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There was pain inside of him, that day in the morgue, that never seemed to go away.
It was kept spotless—Shoko’s personal preference—but all that Suguru could see was vermillion, vivid in his own lenses as Nanami’s sobs turned into white noise.
“Rest,” was the last word he spoke to him that day—an ultimatum, an order for the younger boy to leave the chamber.
Nanami had bandages on his legs, but he walked towards the door like it was a victory march. The pain all went to the beating organ in his chest, Suguru had felt it before too.
“Getou-san,” Nanami said, not turning back to look at him, with his hand on the doorknob.
Suguru clutched the edge of the metal surface, close to where Yuu laid his head, unmoving.
He could hear Nanami’s breath trembling, heavy metal door sliding open with a loud screech—too loud for Suguru’s liking.
“It hurts,” he continued, and stepped out the door.
Suguru’s knees went weak once there was just one heartbeat left in the room, and his forehead was suddenly cold against the metal table.
Of course it does.
Satoru once compared Yuu to a panda stuck in captivity.
“Gojo-san,” Yuu’s complaints flew, and Shoko choked out a chortle when she saw his face turned as red as summer sunsets.
“Listen,” Six Eyes Satoru leaned in towards Yuu and looked at him, even taking his aviator off in the process. “All you do is eat and walk around following your nanny, Haibara.”
Nanami didn’t seem interested in the conversation, but Suguru could see his small snicker from the corner of his eyes.
“Nanny?” Shoko scoffed, and Satoru looked up at him.
“Suguru,” he leaned back to his chair, voice accompanied with a menacing smirk.
It took him a while to catch Yuu’s eyes again after that, but when he did, he was greeted with a shy smile. His chest filled with inhibition, and Suguru spent the rest of the night looking at his shoes.
Suguru recalled Yuu having a younger sister.
“She’s 13 this year,” the swelter of the sun was making drops of ice cream roll down his cone, but if there was one thing Yuu loved more than eating, it was talking. “She can see curses, but…”
He was a first year student then, one with his hair chopped up in arbitrary places which only amplified Suguru’s impression of him; vibrant and unafraid.
“But?” Suguru tried focusing on his popsicle, but the round shape of his eyes were distracting. He was mirroring the radiance of the sun, pupils dancing under his long lashes.
Yuu dropped his shoulders, legs halting their swings under the bench. “I don’t want her to go here.”
He had known the boy for only six months, but he had never seen him look ashamed.
“The school?”
Well, maybe not ashamed. Just, not proud.
Something tugged on the bottom of Suguru’s stomach when he saw Yuu nodding, like a broken record, his next words haunted his mind until this day.
“This is tough work,” Yuu decided aloud, as if trying to convince himself, before turning his shoulders to face away from him.
Suguru did not take any offense to the action. Instead, he bit on his ice and let the pain numb his gum.
Mimiko and Nanako have a secret language that can only be understood by each other.
Suguru realized one morning, as he was preparing breakfast for the two girls, that they were talking with their lips sealed shut.
“Mimiko wants to buy a pair of new shoes,” Nanako suddenly said, just as he was flipping over the omlette.
“Nanako!”
Suguru glanced back at the dinner table, where silence struck them once again. Mimiko glared at her sister, eyes squinting, and Nanako only returned her gaze with a blank stare and a cocked eyebrow.
“I’ll get you new shoes,” Suguru laughed softly, the vacancy in his heart slowly being filled with the presence of his new gaiety.
“I don’t want new shoes,” Mimiko grumbled, and Nanako giggled. “Mine was just torn on the sides, I just need to stitch them.”
Suguru turned the fire down, “Okay. I won’t get any for you, then—“
“Wait!”
Nanako giggled again. When Suguru peeked, Mimiko’s cheeks were billowed and flushed.
It reminded him of Yuu.
Only Nanami came to Yuu’s funeral.
Suguru couldn’t bring himself to enter the cemetery, and so with his dark clothes, he watched the proceedings happen from afar.
When Yuu was finally laid down, Suguru sat on the grass just outside the gates, waiting for Nanami’s return.
“Did you meet his sister?”
The blonde immediately found his place next to Suguru, thumbs twiddling with his other fingers.
They’ve gotten over the tears by then, crying won’t bring a dead love back.
“She said that Haibara talked a lot about you,” Nanami glanced at the small group of people still inside the cemetery. “And about me too. At different times.”
Suguru felt his fingers digging into his skin.
“What does she look like?”
He watched Nanami’s expression shift, both hands covering his own face for a moment, and couldn’t find it in himself to blame him for Yuu’s death even if he wanted to.
“A little…” he pressed the base of his palms against his forehead, “...a little too much like him.”
Yuu had always had a thing for flowers.
Like for example, he drew little flowers on the back of Suguru’s hand when he was sleeping. Or when Yuu thought he was sleeping, at least.
His highlight of spring break was always flowers, and Suguru’s was always Yuu.
“I know people say that picking flowers are the actions of someone who hates flowers,” he leaned down near a group of bushes, the silly smile on his face bringing shivers up Suguru’s spine every time he thought back on it. “But flowers aren’t people, and I think flowers are meant to be picked, y’know Getou-san?”
Suguru stood next to him, hands buried in his pockets. He never thought much of flowers.
“You think they wanna be picked?”
When he offered that question, he didn’t expect Yuu to return it by holding up a small flower between his thumb and index.
“This flower told me that it would die to see you smile,” his cheeky smile and round eyes were a sight to be seen.
And so, Suguru smiled.
“When nothing goes right,” he had only said this once to his girls, as they were braiding each other’s hair. “There’s nothing wrong with being kind.”
Suguru has his leg on top of the other, Mimiko immediately lets go of Nanako’s hair. She looks up at Suguru, and Nanako joins her.
“Being kind,” Nanako repeats, as if it was a foreign concept.
“To the world,” Suguru keeps his eyes on the newspaper he is flipping. “To the trees, and the sun, and the flowers.”
“Will being kind to the world help us?” Mimiko places both hands on the knees of her folded legs.
He pauses.
“It will help the people around you to remember you.”
Flashes of Yuu’s vibrant smile plays back on Suguru’s head.
It’s odd.
At this point, he can barely remember his face, just the curves of his lips.
“Sometimes, we aren’t salvable,” he speaks softly, so that they will remember what he is saying for as long as they can. “And we only live on in the minds of the people around us.”
Mimiko and Nanako do not respond. They look at each other, drowning in their secret language, before standing up to leave the room without another word.
Suguru does not pay them any mind, until he feels the warm droplets slipping down his chin.
That flower died to see me smile, he sets the newspaper down and relives the ache in his chest, but flowers aren’t people.
That’s right. Flowers aren’t people.
Suguru looks at the ceiling, the fan spinning around so slowly that barely any wind comes out of it.
He can imagine Yuu’s laughing face and the warm breeze as he thinks of spring years ago—an open field with them reminiscing under shaded days.
Suguru does not hold any regret, but if regretting means never letting go, then he would forever live in his rue. If pain comes at all the times he thought of Yuu, then they shall come in battalions.
Yuu is no longer around to hold on to these blinking memories, and so Suguru will be the one doing it for him. For them.
Only he can make him live forever, even just in the crooks of his heart.