Its lack
The sky was sun bleached and bare and stretches into the horizon in hopeless emptiness. Even the luxury of the mansion could not hide its barrenness. Oshitari takes a drag from his cigarette. He does not remember when he took up the habit. The smoke fills his lungs and he feels for a moment calm. He tries not to dwell on the particulars, and he smiles at the irony of the sole heir to the long line of doctors taking up a deadly habit. From the corners of his eyes he could sometimes see the disapproving looks, but they were never those eyes that he wished for most.
After a moment, he leans out from the balcony and feels the wind for the first time in a long time. He wishes Gakuto was here, but didn't he always? He didn't even know where Gakuto was, and he had long since forgotten how they fell apart.
He begins to feel small in the light of the large open sky, the pure blue of which was ruined by the powerful sun. He does not know why he accepted the invitation to the engagement party but that it brought him back again to the place where he had once felt he belonged. It no longer felt like home to Oshitari, and the once familiar halls were now filled with something closer to wistfulness. It was far too easy to be lost in the melancholy.
Perhaps he wanted to tell Atobe that he was making a mistake. And instinctively he knew that he was not going to tell Atobe because he felt Atobe deserved to know. He thinks of his fiancée, and he feels like a hypocrite. He knew the outcome. He wanted to feel the pain that Atobe would inflict on him. It was at least something.
And maybe it would, for a second, feel like old times.
He blows the smoke from his lips in a thin, straight stream and wishes it would pollute the clear sky. He wishes that the sky was not so empty and free, that it pressed down on him like his heart did. The cigarette smoke mingles with the silk curtains and he smiles. He wishes someone would make him stop but they don't. Perversely, he does it for their disapproving looks. He doesn't know why it amuses him so much.
It was spring again, and the bugs and creatures of the summer had not yet awoken from their winter slumber. There was silence.
And Yuushi doesn't know how to stop it.