Chapter Text
“It’s 11:11.”
Eijun felt Satoru whisper gently to his ear. “Yeah,” he starts, trying to find the right words to make it seem like he is pretty much composed—and that the slightest touch of Satoru’s fingertips doesn’t drive him crazy. Unfortunately for him, it does.
“What did you wish for?" Satoru asks, his fingers itsy-bitsy-ing their way through Eijun’s hair.
A wish, huh? Eijun says in his thoughts. He did whisper a few wishes here and there. He wished for a higher-paying part-time job last New Year. He wished to receive chocolates on Valentine’s Day so he could brag about it to Satoru. He made a wish to get better grades even without tattooing his eyes on his books. He wished for so many things that the gods might have grown tired of seeing his name on the queue.
And the gods aren’t always so merciful to get back to you with all checks on your list, but Eijun got the most unexpected thing for the year, one that he didn’t even imagine to be possible—for his childhood best friend to come running to confess his love for him. That the feeling has been mutual all along.
Eijun never thought that Satoru feels the same way. It’s been months since he decided that he will be keeping it with him until maybe he had to move somewhere else for college and randomly drop the “oh, I actually had a crush on you for a decade” after ten years then laugh with him about it because he’s supposedly moved on.
But Satoru just had to drag him into a corner in the middle of the fireworks festival last summer, grab his hand, and put a tiny crumpled paper inside it that says "I like you".
And the past few weeks have been the best time of his life. No doubt about it. He's been spending it like how he has been fantasizing since ten years ago—holding hands with Satoru on their way home from school, asking him out on a Saturday, feeding him some popcorn in the cinemas, sharing a glass of fruit shake with him, to name a few. He wanted to do the cheesiest of the cheesiest things with Satoru. He wanted to do everything with Satoru.
Despite living the best of his life, Eijun is pretty sure he won't run out of wishes. And right now, he can't think of anything. So he doesn’t say anything else.
He’ll figure out what to wish for.
And through the years, Eijun formed a long list of wishes—get into a prestigious university, get a high-paying stable job after graduation, get a nice apartment near his company, and a boyfriend that can make him love again.
But he found himself stuck in 11:12, and he’s left to wish nothing to the air.
After moving to Tokyo, he had to change his university choices and aim for the dream school he always had since he was a child. But the reality is a bitch and when it slaps, it slaps hard and the pain lingers. He had to face that not everyone is meant to be embraced by their dream school. “Well, who cares about dream schools anyway? As long as I get a high-paying job, I’m good,” he tells himself, tears pooling on his eyelids. He knew he had to get up and move forward after checking the results online.
As it turns out, getting that kind of job was still unreachable for someone like him. It took him months and months of job interviews and rejections until he landed on one. And it’s still the same place he has been all these years. He wished to get the highest pay in the company but instead, he got the highest rank on overtime hours.
Unfortunately, their company building isn’t somewhere close to the apartment his mom left for him. It's the dream to just wake up and just walk to the office, but he’s still too broke to move to a new apartment. And it’s not like he has the time to pack.
And with all the Nos he's been getting on his wishlist, he knows that finding someone that can make him love again won't be the first Yes to it. Sure, he tried dating around but he couldn't even last for a month.
He first gave in to Ouno, the varsity player who pursued him for five months. He was all right and even gave him free tickets to his baseball games. But his fangirls were kinda hardcore and they had to hide pretty much everything about them. Dating a celebrity wasn’t really something Eijun would sign up for again. He got to date Toujou—probably the nicest guy he knew—who would take him out on dates every day. He was everything he could’ve asked for, but Eijun felt the sparks were gone too soon. It was all on him. He also got to be with his college crush, Haruichi, who pretty much gave him butterflies on their every moment. But Eijun knew he had to end it when all he sees when they make out is his ex—Furuya Satoru—and he felt it was unfair. And they were all great men, but he’s an idiot who’s still hung up on his first love.
It's been a decade since they broke up, but it's still him. He loved him too much that he couldn't see himself with anyone but him. He was young and foolish and impulsive then. When he finally got the courage to visit Hokkaido and apologize to Satoru, his family had already moved out of their small town and no one knows where they are.
"You should try Tokyo," Satoru's old neighbor told him. "I heard something happened with his grandfather."
Satoru is like the sand on his shore that he wanted to hold. And just like any other sand on the beach, the tighter he held him, the more he slipped away.
Maybe it’s time to let him go? Maybe.
And with all the rejection from his 11:11 wishlist on the bigger things that seem a little farther at the moment, Eijun decides to focus his wishes on the smaller things. Smaller things like not being late to work, getting to eat properly given his busy schedule, getting that long-awaited salary raise, and his gadgets not failing him when he needs them the most.
Unfortunately, it’s also a no.
Eijun was supposed to wake up at seven o’clock to prepare for work but he just had to wake up at eight o’clock and make do with just a slice of bread to get him through the rest of the day. The way it just had to happen when he has a client meeting on his lunch break.
“I’ll meet him on my lunch break,” Eijun volunteered to his boss. He really had no choice when his boss kept complaining about how he wanted to close the deal with Mr. Takigawa but the latter is only available on his lunch break. It was a “yeah let me do it but raise my salary” kind of volunteering. So he’ll just meet with the client on an empty stomach. A small sacrifice for a bigger prize, he hopes.
This day can’t get worse, can it?
Unfortunately, again, it’s still a no.
Eijun is pretty sure he got to the correct platform. He’s been doing this for five years already and there’s no way he’ll make this kind of mistake on a day so critical. The train line he’s been taking to work doesn’t have an underground station and doesn’t even pass on an underground tunnel. And they have been underground for the last fifteen minutes.
He checks his watch and it’s 8:30. He tries to switch gears and plan what he can do with his remaining thirty minutes—get off the next station and take a taxi. But it’s been ten minutes and the train is still not stopping by a station. Heck, he can’t even remember if it ever stopped on one.
Forget about pay raise, I could get fired today. He says in his thoughts. He feels his sweat trickling on his back one by one, the agony feeling like a nail getting hammered to his heart as he thinks about the earful he’ll be getting when he gets to their office.
Eijun touches the pulse on his wrist, hoping to feel less anxious by avoiding looking at the time on his watch but not too far off the shore. And he’s pretty sure it’s been about ten minutes but his watch still says 8:30.
Oh great, another one not on the budget . He silently curses. Not when he has zero time to go get it repaired.
So he reaches for his phone instead. It should be around 8:40… but his phone also says November 1, 8:30 a.m. and the screen is glitching a bit.
Fuck, not this one too. A new phone is totally out of the budget now. He’d be lucky if he can borrow some sort of company phone. After all, he’s one of the people that clients directly talk to. But also, his manager can be a bitch so who knows.
November 1… Ah, of course, the November 1, the anniversary. The anniversary of Eijun’s ultimate stupidity and impulsiveness. The anniversary of Eijun losing the most important person in his life. The anniversary of the moment that Eijun regrets the most in his lifetime. The anniversary of the day that he wishes he could turn back.
The memory is still so vivid—Satoru’s blue polka dot sweater, his midnight blue pants with tiny polar bears that Eijun cried on when they finally got together, his yellow boots that Eijun got for his birthday. A vivid memory that never not left a sting but he can’t let go.
“It’s all right,” Satoru squeezed his shoulder, trying to tell him that it’s gonna be okay. “I’m just your boyfriend but that’s your mom we’re talking about—”
“ Just your boyfriend?” Eijun snapped. “I’m just a boyfriend to you, Satoru?”
“You know that’s not what I meant to say—”
“Then what were you trying to say?” Eijun crossed his arms.
“I’m just worried about your mom, don’t be selfish now—”
“Wait, I am the selfish one? Don’t you think you’re being unfair to me? You don’t even wanna fight for us. Are you still on board with me? Your head has been gone somewhere these days. Where are you , Satoru?” Eijun bit his lips hard, hoping that the pain from it would dominate the sting he felt on his chest. He had always been selfless, especially with his mom. Whenever she needed him, Eijun was right there in a heartbeat. So what’s wrong with being selfish for once?
But Satoru just stood there and didn’t say anything.
“You know what, let’s just break up.” Eijun felt each of the words coming out of his mouth like lava.
A tear started rolling down on Satoru’s right cheek, the rest pooling on his eyelids, not wanting to let them out. “You’re just saying that like you always do.”
“Go figure.”
And that was the last thing he said before rushing back home to pack his bags. It took him a bit to calm down. But before he knew it, he already boarded the plane to Tokyo.
Crash.
A strong shake interrupts Eijun’s reminiscing, almost throwing him to the other side of the train.
And now an earthquake too? He felt his insides rattle from the shake but the other passengers don’t seem to look bothered.
He looks around and every one of them is just carrying on with their life like there’s nothing wrong going on with this whole trip. But he can hear one crying, a high school kid probably, not too far from him.
He finds the hankie in his pocket and makes his way to the crying kid, “here, kiddo,” who happens to be wearing a polka dot sweater, midnight blue pants who happens to have some polar bears in them, and that yellow boots.
What the actual fuck?