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“You’re a fucking dog! I birthed a useless dog- A waste of my time! Do you even know what you do to me?! DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DO TO ME- STOP SCRATCHING YOUR HAND!”
I’ve always been a dog. I’ve always had those teeth, too sharp to look at, too dull to bite. I’ve always had those eyes, dark like the night, or like the aftermath of a wildfire. I’ve always had these hands, too big to label as harmless, too reactive to deem innocent.
I’ve always had this face, handsome but not enough to love. And I’ve always been this: An egotistical asshole, sitting lonely at the edge of the school yard, staring at the window reflecting my miserable appearance.
Heavy eyebags, lifeless lips and pasty skin looked back at me. My glance could have melted the glass if physics didn’t get into the way. I averted my eyes back to the phone, at the unanswered message and the tiny face in the left corner judging me.
It’s been days.
Weeks.
Months.
I kept counting, whilst begging to forget.
His black eye should have healed by that time.
Family should forgive each other, right?
Suddenly, there is a man in front of me. Man is generous, perhaps young man? As tall as me, built like me. Shitty bleach dye, no purple shampoo on his shelf for sure.
I tilted my head and he held out a Physics book on cue. “Ya left it in class.” His voice is just as smug as his expression, even though there is no reason to be smug. Or is there? Am I missing something? Is he joking?
My hand reached out for the book, snatching it out of his without the intention to, but what’s done is done. No “thanks”, I blame it on the exhaustion from two hours of biology and French.
The piss-coloured hair boy took his place on the bench next to me, stretching his legs out and stuffing his hands in his pockets. They were almost as big as mine, not that it mattered. He looked up at me; his eyes were gold. A sunset in a desert, pure gold before they mix it with copper and silver, sunflowers. Much more pleasant than mine.
“Ya a freak or somethin’?,” he asked as if he was asking me about the homework. I blinked at him twice—thrice—before shrugging.
“Where’d you hear that?”, I asked absentmindedly, following the space of the cobblestones on the ground.
“Ya a pervert?”
I furrowed my brows at him.
“So nah?”, he seemed genuinely interested, so I decided to humor him and shook my head.
“Ye wanna go on a date?”
”What kind of joke is that?”, I asked before I could even consider that offer.
“I ain’t laughin’. Yer not either. So it ain’t a joke.”
I bit my lip and pursed them, feeling the chapped edges and dead skin rub against each other before I forced out a “No.”
The boy stayed silent for a moment, looking down at his shoes before he asked me in a serious tone, together with a less smug expression—if his naturally bitchy face would even allow more than a little less arrogant-asshole energy. “Ya wanna sit next to me in class then? Ya don’t hafta sit alone, ya know?”
.
It wasn’t that bad.
He smelled nice.
.
Miya: Want me to bring you anything?
Sakusa: No.
Miya: You ate yet?
Sakusa: I didn’t have time.
Miya: I’ll get you sth
.
Miya—Atsumu Miya with the piss-coloured hair and horrible personality—brought me lunch. Sitting next to him in class had evolved to sitting next to him in break, sometimes eating in silence or talking, where he did most of the talking and I replied in short sentences.
I didn’t like him.
Miya Atsumu had a personality too big, an endless stream of words and complaints into one ear and out the other. His voice was loud and overbearing, like listening to the radio, watching the TV and having music on in the background, meanwhile your phone is pressed between your shoulderblade and ear and it’s all at the same time—a constant fiddling of a violin. His eyes were too big as well, too consuming, as if looking inside would punish you by keeping you there forever, helplessly encircled by bright fire like the witches in a trial.
But he was my only friend.
.
I like that you listen, he told me once.
So did everyone else? Didn’t they?
“I like that about you. And other things,” he’d say with a smile.
“What if I don’t listen? What if I just pretend?” And it was the most words I had said in a long time.
Atsumu shook with laughter; crow’s feet blooming at the ends of his eyes as the sound rang through the air. He said with a lingering grin, “You’re so mean, you know that?” But he didn’t mean it, I think. Or did he? Was I too mean? It’s then I realise, I didn’t want to be mean to him or hurt his feelings. “I know you listen. You stop fiddling and moving when I talk.”
Automatically, I looked down at my hands.
He was right; unmoving in my lap.
.
He was my only friend.
He was the only one whose hands felt too big holding my arm in the crowded hallways. He was the only one whose palm was too cold to cool the back of my hand when I kept scratching it. He was the only one whose body felt too hot when I cried into his hoodie in the school bathroom. He was the only one whose eyes were too easy to find when I searched for escape. He was the only one whose touch burned too much on my wrist, my back, my hand and my face. He was the only one whose lips were too plump and soft when I had to look away.
He was the only one whose words were too intimate when I wanted them to float on the surface.
He was the only one.
.
The break was over. It’d been over for one hour; the courtyard empty and all the graduates gone.
Just us and that flimsy piece of paper. His family was probably waiting in the car, but I didn’t know, he didn’t tell me yet. He hasn’t spoken a word, we just sat down and looked at the cobblestone ground, waiting for something but I missed the memo.
“Kiyoomi.” His voice wasn’t like the first time I heard it. That smugness wasn’t the same, it’d never been smugness to begin with. It was soft and genuine, together with a roughness that was unmistakably his. It sounded like a joke at first, maybe because I always think that. Maybe because it’s always a joke. He turned his head to me, eyes drunk on happiness and fear.
”I love you,” he whispered as if he could finally breathe again, feel the air pour into his lungs to plush them up and sense the frost of the air linger in his throat with enough pain to remind him he’s alive.
I knew he loved me.
He told me before.
But this time I couldn’t act like he loved me because I gave him my physics homework or showed him how to use a washing machine.
I swallowed the pride, the loneliness, the hatred of my weakness, of myself and it left behind the taste of want and need. Of desire and love—and it nestled into my teeth like dark chocolate, overstimulating my tastebuds like honey. Love, sticky, messy, stuffing, sweet.
“Then mean it,” I whispered back and he didn’t waste a second to gasp my face, closing the distance I had put between us. The distance that gambled with pain and pleasure, future and past, tender and rough, sweet and bitter.
I inhaled his air and he exhaled mine. Our lips moved in unison; the last waltz of the evening with the promise of a shared hotel room. I forgot when it started or ended, but his lips were smooth enough and his hands on my waist strong enough.
I buried my fingers into his hair instead of my own skin.