Run Boys

⚫ This was the address, wasn't it? Kakeru looked from his phone to the door in front of him, checking the number.

He had been the one to suggest this arrangement. It was a bold step for him, but a good step. A necessary one, at least on Kakeru's end. But it's strange, he didn't really know why his friend had agreed. It had been a few years since they last lived together in Chikuseisou. Would Kakeru be intruding? Even if he's going to be paying half the rent, it still was...

Well. If he's being honest, it's terrifying. What if he's a burden? What if things don't end up working out?

Of course, Kakeru knew better than to think like that. It was part of what he studied. How can he expect to help others if he won't even employ his own advice in his own life? He needed to be careful not to think himself into a hole. No good can come from that. Even so... it scared him to be here. So much that it had been about eight minutes since he arrived at the door, and he still hasn't knocked. All he did was stand there with his bags, overthinking what his friend might be feeling in this moment. But really, there was no way for him to know how they really felt. Not unless they told him. So, he summoned all the courage he could muster, and gave the door a few knocks.

There were a few seconds of wait, and that pit of anxiety was coming up again, and he unconsciously squeezed the handle on his bag. The footsteps approaching the door only made his gut clench tighter. Kakeru even found himself shutting his eyes, as if things would just slow down or stop for a moment if he did. But the door opened despite his desire to have just another moment to himself, and so he opened his eyes, just for them to land on a very familiar face.

"Ah."

Kakeru shouldn't have sounded so surprised. He knew who was going to answer the door. He could have at least said a hello, or a casual 'been a while'. But nope. He just stood there, stiff as a board, saying nothing more. Was it too late to back out? To run away? Yes, to run. To just turn and move his legs and not have to think for a while. To just be able to focus on the road ahead of him. That would be nice, he thinks.

But right now, he couldn't run. He wanted to do this, didn't he? He wanted to be here. Even so, he doesn't think he can summon any words right now. Instead, he dropped his things and lunged forwards, throwing his arms around his old teammate and pressing his face into his shoulder. And finally, he can speak again, letting out the breath he didn't know he was holding.

"It's good to see you."



🌀 It was equal parts incredible and terrifying to think about time in the abstract. How it passes in the blink of an eye and slows to a crawl seemingly of its own accord. As though the universe had its own whims to stretch a moment into eternity or lose a year in the space between one breath and the next. There were days when he woke up in a bleary haze, half expecting Nira to wake him up for his morning run, or to pass Nico or the twins in the hall, before reality sets in again and he exists not in the past but a present that feels far from real.

His days tended to blur together as of late. A constant cycle of waking, eating, writing, sleeping, and not always in that order. The only frame of reference there was for time passing anymore were the punctual phone calls of his editor and the occasional visit to make sure that he hadn't keeled over or been buried under a mountain of his own books. Wouldn't that just be the icing on the cake, going out in the same way they'd all once joked Prince would one day? But Kiyose Haiji had momentum from his name alone, operating on sheer inertia and force of will. One publishing deal wasn't nearly enough to quench the thirst of his own overwhelming ambition, redirected into something far more sedentary than he was used to during his college years.

And so it went. Days turning to weeks turning to months turning to... Well, he tried not to think about it for longer than he needed to. Until, in a twist upon their first meeting, it was Kakeru that had shoved his way back into Haiji's life rather than the other way around. Okay, maybe it was a stretch to calling it "shoving" rather than "awkwardly dropping the suggestion at the door and hoping it'd get picked up like a kicked puppy" but hey. Baby steps. The fact that he was taking initiative at all was something to be proud of. And boy, was there enough pride to go around, alongside a confusing cocktail of plenty of other emotions past the point of counting. Elation at gaining a piece of his old life back. Terror at the thought that things might have changed too much. And something else that he feared putting a name to, because to acknowledge it was to make it real, give it shape and form, and Kiyose was definitely not ready to open up that Pandora's Box.

Purpose bloomed with a suddenness that surprised even him. No longer drifting through each day, the path forward was thrown into sharp relief, tantalizingly close to the triumph of Hakone Ekiden. It wouldn't do to have Kakeru come home to a bachelor pad in disarray, and the dormant instinct to mother hen awoke with a vengeance, effort he couldn't expend on himself but had no trouble when it came to looking after other people. First it was a matter of cleaning out the study so it would serve as a proper bedroom. Then a stocked pantry, laundry, and oh hell, why not a little dusting just to make a good first (second?) impression?

Then, finally. At long last, the date they'd agreed upon rolled around. Maybe it was desperate of him to keep checking the clock every few seconds as though his will alone could force it to move faster, but hey, sue him, he was excited! Just when the first few pangs of doubt began to worm their way into his head, pacing the length of his immaculate living room, did he finally hear the tentative sounds of a knock at his door. Kiyose took a very deliberate, measured step forward, as though making too sudden a movement would scare his quarry off. Open sesame.

Seeing Kakeru again was like having the breath stolen right from his lungs. He might as well have just sprinted ten miles in the span of a moment, memorizing the familiar lines of his face and taking note of what was different. All fear of things having changed too much evaporated in an instant, because there was the same old Kakeru he knew, solid and silent and looking like he'd rather be anywhere else. Kiyose might have been offended at the notion before there came a dull thud and the weight of another body colliding with his.

There came the distinct, pointed thought of, 'Oh, this is gonna be bad for my heart.' Not nearly enough for him to pull away; as if by complete instinct, he wrapped his arms around Kakeru, squeezing with enough force to crush bone if he wasn't careful before easing up. "Don't think you were going to get away that easily. I saw you ready to make a break for it. Too late for second thoughts, old buddy, you're stuck with me now." Was it possible for his face to freeze from smiling too much? "The feeling's mutual, in case that wasn't clear."