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Haruka hasn’t slept in their bed for just about two weeks. Sousuke can’t really be mad about it, because it’s probably the only thing that keeps them from fighting all the time. As it is right now, they only ever fight before bed, and maybe he should see that as an achievement, considering how things could’ve been otherwise.
He often asks himself how this happened. How he could’ve let this happen. Because he knows it takes two to fuck up a relationship on this scale, and he’s definitely been part of its downfall. Sousuke, however, is as far from ready to let it go as one can get, and that’s what led him to suggest couples counselling to Haruka in the first place. Haruka had, of course, been hesitant about the entire thing from the beginning, questioning whether or not it had been the right thing for them, if it would really work—counting all of Haruka’s excuses on Sousuke’s ten fingers just wouldn’t be enough.
Their very first meeting with the counsellor had been an introductory one, where she told them what to expect from these sessions, hopefully also straightening out Haruka’s questions about whether it was the right thing for them or not. Sousuke thinks it should be, and it kind of has to be, seeing as he has no idea how else he would save his relationship.
“Don’t forget to be there tomorrow at five,” Sousuke says as he’s standing by the steps up to their bedroom. Haruka crawls in under the duvet by the kotatsu, and sighs audibly. Out of disappointment? Frustration? Sousuke has no idea.
“I know,” he says. “I’ll be there.”
“Right,” Sousuke replies curtly before he trudges up the stairs. He knows so well that there’s a very low possibility of Haruka actually showing up, but he chooses to give Haruka the benefit of the doubt this time. They’re both trying to change, as had been stated during that first introductory counselling session, and maybe, just maybe, Haruka will actually show up and not get cold feet.
Once he closes the door behind him, he lets out a long sigh of his own, and promptly ignores the weird ache in his stomach as he tries to squeeze a few hours of sleep in before he has to get up and go to work for ten hours.
Working when he feels like someone’s sitting on his shoulders all day makes it feel like time’s moving at a snail’s pace. He takes more ‘coffee breaks’ than normal these days, and has fully gone back to his old habit of stress smoking. No one really says anything to him at work, but he knows that they know. And he knows they probably think he’s a failure as much as he sees himself as one.
It, of course, doesn’t surprise him when he ends up being stood up by his supposed-to-be boyfriend outside their counsellor’s office, and when she comes out to greet Sousuke, she doesn’t actually seem all that surprised, either. He ends up going in by himself, mostly because they’ve already paid for this session, and because he could probably use up the hour to just vent. It’ll be good for him.
When Sousuke comes back home, Haruka has yet to come in through the door. Either that, or he’s been home quickly to grab something and then get out again. The latter seems more likely, because Haruka usually goes straight home from work, and his shift ended three hours ago. Sousuke almost wants to call Makoto to check if Haruka’s there, but ultimately decides against it. If there’s something he doesn’t need, it’s Haruka having something else to add to his list of ‘things I really can’t stand about Sousuke’.
Sousuke isn’t possessive when it comes to Haruka; he knows Haruka needs his space, and he isn’t opposed to giving Haruka space. Him calling Makoto to hunt Haruka down is definitely not giving Haruka space, but at the same time, Haruka broke a promise again, and chose to back out in the last second again when they had something planned. What hurts the most is that Haruka this time backed out of something that could potentially lead to them mending their relationship and maybe going back to the way things are supposed to be.
He goes into the kitchen to put out fresh food for the stray cats on the back porch, and then sit down to watch them, scratch one of them behind its ear. Sousuke generally doesn’t bother doing this since Haruka’s the one usually feeding and tending to the stray cats that come by on a daily basis, but for some reason, Sousuke has this strange urge to just take a break from human interaction until he has to get right back to it whenever Haruka decides to come back home.
Now he sort of understands why Haruka so often spends time out here.
As he sits down to just watch the cats, he feels his leg bouncing up and down restlessly, and when he begins fidgeting with things around him, he lets out a frustrated sigh and heads back inside towards the hallway where his jacket hangs. It’s a wonder Haruka has yet to rummage through his pockets, but maybe that’s because he doesn’t get the urges to breach Sousuke’s privacy the way Sousuke sometimes does in regards to Haruka. He wonders if he should consider that a good or a bad thing.
Sousuke returns out back and walks out into the yard, where he lights a cigarette and inhales slowly, for several seconds. Those swimmer lungs proved themselves good for one thing, at least, and it certainly wasn’t for swimming. He hasn’t swum competitively in years, and will probably never be able to since his shoulder issues will continue to haunt him for the rest of his life. He tries not to think about it too much since it’s still a sore subject despite years having gone since he decided on giving up swimming, because it still does upset him that he wasn’t able to fulfil that one dream of his.
His cigarette slowly turns into a stump, and Sousuke stomps it out before he throws it into the bushes where Haruka will never find it. Not that he really cares, but it’s just one of those things he assumes people do when they’re doing something they probably shouldn’t. He’d stopped smoking years ago, to Haruka’s relief, and if Haruka were to find out, he would definitely not be happy about it. It might just be the last straw, in that case.
When the front door opens, he tenses up a little in slight surprise and maybe a little nervousness, but then goes back inside. He hates how his heartbeat’s suddenly gone up, how loudly he can hear it hammering in his ears, and as much as he tries to will it down, it doesn’t relent.
Haruka’s still taking his shoes off as Sousuke walks out to meet him in the hallway, and Sousuke reflexively balls his hand into a fist by his side.
“So I thought we were going to that counselling session today,” he says as coolly as he can, despite the raging storm of emotions inside of him. “Where were you?”
Haruka looks up at him, and he frowns. “Have you been smoking again?”
“Answer my question. Where’d you go? Did you chicken out, as always? You can’t have forgotten, because I both told you before we went to bed, and I left a note—“
“You’re right,” Haruka interrupts. “I chickened out. I was terrified of going since I knew it meant acknowledging we have a problem.”
“You don’t want to acknowledge that when we so clearly do? What the hell do you want out of this, Haruka? You’re so goddamn wishy-washy, and I can’t figure out whether you want to stay with me or get the fuck out of this relationship or whatever it is.”
“I want to be with you,” Haruka nearly whispers, and this is where he breaks eye contact. Sousuke feels himself tremble with both anger and fear, and no matter how much he tries to calm down, he can’t. It’s been years, and he scoffs at all of those moments where he thought he might’ve had Haruka figured out, because this is a moment where he realises he’d been dead wrong all along.
“Then prove it!” he barks. “I’m trying so fucking hard to keep this together, to save us, but you’re not helping! It’s really difficult to believe you want this when your actions say otherwise. It feels like you don’t love me anymore, and like you’re just not all that willing to repair this relationship with me.”
Haruka recoils at his harsh tone, and Sousuke immediately regrets having used it. “I want to,” Haruka begins, “but I’m scared that going will make it worse. Maybe my opinion of you will change in talking to someone who doesn’t even know us, someone who has a degree in digging around in people’s heads. Things might change for the worse, and I’m scared. I don’t want to lose you.”
He sighs, runs a hand down his face with his eyebrows lowered into a frown. “You’re just making things worse by not cooperating, Haruka. You’re not going to lose me if you help me in trying to fix it. We’re in it together, for fuck’s sake! I can’t believe I have to tell you this, because it should be goddamn obvious by this point. How long have we been together? Several years? And yet you’re unsure of whether or not I’d let you go over a bunch of stupid arguments.”
“You apparently don’t really know me all that well either, if you think I’m running away because I don’t love you, and because I don’t want to make this work.”
Sousuke’s breath hitches in his throat, and he finds himself out of words. He’s been seeing this from the wrong perspective again, and he once again made it all about himself, something he vowed to himself not to ever do again since this is about the both of them, after all.
Haruka marches right past him and up the stairs, probably to their bedroom. Sousuke heads in the other direction; out on the porch again where there are still a few cats eating from the plate he’d placed there not too long ago. He sits down by them and just watches the cats for a few minutes, lets his anger slowly dissipate into thin air as he takes deep breaths. His fingers touch the cigarette pack in his pocket, but he eventually lets his hand drop.
Relationships are like an obstacle course, he’s realised. When you encounter an obstacle, you try to climb over or underneath it, and if that doesn’t work, you look for another solution to get past it. Sousuke’s desired approach would be to just completely obliterate the obstacle instead, but that’s probably against the rules. And if there’s something he’s learnt over the years, it’s that breaking the rules in situations like these will be a consequence that comes back to bite him in the ass, and it’ll hurt. Really bad.
When he’s calmed himself down, he goes back inside and up the stairs. No more fighting, no more raised voices. It takes two, and he’s obviously one of those two to try and fix things. Blaming Haruka for it all won’t get him anywhere, it just makes him look like an immature child more than anything.
He opens the door slowly as to not startle the other, and when he peeks inside, his heart stops, and he almost wants to turn around, go back downstairs and not sleep in their bed that night. Now that they have slept in the same bed again for the past two days or so, that would obviously take them a step back again. Sousuke watches Haruka wipe away stubborn tears that keep falling, and he looks angry. Angry at himself because he’s crying over something like this, and Sousuke can’t blame him—he’d probably feel the same way were he to cry right now.
“Haruka,” he says softly and opens the door wider to walk inside. Haruka flinches at the sound of Sousuke’s voice, and he turns his face to the side. Again, Sousuke understands that Haruka doesn’t want him to see the tears Haruka sheds because of him, and Sousuke makes an effort not to look as he goes to lie down on his stomach next to where Haruka sits on his side of the bed.
The two stay like that for a couple of minutes, neither of them saying anything. It feels like something could break if one of them were to puncture the silence, so Sousuke keeps his mouth shut. He eventually gets brave enough to drape his arm across Haruka’s legs. Haruka doesn’t move away, doesn’t recoil, and Sousuke feels like it’s safe to stay like this.
“I’m sorry,” he finally says. “I don’t doubt you. I may not know everything about you, but I want to get to know you better, still. I fucked up, I know that, and I want to make it up to you.”
Haruka stays silent for a while—Sousuke almost wonders if he’s going to say anything at all—and then he sighs. “I screwed up, too. Like you said, it takes two, and not only to fix things, but for a relationship to sort of break, too. I’m responsible for this, too, and I should have gone to that counselling session, I know, but I was scared. I don’t know what it’ll take to get you to believe me when I say I’ll go next time. We’ll… we’ll go together. So you know that I want this as much as you do. And I’m—I’m sorry, too.”
Whoever’s been sitting on Sousuke’s shoulders up until now finally decided to get off, and he exhales a long sigh of relief. He watches Haruka takes his hand, and there’s a very tiny smile tugging at the corners of his lips.
“We’ll get through this, right?” he asks. Haruka runs his thumb slowly up and down the backside of Sousuke’s hand, as if contemplating his answer, but when he does reply, there isn’t an ounce of uncertainty in his voice.
“Yeah.”
Maybe it’s just empty words to try and get themselves motivated to keep trying, like a placebo effect, but even if that’s all it is, Sousuke takes it and welcomes it into his open arms. If there’s anything that can give him even the smallest spark of hope and motivation to keep going, he’ll take it and do the best with it as he can. And now he can say with certainty that he knows Haruka will do the same.