The guilt that’s pounding through his veins is insane. Joel’s just about crying as he navigates his way down to Seiko’s apartment, swiping angrily at tears that have threatened to form in the corners of his eyes. He knows he fucked up — god, he’s paying for it, at any rate. It’s insane, how one person can make fifteen years just fade away. (When he remembers that, he nearly vomits.) He can’t help but feel like the Devil as he digs round for her key with shaking hands.
Slowly, he unlocks the door and steps inside. He has to bring his eyes down to his scuffed-up Docs, biting his lip in order not to cry, not to fucking cry as he lets a quiet sigh drift from his lips. “Sei?” His voice is hoarse and gravelly as he cards his fingers through brightly-coloured hair. “Sei, please. Fuck — um, I know that I missed New Years and I know I-I was with someone else. But, um,” his voice begins to falter, like he’s about to break down. “I love you, okay? Seiko Shinohara, I love you. You’re my favourite person ever, you know that, right? This —” He gestures a hand at the space in front of him (it’s meant to represent his night with Jack, but there’s no clear representation of it besides the hickeys that litter his skin under his shirt) as he talks. “I’d fuckin’ — I’d lose it if you told me to fuck off permanently.” With that, he’s stepping forwards, still not daring to move his forest optics away from the toes of his boots.
When Jack left, Seiko went right back to crying her eyes out against her pillow. She'd taken some Tylenol, but it wasn't even slightly helping. Now, she lay in her bed, staring at the ceiling, tears pouring down blotchy cheeks, her cell phone beside her head, and the small dolls of her and Joel in her hands. She could remember making the damned things--Joel had a pair too--they were small and crocheted and worthless, but it'd meant something at the time. She'd been eleven or twelve when she'd made them, and she was fairly certain Joel still had his, but, maybe he'd burned them at the New Years party he went to. She glanced at the door when it open, and immediately Joel started rambling and Seiko started full-on sobbing again, curling up in a small ball and clutching the dolls to her chest.
She listened carefully, calling bullshit on being his favorite person because--no. No. She wasn't, and she knew it. Jack was, now. She might've been before, but now that Jack could kiss him and fuck him and stick his tongue in his mouth, Seiko might as well have been chopped liver all along. She couldn't kiss him or fuck him or stick her tongue in his mouth and that was sad, so terribly sad, and Seiko had never wished to be straight more than she wished it right now so that she could stay his favorite person. No longer, nope, now she was second best. Maybe not even that. Maybe Joel'd met a different Japanese girl at the party and he was here to tell her to fuck off permanently because the new Japanese girl was prettier and cuter and more understanding and less reactive and Seiko wanted to hang herself. She buried her face in her pillow, trying to remember how to breathe instead of sob.
