"We're never coming back from this, do you understand, Tosshi?" I interrupt. The line goes quiet. He is taking an age to answer, and I try to block from my mind all the faces I can envisage him pulling. His voice returns, firm but so quiet he's almost whispering.
"I know," he said.

CHEAT

There's alcohol roaring in my blood, so much that I can't tell the moon from the swell of the streetlights, so drunk that I'm floating. My feet zig-zag. I'm swimming through my own vision, the road slipping past in a blur. My head is throbbing – it's too early for a hangover. I haven't come down yet. The world flickers a step behind. The cold doesn't penetrate my skin anymore, but I can tell that it's frosty from the clouds bleeding from my mouth and the way my toes skate on the pavement. You're probably alone. I'm on an alcohol induced high that I don't want to come down from. I'm already coming down because dread is starting to hit me. Alcohol – I need more alcohol.

The current buzz I'm riding is pleasant, our arguments far behind - not far enough that I can't hear them. They echo. I kick away their chains, try to free my ankles from your words. Am I underwater? It feels like it. The hum of traffic is so distant, sinking away from me and I'm drowning with it. I was searching for you tonight – only you. I wasn't in my right mind. I wasn't myself. Is that an excuse? I know it isn't. You know what alcohol does to me. When the pulse hits me, I don't always do the right thing. I didn't find you tonight.

"You're pathetic."

I swear, all I was looking for was you. Knowing I couldn't stumble on back to your bedside, I had to keep searching. I knew I wouldn't stagger across you in our favourite bar – you'd already told me that it's over. Though we've argued before, something about the look in your eyes told me that it really was. I see it again, it plays again. I'm forced to be the audience in our theatre performance again, watching from the stage side as you tell me to leave. I see myself slam the door; the audience shakes their heads.

The drink was welcoming, the foreign hands were a warmth I couldn't turn away. Your eyes were fresh in my head, but I was trying to go back to life without you. I need to get used to life without you. Who was I before you? How did I stand sleeping alone? I hadn't realised the night was so silent and unforgiving.

That was just it. I rarely slept alone before you, but never with the same body in my bed, never waking to the same face. And now you've told me it's over, I guess I'll have to search for that hit again. Her eyes were like yours – a startling blue. Funny, isn't it? That's all it took. I wasn't really listening to her words. I hadn't paid any attention to the nonsense we were chatting. All I knew is that her eyes were not quite as bright or playful. They were beautiful, indeed, but missing a spark of … something. She had a nice smile, and she laughed at my jokes in a way you never had.

"He told me it's over," I found myself saying. I told her all about you. Her eyes hesitated. I realised I was pushing her away. I didn't particularly care. I spilled everything to her, so honest and emotional that I realised I was now that one miserable guy always drinking alone in the corner of every bar, waiting for a poor soul to offer them a drink.

I never meant to spite you, not when I walked in the door and she caught my eye, not when she rested her hand on my shoulder and said something comforting, not even when I found my lips on hers. It was always your face I was searching for, your name on my tongue. I promise.

Though, I guess, my promises don't mean anything – not now.

And then again, neither do yours. You promised me that you'd stay, not with your words but with every time you came through my door. You made a promise every night we slept together and let me wake up beside you. You never once said this would be forever, never aloud, yet you can't walk out on me now. You made a silent promise that you should honour … you don't have to stay every night. Just be there, sometimes. You broke your promise to me, cutting me off so that I fell this far down. I can't crawl out of here. There doesn't seem to be a way out. I keep expecting to look up and see you offering me a rope. I would be so pathetic as to desperately grasp it and drag myself back to you.

I'm so angry with you.

"Gintoki, I just can't do this anymore."

What are you so worried about? How others perceive you? Are you that afraid of their words?

I know it's me that you're scared of. As soon as my hands started reaching for you, you tried to push me away. You got caught up in a torrent of water that dragged us down a river together and the destination was somewhere you never wanted to be but you didn't have the strength to pull yourself from the flow. When eventually you hauled yourself free, you allowed me to go tumbling past and drop over the waterfall alone.

I stumble on the cobbles. "This is it; this is as far as we go." Why can I still hear your voice berating me? It follows me, even though I've tried to escape it in any direction I can. The sweat on my body smells like her. My hands feel dirty. Suddenly I'm craving a shower to get rid of her. I imagine you coming to find me, grabbing me by the elbow to steady me, saying you didn't mean it.

You'd say, "What are you talkin' about? Are you crazy? You know I didn't mean it. It was just a stupid argument."

And then you'd smell the scent of someone else rancid on my skin and I'd burn down the last bridges keeping us connected.

I've got to go home.

My feet instinctively change direction. I've stumbled home drunk enough times for my body to know the route; tonight will be no different.

"You're really pathetic – I'm telling you this is it. We were only playing around - we're not teenagers anymore."

Was it just me caught up in the river all along?

"Hijikata …" My phone is in my hand and there's a crackle of static coming through the speaker.

"It's late, you idiot." His voice curt as ever, but he had answered. That meant something, surely.

"It's not late, it's early …" I murmur, watching the clock on my screen tick over to 1am. "Are you still working?"

"Yeah, got some … stuff to do."

"Some stuff, huh …"

"Are you … Have you been drinking?"

"It's a Saturday night, of course I've drunk a 'lil."

"It's a Monday … well, Tuesday now I suppose."

"… Can I come over?"

"… No."

"Then you weren't joking?"

"… No." I feel my face crack and my finger hovers over the red icon. I'm leaning against the brick wall of a shop, legs feeling heavier and heavier. "I said some pretty harsh stuff, but I was serious, Gintoki." The voice crackles and I rest my head on the coarse brick. I can hear him breathing, waiting for a response. "Where are you?" he finally sighs.

"Out."
"Can you get back to your apartment okay?"

"Probably."

"Don't fall asleep in the street. You'll get mugged or somethin'."

"I don't understand."

"Huh?"

"Was I just a joke from the start?"

"Hey, don't snap at me. Quit starting an argument and just get yourself home."

"It was only ever me, wasn't it?"

"Gintoki."

I laughed, my hand dropping to my side with the speaker still rustling. "It was only ever me."

I have to cling on to some semblance of pride; here I am, drunk in the street with nobody to hold me up, on the phone to my ex-partner, almost begging them to take me back. This isn't who I am. I never needed people before, I don't need them now. Feeling sick in the stomach from the guilt of sleeping with someone else? I don't even remember her name. She'd said one thing that stuck with me though. I can't recall her name or her voice or whether or not she had been drinking, but she had definitely said this,

"You clearly didn't mean as much to him as he did to you,"her mouth momentarily distracted me from her piercing blue eyes, "so fuck him."

I lift the phone back to my ear, catching the last of Hijikata's words.

"- even still there? I'm gonna hang up, oi."

"We're never coming back from this, do you understand, Tosshi?" I interrupt. The line goes quiet. He is taking an age to answer, and I try to block from my mind all the faces I can envisage him pulling. His voice returns, firm but so quiet he's almost whispering.

"I know," he said. I pick myself up from the floor, finally able to stand on my own feet without toppling over. The fresh air is steadily driving the alcohol from my system and I feel like I'm seeing straight for the first time in hours. It's still pitch-black, yet now that the streetlights have stopped shimmering, I can see the road open up before me.

"Then, I'm hanging up. Goodbye." I say, already prepared to cut the call with no remorse.

"… Goodbye, Gintoki," he replies.