Archive of Our Own

Hakuryuu woke from a dream of the fire to realize he couldn’t remember much of his brothers.

The thought in itself was disturbing enough to overturn his closet and search every cardboard box for mementos. He wasn’t in the habit of leaving them in a dusty box, of course not - he’d moved only recently to an apartment of his own and hadn’t gotten the time to finish unpacking yet.

It was a poor excuse and he knew it. Unpacking only took as long as the amount of time he dedicated to it, and the guilt at leaving his brothers’ things in a box for weeks had him skipping school to take care of it. There weren’t many things important enough to skip school for, but he was sure that his brothers topped that list.

Or, at the very least, they’d topped the list before he forgot their things in a closet for nearly a month.

The search took approximately four hours from the time he woke up, with no break for breakfast or lunch. It was only after hanging his summer clothes that’d also spent the past few months in a box (this time due to temperature rather than negligence) that the box of his mementos was uncovered.

The box wasn’t clearly labeled, just as the last five boxes hadn’t been, and Hakuryuu opened it with the same care he opened every box. He didn’t want to accidentally damage any of his brothers’ things. Inside each item was individually wrapped in tissue paper, then wrapped again in bubble wrap and taped tightly just to be sure. He removed the packaging and took a few deep breaths, willing his heart rate to return now that he knew their things were safe.

He didn’t have much. Not a lot survived after a fire, and much of what did survive wasn’t recovered. If his health had been good enough, he would have recovered them himself. But he wasn’t even sure to survive by the time the house had been cleaned up, much less go searching in the ashes for his brothers’ things.

Hakuryuu leaned against his bed and removed a handful of photos. They weren’t the best pictures. Those all burned. What was left was what he was able to get a copy of from their living family and his brothers’ friends.

Or, if he were being honest, what he had was what Kouen was able to get copies of that he then copied for Hakuei who then copied them for Hakuryuu. He was only six at the time. He didn’t think to go calling up all his brothers’ friends for them himself.

Still, he wasn’t too keen on giving the credit to Kouen. He’d only been able to do it because he was older.

Hakuryuu used to go through the pictures as often as possible. Many had slight water damage to show for it, little blotches where his tears had fallen ten years ago, when he was too young to understand that even tears could damage something as fragile as his only pictures of his brothers.

He recognized every picture, and had long ago noted every detail of every picture to himself, committing them to memory in case something happened. Now he had them backed up online as well and it wasn’t as big of a deal, so many details he was noticing after years of having forgotten.

There were twenty-seven photos in total; fourteen of just Hakuyuu, five of just Hakuren, and eight of them both. If there were more somewhere, he didn’t know about them. Just twenty-seven photos to remember all the facts of people who had lived and breathed wasn’t enough, but they’d lived in a time before cell phones all had cameras. There was nothing he could do about it now but try to recall from what he had.

A picture of Hakuyuu sitting on the porch steps of their old burnt house. Probably a picture to be sent to a relative - it was too unnatural of a moment to take a picture of otherwise. But even if his pose was unnatural, the sincere expression was one Hakuryuu needed to remember. It was unacceptable that he’d allowed it to get blurry in his mind.

A picture of both Hakuyuu and Hakuren playing with Koumei and Kouha. Judging from the height of the picture, it was taken by a teenage Kouen. Many were. It’d bothered him for years, knowing that Kouen took so many and yet gave up photography completely after their deaths despite it being a clear reminder that they’d lived.

A picture of Hakuren making a funny face along with Hakuei, taken sometime before Hakuryuu was born. Lots were. He hadn’t been alive for much of their lives, after all.

Pangs of guilt ran through him each time he realized he’d forgotten a detail that used to be burned so deeply into his mind - how could he have forgotten that Hakuyuu wore glasses to read? That Hakuren liked to smoke at times with his friends?

He stared at that picture of Hakuren for a few minutes, taking in each detail through the smoke. It was taken by one of his friends, presumably at some sort of party. He’d never smoked in front of Hakuryuu, at least. It was something he only learned he did after his death.

Another picture was Hakuyuu smiling with a woman Hakuryuu had never met. He wasn’t at the funeral, but she might’ve been. A girlfriend, maybe. She was pretty.

He wondered how she was holding up. Married by now, almost certainly. Moved on.

Hakuren’s friends were likely the same. Moved on past their college years, past their memory of him.

Hakuryuu gulped and set the pictures aside. If they’d all forgotten his brothers he would have to do the work for them. If he closed his eyes he could picture them. Smiling, happy, the same as in the pictures. If he really focused he could almost remember the way they walked or spoke.

He knew that they were dead. He had seen it happen right before his eyes. The image of their final moments was seared much deeper into his mind than their happy faces and they were soon replaced by the smell of burnt flesh.

Hakuryuu might need pictures to remember their faces, but he didn’t need anything to remember the smell as they burnt.

He tried to think of something else.

This wasn’t the first time he became anxious about forgetting his brothers, and it wouldn’t be the last. The time before he tried parting his hair to the side, as close to how Hakuyuu wore his hair as he could get it, just so he could be reminded every time he looked in the mirror of his brother. It worked until he became so used to seeing himself with his hair parted to the side that it looked more like himself than his brother in his mind.

He was himself, after all. Not his brother. He wasn’t smart enough or compassionate enough to be.

Hakuryuu picked through the box again, unwrapping the remainder of the contents. Some wrenches they used to use to fix things around the house. An old ring of Hakuren’s that was too big to fit any of Hakuryuu’s fingers, even though he would be nineteen next year, the same age as Hakuren was when he died. He didn’t think the ring would ever fit. His hands weren’t the same as Hakuren’s—not so large and not so kind.

The fact that he would likely outlive both his brothers was the worst part. They should have been the ones to live. They were more, always had been more. The most he could do for them since their mother was executed so long ago was try to keep their memories alive. Try to make sure that others knew who they were and what was good about them through him.

He didn’t mind sharing his life with them. It was the least he could do.

Hakuryuu rewrapped each of their items carefully and found a drawer to keep them in. It wasn’t good, but it was better than a box at the bottom of his closet. At least he’d remember to open it up and have a look every now and then.

With that, he was left with hours of free time before he would have gotten home if he went to school. Too distracted to study, he looked through the refrigerator to get an idea of what to cook for dinner. Something he had to go to the store for was preferable.

It’d been a few weeks since he moved out but he was still drawn to go to the store a bit more than necessary to dull the feeling of being alone all the time. He was used to being alone in the sense of not talking to anyone, but being alone without anyone else nearby was a bit of a new feeling.

Growing up with a huge family was like that.

He wrote a quick list and pulled on a jacket, then headed out into the early autumn afternoon. Not five steps from the door his phone buzzed - Alibaba, asking if he was sick.

No, Hakuryuu texted back. Just had some errands.

Alibaba texted him an update on their shared math class’s homework, and that was that. Alibaba didn’t usually do a very good job of minding his own business, but when he did it was appreciated.

Alibaba and, by extension, Alibaba’s friends, were the only people Hakuryuu knew at college. He lived alone off campus rather than in a dorm; his school allowed it, and he had the impression that dorms weren’t conducive to studying efficiently. His sister came to visit occasionally, as did Judar. Other than that he was alone.

There was a full grocery store not far from his apartment, but it was a nice day worth walking in. He hadn’t taken much time to explore the area in the first place, and since he’d skipped classes already, it was as good of a time as ever to become familiar with the stores near his home.

After all, he couldn’t get everything he liked to cook with in that single grocery store.

Two blocks and he found himself in a surprisingly well-stocked corner store. It had just about every flavor of potato chips in existence, along with cheap liquor and stale looking donuts that characterized every corner store, just at a larger scale. The eggs were very reasonably priced, though. It offset the dubious atmosphere just enough for Hakuryuu to buy a carton.

Then, as he set the carton down at the counter, something caught his eye behind the cashier.

“Is this all, sir?”

He recognized those colors. From a photo.

For just a moment, he hesitated. Asking would be strange. But it was nothing his brother hadn’t done before.

“…No. A pack of these, too, please.” He pointed to the pack of cigarettes he recognized as being what his brother had held gingerly in his hand in that picture. The one where he was laughing with his friends, seemingly unaware of the camera.

The cashier nodded and read his total. Hakuryuu paid and left.

Just the pack. No lighter. He wanted to keep it with his other mementos, tucked away safely in a drawer.

He bought it, looked at it for a few minutes once he got home, and added it to the rest of his brothers’ things. It wasn’t something Hakuren had ever touched, and was likely manufactured many years after his death. But it did make him feel a bit closer.

Because he’d done the same thing twelve years ago. Hakuren must have gone to the store and bought a pack, just the same as Hakuryuu did. It was an experience that they now shared.

It relieved him of guilt long enough to work on the extra math homework Alibaba so kindly reminded him of.

Something about the way things were wasn’t right.

It wasn’t wrong in a dramatic way - little things just didn’t make sense or weren’t enough. He was a biology student. He knew that life was complex to a miraculous extent and he, of course, had an interest in it.

He knew the way things were and all of it made sense from the very smallest particles to the largest ideas. He couldn’t remember every theorem at once but each one he learned fell into a puzzle that made perfect sense. A rational puzzle.

As a result, his feelings of wrongness had to be what was unnatural. Everything else was right. It all made sense. It was only when he added himself to an equation that it had a visibly weak link.

That had always been the case. He spent years living in his sister’s shadow trying to scrape up the skills to take care of her as a brother should. She spent years lying that it was fine even if he couldn’t do anything to make him feel better. She was too kind.

He learned how to cook to take some of the weight from her shoulders. He learned how to clean for the same reason.

Objectively they were both skills that everyone should have and he was fulfilling the bare minimum requirement of independence by knowing them. Feeling accomplishment at being able to do such simple things lacked modesty. Still, he was a bit proud of his skills when it came to cooking.

He liked bringing an elaborate lunch to school for Alibaba to envy. He liked bringing extra food so that Alibaba would compliment the taste, too.

Hakuryuu liked all sorts of foods, but most of all he liked to make the things his brothers had liked. His sister had told him years ago and he’d done his best to remember.

When he was sad he ate the porridge Hakuren liked as comfort food. When he was in a good mood he made desserts Hakuyuu ate on his birthday. It made them feel closer.

Years and years ago when he was just getting the hang of it his goal was always to make something Hakuei remembered from before the fire. She was eleven when it happened. She spent five more years with their brothers than he had. Making her things and hearing about what his brothers liked and didn’t like from them had made his day many times.

Hakuryuu made a point of making their favorites more often. He lived alone, yes, but preserving his brothers’ memory was far more important than trying to put himself in a better mood.

Hakuyuu didn’t like the strong taste of pickled ginger so he stopped buying it. Hakuren was lactose intolerant so he didn’t drink milk. Little things like that helped to understand how they lived. It was a closeness unattainable by any other means, and it was his job as their brother to make sure that closeness didn’t fade.

He wanted to be good at the subjects they were good at, too. His problem was that he wasn’t smart.

He wanted to be sociable like they were, too. His problem was that he was uncooperative.

So he had to settle for what he was good at.

Hakuryuu’s nineteenth birthday was difficult.

He was reminded by each birthday text of his age. Things like one more and you’ll be twenty, or another year closer to death.

No. No more.

Logically, they were both correct. He was nineteen and next year would be twenty and he wouldn’t live forever, just like his brothers hadn’t. Dying wasn’t a huge concern of his. At this point, now that he was the same age as Hakuren had been, living was worse.

Because he was living.

After a long day of classes spent trying to take notes but instead watching the changing leaves sway, he declined Alibaba’s offer to have a last minute party, told Judar he couldn’t spend time together because he’d be at said party, and hurried home.

Yes, lying was a bad habit. But Judar wouldn’t take no for an answer so he had to make up a better excuse if he wanted to spend time alone.

The drawer of his brother’s things was just as he’d left them. Carefully re-packaged mementos and an unopened box of the cigarettes his brother was holding in a picture.

He removed the thin plastic packaging of the pack with the shaky fingernails of someone who hardly had the right to open the box of mementos in the first place. Maybe the smell would bring back memories. Bring them back long enough to feel like he was doing his job of being their little brother instead of forgetting them in favor of living selfishly, like he’d have been doing if he celebrated another year without them with Alibaba or Judar.

The plastic tore easily, and he could smell them even without bringing them up to his nose.

It wasn’t something he remembered smelling as a child. Most of the memories of the smell were much more recent since many of Alibaba’s friends smoked. It was something his brother probably only did with his friends, after all, and there was no reason to bring his little brother along for that. If anything Hakuryuu not finding the smell nostalgic was proof of Hakuren’s good will - to enjoy it in silence, away from his impressionable kid brother and younger cousins.

He tried visualizing the photo in his mind. It was a situation he wasn’t too keen on recreating, even considering the feeling of closeness just buying the pack had given him. He had no desire to become a smoker. It was just a memento, no different from the others.

And yet he had the urge to feel it. To feel what Hakuren was feeling in that picture, one of the last pictures taken before he died. It might have been an important part of him. Hakuryuu wasn’t qualified to judge whether it was a part that deserved to be kept alive by him or not.

Hakuryuu removed a single cigarette. He held it between his index and middle finger, just as his brother was doing in the picture.

From there he put it in his mouth. It was a bit of an awkward transition, sticking it in his mouth between his two unsure fingers, but once it was there it felt natural.

He took a deep breath with the unlit cigarette between his teeth. He couldn’t taste it. Really, he just felt like an idiot. But he could sort of smell it and, with his eyes closed, imagine what it’d be like lit.

Warm, most likely. Strong. Both qualities that suited his brother nicely.

He had matches in the kitchen.

It wouldn’t hurt to try.

Just as a birthday present to himself - a closeness with his brother that he’d never had, being too young to partake back when… when Hakuren was alive. Then he’d put the pack back away and know what it was like, and be able to understand that picture far better.

It was difficult to light it between his lips, and when he succeeded, the amount of smoke was overwhelming. He removed it for a second, breathed with his nose instead of his mouth, and it was still overwhelming. So he kept it between his fingers for a moment, allowing himself to adjust to the smell.

It was a different smell from Cassim’s cigars, just barely. Less bold. But also less… intimidating. Maybe it was familiar after all. Maybe he had caught the scent on his brother’s clothes now and then.

He moved back to his bedroom and sat on the edge of his bed, then placed the cigarette back between his lips. Slow breaths.

He coughed. Not good, but to be expected. Alibaba said every time he tried he just ended up coughing, so he never could quite get the habit to stick.

When he opened his eyes between coughs to see smoke, his chest burned and he froze.

He wasn’t dreaming. He was awake.

That was what he always told himself when he woke up from dreams of smoke filling his lungs. It usually helped by grounding him to his room, air clear and cool.

It did not help when there really was smoke in his lungs.

But inside the smoke, he always saw something important. He saw his brothers. Now that the smoke was real, it was almost as if that dream was real. Their bloodied faces were as clear as they’d ever been, begging him to complete a revenge that the justice system ultimately beat him to.

Their faces left his mind as the smoke thinned. He wanted to see them again.

Not too deep, but not too fast, either. He took his second breath of tobacco. It was strong and burned just enough he was able to ignore it. He watched the smoke blow from his mouth as he exhaled.

He was getting light-headed. Not in a bad way, either. It was somehow like he was floating, but his heart beat like he’d just drank two cups of strong coffee instead.

It wasn’t exactly the best of both worlds, not with the smell and coughing fit, but it wasn’t bad. He could see the appeal. He could see what his brother saw alongside the smoke that had killed him.

He tapped the ash on his nightstand to keep it from falling to his lap and burning. He’d pick it up later.

This time when he closed his eyes and lay back, he could imagine his brother’s life more clearly. His life before his death. When he first tried he must have felt the same burning down his throat. He also must have liked it enough to do it every now and then despite it. Understandable. It must have been a special feeling for his brother to experience together with his friends, away from their unstable mother and the responsibility of having so many kids in the family to babysit.

The pleasant buzz lasted until the end of the cigarette and about five minutes later. A light headache soon took its place and the smell of smoke didn’t subside.

So that was what it was like. His interest was soon replaced with panic.

He could always smell smoke on Cassim, and usually on Alibaba just for how often he was around smokers. Wouldn’t everyone notice the smell on him? That wouldn’t be good. There was no way to explain the spiritual closeness to his brothers he desired, and in its place, others would see nothing more than an idiotic college student. Exactly how Hakuryuu always thought of people he smelled smoke on.

His brother was different because it was just for special occasions. But doing it regularly was deplorable. Unhealthy. Plus, the idea of allowing it to bother people nearby had always kept him from wanting Cassim’s friendship, much less starting doing it himself.

Hakuryuu brushed his teeth, used mouthwash, and showered thoroughly. Just as he was completely convinced the smell was gone he turned off the water and was met with the smell from his dirty clothes. His room wasn’t much better. The fact that the only window and balcony were both in his living room didn’t help it air out much, but he opened them anyway.

By the time he was ready to sleep he couldn’t tell if he’d gotten rid of the smell through air freshener and windex or if he’d just gotten used to it.

His room wasn’t even due for cleaning. He pushed the pack back in its drawer along with the matches and shut it with more force than necessary.

So much for seeing the appeal. After hours of cleaning it was nothing more than a pain.

He dreamt once again of the fire and the suffocating feeling and an itchy burning that he couldn’t escape even when his brothers tried to lead him out.

He didn’t appreciate the heat of their hands in that burning house as much as he should have. If he could do it over, he’d be sure to pay more attention to the feeling, or encourage them to just save themselves.

They were too kind to do that no matter how much he wished for it. But it was easier to sleep if there was a way for them to escape from the scene in his mind that had already replayed far too many times.

An unexpected side effect of trying smoking was that he felt a certain kinship with Cassim now.

Hakuryuu would never admit that he’d done it - Hakuren hadn’t ever told anyone in their family, to his knowledge - but he understood the feeling Cassim was experiencing that kept him holding the cigar to his lips even though before Hakuryuu had often found it counterproductive. He thanked his brother internally for opening his mind.

Another unexpected side effect was that when Cassim lit one, there was a certain draw to it. Smelling the smoke without feeling light-headed wasn’t the same as doing it himself was. And seeing the practiced ease at which Cassim took his first drag left Hakuryuu with the distinct feeling of needing closure.

He’d heard smokers joke many times that the first one didn’t count because of all the time spent coughing. It was like stopping after the first question on an assignment and turning it in no more than halfway completed, able to explain the first step but not those that followed.

Despite that feeling, Hakuryuu pushed it to the back of his head easily. He wasn’t jealous of Cassim. The opposite, really. It was a pity that long after he’d completed every step he was still working on the assignment.

Other than that, life continued as it always had. Going to school, then his part-time job, then studying and sleeping. Occasionally he found time to spend with Judar, a childhood friend he didn’t get to see as often now that he was in school - Judar had decided against college, and their schedules were in conflict often since Judar didn’t have weekends off work.

When Judar showed up at his door a few days after he tried smoking, Hakuryuu once again felt the panic of the possibility of someone finding out. If anyone saw the pack they’d make a clear assumption, especially with it being opened with one missing.

He trusted Judar to respect his privacy, or at least not be interested enough in his belongings to snoop for long. And the smell should have already long since faded. If it hadn’t for some reason and he’d just not noticed he could always blame it coming up through the vents, but—

But…

He couldn’t do that with Judar. He should’ve thought of it sooner. Judar was the first person who would notice. Hakuryuu was filled with guilt as he remembered all the times as kids Judar had been excited to go somewhere with Hakuryuu’s family just for his enthusiasm to dissolve into a coughing fit he was often too ashamed of to ask for help with.

Now that he was nearing twenty two, he probably knew how to use an inhaler much better than he did as a seven year old. But that didn’t help dim the guilt at knowing he was exposing Judar to danger by being dishonest.

Hakuryuu suggested going for a walk instead of inviting him in. Judar complained that it’d already been a long walk to his apartment, and that he should move again but this time closer if he wanted to walk all the time, or they could even be roommates, but as always he eventually gave in.

Judar was important to him in a way few people were. Though they’d grown up together, he didn’t see Judar like a brother at all. He wasn’t like Hakuryuu’s other friends either, though.

He just was. Hakuryuu couldn’t help but smile as Judar chattered on endlessly. Hakuryuu interrupted to argue about something pointless more than once.

Right now Judar was complaining about someone at work. Said he had a pretty face but an insufferable personality.

“Sounds like someone else I know,” Hakuryuu said. He didn’t really think Judar was annoying, but he was fun to tease.

“Punch him in the face for me.”

…When he got the joke, at least. Hakuryuu rolled his eyes. He wasn’t going to punch Judar in the face even if he asked, not realizing that he was being made fun of.

Judar always prefaced discussion about men with how good they looked (or didn’t look), which made it obvious to anyone and everyone exactly which way he swung. Hakuryuu didn’t mind, and if he were honest, he was curious. Especially curious when Judar did something as innocent as lick his dry lips after talking for so long and forget what he was saying, already distracted.

Hakuryuu stubbornly believed himself to be attracted to only girls throughout high school, but lately he was wavering in that resolution. What stopped him most from considering men was that it wasn’t as simple as liking women. It had no obvious benefits.

“Hey, by now we’re closer to my place than yours,” Judar said after an hour of walking. “Stay over.”

“I have school tomorrow, you know.”

“You can walk there from my place. Probably. I mean, I’ve never done it, but there are always students everywhere.”

“Well… that may be true.”

“Then it’s settled, right? Good! You haven’t been over in forever.”

“I didn’t say I was staying!”

The guilt faded into the back of his mind as Judar insisted he stay over at his place for the night. It was something of a girlish habit, having sleepovers with Judar as an adult, but there was something to be said for the consistent human contact it afforded.

Judar had been living alone for years now, which was strange since he so obviously didn’t like it. He wasn’t really roommate material, though, so maybe it was for the best. He took too long to get to know and appreciate. Before then he just came off as a selfish asshole.

Hakuryuu kept Judar’s kitchen semi-stocked for the sake of making things when he came over, as Judar always had a request of some kind. He was pesky in that he wouldn’t get out of the way while Hakuryuu was cooking, but he let it slide for the fact that it’d been a while. Pleasing a picky eater like Judar was always an accomplishment. He could stand some minor annoyances.

The strangest part of the arrangement was that they slept together. It wasn’t how it sounded, really: Judar’s bed was plenty large enough for both of them to sleep even without touching. Not that that was what happened. Judar often held onto him as if he were a pillow, but he’d do that if he were anyone. Judar was just a high-contact person. He didn’t do things without touching people.

It was true that Hakuryuu could insist on sleeping on his couch, but then he’d wake up with a sore neck. He’d done it before when Judar first moved to live alone, when he was a teenager afraid of sleeping with anyone in one bed, but as he got older he found it wasn’t a big deal.

Falling asleep to Judar’s even breathing was comfortable. No one else would ever know to judge them. It was fine.

Then in the morning Judar would start bothering him to be his roommate again. Hakuryuu would take a good look around the messy room, roll his eyes and decline, the same as always. Judar was so predictable.

By the time he got home the next day he was reminded of what he loved about living alone: alone time. Control over when to do laundry. Actually using his ability to do laundry productively instead of leaving clothes everywhere.

To be fair to Judar, everything in his apartment smelled so good that the fact that the clothes on the floor were in fact dirty was easily ignored. It could have been worse.

Midterms were the most stressful point of the school year for Hakuryuu.

It didn’t help that Alibaba liked to study together, and Cassim came along for “moral support,” and Morgiana came for “more moral support.” Alibaba really acted like midterms were the defining point in his life rather than an event that would occur roughly eight times in his adult life.

Hakuryuu was aware that it was hypocritical for him to think that when he was just as stressed as Alibaba. Maybe more. Finals were better because he had his midterm results to use as comparison and study material, but midterms were like jumping into a dark canyon to guess how deep it was.

He was always getting stressed with the smallest cause. He was sure that his brothers were much more calm around midterms. Calmer and more prepared. Naturally they must have gotten better grades as well.

“You guys have the same math class, so I get that, but why’re you studying the rest of this together?” Cassim asked, tapping Hakuryuu’s pile of environmental science topics in need of review.

“I thought it’d be fun,” Alibaba said. “I remember things better if we all talk about them, too.”

“Alibaba, are these yours?” Morgiana asked. She was in the middle of organizing lecture notes, but seems as she wasn’t even sure whose notes they were, Hakuryuu was doubtful of how useful she was being.

He complimented her organization skills anyway, to be polite.

A couple years ago he had an awful crush on Morgiana. She was diligent and devoted, both traits he valued. She knew when to be serious. She also looked an awful lot like the woman in that photo of Hakuyuu he’d had for so long.

Morgiana’s obvious lack of interest in him wasn’t so much the cause of his losing interest as her obvious interest in Alibaba. Aside from that, Hakuryuu felt like he was experiencing a change in the way he viewed her as a woman.

No, that wasn’t right. It was change in the way he viewed women, not just her. Or maybe it was a change in the way he viewed men that was affecting his opinion of women.

It was hard to say. He’d certainly been enjoying a higher awareness of men lately, and women were being pushed to the backburner in his mind. College did that to people. Especially college classes taught by attractive graduate students, like their math class.

…Not exactly study group talk. He shook it from his mind to try to focus on the topic at hand, which turned out to be some long-standing inside joke between the others.

Things like that left him feeling like a bit of an outsider.

He came in the first place because he spent too much time alone, and knew it would be good for him. Not only that, but Alibaba was right: facts stuck in his brain much easier when everyone tried to think of a way to remember them out loud.

While Morgiana and Alibaba tried to come up for a mnemonic for Alibaba’s macroeconomics class’s formulas, Hakuryuu found his gaze wandering around the room. Alibaba and Cassim were roommates, and the walls were decorated with various pictures and posters that gave it a lot more character than what Hakuryuu’s room had.

Many pictures were of both Alibaba and Cassim, much younger, with a little girl. Hakuryuu frowned. She looked enough like Cassim to be his sister, but…

He glanced at Cassim, who was zoning off blowing smoke out of a newly lit cigar. It might be a sensitive subject to ask about. Hakuryuu knew that his own siblings were a sensitive subject. It was that kinship he’d been feeling with Cassim lately that pushed him to ask.

“Is that your sister in the photographs?”

Cassim blinked. That was the only indication he heard Hakuryuu for several seconds. Then he sighed and locked eyes. “Yes,” he said. “Mariam.”

“…It’s a beautiful name.”

Cassim smiled. “Yeah. Great kid.” He didn’t elaborate.

That was all Hakuryuu needed to know to understand.

The day he finished his midterms, Hakuryuu pulled the box of cigarettes out of its drawer again, along with the thin box of matches.

Why exactly had he left the matches with them? It was like telling himself that he always intended to come back and finish what he started, despite having told himself several times since then that it was a one time thing, always doing his best to ignore the little feeling he got when Cassim smoked.

This was the closure he’d been wanting for the past month. The second step of the assignment that he’d stubbornly tried to act as though he’d already completed. After this, the box would remain nothing more than a memento.

He put a cigarette between his lips, then tried to light the match. It flicked to life on the third try. He remembered the amount of smoke that came from the first cigarette, and was pleased to see that he hadn’t been imagining it - the second was the same. But now he knew how deeply to breathe it in and how it’d feel.

Though he tried to tell himself that it wasn’t a “reward” for finishing his midterms, that was the exact line of thought that had him thinking of smoking. That he felt like he needed a reward for working so hard, and it was the first thing that popped into his mind. It was only after he’d already considered the option did he think of a better reason to have one: in memory, now that he’d completed his fall midterms, tests that his brother had only just finished before his death, it was time to honor him. Remember him.

Remember the feeling Hakuren got when he smoked, and remember the little girl he’d never met in those pictures. Cassim’s dead little sister. Mariam. All things considered, he and Cassim were fairly similar.

Maybe that was why the light-headedness felt so relaxing to both of them.

Each draw he took he tried to pull deeper into his lungs, pushing the boundary of what would make him sick. It wasn’t bad enough to make him cough, but several minutes after the cigarette reached its ashy end a slimey and unclean feeling and headache replaced the buzz just as it had the first time.

He swept the cooled ash into his hands, frowning at the spots they’d left on the nightstand. Burn marks didn’t go away. He couldn’t go ruining his furniture with them.

After cleaning up and spraying air freshener, he continued as if he’d never opened the drawer.

Nothing had changed, other than that he noticed the smell lingering on his bed once he came home from school the next day. Though it was the same smell that set him into a panic after the first one, now that he was home he didn’t particularly mind it. The smell itself wasn’t the problem; the problem was the fact that other people might be able to smell it.

He washed his sheets and pillowcases. It was difficult to tell if it helped with the smell or not, but he did feel better about it.

Then it was back to doing things as normal.

With the ‘assignment’ completed, it didn’t weigh on his mind so much. Alibaba and Morgiana invited him to go with them to the movies, to the park, and to dinner. It was amazing that they didn’t realize that those were dates, and that they were intentionally inviting a third wheel. They’d figure it out one day.

Probably.

It didn’t occur to him that he did those same things with Judar all the time until the next time Judar blew up his phone asking to see the newest horror movie together.

Maybe it wasn’t always a date. Or maybe it was and he was just an idiot.

But his image of what a date was had more being scared of the horror movie and clinging to each other than being told to shush by the people in front until Judar threw popcorn at the back of their heads until they moved, glaring at the both of them despite the fact that Hakuryuu was innocent in it.

“They only really needed to glare at you,” Hakuryuu mumbled once they were out of earshot.

“Guilty by association,” Judar said. “Haven’t you ever watched one of those crime dramas? Happens all the time.”

“I think what you’re trying to tell me is to find someone else to watch movies with.”

This time Judar threw his popcorn at Hakuryuu.

If when Judar invited him to do those things he did mean it as a date… Hakuryuu might not have minded. Judar had a specific type that Hakuryuu knew he didn’t fall into, though - charming, successful, handsome. Usually much older. He’d never met anyone that Judar was with as he never kept them around for long, but he’d heard enough about them to know that it was a type he didn’t fall into.

He tried not to let it bother him. It wasn’t too difficult -spending time with Judar left him in a good mood for the rest of the night that wasn’t broken even when Judar woke him up with texts at three in the morning. He sent a stupid theory about how the movie was lying about the real killer because it didn’t make enough sense.

He doubted that Judar was really up all night coming up with a complete and workable theory for a movie he’d probably never see again. From Hakuryuu’s experience, Judar did this when he woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t get back to sleep for some reason or another. Sometimes because of nightmares, sometimes because he was too hot or too cold and couldn’t get comfortable again. Sometimes he woke up for no reason at all but wanted someone to talk to before he went back to sleep. Those were the common reasons he observed from staying over at Judar’s.

Hakuryuu humored him and asked the potential killer’s motive. Judar sent him a near essay in response, separated into different texts by sentence so it kept pinging Hakuryuu’s phone so he didn’t fall back asleep. Typo-ridden as it was, the theory made perfect sense.

Maybe you’ve solved the mystery of the sequel already, Hakuryuu sent.

Judar responded with nah, it was too shitty for a sequel.

That was Hakuryuu’s cue to go back to sleep. Judar didn’t need to say it - they’d known each other for so long that things like that went without saying.

He didn’t mind. If Hakuryuu wanted reassurance he was confident that Judar would give it with no questions asked. Maybe he wouldn’t do it in the most graceful way possible, but he’d try. And it wasn’t just a question of returns, either - he was happy that Judar was feeling better.

Hakuryuu tried to keep a more open mind when Alibaba invited him to go on his next pseudo-date with Morgiana, but Hakuryuu found himself unable to accept.

As funny as it would be to try to take some of Morgiana’s attention for it, he was uninterested when faced with the actual opportunity to do so. It didn’t sound fun. He didn’t think he wanted Morgiana’s attention. He didn’t hate her but she didn’t do much for him anymore either.

Even if he went to a movie with them they’d spend the whole thing watching quietly, with some hushed whispers at most. He doubted they’d notice him at all.

When finals came around Hakuryuu was once again too stressed to do much but worry about his grades and study.

Alibaba and Morgiana were just as close as ever. So were Cassim and Alibaba. Cassim and Morgiana hadn’t known each other for long but acted like cordial in-laws nonetheless. Then there was Hakuryuu. He was included in conversation plenty, and he was sure that he was the only one who realized that he wasn’t as close to them as the rest.

If Judar weren’t such an idiot when it came to biology, maybe he’d be a better study partner. Less stressful, at the very least. It was a shame that he couldn’t come with thanks to Cassim’s habit.

Speaking of which, Cassim’s habit was just as distracting as feeling like an outsider. Hakuryuu was acutely aware of the fact that he wasn’t the one smoking.

Cigars burned for far longer than a cigarette did and each drag had a visibly calming effect on Cassim. It was a significant contrast to how stressed Hakuryuu was feeling.

He could have done better on his midterms. Even an A- would be enough to significantly impact his GPA if he got enough of them. He needed to be as focused as possible, and right now he wasn’t. He was just stressed and unsure.

After studying with Alibaba, Cassim, and Morgiana, he came home and brought a glass bowl to his window and unlatched it. It was early winter, true, and the chill that spread through the room was unmistakable, but he had to do something.

He took the cigarettes from their drawer along with the matches - there were only three matches left, so he’d be unable to continue before the pack even finished - opened the window and lit one. Held the smoke in his mouth for a moment, then breathed deeply. After watching Cassim smoke for hours it was only fair that he had one as well.

It felt good. Really good. The stress of finals melted away with each inhalation, and blew away with each exhalation. He didn’t feel so guilty about it knowing it wouldn’t stick to his belongings being blown out the window, as opposed to smoking on his bed. The little glass bowl wasn’t a traditional ashtray, but functionally it was just as good as any.

By the time it’d burned down to the filter it felt too short. But the winter air was starting to get to him. He closed the window and deposited the waste in the trash.

Every now and then… It was fine. Midterms and finals didn’t happen often. Four times each. Even if he smoked each time it wouldn’t be enough to worry about. In such small numbers it was no different from stress eating or pulling all-nighters. Unhealthy, sure, but in a way that was easy to turn a blind eye to. Easy to pretend it didn’t happen.

That was exactly what Hakuryuu did. Though in the past he’d felt people were either smokers or non-smokers, he now realized that there was a gray area. Smokers were people who smoked daily, excessive in a way that made them no different from alcoholics. Having one every few months, or even once a month, was no concern.

That was probably the sort of thing his brother did, anyway. The schedule that he followed. Except for him, it’d been going out with friends that was a special occasion instead of tests.

Hakuryuu trusted his brother’s judgment. He’d never known him to be wrong.

His dreams continued, but he didn’t mind. He had to learn to appreciate it - the aching legs and sweaty hair he woke up with after a dream of the fire was proof that he remembered. That he wasn’t forgetting. Dreaming of the fire was something only he could do, so he had to do it.

Hakuryuu was thankful for Judar’s company, but every now and then he had the urge to block his number. His phone buzzed near constantly while he was trying to work his part-time job waiting tables on Judar’s day off, earning apprehensive glances from staff and customers alike until he put texts on silent.

Then, annoyed that he was being ignored, Judar called. Hakuryuu turned his phone off altogether in response, knowing he’d have a long voicemail to listen to the second he got off work.

It wasn’t that Judar intentionally made a habit of being so annoying. It was that Hakuryuu was called in last minute and was forced to change plans on him, and now he was facing the consequences of leaving Judar with nothing better to do.

Originally he considered going over later, after work. But after the eighth text he decided against it.

The restaurant closed at eleven at night, and Hakuryuu got to leave a quarter to midnight.

It was mid-February and cold enough that he brought his car over instead of just walking. After all, he planned to go to the 24-hour corner store after work. He was out of matches.

If he’d kept to only smoking at midterms and finals, it would have been another year until he ran out of matches. But there was a flaw in that plan: major tests and midterms felt like the same thing. He was just as anxious preparing for a test in invertebrate evolution as a midterm in statistics II, and it was difficult to decide between them which “counted” as a real midterm. One had the name, sure, but the other was just as serious. Both would affect his grades and eventual career prospects significantly.

The obvious solution was to have a cigarette for every test. Just one, of course.

So now, two weeks into February, he was out of matches and would be in need of another in a week and a half. At a rate of three approximately cigarettes a month during the school year, he wouldn’t even finish the pack by the end of the year. It wasn’t a bad amount. And it was calming. Studying came easier to him after a couple of drags.

He listened to Judar’s voicemail in the car on the way to the corner store. It was about how he expected - some complaining, some “I’m having so much fun without you,” and yawning at regular intervals. He would call Judar back if he weren’t most likely asleep already, worn out from complaining. The thought made him smile.

He bought the lighter but faltered when the employee asked if that was all he needed. He could get another pack, just in case something came up. He shook the thought from his mind.

There was still more than half the pack left. There was absolutely no reason to need more with that many left. And for all he knew, by the time he finished one the novelty of it would have already worn off and lost its appeal.

Nevermind that novelties were always lower on Hakuryuu’s priorities than comfort.

The lighter was much easier to use than matches, and he wondered briefly why he’d ever bothered with matches in the first place. A lighter was faster, didn’t come with the smell of matches, and even the clicking sound it made when he used it was satisfying. He didn’t try it out to light one until the night before his next test, but remained pleased with the ease of using it even after he gave it a try.

Hakuryuu’s sister was visiting in March.

She’d visit more often if she could, but her job took her hours away. She planned her vacation time to visit home when most of the family would be there, which meant that Hakuryuu would probably have to spend time with Kouen, too, and likely most of his other cousins.

The stress of it had him wanting to smoke.

It was true that it wasn’t an academic test. But seeing the rest of his family was always stressful. Hakuei was one thing, but Kouen?

He struck a deal with the side of himself that wanted to smoke; if he lit it, and thought of nothing but how to make his sister’s visit less stressful for himself while remaining enjoyable for her, he could have it.

So he grabbed his pack and unlatched the window.

It would only inconvenience his sister if he avoided seeing the rest of their family, and he did want to spend as much time with her as possible while she was in town. And for the most part, he didn’t think Kouen would bother them too much. He took a deep drag and held it in place for a long moment before exhaling. A soft tingling spread through him.

Maybe if he got tired enough of dealing with them all he could just offer to go home to make dessert for everyone. He doubted that his sister would see it as a means of escape, but he also wasn’t very keen on actually cooking for them all. He preferred to cook for people he liked.

Another drag. This time Hakuryuu focused on the feeling instead of the distracting thoughts of his family. He didn’t smoke often. Did he really need to be making rules for when he did get to do it? He blew the smoke out. It was much more pleasant in front of the window now that the weather was warming. He watched it curl into nothing, leaving no trace in the crisp air.

The next few drags were the same. Each time the smoke curled into a different shape, mesmerizing in their simplicity and the speed at which they disappeared.

He wasn’t going to tell his sister about the cigarettes. Even though Hakuren was her brother as well as his, he didn’t expect her to understand. And even if she did, he didn’t think a woman should be smoking. It wasn’t a feminine habit, and besides, it’d be bad if she ever wanted a child and smoked.

Maybe it was hypocritical of him to feel that way.

Hakuei wasn’t nosy in the slightest - rather the opposite. She wasn’t his mother, after all, so her job wasn’t to nurture him but to make sure he could become independent. Things like worrying about what he was doing in his free time or who he spent his time with didn’t bother her. Even if they did, it would take nothing but an innocent smile for her to take it back.

She’d still want to see his apartment, though. He’d have to scrub down the window and walls just to be sure. The smell was overpowering when he started, before he was used to it, so he expected it to be overpowering to Hakuei as well. It was important to make sure there wasn’t a single trace of it.

Hakuryuu found mints and mouthwash easily at the store but it didn’t feel like enough. Occasionally a few days after smoking he’d do the laundry and catch the scent on the shirt he wore while studying for a test, and that told him clearly that a few days to let everything air out wasn’t a foolproof solution. He spent a few minutes smelling different colognes before he found one he liked.

It wasn’t similar to what Judar wore, which was the only cologne he’d recognized the smell of prior to looking to buy one, but he liked it enough that he wouldn’t mind smelling like it.

Hakuei drove in two days later. Hakuryuu apologized to her (albeit insincerely) for not being able to offer her his room, as he only had one bed and didn’t trust the couch to be comfortable enough for a night’s sleep, but she just smiled and said she liked hotel rooms.

Good.

Still, she asked to visit just as he expected. He let her in without worrying too much.

“It’s very clean,” Hakuei said.

“Thank you.”

Hakuei glanced through the small kitchen, smiling at his live herbs. Then she moved back to the living room. She paused between the window and couch, expression changing into confusion. Hakuryuu’s heart nearly stopped. He couldn’t be sure if she was smelling it, as he hadn’t had one for a week, but just to be sure…

“The tenants below smoke,” Hakuryuu lied. “Sometimes the smell creeps up. Sorry.”

“Oh! No, don’t worry about it.”

Hakuei’s posture relaxed, but Hakuryuu couldn’t do the same. Maybe he should move to the balcony. Or, better yet, just stop. It wasn’t worth worrying his sister over.

She might have been wondering about the cologne and air freshener rather than the smell of smoke. He couldn’t very well ask which smell it was that made her stop. Not knowing made it worse. He didn’t know how nervous he was supposed to be.

He took her for a walk around the area after that, then went to Kouen’s house with her where she insisted on visiting.

It wasn’t too bad apart from his lingering anxiety. He texted Judar throughout who offered insults about each of his step-siblings that Hakuryuu had to try to not laugh at.

Bringing Judar would’ve been a good solution. None of his step-siblings would mind. He wondered why he didn’t think of it.

Hakuei only stayed for a few more days before leaving the day before Hakuryuu had a test in microbiology.

It’d been only four days since his last cigarette, and the face Hakuei made when she noticed the smell was still fresh in his mind. He tried studying without it but found the desire to just smoke one distracting. After an hour of no progress he gave up and took one to the balcony.

He already knew it helped. Even if it smelled, he didn’t think it would enter his room from the balcony. The only reason he hadn’t switched to it sooner was because he was acutely aware that people could see him. People in the apartment complex’s parking lot. People who already knew his face that he exchanged pleasantries with if they met doing laundry at the same time. His balcony thankfully didn’t face the main street, but smoking on it would still mean that any tenants walking to or from their cars could easily see him.

Smoking wasn’t against the building policy. Maybe it didn’t matter.

Even though he knew it was allowed, actually doing it outside felt too vulnerable. His nerves didn’t fully dissipate even after the first taste. He quickly returned inside and opened the window.

Much better.

The stress of his family and his upcoming test were pushed to the back of his mind. So was the stress of not knowing his sexuality, something that’d been bothering him for months now. He was left with a dazed feeling that was a little tingly, a little dizzy when he stood up.

He placed a saucer atop the makeshift ashtray to keep the leftover smoke from spreading through the room. It would have been smart to do that in the first place, really, but what was done was done.

Hakuryuu pulled out a pencil and got to studying. Microbiology was one of his best classes, and he wanted to keep it that way.

He had defined ‘tests’ poorly.

Many classes had quizzes that made up a significant percentage of the final grade - usually a whole twenty percent, which meant if he did poorly on them he risked getting a C overall. Those were important to study for, too. He hadn’t bothered putting so much effort into studying in high school, but college was different. He knew that studying more would yield higher grades, which he needed. His brothers without a doubt had done well without so much effort, but he needed to put more in to get the same results.

So he started to study for quizzes on the days he didn’t have work. And, just as he’d observed with his test scores, he figured his quiz scores would improve if he smoked prior to studying for those.

And they did. Because he studied more when he felt like smoking to give himself the opportunity to enjoy a few minutes of relaxation, and as a result his grades improved to straight As.

“Wow,” Alibaba said as Hakuryuu gloated about his one-hundred percent test in math. “How’d you manage that? I used to be better at math than you.”

“You’re not working hard enough,” Hakuryuu said. It came easily.

“Maybe you just work too much,” Alibaba shot back. “Do you ever find the time to relax?”

“It’s a matter of time management.”

Alibaba’s jealousy was encouraging. He bought another pack when he ran out.

One single cigarette every week was hardly dangerous. On a busy week, two was fine. He just had to earn it by studying.

The only thing that wasn’t fine was that he hesitated when Judar asked him to come over. He’d smoked the day before. If Hakuei could smell a trace of smoke after a few days, it was more than likely that Judar would be able to tell after one.

He did want to visit. But if Judar found out, he’d be… hurt. Physically. Judar kept grudges and Hakuryuu remembered the vulnerable, sweat-covered and hateful look he’d given to a smoker’s back after finally recovering from an attack.

Judar didn’t deserve to have such a weak body. Sure, he was an asshole, but he’d be able to enjoy himself so much more with stronger lungs.

When Judar was in middle school, Hakuryuu remembered him getting lectured over not bringing his inhaler to school because he thought it was lame. Of course, a middle school wasn’t as sheltered of an environment as an elementary school, and the rebellious urge that led him to leave it at home in the first place was soon forgotten. He switched tactics and began to wear loose clothes that hid the inhaler from view in deep pockets, but still continued to pretend he wasn’t chronically ill in front of others.

It became easy to forget. Judar didn’t make a big deal out of it, and instead made every move to manage it perfectly alone. Hakuryuu hadn’t actually seen him have a coughing fit past middle school. Maybe his lungs improved with age, or maybe he was better at remembering his medication than he looked.

Of course, it was always possible that he just got better at hiding an attack long enough to get to a bathroom or somewhere equally as private to take care of it without him seeing. It was a strong possibility.

In the end Hakuryuu had no way of knowing if his asthma had improved or not. It was best to play it safe.

I have work today and tomorrow. How about I go over on Friday?

It was a lie, but one done for Judar’s own sake. He quickly texted back.

how about i go see you at work

Hakuryuu’s stomach dropped. He closed his texts and called a coworker - a high school girl who was scheduled to work the evening shift. Judar would really go. He’d know that Hakuryuu lied if he wasn’t working and bother him until he came up with an answer he was satisfied with. He had to avoid that situation. Hakuryuu almost sighed with relief when she picked up.

“Hey, um… I need more hours this month. Could I take your shift tonight?”

“Uh…”

“Please,” Hakuryuu said. “It’s important.”

“…Well, okay. Wish you would’ve called sooner so I could make plans, though.”

“Sorry,” Hakuryuu said. “And thank you.”

“Sure,” she said, and hung up without saying goodbye. She was probably too much of a pushover to say no, but it was clear she wasn’t happy with it.

Hakuryuu sighed. That worked well enough. Now he just needed to make sure he didn’t smell.

He dug through his closet, picking out the clothes best hidden between other garments that were least likely to have picked up any lingering smoke. They smelled fine to him. He took them to the bathroom to change into after a long shower.

Hakuryuu washed his hair three times to be absolutely sure it was clean. His face got the same treatment. He didn’t leave until the water ran cold long enough to make his teeth chatter.

He hadn’t wanted Hakuei to find out to not disappoint her. She wouldn’t have understood, and assumed it to be an addiction - a personality flaw - rather than an occasional indulgence. But if she did find out, he’d be lightly reprimanded and that would be the end of it.

If Alibaba or Cassim found out, they’d shrug and tell him there was no point in hiding it in the first place. They didn’t understand, having grown up around so much smoke, the way it was viewed by others. They didn’t care.

And then there was Judar. If he found out, it’d be through an attack from the smell. He’d give Hakuryuu that hateful and helpless expression, and more importantly he’d have to keep his distance to keep pretending he wasn’t ill. Hakuryuu didn’t think he’d be able to take that.

He scrubbed under his fingernails and used soap, hand sanitizer, and lotion all before deciding it wasn’t good enough and doing it all again. Brushed his teeth so many times that his gums hurt, then switched to mouthwash.

It was excessive, but if Judar noticed, Hakuryuu might lose him forever. The occasional cigarette as stress relief was worth the effort it took to clean up, but it wasn’t worth losing Judar over.

He was confident that he was clean by the time his shift came around. Judar came not long after.

Hakuryuu tensed up when he saw him, confidence fading. The way Judar tilted his head in slight confusion didn’t help. He thought he’d be able to come up with a lie quickly if he noticed anything amiss like he’d done with his sister, but when it was Judar, his mouth ran dry.

“Since when did you wear cologne?”

“Oh, um…”

Judar frowned. “You have a girl you’re trying to impress or something?”

Yes. That would work. Hakuryuu tried to fake embarrassment, then seated Judar and brought him water with extra lemons so he could make lemonade with the sugar at the table if he wanted. It wasn’t against company policy, but it was definitely pushing it since lemonade wasn’t free.

Judar always got a kick out of Hakuryuu breaking rules for him. He didn’t make too much of a fuss when Hakuryuu had to tend to other tables, though he did insist on chatting every time Hakuryuu came over.

“If I stay here ‘till the end of your shift, you’ll come back with me, right?”

“You’ll get kicked out long before then.”

“Not if I keep buying stuff.”

“You’ve not bought anything so far. Just drank the free water.”

“Fine. Bring me something.”

Hakuryuu rolled his eyes. “Ask nicely or I’ll bring you vegetables.”

“Bring me peach cobbler.”

Hakuryuu would’ve made him say please if a coworker didn’t pass him with a dirty look. Judar snickered.

There was no way Judar could realistically stay until the end of his four hour shift. Hakuryuu kept thinking that, but Judar eventually pulled out a game. He was serious.

“You’re awfully persistent,” Hakuryuu said after an hour and a half. “At least order dinner.”

“I don’t like the food here. Don’t wanna.”

“You seemed to like the cobbler enough,” Hakuryuu said. He agreed with Judar - the food wasn’t the best. He’d implied something of the sort before to a customer asking for recommendations and was harshly reprimanded, though, so even though it was Judar he refrained from agreeing.

“Yeah, but cobbler’s not food. It’s dessert.”

“I’m putting down an order for mackerel.”

Judar groaned. “Don’t, I forgot my wallet. All I’ve got is pocket change.”

“I’ll pay for it so don’t worry. But next time don’t forget it if you plan on staying my whole shift.”

Judar grinned at the easy victory. Hakuryuu realized too late that he’d fallen into Judar’s trap of getting free dinner.

He left with Judar hours later. Since he’d driven in it only made sense to drive to Judar’s.

It was only after Judar sat down in the passenger seat did Hakuryuu notice an abandoned convenience store receipt sticking partially out of the arm rest box. His chest tightened. That was the exact sort of thing Judar always noticed and would pull out to examine, but he didn’t know how to take it naturally.

Leaving it there in the first place was stupid. He’d driven to the corner store to buy his second pack on his way back from school and left the receipt without much thought. Then it bothered him the next day but he was in a hurry, so he stuffed it out of sight and promptly forgot about it.

How stupid.

“Sorry for the mess,” Hakuryuu mumbled and pulled the receipt out. It didn’t tear, thankfully, and was easy to ball up into his fist and hide in his pocket.

“What mess? There’s nothing here. You’re so tidy.”

For good measure, Hakuryuu picked up a half empty water bottle that’d fallen to the passenger side’s floor and moved it to the driver side door.

Judar took that as explanation enough. Hakuryuu let out the breath he’d been holding.

He’d tear the receipt up and flush it once he got there. Just to be safe.

Judar hadn’t noticed, but spent the next few days plaguing Hakuryuu’s phone with questions about the girl he was supposedly interested in. Really, he was such a gossip.

If Hakuryuu trusted Judar with something, he didn’t tell others. But if anyone else told Judar something he’d turn around and tell Hakuryuu whenever he felt like it. Why he respected Hakuryuu so much more than Kouha or Kougyoku had never made much sense to him - if anything, Kouen commanded much more trust and respect than Hakuryuu did. Kouen just failed to hold Judar’s interest for any significant amount of time.

But just because he didn’t tattle on Hakuryuu’s secrets didn’t mean he wasn’t a gossip.

Hakuryuu appreciated his respect, no matter how misplaced it sometimes seemed. And he liked Judar, he really did. Maybe even more than he was supposed to. But he found himself declining to spend time with him more and more. The paranoia of being around him was unbearable in comparison to the simple ease of spending time with Alibaba and Cassim who would never notice. So he scheduled work at times he knew Judar would be free, and when they did spend time together Hakuryuu always gave himself a two hour block to clean beforehand.

He didn’t trust his apartment to not have a lingering smell. When Judar asked why they never spent time at Hakuryuu’s place anymore, he used the same excuse he gave Hakuei.

“Sorry. The tenants below me smoke, and it comes up through the vents sometimes…”

Judar frowned and didn’t argue. It was clear that he hated being reminded of his weak lungs, even when Hakuryuu only brought it up out of consideration. To save him the trouble of having an attack.

Though the conversation was short, it was stressful. It put Judar in a bad mood for the next hour, which heightened Hakuryuu’s anxiety and left him in a bad mood as well. When Hakuryuu got home he felt the unmistakable draw coming from the drawer in his room.

Compared to the box he’d kept for half a year, the newer box had a much nicer taste. Perhaps they got stale.

Smoking one before his sister came helped with the stress. So it made sense to have one to help with the stress Judar was causing. He set up a makeshift ashtray, opened the window, lit the smoke with a practiced hand, and closed his eyes.

He was at the point where he couldn’t breathe them any deeper than he already did. He tried to make it last by holding the smoke in his lungs past burning, but it didn’t do much to elongate its short lifespan. Once it finished he stayed in place, feeling a little lost. A little disgusted.

Most people didn’t keep smoking a secret. His reasoning made sense, but he’d never heard of anyone hiding it from more than their family. He relaxed to lay down on the carpet. He was still dizzy from breathing it in so deeply. If he could bring the smoke any deeper inside in the short amount of time it lasted, he would. Because it felt good.

That didn’t mean it was good. That was why it was good if he didn’t smoke often. That was common sense.

He wanted another one an hour later. That happened often: one was so good that he had the urge to smoke another as soon as the first one left his system. He always ignored it best as possible. Knowing that it would help with feeling disgusted with himself for pushing Judar away didn’t make it good.

He reached for the pack again anyway. It was an abnormal circumstance. Two in one day wouldn’t happen again.

It was probably a bad sign that the second was just as enjoyable as the first.

Sleep was hard.

It had never been easy, but as Hakuryuu got older it became worse and worse.

He ate well and, though his schedule wasn’t especially fit for exercise lately, he wasn’t out of shape. Caffeine wasn’t a likely cause, either - he only ever had a cup or two of coffee in the morning.

He had no desire to see a doctor to beg for pills. Instead, he pushed his way through the remainder the semester on an average of five hours of sleep a night.

He smoked every few days until school ended for the summer. Then, with nothing to stress him out, the amount he smoked naturally went back to about one a week as he tried to relax and focus on correcting his sleep schedule.

It worked, for the most part. Or maybe what was really helping was the fact that smoke was no longer scary on its own. It just was. Sometimes scary, sometimes invigorating. Always grey and thick enough to quicken his pulse.

Without anything to focus on, summer was boring. He took as many shifts as possible at work to help with that, and spent more time with Judar since he wasn’t as concerned about the smell.

It was fun enough but he didn’t mind when school started again, either. Sophomore year would be more stressful than freshman year was by virtue of the increased workload. He woke up early with that thought hanging in his mind. While his coffee brewed on the first day he got the urge to smoke.

Maybe at some point he’d begun to associate it with school for how well it worked in reducing stress. And the first day was always stressful: finding classes, memorizing the important parts of each syllabus, reviewing everything he’d forgotten over the summer… starting his day in a good mood would be invaluable in determining his future attitude to all his new classes, too.

So he decided to have one.

‘One’ was becoming a bit subjective. That ‘one’ in the morning with his coffee quickly became a habit.

It was easy because he showered before school anyway, so a cigarette before showering didn’t make much of a difference. Smoke, shower, use mouthwash and brush teeth, then get dressed and leave. It was the same ritual as he’d always done, but it was a little less tedious when he knew exactly what he was washing away instead of just fighting the vague feeling that someone might be able to smell it.

It went well with coffee, too. The tastes complemented each other well to the point he couldn’t believe he spent so many years drinking coffee without smoking. He eventually moved his desk perpendicular to the window so he had somewhere to set his coffee in the morning.

Studying was easier next to the window, too. He could get started studying before he even finished his cigarette as long as he remembered to blow the smoke out of the window.

That was about two packs a month. Hardly an extra expense. If he had a few left at the end of the month, he liked to have them in the evening so as to not mess up his buying schedule.

And nobody noticed. He never gave anyone the chance to.

After a few months the electric tingling of one in the morning faded. It was disappointing, but when he tried to go without it the tension was downright distracting. So he kept to his routine.

He didn’t consider himself a smoker. Not really. It was something he enjoyed doing, but it couldn’t define him if no one even knew he did it. The fact that actual smokers went for a pack every day or two was the perfect reasoning to allow one or two cigarettes a day. It wasn’t enough to get any side effects, aside from a slight chest cold he got a little before his birthday. Everyone got a chest cold around then, though. It was impossible to tell if it was related.

There might be some sort of side effect longer down the line, of course. He was well aware of that. But he’d never been interested in living as long as possible anyway. If anyone deserved to live as long as possible it was his brothers.

He went through the pictures of his brothers as often as he remembered to, which was once every month or two. They always looked the same in the pictures, and yet Hakuryuu was always growing and changing. He didn’t like it.

Judar called on his twentieth birthday and was so insistent on spending time together that it sounded like some sort of threat. If he were honest, all Hakuryuu really wanted to do was spend the time alone. Especially since he was still paranoid enough around Judar that he skipped his morning cigarette on days they saw each other. He tried to turn Judar down, but he said he’d just go to Hakuryuu’s if that was the case.

It was annoying. Why he had to curb his own enjoyment on his own birthday for Judar to entertain himself, he didn’t know. But he passed on his morning cigarette along with the coffee that normally went with it to steel his resolve. He cleaned house instead as he waited for Judar.

Judar knocked and called his name at the door as usual. Hakuryuu answered and was about to walk out to join Judar outside when he was pushed inside by a hug.

“Happy birthday,” Judar said. He let go almost instantly. It was clear that the hug was meant to be enough of a distraction to get to come in rather than a greeting.

Hakuryuu scowled. Judar was as perceptive as ever if he felt the need to investigate despite being warned it might give him an attack. Even so, he didn’t comment on the obvious smell of air freshener. Instead he frowned at the desk. “Was that always there?”

“…No. But it’s easier to work with the sunlight than with the ceiling light.”

“Oh. That makes sense.”

Judar seemed satisfied that what Hakuryuu was hiding wasn’t in his house, and allowed Hakuryuu to engage him in conversation. Until he opened the refrigerator as if it were his own home.

“Hey, you didn’t make a cake? You’re so boring.”

Hakuryuu would normally offer to make a cake, but at this rate Judar really would go digging through his room’s drawers. “I’m not in the mood,” he said. “I didn’t make one last year either.”

“You’re getting old.”

“You’re older, you know.”

Judar closed the refrigerator and stared at Hakuryuu. He hadn’t said anything unusual and he knew it. He wasn’t sure what he did to deserve that nerve-wracking stare.

Then Judar blinked and it was like he’d never been snooping. “Let’s go eat somewhere,” he said. “I’m in the mood for… noodles.”

“Hey, don’t go deciding what we’re getting. It’s my birthday.”

Judar responded a beat late. He was almost more distracted than Hakuryuu was. “What do you want then?”

“…Quail.”

“That’s so annoying to eat. You’re terrible.”

“And you’re welcome to not come,” Hakuryuu mumbled as he pulled a jacket on.

“Maybe I won’t.”

“…Huh? Come on,” Hakuryuu said, and was about ready to go over there and drag him outside by the arm when Judar reacted with a smile.

“No need to sound all serious all of a sudden.”

Judar continued testing him in little ways like that through the night. It was more stressful than what it was worth but once he knew what was happening Hakuryuu was much more prepared to respond. Judar didn’t actually know anything. He just wanted to know, and knew that Hakuryuu wasn’t telling him something. He didn’t comment when he caught Hakuryuu off guard and learned something like that Hakuryuu didn’t want Judar in his apartment alone or that he didn’t feel like cooking.

He didn’t react when Hakuryuu tried faking a reaction to tests that were headed in the wrong direction, either, which made it difficult to gauge what his thoughts were before leaving.

Judar had wanted to stay over, of course, but Hakuryuu was stern in insisting that he wanted to get some sleep. It was rare that his tendency to look as tired as he felt came in handy, but he was grateful when Judar let it be.

Judar settled for lingering at the doorstep. The hug he’d given when he arrived was fake, but the one when he left was much longer. More real. He balled up the fabric of Hakuryuu’s jacket in his hands and rested his head on Hakuryuu’s shoulder.

It was comfortable. Painfully comfortable.

“I like your cologne,” Judar mumbled into his neck. “Even though it’s for some girl.”

“Come on,” Hakuryuu said. “I want to go to sleep.” He pulled Judar away just enough to get him to move his head.

“You sure I can’t stay?”

“…Yeah. Sorry.”

Hakuryuu walked inside, leaned against the door, and sighed. He felt terrible.

He didn’t hear Judar’s footsteps leave like he thought he would. Judar stood there on the other side of the door for some time. He was probably waiting for Hakuryuu’s footsteps to leave first. He locked the door. Judar still didn’t leave. He walked across the room, then paused. Waited.

A few minutes later he heard Judar’s light footsteps on the stairs leading down to the first floor. Finally he relaxed.

Judar wasn’t an honest person. If he was hurt he often skirted around the issue or lied about it to cover it up. Hakuryuu knew that from spending many years with him. It was part of Judar that never changed no matter how old they got. It became transparent.

The fact that he was trying so hard to understand what Hakuryuu was hiding was proof that he was hurt by his lack of trust.

It was easy to feel disgusted with himself at the realization.

Judar would be happier without any more reason to doubt Hakuryuu. So he should just give him what he wanted. He wasn’t sure what Judar’s conclusion was after spending the night interrogating him. From his parting comment Hakuryuu thought it might have something to do with thinking he had a girlfriend. If that was the case he was lucky. But when he went through the questions Judar had asked it just didn’t seem like a logical conclusion.

He already told Judar that the smell of smoke might linger, but should’ve used it as a reason
Judar couldn’t spend the night. It would have been a perfect excuse, one that Judar wouldn’t be able to argue no matter how much he wanted to. He cursed himself for not thinking of it.

As things were, talking with Judar made him nervous. He’d figure it out eventually at the rate he was going. Hakuryuu began waiting half an hour after each text Judar sent to answer, something he knew would annoy him into not wanting to spend time together. It worked well enough, along with curt answers. If he pushed Judar away enough to make him angry he wouldn’t mind spending time with someone else instead.

He didn’t go no contact, of course. He just spent the absolute minimum time with Judar necessary to keep him out of his business. If Judar were anyone else it would backfire. But Hakuryuu knew him. His pettiness would keep him from getting too personally involved in Hakuryuu’s problems as long as he acted disinterested.

Hakuryuu spent more time with Alibaba to account for his additional free time.

That meant also spending more time with Cassim, who he liked quite a bit. And Morgiana, who he used to like quite a bit. She started dating Alibaba somewhere between midterms and finals but they were surprisingly tame for a couple.

No long, drawn out flirting in front of others. No obvious allusions to sex. They didn’t sit on each other’s laps or cuddle up to each other's sides. All things considered, he and Judar acted more like a couple than Alibaba and Morgiana did. And they weren’t even dating.

Cassim was happy about it. “Now I can finally stop hearing about how he wants a girlfriend all the time,” he said and chuckled. “Unless you’d like to take his place.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you mention a woman,” Cassim said.

“…I have other concerns.”

“Such as? Men?”

Hakuryuu frowned. No matter if that were the case or not, it was always a loaded question. “Such as finals.”

“Right, right. Tell me if you ever want me to set you up with someone.”

“No, I…”

Cassim smiled. “So you do have someone in mind. Let’s hear it.”

“I wouldn't say… romantically, I mean, there’s no one…”

“Oh, that’s rich. You sound like a high schooler.”

Cassim’s tone made it sound like such a small issue. He exhaled smoke and Hakuryuu breathed it in as deeply as he could without it being obvious. The smell was inviting. A small comfort. Not the same as when he was smoking, but still nice.

“…I was just thinking that Alibaba and Morgiana act like less than a couple than a friend of mine does with me,” Hakuryuu said. He hoped the conversation would distract him from his urge to smoke: even if he wanted to, his only pack was at home.

Cassim laughed. “Yeah, they act like they’re on a kid’s show or something. I don’t think they’ve even kissed yet.” Another drag. “Have you kissed this ‘friend’ of yours?”

“No,” Hakuryuu said. “If I did we’d probably be dating by now.”

“What’s the harm in going for it?”

“…I don’t think we’re compatible.”

“Bound to happen sometimes,” Cassim said. “Just gotta keep trying. Finding others.”

Hakuryuu nodded. Cassim’s advice didn’t help when he knew there was no replacement for Judar. For a relationship, maybe, but as a person he was irreplaceable.

The habit had a tendency to spiral.

It started as a way to get closer to his brother and kept going because he liked it. Then he smoked more for the stress relief. It helped, of course. It always did. But he was older than Hakuren ever made it to now, and as a result, his habit had aged as well.

He spent the holidays alone, bored. That alone wasn’t enough to do it. Add loneliness to the mix and it was. He wasn’t sure exactly when his resolve of smoking only for tests or extremely stressful situations crumbled, but that was a wall long gone by now.

For some reason, switching from weekly to daily wasn’t concerning. Neither was switching from daily to twice daily. What was concerning was that his water bill was rising from showering twice daily, trying to wash the invisible feeling of dirtiness away. The amount of money he spent on air freshener and cologne was concerning. As was the fact that it was easy to budget by spending less on food, ending his gym membership, and taking more hours at work. He didn’t mind working more when the alternative was sitting at home bored.

Cooking wasn’t very enjoyable lately. Though he used to love food it began to feel boring. From eating alone so often, no doubt. He made a point to eat with Alibaba at school more often.

But time spent with Alibaba didn’t fill the hole that not seeing Judar created. He found himself checking his phone often, distracted, hoping for texts he wouldn't answer even if they came.

“What’s up?” Alibaba asked. “You’ve been checking your phone a lot today.”

“It’s nothing.” Hakuryuu returned his phone to his pocket and tried to find the appetite to enjoy lunch. Morgiana would be joining them soon - now that she’d graduated high school, she went where Alibaba did as much as possible - and Hakuryuu had until she finished eating to eat a normal amount of food.

He’d made one of Hakuren’s favorite recipes and packed it for lunch but it tasted bland. He chalked it up to having forgotten a vital spice, but when he ran the list through his mind, he couldn’t recall anything in particular that he might’ve done wrong.

Morgiana came in a few minutes later, cheeks red from walking in the cold. Alibaba put his hands on her cheeks to warm her up, and she laughed.

If it were Judar, he’d put his hands under Hakuryuu’s shirt where they’d feel the coldest. He sighed.

He wanted to talk more with Judar. But he just couldn’t spend time with him. Not now. Once the semester ended and he was less stressed he’d try to find a way to do it.

“Hakuryuu, is something wrong?”

He looked up at Morgiana, suddenly irritated. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“He does look pretty cranky, doesn’t he?”

Morgiana didn’t answer Alibaba’s question. She opened her mouth to say something to Hakuryuu, then stopped. Raised her chin slightly, lips still parted.

That was the face someone made when they smelled something they didn’t understand. Hakuryuu ducked his head in embarrassment, hoping she’d assume it was from Alibaba or, more specifically, from Cassim living with Alibaba.

If she did or not, he didn’t know. She sat down to eat without another word.

After that and his five hour shift in the afternoon he was more than ready to relax. Getting home almost seemed like waiting too long.

Would it kill him to keep a pack in the glovebox for days like that?

He tried it and found that it did help calm down from the stress of the day much faster. As long as he blew the smoke out the car window and kept the air on it wouldn’t have the chance to stick.

Thinking people could smell it was probably nothing more than a trick of his paranoia. It’d been a year and a half already and still no one had noticed. It wasn’t egotistical to assume that they didn’t notice because his planning was perfect: he cleaned religiously and only smoked where he knew he wouldn’t be caught, careful to do it in a way that kept the smell from sticking.

Along with the monetary costs, the way he was sneaking around was concerning. But the adrenaline rush it gave kept him from worrying.

Spring semester was better. It wasn’t that he was getting used to doing things without Judar, but he was getting used to dealing with it.

They did spend time together occasionally still. Most of it was when Judar stubbornly came to see him at work. Hakuryuu forced himself to walk there daily to avoid Judar wanting a ride home. With a pack in the glovebox, it was dangerous territory.

Judar never did ask outright what changed between them. He acted the part of being unbothered by the change even when Hakuryuu caught his expression go sour when he thought he wasn’t looking more than once. He mentioned Kougyoku more. It was good to know that she was his go-to replacement. Not that Hakuryuu was one to talk, having used Alibaba for a similar purpose.

He didn’t know if Kougyoku was a better replacement than Alibaba was. He hoped not. The thought that Judar could replace him in full made him feel terrible.

To Hakuryuu, people weren’t replaceable. Things would be easier if they were, but no one could be Judar except himself. No one could be his brothers anymore, either, and no one could be Cassim’s little sister anymore. No one could be Judar’s parents.

As painful as it was, it was the way things were.

Hakuryuu was a little hurt by Judar’s reaction to the whole thing anyway. It was annoying that he was still trying to figure things out. That did more to push them apart than what Hakuryuu was doing in the first place. It wouldn't be hard for him to clean up enough to stay over at Judar’s confidently. He just didn’t want to, not with Judar treating every conversation like an opportunity to play detective.

He seemed to have given up the theory of Hakuryuu having a girlfriend, but he gave no indication of what he thought now. It was frustrating.

Hakuryuu gave Judar his bill before he was probably ready to leave to clear him out faster. Judar raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment.

It was easier that way. Judar could keep his theories to himself and Hakuryuu could keep the truth to himself. That way they wouldn’t need to keep frustrating each other.

“Toto and Olba got engaged. Can you believe that?”

Cassim tapped the coffee table absentmindedly as Alibaba prattled on about his friends’ love lives. “I thought this would end once you started dating Morgiana.”

“Engaged, Cassim! They’re engaged! Because Toto is pregnant! Can you believe that?”

Cassim shot Hakuryuu a long suffering look that seemed to ask can you believe this is what I have to listen to every single day?

Hakuryuu shrugged. Actually, he was equally as annoyed at the news as Alibaba. It was proof that the people around them - younger people - were moving on with their lives at a quicker pace than they were. It was difficult to achieve a Cassim-like state of not caring what they were doing. Not everyone could do it. He was just as sour as Alibaba.

Cassim frowned. He was a bit like Judar in the fact that he liked to get back at people who wronged him in petty ways. “No worries, Alibaba,” he said loudly. “Hakuryuu here doesn’t even have a girlfriend. You’re still ahead of him.”

Hakuryuu clenched his fist instinctively. The lead in his mechanical pencil snapped at the pressure of being held too harshly to the paper.

Alibaba paused his rant to look at Hakuryuu. “Yeah, but…”

“But?” Cassim prompted.

“I kinda thought Hakuryuu liked men?”

Hakuryuu set his pencil on the table louder than he meant to. Alibaba smiled apologetically.

“Sorry! I didn’t mean to insult you.”

“Insult me?”

Cassim laughed. “Yeah, he’s pissed.”

“I am not. I just wanted to know why Alibaba thought so.”

Alibaba scratched at his head nervously. “I mean… you never talk about girls with us.”

“You two always speak so disrespectfully. I have no reason to do the same.”

“And last year… uh, I thought I saw you checking out our math teacher a few times.”

“I did not!!”

“That’s the face of guilt,” Cassim said. “Was he hot?”

“He worked out,” Alibaba said.

“That’ll do it.”

“…A, anyway,” Hakuryuu stuttered, “it’s really none of your business either way.”

“It is too,” Cassim said. “Friends don’t let each other stay single forever.”

“It’s not like you’re dating anyone either,” Hakuryuu grumbled.

“Yeah, but I still get laid.”

“Who says I don’t?”

Cassim laughed and reached for his lighter. “You’re too high strung for that.”

“…Do you have anyone you like?” Alibaba asked. “We could try to help. Cassim’s great at playing cupid.”

“Conveniently leaving out how bad at it you are, aren’t you?”

“Cassim! I’m not that bad!”

Hakuryuu rolled his eyes at their banter. They really did talk about romance often. Though they weren’t related by blood, they did act the part of brothers well.

Their conversation might not’ve been that bad, either, if he didn’t have anyone in mind. But when they asked, for a brief moment he thought of Judar. Just like he did when Cassim asked when Alibaba and Morgiana first got together. It was useless of his mind to pick now of all times to develop less than platonic feelings for him, since they were fighting.

He checked his phone idly. No new messages. Not only that, but Cassim’s smoke was seriously starting to distract him. It was difficult to focus on conversation when the draw of it brought him out of his thoughts, reminding him that with the smell came the relaxed feeling he could see spread across Cassim’s face.

He didn’t feel much like he’d just come out to his friends, however unintentionally. It didn’t feel like a big deal. It was a much bigger deal that he was realizing he didn’t know when he’d talk to Judar properly next, if ever. Maybe it was time to move on.

He turned down Alibaba and Cassim’s offers, assured them that he was perfectly content alone, and left.

Moving on was not something he was good at.

One was relief. Two was comfort.

If he wanted two, he had to get up earlier - six-thirty at the latest. Because after just one he needed to change clothes, wash his hair, and clean his hands and mouth a dozen times each.

He couldn’t tell if the smell lingered on his skin or if it was leftover smoke, which made it difficult to know how raw he needed to scrub his hands.

Then he’d go to school and the comfort from two would last for the duration of his first class. Then his third class would roll around, starting not long after the end of the first.

By the end of that he was thinking more about if he could get away for lunch long enough to light up number three than about the contents of his class. His grades reflected it.

Worse yet was that Alibaba’s class was just down the hall, and he’d meet up with Hakuryuu knowing they both had time for lunch.

“Sorry, I forgot to pack lunch, let me go buy something,” only worked if Alibaba didn’t suggest somewhere to go eat. Because Hakuryuu was the one with a car. Because it was natural to drive your friend to where you were going to eat together.

He had to grit his teeth and bare it. It was only a small inconvenience. But the irritation that always followed, directed at a clueless Alibaba, was always more intense than he expected.

So he figured out a trick. If he forgot something in his car and kept his hood up to make sure the smell didn’t stick to his hair, he could get number three out relatively safely. Then all he had to do was toss the hoodie in the trunk, spray cologne, pop a stick of gum and wash his hands and face before Alibaba noticed him back in the restaurant.

Alibaba was around Cassim all the time anyway, and wasn’t likely to pick up traces in his car after lunch since he blew it out the window while smoking. It wasn’t easy but it was thrilling. Not getting caught was most of the joy in three.

Then he had several classes in a row. Classes that he needed to be focused for, and needed for his major. He used that to justify slipping away to smoke over lunch - he was much more mellow with it than without it, and that was especially important on days with an important lab assignment or test.

It was twice as much time in class than what he had before lunch but there was absolutely no opportunity to get out. He told himself that it was fine, that it was only a few hours. Which was nothing.

The first thing he did after class, without fail, was light four. Sometimes he made it to his apartment and lit it by the open window. Other times he gave it only as long as it took to get his car out of the parking lot and he was fiddling with his lighter.

Four was the best taste in the world. Five was lit soon after, breathed as deeply as possible to savour the feeling.

Then he could relax.

He wasn’t just doing it because he was bored. As with the first one he’d ever done, each cigarette had a reason. Nothing had really changed.

If he had a rough day, he went for number six before getting his books out to study. Being the third in a row, it made him feel pleasantly light-headed. The good mood made homework easy.

Once he finished his homework, he took number seven as a reward. The buzz that’d already faded from six would come back if he had just one more, so he’d go for eight half an hour later.

Once every few days he caught himself pulling for nine and stopped. A few other days he lit it and savored the feeling, smoking it all the way to the filter, knowing it’d be his last until the next morning.

Unless the same thing happened again. The excuse for ten was that it made it easier to sleep.

That was how he ended up at half a pack a day. Even then the worst part wasn’t smoking that much in the first place, it was buying two packs at once at the corner store instead of the usual one. The clerk’s eyebrows raised just so slightly that he felt the need to justify himself.

“Long week,” he mumbled. It was a completely average week.

After that he settled for going once every other day for a pack. The embarrassment of buying two at once wasn’t worth saving the gas.

Other than the shame involved in buying it in the first place, there were other side effects that he noticed as his amount averaged out at half a pack a day.

He prefered to drive smaller distances that he used to just walk because not only did it give him the opportunity to smoke in the car, the out of breath feeling of walking more than a couple blocks was… unpleasant. It was the worst side effect by far, and kept him from entertaining the thought of a few more each night.

Besides, one in the morning was always better than two at night. The problem was that two in the morning was better still. Three was the ideal number to get properly buzzed, if he felt up to dealing with the sick feeling that often followed.

And just like that, he had trouble thinking of it objectively. Because it’d made him want another, which was distracting enough that he gave up thinking about it for the day in favor of sleeping. He’d already had ten, after all. There wouldn't be enough in the pack to go another day if he took eleven.

Maybe if he bought the next pack tomorrow night instead of the morning after…

Hakuryuu got a seasonal job for the summer. It was partially for the extra money and partially so he had an excuse to quit his part time job at the restaurant.

He was always afraid that Judar would come in and start asking questions. Asking to go to Hakuryuu’s apartment. Wanting to ride in his car. As confident as Hakuryuu was that Alibaba was too dim to catch onto his habit, he wasn’t so sure when it came to Judar.

They still texted every now and then, but compared to how close they used to be, their conversations were almost non-existent. Occasionally he wondered if Judar was happier spending time with Kougyoku. Most of the time he tried not to think about it.

His new job was enjoyable. Being a garden store, it meant he got to use the knowledge from his biology major more than when he was waiting tables. The most enjoyable part of it, however, was that it was on the other side of town from where he lived. He could safely smoke on his breaks. He didn’t get to know his coworkers, so they didn’t really count as being people who knew. They were more like the people in the other cars stopped at the red when he smoked in the car - noticed, most likely, but regarded him as nothing more than a stranger. So it didn’t matter if they saw.

He didn’t really register it when he bought a pack daily. As long as he only bought one pack per trip it was a seamless change.

It was a pain when school started up again in the fall and he was back to being unable to smoke for half the day. For the first few days it was almost unbearable. Then he found the time to visit his car between each class. He was often a few minutes late, and he wasn’t sure that removing his jacket and spraying cologne completely covered the smell, but no one ever said anything. So he figured it was fine.

Everything was fine.

Until he ran into Judar.

It went something like this: he’d ripped the pocket in one of his jackets and was due for a new one. So he decided to go shopping. Parking was always abysmal by the mall so he decided to walk. It was only a few blocks. They felt long in the cold, but he eventually he got there and found a suitable replacement jacket. Hakuyuu had one like it in one of his pictures, though it was an outdated style by now. He paid, the cashier bagged it, and he was on his way. He left the mall to walk back.

He heard Judar’s voice waiting for the crosswalk light to turn on.

“Hakuryuu!”

He recognized the voice instantly - how could he not? - and his stomach dropped before he could think. Warm arms wrapped their way around his waist easily, having done the same many times before. Judar buried his face in Hakuryuu’s neck, between his scarf and hood.

Why he was still willing to hug Hakuryuu after everything, he didn’t know.

Judar coughed.

Hakuryuu tried to pull away instinctively but Judar balled his hands up in the fabric of his coat to pull him closer. As if expecting Hakuryuu’s hood would hide the smoke and keep him from coughing until the offender passed.

He coughed again and again. Several coughs that Hakuryuu was helpless to prevent. He froze in place, unable to do anything. Too ashamed to do anything.

Judar let go and took a few steps back. Hakuryuu didn’t turn to face him. He hated it when people saw him coughing. And, more than that, Hakuryuu knew the face he was making. He didn’t want to see it, the most hateful and vulnerable expression in the world, directed at himself.

Hakuryuu’s grip on the plastic bag tightened. Someone asked Judar if he was okay. He coughed out an angry response.

The crosswalk turned green. Judar didn’t sound any better. He was beginning to worry that he’d forgotten to bring an inhaler.

Just to be sure, Hakuryuu looked behind him. They met eyes. Judar’s angry eyes, tearful from the effort of breathing, bore into him. Blaming him loudly but wordlessly. His eyes flicked to his hands. His inhaler was clutched firmly in a fist, knuckles white. If Judar didn’t look like he was about to faint he’d probably punch him.

“Sorry,” Hakuryuu mumbled, and crossed.

He regretted how he acted that day. Skipped school on account of constantly feeling like he was about to throw up from anxiety. Judar didn’t text him. He didn’t text Judar.

If he wanted, that could be their last interaction. Judar wouldn’t approach him in public if he knew it’d lead to an attack. Hell, he wouldn’t approach him in private.

Judar was the one person who had always trusted him implicitly. Knowing that he’d walked all over that trust for his own selfish reasons felt terrible. He got a headache from the near chain smoking he was doing alongside thinking to help process it.

Why?

Why did he do that?

He knew the answer to why that single event occurred. Because Judar wasn’t one of the lucky kids who grew out of their asthma. He knew that smoking was the biggest trigger for him. He’d seen him have more than a dozen coughing fits over it in the past.

And he knew that this time he was the direct cause of one. But it was possible that it would’ve been someone else even if it weren’t him. Judar’s illness was the problem.

He told himself that for hours, trying to believe it. The pack was finished long before he could accept it. He made no move to buy another.

When did he start shifting the blame like that? How selfish. How pathetic. Judar’s lungs weren’t the problem and he knew it. The fact that he chose smoking over Judar was the problem.

It wasn’t even a conscious decision. In fact, he’d consciously thought the opposite many times. That Judar was much more important to him than a few cigarettes. It just… happened. He found something he enjoyed that made him understand his brother a little more. It felt good, it filled the time, it made him feel less alone. It kept him going through long study sessions and early mornings. It tasted great with coffee and helped wash down a meal like nothing else.

Even now, after having smoked a whole pack in a day for the first time, thinking about how good it was made him want another. But not every one was that good. The ones he took on break at his summer job weren’t great in the sticky summer heat. Neither were the ones he got out of bed for in the middle of the night after trying and failing to get to sleep a few times. By now he’d probably had just as many that weren’t satisfying as those that were satisfying. Ones that made him feel dirty in his pores and sick to his stomach.

Maybe it was time to stop. It was probably too late for his relationship with Judar, but it’d at least give him closure on the event.

Hakuryuu got ready for bed the same as always. The empty pack was in the trash can. He wouldn’t be able to light one first thing in the morning. Though he was making a willful decision to not go to the store now, anxiety set in easily. It made it hard to sleep.

Normally when he had trouble sleeping he’d sit by the window and smoke for a few minutes before trying again. He didn’t know when such a pointless habit started. But it persisted, and the cool night air and the relaxed mindset it put him in did wonders for insomnia. For a few minutes, at least. Then it was the same as before he had a smoke.

By morning he was far too tired to go through with quitting for the day. He wouldn’t be able to concentrate in school if he tried anyway. A weekend would be better.

Then the weekend came and went without him making any changes to his habit. He tried, but his resolve wavered somewhere around the three hour mark. He had things to do and not smoking generally meant not getting them done. That wasn’t the case two years ago. Two years ago he got along fine without it, and used one only as a treat for dire situations. Like midterms or finals.

Or tests or quizzes. Or dealing with family. Or studying. Or to help wake up in the morning. Or to help fall asleep at night. Or to help get through his classes for the day. Adding another cigarette a day just felt so good for the first week. Then it wasn’t enough again and he added another, and another, and another…

Perhaps it was safe to say he was addicted.

When fall midterms ended and he’d made absolutely no progress on the matter, he was certain. Quitting during a school week would be too stressful, so he tried for fall break. He managed to go most of the first day. The worst cravings were with his morning coffee and at lunch. But dinner broke the deal. The temptation for one after dinner as an apology to his body for depraving it of its breakfast, lunch, and every time in between cigarettes became too strong to fight.

He tried again the next day and only made it to lunch. The day after, he barely finished his coffee before lighting one up. The only good part about it was that the relief after so long was enormous. It reminded him why he was smoking in the first place. A day just didn’t feel complete without it anymore.

After a few more pack-a-day break days where he savored each taste like it was his last, he felt disgusted enough with himself to try again. The same result followed.

Maybe he just wasn’t ready to quit yet.

Despite the horrendous failure of trying to quit over fall break, he resolved to try again for winter break. It was much longer and would be more forgiving if he took a few days to get started. Until then he’d do everything he could to prepare mentally. Everything except cut down. That’d interfere with his grades too much.

He tried making lists of what to do. Try tea instead of coffee, pick old hobbies back up, find new hobbies. Maybe he’d start going to the gym again. He’d like to start cooking regularly again, too. He’d stopped cooking his lunches when he found that bringing lunch meant one less opportunity to sneak out to smoke during the school day and never did turn back. It bothered him that he never noticed that before.

Then he made a list of why he was quitting. First and foremost it was because of the guilt he felt about Judar. He loved Judar. It wasn’t inherently romantic, but he could think of no one else he felt so right with. Not talking to him was painful. He’d been ignoring that fact for too long. Even if quitting didn’t make things right he at least wanted to do so as a proper apology before saying goodbye forever.

The second most important reason was that he felt useless. Weak. He’d always felt like it made him weak - why else would he be so careful to hide it? He hated the part of himself that allowed himself to become addicted in the first place. He wanted to get rid of it. Replace it with something whole.

His health came in third place. Being short on breath walking up stairs was downright shameful. He was beginning to understand how Judar felt, a prisoner in a weak body. But for Hakuryuu it was preventable. Self-inflicted. He could do without the dry lips and mouth, too.

He called info lines and listened to the mechanic suggestions the answering machine gave him. He was one of millions, and they all needed the same advice. It wasn’t worth having a real human answer over. He wrote down anything that sounded useful.

Hakuryuu declined every offer Alibaba made to hang out together, knowing that being around Cassim always made him itch to smoke, and he couldn’t exactly explain to Alibaba that he wasn’t the problem, Cassim was, without telling him he’d been hiding that habit for years now.

He tried to change his attitude towards smoking. Allowing withdrawal to set in for half an hour before giving in reminded him that he wasn’t doing it out of his own free will but because he was chained to it, and that made each one much harder to enjoy.

His quit date loomed over his head every time he reached for his lighter. Despite every reason he knew he wanted to quit, he wasn’t looking forward to actually doing it. Not at all.

The last day of finals approached quickly. Day one of winter break was the day. Before then he had one last thing to do. He typed a text out on his phone, read it twice, then clicked send.

Judar, I need to talk to you.

He leaned back in his desk chair after sending the text, exhausted just from the anxiety it caused. He didn’t know if Judar would respond. It’d been a couple months since they last saw each other and it’d ended… less than well.

His grip on his phone tightened. It was nerve wracking but he wasn’t going to smoke over it.

Minutes passed. He didn’t move. The urge to just smoke already got stronger and stronger, and he was reaching for his pack with one hand when the phone in the other buzzed.

He jumped. Looked at the screen. Judar was calling. He moved a sweaty finger across the answer row several times before it took the call.

Judar’s end was silent. Hakuryuu took that as his chance to explain himself.

“Hey, um… if possible, could I see you? Today?”

“You can just tell me what you wanted to talk about like this. Over the phone.”

Guilt stabbed through him once again. Of course Judar didn’t want to see him. Why would he when he very well knew it could end up the same as last time?

Hakuryuu let go of the pack he was holding. Pushed it to the other end of his desk.

“I really want to see you,” Hakuryuu said. “Please.”

“…Fine.”

Judar hung up without saying goodbye and texted Hakuryuu to go to a cafe near his apartment. It was inside an outdoor mall that Hakuryuu vaguely knew to be emphatically smoke free from the signs plastered everywhere - he’d gone there with Judar many times in the past, and Judar had never had any trouble with his breathing there. It was probably an assurance that Hakuryuu didn’t smoke on the way.

It was hurtful to know Judar’s reasoning, but it made sense. Even if Hakuryuu wanted to say that he wouldn’t smoke just by virtue of going to see Judar he wasn’t so sure anymore. The urge at times was stronger than his initial will to not do so, and it was all too easy to rewrite his reasoning with the stress that followed not smoking.

Before leaving Hakuryuu took a long shower, washing as carefully as he had when he first started, back when he still noticed the scent on others. If he had time he’d buy new clothes and change in the store, but he didn’t. Just time to clean his hair, face, mouth, and hands as thoroughly as possible. He didn’t know if spraying cologne would help Judar breathe at all - maybe relying on that was the problem - and he wore a leather coat he didn’t think absorbed the smell as well as a cotton one. He tried coughing up all the mucus in his throat so it wouldn’t come up later.

It was the best he could do. He didn’t think all the clothes in his room smelled. The clothes he smoked on during his break at work might retain the smell by virtue of his carelessness, but his winter clothes were probably fine.

He drove there and took a tin of mints out. Chewing on them might help when he got the urge. Or it might not. It was at least worth a try. Anything but bringing his lighter was worth a try. He left that at home.

Judar was already there when he arrived, hands in his pocket and scowling at nothing in particular. He’d ordered a tart but it sat untouched. He didn’t say hello when Hakuryuu sat across from him. He didn’t cough, either. That was a good sign.

Suddenly Hakuryuu didn’t know where to start. He’d thought long and hard about what he wanted to say beforehand, but with Judar in front of him he forgot the words.

“Well?” Judar prompted. “Don’t make me come somewhere for nothing.”

“Sorry,” Hakuryuu mumbled, and sighed into his hands. “I was thinking of where to start.”

“The beginning would be good.”

“…Right.”

They sat in silence for another long moment as Hakuryuu tried to put together the sentences he needed. It was an unspoken fact between them that purpose of meeting was to talk about that day months ago. He knew where the beginning was, it was just difficult to explain. Especially to Judar.

“I had a dream about my brothers,” Hakuryuu started. “In the fire. I have that dream often, but it was my first time since moving on my own. When I woke I realized I’d forgotten to unpack my box of their things.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Everything. I wouldn’t have even tried it if it weren’t for that picture.” He sighed again. He didn’t want to admit it to Judar in fear of him calling his brother weak, but he needed to. “Hakuren smoked. I didn’t know until after his death, when Kouen went around getting as many pictures as possible from their friends. He gave me copies of them all… including ones like that.”

Judar didn’t comment. Hakuryuu took that as a sign to continue.

“I’d skipped school to unbox their things because I felt so bad about leaving them at the bottom of my closet for so long. So in the rest of my free time for the day I looked around the area. I went to the corner store a couple blocks away. I saw the same pack from the picture of my brother, and bought one to keep with my other mementos. I didn’t think I’d ever try them. I didn’t even buy a lighter. But I ended up trying them anyway.”

“Why?”

“My birthday came around. I turned nineteen, the same age as he’d been when he died. I felt terrible for living where he couldn’t, for as long as he did… despite just being me. I couldn’t keep him alive. I tried one with matches I had in the kitchen for if there was a blackout because I still didn’t understand how he lived, thirteen years after he died. And I really… enjoyed it.”

Judar’s frown deepened.

“It’s a strange feeling. But I don’t think I can explain it, or… sorry. I’d get distracted. I tried another one around midterms for closure since I’d heard many times that the first and second one were different experiences, and they were. I ended up having another at finals, then another every time I had a test, then every time I had a quiz. You get the idea. I really enjoyed them. Knowing that there were people who finished several packs a day made it easy to enjoy just one a week.

“That didn’t last long, though. Or maybe it did. It’s been over two years now. I don’t know when I went from one a month to one a week, then one a day, and I don’t know when I went from one a day to as many as I could fit in a day while keeping it a secret from everyone I knew. Well… everyone that I cared about. I didn’t care if the people at my new job knew or if the people at the corner store knew. Not enough to keep me from doing it.

“So don’t think that I was only hiding it from you,” Hakuryuu said. “I wasn’t. I wouldn’t do that. I was hiding it from everyone. I didn’t think anyone else would understand, and I didn’t want to give them the chance to judge me. Even though some of my friends from school smoke, keeping my own habit secret made me feel better. Because unlike them I could wait until I got home. That was the only reason I hid it from them. But I didn’t want you to know, more than anything. I didn’t want to lose you.”

“Piss poor reason for never talking to me. Kinda had the opposite effect.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” He took a deep breath. “I really wanted to say that today. I’m really, really sorry. Not just for letting you find out the hard way, but for keeping it a secret in the first place. For not trusting you enough to tell you. When finals are over I’m throwing away my lighter and anything I have left. I tried quitting not long after you found out, but I haven’t been able to do it yet… Sorry. I wish I’d been able to before this conversation. That way you wouldn’t have to sit so far away.”

“I can smell it from here,” Judar said. “On your breath, too. It stinks. Just spraying cologne isn’t going to cover that much smoke. It’s a miracle you managed to hide it from anyone.”

“Sorry…”

“And what’s up with this ‘I tried quitting, but I couldn’t do it’ shit? You’re always this weak when your brothers are involved. Pathetic.”

“I’m really sorry…”

“And you know, I did know that Hakuren smoked. He smelled the same. It was suffocating spending time with you when he was around. I was glad when he died.”

Hakuryuu didn’t mean to cry, but Judar’s anger was painful. If Hakuren was the reason he was always coughing when they were together as a kid, that was really sad. It was really sad that Hakuryuu had picked that part of Hakuren to try to emulate. Just repeating how sorry he was wasn’t enough to fix things. So he just cried silently as Judar insulted him and his brother both.

“You never noticed when he went to the bathroom but came back smelling like smoke. He thought it was fine as long as he had my… medicine, because he’d rather smoke than let a kid enjoy his fucking day. You don’t remember, but I do. He’d lie and say it was someone else and he’d convince himself of that and you’d believe him. Because you believed everything your brothers said was true and everything they did was good. Still do, by the looks of it.”

He was sure people were staring, but it didn’t matter anymore. Judar had every right to this.

“But… crying like this, I can’t hate you. Your problem is that you love your brothers too much, because if you like something you always like it too much. Way more than any of those things deserve.”

Hakuryuu nodded. If he tried speaking he knew he’d just wail.

“…I’m the same way, you know.”

Hakuryuu sniffled and met Judar’s eyes. He wasn’t lying. Judar never lied to make someone feel better.

“I still like you. Way more than you deserve.” Judar looked away, suddenly embarrassed. “So… Come live with me for a while. I’ll help while you quit.”

“Thank you,” Hakuryuu said. His voice came out sounding like a child who’d been crying for hours, watery with his tears. “Thank you so much.”

He took a few changes of clothes and a couple other necessities to Judar’s. Nothing more, nothing less. He couldn’t afford to pay half of Judar’s rent on top of his own but he offered anyway.

Judar shrugged it off. “You’re gonna act like a live-in maid anyway. Consider it a fair trade off.”

He was still keeping a distance of at least five feet when they spoke and made a face every time Hakuryuu sat on his furniture. “Is the smell really that bad?” Hakuryuu asked.

“You really can’t smell it?”

“No. I always blew the smoke out the window and covered the ashes, too. I thought I did a good job of cleaning up.” He still felt that terrible mix of guilt and shame hanging in his gut when he talked about it. At the same time a morbid curiosity had him wanting to know what Judar saw and smelled. How he perceived the rituals involved.

“Ugh… that’s so much effort.”

“…Yeah. I probably have spent more time trying to hide it this year than anything else.”

It was the day finals ended, which meant it was the day before break. Technically it wasn’t his quit day yet, but he’d already thrown out his lighter and the remainder of the day’s pack. His resolve was a little shaky and might remain so until the next morning came. But Judar was helping. He was Hakuryuu’s biggest reason to quit, after all.

Since his last one had been before showering, just after coming home, he already wanted another. He didn’t know what else to do but smoke. What was he supposed to do?

He looked to Judar. He was searching in the kitchen for something. “What are you looking for?”

“I dunno… chips or something. Kinda feels like it’s gonna be a long day.”

Hakuryuu smiled despite himself. “Yeah.”

Judar closed another cabinet and put his hands and his hips. From where Hakuryuu was sitting he looked very personally wronged by the lack of snacks. “Guess I’ll have to go buy some,” he grumbled.

“I can do it,” Hakuryuu offered.

Judar turned to look at him doubtfully.

“…It’s just chips, right?”

“Yeah, but… I mean, you can come with me, but I don’t really think you’ll just get chips if you go. Not after telling me you’ve been trying to quit for months. No offense.” Judar pushed his shoes on, not bothering to put them on properly, then glanced back at Hakuryuu.

He nodded, his throat suddenly too dry to talk. Judar was, of course, completely right.

It was embarrassing walking to the store so many steps behind Judar. But if he got too close Judar’s hand instinctively moved to the pocket Hakuryuu knew his inhaler to be in.

Judar was taking a big risk by allowing him to stay. It was the least Hakuryuu could do to respect that he needed space. He must’ve taken medicine in advance before meeting him the other day. That worked if he was only around it for a short amount of time. It wouldn’t work all night.

Hakuryuu made an effort to focus on what Judar was doing rather than the stress that was quickly accumulating as he hit the three hours without smoking mark. Judar bought all sorts of junk foods, ignoring Hakuryuu when he pointed out the fact. Then before checking out he added a flat of near ripe persimmons.

“See? These are healthy. You can’t complain now.”

“…They’re persimmons.”

“What, you don’t like them? I guess we could get oranges too. If you want.”

Hakuryuu nodded, and Judar picked a bag of oranges at random. It made the basket look a little better, but didn’t do much to change the fact that the average shelf life was hundreds of years. “So this is why you’re so pale,” Hakuryuu said. “You should eat better. Gaining some weight might be good for you, too.”

“Wow, you’re not self aware at all. Have you looked in a mirror lately? You’re at least ten pounds lighter than me now.”

“…Huh?”

“You heard me. And you’re all pale, too. Wait, let me take a picture.”

Judar’s phone flashed in his face before Hakuryuu really realized what was happening. He held his phone out for Hakuryuu to take to look at rather than walking by his side to show him.

Hakuryuu took it. His clothes were hanging off of him rather obviously, now that he was looking for it. And he did look pale. But that might’ve been more of the bright artificial light of the store and the flash on Judar’s phone than a sign of poor health. He handed the phone back to Judar without commenting on it.

A few hours after returning to Judar’s apartment he was starting to feel panicky. He’d told himself that the cigarette he had before leaving would be his last but didn’t believe it at the time because he’d already told himself the same thing many times before. Now that he’d been with Judar for hours, no pack in sight to reach to, it was starting to set in. The realization that he’d never get another.

Unable to concentrate on conversation with Judar any longer, he looked for an escape. Not from his house. Just from his knowing eyes. “I think I’ll take a shower,” he mumbled.

“You took one before coming.”

“…I always take two showers.”

“Hmm. Well, whatever.”

He stood and grabbed his bag for a change of clothes.

“Don’t,” Judar said. “Wear mine instead. I think most of the smell’s on your clothes.”

“Oh. Okay.”

By the time he left the shower he smelled like Judar. It was a good smell that was easy to breathe in as deeply as he wanted. Judar’s bodywash and shampoo complemented each other, and it’d been too long since he smelled either of them. Changing into Judar’s clothes afterwards felt clean and nice. All of Judar’s clothes were a pleasant texture - he was picky about what he wore. And after showering was one of the few times that Hakuryuu wasn’t conditioned to want to smoke.

He was in a much better mood by the time he sat back in the living room with Judar. He smelled the air as Hakuryuu passed and nodded approvingly.

“Much better. Your don’t-come-within-five-feet-of-me-ban is lifted.”

“Um… thanks?”

Judar patted the spot next to him. Hakuryuu sat and suddenly felt tense. Even if he couldn’t smell it on Hakuryuu’s body, he might still be able to smell it on his breath. He should have brushed his teeth, too.

Judar surprised him by letting his head fall to Hakuryuu’s shoulder. The weight of it was nostalgic - something he’d almost forgotten, but his body remembered just the way he should move his neck to accommodate Judar.

“Next time you try to get rid of me, I’m not going to let you,” Judar said. “Come to me first. But way sooner than you did this time.”

Hakuryuu nodded weakly.

“I mean, I don’t really mind… I always wanted you to come live with me anyway.” He wrapped an arm around Hakuryuu’s back to get more comfortable. “Living alone is boring. Don’t you think?”

“Mm…”

Judar tugged at Hakuryuu’s side. It was something he always used to do to tell Hakuryuu to lay down so he could get comfortable. Hakuryuu did so and Judar curled up easily in his arms. It was cramped on the small couch, but the kind of cramped that he didn’t mind. The kind that was warm and pleasant in the cool room.

He thought he’d be restless, but he ended up falling asleep easily to the sound of Judar’s breathing.

It wasn’t any easier when he woke up. In fact, it was far worse.

It was sometime in the middle of the night, and he woke up unable to turn around in the small space between Judar and the couch. As soon as he realized the stiffness in his neck his brain offered what it felt to be the ideal solution: a cigarette. He could imagine the smell and the satisfaction with ease. But he couldn’t get up without disturbing Judar.

Judar, who almost looked like he was smiling in his dreams despite the fact he was laying in an obviously uncomfortable position. He’d be cranky if he woke up sore. Just like Hakuryuu was now.

“Judar.”

He stirred almost instantly, brows furrowing at being woken up but eyes still firmly closed. Then his tired mind processed Hakuryuu’s voice and he jolted awake. Then he looked at the window suspiciously, searching for any sign of morning in the sky.

“It’s not morning, don’t worry. I just want to move to your bed and I can’t because you’re half on top of me.”

“Oh,” Judar said. He wrinkled his nose. “You should brush your teeth, too.”

“As should you.”

Getting to sleep the second time was harder. Hakuryuu thought of staying on the couch to be polite but if he were honest, he wanted Judar by his side. His presence was familiar and calming. The fact that they’d been no contact for months and low contact for years did nothing to dull the feeling of comfort Judar provided.

And he was trying to move forward instead of staying locked in place where he was fifteen years ago. As Judar said, he was still relying too much on his brothers. They weren’t here anymore. They might not have been perfect.

He wanted to move forward.

Judar wasn’t perfect either, but he was still here. And he still cared. Even though it was his right to hold a grudge, he let it be and was helping. It meant the world to Hakuryuu. He thought of it as he lay wide awake in Judar’s bed, surrounded by a smell that was familiar but in a better way than tobacco. Familiar in a way that he wouldn’t feel guilty for enjoying later.

He buried his face in one of Judar’s pillows and took a deep breath. Held it for a moment. Released it. It was the motion he’d been itching to perform for the past five hours but without the heat in his lungs. He did it several more times, willing himself to relax.

Somehow it worked.

He woke from Judar’s alarm with the worst headache he’d had in years. He groaned instinctively, covering his head with a pillow to dull the noise. Judar did the same.

Hakuryuu had the sudden urge to push him out of the bed. It was Judar’s alarm so he should be the one to turn it off. He kicked his leg lightly. Judar kicked back.

“You turn it off if you hate it so much,” Judar muttered.

“It’s your alarm.” He would’ve tried forming a more solid argument, but talking only added to the headache. Hell, thinking made it worse.

“You’re closer.”

Hakuryuu kicked Judar again for good measure and sat up. His whole world spun with the motion and he almost dropped back down from the sharp increase in pain from his headache. Instead he gripped the bedpost to help himself up to find Judar’s beeping phone. Not a minute later and he was successful.

It took only a short moment in reality, but Hakuryuu felt like he’d climbed a mountain to accomplish it.

He heard Judar tearing himself from the mess of covers and had to focus all his energy on not pushing him away when he came to hug Hakuryuu. The feeling, however small it was, didn’t mix well with his headache. No movement did. He’d love to crawl up and die.

Or, better yet, just nip the problem at the bud. It wasn’t like he didn’t know what was causing it.

“You look like shit.”

Hakuryuu nodded.

“You’re just gonna nod? Must be pretty bad then.”

“Do you have…”

“Do I have…?”

He was going to ask for coffee. He was, but then he remembered that coffee was what made him give in last time. The taste wasn’t the same without a cigarette in the morning. God, what he’d do for one.

“Tea,” Hakuryuu eventually said. “Do you have any, I mean.”

“Uh… I think I still have some of what you brought a few years ago. Might be kinda stale by now.”

“That’s fine. Thanks.”

Hakuryuu made tea despite the loud noises that came from the microwave and didn’t yell at Judar despite the loud noises he made doing anything - he’d been preparing himself for this day. He knew it was going to happen. The best he could do was grit his teeth and bear it.

When Judar left for work the real challenge started. It was fully possible to leave, walk to his apartment, take the pack and lighter out of the trash and light one. Gross, but possible. He took a shower instead.

It was Saturday, but Judar worked weekends. His days off were Thursday and Friday. Hakuryuu was beginning to wish that he’d sucked it up and quit a few days earlier so he could spend the worst of it with Judar.

But it might have been for the best. In the future there would be many times Judar wasn’t around. Less than in the past, hopefully, but he still had to work. Hakuryuu needed to be able to control the urge at those times too. He couldn’t rely on Judar for such a basic thing.

After his shower he pulled out the list in his bag. After being away from home all day, he could smell smoke faintly on the paper. He held it to his nose and took a deep breath.

It didn’t help. Actually, it made the craving acutely worse. He stuffed the list back in his bag without looking at the contents. He knew what was on it for the most part anyway. Don’t drink coffee, don’t open any windows, try cooking and exercising. Things he used to enjoy that he stopped for his lack of appetite and shortness of breath.

He couldn’t do many push-ups anymore and was coughing when he was done. He’d have to start from square one with his body. Instead of being daunting, he was glad. It was a goal. A distraction. He tried cooking with the limited ingredients Judar kept handy. He had an electric stove instead of gas and it was irritating how long it took to change temperature. Hakuryuu tried to not let it get to him.

Judar was back at three. He wrinkled his nose at the smell. “The hell did you make?”

“Not much, considering the lack of anything properly edible.”

Judar dipped a finger in to try. He stuck his tongue out. “Salty.”

“Is it?” Hakuryuu did the same as Judar but with a spoon rather than his bare finger. It tasted fine to him.

“Ugh… don’t tell me you’ve gotten as bad as Hakuei. Maybe I shouldn’t have let you stay here after all.”

Hakuryuu frowned. As much as he loved his sister, she was hopeless in the kitchen. And he prided himself in his cooking. Judar wasn’t the most adventurous eater, but “too salty” was a fair complaint even if it tasted fine to Hakuryuu.

He didn’t think that his tastes had changed. To be sure he resolved to follow a recipe next time.

For the rest of the day he proceeded to follow Judar like something of a lost dog, unable to visualize what else he was supposed to do. Judar found it hilarious and kept laughing under his breath and rubbing Hakuryuu’s head. He couldn’t tell if it was meant to be demeaning or honestly affectionate. But it did feel good - Judar’s hand on his head was a gesture he’d nearly forgotten. He’d found some tylenol in Judar’s bathroom, and they helped with the headaches just enough to bring Judar’s loudness in doing everything to the range of acceptable.

“You haven’t changed at all,” Judar said. “Where would you be without me?”

Nowhere good. Judar knew that as well as he did and didn’t wait for an answer.

They watched what Judar claimed were good movies but turned out to be strange, often incomprehensible stories with depressing atmospheres and colors saturated to the point of feeling unhappy. Every time the scene changed, leaving the TV black for just long enough to get distracted, Hakuryuu tried to reach for his lighter to find it wasn’t there.

Of course it wasn’t. The fact that reaching for it was so mindless and natural made him anxious. It would be just as easy to mindlessly drive to the store to buy another pack even once he was through the worst of the withdrawal. It would be especially easy next time he had midterms or when the stress was worse than what he had now, comfortable with Judar laying with his legs in Hakuryuu’s lap. There would be many opportunities to fail. The thought was almost as bad as the thought of never having another cigarette. Almost.

If Judar noticed his anxiety he didn’t comment. Instead he started a conversation about the movie, talking through the scenes until Hakuryuu was distracted from his worries.

Hakuryuu smiled after the third movie when he realized that each one had a happy ending despite the harsh beginnings. Judar hadn’t changed either. For as much as he pretended to be tough, he was just as much of a sap at heart as Hakuryuu was. ‘Love solves everything’ was a common plotline in his favorite movies.

“To think you make fun of me for being a romantic,” Hakuryuu teased.

“What’s that supposed to mean! It’s in all movies. You can’t escape it, even if you want to.”

“Yes, I’m sure you’ve been working very hard to find movies without romance. I can definitely tell.”

Judar’s face reddened. He kicked his legs off Hakuryuu as if it was some kind of punishment, but put them back in minutes once he got uncomfortable.

How had he ever tried to cut Judar out of his life?

If Hakuryuu thought his headache couldn’t get any worse, he thought wrong. He couldn’t think from the pounding. His cough was worse than ever. His stomach felt worse with no cigarettes than chain smoking made it feel.

He had to repeat his reasons for stopping in his head constantly. To not disappoint himself. To not disappoint Judar. To stop living every day feeling dirty and guilty.

It didn’t help as much as he hoped it would.

It was hard to visualize the ill effects when he wanted nothing more than the simple relief he knew would come from just one. All it would take was one. Then he’d have the mental fortitude to get through the rest of withdrawal. He reminded himself that the whole mess started with “just one.” It also started with a sweet light-headedness and a state of relaxation he couldn’t achieve on his own.

Hakuryuu clicked his phone on. His lock screen background of himself, no older than four, and his brothers greeted him along with the time. Nine in the morning. It was still early.

He slid his phone back into his pocket. Judar would be at work. Unlike Hakuryuu, he had things to do. Things much more productive than writhing around on the couch coughing and thinking of smoke filling his lungs.

He was never going to be able to do it. He touched his hand to his lips in a familiar gesture that cleared his head almost on its own, until his body caught up with the fact that there was nothing there.

Maybe eating something would help. He found a couple bags of hard candy in a kitchen drawer. It was typical of Judar to keep rations in the form of candy rather than canned food, which he claimed was unnatural: that dark and wet places were the absolute least natural places to keep food, no exceptions. As if candy was any better.

The creme savers didn’t taste like much, but he could feel the sweetness of the butterscotch.

He remembered what creme savers were supposed to be like, vaguely. They certainly weren’t flavorless. It was a miracle that he’d failed to notice losing his taste of all things.

He wondered if it’d come back.

It certainly wouldn’t if he had the “just one” he’d been hurting for all morning.

With a new reason to push through, he picked up and sorted all of Judar’s laundry. He’d gotten so used to living spotlessly that the clothes strung across Judar’s floor and furniture were almost more of a curiosity than an actual mess, but he forced himself to devote all his attention to cleaning.

He cleaned Judar’s kitchen, too, and vacuumed. Scrubbed his bathroom. Thought about organizing his medicine but decided against it. It was more important that Judar knew where everything was than if it looked organized to Hakuryuu.

It was the twelfth of December but Judar’s daily medicine had five doses left. It gave Hakuryuu the impression that he forgot to take it often. Judar would hate it if he reminded him to do so, but it made Hakuryuu wonder if he’d even remembered it on that day that he found out.

Probably not. It was such an intense attack from just breathing it in third-hand.

It was difficult to not worry at the realization. Cold air bothered Judar, too. He knew because he could hear him wheezing softly and see him slouching on cold days even when he pretended to be fine. It was cold that day. The cold and the smell of smoke he must’ve breathed in deeply, expecting Hakuryuu to smell just like always, were enough to make it that bad.

Hakuryuu forced himself to cough several times in front of the sink. Mucus came up the same as it did when he got allergies in the spring. He continued forcing himself to cough long past it having any sort of positive effect.

Was that how Judar felt? If Hakuryuu wanted, he could stop coughing instantly. He kept going until he felt like he was choking. Then until his body forced him to gasp and gag between coughs.

He stopped when he couldn’t take it anymore. Wiped the spit and sweat from his face. He felt light-headed in a bad way. His headache was worse again.

He lay down, this time on the bed. It took a few minutes for him to feel like he had enough air again. He was an idiot. Recreating how Judar might have felt would only serve to make him feel worse, but he wanted to fully understand how much he had hurt him to make sure he never did it again.

Hakuryuu thought of how he might have felt, left alone unable to breathe in a crosswalk full of people. Abandoned for a reason out of his control that was always causing him pain.

Tears pricked at his eyes.

He spent some time laying there and crying. By the time Judar was back from work all of Hakuryuu’s tears had dried. He felt too sick to really enjoy spending time together. Too sick and too guilty. Too anxious with the thought that he wouldn’t really be able to quit and he’d put Judar through it again and again, just like he’d already put himself through the first day of trying to quit again and again.

To be fair to himself, he’d never made it as far as halfway through the second day until now. It was a small victory but he had many more days ahead if he was going to end it for good.

Judar let him sulk for the most part. Hakuryuu didn’t know if he knew anything about what withdrawal felt like or not. He wanted Judar to know how bad his head hurt and how his jaw ached for the feeling but didn’t want to tell him. Because admitting he still wanted it after being so terrible to Judar was such a shameful thing.

Day three.

Nothing helped. Every sound stabbed his mind through his skull and made his legs weak. Every small irritation heightened his stress and made him feel like crying.

Judar’s first instinct when he came home was to laugh at how terrible Hakuryuu looked, and he snapped a bitter response without thinking. Then proceed to complain about the way Judar failed to line his shoes up when he came in and threw them halfway across the living room instead. It was so inexplicably annoying that he felt justified in telling Judar off about it.

“Whoa, mood swings much?” Judar asked and set a couple plastic bags on the counter without bothering to pick up his shoes. The crinkling noise of it made Hakuryuu want to scream. “You finished all the butterscotch, right? I saw the bag in the trash. So I got more.”

Hakuryuu blinked. Like a tide, his irritation pulled back almost instantly. It was a sweet gesture. He wasn’t sure if Judar knew exactly what he was using them for but he doubted he would’ve gotten more so quickly if he didn’t at least have an inkling. He opened the bag, unwrapped one, and popped it in his mouth. He held it between his teeth for a moment and took a deep breath. The tension faded from his jaw.

He pushed it back onto his tongue. “Thank you,” he mumbled. “And I’m sorry. For shouting.”

Judar ruffled his hair. “It was kinda funny. I should record this shit for later, really. You’d be so embarrassed.”

“Don’t.”

His mood swung from one extreme to another several times throughout the rest of the day. Everything from feeling overwhelmed by cravings to Judar’s braid hitting him as he walked by was enough to set him off. He spent hours with tears in his eyes from the stress of it all. Then they’d dry, he’d feel alright, if not depressed and fatigued, and then something would cause his irritation to spike and the cycle would continue.

He was lucky that Judar saw the humor in it but wasn’t looking forward to finding out years later if he really did take a video of it.

Then again, if he quit successfully, in a few years he might see the humor in such a video too. It would be a remnant of a time he’d never return to and nothing more. It added to his resolve.

From what he’d read the worst of it was nearly over. He could do it.

Day four wasn’t as much better as he hoped. But it wasn’t worse, and that was enough. The headache had subsided enough to give exercising another try. He still got winded before he made it half an hour.

Even Judar could do more, without a doubt. He was pretty good at push-ups and sit-ups because he cared about his image, though, so maybe it wasn’t as good of a comparison as running would be.

The fact that he was comparing his physical ability to an asthmatic wasn’t lost on him.

He tried heating up the leftovers from what he’d cooked a couple days ago and could barely eat it. Judar was right - it was salty. His taste for salt must’ve been muted just as his taste for creme savers was. The only thing could save it was copious amounts of chilli powder. He relished the taste of his burning mouth. He hadn’t had spicy food in a long, long time.

Or maybe the spiciness had just been dulled too much to enjoy it.

He texted Judar a few ingredients he wanted from the store with a promise to make persimmon cakes if he bought them. Judar immediately texted back the okay.

He got to work in the kitchen as soon as Judar was back with flour, walnuts, and rose water. Cooking wasn’t terribly enjoyable, seems as he still felt generally groggy and unwell, but it did keep his hands busy. The creme savers - butterscotch was beginning to feel a bit too sweet - kept his mouth busy, and Judar kept his interest.

He even felt a little proud when Judar liked the persimmon cakes.

“You do everything, huh?” Judar said as Hakuryuu wiped down the kitchen. “Cooking, cleaning, nagging… you’re kinda like a housewife.”

Hakuryuu rolled his eyes.

“I mean, really, what’re you gonna do if you marry some girl? You can’t both do everything.”

Hakuryuu finished wiping some stubborn flour from the counter and turned to look at Judar. “Who says I’ll marry ‘some girl?’”

“I mean… last I checked, you wanted to?”

“It’s been a while,” Hakuryuu said. “Maybe I don’t want to anymore.”

That got Judar’s attention. He leaned forward with poorly masked interest, frowning at what Hakuryuu could possibly mean. He was so transparent.

Hakuryuu had been rethinking his sexuality right around the time he started speaking less and less with Judar. It’d been a long time now, but Judar had no way of knowing he’d reconsidered.

“So then, are you like… just gonna be a hermit?”

Hakuryuu laughed.

“It was a serious question!”

“Are you planning on being a hermit?”

Judar frowned. “I don’t need anyone else, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Liar. You hate living alone.” Hakuryuu finished up cleaning, washed the rag, and sat across from Judar. The motion of sitting down had him instinctively reach for his pocket, pushing up where his lighter would’ve been. Judar’s eyes flicked to his pocket and Hakuryuu almost apologized.

They sat in silence for a moment. Hakuryuu thought Judar was pondering his loss of interest in women, but when he spoke he was still looking at Hakuryuu’s empty pocket.

“…What’s it like?”

Hakuryuu stiffened. He locked his hands together to keep himself from reaching without thinking again. He didn’t want to answer Judar’s question. But he had the right to know what Hakuryuu was feeling after so long of being kept in the dark.

“Hard.”

“Do you not want to quit?”

“I do. But at the same time, I don’t. If there were no ill effects I’d keep doing it forever.” Hakuryuu sighed. “I wish I never started.”

“That makes no sense.”

“I know.”

Judar considered it for a moment. He’d never know what it was like because he couldn’t physically take it. He wouldn’t understand how little things like sitting down or looking out a window or drinking coffee were so intrinsically linked with the habit that he almost couldn’t stand it. But with how much Judar already knew, his shame was turning into the urge to confess.

So he did. Confessed how much he hated mornings without them even when he used to be such a morning person because smoking the first time after waking up was always the best part of the day. How he didn’t even want to eat most of the time because the craving after a meal was always the strongest. How he always used to sit by the window and smoke, so when Judar came home and he smelled the fresh air from the door, he instantly wanted to smoke more than he wanted to hear about Judar’s day.

He probably sounded like he was having some sort of breakdown. Maybe he was. But when he finished he finally felt relief - relief that, for the first in over a year, he didn’t need a cigarette to feel.

By day five he was mostly free of that terrible headache. After he made it through the first craving of the day it wasn’t too bad. He exercised more and felt a little less lost filling his time with looking for recipes to make the best of what Judar had. It was difficult to concentrate long enough to actually make them, but he was sure that when he got around to it Judar would be pleased.

All around he was off to a good start. Telling Judar everything had taken some of the weight of quitting off his shoulders. Of course, it was at the expense of moving it to Judar’s shoulders. But he wasn’t angry when Hakuryuu told him. He was a good listener when he wanted to be.

His phone buzzed in his pocket while he was doing situps. He checked it when he finished the set.

It was from Cassim.

Alibaba says you’ve been acting weird. What’s up?

They’d gotten fairly close over the past year. Parts of their personalities still clashed on some basic level despite their similarities, but Hakuryuu had gotten used to using him to try to fill the hole Judar left.

Cassim, perceptive as he was, had texted him asking if the someone he wasn’t compatible with happened to be a man after he and Alibaba had gotten the fact of Hakuryuu’s less-than-straightness out of him. Hakuryuu had skirted around the question, but seems as he did really want to talk about it after all, he ended up talking about Judar to Cassim. Sometimes until he was told to shut up about him already, followed by either a ‘you need to get over him’ or a ‘you need to confess already.’

The fact that Cassim asked about if there was any change in the status quo every so often was proof enough that he didn’t really mind that particular conversation. Or maybe he was just too much of a gossip to bear the idea of missing out on important updates.

He reread the text in question. For once it wasn’t asking about his non-existent love life.

If Hakuryuu thought back to it, he’d been acting weird for ages. He spent far too long getting irritated at not being able to smoke at school and had taken it out on Alibaba more times than he could count. It was almost more worrying that Alibaba didn’t say anything about him acting weird months ago than the fact that he was acting so much weirder while trying and failing to quit that Alibaba finally did say something to Cassim.

As such, Hakuryuu wasn’t sure how to respond. It took him a few minutes to construct the most vague and dismissive reply possible to keep Cassim from asking more questions.

Sorry. It was a long week. I feel better now.

Cassim responded quickly, by his standards.

Alright, if you say so. Alibaba thought you’d get mad if he said it, so he wanted me to tell you that you can talk to us if you ever need anything. Really.

…Oh. So that was where that was going. Hakuryuu clicked his phone’s display off and closed his eyes.

Why had he tried to do everything alone for so long? He didn’t need to. Judar wanted to help him, and so did Alibaba and Cassim. His sister, too.

He’d never been alone.

He tapped his phone’s home button to wake it up. The lock screen’s picture of himself and his brothers was the same as always, though the time had changed from the last time he looked at it, always moving forward while the picture stayed the same.

He wanted to change it.

He flicked through his photos library, starting from the most recent. Most of what he had saved were pictures of grocery lists and study guides. There was the rare picture of plants he fancied and saved with the full intention to identify later, and pictures of pages in library books he needed for a paper that he didn’t want to dog-ear.

As his finger brought his phone farther back in time he found what he was looking for. Pictures of Alibaba and Morgiana, with Cassim sometimes giving a rough peace sign in the background. Pictures of his sister and Seishun. Of Judar.

He smiled. Judar was very photogenic. He had pictures of Judar on his twentieth birthday, Judar’s comically horrified face after losing a game for the fiftieth or so time in the row, Judar after an all-nighter looking so tired it was hard to believe he was awake. He had a few that Judar sent him, too, of them both. He wasn’t as photogenic as Judar was but he looked happy. Happy and much healthier than in the picture Judar had taken of him at the store.

Judar’s pictures weren’t very good. The backlighting was terrible and he sometimes caught the edge of his thumb in the camera. He set one as his background then clicked the display off and on again.

Judar’s sweaty but smiling face greeted him, along with his own content but worn out expression. He didn’t remember what they were doing then - he couldn’t have been older than sixteen at the time. It was five years ago already. But it was fine. Seeing the time above it didn’t make him anxious about how long it’d been like the pictures of his brother did.

He did feel guilty about changing it. He’d always kept it as that picture, afraid to change it for fear of forgetting his brothers’ faces and the way they smiled.

Their faces would never change now. They were dead, and had been for some time. He was starting to feel like it was okay to let them rest. They could enjoy what he hoped to be a dreamless sleep, and Hakuryuu could try to enjoy the rest of his life he’d always been so scared to live without them.

Saying goodbye didn’t have to be a bad thing.

Though he’d replaced their picture with one of Judar, it wasn’t as if he was allowing Judar to replace them. It’d never been like that. It wasn’t just him and his brothers back then, after all. Judar was there too. So was Hakuei, and Seishun, and even Kouen. The world his brothers lived in wasn’t any different from the world he lived in now. It was a world that Judar and the others had always been a part of. So he didn’t need to feel guilty for changing the picture. It was okay.

For the first time he allowed himself to accept the thought of his brothers being dead as it was, with no regrets and no guilt for outliving them or not remembering them clearly enough. Judar couldn't remember his parents at all. That didn’t mean he failed them. They would have surely been happy to have a child like Judar. He didn’t think his brothers were unhappy to have a brother like himself.

And… letting himself be different from his brothers wasn’t failing them either. It was living and changing, appreciating life as it came. Just as they’d be doing if they were the ones who lived.

When Judar came back he nodded approvingly at Hakuryuu. “Better than yesterday.”

“So far,” Hakuryuu agreed.

Judar yawned as he kicked his shoes halfway across the living room again. “I’m gonna take a nap. Come with me.”

Hakuryuu didn’t really want to sleep but obliged. Judar’s ‘weekend’ started tomorrow, and he recalled that since they were children Judar always insisted that the day before a weekend had to be slept away so the next few days could be enjoyed properly. That part of him never changed.

He’d already exhausted his list of things to do, anyway. There wasn’t much he could do but stare at the ceiling by now and if he was going to be doing it anyway, might as well make Judar happy with it.

Judar’s hands and feet were cold and he warmed them on Hakuryuu in the least comfortable way possible. He should’ve known that Judar just wanted to use him as a portable stove. Even when Hakuryuu tried to remove his hands they snaked back around his waist.

“I can’t sleep like this,” Hakuryuu said.

“You weren’t going to sleep anyway, right? At least be a good pillow.”

“Well, that’s true…”

“You can play games the whole time for all I care,” Judar said. “Just as long as you shut up and stay still.”

Hakuryuu rolled his eyes. He hadn’t played a game in years. He didn’t mind if Judar played them but he hadn’t touched one since they were kids, finding them a waste of time when he had more productive things he could be doing.

A half hour passed. Judar’s breathing steadied. Hakuryuu knew it was the middle of the afternoon but the same urge that plagued him on sleepless nights crept up. He reached for the nightstand once his conscious mind was too foggy to object.

His hand was met with one of Judar’s games - a Nintendo something or other. Hakuryuu flipped the lid open.

He sort of remembered having one like it from when he was younger. He looked around the edges for the sound, turned it all the way down, and flipped the power on.

It wasn’t a waste of time if he had nothing better to do.

The game played a short video that definitely would’ve been accompanied by cheery music if he had the sound on and he was asked whether he wanted to continue or create a new game. He knew that Judar would be angry if he somehow messed up his file, so he created a new game. The game prompted him to enter a name and perform some basic customization.

Then his character was shown to a farm that he was expected to tend to. He didn’t understand why Judar had such a game, as it was basically glorified manual labor, but after two hours he was halfway through spring and was seeing impressive returns on his crops.

He was there to win, after all.

Just as he was shearing his sheep Judar jumped suddenly, making Hakuryuu jump in turn. Judar sat up hastily, face sweaty, before noticing Hakuryuu. He relaxed.

Nightmare, huh? Hakuryuu had his fair share of those too. Judar would be mad if he said anything, so he didn’t.

He could guess what Judar’s dreams were about anyway. Isolation and being forced into things he didn’t want. All of it had happened long ago, so just by waking up he’d be fine.

Judar eventually lay back down to watch Hakuryuu play for a few minutes, yawning occasionally. He wasn’t focused at first, staring off into the distance instead, but after a few in-game days he began paying attention.

“Why’re you ignoring everyone?”

“Talking to people won’t make my crops grow any faster.”

Judar laughed. When Hakuryuu passed a male villager he recognized as running a pointless shop that had nothing to do with farming, Judar pointed to him. “I married him on my file. He bitches every time I talk to anyone else. It’s kinda cute.”

“What? You can marry people in this?”

“Yeah. If you play long enough I guess you can have kids too, but I’ve never got that far.”

“Is this a dating simulator or a farming simulator…?”

“Get rich and get laid simulator. You can make clothes, too. And poison people at the cooking festivals.”

“I think I understand why you like it now. It suits you.”

Spring ended and summer began. His turnips died and the song he turned up once Judar woke became cheery.

“You should’ve warned me that would happen to my crops,” Hakuryuu grumbled. He was losing his concentration, and the need to buy seeds and replant his whole field wasn’t helping.

“Nah. It’s more fun this way.” Judar adjusted his position; at some point he’d moved from his pillow to laying in the crook of Hakuryuu’s shoulder. Hakuryuu didn’t think it looked comfortable, but Judar never did pick the most sensible positions. “Who’re you gonna marry?”

“How long does it take to marry someone?”

“I dunno… maybe until winter. Depends on how hard you try.”

“I’d rather put the effort into making money,” Hakuryuu said. None of the villagers really appealed to him.

Still, Hakuryuu made a point of trying to talk to the villagers after that. The man Judar married on his file surprised him by being quite shrewd in his business. Or at least trying to be. He clearly tried too hard to the point it came off as a bit pathetic. He didn’t fall into Judar’s preferred demographic, either. He wasn’t good at communicating.

“Not who I’d expect to catch your attention.”

“Why not? He’s kinda like you.”

“Um… is he?”

Hakuryuu didn’t miss Judar’s implication. He had the vague feeling for years that Judar might like him as more than a friend, and not in the family kind of way. It was a feeling he tried very hard to avoid when he was convinced he only liked women. Then it was a feeling he pushed away knowing he was imagining it because he’d learned the kind of person Judar actually liked. His long train of bad decisions since didn’t exactly help his case. He did it knowing that Judar would hate him.

That being said, Judar had given him no indication of that being true over the past few days. He’d continued to touch Hakuryuu as much as he wanted and spoke with him as much as possible. If his interest waned it wasn’t to a noticeable degree. It was only Hakuryuu’s assumption that it would’ve.

He saved and closed the game when their conversation faded. He couldn’t focus long enough to remember whether he took care of his animals or watered his plants anymore and kept having to check, which only served to make him frustrated.

“Why’d you stop?”

“Sorry. I can’t focus.”

“Oh well. I’m hungry anyway. Let’s go get something to eat.”

Hakuryuu wasn’t hungry, but he hadn’t left the house in days. It’d probably be good for him to get out. “Okay.”

He didn’t expect Judar to pick anywhere good to eat but he was surprised when it wasn’t bad. Being able to taste properly went a long way in enjoying food. So did having an appetite.

Judar kept kicking him playfully under the table. Hakuryuu was sure that the waitress thought they were on a date. It was fine. Actually, he’d be happy if she did think that.

He was now certain that something as innocent as expressing romantic interest in Judar wouldn’t scare him away. Not when far worse things failed to. But he wasn’t ready. He didn’t even feel like a whole person anymore. If he was going to date Judar he wanted it to be in a way that didn’t just bring him down. He wanted to make him happy.

If he could quit for good, he’d confess. It wouldn’t be the same depressing confession as when he told Judar about his addiction or his cravings. Instead it’d be one he hoped would make Judar smile.

He was getting used to living at Judar’s. Used to the smell of his shampoo and soap and putting the cap back on Judar’s toothpaste every morning after he inevitably forgot. Used to using his electric stove and sweeping up the hair he inadvertently left everywhere.

It wasn’t a bad thing. It was actually very comfortable. Judar’s messiness didn’t bother him when it gave him something to do and he felt more mellow as the days passed. The cravings didn’t go away but he was getting better at not triggering the worst of them. He exercised when there was nothing left to clean and played Judar’s games when he became short of breath.

Anxiety over leaving to go back home began to replace his withdrawal symptoms. If Judar’s words were anything to go by, his apartment would smell. He couldn’t even look at his lists without being struck by a dizzying urge, and if his room and clothes and car all smelled too, he had no idea how he was going to continue alone.

Judar would let him stay over forever. He knew that. But he knew it wasn’t the right thing to do. Because there would be days when he smelled it outside or was at the store alone and saw the packs behind the counter. It was impossible to go his whole life avoiding every occasion that could make him want to smoke. So he had to be ready. He had to go home and face it, take out the trash with a half-full pack and lighter inside, and air the whole place out. It might take months for every trace to leave, and that was just the smell in his home.

It had to be done. As comfortable as it would be to depend on Judar forever, it wasn’t foolproof. It’d be possible while alone to mess up again. So it was pointless to avoid going back.

Judar slept until noon on Thursday despite having gone to sleep at a perfectly normal time. He stumbled into the kitchen, squinting at the bright window, then tugged the curtain back over and yawned.

“You got plenty enough sleep,” Hakuryuu said. “No need to act like the light burns.”

“It does burn.”

Hakuryuu rolled his eyes. “I’m sure.”

Judar plopped next to him on the couch, then rolled to try to replace the game in Hakuryuu’s lap. He lifted it for a moment for Judar to get comfortable then put it back down on his head when he was.

“Turn the sound off.”

Hakuryuu did so. “I’m already in fall.”

Judar yawned again and buried his head in the fabric around Hakuryuu’s stomach in a distracting way. Hakuryuu tried slouching to fix the problem. It worked well enough - Judar wrapped his arms around his waist in the new position.

“You work fast,” Judar mumbled.

“I’ve been up for a while.”

Since five in the morning, to be precise. It was a miracle that he hadn’t woken Judar up with his pacing and cleaning.

As comfortable as Judar looked, it was a very awkward position to focus on watering crops in. Hakuryuu finished the in-game day and turned it off. “Are you planning on going back to sleep there?” He asked Judar.

“No. I’m waking up.” He made no move to get up.

“I’ll make you breakfast,” Hakuryuu said. “What do you want?”

Judar mumbled something and pushed Hakuryuu to tell him to lay down too.

“I thought you were waking up?”

“I’ll wake up faster if you lay down.”

“I’m going to push you on the floor.”

That got Judar to sit up. He looked more awake than he was acting, all things considered. He scowled at Hakuryuu then stood and stretched. “Happy now?”

Hakuryuu watched at Judar’s abs as his shirt lifted while he stretched, looking away as soon as he realized what he was doing. “Yes. Now tell me what you want to eat.”

“Let’s go out,” Judar said. “I feel like going out. Staying inside all the time is boring.”

Hakuryuu frowned. “We went out yesterday. It’s expensive to eat out all the time.”

“You can pay then.”

“That doesn’t exactly solve the problem.”

“Does too. We get to go outside and I don’t have to pay for it.” Judar smiled, pleased with his idea. “Don’t try making something to try to keep us here while I shower, either. I won’t eat it.”

Judar left without leaving room to argue.

Maybe it would be good for him. He’d enjoyed going out for dinner with Judar the night before. Everything he’d thought about since then were nothing than thoughts. Hakuryuu sighed and changed clothes while Judar showered.

It was lucky that they were so close in size. It wasn’t lucky because it was winter and Judar didn’t have much that was warm enough to go out in. He only had one coat, which Hakuryuu left for Judar to use, and various questionably warm hoodies. Hakuryuu pulled a white one over his head.

Judar took forever to shower and braid his hair, so it was really pointless to be ready to leave before he even got out. Hakuryuu just didn’t have anything better to do.

Downtime was the worst part of every day now. He’d already cleaned everything he could. Just as he was wondering if enough dust had accumulated on top of the refrigerator in the two days since he’d last cleaned it to do so again, his phone buzzed from the coffee table.

Hakuryuu checked it, happy for the distraction. That feeling faded when he read who it was from: Kougyoku.

I’m glad you’re feeling better, but that doesn’t mean you should start ignoring me now!

He reread the text several times before concluding that it didn’t make any sense. He wasn’t close with Kougyoku; not that he had anything against her, they’d just never had much of a reason to talk. She was much closer with Judar.

Which was why it was probably Judar’s phone that he’d picked up.

Which was strange, since if that were the case, they had the same lock screen picture.

Hakuryu took his phone out of his pocket - of course the one on the table couldn’t have been his if his was in his pocket - and compared. Though Kougyoku’s text was still blocking much of the picture it was easy to tell that they were very much the same image. The only difference was that Judar’s was cropped so that Hakuryuu was more in the center, while Hakuryuu’s was cropped to show more of Judar.

He felt his face redden. Hakuryuu set Judar’s phone back down and went to clean the refrigerator top again. He’d pretend he never saw it. That way he wouldn’t have to change the picture or think about what it meant.

Besides, he didn’t want to seem like he was snooping by reading the text Kougyoku sent.

Saturday came all too fast and Judar was back to work again. Snow fell all afternoon, and as calming as it was to watch, that meant standing by a window for a significant amount of time. Which was almost physically painful in his current state.

When he came home he greeted Hakuryuu with a snowball to the face and laughed like it was the first time he’d ever done that when really, he’d done it nearly every winter of his life and Hakuryuu was fully expecting it. He countered with putting chilli powder in the hot chocolate Judar insisted on him making to go with the snow.

Judar wrinkled his nose. “Since when do I even have chilli powder?”

“Since you wanted me to make ultra hot cookies to trick a coworker you hated into eating about four years ago.”

“…Oh yeah! Man, that was great,” Judar said. Then he remembered the burning in his hot chocolate that he was supposed to be mad about and tried to replace his fond expression with a scowl. It didn’t work very well.

Hakuryuu smiled. It wasn’t enough chilli to make it undrinkable, not with the milk - just enough to catch him off guard.

It’d now been just over a week since he had come to Judar’s. He couldn’t stay forever and he needed to tell Judar. Hakuryuu knew that. Knowing didn’t make it any easier to actually do.

He also needed to come up with a more permanent reason for not spending time at Alibaba and Cassim’s.

Both were difficult tasks when he was perfectly comfortable where he was now, turning down invitations to hang out as they came. He took a deep breath. He had to do it.

“Judar, I’m going to… go back home. Tomorrow.”

“…Why?”

“Being here is too comfortable.”

Judar met his eyes with a neutral expression. Hakuryuu understood him well enough to know what he must have been thinking - that it was fine if it was too comfortable, and that even if Hakuryuu started again he could just stay to stop. And that was true. But it wasn’t productive.

“I want to move on,” Hakuryuu said. “I’ll still come over as much as you want. And if I don’t, you’re free to break down my door.”

As bitter as Judar looked, he didn’t object.

Everything smelled like smoke.

It wasn’t suffocating. It wasn’t even particularly strong. But it was everywhere.

Hakuryuu tried his hardest to ignore it. He knew it’d clear out the fastest if he opened the window, but every time he went to put his hands on the latch, he hesitated.

That was a big step. What he needed to be taking were small steps. He watered his dry herbs. None of them were happy with him - though they were plants, he could feel their disappointment just the same as if they were people. It was certainly in his head, but knowing that didn’t make his guilt go away.

He washed his sheets, pillowcases, and clothes - everything he could think of until he ran out of change to use in the washing machines. Then he washed the walls and floors.

Just like that, he’d spent enough time around the smell that he was used to it. That was how he first started making mistakes. No, that was how he made mistakes that others noticed. Everything about it was a mistake.

He felt terrible. Everything in his apartment made him feel terrible. As a result he wanted the relief his body knew came along with frustration and guilt, the temporary solution but constant cause of the problem.

Judar had let him take his hard candy and even borrow his games. It was a nice gesture but Hakuryuu was too anxious to play games, knowing there was cleaning he could be doing, and the candy could only do so much.

Putting it in his mouth and holding it between his teeth did help to some extent with the urge. He’d run out of candy and have to buy more, which meant going to the store, and the thought itself was enough to make him sweaty with anxiety.

He’d taken the trash out as soon as he got home. That was a good move. Now if he wanted a fix he had to go all the way to the store and ask for a pack behind the counter to an employee that knew he hadn’t been in for over a week. How shameful. That was also the closest place he knew he could buy candy. How frustrating.

By sunset Hakuryuu was completely out of things to do. He was hungry but didn’t want to leave to buy food, knowing it was the first chance he’d get to relapse. He knew everything needed to air out but didn’t want to open the window in case the urge was strong enough to rationalize going to the store. He didn’t want to be alive. He wanted to smoke.

His phone vibrated in his pocket. Someone was calling. It took two tries to fish his phone out with his sweaty fingers, and he wasn’t surprised to see it was Judar.

“Hey,” he mumbled.

“I’m bored,” Judar drawled on the other end. “Shouldn’t have let you use my games. I want those.”

“…I can give them back,” Hakuryuu said. “I haven’t played all day.”

“Yeah, but you will once you get tired of cleaning, right?” Judar sighed. “It’s super cold today. You should’ve waited until it’s warm again to leave.”

“Sorry. I’m sure you can get to sleep without first warming your hands on me.”

“I’d still have cold hands then! Have some sympathy.”

It was much easier to calm down talking to Judar than it was on his own. He should’ve thought of calling. Their conversation lasted hours, mostly spanning topics Judar brought up - Hakuryuu’s life was boring lately, and he really didn’t have anything interesting to say like Judar did.

He hung up reluctantly knowing that Judar had work early and would be in a bad mood if he didn’t get enough sleep. Then he got ready for bed himself, tried to pretend the time he would have had his last cigarette of the day that he always was so careful to savor didn’t exist, had never existed, and tried to sleep.

He was sure Judar could get to sleep without him, but not so sure he could get to sleep without Judar. At least not easily.

Two hours of trying and he was back to working on his virtual crops. It was as good of a distraction as any, especially when he was finally getting the hang of selling items at the best time possible for maximum profit.

When he finally turned it off for the night his eyes were tired and he wasn’t any more ready to sleep. It was the feeling he had when he woke up in the middle of the night then had a cigarette to escape. He put one pillow over his head, hugged another, and curled up.

Eventually he was able to fall asleep. It was his first big victory on his own.

Hakuryuu saw himself when he looked in the mirror.

He’d cut his hair and styled it like his brother’s years ago so that wouldn’t be the case, but it always was. No matter how much time passed, he was just himself.

All he could do was stare.

He wanted to change it. Not himself, but his hair that he’d made to look like his brother’s.

He tried parting it in the opposite direction, then pinning his bangs up. Neither felt right. Then he tried parting them down the middle the way he’d done as a kid. It looked strange now that he was used to wearing it to the side, but it felt natural. He trimmed the edges so it’d look natural, too.

There he was. Just himself, and no one else.

Today he planned to leave the house. Maybe it was his sleep deprived brain throwing stupid ideas at his head, but he thought he could do it. He had something he wanted to do.

He wanted to visit the graveyard. The place he’d tried for so long to avoid.

Hakuryuu hadn’t been to the graveyard in so long that he couldn’t tell if it was different or not - he couldn’t recall what his impression was when his sister brought him, holding his hand tightly, the first place he went to once he was released from the hospital months after the funeral. At the time he couldn’t understand what was happening. Not with his cloudy mind and spinning vision. His legs had gotten sore on the walk there from how long he spent in a hospital bed, and he’d had a hard time understanding that his brothers really were there under the ground when the soreness was so distracting.

Maybe that was normal. He was only six at the time and had been in the hospital for far too long. Of course he was tired and sore.

A worse crime than being distracted the first time he visited was that he’d never visited again. No one told him to and no one said anything about him not doing so. So he pushed it to the back of his mind and allowed his brothers to live through himself when they really weren’t alive at all. They were dead in the ground, and he had to accept that.

With leftover slush from the snow making a noise every step he took, Hakuryuu was conscious of how many footprints he left around the open field. His scarf didn’t keep much of the biting cold off his nose and he didn’t own any earmuffs. There were hundreds of headstones. He couldn’t remember where his brothers were.

Hakuryuu thought he remembered a tree. He’d gone with Hakuei in April that day fifteen years ago and he remembered the petals that’d fallen all over their graves. Petals that had already begun to decay, browned and sticky at the edges that’d surely once been a soft and lovely pink.

It would be shameful to ask the help desk where his brothers might be. They’d know that he hadn’t visited if he did. So he continued looking at each grave’s nameplate individually until he finally found what he was looking for.

The area was tidy. Other graves had a stray weed here or there, but his brothers’ graves were pristine. Hakuryuu felt his stomach drop. It was clear that although he had been negligent, someone else hadn’t been. Whoever it was would have been a better brother for them. More than Hakuryuu had ever been.

He tried to push that thought to the back of his mind. His goal in coming wasn’t to beat himself up. He set down the offerings he’d brought and cleaned a wider area, just so their visitor would know they weren’t the only one to have come. Not this time.

Then with nothing left to do he returned his cold hands to his pockets. He opened his mouth several times, watched his breath disappear into the cold and lost the words he’d been forming. There was something he wanted to say. But he didn’t know how to say it.

“Um… I don’t know if you’d recognize me… since it’s been so long. I’m your little brother… Sorry for never visiting.”

He took a deep breath that burned his lungs. It was too cold to be outside for as long as he’d been. Just a little longer and he’d go back inside.

“I haven’t done a very good job of moving on,” he mumbled. “So I came to visit. To tell you why. If you were alive I would hope that you’d scold me.”

Without the warmth of moving Hakuryuu was cold enough to shiver. He tried to swallow it down. “I thought you both were perfect and that it’d be better if I were more like you than like me. I realize now that it’s impossible. All I’ve been doing is trying to keep you from resting in peace… so I’m going to stop. Stop buying the kinds of clothes you wore when I like different ones and stop trying to like the foods that you liked when there’s something else I’d rather have.”

He sniffled from the cold. “I want to be my own person, too. I want to move on.”

Hakuryuu pulled his scarf up farther. They couldn’t hear him whether his words were muffled or not. He was only speaking for his own sake, after all. “That’s all. I hope that you’re able to sleep well, wherever you are.”

January came without incident. His apartment was airing out. He was learning new things about himself every day.

He liked figs and olives. He was tired of porridge and prefered sweets when he was in a bad mood. Liked to wear clothes with designs rather than plain ones. Didn’t like it when they were tight fitting in any way - loose bordering on baggy always felt nicer.

His hair looked better a little longer than his brothers had kept theirs. Judar liked it longer, too. Hakuryuu would have never known that if he hadn’t hesitated when the time he normally cut it came and passed. He liked to wear tall boots and didn’t like short socks.

He had lots of money to spend experimenting with what he did and didn’t like now that he wasn’t smoking. He couldn’t believe that it’d taken so long to search for his own preferences. He’d never even thought about what he liked or didn’t like before. It was always if his brothers would like something or not.

His grades averaged out at rather unimpressive Bs with a few As. He tried not to let it bother him. He didn’t even know for a fact if his brothers had been straight A students. It was an assumption.

Alibaba didn’t comment on his grades but did comment on his mood. “You seem different lately,” he said. “Something good happen?”

Hakuryuu smiled. Nothing had ‘happened.’ It was a result of his actions rather than external circumstances. That made it much more satisfying. “I guess you could say that.”

He could stand to be around Alibaba by the time spring semester started but he hadn’t worked his way up to seeing Cassim yet. The amount of smoke would be more than he was confident in handling. He gave Alibaba a half truth as an excuse: that Judar would notice it, and the smell would annoy him.

“Are you sure you aren’t dating? You’re whipped!” Alibaba said, laughed, and that was the end of that.

Hakuryuu decided that Cassim was right. It was a good thing that Alibaba and Morgiana were dating. It made him much more tolerable to be around when the subject of romance came up.

He spent a lot of time at Judar’s. Most of it was spent studying - he didn’t trust himself to do it on his own yet. Judar didn’t complain as long as he took enough breaks to keep him entertained.

Hakuryuu was happy to do so.

It helped that Judar was vocal in his appreciation of the things Hakuryuu liked. He loved his new clothes and shoes and liked what he cooked for himself more than what he cooked based on what his brothers liked. It gave Hakuryuu just enough of a confidence boost to realize that Judar’s affection was genuine. It wasn’t misplaced. There were things about himself that Judar truly liked that he didn’t find in other more successful or handsome men.

The feeling was mutual. There were kinder and more composed people out there than Judar. None held his interest in the same way as Judar did, though. Perfection wasn’t a prerequisite to love.

And he did love Judar. Loved him in so many ways that it was impossible to narrow it down into a few words. It wasn’t just familial or just platonic or just romantic. Judar was childish, mean spirited, and petty. Determined and loyal and affectionate. Some things about him were annoying and some were endearing. There was nothing that Hakuryuu would change about him even if he could.

So he was going to confess.

It was difficult to know when and how to do it. He had a bad habit of working himself up over such things to the point that any solution he came up with ended up being overkill, so he tried not to think about it. Tried not to plan anything.

It happened when he couldn’t stand not doing anything a second longer. It was such a simple thing that did it, too: he woke up next to Judar, legs touching, warm in the winter chill. Neither of them had anywhere to be. Judar snored a little while he slept.

It was the way Hakuryuu wanted to wake up every day.

Judar woke only a few minutes after Hakuryuu did - that was what happened when they stayed up late. Judar woke up at the same time as always and Hakuryuu slept in late to match. He peered suspiciously from under his pillow until he remembered he didn’t have work and could stay in bed as long as he wanted. Hakuryuu didn’t object when Judar scooted closer.

“Not signing up for Friday classes is the best choice you’ve ever made,” Judar mumbled.

“Yeah. You’re right.”

“I’m always right.”

Judar didn’t fall back asleep. Instead he ran a hand through Hakuryuu’s hair absentmindedly. It felt nice.

“How long are you gonna let it get?” Judar asked.

“As long as I want.”

Judar hummed in agreement. “Long hair is good. You’ll like it.”

Hakuryuu turned to face Judar. It disturbed his supposedly comfortable position and he made a face, but readjusted to meet Hakuryuu’s eyes.

Judar looked different without any of his cosmetics. A different kind of beautiful than when he went out. A little plainer. Just as much of himself as he was any other time of the day.

“…I’m going to kiss you,” Hakuryuu said. He put a hand behind Judar’s head to angle it just right and met his lips. Just for a moment. Judar wouldn’t like to be caught off guard for much longer than that. When he pulled away his heart was beating fast and he was still close enough to feel Judar’s warm breath on his face.

As soon as the surprise faded, Judar put his hands on either side of Hakuryuu’s face and pulled him back, rolling on top. It was clearly a kiss he’d been wanting for years - he deepened it without hesitation, curling his hands in Hakuryuu’s hair and tugging him closer. As close as he’d go. By the time Judar was finished, having stopped only to catch his breath from forgetting to breathe, Hakuryuu wasn’t sure how he ever doubted if Judar still wanted him around.

“Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted that?” Judar asked.

“For the past ten years, give or take.”

“Yeah! Ten whole years! You’re lucky I like you enough to wait that long!!”

Hakuryuu couldn’t help it - he laughed. He’d wanted it for some time now too, and now that they’d done it, it was funny that it took so long. They were both idiots. “I’ll make it up to you,” he said. “If you’ll let me.”

“Let you? As if you want it more!”

“You underestimate me,” Hakuryuu said and pulled him back for another kiss.

It didn’t feel like it was his first time kissing a man. It just felt right. Hakuryuu was himself and Judar was Judar. Being together felt right. Natural.

Neither of his brothers liked men. Neither probably liked Judar much in the first place, actually. But Hakuryuu did. And now he was doing what he wanted, moving on in the way he most wanted to.

His life was his own and he was determined to live it.