Chapter Text
He never truly understood what love was. Not maternal, not fraternal, not even that innocent kind of love other children collected without realizing it. For Tsumugi, love was something foreign, distant—an unfamiliar language no one had ever taught him. In his home he was barely a forgotten piece of furniture in a corner, something dragged from place to place only when necessary. A backpack—useful sometimes, a nuisance most of the time.
And yet, he met a “girl.”
Calling it meeting was an exaggeration: he knew nothing about her, not even that she was actually a boy. But that didn’t matter.
For the first time, Tsumugi felt something.
A sliver of light. A desire. Something small, timid, but insistent: he wanted to do something for himself. He wanted to shine. He wanted to make that unknown boy shine. He wanted to protect him from everything Tsumugi himself had never had the strength to face.
Natsume.
A lotus flower blooming above the thickest mud. Beautiful, radiant… fragile.
But he lost him. And the promise binding them—the only thread keeping Tsumugi attached to his own existence—was cut mercilessly by his mother’s hand. He felt the locks of hair fall, scattering across the floor as though they were pieces of himself, as if something deeper than hair were being ripped away. As if his innards were being torn out without granting him even the right to scream.
With that cut, the only place where he felt human disappeared.
And Natsume disappeared with it.
From then on, everything worsened. His mother became more unstable, the shouting in the house turned into a constant noise, and his older brother—fed up, hurt, frustrated—yelled at him to react. To stop being so compliant. And then, he simply left.
Tsumugi said nothing.
He never said anything.
He never voiced opinions on what was “best.” He didn’t know what was best for him and, worse, he didn’t believe it mattered.
Setting foot in Yumenosaki didn’t awaken any spark in him… until he met Eichi.
And Eichi, with his smile and his polite poison, returned something almost like warmth to him. A turbulence in his chest. A reminder that blood still ran through his veins, that he wasn’t dead inside—just cold. Just lost.
A tiny bit of warmth… was enough. He needed it desperately.
But when he crossed paths with Natsume again, something changed. Something opened inside him like an old wound that starts bleeding again: nostalgia, tenderness, guilt. The longing to recover that bit of light that had once been ripped away with a pair of scissors.
Natsume was still beautiful.
Still shining on his own.
And Tsumugi wanted him to shine even brighter, as if his own life depended on it.
But… trying to grasp too much always ends badly. And Tsumugi’s heart—so newly born, so clumsy and starved—couldn’t hold two people at once without breaking. His desperate attempt to cling to happiness ended up dimming Natsume’s light again.
And if Natsume stopped looking at him…
Then Tsumugi would become no one again.
He felt something snap inside. A thread that hurt but also proved he still had a heart. Despite everything. Despite the guilt and the fear. He was still the child who believed Natsume’s smile was the most beautiful in the world.
Natsume had to smile again.
If Tsumugi was good for nothing else, then he would become his backpack—filled with band-aids, bandages, clumsy remedies to try to patch up the sadness he himself had helped cause.
He would never let go of Natsume’s hand.
Not after Natsume, even with hesitation, even with rejection, had accepted to take his… no matter how disgusting he believed himself to be.
No matter how repulsive he felt.
But there was something else Tsumugi could not admit out loud.
Something that throbbed violently every time Natsume ignored him, or avoided him, or looked at him without truly seeing him. Something that grew quietly, pushing against his ribs like a caged animal.
I want you to look at me.
That thought pierced him with a mix of shame and desperation. What right did he have to want something like that? What right did he have to desire to be chosen by Natsume—even for a second?
And yet, every time Natsume looked away, the world turned gray. Silent. Empty.
Tsumugi knew what it felt like to live without being seen. To exist like a piece of furniture in someone else’s house, like a shadow floating behind others. And now… now he was terrified of returning to that darkness.
Because Natsume wasn’t just a beautiful memory.
Natsume was the only thing that made him feel alive.
A single glance from him was enough to make Tsumugi’s heart pound. Enough to fill the hollow in his chest with something warm, confusing, painfully beautiful. Love, perhaps. Or something close to it.
Something he didn’t know how to name, but that pushed him to keep breathing.
Tsumugi wanted to protect him.
But he also wanted… to be chosen by him.
And that desire frightened him as much as it kept him alive.
The academy’s rooftop was a wasteland at this hour.
The night wind had no mercy, blowing as if it wanted to sweep away any remaining trace of life from the cold tiles.
It was the perfect place to disappear.
To let the soul evaporate for a moment, unseen.
Tsumugi placed his hands on the metal railing.
The cold burned his skin—he wished it would reach his bones.
He wished it would freeze everything overflowing inside him.
His bandaged wrist throbbed with each heartbeat.
A small, sharp reminder of his own clumsiness, his own exhaustion.
A shallow cut, nothing fatal, but enough for guilt to sting far more than the wound itself.
I’m so miserable, he thought.
What a perfect word.
The only one that fit.
He had repeated it like a mantra for days.
Miserable for never choosing well.
Miserable for breaking everything he touched.
Miserable for ruining even the things he loved.
Tsumugi squeezed his eyes shut.
He imagined, for a second, that if he stopped existing, no one would notice.
The world would keep moving, unchanged.
A part of him found that almost… comforting.
“SenpAI?”
His heart lurched.
That voice.
Natsume was standing in the doorway of the rooftop—breathing just lightly enough to reveal he had been searching everywhere for him, while pretending he hadn’t.
His expression was neutral.
Too neutral.
Tsumugi straightened, smoothed his hair, masking himself with practiced calm.
“N-Natsume-kun… what are you doing here? It’s late.”
“I could ask you the samE,” the magician replied, taking the first steps toward him. “Though I already know the answER."
His golden eyes shone strangely in the dim light—
a sharp glimmer that seemed to cut through him.
Tsumugi looked away, as he always did.
He couldn’t withstand that brightness.
Not that one.
Natsume approached until only a meter separated them.
The wind lifted his red hair, giving him an ethereal, unreal air.
A warm ghost.
“SenpAI,” he said firmly. “You broke yourSELF.”
It wasn’t a scolding.
It was a statement.
A truth sharper than any blade.
Tsumugi swallowed.
The cold air burned on the way in.
“I’m fine… I just needed to think,” he lied.
Natsume’s gaze dropped to his wrist.
The bandage peeked out from under his sleeve.
“That doesn’t look like ‘finE’.”
Shame rose in him like a nauseating tide.
He instinctively wanted to hide his hand behind his body, but Natsume caught it first—
quickly, gently, without force.
His fingers were warm.
Tsumugi trembled. Natsume's warmth reminded him how it feels to be alive.
“I… it wasn’t… I didn’t want to worry anyone…”
“That’s your problem," Natsume cut in. “You prefer not to ‘bothER’. Not to feel. Not to exist. You hide behind guilt, behind other peoplE.”
His voice softened.
“You hide behind mE.”
The words split his chest open.
Tsumugi opened his mouth to deny it, but no sound came out.
Natsume was looking at him too directly.
Too truly.
“If you want to disappeaR,” Natsume continued, “you can. I won’t stop you with pretty lies. I’m not your salvatiON. I’m not an angel. Not a fairytalE.”
One step closer.
“But if you’re going to stay… if you’re going to keep breathing… then it requires strength. More than what you’re usiNG.”
The wind passed between them.
Quiet.
Witness to a moment that felt suspended in time.
“Strength…” Tsumugi whispered, drained. “I… I’m not strong, Natsume-kun.”
“Then become what you claim you can’t be.”
Natsume’s voice fell over him like a spell.
“You want me to see you, don’t yoU?”
Tsumugi’s breath hitched.
Natsume stepped close enough to end the distance between them entirely.
“But how am I supposed to look at you… if you don’t even dare lift your heAD?”
Something inside Tsumugi cracked.
Something old.
A wound that had ached since childhood and never really healed.
His eyes glimmered with wetness—
not tears yet, but on the edge.
Don’t leave me, he thought.
Please don’t leave now that you’ve seen the worst of me.
But Natsume didn’t move.
He didn’t step back.
He didn’t look away.
Instead—
He lifted Tsumugi’s chin with the gentlest touch.
“SenpAI,” he murmured. “You’re brroken. Deeply.”
A pause.
“But you’re here.”
As if simply existing tonight was a kind of courage.
Tsumugi’s heart clenched painfully.
“And I’m here too” Natsume whispered, his voice trembling just slightly—betraying his worry.
The wind swept past them again.
And for the first time in a long time,
Tsumugi breathed—
fully.
Natsume saw him.
Truly saw him.
Not the memory, not the idealized version, not the mistake—
Him.
His misery, his shame, his wound, his fear.
And Natsume didn’t le
ave.
He didn’t turn away.
He didn’t let go.
Tsumugi felt something he hadn’t felt since childhood:
He was being seen.
And although the night was still cold, although nothing external changed—
something inside him sparked.
Small.
Fragile.
But real.
Natsume hadn’t abandoned him.