A/N: One of the hardest sections of Komatta Toki for me followed the car accident in Volume 13, when Kiyomine very clearly chooses his sister Ayako over Takara, and leaves their relationship visibly scarred. I wished that there had been more consequences for Kiyomine's outburst, and that Takara had been able to lean on his friends, specifically Reiichi and Yoshiya, to get comfort after this betrayal.

With some prompting from a friend, I've decided to take up a multi-chapter project for Komatta Toki set after Volume 13, sort of a "what if" where Takara's father does go back to Africa and he turns to Reiichi and Yoshiya for comfort after Kiyomine's harsh words. Not totally sure how long it will be, but nine or so chapters at least, possibly with additional interludes afterward.

Note: Mostly a friendship story focused on Takara, Reiichi, and Yoshiya, with some light Kiyomine x Takara and Yoshiya x Reiichi pre-slash hints.

Chapter Eight

By the time Takara slipped into Okuno's bedroom for the night and slid the door closed behind him, he was feeling much lighter. His stomach was full of delicious miso udon—and the cup of warm milk Reiichi had pressed on him before bed, smiling in a way that made Takara think he was being teased, though he wasn't sure how—and the pounding in his head had mostly disappeared, a little tenderness on the back of his skull the only lasting side effect of his ordeal as a human bowling ball. Reiichi had been right, too, about what he'd leaned down to whisper in Takara's ear just before they all said their goodnights—Okuno-sempai did give really great hugs, and Takara felt a lot better for it, even if the embrace started with a sort of awkward pat to the sore spot on the top of his head. But it got better from there.

Takara leaned back against the door and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath and then letting it out with a smile. Helping Okuno cut vegetables for the udon, laughing at Reiichi who didn't want to be left out but couldn't stay interested long enough to complete any task Okuno gave him, and then listening to Okuno and Reiichi bicker about the ugly carrot slivers going into their bowls—it all made him smile so wide he had a hard time eating, could barely get the slippery udon noodles to stay in his mouth. Because Reiichi and Okuno felt like family—like family used to a long time ago, before his grandmother got sick and his dad was away so much and everything got so screwed up. All this time in the dorm, hanging out with Asou and Kuzumi and…and Kiyomine…he hadn't even realized how much he missed that feeling: like no matter what happened, he was definitely wanted somewhere, he definitely belonged somewhere. Takara pressed a hand over his chest, still sort of giddy at the idea of moving into Reiichi and Okuno's enormous corner suite. Reiichi had promised he could leave all the cleaning and household chores to Okuno, which Takara was absolutely not going to do—but still, even if Reiichi was an absolute slob like people said, he was looking forward to sharing a room with somebody who helped out once in a while, not like that laundry obstructionist Kiyomine…Takara blinked his eyes open, a little surprised to find they didn't even sting. Somehow it was already easier to think Kiyomine's name, just knowing they wouldn't be roommates anymore.

The bedroom looked almost like he'd left it that morning, though someone—okay, Okuno—had snuck in at some point to make the bed and clean up the clothes he'd left cascading out of the rummaged drawers. The comforter he'd slept under the night before was folded up at the foot of the bed, right next to the enormous striped shirt that had hung off him like a jumbo flour sack, which Takara would be skipping tonight, having already decided to sleep in his crummy old T-shirt. It wasn't like he needed to conserve clothes anymore—not when all those shopping bags stacked up by the closet were for him. Takara pulled his shirt over his head and shook his hair out of his face, but he hesitated before he reached the zipper of his jeans, his fingers stalling over the weight in his pocket.

Caught up in the moment, arguing with Reiichi about the best movie that had come out that year, he'd barely noticed when Okuno slid his cell phone back to him across the breakfast bar and had forgotten it again just as fast, caught up in his zeal to defend the blockbuster that Reiichi considered imitative and banal. It felt a lot heavier in his palm now as he dug it out, stared down at the green alert light blinking relentlessly in the top left corner. He didn't remember hearing it ring. Out of some morbid sense of curiosity, he woke it up and scanned to his call log, wondering how many times Kiyomine had tried to call this time. Only four—not much, compared to that morning. Takara wasn't sure if the low number made him feel better or worse. Then all at once he froze, his eyes locked on the icon winking at the top of the screen.

Kiyomine had left a message.

For a long moment, Takara didn't move, didn't even breathe. He felt so cold he wondered if his heart had stopped beating, too. All the warmth he'd carried with him from the kitchen, the comfort of being surrounded by Reiichi and Okuno and the way their voices echoed under the high ceilings—it felt like the phone was sucking that all out of him, and he crossed his arms over his bare chest, trying to hold some of it in. Mechanically, he reached out and flicked off the light and then flopped heavily onto the bed, pulling the folded comforter tight against his stomach. He wasn't sure why he couldn't do this in the light. He wasn't sure he could do this at all. Suddenly the house felt big and empty, and he was alone in the dark, face to face with Kiyomine all over again. Takara bit his lip, pressed play before he lost his nerve.

There was a slightly too long pause before the voice came on.

"Hey. Shorty."

It hadn't even been that long since they'd seen each other—a day? had it even really been a day?—but somehow, with that one stilted greeting it all hit him again, the ache of watching Kiyomine and Ayako embrace at the hospital, how painfully cold the snow had been on his skin as he turned his face up to the storm clouds, the reflection of the city lights staining them a dull red. He could hear the hesitation in Kiyomine's voice, the awkwardness of the other boy not knowing what he wanted to say—but Takara couldn't really blame him for that, because he wasn't even sure what he wanted to hear. He just wanted Kiyomine to have the right words, the words that would erase this rift between them as easily as if it really were just a line in the sand.

But then, when had Kiyomine ever had the right words?

"I guess you'll have to come back to our room Sunday, before school starts."

There was another pause, the rustle of a body shifting on the other side of the phone, and with that one tiny sound it was like Takara was right there in the room, could see Kiyomine sprawled out on the bed, his posture loose and careless like it always was when he was upset and trying not to show it. And there was a part of Takara, lying there alone in a bed too, squeezing Okuno's comforter as hard as he could against his chest, that wanted to end the message right there and just call him, hear his real voice coming through the phone—because that part of him wasn't mad at all, could tell even with this much distance between them that Kiyomine was so lonely, that Kiyomine had lain there with the phone pressed to his ear and all the lights on. For just a second, the rest of it almost didn't matter. But Kiyomine was still talking, his voice filling the void of this empty bedroom with a halting offer.

"I…I'll have a cake waiting for you. From your favorite place. Double fudge." And that was it—no signoff, no goodbye, just the beep that signaled the end of the message, and Takara alone in the dark, staring at the playback time blinking on the glowing screen. Forty-three seconds. He wondered how something could seem so short and so long at the same time.

Takara clenched his free hand into the folds of the comforter, and then for a second he was so angry and so lonely that the feeling burned in the back of his throat, sharp like vomit, because he recognized this for what it was: an invitation to forget it all, for everything to go back to exactly the way it had been—and didn't Kiyomine know that was what he wanted more than anything, to be able to just erase this, scratch it out of the story of the two of them as if it had never happened? But he couldn't even think that without remembering Kiyomine and Ayako in the hospital lobby all over again, the echo of those honest, indifferent words burning in his ears. As long as you're all right, I don't care about anyone else. And then all the anger left him as quickly as it had come, and he slumped back against the ridge of Okuno's pillows, bone tired and burnt out, and understanding for the first time exactly how thick that line he'd drawn between them was. It was supposed to be a line for Kiyomine, but now Takara was pretty sure he couldn't cross it himself either.

Because if he called Kiyomine right now, he knew exactly what would happen—whether he started angry, or indignant, or hurt, or just out of his mind sad-crazy-lonely like he felt right now, he'd hear that voice through the tinny speaker, and he'd just cave. Whatever he thought he wanted to say, he'd crumble in the face of Kiyomine, of the loneliness he could hear whispering through those forty-three seconds, and Takara knew himself well enough to know that he'd just end up burying all of this, carrying this line around inside him like a splinter that wouldn't heal. And that was the idea that scared him the most—because he had a feeling this line was something that had come to exist between him and Kouno and Nanase and Mutsumi, and it was the kind of line that turned into a chasm, until there was no bridging the distance anymore. If he went back to Kiyomine now, he was going to get lonelier and lonelier right there next to him, and in the end he wouldn't just lose Kiyomine—he'd lose all they'd ever had. And that thought was truly unbearable.

With a sharp breath that stuck in his lungs, Takara curled his knees in and pressed the phone to his forehead, squeezing his eyes shut to block out the glow of the screen. It was tempting to try to run from this, like he'd been doing all day—but no, that was unbearable too, to be locked in this limbo with Kiyomine where neither of them could make a move. Kiyomine had to find a way across that line, or Takara did, or it was really over between them, and whatever happened, that had to be okay. Takara wiped a few tears away with the back of his wrist, but that was all he had; there was a coldness to this whole thing that just made him feel empty inside, like something had been carved out of him and all he had now was void. He typed out a text message before he could think about it too hard.

Moving out for a while. Sorry. His thumb hovered over the send button, but in the end he couldn't stop himself from adding a few more words, his teeth digging into his bottom lip as he tapped the letters one by one. Don't get too lonely. As soon as he was sure it had sent, he turned the phone off—all the way off—watching it power down with his heart beating a little anxiously in his ears. He had no doubt that it was going to ring; he just didn't want to know how many times.

With a long sigh, feeling simultaneously heavy and hollowed out, Takara rolled onto his back, staring up at the black ceiling. It was done, and it was better this way, and he knew that; he just wished Okuno's room had a TV or a sound system or a white noise machine, anything except a digital clock ticking soundlessly on the nightstand, chasing those forty-three seconds around his head on endless repeat. He couldn't help thinking of the one night, after a fight with Kiyomine, when he'd run back to an empty house and not realized until too late just how daunting that emptiness was, fell asleep with the TV on so the silence didn't get into his head. It was hard not to feel that alone, lying there with the darkness pressing down on him. But he wasn't alone this time, Takara reminded himself, holding onto the thought like a lifeline. This time there were people in the guest room just down the hall, and the living room with the big couch where Reiichi had offered him a place to stay, and just beyond that was the kitchen where he'd sat kicking his feet, his hands wrapped around a big ceramic soup bowl, feeling that warmth all the way down in his bones…

Takara breathed in so sharply it was almost a gasp. Then he slid out of the cocoon of the comforter and pulled his shabby T-shirt haphazardly over his head, not caring if he'd gotten it backward in the dark. Tiptoeing into the guest room to curl up on the futon between Reiichi and Okuno seemed too weird, like he was a kid crawling in with his parents—but there was a kickass flatscreen TV in the living room, and Takara was extraordinarily gifted at figuring out other people's remotes. And if the digital clock was to be believed, it wasn't even ten yet, which meant he could catch a few more hours of the Project Runway marathon they'd watched for a while after dinner. Nothing like bored judges mistaking idiocy for innovation to put him right to sleep. Takara draped the comforter like a cloak around his shoulders and headed for the door, careful not to let the hinges creak on his way out.

Whatever weight had settled on him, he left it on the nightstand with his silenced phone.