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“You’re drunk.”
The words are spoken like a revelation, like it should be surprising for anyone at this point. Taka looks up at the groom with a look that tries to be sarcastic and cool, but his current state doesn’t help a lot. He clutches the handle as he closes the restroom door behind him, trying to stand up straight to his full height.
“No shit, it’s a wedding” he says, his voice almost irritated.
“You don’t get this drunk that easily” Toru looks at him skeptically. He’d come to the patio to have a smoke– he’d promised his now wife he wouldn’t smoke on their wedding day, but the exhaustion warranted it, in his opinion. Now he’s holding an unlit cigarette, since instead of asking Taka for a lighter he’s now confronting him before he falls flat on his face. “At least leave something for the other guests.”
“I think I can drink as much as I want, thank you” Taka brushes him off.
“When you said you had a surprise for me on my wedding day, I wasn’t expecting this to be it” Toru does his best to keep his tone even.
“No, this isn’t it. This is what I had to do to be ready to give you the surprise” Taka gives him a cryptic grin, before walking back to the wedding hall, surprisingly without tripping over, though in a somewhat zigzag line. Toru debates over staying to smoke as he’d intended, but is too curious not to follow. He’s barely reached the welcome table, passing by the envelope box and the book full of well wishes, when he sees his short vocalist taking a microphone and approaching his wife, where she’d been greeting her friends at their designated table.
“Everyone, please, may I have a moment of your time?” he speaks into the microphone, as Toru rushes instinctively to the spot, his wife smiling curiously at Taka. “There’s a special something I’ve prepared for the happy couple, if you’ll allow me.”
Most of the attendants seem pleasantly interested– after all, in their eyes, Taka has been Toru’s closest friend and partner in crime since the beginning of their journey as a band, and it’s only natural he gives a speech for the occasion of his leader’s wedding. He’s quite the easy talker, too, most of their friends already used to his antics and expecting a few embarrassing anecdotes sprinkled in, as well as some funny moments from the way alcohol loosens his tongue. However, two pairs of eyes belonging to the other two of their quartet land on them, and Toru can guess their concern mirrors his own, even if he doubts it’s as consuming as his.
Taka’s gaze, oddly focused, meets Toru’s eyes, and in that moment there’s an eternity, the unsalvageable distance that the last two years have built between them is dangerously broken by twenty years unsaid in the painfully long silence and by the sharp edge of the events of mere hours before.
Just as when Toru had been standing in front of the wooden doors, looking ready to enter the wedding hall in his black kimono, but his insides told another story. When he swallowed the knot in his throat, it had tasted like fear. And the moment he’d turned back one last time, there was that same man, with a quiet resignation in his face.
Toru was surprised to find him at such a short distance. He looked up at him without a single quiver in his lips, and that was just adding to his frayed nerves. There was nothing in the other’s expression that gave away his emotions, not a single sign of whether he was making the right decision. He chastised himself for the mere idea; he was an adult, not a teenager, and this wasn’t some romantic movie. He was not going to bail on the people that trusted him and on the choices he’d made. And yet, in those few seconds, he was almost willing Taka to ask him to ditch it all and run.
And for him, he would have. He would have set fire to everything he’d built away from Taka, and run, damned be the consequences, as long as it was still them and their dreams and the fire— that same fire that would destroy everything around them. All it would have taken was for Toru not to be the one begging for once, for Taka to show him he needed him just as much, to chase him for once. Because he was damn tired of running after the other man, of being the one always saying sorry and fixing things, of feeling like the ground was crumbling under his feet every time he’d been the one to ask Taka to come back to his arms.
Yet, after all these years, Takahiro would never. He was well aware why Toru had left– he’d exhausted his infinite patience, numbed the other man until resentment froze their passion cold. He’d foolishly believed Toru would come back, as he always had, and paid no mind to him starting to date Aya. Their life-long affair had always shattered any chance of a relationship with anyone else. Taka didn’t even have to get in between Toru and whoever else it was at the time; sooner or later, the man would always break things off and beg on his doorstep. But months had passed, and Taka had been left to wait for Toru to crawl back to him, surprised. And hurt. Because fuck, if he hadn’t left at the worst time, when Taka desperately needed him the most but would rather cut his tongue than say it. Toru should’ve known by now, he should know him better than anyone, having seen the worst parts of him.
”Aya is a lucky woman, for finding someone so self sacrificing… or rather I should say she’ll need a lot of luck to get you to tell her what the hell do you want” Taka simply said. It was biting, and felt like acid bubbling up his throat. “I can picture it now. ‘Whatever you want, babe, it’s fine with me.’ God help that woman.”
”I should say the same about whoever is warming your bed next” the reply was a low blow, and Toru knew it, but fuck, it was only fair. They were both out for blood, weapons unsheathed, hurting each other in the way only people who know each other as well as they do, can.
“Well, that’s none of your business anymore, is it?”
And he was also jealous, there’s that. Unfair as it may be, he was about to get fucking married and still he was seething with jealousy at the idea of Taka ending the night by leaving with someone else.
“Why them? You never cared about Masato being married. or Takeru having a girlfriend. or about any of your engaged friends’ partners. Why not me?”
Taka snickered in disbelief. Toru was asking him why he hadn’t been up for them to cheat on Aya. Seconds away from the altar. It’s almost comical.
“Because I can’t lose you” he declared simply. If he lost Toru, he was alone. No matter how many people he had around him, the only one who would never swarm him, who would see right through the bullshit, was the one he couldn’t cross the line with anymore. “You’re better than me. You’d leave for good if your wife needed you, you’d do the right thing and would cut me out to honor her.”
Toru was stunned into silence.
“She’s lovely. I get why you chose her” and there was quiet praise and defeat in Taka’s words, an acknowledgement of the peace that Toru had seeked that he’d never been able to give him. But there was also a last shred in both of them when their gazes met.
Tell me to run with you. Tell me and we’ll leave right now. Don’t give up yet.
And at the same time, they had both seen what their lives would be if they took that path, regret and an endless streak of hurting everyone who stood too close to them and of hiding and living in fear of the camera flashes.
Toru wraps his arm around the woman he’s sworn to love and protect.
Taka looks into her hopeful, blissful expression, then taps the mic before continuing.
“I’m bad at words when there’s not a melody to go along with. So, for my best friend and his beautiful wife, this is called Forever Us.”