Banany's fic journal

Title: Working out
Rating: PG
Word count: 1,611
Pairing: Koyama/Shige
Summary: Shige makes a horrible mistake.




"It's not working out." Shige told Koyama in a low, soft voice. He stared intently at the ground, not wanting to look up, already knowing what he would see.

"Shige, please." Koyama's voice was already hoarse and Shige could hear the tears, though he refused to look at them. "Shige, you've done this to me before, and we always get through it. Just calm down, okay? You just think about stuff too much, and it gets all warped and complicated and out of proportion in your head. Just stop. We'll be alright."

Shige smiled slightly; a sad, almost resigned smile, that seemed to say that there was no going back. He'd already made up his mind.
"Bye, Koyama." He said, turning to leave. "I'll see you at work."

He had one foot out the door when Koyama grabbed his hand. His grip was gentle, and Shige could have pulled out of it if he'd wanted to.
He didn't. And for a moment it felt to Koyama as though, through this simple movement of not pulling away, Shige was saying, 'Stop me. Don't let me leave.'

Instead he said, "I already told you that I'm sorry. We tried. But if things between us feel like they're not working out, then there's nothing we can do about it."
There was a pause, and it almost felt like the world had stopped with them, waiting to see who would move first.

Koyama did. His hand slipped from Shige's, and fell to his side as a tear slipped from the corner of his eye and slid down his cheek, coming to rest on his chin for a moment. It continued down to settle in the space between his shoulder and neck. He made no move to wipe it away.

"Good bye." Shige said again. And it almost seemed like another challenge - like another, 'don't let me leave you', but this time Koyama didn't move. He let Shige walk out the door, leaving him behind.


Shige took the long route to the train station. Night was falling, but he didn't try to hurry. His legs didn't have the strength. He felt too numb - mind and body - as though he couldn't accept what he'd just done.

By the time he made it to the station and bought his ticket, the last train was pulling up, and he rushed to catch it. He got in just before the doors closed, and slumped down into a seat, sagging like a broken doll.

He took several deep breaths, on the last one realizing that he could still faintly smell Koyama's scent on himself. He took another breath, inhaling it again.
He felt his eyes welling up.

'Don't cry.' He told himself sternly. 'It's over now. There's nothing you can do, so crying is useless.'
The self talk didn't help, and the unwelcome tears left his eyes, tracing wet paths down his cheeks. He was mainly silent, but a few quiet, choked sobs managed to escape from his lips. He covered his mouth with his hand, using the other to wipe the tears from his face, only to be replaced by new ones. A few people stared. None of them did anything.

When the time came for him to get of the train, he was one of the first out of the door, grateful to be away from the prying, unsympathetic eyes of strangers.
Everyone was already in bed when he got home, and he made as little noise as possible in order not to wake them up. When he got to his room, he crawled under the covers without taking off his clothes and buried his face in his pillow. For one brief moment he thought he was out of tears, but then a couple of seconds later they came cascading down his face in little waterfalls, and the sobs that wracked his body were so violent that they hurt.

He wasn't sure what came first; sleep, or the end of the tears.


When Shige woke up the next morning, it was to the sound of his alarm clock, and a brief sense of peace. Head unclouded by emotion, running only on cold, early-morning logic, he remembered precisely what had happened the previous day, and he was alright with it. He waited for a few minutes, and when the feeling didn't wane, he cautiously slipped from under the covers.

His face was stiff and his mouth had a foul taste in it. But other than that, he felt alright.

He headed for the bathroom first, desperate to replace the taste in his mouth with something else, and grabbed his toothbrush. As he brushed his teeth, he looked up at the mirror and eyed his reflection warily.

"Koyama's not your boyfriend anymore." He told it. There was no victory or happiness in his tone, but the words didn't sting his heart the way he'd thought they would. That was good. That meant he'd made the right choice after all.

He finished brushing his teeth, spat into the sink and rinsed the brush. Then he wiped away a spot of stray toothpaste lather from under his lip, the way that Koyama always used to do for him whenever he slept over.

Shige doubled up over and threw up.
Koyama's not your boyfriend anymore, and he'll never hold you at night again. You'll never kiss him again, you'll never hold hands with him again. You'll never take walks in the park with him, and you'll never spend evenings on the beach with him, and feel his head on your shoulder ever again. He'll never smile that beautiful, unguarded smile at you when he thinks you're not looking. You'll never feel his lips on the back of your neck, never be able to run your hands through his hair. You'll never be able to whisper your darkest fears and deepest desires in his ear when you're curled up in bed together, hands intertwined, again. You'll never have that closeness with him anymore.
You gave that away to someone else.

Shige retched again, tasting tears and bile in his mouth. His heart clenched, and he hurt all over for no reason at all. Desperately, Shige tried to recall his reasoning from yesterday; the reason why he broke up with Koyama that, yesterday, had been so crystal clear.

Today, he couldn't even remember it.
It was always like this. Koyama was right. He thought too much, and things got twisted.
He wiped his mouth on a tissue, and then without thinking about it, he stumbled back into his bedroom and snatched his cellphone from beside his bed. He punched in a message to Koyama, through blurry tear-filled vision and hit the send button.

'I'm sorry, I made a huge mistake. Can you come and see me?'
The reply didn't come for two and a half hours, and by the time that it did, Shige felt like he was about to have a nervous breakdown. The more time passed, the more it felt like Koyama was slipping further and further away from him. The longer he had to wait, the more it felt like he'd never be able to undo his terrible mistake.

The first time his phone went off, an hour and fifteen minutes after sending the message, he fumbled it and almost dropped it, before seeing that it was only a message from an old high school friend. The disappointment that hit him felt like a truck.
And then Koyama's message came - a simple one letter word, but Shige couldn't have expressed the relief it filled him with if he had the space of an entire novel.
'Okay.'

He was dressed and ready in five minutes, neither caring nor noticing that his clothes were mismatched and his hair an unbrushed tangle. Not when Koyama was coming to see him.


It was funny. Koyama had come over to his place at least five hundred times - maybe more - but he felt nervous and awkward and almost unwelcome in his own house as Koyama stepped in the front door.

Shige didn't really know how to greet him, so he breathed a hello that may or may not have been audible.

As usual, it was Koyama who was first to break the long silence that followed.
"So... what's up?" He forced a smile that looked so pained that Shige wished he hadn't. Tears would have hurt less.

"I'm... not much, I guess." He said, and the words sounded stupid in his own ears. "I mean, I guess I'm just... sorry." And to his embarrassment, his voice cracked, and he was crying all over again. "Oh god, Koyama. I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I don't know why I keep doing this to you. It all makes so much sense at the time, and I feel like I'm doing the right thing. But then later I realize I was being stupid and I had no reason and just..."

He bit his lip. Koyama was crying too.
"I just... all I really know is that you're the best thing that's ever happened to me, Kei. I mean that." He finished.

Koyama's lip trembled into a sad, shaky smile. "Thank you, Shige. You're the best thing that's ever happened to me, too. I love you so much that it hurts sometimes." He sniffed loudly and rubbed tears from his eyes. "But, after you left last night, I thought about a lot of things. And..." He trailed off, and Shige felt the weight in his chest double, even before he heard the last whispered words.
"It's not working out."
Koyama turned and walked out the door.