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You’re no stranger to love or connection. Running your hands though pink and purple strands of hair, adjusting someone’s school uniform. You’ve experienced its highs, and oh, how you’ve experienced its lows. Coming home after it's all over, the weight of your actions falling upon you. You can’t help but want to bottle it up. How could you not, when everything you’ve ever loved has turned to dust? How could you allow yourself to be selfish, when said selfishness has a body count? Fighting it feels almost natural. You belong to your cause.
He doesn’t let you, though. Not on purpose. He extends to you a golden rose -a thousand golden roses- and you can’t deny him. You’re selfish. You take them. He bares himself to you, his every emotion worn on his sleeve, and you take them all in. Before you know it, he’s started to bare you too. He’s stripped you, literally and figuratively. Just when you think you can find your way out of it, he sees right through you. You’re concerned it won't be long until he finds out. Until he notices. You’re a monster. He’ll hate you, so you let him indulge in it all before it goes wrong.
He accompanies you to the hospital. He stands, quietly, behind you. He knows better than to interrupt the small talk you and Yotsutsuji have. This space is sacred to him, because it’s sacred to you. You allow him into this. It makes you feel sick in retrospect, involving him in your strange habit of talking to your comatose son. He doesn’t seem too bothered. He talks to him, softly, and tells him his dad misses him. He tells you he’s sure he misses his dad too. He tells you it’s okay to forgive yourself, he probably forgave you too. This shakes you to your very core. You sit down next to him. You cry. You’ve allowed him into this space as well.
He holds your hand, he holds you in his hands. He holds the knots you’ve tied around yourself and though you’re absolutely sure there’s no way in hell they’ll be undone, he sits down and tries. He unties them, skillfully. He acknowledges when he can’t. Love is recognition. Love is acknowledgement. And how he recognizes you. He likes to act like he’s dense, but he’s as perceptive as you are, if not more. He has you completely figured out.
There’s not a thing Hifumi doesn’t do skillfully. He makes you breakfast, he washes your clothes, he comes up with ways to both include natto in your meals and poke fun at you for it at the same time. He says he expects nothing in return for this. He asks you to kiss him, to turn on your radio and have a little dance with him. He looks at you in adoration and tells you it feels like in the movies whenever your hands are on his waist. He still manages to make fun of you, because you’re not the best dancer.
This doesn't mean he's not demanding. You told him you wouldn’t have time for a relationship with him. So he doesn’t ask for your time. He takes it. He turns up at the hospital at lunchtime. He flirts with the nurses, he dances his way into your office, he makes small talk with you. You tell him he shouldn’t see the doctor if he isn’t hurt. He tells you he’s suffering from not seeing you. He leaves just as quick as he comes in, gently kissing you before he sets off for work.
You know better than to underestimate him, but his work worries you. You look at him as he very gently folds his jacket. You notice the way his hands tremble at the thought of going to work. You tell him he should quit, selfishly. He’s quick to put you in your place. He looks at you and reminds you you’re not his savior. You’re not his god. You’re his boyfriend. He acknowledges your humanity. You are not omnipotent. Not to him. His healing is his very own. He knows his process best, and you know better than to interrupt him. A similar thought comes up later at night, when he’s crying in your arms, too scared to even look up at you in fear that he’ll see her. You don’t say anything about that this time.
He composes himself. He looks up at you and asks you if there’s anything you’d like to stop your past self from doing. If there’s anything you wish you could go back and change. Something compels you to tell him. Your hands shake too, just like his. You nod, and tell him a story about the war and the blood in your hands. He’s understanding. He nods at you. He listens. Not much is said after that, and you start to wonder whether you should have told him or not.
The blood on your hands tainted him. He hates you now. You’re a monster. You’re unforgivable. Repenting won’t work.
The morning comes and he still nuzzles your chest. He still smiles at you, sheepishly. He still puts natto in your rice for breakfast, and he still makes fun of you for it. He still shows up to your office, and he still tells you he’s dying from not seeing you at home. He still stands behind you and he still reminds Yotsutsuji his dad misses him. He still unties the knots around you. He recognizes you. He asks you to dance with him. He still extends his hands at you and offers you a thousand golden roses. Again, you take them.