The surgery was over.
Arthur Rimbaud lay pale as death beneath the oxygen mask, unconscious for three full days.
Asou Akiya had removed the thick scarf and heavy overcoat from the long-haired man, changed him into a loose hospital gown, and wrapped every visible wound in clean white bandages. Beneath the faint, labored rise and fall of his chest, the mist of each breath fogged the inside of the mask. His frame was long and elegantly proportioned; even the shapeless gown could not hide the near-translucent beauty of his skin.
When Asou finally measured him against his own height, he discovered—with a mixture of surprise and quiet satisfaction—that Rimbaud stood three centimeters taller: Asou at one hundred eighty-two, Rimbaud at one hundred eighty-five.
Unexpected, yet entirely reasonable. Europeans, on average, did run taller than Asians.
On the hospital bed, Rimbaud's lips trembled as though he were freezing. Asou hunted down the remote and nudged the air-conditioning up another five degrees. Only then did the instinctive shivering ease.
The price was that Asou himself soon grew parched, throat burning as he gulped down glass after glass of water.
The room had reached a sweltering thirty degrees Celsius.
He slipped out to the nearest convenience store, bought an electric hot-water bottle, charged it fully, and tucked it beneath the blankets. Rimbaud's expression softened at once—like a pampered French cat finally granted the sun-warmed cushion it deserved. The proud, delicate body curled instinctively toward the heat, and the faint crease between his brows smoothed away.
Outside the door, the nurses watched in hushed fascination. The black-haired young man was clearly, helplessly in love with his partner. He had taken leave from work these past days to sit at the bedside of someone who might never wake again—moistening cracked lips with damp cotton, washing face and torso with gentle hands, helping with the bedpan and catheter when necessary. Not even the most dedicated private nurse could match the tenderness Asou Akiya poured into every small task.
To doctors and nurses alike, he explained that the patient's name was "Randou," an innocent civilian caught in the explosion. He had been living in the Settlement but had stepped outside the blast radius because he was coming to meet Asou—thus escaping the worst of the lethal shockwave.
The young nurse slipped away without a sound, returned to the attending physician, and reported in a whisper, "It really is his lover."
Tears welled in her eyes. "He's so beautiful—why does he have to like men?"
The surgeon—who had personally led the operation at Asou's desperate request—muttered without thinking, "He's that beautiful—why would he ever like women?"
The nurse's heart shattered all over again.
The nurse yanked a scalpel from her pocket with alarming speed. "Doctor, what did you just say?"
The surgeon snapped his mouth shut.
Even the nurses in the Port Mafia were terrifying when provoked.
Once she had stalked off, the surgeon decided against filing any official report. Other hospitals were already overflowing with similar cases from the blast, and he muttered to himself, "If they're lovers, he's not some random outsider. No point making extra work for everyone."
For three days Yokohama burned with chaos. The Settlement lay in ruins, the public convinced a missile strike had obliterated half the district. Crowds marched through the streets in mourning and fury, weeping for relatives and friends lost beneath the rubble.
Meanwhile.
The newly born human vessel of Arahabaki which was still only a few days old in the ways of the world was taken in by a ragged band of street children who had made the bombed-out fringes their home.
The orange-haired boy wore a permanent expression of bewildered emptiness. He had no idea how to be human; the only memory he possessed was the endless black void where he had once been sealed. Fortunately, the other orphans unanimously decided his blank confusion was simply trauma from the explosion.
They dressed him in whatever cast-off clothes they could scavenge. His skin was porcelain-pale, his features soft and heartbreakingly lovely; anyone would believe he had once been the pampered son of a wealthy Settlement merchant.
An older boy noticed the delicate silver pendant around his neck and squinted at the Japanese characters engraved on it. "Hey… isn't that a name? Nakahara Chuuya?"
The orange-haired child stared down at the pendant without comprehension.
It was the only token he carried, the sole proof that he had ever belonged to anyone.
The orphans clustered around him, chattering all at once.
"He finally has a name!"
"Great, now we can take him to the police—they might find his family."
"Though honestly his parents probably died in the blast…"
"Shh, don't say that out loud! We've all lost our homes!"
There was no doubt about it.
No mother or father would ever walk into a police station to claim Nakahara Chuuya.
The only man in the world who could ever have claimed the title of father to Nakahara Chuuya was, at that very moment, seated beside the child's mother.
Outside, the city reeled in panic and grief, yet none of it reached Asou Akiya. The French beauty who had lain unconscious for three days finally stirred. Those clouded eyes opened, gray-green and unfocused, drifting like twin peridots lost on a fog-shrouded sea, searching for an anchor that simply wasn't there, reflecting only the sterile walls and the quiet desperation of the hospital room.
Even a man once feared across continents as an unstoppable force, betrayed and abandoned in a foreign land, could be reduced to this: no stronger in spirit than any terminal patient staring death in the face. This had to be the most fragile, helpless moment of Arthur Rimbaud's entire existence.
"You're awake."
Asou Akiya's fingers tightened instinctively, closing around Rimbaud's cool, slender right hand.
In a voice raw and cracked from disuse, Rimbaud asked in French, "Who are you?"
Asou answered without missing a beat, soft and steady, "It's me, Akiya."
"A…kiya…?" The name felt alien on Rimbaud's tongue, the face attached to it a complete stranger, and yet the stranger was holding his hand with unmistakable tenderness—the very first presence he had sensed upon waking.
His head throbbed mercilessly; memories refused to surface. Dazed, he glanced downward.
On his left ring finger gleamed a band identical to the one on the stranger's hand.
What was this?
A couple's ring?
Asou Akiya gently eased him upright, sliding their fingers together in a deliberate clasp that allowed no escape. Somewhere in the haze, Rimbaud dimly recalled a voice that had never left his bedside, murmuring to him through endless fevered nights, tending to him when he could not even open his eyes. This person, then, could be trusted.
He lifted his gaze and met Asou Akiya's eyes—and in that instant understood, with a clarity that cut through the fog, that the emotion burning there was raw, undisguised love.
Confusion crashed over him like a wave. Rimbaud pressed a trembling hand to his forehead, unable even to summon his own name.
Who am I?
Who is he? How did I end up waking up in a hospital?
A subtle smile curved in the depths of Asou Akiya's heart as he coaxed the man before him with gentle words. "My dear, how is your body feeling?"
The fruits of all those hours spent mastering French revealed their worth in this precise moment — otherwise, like any other traverser, he would have been utterly helpless to communicate with an amnesiac Arthur Rimbaud, who instinctively reverted to his native tongue.
The concern in Asou Akiya's voice eased the rising tide of panic in Rimbaud's chest, and he confessed his plight in a fragile whisper. "Every part of me aches, especially my head. I'm sorry — I can't remember who you are."
Asou Akiya held his gaze without a single flicker, the intensity making Rimbaud squirm with unease until he guiltily averted his eyes. He became acutely aware of the black-haired young man's arm half-supporting, half-embracing his shoulders, and his body went rigid. A sharp throb lanced through his skull; his skin prickled as though tiny insects were crawling across it, nipping lightly at every nerve.
If this stranger had truly cared for him over the past few days, then… physical closeness would be natural, wouldn't it? Clinging to that thought, Rimbaud convinced himself and struggled to piece together what catastrophe had befallen him.
After a while, a nurse entered the room to change the IV drip. Seeing the patient awake filled her with delight. "You're finally up! Asou-kun took so many days off just to look after you."
Her hands moved with practiced efficiency as she hooked up a fresh bag of nutrient solution. The man's body was perilously weak after days without solid food.
"Asou-kun, the doctor has to run checks first before you can feed your lover anything."
Those words landed like a perfect assist in a heated match.
Rimbaud had been puzzling over why he could understand this foreign language so effortlessly when the term "lover" slammed into his mind and short-circuited every thought.
In a hazy flash, a pair of sapphire-blue eyes seemed to shimmer before him — yet in cruel reality, all he saw were Asou Akiya's dark, worried gaze fixed upon his face.
Once the nurse had gone, sweat beaded in Rimbaud's palms, and a faint tremor ran through his limbs. He murmured in lost confusion, "I can't remember anything. How could this happen…"
Asou Akiya reached out and stroked his hair with exquisite care, then patted his back in slow, soothing rhythms. In truth, ever since rescuing him, Asou Akiya had been struck anew by just how youthfully, breathtakingly beautiful the man was.
Worthy, indeed, of being one of France's most iconic literary giants.
In the world of ability users, the younger they are, the more terrifyingly powerful they tend to be, and Arthur Rimbaud had once been the perfect embodiment of that rule.
Finally accepting the cruel truth of his amnesia, Rimbaud looked up at Asou Akiya with sorrowful, melancholy eyes and asked the question that hung heaviest in the quiet room.
"Who… am I?"
"You are a romantic French poet, Randou."
"A poet?"
"Yes," Asou Akiya answered softly, letting the words settle like a promise. "And you are also the love of my life."
The beautiful Frenchman froze, breath caught somewhere between wonder and disbelief.
Asou Akiya reached for the black felt hat he had rescued from the rubble and laid it gently on the blanket between them.
Rimbaud's fingers brushed the brim, tracing the fine stitching until they found the embroidered name hidden inside the lining. He read the French letters aloud, voice faint with confusion. "It says… Rimbaud…"
Asou Akiya tilted his head with a playful smile. "I'm Japanese. I like calling you Randou. It feels closer, more intimate."
A helpless, fragile smile tugged at Rimbaud's lips despite himself, drawn out by the gentle teasing.
"The pronunciation is close enough, anyway."
Thank goodness, at least language and letters had not abandoned him.
With the tension in the room finally easing, Asou Akiya leaned forward and wrapped his arms around Rimbaud in a careful, almost reverent embrace, mindful of every bandage and bruise. Normally Rimbaud wore layers upon layers of heavy wool and leather, but beneath the thin cotton hospital gown his body felt startlingly warm and alive—lean waist, toned muscle softened by days of immobility, yet still carrying the elegant strength of someone who had trained for years.
Rimbaud did not pull away.
"Thank God's mercy you came through unscathed — I nearly lost my mind waiting for you to pull through after I got you to the hospital." Asou Akiya had shaved away the stubble that had grown during those endless nights of vigil, yet the exhaustion etched into his features remained all too plain.
Rimbaud yielded to the moment and returned the embrace, instinctively brushing kisses against both of Asou Akiya's cheeks.
"I'm all right."
No sooner had the gesture ended than Rimbaud froze, a fragment of memory surfacing like a half-remembered dream: an intimate partner, a man — a lover? He accepted the inclination without resistance, letting it settle as naturally as breath.
Nothing unusual about it. The French had never made a fuss over such matters.
Asou Akiya, too, found himself startled by the initiative, a thrill racing through him — had he just stolen Verlaine's privileges?
Lowering his gaze, Asou Akiya murmured, "Randou, my full name is Asou Akiya. We're in Yokohama, Japan. As for your memories, I'll walk beside you every step of the way until we uncover your past."
Rimbaud listened in silence, and the knot of dread in his chest slowly unraveled.
Trust bloomed quietly in his eyes.
In a voice soft as a caress, Asou Akiya asked, "Do you want to rest here in the hospital a while longer, or come home with me?"
The man who could scarcely recall his own name had already grown accustomed to hearing "Randou" fall from Asou Akiya's lips. Fresh from amnesia's grip, Randou recoiled from the hospital's sterile chill and answered without a second thought. "I'll go with you."
The romantic lilt of French spilled from his mouth, faint with weakness yet utterly captivating.
"I hate the smell in here."
"Akiya."
Asou Akiya knew Randou for the sort who belonged in grand estates, scattering gold without a care — and he would empty his pockets gladly just to see that beauty smile.
"As long as you don't mind," Asou Akiya murmured, pressing a kiss to each of Rimbaud's cheeks in gentle reciprocation — it would be rude, after all, not to return the gesture.
The attending surgeon, now something of an acquaintance after everything, completed the final examination and declared that Randou could recover at home without issue, provided they returned regularly for anti-inflammatory medication and fresh bandages.
Afterward, Asou Akiya fetched the winter clothes he had bought ahead of time and helped Randou change into them. Randou sat on the edge of the bed, cheeks faintly flushed, his long hair spilling loose over his shoulders and carrying a faint greasiness that clearly bothered him. Asou Akiya leaned close to his ear and whispered, as though reading his thoughts, "It doesn't smell bad at all. I'll wash your hair properly once we're home."
You said that out loud!
Randou turned his head away sharply, insisting on standing without assistance.
Asou Akiya supported him anyway. Randou limped along the corridor, teeth clenched against the pain, yet the moment they stepped into the elevator he sagged against Asou Akiya's side, breathing hard. When another person entered, however, he straightened at once, pride forcing his spine rigid.
A man caught between the longing to lean on someone and the fierce need to stand alone.
Utterly endearing.
He's almost mine to take home!
Asou Akiya's heart surged and dipped like a storm-tossed sea; he fought to keep the excitement from his face and simply gazed at Randou — this blank, innocent slate — with helpless affection. If it had been Dazai Osamu who lost his memories… well, he would probably have cut and run.
A creature of black mud* would remain black mud even without a past.
*{Note: In Chinese internet fandom slang, "黑泥" (lit. "black mud") is a common metaphor for a character who is deeply toxic, self-loathing, depressive, nihilistic, or emotionally "rotten" at their core.}
Asou Akiya's car waited downstairs. Black-suited Port Mafia members moved busily around the entrance, yet no one spared them a second glance as he guided Randou inside; on the surface, at least, nothing about them screamed lovers.
"Randou, I'm taking you home."
"…Mm."
Curled tightly against the chill despite clutching the electric hot-water bottle, Randou sat obediently in the passenger seat, looking for all the world like a fragile treasure finally carried to safety.
Warm air began to circulate through the car.
Randou's body gradually thawed; the stiffness melted from his bones, and he stole a glance at Asou Akiya, curiosity sparkling in his eyes — because beads of sweat had started to glisten on the other man's forehead.
Noticing the light spring clothing worn by passersby outside, then looking down at his own heavy winter coat, Randou understood at once.
He covered his mouth and let out a soft, delighted laugh.
Beyond the window, cherry blossom trees burst into fragrant bloom along the branches, as though this postwar era still held room for such tender beauty.
The proud Arthur Rimbaud had vanished from the world; in his place now lived a Randou who remembered nothing of his past.
Mission accomplished: beautiful, rich, elegant wife successfully whisked away.
In the privacy of his mind, Asou Akiya flashed a triumphant V-sign.
Thank you, Verlaine — I'm finally off the market!
—
Author's note:
Akiya top, Randou bottom.
In this story's setting, Randou is 19 after the Arahabaki incident — referencing the real-life Rimbaud and Verlaine splitting at 19.
Though Akiya thinks Randou will make the perfect wife… well, the historical Rimbaud did sleep with Verlaine, who was ten years older. Gaze skyward.
This wife's personality is ferocious — he's only like this because of the amnesia.
P.S. I went back and re-read the novel canon; confirmed Randou is Transcendent level.
…
Asou Akiya: I've decided to thank you every single time I feel happy. :)
Verlaine:…