Chapter Text
The wedding invitation is nice. Printed on nice, heavy, textured paper, with nice dark ink, nice lettering. The Union of Michimiya Yui and –
Daichi shoves it back in his pocket with shaking hands. The date on the airport arrivals screen matches that on the invitation; he squints so he can’t read it anymore, and follows his driver, who’d introduced himself as Johnny and taken Daichi’s suitcase for him.
Mumbai’s air has its own smell. It’s almost nostalgic to the few trips they had taken in Daichi’s childhood; they have the occasional business meeting here, too, but it was only when his father’s health began to deteriorate that he requested Daichi attend in his place. Thus: Daichi is in Mumbai, sweating through proper Western business attire off a ten-hour flight from Tokyo, numb down to his toes, while the ex-love of his life is wearing a wedding dress in the mountains near Sendai where they’d grown up together. Is she in traditional attire, or did she opt for Western? Is her hair still as short as it used to be in university, or has she let it grow past her ears for the special occasion?
He’s not in the state to sit through a mind-numbing corporate meeting, to nod along to numbers and figures and graphs that reflect the hard work keeping their company afloat. He’s not in the state to be the successor to his father at all, he thinks: brainless, wifeless, directionless.
“Where to, sir?” Johnny asks. It’s the only reason Daichi realizes they’ve reached the car, and Johnny’s holding the door open.
He manages to stutter out, “Train station.”
“Which one?”
“Closest one.”
The door shuts and Johnny slides into his own seat in the front, slanting a curious look into the backseat in his rearview mirror, but he doesn’t ask any further questions as he starts the car and makes his way onto the road.
Daichi remembered this about India, at least: the traffic which flowed like an unruly river, the honking to say I’m behind you and I’m turning and even just Hello! It’s grounding for a while but fades to background noise the longer he sits in the car, the wedding invitation burning a hole in his pocket.
Minutes may turn to hours – Daichi only knows time has passed when the car comes to a complete stop and Johnny steps hard on the brake. They both exit the car, though Daichi takes so long to do so Johnny has already wrestled his suitcase out of the trunk and settled it onto the uneven sidewalk in front of the station by the time he’s back outside.
“Thank you,” he says, bowing slightly (a habit he’s never been able to kick no matter how many countries he goes to), and hands over a wad of cash so fat Johnny’s eyes widen. He doesn’t know if he’s paid double or triple the fare he owed; he doesn’t care. None of it matters anymore.
Everything he does after, he does through this strange haze: abandons his suitcase somewhere in the line to buy tickets, purchases a ticket for whichever train’s platform is closest to the door, sheds his blazer and his tie and his cell phone at the platform, finds some empty seat in the shittiest part of the train. And the only thing he can think of, on loop, is all he’s failed.
Did his family end up attending the wedding, or did his four younger siblings refuse to in defense of their heartbroken big brother? Are they quietly disappointed that he let her slip through his fingers, the perfect wife to boost the image of the elder Sawamura-shacho’s successor, the next CEO of Karasuno Communications & Industries? Is there –
“Hello,” says a voice in softly accented English, right in his ear, and Daichi flinches and turns. The man straightens back up, raising a silver-blonde eyebrow. “You’re in my seat.”
The train is moving, Daichi realizes. It left the station and he didn’t even realize. Fear seizes him momentarily. How could he be so out of it that –
“My seat,” the man says louder, slower, pointing exaggeratedly at it. He digs his ticket out of his pocket, and sure enough, there’s a bold little 2 printed in the corner to match the label on the seat. “I – sit – here.” He points to Daichi’s chest, and then to the seat directly across 2. “You can take that. 1.”
Daichi manages, finally, to lift himself up and rotate, settling in the seat opposite the man. He settles his elbows on his knees, props his chin on his hand, and stares out the window.
“You know, it’s okay to mess up sometimes,” the man says, probably addressing him. “Mistakes are how we learn. At least, that’s how I tell it to my students. It sucks when it happens, but over time you learn to grow from it. Speaking of growing, every time I pack up my things in Mumbai to take home – Bhatinda – I swear it’s doubled every time. I needed so much help to load all my stuff into this train.”
All Daichi wants is – actually, he doesn’t know. He has no clue what he will get out of this lapse in judgement, except for stranding himself in the middle of a country he’s almost entirely unfamiliar with. What a way to go. Suits him, considering –
“It’s really okay.” The man is speaking again for some reason, seeming to take Daichi’s silence for embarrassment. Any other day he likely would be – he hates to be an inconvenience – but what little he’s seen of Indian society has proven to be largely informal. Which must be why this man is speaking to him like they’re best friends. “I’ve done it before too. At least you don’t have any stuff. Which is weird, by the way. I’ve never seen someone get on a long-distance train with no bags.”
If he continues not to speak, will Crazy assume he’s mute next? Deaf? Plain rude? He’s weighing his options when the man’s phone rings with a call, and he scrambles to pick it up, dipping his head in apology to Daichi. Which is stupid, because they very resolutely are not talking.
“Asahi!” he says brightly in greeting. “Yes, I’m on the train. Yes, with all my stuff.” A pause. “No, I didn’t adopt any new friends on the way. Not for lack of trying. Hey – don’t say that. Stop.” Another pause, longer this time, and then he laughs briefly. “Honestly, maybe. You think I should try? Okay. Cool. Well, my phone’s dying. Stop yelling! I’ll see you soon. Bye.”
He hangs up, and silence overtakes the meager space between them where their knees brush. The conversations in the rest of the train – Hindi, Marathi, English, Tamil – rise in pitch in comparison.
That lasts about a minute. Then:
“I teach at an international school. That’s what I meant by my kids. I don’t have any kids of my own, actually. You like kids?”
And:
“I love the train. Most people want to fly the kind of distance I’m travelling, but I like getting to sit and think and meet people on all these stops. I guess I’m old-fashioned that way.”
On and on. He talks as if he’s amusing himself with it, and then he drifts off to sleep still seated and is still talking then, and Daichi feels steadily sicker and sicker the longer it goes. It’s like the traffic from before: it fades to some kind of static, and thoughts of what he’s left behind start to overwhelm.
His suitcase, with all his expensive professional attire. His laptop and phone, which he’d reset on the flight over to clear them of sensitive company data. Now that he thinks of it, he’s likely triggered some alarms over in the Tokyo office. It’s lucky his dad hadn’t noticed while he was still in the car with Johnny, because he’d have been caught and brought back home in no time.
The more he thinks the more the pressing need for air emerges. Or space. Or just – for nothing at all. Maybe being in this tiny of a space when he’s already overwhelmed wasn’t the best idea, he’s realizing. As if he’s not in control of his own legs, Daichi makes his way away from Crazy, over to the closest door train door, and yanks it open.
There it is. The rattling of the train of the tracks is much louder from here, the wind whipping against his face. He thinks of winter storms, of the way snow falls silently. He thinks of cold nights spent in the office, poring over spreadsheets, drafting lists of new startups to invest in or product lines to launch until his fingers were cramping and his eyes were burning. And still it was all careening toward the ground.
The headlights of another train approaching grow brighter and brighter, and Daichi leans forward into it, until –
“What the hell are you doing?”
Crazy hauls him back from the train door, spinning them around so he can slam it shut and act as a physical barrier between it and Daichi. His smooth face is scrunched up in confusion. He’s talking again, rattling on about something indistinct, but all Daichi can hear is the rumbling of the tracks.
What was he doing? What was he about to do?
As if on cue, the conductor taps his shoulder. “Ticket?” she asks in crisp English.
Daichi blinks. He pats at his pockets blindly, mind still running a mile a minute, as she repeats her request half a dozen times, and then shakes his head.
“No ticket? How’d you get into the station with no ticket?”
Probably fell out when he took his phone out his pocket, or just now, when he’d –
“You can make him a new one, right, ma’am?” Crazy asks, angling a disturbingly charming smile in her direction.
He stubbornly keeps his face angled to his shoes, digging his wallet out of his pocket and pulling out a thick stack of bills. The conductor takes them, noting something down on a clipboard.
Maybe it’s inconsiderate, but he lets Crazy do all the talking. Seems like he likes that anyways. Keeping his eyes on his shoes, feeling as though he’s in serious danger of tripping over himself, he carefully makes his way back to his seat, covering his face with his hands.
Time passes strangely again. Maybe he falls asleep like that, palms pressed into his eyes, because the next thing he knows they’re announcing the next stop is five minutes away, and Crazy’s staring at him like he’s trying to figure him out.
“You’re not from here, are you?” the man asks.
“How could you tell,” Daichi croaks back, eyes closing into a jaw-cracking yawn, still half-asleep.
“Just a feeling.”
Daichi freezes, opening his eyes to Crazy’s grinning.
“That was Japanese,” Daichi says, slowly. “You just spoke Japanese to me.”
“So did you.”
“You – I – what.”
“It was my friend’s idea,” he continues in Japanese, “‘cause I’ve got a habit of finding my people wherever I go. And I guess you kind of look it, with the suit and all.”
“I thought you were from Bhatinda,” Daichi says, and immediately hopes to get smacked upside the head with something heavy as Crazy’s smile grows.
“So you were listening,” he laughs.
“Barely.”
“You even got the name right!”
“I’m just… good with names.”
“And what’s yours?”
Daichi is starting to understand why every person in the Japanese diaspora must want to be friends with this man. But he – can’t. He just can’t. He needs to be alone, and figure out this mess in his head.
“Look,” he says carefully, “I appreciate your kindness and how you’ve covered for me so far. But I’m not really in the state to talk, or anything.”
As if on cue, the train’s bell begins to ring, and the brakes screech.
“I’ll see you,” Daichi adds, bracing himself on his armrest as he stands. “Thanks again.”
Koushi sighs as the man steps out of the train. No luggage, no plan. He’s fairly certain he didn’t even see the outline of a phone in his pockets.
Don’t do it, he scolds himself. You need to wear your oxygen mask before helping others.
But his brown eyes were nearly all pupil, his strong jaw slack, his face wiped of any expression at all. He’d just been – blank.
He sighs again, and swings himself up out of his seat to follow.
Daichi stays strong long enough to find himself a bench far enough into the station that no one will bother him. The second he's seated, though, he lets his mind wander again.
It's not so much about Michimiya, or her marriage, or the fact that he's really, truly alone. He's been alone for a while. His bachelor apartment is so sparse he's been spending most nights asleep on the armchair in his office or in his childhood bedroom when his father manages to wheedle him into coming home.
No, this time it's that he has nothing ahead of him. Nothing he's tried at Karasuno has ever panned out: none of his ideas make a splash in the market the way their competitors' do, employee morale is at an all-time low, and though he's still climbing the ranks of the company he knows he doesn't deserve it. A natural leader, he'd been called throughout high school and university, but the second he hit the workforce it was as though burnout crawled inside him and refused to leave him alone.
Everything is fuzzy. Distantly he knows he should be panicking, that he's never been alone in a place completely foreign to him surrounded by people he doesn't know; that, more critically, he's never willingly put himself into a situation like this. But all his mind falls back to is home, and Karasuno, and his family. What it means to be a Sawamura.
Maybe it's more than just Karasuno. Maybe it's the lifetime he's spent as an eldest brother, meant to set an example for four younger than him. If it hadn't been him who shouldered the pressure of inheriting the company, after all, it would fall on one of his siblings. He couldn't live with himself if that was the case.
Maybe, stranding himself out here is just going to make it all worse.
As if on cue, Crazy appears in front of him, frazzled. "Are you deaf? Did someone hit you over the head?"
"You," he says numbly. It seems in this mental state, the only tongue he has mastery over is Japanese.
"Me," Crazy agrees, and, glancing behind him, his face drops. "Shit. The train is leaving."
He turns to see what Crazy's looking at. Leaving is a generous term. All he can see of the train is the back of it. He turns back to Crazy, slowly.
For a solid ten seconds, they are at an impasse. Both of them are staring, in some form of shock, at one another.
Crazy's eye twitches.
"You – bloody – bastard!"
Daichi blinks.
"I have never missed a train in my life," Crazy seethes. His pale face has gone very pink very quickly. "No matter whether I've been clinging on to the fucking rails next to the doors and running along I've gotten on just in time. And now because of you – "
Something in Daichi snaps.
"Pardon me," he grits out, consonants sharp. "Did I ask? Did I ask for your clinically insane ass to get off the train to come to me? And help me? What kind of help is this, huh?"
"You have no self-preservation instinct!"
"And clearly, neither do you!"
"You should be thanking me, you know. There are a dozen situations you've gotten yourself into since I met you that you wouldn't have gotten out of without me."
"All you do is run your mouth. I would've been just fine without that." Daichi stands. "You think you can save everyone you meet, but some people are trying to go through life on their fucking own, okay?"
Crazy grabs his arm. "You think you get to leave after getting me stuck here? Hell no. You only get to leave once you've dropped me off at the front door of my house."
Daichi has made a lot of mistakes in his life, but he did not make any on the train ride to prompt this. All he did was sit there silently and sporadically respond when spoken to. Nothing he's done merits an impromptu trip with the craziest person he's met from an offshoot railway station somewhere near Mumbai to wherever Bhatinda is.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. And yet he does what got him into this mess in the first place.
He runs.
Koushi is going to get his hands on one of nanaji's beloved revolvers, and then he's going to kill this guy.
Somewhere behind him he can hear Crazy screaming for the cops, and then screaming at the cops immediately after for being useless. It's kind of a shame they met this way: he's starting to get the feeling they could be friends.
Daichi darts up a set of stairs. Based on the layout of this station it seems to be half-underground, so if he finds his way out to the street he can probably hail a taxi and get out of here.
It's strange. Running away from a real, actual person gives him more of a target than anything else has for the past forty-eight hours.
His guess was right. At the top of the stairs there's a short platform, a bunch of ticket stands, and then a set of stairs out onto a quiet street.
This won't work. Crazy would find him right away. He descends the stairs, then runs around to the back of the station. Lucky him: it's another entrance, which means a bunch of taxis are queued up outside. Chancing a quick glance behind him, he sprints to the furthest taxi down, and gestures furiously for the driver to roll down the window with one hand as he digs for his wallet with the other.
"I have – " and he holds up another wad of cash in his hands " – this much." The driver reaches for it, and he pulls his hand back. "Where can you take me?"
"Ratlam Junction," says an all-too-familiar voice behind him, his hand clapping down on Daichi's shoulder. "Fast."
"That's the farthest I'll take you," Daichi grits out as Crazy clambers into the backseat. Suspicious, Daichi slides into the passenger seat, and turns to look at him.
All the anger that had been twisting up his pale face before is gone, the tension completely bled out his body. He's sprawled across that backseat like he belongs there, all long legs and slender arms. That's what a good plan does for a guy, Daichi supposes. Nothing to worry about, so nothing to yell about.
"Just get me there fast," Crazy drawls, only a shred of the intensity from before left in his voice, "and you won't ever have to see me again."
Daichi turns back around to face the road. "Sounds like a good deal to me."