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“Seijuurou.”
Mayuzumi's murmur is almost inaudible, but Akashi hears it in the dark, his vision useless and his brain free to focus more acutely on other senses. There's always something distant in Mayuzumi's voice when he talks to other people, like he's not quite present and would much rather be elsewhere, but Akashi's noticed there is nothing like that when the older boy says his name. It's low and quiet, but Akashi can hear the focus behind it, the way it's meant to pierce through him, carrying with it the intent to pin him there and hold him like some exotic red butterfly. And it always works, he thinks dimly, arrests him in a grip far more firm than Mayuzumi's fingers digging into his bare skin.
On the rare occasion that his first name is spoken, it's always “Seijuurou” with Mayuzumi, never “Sei” or “Sei-chan,” like shortening it would destroy its potency and it wouldn't reach to every corner of his body. Because Mayuzumi understands the power of words, and when he deigns to use them, he does not cut corners.
“Seijuurou.”
Mayuzumi drives into him as he says it, pinning him against the bed, and Akashi can only flutter helplessly against it.
–
Akashi thinks that it should come as no surprise to anyone that Mayuzumi's presence in this world is so weak; most of his time, after all, is spent in his books. He thinks that perhaps those who live their lives so wrapped up in fiction find their existence in reality weakening over time, leaving only a trail of shadows in their wake. It's a curtain, a defense, and Akashi had made his own feeble attempt to build armor against the world, but his turned out to be so brittle in the end, nothing like the pliability he sees in Mayuzumi. The strain of life never breaks him, Akashi thinks, because he just takes the pressure and dives down into that void with it, searching for someplace deeper and darker. He marvels at the way Mayuzumi seems to fold himself into the pages, like an animal burrowing its way into the snow, preparing to wait out an endless winter in a deep sleep.
He tries not to think of the worst, but there are days when Akashi wonders if little by little, Mayuzumi will fade from him completely over time, if even now he's only an afterimage burned against Akashi's retina that he cannot hold there forever. So he tries to look at Mayuzumi at every opportunity, unashamedly so even when he is caught staring, as if refreshing the vision can hold it there just that little bit longer. He occasionally catches himself holding his breath when he blinks, as if he's not sure what he'll see on the other side, releasing it only when he confirms that Mayuzumi is still there.
–
Most things in this world, Akashi's eyes can see right through, and it puzzles him to find something that remains opaque even to him, something so difficult to dissect and control. Things are not always obvious with Mayuzumi, so Akashi learns to work slowly, cultivating carefully a directory of responses, scraps of gestures and muttered drops of sound, that he can use as a manual for prediction. It's like treading carefully through a minefield, sometimes, stumbling through wreckage searching for clues, when Mayuzumi's annoyance and disdain may flash out of him at any moment. No one else is willing to risk the crossfire, to wait out the barrages until they pass, but Akashi does not stoop to such surrender.
Even with all of the progress he thinks he's made, there are nights when Akashi's eyes still fail him, when Mayuzumi comes home late, later than he should, and Akashi cannot see through the gray no matter how hard he tries. When he tries to glimpse where Mayuzumi has been, where his mind and body could have wandered, he sees nothing, like turning a page in a book only to find that the rest are blank.
Once, Akashi asks him what kept him out so late, and Mayuzumi answers with a shrug.
“I got off at a train station.”
It's a train station, not the train station, Akashi notes with interest; he knows Mayuzumi's words are always chosen with precision. But he doesn't pry any further into things, because only when Mayuzumi cares to elaborate will he do so.
So Mayuzumi wanders, and Akashi dares not follow.
–
Akashi may have never lacked anything in his life, but he likes to think that he is not ungrateful for the things that have been given to him. He never forgets to be pleased that Mayuzumi has developed such a high tolerance for him compared to what he has for other people, that with all of the worlds spinning in his head, the person that holds his interest to this one is Akashi. He knows what he holds in his hands, he can see it in the way Mayuzumi looks after him even in the smallest of ways, and it makes him all the more determined to protect such a thing from himself.
It's like watching a recording of someone else, when he looks back on what he did, but he sees that it's him standing there at the Winter Cup, pushing Mayuzumi away from one of the few things still keeping him grounded in the world. He recalls the way Mayuzumi's gaze had hollowed out, mind retreating into itself and away from Akashi's cruelty, tucking his consciousness away and leaving flesh running on autopilot. To lapse into another such moment of destructiveness, no matter how brief, tearing through another one of the few roots Mayuzumi has left in Akashi's world, may be all that's needed to cut him free and lose him forever. He sees it in his dreams sometimes, Mayuzumi dissolving into the night like smoke, and he wakes with the reminder that he has no choice but to hold himself together, to do better this time.
–
For most people, the daytime means wakefulness, but sometimes Akashi thinks that it's just the opposite with Mayuzumi, that the days are merely long spells of sleepwalking. It's in the night when he can move freely, limbs relaxing and tangling around Akashi in the dark and wrapping his skin in the cold touches of winter. If Mayuzumi really is nothing more than an apparition, he is a surprisingly solid one, Akashi thinks, and he has no other way to tell the difference. He exhales against the cold skin, breath startlingly warm against that ice, and wonders if the winter really will last forever.
It's quiet in the room now, broken only by their uneven breathing and occasional rustle of Mayuzumi rearranging himself beneath the sheets, but even without the command of Mayuzumi's voice, Akashi still finds himself lacking the motivation to move. He can see Mayuzumi better in the dark sometimes, without the overwhelming glare of light to wash out his features, the way his gaze focuses so intently on Akashi, examining his prize, searching it for blemishes or signs of wear that would require repair and attention.
Akashi wonders if the most real parts of Mayuzumi are to be found in dreaming rather than waking, in the faint rise and fall of his chest, the twitches of wandering eyes behind tightly shut lids. He places one hand against the dimly throbbing pulse in the older boy's neck, so hard to find sometimes beneath the snow.
He leaves it there as he falls asleep, waiting expectantly, as if the contact with it might sweep him along into the stream of Mayuzumi's subconscious, washing away the shards of his own unsettling dreams to be replaced with something better.