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Angel didn’t like Kishibe. Most humans were predictable – they stank of fear at the sight of a Devil, or a spider, or a when they were left alone in a dark room. They smelled of fear so often Angel had gotten used to it – it no longer made his stomach growl or his blood boil. He’d never had so much as a whiff of terror from Kishibe. Not a hint. He smelt of alcohol often, and cigarettes always. But never fear.
“Aki said we weren’t in trouble,” Angel mumbled. Though he hadn’t seen much of Aki that week – not at his desk, their patrols cancelled, he was tied up in meetings. Leaving Angel to spend his time wandering around headquarters, pretending to work and hiding from Kishibe. Hiding hadn’t worked – it never did. He’d trapped Angel at the vending machine and hauled him into his office.
Angel kept his eyes locked on Kishibe and his face blank; Kishibe’s face was blank too. He looked tired and bored. He had about another thirty years in his natural lifespan — but Angel figured a Devil or a disease would get him first.
“Aki isn’t in trouble. You are. You know I’m supposed to put you down for making an unauthorised contract, don’t you?” he asked. He lit a cigarette, and looked much too large behind the desk. “I should at least lock you up.”
“Hmm,” said Angel. I’ve had a good run, he thought. “I’d prefer if you killed me, if that’s okay.”
“If that’s kay?” Kishibe repeated. Angel nodded. Kishibe puffed out smoke, and shook his head. “I regret taking this promotion,” he said. “I’m not gunna tell any one. We’re not going to kill you. I’m asking if you understand that’s the kind of consequence you’ll face for doing this shit.”
“I understand,” Angel said. He understood that when he made the contract with Aki. He’d sort of hoped they’d kill him for it.
“I feel pretty conflicted about all of this. Your absences, this contract – the lack of actual work you do. Granted we can’t exactly expect you to be a model worker given the circumstances. And you did fix things for Aki. You did it illegally but… I guess that’s kind of… Noble. Even though I’m sure you had an ulterior motive.”
“He treats me well. I wanted to keep him around,” Angel said. The partners before Aki were no good. Angel didn’t lift a finger to save any of them when the time came to it. “Aki is mostly a good person. He deserves a chance.”
Kishibe sighed and smoked his cigarette down to its filter. He threw his hands in the air.
“Fine, fuck it. You’re off the hook,” he said. “The union rep is making me give you a TV.”
“What?”
Kishibe had argued with the rep for a couple of hours, apparently. The rep wanted to give the Angel freedom of movement, a contract which entitled him to a wage instead of a shitty living allowance – paid time off, vacation, sick leave. Kishibe managed to argue her down to a TV for the Angel’s apartment, a slightly larger allowance, and the option to take vacation when his buddy did.
“It’s not like you get anything done on your own, any way.”
“Okay. But… Why the TV?”
“Aki made your apartment sound depressing. We thought a TV might… You know… Cheer the place up. This all sound good?”
Angel shrugged. It was better than nothing.
*
Aki carried the TV back to Angel’s apartment for him. It wasn’t brand new, but it wasn’t old or damaged. Aki plopped it on the Angel’s table and set it up for him. Angel turned it on and flipped through the channels. It was just terrestrial TV — only nine channels, but the reception was good, at least.
“I have an old VCR you can have,” said Aki. “I’ll bring it next time I’m here.”
Aki only had fifty years on him right now. He hadn’t taken any time in weeks. Angel didn’t want to nag — but he did want to kiss Aki on the lips without counting the minutes. It seemed like too much effort — what if Aki got upset again? Arguing was exhausting. Managing Aki’s humanity, his feelings, his morals, that was exhausting too.
“Where’ve you been all week?” Angel asked.
“Meetings. Some paperwork stuff to clear up. Nothing interesting,” Aki replied. He turned the TV off and put on his gloves. Aki kissed Angel on the mouth. Sometimes Angel used to feel like he was licking an ashtray when he kissed Aki; now he always tasted of menthol and mint — nicotine gum permanently between his teeth, pressed to the roof of his mouth, tucked in the soft walls of his cheek.
Aki held Angel’s face.
“It’s not good enough,” said Aki. Angel blinked at him. “The TV. It’s not enough.” He sighed. “I hate this apartment. The more time I spend here the more it bothers me. It reminds me of how my place looked before Power and Denji moved in. Like a storage unit. I didn’t even hang pictures on the walls.”
Angel was touched that he cared — but said nothing. Tenderness from Aki was something that could disappear as soon as the Angel opened his mouth and reminded Aki of who (what) he was dealing with.
So Angel stayed quiet. And soon, Angel was kneeling over Aki, removing Aki’s clothes, looking at him. Big, long, tan, a little hairy in places; so different from his own body.
A woman Angel had been with once – a stranger from the sex club he occasionally haunted – had whispered you’re just like a little doll in his ear, while his dick was in her gloved hand. I can’t believe you’re a boy. Humans were always telling him that his own face and body didn’t match his sex. Angel popped into existence one day with a dick and people had been making a big deal of it ever since.
He felt indifferent to his own physical form. But he liked Aki’s; he liked it a lot. At first, Angel admired him the way you’d admire some random guy in a magazine — on an objective, aesthetic level. Aki was all sharp, masculine lines – flat and hollow and hard. Aki had told him once: people always expect me to throw them around; they can be disappointed when I’m kind of... you know.
Submissive.
As Angel slid his fingers inside Aki, he smirked and thought about how shocked people would be if they could see what Angel did to Aki. If they could see Angel in control, and Aki sighing, arching his back, toes curling into the sheets.
“You’ve gotten so good with your fingers,” Aki said. Well, he didn’t just say it, he moaned it, and started touching himself, and made a funny choking sound when Angel pulled his wrist away.
“Don’t touch that,” Angel said. “Not yet.” And Aki shuddered and wriggled and Angel almost felt angry. He wanted this so much. His desire for this human thing, this man, this piece of meat — it was beneath him.
And Angel remembered the contract.
He made Aki come and then pretended he’d come in his pants. In reality he’d gone soft just thinking himself into a sad place. Aki liked the lie he was told; he gave Angel a rare, little grin (as smug as it was charming) and reached for his post-coital cigarette. He kept a pack in Angel’s nightstand. Now he only smoked after sex, insisting it was easier to wean yourself off than stop cold turkey.
Angel made him sit up, stretch his arm awkwardly to dangle the cigarette out of the open window. Aki stayed naked – Angel stayed in his clothes. Aki scratched his chest absently and puffed on his cigarette, while Angel recounted the details of the meeting he’d had with Kishibe. He sounded more disappointed than he’d meant to about the fact public safety would not be killing him.
“How come you don’t kill yourself?” Aki asked. Angel looked at him. “Not saying I want you to. Just curious. You’re always saying you don’t mind dying. That you’d rather die. How come you don’t just… Do it yourself.” Aki leant out of the window and tossed the end of his cigarette into the alley below – he was relaxed, pink cheeked, his hair loose and messy.
Angel thought for a moment about how best to put his answer, while Aki picked his pants up off the floor and looked in the pockets for his pack of nicotine gum.
“I’ve thought about it. But I can’t imagine trying it, let alone going through with it. There’s the logistics of it to start — it’s much harder to kill me than it is to kill a human. And not wanting to be alive and wanting to kill yourself are different things,” said Angel. He’d talked to his fair share of suicidal people, hanging around bridges at night.
Sometimes people thought he was a real angel, their guardian angel, here to talk them out of dying. It’s true, he’d say. This too shall pass. You have so much to live for. Other platitudes. They would climb off the rail and go home. The people willing to tell themselves that story – they didn’t want to die.
But the people who just squinted at him, ignored him, maybe asked what the fuck are you supposed to be or – am I already dead? They were worth speaking to. Worth convincing — not to kill or save themselves, but to change their method of suicide. You might survive the fall, drowning is so painful, Angel would warn them. But I won’t hurt you. Sometimes, Angel felt jealous of these people – they were so at peace with their decision. Death would be such a relief.
“I get that,” Aki said. “I used to get really really depressed. It got bad just after I joined public safety and they’d already spent the time training me so… They sent me to the in-house shrink and he stuck me on these anti-depressants. I was on those for a long time.”
“I didn’t realise we had an in-house shrink.”
“We don’t. We did, but there were budget cuts. We had to vote on whether we wanted to keep the coffee machines or the therapist — coffee machines won 70:30.” Aki smiled a the memory.
“Do you still take them?”
“No… I did for a couple of years but… I stopped taking them because… And this is kind of stupid, but they can give you really bad erectile dysfunction and I was just like… Like seventeen with my dick not working, so…” Aki shook his head and laughed a little at himself. “So I stopped taking them. Which sounds really dumb-”
“I don’t think it’s dumb,” Angel told him.
“Thanks. I manage without them now but… I have to stay really regimented and… Exercise, eat right, all that boring stuff they tell you helps and you really resent it when it actually does. Maybe you should give them a try — antidepressants. It sucks to feel like that,” he said. He looked at Angel, his brow furrowing. “It really does.”
“I don’t know. I don’t think human medicine would work on me. And I just… I don’t have a lot to live for. Anti-depressants won’t fix this,” Angel said. He looked over at his new TV in the corner of the room. He looked at Aki. “Would you want to live like this?”
Aki didn’t answer right away. Angel wanted him to say something grand: I want you to live for me, something like that. But he didn’t.
“I wish I could help you more,” he said.
“You help me plenty,” Angel replied. But what would help was if Aki would submit to becoming the Angel’s sole reason for existence. What would really help would be if Aki agreed to put his morals to one side and keep killing forever and ever, so they could share a bed without their clothes on. What would really really help would be if Angel had no powers; no wings or halo. But Aki couldn’t do any of these things for him. “You’re the best thing in my life right now.”
“Don’t say that.”
“But it’s true,” Angel replied. “Things were so much worse without you,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For saying all of that stuff.”
“Shut up, it’s fine. We’re friends, aren’t we? We can talk about stuff like this,” Aki said. To his memory, Angel had never really had a friend before – it was a kind thing to say, but it felt unsatisfying. “Do you want to come to my place sometime soon? For dinner? Get you out of this crappy little apartment?”
“Sure,” Angel said.
When Aki left, Angel watched the television.
He found himself captivated by a documentary about Okinawa Island on NHK-E. There were shots of sandy beaches, blue seas and lush, green forests. He pulled the table the TV was sitting on close to the edge of his bed and sat with his nose a few inches from the screen, smelling the odd, dusty, electrical scent — the static tugging at his hair. He reached out and touched the glass, hoping to feel warm sand on his fingers; he inhaled, trying to smell salt. The documentary cut away from the scenery to shots of elderly people smiling and doing radio calisthenics. The documentary said that the people on Okinawa had the highest life expectancies of any one on Earth.
I should visit, Angel thought.
The documentary mostly focussed on Okinawa’s high number of centenarians — the food they ate, their hobbies and the culture of the island. They ate freshly grown vegetables in the sunshine — they all took care of one another. It made the Angel feel jealous and lonely and cold and out of place. It felt so familiar to him, but so foreign at the same time.
*
“You should eat more vegetables,” Aki said. He was chopping beef for a curry, onions and carrots already crackling in the bottom of the pot.
“I actually don’t think I need to,” Angel replied. He sat at Aki’s kitchen counter, watching him cook. It was nice to be in a real home. The place was clean, but lived in. Laundry hung on a rack by the window, and pictures lined the wall. The room smelt of detergent and frying onions — and like Aki.
“They’re good for you,” he insisted.
“It doesn’t matter what I eat,” Angel replied. “If it did, I’d be dead from scurvy or something. The only thing I need is blood.”
“Yeah well… Variety is the spice of life,” he said. “Don’t talk like that in front of Power — she forgets she has a human body to feed now. The in-house doctor told me she had a shit-ton of vitamin deficiencies when I got her, and I had to work really hard to convince her to eat vegetables. And she’s gotten so good with them — I hardly need to hide them at all, now.” Aki smiled a little and scraped the beef into the pan. “Denji will eat anything, though. He’s just grateful for food — at first he drove me nuts but he’s actually pretty low maintenance now he’s housebroken,” Aki said.
“You’re sweet when you talk about them,” Angel told him. “I don’t know why. They’re both so obnoxious.” Aki frowned a little, smile dropping.
“They’re good kids, underneath it all.”
Angel decided to dig around Power, who he did find fascinating — the idea of a Fiend being created, the creature keeping its sanity, developing a personality, even. Angel wondered if that would happen if he ever took over a dead body — if he’d manage to retain his mind or if a whole new person would come out of it.
“How come you didn’t give yourself a name — the way she did?” Aki asked, suddenly. He mixed in the curry roux, then added water to the pot. Angel squinted at him, confused.
“I did. It’s Angel,” he replied. They weren’t all walking around calling him Akuma Tenshi all the time. Aki shook his head.
“Yeah but that’s just the English word for Angel, isn’t it?”
“Power is an English word,” he replied. “Hers isn’t even a name. People are actually named Angel in the west. It’s really normal in Spanish speaking countries.”
Aki seemed to take issue with the idea that Angel was just using a translation of his title — that he hadn’t really named himself the way Power had, hadn’t put any thought into it.
“You could name yourself after an Angel. Like one from the bible.”
Angel thought for a moment, then listed off a handful of names that he thought might sound especially tricky to a Japanese ear. Aki wrinkled his nose at “Verchiel”, then suggested the Angel try out a “normal Japanese name.” Angel clicked his tongue, then listed the most masculine names he could think of.
“Like… Kentaro or… Katsuo,” he said. Names he recalled using the characters for big, strong and manly.
“Those don’t suit-” Aki began, then he stopped, realising the Angel was smiling. “I suppose Angel is fine,” he conceded.
They ate beef curry with Power, because Denji was apparently out on a date.
“And that doesn’t concern me,” Power said. Aki hid a smirk.
“No, it doesn’t bother you at all, does it, Power?”
“It bores me,” she agreed. Then she thanked the Angel for helping Aki extend his life span. “Even if he cries about it at night,” she began, “My priority is preserving the longevity of my most faithful servant, for I shall never lower myself to learning to use the clothes washing machine.”
“You’re welcome,” Angel said, trying not to laugh.
“Yeah thanks Power, real flattering,” Aki muttered. Angel could not tell if he was hurt, embarrassed or touched by this. Perhaps a little of everything.
Aki sent her to her room, then took a couple of beers from the fridge. Aki took his hair down – Angel tied his up. Angel still didn’t like anything to do with beer, but he drank it any way because Aki wanted him to. They clinked the necks of their bottles.
“The union rep told me they’re letting you take vacations now?” Aki said. Angel nodded.
“Only when you do,” he clarified. Aki shrugged, better than nothing. Angel drank from his beer – a sip at first, then a big glug. Then he drank until he felt his muscles relax a little and his face warm up. “Maybe we could go somewhere together,” he said. Aki smiled.
“Together?” he asked. Angel nodded, feeling bold.
“I saw a thing on TV about Okinawa. It’s warm there, and it has the lowest rate of Devil attacks in all of Japan, and the people there have really long lifespans,” Angel said. He probably shouldn’t have added the lifespan part. Aki’s eyebrows shot up.
“Do you want to visit for the beaches or to hunt?” He tried to keep his tone light, like he was joking. But he really wanted to know, Angel could tell.
“The beaches,” Angel said. Aki sat with his back against the arm of the couch, his feet almost touching Angel’s thigh. If they were closer – if this was a real thing, Aki would put them in Angel’s lap. They’d look like a couple on the TV, except for all the obvious ways in which they did not look like a couple on the TV.
“I usually go to Hokkaido on vacation,” Aki said. Angel wrinkled his nose – annoyed, maybe a little hurt. It wasn’t clear if he was invited to Hokkaido.
“What’s in Hokkaido? Aside from… Marimo and cold weather,” Angel huffed.
“That’s where I’m from. I go for my family’s graves,” Aki said. And Angel felt like an ass.
“Doesn’t sound very relaxing,” he mumbled.
“Well, maybe I’ll let you take me to the beach, sometime.” Aki drained his beer and scratched at the nicotine patch on his shoulder. He started peeling the label from the bottle, something to do with his hands now he couldn’t smoke. He got little pieces of paper everywhere.
Angel took the bottle from his hand, and set it down on the coffee table. Aki took this as an invitation, a suggestion, and kissed Angel on the mouth. Angel heard, in his head, the countdown begin. Fifty one years, zero months and twenty three hours quickly becoming fifty years and twelve months, then eleven, then ten. Angel pushed him away.
“Your time, Aki,” he said. Aki knew well enough that if this carried on, they could burn through a decade easily.
“Yeah, I know, I’ve been slacking. Don’t worry about it,” he said.
“You’re not… You’re not struggling with it again, are you?” Angel asked. Angel thought Aki had more or less made peace with collecting time – he exclusively went for hopeless cases at the ICU, for victims of devil attacks unlikely to make it to an ambulance. Slow, but he was in credit.
“No, it’s not that,” Aki said. “I’ve been busy is all. It’s been… Kind of a big week. A lot of stuff going on. Stuff I’ve been putting off talking about.”
“Like what?”
Aki took a deep breath, Angel held his. A chill ran down his spine when he saw the look on Aki’s face – brow furrowed, chewing anxiously at the corners of his fingers.
“I’m leaving Special Division 4,” he said. Angel felt like the bottom had dropped out of his stomach. He couldn’t look at Aki. He looked at his knees instead.
“Am I… Coming with you?” he asked – knowing the answer. There was no way Angel was leaving Special Division 4, absolutely no way.
“No. I’m moving to a desk job,” Aki said. “I wanted to quit but they said I couldn’t keep Denji and Power. Or the apartment,” he added. And that sounded fair to Angel. He’d given Aki his lifespan back, after all. It only made sense he’d want to leave his extremely dangerous job – focus on moving on, taking care of his little family. “I’m not going right away, though. I have to do some training courses – night school, you know. I didn’t go to high school, so I’m underqualified for a desk job. Totally qualified to start killing devils at fifteen, of course, but-”
Angel waved his hand, cutting Aki off. He was trying to stay calm and doing a bad job – what about me? he wanted to ask. What am I supposed to do?
“Why didn’t you say anything to me?” Angel asked. His voice cracked, which was humiliating – Aki’s pained wince was just as embarrassing.
“It really just came about in the last week. All of those meetings were negotiations, figuring out where I could go within the organisation and what to do with Power and Denji. I managed to get them out of Division 4 too.”
“Wow, good for you,” Angel said, sounding bitter and sarcastic. They were what really mattered to Aki — not Angel. Their relationship wasn’t that important to him, in the grand scheme of things. That was obvious, now. They were friends but not family.
“It’s months away. And I’m telling you now,” Aki said. “I get that this sucks for you, but… I don’t know. Didn’t you want me to quit?”
Yes, no, kind of. The feelings Angel had for him were big enough to want Aki to be safe and happy and away from the grim, dangerous business of Devil hunting. But Angel was not an especially noble or selfless person. He wanted Aki to be safe and happy, but not at the expense of his only lifeline — the only thing that kept him sane.
“I don’t know what I wanted. I guess I’m just surprised you didn’t say something before you went ahead with it,” Angel said. Fighting to keep his voice even — he decided not to look at Aki again, to keep his eyes on his knees.
“It just sort of happened,” Aki sighed. No one said anything for a moment. Angel felt like he could vomit. “I knew if I spoke to you I would feel guilty about leaving you and I wouldn’t do it,” Aki admitted, suddenly. “I… It was really hard for me to do because of you. But I had to… I wasn’t just thinking about myself.”
Of course he wasn’t, and Angel knew that. That didn’t make it hurt any less.
“I wish I mattered more to you,” he said, aloud. Not really meaning to. “This whole thing between us. I know it’s just the contract and I know-” Aki tried to interrupt — Angel snapped at him, “Let me finish. I know you mean more to me than I do to you, but this is so… This is so fucking unfair.”
“I know. I know it’s really unfair but-”
“But what?” he asked. Aki didn’t have an answer. “I’m going. We’re done,” Angel said. He got up and grabbed his coat, pulling it on and walking out of the apartment.
And that was that. Over with a whimper, not a bang. Aki was so far into credit on that cheap, cushy little contract Angel had set him up with, that they didn’t even have to talk “time collection logistics”.
The moment it occurred to him that he wasn’t really supposed to be able to get home by himself – Power stumbled out of the front door, a coat pulled over her pyjamas.
“Topknot says he called you a car. It’ll pick you up from,” she leant over the balcony and pointed at a bus stop. “There!” Angel nodded. “Don’t know why he couldn’t tell you himself. He’s in there all like…” Power bent over and buried her face in her hands. “Well, see you at the office!” she said cheerfully. She went back inside. Angel went for his car.
*
He hadn’t gone to work the day following his “break up” with Aki. Or the day after. Or the day after. Angel had no idea what time it was, but the sun had gone down, and no one had broken down his door yet to fire him or exterminate him or take him to the cells underneath headquarters.
Aki hadn’t come to see him either – which made sense, but absolutely sucked. Angel hadn’t showered – hadn’t combed his hair or brushed his teeth. He hadn’t eaten or slept. He didn’t exactly need to do that stuff – but he felt better when he did. He’d started being able to smell himself; when Angel didn’t shower, he got dusty, like a poorly maintained statue. In a couple of days, the apartment would smell like an antique shop — he’d be leaving behind a chalky layer of dead skin on everything he touched. It’d get worse if he didn’t get any fresh blood in his system.
He dragged himself out of bed and over to the fridge; he pulled out a half-empty blood bag and tipped it into a tumbler, his lips dry and chalky against the glass. He’d usually eat a raw piece of meat, but his fridge was empty. Even if he did have food, he didn’t know if he had the energy to chew. He washed his face at the kitchen tap and dragged a wet hand through his hair. His stomach felt cold as the blood filled it. It rumbled and cramped with the sudden shock of the food after being empty for days. He felt better. He wanted to eat more.
“Sugar,” he said aloud to no one. His cupboards were bare – his freezer empty.
Angel went to the supermarket — making himself subtle, hard for ordinary humans to notice. The automatic doors didn’t react to him; he had to wait for a human to come along, so he could follow them in. He grabbed a basket and wandered the aisles, grabbing sugary junk food and bloody, red meat. He overheard the store manager talking to an employee: these thefts are driving me nuts. It feels like one night a week we lose a bunch of stuff — all just gone without a trace. Angel sat on the floor and ate a box of little cookies and listened to them for a while. The manager complained about losing meat, candy and magazines.
“It’s the most random mix of shit, too. Last week it was a bunch of shojo manga and puzzle books,” (Angel had wanted to read something romantic, and thought the puzzles might keep him busy. He soon discovered he loathed puzzles — and that he wasn’t quite the target audience for shojo.) “The week before it was porn — really broad selection, by the way, thief obviously swings both ways if that narrows it down at all — and gardening magazines.” (The porn he’d stolen for obvious reasons; the gardening magazines were because he had a sudden urge to get a window box and grow something, The urge faded when he realised how much hard work it’d be.) “You look at the CCTV and there’s just… Nothing. Like this stuff all just vanishes into thin air.”
Angel watched a mother with a toddler slowly make their way through the aisles. The toddler spotted Angel, pointed and hissed like an animal, then began weeping hysterically.
Angel took that as his cue to check the magazine rack and leave. He put his heavy basked on the floor and kicked it along. The magazines were just by the entrance. He took a travel magazine with pictures of a beach on the cover, and an issue of National Geographic about French Polynesia. He looked for a magazine with anything about Okinawa — and found a holiday brochure promoting domestic tourism.
Okinawa boasts Japan’s lowest number of Devil Attacks! The Perfect family vacation!
Angel dropped the brochure in his basket. He paused for a moment, considering the pornography and the women’s lifestyle magazines. He grabbed an issue of a trendy, somewhat controversial publication, cover boasting that this was the “Annual SEX issue!” which contained tips on ‘keeping your man interested’ and asked important questions like ‘what are the best positions for you?’ And ‘Should you have a threesome?’.
Angel waited for another customer to leave, then walked out with the basket — imagining the store manager tearing his hair out at the missing inventory. He’d bring the basket back another day.
He hooked the basket onto his elbow and opened the women’s magazine, flipping to the article on ‘Keeping your man interested’. Reading and walking, strangers bumped into him and didn’t notice him – they lost weeks of their life and had no idea.
Noticed your guy’s eye wandering? Feel like he’s distant in bed? Struggling to keep things together?
Follow our helpful tips and keep him interested in and out of the bedroom…
OUT OF THE BEDROOM
- Communicate, don’t complain!
Guys hate women who complain – don’t we all! Keep your communication positive and breezy. If you have a problem – don’t be a bitch. Talk it out.
IN THE BEDROOM
- Communicate! Don’t! Complain!
Sure it sucks to miss out on your orgasm – but is nagging going to help any one?
Angel dropped the magazine on the ground and kept walking. He felt stupid for even looking at the article. The basket began to hurt his arm, so he put it on the ground and kicked it along. It took him twice as long as it usually would to get home – he groaned dramatically when he had to carry his groceries up the stairs; the heavy basket he’d inflicted upon himself was insult added to days of injury.
Aki was sitting on the floor outside of his apartment, looking like shit. His skin and hair had a greasy, unshowered sheen, his under eyes were swollen and dark. He was sitting by his old VCR, picking his fingers. His hands shook with a caffeine induced tremor.
“I forgot to give you the VCR,” he said. “I just wanted to drop it off. Maybe talk for a little while.”
“You look terrible,” Angel said.
“Well, you did dump me,” Aki replied.
“We’d have to be together for me to have dumped you.” Angel set down his grocery basket and opened his front door. He ignored Aki saying oh come on and dragged the basket inside.
“Did you steal that?” Aki asked. “Can I come in?”
Angel sighed, leaning against the door. He rubbed his eyes.
“Bring the VCR. Set it down next to the TV.”
Aki set down the VCR on the table, and tried to open Angel’s curtains, then turn on a light. Angel told him to stop it, to fuck off; they bickered as Angel put away the groceries. So I’m just supposed to sit in the fucking dark; steaks in the fridge, leave if you don’t like it. At least let me crack a window; ice cream in the freezer, leave if you don’t like it.
“I don’t want to fight. I came because I wanted to apologise,” he said. Angel ignored him. He dropped his new magazines on the pile by his bed and sat on the mattress. He dropped his face into his hands. He didn’t want to hear it; he was desperate to hear it. “It was cowardly of me not to talk to you. I knew, I just knew if I spoke to you — even if you were happy for me and told me to go for it — I knew I wouldn’t be able to do it. I’d talk myself into staying.”
Angel looked up. Aki was sitting on the floor a couple of feet away from him, back propped up against the half-wall the kitchen counters were set in. It divided Angel’s kitchenette from the rest of his shitty apartment. Aki’s thumb was bleeding now, he’d picked it so badly. Angel thought about tossing him the pack of cigarettes in the nightstand; Angel decided he didn’t deserve them.
“I don’t believe you. I think that’s a really thin excuse.”
“Well, you can choose not to believe me, but it’s true.” Aki sucked his bloody thumb. “And you do matter to me. You… Even though the contract doesn’t sit right with me sometimes and… I don’t know if it ever will. You still gave me back my future,” Aki said.
“It’s not a future I’ll be a part of, though.”
“How do you know that? I mean, our shift patterns will be different, yeah, we won’t be like… Attached at the hip any more, but-”
“You’ll move on and forget about me. And that’s fine, I just want whatever we’re doing to be over before it feels even worse when you-”
Aki told him to shut up – said he was making shit up because he was depressed. Angel was “catastrophising”, Angel wasn’t a mind reader. He didn’t know how Aki felt. He couldn’t dictate what Aki would and wouldn’t do. And Angel knew he was right, but knew he was wrong too. And they bickered more about what Angel did and didn’t know and could and couldn’t know, until Angel was frustrated to the point he raised his voice and spat while he spoke.
He blurted everything out in one go. The problem, the point, the reasons he knew he was right. I’m in love with you and you don’t love me back. I’m a monster and I dragged you down to my level. You don’t have any feelings for me, you just feel bad for me.
And Aki crawled forward on his hands and knees, and took Angel’s bare hands. Angel snatched them away, and Aki grabbed them again and held them till a whole year ticked by and Angel asked him what he was doing, if he had anything to say. Aki was crying, because he was a huge cry baby, and the weirdest shit seemed to set him off sometimes.
“Kishibe said… You can move in with me,” he sniffed. He wiped his eyes. Angel blinked down at him.
“What? Why?” Angel laughed out loud. At how stupid Aki looked, at the idea of him asking Kishibe for permission to move Angel into his apartment. Angel imagined Kishibe sighing at him. Really? After we just got him that fucking TV?
“Well, he said-”
“I don’t care about what he said, I want to know why you’d want that. Or why you’re telling me now, or when you asked – or why you didn’t fucking tell me first again!” Angel wriggled away from Aki sitting further on to the bed. “You’re so fucking annoying!”
“I know, I know! I just… Look, I can’t get you out of Division 4. But I can… I can still take care of you.” He followed Angel onto the bed, sitting up on his knees, like he was praying. “It’s a compromise!” he insisted, sounding desperate now. And Angel was furious, because it was exactly the kind of stupid grand gesture that he fantasised about, exactly what he wanted to hear and the perfect solution, the perfect show of loyalty and dedication.
“Do you even have room for me?” Angel asked.
“I have a double bed and a bunch of storage going unused, a bunch of drawers, half a wardrobe,” Aki replied. How like him, to cite his apartment’s generous storage as a reason Angel should move in with him. “Three days of thinking you’d never talk to me again and I couldn’t stop thinking about you and I thought… I mean mostly I thought about what a fucking idiot I am and how much I deserved it but… I’ve never felt this way about any one before. Usually when I get dumped it’s just like… Well, there it is. But I’ve barely eaten; I’ve hardly slept. All I’ve thought about is you,” Aki rambled. He looked pleadingly at Angel, his eyes still wet and red.
“Why did you bother to drag the VCR all the way over here if you knew you were going to ask me to move in with you?” Angel asked. He shuffled toward Aki on the bed, and hugged him. Wrapping his arms around Aki’s waist and burying his nose in Aki’s chest.
“I don’t know, I thought you might say no and I didn’t want to just throw it out,” Aki mumbled. His voice was thick and wet, and he (inadvisably) smelled the top of the Angel’s head. Aki gave up two years to the embrace, which was long and dramatic.
“You need to take a shower so badly,” Angel said.
“Yeah, well you smell like a mouldy old book,” Aki said, pulling back.
They agreed to shower – Angel’s tiny shower cubicle only had room for one person at a time. Angel went first, then Aki. While Angel sat on the bed towelling his hair, he called in:
“Who’s my new buddy? When you move to your desk job.”
“Oh,” Aki replied. He was rinsing soap from his hair, already having complained about the ‘three-in-one’ shampoo/conditioner/body wash that Angel used. “Kobeni, I think.”
Angel genuinely couldn’t have imagined a worse choice. She had never had spare cash and wouldn’t be able to buy Angel anything, she was pants-pissingly afraid of him, and she was really fucking annoying. Maybe he’d give her a life changing contract somehow, see if he could get her to quit, too.
Aki got out of the shower and they both dressed – Aki in a not-especially-clean sweat suit he’d abandoned at the apartment a few weeks ago, and Angel in a clean t-shirt and his least-dirty pyjama bottoms.
They crawled into bed together – they didn’t have sex. They didn’t talk about the contract, the logistics of moving in together, the change of job, the stolen shopping basket or the old VCR.
They talked about going away together, somewhere. Somewhere rural, somewhere pretty. Somewhere with a beach. Maybe somewhere abroad.