thursday boys

by evyanne

Chapter 10: the years that melt away

Summary:

To their firsts that they have unforgivingly taken from each other, from kisses to cigarettes, they mourn and grieve what they had been and who they have become.

Outside the poster-covered windows is the snow. The seasons have changed; Megumi has only gotten older.

 

The girl in front of him looks young but not young enough, old but not old enough — not enough, choppy hair tied back into low pigtails. Their face is framed with glasses, though Megumi can see their doe eyes— cold and unseeing, behind the thin, frail and glass-like frames that lay on her moon-cratered, stained and swollen cheeks. 

 

Her skin is textured, and Megumi can only think of his own smooth cheeks, the cheeks that have remained the same ones that Yuuji had kissed. Until they pass that 7, maybe 10 year mark— until then, his skin will remain the same from those days. That day, that night.

 

“Is that all?” Monotonously, Megumi stares at the assortments of snacks and chocolate bars laid out on the counter, and his green eyes hurt with how the colours clash with the deceiving lottery tickets that sit behind them, displayed in clear-plastic. That girl, she holds the kind of look that is utterly indescribable yet familiar all the same. 

 

Nodding, Megumi can’t help but frown when the girl stares back at him. “Yes.”

 

Scanning all of the items that come out to a hefty price; he watches as the girl solemnly hands over an abundance of coins, counting yen by yen until they had finally seemed to meet the end. Megumi stays silent when the girl bundles everything into their arms with familiarity.

 

Watching the young girl walk into the dead of the night, Megumi offers them whatever minimal hope he has left. There have been many curious people who have come in and out of the convenience store, so many people who Megumi cannot recall. It’s a bit saddening to know that, but what else can he do?

 

There are only a few memorable people in this world— these people are so incredibly subjective, and Megumi just knows it has happened to him, because he remembers.

 

It’s the beginning of February, and the snow will not stop piling.

 

Megumi doesn’t question the snowflakes that begin to make themselves a home atop the girl's head, lazing around as they struggle to check their bulky watch, hidden under the mountains of snacks and oversized sleeves. When their head turns, Megumi instinctively turns away despite the girl not looking at him.

 

The sounds of the automatic door flowed in, hidden the walls and soaked shoes squeaking against the slushed floor. By now, Megumi doesn’t even bother to say anything.

 

At first— at any sound, Megumi would turn to see what and who had caused it. Be it his eyes which searched for a certain car, eyes who searched for a certain person. It was a hopeless effort, ending in vain only each time. Now, from having been ridiculed by one too many drunkards for simply looking, Megumi will keep his eyelashes down-casted and his chin held down low. 

 

When his eyes trail off the window once more, leaning back to see through the posters and advertisements that hang off of the walls— the girl is no longer there, and her footprints, that are followed from forward with larger sized ones,  are nearly erased from how harshly the snow comes down. 

 

With eyes following the trails of snowflakes that cascade the ground, Megumi’s ears pick up the sound of a dense plastic wrapping. It’s all so familiar, and Megumi can already guess that when he looks down at the table that it will be an onigiri—

 

Bingo. There’s 2 cold looking onigiris that lay in front of him, and Megumi quickly works his one hand to scan the two to make up for the fact that he lied about his other hand. He needed money— money of his own, to feel the normalcy once more. Even when you’re no longer doing illegal activities every Thurs-every-day, you lose the sense of what ‘normal life’ is, or was like. 

 

Keeping his eyes at the register, Megumi finds the silence unsettling. A laugh, a comment, anything would’ve been better than the utter void they sit in on such a cold night. 

 

“Is this all?” Megumi says, voice flat as he wonders that when he looks up— who will be standing there, who will be there to criticize him on a day far too long for its own good. 

 

The silence that had been there had been overwhelming, but the noise that forms in the sound of a voice evoke the dormant emotions that Megumi subconsciously hid away. “No.” 

 

And it’s the end of July, and the money from races upon races over races from races— does not stop coming in, no matter who ends them and who stops them. 

 

That’s how they meet again— the sound of the lights buzzing from cheap overuse like Megumi’s future sold inexpensively, the sounds of Megumi’s manager sleeping in the break room and the sounds of their own breaths.

 

Backing away from the ebb that Megumi finds himself stepped into, green eyes blink and blink and blink until Megumi finally sees just what is in front of him.

 

It’s love. It’s the devil; in the form of a body so warm, a body familiar that Megumi can feel it from over the counter that separates the two’s hips from meeting— bone on muscle. 

 

Sucking in a breath, Megumi eyes trail from the lottery tickets that make every customer cave in and gamble; he might as well be taking a gamble, looking up from his spot and onto the source of a voice just like his.

 

There’s no possible way that it wasn’t Yuuji. And this is exactly why words like ‘impossible’ exist, because it is impossible that the voice doesn’t belong to Yuuji.

 

Impossible, it is. 

 

Green eyes meet brown, and Megumi feels the low chorus of anger and loathing, loving and hating, bubble up within his guts that twist and churn. Filling the silence between them, Megumi finds himself breaking the silence. 

 

“.. You—” Is it really you? Megumi wants to ask, wants to ask if this is the devil playing  a cruel joke on him, a prank for the fool that had managed to fool nobody but himself. How ironic is that?

 

The other only gives him a small smile, a grin filled with nothing more than possessive love, than the urge to crawl into another’s arm just to be held. The urge to want someone to fall asleep on your shoulder, and Yuuji’s smiles speak louder than his words. “Can I get a pack of menthol Marlboros?” 

 

Menthol Marlboros. Megumi thinks about the pack he snuck into his bag earlier, a habit grown for no reason. His collection at home had been left undiscovered and continuously growing. Sniffing the air unnoticeably, Megumi notices the smell of mint and cinnamon— two very clashing flavours, just like them.

 

Throwing a pack of cinnamon-gum onto the counter alongside the softening rice, Megumi now knows for sure just who it is that stands in front of him. 

 

“.. Itadori.” And it’s the end of July.

 

Yuuji feels his hands grow clammy under the other’s gaze, disoriented and confused. Under the weight of the word and the criminal record that drags on the heels of his feet, anchoring himself to its past, Yuuji feels Megumi the most.  

 

Rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly, hand bristling against hairs that have been trimmed and cut— Yuuji gives Megumi a face that could’ve been seen as a hello, but as the other man scans, there can only be a hello that ends with goodbye. 

 

“Meet me there,” and though Yuuji’s words are vague and offer little to imagine, Megumi knows exactly what ‘there’ is and where. Yuuji gives him one last glance to make sure Megumi gets it, unaware if he had just been getting too greedy and much too cocky. 

 

When the other's face is confused, yet infused with understanding— Yuuji feels his cheek flush a hot mellowed pink, and tucks his chin down to the collar of his shirt. “After your shift is done.” 

 

No, Megumi wants to say. Afraid that when Yuuji will take his oddly sentimental items and walk through the automatic doors with a jingle, that will be the last sight of Yuuji, the first time in years and last time to see him.. That when Megumi will blink for a moment and open his eyes again, to reveal that it was actually nothing at all. “But—” 

 

Yuuji, whilst the other is mostly silent and his passive face has remained the same for the past years— understands. He too, wants to speak and wants to live once more with Megumi. But, there is little that they can do in the middle of a run-down convenience door with the snow coming down, unlike their heartbeats. 

 

Stretching an arm over the counter— Megumi feels a roughed up, yet still cozy hand rests upon his own hand, holding a scanner covered in sweat and nerves. Used, malleable and calloused; it’s what Yuuji’s hands feel like, and most importantly, they feel like home. They belonged there, and yet they did not belong in the middle of snacks and the awaiting customers. “We can talk then, yeah?” 

 

Before Megumi’s protest can swell in his throat and overflow, his body feels the touch before his eyes reach the customers that have also come in and out as their exchange happened. It’s exhilarating all the same; and Yuuji’s swole and comforting touch has not changed at all.

 

Snow keeps falling, and Megumi knows that in order to gain that level of intimacy— to gain knowledge of the truth, to receive the act of having Yuuji’s loved skin on his own, they have to be alone. Alone with themselves, with their words and away from the world. 

 

Unrecovery. They will wait, Megumi will have to wait until the world closes its wide eyes and allows them to speak with nothing but what the law had expected and did not receive from them; the truth.

 

“.. One pack?” Sighing, Megumi is resistant to pulling his hand away— but does so anyway, turning around and standing on the tips of his toes to reach the menthol cigarettes that sit gingerly upon the shelf. Casting one eye back to the other, Yuuji only nods and gives him a thumbs up that shines with a familiar ring. 

 

It comes rushing to him, the night they met. Yuuji had given him the dumbest thumbs up with his fingers scrunched in leather, saying words that Megumi hadn’t known would stick with him even now. His words this time around are nonetheless memorable, maybe even more so. Yuuji’s smiling, “you know it.” 

 

Scanning the crinkling package, the total adds up on the bright digital screen similar to Megumi added things up in his own head— just by taking a look at the ring of bags around Yuuji’s typically bright eyes, just by noticing the way Yuuji looks around when a sound comes, body gone stiff.

 

A jingling noise falls on deaf ears, and Yuuji hands over the total in change. Counting through the numerous coins and quickly depositing them into the register; Megumi notices the lack of change that he has to give back to the man.

 

Bagging the items, Megumi gives the other an unknowing look. “Exact change?” 

 

Sheepishly smiling, Yuuji takes the handles into his own hands, unforgetting to brush his warm hands against Megumi’s cool, winter-aired hands. Megumi wonders if it’s them or the constant snowflakes that encase the city that makes Yuuji’s cheeks glow that wine colour. “I remembered a lot of things.” 

 

And though Megumi expects Yuuji to turn quickly, grab the bag with the force of a car accident, Yuuji stands for a second longer— like he was basking in the presence of the other. “Like you,” says Yuuji, whispering so quietly that the other customers will pay more attention to the squeaks of their shoes on the floor rather than the home that sits upon the convenience store counter. “You’re still as pretty, you know that?”

 

And god, does that pull at Megumi’s heartstrings— pulls until it plays a melody so consistently perfect, so broken and so fixable. Huffing away a flush that desperately wishes to appear on his face, Megumi avoids the other’s fraught eye contact. 

 

“.. I’ll,” as Megumi says those words, the stress both rids of and increases on the other’s face— “I’ll see you later.” “

 

Until it is gone, completely skated over with a heavenly feeling of a smile that meets the corners of his eyes.

 

Turning around, Yuuji raises a hand and bids Megumi off one last time with a wave, and Megumi knows that this isn’t goodbye. Not again, not now and not yet. Offering Yuuji a wave that doesn’t even lift from above his waist, Megumi nods as Yuuji speaks.

“See you later, Fushiguro.”

 

And he’s gone— and it takes everything in Megumi to convince himself not to run around the counter and burst through the doors, grasp onto the newly imprinted snowflakes on the snow and the corner that Yuuji has turned onto. Takes everything, for Megumi to remind himself that it isn’t the last time. Won’t be the last time.

 

Numbly, the next customer drops their various products on the counter— and life advises all the thoughts in Megumi’s head that time goes on. Tomorrow will always come. 

 

The scanning noises continue to overstimulate his brain and thoughts for the entirety of his shift; Megumi finds himself glaring to his left, manager sleeping soundly in a chair that looks less than comfortable. There is time to waste yet not at all, they have all the time in the world and yet not enough. 

 

Love is timeless— and Megumi knows that when his shift finally ends after what seems like an eternity, drawing out the faces of customers; that are unforgettable to others but not to him. Listening to the silent conversations of others and watching as lovers, who are most obviously not in love, take their time in the store whilst having none at all. 

 

Clocking out silently, Megumi finds himself with his apron snatched off of his waist, dialing up a phone that he had not wanted to call at all. They see each other everyday now, and Megumi sometimes misses the times where they would go months that felt like years without seeing the faces of each other. 

 

The ring dials once, neither of them question why the other doesn’t let it ring for another 4.

 

It feels odd to call the older man this late into the night, and Megumi feels his throat shake as he breathes out words that feel strange on his tongue. “Gojo,” the line is rather silent, the silent noises of an orchestra play faintly in the back. The record player, perhaps? “I’m not coming back tonight.” 

 

The tune lowers in a few long moments, before Satoru’s hoarse voice comes through. “What? Megumi,” and it seems like he already knows what is happening— it’s overly familiar to the way Megumi would call him years before, not asking but telling him that no; just like Satoru, he wasn’t going to be home. 

 

Satoru’s voice suddenly goes clear, aware and seemingly awake from his slumber. “Where are you going?”

On Megumi’s side, he stands against the doorway of the breakdown— staring out as another coworker slips by, coming in for his shift. Eyes lingering on the snow that continues to fall and brace for the ground, to melt and freeze. 

 

Sincerely, Megumi doesn’t want to lie. It has been written in his score that yes, he will tell the truth when he wants to. In a weird, warped form of saving his sanity, his mind— Megumi lies. Lies because he knows that Satoru would never agree to what he is doing now. 

 

And Megumi can’t find it in himself to disagree, that is the sole reason that he lies. “Somewhere. I’ll be late,” Megumi’s breath hitches, unsure of how to make it seem like he wasn’t leaving for an indefinite amount of time. Thinking back to the times Satoru would call and leave him hanging both figuratively and literally, Megumi says, “don’t wait for me.” 

 

The silence that ensues says it all, and Satoru cannot believe what he just heard come from the other’s mouths. Suddenly sitting up in his bed, back braced against the cool headboard, Satoru feels this sense of instinct and doubt pour into his stomach. “Don’t tell me—” 

 

Frankly— Megumi understands the concern and autopilot that flips Satoru on with a switch, but he can’t help feeling tired. To feel coddled after a life-long period of being unsure if he was worthy of such things, being unheld by no one else but his still comatose sister, is not something that is forgotten easily.

 

It doesn’t help when Megumi knows that it only started because of the accident, the accident that started because he had found a home filled with one too many items, hoarded up and loved all the same. He was a child back then; a child who had no maturity of mistakes. And now, he was only a man— a man who had made mistakes. 

 

Snarking back at the other, Megumi hopes Satoru can use his head a little more, seeing that Megumi can’t help but lash out, head filled with memories and that lingering feeling of unworthiness. “Be glad I am telling you.” 

 

And Satoru does. He gets it now, because Megumi and him are unknowingly like each other. Almost parallels yet intertwined in a sickening way, that both of them are men who had made one too many mistakes. Regret, however, was something that the two did not share.

 

“Please,” because this is the only thing that Satoru feels that he could ask, to put his ever-so lingering nerves and worries to rest. Even with how undeserving Satoru is, seeking answers from someone who had never received any, he still protests. “Don’t see Yuuji.” 

 

An answer that Megumi will never get from Satoru is that he’ll never admit that it had been months since Yuuji was released, kept under the wraps for the sake of Megumi’s failing self. From school to his spirits, something had always been on his mind and Satoru doesn’t have to think twice before he knows what, or who it is. 

 

It’s not like he’s even wrong, and Satoru’s suspicions are proven rightfully when hears Megumi sigh and shuffle on his feet on the other line. Silently, Megumi whispers just over a hush volume, “I’m sorry.” 

 

Satoru knows that he won’t be able to do anything. 

 

After all, Megumi had grown, in a hypocritical way, to be static. Just like what he loves— or whatever sickness, parasitic longing that had loved his body enough to cling tightly, Megumi would go whether or not Satoru had dragged him by his tangled black locks. Just like him; except without that obvious emotion of ‘love’, he would leave. Leave, because that is all the other boy had known. Even now, Satoru thinks Megumi will always be a boy to him.

 

Bones crack as Satoru leans a stiff neck over the bend of the headboard, blue eyes shutting themselves off from the world in desperation to forget. His cheeks puff, letting out a submitting breath of air. “.. Be safe, at least.”

 

There’s one more thing that Satoru needs to add, something that he wishes to make clear even if their relationship had been nothing but a window fogged up, a road fogged up with an exit and a highway.  

 

“Don’t go racing. Please.” Don’t go, a voice that is not his echoes in his brain. Don’t go, and all Satoru can do is say ‘sorry’ and forget. Forget it, forget me and remember you. 

 

Laughter, or what could be considered laughter as coming from Megumi, comes into the sound of his empty room and Satoru finds himself bathing in the relief of sarcasm. Megumi thinks it’s rather ironic, that Satoru would think such a thing.

 

Unable to even get into a car normally— what was racing to him now? Did it seem like something he would do?

 

Fingers twirl and wound up a die that has since found itself wrapped around the silicone of Megumi’s phone, hanging and swishing; it’s disgusting, the way the cracked and die blood stuck in the indents of the die fall off— a biohazard that Megumi can’t seem to erase from his life. 

 

Jingle, and a small chuckle.“I can’t get into a car anyway,” stiffening from the sudden revelation of Megumi’s actual condition, he quickly tears his hand from the loving die. Looking at his manager who stares at him from the empty register, Megumi turns and hushes his voice once again. “See you?”

 

“I will see you.” Satoru’s words feel cold as though the room he stays in, heat lowered in the presence of just himself. 

 

A sudden thought comes to Megumi— and he tries his best to believe in it. Forgiveness does not come easy, and Megumi is unsure if it ever will. Even so, that genuine emotion, be it angry or sadness or concern, is something that he cannot ignore. 

 

Satoru is not a textbook good person by any means, and that doesn’t mean he can’t have his moments. Megumi will give him just this once, for the devil that asks for it. 

 

“Okay,” and Megumi will give him that authenticity that Megumi had lacked before, from the times where he convinced himself how and when to be unleavable. Suspecting, he will say just one more thing. 

 

“Goodbye, Gojo.” 

 

Satoru finds himself hating that word— hating that Megumi says goodbye like it’s the last time they’ll ever see each other. Even he, had never said goodbye. Perhaps, ‘bye’, perhaps. ‘I’ll be gone’, but never was it ‘goodbye’. Goodbye started with hello’s; and the Gods that have taken and taken, knows that Gojo Satoru does not do hello’s. 

 

Fingers hover over the red button on the bright screen of his phone. “Don’t say goodbye.” It turns out that it isn’t Satoru who ends the call anyway.

 

“Fuck,” the moon comes in through the windows, leaving traces of itself on the quilt that drapes over Satoru. Even through the winter— it’s both cold and warm under the sheets, and Satoru hates that he knows that it would be warmer with someone else in them. 

 

His bed is empty , and Satoru soon realizes that the house is empty, as well. It’s not that he didn’t know Megumi was working for school and what now, to get away from his dependence on Satoru that seemed to annoy him to Hell and back. But it is the slight knowledge of knowing, you’re alone. It is taxing, incredibly so. 

 

The house is silent, the sounds of him sighing and strands being run through his lithe fingers ring out. It drives him insane— the silence. Satoru can only think about how many nights Megumi spent like this, falling asleep to the sounds of nothing and his own thoughts.

 

How he endured that, Satoru would never know. That was something the white haired man had never wanted to know. Sighing once more, his own faults come back to him; but Satoru also can’t help but think of Megumi, because it wasn’t as if Megumi had been perfect.

 

In fact, Megumi was far from it. That is why Satoru can’t help but lay his head back onto unused pillows, and stare at the ceiling that does not respond back to his words. “What am I gonna do with him?”

 

After the call ends, it isn’t even seconds later that Megumi flips off his indoor slippers, pulling on sneakers because even with the heavy, growing centimetres of snow, he refuses to wear boots. Maybe it was the weight of them dragging on his feet, making him feel stuck.

 

The last thing that Megumi ever wanted to feel was stuck. Stuck in the past, foreshore. Stuck in the present, where does sense begin to make sense?

 

Stuck in the past, he was— that is exactly why he exits the convenience store at the intersection they had always passed before, breathing in the cool air that burns his lungs no less than Megumi’s failed attempts at smoking cigarettes that were not his. 

 

The footprints of Yuuji had long-since been snowed over, the angry winter piling itself upon the world. It seemed as though a punishment, with every harsh gust of wind that passed by; Megumi walks, walks until he loses himself upon the ever familiar streets. 

 

Cars pass, and Megumi’s thoughts wander about how that could’ve been them. How that was them, and how it was no longer them. In the future, just dreaming, that could be them again. But in all honesty, Megumi can’t lie and say that he wishes that it would be them again. 

 

Terrified— a phobia of sorts, that came whenever he was faced with the option of entering a car. He thinks it just might be the same for Yuuji, remembering how the other’s shoes were caked with thick snow and muddy slush. 

 

He doesn’t live here, and yet the snow that continues to frost over the street lights, snowflakes illuminating against their bright lights— feel like home. Made Megumi feel as if he belonged somewhere again, made Megumi’s feet move until they wound up right back to him. 

 

It was always Yuuji; he always came right back there, like it was the only thing that Megumi had ever known.

 

The tunnel had not changed at all. From the rusty exterior that burned with copper and grey, stained with graffiti that may or may not have been planted there by the two of them. The location, the lights that had lit up the tunnel despite being out of the use; had never changed, and Megumi feels sentimental just being there, staring there. 

 

Without waiting long, Megumi’s reddened ears already pick up the sounds of the snow crunching under a pair of feet that walks with a heavy weight and a steady pace. His ears burn with it; and whether it’s from the freezing metal stuck in his ear, or the burdened-weighed emotions that comes with the familiarity of the noise, he does not know.

 

Turning around— it’s like the snow disappears, melts, almost. It’s July all over again, and Yuuji has the widest smile on his face, hair flattened with a hat covered thickly with snow. Waving a gloved hand, Yuuji calls out to him. 

 

“Hey!” 

 

Swept air from his lungs— the world takes everything that Megumi has away. They had just talked before, a brief conversation at the most, and yet just seeing him once more, again, has his brain go haywire and his heart, faulty-wired. 

 

Megumi holds back his left hand that twitches, right hand left for the dead, itching from the freezing weather to the urge to hold another warm hand. “.. It’s been a while.” 

 

It has surely , most certainly, been a damn while. 

 

The air begins to feel a little warmer, a little damper, as Yuuji lets out a laugh that not only brings white to the air; but a warm colour to Megumi’s life, and it's disgusting how simple it is. To make Megumi feel whole once more, the dependency of needing love in order to love— is disgusting, yet Megumi can’t bring himself to say it when Yuuji’s smooth, honey voice leaks out again. “Been a hell of a while, Fushiguro.” 

 

Just like the Earth that reveals itself, hearty with frostbite and chilling auras, Megumi’s mind goes a blank state; like the canvas that the dear Earth has become, the blank work space that laid in the wake of its anguish. Unsure of what to say, Megumi’s mind drags off into seeing Yuuji as a figment of a painting; his face, against the blank canvas. His body, against the white snow. He, of his entirety. 

 

The other stares at him confused, face painted with an expression that asks if he had done something wrong— and expression that questions if Yuuji should even be here at all. Megumi wants to water it down, repaint that expression into a relief. Tell him, I am glad you’re here.

 

“Sorry,” says Megumi, face nearly fogged with the sheer condensation that comes from his mouth. “I just don’t.. Don’t know what to say.” 

 

Despite having thought of this day for years— everyday on end, Yuuji still finds himself speechless. It’s a conversation that he practiced everyday in the mirror, and yet when it comes to facing the other, Yuuji realises that his reflection is nothing like Megumi. Too pretty, too fair; Yuuji indulges just one more sight of the other before he speaks. “It’s fine,” Yuuji has waited for the other, another few minutes is nothing compared to the months spent alone. Delicately, “I don’t either.” 

 

And that— that is what Megumi hates. After all this time, Yuuji still treats him kindly. Still speaks softly, still tells him that everything is fine when everything is simply not. His heart feels as if it was going to beat out of chest, and feels as if they were racing once more on a warm summer night.

 

Hates that what they have now is nothing like how he feels. A strange feeling, how it all comes down to a late July day and comes right back on a winter storm, bitterly cold when they haven’t seen each other in what may be years, when they don’t meet every Thursday. 

 

His wrist shakes from the sheer tension from one clenched fist, and Megumi’s words come spilling out of his mouth. “I—” Choking up on his words, Megumi can’t help but feel vulnerable. Yuuji doesn’t think he has ever seen hostile triumph naked before, but now it reveals itself as undeniable and stupidly raw. “I fucking hate you.”

 

Like opposites attract, Yuuji seeks comfort in the harsh and similar words that Megumi still spits at him. The attitude and the sharp words are nothing but special to deaf ears. “I know,” he says, and Yuuji thinks it comes out fonder than he had thought. “I know you do.”

 

Too much, Megumi thinks. The way his face flushes further despite the negative temperature, too much. The way Yuuji looks at him with that— that look in his eyes, is too much for him to bear. The way the snowflakes that fall have already covered Yuuji’s essence-filled footsteps, is too much.  

 

Words have become too much, too much to the point that questions still desperately come out. “Where.. where were you?” 

 

Where were you? Was a question asked by many, asked whether or not he was locked in a cell or roamed the streets freely. It’s not something Yuuji wishes to admit, rather something that he had hoped to hide. Was that lying, to put that fault of his in the back of the closet and hope that no one dug around, stuck a hand into his memories and found what Yuuji had desperately tried to fabricate, crime and sentence? 

 

“Oh,” and suddenly there is no hiding. The truth is the nude exhibitionist, the truth is brutal— perfect for a pair like them, made for the two of them. “I told them to not tell you.” 

 

It begins to click in Megumi’s mind— it’s not sudden, it’s something that he had guessed over the numerous and long hours spent thinking. With difficulty, it was one of the three main answers. The first had been that Yuuji had flat out left; and that truly didn’t end up surprising Megumi, had seemed like the most plausible answer to him,

 

Secondly was that Yuuji went to jail — and Megumi knows that it is now. It was something that he had considered better than him being dead or leaving, but it still left a sour and bitter taste along his tongue, like cigarettes, because he knew that Megumi was at fault. Megumi was there, and yet it seemed that Yuuji had said nothing about him at all.  

 

The last thing was something that Megumi spent hours denying— that Yuuji was gone. That the singular human of Yuuji had left the universe, had been damned by the Hells that had dragged Megumi through the ringer from just living. Living without knowing, living with too much knowledge. 

 

Quietly, Megumi’s voice falls quieter than the still incoming snow. “You went to.. ?” 

 

Oddly, Yuuji finds it quite sweet how Megumi does not try to disillude himself into believing that no, Yuuji had gone on vacation, Yuuji had left. Finds it so hopeful that Megumi does not try to convince either of them that it didn’t happen, like how many may try to do; fool themselves. “Yeah,” Yuuji nods truthfully, a string of repentance in his voice drips from his words. “For some time.” 

 

For some reason  Megumi can’t help but swallow the rock that had made itself prominent within his throat, scraping against the dry of his oesophagus. It wears him out, just the thought of the other being gone for so long and Megumi had even considered that he left. Guilt, was it? Was this the so-called regret that had been felt by many? 

 

“Itadori—” 

 

“Sh, pretty boy.” 

 

Words of familiarity— it’s like they had just met each other for the first time again. Almost as if they had not met under the conditions of illegal street racing and as children; though neither of them can nor try to deny that fact. They cannot deny what they don’t regret, what they know was not a mistake. 

 

A non-mistake that had managed to make a mistake, and Yuuji only smiles at the other with all teeth and no malice, red gums sticking out with hearty. “I deserved it.” 

 

That makes something boil within the black haired boy, stomach turning with a hot and cool sensation. Perhaps it is the burning hatred of Yuuji selfishly taking responsibility— not giving Megumi a chance to revive what guilt he had, to take the fall for what Yuuji had already. Yet, Megumi clenches one fist, because it is all that he can do. Clench his fist, grit his teeth and blink until Yuuji’s face becomes nothing. 

 

With eyes crinkling at the edges, Megumi grows closer to Yuuji’s warmth. “For what? That was our mistake, not just yours—” 

 

Heavy, heavy hands fall onto his shoulder, gripping into his thin jacket that Megumi swore to be enough for the sheer winter weather, warming him through the one arm that could feel such touch. Green eyes meet desperate brown ones, desperate ones that turn up with a sheepish smile. “But I was still driving, you know?” 

 

Even as Megumi begins to shake his head, trying to tell Yuuji that no, it wasn’t his fault. That it was the other driver, the other person; and yet Yuuji has a grip on him so tightly, that Megumi pauses when he watches the others lips begin to move again. “Would you still have been there,” Yuuji says, earnest and seeking honesty only, just like he always had. “If I didn’t tell you to come back?” 

 

“.. I would’ve.” Honesty is all that Megumi can give. He would’ve, would’ve not just out of curiosity but out of a then unknown longing, one that called to him in harm. 

 

And because Yuuji simply cannot uncaringly discard that thought, he only nods his head. Megumi had given him an answer, and even if that was an answer that he was looking for or not looking for would remain unknown. A sound, a presence; was just enough. “Did that,” the years begin to run through his mind, searching for an answer from himself. 

 

Waiting for a response, Megumi only cocks his eyebrow as Yuuji lets out a small chuckle, removing one of his hands that Yuuji had forgotten laid upon the other’s shoulders, to place on the back of his head in embarrassment. “I forgot his name.” 

 

It takes Megumi a second to think of who ‘he’ was, until he’s left with a name so forgotten, a name from so long ago that Megumi could only remember the words he spoke, the words used to describe him and not the words given to the man. “Nanami. Nanami Kento.”

 

Jumping, a hand slaps itself back down onto his right shoulder and Megumi can only jump by the hindering sight of a covered arm, the pain nullified and only felt in his heart as Megumi stares at Yuuji’s elated expression.

 

“Him, yes!” 

 

The grip begins to loosen with sudden realization, and Yuuji’s eyes and voice grow impossibly softer. Thick and calloused hands are just dancing on Megumi’s shoulders, and he can’t help but feel what he can. Yuuji stares at him with that expression that Megumi loves yet loathes, and he says, “did he tell you what I told him to?” 

 

He cannot be so sure, you can never be too sure. Megumi sifts through the memories of that time, a time so fragile for his psyche, and eventually his brain comes up with nothing. Other than the words that had been quoted by the man himself, he never once saw a man, branded as ‘Nanami Kento’, since then. 

 

Curling his own left hand against his stomach that turns with ache as the thought of remembering, and Megumi gives Yuuji a rather despondent look. “.. Unless I’m forgetting something,” Megumi considers that perhaps, he is forgetting something, “then no.” 

 

Like a teenager once more, a humiliated blush overlays on Yuuji’s already reddening cheeks. Megumi misses the hands that leave his shoulders, slowly curling into stiff fists and returning back to Yuuji’s side. How lucky they are, Megumi thought. To be attached to Yuuji, to have seen everything. 

 

“Damn it.” Yuuji curses, suddenly embarrassed about the sentiments that had come with the thought, the understanding that the curt man had actually gone and told Megumi his true confession, one that was not meant for the court. “Nevermind then.” 

 

Clicking his tongue, Megumi’s eyes thin into a gentle glare at Yuuji. “Tell me,” talk to me, tell me everything about you. I’ll love whatever you give me. “I can still listen.” 

 

And Yuuji doesn’t want to sell himself out, doesn’t want to give Megumi the tools that the other can use to mend his heart, to squeeze it so tightly that millions pieces of it will shatter and yet remain— Yet, he finds himself catching himself from spilling, so unaware of what would break something that was not his own.  “No, ‘cause I think I’ve been reading this wrong—” 

 

Oh god — Yuuji thinks, because he knows that Megumi is stubborn, thick in and thick out. He watches Megumi's frozen expression, from the rush of emotions and the winter frost, and dread pools in Yuuji’s stomach.

 

It’s not what most may think, he doesn’t think this is it, this is over. Yuuji thinks that maybe he has overflowed their cup, pouring out at the sides, and spilt his ocean into Megumi’s pond— thinks that maybe, his love has run too far and too deep. That Yuuji has stretched the finite gift of love, to infinity. 

 

Mind racing as they did, Yuuji stares at jade eyes that harden and stare. It isn’t until Megumi speaks, that Yuuji knows that perhaps, their little home of love on the edge of a tunnel, can hold a little more than he had thought. 

 

“If you want to change ‘think’ into ‘know’,” Megumi breathes out, his eyelids finally beginning to falter, “then tell me.” 

 

Even with the words that he speaks, Yuuji doesn’t need to hear that. For he already knows, it is only the consideration of thoughts that have his mind running on expensive diesel. He knows, he knows, he knows, he knows. And Yuuji, knows that getting cocky never goes right. 

 

“I still really,” the words get caught in his throat. Yuuji feels the sweet taste of his best words, conjured over years of staring at the mirror of the person love has made him into, on his tongue and swallows. His face begins to burn another impossible shade of red, “god.” 

 

Megumi stays true to his word— the other only stands there, staring at the other and embracing the beauty that Yuuji and the moon offer. Megumi takes what he can get, and the most he has right now is the privilege to look, to see and to be.  

 

Under his gaze, Yuuji finds himself stumbling over nothing but the crisp air, “isn’t this humiliating?” 

 

They say patience is a virtue, and it is. However, it just so happens to be a virtue that Megumi isn’t so sure that he has. He’s waited so long— years, years, too many years. Selfishly; just this once, he will seek out an answer directly from the source, instead of tip-toeing over shattered glass in hopes that Megumi doesn’t get a piece stuck deeply into his feet. “Think back to when I found out you chewed cinnamon gum— cinnamon gum. ” 

 

Saying that with memories laced between each syllable, Megumi sees the memory flash by Yuuji’s eyes and sends him the smallest smile, the largest one that his face had seen in years. “And rethink what you just said.” 

 

Letting out a small chuckle, Yuuji feels his body turn tender and his heart grow old— just as Megumi seems to remember, seems to try to console Yuuji in his own way that may be frowned upon. He hates how in love he is, while simultaneously being unlucky. 

 

Unlucky, Yuuji hopes that they’d have better luck next time. “Okay— okay, maybe it’s not.” Because he remembers— Megumi had never lived down the fact that he liked to chew cinnamon. What the black haired boy didn’t know and didn’t need to know, was that the burn and the spice was something similar to illegality that made his heart race, or a love that made his heart speed up and tense all the same. 

 

“I still like you. I didn’t stop.” I have never wished I did.

 

Ironic— how they had never stopped. For a red light, for a cop, for a love etched into stone; unreadable, for the time that had continually passed until they had only now found themselves in the confines of the grim winter. 

 

It’s almost unreal how human emotions can remain so static. How can people stay so stationary, despite the hatred and despite the hurt and despite the unavoidable, growth. Megumi questions himself, is he human? Is this just another quality, another aspect of being a human? Is this what it means to be normal, to have remained the same as does DNA no matter how desperately they wish to deny it? 

 

There is too much of him— too much of them to mix together and become them, that they become memories that have been held onto for so long, like a branch of a circuit. Megumi knows that he has to let go of those memories. 

 

With a free hand, even if only one; Megumi feels himself outstretched to that thought of creating new homes and building new romantics. Feels his muscles stretch and tear as he keeps on grasping onto that tense, onto the urge to fill the memories that have been lost with new ones.

 

Until he— they were whole. Again.

 

When Megumi sees himself coming a step closer, right foot ahead of the left and stepping dangerously close to Yuuji. Megumi feels the breath of the other on his face, so close, too close and too — “I’m sorry—” and Yuuji focuses on the way Megumi looks with the condensate air in front of him, almost reminds him of the lone drags of a cigarette he would take from Yuuji. “Do you even know what you do to me?” 

 

The memories empty themselves in the plane of snow, into Yuuji’s face who is only too close and he’s finally there. Finally, these memories; these memories have a home for two. 

 

Megumi’s mind rambles, old thoughts and weak memories spilling themselves into words. “I haven’t stopped thinking about you even though I wasn’t even sure if you were alive or not.” 

 

It’s the most he’s ever spoken, both of them think. Megumi’s breath becomes unsteady, head spinning with the way the river floods into his throat— the ocean has casted out of the pond, and his lungs deal with the lack of air he receives. “I still love you because I gave you everything that I had.” 

 

He hates this. Megumi’s heart will nag and isolate itself from the way the oxygen is taken from him from himself, how Yuuji isn’t the one who takes his breath away with a kiss that he’d missed so badly. “You took it,” Yuuji took everything, took everything with the time he spent away— and yet, “but I wouldn’t have it any other way.” 

 

Stop, Megumi thinks when his mouth continues to pour and pour and pour until he is left empty. He needs someone, anything; the universe, Yuuji, police, to just tell him no. Tell him to go back into hiding within his own memories. 

 

But there is no one to tell him no. That is why, Megumi will pour and overflow because there is nothing else that he can do. “Just being here—” in your presence, in your heart, “being here with you, I feel like I’m racing.” 

 

Dead. That was once a word that Megumi had used to describe the way his core had crunched in discomfort, how his heart would stretch thinly whenever they had raced, to which Yuuji had countered with alive. He was neither sure of which one he truly felt now. Dead; because Megumi was beginning to think that maybe he would have to be reborn to find the answers to his ever-lasting questions.

 

Alive; because he was seeing, they were alive. Meeting each other in the flesh instead of in soiled-bone, all to which had ended in vain. 

 

Whispering, just faintly over the friable sounds of the snowflakes, impact on everything and nothing— Yuuji clenches his jaw tightly, “I was scared.” 

 

They both were. Unknown and unwillingly, confused and disillusioned. Megumi had never once thought that Yuuji had felt a different way— they were both 16. Both 16, doing things that no one, whether 16 or 86 should’ve ever been doing. “We were 16,” Megumi says, mirroring his thoughts and memories once more. He’s just as uncontrollable as always, “I am sure that there isn’t any other way to respond.” 

 

Is it the very human, very being urge for validation that makes Yuuji’s eyes freeze shut with warm tears, or is it simply a non-physical way of redemption? 

 

“I—” Fumbling, the hem of his shirt is not the only thing that his fingers crave to touch. Only a few words to be said, only a few seconds pass. “I am sorry for the crash.” 

 

Sincerely, the way they love is a tragedy. Megumi can’t even deny that yes, perhaps if they had met a different demise, that things would be better. But now that things have happened and how seconds turn into minutes into hours into days into weeks into months and into years— the green eyed boy can only faintly smile. 

 

“Don’t be sorry—” 

 

Yuuji really isn’t sure what Megumi wants from him— his heart, secured in the back of a crashed car. Himself, given whole in the form of love. “Sometimes, I’m really not.” And sometimes, Yuuji can only feel the weight of his apologies drag on pairs of feet that are not his own. 

 

Jumping at his own confession left unclear, Yuuji raises his hands defensively. He waves two hands, and Megumi can only stare with wide eyes and wonder what it would feel like to do that again. Noticing the other’s moon eyed expression, Yuuji ends with, “not sorry for loving you, I mean.” 

 

For a moment, things are just like the words said by that strange blond man who had managed to influence the way they walked and talked. Yuuji thinks that Megumi would’ve killed him if he was sorry for that. For the mistakes they made, they had been made. For the love they had shared, it had never really ended; because just like art, love is never ending, only ever abandoned by those who materialized it into being.

 

“I don’t feel sorry about spending the time with you,” Yuuji says, and they will ignore the times where they’d wish to turn back time and remain as strangers due to the hole left in their whole. They will ignore it, because that thought had become something that their love was not. “It wasn’t meaningless.” 

 

A breathy laugh comes from Megumi, and like a contagious disease— Yuuji begins to snicker along, mixing their air in the atmosphere. 

 

The reassurance that Megumi did not waste his teenage years, that he did not waste his years developing into a man whose mind may or may have not been stuck as a childs, does not exactly fix him. Per say, it makes Megumi feel fluttery and light.

 

Letting out a sigh of relief, Megumi stares at the tops of their shoes and wonders how much closer they could get. “I would’ve hoped so.” 

 

“Don’t gotta' hope any more.” Hope, the expectation and desire for something one wishes to happen— Yuuji only says those words, because there is no hope for them when that desire has been fulfilled. A hopeless love, full and filled to the brim. 

 

The river, wishy-washy with sappy and static atoms, will not stop flowing. 

 

Growing awkward with the close proximity that neither of them make a move to close, much too soon and much too early, Yuuji plants himself on Megumi’s right side. Megumi’s body gravitates that way, turning as Yuuji begins to face the long tunnel that had never seemed to end.

 

Dropping his heavy bag of skin and organs onto the snowy ground, Yuuji cringes and tries to ease his mind away from the way the snow steeps damply into his pants. Megumi, who notices the initial shock of the snowflakes that sing gently yet burn so cold, only crouches down on his 2 feet. 

 

The tunnel stares back at them with blinding eyes, the lights that have yet to burn. It’s nostalgic in a childish, strange way. To their firsts that they have unforgivingly taken from each other, from kisses to cigarettes, they mourn and grieve what they had been and who they have become. 

 

Sorrowful, Megumi’s lips will begin to move without permission. “Do you miss it?” 

 

And it could mean so many things. To Yuuji, it could be everything that had happened within the decade, could be the moments and memories shared— only to be left dormant by accident, without praise. Turning his chin towards the other, Yuuji cocks his head.

 

“It?” Yuuji voiced, searching for answers that were most definitely shared between the two of them. For there were so many, he could only ask for the specifics. 

 

Megumi doesn’t turn towards the other just yet, only staring forward into the tunnel, vision blocked by the thick snowflakes that had begun to obscure his visions. Eyelashes carried their weight, and so did the words he speaks. “Racing, us.” Pondering, Megumi wonders if such times were memorable enough to miss, if he or they were unforgettable. With a finger on Megumi’s chin, Yuuji stares at the palm that faces him. Dryer, older— Megumi’s eyebrows begin to furrow. “Does that make sense?” 

 

Staring at Megumi, balled up as a hamster with his cheeks chewed in thought, Yuuji can only chuckle at the sight. “You’re cute,” he blurts, before Yuuji remembers the 2 actual questions other than his own inquiry of ‘why does my heart beat? ’, that he gives the assurance that Megumi longs for. “We're probably thinking the same thing, right? ” 

 

Burying his face in his knocked knees, Megumi waits for the other to press on because listening to answers is so much easier than seeking them. 

 

“Honestly—” Yuuji starts, eyes trailing from everywhere and nowhere. Until landing on Megumi, who refuses to look at him with his flushed out, reddening face. “I missed all of it.” 

 

Everything— so many things that he had missed. Perhaps he missed the time spent together, the life he lived before he had to live; living, out of necessity. And maybe, Yuuji had missed the touch of another, so filled with something he had deemed as love. “I was happiest then,” he’d found a reason to be happy, found a life that had grown inside of himself, one worth living. “I don’t regret any of it.” 

 

That word again. Regret, regretful— just what did that mean?

 

And god, Megumi doesn’t know what Yuuji expects when he looks at him like that. The tenderness that rivals the skin of his body, the loving look that competes with the moon’s stare, it both terrifies and excites Megumi to no end. 

 

“.. I don’t, either.” Breathily, his words come out just as softly as the moments that pass. 

 

“I think I missed you the most,” Yuuji admits. He hears the sound of his own pulse in one ear, tingling from the sensations of the bitter cold and how Yuuji’s skin reacts when a hand reaches over, encasing it’s fingers into Megumi’s limp hand. 

 

He’s cold, Yuuji thinks, looking down at the other’s right hand that seems too frozen to even move a muscle. It’s then, in these sweet moments laced with the cold that unnerves him and their bodies, Yuuji realizes that he definitely missed this. Missed Megumi. “Racing was just an excuse back then.” 

 

“But you..” Megumi remains silent as he speaks, and he can only relish in the conscious knowledge  the other’s warm hands— there was no escape for his numbed, or numbing hands. Speaking as mobile fingers put themselves between his own stale ones, stiff from the snowflakes that freeze their fingers together. “You were everything.”

 

Even with Yuuji’s fingers growing number and number by the seconds, he can’t help but notice that the weight of another’s hand does not rest upon his own knuckles. Megumi doesn’t pull away from his unrelenting touch, but Yuuji can tell that his green eyes avoid the entirety of the scene, the sight so surreal and wanted.

 

Does he not want this? Yuuji thinks, quirking a silent eyebrow and asking internal questions. Am I being too greedy? Releasing his hold before tightening it, Yuuji questions why the other doesn’t seem to even notice the moment, not acknowledging whatever Yuuji wishes to do. Are we going too fast, again?

 

Unslotting his fingers that had laid between the lines of Megumi’s own, Yuuji’s expression softens as he begins to ask. “Sorry, do you not want to hold ha—” 

 

“No!” Megumi says, eyes checking down at his hand in which Yuuji’s palms lay a few centimetres away from. He can see the snowflakes begin to fall between the spaces, and how badly he wishes for Yuuji’s warmth to melt them away. It’s not that they frostbite his palms over, but as they lay as a constant reminder of the spaces between them— those spaces left so far apart, ones that Megumi wishes to close. 

 

Ripping his eyes from the sight, Megumi can only try to evade Yuuji’s curious gaze because he knows that he won’t be able to avoid the truth. The truth will always be brutal, and Megumi will only admit it because there is nothing much more brutal than grief. “I just,” there is nothing more brutal than looking at just one of your limbs and wondering why it was still there in the first place. “I can’t use that hand. Anymore.” 

 

With his eyes widening, it’s almost like the gravity forces their faces to turn and meet on que. Yuuji’s mouth breaches open, all the infestations of his thoughts and conclusions spill out like spiders. “Can’t, or— ?” 

 

And because Megumi is unable to fool himself from reality, from the conscience that tells him that it was all fabricated— he only stares at the scars on the man's face, eyes blurred. “No.” 

 

Is there any way to describe the pool of horror that tears him up from inside, that garners him a frightened look that Megumi knows will continue to eat around his guts? 

 

He can’t — Is it the fact that Yuuji had gotten away with a sentence rather than his body being punished, instead made to endure what it was like to be a boy in juvy, or is it the fact that it is Megumi; Megumi, who was hurt by him. Him.

 

“Fushiguro, oh god—” Yuuji’s words chatter against his own teeth, driving them closer and closer and tighter and tighter; throat clenched, it’s so extremely painful and yet he can’t explain why that selfish feeling appears. “This is why I left, god. I am so sorry—” 

 

And the reason that Yuuji is unable to explain that reason is because it simply does not exist. Megumi finds that the only selfish thing that Yuuji can do is be much too selfless, easily letting himself fall into the cavity of theirs that eats fillings, that eats up whatever blame wants to take. Huffing a breath in, it’s only Megumi’s mouth that moves with haste. 

 

“Shut up, Yuuji!” 

 

With his breath almost heaving, Megumi has Yuuji’s eyes on his everything now. If it hadn’t been that way for the past minutes if not years, neither of them wouldn’t have known.  “Don’t be selfish,” Megumi spits with love disguised as hatred, the worst of the worst. “I told you. We both did this to ourselves.” 

 

They are still reliant on that silent bond, that silent knowledge that the tone the other uses is nothing what they mean— that Megumi has never been able to express such things because it had never happened before. Confronting their issues, to argue. 

 

“Stop— just stop taking my blame for me.” And because of that bond they are so heavily dependent on, Megumi knows that they share one half of each’s blame as they do each other’s hearts. “It won’t make me feel better.” 

 

Just this once, only just this once; Yuuji will take the words that Megumi gives him with earnest, and will drill them deeper than the image of them had already imprinted itself into him.

 

A warm hand looms over his own thigh, placing itself within Megumi’s cool and rigid hand once more. Even when Yuuji knows that this hold is something that he does on his own, the invisible and unfelt clench between the way their heart will pump and contract tells him that no, he has never and will never be truly alone, or what it means to be ‘alone’. 

 

“I’m sorry,” Megumi flinches back at the words that Yuuji speaks, they aren’t exactly what he seeks and what he needs to hear. “I really am. For everything.” 

 

Even as Meugmi sighs with a large exhale, Yuuji doesn’t miss yet will miss the way Megumi’s eyes fondly stare at their hands that share a one-sided embrace. Their conversation, however, is nothing like the one-sided conversations that Megumi has been sharing with the unconscious, or the thought to be unconscious. 

 

“I’ll take it so you can sleep tonight,” and Megumi hopes that he’ll also be able to sleep soundly, more favourably warm and covered with arms and blankets that burn with the heat of 2, “but I don’t ever want to hear those words again.” 

 

Letting out a small laugh, Yuuji drowns in the comfort and the numbness that comes with words spoken from Megumi, that come with like a train in the wind. Chuckling, he finds himself letting loose and allowing himself to relax. “Okay, okay.”

 

Few words and even fewer movements, they soak up in the winter weather that continuously drapes them with its cold, yet warm blanket. It’s comforting in a sense that humans live too simply, however that fact does not seem to bother them when Yuuji’s jeans soak up a river and Megumi can only softly smile at the way Yuuji doesn’t even seem to notice— much too focused on Megumi himself.

 

Humans live too simply. Humans love too simply. And yet, time is anything but along the lines of simplicity. 

 

“.. We’ve grown older.” Megumi takes Kento’s words into their association, reminds himself of how words can change his perception of so many things simply because they were said. Simply, always simply yet too complicated to explain just why he loves Yuuji so much. Love is knowledge, and Megumi can’t get enough of it. 

 

Unconditionally, they love. 

 

“We have.” Yuuji says, and it is only an undeniable fact. There is not much that he can elaborate on other than the basis that time has indeed passed, evidence from the sky that changes to their memories that alter to the way the snowflakes inch their way up and up only to come falling back down to Earth.

 

With falling back down to the atmosphere comes reality, and it is now that Megumi takes their love story aside and faces what has actually come from time changes, time spent away. “But it’s like things haven’t changed.” 

 

While they talk, while they love— it seems as if nothing has changed at all. Megumi finds it so interesting, how some things will never change and yet the simplest things will. And humans, who love simply; how is it possible that it does not change? It hurts his head, tugs at his heart when he remembers that maybe it will change.

 

“It is, when I’m with you—” Before Yuuji comes to be interrupted, his words hold a weight to either of them. They stem from the fact that yes, things may seem like they have not shifted at all— yet Yuuji knows that this is a product of that change, and chooses to fool himself into thinking times have always been like this.

 

And out of necessity, they have been. Out of reason and realism, they only act like nothing has changed because the feelings; the emotions have not. 

 

The horizon begins to stain itself with life's hue of their insides, mixed with the colours of their knees on pavement when they had found themselves falling for each other— and Megumi only stares at a loving world, before he speaks once more. “But we can’t deny that things have changed, right?” 

 

“I wish we could,” even with a heavy sigh that tells a story of long-term exhaustion, longing— Yuuji feels content with just knowing, being and loving all at the same time. “But I guess not.” 

 

Quietly, Megumi’s body leans closer to Yuuji’s heat that radiates through his sweater that has been infused with both that menthol-like smell, alongside that ever-so familiar smell of Yuuji himself. “Time changes a lot.” 

 

Time changes a lot— but what Yuuji finds out now is that his heart beats the same rhythm as it does everytime they speak, touch— whatever along such lines, it is the same. The way Megumi’s eyes will follow him and Yuuji’s own will sting with that same salty feeling, burn with desire and tear themselves open with love. 

 

Love— has not changed for them, not now; not yet. Yuuji holds fast to that, and doesn't think he’ll ever fall slow again. “It hasn’t changed my feelings for you, though.” 

 

“.. Sometimes,” slowly, Megumi approaches the undeniable; the honest truths that he cannot lie to Yuuji about, will never be able to do so. “I wished I stopped loving you.” 

 

And somehow— the words are unexactly how they seem to be. For a period of time, Megumi had wished and wondered how things would be if he wasn’t so utterly consumed with love; love that was knowledge, he loved what he knew about Yuuji and the memories that he remembered. For a time, he had considered this love fabricated because it was the knowledge he loved.

 

“But time and time away doesn’t fix everything,” and with time, that thought had soon lost its meaning. The message had now become that perhaps he knew Yuuji inside out— and Megumi knows that with every inch they walk and with every millimetre of Yuuji; he loves. “Which means it can’t change everything, either.” 

 

A small chuckle manages to escape Yuuji, enveloping the true emotions that have been sheltered within Megumi’s words and understanding. “Should I be happy to hear that?”

 

Should it? Megumi wonders if his choice of words were anything to be happy about. If them meeting each other once more, loving one another once more— had been anything to be happy about.

 

“.. If it makes you feel any better,” Megumi reaffirms, unsure of how to respond. “I still love you.”

 

That is a new first, that they had yet to share with each other. 

 

“Tricked ya’.” Even whilst Yuuji plays it off, Megumi, who is still within their own world of a car stinking of cigar and the hot summer; notices the way his face turns to the right, the way Yuuji’s veins will pop when his hands tighten around his own. 

 

Hiding his face, Yuuji will try to justify himself once more; except this time, there is no dishonesty. “I just wanted to hear you say those words.” 

 

Ignoring it, Megumi decides to give Yuuji the time of day despite the fact that they sit under the stars, the stars that have written their own story and perhaps their stories. For what they do know— is that everything and anything that they have ever done has led to this moment, and what others may not know; is that the moment does not have to be one where sparks begin to sparkle and fly.

 

Megumi comes closer and closer, yet not close enough. “You just have to ask,” he says, staring at the shoulder that welcomes him and yet Megumi turns a deaf ear to the way it calls for him. “I’ll give you what I have left.” 

 

And what he has left— 

 

“You’ve got a lot in front of you, Fushiguro.” 

 

Fushiguro, Megumi’s mind finds itself replaying those 4 syllables. Yet, the brain of his that pours memories and emotions into words grows greedier and hungrier— consuming and consuming, it wants more than just that, a new selfish desire.

 

“Megumi.” Whispering, that name comes off like sandpaper on his tongue as it slips out, unintentionally. Inhaling a large breath, he finds that the rough feeling of his own name would sound good against spice and mint. “Just call me Megumi.” 

 

Megumi, Yuuji thinks. It sounds crisp and lovely on his tongue that has only spoken bad habits and words that have been and were loved. “Do you like that better?” 

 

“No,” because truly— that name only brings an annoying buzz that flies around his pierced-frozen ears, reminding him of empty walls and empty doors. Truly, that name only sounds like one Megumi has given himself when it comes from Yuuji; who says it homely, lovely. “Only when it comes from you.” 

 

When Yuuji takes more than a minute of snowfall to respond, Megumi can only think of the worst scenario because it is all he has ever known and all he has ever done— and that is one thing that does not change efficiently, just like now as Megumi speaks. “.. Maybe something won't change.” 

 

He will only say that because Megumi will be more than okay with ‘Fushiguro’, the familiarity of the sound of a name shared with Tsumiki being more than cozy. Megumi will take what he can get; take what he deserves to be left. 

 

“Well,” Yuuji says, words dripping with what some may call love, and Megumi just so happens to be part of that some; hair dripping with wet droplets of melted snowflakes, Megumi can’t help but stare at the droplet that drops from the tips of Yuuji’s pink tips to his lips that move. “Megumi.” 

 

“Call me Yuuji?” And because Megumi is only a hypocrite in his own skin that crawls with memory and remembrance, his own eyelids go slack and reveal the whites around jade eyes. 

 

It’s unreal— how far they have come. How fast yet slow their story has gone, how many words they have shared. And within seconds, the mere act of saying each other’s given name has them going back into time; reminded of their times as teenagers, as first lovers and first everything.

 

Megumi finds himself stumbling over words before he comes up with a thought. A thought for new beginnings, the beginning of the end. Yuuji’s name still falls short on his time, and he barely manages to communicate a coherent sentence for Yuuji, who stares at his own eyes, to hear.

 

Gulping, he feigns confidence that is most definitely not secretively, ridden with a nerve that strikes a few of his heartstrings in a broken melody. “So, Yuuji.” 

 

His heart — won’t stop, can’t stop, will never stop. “Do you wanna race again?” 

 

Pausing for a second, Yuuji lets his mind wander into the realm of a 4 letter word that is formed from pure addiction.

 

It had so many meanings; not only to him, but to them. Race, their hobbies on a Thursday that hadn’t ever been missed or postponed until they themselves became unknown to each other. Race, a word that Yuuji has used one too many times to describe the way his thoughts and his heart will move and stretch themselves out thin whenever Yuuji finds himself lingering too long on their focus. 

 

“Race?” Yuuji inquires, because there are too many words and responses that Yuuji can name face to. 

 

Nodding his head slowly, Yuuji stares at the collection of snowflakes that dribble off of the spikes of Megumi’s unruly hair— it’s cute, just like how he remembered; how Yuuji had always thought.“Yeah,” Megumi finally says, head trailing off until it lays flat against his own chest. “With me.” 

 

Stay with me, Megumi leaves unsaid. That ever-so lingering feeling of being left, of being unwanted creeps onto his shoulders; seeps through his thick layer of clothing that Megumi still shivers too, even more than the snow that continues to paint the city, and crawls. It won’t stop, and the black haired boy doesn’t think that it ever will. 

 

The other begins to stare, and soon ‘stay with me’ turns into ‘ don’t leave me’ and soon escalates into a desperate call; Please, do let this matter. “Sorry, Megumi—” Yuuji finally says, eyes still building themselves a home upon the high bridge of Megumi’s face. “But, you know what you’re asking, right?” 

 

“Idiot.” Megumi chooses not to disclose the fact his heart races like no other within a car for reasons other than Yuuji himself— other than their past, that has shaped Megumi with intricacy and into the body his brain is homed. With his left index finger, Megumi points to both Yuuji and himself, before extending it in front of them until it faces the endless tunnel. “You and me, down the tunnel.” 

 

Raising himself up on his two feet, Megumi shakes the pins and needles that have nearly rendered him to become one with the thick snow that covered the cement, out of his legs. Green eyes look down from where they peer, observing how Yuuji keeps his hands in the pure whiteness, where his hand used to lay. 

 

“I don’t have a right arm, but I’ve got feet—” Megumi says, finally giving themselves a reality that was not built within his brain, obscured with fiction and fantasy. “And it seems like you do too.” 

 

A nosey laugh comes from Yuuji as he uses his frozen, rosy fingers to lift himself off of the ground. “I do.” Yuuji tries to dust the snow off of his pants, but just like love— the sky’s message has only melted into him, sticking to his skin and Yuuji’s clothing. 

 

Just like Megumi, who finds himself jealous of Yuuji’s bed that has carried his weight and his burdens; of his clothes that touch his skin without realizing it. Finds himself wanting to get that close.

 

“Do you?” Megumi snorts, sarcasm laced with every thump of his heartbeat that he hopes Yuuji is unable to hear. 

 

Motioning the other to come just that closer— they become nearly flushed against one another, the one thing that separates them is clothing that did not have to come off for either of them to realize that oh, maybe this, maybe this is what living is like. Maybe this, is what it means to die. 

 

“C’mere,” Yuuji says, pivoting around until he sits on Megumi’s left side. “Hold my hand.” 

 

Even while Megumi complains, “.. This is a race.” He still laces his fingers between the other’s hands, and discards the thought of how Yuuji remains so warm, so welcoming and so overly comfortable despite the winter shocks, the years that have passed and the memories that have left. 

 

It nearly consumes him, setting an awfully warmhearted feeling within Megumi’s chest— his heart beats against knowing bones, his fingers against another's.

 

Swinging their arms like teenagers once more, it almost feels like a dream. Yuuji gives him a side eye, looking down at the tunnel that they now stand directly in front of. The snowflakes have been blocked from them, the heat melts at them and their frosted love. 

 

“Do you think we ever played by anyone’s rules?” 

 

Gripping his fingers tighter against Yuuji’s, Megumi shakes his head. “Nope,” it just so happens that they are just like that— they have always been like that. But because they will never be stationary, they take this chance to move into the future that they cannot change. “Not once.” 

 

What they can change, is a simple concept constructed by loneliness and love— time. 

 

“That’s right,” and Yuuji can’t help but remember what a good boy Megumi had always been, and now that he sees the good man that Megumi has become; he strives, strives to give Megumi this one thing because Yuuji is only able to change for the sake of saving. Megumi has been saved. Their feet step forward, and Yuuji gives Megumi one last loving look. Inhale, exhale— it’s warm. “Come.” 

 

“1,” please forgive me, “2,” please keep me in your pocket , “3!” Please, let me keep dreaming. 

 

 Yuuji’s voice is loud; prominent as it echoes through the tunnel, echoes through the shells of the memory cards in Megumi’s brains that are now being refilled to the top.

 

Taking off with a leap— it is the beginning of a new race.

 

They run and they run, finally chasing after something that is obtainable and is there. Megumi can feel the shake in his legs, can feel the way his hair hits his forehead and can feel Yuuji’s hand that clenches his hand. 

 

Yuuji is exceptionally fast, and by now, Megumi is being flung and jumping off of the surface of the road. Megumi wonders how he’s kept up with his physical speed and shape, and wonders how bad it would be if Megumi could admit that it was impressive.

 

Wonders if he could admit just how much Megumi had missed it. Wondered if Yuuji had felt and feels the same way as he does now; grieving, grieving everything that they have been, could’ve been, will be and are.

 

It isn’t until Megumi finds himself lifted off of the road with lines that have crumbled with road paint and new graffiti, that he gasps and feels the wind in his hair. The tunnel is dry and hugs them with warmth— but Megumi now understands that nothing is warmer than Yuuji’s arms. Be it a single touch, or him wrapped up in them as the cool air blows against them both.

 

“That’s cheating, Yuuji!” 

 

“God—” Panting, Megumi feels his head burn with vertigo and his heart pump as if on steroids; perhaps that was just the effect of sudden acceleration, as they had know. And maybe, it was just the effect that Yuuji had on him. 

 

Setting the other down, Yuuji sends him a toothy smile that shines in the warm lights of the tunnel.

 

Patting the other’s back with a stray hand that will always make room for Megumi, Yuuji lets out a small chuckle that twinkles in the silence. “I haven’t run like that,” and Megumi notices his brown eyes trail around, from his own exhausted body, the tunnel that calls for them, and the horizon that had written itself a prescription for jaundice, “in a while.” 

 

“How’d you still manage to do that?” Asks Megumi, staring at the invisible rays of light that emit from Yuuji’s frost-covered skin, incomparable beads of sweat forming on his plush and tan-cheek. It’s so incredibly eye opening to Megumi, the way Yuuji looks— even if that frost has moved to Megumi’s own eyelashes, freezing themselves shut.

 

And just like those long lashes of Megumi’s, Yuuji seems to still. An answer brews within his throat, and Megumi patiently awaits for it like waiting for a kettle to yell its defence. “Can’t lie to you,” Yuuji whispers quietly, though just loud enough for Megumi to hear over his own rapid breath. “Jail does stuff to you.” 

 

Ah, Megumi thinks. He wonders if he has already messed up, messed up beyond repair despite all of Yuuji’s attempts to solidify what they had into words, turned breaths and back into thoughts. “I figured.” 

 

What Megumi does notice is that Yuuji doesn’t give him that look that blames Megumi himself, and instead Megumi sees the look of shame dwell in the other’s eyes. 

 

Hate; Megumi with every inch of himself, from the tips of his toes to the strands of black hairs on his head, hates that look. Selfishly, he admits that it makes him nervous, makes him wonder if he did something wrong. 

 

Greedily, he’ll take any expression he can get. Because the other is so— what word is there to explain it? The way that even while shame droughts the flood in Yuuji’s eyes, they still shine youthfully and remind Megumi that no, not everything is the end of nothing. Surely, he would much prefer the way Yuuji’s eyes would twinkle before a race out of familiarity. But this, just watching. Just seeing, was all the same. 

 

Sucking in a sharp breath, Megumi finds himself unable to look away. “Doesn’t make you any less beautiful, though.” 

 

Beautiful— had that ever been a word used towards him? Megumi sees the way Yuuji’s ears grow red, how his fingers begin to shake in Megumi’s hold and it’s not just from the negative weather. His eyes are rather agape, and Yuuji feels his heart skip one too many beats.

 

It’s an odd feeling— especially when the skin that wraps his frame feels dirty. Sometimes, when that fresh start is associated with being loved and being beautiful; Yuuji thinks that this body is used. And it isn’t until now, that having been used, kneaded and risen like glutinous bread, a substance so organismally different from the pure; doesn’t mean you are any less beautiful. 

 

This body is used. Yuuji feels his fingers twitch, tightening his hold in their entwined fingers. “Beautiful?” 

 

Used by Megumi— that is all Yuuji thinks when he takes one long, careful look at the other. There is no sense of lie and dishonesty on his face when Megumi slowly nods his head, and Yuuji feels content. A sense of guilt creeps in on him; only because Yuuji thinks he should’ve known, Megumi would never have lied to him. 

 

Still nodding, Megumi hopes Yuuji believes. Believes in the undeserving him, believes in the frost-flakes that will not stop screaming. “.. Yeah.” 

 

“Megumi,” Yuuji breathes out, puffing white into the air that is not just cigarette smoke. He feels his cheeks flush embarrassingly, lifting a stray hand to hide the red colour that overtakes his face, “just what’re you tryna’ do to me?” 

 

There are a lot of things that Megumi wants to do to the other— to lay in his hold, to walk until there are no sidewalks for them to take, to walk until their path ends with them and them alone. Though when Megumi actually puts his brain alongside his ever-so aching heart, the only plausible thing to do now is right in front of him.

 

Green eyes find themselves staring at whitened lips, yet they lip just as charming as they always have. “I’m trying to kiss you, asshole.”

 

Yuuji feels himself moon-bathing in the comfort of the fact that Megumi has changed — and his snarky and introverted personality has still stayed with him, and has still managed to make a smile grow larger on his face. Like a plant, the corner’s of Yuuji’s lips grow upward, teeth on display for Megumi to stare at.

 

Slowly unknotting their laced fingers, cold hands press against the sides of Megumi’s head. They’re so close— too close, too familiar for comfort. And yet, the tingling feeling of a smile on another smile is evident, and Yuuji laughs at their matching flushed faces. “Shoulda’ just asked.” 

 

It’s so chaste— so incredibly delicate, so innocent. It’s a childish kiss, being the first time they had kissed since they were children. And still, it is so lovely that Megumi finds himself sinking in further, looking for more and more because as the memories come flooding back to him with a single touch of him, they both fall apart against chapped lips and glittery particles.

 

Yuuji had once told him, “there is always enough of me for you.” and Megumi wants to figure out if that statement remains true to this day as he doesn’t pull away until their fingertips threaten with a blue colour. The smell of okonomiyaki is imaginary yet there; the presence of each other is so dream-like and yet is it real. Yuuji still can’t believe it, that after all this time—

 

They’re still there. They are still loved, have been loved. They are someone’s son and they are them.  

 

Finally pulling away when a snowflake lands on their cupid’s bow like a cupid’s arrow. From the way it melts into water and drips, it’s eye opening and sharp, Yuuji finds himself laughing against Megumi’s lips at the ticklish feeling. 

 

“Yuuji..” Megumi breathes out— they both stare at the puff of condensation that comes from Megumi asn does the taste of cigar coming off of Yuuji’s tongue, and in that moment; it is only them. Megumi and Yuuji, with the snowflakes and low moonglow that intrude on them.

 

Even just that breath of air as Megumi inhales and exhales, the sight of his green irises disappearing as he blinks and blinks— He is beautiful, and he is love. That is all it takes for Yuuji to melt away into the snow, turning to the other with that warm smile that will diminish the permafrost. “What is it?” 

 

The sound of snowflakes, the sound of their hearts— it is so familiar. This life had been so close yet so far from them, ripped from the palms of their hands that had only known the textured feeling of leather against sweat— and now, it is here.

 

It is now.

 

Racing hearts that have seen more than just races; Megumi feels the muscle stretch into latex when he looks at Yuuji, it is now and it can only be now. One last chance, one more time— “Let’s make one more bet,” and this time, it’s not their life put into savings transferred into the wallets and the gas tanks of cars, “just one more.” 

 

No more, Yuuji’s brain says, teenage dreams coming right back to where they had started— the reason they had started, who they started for. Stay here, because Yuuji wishes for the other to never see a race again, to stay next to him instead of fleeting down the mountains of Tokyo. Stay home , because home is with Yuuji and the other wants nothing but to kiss the other again.

 

Is this what maladaptive daydreaming was like? Yuuji wouldn’t have known, “Okay—” until he realized that it was not because Megumi was right there, staring at him with those verdant eyes and reflecting his own face in them. With lips that look plush, lips that Yuuji missed and had been missing. “But can I kiss you again?” 

 

Nodding, neither of them can catch a cold breath in their lungs before blue yet lovable lips brush against each other— relishing in the cold, in the presence of what could have been described as the diseased and the one who holds the cure; they miss, they need.

 

Lips are cold, gone stiff and unpliable as they move as if they skate across ice. Ice flicks from the blade of their skates no less than sharp; heads spinning as they become dizzy with each other. 

 

Surely— it is remembrance. What they had been missing, what they’d been trying to forget, they could never truly do either . One does not miss something they didn’t lose, one cannot forget what they want to forget. And Megumi will never admit to anything other than remembrance because the only thing his brain knows is that he wishes to live in the other’s skin; to stay so close, to sit in Yuuji’s jean pockets alongside an old pack of cigarettes. 

 

Like a radio song— it’s pressed up against Megumi’s lips that Yuuji wishes to be a song, one that Megumi will wait for and has waited for to be played, waiting for the best part of the sequence that only came when Yuuji was where he was now. 

 

Years have gone by, and it shows when they messily pull away from each other. It’s Yuuji who has managed to rip himself away, who wants to preserve this moment as the time and years spent away begin to melt away with just a few words.

 

“What is it?” Breathlessly, Megumi feels his warm breath against his face. Yuuji speaks with air that remains fluid throughout his syllables, too curious to continue and yet eager to do so. “The bet.” 

 

One last bet, Megumi’s brain replies. It’s gone smooth with the young urge to turn the volume of Yuuji’s unsweet, but bitter melody up— because he likes it. Unwilling to pause in the middle of the chorus of their moment that sings so loud, Megumi turns that one last bet into just one more kiss. “.. I forgot.” 

 

“Kiss me again.”

 

And what they both find out is that when permafrost melts, methane is released. They know it when their lips, coated with evidence of each other, meet again. It’s burning each other up with their heat as the world begins to feel just a little warmer, the monoxide begins to flourish.

 

To live in this moment, living under the moon who watches with a fond smile as two heads, topped with an icing-like snow, cannot separate themselves as the world had before. The ever static universe has had its fun, returning itself to the cement they stood upon. Unchanging, unbreakable.

 

The universe does not resist the snow that continues to surface, but they now know that spring is warm and that spring will come. 

 

With Megumi's ever so racing heart that crumbles in a vehicle, to the taste of menthol cigarettes that has etched itself and it's flavour onto Yuuji's cinnamon-coated tongue—

 

Who’s going to die first?

Notes:

cut !

gosh, i can't believe this is finished. whilst the first 9 chapters were prewritten to upload, i decided to take my time with the last chapter. and therefore, the finale had been able to marinate and soak up whatever and everything that i managed to throw at it. i managed to sneak myself into this chapter simply because i was able to, did you all catch it ? hehe, teenage me was something stripped off of myself; but of course, the burnt loves the fire. the burnt sees the fire.

thank you all who have stuck by because this story means so much to me. it had started a prompt i had wished to write from the mere sight of the gas station that i have visited !! it was not as prominent, or as important as i had thought it would be, though i was so content inside. even if i had physically placed myself in this story just at the last chapter, this story is almost what i had wished i had known during my teenage years. surely, i was not as daring as my little mg and yj, but i certainly didn't understand youth properly.

from the bottom of my very hear, thank you ! i was grateful to even see you all week to week. your thursday boys, and i, thank you all.

sincerely with more to come, evienne

Notes:

deleted this by accident.. am now back to post it !! ao3 lagged and tagged the work as a draft i had accidentally posted, resulting in me deleting thursday boys instead of a draft :[ but it's okay !! though i will miss all the dear comments i recieved.

gosh hello everyone!!

how is everyone doing?
i know that i have another not fully uploaded fic, but i couldn't help but want to post more and more works. or write more and more.
to be honest, this fic was a much different approach from where my ideas typically stem from. i was driving down this icy road listening to whatever there could be— stopped at an intersection and i stared at this gas station that had neon-pink lights. i was completely and utterly consumed by the sight, and thus, thursday boys was born because it was a thursday that day. i hope you are all well; i cherish every hit, kudos and comments i receive. once more, thank you all so much for reading.

evyanne