TW: Suicide, attempted suicide, drug use, medical drama, character death
Middle school had been a fantastic time, regardless of the growing and developing everyone in their class had done over the course of those years. Shuichi and Kaito, two incredibly different boys, had found each other sitting out of gym class one day (Shuichi was in the middle of reading a book and Kaito wasn't feeling great) and had struck up a friendship that seemed to be exclusive to just the other. Then high school happened, and on the very first day they were introduced to Maki, a small, quiet girl who gave death glares out freely and butted heads immediately with Kaito's boisterous and powerful personality but found a kinship with Shuichi that had him inviting her into their duo, making them a trio that everyone knew was not one to be messed with.
For four years, the three of them had each other's backs, whether they wanted to admit it or not, and on the eve of their senior prom two of them had received a relationship upgrade in the form of Kaito spitting out the words of asking Maki to go with him not as a friend, but as an actual date, which did leave Shuichi playing third wheel for the event. Not that he minded too much, dances weren't really his thing and he was only going along because he'd been begged to attend, but while he was sitting on the sidelines watching almost everyone else dancing their hearts out, he noticed a girl in a pink dress standing alongside the DJ table, directing the hapless man on what buttons to push on his decks. He'd seen her around before, they'd never shared classes but he knew she was always quick to her locker and even quicker back down toward the music hallway; if she was at prom just to help with the music, and he was there just because his friends had asked him to be, maybe he could've built up the courage to talk to her.
Or maybe he could have just kept sitting there, gaping at her like a hapless fool, never making his move that night and deciding that he just wasn't going to make it at all. A guy like him, planning on following in familial footsteps and getting into solving crimes, didn't have much of a reason to go hitting on pretty musician girls when they had nothing else in common, now did he?
As it turned out, Maki was familiar with the girl and didn't take too much arm-twisting to agree to invite her to one of their friend trio lunches someday, much to Shuichi's surprise and delight…and to Kaito's dismay. "What do you mean, you're inviting someone who isn't one of us to eat with us?" he asked Maki, giving her a rather confused look. "Shouldn't that sort of thing get cleared with everyone before you do it?"
"Majority rules," she replied, her sharp tongue making it clear that she wasn't going to be talked down from her plan, and no matter how much Kaito did not want his new girlfriend (and longtime friend) inviting someone he didn't know to eat with them, he had no say in the matter. Even though Kaede—that was the girl's name, the guys found out soon after—initially turned down the offer, claiming that she needed to eat in the music room instead, she did come by one day with a lunch that was lovingly packed for her, unlike the others all eating their school-provided meals, and took a seat directly across from Maki, right in between the two guys.
"I haven't actually ever eaten in here," she admitted, looking at them all behind her carefully-clipped bangs, eyes first landing on Kaito, who was glaring at her, before turning to Maki and finally Shuichi. "I've spent so much of my time and energy getting my solo ready for concerts and now for graduation that I've kind of missed out on all of the normal high schooler things."
Unsure of what to say, Shuichi cleared his throat as a means to drum up some ideas, but it was Kaito who actually spoke next. "Sounds like some pretentious crap there," he told her, slamming his hand down on the table and startling poor Kaede into nearly jumping out of her seat. "Why'd you decide to come eat here if you've got all those big things to prepare for? Decide to come rub it in at us that you're better than us?"
"What? No, I was just—"
"Kaito." One word, just his name, but Maki effectively silenced Kaede in her explanation as well as getting Kaito to turn his sights onto someone that was much more equipped for his particular brand of intensity. "She's here because she wants to be here, and because I asked her to come eat with us. Can you please just let the girl live?"
He wasn't happy about being made to look like an asshole at any time, especially not in front of some stranger, but when he saw the way Shuichi looked so starstruck there next to her, he took in a deep breath, apologized half-heartedly, and decided that one lunch wasn't going to be the end of the world. Next day, it would go back just to the trio and then everything would be back to normal. Except it wouldn't, because Kaede was enthralled with the idea of sitting with her "new friends" and didn't want to spend her free time in the music room any longer, unless absolutely necessary.
By the time graduation rolled around, Shuichi had finally gotten confident enough to properly speak to her and they seemed to be dancing around the idea of trying out a relationship, which meant that, like it or not, Kaede was going to be around for a lot longer. Kaito definitely didn't like it, but if he so much as insinuated that within earshot of Maki he'd have a death threat right in his face, and even though his girlfriend usually didn't mean what she was saying, she certainly got scary with it.
"I really don't think she's the kind of woman he needs in his life, that's all I want to say," he managed to tell Maki one night, watching her roll her red eyes and threaten him with a single finger for the statement. "Come on, she's a lot more proper than the rest of us, do you really think that she's going to let him live the life he wants to live? She's gonna bolt the moment he gets his hands bloodied at a crime scene or something, just you wait."
"If you'd taken the time to get to know Kaede, like I have and like Shuichi certainly has, you'd know that she's a lot more open to those sorts of things than you'd expect," Maki coldly replied, shaking her head and her long hair at Kaito's insolence. "She's a great foil for everything Shuichi wants to be, and I'm sure they'll make a better pair than the two of us."
His whole countenance darkening as he processed that claim, Kaito's immediate first thought was that Maki had just threatened to break up with him, but then he realized how silly of an idea that was. "They're not gonna be better than us, we've known each other too long, Maki Roll!" he boasted, using the nickname for her he'd picked on their first meeting and hadn't ever let go of. "Just you wait and see, ten years from now it'll be the two of us still together and they'll be separate, and that's a promise!"
"Can't you just be happy for them?" Maki snapped, making Kaito flinch at the aggression in her voice. "You're so focused on how you wish Shuichi had time only for us that you forget he's allowed to have his own life. I'd rather not have Shuichi around all the time, thank you very much."
"But he's my best friend, I've got to want nothing but the best for him!" Boasting had always been Kaito's strong suit, but there was a deeper reason for why he wanted Shuichi focused on their friendship and not on some woman. He wouldn't tell Maki, or anyone if he could help it, but he felt a hollowness in the argument he was making, knowing that what he was claiming to be anticipating happening was more likely than not going to happen in the exact opposite way.
Six years after graduation, the first sign of Kaito's prediction being dead wrong showed up in the mailbox at their home, Maki the one to collect the ornate envelope to find that inside of it was a wedding invitation for a few months away. "Did you have any idea this was coming?" she asked Kaito, genuine curiosity in her voice, and he responded by snatching the invitation and reading it over for himself several times. "Based on that, I'm taking this as a no, you didn't know."
"How does a guy's best friend forget to tell him he's getting married?" Kaito yelled after angrily handing the invitation back toward Maki. "Did he think I wasn't gonna approve or something? This is bullshit, Maki Roll, absolute bullshit!"
"I'm upset about it too, but maybe there's a perfectly good explanation for this." Setting the invitation down so that Kaito couldn't snag it from her again and tear it up, Maki looked at him with deadly precision in the location of her glare, locking her eyes straight with his. "Like, perhaps, Shuichi being smart enough to know you'd fly off the handle and try to talk him out of things if you found out ahead of time?"
Without so much as a flinch, Kaito prepared a long-winded explanation in his head for why Maki's assumption was obviously wrong, but before he could say a word of it he froze, it clicking in his head that she was actually right. Sure, it was six years after graduation, but he'd never once made an effort to get to know or even like Kaede, despite how obviously close her and Shuichi had gotten, and as far as Shuichi knew, he still wanted nothing to do with her. That'd mean that he wouldn't want them knowing they were getting married until close to the date, which then put them exactly where they were. "Still would've liked to know before now, that wedding's so close that getting ready for it's gonna be a nightmare."
"Kaito, I don't know a lot about wedding culture, but if they're just telling us this now, I don't think there's much need for us to get 'ready' for it." Maki's voice was flat, as she delivered a stunning blow to Kaito's spirit that he genuinely staggered back a step. "So much for you being his best friend, huh?"
She was right, and no matter how much Kaito wanted to believe otherwise, there was nothing else to believe. In his insistence on avoiding his friend's girlfriend (now fiancée), he'd driven a stake in their friendship that was denying him one of the greatest pleasures he'd have ever been able to receive. "I'm gonna have to call him and talk about this," Kaito decided, watching as Maki began shaking her head as fast as she could to try and dissuade him from doing that. "No, I've got to do it. If I don't, who knows what's going to happen at that wedding and I'd like to know whose ass I'm gonna be beating before I'm doing it."
"You call him and you're damaging our chances of actually staying invited."
"That's a risk I'll be taking, thanks." Without another word, and effortlessly moving past Maki when she tried to be a road block between him and escape, Kaito headed down to their bedroom, entering and locking the door behind him, just for Maki to begin banging her hands on the door in an attempt to get him to change his mind. Even with the sounds of her banging, he grabbed his phone and dialed in Shuichi's number, promising himself he'd be as cordial as possible during the call. But as he waited for an answer, the likelihood of him remaining calm and respectful slipped away, to the point that he had to refrain from leaving a voicemail because he knew he wasn't going to be holding his tongue.
All for naught, he unlocked the door and let Maki open in, her barreling into him with her full weight and barely collecting herself before she tumbled onto the floor. "So much for that risk, huh?" she asked, completely aware that enough time hadn't passed for a suitable conversation to have taken place. "You think he was sure you wouldn't take this well and decided to ignore you about it?"
"I doubt he had anything to do with me not getting an answer," Kaito replied, his barbed words placing all of the blame firmly on Kaede's back without mentioning her name. "He'll tell me what's up when he gets the chance, I know it. Just…have to wait for when that is."
Dusting herself off from her near-encounter with the floor, Maki gave her boyfriend a no-nonsense, pleading look that told him to cool his behavior immediately. "They just made a big announcement, you'll have to forgive him for not putting you first for once. Think about how we'd be if we were in those shoes, I doubt we'd have the time to field calls from our confused friends right away. Give it time, you'll get your answers soon enough." Her I hope that followed was barely audible, but Kaito heard it anyway, his fist tightening around his phone at the idea that he was being permanently dropped from updates on his friend's life.
It turned out that Shuichi hadn't answered the call because he hadn't been at his phone when it had been placed (or so he said), and he didn't return it immediately because he didn't get back to his phone until late that night. That meant that, bright and early the next morning with all of the bitterness still lodged in his heart, Kaito was greeted with an apology text message that laid out why he'd been left in the dark about things until everyone had received the news. The message was very obviously written by Shuichi himself, one positive in the whole situation, but none of it read like something he would want to say should have—it was very obvious that Kaede was dictating what was being said and how it was being brought up, which Kaito had to overlook to maintain his civility.
He accepted the so-called apology without making any remarks at all about his disbelief in the truth behind the story, which Shuichi seemed to greatly appreciate, going so far as to offer to swing by after work to talk about it face-to-face. Since that was the optimal way of handling things, Kaito took him up on the offer right away; once he'd told Maki about that little agreement, she was rolling her eyes at his behavior yet again. "You really couldn't just let the guy have a night with everyone learning his big news without throwing yourself into everything, could you?" she chided, which he found strange. He wasn't the one who'd asked for the in-person conversation, he'd merely accepted the offer when it was given.
No amount of trying to explain that was going to matter to Maki, and so Kaito was sent through his daily life like he wasn't waiting for some grand explanation coming from his best friend in a matter of hours. There were errands to run, appointments to attend, long walks through the nearby park to take, all sorts of things that Kaito enjoyed filling his time with, but knowing that he was getting an explanation for why he'd been left out of his friend's big life decision was making the time drag on slower than usual. When he got home later that day, Maki was nowhere to be seen and their little house was still and quiet, unusual for late in the afternoon but something that Kaito wasn't going to complain about.
By the time Shuichi arrived, the house had been cleaned pretty well over, things in closets and drawers alike rearranged and organized to better suit Kaito's mental space, and he was greeted at the door by a flying hug that was reminiscent of hugs from their youth. "Look, I should come right out and say that I never meant to leave you out of anything," Shuichi started, which seemed strange to Kaito but he merely stared and waited for more. "All of this happened so quickly that there wasn't any time to think about how to get you involved before yesterday happened."
Internally, Kaito wanted to press the question of what he meant by that, knowing that the mail system took long enough that there should have been plenty of time to make those sorts of decisions beforehand. But he merely put on his fakest smile and gave his friend a grand, pleasant gesture with both hands. "No big deal, I knew that my sidekick would always come through in the end. So…how am I getting involved?"
"Well, uh, you see…" Trailing off as he completely avoided looking at Kaito's gestures, Shuichi seemed to be trying to find somewhere stationary in the room to look instead. "You're not, um, actually going to be involved."
"I'm not? What, you have another best friend you're going to be including instead?" That was a joke, Kaito knew his place in Shuichi's life and he knew it well, but just hearing the rejection like that made him think, for a second, that it was possible after all. "We've known each other since we were nobodies, since we were dweeby little kids, you've gotta let me be there for you when you get married!"
Swallowing down hard, when Shuichi spoke next he was clearly struggling to keep his words in a straight order. "You will be there for me, you're invited after all, but we're not…there's not…I won't be having someone 'involved' for my side of things. That's all."
Much like a door swinging open and hitting Kaito in the face, he found himself recoiling at the statement, almost in disbelief at what he was hearing. "But lemme guess, Kaede's gonna get to have all her friends there with her, huh?" he asked, trying to keep his snarling down to a minimum but knowing that he'd lost all control over how his anger manifested. "C'mon man, you can't let her walk all over you, especially if you're going to be marrying her!"
"She's not getting anyone with her either, Kaito, please don't jump to conclusions." Hanging his head as he kept all of his friend's antics out of sight, Shuichi seemed genuinely distressed about what he was talking about, which only further fueled the fire burning in Kaito's heart. "Look, I know that you're going to want to make this a big event, but we're not really going to be doing much to celebrate, so you being invited, that's a huge deal."
"You can't let her control this, dude!" Forgetting for a moment that Shuichi would be more than happy to get married in front of no audience, Kaito was ready to throw down and fight anyone that he needed to in order to give his friend a big, dazzling ceremony. "I'll pay for the whole thing, you know I will, just say the word and—"
Kaito was cut off by Shuichi looking straight at him and, in an act borrowed from Maki, loudly and aggressively stating his name. "We're not having an actual wedding because we're not doing this for the fun of it. We're doing it for the legality of it."
"—oh, why didn't you say that sooner?" Kaito knew why, because he hadn't allowed for that to be brought up in the conversation, but he didn't want to own up to that and accept the blame for things getting so confrontational. "So why're you going through with things that way, then? Wouldn't have taken her as that kind of person."
"She's not, but…circumstances." Shifting uncomfortably as he looked back away from Kaito, Shuichi continued after giving a sigh that lingered for several seconds. "Kaede's manager wants to send her across the globe to teach piano to students who wouldn't get the chance otherwise, and her reason for why Kaede can do it is because she's a single, childless woman. Never mind the fact that we've been together for six years, I don't need to be considered at all when sending her on the job. Unless she's married and has a kid, anyway."
"So you're getting married so that she doesn't get sent away?" That sounded reasonable, if only serving Kaede's wants and needs, but Kaito could at least respect that choice. "And because it's on such short notice, that's why it's just the legal stuff, yeah?"
"Exactly. But her manager said that just because she's getting married doesn't mean that she won't get sent anyway, so we're…" That was when Shuichi shrank back completely, covering his face as it started turning red. "Oh, I'm sure you don't need me spelling that part of things out, do you?"
While he didn't need it laid out in plain terms, there was a part of Kaito who wanted to hear his meek-hearted friend having to openly talk about how his arm was being twisted into marrying and having kids with a woman just to keep her around. "Nah, I hear you loud and clear," he replied, giving Shuichi a thumbs-up that he pushed toward him. "Hope all of it goes well and that you aren't losing her to piano students around the world. And don't worry, me and Maki Roll? We'll be there to watch you guys sign your papers and all that, you can trust me."
Maki was indeed in agreement with going when she heard the quick and dirty version of what was going on, even though she seemed annoyed at the fact that it was happening in the first place. "If I were Kaede, I'd find a new manager who isn't trying to control my life," she dryly said, miming slicing her throat to show how vicious she would be in that situation. "But at the end of the day, it's just pushing them to do something they'd be doing someday anyway. Not a huge deal."
Nodding as he thought he was on the same page as Maki, Kaito looked at her with a sly smile. "So if you think it's pushing them to do something they were gonna do anyway, what about us? Should we do it too?"
"No. Especially not since you're only suggesting it because they're doing it."
It was already a tricky ground to tread when Kaito didn't particularly care for Kaede and therefore didn't exactly want his best friend getting married to her, but knowing that Maki had no interest in following in their footsteps made it all the harder to be happy for them. It was to be expected, Maki was perfectly content with not being legally bound to do things, and as long as she had her freedom she would be happy, but as the date of the last-minute marriage ceremony came and went, Kaito found himself feeding into his jealousy of what Shuichi had ended up getting out of life.
Things were only made worse as Kaito found his own life beginning to spiral out of his own control around him, ugly heads from his past rearing back up and reminding him that no matter what he tried, he only had so much he could call his own. His daily routine—the errands, the appointments, the walks through the park—became heavier with certain aspects and started having less time for others, all without so much as a mention of what was going on to anyone around him. He'd always wanted to let Maki in on the other side of his life that he'd been keeping quiet for so long, but without her legally being his there wasn't much point in doing it. If she found out before they were married, it'd be her reason for marrying him; he'd tried convincing her over and over again to just go for it, but after the rejection playing off of what was going on with Shuichi and Kaede, he decided it was best to just forget about that idea.
He didn't expect to be floored by the predictable next announcement that his best friend dropped on him a few months later, but there was something about the way that Shuichi seemed genuinely happy to tell him that he and Kaede were expecting that made Kaito feel like he lost even more control over what was going on around him. He wished he could respond to Shuichi's news with something as big of his own, but the only thing he had going for him was something that no person ever wanted to hear. "That's great, that means she's gonna be able to stay here and not get sent around the world, right?" he asked, watching as Shuichi seemed nervous to nod about it. "Oh, come on, wasn't that the deal she had with her manager and all that?"
"It was, but who knows if it'll actually be listened to." Almost like he was scared that would happen, all of the happiness had drained itself from Shuichi's face, and Kaito knew that this apparently perfect solution to the problem wasn't as perfect as it had seemed. "We'll just have to see what happens a year from now."
Forcing a smile onto his face, Kaito replied, "Sounds like a long time to have to wait to find out if a manager's a jerk or not. Why can't Kaede just tell her to leave her alone? With how bossy she is, definitely sounds like something she'd be able to do without flinching."
"Because this manager has been with her for her whole career, she can't just sever that bond without good reason!"
"Not wanting to be sent around the world is a pretty damn good reason, I'd think!" Kaito's voice raised to meet Shuichi's concern and they were both left sitting there, realizing that they were not seeing the situation the same way as the other. "Look, man, I get that you're blinded by your love for her, but don't you think this whole thing's kind of fishy? She's getting exactly what she wants from you and you're falling for it every step of the way!"
"Kaede would never take advantage of me with something like this," Shuichi pointed out, trying to remain calm in such a trying moment. "I know you've never liked her, but she's not the monster you're making her out to be."
While a wise man would have accepted that defeat with dignity and ended the conversation there, Kaito was too heated to drop it without one more dig. "Sure, and when she's cutting you off to go overseas in a year and you're left cleaning up her messes, you'll realize I was right all along."
"I'm not doing this with you, Kaito." Deciding that he was going to be the bigger person, Shuichi looked at his friend and gave him the sternest look he could muster, despite his whole body trembling from the emotions their back and forth had brought him. "You can keep living your life thinking that Kaede's some bad person, but the only thing you're doing is hurting our friendship."
"You're really going to let your blind loyalty to some woman ruin our friendship? Something we've had since we were young? Really?" Almost like he didn't believe what he was hearing, Kaito puffed up his body, his shoulders rising in his jacket to make his lanky form look a bit larger than before. "Is that the hill you want to die on?"
"It's definitely the one you're wanting to die on, so sure!" There was no apologetic tone to Shuichi's voice as he spoke, and it was clear that Kaito had crossed a line with what he'd said, questioning his love and devotion to someone that obviously meant the world to him. "I don't want to talk to you again if you're going to keep twisting Kaede into some villain, either get over yourself or we're done being friends."
As much as he didn't want to lose his sidekick, his partner in crime, his best friend since before they'd been cool, Kaito knew that he couldn't genuinely move past his feelings about Kaede and how she was clearly doing some manipulating. "Then I guess we're done being friends," he said, an air of indignance forced into his words. "Go on, go live your life the way you think you're meant to, and when she backstabs you…well, you won't have me to come running back to."
"That's really how you want to end it." Not a question, a statement that showed that Shuichi was accepting what Kaito had to say and didn't want to push further. "It's nice knowing that you never grew up."
Those words would haunt them both, whether they realized it or not at the time. And Kaito, as dumbstruck as he was at what had happened, fully realized the bitter irony in the fact that Shuichi had chosen that as their parting words.
Since he was young, Kaito had been sickly off and on. At one point, the doctors thought it was a genetic disorder, but tests proved that he was perfectly healthy from a gene standpoint; that led to further biopsies and tests that ultimately ruled just about everything out. His lungs just weren't capable of handling the stress of everyday life, but right as they were considering putting him onto a transplant list, everything had fallen apart and he was deemed ineligible for a transplant, due to the presence of cancerous cells in his body.
When he'd first started school with Shuichi, he was coming off of several years of harsh cancer treatments that had done their job well enough, bringing him a quality of life that he wouldn't have gotten otherwise. He remained physically well all the way through high school, and while he would sometimes have days where breathing was hard he never was as sick for such a sustained period of time as he had been as a kid. Because of that, he always handwaved off his chronic cough and occasional breathlessness as just seasonal illnesses, never telling his friends the truth about his past.
Even post-graduation, when he'd started feeling his battered lungs getting worse by the day, he didn't bother telling Maki about it. He'd figured that she'd either leave him for being uncontrollably sick, or she'd devote herself to him full time to keep him comfortable even as his health started to diminish. Neither of those were options he wanted, so he'd kept her completely in the dark about his health—and when he'd started growing frail and his appointments went from trying to maintain his quality of life to trying to give him even half of what he once had, he knew that he wasn't going to have too much longer before his carefully-concealed truth was revealed. Maki was already growing suspicious with his bony body becoming all the more noticeable, but he just told her that he wasn't eating well and that he was getting it taken care of by the doctors.
Lying to her, keeping the truth of the matter from her ears, was painful, but Kaito knew that telling Maki the truth would hurt him more. Something about admitting that he was running errands and going on walks to mask when he was taking his vast amount of medications, about admitting that his daily appointments were for funneling intravenous fluids and different kinds of radical therapies into his body, about the fact that he was actively dying by the day, didn't sit well with him. He had planned out how he was going to die from the moment he'd heard that the cancer he'd beat as a kid had returned and was terminal, six months at best, and he was going to make sure that he went out exactly as planned.
His fight with Shuichi hadn't been factored into things, however, and the days that followed that blow-up were painful to live through. Kaito didn't want to go to his appointments, he didn't want to take his medications because he didn't want to leave home, and he came dangerously close to Maki finding out the truth just because of his mental fog that his best friend's betrayal had left on him. "Kaito, seriously, you have to eat or you're going to die," Maki told him on the second day post-fight. "I'm not letting you die here because your 'bro' broke your heart."
"I won't die over it," Kaito replied, biting his tongue to keep himself from laughing at the unintentional gallows humor they'd created. "Trust me, it'll take a lot more than a sidekick going rogue to knock me out of the ring!"
"Yeah, something tells me that's not the case, you're looking like a stiff breeze could blow you into next week." Eyeing her boyfriend as he started coughing at his attempted exuberant answer, Maki shook her head. "Let's go get you a good meal, something better than what we can cook here. You really look like you need it right about now."
Even though he knew she was right, there was a giant part of Kaito that didn't want to get out of bed and face other people. "Give me ten minutes and I'll go," he said after much contemplation on just denying her request outright. "I need the time to get ready."
"Sounds fair to me." The way Maki shrugged showed that she didn't even question what there was he needed to get ready for and she left the room, allowing Kaito to remove the blankets he'd bundled himself in, his gaunt form even more harsh to look at with his days of hiding. Maki wasn't allowed to know the truth until he was ready for her to find out, so he did his best to dress himself in clothes that made his dramatic change even less obvious, finding it hard to stand strong and tall when his body wanted to collapse underneath him.
It wasn't easy to pretend everything was okay, sure, but it was still easier than pretending to be happy about something he wasn't. If his bitterness about Shuichi's life was going to lead him to his grave faster, that was just how it was going to be; he wasn't going to act like he was thrilled to hear someone who'd meant so much to him was being manipulated and used by someone who didn't want what was best for him. Unfortunately, it would have served Kaito better to be outright with Maki on what had been going on, because her invitation for an impromptu date hadn't been as unplanned as he expected—as evidenced by them getting down to the restaurant of her choice for them to see, who else, but Kaede and Shuichi sitting at a table together, looking every bit in love and happy about their current lives.
He didn't say it then, but Kaito made his plan for how he was going to proceed the moment his eyes locked with Kaede's and he saw her smiling, completely at peace with what she'd done to make sure Shuichi was hers forever, whether she wanted him or not. In fact, Kaito didn't say a thing at all until they were home again that night, his stomach filled with a meal that Maki considered suitable and his legs beginning to buckle from how difficult standing was in his current state. "You know, I saw who you planned to have there," he remarked, Maki's ears pricking up at the sound of his harsh voice. "Couldn't even tell me that you were trying to get me to fix things, huh?"
"I didn't plan that, I had no idea they'd be there." Maki sounded genuine enough, confused even about why Kaito was taking that to the level he was. "If I'd known, don't you think I would have asked you to go talk to them or something? It was just a coincidence."
"Coincidence, I get it." Not for a second did Kaito believe it was actually a coincidence, and he wasn't going to let Maki think he did. "Look, if you want to tell me you think I'm being stupid about all of this, go for it, but before you say a word: if you'd let me have my way, we'd be just as happy as they are."
Her eyes narrowing as she tried to process what he meant by that, Maki replied, "Kaito, and I mean this in the nicest way I can say it, what the fuck are you talking about?"
"You're jealous of them and what they have."
"I'm the jealous one?" Her voice raising as her confusion became more evident, Maki's entire face was contorted in a way that showed she had no idea what he was referring to. "I'm not the one who tanked a friendship of over a decade because of something I've been told isn't right over and over again. You're the one who's jealous of what Kaede brought to Shuichi's life, don't even try pinning that on me."
She was right, sort of. Kaito had been jealous of how they'd been able to get married, and with his health failing so obviously he'd almost wished that he'd been allowed to have a child before dying, but none of that was anything he'd say to Maki. "No, no, the jealous one here is you. And…and I'm sure you'd prefer sticking around them than me." Once again puffing himself up to try and look bigger than he'd been in a long time, Kaito's intimidation tactic failed when it came to staring Maki and her venomous, yet confused expression down. "Go on and say it, you'd rather keep your friendships with them than your relationship with me, that's perfectly fine."
"Kaito, whatever you're going on about, you need to knock it off before I kill you." She didn't mean it, but there was a part of him that wished she did, would have saved him a lot of stress in the future. "I'm happy with you, I always have been and I always will be. What you're saying right now doesn't even make any sense."
He wanted to believe her, and deep down he did, but Kaito needed to sever his tie with Maki before she knew too much. "Stop lying to me," he croaked, for once allowing his actual health dictate how he spoke, but seeing the shocked way Maki shook her head and stared at him, wide-eyed and concerned to the nines, he knew that he shouldn't have done that. "You're better off without me ruining your hopes and dreams, Maki Roll. Don't bother trying to tell me otherwise."
"Stop, you're not making sense!" Grabbing at the sides of her long hair, Maki closed her eyes and began to curl up into herself. "You're the first and only person I've ever loved, Kaito, everything you're telling me isn't the truth! You've convinced yourself that everyone's out to hurt you and that's not the case, that's just not…"
"I don't want to hear it, Maki Roll. I really don't." Whatever she had intended on saying was probably poignant and meaningful, but Kaito didn't need to hear it and have her give him a change of heart. He needed this way out, he couldn't let the love of his life stop him from getting the ending he wanted. "You have a great night, go and run to the others and tell them all about how I hurt you or whatever, see how much I care when I find out."
He stormed toward the door, Maki getting out of her mental freeze long enough to chase him down but as she grabbed for his arm he threw an elbow toward her, her catching it and finding it much, much bonier than she'd remembered. "Kaito…you're doing this because you're on something, aren't you?" she asked, anger building in her voice. "I'll call someone to stop you if that's the case!"
"I love you, Maki," he calmly replied, feeling like he was on the verge of tears as he dodged her question entirely, "but what I'm doing…you'll understand later. That's a promise."
"You need help, Kaito, you really do."
"I'll be getting the help I need. Just let me go." That wasn't reassuring at all, but something about the cold way he'd delivered the words had Maki freezing in place once again, mumbling barely-audible words begging him to stay as he left their home for the last time. Life was short, it was fleeting, and she'd made it so much harder on them both by putting up an unexpected resistance to his behavior.
He made it to the park before he was too winded to move, and after finding a bench to sit on he reached into his pockets and pulled out the collection of drugs he'd amassed in the months since receiving his fatal diagnosis. Kaito had always been driven to do the right thing, the only vice he'd ever dabbled being tobacco, so to have the assortment of illegal drugs in his palm felt dangerous. "I hope you feel this too," he grumbled as he began arranging everything in the way he'd fantasized about trying it. Death didn't need to be painful, he had the paper on his person that told authorities to leave him to die so he wasn't going to be coming back and facing consequences for the trip he'd planned.
It was rather typical for people to overdose in the park, Kaito had first gotten the idea one night when he'd been stargazing there on his own and heard a tweaker hit his final high back in the bushes; the moment he knew he was either going to die from the cancer cells or die on his own terms, he knew which choice he was going to make. The high felt unimpressive at first, starting with small drugs that led to bigger and bigger ones until he was beyond consciousness and beyond any way of knowing what he was doing, yet he made sure in his last clear moments to send a couple of drafted text messages that he'd prepared weeks in advance, hitting Maki and Shuichi's phones at the same time letting them know what he'd done and why he'd done it.
By the time either of them were at the park, Maki waiting for Shuichi to get there to help her face the body with her, the police were already swarming the area, investigating what looked like a suspicious death. After showing the messages they'd received, it was fairly clear that what had happened was a planned suicide, by means of various drugs and poisons meant to give the victim a death worth talking about. "I can't believe he did this," Maki sobbed into Shuichi's shoulder, while he gently stroked her head. "We were just out at dinner earlier and he never made it…he never acted like…how was I supposed to know he was planning this?"
"We should have noticed sooner," Shuichi said, almost like he'd realized far too late that he'd failed his best friend in the moments he needed him most—despite their falling-out being beneficial to Kaito's plans. "But he told us he was suffering and needed to go before it got worse, I just wish he'd told us that in person instead of…well, you know."
"I could've saved him if I hadn't let him go!"
Shuichi flinched, not wanting Maki to blame herself for this when it was clear she'd done nothing wrong. "I think he planned on doing this no matter what, don't beat yourself up."
There was, of course, one other person who needed the reminder to not beat themselves up over what had happened, but when Shuichi had rushed out to console Maki and meet her at the park, all he'd told Kaede was that he'd received a suicide note and that he needed to go check on Kaito. Kaede was no stranger to the harsh feelings that the man had harbored for her, and she knew that she was the driving force with the wedge that had formed between the lifelong friends—she certainly felt what Kaito had done to himself, and she wasn't in the best mental space with her current situation being all over the place in terms of work and personal life.
Rational it was not, but it was never said that a pregnant woman knew how to be rational, and that was how she'd ended up with one of Shuichi's belts loose around her neck when he came home late that night, her attempt at following the dead down into the ground thwarted by her husband's reappearance. She cried more than he did when she'd realized what she almost did, but the nick from the belt buckle right under her chin was a reminder that she'd reacted to someone else's death by attempting her own, something that neither of them would forget.
It had been impossible for Kaito to be happy for others given his own fatal course, but it was completely possible for the woman he'd so deeply hated to feel regret and sadness for his decisions he'd made because of her.
A/N: fic inspired by "it wasn't easy to be happy for you" by the lumineers, go listen to it to understand the creative choices made in this fic.
