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The phone rings, as it often does, at three and change in the morning. Dutifully, blearily, Kojiro answers.
Does not need to speak--he is met with ranting breathless Kaoru, riled and making very little sense beyond the idea that he’ll be at Kojiro’s in five.
It doesn’t even cross Kojiro’s mind to tell him no, to do anything but trudge from his bed, throw an old t-shirt over his unbound chest. Slip downstairs toward the kitchen, squint his eyes against the light.
Ties on his mother’s apron, takes a couple pots from the cabinet. Tries not to clatter them too much, but like many things in Kojiro’s life, in Kojiro’s life with Kaoru, it is a lost cause.
Water, salt, stovetop. He has done this endlessly, will do it infinitely more. Scarcely even realizes he’s doing it until the water simmers in the pan, until it dawns on him as he puts on the sauce that Kaoru isn’t here yet.
He will be, though, unless he’s caught up by the cops, which is possible. In that case he will shove this whole thing in the fridge, keep it safe to nurture him tomorrow.
But Kaoru comes, knocking their code on the front door, and Kojiro lets him in. He stands in the doorway looking like he’s been dragged, scratched-up and weary and sweating through his cropped shirt. His face is red like he’s run, or wept, or both.
Kojiro ushers him inside, one hand laid almost casually on his back, feeling out his desperate pulse. Reminds him to kick his shoes off, but doesn’t push the issue with house slippers. Doesn’t push the issue when Kaoru hoists up onto the countertop, hugs his skinny shins, lays his miserable chin against his knees.
Kojiro makes sure, quickly, that the sauce won’t burn. Scrubbing it out would be a real pain in the ass, and his ass goes through enough pain in this life.
So does Kaoru, by the look of him.
“There’s a twig in your hair,” Kojiro says, already reaching to pluck it away. His fingers twitch for more--to comb away his tangles, stroke his cheek--but he doesn’t.
Pasta needs babysat anyway. It isn’t done yet.
“Yeah,” rasps Kaoru. “I crawled through a hedge.” There’s an ounce, just a frisson of defiance in it, as if he’s still proud of what he’s done. Even if it brough him limping here at this hour, looking the way he does.
Kojiro knows exactly which hedges he means, exactly why he would brave them like that. Still, he stirs the pots, lets Kaoru go on.
“I threw some rocks at his window,” Kaoru says. Almost offhandedly, as if he’s angling to be praised.
“Rocks?” As cool, as understanding as he tries to be, a frisson of genuine worry creeps into Kojiro’s tone. He bites his lip against it, minds the pasta.
“Pebbles,” Kaoru expounds, sounding torn between pride in his forbearance and disappointment in his lameness. “I was trying to get him to come out, but I don’t think I’d really have minded if I broke the window.”
“Anyway,” a sigh, heavier than anyone Kaoru’s age ought to be able to heft, “he didn’t. And he wasn’t kidding about those security guards.”
“They catch you?”
“Nah.” So that wasn’t it, then. Why Kaoru was late. Kojiro heaved relief, thinking of the tongue-lashings they’d gotten, the chases they’d been on. The times he’d had to collect Kaoru, spitting and swearing, from one police station or another.
It’s fine, though. All’s well enough that ends well enough, if this is what well enough is. “Alright,” Kojiro says, “alright.”
He wouldn’t have really minded if Kaoru broke the window, either. Disappointed, a little, that he didn’t think of it himself.
But he would never.
Probably.
They sit in that for a while, Kojiro fussing at the stove, Kaoru sucking at his lip ring. The pot roils, a clock ticks somewhere. There is a soft shifting noise upstairs, but nobody comes down.
“Thanks.” Kaoru’s voice is hoarse when he says it. “For letting me in.”
Kojiro always would. Always has, always does. Still the warmth of it blooms in him, wide and full as a peony.
“I ran out of stuff to burn,” Kaoru goes on, “so I thought I’d come see you.”
Kojiro nods--he was going to, eventually. He’d made Kojiro watch, already, as he set fire to the little teddy bear Ainosuke won him from a claw machine, and since graduation he’d been slowly eating through his school papers.
A quick taste of the pasta. It’s not done yet.
When Kojiro looks back up, the last scraps of Kaoru’s fight have fallen away. Curled in on himself, he sits, and though his hair hangs down over his knees, Kojiro can imagine the expression on his face.
This, he thinks, is what took him so long. He can imagine Kaoru schlepping through the streets, half-hobbled. Bravado gone, wary and weary as an old stray cat.
For all they lunged for it, graduation didn’t treat them well. He knows Kaoru wakes in the afternoon, these days, knows he kicks around town with his face all surly, knows he forgets to eat.
Suspects, by the smell on his hair when he dares close enough, that like Ainosuke he’s taken up smoking.
He doesn’t say anything about it, because he doesn’t want to make Kaoru rattle off the riot act. He only sighs, and babies the sauce, and listens to the soft, ragged sounds of Kaoru trying not to cry.
Only reaches for the half-drunk bottle of red his parents had shared at dinner. He pours a splash into the sauce--it is only the jarred stuff after all--and proffers the rest of Kaoru.
Who takes it, with a shaking, split-knuckled hand; who brings it to his lips and drinks, more deeply than he really should. Kojiro shakes his head, resolves to feed and water him, care for him doubly well.
It’s a wonder Kaoru can drink the stuff, really, it’s a bloody wine. He nearly chokes on it, and when he comes up for air, his face is coiled and scrunched.
There’s a little sound, the bottle being set aside. A heavy, shaking breath, dredged up from the pit of him.
“It’s like the stuff Ainosuke used to steal us,” Kaoru says, pitiful. And it is, though probably not as fine as the bottles he’d steal from his home wine cellar, carry in his bookbag through the day. The wine they’d drink on the roof of the abandoned drive-in, swallowing with abandon, letting it drip down their chins.
Kojiro busies himself, so as not to think of it. He places the wine bottle back exactly where it was, presses in the stopper. Drizzles a little olive oil in the sauce, in the hopes that it’ll be nicer. That Kaoru will smile when he tastes it, that he’ll eat everything he’s given.
He tastes it, prays. Can see Kaoru wilt a little, at the very edge of his vision.
“I love him,” Kaoru whimpers.
A placid, measured nod, a gentle yeah, I know.
Kojiro does know, knows it like he knows how to stand on a board, like he knows that he loves Kaoru.
Still, it coalesces just a bit, now that Kaoru’s finally said it. Sinks to the depth of him like a riverstone. Hopefully, one day, its edges will wear down.
“I love him,” Kaoru says again, and Kojiro has never heard his voice break this way before. “And it’s pathetic, and I think he should just--crawl in a hole and die.”
“You’re not pathetic.” Kojiro rests the wooden spoon at the edge of the pot, lays one hand on Kaoru’s birdboned shoulder. “He really could go rot, though.”
For all he cares. It stokes a quiet rage inside him, a slow-consuming seam of coal. Warm, like lying hearthside, wanting nothing more than to see Kaoru happy, to care for him, never let him feel this way ever again.
Kaoru’s dishevelled head lists slowly, tenderly, against the back of Kojiro’s hand. There’s a heat where they touch--is it Kaoru’s cheek, or the overwarm thing that spreads through Kojiro like honey?
He doesn’t need to know. Doesn’t need Kaoru to know, right now, that he feels this way.
Just needs him to know that he’s here.
There’s no counting how long they sit like that, silent and soft. Until a sizzling sound wracks the peace--the pasta’s boiled over. Kojiro swears under his breath, but it’s ready anyway; he ought to take it off before it gives up its bite.
That, and he knows that he should not get used to touching Kaoru.
He drains off the water in the sink, remembers to switch off the stove. Tosses it in the sauce--and if a little did burn onto the bottom of the pan, it’s alright. He’ll take care of it.
Two rough-plated bowls of pasta, laid gently on the countertop. Kaoru’s is heavier, while Kojiro takes less, leaving Kaoru seconds if he wants them.
Besides, he ate alright today. He’s not sure he can say the same for Kaoru.
They don’t bother with the table or even the couch. Kojiro just seats himself beside Kaoru on the counter, far enough apart that they don’t touch, close enough that he can feel the warmth of him.
He watches, as Kaoru takes his first tentative little bite. Watches him shake with hunger, watches that smile spread so slowly across his cheeks.
“Fuck,” mumbles Kaoru, and that’s all. After that, their mouths are full.
It’s no insult, he knows, that Kaoru eats slowly. Really, Kojiro’s heart brims with the steadiness of it, the way he swallows one forkful after another, takes measured breaths between. He doesn’t stop to speak, but this is praise enough.
He considers the flavors himself. It’s not the best he’s ever made, but it could be.
After all, Kaoru is here with him, eating it.
Kaoru unravels a little, kicks his legs off the edge of the counter. Tight, twitchy movements, but at least he’s opening, softening. Eating, getting red sauce smeared around his mouth. Kojiro smiles, passes him a napkin.
It’s a beautiful thing, when Kaoru wads it up and throws it at him.
Less beautiful when the bowl is scraped, when the reverie is gone and he’s sighing again, too deep and heavy for his years, his usual abandon.
Kojiro’s fingers twitch--he wants to reach for him, lay one hand across his back. Cradle the sharp ridge of his spine, make it okay.
He doesn’t. It would only make him worse--the both of them, really.
Kaoru chews his lip, sucks pensive at his piercing.
“He’s leaving for America tomorrow,” he says, hoarse and weak.
“I know,” Kojiro says. Knows that Ainosuke is bound for a future wider and higher than any punk kids could give him. Still, he curls a fist with it. Still, somewhere deep, someplace that loves Kaoru, loves Ainosuke more than anything else, he cannot stand him.
He wishes there was something else that he could say. He’s tried, comforted Kaoru up and down, as far as he could without revealing his own heart, drippy and fragile like a peeled tomato. None of it worked.
Kojiro rests that hand on Kaoru’s shoulder, because he must touch him, because he must have the plausible deniability of a chaste and friendly hand.
Kaoru turns to him, pursing his decorated lip. Tight, so the blood goes out of it.
His voice sounds like a fresh wound when he speaks again.
“You’re leaving for Florence in a month.”
It’s not an accusation. Only a fact, simple and immutable like stone.
Not for the first time, Kojiro wishes it wasn’t. That he could just--stay home. Get into some other school, and take care of Kaoru.
He can’t. This is--this is what he wants. What Kaoru wants for him. Kojiro remembers the way he whooped and hollered when he got his acceptance letter. Remembers the promise that he himself made; that he would go across the world, just to learn to make the carbonara Kaoru deserves.
To provide for him, the way he’s always wanted to.
So all Kojiro can say is “yeah, I know.” All Kojiro can say is “I’m sorry,” and “everything will be okay.”
It rings hollow, now, and they both know it.
“Like hell it is,” Kaoru says.
And just for a second, there--Kojiro’s mind breaks off its leash. Bounds for the thought that he could gather Kaoru up, bring him along, be with him. Keep him in his dorm room like a cat, secret and beloved, safe. Could ride with him on a tiny Vespa through the cobbled streets of Rome, Kaoru’s slender arms around his ribs, delighted reckless laughter in his ear.
Could kiss him gently, molding their lips around the piercing. Lay him down in their tiny university bed, make quiet love to him. Never hurt him.
He doesn’t say it. Doesn’t show his underbelly, the softest of himself. Doesn’t say the fun parts, either.
It is, after all, possible, that Kaoru would throw everything aside. Would go for it, cut and run with him.
Kojiro knows that it’s not--that it’s not realistic, sure, but when have they ever cared about that?
What he knows is that it wouldn’t be something he could take.
He breathes, deeply. Tells Kaoru in his hushed voice that they will make it okay, like they made it okay when Kojiro broke his arm, when Kaoru’s parents split.
Tells him that they have time, that he will be fixed to Kaoru’s side until the turnstile at the airport, as close as he can have him.
Serves him up half a bowl of seconds, tells him to eat or else he’ll waste away.
Kaoru rolls his eyes at him, but he does. Swallows his spaghetti, Kojiro’s gentle words.
Kojiro glows with pride, to see him nourished like this.
When Kaoru is finished, Kojiro rinses all the dishes, lays them neatly by the sink. Ushers Kaoru upstairs to the shower, and feels warm and weak when he comes back out in Kojiro’s clothes.
Would it feel even better, he wonders, if Kaoru was really his?
He is close enough tonight, when they nestle together into Kojiro’s twin bed, Kaoru’s head listing exhausted on his shoulder. He’s out, to the beat of Kojiro’s heart, in minutes.
Kojiro, though, lays longer in his thoughts, in his love. Watches the tender tide of Kaoru’s breath, presses it deep into his memory for the times when there are continents between them.
He will make it okay. He will figure it out, there is still time. And until then, until he tears himself away, he will be here.