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Heaven's Weakness, Heaven's Strength; As Yuuki starts to go to college, Takuma watches as the gap between them grows. But gaps can be closed, no matter the size.
Topic Started: Mar 22 2018, 06:06 PM (7 Views)
RainyMemory
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"It'll be bad if we're caught, since you are still underage... So until you're older, and until school calms down for me, lets ease up. We'll still be together, but it's okay if you want to sleep with other people."


After some thought, I simply agreed to what was said. I didn't have any desire to sleep with other people, nor did I want to take a break or ease up on our relationship. But you were being considerate, a selfish kind of considerate, but I didn't have anyway to argue it anyway. I thought, that as long as you return to me in the end, a sort of break in our relationship might be okay. I get helplessly lonely in my big empty bed, and when we're together we can't really express our love for each other. Izo still grabs Mamoru's butt, and Ryouta still tries to kiss Izo on stage, but the two of us have to put up a wall to keep from overflowing the stage.

Even though the college you're going to is prestigious, it's not a private college or anything so there are all sorts of people there. All that matters is that they're smart. As such, there are more people there who respect you and get along with you than when you went to an all-boys private school. Because of that... "Sorry, I can't come over tonight. I'm going to be studying with some friends. I'll call you later, alright?" ...I became endlessly jealous. Those people aren't your boyfriend, those people don't even work with you, those people haven't been by your side like I have, as long as I have... But it's not like I can say that, because we're on a break anyway and we're allowed to sleep with other people even. I can't help you study economics, either, for that matter.

So, stubbornly, I indulged myself. I go out of my way to hang out with Izo and Ryouta more, Natsuo more, I befriend their friends, I make my own real friends at school; I become as popular as I can manage. Which, really, is quite a bit more than I realized. I book up my free nights with sports and parties, making my life as hectic and filled as possible. I fully realize I'm doing this out of some strange spite, but it's all I can do to keep myself from getting too upset. I want to be the one who says it next, that I can't talk because I'm going to be with other people. But I still feel bad when I miss your call at eight because I'm out doing karaoke.

When you had first started school, I was still allowed to stop by your house unannounced every now and then and just wait in your room. I'd clean up your things, and fall asleep waiting, and I'd wake up tucked in and you'd take a break from studying to lay down with me. Now, if I show up unannounced, Maaya says that you're already upstairs with some of your new college friends. You let me hang out with you guys once but I was so entirely out of place, I pretended I had to get home and start making dinner. I can't express my feelings to you honestly anymore, but it's not because I feel inadequate. I stopped feeling like I was below you or like I had to prove myself to you quite some time ago. I had long become comfortable saying how I felt and being able to wordlessly make up after petty fights. Now, the fake wall we'd put up to avoid revealing ourselves, was becoming very real.

Physical contact of anything is scarce, if not nonexistent. Eye contact is fleeting, the only words are exchanged beside 'good morning' are all work related. Right down to how we say goodbye. We don't stand next to each other, we don't really even interact on our own shows unless we have no choice. We don't sit near each other when we go out to eat as the five of us, we don't take the train home together even though our houses are the same direction, we don't go out alone, we don't visit each others houses, I can't remember the last time we said 'I love you' to each other. I'm helplessly watching my first love dissipate.

In an attempt to salvage something, I stop by your house after school. I feel tired and heavy, but I force myself to brighten up. When Maaya opens the door, she says you're not home right now, so I go inside just like I used to. Up in your room, it's cleaner than I remember, but it's still not clean. I stack up your books, organize your music, sort your clothes. I dust things off, and I find your half of heart necklace that matches mine on the floor between his dresser and desk. I find condoms, I find lyric sheets, I find study notes, I find pictures of the guys, of your new friends, of me, of us, I find a bra. I give up cleaning and turn on some music, the lyrics are foreign and annoying but I don't get up and change it.

I don't wake up tucked in and warm, you don't greet me and climb in bed to talk and cuddle, you don't even offer me dinner. I wake up with you shaking my shoulder, asking me what I'm doing here and saying I should've called first. Before I can even begin to say 'I miss you', I apologize and you sigh with your hands on your hips. You rub your eyes and mumble "It's fine." which means I've inconvenienced you. I ask you if you brought someone home with you because you look towards the door. Again, you sigh, and you admit to having brought 'a friend' over.

Maybe the owner of that bra?

"If you don't have anything important to talk about, can you go home for the day?" Why can't your friend go home for the day? Make up an excuse or something. That's all you ever have for me, anyway. "I'll call you later, just go out the window like before." Last time you said you'd call you never did, and I haven't gone out the window in ages because your parents know we're dating so I didn't have a reason to. As proof when you have to dig to get the rope ladder out of your closet. I smile, apologize, and go down without saying what I want to say. I get home and wait by my cellphone, it never rings.

A break in our relationship became more than a pause, but a real break as in a crack. We might as well have broken up at this rate. That being said, when we are able to be together again, will there be anything to go back to? Is there any relationship to salvage anymore? About a week later, you've still never called me like you promised. I feel empty and lonely and cold, and I call you so late into the night it's the early morning now.

"What is it?!"

"Ah... I'm sorry, did I wake you up?" I really shouldn't have called now. I either wanted to be able to say goodnight to him or wish him good luck for the morning, or even just steal a couple minutes to say I love you. Mostly, I just want to hear something back so I can finally get some sleep and stop asking myself if it would be better to just break up.

"Obviously! Do you have anything important to say or can I go back to sleep? I have school in the morning, you know!"

"...No, I'm sorry... Goodnight, Yuuki-ku--..."

I don't even get a goodnight in return.
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basketkitty
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I already knew that it was going to be awkward. After almost three years of slowly expanding distances, how could it not have been? But the day you turned twenty, I still took my chances. Of course, we couldn't go that day, you had a lot of plans with all your new friends. But I was prepared for that, or at least I'd like to think so. But it still stung a little when you turned me down, scheduling my birthday present to you for the week after. I understood, though. You were busy, and so was I, what with our anniversary coming up so soon. Although, I had secretly wanted to be able to hold your hand when we celebrated our seventh year as a band. But instead we celebrated separately again, forcing ourselves to interact when the others made us. Which only made our first date in two and a half years even more unbearable.

I had wanted to take you out to an amusement park, just like we did before. I wanted to bring cameras and take pictures together like our first time out as a couple, when you first confessed a proper attraction and I let myself start to fall completely for you. But while we had an open slot in our schedules for that day, it was only a sliver of time, crammed in between other obligations, and all we could manage was a dinner. At the very least it was a nice dinner, with wine and soft music and warm lighting... I almost regret my decision to reserve such a place, but I had wanted to make it more clear to you what I wanted. But more than my choice of restaurants, I definitely regret not talking to you more. I did, however, make sure to avoid any ice cream in the dessert we ordered, not wanting you to hide out in the bathroom like you've done before. But maybe if I'd ordered some, maybe then we could have talked a little more openly for once. Not even all the wine I drank helped.

When dinner had finished, however, we went back to my apartment. And I don't recall how it happened, but for the first time in so many years, I finally found myself in your arms, your cracked lips against mine, and your name moaned into your well styled hair. And I'm almost moved to tears with how good it feels to be with you again, after so long of trying to fill the void with other guys and girls... But when we're done, I rolled over to you, kissing you softly as I whispered about how much I'd missed you, how much I love you, still thinking that you still held those feelings for me as well. I apologized as well, telling you sorry for the wait, and for the distance, explaining that school was busier than I thought it would have been...but now I'm more used to it, and I'm taking less classes, and now that you were a more appropriate age, I want to get back with you.

But I guess my body language was wrong. Or my words weren't chosen right. Or the wait had just...been too long. But you pulled away, apologizing as well, but for a different reason than I. And while I...suppose a relationship of only sex was better than nothing, you seemed too turned off by the truth and you slipped out of my arms. And while I watched you redress yourself, I sat up, clutching the blanket to myself as I tried to reason with you, assuring you I'd change, telling you that whatever was wrong with me, I'd fix it, letting you know that I still love you and that whatever it took, I wanted to be with you. But you didn't answer and I just managed to catch you at the door, naked and as vulnerable as a person could possibly be.

But no matter what I said, even with my tears, even with the offering of the use of my hands, even with the suggestion of sacrificing my life's work and my main reason for living...you can't do it. Because you don't love me anymore. And the most you can offer is another apology before the door closes and I'm left freezing cold in the middle of my room. And when I decide, after perhaps too long just standing there, to head back to bed, of course I can't sleep. I don't know which it is, the scent of you or the scent of myself, but one of them burns into my skin making it itch and ache to the point where I need to wash it off. But even in the shower, I can't figure out if I'm clawing your smell out of my skin or if I'm trying to rip my own flesh off. And the water burns to the point of feeling like ice, and it takes everything in me to not smash the mirror when I glance at myself, and when I ball up the sheets off the bed I reach for my lighter before remembering I don't have a yard of my own.

And so, for an hour or two, I have to pretend like I'm fine as I take my laundry down to the apartment's washers. And just as casually, I go and buy myself something to drink and some cigarettes to clear my mind. But once the door of my apartment is closed and locked, and my hot sheets are thrown onto my bed, I let myself collapse and succumb to the depression I've somehow repressed for all these years. And I drink until I can't see straight, and I smoke until I'm coughing on the balcony, and I cry and claw at my side until I force myself back indoors to avoid not seeing tomorrow. Because I know, as much as this all hurts and as much pain as I am in now...in a few days, or weeks, or months, or years, or decades...I'll have eventually moved on as well. And as much as I hate myself and blame myself and feel guilty for all of this...someday that feeling might go away. And maybe someday you'll come back to me.

So for now, I'll just let myself indulge in my sadness, but no more than that. Because as selfish and greedy and all around awful as I am... I can't let us dissolve after only seven years, and I can't let you blame yourself for something you couldn't help. There's more to life than romance, after all. So even if it means throwing myself into my work and school again...somehow I'll find another way to feel that happiness you gave me. Even if it means working myself ragged until I break down in front of millions of people, or studying nonstop to the point of the only sleep I'll get is when I pass out, or just straight up leaving Japan to travel the world even if it means going by myself... Whatever it takes, I'll do it, and I'll find a new happiness so that you don't have to blame yourself.

And maybe someday, if you ever want to be friends again, I will be able to share it with you.
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RainyMemory
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When I ended it, it was supposed to be over. People always say how I'm straight forward and strong willed, but they always blew it out of proportion. Work related and with myself, sure, but when it came to other people... Especially you. I've been in love with you for damn near half my life now. When you finally fell in love with me, it didn't nearly last as long as it should've. It wasn't anybody's fault. We both became busy and things between us became too different. It was all just too different, and I broke it off to spare myself of anymore pain. I didn't want to resent you, and we had... already become nothing more than bandmates. So when I turned twenty, when I was finishing up work and you stopped me...

I wasn't entirely surprised by how nice the place we went was, because you've always had quite a bit of money. It was more romantic than I expected, though, and you were drinking too much wine. It left me confused and uneasy. This was your way of trying to make up, I thought. Like saying we could get along again, like adults. Even though the air was awkward, and neither of us were comfortable together, especially not alone. But, no matter what, you were sort of drunk so I helped you home. With how we used to make up, and how the restaurant was, I thought maybe this would be our way of healing old wounds.

But at the very end, your kisses were too soft, and you started saying things that I didn't understand right away. But I let it sink in, right next to those annoying English rap lyrics I fell asleep to in your bed well over a year ago. So, I did the only thing I could do at that time. I got dressed, and I apologized, and I left. Really, when it came to you... I did a lot of that. Apologizing and leaving. But this was the first time you chased after me. I mean, there were plenty of times that you've apologized to me in our relationship, particularly towards the beginning. But this time was different... You said anything you could say, offered everything you had, and I said no in a panic. Said I didn't love you anymore, said I was sorry and... left.

I'm twenty now, but I still feel like a kid who's still figuring himself out. I thought I finally had everything under control and I could start moving myself along. But just as always, when it comes to you, I don't quite know what to do. Do I really want to go back? But I'm not in love anymore... What happens if I just become extra baggage again? What happens if I can't return your feelings to the extent you feel for me? What if we can't go back to how we were? Before the school and friends and work getting in the way? I miss it... More than anything, if we could go back to how it was then... Why does it seem like, whenever I think I'm done crying over you, you just give me more reasons to start?

A month passes, because I want to be sure, and I call you. Of course, it takes some time to find an opening, but I decide to cancel any non-work related plans I have the next day you're free. Fresh snow is already covering the ground, and everywhere you look it's Christmas. The lights are beautiful, and everything calls to couples. But I don't want to wait for a holiday, I've made you wait plenty long. I don't invite you to a restaurant, but my apartment. It's still pretty new, and I've been too lazy to really furnish it, but there's two chairs and a table. I make bow-tie pasta with oysters because I remember your love for the latter and I think the former are funny and cute much like yourself, I make tiramisu because in a recent magazine you said that was your favorite dessert and I've been practicing it.

I bought some expensive wine, wanting to match your taste, and I light some incense because you always smell like them so I figure they must help you relax. When you show up, you're not dressed up but neither am I. I offer you your seat and I bring you your plate. About ten minutes into eating, your big red eyes lock on my hands as they come up from wiping my palms on my thighs for the third time already. "...Are your... palms sweaty?" Giving a soft chuckle, I smile nervously and our first date runs through my mind all at once in the time span of three seconds. I can see the carnival lights in your eyes and I feel like crying at the memory. Even if I don't have ai for you, we can start again can't we? Just like at first, when I had ai but you didn't. I believe that with just a little more time, if you'll give it to me, I can have ai again.

There was that saying, after all, right? You never stop loving your first love. "Well, it's the first time I've had a date at my own place, so I keep getting nervous thinking about if I'm doing alright or not."
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