“We need more space.”
“You’re right, it’s time to move into a bigger apartment.”
“No, I mean from each other.”
Hokuto didn’t look up from his place on the worn couch. Not for the first time, he noted the leather was peeling, scratched, and sagging under the weight of the many lives it had served before settling into their quaint (fine, cramped) third-floor apartment. He’d picked it up off a FaceBook listing for $80 after haggling it down from $125 and brought it home, beaming with pride as he made Taiga test it out in all the ways one should test out a secondhand piece of furniture - sitting, standing, jumping… and various other activities.
He felt fucking stupid now. This couch was the reason Taiga was leaving him - this beat-up, torn, shredded piece of garbage he’d insisted on bringing home even when his boyfriend had wanted a specific velvet sofa, deep green in colour and custom-made by a local artisan. Hokuto had logical reasons for turning that particular idea down - it would have cost them several months’ rent, forced them to consume only cup ramen, and operate by candlelight. They lived the realities of struggling artists who could afford no luxuries (and not all necessities either). But now Taiga was leaving him and he wished he’d just bought that damn couch.
And the bright orange coffee table Taiga had half-heartedly accepted, planted in the center of their living room like a traffic cone. There was that kitchen sink leak Hokuto had promised he’d get looked at a week ago. The wallpaper that was “fit for a funeral home” as Taiga had described it, that he had been meaning to replace…
Not good enough.
So, this was what it meant after all, right? It was this home that Hokuto had created for them, piece by broken piece, that Taiga wanted to leave behind.
-
“Did you even hear me?” Taiga didn’t sound impatient or angry. His tone was soft, gentle, and that made it all the more cruel.
Hokuto finally looked up. He should have noticed it before. Of course Taiga didn’t fit in here. A silver spoon child raised behind gilded walls, every wish catered to, every need tended to. Why hadn’t he noticed it before?
In the September sunset, Taiga’s hair glistened - gold with touches of orange. A plain white tee hung off his slim (had he gotten thinner?) frame, dark ripped skinny jeans completing the look he often went for. And his eyes - usually teasing and amused - simply looked defeated.
“Taiga, I can get a new couch. Let’s get new wallpaper. Let’s get rid of this stupid coffee tabl–”
“It’s not any of that!” Taiga stood up, just slightly more agitated than he had been a minute ago. “Why would you even think that?”
There was an undeniable hurt in his voice that made Hokuto’s heart clench. In trying to bridge the abyss between them, he’d pushed Taiga further out of his reach.
“I’m sorry, I just thought…”
“...That you were dating a spoiled brat?”
“No, of course not.”
Taiga stood in front of him and gestured at the space between them.
“I’m tired of this. This distance. Do you even have any feelings for me?”
All I have are feelings for you.
But the words were caught in his throat, stubbornly, as if saying them aloud would be the final blow to Hokuto’s pride. He barely had any to start with, even less when it came to the man before him. Shouldn’t he know how much Hokuto adored him, anyways? The first day they had met, five years ago, Taiga had been wandering the streets at night, drenched from the spring downpour. Hokuto had been returning from bombing an audition and vaguely recognized him as his senior from college, the renowned young master, the musical prodigy, the aloof character with unusual coloured blond hair.
“I caught a train into the city,” Taiga had explained while Hokuto held an umbrella over his head, “I was planning on staying at a hotel. But I realized I forgot my wallet on the train and my phone died. So I had no way to pay for a room.”
“Do you want to stay with me while you figure things out?” Hokuto asked. It was the right thing to do, after all. His senior was soaked to the skin and though he put on a nonchalant expression, he could not control the shivers racking his slight frame.
“How kind of you, thank you,” Taiga had smiled then, so ethereal in the darkness of the night that Hokuto drew back momentarily, “I knew something would work itself out.”
In the ensuing years, Hokuto would get to know that quality of Taiga’s quite well. In his charmed world, no matter how ill-prepared he was, he expected that things would just work out for him. At the best of times, Hokuto adored that worldview, the positivity it radiated. At the worst of times, he despised how easily Taiga could dismiss his own carelessness, knowing he had the privilege to make mistakes with little fear of the consequences. Because it was not something Hokuto could afford, not then, and not now.
So, he kept silent, even as Taiga stood before him, threatening to leave. He would do anything, he would say anything, except just how much Taiga meant to him. This was the last thing he had left for himself, he had given up everything else already.
-
Taiga packed his things through the night – Hokuto could make out the rustling from the stupid leather sofa where he feigned sleep – and by the morning he awoke to an empty apartment. No furniture had been moved, of course, and Taiga had very few material things so the absence of them was neither seen nor felt. But the apartment was unbearably empty because the one thing Hokuto cared about had gone.
He stood up shakily, heading to the kitchen in a daze, and pouring himself a glass of water. There had been surprisingly few tears the night before, five long years of sharing a life concluded in five minutes. He remembered the last words Taiga had said to him.
“Hokuto, I hope you will be more sincere with your acting career than you were with me.”
The glass he held fell from his grip, hitting the ground and shattering into a hundred little pieces.
How fitting, Hokuto thought, he had done the same to this glass that Taiga had to his heart.