(Strong language!)
PANDA
I've lost track of the days since Ichi broke my heart. I've barely left the flat, only eating what's left in my cupboards, if I even eat at all. The odd packet of noodles here, a box of Kraft macaroni there. I've missed the whole week of uni, and I know I'll regret it later when I have to catch up.
I can't get the image of his face when I saw him that night out of my mind.
I'd been so excited to tell Ichi the good news; that I had broken up with R and I was all his. I was so happy to be Ichi's finally, and I was going to tell him as soon as I saw him.
But I didn't get a chance.
Thinking about everything he said... it hurts more than any pain that I've ever experienced.
He was right, though. I'm just like rotting fruit.
It took every ounce of strength to make myself go to Black Cat. Fox, who was in the dark about Ichi and me, other than the kiss we shared on his birthday, had asked me to come since it was now her birthday, and she wanted her friends there. She'd asked Nana's band to play, and she was hoping for a decent night. I couldn't as well tell her no, so I dragged myself out, trying to make myself look as hot as possible, in the likely event that Ichi would be there. I wanted him to regret what he'd said, or feel bad at least.
But when I got here, he didn't even acknowledge me. I knew he must have seen me, but I guess he chose to ignore me. It was agony.
I was happy to see Andrei. I wanted terribly to tell him what had happened because I'd missed him and he should know. But it didn't feel right to dump all of my problems on him when I hadn't seen him in so long. So instead, I pretended nothing was wrong and just enjoyed being out of the house.
But now that everyone has disappeared, it's as if the room is empty and it's just Ichi and me. I'm frozen in time as I look at him, thinking that this time two weeks ago, I would have been leading him to bed, or we'd be hidden in a dark corner of a club somewhere, discreetly torturing each other to the point of madness between layers of our clothing.
I watch him wade his way through the throngs of people and towards the front door. I bolt after him desperately, hoping to catch him before he jumps into a taxi.
I see him walking across the street and chase after him.
"Ichiro!"
I'm surprised when he turns.
"What do you want?"
He looks tired.
"Can we please talk?"
There's a metre between us, but it feels like miles. How badly I want to close the gap and hold him close like what felt so natural to me now. I can't bear this distance.
"There's nothing I want to say."
We stare at each other, his gaze more of a scowl, but I feel relieved just to be able to look at him.
"You fucking... left me." His voice is rough and cutting.
"What?"
"You left. And I'm an idiot to think that something had changed that night." He pauses while I gawk at him. "But your heart is still made of ice."
I open my mouth. "I didn't --!"
"No, Panda," Ichi says sharply. "I'm sick of talking about this."
I don't run after him this time.
His heart has spoken.
NANA
Maki arrives just after the food does, apologising for his delay.
"Wow," he says, placing a six-pack of Corona on the table next to the Chinese takeout boxes, even though I promised to buy the beer. "You went all out."
I chuckle, noting the smile creeping on his lips. "I even got dumplings because Tamaki told me you like them."
Maki pulls his boots off. "When did he tell you that?"
"I may have texted him..." I don't know why I start to blush.
He raises his eyebrows. "Alright..."
Conversation flows a little awkwardly at first, but once we open the beers, light our cigarettes and get stuck in, the tension seems to fall away from us.
"So, Tamaki has a date tomorrow," Maki says, a mischievous glimmer in his eyes. "With that girl, the one he always talks to after we play. She's one of our fangirls."
My eyes widen. "Really? Don't we have a rule about dating fangirls?"
"To be fair, she doesn't seem like the crazy ones that always want to talk to me..." He sighs. "God, I hate them."
"Don't you like the attention?" I poke at my noodles with my chopsticks.
"Not even a little bit." Any humour has left Maki's voice entirely now as he stares into his food solemnly.
I frown. "I just thought the girls bored you."
"No, they... distress me." He looks up at me and his expression changes as he shakes his head. "I mean, don't worry about it. Tamaki and Amber never notice either."
Suddenly I feel morose for him. "I'm sorry about the other night..."
Maki looks away. "Let's not talk about it."
"I should have come over sooner." I pause, and he opens his mouth to speak. "- I mean, to get rid of the girls."
"It probably wouldn't have helped. They'd just try to make us kiss."
I laugh nervously, not sure why I feel hot suddenly at the thought of kissing Maki. For some reason, I start imagining it in my head, and I can my cheeks go red.
It doesn't take us long to finish eating. Once the boxes are all cleared away, and the windows are opened to let fresh air into the small flat, and the beer is flowing, Maki takes my acoustic guitar and sits down on my bed.
I feel sad for him as I sit down across from him, seeing him hold something so cheap and unworthy of him.
"You're too good for that piece of crap," I say to him.
Maki smiles gently and runs his hand over the strings, down the fretboard and towards the body. "Shh, she'll hear you!" Something about how he touches the guitar makes me blush a little.
My heart flutters in endearment for him. I find myself chewing on my bottom lip as I watch him pluck at the strings and hum a melody. I feel utterly content merely to observe him. The hum turns into words, and I'm fascinated by him;
Your big black eyes
drop tears like tar,
coursing through my veins...
A demon drives
my heart-drawn car,
pulling at its reins...
He looks up at me suddenly, as if he'd forgotten I was even here. But I'm still hypnotised; his voice, his words, his face...
I don't know why it's happening. We gaze at each other deeply, and I become so completely lost in Maki's eyes. I feel my heart in my mouth and thumping in my ears.
Suddenly, I hear Maki's voice through my reverie. "Nana..."
"Yeah...?"
"Aren't you going to get that?"
There's another light thump which I now realise is someone knocking, waking me suddenly as if from a dream. "Sorry."
I slide off the bed, confused by what has just happened. What was that..?
I open the door, all the magic of that moment flooding out of it like water.
"I need to talk to you."
Ichi fidgets nervously in the doorway, and I step aside to let him in, not really wanting to.
"Maki is here right now," I say, somewhat redundantly, as they lock eyes.
Maki looks at him warily. "Hi."
"Sorry, I didn't realise you'd have company," Ichi says to me. "I can come back later."
Maki puts down the guitar and stands. "No, it's okay, I'll go."
My heart subsides. "Maki --"
"Honestly, it's fine," he says through a forced and practised smile. Had I only known Maki a short time, I wouldn't know how fake that smile is, and my heart falls into fragments.
"You've only been here a couple of hours." I want to pick him up like a doll and put him back on the bed, but he's already putting his boots on.
"Your friend needs you," he says, quietly, with a faint simper. "It's okay."
"Well..." I can hear the frustration in my voice and my chest. "I'll text you later."
Maki nods and darts out the door like he can't get away quick enough, and I feel like he's taken a piece of me with him.
I turn to Ichi as I close the door grudgingly, trying to disguise the disorder of my insides. "Has something happened? Did you speak to Panda?"
"Sort of. I just want to forget about him, to be honest."
Ichi slides his sneakers off, and I hand him a beer before we settle at the table. I light a cigarette for him, and he takes a slow lungful like he hasn't smoked in days. I almost feel like I'm betraying Maki by giving Ichi the Corona.
"I don't even know what to do, I've never had to get over someone like this before."
"Can I suggest something?" I say as I open my beer.
"Go for it."
"Why do you need to get over him?"
Ichi looks at me, probably about as surprised as I am at what I've just said. "Because that would be terrible if I didn't."
I shake my head. "No, I mean... Why don't you just talk to him? Let him explain."
He makes a long hum sound. "What is there to explain? He only wanted me for one thing."
"You know," I say, tapping my cigarette ash into the glass bowl. I glance at the filters leftover from dinner and feel a stab of regret in my stomach. "Panda hasn't spoken to me since that night."
"What?"
"I know my brother very well. I mean, we're very close. We pretty much tell each other everything, and rarely go longer than a few days without speaking, willingly."
"So?"
"So, it's been like two weeks, and he's not spoken to me. And he's ignored any messages I've sent."
It's true. Every text has gone unanswered, every call rejected. And at the bar on Friday, he'd completely blanked me. I had been trying not to think about it because I knew Panda was just mad, but now it's been so long, I'm wondering if he'll ever get over it.
Ichi looks at me blankly. "Because you left with me and not him?"
"Yeah. I didn't take Panda's side. And he's really pissed."
"If I'd known he'd react like that, I never would have asked you to do that..."
"He's not the kind of person who lets just any guy get between him and his brother." I stare at Ichi. "Do you understand what I'm saying?"
A pause. "Not really."
"Ichiro!" I sigh, rolling my eyes at him. "He wouldn't get mad at me like this if he didn't love you. If you were just a fling, or whatever, he wouldn't have cared less so there would have been no sides to choose from."
Ichi says nothing, staring down at the table.
"Ichi, he loves you." I bite my lip. I need to tell him. "He wouldn't have broken up with his boyfriend if he didn't."
His head jerks up. "He what?"
"They broke up the same day you did." I try to act as natural as possible, but he can probably tell how nervous I am.
Ichi blinks at me, his mouth open in horror. "Are you serious? Why didn't you say so at the time?"
"I assumed you knew..." I lie.
He stares at me for a few more seconds before his mouth closes. "It doesn't matter anyway. It doesn't change the fact that he used me."
I resist the urge to tell him that he walked into his relationship with Panda with his eyes wide open.
"I must've begged him a hundred times to dump that guy."
"You and me both," I say with a short laugh. "Ryo wasn't right for Panda at all." I pause, looking up at Ichi across the table, seeing great pain in his face. "But you are."
I actually can't believe these words are coming out of my mouth. This time two months ago, I would've done anything for Ichi and Panda to have broken up. And now I'm trying to get them back together?!
Ichi smiles at me sadly. "I think the damage is already done."
MAKI
I can't feel my lungs.
I literally cannot feel my lungs.
Or maybe I can feel them too much.
I just need to keep walking. I need to get away from them.
Something happened. One minute I was playing, letting words tumble from my lips, letting my fingers wander the strings like they were dancing, and the next it was as if there was a spell over us. I felt like I was running, my feet tripping over themselves, my lungs full and hurting. And then I fell, both hard and soft. And I just kept falling, the whole time Nana was looking at me until I hit the bottom of the rabbit hole and broke into a thousand pieces.
My lungs are still full, still hurting, only it's because I'm walking so fast through Camden that I can't breathe. I don't know where exactly I'm heading.
They're going to end up together. I was so stupid to think otherwise. I will only ever be a friend to Nana.
I can't do this.
I see Black Cat across the road and acting as if I'm someone else, someone more rational and less broken, I make my way towards the door and through it. I don't really know what I'm looking for until I see a familiar beam of red hair at the bar and a feeling of relief rushes over me.
Andrei notices me before I reach him.
"Oh hi!" he says, cheerily before his smile fades. "Nana isn't with you, is he?"
"No..."
He sighs heavily. "Thank fuck." He spots my moody atmosphere. "What's wrong? Did you come by yourself?"
"Yeah. I don't know why."
It's still early, so there's not a lot of customers around us. Andrei leads me to a booth in the corner, tells me to sit and fetches two beers before sitting himself.
"Why does Nana hate you?" I ask forwardly as soon as Andrei has sat down.
He glances down at the table. "Honestly, I don't blame him. I did something very wrong, and he still hasn't forgiven me."
"What did you do to him?"
"Nothing." Andrei leans his elbows on the table. "I'm surprised Nana hasn't told you. I wouldn't put it past him to start a witch hunt for me."
I shrug. "I guess he didn't feel it was necessary to."
"I've not really told anyone about it." He pauses for a second. "Do you know Dora?"
"Nana's flatmate, yeah."
"Well, we were really close... and the line got a bit blurry," he says slowly. "I ended up hurting him. I didn't intend to; things just... happened."
I feel my eyes go wide. "What... did you do?"
"I didn't do anything Dora didn't want me to. But Nana is acting like I... forced myself on him." Andrei rolls his eyes. "God, I must sound like a monster right now."
I shake my head. "No, I don't think so."
"I miss him so much... Nana thinks he was just another notch on my bedpost, but he wasn't." A deep sadness glazes Andrei's eyes. "And Nana is one to talk."
"What do you mean?"
Andrei raises his eyebrows. "Before he even knew about anything between Dora and me, he... umm I shouldn't say."
Worry overcomes me. "You've started now; you need to finish."
He bites down on his lip. "He made a pretty graphic pass at me. Out in the alley behind the bar."
I can't imagine Nana doing something like that, and although I have no reason to believe anything Andrei says, I find myself asking anyway. "Why would he..."
"I don't know. He was kind of horrible about it when I rebuffed him."
I can feel myself slowly ripping Nana from the pedestal I'd put him on, and the colour is draining from my face.
"Maki, he was obviously distressed at the time," Andrei says, probably noticing my sudden change in complexion. "It was very unlike him to do something like that. I don't know why he's been acting different lately but trust me, he's not really like that. To be honest, he's not been himself for months."
And I know why.
"Don't judge him for it." Andrei's tone has changed considerably as if he realises he's destroying me. "I think there's something else going on there. I'd hate that -"
"When was it? That he did that in the alley, I mean."
Andrei thinks for a second. "I think it was a few days after Ichi's birthday."
Was it the night Nana turned up at my flat?
I'm going to be sick.
This is a losing game, isn't it?
Andrei and I stay in the bar until the early hours, drinking and lamenting together, occasionally going out for a cigarette.
I feel like I shouldn't judge him for something he did when he was feeling so helpless, but I can't help but think of him differently now. I'm angry at him for being so reckless and being in love with someone who isn't me.
It's nearly two a.m by the time I roll into my dorm.
"You're back late!" Tamaki says with a wide grin. "You dirty stop-out."
I say nothing as I sit on his bed, pull my boots off and throw them down.
"I didn't think you'd stay so late at Nana's."
"I wasn't at Nana's," I retort.
Tamaki's eyes lose their playfulness. "But... the dumplings..."
"Oh, I was at Nana's. But I didn't stay there."
Confusion masks Tamaki's face. "Why not?"
"Because Ichiro turned up and I left, that's why not."
Tamaki potters over and sits next to me. "But he sounded so excited to be seeing you... why did you leave?"
I finally lose the temper I've been on the verge of losing all evening. "Because Nana's fucking in love with the guy and I haven't got a chance in hell!" I grit my teeth. "Every time I start to think that there is something between Nana and me, Ichiro always appears, just in time to remind me that I'm wasting my damn energy."
"But I thought --"
"Well, enough thinking because I can't cope with being run through the mill every five minutes, so I am officially done."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, I am done. I no longer have feelings for Nana."
"Maki, you can't just... end your friendship with him because he has feelings for someone else. He'll be gutted."
"Well, I'm already gutted. I need to get over Nana somehow, and maybe some space will help."
"I really thought he liked you," Tamaki sighs. "Really. But is that a good enough reason to dump him?"
I leave him shortly after. I'm in no mood to talk. I know Tamaki is right, and I'm a brat, but I can't help feeling this way. My phone vibrates, and I check it in the vain hope that Nana hasn't forgotten I exist.
My heart falls as I see it's not a text from him.
- Did you get home safely? X Andrei
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