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Attachment is too complicated a thing to exist in a world as merciless and filthy as Akira’s. His world exists atop a hill carved off of the dead bodies he’d sent to Hell early, a small house facing the bruise colored sky, its walls lined with blood-stained banknotes. When he lives, he will add more bodies to the hill until it’s high enough that the roof of his house touches the belly of the sun. When he dies, he will be the body that pushes everything into her flames and ends it all.
He’ll never be attached to anyone for as long as he lives within the four walls of the slaughterhouse.
But once upon a time, in a small apartment with water stained ceilings, no bed and no light after sunset save for the moon’s smile through the window on nights when it didn’t rain, Akira was twenty years old and horribly, horribly in love. He slept on the left side of the mattress with his upper body covered by one half of a leather jacket, Kageyama taking up the space on the right side of the mattress and the other half of the leather jacket. Even on the nights when it rained and the moon no longer smiled, he had never been cold.
They’d be held together by Akira’s arm thrown over Kageyama’s waist and the tips of Kageyama’s leather-clad fingers grazing the gentle curve of Akira’s cheek. Two crescent moons connected by twin threads pulled from the very bones of time and space, two drops of light linked by red strings.
Attachment is too complicated a thing to exist in a world as merciless and filthy as Akira’s.
And yet —
— yet, in the nameless, dimly lit nightclub somewhere in Tokyo, the leather clad fingers that curl around the line of his wrist are still familiar to him like he’s seventeen years old and smiling into the wind. Over the bass heavy song that saturates the air with metal and ash, the voice that says, Kunimi , like the word is being punched out of his lungs paints the air between them the same shade of grey that the walls in their old apartment used to be.
Don’t turn, he tells himself, his blood turning to ice in his veins, hating how his heart still beats to the rhythm of a song he’d talked himself into forgetting a long time ago, go home, Akira .
He thinks of the smiling moon and he turns.
Kageyama looks at him with blue, blue eyes, the words of his blue, blue heart etched into the spaces between his eyelashes and the line of his mouth where it’s tugged into something between a smile and a grimace. He’s beautiful like he was when he was seventeen and using his sister’s Zippo lighter to warm his winter-cold hands on the bridge by their apartment, beautiful like he was when he said, but I’ll keep you warm, okay?
“Kunimi,” he says again, and Akira realizes that Kageyama is only wearing a glove on his right hand. He smiles, a bare quirk of his lips, and he’s so beautiful that it aches. “Talk about a coincidence.”
Attachment is too complicated a thing to exist in a world as merciless and filthy as Akira’s.
“Yeah,” Akira says. The leather of his glove hums when he curls his hand into a fist. “Yeah, I guess it is.”
...
The only thing Akira kept from the life he had is a black leather glove that’s just a little too big on his left hand. It’s weary with age and groans in protest when he pulls it over his fingers, and he fixes the seams on his own when they start to seem like they won’t hold the glove together any longer.
It’s his lucky glove. He’d worn it the night Iwaizumi-san had saved his life in the rundown bar somewhere in the seediest part of Roppongi, higher than a kite and swaying on his feet as he laughed and laughed at the flashing neon lights of the city and the night sky and the roar of the bus that would have flattened him if Iwaizumi-san hadn’t yanked him by the back of his worn out coat. He’d worn it when Hanamaki let him shoot for the first time and the bullet cut through the air and dug into the center of the dummy’s chest. It was the leather of the glove that had muffled the sound of death on his first job when he’d put his twenty three year old left hand over a screaming mouth and fixed his twenty three year old right hand over his gloved fingers until the grotesque crack of a neck breaking echoed through the dark room like the hiss of a malicious whip in the air.
Three drinks later, Kageyama puts his gloved hand on the counter, right next to Akira’s own, close enough but not quite touching, and he says, “You look happy.”
Akira wonders how many deaths his glove has seen, how many screams it has stifled on the brink of death, how many hands it has held since he handed the glove on his left hand to Akira and said, I know you get cold easily . Wonders how many triggers it has pulled, how many lips have felt the drag of its warmth before Kageyama kissed them, how many throats it has held, how many knives have glinted in its grip.
“I am,” Akira says, because it’s true. The slaughterhouse is better than whatever life he’d lived before. He has his own room and his own bed and his ceilings aren’t water stained. Kindaichi snores but it’s easy to tune him out. Akira still sleeps on the left side, his body bent like a crescent moon, one arm held out like he’s holding someone who isn’t there. He has money. He doesn’t talk to his mother anymore. “You look happy, too.”
There’s a strip of black lace around the column of Kageyama’s throat and a single, blood red ruby falls into the center of his collarbones. A part of Akira aches to replace it with his hand, to curl his fingers around his throat and press the underside of his thumb to the pulse point where Kageyama’s heart beats to a song only the two of them know the words to. Like he used to, when the two of them existed in the bubble of their old, one-roomed apartment and they’d lay with each other at night, two bodies twisted close enough to be considered one, sweat slicked and sex heavy, the fingers of one of his hands around Kageyama’s throat and the other holding himself up.
So pretty, he would say, and the fucked-out, hazy look in Kageyama’s eyes would make him smile a real smile. They would close the spaces between their bare bodies like black holes swallowing the stars, and the smiling moon would watch them kiss like they were hungry for blood.
Attachment is a horrible, horrible thing. It makes Akira want, even when he knows he shouldn’t.
You should move on, he’d told Kageyama all those years ago, with bruised, blotchy knuckles and eyes too tired for a man barely twenty, find someone else. Live well. Letting you go is the least I can do for you. You can’t fix me, so go. I won’t let you stay. Go.
Kunimi, a click of a stolen Zippo lighter, a scared, shaky breath that echoed like a rumble of thunder, I love you. I love you, so let me help.
The leather grits out a sigh when Kageyama curls his hand into a fist.
“I missed you,” Kageyama says.
“I know.” Akira says. He hates, hates, hates how easy it is to let go of all the pieces of his heart that he’s been carrying since the day he broke it himself by pushing Kageyama away, hates, hates, hates how easy it is to say, “I did, too.”
In winter, he wears a glove on his left hand that’s a touch too big for him. Sometimes, he dreams that he’d been better. He keeps the glove with him when it’s too hot to wear it. He aches in silence and thinks about how Kageyama used to hum at night in their shared apartment in the shadiest part of Tokyo. He still sleeps on the right side of his bed, one arm extended like he’s holding someone who’s no longer there.
“I don’t get to miss you,” Akira says again, and Kageyama looks at him like he’s the only person in the room, like the moon could break into a million equal parts and fall into the room they’re standing in and he still wouldn’t look away. “But I do. I missed you, and that’s the truth.”
...
( Kunimi, a click of a stolen Zippo lighter, a scared, shaky breath that echoed like a rumble of thunder, I love you. I love you, so let me help.
I don’t, a lie that tastes like the moonlight in their apartment, a lie that burns like he’s swallowed a mouthful of gasoline and licked a flame, I don’t love you. I never did. )
...
Maybe he should be scared of how easy it is.
Kageyama draws him in with fingers that burn like ice as they trail from his wrist to his biceps before settling there, until the tips of his shoes are touching Akira’s and he’s close enough to see the hole under Kageyama’s bottom lip where his piercing used to be. It’s dark in the parking lot, but Kageyama is like a part of a photograph he’s memorized. Clear. Brilliant. The ruby on his throat smiles brighter than the moon.
“You kept the glove,” Kageyama says. His fingers are like a cut of alabaster held against the night sky when he lifts Akira’s gloved hand into the air, white on black, ink on snow. In his blue, blue eyes, there is a touch of warmth, a touch of sadness and a touch of want, like he had never unlearned how to stop looking at Akira like he’s the only person in his line of sight.
“I did,” Akira says, and it’s him who bridges the gap between them and brushes his lips against the space between Kageyama’s, who pulls his hand away to hold the nape of his neck until they’re touching, touching, touching, the space between them taken away like black holes swallowing the stars. He shuts his eyes and inhales and the tips of his eyelashes touch Kageyama’s cheek, soft like a butterfly. “Kiss me, will you?”
It feels like they’re the moon and her reflection and held together by twin threads pulled from the bones of time and space.
Kageyama holds his jaw and kisses him like it’s the first time. Like it’s outside Sunday school after Bible study and he’s so scared that time has frozen for him but not for everyone else. He kisses him like it’s all the words he’s been terrified of saying, warm and tender. Like how he would after a cigarette on a lonely Monday morning, him on the railing of the bridge and Akira in front of him with his hands on his shoulders.
Their hands, the ones without the gloves, press together by the heels of their palms first until their fingers are linked. Akira’s hand is still smaller than Kageyama’s by a few inches. He smiles a real smile against the curve of Kageyama’s beautiful, beautiful mouth and holds their linked hands to his chest.
“You do get to miss me, Kunimi,” Kageyama says into the space where the shadows dip into his jaw. His voice is quiet, like the words are only meant to exist like this, in the spaces where they aren’t touching, meant only for Akira’s ears. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Kunimi, a click of a stolen Zippo lighter, a slow, hazy smile that lit up the water stained walls brighter than any LED ever could, stay with me.
A smile into his skin, precisely on the spot where an angel would have its wings, Where else would I go if I don’t stay with you, hm?
It’s Akira who kisses him the same way he had in those last few months, one hand around Kageyama’s throat over his lace choker and the other around his waist. He kisses him like he fights, hard and fast with all the words he never could say, noses bumping and teeth scraping, touching, touching, touching in all the ways that he hadn’t been able to do when he had the chance to be honest. Kageyama kisses him back and it’s like they’re back in their shitty apartment with the water stained ceilings, no bed and no light.
They close the spaces between their bodies like blackholes eating away at stars, and the smiling moon watches them kiss like they’re hungry for blood.
Attachment is too complicated a thing to exist in a world as merciless and filthy as Akira’s.
And yet —
— yet, Kageyama breaks away for air after a while and it’s Akira who holds him close and buries his face into the crook of his neck and chokes out, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” like it’s the only words he knows how to say anymore.
Kageyama holds him like they’re two drops of light held together by a red string, says, “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay,” and doesn’t let go.
...
(Snowfall, gentle and cold. The brush of leather against cotton where shoulders touch. A ring of a church bell in the distance. The hum of the wind in harmony.
Kageyama, a burst of mist from parted lips, hurried, shaking fingertips brushing the snow out of his bangs, walk faster, please. I’m cold.
Two pairs of footsteps turn into one. A swish of a coat in the cold winter wind. Kageyama?
Take my glove, a sound of protest, leather scrunching over long fingers, and the quiet huff of laughter. You need it more than I do, anyway. Almost eighteen and still so bad at dealing with the fucking cold. You’re such a baby sometimes.
An indignant huff. Says you! Are you just going to walk around with one glove now? I don’t think I need to tell you how stupid that looks.
It’s okay, his gloveless hand linking with Akira’s gloveless one, resumed footsteps in sync, I’ll just hold your hand.
A sharp, flustered inhale. You’re so stupid.
I know, a quiet, warm laugh and the sound of shoulders colliding, but I’ll keep you warm, okay? )