Work Text:
Des années, des années ont passé
Je le sais, car je les ai comptées
Ca t'amuse, tu trouve ça charmant
Moi ca m'use, je brûle en dedans
Au détour d'une ruelle sans nom
Te voilà, une chance sur un million
One fine Saturday morning, the sun was shining and a gentle spring breeze was blowing, and Shion didn’t feel like shit for once. He decided to say fuck everything and just go on a nice bike ride.
It had been two years since Nezumi had left. Shion was so busy that he felt like he was practically running the town, but not in the sitting-on-a-throne and posing-for-pictures kind of way, but in the exhausting, mountains-of-paperwork and no-rest-for-the-wicked kind of way. Normally, Shion threw himself into his work on purpose, because it occupied his mind and hands and tired him out in every sense of the word.
But today… he almost felt like humming as he put his boots on and headed out the door, mountain of paperwork sitting forlornly on the desk behind him.
Shion retrieved his bicycle from the entranceway and hopped onto it happily, relishing the feeling of the unusually warm breeze ruffling his white hair as he took off pedaling down the street. He could smell the scent of early spring flowers in the air, though there were still small patches of snow on the ground.
It was early for a Saturday, and not many people were around. Shion wondered where he should go too. How delightful to wander wherever his feet wanted to take him. Should he go to his mother’s bakery? No, he went there all the time, and he felt like doing something different. Besides, he didn’t really feel like talking to anyone at the moment. He was out of practice at making small talk anyway.
It had been springtime when Nezumi had left him, and normally in the spring Shion felt worse instead of better. But he wasn’t going to question anything. He wasn’t going to think too hard. He was just going to take in the world around him, breathe deeply, and feel like he was alive again.
Turning out of the road he normally took to his mother’s bakery, Shion directed his bike towards the road out of town.
Soon he was cycling around the outskirts of town, on a badly-maintained road with more than a few bumps and potholes, which he did his best to avoid. What had remained of the wall after its destruction had been swiftly dismantled by people who wanted its stones for their own construction. Shion had a pretty clear view of the city until he found himself going through the edge of the woods.
Under the shadow of the trees, it was cooler, but Shion was quite warm from the effort of pedaling all the way there. He slowed his pace, listening to birds singing and turning his head to examine interesting things along the way, like sunlit leaves and a patch of purple flowers. He had passed a few people on the way into the forest, but now he was totally alone.
He turned a corner and almost ran into someone walking in the opposite direction to him.
“Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry!” Shion said, skidding to a stop and letting his bike fall to the ground in his haste to make sure the stranger was okay. The person turned towards him, and Shion felt all the blood rush to his head. Instantly, his stomach became a roiling kettle of cold, angry, clenching hands. Nezumi was standing in front of him, looking singularly unamused.
What are you doing here? What are you doing here?
Shion wondered dimly at the strength of his own physical reaction, when he should be utterly overjoyed to see Nezumi (which was all he’d ever wanted, really), but he knew that something here was wrong.
“My memory must be failing me, because I don’t remember you wanting to murder me, Shion. Or is that a new development?” Nezumi drawled, crossing his arms and raising one eyebrow in a perfect arch. Shion just stared at him. It took him a moment to realize that Nezumi was talking about the part where Shion had almost run him over.
“I – well – I didn’t mean to – sorry, I just –” Shion stuttered.
“I see that your vocabulary hasn’t improved since last I saw you,” Nezumi said dryly. His grey eyes glittered with mirth. Shion felt as though they were hypnotizing him, pulling him in, but draining all the strength from his body. You haven’t changed a bit, oh Nezumi. Oh, Nezumi.
“What – what are you doing here?”
A shadow passed over Nezumi’s face. “Just passing through,” he said airily.
I see, Shion thought. So you were going to sneak past me again. Why? What’s so important that you had to return to No. 6 but not even think of me?
“Nezumi, two years and elven months have passed,” Shion said despairingly, feeling as if he were about to pass out.
Nezumi blinked. “So?”
“And nine days…”
“You’re counting?” Nezumi’s eyes widened, then he smirked, almost to himself.
Shion nodded, swallowing a lump in his throat.
Nezumi sighed. For a moment, he looked as if he were about to relent. He tightened his hands on his own sleeves, shaking his head.
“You would,” he said.
They stood there staring at each other for a moment. Shion’s vision kept going blurry, whether from tears or from something else, he did not know. Blinking furiously, he clenched his fists. He had nothing left to say, nothing except words that would push Nezumi away even further. It had taken him two years, eleven months, and nine days to find some measure of peace, and in less than five minutes it had all crumbled away again. He felt his shoulders begin to shake, and couldn’t stop himself.
“Nezumi, I can’t do this anymore. It’s been so long. Did you expect me to forget? Because I haven’t. I’ve been trying so hard. I wanted to become stronger, but I haven’t, I’ve just fallen apart. I’m so sorry, Nezumi, I know I’m pathetic.” Fat tears were rolling down his cheeks, and he closed his eyes, not wanting to see the inevitable disgust and hatred on Nezumi’s face.
Dimly, he was aware of Nezumi breathing out rather loudly, but he didn’t want to see or hear anything more, didn’t want to be here any longer, didn’t want to know what he had been denying for so long – that Nezumi, although he might have come back to No. 6, was not coming back for him, and never would. He hugged his arms tightly over his aching chest, as if to hold in the contents of his ribs, but it was probably too late. He couldn’t feel his heart anymore, so no doubt it was simply gone.
Arms were wrapping around him, a hand was pulling his head towards someone else’s chest, and if he was not mistaken, lips were brushing against the top of his head. A familiar scent curled into his nose. The warmth, too, was familiar. Shion’s eyes flew open. Nezumi was holding him.
He didn’t know what was going on, he didn’t understand, he couldn’t comprehend, but this was just too much for him. Sobbing aloud now, bawling, Shion felt the world was spinning around him, but he was holding on to Nezumi for dear life with every single one of his senses. He should have stopped himself, he shouldn’t have clung so tightly, because Nezumi might disappear like a ghost at any moment, but Shion’s rational mind was gone. All he could do was cry.
As his tears began to slow, Nezumi said tentatively, “Shion?”
Shion nodded, still crying.
“Shion, you’re not pathetic, I am,” Nezumi said, his voice unsteady. Shion realized that Nezumi, too, had been crying, but silently. “I’m the one who should apologize for being weak. Please try to understand, I’m just not ready…” his voice trailed off. Shion looked up at him. A shard of ice had lodged itself inside his chest. He knew Nezumi was about to tell him that he had to leave again.
“Goddamnit,” Nezumi said through clenched teeth. “I can’t fucking stand for this. Stop it right now. You are never going to cry like this again.”
Shion thought, You’ll have to kill me if you want to stop that from happening. He had never cried like this for so long before, but he had cried like this after nightmares, cried himself to sleep, cried sometimes when the wind blew and he thought he heard Nezumi’s name. Looking away from Nezumi’s face, he buried himself in Nezumi’s front.
Nezumi stroked his hair, then gently detached Shion from his shirt.
“Get that bicycle of yours,” he said firmly. “We’re going home, wherever that is.”
Shion still did not comprehend. Blankly he did as Nezumi said, standing the bicycle upright against a tree. His legs felt weak and shaky. Nezumi took his hand again.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“Go? Go where?”
“Like I said, go home.” Shion stared dumbly. “Home, Shion. No. 6, I presume you’re still living there, yes?”
Had Nezumi just called No. 6 home? He must have misspoken.
That snapped Shion out of his daze.
“You’re – you’re not leaving?”
“No, not anymore,” Nezumi said grimly.
“So you’re staying?”
“That is the opposite of leaving, yes?”
Shion knew he shouldn’t press his luck. But he had to know. He couldn’t get his hopes up for nothing. “I mean… are you staying?” he said. The cold hands in his stomach squeezed.
“For my whole life? I think not,” Nezumi scoffed. The cold hands in Shion’s stomach punched upward, driving all the breath out of him.
“But… this time, you can come with me.”
Shion gasped. In a flash, the cold hands melted, sending warmth through his entire body. Feeling rushed back to his limbs, and his legs finally collapsed under him. He almost knocked the bicycle over, and Nezumi, who was still holding his hand, had to stoop suddenly to avoid falling flat on his face.
“Shion, you’re like a sack of potatoes,” he groaned.
“I’m sorry,” Shion said, but he wasn’t really.
“Yeah yeah,” Nezumi said, helping him stand up again. After taking the bicycle from him, Nezumi put his other arm around Shion’s waist to help him stand, and together they walked slowly back to town.
Nezumi, in your eyes, I have died again… but this time, I was also reborn.
Rien n'y fait, je n'ai pas oublié
Rien n'y fait, tu n'as pas changé
Rien n'y fait, dans tes yeux, je meurs encore une fois
Je meurs encore une fois