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Yesterday was bright - a clean fish tank and vibrant slippers and neon shoelaces. Mhok leaned on the window ledge and stared at the dying light, remembering the way Day’s face had looked in the sunrise that day on the roof of the car park.
A single cigarette dangled from his fingers, unlit. He’d found it under his bed when cleaning, and for the longest minute of his life, he’d debated lighting it. But he’d lost Day. He didn’t want to lose to this too. Rung had asked him to quit too, and he didn’t want to disappoint her anymore than he already had.
Today was dark - the growing shadows of the night, the imaginary smoke of a cigarette, the busted bulb in the bathroom that Mhok was ignoring because it blew on the same night his heart fell apart. Mhok closed his eyes to the light and told himself not to cry, but the tears came again regardless.
He dropped the cigarette without noticing and it fell out of the window, into the dirt. He sobbed, his head half over the sill, and he didn’t know how to stop. He’d failed his sister, and despite everything, he’d managed to fail Day too.
“Mhok,” Porjai called quietly from behind him.
“I’m sorry,” Mhok wheezed. “I know. I know. It’s been two weeks. I’ll stop. I’ll– I just need a minute. I’m sorry.”
He had to compose himself. He had to stop breaking down over his broken heart or he’d fail Porjai too. Worse than he already had. God, was this all he could do? Fail? And fail. And fail.
A hand slid up onto his shoulder, hot and hesitant. Mhok shook his head and choked.
“I can’t– I’m–,” he tried and sobbed afresh. “Maybe all those jobs were right not to hire me. I just know how to break things. Day was right too. I’m not gentle enough to be anyone’s– I ignored Rung’s pain. I focused too much on Day’s. I wasn’t there for you when we were together. Porjai, I don’t know what to do.”
The hand on his shoulder gripped him tight, too tight for Porjai’s gentle fingers, and forced him away from the window. He was spun around and pulled into a tight embrace. The shoulders were too high to be Porjai. Too broad. Mhok buried his face into them and tried to catch his breath. He recognized this scent, this heat.
“I wasn’t right,” Day said by his ear. “You’ve always been soft on me. At least when I needed it. You’ve always been there when I needed you. Even when I told you not to follow me, you did. And I–”
In the pause, Mhok sucked in hard breaths and wrapped his arms tightly around Day, holding on desperately. If this was a dream, he didn’t want to wake up. He didn’t want to let go. He wanted to stay here, buried in the smell and sound of Day forever.
“I pushed you away when you needed me. I– I thought I was doing it for your benefit, because I was holding you back, but–” Day slid his hand up into Mhok’s hair and it almost made Mhok cry again. He’d missed the feeling of Day’s fingers. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m a terrible person. You were right to break up with me,” Mhok said, muffled into Day’s shoulder.
But the other shook his head. “No. I’m the terrible person. You should have given up on me a long time ago. If I was half as good as you, I wouldn’t have done this to you. I’d have done like you did and stopped to listen to you. I would have paid attention to your problems and helped you overcome them. I’m… I’m sorry.”
When Day pushed them apart, Mhok wanted to hold on tighter, but he released Day’s shirt anyway. He was prepared to open his eyes and find out that he was standing alone in the kitchen, though it would break his heart all over again. Yet when he opened his eyes, he saw Day still standing there. The blind man carefully found Mhok’s cheek and caressed the skin there, wiping through the permanent tracks there.
Mhok reached out with shaking fingers to hold Day’s face between his hands. Day felt real. He looked real. Over Day’s shoulder, Porjai leaned in the doorway, the sunset reflecting off the unshed tears in her eyes. When Mhok glanced at her, she nodded, and Mhok knew then that this was real.
“Day–,” he began.
“Can we talk?” Day interrupted. “I want to talk… about tomorrow… with you.”
And broken and fragile as he was, all Mhok could do was nod.