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It would have been much more satisfying if there had been a crash.
A shattering of glass.
Shards splintering in a thousand different directions as his stomach dropped to his feet, splattering on the ground.
His heart shot up in the opposite direction, making a new home in his throat, choking him, suffocating, as it tried to reach his brain. Trying to protect him as always. Trying to convince himself it wasn’t true.
But there was no grand explosion of glass. No heart breaking into a million pieces.
A dull thud and a splash of water as the plastic cup slipped from his hands, splashing over his and his brother’s food on the coffee table, still waiting for them to sit down to dinner.
“Nahoya? What was that?”
Souya’s voice called to him from the kitchen, his blue head peeking around the corner. If Souya said anything else, Nahoya didn’t hear him. All he heard was static, the pounding of his heart in his ears.
He doesn’t know what he expected.
Nothing good, but nothing quite as bad as this.
Maybe that's why the news came as a slap rather than a crash, because somewhere inside himself, he had already accepted it.
But now he refused to. He couldn’t accept it…not this reality.
Nahoya's feet slapped through the puddle of water on the ground as he stomped off into the bedroom he shared with his brother, slamming the door behind himself. Souya called out to him once more, worry apparent in his soft voice, but Nahoya didn’t acknowledge him as he slid to the floor, trying with all of his might to catch his breath. He was more winded than he had been in years, as he choked through the sobs that were threatening to break free from his throat. But he couldn’t stop them, just as he couldn’t stop the tears by furiously blinking his eyes, the burning threatening to spill over and drown him.
He wondered if the end always felt like drowning. The end of all things good. The end of hope.
Mucho…
Slamming his fist on the floor, Nahoya cursed at himself. For getting his hopes up. For being so stupid . For holding out for a lost cause, when he didn’t even know how lost it really was.
Nagoya groaned…it wasn’t his fault. This pain…it wasn’t his. But even so, he cursed the world for doing this… for Mucho.
Mucho…He had promised so many things. So many things he hadn’t been able to do.
Mucho had promised, in his letters and his last phone call before he was released.
He had promised. He had apologized. He…
Nahoya shook his head, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes as his strength gave out, resorting to curling up in a ball on the floor, letting the sobs wrack his body and consume his soul. He felt the bedroom door press against his hip, and he rolled to the side, just enough to allow the door to open. He didn’t need to look to see who it was, as Souya immediately dropped to his knees beside him, covering Nahoya’s body with his own, holding him close, and whispering shushes into his hair.
“Souya…Mucho…he-” Another cry broke his voice, and he tucked his head against his brother’s stomach, unable to face the world, or even the darkness of their bedroom.
“I know….It’s okay.”
No .
It’s not okay.
How could it be okay?
But Nahoya didn’t respond, just allowed Souya to hold him, arms wrapped around him as he rubbed his back, scratching soothing circles into his scalp.
Mucho promised .
He promised.
Two days…no. Three. Three days before he was released from Juvie. Mucho had said he used his last bit of money to call him. His last phone call from the inside. To share with him a release date and time, and a simple request.
“Let me come see you. I want to tell you some things in person.”
“Well, you’ve already written them down, right? What's the point in dragging them up again?”
Because Mucho had apologized. He had apologized for leading him on during New Years Eve, making him feel like he had a chance. Apologized for leaving him and Toman for Tenjiku and for breaking his heart. Apologized for letting his friends hurt him…
All in a letter that Nahoya hadn’t asked for, but was not-so-secretly happy to receive. Nahoya hadn’t known if it was appropriate…hadn’t known if it was right to want to reach out to Mucho himself. How could he justify wanting to continue talking to a guy, no matter how much he liked him, that had been an accomplice in putting him in a wheelchair and breaking his brother's legs?
Souya had sighed as he rambled through his inner turmoil.
“Just write him back. You’ll always wonder what would have happened if you don’t.”
So he did.
And he didn’t regret it.
Not for one moment.
Not when he received another letter in return.
Not when he sent back enough coins for Mucho to call him using the payphone for 10 minutes.
Not when he finally heard his voice again, after so many months, and finally heard Mucho apologize, again.
But that wasn’t good enough because Mucho was a gentleman, and Nahoya a bit too selfish for his own good. Mucho wanted to say it to his face. To hold his small hands and look him in the eyes, and say it one final time.
“I apologize.”
And Nahoya would say once again, “I’ve already forgiven you, jackass. Let’s just get the fuck over it already!”
Then Mucho would laugh, a deep, hearty laugh that rumbled in his chest and always made Nahoya feel warm, and Nahoya would pretend he didn’t like it, because that was just the way they did things.
But something would be different, because then Mucho would say something else, something he had only ever written down once, because he didn’t want to ruin it by saying it over the phone when he couldn’t look Nahoya in the eye.
Now Nahoya would never hear it.
He’d never hear him say he loved him, would never hear him laugh again. He’d never look Mucho in the eyes again, and would never see those baby blues stare down at him with an amused glint hiding in the crinkles of his smile.
Nahoya felt like he had been punched in the stomach, and Souya didn’t complain as Nahoya’s nails dug into his back, clinging on to him so desperately, as he was the only person to understand the full depth of his anguish. Souya was the only one who knew Nahoya had been in contact with Mucho again, and was definitely the only living person to know how much Nahoya loved him.
Because the only other person who knew….
Had fucking promised to show up to a cafe in late August. Had promised to buy him his favorite meal and promised not to complain if Nahoya took off his shoes in the middle of the summer heat.
He promised so fiercely that Nahoya convinced himself that he had gotten the date wrong when Mucho didn’t show up, and showed up there for dinner every day for a week, until Souya ultimately convinced him to stop, hiding his motorcycle keys and wallet and telling him that it was over.
He wasn’t coming.
And Nahoya experienced his second heart-break due to Muto Yasuhiro.
That time he got over it quickly. Knowing Mucho was one prone to lies. He had lied to him in December. Lied to him in August.
Fool him once, shame on Mucho.
Fool him twice? Well now he’s just a dumbass.
He never told Souya he was still waiting.
Still hoping. Maybe he did something. Got detained for longer.
Maybe he got transferred to the adult jail.
Maybe, maybe, maybe.
Fool him three times?
Well, he deserves it then.
To learn that Mucho wasn’t tricking him though… Nahoya wasn’t sure how much of a heart he had left to break.
Maybe that’s why it felt so empty.
To see that face in his living room.
Mucho finally showed up for dinner.
And it looked like he was staying the night as Souya finally coaxed him off of the floor, walking them both to Nahoya’s bed. Nahoya collapsed without support, curling up into a ball as Souya tucked his blankets around him. Souya mumbled something to him about cleaning up dinner…shutting out the lights… but Nahoya’s brain was gone. Lost somewhere between the present past and future.
A past where he waited. Based on one simple letter where Mucho said he loved him. On a phone call where Mucho didn’t say it back when Nahoya whispered it into the phone, hoping it was loud enough to hear, but also hoping static took it away into the ether.
A future that would never be what he imagined, because he never could have imagined this.
This, a present where he fell asleep crying harder than he did when his grandfather died, his heart aching and his entire being numb.
A present that he didn’t feel he would be able to survive, not now, with his little brother protecting him, plugging in a lamp they hadn’t used in a while to sleep to, because Nahoya always had bad dreams when he was sad.
A present where the bad dreams would come regardless of if there was light in the room or if he was in pitch darkness, because the one light he had been clinging to, the hope that Mucho would come back to him, had finally gone out.
As Souya returned to him, joining him under the covers to whisper him to sleep as Nahoya used to do for him during thunder storms when they were children, Nahoya closed his eyes, trying to focus on anything other than the image burned into his eyelids.
A mug shot. The last picture taken of Muto Yasuhiro. Displayed on his TV screen in high definition as an old news anchor droned on and on and on about words Nahoya refused to understand.
A mug shot, the last picture taken of the man he was sure he loved, right above the breaking news headline, words written in blood red.
Human Remains Found Near Bay Identified as 19 Year Old Man, Gang Involvement Suspected.