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This story starts with how many stories do, it starts in a graveyard. You are sitting in front of the Baji Family grave with beautiful flowers (Oh, so full of life. Giving them to the dead feels like mocking them. These weak stalks with pretty petals have what you are completely devoid of. Life). You plucked these flowers from your very own garden to bring them to Baji Keisuke.
It was spring when you first met him. It has been a year since. This passing of time makes you realise how pathetically fragile human life is. One moment a person is next to you laughing, breathing (and alive) and the next moment they are dead, buried six feet under and you get haunted by their memories. (And you can do nothing but blame the Gods and look at your face streaked with tears in the mirror.)
It was spring when you met him. When sweet cherry blossoms bloom and unfortunately a new school year starts. You were waiting outside the Principal's office when he took a seat next to you. You remember him asking why you were there and you had replied, "I'm here to request some aid for the Gardening Club. Why are you here?"
"I'm here for stabbing a kid with a screwdriver."
"We both lead very different lives." you had mumbled after a long pause. He agreed. And never in thirteen years of your life, you would've thought this was how you would meet the person you would fall for.
If you had to describe Baji Keisuke with one word, it would be: heavenly. His beauty and strength were unmatched by normal boys his age. His face was sculpted by the divinity of the Cosmos. He could command angels, conjure tsunamis and bring an army of thousands to their knees. He was a demigod descended from Paradise.
(Never would you call him a god. You see, gods don't die.)
After that, you had become acquainted with him and his shenanigans. You would occasionally pass him by the hallways or see him beating the shit out of a bully inside an empty classroom or meet him on the rooftop during recess.
He had joined the Gardening Club during the beginning of summer because all the other clubs are full and this one didn't sound bad. (He was also forced by sensei to be honest.)
The wicked Fates only worked to bring you two closer. You soon began giving him lessons because this idiot couldn't write his kanji properly. And he would give you a ride home on his motorcycle back home as an act of payback because you helped him pass Classical Japanese.
On a lovely summer day, whilst doing your club activities, he had pulled you aside and handed you a pink rose.
"You told me pink roses symbolise thankfulness and I want to give you one because I'm thankful for you", his ears turned red as he continued– "Also you are like this flower. Flowers aren't important in my life but they sure make it beautiful."
You were completely flabbergasted, your cheeks burning with embarrassment. But the last part of what he said was oddly hilarious.
"Should I be flattered or sad?" You asked him.
It was spring when you met him and it was summer when you had fallen for him. And oh boy! You fell for him real hard. After this incident, even the littlest thoughts of him would send fireworks ablaze in your stomach. And talking with him would feel like someone was pulling your heartstrings and taking you to a state of euphoria.
(In all honesty, Baji Keisuke had stolen your lamblike heart with his lion fangs and swallowed it whole.)
But you knew, he wouldn't feel the same in a hundred lifetimes. (Why would Toman's First Division Caption fall for a mere flower child). You really were like a flower. Pretty, weak and unimportant in his life.
You were happy admiring him, the empyrean demigod, from a distance. Just like how artists admire flowers from afar and make them eternal with their art. You will keep him forever in your heart, just like how old people keep their First Loves.
But you kept falling deeper and deeper in love and oh! How could you not?
You were content admiring from afar but it didn't last long.
You remember how you were clad in all-black for his funeral. Baji Keisuke made black your favourite colour and now he was making you hate it. You wanted the ceremony to end soon so you could get out of these goddamn clothes.
You remember when the news was broken to you. You had denied it and convinced yourself it was a joke and it could never be true. But the sincerity in Chifuyu's eyes said otherwise.
God, it hurt. It hurt so bad. The tears wouldn't stop coming. The Fates had taken your heart and crushed it right then and there.
Life has made you fall in love with him only for Death to take him away forever.
You were not able to attend school after that. You see, you fell sick. But once you returned, you couldn't pay attention to whatever happened in class.
All you could think about was him.
These were the same hallways he walked in, it was the same rooftop where you learned his favourite food is peyoung yakisoba, the same library where he told you that he only wears glasses because his friend told him they will make him smart, the same corner of the garden where he gave you the pink rose, it was the same school. But it didn't feel the same without him.
You had to move on.
And so you did.
You didn't tear up when you had a thought about him or he was mentioned. You could do the Gardening Club activities without thinking about him. You could visit the library and sit on the same table where you would tutor him without feeling guilty of being alive. And yes, you could eat the goddamn peyoung yakisoba without throwing up when your brain would remind you that he could not savour the taste of his favourite food anymore.
You tried to move on from his death (and him, but oh you were so deep, deep in love).
And you did.
But you could never stop loving him.
(Young, fragile heart. Young, tragic love.)
Few months back, when you visited him at the graveyard again, you met his sister. And oh god his memories came flashing. The Baji siblings did look alike with their dark ebony hair and bronze eyes and their extremely pretty faces. You could not stand the sight of her.
She had introduced herself to you.
And when you crossed paths with her again, at the same place, at the same time next week, she gifted you a pot of pink roses. She said Keisuke grew them. They were from his balcony and he would've wanted you to have them.
That day you cried in the arms of Keiko Baji. (And she cried in yours.)
You still hate her for looking like Keisuke.
And you're here again, in front of his grave reminiscing about your little spent time with him. (Maybe if you were courageous enough and had told him about how you felt, you could've spent more time with him. Maybe.
But maybes don't have any meaning, values or power because time has already passed.
He is already dead.)
You were sixteen when you realised he wasn't a demigod either. You had painted him to be one. Demigods live forever because everyone remembers them. He was just a boy.
In the end, he was made of nothing but flesh that can be torn and cut and bones that can be broken.
And breath that can be stolen.
In the end, he was just a boy.
The boy you loved.
And will keep loving.
THE END.