Yuki stared at the headstone before him. He traced his finfertips across the smooth, cool, marble, closing his eyes to shut out the desperate feeling of loss as his fingertips traced into the inscription on the grave. It gave a date of birth, and it gave a date of death, but it seemed to miss all the years in between. That little dash between those two dates...that was Shuichi's life. That little line was the timeline for a life that was ended before Shuichi could do what he wanted to do, succeed like he deserved to succeed, live like he wanted to live.
Shuichi's dash was his years in school, his band, all the time and energy and passion that he put into his lyrics. His dash was the years he spent pining after Yuki, the seven years they kept a relationship going...the last seven years of his 25-year-long life...Yuki let out a small scoff. 25 was too small a number...25 was how many cents made a quarter...25 was the number of minutes in which a person could change their life...25 was how many years Shuichi Shindou-Uesugi had to make an impact on the people he loved the most.
The young man's dash hadn't been wasted. He knew how to spend it...by loving someone unconditionally. Teardrops fell like rain from Yuki's eyes, they fell as Yuki struggled to figure out why the young man had meant so much to him. What was that 'click' that convinced him to let Shuichi move in? What was the 'click' that made him decide to take his lover on that date to Disneyland? What was the 'click' that made Yuki fall in love with someone even after vowing never to love anyone but Yuki Kitazawa; his first love; his first everything...what?
Can you forgive me again? I heard the words come out
I don't know what I said
But I didn't mean to hurt you
I felt that I would die
It hurt so much to hurt you
That simple word left the blonde author confused. Through the seven years he had been married to Shuichi, that click would end their fights...but what made them fight? Shuichi's temper, probably, right? Yuki sighed, laying a boquet of yellow and red flowers on the grass directly in front of the stone, a tear slipping off his chin as he crouched to look at his letter...the one he had copied...the one he copied so that Shuichi could always have it...and so he himself could remember pain, true pain of true love.
He sighed, the words seemed so useless...it came nowhere near the effect of what Shuichi's simple words had created, nothing near the tears he had shed for the pain his husband had endured...but nonetheless, Yuki shed a fresh tear with each new word on the paper.
Then you look at me I'd give anything now
You're not shouting anymore
You're silently broken
To kill those words for you
Shu-
I wanted to tell you...there's something I should have told you years ago when I first met you...I never could bring myself to say it to you when you were here, so now that you're gone, I guess you have a right to know. Yuki Kitazawa's memory was never the problem. I guess I should have admitted it as soon as I realized I was being unfair to you, I guess I shouldn't have held out on you for all these years.
The problem was that I was still hurting...betrayal is not something I can ever hope to get over...but being with you at least made me forget, if only for a moment, that the one I loved offered me to his friend like that. It never has been easy, you know, being in love with someone and not being able to say it. Your eyes always reminded me that I was in the present, not haunting myself in the past.
Each time I say something I regret I cry "I don't want to lose you."
But somehow I know that you will never leave me, yeah.
So I have to pause and thank you for helping to change my take on life. You helped me realize that Kitazawa-san was a completely different life, and I have to love and thank you for that. I just regret that it took me seven years to say just once that you were right. Right about most things actually.
You said that I was too stubborn to give up on the life I had before I met you...you said that life is not like the romance novels I clung so desperately to. Life to you was real, and honestly, I don't know why you spent so much time in trying to convince me that I was wrong in how I treated you. I already knew I was wrong, but it was so hard...so hard for me to give up my old ways..'Life's too short to waste on bitterness', you once said, and you're right there too.
Second time in a row...good roll, huh?
Now I should probably get to the point before tears stain the words that have taken so many years to flow out of my soul. I...love..you. I always have, and regardless of what I said about the lyrics you wrote for your band...it was only because they could never match the lyrics I saw the night we first met at the park. You always wormed your way into my arms...and I always had love for you...I'm tragically sorry I never said it.
Look...I'm not that good at this..I'm trying but like you said, real life is not a romance novel. All I'm trying to say is...I love you, I'll miss you...please don't ever forget the seven years you spent with me...because I don't think it's possible for me to forget such an important chapter in my life.
'Cause you were made for me
Somehow I'll make you see
How happy you make me
Goodbye, my love, I'll always be yours.
Eiri Yuki
A tangled sob told Eiri that his letter had done its purpose...it had covered his feeling of loss, his pain over the emptiness that tore at his chest, why did this boy, this singer, this...amazingly strange young man mean so much to him? His eyebrows furrowed as he thought about it, then a smirk crossed his thin lips as he remembered.
I can't live this life
Without you by my side
I need you to survive
The boy had been too damn dedicated to making Eiri fall in love with him...well he had gotten what he wanted...so why was he always unhappy?
Another thought came to him...they fought. Often.
And it hurt them both.
So stay with me
But...
Why, Yuki mused, why couldn't I have stopped?
The gentle fingertips of wind brushed across his cheek, and he tilted his head into the breeze, not even hiving it second thought, closing his eyes to take in the simplicity of the open space around him. Sure the grass was tainted with pain and the ground beneath it was heaped with caskets, holding the remains of someone somebody once loved but had to say goodbye to, but the sun hit the headstones just right, and it was like diamonds were dancing on the grass.
You look in my eyes and I'm screaming inside that I'm sorry.
And he barely stopped to think that the hand on his shoulder might have been the hand of the one he had been waiting for...it might have been the hand of the man he once loved, then lost, never to recover from the pain.
He barely stopped to think, as he forced the engine of his Mercades to spring into life and clamped the seat-belt buckle into its slot, that maybe, just maybe, Shuichi never intended on leaving the man that had grown to mean so much to him.
Or maybe he wanted to make sure that the blonde was still wearing his wedding ring.
Yuki smiled, soft music wafted from the car's radio, and a woman's voice sang the words that he wanted to say the most.
"And you forgive me again
You're my one true friend
And I never meant to hurt you"
So there's part two. If you plead me real nice, I might add a part three...maybe then I'll tell you who the female friend was that Yuki called. But as for this chapter, I hope you liked it...I dug deep for what it took to finish writing it...this song, "Forgive Me" by Evanescence, it always makes me cry...hope I didn't make too many teenagers cry randomly, but then again if you did shed a few tears, I'll know that at least the work I put into this stuff it worth it.
So ask me real nice, and maybe I'll write part three. Til then...love you all!!