9:07 At Kanda
Title: 9:07 At Kanda
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Matsumoto Jun/Sakurai Sho
Summary: Jun’s drawn to a man he sees on the train every day, but what happens when he learns more than he wants to?
Notes/Warnings: For the sakumoto Exchange! AU!
Jun thinks the 9:07 PM train is a little late for a salaryman, but he sees Sakurai at least twice a week. Like Jun, Sakurai likes to board the first car, so it’s not like Jun’s been stalking him or anything. And Jun only knows the man’s name because he answered his phone once.
“This is Sakurai,” the man had said in clipped tones, voice still sharp despite an obviously long work day.
Jun’s not a salaryman. He doesn’t take home the paychecks Sakurai probably does. Instead, Jun sells kitchen supplies from 2:00 to 9:00 after his morning cooking classes. With school and part-time work, he has to take two trains to get to his place in the suburbs, and even then, he still has to share an apartment.
Sakurai probably lives in a house. Has a mortgage. Maybe he even has a car to use. Tonight, Jun sits across from Sakurai, thumbing through the music on his iPod, and he finally notices Sakurai’s wedding ring when the man flips open his phone to frown at whatever message he’d gotten.
Jun looks back down, and since the car’s half empty, he can hear the little taps of Sakurai’s fingers typing up a return message. He doesn’t know why he pays such close attention to this other passenger. Jun normally keeps to himself, but maybe it’s because he sees the guy so often. He doesn’t have that with anyone else.
They both board at Kanda, and Sakurai disappears at Oimachi. Jun goes another few stops and heads for train number two.
There’s a woman leaving the apartment when Jun gets out his keys. He says nothing and lets her pass, and she lowers her eyes even though there’s no hiding what she’s been doing. Jun doesn’t care. He doesn’t know her. He just appreciates that Sawamura takes care of his business before Jun gets home.
The apartment still smells like sex though, and Sawamura’s done nothing to hide it. Maybe they did it against the kitchen counter where Jun pours his cereal in the morning or on the couch where Jun sits to watch the news. The shower’s running, and Jun imagines a far different homecoming for Sakurai.
Jun imagines that Sakurai returns exhausted to his home, but there’s a nice meal to warm up. His slippers are waiting by the door, and maybe his wife even massages his shoulders. Jun imagines that last bit while he cracks his back after so many hours on his feet trying to convince middle-aged women to buy non-stick skillets and state of the art egg timers.
Sawamura feels like bragging when he gets out of the shower, leaving damp footprints on the floorboards that irritates Jun more than he lets on. “Innocent face, but she’s a bad girl. Likes to be punished,” Sawamura informs him.
Jun’s heating up the leftovers he hadn’t gotten time to eat during his break earlier. “That so?”
He doesn’t want to know about the women Sawamura gets with. He doesn’t want to know about Sawamura period. To Jun, he’s just another name on the lease, and the reason that Jun can still live within an hour of where he works.
“I’m sure she’s got a friend.”
Jun nods the way Sawamura expects him to. “Another bad girl?”
His roommate pats him on the shoulder. Damp. “Take a night off once, Matsumoto. I’ll get you a good one. You seem like the good girl type.”
He smiles the way Sawamura expects him to. “You got me.”
The man’s laughter coincides with the microwave timer, and Jun makes a swifty retreat for his room. “A real good girl, Matsumoto!”
Jun closes the door and doesn’t feel like eating. He thinks of Sakurai and the way his lip juts out just so when he’s sending messages on his phone. The neat way he keeps his hair, meaning he probably has the money to go to a barber regularly. The loosened tie and tired eyes of an eleven or twelve hour work day.
All the details that Jun’s noticed about a man he doesn’t actually know other than by sight or surname.
Sawamura can find Jun all the good girls he wants. It won’t matter, Jun realizes.
--
Sakurai boards at Kanda in a hurry the following Wednesday evening, and the clasp on his briefcase clangs against one of the metal rails as he gets into a seat. Jun tries not to look, but where Sakurai is usually tired, he’s now wide awake, typing furiously on his phone.
Jun doesn’t think the man’s preoccupied with some game on there, not with the serious expression on his face. Nobody else in the train car seems to notice Sakurai’s obvious distress. Or if they do notice, they ignore it.
It’s just the way of public transportation. You know, but you never ever look.
The train pulls to a stop at Oimachi, and Sakurai doesn’t notice. He’s still typing out what must be the world’s longest mail message. Passengers exit when the doors open, and still Sakurai isn’t moving. Only Jun seems to realize that this is Sakurai’s stop.
He opens his mouth to say something, but the chimes are already playing their eerie, soothing melody. The doors shut.
Jun watches Sakurai as the gentle voice over the speaker announces that the next stop will be Omori, which goes by and by the time the announcement that the doors will open on the left at Kamata, he sees Sakurai’s head perk up.
He knows this look instantly. It’s “what stop did she say?” crossed with “where the hell am I going?” and Jun feels horrible for not speaking up back at Oimachi. But what could he have said? I’ve been watching you, noticing you on this train line for weeks, and I know your stop?
Kamata is here, and so is Jun’s transfer. He gets up, and Sakurai gets up hurriedly at the same time. If Jun wasn’t slightly interested, or slightly obsessed with this average salaryman, then he’d just head up the stairs and around for his next train, but he doesn’t.
He instead exits his car and pretends to be perusing the vending machine. The bright light and flickering neon encircling the prices stand in contrast to the dimmer lights around the platform. He can see his fellow passenger behind him, watches his reflection and not the contents of the machine. Sakurai has to wait for the next train to go back home, but he’s shoved his phone in the pocket of his suit jacket.
Jun’s been looking awfully hard at the canned coffee to not be buying. It’s time to go.
But when he turns, Sakurai’s there in his space, looking rather embarrassed. “I’m sorry. You...you take the train from Kanda, right?”
Jun doesn’t know what to say. All this time, he’s been noticing Sakurai; the busy man constantly on his phone or shuffling papers from his briefcase has noticed him in return. He nods.
“This is your stop then?”
“Yeah.” Jun pauses. “Well, I...transfer.”
Sakurai blushes. “Oh, am I keeping you? I’m so sorry...”
But Jun doesn’t want him to go. All the focus that’s been on his work or his phone is now for Jun alone. His pathetic apartment and the smell of Sawamura and his flavor of the week aren’t really calling. “It’s fine.”
“I was wondering,” Sakurai continues, moving his briefcase from his left hand to his right. “I mean, this was assuming Kamata was your usual stop, and I’m wrong. But would you know of any good places to stay in the neighborhood? I’m only a few miles north, but you never know much aside from your own haunts, right?”
“Right,” Jun says, noticing that Sakurai seems to be talking uncontrollably. Just what had his mail message been that’s got him so riled up and distracted? And a place to stay in the neighborhood? Jun can still see the metal band on the man’s left hand.
“I’m really sorry to keep you from your connecting train...”
“We’re not far from Haneda,” Jun says as calmly as he can manage. The train that would take Sakurai back to his usual stop arrives, but the man makes no move to get on it. “There should be a few hotels in the neighborhood.”
“Haneda.” It clicks in Sakurai’s mind where he is. “Yes, yes, of course.” He nods and smiles, and Jun aches to see the way the man is forcing himself to look happy. Of course, Sakurai is thankful for Jun’s assistance, but only out of politeness.
“Well,” Jun says, unable to delay any further. He’s been a helpful fellow passenger and much as he likes seeing the neat hair and smelling the surely expensive cologne up close, there’s no reason for the conversation to continue.
“Thank you,” Sakurai says, inclining his head. “I suppose I’ll...see you next time?”
“Don’t work so hard,” Jun says, unable to stop himself. Sakurai says nothing, just turns and heads for the exit.
Don’t work so hard, he chastizes himself once he’s heavily trudging up the steps to go through to the platform for the other line. He doesn’t even know the guy. But all he can think about as he boards train number two is Sakurai, lonely in his suit, going to some hotel instead of to his home. Will he have to go to work in the same clothes?
The door closes, and the train takes Jun from Kamata. Sawamura’s still out on the prowl when Jun gets in, but there’s a phone number and ‘Kumiko’ tacked to the refrigerator door as if it was nothing more than the number for a takeaway place or a dry cleaners. Jun takes the note and shoves it to the bottom of the paper recycling.
--
Most people stand on the platform in complete silence. Most people ride the train in complete silence. Jun considers himself most people until Sakurai catches him at the Kanda stop a few weeks later. Maybe he’d been catching an earlier train. Maybe he’d really stopped working so hard. Well, it hadn’t lasted.
“I didn’t ask your name, and I bothered you when you were trying to catch your transfer,” Sakurai says sheepishly as they queue up side by side for the first car, second door as they always do.
“Matsumoto,” Jun says, and he has no name card to hand over. Sakurai makes up for it with one of his own. Okamoto Consulting, Sakurai Sho. No indication of what Sakurai actually consults about, but Jun accepts the card and inserts it into the book he’s carrying. At least now Jun doesn’t have to feel guilty about knowing the man’s name.
“Nice to meet you,” Sakurai says quietly as the train approaches. They board as the familiar chimes play. They awkwardly sit side by side. Jun thinks it would be rude to take the man’s card and sit halfway down the carriage from him. But there’s only two other people in the car, and it seems strange.
“Nice to meet you, too,” Jun replies as the train lurches onward.
Sakurai waits until the next stop passes before he speaks again. “I found a good place in Kamata that night. Clean rooms. I was all out of sorts. My wife’s friend was having some crisis, and she told me not to come home. Ladies’ night in, troubles talk. I wasn’t going to interfere, but you know how women can be.”
Jun doesn’t really, but he nods anyhow.
“I wanted to thank you, Matsumoto-san, for helping me.”
What had he done, really? Just said that because the station wasn’t that far from Haneda Airport, surely there’d be hotels in the area? Any major Tokyo train station had half a dozen hotels within blocks. But he is still pleased at the attention, pleased enough to hold his book tightly in his lap to keep his hands still.
“It wasn’t any trouble.”
“I understand you’ll probably be taking your transfer at Kamata, but if you’d let me treat you to a cup of coffee...” Sakurai doesn’t seem to realize how strange this all sounds, how every word of it is both awkward and exciting to Jun. He shouldn’t want to, but he wants to all at once. But Sakurai is a married man, and what’s the point?
Jun had been on his feet for hours, and today had been an inventory day. He’d gone in a few hours early. He knows he should politely decline and maybe start sitting in a different car before he makes too much of this tenuous connection with Sakurai Sho from Okamoto Consulting.
“If you want to...” Jun says hesitantly, fingers nudging the name card back and forth between the pages. “Thank you. That sounds fine.”
Sakurai’s in no hurry to go home, and he follows Jun to Kamata again. There’s a donut chain down the street, and they each have a smoke and a cup of black coffee at the window, watching people go in and out of the pachinko parlor across the street.
Jun doesn’t have much to share, but Sakurai admires him for working and going to school at the same time. When Jun says it’s just cooking school and he doesn’t have homework, Sakurai is still impressed.
“I can’t cook anything that doesn’t go in the microwave,” the man admits, playing with the fancy watch around his wrist.
“Is your wife a good cook?”
He nods. “Yeah, when she makes time for it. I’ll eat anything she makes,” Sakurai explains as he exhales a cloud of smoke. He flips open his cell phone and shows Jun a picture. Pretty, a few years younger, a peace sign and an expensive looking purse.
“Natsuki just doesn’t...not lately, I...she’s been taking some night classes, you know. Computers and that. We’re both pretty busy, I guess.”
Jun decides not to pry any further, not when Sakurai’s paying for the coffee.
Sakurai tries to explain management consulting to him, but Jun has to stop him before his brain completely implodes. Sakurai smiles again, genuine and bright even through their smoky haze.
“I go to businesses and tell them how to do business better,” he says, putting it far simpler than he had earlier.
Everything about Sakurai is ordered. From his hair and his clothes to the way he takes the same train car and tells businesses how to do business better, Sakurai’s life seems pretty damn organized and neat. Getting off at the wrong train stop not once, but twice now has probably thrown some wrench into things for him.
Jun’s not entirely sure he minds being partly responsible for this little bit of chaos in Sakurai’s ordinary life. But it seems that Sakurai’s life is in some sort of evolution right now. The warm meals and loving backrubs are probably something Sakurai’s wife has little time for - maybe Sho’s having trouble adjusting.
They part after the second cup of coffee, and Sakurai stops him with a hand to his sleeve. “Hey, I forgot. If you ever need someone to test your cooking, you know, a guinea pig...”
He officially decides that he likes Sakurai. Quite a bit. It’s harmless enough. “I’m supposed to be taking a desserts session come summer term,” he hints as they head for different parts of Kamata Station, seeing Sakurai’s silly grin emerge again. A grin he probably doesn’t let loose at the office too often.
“Sign me up, then. Good night!”
“Good night,” Jun says, turning and going for his train line.
Sawamura’s woman is there again, just pulling her stockings on in the foyer when Jun enters the apartment. He freezes when the woman looks up, holding the wall as she slips on one of her heeled shoes.
The face is the one from Sakurai’s phone. His wife...
“Natsuki-chan!” Sawamura’s calling, clad in his shorts. He doesn’t look embarrassed to see Jun standing there. “Ah, Matsumoto, sorry, sorry. She’s just leaving.”
Jun can only step aside into the kitchen as Sawamura kisses her goodbye, and his hand shakes on the cabinet door as he puts away some of the extra crackers he’d brought to work. Sure, he only has a cell phone wallpaper and a name to go from, but what are the odds?
Sawamura locks the door and throws the chain. He’s always too busy to walk the woman to the train. Is it the train to Oimachi Station? “Wore me out tonight,” he brags, and Jun feels ill. Not even half an hour ago, he and Sakurai had been sitting side by side in the coffee shop.
“She still a bad girl?” Jun inquires, trying to care the way his roommate wants him to.
“Oh yeah.” Sawamura points to his left hand. “Married. Bored housewife. Tokyo is overrun with them, Matsumoto, I’m telling you. Let me get you one.”
“Married?”
Sawamura’s still euphoric from his most recent encounter, the couch if the messed up cushions are anything to go by. “Tells him that she’s going to computer class. Guy believes her. Now that has to be suspicious, don’t you think? Computer class. Ha!”
Jun still has his book tucked under his arm, Sho’s name card somewhere between chapter six and seven. He hears Sawamura’s door slam, and he finally lets out a breath.
--
He finds that the best solution is to distance himself. From Sho, from the apartment with Sawamura, from everything. It was only by meddling in Sakurai’s life that Jun’s discovered a secret he doesn’t want to hold.
He takes a later train and sits in a middle car, drowning out his cowardice with music. There’s no easy way to tell someone their spouse is cheating on them. Especially someone you don’t know that well. So Jun pretends he doesn’t know that Sawamura’s mistress is Sakurai’s wife. He pretends he doesn’t know Sakurai at all.
But Sakurai is hard to forget. The train that leaves Kanda ten minutes later feels empty without him typing on his phone, quiet without him going over papers that apparently can’t wait until the following morning. Jun’s fallen way too hard and way too fast and over a cause that was lost the second Sakurai interrupted him on the platform at Kamata.
Two weeks go by in this fashion, and when he gets home, Sawamura’s already in bed. But the lingering perfume from Sakurai Natsuki gets into Jun’s nose, follows him from the hall to the living room and to his bed where he thinks of Sho.
It seems that the more he tries to forget, the more he remembers. A man he doesn’t really know, but still feels like he does. He knew Sho’s name before Sho offered it. He knew so much and knows more than he wants to. He imagines that silly grin and the loosened tie and gasps, guilt mingling with his confusion as he comes hard into a tissue.
He buries it deep in the trash, body still alight with sensation. If he cares about Sho, really cares about him as someone more than just a fellow passenger, then he has to say something. He has to do something.
Jun turns on his desk light at 2:40 in the morning and stares at Sho’s name card until the kanji and the phone number start to blur. If life was a drama, he’d tell Sakurai what was going on, and Sakurai would be sad, but would appreciate Jun’s honesty and thoughtfulness. It would end very well for them both.
He turns the light off and leaves the card on the desk.
--
Jun takes the late train again. Tomorrow, he’s been telling himself for almost a month now. Tomorrow will be the day he’ll take the 9:07 train and ask Sakurai to coffee. Maybe a bar would be a better solution.
The tomorrow he imagines won’t come because there’s a green taxi cab sitting in front of his apartment building when he comes back from the station. Sawamura’s in the doorway, not looking the least bit stressed. Sakurai is trying to get his wife into the cab. Somehow, he found out without Jun telling him. He found out and followed her.
He had to make the transfer at Kamata then.
It’s too late for Jun to turn around, hurry back to duck into the bar or convenience store down the street. Sawamura’s already spotted him, waving his hand. Why would Sawamura wave? Does he think Jun is going to be able to do anything?
“I don’t want to go home. I’m not getting in the cab,” Sakurai’s wife is complaining, sounding more like some spoiled child than a grown woman. She notices Sawamura’s flailing and turns. Jun stops completely, hand tight on the strap of his bag.
Sakurai looks up just as his wife wrenches out of his grip. “Get in,” he says once he recognizes Jun, voice completely serious, not even looking at Natsuki.
“You can’t make me!”
Sawamura calls from the doorway, almost looking amused by this turn of events. “Just get in, would you?”
Sakurai doesn’t react when his wife listens to Sawamura, gets into the taxi. The driver doesn’t pull away, keeping the door open, expecting Sakurai to get in.
“You have the address,” Sakurai says to the driver instead and steps back from the door. Natsuki is driven off, leaving Sawamura in the doorway, Jun at the corner, and Sho between them.
Sawamura doesn’t look injured, so it appears that Sakurai hasn’t done anything to him. Jun’s roommate decides to break the strange stalemate first, opening the door and going back inside as though nothing is amiss.
Jun doesn’t move, watching Sakurai stand awkwardly by the curb. The air is heavy around him, the muggy summer heat still gripping Tokyo in a stranglehold even after the sun sets. It could be a few seconds, a few minutes before Sakurai speaks.
“Matsumoto, do you live here?”
All he can do is respond truthfully now that Sakurai’s had the rug pulled out from underneath him. “Yes.”
“Have you seen my wife here before?”
He doesn’t look away from Sakurai’s face, even if he wants to. “Yes.”
“For how long?”
And then Jun hesitates. He hadn’t always known the woman was Sho’s wife, but it’s been months now. Technically. “Sakurai-san...”
The man turns, and he has to be hot in the suit he’s wearing. He probably came straight from work. Jun doesn’t know what tipped him off, what made him suspect his wife. Hell, it’s been weeks since Jun’s even seen him.
“I didn’t know she was...” Jun mutters. “Not at first...I...I didn’t know how...”
Sakurai doesn’t seem to know who he is most upset with: his wife, her lover, or the man who said nothing. Jun’s unsure how he’d feel in a similar situation. Their relationship isn’t easily defined. They’re not friends, but Jun knows more than a casual acquaintance would. It’s out of balance, another off-kilter thing in Sakurai’s life.
He almost wants Sakurai to punch him the way he probably should have punched Sawamura. At least he’d be letting it out. The way he just stands at the curb looking lost, more confused than the first time he missed Oimachi, only makes Jun feel worse.
Sakurai’s wife is going home, but will he go there too? Or will he go back to Kamata and the clean rooms he’d found in the area? Back to loneliness?
“I did everything I was supposed to do,” Sho says finally, and it’s not what Jun expects to hear. He thinks Sakurai’s within his rights to keep questioning him, to demand to know why Jun hadn’t said anything.
He can only watch Sakurai trudge past him. Everything he was supposed to do, Jun ponders as he finally enters the building and heads up the stairs. What did that mean?
Sawamura’s downing a beer when Jun enters. “You knew Natsuki’s husband then?”
“We take the same train. I didn’t tell him about this,” Jun says. Sawamura doesn’t really care anyhow. He’s just making conversation as he always does.
“Those rich guys think they have it made. He probably sleeps around too. But he just has to come around and try playing alpha male with me.” Sawamura snorts. “Prick.”
Jun can’t confirm or deny anything about Sakurai, but he suddenly feels rather protective. He doesn’t know everything about Sho, but he senses the type of person Sho is. He did everything he was supposed to do - went to a good school, got a good job, settled down with a pretty wife. People like Sakurai aren’t supposed to fail.
But he’s just another man on the train. At least that’s all he can let Sawamura think.
“Tough break,” Jun says, feeling utterly disgusted with the way he can talk Sawamura’s talk so easily.
Sawamura crushes the beer can before shooting it into the recycling bin. “Well, women like that are easy to come by, Matsumoto. I think I’ll make it.”
He goes back to his room before he confuses Sawamura by socking him in the face.
--
Jun takes the train at 9:07 PM for the next month without fail. He doesn’t know how to apologize or if he’s really supposed to, but he waits at the Kanda platform at the same time every night. First car, second door, just in case Sho will be there. It’s not so much penance as it is just being there for the guy.
He probably has friends, Jun thinks. Someone like Sho would have a lot of friends, people to talk to about his personal problems. Not that one guy he had coffee with before. Jun and Kamata Station are just going to remind him of his wife’s infidelity.
A month going by without Sho just confirms it for him, but Jun holds his rail pass to the reader, hears the usual beep and climbs up to the platform like clockwork every night. He’s here for Sakurai, even if Sakurai’s not around.
Leftover tarts shuffle around in his bag. Desserts term is almost up, and his guinea pig hasn’t gotten a chance to try them yet. 9:07 arrives and the train with it.
Jun boards alone, yet again.
--
It’s the middle of the third month when he spies Sakurai waiting on the platform when he gets to the top of the stairs. He’s like he always has been - neat suit, briefcase at his side, phone in hand. It’s fall term now, and Jun’s learning proper handling of various types of seafood. Nothing to really take home.
He doesn’t say anything and queues up behind Sakurai, and when the train arrives, he sits across from the man.
“...this is Oimachi. Oimachi.”
Sakurai looks up from his phone and sees Jun sitting across from him, and Jun can’t identify the look that crosses his face. But the doors open and the chimes play to hurry the stragglers on board. Sho doesn’t move.
Jun looks at his sneakers and concentrates on the way his laces are tied until Kamata is announced. He and Sho rise at the same time. It seems that they both know where to go.
Instead of transferring to his other train, Jun walks out to the street and down the block. He enters the donut shop across from the pachinko parlor and orders two large coffees without looking behind him to see if Sho’s followed.
He gets the drinks and sees Sakurai at the counter by the window, the same as the previous time. “Thank you,” Sho says upon receipt of the coffee, and they both sip slowly, waiting for the other to say something.
Jun decides he’s been a coward long enough. “You missed my desserts class.”
Sho nods. “I’m sorry.”
“Think I’m better with entrees anyway.”
“I can press the on button for the rice cooker,” Sakurai admits, and Jun cracks a smile.
A friend can ask how someone’s doing. Jun’s not sure he can ask something like that. But his skills are slipping. It’s only now when they’re sitting side by side that Jun notices Sho’s left hand. It’s bare.
Sho seems to notice where Jun’s eyes have drifted, and he wiggles his fingers almost reflexively at the attention. “Everyone thought I should have forgiven and forgotten. It’s just not who I am. I can forgive,” he says. “Until a certain point.”
Silence descends again, and Jun wonders if Sho’s forgiveness extends to his own behavior.
It does. “Natsuki explained that you were that man’s roommate, nothing more. I am sorry to have put you in an awkward position.”
Jun wants to apologize. Why is Sho the one doing so? It’s the third cup of coffee by the time Sakurai says he’s looking to move.
“She’s going back home. Her family’s in Nara. I don’t think she was ever really happy to leave,” he says and doesn’t sound that sad about it. His house is probably too big for him alone.
“Any neighborhoods in mind?”
Sakurai’s got something to say, and he ignores Jun’s question, choosing instead to stare out at the street. “It was omiai, I don’t think I mentioned that.” Sho’s hand trembles slightly when he lifts his cup to his lips. “It’s just something you do. Have to do. Just to convince them.”
Jun’s starting to piece things together. The easy way Sho speaks to him, even though they’re not much more than strangers. How he isn’t so upset over losing his wife. It explains why he was more confused than angered that night. Sho had done everything he was supposed to do.
Everything he was supposed to do to convince people he wasn’t different.
Jun’s heart swells with sympathy. With understanding. Maybe they were both meant to meet on the Kanda platform, first car, second door. Jun wonders about all those nights on the train - while he was watching Sakurai, how much was Sakurai watching him?
Sho doesn’t say anything more than he already has. And he doesn’t have to. He responds to Jun’s question as though he hasn’t admitted anything potentially damning. “Kamata Station. It would be a longer commute.”
“It would be.”
Sho finishes his coffee, implication lingering in the air. He’s different, but so is Jun. Maybe they both ought to stop hiding. “There are better neighborhoods. And worse ones.”
Sakurai looks at him, and Jun wants to reach forward, twine his fingers with Sho’s. Give his hand a squeeze that could mean anything and everything he wants it to. More than strangers, more than acquaintances by circumstance. He wants to convey three months of waiting on that damned platform for him. All he can do is look back and hope that it’s all there, written on his face.
“Thanks for the coffee, Jun.”
--
They walk back to Kamata Station, and Jun thinks it’s remarkable how tonight’s 9:07 train had differed from the ones before. He knows that Sho’s not going back to Oimachi tonight. He’ll walk around the area, find a hotel, strip out of the suit that tells everyone that he’s both important and yet the same as anyone else. Jun wants to undo every last button, touch every last inch of him. He can tell from Sho’s eyes that the feeling’s mutual.
Jun burns with the desire to follow Sho wherever he’s headed, but it’s too early for it. For both of them.
Jun pulls his train pass from his back pocket, feeling the plastic rather than Sho between his fingertips. “Don’t work so hard,” he says.
“But if I don’t,” Sho says, “9:07 at Kanda would be rather lonely, right?”
“Right.”
Sakurai makes a point of patting Jun’s shoulder like a friend or colleague, but his fingers squeeze a little more than they have to. “See you tomorrow.”
Jun smiles and heads in. His rail card beeps against the reader, and he climbs the steps to catch train number two as usual.
9:07 at Kanda can’t come fast enough.
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Matsumoto Jun/Sakurai Sho
Summary: Jun’s drawn to a man he sees on the train every day, but what happens when he learns more than he wants to?
Notes/Warnings: For the sakumoto Exchange! AU!
Jun thinks the 9:07 PM train is a little late for a salaryman, but he sees Sakurai at least twice a week. Like Jun, Sakurai likes to board the first car, so it’s not like Jun’s been stalking him or anything. And Jun only knows the man’s name because he answered his phone once.
“This is Sakurai,” the man had said in clipped tones, voice still sharp despite an obviously long work day.
Jun’s not a salaryman. He doesn’t take home the paychecks Sakurai probably does. Instead, Jun sells kitchen supplies from 2:00 to 9:00 after his morning cooking classes. With school and part-time work, he has to take two trains to get to his place in the suburbs, and even then, he still has to share an apartment.
Sakurai probably lives in a house. Has a mortgage. Maybe he even has a car to use. Tonight, Jun sits across from Sakurai, thumbing through the music on his iPod, and he finally notices Sakurai’s wedding ring when the man flips open his phone to frown at whatever message he’d gotten.
Jun looks back down, and since the car’s half empty, he can hear the little taps of Sakurai’s fingers typing up a return message. He doesn’t know why he pays such close attention to this other passenger. Jun normally keeps to himself, but maybe it’s because he sees the guy so often. He doesn’t have that with anyone else.
They both board at Kanda, and Sakurai disappears at Oimachi. Jun goes another few stops and heads for train number two.
There’s a woman leaving the apartment when Jun gets out his keys. He says nothing and lets her pass, and she lowers her eyes even though there’s no hiding what she’s been doing. Jun doesn’t care. He doesn’t know her. He just appreciates that Sawamura takes care of his business before Jun gets home.
The apartment still smells like sex though, and Sawamura’s done nothing to hide it. Maybe they did it against the kitchen counter where Jun pours his cereal in the morning or on the couch where Jun sits to watch the news. The shower’s running, and Jun imagines a far different homecoming for Sakurai.
Jun imagines that Sakurai returns exhausted to his home, but there’s a nice meal to warm up. His slippers are waiting by the door, and maybe his wife even massages his shoulders. Jun imagines that last bit while he cracks his back after so many hours on his feet trying to convince middle-aged women to buy non-stick skillets and state of the art egg timers.
Sawamura feels like bragging when he gets out of the shower, leaving damp footprints on the floorboards that irritates Jun more than he lets on. “Innocent face, but she’s a bad girl. Likes to be punished,” Sawamura informs him.
Jun’s heating up the leftovers he hadn’t gotten time to eat during his break earlier. “That so?”
He doesn’t want to know about the women Sawamura gets with. He doesn’t want to know about Sawamura period. To Jun, he’s just another name on the lease, and the reason that Jun can still live within an hour of where he works.
“I’m sure she’s got a friend.”
Jun nods the way Sawamura expects him to. “Another bad girl?”
His roommate pats him on the shoulder. Damp. “Take a night off once, Matsumoto. I’ll get you a good one. You seem like the good girl type.”
He smiles the way Sawamura expects him to. “You got me.”
The man’s laughter coincides with the microwave timer, and Jun makes a swifty retreat for his room. “A real good girl, Matsumoto!”
Jun closes the door and doesn’t feel like eating. He thinks of Sakurai and the way his lip juts out just so when he’s sending messages on his phone. The neat way he keeps his hair, meaning he probably has the money to go to a barber regularly. The loosened tie and tired eyes of an eleven or twelve hour work day.
All the details that Jun’s noticed about a man he doesn’t actually know other than by sight or surname.
Sawamura can find Jun all the good girls he wants. It won’t matter, Jun realizes.
--
Sakurai boards at Kanda in a hurry the following Wednesday evening, and the clasp on his briefcase clangs against one of the metal rails as he gets into a seat. Jun tries not to look, but where Sakurai is usually tired, he’s now wide awake, typing furiously on his phone.
Jun doesn’t think the man’s preoccupied with some game on there, not with the serious expression on his face. Nobody else in the train car seems to notice Sakurai’s obvious distress. Or if they do notice, they ignore it.
It’s just the way of public transportation. You know, but you never ever look.
The train pulls to a stop at Oimachi, and Sakurai doesn’t notice. He’s still typing out what must be the world’s longest mail message. Passengers exit when the doors open, and still Sakurai isn’t moving. Only Jun seems to realize that this is Sakurai’s stop.
He opens his mouth to say something, but the chimes are already playing their eerie, soothing melody. The doors shut.
Jun watches Sakurai as the gentle voice over the speaker announces that the next stop will be Omori, which goes by and by the time the announcement that the doors will open on the left at Kamata, he sees Sakurai’s head perk up.
He knows this look instantly. It’s “what stop did she say?” crossed with “where the hell am I going?” and Jun feels horrible for not speaking up back at Oimachi. But what could he have said? I’ve been watching you, noticing you on this train line for weeks, and I know your stop?
Kamata is here, and so is Jun’s transfer. He gets up, and Sakurai gets up hurriedly at the same time. If Jun wasn’t slightly interested, or slightly obsessed with this average salaryman, then he’d just head up the stairs and around for his next train, but he doesn’t.
He instead exits his car and pretends to be perusing the vending machine. The bright light and flickering neon encircling the prices stand in contrast to the dimmer lights around the platform. He can see his fellow passenger behind him, watches his reflection and not the contents of the machine. Sakurai has to wait for the next train to go back home, but he’s shoved his phone in the pocket of his suit jacket.
Jun’s been looking awfully hard at the canned coffee to not be buying. It’s time to go.
But when he turns, Sakurai’s there in his space, looking rather embarrassed. “I’m sorry. You...you take the train from Kanda, right?”
Jun doesn’t know what to say. All this time, he’s been noticing Sakurai; the busy man constantly on his phone or shuffling papers from his briefcase has noticed him in return. He nods.
“This is your stop then?”
“Yeah.” Jun pauses. “Well, I...transfer.”
Sakurai blushes. “Oh, am I keeping you? I’m so sorry...”
But Jun doesn’t want him to go. All the focus that’s been on his work or his phone is now for Jun alone. His pathetic apartment and the smell of Sawamura and his flavor of the week aren’t really calling. “It’s fine.”
“I was wondering,” Sakurai continues, moving his briefcase from his left hand to his right. “I mean, this was assuming Kamata was your usual stop, and I’m wrong. But would you know of any good places to stay in the neighborhood? I’m only a few miles north, but you never know much aside from your own haunts, right?”
“Right,” Jun says, noticing that Sakurai seems to be talking uncontrollably. Just what had his mail message been that’s got him so riled up and distracted? And a place to stay in the neighborhood? Jun can still see the metal band on the man’s left hand.
“I’m really sorry to keep you from your connecting train...”
“We’re not far from Haneda,” Jun says as calmly as he can manage. The train that would take Sakurai back to his usual stop arrives, but the man makes no move to get on it. “There should be a few hotels in the neighborhood.”
“Haneda.” It clicks in Sakurai’s mind where he is. “Yes, yes, of course.” He nods and smiles, and Jun aches to see the way the man is forcing himself to look happy. Of course, Sakurai is thankful for Jun’s assistance, but only out of politeness.
“Well,” Jun says, unable to delay any further. He’s been a helpful fellow passenger and much as he likes seeing the neat hair and smelling the surely expensive cologne up close, there’s no reason for the conversation to continue.
“Thank you,” Sakurai says, inclining his head. “I suppose I’ll...see you next time?”
“Don’t work so hard,” Jun says, unable to stop himself. Sakurai says nothing, just turns and heads for the exit.
Don’t work so hard, he chastizes himself once he’s heavily trudging up the steps to go through to the platform for the other line. He doesn’t even know the guy. But all he can think about as he boards train number two is Sakurai, lonely in his suit, going to some hotel instead of to his home. Will he have to go to work in the same clothes?
The door closes, and the train takes Jun from Kamata. Sawamura’s still out on the prowl when Jun gets in, but there’s a phone number and ‘Kumiko’ tacked to the refrigerator door as if it was nothing more than the number for a takeaway place or a dry cleaners. Jun takes the note and shoves it to the bottom of the paper recycling.
--
Most people stand on the platform in complete silence. Most people ride the train in complete silence. Jun considers himself most people until Sakurai catches him at the Kanda stop a few weeks later. Maybe he’d been catching an earlier train. Maybe he’d really stopped working so hard. Well, it hadn’t lasted.
“I didn’t ask your name, and I bothered you when you were trying to catch your transfer,” Sakurai says sheepishly as they queue up side by side for the first car, second door as they always do.
“Matsumoto,” Jun says, and he has no name card to hand over. Sakurai makes up for it with one of his own. Okamoto Consulting, Sakurai Sho. No indication of what Sakurai actually consults about, but Jun accepts the card and inserts it into the book he’s carrying. At least now Jun doesn’t have to feel guilty about knowing the man’s name.
“Nice to meet you,” Sakurai says quietly as the train approaches. They board as the familiar chimes play. They awkwardly sit side by side. Jun thinks it would be rude to take the man’s card and sit halfway down the carriage from him. But there’s only two other people in the car, and it seems strange.
“Nice to meet you, too,” Jun replies as the train lurches onward.
Sakurai waits until the next stop passes before he speaks again. “I found a good place in Kamata that night. Clean rooms. I was all out of sorts. My wife’s friend was having some crisis, and she told me not to come home. Ladies’ night in, troubles talk. I wasn’t going to interfere, but you know how women can be.”
Jun doesn’t really, but he nods anyhow.
“I wanted to thank you, Matsumoto-san, for helping me.”
What had he done, really? Just said that because the station wasn’t that far from Haneda Airport, surely there’d be hotels in the area? Any major Tokyo train station had half a dozen hotels within blocks. But he is still pleased at the attention, pleased enough to hold his book tightly in his lap to keep his hands still.
“It wasn’t any trouble.”
“I understand you’ll probably be taking your transfer at Kamata, but if you’d let me treat you to a cup of coffee...” Sakurai doesn’t seem to realize how strange this all sounds, how every word of it is both awkward and exciting to Jun. He shouldn’t want to, but he wants to all at once. But Sakurai is a married man, and what’s the point?
Jun had been on his feet for hours, and today had been an inventory day. He’d gone in a few hours early. He knows he should politely decline and maybe start sitting in a different car before he makes too much of this tenuous connection with Sakurai Sho from Okamoto Consulting.
“If you want to...” Jun says hesitantly, fingers nudging the name card back and forth between the pages. “Thank you. That sounds fine.”
Sakurai’s in no hurry to go home, and he follows Jun to Kamata again. There’s a donut chain down the street, and they each have a smoke and a cup of black coffee at the window, watching people go in and out of the pachinko parlor across the street.
Jun doesn’t have much to share, but Sakurai admires him for working and going to school at the same time. When Jun says it’s just cooking school and he doesn’t have homework, Sakurai is still impressed.
“I can’t cook anything that doesn’t go in the microwave,” the man admits, playing with the fancy watch around his wrist.
“Is your wife a good cook?”
He nods. “Yeah, when she makes time for it. I’ll eat anything she makes,” Sakurai explains as he exhales a cloud of smoke. He flips open his cell phone and shows Jun a picture. Pretty, a few years younger, a peace sign and an expensive looking purse.
“Natsuki just doesn’t...not lately, I...she’s been taking some night classes, you know. Computers and that. We’re both pretty busy, I guess.”
Jun decides not to pry any further, not when Sakurai’s paying for the coffee.
Sakurai tries to explain management consulting to him, but Jun has to stop him before his brain completely implodes. Sakurai smiles again, genuine and bright even through their smoky haze.
“I go to businesses and tell them how to do business better,” he says, putting it far simpler than he had earlier.
Everything about Sakurai is ordered. From his hair and his clothes to the way he takes the same train car and tells businesses how to do business better, Sakurai’s life seems pretty damn organized and neat. Getting off at the wrong train stop not once, but twice now has probably thrown some wrench into things for him.
Jun’s not entirely sure he minds being partly responsible for this little bit of chaos in Sakurai’s ordinary life. But it seems that Sakurai’s life is in some sort of evolution right now. The warm meals and loving backrubs are probably something Sakurai’s wife has little time for - maybe Sho’s having trouble adjusting.
They part after the second cup of coffee, and Sakurai stops him with a hand to his sleeve. “Hey, I forgot. If you ever need someone to test your cooking, you know, a guinea pig...”
He officially decides that he likes Sakurai. Quite a bit. It’s harmless enough. “I’m supposed to be taking a desserts session come summer term,” he hints as they head for different parts of Kamata Station, seeing Sakurai’s silly grin emerge again. A grin he probably doesn’t let loose at the office too often.
“Sign me up, then. Good night!”
“Good night,” Jun says, turning and going for his train line.
Sawamura’s woman is there again, just pulling her stockings on in the foyer when Jun enters the apartment. He freezes when the woman looks up, holding the wall as she slips on one of her heeled shoes.
The face is the one from Sakurai’s phone. His wife...
“Natsuki-chan!” Sawamura’s calling, clad in his shorts. He doesn’t look embarrassed to see Jun standing there. “Ah, Matsumoto, sorry, sorry. She’s just leaving.”
Jun can only step aside into the kitchen as Sawamura kisses her goodbye, and his hand shakes on the cabinet door as he puts away some of the extra crackers he’d brought to work. Sure, he only has a cell phone wallpaper and a name to go from, but what are the odds?
Sawamura locks the door and throws the chain. He’s always too busy to walk the woman to the train. Is it the train to Oimachi Station? “Wore me out tonight,” he brags, and Jun feels ill. Not even half an hour ago, he and Sakurai had been sitting side by side in the coffee shop.
“She still a bad girl?” Jun inquires, trying to care the way his roommate wants him to.
“Oh yeah.” Sawamura points to his left hand. “Married. Bored housewife. Tokyo is overrun with them, Matsumoto, I’m telling you. Let me get you one.”
“Married?”
Sawamura’s still euphoric from his most recent encounter, the couch if the messed up cushions are anything to go by. “Tells him that she’s going to computer class. Guy believes her. Now that has to be suspicious, don’t you think? Computer class. Ha!”
Jun still has his book tucked under his arm, Sho’s name card somewhere between chapter six and seven. He hears Sawamura’s door slam, and he finally lets out a breath.
--
He finds that the best solution is to distance himself. From Sho, from the apartment with Sawamura, from everything. It was only by meddling in Sakurai’s life that Jun’s discovered a secret he doesn’t want to hold.
He takes a later train and sits in a middle car, drowning out his cowardice with music. There’s no easy way to tell someone their spouse is cheating on them. Especially someone you don’t know that well. So Jun pretends he doesn’t know that Sawamura’s mistress is Sakurai’s wife. He pretends he doesn’t know Sakurai at all.
But Sakurai is hard to forget. The train that leaves Kanda ten minutes later feels empty without him typing on his phone, quiet without him going over papers that apparently can’t wait until the following morning. Jun’s fallen way too hard and way too fast and over a cause that was lost the second Sakurai interrupted him on the platform at Kamata.
Two weeks go by in this fashion, and when he gets home, Sawamura’s already in bed. But the lingering perfume from Sakurai Natsuki gets into Jun’s nose, follows him from the hall to the living room and to his bed where he thinks of Sho.
It seems that the more he tries to forget, the more he remembers. A man he doesn’t really know, but still feels like he does. He knew Sho’s name before Sho offered it. He knew so much and knows more than he wants to. He imagines that silly grin and the loosened tie and gasps, guilt mingling with his confusion as he comes hard into a tissue.
He buries it deep in the trash, body still alight with sensation. If he cares about Sho, really cares about him as someone more than just a fellow passenger, then he has to say something. He has to do something.
Jun turns on his desk light at 2:40 in the morning and stares at Sho’s name card until the kanji and the phone number start to blur. If life was a drama, he’d tell Sakurai what was going on, and Sakurai would be sad, but would appreciate Jun’s honesty and thoughtfulness. It would end very well for them both.
He turns the light off and leaves the card on the desk.
--
Jun takes the late train again. Tomorrow, he’s been telling himself for almost a month now. Tomorrow will be the day he’ll take the 9:07 train and ask Sakurai to coffee. Maybe a bar would be a better solution.
The tomorrow he imagines won’t come because there’s a green taxi cab sitting in front of his apartment building when he comes back from the station. Sawamura’s in the doorway, not looking the least bit stressed. Sakurai is trying to get his wife into the cab. Somehow, he found out without Jun telling him. He found out and followed her.
He had to make the transfer at Kamata then.
It’s too late for Jun to turn around, hurry back to duck into the bar or convenience store down the street. Sawamura’s already spotted him, waving his hand. Why would Sawamura wave? Does he think Jun is going to be able to do anything?
“I don’t want to go home. I’m not getting in the cab,” Sakurai’s wife is complaining, sounding more like some spoiled child than a grown woman. She notices Sawamura’s flailing and turns. Jun stops completely, hand tight on the strap of his bag.
Sakurai looks up just as his wife wrenches out of his grip. “Get in,” he says once he recognizes Jun, voice completely serious, not even looking at Natsuki.
“You can’t make me!”
Sawamura calls from the doorway, almost looking amused by this turn of events. “Just get in, would you?”
Sakurai doesn’t react when his wife listens to Sawamura, gets into the taxi. The driver doesn’t pull away, keeping the door open, expecting Sakurai to get in.
“You have the address,” Sakurai says to the driver instead and steps back from the door. Natsuki is driven off, leaving Sawamura in the doorway, Jun at the corner, and Sho between them.
Sawamura doesn’t look injured, so it appears that Sakurai hasn’t done anything to him. Jun’s roommate decides to break the strange stalemate first, opening the door and going back inside as though nothing is amiss.
Jun doesn’t move, watching Sakurai stand awkwardly by the curb. The air is heavy around him, the muggy summer heat still gripping Tokyo in a stranglehold even after the sun sets. It could be a few seconds, a few minutes before Sakurai speaks.
“Matsumoto, do you live here?”
All he can do is respond truthfully now that Sakurai’s had the rug pulled out from underneath him. “Yes.”
“Have you seen my wife here before?”
He doesn’t look away from Sakurai’s face, even if he wants to. “Yes.”
“For how long?”
And then Jun hesitates. He hadn’t always known the woman was Sho’s wife, but it’s been months now. Technically. “Sakurai-san...”
The man turns, and he has to be hot in the suit he’s wearing. He probably came straight from work. Jun doesn’t know what tipped him off, what made him suspect his wife. Hell, it’s been weeks since Jun’s even seen him.
“I didn’t know she was...” Jun mutters. “Not at first...I...I didn’t know how...”
Sakurai doesn’t seem to know who he is most upset with: his wife, her lover, or the man who said nothing. Jun’s unsure how he’d feel in a similar situation. Their relationship isn’t easily defined. They’re not friends, but Jun knows more than a casual acquaintance would. It’s out of balance, another off-kilter thing in Sakurai’s life.
He almost wants Sakurai to punch him the way he probably should have punched Sawamura. At least he’d be letting it out. The way he just stands at the curb looking lost, more confused than the first time he missed Oimachi, only makes Jun feel worse.
Sakurai’s wife is going home, but will he go there too? Or will he go back to Kamata and the clean rooms he’d found in the area? Back to loneliness?
“I did everything I was supposed to do,” Sho says finally, and it’s not what Jun expects to hear. He thinks Sakurai’s within his rights to keep questioning him, to demand to know why Jun hadn’t said anything.
He can only watch Sakurai trudge past him. Everything he was supposed to do, Jun ponders as he finally enters the building and heads up the stairs. What did that mean?
Sawamura’s downing a beer when Jun enters. “You knew Natsuki’s husband then?”
“We take the same train. I didn’t tell him about this,” Jun says. Sawamura doesn’t really care anyhow. He’s just making conversation as he always does.
“Those rich guys think they have it made. He probably sleeps around too. But he just has to come around and try playing alpha male with me.” Sawamura snorts. “Prick.”
Jun can’t confirm or deny anything about Sakurai, but he suddenly feels rather protective. He doesn’t know everything about Sho, but he senses the type of person Sho is. He did everything he was supposed to do - went to a good school, got a good job, settled down with a pretty wife. People like Sakurai aren’t supposed to fail.
But he’s just another man on the train. At least that’s all he can let Sawamura think.
“Tough break,” Jun says, feeling utterly disgusted with the way he can talk Sawamura’s talk so easily.
Sawamura crushes the beer can before shooting it into the recycling bin. “Well, women like that are easy to come by, Matsumoto. I think I’ll make it.”
He goes back to his room before he confuses Sawamura by socking him in the face.
--
Jun takes the train at 9:07 PM for the next month without fail. He doesn’t know how to apologize or if he’s really supposed to, but he waits at the Kanda platform at the same time every night. First car, second door, just in case Sho will be there. It’s not so much penance as it is just being there for the guy.
He probably has friends, Jun thinks. Someone like Sho would have a lot of friends, people to talk to about his personal problems. Not that one guy he had coffee with before. Jun and Kamata Station are just going to remind him of his wife’s infidelity.
A month going by without Sho just confirms it for him, but Jun holds his rail pass to the reader, hears the usual beep and climbs up to the platform like clockwork every night. He’s here for Sakurai, even if Sakurai’s not around.
Leftover tarts shuffle around in his bag. Desserts term is almost up, and his guinea pig hasn’t gotten a chance to try them yet. 9:07 arrives and the train with it.
Jun boards alone, yet again.
--
It’s the middle of the third month when he spies Sakurai waiting on the platform when he gets to the top of the stairs. He’s like he always has been - neat suit, briefcase at his side, phone in hand. It’s fall term now, and Jun’s learning proper handling of various types of seafood. Nothing to really take home.
He doesn’t say anything and queues up behind Sakurai, and when the train arrives, he sits across from the man.
“...this is Oimachi. Oimachi.”
Sakurai looks up from his phone and sees Jun sitting across from him, and Jun can’t identify the look that crosses his face. But the doors open and the chimes play to hurry the stragglers on board. Sho doesn’t move.
Jun looks at his sneakers and concentrates on the way his laces are tied until Kamata is announced. He and Sho rise at the same time. It seems that they both know where to go.
Instead of transferring to his other train, Jun walks out to the street and down the block. He enters the donut shop across from the pachinko parlor and orders two large coffees without looking behind him to see if Sho’s followed.
He gets the drinks and sees Sakurai at the counter by the window, the same as the previous time. “Thank you,” Sho says upon receipt of the coffee, and they both sip slowly, waiting for the other to say something.
Jun decides he’s been a coward long enough. “You missed my desserts class.”
Sho nods. “I’m sorry.”
“Think I’m better with entrees anyway.”
“I can press the on button for the rice cooker,” Sakurai admits, and Jun cracks a smile.
A friend can ask how someone’s doing. Jun’s not sure he can ask something like that. But his skills are slipping. It’s only now when they’re sitting side by side that Jun notices Sho’s left hand. It’s bare.
Sho seems to notice where Jun’s eyes have drifted, and he wiggles his fingers almost reflexively at the attention. “Everyone thought I should have forgiven and forgotten. It’s just not who I am. I can forgive,” he says. “Until a certain point.”
Silence descends again, and Jun wonders if Sho’s forgiveness extends to his own behavior.
It does. “Natsuki explained that you were that man’s roommate, nothing more. I am sorry to have put you in an awkward position.”
Jun wants to apologize. Why is Sho the one doing so? It’s the third cup of coffee by the time Sakurai says he’s looking to move.
“She’s going back home. Her family’s in Nara. I don’t think she was ever really happy to leave,” he says and doesn’t sound that sad about it. His house is probably too big for him alone.
“Any neighborhoods in mind?”
Sakurai’s got something to say, and he ignores Jun’s question, choosing instead to stare out at the street. “It was omiai, I don’t think I mentioned that.” Sho’s hand trembles slightly when he lifts his cup to his lips. “It’s just something you do. Have to do. Just to convince them.”
Jun’s starting to piece things together. The easy way Sho speaks to him, even though they’re not much more than strangers. How he isn’t so upset over losing his wife. It explains why he was more confused than angered that night. Sho had done everything he was supposed to do.
Everything he was supposed to do to convince people he wasn’t different.
Jun’s heart swells with sympathy. With understanding. Maybe they were both meant to meet on the Kanda platform, first car, second door. Jun wonders about all those nights on the train - while he was watching Sakurai, how much was Sakurai watching him?
Sho doesn’t say anything more than he already has. And he doesn’t have to. He responds to Jun’s question as though he hasn’t admitted anything potentially damning. “Kamata Station. It would be a longer commute.”
“It would be.”
Sho finishes his coffee, implication lingering in the air. He’s different, but so is Jun. Maybe they both ought to stop hiding. “There are better neighborhoods. And worse ones.”
Sakurai looks at him, and Jun wants to reach forward, twine his fingers with Sho’s. Give his hand a squeeze that could mean anything and everything he wants it to. More than strangers, more than acquaintances by circumstance. He wants to convey three months of waiting on that damned platform for him. All he can do is look back and hope that it’s all there, written on his face.
“Thanks for the coffee, Jun.”
--
They walk back to Kamata Station, and Jun thinks it’s remarkable how tonight’s 9:07 train had differed from the ones before. He knows that Sho’s not going back to Oimachi tonight. He’ll walk around the area, find a hotel, strip out of the suit that tells everyone that he’s both important and yet the same as anyone else. Jun wants to undo every last button, touch every last inch of him. He can tell from Sho’s eyes that the feeling’s mutual.
Jun burns with the desire to follow Sho wherever he’s headed, but it’s too early for it. For both of them.
Jun pulls his train pass from his back pocket, feeling the plastic rather than Sho between his fingertips. “Don’t work so hard,” he says.
“But if I don’t,” Sho says, “9:07 at Kanda would be rather lonely, right?”
“Right.”
Sakurai makes a point of patting Jun’s shoulder like a friend or colleague, but his fingers squeeze a little more than they have to. “See you tomorrow.”
Jun smiles and heads in. His rail card beeps against the reader, and he climbs the steps to catch train number two as usual.
9:07 at Kanda can’t come fast enough.