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“A-are you sure this is fine?”
“I … I really don’t mind.”
“I-I’m not asking if you mind,” Hasegawa urges. “I’m asking if it’s fine .”
“You.. you’ve helped me so much since we got out,” Wada murmurs. He looks into Hasegawa’s eye. His pupil is jittering, shaking, the same as usual, like he’s always on the brink of tears. Wada takes the teacup out of his hands. The leaves are piled together in a little heap at the bottom. “And you helped me there, too. You know … figuring myself out. To be honest, I.. I’ve been waiting to be able to pay you back.”
“B-but … I-I know I’m asking for something insane ,” Hasegawa rambles, frenetic. He looks away. He refuses to look straight at him, even sitting on his bed, in his new apartment. He absently fiddles with his eyepatch, long fingers casting shadows across his face.
“Hasegawa, if this is what you need for closure,” Wada says, stern and unusually steady, bending awkwardly to catch his eye, “then yeah. I … I’m all yours.”
Hasegawa’s heart beats in his mouth as Wada leans over him on the bed, removing his eyepatch and bringing the sash over his eyes. It’s a doubled-over strip of velour; velvet is softer. He ties it gently around his head.
“Gonna knot it. Let me know if it’s too tight.”
“A-alright.”
Wada feels so much like him - how light he is, how small his hands are. With the blindfold on it’s almost too easy. He swears he can smell bleach, swears he can smell the wooden benches in the chem lab. The ache of them, the yawn. The never-coming-back of them. He feels awful.
“I-I’m gonna leave for a second now, okay? Be back in a minute. Just need to … get myself together.”
“ ... r-right.”
There’s silence for a moment as Wada does what he needs to do. Hasegawa listens, anxious, to the patter of his socked feet on the wood floor, wandering out into the hall. The bathroom door clicks closed a moment later. Usually Wada messes with his hands just before he impersonates, squeezing them together or flapping them, like he’s shaking the last bits of himself out. The bathroom opens again a minute or so later. He hears footsteps. The bed dips. He’s so nervous he could drop dead.
“So,” the voice begins, small, and it’s Kazutoshi, immaculate, with all the softness of their moments in the woodshop, side-by-side, legs touching in the lowlight, “it’s, uh, been a while, huh, Ken?”
It takes everything in his power not to shake. His jaw clenches so hard his teeth clack together. Kazutoshi puts a hand on his thigh from where he’s sitting opposite him on the bed.
“What,” Kazutoshi asks. He’s smiling now, he can hear it, the wry little grin as his hand wanders up and down his leg, “do you really not remember me? I’m hurt.”
The inflection is perfect: the Kansai lilt. The jutting of the syllabes he’d committed to memory so long ago, the voice that would never leave him, it’s all there, right in front of him, cohesive and tangible, close enough to reach out and touch.
“I …” Ken’s voice trembles, “I can’t believe you’re here.”
“Hey,” Kazutoshi murmurs. Ken can hear his vocal cords buzz. A hand smooths across his cheek scar. It’s healed well. Mao’s been looking after it, exfoliating it, reminding him to wear sunscreen. It flashes with pain like it’s the first time. “I’m here now, ain’t I? I got you.”
“I-I missed you so much.” He might cry. It would be the most embarrassing feeling in the world. It would be the most relieving feeling in the world. His voice is thick with mucus. It’s agony. “So much, Kazutoshi.”
“I know.” Kazutoshi leans forwards and the bed dips, crawling into Ken’s lap, settling, straddling his thighs. He puts his hands on Ken’s shoulders, smooths his hands down his chest and up again. His skin burns beneath his longsleeve. His heart hurts. Kazutoshi, the apparition of him all clean and unhurt, warm, hoodie rumpled, fresh from the dryer. He smells his shampoo. Medicinal, but so, so clean. “I know, but I’m here now.”
“I had … s-so much I wanted to say.”
“Me too. And … and look, I’ve kept it in for so long,” Kazutoshi murmurs. “But … b-but better late than never, right?”
“Kazutoshi,” he croaks.
“I love you, Ken,” Kazutoshi whispers, like he can't wait any longer to say it. It’s a ghost, a phantom, poltergeisting right through him. Ken’s stomach wrenches, drops. He goes all blank. “You know that? I love you.”
He cries. He can’t help it. He feels his heart creak open on its hinges.
“I know. I-I’m sorry, God, I suck at this, huh? How could I make you cry like that?” Kazutoshi’s voice dips so soft that it breaks. He runs his hands through Ken’s hair, then pulls him into his chest. Ken folds forwards and buries his face in the front of his hoodie, wrapping his arms around him, tighter than he means to, but just as much as he wants to. “But hey, I’m saying it now, right? That’s gotta count for something.”
“I love you.” Ken sobs. It’s almost unintelligible. Kazutoshi is trembling in his arms. Ken hears his heart quicken beneath his hoodie. “I love you more than anything, Kazutoshi, I’ve never forgiven myself, never , I-I can’t, I-”
“Hey, breathe,” Kazutoshi whispers into his hair. “I’ve got you.”
Kazutoshi holds him. He’s so much warmer than Ken remembers. Mercifully warmer. It would hurt too much if he was as cold as he was then, cold as he was when their bodies pressed together for the first and last time in his dorm, in his bed, shivering with pain, clinging to Ken like he would die without him.
Ken cries for a long time, long enough that his cheeks sting with tears. The blindfold presses translucent, polychrome stars into his vision. Kazutoshi holds him the whole time in his arms, face tucked into Ken’s neck.
“I’ll always be here if you want me.” Kazutoshi’s voice is raw. “You just ask for me, and I’ll come.”
Ken looks up, as if he’s expecting to see him through the velour, all the cerulean, bioluminescent awe of him, but he doesn’t.
Kazutoshi kisses him. His lips are chapped and salty with tears. The feeling of their bodies touching is more than he ever could have imagined deserving. He doesn’t deserve it but he takes it like a dying man, clutching at Kazutoshi’s hoodie.
When they break, Ken’s hands are trembling. He wrings them together. His chest hurts. He hasn’t cried for so long, not about Kazutoshi, not properly. He feels like he’s been upturned and emptied out. Kazutoshi presses his lips to the top of his head.
“I’m going to give you a minute, alright? Take it off whenever you’re ready. Wada’ll be in the kitchen if you want tea,” Kazutoshi says.
The pressure leaves his lap.
“I love you,” Ken croaks as he goes. The wet velour stings his eye. He feels Kazutoshi’s weight leave the bed, listens to his feet pad across the floor again.
“I love you too,” Kazutoshi says, clicking the bedroom door shut, “take your time.”