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'Entwistle' - [Aoi/Uruha, Ruki/Reita] 2/13
Title: Entwistle
Pairing: Aoi/Uruha, Ruki/Reita
Genre: Mystery, drama, romance
Chapter: 2/13
Warnings: Character "death" (you'll see), "time-traveling", grittiness
Synopsis: In which time can bend, Yuu grapples for second chances and the simplest actions reap the largest consequences. He has twelve hours to save him.
:.:.:
8:07PM
:.:.:
Static gasped and blurred – the stark images of scorched terrain, white and red debris, and mangled remains of 207 passengers flickered in and out of existence as the generator whirred. The television screen was a massacre. Bed sheets strewn about Shiba park, hiding the silent screams of the dead. The MD-90 had gently swooped into the clear sky to float between earth and atmosphere at 11:50AM – only to spiral out of the clouds’ soft hands and bury itself deep into an early grave of cherry blossoms and wildflowers.
Aerial footage zoomed in on the quarter-mile trail of ruins with an almost vicious curiosity. Flames were licking the wreckage, a curved scar disfiguring the entire park. The earth had been ripped inside out – the devil had howled in defiance and dragged its claws across the world. All was charred, disfigured and not-right, save the perfectly preserved tail section of the MD-90, sitting poised and pleasant in the onslaught of hell. A glaring white and deep red, it was waving the proverbial flag – drenched in vermilion and surrendering its victims to the Grim.
“No survivors,” the droning voice of a newswoman warbled through the slideshows of sobbing witnesses and plumes of opaque smoke. Her curls were styled just-so and her eyes held a detached sorrow, flitting to and fro as the prompter rolled onwards, even in the mouth of tragedy. “First responders including all of Minato-ku’s police force and firefighters have been on the scene for several hours. They have successfully recovered Flight 402’s black-box and a press conference is expected at 9:00 tonight.”
The images of shredded metal, twisted in beautiful sculptures of disaster, caught the sinking sun’s light – appearing ethereal amongst screams and whys. Still frames of coiled corpses and melted oxygen masks from throughout the day began to cycle. A reaper’s broken record. Glowing embers, body bags, red-black-black. Firefighters, civilians, policemen all scattered and scurrying to uncover beating hearts that weren’t there. Pulsing life had given way to personalized and haiku-condensed tragedies: laptops and iPods melded to the ground, a Bay Stars hat resting in a patch of smoldering grass; a child’s shoe; backpacks and briefcases. Round and round, death’s forever carousel – the fragility of this world spliced and splattered upon the screen.
The TV continued to showcase the crash in all its HD-glory from within the mahogany entertainment center. It was nested in the corner of a room that had once dreamed of housing a library, but had tripped and dropped its books in clumsy haste. It was an organized chaos. A mishmash of worn book spines lay piled here, an outcrop of old memos and forgotten chargers over there. Gold and mauve koi tapestries lined one wall, endearingly askew as a clutter of candles, misplaced mugs and house keys dotted the pockets of free space. Tatami had been traded in for a checkered carpet – the only thing that portrayed a sense of order and balance in the cramped den.
Yuu stood within the epicenter of familiar disarray. Thoughts racing and knees violently quaking. He could still smell the burst of gunpowder, could still feel the fluttering gasps of Matsumoto against his chest. A low, keening whine echoed in his ears – slowly swelling into a vicious shriek until Yuu sucked in a gulp of air. He caught the arm of the sofa as he collapsed in on himself, fingernails pulling ruthlessly at the leather. The surface felt cool, slick with his sweat. He took another breath, trying to spit out the odd metallic tang in his mouth. Another. Exhale. And another.
There was a disconcerting sense of awakening – as if the black-laced horror he had witnessed in the interrogation room had never happened. Never existed. The amber glow of Matsumoto’s eyes, the deadly curl of Suzuki’s lip, the cold kiss of the bullet against his skull … Never there; gone.
A golden hue drenched the moment, a light’s echo in his noir irises – a sun glare on a forgotten memento. Breaths were coming steadily now. Slow lungs beside his trembling heart. Yuu glanced around the room, knuckles white as he clenched at the leather, desperately trying to grab onto any sort of bearing.
He blinked – a flash of Kouyou’s there-not-there-fucking-gone face greeting him. A searing blaze overtook his mind as the hurt now stabbed each breath that was his – and not his.
Senses sputtering, track of time lost to the laughter of madness, he desperately looked around the room again – trying to blink away Kouyou’s lone and pleading-why-didn’t-you-save-me eye.
Familiarity finally struck him. The tumult of mess-not-mess now easily recognizable in the slew of impossibility. The low hum of a generator sung on, filling the house with electricity in a city without power.
Yutaka.
The name caught in his throat, barely passing through the air on his lips.
His neighbor. His best friend since senior year. The one who had a dimpled smile, an infectious laugh. The one who desperately clung to him, pushed him back-back-away from hurt. Who tried to save Yuu’s broken pieces before he was utterly shattered.
Yuu had been here an hour earlier, the taste of his scream still on his tongue and Yutaka’s wet eyes wracked with shock. Because he couldn’t save either of them. Because Yuu had shattered anyways.
Because Kouyou was gone.
The raven-haired man put a hand to his chest, fingers scratching at the fabric of his scarf, eyes wide and glistening. Yuu saw him then, remembered. Perfect as he lay tangled in Yuu’s sheets, beautiful as he watched Yuu with that tilted smile – the one that promised and believed in this. Yuu closed his eyes, world allowing him to drift into the sweet release of black – where Kouyou’s soft whisper of “You’re a nova, Yuu” was still there.
“Please, stay – ”
Yuu startled awake from his reverie, the wisps of Kouyou’s breath fading against his neck. The glare of the TV caught his eye, lulling him to watch. The wreckage of the jet and the remains of its passengers was still strewn about like discarded keepsakes. Yuu regarded the reel of endless footage, face void of empathy as an engine burst with a flurry of spark and smoke. The sinking grief in his chest was pinching. It was as if with Kouyou’s blood came the scythe of bedlam and smirking disaster. It was suiting, Yuu figured, watching with aching eyes and a heart too filled with his own selfish mourning to weep for those whose names he did not know.
The loop of death kept thrumming, newscasters scrambling for soundbites, when the bland station logo in the bottom corner gripped his attention. Yuu froze, frost beginning to latch itself deep in the marrow of his bones. The first claws of panic sunk into him.
The timestamp was illuminated amongst the clogged ticker and burning fuselage.
8:15PM
Yuu stared, the dread pricking at the back of his neck. Such a mistake could never be made on a live broadcast, he knew. But faced with the impossible, Yuu frantically reached for the remote – about to turn to another news channel and compare – when the sight of his bare wrist halted him.
The silver watch his mother had given him with a knowing wink (“You can’t be late in the city!”) – the one Kouyou playfully tapped the face of to grab Yuu’s fickle attention – had vanished.
There was a roaring in his ears. Yuu caught sight of the subtle marks in his skin from where the watch had been torn from him. And his wallet, keys, heart –
Wait.
Ignoring the splatter of red on his sleeve (that felt eerily wetter than before), Yuu shakily reached into his pocket. Trembling fingers touched the corner of a thick envelop – the letter. Pulling it out, Yuu noted – with a breath of disbelief – that it was cream-color with a satin finish. An intricate crest bearing two snarling lions pawing at a shield that encased an illustration of the earth was embossed upon it. An ornate crown sat atop the shield, the word undo and the numeral XX lay at the clawed feet of each respective feline. The elaborate pattern appeared at once royal and whimsical.
Fingertips rubbing the glued seal, Yuu’s lips parted. The absurdity, the insanity of what he was holding… The stranger’s slate eyes came back to him – shining in a silver as bright as the swoop of metal kissing his maw.
Reality already splintered, and too far gone to truly care, Yuu immediately dug into the pocket of his jeans. And there the pocket watch lay. He held it as gently as he could. The fragile chain still shifted erratically from the tremor in his soul. Flipping it open, mirror-polished gold glinted in the waning light. A foreign verse smiled up at him.
Hora fugit; in inceptum finis est
And there, resting in roman numerals that reflected an almost regal air, was the time.
8:15PM
Yuu slowly shook his head, knotted locks sticking to the sweat of his neck. Ashen face caught in the glimmering reflection, Yuu ogled at his bloodshot eyes – resting in between the fated numbers of improbability. The interrogation started with Matsumoto’s grin at 9:20PM.
“Fucking impossible.” The words were tight.
But he remembered sitting in this room with Yutaka, the younger man dabbing his fingers with a warm washcloth, wiping away and erasing the red beneath his nails. They had sat here for almost an hour, drowning in the dull agony of Kou’s-not-here. And when the cloth was soaked with rust-colored blood, Yutaka had kneeled in front of him, holding his shaking hands tight. He had found Yuu’s listless eyes – silently screaming, caged and why-him – and whispered, “It was quick, Yuu. I promise, he didn’t feel it.”
Because he couldn’t say, “It’s alright.”
It wasn’t. He would’ve choked on the acrid lie – everything was twisted and marred and wrong.
But Yuu hadn’t heard him either way, dun eyes drawn to the den’s door as it slowly swung open. Two detectives stood there; grim faces and knowing stares. Suzuki Akira’s hand hovered atop his holstered pistol – fidgeting, eager.
This was where he was arrested – dragged, taken, handcuffed, hearing Yutaka’s pleas to listen-wait – at 9:00PM.
The wriggling slice of blind hope and blunt rationality were warring within him. Yuu knew it was lunacy – crazy. But here was the stranger’s promise cradled in his palm.
“You have twelve hours.”
With his last memory being the glare of Suzuki’s glock and the pain of Matsumoto’s nails in his arm, Yuu breathed in deep and tore open the crisp envelop. Carefully unfolding the two sheets of paper, he silently read with bated breath.
Shiroyama-kun,
I hope that dastardly fog is beginning to lift from your mind. However, I’m sure it’s being replaced by a far more greater confusion –
Yuu read the words over (and over) until the ink began to blur. Swallowing the pulsing lump in his throat, he tucked it all back into his pocket, unsure of what exactly he just read. The fearsome notion that he was being toyed with, dangled above an impossible wish for someone’s sadistic pleasure, was crippling. Yuu despised tricks – abhorred the innocent pranks Kouyou unleashed throughout the years – and he despised playing into the role of the fool even more so.
The impossible hope was festering, however, despite the pungent doubt threatening to numb his heart.
He yearned for this chance, any chance, and now – the glossy picture of Kouyou’s deadened, crimson-speckled stare still throbbing and fresh – perhaps Yuu had the chance to embrace the impossible. To bring light back into those honey irises. To bring him (the world) back.
No question as to where he stood at this moment and no question about the time presented to him, Yuu seized the hope enveloping his chest.
What if.
The door suddenly opened. Uke Yutaka’s slight frame hovered quietly in the doorway, lips downturned and eyes haunted. Wearing a rumpled shirt, jean pockets inside out, but brown hair tousled with utmost care, he was the epitome of flustered paradox. Disorganized and neat. The largest laugh and the most sorrowful gaze.
Yutaka toed the threshold for a moment, and Yuu could practically see him replaying that horrid moment of discovery over (and over). Blood staining the bottoms of his Chucks while Yuu clutched to his lover’s leg, his face twisted in a guttural plea.
Yutaka blinked, usually mirthful eyes quiet and infinitely morose. He stepped into the room with a certain hush. For if he breathed too hard, the entire universe could rattle apart completely.
In the crash-and-burn years of high school, a time when Yuu wielded a fierce temper and stolen fur coats, Yutaka had been the quiet confidante – the gentle conscience – of the other’s bitter rebellion. The early era of their friendship was subtle, a gradual give-and-take that Yuu only acknowledged with a parting glance.
The purple bruises were still aching on his heart from when his father had left, when his mother had forgotten him. It made him hesitant, so very wary of this strange boy with dimpled grins and soft hands – who had suddenly plopped down next to him against the brick wall of the school and asked for a lighter. Yuu had paused, taken aback how those cherubic lips had so easily fit around that sinful cigarette. It seemed unnatural for this innocent-looking boy to be blackening his lungs. Yuu almost reached out and said stop, stop, you can’t – but he merely watched with a cautious eye.
And Yutaka had stared at the torn skin of Yuu’s fingers when he handed him the Zippo – gingerly touched the dried blood and never broke his gaze with the elder’s noir eyes, “You don’t need to be so angry.”
He had stitched himself to Yuu’s side ever since. The raven-haired youth wondered, in the times when Yutaka was too busy to notice, whether he had stuck by to prevent him from tearing the skin off his knuckles by punching out teeth – or if Yutaka had somehow seen him through the black. The anger. The silent desperation to reach out and touch something real, something that would stay.
So, Yuu had turned to him on that hot July morning, caps and gowns shimmering in the midday sun, and whispered lowly, “You won’t leave?”
It was a command as much as a longing question. And Yutaka had smiled, like always, and whispered right back, “Never.”
Because Yutaka had always known behind his grin that Yuu would leave first – had already left.
And that Yuu would be okay.
Because Kouyou would protect that scarred heart, always.
Yutaka felt the wetness begin to blur his vision, but merely bit his lip and let the pain die somewhere inside that was still whole – even as the younger’s words came back to them in haunting clarity:
“I won’t let him hurt, Yutaka, I promise – ”
The mug of ginger tea felt cold in his hands. Yutaka refused to look at its contents, sure that he would see a murky crimson instead of a pallid hue. Rather, he watched Yuu’s hooded eyes as he handed him the mug. Heavy silence kissed their lips, Yuu staring at the tea in his hands. He briefly lost himself in the tawny color, the warm scent.
“I know you hate ginger,” Yutaka’s voice was raw and taut, straining to keep the wetness from his words, “But it helps. It’ll ease everything.”
Yuu pressed his mouth to the mug’s lukewarm rim and swallowed thickly.
Garbled voices from the television wafted over the pocket of quiet, a grim and monochromatic sound until Yutaka forced out, “There’s coroner over there with two detectives. They said everything needs to be printed and photographed before they – ”
Yutaka paused, breath catching. “ – before they take him.”
Yuu could feel the sense of turmoil sink into his ribs – he knew all of this. He knew how the hour would tick away, how the clock would glare mercilessly as the gurney was rolled into the barren street and guilt was forced into Yuu’s mouth. He knew the body bag would be black, the disfigured mass never alluding to what truly lay inside – a man who had tried his hardest to make him smile, a man who captured the moonlight and offered it to him –
– a man who loved him.
In fifteen minutes, Yutaka’s door would swing open and reveal the detectives he would never be able to rip away from memory: Suzuki and Matsumoto.
“I know someone who can help – his son’s in my class. He’s one of the best. He’ll help you, Yuu.”
It was exactly what Yutaka had said before. The same quaver, the same grudging acceptance that Yuu would need to clear his name in time. He had the same look in his brown eyes – a gasping, restless anguish.
“He’s one of the best criminal attorneys in the entire prefecture.” The assurance was both for Yuu and himself, “He’ll stop any wild accusations. He’ll help.”
Yuu also remembered how he hadn’t shown up at the police station.
But Yutaka was already racing to his end table, clumsily sifting through old post-its and last year’s calendar for his phone.
The dial tone cut through Yuu’s skull; a piercing whine that made him whip out his arm and grab Yutaka’s wrist with a growl.
“Wait.”
Yutaka stopped, eyes wide at the grave emotion that laced Yuu’s voice. He slowly lowered the phone.
“I … I don’t know, but – ” Yuu paused, caged eyes restless, the unsound glint sending a chill of unease through Yutaka’s bones, “ – but I need to find out who did this.”
Yutaka nodded, hand still resting atop the phone, “They will, Yuu. Whoever it is will rot in jail.”
His head was starting to spin, colors blurring to an acrid yellow-red-black. The urgency clawed at his jugular, leaving a burnt taste under his tongue, “No. No, I have to… I need to stop him.”
Yutaka’s face fell into confusion, “Stop him from what, Yuu-kun?”
Soft, quiet, treading lightly.
“I’ve got to find him.” Unwavering and final.
Yutaka stared, listening, hesitating, reaching for what to say. He could see what was unraveling in Yuu’s eyes. The same rage and rebellion that had spit fire all those years ago – dangerous.
He spoke gently with an underlying firmness, “Let the cops handle that. Whoever did this is a lunatic, as dangerous as they come.” As are you.
“He’s not dead.” Yuu blurted, dark eyes sparking.
Yuu… The breath in his lungs left him, suddenly so tired. Yutaka moved to sit next to Yuu’s rigid form on the couch, glancing at the clenched jaw with empathy, “I loved him too, Yuu. He was… everything I hoped you could have – and all I couldn’t give you. It’s…” Yutaka closed his eyes, “It’s not fair.”
The sudden clang of the mug hitting the wood of Yutaka’s table reverberated around them. Yuu ran a jittering hand through his raven locks, fingers catching in the windswept tangles. Not feeling completely in control, something dark seeping into him. Broken pieces scattering inside him. The abyss of insanity seemed imminent – and Yuu dove in.
“I can save him.”
Yutaka sat there patiently, listening – watching helplessly as his best friend’s mind seemed to fall in on itself.
“I can’t explain it and I don’t know how, but… I can save him.”
The younger continued to gape – not angry, not condemning – eyes simply pain-ridden and heart cracking ever the more deeper. Kouyou had been his best friend – the other half of Yuu himself – and while he had adored him, the passion that etched itself into his friends’ chests was something so untouchable, beautiful. Like stellar dust falling, like nebulas chastely kissing. To watch them together, it was as if sunlight had broached the moon. And Yutaka could not imagine the pain splintering in Yuu’s soul.
Yuu, suddenly assured and full of purpose, said in a hush, “What if I said I could tell you what would happen – the future?”
Yutaka couldn’t stop his brow from lifting, “Like if the Tigers win the series this year…?”
Yuu averted his gaze to study his hands, unsure of how to respond. He could still see flecks of red beneath his nails.
“Let them stare, Yuu-shi. Just hold my hand, okay – ?”
“I’m sorry,” Yutaka lowered his head, “I… I didn’t mean to – ”
“No, it’s fine.” Yuu turned back, a tick of a clock counting down in his head, and found Yutaka’s cautious eyes, “It sounds fucking insane, I know. But just please hear me out. They’re going to come in here and arrest me, bring me to the station, try and make me confess – show me a gun I’ve never seen before.”
Yutaka’s eyes grew nervous, brow furrowing.
Yuu fisted his hands, jaw tight, “I didn’t kill him, Yutaka. I fucking loved him – tried so hard to never hurt him, to protect and hold him as tight as I could. And I wish it was me, Yutaka. I just…”
“I know you didn’t do it,” Yutaka lightly touched the other’s knee. “You’re just confused right now. In shock. Both of us are.”
Yutaka took his hand away and reached for the phone once more. “I’m going to call him now, okay? I think you should talk to him.”
“He won’t get here in time.”
“Time for what?”
“They’re going to arrest me in – ” Yuu reached into his pocket and pulled out the gold watch, flipping it open.
“Where did you get – ?”
“ – in thirteen minutes.” The watch shut with a definitive click.
“What? That doesn’t make sense,” Yutaka shook his head, frowning in consternation, “They’re not going to arrest you.”
“Suzuki and Matsumoto.”
“Who?” The world was spinning, tilting, falling.
“Detectives Suzuki and Matsumoto. The two detectives in my house right now. They’re going to arrest me.”
Yutaka remembered them, had greeted the two detectives when they had arrived with a grim handshake. He had lead them to Kouyou’s body, had seen the dual looks of why-what-a-shame. Yuu had been tucked away in his den at the time, away from the gore, and the two agreed with the decision. They finally gave their names as Yutaka began to head out the front door: Detectives Suzuki and Matsumoto.
“You know them?” Utterly taken aback, Yutaka felt himself being pulled into his friend’s wild irises.
“I’ve never seen – well, I never saw them until they burst in here to cuff me.”
Yutaka stared. “So. You’re saying that you know what’s going to happen.”
Yuu nodded.
“Okay.” Yutaka fell silent and nodded to himself as well. The situation was becoming even more wrought with peril as Yuu now seemed to be deluding himself into a sense of omniscience. The younger man recalled the books he read in his college psychology course. Something about believing one was all-knowing as to control the tumult in their life. Yutaka glanced at Yuu as he put down the phone for the last time. The elder’s hands were no longer shaking. But his eyes were holding back a scream.
Yutaka spoke slowly, “Alright. So then you would know what they’re wearing.”
Yuu’s voice never wavered, “Matsumoto is wearing a blue blazer. His shirt looks like it was just opened from the goddamn package and you can practically see the iron creases in his slacks. Suzuki’s an asshole with too much gel in his hair. He’s got a leather jacket too, and faded jeans.”
Yutaka took a deep breath and stood, willing to appease Yuu’s slow and steady breakdown for now. He didn’t want to hurt him any further by dismissing his adamancy. He walked to the window, looking through the shutters to see a perfect view of where the cops had emerged from their respective cars. Yutaka inwardly nodded; Yuu could have easily watched their arrival, seen their outfits clearly. But the younger refused to challenge the other. Not with that look in his eyes.
“Listen to me, Yutaka.” A growl was clawing at his throat, “I’m not crazy. I’m not. The Hanshin Tigers – ”
Yutaka balked with a disbelieving stutter, “Why are we talking about the Tigers?”
But Yuu was getting desperate. He needed Yutaka with him, beside him (like always).
“The game going on right now. They win in the bottom of the ninth, they…” He trailed off. He was speaking in circles, burying himself further into lunacy in his friend’s eyes. He bowed his head, eyes downcast and defeat sinking its teeth into his shoulders.
But then Yuu looked up in bright revelation, “His neck… Matsumoto’s neck. He has four scars there.”
Yutaka remained silent.
Yuu tried to catch his eye, voice low and pleading, “You know there’s no way I could see that from your window.”
He smirked.
“And ask him about scotch.”
Yutaka stepped out the side door and into the waning sun. The vivid colors of the city seemed drained and forced, a monochrome guise to his own lifeless heart. The world blurred and faded, the only thing tangible and there was the poignant pain nuzzling his side. As he neared Yuu’s house, anxiety began to coil in his gut. He didn’t want to see the crimson slathered genkan. He didn’t want his knees to give way, to cling to the doorframe again as his eyes fell upon Kouyou’s mauled face. Yutaka didn’t want his last memory of the auburn-haired man to be the bone-white of his slacked jaw, the terror of his lone eye –
Gone.
Kouyou had always been there – they had been friends ever since the days of bandhood pipedreams. And though the taller had always been so thoroughly intertwined with Yuu, he gave himself to Yutaka as much as he could. He knew Yutaka’s heart – silently listened to Yutaka’s drunken prattle of his latest failed romance, letting him talk all night until the bar flicked the lights off. He knew his mind and how Yutaka would forget – offering him his missing cell phone with a sly grin. He knew his mistakes and misgivings, his weaknesses and silent struggles. Kouyou knew he loved Yuu (loved him just like Kouyou did) ever since that first cigarette and brush of fingertips. And he still smiled, still loved Yutaka for all he was, for all he could ever hope to be.
Kouyou had entered their lives much like he did everything else – at his own pace and with a glimmer betaking his honey irises. He had challenged Yuu’s ferocity – dared to lean in close and breathe in the flames. Two novas colliding, gravity too weak to keep them here on this earth. And Yutaka had watched from the brick wall – the one Yuu had deemed theirs – cigarette snuffed out and in awe as this lanky teen smiled at the elder, dangerously close.
But like the flames they were, they kindled. Yuu and Kouyou shared the same calluses from coaxing guitars to scream and croon. They shared the same hair dye – both bent over the gas station sink, rusty blonde staining their fingertips. They shared Yutaka – who fussed over both of them, who made sure they ate, who made sure they found sleep on those neon nights of vodka kisses and honest tongues. Kouyou gave Yuu his scarlet pick. Yuu gave him his fur coat.
But they weren’t perfect.
They fought hard – Yuu screamed and threw anything he could grasp at the walls; Kouyou grit his teeth and whispered black words that twisted in their chests. They were messy – both pushing, pushing until neither felt the hurt in their lungs. And they would touch afterwards.
Just close their eyes and touch each freckle and pore and bone.
And Yutaka watched, enamored with the idea of them. How they fit into each other’s jagged edges.
So to see him dead on the floor, life torn away and blood caking the grout… Yutaka swallowed back the bile. Nothing was making sense – who, who could have a soul so black as to shatter that life? To shatter Yuu…?
And as Kouyou’s lungs lay vacant, it was as if the bullet had lodged itself into Yuu as well. His mind had collapsed, the shock of finding the keeper of his heart lifeless overtaking him. Yutaka was sure of it. He had fallen into denial, sinking lower into a deluded fantasy about changing the past, making it right, saving him.
But it had all ended too quickly to ever intervene.
For Yutaka, the harsh bite of the gunshot hit him as he was grading papers – essays on the galaxy and milky way. The brown-haired man had felt his spine clatter, stomach sinking, sinking. He didn’t remember getting up, nearly ripping off his doorknob – just that he was suddenly cutting through Yuu’s open garage door, through the genkan entrance. The man he found lying askew around the rear steps wasn’t Kouyou.
Not anymore.
And when he finally made himself release the doorframe, step over the body, the squelch of his shoes making his throat itch and stomach churn, he found Yuu. Arms wrapped around the limp leg, stroking it like a child uncomprehending of death. Pleas dripping from his trembling lips echoing off the stained tile:
“Kou, Kou, please stay – ”
Yutaka crossed the patch of trampled grass – a lasting impression of his earlier haste – making his way to the ajar door. He could spot the coroner’s truck and two unmarked police cars: a Mazda RX-7 and a Mustang. It was disconcerting to see the emptiness, the utter desolation of the normally bustling streets. A violent crime such as this would have usually attracted a quarter of the police force, miles of caution tape, the arrival of flashing cameras and eager reporters. But the rest of the department, every policeman, desk clerk, secretary and reporter was at the crash site. Every fireman, EMT, councilman and doctor from the prefecture had responded – flames beckoning with a come-hither glow. A plane crash in Minato-ku was unheard of, an ominous anomaly.
And so, the bottom of the barrel had been scraped – only two cops available to trek bloody footprints around Kouyou’s sprawled corpse.
Slipping inside, Yutaka started to cut through the small living room, and heard the low timbre of the detectives in the front hall. He stopped, chest tightening. He was indulging Yuu’s delusion far too much; sneaking into a crime scene in search for a validation to the elder’s desperate words. Yutaka took a moment, a breath. But he felt himself being pulled by an unseen force – a cruel curiosity – towards the genkan. And even though he couldn’t stomach-handle-bear to gaze unto Kouyou’s body again – he craned his neck to where it lay.
Because maybe it was a wild mistake. Someone else. A nightmare. Not real.
But the white-haired coroner was leaning over the black body bag, zipping it up with a weary sigh. Yutaka could barely discern Kouyou’s lithe form under the opaque vinyl. He morbidly wondered if there was any chance the mortician could graft an ounce of his beauty back, to paint life back into his cheeks if only for Yuu to look upon him one last time. To say goodbye.
The floor was still pooled with red, the rear wall saturated and pierced with fragments of flash and bone. Several auburn tufts of hair were fluttering – as if clinging to last breaths. With the onslaught of devastation from the plane crash, it would take days before this grisly reminder of violence, death and he’s-gone-ripped-wide-open-gone was scrubbed away. Not erased. Never erased.
Yutaka stared at the wall, a lovely macabre – a gruesome portrait by Pollock himself – and numbly decided he would do it himself. He would clean it as best he could, even if Kouyou’s blood got buried deep beneath his nails – even if it never truly washed off his skin.
I won’t let you see this, Yuu – I won’t –
“Oi!” The deep baritone startled him, shocking Yutaka back to the moment at hand.
He jerked back, finding the glare of the taller detective. Yutaka took a step away from the threshold of the genkan, absently eyeing the stiff hair. Well, Yuu was right about that part at least…
“What the hell are you doing here?” Suzuki narrowed his eyes, two flashing daggers, “We told you to stay next door with Shiroyama until we’re done.”
“I thought – ” Yutaka glanced around. Body bag. Bloodied wall. Red footprints. “I thought you were done…”
“Maybe you didn’t realize, but this is a crime scene. It’s just me and Matsumoto here and we have to do this investigation on our own. We’re done when I say we’re done.”
Yutaka almost recoiled from the acidic tone. “I-I’m sorry.” He turned to the door, “I’ll be next door, then.”
“Wait. Where’s Shiroyama? I thought you were going to stay with him. Shit.” Suzuki paused, suddenly bristling with nerves, “Fuck. Is he the type to run?”
“Run?” Yutaka wrinkled his brow, “Run from what? His lover is dead. He can barely stand.”
“You know what?” the detective interrupted, crooking his finger, “You’re here. Let’s have a conversation, Uke-san.”
The brown-haired man slowly nodded, knowing Yuu wouldn’t leave – wouldn’t leave Kouyou behind, never – and said, “Whatever it takes to catch who did this.”
Yutaka felt the other detective come in behind him, but didn’t turn around. He wanted to help, to bring justice to this nightmare – he didn’t want to feel so goddamn helpless as Yuu sat in his den with hopeless eyes, as Kouyou lay there in forever-silence.
“You said before that you were close to both the deceased and Shiroyama. How close would that be?”
“Best friends. Equally close to them both,” Yutaka felt the shorter detective step closer to him.
“Were either of them having an affair?”
Yutaka grit his teeth, hand fisting, “You’re crossing the line – ”
“– We just need to ask,” Matsumoto’s low voice crept up from behind. The shorter man passed him, coming to stand beside Suzuki. He studied Yutaka for a second, mouth twisting oddly, “Where were you when Takashima-san was shot?”
“I told you before. I was next door, grading papers for my class. I heard the shot and just dropped everything and ran over.”
“Anyone with you?”
“No, but I had just gotten off the phone with my mother. You can verify it.”
Suzuki hummed noncommittally, gray orbs ever-focused and closing in, “What kind of relationship did Shiroyama Yuu have with the deceased?”
“His name is Kouyou.” Yutaka bit off, anger nipping at his jaw. To reduce Kouyou to stale and distant labels, to finalize it… He needed to keep him here for just a little longer. “They were as close as they could squeeze themselves together. I never doubted for a second that they were in love.”
“Were either of them emotional?” Matsumoto’s eyes were lighter than Suzuki’s, tone more sympathetic and Yutaka found himself looking at the shorter detective instead, relieved.
“Not really. Sure, Yuu was always a little short-fused, but never violent. And Kouyou knows how to handle him, believe me.” Yutaka couldn’t refer to him in the past, he couldn’t get used to the fact he’d never hear that lilting voice: Yukkun, you’ll always stay with us, right?
“If that’s the case, why would he kill him?”
Yutaka didn’t answer. He must have misheard the question… Suzuki wouldn’t have said –
“Why would he do it?” Suzuki leaned in, impatient and willing to pressure Yutaka until the other cracked and broke, “Money? Jealousy?”
“There’s absolutely no way Yuu killed him,” Yutaka’s voice shook. “He would never raise a hand to him, let alone shoot him – he wanted to protect Kouyou, he was so afraid of causing him any pain – he would never – ”
The wetness was back, bleeding from his eyes. The room was blurring and something in his chest shuddered.
“Well, some things suggest otherwise,” Matsumoto calmly said as he held up a sizeable plastic bag. A large, impossibly elegant pistol was nestled inside. Ivory handle. Gilded sides. In-laid sapphires. “Any idea why he would be keeping this fucking expensive weapon in the trunk of his car, Uke-san?”
Yutaka was dumbfounded as he looked at the Peacemaker, sapphires glowing eerily in the light from the window, world suddenly torn apart. “That can’t… That can’t be his.”
Matsumoto shook the bag a little, watching Yutaka bite his lip, and raised a brow, “Of course not.”
“Despite your doubts,” Suzuki flung out a hand to grip Matsumoto’s wrist, irked by the shaking, “I think he did it. If he has an attorney, I would suggest you call him. I’m going to interrogate this guy until he admits what he’s done. And believe me, after a shitty day like today, I have no fucking time for lies.”
Yutaka stared at the cop and remembrance of why he had come over in the first place slapped him. “I’m not crazy, Yutaka – ”
Yutaka eyed the leather jacket and faded jeans, the blue blazer and crisply ironed slacks. But he could have seen that easily. Don’t feed his madness.
With his heart in his throat, palms slick with sweat, he glanced at the taller’s neck. Vein pulsing, smooth, no scars.
“It’s Detective Matsumoto, right?” Yutaka asked softly.
“No, I’m Suzuki Akira. He’s Matsumoto.” Suzuki jammed a thumb to his partner as they all traipsed towards the kitchen.
“Sorry,” Yutaka absently supplied as he turned to Matsumoto. He swallowed, not believing he was actually asking, “Can I get you anything? Maybe a scotch?”
“Fuck no.” Matsumoto glared at him and shook his head, growling, “Why?”
“I thought maybe – ”
“I fucking hate scotch,” Matsumoto snapped, jowls thrashing as he stalked into the genkan.
Yutaka watched with passive eyes as Matsumoto stepped to Kouyou’s encased body. He methodically pulled off his latex gloves, bent down, and helped Suzuki and the elder coroner lift the black – black as night, as the universe collapsing, as Yuu’s sad and gone eyes – bag up onto the gurney.
Their clothes were exactly as Yuu had unflinchingly described them, but Yuu had seen it through the window – had to. He probably forgot he even looked – mind too fragile and desperate for his own reality to escape its cozy retreat.
As he looked on, Yutaka suddenly felt his spine go rigid. Something slick and ebony was dripping in his lungs. He couldn’t seem to catch his breath, eyes wide and locked on Matsumoto’s hand – the one he used to briefly scratch his jaw, head tilted in the peculiar light.
Right there, carved in pale flesh.
Four scars kissing his neck.
The air was stagnant.
Breathe in. Out.
Again.
Yuu hadn’t moved from Yutaka’s couch, still caught in the warp of illusion-somewhere-not-here. He had read the letter three times over, thoughts bathed in a crippling vice of disbelief. Logic had been slaughtered ever since that stranger and his slate, kohl-rimmed eyes smiled and uttered, “Are you sure?”
He had never been superstitious – myths, legends and UFOs all but absent from his mind. The idea of ghosts always flustered him, but Yuu had never believed in anything other than the slightly colder spots of air now and then. Lucky pennies, rabbit’s feet, bad luck, broken mirrors – none of it was in Yuu’s vernacular. It was child’s play. But he would gladly embrace it all, praise upon his knees the merits of each, if it would bring Kouyou back.
Yuu sighed, stood up and walked about the den in a blear of consciousness. He came upon the rows of pictures on the shelves. There was no consistency to Yutaka’s past, no stability despite his nature to will other things, other people, to order. Several frames housed pictures of Shin – an ex-boyfriend, three years and counting; several were noticeably cropped – excising a former lover, but keeping the picture. Because Kouyou and Yuu were in it as well. Two frames were empty.
Yuu was pulled to a photo of himself and Kouyou, arms slung around each other in a half-attempt at sobriety and Yutaka caught in the middle with an exasperated grin. He couldn’t remember that night – a blur of moonlight in their palms, Kouyou on his lips and Yutaka wrapping scarves around them tight as they wandered – going nowhere and everywhere. It must have been taken by Shin. Or Kazuki.
They were all smiling.
He wrenched himself away from the photo, not wanting to feel the grief stab at him, slicing through each tendon and heartbeat. Yuu glanced towards the window instead. Detectives Suzuki and Matsumoto were emerging from his house, helping the coroner push the gurney with the black bag – Kouyou – into the awaiting truck. Yutaka was standing in the sparse driveway, head hung in sorrow – lips murmuring last goodbyes, I’m sorry-sorry-sorry – as he was loaded in and the door was closed. The two detectives then turned to Yutaka and the three began a slow march across the patch of grass separating the two houses.
The thought of running briefly entered Yuu’s mind – but he had nowhere to escape to and he wondered if his fate was sealed no matter how fast or far he ran. He pulled the watch from his pocket and flipped it open.
8:55PM
He tugged out the letter from his pocket once more, rereading the impossible, slanting scrawl one last time. Slowly, deliberately, soaking in the strokes as if he were reading the sacred Buddhist texts.
Shiroyama-kun,
I hope that dastardly fog is beginning to lift from your mind. However, I’m sure it’s being replaced by a far more greater confusion as to what is going on – finding yourself in a time that has already passed, in a place you have already been at eight o’clock this evening.
In life, there are moment that are impossible to grasp, to come to terms and accept: the harsh scythe of Death upon the innocent and its injustice, the bloodcurdling agony and gasping confusion at the sudden loss of those we love – the impossible cruelty of fate.
Yuu couldn’t help but to gaze out the window then, morose eyes resting on the coroner’s truck where Kouyou’s body lay – stiff, lifeless, cold.
One simple, selfish act can reverberate through time – again and again – through life, robbing a stranger of his very existence. A loved one could meet his death from the repercussions of a moment, an event, he may never know or understand. Yet, if this one moment didn’t occur – was erased – if it could be found, could be taken back, the lives it touched could be changed. Altered. Saved.
You are now standing in a room – on a wavering cusp – in an instant that seems torn from your memory. Like a victim of black magic, of some divine intervention, a game of the gods – but I assure you it is none of that.
You are in the very room you were in during the eight o’clock hour this evening, living that hour once again. But this time.. you are free to do as you wish – turn left where before you turned right. Say yes when you’ve said no. No one will know the difference, nor will anyone else experience this bending of time. You are on your own, alone to choose direction as you see fitting. To alter the future you have endured.
You’ve been given a gift, Yuu. A gift, a blessing, to live twelve hours of your life over again.
You must pay very close attention. Time is short and it does not wait.
Every hour, as the minute hand of the gold watch sweeps towards and arrives at twelve, you will slip back in time one-hundred-and-twenty minutes to relive one hour of your life again.
One step forward, two steps back.
Because “when you take a step forward, there will be a road”, yes?
This will occur exactly twelve times – no more, no less. Until you reach the hour of ten o’clock this morning.
With your actions now, stepping back into each prior hour of the day, you have the chance to find and save him.
I will not bore you with explanations nor prattle on about flimsy technicalities. Suffice to say, you will be whisked back to the exact location where you were two hours earlier to live that hour anew once the golden watch strikes.
But be aware – each choice, just as in normal life, has grave consequences. The simplest acts can reap the largest consequences, you know. You have the ability to save Kouyou, the ability to put your world back together, but be warned. It is a precarious route you now venture on, and your choices must be well thought out so as to not unbalance the rest of your or anyone else’s existence.
As to why you are being granted this gift, as to who I am and how this all happened – I don’t believe that’s too important right now. You shall know soon enough.
Good luck. Hora fugit,
H.
PS: Hold tight to this letter and the timepiece. This watch you now carry can never leave you – for if it does, if it is destroyed, you will be lost to the moment you are tied to, reintroduced into the forward-flowing existence of the rest of man, and saving Kouyou’s life will become a cause lost to time itself.
A brief scribble of symbols and an archaic language took up the remaining space of the letter – undecipherable and unimportant to Yuu as he gripped the paper tight. He would believe in this, throw himself from the edge of certainty and lick up the waters of impossibility with masochistic pleasure. There was a glimmer of a chance – a hope-wish – and Yuu feverishly reached for it. Because if he tried… If he closed his eyes and just trusted in this – maybe he could create a reality where Kouyou finds the space between his neck and shoulder and whispers goodnight.
With a sudden push of verve, Yuu suddenly ripped himself from his place at the window, raced out of the den and across the foyer to the front door. Throwing the dead bolt, he rushed – breathless – to the doors in the living room that lead to the rear slate terrace, locking them in succession. Clack. Clack. He locked the side and garage doors, doubled back to the den and closed the heavy door, sealing it tight. Clack.
The odd dead bolt that Yuu and Kouyou had always teased Yutaka about was a sudden blessing. An out of place savior that Yuu thanked with bated breath.
He looked again at the watch.
8:58PM
The sharp sound of pounding made Yuu whip his head up – an incessant banging on the locked front door reverberating along his ribs.
He slowly stepped to the window and closed the slatted wood shutters – sealing himself tight in this den filled with Yutaka’s touch and all of their smiles frozen in time.
The shattering of the dead bolt erupted from the locked front door – a rumble rattling the walls – and Yutaka’s enraged scream suddenly filling the hall.
A brusque knock on the den’s door, “Yuu,” Yutaka’s muffled voice came from the other side, a world away, “It’s me. I called that attorney; he’ll meet us down at the station. But these guys.. They want you to go with them, Yuu. And they say now…”
Yuu remained silent, staring at the room, staring at the watch in the palm of his hand.
8:59PM
“Listen, I’ll be right behind you,” Yutaka’s low tenor was breaking apart, “I swear, Yuu, I swear we’ll fix this.”
No, Yutaka. I am.
“Yuu, I don’t know what’s going on, but I believe you, I believe you – !”
“Enough!” Suzuki’s growl cut Yutaka off, sounding as if he had swallowed glass. “Open this fucking door, Shiroyama.”
The second hand was sweeping in a never-ending arch – slow, slow, take a breath. Thirty seconds gone, thirty to go.
“Yuu, please, I don’t have my keys and these assholes already destroyed my front door.”
But Yuu was already gone. Gone from this moment, waiting to feel the tug of darkness.
“Get the fuck out of my way!” Suzuki snarled at Yutaka. Then softly, dangerously, “You’ve got five seconds, Shiroyama.”
And as Yuu continued to stare at the secondhand’s slow ascent, the door exploded open – splintered into wooden daggers as Suzuki’s foot destroyed both lock and mahogany with a brutish kick. The gun was drawn and held before him as he burst into the room. The look in his eyes was the same – convinced and ready to slaughter for misplaced justice. Matsumoto, also armed, ducked right behind him.
“On the ground!”
Yuu tucked the watch into his pocket just as Suzuki grabbed him by the shoulder, fingers grabbing bone-deep, and threw him to the checkered carpet.
“Goddammit!” Yutaka shouted as he seized Suzuki by the collar, pulling him off Yuu, “Leave him alone!”
Three.
Suzuki jerked away and spun, snapping a punch, catching Yutaka in the jaw. Yutaka never flinched, never blinked in the moment where his friend was sprawled on his floor and the man in front of him was baring his teeth – he poured every inch of himself into his fist. Suzuki’s nose exploded into a crimson mess.
Two.
But Yuu was so far, far away. And as the chaos ripped apart the walls around him, as Yutaka screamed from somewhere deep within him and threw himself onto Suzuki, Yuu smiled.
One.
:.:.:
A/N: I apologize if the action was minimal here, but I always believed that a story should be a rise-and-fall of climaxes. It's time to introduce a little background, gain some outsider's perspective (Yutaka) and establish what exactly is going on. I'm really excited for the next chapter though (specifically the end of it, muahahah) so be ready!
And by the way, always take note of the time in the beginning of the chapters ;)
Hope you enjoyed~!
Pairing: Aoi/Uruha, Ruki/Reita
Genre: Mystery, drama, romance
Chapter: 2/13
Warnings: Character "death" (you'll see), "time-traveling", grittiness
Synopsis: In which time can bend, Yuu grapples for second chances and the simplest actions reap the largest consequences. He has twelve hours to save him.
:.:.:
8:07PM
:.:.:
Static gasped and blurred – the stark images of scorched terrain, white and red debris, and mangled remains of 207 passengers flickered in and out of existence as the generator whirred. The television screen was a massacre. Bed sheets strewn about Shiba park, hiding the silent screams of the dead. The MD-90 had gently swooped into the clear sky to float between earth and atmosphere at 11:50AM – only to spiral out of the clouds’ soft hands and bury itself deep into an early grave of cherry blossoms and wildflowers.
Aerial footage zoomed in on the quarter-mile trail of ruins with an almost vicious curiosity. Flames were licking the wreckage, a curved scar disfiguring the entire park. The earth had been ripped inside out – the devil had howled in defiance and dragged its claws across the world. All was charred, disfigured and not-right, save the perfectly preserved tail section of the MD-90, sitting poised and pleasant in the onslaught of hell. A glaring white and deep red, it was waving the proverbial flag – drenched in vermilion and surrendering its victims to the Grim.
“No survivors,” the droning voice of a newswoman warbled through the slideshows of sobbing witnesses and plumes of opaque smoke. Her curls were styled just-so and her eyes held a detached sorrow, flitting to and fro as the prompter rolled onwards, even in the mouth of tragedy. “First responders including all of Minato-ku’s police force and firefighters have been on the scene for several hours. They have successfully recovered Flight 402’s black-box and a press conference is expected at 9:00 tonight.”
The images of shredded metal, twisted in beautiful sculptures of disaster, caught the sinking sun’s light – appearing ethereal amongst screams and whys. Still frames of coiled corpses and melted oxygen masks from throughout the day began to cycle. A reaper’s broken record. Glowing embers, body bags, red-black-black. Firefighters, civilians, policemen all scattered and scurrying to uncover beating hearts that weren’t there. Pulsing life had given way to personalized and haiku-condensed tragedies: laptops and iPods melded to the ground, a Bay Stars hat resting in a patch of smoldering grass; a child’s shoe; backpacks and briefcases. Round and round, death’s forever carousel – the fragility of this world spliced and splattered upon the screen.
The TV continued to showcase the crash in all its HD-glory from within the mahogany entertainment center. It was nested in the corner of a room that had once dreamed of housing a library, but had tripped and dropped its books in clumsy haste. It was an organized chaos. A mishmash of worn book spines lay piled here, an outcrop of old memos and forgotten chargers over there. Gold and mauve koi tapestries lined one wall, endearingly askew as a clutter of candles, misplaced mugs and house keys dotted the pockets of free space. Tatami had been traded in for a checkered carpet – the only thing that portrayed a sense of order and balance in the cramped den.
Yuu stood within the epicenter of familiar disarray. Thoughts racing and knees violently quaking. He could still smell the burst of gunpowder, could still feel the fluttering gasps of Matsumoto against his chest. A low, keening whine echoed in his ears – slowly swelling into a vicious shriek until Yuu sucked in a gulp of air. He caught the arm of the sofa as he collapsed in on himself, fingernails pulling ruthlessly at the leather. The surface felt cool, slick with his sweat. He took another breath, trying to spit out the odd metallic tang in his mouth. Another. Exhale. And another.
There was a disconcerting sense of awakening – as if the black-laced horror he had witnessed in the interrogation room had never happened. Never existed. The amber glow of Matsumoto’s eyes, the deadly curl of Suzuki’s lip, the cold kiss of the bullet against his skull … Never there; gone.
A golden hue drenched the moment, a light’s echo in his noir irises – a sun glare on a forgotten memento. Breaths were coming steadily now. Slow lungs beside his trembling heart. Yuu glanced around the room, knuckles white as he clenched at the leather, desperately trying to grab onto any sort of bearing.
He blinked – a flash of Kouyou’s there-not-there-fucking-gone face greeting him. A searing blaze overtook his mind as the hurt now stabbed each breath that was his – and not his.
Senses sputtering, track of time lost to the laughter of madness, he desperately looked around the room again – trying to blink away Kouyou’s lone and pleading-why-didn’t-you-save-me eye.
Familiarity finally struck him. The tumult of mess-not-mess now easily recognizable in the slew of impossibility. The low hum of a generator sung on, filling the house with electricity in a city without power.
Yutaka.
The name caught in his throat, barely passing through the air on his lips.
His neighbor. His best friend since senior year. The one who had a dimpled smile, an infectious laugh. The one who desperately clung to him, pushed him back-back-away from hurt. Who tried to save Yuu’s broken pieces before he was utterly shattered.
Yuu had been here an hour earlier, the taste of his scream still on his tongue and Yutaka’s wet eyes wracked with shock. Because he couldn’t save either of them. Because Yuu had shattered anyways.
Because Kouyou was gone.
The raven-haired man put a hand to his chest, fingers scratching at the fabric of his scarf, eyes wide and glistening. Yuu saw him then, remembered. Perfect as he lay tangled in Yuu’s sheets, beautiful as he watched Yuu with that tilted smile – the one that promised and believed in this. Yuu closed his eyes, world allowing him to drift into the sweet release of black – where Kouyou’s soft whisper of “You’re a nova, Yuu” was still there.
“Please, stay – ”
Yuu startled awake from his reverie, the wisps of Kouyou’s breath fading against his neck. The glare of the TV caught his eye, lulling him to watch. The wreckage of the jet and the remains of its passengers was still strewn about like discarded keepsakes. Yuu regarded the reel of endless footage, face void of empathy as an engine burst with a flurry of spark and smoke. The sinking grief in his chest was pinching. It was as if with Kouyou’s blood came the scythe of bedlam and smirking disaster. It was suiting, Yuu figured, watching with aching eyes and a heart too filled with his own selfish mourning to weep for those whose names he did not know.
The loop of death kept thrumming, newscasters scrambling for soundbites, when the bland station logo in the bottom corner gripped his attention. Yuu froze, frost beginning to latch itself deep in the marrow of his bones. The first claws of panic sunk into him.
The timestamp was illuminated amongst the clogged ticker and burning fuselage.
8:15PM
Yuu stared, the dread pricking at the back of his neck. Such a mistake could never be made on a live broadcast, he knew. But faced with the impossible, Yuu frantically reached for the remote – about to turn to another news channel and compare – when the sight of his bare wrist halted him.
The silver watch his mother had given him with a knowing wink (“You can’t be late in the city!”) – the one Kouyou playfully tapped the face of to grab Yuu’s fickle attention – had vanished.
There was a roaring in his ears. Yuu caught sight of the subtle marks in his skin from where the watch had been torn from him. And his wallet, keys, heart –
Wait.
Ignoring the splatter of red on his sleeve (that felt eerily wetter than before), Yuu shakily reached into his pocket. Trembling fingers touched the corner of a thick envelop – the letter. Pulling it out, Yuu noted – with a breath of disbelief – that it was cream-color with a satin finish. An intricate crest bearing two snarling lions pawing at a shield that encased an illustration of the earth was embossed upon it. An ornate crown sat atop the shield, the word undo and the numeral XX lay at the clawed feet of each respective feline. The elaborate pattern appeared at once royal and whimsical.
Fingertips rubbing the glued seal, Yuu’s lips parted. The absurdity, the insanity of what he was holding… The stranger’s slate eyes came back to him – shining in a silver as bright as the swoop of metal kissing his maw.
Reality already splintered, and too far gone to truly care, Yuu immediately dug into the pocket of his jeans. And there the pocket watch lay. He held it as gently as he could. The fragile chain still shifted erratically from the tremor in his soul. Flipping it open, mirror-polished gold glinted in the waning light. A foreign verse smiled up at him.
Hora fugit; in inceptum finis est
And there, resting in roman numerals that reflected an almost regal air, was the time.
8:15PM
Yuu slowly shook his head, knotted locks sticking to the sweat of his neck. Ashen face caught in the glimmering reflection, Yuu ogled at his bloodshot eyes – resting in between the fated numbers of improbability. The interrogation started with Matsumoto’s grin at 9:20PM.
“Fucking impossible.” The words were tight.
But he remembered sitting in this room with Yutaka, the younger man dabbing his fingers with a warm washcloth, wiping away and erasing the red beneath his nails. They had sat here for almost an hour, drowning in the dull agony of Kou’s-not-here. And when the cloth was soaked with rust-colored blood, Yutaka had kneeled in front of him, holding his shaking hands tight. He had found Yuu’s listless eyes – silently screaming, caged and why-him – and whispered, “It was quick, Yuu. I promise, he didn’t feel it.”
Because he couldn’t say, “It’s alright.”
It wasn’t. He would’ve choked on the acrid lie – everything was twisted and marred and wrong.
But Yuu hadn’t heard him either way, dun eyes drawn to the den’s door as it slowly swung open. Two detectives stood there; grim faces and knowing stares. Suzuki Akira’s hand hovered atop his holstered pistol – fidgeting, eager.
This was where he was arrested – dragged, taken, handcuffed, hearing Yutaka’s pleas to listen-wait – at 9:00PM.
The wriggling slice of blind hope and blunt rationality were warring within him. Yuu knew it was lunacy – crazy. But here was the stranger’s promise cradled in his palm.
“You have twelve hours.”
With his last memory being the glare of Suzuki’s glock and the pain of Matsumoto’s nails in his arm, Yuu breathed in deep and tore open the crisp envelop. Carefully unfolding the two sheets of paper, he silently read with bated breath.
Shiroyama-kun,
I hope that dastardly fog is beginning to lift from your mind. However, I’m sure it’s being replaced by a far more greater confusion –
Yuu read the words over (and over) until the ink began to blur. Swallowing the pulsing lump in his throat, he tucked it all back into his pocket, unsure of what exactly he just read. The fearsome notion that he was being toyed with, dangled above an impossible wish for someone’s sadistic pleasure, was crippling. Yuu despised tricks – abhorred the innocent pranks Kouyou unleashed throughout the years – and he despised playing into the role of the fool even more so.
The impossible hope was festering, however, despite the pungent doubt threatening to numb his heart.
He yearned for this chance, any chance, and now – the glossy picture of Kouyou’s deadened, crimson-speckled stare still throbbing and fresh – perhaps Yuu had the chance to embrace the impossible. To bring light back into those honey irises. To bring him (the world) back.
No question as to where he stood at this moment and no question about the time presented to him, Yuu seized the hope enveloping his chest.
What if.
The door suddenly opened. Uke Yutaka’s slight frame hovered quietly in the doorway, lips downturned and eyes haunted. Wearing a rumpled shirt, jean pockets inside out, but brown hair tousled with utmost care, he was the epitome of flustered paradox. Disorganized and neat. The largest laugh and the most sorrowful gaze.
Yutaka toed the threshold for a moment, and Yuu could practically see him replaying that horrid moment of discovery over (and over). Blood staining the bottoms of his Chucks while Yuu clutched to his lover’s leg, his face twisted in a guttural plea.
Yutaka blinked, usually mirthful eyes quiet and infinitely morose. He stepped into the room with a certain hush. For if he breathed too hard, the entire universe could rattle apart completely.
In the crash-and-burn years of high school, a time when Yuu wielded a fierce temper and stolen fur coats, Yutaka had been the quiet confidante – the gentle conscience – of the other’s bitter rebellion. The early era of their friendship was subtle, a gradual give-and-take that Yuu only acknowledged with a parting glance.
The purple bruises were still aching on his heart from when his father had left, when his mother had forgotten him. It made him hesitant, so very wary of this strange boy with dimpled grins and soft hands – who had suddenly plopped down next to him against the brick wall of the school and asked for a lighter. Yuu had paused, taken aback how those cherubic lips had so easily fit around that sinful cigarette. It seemed unnatural for this innocent-looking boy to be blackening his lungs. Yuu almost reached out and said stop, stop, you can’t – but he merely watched with a cautious eye.
And Yutaka had stared at the torn skin of Yuu’s fingers when he handed him the Zippo – gingerly touched the dried blood and never broke his gaze with the elder’s noir eyes, “You don’t need to be so angry.”
He had stitched himself to Yuu’s side ever since. The raven-haired youth wondered, in the times when Yutaka was too busy to notice, whether he had stuck by to prevent him from tearing the skin off his knuckles by punching out teeth – or if Yutaka had somehow seen him through the black. The anger. The silent desperation to reach out and touch something real, something that would stay.
So, Yuu had turned to him on that hot July morning, caps and gowns shimmering in the midday sun, and whispered lowly, “You won’t leave?”
It was a command as much as a longing question. And Yutaka had smiled, like always, and whispered right back, “Never.”
Because Yutaka had always known behind his grin that Yuu would leave first – had already left.
And that Yuu would be okay.
Because Kouyou would protect that scarred heart, always.
Yutaka felt the wetness begin to blur his vision, but merely bit his lip and let the pain die somewhere inside that was still whole – even as the younger’s words came back to them in haunting clarity:
“I won’t let him hurt, Yutaka, I promise – ”
The mug of ginger tea felt cold in his hands. Yutaka refused to look at its contents, sure that he would see a murky crimson instead of a pallid hue. Rather, he watched Yuu’s hooded eyes as he handed him the mug. Heavy silence kissed their lips, Yuu staring at the tea in his hands. He briefly lost himself in the tawny color, the warm scent.
“I know you hate ginger,” Yutaka’s voice was raw and taut, straining to keep the wetness from his words, “But it helps. It’ll ease everything.”
Yuu pressed his mouth to the mug’s lukewarm rim and swallowed thickly.
Garbled voices from the television wafted over the pocket of quiet, a grim and monochromatic sound until Yutaka forced out, “There’s coroner over there with two detectives. They said everything needs to be printed and photographed before they – ”
Yutaka paused, breath catching. “ – before they take him.”
Yuu could feel the sense of turmoil sink into his ribs – he knew all of this. He knew how the hour would tick away, how the clock would glare mercilessly as the gurney was rolled into the barren street and guilt was forced into Yuu’s mouth. He knew the body bag would be black, the disfigured mass never alluding to what truly lay inside – a man who had tried his hardest to make him smile, a man who captured the moonlight and offered it to him –
– a man who loved him.
In fifteen minutes, Yutaka’s door would swing open and reveal the detectives he would never be able to rip away from memory: Suzuki and Matsumoto.
“I know someone who can help – his son’s in my class. He’s one of the best. He’ll help you, Yuu.”
It was exactly what Yutaka had said before. The same quaver, the same grudging acceptance that Yuu would need to clear his name in time. He had the same look in his brown eyes – a gasping, restless anguish.
“He’s one of the best criminal attorneys in the entire prefecture.” The assurance was both for Yuu and himself, “He’ll stop any wild accusations. He’ll help.”
Yuu also remembered how he hadn’t shown up at the police station.
But Yutaka was already racing to his end table, clumsily sifting through old post-its and last year’s calendar for his phone.
The dial tone cut through Yuu’s skull; a piercing whine that made him whip out his arm and grab Yutaka’s wrist with a growl.
“Wait.”
Yutaka stopped, eyes wide at the grave emotion that laced Yuu’s voice. He slowly lowered the phone.
“I … I don’t know, but – ” Yuu paused, caged eyes restless, the unsound glint sending a chill of unease through Yutaka’s bones, “ – but I need to find out who did this.”
Yutaka nodded, hand still resting atop the phone, “They will, Yuu. Whoever it is will rot in jail.”
His head was starting to spin, colors blurring to an acrid yellow-red-black. The urgency clawed at his jugular, leaving a burnt taste under his tongue, “No. No, I have to… I need to stop him.”
Yutaka’s face fell into confusion, “Stop him from what, Yuu-kun?”
Soft, quiet, treading lightly.
“I’ve got to find him.” Unwavering and final.
Yutaka stared, listening, hesitating, reaching for what to say. He could see what was unraveling in Yuu’s eyes. The same rage and rebellion that had spit fire all those years ago – dangerous.
He spoke gently with an underlying firmness, “Let the cops handle that. Whoever did this is a lunatic, as dangerous as they come.” As are you.
“He’s not dead.” Yuu blurted, dark eyes sparking.
Yuu… The breath in his lungs left him, suddenly so tired. Yutaka moved to sit next to Yuu’s rigid form on the couch, glancing at the clenched jaw with empathy, “I loved him too, Yuu. He was… everything I hoped you could have – and all I couldn’t give you. It’s…” Yutaka closed his eyes, “It’s not fair.”
The sudden clang of the mug hitting the wood of Yutaka’s table reverberated around them. Yuu ran a jittering hand through his raven locks, fingers catching in the windswept tangles. Not feeling completely in control, something dark seeping into him. Broken pieces scattering inside him. The abyss of insanity seemed imminent – and Yuu dove in.
“I can save him.”
Yutaka sat there patiently, listening – watching helplessly as his best friend’s mind seemed to fall in on itself.
“I can’t explain it and I don’t know how, but… I can save him.”
The younger continued to gape – not angry, not condemning – eyes simply pain-ridden and heart cracking ever the more deeper. Kouyou had been his best friend – the other half of Yuu himself – and while he had adored him, the passion that etched itself into his friends’ chests was something so untouchable, beautiful. Like stellar dust falling, like nebulas chastely kissing. To watch them together, it was as if sunlight had broached the moon. And Yutaka could not imagine the pain splintering in Yuu’s soul.
Yuu, suddenly assured and full of purpose, said in a hush, “What if I said I could tell you what would happen – the future?”
Yutaka couldn’t stop his brow from lifting, “Like if the Tigers win the series this year…?”
Yuu averted his gaze to study his hands, unsure of how to respond. He could still see flecks of red beneath his nails.
“Let them stare, Yuu-shi. Just hold my hand, okay – ?”
“I’m sorry,” Yutaka lowered his head, “I… I didn’t mean to – ”
“No, it’s fine.” Yuu turned back, a tick of a clock counting down in his head, and found Yutaka’s cautious eyes, “It sounds fucking insane, I know. But just please hear me out. They’re going to come in here and arrest me, bring me to the station, try and make me confess – show me a gun I’ve never seen before.”
Yutaka’s eyes grew nervous, brow furrowing.
Yuu fisted his hands, jaw tight, “I didn’t kill him, Yutaka. I fucking loved him – tried so hard to never hurt him, to protect and hold him as tight as I could. And I wish it was me, Yutaka. I just…”
“I know you didn’t do it,” Yutaka lightly touched the other’s knee. “You’re just confused right now. In shock. Both of us are.”
Yutaka took his hand away and reached for the phone once more. “I’m going to call him now, okay? I think you should talk to him.”
“He won’t get here in time.”
“Time for what?”
“They’re going to arrest me in – ” Yuu reached into his pocket and pulled out the gold watch, flipping it open.
“Where did you get – ?”
“ – in thirteen minutes.” The watch shut with a definitive click.
“What? That doesn’t make sense,” Yutaka shook his head, frowning in consternation, “They’re not going to arrest you.”
“Suzuki and Matsumoto.”
“Who?” The world was spinning, tilting, falling.
“Detectives Suzuki and Matsumoto. The two detectives in my house right now. They’re going to arrest me.”
Yutaka remembered them, had greeted the two detectives when they had arrived with a grim handshake. He had lead them to Kouyou’s body, had seen the dual looks of why-what-a-shame. Yuu had been tucked away in his den at the time, away from the gore, and the two agreed with the decision. They finally gave their names as Yutaka began to head out the front door: Detectives Suzuki and Matsumoto.
“You know them?” Utterly taken aback, Yutaka felt himself being pulled into his friend’s wild irises.
“I’ve never seen – well, I never saw them until they burst in here to cuff me.”
Yutaka stared. “So. You’re saying that you know what’s going to happen.”
Yuu nodded.
“Okay.” Yutaka fell silent and nodded to himself as well. The situation was becoming even more wrought with peril as Yuu now seemed to be deluding himself into a sense of omniscience. The younger man recalled the books he read in his college psychology course. Something about believing one was all-knowing as to control the tumult in their life. Yutaka glanced at Yuu as he put down the phone for the last time. The elder’s hands were no longer shaking. But his eyes were holding back a scream.
Yutaka spoke slowly, “Alright. So then you would know what they’re wearing.”
Yuu’s voice never wavered, “Matsumoto is wearing a blue blazer. His shirt looks like it was just opened from the goddamn package and you can practically see the iron creases in his slacks. Suzuki’s an asshole with too much gel in his hair. He’s got a leather jacket too, and faded jeans.”
Yutaka took a deep breath and stood, willing to appease Yuu’s slow and steady breakdown for now. He didn’t want to hurt him any further by dismissing his adamancy. He walked to the window, looking through the shutters to see a perfect view of where the cops had emerged from their respective cars. Yutaka inwardly nodded; Yuu could have easily watched their arrival, seen their outfits clearly. But the younger refused to challenge the other. Not with that look in his eyes.
“Listen to me, Yutaka.” A growl was clawing at his throat, “I’m not crazy. I’m not. The Hanshin Tigers – ”
Yutaka balked with a disbelieving stutter, “Why are we talking about the Tigers?”
But Yuu was getting desperate. He needed Yutaka with him, beside him (like always).
“The game going on right now. They win in the bottom of the ninth, they…” He trailed off. He was speaking in circles, burying himself further into lunacy in his friend’s eyes. He bowed his head, eyes downcast and defeat sinking its teeth into his shoulders.
But then Yuu looked up in bright revelation, “His neck… Matsumoto’s neck. He has four scars there.”
Yutaka remained silent.
Yuu tried to catch his eye, voice low and pleading, “You know there’s no way I could see that from your window.”
He smirked.
“And ask him about scotch.”
Yutaka stepped out the side door and into the waning sun. The vivid colors of the city seemed drained and forced, a monochrome guise to his own lifeless heart. The world blurred and faded, the only thing tangible and there was the poignant pain nuzzling his side. As he neared Yuu’s house, anxiety began to coil in his gut. He didn’t want to see the crimson slathered genkan. He didn’t want his knees to give way, to cling to the doorframe again as his eyes fell upon Kouyou’s mauled face. Yutaka didn’t want his last memory of the auburn-haired man to be the bone-white of his slacked jaw, the terror of his lone eye –
Gone.
Kouyou had always been there – they had been friends ever since the days of bandhood pipedreams. And though the taller had always been so thoroughly intertwined with Yuu, he gave himself to Yutaka as much as he could. He knew Yutaka’s heart – silently listened to Yutaka’s drunken prattle of his latest failed romance, letting him talk all night until the bar flicked the lights off. He knew his mind and how Yutaka would forget – offering him his missing cell phone with a sly grin. He knew his mistakes and misgivings, his weaknesses and silent struggles. Kouyou knew he loved Yuu (loved him just like Kouyou did) ever since that first cigarette and brush of fingertips. And he still smiled, still loved Yutaka for all he was, for all he could ever hope to be.
Kouyou had entered their lives much like he did everything else – at his own pace and with a glimmer betaking his honey irises. He had challenged Yuu’s ferocity – dared to lean in close and breathe in the flames. Two novas colliding, gravity too weak to keep them here on this earth. And Yutaka had watched from the brick wall – the one Yuu had deemed theirs – cigarette snuffed out and in awe as this lanky teen smiled at the elder, dangerously close.
But like the flames they were, they kindled. Yuu and Kouyou shared the same calluses from coaxing guitars to scream and croon. They shared the same hair dye – both bent over the gas station sink, rusty blonde staining their fingertips. They shared Yutaka – who fussed over both of them, who made sure they ate, who made sure they found sleep on those neon nights of vodka kisses and honest tongues. Kouyou gave Yuu his scarlet pick. Yuu gave him his fur coat.
But they weren’t perfect.
They fought hard – Yuu screamed and threw anything he could grasp at the walls; Kouyou grit his teeth and whispered black words that twisted in their chests. They were messy – both pushing, pushing until neither felt the hurt in their lungs. And they would touch afterwards.
Just close their eyes and touch each freckle and pore and bone.
And Yutaka watched, enamored with the idea of them. How they fit into each other’s jagged edges.
So to see him dead on the floor, life torn away and blood caking the grout… Yutaka swallowed back the bile. Nothing was making sense – who, who could have a soul so black as to shatter that life? To shatter Yuu…?
And as Kouyou’s lungs lay vacant, it was as if the bullet had lodged itself into Yuu as well. His mind had collapsed, the shock of finding the keeper of his heart lifeless overtaking him. Yutaka was sure of it. He had fallen into denial, sinking lower into a deluded fantasy about changing the past, making it right, saving him.
But it had all ended too quickly to ever intervene.
For Yutaka, the harsh bite of the gunshot hit him as he was grading papers – essays on the galaxy and milky way. The brown-haired man had felt his spine clatter, stomach sinking, sinking. He didn’t remember getting up, nearly ripping off his doorknob – just that he was suddenly cutting through Yuu’s open garage door, through the genkan entrance. The man he found lying askew around the rear steps wasn’t Kouyou.
Not anymore.
And when he finally made himself release the doorframe, step over the body, the squelch of his shoes making his throat itch and stomach churn, he found Yuu. Arms wrapped around the limp leg, stroking it like a child uncomprehending of death. Pleas dripping from his trembling lips echoing off the stained tile:
“Kou, Kou, please stay – ”
Yutaka crossed the patch of trampled grass – a lasting impression of his earlier haste – making his way to the ajar door. He could spot the coroner’s truck and two unmarked police cars: a Mazda RX-7 and a Mustang. It was disconcerting to see the emptiness, the utter desolation of the normally bustling streets. A violent crime such as this would have usually attracted a quarter of the police force, miles of caution tape, the arrival of flashing cameras and eager reporters. But the rest of the department, every policeman, desk clerk, secretary and reporter was at the crash site. Every fireman, EMT, councilman and doctor from the prefecture had responded – flames beckoning with a come-hither glow. A plane crash in Minato-ku was unheard of, an ominous anomaly.
And so, the bottom of the barrel had been scraped – only two cops available to trek bloody footprints around Kouyou’s sprawled corpse.
Slipping inside, Yutaka started to cut through the small living room, and heard the low timbre of the detectives in the front hall. He stopped, chest tightening. He was indulging Yuu’s delusion far too much; sneaking into a crime scene in search for a validation to the elder’s desperate words. Yutaka took a moment, a breath. But he felt himself being pulled by an unseen force – a cruel curiosity – towards the genkan. And even though he couldn’t stomach-handle-bear to gaze unto Kouyou’s body again – he craned his neck to where it lay.
Because maybe it was a wild mistake. Someone else. A nightmare. Not real.
But the white-haired coroner was leaning over the black body bag, zipping it up with a weary sigh. Yutaka could barely discern Kouyou’s lithe form under the opaque vinyl. He morbidly wondered if there was any chance the mortician could graft an ounce of his beauty back, to paint life back into his cheeks if only for Yuu to look upon him one last time. To say goodbye.
The floor was still pooled with red, the rear wall saturated and pierced with fragments of flash and bone. Several auburn tufts of hair were fluttering – as if clinging to last breaths. With the onslaught of devastation from the plane crash, it would take days before this grisly reminder of violence, death and he’s-gone-ripped-wide-open-gone was scrubbed away. Not erased. Never erased.
Yutaka stared at the wall, a lovely macabre – a gruesome portrait by Pollock himself – and numbly decided he would do it himself. He would clean it as best he could, even if Kouyou’s blood got buried deep beneath his nails – even if it never truly washed off his skin.
I won’t let you see this, Yuu – I won’t –
“Oi!” The deep baritone startled him, shocking Yutaka back to the moment at hand.
He jerked back, finding the glare of the taller detective. Yutaka took a step away from the threshold of the genkan, absently eyeing the stiff hair. Well, Yuu was right about that part at least…
“What the hell are you doing here?” Suzuki narrowed his eyes, two flashing daggers, “We told you to stay next door with Shiroyama until we’re done.”
“I thought – ” Yutaka glanced around. Body bag. Bloodied wall. Red footprints. “I thought you were done…”
“Maybe you didn’t realize, but this is a crime scene. It’s just me and Matsumoto here and we have to do this investigation on our own. We’re done when I say we’re done.”
Yutaka almost recoiled from the acidic tone. “I-I’m sorry.” He turned to the door, “I’ll be next door, then.”
“Wait. Where’s Shiroyama? I thought you were going to stay with him. Shit.” Suzuki paused, suddenly bristling with nerves, “Fuck. Is he the type to run?”
“Run?” Yutaka wrinkled his brow, “Run from what? His lover is dead. He can barely stand.”
“You know what?” the detective interrupted, crooking his finger, “You’re here. Let’s have a conversation, Uke-san.”
The brown-haired man slowly nodded, knowing Yuu wouldn’t leave – wouldn’t leave Kouyou behind, never – and said, “Whatever it takes to catch who did this.”
Yutaka felt the other detective come in behind him, but didn’t turn around. He wanted to help, to bring justice to this nightmare – he didn’t want to feel so goddamn helpless as Yuu sat in his den with hopeless eyes, as Kouyou lay there in forever-silence.
“You said before that you were close to both the deceased and Shiroyama. How close would that be?”
“Best friends. Equally close to them both,” Yutaka felt the shorter detective step closer to him.
“Were either of them having an affair?”
Yutaka grit his teeth, hand fisting, “You’re crossing the line – ”
“– We just need to ask,” Matsumoto’s low voice crept up from behind. The shorter man passed him, coming to stand beside Suzuki. He studied Yutaka for a second, mouth twisting oddly, “Where were you when Takashima-san was shot?”
“I told you before. I was next door, grading papers for my class. I heard the shot and just dropped everything and ran over.”
“Anyone with you?”
“No, but I had just gotten off the phone with my mother. You can verify it.”
Suzuki hummed noncommittally, gray orbs ever-focused and closing in, “What kind of relationship did Shiroyama Yuu have with the deceased?”
“His name is Kouyou.” Yutaka bit off, anger nipping at his jaw. To reduce Kouyou to stale and distant labels, to finalize it… He needed to keep him here for just a little longer. “They were as close as they could squeeze themselves together. I never doubted for a second that they were in love.”
“Were either of them emotional?” Matsumoto’s eyes were lighter than Suzuki’s, tone more sympathetic and Yutaka found himself looking at the shorter detective instead, relieved.
“Not really. Sure, Yuu was always a little short-fused, but never violent. And Kouyou knows how to handle him, believe me.” Yutaka couldn’t refer to him in the past, he couldn’t get used to the fact he’d never hear that lilting voice: Yukkun, you’ll always stay with us, right?
“If that’s the case, why would he kill him?”
Yutaka didn’t answer. He must have misheard the question… Suzuki wouldn’t have said –
“Why would he do it?” Suzuki leaned in, impatient and willing to pressure Yutaka until the other cracked and broke, “Money? Jealousy?”
“There’s absolutely no way Yuu killed him,” Yutaka’s voice shook. “He would never raise a hand to him, let alone shoot him – he wanted to protect Kouyou, he was so afraid of causing him any pain – he would never – ”
The wetness was back, bleeding from his eyes. The room was blurring and something in his chest shuddered.
“Well, some things suggest otherwise,” Matsumoto calmly said as he held up a sizeable plastic bag. A large, impossibly elegant pistol was nestled inside. Ivory handle. Gilded sides. In-laid sapphires. “Any idea why he would be keeping this fucking expensive weapon in the trunk of his car, Uke-san?”
Yutaka was dumbfounded as he looked at the Peacemaker, sapphires glowing eerily in the light from the window, world suddenly torn apart. “That can’t… That can’t be his.”
Matsumoto shook the bag a little, watching Yutaka bite his lip, and raised a brow, “Of course not.”
“Despite your doubts,” Suzuki flung out a hand to grip Matsumoto’s wrist, irked by the shaking, “I think he did it. If he has an attorney, I would suggest you call him. I’m going to interrogate this guy until he admits what he’s done. And believe me, after a shitty day like today, I have no fucking time for lies.”
Yutaka stared at the cop and remembrance of why he had come over in the first place slapped him. “I’m not crazy, Yutaka – ”
Yutaka eyed the leather jacket and faded jeans, the blue blazer and crisply ironed slacks. But he could have seen that easily. Don’t feed his madness.
With his heart in his throat, palms slick with sweat, he glanced at the taller’s neck. Vein pulsing, smooth, no scars.
“It’s Detective Matsumoto, right?” Yutaka asked softly.
“No, I’m Suzuki Akira. He’s Matsumoto.” Suzuki jammed a thumb to his partner as they all traipsed towards the kitchen.
“Sorry,” Yutaka absently supplied as he turned to Matsumoto. He swallowed, not believing he was actually asking, “Can I get you anything? Maybe a scotch?”
“Fuck no.” Matsumoto glared at him and shook his head, growling, “Why?”
“I thought maybe – ”
“I fucking hate scotch,” Matsumoto snapped, jowls thrashing as he stalked into the genkan.
Yutaka watched with passive eyes as Matsumoto stepped to Kouyou’s encased body. He methodically pulled off his latex gloves, bent down, and helped Suzuki and the elder coroner lift the black – black as night, as the universe collapsing, as Yuu’s sad and gone eyes – bag up onto the gurney.
Their clothes were exactly as Yuu had unflinchingly described them, but Yuu had seen it through the window – had to. He probably forgot he even looked – mind too fragile and desperate for his own reality to escape its cozy retreat.
As he looked on, Yutaka suddenly felt his spine go rigid. Something slick and ebony was dripping in his lungs. He couldn’t seem to catch his breath, eyes wide and locked on Matsumoto’s hand – the one he used to briefly scratch his jaw, head tilted in the peculiar light.
Right there, carved in pale flesh.
Four scars kissing his neck.
The air was stagnant.
Breathe in. Out.
Again.
Yuu hadn’t moved from Yutaka’s couch, still caught in the warp of illusion-somewhere-not-here. He had read the letter three times over, thoughts bathed in a crippling vice of disbelief. Logic had been slaughtered ever since that stranger and his slate, kohl-rimmed eyes smiled and uttered, “Are you sure?”
He had never been superstitious – myths, legends and UFOs all but absent from his mind. The idea of ghosts always flustered him, but Yuu had never believed in anything other than the slightly colder spots of air now and then. Lucky pennies, rabbit’s feet, bad luck, broken mirrors – none of it was in Yuu’s vernacular. It was child’s play. But he would gladly embrace it all, praise upon his knees the merits of each, if it would bring Kouyou back.
Yuu sighed, stood up and walked about the den in a blear of consciousness. He came upon the rows of pictures on the shelves. There was no consistency to Yutaka’s past, no stability despite his nature to will other things, other people, to order. Several frames housed pictures of Shin – an ex-boyfriend, three years and counting; several were noticeably cropped – excising a former lover, but keeping the picture. Because Kouyou and Yuu were in it as well. Two frames were empty.
Yuu was pulled to a photo of himself and Kouyou, arms slung around each other in a half-attempt at sobriety and Yutaka caught in the middle with an exasperated grin. He couldn’t remember that night – a blur of moonlight in their palms, Kouyou on his lips and Yutaka wrapping scarves around them tight as they wandered – going nowhere and everywhere. It must have been taken by Shin. Or Kazuki.
They were all smiling.
He wrenched himself away from the photo, not wanting to feel the grief stab at him, slicing through each tendon and heartbeat. Yuu glanced towards the window instead. Detectives Suzuki and Matsumoto were emerging from his house, helping the coroner push the gurney with the black bag – Kouyou – into the awaiting truck. Yutaka was standing in the sparse driveway, head hung in sorrow – lips murmuring last goodbyes, I’m sorry-sorry-sorry – as he was loaded in and the door was closed. The two detectives then turned to Yutaka and the three began a slow march across the patch of grass separating the two houses.
The thought of running briefly entered Yuu’s mind – but he had nowhere to escape to and he wondered if his fate was sealed no matter how fast or far he ran. He pulled the watch from his pocket and flipped it open.
8:55PM
He tugged out the letter from his pocket once more, rereading the impossible, slanting scrawl one last time. Slowly, deliberately, soaking in the strokes as if he were reading the sacred Buddhist texts.
Shiroyama-kun,
I hope that dastardly fog is beginning to lift from your mind. However, I’m sure it’s being replaced by a far more greater confusion as to what is going on – finding yourself in a time that has already passed, in a place you have already been at eight o’clock this evening.
In life, there are moment that are impossible to grasp, to come to terms and accept: the harsh scythe of Death upon the innocent and its injustice, the bloodcurdling agony and gasping confusion at the sudden loss of those we love – the impossible cruelty of fate.
Yuu couldn’t help but to gaze out the window then, morose eyes resting on the coroner’s truck where Kouyou’s body lay – stiff, lifeless, cold.
One simple, selfish act can reverberate through time – again and again – through life, robbing a stranger of his very existence. A loved one could meet his death from the repercussions of a moment, an event, he may never know or understand. Yet, if this one moment didn’t occur – was erased – if it could be found, could be taken back, the lives it touched could be changed. Altered. Saved.
You are now standing in a room – on a wavering cusp – in an instant that seems torn from your memory. Like a victim of black magic, of some divine intervention, a game of the gods – but I assure you it is none of that.
You are in the very room you were in during the eight o’clock hour this evening, living that hour once again. But this time.. you are free to do as you wish – turn left where before you turned right. Say yes when you’ve said no. No one will know the difference, nor will anyone else experience this bending of time. You are on your own, alone to choose direction as you see fitting. To alter the future you have endured.
You’ve been given a gift, Yuu. A gift, a blessing, to live twelve hours of your life over again.
You must pay very close attention. Time is short and it does not wait.
Every hour, as the minute hand of the gold watch sweeps towards and arrives at twelve, you will slip back in time one-hundred-and-twenty minutes to relive one hour of your life again.
One step forward, two steps back.
Because “when you take a step forward, there will be a road”, yes?
This will occur exactly twelve times – no more, no less. Until you reach the hour of ten o’clock this morning.
With your actions now, stepping back into each prior hour of the day, you have the chance to find and save him.
I will not bore you with explanations nor prattle on about flimsy technicalities. Suffice to say, you will be whisked back to the exact location where you were two hours earlier to live that hour anew once the golden watch strikes.
But be aware – each choice, just as in normal life, has grave consequences. The simplest acts can reap the largest consequences, you know. You have the ability to save Kouyou, the ability to put your world back together, but be warned. It is a precarious route you now venture on, and your choices must be well thought out so as to not unbalance the rest of your or anyone else’s existence.
As to why you are being granted this gift, as to who I am and how this all happened – I don’t believe that’s too important right now. You shall know soon enough.
Good luck. Hora fugit,
H.
PS: Hold tight to this letter and the timepiece. This watch you now carry can never leave you – for if it does, if it is destroyed, you will be lost to the moment you are tied to, reintroduced into the forward-flowing existence of the rest of man, and saving Kouyou’s life will become a cause lost to time itself.
A brief scribble of symbols and an archaic language took up the remaining space of the letter – undecipherable and unimportant to Yuu as he gripped the paper tight. He would believe in this, throw himself from the edge of certainty and lick up the waters of impossibility with masochistic pleasure. There was a glimmer of a chance – a hope-wish – and Yuu feverishly reached for it. Because if he tried… If he closed his eyes and just trusted in this – maybe he could create a reality where Kouyou finds the space between his neck and shoulder and whispers goodnight.
With a sudden push of verve, Yuu suddenly ripped himself from his place at the window, raced out of the den and across the foyer to the front door. Throwing the dead bolt, he rushed – breathless – to the doors in the living room that lead to the rear slate terrace, locking them in succession. Clack. Clack. He locked the side and garage doors, doubled back to the den and closed the heavy door, sealing it tight. Clack.
The odd dead bolt that Yuu and Kouyou had always teased Yutaka about was a sudden blessing. An out of place savior that Yuu thanked with bated breath.
He looked again at the watch.
8:58PM
The sharp sound of pounding made Yuu whip his head up – an incessant banging on the locked front door reverberating along his ribs.
He slowly stepped to the window and closed the slatted wood shutters – sealing himself tight in this den filled with Yutaka’s touch and all of their smiles frozen in time.
The shattering of the dead bolt erupted from the locked front door – a rumble rattling the walls – and Yutaka’s enraged scream suddenly filling the hall.
A brusque knock on the den’s door, “Yuu,” Yutaka’s muffled voice came from the other side, a world away, “It’s me. I called that attorney; he’ll meet us down at the station. But these guys.. They want you to go with them, Yuu. And they say now…”
Yuu remained silent, staring at the room, staring at the watch in the palm of his hand.
8:59PM
“Listen, I’ll be right behind you,” Yutaka’s low tenor was breaking apart, “I swear, Yuu, I swear we’ll fix this.”
No, Yutaka. I am.
“Yuu, I don’t know what’s going on, but I believe you, I believe you – !”
“Enough!” Suzuki’s growl cut Yutaka off, sounding as if he had swallowed glass. “Open this fucking door, Shiroyama.”
The second hand was sweeping in a never-ending arch – slow, slow, take a breath. Thirty seconds gone, thirty to go.
“Yuu, please, I don’t have my keys and these assholes already destroyed my front door.”
But Yuu was already gone. Gone from this moment, waiting to feel the tug of darkness.
“Get the fuck out of my way!” Suzuki snarled at Yutaka. Then softly, dangerously, “You’ve got five seconds, Shiroyama.”
And as Yuu continued to stare at the secondhand’s slow ascent, the door exploded open – splintered into wooden daggers as Suzuki’s foot destroyed both lock and mahogany with a brutish kick. The gun was drawn and held before him as he burst into the room. The look in his eyes was the same – convinced and ready to slaughter for misplaced justice. Matsumoto, also armed, ducked right behind him.
“On the ground!”
Yuu tucked the watch into his pocket just as Suzuki grabbed him by the shoulder, fingers grabbing bone-deep, and threw him to the checkered carpet.
“Goddammit!” Yutaka shouted as he seized Suzuki by the collar, pulling him off Yuu, “Leave him alone!”
Three.
Suzuki jerked away and spun, snapping a punch, catching Yutaka in the jaw. Yutaka never flinched, never blinked in the moment where his friend was sprawled on his floor and the man in front of him was baring his teeth – he poured every inch of himself into his fist. Suzuki’s nose exploded into a crimson mess.
Two.
But Yuu was so far, far away. And as the chaos ripped apart the walls around him, as Yutaka screamed from somewhere deep within him and threw himself onto Suzuki, Yuu smiled.
One.
:.:.:
A/N: I apologize if the action was minimal here, but I always believed that a story should be a rise-and-fall of climaxes. It's time to introduce a little background, gain some outsider's perspective (Yutaka) and establish what exactly is going on. I'm really excited for the next chapter though (specifically the end of it, muahahah) so be ready!
And by the way, always take note of the time in the beginning of the chapters ;)
Hope you enjoyed~!