Chapter Text
“Remind me again why I am the one packing the heavy boxes of your things into your apartment?” Nanami grunted, maneuvering through the propped-open door and slamming the large cardboard box down on the ground at Satoru’s feet. “And what is even in this? Bricks?”
“Books,” Satoru forced a smile. “And to answer your question, it’s because I am simply too busy unpacking said boxes to help you carry them in.”
“Busy? What are you doing right now?” He tilted his head down, gazing at Satoru above the rim of his glasses. The look would've been scathing to anyone else, but not to him. Nanami had been giving him these looks for over ten years. Satoru stopped worrying if they were genuine or not about 9 and a half years ago.
“Can’t you tell?” He gestured to the ‘work’ he was currently doing in the kitchen. He had one box, halfway unpacked, the glass cups and mugs only partially unwrapped from their paper coverings. In his hand, he had a red bean paste Daifuku. “They will go bad if I don’t eat them now.” He popped it into his mouth and moaned, loud and deliberate. Nanami sighed.
“Help me.”
“Nanami,” Satoru whined.
“Help. Me.” He said again. Satoru thought he might be able to push him a bit more. Nanami had been softer to him lately and took the last three days off work to help take care of Satoru and his move to the new city. Satoru knew he wasn’t actually mad, and he was probably just trying to keep things normal. How they usually act: Satoru, annoying, and Nanami, aggravated with him.
It had been over a year since Satoru had seen Nanami in person. It had been 11 months since Nanami had heard from him. Until a week ago, when Satoru called him in the middle of the night. He was bruised and bloody and crying, and Nanami had done what he always did; he came to the rescue. He hadn’t asked questions and Satoru was sure he already knew the answers. Nanami barged into Satoru’s childhood home with the key he had had since he was 13 and found Satoru curled up in the corner of the kitchen with all the lights off. He said nothing, packed a bag for his best friend, and drove him into the city. Satoru slept on his couch for two days. Then, they both went to his childhood home and packed what they could as quickly as possible. It only took four hours and two very nervous men to box up what he would need in a new apartment, lock all the doors and windows, and drive out of Kyoto with a cloud hanging over their heads.
Satoru hadn’t known what to do, so Nanami set him up for some apartment tours in Tokyo and offered his couch until he found one he liked. All the boxes sat in his and Satoru’s cars for four days until Satoru found a place that could work. Nanami said the area was nice, and it was close to his own apartment, too. Satoru didn’t acknowledge outwardly how relieved his best friend had looked when he picked the one closest to him, or the fact that he also felt the same. They had been apart for a while, which was his own fault, but he felt like less distance would help mend the somewhat broken relationship between the two men.
So now they stared at each other in this new house. Nanami, out of breath with a sheen of sweat on his forehead, even in the cold February air, and Satoru, with a yellowish bruise on his cheek and sugar on the corner of his mouth. He felt another muscle in his body loosen, another shake of tension releasing. The guilt and shame, ever present at the back of his mind, crept forward slowly. He did his best to shake it off.
“Okay, fine,” Satoru sighed. He closed the small box of Daifuku on the counter and followed the man out the door, down the three flights of stairs, and out into the winter afternoon. There were a handful of boxes left, and Satoru laughed a bit. The rest were clothes and small trinket items. Nanami had carried all the heavy stuff in already.
“If you’re laughing because I’ve done the hard work, wipe the smile off your face.” Satoru straightened up immediately. He held back the small smile at his lips as they carried the last few boxes into the apartment and finally shut the door to keep the warm air inside.
Satoru glanced around at his new home. It was small, to be sure. Compared to the home he had been living in all his life, a two-bedroom, one bathroom apartment was a huge change. Nanami had said so when they went searching. It was small, but the ache of filling the home by himself would make it seem much larger. There were too many pros to worry about the size, though. For instance, the apartment came fully furnished. Couch, bed, table, chairs, and all the standard appliances one needed to survive. With the things he and Nanami were able to pack up from his house, he could turn this into something. Maybe not a home, but… temporarily permanent. It wasn’t tainted by grief or hands that had been too harsh. It was new. Fresh. Satoru would make it comforting.
He spun around slowly, taking in the view of the windows, the color of the walls, the countertop in the kitchen. He came to a stop at the figure standing by the front door. Nanami was staring at him, but not with the hard eyes that told Satoru he was on his last nerve. A soft, concerning look held his eyes. There was a glare in his glasses from the sun setting in the window, but Satoru knew that look. He saw it 4 years ago, at his mother’s funeral. He saw it a year ago, the last night they had seen each other before Satoru went silent. He saw it a week ago, when Nanami had found him in the kitchen. He had seen it every day since then, when Satoru woke up with tears on his face, or flinched when Nanami moved too fast. Satoru knew it was a loving look, but hated how pathetic he felt to be on the receiving end of it. He lifted his chin, straightened his back, and smiled at his friend. He did not smile back.
“Satoru,” he said softly into the quiet. “I won’t push you. You know I won’t.” Satoru’s smile fell slightly. “I don’t know what happened, and I don’t know who did that,” he gestured to his own cheek to make his point, “but I have an idea. If you never want to tell me, that’s… fine. But please know, I will be here when you are ready. If.”
“I-” Satoru looked down at his own hands, twisting his fingers together at odd angles. He felt small again, like a child. A memory flashed in his mind, two different men screaming at him while he sat at the same table, 10 years apart. “I don’t-”
“If,” Nanami said again. “Only if.”
“Thank you.” Satoru’s voice was quiet as he spoke. “For everything. For helping me pack and unpack and… for getting me. After we hadn’t spoken in so long. I’m-”
“Don’t apologize,” he smiled. “Just… Don’t do it again, okay? It will be much easier to check on you now, with you a 10 minute walk away, so if you go silent on me again...” He let the implication hang in the air. Satoru laughed at that. The tension fell again. He glanced around, spotting his new set of keys sitting on his counter.
“Why don’t you take the spare key?” Satoru grabbed the set, prying off one of the two keys to his new apartment, and walked to his friend at the door. He held it out to him. “You’ve always had a key to my house, no use in changing the tradition now, right?”
Nanami took it out of Satoru’s upturned hand and glanced down at it. “I suppose not.” He paused for a moment and then looked back up to him. “Are you trying to bribe me into staying and helping you unpack, Gojo?”
“Is it working?” He smiled slyly at him. A chuckle escaped the severe man in front of him, and Satoru knew he won. “It is, isn’t it?”
Nanami smiled, sighed, and pushed past his friend. “You’re lucky. I am only staying because I don’t want to walk back to mine in the cold.” Satoru followed him with a smile to the open boxes in the kitchen. He knew that was probably true, but also knew the love they held for each other could not be broken in a year of silence. Nanami would help, because he always did. Satoru would do the same every time.
So they unpacked Satoru’s new apartment and caught up on a year in the life of Kento Nanami, and Satoru continued to smile for him, even if it was hard. He was still at the office job he absolutely hated, but had kept since he moved to Tokyo after graduation. He was relatively important, made a good bit of money, and had a few friends in the city that he saw once or twice every couple of weeks. Nanami had never been one for going out and partying, as Satoru had been, but he tried to appease the coworkers he liked by going out for drinks every third or fourth time they asked. He seems content, Satoru thought as he listened to the quiet explanations of the past year of his life. I am glad.
Nanami did not pry into Satoru’s last year without him. Only asked vague questions about the TV shows he was watching, if he was still running, and if he had heard any good music. Never about his home, or his relationship, or any new friends he had made. They had fallen back into the routine of their friendship so quickly. It felt normal. Satoru was grateful for that.
They had unpacked quite a bit as dinner time rolled around. There were still a few boxes here and there, things that needed to be hung and shelved. Satoru insisted they stop for the evening and get dinner instead. They went out to the convenience store around the corner that Nanami frequented, and he mumbled about the walk being shorter from Satoru’s apartment than his own. Satoru bragged about his new place being better. He earned an eye roll and the opportunity to pick up the bill for the food. They walked back, sat down at the small island in the kitchen, and ate their meal in silence.
When they were finished, they shared a tight hug. Satoru thanked him for his help and felt the tears welling in his eyes as he did so. Nanami said he would be back tomorrow after work, and that he better not leave all the stuff lying around for him to put up. He was not a maid, Satoru.
Nanami left, and the apartment was quiet and chaotic, and Satoru stopped smiling. There were boxes piled in the corner that he would need to get rid of, pictures resting against the wall to be hung, blankets to put on the bed, and no sound but the hum of the heater and the faint noises of the city outside. Satoru tried to sit in the silence for a moment, to bask in it and let it be comforting. He was used to loud music, people shouting and laughing, and no one being quiet, even when he begged. It only took two minutes for him to start moving.
He went to his new bedroom and put the sheets on the bed. He hummed to himself as he did it, subconsciously trying to fill the silence. Once that task was complete, he moved to the books stacked chaotically on and near two bookshelves in the corner of his room. The black shelves matched the black desk and the black dresser and the black bed frame. He applauded the apartment owners for making sure it all went together.
He did not have many books, but he thought there was enough to fill the two shelves almost completely. There was a mix of classics, romance, art, history, and thrillers, mostly his mother’s collection and what she enjoyed reading. They used to read together, but Satoru hadn’t touched a book in quite some time. He didn’t want to think about exactly how long. Instead, he walked past the pile and told himself he would do it later.
He continued his journey through each room of his new apartment. There were art pieces he wanted to hang but he didn’t have any of the tools to do so. He set those posters and pictures on the floor, leaned up against the wall. There was a box of his mother’s belongings that stared at him from the corner of the second bedroom. It was still taped tightly shut, the bright red ‘Fragile’ text on the side of the box screaming at him in the silence. He ignored that one too, and headed to the bathroom instead. He hung his towels up, threw his medicines in the cabinets, and tried not to glance in the mirror to see the sunflower bloom on his face.
When he was finished and thoroughly exhausted, he sat down on the couch. He stared at his faint reflection in the black of the TV screen and listened to the quiet once more. This, he thought, is fresh. It is new and it can be comforting if I let it. So he turned the TV on and tried to let it.