Work Text:
I remember once, years ago.
I had gone out at night, alone, and Miri had heard me. She asked me if I had gone out to meet with a girl.
Almost ten years later, I still haven't found a way to tell her the truth.
I throw back my head as I chug yet another shot of Wild Turkey. I can feel Kyo's inquiring eyes on me but, bless him, in all these years he has never asked a single question.
Maybe he knows I wouldn't have an answer.
"I think it's time you go home, Kazuki," he says, and I raise my face to look at him.
The state I'm in must be really desperate: he never bothered to talk to me whenever I come to his bar and drink myself to a place where I feel no pain.
I nod and slide some money behind the empty glass, and I stand up. Or I try to.
My legs are unsteady, and I vaguely think I might be getting too old to get drunk on my own.
But who would be by my side?
Who would be willing to be the victim of the curse I bring upon everyone who dares to get close to me?
Death.
I bring death with me, she is my only companion, she is the girl I've been meeting with all this time, Miri, and I meet her outside our home so to keep her away from you and Rei.
"Ahhh, Kyo, do you happen to have a spare futon here?" I ask, not without shame, "I don't think I'll be able to drive home."
"I don't think that will be necessary," Kyo answers. He still looks completely unfazed as he keeps cleaning the glasses, steaming and clean, just out of the dishwasher.
I watch him put them on their shelves; I don't understand.
Or do I?
Maybe Kyo is the voice of reason. He's always been, after all, never afraid to break your heart for the greater good.
I just wonder if I'll be able to remember how to start my car to fulfil his suggestion.
I'm fumbling to get my car keys out of the pocket of my trousers, when a hand lands on my shoulder.
"Kazuki," a calm, deep voice calls. Rei's voice. And now I know, I'm too far gone. If I can picture a worried grudge on his face made of dreams, if I can hear the concern in his usually deadpan voice, I'm definitely too far gone.
How could I go home again and look him in the face? He would certainly understand. He would be disgusted. He would be scared.
I don't want Rei to be scared of me.
"How much did he have to drink?" I hear him ask Kyo.
"A couple. I told you, he's unwell."
"I'll bring him home."
Rei's left hand lifts me by my armpit, and I half collapse upon his shoulder. I vaguely hear him bid goodnight to Kyo, and the fresh spring air bites my face as we walk ( stumble ) out of the bar.
My car clicks open, and I am rudely shoved on the passenger seat.
I hear Rei fixing the driver seat, I perceive him at the limits of my vision, fixing the rear view mirrors and snapping his seatbelt locked.
He bends over me, slowly so as not to activate the block on his seatbelt, and he fixes mine too.
I'm glad I'm having this hallucination. Sister Death must know me very well by now, she knows that Rei is the only one I would follow to the depths of hell.
He's the perfect image to walk me towards my death.
But the crash I'm expecting doesn't come.
The crushing weight of the seawater doesn't squish my chest in a tight, deadly embrace.
There's just the humming sound of the engine as he carefully drives along the city, heading home.
It seems too long and yet too short of a trip, when he finally parks in the back of our restaurant, but when he turns the key to shut down the engine he doesn't move.
I try to unlock my seatbelt, but my fingers feel numb and cold; it's like they belong to someone else, like they've been carelessly attached to my body by some distracted builder.
I hear the doors lock and I put all my efforts into turning my head towards Rei.
His face is pale, almost sickly greenish in the pale halo of a street lamp. He isn't looking at me. His stare is focussed on the infinite that lies ahead of him; it might seem like he's staring at the wall, but I know he isn't.
"It's time you cut this crap, Kazuki," he says. His voice is warm, but cuts like frozen rain.
"I don't know what you mean," I answer, and my voice comes out as more firm than I thought it would. I might be too far gone to realise I'm babbling, but somehow I doubt it.
I don't feel drunk, I'm lucid. Everything around me doesn't have that blurred consistency that usually comes with too much alcohol and too little sleep.
It's all clear and vivid, just like when you had too much pain and nothing to soothe it with.
"You know what I mean," Rei insists, and yes, yes I do know.
What I don't know is how to put everything into words.
He will think I'm a liar, an unreliable person, a stranger who's been standing by his side, unseen behind his mask of cheerfulness and excessive crying.
"There isn't any girl," he states, "There never was."
"There is one," I correct him, and he finally looks at me. His movement is so sharp I hear the tendons in his neck clacking, and his eyes are wide open in something I can't quite understand.
"Death," I finally confess, "She's always by my side. You should thank me, I'm keeping her away from you and Miri."
"Kazuki, what is this bullshit?" he asks.
"Everyone I love ends up dying," I patiently explain.
He sighs and looks away. His hands grab the steering wheel and he clutches it, so much that his knuckles go white, four full moons I can see and four I can imagine in the dark of the night.
"You think Miri and I are going to die because you love us?" he asks.
"Yes," I answer, brushing my shoulders against the seat to find a comfortable position. I'm glad he gets my point.
He's sitting in silence, his hands still gripping the wheel so strong that I hear the faux leather crackling under his skin.
Panic grabs me.
I told him.
Yes, I've put him on the same plan as Miri, so my statement might as well be interpreted as family love, but he's no fool.
I deliriously remember some funny video I saw sometime, this guy making a French impression and saying "the benefit of the doubt", but there will be no such thing for me.
Rei and I worked together. We took care of each other, then we let ourselves go to waste side by side, then we raised and shone again, and for ten years we've been living under the same roof, we've been cooking stuff and raising a child.
There's no benefit of the doubt, and I'm only confirming his fears.
"Who the hell do you think you are?" he spits out, and his voice trembles with ire.
"No one," I readily answer.
"Then why the fuck should destiny hold such a grudge against you? You… you… stupid… idiot…" his voice falters, it seems to fall like he's turned a corner.
He's about to kick me out, and I wish I could go out in glory, walking arrogantly towards the rising sun, but this damn seatbelt still won't click open and the sun is forgotten behind the horizon, and it's the dead of the night and there's only silence and the yellowish intermittent light of this shitty street lamp we've been trying to gett fixed for years.
"Kazuki, you have to stop," Rei says, "Stop going out in the middle of the night alone. I'd rather know you with someone else than knowing you're alone with those thoughts."
His sentence rubs me weird. He seems to imply something I can't quite grasp, like those times at school, when the teacher was testing you and you knew the word, but it was there on the tip of your tongue and you couldn't read it, and you froze because you felt like it could slip away for good if you did as much as breathing too deep.
Rei's hand lands on my knee. His fingertips are cold, but the palm is warm and sweaty. His grip is strong yet trembling, I can feel the vibrations of his shivers on myself.
"Kazuki," he calls, and I divert my eyes from his hand to look at his face.
"Kazuki, you're a loving father, if a little bit cringe. You care. About anything, you care. You took care of me, you kept me well fed and you sat by my side when I was crying."
"I don't think I ever saw you crying," I correct him.
"But you always seemed to know when I was," he insists, and somehow I see behind his goofy words.
All those times he just falls quiet, staring at everything and nothing at all. Those times when I pass by and everything else ceases to matter, because I know that he needs me, and so I stop, I leave everything and just sit by his side for a while, until I feel like he can be left alone.
Not because I'm a great man, but because I know he needs me, and I'm a useless waste of oxygen but if I can sit by his side and share the pain, well, I will.
"Kazuki," Rei calls again, and I look up at him. His eyes are shiny, but he's not tearing up. He doesn't cry, not on the outside, I understand now. He spent too much time learning how to mask, and too much time not knowing how not to.
"Come home, Kazuki. Come home for good," he says, and even though his voice has no inflection I know that he's begging me to.
I don't want to see him like this. I don't want to bend his pride to its breaking point, I want him to cook his French toasts and make a shopping list for both of us because I always forget something and he never does, I want him to let himself go and make that little smile he doesn't want to make, the one that pushes the corners of his mouth upwards anyway because the spark of joy is just too strong to be fought entirely, I want… I want him to be happy.
My hand slips from my control. It brushes the back of Rei's hand, the one that's still on my knee, and he bends a finger back so that he can hold me just barely.
"What if I want to fuck you?" is what I want to ask him, but what comes out is: "What if I ended up asking you to make love?"
"I can't guarantee I'd be able to," he answers, "But I can hold you."
"And I can hold you back," I echo him, and here's that rebel smile creeping up on his face, and I finally understand why nothing ever clicked.
He's just as scared as I am.
"Let's go home," he quietly whispers. I just nod, the knot in my throat almost ready to suffocate me.
His hand leaves mine, as he unlocks his and my seatbelt and then the car doors.
I follow him inside, in awe at the sight of him turning the key without making the slightest noise, so as not to wake Miri up.
But it's too late.
We get in, and Miri is standing in the hallway, curled up into her nightgown, her hair a messy nest and her eyes big and bulging in the middle of her worried pretty face.
"Kazuki papa? Rei papa? Are you okay?" she asks, and it feels like she's five years old again, lost and scared after losing her mother, too small and soft, stranded in a world that's full of thorns and sharp corners, ready to tear her to pieces.
And I'm once again scared that I won't be able to protect her, but a new knowledge hits me all of a sudden.
No parent is ever able to protect their child. A child will always be careless at times, they will scratch their knees while trying to do something stupid. A parent cannot possibly prevent damage, but what a parent can do is to be there when the child comes home in tears.
A parent must just be ready with the magic kiss that chases the boo away.
I step forward and I hold Miri in my arms; she stiffens for a second, worried, then she seems to understand.
"Is it okay now, Kazuki papa?" she asks, and her voice is tiny, still bearing the last strands of her childhood.
I feel Rei's arm caressing my back, and his hand gently squeezes my hip as the three of us hold each other.
"It's okay, Miri chan," I assure her, and how many times did I say this? But this time it's true, and she must know it because she relaxes completely against my chest, her head just below my nose so I can smell the perfume of her shampoo and the warm note of her sleep. I kiss her forehead, and she lets me.
I lean my cheek against her head, and Rei is in my sight.
I nod imperceptibly at his questioning frown, and he raises his chin.
It's an instant, less than a breath. But the peck of his lips on mine is enough to chase the boo away.
I watch as Miri goes back to sleep, more dazed now than I've ever been, and I let Rei push me towards my bedroom.
He undresses, and I do as well. I follow him to the bathroom and we both brush our teeth, then we take turns to pee.
It's all so familiar yet stranger. Daily routine, but it now has a new taste in it, something that makes it less boring and more special: I feel like this could happen every day and never seem old.
I let Rei set the pace. It's scary, not being in control, but I know I can trust him with my life, and maybe I need not to be in control, to leave the wheel to someone else and rest for a while.
We lie down in my bed, side by side, and he kisses me again. It lasts longer now, and his mouth is slightly wet and tastes like toothpaste.
The kiss seems to speak to me all the words I denied myself: it will take time, but we'll heal. There will be sorrow, and sometimes we'll have to stop and replay, but there will also be joy, and no one's stopping you from sitting in the sun and letting yourself just enjoy the fact that you're alive.
His loving gaze, just before he whispers goodnight, is another promise: we'll be having each other's back.
I entangle my fingers to him and we drift off to a dreamless sleep.