DISCLAIMER: This fic has very heavy themes of depression, suicide, and death, so please, please be careful reading.
Chapter 1
If he had to tell, Gakupo Kamui probably wouldn't be able to say for certain when it had first started. Sometime between high school and college he'd lost something. Little by little, piece by piece, like a jigsaw puzzle being pushed slowly off a table. It had to have been during his internship the fall semester before his spring graduation that he finally realized what it was.
Color.
He was an art student – not any art student, either. One with an original style, with "talent" and "potential" and the "drive" to make his passion his career. He was blinding in comparison to his classmates, beloved by his mentors.
Now the thought only brought a bitter smile and half-empty bottle to his lips.
"Potential my ass." He let his head fall back, long hair falling over the arm of the couch and pooling on the floor. Once it had been a silken violet, now it seemed as dull a gray as his eyes and the ceiling they bore listlessly into.
"Artist's block," they said. "Paint every day and it will pass."
Gakupo snickered. "As long as they keep making money…" The last drop of liquor touched his tongue, and he let the bottle fall to the floor. If it broke, he didn't hear it; he could only hope it had. In truth, he was envious. How easy it was to be a bottle, drained of your contents and dropped, shattering into a million glittering shards and disappearing from the world. Is that what I've become…? Too tired to sleep and too restless to walk, the man sat up. His heart stuttered for a moment as he imagined it – falling. Falling and falling and hitting… hitting what? The pavement? Rocks? Water? All of those options sound better than this.
He put his head in his hand, unable to stop the trembling that came over his body. His other hand fumbled in his pocket until finally a pack of cigarettes was produced. He shook the box until one slid free, taking it between his lips and dropping the rest of the box on the coffee table. Unlike his hair, the coffee table looked to be meticulously kept. Only four things rested upon it. Cigarettes, a lighter, an ashtray, and his next bottle of liquor. His fingers found the lighter and with a practiced ease he lit the cigarette in his mouth. The first drag was as sweet as ever, soothing his nerves even as the fire dancing before his eyes brought his heart-rate up again.
How hard would it be to drop this right now…? He gripped the lighter more tightly in his shaking fingers, releasing the switch and watching with an ache that resembled disappointment as the fire vanished before his eyes. It would cause too much trouble for the landlord if I let this apartment catch fire, after all.
It was a nice enough studio apartment with a loft and large windows. At one point in time, Gakupo could vaguely remember falling in love with the place, exclaiming something hopelessly childish about the great view of the nearby park and using the loft as his painting space. The only thing darker than the curtains on the windows, though, were the ones thrown haphazardly over all of the paintings in his home. And yet, like the coffee table, the floors and shelves and appliances were impeccably cleaned. After working so hard to keep up the appearance of the place, Gakupo decided that even more than not wanting to cause the landlord trouble by burning it down, he really couldn't stand the thought of the soot and ashes piling up on every flat surface like dust.
Somewhere in the apartment, his phone rang.
Gakupo couldn't remember the last time he'd seen the device; he knew by the ringtone that it was his old workplace calling again. And again.
"Don't throw your future away – All you have is art – You're at the lead of the next generation of greats – We'll give you another chance."
"I don't want it." He snuffed the butt of the cigarette out in the ashtray and immediately reached for another. Then what do you want?
Gakupo realized quite suddenly that he didn't have an answer for himself. The voice, jaded and bitter in the back of his mind, took advantage, sweeping on in a low, urgent tone. You're just a coward, aren't you? You got lucky with the apartment, using that commission to pay your entire lease worth of rent off in advance. But what about when that lease ends? Will you paint again? It scoffed. As if you could. You can't pick up a paint brush and you can't pick up a gun. So what can you do?
The bottle came back to front of his mind. Hollow – falling – broken.
If I don't do something soon, Gakupo realized bleakly, I won't do anything at all. I'll suffer like this, and keep suffering. I'll answer the phone and I'll hate myself more and more with every gray smudge I force onto canvas and… Ashes fell, forgotten, from the end of his cigarette. I want to die.
Gakupo lurched to his feet. He hardly felt the broken glass beneath him as he staggered to the bathroom. He thought about death so often, so vividly. Cars and trains and the ocean and knives… Everything he saw seemed a means to an end. But he had never realized – or perhaps had been too scared to realize – why. He splashed water on his face and pulled his hair back into a sloppy ponytail.
I want to end this.
A ghost of a smile haunted his lips as he pulled on his shoes.
I want to die.
His keys jingled as he thrust them into his pocket.
I want this gray world to disappear forever.
Every step brought a sharper pain and scathing resolve to Gakupo.
But where? How? His pace slowed as he deliberated. He decided quite quickly that the city wouldn't do. He didn't want his battle—no matter the victory he achieved as an outcome—to become a spectacle. This was something he had to do alone.
That old bridge. Gakupo could have hummed he was so pleased. It stretched high above a river on an old hiking trail not far from the city. He could easily walk there with the daylight he had left, and it only made sense in his faltering mind that he would die at night, with darkness and cold gunmetal moonlight to hide his end from sight. Before he knew it, Gakupo was running. His lungs burned and his chest ached but he wouldn't slow. He couldn't.
He was gasping for breath when he reached the hiking trails, desperation and nearly crippling fear pushing him faster – farther – die.
The setting sun flickered between the gaps in the trees. It should have been a beautiful sight; it was autumn. Leaves would be changing colors, decorating the mountain forests with blazes of brilliant color. But Gakupo couldn't see any of it. He could almost taste the frigid water crashing over him, feel its chill settling in his throbbing throat and airways. Almost there…!
He staggered out of the trees shaking, his chest heaving in equal parts panic and elation. He could see the small canyon, the old wooden bridge. Almost…
Then he saw it.
Just a flash, the smallest of flickers, like an ember in the smoldering bed of charcoal sunlight.
Yellow.