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He traveled to the clinic in Nara on days that he had off from work, the bulk of which were few and far between and more or less the result of that one shoot he had performed for September AnAn in the half-nude. Beginning in winter, the magnitude of his popularity became an exponential factor that rocketed skyward at an alarming rate, comparable to circuitry and as occupationally hazardous as it had any right to be. Kise Ryouta, in the prime of his career, whose fanclub size now rivaled Arashi’s.
“You don’t belong here,” is what Akashi told him when he first knocked on the door. “Go back to Tokyo, Ryouta.”
Kise stepped into the room and walked up to the hospital bed, his smile stiff and in perfect bemusement with regards to Akashi’s objections, a rapture of hope that he’d never been brave enough to perpetuate in junior high. “I stopped by Kinokuniya and found something for you,” he said, and a package wrapped in newspaper fell into Akashi’s hands. “Thought you might like it!”
“Thank you,” said Akashi. He placed the package on the table next to his bed. “I am sure that it took considerable effort on your part.”
“I wore a ski mask,” Kise grinned. He sat down on the edge of Akashi’s bed. “They probably thought I was gonna rob the store or something. But you can bet it was worth it! You’ll read it, won’t you, Akashicchi?”
“I suppose I can try,” said Akashi.
Kise paused and looked at him then, his eyes soft, and Akashi swallowed his breath because he understood the implicit circuitry of this occupational hazard more than he ever cared to. When Kise leaned over to kiss him, it took more than simple courage for him to not back against the frame of his bed and whittle down his resignation into a small ball of inequitable thoughts.
“This is unnecessary,” is what he wanted to say, but a small cloud of cold air emerged from between his lips instead and all he could do was accept it for what it was worth and return the kiss, reach out and curl his fingers around the collar of Kise’s shirt. Perhaps he was weak to certain things, too. It was another one of those things he had come to realize about himself in the weeks that he had spent at the clinic.
They broke apart and Kise regarded him closely. “Akashicchi, you’ll get better soon, right?” His words were innately vindictive, severely mismatched against the sentiments that he placed within reach of his heart. “I want you to move in with me this year.”
“That’s rather selfish of you, Ryouta,” said Akashi gently.
“I can’t really be anything else, can I?” Kise smiled again, and this time it was a cruel sort of smile.
When he left the room, Akashi opened the package on his table. It was an expensive art book about oil paintings and color theory, beautifully photographed and ironic to the point that it kind of hurt.