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The Warmth You Took With You.
"It will be kind of gloomy without you. That's what happens when the sunshine goes away."
- Eeyore, Winnie the Pooh , 1926
Kou would've never imagined the changes Futaba would've gone through all because she started a relationship. And much to Kou's own dismay, it wasn't with him.
It was with Touma Kikuchi from a class over. They had started going out after Futaba saw Kou hugging Narumi with Touma close behind her. With her heart shattered she accepted Touma's feelings for her.
It wasn't his business, Kou told himself when he found Futaba reapplying lipgloss throughout lectures in class when he would glance at her. But compared to how they were in junior high. Making eye contact, looking away, then making eye contact again. Futaba didn't look his way.
It was lunch time and as would've expected, Kominato sat in front of Kou, going on about whatever came to him mind first while, Futaba, Makita, and Murao left to go to the school cafeteria.
For a minute, the room went quiet in a way, Kou tuned everything out, although it wasn't. Kominato always filled that silence with his rambling.
Kou's phone buzzed on the desk, "That one girl from Nagasaki again?" Kominato stopped midsentence to say as he raised an eyebrow at Kou.
"Yea" Kou didn't have to look at his phone's screen to know who messaged him.
"When are you going to finally stop talking to her and focus on what's in front of you?"
"I—I just feel bad for her." Kou moved his phone into his pocket instead of on the desk. Remembering how lonely and isolated he felt after his mom died. Baring the burden of the guilt of breaking the promise to his brother and the guilt of saying no to eat dinner or watch TV with her because he thought if he got into a good high school it would make her proud.
"But Touma's—" Kominato stopped talking when the girl's voices grew closer to the door, until they were back in the classroom.
"That's all you bought Futaba? I thought you would buy more." Makita looked down to where Futaba had her hands across her chest and her barely having any bread at all, compared to her assumed normal.
The normal Futaba had built to seem unfeminine to guys who looked her direction in hallways and classrooms.
The normal Futaba built after junior high. After she blamed herself for her friends not getting who their hearts pinned after. Everything going downhill after a misunderstanding.
"I thought so too, but after I watched you grab the few you wanted, you didn't grab anymore." Murao said in the same monotoned voice she always had. The only time it changed was when she talked about Tanaka-sensei.
"I got enough," Futaba laughed. "I haven't been that hungry lately, plus I went on a diet and have already lost 3 pounds!" Futaba said with the same cheery tone she always had. Her cheeks an unnatural rosy.
Kou didn't know much about makeup and how it worked. He just knew it didn't suit her.
Made her appear to be someone she wasn't.
Kou had watched as she had grown thinner over the last couple of weeks, covering every flaw and blemish on her face with concealer and powder. (Only knowing the names after over hearing female classmates pass her by and ask her about products and recommendations.)
She had seemed completely normal, the same cheerful and bright person she always was. The one with the determination that has saved Kou on many occasions.
But she had changed. Just as he noticed when they started high school.
He had noticed her first after hearing how she talked about someone had dropped a white bunny keychain with polka dotted floppy ears. A mascot of some kind. He turned around to find the same girl he had abandoned under the Sankaku clock tower at 7 o'clock back in junior high.
How he had taken in how loudly she talked and laughed.
How much she ate.
And how much she tried to bury who she was in junior high, in the dirt at her feet.
It took her all of their first semester of their first year for her to finally notice him.
Makita and Murao left the topic alone and sat and ate together moving onto lighter and more comfortable topics, Kou stared with his head resting on his right hand. All he could do was notice the change within Futaba.
He no longer had the right to save her.
•••
It had been another couple of days before things started to change again.
Futaba had left the classroom and has yet to return. She had been called to the office for a reason that wasn't disclosed over the announcement. Kou could physically feel her absence—all around him and deep within his bones.
A loud shrek was heard outside of the classroom.
As one would do, the students peered out of the classroom doors, too many for the 4 of them to try and push through so they hung back. Forming a small group by Kou's desk.
"What do you think happened?" Makita said with a worried expression.
"No idea." Kou replied, grateful for the noise (although he hated loud places) to distract him from the fact that Futaba was still gone.
"Futaba?" one of their classmates said.
"omg it is her." another said, a girl who covered her mouth with her hands, stepping backwards away from the crowd when she realized it.
Kou looked towards the girl who confirmed it. His expression was between shocked and worried.
"Go to her. I know you want to." Kominato said, putting a hand on Kou's back and pushing him towards the door.
———
"Huh? Where am I?" Kou looked up from where he had laid his head down on side of the hospital bed. The sheet crinkling as he moved.
‘All I can smell is disinfectant.’ Scrunching his nose in disgust. ‘The smell burns my nose.’
The smell brought the feeling of the hospital room to life and truly made it come true.
"Mom?" He saw the frail woman in front of him. Once a strong and resilient woman reduced to someone she wasn't. He looked at his hands as tears started to form in his eyes.
This wasn't right. She died years ago.
So why was he back here?
To correct his mistakes?
To atone for his sins?
To be better?
To better handle the grief and the emptiness she brought when she died?
Or how he could've been the one to save her?
Kou had forgotten how cold hospitals were.
How empty they felt.
Barring the deaths of many and the tears of lovers and loved ones soaked into the tile floor.
Never to be spoke of again.
The cold started to settle within his bones.
He could feel how he once knew the warmth that Futaba brought with her, but he had been stripped away from that warmth.
A warm blanket being taken away in the winter time.
When he used to hang around people he couldn't bother to remember the name of. One of them once told him, "I wonder why your eyes look so dead bro?"
Dead.
A word that shouldn't be thrown around like it was.
"Kou?" He looked up from where he was laying.
The room was far brighter than he remembered.
The smile on his mom's face faded until all was left was Futaba's face looking worried at him.
"Kou?" She said again.
She took her hand from off the top of his head and collected the tears on a bent finger.
"You okay?" She moved away her hand as he wiped his eyes on his cardigan sleeve.
"Yea." He said.
"You sure?" She asked unconvinced of his answer.
"Yea," he tried again. "Just had a dream about mom."
"You were asleep when I woke up, but you started crying in your sleep." She said, Kou taking in her face finally looking how he normally saw her.
Bare face, no makeup, and nothing to hide behind. Her makeup being taken off after she fainted.
"How are you feeling?" Kou realizing that they weren't in the school infirmary for him, she was the one who fainted outside of the classroom.
"Fine. My vision went spotty then I went down." She said, looking towards the window instead of at him.
"You haven't been eating enough." He said.
"I have been." She pouted.
"If you did, we wouldn't be here." Kou stood up from where he was sitting.
"I just wanted to be cuter." She whispered, partly to herself.
You already are cute. He didn't say.
"Why? For what was his name again? Kikuchi right?" He said instead.
"Yea." She mumbled.
The thought of someone getting close to Kou and finding out his darkest secrets and really knowing him, terrified him. But in this moment all he wanted to do was hold Futaba close and never let ago.
"Yoshioka."
"Yea?"
"Why did you get together with Touma?"
"Because you rejected me remember?"
"I regret it." Kou said quietly.
"It's too late now." She looked back at Kou.
"You don't want to lose us. Isn't that why you're scared?!"
He had already lost all who he held close.
His mom, and her.
"Why did you change yourself so much Yoshioka? You started to eat less and started wearing makeup more after I told you it didn't suit you."
"I did what I had to appease him."
Kou didn't have to ask to know who she was referring to when she said "him."
Kou knew it was his fault they got together. His fault that she had chosen him.
Kou curled up his fists and released them. Choosing his next words.
"I do love you, do you know that? I want you to choose me."
Futaba getting together with Touma was pay back in a way for how long she pinned after Kou just to fall short. Or punishment for not giving her the love she deserved when he was still scared to love another.
"I'm sorry" she mumbled.
"Please I need you to eat." He said taking one of her hands with his.
"Okay" she smiled.
When Kou's thoughts and memories spiraled to remembering his mother and his regrets of how things should've gone before she died.
Futaba was there to save him.
Every. Single. Time.
They say grief is love that had no where to go. How one you love can all of a sudden be gone by the time you blinked and opened your eyes. To hold the love you felt in your hands with nothing to do with it.
The love was never gone, it simply changed form and spread within the air. So when he breathed. He knew how much his mother loved him.
And oh how she loved him.