Chapter Text
Akaza remembers waking up alone again, drenched in sweat. It was always the same. The same choking gasp, the same tightness in his chest like someone had wrapped barbed wire around his ribs and pulled. The ceiling fan above him spun lazily, each rotation slow and indifferent, slicing through the heavy air. He watched it the way a drowning man might watch the surface of the water—so close, yet unreachable. He felt like a body floating in the waters. He tracked each rotation like it was something major, something that required his full attention. This could reveal the secrets of the universe to him. Inhale. Exhale. One. Two. Three.
No one was supposed to know who he was. Nobody. The name Hakuji sat in his chest like a stone. Hakuji was a criminal. A thief. A boy who had failed at the one thing that mattered. A man who kept failing. A man who had nothing and who was nobody. Hakuji was a mistake that kept breathing despite deserving death. That name carried the weight of blood and dirt and desperation. It carried the sound of his father’s silence.
It carried Koyuki. He squeezed his eyes shut. If things had turned out differently- if the world had been just a little bit kinder- if he had just been better, been more for her-
That name was a scar on his history. He was a scar on his history. Oh, if only things had turned out differently. Maybe he’d still be with Koyuki, working at her old man’s dojo. Together. Maybe he’d hear her soft laugh drifting in from the kitchen. Maybe he’d be correcting some stubborn kid’s stance, nudging their elbow down and telling them to keep their guard up. Maybe he’d still be someone worthy of that life.
That had been the good life. A simple one, yes, but he liked simple. He liked safe, easy, kind, loving, patient-
“Fuck. Fuck… I can’t-“
The words came out choked out and small in that empty room. Breathe. Inhale. Exhale. One. Two. Three.
Koyuki. The most beautiful woman in the world.
He needed to stop thinking about her. It did him no good. He sat up, unable to fall back to sleep. Laid back down. Sat up. Had his room always felt so small? Beige walls boxed him in, too close, they’re too close, he could feel himself suffocating, drowning, he was as good as dead-
“I need to go to sleep.” He muttered, dragging his hands through his hot pink hair. Inhale, Exhale- he just needed to stop thinking. He grabbed his phone from the bedside table with a shaking hand. Doom scrolled for a bit. His pulse refused to settle down. His hands were shaking.
The moonlight that shone through the window barely broke through the overwhelming darkness in his room. It turned everything around him into outlines and shadows. He laid back down. Sat back up. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking. They needed to stop fucking shaking.
What was he doing here?
What use was it, running away from everything? He was an eternal fuck-up, only ever one mistake away from ruining everything all over again. What use was it, trying to avoid what was natural to him? He looked over at his cabinet; he remembered stealing it from some old house with Kaigaku during one of their more reckless nights. He could still remember laughing as they hauled it down the street at two in the morning, drunk on whatever was cheapest and feeling invincible and too stupid to care who saw. Good times.
He missed just being some dumb reckless kid who did whatever the hell he wanted. Fighting in alleys. Drinking until the world was a blur. Smoking until his lungs burned. Fucking like it was his last night on earth. Stealing whatever he could get his hands on, and then falling asleep on whatever couch was available and then waking up sore and bruised and hung over with no regrets and doing it all over again. It had felt like freedom, then. It felt like a return to self.
Was it wrong that he felt most like himself when he was at his worst? The thought curdled in his stomach and died there. He dragged a hand down his face, smearing salty tears in the process. Why was it that what he considered the most fulfilling time of his life was when he was homeless, couch surfing and drunk enough to make Kyojuro’s old man blush? Why did chaos feel more honest to him?
He groaned, staring at the door. He was giving himself too much grief. He shifted onto his back and stared at the ceiling again. The fan kept spinning, steady and indifferent. The rhythm almost mocked him. Was he really so broken that he couldn’t imagine himself happy and at ease? That the mere idea of stability felt like a lie waiting to collapse? His life meant so little in the grand scheme of things. A single body in a city of millions. One more name that would be forgotten. Another body in the gutter. Maybe he really was just-
He groaned and pressed the heels of his hands into his wet eyes.
“Enough.”
Spiraling in the dark had never solved anything. It never brought anyone back. It never rewrote the past. He wasn’t broken. He was here. In a bed. In a room with a door that locked. A roof that didn’t leak. Walls that kept the wind out. No one chasing him. No one expecting him to be anything other than what he chose to be tomorrow. He was better off here. That all had to count for something, anything- He forced his breathing to slow, matching it to the steady whir of that damned fan. Inhale. Exhale. One. Two. Three.
He was here. He was alive. That meant something. He meant something. It was enough that he was here, alive.
It meant everything, really.