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“You want to be left behind, though. That way, no one bears witness to what you’ve become.”
- Heather Havrilesky
They find the Beach by tracing their steps from Before. The place they met, street fights they’d had, meeting spots from before and after they’d been willing to call them dates. It had been Aguni’s suggestion, one Takeru teased him for initially.
He loved to tell Aguni, “The past is the past. We have new memories to make now. A decade of change in Tokyo, what’s one more?”
After their first two games, Takeru was more easily won over. Ten years of memories turned out to be their only form of escape.
Aguni first takes them to the place they met—some Kabukichō dive-bar where all Takeru had been was a stunningly charismatic man surrounded by a cloud of smoke and laughing companions.
“I don’t remember this place,” Takeru says, fingers dancing deftly over bottles until he lands on some top-shelf whiskey. A satisfied hum escapes his lips, and Aguni fights the urge to drag that sound out with his teeth.
“You wouldn’t. You were working.”
“So I was high.”
“And I didn’t approach you until you left.”
“You mean you just glared at me from a distance? How unlike you.” Takeru, laughing affectionately, pours them both a drink before settling into the booth with the his arm thrown over Aguni’s shoulders.
Aguni presses his lips in a firm line. He takes a sip. Shrugs.“Your client was taking you home. She didn’t have money for the cab, so I paid.”
“Paid the driver to tail me,” Takeru amends, unprompted. Chuckling, he finishes his drink and pours another, hissing around the heat all the while. “Saved my ass when the husband and his friends showed up. Mori-chan,” he sing-songs. “Romantic from the start.”
Aguni knocks his head against Takeru’s. “Pretend you don’t love it.”
“I love you,” Takeru murmurs, and kisses Aguni until the whiskey’s burn is gone.
They make a brief, impulsive detour to that old client’s condo—now completely abandoned and embarrassingly easy to break into—and fuck without urgency, gentle enough to contrast their last time here, when Takeru would have been beaten to death by street thugs had Aguni not stepped in. At the time, he’d told Takeru he was only passing and couldn’t stand to see such a helpless senior of his die over a woman. The truth, now, is so much easier.
I wanted you so much, Aguni thinks. Lying on his back, he looks up at Takeru and tangles his fingers in his loose hair. I didn’t understand in what way, but I had to have you.
Takeru knows this without words. He has since the start, since he let Aguni drag him home and treat his wounds.
“Together at the end of the world. I’m glad you saved me, Mori-chan, even for this Hell. We can survive this world together. We can make it better together.”
Takeru becomes more certain of this idea as time passes.
People die. This is a constant across both worlds. People die, and Aguni and Takeru do not. They take notice of the other ones who don’t, though, those whose paths cross theirs more than once, and they discuss possible alliances over dinners. They stop sleeping at Hat-Danma and take an apartment they’d always wanted but could never afford to move into together. They rest, and they play the games, and they live.
They were never overtly affectionate Before, partially out of necessity and partially because Aguni never has been one for public displays, but now he finds himself reaching for Takeru often, tacitly asking for connection in a world so fractured. Survival was easy Before, but their love was not. Takeru says this world is the opposite.
One day, Takeru takes Aguni to the theater where he confessed to him. They had seen The Grandmaster together, and stayed until everyone else was gone. Takeru had quoted it afterwards, “‘I had considered a career in opera years ago, I had received training. I had thought about it a lot: me on stage performing, and you in the audience watching…’” He said it very loudly, but without a response, repeated it quietly.
“I don’t know the next line,” Aguni had whispered. “I don’t know what to say.” He looked straight ahead at the blank screen. He stared until his vision blurred.
“‘What if your performance had sold out?’”
“‘What if your performance had sold out?’,” Aguni tried.
“‘I would have reserved a seat specifically for you.’”
Aguni had decided, then, if love meant showing up, he could do that without hesitation.
Now the theater is empty, but traces of blood prove it had once been a game arena. Aguni sweeps for bodies before he settles in. Takeru performs poetry and soliloquies and scenes from movies they've seen together. Aguni sits until Takeru exhausts himself, and then he simply drags Takeru into his lap and kisses him until they’re both breathless. They do this again, and again.
Eventually, other people start to attend.
It doesn’t bother Aguni at first. He loves Takeru enough to think he deserves attention, deserves a crowd. He misses his ability to give himself over as applause, but reserves that for home, instead. It doesn’t bother Aguni until Takeru runs out of other people’s words and then supplements with his own. He praises freedom in their new world, and encourages every attendee to stand and make a declaration of will. Takeru drinks in their devotion, gets high off their worship, lives for their adoration, and Aguni realizes he may no longer be enough.
He decides they both need a vacation. From the games, from the stimulation of the new crowd of living, breathing survivors—just warm bodies on their way to becoming corpses. He doesn’t say this. Instead, Aguni pulls Takeru into bed.
“Hey, Takeru.”
“Mn?” Takeru traces Aguni’s scars with his fingertips, sometimes his blunt nails. Aguni closes his eyes to let himself feel it completely, and smiles when Takeru laughs at him.
Takeru kisses his nose and says, "You’re just a big cat.”
Nodding, Aguni opens his eyes and throws himself onto Takeru’s chest, effectively crushing him against the mattress. Takeru lets out an exaggerated groan, and then makes a play at pushing Aguni off, a feat he could easily achieve if he truly wanted to. Aguni wraps his arms around Takeru’s ribs so that his hands are trapped between Takeru’s back and the bed. He knows his hands will go numb. He makes no plans to move.
“If you fall asleep, we’ll miss tonight’s meeting.”
Aguni sighs heavily against Takeru’s skin and proposes, "We have visas good for a week. Let’s go somewhere.”
“The others will be so lost," Takeru contends.
Aguni lifts his head and cocks it to the side. He can’t tell if it’s a joke or not, so he simply replies, “They’ll be fine for a few days. I already have a place in mind.”
Before, Aguni had scraped together money from every kill and every deal with the Yakuza, and then every paycheck with the SDF, just to afford a weekend away. Now they can pack up and go without any money to their names.
Seaside Paradise Tokyo is Aguni’s first and only choice. He loves to swim, and he likes to see Takeru in a bathing suit, and he can't think of a single negative while he lies against Takeru's body and listens to his heartbeat.
Takeru misses the crowds. Aguni can tell, and he ignores it. It's easier to pretend they're both living in the moment, even if it's only Aguni who's mixing cocktails and playing pool and raiding the resort kitchen. Takeru makes them a few special meals and always goes to Aguni when asked, but his mind wanders.
A few days into their vacation, Aguni discovers why.
They're enjoying the sun; Aguni is in the pool, pressed to the corner, while Takeru leans over the side to kiss him. Everything is warm. Almost quiet, even. Aguni reaches out a hand to cradle Takeru’s face, drawing him closer. Until a wolf whistle startles Aguni nearly to the other side of the pool.
Heart racing, Aguni searches for a weapon and decides he's gotten too comfortable when he realizes it's been left far out of reach. He looks to Takeru, expecting to see mirrored eyes of panic—getting caught would have been a death sentence in Aguni’s old line of work—but Takeru is grinning.
"I'm glad you could all make it!"
Aguni turns.
Members of Takeru's audience have arrived, dressed in vacation wear and hauling suitcases. Aguni recognizes all of them, but only a few by name: Kuzuryu, an early member of the group; and Ann, who Aguni truly respects since he suspects she isn’t a Hatter fan like the others. Behind her follows a group regular, Mira. Her long black hair is immaculate, sharp, just like her features. She fits their new world more than anyone he's ever met, and it worries him.
Still, she's not the worst of them. No single member is. They all are; Takeru’s collective of groupies and zealots and freeloaders and criminals from another life. Aguni hates them.
"Why are they here?" He hisses, pulling himself out of the pool.
Takeru clasps his shoulder. "Don't worry. I invited them."
" What ?"
Smiling still, Takeru waves to the group with his free hand. "Just give me a moment. Make yourselves comfortable!" To Aguni, he says nothing, just pushes gently on his shoulder and beckons him inside the resort.
Aguni is silent. His chest is so tight he curls one of his fists just to cure the tension. Something is wrong. Something is so wrong.
"Why would you do this?"
Takeru lights up at the question. “I will create a utopia here. For those who have fallen into despair.” Takeru spreads his arm wide, god-like even in the shadows, “If we don't have hope, we just need to make some!” He turns, and brings his arms up again, addressing Aguni. “This will be the land of hope.”
Aguni can feel his lip tremble. He shakes his head to hide it, and swallows before disagreeing; a fight is the last thing he wants. “That's impossible.”
Takeru clasps him on the shoulders. “We can do it. Together.”
Aguni neither likes nor believes it, but he accepts that idea. He adopts a role that keeps him in Takeru’s world. Together, and with the help of Takeru’s captive audience, they gather gasoline, purify rainwater, and create strong alliances. Each game makes their community larger.
Recruitment is simple: track the most desirable players, assess their game prowess, and invite them to the Beach. The resort becomes a sort of exclusive party, a club for the best of the best. The winners, the collectors.
Aguni’s role is security. This, he can do. He falls back into his SPF persona and keeps his real self locked away. That's the only time he gets to touch Takeru anymore, too; it's the Before within the After, the secrets behind closed doors, the post-life threatening danger that keeps them together.
Until, one day, it isn't.
“Here come your groupies,” Aguni sneers, pushing off of his chair to stand. Takeru takes his wrist in a vice grip, and it’s all Aguni can do to not drag him into his arms and scream at him to stop.
“Don’t be unkind,” Takeru chastises quietly. “They just want to show their appreciation for their boss.”
The word makes Aguni sick, though not as much as the girls who come to drape themselves over Takeru. He accepts them with a broad smile and open arms, caressing their skin and whispering sweet nothings into their ears. It’s nothing Aguni hasn’t had to see before; until he took over the hat shop, Takeru continued working as an escort, and Aguni had accepted it as a condition of their relationship.
This display makes his skin crawl.
Candy-colored nails make their way across Aguni’s vision. Another bikini-clad woman wraps her arms around Aguni’s shoulders, resting them across his chest. Setting his jaw, Aguni rips her hands away. Her false sighs of disappointment quickly turn to giggles of glee as Takeru offers his shoulders to massage instead. Takeru raises a chorus of sighs and praise all in all in the short time it takes Aguni to walk out of the lobby.
When Aguni returns, knuckles broken open, bloody and bruised and filled with bits of plaster, Takeru and the women are no longer in the lobby. There is a room key on the table, and Aguni picks it up as his stomach drops. He should go back to his own room on the second floor. His finger even hovers over the correct floor button before pressing 3 instead. He steps inside, hands crossed in front of his chest, and stands rigid in the center of the elevator. Though he wants to fall against the side, he waits for the doors to slide open to move.
Takeru's room isn't far from the elevator, although the walk feels endless. Aguni exhales with each step. He watches his hand, disconnected from himself, as it lifts the key card and pushes open the door.
“You’re late, you’re late.” Takeru wags his finger, shrugging. “Junko and Shinju left. And I won’t be sharing Eri.”
The woman—Eri—grins lavishly from her place in bed. Her back is to the door, and the smile over her shoulder is both eerie and lascivious, a warning for Aguni and a beckoning of Takeru.
Aguni shakes his head. “I didn’t want—I don’t—”
“Oh, he’s shy.” Eri’s voice drips with pity.
“Mori-chan is just tired,” Takeru lies.
Lips curling into a snarl, Aguni kicks over one of the room's chairs. Bile burns in his throat. Next goes the drink cart, and then a table, until he's breathing hard and standing on broken glass.
"Do you feel big now, Mori-chan?" Takeru blinks slowly.
"I'm feeling something big," Eri coos, and Aguni shoves his hands deep in his pockets to keep from throwing one of the few intact bottles at her head.
Takeru smirks, eyes locked with Aguni’s even while his fingers untie Eri’s top. There’s a coldness there that keeps Aguni frozen in place. He tells himself to move, but he watches Takeru kiss her neck. He tells himself to move, but he watches Takeru pull her hips forward, spread his hand on her abdomen, bite at her thigh. He tells himself to move, and it is only when Takeru’s gaze falls away that he can.
Aguni doesn’t see it, but he knows the sound when Takeru presses his tongue inside the woman. He hears her words falter, her voice shaking almost as hard as the walls as he slams the door to the hotel room behind him.
Takeru returns hours later. Aguni doesn't know how many. Doesn't want to. It's dark, at least, so he doesn't have to see Takeru as he disrobes and slides in next to him.
“Get out of bed. You smell like her.”
“And you sound like a wife,” Takeru shoots back, the insult half-muffled against his pillow.
Aguni doesn’t take the bait—he’s disinterested in playing more games than he has to. He can smell the liquor, the sex. There’s no use talking until Takeru is closer to sober. So, Aguni pushes Takeru out of his space and off the bed instead, only rolling back over to his own side once he hears the satisfying thud that is Takeru hitting the floor.
Takeru crawls back in. He's laughing, and it makes Aguni’s stomach burn. He slaps away the hand Takeru reaches out.
"Don't."
"Oh, please. You're being so dramatic. It was some pussy. After all these years? Jealousy doesn't suit you."
More bait. Aguni forces his eyes closed. "Fuck off, Takeru."
"Make me, Mori-chan."
Takeru's voice has a whine behind it that Aguni knows so, so well. And Aguni knows that sound’s purpose—bait of another kind, an equally familiar but much more enticing kind. Aguni has always had a short temper, and Takeru had learned to exploit that early on when he wanted something.
And Aguni always lets him get away with it.
Takeru, breath hot in Aguni’s ear, speaks urgently. "I can tell you about her if you want. How wet she got for me. Imagine, how much I used to charge for the things she asked me to do to her. But I have everything I want now, what good would the money be? Right, Mori-ch—"
He's silenced by Aguni's hand around his throat, pressing firmly.
Takeru's smirk could cut glass. His hand travels slowly up Aguni’s forearm before folding around the hand Aguni has at his neck. He squeezes.
"Harder. Like you mean it."
So Aguni does. He chokes Takeru until he moans and struggles against the hold, and then kisses him until he tastes blood.
Takeru tears at Aguni’s shirt, hissing gratefully when he finally reaches skin. Grunting, Aguni pins Takeru’s hands down.
"Don't touch me."
Chest heaving, Takeru lifts his chin to expose his bruised neck. "Like you mean it," he repeats quietly.
Aguni ignores it when Takeru’s voice breaks.
He flips Takeru over, dragging his hips high enough that Takeru has to balance on his forearms. He leaves him there, doubled over and panting, as he reaches in the nightstand for a bottle of lube. After that, however, his hands don't leave Takeru’s body.
He's rough with him, rougher than he'd usually be without talking it over first. He fucks Takeru until his legs shake, nails digging into Takeru’s hip bones, teeth in his shoulder. He fucks Takeru until Takeru comes, and then keeps going. When Takeru buckles, Aguni hooks his arm around his navel to keep him upright. He wants Takeru overstimulated, wants him begging and writhing and holding back tears, and he gets it. He finishes almost solely from the sounds Takeru makes after that.
Things feel almost normal for a moment, then. Aguni allows Takeru to collapse before falling beside him. They breathe together, harshly in the quiet of their suite despite the party raging downstairs. It might as well be after a job, or a hard day at work, or one of the early games. Aguni feels like he belongs to Takeru and Takeru belongs to him, and it's that simple.
Lying face to face, Aguni traces Takeru’s features in the dark; each line around his mouth, the sharpness of his cheekbones. His eyes are open, unfocused, but flutter closed as Aguni reaches forward and runs his fingers through his hair. It’s more intimate than they’ve been in weeks.
He brings his hand from Takeru’s hair, down his jaw, and settles against his neck. There’s a bruise there that will be worse tomorrow. Aguni wonders how honest Takeru will be about its origin.
Before, he’d had his choice of excuses. A client, her husband—again—, a bar fight, drunkenness, judo. No one had ever expected they were Arguni’s marks, even after the first time they’d negotiated something so rough Aguni had turned Takeru’s body into a minefield of bruises and abrasions. Aguni remembers now what it was like to be with Takeru in that way, with the clearest communication and vulnerability, and swallows around the tightness in his throat.
Takeru opens his mouth to speak, and Aguni bristles. Those times are long gone.
"Don't,” Aguni begs.
But Takeru shakes his head. "Kiss me. Please."
Brow furrowed, Aguni leans forward, but hesitates when he’s only a breath away. Takeru opens his eyes. He blinks, swallows, and presses his mouth into a forced smile.
“Please,” Takeru repeats. Urges. “Please.”
Aguni holds Takeru’s face in his hands and kisses him as if it could fix anything. As if it’s anything like their first kiss—hurried and foolish and soft in the back room of Hat-Danma—or Takeru is even worthy of this. Aguni kisses him like nothing is broken, and when he pulls away, the illusion is shattered. Everything falls away and they are left like this: two men so close they’ve lost sight of each other.
When the morning comes, Takeru is still in Aguni’s bed, but it's cold. So Aguni leaves. He moves his belongings in two trips, taking a smaller room in the far corner of the resort. He destroys every key to that room but one.
Takeru doesn't look for him. They only see each other for necessary occasions: Beach meetings and games. Endless games. They rarely speak.
The next time Aguni touches Takeru, it starts with gunfire.
And it's the last.