[Fanfic] Not a Dream
Title: Not A Dream
Author: yutorinislove
Pairing: Kei x OC
Rating: PG to PG-13
Genre: Romance
Summary: Inoo Kei doesn’t want her to think that he would be better off without her.
Author’s Note: Written through a fit of inspiration, then got stuck somewhere in the middle. Got myself unstuck, but then, the result is that I don’t know what happened to the ending. Boohoo.
----
"How was the show today?"
"It's great," Inoo whispered through the phone, looking up at the stars and smiling softly. "Keito's lyrics were awesome -- I think Yabu should grant him more songwriting jobs. I guess it's because he's so inspired. You know, he's only just realized that he's in love with this female friend he has..."
"Ooh. This Keiri-chan, is it?"
"Exactly. The song has so much angst to it that all the fans were flailing. You should have seen the smile on Keito's face--"
"I'm glad you had fun," the soft voice said on the other line. "I hate you -- you're having so much more fun than I am."
Inoo chuckled softly, cradling the phone gently, almost as if he was holding her hand by doing so. "Isn't going to the hospital fun?"
"Screw you."
Inoo smirked, looking out the horizon. "How was your day, anyway?"
"It was fine. The doctor had to take some more blood samples, but I guess I got a little bit better than the last time they had to take a sample. It hurt, but they gave me a lollipop right after, so it was fine!"
Inoo reveled in the simple happiness that radiated from her voice. He tried to ignore the thoughts of this happiness slowly but steadily being drained from her. He tried to ignore the fact that the future was uncertain, when it came to her.
"Ne, Kei-chan."
Inoo looked shifted on his feet, shifting his phone from one ear to the other. "Hm?"
"It doesn't look good."
Inoo felt his heart jump to his throat, and he wondered why he sounded so flighty and easy when his throat constricted so much he could barely breathe. "What doesn't?"
"The blood tests," said her quiet voice through the telephone. "They keep finding that my platelet count has plummeted yet again. I have to be transfused with platelets every few days or so now... and..."
"Does it hurt?" Inoo asked, trying to keep the worry out of his voice. If there was one thing he learned in the twenty-two years of knowing Yamauchi Shi, that was the fact that he couldn't panic, not with her. If he does, she will panic, too, and god knows how that would help with her condition right now.
"I'm used to it, Kei-chan," Shi said, her voice heaving with a smile. "I've been getting blood tests and transfusions since I was fourteen."
"Being used to it doesn't mean it doesn't hurt, you know," he bantered through the phone. He moved towards the electric keyboard in the practice room. He must make use of this time alone while the other members of Mugendai went to grab something to eat. He rarely found time to talk to Shi anymore, since he was busy with University and his part time job and Mugendai, and when he does find the time to call his childhood friend, Shi would be asleep. He didn't want to disturb the girl when she was having her much-needed rest. And because of this arrangement, it takes days, even weeks, for Inoo to be able to talk with his best childhood friend.
He cursed leukemia, he cursed why she had to be so sick, he cursed the times and the smiles that she could have spent out of doors, soaking up the sun and not worrying about disobeying the doctor's orders, not worrying about the fact that underneath her skin, inside those veins, lay the blood that had been faulty since her birth, lay the blood that was so traitorous that she may just bleed it out, if she exerted herself too much.
"You worry too much. It's fine. When you're used to it, it doesn't hurt that much," Shi said, a-matter-of-factly. Then she laughed. "You better get back to practice."
"The guys aren't even here yet," Inoo protested, but Shi admonished him with a laugh.
"You go back to having fun, alright? It's time for me to go back to rest, anyway. Have fun!"
Inoo knew a lost cause when he saw -- or rather, heard -- one. "Haiiiii. Take care, Mom."
"Shut up. Have fun, Kei-chan~"
"Mm," Inoo hummed, waiting for her to put down the phone. And when he finally heard the dial tone, he slipped his phone into his pocket and started preparing for practice, fingers touching the keyboard keys for a brief run of Fur Elise. He always dedicated this to Shi, because that was her favorite piano piece, and she used to have a music box with that playing, soothing her to sleep, when she was a child.
There's Fur Elise for you, Shi-chan. He smiled, as though he was telling it to her face-to-face.
Even though imagined, it was the least he could do to ease her pain.
---
Inoo didn't like partying. He didn't understand the point of entering closed, crowded space, with a suffocating atmosphere of cigarette smoke, teenagers' sweat and mixed perfume. He didn't like having to squeeze through hormone-driven people and try to have fun with them. Call him a homebody, but his idea of parties were those with balloons and clowns and cakes. Not booze and cigarettes, and a lonely fuck behind some door or wall.
But for some reason that was what he has gotten into. One of his university friends had wanted to go partying, had wanted to meet with this girl and impress her, and he needed help. Inoo wasn't stupid as to not know that "help" meant being a baby-sitter as his friend got shit-drunk, but there wasn't anything else he could do, he had already committed to his friend, and there wasn't turning back on Matsumoto Kohei's pleading eyes.
"Okay, okay, I get it, I stay in this booth," Inoo said as Kohei turned to him. Getting the girl was not that hard, in Inoo's opinion. The girl virtually liked Kohei back, so there wasn't anything to worry about in the first place, really. Kohei, in the infinite wisdom of a person who hasn't even gone out on one date, just needed to buy the girl a drink and it was done. Kohei mouthed him a word of thanks before running off to his girl.
Inoo watched the bodies dance -- move together and merge -- in the dark and temporary illumination of the strobe lights. He tried to enjoy the scenery, tried to get into the mood, but he can't, not even with the Bloody Marys he has downed, he just can't.
And when he was in doubt, he always turned to one person -- the one person who, aside from his parents and sister, knew him since he was born.
[Inoo Kei:
I'm bored. What are you doing?]
It wasn't in Shi's nature to ignore Inoo's texts, so a few seconds later, his phone pinged with a new message.
[Yamauchi Shi:
Reading. Aren't you supposed to be in practice?]
Inoo leaned back on the cushioned back rest of the booth, typing out a response, slower than usual because he was feeling a bit buzzed -- three glasses of Bloody Marys were not to be messed with, you see.
[Inoo Kei:
No practice today -- more than half of the band has either academic or familial obligations to attend to. I have baby-sitting duties.]
A ping.
[Yamauchi Shi:
Lemme guess. Kohei asked you out on a date?]
[Inoo Kei:
Of course not. We're not gay. He had a date, though. He just doesn't have the confidence to go drinking without a designated driver. It's kinda fun here, though.]
[Yamauchi Shi:
So what are you doing still mailing me?]
Inoo blinked at the last message. Even in the cottony haze of his brain, he could still process that last message. He tried to root out what she probably meant, but he couldn't (he blamed the alcohol), so he typed out a response.
[Inoo Kei:
What do you mean?]
For some reason he felt nervous, so he raised his hand and asked a glass of vodka on the rocks from the waitress who approached him. He felt nervous, his eyes trained on the phone, willing the response to come early, and at the same time dreading it.
His drink came at the same time her reply arrived. He took one big gulp of the liquor, gathering his courage, before opening the mail he received.
[Yamauchi Shi:
Have fun. Stop mailing me -- it'll only be a bother. I don't want to be a bother.]
He felt incredulous. He felt suddenly sober. She thought she was a bother?
Before he could compose a reply, he received more mails from her.
[Yamauchi Shi:
I don't want you thinking that you should keep me company. We've known each other for 22 years, Kei-chan, but I don't want you thinking that you need to talk to me all the time or anything.]
[Yamauchi Shi:
You have your own life, one that I'm not part of, despite the history we share.]
[Yamauchi Shi:
I'm going to leave you, anyway, so... separation this early is okay, right? Better to get used to it, ne?]
Incredulous, and hurt -- hurt to the point that he could barely breathe, could barely process anything: not the way that he has jumped up to his feet, not the way that he heard Kohei shouting his name behind his back, not the way that he boarded his car and sped out of the parking lot. All he could process was that she was upset, she was wrong, and he had to prove her wrong.
It didn't take long for him to reach his friend's house. There wasn't a gate, so Inoo could just enter the residence.
He knows he reeks of alcohol, too, and even if he doesn't, he knows better than to knock and ask to visit Shi. He most certainly knew that they won't let him see Shi -- it was past nine in the evening and he knew Shi wouldn't show herself to him, anyway.
Inoo knew what to do. This was the benefit of being friends with someone for all your life -- you knew the ways to communicate with them without having to face their parents or something.
He went to the back of the house and approached the window he just knew was the window to Shi's bedroom. He knew that if he stood on the ledge that held the plants below Shi's bedroom window, he could comfortably rest his elbows on her windowsill.
He had to prove her wrong, Inoo said to himself. He would prove her wrong that he most certainly did not appreciate her thinking that distancing herself from him would even be effective.
---
Shi looked up from the research that she was making about her disease -- leukemia was a tough opponent, and she has to know. Even if the test results told her that it was looking up for her, she still can't ignore the way that they glossed over the fact that her platelets were still fluctuating. Platelets were important, she knew. She had known since she found out that she had leukemia at thirteen years old.
It has been almost ten years since she found out, and she was still alive, which was a good sign, but she didn't want to be too confident, or start taking her life for granted when anytime she can just fade away.
Which is why she pushed Inoo away. It hurt to do so, for the past twenty years, they had always depended on each other. Pushing Inoo away was like cutting off an arm. But it was necessary -- she was going to die anyway, so there was no reason why Inoo should hang around her anymore. He should be independent of her -- he had a future, she had none.
It hurt to think that someday they would have to go their separate ways, because, if Shi is to be asked, she would very much love to just grow old with Inoo Kei. Inoo was comfort -- their phone calls during the nights after she had another blood transfusion was what had gotten her through those most painful ordeals, the stories of his adventures with Mugendai the anchor that keeps her grounded whenever she feels she's floating away. Inoo had spent his life with Shi, and vice versa, that it was practically in their fate to continue on the same path, or figure something of their lives with each other still tangibly present. Inoo was almost like herself, and pushing him away, imploring her to figure out a future without her, forge and achieve goals without her... basically just forget about her, that hurt. Too much.
But what she was doing was for him, too. He had to get used to a life without her, so when the time comes that she... passes away, he would be ready.
A tap on the window interrupted her thoughts, and she looked up, immediately, at the wall clock above her study table. It was nearly eleven. Besides the thought that she had stayed up beyond the prescribed bedtime her doctor has set for her, she wondered why the hell was someone knocking on her window. She didn't have to wonder who it was. She pretty well knew who it was.
---
Inoo almost fell down the ledge when the window suddenly opened.
"Oh my god, Kei. What the hell are you doing here? Smelling like shit, too," Shi remarked as she helped him perch on the windowsill. Shi never learned how to slam the window in Inoo's face, never have.
Inoo looked at Shi as she pulled a chair up to the window. When she was settled, he stared hard at her, making Shi squeak out, "What, why are you staring at me like that?"
"Why did you send those texts?" he asked, bluntly.
She averted her eyes. "If you are going to talk about that, it's better if you leave," she said, standing up. "Goodnight, Ke-- "
He reached out and grabbed her arm. "No. Shi. Explain this to me. Why would you even think you're a bother? Why are you pushing me away, goddammit?"
"Kei, that hurts," she mumbled as his hand tightened further on her forearm.
"Don't push me away, Shi," Inoo said, almost begged. "Twenty years... I've been with you for twenty years, don't push me away like that, I can't take it."
"I'm going to die, Kei," she said lowly. "If not now, then sooner or later. It's always been decided, ever since I found out. I can't..." she looked at him, "...I can't let myself inconvenience you -- just think of yourself, make yourself into something, make a future for yourself, okay? Make a future that doesn't involve me."
Inoo stared at her, and it was like the old times -- one look at her and he understood everything that she was thinking about, all the secrets fears and the hidden smiles, the darkness and the light that was Yamauchi Shi.
He can't picture a future without her.
"No, Shi," he said, his hand tightening around Shi's forearm. "I can't do that."
"Why not? I'm just something you have to erase -- "
"I can't erase myself from a future I will be planning, Shi," he said fiercely. "Twenty years with you turned your existence into my existence, okay? You and I are the same person now. I can't forget Yamauchi Shi without forgetting Inoo Kei, too, so don't," he choked in air, "don't discount yourself. You're me, I'm you, and that's not going to change okay?"
"But, Kei, let's be..." Shi said, trying to hold back the tears. Because somehow, that was what she was hoping to hear from him -- for him to fight through the walls she was already building. "Let's be realistic. My life... it's not going to last."
"I don't want to care about that," Kei said, pulling her to him. It was awkward, hugging through a window, but still oddly comforting, through the alcohol that she could smell in his clothes, she could smell that distinct scent that was Inoo Kei, the same scent, even twenty years later. "You're here, aren't you? I don't care about the future. All I know is that you're still here and I want to make the best of that."
And that was when Shi decided to spill her tears. It was perfect, it was almost the same as an I love you.
And when Shi was already immensely satisfied with that, with his warmth all around her, with his breath in his ear, she felt him pulling away before pressing his lips onto hers for their first kiss.
"Don't push me away, because I love you too much and it hurts," Inoo whispers against the shell of her ear, "it hurts for me to know that you want to pull away from me."
"I'm sorry," Shi murmured, face buried into his chest.
They stay like that for moments more, until Inoo decides that Shi still had to rest for tomorrow. "You have to sleep, okay?" he said as she pulled away, but not before pressing another chaste kiss on her forehead, careful not to hurt. "I'll call you in the morning, before your doctor's appointment."
Shi nodded, and he gazes at her one last time before hopping off the ledge and walking away, heart more than ready to burst with all the emotions and the certainty that she understood that she was more than a friend.
She was part of him, in more ways than one. A vital part that can leave him useless at its absence.
He went home, in his car, smiling all the way.
---
Shi opened her eyes the next day, routine making her check the clock mounted on the wall. It was eight in the morning, and for a girl who fell asleep at one in the morning, she felt incredibly well-rested.
Her gaze fell to her forearm and saw the hand-shaped bruises there, and somehow she wondered if she dreamed that wonderful scenario with her Kei-chan up. If she inflicted this bruise on herself just because she was dreaming it all up.
The blinking of her phone beckoned her attention, and when she read what the message said, her smile became bigger.
[Inoo Kei:
Good morning, princess. Whatever you're thinking, last night wasn't a dream.
I love you.]
---
Comments are well-appreciated! :3
Author: yutorinislove
Pairing: Kei x OC
Rating: PG to PG-13
Genre: Romance
Summary: Inoo Kei doesn’t want her to think that he would be better off without her.
Author’s Note: Written through a fit of inspiration, then got stuck somewhere in the middle. Got myself unstuck, but then, the result is that I don’t know what happened to the ending. Boohoo.
----
"How was the show today?"
"It's great," Inoo whispered through the phone, looking up at the stars and smiling softly. "Keito's lyrics were awesome -- I think Yabu should grant him more songwriting jobs. I guess it's because he's so inspired. You know, he's only just realized that he's in love with this female friend he has..."
"Ooh. This Keiri-chan, is it?"
"Exactly. The song has so much angst to it that all the fans were flailing. You should have seen the smile on Keito's face--"
"I'm glad you had fun," the soft voice said on the other line. "I hate you -- you're having so much more fun than I am."
Inoo chuckled softly, cradling the phone gently, almost as if he was holding her hand by doing so. "Isn't going to the hospital fun?"
"Screw you."
Inoo smirked, looking out the horizon. "How was your day, anyway?"
"It was fine. The doctor had to take some more blood samples, but I guess I got a little bit better than the last time they had to take a sample. It hurt, but they gave me a lollipop right after, so it was fine!"
Inoo reveled in the simple happiness that radiated from her voice. He tried to ignore the thoughts of this happiness slowly but steadily being drained from her. He tried to ignore the fact that the future was uncertain, when it came to her.
"Ne, Kei-chan."
Inoo looked shifted on his feet, shifting his phone from one ear to the other. "Hm?"
"It doesn't look good."
Inoo felt his heart jump to his throat, and he wondered why he sounded so flighty and easy when his throat constricted so much he could barely breathe. "What doesn't?"
"The blood tests," said her quiet voice through the telephone. "They keep finding that my platelet count has plummeted yet again. I have to be transfused with platelets every few days or so now... and..."
"Does it hurt?" Inoo asked, trying to keep the worry out of his voice. If there was one thing he learned in the twenty-two years of knowing Yamauchi Shi, that was the fact that he couldn't panic, not with her. If he does, she will panic, too, and god knows how that would help with her condition right now.
"I'm used to it, Kei-chan," Shi said, her voice heaving with a smile. "I've been getting blood tests and transfusions since I was fourteen."
"Being used to it doesn't mean it doesn't hurt, you know," he bantered through the phone. He moved towards the electric keyboard in the practice room. He must make use of this time alone while the other members of Mugendai went to grab something to eat. He rarely found time to talk to Shi anymore, since he was busy with University and his part time job and Mugendai, and when he does find the time to call his childhood friend, Shi would be asleep. He didn't want to disturb the girl when she was having her much-needed rest. And because of this arrangement, it takes days, even weeks, for Inoo to be able to talk with his best childhood friend.
He cursed leukemia, he cursed why she had to be so sick, he cursed the times and the smiles that she could have spent out of doors, soaking up the sun and not worrying about disobeying the doctor's orders, not worrying about the fact that underneath her skin, inside those veins, lay the blood that had been faulty since her birth, lay the blood that was so traitorous that she may just bleed it out, if she exerted herself too much.
"You worry too much. It's fine. When you're used to it, it doesn't hurt that much," Shi said, a-matter-of-factly. Then she laughed. "You better get back to practice."
"The guys aren't even here yet," Inoo protested, but Shi admonished him with a laugh.
"You go back to having fun, alright? It's time for me to go back to rest, anyway. Have fun!"
Inoo knew a lost cause when he saw -- or rather, heard -- one. "Haiiiii. Take care, Mom."
"Shut up. Have fun, Kei-chan~"
"Mm," Inoo hummed, waiting for her to put down the phone. And when he finally heard the dial tone, he slipped his phone into his pocket and started preparing for practice, fingers touching the keyboard keys for a brief run of Fur Elise. He always dedicated this to Shi, because that was her favorite piano piece, and she used to have a music box with that playing, soothing her to sleep, when she was a child.
There's Fur Elise for you, Shi-chan. He smiled, as though he was telling it to her face-to-face.
Even though imagined, it was the least he could do to ease her pain.
---
Inoo didn't like partying. He didn't understand the point of entering closed, crowded space, with a suffocating atmosphere of cigarette smoke, teenagers' sweat and mixed perfume. He didn't like having to squeeze through hormone-driven people and try to have fun with them. Call him a homebody, but his idea of parties were those with balloons and clowns and cakes. Not booze and cigarettes, and a lonely fuck behind some door or wall.
But for some reason that was what he has gotten into. One of his university friends had wanted to go partying, had wanted to meet with this girl and impress her, and he needed help. Inoo wasn't stupid as to not know that "help" meant being a baby-sitter as his friend got shit-drunk, but there wasn't anything else he could do, he had already committed to his friend, and there wasn't turning back on Matsumoto Kohei's pleading eyes.
"Okay, okay, I get it, I stay in this booth," Inoo said as Kohei turned to him. Getting the girl was not that hard, in Inoo's opinion. The girl virtually liked Kohei back, so there wasn't anything to worry about in the first place, really. Kohei, in the infinite wisdom of a person who hasn't even gone out on one date, just needed to buy the girl a drink and it was done. Kohei mouthed him a word of thanks before running off to his girl.
Inoo watched the bodies dance -- move together and merge -- in the dark and temporary illumination of the strobe lights. He tried to enjoy the scenery, tried to get into the mood, but he can't, not even with the Bloody Marys he has downed, he just can't.
And when he was in doubt, he always turned to one person -- the one person who, aside from his parents and sister, knew him since he was born.
[Inoo Kei:
I'm bored. What are you doing?]
It wasn't in Shi's nature to ignore Inoo's texts, so a few seconds later, his phone pinged with a new message.
[Yamauchi Shi:
Reading. Aren't you supposed to be in practice?]
Inoo leaned back on the cushioned back rest of the booth, typing out a response, slower than usual because he was feeling a bit buzzed -- three glasses of Bloody Marys were not to be messed with, you see.
[Inoo Kei:
No practice today -- more than half of the band has either academic or familial obligations to attend to. I have baby-sitting duties.]
A ping.
[Yamauchi Shi:
Lemme guess. Kohei asked you out on a date?]
[Inoo Kei:
Of course not. We're not gay. He had a date, though. He just doesn't have the confidence to go drinking without a designated driver. It's kinda fun here, though.]
[Yamauchi Shi:
So what are you doing still mailing me?]
Inoo blinked at the last message. Even in the cottony haze of his brain, he could still process that last message. He tried to root out what she probably meant, but he couldn't (he blamed the alcohol), so he typed out a response.
[Inoo Kei:
What do you mean?]
For some reason he felt nervous, so he raised his hand and asked a glass of vodka on the rocks from the waitress who approached him. He felt nervous, his eyes trained on the phone, willing the response to come early, and at the same time dreading it.
His drink came at the same time her reply arrived. He took one big gulp of the liquor, gathering his courage, before opening the mail he received.
[Yamauchi Shi:
Have fun. Stop mailing me -- it'll only be a bother. I don't want to be a bother.]
He felt incredulous. He felt suddenly sober. She thought she was a bother?
Before he could compose a reply, he received more mails from her.
[Yamauchi Shi:
I don't want you thinking that you should keep me company. We've known each other for 22 years, Kei-chan, but I don't want you thinking that you need to talk to me all the time or anything.]
[Yamauchi Shi:
You have your own life, one that I'm not part of, despite the history we share.]
[Yamauchi Shi:
I'm going to leave you, anyway, so... separation this early is okay, right? Better to get used to it, ne?]
Incredulous, and hurt -- hurt to the point that he could barely breathe, could barely process anything: not the way that he has jumped up to his feet, not the way that he heard Kohei shouting his name behind his back, not the way that he boarded his car and sped out of the parking lot. All he could process was that she was upset, she was wrong, and he had to prove her wrong.
It didn't take long for him to reach his friend's house. There wasn't a gate, so Inoo could just enter the residence.
He knows he reeks of alcohol, too, and even if he doesn't, he knows better than to knock and ask to visit Shi. He most certainly knew that they won't let him see Shi -- it was past nine in the evening and he knew Shi wouldn't show herself to him, anyway.
Inoo knew what to do. This was the benefit of being friends with someone for all your life -- you knew the ways to communicate with them without having to face their parents or something.
He went to the back of the house and approached the window he just knew was the window to Shi's bedroom. He knew that if he stood on the ledge that held the plants below Shi's bedroom window, he could comfortably rest his elbows on her windowsill.
He had to prove her wrong, Inoo said to himself. He would prove her wrong that he most certainly did not appreciate her thinking that distancing herself from him would even be effective.
---
Shi looked up from the research that she was making about her disease -- leukemia was a tough opponent, and she has to know. Even if the test results told her that it was looking up for her, she still can't ignore the way that they glossed over the fact that her platelets were still fluctuating. Platelets were important, she knew. She had known since she found out that she had leukemia at thirteen years old.
It has been almost ten years since she found out, and she was still alive, which was a good sign, but she didn't want to be too confident, or start taking her life for granted when anytime she can just fade away.
Which is why she pushed Inoo away. It hurt to do so, for the past twenty years, they had always depended on each other. Pushing Inoo away was like cutting off an arm. But it was necessary -- she was going to die anyway, so there was no reason why Inoo should hang around her anymore. He should be independent of her -- he had a future, she had none.
It hurt to think that someday they would have to go their separate ways, because, if Shi is to be asked, she would very much love to just grow old with Inoo Kei. Inoo was comfort -- their phone calls during the nights after she had another blood transfusion was what had gotten her through those most painful ordeals, the stories of his adventures with Mugendai the anchor that keeps her grounded whenever she feels she's floating away. Inoo had spent his life with Shi, and vice versa, that it was practically in their fate to continue on the same path, or figure something of their lives with each other still tangibly present. Inoo was almost like herself, and pushing him away, imploring her to figure out a future without her, forge and achieve goals without her... basically just forget about her, that hurt. Too much.
But what she was doing was for him, too. He had to get used to a life without her, so when the time comes that she... passes away, he would be ready.
A tap on the window interrupted her thoughts, and she looked up, immediately, at the wall clock above her study table. It was nearly eleven. Besides the thought that she had stayed up beyond the prescribed bedtime her doctor has set for her, she wondered why the hell was someone knocking on her window. She didn't have to wonder who it was. She pretty well knew who it was.
---
Inoo almost fell down the ledge when the window suddenly opened.
"Oh my god, Kei. What the hell are you doing here? Smelling like shit, too," Shi remarked as she helped him perch on the windowsill. Shi never learned how to slam the window in Inoo's face, never have.
Inoo looked at Shi as she pulled a chair up to the window. When she was settled, he stared hard at her, making Shi squeak out, "What, why are you staring at me like that?"
"Why did you send those texts?" he asked, bluntly.
She averted her eyes. "If you are going to talk about that, it's better if you leave," she said, standing up. "Goodnight, Ke-- "
He reached out and grabbed her arm. "No. Shi. Explain this to me. Why would you even think you're a bother? Why are you pushing me away, goddammit?"
"Kei, that hurts," she mumbled as his hand tightened further on her forearm.
"Don't push me away, Shi," Inoo said, almost begged. "Twenty years... I've been with you for twenty years, don't push me away like that, I can't take it."
"I'm going to die, Kei," she said lowly. "If not now, then sooner or later. It's always been decided, ever since I found out. I can't..." she looked at him, "...I can't let myself inconvenience you -- just think of yourself, make yourself into something, make a future for yourself, okay? Make a future that doesn't involve me."
Inoo stared at her, and it was like the old times -- one look at her and he understood everything that she was thinking about, all the secrets fears and the hidden smiles, the darkness and the light that was Yamauchi Shi.
He can't picture a future without her.
"No, Shi," he said, his hand tightening around Shi's forearm. "I can't do that."
"Why not? I'm just something you have to erase -- "
"I can't erase myself from a future I will be planning, Shi," he said fiercely. "Twenty years with you turned your existence into my existence, okay? You and I are the same person now. I can't forget Yamauchi Shi without forgetting Inoo Kei, too, so don't," he choked in air, "don't discount yourself. You're me, I'm you, and that's not going to change okay?"
"But, Kei, let's be..." Shi said, trying to hold back the tears. Because somehow, that was what she was hoping to hear from him -- for him to fight through the walls she was already building. "Let's be realistic. My life... it's not going to last."
"I don't want to care about that," Kei said, pulling her to him. It was awkward, hugging through a window, but still oddly comforting, through the alcohol that she could smell in his clothes, she could smell that distinct scent that was Inoo Kei, the same scent, even twenty years later. "You're here, aren't you? I don't care about the future. All I know is that you're still here and I want to make the best of that."
And that was when Shi decided to spill her tears. It was perfect, it was almost the same as an I love you.
And when Shi was already immensely satisfied with that, with his warmth all around her, with his breath in his ear, she felt him pulling away before pressing his lips onto hers for their first kiss.
"Don't push me away, because I love you too much and it hurts," Inoo whispers against the shell of her ear, "it hurts for me to know that you want to pull away from me."
"I'm sorry," Shi murmured, face buried into his chest.
They stay like that for moments more, until Inoo decides that Shi still had to rest for tomorrow. "You have to sleep, okay?" he said as she pulled away, but not before pressing another chaste kiss on her forehead, careful not to hurt. "I'll call you in the morning, before your doctor's appointment."
Shi nodded, and he gazes at her one last time before hopping off the ledge and walking away, heart more than ready to burst with all the emotions and the certainty that she understood that she was more than a friend.
She was part of him, in more ways than one. A vital part that can leave him useless at its absence.
He went home, in his car, smiling all the way.
---
Shi opened her eyes the next day, routine making her check the clock mounted on the wall. It was eight in the morning, and for a girl who fell asleep at one in the morning, she felt incredibly well-rested.
Her gaze fell to her forearm and saw the hand-shaped bruises there, and somehow she wondered if she dreamed that wonderful scenario with her Kei-chan up. If she inflicted this bruise on herself just because she was dreaming it all up.
The blinking of her phone beckoned her attention, and when she read what the message said, her smile became bigger.
[Inoo Kei:
Good morning, princess. Whatever you're thinking, last night wasn't a dream.
I love you.]
---
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