• our fading futures • akitoya • REWRITE BEGINNING SOON

• missing them •

'TWS: depression, mentions of suicide'

{pov: rui}

I can't stop thinking about them. It's got to the point that every time I wake up I swear I see Mizuki's face. They most likely committed because of their parents. They didn't want a child with a gender like that. They just wanted their little boy back.
They must be feeling as sad as me. Mizuki said, back then, they didn't understand and thought it was something that was sinful, devilish. Their father threw out all of their feminine clothes. They called me that night, crying.
My friend, Nene, interrupted my train of thought. "Rui? Toya's ready to talk." I lowered my eyebrows. "I don't want to." I said, simply. "Sorry. I promised to do that for you to make you happy."
Nene scowled at me. "Come on, idiot. We're going to see him, and he might be able to help you a bit." I shrugged. "Doubt he will."
She looked at me grumpily, then grabbed one of my arms in her hand. "You're coming. Either that or I'll drag you there." I smiled slightly. "You won't be able to drag me if you tried. I'll come, sure."
Her eyes lit up. "Great! Thanks so much, Rui. Thanks for trying." I nodded, patting down my purple hair with blue streaks.
We walked along the hallway, out to the library. We saw a few people on the way we said hi to, and said we were going to browse books at the library. Nene was being her usual shy self. I could see why I had a crush on her years ago.
"Toya should be here soon." She said, as we walked into the library. "What's wrong?" Nene said, looking at me. "You never told me it'd be Aoyagi... Why did he agree?" She shrugged. "He's too sweet to say no, and you know that." I shrugged. "I guess that's true. We should go under the stairs." Nene nodded, and we walked over and went into the small door, me having to duck a fair bit to get in.
About 5 minutes in, we heard a knock on the door. "Is that a librarian?" Nene said in a whisper, starting to panic. "... We're gonna get in a bit of trouble..." I whispered back.
We both exhaled a sigh of relief when we realised who it was peeking through the door. "Oh. It's only Toya." Nene said, with a relieved smile. "Come on in."
"This room is a bit dusty... It could use a cleaning." Toya mumbled, stepping one foot after the other into the closet. "I know. But it's the best we could do." Nene said, sitting on the squeaky couch, me sitting after her. The split-haired boy sat on a dusty lounge chair with holes in it. "I hope there's no rats or anything in here." He mumbled, loud enough for us to hear.
"Nene said you can make me feel a bit better." I said abruptly. "I'm honestly still in mourning from Mizuki's death." Toya nodded. "It's okay to mourn. It's only natural." He nodded, with his usual poker face.
"Okay, vent. I've already had to deal with this once today... But I should be prepared for this one." I smiled. "Thank you for this, by the way."
Then I told Toya and Nene about everything. Me having a crush on Mizuki, never getting to tell them, the time we spent together, their parents, how much I loved them, the amount they were bullied in school, me standing up for them, my last words to them, regret. Everything came pouring out with a few tears added on. When I was done, Nene clasped her hand on mine. "Thank you for sharing this with me, Kamishiro-senpai." Toya nodded, his expression non-changing. "It's okay." I said, wiping away the last of my tears. "It feels good to let your emotions go like that, huh?" He said, resting his hands on his chest. "Yeah. I guess I feel a small bit better." I murmured.
"Rui... I'm your best friend, and you don't tell me all that? You know you can trust me." Nene said, with a tilt of her head.
"It's fine if he doesn't feel comfortable to. I don't tell Akito a lot of stuff about my father, and Akito apparently doesn't tell me a bit about his life. But that's fine. It doesn't mean he trusts you more or less, Nene. If that's what you were worried about." Toya said.
"You're better than you say at this stuff, huh?" Nene said, looking away from me at Toya. "That's a big compliment. Thank you a lot." He said. "Anyway, back to the topic."
"Rui, missing Mizuki is absolutely a natural thing. I know of somebody who may be experiencing the same thing as you, too. So you're absolutely not alone." I smiled. "Good to know."
"It's good to mourn, but not for too long. Mizuki was a great person, and they'll definitely be missed. But, would they want you to be sad forever?"
I thought about this for a few minutes. If Mizuki didn't want me to be sad, why am I being sad? Am I making a shame of myself or ruining what they wanted? Maybe my depression was all my fault... "...I guess they wouldn't." I mumbled. "But then it'd be all my fault I was sad. I'm so useless... I don't even know what they meant..." Toya looked contended, then surprised. "No matter what, there's a reason behind everything for being sad. And it's natural to make mistakes. Now, what was your favourite memory with them?"
I thought for a few seconds. "...They enjoyed hanging out on the rooftop with me, and I did too." A smile came across my face.
"Now, whenever you think of them, I want you to remember hanging out on that rooftop." Toya straightened his tie. "Is that okay? We'll just take the recovery in small steps, if that's fine. I know they're special to you, and I want to change your sadness into happiness as best as I can."
"...Okay. I'll try to do that." I looked at him and smiled slightly. "You know, for someone with a poker face like that, you're very good at understanding emotions and how people feel."
Said poker face broke and he smiled. "Thank you a lot, Kamishiro-senpai. That means a lot to me." Toya said, beaming.
"You should smile more, as well." I suggested. "I'm trying to. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of good things in my life. But I can hardly muster a real smile a lot of the time." Toya said. "Now, we should get back to our conversation."
I sighed. "You know that rooftop I mentioned before...? That was the one they jumped off on." Toya looked at me sadly. "Maybe they did that because that rooftop held a lot of significant memories for them. A few people choose where they commit because it holds memories. "
"I just assumed it was the closest to them, and the highest place..." I mumbled. "And they didn't hang out with anyone else on the rooftop. So it must have been because of my memories with them." I nodded. "Thank you for that, Toya. I didn't realised I was so significant to them." Nene looked towards me. "Really? Rui, they talked about you a lot! A quarter of their conversations with me were about you." She said. "Wow... I didn't realise." I mumbled.
"Yeah. It seemed like they enjoyed your company." He nodded. I noted he'd reverted to his poker face again. "And if I know Mizuki, they wouldn't want you to cry or be sad for one second. They'd be there, trying to cheer you up."
He drummed his fingernails on the table in between the two chairs. "Lunch is going to end soon. I'd best hurry it up." He mumbled. "What reminds you of them?" He asked me.
"Pink. Like their hair. Cotton candy. Pink sunsets. Bows." I mumbled. "A lot of stuff I can't remember too much of besides them liking it. Like their favourite songs."
"Well, what was one of their favourite songs, then?" Toya said, leaning backwards from the table.
"I don't remember too much of them, but one of them was called Cute Na Kanojo. They said they liked the artist. It was about a woman who was crazy but her boyfriend still loving her, or something." I said, looking at Nene, who was intensively listening in.
"Maybe you try playing it tonight. Try to get through the song without being sad, maybe. Or just think of the memories you shared."
Then, Toya stood up. "The bell's about to ring. We should get to class, Nene." He said, nodding to her. "Sure. Thanks again. How do you feel, Rui?" I nodded, looking at her. "A bit better. I think I can try coming back to the Wonder Stage this afternoon to rehearse." I said with a smile. Nene smiled widely at me. "Seriously?! Great!" She said happily. "Toya, you're literally a life saver. I dunno what we would have done without that." She said, bowing to him. "It's not that much of a big deal. I should be thanking you guys for helping my speaking skills." Toya nodded. "You should be thanking Akito for being willing to give me over to you for one lunch. I was sure he was going to say no." He said with a slight smile. It was funny how Akito and Toya only talked about each other. "Thanks again, Toya. I'd best get to class." I nodded, looking to Nene. "See you at Phoenix Wonderland." She nodded, and I walked out of the room, the other two after me. "Is it fine if we do this another lunch?" I asked Toya. "No problem." He said, walking beside Nene. "Anything for a friend."
"See you guys." I said, heading to my last period, around the corner. I started making a mental plan of going to Phoenix Wonderland and apologizing to everyone.
They were relatively forgiving people so I shouldn't be in too much trouble, thank god. But I still worried if Emu and Tsukasa missed me. Would they have been sad? Why didn't they contact me? Did they even want to be my friend?
I rounded the corner to my last period class, sports. I didn't necessarily want to do sports, but I guess it wasn't the worst class possible.
After I changed, we had to warm up and then we were doing running. I wasn't exactly the biggest fan of running, but, like before, it wasn't the worst thing ever.
I won one race, and lost the rest. Though I didn't expect much of myself. Once the school bell rang, I put my bag on my back, and made my way to Phoenix Wonderland.
Emu was early. "Rui-kun! You're back!" The smaller girl said, running over to me and squeezing me in a hug so tight I almost lost my breath. "I knew you'd come back!" I nodded. "Yeah. I'm feeling much better now. Thankfully." I said with a smile.
"Hey! Rui! I thought you weren't going to come today! You must have been inspired by my possible presence, right?" I shrugged, turning around. "You could say that, Tsukasa." I said. Nene was beside me. "Nene told me on the way here!" He practically yelled.
"Is that so?" I asked. Nene frowned. "I met up with him on the way here by accident, so we just hung out together."
Suddenly, Tsukasa's phone rang. "Oh? It's the hospital. They must be concerned about Saki." He mumbled. "Hello? This is Tenma Tsukasa here!" He said loudly. After a moment, his eyes went hollow. "R-really? No, I'm not too busy. I'll be there right away." He put down the phone and stood there for a few seconds. Blankly, which was unusual for him.
"What happened, Tsukasa-kun?" Emu asked.
"It... it's Saki..."
"She... Her sickness relapsed..."

‹Word count: 2004›