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The first letter arrives three weeks after he leaves Tokyo.
Three weeks after Sojiro ruffled his hair at the front door of LeBlanc, calloused fingers as much a comfort as an ache. Three weeks since Futaba squeezed her spindly arms around his middle and crushed , like if she let go he’d melt straight into the concrete – a trickster’s final disappearing act. He’d held back in wrapping around her slight shoulders, not wanting to ruin the only kind of magic he had left to give.
Because in a way, she wasn’t wrong.
Homecoming was a slow moving stab to the gut. The morphing from Shibuya to rural rice field is jarring – like stepping out of reality and into a movie set. The director hands him a script, the protagonist’s description: a good student, a good son . It should be familiar. It should be easy. Instead he finds himself rifling through the pages in search of some missing line, or forgotten scene change, trying to figure out how he got from point A to B only to end up right back at A once again. Of course the truth of it was much less theatric; his parent’s absence at the station entrance was telling enough.
The letter is more a package – crumpled and squished on the edges, stressed in its journey from city to countryside. The script scrawled on the cover’s quick and sharp, a cruel kind of pretty. Akira knows immediately who it’s from without reading the return address.
The paper inside’s thin, paper-cut sharp. Single sheet. The imprint of bleeding words seeping through the back – high quality ink, no doubt – only confirms his suspicion.
He pads up the stairs in his sock feet two at a time, ignoring how quiet the house is, oppressive white noise pressing in on the walls like plush insulation. How many times has he crept up the steps, knowing where the creaks lurk and rocked back on them – back and forth till his mother smacked a ladle against the kitchen counter and called his name, an aggravated chastising. A frustration.
His room’s quiet and markedly Morgana-less. The curled spot of warmth next to Akira’s pillow means it hasn’t been long, the propped open window letting in the last rays of sunlight, like liquid gold spilt from a soup bowl. The faint chime of crickets scattered in the tall thickets behind his house trickle in, distant and high tolling bells.
He turns the letter over in his hands once, twice, three times before finally nudging a thumb under the seal and ripping into the envelope’s cream paper. His fingers move fast, excited, anticipating even when he knows what lies inside. The handwriting inside’s identical to that on the out. Slight curving script, hard pressed ball-point pen, gossamer sharp lines dangerous enough to cut your finger on. The rush of familiarity is almost overwhelming.
Joker,
I know this letter may come as unexpected to you, but it’s something I’ve wanted to do for some time now. Because words are only sounds and lines that we put meaning to, all of them ultimately arbitrary when put to matters of the heart. My own heart feels more at home on the page than it does on a screen, but I suspect you already know that. You’re the one that helped me learn how to see it – where the human heart lies – and in the wake of your absence I think I’m starting to forget. So in an attempt to explore everything you’ve taught me, I thought this might be the best way to do it. Written letters have something of an elegance about them. I will try to keep these short, as I know you must be busy. Although I must admit I’m rather ignorant on how these things go, I hope you’ll entertain me, even if only for a little while.
Fox
P.S. Futaba has been over my shoulder this whole time. She says to tell you her curry is better than yours (although I, as the taste tester of both, strongly disagree).
…
Akira always dreams in black and white.
There’s a space behind his eyes that folds back, the faint outline of prison bars and the smell of steel, strong in the air. The gray spaces between the slats in his vision are fuzzy, hazy and lumpy when he reaches through empty space. A grope for something solid, an anchor. All he’s ever able to find is the hands of ghosts in the mist.
(and there’s a metaphor there, he supposes, when the appendage attaches itself to white sleeve, red and gold tasseled. when the fingers reach out to touch his knuckles and turn to bullets. guilt can be a quiet, invasive thing.)
Gray – neither dark nor light, neither inherently Good nor inherently Evil. The color of a sea in turmoil. The color of his eyes.
The memory digs into his dreams. Always – always, always Yusuke, coffee-cupped hands and the scent of acrylic paint strong when he leaves feather soft strokes, delicate on the crest of Akira’s cheekbone. The touch leaves him blue-blushed, smearing at the edges when Yusuke trails his fingers down his neck, dipping lower, ever lower, until his fingertips draw ley lines all across Akira’s skin. A study of human topography – because Akira had asked him once, why he’d used gray instead of something flashier to fill in the white space left behind in the wake of vibrant red. His curiosity smoldered slow like kindling in his lungs, and Yusuke’s face went serious, pondering, a hundred different shades of adoration when he finally meets Akira’s gaze.
(“I’ve always thought gray is a beautiful color.”)
…
Fox,
Thank you for the letter. You did surprise me but I’m never busy anymore so don’t. Were the heart puns intentional or was I imagining them? Just tell me what pose to strike in your local church and I’ll be there. Always here to help.
Joker
P.S. Tell Futaba that the curry competition is so on.
…
“–and that’s how Mishima ended up face planting in the flower beds.”
Ryuji’s voice buffets and statics across the line. It’s raining, big slobbering rain clouds hovering over the town, just like the morning they met. The only difference between then and now is Akira remembered to bring his umbrella.
“Tell him I say hello, anyway.” He tries to dismiss the mental image of Haru’s purple yellow pansies sprouting out of Mishima’s ears. “If he can hear you around all the potting soil.”
It earns him a low laugh and Akira can tell Ryuji’s walking somewhere near the station, maybe the one by school, or the one by his apartment. He hates the way sound leaves him guessing, grasping at straws to keep the image of once-familiar streets in his memory.
“Will do, leader.”
Akira’s heart bangs painfully behind his ribs at the name, and some small part of his brain convinces him it doesn’t hurt.
“And what about the others?”
The bustling goes quiet, clamped out by the shutting of a door. “Ann and I are in the same class so I gotta see her every day, and Sakura sticks to us like glue but everyone else is pretty much gone. I mean, Haru’s busy with the company and Makoto’s here, I guess, but she’s a college girl now!”
Akira jogs the last few steps to the front door, shucking rain off the umbrella in sheets and setting it on its side. He wonders if they’re both doing the same thing right now, coming home apart, where it would’ve been together. “Are you telling me Yusuke’s disappeared now, too?”
Ryuji sighs through his nose and Akira can picture him scrubbing the back of his neck – a tell.
“Nah, he’s just so busy now. He’s applyin’ to one of those fancy art colleges which means like, zero free time."
“Sounds like you all miss him.”
“I mean–” A pause, weighty. “Of course we do.”
Something clenches tight around his throat, a burning lump that feels an awful lot like his heart going back down. “Me too.”
“Well, I bet if he’s keepin’ touch with anyone he’s keepin’ in touch with you.”
“Really?” He leaves the word open ended, not allowing it to be a question requiring an answer. Ryuji gives him one just the same.
“Uh, yeah, really. He thinks you like, hung the moon in the sky or something. It’d make way less sense if he didn’t wanna talk to you."
Akira opens the door, listening to the steady sound of rain dampen when he shuts it. Something about Ryuji’s response makes his skin hot and itchy.
"He writes me."
"Writes?” Ryuji draws it out, like he might’ve misheard. “Writes, like, letters? Seriously?"
Ryuji's laugh is too big for phone calls. It hits Akira then, not for the first time, that he misses him – acutely, and immensely.
“Is it really that funny?”
“I mean–” Ryuji stops, consulting his own sense of humor for confirmation. “Yeah!”
Akira snorts, shifting to hold the phone between his shoulder and ear when he slips his shoes off.
“Yusuke, man. Y’know that’s actually like, really fitting for him.” Ryuji’s laughs again, breathless. “He sure is a weird one.”
He can’t help himself. “Says you.”
“Hey!”
Then it’s Akira’s turn to laugh. Morgana sticks his head around the kitchen doorway, jaws parted as if to say something, flicking his tail in wide sweeps. He tilts his head and Akira mouths, Ryuji, prompting an eye roll and a yawn, blunt fangs snapping.
Akira bends to pet a hand down his back, soft slick fur unmistakably cat. Animal in a way it never had been before, even outside of the Metaverse. Sometimes it’s still a little surprising.
“Ah, shit, dude. I gotta go. My mom’s working late so I’m gonna bring her dinner. Call you this weekend?”
“Got it.” Morgana head-butts his hand, scrubbing his cheek on the side of Akira’s open fist. “Tell her hello, too.”
“Roger that.”
“Later, then.”
“Tell Morgana I don’t miss him.”
Akira hits a special spot behind his ears and Morgana mutters something along the lines of good, and stupid Ryuji, his brain probably isn’t big enough to do that anyway – the meaning’s lost a bit around the purring.
“Yeah, he loves you too.”
“Dude, don’t even kid–”
“Bye, Ryuji.” He ends the call mid-protest, the half formed yells seeming to reverberate like phantoms around his ears.
…
The envelope is heavier than usual, and the walk to his room finds Akira fingering along the edges of a thin-edged outline, smoothing the sharp corners on the curve of his index finger.
The note inside is short. He's surprised to find Yusuke capable of such brevity.
Joker,
I was unsure if you were able to take any with you from your room in LeBlanc. If I could help you in putting them up again, I would.
Fox
P.S. Ann sends an enthusiastic hello. She accompanied me to retrieve them.
Unfolding the paper's sticky adhesive finds Akira collapsing his smile back in, fighting it from cracking his face when he finds a crisp, unopened packet of glow in the dark stars.
...
He’s never really gotten the hang of texting, in spite of Futaba’s insistence and Haru’s periodic check-in messages laced with nervous concern. He’s always been more of a listener, in spite of technology shaking him by the shoulders and demanding otherwise.
You [18:42:32] Thanks for helping him out.
Her flashing bubble gum pop icon glints on his screen almost instantly.
Ann [18:43:09] I know you have a tall, dark, mysterious thing to maintain, but sometimes I have no idea what you’re talking about
His thumbs hover for a while, twitching and unsure.
You [18:45:26] Yusuke, at the planetarium.
Ann: [18:45:47] Ohhhhh that! It’s no problem! I had fun too
I hadn’t seen him in a while so we got to catch up
Even tho we mostly talked about you, lol
You [18:47:26] ???
There’s a tingling under his collar again, like all the skin’s been stripped away to reveal raw nerves to the open air.
Ann: [18:48:13] I don’t know why ur so surprised. This can’t be news to u
Akira couldn’t say it was news , but the fact he’s heard it more than once now is enough to make him queasy with apprehension. His head hurt, like a part of it was missing.
Ann: [18:48:45] How do u not know by now?
Thinking about it makes his stomach leaden. There’s a feeling that’s always sat in the back of his head, like an annoying kid in the seat behind him, poking at his back with the sharp of its pencil and blowing cold air in his ear. He’s gotten good at ignoring them – the intrusive thoughts – thoughts like how Yusuke’s hair would feel between the gaps of his fingers, or the curve of Yusuke’s hand against his own. It’s there in the way he dreams of Yusuke’s paintings, bathed in light. It’s there when he catches blue against gray, when Yusuke jumps away from a prolonged stare aimed at Akira’s jawline.
Akira knew. How could he not know.
You [18:49:55] Does Yusuke know that I know that you know?
You shouldn’t keep secrets, Ann
He can practically picture her fuming through the phone.
Ann [18:50:00] …ur both the worst
The thought bubble starts, stops, then starts again.
Ann [18:50:14] I miss you
A smile tugs at his mouth. Even at the dinner table he can't be bothered to put his phone away and pay attention, despite his father’s indiscreet coughs and his mother’s flitting eyes. It’s a bit of his own quiet rebellion.
You [18:52:30] Miss you too.
…
Fox,
Thank you for the gift. Think you could mail me that life-sized nude statue next?
P.S. Wish you were here to help me. Morgana just doesn’t have opposable thumbs like you do.
Joker
…
On his first trip back to Shibuya during summer vacation, he doesn’t see Yusuke. Which is funny, in a sardonic, fate twisting kind of way. Because only a year before they’d spent almost every free day of summer vacation together – watching documentaries splayed out on the attic floor, reading old art deco books on LeBlanc’s counter with hot coffee in hand, miserable and sweating and happy. They both complained about his room’s distinct lack of air conditioning, and Yusuke ate more curry in the span of a month than most people eat in five years.
Sitting in LeBlanc though, slouching down in the front booth with his shirt sticking to his skin and coffee long abandoned, Akira’s eyes find the Sayuri and, in a way, it isn’t so bad.
…
Joker,
I looked up how much it would cost to send the sculpture (which is what it’s called, by the way), because otherwise it is just sitting in your room here, which is a tragedy. However sending it might be out of my budget range for the month, which is the second tragedy. There’s a new exhibit coming out soon. I’ll send you pictures I’ve been coming to LeBlanc to admire Sayuri and read like we did together, but I think all I’ve discovered is I prefer your coffee over anyone else’s.
Fox
P.S. Please do not tell the Master about the coffee.
…
Fox,
It’s a shame about the sculpture. I’d send you some coffee through the mail but I have a feeling it might end badly. Don’t forget to save money for train fare. Sojiro will feed you if you hang around long enough. Trust me, works every time. We’ll have to go together one day to see it. Pictures are never the same.
Joker
P.S. Not a single word.
…
Joker,
You’ll be proud to know I’ve only been short on transportation money twice since you’ve been gone. I ended up sending you the pictures anyway, as your letter did not arrive until just today. I suppose that’s the disadvantage to all of this, isn’t it? The distance and time between us seems farther, but the messages carry all the more meaning because of it. Let’s go to the museum together, anyway, as you suggested. It’s a date.
Fox
…
He doesn’t sleep.
Date. Akira runs the word into a rut in his mind, carving gorges and rivers for all thoughts to flow down into one simple syllable, one little sound. Date .
He’s never been one for crushes. The few he’d had ended in terrible misfortune: like the tall girl in his second year middle school class who’d accepted and returned his feelings, the glorious love affair lasting all of a week before she moved away. To Korea. Then there was his best friend from the first year of high school, who brushed his knuckles against Akira’s under the table and gave him his first secret kiss on the neighborhood swing set in the middle of the night, tasting like convenient store ice cream and oranges. But that February, Shido Masayoshi happened and, well. That was the end of that.
So when faced with the unknown territory of liking someone, let alone Yusuke, who isn’t just another someone , Akira does the only thing he knows how.
“You’re asking me,” white whiskers twitch, amused, maybe incredulous. “Me. For love advice?”
Akira’s laid back on his creaky mattress, hands behind his head and eyes full of ceiling. Morgana’s perched on his old swivel desk chair, grooming a stuck out hind leg with the rough of his tongue. Classically Freudian, save the fact his therapist’s a cat.
Akira scratches at his hair, in desperate need of washing. “That’s about the sum of it.”
Morgana straightens. “I always knew this day would come.”
“Sure you did.”
“Don’t sass me.”
He raises his hands in mock surrender, head flopping back onto the deflating pillow. Morgana squints at him for a prolonged few seconds, and Akira smiles big, all teeth and close-eyed until he relents with a small scoff.
“Fine.” Then, “This is about Yusuke, isn’t it?”
“Wow you’re already, like, really good at this.”
Morgana sighs. At least that’s what it sounds like – Akira doesn’t know if cat’s are capable of sighing or not.
“I don’t have to be good at anything to know what you’re going to ask.”
“Then tell me what I should do.”
“I can’t tell you to do anything.”
Akira squints sideways. “Didn’t stop you from forcing me to sleep at before midnight for months on end.”
“You’d never sleep otherwise!” Morgana sputters. “And Yusuke isn’t your bedtime, anyway. You know what’s best.” He settles into the chair cushion, tucking his paws under his chest. “Probably.”
Pinpricks of curiosity settle on his heart. “Can I know why you say that?”
“You two are close, aren’t you? That’s what I always thought. Seems like Yusuke’s always only had eyes for you.”
“And Ann.”
“Yes, well, he does know how to appreciate beauty.”
Akira grins.“Aw, thanks.” Morgana’s tail lashes.
“That’s not what I meant!” Another sigh. “I think you already know what to do. You’ve just gotta stop hesitating.”
Stop hesitating. Akira’s jolts with the sudden memory, thrown back into the neon drip lights of Akihabara’s arcade in fall. His sweaty palms would fumble, and Shinya would growl, reset Akira’s grip with small, cold hands. Don’t falter. Control it. Don’t hesitate.
Aim true.
…
Yusuke [10:02:55] Could I visit you?
He stares at the screen, unbelieving what kind of karmic forces could be working in his favor.
Yusuke [10:03:01] I’d like to find somewhere rural as my next place of research.
I’ve never been to the countryside before.
This may be out of line, but I very much want to see you as well
You [10:04:28] I was about to ask if you’d like to come
…
The train comes in at mid-afternoon that Saturday. The station’s small – what anyone might expect of a little town, population skirting hardly round the few thousands. There’s only one platform, and from Akira’s waypoint leaning against a column, he can see Yusuke long before Yusuke sees him. His clothes are warm for the season, long-sleeved and dark. Akira’s always wonders if it’s his fashion sense or a way he dresses out of routine; if in the past Yusuke’d grown use to hiding things and had never quite learned how not to.
“Hi,” he says, once Yusuke’s close enough to hear. When he finally looks at Akira, it hits him then, in a familiar way, what the feeling curling slow like syrup through his blood is.
“Hi.” Yusuke’s hairpin smile is tentative in a way that makes Akira’s chest ache.
After taking Yusuke’s slung over bag and the comfortable quiet settles in between them, Akira gestures with a grand sweep of his arm. “Ready to see the sights?”
…
They find themselves standing on the edge of a rice field at dusk, small birds darting like black smudges against violet sky. Yusuke’s sketchbook lies folded carefully away, filled with places Akira’s known like the back of his hand, lined in black and white and gray. Sketches of the takoyaki stand by the river, the persimmon trees in his backyard, Akira’s profile with a townscape backdrop. He feels like there’s something in him about to burst, like he’s about to take a plunge off a proverbial cliff.
“Don’t you ever find yourself missing it? Longing for it?” Yusuke glances over.
Akira doesn’t need clarification, but asks for it anyway. “How things were before?”
“Mm.”
He settles his hands deeper into the itchy linings of his pockets, rolling balls of lint and scrunching his toes in his socks. The question is one he hasn’t dwelled on – purposefully tried not to dwell on. The fresh wound of it still stings a little too much, at his ripped away sense of complete and utter freedom, of Arsene glowing like a second scarlet skin beneath his own. Sometimes there’re too many words to explain it: the cloying, twinging and unnamable hurt. But more often than not, his words don’t seem like enough. So instead of deciding, he settles somewhere in between.
“I miss your tail.”
Yusuke cranes his neck to glance behind him, as if the phantom of it might materialize upon mention. “I do as well. It was quite pleasing, from an aesthetic point of view.”
“I miss Futaba’s goggles. And Haru’s hat. Ryuji’s stupid tie. I never could figure out why Morgana wore a bandana.”
Yusuke snorts behind his hand. “It was a fashion statement, I believe.”
Akira rolls his eyes but that laugh is contagious, and only after they’ve sat in silence for a minute can Akira bring himself to ask. “What about you?”
Yusuke doesn’t hesitate. “I miss your smile being so far away.”
There, there it is again. Yusuke is here, in his childhood town, and he’d traveled all day to stand next to him, gazing at its roads and walls, looking like he belonged there and it means something. It means–
It means–
“Yusuke,” and Akira watches him turn, watches the curve of his lip and soft of his hair fall into place among brown spotted leaves, the outline of a bedroom window frame. “Would you like to stay?”
Yusuke raises an eyebrow, panic flashing briefly across his face. “I thought that’s…what I would be doing. Did I assume wrong? I could probably find an inn–”
“No, no,” and he can’t stop his laugh from shaking. “No, I meant, would you like to stay,” Akira pauses, blood thrumming with surety. “–with me. Always.”
The world stands still under their feet. Pauses. Akira can feel every cell in his body, dying and multiplying and rushing through his spine, an electric current. Yusuke’s frozen, shadows of dying light hitting him at odd angles, carving harsh lines across his willowy frame. Akira’s suddenly aware how badly he wants to kiss him, overwhelming and flooding every corner of his body. But then Yusuke snaps around, hands covering his face and the moment’s gone.
It takes him a moment to swallow down the apprehension tightening around his throat. “Yusuke?”
Nothing. Somewhere distant, he can hear the sound of twigs snapping, breaking. Akira dares a step closer, moves his feet by sheer force of will. He closes the invariable space between them, steps around the way Yusuke seems to eclipse the sunset, moves until they’re parallel lines, crooked train tracks. His hands still tremble but the fear’s left them, leaving behind some kind of giddiness. “Let me see you.”
There’s a pause. “No,” he says around the muffle of his tight-pressed palms.
“Yusuke. ” It sounds tender, reverent, so much so he almost startles himself. “Please.”
Akira lifts his hands, stops, then starts again, eventually finding the cool skin of Yusuke’s wrists under his thumbs. He’s met with little resistance – so little that Akira can’t help but wonder if Yusuke’s finally mastered the art of sleeping while standing. Upon peering up at his face, Akira find it to be quite the opposite.
He’s never seen Yusuke cry before, not the pink-rimmed, red face, watery kind of silence that almost makes Akira stagger. “Are–” his dry voice goes dangerously close to cracking. “Are you okay?”
Yusuke tries to hide his face again, but discovers his wrists still held hostage and settles in tucking his chin down.
“You can’t mean that in the way I think you do. In–” Yusuke swallows. “Not in the way I want you to.”
Akira can hear himself blink. The laugh rises out of him before he can stop it, rebelling against his own will to stay down and hidden. His shoulders shake with it, like he’s hysterical, and Yusuke narrows his eyes. Anger has always been a frightening look on him. “Please don’t mock me, Akira, I–”
It feels like he might wheeze out a lung “No, Yusuke, it’s just,–” and here he stops again, because Yusuke's always doing that: drawing his own conclusions in vague, cryptic ways. Akira tries to pick his words with a deliberate kind of care, but sometimes Yusuke's puzzle is one he has trouble piecing together.
“I just.” He finally manages, profoundly.
And then Akira kisses him. Chaste, almost nothing, eyes screwed shut and clumsy. It can’t last more than a few seconds but he feels Yusuke’s lips go pliant, the world begin to shift forward again.
When he pulls back enough to see, Yusuke’s eyes are comically wide, dark lashes blinking slow and measured. He seems to be considering – regarding Akira in the way someone might watch a taxidermied butterfly, still behind a case of thin glass with only the illusion of movement touching its wings.
“That’s what I meant.”
They’re close, closer than they’ve been in months, or ever, and when Yusuke huffs and shuts his eyes, once their foreheads touch, Akira remembers the scent of apples and watercolors, reassurance and glowing gold fox eyes.
“Then–” Yusuke clears his throat and Akira can feel the thrum of it, grinning. “I think you know what my answer is, Joker.”