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Javier takes a deep breath after zipping up the last bag and looks around, his apartment now void of all of his belongings, back to being as impersonal as it was when he first arrived there, nearly a decade before.
He swallows. This is it, then.
He doesn’t feel ready, not even after all the time he’s spent imagining this moment, but he’s happy. The sense of insecurity, of longing that some nights has caught him in the recent past, clogging his throat at the prospect of this moment, now feels nothing compared to the bubbling excitement that the thought of home brings him. Of his real home, and his real family.
Effie looks at him from where she’s standing and miraculously goes inside her pet carrier before Javi can even speak to her. It’s a sign, he thinks smiling incredulously, she must want to go home too. Everything is good.
He’s already said his farewells to everybody he needed to, everybody at the club, Brian, Tracy, Ghislain, David, Yuzu. He’ll miss them, but it’ll be alright. He’s going home, and it feels good even with how definitive it feels.
He sits just outside the passengers area at the airport, with Effie beside him in her carrier, for once in his life comfortably ahead of schedule, expecting nothing more than a boring, long wait and a boring, long flight before being able to feel again Madrid’s air on his skin.
What he doesn’t expect, however, is to see a familiar figure running in the middle of the airport, messy and breathless. He blinks a couple of times, thinking to be hallucinating as the blurry figure comes nearer, but lastly he jumps on his feet on reflex when Yuzuru materializes clearly and stops just in front of him.
He worries at first, in the couple of seconds Yuzuru takes to catch his breath - something really serious must have happened - but then, why hasn’t he called him?
“I’m sorry I’m late”, Yuzuru starts, confusing Javi even further, his expression more unreadable than ever, but his eyes a bit shinier than usual. “I know I’m late now”, he goes on before Javi can answer, “but I just wanted to give you something before you go”.
Javier is again on the verge of speaking, but he’s interrupted once again when he suddenly finds Yuzu’s lips pressed on his, a confident yet tender contact that lasts just a couple of seconds, before Yuzuru takes a step back, moving his gaze to the ground.
“Just this. Sorry, I had to. You can go now”, he says then, without raising his eyes, and from his tone this feels like the conclusion of everything he has to say.
Javier just stands for some long moments, dumbfounded, while his head is desperately trying to process at light speed what’s just happened to him.
“Wait, what does it mean?”. He finally reacts on impulse when he sees Yuzuru turning to walk away, and it comes out way more desperate than he would have expected. Yuzuru takes a deep breath, and finally looks at him in the eyes.
“I’m sorry for this Javi, I just needed to tell you that… I think I love you”.
The last five words are barely a mumbled whisper, but in Javi’s head they resonate so loud they create an echo, as if someone had just struck a gong in his ear. This man has no right to come here and send all of his plans flying out of the window, to mess up his life like this at the last second, but he seems unable to get mad at him. Something like hope, and sheer excitement, springs in his stomach, but gets dragged down by a tornado of a hundred other different emotions.
“Yuzu, I…”, he starts, not even knowing what he’s going to say next, but Yuzuru raises a hand to stop him before he can think about it.
“We don’t have time to talk now, I don’t want you to miss your flight. I’m sorry I’m this late”, he says again, and shit, that’s right, Javier really should start to get going.
“But if you want I can call you when you’re back home”, Yuzuru adds after a pause of a couple of seconds.
Home. Now the only mention of the word makes Javier’s insides twitch uncomfortably. All the feelings about what he is leaving behind, that he has so carefully buried deep in the last months, under layers of happiness at the prospect of seeing his parents and sister again, dreams of freedom and projects to realize back in Madrid, now seem to be erupting impetuously, triggered by just a few minutes encounter.
“Yes, sure, I’ll call you”, he answers, breaking a silence that seems to have hanged in the air for hours, even if it was probably less than a minute.
“But I have to run now, okay?”.
He finally smiles at Yuzu and throws his arms around him in a quick hug, the familiar tingling under his skin reminding him once again, for good measure, how much he’s going to miss their touches. Yuzuru smiles back, and raises a hand to wave lightly as he runs towards the security checks.
He goes through it all in a rush, and he’s already sitting on the plane when he takes a breath and finally relaxes. He feels his eyes wetting for some reason, and he’s glad he’s only processing whatever he’s processing now, and not in front of Yuzuru. His phone feels as hot as a furnace in his hand, even in flight mode as it is, and he clenches it tighter, like some precious object his life depends on. He’ll call him, when he’s home. They’re going to talk about this, about them, and Javier is so incredulous, because as far as he knows that has only happened in his dreams up to now, but at the same time he can’t wait. He’s a bit disappointed he hasn’t had the opportunity to tell him in person he loves him too, but he’ll make sure to do so, as soon as he’ll meet him again for real.
The tangle of emotions in his abdomen makes itself known again, and he just rests his head back against the seat, swallowing as he looks out of the window, at the city that has been his second home for so long.
He’s still happy to go home, to what still is his first home. But now nothing feels definitive anymore.