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Blue lights. Like he’s underwater. Slow like that, like dreaming. The lights are low, the music goes down, but it comes back. It explodes and there’s a riot as it all comes back, it always comes back. He spins gently in a circle, and everything moves a second too late. Where is he? Where is Makoto? Where are the shadows? Everything is bright. There, there, there. A hand on his wrist.
“What time is it?” Makoto asks.
Watch, it’s on Byakuya’s wrist. He takes his hand out of Makoto’s grasp. Other wrist. Takes that one too.
2
9
“2:45.”
There’s food in the fridge at home, he thinks. He’s thirsty.
“Getting something to drink.” He says.
“What?” Makoto’s eyes are grey in the light.
“Drink. Water.”
“Oh. Me too”
Byakuya takes a step towards the floor. It’s coming up. It looks sticky.
Hand on his wrist again. Tripping, he was tripping. He’s 90º again.
“You’re like a, like a baby giraffe.” Tall, probably. Spindly-legged.
Can Byakuya feel his legs? Is he supposed to be able to feel them?
“Should I be able to feel my legs?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t.”
Makoto laughs. That’s good. They should play it on the speakers. Funny—not really. What’s music?
“Can we get two waters?”
Bar lights are yellow. Bartender is young, looks tired. They should be too, it’s late, isn’t it? What time was it? He has the watch. Makoto’s holding his wrist still. He pulls it away, checks the time, 2:48. They should go home. Yeah, should go home.
Makoto hands him a water. They drink it slow. It tastes good. Tastes good and hits the burn in his stomach. The water’s gone. Makoto’s laughing again. He points. There’s a spill on Byakuya’s shirt. Did he do that?
Cold air. Concrete. Headlights and bass pulse from behind them. The door clicks to their left. They’re outside. Byakuya doesn’t remember walking outside.
There’s a cab.
“Can we get a ride to uh…um…”
Green, blue. Makoto’s got green green eyes and the traffic light is blue even though it’s green. Isn’t that funny? Is he asking something?
“Where do we uh…live?”
That’s funny. Byakuya laughs a little. Blinks. Takes a breath.
“Did I give the address?” He asks.
A laugh. “We’re almost there.” Makoto’s head is against the window and he’s drawing patterns where his breath turns it foggy.
“Did I give the address?” Byakuya asks again.
They turn a corner and Makoto falls onto Byakuya’s shoulder. “Like a half hour ago.” He says.
Time. Byakuya checks his watch. The numbers are weird. Front seat. Dash clock. The numbers are green and bright and it’s 3:08.
“Not a half hour.” He says.
“I don’t know.” Makoto hums into his shoulder and he’s so warm. It’s cold. He wishes the driver would turn the heat on.
He thinks he’s sobering up a little bit and just as he’s thinking that he’s tripping up the stairs and why are they even taking the stairs? Did he pay the driver? He sighs. Where’s Makoto?
“Why aren’t we on the elevator?” He asks. His voice sounds so weird. Is he even real? His vision is fuzzy and everything is so slow like time is too tired to keep straight. Linear. Time is linear, not straight.
“It was um…” Makoto’s on the stair behind him, pulling Byakuya’s coattail. He waves his other hand around vaguely, too quick that it looks fuzzy. “It was like, broken.”
They’re on the third floor, then the fifth floor and Byakuya wishes numbers weren’t so confusing until he thinks that this building has never had a fourth floor. Unlucky four, unlucky floor. Funny. Where’s Makoto?
Coattail. Why did he wear a suit with coattails to the club? He should’ve worn something like Makoto. Where’s Makoto?
Coattail. He’s on Byakuya’s coattail. V-neck tee and jeans and sneakers and messy hair and green eyes and he looks so tired. Byakuya’s tired.
“What floor are we on?” Makoto asks.
“Five,” Byakuya, “Keep walking.”
“Can’t.” He giggles like a kid. That’s funny. “You’re blocking the way.”
Byakuya takes another step up and then they’re on the fifteenth floor. Fifteen, too high.
“We’re on the wrong floor.”
Makoto giggles again and Byakuya wonders if he can bottle it. Drink it. Not tonight, though. He’s had too much to drink tonight.
They go back down and then they’re at the door. It’s a number code. Byakuya knows the code and he knows the numbers but the thing is blinking red like he’s wrong. He’s not wrong.
“Did I lock the door?” He’s asking. His face is wet. Why is his face wet?
Makoto’s on the floor, toothbrush half-in his mouth. He’s wearing a different shirt and boxers and socks. Byakuya’s still in his suit and the front of it is wet. He was washing his face.
“You asked that already.” Makoto makes. He hums it so quietly, Byakuya wants to get closer to hear it and he loves mint, he loves mint and he didn’t have his peppermint tea tonight and Makoto is brushing his teeth.
“Did I?” Byakuya can’t feel his face. Except that it’s wet.
“I think, twice.” Makoto is gargling toothpaste. It’s catching in the corners of his lips.
“But did I lock it?” He asks again but Makoto is standing up. He bangs his hip into the counter.
He spits toothpaste in the sink. His toothbrush goes next to Byakuya’s and it falls over. It drips water onto the counter next to the two-toothbrush holder. When did he buy that? Makoto lives here, too.
He can’t remember why Makoto lives here. “Why do we live together?” He asks and Makoto just makes this face like he has no idea and it’s so weird, it’s all so weird. Byakuya feels so weird.
“I don’t know.” Makoto makes this over-exaggerated shrug. “I don’t know,” Again, “It’s so confusing.”
Byakuya nods.
“What are we doing?” Makoto’s asking. The bathroom light flickers.
“Getting ready to go to bed.”
“No, because…”
They’re on the couch now and Byakuya feels a little nauseous. He should have more water.
“What are we doing?” Makoto, again.
“Water. I’m going to the kitchen to get water.”
“No, no, I mean, like–” And he’s tailing Byakuya again. His fingers are tangling in the untucked hem of Byakuya’s dress-shirt and he doesn’t remember taking his coat off. “Like, why are we like this?”
Byakuya doesn’t know what Makoto means. “What do you mean?’ He asks.
“When we’re like this, sometimes it feels like I could never want anything I don’t already have, y’know? And then I wake up and everything is, everything is just the same. Like, it’s how it always is. It’s not like this, I mean.”
The water’s on the counter. In a puddle. Byakuya can’t get it to pour right. What time is it and where is Makoto and why aren’t they asleep yet? What was it Makoto was saying?
“What?” Byakuya asks, because he can’t remember what Makoto was saying. What was Makoto saying? Did Byakuya lock the door?
“I’m just, I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m so tired.”
Mahogany, Byakuya thinks. He bangs a shoulder into the doorframe and there’s a hand on his wrist. He’s not walking straight, he’s so far passed walking straight.
The blankets are cold and light and Byakuya is still wearing his suit. The sheets smell a little like sweat but it’s so distinctly Makoto that it’s a little reassuring and why is he in Makoto’s bed?
“What are we doing?” They don’t do this. Three bedrooms, one and a half bathrooms, two people and they don’t sleep in the same bed.
“Sleeping.” And Makoto’s holding him by the waist like he’s everything and nothing and Byakuya doesn’t think he will ever sleep again. There’s just green and black and white and blue. Spinning. The world is spinning. Makoto is sighing into Byakuya’s shoulder and melting into the mattress.
“Makoto,” He says. His head hurts a little.
“Hmm?” Makoto hums.
“Makoto, what are we doing?”
“You already asked that.”
“Well?”
“We’re sleeping. We’re going to sleep.” Makoto makes little noises as he shuffles around.
Byakuya sits up slow. The world goes slower. Something falls off him. Makoto. He looks down.
“What are you doing?” Makoto only has one eye open.
“Why am I in your bed?” Byakuya asks.
“I offered.”
“Why?”
“Dunno.”
Byakuya’s ears ring. His head hurts a little. He wants some water.
“Makoto?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m tired.”
“Go to sleep.”
Byakuya looks him dead in the eyes. “Makoto.”
“What?”
“What are you thinking right now?”
Makoto rolls over, head in the pillow. He groans. “I’m not. That’s the problem.”
Byakuya tries to stand up, but he still can’t feel his legs. He thinks the floor is too far away. There’s no hand on his wrist to keep him up this time.
“I just wanna talk about it.” Makoto sounds small. Kind of like he’s breaking and Byakuya wants to remember that he isn’t made of glass.
“I’m asking you to,” Byakuya says. He sounds weird. Before, he remembers not feeling real. Now, he feels too real. Like every part of his body is too heavy in the moment, too present, taking up too much space.
“No, like I wanna talk about it. Tomorrow, I want to talk tomorrow.” He looks Byakuya in the eyes, the whites are red at the edges. His nose is pink. He’s so small.
“We can talk about it tomorrow.” Byakuya goes to stand again, leg catching under the sheets. He sits back down.
“No,” Makoto says, shaking his head, “We won’t talk about it tomorrow. We never do.”
“We can.” Byakuya, again. Because his head hurts and he’s really tired and he doesn’t understand what Makoto is saying.
Makoto shakes his head again. “You’re going to wake up tomorrow and you’re going to make yourself coffee and by the time I’m up you’ll have breakfast for both of us. And it’s funny because you do that every time, every time we go out, you always make breakfast in the mornings and I always wonder how you know when I’ll be up. I always walk out into the kitchen and it smells so good, and you’re there cooking for me and sometimes it feels like I’m dreaming, y’know? And you’ll pour me water and hand me a bottle of the, of those little pills that make the headaches go away. What are they called?”
“Makoto.” Byakuya rubs his temples. “You’re rambling.”
Makoto closes his eyes for a second. He takes a little breath and it sounds almost musical in the dead silence. “What I’m saying is, I’m saying that you wake up too early. You’re probably going to wake up at eight—even though it’s, like three in the morning now-–and you’re going to complain that you woke up too late. You’ll say you feel like the whole day’s wasted and you’ll ask me how I can sleep so late-– and what I’m saying is we’re not going to talk about it tomorrow.” He huffs. “We’re going to end up pretending nothing even happened and the only thing to prove otherwise’ll be the stupid headache that I can already feel.” He presses his hands to his forehead.
Outside, a car screeches to a halt. Their heater runs, a light humming stagnant in the room. Upstairs, someone takes a few steps.
Byakuya thinks he can see the air, sparkling, heavy, still and unmoving. When did everything stop moving? He hears someone talking and it takes a second before he realizes it's him. “What would it mean if I told you now?”
And Makoto looks at him like he’s folding in on himself—he might be.
“We’re both drunk. Would it mean anything if we talked about it now?”
Makoto opens his mouth. “It could.” He says it so quietly, so softly that Byakuya wants to believe him.
“Tomorrow,” Byakuya says.
Makoto looks at the creases in the sheets. They look like waves. This whole night has been like water, slipping away from Byakuya, drenched in blues. Everything is still so slow.
“Can I kiss you?” Makoto’s voice is sea glass and the whole world is drowning Byakuya.
“Yes.” When did the drinks start tasting like bad decisions? When did Byakuya stop swallowing his want with ice cubes and everything else he’s taken down?
Makoto is warm. His lips are dry and he tastes like mint. Byakuya’s stomach twists a bit. He can’t feel his own face, only Makoto’s.
“Tomorrow.” Into Makoto’s lips. “Tomorrow, we can do this tomorrow.”
“Yeah.” Makoto. “Yeah, tomorrow.”
Byakuya stands. He thinks he does, at least, but his head’s on the pillow and Makoto’s next to him. “I can’t feel my legs,” Byakuya says. He’s said that before, hasn’t he?
“Stay here,” Makoto giggles.
Byakuya does. The world sways slightly and he kind of feels like he’s floating away. It’s okay, he thinks, it’s okay because tomorrow is his anchor. Tonight, the ocean. But tomorrow, the anchor.
Tomorrow, Makoto.