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Kaneda has been ceaselessly drumming his fingers on the table for five minutes, occasionally casting glances at the restaurant’s entrance. The circular device in his pocket vibrates for the third time, and for the third time repeats, in a mechanical but friendly female voice:
“Your match is approaching”
“I know” mutters Kaneda.
He has never been early in twenty-five years of his life, and he would have preferred to keep it that way, but this happens to be his first match with the System and he is. Shitting. His. Pants.
He looks at the clock hanging on the wall. It could be any minute now. Then a doubt comes over him. He pulls his Coach out of his pocket:
“How do I know it’s them?”
“Your match has just entered”
But in the split second before he gets an answer, Kaneda recognizes him: he sees him walk in with his Coach in hand and the lost, embarrassed face of a child who just lost his mother at the mall, and in an instant he decides he likes him. He must be about his age, a few inches shorter than him, and he’s wearing a suit that, as good as it looks on him – and it looks fucking great –, does clash a bit. He can tell he’s not the type to wear such fancy clothes. Kaneda bets that this is a first for him, too.
His match looks around, running his fingers through his hair, and finally their gazes meet. It is at that moment that a bunch of unsolicited doubts rains down on Kaneda, wiping out what shred of self-confidence he has managed to cling to so far: God, he must be awful to look at. His hair probably sucks. He should have dressed better. And how the fuck did he come up with that tie? Meanwhile, the other man hesitates for a moment, before walking toward him with the hint of a smile. Kaneda stands up, but puts too much eagerness into it and ends up knocking over his glass, spilling water on the table and attracting the stares of a few strangers here and there.
“Ffffuuuck⁓” he hums under his breath, trying to look undisturbed. There’s no way his match missed this, so he makes his peace with it and gives him a forced smile.
“Hi” he says. That sounded overexcited. Way too overexcited.
The othe’s eyes widen in bewilderment, but then he smiles like he’s having the time of his life.
“Um, hi. I’m... Tetsuo. Shima Tetsuo”
“Kaneda Shotaro— Just Kaneda. Nice to meet you”
Now that they’re close, he’s even cuter than he seemed. No, not cute: he has that kind of rare beauty that discloses slowly as Kaneda observes him and finds new details about him, from his round cheeks and soft features to his slightly upturned nose. Not to mention the light brown of his eyes.
There’s something tender about him standing straight up in that tuxedo, looking like a lost fawn, his face almost purple with shame. He’s shy. He likes them shy.
‘I’m screwed’ thinks Kaneda.
They sit down and exchange casual glances and hidden smiles for a while. Then Tetsuo nods to one of the guards by the door – black uniform, taser in his holster, casting circular glances around the room.
“Do you think he’ll stand there the whole time?” he asks. “He’s been staring at us ever since we sat down”
He’s right. The guard seems to focus on their table more than on the others around them. It’s kind of annoying – and creepy, too, but Kaneda dismisses it with a shrug.
“Well,” he observes, smiling haughtily, “I don’t blame him. We’re the only interesting couple in here”
Tetsuo narrows his eyes and tilts his head. “Are you always so chill?”
“Are you always so tense?”
Just when Kaneda’s starting to fear he’s gone too far, Tetsuo chuckles.
“Actually, I am” he answers, with a tinge of self-loathing. “Sorry if I came off— Ugh. I suck at this kind of things. It’s my first time on the System, so...”
‘Just as I thought’ thinks Kaneda.
“What about you?” asks Tetsuo.
“Me? Nah. Been here many times. I’ve had seventy-two matches before you, you know”
Tetsuo’s eyes widen until they’re the size of those of an anime character, and Kaneda bursts out laughing.
“I was just teasing” he confesses. “It’s my first time, too”
Tetsuo shoots a glare at him, but the smile spreading across his face betrays him, and Kaneda decides he can deem himself satisfied.
“I didn’t even want in in any of this” explains Tetsuo. “My family insisted”
“Let me guess: they said this is your last chance to bring someone home and stop being the single loser son?”
“You nailed it” giggles Tetsuo, as if it doesn’t affect him at all.
Kaneda sighs dramatically. “Still luckier than me, though” he says.
“You think?”
Tetsuo looks skeptical, so Kaneda leans forward on the table and he imitates him – after looking over his shoulder, where the guard is still frowning at them. He turns around again and focuses on Kaneda, staring intently at him.
“If I tell you something,” whispers Kaneda, “will you promise not to tell a soul?”
“Sure” Tetsuo immediately replies.
Kaneda takes a deep breath.
“I come from one of the main yakuza clans in Tokyo”
“Oooh. I see”
“That’s right. And when the police or a rival clan or death penalty kills my father, I’ll inherit his empire. It is my responsibility to have heirs for when my time comes. And so on, from generation to generation. That’s why I’m here”
“No shit? So I’m wasting your time?”
“Unless you’re hiding something, I don’t think you have what it takes”
“Gee, that’s too bad. I’d have had so much fun with you tonight”
It’s just a silly, playful banter that reveals just how much alike they are, mixed with an underlying attraction that dilates their pupils and keeps them there, at a few inches from their noses, as they challenge each other and... flirt?
And then comes that inexplicable feeling that grabs Kaneda by the stomach and makes him blush. He can only conceal all of it by ending that game. So he starts laughing.
Tetsuo rolls his eyes but laughs with him, falling backward in his chair.
“You idiot” he mutters with a grin. “How do you come up with this crap— Have you been drinking without me?”
“No, I haven’t! I waited for you”
“Then don’t drink at all, please. Or I don’t know how we’re supposed to get home”
“I was just trying to loosen you up a little. You looked so scared I was starting to pity you”
Tetsuo shakes his head resignedly, but as long as he keeps smiling like this, Kaneda is more than okay with it.
“So I don’t have to worry?” teases Tetsuo. “No homicidal family and no criminal empires in your legacy?”
“Relax” answers Kaneda, wiping his eyes. “The only two things in my legacy are diabetes and a wrecked Toyota”
Tetsuo laughs louder than he has since he entered the restaurant, but this time Kaneda doesn’t go after him; he focuses all his attention on that sound. It’s both hoarse and high-pitched somehow, and so fucking adorable that he finds himself taking notes to make sure he hears it as much as possible.
“By the way,” asks Tetsuo, once he’s done laughing, “do you know how do order?”
“I guess we use these...” says Kaneda, pulling the Coach out of his pocket.
Before they start looking for the menu on their devices, a waiter serves them plates of sashimi and vegetables, in an arrangement that is supposed to look sophisticated, but only makes Kaneda want to laugh, and judging by Tetsuo’s face, he must be thinking the same thing.
“Wow. Fixed menu”
“Well, what the hell” grumbles Kaneda. “They took all the fun out of it”
“Speak for yourself,” retorts Tetsuo, “I’m starving.... Oh, um. Before we start, should we check our expiry date?”
Kaneda has been anxiously waiting for that moment all evening, but has not thought about it once since Tetsuo arrived. His almost manic curiosity is coming back just now, stronger than before.
“Yeah, you’re right”
They fiddle with their Coaches for a while.
“Okay, found it” says Kaneda.
“Me too. We have to tap the reveal at the same time, right?”
“If I remember correctly”
“Okay. So, on three... Two... One”
12 hours.
“Twelve hours” reads Tetsuo, with a slight disappointment in his voice.
“Yeah...” murmurs Kaneda with the same voice.
‘Only twelve hours’ he thinks. Geez. He thought they would have more time. He knew it’s up to the System to decide the duration of each match and he didn’t even mind at the time. Now he thinks he would have liked to have had a say in the matter. The fuck does it mean, twelve hours?
“It’s a bit...” he says, trying to sound aloof.
“Short” finishes Tetsuo, equally detached.
“A bit short”
“Right? Oh, and counting down... Didn’t think it would do that—”
Kaneda sees it too, right at the center of the screen.
“They really thought of everything” he says.
Screw it. He’s not going to let it ruin his date. He puts it back in his pocket.
“Let’s just— not look at it ever again” he proposes.
“You got it” agrees Tetsuo. “Looks like we’re going to have to eat fast”
The teasing look Tetsuo gives him triggers something inside Kaneda, something that makes him smile crookedly as an ancient and familiar thrill rushes through him. There’s an intimacy he didn’t think could exist between strangers, as if they have known each other all their lives.
“I don’t need a countdown for that” he bites back. “Do you?”
“Pff. Please. I’ll finish way before you”
“Shut up and hurry”
“You hurry”
They finish at the same time, ten minutes later, when Kaneda’s resounding burp sanctions the end of the meal. He opens his eyes wide, shocked at himself, and stares at Tetsuo with an almost frightened look. He wants to die.
Before he has time to apologize – or gather up his Coach and dignity and run away as quickly as possible – Tetsuo, merely staring at him in utter indifference, lowers his chin, takes the momentum, and burps louder than him.
For a couple of seconds neither of them says anything. Then they start laughing like children.
Another five minutes later they’re outside, waiting for the cars provided by the System, which are supposed to take them to the apartment designated for them. Said cars turn out to be golf carts driving on their own, as if they were on autopilot. Kaneda and Tetsuo hop in, tipsy and excited.
During dinner, Tetsuo grew more and more comfortable as Kaneda found himself with increasing performance anxiety. Not that he didn’t even fun. On the contrary. The fact is... he needs Tetsuo to like him. It’s absurd and pathetic, but he does. He has never felt this way before. He never had to make an effort to impress people; they’re the ones trying to impress him. What is happening now is completely new and unexpected, and it lights him up with an adrenaline rush he never knew before.
They accidentally brushed their hands a couple of times to pass each other soy sauce or wine, and both times it seemed to him that the whole restaurant was filled with electricity. They never broke eye contact and couldn’t have even if they wanted to; there’s a magnetism that makes them gravitate around each other relentlessly as they analyze and sniff each other at a safe distance, until they realize they’re on the same wavelength and can let go.
By the time they arrive they’ve basically become best friends.
Their home is a modern wooden cottage on the top of a hill, and the first thing Kaneda thinks is that it’s far too big for the two of them – not that he’s complaining: it’s the most beautiful house he has ever set foot in.
Once inside and familiar with the spaces, they head into the kitchen. Kaneda wanders behind the island and opens a sliding black glass, revealing a pantry stocked with bottles. Now, he likes this view quite a bit.
“This. This right here is the best part of the whole house. 100 percent” he announces as he starts selecting a few bottles and placing them on the island. “I’m already in love with this place. Too bad it’s ours only for a short time”
“Eleven hours and twenty-six minutes, to be precise” says Tetsuo, leaning on the counter with his elbows. He reads the tags on the bottles Kaneda selected. “Good choice. Do you know what you want?”
“Tsk. Ain’t that the question of the century”1
There follows a brief moment in which Tetsuo chuckles and lowers his eyes, his cheeks turning red, and Kaneda can only stare at him with a weight on his chest. It might crush him if he doesn’t walk around the island and kiss him now.
‘He’s so fucking cute. God, I want... I want...’
He represses it, and rests his palms on the edges of the counter, looking expectantly at him.
“Anyway, I’m the best at making drinks” he says. “Just so you know”
“Of course you are” chuckles Tetsuo, holding his gaze.
“I’ll make you one if you want. What will you have?”
“Why not? Surprise me. Don’t put kiwi in it, though!”
The dramatic change in his voice makes Kaneda frown.
“Why? Are you allergic?” he asks.
“You don’t wanna know”
“Actually, I do”
“Shut up”
“Please tell me”
“No”
“Why?”
“It’s too awkward”
“Tetsuo. I have so many awkward stories about me I could write a book. I’ll tell you one later, if that’ll make you feel better. Come on, it’s not like we’re ever going to see each other again anyway!” he finishes lightly, as if that thought didn’t depress him.
Tetsuo stubbornly keeps silent for a while, but then he sighs and starts looking around to avoid Kaneda’s inquiring look.
“All right then. So, I ate tons of kiwi for fifteen years of my life, until one day it— I felt sick. At first I thought it was just air, so I began… Er…”
“Farting, Tets. You began farting”
“… Until I felt something weird and had to run to the bathroom. I’ll stop here, but I think you can guess the state of my underwear”
“… Did you—”
“Yes”
“Did you shit yourself, Shima?”
“With many little kiwi seeds”
Kaneda takes a while to react, but when he does, it’s loud: he laughs so hard he knees almost give out. He presses his head against the counter with tears in his eyes.
“Oh, stop it, asshole!” protests Tetsuo, hiding his face behind his palms.
“God, you’re a riot” mutters Kaneda, before another fit of laughter.
Tetsuo takes his hands off his face and glares at him.
“I’m glad you find it so funny. Anyone else would have run away from someone who tells things like this on a first date”
“And why is that?”
“Because it’s not that sexy, Kaneda!”
“We don’t have to fuck”
He just lets it slip without realizing, and almost gasps at his own words. Tetsuo turns to him abruptly, wide-eyed and mouth half-open. This is the first time they’ve talked about it.
“I mean, if we don’t want to” he specifies hurriedly.
“I know” says Tetsuo, before heading toward the flat-screen TV with side speakers in the living room. “Um... I’ll put on some music, okay?”
“Sure” agrees Kaneda, glad to change the subject. “Tell me we have Spotify”
Tetsuo fumbles with the remote.
“Uh-uh” he replies. “‘Your playlists’, it says. I think they made them for us”
“We’ll see about that” says Kaneda, as he starts working on his mix of tropical fruits and alcohol. The notes of Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon fill the room.
“Fuck yeah, the Urge Overkill” moans Kaneda in pure ecstasy.
“The fuck is this, Pulp Fiction?”2 chuckles Tetsuo, turning up the volume.
“Who do you wanna be, Vincent or Mia? I’m fine with both, although I’d gladly avoid the OD…”
“Oh, you don’t need to worry about that. I always carry an adrenaline shot with me. You never know”
Kaneda laughs.
Later they are sitting on the carpet in the middle of the living room, drinking daiquiris and talking nonstop, shouting over the music, occasionally singing along to their favorite songs, not giving a damn about the abrupt movements they make with their glasses and the spots on the carpet. Kaneda has a feeling they’re going to feel sorry about this in the morning, but he couldn’t care less right now. He’s drunk and happy and…
Police On My Back starts playing, Tetsuo gasps with excitement, his eyes sparkling. “Hell yeah” he says, jumping to his feet – and causing yet another stain on the carpet.
“You’re not coming?” he yells, bouncing to the beat of the music.
Kaneda giggles. “I’m not sure it’s the right music for dancing”
“Shut up and dance”
Kaneda obliges and joins him just in time to sing the chorus along with him, utterly out of tune as he sways like a maniac at a concert.
When the exhaustion from all the singing and jumping and laughing finally hits them, they decide to approach the only room in the house they haven’t had the courage to walk into yet. Kaneda stays behind to rinse the glasses, and when he’s done, he finds Tetsuo standing at the door of their bedroom.
“Let me guess. There’s only one bed”
“Yep”
It’s a canopy bed of the antique Western kind – which Kaneda hates sleeping on, by the way. It’s large, but...
“There’s a couch” he points out. “I can sleep there, if you want”
Tetsuo frowns.
“I’m not a girl” he says. “Why don’t we just... lie down?”
“Sure”
They take turns going to the bathroom.
“Hey, Coach” calls Kaneda once he locks himself in the bathroom and grabs his Coach.
“Hello, Kaneda”
"So, uhm... What should we do now?”
“Query too broad. Please narrow”
Kaneda sighs in frustration. “I mean, are we supposed to— Go at it?"
“Define ‘go at it’”
“Oh, my—” Kaneda holds back the insults and breathes deeply. “Have sex, are we supposed to have sex?”
“Participants are not required to take any specific action”
“So it’s up to us?”
“It’s up to you”
Only when they’re lying in bed next to each other with their eyes to the ceiling, does Kaneda find out how he actually doesn’t give a single fuck about having sex with him.
Or rather, obviously he’d like to have sex with him, but it’s not a priority. He’s just happy to be with him. He doesn’t remember the last time he’s had such a quick connection with someone, free from the limits imposed by social standards, or forced restraint and distrust. Everything is spontaneous, immediate and automatic.
As if they have done it hundreds of times before.
“It must have been crazy before the System” murmurs Tetsuo, as the alcohol level in their bodies drops.
“What do you mean?”
"Well, people had to do everything on their own. Going through every single stage of a relationship blindly, without knowing whether it would be worth it or not. And then start over again every time. Choosing a partner, investing time and effort and feelings... What if things went wrong? Who would give them back the time they lost? It must have been exhausting”
Indeed, Kaneda often pondered this, too.
“I wonder how they didn’t get stuck” he replies. “With millions of people to choose from... I’d never have done that. I always liked both men and women, and... I think among all those options my brain would have exploded”
Tetsuo chuckles. “You wouldn’t have made it out alive” he agrees.
“Yeah. Thank God it’s all planned now”
“I know, right? Soooo much simpler”
A few seconds of silence pass.
“It’s fucking weird, though”
“Weird as fuck”
They start laughing, but by now the air is filled with nostalgia for a time where they don’t belong, a time they never even knew.
“I wish I had more time with you” murmurs Kaneda, as sleep falls over him like a blanket. Maybe he should stop talking. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.
He doesn’t expect Tetsuo to respond, but he does. “Me too”
Their hands reach for the other’s in the dark and meet in the middle, holding each other’s hand softly, and Kaneda doesn’t really need anything else at this point. He doesn’t need to have sex with him or kiss him or any other bullshit. There’s understanding and there’s contentment. He’s never felt this way before.
They fall asleep holding hands.
The next morning they walk out of the house together, stopping immediately at the door. Two golf carts are parked in front of them, waiting.
“You gotta be kidding me” scoffs Kaneda. “They’re already here”
Tetsuo snorts. “I hate them”
It was a slow morning punctuated by the clatter of dishes as they ate breakfast in their pajamas, their elbows brushing as they sat close on the island, between deep looks and soft smiles. But no matter how much they tried to delay that moment, the time has come.
The countdown continues undaunted in their pockets.
“So...this is it” says Kaneda, not knowing how say goodbye in a way that sounds casual and not broken like he actually is. . It feels like a part of himself is being ripped away from him. He seriously thinks he has fallen in love with Tetsuo in twelve hours.
Tetsuo smiles, but fails to conceal his sorrow.
“Thanks for... being my first” he tries, jokingly.
Kaneda plays along.
“Thank you,” he sneers, “for not taking advantage of me”
When Tetsuo laughs, Kaneda does his best to imprint that sound in his brain, along with the image of Tetsuo in the morning, hair disheveled and dark circles under his eyes. So he can replay that memory in his head anytime he wants.
“Well, actually...” hints Tetsuo with a smirk, “just a little longer and maybe I would have”
Kaneda goes wide-eyed and blushes furiously. He doesn’t know whether to be flattered – no, ‘flattered’ is not the right word: he’ a fucking middle school girl who just received a compliment from her crush – or frustrated that they didn’t actually fuck. He decides to use irony.
“You— You pig” he says in an outraged tone, before chuckling. Tetsuo imitates him. Then, just because they’re about to be separated and there’s no point in keeping anything from each other anymore, he adds: “Me too”
Then he takes Tetsuo’s hand – or perhaps it’s the other way round – in a rush of desperation and fake cheerfulness.
The beep that marks the seconds they have left increases in volume. Only a few inches separate them, and if this were the morning after a casual fuck with a guy he met at a club, Kaneda would erase that ridiculous distance to kiss him goodbye and walk away happily, never to look back. But this is nothing like that, and although he’s drowning in Tetsuo’s brown pits and knows for sure that they both want the same thing... He doesn’t kiss him. They stare at each other until the end, when both their Coaches announce:
“Your time is up”
They smile bitterly at each other one last time as they turn away, their hands unwilling to part. They maintain that contact as long as they can, but after the first step in opposite directions, they let go.
“Hey, Coach”
“Hello, Kaneda”
“Why was it so short? With Tetsuo”
“Even your reaction to a brief encounter provides the System with valuable information”
“But how do I know he wasn’t the perfect match for me?”
“Your ultimare compatible other has not yet been selected”
“You guys are sure, right? I mean, I know this— This whole thing has a 99.8% success rate... But what if I fall into that 0.2%?”
“It is normal to feel discouraged after a match. It happens to most participants”
“It does, doesn’t it?”
“You need to trust the System. Everything happens for a reason”
“If you say so, Coach”
In the following days, Kaneda keeps venting his anger through jogging and doing laps upon laps at the pool. Then one day he hears his Coach chime. The System found him another match.
This time he gets a girl, her name is Kei, and their expiry date is in twelve months.
Which is quite troubling, since their first date is a complete disaster: Kaneda is late and Kei is already pissed as fuck, so he spends the entire evening trying to make it up to her with idiotic jokes and old-fashioned politeness, only to end up making it worse. On top of that, Kei makes no effort whatsoever to hide the fact that, just like Kaneda, she is also grieving over a previous relationship that the System didn’t deem right, and seems to wish she were anywhere else but there with him.
So their first few weeks together are pure hell, and each day goes by just like the previous. Kaneda wallows in self-pity, sometimes even avoiding breathing too loudly not to annoy her; he secretely asks his Coach whether there’s way to get out of that match and, after the negative answer he gets, lies in bed every night wondering how they’re supposed to last a year.
Except that, over time, Kei’s intolerance toward him seems to change – it probably happens out of exasperation, but it still happens –, and Kaneda begins collecting small results that later become real victories. A lot of the tension between them shrinks.
Kei starts laughing more, seems more glad to open up to him and less reluctant to spend time with him. Her prejudices toward him disappear. He, on the other hand, finally stops letting her beauty distract him and finally gets to know and like what’s beyond it. They become intimate, and before they know they’re relieving all the built-up stress by fucking on every surface of the house the System assigned them. Kaneda likes her because she’s serious and responsible, with that stickler look that hides an innocent and spontaneous childishness that jumps out when she abandons all restraints and puts herself on Kaneda’s level – like when she responds to his grimaces by sticking her tongue out at him, or when she laughs boisterously without bothering to restrain herself, or when she loses it because Kaneda purposely chewed garlic before kissing her, knowing that she hates him. Those are the moments when he likes her the most. They have fun. It’s all a game, for a while.
That is until, six months into their match, the spell breaks.
They’re lying in bed, joking and tickling each other – he is tickling her, when suddenly Kaneda he burps.
He certainly doesn’t expect her to applaud him, but neither for her to push him away with a disgusted grimace:
“God, Kaneda” she snaps, turning away from him and turning off the light. “Not in bed, for fuck’s sake!”
It’s nonsense, and Kei certainly didn’t say it with the intention of offending him or getting seriously angry— when she really gets angry, it’s impossible not to notice –, but for Kaneda it’s like a lightning hitting him out of the blue. Everything comes crashing down right then and there.
He misses Tetsuo.
He can’t help but wonder how it would be to every second with him instead of Kei; he wonders what it’s like to wake up with him every morning and fall asleep together at night, to watch TV late with their legs intertwined on the couch, to fuck him on the table or against the wall or in the shower. He wonders how he is doing and whether he still thinks about him. He remembers the looks they had exchanged during dinner and how they had danced to rock music like idiots. The feeling of his hand in Tetsuo’s. He doesn’t know how to define anything that happened in the span of those 12 hours except right. Everything was right.
Of course, he doesn’t talk to Kei about it. He does the best he can, but as weeks pass, and just as he feared, it gets boring. They get bored. Sex becomes mechanical and repetitive, a sad kind of bedtime ritual to be completed each night to feel less lonely. No passion or intimacy.
They run out of things to talk about and go back to spending days in unbearably heavy silence – and Kaneda hates silence. They stop doing things together. Part of him has always known this, but only now does he see it clearly: he admires, esteems and respects her... But they have nothing in common. Nothing. At. All.
And then they argue, they fight. More and more and over the most stupid things. Their characters are too strong and too little understanding to be able to turn an argument into a meeting point. Sometimes he feels like Kei expects things from him that he cannot give her, want him to be someone he’s not. But Kaneda didn’t join the System to find love per se – he never gave a shit about having someone to hold hands with when he goes places, or having a steady ‘plus one’ for his friends’ weddings and parties, or having a hole to empty his balls into when he feels like it. He just wants someone to be himself with. Someone who understands him. Someone who’s similar to him.
Things like normality and strict rules, responsible routine and the monotony of certainty are not for him. He wants risk and thrill, unpredictability and adrenaline. That’s what he needs.
After an awful month spent fighting, they come to the conclusion that they’re not right for each other, and since it isn’t possible to walk away from a match before the end, they will just have to grit their teeth for the remaining five months. This seems to heal all wounds, and once they stop trying to match correctly, they get more comfortable than they ever were with each other.
All in all, they get by.
They are invited to Couples Formation Day, a ceremony that celebrates – and showcases – the union of the matches formed by the System. There’s something funny about todays’s couple: one must be five feet tall, the other seems twice his height.3 They never let go of each other’s hands throughout the evening, and despite the disgusted looks Kaneda gives them, he envies them a little. They seem to really love each other. Maybe the System is not a fraud as he has come to think lately. He wonders when his time will come.
“If you feel lonely or hopeless, don’t give up, because the System really does work” says the shortest boy in the pair before the final toast.
“Have faith in the system and one day you’ll find your soulmate. Your perfect match” adds the other.
An outdoor reception follows, with buffet and champagne. Kaneda rushes there so he can drown his apathy in alcohol. Kei drinks like a fish, too, and together they make remarks on the other attendees’ outfits, casting bored glances all around.
“Why in the world does everyone look so well-matched except us?” she hisses at one point.
“We may be mismatched,” retorts Kaneda, “but at least we have some good fucking taste. Did you see the shoes on that one?”
“And what about his match’s earrings? Where does she think she’s at, a coronation?”
They keep on with petty cues for a few minutes before Kei snorts:
“I’m gonna go sit somewhere by the lake. These heels are killing me”
But Kaneda knows her too well, and he knows for sure she’s getting sick to her stomach from all that love.
“Want to go home?” he asks her.
“Nah. We never go out. I’ll be back in ten minutes”
Kaneda nods and grabs the sixth glass of wine from the tray of the first waiter in front of him. Suddenly he feels someone tapping on his shoulder from behind. He turns around and feels his knees buckle.
“Hey!”
It’s been eight months, but that voice still has the same effect on him. Tetsuo Shima is standing before him, beaming like a kid on Christmas day. Like he, too, has waited all this time to see him again.
“Hey” Kaneda replies with a smile, enraptured.
As they hug instinctively, Kaneda realizes it would have been better not to see him at all, because suddenly he’s missing him more than he had until now. They part soon, too soon for his taste.
“Well,” he announces, “if it isn’t Shima Tetsuo”
“If it isn’t Just-Kaneda”
They laugh together and it’s as if not a day has passed.
“What are you doing here?” he asks without much thought, in the grip of an emotion he cannot control.
One look at Tetsuo’s amused face and he recalls that all participants are required to attend the ceremony. Damn. Had he remembered, he would have gone much more gladly and would have looked for him in the crowd from the beginning.
“Yeah, I’m sorry. Dumb question” he admits.
Tetsuo chuckles. “How much have you been drinking?” he teases.
“Not as much as I’d like, believe you me”
“Hey, was that your match? She’s really pretty”
“She is, isn’t she?”
“My girl’s prettier, though”
Kaneda follows his gaze to a girl a little far from them, congratulating the couple. She’s a bit short, but has the face of an angel.
“How long have you been together?” he asks him.
“Since right after the two of us. Her name is Kaori”
“And how much time do you have left?”
“Only a month, unfortunately”
“‘Unfortunately, huh?” he taunts him, ignoring the sting of jealousy. “So it’s going great?”
Tetsuo catches his breath, and his enthusiasm seems to dampen. “... It’s going... good” he specifies.
“Oh. How come?”
Tetsuo shrugs.
“I don’t know. It’s just— I can’t really see her as my soulmate, if you know what I mean”
“Well, she doesn’t have to be. I mean, who knows how many more matches we’ll have before we find them. You heard the giant and the dwarf...”
Tetsuo bursts out laughing. “Stop” he hisses, smacking him on the shoulder. “Well, how about you?”
Kaneda prepares to say something cheerful, but every attempt falls back down his throat. He can’t bring himself to lie to him. Why should he?
“Not that good” he confesses.
Tetsuo raises his eyebrows – Kaneda tries hard not to delude himself, but he seems to detect more curiosity than sorrow in his eyes, and perhaps even some relief.
“Why’s that?” he asks. “I saw you two before. You seemed very close. A really nice couple. Not just to look at”
Kaneda swallows.
“It’s not that we don’t like each other physically or mentally. It’s deeper than that. Lately we can’t seem to... I don’t know. I think what we lack is...”
“The thrill”
“Exactly”
Kaneda lowers his gaze:
“They all say you feel something when you meet the perfect match”
“Yeah. I heard that too”
The silence they sink into is full of words they can somehow hear. What Kaneda is really dying to bring up – and he would, if he were just a little more drunk – is something like:
“I felt it, Tets. I felt it with you. It can’t be a coincidence, right? I felt a connection in twelve hours with you, stronger than all these months with her. And I don’t want to lose you, not again, or I’ll lose my fucking mind. Even just talking to you now feels like the first breath of air in so long.... Let’s run away. Let’s do it. Just the two of us. Let’s meet at the lake tonight and fuck it all off. What a waste it would be, not being together”
He doesn’t say any of this. He buries it within himself as Tetsuo looks right through him, reading his soul. He ignores the shiver down his spine and shrugs.
“I mean... Who cares, right?” he says lightly. “I don’t understand shit about this System anyway”
Tetsuo’s laugh sounds so sad that Kaneda starts to feel a knot in his throat. For a second they look at each other without saying anything, and during that short time he allows himself to believe that not only Tetsuo knows how he feels, but also reciprocates.
Meanwhile, the party has come to an end, and the couples are saying their goodbyes. Kaneda clenches his fists. He can’t leave the System. It doesn’t work like that. And even though he doesn’t want to part with Tetsuo again, he needs to put as much distance between them as possible before he does something he’ll regret. Shit, he shouldn’t have drunk so much.
“So...” he tries, hoping Tetsuo will understand where he’s going with this.
“Oh. You’re leaving”
“I’ll see you at the next ceremony” Kaneda throws out. “I’ll be the drunk one, you can’t miss me”
“And I’ll be the wallflower, far from the other people, wishing I was somewhere else”
This seems to lift their mood slightly.
“I— Uhm, I hope I’ll see you soon” says Tetsuo with the hint of a smile.
“Why, did you miss me?” prods Kaneda.
He doesn’t expect to see Tetsuo blush, lower his eyes, and sneer to himself muttering:
“Course I missed you. But don’t let it go to your head”
Then he takes a few steps backwards.
“Good luck, then”
“You too”
As he drives home with Kei, the hangover takes over with the usual melancholy, and he feels so sad and lonely, next to a person looking out the window opposite his own, sitting close together but divided by an insurmountable distance, that he can barely hold back the tears. He holds on to that single sentence that keeps repeating in his head, over and over again:
‘Course I missed you’
“I saw you, last night” says Kei the next day, as she lies on a blanket by the lake with a book in her hands. Kaneda, who snoozes beside her, gives no sign of listening.
“It was him, wasn’t it?” she continues. “Your first match”
Kaneda yawns. He can act as aloof as he likes, but Kei doesn’t fall for it. “Jesus” she mutters, looking at him. “You made it pretty obvious, you know?”
Kaneda opens his eyes and stares at the sky.
“You like him a lot, don’t you?" Still no response. “I get it, Kaneda” she says finally, flipping through the page. “It happened to me, too”
“Really?”
“He was far too much older than me, though. He went through a divorce before the System and... a lot of other messes”
Kaneda chuckles.
“You like them complicated, huh? That’s why you don’t like me. I’m the easiest person in the world”
Kei elbows him but smiles to herself.
“How long did it last?” asks Kaneda.
“Three years”
“Wow. That’s a long time”
He would have killed to have that much time with Tetsuo.
Kei stares at the page without reading it. “Best three years of my life, if you ask me. God, I loved him so much it was crazy. I thought that was it, you know? Until it wasn’t”
She clutches the pages between her fingers until they crumple, reliving a pain she never got over. Kaneda notices, so he rises up on one elbow to try and cheer her up.
“I read that sometimes the System can design matches from the past as the ultimate ones. It does some kind of recalculation and if—”
“It won’t happen to us. He already found his ultimate match. Left this place years ago”
A doubt creeps into Kaneda’s mind, giving him the chills.
“How long have you been here?” he asks.
Kei raises her eyebrows. “I don’t know, years. I lost count”
Kaneda’s heart sinks. They had never talked about it before. He had never even asked. God, what kind of person is he? He moves her hair behind her ear. Kei smiles at him and closes the book abruptly.
“I often thought that the whole System was a huge rip-off” she admits, crossing her arms behind her head. Her words activate a bell in the back of Kaneda’s brain, but he silences it immediately. “And I won’t deny that I still think that sometimes”
Kaneda swallows the lump in his throat and stares at her.
“How do you know?”
“What?”
“If it’s the right person”
Kei shakes her head, as if it were something inexplicable in words:
“When you know, you know”
Kaneda lies down next to her and watches the clouds. He thinks he understands what she means.
Four months later, they’re standing in front of the house they shared for a year.
“I had a good time” says Kei with a smile. The end of their match makes her look more peaceful than Kaneda has ever seen her, and though he would have taken it as a personal offense under other circumstances, he finds himself just as pleased right now. It’s over. They made it to the end without tearing each other apart. In fact, they teamed up. And even if the System actually turns out to be a rip-off and never finds him a soulmate, at least it will have found him a friend.
“Me too” he replies.
They smile at each other in complicity and hug each other tightly. Kei kisses him on the cheek and, before she lets go, Kaneda moves his lips close to her ear:
“And thanks for all the times you sat on my face by the way, it was amaz—”
Kei snorts violently and pulls away abruptly, her cheeks flushed.
“God— I hate you” she growls, punching his chest with a fist.
Kaneda bursts out laughing.
“I hope you find what you’re looking for” he says, suddenly serious.
Kei nods.
“We’re all here for the same reason, aren’t we?” she answers. She shakes his hand. “You too”
“Coach”
“Hello, Kaneda”
“Is it possible to know... how long until my final match?”
“The System is unable to anticipate this kind of information”
“I figured you would say that. Well, now I know what it’s like to live with someone I don’t love. Is that helpful to the System? I mean, what was the point?”
“Everything happens for a reason”
“... Is this your backup answer for when you have no clue?”
“I don’t understand”
“Never mind”
Three days later, as he’s about to make a shrimp tempura, the Coach chimes.
“Another match has been found”
“Yeah, no thanks”
He won’t listen to that thing anymore. He’s had enough. ‘Trust the System’ they said at the ceremony. Bullshit.
He rests his palms on the kitchen sink, closes his eyes and sighs. Then he turns to look over his shoulder. His Coach almost seems to stare at him from over the armrest. Then it chimes again.
“Another match has been found”
“All right. Jesus”
When he casts yet another bored glance at the entrance of the restaurant and sees Tetsuo enter, he nearly has a heart attack.
“Oh, my God” he murmurs, wide-eyed and shocked. “Coach, is that him?” he asks quickly.
“That is correct”
Tetsuo sees him. The radiant smiles that spread on their faces draw a few glances here and there, but they don’t care. They see nothing at this moment except each other.
“Kaneda?”
“Tetsuo!”
They stop right before hugging, as if it meant bursting the bubble they’re floating in.
“I didn’t know we could be re-matched!” says Tetsuo enthusiastically.
“Right? Is the system just recycling through the greatest hits now? It really must be desperate. Either that or it lost all hopes with us two”
Tetsuo laughs. God, how he missed that laugh. Then he gasps and his hand immediately runs to the device in his pocket.
“Hey, let’s see how much ti—”
“Can we not—”
Tetsuo’s hand stops his. They look each other in the eye, embarassed by that sudden contact but unwilling to break it.
“Can we not check this time?” finishes Tetsuo, with a hint of panic in his voice.
Kaneda frowns and blinks in confusion. He did not expect this. Also, Tetsuo’s hand holding his is making it pretty hard for him to think.
“Oh” he finally manages to say. “Why?”
“I’m sick of it” answers Tetsuo with a worn out grimace. “After Kaori I only had matches of thirty-six hours or so and it was horrible. I was bounced from fling to fling and... I won’t stand another one”
He looks at him so pleadingly that Kaneda doubts he will ever be able to deny him anything.
“Besides,” adds Tetsuo, blushing slightly, “maybe if we don’t check, the countdown won’t start”
‘And we can be together as long as we like’
He doesn’t say it out loud, but Kaneda hears it clearly. As long as they like. Possibly forever. Shit. Fuck. Fuck, yes.
Tetsuo barely strengthens his grip on his hand, and Kaneda’s gone.
“Yeah, you’re right” he finally says. “Besides, if I knew how much time we have I’d only be able to think about that and I wouldn’t enjoy it. And I don’t... I don’t want that with you”
After that they just stand there, taking all the time in the world to caress each other with their eyes, silly smiles on their faces. As for Kaneda, he would be fine just spending the rest of the night like this. But Tetsuo seems to have other plans, as a sly smirk replaces the innocence and softness in his gaze:
“Let’s get the hell out of here”
“You took the words right out of my mouth”
There’s so much to catch up on, so much to ask, so much to confess, so many pillow talks and so much rock music to dance to.
As the cart leads them toward the house they are going to occupy – neither of them lets go of the other’s hand during the way – Kaneda can’t take his eyes off him. Tetsuo notices.
“What?”
“Nothing. You just seem a bit different from what I remember. Say, was your forehead always this big?”
“Was your sense of humor always this shitty?”
“Yeah, kinda. It used to make you laugh, though”
Tetsuo rolls his eyes. “God,” he mutters, although smiling from ear to ear, “I’m regretting this already”
This is unbelievable. It’s the same house as last time. It’s as if the System wanted to make it up to them, leaving them free to pick up exactly where they left off, where they were forced to stop.
They would take a few moments to joke about it, if they were not too busy kissing and pulling their clothes off each other. Tetsuo jumped on him the moment they stepped into the house and they never separated again, despite the risk of tripping over the trail of clothing they leave in their path. By the time they reach the bed they are wearing only their underwear, hands wandering and breaths mingling. Kaneda takes a moment to admire the body in front of him as he has been dreaming of doing for the past year, before Tetsuo slips a thigh between his in impatience. Kaneda starts rubbing his erection against him, moaning inside his mouth. Tetsuo tilts his face to push his tongue deep into his mouth as he humps his leg.
He kisses him with such fervor and desperation that Kaneda has to take his face in his hands and force him to slow down, turning their kisses from ravenous to chaste, a passionate, breathless caressing of lips. It takes them a minute to find the will to stop, their mouths staying close enough to brush against each other as they speak.
“Do you want to wait?” murmurs Kaneda.
Tetsuo shakes his head. “No” he says. “No, please”
He starts kissing him again as if he can’t have enough, and Kaneda doesn’t try to stop him this time. He doesn’t want to miss a single moment anymore. He switches their positions and intimates Tetsuo to raise his hips so he can pull down his underwear. His mouth waters at the hardness he finds. There’s something proud in having this effect on Tetsuo. He slowly lowers his face, staring at him.
“You said you were bounced from match to match after Kaori” he says.
Tetsuo seems to understand what he wants to know, and blushes.
“I did” he replies. “Both men and women. But it doesn’t matter because—”
He stops with a hiss as Kaneda wanders with his tongue along its length and then down to his testicles until he reaches his perineum. The thought of Tetuso with someone else ignites a spark inside him, awakening a buried competitiveness.
“—I kept thinking about what it would be like to do it with you” finishes Tetuso, his voice reduced to a whisper.
Kaneda sends what shred of self-control he had left to hell and lets his cock sink into his mouth, reveling in the feeingl of the skin along his cheeks and the intense flavor. It’s his first time giving a blowjob, and he’s pretty sure he’s not good at all, but Tetsuo’s moans and gasps prove him wrong. He wets every inch of him as he massages the part he can’t fit in his mouth with her hand; he moans around him at the first drops that slide down his tongue to his throat, sinks his nails into his butt and massages his thighs. God, he might implode if he doesn’t make him cum right now.
“Uuuuh... Kaneda”
Tetsuo’s hands suddenly stop running through his hair and grab it and to pull Kaneda from him. “Kaneda, I’m going to come”
“That’s what I want you to do” Kaneda points out with a laugh, despite the pain in his jaw.
“And I want you to fuck me” retorts Tetsuo. “How about that?”
“Later”
Tetsuo opens his mouth to protest, but Kaneda anticipates him.
“Tetsuo. We have time” he says, calm but sure. Tetsuo stares at him, far from convinced, but softens his gaze. “We have time, baby”
Obviously, he doesn’t know. Neither of them does. But they choose to believe that, at least for this time. He pushes Tetsuo down again with one hand and starts to suck him more fiercely, taking him in as far as he can reach while he twirls his balls with his hand. Tetsuo whimpers against his fist, lets out choked gasps and pleas all gathered in his name repeated over and over, and Kaneda decides he’s just too cute and adorable not to let him cum in his mouth:
“Ah... Ah... AH— Kaneda... Aaaah...”
Kaneda swallows it all, risking choking, and doesn’t regret it for shit. It’s the most amazing thing he has ever done.
Tetsuo lies with the back of his hand covering his eyes as he catches his breath, then he pulls himself up. Kaneda looks down at him with a drug-addled smile and the smug expression of someone who has placed first in the race of a lifetime.
“How was it?” he asks, his eyes squinted in a doubtful expression.
Kaneda arches an eyebrow. “What do you think?” he chuckles.
“I know sometimes it can be—”
“Tets. It was great. Besides, it’s not like I have anything else to compare this with. Unlike you, apparently” he points out, still pissed about not being Tetsuo’s first time with a man.
The younger man snorts and wraps one arm around his neck, entwining their legs as he begins to squeeze and massage Kaneda’s throbbing erection; his tongue traces circles around his nipples and then on the column of his throat. Teeth leave marks as they pass, marking Kaneda’s skin and making him tremble from head to toe. Kaneda claws the hair at the nape of Tetsuo’s neck and wonders how beautiful he would be with long hair.
“Pass me the lube” Tetsuo whispers.
Kaneda represses a shudder at those words, but then he frowns.
“Where do they keep it?” he asks. “It’s been a while since the last time. You know, Kei and I didn’t really—”
“Kaneda, please. I will puke on these fresh sheets if I get a single image of you and her having sex now. They usually put it in the top drawer”
Kaneda finds the lube right where he’s been told and smirks.
“They’re so fucking provident”
“You know, for once I wouldn’t complain about it”
“I’m not complaining”
Tetsuo coats Kaneda’s member with lube and starts masturbating him again as if it were an extension of his hand rather than a part of Kaneda’s body. He kisses him all over his face; then he takes the hand Kaneda keeps resting on his cheek and brings it to his mouth. He kisses his wrist and the center of his palm, then travels up with his lips to his fingertips. When he feels the gentle pressure exerted against his own lips, he instinctively parts them and welcomes Kaneda’s phalanges like a man receives water after a desert crossing, and sucks on them eagerly.
Kaneda pushes his fingers deeper inside Tetsuo’s mouth and presses his thumb against his cheek. The rush of arousal that shakes him at the mere sight is pure electricity, a shock that runs through him from side to side and makes him gasp. He drinks the image before him as greedily as Tetsuo consumes his fingers. Small, piercing breaths come from his lips and Tetsuo collects them like treasures, his irises almost entirely devoured by the black of his eyes.
The first white thin ropes leak from Kaneda’s cock and land on Tetsuo’s fist, which Kaneda starts thrusting into, with movements between freedom and desperation, his forehead pressed against Tetsuo’s shoulder and one hand clasped around his neck, clutching, scratching, holding on tenaciously. Every perception is reduced to the instinct that drives his jerks and the solidity of the body he finds himself pressed against. It’s chemistry, it’s alchemy, it’s whatever can explain how their bodies communicate with each other so seamlessly.
Tetsuo lets go of Kaneda’s fingers.
“Come” he spurs him hoarsely. “Go on. Do it. Come for me, Kaneda. Come on me”
“Tetsuo” he gasps, because it’s the only word he is able to utter, and because Tetsuo is the only thing that keeps a form and an essence when orgasm makes reality distant and blurred. “Tetsuo”
He comes in five seconds flat, spilling on Tetsuo’s stomach and with his teeth sunk into his flesh.
“What if there’s no scrutiny?” wonders Tetsuo as he walks hand in hand with Kaneda through the park. “What if it’s just matching us randomly and we all go along with it ‘cause they keeps telling us how clever it is? Kaori and I often talked about that. I mean, doesn’t that seem strange to you?”
“I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t think about it sometimes” Kaneda admits, reminiscing about his own assumptions over the past few months. “But it does form perfect matches, right? It has a 99.8% success rate”
“But how do you know they’re perfect matches?” insists Tetsuo. “What if the whole System is based on wearing us down us instead? It matches us time after time for years, for random durations with random people, and each time we get more broken, more pliant, until we eventually give up and adapt to the final offer?”
Kaneda thinks about this for a while. “Well, that would be quite a problem” he observes with a sigh. Then he looks at Tetsuo with squinted eyes. “That’s one of the most depressing, pessimistic things I’ve ever heard”
“Something tells me you’re thinking of something worse, actually”
Yeah, well. He would have rathered not to consider that scenario, but now that they started talking about it, his brain won’t stop working. It’s like a snowball falling down a mountain faster and faster, getting bigger as it does until it turns into an avalanche. So he stops walking, turning to face Tetsuo.
“Okay” he says. “Here’s my theory: suppose the System is not random, but accurate as they say, and that when we use it it evaluates each of our relationships and builds up a complex profile. If it can do all that...how far can it go? In short. Is this us or... Are we just... Copies?”
Tetsuo bursts out laughing. “What, like a simulation? Really?”
“We can’t rule it out, right?”
They get closer. Kaneda wraps his arms around Tetsuo’s waist, who meanwhile slides his hands over his butt with an arched eyebrow and tight lips.
“Great simulation, though” he remarks.
“It is, isn’t it?” chuckles Kaneda. “And you should see the flesh and blood version of me”
“Two versions of you?” Tetsuo smirks, walking away. “I don’t think I could handle that”
“Hey!” protests Kaneda, following him.
Days turn to weeks, weeks turn to months and their Coaches never start chiming. No guard comes knocking at their door. They spend their lives holed up in their nest, pursuing their passions together, going out only to go running or swimming, playing pool or tennis with the other couples in the System.
But Kaneda’s favorites are the everyday, seemingly small things. Things like being woken up by Tetsuo trailing kisses down his spine, spending hours in the bathtub with him lying with his back on his chest, cooking for him. He loves fighting with him over bullshit and making up five minutes later, loves slow dancing with him barefoot on the living room carpet, the endless conversations over both serious and silly stuff. And then he loves him, loves that he falls for whatever bullshit Kaneda tells him and then sulks when he realizes he was joking, loves how focused he looks when he’s reading, loves watching him bouncing rocks on the lake – not as much as loves Tetsuo teaching him to bounce rocks, though. It’s like foreplay. They get pretty nervous, too, because it seems they can never do more or less than four bounces and so, in the end, neither wins, but they just dismiss it thoughtlessly. He loves the physical contact that fills their days. It’s playful, obscene, innocent and passionate all in one. Like having sex with someone that’s a best friend, a one night stand and a boyfriend at the same time. From kisses on the forehead to improvised handjobs as they sit in front of the TV, from cheeks pinching – Kaneda squeezes his cheeks at least once a day since he discovered how stress-relieving they are, and Tetsuo rolls his eyes but always lets him do it – to lazy after-sex make out sessions.
Days go by, all identical and yet different, because not a day goes by that they don’t learn something new about each other. And everything goes well. They even lose count of the time they spend together. Even sex is not affected by the routine: Kaneda didn’t think it was possible, but the effect Tetsuo’s body has on him never diminishes; on the contrary, the more he finds hidden corners and skin peculiarities, the more it seems to turn him on. His sex drive toward him is almost sickening – and not just toward his hottest body parts, which are undoubtedly his thighs and ass, but also for his arms and back, armpits and face, neck and belly. Everything about Tetsuo’s body sends him over the edge.
They no longer talk about the System. They act like any couple who met by chance in a club or in the line at a supermarket. Whenever the slightest doubt peeps into Kaneda’s head, he drops it.
He drops it every time Tetsuo strokes his hair. Everytime Tetsuo arrives from behind him and wraps him in his arms, hiding his face in his neck and kissing him, dragging him to the couch or the bed. He drops it every time Tetsuo takes him as if he were born to do it and welcomes each thrust, eager and whimpering. Tetsuo shuts everything off just by existing next to him.
Which is why, now that he’s fucking him like there’s no tomorrow, little drops of sweat sliding down his neck as he holds up one of Tetsuo’s legs, it comes naturally to him to slow his thrusts and stop, caught by the soft, undone look on Tetsuo’s face, yielding and equally sweaty beneath him. Tetsuo lifts a hand to stroke his face. Kaneda closes his eyes and rubs his nose against his palm. He stares at him. God, he has to tell him. He has to tell him now. But he doesn’t know how Tetsuo might take it.
“I need to say something” he tries.
“I love you”
He wanted so much to say it first, but somehow Tetsuo beating him to it doesn’t bother him at all. It’s spontaneous, natural. Automatic. Kaneda could start floating in the air, as happy as he is right now.
“Damn you” he mutters. “You could have waited two seconds”
He kisses him until his lips are consumed and resumes pounding him deep inside, where pleasure rages like a storm inside Tetsuo, causing his toes to curl until he pulls away from the kiss with a long moan, eyes rolling back. There will never be a better sight than this, thinks Kaneda.
“I love you too” murmurs Kaneda as he lets himself slide back and forth, smooth and firm, basking in the sensation of his tight walls around him massaging and sucking him in.
They come one shortly after the other and take some time to stroke and breathe in each other as usual. Then Kaneda lifts his head from Tetsuo’s chest and rests his chin on it. Tetsuo runs his fingers through the hair falling on Kaneda’s forehead.
“I meant it, Kaneda” he says. “Time... Time means nothing to me”
That’s more than Kaneda ever dreamed of having with anyone.
Too bad that, to him, time does means something. Of course it does. The more it goes by, the more he is haunted by the thought that one day this will end. He loses sleep over it. He can’t get it out of his mind. What he has with Tetsuo is too good to be true, and certainly too good to be lost. Every morning he wakes up and wonders whether that will be their last day together. He endures as long as he can... and eventually gives in.
He fetches the Coach from the nightstand beside the bed and tiptoes out of the room late at night, while Tetsuo snores lightly. He wants to know. He needs to know.
“Coach”
“Hello, Kaneda”
“I want to know how much time we have”
“Tap here to reveal”
Kaneda lingers for a long time. They agreed not to check the expiry, and doing it alone feels wrong. But he doesn’t want to force Tetsuo. He’s happy that way, and Kaneda wants him to be. If necessary, he will carry that burden all on his own. But at least he’ll know. He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and taps.
7 years.
At first, he feels nothing. Then he feels everything at once: euphoria, relief, anguish, anger. He can afford to enjoy this without a care for a while, but sooner or later those seven years will end and he’ll lose him again and he’ll lose him forever and he can’t fucking live without him and–
The device beeps strangely. “Recalibrating”
3 years.
“Coach?” Kaneda frowns. “Coach”
“Recalibrating”
“Coach, what’s going on?” asks Kaneda, panicked. “Why is it getting shorter—”
18 months.
“Unilateral reveal has destabilized the expiry date”
Kaneda’s eyes go wide, as every single drop of blood freezes in his veins. So that was the reason why they had to check the date at the same time. It was a rule. And he just broke it on a stupid whim.
“Then undo it!” he hisses, casting a glance over his shoulder to check that Tetsuo hasn’t woken up.
“That is not possible. Recalibrating”
9 months.
“W-What if he looks at it, too?” insists Kaneda, clutching it tightly.
“Once shortened, the expiry date cannot be extended. Recalibrating”
3 months.
No, no, no.
"Come on, stop!" he begs. For a split second, he even considers dropping the thing and stomping on it repeatedly, or running outside and throwing it to the bottom of the lake.
“Recalibrating”
“Stop, stop, stop”
2 weeks.
“It will stabilize when recalibration is complete. Recalibrating”
“Stop, please, please stop—”
18 hours.
Next morning should be another morning of miso soup, kissing, dirty sex, and idle conversation, but Kaneda cannot open his mouth except for a few “mhm-mm’s” here and there. He keeps silent, his gaze permanently lowered, biting his lower lip as guilt devours him. Tetsuo can tell that something’s wrong, but seems to believe him when Kaneda says “I’m fine, just didn’t sleep well”.
At least until a few hours later.
Kaneda looks at Coach for the hundredth time. Tetsuo turns from the kitchen sink, rests his hands on the island separating him from Kaneda, and looks him straight in the eye. Kaneda looks back, unblinking. It takes him five seconds to crumble under his gaze.
“Tets, I—”
“You looked, didn’t you?”
Kaneda wishes the earth would swallow him. He tightens his lips and swallows, sinking deep into shame. He doesn’t need to answer. Tetsuo opens his mouth as if to say something, stops, takes a deep breath and blows out air with something that sounds like a shuddering sob.
“You looked” he says, his face somewhere between disappointment and hope of being proven wrong.
Kaneda looks down. There’s nothing he can say to justify himself.
“I’m sorry” he starts. “It’s just— I needed to know. I couldn’t take it anymore”
“How much time do we have?”
Kaneda shuts his eyes tightly. He has to take responsibility. All the responsibility.
“When I looked, I... I destabilized the duration. It started to shorten”
“How much?”
“It would’ve been seven years if I hadn’t—”
“How much, Kaneda?”
“Twelve hours”
Now that he says it out loud, it’s even more horrifying. God. Twelve fucking hours. Just like the first time. He looks up at Tetsuo with tear-filled eyes, and Tetsuo looks back the exact same way... With the addition of some anger. Then he walks steadly around the island. Kaneda reaches out a hand toward him.
“Babe—”
Tetsuo avoids his touch and walks past him, not giving him a single glance.
They don’t speak for the next few hours they have left, but Tetsuo still looks for his hand, still holds him close on the sofa. Kaneda holds him just as tight. He wants to enter his body, become his skin. He wants them to become one so nobody can part them ever again.
That night they wait outside for their respective carts. Neither of them breaks down or makes a scene. When the carts arrive, they turn to look at each other one last time. There are so many things Kaneda would like to tell him. One last look from Tetsuo, stoic through to tears, and everything vanishes in thin air, like a waking dream.
“Coach”
“Hello, Kaneda”
“What the fuck was that all about, huh? What was it, a joke?”
“I don’t understand”
“Why did you shorten the time?”
“Everything happens for a reason”
“Yeah, right”
He throws Coach out of bed and leaves it on the floor chiming for days. More matches are selected for him, but he doesn’t agree to meet any of them.
Tetsuo lands one last punch at the punching bag and clings to it with his gloves, resting his forehead against it. He has done nothing but beat that thing up in the days following the end of his match with Kaneda. It keeps him anchored to reality, keeps him from sinking into depression.
But when he returns home, everything is the same as when he wakes up. Sad, silent and empty. There are no clothes left messily around the house. No off-key voices singing at the top of their lungs at all hours. No improvised but always damn good dishes to feed him. Now that he has had a taste of what true love and bliss are, being alone is harder than before. No, it’s not being alone. It’s being without Kaneda. He misses everything about him.
He is still mad at him for what he did, for ruining years of their lives that they could have spent together just to get that stupid bug out of his heads, but he also feels guilty about his own reaction. He only had a few hours left with him, and he wasted them by being silent. He should have taken advantage of it, told him how much he loves him and how there’s no system, no match, nothing at all that will ever change what they have.
One day, as he reminisces about their days together – days he had hoped with all his heart would never come to an end –, sighing from time to time, he resumes vigorously cleaning the glass door facing the garden with a dull look on his face. He has been cleaning the house from top to bottom since five o’clock in the morning, after yet another restless night. And even though his house seems immune to dust or any other form of dirt – he supposes someone from the System comes in to clean up whenever he goes to the gym or takes a walk –, cleaning up makes him feel better. In a way, he feels in control.
He keeps his eyes fixed on the glass wall, when suddenly he stops wiping. He brings his face closer to the window until he almost touches it with the tip of his nose. He frowns and tilts his head to the side. This is not shatterproof glass.
No, that can’t be. It has to be shatterproof. Are the people in System nuts?
He has no way to be sure, but the more he looks at it, the more it doesn’t add up. He knocks on the glass to hear the noise. Takes a couple of steps backwards. It’s like a dam opening: a flood of doubts crowd Tetsuo’s mind. He drops the cloth on the floor and fetches the lamp from the bedside table and comes back. Has he lost his mind? Is he going to have to pay a fortune in broken glass? Is someone watching him even now, perhaps from a camera hidden somewhere among the furniture?
Oh, well. Either way, at least he’ll have an answer. He holds his breath and throws the lamp straight at the glass, which shatters before his eyes. He has no memories of System workers showing him around the house and explaining that the glass is layered, but he always took it for granted. How did he only notice it now...?
An idea flashes through his brain like lightning. He rushes to the basement, where he never sets foot, and opens the pantry. There are supplies that probably date back to those who lived there before him, and which he himself has never touched. He opens a carton of twelve eggs and pulls one out. He looks at it against the light, marveling at its lightness. Then he clutches it in his fist. And the shell crumbles, pieces falling on the floor in soft noises. He does the same thing with another egg and then another, until he breaks them all, with increasing panic. All empty.
Oh, God. Kaneda said it. He didn’t take it seriously – neither of them did – but he had it all figured out all along.
He goes wide-eyed and runs out of the house. He reaches the lake as quickly as possible, grabs a random stone – one that is anything but smooth and flat and suitable for bouncing – and gets ready. Two clues don’t make a certainty, but three clues maybe do. He closes his eyes and proceeds to throw the stone in just the shittiest way possible. On purpose.
One. Two. Three. Four.
A long shiver runs down his spine, making the hairs on his nape stand up. He begins to break into a cold sweat as he looks around suspiciously, moving only his pupils but not his head so it won’t bring any attention on himself. It’s like he’s in a horror movie. He can’t believe it. He has had the truth before his eyes all this time. None of this is real. Now what?
When the Coach in his pocket suddenly chimes, Tetsuo jerks so hard he almost chokes on his own saliva.
“Congratulations, Tetsuo. Your ultimate match has been identified”
“You can take my ultimate match and stick it up your—”
Wait. Ultimate an in ‘the one’? They actually found it?
“Your pairing day is tomorrow. You will be coupled at the Couples’ Formation Ceremony, and together you will leave this place forever”
Tetsuo runs his hands through his hair and closes his eyes.
Everything he had the most dreams and expectations for, the main reason he joined the System in the first place, is now a verdict he hoped would never come. He doesn’t want to meet his soulmate, because he already did. And he doesn’t need a stupid app to tell him otherwise.
“By any chance...” he tries, after clearing his throat. “Do I know them already? Is It one of my old matches?”
“Negative”
Tetsuo runs a hand over his face. He has to find a way to see him and explain. He can’t just walk away from that place and leave Kaneda behind. Even assuming they’re not meant to be together. He’s the best person he’s ever known, and should he have to turn the whole house and the System itself upside down, he’s going to get him back.
“Finally, tonight you will be allowed to meet a person of your choice to say goodbye”
That smees to revive Tetsuo. There it is, the right opportunity.
“So I can choose anyone of my old matches? Whoever I want?”
“That is correct. Data shows this can help provide psychological closure”
“Kaneda! I choose Kaneda” he answers, before Coach has even finished speaking.
“Your choice has been registered”
The relief that overwhelms him at this point is huge. His lungs are filled with air for what seems like the first time in so long. He dwells on it for a few seconds, before getting his feet back on the ground. Time to break out of this hellhole.
“Wait, where are we meeting?”
“Usual place, 7:30 p.m.”
“Just tell me why. Why are you trying to separate us?”
“Everything happens for a reason”
Tetsuo doesn't get it at first. Then a little smile of victory spreads across his face.
He looks at the lake, then back at Coach.
“Have a good trip”
“I don’t understand”
Tetsuo throws it in the lake with all his strength and stands watching as the device bounces four times in the water and then sinks.
Kaneda sees Tetsuo almost running into the restaurant, and immediately leaps to his feet. He still looks angry, but Kaneda doesn’t let it stop him: ne never apologized properly for what he did, and he won’t waste any more time.
“Tets, I’m sorry, I’m so so sorr—”
But then Tetsuo’s mouth is on his, his hands on his cheeks, and in a moment it’s all gone, all forgotten. Kaneda holds him tightly by the flaps of his jacket as if afraid he might slip away. He doesn’t give a damn about the people around them and the guards at every corner peering at them like vultures. They part only once satisfied.
“Wait, wait” whispers Kaneda, sitting at their table and dragging Tetsuo down next to him. “How long do we have?”
“I don’t know. I don’t have the Coach anymore”
“What?”
“I might have actually killed it”
“What?”
“Look, it doesn’t matter. They found my final match. I’m supposed to meet them tomorrow and the System said I could say goodbye to someone”
If Tetsuo had picked up a cleaver from the restaurant kitchen and cut off his arm, Kaneda probably would have felt less pain. All the energy that seeing him again had brought to Kaneda melts away in an instant, giving way to discouragement.
“Oh” he says. “I’m... I’m happy for you”
“Shut up, no you're not” Tetsuo interrupts him, grabbing his hands. “You’re not happy and neither am I. I’m not interested in anyone else and I don’t want to meet anyone else, I don’t want the right person for me to be singled out by a system, I want it to be you, I want to be with you more than anything...”
“I want to be with you, too” Kaneda immediately answers, stopping that frantic flow.
“Failure to comply with the System may result in repercussions—”
“Oh, fuck off, alright?” blurts Kaneda, to the device in his pocket.
“Listen to me” insists Tetsuo to bring his attention back on himself. “Do you remember where you were before you came here? What were you doing?”
Kaneda racks his brains, digging back into his memories as much as he can – and finds nothing but cosmic emptiness.
“Nothing at all, right? Well, me neither”
“What the— Why can’t I remember...?”
“This is a test”
Kaneda’s eyes widen. Tetsuo nods solemnly.
“You were right, Kaneda”
Suddenly all the dots start to align. He has plenty of questions to ask, but Tetsuo interrupts him again:
“Hey. Listen to me. ‘Cause this is big and embrassing and I’m only gonna say it once: I love you and I can’t and won’t imagine a future without you. You’re one of those people that— I want you in my life no matter what. For the rest of our lives. Even if we break up one day... I will still want you as a friend. Because what we have ... is unmatched”
The emotion those words elicit from Kaneda gathers in his throat, forming a lump. He blinks twice to stop tears from falling, but his voice still comes out choked when he says:
“But your pairing day’s set for tomo—”
“The hell it is. I’m not going to be paired with anybody, not tomorrow nor ever, because you and I are leaving now”
“You are not allowed to leave the System”
“Shut up!” growl Kaneda and Tetsuo in unision.
“Well?” asks Tetsuo, strengthening his grip on his hands.
They stare into each other’s eyes without moving an inch, like statues in the middle of a museum. Kaneda feels adrenaline coursing through his veins, a newfound sense of confidence shaking him from within. Either they stay and lose each other forever, or they leave and maybe get what they want, and Kaneda knows for sure that the first one isn’t an option for either of them. They won’t get another chance. It’s now or never.
He smiles crookedly.
“Let’s rebel against this fucking app”
Tetsuo smiles back at him. Kaneda has never felt closer to him than at this moment.
“Your time is up”
That’s when they remember where they are. They look around. The restaurant has sunk into silence, and about fifty blank faces stare at them from the tables all around. They stand up hand in hand and take their first steps, as sure as they have ever been, until they notice a guard walking steadly toward them, taser in his hand.
Tetsuo lets go of Kaneda’s hand and, before the latter has the time to stop him, he stops the taser with his palm. He doesn’t fall to the ground trembling and yelling in pain. It’s just like when you realize you’re dreaming and take control of events. The guard petrifies like the rest of the others, and before they know they’re running away together.
“Where the fuck are we going!?” asks Kaneda once they reach the woods at the edge of the restaurant. They stop and look around, squinting in the darkness of the night. Then they see it. The wall. Impossible to tell how high it is from where they are.
Tetsuo turns to him.
“It’s the only way” he says.
Kaneda knows he’s right. They start running again, straight through the woods. The further they get from the city, the more it seems strange that no one’s following them. He doesn’t know where Tetsuo works, he never mentioned. Actually, where does he work? It’s also odd that they don’t bring anything with them. They own nothing, neither cell phones nor documents nor money. But none of this ever felt wrong, ever felt strange.
When they reach the wall, their hearts are in their throats and their lungs empty. But they can’t stop yet. Kaneda has no idea what they will find once they get to the other side, but one thing he knows for sure is that all the answers are beyond that wall, and they are going to climb it together.
Tetsuo turns sharply toward him, and Kaneda nods. The former begins to climb the handles that stick out of the wall like a ladder, with Kaneda right behind. About halfway up, the lights of the city in the distance fade until it sinks into darkness, along with those in the narrow streets that run through the forest. Then it’s the handles in the wall’s turn to disappear.
Everything goes black, and when Kaneda can make out something around him, the first thing he does is turn to Tetsuo, as lost as he is. But their hands are still joined, so Kaneda is not afraid of anything. He looks around: it is as if they are floating in a black void without a floor or a ceiling, a darkness whose end cannot be seen.... But they are not alone. There are hundreds of other versions of themselves, all the same but in different clothes, and they are doing exactly what they are doing: holding hands and looking around without understanding. Above each of their versions is a different number. Only now do they realize they have one too: 1,000.
The pairs around begin to crumble into tiny pixels that rise into the air. Kaneda can no longer feel Tetsuo's touch, so he instinctively looks between them and discovers that their hands no longer exist. They are crumbling.
“Tetsuo...” is all he has time to say as they look into each other’s eyes one last time. Their pixels join those of the other pairs in a swirling ascent upward until they come together to form a single white message, breaking through the darkness:
1,000 simulations completed
998 rebellions logged
99.8% match