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Kaiser aimlessly roamed the hallways, struggling to locate his room in the maze-like building. He was just another clueless freshman that was unable to figure out something simple like where the bathrooms were. The woman at the reception handed him the necessary keys, but her directions were far from helpful. Consequently, Kaiser found himself wandering the dorm corridors, clutching the handle of his heavy suitcase tightly. It was a dreadful experience. His frustration knew no bounds, and he grew increasingly angry as he repeatedly stumbled upon the wrong doors.
‘This whole building is annoyingly big and unnecessarily complicated. There are a million things wrong with these sections. Couldn’t they come up with something simpler?’ Kaiser thought to himself as he read the bizarre codes on each door: 76KWS, 12AES, 43USS. The seemingly endless journey through the maze-like hallways was wearing him down, both physically and mentally. ‘Fuck, I’m wrong again. This isn’t it. Where the hell am I?’
As Kaiser meandered through the empty, silent corridor, he noticed a figure approaching him. In the distance, he discerned a guy’s distinctive reddish brown hair, held back with several hairclips. Kaiser had willingly opted to move into the dormitories a week earlier than the other students due to personal — specifically, parental — reasons. He had anticipated encountering nothing, but the rats rumoured to inhabit the dorm buildings. Although he hadn’t yet seen any rodents, he had heard traumatising stories about this place during high school. Thus, discovering another person here was entirely unexpected. Still, a flicker of relief washed over him; he thought that without help, he might lose his mind trying to navigate these ‘labyrinthine’ hallways.
“Hey,” Kaiser stopped him as the guy approached, apparently heading for the stairs. “I’m looking for room ‘8-9-E-E-S’. Do you know where it is?”
The red-head stared at Kaiser for a moment, his expression completely blank. Kaiser felt awkward under the stranger’s intense teal-eyed gaze. Kaiser turned his head slightly to the side and raised an eyebrow, scrutinising the face in front of him. The guy was a couple of centimetres shorter than him, his eyes framed with spidery eyelashes, and his gaze was utterly unreadable. It was as if the stranger was looking right through Kaiser, making him feel almost invisible.
Despite the discomfort, Kaiser knew this might be his only chance to find his room without further wandering. He continued to hold the red-head’s gaze, determined not to look away. Just as Kaiser was about to raise his hand to wave it in front of the red-head’s face — hoping to snap him out of whatever weird trance he was in — and then the stranger spoke so unexpectedly that Kaiser flinched.
“Freshman?” The guy asked, not waiting for Kaiser to respond before continuing, “eighty-nine eastward?” He furrowed his brow slightly, a small crease forming between them. “It’s in another building. You turned the wrong way when you left the second building. Go back and turn left,” with that, the guy lifted the corner of his mouth into a ghost of a mocking expression and continued walking, disappearing behind the door of one of the rooms.
Kaiser shook his head and blinked a few times, watching the guy until he vanished around the corner. The whole encounter felt surreal, and Kaiser stiffly shrugged, not really caring for the oddity of the situation. At least he now knew where to go.
✿ ❀
A couple of weeks later, students began filling the dormitory rapidly, and it was no longer so quiet. Soon, the first semester began. Kaiser immediately went to the tryouts for the football team, a sport he had been playing since junior high. Everything seemed to fall into place. Kaiser quickly made acquaintances and seamlessly integrated into the campus social scene. The first week flowed smoothly: attending university classes, participating in football practice, relaxing in the dormitory, and occasionally visiting a nearby bar. It wasn’t as daunting or intimidating as he had feared, contrary to the horror stories he had read online about community college experiences. Nonetheless, by the end of the week, he was thoroughly exhausted. Kaiser hadn’t seen that strange guy from the corridor again and had forgotten about him until a particular moment.
“Kaiser! Come out!”
On Friday evening, when Kaiser was planning to go to bed early, someone started pounding on his door. It seemed to be Aiku, that annoying guy who was the captain of the football team.
“Go away,” Kaiser pulled the blankets up, rolled his eyes, and promptly turned to the other side.
“It’ll be worse for you if you don’t come out!” But there was only silence in response. Kaiser had no intention of leaving his bed that evening. “Guys, he’s not coming out,” Aiku groaned, and retreating footsteps were heard behind the door.
Kaiser sighed with relief, but a sense of unease began to creep in. Five minutes later, just as he was starting to relax and drift into sleep, he heard the unmistakable sound of a key turning in the lock. Then, someone burst into the room, seemingly running, and before Kaiser could lift his head from the pillow, he was doused in ice-cold water.
In shock, Kaiser sat up abruptly, wiping his wet face with his palms, struggling to hold back a volcano-eruption of curses and insults. Angrily turning his head, he saw a tall guy with a mop of black hair and a sinister grin, revealing frighteningly golden teeth that shone under the light. The stranger stood there, holding a big now-empty bottle of water, smirking down at him.
“What the hell?” Kaiser sputtered, spitting out the water that had made its way into his mouth. He was already seething with anger, glaring at the guy who had drenched him. Behind the perpetrator, he caught a glimpse of Aiku, barely holding back his laughter.
“Sorry dude,” Aiku raised his hands in mock surrender before laughing. “You didn’t want to come out on your own.”
“Welcome to freshman year,” the man with the golden teeth cackled, standing by Kaiser’s bed. He tossed him a towel.
“What?” Kaiser caught the towel with one hand, frowning.
“Freshman initiation is starting,” came a strange, deadpan voice from the doorway. Kaiser quickly turned his head to see who had spoken.
There, in the doorway, stood the peculiar red-haired guy, smirking. His slim legs were clad in tight black jeans, and his loose sleeveless T-shirt revealed muscular arms crossed over his chest. He leaned casually against the doorframe, looking at Kaiser with a peculiar intensity. Their eyes met, and the red-head raised his eyebrows at him before shifting his attention to the guy standing by Kaiser’s bed.
“Lorenzo, let’s go. We have many more rooms to visit,” he said, pushing off from the doorframe. With that, he and the others left.
Kaiser, still in shock, was left alone in the room with Aiku, who was leaning against the windowsill, chuckling intermittently at what had just transpired.
“Get ready. We need to be in the college’s gym like now.”
“What the hell? I don’t want to go anywhere,” still annoyed at being deprived of sleep, Kaiser pulled off his annoyingly clingy, soaking white tank top.
“If you don’t go, the juniors will bring you there and make you drink until you pass out. They don’t mess around. Besides, do you want to be labelled the college’s most boring guy in existence? Exactly. Then you won’t be able to show up at any of the parties they throw here.”
Kaiser sighed heavily. He definitely didn’t want to miss out on the parties here. Reluctantly, he got up from his wet bed and grabbed a pair of blue skinny jeans and a dry white T-shirt with black lettering on the chest from the back of his chair. Running his fingers through his wet hair to comb it neatly, he, along with Aiku, headed to the gym where nearly all the students had already gathered.
Before entering, they were stopped by two girls who tied black strings with numbers around their wrists.
Kaiser glanced indifferently at the double-digit number on his wrist — thirty-six — and, not fully understanding its purpose, entered the crowded room. The gym was brightly lit, and the air was filled with amiable chatter, creating a lively buzz. Kaiser made his way to the far corner, planning to stay there until the end, as he wasn’t in the mood for fun.
A few minutes later, the lights went out, and on the makeshift ‘stage’ — which was really just a space separated from the crowd by sheer masking tape — three silhouettes appeared. People crowded and jostled, trying to get a look at the guys who had stepped out.
“Heyyyy!” Someone shouted into what sounded like a megaphone, and the room erupted with the roar of students. “Guys, quiet down!”
Curiosity got the better of Kaiser, and he stood on his toes, trying to catch a glimpse of the speaker. He could only make out shaggy black hair with purple tips. Recognising the speaking guy on stage as the same one who had woken him up so rudely, Kaiser leaned back against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest.
“We’re not breaking tradition! First of all, my name is Don Lorenzo — every year, fourth-year students at this university hold a freshman initiation. This year will be no different! Each of you has a bracelet with a number on your wrist. Now I’ll explain its purpose,” Lorenzo gestured with his hand. “In this box, there are about four hundred numbers. Each number is repeated twice. You might get lucky, and your number won’t come up at all, since there are only fifty tasks. But, your number might come up twice, and you’ll be doomed to drink this bottle of whiskey if that happens,” Lorenzo lifted an impressively large bottle over his head. Even Kaiser felt uneasy at the sight. “There are three litres here, in case anyone didn’t get it.”
The students buzzed with chatter.
“Shhh! But don’t worry! If one of you ends up with this task, you’ll be under our supervision the whole time!”
Kaiser made a face, shaking his head, and wondered how much a person could actually drink because three litres of pure whiskey seemed like way too much to him.
“I wouldn’t want to be under their supervision,” Kaiser said almost automatically, turning his head towards Aiku. The latter snickered in response — he was also a senior but said that he was here to watch the freshman suffer, not even wanting to tell Kaiser how chaotic everything would be.
“Okay! The rules of the game!” Lorenzo’s voice yelled (he already has a megaphone; is there such a need to yell into it?). “First rule: you can’t refuse to complete a task. If you do, you’ll be banned from all parties for a year and blacklisted. And believe me, there will be a lot of parties this year. Second rule: you can’t leave. The same punishment applies, but as a bonus, you’ll earn the title of ‘college bore’, which excludes you from all extracurricular activities. Tasks are the same for everyone, regardless of gender. Exceptions are made for those with health issues. Got it?”
Everyone cheered in unison like minions. “Yes!”
Kaiser hadn’t expected people to be so enthusiastic about this nonsense.
Lorenzo put his hand into the box with his eyes closed until the first ball fell out.
“And first up, we have number...eight! Please come forward!”
A short girl in modest clothing stepped forward. She seemed very embarrassed, shifting from foot to foot and lowering her head as if she were being led to her execution. And she probably was.
“So, what’s your name, beautiful?” Lorenzo addressed the cute brunette girl with a wide smile.
“Chiyo,” came the soft female voice — barely audible even with the megaphone shoved into her hands.
“Alright, Chiyo,” Lorenzo shifted the box towards him and turned to the girl. “Draw a task.”
Chiyo hesitated a bit before pulling out one of those pink plastic cylinder tubes that had a cap at the top. Lorenzo immediately took it from her and handed the bag back to that red-haired guy from earlier, who looked like he would rather do anything in the world except this. “—What did you get, Chi?” Lorenzo opened the barrel and took out a folded strip of paper. “Oh, spicy!” He exclaimed after reading the task. “You need to demonstrate your skills...hmm…in mineta!” He paused, smiling slyly.
“What?” Kaiser exclaimed, his eyes widening in shock. “Is he kidding?” He turned to Aiku again.
“Quiet, quiet!” Lorenzo laughed, holding out his hand and looking at the frozen and pale Chiyo. “We’re not complete perverts. Hey, give me the props for this task,” a man, whose face Kaiser couldn’t make out, pulled a banana from a box and handed it to Lorenzo, glancing at the riled-up crowd. “Alright, Chi, go ahead! But first, take a drink for courage,” Lorenzo placed the banana in Chiyo’s hand and handed her a shot glass with a clear liquid.
Kaiser noted that the banana seemed bigger than Chiyo herself, who hesitantly took the shot glass. Mentally expressing all his condolences to Chiyo, Kaiser watched with pity as she exhaled and downed the shot, squeezing her eyes shut from the unpleasant burning in her throat. The girl, grimacing, handed the empty shot glass back to Lorenzo and exhaled. Without peeling the banana, Chiyo put it in her mouth and — oh wow — pushed it almost all the way in, eliciting approving shouts. The girl put on quite a show, causing Kaiser to awkwardly look down, but the crowd clearly loved it. They cheered Chiyo on with screams and applause.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, girl! Looks like you got carried away!” Lorenzo stopped the enthusiastic girl after about a minute. “That’s ten out of ten! Truly talented!” He laughed, patting her on the shoulder. “But we still need guys who think with their heads, not their...you know. So thanks, you can keep the banana, I guess!”
Chiyo left the ‘stage’ and returned to the heated crowd. The following tasks were no better — ‘write a word on a student’s stomach with your nose,’ ‘perform a striptease,’ ‘attend classes in a costume from a sex shop,’ and so on.
Around the twenty-second task, when one of the students was already standing next to Lorenzo, they had to roll the barrel again because they needed another person for the task: ‘kiss a student as if it’s your last moment on Earth.’
“And our lucky number is…thirty-six!”
Kaiser, who had been leaning against the wall, suddenly looked at the numbers on his wrist, hoping he had misheard. Aiku, standing next to him, was dying of laughter, nudging him on the shoulder, urging him forward. Kaiser’s eyes darted around the room in confusion. The crowd excitedly pushed him forward, and he barely kept his balance, nearly falling at Lorenzo’s feet when he tripped over his own sneaker.
“And here he is,” Lorenzo smirked, his eyes glinting with mischief, irritating Kaiser even more. Kaiser could feel the animosity brewing; it seemed like he was on the verge of truly hating Lorenzo.
The classmate Kaiser was supposed to kiss stood there, looking confused and petrified as if he might wet his pants at any moment. His eyes were wide, and his face had gone pale, betraying his discomfort. He clearly didn’t want to kiss Kaiser, and it was written all over his face. Kaiser wasn’t thrilled about the idea either. He glared at Lorenzo, mentally cursing him with every profanity he knew.
“Well, Touri, go ahead,” Lorenzo grinned — all of those fucking golden teeth right on display — nodded before nodding towards Kaiser, who was starting to get a little flustered (in pure anger).
Cursing everything for the hundredth time, Kaiser decided to leave this circus.
He didn’t want to be here; he just wanted to sleep.
“Fuck you,” Kaiser spat, turning to leave and was about to give Lorenzo the finger, but—
A dissatisfied ‘boo’ echoed through the hall.
“Are you sure you want to leave?” a familiar voice directly asked him in a bored tone — as if he couldn’t do it — and Kaiser inhaled sharply.
He stopped and turned back to the group. The strange red-haired guy spoke challengingly, an irritating smirk on his thin lips. Meeting his eyes, Kaiser realised he had just been called out. This only made him angrier. He gathered his thoughts. If he left now, as he had planned, he would never forgive himself. He had just been challenged, and Kaiser, on principle, couldn’t back down now.
Clenching his teeth, he looked directly at this ‘Touri’ and strode towards him. Touri stared at Kaiser with a frozen, anxious expression.
Mentally cursing everyone in the hall, Kaiser grabbed the back of Touri’s head and pressed his lips fiercely against Touri’s dry, rough lips. Kaiser poured all his anger into the unwanted kiss, and his frustration was evident in the forceful act. Touri remained stiff, his lips barely moving in response.
Burning with rage, Kaiser glared from under his brows at the red-haired guy, who stood there with a satisfied smirk. It was Lorenzo who finally pulled Kaiser away, deciding it had gone on long enough.
“Our little guy got carried away,” Lorenzo patted Kaiser on the back as he wiped his lips with the back of his hand.
“Can I leave now?” Kaiser looked at Lorenzo again, who smirked at his question.
“Of course not. Get back to the others,” there was a mocking tone in his voice, and Kaiser barely restrained himself from punching him.
Taking a deep breath, Kaiser stood right in front of the stretched white tape, arms crossed over his chest, occasionally glancing at the suspicious red-haired guy from the corridor, where a blond-haired man seemed to be enthusiastically talking to him — Kaiser would believe that talking to that man was equivalent to talking to a slab of cardboard.
Alas, the show continued. Many were given ‘timed tasks,’ meaning they had to complete them within three days. It was nearing two in the morning, and Kaiser was long bored of being there; he just wanted to sleep.
“—Task number thirty-two...”
“—Task number thirty-three...”
“—Task number thirty-four...”
Kaiser was dying of boredom. He couldn’t deny that some tasks were genuinely amusing, and the crowd was eating up every single one. But mostly, he just wanted to return to his room. He even texted Aiku — who was lost in the crowd somewhere — saying he would sleep in his room tonight since his bed was soaked. Kaiser was not simply asking Aiku, he was being told, because Lorenzo’s actions were the reason he’s standing in the corner of this annoying gym like a wallflower.
“—Task number forty-seven...”
Kaiser was less irritated now, but Lorenzo was becoming more and more annoying.
“—And it goes to number….”
Kaiser checks his phone; Aiku still has not replied or even read his message.
“—Whoa! Thirty-six!”
Closing his eyes in exhaustion, Kaiser shoved his phone into his back jeans pocket and gave Lorenzo a killing glare. This felt like a joke. A cruel, and definitely unfunny joke.
“—Looks like we have a victim! Guys, in all the three years I’ve been here making fun of freshmans, nobody has ever taken on this bottle!”
He pointed to the bottle of whiskey on the table behind him, and the crowd roared again. It seemed Kaiser was the only one not in a partying mood.
“—Alright, number thirty-six, come on up!” Kaiser didn’t like the way everyone around him was sinisterly smiling, but he went up the ‘stage’ anyway, almost completely — no, fully — resigned to his fate.
“Draw!” Lorenzo looked very pleased, gesturing to the box of tasks. Kaiser feared what they might do to him after he drank the whole bottle. What would being under their supervision be like? Was that even safe?
Pulling out the first little yellow barrel he touched, Kaiser indifferently handed it to Lorenzo. He just wanted this to be over as soon as possible.
But as Lorenzo read out the task, Kaiser froze. He wasn’t at all happy about his ‘luck’ that evening.
“It seems everything about this guy is interesting,” Lorenzo laughed heartily. “Now show us how attractive you are! You need to strip naked and run ten laps around the stadium’s track!” Kaiser had never heard such cheers in his life from a crowd — not even at any famous pop star’s concert. “Tell us your name, hero of the night!”
“Genuinely, fuck you,” Kaiser said flatly, starting to unbuckle his belt. For a moment, he locked eyes with the red-haired guy again, who was watching him again.
“Well, fuck you also, you’re in for either shame or fame. Take off your pants.”
The crowd didn’t quiet down for a second.
Kaiser, trying to keep his breathing steady, took off his pants and then his T-shirt in one motion, revealing his half-naked body to the students.
Lorenzo couldn’t resist commenting, “one of the two points secured,” eyeing him up and down, noting his pretty good physical shape. “Damn! Even a tattoo!”
“Could I just drink the bottle first and then run?” Kaiser asked, defeated. He was genuinely asking. Just asking. Human to human. But he was refused.
However, they did let him drink. Lorenzo poured him a shot glass, presumably with tequila.
“Can you help? My hands are occupied, sorry.” Kaiser looked challengingly at the red-haired guy who was just standing a few metres away — probably internally laughing at his expense — Kaiser slightly tilted his head to the side. It was his turn.
Smirking, the red-haired guy approached Kaiser almost face-to-face, lifted his chin, and poured the shot glass’s liquid into his throat, which stung and went down like lava. Grimacing, Kaiser turned his head to his shoulder. It was time to remove his hands. Exhaling, Kaiser closed his eyes as they were starting to gloss over from the tequila.
Lorenzo loudly announced through the megaphone that it was a ‘solid ten plus’ — he even had the nerve to say that Chiyo wouldn’t have managed this.
Dammit. He really had to run ten fucking laps in his boxers.
Feeling an unbearable surge of humiliation, Kaiser propelled himself into a sprint. He hadn’t anticipated the flood of students streaming out from the hall behind him, but it made cruel sense. With each pounding step, Kaiser pushed himself to end the torment swiftly. The prospect of downing that cursed bottle of whiskey no longer repulsed him; if anything, he welcomed its numbing embrace. Even the company of those three imbeciles seemed preferable to reliving this night in his vibrant memory.
The evening might not end well for Kaiser, but it didn’t matter anymore. If he was to endure humiliation, he would do so with unyielding resolve. With each lap around the university stadium, Kaiser willed himself to forget. Each lap, roughly two hundred meters, was a little challenge for an athlete like him. Yet, it did little to mitigate the seething anger towards Lorenzo, who was actually the devil’s incarnate. With every stride, Kaiser cursed the night with all the curse words he knew. As he crossed the finish line, his muscles burning with exertion, he found Lorenzo still having an odd gaze against the backdrop of cheering students. It incensed him beyond measure.
“Not bad,” Lorenzo clapped a couple of times while Kaiser wiped the sweat that was starting to accumulate at the nape of his neck, trying to catch his breath.
Turning his head, Kaiser saw the students heading back to the gym with Lorenzo and caught himself thinking that he wouldn’t mind setting the building on fire with everyone inside. But the elaboration of his colourful plan to annihilate was interrupted by the red-haired guy standing next to him, who handed Kaiser his own clothes. Accepting the items from the red-head, Kaiser just nodded, starting to dress.
“When you’re done, go to him,” he said.
Of course, the red-head did not point to who ‘him’ was, so Kaiser had to move his head in awkward angles to see who exactly he was referring to. There, he saw a tall, tanned man with blond box braids, the end of them pink.
“—His name is Shido.”
Before Kaiser could say anything, the red-head left, so — obediently — Kaiser followed Shido without a word exchanged between them.
All Kaiser sincerely wanted was to go to bed and preferably completely forget that night. Deciding to break the amazing silence, Shido tried to find out Kaiser’s name as they entered the dormitory.
“‘Go to hell’ doesn’t suit you?”
“Damn, just relax. I’m just curious,” the guy smiled broadly — annoyingly, not the good kind of smile, the type of smile that was like ‘you-can-tell-me-nothing-but-I’ll-still-know-everything’ — and Kaiser now vaguely noticed that he was the guy who was hanging out with the red-head. “Eh, you’ll tell me when you’re drunk.”
He was right. Kaiser understood that. And it would be silly to remain nameless, as he would soon be drunk enough to have this person’s conscience.
“Kaiser,” he sighed wearily, trailing behind as they ascended the stairs.
“Nice, Kaiser. What’s your first name?” Shido paused, waiting for Kaiser to catch up, then placed a hand on his shoulder. “I swear, this night will be unforgettable!”
“Just Kaiser,” he insisted stubbornly, feeling like a condemned man being led to his fate. “And I hope quite the opposite,” Kaiser added with a touch of grim humour, half expecting to be led to a room with a guillotine that has his name on it.
“Don’t worry, everything will be fine,” Shido assured, taking out the key from the back pocket.
“Of course,” Kaiser didn’t believe it at all. “I’ll be dead drunk, and who knows what you guys will come up with.”
“You have a bad opinion of us, ‘Just Kaiser’,” the guy keeps smiling the annoying smile, unlocking the door to his room. “We might seem like complete jerks, but we won’t stoop to the level of humiliating drunk people just like that,” Shido opened the door, letting Kaiser inside.
Kaiser frowned, looking Shido walking into the room, the latter immediately sat on the soft bed — he examined the white walls, where one of the walls was completely covered with various, bright stickers. Another wall featured a rack of skateboards.
“Is this your room?”
“Yeah, I live here with Lorenzo,” he shrugged and then smirked, “’ n’ he’s not a bad guy, he’s pretty cool.”
“I find it hard to believe,” Kaiser watched the guy plug his phone to charge, then sat down on the bed opposite from him. “So, when does your alcohol torture begin? Is it even safe?”
“Sae-chan and Lorenzo will come in about twenty minutes,” Shido leaned his back against the wall. “They wan’na have some fun with the freshmen. We didn’t expect someone’s number to come up twice,” the corner of the guy’s mouth twitched upward as he looked at Kaiser from his bushy eyelashes, tilting his head back.
For reasons he couldn’t quite pinpoint, Kaiser found himself oddly drawn to Shido, and his anxiety ebbed slightly. Despite the blonde’s eccentric appearance — complete with a tongue piercing and unusual eyeliner — Kaiser couldn’t deny the feeling that he could trust him. Kaiser believes that nothing will happen to his drunk body, as Shido promised. But he felt as Kaiser’s gaze slid over him, trying not to miss a single detail. It seemed like a very calm gesture for the latter, although Kaiser felt a bit awkward because of the intense scrutiny. Kaiser also didn’t look away; he couldn’t help but notice the sharp contours of Shido’s face — the well-defined nose and cheekbones and the intensity of his equally sharp eyes.
There was something about Shido that intrigued Kaiser, although he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. They seemed to be playing a game of stare-down, and Shido was clearly winning. His gaze expressed only curious interest, like a feline. The guy looked so attractive and yet so repulsive at the same time. He exuded an air of danger and chaos, but his smile was warm. Shido felt completely at ease in this silence, unlike Kaiser, who felt increasingly uncomfortable and then was first to look away, turning to the window.
“So you didn’t answer the question.”
“Hmm?” Shido raised an eyebrow. “What question?”
“Is it safe to drink three litres of whiskey alone?” Kaiser turned back to the guy, tilting his head slightly to the side.
“They say the maximum is two litres per person. But don’t worry, you definitely won’t be able to handle those two litres alone, let alone three.”
“Don’t you believe in me?” Kaiser squinted his eyes.
“Haha. No, I don’t. You’ll pass out much earlier. Even the most experienced alcoholic would hardly be able to handle three liters of whiskey, so I am pretty accurately assessing your abilities.”
“And when I pass out, what are your predictions?”
“I think half a liter, maybe a lil’ bit more, and you’re dead.”
“You think I can’t handle my liquor?” Kaiser smirked, still looking into the guy’s pink eyes.
“I think you’re one of those people who try to drink as little as possible,” Shido smiled at the corners of his lips as Kaiser looked away. “To avoid getting embarrassed around other people — even though you’ve already felt a year’s worth of embarrassment this night.”
He ignored that second half of the statement. “So your friends decided to have a little fun after all.” Kaiser sighed, moving closer to the wall. “Why didn’t you go with them?”
“I’m not a fan of hanging out with drunk freshmen,” he shrugged.
“So you preferred hanging out with one sober freshman?”
“You could say that, but I’m also a freshman — I’m jus’ friends with Lorenzo so I didn’t have to do this public-humiliating bullshit. But I’d still kill at all of those tasks,” Shido ran the tip of his tongue along his lower lip, still smiling warmly, but his gaze remained cold. Kaiser was still surprised by such a contrast. “Still better than a crowd of immature dumbasses who’ve jus’ entered adulthood, breaking free from parental control. Besides, well, I noticed you didn’t seem too eager to be there either.”
“Yeah, everything’s against me today.” Kaiser shook his head, brushing aside a light strand of his hair, which was already dried and damaged by his cheap blue dye. “I wanted to get some sleep before the weekend,” he explained for some reason.
“Waking up early?” Shido asked. Kaiser just rolled his eyes, looking at him strangely. “Most students jus’ go home on weekends.”
“Ah, no,” Kaiser replied simply, a response that seemed to make Shido’s expression shift as he lowered his gaze to the dark blue blanket. “No,” he added with a hint of sadness, “I’m not expected there anymore.” The words escaped Kaiser’s lips almost unintentionally, a quiet admission.
“Why is that?” Shido furrowed his brows, tucking one leg under him. Kaiser was slightly surprised that Shido even heard his words.
“Personal problems, it doesn’t matter,” Kaiser replied distantly, trying to brush it off. “And you? Are you leaving tomorrow too?”
“Nah. I’ve got those personal problems too,” Shido sighed, mirroring Kaiser’s earlier tone.
“So tonight I’ll drink to our personal problems,” Kaiser grinned, trying to lighten the mood.
“Then I’ll have to drink with you,” he replied with the same smile.
About two hours later, Kaiser was lying on Shido’s bed, slipping into a deep sleep.
✿ ❀
As the morning sunlight filtered through the curtains, Kaiser was greeted by a hellish headache that seemed to split his skull in two. With a deep, guttural groan, he attempted to shift onto his left side, only to find himself tumbling off the bed — his fall was cushioned by something soft, accompanied by a pained groan from beneath him. Still groggy and disoriented, Kaiser slowly pried open his heavy eyelids, his bleary gaze falling upon the sight of Shido’s blond head before him. Completely baffled by his surroundings, Kaiser furrowed his brow as he extricated himself from the tangled mess of limbs.
“Damn it,” he whispered, clutching his head with both hands due to the intense headache. It felt like his head was about to explode. He hadn’t had this much of a headache since high school entrance exams. “Ugh.”
Wincing, Kaiser lightly tugged at his blond hair — he felt like he was going to die right here on this floor — he desperately wanted water; his mouth was dry as sandpaper, and his throat felt torn. A gentle pat on his shoulder roused him from his misery-induced stupor, prompting him to crack open his heavy eyelids once more. Through bleary eyes, he beheld the sight of a sleepy, tousled Shido offering him a glass of water and a small white pill.
“Hey. Take this. It’ll help.”
Raising himself onto his elbows, Kaiser cautiously took the pill, placing it on his tongue and swallowing it with the water in seconds.
“Get back in bed.”
“I don’t want to move,” Kaiser flopped onto his back, burying his face in the crook of his elbow, craving to hide from the light.
“I don’t think you’ll be comfortable on the floor.”
“Ugh,” Kaiser protested with a groan and drifted back to sleep.
The second time he woke up was in the middle of the day where the curtain was cracked open, revealing the sun high in the sky. Kaiser felt much better though still throbbing with pain in his temples. Shido wasn’t in the room. Kaiser sat up, rubbing his face with his hands, squinting from the sunlight. He was thirsty again, ready to drink all of the ocean dry, but all Shido left on the table was a bottle of water.
Shido’s absence stretched on longer than Kaiser had anticipated, leaving him feeling uncertain and out of place, sitting on the floor in a stranger’s room. Frustrated by his inability to recall the events of the previous night, Kaiser strained his memory to no avail. It was slightly irritating and even infuriating to some extent. All he could recollect was bits and pieces — a conversation here, an argument there, perhaps even some laughter. Then, there was Lorenzo, thrusting another glass of whiskey into his hand, and after that, nothing but darkness. Worst-case scenarios began to invade Kaiser’s thoughts, but he forcefully pushed them aside, resolving to confront Shido directly once he returned. However, as the minutes stretched into an hour, and Shido remained nowhere to be found, Kaiser’s discomfort intensified. Alone in a foreign room, he felt increasingly uneasy, unable to shake off the unsettling silence that surrounded him. Then Kaiser reached for his phone, absently scrolling through Instagram, his gaze flickering over a series of party photos. He saw a few Instagram stories about him, but it was nothing as bad as Kaiser would have thought. People were mainly talking about his tattoos and physique.
Finally, the door creaked open, admitting the damp-haired figure of Shido. Kaiser breathed a sigh of relief, the silence of the room was starting to weigh on him. Shido greeted him with a smile, tossing a white towel off his shoulders onto the bed as he entered.
“Already awake?” Shido sat on the bed. “How are you feeling? Alive?”
“Awful,” Kaiser fidgeted with the edge of his shirt, trying not to look at Shido, who looked devilishly attractive.
The scent of peppermint and orange, emanating from Shido, barely reached Kaiser. Kaiser concluded that it was Shido’s shower gel that smelled like that. He liked the smell.
“Headache still lingering?” Shido raised an eyebrow, looking at Kaiser, who was dishevelled with a face swollen from sleep.
“Not entirely,” Kaiser scratched his head, biting his tongue. “But that’s not the point.”
“And what is it?”
“I don’t remember anything at all,” Kaiser looked at Shido with a bewildered look, which only elicited a smirk from him.
“Duh. Of course you don’t remember, you drank a shit ton.”
“Tell me what happened yesterday. And why didn’t you kick me out or take me to Aiku’s?”
“Well,” Shido folded one leg under him, adjusting his loose, red shorts. “You drank. A lot. You nearly finished half the bottle. Uhh — you were planning to drink it all, but we thought it was a really bad idea and decided to put you to sleep. Since your mattress and bedding are wet with water in your room, we figured it’d be best to put you here — since I’m the only one of us three — if not the whole college — who doesn’t go home on weekends.”
“But why did you sleep on the floor?”
“You fell asleep on my bed,” Shido shrugged. “And Lorenzo had some back issues, so he went home at five in the morning.”
“Okay,” Kaiser nodded, pressing his lips together. “Did I do anything embarrassing?”
“Not really. Except I had to put a bucket in front of the bed because you weren’t feeling well.”
“Damn, sorry about that,” Kaiser awkwardly grimaced, shrugging his shoulders.
“No, it’s okay. Don’t worry about it,” Shido smiled. “It wasn’t a big deal for me.”
“But still,” Kaiser looked up at him. “You gave up your bed for me and carried the bucket, even though you could have just left me in my room. I was really drunk anyway.”
Shido waved his hand dismissively. “It’s not a problem.”
Kaiser pushed himself up from the bed and stretched, his muscles still sore from his sleeping position. Shido watched him with an amused expression, then tossed a pillow at him playfully. Kaiser caught it and threw it back.
“—Come on, let’s get some breakfast,” Shido suggested, standing up and heading towards the door. Kaiser followed, still feeling a bit groggy but at least lighter in spirit.
They reached the kitchen, and Shido began rummaging through the fridge, pulling out ingredients for a simple breakfast. Kaiser sat down on the chair that was probably the breakfast table.
“By the way,” Shido said, breaking the quiet as he cracked an egg into a pan, “do you remember anything you said last night?”
Kaiser almost froze. Fuck, did he say something overly personal? He has never been a lightweight, but the high amount of alcohol must have changed up. “No. Why, did I say something stupid or bad?”
Shido shook his head. “I…no, no. Nothing like that…doesn’t matter.”
Kaiser felt a lump form in his throat, but he managed a nod.
“—Jus’ so you know, I make really good hangover food. Could you wash that bowl for me?”
“Yeah sure,” he said, going over to the kitchen sink.
As he washed the bowl, Kaiser distinctly smelled Shido’s shower gel, a fresh scent that filled the room. Something unfamiliar and new tightened inside him, a sensation he couldn’t quite place.
That’s where it all began.
✿ ❀
While the sky cuts its veins, spilling out in a bloody sunset, Kaiser, sitting on a cracked skateboard from a failed kickflip, gnaws on the tongue of his jacket’s zipper. Inside, he feels jealous as his eyes catch sight of Shido performing tricks better than he can, and he feels a pang of resentment towards his board, which he’s ready to snap himself.
Kaiser has fallen a few times on the concrete, which made him feel sore. He didn’t wear any safety pads or helmets for the sake of being ‘cool’ and to not bruise his ego as he was the only one who was wearing protection. Though the damage isn’t critical, he can still skateboard, but the actual board is ruined, most of the paint easily chipped off with a scratch on the back — he’ll have to fix it soon, as he loves to devour all things beautiful with his eyes. He’ll have to steal from Shido’s sticker collection and plaster the mess with stickers again — not the worst thing that’s happened to his boards. Kaiser turns away, tilting his head slightly back toward the sky — far more attractive than the drabness on the ground.
“You good?” Shido powerslides next to him, effortlessly popping up the board with his foot.
Kaiser’s eyes narrow slightly at the interruption before he straightens up, his focus shifting from the ground to Shido. “Yeah,” he replies, his voice carrying a hint of irritation. “Was trying to do a trick.”
“Which one were you going for?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
Mounting his board, Kaiser pushes forward, the wheels gliding smoothly beneath him. He feels the familiar feeling of hair in his wind and his heartrate picking up.
Shido follows suit. “You need help with something?”
One thing that Kaiser could not understand about Shido was his stubbornness. Yes, he himself was also stubborn, but Shido’s stubbornness was truly the true definition of stubbornness. He’d ignore whatever Kaiser was thinking in an odd way — the equitable of respecting boundaries while breaking them.
“No.”
“What? Is it the kickflip?”
Kaiser stops skating, observing as Shido passes him with a smug grin before halting his own skateboard.
“—Saw you fail it. Wanted to see if you’d admit it or not,” Shido shrugs, walking towards him.
Kaiser stays silent at that but still says: “Show me how to do it.”
Shido nods; he positions himself on his board, “watch closely!” He grins.
With a swift flick of his ankle, Shido sends the board spinning beneath him. It flips gracefully in the air before he quickly lands back on it, his feet perfectly positioned. The board glides smoothly beneath him as he rides away before stopping.
Shido does the trick again a little more quickly. Kaiser squints his eyes at the scene before him in contemplation.
“—Now you try!” Shido encourages.
Kaiser stares at him. “I’ll break both of my legs.”
“Noo. Now you’re acting like Sae-chan. Come on, at least get the flip right.”
Kaiser stares at Shido again; this time, it’s a little more irritated. Shido knows that he hates when he is compared to Sae.
So, Kaiser tries to do it. He rides a meter or so forward, gaining momentum, but as he tries to flip, he can’t seem to execute it properly.
Kaiser tries again. He rides forward — with a swift motion, he flicks his ankle, attempting to replicate the trick exactly how he had just witnessed from Shido. For a brief moment, it seems as though Kaiser might succeed. The board spins in the air, the sunlight glinting off its surface — but then, with a sudden jolt, everything goes awry. His timing is off, and the board doesn’t rotate as intended.
In a split second, Kaiser falls down. The crash to the ground isn’t too bad, more like a mix of a fall and a slip — though pain shoots through his knee as it scrapes against the rough pavement, leaving behind a trail of blood.
Kaiser groans and stands up. It stings. Now Kaiser is condemning himself for wearing shorts.
Shido is immediately at his side. “Shit — are you good?”
“Y—”
“Let me get some water, I don’t have bandages. Sit your ass down.”
Kaiser begrudgingly sits down. He’s on a first-name basis with pain, like all skaters and footballers. For them, it’s normal. Falling, doubling over from pain, scraping skin on asphalt, getting hit in the face with a ball, trying not to get so injured that they can’t get up. Or getting extremely injured, though those cases are rare. He’s had those accidents — half intentional, half accidental. Scrapes are like pets to him — he tends to them and cares for them, though he doesn’t give them names. Sometimes, he presses on them to feel the pain, to know he’s alive.
So Kaiser runs his finger through the wound. It’s just a few millimetres of skin scraped off, but it takes forever to heal.
Turning his gaze, Kaiser watches as Shido makes his way over to his car — not too far away, just a few dozen steps. However, Shido’s car is far too small for Kaiser to comfortably rest his injured knee on. This will do.
As always, Shido still looks unfairly beautiful. He’s seemingly digging in the passenger seat for something.
And Kaiser feels sick — sick for feeling this way. For being so helplessly drawn for Shido. Sick that he doesn’t know what to do about these feelings.
The blood on his knees pooled up — still throbbing — the red crimson breaking down into streams and dripping all the way to his bare ankles. Then it drips on his shoes and then to the ground, the bright colour mixing in with the dirt and grime of the ground, creating a disfigured pool at Kaiser’s feet.
Shido comes over and next to him. In his hand is a water bottle and those pocket-package tissues.
“—I’ll stop at a nearby pharmacy to get bandages,” Shido offers.
Kaiser watches as Shido pours a little bit of water on his knee, presumably to clean it out. He felt stiff, watching as Shido looked surprisingly concentrated on what he was doing, alternating between pouring water to clean it out and cleaning the blood around the wound. It stung, but he couldn’t help but look at Shido.
“—Staring?” Shido chuckles, locking eyes with Kaiser. Then, with beads of blood on his fingers, Shido licks them off without breaking eye contact. He laughs at Kaiser’s surprised, speechless reaction.
“—Let’s go to the car.”
✿ ❀
It’s unclear how, but they got even closer. Shido sometimes came to Kaiser’s training sessions; on weekends, they went somewhere together or sat in Shido’s room. Kaiser enjoyed spending time with him. So much so that he didn’t realise in time that his developing feelings had crossed the line from ‘just friends,’ and now he often found himself staring at the blond, unable to look away.
He found himself drawn to Shido in ways he couldn’t quite explain, his thoughts consumed by the blond’s presence even when they were apart. It was a realisation that crept up on him slowly, like a shadow in the night, until one day, he could no longer deny the truth: he had fallen for Shido.
For almost over a year, both of them were almost always together. In the first month of their friendship, Kaiser realised that Shido also liked football yet didn’t play at their college, he also didn’t like fast food, and he hated anything white chocolate. It was interesting for them to talk to each other, to get to know each other.
But Kaiser took the wrong turn.
As their friendship blossomed, so too did Kaiser’s feelings for Shido. He found himself unable to look away. And as the first symptoms of his newfound emotions began to surface, Kaiser realised that he had unwittingly crossed a line he never intended to cross.
The first symptoms caught him at the most inconvenient moment during football training.
“Excuse me,” Kaiser quickly got up — the coach looking at him as if he grew a third leg (admittedly, he is meaner on the field, such phrases like ‘excuse me’ were not used unless it was for taunting and trash talk) — and left the gym, heading towards the bathroom.
He stumbled inside, the harsh fluorescent lights casting stark shadows across the tiled floor. Gripping the sink with trembling fingers, he leaned heavily against it as violent coughs wracked his body.
Each cough sent small crimson droplets of blood splattering against his pale skin, staining it with a macabre hue — a little of the blood splattering on the mirror in front of him. Kaiser’s chest heaved with the effort of expelling whatever was obstructing his breath, his heart pounding in his ears.
Finally, as the coughing fit subsided, Kaiser slowly uncurled his fingers to reveal a handful of delicate pink petals, their edges tinged with his blood.
That day, Kaiser realised it was the end. He had gone too far and hadn’t even noticed that he wasn’t just in love but loved Shido. There were no thoughts in his head. Clenching his hand into a fist, he leaned against the wall, slowly sliding down. Even then, he began to prepare himself for the fact that he would die. Shido would never reciprocate his feelings.
Kaiser was frankly desperate to continue a normal life. To continue doing sports at the shitty community college, he didn’t want to give up his studies; he actually enjoyed being with his friends — and he, of course, enjoyed being with Shido.
He certainly didn’t plan on dying so soon, but he wasn’t particularly eager to undergo surgery either. A surgery in which his pain would be traded with losing all feelings of love or love-equivariant for anyone he ever meets — not a great prospect. It was a choice he never thought he would have to make, a cruel twist of fate that forced him to confront the very essence of his being.
On the same day, Kaiser visited the hospital, and the doctor’s conclusion, after all the tests and examinations a week later, gave him even more hope. Inside him, poisonous flowers were rooting inside, sprouting their tendrils everywhere in his lungs. It seemed things couldn’t get any worse. The doctor assured him that this was not an isolated case and that if he took the necessary medications, there should be no complications, but he had significantly less time than ordinary patients.
Kaiser didn’t want to love Shido. It just happened somehow, and Kaiser didn’t even have time to fully realise it. Disgusting. That was the initial sickness he was feeling — all of this.
Now, his problems had become much bigger.
The second and third weeks of Kaiser’s illness passed. The disease that he got — hanahaki — was progressing; each day brought with it a fresh wave of symptoms, leaving Kaiser feeling increasingly helpless and alone in his struggle.
Shido still didn’t know about his feelings. He didn’t even suspect them. Despite his best efforts to maintain a façade of normalcy, Kaiser found himself withdrawing from his friend, fabricating excuses to avoid their usual interactions and ignoring messages with growing frequency. This made Shido worry and get suspicious. Shido himself started to arrange hangouts, waited for him after classes, and came to his dorm without warning, not really understanding what was happening. And Kaiser just tried to figure out what he would do next.
Kaiser was afraid to have the surgery, afraid to never feel anything happy again in his life. He was as afraid of that as he was of dying. It wasn’t part of his plan. He wanted to live until he was eighty, fill his life with good memories, start a family, and live happily ever after. He was scared and just didn’t know what to do or whether to tell Shido about his feelings at all. Kaiser avoided him unintentionally. He just needed time, but Shido didn’t understand that.
So, on a Friday evening, Shido almost forcibly dragged his friend out onto the street.
“Something is happening to you,” Shido broke the ten-minute silence of sitting on the bench near the dorm.
“Where did you get that?” Kaiser asked quietly, examining his black sneakers.
“Lately, you’ve been acting strangely,” Shido turned his head to the guy, studying his profile in the orange glow of the lantern. “Kai, what happened?”
The blond sighed heavily, biting his lip and considering his response. He was very nervous, trying to keep his distance from Shido, although he wanted to be as close as possible.
“Something happened very recently, and I was thinking about how to tell you about it.”
“Shut up, you’re scaring me.”
“Sorry,” Kaiser smiled. “But I’m scared too,” Kaiser raised his head, looking straight into Shido’s eyes. “Because I love you,” he said on an exhale.
Shido tensed, scanning Kaiser in hopes he’d laugh it off and say he was joking poorly, but that didn’t happen. Kaiser just lowered his gaze and unconsciously held his breath. Kaiser felt like he could hear his own heartbeat, and his fingertips tingled with excitement.
He couldn’t believe he had actually said it. Kaiser wanted to jump up and run away as far as possible from Shido’s heavy gaze. He confessed, and there was no turning back.
“Are you kidding right now?” The blond almost whispers. “Kaiser, you can’t be serious?” His tone was almost in an accusation matter — but it quickly turned soft, steady. Cautious.
In response, Kaiser remains silent, only rolling up the sleeve of his red sweatshirt to his elbow and showing Shido a small pink bud that was imprinted right on top of his pulse — the mark of hanahaki.
Shido swallows loudly, trying to breathe deeper to calm the growing panic inside.
“How long?”
“It’s been three weeks already. This bud sprouted a couple of days ago.”
“Kaiser, I….”
“The fact that you love poisonous flowers complicates things a bit, you know?” Kaiser nervously chuckled, his voice tinged with a hint of self-deprecation. He lowered the sleeve of his sweatshirt, concealing his trembling hands between his knees, and turned away from Shido, unable to meet his gaze. “If you loved cacti, it would be much simpler.”
“I know, I tried to love another flower.” Shido’s admission was accompanied by a loud swallow, his distress palpable in the tense lines of his body. He lifted his face towards the sky, his hands covering his face in stress. “Fuck, why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
“And has anything changed because of this?” Kaiser countered with a question of his own. He braced himself for Shido’s response, hearing only the weighty sigh that followed. “You still won’t love me anyway, I know that.”
“I won’t love you.” Shido nods in response, agreeing with his friend’s words. “I won’t be able to love you the way you want. But, damn it, Kaiser, you mean a lot to me,” he paused for a few seconds. “These flowers are indeed very poisonous. Even if I had reciprocated, they’d have still killed you,” Shido raised his gaze to the heavens as if seeking solace in the vast expanse above. “I tried to stop loving these flowers. Really,” he paused, the weight of his confession hanging heavy in the air, “especially when they killed one of my old friends.”
Kaiser doesn’t respond; he just turns his head in surprise towards his friend, silently asking a question. Shido sadly tugs at the corner of his lips. “—It happened five years ago. My parents divorced when I was ten, and two years later, my mother remarried. She moved with her new husband, so I had to go to a new school and start over my whole social life,” Shido leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees and staring at the pavement. “She was a good person. We became friends very quickly, and then fell in love,” it was painful for Shido to recall that time, but he continued. “Her name was Maehata. She confessed to me first and loved peonies,” licking his lips, Shido lifts his head, looking into the distance. “Maehata lived for three months. She was only sixteen. Even after her death, I couldn’t bring myself to hate those flowers. Nerium. Beautiful name, isn’t it?” Shido smiles. “These flowers smell like a mix of vanilla and almond. In ancient times, they smeared nerium oleander sap on arrowheads. Helped kill prey. You’ll die, Kaiser, no matter what,” extending his hand, Shido hesitantly places it on Kaiser’s forearm, sliding down to his wrist and pulling his hand into his own. He takes it, turning his whole body towards Kaiser and looking at him with all seriousness.
“—Get the surgery, I’m begging you. I don’t want to lose another person dear to me, I don’t want to lose you, Kaiser. Please, anyone but you.”
“But I want to feel love,” Kaiser whispered, biting his cheek from the inside.
“And you will,” Shido squeezed his hand tighter. “You will, understand? Yes, it will take time to get rid of the emptiness, but you’ll be able to feel it, trust me.”
“How do you know?” Kaiser’s eyes welled up with tears, and the tremor in his voice was impossible to hide. His heart was breaking into pieces.
“After Maehata’s death, I was terrified that someone would fall in love with me again, so I stopped talking to girls. But I also decided to play it safe and learned about the surgery and its consequences. You’ll be able to feel, Kaiser. Do you believe me?” Kaiser nodded hesitantly. “Please, get rid of these flowers. I promise, I swear, I’ll be there and help you, just do it.”
“Okay,” Kaiser took a deep breath, nodding a couple of times. He wiped his face. “I’ll do it. Being queer is causing me enough trouble, you know?” Kaiser grinned, trying to lighten the mood, and Shido smiled back.
“Sounds like it.”
✿ ❀
The next day, the two of them went to the hospital together. Kaiser was extremely nervous but held up well. He trusts Shido. He believes that Shido will help him and that he won’t abandon him. Yes, it will be hard to live with the emptiness inside for a while, but Shido promised that it wouldn’t be forever. Kaiser signs some papers, holding a ballpoint pen in slightly trembling hands. In a week, he’ll be rid of all romantic and affectionate feelings — not just love for another human, but the basic, fundamental feelings of passion and empathy. A surgery to be turned into a perpetually sad, apathetic machine.
The doctor explained all the nuances of rehabilitation; everything was simple and clear, and they said that the consequences wouldn’t be as scary. Kaiser calmed down a bit, but he was still very afraid, anticipating the appointed day. Time seemed to slip through his fingers like sand, each day rushing by in a whirlwind, leaving Kaiser fully suprised when the week had passed in the blink of an eye. Shido escorted him to the operating room, trying to distract him by telling different stories.
He held his hand while Kaiser waited to be called and supported him. It was very important for Kaiser. Everything seemed like a blur to him.
Here, he is entering the doctor’s office in a hospital gown. Here, he is lying on the operating table.
Here, he is being put under anaesthesia.
Here he is, seeing darkness.
Kaiser opens his eyes only in the evening. Raspberry rays of the setting sun shine through the blinds into the room, but there’s nothing but emptiness inside him. He emerged from this darkness, but the darkness didn’t leave him. He could say that he was scared of this silence inside himself and around him, but he wasn’t even capable of that. He desperately wanted to drink. Lifting himself slightly on his elbows, Kaiser groaned softly and sank back onto the pillow, feeling weakness throughout his body. There were absolutely no thoughts in his head; he felt like a puppet.
Watching Kaiser wake up through the glass in the door, Shido bites his lip. He waited seven agonising hours pacing and waiting in the corridor and wasn’t going to leave until Kaiser woke up. Shido promised to be there for him, even though Kaiser likely won’t care about the gesture now.
Lowering his gaze, Shido slightly lifts the sleeve of his grey hoodie, looking at the tiny blue cornflower bud that will disappear very soon. A bittersweet smile tugs at the corners of his lips, sadness shadowing his eyes as he lowers the sleeve, his attention caught by the presence of a passing nurse in the corridor.
“Excuse me,” he addressed her, “could you call the doctor? The patient has come out of anesthesia.”
The nurse nodded and hurried off, leaving Shido alone with his thoughts.
“Cornflowers, then,” Shido murmured softly to himself, his voice barely audible over the hum of activity in the hospital corridor. He covered the dying bud with his palm, a futile attempt to preserve its fading beauty. “They suit you, Kaiser.”
Shido bites his lip because he lied to him. He lied twice that evening.