hardly relate to their efforts, despite his similar tiredness. He had spent the day arduously travelling across town to find the easiest method of earning quick money—pachinko had been his first stop.
Bust.
It wasn’t his favourite, but after that, he attempted a risk and placed bets at the local horse races. After all, his elder brother swore by it, and he was there so often he could practically call it a second home.
Again, bust. At which point he was almost completely out of cash.
After that he had considered his options: begging? Maybe. He could create a makeshift sign and offer hugs in exchange for a bit of yen? No, he’d end up feeling guilty and give them for free. His mouth widened as a large yawn crept up on him, bringing the back of his hand up to wipe off the tear threatening to fall at the corner of one eye, subsequently fixing up the alignment of his glasses as they fell off-kilter. Realizing the extent of his exhaustion, he shuffled himself into a more upright position, pulling on the hem of his tank-top and crossing his legs the opposite way, bringing a mite of unwarranted attention towards himself as the overhead lights reflected off his sequined pants, scattering with sparkles across the walls. In his state, however, he wasn’t able to appreciate the effect to its fullest—had he the mind, he would have had a smug grin plastered across his face and pure poetry spilling out of his mouth, if you could call it that.
Karamatsu’s brows furrowed further than their natural state as he felt sudden, dull pressure on his shoulder. He blinked groggily, turning his head to find you resting your head on him, completely out cold. He ducked his head forward slightly in an attempt to get a better view of your face. Your posture shifted with his, so he ended up sitting back with a more confused expression focused ahead of him. The person sitting opposite give him a sympathetic smile. It didn’t help.
After a short period of time, he started to feel your warmth creep through the layers of his jacket. Your cheek nestled a little closer into the crook of his neck, making the alarms in his head go haywire. Shifting and waking you up was out of the question, but he had no idea how to get out of the situation either. He was so focused on you that he failed to notice half of the train’s occupants standing to leave.
Oh, of course. This was his stop.
He stared out of the windows, slight panic beginning to set in. Turning back to you, he nudged you gently and spoke with the softest tone he could muster while still retaining his iconic depth of voice.
“Ah… hm—excuse me? Honey…” Karamatsu sighed, lifting his shoulder a bit in an attempt to wake you. Your deep, mellow breaths continued with no hint of you moving whatsoever. “I need to… heh, it is my time to depart.”
Nothing happened. His brows upturned in pure desperation as the doors closed, cutting off the brief chill that settled in, bringing a hint of night air, faint cigarette smoke and the scent of home in with it. The train shuddered into motion again, leaving his plans of settling into familiarity and warmth behind, frantic to think of a new route out of this mess.
The next stop came and went. He cleared his throat, switched his legs to cross the other side and back again, pretended to sneeze, cough and—nothing woke you. Probably because he was too afraid to try too hard, the back of his head pleading him not to disturb you, while the rest of him screamed to get up and go before it got too late, as if it already wasn’t. He glanced around with pleading eyes, hopeful for someone else that could help him, somehow, but almost everyone had already left for their respective stops or weren’t paying enough attention. It wasn’t until the train reached its final destination and terminated that the last few people got up and out, leaving the two of you behind.
You squirmed slightly, a groggy noise emitting from the back of your throat as you lifted your head and attempted to adjust to the new light. He breathed a sigh of relief at this, it being replaced by a new kind of panic as he realized how things looked.
“Ah—! I uh, I trust your nap was…” His poor, drained brain scrambled for the word he was trying to say. It was at the tip of his tongue, almost there, he was so close to remembering— “…good. Um, it appears as though we are… somewhere.”
While he squinted into the darkness outside, you lifted your head, sitting bolt upright. You didn’t appear to know where you were, and the disoriented expression did nothing for the guilt he was already feeling.
“…this isn’t your stop either, is it?” He muttered sheepishly.
“No.” It didn’t surprise him how terse you were, voice gravelly from the depth of your sleep. He felt worse nevertheless. You stood, stretching your arms and legs before turning to face him and watch as he stayed in his seat, eyeing you cautiously.
“I guess we’ll have to get the next train together, right? Were you asleep too?”
Karamatsu hesitated before leaping to his feet to trail after you when you turned to step off the train onto the awaiting platform. He slowed as he caught up and walked along beside you, taking a seat on one of the metal benches outside. The cold in the air had chilled the seats, making him shiver through his bejewelled jeans.
“Uh,” God, he felt embarrassed. He wanted to be honest with you, but he had no idea how you’d react to the knowledge that he missed his stop long ago because he was too afraid to disturb you. In his grogginess, he spoke without thinking, “I didn’t… want to wake you from your sleep, and it looked like you needed it. Perfection needs its rest, after all.” Also, I had no idea what to do.
You gave him an incredulous look, and he returned it with nervous smile. He adjusted his glasses and looked away, at anything that caught his eye, in the impalpable silence that followed. You laughed. It didn’t help much.
“I’m sorry about that. You could have said something, though!” You laughed again, more awkwardly. While he wanted to believe the romance of the night, fate, destiny or some amalgamation of the three had brought you together, the truth of it was a little more uncomfortable. You had no idea who he was, but you were stuck together now. “When does the next train come?”
He shot his attention to the information board, reading the yellowed neon letters carefully and trying to hide the sting in his neck from whipping his head so fast. He sighed, and you felt your heart sink at the sound of it.
“One hour from now.”
“Shit.”
Your hands clasped together on your lap, rubbing them together for warmth. He thought to offer you his, but even his cluelessness to social situations weren’t impervious to the current discomfort in the air. He opened his mouth to speak and closed it again, then continued with more confidence.
“Would you like to find someplace for a drink? My darling, you should be warming up. Heaven can’t manage without its best angel for too long.”
“I thought you’d never ask,” you whispered, leaning in to eliminate a large portion of the gap keeping the two of you apart. You moved close enough to feel the warmth of his breath on your lips, so achingly close that your heartbeat felt like drums in your ears, and your own breath got caught in your throat. The space was continually closing, seconds away from being complete as his gaze focused on you carefully, his hand hovering over your waist and a warm glow spreading over his cheeks to match yours.
He shook his head. Come on. Be realistic.
“Would you like to find someplace for a drink? We should try to keep warm, I think.” He gingerly shrugged, and you shook your head.
“Ordinarily I’d say yes, but I don’t really want to move. I just want to wait for the train.” Damn it. He knew he should have gone with his initial instinct. You gave him a reassuring smile, which put off his more prevalent worries for a bit longer. If anything, it meant he wouldn’t spend what precious little money he had left to his name.
“Okay, no problem!” He gave an enthusiastic thumbs up, “We can stay here. Ah, would you like to hear a joke, perhaps?” Please, anything to break the ice a little more smoothly. Your brows raised, lip pointing in thought with a quick shrug.
“Sure, why not.”
“Okay,” he cleared his throat and lowered his glasses, looking at you directly. The build-up he was creating was absurd; he popped up his collar and pointed at you with both index fingers, brows furrowed in concentration. You wondered how decent the payoff was going to be. “Knock knock.”
“…who’s there?”
“Dishes.”
You hesitated.
“Dishes who?”
“Dishes the police—come out with your hands up!”
You hesitated again. After a moment, you laughed, though more out of politeness than genuine hilarity. The relief on his face made it worth it. He flipped up his hair with a quick motion of his hand, followed by a playful bow. “I don’t suppose you know of any good jokes? I could exchange them all night if I could. I believe I remember a few more that my brother told me.”
“I can’t think of any off the top of my head… let’s hear another one.” You smiled sincerely, making his head buzz from a mix of further relief and pride.
“Yes!” Another exuberant thumbs up, “Okay—why are singers good at baseball?” He looked to you expectantly.
“Why?”
“Because they have perfect pitch!”
Neither of you laughed at that one.
“…Ah, I think that one is funnier when my brother tells it. He puts more,” He gesticulated with his hands, waving them around in such an inordinate fashion that your eyes widened a little, “Life into it.” You smiled understandingly into the back of your hand.
“That’s ok, they can’t all be winners. Do you remember any more?”
He spent a moment with his mouth agape, and you waited for an answer until he admitted that he didn’t, followed by another cold silence. He rubbed his hands up and down his upper arms in an attempt to warm up. Shivering at the realization not long after, he stood, excusing himself to find the station’s bathroom—an endeavour which took about 5 minutes due to the lack of signs.
Once inside, he shuddered. Everything was disgusting. It wasn’t a surprise given that it was the end of a clearly busy day, and he wouldn’t dare blame anyone for its uncleanliness, but his reluctance to touch anything was matched only by his need to use it. The only thing worse than the blatant grime coating everything in sight was the smell; put simply, he was in hell. With a defeated sigh, he held his breath and unbuckled his skull crested belt, doubling over to yank his pants down before shooting a lazy glance to the side. He froze in place.
There was no toilet paper.
Cursing the universe for the increasing number of misfortunes he had been receiving, he tidied himself back up and wandered back to where you were still seated, only to find you shivering as well. You smiled warmly at his return, which he reciprocated. Things seemed to be looking up for the mood at least.
“Good to see you again. Did you find it? Where was it?” He pointed in the bathroom’s direction for you. “Oh, cool. I’ll be right back then.”
Taking a seat, he slipped a small mirror out of his pocket and folded it open, checking his hair for overall tidiness and style while you stood and shuffled past him. It took a second for him to clue into what you said and stuttered into life with a reach of his hand in your direction.
“My dearest, I must warn you that while the establishment of your desire does exist,” you were in the distance, “it’s not in the condition you wish it to be—a fair individual such as you will… need, uh… hm.” His hand fell beside him, taking note of your absence. It was of no surprise that you took longer than expected, returning with a far embittered expression on your face.
“Ah, you’ve returned!” He waved to you with a smile. You didn’t.
“Hi. It, uh, would have been nice to know that you used the last of the TP, but it’s fine.”
He winced, sinking down in his seat a little. Both hands raised defensively, “I didn’t, I promise! There wasn’t any when I got there!”
“That’s… not any better, actually!”
You plopped back onto the bench, arms crossed. It only took a moment for you to laugh gently under your breath, shaking your head. “You really need to start telling me things instead of leaving it until the last minute.”
“I’m sorry, my honey.” He did his best to supress a yawn, while you rose a brow at his barrage of pet names. You didn’t seem to feel it worth any verbal recognition. “For the rest of the time I know you, I promise I will get better at that—you have my word.”
“You mean for the next 30 minutes until the train comes?”
“Right.” He tilted his glasses down and winked, causing you to shake your head, sympathetic to the obvious dark circles under his eyes. You clearly didn’t know him well enough to judge, so his attitude was any guess of yours as to whether it was normal for him or not, but you chalked at least some of it up to grogginess at least. You appreciated how hard he tried despite that.
He caught a glimpse of you eyeing him up and down out of the corner of his vision, which he took obvious delight in as he stretched out to give you a better look. You couldn’t help laughing at that, which he assured himself wasn’t you laughing at his sense of style. Clearly, you knew what he was going for here. With your prompt, he allowed you to try on his glasses, and he took your phone carefully to take a few photos of you wearing them. He gave you a few directions; look left, no no, a little more; look at me this time; great! Now put your hand under your chin, like this; perfect, absolutely perfect! After returning your phone to you, you looked through them with him cooing over how much cooler you looked with his glasses and subsequently gave a clumsy mess of an apology for his wording afterwards, which only made you roll your eyes and nudge him with your elbow. If it wasn’t obvious already, you knew it now: the boy was an idiot.
“How much longer now?” You played idly with one of the knitted strings on the hem of your scarf.
“It should be—” He squinted. Oh, no. Oh fuck. His slow turn back towards you only brought the worst fears to the forefront of your mind. You grimaced in preparation.
“Oh god… what is it? Good news…?”
“Uhhhhh...” His mouth hung open.
“Best news?”
“Only the best for you, my—”
“Come on, tell me.”
“Heh… the train is delayed.”
You took the news as best you could, taking a moment to process the information. At least it wasn’t outright cancelled, and the look on his face said he felt a similar relief; instead of arriving 20 minutes from now, it was estimated to arrive in 40.
Exhaling through his teeth, he bounced one leg nervously, thinking to start some kind of actual conversation. Everything up until then had been small titbits or observations on the environment, and the kind of small talk you hope you’ll never have to make or be subjected to. He turned to you with his mouth open to speak, and he faltered before actually putting words to his thoughts.
“So, what brought you out today? Especially so late?”
“Oh… Well.” You stopped, eyes averting down to your knees. You seemed at odds at the question, unable to decipher how much you should divulge to a mere stranger. Maybe more of an acquaintance at this point, but still. You looked so embarrassed that he automatically felt awful for asking. “I’m actually a little… mm, strapped for cash right now. I was trying to find some way to get a bit of money, just for the time being.”
He stared longingly at you for a moment, making you reel back a bit in discomfort. He could feel his heart beating more rapidly, as if it were about to burst out of his chest and fly away at the realization that he connected to you on that level; your endeavours were so mutual, so relatable that he felt a huge weight being lifted. He felt something that didn’t often grace his person: validation. He wouldn’t trade that feeling for anything. Except, maybe, a few compliments, but there was time.
“Me too,” He placed his hand on his chest, looking you directly in the eyes. “Did you strike out at pachinko too? Today was not my day, I fear…”
“What? Oh, no, I was trying to find work. Something part time for a little while.”
“Me too!” He spoke quickly, desperate to keep the feeling of mutuality going. You chose to ignore how shaky he looked, and how he suddenly couldn’t quite keep the eye contact going. It looked like now was as good a time as any to throw him a bone.
“It’s tough, isn’t it?” You placed your hand on his shoulder. He looked like he was about to explode, and you felt satisfied in your act of charity for the day. He seemed happy, at least, though you wouldn’t know how much he was screaming in his head. You pulled away when he placed his hand on ours, mimicking your generosity in a motion that looked a lot like an alien becoming familiar with human customs.
“So that’s why you’re here too, then?” You asked, and he nodded solemnly.
“Alas, it’s true… money these days is hard to come by, as you know.” You held back a laugh at his wording and overall dramatization, with his eyes held shut and one hand on his hip, the other perched on his brow. All things considered, you assumed he was an actor, getting used to using certain vernacular in an everyday setting to prepare for a role. It made things easier to believe that. “I need something soon—my, uh… landlords…” he blatantly avoided eye contact again, “they are becoming a little, let’s say… hot on the collar for some form of retribution, in, in the form of rent.”
“I see.” Actors don’t make much, do they? At the very least, it can be hard to find work and make ends meet. It made sense on some level. “Well, I hope you find something soon! There must be something out there for a… well-dressed guy like yourself.”
Karamatsu rose his head proudly, nodding along with your words. The fact that he had made no effort to find a job flew past him, taking the praise as absolute truth.
“You too—I truly hope for only best for you, and that your money troubles are solved just as easily! I’m sure there’s nothing you can’t do once you put your mind to it.”
“Okay—”
“Especially with your smile and charisma, your smarts, and of course, your ability! You will get out of this conundrum with your head held high, for sure!”
“Alright—”
“I bet your next opportunity is waiting right around the corner, my sweet, and that you will answer its knock—”
“Hey? Hello?”
He blinked, looking to you with pursed lips.
“Oh, I apologize. I tend to… I like to talk, I guess.” He neatened his hair with one hand, hoping to shield the slight rosy tint creeping onto his cheeks.
“It’s fine. But hey, I have good news!”
“Best news?” He responded, hopeful in his inflection. You pointed to the notice board—the train was coming sooner rather than later. “Remind me never to travel this late at night ever again,” he continued, and you laughed in agreement. The remainder of the time in your chilled seats and exhausted stupor was spent in laughter as you mulled over the events of the evening together until everything fell silent as the train, at long last, rolled in at the station, cluttering to a stop with the sound of steam and metal on the brakes. Karamatsu gestured for you to hop on board first before following in behind you, choosing to stand and hold onto one of the upper handles protruding from the ceiling to eliminate the potential of either him, you, or both of you falling asleep in your seats. Most of the trip was silent, however he made sure to give a demure wave as you stepped off onto the platform of your stop, and you returned it as the doors slid to a close and he disappeared into the distance.
He was infinitely thankful that you weren’t there to see it when he brought his hand to his face, immediately poking himself in the eyes when he went to push at his glasses and found that they weren’t there. You still had them, of course, and he pinched at the ridge of his nose with his eyes squeezed shut at the thought. He thought that, perhaps, lady luck would bring you back together someday with that token of your fateful night in your possession—or, maybe, just end this night now because he was absolutely done with it. Staring down at his feet, he was devastated to find a flyer stuck to the bottom of his shoe, which he just knew had been there all night, considering his luck. Peeling it off, he stared over its contents with a new sense of invigoration filling him to the brim.
A cash prize? Check.
A chance to play music? Check.
A chance to show off? Check, check, check.
As soon as his stop came, he jabbed at the button to open the doors with his thumb until they relented, and he skidded across the platform to get home—both out of excitement, and the extreme dire need to use the bathroom.