The Edge of Equilibrium

Chapter 7: Unexpected Variable

As if hypnotized, Reiji finally pressed the doorbell.

Once. Only silence answered from behind the brown door marked 402.

He waited fifteen seconds, long enough for anyone to cross a room and reach the door, then pressed it again. Nothing. The faint buzz of the hallway's fluorescent light seemed to grow louder in his ears.

He let out a short breath. Statistically, the odds that Masato was out were high. It was still early evening, he was probably still at the station. Even so, Reiji raised his hand again, meaning to try the bell a third time, one last attempt before he gave up and went home.

But right before his finger touched the plastic button, a soft click sounded. The door swung inward.

Reiji froze.

Masato stood in the doorway, squinting against the hallway light. He looked like a mess. His hair stuck out in every direction, his eyes were bloodshot, dark circles hanging heavy beneath them. Forty-eight hours without sleep, written all over him, the price of poring over case files while wrestling with thoughts of someone who refused to leave his head.

He wasn't wearing a shirt, just a pair of gray sweatpants hanging low on his hips. Reiji had actually seen this before, back in college, when he'd occasionally crashed at Masato's place to work on assignments. But that had been years ago. Since then, they'd only ever met at the lab.

"Reiji?" Masato blinked slowly, his voice rough the way it always got when he'd smoked too much and slept too little. He leaned against the doorframe, clearly thrown to find a man in a neatly pressed shirt on his doorstep at this hour. "What's up?"

Reiji opened his mouth. He'd rehearsed a thousand different sentences on the way here. He could talk pendulum motion. He could talk fluid mechanics. Or... he could deliver a properly structured apology.

But no sound came out at all. His mind had gone blank. His eyes stayed locked on Masato's dark, bewildered eyes.

Watching the professor stand there, stiff as a wax figure, unable to string a sentence together, Masato felt a faint smile cross his face, tired but warm. He let out a quiet breath, stepped back, and pulled the door open wider.

"Come in. It's cold out there," Masato said, breaking the awkward silence.

Reiji stepped inside and pulled off his shoes at the genkan, the motion almost mechanical. It had been a long time since he'd last been here. Masato's apartment now looked nothing like it had back in college. The place was tidy now, sparse, only a handful of furniture.

The only mess was gathered on the low table in front of the sofa. Police files lay scattered about, a laptop glowed with the bluish light of an open document, and a glass ashtray sat overflowing with cigarette butts. The smell of tobacco hung in the air, mixed with something familiar, masculine, unmistakably him.

"Sit wherever, just not on my reports," Masato said easily. He ruffled his own hair and flashed that trademark crooked grin of his. "I'm gonna wash up and brush my teeth real quick. If you don't mind waiting."

Reiji only nodded. He took a seat at the end of the sofa, hands resting on his knees, back ramrod straight. His posture was so stiff he might as well have been sitting in a hospital waiting room instead of his best friend's living room.

The trickle of running water from the bathroom filled the silence. Reiji let his eyes wander the room, searching for some logical foothold, trying to bring his racing heart back down to a steady rate.