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It’s been a long fucking day. A long fucking day, between the senile old man opening bottle after bottle of wine at the back of the store and the group of middle schoolers smoking in the women’s bathroom, every customer like another baseball bat swing at Michizou’s sanity.
Now, though, he’s safe in the bathroom, halfway through the stupid fucking costume change he has to do after every shift to feel like himself again. Can’t wear the uniform out of the store, can’t bring any of this bullshit out with him or it’ll bleed into everything, and especially today, he really just wants to go home—
“You better not be naked in there again,” Hirotsu calls through the door.
He sighs, pulling the faded red uniform shirt over his head. “Never was!”
He can hear Hirotsu huff outside, and then footsteps. Quiet. Michizou finishes changing and slings his bag over his shoulder.
“Have a good evening, Tachihara.”
Hirotsu really is a good guy, even though he appears as the villain in all of Michizou’s stress nightmares. Just an old man stuck in the same dead end job he is (albeit as the manager); he even lets Michizou off when the scheduling of his other job gets in the way (the one he isn’t even technically supposed to have). Really, under it all, a good guy.
“Thanks, you too,” he waves, trying to smile through all the exhaustion. He just doesn’t want to be here anymore.
The train is running late, so he spends way longer than normal hunched over his phone like a misanthrope feeding into his future debilitating back pain. He ignores people on the platform and holds his bag tightly, though not as tightly as usual. It isn’t that he doesn’t care whether it gets stolen; it’s just that right now, full of nothing but his water bottle and convenience store uniform, it represents all the things he cares about least . Behind his friends, his headphones, his small army of ghosted dating app conversations, even behind the napkin he keeps in his jacket pocket with the sketched out design for the dream tattoo he can’t quite afford, something that isn’t even real yet. His job comes after everything.
And today has been a bad one.
Thankfully, once the train comes, the ride isn’t long. He eavesdrops on other people’s conversations (mostly held over the phone, the train full to the brim with lonely single passengers), really just to keep himself occupied since his phone died halfway through the shift. He had forgotten to charge it before leaving. Of course.
He walks from the train to the apartment building and climbs the stairs to the fourth floor, his legs already aching. For a moment very similar to what he imagines a heart attack is like, he thinks he left his keys back at the store before finding them floating loose at the bottom of his bag. Swallows the frustration that had very nearly bubbled over and lets himself in, collapsing back against the door once he does and dropping his bag where he stands.
At least the place is empty. Gin’s shift won’t end for another two and a half hours.
He’s tense and tired and doesn’t feel like doing anything. Normally he’d take advantage of the privacy and play his music loud or jack off, something to feel better. But it’s all too much right now.
“Shit.”
He vaguely registers the beginning pangs of hunger, and it makes sense. It’s early evening, just beginning to dip into autumn so the light outside is already a dull, dusky blue. It’ll pass soon to the yellow-orange he remembers from the weekend he moved in here, almost a year ago now.
Last he heard from Ryuunosuke, he and Atsushi were saving for a house away from the city. Moving out for him was the first step of something Michizou can’t even imagine having: the capital L Life. The eventual full set of house and wedding ring and car and job that doesn’t have him on all fours scrubbing foamy red wine from dirty tile. The spot with the spill had looked much brighter than the grimy floor around it when he had finished. It looked ridiculous. It made him wonder how long he’d have to do all of this.
When Ryuunosuke left, Michizou moved in. Gin went from living with the brother she loves to an acquaintance, a friend of a friend. And the two of them have been just okay, mostly giving each other space and building a mutual understanding over the way neither of them have anything they thought they wanted.
Of course, they’re young still. But so is Ryuunosuke.
He really is feeling hungry. But the thought of making anything, even ordering anything, is too much to bear. He sinks to sit on the floor with his back against the door, occupying the space just next to his bag. Pulls out his phone to while away the time and slips into it.
He spends two hours there, his back aching at its bend. He drinks everything in his water bottle and doesn’t refill it. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he realizes that the long days have been adding up, that maybe it isn’t even so much the individual long days anymore. That maybe the real issue is something much bigger.
He checks the time at the corner of his screen, only around forty minutes until Gin gets back. He should eat before then, disappear to his room so she can have the kitchen to feed herself in peace…
“Shh—fuck!”
The door closes again, and Michizou cradles his fingers against his chest. They sting like hell after getting caught as the door opened, the cherry on top of this whole worthless day.
He grabs his bag and crawls away from the door, sitting with his back against the counter and sighing dramatically enough that Ryuunosuke would roll his eyes if he were here. “You can come in now,” he calls, not doing much to keep the annoyance out of his voice.
Gin doesn’t even look at him as she enters and locks the door behind her. She shrugs off her coat and drops her key on the kitchen counter, walks over to the couch and collapses without a word.
The silence isn’t uncommon. Gin has always spoken way less than Michizou, way less than anyone he’s ever known. And she managed to make it farther than he did, all the way to the couch. A few feet from the door at least.
He debates for a moment whether or not he should complain about her bulldozing him a half an hour early. Whether he should ask why she’s here half an hour early. Instead, he flops onto his back on the floor and waits to hear from her first.
The next time he checks his phone, another half hour has passed, and neither of them have said a word. This is around the time she’d be getting home usually.
His stomach is going to digest itself if he doesn’t eat soon.
He pushes himself up off the floor and wanders over to stand at the end of the couch.
She’s curled up on her side, resting her head on her folded hands. Her legs are tucked up together at one end, and when Michizou appears at her head, she tenses and untenses her toes in her socks. She does that sometimes, in absent moments. Sometimes they’ll sit in the living room with a movie on, both just half-watching, and he’s seen her do it then. Occasionally as she stands in front of the open fridge with her weight on her heels.
Right. The fridge.
“Gin. Have you eaten?”
She doesn’t look up at him. She’s always been difficult to read because of her quietness. Michizou tells people how he feels (something he prides himself on); he’s easy. Gin has never been easy.
She shakes her head and makes no move to get off the couch. He understands. That’s how he spent the first couple hours after his shift too.
“Well, I’m not making shit.”
She doesn’t react, just shifts her legs.
“I’m gonna order something I think. I’ll get you okonomiyaki.” It isn’t much of a meal after a long (bad) day, but it’s her favorite. She tends to eat like a bird when she gets like this anyway.
He isn’t sure what it is about Gin coming home like a ragdoll that gives him the strength to do everything he couldn’t before, but he drags himself to his room and places the order, makes sure he has enough in his wallet to pay for it and pulls his uniform from his bag, folding each piece as nicely as he can and throwing the little stack into the corner of the room. He flops back on his bed and rubs his eyes with the backs of his thumbs.
Somehow, he manages to miss the message that the food has arrived. Gin knocks at his bedroom door, and he can smell the delivery before he even opens it.
“Don’t eat in here,” she advises. It’s the first thing she’s said to him all day.
He follows her down the hall and sits across from her at the little table they have by the front door. They eat their delivery straight out of the shitty styrofoam containers (this restaurant is the only one Michizou knows that still uses them) and don’t have to do dishes.
“Why were you back early?” He hopes she wasn’t fired. Rent is already a bitch.
She takes her time swallowing. It’s an odd thing to think, but Michizou thinks Gin is better at eating than he is. More refined, or at least smarter about it. She plans out her meals, the way she’ll go about them. Ryuunosuke mentioned once that they didn’t always have even what they have now. She doesn’t strike him as anxious, but there’s a chance her care is just a holdover from never having what she wanted.
“Owner had a family emergency and closed early.”
“That’s nice.” He takes another bite himself and adds, “I mean, not for her. But for you.”
She nods and slumps over, resting her cheek on her hands.
“My day was total shit,” he offers. “Looks like yours was the same.”
She shrugs, which looks a little ridiculous while she’s lying on the table. “I’m just tired,” she says. Quiet.
He nods and eats a little more. He really was starving before the food arrived.
Their entire apartment smells deep fried by the time they’ve finished, and Michizou is suddenly glad he procrastinated showering after his shift.
“Hey,” he says, lightly shoving her shoulder and grabbing her takeout box to throw away. “You okay? I’m gonna shower.”
“Leave enough hot water for me.” It’s muffled by her arm, and he nearly misses it.
“No promises.” But he will. He may not be Gin’s brother, doesn’t know the things she likes best and all the ways to fix her bad day while he’s having his own, but he likes to think he isn’t a bad roommate.
He’s only nineteen. He has to remind himself in the mirror. Everything feels like it’s ending when he takes his breaks at the store, realizes that he’ll work until he can’t anymore. He looks around each day and sees the artificial light overpowering whatever the sun can put through the high windows and closes his eyes. Every single day, he just closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to look at it. He guesses Gin probably does the same.
She’s never minded him playing music while he showers before, and he needs it more today than usual. He puts on one of his favorite playlists and hums along while he strips and gets the water to the right temperature (not too hot, and not running for too long), bobbing his head to a song he knows the words to but not the title.
It feels good to clean himself. To wash the day off. To feel skin on his, gentle, even if it’s just his own hands.
“Hey,” he calls through the door just after shutting off the water, “I’m done. It’s open for you.” Leans forward into the sink to shake out some of the water in his hair and wraps himself up in a towel, slipping out of the bathroom and past Gin in the hall.
He doesn’t bother to turn on the light in his room. It’s early to go to sleep, but he doesn’t have anything else to do. No reason to keep himself up when he’s just barely able to crawl through the day as it is.
The sound of the shower is like rain outside his door as he curls up in bed. His pillows are old and all beat down in the middle, so he needs to stack them at a specific angle to get any good rest. The light from the city outside pours in through his window, and he’d like to shut it out, but the blinds have been broken for a few weeks now. They won’t close any tighter than this.
He lies awake on the mattress, looks at his ceiling. Thinks about the convenience store and the hotel down the street, the way some of the guests look at him as he pushes the cleaning cart through the halls. He can’t even wear his earrings while he works, so he’s never been sure what they’re judging about him. They must have some sixth sense that tells them he’s the sort of young person they don’t like, someone who never did what he was supposed to, never started acting like them.
His phone says it’s already been an hour since he got out of the shower. He can’t remember when he heard it shut off after Gin finished. He’s fucking tired.
Gin must already be asleep. He can’t imagine she’d be any more motivated to stay awake than he is.
Slowly, it builds in his chest. More of the frustration from before, the listlessness turning steadily to bitterness every time he has to put on that uniform. He just wants to go to sleep.
Fuck it.
The couch can’t be any worse. At least there, the blinds will keep some more light out.
He drags himself out the door and down the hall, accidentally hitting the edge of his dresser with his hip. “Shit,” he hisses, trying to not wake Gin. He’d be pissed if he had been sleeping soundly and was woken up by her blindly stumbling around the apartment. Maybe.
The living room is deserted. He wastes no time in collapsing onto the couch, tucking his legs up like Gin did earlier. She’s a little shorter, more couch-sized, but he makes it work.
There’s nothing to support his head, and he knows if he sleeps out here all night he’ll wake up twisted beyond belief, beyond the talent of even the least sketchy chiropractor. He tries to relax his limbs, get rid of all the tension he knows is there, even if he can’t feel it, but he isn’t sure it’s actually doing anything—
Footsteps.
“Oh. I didn’t—”
“Sorry, Gin,” he apologizes without thinking. Should have known this would happen. He pushes himself up to sit, looks at her over the back of the couch. “Need something?”
“Why are you out here?” She looks just as exhausted as he feels. Not surprising.
It’ll sound stupid to her, but he doesn’t have the energy to lie. “I don’t know, couldn’t sleep. I thought maybe a change of scenery,” he gestures around the room, “I don’t know.”
She shrugs, looking away. He hadn’t expected a response anyway, except for maybe some ribbing.
She wanders around to the kitchen and fills a glass of water, not bothering to keep the noise down now that she knows Michizou is awake. Just before she turns the corner at the end of the hall toward her room, she leans back and catches his eyes where he’s still propped up on his forearms. “Get some sleep.” She almost looks like she wants to say more, but she doesn’t, just disappears behind the wall.
He’ll try.
He does try.
And, of course, it doesn’t work.
It’s another half an hour (or more?) of cyclical thoughts. He wants more time to be himself. He wants to quit both his jobs. He wants to shut his eyes and have his brain turn off so he doesn’t have to deal with anything for the next six hours or so. But it’s all just wishing.
Time is mushy, and he isn’t sure exactly how long it’s been since Gin got her water, but he feels himself slowly settling into an idea. If she’s already asleep (if it’s really been that long, or if she’s just much more successful than he is), then he’ll turn right around. He isn’t going to disturb her. Even as he feels himself go crazy with the want to just be unconscious, he knows getting in Gin’s way of doing the same is something he can’t do.
He peels himself up off the couch and waits for the feeling to come back to his legs.
It shouldn’t be Gin’s problem that he can’t get himself to fall asleep. But she’s what he has right now. And she’s nice, and they take care of each other when they can, however they can. They always have, even when she was less than thrilled to have him in the room her brother used to occupy.
The upside of it all is that, because of his disastrous failure of a circadian rhythm, his mouth still doesn’t taste like sleep.
If he knocks, he might wake her up, so he just eases the door open enough to duck his head in. Whispers, “Gin?” and waits.
Instantly, she rolls over to face the door and hums. It doesn’t seem like she’s been any luckier than he has. “What?”
“Um,” he starts, sort of wishing he was the sort of person to overthink, even just so he could have a prewritten script here. “I just really can’t go to sleep.” It sounds so elementary, something a little kid would say. And that isn’t actually all that far off.
He knows what he came here for. Maybe it’s embarrassing, but he thinks it can work. He just has to ask. The biggest hurdle is just that he isn’t used to asking for things. “I thought maybe… like, not sleeping alone might help?”
Gin isn’t the most accommodating person. It’s actually something Michizou really respects about her, the way she protects her space and the things she likes. She finds ways to make fun of him without speaking if she doesn’t want to. She spends time with her friends and comes back late (Michizou doesn’t sleep early enough for it to disturb him anyway). They look out for each other, but she lives for herself. Doesn’t let people walk all over her the way Michizou watches himself do.
Because Gin isn’t the most accommodating person, this must be good for her too. It’s the only thing that makes sense when she nods and shifts to one side of the bed, throws back the blanket and pats the mattress next to her.
He crawls into it like a pathetic burrowing animal, and she laughs a little. He lies on his side facing her, and she looks up at the ceiling.
“Thanks.”
She nods.
Her bed isn’t very big. The side of her arm presses against his, soft, warm, clean. Something in his shoulders is melting, his spine going lax, piece by piece. The gaping hole in his chest is still there, but he hadn’t expected anything of that.
“It all feels like way too much, right?” he whispers, watching the angle of her shoulder. “Like, everything is just fucking with us. Work and money and sleep and everything.”
She glances at him out of the corner of her eye, and then turns over on her side to face him. Their knees rest against each other and the blanket pulls away, uncovering part of Michizou’s back.
“We should get new jobs,” he continues. “I don’t have any skills, though.” When he thought about that in his own room, he felt like he was going to sink into the floor; saying it here, he smiles. “I don’t know what we’d do.”
Gin brings her arms to rest between them, just looking at him. Just listening.
There has to be some other way to live. He isn’t supposed to walk around with this hole in his chest every day.
“Sorry, can I hug you?”
She takes a moment to consider, but then her arms are pulling back, unfurling, and one comes to rest draped across Michizou’s torso. She moves closer, pulls him in, hooks her chin over his shoulder.
It’s been a long time since he was hugged.
He holds her tightly, sighing over her shoulder. Her neck rests against his; has that ever happened before? With anyone?
He curves his arms under her shoulders, locking them behind her back. She wraps her arms around his torso like a constrictor, crushing him against her.
They hold on for a long time. Minutes blend together, and Michizou keeps holding onto his friend. He knows they’re just in a bed, in their apartment, in this building, in Yokohama, just barely removed from the sea. But it feels like they’re floating free in everything else (all the things that make it so hard to breathe sometimes, changing out of his uniform in the convenience store’s bathroom), anchoring themselves against each other alone. Michizou orients himself around Gin for a moment. He notices a hiccup of a breath, something that spasms her chest for a fraction of a second, and understands that she’s doing the same.
When all he has to think about is how tightly he can hold on, the other things don’t drag him down as far.
Michizou tucks his face into Gin’s neck, and there’s no light. He can feel her heartbeat slowing. And they sleep.