Archive of Our Own ^beta

Toru wakes up in a hotel room.

It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the yellowish lights. He blinks confusedly, taking in the plain white ceiling, so different to the one at home which was—what was it like? Toru finds he can’t remember. Only that he knows that he’s not at home.

He sits up with a panic.

There’s two beds. Toru’s lying on the one closer to the window. The other is empty. The curtains are drawn though no light leaks through them. On the opposite side of the beds where he’d expect a TV set is just the empty wall, covered in an orange-ish patterned wallpaper. A desk is pushed against the wall next to the curtains, complete with a small swivel chair and a mini-fridge tucked to its side. He’s got a bedside table but there’s nothing inside but a notepad, a pen, and a flashlight.

Toru gets up and makes a beeline for the door. It’s locked. The handle doesn’t even move, no matter how much force Toru puts into it. It’s as if the door is a fixed structure rather than something designed to open. In the closet he finds two piles of clothes. He instinctively knows that the one on the right are his, though he can’t recall ever wearing any of them.

It dawns on him that he can’t quite recall anything at all. He knows that his name is Toru. He knows where he’s from, but he wouldn’t be able to name it if he tried. He knows that he’d been doing something before, that he had some kind of dream that he’d been in the middle of pursuing but he doesn’t know what it is.

He can feel the panic sinking into his chest, and takes three deep breaths, counting from one to five on each, like his mother taught him. Toru can’t remember his mother teaching him, though. Just that he knows he must’ve learned this from her. He can’t remember his mother. Her face, her voice, her—

Toru realizes suddenly that the shower is running. It must’ve been running the whole time, he just didn’t notice in his panic. Toru curses himself. He gently tries the bathroom door, which is unsurprisingly locked.

Hands shaking, Toru scrambles back to the bed and grabs the flashlight from the bedside drawer. At the very least he could use it as a weapon of some sort. Then he stands against the wall outside of the bathroom door and waits.

Best case scenario is that Toru simply lost his memory and the person inside is someone he knows. Worst case scenario he’s been kidnapped by a member of a murderous cult.

It feels like eons before he hears the shower shut off. The sudden silence in the room is filled by the sound of the blood rushing in Toru’s ears. He takes another few deep breaths, trying to stay silent.

It’s as if another few eons pass before he hears the lock click open. He watches the handle turn, holding his breath.

Out steps a man Toru doesn’t recognize.

Toru’s first thought, ridiculously, is that the man is too short and small to have kidnapped him. Then he realizes that he’s still holding the flashlight in preparation to swing instead of moving. He has half a mind to attack when the man addresses him.

“You’re awake,” he chirps. Then the man notices the position of Toru’s arms, the flashlight in his hands. The man jumps back, eyes widening in fear. “Are you trying to attack me? Did you bring me here?”

“What?” Toru asks, “No! Who are you? Why am I here?”

The man blinks up at Toru. His wet black hair doesn’t do an amazing job of covering his big doe eyes. He looks young, maybe younger than Toru. Toru suddenly feels a little bit bad for trying to attack him, before feeling silly for feeling bad.

“I don’t know,” the man answers. He adjusts the towel wrapped around his shoulders. “I woke up here two days ago. I think. You were just there, asleep. I don’t remember anything. And I can’t leave.”

“I was asleep for two days?” Toru asks, “And you didn’t think to wake me up?”

The man’s face scrunches up comedically. “I didn’t know who you were! I thought you were maybe dead. What if you were the one who brought me here? And anyways. I tried waking you up the first day. You wouldn’t budge.”

Toru’s somewhat disturbed at the idea of having been asleep for two days while a stranger stayed in the same room as he did, but he casts the feeling aside. He finds he’s instead comforted by the idea that someone’s in the same situation as him, though he’s still not sure how much he can trust the other man. On the bright side, Toru’s pretty sure if it came down to it he could take the other in a fight.

“Are you sure we can’t leave?” Toru asks.

The man shrugs. “I’m not sure, but I can’t get the door to open. I tried finding something to pick the lock but couldn’t find anything. You can’t see through the viewfinder either.”

Toru checks anyways. The man is right. He peeks through and sees only darkness.

“What about the window?”

The man walks over to the curtains and gestures for Toru to follow. He pulls them back. Where there should be windows, is just the wall. Toru sighs in disbelief.

“I’ve also tried the phone,” the man points to the landline on his bedside table. “But it never connects. Just the dial tone. I’ve been spending the past day trying as many numbers as I can.”

The man plops down on his bed, sitting criss-cross facing Toru, who walks over to sit down on his own bed. They face each other.

“I’m Taka,” the man says. He holds out a slender hand for Toru.

“Toru,” he takes his hand and they shake firmly. Taka’s hand is warm.

Toru considers saying something but is interrupted by a loud growl from his stomach. He freezes in embarrassment.

Taka laughs behind his hand. “Let’s have breakfast.”

They pull out two bentos from the mini-fridge. Taka explains that the bentos had been there the first day, and that when he woke up the second morning, the fridge had been refilled.

“I thought they might be poisoned or something, but I figured if whoever put us here wanted us dead, they would’ve killed us already.” Taka says casually as he opens his bento.

Toru’s already chewing a mouthful of rice. He’s too hungry to care if the food is poisoned or not. Plus, if Taka was still alive after eating it for two days, the food was probably fine.

“Then I tried to stay awake to see if someone came in and filled the fridge while I was asleep.” Taka chomps into a piece of broccoli. “But eventually I fell asleep. And when I woke up, there was food in the fridge again. The same with the clothes—I put dirty clothes into a laundry bag and then they were replaced with a new set on the stack. The kettle is always full of water. I think the whole room just gets cleaned while I’m asleep.”

Toru swallows before talking. “Now that there’s two of us, we could try taking turns keeping watch?”

“Good idea,” Taka says. He scrambles over to his bedside table and comes back with a notepad and pen.

“I’ve been writing down ideas for trying to figure this place out,” he explains. “Here’s everything I’ve already tried.”

Toru scans the list as he eats, makes a few suggestions.

“Taka,” he says.

Taka perks up from the notebook like a cat hearing its name being called.

“Since there’s no window, how do you know how long you’ve been here?”

“The clock,” Taka points to the small digital clock on the desk. “I just keep a tally in the notebook. It’s been about sixty hours since I woke up here.”

Sixty hours… Toru frowns. As of now, the food and water seemed to be replaced every day. But what if they—whoever the people or entity keeping them here—what if they stopped? Would he and Taka be left to die?

They spend Toru’s first few days awake working their way through every idea they can think of to escape.

They try forcing the door open. When that doesn’t work, they pick up a nightstand and ram the door with it until the nightstand breaks. They manage to pry off the vent covers, but the vents are too small for anyone to fit into. They shout down the drains. They find tea bags and leave notes inside before flushing them down the toilet and sink in hopes that someone will find them.

They’re exhausted by the end of the first day, so they both sleep, and when they wake up, the nightstand is in its original place, completely unscathed. The vent is covered. There’s not even a scuff mark on the door.

They move on to sleeping in shifts, and quickly realize that the food replaces itself even though no one enters the room. Taka suggests leaving the fridge open while he watches, and they keep the closet open as well. But then nothing gets replaced, and they start getting hungry quickly.

Toru searches the mini-fridge for some kind of opening or mechanism in the back but finds none. It’s as if the bentos just appeared on their own. Things get replaced, but seemingly without anyone ever entering the room.

Eventually, in the interest of having food to eat and clothes to wear, Toru and Taka agree to just sleep at the same time and consider other ideas for escaping.

The thing about being stuck in a hotel room for days and days with nothing to do is that they get a lot of time to talk.

Although it’s fruitless to make small talk (“what do you do for a living?” “I don’t remember. What about you?” “Same here…”), Toru finds that Taka is very easy to talk to. Mostly because Taka himself is incredibly talkative, to the point that Toru gets the feeling that wherever Taka came from, he probably didn’t have many people to talk to.

By day 9 (day 7 of Toru being conscious), Toru learns that Taka: is allergic to eggs and dairy products, dislikes coffee but occasionally drinks tea, is always moving around, is surprisingly guarded about his emotions and inner thoughts (despite the chattiness), covers his mouth when he laughs, is actually a number of months older than Toru, and constantly hums under his breath when he’s relaxed.

By then, they’ve more or less exhausted most of the ideas they’ve come up with and settle into a routine instead. They wake up and have breakfast before doing some exercises together in the cramped hotel floor space. They discuss ideas for escaping. They chat and take turns dialing numbers on the phone, writing down every number they’ve tried. They have lunch. They discuss ideas for escaping, but more absurd this time. They get really good at playing games like rock, scissors, papers and twenty questions. They have dinner. And they sleep.

Toru has a dream on day 20.

He’s a young child. He’s sitting in a bathtub with another young boy. They’re giggling and splashing around in the water. He hears a woman’s voice gently chiding them. That must be his mother, he realizes. And the boy—his friend? Their voices echo in the small room, warm and round. They laugh and laugh and laugh.

This isn’t a dream, Toru realizes. It must be a memory.

What clues him off isn’t the detail or the specificity or the smell of the shampoo they used. It’s the familiarity of it—the feeling that he’s turned this particular memory, this piece of time, around in his head over and over through the years, enough so that it’s made its own cleft in his mind and heart. This must be a memory he cherished.

When he wakes, his face feels sore from smiling. The memory’s euphoria quickly fades away as he remembers where he is.

Toru tells Taka about the dream over lunch. He can’t remember his friend’s name or his mother’s face. But he feels so very sure that that memory did happen. He clings to it, some reminder that he once existed outside of this hotel room.

They start having dreams every once in a while. There seems to be no set interval for their appearance. Just occasionally, one of them will recover some small fragment of memory; a scene, a feeling, a smell, a taste. Sometimes it’s so small Toru barely notices—the sensation of his hand being held, or a phantom pain on his knee (a past injury perhaps?).

Toru recalls playing soccer with his brother. He recalls that he has a brother. He recalls an incident of spilling coffee on someone in a business suit—his coworker?

Taka tells him about a dream from when he was young, of being forced to memorize numbers to learn to count in a dim room during summer. Taka picks out the egg in his bento for Toru and suddenly remembers the sensation of swaddling an egg in a blanket (“Maybe I was trying to hatch it?” “Why would you do that?” “I don’t know!”).

By day 60 (day 58 for Toru), they’ve called ninety-nine-thousand four-hundred and eighty-three different numbers on the phone. They’ve had to make space on the table for the notepads that they’ve filled (with numbers and also with scrapped ideas). Toru knows the room so well that he’s memorized the number of steps it takes him to get from the not-window to the door.

At the same time, Toru now knows that Taka: tends to have mood swings when he’s tired, in general has high emotional highs and low emotional lows, looks like a hamster when he eats in a rush, at some point probably worked at a restaurant, looks incredibly sad and pitiful when he’s just woken up, picks at his skin and nails so much that Toru starts physically holding his hands when he tries, and is incredibly annoying because he will do anything to escape being restrained, including but not limited to biting, licking, squirming, and scratching.

Which is to say that Toru had more or less gotten used to sharing a space with Taka.

There are times when they both get annoyed at each other and mutually lapse into silence or ignore the other’s existence. They sit in their sides of the room, backs to each other. Sometimes Taka will sit on the floor behind his bed, and all Toru will see of him is the very top of his fluffy head of hair for a few hours, or at least until they get bored. They’re both clingy people, Toru realizes. It works well for the situation.

On the other hand, living in the same room as someone else makes resolving certain personal needs very difficult, which is to say that Toru gets very good at jerking off silently in the shower.

Taka remembers something on day 73. Not unusual. But he looks so distressed as tells Toru that Toru almost panics with worry.

“I was working in a bar, I think.”

“Oh,” Toru says. He’s sure he’s keeping a straight face, but his mind races to the worst possible scenarios. A bar? Maybe it was under mafia control? Or they went bankrupt?

“I was having an argument on the phone,” Taka continues, “I think it was with my father. I don’t think we keep in touch. He seemed… disappointed. I couldn’t stop crying.”

“I’m sorry,” Toru moves to sit next to Taka on the bed and puts an arm around his narrow shoulders.

“I don’t think we’ve ever had a good relationship, my father and I,” Taka says, voice cracking. “I think he’s always been disappointed.”

“You don’t know that,” Toru reasons.

“But I do. I just know it. Just like how you just know that your memories are your memories.”

“I guess. But what’s so bad about that? It’s okay. As long as you do what you want to do.”

Taka wipes his face with his palms roughly. He’s blinking back tears. Toru pulls Taka closer. They sit like that for a long time.

“Toru,” Taka finally says. His voice sounds a little bit hoarse. “I think that before I came here, I was a very, very sad person.”

In the night of day 91, Toru wakes up to Taka’s quiet voice calling his name.

He opens his eyes blearily, struggling to make out the silhouette standing at his bedside. Taka’s head is bowed, eyes covered by his hair.

“Taka?” He croaks. “Is everything okay?”

Taka shuffles his feet. “Can I—Can I sleep with you tonight? I had a nightmare—and then sleep paralysis. I can’t fall asleep. I’m kind of scared.”

Toru’s chest fills with a sense of protectiveness and empathy before his sleep-addled brain has a chance to react. He lifts the blanket and scoots to make space.

“Thank you,” Taka whispers.

He hesitates before climbing in. In the bed, Taka seems alert and nervous, curled up on the very edge of the mattress. Toru can feel him trembling.

Before he can change his mind, Toru reaches out and wraps an arm around Taka to pull him into his chest. Taka tenses, but Toru just buries his nose into his hair. He focuses on the feeling of Taka’s ribs moving as he breathes. It takes some time for Taka settle into the embrace, his breath slowing as the tension drains from his body.

“Go to sleep,” Toru mumbles, “It’ll be okay.”

Taka’s sleep quality doesn’t get much better after that. The nightmares seem more frequent. By day 96, Toru and Taka decide to just push their two beds together with how frequent they were sleeping together. It’s nice at first to have the extra space, but one morning Taka wakes up in the crack between the two mattresses so they kind of just end up squishing together on one side of their put-together-bed anyways.

Taka sometimes talks about his dreams, sometimes doesn’t. Toru doesn’t pry. It’s Taka’s decision whether or not to tell him. He tries not to worry too much but finds himself worrying anyways. The dreams that Taka does talk about are all memories, flashes of his life or the sensation of drowning from it—the loss of control, of passion, of any kind of aspiration. Taka uses words like “failure” or “human trash” and Toru has to bite his tongue from snapping at him.

At the same time, Toru finds himself recalling parts of his life. They are mostly positive: the rush of excitement from finally taking a big step toward his dreams, whatever those dreams were. The euphoria of quitting his boring office job to… do something. What, he doesn’t remember. But it was solid and real. He wakes up reeling from his own drive and determination and has to adjust back to the present of being stuck in a hotel with nothing to do.

Toru doesn’t really want to tell Taka about some of these things, but Taka always inquires after them. His eyes seem to brighten up when Toru tells him about those small victories and cherished gestures. So Toru tells him all of it.

They “celebrate” on day 100, which is to say that they take a break from dialing the phone and spend it lounging about instead, trying not to process the reality that they’d been stuck in the hotel for one hundred whole days with no sign of escape. Taka makes a misshapen cake out of toilet paper which Toru decorates with toothpaste. They pretend to blow its candles before flushing it down the toilet.

Toru hasn’t done something so silly since he was a child, probably. The childlike giddiness almost distracts him from the absurdity of it all.

Toru accidentally drops his toothbrush in the toilet when they’re elbowing each other while brushing their teeth. Taka bursts into laughter and has to lean over the sink to prevent toothpaste saliva from dripping onto the floor. It’s kind of gross but Toru can’t help but laugh either. When Toru finally fishes out his toothbrush and throws it into the trashcan (it’ll magically reappear when he wakes up tomorrow, anyways), he finds that Taka is staring at him.

The thing about Taka: he has huge doe eyes and always makes eye contact with people when he talks to them. Or perhaps it’s just Toru, since Toru’s never seen him speak to anyone else. Something about that gaze—so kind and vulnerable—that it makes Toru want to believe that he’s Taka’s favorite person in the world.

So Toru does what he does best—fumble.

“What are you staring at?” He blurts. And then immediately regrets it.

But Taka just laughs. “You need to shave.”

“You just noticed? I haven’t been shaving for the past few days.”

“No,” Taka says, “I noticed. I just thought maybe you forgot for a bit.” He squints, tilts his head as if to get a better look at Toru’s face. “Why the change?”

Suddenly self-conscious, Toru scratches at his chin.

“I mean no one’s going to see me anyways,” he explains. “It’s not like I have to go to work. What’s the point?”

Taka snorts. “Am I not a person?”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“What do you mean then?” Taka presses.

Toru feels his face heating up. “I mean, you’ve been woken up from my snoring more times than I can count. And you know that I always clog the toilet with toilet paper whenever I shit. It’s not like there’s any of me that you haven’t seen before.”

“Well actually…” Taka starts with a devilish grin. Toru shoves him gently.

Taka laughs. “It’s okay if you’re not so well endowed. I won’t judge.”

“Shut up,” Toru says, face definitely the shade of a tomato. “I’m not not so well endowed—no, wait—I’m not letting you bait me into this. You little demon.”

Taka bats his eyelids. “Me? I’m an innocent angel.”

“Yes, you.” Toru pokes the middle of Taka’s chest. “You’re a devilish one.”

Taka just looks up and him, smiling wide. The combination of his soft curls and his big, warm eyes makes him look angelic. Toru’s face heats up more, if possible.

He hastily averts his gaze and leans against the counter in an attempt to look casual. “You think I should keep it?”

“What, the facial hair?”

“No, the penis. Yes, the facial hair.”

Taka snorts, then studies Toru’s face seriously.

“It’s your beard-mustache. You can do whatever you want.”

Toru rolls his eyes. “That’s very helpful.”

“I mean, if you’re asking for my personal opinion, I think that you look better without. I mean as of right now you actually look kind of sleazy. Since it’s not really long enough to be that obvious.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Taka says flippantly. He reaches over to grab a new razor, still wrapped in plastic packaging. “You want me to help you shave?”

Toru’s heart skips a beat from the sheer impact that the mental image of Taka helping him shave causes.

“Okay,” he says. And then regrets it.

“Cool.” Taka directs Toru to sit on the side of the bathtub. “You’d probably cut yourself with how clumsy you are today. Or drop the razor into the toilet.”

Toru scoffs, trying to ease the tension in his stiff body. The porcelain of the tub is cold enough that he feels it through his pants. He clenches his hands, trying to ward off the premonition of sweat on his palms.

“Take your shirt off,” Taka says. Toru obeys. His whole body shivers in the air.

He’s not sure he even breathes in the time that it takes for Taka to wet his face and neck with a hand towel and slather him with shaving cream.

Taka wets the razor, looking over at Toru, who probably resembles a statue.

“Relax. I’m not gonna cut you.”

“I’m not worried about that,” Toru mumbles, trying not to shake off any shaving cream. He finds that he means it. “I trust you.”

“Good,” Taka says, though it lacks his usual sass. He moves to stand in front of Toru, nudging Toru’s legs apart so he can stand between them. Taka lifts Toru’s hair and smooths it back, tucking a piece behind his ears. “You’re going to need a haircut soon.”

“Will you cut it for me too?” Toru asks, heart pounding.

Taka finally puts the razor to Toru’s face. “If you want me to. I might mess it up though.”

“It’s okay. You’re the only person who’ll see me anyways.”

“That’s true.” Taka pauses to shake off the blade. He kneels down and lifts Toru’s chin with his left hand while he uses the right to reach the razor under Toru’s chin and around his Adam’s apple.

Toru’s hypersensitive to the cold blade, its gentle scratch on his skin. Taka’s steady grip. He watches Taka as he works; those focused eyes, the slight frown of his eyebrows, his tongue occasionally darting out to lick his lips. He can feel Taka’s breaths on his skin, down his chest and his arms. It’s strange. He’d think that after sleeping in each other’s arms for a week he’d have gotten used to being so close.

“I’m almost done,” Taka says. It snaps Toru out of his stupor.

Taka brings the razor up once more. He takes a deep breath, and Toru can feel Taka’s entire body shudder as he breathes out.

“Toru,” Taka starts.

Toru hums in affirmation.

“You said that I’m the only one who will see you. Does that mean… Does that mean that you don’t think we’ll leave? Do you think we’ll ever get out of here?”

Toru pauses, unsure how to answer. His first instinct is to tell Taka that they’ll escape soon. But the reality is that he isn’t sure. Their attempts to escape had gotten gradually more sporadic as time had passed. Nothing about the situation had changed since their first day here. Still though, Toru feels a tugging in his gut, as if there were a rope wrapped around his soul that was tugging him to an anchor back home. He can’t stay here forever. He has things to do. Dreams to achieve. Friends to see. Family to embrace.

“I think we’ll escape,” Toru says finally. He has to at least talk and think affirmatively. “We’ll figure it out, you and I.”

“But don’t you think…” Taka trails off. He stands up to rinse the razor off and sets it to the side. “I’m done, go wash your face.”

Toru stands up and heads toward the sink, missing Taka’s body warmth. “What is it?”

“I mean, what if this is it?”

“What do you mean?” Toru asks as he washes his face.

“I mean what if there is no escape? What if we’re stuck here forever?”

“You don’t know that.” Toru turns off the sink and Taka hands him a clean towel. “Thanks.”

“No problem. But you don’t know whether we can actually leave, either.”

Taka sinks down to the floor, leaning against the bathtub. He hugs his legs to this chest, making himself into a tiny ball.

“Toru, what if there is no life outside? I keep thinking, maybe this is reality and everything else was just a dream. Or maybe we’re stuck in a dream that we’ll never wake up from. Or maybe you don’t exist and this is something I’ve just made up while I’m in a coma or something. Or maybe we’re already dead and this is just what comes after.”

“Taka,” Toru says firmly, “I’m real. I promise. And maybe this is a dream or something. But dreams end. And you’ll wake up.”

Taka curls up even tighter. His fingers are trembling. “Toru. That’s the problem. I don’t want to wake up.”

“What? Why?”

“Why would I want to wake up? Why would I want to go back? Go back to being nothing—to being a disappointment and a piece of trash. Why go back to rotting away? To being alone again?To being without you?”

Toru’s eyes prick with tears. Inexplicably, he gets the feeling that he’s fighting for Taka’s life. He kneels down and grasps Taka by the shoulders.

“Taka,” he says, hoping that his voice isn’t shaking. “You can’t just stay here. You need to live your life.”

Taka looks like he wants to argue, but stops himself, burying his face in his hands. He shakes as he sobs. “Toru you don’t get it. It’s different, for you. No. I can’t talk about this now. I’m sorry.”

Toru doesn’t push even though he desperately wants to. He crawls closer and cups Taka’s face in his hands, wiping away his tears with his thumbs. Taka halfheartedly attempts to turn away but gives up and leans into Toru’s touch instead.

“Taka,” Toru says, looking into Taka’s eyes. “When you get out of here, you won’t be alone. I’ll come find you. I promise.”

They stop counting on day 101. Toru quickly figures that the tally is extending their fatigue more than it acts as motivation. They won’t need that record when they’re out.

Toru starts ideating methods of escape with a renewed fervor. He tries everything they’ve already done two, three times. He sits at the phone and dials numbers while Taka takes his showers every morning, and then again before sleeping. He starts piecing together a timeline of his life from before he woke up in the hotel room, noting down every little detail that comes to him.

Taka helps Toru with his escape attempts, but refuses to do the recovery of his own memories that Toru is doing. He repeats over and over again that he doesn’t want to remember, that he already knows enough to understand, that he doesn’t want to return, that he’s fine with running away and being a coward.

Toru fumes, tells Taka that he isn’t a coward. Begs him to “do it for me, if not for yourself”. Pleads because he knows that this isn’t as simple as not wanting to return, that it’s a disavowal of life and living itself. Pleads because he can no longer imagine himself without Taka.

Taka hears the crack in Toru’s voice and folds.

They still don’t talk about their conversation in the bathroom when Taka helped Toru shave. It sits between them while they eat, lies between them while they sleep. Toru, scared of getting used to the space it takes up, starts holding Taka closer and closer, as if that whatever that laid between them would one day tear them apart altogether.

Toru isn’t sure how many days pass. His hair gets longer and longer, but Taka doesn’t point it out or offer to cut it, so he keeps letting it grow. Sheets from the notepad cover every surface of the room. Taka seems to grow tired as time goes on. He starts sleeping more, only getting up for meals or the bathroom or when Toru asks him for help.

So Toru starts asking for Taka’s help for everything. He gets Taka to help him sort papers in the morning. Makes him sit on Toru’s feet as he does sit ups. One time he gathers the courage to ask Taka to feed him, which leads to Toru getting made fun of for a good half hour but Toru doesn’t even mind because Taka looks more lively than he’s been in the past—well, however many days.

That night, as they settle into bed to sleep, Taka mumbles into Toru’s shoulder: “If this really is hell, I’m glad I’m in hell with you.”

The picture of Toru’s life gradually resembles less a skeleton framework and more a puzzle with a few missing pieces. He’s from Osaka. He threw a tantrum when his brother went to college. He and his best friend used to dance. He can play the guitar. His mother made the best doteyaki. His first girlfriend (in the first year of junior high) broke up with him because he “always looked like a fish even when he was happy”.

Taka recalls less. Perhaps because he actively doesn’t want to. But not nothing. He has two younger brothers. He can sing. He’d been working at a bar before waking up here.

As Toru remembers more, he feels more optimistic, as if there was a bear inside him that had finally woken up after hibernating. Some of it has to do with, he realizes, the idea that before this hotel room, he had been a whole, actual, person. That he’d had a life. That he’d been in different places. That he’d had a home.

One night, Toru has a dream. Not a memory-dream, but a dream-dream. He can tell because the dream is so tinged with desire that he can taste it in the back of his throat, all acrid and hot.

He’s standing on a stage, sweating under bright lights. His heart throbs and his blood rushes with adrenaline. All he can hear is the crowd and the music. He’s performing. He’s free. And he feels so, so satisfied.

And then he’s ferried through celebrations with his friends, his band members. He hugs his family. He waves goodbye to his fans as he leaves the venue. The sound of the crowd echoes in his ears. He can feel it in his bones. He steps in his chaffered car and—

He’s back home. He’s in bed, showered and getting ready to sleep. Someone slides into his arms, presses a kiss on his cheek and then on his neck, breathing in his scent. “Otsukare,” the person tells him. He cups the person’s face, looks into a pair of doe eyes, realizes that this life is all that he’s ever wanted.

Toru wakes as if from a nightmare. Cold sweat, panting, hands shaking. It’s fear. He’s terrified. But it’s also desire. And something warmer, and much, much scarier.

Taka stirs from his sudden movement, blinks blearily awake.

“Are you okay?” He asks.

Toru has to stop himself from falling into those eyes.

“Y-yeah,” he manages. He scrambles out of bed to the desk to look at his papers of memories he’d recalled and documented. He scans his notes, hands still trembling, rearranges them, adds more. The last few puzzle pieces fall into place.

Toru takes a deep breath to calm his racing heart.

“I think—I think I remember now.”

“Remember what?” Taka asks, bewildered.

“What I was doing before I woke up here. I’m sure of it.” Toru straightens up, turns around to face Taka.

“I’d been saving money for a long time. I hated my office job. So I quit.”

“Yes, you mentioned.”

“But I wasn’t just saving money to quit. And I didn’t just quit because I hated my job. I had another goal in mind.” Toru talks so fast he almost bites his tongue. “I was going to start a band. For real this time. And I’d finally taken that first step. That first, big step.”

Taka blinks, eyes wide and unreadable. His hair sticks out in a strange direction, which Toru definitely does not find cute. But before Taka can reply, a click sounds through the room.

Both of them startle at the sound, whipping their heads toward the source.

The handle of the hotel room door turns and the door slowly creeps open. Behind it is just white light. The exit. The way back home. Toru can feel it.

His grin tears through his face at the speed of light.

“Taka!” Toru calls excitedly. “We did it! Let’s go!”

He rushes over to the bed and grabs a still frozen Taka’s wrist, pulls him in the direction of the exit. They only make it a few strides before Taka yanks his arm from Toru’s grip.

“Wait, wait!” Taka cries.

Toru stares, uncomprehending. “What is it?”

Taka shuffles back away from the door, all the way back until his back is against the windowless curtain.

“Taka,” Toru says as he follows, “Come on. Let’s go. We finally did it.”

He holds out his hand, prays that Taka will take it.

But Taka doesn’t move, just presses himself closer to the wall.

Toru’s hand drops to his side. Anger and despair rush to his throat. He worries that if he talks he’ll immediately cry.

“Toru,” Taka whispers hoarsely, “I can’t.”

Toru surges forward, takes Taka by the shoulders. “But you can. You have to.”

“No!” Taka tries to shake off Toru’s grip. “I can’t. We didn’t crack the code. You did.”

“And the door’s open now! We can both walk out!”

“No!”

Taka tears himself away from Toru, running to the farthest corner from the door and huddles into a little ball.

“I won’t go,” he says firmly, “You can’t make me.”

Toru’s nails bite into his palms.

“Taka. What will you do here? You have to go back to your life eventually. You can’t stay here forever.”

“I said I was fine with running away.”

Toru sits down in front of Taka, who shrinks away.

“Taka, please.” Toru begs, hopes that Taka will fold once more.

“No! I told you I was a coward. I can’t go. I won’t go. I don’t want to.”

Tears spill from Toru’s eyes. Taka starts crying too. He breathes raggedly, trying to keep composure. Toru crawls closer, holds Taka’s face in his palms.

“Please,” he begs, “I can’t leave without you.”

“Toru, you have your dreams ahead of you. Your band is waiting. You have to go.”

“No,” Toru says firmly, “Not without you.”

“Toru.”

“I’m not leaving. I’ll sit here until you leave with me.”

Taka sobs harder. “Don’t do this to me.”

Toru feels his heart break. But he stands firm. He wants to be selfish, just this once. There’s no other option.

He doesn’t reply. Just sits there, waiting.

They stay like that for a long time, in each other’s arms until their tears are dry and caked to their skin and their throats are sore.

Suddenly, Taka stands up.

“I’m going to take a shower,” he says. And then he’s in the bathroom in an instant, locking the door behind him.

The sound of running water fills the room’s silence. Toru flits about at the bathroom door. He can’t help but worry that Taka isn’t actually showering but instead planning to do something drastic.

It’s the longest shower of Toru’s life. He perches at the bathroom door, scared out of his mind. To his left is the room that he’s lived in for longer than the number of days he could bear to count. To his right, the door to escape. To finally return to his life. And locked in the bathroom, Taka.

Maybe Taka had been right. Maybe this really was hell. And Taka was his Eurydice who refused to leave.

The sound of running water stops. Toru’s breath hitches. He hears the shuffling of towels and the slight rustle of clothes.

Finally, the door opens. Taka steps out, hair wet, a towel around his shoulders, his gaze firm.

For a moment, they stand there in silence. Then Taka speaks.

“I’ve thought it through.”

“You’ve—what?”

“I’ve made up my mind.”

“What do you mean?”

Taka shushes him, gestures for Toru to follow. Taka sits Toru down on the bed, standing just far enough that Toru can’t touch him if he reaches out.

“Listen to me,” Taka says.

Toru wants to protest, but nods instead when Taka shoots him a stern look.

“You’re going to walk through that door. You’re going to go back to your life and work on achieving your dream of being a rock star.”

Toru stands up but Taka reaches out quickly and pushes him back down onto the bed.

“Listen,” he says again. “I won’t go with you. And you won’t threaten to stay here with me.”

“No,” Toru says. “I can’t—”

“Toru!” Taka cuts in, voice breaking. “I can’t let you do that.”

“You can’t tell me what to do. I’ll stay here. I’ll stay until you’re tired of me.”

Taka sighs, drags his hand over his face. He closes his eyes for a moment, as if to ground himself. Then he reaches out to grab Toru’s shoulders tightly, looks him straight in the eyes.

“Toru. I need you to understand what I’m saying.”

“What are you saying?”

“That I’m asking you not to save me.”

Toru doesn’t move. He can’t move.

“You have done so much for me, Toru. You have done more for me than anyone ever has. And you are offering me so much more.”

“Because I’m willing to do that! Because I want to—”

“But I’m asking that you don’t. I said I thought it through in the shower, and I did. The best thing that you can do for me now is to let me decide for myself. I am asking that you let me choose what I want to do with my life.”

“Taka,” Toru manages, unsure of what else to say. Taka brushes Toru’s hair out of his eyes and strokes his cheek.

“Maybe I’ll decide that I want to go back to my life. Maybe I’ll find a dream or even just a reason to keep living. And maybe I won’t. But that’ll be for me to decide.”

Toru exhales shakily. He presses their foreheads together, winds his arms around Taka’s waist and pulls his body closer until he’s standing between Toru’s legs. It’s still not enough.

“If I choose to leave, you can come find me. And if I don’t…”

“If you don’t, it won’t just be you escaping from your life. It’ll be you deciding that being here is preferable to being there,” Toru whispers. His chest hurts. He pulls Taka closer, presses his ear against Taka’s chest, desperate to hear the beating of his heart.

“Yeah,” Taka mumbles, “Either way, it’ll be me saving myself. You have to let me do that. Let me be selfish this time.”

Toru nods into Taka’s chest. A few stray drops of water fall from Taka’s hair but Toru doesn’t mind. He’s sure that he’s leaving tear stains on Taka’s shirt. He holds Taka, hands gripping him so tight that he worries that it might hurt. Then, after a moment far shorter than he would prefer, he loosens his grip.

“Okay,” he tells Taka. “I’ll go. But if you come back—if you choose to leave, I’ll definitely come find you.”

“Good.” Taka buries his face into Toru’s hair and places a kiss on the top of his head. Then he puts a hand beneath Toru’s chin, tilts his head up to face his own.

“Now go,” Taka whispers.

…

Toru hesitates. He can’t help it.

“Can I—can I be selfish? Just a little bit. Before I leave.”

Taka presses his lips together and brings his hand up to rub at his eyes. “What is it?”

“Two things.”

“Okay.”

“I want to stay one more night. Just one more. I promise I’ll go tomorrow morning.”

“Alright.” A sad smile sneaks onto Taka’s lips.

“And the second thing?”

Toru grins, hopes that he looks braver and happier than he feels.

“Would you help me cut my hair?”

Toru stands at the open door, staring into the light that lies beyond.

He can’t help but look back, in the end. He tugs at Taka’s hand, runs his thumb over Taka’s knuckles. They smile, but say nothing.

He’d pressed so many kisses onto Taka’s skin last night. His lips, his cheeks, the place where his neck meets his shoulder, his collarbones, on the moles on his back, up and down his thighs. Selfishly, he hopes that Taka took each of those kisses as a “see you soon” rather than a goodbye.

Toru lets himself be selfish again. He takes Taka’s head in his hands and presses a kiss to his forehead. One more promise.

Then Toru steps through the door.

He’s swallowed in light, so bright that he can’t see. But it’s not piercing. Just warm.

And then he wakes up in bed.

He wakes up at home.