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It was a slow night. All Sakyo had to do was stand watch while the chairman attended a drinking party poorly disguised as a business meeting.
He stood at the door, smoking his third cigarette of the night, staring at the empty streets.
Nobody walked around this neighbourhood at night. If they did, they were probably yakuza. Which is why the tall young man aimlessly strolling down the sidewalk seemed so out of place.
The way he moved was strange. It had no purpose, but he didn’t seem lost either. He wasn’t looking around, or checking his phone, or even watching where he was going.
“You need help?” Sakyo called out. The man wasn’t stumbling around, he probably wasn’t drunk, but...something was definitely wrong.
The young man looked up and shook his head, but his expression was vacant. He had a smile plastered to his face, but it was so obviously fake it made Sakyo’s stomach turn.
Sakyo looked over the man again. He was well-dressed, with clean clothes, his hair combed neatly, but he was wearing motorcycle boots, that looked like they hadn’t been taken care of for years.
“You going somewhere?” Sakyo jogged down the steps to the sidewalk. Technically speaking he was abandoning his post, but everybody inside was likely close to passing out and this man was clearly the only other person outside in a three-block radius.
“Nah,” the man shook his head again, then looked up at the building where the chairman was, fixating on the lighted windows. “Are you supposed to be in there?”
“Huh?” Sakyo blinked, too shocked by the question to come up with a lie. “No. I wait outside.”
“Ah,” the man nodded, “Still probably nice...”
“Actually it’s pretty shit,” Sakyo rolled his eyes. “I can’t even drink.”
“You probably can,” a smile flickered onto the man’s face, this time a genuine one.
“Heh, probably,” Sakyo smiled back, feeling warmer. The man was right. Sakyo was far stricter with himself than the chairman ever was. If he had asked someone to bring out a bottle of sake for himself nobody would’ve complained.
The young man continued to stare up at the windows in silence, while Sakyo could only stare at him.
He looked sad, but it was the kind of sadness that someone couldn’t be comforted about. It was deep, and old. Whatever it was, he had buried it, but not accepted it. He was being haunted, and he didn’t have the strength to do anything about it.
The night was silent except for the occasional laughter that echoed through the windows, and Sakyo’s breath when he took another drag of his cigarette.
“So you’re...just walking?” Sakyo asked finally.
“I guess,” the man answered, his voice lighter than before, as he continued to watch the windows.
If Sakyo were a shrewder man, he would’ve taken this as a recruiting opportunity, but something told him that this man needed something other than what the yakuza could offer.
“I used to bike down these streets,” the man continued, “I don’t anymore.”
Sakyo nodded. That explained the boots. And it was easy enough to guess the rest. Bike gangs came and went a lot, he knew that one had met a particularly unfortunate end a couple years ago, and there were plenty of smaller scale, similar tragedies happening every year.
“Maybe you will again one day,” Sakyo said, “Though you should maybe pick some better streets.”
“No,” the man’s wistful voice turned firm, almost angry, and he moved his gaze to Sakyo. His eyes looked more alive than they had all night. “I won’t.”
You should.
You will.
Don’t give up.
Sakyo scolded himself for wanting to give advice to a stranger. He was in no place to do so. He was here because he had already given up everything.
“You got a job?” Sakyo asked. Maybe he was that shrewd.
“This a recruitment pitch?” The man was still scowling, but his voice had gotten lighter again.
“If you want it to be,” Sakyo shrugged, throwing away his finished cigarette, “It could also just be question.”
“I’m a student,” the man replied, but there was no pride in his voice, no happiness. “Maybe when I finish my degree I’ll give you a call.”
“Hopefully by then you’ll have given up walking around shady neighbourhoods at night,” Sakyo smirked, “But here.” He passed the man his card, fully expecting it to get tossed in the trash within a day. “It’s shit, but it’s better than nothing. And,” he paused, looking back up at the building, “It’s not lonely.”
“What if I like being alone?” The man took Sakyo’s card, then put it carefully in his wallet.
“You don’t,” Sakyo said plainly, looking up into the man’s eyes. “Or you wouldn’t still be here.”
The man’s eyes went soft as he stared down at Sakyo, as if he was trying not to cry. He kept staring, holding Sakyo’s gaze in his own, and for a short, fleeting moment, Sakyo wondered if he was about to be kissed.
“Where are you supposed to be?” the man asked. His voice was faint, strained.
“I don’t know,” Sakyo said. “Probably nowhere.”
“That’s not true,” the man sounded almost desperate, he was pleading for Sakyo to give him a different answer. So, against his better judgement, Sakyo gave him one.
“I wanted to be an actor once,” he replied, biting his lip as he choked back tears. “I can’t now.”
Something inside the other man snapped. Sakyo couldn’t understand why, but the man was livid now. If Sakyo wasn’t so mesmerised by this man he would have felt like he was in danger.
“Who says you can’t?” The man grabbed Sakyo by the collar, but all Sakyo saw was the tears welling up in the man’s eyes. “Try again.”
“I can’t, I-”
“You can’t just give up!” The man was screaming now, his voice echoing through the deserted streets.
“You have,” Sakyo said firmly, putting a hand on the one gripping his shirt.
“Yeah,” the man lowered Sakyo to the ground. “I have,”
Sakyo looked over his shoulder at the building he was meant to be guarding. Someone was poking their head out of the window, presumably to see what the shouting as about. Sakyo waved them off, then watched as they closed the window, returning to their festivities.
For reasons that Sakyo would never be able to explain, he closed his eyes, and leaned against the man, resting his head on the man’s chest.
It was warm, and he could hear his heart beat.
He felt so much more alive than he looked.
“It’s okay to give up a little,” Sakyo mumbled. “Just never give up completely.”
The man pulled Sakyo’s card out of his wallet, then started tearing it up.
“I think this would be giving up completely,” he said, putting the remains into Sakyo’s pocket before patting him on the back. “But thank you.”
“Mhm,” Sakyo nodded, realising that he should stand back up, but not wanting to at all. “You should go back, to wherever it is you’re supposed to be.”
“Yeah,” the man put a hand on Sakyo’s shoulder, gently pushing him back until he was standing on his own. “I’ll keep an eye out for when you become a famous actor.”
“Don’t hold your breath,” Sakyo scoffed.
The silence between them grew uncomfortable as Sakyo thought about how he was supposed to say goodbye, instead of inviting this man in for a drink.
“If you’re as good at acting as you are at giving advice, I think you’ll make it pretty far,” the man said eventually, a slightly pained smile on his face. He reached out a hand, hesitating for a moment before putting it lightly on Sakyo’s head, then dropping it to his cheek. Sakyo felt his face heat up, but there wasn’t a single part of him that wanted the man to stop. “See you.”
Sakyo stood dumbfounded as he watched the man walk away.
What was he supposed to do now?
He dug the pieces of his business card out of his pocket, now the only memento he had of this man. Absentmindedly, he reconstructed it like a puzzle, focusing more on the lingering heat on his cheek than anything else.
There was a piece missing.
The part with his phone number wasn’t there. Not in his hand, not in his pocket.
Sakyo smiled.
He hoped the man never called him, for his own sake.