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Shion looks up at him, eyes questioning. Questioning and hurt. They ask, Why are you doing this to me again? What did I do wrong this time? Nezumi doesn’t have an answer.
“I… I’ll miss you,” Shion manages, in an unbearably tight voice.
Nezumi half wants to kiss him, half to run away. He thinks maybe it isn’t just Shion’s voice that is fragile and closed. The tightness is also coming from his chest, where a spring is being over-wound, like an old-fashioned alarm clock. If someone doesn’t relieve this tension soon, he may just burst open.
But he can’t bring himself to try and explain this to anyone, including himself.
Instead, he says, “Shion, is this really what you want?”
Shion blinks. “I…”
Say what you really feel, please, Shion. For both of us, just say it, Nezumi mentally pleads. Because if Shion doesn’t do it, who will? Nezumi knows he’s too much of a coward to voice his heart’s true hopes.
“I don’t want you to leave,” Shion mumbles, looking at his feet. That’s a habit Nezumi always hated. The looking-at-the-feet thing. When Shion’s gaze is on him, it feels like he’s under a spotlight that’s unbearably bright, but when Shion won’t look at him – then it’s like the sun has gone out and he’s fumbling around in the darkness, and that’s even worse.
“I don’t want you to leave, but I know you want to.” Shion swallows and a tear slips out from under his eyelashes. Nezumi can practically hear the lump in Shion’s throat. “I know we’re incompatible. I know you’re a drifter, and I’m stationary. I didn’t forget. But I just –”
He cuts himself off.
“So tell me to stay,” Nezumi says.
“I can’t ask you that when I already know what you’ll say.”
“You want me to stay.”
Shion doesn’t answer.
“So tell me to stay.”
Shion presses one hand to his eyes, which are leaking tears freely now. His lips move for a moment before any sound comes out. In a whisper, he manages, “Nezumi, please stay.”
All of Nezumi’s breath leaves him in a quick huff. Shion’s finally said it. The moment of truth is upon him.
And he realises, at last, that the answer is obvious. Prompted by that one phrase from Shion’s lips, he finds the right words, and he knows, with perfect certainty, that it will be impossible for him to mess up this delivery.
“Okay. I will.”
Those words… nothing he could say could possibly be simpler. But nothing else could be as frightening, or as wonderful.
For you, I’ll stay.
He puts his hand under Shion’s chin and tips it up. There are the spotlights, shining all the brighter for the tears glittering in those ruby red eyes; but let them shine on. He has nothing to hide, not now, not from him. Never from him.
He looks directly at Shion and says, “If that’s what you want, I’ll do it.”
Shion lets out an anguished, choked little noise. “Nezumi, you can’t.”
“Why not? I should’ve known when I came here that I wouldn’t be leaving after. What was the point of coming back after all this time if I was just going to ditch you again?”
“But aren’t you still… afraid?”
Nezumi feels a little shiver in the pit of his stomach and wonders how he’ll feel about this conversation tomorrow morning.
“Maybe I am. But it doesn’t matter. I’m ready now. If you’re willing to put up with me, that is.”
Shion stares at him, and Nezumi wonders if he’s trying to think up more reasons that Nezumi might have to leave. It’s incredible to him how Shion tries so hard on Nezumi’s behalf, when Nezumi’s done nothing but walk right over his feelings and then kick him when he was down. And Nezumi knows it. It was inevitable, but he regrets it. And now, he only wants to make things right.
“Shion,” he says softly. “Will you have me?”
“I – I – Nezumi,” Shion says, and presses their lips together.