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Flowers, a teddy bear, and a single stick of incense sat, grasped in Kou’s hands.
He doesn't know why he brought them, especially the incense, as he rubbed it idly in between his fingers. It had slipped Kou’s mind to bring a lighter to ignite the incense. The flowers, a respectful gift from his classmates. A teddy bear, a gift from Nene she pushed into Kou’s hands days after the accident. Tears had shone in her ruby eyes, shimmering and on the verge of pouring down as she gave her condolences. Everyone knew Kou was visiting his grave today, deciding to shovel their parting gifts into his arms which they couldn't bother to bring to Mitsuba themselves. Mitsuba would have loved to know other people were visiting him. It was rude to think. His audacity shocked him, but his world seemed so dull at how they never cared for Mitsuba Sousuke as he had.
They wanted to look good, to pretend to mourn over a dead boy in their class and blend in within the tragedy. They thrived off the pity, dabbing dry tissues at their eyes. His classmates didn’t care, and they never would. Life moved on with or without him, but they used him after his demise. It left a sour taste in Kou’s mouth.
His classmates would weep and struggle for air, talking and choking up about their memories with Mitsuba . So fake, Kou thinks to himself bitterly. Crocodile tears rolling down their phony faces in heaps. Kou knows. Truth is, they never had spoken to Mitsuba on their own accord or even acknowledged the pink-haired boy. It was when he was dead that he mattered to them. It made Kou sick to his stomach more than anything else.
“You have a visitor,” Kou murmurs as he kneels at Mitsuba's grave, reading the engraving. No dirt had begun to lodge themselves in the carving, still new, pristine, beautiful. It only reminded Kou of how fresh the cut of his demise was.
In Loving Memory of
Mitsuba Sousuke
XXXX - XXXX
A LOVING SON, CHARISMATIC FRIEND, AND AN UNRIVALED PHOTOGRAPHER
Kou would almost laugh at the headstone if it hadn't made his insides twist torturously. He didn’t find the descriptions humorous, but… it was so unlike what Mitsuba would describe himself. The moonlight flooded the stone, bathing it in calm shimmerings. Mitsuba’s mother pops into his mind. She must be grieving, he thinks as he dips his hand to trace the engravings with his pointer finger. She’s the one who chose the exact words to be immortalized in the stone. Yet, Kou couldn't help but think how far motherly love can go. Of course, she knew her son, but did she ever see Mitsuba the way Kou did? Underneath yellowed, flickering school lights when they should have both gone home, as Mitsuba jokes, smiles at Kou, and snaps pictures of the dim and empty campus. Kou reads the engraving over again. Unrivaled photographer? She must have been a supportive mom. If only he had been introduced to her before.
Guilt buries itself a home deep within himself, festering and multiplying until all that he is overwhelming regret. ‘Charismatic friend…’ Mitsuba would have scoffed at such a description because it couldn’t be more far off from the mark. He was cocky, rude, foul-mouthed, everything horrible and nasty bottled up into one overbearing person, but that didn’t make nearly half of him either.
He was caring, concerned for those he loves. He was curious. He was eagerly creative. Most of all, he was Mitsuba Sousuke, and it was what Kou loved most.
He…
He was Mitsuba Sousuke.
Now, ‘Mitsuba’ was just a lifeless, unseeing corpse. If you were to dig him out from under the six feet of dirt piled over his coffin, he would be icy to the touch and unresponsive. No matter how loud you screamed to wake him from his forever sleep. No matter how hard you shook him. He was dead. Dead people can't pick up cameras and make masterpieces with a single click. They can't be brought back to life, despite all the tears wasted over what is now a limp body. Kou knows that all too well.
Kou cradles the fuzzy teddy bear in his arms, wishing for some semblance of hope or comfort in the crushingly damp atmosphere of the graveyard. The fences were sharp and threatening, standing tall and imposing. The gray color of the stone seems to seep into all the colors around, plunging through the environment into a world of greyscale. Patches of grass yellowed, dying beneath the tramplings of feet and winter-barren. Mitsuba would despise being buried in an unaesthetic and creepy place like this. The boy wouldn’t dare or even think to pick up a camera in the vicinity of it either. Not that the blonde would have objected to that, he found it just as unsettling. This place would never reflect how lively Mitsuba was when he was still here. There was nobody else but Kou as a friend to remember him and carry on in his memory. While the graveyard was a tranquil and peaceful place for family members to lay their loved ones to eternal rest, unshakable eeriness clouded the yard. Kou felt like he was being watched as long as he was there. Maybe something would pop out oat him. A lifeless hand? A kidnapper? Anything. At least, to him, it could happen.
If Mitsuba died. Truly, was there anything that was impossible?
Because Mitsuba wasn’t supposed to die, not yet. It was too soon. He grasps at his chest, the suffocating fabric plastered to his skin. Too young. For potatoes? Kou would laugh if his throat wasn’t already closing up. Kou is suddenly hypersensitive to the shivers wracking his body, thinking back to how Mitsuba must have felt in his last moments.
It must have been cold. Scary? Would he have had enough sense to feel anything after the collision?
Bumpy, ice-ridden roads would never make a fitting death bed for him. No death bed would ever feel right, but the fact he had gone out so cruelly with unfinished goals and…
Shouldn't think.
Don’t think anymore.
The precious flowers start to lose their smell as they sit stagnant bundled in his tense arms. Kou places them down absently, attempting to arrange them in a way that seemed appropriate. If Mitsuba stood with him, he would've been bossing Kou around with a pitchy voice on the best place to put them. No. He wouldn’t be there anyway. Stop thinking, Kou.
…
He suddenly misses Mitsuba’s teasing sound, and it's a thought that isn't repressed when he stares down at the area of dirt that hides Mitsuba’s body several feet below. Stiff and unmoving, unlike the boy he used to know.
“I miss you.”
“Did you have to go?”
“Could I have done something?”
“I should have stopped you.”
It feels incredibly empty as the words hit stone, resonating back with underwhelming despair. It’s as if his voice is confined, reaching nobody and nowhere. He’s so lost, and he doesn’t have the slightest clue on where to head.
The moon can direct him to a safe place.
He can't tell why he knows to listen to the gentle voice in his mind guiding him to sit face-to-face with the glistening, white moon. A sense of calm washes over his body as he releases a breath. Wide, electrifying eyes meeting a celestial beauty that can’t begin to be formulated into words.
Wanting to cry and having no tears to shed is a conflicted feeling, so he speaks to the moon in a sad attempt for closure.
“I hope you’re safe out there…” Kou whispers, shifting in the grass, “Where do people go once they’re dead, Mitsuba? Where are you?”
No response. He continues with a heavy heart,
“You’re… you’re dead. I wish you weren’t. It’s so lonely, Mitsuba… did you have to leave me all alone..? I can’t be alone like this, Mitsuba...” A choked noise leaves his throat as he digs the heels of his palm into his eyes. “You aren’t Satou or Yokoo… nobody can replace you. What am I to do when someone one of a kind has left me? I don’t know if I should cry, or mourn, or do anything !”
“I can’t do anything! You know that most of all. I can’t bring you back, and I hate that. I thought I could do anything… I couldn’t even save you. I’m sure you hate me because of it, right? And you wouldn’t even be wrong!” His eyes begin to sting with tears, “A- and… I just want you back… for both of us… you never got to make all the friends you always said you wanted. W- we never got to go to that one festival we’d promised to go to together for the pretty lights. You wanted to test out your new camera there. Right? I miss you so much, and I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am, Mitsuba. Please…”
He can’t breathe. The sentences tumbling out of his mouth have a weight that slams itself into his chest, winding him. He wants to sob until his eyes are puffy and red and he can’t see anything anymore. He wants to scream until his lungs collapse and his throat is hoarse. Above all, he wants answers .
Simple and floating in the air, the moon doesn’t speak or emit any words to supply him with consolation. It shines on no matter the night. Even as the clouds shroud the orb, forever will it stay in the sky. If it were to disappear, Kou would have no power to stop it. Then, he would have nobody.
Mitsuba had preferred the sun, enjoying the warmth of the rays flooding down onto his skin and lighting up his world in a majestic glow. In the day, the birds would chirp their loving songs. Butterflies would dance in the sky with encouraging flutters, and he would feel so alive within the bustling nature. Always in the day was when he would snap pictures. Never at night as far as Kou could presume. Still, he has a feeling that Mitsuba would like the eternal comfort of the rocky moon too.
If he were still alive, that is.
Kou sighs, void and broken. His body might as well have become another gravestone amongst the many, as he can’t find the energy to move when all he can do is admire the glaring light above.
Tears fall. He lets them go without stopping to wipe them away. They wet the ground, staining it dark. When his body goes limp against the grave, he pays no mind.
“I miss you, Sousuke.”
Kou hopes Mitsuba can hear him. From wherever he's flown away to, Kou hopes he knows how much he misses him.