Work Text:
Carve out an already hollow heart,
Place it aside make it your path,
And what’s yet to come is the worst part,
I’ll be the one to live with the aftermath,
— “AFTERMATH”,
Written by Nakakita Yuma.
★
Yuma doesn’t know how he ended up here—907 kilometers from Paris, carry-on bag by his feet, unwashed hoodie shielding him from the stares of curious guests around him. Granted, yes, the four of them do look out of place but it doesn’t mean that they can’t afford to stay in the hotel. What’s this hotel called, anyway?
He looks over at Maki who—as per-usual—is hunched over his phone and scrolling through social media. Yuma can’t even barely open his eyes and this kid’s staring right at the bright, blue light his screen’s emitting off. He kicks Maki’s shin—lightly—to grab his attention and Maki makes a dramatic face before peering over at him.
“Where are we?” Yuma asks. He vaguely remembers going through security and then sitting in a very uncomfortable airplane seat then they’re in the air and he sort of zoned out after, only gaining his last bit of lucidity once they all piled out of the taxi van and into the grand—and obnoxious—lobby of this hotel.
He’s not drunk or under the influence of drugs—contrary to popular beliefs, none of them are into that—but the last six weeks of tour has dragged on and on that everything has started to pile together into one big hazy mess of sleepless nights, flashing lights, and the constant hum of too many voices in too many cities. It was Berlin and then Milan and then—Vienna, was it? Or was it Amsterdam first? He remembers being in Paris yesterday, the good ol’ Eiffel Tower looking down at him as he took a stroll by the Seine, both horrified and captivated by the Paris Effect. It’s apparently not as beautiful as the movie Ratatouille made it seem but it is still Paris.
Maki scoffs, leaning back against the couch. He doesn’t look like he belongs in this hotel, sitting on this couch, sipping on the lemon water that one of the employees gave them for a welcome drink. Actually, none of them looks like they belong. Taki’s already half asleep in the corner, trucker cap covering his dozing-off face, Maki is—well—Maki so Yuma can’t comment too much on his appearance. And Yuma can’t remember when he last washed the hoodie he’s wearing—it smells like all of the cities they’ve been in. Euijoo’s the only one who looks presentable; striped linen shirt, a pair of khaki pants, knockoff Gucci sandals that he bought in Milan from a nice-looking elderly man.
“Cannes,” Maki finally replies—the word doesn’t sound foreign coming out of his tongue, “what medicines have you been taking, dude?”
None. Maybe he should at this point. It’s not medicines or booze or drugs—it’s the fatigue starting to catch up to him. Their schedule has been a mess for the last year. Festival tours in Asia and then flying to Australia for Laneway and then to LA for Coachella. Most of the time he couldn’t even adapt to the time zone before he’s being escorted back into a van and to the airport again.
It's the price of being famous—he always tells himself whenever they have off days (which are very rare) and he’s staring at himself in his bathroom mirror trying to recognize the person that he knows is still in there, somewhere. Hidden beneath the muscle aches and the faraway look and the anxiety. Five years ago, they could only hope that their EP would take off so their parents wouldn’t find the need to ship them off to college. Now, they’re sitting in a lobby of a hotel they never thought they’d be able to afford. They had to trade their dream of having a normal life to be able to sip on $200 champagne every night without worrying it’d leave a dent in their bank account—but hey, everything needs sacrifice.
Yuma rubs his face in frustration. “None, you know I don’t self-diagnose myself like that.”
“We’re tired.” Euijoo offers a reasonable explanation. “Sometimes I can’t even remember what day it is or what agenda we have.”
“Oh, c’mon, you guys!” Maki tries to lighten up the mood—that’s kind of his job, aside from hitting the high notes Yuma aren’t confident in hitting and playing the bass like a madman. It’s the trait that comes from being the youngest in the group, you tend to look at everything through rose-colored glasses. Their managers think it’s because Maki’s experiencing his first life—free from the shackles of punishment—whereas the others are probably on their second. Yuma feels like he’s on his thirty-fourth at this point. “We’re in Cannes, we’re staying at one of their most expensive hotels, and we have two free days to just roam. We needed this.”
Maki’s not wrong. The three of them know that. They need this fresh-air and quick break just to get their bearings back. Yuma can’t even remember the last time he could sleep without having his alarm wake him at the crack of dawn and his manager barging into his room to tell him that they need to leave for the airport soon. All the days have blurred together—he doesn’t know when one ends and one starts. Midnight isn’t even a marker anymore; it’s just another hour in the endless cycle of transit, soundchecks, and stage lights.
Euijoo leans forward, placing his elbows on his thighs. “Any fun activities to do here?”
“Hmm, let me check.” Maki’s still scrolling through his phone, eyebrows knitted together in concentration. Despite being the youngest, he’s probably the second most mature person in that band—close behind Euijoo—and Yuma has no shame in admitting that. He’s not responsible, most of the time not lucid, and knowledgeable enough to plan things out. Most of the time it’s Maki that’s planning their off-days itineraries. Sometimes Euijoo—if he’s feeling rather generous. “Most of it is food and beaches,” he says, still reading through the website, “oh, that’s cool.”
“What’s cool?” Euijoo asks. He’s not much of an activity-based traveler, he believes that if they’ve invested so much on their accommodation, they should at least spend a quarter of their time trying out all the facilities and freebies that are included. But Yuma thinks he doesn’t want to waste a visit to Cannes by spending it asleep in his room.
“The Cannes Film Festival.” Maki sighs out. Yuma doesn’t know if anyone notices his jaw clenching at the word film—he hopes they don’t. “It’s happening tomorrow!”
“Ah,” Euijoo breathes out, “that’s why I saw someone who looked really familiar in the bathroom. I think he was in that new movie—what was it, Taki? The one we watched the other night?”
Taki doesn’t remove the cap from his face nor open his eyes when he replies, “Dancing Queens?”
“Yeah, that one!” Euijoo’s eyes light up from being able to put two and two together. “He was fantastic in it; I should’ve asked for a picture.”
“In the bathroom?” Yuma asks. If someone had approached him and asked him for a picture while he’s relieving himself, he thinks he might slam his head against the urinal or something.
Euijoo stares at him. “No, I mean, once we’re out of the bathroom,” he says, slightly annoyed that Yuma even thought about the possibility of Euijoo asking another famous person for a picture together in the bathroom of all places, “what movies are going to be shown? Do you think that new Pedro Pascal film will—”
“Euijoo, they need your signature, the rooms are under your name.” One of their managers seems to appear out of thin air, his lips in a tight line—unimpressed, but he’s hardly ever impressed. No off days, touring around the world, figuring out timetables and itineraries, losing sleep over having to manage four irresponsible guys. You’d have to be insane to enjoy that sort of torture.
The oldest out of the four of them stands up and walks behind their manager as they make their way to the front desk. Yuma thought that the conversation would cease to exist now that one-half of the conversation maker walked away from it all. But he notices that Maki’s staring at him and he’s biting his bottom lip—the expression he always seems to sport whenever he finds something he’s not supposed to find. Like a hate account dedicated to their band or a fanfiction website he shouldn’t have stumbled upon.
And Yuma knows it’s not his business to ask—Maki’s old enough to speak up if it’s really something important—and all he needs right now is his well-needed silence and peace. But because Maki’s looking at him so expectantly—desperate for a question that Yuma’s not sure he even wants to ask. Yuma ultimately sighs and leans his head against the couch when he asks, “What?”
Maki looks unsure—which is almost always a bad sign, he’s never unsure of anything in his life—and is still gnawing on his poor bottom lip. Yuma feels like strangling him right now. “Fucking say it before I commit a crime on these marble floors.”
“Do you think—” Ah, Yuma has a slight idea about where this conversation is steering off to. “Do you think he’s here too?”
It’s a question that he hasn’t asked himself in ages. Either because he thinks to hope for his presence is too far-fetched or because he simply thinks they’re at so different phases in their life that the possibility of running into him is next to zero—and it’s in the subs. He’s stored... somewhere between old lyrics and songs that never really came to fruition and a single that hit #1 on Billboard Japan. A song that they haven’t performed in ages—not since Yuma started feeling like he’d moved on and couldn’t really embody the essence of the lyrics anymore. Not since—
Yuma looks over at Taki and he’s still in his previous position. Arms crossed over his chest, cap covering his face from the bright sunlight, eyes closed as he tries his best to doze off to sleep in the middle of a fairly busy hotel lobby. It feels wrong to think about him when Taki’s two body drags away from him and is awake and can hear what—or rather, who—they’re talking about.
“I think it’d be cliché,” Yuma quips, “if he’s here.”
“I mean—his latest movie’s, like, blowing the fuck up.” Maki says, shifting in his seat. Yuma wonders if the younger guy could feel the awkwardness. “It wouldn’t be weird if he was here.”
It wouldn’t. Yuma knows that. He’s mature enough—busy enough—to stop himself from stalking his ex’s Instagram to see what he has going on but he can’t really escape him. He’s all over his social media—a breakthrough star, a real actor, clips of him goes viral on Twitter at least once per-week and his studio’s pushing for an acknowledgement from the industry so much that he’s even starting to appear on interviews and late-night shows to talk about his artistry. Yuma has never watched his films—not since the breakup—but he knows that it’s the kind of rise that Asian actors their age could only ever dream of.
So, really, genuinely, Yuma knows it wouldn’t be weird if he was here. In the flesh. Attending one of the biggest film festivals, smiling at the camera with that shy smile of his before he goes viral again for his insanely good looks. People will be curious about his skills then and they’ll be pleasantly surprised to see that all the compliments are deserved.
Yuma exhales through his nose. “Doesn’t mean we’d run into him.”
Maki shrugs. “Cannes isn’t that big.”
“It’s impossible, Maki, you don’t run into exes when you’re ten thousand kilometers away from where you two broke up, it feels like—”
Then—there it is.
When their single—the one Yuma wrote about grieving over a relationship that left him feeling like an open wound of a human—hit #1 on Billboard Japan, he felt like the world was playing a sick prank on him. He’d sliced a piece of himself then—his marrow, his thigh, his beating heart, he’s not sure. But the blood’s all over the piece of crumpled paper he used to write the lyrics on. He hummed the melody all the way home and sang it into his phone before sending it to the group chat and asking what his band thought about it.
They never thought it’d be a hit, to be fair, and Yuma didn’t think that a song about getting his heart stomped on—despite it being his choice—would be the one that could take the band to new heights. It was unexpected—a one-in-a-lifetime thing, a pinch-me moment that he’s still trying to shake himself out of.
No way, he remembers himself saying when he woke up and the first thing he read was that it’d charted and suddenly they were getting interview requests, suddenly people were dissecting the lyrics, every inflection in his voice, trying to decode the heartbreak that’s still so fresh and new. It made him think if that was the price—constantly having to rip himself apart to stay relevant.
He hasn’t even thought of his name. Didn’t send a silent prayer to the universe that he’d show up in his life again one day. He’s sitting in that lobby wondering if this is a curse that’s finally caught up to him. Yuma remembers being ten years old and chanting ‘Bloody Mary’ three times in front of the bathroom mirror in his school to try and summon the infamous ghost—but she never came.
Now—16 years later, she’s in front of him. A ghost.
But rather than taking the form of a bloodied woman with a pale face, he’s standing there in a black hoodie, effortlessly handsome. Even in casual clothes he looks like he belongs there. The marble floors, the floor-to-ceiling windows, the occasional gold accents—he doesn’t look out of place. It’s been years, Yuma stopped counting when seeing his face stopped making him feel like jumping off a cliff.
This feels like a cruel prank, a sick fucking joke, an episode of a reality show that he likes to watch despite knowing that it’s scripted. This isn’t real, this is a nightmare, this is—
“Yuma.” Jo says, quiet—but it pierces through all the noise around them.
Yuma digs his nails into the palm of his hands and when he feels the slight pain, he knows that he’s not dreaming. He’s in front of him, in the flesh, standing in the middle of the hotel lobby, silhouetted by the sunlight that’s streaming through the glass doors behind him. He looks like a dream—an entity that Yuma knows he doesn’t deserve to touch.
Maki and Taki shift at the sound of the familiar voice. Yuma has never wanted the floor to open and eat him whole right then and there.
Yuma exhales, steadying himself.
For the past two years looking at Jo’s face on his phone screen, television shows, and billboards don’t really affect him that much anymore. The wound has been stitched and it’s healed beautifully—leaving behind a faint discoloration on his skin. But this, seeing Jo in front of him again, after four years, thousands of kilometers away from where they met—it feels like someone has just ripped that scar open again.
For the first time in 4 whole years, Yuma wills time to move faster.
★
ADAM
And you didn’t think to tell me? Kōji, this is—
Kōji paces around the room. Frustrated.
KŌJI
Don’t make this harder for us.
- “ALL THE LONGINGS ARE OURS” IFFR OFFICIAL SELECTION,
Directed by Murata Fuma
Starring Asakura Jo, Koga Yudai
★
To talk about Jo means to start from the beginning and the beginning was a hole-in-the wall ramen restaurant that even locals dubbed ‘the real deal’, tourists hadn’t even discovered it yet. Yuma’s not a big foodie—he ate when he needed to eat, he enjoyed food as much as the next person and it’s sustenance, anyway, he’d occasionally leave a review when he thought the food’s great. Maki wanted to try, he’d heard raving reviews about it and decided to drag Yuma.
This was before their career became what it is today.
They were still playing small gigs, opened for bands that didn’t really have a name, and thought that they’d probably never take off. Euijoo had started to take classes in a local college, Taki’s parents had become dismissive of his dreams, and Maki was juggling between musical theatre work and being a bassist in a band that didn’t even have 5000 streams on Spotify. But they loved it. (They still do). Though they knew—deep down—that it wasn’t going anywhere.
On the day of their reservation—because apparently this restaurant had a 3-month waiting list, unbelievable—Maki had to take his sister to the dentist for a root canal checkup and told Yuma to come alone. They’d waited for ages, it only made sense if one of them would come. It’d just be stupid to let all the waiting around be a waste. Yuma wanted to push Maki onto the train tracks—had planned it all out in his head—for making him waste his time. But he went, out of spite. And because he came alone, the sweating waitress in front of the restaurant asked if he’d like to be seated alongside a stranger. They were full-booked and it’d make sense to make two people sit on a table that’s designed for two.
Yuma wanted to say no. As if being pissed over his friend bailing on him wasn’t enough, he had to make small talks with a stranger? He was about to say never mind and head back home when he caught sight of the stranger he’s supposed to be sitting with through the window.
Jo. He learned of his name after.
Not that Yuma knew him then. Not in the way he would later, not in the way that would carve itself into his chest and refuse to leave.
Back then, Jo was just the typical handsome boy-next-door. He greeted Yuma with a small smile when the boy sat opposite him on the table. He didn’t look like he wanted to be disturbed either, he was hunched over a book while waiting for his food. Yuma’s phone battery was on 20% and he didn’t want to commute home in boredom so he toyed with the edge of the paper napkin instead—stealing glances at the very hot guy sitting right in front of him, afraid to make a sound.
It was awkward, of course, and the food took ages to come so their ramen arrived almost at the same time. Jo waited for Yuma’s order to be placed on top of the table before he grabbed the chopsticks and dug in.
“Thank you for the food.” Jo said and he bowed his head.
Yuma mirrored him before swirling the noodles inside the soup. He wanted to make small talks—he really did—because he knew this sort of opportunity, being seated in front of an unrealistically handsome man, would never come twice and he had to shoot his shot before he’d have to swallow the regret for the rest of his life. But he didn’t know how to act and he didn’t know what sort of conversation the stranger would appreciate. So, he kept his mouth shut. Maybe later, during dessert.
Then, without looking up from his ramen, Jo said. “You don’t actually want to be here.”
His voice was gentle—like a slow pet on his head, a reassuring palm on his back.
Yuma blinked. “Sorry?”
He smiled a little. “You look miserable,” he paused to let the words sink, “like you’d rather be somewhere else—or preferred someone else’s company.”
“My friend ditched me.” Yuma confessed, unsure why he did that. Jo’s voice was like a siren’s—sultry, singsong-y, so very sure of its ability to lodge itself into a human’s brain. “And now I’m here.”
Jo nodded. “I’m Jo, it’s very nice to meet you...”
“Yuma.” Yuma filled him in. “It’s nice to meet you too.”
And that was the beginning.
They found out that they were born in the same year. Yuma was born in Winter and Jo in the peak of Summer. They figured out they were polar opposites very early on. The conversation that followed that revelation was easy in a way Yuma hadn’t expected. He learned that Jo was in film school, that he wanted to direct but somehow always finding himself in front of the camera—whether it was modeling a product, advertising one or starring in his friends’ projects. Jo learned that Yuma was in a band, though Yuma had shrugged it off like it was no big deal.
Whereas Yuma wanted to be in the spotlight—to have all the cameras trained on him—but had never gotten to that point, Jo would very much like to avoid it even though he was practically made for it. That’s what led to their breakup—but that’s years down the road.
After their bowls were empty and they were out of the restaurant, Yuma asked Jo if he’d like to attend one of his upcoming gigs. A friendly offer, they had been spending one and a half hour in the corner of the ramen restaurant—Yuma figured they were good enough acquaintances. When they walked the opposite directions, Yuma didn’t expect Jo to actually come. He was a busy guy, he understood that much.
But when their next gig rolled around and Yuma walked onstage with his guitar, finding the spot behind the center microphone while trying to reposition his cheap in-ear—he saw him.
Jo, standing near the back of the crowd, arms crossed, head tilted slightly as he watched. He was tall enough for Yuma to be able to spot him but when their eyes met, Jo offered a small smile—one Yuma hadn’t seen at the ramen restaurant.
Yuma almost missed his cue to sing.
He wasn’t singing along (no one really knew their lyrics yet), wasn’t cheering loudly like Maki’s friends in the front row. But he was there. He showed up. And that made Yuma’s stomach twist like never before. Because there he was—the hottest man Yuma had ever laid his eyes upon, nodding along to their shitty songs, clapping his hands whenever it ended, and even staying back until they were packing their things up.
“You said you weren’t good.” Jo said when they were walking out of the venue, Yuma’s heavy guitar on his back. Jo’s initial awkwardness—the one Yuma felt during their first meeting—had seeped out of him. It’s still there—in the way he walked, in the way he carried himself—but it was clear that the set made him feel like he knew Yuma better then. Yuma’s no longer a complete stranger—he understood him more.
“Woah,” Yuma made himself sound offended, “I never said I wasn’t good, I said we’re still a bunch of nobodies.”
Jo laughed—Yuma realized he wanted to hear it for the rest of his life. “You look like you belong there. On stage. Keep doing this, I’m sure you’ll be there someday.”
It took all of Yuma’s might not to kiss Jo right then and there—in front of his bandmates, in front of that venue that vaguely smelled like alcohol and piss, on their second ever meeting. He was eighteen and reckless but Jo was also eighteen and the most beautiful man he’d ever had the privilege to talk to.
And maybe that was the moment Yuma started to fall.
Because Jo kept showing up.
Not at every gig—he had his own life, his own commitments—but often enough that Yuma started looking for him before every set. Often enough that he started scanning every crowd, just in case.
And when Jo did come, he always waited after the show, right outside the venue. Hands shoved inside the pockets of his jacket, that small, knowing smile of his already in place. So much so that his bandmates had even started to invite him for after-gig drinks, comfortable enough to let a stranger into their sad, pathetic lives.
One night, after a gig in a dimly-lit bar where the air smelled like sweat and cheap liquor, Yuma finally worked up the nerve to ask, “Why do you keep coming?”
Jo chuckled, before saying, “Why do you keep hoping I will?”
That was it. That was the moment.
Asakura Jo had entered Yuma’s life like a rogue wave. Uninvited, unstoppable, dragging him under before he even knew he was drowning.
It only made sense that he left like one too.
★
And things never made sense when I’m around you,
The world always stops spinning when it’s just us two,
But really who knew?
That it’s me who marks you up like a tattoo,
- “TATTOO”
Unreleased song, written by Nakakita Yuma.
★
“Maybe it wasn’t him.” Maki offers, shrugging—but even he knows that’s not a convincing-enough statement for anyone to believe.
They are both in their shared hotel room now. Yuma’s sitting on the edge of the very comfortable single—that resembles more of a queen-bed than an actual single—bed, his shoes thrown near the entrance. The view of the ocean through their opened balcony door can’t even distract Yuma from the fact that Asakura Jo, his Jo, his ex-boyfriend of three years and four months, who he hasn’t seen in four years—is staying in the same hotel as they are. Yuma’s not good at math but this probability should be less than one, right? Maybe even nearer to zero than an actual number.
(Is that how probabilities work?)
Yuma throws his body onto the mattress, feeling it sink and sink and sink. Maybe it’ll eat him alive tonight so he won’t have to risk meeting Jo—again.
“Maybe it’s a lookalike.” Maki adds on, he’s currently opening up the closet door and peering in, trying to find freebies he’ll be able to take home later on. He settles on trying on the fluffy hotel sandals first. “I mean—a lot of Japanese actors are on the rise right now and a bunch of them is invited so—”
“Is his film in the rundown?” Yuma questions.
Maki chews on his bottom lip. “To be honest, man, I don’t know, I didn’t check and—”
“Don’t lie to me, Maki, or I will throw you off that balcony right now.” Yuma cuts him off.
“Like you even have the muscles to.” Maki narrows his eyes at him, he slips on the hotel sandals and pads through the room. He stops by the balcony door before sighing. “Yes—but it doesn’t mean anything, really—”
“So... it is him.”
Maki inhales the fresh Cannes air—shutting his eyes as he lets his lungs expand. They’ve been touring for so long that a simple breathing routine feels like a privilege at this point. They haven’t had the time to take things slow, to soak in the beauty of the city they’re performing at, to sightsee without having to hurry to their next schedule.
They should be enjoying this. Their last bit of freedom before they’re in a plane again to cross the Atlantic and start their North American tour. Yuma should be out there, soaking in the sun, digging his feet into the white sand, maybe even swim in the Mediterranean. Definitely not locking himself in his and Maki’s room so he won’t have to run into his ex-boyfriend.
“I mean, yes, I think, but I bet he’ll be busy with press tours and stuff—meeting him in the lobby was just a coincidence.” Maki finishes, leaning against the white doorframe. “I doubt you’ll see him again. Unless, you know, you actively seek him out.”
When their eyes met earlier at the lobby, Yuma was too stunned to say anything. Calling his name back would confirm to Jo that it was him sitting on that couch. But saying anything else would risk having to start a conversation with the last person he wanted to talk to. It’s four years—Yuma really thought that that’d be enough time to completely scrub someone off his skin and get him out of his system. What’s that fact that people like to say on the Internet? That your cells regenerate after seven years? That’d mean he’d have a new body—one that’s completely alien to Jo’s touch—then? It’s been four years, so at least half of his body is a stranger for Jo now.
Thankfully Euijoo came back with their manager and their keycards before Jo could approach them to confirm to himself that it’s Yuma he’s staring at. But Taki and Maki had already taken notice before Yuma hurriedly whisked them away to the elevator.
Cowardly move, Yuma admits, but it’s still mindboggling to him that out of every place in the world that Jo could be in right now, of course he’d be in Cannes.
It’s just Yuma’s luck.
Yuma glares at him, arms still sprawled across the bed. “Why would I do that?”
“Unresolved feelings. Curiosity. Self-sabotage. The usual.”
If Yuma still had his shoes on, he’d chuck one of them across the room and hope it hits Maki right in that stupid, chiseled jaw of his. “You think so lowly of me, Maki.”
“Hm.” The youngest in the band hums, his arms are still crossed over his chest. “Have you talked to him? After the breakup?”
Yuma grabs a pillow from above him and drags it down, placing his head on it before he shakes it. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Like—at all?”
“At all.”
It’s not like he didn’t want to. They didn’t have the time to. After they broke up, Jo was on a flight to Toronto to attend his first-ever international film festival—where his movie headlined and won—and Yuma resigned to his room to write thirteen fucking songs about heartbreak. Only one of them made the cut, thankfully, and it’d been the one that catapulted them into the stratosphere. Then—their schedules never matched after. Jo was getting more movie offers, Yuma was out on radio shows promoting a song about an unnamed ex whose face was all over the billboards in Shibuya. No magazines or columnists picked up on that—to his relief.
They never had the time to talk.
Well—once. But Yuma was too afraid to come out of his dressing room to say anything because that was also around the time—
The doorbell to their room rings and Maki looks up. He walks across the room and looks through the small peephole before quickly opening it. Yuma’s half-terrified that the 6 feet Japanese man he hasn’t seen in four years will be the one to walk through the threshold but lets out a sigh of relief when it’s actually Euijoo.
He’s in a goofy straw hat now. Leather fanny pack strapped across his chest; round cheeks red from the heat.
“Who’s ready for an adventure?” Euijoo asks excitedly. Unaware of the storm that’s made a home inside Yuma’s head.
Yuma grabs the pillow from under his head and presses it against his face.
★
Whenever he talks about Jo, Yuma finds himself comparing the man to a natural disaster. Not that he thinks Jo is a disaster—although he is a bit of a klutz sometimes. But it’s not that. It’s just that the arrival of Asakura Jo in his life feels like a natural disaster. One that’s written in the stars, bound to happen, inescapable, no matter how many warning signs he chooses to ignore.
If Jo’s a rogue wave, Yuma’s the lone ship sailing in the sea, braving it all to challenge a God. If Jo’s an earthquake, then Yuma is the small village built on top of a rift, aware of its mortality in the face of a force that could take him down if it decides to take the smallest breath. If Jo’s a hurricane, then Yuma’s the chaser inside the helicopter, eager to learn about his weakest point by flying straight through it, understanding him from within the eye.
Yuma didn’t think they would ever breakup. Most of their arguments had always been small—schedules not lining up, a forgotten towel on the bed, whose family to visit first during Christmas. It was never a big deal. Jo’s too kind to ever raise his voice at Yuma and Yuma loves him too much to ever let anything jeopardize their relationship.
It was fine. Jo’s family loved Yuma even though he was a deadbeat—they were too kind to point that out—and Yuma’s family had Jo’s indie movie posters splattered all across the walls in their homes. Yuma’s band’s portrait sat sadly inside a small frame that’s propped up on the end table in his parents’ bedroom—hidden away.
An indie actor that had only just starred in a few small-budget movies that never made it really huge and a front man of a band that performed in small venues and festivals. Yuma was content with that. You couldn’t really ask for much when you’re twenty-one and blissfully unaware that life tended to throw curveballs at you.
They were sitting on Jo’s couch when Jo got a phone call from his agency. He had gone to an audition for a movie directed by Murata Fuma—this guy who broke through the Hollywood mainstream a couple of times, one of his movies had become a cult favorite in Europe—but he wasn’t expecting anything. The main role had been given to Koga Yudai—he starred in a couple of Netflix-original series a couple of years back, kind of a big deal—and they expected someone of a similar caliber to star with him.
Jo answered it on the second ring. “Hi.”
Yuma looked over at him and saw the way Jo’s fingers curled into the couch, knuckles pressing white against the fabric.
He wasn’t expecting the call at all. Yuma could tell from the way Jo’s voice dropped a little, the way his lips parted in disbelief. Even before Jo could say it—Yuma understood what had just happened.
He got it.
The role. The movie. Everything.
And then, before he hung up, he thanked his agent for the opportunity, telling him that he would try not to disappoint him too much. Yuma doubted disappointment was even on the table at that point, Jo had scored the agency their biggest win yet. Money was about to come in, recognition was about to pour in. He could do no wrong.
“I got it,” Jo said. And then, as if he himself still couldn’t believe it, he said it again. “Yuma, I got it.”
Yuma can’t remember what happened next. Just that he surged towards his boyfriend, arms wrapped around his neck, pinned him to the couch, and kissed him like the world was going to end in thirty seconds and that was the last thing he wanted to do before he died. The realization hadn’t dawned on him then—that he was about to lose the one single thing he had sworn himself he wasn’t going to lose. He was so caught up in the euphoria to think about anything else—what would happen to their relationship, to his career, to the future they thought they’d have together.
He didn’t care at that moment. Not when Jo’s lips were pressed against his and all of his doomful thoughts were pushed to the back of his mind. Not when Jo flipped him over and he was on top of Yuma. Not when he threw his shirt across the room and Yuma’s thoughts were just about him, him, and him.
The earthquake didn’t hit until eight months later.
Jo had wrapped up filming and he was telling Yuma all about the sets and how great of a director Murata Fuma was and how Koga Yudai had helped him a lot at times when he felt like he couldn’t understand what his character—Adam—was feeling. It’d been a great experience and Yuma was happy for him, he really was. What kind of boyfriend would he be if he didn’t relish in Jo’s successes too?
But then the call came.
Yuma was there when Jo answered it—he always was, it’s not like his schedule was more hectic than Jo’s—sitting cross-legged on the couch with his guitar resting against his thigh, half-listening as Jo paced the room, phone pressed to his ear. He was plucking his guitar strings, trying out a few notes he thought would fit the song he was writing in his head. The conversation was animated, excited—Jo was nodding along, a small smile curling at the corner of his lips.
He was trying to perfect the lyrics for the song he’d started writing for Jo but he never found a perfect key for it—or the perfect notes. All the lyrics were there, scrawled all over his notebook, typed in his laptop, saved on his phone. But every time he tried to sing it with a guitar, he felt like it wasn’t good enough, melodic enough, perfect enough to capture how Jo made him feel.
He looked up when Jo stopped pacing around the room.
“TIFF?” Jo echoed into the phone, like he needed to hear it again to believe it.
And that was it.
The epicenter. The crack forming underneath their stable home.
An unprecedented change. The natural disaster that was always bound to bite even the strongest humans.
It wasn’t the earthquake, not yet. But the early warning system had picked up on it, had told Yuma about it ages before it could hit. He was still a brave man trying to live in his village, convincing himself that he’d stay despite it all.
It didn’t hit all at once. Of course it didn’t. It started as a whisper in the back of Yuma’s mind, the kind of thought he could ignore at first. This is good for him.
Then, this is going to change everything.
And finally, the worst of all.
Where do I fit in all of this?
★
Let me put on a brave face,
To tell you that it’ll be alright,
When in reality,
I’m breaking apart in the dead of night,
When you think of me,
Do you think of us,
Or am I just a memory,
That’s starting to rust?
- “WHERE DO WE STAND?”
Unreleased song, written by Nakakita Yuma.
★
Cannes is beautiful, Yuma knows that, he doesn’t doubt that at all. Their afternoon stroll took them to a restaurant overlooking the sea—apparently Euijoo had been looking forward to visiting the place ever since he knew they were going to spend their small break in the city. Maki and Euijoo had led the way, giving exhausted Yuma and Taki trivia about the buildings and the significance of them all.
He should’ve been paying attention when they were walking, should’ve eaten more than two spoonful of beef tartare or whatever the fuck menu that Euijoo had ordered for him in the restaurant, maybe should’ve taken his swim shorts out of his luggage and join them for a swim in the ocean. God knew he needed that. But he couldn’t thoroughly enjoy Cannes, not with the risk of running into Jo still looming in the background.
So now—instead of spending the late afternoon swimming in the crystal-clear water of the Mediterranean, Yuma finds himself at one of the hotel’s bars. He’s sitting on one of the tables, a half-drunk martini in front of him. He’s two drinks down for now and there’s not a single space in his mind that Jo hasn’t occupied.
It feels a little childish on his side—to still avoid an ex-boyfriend like the plague—but even four years after their breakup, Yuma still hasn’t found the right words to say to Jo. I’m sorry I left you. I’m sorry I gave up on us. I’m sorry I didn’t see you when you came to see me, that’s uh, another story.
He exhales, tapping his fingers against the glass. The ice has mostly melted, and his reflection wavers in the drink—just a blur of tired eyes and half-hearted avoidance. He tells himself it’s fine, that it’s normal to feel this way after seeing Jo for the first time in years. It’s normal to want to run away from a natural disaster just as it’s brewing and ready to strike at any time. That’s the normal thing to do, not date it for three and a half years.
Except—like their first meeting all those years ago in the ramen restaurant—Jo has always found his way to slither himself back into Yuma’s life.
It’s wishful thinking to hope that today—now—when they’re staying in the same city at the same hotel that he won’t show up.
Yuma feels it before he sees him—the prickle at the back of his neck, that faint, electric awareness settling in his spine. Then, the shadow falling over his table. He also smells him before he sees him. The same citrus notes, the same refreshing scent. It’s surprising that he hasn’t changed his perfume, four years later, when he has quadrupled his fame—and of course, fortune.
Jo pulls out the vacant chair in front of Yuma and sits down. There’s a difference in the way he carries himself now. Much more confident. Much more determined. Much more—
“I thought I’d find you here.” Jo’s always so sure when it comes to Yuma. Always knows what to say. What to do. Where to kiss him to soothe his worries.
Yuma shakes the last thought away. “Were you stalking me?”
“I wasn’t,” Jo deadpans, “I didn’t know your band would be here.”
“Me neither.” Suddenly the martini doesn’t feel enough—this isn’t a conversation that he wants to do when he’s stone-cold sober. “How—” How have you been sounds weird. Jo’s been alright. Great even. So, Yuma tries another approach. “Your movie—” He hasn’t seen it; he can’t ask Jo about a movie he hasn’t seen because Jo will ask him about it. “The weather’s nice.”
Fuck. Stupid.
Thankfully, Jo laughs—that stupid laugh of his that made Yuma fall in love with him in the first place. “The weather is nice.” Jo confirms. “What are you doing here?”
He’s taking the ‘nothing happened’ approach. Bold move. A good one. Yuma should be on his third shot of tequila if Jo wanted to go with the ‘why’d you break up with me four years ago and disappeared on me like a ghost?’ approach.
Yuma wipes his sweaty hands on the napkin. “We wrapped up our Europe tour yesterday and we have a couple of days off before we fly to the US. Euijoo suggested a short holiday. We didn’t know the film festival was on.”
Jo nods. “I saw,” he starts, unsure, “the, uh, you guys’ poster. I saw it when I was in Paris a week ago, at the bus stop. I wanted to see one of your shows but the tickets were sold out and I didn’t have any of your numbers anymore.”
“Why were you in Paris?” Yuma ignores Jo’s last statement. The four of them had changed their number a dozen of times after their career started to take off—too many stalkers, too many people who claimed they knew them from kindergarten asking for favors. He also decided to ignore the fact that Jo had wanted to come to see them. Thank God he didn’t or Yuma thinks he might actually forget how to play the guitar.
“My current director’s French so he’s making us do a lot of press here,” Jo tells him, “I think it’s just an excuse for him to be close to family.”
How’s yours? Family, I mean? Does your mom still make the best omurice ever? Yuma wants to ask—nudging at a shared past that he knows Jo probably still thinks about sometimes. Is he still single? He feels like he doesn’t have the right to know that about him. Not when he’s the one who left the relationship. Not when he’s the one who jumped off the boat first, even before it started sinking.
“I see.”
“How are the others? I think Maki was beside you when I saw you in the lobby?”
Yuma wets his lips and nods—so Jo did saw him. He also probably saw him running away like a coward. “They’re fine. Great. Euijoo’s still Euijoo, worrying about every little thing. Maki’s having the time of his life touring, loves all the attention he’s getting and Taki is well—” Complicated. It’s a delicate thing between them. They’re both standing on the same trap door, waiting for it to open and sink them into a hole. Maybe then they’d actually talk about what happened between them. “He’s good.”
Jo smiles. “That’s good to hear, I – uh, I don’t know how to say this without outing myself as a pathetic person.” Then don’t. Yuma wants to say. I can’t do this now, Jo. “But I’ve always been Tokyo Strangers’ biggest fan. I’m within the band’s 0.1% top listeners every year.”
Yuma stares at him. He tries to picture Jo, headphones in, legs curled up on one of those uncomfortable-looking film crew chairs, listening to his voice through a screen instead of hearing it in person. He thinks about how many times he’s rewritten lyrics to make them sound less about Jo. And how many times he’s failed at that.
He wonders if Jo understands all the references he’s put in his songs—all of the traits he listed, all of the dates they went to, easter eggs for him to find. Pieces of himself scattered throughout countless songs and five albums. He wonders if Jo knows he’s stopped performing Aftermath—if he keeps up with that sort of thing too.
This is Jo. Ever-so-perceptive, kind, honest, Jo. He probably knows all of the songs are about him. Even when Yuma’s written a few for someone else—at its core, it’s still about trying to fill the loss with something—someone—else.
“What’s your favorite song?” Yuma pushes, just a little bit. The alcohol has perhaps affected him. A little.
Jo presses his lips into a thin smile. “The media-trained answer or the honest answer?”
“Is there a difference?”
“Yes.” Jo exhales, Yuma forgets that he’s in all these big films now, they’ve probably media-trained him beyond repair.
“The honest one.”
“I’ve always been a big fan of Aftermath.” Yuma’s breath stills in his throat. He doesn’t know if Jo’s teasing him or if he’s being sincere. He’s such an actor now that Yuma can’t see a clear division between Jo being good at his job and Jo just being Jo. “It feels... personal.”
Because it is. You know it is. I described you there.
“Kinda.”
They sit in silence after that—not an uncomfortable one but it’s teetering on the edge of that. Yuma can only compare it to their first meeting. When they had no clue what was waiting for them in the horizon.
“Can we talk?”
And just like that—his scar has ripped open again. Another warning goes off in his head. They should stop doing this. Jo has to stop trying.
But for Jo to stop trying—Yuma has to stop letting him in.
★
A wave that’s waiting to crash to shore,
A warning that I’ve heard before,
I’ve always got a thing for a dangerous love,
The one that shakes me down to my core,
If an earthquake was made of two arms and a smile,
Would you run away like a sane man,
Or would you run towards it like moth to a flame?
Calling disaster by its name?
- “AFTERMATH”
Written by Nakakita Yuma
★
The earthquake struck two weeks before Jo was set to fly to Toronto for the film festival.
They were at Jo’s apartment. Jo was stretched across his bed, reading something on his phone. Probably another article that had come out about his film—there were tons of articles about it. Other than the fact that it starred Koga Yudai—who Jo had started calling just Yudai-kun—it was a highly-anticipated film because Murata Fuma had taken a known cinematographer under his wing.
Two weeks prior, they released the trailer and the audience finally figured out that it was a story about two gay lovers in the 1980s, navigating a world that wasn’t made for them. The kind of movie that film Twitter would dissect frame by frame, would rip apart, would write essays on. Jo was at the center of it all, on the precipice that could be his big break.
And Yuma—Yuma was proud.
But that voice. The one that had started soft, as a suggestion. Had started to take up his whole mind. Jo was about to be catapulted into stardom, a new household name, an actor that could actually balance off Koga Yudai. While Yuma was still stuck playing shitty little venues, recording songs that they had to manually send to radio, not getting anywhere in their career. They were lucky enough to have families that supported them—but really, they felt like they were running out of time.
Yuma stared at him then. Really stared at him. At the slope of his nose, at the faintest crease in his brow whenever he was focused, at the way his hair always fell perfectly on his forehead. Yuma tried to memorize it all. To press it into the corners of his mind, something he could look back on in the future. He hadn’t said it yet. Hadn’t done it yet but the hollowness in his heart had started to take the form of Jo.
“Jo.” Yuma called him.
Jo raised his body with his elbows, staring down at his boyfriend. The crack in the foundation of their relationship formed when the hole in Yuma’s chest cavity had finished recreating the outline of Jo’s face. He was still smiling when he was staring at Yuma and it took all of the energy inside of him not to back away.
The rogue wave had gotten to his boat. The earthquake had shaken him to his core, taken every little thing from him. The hurricane had been dubbed not safe to fly to.
Yuma knew the best thing to do was leave.
“I think we should break up.”
Jo’s face made him want an earthquake to actually hit them and take him away from Jo. Once and for all.
But it never did.
Instead it’d only felt like it did when he walked out of Jo’s apartment with tear-stained cheeks and a hollow heart. Instead it’d only felt like it did when he walked into the recording booth and started singing the song he’d written for the way Jo made him feel. Instead it’d only felt like it did when the song brought the four of them to new heights, an unprecedented level of fame.
It became reality then—the lyrics he wrote when he was grieving over a heartbreak he had caused.
I’ll be the one to live with the Aftermath.
★
Seeing your ex again after four years makes you do stupid things.
First, he had run away from Jo when he called his name out in the middle of a crowded hotel lobby—afraid to face the repercussions of his actions. Second, he refused to swim with his best-friends because he was scared he wouldn’t enjoy himself. Third, after all the hassle of trying to avoid said ex-boyfriend, he actually did meet said ex-boyfriend in a restaurant while he was actively trying to avoid him. And fourth, leaving him behind with an unclosed tab and a bill for three glasses of martini when said ex-boyfriend said that his favorite song had been the one that Yuma wrote about him during the peak of his heartbreak.
So—truly. If you can, do not meet your ex when you’re still trying to figure your life out while they seem like they’ve figured theirs out.
(Also do not write a song about how the weight of the heartbreak will only be yours to carry—that’s the sort of thing that karma apparently keeps tabs on.)
The four of them spent their second day in Cannes by renting a yacht. Yuma thought it was excessive but the rest—the three of them plus their manager—said that it’d be fun. They sailed to the middle of the ocean, took a plunge, took a lot of pictures, and ate a lot of good food—all cooked by the on-board chef. When they disembarked, the sun had started to set in the horizon. Maki and Euijoo wanted to have a dinner outside while Taki and Yuma were too tired to walk—blame all the swimming—so they decided to have an early night.
Yuma is sitting on a bench in front of the hotel, staring at the darkening sea, covering his unlit cigarette with his hand before someone joins him. The smell of fresh laundry, the small notes of wood. Taki. He doesn’t say anything at first, just sits down beside Yuma, close enough that their knees nearly touch. The silence stretches between them, the sound of crashing waves accompany them as they sit there—both drowning in their own thoughts.
He lights his cigarette, finally, inhaling it, letting the smoke occupy his lungs, before exhaling it to the side. Attempting to make sure the smoke doesn’t hit Taki’s face. He’s been trying to quit for the past six months. And what is Yuma if not a supportive friend?
Yuma inhales the cigarette a couple more times, flicking the ashes onto the pavement. Both elbows on his knees. He takes the cigarette out of his mouth when he feels like he’s ready to strike a conversation with Taki. “What are you doing here?”
“Was bored.” Taki runs a hand through his still slightly-damp hair, the tips of it curl at the base of his neck. He’s in dire need of a haircut. Though Yuma likes his hair like this—he said it made him look even more like a rockstar. Taki has been keeping it short ever since.
They’ve been civil. They’ve stopped ignoring each other during practice sessions, Taki has stopped glaring at Yuma whenever he speaks up during band meeting, and he’s stopped acting like Yuma doesn’t exist. Yuma knows their friendship will never be able to go back to normal. Never going to be able to sleep in the same room without feeling the weight of an unspoken closure lingering in the air. Never going to be able to be normal around each other again. They should’ve expected it—but they’re not known as the most grounded members.
Yuma glances at him, just briefly. Taki’s profile is illuminated by the soft glow of the streetlights, the orange hue of the sunset casting a warm glow on his skin. They’ve known each other since they were ten—Taki with his full cheeks and weird quirks, Yuma with his dream to be a performer. When he wanted to create a band, Taki was the first one he called, knowing that he had a few years of drum lessons. Then it was Euijoo then finally, Maki. So really, the band wouldn’t be where they are today if Yuma hadn’t called Taki up first.
They were each other’s first supporter. It only made sense.
The Taki now isn’t the same one as their playdates fifteen years ago. Though his cheeks stay round and there’s still a twinkle in his eyes whenever he’s performing—there’s an edge to him now. Broad shoulders that weren’t there before, a sharper jawline, an intensity in his expression that never used to exist. He’s changed—but so has Yuma.
Taki’s gaze is still trained to the sea in front of them when he speaks, “You’re staring.”
Yuma places the cigarette between his lips again, inhaling, exhaling then rolling it around in his fingers. “A little.”
“He’s here, huh?” Taki doesn’t have to say his name for Yuma to know who he’s talking about. “Jo. He’s here?”
It’s the first time in four years that Taki has said his name. It makes Yuma’s breath hitch in his throat. “Yeah.”
“Figured.” Taki leans back against the bench. “You looked like you’re about to throw up yesterday. Still look like you’re about to throw up.”
Yuma rolls his eyes at him. “It’s just—” He doesn’t know if that’s crossing the line, talking about Jo with Taki, it feels like it is.
But Taki just nods, like he already knows what Yuma’s trying to say. “Yeah, it’s okay, I get it.”
“Do you?” The words slip out of his lips before he can even stop them.
Taki doesn’t look offended, doesn’t look like he wants to retaliate. He chuckles for a bit before nodding. “I know what it’s like to look at someone and feel your heart get ripped out of your chest.” Realization sinks into Yuma’s chest, nestling itself in between his insides. He knows what Taki means. Knows exactly what he’s hinting at. “Trust me.” Taki looks over at him—there’s no malice in his tone, just understanding, which makes it all feel a thousand times worse.
“Taki—”
“No, no.” Taki puts his hand up, stopping Yuma. “We don’t have to talk about it, don’t need to start shit, really. I’m just saying, I get it.”
Yuma swallows. Taki’s right—they don’t need to start shit. Not right now, anyway.
“You think it’s worth it?” He asks after thirty seconds of silence, staring at the cigarette burning in between his fingers. “Trying.”
“Maybe, maybe not—but what’s life if it’s not us trying to figure things out along the way?” Taki exhales.
I’m sorry I took you down with me, Yuma wants to say, when I was trying to figure things out along the way.
The cigarette pinched between his fingers is almost at its end. He takes one last drag before dropping it onto pavement, watching as the ember smother itself into nothing.
They should talk about it, eventually, figure out what the hell happened between them and what they should do to avoid that again in the future. (Yuma has an idea—don’t kiss your best-friend when you’re going through something in an attempt to distract yourself from the pain.)
“Right.” Yuma pushes himself off the bench and dusts off the imaginary dirt on his shorts before turning around. “I’m heading up, you wanna come with?”
Taki shakes his head. “No, I think I’ll hang out here for a bit.”
Yuma nods and walks away, making his way back to the lobby of the hotel. The wind blows at his face and his damp hair and his bare legs. There’s a taste on his tongue he can’t quite identify—bitterness, maybe, or regret. Or the weight of an unspoken apology that he’s silently carried around for the past four years.
Before he gets out of Taki’s earshot, Yuma stops in his tracks and turns around. He can only see Taki’s back from where he is and the way his overgrown hair has seemed to dry even though it could’ve only been six minutes tops.
“You and me, we’re good, right?”
Taki turns his head to look at Yuma, peering behind his shoulder, before offering him a small smile and nodding. “Why wouldn’t we be?”
They’ve been friends for a little over 15 years now and yet—Yuma doesn’t know if Taki’s being honest.
★
Didn’t expect you to reciprocate,
But the least you could do was hold me,
When I told you,
I want more than what you’re willing to take.
- “LEAVE AS YOU ARE” by Takayama Riki (TAKI).
★
When talking about the aftermath of the natural disaster that is Asakura Jo–there has to be a subsection dedicated to Takayama Riki. Actually—no. Taki is a different section entirely. See, Yuma didn’t plan on meeting Jo. Or date him. Or call him his boyfriend. Or break up with him. Jo wasn’t the result of the consequences of his actions—no. Taki, well, Taki was complicated, that’s what.
The title of this particular section of Yuma’s life is: You Are Stupid For Thinking You Could Prevent an Oil Spill When You Built This Rig On a Fault Line. There’s nothing natural about the way Taki existed in Yuma’s world during that time. He’s a byproduct of Yuma’s deliberate actions–okay, half-deliberate. They were friends. Best-friends. Been in a band together for the past five years.
But somewhere between late-night practice sessions that stretched into dawn and curling up beside each other on the leather couch of their shared apartment, the lines blurred. Yuma’s fresh off a hurricane that’d left him in pieces. Taki was there in its wake, he’s always there. And maybe it felt nice to know that for once, for the fucking first time in his life, someone could see him for who he was and still love him despite it all.
It wasn’t like he’d planned it. He didn’t wake up one morning thinking, Today, I’m going to ruin everything. But when it happened—it felt inevitable. And that’s what scared him the most. How natural it felt. Like Taki had been waiting for the moment as long as Yuma had been trying to ignore it.
There were two things Yuma learned that day.
One, he still couldn’t stop thinking about Jo. The smell of his freshly-shampooed hair, his laugh, his love towards rice that he always tried to verbalize or at least express through head nods and small smiles, the warmth of his arms around Yuma, how he made him feel, how scrawled words on notebooks and melodies hummed during his showers weren’t enough to completely encapsulate how Asakura Jo made him feel.
Two, the second Taki’s lips found his–the thoughts about Jo stopped. Like a cog in the machine, an error in the binary code, a glitch in the system. And Yuma–instead of trying to push his best-friend off–placed his hands on the lapel of Taki’s coat and pulled him closer.
It didn’t last long. The foundation had been built on something that could ruin it in two seconds. Taki woke up one day and told Yuma he wanted more. Yuma thought about Jo the whole time Taki delivered his monologue (because the only time Yuma wasn’t thinking about Jo was when Taki was kissing him or leaving a trail of kisses down his jaw or —). The small earthquake came in the form of Yuma telling him that it’s unfair for Taki to want more of him when he already had him for the past ten years. To break that status quo would be to end it all.
The rig collapsed, just like Yuma knew it would. Taki walked out that morning, but before he slammed the door shut, he had said, “You act like I’m asking for something unreasonable but I just want what we already have, except without the part where you pretend it doesn’t mean anything.” Yuma watched him leave; he watched as the oil spill seeped further, staining everything it touched, destroying the very ecosystem that it had taken all of its life from.
★
Maki barges in through the door at 2 AM—Yuma knows because he glances at the digital clock on the bedside table—and he tries his best to keep the volume at a minimum but it’s not possible because he’s stumbling over the shoes in the hallway and Yuma’s carry-on bag strap and he’s trying so hard to locate the light switch. Yuma assumes he’s probably drunk—he’s a lightweight—and is trying his best not to wake his roommate up.
Sucks. Because he’s wide awake at this point and is curious as to why Maki didn’t invite him out for drinks too.
Yuma shifts in his bed—comfiest mattress he’s ever slept on—and helps Maki out by flicking the light switch on his side of the bed. Maki freezes when the lights turn on. There’s an unmistakeable flush on his cheeks, the trying so hard to stand straight, the squinting at the sudden brightness flooding the room.
“Heeeey,” Maki says in that slurred tone of his, one that’s unique to his drunk self.
“Why didn’t you tell me you guys were drinking?” Yuma asks, half-disappointed and half-relieved at the lack of invite.
Maki takes his shoes off, discarding them by the door. “I—uh—it’s—uh—”
“Is it Taki? Did he not want me to come or—”
“It’s not Taki.” Maki deadpans before grabbing a change of clothes from his opened suitcase. He runs a hand through his dark hair. “Promise you won’t get mad at me.”
“Why would I?”
“Because it’s Jo.”
Yuma stills, the room feels colder the moment he hears his name.
Maki doesn’t notice. He’s too busy fumbling with the buttons of his shirt, too busy cursing at himself for not putting conditioner in his hair after swimming in the sea. Yuma, on the other hand, is still stuck on that revelation. They were out with Jo. Out of all people in this world they could’ve run into and hung out with, they hung out with Jo.
It’s not traitorous. Jo had been their friend too when he was going out with Yuma. It’s probably nice to catch up with an old friend. Halfway across the world, careers on its peak. If Yuma didn’t still have a particular sentiment towards Jo, he’d probably ask him out for drinks too—ask about his ascend to popularity.
“What about him?”
Maki takes his shirt off and puts on an old Nirvana shirt that Yuma thinks makes him look slightly pretentious. “We ran into him at dinner. Total accident, I swear.”
Yuma snickers. “Small ass city.”
“Yeah.” Maki huffs out as he changes into his sweatpants and climbs into his bed. He’s on his phone not two seconds after, scrolling through social media. “His film won, by the way, that’s why he asked us out for drinks.”
“Won what?” Yuma’s not well-versed when it comes to films and awards.
“The Palme d’Or. It’s like—the biggest award this festival could give a film.” Maki’s starting to sober up, maybe he’s not that drunk in the first place. “So, yeah, I think his studio’s going to like—aggressively promote it so it goes to the Oscars.”
So Jo didn’t just win an award—he won the award. The biggest one. The kind that cements careers, that puts his name on the map. Yuma knows Jo deserves it. If there’s anyone in this world that deserves that level of recognition, it’s Jo. He’s worked his ass of, he’s the humblest person in the world, he’s smart and he’s kind and he doesn’t get angry and he never leaves the cabinet doors open and he—
“You alright, man?” Maki asks, looking at him. He’s genuinely concerned by Yuma’s silence, as evidenced by him pausing his doom scrolling to focus on his friend.
Yuma nods, still staring at the ceiling. “Yeah, I’m good.”
If ‘good’ is realizing that he’s probably still in love with the guy he met at 18—then he’s excellent.
★
Leave,
Like you always do,
Leave, no second glance, no proof,
Leave,
So I can chase what’s left of you,
- “THE LEAVER”,
Written by Nakakita Yuma.
★
Yuma doesn’t exercise. Not really. Between their crazy schedules and his brain not being able to keep up with everything—he just doesn’t find the need to exercise. Physically, he’s all over the place. Mentally, he’s—
Everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
So, when the first sliver of sunlight peeks in through the blinds and Maki’s still fast asleep in his bed, Yuma grabs his running shoes and walks out their hotel room to go outside. To run, to walk, to jog, to throw himself in the ocean, he’s unsure yet. He just doesn’t want to be inside the room.
The early morning air is crisp against his skin as Yuma steps outside. The streets are mostly quiet, save for the occasional passerby and the distant hum of the ocean. He starts with a slow jog, feet hitting the pavement in a steady rhythm, mind still sluggish from sleep but too restless to stay still.
He doesn’t know where he’s going—just that he needs to move, to shake off the thoughts that are clinging to him like sand on wet skin.
When his lungs start to burn—it couldn’t have been more than eight minutes—he stops right in front of an interesting-looking café, shrugs, and walks in. This is a different day. He wants to try something different. Might as well walk into the first café that looks like it serves good coffee—judging by the color of the barista’s hair.
The barista asks him what he’d like in English. He does look like a tourist so Yuma doesn’t blame them. “I’ll just get a latté.”
After paying, he walks over to the pick-up booth, still trying to catch his breath and he’s about to pull his phone out to text the others to tell them about his whereabouts when a familiar voice calls out his name. The same way he heard it two days ago when he was waiting for Euijoo to check them in. The same way he heard it in the bar when he was trying so hard to avoid ever hearing that voice again.
The same way he heard it seven years ago when Jo had pronounced it for the first time in his life.
What’s that saying? You attract what you fear? Yuma thinks that sounds about right.
Slowly, he turns around, already knowing what he’s going to see but still unprepared for it all the same. Jo is standing in the middle of the quaint space, standing out. He looks like Yuma—freshly rolled out of bed, dark hair a little damp either from a quick shower or from the sea, dark circles underneath his eyes—but a little more put together. A linen shirt, a pair of shorts and a pair of off brand sandals. He doesn’t look like someone whose film just got the highest recognition at one of the biggest film festivals in the world.
He looks... real. Tangible, obtainable, someone who would sit alone in a ramen restaurant because they’d heard it was the best. He reminds Yuma too much of the boy he used to know.
“Hey,” Jo says, a little hesitant, not sure if Yuma wants to have a conversation with him when the sun has barely even risen.
Yuma licks his chapped lips. “Hi.”
“I didn’t know you run now.” Jo gestures at the expensive running shoes Yuma’s wearing. Well—he doesn’t run and he really doesn’t need an overpriced pair of running shoes. The Yuma from four years ago would’ve never bought it—the version of Yuma that Jo still has in his head will never splurge on shoes he’d wear twice in six months tops. Jo doesn’t know that the current Yuma buys anything he deems cool—he has the money to spend.
“I don’t, really.” Yuma tells him. “I just—needed to get my mind off things.” And by things, I meant you and you’re here now so I should’ve probably stayed in bed. “We should really stop running into each other like this or I’d think you were stalking me.”
“Would that be so bad?”
He’s so much more confident now. Maybe that’s what happens when you’re an actor. You spend most of your life pretending to be someone else that whenever you find the time to be yourself you just—become the best version of yourself you can be. Jo has changed but so has he. They’ve both changed. Expecting the two of them to stay the same despite all of the things they’ve individually gone through for the past four years just seems impossible.
Yuma chuckles. He forgets how easy it is to be around Jo. “I don’t know, are you?”
“Not intentionally.” Jo smiles.
“Good to know.” Yuma murmurs. He should go, his order’s ready and he should head back to the hotel and pack. They’re checking out this afternoon and will be across the Atlantic by tomorrow. The last thing he needs is another conversation that will leave him thinking about Jo for the rest of the day. Maybe even the rest of his life. “Oh, congrats, by the way, I heard your movie won?”
“Ah, I mean—it’s not my movie, I just acted in it.” Apparently, Jo is still humble as ever.
“Well, yeah, which makes it yours too, no?” Yuma picks up his coffee from the counter.
Jo shoves his hands inside his pockets and shrugs. “I don’t know, doesn’t feel like it sometimes.”
There’s an unrealized dream that is still trying to claw its way out of Jo’s throat. He had gone into film school to go down the director route and had emerged victorious somewhere else entirely. Yuma wonders if that gnaws at him still. He wonders if he doesn’t feel like himself too sometimes.
Instead of pushing about it now, Yuma asks, “Do you have plans today?”
He’s not sure if he has the rights to ask that—implicitly hinting at something more. Jo puts on his thinking face for a while and shakes his head. “I don’t think so—everyone partied too hard last night.”
“Were you just following me around or were you planning to grab a coffee?” This is dangerous. Reckless and dangerous and totally unfair to Jo.
But Jo is Jo and he’s not the type to keep scores when it comes to things like these, so of course he answers earnestly, honestly, Jo-ly. “I was planning to grab one, it looked the most interesting.”
“Do you want to join me? I’ll pay, I feel bad for leaving you behind with my cocktail bills.”
Jo laughs. “You don’t have to do that.”
“Oh, I insist.” Yuma’s already making his way to the cashier once again, latté in his grip. “Consider it an apology.”
“For what?”
All the blood in Yuma’s body rushes to his feet—he feels like he’s just been electrocuted. For leaving. For disappearing without an explanation. For the years of radio silence. For not knowing how to address the elephant in the room—that I’m still irrevocably and stupidly in love with you.
For everything.
As he grabs the bill from his wallet, Yuma shrugs and puts on his best fake smile. Jo will know it’s fake. He always does. “For my very expensive taste.”
“Then I’ll take a cappuccino.”
★
It’s not like Yuma thought Jo would be different once he became an actual movie star with a cult following and a name that has started to climb the ranks on the ‘Internet’s Favorite Boy of the Month’ list—he just didn’t expect him to be the exact same. Same smile, same recycled old jokes, same laugh. It didn’t dawn on Yuma yet—before they sat down and started talking about the last four years that they’d missed out on each other’s life—that the guy who’s currently sitting opposite him in an unassuming café in Cannes was his Jo.
The same Jo he met at 18. The same one that had come to almost every single gig before they could even hit 10,000 listeners on Spotify. The same one he broke up with all those years ago once his career started taking off and Yuma was too afraid he’d be a burden.
What would people think if someone like Jo—someone who had the skill, the face, the personality—was dating a bum? Front singer of a band no one has ever heard of? What would everybody think?
It’d been his way to justify why he did what he did. To make sure Jo could move forward without having anything weighing him down back in Japan. It feels ironic, of course, that the song that put Tokyo Strangers on the map was the first song about Jo that Yuma could finish writing. Yuma wonders if Jo knows.
They had been avoiding talking about their shared past for the thirty minutes they’d been sitting on that table—skirting around the topic like it’d put a tear in the universe if one of them mustered up the courage to start discussing it. (To be fair, the last time Jo asked if they could talk, Yuma had walked out on him.)
Jo talked about his movies—mostly Japanese movies, he died in three of them. He had started to be terrified that he’d be typecasted into tragic roles. But then he got a call from a French director who said he wanted Jo to audition for the lead in his movie. Jo didn’t understand why, it had a premise that was nothing like the projects he’d done before—no dying in the arms of his lover, no living through the aftermaths of an apocalypse, not that at all. Instead, it was a movie about self-discovery, finding yourself, going back to your roots. Nobody died—thankfully—but Jo said it was the hardest movie he’d ever done.
Then when he was finished, he asked Yuma about the band. Yuma didn’t know what to say—where to start. But he thinks he summarized it pretty well. ‘Aftermath’ blew up and they were invited to Summer Sonic and then—somehow—Laneway and then they went on a Japan tour that sold out in under ten minutes. A label picked them up, they toured arenas then stadiums then an Asia tour that solidified it all. Then—Coachella.
After that—
Chaos.
Yuma started forgetting when a day would start and end, would forget which time zone they’re currently in, would forget the name of the city they were visiting or performing at. It was tiring and repetitive but it was never boring especially because he had three of his best-friends doing it with him.
“Sounds fun.” Jo says with a smile once Yuma finished talking about their last stop. “The US next, huh?”
“Yup.” Yuma starts playing with his paper cup sleeve, ripping the logo off it. “How about you? What next? The Palme d’Or is the beginning, right?”
“Sort of.” Jo shrugs, absentmindedly tracing the wooden table. “The studio didn’t think our movie was going to get it, they were pitting us against one that had a much bigger budget and cast. But somehow, ours won. So, I think they’re going to push us now instead.”
“You’re—” Huge now. “Wow, Jo, you’re, like, famous-famous.”
“That sounds funny coming from you, Yuma.” He scoffs. “World Tour, huge festivals, you’re on the cover of Rolling Stone Japan. I heard one of your songs when we were shooting in Marseille, you’re famous-famous.”
“It’s different, though, is it not?” Yuma asks. “I mean, I don’t know, you’re you. People know your face. They line up to watch you.”
Jo shakes his head in disbelief before leaning forward, elbows on the table, hands a few inches away from Yuma’s. “Yuma, they sing your songs every night, they line up to hear you guys play, they’re there for you. Is that not the same?”
Singing songs that I wrote for you. About you. Yuma knows Jo knows that Aftermath is about him—he wonders if he knows that the other songs are about him too. Even the one Taki wrote—Jo’s presence had lingered in between the lyrics, became the reason Taki wrote that song in the first place. It’s funny, really, Jo was never in the band and yet—he’s the reason they’re able to be where they are right now.
“Sure.” Yuma raises a white flag, narrowing his eyes at Jo. “Let’s agree to disagree.”
Jo doesn’t push, he moves on to another topic instead. “Hey—I met Maki and Euijoo last night.”
“Oh yeah, Maki told me.”
“He’s a better drinker now.” Jo comments—he’s hinting at the past; Yuma doesn’t feel the need to pull away from it. He’s wearing his running shoes, if this conversation goes to shit, he can still do what he did four years ago the last time he was left alone with Jo in a room.
Run.
“Totally.” Yuma leans against the chair. “We’ve trained him.”
“I can tell.”
There’s an awkward silence after that—one that’s extending for more than five seconds. Yuma doesn’t know how to fill it. There really isn’t a safe enough topic that they haven’t touched. Talking about the relationship that ended abruptly sounds too heavy to be done during an early-morning caffeine run. It’s wrong to advance without at least acknowledging what happened between them.
“Look, Jo.” Yuma starts—he’s never good at talking about his feelings. Jo knows that. That’s why whenever they argued—which was rare because Jo didn’t get angry and Yuma never cared too much about things that would annoy him—Yuma would just let the silence stretch between them. He’d then apologize—whether for forgetting to water Jo’s plants or for accidentally burning the cake because he forgot to set a timer. But he didn’t really have to talk about his feelings, Jo already understood. “I, uh, I don’t know if you wanted an explanation or if you’re okay with what I left you with but I just—”
“Yuma.” There’s that voice again. Soft, understanding. “There hasn’t been a day where I didn’t think about why you did it.” The confession sends an aftershock Yuma’s way—four whole years after the earthquake. “And there hasn’t been a day where I didn’t think about how to see you again and I think—I think you know that.”
Of course he does.
The four years of radio silence had mostly come from Yuma. Jo had tried his best to bridge the gap, to try to talk to him. Flowers from anonymous senders sent to his dressing room right before all of his shows, handwritten letters that he sent Yuma’s way through Maki or Euijoo, birthday cakes delivered to his parents’ house. And Yuma had never acknowledged them all—had never tried letting him in again.
Jo’s last attempt came in the form of—well, Jo. It was Tokyo Dome, one year after Aftermath hit #1 on Billboard Japan, one year after their album broke records everywhere, one year after Jo left.
Yuma knew Jo was there, of course. He was there at the VIP booth with his friends and had even invited Koga freaking Yudai to watch his ex-boyfriend at the peak of his career. His manager had told him that Jo wanted to see him and Yuma didn’t give him a definitive answer.
He’d rushed off stage and ran to his dressing room—didn’t want the high to end too soon, they still had an afterparty to attend. He was changing from his stage clothes to his party one when the door opened and Taki walked in. They talked a bit about the energy from the crowd, about the setlist, about the ringing in both of their ears and Yuma realized that he needed someone like Taki. Someone who understood everything he was saying because he’d always be there on stage with him. Yuma knew he was just clinging to the first person he could, clinging onto the first idea of an ‘easy way out’, clinging onto the first person he thought he’d be able to fall in love with after he'd buried himself in the ruins of an earthquake he made.
That’s when Yuma pulled Taki closer and kissed him. High off adrenaline and heartache. Too afraid to face a ghost. Building a shaky foundation on even shakier grounds.
Their manager told Jo that Yuma didn’t want to see him.
Taki pulled him on top of him on the leather couch, dug his fingers into Yuma’s waist and raised his face to meet Yuma’s lips halfway.
“Jo.” Yuma doesn’t know what to say. It’s a long story.
“Yuma, is there still a slight chance that you’ll let me in again?”
★
JO ASAKURA
I mean, yeah, this story, in its core, is always about loss.
INTERVIEWER
Where’d you dig this out? Your performance was, well, monumental. It’s brutal, it’s raw—I mean, you must’ve gone to a very dark place for it to look convincing.
JO ASAKURA
Hahaha, no. I just went home.
★
Yuma had felt loss before.
When his grandmother passed away and he felt like his heart had been torn out of his chest, ripped apart at the seams, bloodily splayed across the concrete like the splatter of water. He didn’t cry then. It had been an all-encompassing sort of loss. Tiring. He’s not sure he’s ever moved on from that pain.
Second, when his cat escaped through the window and couldn’t find its way home. Yuma had spent the first six months hoping that little Mochi would eventually turn up on his porch and beg for treats like the whole house hadn’t been mourning him. He never came home.
Third, when he looked at Jo’s eyes and told him that they were over. That he could no longer pretend that they were going to be the same after Jo’s career took off and Yuma’s stayed stagnant. Jo had asked him to stay. Begged him to stay. Even told him that he’d even beg on his knees if he needed. By the end of it, when Jo finally stepped away from the front door so Yuma could brush past him and walk home—their cheeks were wet with tears and Yuma left a piece of his heart in the middle of Jo’s living room.
And now he’s feeling it again as Jo pulls away from him to hastily unbutton his shirt. Yuma mourns the loss of weight on his lips, subconsciously reaching out to them with his fingers, as if they could help. They’re probably swollen beyond belief now—he doesn’t know how long they’ve been making out on Jo’s unmade bed. Fifteen minutes, thirty, an eternity. He doesn’t know.
He doesn’t care.
Once Jo rids himself off his shirt, Yuma places his hands on the sides of his body. Jo is—well, fuck, Jo is beautiful. He always been. With or without a shirt. The streak of sunlight that bathes the room in a white glow makes the boy on top of him almost look like a fallen angel. Dark hair that falls perfectly around his small face, chiseled jawline, a body that could make a lot of men green with envy. Yuma’s brain all mush and muscles unable to move. It’s when he raises his head to try and plant a kiss on Jo’s abs that he places a hand behind Yuma’s neck and flips their position.
Yuma’s on top of him now, legs caging Jo’s thighs. Jo’s hair is longer than usual—he doesn’t like it when it grows past his nape—and it contrasts with the hotel’s white fitted sheet. When he’s on top of Jo, Yuma can only think about how lucky he is to be in this position again. To be given the privilege of seeing Asakura Jo sprawled across the bed for him.
Jo’s hands creep up on Yuma’s back, leaving goosebumps in their wake. Every one of Jo’s touches feels incredible, electrifying—Yuma feels like he’s floating. Like a captain in the middle of an ocean, letting the waves take him wherever they want to take him. Yuma’s sweat-drenched tee had already been discarded around five minutes ago, settling in nicely beside his running shoes and socks.
They’re kissing again now—Yuma’s back curving as he leans down to meet Jo’s lips. He tastes the same like he was when they were both still twenty-one. Like coffee and freshly cooked rice and the breeze in between your fingers as you take a step out of your car at the beach. There’s something about him that pulls you in, like a whirlpool.
It’s not hard to understand what the other person likes and dislikes—they had done this before, countless times. On couches, on floors (Yuma’s knees have long adapted with the constant rug burn), on Yuma’s bed, on Jo’s bed, on Yuma’s childhood bed (don’t ask). This is the most out of their element they’ve been. On a hotel bed—thousands of kilometers away from home, celebrating something that they’re not sure of.
Yuma can’t even remember how they got here.
Jo licks into Yuma’s mouth and he involuntarily lets out a pathetic sound—stupid ass brain.
His abnormally large hand is still on the back of Yuma’s neck. Gripping a little tighter than usual so that the older one of the two can’t move away from his kisses. Still starved, still needy. Like a hurricane that has brewed offshore, anticipating the time when it finally reaches land to obliterate everything in its wake.
Then he pulls away to kiss the corner of Yuma’s lips, then his jaw, then the space in between his neck and jaw. He places a kiss on Yuma’s collarbone, sucking lightly before biting it and moving away again. “God, Yuma, you’re so beautiful.” He sighs onto his skin.
See—here’s the thing. Jo does this a lot. And the Yuma from four years ago had become desensitized with all the praises because they were young and they fucked a ton so it was nothing new. But this Yuma—older, stupider, less confident about his body—doesn’t know this Jo yet. So, when the compliment slips out of Jo’s mouth and into Yuma’s ears—it shoots directly to his dick.
Jo doesn’t stop, though. He kisses him everywhere. Every inch of skin he can latch his lips on. Biting, licking, sucking. They’re both just messily panting, the air in the room is warm, too warm and Yuma wonders if any of his friends has woken up and is trying to find him in the breakfast buffet. Fuck the breakfast buffet—he thinks he wants to stay here forever.
Then he’s getting flipped again and all the airs leave his lungs as his back slams against the mattress. Jo’s on top of him now, silhouette staring down at him as he tries to take in the view. Yuma under him. Yuma looking stupid under him. Yuma’s flushed cheeks and swollen lips and tongue that’s sitting so uncomfortably in his mouth because he needs it against Jo’s again.
“How much time do we have?” Jo asks as he kisses Yuma’s jaw again.
Yuma looks to the side, at the watch on the bedside table. It’s 9 AM—they have two hours until he has to check out. And Yuma’s not going on a flight when he hasn’t showered. “An hour, maybe?”
“Okay.” Jo is still kissing him everywhere. Now he’s trailing down an imaginary line between Yuma’s pecs and once he reaches Yuma’s stomach, he looks up—as if to ask for permission.
Yuma thinks he doesn’t really walk around shirtless a lot, so he merely nods and Jo kisses the pale skin there before he starts making marks on them. Yuma’s too aroused to think about anything else other than Jo, Jo and more Jo and he wonders where they will stand after this. Where they’re going with this but he doesn’t want to think about that right now.
Now, he has a gorgeous man who’s currently making marks on his skin. Now, he has a gorgeous man who’s kissing him again, pressing him down harder into the mattress. Now, he has his legs wrapped around Jo’s waist—not wanting him to move away even for a second.
For the first time in four years, it feels like time is slowing down for him. He feels every single touch of Jo’s hand, every single kiss. Hears every single moan that leaves Jo’s lips when Yuma touches parts of him he knows he likes. They’re engraved in his brain, burned behind his eyelids.
Jo doesn’t stop kissing once they’ve discarded their pants and underwear. He wants to mark every inch of Yuma that hasn’t been touched in years. Singing praises every once in a while. Yuma can only moan or whimper or sigh out in relief whenever Jo accidentally brushes against his dick or his overly-sensitive nipples (blame Jo for that too.)
He thinks ‘beautiful’ and ‘pretty’ sound weird now because they’re the only words Jo is able to sigh out in between kissing him and feeling him up and making him feel good. He knows he’ll be red—or even purple—all over once they’re done but really, Yuma doesn’t care. This is the best thing that has ever happened to him and he has sold out Tokyo Dome twice.
When he finally climbs on top of Jo, still kissing him like it’s his source of life—Yuma wonders if this is about to become the best decision of his life or his worst.
But as Jo pushes in and Yuma nearly yells at the stretch and Jo kisses him to swallow the sound—Yuma thinks that he doesn’t care.
Not when Jo is touching him like this, not when his body is trembling with something too overwhelming to name. Not when Jo’s arms are wrapped protectively around him to keep him from falling apart at the seams. And definitely not when Jo’s looking at him like that—like he’s something precious, something he never stopped wanting, never stopped missing.
It feels like a storm that has finally made landfall after years of hovering at sea, inevitable and destructive, but necessary. Like a wildfire burning away everything old and dead, making space for something new to grow. Like a volcano that has been dormant for too long, destroying everything in its wake, leaving behind fertile soil. An earthquake reshaping the landscape—violent, irreversible, but maybe, just maybe, what was always meant to happen.
★
But I still run, I still break,
Through the echoes, through the ache,
If you call, I’ll still come through,
Guess I’m cursed to chase after you.
- “THE LEAVER”, written by Nakakita Yuma.
★
Realization hits him once they’ve come down from their highs and Jo’s pressed against his back with one of his arms slung over Yuma’s waist.
This probably shouldn’t have happened.
Yuma stares at the beige wall in front of him, chest rising and falling unevenly. Jo’s always been someone who falls asleep fast so once the soft snores can be heard from behind him, Yuma knows he’s fallen asleep. Yuma’s heartbeat hasn’t slowed down but this time it’s the worst kind. Not one that’s stemmed from pleasure but fear.
This shouldn’t have happened.
Jo should not be here. Arm casually wrapped around his body, breaths fanning his neck, marks he made all over Yuma’s skin. Yuma doesn’t want to call it a lapse of judgment but it is a moment of weakness for him. Two days ago, he was so sure he’d be able to leave this city without having to run into Jo again and now—here he is. The man was inside him fifteen minutes ago, that’s the complete opposite of trying not to run into your film star ex-boyfriend.
He wants to stay. He wants to pull the covers up to his chin, turns around and buries his face into Jo’s chest, breathing him in. Having him. But it’s not possible. He has a tour he has to attend; Jo has a press run he has to do for his movie. They are moving down two completely different paths, just like how Yuma had predicted it four years ago. There’s a space in Yuma’s life Jo could technically occupy but Jo’s too big for it now. And there isn’t a space big enough for Yuma to squeeze into Jo’s current life.
Yuma grabs his heart—the one that’s ripped out of his chest—and untangles their limbs. He’s holding his breath even when he’s putting his clothes back on. He’s still holding his breath when he takes a good look at Jo, searing the image of the sleeping man in his brain. His phone buzzes in his pocket—probably Maki asking where he disappeared to.
By the time Yuma reaches the door, he allows himself one last glance. Jo is still asleep, his face soft in the dim light, lips parted, one hand loosely curled around the pillow where Yuma had been.
It would be so easy to stay.
Instead, Yuma does what he’s always done best.
He leaves.
★
And I leave and I go,
There are pieces of me in you, I know,
Shouting at you as you run from me,
When I’m the one who set you free,
- “THE LEAVER”, written by Nakakita Yuma.
★
He’s out of it. He knows it. His bandmates notice it too.
Once they landed in LA, Yuma hadn’t really talked at all. He blamed it on the fatigue and Maki only raised his eyebrows at him—they were in Cannes for a small holiday, where would the fatigue come from? But if his friends had their suspicions, they didn’t voice it out to him at all.
And time starts moving so much faster again.
He’s in a van then he’s in another venue, microphones and guitars shoved to his face. Then the stage producer asks if he can everything hear through his in-ears and once he huffs out a simple ‘yeah’ they’ve all scattered back to their places. His guitar feels heavy on his shoulders as he tries to go through these practices like he didn’t just leave his beating heart in a hotel room in Cannes, tucked between Asakura Jo’s ribs, snug and comfortable in its new home.
Yuma exhales, rolling his shoulders, fingers tightening around the neck of his guitar. He feels like he’s pressing down on an arm instead—leaving behind red fingerprints in their wake. Jo’s face flashes inside his mind. His voice, his laugh, his moan. They’re all clumped together in one ugly, tangled mess. Yuma loosens the grip on his guitar, choosing to focus on the bright spotlight that’s aimed at him instead.
When the producer tells them they can take a break as they’re trying to figure out a way to stop the delay in Maki’s in-ear, Euijoo makes his way towards Yuma. “You okay?”
Yuma looks up at him. “Yeah, do I not look okay.”
“Honestly? No. You look like shit.” Euijoo tells him as he pulls out one of his in-ears. He’s close to Yuma now, he doesn’t want the others to hear him. “You can sit this one out, Yuma, it’s alright.”
“Euijoo, I’m okay, drop it.” Yuma picks on one of his guitar strings, trying to test if he can hear it in his ears. He can. Loud and clear.
“Yuma, if you’re tired and you need some rest, you can do that. We still have practice tomorrow.” Euijoo assures him once again. Other than the guitar—Yuma can also hear the know-it-all tone in Euijoo’s voice. Agitating, accusatory but also careful. Like he’s trying not to push too hard.
Euijoo is not wrong. He is tired. But it’s the kind that a few hours of sleep can’t erase. It’s the kind that’s seeped itself into his bones. The kind that will produce three heart-wrenching songs and one single about losing himself in a seaside city. The kind that made this band in the first place. That got them here.
“I said I’m fine.” Yuma readjusts his in-ear, tries to cancel all the noise around him.
“But you don’t look—”
“Oh my God, for fuck’s sake, Euijoo, drop it.” The microphone on the stand in front of him is on and so when he yelled the sentence at Euijoo, it picked up and amplified his anger across the entire room. Every conversation, every stray note from Maki’s bass, every shuffle against the stage floor—they all come to a halt.
He knows everyone’s eyes are on him now. Surprised. He doesn’t yell at any of them, he doesn’t get angry like that. And nobody ever dares to speak up against Euijoo because they know he’s far too nice to be treated like that. Too thoughtful. Apparently thoughtfulness isn’t what Yuma needs when his heart’s currently in the possession of someone who probably hates him.
He exhales and rips his in-ears out. “I need a fucking break.”
Without waiting for anyone’s response, he shoves his guitar off his shoulders and puts it on its stand. Taki’s still by the stage—not behind his drums—and Yuma makes eye-contact with him for a split second to test out the waters. He’d kissed Taki out of adrenaline, out of want, out of the need to push Jo away from his mind. Maybe now he’ll still have the same effect on him—a way for him to forget Jo, even for a while.
But when he looks at Taki’s face and Yuma’s empty chest feels like it’s caving in on itself, he knows that he’ll have to face the truth sooner or later: that no matter how far he runs, the part of him that’s still tethered to Jo will never allow him to run far away enough.
★
The first night of the concert went without a hitch—surprisingly. Even though Yuma had to act like he was fine during the entirety of the setlist. Like he wasn’t replaying his last morning in Cannes over and over again in his head as he played the songs that reminded him of Jo. Every time he pressed down too hard on his guitar, he felt like he was back in Jo’s bed, gripping his arm for support as Jo bottomed out. They were dangerous thoughts to have when he’s out there, in front of thousands of people, trying so hard to suppress the memory of a hook-up with an ex.
Euijoo stayed civil with him, hyped him up whenever he talked, stared at him when they were singing together but he knew he had to make it up to him somehow. He’d made a mental note for it—later. Euijoo’s not someone who holds grudges over petty things like that but Yuma doesn’t want to be an asshole to him. He’s already an asshole in Jo’s and Taki’s stories. No need to be one in Euijoo’s.
Once the lights went off and they all walked backstage after saying thank you a hundred times, Yuma reaches for the cigarette box that his manager had prepared for him and walked out of the backdoor.
He finds himself here now. Back pressed against the dusty brick wall, one of his hands by his side, rolling a cigarette in between his fingers, one of his feet propped up to support him. LA’s always packed—always smelled like overpriced perfume and piss and weed. It’s the furthest thing from home but Yuma has never felt unwelcomed. It’s a city made for people like him. Artificial, fake, a phony in every sense of the word.
Yuma places the cigarette in between his lips again, hearing it crackle as he inhales and he blows the smoke out again. They have another show in LA before they have to fly to New York—and then it’s more soundchecks, an interview, another sold-out crowd chanting his lyrics back to him like they don’t put a gash in his hear every time he remembers why he wrote those songs in the first place. It’s like he’s stripped himself naked in front of them and wishing they won’t laugh at him for the absurdity.
He hears the back door creak open and he doesn’t turn his head to see who it is. He exhales another drag of smoke and waits.
“Nice show, huh?” It’s Taki’s voice.
They don’t normally send him out when it’s Yuma who looks like he’s visibly struggling. Most of the time, they’d pick Maki to try to coax him out of it. Not Taki. Never Taki actually. Not since what went down between them.
Yuma shrugs, flicking off the ashes to the pavement. “Good crowd.”
“Oh yeah, one of the bests.” Taki agrees, moving to stand beside him—leaving a small space in between their bodies. “LA, Sydney, Bangkok—best crowds?”
“Hm,” Yuma ponders about it for a while, “add New York there too.”
“Of course.” Taki shoves his hands into the pocket of his oversized hoodie. “Do you think we’ll be able to do Vegas soon? Seems like a nice one.”
“Ugh, no, I think it’s filled with old people.”
“Old people don’t visit The Sphere, Yuma.” He’s not even looking at Taki and he knows his friend’s rolling his eyes at him. “Besides, the tickets will be expensive and we’ll be rich.”
Yuma laughs at that, shaking his head. “You’re ambitious.”
“You know I’m right.”
“You’re delusional.”
Taki just grins, dimples showing up on his cheeks. He shifts his weight from one foot to another, doesn’t talk for a while as he lets the silence settle between them. Just enough to bring it to a simmer, just enough for Yuma to start thinking about Jo again, just enough for them to feel like they’re back to being two best-friends who had never fooled around with each other before.
Then, out of nowhere, Taki asks, “Have you seen Jo’s film?”
Yuma freezes, almost dropping his half-finished cigarette to the ground. It hits him like a gut punch. The one name he doesn’t want to hear being mentioned by the one person he never expected to hear it from. Yuma licks his lips and shakes his head. “No.”
“Have you seen any of his film?” Taki asks again.
The answer remains the same. “No.”
He doesn’t understand why Taki’s out here. He initially thought it’s because the band had made a unanimous decision to assign him to mission ‘Bring Yuma Back to Earth’ so he doesn’t know why they’re talking about Jo’s films all of a sudden. If it’s because they think they know what happened in Cannes, Taki definitely needs to take a lesson on how to be more subtle when it comes to asking your friend to open up their box of trauma for you.
“You should.” Taki says, he looks over at Yuma, tries to read his expression. “He’s good, Yuma, at his job.”
“I know he’s good, that’s why I broke up with him in the first place, I didn’t want to hold him back.”
Taki laughs at that. “That’s your biggest flaw, I think, assuming.”
“But I was right, he did grow after I left and—”
“And who are you to think that he wouldn’t have grown if you’d chosen to stay?” Taki cuts him off. “Jo’s success doesn’t depend on whether or not you’re in his life, you’re not that special, Yuma.”
Yuma scoffs. “Are you here to lecture me about my choices?”
“I’m here to tell you that you have an askew way of thinking.” Taki starts. “And because I’m your best friend, you’ll listen to me.”
He hasn’t referred to himself as Yuma’s best friend for a while. Yuma doesn’t know if he still deserves a best friend after what he’d done to him. That surprises him a little—Taki willingly admitting that he still thinks of himself as Yuma’s friend when Yuma has—again—assumed that Taki didn’t want anything to do with him.
“You’re scared of getting hurt, Yuma.” He says, not looking at him. “You walked away from Jo because you thought he wouldn’t want to be with you once his career starts taking off and you walked away from me because—” Taki pauses, Yuma wants to know if he thinks he knows why, “actually, that’s something I’m still trying to figure out myself.”
“Because you’re my best friend, Taki.” Yuma finally says it. “Because I didn’t want to ruin that.”
“You already did when you kissed me.” And then we went on and hooked up with each other for a while.
Yuma flinches. He knows it’s the truth. He’d ruined everything between them when he decided to kiss Taki so he could avoid seeing Jo. Taki doesn’t say it with malice, though, he doesn’t say it to hurt Yuma back. It’s just a fact. It’s out there. One that Yuma didn’t want to accept at first but now, hearing him say it—it makes it real.
Taki shrugs. “But I’m still here, aren’t I?”
Yuma doesn’t answer right away. Because, yeah, Taki is still here. Standing beside him in the alley behind the venue, braving the cold air, talking to him like they weren’t on the verge of falling apart years ago. Like Yuma hadn’t made mistake after mistake, and yet somehow, Taki is still choosing to be here.
Yuma exhales a slow breath, dropping the cigarette and crushing it under his heel. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“I know,” Taki says, voice softer now, “but you did and that’s okay too.”
“I’m sorry.” After three whole years, Yuma finally musters up the courage to say it. “I’m sorry for kissing you and for taking more and more of that and for fucking up our friendship.”
Taki chuckles before shaking his head. “It’s gonna take more than bad sex to ruin our friendship.”
Yuma takes offense in that. “Bad sex? What the fuck?”
“Eh, mediocre at best.”
“You’re so fucking insufferable.”
“And you’re an asshole, Nakakita Yuma, glad you’re my best friend.”
They stand there for a while—comfortable, content with where they are in the friendship.
“I’m heading back in, need to steal some of the crews’ cupcakes, they’re good.” Taki pushes himself forward and makes his way back to the door. “Oh and Yuma?” Yuma looks up from the pavement to look at Taki. “Watch his film—any, and I think you’ll understand.”
Yuma raises an eyebrow. “Understand what?”
“He’s only ever been telling the same story, too. Like you.”
★
AKIRA
The ocean gives and the ocean takes. We are lucky it still gifts us.
ITSUKI
It will not give forever.
AKIRA
We will not live forever either.
— “THE PACIFIC”, directed by Inaruki Murakami.
★
Yuma listens to Taki for once and watches three of Jo’s biggest movies—The Pacific, All the Longing are Ours, and A Thousand Julys—and he thinks he gets what Taki meant. All three of them has one common theme: Jo is always mourning over something.
In The Pacific, he was a fisherman who mourned over the loss of his favorite boat, it capsized in the middle of the ocean and he had to be rescued by pirates to be able to get back home. In All the Longing are Ours, Jo had grieved over losing his boyfriend—the love of his life. And in A Thousand Julys, he was a teenager who was trying to learn how to become a good father, mourning the loss of his youth while trying to celebrate his daughter’s.
He played complex characters, embodied them to the bone. But Yuma understands that beneath all of it—Jo isn’t acting, not really.
Like how Yuma opens up his wound every time he has to sing about losing Jo. Jo opens his when he gets in front of a camera and pretends like he doesn’t know what grieving looks like.
And maybe—just maybe—they should stop this cycle of pain.
Yuma has to stop running away.
★
Apparently, it’s not hard finding Jo once he actually puts his mind to it.
The band’s in New York for their concert tomorrow and Jo’s attending a special screening of his film at Lincoln Center. It’s like they’re actually still connected to each other. Getting an invitation to said screening isn’t hard too. He is Nakakita Yuma after all and he figured it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if he pulled some strings to get an invite to an event. He’d never asked for that sort of favor before—it’d be his first and last one.
He finds himself in the middle of the lobby. He hasn’t seen this film yet; he thinks he’ll save it for later. When he finds the time to be fully engrossed in it. This is the film that’s about to alter the trajectory of Jo’s life forever—he should be fully focused on it when he finally watches it.
It doesn’t take long to spot someone like Jo in the crowd that has started to pile out of the studio that had just finished the screening. He’s surrounded by the other casts and crew members and one of the guys—a middle-aged man with a funky-looking glasses—must be the director because Jo is nodding along to whatever he’s saying, he looks amused, proud.
Yuma stays where he is for a moment, letting himself take it in. It’s strange, seeing Jo like that. Jo has seen him in his element a lot but it makes Yuma realize that he has never seen Jo in his element. He’s seen his short movies and the independent films that he starred in when they were still together but this, this is a different league. This is exactly where Jo’s supposed to be.
Surrounded by people who love the art he’s helped create.
He doesn’t know how to approach Jo without looking like he’s an asshole. (He’s already a big enough one.) So he decides to stay there for a while. Hands shoved inside the pocket of his suit pants, staring as Jo answers a few questions from journalists, industry people, and influencers. Yuma finds himself smiling at the view.
Once the questions die down and the director looks like he wants to get out of here—fast—Jo throws a glance around the room and his eyes meet Yuma’s.
For a second he looks like he’s just seen a ghost. Eyes narrowing down at the familiar figure standing in the middle of the room, surprised, shocked, angry—Yuma doesn’t know which one of those emotions Jo’s feeling right now. But above all of it, he looks surprised. Yuma isn’t sure if it’s in a pleasant way or not.
The journalists start leaving them alone, his director bids his goodbye to Jo, he hugs the leading actress and once he’s done with all the goodbyes, Jo makes his way to Yuma. At least he still wants to talk to him, at least he doesn’t look mad, at least he—
“What are you doing here?” If Jo’s mad, Yuma wouldn’t be able to hear it because that soft voice of his couldn’t turn raspy even if he wanted it to.
Yuma licks his chapped lips. Jo’s handsome again today. Hair that’s styled to show off his forehead, brown suit that compliments his skin tone, face that’s been gifted to him by God himself. “I’m here to see you.”
“Yuma—” Jo sighs—he’s frustrated. Yuma thinks he would be too if Jo had slept with him after he told him he wanted to talk and then vanish on him in the middle of the day like it was no big deal. “Yuma—you left.”
“I’m here.”
“But you left—at first, you left me back at Cannes.” There are a few people watching them now but the tone in Jo’s voice is still too neutral for them to try and make a big deal out of Asakura Jo talking to a complete stranger in the middle of Lincoln Center. “I—I just wanted to talk and then we slept together and Yuma, please, help me, I really don’t know what you want.”
Yuma stares at Jo. “You.”
Jo scoffs at that—Yuma knows he deserves it. “And then what? You’ll leave again at the first sign of things getting hard? Yuma—” Jo bites down on his bottom lip, finding a word that perfectly describes Yuma at this time must be hard because he needs one that’s stronger than asshole but he also needs it to have the same venom as asshole. “Yuma, you can’t keep doing this to me.”
“I know,” Yuma tells him, trying his best to straight out all the words in his head, trying to compose them into coherent sentences, “I’m sorry.” He says and he knows it’s not enough. No amount of apologies will ever be enough for all the things Yuma has put Jo through for the past four years. “I’m sorry for walking away from you four years ago and for leaving you in the dark again when you gave me the chance. I’m stupid and I’m an asshole and I don’t care if you don’t forgive me now because I know I don’t deserve the kindness that you’ve given me, Jo.”
Jo doesn’t say anything, Yuma takes it as his cue to continue.
“I love you and I think I’ve never stopped loving you since the first time you went to my gig and I spotted you in the crowd and I’ve never stopped loving you all these years.” Yuma tells him, hopes that Jo, at least, feels the sincerity behind all of his words. “I know I’m stupid for realizing it too late but Jo, I don’t think I’ve ever loved someone or will ever love someone as much as I love you.”
For a second—five seconds—Yuma thinks he’s going to walk away. That this is it—his punishment for being a coward all these years. His punishment for being an asshole all these years. But Jo doesn’t move. He just stands there, staring at Yuma like he’s trying to piece it all together, like he’s trying to figure out if he’s worth believing in.
“You don’t get to say that now,” Jo finally speaks, his voice quiet but not weak, “not when you spent all this time convincing everyone you didn’t care.”
“I know,” Yuma says, “but I do, I always have.”
“God—you confuse me so much, Nakakita Yuma.”
“I know and I’m sorry and if you want me to leave right now then I will. If you tell me you don’t love me anymore, I’ll believe you. But if there’s even the smallest part of you that still wants this, then I’ll stay. No more running. No more hiding.”
Jo stares at him like he’s trying to decipher all of it, trying to study all the little twitches in Yuma’s face. If there’s any indication of him faltering, of him lying. “You can’t just say you love me and expect everything to be fine, Yuma.”
“I don’t,” Yuma says, taking the smallest step closer, giving Jo the space to move away if he wants, “but I need you to know it’s true. And that I’m not going anywhere this time.”
A pause. Jo ruminates over his options and then—
“Stay.”
★
“I have—actually, we have never performed this next song before.” Yuma repositions his in-ear, trying to make it sit a little more comfortably. “It’s uh—a song I’ve started writing years ago but never finished. It’s about love.” The crowd goes wild at that, Yuma can hear it clearly even when his ears are stuffed. He looks at the front row—at the guy standing right in front of the barrier. Arms crossed over his chest, eyes trained at him. Whenever their gaze meets like this, Yuma tends to feel like he’s nineteen again. Playing in dingy sub-basement bars with sticky floors. Like he's still the same kid trying to find his way in this world.
Jo smiles back at him—the same proud smile he’d always sported even when the venues were cramped and the only people in the crowd that were hyped were either Maki’s or Euijoo’s friends.
Yuma positions his fingers on the first chord of the song.
“This one’s called July Moon.”
★
EXT. SHIMODA SHORELINE – NIGHT
The sea glimmers underneath the lights of the lanterns drifting in the water. The waves are forgiving this time of the year. There’s the fading sound of cicadas in the background. Distant celebrations can be heard-laughter, distant drums, crackles of a firework.
KAIYO stands by the edge of the water, staring out at the lanterns, wooden box in his arms. YUKI stands beside him, holding her daughter’s hand.
YUKI steps closer to KAIYO.
YUKI
You’ve carried it for so long.
KAIYO (quietly, almost to himself)
I do not know how to let go.
YUKI places her hand above KAIYO’s, sighing after.
YUKI
Perhaps you do not have to.
KAIYO, taken aback, looks at her. His expression flickers. Realization.
YUKI
Perhaps... you are here to return.
Silence after that. No one dares to disturb it. The sound of fireworks punctuates it. Slowly, he kneels by the water. Waves lap at his knees.
KAIYO places the box on the wave and as it sails away, he lets out a breath. Relief washes over him. It’s over. Forgiveness looms.
YUKI kneels beside him, hand on his shoulder.
The box bobs away, we follow it for a while. It joins the glowing lanterns.
KAIYO
I’m sorry.
YUKI doesn’t say anything back. She places her head on his shoulder. Her daughter stares out at the horizon.
The camera pans upward, showing the two silhouetted against the lantern-lit sea. A cicada chirps faintly, as if in farewell.
EXT. SKY OVER THE SEA – CONTINUOUS
The lanterns rise and scatter across the horizon like stars. The sound of the festival fades, leaving only the rhythmic whisper of the waves.
FADE OUT.
WINNER. ACADEMY AWARDS FOR BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY.