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The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.
- Elie Wiesel
Today is different from every other day.
The sun still rises from the east of course, as it always does, the rays moving like liquid gold that drip to coat the Tokyo streets. It’s not. Gold, that is - it’s a star, a ball of gas swirling and swirling and so very close to swallowing everything in its wake.
It is high up in the sky when Kenma wakes. This, too, along with the empty space beside him, is the same. But today is different. He can feel it.
He pads to the kitchen, rubs his eye, and reads the note tacked onto the fridge. It’s on bright yellow stationery, the kind that is part of a gift from an acquaintance who doesn’t know you well enough to think of a proper gift but has known you for long enough to pretend they put any thought into it. It’s a piece of paper that is slipped underneath a fridge magnet made to look like a sunny side up egg. On it is dark blue ink, smudged where the letters end, telling him that today is clean-up day.
Ah. So that’s what is different.
He doesn’t bother opening the fridge. Breakfast only means more dishes to wash, more work to be done, more things to be cleaned on clean-up day. He glances at the dirty dishes in the sink. Not enough to be a pile, but enough to clutter the counter. Half-assed, like a stationery gift.
Kenma can think of a person who’s as half-assed as that. He gives a little snort, self-deprecating as it is unheard, and sifts through the envelopes neatly stacked on the little dining table, all addressed to him. Nothing too important. Everybody emails nowadays, so he can pick them up with one hand to bring them to his study.
“Oh,” Shoyo says as he passes. “You’re awake.”
Kenma doesn’t say anything, because really, what’s someone supposed to say to that? He’s clearly awake; he’s passing by the living room on the way to his study in the clothes he wore from last night.
Shoyo isn’t expecting a reply either. He hefts the laundry basket to his other side before saying, “I sorted the mail already. I put yours on the table.”
Kenma nods. “You’re doing the laundry?” he asks, and doesn’t bother holding up his left hand to show him the mail.
“Yup.” Shoyo is already walking out, towards the washing machine. “You can do the dishes and mop after I vacuum.”
Then he leaves, and Kenma is left alone with a coffee table and two couches that take up too much space. If one of them had an eye for this kind of thing, they could have stopped themselves from buying it and cramping up the living room. Maybe they could have gotten better furniture, and it wouldn’t be so hard to breathe.
Still, Kenma feels his chest tighten. Today isn’t as different as he gave it credit for, he thinks, and tightens his fist so the mail crumples. None of them important, it’s okay, he reminds himself, and dumps them onto his desk before leaving to shower.
Maybe earlier, steam would fog the bathroom mirror and drift around two heads. Maybe Shoyo would be there to scrub his back and press kisses on his bare shoulder, and Kenma would catch him from slipping on the tiles, and they would both leave smelling like citrus.
The hot water ran out earlier this morning though, so now Kenma’s standing alone on slippery tiles as cool water drips down his shoulders. He shivers and reaches for his new shampoo; scentless, according to the label, but it stinks when mixed with his hair dye.
He gets out, does the dishes, wipes down the kitchen, mops, cleans their bedroom and his study, and when he emerges, Shoyo is slumped onto the couch. The sweat forms a patch at the front of his shirt, and the sleeves are rolled up all the way to the shoulder. Kenma looks away. His phone screen lights up. “Do you want me to make lunch?”
Shoyo nods, his eyes still closed. Maybe he mumbles a please, but Kenma’s already in the kitchen and too far away to hear it. He finds some leftovers in the fridge, probably almost expired, and washes the rice after he starts heating the leftovers in the microwave. He turns on the rice cooker and returns to the living room. Shoyo is still in the same place as before, rolled-up sleeves and head tilted back, exposing his throat.
Any other day, Kenma would have left for his study or Shoyo would have gone to the bedroom to sneak in a nap. But there’s something different about today, despite the sun still rising in the east, so Kenma sits on the adjacent couch. Shoyo opens his eyes to look at him.
“Hey,” Shoyo says. The couch squeaks as he shifts to face Kenma.
Kenma tries not to exhale too loudly. “Hey.”
There are a million things they can talk about, a million branches Kenma can grab. The whispers of conversation float in the air, and they sound so much like the past that Kenma feels they’re taunting him. Remember, remember when things were easy?
Nothing is easy. The branches look awfully weak, and Kenma fears if he grabs them then they will snap. All fragile, all subject to change - and how many chances have passed without Kenma noticing now that they’re down to the last?
So many branches. Kenma jumps onto the farthest one, the thinnest one, and invites Shoyo on it too. “We’re doing this wrong,” he says.
Shoyo stares at him. Not the hungry wide-eyed stare he did in high school, but the kind of stare someone would wear if they saw a branch snap. Any other day, Kenma’s sure one of them would try to brush this off. Play it as a joke, maybe, or ignore it altogether. But Shoyo nods and his lips curve up. “Yeah, we are.” It’s not a smile though, not exactly.
Kenma can hear the rice cooker humming from the kitchen, the few moments of silence between them painfully obvious. It hurts, right in his chest, a little to the left from the center.
“It’s not enough,” Shoyo says finally. This hurts too, in the same spot, except it slides down to pierce his lungs, cracking against his ribcage and leaking acid into his stomach. Maybe Shoyo’s feeling the same thing, the way his eyelids flutter. “Right?” he asks, weakly, as if to confirm he’s not a bad person. That he’s not wrong, and his eyelids are fluttering for nothing.
Not enough, like the stationery Kenma took out with the rest of the trash when the message was already across. Not enough, like the dishes in the sink he washed and left to dry, any trace of what happened before wiped clean. Not enough, like Kozume Kenma and Hinata Shoyo, the power couple who aren’t so powerful now.
Kenma doesn’t say anything. He’s not sure he can. He once heard that you can’t be both happy and famous. They’re both almost-famous, fairly successful in their own fields. Almost-happy still doesn’t count as enough - that’s what almost is, isn’t it? Somewhere that doesn’t quite reach the target, a word tacked on out of pity for a misguided effort.
Painful, painful. If the world could see them.
He realizes too late that he still hasn't answered Shoyo, that Shoyo's gaze is now downcast and his torso is shifted away once again. Kenma didn't hear the couch squeak. He doesn’t know when he moved.
The appropriate time to answer has passed, but it doesn't matter. Kenma still doesn't know what to say. Why aren’t we enough? Can’t we try harder? Where did we go wrong?
Everybody knows it’s lousy to answer a question with another question, but right now questions are all Kenma has. He wishes he had the answer, but he doesn’t even know how long he has until the rice is ready.
Kenma’s gaze lands on Shoyo’s slippers. They’re worn and spotted, the bright orange darkened where it is stained. He remembers when they bought it, Shoyo brimming with excitement at moving in together and Kenma laughing at how the slippers matched his hair. Back then, Shoyo asked questions that Kenma knew the answer to, and when he didn’t, they would sit with their thighs pressed together as Shoyo typed it into Google.
Kenma wiggles his toes, feeling the sock’s cotton rub against his skin. He never bought slippers for himself. No mementos.
Mementos are for things that are already past, he reminds himself. Shoyo is right here, close enough to touch. Not close enough to press their thighs together. Yellow stationery. Unwashed dishes.
“Is the food ready?” Shoyo asks.
“I’ve heated the leftovers already. We’re just waiting for the rice.”
“Oh,” Shoyo says. “How long until then?”
“I’m...not sure,” Kenma answers. It’s hard to swallow. He stands up. “I’ll go check on it now. It should be ready.”
It’s not ready. He enters the kitchen, steps on the newly-mopped floor, the shine of polished granite almost sparkling. His foot slides a bit too far on one particular step, and his stomach swoops in awful anticipation for the impact of a fall.
Kenma steadies himself. The rice cooker’s light is still red. Not ready. He knew that before checking.
He pulls out a chair and sits down, silent, like he is with everything else. Inside his chest, he’s sure his heart is shaking. There is a clenching feeling, and it takes more effort to breathe, like his body is begging him to let it cry, to let it be sad. Kenma’s never been a crier.
He holds his hands up. He’s not even trembling. All that is evidence for this is the shakiness in his chest. Apathy, it appears.
Kenma puts his hand down and glances up to the fridge. There’s another fridge magnet, a little onigiri this time, and underneath it is a printed photograph of him and Shoyo. Shoyo’s grin is big and wide, lighting up the entire landscape behind him, all teeth and pink cheeks. Kenma is eyeing the camera, the ghost of a smile only visible if you know where to look.
Shoyo’s always been a crier.
(Apathy, it means.)
The light turns green, and the switch of the rice cooker lets out a click as it turns to the 'warm' setting. Kenma gets up to scoop it into bowls. Shoyo emerges into the kitchen without Kenma having to call him.
Kenma passes him a bowl filled with rice and sets his on the table, where the microwaved leftovers are already set. They sit down.
Enough time has passed where asking a question does not count as an answer. “How are you?” he asks.
He doesn’t ask are you happy, because he already knows the answer. He doesn’t ask are you okay , because they’re both fine. They’re not crying themselves to sleep, they don’t fling pillows at each other screaming, there's no heartbreak or betrayal.
Shoyo's lips curve up again, not a smile, not like the blinding grin he has in the photograph. "Tired," he says.
"Tired," Kenma echoes. He picks up rice that's fallen to the table and puts it back in his bowl. It's clean-up day, after all. "Me too."
Shoyo eats quickly and moves to place it in the sink. Out of the two of them, he’s always been the fastest, the most eager, the one racing and chasing after finish lines only to move on to the next. Insatiable hunger, devouring everything set in front of him, like the star that pretends to be liquid gold.
"I'll do the dishes," Kenma says.
Shoyo nods. Another day, a day far before this one, Shoyo would sit and wait for Kenma to finish, filling in the gaps of conversation and resting his chin on his palms. A star that swirls and swirls, but stills just to have an extra moment for Kenma. Is that what love is? Is that what they used to have? What they lost?
"I'll head to the grocery," Shoyo says. "Do we have a list?"
"Um..." Kenma glances back at the fridge to see if there's a grocery list tacked on. "Not yet."
Shoyo leaves and returns with paper and a blue pen. Kenma swallows his last bite and opens the fridge. "We don't have any milk, eggs, and...“ He scans the shelves. “...We’re almost out of cooking oil.”
Shoyo hums, then asks, “What about vegetables? Fruits?”
Kenma makes a face. “No, no fruits.”
“We don’t have any toilet paper either,” Shoyo muses. “Do you still have shampoo?”
Kenma lets out an “Mhm.” There’s something terribly domestic about this entire ordeal, the type of domestic that should warm his heart and bring him butterflies and make him feel blissfully content. But not enough is the icy air from the fridge, its quiet buzz a background noise to their words.
Shoyo leaves and Kenma closes the fridge, washes the dishes, opens his laptop. His fingers move on autopilot across the keyboard, gliding the mouse across the pad, trimming the video where he needs it to and clicking save when he should.
The house is empty. It always feels like this, like he’s the only living soul in the house while Shoyo is a memory, a collection of moments so saccharine they turn his taste buds numb. Kenma’s tongue grows heavy.
He remembers, years ago, even before they left lingering touches and pining glances, telling Shoyo he didn’t quit because he didn’t have a reason to. He continued because he didn’t hate it, even if he didn’t necessarily love it.
This gives him déjà vu as he hears the front door open and Shoyo doesn’t call out a greeting. Maybe he could have kept this if he hadn’t grabbed that branch and broken the silence and just left for his room like any other day instead of escaping to the kitchen with unshed tears building in his throat. But there is something different about today.
Kenma realizes that maybe he might not have tomorrow, that what changed today has now irrevocably touched every day after. He closes his laptop and moves to the kitchen.
Same floor, but the granite counter is not as polished as he remembers. Not as polished as it was an hour ago, not as sparkling and perfect and new. The grocery bag is on the floor, and Shoyo is crouched down while unpacking. The fridge’s buzz is audible.
Kenma helps him wordlessly, and when Shoyo closes the fridge, the cool lingering in their faces, he asks, “Things will change tomorrow, won’t they?”
“Wait,” Kenma says.
Shoyo waits. His hand is still on the side of the fridge. Kenma is still carrying his shampoo bottle. Almost silence, with the fridge still humming in the background. Finally Shoyo drops his hand to the side.
“So what did you want, if not this?” Shoyo asks. The rest of his words go unsaid - if you had kept quiet, we could still dance around this. This can’t be fixed anymore. It didn’t have to be like this, you could have just tried to fix things quietly, but you didn’t and it ruined everything.
Kenma doesn’t know why he keeps saying words he has no follow-up for; why he breaks the cycle even though he will hate the result.
Shoyo huffs air in a short burst, not quite a laugh. “It was gonna happen anyway,” he says. “How much longer would we put it off? Tomorrow? Ten years?”
“I hope you’ll be happy,” Kenma says. The idea of one more decade being almost-happy is stationery under the Christmas tree, something carelessly harmful turning cruel.
Shoyo stares at him and nods. “You too.” The idea of Hinata Shoyo not being happy is wrong, as wrong as the sun being made of liquid gold and rising in the west. Kenma is almost relieved when he turns away. Shoyo’s back is muscular and broad, offset by strong shoulders. Kenma hears the door close.
He stares down at his scentless shampoo. Tomorrow Shoyo will go to training, Kenma will live stream his game, and they won’t wash the dishes.
But today is different. The sun will still set in the west, but he knows now what this change is. Cobwebs dusted, old things fished beneath too-large sofas. Thoughtless gifts discarded in the trash and groceries replaced for what is not enough.
It’s clean-up day.