NOTES: One-sided Akaya x Yanagi. Belated birthday fic for Akaya? Analytical conversation. May be confusing.
Wish
After much pestering and pleading, Akaya finally convinced the other to walk home with him after club activities.
It was then that he showed the other the wishing stone his sister had given him for his birthday a few days ago.
"Clear quartz, is it." The other held it to the distant horizon, as if attempting to magnify the setting sun.
"Yeah…" He was too preoccupied with the image before his eyes to give an elaborate reply. The magnificent glory of the sun not only lit the horizon, but also seeped through the clear stone to paint the other's skin with a nostalgic orange shade.
"…Akaya."
Before he knew it, the stone was offered him again as it replaced the other's brilliance in his field of vision.
"…A-aa… Thanks, Yanagi-senpai." He accepted it back, enclosing his fingers around it tightly as if wringing embarrassment from his system.
To hide his discomfort, he began ranting about all the superstitions his sister had told him regarding the wishing stone. In his nervousness, he had also accidentally included his wish, that secret desire that no one was supposed to know about because it jeopardized his masculinity, into their conversation.
His wish was for true companionship.
But of course, he did not include his desired subject into his speech. He caught himself quickly before it slipped out.
After a brief moment of awkward silence, the other spoke.
"You wish for a relationship because you are solo right now." He said. "Yet, if you were in a relationship right now, you may wish to be solo again. The human nature is full of contradictions and ironies."
"You don't understand, Yanagi-senpai." He objected almost immediately. He would not allow his wish, the secret that had been gnawing at his conscience ever since its birth, to be called a lie, a phase. It was real, just as his discomfort at hiding the secret was real. "You're only saying that because being in a relationship is not important to you. You don't understand what it is like for me to want to be with someone who doesn't know…"
"True… Perhaps, I am speaking too generally, and have failed to examine things from your perspective." Unlike the many other times when the other scolded him for being immature, this time, the other agreed to his complaints without much argument. "Maybe I do not understand what you are experiencing, but I do know, I have, too, wished for a deep and understanding relationship countless times."
He was surprised. That meant that his Yanagi-senpai wanted the same thing he did.
Perhaps there was hope for the other to understand. Maybe the other would even accept his confession.
"That was when I was alone, by myself. I wanted a companion, someone who I could discuss my data with, and share similarities and differences with. Then, I attend class and go to tennis practice, and the classmates and friends who surround me give me no time to think of that secret wish. Actually, there is no need for me to think of that secret wish. I already have so many people to talk to. And the thought of having another companion to talk to overwhelms me, for I have already exhausted myself in talking to so many people."
"But can't you say that the other people have distracted you from your true intention? Can't you say that the relief from loneliness, from the wish of having that one special companion is only temporary? It is not even true relief!" Akaya protested.
"Perhaps. But how will your mind distinguish between true relief and false relief? If you claim that the relief you obtain from classmates and friends is false relief, then what is true relief? You have never experienced true relief, so how will you know what true relief is?"
"I'll know when I find it!" He exclaimed with confidence.
Yanagi smiled in irony at that statement.
Such was a smile that he hated to see upon the other's lips. Even though it had a smile's physical components, it could not be called a smile. A true smile was bright and heart-warming. This was cold and it made him shiver subconsciously.
"Suppose you do find that true relief you were looking for with that true companion of yours, then. How will you guarantee that one day, you will not find a better companion and feel more relieved than you were with this 'true companion' you were with?"
"You're not making any sense here, Yanagi-senpai. If I have already found true relief with my true companion, why would I even bother looking for another companion? I wouldn't even begin the search for another companion!"
"That is because you have dismissed the factor of time, and the factor of change. Your true companion will remain to be your true companion only if time does not change, you do not change and neither does your true companion change." He looked at him. "When time changes, and you and your companion change along with it, is your love for each other not subject to change as well?"
"Then, if we do change, we will just have to get use to it!" He concluded. He wanted it to be the end of the conversation.
The other nodded plainly as if accepting his conclusion. Then, he added. "However, keep in mind also, that one is bound to lose something in every change. If you do not end up losing that person, then perhaps, you will end up losing a part of that relief, that love, you had for that person."
He paused.
"Then, over time, as that relief, that love, slowly diminishes, that precious companion of yours becomes from a soul mate to a confidant to a friend to an acquaintance, and finally, to a stranger."
Even at the end of their discussion when each of them split at a crossroad to go separate ways home, he wanted to continue the conversation, to argue with the other about his ideas.
The other's view on love was very pessimistic. He know it is because of that certain someone in the other's past that has affected him on such a view.
He wanted to tell the other to forget about that someone from his past. He wanted him to forget that person and start anew, this time with another, with him.
Yet, after much internal conflict, he still did not make the verbal proposal.
He knew, the other would not contribute his one-hundred percent effort at maintaining their relationship if they were to have one, for the other's prejudice would prevent him from doing so.
Later on, after that day, after the other's graduation from junior high, whenever he opened the box to look at the wishing stone, he always thought about the wish that he had planned to use the stone for. The wish he wanted to make. The wish he never made.
And he wondered, if he had made that wish in the past, would it have come true?
If he had made that wish in the past, in the future which was the present now, as he studied the wishing stone again, would he be satisfied with his decision, or would he end up regretting not using the stone for another wish?
Explanation:
I have ambivalent feelings on love.
Recently, I got into collecting crystals. That was how I got the idea for this piece.
Romance and philosophy is such an interesting combination, ne?
SPECIAL RECOMMENDATION: Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha. The most influential book for me. If you enjoy philosophy, then you would want to read this.