silly little things

_ The room is foggy and you wonder if it’s from five - you counted - lit cigarettes or it’s just your tired drunk brain. It wouldn’t be the first time you conjured something out of nothing. Shaped it in between your fingers and gave it form. Brought it to life.

Your lips quiver and you press them together, averting your red high eyes from you don’t know who. You probably look pitiful and scared because Haruchiyo reaches over and snakes his long arm around your shoulders, hugging you closer to his body. It’s hot in here, but for one reason or another, he is still wearing his favourite old leather jacket. Now, hours into the party, its surface absorbed all the nasty smells of this huge house in Yokohama. It stinks and you gag. 

His long bleached hair smells even worse and you gag again. This time closing your mouth with your palm and he looks at you, worry in his hooded eyes.

He should offer you a glass of water and maybe a ride home, you think. If he was a better - maybe normal - friend. But he does neither of that. He takes the joint from his lips and holds it close to your mouth. When you don’t move, just staring at him as if you don’t understand what he wants from you, he sighs and smiles.

Sweetly.

Haruchiyo is a sweet guy. Your best friend.

Deep down the fuckery that he is he is indeed very sweet and kind; pure.

“Come on,” he urges you, tapping on your shoulder. “Relax. Tensing up and thinking won’t do you any good. Be nice. Open your mouth.”

You do just that and when he places a cigarette between your lips you inhale. Toxic green smog invades your lungs and the nausea subsides. Once again you feel light and careless. You feel almost happy. The knocking on the back of your head and in your heart dies. Killed by your own stupid hands. If Rindou were here you suppose he would’ve been very mad at you. 

For killing and for not caring. For pretending. “Truth or dare?” 

The girl speaks to you and you know that. You feel her stare on yourself and if you weren’t so high you would see the expecting, oh so spiteful, glint in her eyes. If you were sober you would’ve noticed it and probably still would’ve done nothing.

That’s just the way you are. 

“Truth.” She licks her glowing with gloss lips and smiles. Her friend, a girl with uneven bangs and the longest hair you’ve ever seen in your life, just beneath her hips, giggles. They share a glance. A knowing one. The trap they settled for you closing with a loud thump. 

On the right side, with his arms across the girl's shoulders sits Ran Haitani. She’s almost between his legs, but not quite, and yet there’s a striking familiarity that surrounds them. Maybe it’s in a way his thumb caresses the bare skin of her shoulders or maybe it’s her leaning even more into his broad chest when she catches you watching them. 

Either way your hands shake and it might be the alcohol or weed or something entirely else. You don’t bring yourself to care. You simply can’t. 

“So,” the girl speaks. Despite the music and the fog around your senses you can hear her clearly. “Is it true that there are burning marks on your upper thigh?” You tense and beside you Haruchiyo tenses too. But the girl continues, “Is it true that you burnt yourself because you hate yourself? Is it true that you always do it high because you are a fucking coward to do it sober?” Your eyes are open and no matter how much you want to close them and squint them hard, you won’t. You stare at the girl as she spews your silly little sins out like they are nothing; like you are nothing. “Is it true that you wanted to fuck Ran, but he said no, because you are..?” 

She never finishes her sentence and for the rest of your life you can only guess what insult she had prepared for you. 

The table that stood between you falls to the side when Haruchiyo’s Docs comes in contact with it. Ashtrays, bags and glasses scatter on the hardwood floor and you stare at them for quite a time, unable to look at anything or anyone else. The girl screams and her friend screams too and suddenly you aren’t that high anymore and you want to get out of this house, of this party. Out of the sight of all those people. Your body trembles and Haruchiyo, who tightly holds your hand, nudges you to stand up. You do as he asks, because you're tired and because you’ll go anywhere he’ll take you. If Rindou was here, he would’ve hated you not fighting back, but he is not and you are glad there’s one reason less for him to be disappointed in you. “Pathetic fucking excuse of a woman,” Haruchiyo spits at the girl and you tune out, losing yourself in the broken glass on the floor. It’s pretty with myriads of lights - lives - in every broken shard. They are colourful and full of hidden senses you don’t understand. 

In the corner of your vision you notice Haruchiyo raising his free hand. The girl screams again and this time when you finally raise your eyes, you see her face and pretty white t-shirt with one of Sanrio characters on it wet with whatever alcohol Haruchiyo had in his cup. A few splashes of it hit Ran’s cheek and arm too, but it’s hard to say what he is thinking. He was never one to betray his mind and show it off to everyone and besides you don’t look at him for too long. The cup and the remnants of a joint goes straight to the floor too. Haruchiyo steps on them and curses again. 

“Tame your fucking bitch, Haitani. Next time I won’t see that she’s a woman.” With this you leave. Hand in hand, with bitter hearts, you swim between the people and friends, until you are out of the house, in the fresh air outside. The night that meets you is starry and cold and so it’s very beautiful. Both you and Haruchiyo, stand on the side of the street, near the house in silence, clearly absorbed in surroundings. There’s a black cat watching you across the pavement and somewhere in the bushes is a cicada. Or maybe there are many. You have no way of knowing. The smoke of the cigarette - a regular one - hits your nose and you wonder how in the world have you missed the familiar click of Haruchiyo’s favourite ZIPPO lighter. His older brother gifted it to him when he was barely fifteen. The gift is quite questionable and Haruchiyo is not very sentimental, but he always has it with him. There’s a naked woman engraved on it and he fooled you to believe that’s why. The door behind you sways open, but none of you is interested to know who it is. Maybe it’s no one important. Maybe you both should leave and forget this night like many others. But it’s Kakucho and he gently places his huge brown jacket across your shoulders and so you stay for a little bit longer. His harsh presence cuts the night in two and what happened before suddenly turns into an ugly illusion. The cat yawns and you are reminded of how late it actually is.  “True,” you say after the night digs dipper and the smoke of Haruchiyo’s cheap cig envelopes you. 

The boys are quiet. Kakucho turns his head to look at you and you smile shyly under his curious gaze. It’s not like anything really matters. 

“It’s true. Only I never wanted to fuck Ran. I just wanted to share the love I have for him.” Haruchiyo sighs, dropping unfinished cigarettes onto the pavement. You hope the cat's paws won’t touch it and burn. As it hurts when it burns. Very very much so. “Who the fuck cares if it’s true or not?” “I hate to admit it,” Kakucho sighs pretentiously, a kind smile smudged across his lips, “but I do agree with Haru. Who the fuck cares?” Drops of alcohol on his cheek. Little perfect pearls. Wet black blouse. Cold dead eyes. He doesn’t look at you. He never does. He used to, but not anymore and besides it was so long ago, it’s like it’s never happened. Old images of false memories your brain conjured by itself with a sole reason to feel something; anything at all. 

The cat disappears, night swallowing it whole, and you wish it would do the same to you. But beside you two boys bicker so loudly it would never happen. Their voices tie you to them and despite your strong wish to disappear into thin air, you are glad they make you stay. “Do you wanna get going? You are crashing at mine, right?” Haruchiyo asks, stretching out his hand, palm up. You don’t need to think about it, but you still do, taking a little pause before you reply. “Yes. I can’t show up like this at home. Mom’s gonna cry again.” None of these boys know what it means for a mom to cry. And yet they understand the ache and the heartbreak. The sacred prayer to be a better child someone somewhere could be proud of.

Before you part ways, you and Haruchiyo go to find his parked motorcycle and Kakucho his old sporty car he bought with money he probably stole from someone, you shrug Kakucho’s jacket off your shoulders. “No. Take it. You can return it any other time. I don’t mind.” He smiles at you and his smile reaches his eyes. 

_ 

Haruchiyo’s apartment is small, but it’s only his and that is something to be proud of. 

The bathroom is all fogged up from the hot shower you just took. You slip into a pair of clean boxers, old grey sweatshirts and plain white t-shirt. They don’t smell like anything, but they are so undeniably Haruchiyo’, your heart swells. You love your best friend to death. 

“I hate the post high,” he murmurs when you sleep under the duvet next to him. “How are you feeling?” “Like shit and worse.” 

He giggles, but then he grows serious and his hand slides across the bed. He is searching for your hand, to take it into his and calm you down, to show his love. You help him find it. “Your scars are just scars and she is just a bitch. Don’t think about her.” When you don’t reply, he adds. “I know you do. You are breathing strangely.” And when you don’t say anything else, he speaks again. “I have never spoken about those things with anyone. And I can give my head that Rindou hadn’t either. I don’t know how she knows.” 

Those things that are your feelings, your inner world and ugly cracks all over your body. 

Those fucking things. Involuntarily, without your mind's consent, you curl into yourself. Cold attacks your limbs like thousands of small invisible needles and you weep, and Haruchiyo understands why and for what. All the reasons are so plain, they are written in black ink on white paper. You hate that you are so easy to crack open. You want to be something else entirely. 

“I love you,” he shifts closer to you and soon you are one body, “However you are. Okay?” His long beautiful fingers hold your own hands near his bare chest. He twirls your many many rings and swipes his thumb across your skin. Haruchiyo is a gentle creature and you don’t know where it all went wrong and when sleeping pills in his cupboard became dust to snort up his nose. 

“Okay.” 

He smiles at that and checks the window behind you. It’s still dark. The dawn - nowhere in sight. Good. So so so good. Before he closes his eyes, he presses his lips against your damp forehead and then under each of your eyes, kissing the tears and headache away. Somehow he manages to do just that and you fall asleep with a light heart. _

Two summers ago, on the warm evening of the last August day, your careless youth slipped away from you.

It’s an irony that it happened when the sun was setting and a small part of you remained forever imprisoned in that pleasant August day, while another you strode forward to some distant place in the night, where you shouldn’t have been at all. 

You were wearing a pretty sparkling dress and you were all dolled up and beautiful and yet that wasn’t enough.

With your hands behind you, supporting your body and legs stretched forward, you sat on the porch of the Haitani’s house. The sun had already dipped behind the grey buildings and Roppongi, the heart of nightlife in Tokyo, was just summoned back into existence. Sometimes it felt like during the day this bright area was almost dead, barely breathing, due to the sheer constant of blinding lights it birthed at night. 

The all too thoughtfully magazine under your butt did little to protect you from the coldness of the ground. You shivered uncomfortably and gazed at the boy standing in front of you. Ran was always a dream. So handsome. So mature. So perfect with all the hard edges of his character and soft plump of his lips. 

So so so so so. 

It was embarrassing how in love with him you were and it was more embarrassing, almost devastatingly so, that you fell for him the first day you met him. You still remember how the three of you - Ran, Rindou and you - stood near the vending machine under the metal roof of the small bookshop. It was heavily raining then and you were waiting for the droplets to stop. For the storm to cease and for you to go home. You remember Ran’s beautiful face and you remember how he lit up a cigarette and you remember how his body shivered because he was cold and how he smiled when he caught you staring at him. How he said nothing and how that pretty smile of his never left his face until you closed the door of your home and bid them goodbye. 

That day you were supposed to go to a party. Ran was supposed to drive you in his new shiny car and you were supposed to have a good time. Your best friend was already on the train to Roppongi, just one station away and Rindou was still inside the house, torn between white blouse and a grey t-shirt. He didn’t want to appear too casual and yet dressing up never sat right with him. 

Maybe if one of them were with you nothing would’ve happened and maybe you would’ve stayed. 

But none of them were. Only Ran and his stupid smile that fell off his soft lips the moment you confessed. The frown settled on his face then, and he was silent for a very long time, until he spoke and it became dark. 

“You know, I don’t do sloppy seconds. You kinda are my brother’s. It's like… I am sorry. It just won’t work out.”  

Once warm air quickly turned dry and you were suffocating. Heart beating too fast and not enough to spread blood across your cold frigid body, you stood up from the porch and without a mere word strode down the road. Ran didn’t say a word. He didn’t go after you. He didn’t call. And if you were to turn back, you would’ve known that he didn’t even look after you as you were slowly disappearing between the building and despair. 

The rest of the evening passed in blur. There’s no recollection in your mind of how you ended up in that particular bar and how you spent the little yen you had on you. Till this day, you believe it is your brain that is protecting you from sleazy hands of men across your body, shielding you from the force of pain that overtook you once they had your way with you. You don’t remember much because you were drunk and high, but you remember when Rindou ran into the toilet of that bar and looked away from your abused body splattered on the floor. And you can still hear the sob your friend let out when she saw you. And if you try hard enough you can still feel the love of Rindou’s blouse when your best friend dresses you up in it. Her warm hands on your marked dirty skin.  

And of course, you remember the day after, when you woke up in her bed and you both sobbed together, until numbness overtook you and you surrendered to it like a warm hug from the life of your life. 

Since that very day, two summers ago, when your little heart was broken and your youth bid you a gruesome farewell, Ran Haitani hadn’t spoken to you at all. It’s like instead of you there was a blank waste of a space and somehow you could understand him. You could justify his silence. 

_ 

The headache after a hangover is never kind. Mixed with a loud banging on the door and muffled - thanks God - shouts of the Rindou it is truly the worst. 

The inner sides of his fists are red, but irritated skin shows barely an ounce of the frustration and anger that bubble in Rindou’s throat. His always so pretty face, now scarred by fury, is what gives him away and by the force with which he kicks off his boots, you can tell he wasn’t trying to ease himself or hide how he is feeling. “What the actual fuck,” he shouts and neither Haruchiyo who stands near the still open door, nor you still in bed under thick blanket can’t tell if this is a question or a statement. 

His body rigid and eyes burning an unfriendly fire Rindou throws his bag on the ground near the wooden dinner table that Takeomi brought in Haruchiyo’s apartment - or rather picked it up from the garbage -  and strides through the only room to you. “Get up and strip,” he commands and his voice so unnerving, so angry and forceful leaves no space for you to retreat to. You hate when he is doing this, but you understand why and his quivering lips and red dust across his cheeks are enough for you to forgive him. It’s hard for him too. 

Loving you and caring for you is hard. But it’s not a new found truth so it’s easy to fathom it in your bones.

You shed clothes that aren’t even yours, easily. One by one they pile up near your legs, a protective shell broken and discharged, until you stand there in your panties and palms for a bra. Haruchiyo curses and averts his gaze. He despises these little checks-up Rindou does and he resents that you are letting him do them every single time. Not once you said “no”.

Smooth hands glide across your skin. Between legs, under your arms, right down the spine. Optical examination ceased to be effective long ago when you put makeup on the newish wound you inflicted upon yourself. Now, Rindou had to be sure. Now, he needed your safety ensured by his own two hands. You wonder if he does all these, because he feels guilty. Because he thinks what happened to you is partially his fault. You had this conversation with him already and it ended in you sobbing and him so angry you were almost afraid of him, but not nearly. Rindou, too, is sweet and kind. Maybe a little bit more so than Haruchiyo. 

That’s why you aren’t asking anything anymore. Instead of a question you puff out a little air from between your lips. Rindou’s head shots up and he looks at you, his eyes hidden behind the thin metal rim of his glasses. You suppress a laugh. Something in between his white and blue locks charges you with merriness. 

He watches you as you press your lips together and adjust his glasses higher up his nose. He is not amused, you can tell that much, but he isn’t angry anymore and that is a relief. And he let you touch his glasses, something he never allows anyone to do [except you, but not when he is in a bad bad bad mood]. So, you decide, the storm is over. The waves are calm. 

“Not even gonna ask what you are laughing about,” he mumbles, inspecting your ankles and when he finds nothing, he stands up from the floor, not before picking up the clothes on the floor. 

“Your eyes,” you make a vague gesture with your fingers in front of your own face, “They were just hidden and you looked so… I don’t know… Never mind, Rin.” In front of you in the kitchen fighting with a kettle Haruchiyo snorts. There’s a herbish aroma and something almost too sweet circulating in the air and it’s so strong it startles you. Too absorbed in Rindou you didn’t notice the smell before. Another Haruchiyo’s tea concoction. Hopefully, this time successful. 

“Did you two get high yesterday?” Rindou asks, going inside the kitchen - it’s hard to tell where the bedroom ends and kitchen starts since Haruchiyo’s apartment is a studio - and peeking over Haruchiyo’s shoulder. “You laugh even more in the post-haze than you do while you are at it.” The silence that settles is murmuring all the nasty things that happened yesterday right in Rindou’s ears. He looks between the two of you exchanging glances and sighs. 

“Whatever. Honestly, I am not even interested. I am here this early only because your mom called.” At this, you stop, your sweatpants half way your legs. You would’ve called Rindou out for lying, because he is here not only because of your mother’s call, but because he simply can not stop caring for you. But then, when your parent calls Rindou it’s never a good thing. It’s always about your scars, your secrets and your lies. 

This time, however, you know why she called him and you sit down on the bed, feeling like the smallest tiniest human being in the whole world. You hate this feeling of a deep humiliation. You want to burn yourself to not remember the ache in your tightened jaw and the disgusting sweat on your clammy palms. 

“If this is about the blades under my bed I didn’t buy them to… har… cut myself. I bought them for postcards.” 

He doesn’t buy it. He bites his lip and shakes his head, waiting for you to continue. “I am telling the truth, Rindou. I bought them to cut out postcards. I… I…” Hot tears pool in your eyes and you hate that he doesn’t believe you and you so badly want to pity yourself, but you can’t. Can’t do this. Because it’s your own fault no one trusts your words and promises anymore. When they look at you and pity you it’s done by your own hands. Hands you too want to burn. 

“Oh, baby, stop,” Haruchiyo helps you pull your sweatpants up and then he ties the drawstrings for you, his body - a shield between you and Rindou, “you didn’t cut yourself with those blades, did you?” “No, I swear, I didn’t,” you repeat it a few times and the only thing that makes you stop mumbling is the pain that seeps through Haruchiyo’s eyes into your heart. 

“Well, good to hear, but you will have to buy a pair of scissors for your postcards, because I threw away those blades you hid under your bed.”  

A clammy hands of desperation tighten around your neck and you want to scream. From frustration and from anger, from despair. Was it like this back too? Your every word carefully weighed and put on the pedestal to judge? You don’t think so. For better or for worse you can’t remember how it was before, but you wonder when everyone will just give up on you. 

With a loud screech against the chair against the floor, Rindou stands up. He takes a few steps and gently shoves Haruchiyo away from you. His long white hair swaying in the air. Haruchiyo smiles at you, reassuringly, kindly and the pools of grim pain evaporate from his beautiful eyes. Love heals, you think. So then, why do you remain sick? “You know how much I care about you, do you?” Rindou asks, cupping your face, his thumbs stroking your cheeks. “I’ll do anything for you to be healthy, happy and well. If it means I have to be harsh with you then I will. And if it means you will hate me somewhere on the way, so be it. But I won’t let you down again. Get this in your head. I. Am. Not. Letting. You. Down. Ever. Again.” Haruchiyo turns away and gets to his kettle and tea. And you finally silently cry cradled into Rindou’s warmth. Humiliation washes away with salty tears and the ever so heavy guilt crashes upon your shoulders. It’s better than anything, you think. Because that means you still care too and that means you are alive and well and there’s hope that one day all the check-ups and blades and tears will be in the past. 

You believe in this. 

Haruchiyo’s tea turns out not so bad and you and Rindou have two cups, one and half each. 

_ 

That day you come home late in the evening. 

You still wear Haruchiyo’s clothes and have Kakucho’s jacket thrown over your shoulders. The sneakers you place on the shoe rack - dusty black Adidas - are yours. This random sudden thought makes you happy and for the first time in a while you bubble with excitement. Over shoes. It can’t be normal. It’s not normal. Probably just a lingering side-effect of weed or bottled up emotions in which Rindou effectively made a hole once again. Inside the living room, under tonkatsu, sits your family. They are watching TV over dinner. You see an empty plate and an empty space reserved just for you and your giddy happiness holts. You had dinner with Rindou and Haru already and you aren’t hungry. Guiltiness spreads across your lungs like a web of poisonous spiders. 

Your mother is the one who sees you first. She is wary and tired when she looks at you, but this is nothing new. Your father turns back to look at you too, he nods and returns to the TV as soon as he can. He says, you should join them and eat something, you must be starving. You nod and wave at your little sister. She waves back. 

You go inside your room.

No one said anything about new shining scissors you had in your hand that Rindou bought for you. 

No one came to check on you and you didn’t have dinner together. 

_ You skip school for the next few days. 

There’s no particular reason. You just don’t feel like going. 

In front of you, there’s a void and it’s luring you in. Black colour, so inviting and beautiful. Inside of a space avoidant of anything and everything, where no air is floating, you are blossoming. The slightest aroma of laundry detergent and fresh baked cookies are so hard to resist and this is exactly what this imaginary [not so] place of yours smells like. You wish you could stay there forever. 

You almost do. 

But then your phone rings and the number is unknown. Yet, you have the slightest hunch of who it could be. That’s why you pick it up. 

“Hey! You have no idea how hard it was to get your number. You do have some seriously overprotective friends,” Kakucho laughs echoes through that night where you met a black cat to now  and then right into your ear. 

You hum, holding your phone in the safest place between your ear and shoulder, “I guess you could say that. Why are you calling? Oh! I am sorry I totally forgot to give you your jacket back. Do you wanna meet up somewhere? I am free now.” 

He laughs again and you notice that his laugh is boisterous and contagious. It’s almost childish in its raw sincerity. You haven’t heard people being that happy in a long long time. In a reminiscence the corner of your lips stretch up on their own. “What about… Can you be at Shibuya station in twenty minutes?” “I can try.” “Cool. I'll see you there then!” 

He hangs up just as abruptly as he called and the taste in your mouth is not of sweet abyss cookies, but of metal and caramel. It’s exciting in the most lazy manner. 

Outside, running down the street, to catch the bus on time, you notice the vast blue sky that is so clear it looks like it’s made of glass. You stop on the crossroad, hands on your hips, and take a few shallow breaths. Running was never and will never be your forte, but you stare at the infinite beauty that covers the whole earth and all people living on it, and wonder why haven’t you got out of the house earlier. 

_ Kakucho takes you to a nice barbeque place. 

It’s a chain restaurant, so the food is quite cheap and nice. You order two bowls of rice, beef, soup and kimchi. Kakucho gets himself Sapporo beer and you ask for iced lemon tea which he claims doesn’t go well with meat, but still smiles when you sip it. 

He is sitting opposite you in a small booth made for two people only. He is wearing a black turtleneck and plain jeans that can’t be that expensive, but they do look like he paid more than twenty thousand yen to get them. On the back of his chair hangs yet another leather jacket. The one he gave you sits in the Mitsukoshi bag under the table near your leg. 

In everything he does, Kakucho is effortless and confident. He grills the meat for you and he carries the conversation for you too. He asks you about school, about your hobbies, your likes and dislikes and even learns what your favourite colour is. 

Half through this spontaneous dinner you understand that this was never about returning his jacket. At least for him. But then, it’s his dark black hair that he spontaneously decided to grow out almost two years ago after he got tired of seeing that ugly bald dude with a scar in reflection every morning. [This you too learn over the food and while you want to tell him that by no means he can be considered ugly, you suppress yourself and listen to his soothing voice carrying you to yet another story already.] They are so black, they almost have this blue-ish inky feeling to them. And somehow looking at him so smiley, so kind and so handsome, so welcoming and accepting, so invested in every few words you say, he reminds you of those beautiful warm summer nights. Not the one that happened two summers ago, but all the ones before that. It’s a burning sensation and it calms you. 

You think, if he wants you might give him a chance. 

It’s dark when you go outside and back to the metro station. 

“Next time I’ll see you I’ll bring my car. I feel really bad, but my car is in the service. The engine has been acting up.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous, Kakucho,” you say counting the colourful kaleidoscope of the stained glass window of the random shop, you pass by. You connect every piece to seconds that fly away and they make beautiful constellations. “Just think it’s a good thing you are taking me home then and we are going by foot and not driving there. I am bad with directions. But now you are going to remember where I live and next time you can pick me up right from home. You know, just to pay for all the walking we did today.” He bites his smile back, lips pressed tightly together, but it fights him and reaches his eyes. They shine. _ “Since when are you and Kakucho going out?” 

You sit on the floor of Haruchiyo’s apartments with a scissor in your hands. Bright patterned paper, stickers, glue and so many other things you sure are two boys in the room with you don’t even know the name of, lay in a circle surrounding you. It’s messy, but Haruchiyo who lays on the bed, behind you and watches every single creative step you take, doesn’t seem to mind. 

In fact he never does. 

“We are not going out,” you mumble, eyes focused on cutting the most precisely shaped heart without an outline. “We’ve been hanging out. That’s all.” Rindou doesn’t seem to be convinced. He glances over to Haruchiyo laying on his stomach, blond hair a curtain, and sighs. 

“You do know, he has a thing for you?” “Well, I mean I kinda do, but I am sure it’s not anything serious. Who would’ve been in lo…” “He punched Ran at that party and they haven't talked since then.” 

The scissors stop and the bright yellow heart falls to the ground. It’s nicely and evenly cut out, but something about it isn’t right and you can’t tell what it is and you are spiralling and nothing can stop you now, because fire is nowhere in reach. You scratch your left thigh. 

“I didn’t wanna tell you, but…” “I am glad Kaku did it. I am sorry Rin, but it was actually very nasty there and if not for her,  I would’ve killed his bitch first and then kill him,” you hear the springs in the old mattress squeak and then Haruchiyo plops right next to you, making a space for himself between glue bottles, colourful tapes and you. “Ran never told her anything, because he didn’t even know, and I never told Ran or anybody about it. It wasn’t my brother’s fault she ran her mouth. For all I know Ran and her were never even together.” “Oh, really? Then how the fuck does she know?” The anger rising up in Rindou scorches you and you wince, but boys being boys, playing their own little war don’t notice it. “How would I know that? I just know that even if Ran knew he would never speak about it with anybody else!” “For fuck’s sake, Rindou, I know he is your older brother and you always admired him and…” 

The words bleed. The wounds they leave suffocate. You plaster a yellow heart over a red cardboard. You draw millions of hearts around it. You wish they’d stop now, but you know them both well enough, to know they won’t. You know how much Rindou loves Ran and how much Haruchiyo thinks everything that happened to you is because of Ran. But it’s not. What happened to you has never been Ran’s fault and you won’t let anyone think that. Not even your sweet pretty Haruchiyo. “I believe it,” you say loudly enough to stop them. “In fact, I know it wasn’t Ran who told her. Ran is not like that and… I… I just know he didn’t know about it. It wasn’t him. It wasn’t Ran and it’s not his fault. Neither it’s his responsibility or yours.” Splashes of alcohol across his cheek and wet t-shirt. The look on his face. Of pure horror and so many regrets. It wasn’t Ran. It could never be him. 

Rindou and Haruchiyo mend over the sweet sour chicken you make for them. They laugh, and joke and make those stupid boyish remarks only male in their twenties can. But you forgive them for that and for everything else too, like they do the same for you. 

It’s when Rindou examines your newest red card with yellow heart and I LOVE YOU RINDOU written across it, he brings the subject of Kakucho back. “Just so you know, I won’t hesitate to add another scar to his face.” Haruchiyo snorts, “Aren’t you two like best gym buddies?” “Yes we are. But he doesn’t make me postcards. And want it or not, but my loyalty lies with my brother so we aren’t speaking either.” 

Haruchiyo never comments anything on it and neither do you, but for the rest of the evening and well into the night when you lay down in Haruchiyo bed and try your best to sleep, you can’t help it, but think where does your loyalty lay? To what latitude does it extend and what seconds are most important to you to get back to them over and over again. _ 

It’s summer and you are in Kyoto. You are in your last school year and life has never ever been more beautiful. The green around you has the most vibrant colour and the sun above you is the warmest it has ever been. You close your eyes, spread your arms and melt. If you had to choose a moment to live in forever it would be this. 

There’s a festival going on in town. You hear music and people laughing. You smell chicken and something very very sweet. But despite this cacophony of smells and sounds, you also hear birds chirping and because of that your heart beats twice as fast. It’s a pretty feeling and you hope your heart will stay this way forever. 

Ran finds you kneeling in front of the small flower cart in front of the flower shop. You are so engrossed in the scenery of random shapes and ethereal feelings to them, you don’t notice him at all. Or so he thinks, because it’s very very difficult for you not to sense Ran’s presence.

It’s even harder not to feel his lazy stare on you and it’s impossible to not be burned by his crooked hazy smile as he watches you pecking tender petals with your fingertips.  

“Where’s Rin?” You ask, eyes focused on the bright pink flower. Ran takes a step, then another one and then he squats by your side, shoulders touching, the flower unnoticed. “With Kakucho, your two friends and Haruchiyo at a sportswear store.” “What?” Head snapping to the side, you study his face, to see if he is teasing you and while his lips are stretched in a smile, you don’t think he is. 

“I know. I am surprised Haruchiyo tagged along with them,” he stops talking, his lips form a straight concerned line and the crease between his blonde eyebrows makes you want to press a fingertip in there to soothe it. 

But instead of you reaching out to him, it’s him raising his hand to your shoulder. You hear a little buzzling near your ear, see the blue vast sky and people swarming behind Ran and you feel so warm, so safe, so i-wanna-freeze-this-moment. And you don’t know why your heart clenches the way it does and why your hands get clammy. 

“It’s a little bee,” Ran says, eyes fascinated by the small creature sitting on his finger. “Probably mistook you for a flower.” He laughs and shakes the bee away. It falls in the air, but as if remembering it can actually fly, spreads its little tiny wings and goes off. To the crowd. To the festival. To so many shared happy moments. 

“Do you want to go eat something? I am starving and on my way here I saw a decent looking place that serves yukke.” “Can we get Yatsuhashi after?” you stand up first, your head a bit dizzy from squatting for so long. Ran grins and nods, “Anything you want.” It’s on the way to the more than decent looking, but high-class restaurant that Ran takes you to, in the middle of your conversation that you remember about the flowers you were so fascinated with. There was no tag on them and you weren't sure they were even for sale, and yet you wished you went inside the shop and asked. Everything needs a name to stay. Today, Ran is eager to provide you with one. “It’s camellia. The flower you were looking at. Did you like it?” 

The sun is still high up in the sky and people are still walking. The Gion Matsuri festival will last for another three days. “Since when can you tell flowers?” 

You are genuinely interested and maybe that’s why Ran responds. You are sure he wouldn’t otherwise. 

“Mom used to have a book on flowers. Encyclopaedia. Was obsessed with them and how do you think she came up with the name for me and Rin? Obviously took them from there. It was the only thing that remained after she left. Along with our names.” 

“Well, you and Rindou remained too and then that old apartment of yours.” The smile blooms on his face again. He points at the restaurant with his finger and leads you there, “That apartment was actually of our beloved father. I wanted to set it on fire, but Rin talked me out of it.” 

Somehow you know once again he is telling you the truth. The fire, him and Rindou, and the book that for one reason or so many more others he kept and read so many times, he could tell camellia apart from other flowers. 

“Anyway, do you think bees migrate?” Inside the restaurant almost all tables are busy, but Ran finds you a perfect place near the outdoor garden for two people. You get a haunting feeling like it was waiting for you. “You mean migrate like birds do?” “Yeah,” he says casually overlooking the menu, “Oh, they have your favourite iced lemon tea. I always thought it’s amusing how you never drink anything hot.”  

“I don’t like hot things. They burn. I hate it when it burns,” you do and you don’t think you’ll ever change. “And to answer your question, I don’t think bees migrate. I’ve never seen them flying around freely like birds.” “I’ve never seen a single bee in Roppongi. Today's gotta be my first time.” You end up ordering a lot more than you both can eat. It’s always like this with Ran and you think you know why. You think you understand him, and his questions and a lot more things he tries to keep confined in that heart of his. 

Like an encyclopaedia of flowers and bees that flew away.  

_ You and Kakucho will never end up together. Not in this universe, not in any other. He is the first one to break it to you, but you were the first to realise. 

The truth is swallowed under bright cold stars. There’s not much light on the pier where you are lying down on the cold grey cement, but the roar of crashing waves and flickering lights of bulk carriers’ lamps are enough to guide you home. If needed. 

“I feel like I could love you, but you won’t let me,” he says and these words are mere whispers that take the form of a knife. Dull or sharp doesn’t matter. It still cuts your skin in two and you bleed. This is nothing new. 

“Maybe you are right,” is all you say. Your hands on your belly, you imagine sharks, three of them, emerging from the water and ripping you apart. They have five rows of deadly sinful teeth that will shred your flesh in seconds before you become part of them and the sea. You won’t die and you’d feel pain until sun blasts and the Earth will pause to exist and you with it. But no sharks come out and you are breathing. 

“I still want to be your best friend, though,” Kakucho turns to his side, prompts his head on his palm and peers in your face. “If you want to, of course.” 

Under his gaze, you think he’s searching for something. You want to tell him not to, because he won’t find it there. There’s no fight left in you. It’s all in vain, all in vain! “Nah. Those roles are taken,” you are only half-joking, but he doesn’t have to know that. “You can try though.” “Oh, I will. I will try my very best. I still like you. It’s not like it will go away any time soon.” If sharks do come, you pray, please don’t kill Kakucho too. He deserves to live a long nice life with a person who will love his gentle soul. But again, no sharks come, and you and him are alive and well. And an hour later he drops you off at home and you wish you won’t see him again and regret your inability to make people feel love. _ Haruchiyo’s hair is the prettiest you’ve ever seen. You’ve known him since you were eleven and every single hairstyle he had he owned. He was a young cheerful boy then, and a quite pretty young man now. Sometimes, you wished you could be together. You think both of you could make it work and maybe both of you would, if there wasn’t Rindou in between of you. But, today, there’s no Rindou and Haruchiyo’s head is in your laps and his clear bright eyes, almost transparent in their intensity, look at you and you only.  

“What are you thinking about?” He asks, hand finding yours, fingers sewn together. “Nothing much,” you lie and he accepts it, because he knows what goes in your head.

He sighs then, a tired loud sigh ripped right from his chest, just where his heart is. He tears himself off you, and sits opposite you, stretching his legs on each side of you. 

“If you want, we can, but I do agree with Kaku, you will never love anyone, even me, like you love that beanpole. And hurting me will break your heart more than… Ah, you understand what I mean, right? And sex won’t solve anything either. It’s gonna make everything worse. And I am willing to give up anything I might feel for us, but not you and what we already have. I love you and I love your happiness and it’s not with me. Not in that way.” “Wow,” you giggle, face hot with tears. Haruchiyo smiles. His kind, beautiful smile makes him even more ethereal than he already is. With this angel white hair. 

He leans in and kisses you on your lips. Hands on your wet cheeks, he doesn’t wipe them away, but hold them there and you feel them. They are cold and sorrowful. They are happy. 

“Let’s go eat something. I’m paying. And if you want we can rent a movie to watch before we come back.” I do, you say and he nods. He kisses your forehead and helps you stand up. Haruchiyo is your best friend and you don’t really suppose you are destined to become something else. And it’s good. It does feel right. 

_ The school is somehow not how you remember it. It’s even more dull, grey and ugly. You so badly want to drop out and never come back, but you can’t disappoint your family and friends more than you already have. You suck all your regrets and unpleasantries in, and continue to carry on. 

Today, you are all alone. Haruchiyo isn’t in Tokyo and neither is Rindou. They went to that stupid DJ convention in Osaka and you, sitting in the cafeteria with your store bento box in front of you, wish you were with them. They are for sure having a lot of fun. 

Unlike you. 

It’s not a recent thing, but you are craving company, because thoughts inside your head are suffocating you. You see fires, fireworks and sharks with fairy lights. You feel waves and your little sister stares at you. Your skin pops off, wrinkling and coming off in ugly distorted layers. 

You need this to stop, until you do the unforgivable and this is betraying Rindou to whom you promised not to do anything with yourself. You promised to go to school and study and be a good girl. Just for this week. Until he comes back and it gets easier to breathe. 

Maybe, you should call Kakucho and go out with him. He won’t say no. You know that well and that’s why you don’t call him. He is too good for you and your haunting voices in your mind. 

Everything seals in, when your friend finds you in the cafeteria and invites you to the party. It’s a small intimate gathering she promises and it’s gonna be so fun! We can dress up and have a little fun. We haven’t hung out in so long. Let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s go! We are going to have the best night ever. 

You don’t think twice, you need to relax and shut your shaking fears in your head, lock them away and preferably kill. So, you say “yes” and it makes your friend so happy, she spills her orange juice on your bleached jeans that your mother washed yesterday. _

The party is awful and your heart screams at you to get out before it’s too late. 

But your friend holds your hand and you feel safer and she claims she knows a lot of people there and they are nice and then, she would never let anything happen to you. The last part is true, but there’s only so much a young girl in her twenties can do. People she knows are a group of men. They look like rock stars, smudged eyeliner and long hair, multiple piercings in both ears. There’s no way to tell their age, but you don’t think they are that much older. A strong smell of weed and alcohol doesn’t scare you either. It feels familiar. 

With a few drags from a blunt you levitate, head in clouds, river of shitty bitter drink in your stomach, you levitate. You laugh and giggle and let the boy with orange bleached hair throw an arm around your bare shoulders. His touch isn’t anything, it’s barely there. 

Until it’s not. 

Until, his hand slides to your breast and he squeezes it. Once, twice, you lose the count. You feel sick, smoke disintegrated from your head, alcohol still in your blood. All the scars you carry on your body itch. You breathe in and breathe out, and the boy mistakes it for excitement. He grins, eyes foggy and greedy. 

The bile rises up in your throat. You shove it down, to your stomach. The friend that promised to be there for you isn’t here anymore and you can’t pinpoint the moment she left. Hazy thoughts and remnants of what she said to you before going upstairs with one of the boys are still there, but they are melted in the hold and attention forced on you. 

When the boy turns you around and kisses your neck, you’ve had enough. With a smile on your lips, and wobbly legs, you push him away, hands on his chest and he groans unsatisfied and hungry. He dives right back, fingers latching onto your waist. “I really need to use the restroom,” you whisper again and again and again. “I really need to. Please. I’ll be back. Just let me go.” He doesn’t and his friends laugh behind you. Is there no one to help you? No one to not let that awful night happen again? “Please, I just want to go to the restroom,” you plead and this time he releases you. You flee away. With trembling hands and shaking heart, you flee away and run to the bathroom. It’s vacant and it’s dirty, but it will do. It will do until you think of how to escape that party and get home. To your mom, to your dad and to you sweet little sister. To everything good and innocent that still lives in you. But now, you cry. You sit on the dirty floor in the house of a person you don’t know with a dress ridden to your mid thighs and cry. You cry for betraying Rindou’s trust, because once you are out of here, you’ll cut and then you’ll burn yourself and this time you hope it hurts so much, you won’t be able to feel anything for weeks. You hope it scars your body so ugly everyone will finally turn away from you. But firstly, you need to get out of here and this is almost impossible, because that guy wants you and waits for you and you promised to be back. Swallowing, you reach out for your phone. It’s in your bag. It’s fully charged and when you are about to dial Kakucho’s number, because he’s the only person to come and get you now, it rings. You answer before you see the name of the caller. “Hey! Why weren’t you answering my calls? Where the fuck are you?”

It’s Rindou and you know everything ends here. “I am fine. I am just at the party with…” “Are you crying? What the fuck? Where are you?” You sob. Because he is harsh with you and because he has every right to be. 

“Rin, I am sorry, I… that guy… I don’t want you to worry about it. I’ll call Kakucho and he…” “Who? Did someone hurt you? You need to tell me where the fuck you are.” “He just… Rin, I can’t… Why are you in… I am sorry… I want to go home.” He is panicking. On the line, in another city, his heart breaks in two for you. “I need you to tell me where you are. Tell me where the fuck you are.” You tell him. The address, the way to the bathroom and even what you are wearing. You have no idea why you are doing this, because Rindou is no god and he can’t get to Tokyo, to you, swiftly. Today, he won’t save you. But he promises you he will and then he hangs up, only to call you a couple of minutes later and talk to you about anything and everything, before you are safe. Before you are you again. _ The lightning that shoots through your body is so strong and powerful, you straighten up against the door and stop breathing. Outside is eerily quiet. The music is no longer playing and people aren’t speaking. It’s like the world died and you are the only one left. “What is it?” Rindou asks after he catches you not listening to him telling you about the new DJ set up he and Haruchiyo saw today at the exhibition. It’s pointless asking him, because you do know the answer to your question, but you do ask anyway. “Who did you call, Rindou?” “Ran. I called Ran. Is he there?” 

His voice is soft and comforting, but it does little to calm your wires of nerves.  Suddenly the world is very crispy and clear. “Rin, I don’t think I am ready to talk to him and…” “Listen here,” he interrupts you, taking a long pause, “It’s just Ran. My older brother. The guy you knew since what? Five years old? I don’t know a better person I can trust you with than him.” “It’s not that… it’s just… I am not ready… I don’t think…” A knock on the door never lets you finish the sentence. Rindou is babbling up on the phone again, you can hear him, but you can’t comprehend what he is saying. Slowly you open the door. You feel safe. You start breathing again. _ Ran doesn’t take you to your house. He doesn’t speak to you when he escorts you out of the house, your hand in his, and he doesn’t speak to you once he stops near KFC, gets out and gets back with two large bags he throws in the backseat, neither does he say anything when he makes the last stop at convenience store two blocks away from his and Rindou’s apartment. 

Two stops and thirty minutes ride, you don’t hear his voice even once. I am with her, is what he said to Rindou when he found you and took your phone from your hands; it still sits in the right pocket of his sweats. 

And you, you don’t try to talk either. Instead, you watch him. You caress his face with your eyes and try to spot if everything is different since you last saw him this close. Two summers ago. 

You don’t find anything new and it’s disappointing and relieving at the same time. Inside the apartment everything is still. He flickers on the light in the living room, places bags with food and drinks on the table and turns to you, standing where he left you. In the corridor. “Go and take a bath. Puke if you want and then come here. We’ll eat and we’ll talk.” When you don’t move he adds. “Go and wash yourself, I’ll bring you fresh clothes in a minute. Go.” The shower does help you. Water and soap feel nice on your skin and it’s not the cleansing you wish it was, but it still makes you feel better. Less anxious and more grounded. It also washes your worries away and you can’t help, but blame it on the weed wearing off your body. You are happy you are sober now and you wish it was something else that sobered you and not a random guy groping you at the party you shouldn’t have been at, at all. You don’t puke and you rinse your mouth with green mouth wash that you find on the sink. Haruchiyo has the same one at his apartment. You think if he is already aware of what happened. You should call him tomorrow and say you are okay, you are fine. Nothing bad happened. You suppose Rindou has told him, but you want to reassure him yourself. Ran sits on the floor when you emerge from the bathroom, wearing black sweats and grey t-shirt. You know it’s his clothes and you know when he raises his head and sees you wearing them, the corner of his lips tug up. He is quick to lower his head again, eyes on the chicken and fries neatly divided between two plates, as he motions you to come join him. 

This time you do it without hesitation. You eat in silence. Words on the tip of your tongue you so desperately want to say something, but it’s not your turn to talk and so you wait, until he gathers up and says what he has to say to you. “You are staying here. I already called your mom and told her you are with me so you don’t have to worry about it. I also spoke with Rindou and he’ll stay at the convention until the end. He won’t return tomorrow as he initially wanted.” You don’t say anything back. The fast food Ran bought is delicious and this apartment with him in it is a pleasant nice memory you dissolve in. You sip on your beloved iced lemon tea and you hope this moment of the night will never end or it will snatch you away. Imprison you in its comfort. “How do you feel?” His purple eyes never leave your presence and while the question is expected, you never wanted him to ask you that, because for once you don’t want to lie anymore. You are sick and tired of lying. “I am fine now, but I don’t think I’ll be tomorrow morning when I leave and I’ll probably get worse when I am home and alone.” He hums to that, shaking his head. His hair is parted in two nicely done braids. It’s longer than you remember it and yet it’s the same. “You won’t go home tomorrow morning. You are staying here until the answer to that question is I am good. Until I see you are better I am not letting you go.”

“Ran, I don’t think it works like that.” “Then, we’ll make it work like that.” 

That puts an end to your conversation. Together you wash dishes and he returns to his room, while you slip in Rindou’s bed and close your eyes. Violence is never an answer to you, and maybe Ran didn’t mean to enforce anything on you, and that’s why he didn’t close the door to his room as he always did before [you remember it so, but he might have changed, it’s been years after all], but you want to try. You so desperately want to feel good, you are willing to do anything. _ The next morning comes and you are the first to wake up. Ran’s room is dark and silent. The door is still open. There’s no sound coming out. Everything is still and motionless, but alive. That’s how you know he is actually home, inside his room sleeping peacefully. 

You don’t move around much. You don’t want to wake him up, because you do remember how grumpy he gets when someone disturbs his sleep. So, instead, you return back to Rindou’s bedroom and lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Your phone is still in Ran’s possession and you are quite bored. Not that you can do much with it, but you could have messaged Rindou or Haruchiyo. It’s better than doing anything and in Rindou’s bedroom there’s nothing much to shorten the time you have until Ran wakes up. 

It’s around noon when your back gets so stiff and you just simply can’t fall asleep again no matter how hard you try, so you get off the bed and stride into the kitchen. The cupboards don’t have much and it’s even worse than at Haruchiyo’s house. That boy at least has a collection of tea, instant coffees, chicken take-outs leftovers and rice. All Haitanis have are a pack of rice, one cup of instant noodles, a carrot, two cans of spam and five eggs. It’s all definitely courtesy of Rindou. Ran solely survives on deliveries and eating in those favourite posh restaurants of his. 

It’s another hour and a smell of grilled spam that lures him out of the bed. He crosses the corner that separates his bedroom and kitchen, and with a heavy blanket across his shoulder and droopy eyes that are ready to close any second, stares at you. “What are you cooking?” 

“Rice with spam and eggs.” “I didn’t know we had eggs. Good. I’ll be right back.” 

He disappears into his room and then reappears a second after and goes straight into the bathroom and you standing in their little kitchen for the first time since yesterday shrink in size, feeling very very small. It’s all too strange, you comprehend, mind spiralling and angry and so frustrated. So so so strange for you to be here, in Ran’s and Rindou’s kitchen, cooking a miserable attempt at breakfast at noon, for yourself and a guy with whom you once were so close, but then you haven’t spoken in almost two years and now… 

You freeze, hands raised mid-air, and mouth slightly parted. Breathing in and out. In and out. In and out. 

Now… Now, there’s rice on the stove and you need to reach for bowls, which should be in the cupboard right in front of you. That’s if they didn’t wake up one day and decided to store their dishes in the drawer next to the fridge.

Now, you need to turn the stove off, so the spam will stay crispy, and not turn into an ugly tasteless black  coal. You need to do all this and that’s what you do. Ran is back to you in almost no time. He watches you carefully, and you wonder if he sees your worries in your trembling hands and bitten lips, in how you avoid his intense gaze. But if he does, he doesn’t say anything. Wordlessly, he helps you by taking both of the bowls, leaving you to grab chopsticks and soya sauce. 

He settles on the floor and you sit next to him, putting a comfortable distance between the two of you. 

It’s very Ran to not turn on the TV. He eats quietly, throwing a small praise your way, that means nothing, because it’s just an appreciative humming and a couple of pleased curses. You eat too, because there’s nothing else to do and you are kinda hungry. It’s also is a distraction enough not to send you down your torture tunnel again. You welcome it happily, grabbing the opportunity with both hands. You welcome Ran staring at you too. You suppose you are acting as the TV for him today. The thought makes you smile. “Yesterday, when I arrived, no one would tell me who was the guy that made you uncomfortable by touching you,” he starts, confident with purple eyes never leaving you. “They only spoke when I kneeled one of them down and stepped on their fingers.” The rice in front of you, sticky from the yolk, dances. You wish you could dance too, but you haven’t had a good dance since the last party with Haruchiyo and Rindou almost two weeks ago, where Rindou got so drunk, he couldn’t remember what his name was, but he remembered you. That moment was sweet and you think the moment now isn't really so, but your mouth suddenly tastes like cotton candy and it’s a pleasant feeling. A great even. 

“I broke the fingers of the guy who touched you yesterday and I broke every single finger on the hands of the guys who touched you that day. It was a mess, but there won’t be a day now in their lives, that they won’t feel the pain and that’s all I wish for.” “Ran…” The bowl is too heavy for you to hold and the rice isn’t dancing anymore, nor does the world move and you doubt anything exists past this apartment. The white noise and deafening eerie silence envelope you in their deadly hug. But you don’t want them to touch you. You want to swim in Ran’s eyes that carry no remorse or guilt or pity, but acceptance and comfort. Tenderness seeps through him like the sand of the broken hourglass. If he suffocates you with it, burying you under him, you won’t mind it. 

You won’t mind it at all.  “You don’t have to say anything,” he laughs, clearly amused by your lack of reaction or from the plentiness of it. “Good.” “Yeah, good. Finish your food and let’s go grocery shopping. We don’t have anything to eat in this house and Rindou’s stack of shochu isn’t much to my taste.” “He still has a stack of shochu?” “That’s the only thing you are worrying about?” “No, but…” “I am teasing you. Yes, he has. It’s in the cupboard next to the fridge.” Well, it seems like nothing much changed in their apartment after all. Bowls in the cupboards and stacks of shochu, and everything else in between. 

Two years after last visiting, you feel like it was just yesterday. A nice revived warm memory. You hope it will linger for a little more, its light pleasantly warming your cold hands. _ Your phone is somewhere inside Ran’s room and he isn’t willing to give it to you. It’s also a no trespasse territory so you don’t dare to go in there and take it yourself. “Did Rindou call?” You ask on your second day spent with Ran. It’s raining outside. Quite heavily so, but inside this little cute cafe that serves only coffees and cheesecakes, it’s warm and safe. “He called me,” Ran says, cutting his lemon cheesecake in half and transferring the piece to your plate. He cuts off part of your strawberry one for himself too. “Asked what we were doing and how are you doing. Don’t worry about him. He is getting drunk, high and probably has a couple of girls in his bed to warm it. I bet he is having a good time.”

“It’s good then. I want him to have a good time.” Ran hums, takes a sip of his black coffee that obviously doesn’t taste good at all and observes you. Eyes squinting and all. It would’ve been uncomfortable before, but it’s not anymore. In these two full days you spent with him in his apartment it’s almost like all those years before. “Your other friend called though and sent lots of messages.” You don’t have to ask to know who this friend is and Ran understands it very well, because he continues without waiting for you to ask who he is talking about. “I answered him and told him you’ll stay with me. Apparently what I did at the party reached him.” 

Never once he looks away from you, waiting for anything from you. A small frown, barely there sigh, tears or glossy eyes. But nothing comes, so he asks. Simply, because he desires to know. “Are you upset? I can give you your phone back if you want to call Kakucho. I know you’ve become close since that party.” There’s nothing you are feeling. No sadness, no remorse, no heart in the stomach. It stays in your chest where it’s supposed to be. So you shrug and put a little bit of yellow cheesecake on your spoon. You taste it, the back of the spoon hanging from your mouth. It tastes good. Really really good. 

“I am not upset and we are just close friends. Nothing more.” “Nothing more?” “Nope.” “That’s good. Anyway, do you want to rent something to watch later today?” It is good and yes you do. Of course you do. 

_

With his hair up in a messy bun, loose strands falling all over his face and glasses always falling off past his nose bridge, Ran looks ridiculous. You tell him just that. 

He also looks very domestic, very warm and safe, but you aren’t about to tell him that. He understands it anyway. 

_ On the fourth day of getting back to Ran he leaves the apartment very early in the morning and doesn’t return until the evening when the clock strikes eight. 

It’s very boring without him there. With nothing to do you read Rindou’s book about healthy food and when you finish it, you read his handouts about the importance of music in western world. Both food and music are dull topics to you, but with nothing to do it’s better than just sitting on the sofa and waiting for Ran to come home.  You also watch TV. MTV with loud pop and all the same techno music and then some soap opera with an all too obvious plot on TBS. You even tune in on the football match on TBS Sports and find it a bit entertaining. 

But then the match ends and Ran isn’t home yet and you have no idea where your phone is so you could’ve called him [you don’t have his number], so you get up and get to cooking. Cooking is nice and it’s creative enough for you to lose yourself in it. You notice a pack of shaving razor’s on the kitchen countertop and wonder how they even got there. 

You take them back to the bathroom. When Ran does come home it’s dark outside and he doesn’t look any different. It’s raining again and his hair and clothes are a bit wet, which makes you think that he didn’t use his car. You so want to ask him where he has been and why has he left you alone, but you don’t dare. 

You stare at him from the safe space of Rindou’s room. Watch him take his coat off, then his boots and then he is right by your side. “I wanna see your scars,” he asks, almost pleading, and this is so unlike him, so not Ran and everything you know about him, you think you heard him wrong, but he repeats, “I want to see you. You aren’t afraid of me, are you?” And you aren’t. You were never afraid of Ran and his vicious, sometimes cruel, nature, because to you he was never like that. You never saw him as a person capable of turning another human being's fingers into a bloody mess that won’t ever heal. To you, Ran is Ran. Beautiful sleepy eyes and gentle touches. A never ending worry for the people he loves and all the knowledge about flowers he once read in the encyclopaedia of his gone from his life forever mother. 

Without saying anything, holding onto each other’s gaze, you strip to your underwear. Your scars ugly tissues of messy skin, are wanting to be hidden. They scream at you and cry and rebel. They promise you, you can hide them under other scars, more brutal, more deadly, more deep, but you don’t believe them anymore. 

Nothing ever will steal them away from you. They are now you and you have to carry them for as long as you live. No sharks or stakes are the option.

Cold fingers burn your warm skin. Ran’s hands glide across every patch of your existence that once were wronged by you. He finds every single one. On your arms, your legs and thighs. Your ribs and lower back. He doesn’t say anything, but his hands tremble and that is enough for you to understand everything. Him and his reasons. 

When he claws your waist with his fingertips and brings you close to him in an impossible tight hug, you start crying. Your own hands fist the plush of his sweater and you want it gone, because you need to feel him close to you. Skin to skin and nothing apart. 

The pressure from his fingers is painful, and if he presses more, he’ll leave blooming bruises, but you won’t mind it. You wouldn’t mind it at all, because just this once it’s so nice to be safe and sound in the arms of someone other than Rindou or Haruchiyo. It’s so nice, so so nice, to want something more and not be afraid of it. 

It’s like blooming camellias and stinging honey bees. 

_ Fully dressed with sanrio cookies Ran got at 7-Eleven, you sit near him on the floor, on the Rindou’s blanket you spread across it for warmth and comfort. Your tears have long dried and the Ghibli movie is now playing on the TV. The room is dark, the rain is still falling and Ran is slowly falling asleep. 

“You know, I’ve never rejected you,” he yawns, laying down. “That summer. I didn’t reject you. I thought you and Rin had something going on between you and that’s why I said what I said. Maybe if I were to… Anyway, it doesn’t matter now. Let’s just watch the movie.” Ran doesn’t make it to the end. He dozes off right at the moment when Chichiro boards the train and suddenly you too lose interest in a magical movie with so much sense behind its gentle animation. For a couple of seconds that stretch into an endless drop of water you bring your knees to your chest and stare outside the window. The view is nothing much. A grey building and dimly lit street lamp. Not a soul passes under the windows and you don’t hear any voices or laughs. No steps or coughs and rustling of clothes. Maybe there’s a black cat there somewhere, but its paws are too soft to make any noise. It most definitely won’t reach the second floor. Especially with rain meeting the pavement and cars and roofs, and maybe cats, but hopefully not. 

That night that summer it was raining too or so you were told, because you don’t remember. Drunk, high and very very sad you were brought into Haruchiyo’s apartment where he cared for you as best as an eighteen year boy could about an eighteen year old wronged girl. And in that crumpled dusty bar in Roppongi another act of love was happening. More vicious and more cold. Rindou has never told you about it, but you know him and Ran well enough to know that they did it together. Haitani brothers and all. 

You are too lazy to go to the kitchen and put sanrio cookies in the cupboard where they belong so you place them on the table near the TV. You grab the remote and switch the movie off. Darkness envelops the apartment, but you are used to it and then there’s that street lamp with its light and Ran. Slowly, you sneak under the blanket and curl next to him.

His breaths are even and methodical. His heart beats the same and he is very very warm. He is asleep and you so desperately want to sneak into his dream and live there. Meet the bees and blooming camellias along with other beautiful flowers he knows by heart. It must smell so good there and it must be day. Full family at the table and everything is good. Cats can be heard from miles away and fire is never burning the skin, only purifying. It never hurts there. 

Just like it never hurts near Ran. 

“Stop thinking so loudly,” Ran turns on the side, arm hooking across your waist and brings you closer to him, his body and his peace, “You are waking me up with those thoughts of yours. It’s gonna be alright. We are… I… It’s… I…” Whatever he said is lost on you, because he falls asleep again. This time, in his arms, in his warmth, it’s easier for you to close your eyes, because after many many days you are eager to open them again. _ This time, you don’t wake up first, but you wake under an intense gaze and hand caressing your face. He doesn’t stop when you open your eyes, curiously, looking at him and you don’t stop him when he leans in and kisses you. Slowly and sweetly. Besides drunk games at parties where you pecked a couple of boys, you’ve never ever kissed anyone, because you loved them. And right now doing exactly that - kissing the person you love, - your chest burns and you are not sure what you are supposed to do and how to suppress all those whimpers and moans you are so readily feed Ran with. 

Somewhere in the kiss, right after he hugs you impossibly closer to him, both arms around you, he smiles. The flame in your chest is now fire, and so you push him away. “What?” He asks leaning in again, this time pressing wet open mouthed kisses across your jaw. It makes it harder to speak, breath uneven and clogged, “Why are you smiling?” Surprised, he looks up, “I thought you were gonna ask me what the kiss was about, but you so you, and… why do you think I am smiling?” He waits for an answer and your brain runs kilometres in a millisecond, but you can’t come up with a decent answer that is not embarrassing or humiliating and full of self–doubt. Instead, you want to kiss Ran more and you want him to hug you tight again, hands holding you together, in one piece. And so you do. And it feels nice and it feels beautiful and right. And probably you should have had a conversation about all these before, but as he said you are you and he is Ran Haitani, and you kinda like doing everything in mysterious complicated ways only understandable to you. So you kiss more and he kisses across your face and under your jaw and then your neck where he plants bites and hickeys that bloom right away. Pretty shades of purple.  Only when you are sitting on top of him and his hands slide under your [his] shirt, does he stop. Hair a wild mess, he tilts his head and retracts his hands from your bare waist moving them to your face, which he cradles with all the gentleness in the world. He searches for something, anything, in your expression, but only finds swollen lips and pretty eyes that hold all the stored love they never gave away. And he crumbles, falling so hard and so fast, you hear the air crying and flowers blooming in his chest. 

Right at this moment, you both know, he’d do whatever you want and this will either be the best reward of his life or his demise. [As if you ever would let the last happen]. Ran presses a small barely there kiss to the corner of your lips and nudges your cheek with his nose. He takes a deep content breath full of the meaning you don’t catch on. Not because you don’t understand, but because you can’t, because he holds your head to his and kisses that sweet place right below your ear. Because he whispers, asking you, “How do you feel?” “Good. I feel good, Ran. I really really do,” you breathe out, hands clutching onto his shoulders. You can’t see his face, he buries it in your neck, inhaling your very being into himself. Storing you and what you are to the depths of his heart to where he will never let anyone reach. 

Your skin absorbs his smile and it makes you happy. So happy, you believe, if you died right there in his arms, an army of bees and the prettiest pink camellias would swerve from your ashes and Ran would name them all. 

_ The afternoon was spent exchanging lazy kisses and tender caresses. The time passes and the rain continues and when you stand outside of Haitani’s apartment building waiting for Ran who forgot his card upstairs, you inhale the wet aroma of pavement and green leaves and everything seems fine. Uncertain and wobbly, but fine. 

You actually believe that if sharks would come right now and try to swallow you for the first time ever you would fucking fight them. And they would back off. _ “You know, we should have ordered,” Ran complains in his small accusatory voice that you haven’t heard in so long. “You are soaking.” “Maybe. But then the poor delivery guy would’ve suffered and the food would be cold and…” Ran gives you the look. The one you haven’t forgotten, but could never crack up before. Where he believes you are very cute, but hella naive and a bit stupid. Now, though, you know what this small smile with a very relaxed face means. Now, that you know, you just nod embarrassment overflowing, and turn away from him, cheeks hot and hands trembling. He notices it all. He finds you endearingly cute. So cute, he wants to tear you apart. “You know, let’s just eat our burgers and get home.” “Burgers and fries, Ran. You did order fries, right?” “Yeah. Yeah. And fries. I just really wanna get you home.” _

“Say it again,” Ran murmurs, tenderly kissing your right cheek. His hair is still wet from the shower and his skin is slightly tinted red from the hot water. The huge tattoo that splits his body in half is more evident than ever and you find your gaze lingering there, tracing pretty shapes of it. 

He doesn’t wear much. Only sweatpants. And straddling him, legs hugging his hips, you can clearly tell that there’s nothing under them. Only him and his bare skin.  The smell of his shampoo and gel shower lingers in the room and it’s unclear if it’s from him or from you since you’ve been indulgently using his toiletries this whole time. Not because you always wanted to be closer to him, but because there was just no way you’d use Rindou’s mint one. Vanilla and bergamot it is then.

And now, all senses high and elevated, you claw at Ran’s naked shoulders, letting him slowly mouth your neck and you throw your head back, and you inhale this pleasant aroma that will forever remain you of these days and you desperately try to compose yourself. Dissolving into him would be easier, but you want to remember every single moment and every single sensation, and so you stay. “When was the last time you had sex?” In his question there’s no shame or hesitation, and it’s good. Really good. Because Ran doesn’t want to hide his intentions and pretend nothing is going to happen since this morning it was clear you would be under him today.

 “And with whom. I wanna know who had you last.” There’s slight fear in his last demand and you want to wonder why, but you stop yourself before your mind could create impossible scenarios and trap you. You pull back a little, peering into his face. You need to know why he is asking you this and as if he understands you, he leans forward pressing a soft kiss to your lips. 

“I am asking, because I need to know how hard I can go and what you can take from me.” His hands, warm and attentive, slide under your shirt. You too wear nothing under it. He doesn’t seem too surprised when he finds it out. Instead, he stops at the small of your back and hugs you closer to him. “I don’t want to hurt you or make you do something you aren’t ready for.” If not for the gentle fire in your heart, you would’ve cried. But you drop your head down, unable to look him in the eyes anymore. There’s something in them you aren’t mentally prepared for and Ran should be fearing about it more, than he does about sex. “I am not afraid of you and you won’t hurt me.” You say and then something possesses you and you cradle his face in your palms and you hold the whole world there and he isn’t aware of it and everything hurts, but in a good sweet way. “Can we kiss some more? I really like kissing you and I like you. You asked me to say it again and I will. I like you, Ran. So so so much.”

Ran kisses wet and sloppily and he grabs at your waist so clumsily, so unsure and so uncertain that it sells him immediately away. He has never kissed anyone like this and now that he has it has him spiralling. And so out of his mind, he pulls you closer, his bare chest against your [his] t-shirt and he does it again, and then again and again, as if could possibly merge with you, because being like this seems so so so far away to him. He wants you closer and it physically hurts him not being able to. And so he takes a good look at your flustered face, your perfect collarbones picking out of the loose clothing and dives in to kiss you again. This time he doesn’t stop only at your lips, but he mouths across your neck, guiding his tongue across the bruises he left this morning. He smiles all the way down to your collarbones and his smile makes you smile too, and despite you being quite shy and awkward you grin, melting in his happiness. 

If that’s how love feels, it feels good, it feels right and it might help you. It should. You want to give it the power to.

Somewhere between losing yourself in each other completely and starving hands, Ran hooks his fingers under the hem of your t-shirt and lifts it upwards. There must not be enough of you for him and so he wants more. But you freeze, heart beating so fast, it’s going to burst any second now, and Ran understands. He puts a gentle sweet kiss on your lips and presses his forehead to yours.

His breathing is ragged and fast. 

“We don’t have to do anything. It won’t be good for you if you feel…,” he starts, but you take all those words with your mouth on his. You don’t want to hear what he has to say, because you know what it’s going to be. And you don’t want your fear to overwhelm you, because that’s what has been living inside you and that’s what you’ve been trying to carve out of your soul. With razors, scissors and knives. Never with love or understanding. You slip away from him. You take off your shirt and place it near you on the bed. Ran watches you. His eyes are hazy and unfocused, but not any move of yours passes by unattended by him. He glides over your breasts and there’s a slight jerk under you and suddenly you want to hide yourself. You almost do, but then you think better of it and you raise your hips and you try to take your sweatpants off, but Ran stops you. “Don’t,” he murmurs, flipping you on your back. “Don’t. I wanna do everything myself. I want to undress you myself. And I want you to kiss your body and I want to play with your tits until you lose your mind and then I want to eat you out and make you cum, because you fucking deserve it. Because this fucking tension needs to go the fuck away. Okay? And then I want to kiss you and then I want to fuck you and I will watch your face as I do it. I’ve always wanted to see your sweet pretty face under me. Always wanted to hear how you will scream for me and how insanely perfect you’ll be with my cock inside you. Okay?” You nod and he does exactly what he said. And Ran is attentive and careful and very very kind. He talks you through everything and doesn’t push your buttons even though a couple of times you secretly wish he did. That night it’s only one round. Mainly because he is too exhausted and sleepy after he cleans you up and dresses you in his boxers and a new clean t-shirt. 

You don’t change sheets though and decide against opening the window. Because it’s heavily raining outside again and because none of you wants to get up from the warm bed and lose the comfort of each other. “Is it too early to say that I love you?” He whispers, taking a full deep breath. 

You think it’s not, but you say that it is and he laughs seemingly seeing through your small insincerity. “Okay. Then you should ride me tomorrow morning. I deserve it after today.” “You know, Ran, I think this is too, too early to ask of me.” “Really?” “Well, yeah.” “But I kinda already asked and I kinda already…” A loud thunderstorm slams Tokyo and you get startled. Your body is aching in all the pleasant ways and you don’t have any capability in yourself to continue this ridiculous conversation. You press a kiss to his chest and hide yourself in the crook of his neck. You are safe and you are in love and pain is still there, and memories will never die, but pink camellias are blooming and bees are going to return. _ Rindou is not supposed to get back next afternoon, but he does. 

It’s still raining and Haruchiyo is at his back complaining about how much he hates humidity, because his hair gets all frizzy and ugly. [Not that someone particularly cares about Haruchiyo’s hair, but Rindou is too tired to argue with him, so he just hums.] Because he understands where Haruchiyo comes from and he is also still tipsy. 

Yesterday, before boarding the bus they did drink a little too much. But the bar they camped in in the night, ditching the comfort of the hotel, was nice and the girl that sucked Rindou off in the back alley behind that said bar, was pretty much exceptional, so he won’t complain. 

Besides, he and Haruchiyo, but Rindou more or so he believes, were too worried for you to stay in Osaka. All the girls in the back alleys be damned, they need to see you and make sure you are alright. Short unconstant messages from Ran - “oh, she is fine”, “don’t worry i got her” and “she’ll be just fine” - were not cutting the white patch of horrors off for him. 

Rindou needed to talk to you. He needed to do his little check up and maybe [most definitely] buy you some expensive patterned paper and a couple of cute storage boxes. And because he feels generous enough you’ll stop at Daiso and buy all the stickers you want too. 

“Does it smell like mackerel or am I tripping? Again,” deadpans Haruchiyo taking off his soaking wet shoes. He dumps the sports bag with all his clothes next to Rindou’s and waits for him to take his last evening white now grey Adidas sneakers to go check into the living room. It does indeed smell like grilled fish and vegetables inside the apartment. Tofu and spring onion. He tries his very best to remember when was the last time their apartment smelt of homemade food and simply can’t. To his own dismay, this special cosiness of familiarity and domesticity were more native to Haruchiyo’s studio.   But that’s only because you spent a lot of time there. 

Getting high, getting creative and being you. It clicks and responds and suddenly everything makes perfect sense and they could’ve stayed in Osaka for two days more as planned. 

So when they enter the living room and find you picking out bones out of the fish, Rindou is not surprised. He is not surprised when he notices that it’s actually Ran’s plate in front of you and this small act of service is for him and him only. And he is so not surprised when his own brother doesn’t pay any attention to them staring at you both. His thin lips curled into a tiny smile, chin prompted on his hands as he watches you knowing there won’t be anyone else. 

And there never were. 

It’s all so simple and so fucking stupid. 

“Rindou! Haru!” You notice them, of course you do, and you set the chopsticks aside and run to them, somehow hugging both of them at such an awkward angle, the hug doesn’t last long. 

In the back, Ran clearly rolls his eyes and drags the plate with the boneless fish to him. It makes a disturbing screeching sound. 

“Weren’t you supposed to be back much later? Like in two days?” 

“We changed plans,” Rindou replies without an ounce of venom or disappointment of whatever else he is supposed to feel right now at his brother’s not so inviting tone, “But I guess we were wrong to rush.” Near him Haruchiyo snorts, Ran laughs a little and you with your neck and collarbones a perfect constellation of purple flowers, get so shy, Rindou himself cracks a smile. 

It’s evident where he is looking and what he is reading from it all, and your hand - trembling as per usual - flies to your head, in a poor attempt to cover what can be seen from miles away. More than anything, at this moment, Rindou wants to tell you that there’s nothing you should be ashamed of, nothing to worry about in his presence. 

Hickeys, cuts, bruises and all the blemishes are evidence of feelings and we people are meant to feel them. We are meant to experience them in our own ways. 

But he can’t say that now. He’ll do it later. 

Now, he throws his arm around your shoulders, kisses the top of your head and excuses himself to the bathroom. 

He needs that hot fucking shower now.

_ Three days later the rain stops. 

Haruchiyo goes home the day after they arrive from Osaka and you spend two more nights at Haitani’s. 

You leave when it’s sunny and not so cold for January. Ran offers you his long grey coat and a deep kiss to your lips. At that Rindou rolls his eyes, but he is smiling and so it’s fine. 

They both promise you they’ll stop by your apartment in the evening to go have dinner together. You all settle on something french. It’s weird how today your wants align and you aren’t about to pass this extreme luck of not quarrelling on where to eat.

[You feel like today is going to be a nice day.]

Your parents are home. Your little sister too. The house smells like butter and caramel. They probably had something sweet and nice for breakfast. The last time you ate with them together in the morning was so far away you can barely remember it. It saddens you, but only a little. 

“What are you watching?” You ask your sister. She sits on the floor, her legs inside the kotatsu. It seems to be a new one, because the wooden frame is white instead of dark brown. You’ve never noticed they changed it and you don’t know why. Something might have happened to it or perhaps your mom just wanted a small change. She can be like that sometimes. 

“National Geographic,” she replies without turning her head. “Is it interesting?” You genuinely inquire and she gives you a weirded out look. She shrugs, “I guess so. You learn a lot of things about the world we live in. Like did you know that all flowers have meanings behind them? Yellow roses mean friendship, tulips mean perfect love and camellias symbolise romantic love, adoration and care. It’s pretty cool. Don’t you think so?” 

From the kitchen with two puddings and small all too familiar from childhood silver spoon in her hands emerges your mother. She has a sweet hesitant smile and her face is so lovely and you missed her so so so much. She sits next to you and opens the pudding for you. You think that if she was to feed you, you’d gladly accept. Any neglected love you can take from her you will. “Oh, and bees… that don’t fly south. They actually never fly away,” your sister says and your mother laughs for one reason or another and there’s tears in her eyes and what your sister just said makes no sense at all to anyone,