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It all started in late autumn. Mafuyu had acknowledged how Uenoyama dyed his hair in the shade of light brown. Much to his friends' and his own surprise, it was the very same colour that Yuki had in his lifetime.
Galvanized by the sudden change of mien, Mafuyu couldn't help but wonder the reason that prompted the change. No matter how much Mafuyu wished to shun conflicts, the resemblance, must he admit, kept bothering him. Particularly when Uenoyama, at last, jolted the rest of the band with his recently made piercings.
"What a piercing there."
The corner of Uenoyama's lips were lifted lightly, forming a curve palpable enough for Mafuyu to tell that it wasn't his honest reaction. Later on, Mafuyu decided to stare at Uenoyama carefully. Not only did he not want Uenoyama to notice how he was excogitating him, Mafuyu felt like, there was still a faint ray of hope that his guess was wrong, that Uenoyama had not been changing himself to resemble Yuki for a reason that Mafuyu swore he wished he'd rather not know.
"Uenoyama, would you accompany me to the music store this noon?" Mafuyu inquired one day after they called it a day in the practic room.
"Eh.. sorry, I actually have another practice after this. With Hiiragi and Shizusumi, I mean. Do you want me to pick you up instead?" Uenoyama replied, leaving Mafuyu a disappointment that wasn't too resilient to begin with.
Ever since he joint the band, Uenoyama had been kept busy with their hectic schedule. Not to mention that they were also preparing for the recording in no time. It was winter, a holiday to be precise, but Mafuyu couldn't recall when was the last time they went out together.
"You've been so busy lately," said Mafuyu which earned him Uenoyama's stiff gesture. He dilated his eyes, as if he just realised how he must've left Mafuyu so lonely all this time.
"Iㅡ"
"It's okay. I know Uenoyama is practicing hard. Please take care of yourself well," Mafuyu cut Uenoyama in the beginning of his speech.
"I'm heading out first. See you."
Yet, it finally broke down in one winter night. As if a broken glass waiting for its turn to be shattered, both Mafuyu and Uenoyama wroke havoc on each other.
"You keep accusing me of something so nonsensical that it started to make me sick. Stop it already," Uenoyama uttered in harsh tone.
There was glum silence enveloping the air around them. The snow was falling and the time kept ticking just fine, but Mafuyu somehow had the sense that his world was on the verge of scattering.
"I don't know why you keep doing this. I have tried to understand that you're too busy to even let me know what you're up to, I have tried to comprehend with any logic behind that. But to see you distancing yourself to me graduallyㅡ"
"What is it, Mafuyu? But to see me distancing myself from you, which I never deliberately did anyway, only reminded you of him? Of Yuki?" Uenoyama shot his wrath right at Mafuyu, shattering the person in front of him into pieces. Some words pierced better than a dagger, they said.
Mafuyu, hit by a blow that he never anticipated before, or to be precise, he thwarted himself from thinking about the possibility that Uenoyama could be so vicious with his words, stayed silent. The fact that he just did something that hurt Mafuyu surprised the boy to every morsel of his being.
"I don't know why you keep comparing yourself to Yuki nor do I know why you've been turning yourself into him," he said in despair.
"You made me do this!" Uenoyama yelled painfully. His jaws clenching and his fists gripping his guitar case tightly.
"I kept wondering if you'll actually like me as much as you like him if I change myself to resemble him," he continued.
"Uenoyama, I like you just how you are."
There was a bitter laughter coming from Uenoyama upon hearing Mafuyu's candor. Mafuyu was about to speak when Uenoyama let out the next speech that made Mafuyu wish he didn't ask to meet tonight.
"Say, Mafuyu... why do I feel like, I'm all alone in this? Have we merely been postponing our parting?"
Tons of things were piling up in Mafuyu's head when he heard Uenoyama's words. He wished Uenoyama would listen, but it looked like however Mafuyu elucidated his truth, Uenoyama would only stick to his own erroneous illation. He felt suffocated. The space got narrow so suddenly.
He wished Uenoyama would hear. He wished Uenoyama would believe in him when he said that he genuinely liked him and how it hurt Mafuyu that Uenoyama thought Mafuyu didn't feel the same way as how Uenoyama felt towards him.
"I'm sorry if all this time, I made you suffer."
Uenoyama blinked in confusion, much stumped by Mafuyu's brief reaction. Palpably he expected more, something more than just an apology.
"That's it? You're only going to apologise again?" Uenoyama dilated both his eyes, staring as if he just witnessed something extraordinary.
That wasn't what he was going to say. He had other things in mind, but Mafuyu decided that uttering them would only exacerbate their wound.
Frosty winter, freezing breaths. Mafuyu was standing captured in another winter agony. He was frightened because all he could see in front of him was another cruel winter that would make him lose his loved one; another winter tale that would end with loss and grief.
A few minutes were spent in torment. Uenoyama couldn't stay still, going back and forth along the gloomy narrow street, whilst Mafuyu was exerting all he had to stop the tears from falling down.
"You said that if things are not expounded clearly, you're terrified that it'll be too late. Now that you have nothing more to explain, does it mean you're all prepared?"
"No, that's no what I mean. I'm just afraid that whatever I utter will only hurt Uenoyama," Mafuyu said under his breath lowly.
"Mafuyu... I..."
He stopped right there, looking frustrated to find the right word.
"I treasure you. A lot. Yet, somehow I keep getting the impression that I will forever live as someone else's shadow, someone that once held a special place in your heart and mind, someone that I can never replace, and I am furious. When I hold your hand, when I take you to theatre, when I ask you to go on a date, I ask myself, did he also do all these things with you? Am I solely repeating things he had ever done? Do I even belong to somewhere in your mind, a place where only I exist and not Yuki?"
A stride was taken by Mafuyu to move closer to where Uenoyama was. He was standing right below the dim lamppost, hence the bizarre view of his mien was all that he could seize in sight.
"Mafuyu, I just can't get the picture of you both off of my mind and it's torturing me," said Uenoyama when Mafuyu had gotten much closer.
"I'm sorry that I made you feel like you were not enough, that I cannot tell you how much loved you are to me," Mafuyu uttered whilst embracing Uenoyama in his arms. It took him a plethora of audacity to do it, but he was relieved that he took the manoeuvre.
"Yuki and I might have had something beautiful in the past, but my past belongs to the past, whilst I belong to the present. Now that Uenoyama asks me where he belongs, he indubitably belongs to the present."
There was a low grunt coming from Uenoyama who was now refraining himself from sobbing in front of Mafuyu. He realised that his wrath was very childish of him and he was beyond embarrassed to do anything further. He regretted whatever he said that night.
"Uenoyama doesn't have to be like Yuki and has himself burdened, I'd hate that. It's just you, your black hair, your guitar, your tendency to enshroud your blush whenever you feel embarrassed, your faint smile and wide laughter whenever we finish our stage... the only thing that I ask of you is for you to keep being you."
Mafuyu tightened his arms that tried to embrace Uenoyama as a whole. He was foolish not to take a prior notice of Uenoyama's changes throughout this winter and to let it come this far. The idea of almost losing Uenoyama in this winter prompted a turmoil in his mind that he, too, almost let it all crash.
"I'm sorry for being angry at you," Uenoyama whispered, now hiding in his lover's embrace to conceal how he had been secretly sobbing for the past few minutes.
Mafuyu gently patted Uenoyama's back, whispering in return, "It's okay. Please tell me all that's bothering you from now on so that we can fix it together. I don't want us to reach the point where we can't go back anymore."
Mafuyu couldn't figure out what Uenoyama mumbled afterwards. There was a distinctive sound, yet he couldn't comprehend it into a proper sentence. He was going to ask Uenoyama to repeat it for him, but the next sound reverberating that he immediately managed to capture was a chuckle and a repetitive nod from the person in his arms.
"Yeah. Let's not go there and stay right where we are."
A relief taking the form of a sigh from Mafuyu was released when he heard that. He made a mistake onceㅡ a fatal mistakeㅡ which led him to his painful grief with Yuki in the past. Now that he had Uenoyama, he would do anything to thwart another mistake. One loss was more than enough, losing Uenoyamaㅡ only dreading that scenario itself made Mafuyu turn woeful. He reckoned that he would never afford that. Even if it required him to bleed himself dry, Mafuyu would do and sacrifice anything to treasure Uenoyama to the utmost, to the very end.