Content Warning: grief/mourning, regret, mentioned self-harm, mentioned character death, not beta-ed we die like Touya, implied suicide, a tiny bit of panicking, implied child abuse
September 10th should have been any other day. It should have been just any day. It wasn't. The little gravestone all by itself forced that day to be a grim reminder.
The red spider lilies were placed in front of his little gravestone in a small glass vase. The incense stick was still smoking from the previous visitor. It is almost a serene picture with the expectation of the knowledge that there is nobody buried where her best friend should be.
Rumi thought the world was cruel for all she had left of her partner in crime was a box of pictures and scraps of paper with his neat handwriting. Memories would fade with time until she couldn't remember his name.
Her lips would no longer form his name and almost rhyme it with the word stupid. His upturned grin with a chipped front tooth would no longer match her mischievous smirk after they successfully released pigeons during their math class. His blue eyes would no longer meet her red eyes and crack up over a joke.
The sun seems too bright and the humidity feels too hot. The cemetery feels suffocating as the small gravestone appears to loom over her. Her throat feels dry as she tries to swallow. Touya left her behind. It was bust buds for life, but Rumi hadn't been aware, their friendship came with conditions. Perhaps it was selfish and rude to think unkindly of the dead. She had thought it would be until the end of her life. She was wrong. Oh, how she wished it wasn't so.
If only her wishes meant for something. She knew something was wrong, but she never pried. There were unexplained bruises on his wrists, burns on his arms, and a fragile smile plastered on his face. She hadn't realized he was hiding so much from her until it was too late.
The raised white scars on his arms should have been a sign. 'It was just from a cat.' The gullible little girl in her had absorbed the lie because she didn't want to believe the truth. 'Oh, that was from a barbed wire when I was little.' Touya had stretched in his gym clothes and revealed a jagged scar on his thigh. 'I had a run-in with a rose bush.' His laugh was exaggerated and forced as he commented on how stupid he was.
His words should have been the warning sign for her to realize how much he was hurting inside. Rumi had only seen what he had wanted him to see: the bright and cherry boy who was a proud older brother and son of his hero. What a lie.
Touya is her hero. Despite what he was going through, he had made her laugh. He had picked her up after every time she felt it was time to throw in the towel. He had been her only support in her goal of becoming a hero. He would be draped across the bleachers some days. Rumi only realized later with shame burning in her stomach that those were probably the days he trained with his father. Touya usually cheered her on by his over-the-top impression of their enthusiastic gym coach.
The lush scenery only seems to heighten Rumi's gloomy disposition. Touya, who had done so much for her, would never be saved. Just another body rotting away. The bitterness wells up inside her. She only felt like a teenager dressing up as a hero.
"Excuse me." Rumi nearly jumps at the sound of another visitor to her hell. She turns around to an angelic woman carrying a bouquet of Peonies.
"How can I help you?" Rumi notices how she looks like Touya with her white hair and fragile appearance. She focuses on Touya's mother's eyelashes, mentally comparing them to Touya's to avoid eye contact.
"Do you mind if I join you?" Touya's mother tilts her chin in the direction of the tiny gravestone. Rumi motions to the spot in front of the gravestone as she scoots over to make room.
"He was frail and small when he was born. We didn't think he would last overnight. He was my little miracle, but I paid him any attention after Fuyumi was born. I should have been your mother first and foremost. This isn't the apology you deserve. I'm sorry, Touya." Rumi pretended not to hear the waver in her voice or to see the tears shining in her eyes. She wanted to let his mother have a private moment with her son. Well, as private as it could be with an observer.
Rumi wonders how Touya would feel about his mother visiting his grave. Touya rarely spoke of his mother and the time he had was a slip of the tongue. Touya had equated himself to being her exact opposite, but the way her eyes shine with tears with regret woven into her face mirrors the expression she had only seen on Touya once. They share a few things: their white hair, their small stature, their posture. His mother holds herself as if she is trying to hide from the Sun. Rumi can't help but picture the woman replaced by a teenager with a nose ring and sarcasm in spades.
She can almost hear him whisper to her. 'I always told you I would beat you to it.' Her grief erupts inside her as she hears his chuckles as if he was next to her. She barely chokes down her sobs when she remembers that she is not alone. She feels the familiar warm touch of his fist bump against her arm. Suddenly, it all feels as if it is too much.
Rumi looks down at her arm where she had imagined Touya had fist-bumped her. Her breath catches in her throat. She is never lucky, is she? On her upper right forearm, a blue cat was sitting on her arm. Touya had been her platonic soulmate. Her heartfelt as if it had shattered into a million pieces as she struggled to catch her breath. It would have been better if she had never known that he was the other half of her soul, the part she would be forever missing.
Rumi will live decades without her other half. The other half made her laugh by telling stupid Dad jokes. The other half cooked her soup when she wasn't feeling well. The other half promised to be her best man when she married her future wife. The other half always had her back. She will grow up without him.
At that moment, she hates him for abandoning her but is crushed by her overwhelming grief and regret. Touya was only fifteen and would forever be fifteen. He would never grow old. Because no one saw his pain and helped him, he would remain fifteen. Rumi had not realized how complete she had felt with him there. That regret she would carry for the rest of her days with the empty hole where her other half used to be.
Author's Note: I'm definitely don't even like this fic. it was supposed to be for whumptober, but I forgot to post it. It was for the prompt of regret.