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Eiji didn’t entirely know what to do with himself, when he heard the news. He had never cried so hard in his life. He had never loved so much in his life, no matter how much he had sought after it. He spent a lifetime searching for that passion. The whole-hearted, life-consuming passion. That kind of love. He has only experienced it once. One person. One lifetime, one life, one experience, one person. And now, he is gone. Eiji didn’t know what to do with himself.
What are you supposed to do after this kind of loss? You don’t recover. You don’t magically get better, one day. It never leaves you. It haunts your daily life, your every waking moment. Every year, every month, every week, every day, every moment, every hour, every minute, every second. Each sleepless night and each dream. Every nightmare. It’s not something you can leave behind.
Eiji had always dreamed of the idea of a soulmate. He had many, he believed. There are so many people you meet in your lifetime, so many to fall in love with in so many ways. Of course there’s not just one, but there is one that you spend your life waiting for. One that’s different from the rest. One that you look for, one that you find, one that you never forget. Never. Eiji had found him, and he was gone.
So, how are you supposed to deal with that? How are you supposed to cope with it? Eiji forced himself to go through life, as though nothing had happened. But sometimes, he would see something. Sometimes, he would hear a song, or read a word, or see a stupid movie. And he would remember. And, god, he would remember. The nights they spent together in that stupid apartment, the days they spent together doing lord knows what. The stupid movies and the stupid TV shows they watched. The books that he read, that he would tell Eiji about. His favorite color. His favorite flower. The way he liked his coffee (which, by the way, he took every way. He enjoyed trying new kinds). Every little moment was filled to the brim with him. Never a day went by that he wasn’t there.
And it ached. It ached like nothing Eiji had ever felt before. It ached more than his old injury on rainy days, it ached more than a healing gunshot, it ached more than the worst panic attack he had ever had. It was so much. It was the day-to-day moments, and it was the worst nights of his life. He remembered the look in his eye. He remembered the color of his jade earring, the way it could never compare to his eyes. The real thing.
Eiji tried to move on, and he didn’t. He never let himself, and he never would. He couldn’t, really. It was more of a matter of whether he could, as opposed to if he would. It wouldn’t be fair to anybody, if he were to try. It wouldn’t be fair to whatever person he might try to pursue, when he knew he was just waiting on one person. Always waiting, always mourning. He never really processed it. He didn’t quite believe it. He was in love, he is in love, and every fucking day is filled with it, and it hurts. It fucking hurts. It hurts and it burns and it aches and it fills every goddamn day.
Eiji is angry. He is filled to the brim with it. It wasn’t fair, any of it. It was all so unfair and it was cruel and it was terrible. It was bad. It was awful, and it wasn’t fair. He didn’t do anything to deserve it. He didn’t deserve the fate he received. He had dealt with so much bad and he had fought tooth and fucking nail against it all. All he had known was pain and misery, and Eiji tried his best to be a break from that. Eiji never, ever wanted to be the cause of any of it. Never. But there was nothing he could do, in the end. He couldn’t take him away from any of it. He couldn’t save him, or anything. He was just another person in his life. Another person he had to protect, another person to ache for. Eiji is angry, and he has never been agrier, and he would never stop being angry.
Eiji loves him. Eiji is in love. Eiji hurts. Eiji loves him. I love you. My soul is always with you.