Usami, Akihiko
oOo
He'd been awoken with a gentle shake while the morning was still too pale for shadows and sent on his reluctant way, and even eight hours later, he couldn't place the niggling sensation that an epiphany of some kind had given him the slip. It had been a long night, though. There were other things to worry about now that he was feeling stable and, despite having slept on concrete, rather well-rested.
Meetings with his unnamed friend always felt unreal, time and sensation and even emotion falling away for a blessed few minutes—or hours—until he was left alone again. Meetings with Akihiko tended to have the opposite effect. Hiroki was a little more aware of his own movements, his own breath, his own heartbeat than he would have liked to be; he felt as cold as the alley cat's hands were warm, his stomach nothing but roiling unease.
"But yeah", he finished lamely. "I'm not dating him or anything. Figured I'd put that on the table."
"I see", said Akihiko, unreadable, and lapsed into silence.
They were at the author's apartment, which seemed bigger and bleaker than Hiroki remembered it; was it only because he was coming here after so long? Was it because of the chill left by the setting sun? Was it because Akihiko himself looked thinner? Was it because he looked younger?
Why do you still look like your house is threatening to swallow you?
He could see every mote of dust on the furniture. Why did I even come here?
Among other things, he'd been unable to stop himself. I wasn't in the best of shape last night, but you called me out to talk, and I took the first opportunity to leave you behind... For once his conscience had won out over pride and trepidation, and here he was, his apology still unarticulated and Akihiko as reticent as ever.
It's not the idiot's fault I happen to be in love with him. It was infuriating that he had to keep reminding himself of that. It's not his fault I can't seem to say sorry when it's due, either.
Several painstaking seconds later, he managed to offer, "I hope you made it back okay. You'd had a fair bit to drink."
"Worrying about me now, are you?" Hiroki was astonished to hear the sincere warmth in his voice. "I got here fine. Didn't trust myself to walk all the way back, so I called a taxi."
The hyperacuity of everything around them seemed to lessen, and he felt the tension he hadn't noticed in his shoulders lift a little. "What happened to being able to hold your liquor, you liar?"
He thought he saw Akihiko's eyes flicker to him before returning to the notebook he was already toying with again.
"Controlling my words and actions is one thing. Finding my way around Tokyo at night in this cold is another." A pause so long Hiroki had begun to formulate a response. "Besides, if the Great Lord Usami doesn't feel like walking, he doesn't have to."
Hiroki's fingers twitched reflexively, yearning for a book within throwing range; then he caught hold of this impulse, pushed it down, and made a mental note to stop trying to brain his friend.
I'm not ten years old any more.
"I'm surprised people haven't changed your title to the Great Lord Usagi by now. It isn't exactly a secret to the public, is it?"
"Not a secret, no", Akihiko said nonchalantly, "it's just that most of my pictures happen to be a bit too close up to really show my ears. The people who see me at parties and the like all know anyway, but oh well..."
Shiratori's words came back to him... Didn't know you had that sort of preference. Of course there were people out there who fetishized hybrids like Akihiko. Of course there must even be an underground trafficking system for the unluckiest of them. Would one of the most brilliant authors of the decade still be able to maintain any form of privacy if it was more widely known that he was also an usagi?
Hiroki had never asked just how Akihiko got his ears and tail either. Something about the very idea of bringing it up boded ill to him; it was just one of the several things he'd accepted he would never know about the man he loved, just one more swab of darkness in the shadows that cloaked his childhood friend. And yet this inscrutable person with his forever cold hands always reminded him of the sun. Clear warm sunlight on a spring afternoon and a boy sound asleep in Hiroki's secret base.
Sometimes I wonder why I even love you.
At other times...
"Won't you stay the night, Hiroki?" Akihiko asked, cracking the silence that had sprung up around them.
...it's impossible not to.
"Thanks, but I can't", Hiroki said automatically. Ah, dammit, I've made myself sad again. "I have studying to do. Exams 'round the corner, gotta haul ass and everything. I'll never live it down if someone ousts me from the top of my class."
"But it's Saturday."
"Can't slack off just because it's the weekend." Don't plead, for the love of all that's holy to you, or I won't be able to keep resisting. And I have to resist. The drinks he'd refused last night were starting to seem a lot more attractive by now. If I can't study, I'll go drinking again. Anything to stay occupied.
Anything, if that anything would keep him from wondering why Takahashi Takahiro deserved a bigger place than he did in Akihiko's heart.
"Unlike the Great Lord Usagi, most of us actually have to work hard to get good grades, you know." This is the part where I stand. This is the part where I take my leave and run. His body refused to move.
"Yes, yes, you're married to your studies", said Akihiko—Hiroki chose to believe that was petulance he heard in the raspy voice. "I guess I'll see you around when you want to see me next. At least I take the initiative to visit you."
Akihiko, Akihiko, Akihiko...
How can still you not know that I want to see you every hour of my pathetic life?
"You only visit me because you like my bed better than yours." Hiroki laughed with an amusement he did not feel; his limbs had unfrozen, it was time to go. Time to be alone again. "I'd better get going then, Usagi."
"Don't call me that!" Akihiko said so sharply that his friend stopped mid-rise to look at him in bewilderment. "It feels so strange when you use that name for me. I hate it."
And his vitriol was back in full force. "Oh? Doesn't your beloved Takahiro call you that, though?"
"He does." And Hiroki could only think of running as the Great Lord Usami, not-a-secret hybrid and award-winning author, mumbled, "But you're the only one who calls me Akihiko."
oOo
Three years after a friend suggested that Akihiko might be on the autism spectrum, I'm starting to see why. He does seem to be heavily coded as such at least in his younger years, with his aversion to social situations and tendency to question details, not to mention his passion for writing which could easily qualify as a special interest. I wonder if that offers some insight on his apparent difficulty with empathizing as well. It would explain a lot about how he remained oblivious to Hiroki's feelings for over ten years.
Some of this is thrown under the bus come his present-day arc, presumably to accommodate his relationship with Misaki. He seems less innocently cruel and more of a manipulative pervert once their dynamic starts to solidify, but there are still signs, like his propensity for collecting (even hoarding) large amounts of objects he has no real use for—and yes, his enduring dedication to his words, even at the cost of his health/ability to care for himself.
Not that you'd notice much of this if you weren't looking, given that it's not exactly the focus of his character these days... Romantica is honestly as unnecessary a ship as it is damaging to both of them.
Nonetheless, for those of you still reading this, it's something to think about. It's hard for me not to write him in a forgiving light either way; in large part because I relate to him on multiple levels, yes, but also because he does genuinely come across as a kind person to me. Sad how so much of what makes him such a well-crafted and compelling character is undone by his canon ship. Had he been given some degree of autonomy as a person before he and Misaki were strongarmed together by the plot, he could potentially have carried the story down a much more intense and moving path than he currently can in his role of stereotypical pseudo-rapist seme.
I wish I could pluck Akihiko out of Junjou Romantica and gently set him down in a world that isn't out to exploit his homosexuality for the yaois.
Right, and I'm still alive and all of that. Mental illness just happens to be kind of a dick.
