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it just wasn't like the old days anymore
no, it wasn't like those days
am i still ill?
Takeomi always believed he found Shinichiro first on that one rainy day all those years ago.
Finders keepers. He wouldn’t stand for it to be the other way around because it was all about laying claim on some petty victory that he never had as a boy unentitled to a lot of things, and it went without saying that Sano Shinichiro was one of the best things to come into his life. So he’d take that claim with pride and brandish it around like the flag of the Black Dragons, heralding what was so triumphant and larger than himself and everything else combined.
So when Shinichiro found you, did he ever think the same?
Both of you grew inseparable to the point that he had to wonder where he fit in there.
Takeomi always did on different areas too. It was an insecurity he’d rather not disclose to anyone when he understood early on that he was just an ordinary kid and he’d rather not be reminded of that. Standing next to his childhood friends’ tall shadows was enough, but never once did he feel like leaving. It felt like a place where he could belong, lingering in the shadow of number two.
He knew this was a spot reserved for you, though for whatever reason, you kept refusing him and Shinichiro kept you close anyway. The two of you were like this ever since.
With his arm slung on your shoulder.
Takeomi wondered why he still chased after girls.
Why you never came back to Tokyo, now that was a mystery.
He never bothered to know more since you moved to study in Meidai. It wasn’t like you and him were ever really close; both of you just had one important link, a tug-of-war sometimes, but the small, unspoken rivalry still came with respect.
Besides if Shin’s happy, then that’s all what mattered, right?
But he wasn’t here anymore. You were.
No one expected that you’d show up in his funeral.
The first to welcome you were the Sanos; open arms in their own kind, solemn way, like you’d been a long, lost relative.
His friends followed after: spoke of condolences, sat quietly, drank your fill of liquor at some bar downtown. Reunions shouldn’t be this depressing.
What would he think, seeing us all broken up like this?
Takeomi would argue that you left them first, though it’s difficult to hold a grudge for so long because he’d learn that things would never last, and it would only take another glimpse of Shinichiro on the casket for him to make a hasty escape to the restroom, the walls of the cubicle closing around him like a constricted throat.
There, kneeled on the edge of the toilet bowl, the world fell under him all over again.
Takeomi was on a bench from some desolate parking lot, cut in blue and amber by the filthy glow of the lamplight.
“Mind if I sit here?”
You approached him in the weary light, black suit and all. He regarded you with indifference, except for the glasses. Wire-framed, fake. The same pair you used to wear in your brash youth, the ones you probably never needed at all.
Takeomi gave you another once-over before moving a bit to make room for you to sit. "Really honed in on your sociopathic streak, huh."
He was already drought out of pleasantries from the funeral. Honestly, it wasn't like he was pleasant to be with nowadays.
Taking your place next to him, you only nodded off his words with nonchalance, lighting the butt-end of your smoke – Golden Bat, was it? You weren't always this predictable.
"Sure," you mumbled; cigarette wedged between your teeth. Your jaw's a bit slack around it. "You look like shit."
He felt like one too, but he wasn't going to admit it to the likes of you.
You weren't even glancing at him when you told him that. It wasn't an insult, but more like a halfhearted observation. An abrasive one, though that's a language both of you shared for so long and he welcomed the familiarity with the same, bleak sense of abandon that hung around you.
“Take one,” you insisted.
Then you lifted the pack at him. It’s new and glossy, and he contemplated on the tear from the edge of the box; a tiny scar that remained like an afterthought because you most likely bought a pack of Shin’s favorite brand in a whim, desperate to poison yourself with nostalgia.
He'd mock you for it, if he wasn't in the mood to join you in a smoke break. Nicotine was nicotine. It called for such occasions.
So Takeomi pulled out a cigarette, and you flickered the lighter for him. He thought of the hostesses who used to do this for him, wondering if they got bored repeating the same gestures every night. He took account that your company was free, but you weren't cheap. He could tell from your suit. You looked like a wealthy accountant or something like that.
You could probably buy him out from the massive debt his drowning in right now.
Must be nice being successful in Nagoya. He would've opened the conversation there, if he had a vague idea how to not sound so begrudging about it. If Shinichiro were here, it'd be so much easier, and he'd likely berate him that it was just you.
You, the Specter of the Black Dragons. You, a distant friend from his boyhood.
Just you.
"You don't have to believe me," after all this time, was what you meant to say, but you cradled the sentiment on your lips, wrapped around the miserable cloud of your cigarette, as if to hang onto the taste of something like a memory—or a ghost.
Both of you must've stopped fooling yourselves at some point that this was the closest thing you could get to him.
"But I really loved him."
We all did, he thought, smoking deeply.
Takeomi bought you a can of Suntory from a nearby vending machine.
"Drink up."
He decided to return the favor. For the cigarette, for this sad attempt of a heart-to-heart.
It could never change things back to the good, old times, but at least he could afford to know you a little better.
“I'm moving back to Tokyo.”
“What, Nagoya ain't good enough for ya?”
“Something like that. I just got a feeling I should be here,” you said after taking another sip of your beer. Takeomi would learn later on that you kept dreaming about Shinichiro ever since his passing; dreams of another time gone, dreams as bittersweet as the rain. You looked up to the night sky. “The air's different.”
“It's just the weather.”
“Hey,” you started. “Can you still tell if it's about to rain?”
Takeomi sighed. “Sometimes.”
It didn't rain, though. Everything was too stagnant, and perhaps for the two of you, the world might as well have been on a standstill upon Shinichiro's death. It’s a good thing one of you didn’t like to dwell on that for too long – or at least, pretend not to.
“Tell me something else.”
“Like what?”
You hummed in thought. “Tell me about your family.”
Takeomi did in measured successions.
Like how he thought he looked more like his father each day, how he regretted not getting Senju the present she wanted for her birthday, and how he hadn't seen Haruchiyo for a long time when he'd been out running off to god-knows-where.
Because he couldn't bear it, he'd omit the other details too: his father’s uselessness and Haruchiyo's scars. That shameful part about how he couldn't even afford a gift for Senju without splitting the pay with Wakasa and Benkei, like his suit rental. They covered for him, always looked down on him while dragging his sorry ass to the processions of the funeral service while he'd still been collecting himself after the crash of an intense high from a bender that's racking up his tab, long overdue. Nothing to pay for it with a worthless reputation.
Takeomi couldn't find it in himself to admit to you that he was broke, though perhaps there had been something about the manner that you had patiently listened to him throughout that made this small, trembling part of him break out into a confession.
"It's all my fault."
"You're harsh on yourself," you remarked, drinking your beer with one last gulp.
"I fucked up and there's no one to blame but me." Takeomi kept his voice somber and firm from cracking into a sob, but for that, he smoked quicker; the stick of his cigarette a lifeline, about to be snuffed out from a despondent drag. You gave him another stick, but the lighter wasn’t working this time, running empty of flames to spit.
Perhaps moved by a dreg of empathy, you tilted your head closer and from your mouth, offered the cherry of your cigarette, pressing against his. Then he sucked in a breath until something smoldered between both of you.
But even cinders died too quickly, and after you withdrew yourself back with a warm, languid trail of smoke on your lips, the taste of ashes still lingered—of the past? The present? He saw two things at once nowadays, some kind of screwed-up dual vision when you got older, but he couldn’t determine his future anymore.
Takeomi thought about Shinichiro again, golden like a sunset and an era so brilliant one had to wonder how could it all just fade away? Then he thought about you, mulling over if you’d just been the ruins of what you once were.
Addicts could always tell it from each other: the hopelessness.
Yours were a pair of glasses, a relic of the past, and you became blindsided for it.
"Guilt, huh," you mused wistfully.
Takeomi wondered if that was the only thing you could offer him. He didn’t need any more words of consolation from everyone else, though he figured sharing addictions was more comforting, like two cigarette embers meeting to burn, breathing a little deeper into the air of your lungs to taste what’s always been hurting inside.
In your company, Takeomi was careful to never mention your brother again.
He liked to think that he's wiser from that time when all of you had still been kids, pushy and volatile from your emotions. Not realizing it was a sensitive matter, he tattled on Shinichiro that your brother was a convicted criminal and you hated him for it; so much apparently that Shinichiro had to intervene between both of you to reconcile, though he went about it in his stubborn way that drove you to a heated point where your fist hit him squarely in the face, giving him a nosebleed.
His memory was a blur in the aftermath. What he could only recall was that you and Shinichiro were always quick to forgive each other.
You and Takeomi, however, ended up in obscurity. Both of you just went talking about something in school the other day and he assumed everything's settled; maybe, partly because of Shin's meddling when he remembered the boy flashing him a thumbs-up at some point.
He wondered if he felt the same encouragement when your mouth grew looser with alcohol.
You were always good at making yourself appear more well-put than most, even after drinking two bottles of sake earlier and then a can of beer with him. If your sister accompanied you, she could’ve stopped you from drinking more. He's too certain you didn’t even eat anything, something else devouring you inside from your unfocused gaze; staring but not staring. Were you seeing ghosts?
“I like the way he used to say my name,” you admitted in a slow, pondering tone.
Takeomi sent you an incredulous look, and you let out a wisp of laugh.
“I know. It’s stupid, but I can’t help but think about it now. See, the last time he did was . . . three years ago, I think? It was a butt-dial. Heh, can you believe that? Even dropped his phone right after I picked up. Probably swore something under his breath too. You know how he is when he’s piss-drunk,” which hadn’t always been the case, because Shinichiro could actually hold his alcohol quite well than most of them. So the rare occasion of him getting all wasted was too amusing to pass up when he was the flimsy kind of drunk that acted on his impulses; drunk-texting being one of his common offenses.
“That idiot could’ve just texted me. Spelled my name wrong or whatever. But no, he had to call at four in the morning,” and then you voiced out your name, like how he must’ve uttered it on the other line. “—he said. He didn’t sound as confused as I thought he was. Or was I just imagining it? Oh, well. Then he asked, how are you?”
“What a mess,” commented Takeomi, shaking his head from secondhand embarrassment.
You chuckled. “I just told him that he’s drunk. Then I shut him off right after.”
Then you took a mirthless drag from your cigarette.
“That’s the last time I heard his voice,” you admitted. “Wish we talked about something more meaningful. Or why he was drunk. If only I just . . .”
You tapped the ashes on the empty beer can with a finger. Some flew on the skin around your fingernail. If you ever got burned, you didn’t show it.
“I hadn’t seen Shin for four years,” you said.
Everyone knew, and at some point, they gave up on you. Shinichiro never did.
“Was he happy?”
He missed you a lot. But Takeomi didn’t tell you that. You looked like you’d shatter, if he did.
“Yeah,” he replied.
“Good,” then another long, painful second. “That’s good.”
That’s enough.
“He didn’t look the same.”
“No one does,” he said. Except for you.
“Over time,” you finished in a murmur, standing up to walk towards the vending machine. “Yeah. I get it.”
“It’s late.” Takeomi heard the crash of your drink on the pick-up box, followed after the pop of a can—of beer, he observed, after sneaking a brief glance at you. “You’ve got somewhere to stay?” he didn’t mean to ask; it’s more like a formality before he’d leave you alone. You had money. There should be a nice place for you somewhere. But.
“No,” you said, and drank some more.
Both of you took a taxi to his apartment.
You paid for the ride. Rather, you agreed to it in a drunken stupor when you just sluggishly handed him money after he tried asking you to – which, even he’d admit, was sleazy of him, but it wasn’t like he could pay for a taxi. As if taking you to the train station was an option at all.
What you gave him had been a lot more than the fare and he shoved the remaining change deep in his pocket. Whether the driver regarded him with disgust or not didn’t matter. His affairs weren’t his damn business anyway. Besides he was used to the sneers, the backhanded appraisals. He’d already accepted the fact that he was the lowest of the low.
“But you’re better than this,” muttered Takeomi with a tired huff. To you or himself, he wasn’t sure. Though what he did know was that he couldn’t just leave you as you were in the parking lot at this dark hour. So he steadied you like an anchor, keeping your arm around his shoulder, as the elevator creaked open and he led you towards his apartment door; plastered with the month-old signs and casual threats. From gangs, loan sharks, you name it. It was a fucking piece of work.
Not very welcoming, but it served the purpose of making it appear like he abandoned the place for a long time.
“Shoes,” he reminded, and you just kicked them off your feet; haphazardly scattered and out of place in his genkan. Then he walked you inside, careful to not let you stumble on the furniture and the rows of empty glass bottles, until the two of you were in this lonely crevice he called his bedroom.
Once you sunk on the mattress and old sheets, he couldn’t help but think how things wound up like this.
Could’ve been a funny story, but no one’s laughing.
Takeomi gave your shoulder a tentative shake, whispering your name, though you couldn’t be bothered to be woken up by anything.
Would it really make a difference if you had a few missing bills? Would you even remember?
His hand almost reached for your wallet until something abruptly vibrated from the pocket of your pants. Curling his hand into a white-knuckled fist, he picked up your phone instead, flipping it up to see a missed call and the unread messages from your sister in the notifications.
[23:14] it's late. are you still at the funeral?
[23:30] where are you?
[23:58] text me if you’re coming back
Then he stared back at you from his bed and sighed, typing up a quick reply.
[0:01] At a friend's. I'll be back tomorrow.
“You’ll worry your big sister sick, idiot,” grumbled Takeomi, sitting at the edge of the bed. He placed your phone on the dusty nightstand.
“. . . sorry,” you murmured from your pillow. He bristled from your response before a soft snore rolled out of your mouth, and he finally let out the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.
Guilt, huh, he recalled.
Takeomi decided to pull the comforter over you, absentmindedly tucking its edges to your sides in the familiar manner he used to do for his younger siblings.
A dull ache split his chest at the thought. He could feel it throb along the seam of his scar, as if it was the first time. Then he grabbed a pillow and lied down on the floor, staring at the ghost lights of the city smudged on the ceiling.
It reminded him of the quiet melancholia in your eyes.
Maybe, both of you could talk about it in the morning.