A/N: just cross-posting more stuff from tumblr. in other words, no quality control...at all OTL
To Bury Ghosts
Yata Misaki taught Fushimi Saruhiko many things during their time as friends:
First, that to live means more than the intake of breath and waking up to the sun on his sheets, floorboards, cheek, every morning—that to live means each day must be marked by something worthwhile recalling, whether it is an accidental read that turns out to be remarkable or a festering wound that throbs at the back of his mind. In older days, he would live through the ring of Misaki's voice in his ear, the bandages he kept in his schoolbag for the aftermath of Misaki's skateboarding antics, the money he budgeted from his monthly allowance to buy whatever new game Misaki was enthralled by, the sound of cracking knuckles and bruises blooming across his skin like water stains whenever Misaki ran into trouble he couldn't handle. Now, Saruhiko lives for the prospect of the redhead's blood sluiced down his blade and the scar that itches, pulses with some unknown shape of regret, a few inches above his heart. The scar that was once a brand Misaki would skim his fingertips over with pride—with affection—with adoration. But none of those were his to keep, none of Misaki's bright-eyed smiles belong to him anymore, and so Saruhiko cut the rope tying him to a friendship that burned too fierce before it could turn him to ash.
Second, that to laugh means naught in the presence of strangers lest they develop into something else. Laughter is what brought him to Misaki, after all, and no matter how sour and bitter a show Saruhiko puts on, he won't concede their acquaintance as a waste of time. A waste of heart, perhaps even a waste of effort, but Fushimi has only himself to give and the sole method to do so is to give Misaki his time. He met Misaki, and thereafter, laughter incorporated itself into his circadian routine: a loud guffaw that rent the summer air in two, one time when Saruhiko shamed his entire lineage by tripping and landing on his face; a low chuckle when he received his first and last red mark in Math class; a choked-back snort, falling a mile short of abstinence, when he yanked open his shoe locker and was buried under homemade chocolates on Valentine's Day; a breathless sigh of relief that curled into a dry, coarse huff when Saruhiko finally opened his eyes through the blood drying on his eyelids, the same blood matted in his hair and all over Misaki's hands. The latter of these insipid occurrences is the one Saruhiko remembers best—the taste of copper as he wet his chapped lips, his mind cleaved by a pang of white-hot pain when he steered his body upward, the watery consonants in Misaki's I knew you were fine snuffed by a broken laugh, the way his friend seemed to crumple against the ground like a paper doll by his side, bones snapping from their sockets and his whole body limp, the warmth of Misaki's fingers sunk into Saruhiko's bruised skin where he held him. This memory, which he once tucked like a note in his backpocket, lies sealed under layer after layer of safeguards, because Saruhiko knows, once the floodgates open, the waters will not stop until he has drowned. And maybe it is for this reason that in Misaki's presence, his laughter is tapered into a sneer, and in his current comrades' presence, it is plainly nonexistent.
Third, that to meet somebody means to either keep them, or let them go.
Saruhiko knows this is wrong, from experience. When Misaki came and lit his entire world aflame, woke his sleeping heart and breathed heat into his frozen veins, he seared himself into Saruhiko's flesh, wrote himself on the walls of his bones and carved himself on the inside of his skull. He was as much Fushimi Saruhiko as he was the loud, brash, untidy delinquent that somehow ended up seated next to him in class. When Misaki left, he tore each inch and each flicker, every thread and every whisper of himself out, and whatever physical mark left of their un-friendship, Saruhiko torched without a second thought. The tacky tattoo never carried any weight in his heart, anyways—it was a proclamation of loyalty to the wrong person, a placebo for the slow, caustic consummation of Saruhiko's soul by a desire Misaki could never reciprocate.
Saruhiko knows that Misaki will, someday, learn that to meet somebody means to either let them pass, or grab onto them and have them torn away.
(Whenever Misaki tries to scorch him with the Red King's fire, Saruhiko can't help but feel amused, because despite accompanying him all these years, despite knowing him inside-out and upside-down, Misaki still isn't aware the most potent fire, the one that burns the fastest and leaves the deepest, ghastliest wounds, is the fire he struck, unaware, in the pit of Saruhiko's soul, the day he first looked him in the eye and said, "Come with me.")
Fushimi Saruhiko taught Yata Misaki many things during their time as friends:
Math, for example, and how to draw graphs with those bizarre rulers he didn't understand the use of. How to swim, too, because he made a fool of himself at the public pool and picked a fight while in a foul mood, a fight that got Saru hurt and he sometimes thinks he hasn't yet forgiven himself for that. Saru tutored him before exams and would spout trivial, miscellaneous minutae he learned from those girly magazines he read during the course of the day. That's why Misaki knows that red lipstick clashes with intense eye make-up and schools issue knee-length uniform skirts that almost all girls he encounters on the streets—when he can stomach his anxiety long enough to glance at them without spontaneously combusting—roll until they are halfway up their thigh.
There are other things, academics and tricks to climbing over fences and even gossip, but Misaki can scarcely remember them.
(Saru also taught him the feeling of betrayal, but that's an old wound now, and although it occasionally reopens, although it still hurts to think Saru and hear his name spoken back from the lips of a stranger, although his dreams thrum with the burden of being the one left behind, Misaki grits his teeth and stays his anger. He holds on for the rare glimpses of the Saru he knows best, the hints that his friend hasn't changed much after all, he holds on even as the rope slips under his clammy palms and Saru tries to throw him away.)
First and foremost, however, Saruhiko taught him that to live is more than to breathe, that to laugh is always better with company you cherish, that to meet somebody means to let them pass or to grip them and never, never let go, to latch on by the skin of your teeth and fight to keep them beside you.
And when Misaki asks why, he doesn't ask why Saruhiko abandoned HOMRA, why he forsook Mikoto or why he joined Scepter4 instead.
He asks: Why did you give up on me without a fight?