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It's hauntingly picturesque, the way that the snow piles along the sidewalk and glistens under the streetlights, veiled by the fuzz of condensation on the window Keito leans against. The cafe is warm, the beer in his stomach warmer, and the tickling of laughter and coffee pots hissing does nothing to snap him to alertness. Instead, he takes another swig of beer and accepts his fate prematurely.
Eichi won't come. He'd been stupid to even invite him. What self-respecting agent in his right mind would rendezvous with a yakuza at a quaint little cafe like this?
Keito lets his drunken subconscious think for him, and evades the stab of guilt that would come with letting his mind wander to his past mistakes and betrayals. He hardly registers the waiter refilling his empty mug, and when he finally tears his gaze from the window, the sight of blonde hair and blue eyes is a complete surprise.
"You're drunk," his companion sighs, tucking his thick woolen scarf under his chin. His lips are pink and chapped from the biting winter breeze; Keito wants to kiss them. Perhaps, in a world where he and Eichi weren't predestined to be each other's end, he would.
"I didn't think you'd come."
"I probably shouldn't have, but I'm here now." He shakes his head. "Well, cheers."
Reaching across the table, he plucks up Keito's glass to take a sip. He takes three slow, experimental gulps before his grip on the mug weakens and he pushes it back to Keito in silence.
“Ah,” Keito says, the muddled mess of his head dancing with some mix between adoration and endearment. “You’re still a lightweight.”
“And you’re drunk.” There’s a curious look in his eyes; Keito never drank around him before. “I didn’t come here just to get made fun of by you of all people.”
“You’re still impatient, too.”
Eichi frowns silently, just for a moment, before his token customer-service smile overtakes his features once more. “It hasn’t been that long since we last saw each other.”
He’s right, it hasn’t, but Keito can’t bring himself to agree. That last time he saw Eichi, there was knife poised at his throat and blood dripping down his chin. Was that the same man who’d slept in Keito’s arms as peacefully as a kitten? How long has it been since he saw the Eichi who loved him?
Keito knows that it’s his fault, that he’s the one who cast that sweet thing aside, but there’s a bitterness to this reality nonetheless. It’s tragicomic, in a way, that he only realizes the depths of this affection after he’s ruined everything that he had. He’d been well-aware that he loved Eichi before he left, but he’d always assumed those feelings were temporary. Once Eichi was his enemy and not his fiance, all the time they’d spent together would be meaningless. He hadn’t expected to miss the warmth of a body against his in the morning and the comfort of a loved one to come home to after work. It never crossed his mind that he would still love him.
“I suppose.”
“Why did you call me here, anyway? If it’s you, then there’s surely an ulterior motive.” Just a few months ago, Eichi would’ve been content just spending time with Keito, purpose or none.
Shrugging, Keito says, “I’m curious how this empire you’ve built up has been faring in the new year.”
“The new year is not even a fortnight old yet.”
“You’ve always been proactive, haven’t you?”
Eichi’s brows knit together, and, perhaps unbeknownst to him, his cheek puffs slightly — Keito really hates how adorable he is even at this age. “You really do know everything about me, huh.”
“I grew up with you.”
The way Eichi bites his lip is telling, indeed.
“As did I with you, and yet I don’t know the first thing about you.”
“If there’s something you want to know, you’re welcome to ask.”
“Then…” Eichi’s gaze turns to the window. “...Why did you do this? Get close to me like this?”
“My parents wanted connections within the Tenshouin House.” Seconds after he says it, he curses himself. He can practically see Eichi’s mental checklist: Lies that Keito Told Me. He became my friend because he liked me as a person, not for my family, is first on the list.
“And in high school, when you did whatever I asked?”
“We were friends, weren’t we?” It’s an innocent enough answer, but he’s sure Eichi’s twisting it around in his head. We shared the same dream follows on his list.
“And why did you propose to me?”
Keito says nothing.
“Assets, then,” Eichi answers for him, and mentally inscribes That he loves me.
“Don’t you think I would’ve waited until we actually got married if that was the case?”
He lifts his hand to the table, and the golden band on his ring finger twinkle under the streetlights out the window. Eichi’s gloved hands clench.
“You…”
“The cafe will be closing soon. Shall we go?”
Eichi’s teeth remain gritted as he stands, and he doesn’t ask where they’re going. They walk in silence, watching their shadows extend out into the street. Their silhouettes look like lovers, enjoying a leisurely stroll side-by-side. Keito remembers the image well — they walked down this street on their first date, and many of the ones to follow. Will Eichi choose to kill him here? He has the means and motive, surely.
His hands, though, like are interlocked in front of him, and his eyes are trained at the ground. Like this, he looks like a renaissance painting, with the yellow light of the streetlamps casting shadows over that mourning lour of his, making his hair glow gold, back-lighting him like a halo. His fingers fill the familiar itch to draw, to let Eichi see the thousands of portraits imprinted in his mind. Eichi had always loved it when Keito called him his muse; would he turn his nose down to hear it now? Would he be disgusted if he knew that Keito still draws him, if he found the thousands of sketches where he is pictured, all at once dangerous and doll-like? Perhaps he’d laugh and call Keito a love-sick fool, as any man who still wears the ring of a called-off engagement must be. A certain part of Keito wishes he would.
Thusly, would Eichi acknowledge that he is still loved, even by those estranged from his dream? Could Keito wake up one day and find Eichi settled down, having realized his worth as a living human at last? Could he be the one to pull the mask of Tenshouin, the Emperor off and reveal the man hiding beneath, his accursedly precious Eichi?
Distantly, he hears the toll of bells, and stops to count them. Once his count reaches twelve, he produces a package from his breast pocket and extends it to Eichi.
“Happy birthday.”
Eichi accepts the package apprehensively, groping it with his fingers to inspect it. With a deep inhale, he tears wrapping paper away to find a folder, thick with papers that have crumpled with age. When he opens it, his eyes narrow.
He flips through the pages slowly, his wrists trembling. The folder crumples as Eichi’s fingers curl into fists, and when he looks up to glare at Keito, his eyes are livid. “Do you think this is a joke?”
In his hands he holds Keito’s treasure, a thirty page comic that he’d spent an entire summer on when he was in grade school. Keito had done all the legwork, with Eichi at his side every step of the way. It’s a story dear to their hearts, a simple tale of a little boy escape from a lonesome life in his small town with the help of his best friend. At the end, the two promise to keep walking side-by-side until the day they die.
“You told me… that I was the main character, didn’t you?”
How embarrassing it is that he’s right, with the proof of his seemingly ancient crush on Eichi held right there, in those pages where he’d poured everything that he loved about the boy into the hero.
“... And that I was your most precious person—”
He still is. He’s everything that Keito dreams of at night, he’s the little fantasy that makes Keito trip on his own toes when he’s distracted.
“—And that we shared the same dream—”
Can’t he see that they had? That those pages are the manifestation of every prayer Keito made for his health to improve, for him to taste that freedom that every other boy his age bathed in?
“—And that you wouldn’t leave me, ever.”
He knows, he knows painfully well. But he came back, Eichi can reach out and touch him and Keito won’t push him away.
“Do you know how much it hurts to know that all the promises the love of your life made were lies?”
…
… Aah, Keito’s really drunk.
Spurred on by the alcohol and the guilt and the ever present love for Eichi that he’s housed as long as he can remember, he pulls Eichi, who drops the comic in surprise, forward by his coat’s collar, and kisses him. In his stupor, he just barely misses his lips, meeting the corner of his mouth instead, but it’s cathartic all the same.
“When I said that I wanted to spend the rest of my life at your side, I wasn’t lying. I really did love you. I still do.”
He pulls back just in time to catch a glimpse of Eichi’s face, slack-jawed and cherry-red from a mix of anger, embarrassment, and the chilly air of the night. A moment later, Eichi’s fist collides with his jaw.
He groans from the pain and instinctively steps back, but finds himself caught in Eichi’s vice grip on his blazer.
“You idiot,” he cries, and then punches Keito again, tears now steadily falling down his cheeks. “Why are you always like this?” Another punch, this time accompanied with a kick at his shin. “I was trying to fall out of love with you!”
Then, with a sudden, pained whimper, he collapses against Keito’s chest, who staggers back and instinctively wraps his arms around him. Eichi’s tears are warm against his collar.
“If it were anyone else I wouldn’t care,” Eichi laments into his shirt. “But because it’s you, I…”
“I know.” His face falls into Eichi’s hair, breathing in a scent so painfully familiar to him. It’s the scent of home.
“Why did you have to say it? You know that no matter what transpires at night, we’ll be at each other’s throats in the morning.”
“But I’ll still be in love with you.”
“You’re a fool.”
“I suppose that is what you say to a man who kept the ring from a called-off engagement.”
Eichi’s laughter is a wheezing inhale. He pulls himself off of Keito’s chest and tugs the glove off of his left hand, throwing it down atop the comic. On the golden band on his ring finger, a chartreuse gemstone twinkles in the streetlamps’ light, the same color as Keito’s eyes.
Ah, he’s a fool as well.