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“I saw that,” Juri let our scolding, but Taiga just dismissed his annoyed comment and put the water bottle to his lips to swallow the medicine.
“Taiga, for how long do you want to rely on those sleeping pills?”
“As long as it takes to get better,” Taiga complained before he packed his stuff, but of course Juri wouldn’t let him off that easily.
“Then at least let me drive you home.”
“No, thank you. I already asked for a taxi and I am not going home.”
“I can drop you off at Hokuto’s apartment as well. Please?”
Juri always tried so hard to look behind the façade Taiga had put on, but there was no chance Taiga would let that happen.
“I am fine, really,” Taiga lied to him, again. The same way that he always did. “Please don’t worry so much, okay? It’s only a bit too much stress with the recent schedule.”
“Our schedule isn’t a mess for half a year, but you are,” Juri said a bit more scolding this time, but it wasn’t like Taiga needed to apologize or feel sorry and he was indeed getting more and more irritated by the way Juri tried to find out more, while half a year ago he would still have had the energy to feel how he should feel about it, grateful!
“Well then we know there is nothing we can do,” Taiga replied and threw his bag over his shoulder and gave Juri an annoyed look when the other one wanted to keep arguing. “Just stop, it’s really not worth your time.”
Taiga marched out the door of the dressing room without looking back, but of course he could still hear Juri’s reply.
“You are always worth my time.”
***
And without any warning, things had collapsed between them once more. There wasn’t even any explanation for what was going wrong, maybe there wasn’t even anything to look for.
“Leave,” Hokuto hissed while walking through the room, picking up the pieces of the cup he had just smashed against the wall.
“I already took my sleeping pills a while ago,” Taiga said a bit worried, knowing that even if he tried to get home that it would be tough for him to actually make it.
“I said leave,” Hokuto said without even spending him any attention. Yet it was him who should sit next to Taiga at the kitchen table and listen to his worries and don’t get angry over them. Maybe though Taiga had put his hope into the wrong person. Was he asking too much, wasn’t he asking clear enough or maybe even too straight forward?
“Okay, sorry for making you angry,” Taiga let out defeated and got up, taking his bag from the cupboard in the hallway before he turned towards Hokuto once more.
This was the last smile he was faking for him. A silent promise to himself when he flashed Hokuto a smile he didn’t deserve.
A smile he faked for the sake of being with him, yet he couldn’t even fake it well enough for Hokuto to forgive him and let him stay, not that he had done something in the first place. But maybe his whole existence was already too much for Hokuto, maybe this was indeed the dead end Taiga had always been so afraid of.
On his way down the stairs Taiga could feel how his hands started slightly shaking. He should still be okay for some time, but the sleeping pills weren’t the problem. His mind was. It was whispering to him, telling him all the things he already knew, but he didn’t want to listen just yet.
With shaking hands he reached for his pocket, getting out the phone and pressing the short cut button to call Juri. He still needed to hold on and for that he needed someone to be annoying and overprotective and he was the best choice.
“Hello? Taiga?”
Because if he gave up the sacrifice would be, never knowing why he had played himself this way!
“Hey, would you mind picking me up and driving me home?”
“On my way, are you okay?”
“Yes, all good. Thank you,” Taiga lied again when he hang up the phone.
Why did he play himself this way?
When he reached the street he looked up at Hokuto’s window, but of course he didn’t hope for the other one to change his mind, to shout out for him to come back upstairs. Those times were long gone. Now he saw his testing was pushing him away.
***
“Congratulations, you aren’t just late, you missed it,” Hokuto scolded Taiga who had dashed down the corridor to the studio, but hadn’t been able to make it in time.
“I am sorry.”
“That’s all you always are.”
Hokuto shoved him out of the way on his shoulder before Juri walked up to him while the other group members followed after Hokuto.
“Don’t mind him. But you better not enter the dressing room later, the others are also a bit angry,” Juri explained.
“They have all right to be, I am angry at myself,” Taiga let out, but he bit his lip immediately when he realized the change on Juri’s face. As so often he had already said too much.
This time Juri wouldn’t let it pass this easily and he took Taiga by the wrist and pulled him towards another corridor off the set.
“Taiga I have enough of all your excuses and then finding excuses for your excuses. Can’t you just tell me what is going on? Don’t you trust me?”
“I think I had just overdone it with the sleeping pills I don’t know, maybe I was more exhausted than usually, so I overslept.”
Juri waved his hands to shut Taiga up and shook his head. “You know that I don’t mean today, not to forget that I don’t believe you. There is no way you are not aware of what is going on with yourself.”
Taiga couldn’t deny that, but he was also too tired to even start talking about this topic. After all he had tried and he hadn’t been listened to, so why should he waste the energy again.
“Why won’t you talk to me?”
“I tried,” Taiga said, on which Juri tilted his head.
“When? Because I can’t recall that.”
“I don’t mean to you,” Taiga let out in a lower voice which just resulted in Juri feeling more alarmed and reaching out for the other one’s shoulder.
“Then why don’t you talk to me when whoever you talked to won’t listen?”
Was it even worth the effort? Worth getting ignored again or even worse, getting another person not understanding him, denying him the right of feeling what he did?
“There is no need to talk,” Taiga tried to convince the other one, but as so often Juri didn’t believe him.
“Then what would happen if I walked into the dressing room now and confronted Hokuto with your destructive state of mind?”
A moment of panic made Taiga unable to reply, because the last he wanted was to give Hokuto even more reasons to be angry at him. There was no guarantee for what he was going to do if he lost his last lifeline.
“There would be nothing happening.”
On Hokuto’s voice both of them turned around to the corridor where Hokuto looked at them with crossed arms and an annoyed look. “At least not anymore, because now I have the feeling I get what is going on with you recently.”
“What?” Taiga asked confused before he looked up at Juri and then it clicked. “No, there is nothing going on between us.”
After all this time of not being there when he needed him Hokuto was showing up at the one moment he didn’t want him to so he could for once reach out to someone else.
“Hokuto, that accusation is ridiculous and you know that,” Juri let out as well.
“Then you won’t mind leaving now,” Hokuto let out with a dangerous undertone and Juri looked back at Taiga with a worried look, but once more Taiga faked a smile, lying him straight in the face as so often.
“It’s okay. You can leave, sorry for the trouble.”
It was clear how much Juri didn’t want to leave, but he also didn’t want to risk a fight between them so he left the corridor with a worried look back at the two he left behind.
When Hokuto turned back to Taiga it was clear that again he would blame Taiga, for everything! He wouldn’t even listen, nor would he even try to look and that moment his lifeline slipped out of his hands. The voice in his mind stopped whispering, but started yelling instead!
“This is the last time,” Taiga let out confident on which Hokuto raised an eyebrow.
“Last time for what?”
“Me taking the blame for the sake of being with you.”
“Excuse me,” Hokuto said half angry and half laughing. “It’s not like I force you to stay with me and to be honest I had my doubts about you and Juri for a while already.”
“That is because you are deaf and blind and he is not,” Taiga hissed back at him. His own words feeling like poison taking over his mind.
“Oh so now it is my fault?” Hokuto said as ignorant as always.
“I tried to do everything you wanted to! Tried to be there for you, just to be turned into a person who cannot be trusted,” Taiga replied, making a step towards the other one. “It is not always about you, but the few times I wanted it to be about me, when I needed it to be about me, all you could see and hear were complaints.”
“So what, do you want to put an end to our miserable relationship then? I won’t stop you.”
Taiga couldn’t hide a chuckle on Hokuto’s ongoing ignorance towards the real problem. He hadn’t heard his silent begging, his desperate screaming within when he needed him to, there was no way he was going to reach out for the wrong person ever again.
“Everything has to end,” Taiga let out in a lower voice this time, his eyes slowly starting burning, but there were no tears falling. Instead he formed a shaking smile, a real one for once, even though it was out of the wrong reasons.
“You will soon find out that we’re out of time, all you can do now is watch.”
Without any hesitation Taiga pushed the other one out of his way and made his way down the corridor with determined steps.
“Watching you walk away from me or from yourself?” Hokuto yelled after him, but Taiga wouldn’t stop. He had stopped and listened so often, but now the voice in his head was louder than Hokuto’s had ever been. Instead of pulling him back all he always did was pushing him further away. This time he had pushed him too far!
***
Everything was meant to fall apart, even the people who never frown would eventually break down and seeing Juri cry like this while he desperately tried to somehow call an ambulance and find out what exactly had brought Taiga into this messed up situation made it clear that his sacrifice of hiding in a lie was never knowing why he had focused so much on the person pushing him away instead of turning to the person who had stretched out his hand towards him the whole time.
“Why are you here?” Taiga asked, trying hard to not let the voice in his head disturb his final moments in which he got the chance to talk to someone who had realized his struggling.
“I listened, that’s why I am here, you freaking idiot and now tell me what you took,” Juri let out between furious and an immense breakdown while he searched through Taiga’s living room.
“I had turned deaf after I had been talking against a wall for so long, I should have heard you sooner,” Taiga let out self-mocking and when he closed his eyes for a moment he found Juri right next to him when he opened them again.
Why was he so happy about all the worry, all the fear? Had he been the blind one after all? Had he not reached out far enough? Why had he let himself get pushed away further and further instead of walking away and finding his voice again?
“I should have shouted at you louder then,” Juri replied, his voice so shaky that it was hard to understand him.
“This is my sacrifice of hiding in a lie,” Taiga whispered, but he wasn’t sad. For the first time since he had started falling in this pitch black hole he was feeling happy. About someone listening and staying at his side without silencing him and pushing his worries and fears under the carpet for their own convenience.
“Then pay for your lies with making them up to me,” Juri begged, searching for the other one’s hand and holding it tightly up against his lips, placing a short kiss on the pale and cold skin.
“Why do you want me to stay after everything I’ve done?”
“Because I need you to tell me why you never walked away!”