Archive of Our Own ^beta

The walls are bleeding black and there are faces carved into the concrete, eyes and mouths wide open, screaming the last time you talked to him. The black started to become figures, all standing in the room, screaming your name over and over again.
They all bore the number 4 in their chests.
They started to reach for you, cornering you, touching your arms, legs, face, whispering your name as they held you against the wall.
Two leaned closer to your ears and whispered, almost inaudibly.
"I don't love you anymore, Keiji."
-
You can't breathe. You feel like someone was choking you just a second ago, and suddenly stopped. There are tears streaming down your face, and sobs are erupting from your throat, making it even harder to breathe.
You reach for your phone, blindly scrolling through numbers and names until you press your finger to one of the names.
You only realize the person you choose when your finger hover over the call button.
"Bokuto Koutarou".
You're tempted to throw the phone across the room. It'd be easier to forget him if you stopped subconsciously reaching for him, in any way possible, every time his words pierced your mind in the quiet of the night.
It'd be easier if you stopped remembering.
You don't know if you hate him for leaving like that or if you hate yourself for not being able to forget.
Maybe both.
-
It's been a week.
His laughter still echoes in your mind every time you look down the hall, expecting to see him smiling at you, but all that is left are ghosts that haunt you with every second you spend in the apartment.
You should've moved out. You should've thrown away the mugs. You should've given him back his shirt.
You should've gotten rid of all the things that burn you from the inside out, but you don't. You don't, because the ghosts haunt you, but they fill the empty space he left in you when he slammed the door shut.
You look at the door, wishing he would come back.
(you haven't talked to him since he came back to pick his stuff and it tears you apart knowing that he might never want to know about you)
-
The next time your vision grows dark and your head rests on a pillow, it happens again.
It's worse, though.
You're standing in the living room, fists clenched, screaming at a black silhouette. You curse and you try to hit it various times. Every time you do, it moves. At first, it's in front of you. Then it's behind you, on your right left, on your left side. It keeps moving around you and you keep screaming, and he keeps ignoring you until you fall to your knees and you're crying. It's too much. The silhouette looks like him and it's crushing you. You think you're never going to leave this one.
Then it stops moving. It kneels in front of you and cups your face with its hands. It looks exactly like him, now. His golden eyes, his tender hands. You want to leave, you can't look at him like this, you can't pretend this is him, because it isn't, it'll never be him, it's just a nightmare, it's just another damn nightmare.
Its hands slide down to your shoulders, and like the first time, it whispers.
"I'm sorry, Keiji."
You wake up screaming, body covered in sweat.
-
It's 3am and you're still in your bed, quietly reliving what you saw before you woke up.
It's 4am and your phone is beeping and the name "Bokuto Koutarou" makes your eyes burn.
-
"Keiji, Keiji, Keiji." His voice is so loud and so familiar, it hurts to hear it.
"What is it? Where are you?" There's obvious concern in your voice. He shouldn't be calling you, not after a month of not talking to you; you even thought he might've deleted your number. Hell, he shouldn't be calling you at this hour, unless something had happened.
"Fuck, I- Keiji, can you- Shit, shit, shit." He's talking fast and it sounds like he's breathing with difficulty and that all just adds to your worries.
"Koutarou, just tell me what happened" There's no anger left that you need to voice right now, there's no bitterness left.
You feel like you shouldn't be worrying this much about him, but you spent years with him and it's not easy to just get over the person you loved (love, love, you still love him) and ignore him. After all, hearing him and not the voices in your head was an enormous relief.
"I fucked up, Keiji, I fucked up. I- Fuck, can you come pick me up?"
"Where are you?"
"God, I'm- I'm at that restaurant, the one near our high school, remember? The one I took you to celebrate your birthday, and then there was a really big cake, and then you told me I was going to eat all of that by myself and then I did, I fucking did, and then I threw up for like an hour, and you laughed at me and then I said your laughter was really nice and then you called me an asshole and-"
"Yes," you cut him, not wanting to hear the rest of the story otherwise you'd probably cry and that was the last thing you wanted to do. "I remember. I'll come pick you up, okay?"
"Okay."
You were about to hang up, when he added.
"I'm sorry, Keiji."
-
You're driving to the restaurant as fast as you're allowed to and you wish you hadn't hung up. You wish you could've, somehow, continued the conversation with him, just to keep hearing his voice, just to pretend everything was alright and that the past month was just a lie and that you were both alright (you know it's never going to happen, but you can still wish he still loves you).
You were going to give his shirt back to him, but you forgot (again). Maybe it's just your head, making up ways to bring him back to your apartment, and maybe he'll stay this time (you know he won't).
Deep down, you knew how it would go down; you'd bring him to your house, give him his shirt, and then drive him to his house. And then continue with your routine of waking up screaming and spending the rest of the day stepping on broken glass and ignoring the pain and how it burns your feet.
Yeah, that worked for you.
You spotted him on the sidewalk and stopped right next to him. Even though he's wearing a coat, it looks like he's freezing outside.
You open the door and leave the car, walking towards him.
He sees you and the look of surprise in his face is evident.
"You came, holy shit, you actually came, God, Keiji, I thought you wouldn't actually come, I'm-" He looked at you with such disbelief, you almost felt insulted.
"You called me at 4 in the morning and you expect me not to come? You wouldn't call me if it wasn't important. Come on, Koutarou." You gestured towards the car, and you both got in.
You didn't expect the ride to be pleasant or anything, but you had hopes.
-
You missed him. You missed him so much, it hurt every time you glanced at him. And you couldn't do anything. You couldn't hold his hand, you couldn't kiss him when the lights were red, you couldn't do anything but drive.
It was slowly driving you mad, and the silence wasn't helping much.
"We're going back at my place for you to pick up the shirt you left there, okay?"
"Yeah, sure."
The sooner he left, the sooner you'd stop screaming internally.
-
The rest of the ride was pure silence.
It killed you inside to not be able to hear his voice with him right next to you.
You wonder if it killed him too.
-
You leave your keys on the counter and head to your bedroom to find his shirt and give it back to him as soon as possible (if you wanted him out, why did you search all the places you knew the shirt wouldn't be, only to find it on the place you knew it was?).
You come back to find him standing in the middle of the living room, looking as if someone had shattered all his dreams and hopes in front of him. He looked like he was going to cry.
"You painted the living room."
You wanted to apologize, you wanted to tell him that you didn't want to paint it, and that if he wanted he could paint it again and you could both pretend nothing ever happened, and that he never yelled at you and said he didn't love you and stopped talking to you for a month.
"I know." was all that came out. It hurt, it hurt so badly, but you couldn't bring yourself to say anything else.
"I'm sorry, Keiji."
"Don't"
"I'm sorry I left. I'm sorry I screamed at you, I'm sorry I said all of those things." He was crying, and his breathing was heavy and you wanted to kick him out, but at the same time you wanted to hold him and tell him it was all okay, even when it wasn't.
You swallowed hard and walked up to him. You felt like you were about to cry too, but you couldn't, not now, specially not now.
"This is yours." You said, handing him his shirt.
"Keiji."
"I can't do this, please just take it and go." You felt your voice breaking and you just wanted him to leave, to take the damn shirt and never bother you again.
You wanted him to stop coming back so you'd stop hurting.
He reached for the shirt, but took your hands instead.
"I never wanted to leave, Keiji."
You snapped. All the anger from after the fight, all the anger and bitterness you kept locked away because there was no one to use it on, all of it was taking over you.
"Then why did you? Why did you, if you didn't want to? Actually, why did you even call me? Why did you call me after a month of not talking to me? Did you want to apologize? Did you hope I was just going to accept it and move on with what you did? Did you hope I was still in love with you and that you could just erase everything that happened?" (because i am and you can, you can, there's nothing stopping you, i won't object).
"No, never, Keiji, please listen to me, I just-"
"Oh? Why did you call me, then?" You were still screaming and the burn at the back of your throat never felt so good and satisfying.
"I needed to see you. And, fuck, I don't know, talk to you maybe? About everything and anything, I don't know. I just needed you, Keiji." He was holding your arms and looking at you, and his eyes made holes in your body and, god, you missed him so badly, so fucking badly. You were so angry and so bitter with everything, but not with him. Back then, you might've been, but right now, you aren't angry with him, not even a bit. He was hurting as much as you, and you were both fucked up and you both made mistakes, but none of that mattered to you.
It's been too long and every part of you was aching for him and your thoughts are a mess and you can't know what you'll regret regret later and what you won't, so you just act without thinking.
"I'm sorry." He repeated, and you believed him.
"I know."
You leaned in and kissed him. His lips were cold and chapped, but you didn't mind, because it was him, it was Koutarou and no one else.
He backed away from the kiss and moved his hands up to your shoulders.
"I still love you." He said, and you couldn't help but feel like someone took a huge weight off your shoulders.
"I still love you too."
He touched your forehead with his and he laughed, he laughed so hard, you were glad it was real and not one of the echoes in your mind. His laughter made you feel warm inside.
"I'm such an idiot, aren't I?"
"Yes, yes you are."
And then you kissed him, and he was kissing back, and you only stopped halfway through the hallway, when he accidentally laughed when you stood on your toes to kiss him better.
He wasn't an idiot, he was an asshole.
But he was your asshole.