Lyrics from Stay by Cueshe. Yeah I listened to that on loop while writing this.

1/F

Now that you're gone I'm all alone

I'm still hoping that you would come back home

Don't care how long but I'm willing to wait

The first time, Takano was only beginning to rise from the underground. Many people had tried to pull him up, but he was numb to the steady ringing of the call button. He knew what he would see when the doors open. The woman who laughed with him under the sunshine, now scathing like the sun. The man who kissed him like summer rain, now a merciless storm. The faces of peers zipping by, peering through the surface and being content of what they see. It was too melodramatic, truly. It would pass, it must. He'd be fine.

Oda Ritsu made the words "I'm fine" seem like torture, a pathetic attempt to alleviate the symptoms of this disease called life. Because this boy, his love took Takano in awe. He wouldn't call it a rescue, no, all of Takano's demons were still there. But having someone who was not afraid of them, that made Takano, well, not afraid. No armor of teenage indifference or knife of seething cynicism could've equipped him better.

Ritsu's wholehearted devotion was partly due to his naivety and shallow infatuation, Takano realized as the drenched boy offered him an umbrella with a flushed smile. The boy had been melting into a puddle of affection. "I went back when it started raining. I just…brought, um, yeah…"

But there were these moments, the way Ritsu's eyes lit up while talking of his beloved literature, defending authors in a way a sheltered prince could not. The way he didn't dismiss Takano's ugliness with blind benevolence, and confronted him with gentle pressure whenever he became too cutting.

After that—Takano was never a poetic person and that's alright because he didn't need to put it into words anymore.

Surely these weren't wrong, the pooling of warmth in his gut with that openhearted smile, the stirring he felt at each tentative touch. Takano wasn't fine. He was happy, intoxicated and reeling, like an inexperienced middle schooler after his first night out.

Then the lights went out. Gone—the word could not be anything else but a desperate gasp for breath. Gone—no, he'd looked everywhere, asked everyone. Gone—

There was no hesitation. Takano lifted his arms and held the doors open, ravaged heart exposed to the world. All there was to do was to wait.

2/F

I feel so cold, feel so numb

I'm having nightmares but I'm awake

Help me Lord

Fight this loneliness, take this pain away

And the hangover—it was indescribable. The initial shock at waking up, the thudding in his skull, the desperate retching. Takano's body was desperate to flush Oda Ritsu out of his system, the remnants of him were toxic and unprocessed. He felt nauseous, at what he had done, what had become of him.

Takano hated Ritsu, blindly and achingly, cursing him as he came screaming his name. His arms were beginning to ache, his eyes blurring in his search. With each passing day it became clearer and clearer—

He was waiting for no one.

Move, move, it was a simple directive, and Takano was eager to comply. Back to his mother's hometown, where he could finally breathe. The days were quiet, the ache dull. Takano never took himself for a province boy. Then again, beyond Ritsu, he hadn't really known who he was. A few innocent smiles, slender bodies, soft words. Soon, Takano thought.

Except this—he found the green of his eyes at the pond beyond the rushes. Yes, he loved the sound of the water, it calmed him, that's why he kept coming. Except this—he fell asleep on the fields near the school and awoke with the brush of a grass blade, and for one moment, he'd thought it was a warm finger. Except this—there was always a face flitting by the library aisles, only to disappear as Takano gave chase.

Move, move, and still Takano held the doors.

Back to the city, with the promise of college life, Takano learned the answer to futility. The vultures came, pecking at the dead mess that was his heart, and he'd let them into his bed. He told himself he'd already given up, but if that were so, he would've closed the doors altogether. Perhaps he was hoping someone would replace what he lost, but that was a joke, wasn't it? What he was hoping for—

—was for Ritsu to sweep in and save him from himself, as he had before. Somehow, every wound Takano opened felt like a step closer to him.

3/F

I believe we shouldn't let the moment pass us by

Life's too short, we shouldn't wait for the water to run dry

Well think about it, 'cause we only have one shot at destiny

All I'm asking—could it possibly be you and me?

By the time he had become the editor-in-chief of Emerald Department, everybody knew Takano Masamune as a man not made for standing still. There was only up or down. In work, Takano moved in these directions alternately. A professional through and through, he was completely dedicated to his job and possessed utter disdain for office politics. The movement was a manifestation of his voracious passion for his life's work, and this earned him respect and admiration.

What they didn't know was that the movement was there for velocity—velocity needed to escape the gravity of his past. Otherwise, Takano would collapse on his own weight and hurtle down with a fiery crash. No more vultures this time—there was nothing left in Takano to be scavenged. Takano closed his doors, since they had nothing behind them, and made work his lover.

Dead things don't come back. But even he finally came back, and that was even more impossible, wasn't it? It was such a joke, how quickly Takano opened those doors again, how steadfastly he held. I'll make you say you love me again.

Too fast, and with too much. Takano knew he scared Onodera. In truth, he was scaring himself just as much. This wasn't the way to do it, not with pushy kisses, obsessive stalking, or haphazard fucking. He knew he should slow down and wait, like he had for so many years. Unfortunately, it's exactly Takano's dragging acquaintance with the pause button that made him so eager for play and fast forward.

If Onodera slipped away one more time, Takano would never forgive himself.

"Say you love me now," he begs with his high-and-mighty voice. Oh, how far down he would fall. "If you can't do it, then dump me now so I could give up on you."

It was a joke. If Takano was ever going to, God knows he would've already.

Look at this, he'd think, pushing their bodies together. Maybe then, Ritsu would see exactly how ruined he had become, how he would tear himself apart for his attention. I love you.

"Takano-san…Takano—ah!"

And Takano would bleed. How could Onodera look at him like he truly loved him, when he wouldn't even say the words? It wasn't enough, no, it was probably worse this way. If Onodera should turn away, should leave him behind again—

"No, no, no," Takano would shut his eyes tight and shake his head. This man would destroy him without sparing so much as a second glance. And yet, as Onodera fell asleep, Takano would take his hand and place it over his heart. "Please."

4/F

The time has come for us to go our separate ways

God forbid, but my mind is going crazy today

The next time Onodera left, it didn't take Takano by surprise. He wished he'd be Onodera Ritsu, Emerald's underling and Takano's…lover? Fuckbuddy? It didn't matter, as long as he was Takano's, not the Onoderas's heir.

"I am still my father's son," he'd said, voice trembling with a mix of fear and utter determination. Those eyes were so unbearably sad, Takano could almost cry. Almost. But a single tear then would have been an ocean crashing through the dam Takano built around his heart. "It's my duty. I'm sorry, Takano-san."

He could've said, "What about me?" or "I love you," or "Stay". He could've pulled Onodera in and slammed him down his bed and fucked him until all talk of leaving was extinguished. Like all the other times. Except that this wasn't like any other time.

Onodera was choosing who he was, and how could Takano deny that? If there was any doubt in his mind that he was completely in love with this man, Takano would've known for sure right then that he really was. Nothing else but love could've kept him silent.

"I won't forgive you if you disappear again," he simply stated, hanging onto hope, waiting for Onodera's promise. Never again.

Onodera's face twisted, as if Takano's pain bled into him for one sick moment. Holding his mouth with a trembling hand, he said, "We can't go back to how we were before. So don't wait for me."

Takano had never listened to Onodera's opinion on their relationship before. No, he wouldn't give him that. Onodera could take everything, and he had, but Takano's feelings are his.

"You have no right," Takano replied. He saw his own shock reflected on Onodera's face, tasted the salt of real tears for the first time in ten years. "You have no right to tell me not to love you."

Having stunned Onodera speechless, Takano smiled. "I don't care how long it takes. Come home."

5/F

So if you'd still go, I'll understand
Would you give me something just to hold on to?

Waiting is madness. But then again, Takano has been a madman all these years. On times waiting will have killed him, the name in his mind keeps Takano's head on the surface. And the next magazines come out, new books get published, cycles come and go.

On Onodera Ryuichiro's funeral, the whispers—Onodera Ritsu will take over Onodera Shuppan soon. Takano takes a deep inhale from his smoke, throws away the rest of the pack, and repeats the name over and over in his head.

The sun rises and sets countless more times, and then there's him, standing in front of Takano's door in the fading light of dusk. When their eyes meet, Onodera's breath hitches.

"Takano-san…I have some things to say."

There is an open doorway and four feet filled with hope between them.

"I thought I had my life written down, then you came and jumbled it all. You and me disappeared somewhere behind us. We…" Onodera chuckles wryly, soft as if not to rouse his own emotions. "Were never very good for each other."

Takano thinks back to all those times—when Onodera licked at his wounds and when he tore new ones open. The scars are still there. And he sees, better than he ever has before, the same stitches on Onodera. Hasn't it all been enough?

"And now…" Onodera faces him squarely and bites his lip. "You're not my world anymore."

Couldn't they move on from here, unshackle themselves from one another? Takano wonders how it would feel like to wake up without anxiety rising from his gut, without the fear of abandonment, without a love that weighs a ton.

"But, after all our mistakes, I still want us. Even though we're broken, I want us."

Takano finally understands why Onodera never backed down in the face of his ugliness. He accepted Takano and took the blows he inflicted. Onodera didn't make him pure or beautiful…he got down the dirt with him. He might have wanted to be free of Takano many times, but he still chooses to be with him. And now—

Now Onodera's lips are on Takano's, as he holds him tight and crumples his coat under trembling hands.

"I know I hurt you," he sighs, letting his weight fall on Takano. The world fades away around them. "But I was waiting for us, too."

Takano moans and opens his mouth, feeling all the air escape from his lungs. It's almost painful, when he hears the words, "Takano-san, I love you."

He's been holding the doors open for years, and finally Onodera has caught on.

And if you'd stay I'll hold your hand

Because I'm truly, madly, crazy in love with you