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A tall, well dressed man glided through the various banquet tables in the function room, passing the tall flower bouquets set in the centre of each.
Every so often, he would see a friendly acquaintance and stop by their seat to talk to them, sharing their laughter, his effortlessly tousled hair showcased under the lights as he threw his head back.
Yanagita.
Ichimatsu observed him from the safety of their table where they sat for the wedding party. The Matsuno brothers had been invited as former classmates to the happy couple, and perhaps in acknowledgment of their boisterous behaviour at other weddings, they sat alone in a table set for six. They also were placed right beside the toilets which Todomatsu couldn’t help but snidely comment on but Jyushimatsu was pretty pleased at the convenience of it.
Ichimatsu didn’t particularly mind nor care. He wouldn’t have even bothered to have come - or rather he would have put up a bigger fight against Choromatsu - if it wasn’t for the fact it was just the sextuplets at their table. There was no need to engage with former classmates or acknowledge their presence and vastly more successful lives. After their disastrous reunion, Ichimatsu was grateful for that. Choromatsu said something about all of them posing for photograph with the happy couple later on. Ichimatsu would plan his bathroom break for then.
Still, his heart had quickened at the thought of the guest list when Osomatsu had first told the others about the invitation. Being the wedding of a former classmate, Ichimatsu anticipated that he would be there with a slight nervous excitement. Not that he would go up and say hello or anything. Just that he’d be present, there.
The starters had been served, but Ichimatsu only picked at his dish, still observing as his old friend slid between the tables, making his way across the room. He quietly admired - though he would never say that - him in his sophisticated tuxedo, noting he had grew into a sense of style since their high school days.
As he noticed Yanagita was making his way nearer to where the sextuplets were sitting, presumably to the bathrooms, he quickly swerved his head towards back to the table to his brothers’ idle babble between bites. His face felt a little hot, and he took a sip of wine from his glass. It’s not as if Yanagita would actually come over to them, he reassured himself, at the abyss table of the yearbook’s biggest losers.
No one had stopped by to greet them so far so all was okay. He probably was only going to the toilet. He wouldn’t stop by or even notice them.
His brothers had started to discuss their least favourite gifts received as guests at weddings and ideal congratulatory gift amounts, Osomatsu throwing out some absurdly high suggestions for his. They all reminded each other they’d need to actually find someone first, chuckling together. Well, Jyushimatsu is currently doing the best out of us, Karamatsu told the table. Ichimatsu said “yeah” along with the others without much thought. He tried not to look at anywhere but his own plate or at his brothers.
He suddenly felt a hand firmly grasp his limp shoulder, and the fumes of a beechwood cologne wafted into his nostrils. His empty plate blurred before him as he felt his face predictably glow scarlet. He didn’t know if his brothers could see how red he was becoming, overwhelmed by the heat of his own cheeks. His eyes couldn’t focus on anyone else, his brothers tenuous wisps in his line of vision.
His heart beat was so hard.
In those snap seconds before he heard a voice, he cursed himself for getting in such a bother over nothing. No one. This wasn’t - it isn’t - it couldn’t be -
“Ichi! I had been looking you for you, you know.”
-Him.
Ichimatsu inhaled in a sharp, staggered way, praying that somehow, somehow, somehow, his breathing wasn’t so loud to be noticeable. He knew the plate in front of him and the smidge of sauce left from where Jyushimatsu grabbed his canapé had simply no answers, nothing to give him. There was just no point in looking at it.
Vaguely he could feel Choromatsu’s knee nudge into his own like a school boy muttering to his neighbour the answer to the teacher’s question. He knew he would have to glance up, and face his fantasy in the flesh.
He steeled himself to turn his head the appropriate angle, to tilt his chin up, to focus his shifting gaze desperate to flee, and look at him. To take all of him in one single swoop.
Climbing barren tall trees in search of a stray that had wandered too high was so so so much easier than this - ordeal he had put his entire body under.
The first thing he noticed up close was his smile drawn so smoothly on his lips, a smile that melted him down to a simmering nothingness on the rented banquet chair. Then his effortlessly elegant tuxedo with a waistcoat underneath and the lapels - Ichimatsu didn’t keep abreast with men’s fashion but he garnered a few terms from Karamatsu’s monthly magazines that he looked at ... for ironic purposes only of course - attenuated his effortless eloquence. Up to his tousled honey brunette hair, with sculpted waves along the fringe. Finally, and where Ichimatsu’s breath thinned, was the sight of his intense gaze, that Ichimatsu felt so willing to be consumed in.
“H - h - uh - hmm - hey.” Ichimatsu crumbled out a greeting like a dry cough, cursing himself for not being suave and smooth, cursing himself doubly for being the way he was aged eighteen that made this man think he was anything but unapproachable.
All the brothers acknowledged Yanagita’s presence and nodded, to which he responded with the same.
Yanagita’s beam became even brighter, if feasible, and Ichimatsu wondered if he would be erased entirely under its rays. Why is he smiling so hard, he thought to himself under the onslaught of his own heart beat, what the hell is up with him, why is he so happy.
Does he just enjoy watching a pathetic loser sweat out a simple hello? To struggle in societal inferiority before him in an unglamorous suit his mother bought him?
“How are you? I didn’t know if you were coming,” Yanagida told him, the words running down like a stream, “but some of the guys said they saw you and your brothers here. Nice that you have the table to yourselves!”
“Mm - “ Ichimatsu briefly considered a less monotone response, but he had no desire to reprise his secondary school role and any conversational piece died in throat, “mmm.”
Maybe there was a fine line, between that regrettable nightmare of him in his uniform and wearing that pained grin, and him now, bound in a deep scowl, afraid of his heart being touched. Maybe he could dip his toes in the waters of soft, meaningless small talk.
Possibly Yanagita would leave now that the conversation has completely dried up, he would give up on him. That would be some kind of relief. It would also, and Ichimatsu didn’t want to admit it, come with the familiar dull pang of disappointment.
He preserved though, and Ichimatsu didn’t really know why. Maybe it was the same obliviousness that made him feel comfortable enough to call him that wretched nickname he thought he had buried ten feet under the ground.
“... though they put you guys by the toilets. That is handy though! And did you see the groom? Hahaha, he’s so grown up now... oh yeah, how’d you guys get here?”
Ichimatsu felt that Yanagita was desperately inserting questions so the conservation would have to drag on by an answer that couldn’t be closed off and he supposed, he half appreciated it. Before he could drag out a noncommittal answer, Osomatsu who was in the same class as the two in their final year barged into the conservation.
“We got the train! We’re down by Akatsuka Ward still. Y’know our house right - I think you came over before?” he told him, his grin wide.
Even though Ichimatsu was only going to leak out another faltering answer, he was a little miffed at being beaten to the draw like that by Osomatsu. He wondered was part of it his oldest brother trying to rescue him from the slow conservation.
Yanagita glanced over at the eldest brother, having not noticed him before, and Ichimatsu could tell by his furrowed brows he was trying to calculate which one he was. It was “Ichi”, the little brother who’d tag along to karaoke sometimes, and the brother in their class.
“Osomatsu.” Yanagita said aloud as if he was parsing out whether he was right. Taking the lack of response to mean he was correct, he continued, “Yeah I think I was! Though, like, a long long time ago, Ichi,” his eyes darting back to Ichimatsu in a way that burned his cheeks, “invited me over once I think... I remember there being a lot of stray cats around...?”
“Yes,” Ichimatsu blurted out, leading to Jyushimatsu and Todomatsu exchanging looks beside him. He squirmed in embarrassment, cursing his quick excitement over any mention or reference to cats. It felt pathetic, really. He slyly glanced over to his brothers disdainfully - what were they thinking about - and they broke eye contact quickly, both looking away from him. He cleared his throat. “Uh - yeah... yeah.”
Yanagita smiled at the small sliver of conservation offered before him. “I - like - liked them - but they never came over to me.” He shifted a little awkwardly on his foot from standing.
Ichimatsu felt a little sorry for him, thinking that the quiet man staring blankly at him would be the same as the ostensibly cheerful “Ichi” he knew in high school and grasping for some sound bite, some flow of conservation. Well, he’s not that high schooler - if he ever was.
He came here because he and his brothers were invited, and because he would be left alone with them, not having to deal with anyone. He was perfectly fine in acknowledging he was seen as a social failure so long as everyone else couldn’t comment on it in front of him - he found comfort in the company of his fellow societal rejects and brothers, people who didn’t take him conditionally. He could be all those things society displeased. He could just be.
This dragged out rigamarole had to end. He would disappoint a former classmate who would return to a life full of society’s riches and expectations, and his own fragile heart would hold on, in lament but also a relief of being intact. Being in love certainly, is so thrilling and Ichimatsu had felt that deeply, but so overwhelming and difficult too. It’s boring to let go of a potential connection, to let a seed never sprout, but boredom couldn’t break his heart.
Yanagita would give up now, he would find some excuse to go to the bathroom, that would be it. The next time Ichimatsu would hear from him, would be a lazy reference or recollection of their high school days from one of his brothers in their room. That would be all and all Ichimatsu would have to strain himself to do is to grunt in acknowledgement.
Curiously his heart ached at the thought. Pathetically clinging onto an infatuation and microwaving it a decade it a later to keep it warm - he felt like a complete reject. A failure, left only to scour what could have been.
Disappointment is the norm in his life and this matter would be no different. That was the consistent refrain, that he carried with empty cigarette packs and balled up tissues. Now Yanagita would exit his life, and he would tread on familiar ground again -
“Bathroom!” Jyushimatsu suddenly burst out shooting up from his chair. Ichimatsu raised his eyebrows as Jyushimatsu’s chair scraped back against the panelled floor. “Need to go - ah, Yanagita-san, right?” Jyushimatsu turned to the eloquently dressed man, and gestured with his hand, his suit sleeves not long enough to hide it, to the chair. “Feel free to sit down.”
Ichimatsu seethed beside him. Typical of his younger brother to meddle in his affairs like that. He grew scarlet at the thought he couldn’t keep his cards to his chest; Jyushimatsu had read his entire hand already.
So damn perceptive. This is like that time with the robots again.
None of the other brothers protested, Osomatsu indicating his approval by boisterously calling for him to sit down, Karamatsu and Choromatsu nodding politely and Totty with a shit eating grin plastered on his face.
“Oh - oh, are you sure?” Yanagita asked as Jyushimatsu got up and turned in the direction of the bathroom right behind him. Jyushimatsu gave him a nod, to which he thanked him, awkwardly dragging out the sentence until the second youngest reminded him of his name. He wiped his pants gingerly before occupying his seat.
He smiled a little sheepishly at Ichimatsu who looked at the suave, successful man before him, replacing the homely comfort of his fellow brother with the reminder of a flickering high school crush and his own many regrets. How the floor wouldn’t open and swallow him whole was so callous. Maybe it wasn’t accommodating of social rejects.
“We better introduce ourselves properly,” Osomatsu announced and each brother following from him chronologically introduced themselves. Yanagita nodded like someone who had already forgotten most of their names.
“So - “ Osomatsu was straight to the draw, as the forgotten former classmate Ichimatsu supposed he wanted to have some acknowledgment from the other man. That, and Osomatsu could never resist a - describing it would mean admitting it and Ichimatsu deplored that but - a sexy male voice, like Yanagita’s. “Did you have far to get here?”
The Matsuno brothers personally despised questions about work, jobs, family, anything that could be brutally calculated into some measure of social success. Hence they never asked their conservational partners these questions unless the flow of chatter naturally led to it, and this had the side effect of making their small talk rather stifled because society chooses these topics to run lazily through first.
“Oh I drove.” Yanagita answered and Ichimatsu knew all his fellow brothers had the same thought rush through automatically: he has a car. “Didn’t take too long... hmm, maybe thirty to forty minutes or so ... usually traffic here is kind of bad, but when I checked the app setting off, it wasn’t too bad on any of the routes, which is surprising you know?”
They nodded, though they didn’t know. “Oh yeah, right...” was as committed as they made it.
All the brothers technically could drive though their driving instructor adamantly told Jyushimatsu his was very much a paper license only and wasn’t too keen on seeing Osomatsu on the roads either. But none of them owned a car nor did they have the luxury of venturing somewhere in said car, following a navigational app. Totty had the app on his phone but he never had the experience of switching the time estimate from walking or public transport to by car.
Todomatsu had started to talk to him about car models, and his own experience with a particular brand, which made all the brothers raise their eyebrows. How good was he at bluffing? Since when did he know so much about cars and driving? They only ever rented vans or smaller models and usually Choromatsu was bullied into driving then.
“Oh, huh... I’ve heard of that model, you know...” Yanagita tapped his index finger on his lips pensively, “but where... hmm... oh wait! I think Atsushi-kun used to drive that model too...”
Of course, all the other Matsuno brothers mused in unison, as Todomatsu’s ears grew red but his poker face remained, it was Atsushi-kun...
“You live nearby?” Osomatsu asked him, taking a sip from his wine glass. He better not drink too much, Ichimatsu thought scornfully as there wasn’t much left in the bottle and they hadn’t even been served main course yet.
“Yeah not in Akatsuka Ward though I did look for apartments there. There just wasn’t anything there that suited me, really? You guys are so lucky with your house, and all.”
“Eh - it’s kind of old fashioned!” Todomatsu protested at that line.
“Ah there’s something kind of homely about it, I guess I like that style though.” Yanagita replied, his palm holding his chin. “I have a 2DK, it is quite modern... but I do like the more old-school style too.”
An apartment. A car. Yanagita thought he was engaging in the light bubbles of small talk, but the Matsuno brothers were running down a column of success indicators, routinely ticking them off.
Karamatsu lived with Chibita for a while a while back and he always marvelled about living independently in an apartment; Ichimatsu stayed overnight once at a couple’s apartment after he fainted in the middle of a shopping street but he barely remembered what the interior looked like. He liked the couple a lot, though.
The conservation meandered on, Karamatsu at one point eagerly asking Yanagita about where he bought his suit (like the Matsuno brothers could ever afford to get the same pair, especially in a set of six) and then started discussing fashion with him. After a few vague sentences tossed about which teachers used to catch him dozing off the most Osomatsu started telling him unprompted about his stealth sleeping strategies, his hand waving as he explained some of his highlights. Yanagita spoke with Todomatsu about the various mixers they had run into each other at and Atsushi’s skill at organising them.
Ichimatsu ironically as his closest companion at the table, spoke the least to him. However his shoulders softened and he leaned back in his chair as he listened to him talk to his brothers, observing the way his eyebrows would rise and his soft grin against his cheekbones, his hand conducting a little as he responded to them. It wasn’t like him to feel so at ease, but Yanagita fell into place gingerly without much disruption.
Jyushimatsu arrived back to the table around the same time as when the main course was beginning to be swerved, the waiters sweeping the floor. “Ah, I better go back to my table.” Yanagita got up, and thanked Jyushimatsu for the seat. Jyushimatsu nodded politely in return. “It was a pleasure talking to all of you.” Then turning to Ichimatsu he said, “See you later, Ichi.”
“See - see you.” Ichimatsu choked out. Yanagita gave a small wave with a flick of a wrist and sauntered away, back to his table with Uchikawa and Iwase.
Jyushimatsu sat back down, smiling somewhat smugly.
“You are so sly sometimes...” Ichimatsu hissed at him before they were served their dish.
“True.” Jyushimatsu responded, picking up his cutlery to eat.
The desserts were served. Ichimatsu had no real desire to have any of the wedding cake, much preferring if it were some simple castella, and he stared at the slumped slice on his plate apathetically.
“Going out for a smoke.” he announced to his brothers, pausing to wait if anyone would offer to join him.
Totty had leaned over to show Osomatsu a funny video he had found online, and both of their heads were hunched over his pink smartphone as they stifled their laughter. Karamatsu and Choromatsu were both taking bites from their slices and discussing something clandestinely. Since when did they become each other’s confidants? Ichimatsu glanced over at his remaining brother who was usually good for going along with him, but Jyushimatsu had already pulled Ichimatsu’s slice of cake beside him, having finished his own dessert.
Okay. Right.
Ichimatsu addressed his oldest brother who glanced up from Todomatsu’s phone. “Lighter,” he simply said, his palm outstretched. Osomatsu rummaged in his suit pocket and pulled out a crimson lighter that he had bought from the convenience store and thrusted it into his palm.
“Take good care of it,” Osomatsu told him, “and stay out of trouble, Ichimacchan.”
Ichimatsu snorted at that, as he pocketed the lighter, his packet of cigarettes in the other trouser pocket.
He glanced up for the sign to the smoking area then shuffled through, avoiding walking past tables stacked with judging faces. The turn out for this wedding was pretty huge, he thought to himself, and all fuckers from school. As long as Karamatsu doesn’t make the incredibly embarrassing and reckless decision to get up and dance, they should hopefully go home soon after they’ve all had their fill of cake. After all, they had no money for any drinks.
The smoking area was lined with bushes - artificial? Ichimatsu wasn’t sure - strewn with outdoor lights that were bright silver, shining prettily beside him as he took out his packet of cigarettes. It was a dark evening in April, not too cold which was nice but pleasantly cooler than the stuffy function room full of jabber.
A few metres away from him were Yanagita, Atsushi and Uchikawa chatting as the smoke from their cigarettes billowed into the air. Atsushi seemed to be holding an e-cigarette and Ichimatsu could already hear Totty’s voice breaking its falsetto facade to go on an useless rant in his natural range about how Atsushi fucking vapes, on top of all of his other crimes such as being attractive. Ichimatsu didn’t think he was fooling anyone.
Yanagita with his back turned, hadn’t seen him yet. Ichimatsu scowled and tutted to himself as he pulled out a thin long cigarette though he actually had seen that the men’s seats were vacant before leaving his own chair. Someone who didn’t know Ichimatsu well enough might think that he had planned to run into them in the smoking area.
However, those people didn’t know him. He wouldn’t do that. No. Not at all.
Uchikawa noticed him first, his eyebrows raising above his square rimmed glasses. Ever since the reunion, Uchikawa looked down the bridge of nose at those jobless siblings, but Ichimatsu smugly knew that one-on-one, his presence alone was foreboding and intimidating enough that he wouldn’t dare open his mouth. This intimidation seemed to carry through with the cigarette smoke as he saw Uchikawa nudge the others, and he and Atsushi put out their cigarettes to go back inside. Yanagita shook them off though with a wave.
Ichimatsu’s eyes slid over to make contact with theirs as they walked past him, the embers from the lighter glowing below his nose as he lit up his cigarette. They looked away, unnerved. “He is so different now,” he could hear Atsushi lowly hiss from the corner of his mouth to Uchikawa, “scary.”
As soon as they walked back inside, Yanagita sauntered over to him. “Ichi,” he said pleasantly to Ichimatsu who awkwardly nodded in return, “someone else who doesn’t vape!”
Ichimatsu wouldn’t have even know what vaping was if the AI twins hadn’t shown them theirs, and all the flavours. The strawberry scent wafting outside the convenience store as he walked with them choked his nostrils. He definitely couldn’t afford one.
Yanagita pulled out a cigarette, Ichimatsu noticing from the packet that it was a more expensive brand, the one he would see business people buying from the convenience store as he stood behind them, looking for the absolute cheapest one. “May I use your lighter?” he asked and Ichimatsu quizzically looked at him, for the fact that Yanagita hadn’t brought his own fancy lighter and would want to rely on Osomatsu’s shitty red lighter that took a few flicks to get a flame sometimes. He nodded expecting to place it in the palm of his hand but Yanagita’s cigarette was already between his teeth and he bent his head towards his hand, expecting him to light it for him.
Okay. We’re doing that. Right. Right...
“Thanks,” Yanagita mumbled as his cigarette was lit. He took a drag and blew out through his lips, the smoke tumbling into the evening sky. Ichimatsu took a puff next to him, not making eye contact. “I shouldn’t smoke.” Yanagita said, his brunette hair falling effortlessly by his ears as he blew out grey clouds.
Ichimatsu held the cigarette to his lips. He probably smoked the most regularly of his brothers, along with Osomatsu who would often join him on the roof to whittle long evenings away with tobacco. Choromatsu would tout statistics and the dangers of smoking, but he was also regular enough, particularly when he became nervous, then he let out more smoke than a chimney. Todomatsu and Karamatsu were social smokers, only smoking when a packet had been opened and the brothers were a few drinks in. In other words Ichimatsu ruefully thought, they were misers leeching off the packets he and Osomatsu would buy. Jyushimatsu was a very infrequent smoker, he didn’t like the smell.
“You feel so old right? When your classmates get married,” Yanagita continued, “seeing us all packed here... you can’t help but reminisce.”
They were at that age where wedding invitations from someone who sat with them in a classroom became more and more frequent; Ichimatsu wondered did they have to go through the rigamarole of reminiscing every single damn time they sat down in a function room?
“And on my drive here... I was thinking about high school. About you, I guess.” Yanagita told him, the cigarette dangling from his long fingers, a bracelet sliding down his wrist. Ichimatsu almost spluttered on his cigarette, the stench of tobacco clogging his nostrils.
Yanagita didn’t take this as an interruption, and continued. “We didn’t really get to talk at the reunion.”
That may have been because Ichimatsu was actively avoiding him.
“Anyways, I had seen how much you’d changed and I guess it was kinda shocking at first. I felt like - I didn’t know what happened to you after high school that you’d be the polar opposite to how you were. I honestly thought Osomatsu was you in the bar - until he spoke. Then I realised you were the really quiet guy.”
Ichimatsu remained silent, ash gently falling from his cigarette as he held it idly by his side.
“But,” Yanagita bit his lip before taking another puff, “I went home that night after a few drinks at the other bar. I didn’t stay long - I think you guys went home before me. Anyways, I couldn’t stop thinking about you - wondering what had happened. So I looked over my old album photos and an old camera from high school, I left in my drawers when I first moved into my flat.”
“I began to notice something ... I began to notice you, the you that you are now, I mean. The weary smiles, the slight tilt of your back, the look in your eyes, you slightly behind the guys in the camera. I began to wonder...”
Yanagita looked over at him, his liquid brown eyes penetrating.
“Did I ever know you? Were we ever really friends?”
Ichimatsu looked away from the pain of his gaze. He wanted to nothing more in that moment than to crumple up and cry.
“Still, though,” Yanagita said with a quiet kind of assurance, “I think we were friends. I won’t say I knew you like I should have, and I’m sorry you never felt like you could be fully yourself... I should have been a better friend.”
Ichimatsu hadn’t expected him to say that but it felt very relieving to hear those words, like his whole body had exhaled and let go of whatever had been gripping his heart.
He wanted to tell him when they were assigned that essay “my best friend” Ichimatsu had chosen him. He wrote about him on the desk in his bedroom, desperately glancing over to make sure Osomatsu and the others couldn’t see it, the paper smudged with eraser marks. He wanted to say he held no ill will towards him, and that while being friends, and hanging out all the time was so, so, so overwhelming, he still liked hanging out when he was able for it. He appreciated Yanagita’s grin and good humour, he still appreciated knowing someone outside of his insular worldview - though he wished he hadn’t destroyed so much of himself just to please others.
“Thanks.” was what he managed.
Yanagita grinned back at him. “I wondered well - could I call him my friend when he was so different? But you know, I remember in art class, when you drew that dog - Cerberus? Well, I didn’t know what that was. I just saw you draw a really really cool dog. You’re really good at drawing. And I remember I asked you what it was - because it was so cool - and you, just were so excited when you told me ... I feel, you may be a good actor,” he smirked, “but you’re not that good.”
Ichimatsu felt a small smile play on his lips but he tried not to show it. He knew he should throw the cigarette butt between his fingers in the bin by the door but he wasn’t inclined to move away from him.
“It’s a nice evening.” Ichimatsu said to him, “nice and not too crisp.”
He looked over to Yanagita who pulled out one of his fancy, expensive cigarettes and held it out in front of him. “Want one?” he asked Ichimatsu, a feeling of ease descending on them both.
Ichimatsu gazed down at his outstretched hand, briefly wondering what it would it be like to hold, whether it would be warm or cool, clammy or grubby, intimate or awkward. He nodded and took the cigarette from him, clicking Osomatsu’s lighter which wasn’t giving him any flame. He tutted and ran his thumb down the metal spark wheel a few times to no avail.
“Oh, here.” Yanagita gestured to hand him the lighter and he hamfistedly put it in his palm. Yanagita clicked it a few times and managed to ignite a flame. Part of Ichimatsu was tempted to repeat what Yanagita had done to him and put the cigarette between his teeth, letting him light it for him like that but he felt a little shy at the thought, and just held the cigarette out for Yanagita to light it awkwardly. “There’s always a trick with these lighters...” he told Ichimatsu who nodded quietly, putting the lit cigarette up to his lips.
They spoke for a while - his other brothers complained he was out there for ages and that, no, they hadn’t been spying on him, no, they just went out to come collect him - their snippets of conversation wafting in the air with the billowing smoke, evaporating into thin air. Ichimatsu gave short sentences, or a few syllables, but he felt so comfortable discussing just anything with the man beside him. It felt so nice to connect with someone else like this, without having to don the dreadful grin and persona of high school again. Yanagita was fairly easy to talk to, laid back and his sentences not overly constructed or calculated, and Ichimatsu felt he could talk as much - or as little - as he pleased.
After a while, Ichimatsu became aware of his own social exhaustion from talking, and also his brothers’ not so surreptitious presence by the spherically trimmed bay trees strewn in lights a few metres away from them. “I - “ his voice cracking into the night air, “I better go, um... get the train.”
Osomatsu had begun impatiently waving over at him, losing any pretence of secrecy.
“Oh? I mean ... I could give you a lift - though it’s only a five seater... but you could fit in - “ Yanagita shifted his weight to his other foot, looking over at him.
Ichimatsu flushed slightly at the implication that Yanagita wanted to drive just him home, even though it would be completely out of his way, but he was too exhausted from the emotional ordeal of the day to accept such a whirlwind offer.
“Um - “
“Come on, Ichimatsu!” Osomatsu called out. “Let’s go!”
Yanagita looked over to him and the four others by the bay trees, and formed a small o with his mouth then smiled softly. “Looks like they’re waiting for you. I won’t keep you.” he told Ichimatsu, who appreciated it. Ichimatsu turned in the direction of his brothers but Yanagita called out his name, his words like a spell bewitching him to stop in his tracks.
“Before you go though... um... could I get your landline? I’m sure I knew it once before, but I have forgotten it now.” Yanagita pulled out his smartphone, which looked a lot more sophisticated and shinier than Totty’s, though Ichimatsu didn’t know much about these things.
Ichimatsu felt a rush of happiness slosh through his body, waves crashing against the walls of his heart. He tried not to let it show, fighting a sloppy smile from his lips.
Yanagita handed his phone, and Ichimatsu having used Totty’s a fair few times, tapped the screen with his index finger to insert their household phone number. His finger hovered over the contact name line, writing out his full surname and first name, but then deleting that.
“Ichi” he typed onto the line.
“Haha, you type like my father,” Yanagita commented with a small chuckle, “with your index finger like that.” Ichimatsu had often been told the same by Totty whose thumb seamlessly glided over the digital screen of his phone.
“Um... see you around...” Ichimatsu mumbled as he began to turn towards his brothers who were impatiently leaning against the bay trees now.
“See you around, Ichimatsu.” Yanagita said to his already turned back.
Ichimatsu felt bizarrely content despite being quite emotionally drained, and he felt like he could sleep for twelve hours tonight.
“I can’t wait to see you again.”
Ichimatsu’s eyes widened as he heard that sentence from that baritone voice, low enough so that his other brothers couldn’t hear it. He stumbled and supplanted his face into the trimmed bay tree’s branches.
“Oh, brother?” Karamatsu asked, pulling him out of the tree by the collar of his suit jacket as the others unceremoniously giggled behind him. “Did you drink too much? Take it easy.”
“He’s drunk on something alright,” Todomatsu tittered with a sly look in his eyes, “but it’s not alcohol...” He nudged Jyushimatsu who chuckled knowingly.
“Shut up.” Ichimatsu snapped, not bothered to pull the bay leaves out of his hair.
The brothers began to bumble towards the train station, none of them really knowing the way, Todomatsu’s phone out of any internet range to check, discussing life, family, children and the future.
Finally, they made it home to their house, boisterously stumbling up the stairs and flipping on the futon before it was even fully rolled out.
His pyjama shirt halfway buttoned, he mumbled to Todomatsu - or whoever the hell was in earshot beside him at that point - before passing out,
“I think ... I have my next guest for my radio show.”