If I Could See Again (MxM)

Volume 1, If I Could See You Again by Takano Masamune Chapter 1: Hollow Eyed Man *** Solemly he stood there in the middle of his room, the TV was turned on a chanel playing music, his phone was ringing with notifications, his hands were shaking and his mouth busy smoking what seemed to be the 13th cigarette in the past half an hour... "Sometimes... it feels like I'm just filling my head with constant noise... just so I can drown out my own thoughts... and yet can still hear them..." The man mumbled under his breath, speaking to no one but himself. The room was filled with noise, outside his apartment was a construction site where all the more rukus was being raised. And then yet he still stood there unmoving, only his hand that made the constant repetitive movement back and forth from his mouth to the ashtray on the table that he always seemed to miss by just a few inches so that the ash that fell off his cigarette ended up on the table... There was a knock at the door. Once. Twice. Three Times... "LEAVE ME ALONE!" the man yelled, although he was unsure if the sound was truly coming from outside or from his own twisted brain. He'd reached a point where he had been isolated enough from the outside world where days seemed to blend together and words were becoming hard to form on his own with the constant lack of human interaction. Why would he do this to himself? No one was keeping him there against his will... He chose this... he despises the world outside these walls, he feels entraped into a reality unmatching what his capabilities are... "You f*****g bastard... you were never going to open the door. huh?!" The woman that entered seemed baffled by the sight. Her dearest friend was standing in the middle of the smoke filled room, the TV blasting, the window barely opened enough for the smoke to escape but enough for the constant noise from outside to enter. "You look... unwell, did you sleep at all?" The woman asked, she hurried to her friend but she felt like he had become someone quite different from the man she once knew. Yes, once this person was a sucessful student, an A++ on all assighments, a man of many talents, with precise surgically accurate knowlidge on various topics, amongst which where world wide finances, phylosophy, an athletic man who took care of himself nd his appearance. By all accounts he used to be the general idea of what 'sucess' looked like in modern days. He had a beautiful fiancee and a child on the way. A wedding that was lavishly planned and payed for completely by his own merrits, a steady job that offered him flexibility and pride in his work... everything a human could possibly want, it was in the grasp of this simple looking man... at least once it was... So what exactly changed that he was now nursing a single glass of what seemed to be tomato juice, his only sustinance outside the many cigarettes he has on the daily... It wasn't addiction that brought him to ruin, it wasn't heartbreak, and it wasn't even bad luck or loss... but the feeling of indifference that his life had reached a plato, a place of unhappiness amongst what others thought of as a perfect and enviable future that he held in his hands... "So it was real... you were calling out to me..." Finally he turned his gaze towards the woman that came into the room. However his eyes held no light, they held no passion... and no vision... That man was mostly blind, with small sparks of light reaching his hollowed out looking eyes. The barely slept man, looked exausthed and his clothes and hair were unkept, his beard needed a trim which he wasn't able to do on his own by any means... "Who else would it be vissiting you?" Angelica questioned at last, her long blond hair seemed to cover a scar that sat on the left side of her face. She was dressed in professional attire and her face seemed to be brimming with seriousness for her youthful age. "I don't know... someone..." The man sat down on the floor. "Soma... you... should let me help you." Angelica spoke in a slow manner. You could tell there was a certain amount of dissappointment mixed in with her obvious worry for her friend. She flipped her hair to the side and tied it up in a sideways ponytail, revealing her complicated expression, one her friend was absolutely unable to see. "I don't need any help!" The man shouted, this time significantly more arrogantly tan before, there was a small amount of obvious contempt within his phrase. "You think I can't do anything on my own now? You think I'm useless like everyone else, right? Of course you would... you depended on me just as much as everyone else... and now you're looking down at me, at my pathetc state, my pathetic unchangable state..." He spoke scornfully while his gaze fell downwards, the small spark he could see of light, the speck of it was the now almost extinguished ciggarrette that stood in his left hand... "Hey, listen to me... none of that is true. You're still the person I used to admire in University, so as long as you don't give up on yourself, I won't either." Angelica spoke with softness, with kindness, with care... all the things that at that moment Soma despised more than anything in the universe. He hated being treated kindly... it only served to remind him how powerless he was in the eyes of others, even those that once depended on him... "Just go... leave me alone... I don't want to be bothered at all..." Soma said as he crossed his arms, the cigarrete fell to the ground and the smoke from it dissipated quickly. Angelica tilted her head to the side, unable to understand what made her friend so incredibly skeptical about life itself. "I... I think you need someone to help you around the house... since... you know... I won't be here anymore." Angelica spoke in a softer voice after closing the window and stopping the TV in turn....