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Tadashi had always been the one to pick up his pieces.
Truthfully, Kei never left his broken pieces strewn about. He kept them close to him, in a little box inside of his chest, locked up and never to be seen by others.
Very few people knew of his broken pieces and Tadashi was one of them.
“What time is it?” Tadashi mumbles into his phone. Kei feels sick for a moment, like a stone had dropped from his chest to the bottom of his stomach. He knows this feeling well. Guilt.
“I don’t… I don't know.” He sounds pathetic even to his own ears. How many times within the last six months has he called Tadashi like this? Ten? At least. The guilt turns into shame and both feelings twist and turn inside of him, making him feel almost nauseous.
Tadashi sighs on the other line and then there is a shuffling of blankets. He is probably getting out of bed, putting on his shoes and grabbing his keys. A process he has had to do an embarrassing amount of times. “Where are you at?”
Kei repeats his location, some street corner off of Arch and Lincoln. He had just left some strangers house, he feels achy and sick and ashamed. It’s no secret to Tadashi what Kei gets up to when he disappears. He drinks. He meets some guy from some app. They fuck. Then Tsukishima feels drunk, and guilty, and sick, and ashamed.
“Alright, I’m coming right now. Are you safe?”
They do this every time. Tadashi will ask if he is safe, Kei will say yes even though he isn’t really safe, not with his brain attacking his own heart.
He doesn’t respond this time and the change in routine makes Tadashi pause, then ask with more bite, “are you safe?”
He feels tears prick at his eyes and he wonders when the last time he even really cried was. Thirty minutes ago, he wasn’t safe. Ten minutes ago he was slipping on his pants after being… he doesn’t want to say raped, but what else could it have been? He said no. He fucking said no.
“Yeah,” he feels like he is choking on his own tears or vomit, or maybe his own breath. He keeps looking around to make sure the guy didn’t follow him, but he was asleep when Tsukishima left so the likelihood of him following is very slim. “Yeah, I’m fine but… how far are you?”
“About ten minutes away,” Tadashi answers. “Is there anywhere public you can hang out until I get there? A park or a restaurant…”
There is nothing but shady apartment buildings around him. He walks a little down the street, looking for a cafe or even a grocery store. Walking makes him wince, a twinge in his ass which makes him limp. “There is a 24 hour convenience store.”
“Okay, go there. Do you want me to stay on the phone?”
“Yeah, please.” He feels like a child, but Tadashi’s virtual presence is the only thing grounding him at the moment. The last couple hours blur in his mind, the memories of the night feel like they will turn to mist and disappear if he doesn’t say anything.
He has to say something, or else it won’t be real, “Tadashi?”
He hums on the other end of the line.
Tsukishima wipes a tear from his eye and takes in a deep breath of air before whispering, “I think he… I was raped. Tonight. He raped me.”
Saying it out loud makes the nausea that was building up inside of him the last couple hours peak, and he pulls the phone away from his ear and leans into the convenience store trash can to vomit. He doesn’t hear Tadashi’s reaction. He doesn’t hear anything but the sound of his own heaving and gasping.
He is in a daze after. Tadashi talks to him though the phone, if he were listening he could hear him sounding gradually more frantic. He feels himself turning to mist, like his memories, like his being, slowly fading out of existence.
When he comes to it, he is on Tadashi’s couch. He is wrapped up in a blanket, and there is water in front of him on the coffee table. In front of him, Tadashi is pacing and talking to someone else in the house. Probably Yachi, who shares the apartment with Tadashi. They are in love, but for some reason the aren’t dating, always dancing around each other like marionettes.
“I should take him to the hospital, right? Or the police?” Tadashi sounds… unhinged. It takes him a second to remember why Tadashi would be so concerned and then it hits him like a train.
He was raped. He told Tadashi.
Tadashi used to tell him that all of these hookups would blow up in his face. He had said that he would regret fucking around with so many people, he encouraged Kei to commit to something serious, or, at the very least, focus on bettering himself self as a person.
He was right. It blew up in his face and now he fucking regrets it all. Those little moments of euphoria he gets from being used weren’t worth it, and he would trade them all to not feel this way.
Yachi, though she sounds concerned, keeps a calm tone and says, “you should wait for him to come around, he will know what’s best for him.”
“He won’t,” Tadashi throws his hands up. He almost sounds… tearful, “he never knows what’s best for him.”
He pretends to be asleep for a couple more minutes, just until Tadashi has quieted down. He can’t say anything yet, and he refuses to go to the hospital or the police. Tadashi sits on the couch by Kei’s feet and then places a warm palm on his calf, he twitches under the blanket.
The touch only makes him think of the man, he doesn’t even remember his name… maybe it started with a y? He was nice enough at first, no different than the usual guys he hooks up with, he was a little more pushy maybe. He had a bruising grip on his arms and his thighs, pushed him onto the bed a little harder, but Kei was drunk and into it. Into it until he wasn’t. Until there was no prep and no condom and a hand on his neck.
Fuck, he’s going to have to get tested. If that asshole gave him some sort of disease...
“I know you’re awake.”
“I was never asleep,” Kei responds. He twists his body until he is leaning on the arm of the couch and pulls his knees up to his chest. He can’t make eye contact with Tadashi, and definitely can’t make eye contact with Yachi who is fumbling in the kitchen.
There is a heavy silence. He picks at the skin around his finger nails, a nervous habit he has never been able to quit. It takes a while for Tadashi to get the galls to speak, “so… are you… okay?”
Kei would roll his eyes if he weren’t in such a pathetic state. Instead, he bangs his own head against his knees and says what Tadashi already knows, “no.”
“Right,” he responds. Then repeats, “right.”
In the big silence that follows, Yachi, blessed Yachi, brings in two cups of steaming tea, one for Tadashi and one for Kei. She gives Kei a long look, that is probably supposed to be empathetic and caring, but actually makes Kei feel like he is being scorned. Then she says, “I will give you guys some privacy, let me know if there is anything I can do.”
Tadashi almost looks pained. Growing up, Tadashi got quite anxious. He was insecure about a lot, his height, his looks, his athleticism, and Tsukishima was always the one pushing him past that. He has grown a lot over the last couple of years. How he is confident and sure of himself; he graduated top of their college class and has a well paying job. Now, Tadashi is the one pushing Tsukishima to be better, and it seems like a losing battle.
“Can we go to the hospital?” Tadashi asks.
“No.”
“The police?”
“Like they would believe me. I’m a man. I was drunk.” Kei spits, then grimaces. It’s not Tadashi he is angry at. In fact, he isn’t sure who he is angry at... That man? Himself?
Tadashi shuffles in his seat, anxious. “What can I do to help you?”
Kei hums and sits on that. He isn’t sure that anything can be done to help him. His brain is like sludge in his mind, he feels unfocused and severely depressed. His body hurts too, his whole backside is aching and he can feel bruises along his arms, his hips, his thighs, his neck.
Tsukishima takes a deep breath. He hates to ask for help, but this is Tadashi they have been helping each other since they were ten years old.
“I think I could use some pain meds and a shower,” he says finally. “And can I stay here the next couple of days? I don’t want to be… alone.”
Tadashi sighs in relief, probably glad to be asked for things that he can actually do. Glad to be helpful. He nods eagerly, getting off the sofa to go turn on the shower before freezing and starting hesitantly, “should we…”
Kei raises his eyebrow.
“Should we take photos? Before your shower I mean.”
He immediately goes on the defensive, his body tenses and he chokes out, “why the fuck would we do that?”
“You say you don’t want to go to the police now, but what about tomorrow? Next week? Next month?” Tadashi asks, “I think it’s important to at least have evidence. Proof of your trauma just in case you change your mind.”
Tsukishima flares his nose and bites, “I won’t change my mind.”
“Can we do it anyways? Just to appease me at least… we can take it on your phone and transfer it on to a flash drive or something and delete it. That way it won’t even be on your phone. No one will see it unless you decide for them too.”
“You’ve thought a lot about this.”
Tadashi shrugs, “I want what’s best for you. Honestly, if it were my decision we would be at the station right now taking this guy down. But you went through some serious trauma and all I want is for you to be comfortable.”
“I’ll take the photos, I’ll transfer them to you in a zipped file. Don’t fucking look at them.” Kei says, grabbing his phone on the table and walking to the bathroom, “and can I have some sweats? ask Yachi if I can borrow her oversized hoodie too, the one with the American college on it.”
In the bathroom mirror, he doesn't recognize himself. His eyes are red-rimmed and wet. His hair is stringy and greased from a mix of sweat and the styling gel he had used when the night has started. His skin is pale, but blotchy around his cheeks and down his neck.
He pulls off his shirt with a wince and turns around to look at his back in the mirror. He recalls, at some point after the man had his hand wrapped around his neck, some slapping. At the time, he had thought the hits were directed at his ass, but it is clear now that he had hit him across his whole back as he had held him down to the bed. The red marks will no doubt be purple by the morning.
With reluctance, Kei brings his phone up snapping a photo of his back in the mirror. He can't imagine that he will actually end up going to the police, but he knows that Tadashi is right. Its important to at least have the proof, for their peace of mind if nothing else.
He turns back around, his front towards the mirror. Other than is splotchy skin tone and the redness around his neck, his front doesn't look all that bad. His neck aches though, and now he can admit that the choking was the worse part. He remembers gasping for breath, clawing at the mans hand, the ache in his eyes from the pressure in his head...
He takes an up-close photo of his neck. He also snaps a couple of photos of bruising around his arm and wrist where he was held down at different intervals throughout the night.
He hesitates taking off his own pants. He knows that his thighs and hips are a wreck. His ass... he already knows he won't be able to photograph that. The hole itself is torn, he feels it. It's confirmed when he pulls down his pants and underwear and sees splotches of red in them. He gags, nausea acting up once again. He takes the next couple of photos quickly, not being able to bring himself to linger on them long. As soon as he is done, he puts the photos into a zipped file on his cloud storage and sends it straight to Tadashi, trusting that he wont look.
The shower immediately feels better. He roughly scrubs the mans hands from his skin. Sweat, cum, spit, tears, are all swallowed by the drain and Kei happily soaks in the scalding stream of water. At some point, Tadashi knocks gently on the door stepping inside of the bathroom to check in on him and place a change of clothes, including Yachi's hoodie, on the toilet seat for Kei to change into.
"The couch is ready for you," Tadashi adds just before stepping out of the bathroom, "but you know there is space for you in my bed, too."
It wouldn't be the first time they had slept in the same bed after a rough night. When Tadashi's grandma died, Tsukishima had snuck into the Yamaguchi household to be with Tadashi as he cried through the night. Tadashi had done the same when his own grandparent died. They had also slept over together when they had failed exams, lost jobs, ended relationships... but being in each others presence is a great comfort.
But that man seems to have taken even that away from him. Being in a bed with another person, even if that person is his long time best friend, makes his skin crawl.
He opts to take the couch that night.