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Sometimes, Uenoyama reminds Mafuyu of Yuki. There’s guilt, of course—whenever Yuki comes up there’s always guilt and regret and mourning and all the emotions that he’s still not ready to name, two years after Yuki’s passing.
It’s just that Uenoyama laughs in this way. Yuki’s laughter was loud, obnoxious—but at least I laugh at all, Mafuyu. Yeah, well. Mafuyu doesn’t laugh often, so he’s had time to learn the laughs of those around him. Uenoyama laughs in that same way. Loud, obnoxious, but almost bewildered, like he’s doing it, he’s really laughing, this is it. It’s a snicker. A dry huff of amusement. A secretive grin. And sometimes, very rarely—eyes closed, eyebrows unknit, a slow-blooming smile, and that moment when he opens his eyes and lands his gaze on Mafuyu, like Mafuyu is the one who’s unreal, that’s—
Sometimes, Uenoyama really reminds Mafuyu of Yuki.
Truth is Mafuyu’s never heard Yuki play for real. He’d never had the opportunity. Whenever he asked, his texts would go unanswered for hours. where are you. which studio is it. i’m going home when are you getting back? yuki. yuki. where are you. yuki?
In those hours, Mafuyu felt like Yuki had erased himself from the world. But that was ridiculous. He was just in the studio with Hiragi and Shizu, and maybe at convenience store grabbing a quick onigiri, guitar slung across his back.
That guitar. That stupid guitar.
Once, before Yuki died, Mafuyu touched it. Tentative, quiet, he’d run his fingers across the strings, startled by the abrupt sound it made, and when he looked up, Yuki was leaning against the doorway, a teasing smile; there’s other things you could touch with those hands, you know.
Play for me.
No, not now. I’ll play for you in a little bit. You’re always so impatient, you realize that?
When Uenoyama’s hands fly across the strings, when Mafuyu pokes at his calloused fingertips, Mafuyu does wonder. Did Yuki play like that? Did Yuki have such rough hands?
Are memories supposed to leave this quickly?
Mafuyu probably knew at some point, long ago. He knew the color of the sweater Yuki wore on that beach. He knew the cadence, the rhythm, the tilt of Yuki’s voice when he talked to Mafuyu at school; at home; in their bed under the covers, ear pressed against his chest, the seeping warmth of his hand, maybe calloused and maybe not, as he carded through Mafuyu’s hair like he was some precious treasure.
Yuki, the big idiot. Some days he’d drop his guitar on the carpet and the same night he’d touch Mafuyu lighter than air. All those studio bills, unanswered texts, secretive playing.
Yuki left them all behind. Just like that.
“When someone dies,” Mafuyu says, and lying beside him Uenoyama abruptly stills, “do you think they know what they’re leaving behind? Do you think they regret it?”
The clock in Uenoyama’s room ticks on. This sound, he recognizes in his marrow. It ticked the same way when he’d discovered Yuki cold on the floor that winter evening. Discarded booze. Discarded guitar. Himself. Mafuyu, too.
“Mafuyu,” Uenoyama says, in that voice. Mafuyu closes his eyes—the touch comes in the next heartbeat, strong and sure, cheeks cradled in Uenoyama’s palms. “Mafuyu,” he says again. “Look at me.”
“It was just a question,” Mafuyu mumbles. A hard knock against his head. Yeah, that was a poor lie. Worth a try. “How long do you plan on holding my face hostage? You’re like a gangster.”
“I like your face,” Uenoyama snaps, and then, realizing himself, “dumbass. Do you want the answer?”
Mafuyu looks at him. Ah, those eyes. He reaches up and clasps his hand around Uenoyama’s rough index, gently tugging down. The hand goes. But Uenoyama pulls him close, hand shifting to the nape of his neck, and tucks him into the crook of his shoulder.
“It’s maybe,” Uenoyama’s voice comes. “Everyone leaves behind shit. If I loved those things though, I don’t think I would regret leaving it behind. I don’t want the things I love to die. Maybe if I was going somewhere else. But sometimes it happens. We go and we don’t mean to leave it all. It’s just the way it is.” A quiet exhale. “Shit. I’m so not good at this.”
“Uenoyama,” Mafuyu says. Then: “Ritsuka.”
A full-bodied shudder.
“Ritsuka,” he says again. He likes the sound of it. Three syllables, with a long summer at the end. He pulls back, pressing his forehead against Uenoyama—Ritsuka’s. “Let me hear you play.”
“What, now?”
“Please?”
“It’s two in the morning. My sister’s gonna throw me out the window.”
“I can nurse you back to health.”
“Let’s play tomorrow when it isn't in the middle of the night.”
“But I want to hear it now.”
“And I want you to get better at the bridge, around the second phrase with that riff. We’ll practice until you don’t get it wrong, and you’ll wish you never asked me to play at all.”
“Suddenly it’s a playing test?”
“Well, yeah, ‘cause we’ll play together,” Ritsuka says, flopping onto his back to face the ceiling. “Isn’t that way better?”
Mafuyu thinks it is.