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Hanazawa Teruki had always wanted closure.
But he never got it.
He wanted it when his dad left his mom when he was six years old. Teru doesn’t remember all of the details, just that he came home from elementary school one day and his mother was weeping as she poured the bottle of Chateau Latour she was saving for the next night’s dinner party down the drain. That’s all he remembered—small and unassuming, unsure of how to feel as he watched eleventy-hundred-thousand yen liquefy into the form of red wine and ugly tears.
In the weeks that followed, Teru’s mom tried to call his dad. Multiple times. He never picked up.
Teru wanted it when his older brother Yoshitsugu died. Teru was nine and was shuttled in and out of his hospital room a few times by his mother. He recalled being just tall enough to peek over the bed rails to see the white masking tape keeping the breathing tube in his mouth, the ragged wheeze of Yoshitsugu’s breathing peeling it at the edges. Teru remembers his eyes—magnificently blue, bloodshot, engorged, staring at nothing in the corners of the dim ceiling. Yoshitsugu was an honors student. Teru knew because that’s all his mother could talk about in the waiting room to the men in the surgical scrubs.
But when the hospice flurry was said and done and the wheezing stopped, there was no closure. Teru’s mom was in the room when Yoshitsugu died. Teru was not.
And most of all, Teru wanted it when he was thirteen and his mother sat him down over a glass of Barefoot rosé and told him your powers are too much and I can’t have an esper drying up the rest of my money and I’m sorry, Teruki, I love you. And then he was in a loft apartment in downtown Seasoning City, alone, boxes stacked and the cathedral ceiling mocking him in its engorged emptiness. His mother dutifully called him once per week or so to ensure he was still going to school regularly (he wasn’t), he was staying out of trouble (he wasn’t), he was using his powers wisely (he wasn’t), and that he had enough money (he did). That was it. One six-minute phone call per week (Teru knew because he timed it once). His bases were covered, he was thirteen with his own apartment—really, he should be rejoicing. No one to hover over him, to tell him what to do and when to do it, no one to tell him he couldn’t quell his teenage hormones with squealing girls on his living room couch.
But it wasn’t. Because Teru did and he never knew why. That’s all he wanted to know—why. He asked his mother once the week after he stared at Black Vinegar Mid and she hung up on him and didn’t call back for two weeks.
Hanazawa Teruki wanted closure.
He’d never get it.
Except when he didn’t want it.
Kageyama Shigeo was average, Teru had decided. Average voice (it was a little bit deep, but he was fourteen so it still cracked if he got nervous every once in a while), average face (he had a birthmark underneath his right ear and it was unseemly), average hairstyle (Teru thought the helmet cut was unflattering), average figure (short, slight, easy to take down in a fight), average teenage charisma (he stuttered around pretty girls, because of course he did, not everyone was as smooth as Teru). When he first met Kageyama-kun, Teru thought nothing of him. And when he claimed he was also an esper, Teru thought nothing of that, too.
But Kageyama Shigeo was average—until he wasn’t. He was average until he knocked the wind out of Teru’s chest. He was average until he sent Teru flying so far that Teru swore he could see through the infinite quadrants of space. He was average until he approached Teru, crackling with an aura of endless power, unfathomable in its scope and strength, and made Teru realize in a heady panic that Kageyama Shigeo was not average. Kageyama Shigeo was in fact so extraordinary that he could kill Teru, and Teru knew that Kageyama-kun knew it himself.
Yet he didn’t. Kageyama-kun apologized and offered to shake his hand. He’d smiled at Teru as he closed his fingers around Teru’s.
The skin in Teru’s palm tingled for weeks.
Teru’s world-class certified esper specialist therapist that was paid for by his mother told him he had an “insecure attachment style” once. The therapist had blamed it on his father’s disappearance, Yoshitsugu’s death, and his mother’s abandonment. “You have a fear of that,” the therapist had told him. “Abandonment.”
Teru hadn’t said anything. The therapist had a cleft palate and a patchy chinstrap beard. Teru was disinterested. He’d rolled his eyes and left the office at the end of fifty minutes assuming all the things a man with early onset male pattern baldness knew about abandonment. Dr. Chinstrap was wrong. Teru wasn’t afraid of abandonment—he was afraid not getting closure.
When Teru had told him that the next week, Dr. Chinstrap had blinked at him wordlessly. Teru noticed offhandedly that the diagnostic manual on his desk was stale. The window in his office, cracked open ever so slightly, shone on the flawless coats of dust bunnies on the dark leather cover. Teru knew that he’d thoroughly stumped the world-class specialized piece of shit.
When the office door closed behind him at the end of fifty minutes, Teru turned tail and left.
He didn’t go back. At least not for a while.
Kageyama Shigeo opened doors.
The first one he opened was into friendship, a sunny rivalry. As they grew up together and after their feud with Claw was over with, he and Teru would engage in friendly spars. Kageyama-kun never grimaced if Teru split open his skin, but always stopped to let Teru decompress if he did the same back. Kageyama-kun seemed to have a neverending supply of clean handkerchiefs that he used to wipe away the smudged dirt and blood on Teru’s cheeks. Afterwards, they went out for ice cream. Even though it was good and cold, Teru felt warm.
As the months blended together, however, Teru started to notice less about how he was feeling and more how the strawberry milk pop Kageyama-kun always ate during their post-fight outings pinkened his already soft, flushed lips. He started to notice when Kageyama-kun got a lopsided haircut from his mom and even more so how he’d stammer, flustered with embarrassment if Teru mentioned it. He started to notice how, when they were in the thick of their play-fights, if Kageyama-kun loomed too closely, his eyes were not brown but they were actually red (red, like the blood on his cheeks, like Chateau Latour, circling the drain--) and god, Teru was so lost. The careless mistakes he made became deliberate, just so he could feel Kageyama-kun’s hands on one of his cuts, skin separated obscenely by a teasing curtain of delicate lace.
One day, when they were on the cusp of fifteen, Kageyama-kun told him to keep the handkerchief. “You get hurt a lot too, I think you should use one,” he’d said to Teru, his voice warm and his soft red (red red) gaze kind. Teru excused himself from their usual ice cream ritual because the handkerchief was smoldering a hole in the breast pocket of his shirt and he had to get home before he caught on fire.
He’d fallen asleep on his couch that night with his face pressed in the handkerchief and his pants wet and ruined.
He woke up the next morning and realized he’d forgotten to lock his front door.
Kageyama Shigeo was stunning, Teru had decided. Stunning voice (deep and handsome, always light and airy, he made Teru want to listen to him speak for hours), stunning face (he had a birthmark underneath his right ear and it made Teru want to sink his teeth into him), stunning hairstyle (Teru thought the helmet cut was perfect for his heart-shaped face), stunning figure (strong, muscular, sculpted from so many months in the Body Improvement Club), stunning charisma (everybody loved him; he stuttered around pretty girls, because of course he did, but he never stuttered around Teru and Teru loved that about him). Teru thought everything of him, and more. He put Kageyama Shigeo on a pedestal and worshipped him every damn day.
In high school, Teru took a psychology class and learned about attachment theory. His teacher explained it much better than Dr. Chinstrap ever did. Teru learned from the lectures and perusing the slides at midnight on his laptop that he indeed had an insecure attachment style. “But no matter your style with others,” said his teacher, “every attachment ends in loss. And we grieve because of that.”
Made sense, Teru noted distantly as he replaced the lead in his mechanical pencil. His father had left. Yoshitsugu had died. His mother had abandoned him. Every attachment he’s ever had ended in loss.
Except Kayegama Shigeo. Kageyama-kun was a constant.
Teru was insecure. But Teru was secure in the fact that he would not be abandoned again.
He’d assumed Kageyama-kun would start dating when they got to high school. After all, Teru still did, even if his booty call list was steadily dwindling as the months went on. He had to have something to keep him occupied from the fact that his mother was calling him more often (something about her liver and jaundice and I want to see you one more time and honestly Teru didn’t give a single fuck). Kageyama-kun, after all, was in Salt High halfway across Seasoning City and Teru didn’t want to bother him all the time. Kageyama-kun had his after school activities, and Teru had his after school activities.
But as the revolving door of sweet-smelling beasts alternated in and out of his apartment, Teru found himself dizzied and wanting to get the hell off the carousal. Eventually, the numbers he had registered on his speed dial began to die off until there were only two left—his landlord and Kageyama-kun.
Kageyama-kun was more responsive. Sometimes, when Teru was frustrated with a broken pipe or a blown ignition gasket on his stove, Kageyama-kun came over with a bottle of milk and a smile and all of Teru’s worries melted away. If Teru asked him why he wasn’t out on dates, Kageyama-kun simply said I have Shishou, Dimple, Ritsu, and you. Who else would I need?
Teru was overjoyed to be one of Kageyama-kun’s special four.
Until he woke up one day and checked his Facebook feed and found out that now he was one of Kageyama-kun’s special five.
He’d never met Tsubomi, but he hated her already.
Teru went to see Dr. Chinstrap the week that Kageyama-kun and Tsubomi went public with their relationship.
Dr. Chinstrap wasn’t in.
They dated for four years.
Four years of putting Kageyama-kun’s texts on mute. Four years of cheesy pictures on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter, four years of Teru rapidly scrolling by them and attempting to drown out the seething fire in his mind with blurs of cat videos. Four years of switching from lattes to Americanos at coffee shops because anything with milk reminded him of Kageyama-kun and he felt sick to his stomach every time he drank it. Four years of loneliness, an empty apartment housing an unframed high school diploma and college acceptance letters and the skeletons of comforting words from an esper that, in Teru’s eyes, no longer existed to him.
And four years Teru waited.
To Kayegama-kun’s credit, he tried. He sent him Facebook messages that went unread and frequent texts and calls that went unanswered for the most part. Kageyama-kun still sent him memes he’d found online about being an esper, Teru’s favorite shows, about fitness, but Teru scantly responded with more than an emoji or two. Eventually, once Teru was in college and he could use the excuse oh sorry, cramming for an exam, Kageyama-kun dropped off the face of the earth entirely.
At some point, Teru realized the door had closed. He wasn’t sure if Kageyama-kun went to university in the end. If he still worked for Reigen. If he and Tsubomi were still dating. He didn’t know it because he simply never bothered to look. Teru knew that he should have expected this all along—for yet another attachment to end in him wallowing in grief for a loss that was always meant to end abruptly.
The booty call list on Teru’s phone grew again when he was twenty.
And, one day, Teru saw an unlisted number enmeshed in the teeming call log. He picked up.
He got closure.
Just not the type he wanted.
Because Yoshitsugu was dead and his father, never divorced, was still missing, Teru was his mother’s next of kin. The responsibility of identifying her at the morgue was his. She was jaundiced, ghostly, an absolutely pallid yellow that made him want to retch. But the most important part was that she was dead and that chapter of Teru’s life had ended. He shuffled in organizing her body donation paperwork and calling an estate lawyer between classes. He worked on cleaning out her meager apartment on the weekends, sweeping a decade of dust and hair under her rugs and clearing out empty wine bottles from her cupboards.
One Saturday evening, while Teru was finishing cleaning out his mother’s place to sell, his phone rang. This time, it was not Seasoning City Hospital.
“Hey.” The voice on the other end, soft and comforting, made the hairs on the back of Teru’s neck stand on end. “Hanazawa-kun, I know we haven’t spoken in a while, but… I just heard from Ritsu.”
How did Ritsu know? Ritsu knew everything, Teru supposed. “Yeah.”
“I’m so, so sorry for your loss.” If nothing else, Kageyama-kun sounded genuine. “Are you doing okay? I wish I could do something to help you.”
Inside of Teru, four years of abandonment unraveled within him. Teru knew that the loss Kageyama-kun was talking about was his mother, not the fact that Teru’s attachment to him had crumbled like dust in the wind. Those three sentences Kageyama-kun spoke stabbed him from every angle, prongs and pangs of raw feeling. He wanted to say a million things—fuck you, you’re not really sorry and fuck you, I’m not okay, and fuck you, you can help me by fucking me—but the words died behind Teru’s teeth and the only sound that escaped from his lungs was a despondent sigh. He couldn’t start anywhere. Not now.
“I’m fine, Kageyama-kun,” Teru said. “Thanks for checking up on me.”
“Of course, Hanazawa-kun,” Kageyama-kun said. The kindness in his voice was apparent, even through the phone, and Hanazawa kun’s throat constricted and retched involuntarily. “Listen, I’ll be up there in a couple of weeks. To Matcha City, I mean. Let’s meet up for a drink. I’d love to catch up with you, be a shoulder for you if you need it.”
“Why are you coming here?” Ritsu didn’t go here. Or did he? Maybe that’s how he knew Teru had lost his mom. Teru didn’t know anything anymore.
“Oh, Tsubomi-chan goes to your university,” Kageyama-kun replied. “I’ll be up there to visit her. I won’t be with her all the time, th—”
Teru hung up.
He stood there and stared at his phone as it buzzed again seconds later, the dim called ID reading Kageyama Shigeo illuminating the turgid darkness in Teru’s mother’s apartment like a lighthouse in an inky storm. On the second ring, Teru tapped block number. He checked his text messages. The block had erased years of conversations between them. One long friendship, gone with the click of a button.
Teru groaned and tossed his phone on the counter, turning back to yet another kitchen cabinet full of empty bottles of liquor, yanking the recycling bin close to his thighs and returning to his previous task. He peeled the labels off each one, bitterly flicking them into the bin as he separated paper and glass. The letters on the labels became one and the same, Barefoot and Noble Vineyards and Barefoot, again, and Teru pretended not to notice how each torn sticker made him feel powerful.
As the bottles disappeared from the cabinet and the unoccupied space yawned into him, Teru reached to the very back and grabbed the last one, its label turned towards the wall and unreadable from where he was standing on his tip-toes. Teru noticed it was heavy—still full, he realized with surprise, amazed that his mother had left one untouched. He retracted the wine and turned it in his hands, squinting in the dark to read it.
Chateau Latour, 2006.
Teru didn’t know what his mother was saving it for. She only ever drank Chateau Latour at dinner parties where his father was present. And for good reason—this bottle alone was nearly ninety thousand yen. Ninety thousand yen, still corked, still over a decade old. Maybe Teru’s mother was waiting for his father to come back, he wondered. Maybe then she’d have a bottle ready for him to share. That was his mother—overprepared and underwhelming, always.
Teru was his mother’s next of kin. His father wasn’t coming back.
Teru didn’t hesitate to uncork the bottle and pour all ninety thousand yen down the kitchen drain.
Kageyama Shigeo was average, Teru had decided. Average voice (it was deep, but it wavered with implied emotion and the emotion made Teru queasy), average face (he had a birthmark underneath his right ear and even though it had faded, it was still unseemly), average hairstyle (Teru thought the helmet cut was unflattering), average figure (too buff, too muscular, he wasn’t Teru’s type at all), average charisma (he stuttered around pretty girls, because of course he did, and he stuttered around Teru and Teru hated him for it). When he first met Kageyama-kun, Teru thought nothing of him.
He still didn’t.
It was his mistake, putting Kageyama-kun on a pedestal, where Teru couldn’t touch him. It was his mistake, making Kageyama-kun above reproach. It was his mistake, thinking that he wouldn’t grieve Kageyama-kun’s loss because he would never leave.
Dr. Chinstrap was a terrible therapist. But he was right about something. Teru was afraid of abandonment.
But maybe, with time, he could learn not to be.
Teru left the apartment keys on the kitchen counter for the realtor, next to the wine-stained sink. He locked the door behind him.