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Haruto always stood out to me. For some odd reason he was always smiling, laughing, despite the situation we found ourselves in. All he wanted to do was help the people around him smile, and people naturally gravitated towards him, and before I knew it , I was caught in that tide of his too.
It was so easy to get dragged in, he was a bright light in a battlefield full of darkness . He managed to keep that smile until the very end.. His eyes crinkled at any joke, he would always be trying his best to lift everyone’s mood. Shin may have had the burden of carrying us on to an afterlife, but when I think about it, Haru carried the burden of making sure we all were happy…
For whatever reason, I wanted to be closer to him, I wanted to see more of his smiles, hear more of his laughter. I wanted to hang on to every word from his crazy stories… he was a needed distraction.. And despite my effort to not get attached to anyone, I fell victim to his pull.
It didn’t help that he would talk to someone like me, somehow taking his bright light over to the brooding guy who struggled to smile. A guy who struggled to even be genuine with his feelings…Someone prone to lashing out and being blunt to the point of being overly harsh… yet Haru still remained..Hell, Haru persisted to become my friend, He was the first one to really try and break down my walls… he was the first one I felt I could really be myself around, even if I had no idea what that really meant.. He was the first one to make me fanatize about a future outside this battlefield… Those thoughts scared me however, a battlefield is all I ever knew..
Before I knew it I felt myself changing, I felt myself feel something like happiness for the first time in years.. And I hated myself for it. We were in a war zone.. I shouldn’t be feeling this type of happiness.. This sort of attachment to someone I met barely 2 months ago.
Yet somehow , Haru always kept me by his side… He would tell me his stories without abandon, tell me his jokes.. Show me the new thing he was trying out and I loved every minute of it. I never felt that close to anyone before… didn’t help the fact he would play with my hair, or encourage me to talk and share my ideas. His confidence started to wear off onto me, I started to talk to more of the people in the barracks.. Started to really feel comfortable with myself.
Guess it makes sense I fell in love with him, if that’s even the correct term. Everything about him would play over and over in my mind, the way he would sip his drinks with his eyes closed, the way his hands shook when he was particularally excited, his emphasis on certain words, his slight lisp when he spoke too fast.. How he had slightly more freckles on the left side of his face than the right, his right eye being more of a golden brown than the rich deep brown of his left eye.. How he would roll up his sleeves evenly, but they always managed to end up lopsided.. The way he would hum when we were cleaning, the times he would drum out a tune on the coffee table.. our midnight talks, watching the sunrise, helping each other with nightmares, the attempts to make me laugh. The genuine concern, the reassuring touches and gentle smiles reserved for me, the subtle gestures and knowing expressions…
I’m surprised I didn’t catch on sooner than I did about the change in my feelings..
Six months is a long time, yet it goes by in a flash. Haru barreled his way into my life, forced himself into the pages of my story and got me attached to him. I found myself drawing pictures I thought he would like just to get a reaction from him, I found myself seeking him out at every opportunity.. I’d pick topics I knew he would like to talk about just so I could see him smile at me. I would try whatever his silly games were just to be near him, I’d join him in his pranks around the barracks. I’d do anything if it was with him.. And I was happy about it. I looked forward to all of our conversations , I looked forward to whenever I saw him next. It was a distraction in the face of war.
Funnily enough,I never felt the pull to protect myself until I met Haruto.. I never questioned the change.. It only made me fight harder and better… I wanted to stay alive for his sake.
In the grande scheme of everything, it really only lasted a few months . Haru and I were so close, always connected at the hip to the point Anju would tease me about it. Kurena too, but she was easier to get back at. Even Shin would raise an eyebrow when he saw Haru and I together. Wherever one of us was, everyone expected the other to not be too far behind.
We were friends, best friends.. yet that really doesnt sum it up. It never will. Our closeness had no definition, and despite the fact it was for so short, a good 5 months of our 6 month encounter, I will never forget it… I never felt that way towards anyone before, I never felt comfortable to open my heart to someone, to want to be around someone as much as him ,to want to change for the better . I noted our interactions, cherishing each time we would speak .. sadly feeling a bit jealous when he wouldn’t be around, but I tried to work myself through those feelings .. as again this was a war zone. Nothing was going to last forever, and the masochist I am, kept setting myself up to be hurt.
I almost messed everything up myself. We fought. Or more I yelled at Haru , taking out all my bottled up emotions on him for something he didn’t even do. I was scared of being left alone.. Haru started to feel far away, I felt ignored and I .. was fragile.. I was harsh and immature and stupid. I fully believed I messed everything up. We were cold to each other for almost a month… I felt I ruined it all…
Yet he still came back. Somehow all this did was make us closer than ever before, somehow. Our conversations are more intimate and vulnerable, sharing dreams of what we would do if we ever got out of this place, both of our plans including the eachother.. There were subtle changes in him too, he finally became more open with me about himself.. He felt more honest.. My nightmares eased up around this time, but we still found ourselves wrapped around each other at night.
However, even after seemingly fixing what we had.. something changed one night, Haru was acting differently . If only I saw this as the beginning of our rift. Nothing triggered it this time, but this had to be the start of our end.
It may have been because of how close we were, that I missed those subtle cues from Haru, the ways he would fake interest in what I had to say, the smiles not quite reaching his eyes. How he would constantly be seeking out other people, talking to me less and less. I didn’t see it as anything bad. We still felt close and he didn’t seem upset with me… yet there was a growing distance that snuck up on me. A wall I wasn’t aware was put up.. Maybe I accidentally triggered it.. Maybe I pushed him to feel this way… I had no idea if I went too far over a line, or if he was just as scared as I was.. But ..
I gave him space, I didn’t want to ruminate on his change, I didn’t want to overwhelm him with my presense, so I stepped back, and as more time passed it only felt harder and harder to bring myself to say anything to him. A collar appeared across my throat, choking any words I wanted to say away whenever he was around. We stopped talking. We stopped giving each other comfort, we stopped seeking each other out. We went to separate beds at night. Our interactions were limited to small greetings across the barracks and nothing else.
No one said anything. I don’t think anyone could.
I was stupid. I never wanted to make it about me, and it never was. Maybe I was selfish stepping back like that…. Selfishly taking myself away.. Yet.. I tried reaching out, tried being there for him, saying if he needed anything I would be there for him, and I was greeted with a polite thank you and nothing more.. Just a greater divide I couldn’t quite cross… I didn’t know what else to say to him.. So I shut up and stayed away.. Only silently watching him in the barracks.. He still made up most pages in my sketchbook.. But I stopped sharing my artwork with others.
It doesn’t help that now, Haru is dead. Haru killed himself.. Leaving me alone to ruminate on all the questions he left me with. What happened Haru..
I can't help but wonder if you felt the same way, if you felt the way we were slipping away from each other. I do wonder if you cared, but I knew you did. We were dancing around each other’s feelings, not wanting to step on each other’s toes. Oh how I wish you would stumble your way back into my life again. I wish you could feel as if you could step on my toes and freely tell me the wonderful fantastical stories in your mind.. I finally started to see the future because you were here… I kept seeing you there next to me in whatever shape and form our friendship took us.. Or whatever our relationship was.
But the way everything fizzled out to nothing more saddens me.. And you’re dead now.. You’re leaving me with the burden of never knowing the answer . I guess I got too attached, I don’t mind though. I would have given you the world if you wanted me to , and I guess I still did. I wish we could have spoken more before your end. I wish I could have said something to stop the inevitable. I wish I was able to save the .. friendship we once had… but I failed again. I failed to protect the person closest to me, to protect the person I loved most, the person who changed my life for the better, the person I missed the signs from , the person who will never come back.. The friend who took himself away from me .. the friend that will never come back to me.
The night you left us behind, the night I found you in the bathroom, you had a peaceful smile on your face.. One that I hadn’t seen for weeks… the same one you would give me when my nightmares would flare up. And it hurt me.. To see you go.. Yet the grief didn’t hit me like a truck. It was only then I realized I was already grieving the relationship we once had.. It ended as fast as it started.. And I was already missing you..I was already mourning the relationship we had.. The relationship that was fading right before my eyes, the relationship I didn’t notice was crumbling away until too late.. The relationship that can never be reconciled now. And now you’re truly gone and I can’t do anything about it. I can’t bring you back from the grave, I can’t tell you the words to try and mend us again.. I can’t try to be close to you again, break down the walls we put up around ourselves again so that we could fall back together into our comfortable silence and late night jokes. If I knew.. If I wasn’t stubborn to the signs that were clearly laid out in front of me.. I would have made sure we had a proper goodbye… Maybe I could have stopped you, maybe I could have ripped the glass from your hands.. Maybe I could have bandaged the blood from your veins.. Maybe I could have…
Where did it start to all go wrong?When did our interactions start to hurt you.. How long did you have this planned? Or was this a spur of the moment.. Why didn’t you talk to one of the others.. Why did you force yourself into my life, give me some of the best few months despite our dire circumstances to only decide you can leave whenever you wanted? Why did you leave me behind.. Why’d you leave without me.. Why did it have to end like this?
I’m sorry that we were strangers at the end.. Strangers with a history neither of us could bring up to the other.. Strangers just like when we first met on that sunny day in the spring, when you looked over to me and smiled.. Brighter than the sun ever could…. When you said to me..
“Hi!! I’m Haruto Keats. What’s your name?”
~✩