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Black-chipped fingernails dipped into cream padding, gentle in a way Rei thought he had forgotten. The leather covering his seat was worn, a testament to his economy seat that had been bought not by Tenshouin’s gleefully given cash, but through sweet talking one of the gate attendants. His bruised knees had ached when he knelt down to kiss the back of her pristine hand, but it was no matter, they’d have to heal sometime in the next seven hours.
Seven hours before he slipped away from company cars Rei knew damn well the student council shouldn’t be able to provide, seven hours before he straddled the back of his own bike, ignoring the burn of his muscles, seven hours before he went looking for a boy who doesn’t want to see him.
Triple sevens, lucky, lucky, lucky—third time’s the charm, no?—it’s his third year of high school but for technicalities sake he's stuck with an ocean blue tie around his neck, steadily tightening itself as the year wears on. A thousand feet’s the diving record, but his skeleton’s been growing ever heavy, acidic blood leeching the lead from his bones and transporting it elsewhere. Rei bets, if he dove into the sea right now, he’d sink straight to the bottom, he’d find mermaids and horrors and possibly Kanata’s real parents, and he’d stay there until the saltwater corroded his lungs and his skin turned to sand. At least then he had the potential to be loved by someone who couldn’t–no, wouldn’t–love him now.
Fingers drummed dully against his armrest the same way the puppy tapped along to the easiest songs on Rock Band the one time they had played together. It’d be thirty minutes until the flight attendants make their first rounds; thirty minutes until Rei sits a little straighter, talks a little smoother, makes his grin grows a little more leery all to convince her that he’s old enough to order a drink, thirty minutes until he’d ask for a bag of peanuts, pocketing it to leave on Ritsu’s bed later, forgetting again that his brother no longer has a taste for them, thirty minutes until that same brother will text him asking where he went, again, asking why he didn’t say anything, again, asking when he’d come home, again.
And inevitably, without fail, Ritsu would be out of the house, and Rei would enter silently through the front door, barely making it to his bedroom before he collapses onto his bare mattress, still clad in skinny jeans so tight they left pale pink indents all over his legs, his body unable to provide any more blood to make the color as shocking as it should be. And Rei would wake up, and he wouldn’t change, and he wouldn't shower, and he’d get another goddamn text asking for his assistance, and he’d be out the door without a word, leaving his brother with nothing more than stupid peanuts he didn’t even like any more to remember him by.
(sometimes, if he was lucky, the text would come from a contact saved under nothing more than a single black heart, asking him if he had time in his schedule to perform at the livehouse, extra compensation available for the short notice prior to the request. rei would reply, naturally, saying that the money wasn’t necessary, he’ll be on his way shortly, anything for kaorukun, after all).
Kaoru was nice to him, sometimes. Not really. He was actually rather mean, and he wasn’t impressed by any stunt Rei managed to pull, and he avoided Rei’s touch like it was the plague, but he would pretend like Rei’s hands weren’t shaking like those of a newborn deer, would hand him a pack of marlboros he had confiscated from someone at the entryway, would turn his head and avert his eyes from Rei and the no smoking sign he was standing in front of.
(keito calls him before, during, and after the show. kaoru frowns and decides to enforce a ‘no phones backstage’ policy that rei is certain doesn’t exist. he doesn’t protest, instead handing kaoru the phone and hoping he won’t cut his thumb on the mercilessly shattered screen caused by one too many frustrations rei had taken out on his bedroom wall. there’s so much bloodshed going on, now. kaoru shouldn’t be a part of it).
Even when Kaoru isn’t nice, he’s not cruel. He’s not sending Rei out on flight after flight, or trying and failing to pretend like he isn’t orchestrating them, or pleasured by Rei’s life as he knew it crumbling down around him. If anything, he’s callous. If anything, he’s scared.
Rei would offer to fix it, but right now he couldn’t fix anything if he tried. Withdrawal shoots through his veins, causing the precision needed to place every pawn to evaporate into thin air. Even if he wasn’t deteriorating at a disgustingly fast rate, an exponential decay splayed out and smeared to be observed under the public’s microscope, Kaoru wouldn’t want his help. That would be what’s making him frightened in the first place, after all.
Monsters can’t be loved. It was silly to hope for otherwise, although Rei’s still not quite sure if it’s because he’s a monster, or a man. What a funny fallacy. He can only be one, and not the other, but which one is he? Man or monster, where does Sakuma Rei fall?
Eyes gazed at the clouds parting themselves for the hunk of metal Rei keeps finding himself trapped in. Cumulonimbus, he thinks. He could be right, he could be wrong, he finds it doesn’t matter much anymore. Long gone are the days spent studying books of every subject he could get his hands on, long gone are the days where Rei prowled the local graveyard, seeking strangers’ praise in the absence of parental approval. Rei can be wrong, now, it doesn’t matter. Not a man, not a God, not anything, anywhere, other than maybe a speck in the vast emptiness of purgatory.
Seven hours, seven sins; Rei refuses to slow down, to take a break and recuperate. Rei hoards the spotlight, hips swaying to the rhythm of his bass guitar, basking in the only time he can catch Kaoru’s gaze. Rei gets another text, Rei feels something bubble up within him, hot and ugly; he pitches his phone into the wall, again. Rei watches Ritsu rest, knows he stayed up waiting for Rei’s arrival home; he watches his brother nap, peacefully, and he’s tired, too, but he has places to be, so he leaves, again. Rei chases a boy he knows he cannot have. Rei asks for another packet of peanuts, and another, and another. Rei shows up to class, for once; he rests his forehead against the desk, and naps.
Seven hours, to think. Seven hours to remember, to regret, to hope, to hate, to love, (but not really).
If only it was as easy as a kiss to the back of his hand.
The leather beneath his fingers is cracked and worn. It’s so different, from the rich material of his biker jacket, from the well maintained seat of his bike. It’s different, but it’s old and has been put through too much use. It’s familiar.
Rei leans his head against the chipped bare spot in the center of his headrest.
He sleeps.