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A burial was what Toji would have wanted, he always said “Bury me next to Megumi's mother, I should have the chance to apologise for living on without her.” but the graveyards filled after the Sorcerers fighting for Shibuya took priority in the Funeral Parlours.
Shiu settled on a cremation for his late lover, the ashes spread over the top of Toji’s wife’s grave, maybe that will work and his apology will be heard. Shiu didn’t doubt they’d be laughing together up there at his clumsiness or his bed head, that brought him a little comfort at least.
No one turned up to the cremation ceremony, it was Shiu alone in the echoey hall. The funeral director approached him in the family room before the ceremony, “Are you sure you even want to have this? It’s only you here.” Which Shiu was well aware of. He sat in silence, clutching the empty tissue packet as the director tried to talk him out of a ceremony for the second time.
“Can you shut the fuck up yet? He was my everything; he deserves a proper funeral!” At that moment his hands began to tremble. Just as Toji had lived alone with no one to mourn his death but Shiu, Shiu was alone with no one to comfort him.
“Fine, have it your way. Wasting my time.” The director scoffed, shaking his hand dismissively as he left the room filling it with the loudest silence.
Shiu fiddles, he can’t help it. Usually he would pick the cuticles of his nails or bite the skin of his lip, earning a slap on the ear from Toji as he told him to snap out of it and breathe, but he isn’t there to intervene anymore. His thumbs brush against the tender, swollen skin around his fingers, the pain itching up his palm through to his wrist.
Suffering from being unmedicated and under so much pressure he was bound to crack, at least that’s what the café regulars whispered to themselves as they noticed Shiu entering the place alone, without his arms linked with his boyfriend. He had managed to keep it together, at least for his funeral.
“Mr Kong, come through and sit where you like” A disgruntled voice booms from the end of the corridor. They really weren’t wasting any expense.
Shiu strode through the carpeted halls and took a seat in front, just next to Toji’s coffin. Displays of flowers on top spelling “Dad” and “Husband” all paid for by Shiu although Toji was none of those things when he died, really.
He hadn’t seen his kid in over ten years, his wife passed away and he ended up dating her best friend, Shiu. Was the no attendance justified? Probably. Shiu adored him though, saw all his flaws and turned them into something beautiful.
Halfway through the ceremony, the hall doors creek open. The overused hinges echo throughout the hall causing both the director and Shiu to turn their heads. Black hair and a school uniform emerge through the door, the pale skin of the boy reflecting bright lights with nothing else to bounce off of.
Megumi showed.
Shiu stood from his seat, walking to greet the teenager pacing slowly down the walkway. “You probably don’t remember me, but you haven’t changed a bit since you were this size.” Shiu said with a crooked smile, gesturing to his thigh for Megumi’s childish height.
“Were you a friend of his?” Megumi mumbles, looking to the floor. Unsure if he made the right choice in coming to send off his dad. “Yeah, the best one.” Shiu replies, patting Megumi’s shoulder and leading him to the front to sit alongside him.
The director finished his brief speech on Toji’s life, information only sourced from Shiu and his fond memories, and the casket was wheeled into the furnace.
Shiu leaned over to Megumi. “Sorry he wasn’t there for you, kid. He wanted to be.”
“Whatever, I'm here now. Is it bad that I don’t feel sad?” Megumi finally looks up at Shiu, a blank face staring up wasn’t what Shiu remembered of the young sorcerer with so much potential.
Shiu lets out a sigh, already rummaging in his pockets for his pack of cigarettes. “Nah, I don’t blame you. Just know he never forgave himself for not being the one to get you out of the Zenin’s. He really never forgave himself.”
Megumi only nodded in response, he understood the position Toji was in, vague images of the struggle he faced raising Megumi on his own creeping into his memory. Megumi had sat them to the back, not wanting to dwell on them as the past can’t be changed.
The fresh air after leaving the hall hits the pair like a brick wall “You smoke? I won’t tell anyone if you do.” Shiu chuckles with the cigarette between his lips, reaching for his lighter.
Megumi forces a laugh out before starting to walk away. “No. I’m going back to school, but thanks for showing up.”
Shiu was alone again.
Wandering back to his lonely apartment, Shiu smoked through 8 cigarettes. Using the sidewalk as his ashtray as he fumbled to light another, earning a dirty look drawn at him by every passerby that he nearly hits with the smouldering filters.
Shaky hands draw into his pocket again, pulling out the key to the place he and Toji once shared. As he opens the door the realisation of them not sharing the space ever again hits. He has to go on alone. Again.
Opening the fridge to see empty shelves, Shiu sighs seeing the block of his favourite cheese has started to grow spores of mould. “Fuck.” He whispers to himself as the smell of rotten food creeps up to his nostrils.
Screwing his face with a sigh, he only closes the door over, the cheese is tomorrow's problem, or maybe if he can bring himself to get groceries it’s a later on today problem.
“How many days has it been?” Shiu asks himself as he slumps down on the couch and loosens his tie. Rummaging around to light yet another cigarette, his eyes scan the coffee table.
Overflowing ashtray 1, 2 and 3 stare back at him as the beer spilled from the half-crushed thrown down cans form a ring of sticky alcohol, nearly cementing them to the dark wood surface.
Ignoring it, Shiu lights his cigarette. “18 days. Fuck.” He takes a deep inhale, tasting tobacco and stale beer in the air as the smoke is inhaled to the bottom of his lungs.
He was never a beer drinker before, Toji put him on it. “It’s cheaper and it fills your stomach, it's a win-win!” He would say, excitedly as Shiu shook his head placing the bottle of Whisky into the shopping basket alongside Toji’s cheap booze.
Grocery shopping with his lover was fun, because he was there. Toji, unknown to most, was actually very funny and a really good cook. Despite living off instant noodles before him and Shiu moved in together, he could cook. Always picking out obscure ingredients that Shiu was sure he would hate and making it into something delicious, filling their stomachs and satisfying a craving they both didn’t know they had.
And that was what made them so special to each other , they didn’t know they needed each other but they complimented each other's personalities and moods so gracefully it's as if they lived to live together.
Throwing his head back on the couch with his cigarette lit and arms spread across the top cushions, Shiu falls asleep. A routine he has fallen onto every day since being in solitude.
When Shiu awakes, he can’t feel the cigarette on his lips, the smell of burnt hair now creeping into his consciousness as his head shoots forward to pat the embers of ash dropped onto his suit jacket. Not again.
After frantic patting on his couch cushions he locates the cigarette, half burned, not smoked and ready to be lit again.
A groan escapes his lips, frustrated he let this happen again. “What the fuck kind of past life led me here.” He laughs, shaking his head at the atrocity that is his current life. Alone.
Shiu rose from the couch, lighting the remainder of the cigarette, staring at the hand holding the lighter once the first puff of smoke escaped his lips. The curled and shrunken black hairs on the back of his hands explain the smell. The cigarette fell and charred his body hair.
He strides to the sink and turns on the hot water tap Lathering his hands in soap he notices the water staying cold, not bothering to reach room temperature. That’s no good. He has his fish tank to clean today.
Shiu was a lover of tropical fish, much to Toji’s dismay as he found them “Creepy”.
“We're not getting those things, they freak me out!” Toji laughed as Shiu’s eyes lit up while walking through the market. “But babe, look there’s two black angel fish and a brown one too! It’s like us and Mrs Guro.” He replied, referring to the good old days where they could hang out as a trio.
Toji threw his arm around Shiu as he leant closer to the glass admiring the fins flowing through the water. “She always had her eye on you, said you’d steal me from her if she wasn’t careful.” Shiu shrugged his arm off as it was obstructing the light from his gaze. “She was right, she was always right.” Shiu stated, standing straight and grinning with an unlit cigarette between his teeth.
“I’ll take these three, please.” Shiu approached the fishmonger with his wallet in hand.
Toji stood, mouth agape. “You never listen to me.” His mouth forming a smile anyway, happy to see his boyfriend happy regardless of if the fish were creepy to him or not.
Toji was right, Shiu danced to the beat of his own drum, but as long as he could see that shit eating grin at the end of the day, none of it mattered. Shiu was his light of hope, staying with him through everything and never casting judgement on Toji, no matter how bad his decisions were.
Shiu grabbed the fish food from the cupboard and headed into the bedroom where the tank sat proudly on display, a photo of him, Toji and Mrs Guro as he called her next to it as a reminder they’ll always be together.
Oh.
Only the brown fish was alive.
The two black Angelfish, who were usually swimming laps waiting for feeding time, were floating belly up at the top of the tank.
Shiu was alone in every universe.
“What the fuck did I do to deserve this.” Shiu almost shouted as he crouched by the tank, his shaky hands trying to find stability on the tabletop, subsequently knocking over the frame of the only photo from Toji’s past he liked.
Tears pooled in his eyes, a horrible realisation that it really was him alone in this world. He had tried to stay strong through the loss of his lover, prior to that the loss of his best friend. All of this was for him and Toji to live happily with no regrets lingering over them, and it was all gone.
The tears fell, finally. After years of being held back they fell.
Shiu let himself sit with his emotions and feel them at their rawest form for the first time in so long and god it felt awful. Everything began to hurt. His chest, his head, his stomach. Everything hurts.
“How could you both leave me like this?!” The burn suited man shouts as loud as he can, not that anyone would hear him. He was alone.
Not used to managing grief, his fist balls up and swings for the glass, shattering the tank, sending water and the fish remembering Shiu to the floor along with hundreds of shards of glass.
“FUCK.” He sits on the floor, knees to his chest, ignoring the stream of water and fish frantically flopping around in the shards. Shiu sobs, and sobs until he can’t breathe.
He’s gotta get his shit together.
The nap on the couch which nearly caused a fire wasn’t enough to satisfy the days worth of sleeplessness Shiu was facing. “I’m so tired, i’m so fucking tired.” he says, altering between sobs and shouts as his hands tremble clutching his own face.
He wraps his arms around his knees, gently rocking himself back and forth as a last means of comfort. Nothing works. He opts to sit cross legged before the brown Angelfish and as it takes its last waking moment, he outstretches a single finger to gently stroke its gills. “I hope you had a good life with us.” Shiu whispers, the pain fleeting through him and making the mess of a man feel completely numb.
Shiu stands and walks away from the mess of glass, foliage and water seeping through his carpet and throws himself down on the bed in the spare bedroom.
Toji often threatened to sleep in there when Shiu didn’t want to be the big spoon at night, ultimately ending up with Shiu complying and holding him close. Not that Shiu didn’t want to be the big spoon, Toji was just really cute when he was tired and pouting. Grown ass man.
Not bothering to strip his sogged legged suit off, he unbuttons his pants, reaching down to try and feel something other than pain. Soft.
A few experimental strokes doing nothing for him as his hand lazily attempts to stimulate him. Nothing.
He pulls his hand out his pants and lays staring at the ceiling, it was a futile attempt to feel anything and honestly he really didn’t try. Maybe he was starting to feel okay with feeling nothing. As long as it wasn’t pain.
Maybe he can sleep it off, just maybe.