UNEDITED.
COULD IT HAVE BEEN AVOIDED? chapter three
𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒍𝒚 second year of higschool was tough and you were going to be brutally honest with that. You and Hiiragi were still together but it felt like your relationship was on the verge of breaking. Neither of you talked to each other more like a lover would and definitely far from being close as best friends, he was always with Shizu now and you couldn't help but felt jealousy searing through your veins.
But it wasn't the fact that he's with him 24/7, they had their own bond and that's something you couldn't change, afterall — they're best friends. But the three of you also were. And you wondered what did you exactly have done wrong. It didn't help that fact that you saw Yuki and Mafuyu together and then Hiiragi and Shizu together. As if you were just in the middle. An addition that just couldn't fit the whole group. Just a somebody, just a part of the group — unseen but still there. Just barely. And you hated the way that you were being constantly ignored. Sure, many people kept on throwing their love for you but you didn't any want of that. You wanted your best friends — your lover to acknowledge you as someone who's still there.
Could they ever feel what you were feeling right now?
You stared at Hiiragi's back as the teacher's lecture was drowned out by your ears. You couldn't remember the days that you were romantically involved with him anymore. All those times that you were with him, Shizu replaced you instead. From the first time that the two of you went on a date to the day that you told your parents that you were with him. It wasn't [Name] and You've already made up your mind with him.
" What do you want? "
What do you want? Afterall those times that you've been avoiding me, all that you could just say and ask is that? Not even an, are you okay? Your fist clenched in silent anger before you sighed and unclenched. You were tired today and the last thing that you wanted to do was start some break-up fight between the two of you. So you calmed down your nerves and stared at him in the eyes, today has only been the day that you did directly and you couldn't but feel foreign by those golden orbs.
" I want to break up. " You told him with a firm voice and there was a pang in your heart when he stared at you back with a glare. It was almost the same when he found out that you liked Yuki — almost — because the one that he was currently giving was harsher than before. Something that you didn't expect. In fact, it was far from what you were expecting. You expected him to at least feel being heartbroken, because if he had that present right now, you had already ready yourself to feel sorry.
But this wasn't what you expected at all. As if he was ready about it and somehow, you felt grateful and infuriated at the same time. But that just made everything easier to be dealt with, " It's better if we cut each other off. " You didn't know what came over you but for some reason, you felt like that was the right thing to do.
But was it, really?
After a decade of friendship, you were just going to cut it all off? Another voice in your head told you that it was. Afterall, he was ignoring you so cutting each other off was just the same, right?
But then, your thoughts drifted of your band. You suddenly feel the heaviness behind your back, gaining consciousness that you have your electric guitar bag clutched by your shoulders. You were part of a band that had so much potential, with you, Shizu, Yuki, and Hiiragi. Your life had just never revolved around your best friends and higschool, music was there to accompany you too when you were lonely. You couldn't just leave something that you grew up with and loved. And it seemed like Hiiragi caught up with your thoughts as his body language wavered a little, the glare a few blinks away from being concerned — so you beat him up to it.
" The only thing I care about is the band. " You said with gritted teeth. " Let's just pretend that nothing has ever happened to us, that there was no we and us — because I don't want the band to just break because — because of us. Because of this stupid — " You could have scripted what you were going to say to Hiiragi because you could feel the utter frustration of not finding the right words. You groaned and clenched your right hand, the nails of your index and middle finger digging through the skin of your thumb. A habit that Hiiragi caught up with at times when he saw you in the state of frustration. He would have stopped you knowing that if you kept this up longer, your skin would bleed but he didn't.
" Let's pretend that we were nothing at all but... continue the band. " You almost felt like an idiot for saying that. Wanting to cut him off but still breath in the same air as him when you were going to be doing music? You doubted that everything would ever be the same with the band with this confrontation but this was the only thing that you could do. You couldn't just leave everything behind, music was something precious. It was the only thing that was keeping you sane these days.
There was a sense of deja vu as the two of you stared at each other. It felt like it had been a millennium, and only then you broke contact when you felt something liquid wetting your fingers. You looked down to your hand, not surprised to see blood staining your skin red. The feeling of the wound was numb and you felt his eyes watching. So you straightened your head and gazed at him with a cold look, ignoring the bleeding as you walked past him.
Hiiragi watched your reatreating form with a glare but when you disappeared from his sight, his lips contorted into a frown.
And then a lone tear dropped down his face.
🌌
Ever since that confrontation, your relationship with Hiiragi had been affecting the whole group to a great unfortunate extent. The other three could feel the aura of coldness between the two of you and there was no secret that they were bothered by it.
Shizu was the first one to acknowledge your behaviour, and what's strange and annoying was the fact that even though you weren't with Hiiragi anymore, you could still feel jealousy throbbing your heart every time that you got to see him with Shizu. Shizu, as blunt as he could ever be asked what was going on between the two of you. And during that day where you had that conversation with him, you remembered resisting the urge to laugh. He should know about it, he was close with Hiiragi anyway. Too close for your own insecurities to be felt in a way that you weren't going to be surprised if one day, the two of them would be together.
Despite trusting Shizu the most out of everyone, you did not straightforwardly replied to his question. Rather, an " Ask him yourself. " was what you have given and the way that he stared at you blankly, the ever so stoic guy he was made you chuckle.
Mafuyu, even though you shouldn't feel it — you couldn't help but feel some sort of displeasure. You tried not to, but the thought of him being the reason that Yuki could never be yours on that day that you confessed just hurt. You felt disgusted by yourself, you could say. It wasn't his fault that Yuki never liked you. It wasn't his fault that you weren't him. But you just couldn't help it. Feeling cold towards him as he asked if you were okay.
A cold insistence and from there, you left him with no other words to say.
Yuki was the most concerned out of them the most, and you wanted to disappear. Maybe collide against a star, or float around space discover a universe where there wasn't any Yuki. Because Yuki, when you looked back at his eyes that had nothing but concern, as he wrapped his hand around yours and squeeze it for comfort, asking if you were okay. You could remember the time that you realized that you loved Yuki and there weren't any way that you loved that. Because when you thought that you could have been happy with him, Mafuyu comes in the picture. He was someone that you could never be. You were someone that Yuki could never love the same way that he loved Mafuyu. Someone that he could never dance with the same time that you watched the two of them sway in the music as lovers would.
But even all that, he was the only one that you told that you weren't okay. Crying into his shoulders like a goddamn baby, muttering about how you and Hiiragi broke up. There was a selfish part of you that yearned for something that you could never have from him as you embraced Yuki. So you let that moment last. And when it lasted, you saw Mafuyu standing a few before you. Gripping a plastic bag as his salmon pink orbs gazed back into your [c.] own ones, an emotion that you couldn't point out but you knew it wasn't anywhere good for him. So you gave Yuki a final hug and mutter of a "thank you" to his ear before you left him, walking past Mafuyu who had never moved from his position.
🌌
Maybe it was the fact that it had never been the same ever since you started to drift off from your bestfriends, but even all that, you always ended up in the same train station. Even if Mafuyu went to a different highschool, the five of you still lived in the same neighborhood so seeing each other in the train station was inevitable.
On this particular day at the station, you walked behind Shizu and Hiiragi, nowhere in close for a talk as best friends — but it was a wonder how the two managed to put up being in the same room as you when you're together as a band. No longer a group of bestfriends who had an unbreakable bond ever since they were seven, perhaps treating each other strangers but when on stage and band practice, some sort of false and forced, bond and connection was formed.
You wondered how long would this ever last until the strings would finally snap.
You arrived early in the train station after an early class dismissal, it was uncharacteristic of you to ditch gardening club but you felt like it wasn't just one those days. You ditched anyway but you were starting to regret doing so because at this point, you were once again on tail from the four. It was that occurrence or they were on your tail. Just as when I thought that it wouldn't be like this. You sighed and stood a line adjacent to them. You were going to avoid any conversation with them even though you knew the only conversation you would like that was related to the band but just for good measures. Who knew between the five of you would finally speak about the problem.
You crossed your arms against your chest as you impatiently waited for the next train to arrive. Tapping your shoe against the floor of the station as you stared at the repeating contact, finding some sort of entertainment towards it with the needed silence filling the gap of needed comfort around you. The feeling of not having the straps of your guitar bag wrapped around your shoulder somehow felt weird but you didn't think about it that much and just as then your thoughts would drift to another, the sound of the familiar announcement of the arrival of the next train reached your ears. Your shoe tapped against the floor a few more times before the distant sound of the bullet train started to be heard and then a voice suddenly shouted.
It was alarming to say the least, shouting in a public place where silence should be observed. That same voice brought you to turn your gaze away from the floor and only that you realize that it was Mafuyu who stood before a couple of feet away from you, shouting something at Yuki that you couldn't exactly place — the announcement being repeated once again and the arrival of the train made it difficult to hear. Everyone else who had been in the train station stared at their direction with profound oddity and there was no more guess that what they were having was an argument.
A part of it managed to reach into your ears as you stared at their distressed form one last time, you didn't want to miss your train afterall. But when that same sentence processed inside your head, you couldn't help your eyes widening as you stepped inside the transportation.
" Would you die for me then?! "
Their voices lingered around your head too long for your own liking, as if it kept replaying in your head like a broken record.
🌌
The news of Yuki's sudden death brought more than just devastation for your whole being to feel. Never in your life would have imagined to see his body laying inside the coffin so peacefully. It was a suicide as the police have said, no trace of murder or whatsoever.
Yuki hanged himself and brought himself to death. Mafuyu was there to see his lifeless form hanging on the ceiling of Yuki's room, how he said there were a couple of cigarettes and beers scattered around the floor. You almost found his information ridiculous, as much as Yuki looked like a bad boy with his charming personality and with his famous piercings, never in your life you would have imagined that he'd be inside the comfort of his own room smoking and drinking.
Only then you finally believed it when the police were the one to discover such things.
Never in your life you would imagined crying over the coffin of your best friend at such an early age of sixteen but in your life, you would have imagined the cause of his death would be Mafuyu.
It wasn't a selfish thought, Yuki was already dead. Yuki was dead — so what's the point of feeling jealousy over Mafuyu? Those words that both of them have said to each other replayed inside your head once more. Whatever have brought the two to fight over something that big, as of the moment, you didn't want to know. You liked privacy and you respected other's privacy but would Yuki really do that?
To prove his love for Mafuyu, he would be taking his own life?
Would Yuki really be that idiotic?
Somewhere in heaven or the afterlife, was he regretting over his choices and doing, and realize the consequences. He wasn't in the right state of mind given that he had been smoking and drinking but to the point that he killed himself. It was tragic that he loved Mafuyu too much that to prove that, he had taken his own life. But was it the words of Mafuyu's that triggered it?
" Would you die for me then?! "
It would have been because of the heat of the fight but why would he ever ask that and why did he have to prove? There was a rising rage inside your chest as you glanced at Mafuyu's direction, an eye to the side brought your head to fully gaze at him. He looked remorseful to say the least and you wondered what was going on inside his mind. A part of you felt anger while the other felt pity. To lose someone you love unconditionally...but it was the same as with you right? With Saeko-san? Hiiragi and Shizu.
From what seemed like ages, you finally caught eyes with Mafuyu and the way that he looked like he wasn't Mafuyu anymore brought an unwelcome feeling to your chest.
Was it guilt? Extreme sadness for him? You wouldn't like to ponder about it, not when he sent you a frown that just seemed to deepen as the seconds went by. But why though? Why would he send you a pity for look on his eyes when you should be the one to do so? You stood with him side by side as you let the [favorite flower ni Yuki] fall from your grasp and down below the coffin that was slowly being covered by dirt, Mafuyu doing the same as the greiving cries surrounded you. You stared down at the disappearing coffin and hear a cry coming from the male beside you. You stared at his weak from as he cried and hit his fist against the grass. It might've been cold of you to not shed a single tear the whole time in the ceremony but all of it had already been shed days prior to the present silently in bed, ever since you found out that he was dead.
The boy who liked to play paper planes in the playground wasn't going to be with you anymore.
The teenage boy who started the band you were planning to leave would never be able to fulfill his dream on being the famous rockstar alongside with his bandmates.
Your best friend who you regretted catching feelings for, who had made you feel loved despite the circumstances wasn't going to be with you anymore.
Yuki wasn't going to be with you anymore and hurt billions more when you already knew that he wouldn't be with you like that way before.
" Yuki, " The stars of the night twinkled unsynchronized as you sat before his tombstone. A bouquet of assortments of flowers that you freshly bought from a store standing beside his picture frame. " Did you love Mafuyu that much? "
Yuki wasn't going to be with you forever and all you could ever feel was being heartbroken.
🌌
Walking through the hallways with your hands clutching the holder of your electric guitar bag, you ignored the stares that you were getting from the sea of students and continued to pave your way through the hall.
Upon arrival inside your classroom, you greeted everyone with a smile and proceeded to your seat. Everyone was clearly in awe as you entered the room.
" Wah! [Name]-san, you dyed your hair red! It really looks good on you! " With her words and consciousness, you brought your hand to pat the part of your hair that was in that shade of colour, before turning to her with a smile.
" It suits me, doesn't it? "