#mdd

» gojo and you are each other's light in the dark.

(!) warning: severe depression (MDD), grief, guilt.

“i thought no one came up here anymore.”

your heart clapped once in a second offbeat, sharp and bright as a spark in the dark, but your legs refused the ancient command to run. they stayed folded beneath you, weighted down by rain and a leaden resignation.

his worn-out boots found every puddle. squishy obscene little blop-blop sounds followed him across the cracked concrete –the exact signature your own soaked shoes had composed half an hour before. his coat hung sodden and ruined; the downpour had claimed it hours ago, the same as it had claimed everything else you were wearing. you recognized that aimless gait –the walk of someone who had traveled until the city ran out of streets and finally spat him out onto this forgotten ledge.

“rough day?” his voice rolled out in a baritone again, a lullaby-like, frayed at the edges.

he drifted closer beneath the stuttering halo of the streetlamp, the light failing and intermittently in rhythmic gasps. the bandages wrapped half his face like a second, crueler skin, leaving only a narrow window for a single eye and the pale, frozen crescent of his mouth.

he wasn’t looking at you. his gaze stayed fastened to the ground, as though meeting anyone’s eyes might quip something irreparable.

“something like that.” you murmured, already mourning the silence he’d shattered. you were sick of the noise –you were escaping the noise, precisely– and that tiny victory you had achieved had been reduced to another failure, like every day you woke up.

he snorted. not quite a laugh, more an exhale. “tell me about it.”

a lighter appeared between long fingers. he flicked it once, twice; the tiny flame danced bravely before the wind snuffed it with a weak puff. he watched the dying spark the way people watch stars they know are already gone.

you hated yourself for the question the moment it left your mouth. “do you wanna talk about it?”

he tucked the lighter away. hands slid deep into pockets. when he spoke again, his voice had dropped to something mellow, almost conspiratorial, as though the night itself might overhear.

“this is the first time i've left my room in… five months? six. i lost track.” he took one careful step closer, close enough that you could smell crisp and ancient smoke on him. “i went to see my best friend’s grave today. he's been gone a year. in some way, it was my fault. but the worst part is, the ritual gets easier every time i go. like i'm sanding him down just by showing up.”

the words landed inside your ribs like stones dropped into still water. ripples you hadn’t allowed yourself to feel in a lifetime.

you began to unfold from the corner you’d claimed as a fortress, your legs aching with a strange, heavy phantom-pain, as though they had forgotten how it felt to stand.

“i get it,” you said quietly. “that sucks.”

a pebble skittered across the rooftop. he nudged it toward you with the toe of his boot. you nudged it back.

“my best friend killed herself six years ago.” you heard yourself say. the confession came out subdued. “today she would’ve turned my age. i still remember her voice, the exact lilt when she laughed. the shape of her body when she hugged me. but i can't recall her warmth.”

he lifted his head at last. his eye –the one not hidden– was the blue of a winter midnight just before snow begins. pure and desolate all at once.

“i’m sorry.” he said, and the words sounded like they cost him something.

you shook your head. “it’s fine. i stopped letting it hurt so much a long time ago. people keep dying. i keep counting the years between funerals. grief just… learns to live stealthy.”

he nodded once, lips pressing into a thin line. “getting used to that shouldn’t be possible.”

a tired half-shrug. “some of us don’t have a choice.”

silence stretched between you then –not awkward, just heavy.

he scratched at the nape of his neck, a small, human gesture that felt startlingly vulnerable against all that gauze and drenched attire.

“hey,” he said, softer still. “if we’re both up here trying to outrun the same thing, do you think we could outrun it together? i mean… i can't keep dumping this on people who know me. and you don’t have to fix anything. we both win.”

the offer hung there, exquisite and skittish.

you searched his face –or what little was left visible to you– and found no pity lurking behind the bandages. there was no condescension, no shallow sympathy. there was only the same hollowed-out hunger you’d carried for a decade without a soul noticing, finally, looking back at you with a recognition that felt like a collision.

a breath you didn’t know you were holding slipped free.

“alright.” you agreed. “but no names. and no sermons.”

a wry, astonished little laugh escaped him –the first real sound he’d made all night.

“deal.”

the wind tugged at you both then, a restless, sweeping force, as though it wanted to snatch the words from the air and carry them away before either of you could ever hope to take them back.

-

the first night you hang out –the same witching hour–, the white-haired stranger let the words spill like champagne from a popped bottle.

he told you about a childhood that felt more like quarantine than growing up.

parents who signed him away to people rich enough to take dignity away. a house so large it echoed even when full of people, yet no one ever came close enough to hear him breathe. the other children –the ones deemed “his level”– looked at him as if he were the carrier of a disease that could trigger a pandemic. he learned language before most learned to tie their shoes; by the time they called him genius the word had already begun to feel like a death sentence.

then middle school. then suguru.

a boy whose mind moved at the same impossible speed, but whose heart had learned things the textbooks never taught. suguru became compass, anchor, the first person who ever asked how he felt instead of how much he knew. later came shoko, the quiet fulcrum between two boys who kept trying to outrun their own sharpness. they were a triangle for a while. until the accident.

he didn't say what kind. only that he had lit the match –words, choices, something heedless– and suguru paid for the fire. after that, shoko went from cheerful to surly. now they only speak when bodies need stitching or paperwork needs signing. same school they all once bled youth into. he still teaches there. she still patches what’s left of the students who remind her too much of who they used to be.

“the only fuel that gets me out of bed,” he said, voice curling into a mirthless titter. “is the ache when my bladder’s about to overflow in urine. after that, my whole day’s already ruined.”

you walked in step along the empty sidewalk. streetlights buzzed overhead like dying insects. the breeze slipped cold fingers under collars, under cuffs, greedy.

“doesn’t sound like much,” you said, eyes tracing the straight gray line of the curb. “but it’s the same for me. funny thing is… i like being alone. i like my own thoughts better than anyone else’s noise. i pull away because people exhaust me, because they are unnecessary. i've never wanted anything from anyone. i've never needed anyone. no one's ever needed me.”

a breath fogged between you.

“and that’s the problem, isn’t it?” you went on, smooth. “no one –not parents, not cousins who only call when they want something, not the lovers who wanted my body but never my brain– has ever made me feel like i mattered enough to keep. i have no one to tell when something good happens. no one to sit with when the silence screams. not even god. it’s just me. and my mind.”

he nodded once. a motion that cost effort.

“i think it’s embarrassingly common.” he said. “i've never said it aloud before, but i feel sick with guilt for hurting this much. there are people starving, bleeding, buried under real injustice, and here i am –privileged enough to afford the mattress i've stained brown with my own outline, rotting in silk sheets, grieving a life no one asked me to live in the first place.”

you both stopped without meaning to. in front of a 24-hour coffee shop, windows glowing gold against the black street. your breaths rose in pale spirals, cigarette-ghosts curling toward the lamp that stretched your shadows long and warped across brick and pavement.

you pushed up your sleeves without ceremony. thin lines appeared, poorly erased characters, others still angry and raised. crosshatched proof of nights when the only way to make the thoughts quiet was to make the pain louder.

“i did this to punish myself for feeling sorry for myself.” you said, matter-of-fact, already tugging the fabric back down before he could stare too long. “last time my mother saw one, she told me she wouldn’t care if i actually finished the job. said i should at least get it right next time. i thought about her sleeping pills after that, but then i decided i wouldn't give her the satisfaction of being right.”

his inhale was brassy enough to hear. “what kind of mother says that to her child?”

he sounded genuinely wounded on your behalf. it was almost staggering.

“my… the man who raised me,” he said after a pulse. “only wanted me because they needed an heir who wouldn’t embarrass the bloodline. i was never enough. never fast enough, quiet enough, grateful enough. he punished me for things as small as leaving books out of place. they never gave me toys –only moral tales and tabloid scandals dressed up as lessons.”

a chuckle slipped out of you before you could catch it. he answered with something that might have been a smile –crooked, fleeting, more grimace than joy.

your lives had been predestined for doom from the very first moment you were thrown up into this world; solitary, naked, weeping with a wretchedness that had never truly ceased. that state hadn't altered, perhaps only evolved into the bitter consumption of a flame devouring parchment where nothing had ever been written.

you tilted your head toward the radiant window.

“do you like coffee?” your first personal question.

he glanced at the light spilling onto the sidewalk, then back to you. “i used to prefer sweet things. anything bitter felt like punishment. but these last months, i've been living off of leftovers of the leftovers in the fridge. water when my kidneys complain. truth is, taste stopped mattering a long time ago.”

you nodded, fixing your jacket. “then let’s try a mocha.”

you pushed the door open. an apologetic bell chimed. the smell of burnt sugar rushed out to meet you both; that gust being the first kind touch either of you had felt in years.

he followed you inside without hesitation.

-

the second night he showed up in clean clothes.

not new –nothing about him ever looked entirely new–, but the sweater was buttery charcoal instead of rain-stiffened black, the jeans dark and uncreased. the first real change since the rooftop.

“i washed these this morning.” he said, almost sheepish. “the others were starting to smell like defeat. i think i wore the last set for… weeks? maybe more.”

the honesty made you snigger before you could stop it –a sound that felt foreign in your throat. he didn’t flinch at it. if anything, the corner of his mouth lifted.

“i showered today.” you offered in return. “i don't remember the last time the water actually touched me instead of just running past.”

a real smile broke across the bandages then –brief, glistening. his teeth caught the streetlight and somehow made his one visible eye gleam brighter.

“why the bandages?” you asked. second question.

he waved a hand dismissively. “the sun started feeling personal. light too. my house is basically a cave now –blackout curtains, mirrors turned to the wall or draped. vampire chic.”

“why cover the mirrors?”

“because i hate what i see in them.” simple. flat. as if his woe were nothing but a minor inconvenience. “and i hate everything else i see out here, so it’s consistent.”

he perceived himself as a waste-bin more resilient than other vessels, yet one where not even a rind was tossed now that it had overflowed. he was sure his scent was the fermented runoff squeezed from the refuse. a foul, euphonious rattle of bones.

from where you stood, it made perfect sense. the world had nothing worth looking at twice; whatever scraps of beauty existed, people found ways to break, sell, or stain them. small wonder his perception was warped –strained through the grime lacquered upon the crystal of his corneas.

“i always wear headphones,” you said, matching his confession for confession. you tugged one white earbud free so he could see it seated against your auricle. “even now. my thoughts flow better that way.”

he was quiet for several mississippis.

then: “how about a trade? i take off the bandages, you take off the headphones.”

you didn’t have to ponder. something in the way he asked –no pressure, no performance– made refusal feel smaller than acceptance.

you pulled both earbuds out. cool night air kissed the hollows of your ears for the first time in forever. he unwound the lint with a slow, methodical patience, like peeling away layers of old wallpaper to find the history beneath. when the last strip finally fell away, a part of you almost wished he’d kept it on.

not because the protruding of his zygoma felt like an insult, or because his pastiness mimicked the guttering wax of a melting candle –but because his eyes were a revelation. both of them now, wide and staring. the exact, impossible blue of a watercolor shadow caressed by a wet brush for the very first time.

it was too much color against the starkness of his pallor. it was too vibrant. too neon. too terribly alive. and he was heart-wrenchingly beautiful; the sort of tranquil, devastating grace that only reveals itself when a soul is finally, momentarily, at peace.

“nice eyes.” you managed to say, cheeks warming despite the chill.

“thanks.” no deflection. just modest receptivity prior to his addition: "i like your dark circles.”

“dark circles aren’t pretty.”

“aren’t they?” he tilted his head, resuming the slow, directionless walk. “they show up whether you asked them to or not –sleep debt, genetics, grief wearing grooves in your face. beauty isn’t inherent; it’s made. it’s what we decide something means. and i've decided yours mean you’ve been carrying more nights than most people ever will.”

crickets stitched the silence back together with their metronomic, invisible thread. the wind caught the edge of your scarf, stirring your hair into a diffused aura, while the trees swayed under the ivory light of a waning moon. he moved through the murk between the buildings –navigating the very city you had so often condemned– with a poise that felt almost ethereal. the movement of a man who had just handed you a piece of himself, disguised as a compliment.

first man, person and soul, with all five senses intact, to unearth something sacred within that which you had so disdainfully despised.

“do you have an answer for everything?” the question fell from your lips like a bruised petal.

he huffed. “i’m very intelligent, remember?”

-

another day collapsed behind you both –leaving in its wake unmade beds and nests of pillows built to, however unsuccessfully, shelter you from the embrace of loneliness. the sun rose up beside the exhumed indifference from a sleep that had never been found in the cradle of the clock's hands. one more crack in the ceiling; another smudge upon the latch. neither of you knew that you had been fighting the exact same gravity, clawing through the same dense silence just to find the strength to leave your rooms.

but there you were the third night.

he arrived without bandages and with a crinkling brown paper bag from a konbini-adjacent candy store. you carried a small cardstock box. he'd brought mochi in every pastel shade, strawberry kit-kats, sour gummies shaped like stars, taiyaki with red-bean hearts, cans of melon and peach calpis. “you always go for bitter or sugar-free.” he said, shrugging like it wasn’t deliberate. “thought you might let something sweet stay for once.”

you opened your box and set the plush in his hands –a light-blue octopus, no bigger than his palms, holding an absurdly pink heart between soft tentacles. “it glows in the dark,” you said, trying to keep your voice level. “and… i figured this is the first toy you should’ve had.”

he let his gaze linger for a minute too long, his thumb tracing the curve of one tentacle as if memorizing its texture. then, he pulled it close, tucking the chubby fleece against his chest as if it were the only flimsy thing left in a universe made of tungsten.

you ate sweets until the firmament dissolved into an amethyst haze. and when he came home, somewhere between the last gummy worm and the first yawn, the octopus claimed the space beside his head on whatever surface passed for a pillow that eventide.

-

fourth night, he queued a playlist from his teenage years –glossy j-pop and early-2000s bubblegum hits. objectively terrible, but impossibly sticky in the brain.

he was particularly high-spirited today. it seemed the octopus had finally won his affection. the bags beneath his eyes had softened as if a gaussian blur had been applied, a stark contrast to the surface blur effect cast over the rest of his features.

“ever tried therapy?” he asked over the tinny chorus.

“three psychologists. four if you count the one now.” your thumbs traced invisible constellations on the weathered, emptied park table; only moths and distant traffic remained. “this one feels different. no one's ever referred me to a psychiatrist, though. no one’s ever really helped. wrong fit, maybe. you?”

he shook his head, looking down at his interlaced fingers. “not yet. the thought of sitting across from someone, forcing words out, promising to try harder than just getting out of bed… it’s exhausting before i even start. i'm not sure i'm ready to look my guilt in the face. or to change because of it. i'm giving myself time.”

you nodded. no lecture. no platitudes. the deal still held.

“i'm so tired of being alive.” you said instead, cheek pressed to the cold wood. a line of ants marched past your eyelashes, undisturbed. “food has no taste. sleep doesn’t rest me. i cry without warning, for nothing. i work and study things that feel like background in someone else’s life.”

“what would feel like foreground?”

“nothing.” the word came out stripped of its armor. “why is it so hard for people to accept that someone might not have dreams? goals just breed more goals –an endless ladder with no top. meaning is a mirage; it shifts the second you touch it. and society? everyone breaks themselves for degrees and salaries that feed the same machine. no one's saving their loved ones or the hurting. they're just keeping the gears turning.”

he switched tracks without comment. “you lost me at ‘endless ladder.’ my only goal most days is getting back to sleep after i wake up.”

you laughed. an unexpected, newborn thing. suddenly, all those reverberations you’d kept in the cellar of your cognition were no longer load-bearing.

“what about you?” you asked, leaning closer. “what do you wanna do?”

he raked long fingers through his snow-white hair, hesitating. “i want to make people feel less alone,” he said finally, eyes on the dark treeline. “especially young people. no one should have their youth stolen.”

silence unfurled between you, vast and all-consuming. nearby, dry leaves scraped against the path –a frantic, quiet applause from nature itself. without a conscious thought, your hand found his; your fingers threaded together, tentative at first, then settling with a sudden, bone-deep conviction.

“you’re already doing it.” you murmured.

-

fifth night, he let you inside his house.

he’d set an alarm –the first in a year– and scrubbed every surface until the scent of bleach and lemon drowned out the staleness of isolation. pine air freshener. tiles so burnished that gleamed under the light bulb. that physical exertion sapped him several palpitations and labor-breaths to recover from the cardiovascular drain; a heavy toll extracted by countless evenings spent wallowing in his own misery, like a swine in the mire.

you, for the first time in a year and a half, ventured to the market to sought out a trinket that might adorn his lair of corrosion. you arrived holding a pot of false heather to set on his windowsill, a small bit of life for a room that had been dead for too long.

“you'll pick the movie.” he said after the seafood pizza order went through. “and i'll listen to every rant you have about it.”

nothing felt right. nothing felt devastating enough to share, which was saying something, considering you’d watched hundreds of them. that was the tax of seclusion –when you stop answering messages and let the world fade away, technology is the only hand left to hold.

in the end, you chose submarine.

“this was wretched.” he observed, with a sibilant, elegant distaste. he set his empty plate upon the armrest with a vitreous finality. “they were such awful people. why did you ever choose this?”

“because... i don't know.” you explained as the credits began their crawl. “the closing line, maybe, followed by the tide wetting their feet and they're just there. i guess our ocean is just so deep, and we keep each other company down there. even if no one can see the tears underwater.”

he let out a derisive scoff as the final notes of piledriver waltz faded into the static. “pretentious alert.”

you just rolled your eyes, amused. “whatever, fancy pants.”

he shifted then, wearing that specific brand of effortless, ruinous charm. the kind of boy sketched in a hurry and left unfinished. there was something feverish yet cool about him –a sort of mercurial ease that only fractured at the fringes. when his blue spheres finally caught yours, the teasing died away, leaving a look that was unedited.

“if a meteor hit right now –right here, turning us both to ash– my last wish would’ve been to watch the stars with you at lake suwa.” you sputtered.

a low laugh thrummed deep in his chest.

“then start thinking of a new wish,” he said, voice warm against your temple. “because we’re going to make that one happen soon. and we’ll still have plenty of time left after.”

-

before the sixth, the ordinary hours had begun to bend toward something gentler.

in those long, sleepless stretches before dawn –when the world felt too quiet and the mind too loud –you both filled the emptiness with small offerings. screenshots of movie breakdowns you’d paused and rewound a dozen times. grainy selfies taken in bad lighting, memes that landed harder because they were shared without explanation. voice notes that trailed off into yawns. he sent photos of his digimon collection; you sent him close-ups of your coffee foam shaped like accidental hearts. there were unbidden, spontaneous smiles –and once, you drifted off while talking on the phone. truly, deeply asleep. the serenity you shared was granted passage by your nervous system, which, moved by a rare tingle of benevolence, finally allowed you to rest.

that night, when he finally arrived at lake suwa, your heart lurched so violently it felt as though it had thrown itself from a ledge –leaping ahead of your body just to reach him first.

he was a masterclass of muted geometry: a navy cardigan draped over a white tee, denim shorts, and white sneakers with bare ankles peeking out. he looked casual, unguarded –worlds away from the rain-soaked wraith you’d met on the rooftop, the one with the mustard-stained coat and eyes that looked like haunted halls.

“i brought these to cheer us up!” he announced, brandishing two slim sparklers aloft as if he were holding a winning lottery ticket.

you bit your lip, hiding a smirk. “i’m going to burn myself.”

“trust me, nothing's gonna hurt you.”

he pressed the wire into your palm, and for a fleeting second, your fingers brushed –a sudden, sharp current that felt as though you had, indeed, been burned. then, he struck the match.

in the sudden bloom of light, his eyes became incandescent –molten blue edged in gold, reflecting every frantic dance of the sparks against his lashes and the refined curve of his cheekbones. that same heat fluttered within you, a rhythmic mirror to the way your heart stuttered whenever his breath synchronized with yours. so close. so shared.

you watched the sparks climb and understood, with an irreversible, quiet certainty, that you would trade the few happiest days you ever had just to preserve his smile for two seconds longer.

that he came to shine. that he was one in a trillion. that you were in love.

sixty seconds. that was all they lasted.

darkness painted the landscape and the effect dissipated, leaving behind a shroud of smoke and a half-spoken confession. it lived there, suspended in the way your eyes held one another –naked, vulnerable, and illuminated by the spectrum of what had just burned away.

“did you like it?” he asked, hopeful.

“it's the most beautiful thing i've ever seen.” you mumbled, infatuated by the very work of art that reaffirmed your words: the divine architecture of his face.

-

the seventh night wasn’t a night at all.

it was his birthday –just another day, he’d insisted– but you’d spent hours transmuting the entire day into an imperative, private celebration.

you’d learned him by heart: the specific shade of his favorite blue; the melodies that made him hum unconsciously; the flowers he once said reminded him of neptune skies. you knew the series he’d rewatched until the dialogue had taken up residence in his dreams.

so, you carried it all to the rooftop where it had begun. string lights were draped like galaxies across the ledge. a small cake sat between you, also, heavy with whipped cream beside a ridiculous sky-blue party hat with metallic fringe. he wore it without a hint of protest. he devoured a slice in seconds, a smudge of cream clinging to the corner of his mouth.

“you know?” he said, licking his thumb, his eyes catching the glow of the lights. “i was starting to forget what sugar actually tastes like.”

while he had confessed time and time again to wishing he could build a time machine –longing to go back and avert his own birth–, you wished only to arrive at that very date. you wanted to hold him, to cradle him, and croon to him until one of those smiles (the ones becoming so frequent now) curled upon his tiny, toothless mouth. you wanted to promise him his future would be magnificent, and someone would be waiting there to treasure him as he deserved. blindly and irrevocably.

“yomu.” you said, shifting closer until your knee anchored against his. “my name is yomu.”

he froze. you braced yourself for the impact of his sarcasm, for the familiar sting of a deflection. instead, his knuckles reverently grazed your cheek, leaving a faint trail of crumbs and a sudden, aching tenderness.

“satoru. my name is satoru.” he answered, his voice as sweet as the grin that ensued. "hey, once you’re no longer at war with photos, we can take one together."

“sure. we will.” you promised.

-

eighth night, satoru brought a serenade.

or so he called it, sitting below the park’s old playhouse while you were perched on the peak, blowing iridescent bubbles that drifted toward him like tiny moons. he sang –off-key at first, then finding the tune of some trending song that had somehow lodged in both your heads. his voice cracked with laughter midway, but it carried anyway, clear and unexpectedly endearing.

“since when do you sing so well?” you called up, sliding down the slide to meet him on the grass. blades curled around his shoes, clinging to the leather as if the earth itself couldn't bear to let him take a single step away.

“always,” he teased, hopping. “didn’t you know? i'm perfect.”

you shoved him lightly toward the bushes. twigs caught in his sweater he didn’t bother brushing them off.

“how have you been feeling?” the question came softer now, serious beneath the play. he slung an arm around your shoulders, pulling you under the haven of his height. no tree’s shadow had ever felt this fresh, this safe.

“no episodes.” he murmured. “hopelessness still sneaks in sometimes. but then i think about the sparklers, and it gets better.”

you arched a brow. “they’re that powerful?”

he shrugged. “they give life to life itself.” and then he ruffled your hair with the same absent gentleness one might use on a patient dog waiting at the door. “and you? how are you?” his thumb brushed your cheek, where hollows had grown into something he loved to pinch.

“better.” you acknowledged, pride rising under your breast. “i haven’t wanted to disappear. no new cuts. no staring at the pill bottles. no wondering what the world would look like without me in it.”

“look at you!” he chaffed. that clamorous, contagious sound. “all a reintegrated adult. society’s proud.”

you chortled too, helpless against the pull of him.

he didn’t know –couldn’t possibly know– he was the finest thing this broken world had ever managed to produce. his laughter outshone every radio hit, every lonely, isolated chord. it was its own orchestra –alive, reckless, and utterly irreplaceable. it was the only sound you cared to wake up to, the lay you now found yourself craving before you’d even opened your eyes. wanting to hear it again.

and again.

and again.

-

ninth night, you invited satoru to your house.

no one else would be there –the silence you usually fled into felt, for once, like an invitation instead of a cage.

he arrived carrying a giant bouquet of forget-me-nots, stems wrapped in white paper that crinkled when he shifted. the first flowers he’d ever bought that weren't destined for a grave. he genuinely wanted to buy those flowers –to inhale a scent that wasn't the rot of the strange, pale roots taking hold of his luxurious sickbed. he craved to hold something more delicate than he was; a life meant to wither gracefully under sunlight and care, rather than drowning in the loam of indifference and the shroud of darkness. he wanted the subtle task of offering a solace that reached far beyond his own broken state.

behind the bouquet stood a white tuxedo with tails, gemstones catching lamplight like fallen stars sewn into fabric. there was no grand occasion; he’d simply unearthed it from the depths of his wardrobe –a relic of his parents’ opulent wedding– while trying, for once, to clear away overt vestiges.

“it deserved to see the street one more time.” he said, turning once in the narrow hallway between rooms –a theatrical spin that made the tails flare like wings.

“wait,” you said, already moving. “i think my mother still has hers.”

you ran to her cupboard before the thought could sour. you hauled down the heavy box where every milestone of her life had been meticulously folded away –faded wedding photos, brittle certificates, letters yellowed by time. everything in that box seemed to claim its own territory, a documented right to exist in her history. everything held space. everything, it seemed, except you.

before you could drown in, your fingers found it near the bottom: a spill of long white lace and a mermaid tail, a high neck and sleeves that seemed to hold the ghost of a shape. the veil was a thin, ethereal mist –save for one small hole caught near the hem. still beautiful. still waiting.

you didn’t look in the mirror first. you wanted him to see you before you did.

when you stepped out, he pressed a hand to his chest, staggered back one dramatic step, and faked a heart attack so convincingly you almost believed it.

“stunning. will you grant me this dance, my bride?” his voice dropped low, frisky.

you curtsied and took the hand he offered. “of course, my groom.”

the first beatles song that spun up on your father’s dust-covered record player filled the room –down-tempo, earnest, a little scratched.

neither of you could say why you were playing at this –like children acting out the roles of husband and wife. you didn't know why his hands clung to the fabric of your dress, peeling it away with the reverent delicacy of a satin glove being drawn from a hand. much less could you explain how his weight against yours seemed to steal the very oxygen from your lungs, muffling your breath against the heat of his kisses. yet there you were: two souls synchronizing like the opening notes of a melody you hadn't yet learned to play, discovering one another like a thousand scattered puzzle pieces with no reference image to guide the way. it was a choreography flickering like a candle flame at the foot of an open window –fragile, trembling, yet refusing to gutter out even as the wax wept to keep the light alive.

"do you really not have a single dream?" he asked later, once your bodies had reclaimed enough strength to form words that weren't just hushed praises of one another.

you traced invisible rivers across his damp chest with one fingertip. “now i do.” a murmur against his skin. “you're my dream.”

he laughed, softly as a lullaby. “dreams are supposed to be what you reach for. not what’s already in your hands.”

you didn’t argue, but there was no other reply. because you had no other ambition nor purpose. you merely didn’t want to be anywhere outside of him –his arms, his proximity, his absolute wreckage of reality. in his blues. in the deepest blue of the depths.

when he finally slept –snores bouncing off walls you’d once hidden so zealously for a decade– you thought, for the first time, about tomorrow. not as something to survive. as something that might hold him in it. his scent –oakmoss, caramelized sweat, safety– clung to your skin like new glasses that let you see a future you hadn’t known existed. a future where being alone wasn’t so bad after all.

-

tenth night, satoru took you to his bridge.

cars below moved like rivers of light –ceaseless, insignificant when seen from up here. the city sprawled glittering and small, life reduced to static sparks.

“i used to come here to think,” he said, wrists resting on the cold railing, leaning out just enough to feel the drop without courting it. “back when i couldn't even make it to the kitchen some days.”

you turned your back to the horizon, to the blurred streaks vanishing into distance. your eyes lingered on him –on the nostalgic tilt of his mouth, the absent and mellifluous rhythm of his fingers drumming against metal.

“what made you go to the rooftop six months ago?” you asked.

he didn’t blink. “not wanting to jump.” the words landed clean, no drama, just truth. “i knew if i came here instead, i would. and i didn't want to.” his gaze drifted to the lights below. “i wanted to know what happy felt like. or at least the closest i could get.”

you pressed your lips together hard –as if that could hold back the tempest rising in your throat.

“i’m glad you went.” you whispered.

then your arms were around him, cleaving the shape of a man who had once stood on this same bridge deciding whether to stay. he didn’t move at first. the hug stretched –seconds into minutes–, only breathing and wind and distant engines to mark time. when his hands finally answered, they covered yours. warm. grasping. anchoring himself to the heat of your body like it was the only solid thing left.

“are you happy?” his voice came thin, almost lost in the city drone, but your ears caught it before the night could swallow the sound. you rested your forehead against his back.

“i’m starting to be.”

he closed his eyes –then turned, hiding his face in the crook of your neck. watery blue orbs disappeared against you, safe.

the full moon slipped behind a cloud.

-

you crafted so many plans for the eleventh night.

a dark cinema where you could share popcorn and whispered commentary. a quiet restaurant with too many candles and not enough people. a long drive with no destination, windows down, music low. coffee at a drive-thru until the sky turned pink again. maybe even chess –you already knew you’d lose spectacularly and pretend to be furious while secretly loving how his eyes lit when he cornered your king.

you had washed and ironed the dress you’d always saved –the one with the downy, aqueous drape and a color that caught the light like sunlit shallows. you had never worn it; you’d kept it tucked away because no occasion had ever felt worthy of its beauty. until now. until the world became a series of moments defined entirely by him.

until satoru.

how had a stranger you never expected –someone who arrived as slinky and inevitably as fog– rewritten every bitter sentence you’d ever composed about love? how had the cold machinery of coincidence been transfigured into a miracle?

“i’ll bring fresh ones next time we meet.” he’d promised when you pointed out the forget-me-nots were fading to a sad, yellowish-brown. no amount of sung lullabies, sunlight, or careful watering could preserve their wonderful life. they were never meant for forever. but they had burned with a fierce brightness in your room for a little while, and that was enough.

“i have everything ready.” you texted him before sleep. “dress on the hanger. new perfume. shoes polished until they mirror the ceiling. i’m even doing my hair.”

you fell asleep smiling, phone pressed to your chest –right over the place where he now lived.

morning came with one missed call.

it wasn't strange. he often rang just to hear the cadence of your breathing, to ensure the night hadn’t stolen you away. sometimes, seven missed calls would stack up like a deck of cards before you finally stirred. but one? only one. no follow-up message. no sleepy, gravel-toned voice note. nothing.

“sorry, i'm fine.” you sent quickly.

four hours bled into eerie.

you called. five rings. voicemail.

maybe he was out without his phone. maybe he’d fallen asleep with it face-down. maybe both. you fed yourself these excuses while moving through the day –the chores, the errands, the small, brittle routines you’d only recently begun to reclaim. but everything tasted of salt and waiting.

as the day collapsed, your focus splintered. sleep became a ghost that refused to visit. you tried the slow, measured breaths of the steady-hearted; you tried to tell yourself this was just attachment speaking too loudly. but the dread wouldn’t stifle. it sat beneath your ribs like a second heartbeat –too fast, too certain, and far too heavy.

you called again. and again. the voicemail swallowed every attempt until the line simply stopped accepting more.

the next day was worse. still, there was no sign of him. you spun wild, desperate excuses –that he’d taken a boat to some signal-less horizon, or that he’d simply decided you were too much to carry. yet the restlessness did not wane. it was as persistent as a mosquito’s hum and as agonizing as a closing throat.

tomorrow was supposed to be the eleventh date.

you decided: you would go to his place. you would knock. you would demand an explanation. you would see him roll his eyes and call you dramatic and then pull you inside anyway.

so you went.

each step along the sidewalk felt like treading on glass ready to shatter. if there was a deity out there –merciful, omnipresent, omnipotent–, they had to be listening to your prayers now. they had to take pity. please, let him be okay. please, just let him be okay.

the sun was blinding, but the sweat slicking your skin wasn't from the midday heat. it was the forebonding amidst the veneer.

a knock on the door. no answer.

another knock. silence.

“i buried a spare key in the planter,” he’d told you that first night he let you inside. “just in case you ever need somewhere to go.”

your painted nails –done for tonight, for him– dug through cool soil until metal bit your fingertips. they looked less glamorous trembling around the foreign key, turning the doorknob.

“satoru?” your voice came out as a stifled moan, swallowed by the house.

the only answer was the hum of the refrigerator.

scattered across the table were a few snack wrappers and half-eaten candies. in the sink, a glass of water sat half-drunk. no gas had leaked, but a peculiar odor lingered in the stagnant air, trapped by the sealed windows that blocked any chance of fresh circulation.

you ascended the stairs slowly, one deliberate step at a time. your hand clamped around the banister until your knuckles blanched white. every ounce of strength poured into that hold, as if it were the only tether keeping you grounded –lest you drift away like a helium balloon set loose. your palms grew slick with sweat. your heart thundered in the same way as a bass drum. louder, faster, more suffocating –until it stopped, replaced by frenzied shivers.

there was satoru.

not with his ear-to-ear smile or the hyperactivity he’d been regaining. he was motionless, suspended from one of the beams, frayed by a thick, unraveled rope that sank into the swollen flesh of his neck. it was twisted at an impossible angle, with the skin bruised into a blackish-purple, furrowed collar.

he was wearing the same clothes from your last encounter –the wool sweater from that final walk, the one he’d slipped over your shoulders when the wind bit too sharp. but now, the colors had faded to a sallow hue, marred by stains and seeping fluids. the fabric bunched and wrinkled, riding up over his bloated abdomen, where dark veins bulged and snaked under the skin.

pigments had fled his face, leaving a patchwork of purples and sickly greens. the vivid blue of his eyes had migrated to his lips, and though they stared wide open, that familiar spark –the one that had kindled brighter with each passing week– was extinguished. his pupils gaped dilated, just as they’d done when he lost himself in his favorite cartoons or when you’d drawn near enough to feel his breath.

a thin rivulet of clotted blood crusted at the corners of his half-parted mouth, where his swollen tongue lolled like a sluggish thing, coated in a pallid sheen of budding fungus. putrefaction was claiming its due, relentless and unyielding. his hands, once velvet against your skin, dangled in surrender at his sides. fingers locked in rigor, nails turned brittle and tinged with blue.

his scent of incense and rosemary had receded; in its wake, the rancid odor hung thick, summoning a frenzy of flies that swarmed and buzzed, depositing eggs in the raw wounds and flared nostrils. already, maggots squirmed forth from his cavities, writhing in the sticky moisture.

it was the exact same scene your best friend had left behind before slipping from this world –the difference being that her mother had stumbled upon her body that very afternoon.

satoru would’ve never been found. he might have dangled there forever, unnoticed, his absence a sigh lost in the wind, if not for you.

you moved like a device, mechanical and detached, snatching up the toppled chair he must have kicked away. you righted it, climbed with a treacherous firmness to reach his face –that angelic sculpture growing more iconic, immaculate with every passing day. tears streamed from your eyes in a frantic rush, racing down your cheeks as if vying for which would succumb to gravity first.

the room might as well have been flooding with that quiet sorrow, because you made no sound, no struggle beyond this. you simply couldn’t.

the rope frayed and snapped beneath your trembling fingers. his weight crashed down –heavy, cold, irrevocable. you caught him as best you could, easing him to the floor, cradling the remnants of what once was.

it didn't matter how unpleasant it was. had pulsed with life just days ago, given you a reason to keep fighting. now, the only spring in your perpetual winter was gone.

he was gone.

gone was the warmth from that night tangled under the sheets, the way his frame had trembled with those ridiculous bursts of laughter that lit up everything. he was gone, and you hadn’t even gotten to say goodbye. no chance to answer his unspoken questions or loosen the words knotted in your throat.

“forgive me, satoru.” you whispered, drawing him into your lap, fingers clutching at his tattered clothes and slack shoulders. “i love you. i love you so much.”

-

it was noon.

your body lay stiff on the floor, wrapped around his, clinging as if letting go would shatter the fragile illusion and drag you back to the raw, cold misery of reality. for days, you’d stayed frozen in that numb tangle, afraid that even the slightest shift might unravel everything. your stomach churned endlessly, regurgitating your last meal like a broken record, ready to reject any scrap you’d try to force down.

long before he entered your life, death had been your constant companion –the thought you woke to each morning and carried into sleep each night, your daily bread. but you’d never paused to consider how you’d keep going without it all coming undone.

when he arrived, you assumed he’d always be there, a steady presence at your side. now, with him gone, you felt like an open wound on a limb, festering slowly, the infection spreading until amputation was the only mercy –and yet no one came to grant it.

after hours of endless tears, crying became impossible. your chest heaved with an unbearable weight, like lead sinking into your bones, as you dissociated in the dim, foul-smelling room. you weren’t ready to unpack those suitcases heavy with regret, not just yet.

he haunted every corner: at the table, devouring a meal; sprawled asleep on the sofa; rapping at your door with that familiar knock; running ahead, laughter echoing; curled against your chest, whispering that everything would mend as you listened to his heartbeat.

all of it gone. as quick as a sparkler’s life.

no more surprise visits, no stolen meetings by the lake. no confessions spilled at dusk, no quiet walks home under the stars. just the heavy silence of an absence that refused to fade, like his cooling flesh, and your deaf echoes pleading for his soul to find those celestial gates, if such a place even waited beyond the void.

nothing remained to hold you back from ending it all; just as he’d gifted you life, he’d ripped it away before you could savor a single breath of it. he was gone for good, no matter how long you waited, no matter how desperately you ached for him. and the sting of tasted hope cut deeper than the void of never knowing it at all.

it was a convulsing agony –not the wild kind that twisted your body, shredded your screams until your throat bled raw, or dropped you cold from the shock. no, this pain slipped in quietly, unannounced, a permanent lodger that leeched on your despair like a silent parasite.

the buzz of an incoming call jolted you from your stupor. you ignored the first, the second, the third. but the caller persisted, relentless, so you reached out a limp hand, fishing the phone from your pocket. the screen glowed with a single word: “mom.”

you were seconds from shutting it off when a note at the foot of the bed snagged your eye –tucked so discreetly on the corners that, without that glaring veil of dust, it might have stayed lost forever.

with a heavy heart, you gently shifted his body aside, fingers trembling as you plucked it up. just three lines, scrawled in haste across the paper.

« sparklers last such a short time and are still the most extraordinary thing. thank you for being one in mine, y. »

you picked up on the sixth ring.

“yomu? where are you? are you okay?” your mother’s voice cracked with desperation from the other end.

“mom…” you whispered. it was the first word you’d uttered in five long days.

a heavy silence hung before she replied. “what happened? talk to me, please.”

“satoru…” you began, but the words crumbled. all the pent-up emotion, the grief you’d dammed inside, burst free like a hurricane –unstoppable, unrelenting, tearing through every hidden corner until nothing was left unscathed. “i want to die, mom. it’s my fault.”

“tell me where you are, please.” she urged, her voice laced with panic as she barked muffled orders to your father. you could hear them scrambling out the door. “send the address –we’re coming right now.”

you shook your head, even though no one could see, just the milky, vacant stare of satoru, the love that had withered before it could bloom. with a trembling hand, you eased his eyelids shut, and then the sobs wracked you so fiercely that your mother started weeping faintly over the line.

you couldn’t go back home. you wouldn’t. he was home.

“i won't be able, mom. i just can’t.” you screamed, clutching the unrecognizable husk –now crawling with larvae; in your beautiful dress, in your matted hair– as if it might somehow stir back to life. “i can't.” the cries came in waves, stealing your breath until you hyperventilated, but still, you couldn’t stop.

there was no god in sight. no heaven opened up to reclaim him, no salvation through the gray to offer a reason why. no mercy. no forgiveness.