avocado toast & other stories

v.

The world is brown and Yuriko Fujji does her best to balance night and day. The poison is spreading slowly, but her heart is heavy and leaking, heartbreak dripping out of her lips in molten bursts. Everything around her is wrapped in a strange haze: murky, milky, metallic; if Yuri closes her eyes and focuses on the sounds around her, she can almost hear the ticking of the clock and the lone bird chirping in the rose bushes. Familiar, old sounds.

She feels something inside of her start to shrink, a piece of persona that toes the edge of unthinkable waters and thoughts of I am drowning in rain and I don't know where the sun is. It's exhausting, this push and pull of whatever it is, the emptiness that just sticks to the inside of her stomach while it digs its home there, full of blood and scar tissue. Yuri just feels grief—utter sadness and a dark, dark shade of blue—and it bites at her fingertips, at the insides of her wrists, at her nose, at her heart.

God, her heart. She feels it spill out of her in a dangerous concoction of stardust and I don't know if I can look at you and see love anymore. The thoughts echo from wall to wall and get trapped there, a constant streamline of panic and remorse and bits of leftover anger from the argument they had a few nights ago.

She can't even remember what they fought about now. Everything is—messy. Blurred at the edges, charcoal smeared on a faded canvas. Yuri reminds herself of lonely winter nights, of cold feet and even colder fingertips, a human reincarnation of icicles, of sleeping alone and waking up with an empty bed. Twisted sheets. Empty perfume. Desolate memories.

They figure it out. Whatever this mess is inside of Yuri's mind, whatever haunts her at night—they figure it out. It's not perfect.

Their bedroom feels warm even now, falling petals resting upon the windowsill with bits of honey and cherry blossom stuck to the freshly painted wood. And this is home: a beautiful disaster and the scent of love smeared upon satin pillows like buttercream frosting, sugar spun and weaved with crystals of gold. Spring nights. Summer days. Winter snow. Autumn wind.

Memories upon memories upon memories, so many she can't think can't breathe can't leave—

Across from her, Gwen's strap of her tank top slips across her shoulder. Yuri sits so still that she can feel herself trembling with exhaustion and weight and the familiarity of being in love with someone ever since she can remember. They sit there with nothing between them except memories and stolen kisses underneath high school bleachers and the feeling of apartment keys jangling when going up the stairs, a couple mistakes without fairytale endings, the kind where Yuri always—constantly and effortlessly and obviously—fixates on how they don't exist after all.

"Gwen," she whispers. Why does her voice sound like this? Why does she feel like water is sticking to her fingertips like rose lip gloss, glitter piercing her skin in a harsh way? Why does it hurt this much? "Gwen, you have to see this. You—you have to know."

The beautiful girl shakes her head and takes a deep, shuddering breath: a present wrapped in gravel and blood and mist. Gwen closes her eyes. Says, "Yuri. Yuri, please don't, please just hold on a little longer for me, baby—"

She feels empty inside, a little rotten, bruises scattered along her body. Like Yuri's been left out in the sun for too long, now squeezed dry and left to disintegrate into nothing. "I've tried," she gasps out, voice distraught. "I've tried to the point where I'm sick and tired of it. Of me. Do you know how that feels, Gwen?"

Silence. Gwen's features shut down, eyes gently closing as a shaky breath escapes past her lips and she just knows. Yuri can tell that she does. "How—" Gwen chokes on a sob, cheeks turning a dangerous shade of red. Yuri feels like something's been ripped off of her chest, soul missing its other half, little fires erupting across her body. No, no, no, come back, please, come back to me.