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The phone rings.
This is stupid, Hanamaki thinks to himself. Calling anyone at three in the morning is stupid, and sure, Hanamaki isn’t as smart as his closest friends, but even he had common sense.
Still, he doesn’t lean over to press the big red button to end the call, he lets it ring.
He buries himself further into the cocoon of blankets he’s half tempted to kick off. It’s the dead of winter, but he’s hot. There’s a burning sensation beneath his skin, the kind that comes every now and then, though it seems to have been pounding against him more frequently recently. It scalds him, makes him sweat, until he finally gets up and digs the sharp tool he keeps hidden inside a pair of old sneakers right into his flesh.
Split his skin open, pat the excess blood away, and crawl back into bed, naked and trembling but no longer burning and sweating. Then come morning, he will shed his bed of the bloodied sheets, and crawl into the shower and let the water wash away the accident of the previous night.
But Hanamaki didn’t want to push himself out of bed to retrieve the object that would give him a few seconds of Nirvana. He isn’t sure what he wants right now- no surprise there, he thinks bitterly- but for once he is quite sure he doesn’t want to dig anything into his skin.
Which is why the phone is ringing.
It’s been ringing for a while, Hanamaki thinks even though it’s only going on its third ring. It feels like ages, a millennia, and maybe this was a bad idea because no one will ever understand anyway so what was the point of even trying-
“If you’re calling cause you’re horny, I’m gonna strangle you the next time I see you,” comes the deep, sleepy voice from the phone. “Not in the kinky way either.”
It was the least romantic sentence anyone could form at 3AM but it made Hanamaki’s eyes burn. He presses the speaker button and lays his phone against the nearest pillow then rests his cheek on his elbows. The name Issei- fit with a horse emoji and three green hearts- is scrawled across the screen in white and even though it’s just a name, it is currently Hanamaki’s hook. Maybe it always has been.
“Hiro?”
“Yeah.” Hanamaki cringes. He sounds terrible, his voice some god awful mixture of a squawk and sob. “I’m here.”
“... So you are.” A pause. “I’m glad.”
This time Hanamaki smiles a little, but it dies too soon. He presses the home button of his phone and it takes him to his background. A picture of the two of them Oikawa had snuck- Hanamaki was showing Matsukawa something on his phone, head tilted back and mouth open in a roaring laugh, but Matsukawa wasn’t looking at the screen. He was staring at Hanamaki with the softest smile on his face, a look of unfiltered love.
The kind of smile Hanamaki had caught Iwaizumi giving to Oikawa when he thought no one was looking, the kind he never ever thought anyone would ever give him. But here’s the proof, forever frozen for Hanamaki to see. Oikawa sent it to him without him asking, and it has since been his home screen.
Hanamaki gives it a tiny smile. It must have been taken last winter since the branches above them were bare, an entire year ago. One full year, and what has Hanamaki accomplished since then? His smile is swallowed up by a frown.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. He’s regressed, fallen back into the pitfalls of razors and ugly thoughts. He walks with a suffocating cloud over his head, and invisible bonds keeping him confined to his bed, restricting him from getting up and living. One too many times it happened which is why he’s been wasting away without a job, a purpose for an entire month now. His father was right.
He is a pathetic waste of space.
“Hiro?” Matsukawa’s voice is clearer now. “Tell me what’s-“
“This is stupid,” Hanamaki blurts out. The burning beneath his skin intensifies, the temperature has been raised. What was the degree for boiling water again? “I’m sorry- really sorry to call you. It’s super late and I know you have work tomorrow, so I’m just-“ The breath catches in his throat but he keeps going, has to keep going or Matsukawa will think something is wrong when nothing is.
“I’m just going to go.”
“Don’t.” The voice is a plea, an apparition on a breath floating between them. It makes Hanamaki close his eyes. He’s causing the pain in Matsukawa’s voice. “Don’t go anywhere.”
His throat is burning and so are his eyes. He swallows, blinks- chokes, cries. “Issei, I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.”
There’s some rustling on the other line, sheets being pulled back and a bed creaking. God, Hanamaki was being so selfish, he should just hang up. A selfless person would, a selfless person wouldn’t have called in the first place.
“Yes,” Hanamaki tries again, going so far as to laugh quietly. He cringes from the sound again, “I am. I really am, I’m just going to go to bed, okay? I’m just tired.”
“Takahiro.” Hanamaki grips the pillow his phone is resting on. It’s almost like Matsukawa is laying beside him, holding him in his strong arms, rocking him, pressing kisses to the scars and marks that hurt his soul but never, not once, scared him away. “I’m really happy you called me. I’ve been thinking about you all day.”
Hanamaki breathes out through his nose. But Matsukawa isn’t with him. He’s in Miyagi, in his apartment because he’s a responsible human being who has this whole adult thing figured out and Hanamaki is- is a ridiculous child. A quiet hiccup escapes him and he’s too tired to curse himself.
“Hey,” Matsukawa murmurs, his deep voice so soft and velvety, it wraps itself around Hanamaki and attempts to soothe the burning within him. “You need to look outside. The stars are really bright. I’m pretty sure that one there is the Big Creampuff.”
The tears stream down Hanamaki’s face like silent twin rivers, but the faintest smile pulls at his mouth from the utter dorkiness of his boyfriend. “There’s no such thing.”
“I’m pretty sure the sky is big enough for there to be at least some unclaimed and unnamed stars. You just have to look.”
Hanamaki presses a fist to his swollen eye and pushes against it, causing an explosion of white to erupt before him. “I thought I called my boyfriend, not Oikawa.”
“I believe that’s the cruelest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
His smile grows for a moment but it vanishes as his fist drops from his face and flops against the comforter. It sticks to his sweaty skin.
“Are you going to look?” Matsukawa asks.
“I don’t know.” The window is on the other side of his bed. His bed is small, just a twin sized mattress, but the thought of pulling his ancient bones into a crawling position and getting them to work makes his head spin. The mere idea is nauseating and exhausting. Just let him lay in his soft coffin until the sun comes up. “The stars are kind of hard to see in Tokyo.”
“But they’re still there.”
Hanamaki snorts. “You’re a stubborn ass.”
“Yeah, but you love me anyway.”
Love. The word spins around in his head, morphing into images of the past when they first met in middle school, when Hanamaki stood before unfamiliar faces and was told to introduce himself, then take a seat beside the tall boy with braces and unruly black hair, when they would walk home together and sometimes brush their pinkies against each other’s on accident then make a joke about it; in high school when they joined the volleyball club together and Hanamaki never felt confident unless Matsukawa, his other half as his sister said, was on the court with him.
When Matsukawa found him in his bedroom with open wounds on his wrists and blood pooling all around him.
“Don’t tell my parents,” Hanamaki had pleaded as Matsukawa bandaged him, cleaned him, until he was covered in just as much blood as Hanamaki. “Please, my dad will send me away. Please.”
And Matsukawa had looked at him, his usually closed off face filled with so much pain and sadness, his dark eyes spilling an endless ocean of tears.
“Takahiro.” It had been the first time he said his given name. “You’re trying to...”
“I’m not!” It was a lie. Then it had been a lie. “I’m not, it was an accident. Please. Please don’t tell them.”
Matsukawa didn’t. He stayed the night in the empty house, stayed up the whole night to redress the wounds and make sure Hanamaki hadn’t slipped away in his sleep. Matsukawa didn’t tell his parents, and Hanamaki knew that has haunted him since.
“A mistake on my part,” Matsukawa once told him when they lay in bed, holding each other for dear life. “I should have said something then, even if you hated me. I’d much rather have your hatred than see you suffer like this.”
They were kids. Stupid kids.
“Takahiro?” Matsukawa’s present voice floods his veins, drowns out the pains of the past, and he grips the pillow again as the tears keep falling. “You still there?”
“Yes,” he manages to get out. “I am.”
“Good,” comes the whispered reply. “I’m really glad you are. I couldn’t- I wouldn’t be able to do this without you. I don’t want to do this without you.”
He doesn’t specify what “this” is, but Hanamaki needs to know. “Do what?” His words are a little more than a breath.
The broken chuckle surprises him. He shifts closer until the tip of his ear is pressed against the length of his phone.
“Takahiro, don’t you know? I can’t live in this world without you in it. If you’re gone-“ The slightest hitch of breath, but it was more than enough for Hanamaki to know his Issei was crying. “I deal with death everyday, every single day I work with death, I don’t really care about it anymore. It doesn’t bother me. But the thought of you like... like that - being moved around and stuffed and painted like a doll haunts my fucking dreams. You have galaxies across your skin, starlight painted over a clear sky, and while I’m not going to sit here and call your trauma beautiful, it’s a part of you that I will love and cherish just as if it were another freckle, another star, on your skin. And I will always be there to remind you you’re beautiful. On the days when you can’t love yourself, I’ll be there to love you instead. I will kiss every fucking inch of your gorgeous skin, I will cover your scars with my lips until you’re glowing because I love you, you ridiculous, gorgeous, imperfect man. And I need you in my life, more than I have ever needed anything before.”
They weren’t verbally affectionate. Declarations of love made Hanamaki squirm in discomfort, and he would take a playful insult over a genuine compliment, but instead of screwing up his nose or rolling his eyes, a sob tears itself from his throat and he curls tighter around himself, gasping for breath, for life, for Issei.
“Issei.” He sobs harder as the name of his beloved, his one and only lifeline is wrenched from him. “Issei, I love you. I love you so much.”
Matsukawa’s voice is trembling but clear, a shattered broken mess but it’s okay. It’s okay because he gets the words out. “And I love you. I love you a lot, and I’m coming. Just give me a few hours and I’m there.”
Through his loud sobbing, Hanamaki isn’t entirely sure he heard Matsukawa right, not until he hears a door slam shut. He wipes his eyes and hiccups. “Issei, you can’t be serious-“
“I am.”
“It’s three in the morning, the trains are stopped!”
“I got that car a month ago, remember?”
“You have work tomorrow.”
“Family emergency. You’re more important to me than a job anyway.”
“Issei-“
“Takahiro, I’m coming.” Matsukawa sounds so sure, so determined, even when he speaks softly. “So wait for me. Just wait a little longer and keep talking to me, babe, because I’ll be there. You need me there, so I’ll be there.”
There was no stopping his rash, stupid boyfriend, and there was no stopping the tears and snot that came from Hanamaki. He cries and cries and cries, holds his pillow tight and blubbers to his beloved how much everything hurts, how tired he is, how his body burns and he has new wounds on his thighs and arms and stomach, how disgusting he is, how much a failure he is and how Matsukawa deserves so much better. He thinks Matsukawa should hang up and just leave him behind for good.
But he doesn’t. With every little reassuring words, every little promise that he’s coming, the burning sensation beneath Hanamaki cools until he is left hollow and numb.
The sun is out when Matsukawa says, “I’m here.”
The exhaustion that weighed so heavily inside of Hanamaki dissipates with those two little words, and suddenly he’s springing out of bed and stumbling through his barely breathable apartment. He looks a mess in ripped black sweats and a band hoodie that most definitely belonged to Matsukawa, but he doesn’t care. His eyes are swollen, bruised from lack of sleep, and his fringe is tangled and greasy but he doesn’t care because Matsukawa won’t care.
He unlocks the door with unsteady hands and then he’s flinging it open, ready to dash out the door but Matsukawa is there and he’s dropping his phone and opening his arms but he doesn’t move because he knows Hanamaki doesn’t always like being touched when he’s like this, but Hanamaki wants to be it.
If he’s going to live, he needs Matsukawa.
So he jumps into Matsukawa’s hold and clings to him for dear life. And when Matsukawa pulls him closer, Hanamaki lets out a strangled sob and doesn’t hold back. He wraps his arms around Matsukawa’s neck and let’s the tears and cries shake them both.
Matsukawa is so warm. So warm and alive and steady. He feels like home. He is home.
Hanamaki is smiling despite the sobs, his cheeks hurt from the intensity of it. “You drove all the way from Miyagi. You’re an idiot.”
“Yeah.” Matsukawa is sniffling. He pulls back just slightly so they’re looking at each other now. His head is an unruly mess and his eyes are just as bloodshot as Hanamaki’s but Hanamaki has never seen a more perfect man. “But my boyfriend needed me so fuck it.”
He didn’t want to wait until the morning. The unspoken words hang between them; even if nothing had happened, Matsukawa didn’t want to take a chance. Not everyone would do something like this, in fact most people wouldn’t. But Hanamaki’s boyfriend, best friend, soulmate, whatever isn’t most people.
Matsukawa presses his forehead to Hanamaki’s. “We’re going to get through this, you and me.” He lowers his head and kisses the tears away. “You’re going to overcome this and I’m going to be with you every single step of the way.”
A tear falls onto Hanamaki’s cheek and he isn’t sure if it’s Matsukawa’s or his own but it doesn’t matter. He pulls Matsukawa closer and mumbles out, “Okay.”
Okay. If Matsukawa was there, he would eventually be okay. Even if that okay didn’t come for months or years, as long as Matsukawa was by his side, helping him, waking up beside him, he could make it to that promised land.
And everything would be okay.