He was skeptical at first but he came to believe the man otherwise after looking through official documents and such to prove he wasn’t lying. He learned his name was Matsumoto Jun, he was in his 20’s, and the man who he was holding so tight onto this morning was his best friend, Ninomiya Kazunari. He learned from him that he was in some type of accident a long time ago, which caused him to lose all of his memories and even the ones he had made a few days before. To prove it, the man handed him an old purple notebook and soon he found himself so engrossed in it.

“So I called you Nino?” He asked him as he continued to read the entries, “Well, it does seem likely because your name is long.”

“Hey, that’s not nice,” Nino pouted before handing him a purple notebook. “And I found this in your bedroom. I think you were writing on this last night…”

Discarding the older notebook aside, he grabbed the one from Nino’s hand and saw it was in a much better condition than the other one. The other one seemed to have been with him since he was probably a child because his writing was different compared to the one in the new one.

As he read the first entry, the only entry that was in this notebook, it only mentioned him and Nino moving into a new apartment together. Looking up from the notebook, it did look like they had just moved in because they were empty boxes besides the entrance archway. Though there were still piles of small boxes besides the couch he was sitting on.

“So you and I… we moved here because I supposedly asked for your help?” He asked him as he continued to read the entry.

“Yup,” Nino grinned before heading to the kitchen. “Want something to eat?” He didn’t respond but the latter was already behind the windowed wall.

As he continued to read on, all it mentioned was how he bumped into a hyper tall man and doctor boyfriend at the grocery store. The names of those two weren’t mentioned in the following lines, but it didn’t matter since he didn’t know them anyways. Then he read that the doctor had told him he had a worse case of amnesia and that the journal he was holding right now was given by him. He assumed that this man had given him the same journal a long time ago.

He thought that the entry would be finished by the next page, however it didn’t. He flipped so many pages in the notebook, counting them off until he was sure there were about 5 pages of explanation. It was too much to read for him in just a day, learning that these have happened to him when clearly he couldn’t remember. Just as he was about to toss it aside, 2 words in the page caught his eyes: accidental .

To his horror, he read that after moving in to this new apartment, he and Nino had a house-warming party to just the two of them and had gotten drunk from many bottles of wine. Unable to believe it, he stood from the couch, went to the kitchen to look for the wine bottles in the trash and the recycle bin; neither of them had any empty bottles. He read on, taking a seat Nino had offered him and he couldn’t contain the feeling of disgust in his body anymore. Tossing the notebook aside, the rest of the words forgotten, he stood up, causing the chair to slide back and his hands grabbing the collar of Nino’s shirt.

“Is that why you made us move in?” He fumed, “To have with me while I‘m so vulnerable?”

Nino shook his head as pain shot across his face, “No… I swear J, I wasn’t on planning for that to happen... I-it was just a drunken mistake. We even talked about it last night…”

He calmed down a little after hearing what he had said. Letting go of his collars, he retreated back to what Nino told him was his room, and laid on the well-made bed. As he laid there, staring at the ceiling, guilt crept to his heart and he didn’t know the reason why. Instead of finding out the reason, his hands shot up and he stared at it. Images of Nino pained face from earlier flashed in his mind, and he couldn’t stop them from coming. As if his mind was being read, the door to the bedroom opened with a loud creak of the hinges.

“J…“ Nino called to him in such a soft voice that caused a pain to stir inside of him. “Do you want breakfast?” He didn’t answer and just continued to stare guiltily at his hands.

“…I’ll just order then. I’ll be--”

“Eggs,” He cut him off, his eyes still watching his hands with guilt, “With bagel, and bacon. Make it edible.”

“Anything for J,” Nino mumbled before closing the door and leaving him alone again. Just now, he heard joy in Nino’s voice though it seemed like Nino was trying to hide it. Because of that, his lips curved into a small smile by themselves…

Ever since that day, Jun never talked about it, and didn‘t bother to ask Nino for forgiveness of his behavior. The next day, he was woken up by Nino saying how they needed groceries if they wanted to live. Soon, he and Nino stood in front of a row of junk food and the like.

“Ah, not that,” Jun sighed, trying his best not hide the irritation in his voice, “I don’t like that.”

Nino turned to face him, a pout on his face. “But the J I know loves this. You haven’t even tried it.”

Grabbing the bag of chips from his hand, it looked like it was something teenagers would eat albeit having such high calories. However, his hand threw the bag of chips inside of the basket by itself. The image on the front of the chips looked disgusting that he was about to take it back but his hand was taken by Nino and was again dragged to another aisle. For whatever reason, his cheeks were starting to burn up as his eyes went to the back of Nino’s head.

“Oh! We should get wasabi so when we eat sushi some other time, we can have a contest,” Nino mumbled to himself before grabbing a small box and putting it on the basket Jun was holding.

“And soy sauce… vinegar…and-- J?

Jun blinked as Nino whirled around and his face was just five inches away from him. His friend was staring at him with such huge eyes that Jun could see how red his cheeks were in them.

“J, are you ok? Are you sick?” Nino asked as the hand he was using to look for needed things was pressed to his forehead. Jun jumped back at the sudden touch, his cheeks burning up even more.

“Oh no,” Nino mumbled, “I think you’re sick. Shall we go home for today?”

Jun shook his head. “Uh no… I’m ok. Let’s just…”

“Are you sure?” Nino asked him worriedly.

He nodded his head before Nino walked to his side, finally noticing that his hand was still being held by him. Despite it being so moist and warm, Jun’s hand worked by themselves and tightened his fingers around Nino’s. He looked down when Nino was busy taking care of things and also noticed how long his fingers were, and how chubby they were. Jun marveled at it for a while until he felt Nino tug him forwards.

“J, should we get fish? Maybe some meat?” Nino asked him, oblivious that he was still staring at their hands. “Well, I’ll go grab some. Stay here?” Jun immediately refused, saying he wanted to go with him to pick them out. With a small smile on his face, Nino once again dragged him.

Jun was amazed by it all, how big this area was in the supermarket compared to the produce area he and Nino went to earlier. He’s never seen so much fishes like this, not that he did before because he couldn’t remember, and even live fishes, crabs and lobsters in a tank besides a man cleaning behind the counter. Amidst his amazement, besides him he heard Nino let out a small laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Jun scrunched his eyebrows together in confusion

“It’s nothing,” Nino grinned, obviously trying to hide his laughter, “Wanna pick the fishes? Or I’ll do it?”

Jun pondered about it for a minute thinking how he didn’t want to let go of Nino’s hand because of something like this. However, he felt Nino’s hand pull away and the latter was already picking out the fishes. Jun stared at his hand, a bit saddened at the fact that the warmth was leaving it.

“J, help me out a little would you?” Nino called for him, his head snapping up from his dazed thoughts. Putting the basket down, he ran towards Nino and held onto the plastic so the fish can be inserted inside. Once it was tightly tied and was in the basket he was now holding, Nino was about to tell him something when a tanned man came from behind Nino, smiled, and tapped his friend on the shoulder.

“Oh-chan!” Nino gasped, “So this is where you work?”

“Yup,” the tanned man grinned sheepishly before bowing towards him. “So is this ‘J’?”

Nino turned around with a bright smile on his face that Jun hadn’t seen before. Just seeing it made something inside of his stir weirdly.

“Yup! And I’m only allowed to call him J, Oh-chan. You can call him anything you like but I can only call him J. And J,” Nino grabbed his arm and was forced to be by his side, “This is Ohno Satoshi, by the way. I was meant to introduce you guys back then, but I kept forgetting.”

“It’s very… nice to meet you…” Jun gritted his teeth angrily as he bowed and stood straight to his feet. Just now, Jun thought to himself, why was I angry?

“Well it’s nice to meet you, Jun-kun,” Ohno bowed before throwing another smile towards Nino, “If you guys don’t mind, I’ll go back to work now.”

“Ah, so sorry,” Nino bowed apologetically a few times before tending back to the fishes. “I guess I’ll see you again next week?”

“Next week,” Ohno grinned before he walked off and disappeared behind the doors leading to the back.

While Nino was still busy with the fishes, he just stared at those doors angrily, his hands turning into fists. However, he felt warm hands touch his hand, and he loosened by only a little.

“Shall we go?” Nino smiled unlike the smile he had given Ohno.

Taking one last look at the doors, Jun grabbed Nino’s hand without saying anything and headed to the cashiers. As long as they can get out of the supermarket as fast as possible, the better to stop himself from wanting to punch Ohno on the face.

TBC