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If Kayama were still around, he wonders if she would have his head for letting it get this bad.
“…beer…had to be beer…that’s what was on the table….”
Shouta can hear the murmurs the closer he gets to the kitchen, his missing leg sorely being missed as he hobbles with his crutches towards the source of the alcoholic smell.
“Fuck! Disgusting!” Yamada shouts just as Shouta rounds the corner. Shouta watches as Yamada gags a few times to try and get the taste out of his mouth. “…definitely not beer…”
The kitchen resembles more of a chemical lab at this point, but for alcohol. Different bottles of who knows what Yamada bought are littered on all the counters, some half-filled and others completely gone. There are several glasses with various mixes strewn in front of Yamada, all of which look genuinely disgusting.
“Yamada…”
“AH!” Yamada nearly falls off the chair he’s perched on. “Dang it, Sho! Would you let a guy know before you walk in on him? You scared me, man!”
“I was calling.”
Yamada looks at him, then looks at his phone, and then looks back at him. “Sorry. I didn’t think you’d be up this late, considering you really need all the rest you can get,” his words are a bit slurred, but Shouta pretends not to notice. “Did you need me to do something? How did you even get over here with your leg like that?”
“Crutches.” Shouta sees no need to lie. “I just wanted to check up on you. I got worried when you weren’t there when I woke up.”
“Oh.” Yamada looks shamefully at the mess in the kitchen. “I’m fine. Thanks.”
Shouta isn’t blind (completely, he’s still got one good eye). He can see the red flush in Yamada’s cheeks and the way he looks like he’s heating up from the inside. “How much have you had tonight?”
“Come on, Aizawa…you know I’m a heavy weight drinker—”
“How much?” Shouta doesn’t let up.
Yamada looks down at the floor to avoid eye contact. “Lost count.” He looks around the mess. “You can try counting the empty bottles, if you want.”
Shouta sighs, but then moves to grab a chair and bring it next to Yamada. Not that he can by himself. He’s still trying to get used to his crutches and balancing his weight and the weight of the chair he’s dragging needs more focus than it previously did. Yamada ends up helping him.
“You really shouldn’t exert yourself, you know?” Yamada nags him, as if he’s in any position do to so. “The more you try to force yourself better, the more pain you’ll be in later.”
“What’s this?” Shouta pointedly ignores Yamada’s nagging and reaches for one of the ungodly mixes lying around. His hand is quickly smacked away.
“No. None for you Mr. Black-Out Drunk,” Yamada waves a finger in his face with an almost-smile to tease him. “Your still healing from all those injuries. What would the doctors say when they hear I let you get a hangover?”
“Probably the same thing they’ll say to me when I have to drag you in for alcohol poisoning,” Shouta doesn’t laugh, but the joke is implied.
“Very funny, Prince of Slumberland. Speaking of, shouldn’t you be there right now?”
“Shouldn’t you?” Shouta doesn’t miss the way Yamada is trying to distract him from the bigger problems. “What’s with the drinks?”
“Ha…well…I’m just…you know…um…taking mixology lessons?” Yamada’s voice wavers a bit, and his train of thought is all over the place.
“At 3am?”
“…yes?” Yamada looks at Shouta, as if trying to gage whether his lie was believable enough. It wasn’t, which is just a testament to how out of it Yamada is right now.
Shouta sighs for the second time tonight. “You’re thinking about Midnight.” It’s a statement more than a question.
Yamada has a shocked look on his face, as if Shouta just backhanded him. And truth be told, he might as well have. The hurt is still so fresh.
“I’m not thinking about Midnight. I’m thinking about Kayama.”
To the other faculty, they’d say she’s one and the same, but its different for them. Shouta knows that when Yamada says “Kayama,” he doesn’t mean the hero, or the teacher, or the co-worker. When he says “Kayama,” he means their friend of 15 years, the one who looked out for them when they lost their way, the one that got them the jobs they love so much.
The one that was unceremoniously killed just a few days ago.
The one who’s body was found alone and bloodied, by her students no less.
The one who Shouta can’t stop thinking about.
“I miss her too,” is all Shouta can say. Because there really wasn’t much else to it.
“Yeah…I’ll drink to that,” Yamada unenthusiastically waves one of the drinks in the air and then downs it in one go. “Bleh! Ugh…I already knew that wasn’t good. Why did I try it again?” He murmurs to himself.
Shouta looks at the different bottles emptied on the table. There were several different brands, and several different kinds. “What were you trying to make?”
Yamada hesitates to answer, searching his own head for just the right words. “You know how Kayama mixes—” he pauses then corrects himself. “Mixed.” A sigh, but then he continues. “You know how Kayama mixed drinks whenever we went out? She pretended like she could be bartender one day, when she retired…”
Shouta hates how he trialed off at that last thought, hates how she’s never going to get to retire and live that dream.
“Remember that night we went drinking? After Kamino? The entire faculty went,” Yamada picks up again, twirling a glass with an orange drink inside.
Shouta nods, even though he really doesn’t. He remembers Yamada and Kayama telling him about it the next day, telling him how he started talking to furniture, but he doesn’t actually remember that night. Its what happens when you’re Mr. Black-Out Drunk apparently?
He really wishes he wasn’t a black-out drunk though. There are so many moments he had with her that he might never be able to remember.
“That night, she mixed one of her worst yet. Made me black out for a little bit right after drinking it,” Yamada laughs, but its an empty laugh, void of any humor or fondness. “I thought I could try replicating it myself, but I…I can’t remember what she put it in. I…I c-can’t remember, Shouta.” A strong flow of tears leaks out of Yamada’s eyes.
Yamada touches his cheek and looks back at his now tear-wet hand with disgust. “Haha. Can’t remember the last time I cried like this either.” He pulls his glass to his face to catch a few teardrops, then mixes it in with the rest of horrendous mixture. “Bottoms up.”
“I really think you shouldn’t—” Shouta’s words are ignored as Yamada tips back the glass.
“Bleh!” He chokes. “Nope. Not that. Tears don’t seem to be the secret ingredient, wouldn’t ya know?” Yamada makes a noise and Shouta can’t decide if it’s a desperate laugh or an ugly sob.
It was time for this to end. Shouta gently grabs Yamada’s hand and pries the glass out of his grip. “You need to go back to bed, Yamada.”
“What if I never remember it, Shouta?”
“We can try again another time,” Shouta desperately tries to bargain with him.
“But what if I never remember it?” Yamada’s voice shakes and the tears don’t stop. “I mixed all our favorite drinks. I don’t know what I could have gotten wrong. What would she have put in it? What’s wrong with it, Shouta?”
“Yamada. Please. You’re drunk—”
“I just wanted to have it one more time. It wasn’t even that good. I just—I didn’t appreciate it enough the first time I had it. I just want to have it one last time.” Yamada rambles, but Shouta knows what he means.
He just wants to see her one last time.
Shouta closes the gap between them and pulls Hizashi in for a hug. “I know. I’m sorry. Me too.” He repeats over and over again as he rocks Hizashi in what he can only hope is a soothing pattern. And just like that, Hizashi falls apart in his arms.
Shouta doesn’t mind that Hizashi is soaking through his shirt in tears. He doesn’t mind that Hizashi can’t quite keep his sobs down. He doesn’t mind that Hizashi’s movements make it hard to keep his balance.
The only thought that runs through his mind is that he can’t do this to Hizashi again.
He can’t just disappear like he did the last time they lost a friend. Nemuri is gone, she’s not there to help them pick up the pieces anymore. Its only the two of them now. He can’t leave Hizashi behind again. Neither of them would survive that.
“I-I…I’m so-o s-sorry, Sho,” Hizashi speaks through sobs. “I’m…the one that’s supposed to…to be taking care of you. You lost a leg and an eye!”
“We lost Nemuri.”
That seems to hit a little too close for comfort, because Hizashi’s grip on him tightens and he takes a shaky breath. There will be better times to talk about Hizashi’s unhealthy coping mechanism. Right now, all Shouta feels like he has the right to do is be his shoulder to cry on.
“I miss her so much.”
“I know, Hizashi. I miss her too.” Shouta doesn’t see the use in hiding his tears anymore, so he lets himself cry too. He wonders what Kayama would have done in this situation, or even Shirakumo. He wonders, not for the first time in his life, if he had traded places with either of them, would it have been easier on the ones who he left behind?
He quickly shuts down that train of thought. He can’t be like that again. He can’t keep beating himself up about Kayama’s death like he did with Shirakumo’s.
She wouldn’t want that for him.
“Hey Hizashi?” Shouta shakes the other’s shoulder just a tad. “You can’t fall asleep here. I can’t help carry you back anymore. You have to carry yourself back.” He wishes he still could, that he could shoulder Hizashi and all this pain, but right now he’s not physically or emotionally capable of doing either.
Hizashi lifts himself out of the hug and wipes his eyes. “Right…right.” He looks even more out of it now. “Shit. I need to clean this up.”
“Just leave it for tomorrow.”
Hizashi looks reluctant to agree but eventually he nods. “Okay.” His voice is just barely a whisper, which for the Voice Hero says quite a lot about how he’s doing. “Can we try mixing again tomorrow?”
Shouta is desperate to get Hizashi to stop for now. “Sure,” he half-promises. He’ll probably be able to talk Hizashi out of this futile endeavor when he’s thinking a little more clearly. But at this point, whatever gets Hizashi to stop is good enough for him. “We can try making the drink again tomorrow.”
The smile Hizashi gives him borders on the line between gentle and heartbreaking. “Thanks Sho. Lets get back to Slumberland.” He gets out of his chair but barely makes it two steps before he’s tripping all over himself. “Ow,” he says as one of his elbows hit the counter.
Shouta sighs for a third time. The night just keeps getting longer. “I don’t think either of us have the energy to make it back to bed, so how about just the couch then?”
Hizashi gives him one last trying smile. “Sounds good.”
Between Shouta’s new crutches and Hizashi’s dizziness, it takes the two of them longer than it should to reach the couch that’s just outside the kitchen. Eventually they make it and literally collapse onto the cushions in exhaustion, leaning against each other for support.
“I’m gonna sleep now Shouta.” Hizashi yawns, still very much out of it.
“Okay. Goodnight.”
“You should sleep too.”
“I will. Goodnight.”
“Promise?”
“Yes. Goodnight.”
“Promise to still be here after?”
Shouta pauses. He wonders what’s going through Hizashi’s mind, if there’s any coherent thought to it at all. Maybe he’s thinking about all the friends they’ve lost to this line of work. Maybe he’s thinking about how Shouta disappeared off the face of the earth after Shirakumo died. Maybe he’s thinking about how Kayama was so quickly taken away from them. Or maybe, he just wants someone to be here with him.
Either way, Shouta doesn’t have time to ask. When he looks back at Hizashi, the man’s already fast asleep in the most uncomfortable position that will definitely be sore in the morning. Kayama would have laughed at that, but she’s not here, so he’ll have to do it for her.
Shouta huffs fondly. “I promise. I won’t leave you this time. I won’t disappear again.”