Archive of Our Own ^beta

It was darker than usual, he thought when he saw the only lighthouse near the bus stop with too dim a light, it was strange but there was nothing he could do about it. He shook off the frost off the metal stool at the stop and sat down.

The chilly night wind blew on the back of his neck, causing his skin to crawl at the light touch. He adjusted his blue waterproof jacket - the only shelter he had from the cold. He had forgotten his gloves and scarf at home, silly knowing it was winter season -, and he made sure the collar of the jacket covered his chin. He rubbed his hands trying to warm them a bit but gave up as they felt icier and icier, leaving as the last option to sink them into his pants pockets.

Rintarou carefully looked around. 

The stop was deserted, common at night and in a small town. He hardly ever saw someone who was there at that time, he was always alone. It was something routine, something common in Suna Rintarou's boring life.

He sighed exhaustedly. The day had passed normal, part-time working on the konbini and the rest trying to focus on his college life. It was routine, common but strenuous.

He was never one of those who tried too hard, it wasn't his style, he just did what he could. That is why it was a surprise for everyone, family and friends when he declared that he wanted to study gastronomy and open a restaurant.

The surprise combined with some teasing were the first reactions he received but that did not change his mind at any time, he was strangely determined. His parents, a bit reluctant at first, decided to support his decision by realizing the confidence with which Rintarou spoke about it.

Although no one asked the reasons for his sudden insanity - as his friends used to tell him - if he was honest, it was not something he longed for himself, he felt it a bit alien to his own tastes but he had the feeling that he should do it - and not he had regrets.

The fluttering of a white butterfly distracted him from his thoughts. It was beautiful but a bad omen. He knew that the presence of the insect could mean the death of someone close and, if you were lucky, it could bring you fortune. He saw it fly around the light from the streetlight when it blinked a few times before going off, leaving the place in gloom, taking away any trace of the butterfly, too.

It had to be a bad joke, in the dark and freezing to death. He just wanted to get to his small apartment, eat something from the refrigerator and go to sleep among the pile of unstressed blankets that were waiting in his bed ... 

Suddenly, stabbing pain was present in his head along with a strong burning in his throat. Everything was spinning around him. His neck itched and the bitter taste of bile spread in his mouth. He tried to get up from the bench but fell to his knees on the sidewalk.

"Hey, Sunarin." A faint voice echoed in the silence of the night. “You already forgot me?”

Rintarou's breathing quickened upon hearing those words. The air was leaking from his lungs but all he could think of was a name and a face, both fuzzy like mist, with the intention of not being remembered. 

“Sunarin, it's me—”

He was not able to distinguish the last words of the stranger - it was as if a bubble had silenced that part -, still he tried to answer but the pain in his chest and throat did not allow it. He rested both hands on the ground - inhaled, exhaled, inhaled, exhaled - and slowly raised his face in search of who was speaking to him. 

He saw it. A man walking steadily in his direction. Rintarou managed to distinguish, the closer he got, that his hair was grey and that he was wearing a black coat. He didn't know him, he had no idea who he was but he looked so familiar that his mind became confused and his head hurt more. 

The last thing he felt, before fainting from the pain, was the warmth of arms that hugged him firmly accompanied by some incomprehensible babbling.

"Come back, Rintarou, come back to me."

He woke up agitated and disoriented, with sweat running down every part of his body and a couple of tears rolling down his cheeks. 

He was no longer at the bus stop - he was not drowning from shortness of breath and the pain in his head was gone - but he was in the comfort of his small apartment, wrapped in the warmth of his sheets.

So that was it. 

He wiped the sweat from his face with the back of one of his hands and went to the bathroom where he drenched his head with cool water.

A dream.

Or a nightmare.

Both were valid, both made his nights unbearable. Was there a difference?

Suna Rintarou had been dealing with this for 3 years. Those dreams that were a copy of reality, indistinguishable in every way, made to remain locked in his imagination unconsciously.

The only thing that always repeated - the pattern that he remembered only when he was awake - was the unknown subject with hair like the fur of a grey fox, the nightscape where the cold was never absent, and white butterflies.

Sometimes he cried when she saw the stranger between dreams and so many others, Suna was able to throw himself into those arms that sheltered him before waking up from his reverie. And, for some reason, each encounter felt like deja vu, something like lost memories trying to surface again.

It sounded like a movie, he thought, admiring the dark circles under his eyes and the paleness of his skin, he looked sick as if that physical discomfort of the dream was reflected in his current emaciated state.

He went back to his room. The alarm clock read 4 AM, he still had 2 hours to rest before leaving his home. However, he was not able to get back to sleep. The hazy memories of his nightmare kept him thinking.

Who was this stranger? Why did every dream feel like a memory? Did they mean something? Why did those white butterflies appear? Was death chasing him?

Questions and more questions crowded in, but he couldn't formulate a coherent answer to any of them.

"This is going to fry my brain," he said, his gaze fixed on the ceiling. “If I could only get a damn second of rest from all this, things would be easier.”

He closed his eyes, hoping to go back to sleep without the need to go through those visions. Although, maybe he just wanted to meet that grey-haired boy again.

He needed to know who he was that man and why he was looking for him.

"Sunarin." The sound of his name was pleasant coming from Osamu's lips. His head was in the boy's lap allowing him to stroke his hair with ease.

"Samu," he answered almost in a whisper. 

"Do you know the myth of the white butterfly?"

“No.”

"They say that white butterflies are the spirit of the person who loved ya to death and that they are reborn to protect ya for the rest of yer life, even if they have been forgotten."

"Do you believe in that?" He asked mockingly. He didn't get an instant response, but the pause in Osamu's caresses was a sign that it wasn't what he expected. “Hey.” He turned on himself trying to be face to face with his lover. “I mean– It's weird that you talk about something like that, it's not your style.”

"Can be," he agrees with a hesitant smile, "but it's 'Tsumu fault. That jerk was talking ‘bout it all night and I couldn't forget it." Suna laughs.

"Well," Suna cleared his throat and with a malicious smirked continued speaking, "if you want, we can go later to tease him with salty food as a revenge for not letting you had a peaceful sleep"

"'Kay, sounds good,” Osamu muttered and then looked directly into Suna's eyes, “but before I need ya to be honest. " Osamu turns serious. "Would ya forget me if I disappear in our next life?"

Suna blinked, surprised, "What does that mean?"

"It means what it means, Rin"

He sighed. "I hate you, you know?" Osamu nodded, ignoring the teasing tone in Rintarou’s voice, he just wanted an answer. Suna rolled his eyes but spoke anyway. "It's impossible that I could forget you. Of course, you would live in my mind, even if the world tries to separate our ways I'm going to remember you, for the rest of my whole damn life, it’s a promise. Are you happy now?"

"Mmh, too much sappy coming from ya"

"But do you like it"

Osamu kissed Rintarou's lips one time, then he kissed his chin, his cheeks, his nose and his forehead. All of them innocent tokens of his love for him.

"What was that?"

"A promise. My way of showing ya that you live in my heart." Suna blushed.

"You win, you're the sappiest between the two of us." 

They both laughed at the extremely romantic things they had said, it was something too direct, unusual for them. However, one last show of affection would not hurt.

"Sunarin, I love you," Osamu said while hugging Suna.

"Me too," he replied.

The intense pain woke Suna up again but this time with the memory of that grey-haired man.

Osamu.

"Osamu," Rintarou pronounced slowly trying to assimilate it to a face and trying to recall the sensation that sound produced in him but his mind was clouding little by little, pushing that piece of the name into the depths of his thoughts. 

The sudden forgetfulness of the words just spoken disturbed him. “Who is he? Who is he?" but he simply wasn’t able to say that name again, and although he could hear it on the tip of his tongue, nothing left his lips.

Frustration won out against him, giving in to the idea of knowing who the stranger was.

He grabbed the sheets and pulled them against his face, trying to stifle the sobs that escaped as he stammered apologies as if waiting for someone to hear him. "I want to remember you, I really want but I can't. Sorry, I'm sorry" Rintarou allowed himself to cry completely trying to put aside the suffocating pain in his empty heart.

Their souls were made to be reborn but not created to be reunited. Yet they managed to find each other in each of their new lives.

They had experienced all kinds of suffering and happiness throughout those centuries of death-rebirth. No matter what or who tried to get in their way, they always found a way to meet again, even if that was against what fate dictated.

So they deserved punishment, something that separated the magnetism of their souls and the desire of their hearts.

Thus fate made a decision, condemning the existence of both to final death. They both resisted, trying to fight against the forces of the universe but that was an impossible task to accomplish.

Separated and with the flames of their lives about to be extinguished, Osamu made a request. He begged for them to preserve Rintarou's life, offering his own soul to exile from eternal oblivion in exchange for forgiving the existence of his beloved.

A desperate but determined request.

And fate thought it a good idea, to be condemned with the weight of living knowing that no one would be aware of his presence in the universe, not even his loved one.

Suna Rintarou broke his promise but Osamu's memories were captured in the corners of her memories creating suffering and bewilderment in the chaos of her mind.

Miya Osamu was forgotten, being forced to contemplate, unable to help, Rintarou's pain behind the shape of a white butterfly - just like that story he heard in one of his many lives.

Both were condemned for loving each other because fate was selfish and perfectionist, 'cause if something was not written in their plans, it had no reason to be

There was only hope that, at some point, the forgotten memory of what they once had would return.

Perhaps, one day, the void in their hearts would stop hurting.