Work Text:
Isagi sat with a blanket pulled to his chin, eyes fixed on the credits rolling across the screen. No tears fell, but they seemed on the verge of it. Isagi seemed determined to keep them there, probably because of the man sitting next to him.
"Way to end on a sour note."
Kaiser rested his head on his hand, his body leaning lazily against the couch arm. Isagi sat close despite the space on the couch.
"I didn't expect it to end so hopelessly," Isagi said, not looking away from the screen.
It was past one in the morning. The apartment was clean on most days, but over the course of the night, the stretch between the couch and the coffee table had become Isagi's territory. The table was littered with snack wrappers and opened bags of chips. Next to the couch was Kaiser's contribution. Energy drinks and cola cans were stacked in a messy pile, most of them crushed flat.
Isagi had been putting off these movies for weeks. When he first suggested it, Kaiser hadn't seen much point. But Isagi had taken the time to ask, and Kaiser had no particular reason to refuse.
First, it was a comedy, cringey and forgettable. Then, it was something with enough cheap horror props to make Kaiser lose interest entirely. Now this, which they both assumed would be a sweet and cheesy romance full of cringey yet endearing scenes.
It was not.
The woman died before sunrise. Not in the pretty way movies usually set it up to be. She died reaching for someone who did not reach back in time. That was the part Isagi seemed unable to forgive.
She had spent the entire film sacrificing herself for others. She was honest to the very end. She never asked for much and stayed silent even if what happened cut into her deeply. Her loyalty never wavered, and even when she wanted to run, she returned every time he called her name. Even at the end, when everyone else had abandoned him, she had gone back. And he had doubted her.
By the time he realized she had been telling the truth, it was too late. The movie ended with him alone in the room they had promised to return to together, holding the letter she had written before everything fell apart.
Isagi sniffed once. Kaiser glanced at him.
“You’re crying.”
“I’m not.”
“Who would’ve thought my Yoichi was such a crybaby?”
Isagi pulled the blanket higher, still staring at the credits as if he were waiting for the names to rearrange themselves into a happy ending.
“It was sad.”
“It was predictable.”
Isagi finally looked up at him. “Predictable?”
“The direction. The ending. All of it.” Kaiser shifted against the couch arm, unimpressed. “You could tell from halfway through that she was going to die. With the actions she chose, it was inevitable, even.”
“That doesn’t make it less sad.”
“It makes it avoidable. In the end, she only made it worse for herself.”
Isagi’s brows drew together. “She didn’t do anything wrong.”
“She wasted her time trying to save him but failed anyway.”
“But she did everything she could do.”
“And that’s why she died.”
Isagi stared at him before turning away, quietly sniffling. “That’s not fair.”
“It rarely is.”
“She was honest until the very end.”
Kaiser gave a small, humorless laugh.
“Honest people are stupid.”
Isagi’s expression changed. “Kaiser.”
“She was.” Kaiser looked back at the screen, where the credits continued to crawl upward. “Honest people trust other honest people. That is their first mistake.”
Isagi opened his mouth, but Kaiser did not wait for him.
“Clever people only pretend to be honest. That way, they can use others for their own schemes.” Kaiser’s mouth twisted faintly. “That’s why you have to doubt honest people first, if you want to stay honest yourself.”
The television light shifted over Isagi’s face. His eyes still looked wet.
“What a horrible way to think.”
“It is a useful way to think.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is, when it keeps you alive.”
Isagi’s eyebrows furrowed as he looked at the screen.“What’s wrong with being an honest person?”
“How many stupid people died by the end?”
“... Everyone she loved… but him.”
“That’s what I mean. If you want to be trusted by other people, you can’t be too honest. People doubt what is offered too easily.”
Isagi went quiet.
Kaiser kept looking at the screen. The logic was simple enough that even the heroine should have understood it. It was an ambitious movie, one too proud of its own sadness at the end. Yet here Isagi was, upset over something that had already explained itself.
Isagi finally spoke, his face soft. “Still, being honest isn’t easy.” His voice grew quieter. “She was still brave for trying.”
Kaiser drummed his fingers on his lap. He could not understand what was so tragic about something so inevitable—he could not understand it at all. But Isagi looked close to crying, and for some reason, that made Kaiser want to explain it differently. So he tried again, more slowly this time.
“The reason why her lover didn’t trust her was that she spoke the truth too much,” Kaiser muttered. “Because important words lose their meaning the more they are said.”
Isagi stared at him, his eyes tender. He did not say anything.
“People instinctively prioritize themselves. That means, you can never trust someone entirely.” Kaiser reached for another can, opening it with a quiet crack before taking a slow sip. “You can never know when everything you have will disappear.”
It was a tragedy, because they loved each other too much. That was what made tragedy so stupid.
On the screen, the credits ended. The television moved on by itself, starting some other movie neither of them had chosen. The room was filled with unfamiliar dialogue and pale blue light. Neither of them reached for the remote. On-screen, a man waited beneath a station clock with a bouquet in his hand. The flowers were too bright for the rain, almost embarrassing.
Kaiser gave a quiet scoff.
“He’s waiting for someone who won’t come.”
Isagi did not answer.
“Ridiculous.”
Kaiser pointed out every stupid choice with the seriousness of someone doing a public service. Each scene change was accompanied by his matter-of-fact criticism. His comments were blunt enough to make Isagi huff into the blanket. Occasionally, a soft laugh caught beneath it, even with his eyes still wet. Somewhere into the new movie, Isagi leaned sideways until his head came to rest against Kaiser’s shoulder. A tear slipped down his cheek, but this time, he did not wipe it.
Kaiser glanced down.
“Tired?”
Isagi shook his head, blinking tears out of his eyes.
A lie, probably.
But he stayed there, eyes half-open, watching the new movie play across the room. Kaiser could feel Isagi’s warmth through the blanket wrapped around him. Every so often, Isagi’s lashes lowered, then lifted again, stubbornly fighting sleep.
So Kaiser kept talking.
Isagi answered in smaller ways as the night went on. When Kaiser made a new comment, he would give a nod, a headshake, or a soft hum into the blanket in response. Occasionally, he would make an annoyed grumble whenever Kaiser was being especially cruel to the new protagonist.
Kaiser kept talking for a few minutes before he noticed the weight against his shoulder had gone still. Isagi’s lashes rested low against his cheeks, his mouth slightly open, and his breathing slow beneath the blanket.
When he finally realized, Kaiser just stared. On-screen, the man who had waited beneath the station clock was no longer alone. He sat beneath a hedge of flowers with the woman he had wanted all along. The rain was gone, and the bouquet was somehow still bright in his hands. Despite every stupid mistake, she had noticed him in his quietest moments, in the parts of himself he had not meant to show anyone.
What a foolish thing.
The bright light from the screen moved over Isagi in slow, changing colors. Every few seconds, the room brightened, then dimmed again, and Kaiser saw him differently each time. The red beneath his eyes, his slightly parted mouth, the soft crease between his brows.
Kaiser watched until the scene changed again. Then he turned off the television. The room went dark. Kaiser sat there, eyes open, and let the thoughts settle.
It was easier like this.
The old feeling gathered around his throat, crawling beneath the ink etched into his neck. It reminded him to be careful with what life promised. Not all promises arrived at happy endings. Everything faded eventually, like petals scattering from a branch until they settled into nothing.
No one asked to be placed on the earth. No one gave permission. Yet life continued anyway, forcing its will onto even the smallest things and demanding they endure. That was the vulgarity of it. People mistook attachment for virtue because it sounded less pathetic than “need.” But beneath every beautiful word was the same crude mechanism.
The body wanted warmth. Kaiser disliked that honesty more than any lie. Comfort was frightening because it taught the body to expect things. Discomfort was cleaner. It did not pretend it would stay. It did not make absence feel like betrayal. In the dark, this all seemed comforting.
A breath brushed the side of his throat. Slow and even, warm against the base of his neck. Kaiser had forgotten for a moment that someone was there. His eyes had adjusted without him noticing. Isagi’s face came back slowly—the line of his jaw, the slight part of his mouth, the dark sweep of his lashes. His eyelids were faintly red at the edges. Still tender, even in sleep.
Kaiser looked at him for a long time. No answer came from him. No complaint, no offended look, only that slow, steady breathing.
The blanket had slipped from one shoulder, bunched awkwardly beneath his chin. One foot had escaped at the edge, sock half-twisted from where he had curled into the couch.
Kaiser stared at it. Then he reached down and covered it.
Isagi made a small sound in his sleep. Kaiser paused, hand still on the blanket, until his breathing evened again.
Kaiser pulled the blanket higher around Isagi’s shoulders. The corner dragged across the couch cushion, caught beneath Isagi’s elbow, and Kaiser freed it carefully before folding it over him again.
By the time he finished, only Isagi’s face showed above the blanket.
“Ridiculous.”
Kaiser looked at him in his cocooned form, swaddled tightly like a baby. Isagi slept through the insult.
Kaiser slipped one arm beneath his back and the other under his knees. The blanket shifted, and Kaiser stopped to tuck it in again before standing. Isagi’s head tipped against his shoulder, heavy in sleep.
Kaiser carried him to the bedroom.
The door creaked softly as Kaiser turned the knob, Isagi still wrapped in the blanket against his chest. The air had been left untouched for hours. It sat low over the bed, faintly stale from closed windows and clean sheets, with the dry chill of the AC threaded through it. The room was dark enough that, for a while, everything existed by sound and weight alone.
He lowered Isagi carefully onto the mattress.
Isagi made a small sound into the pillow, displeased but not awake, and turned his face slightly into the blanket.
Kaiser stood there until he settled. The clock on the wall ticked quietly.
The sheets rustled when Kaiser sat down at the edge of the bed. He removed both socks, setting them on the floor. They weren’t set clean enough to be called neat, but close enough that Isagi would find them in the morning. If he complained, Kaiser would deny any involvement.
Isagi slept peacefully, wrapped in the blanket, so Kaiser left the covers alone and laid down beside him on top of the sheets.
The mattress dipped beneath his weight. Isagi shifted toward the change, following the nearest warmth with thoughtless instinct. Kaiser was careful to wait until the movement stopped. The blanket brushed against his arm, and Isagi’s back rested near his chest, close but not quite touching. His breathing moved through the dark in slow, even intervals. Kaiser lay on his side, able to make out Isagi’s back.
The clock kept ticking.
For a while, Kaiser only listened.
Isagi shifted closer to him, his face turning toward Kaiser. Kaiser’s eyes had adjusted by then. Slowly, the dark gave him back.
The ticking did not stop. Neither did Isagi’s breathing. The two sounds moved around each other in the dark, one mechanical and one alive. One dragging the night toward morning, the other keeping Kaiser exactly where he was.
He did not know how long he laid there. It was long enough for the cold sheets to warm beneath him. Long enough for his arm to grow aware of every place Isagi almost touched. Long enough for the room to stop feeling empty and begin feeling occupied in small, undeniable ways.
Kaiser lifted his hand before hesitating. Then, he touched him anyway. His fingertips brushed the edge of Isagi’s cheek first, then wandered carefully over the bridge of his nose, the line of his brow, and the soft skin just above his closed eyes.
The skin was warm, undeniably real. Still, Kaiser felt as if Isagi might disappear beneath his fingertips if he touched too carelessly.
But the Isagi he knew was right here. The face that never got used to being kissed. The face that smiled at small things Kaiser never knew how to enjoy. Even though Kaiser always found ways to bother him, Isagi still held his arms out to him.
Sometimes, it made Kaiser want to monopolize him. To leave some proof of himself in a place no one else could touch.
“You’re beautiful. I’ve always thought so.”
I’ve wanted to tell you many times.
But important words lose their meaning the more they are said. So I’ve suppressed them, killing them off, one by one.
Even now, while you’re asleep, you’re not listening to what I’m saying... I wonder if my feelings have ever reached you.
He stared at Isagi’s face, his lashes still damp.
Perhaps that was why tragedies were so sad. If he could not wake up to this face, then he wished the inevitable would not come at all. If he could, perhaps he would silence every bird that called morning into the world, if only to sleep beside him a little longer.
What a horrible thing to lose.
He brushed the hair from Isagi’s face, his fingers lingering against the side of his cheek.
Then he held him.
Isagi shifted in his sleep, not away from him, but closer. His breath warmed Kaiser’s throat, slow and even. It was as if the night had asked nothing frightening at all.
At first, he thought it would be better if morning never came. But then he thought it was okay. Because even if he closed his eyes now, in the morning, he would still be here.