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It was 3 a.m.
The fact itself didn't register in his mind as soon as his eyes opened, the darkness forming like a form of repulsion taking over the room, and only the meager source of moonlight preventing it from seeming like a black hole of darkness.
The reddish neon of the clock confirmed the time for him, his eyes still blurry from being woken in the middle of the night.
It was alright, just a sleepy reverie; he only needed to turn his body and grab the other individual who was sharing the double bed, just stretch out his arm and he could feel the warmth of the body and…
“— ..Shin? – Nothing, no body, or any kind of warmth that normally still existed when he woke up, it even seemed like there had never been anyone beside him at the beginning of the night.”
He had left, and that proved how he didn't want to wake Nagumo to warn him.
Something was happening, and he knew it well; it had been going on since last month, and letting it pass over the days might have been his mistake.
The sigh echoed throughout the room; the air of emptiness that settled in without the other person's presence was so strange. It felt empty, cold inside as it had been outside before. How strange that was, even he didn't know.
The edge of the bed creaked under his weight; sitting up was more painful than he imagined. He had never really been a morning person, and certainly his brain still refused to wake up properly after being awake when the moon dominated the night sky.
Nagumo, even wanting his bed back in his bones, needed to leave, find Shin, and get him back to bed so he could get his well-deserved ten hours of sleep.
And even so, the feeling of being a walking disaster still lingers.
A little faster.
The sound of metal hitting the ground in the bushes made the rest of the neighborhood sound like someone desperate in the midst of a failed escape, his feet firmly stamping on the ground, moving him forward, the brutal way of the means propelling him forward.
Where the wind whipped against his body, breathing heavier than a few minutes ago, the strain on his nerves forcing him to go faster, further, the cold air always cutting through him, threatening to cut his skin.
Frustration overwhelmed him, thinking about how he couldn't go faster than before. His teeth clenched tightly, grinding against his jaw, and with the weight of a dead body, his leg stomped harder, brutally and inhumanly, propelling him forward.
Even faster.
And all this with his eyes focused ahead, only ahead, the smell of grass filling his lungs, they burned as if they were about to explode amidst so much pressure from simply running, with all his fixation on what was ahead, Shin couldn't stop, not now, not yet.
“Leadership, you need to stay in leadership.”
He really needed to breathe.
However, his eyes were too focused on the only dirt road ahead, empty as a filthy desert, a disbelief in the hope that had been missing for so long amidst the darkness.
Immensity settled in his leg, pain contracting his muscles and bones, the blood vessels leaving the daily adrenaline and finally entering the despair that the electric shock of the crack manifested in his leg.
Shin knew he would have to stop, running through the night without being able to properly rest his injury, acquired through recklessness. His choices were an attempt to maintain his sanity; thinking that way made him nauseous, the way that unique, primal pain could alleviate some of the tension in his weakened body.
Asakura had a weakened body, and nothing could fix it.
He just needed to slow down, and all the pain from the improvised run would finally disappear.
Not that it would disappear gradually, because worry could settle behind his organs and skin, making him seem lost if that were the case, but if it persisted like a blind pain, then perhaps the air he felt running on the grass could end as abruptly as a premiere without an audience.
The pressure mounts, and Shin continues running anyway, the pain spreading beyond his leg and rising to his stomach. If he continues like this, he will faint at some point during the walk.
So he could think about how to simply stop running, his ears still flattened, signaling the frustration that held him back, even at the height of the pain and almost unconscious because of it. However, the only idea his mind gave him to take the step of stopping manifested itself in a reckless action.
Asakura finally threw himself onto the rough grass and let his whole body, hot from the burning pain, sink into the natural green soil.
His face met the coldness of the short grass that had tormented him hours before, his warm body pulsing with the glory of rest; if his time were timed – as it was when he trained – it could be the worst. And, unfortunately, Shin cared a lot about his performance as a runner. His tail wagged unconsciously in his mind, in every possible direction; sometimes he felt like tearing it off, even knowing it was part of his strange genetics.
But Yoichi liked it.
Nagumo.
His blue eyes closed at the thought, guilt overwhelming him and colliding with the stress that had accumulated over the days. Shin, in all his glory, should have thought that letting his boyfriend know he was going out that night might have been better, but the thought of bothering him with his problems held him back even more. He knew that running away wasn't his best idea, but the need for air was even greater.
The feverish thought tells you to go home, to move your body in the face of exhaustion and find that warmth you love so much.
However, he doesn't move; the tiredness wounds his nerves, fainting could come at any moment, and he'll just lie down on the filthy, dirt-covered lawn.
Roaring in the darkness, his thoughts race in mists, rising, his attention focused on the present. The sound continues to approach, his ears perk up as if trying to identify the way the sound forms in the middle of the city.
Shin knew who it was, however, the engine roar was as familiar as the sound of the store's receiver was to him, besides the fact that running away in the middle of the night wasn't really a viable option.
It stopped at some point, probably above him, the small hill dividing the grass beneath the concrete sloping downwards as it always had, the sound of the roar fading into the landscape, and there he simply stopped and made his presence felt in the least formal way he knew.
He knew he should move, with a body as feverish as his own, and in his great logic of trying to move, however the pain spread throughout the rest of his back and straight to his stomach; even if he wanted to move, it was impossible given his current condition.
It was as if he had been shot, how could he do such things without feeling imposing, however, Shin could still be better than that.
His brain decided this on its own, limbs heavy as lead using his arms to at least try to sit up, lightly touching the ground supporting a body still amidst the grass of the highway, his mouth opening to suck in the air that seemed to be lacking throughout his body, inhaling and exhaling, everything hurt, just a simple action, and yet it was as if the world were on his shoulders.
Silence settles in, and Shin knows the guest is near. Nagumo has an irritating way of arriving unheard, and he uses it almost always on these kinds of occasions. He also feels a sense of comfort when warmth settles on his back and a large, almost comforting hand holds his forearm, helping him steady himself on the ground.
His ears remained flattened and his tail swayed amidst the rage that still settled beneath his skin, his head lowered, fixed on the ground as if looking back would be the breaking point of everything.
“— Shin.”
Ah, it was just his name, and even with that coming from the lips of the person he loved so much, his body recoiled at the mere thought, a blur forming in his eyes.
“— Look at me, Shin.”
Shin shook his head, almost as if the act of refusing to look into the emptiness of those dark eyes made him tremble; they remained relentless, and with the new perspective of thoughts, inappropriately, a trembling settled all over his skin, coming and going with small spasms of the growing anxiety in his stomach.
He had lost the right long before he knew it, the blur in his eyes growing larger; Asakura knew he could cry at any moment, and that left him helpless.
Shin was afraid, afraid after the disaster that had unfolded in the preceding weeks. He couldn't afford to retaliate; it was stupid to still feel this way over something as trivial as a mere competition.
“— I.. I can’t — His voice came out choked, the source of the tears he was trying to hold back, and even so, he managed to put them into words knowing that anxiety was devouring him in every layer of his being.”
Nagumo didn’t speak at this, perhaps too perplexed by what had come out of Shin; he couldn’t say.
“— You shouldn’t even care about that, it was just a stupid race and here I am, never falling on the ground like an idiot – He continued, even though he didn’t need to, the anger remained with him and it clamored to get out – I failed at the only thing I’m good, I will be a failure who has no purpose and doesn't deserve your affection in return – Tears fell in his great glory, enduring everything for weeks he did well and yet he repeated past actions, the ground fell from his sight, and finally he turned his head to face the intense black emptiness of Nagumo’s eyes.”
Shin couldn’t identify what was going on in those dark eyes, the crying prevented him from distinguishing and seeing better, it didn’t help his aching body for the sake of his injury.
The warmth shifted; now, two hands held his face, easily capable of crushing his skull without the slightest effort, yet they held Asakura as if he were about to break at any moment, with such tenderness that it made him dizzy in every situation where this kind of contact occurred. Finally, Nagumo's forehead rested against his so they could lock eyes.
Yoichi could then see Shin's entire face, bright red with anguish, his eyelashes sticking together beneath his eyes because of tears, so defeated and broken.
“— The first time I saw you, I thought you were the most fascinating thing I had ever seen.”
Oh.
The small body beneath his froze, whether from shock or disbelief, Nagumo didn't know, and it didn't matter much to him either; his boyfriend needed comfort, and that's what he would give him.
“— When Sakamoto and Akao dragged me to see that horse race, I wasn't paying much attention, and when I saw that they bet on one of the horses and kept talking about how it would win the race, my curiosity only grew — He paused for a few seconds, almost as if thinking about how to format his feelings so only Shin could hear — And when the race finally ended, I saw you, running in the lead with a peace in your eyes, just focusing on the horizon ahead, I.. I felt like I could breathe the same air as you.”
It was gentle, bordering on affectionate as it always had been, as firm as that voice could be, simply affirming more things about how Yoichi felt and would feel about this person with eyes as beautiful as the sky in blue.
“— I care, Shin, because it was through them that I met you, and they are important to you, it’s okay for you to feel this way about them.”
The sob that followed Nagumo’s final words was loud, broken, and seemed finally able to break free after weeks of holding back.
His large, tattooed hands moved to position Shin’s head beneath his throat, his chin resting on the blond head, the scent of strawberries filling his nostrils. He used this position to kiss the now-raised, seemingly more alive ears.
And the only thing that could be heard amidst the sobs was a whispered, choked voice from the blond, “I'm sorry, I'm sorry. ”
Nagumo shook his head; he didn't need to apologize for that. The stress had built up so much that it simply let go after all these days.
"—Let's go back home —" He stepped back a little so he could look into the other's blue eyes—"And you're going to stay quiet until you can run again."
The sniff that followed was her only confirmation; it was enough.
“— Oh, and next time you want to go for a night ride, let me know. Osagari will want to decapitate me every time I steal her motorcycle.”
A snort escaped the person below her. “— Sure, sure, it’s not like you couldn’t keep up with me anyway.”
“— Hm, I like the wind in my hair though —” A small laugh escaped the silence of the night, soft and welcoming.”
They still had a lot to talk about regarding this, Nagumo knew that, yet the incident had left something in Shin and the situation could worsen even more than it had today.
But for now, that was enough.