Drabble | Still in Love | Requested
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ME ♥
Today, 21st November, I, kyu_x aka Jenni turned 19!
Title: Still in love
Author: kyu_x
Pairing: Akame
Beta by: lovekame02
Genre: Angst
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Written for: chrysaanthem
Author comments: Inspirited by song Still in love by JYJ
Jin realizes he’s really lost Kazuya on the twenty-first of November. Outside, the snow is falling rather heavily onto the city’s streets, blanketing the sidewalks and tops of buildings with a thick, white cover. It isn’t the first snowfall of the year but it is the first real one and all he wants to do is grab him by the hand and waltz him down that snow-covered sidewalk. It’s something they’ve done every snowfall for as long as he can remember: the two of them out alone just walking and wandering through the snowy streets.
But when he wakes up on that November morning and stares out his bedroom window, all he can think about is turning around and curling up to wait for death to slowly devour his soul. Jin closes the curtains, mentally noting how he had been the one to pick them out, and hurls himself back underneath that thick blanket, which had also picked out by him. He stays in bed for the entire morning, coming out only to grab something to drink and give the falling snow a hard glare.
It really starts to get to him sometime after lunch passes by and there’s been no signal from Kazuya. He starts to think that he’s going to drive himself up the fucking wall with insanity if Kazuya doesn’t just call or come back or something. But he never does. The door never opens and the phone never rings, and now he’s left alone with his thoughts and a half empty bottle of cheap red wine. He’s left alone to stare out through that tiny crack left by those awful, cheap curtains that just won’t stay closed . The bright white of the falling snow blinding him as it streams in, a cheery strip of light in the otherwise black room.
Jin hates this. He hates the goddamn snow and the sounds of those neighbourhood kids screaming and running through the crowded sidewalks. He knows that they’re most likely picking up the snow and packing it into snowballs before ducking and dodging through the legs of businessmen and women. He knows that they’re tossing those balls of snow and ice at each other, laughing and screaming in delight each time they manage to actually hit their target.
Jin knows this because he used to join in with those kids while Kazuya stood back and watched. Kazuya always smiled so damn brightly when he would stop to play with the laughing, screaming children. And afterwards, he would tell him, while picking the melting snow off of his shoulders, that he knew one day he would make the best father. Jin would smile right back at him and pick him up, right in the middle of the sidewalk, and swing him around. The snow would continue to fall around them, and for a few moments, the world would just stop.
Now he’s left alone to deal with these memories bouncing around in his foggy brain. He spends the afternoon alternating between wanting him back and wanting him gone forever as he watches the strip of light slowly turn dark. He’s still waiting for him to call by the time the street lights come on and the snowfall begins to slow. When the phone still doesn’t ring he just stumbles to the kitchen to find the other bottle of wine and drinks it slowly, straight from the bottle, as he stares out into the snow-covered world.
By the time Jin wakes up the next morning, the snow has stopped falling and the sun is shining all too brightly onto his face. He’s on the living room couch, bottle of wine still half full and sitting open on the floor next to him. The windows out here don’t have any curtains to cover them, they could never find the right shade in the right size, and he feels like murdering the sun would be a task he’d like to complete right now.
He mumbles to himself as he walks into the bedroom and grabs onto his beeping mobile phone. His eyes light up at the sound of the electronic beeps, and he mentally crosses his fingers that it’s a signal from Kazuya. A message, text or voice, saying that he’s sorry and that he messed up and that he’s coming back and they can finally go on that snowy walk. But it’s not. It’s just the stupid piece of shit telling him that it needs to be charged before the screen goes black.
He thinks about hurling the phone out of his window and watching it fall. Instead, he plugs it in to charge and pulls on the first pair of jeans he can find. He tops it off with an old long-sleeved shirt and his jacket, pulling a wool hat down onto his head as he walks out of his apartment and down the fifteen flights of stairs to the outside. He inhales deeply, welcoming the sharp pain that comes with the cold air, before turning and walking the opposite direction from where they usually walked.
He wanders through the city’s sidewalks for what feels like hours but turns out to really only be one and a half. He watches the children playing with snowballs and has to refrain himself from joining in. He smiles at the few who recognize him, that kind of sad half-smile that he used to swear never to give, and walks straight past their pleading eyes. He wants to let go and run through the streets with them but he won’t. Because it reminds him of Kazuya, and right now, he just wants to fucking forget.
He makes it back to the apartment with a somewhat clearer mind and fingers that he’s sure have to be halfway to frostbitten. He slowly walks up the stairs and repeatedly tells himself that he’s not going to let this get him down, and that there is an entire world out there for him to explore. He tells himself that break-ups happen all the time, all the goddamn time, and that he needs to just stop with this whole woe-is-me attitude before it kills him.
And then he sticks the key into his apartment door only to find the thing already unlocked. He’s shaking his head, eyes squeezing shut, as he walks into the main room and hears his voice. Just greeting him like it’s totally fucking normal for him to be there. Just standing in his living room like he hadn’t broken his heart in a million tiny pieces only mere days earlier. Kazuya smiles at him, that shaky smile that he falls in love with every single time he sees it, and his whole pep talk from the stairs evaporates.
When he crosses the room to place one soft hand on his shoulder, he crumbles. He falls against him and doesn’t even try to stop the tears. He’s not exactly sure why he’s back, but it doesn’t matter because he’s back and he’s his once again. They can go out now and go for that walk and he can stop and play with the laughing children, and Kazuya can smile and tell him that he’s going to make the best goddamn father. Then, they can come back to the apartment and finish that bottle of wine while talking and cuddling on the couch. And they’ll swear to each other that they’ll never break up again, and they’ll promise to never break each other’s hearts because it just hurts too damn much.
But Kazuya’s not back to do those things and he finds that out the hard way when he leads him into the bedroom and goes straight to the closet. Kazuya pulls out his suitcase, the one that’s black with thin grey lines covering the surface, and begins to make his way around the small room. Jin’s heart breaks, over and over again, as he watches him place his entire life into that suitcase before moving into the next room and doing it again. He kisses Jin good-bye, just on the cheek, before he leaves. Telling Jin that he’s sorry once again, and that he just can’t do this anymore. Kazuya tells him that it just doesn’t feel right.
And Jin understands because he has to. He has to just accept it and move on. Accept that his perfect, beautiful boy isn’t coming back to him and that he just has to learn how to get past it. He needs to become the hero, and try to rewrite his own goddamn story, and rise above all of the hurt to become something greater.
So, Jin shoves his arms back into the sleeves of his coat and puts his hat back over his hair and runs. He runs down the stairs and out onto the street until he finds those kids with their shining eyes and their snow-soaked clothes, and he kneels down next to the smallest one and helps her form a snowball out of the sticky snow. He spends the afternoon running and laughing with the children, letting them tackle him to the ground and lifting the smaller ones up to place rocks onto the snowman’s smiling face.
And by the time the snow starts to fall again, he finally starts to feel okay.
THE END