I donât believe in god but I believe that youâre my savior
Despite the lateness of the hour, there are still lights on in your apartment when Sanemi slips through the door. The small light in the kitchen, the fairy lights woven through the wrought iron of your bed frame.
He finds you in bed, fast asleep, no doubt too tired after the uptick in business at the store. Still, youâd thoight to leave the lights on for him in the event he came by.
If he wasnât so damn tired, heâd melt right there.
No one else ever had done that, before. As a kid, Sanemi often came home to that empty dumpster of his fatherâs to find the electricity had been cut, Kyogo having wasted his earnings on cheap company and cheaper booze.
Youâve turned your apartment into a home he can come back to; a place where he can go, and know someone will be waiting for him. Someone will leave a light on.
He cannot yet join you, not before he does his routine sweep of your apartment. Not before he knows both he â and you â are safe, for now.
Silent as a ghost, Sanemi checks for danger. He assesses every shadowy corner, peers behind every closet door and curtain. He moves through your apartment with methodical precision, his hand always braced at his hip.
He ends with your windows, pressing himself flat against the wall to peer out at the latch on each. He studies the line of pebbles heâs planted there, scrutinizing. Searching for any sign of disturbance or fingerprints in the dust, anything that signals someone may have been lurking who shouldnât have been.
All is clear. He can finally join you; can finally relax.
Not once do you move as he undresses; shoes off first, and then his belt. He can only hope itâs because you know itâs him. That somehow, in your sleep, you still heard the rattle of keys in your door, or that you recognize his presence without having to open your eyes. He canât bring himself write it off as obliviousness; that may very well put him in his grave.
Nor do you move when he traces his knuckle down the outward curve of your cheek, lighter than a feather. Secretly, heâs glad you donât; it gives him the chance to sit and wonder just how the fuck he managed to find you â an angel â even though this City was already burning in hell.
Only one god mattered to someone like him, and that was death. He didnât have much time for, or really any care in, the others. Actually, if anyone were to ask him even a year or two ago, he wouldâve been fairly confident that no god existed.
That was before, though. Before he knew his savior was a girl working at a rundown bookstore, tucked back into a forgotten corner of a lonely street. Before heâd laid with heaven, and tasted the paradise on her lips and between her thighs.
That was all before heâd known salvation wasnât waiting for him beyond the grave; it was between your arms, with your fingers combing lovingly through his hair whenever he laid on your couch.
