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“The heart dies a slow death, shedding each hope like leaves until one day there are none. No hopes. Nothing remains."
Chiyo Sakamoto
—
Love wasn’t supposed to hurt like this, Kiyoomi was pretty sure.
After all the romantic comedies he had caught his big sister watching over the years, he was almost positive that love was supposed to be open and free, like a breeze in the spring or a warm shirt fresh out of the laundry. Love was understanding, a kiss to your temple or a flower fitted behind your ear.
It was not supposed to be this. It was not supposed to be the torrid or the chill, it was supposed to be the halfway in between. Perfect, was what the movies had told him. Peppered kisses and handmade dinners and breathless laughter from the pit of your stomach.
A plan, for a cat and a home and a wedding, a ring tight around his finger and a hand in his own. A matching ring for that same hand and two keys. Kiyoomi knew well by now that sometimes plans don’t work. But love?
Love was not supposed to be this.
—
Kiyoomi doesn’t know how he got here.
Motoya’s house is fine, he supposes, all tall ceilings and carpeted floors and cookie crumbs in between the cracks in the couch. Kiyoomi can tell that none of the counters have been dusted in months, that the hummus in the fridge is far past its expiration date. There is an air about, knowledge that there are rooms that got no use, the water bill isn’t high, the vacuum hasn’t seen an outlet since it was purchased. The house is just a financial asset. Motoya didn’t live here, Kiyoomi knows, not really.
He remembers a car in his driveway, and a greeting, and silence. He remembers bits and pieces of the street lamps and sidewalks they passed, a few stray figures who found solace in 3 am walks and convenience stores. There was a highway, the click of the opening of a car door, and falling face first into a bed that smelled musty. Not like Kiyoomi, not like Atsumu, not even like Motoya. Just lonesome, empty promises. There was something that had come and gone, a filler chapter in a book after the climax.
Kiyoomi showers, stands under the water for a while, scrubs at his limbs until they are as red as the blood under his skin. Until the hair feels limp and carries nothing, until he is numb, almost, like each feeling is washed away with the flow of water, down the drain, into the sewers. Kiyoomi would rather be the water. Maybe dirt and dead skin aren’t the worst things that could happen.
He had forgotten to turn the fan on, he realizes, as he steps out, tastes it, knows it. The steam is thick. Kiyoomi wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference if it wasn’t for his mirror, coated in condensation, blurs his image until he’s made a cryptid known by every culture; heartbreak, fear that absorbs the best of them, cracks their bones and fills them with tar and sews them back together.
He finds pajamas. A blanket. Ice cream that will make his stomach hurt. Motoya questions him about his dead eyes and his hair, half-dried haphazardly, when he passes the living room couch and Kiyoomi chooses to leave it be. Kiyoomi will choose to leave everything be, under the covers of a bed that isn’t his own, while he weeps for the first time in years.
Kiyoomi doesn’t remember how he got here, but no matter the journey, this is the last place he wants to be.
—
Sakusa…
Heavy, heavy, heavy.
You left Susumu here. Do you want him?
A festival in the summer, a palm on his own, and the taste of takoyaki that came from lips, not toothpick. Kiyoomi wishes that he couldn’t taste it still. Kiyoomi wishes he couldn’t taste anything at all.
Keep him clean, is all Kiyoomi can respond with. He does not want to talk. He does not want to know what Atsumu will say.
Read, 3:27 am. A sigh of relief. The closet door creaks. Maybe, if Kiyoomi thinks hard enough, a real cryptid will come and kill him.
Atsumu types anyway, Can I keep him? For tonight?
Yes, Miya.
He leaves it. He turns his read receipts on. He does not want Atsumu to text back, does not want to see him, read his words, remember his face and his hands and his mouth and his patience. He does not want to think of the care he was shown, the judgment that never came, the work, the work that Atsumu chose to do. It was rotten, dealing with Kiyoomi. Atsumu hadn't cared. As long as it was him.
Sleep well. Do it for Motoya.
“Sure,” Kiyoomi says to his ceiling, as he breaks slowly, ankle by wrist by shoulder by knee, as the tar spills out and his emotions with it. The tears are salty from dehydration and Kiyoomi wants to scratch and tear and break his body to pieces until he is a pile of rubble stuck in the fibers of the carpet. Until he floats away, is no longer tied to this bed and this house and the relationship left behind, until the unknown stain on the blanket over his head is not a concern. “For Motoya.”
—
Because for each romantic comedy he’s ever seen, for each scene created by writer and director and actor and cameraman, Kiyoomi knows that the plotline is just a day job. A movie is just a representation of what people want, how they perceive the impossible. People create what they dream, and Kiyoomi dreams that night of darkness.
He remembers dates and breezes and warm shirts fresh out of the laundry. Kisses to his temple when Atsumu thought he was asleep, flowers fitted behind his ear, tangled in his hair.
He also remembers torrid and chill, yelling and screaming and stomping on tiles deep cleaned. It was never halfway in between, only extremes. Extreme hate, extreme love, maximums and minimums and the absence of a mean. Perfect, was what media had told him, but it was never that. There are peppered kisses from lips you know the curve of and handmade dinners made by hands that have traced your sides and breathless laughter from the very back of your throat, caused by a voice who says your name in a way that makes you sick to your stomach.
Because for all his ideas of what love was supposed to be, for the boy taken hostage by wonder that he still is, deep down, Kiyoomi knows that it wasn’t supposed to be this.