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Osamu lay in bed in the still and empty hotel room, tinged with the smell of cigarette smoke and the usual murky gloom that seems to haunt most of these establishments. It’s a cheap place to stay the night, a bed and a roof over their heads, all he and Akagi need, really.
He’s staring up at the ceiling, trying to form shapes out of the various water stains that have marred it over time. He’d kicked off the blankets long ago, being too hot for the warm summer air that hung in the room, a foe too powerful for the pitiful fan upon the side table.
Akagi was out, perhaps playing mahjong at one of the Osakan parlors, or stocking up on Hi-Lites at some convenience store. Or perhaps he was simply wandering, as he tended to do, an aimless piece of paper blowing through the wind until it found its next challenge.
Akagi didn’t tend to tell Osamu where he was going, and Osamu had learned to live with it. Sure, his heart spiked with anxiety- what if the Yakuza had him? What if he’s gotten awful food poisoning from that yakisoba?- but nothing that couldn’t be remedied with the usual night vigil of waiting for Akagi to return. Akagi was on a different wavelength entirely, and Osamu was just blessed enough that when he turned his dial right, he could sometimes tune in.
Osamu sat, and he listened- listened to the growling of cars rumbling down the road, the shouts of street vendors, the snippets of conversation he could hear from pedestrians outside. Someone had lost their job, somebody’s son had stolen money, somebody was getting married.
Marriage. That was something Osamu could never attain, he realized, though his heart ached for a ring around his finger and a home shared. He knew that what he felt towards Akagi wasn’t anything but love. It was pure love, running through his veins, the reason he’d follow that man to the end of time, the ends of the earth. He’d never admit it though, never out loud. How could he, when his love seemed to forever be a foreign concept, a square peg in the round hole of society.
Still, despite everything going against him, with the knowledge that in his lifetime, he would never confess, never marry, never truly love the way he was designed, he still dreamed. He dreamed of confessing at a summer festival- oh, or maybe a restaurant, like in that movie he’d watched. He dreamed of getting down on one knee and asking Akagi to be only his, the anchor to his ship, his better half. He dreamed of wedding flowers and homes together and warm ramen on the tongue and children underfoot.
Though he knew it was an impossible dream, he still could not help but let it sing in his heart, a tune that could never be silenced. He knew they were doomed from the start, for Akagi could never be tied down, for society could never change, but still, he held onto that dream like his last lifeline.
He’d keep it close to his heart until the day he died, Akagi, the love of his life, more of a man than the legend he left behind, the one whom he’d live and die for.
It was around four in the morning when Akagi finally came back, opening the rusty hinges of the hotel door with a screech. Osamu quickly closed his eyes, pretending to be asleep, not wanting Akagi to know he had been up the entire time, thinking about his love.
If Akagi knew, he didn’t let on, putting out his cigarette in the ashtray and climbing into bed beside Osamu. Those cigarettes would be the death of him one day, Osamu thought, but he hoped that day wouldn’t be any time soon. He couldn’t live with knowing he had outlived Akagi. He couldn’t live in a world without him.
Akagi settled in, resting his head against the pillow, pulling the blankets back up over the two of them. He rested his hand just beside Osamu’s, a few inches apart, and subconsciously, Osamu moved his own slightly closer, to get closer to the intimacy he so longed for.
Osamu lay there, still as a corpse, heart overflowing with want as he lay beside Akagi. He dared not to move, knowing that his hand would immediately be in Akagi’s, reaching out for the love he was so desperate for, even though he knew it had nowhere to go. He sat, hands an inch apart, accepting his fate, accepting the fact that in the end, they truly were never meant to be in this world-
And yet Akagi took his hand.