"Since when?"
"Summer."
A groan. Himuro normally never groans. It would be amusing any other time but now it just exacerbates the tension between them. The inevitable question comes then, in a tone more frustrated and heartbroken than angry:
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Tell you what, exactly? 'Hey Tatsuya! Guess what, I started casually sleeping around with my male kouhai from middle school!' Even if you did not know who it is or Akashi at all, you would have rushed to Tokyo to kick my ass and punch some sense into my head."
"You know that still sounds like a good idea."
"If it will make you feel better, go ahead, take a swing. But it won't change anything... I mean my feelings and whatnot."
"That sounds corny as hell."
"Well you always said I was rather mushy inside."
"This is not about him being male by the way. Or your kouhai. Sure, I would be concerned, especially with the timing and how... the whole thing is so out of your character. I have every right to be concerned even if it was not Akashi Seijūrō. But it is Akashi. Just... I'll be patient, so tell me: how?"
"I have no clue... It started... out of convenience? Out of curiosity? Out of awe? I guess. Life was frantic, he was smothered by it, I was suffocating myself, it was a nice repose for both of us. It was just fun and peaceful... a learning experience of sorts? We trust each other. We've always trusted each other so it did not feel so bizarre despite being the opposite of normal. I did not love him to begin with and I thought I would never..."
"What happened then?"
"I don't know... Serendipity?"
Himuro sighs like an adult facing the stubborn irrationality of a child,
"Shuu, I don't want to sound like a broken record but you really don't know what he is like..."
"I'm the one who has been sleeping with him for months, how is that you are so goddamn sure I don't know him well enough?!"
"That's not the point! I should have introduced you to more girls back when we were teens... and boys, maybe. What I mean is: having sex with someone does not grant you superior knowledge of their personality."
"I know that. I am not naïve."
"What then?"
"When I say I've been sleeping with him, I mean it literally too: it is not just sex, we sleep together and we wake up together. This will again sound cheesy and silly as hell but you don't know how simply impossible it is to witness Akashi Seijūrō vulnerable and bare – I don't mean his body, I mean his self... and he allows me. He allows me to witness it. He allows himself to be so with me. Me alone."
"Is that how? Is that why? He makes you feel special with a few gestures and you think that is what love is?"
"I wish it was that simple... Look, I don't even know if he'll continue with this... this thing we had, now that I confessed I love him..."
"So you are that certain he does not love you back yet you love him?"
"Yes... I know it may sound awful but from the beginning... Let's just say he is not someone who can ever fall in love in the first place, regardless of his partner. And I knew that."
"Are you saying that he will never love you back?"
"Yes. He will not. Not as a lover, at least. But all things considered, he will never love anybody as a lover and he is still pretty fond of me in a non-romantic sense... so..."
"Do you realise how pathetic that sounds? You're practically admitting that there is no reciprocity and there will never be."
"Is there supposed to be reciprocity of the same kind? I have seen many pathetic and even harmful relationships where there was mutual romance. I know it sounds strange, I am not denying that and I am not sure what can such a bizarre relationship turn out to be either, but we have not been bad so far."
"Physical intimacy can sometimes bring desperate and temporary feelings of attachment you know..."
"God! Tatsuya, I'm not delusional. This is not some kind of fucked up Stockholm Syndrome. Why are you being so stubborn about this?!"
"Because he's not–"
"He's not what? 'Kind'? 'Nice'? 'Sane'? What are you gonna say? 'He has changed from last you knew him'? Do you all really think that he just flipped one day? It doesn't work like that. From the beginning it was there, the roots. For all them but especially for him. Has any of you ever tried to understand him? His motives? His hardships? Have you ever asked that to Murasakibara before?"
Nijimura sighs as if to collect his thoughts and pacify his enraged tongue and heart, his voice is calmer when he continues,
"He is awkward, reserved, and introverted. He was the one who talked the least, always maintained a distance from others and pushed himself the hardest even when he did not need it. Hell, Murasakibara followed him like a puppy and Akashi did not even open up to that giant of a pup... And I knew something was brewing but I was a kid, I had my own shit to worry about to worry for him or others. In fact, I welcomed his cancerous self-confidence and tyrannical tendencies, they allowed me a clean way out, a good excuse to leave them on their own."
"Are you feeling guilty for failing him? Is that what this is about?"
"Tatsuya, please... Do you think, I who had ever only slept with women he dated would just start casually having sex with a male kouhai I did not even love or see in years, out of guilt? And then just go and fall in love with him despite knowing that he would not love me back or ever want a relationship with me?!"
"Okay, touché... Even though you are prone to self-blame and perhaps it would force you to be friendly with him, it alone would not get you in his pants. That's just not you. But falling in love with Akashi... That does not sound like you either. Does it?! And I mean... Why? Why him?"
"No, it doesn't but then I can be terribly impulsive and unnecessarily curious at times, you know that... I kind of would like to know why too but what has happened has happened... There are perhaps a thousand reasons why and yet also absolutely no reason why."
Silence engulfs them.
Himuro sighs, his nerves has calmed into a heavy frustration tinged with dejection,
"You... You really love him?"
Nijimura leans his back on the wall of the restaurant and as soon as he does he remembers that fateful night with Akashi last summer... The memories that come to light in his mind grant a small bitter-sweet smile to his lips and he mumbles, only partially audible but sincere,
"Yes."
It is not the word itself that is bewildering but the tone. His voice comes out perfectly peaceful, tinted with unabashed hope, affection oozes from it, almost tangible, visible. Even he himself is surprised albeit with a dash of sarcasm and self-pity.
"I did not hear that. Okay? I definitely did not. Shit. I really want to punch you now."
"Yeah, after saying all this out aloud I kind of want to punch me too..."
"So what now?"
"I don't know... I don't even know if he'll want to stay friends with me after this... Or rather, he'll probably be friends but only distantly and any intimacy we shared will be gone. Maybe not. I'm not sure... I mean he is complicated."
"Yeah, 'gouge my eyes for a basketball game'-complicated."
Nijimura chuckles with absolutely nonchalantly,
"Says the man who had a falling out with his 'bro the dearest' over a basketball game... And now that I know who that 'bro' is, it is even stranger. I mean, for real?"
"Okay, so I'm not a good example, still, it's different and my case does not involve excruciating physical pain."
"I thought you punched him over it? Weren't you saying that?"
"Well, no excruciating physical pain for me and no permanent bodily damage for any of the involved parties."
Nijimura almost cackles but holds himself because he is not yet suicidal, nevertheless his tone is sarcastic,
"That totally makes it different, sure."
Himuro's gaze is expectant for an answer though, so after a few moments of silence Nijimura relents,
"You know when I first heard he said that – and I heard it months ago – I was quite angry like 'you little piece of shit how dare you belittle bodily harm like that!' and I am certain that if I was around then, I would punch some sense into him. But I was not actually surprised nor did I feel terrified at all at the comment itself... What horrified others was that he was serious and he was. I am sure of that. He has always been, at everything in his life, like a samurai but a samurai of both the mundane and the chivalrous endeavours. It did not terrify me because I knew it would not happen. He is proud and vain but not stupid, he knew he would win."
"Okay, maybe not at that game, but later he lost... Like all the heavyweights in the league, he also lost against Kuroko and Taiga before high school ended. It is not as if his victory is a certainty in reality."
"Yes, he lost at some point, yet he still has both his eyes now. He would not say it if he did not know he would win, in fact when his grasp for victory is threatened... that's when he would be too overwhelmed, too frantic to create a spectacle out of his humongous pride... nothing would wound or panic him like facing possibility of loss."
Himuro's gaze softens at the comment and Nijimura realises he must have said something right, something he does not know but Himuro knows. Still, his beautiful friend replies, all sarcastic and testing,
"You're sure of all that?"
"Hmm... like 85%? Come on. I mean I wasn't around when he lost but you were, you must have witnessed that latter part."
Himuro concurs but not with words and instead an affirming, silent gaze. Nijimura is fine with that, only mumbles, more to himself than to Himuro, "I am not sure if I am glad or pissed that I was not around to see it."
After a sigh Himuro groans,
"I really want to punch you, you know. I was not kidding."
Nijimura smiles at the blunt ways of his friend, he has always been amused by Himuro's unexpected inclination to petty forms of violence,
"Fine just go ahead, let's get this over with! I get it. We both have anger issues and even though you normally deal with it better... This is kind of an exceptional case. I know I screwed up."
Nijimura closes his eyes and braces himself for the impending doom; Himuro packs a nasty hook that can very well knock him out cold if intended, but his uppercut is not as strong so Nijimura hopes against hope that it will be an uppercut.
He feels neither though and instead suddenly a strong flick of finger hits his forehead and he flinches at the burning sensation. Still, better than being knocked out and having his face ruined with a hook.
"What the heck?!"
"What? Would you prefer me to actually punch you perhaps?"
"No, I mean, sorry yeah, whatever... Why though?"
"As you said, it will not change anything..."
"You could have just not hit me at all then?"
"Oh but I had to hit you at least to relieve a little bit of this stress. How does it feel to be at the receiving end of one of those?"
"Hurts like hell. Not like you'd know. This is so unfair. I never did it to you! Only to siblings and underclassmen... How did you even remember... Jeez..."
"Yeah something about my beautiful face not being hurt, right?"
Nijimura blushes slightly at the remembrance, indeed Himuro is one of the most beautiful people he has ever known... He wouldn't want to touch such a delicate face so rudely.
"Sometimes I think it's like the bait of a very cunning predator... You attract the poor preys with your beauty and they come mesmerised, having no idea what kind of a monstrous strength you have."
Himuro chuckles genuinely and Nijimura revels in the sound, finds relief despite his throbbing red forehead, now that his friend's mood is slightly ameliorated.
"You're just being sour because you're still overwhelmed by it. Really, you are such a menkui! Always easily captivated by superficial aesthetics... No wonder you fell for Akashi."
"Wait, did you just implicitly call Akashi beautiful? That's a good first step."
"Well, he's nowhere near my looks but he is pretty, I'll give him that."
Nijimura simply snorts at the comment and this irks Himuro immediately,
"You know what, forget I just said that. I really don't think I want to hear your response to it."
Nijimura grins, amused and deliberately silent and Himuro gives him a glare of death. Finally silence that settles around them is not so uncomfortable, having reached a common ground of sorts, even though Nijimura is certain that the discussion has not yet ended and will continue on for months to come every time they speak or meet.
A few minutes later, Himuro simply signs towards the restaurant's entrance silently, leading them to return inside but makes a small prayer in his heart, hoping that this will not end in disaster for Nijimura.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
They return back to the dining room together, sit in their previous spots, just as Nijimura reaches for his now cold tea, Akashi starts to rise politely and wishes his friends a good night with a slight bow.
"I am rather tired so I will be taking my leave now."
Akashi can see the clouds of anxiety in Nijimura's silvery orbs but prefers to ignore it. The brunette is about to stand up as well when Akashi pats his shoulder, the touch is polite but devoid of intimacy and it is clearly a gesture of rejection,
"I would rather be on my own tonight."
The sentence is not loud but audible enough for all his audience to hear and tone is cutting, it is said politely but is glaringly an order, not just a wish. Because it is not a statement solely for Nijimura after all, Kuroko can also be meddlesome, he might have already been planning to call Akashi later that night to discuss 'feelings', which the redhead surely does not want to. So he has to be firm about this point to all.
Nijimura simply nods silently as Akashi exits through the door and he can hear a rather loud whisper spoken swiftly by Himuro,
"Don't glare at me like that. I am really not sorry about it. You're better off if he dumps you anyway."
Akashi wonders just how Nijimura glared at his friend to receive such a response, but taking a peek back into the room would be undignified so he hurries outside instead...
Himuro is correct though, he muses to himself, it would be the best for Nijimura. Not that Nijimura would ever accept the truth of this. It is all right though, even if Nijimura does not, Akashi knows, Akashi does, Akashi can.
He hails a cab easily once he is outside and makes a mental note to buy a car in the new year, it would be useful and probably cost effective. Not that he has to bother about a budget but he still does, for it is a matter of principle and proper management of funds is essential for his future career. So it is these kinds of things that busy his mind as the taxi moves past the crowded streets of city alight in a thousand different twinkling colours; these kinds of things that have nothing to do with the revelations of just less than an hour ago. Not that they were truly 'revelations', for Akashi had known, but you see foreknowledge does not change the impact of exposure in essence, in fact it may even deepen its impact for the words are powerful, the truth is especially striking when it is said out loud and laid bare. He is fully aware of this fact yet in his mind and heart, nothing is moved. The impact is almost none. 'Almost' because there are also some thoughts in the back of his mind regarding the matter, but they are benign and sterile, like a secretary's notes: must pack Nijimura's clothes at home, should drop them to him one afternoon in person because Nijimura would be disturbed by a professional delivery service, should find a new place in the campus to play basketball to not accidentally come across Nijimura, the new path to take when visiting Library of the Faculty of Science to avoid going across the building where Nijimura's lab is located, to stop buying blackberry ice cream because he is not so much fond of it (but Nijimura had been appreciating its bitter-sweetness)... The end of a relationship that has become unnecessarily intimate requires quite a few surgical removals and meticulous changes but Akashi's superior intelligence is already on top of these tasks, deciding, planning, soon will be executing...
All is fine in his heart and mind and he is as unperturbed and indifferent as ever till he arrives home.
Somehow, the moment he enters and shuts the door behind him, something heavy sinks down into his belly and suddenly he is cold. Not his skin, this frigidity has nothing to do with the Winter outside, no, this brazen coldness is completely internal. He feels heavy, tired, dare he say it 'insecure' – and no, he won't dare say it, he won't dare admit it. Thus, his acumen comes to the rescue, he can analyse himself, find the origins of his problems, even if he cannot find a cure, he has always been brilliant in discovering the aetiology of his own (often painful) quirks. With the precision of the scalpel of a seasoned cardiothoracic surgeon, he turns his own psyche into a patient, dissects his own heart to see the roots and branches of the sudden excess weight crushing him and the numbness that has conquered his nerves. He uncovers a special kind of incompleteness and thus a resultant longing he is certain he did not bear just a few months ago.
Is this what people call 'missing another'? Missing a lover? He wonders that for fraction of a second and decides against. No, it is not.
In all honesty, although he would have preferred to spend the night with Nijimura more so for his bodily cravings and emotional peace than anything else. It is not that he minds being alone right now, right here. There is no scorching rain of fire inside him that burns him with yearning for Nijimura.
No, it is not that.
It is the knowledge that come tomorrow, Nijimura will not drop by either. Come the day after, he will not enter through that door. Come even the day after the day after, he will not bring some cheap supplies to cook up some meagre meal.
It is the knowledge that Nijimura will be gone in the form that he has been available till now.
It is the knowledge that by the power of the words, the potence ascribed to logos, the various shades of intimacy he has thus far shared with Nijimura are no more acceptable and their relationship has to change. To what? To whatever it was before.
Why does this shift in the dynamics of just one single relationship bother him so much?
That is when his mind wanders, he remembers.
It was by noon and he politely asked his father when he would be taken to hospital to see his mother, he had been promised that he would, only if he aced all his studies for the week, he had, yet the chauffeur had been out alongside his father the whole morning and once back home his father had not uttered a single word to him. That is when his father informed him of the untimely death of his mother.
"She died this morning. I had to go to the hospital because of that. We will hold the funeral in two days."
What?
That was literally all he could utter.
"What?"
His father looked sad then, sad and forsaken but not teary eyed, no, oh no, nobody who bears the name Akashi should ever cry or show weakness, so his father had not. He had not a single tear for his mother, for the woman he loved, or perhaps he had but in secret? Perhaps. He regarded his father, his eyes wide and scrutinising, his ears sensitive to any word to come out of the mouth of his father, for he needed clues on how to deal with this loss. How do you mourn? Children do not know how. Children cannot understand loss. Children cannot truly understand death (humans truly cannot and they are the most fragile to this particular form of ignorance at childhood). So he looked at his father and all he saw was a sad, pitiful man who was standing unnaturally straight. The heavy weight of dignity and the need to be strong at all costs wrapped around his small body and he realised that he could not cry.
"She is gone."
Akashi never learnt how to mourn losses, for loss always meant defeat and defeat was shameful for their name. Yet to be human is to lose for humans are mortal and death is the ultimate loss. The inevitable defeat. It is not meaningful or a sign of strength to reject loss, to ignore defeat. On the contrary, it is ridiculous. It is stupid. It is what foolish men who are weak succumb to instead of facing the severity of reality.
He understands that now, he did not then – or rather, he did, but he preferred to deliberately avoid that knowledge. It is more pleasurable to revel in your excellence, more assuring to drown in your own grandiose – even if it is all fake. Images flicker in his mind and amongst his memories of loss and death, he can clearly remember a particular one that also relates to Nijimura. It is not one of his own losses or defeats. It is not a death he had to endure the pain of.
It is Nijimura's pain and the path to their alienation.
Akashi has always been fond of Nijimura. They understood each other at a level most others around them could not. Nijimura understood the necessities behind the brutality of leadership and valued Akashi's cunning ways. Akashi understood the importance of caring for others and valued Nijimura's self-confident humility. Ironically, they found in each other what they lacked in themselves and thought significantly of the other for that very reason. They complemented each other. It was a silent comprehension too, nods and gazes, discussions never too long, trust came natural which was ludicrous for two people who were not bound by blood or love of any kind.
Akashi knew of Nijimura's family situation. It was a topic he determinedly avoided but that is the problem with avoidance: things you avoid will ultimately not only haunt you but also hunt you down. You will be forced to face them. And he was. His own pain was still so recent, burn marks of his own loss still sizzling when Nijimura had informed him of his departure.
Death would visit Nijimura's household too, Akashi knew then (which in retrospect was silly, for death visits any and all, eventually).
Perhaps that was the reason why he did not hold on despite knowing full well that the loss of Nijimura would make his intrinsically fragile control further tremble. He understood that his senpai wanted to run away, flee from the burdens of leading their team of prodigious misfits, for Nijimura had greater burdens to bear. Akashi's always intact pride supported him then, he would make it, he could take this responsibility –wasn't it his to take eventually anyway? – and perform it even better than Nijimura, who himself acknowledged Akashi's prowess to be superior to all. Then Nijimura could mourn. Nijimura could ready himself for the inevitable loss and deal with its terrifying aftermath. He understood vaguely that Nijimura had more freedom in this matter than he ever had himself but he understood also that in this case such freedom also meant more heartbreak and others to console.
How do you console people?
Akashi has never known. He was never taught.
So he remembers. He remembers Nijimura's back – the loss of Nijimura who had to go away on a path that was to lead for the most tragic kind of loss. And how he did not console his team mate. How he could not console.
Pieces of reminiscence intersect and scratch a tender part of his soul.
So it is loss.
It is the loss of all things that Nijimura has brought to his life. In a sense, thus, it is the loss of Nijimura: not the Nijimura he once respected or the Nijimura he once just naturally trusted as a child. Not the captain Nijimura of his childhood. Not the Nijimura an acquaintance. But the Nijimura who cooks for him. The Nijimura who likes giving massages to him after a long day. The Nijimura who hugs him a little tightly at night, in bed, if he has nightmares and shifts around restlessly. The Nijimura who is terrible at shopping for anything other than bare necessities and will instead pull him along. The Nijimura who mumbles silly American pop songs he has never heard (and always corrects him – 'it is not pop, it is R&B'). The Nijimura who interestingly has a good eye for aesthetics and enjoys beauty in things – in people, in art, in nature – with eyes full of sheer awe. The Nijimura who can be nonchalantly brash one moment and thoughtfully calm in the next. The Nijimura who is never afraid of saying what he thinks is the truth but afraid of hospitals. The Nijimura who is selfless yet selfish at the same time.
The Nijimura whom he has learnt, he has known, he has been with.
The Nijimura whom he has let in.
The only person he has ever let in.
He snickers internally, romantic love, people say, makes one neurotic. How ironic is it that Akashi has always been neurotic sans the romantic love? Perhaps that's why God or gods or Nature has decided him to be aromantic; what would become of him if he was also struck with the madness induced by such an overwhelming passion?
Existence is intrinsically lonesome. We are doomed to be alone in essence, only capable of truly knowing our own existence. For all we know, what we perceive as others, what we perceive as the world could be a dream, a hallucination, anything far from real... Far from what we actually are.
Thus we crave. We crave company. It is only natural because existence is suffering and thus solitude is suffocating. Akashi knows this – he remembers Pessoa, a man perhaps slightly like him, with a skill to craft so many personae, "solitude devastates me, company oppresses me."
Love can be oppressive in all its forms (Akashi finds especially familial and romantic kinds to be prone to this) and the most intimate path to company, the deepest form for company. Yet good things can come out of it too, beautiful things can be created of it and there are so many ways to feel it, to show it, to know it.
Akashi has never felt that blinding devotion, the arrow of Cupid for anyone, he knows he will never; he does not feel it at all for Nijimura even when he feels particularly bothered at the loss of Nijimura's company. Nevertheless, he finds what they had to be beautiful in its own peculiar way.
They were kind to each other. They were gentle to each other. They looked after each other. They cared for each other. They satisfied each other. They supported each other. They nourished each other. They trusted each other. They argued and informed each other of looking at things in different ways, of new things the other did not or could not even know of. They changed each other, for the better. They calmed each other necessarily. They excited each other wonderfully.
They fed each other – in flesh and bones and soul and mind.
Akashi has never had a relationship like that before.
What was it? What is it? What to name this thing they had?
His world will not end because Nijimura is gone nor does he feel like it could or would, he is not feeling specifically lonely because Nijimura will not be present but because he was already alone before Nijimura, he does feel any compulsion to devote himself to Nijimura nor for Nijimura to him, he does not feel any exclusive sexual attraction to him – for all he knows there are others he finds just as attractive if not more than Nijimura.
It is not what they call romantic love, he is sure of it.
He is also sure that it is still love.
He loves Nijimura. Surely not romantically, surely not like Nijimura loves him back. But he still loves him. In his own way. He still enjoyed Nijimura, in his own way.
Is that so bad?
If only Nijimura did not love him romantically, it would be perfect. Equivalent exchange. Nijimura would not be hurt then; not that the man would ask for reciprocity, Akashi knows that the kind of romantic love Nijimura harbours is quite queer than the most selfish kind that is touted these days. No, his is more compassionate, more generous. Still, it would hurt. Lack of reciprocity is just one problem that brings a million others.
Why is he even considering this? He should not. He never has.
Loss.
So that's it. That's why. The root cause of his abrupt melancholy.
Loss.
Loss of a person, loss of an intimacy, loss of the realisation of a beautiful love, loss of a unique friendship...
Loss that brings Akashi back to his initial state of faithfully accepted and ultimately loathed solitude; the loneliness that is both comforting and terrifying.
Loss.
Unbearable.
Intolerable.
"Not this..." he murmurs, he has had this bout of possessive longing and irrational obsession with Kuroko already, what will change with Nijimura? Nothing. With Kuroko at least he had supposed once that they could be sharing the same nature and thus a common bridge to tie them securely and allow them peace if not a happily-ever-after. It is not even so with Nijimura; he has known, even before the haphazard and untimely confession.
He had known but he had grown so used to having Nijimura around – in so little time too, just how did this happen? – such that he had hoped, he could delay this. This point where things need to be named, when the difference in the nature of their feelings is so shamelessly exposed, and the revelation of Akashi's own lack of a definition for their bond is the collateral damage. He had wanted delay the inevitable end and savour the sincere affection lavished upon him for he tasted things he had never in the arms of many he had embraced, because truthfully he had never looked for intimacy of the soul but only the intimacy of the flesh.
But now his time of self-indulgence is over, his heart coldly aches in chagrin and his hands are numb in the loss of what they so securely possessed just the night before, right in the morning, only a couple of hours ago in the afternoon... It is bleak, even more so than the disappointment he once had for the failure of ever having something with Kuroko, for this time he has even learnt the sweet taste of what it would be like to have an intimately close companion.
To be intimate. Fully intimate.
The other one inside him laughs, amused; that's what you get for ever allowing anyone in. That's what you get for accepting the possibility of loss. He knows it is bullshit – losses will happen even if you accept them or not. But... But.
Truly, the pitiful bliss of his solitude has shattered, Nijimura has obliterated it, so swiftly too. Akashi should not have ever tasted the fruit, no matter how alluringly convenient and potentially fulfilling it looked.
Ah, the humanity, committing the same foolish sin continuously.
How he desires to be an angel instead, even a fallen one than a human whose kind is so intrinsically flawed and ultimately impetuous despite their reason.
Flaws.
Flaws that expose other flaws.
Flaws.
Akashi does not like flaws.
Akashi does not like loss.
The fact that his maturity has been forced to acknowledge the brutal reality of their inevitable existences do not make him like them.
So he stops.
He sighs and starts to control his breathing, soft and in perfect rhythm; he will get over this, he will demolish this obstacle like many others he did before.
He wills away the thoughts of Nijimura harshly and in the face of such determined tyranny his reminiscence submits in utter defeat, his many ideas go into hiding; his emotions, ever so rebellious, continue to stir but he wills his mind to mute their noise. He can ignore this grief over a lost friend, who is perhaps something more and different than a friend. Avoiding mourning is a well honed talent in his family after all. He can disregard this sense of hollowness in the pit of his stomach and the coldness on his hands. He has after all, since he has ever known himself. After all, he was never loved so tenderly before and thus feeling such gentle devotion should be the alien sensation for him, not its absence.
He will get used to not having Nijimura around. He will get back to his previous routine. He will get wrapped in his solitude once more. He will get over the lack of the serenity being loved brings about. He will get past the suspicions and fears that haunt the recesses of his mind.
He will look at Nijimura, smile composedly, make small talk. Just how he has done with Kuroko; perhaps it will take a longer time to adjust, but he will.
He will both accept this loss and reject it.
He will fix this.
When he enters the bed that night he is thinking nothing at all. His mind is delightfully and fraudulently blank.