Work Text:
The day Reki Kyan died was the day Langa Hasegawa quit skateboarding. The sun felt cold, food lost flavor, he couldn’t feel the wind, and he couldn’t feel his heart beating in his chest.
He vaguely recalled feeling something like this before, but he couldn’t remember. He couldn’t think. When he was awake, all he thought about was Reki, and when he slept, his dreams were filled with him.
In his dreams, Langa remembered the sun; hot and soothing. The feeling of calloused fingers entwined with his own. Soft skin pressed against his, red hair, freckles, deep amber eyes, and chapped lips. And his heartbeat. When he awoke again, it was grey and cold. The sun was no longer part of this world.
Langa drifted through his days, had he eaten? Was he even hungry? He didn’t know. A month had gone by, but time had ceased to exist for him; frozen in the moment that the reality that Reki had left this world hit him full force, and at the same time, stuck in the feeling that it had been years that he had spent without him already.
They had only just moved in together. They were only just beginning their lives. Langa retreated to the apartment that they had once shared.
His friends tried texting, Masae had been by once, though they didn’t exchange many words. She had handed him an unfinished ring, quietly explaining that she had found it on Reki’s workbench, surrounded by his notes and sketches. He had been planning to propose.
Nanako called him, surprised when he actually answered.
“Langa. Baby…how-how are you holding up?”
“Sure.” Langa replied. Nanako bit her lip.
“I haven’t seen you since- since the funeral. Do you want me to come over? I could make you dinner.”
“Not hungry. I’m going to sleep, I’m tired. My…My chest hurts.”
“Of course. I’m just worried about you, honey. Let me help, please.”
“Bye, mom. I love you.”
“Goodbye, honey. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”
Langa didn’t reply, and hung up the phone. Slowly lying down in his bed. He held the ring in his fingers, feeling every perfectly imperfect mark in the unfinished project. He held it tightly to his chest, and closed his eyes.
In his dreams, Langa remembered the sun; hot and soothing. The feeling of calloused fingers entwined with his own. Soft skin pressed against his, red hair, freckles, deep amber eyes, and chapped lips. And his heartbeat.
Morning broke, hot and bright, as it always did in the Okinawan summers, but the apartment remained dark. Langa didn’t stir in his and Reki’s bed.
Nanako called around lunch time, but Langa didn’t answer. It would be later that night, when she decided to go to his apartment and force him to let her take care of him, that Langa would be found, still in his bed. Clutching what would have been his engagement ring in his stiff, cold, fingers.
The doctors would tell Nanako, the Kyans, and Langa and Reki’s friends that there was likely nothing they could have done. It was a very rare condition, and not well understood. That although Langa was a healthy young man, only 30, that age and medical history had nothing to do with this particular condition.
The diagnosis was Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy, and there was no question from anyone who loved Reki and Langa that the diagnosis was correct.
A terrible accident had taken Reki, and Langa had followed him from a broken heart.