Take Me Away

You’re preparing to head out when there’s a knock at your door.

At first, you think it’s the guy you’re supposed to be meeting. Maybe you’re taking too long and he decided to come fight you on your doorstep. But, when you roll your eyes and look through the peephole, there’s nothing but sunshine. So it’s probably just a joke that you don’t care enough about.

But the moment you walk away, there’s another knock. And you peer through the peephole again, but there’s still nothing.

With a groan, you throw on a shirt (conveniently enough, you left one on the couch last night, making your walk a lot shorter) and move back to the door, throwing it open. Your eyes are already set into a burning glare, threatening to sear whoever thinks it’s cute to harass you in the middle of the day.

For a moment, you see no one.

Directly in front of you, there’s nothing. To your right, there's nothing. To your left–

To your left.

“Good afternoon…Samatoki-kun.”

The greeting is so hesitant, so unfamiliar. Maybe it’s because your brain has immediately shut down upon recognition.

Though he’s partially shaded under the balcony’s roof, you could recognize Jakurai’s voice a mile away. Hearing it so close to you, it. It messes with your senses. All of them.

“Jakurai.”

He looks at you, not quite expectantly. The closest word you can think of in this numb state is patient. He looks like he’s waiting. Waiting for you to reactivate, probably.

Robotically, you take a few steps back, hiding in the false security of your shitty apartment. Jakurai doesn’t follow until you jerk your arm back in the direction of your living room. “You can come in.”

When the two of you were together, you never thought things would ever be awkward between you. Right now, you feel as though you may explode.

You can see him a lot better once he’s in your place, bathed in the light. The first thing you notice is his hair, still the familiar violet but no longer bound in the low ponytail he was so fond of. The majority of it is loose, though there’s a small section of it that’s tied back. It’s still stupidly long, too, well past his waist.

The second thing (things, really) you notice are his eyes. They, too, are still the familiar violet, but much dimmer than they used to be, weighed down by dark circles. He looks like he could use a good, year-long sleep. You fool yourself into thinking the hospital’s done that to him.

The third thing.

Your breathing falters.

His left cheek is scarred; there’s a long, thin line where you punched him. If you think hard enough, you can see the blood dripping from it all over again.

And before you know it, you’re bent over, hands on your knees, spewing nonsense as he jumps back.

“You shouldn’t be…I’m–I didn’t want to hurt you fuck I didn’t want…you’ve got a scar.” You wrap up quite pathetically, and your eyes burn as they start to water. Since when have you ever cried this much? Sad.

Jakurai blinks at you, momentarily at a loss. He still looms over you like he used to, though this time it feels less comforting and more like he could just. Step on you.

“Samatoki-kun,” he finally spits out, still just standing and staring. “Please raise your head.”

“How did you find me?” you counter, lowering your head a little more. Your question comes out like a snap and you could punch yourself. You should. “What for?”

“I…I followed you.”

“Again?”

When you get the nerve to look up, you see that he’s got a sheepish little smile. “Not physically, of course. It was a lot of work, since you’ve bounced around so much in the last couple of years, but.” He finishes off with a shake of his head. You don’t feel any better about anything.

“Why would you do all that? I’ve been trying to get away from you.”

He only smiles in the face of your spite. You’re just awful.

“I know,” he says, a little quieter. “I figured. But seeing as you’re someone I’m hesitant to let go of, well.” He’s staring at his hands and you’re staring at his scar. “I understand that you don’t want to see me. But the same is not true for me, and I am selfish enough to hunt you down because…I just wanted to.”

You don’t know what to say to that or if you should even say anything. You’re too tongue-tied to consider saying anything long winded, so you settle for, “You shouldn’t be here.”

And he shakes his head again, like he’s talking to a child. “I don’t understand you, Samatoki-kun. You frustrate me,” is not what you expected him to say, but it pierces your chest. It’s the kindest, most Jakurai-esque way of saying you’re an absolute idiot and you don’t want to hear what you know. But before you can bite his head off, he keeps going. “I was never upset. Why did you decide that I was?”

At some point, you find your way back to the couch. You sit there and let your right hand pull at your hair until a few silver strands are in your palm. As he talks, memories of your time together break through the floodgates (it’s so easy now) and you can hardly think straight because you’re washed away by this awful desire to be comforted by Jakurai the way you used to be and he’s right there and yet.

You can’t have it.

“Anyone in their right mind would’ve been angry,” you sigh. You can’t look him in the eye. You can’t look at him period, even when he closes the front door and slides his boots off and sits right next to you. “I was angry.”

“I wasn’t,” he says.

“Because you’re dumb.” That’s not what you mean, it’s absolutely not. You’ve imagined meeting Jakurai again a hundred times; none of the scenarios ever involved you insulting him. “I mean. You. You knew being with me would be dangerous from the start and you still did it. And then it got you hurt. And you looked for me after.”

“Samatoki-kun.”

Hearing the honorific tacked to your name burns you up, even if Jakurai always did it before. It suggests respect, something you have not earned.

“What?”

“You punched me accidentally. I cleaned myself up. I took a few painkillers. It was fine.” He shakes his head again and you start to wonder if you’re just too stupid to converse with Jakurai. “And then you left with no warning. Realizing you weren’t coming back…” He wants to say it hurt worse and you want to hear it but you really don’t. Because you know leaving was the wrong thing to do, but you were faced with so many wrong options that running seemed safest. Distance between you and Jakurai should have been good, even if it hurt, because as long as you hurt more than he did, it was fine.

And it wasn’t. But if you stuck around, you could have done it again.

The men in your family always seem to be on a slippery slope.

“Why’d you come here?” you ask, voice shaking. Everything was a waste, wasn’t it? If Jakurai was no happier than you, then you did everything for nothing. Beating down people you thought were at least a little worse than you, bruising up your hands and arms and legs, keeping to yourself.

Moving through the last two years by a sorry routine of waking up, fighting, coming home, letting the adrenaline die, memories haunting you to sleep. Spicing the day up with a drink here or there. No one asked you to do it, any of it.

But still. Knowing that it was for nothing, that Jakurai still suffered.

“I’m sorry.”

For a moment, you think that Jakurai has truly gone crazy. Why should he ever be apologizing to you? Why should he ever feel that way?

And then you realize, as you slide further into the couch, covering your face with trembling hands, that it wasn’t him, anyway.

It was you.

After two whole years, it was you.

“I’m sorry,” you mutter again. It barely escapes the trap of your palms, but you say it once more. “I’m sorry.” And once more. “I’m sorry.” And one more time. “I’m so sorry.”

You don’t know what you’re apologizing for anymore; is it the hit? The disappearing act? The pain? The undeserved hostility after two years of absence? All of it, none of it, you don’t know. The only thing you’re sure about is that you look ridiculous with tears streaming down your face, even if most of it is hidden, and that Jakurai’s arm is curling around you and for the first time since you were beside him, you feel like you're not quite the worst thing in the world.

He says, “I know,” and his fingers have laced their way into your hair as he leans against you a little more. He’s so good, so good. “I should have looked for you sooner. The day you left.”

You just focus on trying to calm yourself down. Jakurai’s touch works wonders and your breathing is starting to return itself to normal. Your mind isn’t so dark. He’s like a magic spell, an incredible pill; he may very well be an instant cure for the worst of plights, a miracle. His warmth blankets over all your worst memories from the last couple of years, drowning out the hundreds of images of you staggering home with bloody knuckles and bloody clothes and dead eyes.

His free hand takes one of yours from your face and he runs his fingers over the scars on it. “Samatoki-kun.”

You don’t respond. You’re still sniffling like a kid.

“Please talk to me...from now on.”

Your brain is too tired to process the fact that he wants to continue being around you, a part of your life. All you can do is wipe at your face with the hand he isn’t holding and nod. It’s a lot of tears. You haven’t actually let them fall in a long time and now you’re exhausted. Being sad, being happy, being confused and overjoyed, God, it’s a lot of work.

Somehow, you manage an, “Okay,” anyway.

You’re sure that the two of you have some things to work out. Leaving in the middle of the night back then has probably shaken his trust in you, and sometimes looking at his face reminds you of your mistake and the man you never want to become.

But you don’t really care. You hope he doesn’t, either. You would work a lifetime to make him feel comfortable around you again.

You’re a bit too nervous to tell him you love him, unsure of how he’ll respond, so you lean back and lean over, resting your cheek on his back. You take the arm of the hand he’s holding and hook it on his shoulder, instead. His hair tickles your face but it’s okay, it’s familiar, and you stop wiping your tears long enough to run your fingers through (some of) the length of it, something you remember him liking.

He tilts his head back, holding your hand a little tighter. You feel more confident.

He’s still Jakurai. He still cares about you.

That is all you need.