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Ichimatsu gets to your place before you do. Which is both surprising and not.
Either way, he’s a sight for sore, work-riddled eyes—which, really, is an understatement, because overtime on a Thursday night at a mostly thankless job is so much more than just “work.” If it were anyone else, even his oldest brother, you might have been put off. Or even ready to square up right there in the apartment complex. But there’s something understanding, even welcoming, about the shadows of him leaning back against the space next to your apartment door, with his hood drawn up and his hands in the pockets of his letterman jacket. He’s probably hiding a shiver, and he must be freezing in just his sandals, but it’s not worth teasing him about. He’s got an arsenal of scolding for all the times you’ve opted to drink iced coffee and refused to wear gloves—at the same time.
(Hey, it’s a small price to pay, but it’s worth every sip.)
It’s funny; you’ve known each other almost a year now, and when he looks up you still get this fluttery, clenching feeling in your stomach. His cheeks are flushed, but maybe it’s just the cold. You won’t chalk it up to any way you look, mostly because you think you must look as terrible as you feel. “Yikes,” is his only greeting; you would have preferred a hey, but you suppose this is on-brand, and it’s better than, you look awful.
You think maybe you want to collapse, or run to his arms. All you manage are slumped shoulders and a faint attempt at a playful scowl as you fish out your keys. “Did I keep you waiting long?”
“Nah.” He nods toward the streets below, dark except for the occasional spotlight of orange. “I was just taking care of the cats anyway.”
“You kind soul.” You mean it, though, in spite of the tease in your voice. Who else spends their allowance on food they can’t eat for cats they don’t own? He should get some kind of subsidy for this. Can he get some kind of subsidy for this? Aren’t there, like, official cat caretaker positions or something? “I still think you should take me with you sometime,” you tell him.
“And inspire you to become a dirty dumpster dweller?” Ichimatsu scoffs, perhaps protective of his charges. He follows you inside, shuffling out of his sandals. “I don’t think so.”
You roll your eyes. “Last I checked, you weren’t a dirty dumpster dweller either.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Are you?”
“Mentally, I am.”
Okay, you can appreciate a good meme reference. You did tell him once that lying on top of someone while scrolling social media was a love language all its own. But you don’t have the heart to do much more than heave a hollow laugh as you hang up your coat next to his. “Yeah, well, maybe I am, too. Mentally. Or maybe I’m the dumpster, I dunno.”
When you turn back to Ichimatsu, he’s not looking at you, and he’s shifting rather uncomfortably from foot to foot. It’s subtle, but you know his gestures well enough to notice it. Maybe he wants to disagree with you, but doesn’t think it’s worth the back-and-forth. Maybe he thinks it’d be hypocritical for him of all people to do so. Or maybe he just doesn’t think he’s the person you’d want to hear it from.
(He’s quite possibly one of the only people you’d want to hear it from, but telling him now isn’t worth the risk of him getting overwhelmed and turning tail. Maybe some other time. Maybe someday.)
“So,” he mumbles. “Shitty day, huh.”
“That’s a word for it.” It might be an underestimation. Now that you’ve stopped moving, all the soreness of the day is setting in; you have to hobble the rest of the way to the couch before you sink into it. “It was really nice of you to come over. I know you must’ve been busy.”
He hums short and low, as if to say he’s never busy and you should know that by now. Still, he shrugs and settles beside you, all but melting into the couch with his legs sprawled out and his hands back in his pockets. “I was just in the neighborhood,” he says.
Between the way he’s staring at the ceiling and the red in his face from earlier, you’re starting to think that he probably wasn’t.
The quiet between you lasts a little too long, but you’re not really sure how to fill it. You have to, somehow. It’s not for his sake—you’ve spent plenty of quiet, comfortable moments together—but because otherwise you’ll get lost in your own head, your own loneliness. On days like this, it’s the sort of thing that persists even when there’s company, though often it does you the courtesy of taking a back seat when there’s only one other person around. You’d rather not chance it.
All the same, you come up dry except for the overwhelming urge to vent. About work, rude subway passengers, the gut-twisting feelings of insecurity and inadequacy that flare up every once in a while and definitely flared up today. But venting isn’t fair to him, no matter how relentless your mood is. And keeping quiet isn’t fair to him either, and neither is crying in front of him, or lying to him about how you’re actually feeling, especially when he can already tell without you having to say anything, or—
Ichimatsu casually bumps his forehead against your shoulder, and for a blissful moment the spiral of your thoughts stutters, then stops altogether. “The livestream,” he says, a rumble that you feel more than hear. “With the rescue kittens. We should watch that.”
Numbly, you nod, a cracked “Okay” spilling out, and as you scramble for the remote he makes for the kitchen, only bothering to turn on the light above the stove. “What’re you doing?” you ask. You sound more desperate than you mean to, but as far as you’re concerned, you’ve given up pretty much every shred of dignity today as it is.
He comes back with a menu slotted between his fingers. “Pick something,” he says, jamming his hand in his pocket for a couple of bills. “You’re not gonna feel better if you don’t eat.”
It’s all you get out of him before he’s hugging his knees to his chest, absorbed in the kittens on your TV. They’re all piled on top of one another, nestling against their mother, an assortment of black and white and grey. One of them scampers off to be alone; a couple are napping; still others are kneading their mother for milk despite the late hour. He almost looks like he wants to get closer—like he’d crawl into the screen and let them learn to trust him if he could—and yet compromised. Hesitant to leave your side. It doesn’t live in his expression; it’s in the stiffness of his limbs, the way you catch him glancing between you and the TV out of the corner of your eye.
He chooses you.
And it shouldn’t get you teary-eyed while you’re punching your order into a delivery app, but it does. And it should make him fidgety, but it doesn’t. So you wipe your eyes with the cuff of your sleeve. And he gingerly rubs the top of your head. And when you start crying—all over the menu, no less—he doesn’t fuss. He only says, “There, there.” It wouldn’t sound as soothing coming from anyone else.
You don’t think you would choose anyone else.
Somewhere among the crying and sniffling, he hushes you and nudges you to lie down. Before you can ask any questions, he comes to rest on top of you, albeit haltingly. It doesn’t matter how often you’ve done this before; it feels new, uncertain, every time. One of you hesitates, or both. One of you thinks you shouldn’t, or both. One of you thinks you don’t deserve it…
One of you thinks you don’t deserve it.
Ichimatsu thinks you do. He doesn’t say so, but he thinks it, and he rests his head on your heart, and he doesn’t move. He doesn’t ask you about your day. He doesn’t entertain any of the thoughts he must know are there. He just watches the cats.
And so do you.
“Look at ‘em,” you murmur in spite of how your voice cracks. Vaguely, you nod toward the TV, focused on the trembling, too-quick rise and fall of their little bellies. “They’re trying so hard just to be alive.”
“Mm.” His arms wind around you, his weight comfortably insistent on keeping you here, and he leans into your hand as it rests on the back of his head. “Same.”
Yeah. Same.