Chapter Text
When Kazue first woke up, he was disoriented. His head hurt, his mouth felt weird, he was wildly uncomfortable, and for at least a few awkward moments, he didn't know where he was.
Trying not to cringe about the horrible taste in his mouth, Kazue pushed himself to sitting and looked around, rubbing his eyes.
He wished he could say in that moment where he was, but 'not his bedroom' was about as much as he could manage.
"How's the head, Kazue?"
At the sound of his brother-in-law's voice, Kazue fell off the couch. "Akimitsu?" he asked, bewildered, wincing with embarrassment and pain. "Why are you-"
Suddenly, his surroundings all clicked into neat focus. He was in the living room at Akari and Akimitsu's, where he had apparently…slept on the couch.
No, he corrected with an internal groan; he hadn't slept, he'd passed out. He had passed out on their couch, after drinking way too much whiskey, followed by…
Followed by…
The fact he couldn't remember was a terrible sign, and Kazue cringed again as he started to haul himself up.
"Slowly," came Akimitsu's voice once more from the kitchen. "And if you feel like you're going to be sick, there's a bucket beside you."
Kazue felt the strangest mixture of embarrassment, gratitude, and offense as he took note of the bucket and carefully perched on the couch. To his knowledge, he had never thrown up while hungover…
Then again, it had been years since he'd drunk quite so much.
"Thanks," he said finally, rubbing his hands over his face. Then a thought occurred to him and he looked up with a start, wincing at the jabbing pain to his head at the sharp action.
"When you came down, Akimitsu, I hadn't actually…the bucket, that is…"
He was so embarrassed he couldn't finish the thought, but fortunately Akimitsu could get the gist from his babbling.
"No, you hadn't thrown up," said Akimitsu, approaching and handing him a steaming cup of coffee. "But I felt it was better to have it and not need it than the opposite."
"Makes sense," Kazue admitted, taking a drink of his coffee. Then he took the pills he was handed and swallowed them without comment.
"That was a late night you and Akari had," Akimitsu said calmly, sitting down at Kazue's side.
He didn't sound accusatory, but Kazue shifted guiltily.
"I hope we didn't keep you up."
"Don't worry, you're a restrained drunk," said Akimitsu with a slight smile, and Kazue cringed at the word 'drunk' before quietly saying,
"Sorry."
"Don't be," said his brother-in-law, taking a sip of his tea. "It was obvious that you and Akari were in the middle of something heavy; as soon as I figured that out, I just left you two be."
Which meant that Akimitsu had gone to bed alone, while his wife kept Kazue company as he wallowed in drunken…something.
Emotion. Plural emotions, even. There had been anger, Kazue was sure, and a lot of frustration…
'It just sucks, you know? It sucks, a lot, and I hate it. I hate that we had to make choices no one else ever does.'
Kazue could hear his own voice, raised in slurring anger. Then he shifted uncomfortably as he heard his voice once more.
'I just wish things were different, you know? Simple. Easy. Like everyone else. Instead, I got 'complicated.''
He wished he could remember everything he'd said, or even half of it.
Barring that, he hoped his sister had also ended the night as a drunk; at least then there was a chance she wouldn't remember anything, either.
"How's Akari?" he asked Akimitsu, looking up from his coffee, and Akimitsu shrugged slightly as he responded,
"Asleep."
"Drunk-asleep?" asked Kazue, trying to sound nonchalant, but he could hear himself well enough to know that he just sounded hopeful.
"Regular asleep, as far as I could tell," said Akimitsu, trying to hide his smile behind his teacup. "She doesn't usually drink much, you know."
Yes, Kazue did know that, and he had for ages.
Then again, he also knew that he himself rarely drank that much, either.
Last night had been a fluke for him, something that hadn't happened for years. If Akari hadn't had that whiskey, he might have been ok…
Or he might have ended up at a bar and gotten drunk there, instead.
"You know you're always welcome here, no matter what, Kazue."
Kazue snapped out of his musings guiltily, looking over at Akimitsu's understanding expression.
"That's if you simply need company, if you want to stay, if there's ever anything either Akari or I can do…"
Kazue knew the offer was genuine and it made him smile; enough that at least for the moment, he could almost forget the rest.
"Thanks, Akimitsu," he said, clutching his coffee cup. "Though just for the record, this," he said, gesturing vaguely around them, "isn't something I plan to make a habit."
"I'm glad to hear it," Akimitsu replied, returning Kazue's smile. "Especially since, as you know, we have a perfectly good guest bed."
"Yes…" Kazue must have been too drunk to move, or already passed out. Whatever the perfectly valid reason he'd been on the couch.
"We're family," Akimitsu said, "so that means we're here for you."
Even though Kazue felt horribly right then, he still managed to return his brother-in-law's smile. He had always been a fan of Akari's husband, and it was nice to know that he still had Akimitsu's approval; passing out drunk in his living room had not been his finest moment.
And for all that 'family' ideally meant unconditional support, Kazue knew all too well that sometimes, that wasn't true.
Later that morning as Kazue rode home to his apartment in Chiba, he turned over Akimitsu’s words as he stared out the window.
It had been nice to see his brother and sister, he admitted in the end. Even if he wished he could go back in time and skip the whiskey, talking to Akari and Akimitsu had been nice while it lasted. It was almost cathartic, even, getting things off of his chest…
Though perhaps, in retrospect, he could have handled everything better.
Sighing softly to himself, Kazue pulled out his phone, opening his email client, then his grandmother's email. He loved his Grandma Hiromi deeply and he always would, but it was a fact that she lived in a very different world.
Kazue's eyes skimmed over the email he'd read several times already, ever since it popped into his inbox the previous day. A beautifully worded email, in his grandmother's flowing style, filled with love, affection…and emotional manipulation.
He was used to her guilt trips, and adept at ignoring them. But that didn't mean it didn't still sting just a little to read.
'Your grandfather and I have always been so proud of you, Kazue, and I know you are still making him proud, even now he is gone. We just want you to be happy, the way you ought to be, and I worry that your current lifestyle-'
A long, loving email, filled with backhanded compliments. Simultaneously praising him, and criticizing as well. Invoking his deceased grandfather, and his grandmother's wishes; telling him what they wanted for him, as though he must want the same things.
Then again, he couldn't recall a time they'd done anything else. It had never, and would never, occur to his grandmother that he could want something different, even with a lifetime of evidence staring her in the face.
Kazue snorted softly as he scrolled through the email, down to the primary reason his grandma had sent it at all: the list of matchmaking services, where he could sign up for the chance to let someone choose him a bride.
He didn't doubt his grandmother was attempting to be helpful; after all, he was twenty-five, gainfully employed…and single.
Normally, the email would have been easy to ignore. His grandmother and aunt had spent seven years trying to find him a girlfriend; trying to get him an omiai was a logical next step. If it had been any other day, he probably would have been fine; he would have looked at the email, laughed at it, and composed a polite response.
He would have been fine. Totally fine.
Any other day.
But not that day, when he was already reeling from something else.
Kazue took a deep breath as he closed his email client, flicking open his text messages with the tip of his finger.
'Hey, Kazue…sorry, I don't know how to start this. I know we haven't talked for a while, and I hope you're doing well. I know we agreed not to talk, but I thought you should know that I'm going to be in Chiba for work, starting…soon. Right now, it sounds like I'll be there a month, but it might turn into longer. No pressure on you at all and it's fine if you'd rather not see me, but if you want to talk at all…let me know, ok?'
A message from a number he hadn't heard from in over two years.
A message from a person he wished he could forget.
A message that reminded him how unfair life could be…
A message that turned his grandmother's email from comical to grotesque.
The email, he could have handled alone. The text…probably. The two together, the same afternoon? There was absolutely no way, and it was in that complex emotional state he'd gone to see his sister, only to find out she wanted to see him to ask him for a favor.
And, of course, that favor happened to involve a girl.
Again, a girl.
Always a girl.
Always with the girls.
Because he was young man with a pleasant personality who was gainfully employed, generally regarded as handsome, and most importantly, single.
That most odious of words, 'single.' A word his grandmother and aunt seemed to take as a personal affront, while others, like Akari, took it as more of an invitation.
Because 'single' meant 'available,' and 'available' meant…
He was meat.
Kazue still felt ashamed of how he'd treated his sister the previous night. Yes, she'd asked him for a favor he didn't want to grant, but all he'd needed to say was 'no' and that could have been it.
Instead, Akari's requested favor had been the final straw, and Kazue had let loose his frustration with feeling like a prize. With being treated like he was defective for being single at twenty-five.
For being treated like he couldn't be trusted to make his own choices.
For being told what to do, yet again, and expected to be grateful.
Akari had been sympathetic, and apologetic. Kazue had apologized himself; it wasn't her fault that he'd never told her what their grandmother was doing, that she had no idea he'd been being set up since he was eighteen.
And under the circumstances, Akari's follow-up had made sense:
'What do you want, Kazue?'
That was easy. He wanted a relationship. A wife. A family of his own, some day, when the timing was right.
'So in that case, why have you never dated?'
A valid question, considering what she knew.
A valid question, considering what she didn't.
Because, once again, he had never told her…because it was always easier, keeping complex things to himself.
If he hadn't gotten that text, he probably wouldn't have said. He'd kept it a secret for ages by then, through three and a half years of dating and the two years since they'd broken up. He could have kept it quiet forever, and no one would have known...
'-Who says I never dated anyone seriously?'
It had been cathartic, telling Akari the story. Most of the story, anyway, even the parts that hurt.
'It was stupid, and I knew that. We knew that, both of us, from the very beginning. We knew it would be temporary. We knew it had to be temporary. But when we should have said goodbye…neither of us could let go.'
And so they had kept holding on, long after it became painful.
Long after holding on became only painful.
'We talked all the time, but it wasn't enough. Even if we had the time to travel, it cost too much, and moving wasn't an option, for either one of us.'
They had known that from the beginning. None of it was a surprise. But it had been surprisingly easy to forget that all in the moment.
'I'm so sorry Kazue, she sounds like she was nice.'
She had been nice. Amazingly nice. Nice, and smart, and fun. Funny. Beautiful. Confident. Adventurous. Sexy. Kazue's perfect woman, in literally every way…
Except for the part where she lived on the other side of the world.