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Saimon ran into him at Tsubaki’s grave.
It was the first time it ever happened. Yohei knew better than to make trouble where trouble most definitely wasn’t needed, so he only ever came to visit when Saimon was at university.
Never stayed long.
Never left flowers.
Never as much as moved a single fallen leaf from her gravestone.
Never intended to have this conversation either, and yet, there they were: Saimon silently replacing the old, wilted flowers with new ones. Yohei standing to the side, biting his lip, still feeling like he didn’t belong even after all those years. Like he was committing a crime, some sort of sin, by even trying to stand near those two.
Even in death, he loathed himself for taking moments of Tsubaki’s time away from Saimon … or Saimon’s time away from Tsubaki? The line between those two had been lost on him for about a year now, and he couldn’t bring himself to try finding it again; he wasn’t sure he’d like where that path would take him.
Instead, he stayed on the sidelines like always. Left Tsubaki alone, so that she could be happy with Saimon, even though it hurt Yohei quite a bit. Left Saimon alone, so that he could continue holding on to Tsubaki’s memories, even though … for about a year now, that hurt Yohei just as much.
“Didn’t think I’d see you here,” Saimon eventually broke the silence.
“Yeah. I wanted to come say hi.”
“Why didn’t you say anything? We could have gone together.”
“Ah … I didn’t want to bother you.”
“You wouldn’t.”
Yohei sighed, watching as Saimon stood up and admired the new flowers for a bit.
“What do you think?”
“They’re beautiful,” Yohei answered.
“Just like her,” Saimon voiced the rest of his thoughts.
“Yeah.”
“We should get going … it’s going to rain soon.”
“Yeah.”
That was all Yohei could manage to say as he followed after Saimon, in his usual spot: just a bit behind him, off to the left, so that Saimon’s right side was all for Tsubaki to lovingly cling to, so that they could hold hands, so that Yohei could watch without having to hide his face at every step.
But that space beside Saimon had been empty for a long time. And yet even now, Yohei felt like he couldn’t come close to it. Like he’d be ripped apart by the tornado of everything Tsubaki left behind, or sucked into the black hole caused by her no longer being there. How much longer? How much longer would it feel like this? How much longer would there be no one by Saimon’s side? How much longer before … before that place once again belongs to someone else?
He didn’t know why he cared, to be honest. For years and years and years, he’d been fixated on Saimon’s place. So many times, he imagined being him.
But only after Tsubaki was gone, only now that all this time had passed … only now did Yohei’s eyes begin to wander over to her place. Only now, he imagined being next to Saimon instead.
“You sure do a good job of following someone like a shady hitman,” Saimon chuckled.
Yohei looked up, surprised that Saimon was suddenly walking beside him. “Huh?”
“Ah, you know … just saying. It’s weird to always have you behind me.”
“Right. Habits, I guess.”
“Habits, yeah … I think I’m finally getting used to this one,” he sighed, reaching out his right hand for his wife to hold, then letting his fingers just slowly swoosh through the empty air.
Yohei hated it. He hated Saimon bringing attention to the fact Tsubaki was gone, because he knew, he knew, he knew how much it hurt, and … he didn’t want Saimon to be in pain.
They walked in silence for a while.
Somewhere far off, thunder ripped the sky apart.
“You loved her too, didn’t you?”
No pain, no anger, no doubt in those words - Saimon wasn’t asking a question. But nonetheless … “I did,” Yohei answered.
“I see.”
“How long have you known?”
“Ha … it’s been a while,” Saimon laughed softly. “She told me, actually.”
Yohei looked at him, shaken to his core. “... she knew?”
“She did.”
“But … I … Saimon, I never-”
“I know. You don’t need to tell me, I know you’d be the type to hide it from both of us. But, well … you know how she was. No hiding anything from her.”
Yohei sighed, staring at the pavement beneath his feet as they walked. “I really tried to hide just this one thing though. I didn’t know she knew. I didn’t want her to know.”
“Why not?”
“I didn’t want her to see me as some helpless kid, falling in love where he shouldn’t.”
“She didn’t see you like that at all.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely,” Saimon nodded. “She didn’t make a big deal out of it. We were heading home from dinner one day and she just asked me if I knew you liked her. I had no idea, of course. She laughed at how oblivious I was, according to her. I asked her if your feelings bothered her, and … she said-”
“I don’t want to know,” Yohei cut him off before Saimon could say something that would send Yohei collapsing onto the sidewalk. “Please. I don’t want to know.”
“That’s okay. I’m sorry I brought this up.”
“No, uhm, it’s fine, just … I don’t see why.”
“Ah, well ...” Saimon trailed off, looking up at the cloudy sky as the first rain drops began to gather on his glasses. “I guess I wanted to thank you.”
“Thank me?”
Saimon nodded. “After I lost her, you were the only one who was there for me.”
“That’s not true, everyone-”
“No, Yohei, it is true. I know everyone tried to help - but you were the only one who actually could. I felt so alone. The pain of losing someone you love is so lonely because it feels like no one can understand, but … then I remembered her saying that you … you also loved her. It’s pathetic, I know, because I didn’t really believe it when she told me, but after she was gone … oh, I wanted it to be true. I wanted it to be true so much, because knowing you shared my pain was the only thing that kept me from losing myself in it.”
“Saimon ...”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I know it’s horrible of me to say, I know it’s horrible that I wished you’d be in more pain so I could hurt less, I know-”
“It’s fine,” Yohei cut him off. “I was gonna be in pain one way or another. I’m glad it helped you at least.”
“Thank you,” Saimon accepted forgiveness even if Yohei didn’t think any was necessary. “I’m happy that I found you at the grave today, you know? After everything you’ve done for me, I still didn’t have the guts to tell you that I knew, or how much it helped me, so … I felt like I was taking the last of her away from you. Since you never wanted to come see her with me ...”
“How would you take her away from me?” Yohei wondered where something as stupid as that came from. “She wasn’t mine in the first place.”
“She wasn’t, but … you loved her. I think people should have the space to love even those they can’t have. And I didn’t want to take that away from you. So I’m happy … even if it means you’ve been sneaking there behind my back.”
“We can go together next time,” Yohei answered, stopping before the door of 4/7 just as the rain began to really pour down hard.
“I think she’d like that,” Saimon agreed, fumbling around with the keys for a moment. “Well, are you coming inside, or do you want to stand out in the rain some more?”
Yohei stepped in, the door still open behind him as he watched Saimon smile at him. “Hey … if it’s not too bad … what did she say about it?”
“I thought you didn’t want to know.”
Yohei looked away, biting his lip again. “I still kinda don’t.”
Saimon stepped closer to him, patting his head even though it’s been a long time since Yohei was the hot-headed idiot who needed to be yanked back by his hair and told to cool down sometimes. “She said she didn’t mind. She said that you were a good guy, that she was glad we met, and that who knows … if it weren’t me, maybe it could have been you.”
“She … she said that?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t want to kill me for it?”
“Why would I? I understood what she wanted to say. You’re a great guy, you have a lot of talent, and you were trying so hard to become a kinder person back then. If she could fall in love with me, I don’t see why she couldn’t fall in love with you if she met you first.”
“No!” Yohei called out, pushing Saimon’s hand away. “Are you crazy? You’d never be with her if that happened!”
“One of us would have been without her either way … even if she stayed.”
“Me! That had to be me! You two were so happy, I would never want you to know what it’s like to be without her!” Yohei insisted, agitated over the fact that somehow, Saimon was completely willing to take on even more pain if fate had been so cruel as to let Tsubaki meet Yohei first.
“But … I do know what it's like to be without her,” Saimon answered Yohei’s screaming with a soft smile and a tear in the corner of his eye. “And it’s only because of you that I can live with that.”
∘∘∘
“... and then I kissed him.”
Iori rolled his eyes, sliding another shot over CANDY’s counter. “And after that?”
“Bolted out of there like hell was burning at my feet.”
“Aha, I see ...” Iori nodded, having finally acquired the full story behind why Yohei showed up on his doorstep in the pouring rain when the club wasn’t even open yet. “Well, did he like it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did he kiss you back?”
“I don’t fucking know! I don’t know, okay? I blacked out, next thing I remember is running away. I don’t know what I did, I don’t know how he took it, I don’t know anything .”
“How about you, then? Did you like it?”
Yohei grunted, slouching even lower to where his jaw was almost imprinted into the counter. “Never thought I’d kiss a guy.”
“Not what I asked.”
He closed his eyes, thinking back to the sight of Saimon on the verge of tears right in front of him, how vulnerable he was, how kind he was to him, how close he was, how much Yohei wanted to take that empty space beside him and keep it all for himself, how he wasn’t even thinking, he just leaned closer and … and … “I loved it,” he finally admitted.
“I figured.”
“You figured?! Oi, what’s that supposed to mean?”
Iori smiled, patting Yohei on the back. “You’re a loyal man. I have no doubt you’d throw yourself between me and a bullet any time, but … There is loyalty, Danna, and then there is whatever you have going on with him. To me, those two don’t look the same anymore.”
“Have you ever been in love, Iori?”
“Can’t say I have. Too busy.“
“So am I, and yet … it crept up on me anyway. Twice, even.”
“Well, don’t ya think you should get back there and sort it out? Ya know, before he wilts away and dies or something.”
“Shut up,” Yohei responded by swinging for Iori’s throat.
“Aye, just saying, you don’t have the best track record with these things.”
“Please don’t joke about that. If I lose him too, I … I ...” his voice croaked, barely able to even say it out loud. “I don’t know how I’d continue living. Not without him.”
“I’m really not the one you should be telling this to.”
“Well what am I supposed to do?! Just come crawling back there?”
“Yes?”
“Are you crazy? I kissed him, Iori, I fucking kissed him just as he was gonna cry about Tsubaki again, I’m a selfish imbecil with no sense of boundaries, he’s probably changing the locks on the door as we speak.”
“Or, he’s worried about where you are, and maybe he even wishes ya wouldn’t run off like a chicken.”
“As if.”
“Nah, I could totally see it.”
“Please, just shut it.”
“No, you please man the fuck up and go sort out your mess. The rain’s gone, I’m throwing you out, and Danna - if you end up anywhere other than right back and 4/7, I’ll be the first to know. So don’t even try it, okay? Just go back, tell your man you’ve got it bad for him and see where it goes.”
“ … fine. Also, you’re an asshole.”
“Someone has to be,” Iori grinned, holding the door open for Yohei on the way out.
∘∘∘
It was way past opening time, but when he got back, the door still had a “closed” sign on the window. He pushed it open and to his surprise, it wasn’t locked.
“Sorry, we’re not- oh.”
Yohei stared at Saimon sitting at the counter, an empty glass in his hands and a full one next to him. He wanted to run away again. This was torture. “You didn’t open?”
“Didn’t feel like it. Want a drink?” he pointed to the full glass. “It’s kinda warm by now though.”
Yohei nodded, sitting next to Saimon and staring at the liquor in front of him. He was pretty sure that with the shots at CANDY and this combined, he’d be dangerously close to being drunk, but it was hard to care right now. “Did you wait for me?”
“I did.”
“How many glasses did you have?”
“Just one. I did consider the whole bottle at some point, but … well, didn’t feel like a good idea.”
“Yeah ...” Yohei mumbled, pushing his glass away. “I don’t think I should have any more either.”
“Why did you run away?” Saimon then asked, his voice soft and weary.
“That’s what you want to know? Not why I kissed you?“
“Well, I thought that was obvious.”
Was it? Yohei had no idea. It wasn’t obvious to him. If anything, he spent a lot of time trying to make his feelings less obvious to himself, not the other way around. “Aha … I guess,” was all he could manage to say.
“Yohei, are you ...”
“Yeah. I am. I’m in love with you.”
“I see.”
“What, you’re gonna tell me you knew that too?”
Saimon shook his head. “Not until you kissed me. But then it just kinda … crashed into me.”
“You mean I crashed into you.”
“That too,” Saimon nodded, thinking back to the moments before Yohei ran out of the bar. “So … why did you leave?”
“What else was I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know? Stay? Say something? Do it again?”
Yohei raised his head, staring in disbelief. “Again?”
Saimon met his gaze, trying his best to smile. “Well, I kissed you back, so-”
“What?!”
“I kissed you back. You … don’t remember?”
Yohei shook his head.
“Well, I did. I was totally shocked, but then I kissed you back, and then you just pulled away, stared at me like a deer in the headlights, and ran out the door.”
“Oh. I didn’t know. I just … kissed you, and then I panicked.”
“So you don’t remember anything?”
“Pretty much.”
“That’s unfortunate,” Simon sighed, reaching out to touch Yohei’s arm. “Do you wanna do it again?”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“F-Fine ...”
They both leaned closer, their lips slowly touching. Yohei thought that this was on him now, that he had to lead this somewhere because he’s the one who started this whole thing, but he felt kinda … lost? Iori must have been joking when he said Yohei had it bad for Saimon; but he was absolutely, one hundred percent right. Yohei had it bad. So, so so bad. The feelings he had for Tsubaki didn’t hold a candle to what he was feeling with Saimon right now. He was in love, so deeply in love, so mind-numbingly in love that he couldn’t feel anything other than him. Someone could have set the bar on fire around them and Yohei wouldn’t care. They were sharing the softest kiss he could ever imagine, and if it could only last forever, if only Saimon hadn’t pulled away in the end …
“It’s been a while … as you can probably tell,” he whispered with a shy smile, leaning his forehead against Yohei’s.
“What? No, you’re perfect.”
“Not too nervous then?”
“... well, I’m nervous too, so … I guess it’s fine. Can I kiss you again?”
Saimon nodded, and soon their nerves were out of the equation completely. All that was left was them, and this kiss, and the next one, and the next one, and … Saimon just couldn’t believe it. He dreaded moving on from Tsubaki. The thought of falling in love again one day absolutely terrified him. He was convinced that even if he did somehow find someone new, he wouldn’t be able to feel that way ever again. He wouldn’t be able to just give himself away and want someone back in exchange …
But there he was. Giving his thoughts, his closed eyes, his racing heart, his warm embrace, his lips, his every breath over to Yohei. Wanting nothing more than to be kissed, thought about, pulled close and held onto, all of which Yohei had covered. What started with the two of them leaning together from their seats quickly turned into Yohei sitting on the counter so their heights were matched, his fingers digging into the back of Saimon’s shirt and Saimon’s hands resting on Yohei’s chest as they continued to kiss for a lot longer than either of them thought they would.
“Ahhhh … shit, if the kids saw us like this ...” Saimon sighed when they eventually pulled apart and he moved to lean against Yohei’s shoulder.
“Ryuu probably wouldn’t shut up about it for months,” Yohei speculated while trying to get his hair out of his face.
“Wait, let me ...” Saimon caught hold of Yohei’s hands, moving them away from his face so that he could slowly push the stray strands away himself; one by one, his fingers gently brushing against Yohei’s skin in the process. “There.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” Saimon smiled, his hands still lingering on Yohei’s face.
“Saimon?”
“Yes?”
“You never told me how you feel about me.”
“Oh ...”
“Do you love me too?”
Saimon’s mouth hung open for a while as he struggled to find the right words. “Is … is it okay if I don’t know yet?”
“Yeah. Of course. Don’t worry about it. But … do you want to be with me? All that empty space you have beside you … is it alright if I take that?”
“Empty space? What empty space?”
“The one Tsubaki left?”
Once again, Saimon found himself at a loss for words. What empty space? Tsubaki’s empty space? But there was no empty space anymore, just ...
“Saimon?” Yohei called out to him, watching as he was just about to get lost in his thoughts.
“... you,” he whispered back.
“Huh?”
“There’s … no empty space. Just you,” Saimon repeated, suddenly finding himself under an avalanche of realizations about his feelings, and moving on, and grief … or lack-there-of. “Yohei, can you ask me again?”
“If you love me?”
There it was, again. Something stuck in his throat. Something begging to come out. Something pushing it back in. The words weren’t coming, but … the feelings were definitely there. And so Saimon did the next best thing he could think of: he kissed Yohei with so much force, he almost toppled him off the counter. He felt the grip of Yohei’s arms tighten around him, their tongues blindly tasting each other, their hearts both going wild as every fiber of Saimon’s being started to whisper and then chant and then scream, whooshing with a deafening voice inside his head, repeating over and over again how much he loved Yohei, of course he loved him, how could he not love him, how could he feel guilty and unable to say this, how could he still be afraid of giving these feelings to someone else, even though he truly loved Yohei, he loved him so much … and he hoped, he really hoped at least some of that was getting through.
“Haaa? What, what? Shiki, look, Boss and Master are making out on the counter. You owe me 5 spicy ramen bowls!”
“Uh oh ...” Saimon mumbled under his breath, not sure what to do now that they’ve actually been caught.
“Oi, you two are early! What’s that with the ramen? Shiki, don’t let him extort you, okay? Also, can you give us like five minutes? We’re kinda in the middle of something here. Grab some food from the back if you want.”
“Oooo? Shiki, let’s go raid the cookies! I want all the cream, and every third top half!”
“I d-don’t think that counts as f-food, Ryuu-kun ...” Shiki followed behind him, awkwardly averting his eyes from whatever was going on with Saimon and Yohei.
“He seems kinda shocked.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll deal with it. I’ll deal with all of it,” Yohei assured him, pressing their foreheads together.
“You’re way too young to be this dependable.”
“Shhh … just let me take care of things, okay?” He shut him down with another kiss, silent and short because he only asked for five more minutes after all. “Let me take care of you ,” he added at the end.
“Haven’t you already been doing that all this time?”
“I don’t know … I wasn’t trying to.”
“Well, you did it anyway.”
Yohei slid off the counter, giving Saimon one more tight hug with both of them leaning onto each other. “Maybe. But now I want to do it on purpose, not by accident. Will you let me?”
“Of course,” he nodded, holding on even tighter.
“Good. Oh, and Saimon?” Yohei pulled back, smiling wide.
“What?”
“I felt it,” he answered, his hand resting on Saimon’s cheek. “It’s okay if you can’t say it. It’s okay if you don’t know how to say it. I felt it. I most definitely felt it. You are in love with me.”
They stood in silence for a while.
Somewhere far off in Saimon’s mind, the past and the future finally parted ways.
“Yes. I am. I’m in love with you too.”