Tongue Tied

Twelve

It wasn't about Rin.

Sae was tied to that fact as he was begrudgingly flying out the door of his upper floor apartment, not even bothering to lock it, and taking the stairs two at a time. He was doing this of his own free will, and not because his little brother had been trying, unsuccessfully of course, to make him feel guilty about it.

Sae thought about deleting the number from his phone just to prove a point, but then didn't. He'd do it later. He had more important things to do.

Once his feet hit the pavement of the alleyway the house backed onto, there was the matter of deciding where exactly to go. If he was being honest with himself, he didn't even know where to start. He didn't really know this city all too well, other than the few shops he frequented and the soccer arena that his team operated out of. He didn't even know the locations of the places he ordered in from, because his food was always delivered right to him.

He sighed, looked down the alley both ways, as if that would provide an answer, and when it didn't, he sighed again. He wished he could be a better friend, or boyfriend, or whatever they were now that he'd both kissed Ryusei and threw him out of his house, and just known him enough to know where he'd gone. But he didn't. His thoughts were as empty as the alleyway he stood in. Emptier, maybe, because the alleyway at least had a breeze that fluttered some of the leaves around.

Sae headed in the direction of the strip of shops they'd first gone to. Ryusei was more romantic than he was, and so he thought he might have gone back to where they had spent some time together, even if it had been a place of doing menial tasks and dodging Sae's many, many complaints. If he didn't find him there because of a romantic intention, maybe he'd find him there because it was somewhere he would recognize.

He poked through the meat market and the fish market and the produce stand that they'd been to a few days ago, and each time, found nothing but disappointment. Each time, without fail, he'd always be intercepted by some well meaning merchant, asking him if they could help him find anything. He fought the urge to snap at them. No, you fucking can't. Obviously what I'm looking for isn't here. But he held his tongue and refused to answer instead.

The produce stand was where he nearly lost his tongue from between his teeth. He caught that unmistakable scent of cilantro as he walked by it, the one Ryusei had shoved at him when they'd come, and it made him cringe with regret. It triggered a scary thought. What if I can't fix this and I'm going to be haunted by fucking cilantro for the rest of my life?

There was yet another merchant, ready to rub salt in his wounds. "That there's some cilantro. Very fresh. Just got it off the truck this morning. It's a bit of a strong tasting plant, but it's good in salsas and tacos and-"

"I know what cilantro is," Sae snapped, and because he supposed he could have been a lot harsher given his internal emotional state, he refused to feel bad for it.

He'd exhausted his sentimental trip down memory lane, come up unsuccessful, and was at a loss. They hadn't gone anywhere else. He thought maybe he should head back, to see if Ryusei had turned back up at the house and was waiting for him, but he shook that thought out of his head as fast as it had come. Maybe it was his friend/boyfriend radar finally kicking in, but if Sae had told Ryusei to leave, he would have stayed away. So, on he trekked.

He started wandering semi-aimlessly. In that he picked a direction and took one street after another, pushing his way through the evening crowd that had started forming, looking for the single face he could care about on these streets. He tried so desperately to tune into that sixth sense that he maybe had but probably didn't, and found it silent once more.

However, he came to a street corner when he did get a thought. He should just call him.

Sae dug his own phone out of his pocket, went into recent calls, skipped over the unknown number he knew to be Rin's, and went to the next one. He felt like he could barely breathe, and he didn't know what he'd say, but the phone made the choice for him before he decided.