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It was an unmemorable film. A forgotten sequel; direct to DVD and scheduled to rerun after the anticipated programs had ended. One would catch its opening sequence at the tail end of a DVR’s recording but think nothing of the lesser script and half-hearted performances. Nothing more than a peg to plug an empty notch that was a vacant time slot. A solution to idle space.
The mediocrity wasn’t enough to contain Minato’s attention and left wandering, it latched to the body on the sofa beside him. Ryoji had bid to accompany him back to the dorm, but his conversation was riddled with pauses and tension furrowed his brows. There was an expectation of the returning topic of Junpei’s disappearance that was never presented. Instead of pressing the matter, they returned to the dorm, carpeted the table with pages of schoolwork, and saw the rest of the tenants to bed. Assuming the thoughts that distracted Ryoji were enough to sway him out the door once the bulk of their studies had finished, Minato gathered his things and slumped nearer to the staircase. He turned to offer parting words, interrupted by Ryoji's taut hold on his notebook just below a querying smile. He dropped his bag by the bottom step and met Ryoji halfway to the couch, “...We can watch a movie.”
Minato resolved his wafting concentration on that of his companion who, while one moment attentive to the film, another was gone into his thoughts. Minato could not read them, no matter how he tried. Insultingly, he found that the other had little need for guesswork in deciphering Minato’s —unfair at best while irritating at worst. When unable to justify the pleasant turnaround with Ryoji’s correct assumptions, he could only feel amiss for being unable to offer the same consolation back. It made it weird, he thought, for this “mind-reading” to be one-sided, or so it was a simpler conclusion to draw than admitting he wanted to know too the thoughts of the other. Asking was a harder hurdle than wondering, so he continued the latter in an increasingly devoted pursuit, losing track of the film and time both.
Ryoji was more occupied with something behind his eyes rather than the images on the screen in front of them. His languid limbs were still — legs hanging lax with one over the other and arms draped overtop like inanimate additions. His rising chest held its breath once, but when Minato fixated on the screen, nothing of note seemed warranting of such a reaction. There were a few minutes where the film seemed to invoke something in Ryoji, enough to drag his attention out of his head. Minato expected some jovial remark, but he never spoke; only returning to his musings with new material to work with.
An encounter between the hero and his damsel co-star garnered the most undivided attention. A dime-a-dozen scene where they dance around affections until some tender motion leans the pair into a kiss. It was all too artificial to merit any reaction, even the most devoted to superfluous romance would notice the lack of chemistry between performers. Not that it mattered to Ryoji who treated the whole song and dance as a production. Some notes of instruction on winning attention from their female classmates, Minato figured. No business of his, unless the recoil should land on his shoulders to make right again. Maybe he’d been better off shoving Ryoji out the door. If it’d been anyone else, he could have.
Once the credits began to run, Ryoji swung his legs outward and tapped his heels on the carpet twice, “A lot of people worked on this, didn’t they?” His grinning face looked at Minato, then tilted to one side, “I’m glad they did, so I could watch it with you.”
After being absent or otherwise occupied, the full force of Ryoji’s attention was momentarily too overbearing, and Minato had to turn away toward the screen. “You’re exaggerating.” More white names fell over a black abyss while a somber track played in the background, sending off the tragic villain after his finale demise—a man whose motives were solely concerned with his wife's rescue. Minato couldn’t recall the wife’s perilous predicament (was it the bioengineered plague or poisoning?), only the scene of the antagonist’s blood mingling with the post-rain puddles and his feeble whispering of her name. Ryoji had been watching then too, hadn’t he? Minato had felt something atmospheric shift in Ryoji’s company then. As though he’d grown two-fold in size.
Ryoji shook his head, “Not at all. It’s my new favorite film.”
Whatever movie had been on, whether a classic or a dive to the bottom-of-the-bargain-bin discovery, Ryoji would have declared an equivalent degree of favor. He was just that kind of person. It must be exhausting to contain that much outpouring enthusiasm. A spark that didn’t waver, didn’t burn, Minato couldn’t understand it. “That so?”
“The part where the building collapsed and he shot his hook,” Ryoji made a gun out of his hand and mocked shooting at the ceiling, “to swing in and catch her, so cool!” Then, he lifted his chin and tapped it repeatedly with his pointer finger, “He saved her, and then…is that why they fell in love?”
He was paying more attention than Minato assumed. Lazily lifting his shoulders, he said, “I don’t know. Maybe.” The better answer was, “Because the story demanded it.”, but such a response would create more questions: “Why did the story demand it? Who’s doing the demanding?”
“The villain, he failed to save his wife, and she still loved him? Didn’t she?”
“I suppose.”
“You think she doesn’t?”
“I’m not sure, but-” Minato wasn’t sure what to say, but with Ryoji staring at him, hanging off that final word, he knew he had to conjure some stance on the matter. “...He tried. Even if at the cost of everything else.”
Ryoji’s lips parted in a silent “Ooh.”
“Even if it didn’t save her-”
“-It showed how much he loved her. And she would have to have known.” He smiled with warm satisfaction, the highest of spirits he’d been all afternoon. Crackling and glowing. It heated Minato’s skin to be in the shimmering presence.
“It’s not a good film. Don’t think about it so deeply.”
“You had to have thought about it to decide it wasn’t worth thinking about.” Minato slumped in his seat, spurring Ryoji to change the subject, “Okay okay, so, let’s say a giant beast shatters the dormitory windows right now and heads directly at us!” His scarf slipped over his shoulder when he leaned forward, animatedly gesturing to the front wall. By the back of his hand, he quickly flipped it in the same manner as a stray piece of long hair, “What would you do?”
Minato glanced behind him. The streetlights were coming to life and slipping through the glass. The flower on the front desk was looking a tad wilted. “Something like that would never happen.” He answered blandly.
“But if it-”
“If it did.” He sighed, “Fight it if I could. Run if I can’t.”
“Just the cool sort of response I expected.” He cradled his face in his hands.
What other answer could one give? Being made to entertain a pointless question — it was like having his hair pulled. “Why ask if you knew what I was going to say?”
“I wanted to hear you say it.” Ryoji’s grin was anything but mischievous. How could Minato even accuse that face of teasing? “And would you like to know what I would do?”
“What?”
He raised a finger and wagged it, shoulder’s back and proud, “While you were fighting, I would stand beside you, and when it drew back its giant claws for an attack, I would jump in front of you. Or, if you ran away, I would follow behind you. If it pursues us, I will distract it so you can escape.” With an utter lack of irony, he stated with the sincerity of a promise, “Save you, of course.”
Minato’s chest felt like one of Akihiko’s weights was strapped on top of it. This should have all been some game, but it didn’t sound like play. “You should worry about yourself.”
“If you were there, it would be hard to.” Ryoji’s thoughts snagged and he appeared pensive, “It’s because it feels the same? If I saw you in pain I would feel it also.” He gripped a handful of his scarf while sinking into the sofa. “I have… before.”
Minato traced the patterns of the carpet with his eyes. Ryoji, who could peak effortlessly inside Minato’s mind, attempted now to find a footing in his chest. A crushing pressure shoved itself forward, just above his heart—a testament to the other’s attempts to invade inside. Ryoji’s hand rested curiously over his own chest. Was Minato infiltrating him as well? He’d never made the effort and yet, the conclusion that this feeling was split between their two bodies, pursuing each other, was a pleasant one. Maybe that’s what Ryoji meant.
For as long as Minato could remember, or maybe it was just impossible to recall what it ever felt like prior, there had always been this gaping vacancy inside him. Whether caused by the death of his parents or perpetuated by the distance his relatives kept while exchanging him between their ranks like an ugly heirloom, its maw grew through the years, swallowing the emotions and sentiments that were already too foreign for him to miss. He was aware to the others that he appeared empty, cold, and uncaring, but as much as they could not comprehend his bygone feelings, he too was a stranger to their vivid emotions. Their rendition of the world was saturated, bright, like a track with deep textures and a percussion line that resonated in your skin, Minato’s world was just the persistent beat-keeping of a metronome. Nothing to explore; to get lost in. A heartbeat to keep him alive, if only as a parody of living.
And here, against all odds and a decade of living with a hole where his life should be, was something that wanted in.
The rounded end of a knee collided against the side of his. Another thigh’s warmth brushed up along his. Turning his head, Ryoji was there, wide-eyed, focused, brows pressed as though trying to meet in the middle. Any closer and the tips of their noses would touch.
“I think if I make you happy,” His words road out on whispers that brushed Minato’s lips, “I would be too.” Ryoji’s hand plunged into Minato’s hair and moved it aside. It was a light touch, no pull on his scalp. When both eyes were visibly looking back at him, Ryoji grinned.
That’s not the face the hero made. Minato thought, watching the mimicry Ryoji was making of the movie star’s actions. That man had looked impenetrable, almost bored, but Ryoji? He was beaming.
“You think you can?” A blunder of an attempt at sarcasm. The pressure on Minato’s chest had made substantial ground.
“Could I try?”
The credit’s song crescendo had ended with a long silence. “Mmhm.”
The cushion dipped as the weight of two bodies occupied it. Minato’s hands rested in each other on his lap, while Ryoji gripped the back of the couch to balance himself as he leaned in. A long piece of fabric — presumably a scarf — swept by Minato’s upper arm, leaving a sea of goosebumps behind. He felt acutely the intensity of Ryoji’s bright blue stare; like two night skies looking solely down on him.
“You’re… supposed to close your eyes.”
“Right.” And the skies had gone.
Ryoji’s lips twitched from suppressing his grin as they moved onto Minato’s. As soft a collusion as it had been, the reply was a seismic quake let loose in his nerves. The knocking force wanting entry into the space between his lungs decimated the fleshless barrier that hadn’t known any other sensation but its inhabitance. Rather than the emptiness swallowing the intruder and bleeding out everything with it, the vacancy it secured became offset. A challenger settled in the echo chamber that was the nothingness and filled the once-believed endless expanse right up. Minato’s chest ached, suddenly crammed with foreign agitation, a pain he didn’t want to pass. Is this what should have been there all along?
His hair had fallen back into place when Ryoji had slipped his hand under Minato’s chin. No longer able to contain it, the lips against Minato’s peaked on their sides. Ryoji’s flickers of light ignited a budding flare of heat in Minato like setting off a sparkler with another. Was he smiling too?
They split, and the cavity still bubbled with this new sensibility. His head was light, almost hurting, but not quite. Weight enclosed on his rib cage, expecting another invisible stress, it surprised him when Ryoji’s head rested on his chest and his arms were wrapped around it.
“Mochi-”
“Ry-o-ji.”
Though the affection he was a stranger to, the person supplying it was anything but — for reasons he could not say. “...Ryoji.”
The hold tightened. Black hair tickled Minato’s chin. “Mi-na-to.”
Reclining onto his back and staring at the ceiling, Ryoji buried his face in Minato’s shirt. Some ad had started repeating on the television, but the sound of Minato’s heartbeat was far too thundering to hear it. He thought it was only a saying that someone’s heart could “beat out their chest.” Ryoji must be able to feel it. Minato wondered if that meant he’d been successful. If anyone knew, it would be him.
After a couple of minutes of building certainty, he raised his arm off the edge of the couch and placed it timidly onto the side of Ryoji’s head, the position of which was right above the mouth of the abyss Minato always felt devouring him. Yet, it had eaten nothing and hungered less. Maybe it was only sparse rays or a trick of his eyes but for this moment, he saw hints of the cast of colors that tinted the realities outside of his. Apprehension came with the fleeting rainbow, almost as powerful as the hues, but with Ryoji, his shelter against the void, did he need to worry? Didn’t he know it too? Didn’t he feel it as well? A separate body, but, not really. That echoing heartbeat was not Minato’s alone.
He entangled his fingers in black strands, “Ryoji, I-”
“I know.” He answered.