If We Were To Stay(KinKuni)

{If We Were to Stay}

Yuutarou set two mugs on the breakfast table, the routine of Sunday morning ingrained into him. Five years had passed since the impossibly small apartment was leased to Akira and him. It felt longer than that. Regrettably, Yuutarou knew when to admit that, when he said it felt longer than half a decade, he was not speaking fondly. Of course, he could remember a time when it was fond. Watching Akira like an ethereal being, loving to watch the sun bathe him in gold.

The routine of Sunday morning ingrained into him, seeing Akira sat across him, same as always. Akira took long sips, they filled up silence. Yuutarou would watch the digital clock on their decade old oven, it kept him occupied. They didn't talk, it always felt cold in the morning. Stiff shoulders when they passed each other in their impossibly small apartment, clipped conversations of 'thanks for the sex,' or glossy stares from one's desk to the other sat on the couch.

"Do you ever tire of this?" Akira asks. He spoke suddenly and bored, a constant state for him. Yuutarou wonders what he ever found attractive about the monotone voice Akira always had.

Still, he speaks unsure and shyly. The sunlight casts over Akira's face, the shadow of their blinds appearing, too. "What is it that you mean?"

Akira crosses his right leg over his left with a heavy look in dull brown eyes. "What is it that you think I mean?" He asks.

Sat across from him, mile long legs folded awkwardly underneath the table in their too cramped kitchen, Yuutarou's face flushed a pale rose color. He looks away from Akira. "It sounds like you want this to end."

Nothing is said at first. Akira is bringing a mug of coffee towards his lips, silver streams of steam billow up as he takes a sip. "You know," He begins. "I'm not even sure what I mean."

"So why say anything at all?" Yuutarou asks. He thinks it at first, but regardless, he voiced the thoughts. In high school, Akira often snapped at him for never speaking his mind.

He responds dryly, his tongue fast as the comment slips out without warning. "I don't think I love you anymore." There is no apology in his voice.

So why this? - This? Of all things to suddenly send a dagger spinning directly at him? Yuutarou did not think he loved Akira anymore, either, and yet there is a sudden shortness of breath on his end. And though he isn't positive, Yuutarou thinks there might be tears threatening to spill from his eyes. Obvious tears, too, ones Akira sees right away. He says nothing. Yuutarou doesn't question it, he didn't say anything about the crying he heard from their bedroom two nights ago; Yuutarou hadn't done anything to help.

He found it funny - Ironic, really - that they still shared a bed. The bed that was cold, constantly. Except for when it wasn't. Except for when someone rolled over and climbed on top of the other and whispered their name, "Yuu'," Like Akira from ages ago would say, "'Kira," Yuutarou'd hiss. Knees went weak at hearing such an affectionate pet name. A sign of love, something they're both so starved for. The hollow kisses pressed against collarbones and nails scratching into skin, deep purple hickies lining necks and chests.

Yuutarou can remember a time when he thought that hickies were a sign of love, he liked to think of them as such - A bruise born from love - but now he sees hickies as marking something. As letting others know this one's taken, this one's been used already. The hickey is to mark you so there isn't a need to say anything more. It's a last act of desperation; Marking territory.