Shibuya. The population’s out in throngs hurrying to make their way across the scramble crossing. Their heads pop up briefly, before Ruki watches above as they only disappear once again. The Starbucks across the road is his current sanctuary despite the presence of conversations that he could vaguely hear over the sound of his own thoughts. His eyes disappear into the centre of his mocha frappuccino. It’s something new and unusual, because there was a twinge of coconut which made it taste like he was eating a chocolate bar. Not drinking coffee in the least bit. Though despite that, the grande treat was delicious going down, especially for the rising temperature after such a steady week of chilly weather.
Aah, but.
It was chilly the day he had a long conversation with Reita, at the same wooden table he was sitting at, while nursing the frappuccino. Reita’s hands were laced under his chin, but Ruki had wondered while his eyes seemed so pensive. That day, he was stirring a spoon through a hot chai latte, while Reita hadn’t made a dent in his yet.
“You seem different.” Reita said, prompting Ruki to look up. It in no way sounded suspicious. More so, Reita’s tone was too knowing for that. As if he’d uncovered a layer of skin on Ruki that Ruki himself hadn’t found yet.
“In what way?” Ruki asked casually.
“I know you.” It wasn’t like Reita to beat around any type of bush. If there was one thing about him, he didn’t allow elephants to linger in the room for long. “I know you’re worried. I know you’re stressed. I know you think everything you’re doing is a huge mistake, but I’m here to remind you that you’re human.”
Ruki swallowed the lump in his throat, and exhaled. He knew what Reita was referring to because Reita has always been like an extension of himself. Reita’s his best friend, and Ruki swears at times that the two of them share a subconscious. Reita’s referring to the nights he’d already spent with Aoi. The nights that involved hair pulling, scratches on bare skin, wrinkles in clothes, and plenty of worries but zero regrets. The flame he’d kept well hidden beneath his skin, engraved into his veins so deep that he swore up and down he could sustain the fever.
One day, when Aoi was nursing his acoustic guitar, the lights had already been dimmed. A string snapped and caught Ruki’s attention, who casually caressed and wrapped an injured finger. Then it all burnt out to the point of Ruki not being able to remember anything except for when he dreamt at night. Aoi’s scent and body burnt into his flesh, the fever that had overwhelmed him entirely. Their voices couldn’t be heard through slivers in the doors, but Ruki wanted more, more, on top of more. When Ruki couldn’t take living the way he had reduced himself to living, he’d banged on Reita’s door at four o’clock in the morning and told himeverything.
Way before Reita could brush the sleep out of his face and even process the words to tell Ruki that Uruha was asleep in the next room. Though, he understood where Ruki was coming from. The fear of acting on his own, wild, humanistic desires that could provoke dire consequences. Rui came back to Reita’s face across from him at that lone Starbucks table.
“It goes above and beyond the roles of gender. Your heart’s got a mind of its own. I’m going to tell you what I tell myself everyday: keep your lines drawn between personal and pleasure, even if we’re doing something taboo by somewhat crossing them. You have to be able to approach him without seeing him only as a lover. He has to be the same old bandmate too, in a way.”
Ruki’s mind is moving as fast as the cross walk that extended out the window. Reita’s right, and Ruki is well aware that if he doesn’t get a grip on himself, he was going to lose his mind.
That could be the end of him.
The end of everyone else as well, which he didn’t want.
“You’re right.”
“Of course I am. I know you. Like I know you don’t like wild potatoes, right?”
Reita’s words ring in the back of his mind while he laughs to himself. He’s back to being alone, and admitting what he had been running from for the past couple of months. He didn’t like him, he in fact loved him. He loved Reita too, but in that brotherly fashion that could’ve never reached out of the borders of plantonic. Aoi he loved with a certain amount of sincerity and aggression.
“I have to do this.”
“Do what?”
The voice surprised him out of his lull, and the presence of another body causes his breathing to hike. Especially when he inhales the familiar cologne he had became accustomed to.
“Yuu.” Ruki felt the hand fall on his shoulder, and Aoi’s fingers caress with discreet affection.
I’m only human.
“Can I join you?”
Of course. You can join me forever.
“Please. Sit down.”
When Aoi sat down across from him, his smile no longer had to focus on the presence of time. He’d tell him when they were not under the watchful eye of Shibuya, nor Starbucks.
