Chapter Text
It always started to rain when he stepped on the light rail, never beforehand. It’s idiotic he thought, to believe that with such certainty, when it rained in the city nearly every day. The mornings when he walked from the tallest building in the city to the light rail stop during the casual downpour were disregarded every time, in favor of sunshine.
Why don’t you move somewhere else, then?
He sat down in a nearby vacant seat and put wireless headphones in his ears. Played the most self-pitying music he could find. It started to rain. If it was possible, he would will himself to teleport right to his home office, because everything was finally ready. Every part of him was nervous and excited.
“Seto?”
The pulling of his earbud away from his head was intrusive, the smile he saw was intrusive, and everyone and everything felt too close.
A wide grin. “Seto! I’ll be damned. What’re you doing out this late? Hell, what’re you doing out at all? You don’t often do the ‘outside’ thing. ”
“Jou,” Seto replied, a small smile was the only kindness he had enough energy to give. An apparent invitation, because Jou sat next to him and bumped his shoulder.
“I had some extra work to do at the office. I just left.”
Jou shrugged. “That’s fair. But you do realize,” yes, I do, “that we’ve been trying to get ahold of you for like, months now, right?” He laughed. But it was very clearly forced. “You’re all busy now with your new job, we get that. But you can’t be, I don’t know, that busy.”
“I am that busy.” Seto shifted, because Jou’s shoe was nearly touching his own. “Sorry. Maybe next weekend, or something? I don’t have much-”
“You know I’m not bugging you because I’m the only one who cares, right?”
“I know.”
“Yugi.”
“I know.”
“He asks about you all the time. You were best friends for years, you know. He misses you.”
“I know.”
Jou sighed. “Clearly, you have issues, or you guys fought, or something. I don’t know.”
“Something like that,” Seto replied.
“He won’t tell me. Either will you, apparently. But it was years ago, right? I mean, me and Yugi have been together for almost four years.”
The railcar stopped, and the prerecorded voice Seto had grown so fond of announced his destination. He sat up, and his face did another small smile. “This is my stop.”
“Hey. Call Yugi sometime, we can all go out for a drink or something.”
“Okay.”
“We haven’t seen you since the wedding party, you know.”
“I know.”
“Seriously. Call Yugi, or stop by sometime.”
“Okay.” Seto stood at the automatic doors and waited for Heaven to open its gates.
“I wish your words weren’t so empty,” Jou said.
Bye, Jou. Is what Seto thought to say, but he found more comfort in stepping out of the light rail and into the rain without a word. He was certain that if he looked back, Jou would be giving him the expected look of disappointment.
He turned around and he saw the back of Jou’s head, his blond hair awkwardly pressed against the window.
“Oh.” Seto put the earbuds back in, and walked to his home.
He lived in a nice district, the houses were old and small, but they were cherished and close to every essential part of the city. No air conditioning, constant maintenance, a well-kept lawn and stupidly expensive prices. Seto’s home was no different, another cookie-cutter desirable house with maroon paint and off-white trim. There was no need and no room for him to have a car, the public transit did just fine and none of the houses had driveways. Instead, cars rudely stacked the street side parking for miles, suburb couples and visitors trying to find some place to put their vehicle before heading out to the well-renowned eateries and bars.
Seto thought to leave a note on the windshield of the car that parked in front of his front door. Something like, hello, please be mindful of the grass when you park, as it is not part of the street nor the sidewalk, and muddy tire marks are unpleasant to look at. Thank you, and have a nice day.
He thought of another note as he unlocked the front door. Hello, please never park here again. The bars aren’t that great, the food is overpriced, and only talked up for naive tourists to try to be part of the “experience” and blow all their money away. There is no “experience,” because tourists are the only ones who enjoy being here besides spoiled spouses and children. Most of us are too tired from work and all the food is the same, it tastes like the same unhealthy “healthy” shit, and, we aren’t really known for our famous oysters we are way too far from the ocean for that, God, pull out a map sometime.
The door shut behind him and he took off his shoes, one by one, and put them neatly on the shoe rack. He took off his coat, always the right sleeve first and then the left, hung it up.
“Living room lights, on.”
“Okay.”
The small house was suddenly bright with color. It was warm, but it was with life. Soft oranges and blues. Yellows. He stepped into the kitchen, opened the fridge. Containers neatly marked, sectioned off and dated. He pulled out some leftover pasta that was intentionally portioned as a meal for that night. He never saw himself as hasty or impatient, but watching the microwave count down numbers in bright LEDs was excruciating.
The container turned, only shifting slightly when the ceramic plate it turned on was slightly off center. He would fix that later, but now, damn it, fifteen seconds felt like they were mocking him. The food was done, eventually, thank God, and he grabbed the bowl and went upstairs. Quietly, he opened the door to his home office, which starkly contrasted from the softer atmospheres in the rest of his home.
Papers stacked, blueprints hung up, pencils and pens separated in different holders, an attempt at organization but it there was so much of everything that it all looked like clutter anyways. He set the food aside and logged into his home computer.
Though his physical office space was crammed with information and drawings, the computer was unmatched with its infinite files, programs, and projects that would be worthy of filling a mansion with just coding notes alone.
It was ready, it was finally ready.
Of course, he was in charge of creating a lot of OS programs at work, and had received plaque after plaque, raise after raise. But none of it mattered, none of it meant anything more than practice for right now . Even though everything had been ready for a few weeks, it was the finishing touches and the polish that had been completed earlier at work. That, and he put off completion because he was nervous. Many times, he considered booting the project early. But any, any possible error, glitch, or inconsistency would immediately pull him out of the immersion he wanted.
Seto inhaled one last deep breath, before pulling the last bit of work from his online server and installing it onto his home computer. It was barely anything, only a few minutes of waiting time. He eyed the leftovers. Sat up straight, and watched his computer cursor draw tiny circles around the program icon. Lost, until the pop-up window that he had written the message for himself, told him everything was installed and ready to run.
A tiny noise was heard, his phone vibrating in his bag. He reached over and looked at the displayed message.
“Hey. Jou said he saw you on the train today.”
Seto unlocked his phone and exited from the messaging app, opened the mobile application he designed to work with this project.
Waiting for response from home application… is what it said.
So, he turned to the computer and opened it, and finally pressed the launch button.
Everything went exactly as he expected. Seto leaned forward, watched as the golden circle spun in the new pop-up window. He reached in his bag, pulled out one of the earbuds, and waited until the noise he programmed to be the signifier of completion played.
The circle went away, and in its place, was nothing.
It worked, Seto thought. It worked.
“Hello?” A voice, his voice, God that familiar sound flooded into his ear and destroyed every part of him that was coherent. And for the first time, Seto thought he might have done a terrible, terrible thing.