a thousand times i wanted to take his hand, and a thousand times i stopped myself.

[protential]

[Hikaru exhales like he's been holding his breath, far and deep underwater, with no hope of reaching the surface--until the call connects and he's breathing air again.] Hey, [he says--no, he's gasping--and it's the thickest, most insistent hello he's ever managed. He can't seem to keep the sounds to himself; they're falling right out of his mouth.] Hey, Akira! Hey, I know it's pretty loud, but I'm trying to be louder...! [It is Akira, right? Hikaru didn't fuck it up, right? Behind him, all around him, the aural beats of EDM with the bass turned up too high make him feel like his chest is about to cave in any minute. It's an anxious sort of feeling when he's already feeling anxious about whether or not he dialed Akira correctly. The corner of the house he's crouched in is the quietest place he could find all night, and by some miracle it wasn't taken by a couple of annoying-ass partygoers more interested in sucking each other's faces off...

There's a can of beer on the floor, though, already open, probably half-finished, and he reaches for it and picks it up anyway. Since he has no idea how much he already had tonight, he isn't going to start keeping track of it now. But before he takes a sip:]

Now's not a bad time, is it? I just thought--thought I'd be calling you, see how you're... doing, or how you did, you know, with all those fuckin'... exams, you told me about?

[Why he has to hear Akira's results now, right now, right this second, he can't even begin to guess for himself. He just has to know how bad or how good things went, maybe as part of his attempts to be more, like... caring, or some stupid shit... god, this beer is too warm for him, but he's swallowing it anyway.]

Comments

[ashlar]

[Akira regrets saying answering the phone. He regrets hefting his hand onto his phone, squinting at its glaring caller ID, and accepting the call. He definitely regrets saying hello, as turbid and encumbered as his voice sounds. Hello, he says, practically moans, wincing into the thick of it—and the phone rewards him with splitting pain. Akira can't be sure what he's hearing, at first, just maybe someone's voice at the forefront of a swollen, throbbing clamor. He wrenches the phone away from his ear, wincing, and an inconvenienced whimper peeps out of his tense throat. He's pausing to gather himself, taking a breath, acknowledging his headache, before he settles the phone to his ear once again.]

What? [he says at last, and it's all he can think to say, its creak just barely too tired to be mystified. He takes in a breath between his teeth, squinting into his dim bedroom, and his free hand rises to press fingertips against his forehead.] Hikaru. A bad time? It's after 1.

[It wouldn't have been unusual for Akira to still be awake. Probably more usual than not, in fact. But after school, today, Akira had felt his fortitude fall finer and more finely into dust. He was asleep by 8:30 in the evening, and he's been a brick in bed since then. Having five hours of sleep behind him might have made it possible for the ringer of his phone, which was sitting next to his head, to jerk him into consciousness. Or, semi-consciousness, at the very least.

But Hikaru is too garbled for it to be a byproduct of Akira's exhausted haze. He's hazy on his own merits, sounding like soda, like boiling sugar, brimming over and painful for it. The headache it's causing is going to last for hours, most likely.] I... [...he doesn't even know where to start. Pretty loud, yes, it is, and why is that? A bad time, Hikaru wants to know if it's bad, and Akira isn't alert enough to appreciate his own bewilderment. On top of that, Hikaru is asking about his exams, the ones Akira told him about. The ones that ended today.] I didn't realize you were keeping track of my school schedule. [He's cringing too badly to sound dry.

His breath comes out sounding smothered, since he's rubbing his hand over his face, trying to jar himself free of murky sleep. The more he wakes up, the angrier he's going to be about having to wake up. He's getting tighter when he asks,] Where are you right now? You're yelling. [And, in yelling, he's been thinking about calling Akira, to see how he's doing. Akira feels so hopeless that he rubs his eyes to the point of seeing stars.]