Chapter Text
The lights from the television set reflected in his eyes, hurting his corneas, and he was beginning to feel the migraine creeping into the front of his head. Nevertheless, he continued talking, occasionally gesturing with his hands, his voice soft.
"You know, one of the things I learned growing up is that there will always be something worth living for. Even when I was at my worst, it wasn't unusual for me to find solace in something that ultimately held me on the edge of the abyss, keeping me from falling. It was always artistic things, books or music, the fruit of the passion of other human beings who were probably as lost as I was and needed to tell the world something. Those works bounced off my heart, made it beat again. They gave me inspiration at the end of those endless nights. And that's what saved me. Thinking about the next volume, or the next season. It gave me the strength to continue."
The interviewer exchanged a glance with the cameraman. Megumi Fushiguro was an extremely sincere and expressive person; he used words and turned them into knives that he only used to stab himself. And there he was, bleeding on public television, with a table displaying his latest novel, published just a few days before. The boy continued, his black hair and intense green eyes shifting from the camera to the audience, and from the audience to the interviewer.
"I remember saying this very thing to someone, who mocked me. Said I was pathetic. But when you're a person as sad as I am, what do you have left? Nothing of this world, I assure you. It caused me suffering; I was a piece that would never fit." He sighed, tilting his chin. "I never knew how to live for myself; it was only art that grounded me on Earth. That gave me a place on it, a purpose. Writing. It wasn't a waste of time, but the most beautiful way to be here. Writing saved me, and in the end, when I grew a little older and managed to poke my head out of the hole I was in, I realized the world was full of other beautiful things. I began to live."
"You look happier than last time," the interviewer pointed out.
"That doesn't mean I'm always well," Megumi shook his head. "I'm sick, and I know I'll never get better, but there are things out there that keep giving me the courage to continue. I'm certain that as long as there's something to be passionate about, I'll be here another day."
There was a silence.
"However, the theme of your latest novel has nothing to do with the previous ones. It's love. Not sadness, not despair. There's been a change in you, right?"
Megumi smiled. He didn't have the typical shy child's smile; it was a smile that came from the soul, reflecting in his eyes a cloudy day where the sun's rays filtered through the clouds and illuminated the city. That kind of smile. Hopeful.
"That's right," he nodded. "I guess part of growing up was accepting that I can be loved."
He covered his mouth with a light laugh. His cheeks were pink; the audience had never seen that side of him before. All his interviews had been like this, and he always tended to talk about his personal feelings to the point of being scolded by his editor. He shared them with the world, spewing them out, just in case his novels weren't heartbreaking enough. He needed to bare his guts.
"The last time you were on this set, we talked about abuse and depression. Shall we talk about love now, Fushiguro?" The host urged him on with a gentle, even enthusiastic gesture.
"Yeah, of course." He paused, thoughtful. It was funny; he had enough words to write bestsellers, but not enough to talk about love, such a profound emotion.
The interviewer anticipated his hesitation to nudge him.
"How does love make you feel?"
Megumi pursed his lips, speaking with great pity.
“Depersonalized. At first, I felt that way because I couldn't perceive myself as a whole person, but rather as the result of everything I've seen and collected, the flawed copy of everyday moments, conversations about the weather, but also the reflection of everything I'm passionate about. Especially literature. I didn't see myself as anything more than that, a mirror. I didn't believe anyone could see in me a personality that wasn't doomed to clinical failure.”
“So, it's true you've met someone.”
“Yes. And it's been a long time since I've been in love, since high school maybe. I'd forgotten how horrible it felt to be completely at someone's mercy, to be so vulnerable and stupid, and have my head in the clouds the whole time. That devastating event could only end in tragedy. But it wasn't that dramatic. I'm dramatic because I don't know how to be any other way. When I feel something, I let that feeling consume me until there's nothing left of me.” His expression finally relaxed, and he adopted a calm tone. "It was a relief when that person turned out to be made for me."
"In your new novel, you talk about precisely that, finding your other half."
"Sometimes it's hard. Imagine, your other half could have already died, or be on the other side of the world. Wouldn't that be very sad?"
"Of course."
"But imagine meeting someone in an event that seems very random, a coincidence too sudden to be true. And, with each step you take toward that thread pulling your chest in that direction, you reveal a new truth about yourself. You are human, you can be known and understood by someone. That person makes you see the world clearly, gives you wings, and understands you without difficulty. It's... beautiful. Even if vulnerability seems like a crime, in the end, it feels good to have someone to share your life with."
"Is it complicated to understand the mind of a writer? The interviewer smiled, folding his hands in his lap."
"I suppose. I should ask my partner."
They both laughed.
"You mentioned earlier that being passionate about things is what keeps you here. Does love now have that privilege of influencing you? Are you passionate in love?"
"Oh, I am. It couldn't be any other way," he clicked his tongue, looking over the interviewer's shoulder, remembering. "After all, I'm sensitive. I think, in a world like this, giving love a chance is good. It teaches you, heals you, mends you as if you weren't the broken, forgotten doll in the back of the attic. It gives you a reason to keep living every morning. Every touch, kiss, and whisper. It's like I'm on medication, or was it always so colorful? But I feel like love is also nostalgia, because it reminds me of when I was a child and everything was new. In any case, I think it's the best thing that's happened to me in the last three years of my life."
"Has it been that long since then?"
"Yes. I'd written almost half of my thirteenth novel when we met. I was horribly stuck, every moment I sat in front of the computer ending in a succession of meaningless, coherent words. I was lost in a kind of limbo where I didn't know if continuing to explore a certain part of my own suffering was as good an idea as I'd previously imagined. Because opening up doesn't help me at all many times, honestly, it makes me nauseous. And when we met… well, by the time we'd seen each other a few times, I'd already given up trying to make progress with the book. I'd given up on it."
He swallowed, nervously stroking his hair.
"I must have been pretty drunk when I finally agreed to promise that I'd try to find something happy to write about. To take a break, to calm down. Instead of exploring what had made me consider disappearing, to narrate something about this passion that kept me alive. It was difficult, I admit, but all that time it had been right in front of me, and I'd been so blind."
"Love, huh?"
"An old-fashioned word these days."
━━━━━━
Itadori Yuuji made him forget that sudden feeling of not wanting to be where he was that often assailed him after interviews. The attention, the conversations about him, made him incredibly tired. Sometimes it caused him a deep sense of shame, the feeling that he didn't know what he was doing and that he didn't deserve everything he had.
He had a special way, like he'd never seen before, of undoing that kind of thing, of unraveling the map of his mind and leaving him speechless. Everything was silent, late at night, the warm light from the small bedside lamp creating shapes against the bedroom wall.
Megumi turned to him. Yuuji stopped kissing the back of his neck to hold his face, looking at him with his huge hazel eyes, the kindest gaze he'd ever seen.
"You know, every time you talk about me anywhere, my heart leaps out of my chest."
"Sorry," Megumi bit his lip, stifling a laugh. "Sometimes I go too far."
"Keep going too far, please. It makes me feel special."
When he was with his boyfriend, it didn't seem like everything he wrote was regurgitated experiences that tasted like vomit when he reread them. They seemed like snippets of an ordinary life, in a small country house far from the city.
That was his plan when he retired; for now, they shared an apartment in Tokyo, and there were still scars waiting to heal on their skin. Megumi reached out to turn off the light and snuggled into Yuuji's chest, listening to him talk about the boring office job he had, even though he found it incredibly comforting to have a job where every day was the same. He treasured the sound of his voice until he fell asleep.
He wanted to keep writing about love.