Tongue Tied

Fourteen

The next morning, Sae called a car to the airport. Everything in him wanted to drag his feet about it, but he refused to let his own immature impulses get Ryusei in more trouble than he had already alluded to being in. And though he didn't really want to, because he didn't really want to witness the goodbye or face everything he might feel towards it, he got into the backseat too.

This time, he didn't have to be invited into sliding into the middle seat or leaning his head onto Ryusei beside him. They didn't talk. They'd been not talking all morning. They'd just been looking at each other, when they could handle it, exchanging silent glances of I know, me too.

Unrealistic as it was, Sae found himself wishing he knew how to drive, so that he had something to do with his hands during the awful drive. The driver had the radio on, as they often did, but it wasn't doing much to drown out the sorrow. Sae just leaned his ear all the way against Ryusei, counting his breaths, trying to keep his own in rhythm, like if he did, that might mean something and this whole thing would feel less unbearable.

He both hoped the airport would never come into view and that they would just get there already so he could get this whole thing over with. Surely it was the actual ending that would be awful, the act of saying goodbye and watching him walk away that would hurt, but then he could get back into the car, stare out the window, get back to his apartment, clean up, and he would be alone and things would be just as they had been before this week.

How easy and subtle the slip into this whole thing had been. Fine, here's my number. Fine, I'll text you back. Sure, you can call me. Why is it so god awful when our schedules don't line up? Oh, wow, he's really coming. Oh, wow, he's really here. He's everywhere, crawling into every corner of my house and my life and my mind and my awareness. Sae realized that everything was going to be changing again, though it would be harsh and sudden and violent this time.

He clutched Ryusei without thinking about it. His grip tightened around Sae too, strong and responsive. Sae was as comforted as he was ashamed. Why was he the one being consoled? He had been on break. He wasn't at the risk of getting into any trouble for this. He wasn't the one who was going to have to sit through an excruciating sixteen hour flight.

It felt like he was in trouble, though.

Then all at once, there it was. The massive, mostly windowed building, aircraft galore loitering outside their gates, ready to whisk away all sorts of sudden lovers, prying them from the grasp of their mourners. Sae might have had it in him to feel some type of kinship with the collective loss, or to see that some people were reuniting, or going to meet their loved ones, but his empathy wasn't very well developed, and so his pain was the most uncomfortable, the most tragic.

"Where did you guys say you were going again?" the driver asked. Ryusei didn't understand. He looked at Sae.

Sae saw it through a side glance. He couldn't look at either of them. They weren't going anywhere.

"International departures is fine," he answered.

"You got it," the driver said, pulling into that lane.

The end was upon them, crashing into them as the ominous horror movie music played. Something awful is right around the corner. The sick joke? It's everything you've been hiding and pushing away since this whole thing began, and now it's being ripped from your grasp without mercy.

The driver found a spot and pulled up on the curb. It was still fairly early, but the heat was already unforgiving and near unbearable. Sae had never minded the heat, but over the course of the week, spending nights in the air conditioning, balancing the cold of the room with the warmth beside him, he'd learned to loathe it. He'd learned a lot about himself over the past week. A lot of it awful.