Should have done something but I'm hurting with you
Should have let you know what I needed to hear from you
Perhaps we could have written this ending this time.
He had never sung in front of so many people before.
Not on a stage like this, where polite applause floated through the hazy air of the lounge. Not in a place like this, where strangers and friends hung upon his every word. Not alone like this, where the one listener he ever needed was missing.
He just wanted to be left alone long enough to breathe, to find himself again when he felt like he was drowning amongst them. But the presence of his friends drew him out from his shell, and somehow, they could make him feel more alive, their vitality sparking his own, their energy and boundless enthusiasm erasing a little of the hard jadedness that he wore.
Sometimes he felt like everything was changing too fast and he was locked outside. Sometimes he felt like he couldn't fit in, couldn't breathe, couldn't keep up, too slow for the casual subtleties that slid and rippled through every movement and word of the other boys.
Untouchable by change.
There was just so much that he couldn't bring himself to say.
And so he thought that he'd sing a song for them.
And if I can take back everything I said that I regret
And I would have said so much but for this emptiness
Take my hand, I'd jump with you this time.
It was a slow song. Beautiful and languid, like a summer rain, his voice dripped with the smoothness of honey and a casual bitterness. There wasn't anything that he would hold back from this one song. The one that he sang it for, wasn't there to listen to it.
He had wanted to dedicate the song to his team mates before he began, but the starting of the song came too soon, and the early delicate piano melody was a little too fragile to break with his words. There wasn't really anything much that he had to say anyway. He wanted to tell them all that they were the best team ever, that he was very proud of them, that he would be grateful for having their friendship for the brief, sunlit splendour of the past year.
But somehow, the words caught in his throat. And he stayed silent.
I would have been with you in this darkness
Never finding the heaven we both need if we hang alone
Raining blood, this pain is eternal.
Perhaps this time he wouldn't be so alone anymore, perhaps this time someone could look at him, really look at him with open eyes and see him for who he is, not who he pretends to be all the time. He needs someone to understand him so badly, that he hurts with the absence of someone he'd never known.
And he would take back everything he ever said to hurt him, and he'd hold him close this time, just to lessen the distance physically, even if the gaping hole between them remained unbridgeable. This time, each drop of blood would be treasured, not spurned in disgust as another crystal chandler of crimson wetness smashed into the powdered fragments of his once-beating heart.
This time, he wouldn't hit him and pretend that it was in jest, even though both knew that there was simply no way to lessen the pain that hurt them both, and yet couldn't pull away from. They hurt each other and made each other unhappy, their sadness disguised in the jester's masks. He did it to protect him, to save him from the same black insanity that he couldn't escape, but the smiling ocean of his eyes became a wide sea that his lover could never cross.
He still liked to think that there were times when they were happy together.
Wanting everything of each other and we never took the chance,
All the times we remained strong and walked alone
And killed ourselves little by little
There were so many things that they knew about each other, but Fuji couldn't help feeling like they had come to recognise the chinks and weakness of each other's armour, and none of the vulnerability inside. And he knew it was foolish, but he wanted to tell him.
More than anything, he wanted someone to know how much he had rotted away inside. How much he had died away inside of him, leaving only a shrivelled soul, and a playful cynicism to pass off as youthful idealism. There were so many things wrong with him that he felt like everything was so normal, and that was beginning to scare him.
He wanted just one person, just one person to understand that he wasn't who everyone else saw him to be. He just wanted somebody to understand that he couldn't be perfect for everyone.
The ugliness of his nature, the quirks of his personality, the negative and the unpleasant, everything bubbled to the surface. He showed them only to his lover, hurting him more with the passing of each day, because he couldn't see what was it that Fuji Syuusuke needed him to understand. He wanted to show him how imperfect his soul was, how he would destroy him and everyone else that came too close to him, how he hurt others and himself.
Because that drove everyone else away from him. There wasn't going to be anyone who would want to know the crippled soul inside, who would ever want to get to really know the darkness of his personality and the black insanity that sucked him in deeper, every time he turned inwards to himself for solace and help.
Can you understand this sickness you gave to me?
Betray me or love me, it causes one and the same pain to me
In the end I turn to myself.
In the beginning, he had tried to escape from the love that he offered to him. There didn't seem to be a point to pursuing a relationship with someone, when your heart told you from the start that you were never going to reach the end of it. He could only hurt those that loved him the deepest, and he didn't want to lose his friendship over it.
But he had persisted, and in his determination and the same relentless fervour, had won Fuji over, till he had believed that it could be possible for them to be together. It had been wonderful for the longest time, till Fuji had let his guard down and held his heart out.
He had never experienced anything like that whirlwind of love, intense and tender, and everything that he had ever longed for, were embodied within the same person that held him and promised to love him for the rest of eternity. It had been so wonderful for that period of time, and then things started changing.
Everyone that loved him left eventually. Fuji just didn't expect to feel so betrayed when the same had happened this time. He didn't understand how much he had gave up until the day it happened, and he knew that he was going away. He would have left everything and gone with him, he would have thrown everything he owned away, just to be with him.
But he didn't ask.
He didn't ask Fuji to leave with him. He didn't tell Fuji until he had the ticket safely in hand, he didn't do anything, say anything that could have led Fuji to leave together with him. He thought about everything that would affect Fuji, how his grades would suffer, how the tennis team would suffer, he thought about everything that would hurt Fuji, except for how his departure would devastate Fuji entirely.
Fuji had smiled and wished him a safe journey, feeling his heart breaking inside of him.
Blinded by how much I hurt when you didn't seem to want me
When you denied me when I wanted to give you everything of me
I couldn't see why you hurt inside as well.
It was just one flight. A departure to a place half a world away, for a brief period. And Fuji found that he couldn't seem to forget it. He was an utter wreck, when he first left, and even Kikumaru had commented that Fuji didn't seem to smile as often as he used to. Fuji had been shocked, registering in his mind for the first time, all the little ways in which he had broken down.
And then, he was terrified.
He didn't want to return to the past passion and utter devastation, because then he would only want to give everything of himself, into the hands of another. And if he had spurned him, Fuji would break entirely. All the king's men couldn't put him together again, and Fuji found himself wanting, and fearing, the power that he could have over him.
Fuji didn't want to give anyone that kind of power over him, but he was willing to try.
Somehow, the distance between them remained unbridgeable after his initial departure, and Fuji found that they couldn't return to what they had before. Perhaps they could have, if he had continued to love him with the same all-consuming passion that made him blind to everything else.
Let your shifting colours flee from this glass prism I've become
I'd never meant to lock you within myself
Until we couldn't recognise ourselves any longer.
When he had returned, it was to a different lover than he had originally remembered. The earlier warmth and affection was still present, but the sincerity of the earlier dazzling smiles had vanished. Fuji didn't really understand why he chose to break them apart in that way, he found himself poisoning their relationship slowly and steadily, breaking them apart and he couldn't even comprehend why.
He just wanted to be loved completely, and not just for the perfection that he bled behind.
His lover didn't seem to be able to understand how much Fuji wanted him to tear down the walls that continually separated them. He didn't seem to know how much Fuji wanted to break down in front of him, desperate and desolate for the embrace of a kindred soul to hold him. To Fuji's utter frustration, all his lover remembered were the past days when they had been blind to anything but each other, and there was nothing but the laughter, and the passion, and the love.
But there came a point where even love wasn't going to be enough, because Fuji knew that he would wind up hurting himself, and that would hurt his lover even more than anything else. He couldn't leave and he couldn't go to him, and he was trapped in a dilemma that broke his heart nearly every day when he met his eyes, and saw nothing but the anger and the confusion.
He had not wanted to drag down his lover with him, but that had to be done to gain a complete understanding. He was utterly terrified that he would be rejected, that he would mock him, would spurn him, and leave him even more alone than ever before. He didn't want to lose his lover, but he would lose him if he persisted in making them both unhappy in this way.
At least it would be of his own making in that fashion.
It wearied him to the point that he had broached the subject finally, one day. Utterly tired and stretched to the point of breaking, his pretence faltering and growing weaker with each day. If he couldn't understand him, couldn't see what Fuji desperately needed him to, there was no point in being together any longer.
Fuji didn't want to lie to him. So he told him that he simply couldn't take it any longer and that they were making each other unhappy.
His lover had not disagreed with him.
Goodbye to you, my beautiful friend,
Let me hold you this one last time.
At last, the drum beats faded gradually, dying with the ending of the final piano chords. Fuji was breathing hard as his fingers curved around the microphone stand, his shirt exposing his pale, sweat-streaked neck, the sweat blinding his vision till the lights merged.
There was nothing but silence from the audience, nothing but blessed silence. Fuji didn't think that he could deal with it at that moment. It was meant to be a liberating moment, when he broke free from his lover of all this time, and yet all he could see was how much they each lost.
Fuji's eyes slid shut as he forced himself to smile again.
His eyes slid shut as he smiled; a beautiful curve of his lips. No one saw that it never really touched his eyes. Or that it hurt him to see, to look at all the things that lay around him. He closed his eyes perpetually, so he wouldn't have to force himself to face the ugliness that whispered their nightmares to him through the day. He didn't want to see any of the good either, because it reminded him too strongly of what he longed for, burned for, would have died for, but would never possess.
He smiled till it hurt, his outward euphoria concealing how he felt like he was dying inside.
Can you love me in the way that I need you to, Tezuka…?