Work Text:
“I need the darkness,
the sweetness,
the sadness,
the weakness.
Oh, I need this.”
“I thought you were here.”
It was a nostalgic view. Your silhouette against the door frame of my office, your hands carrying a cup of hot coffee. The corridor’s light was behind you, in contrast to my office, drowned in the dark, illuminated only by the low light of my screen. For once, you weren’t wearing those glasses; and I was glad for that. They made you look like me – and people started to call you the Black Reaper, didn’t they?
It didn’t suit you.
You were the kind of person that would do everything to protect someone you loved, and I was someone that would choose orders over everything:
You were a half-ghoul, and you were more human than I could ever be.
“You have to take care of yourself, Arima-san,” you said, as you placed the cup on my desk, dissipating the silence of the room. You didn’t turn on the light. “Tomorrow we’ll have a tough day.”
“Thank you, Haise.”
My fingers wrapped around the cup, but I didn’t drink it yet, feeling the warmth flowing into my skin. This is something kind, bringing me coffee in the middle of the night. Something you would do.
In some ways, you hadn’t changed at all.
“Arima-san… there’s something I want to ask you.” I nodded, giving the confirmation you wanted. I could see you choosing the right words – and I wondered, how much did you not tell me?
I wondered if it was just as much as I hadn’t told you.
“This time… have you written on your will?”
For a second, I stopped. We did this many times: you had asked questions that I wouldn’t answer.
“What about you, Haise?”
You didn’t say anything.
The coffee was still warm in my hands.
When I took a sip at my drink… the steam dimmed my vision. Like breath on the glass, I thought – an instant of blindness, and then one would be able to see everything better, clearer.
Maybe you were afraid of this.
Because suddenly, you were in front of me, fingers taking my glasses softly away, covering my eyes with mist. Your contours became hazy and I guessed, more than I saw, the line of your smile.
Were you crying, at that moment?
You didn’t want me to see you.
But the truth, Haise, it was that, with or without my glasses, you were always a blurred image in my eyes:
a blind spot,
a weakness.
And the only way that I could see you was getting closer to you.
So I leaned in your space, in the reach of your breath. And you
inhaled.
“Yes, Arima-san…” came your late reply, your words close to my mouth – and I almost could taste them. “I handed my will,” you said, as you cupped my cheek in your hand, as if you were telling me your final wish.
And I understood.
But since the beginning, I was never able to give what you wanted – be it death,
or love.
“Is that what you want?” I asked, though I knew your answer.
You smiled.
Your hand guided mine into your direction, and you kissed me.
I was trying to see like a blind man would: by touch. Through your hands, skin, back, neck, cheek, lips, I tried to recognize you. You weren’t Haise anymore, but my fingers and my mouth knew where to go, and you still leaned in each kiss, still shivered under each touch, like body memory, reflection, instinct – I missed you. I met you,
again.
You pulled away, but our noses were still touching, our breaths, then, fast, warm.
Your lips, your skin, were red.
Like in the first time I ever saw you.
On that time, you had a poem on your mouth. Back then, I had melted you in my hands: rain pouring, blood rushing.
We were bound by the blood that I had shed on that day, and that defined everything that came after.
Because you had been the first to ever touch me.
And I’d bled,
I’d felt alive,
for the very first time.
Haise.
Ken.
They made me a god,
but you made me human.
That’s why, finally… I could write on my will.
Your name slipped easily through my fingers.
But you didn’t have to know that.
It was enough to hold you like this, even if this was your way of saying goodbye.
And maybe it was the coffee that left me blind, that left this bitter taste in my mouth.
“I’m sorry,” you said, but you didn’t let go of me and leaned in, closing your eyes. I shut my eyes, too, and in the dark, I felt your lips against mine.
We were dreaming, and we didn’t need to see anything else.