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The word, since ever, I hadn’t considered my whole life. Not even merely been etched onto my brain or touched the tips of my tongue, nor have I said it out loud for more than my fingers could count. It’s not that I haven’t felt it, because I had been sure I did. It’s just that I didn’t want to believe I did. Memories of broken childhood, lies, from my father to the things my grandmother made me felt as if I had been avoided from truth, like it did not want to be with me, like I had been allergic to it and it was some kind of mud, dirt, I’ve been strayed away off my whole life.
And then you came at a time when I didn’t know I needed you the most — but I did — I did need you, and you were solid, living flesh proof of that. I didn’t know how broken I was until I’ve seen you fix me, until you’ve built my fallen jigsaw puzzle pieces, tightening my loose screws and how your words have brought me comfort more than I have ever thought you would’ve.
The word, since ever, I hadn’t considered my whole life. Not until I met you.
Love.
—
You once told me you didn’t trust in your own emotions yourself. You said it so briefly, so shortly, so nonchalantly, as if it were something deemed to just shrug off, as if it was no big deal at all. How you told me you were afraid, that, because of past happenings that you have experienced, you’ll end up hurting someone else again. That you feel like you were afraid to love, because it feels like you didn’t deserve love. I didn’t respond, unsure of the reason why — if it’s because I didn’t know what to answer at all or if I did speak it’ll be too much. You probably think I don’t remember any of that conversation at all. But I do. I always do if it’s you.
“Touch my hand,” You said. You told me how true to things your words have been, how cold your hands are, how deprived you are of love.
“Feel.”
—
There was a time I almost lost you, in a time when you haven’t been mine at all to begin with. You’re reckless and persistent, like a kid when he sees a toy he wants despite his parents disapproving of it. You never learn, Haru. But that’s one of the reasons I have fallen for you anyway, at the same time one of the reasons I have things of you that I’ve grown to hate. You put others first too much to the point you have forgotten about yourself. It’s a foreign thing to me and I never understood why. Then it dawned onto me, like a realization of solving a cold murder case left untouched for so long.
It’s not that you can’t love or you were undeserving of love — because all this time that you thought you haven’t been — with the way you help and the way the people who you helped are grateful to you, you were already loving and you were already being loved.
—
A month before your birthday, I’ve personally come to the most luxurious jewelry shop I could find in Japan. Be it international and you’ll probably shout at me your usual, “That’s too much, Daisuke!” It’ll give a good laugh for a while, but then you’ll end up not speaking to me for a whole day, and I wouldn’t be able to bear with that. When I asked assistance from a woman to give me the most expensive piece they have, they gave me a ring of beige-pink tint, the Padparadscha Sapphire, they say. It reminds me of you. Like your eyes, your rosy cheeks, sometimes, when I take and throw away every last bit of my dignity to say something cheesy just to see your smile. Like the color of the sky, occasionally, at sunset, or like peace. Or like what I feel when I’m with you — pink, beige, warm, and all things in between.
“They must be very happy with you!”
That was what they told me when I told them it was for my boyfriend, my (with a confident cadence in my voice) soon to be fiancé.
I nodded, slightly, though I’m not sure how to respond to what they said properly myself.
Are you happy with me, Haru? I never asked.
—
ふじまつり had always been one of the many things of spring that you admire. I’ve asked you why, but I’ve known the reason from the start. The vibrant wisteria, the way they dance on trees, on flatbeds, on places they consider their home. I hadn’t expected it when you responded to me with “people.” You have always liked people, even if they end up hurting you in the end. I’ve taken you there once, in the Fuji Matsuri festival, because I knew the purple-pink wisteria flowers would bring you joy. You might remember how, of bundles of crowds of people there, your beige-molten gold orbs would always find their way to families like they were hidden treasure you’re trying to find from the war. You might not remember, because you probably don’t even know you do it. You’d look at them, a mother, a father, a child — and you’d smile, like you were imagining yourself to be in one of their shoes. Like you were part of them, in this little thing—a bundle of connection and blood called family, in a situation where it wasn’t me you were with but someone entirely different, someone who could give you all the love you deserve and someone who could perceive your child.
For one of the few rarest times in my life, I’ve felt so short. Like I was unbecoming, too lacking, too naive, and too unworthy of you. How I am a man, and you are too, and how I cannot give you a little one you probably desire, and when I think about the possibilities and the chances of me not being enough for you, I feel as though I’ve spent my whole life deeming nothing of worth.
Are you happy with me, Haru? I’m too afraid to ask.
—
Slumber hardly gets to you, and when it does, it doesn’t come so easily either. Overworking isn’t the only reason you;ve been like this. Sometimes your demons come to you every so often, in times when we thought they wouldn’t.
That time, when, sleeping together after a long day of case files and committed crimes, I awoke to the sight of darkness and the moon seeping through the window curtains and the sound of your irregular-paced breathing. I pull you into a hug, softly, but not tightly so you could breathe.
“It’s okay,” I said to you, whispering, patting your back. “It’s okay.”
Demons in disguise of trauma haunt you every now and then. You’re a good person, Haru, and you haven’t quite yet forgiven yourself for the things you have done back then, when I was yet to be there with you by your side. At times like this, I don’t ask if you’re okay, because I know you aren’t.
After a few hours, when we finally awoke to sunlight and heat and not by the trepid temperature of the moon, neither of us spoke about what had transpired. Instead, you kiss me on the lips, and once looked more intently in your face, I’ve still seen dried tears from midnight.
“Thank you, Daisuke,” you told me, a small quirking up your lips. “I’m so happy I’m with you.”
It felt as if my life has gained more meaning to it than before.
—
When I sit and take a look back at the things we’ve been through together, all the battles and all the joyful moments, I feel happy. Sometimes I ask myself if this had only been a long dream, as if I’ve been in a coma and all the things I’ve been doing is imagining you with me, and I’ve been lonely all this time.
What is love but a stinging pain in the veins of the heart?
But you’re there, now, right in front of me. In your white suit and gold-colored tie, much like the color of your eyes or the sunset or my engagement ring to you. You walk down the aisle never knowing my heart could throb this fast since this moment.
It’s like everything around me had disappeared, like a blur — the smiles on their faces, Suzue crying on the front row seat, and the mellow orchestra music playing in the background be damned. The ceremony had gone and came by yet I couldn’t remember a single bit; all I could think about is you. The way you’ve held my hand, and the subtle tightening of the grip when you know I’ve become nervous. The way you glance at me from time to time, the way you fix my hair. The way you say I’m beautiful, more than the wisteria during Fuji Matsuri and every flower in this world combined.
The moment our lips touched, we were crying. Drowned by claps and cheers from seats a few feet behind us, our tears are becoming one. We both must’ve never expected this would happen — but it did.
You.
All I could see was you. Our eyes meet, molten gold overpowering my dark ceruleans. Mouthing the words, “I love you,” You smile and I smile at you too.
What is love but the throbbing of my heart screaming your name?
—
I have never been good with words. You were always the first one to initiate I love you’s and comforting words. I was never good at it — putting emotions and feelings into words. I find it difficult, to express something you’ve felt so deeply and have a person understand it so clearly in just an utter of a sentence or a phrase.
You’ve never complained once. I’ve always thought you never really cared. But it’s not like that you didn’t but more of the fact that you have been feeling it already. That these emotions and feelings I find so hard to get off my chest are things that have been long exposed way before. I asked you how it is that, and you just chuckle and shrug it off.
“It’s pretty obvious, you know,” you told me. “The way you act is basically shouting I love you to my face.”
I haven’t been raised to be vocal about emotions, anyway. But you were understanding. You always are. You told me it isn’t about words that matter but the things you do and show yourself.
I love you, Haru, and I always will. Why do we keep lying to ourselves, saying we’re in places we call home? That pink-beige sunsets, periwinkle wisterias and complete families are the ones that give us comfort and shelter and a sense of security? You’re the only place I call home, Haru, until the end of time.
I know I have never been good with speaking my emotions, therefore I’m writing this letter to you in hopes you understand more of what my thoughts are.
(They’re all about you.)
Feel.