A/N: One of the hardest sections of Komatta Toki for me followed the car accident in Volume 13, when Kiyomine very clearly chooses his sister Ayako over Takara, and leaves their relationship visibly scarred. I wished that there had been more consequences for Kiyomine's outburst, and that Takara had been able to lean on his friends, specifically Reiichi and Yoshiya, to get comfort after this betrayal.
With some prompting from a friend, I've decided to take up a multi-chapter project for Komatta Toki set after Volume 13, sort of a "what if" where Takara's father does go back to Africa and he turns to Reiichi and Yoshiya for comfort after Kiyomine's harsh words. Not totally sure how long it will be, but nine or so chapters at least, possibly with additional interludes afterward.
Note: Mostly a friendship story focused on Takara, Reiichi, and Yoshiya, with some light Kiyomine x Takara and Yoshiya x Reiichi pre-slash hints.
Crash and Burn: Chapter One
The city was disconcertingly quiet now. Through the shimmer of snowflakes crusting the taxi window, Yoshiya could see that the worst of the storm had passed, though the roads were still slick, and every now and then he caught a glimpse of emergency lights in the glass façades of skyscrapers and high-rise office buildings, sirens silenced but their lights still screaming. Reiichi's text had been short, somehow breathless—she's okay—just enough to relax Yoshiya's shoulders against the taxi's back seat, to ease the memory of the look Reiichi had shot him as he led Hosaka and Fujishima out of the dorm, eyes wide in his pale face like he was struggling to keep his concern locked inside, like he was checking that it didn't show. Yoshiya always saw it anyway. He wondered if the rest of the Kashiwagis would have arrived at the hospital by now, wished without any real impatience that the driver would speed up. The last thing they needed tonight was another accident; still, there was an uncomfortable tension in his chest, a dull ache that wouldn't ease until he made it back to Reiichi's side again, found out if his expression was still made of glass. Reiichi had never handled hospitals well.
The phone made a soft sound against his ear, and Yoshiya pulled it back far enough to read the icon. Another text. Maybe this one would be about Fujishima. He'd have to get off the call before he could find out.
"…I'm so sorry to hear that happened. Please tell Ayako I'm glad she's all right."
Yoshiya raised two fingers to rub the bridge of his nose, fighting to hear the man's startled, apologetic voice through the blare of announcements, calls for passengers and flights buzzing over airport speakers. He didn't know Fujishima's father very well, but he was the one with twenty minutes in a taxi and the connections to get Mr. Fujishima pulled from his plane to answer a phone call even though the aircraft's doors had already closed. He heard the man shift, an impatience in the movement that Yoshiya found absently irritating.
"There was some concern that you were in the car," he said, keeping his voice mild. "Your son was under the impression Ayako was giving you a ride to the airport."
As clearly as if he were still standing in the dorm's entrance hall, he saw again the blood drain from Fujishima's face, the slow dawn of panic as Reiichi stepped out of the office and explained that Ayako had been in an accident and was taken to the hospital, condition unknown. What about my dad? My dad was in the car with her, Fujishima had asked, choking out the words like there was something caught in his throat—and then the unsettling bang as Hosaka grabbed Fujishima's collar and smashed him back into the wall, rage making his eyes even darker than usual. If anything's happened to Ayako, I'll never forgive you. Even after Reiichi led them out and the taxi pulled away, Yoshiya heard those words in his head for a long time.
There was a piece of paper in his lap—something that had fallen out of Fujishima's pocket in the fray, a tiny white square like Fujishima had folded it over and over until it was as small as possible. Yoshiya flicked the creased edge as he listened to the voice on the other end of the phone.
"Oh, that…well, she did offer, but once we got into the city the traffic was so bad I decided I'd better take a train. Ayako let me out at the station. She must have been on her way back when the accident happened." A tiny pause, like the man had hesitated over his words. "I hope Takara wasn't too worried."
"I'm sure he was," Yoshiya said, and felt no particular remorse for the awkward silence from the other side.
He didn't know Fujishima's father that well. He had appreciated the man's hospitality at New Year's, when he'd given Reiichi a place to run. He had appreciated his talent for photography when he displayed the snapshots from his last trip, his obvious passion when he talked about the assignment he was hoping for—eighteen months embedded with a certain tribe in the heart of the continent. But even as he could appreciate the artistry of his craft, the unexpected construction and the flawless eye for color, Yoshiya couldn't stop himself from wondering how someone could think about being away from his only child for that length of time, how he could effuse about the trip as if he weren't leaving anything behind. And he couldn't stop himself, now, from unfolding the piece of paper again, staring down at the official government forms for transfer of guardianship, with Fujishima Takara's name on the line asking for Identity of Minor, and Assignment to Africa as the reason for surrendering his rights. Mr. Fujishima hadn't written anything in the space denoting New Guardian, but he had signed his name at the bottom, and as a consequence the form seemed achingly empty—not so much a handoff as a castoff, a man freeing himself of his responsibility to his son without caring whose responsibility he became. Yoshiya wondered if it had felt the same to Fujishima, if that was why he'd folded it so tightly, small enough that he wouldn't have to feel it in his pocket.
There was the crackle of a prerecorded message over the speakers, the hush of someone speaking low on the other side of the phone. Fujishima Kou cleared his throat. "Listen, I'm really sorry, but we just got the okay to taxi…they're getting ready to close the doors again. I have to go. Please tell Takara I'll call him once I land in Ethiopia." Again that hesitation, the impatience more pronounced this time. "Unless there's something else?"
Yoshiya stared down at the change of guardianship form. Then he folded it slowly back up and tucked it into the pocket of his heavy coat, staring out at a white city through the glare of taillights on black glass.
"No," he said. "There's nothing else. Have a safe flight."
He didn't see Fujishima right away when he reached the hospital. He found Hosaka, and Ayako, and the rest of the Kashiwagi clan gathered in the lobby, examining one by one the small bandages on Ayako's face and arms. Reiichi broke from the circle to meet him at the door, explaining in a low voice that they were all going out to dinner. Yoshiya thought he still seemed shaken, those slender fingers wrapped a little too tightly around his wrist to be an unconscious hold.
"You're going home tonight, aren't you—for the last few days of break?" Reiichi asked, as Masaya summoned him back into the fold. "I might drop by later, after dinner."
Yoshiya had a feeling that dinner—a long drive in the lingering snow, an hour listening to Masaya and his father talk business over heavy wine and heavier food while Reiichi's eyes drifted over and over to the bandages on Ayako's face, the flash of ambulances going by outside the window—was not what Reiichi needed right now. He was tempted to turn his hand over, take Reiichi's wrist in turn and drag him away before he had any more time to dwell on this. But that wasn't how things worked with the Kashiwagis. He squeezed Reiichi's hand in passing as he slid out of his companion's grip.
"Of course. You're welcome anytime."
"Thanks." He took a step back toward the knot of family behind him before adding, "Oh—could you look around for Fujishima? We invited him to come along, but he said he was going to take the bus or something…"
"I'll get him a taxi," Yoshiya broke in. Reiichi smiled.
"I knew you would. See you later." He turned and jogged back to the cluster of black-haired family members heading for the door, and Yoshiya watched him go, wondering how many hours the Kashiwagis would exact before Reiichi could get away. Then he shook it off and addressed himself to the exhausted night nurse, who directed him to the bus stop at the back of the building.
But Fujishima wasn't at the bus stop. Nor was he at the taxi stand outside the lobby, the line of vehicles waiting for hire painted a jarring red and white by the staccato lights of an ambulance rolling in. He wasn't in the men's room off the lobby. The night nurse hadn't noticed him slipping down the corridor into the depths of the hospital—and why would he? Yoshiya dialed his number once, twice, felt his stomach twist into a tighter knot with every unanswered ring. He spent a fraction of a second theorizing that Fujishima had gotten onto a bus in the mere minutes between slipping away from Reiichi and his own arrival by taxi, but the transit report on his phone told him all buses had stopped running an hour ago.
By the time he circled back to the bus stop, his hands braced on his knees as he bent under the weight of the snow getting thicker all the time, he was out of breath and half out of his mind, baffled at how Fujishima had just disappeared, how he and Reiichi and Hosaka had let him slip through their fingers like this. Yoshiya forced himself straight, pushed his fogged glasses back up the bridge of his nose with a softly shaking hand. It wasn't a good night to lose track of someone. Already it felt like they were on the losing end of something, a chance of balance that couldn't tip their way one more time.
The roads were deserted, the city so quiet Yoshiya could hear the drums pounding in his ears. Out of desperation, he put his phone to his ear again and listened to the long silence before the ring, his imperfect eyes squinting down the horizon of every street through the haze of the storm. Then out of the darkness came a sound that broke the ice in his stomach—the distant chime of a ringtone he recognized, the opening theme to an anime that Fujishima had raved about two weeks ago, before the break, every emphatic gesture making Reiichi laugh harder into his coffee cup. Yoshiya turned on his heel, stared down the vacant sidewalk just in time to see a figure in a familiar salmon-colored coat slipping out of the circle of illumination beneath a streetlamp, vanishing into the darkness at the same moment the phone stopped ringing. Yoshiya shoved it into his pocket and started to run.
"Fujishima!" he called, the echo of his voice resounding in the silent streets. But either Fujishima didn't hear him, or, like the phone, he simply chose not to answer.
Yoshiya wasn't dressed for this. His heavy brown coat flapped open, driving the nails of the icy wind through the thin weave of his sweater; his black oxfords slipped on a patch of ice and he almost impaled himself on the finial of a wrought-iron fence, scraping one palm raw when he caught himself against the concrete instead. The cold made it hard to breathe, harder to think about anything except the snowflakes building up on his glasses, the figure that just kept walking slowly, deliberately away into the dark. By the time he caught up, risking another slip to jump over the mountain of dirty snow the plows had left crusting in the gutter, he had lost his typical composure; he seized Fujishima by the shoulder, dragged him up out of the road with of one hand and then spun the shorter boy to face him, fingers clenched into the rough fabric of his coat. Fujishima looked somewhere between shocked and angry, his stubborn eyes already narrowed as if preparing for a fight.
"What are you doing?" Yoshiya demanded, the words a little louder than he'd intended, breathless with the run and the irritation coiling in his chest. He could feel the worry that had sunk like lead into his stomach coming to a slow boil, the temper he usually had well in check rising as he searched his underclassman's recalcitrant face.
Fujishima jerked against his hold. "What—nothing. I'm just walking…"
"Where?" Yoshiya interrupted, shaking him a little before he could stop himself. "Where are you going? Were you planning to walk all the way back to the dorm? To your house?" He could hear the edge in his own voice, a tone only Reiichi had ever pushed him to before, when he engaged in behavior so stupid that Yoshiya had to yell at him even through the heart in his throat—the way it was in his throat now, making it even harder to suck the frigid air into his lungs. He wiped the cuff of his sleeve over his lenses, searched through smudged glass for something, anything he could understand in Fujishima's face. "What were you thinking?" he challenged.
Fujishima shifted his weight, shrugging into his coat like he could shrug Yoshiya's hands off at the same time. "The bus isn't running," he mumbled under his breath.
Yoshiya shook his head. "No. You are far too smart to think that's acceptable, and I won't take that from you, Fujishima."
The words were so sharp he felt Fujishima flinch, and Yoshiya sighed, closing his eyes for a long moment to search for composure. Maybe it was just the fear that had his emotions in disarray, the horrible uncertainty he'd felt at the hospital, staring down every black street in turn. Maybe it was the long run and the cold air shriveling in his chest. Or maybe it was just the thought that had hit him while he was running, so hard it almost stopped him mid-stride—the memory of the empty guardianship form tucked into his pocket, the question of exactly whose problem it was if Fujishima walked into the night and disappeared without a trace. Could it be that, at this moment, Fujishima was no one's problem, no one's responsibility? Everything about that thought was terrifying. Yoshiya opened his eyes and took a deep breath, forcing his voice back to its normal pitch as he squeezed Fujishima's shoulders, begged something in that obstinate expression to change.
"Fujishima, you can't do things like this. You returned to the dorms today, which means Reiichi needs to know where you are. I need to know where you are. I had no idea what had happened to you. And there is no excuse for not answering your cell phone." He thought he saw something in Fujishima's eyes, a flicker of shame or misery, but he blinked it away too fast to be sure. Yoshiya ran a hand through his hair. "There were ten people you knew at the hospital. You should have waited with the group, or asked Reiichi to put you in a taxi, or just agreed to go to dinner with Reiichi and Hosaka and—"
The name had been a mistake. Yoshiya realized that as soon as it left his tongue. Fujishima jerked away from him as if he'd been burned and Yoshiya let go, but only because he could see now that whatever was about to happen, Fujishima wasn't going to run—his shoulders were hunched up to his ears and his legs trembled in his thin jeans, his arms wrapped tight around his stomach as if even the heavy down coat couldn't keep the cold out. He took half a step backward and then jerked to a stop, like the soles of his tennis shoes were frozen into the snow. Fujishima shook his head.
"I didn't want—look, nothing was going to happen, and I'm fine, it's fine…"
Yoshiya reached out again, settled a much softer hand on the collar of the salmon coat. "No, Fujishima," he said. "It isn't fine. Nothing about this is fine."
Fujishima stared at him through the ethereal snow, their eyes locked as the younger boy blinked once, twice, squeezed his eyes shut—then all at once Fujishima's face was crumbling, his body shaking as he ducked his head and sobbed into his hands. Yoshiya felt the first wrenching breath like a hammer to his ribs. He had seen Fujishima cry before, but never like this—his face florid, his whole form quivering as if his bones could barely hold him up against the hollow that had opened in the center of him, a void like the empty line where the name of his guardian was supposed to be. Yoshiya swallowed and felt the prickle of the frigid air at the back of his eyes. Then he took the shorter boy by the sleeves and pulled him in, crushed Fujishima against him so hard that he heard him hiccup against the brown fabric. For a moment two bony elbows dug into his stomach, Fujishima squirming in his coat as if he was trying to get away from warmth, from comfort, as if this was something no one was supposed to see—but in another few breaths he gave up, and Yoshiya felt the smaller form sag against his chest, such a slight weight he barely noticed it. Fujishima shuddered, pressing his forehead against Yoshiya's shoulder.
"Kiyomine…my dad…it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter," he repeated, his voice breathless and thick with the tears—but by the third time, Yoshiya had deciphered it, could hear the litany of I don't matter underneath the broken words. He tightened his hold, closed his eyes against the glare of oncoming headlights making a blinding wall of the storm.
"It matters," he whispered, and hoped Fujishima could hear him over the rumble of tires on icy pavement, over the heart he could feel pounding under the boy's skin.
From the beginning, Yoshiya had wondered about the Fujishima and Hosaka "experiment," as Reiichi called it. He had known the Kashiwagi family long enough to worry about the sharp side of Hosaka's tongue, to wonder if there was enough of Hosaka for someone to fix, even someone with Fujishima's unbreakable will. So many times he had wondered, listening to doors bang in the first-year corridor, if this was it, if Fujishima had finally had all that he could take. Only now did he realize how complacent he had been, so used to the whims of the Kashiwagis that it had never occurred to him that maybe Fujishima needed someone to get between him and Hosaka before he left scars instead of bruises. It made him angry at himself, and angrier at Hosaka, who was not young enough anymore to be forgiven for breaking his favorite things. Yoshiya squeezed his arms around Fujishima's back and hoped the younger boy could feel the embrace for what it was meant to be—sympathy and solace and deep remorse, because he had never paid enough attention, never treated Fujishima as if he were his responsibility. That was not a mistake he would make again.
Slowly, Yoshiya pulled back far enough to see his face, tears still streaming from red, watery eyes. "Sorry," Fujishima croaked, glancing up at him and then away like he knew he was a mess, scrubbing at the disheveled bangs stuck to his forehead—but looking at him just made Yoshiya smile, because there was something very genuine about his expression, embarrassed and vulnerable and just a little put out, like a kitten left out in a box in the rain, still crying after it was picked up and tucked inside a warm coat. Somehow he had a feeling it was an image Reiichi would understand. Yoshiya shook his head.
"It's all right. Listen, Fujishima…" He hesitated only a moment before pressing on, the square of paper in his pocket burning like a brand through three layers of fabric. "I'm going home for the last few days of break. I'd like you to come with me." Fujishima jerked his head up, staring at him in surprise. Yoshiya wished he could tell what kind of surprise it was. "Reiichi will be coming by later," he hurried to add, in case he was the problem, not certain, suddenly, how comfortable Fujishima would feel staying with him alone.
Reiichi would never have forgiven him for letting Fujishima go home to an empty, desolate house, not after finding him like this, broken open in the snow—but even if he hadn't had Reiichi's voice in his head, Yoshiya wouldn't have let him go, because there was something tightening in the hollow of his ribs: a yearning to do better by Fujishima from this point on, to be someone who gave something to Fujishima and then didn't take it away. He wasn't old enough to sign that empty line as Fujishima's guardian—but maybe he could fill the void, just for a little while.
Yoshiya wrapped an arm across Fujishima's shoulders and led him back toward the hospital, the brittle ice breaking under every step. "I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have yelled at you." Fujishima just shook his head, his face pressed into Yoshiya's sleeve to muffle the gasps as he started to cry again—but he wasn't pulling away.
It was a place to start, Yoshiya thought. Sometimes, that was all you could ask for.
To be continued...please review if you'd like to see more.