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Cicada chirps echoed in Uenoyama's ears as he and Mafuyu stepped out of the station. Thick, humid air clung to him on all sides as the sun blazed overhead. For someone named after snow, Yuki's birthday being in the middle of sweltering June struck Ue as ironic.
Mafuyu had invited Uenoyama to join him, Hiiragi, and Shizusumi on an outing he would have never expected to be included in. They'd been in the studio for the first time in months, waiting for Kaji and Haruki to finish their smoke break.
"Uenoyama-kun," Mafuyu had spoken up after extended quiet. His voice was soft, but rose in a question at the end.
"Hm?" Ue screwed the cap back on his water bottle and looked over.
"Yuki's birthday is coming up." He spoke to the floor, but when he looked up to catch Ue's gaze, his eyes were dry and firm. "Would you come with me to see him?"
Uenoyama stopped breathing for a moment. He blinked and his mouth was halfway open just as their bandmates walked through the door, yammering on about something that he did not have the capacity to process right now.
He hadn't gotten the chance to reply until practice was over and they were walking out the door.
"I'll go. When is it?" His voice didn't even shake, despite the mild tightness in his throat.
"June 19. Hiiragi and Shizu-chan are going, too." Mafuyu smiled at him. "Don't worry, they know I invited you."
Uenoyama made an affirmative noise in his throat and mentally prepared himself for what would no doubt be a difficult day.
What Ue had not anticipated was Mafuyu bringing his guitar. He shifted the straps on his shoulders as they crossed the street. A pebble of curiosity plunked into Ue's stomach, but he couldn't bring himself to ask for details. Hiiragi and Shizusumi waited for them at the gates of the cemetary; the former waved as they approached.
The group was quiet as they followed a winding path beneath swaying trees. The bright life of summer drenched everything — verdant foliage rustled in the breeze, bees hovered around wildflowers, water sparkled and splashed in a nearby fountain. The day itself shimmered.
Mafuyu took a deep breath. The air was clean here, fresh and crisp like newly cut grass. His memory of this place was awash in shades of gray: barren trees under dark skies, the crunch of gravel, and a cold, stinging wind. He'd only been distantly aware that his shoes pinched his toes and the collar of his suit was too tight.
It had never occurred to him that this graveyard — any graveyard — could be beautiful. He squeezed the straps of his guitar case, the bag from his and Yuki's favorite combini jostling as he did.
They turned down an aisle of tall headstones, Hiiragi leading the way, and walked a while more before stopping at a perfectly cleaned, polished family monument that read Yoshida. Fresh flowers and cup noodles sat on the offering stone.
"I guess Saeko-san was here already," Hiiragi said, his voice measured and calm in a way it only got when he talked about Yuki.
"Mm. She and my mom came by this morning." Mafuyu dug into his plastic bag, pulled out one of two pork buns, and set it next to the cup noodles.
Hiiragi did the same with a bag of shrimp chips while Shizu pulled out a wrapped cheeseburger with a sticker marking it as "no tomato." Uenoyama shuffled up from behind them and added two incense sticks to the small holder, then fell back without a word. Mafuyu had wondered what he brought; he hadn't needed to, but it was a nice gesture.
They all bowed their heads and pressed their hands into prayer for a long moment. Uenoyama followed along, feeling like an intruder on sacred ground. Mafuyu wanted him here, he reminded himself, even if Ue didn't know what to feel about any of this. He watched Mafuyu carefully; the wind ruffled his hair, but the familiar strain of dry, pained eyes didn't make an appearance.
Hiiragi broke the silence first. "Oi, get this, Yuki. Mafuyu's in a band now," he said, nudging Mafuyu with an elbow. "He's got a killer voice, you know. But he sucks at guit— OW!"
Mafuyu had elbowed him back directly in the ribs — hard. Uenoyama snorted a laugh behind them, drawing Hiiragi's petulant ire. But before it could break down into flame wars, Mafuyu took a small step forward.
"Yuki, I want to introduce you to someone." The bickering cut off immediately, replaced by a heavy, formal air that sank into Uenoyama's bones. Mafuyu turned halfway toward him and held out his hand.
Uenoyama's fist slowly unbunched from Hiiragi's collar as he glanced from Mafuyu's hand to his face. He was smiling — a soft, gentle thing that pulled at the corners of his lips and crinkled his eyes. Ue swallowed thickly and smoothed his t-shirt, then took Mafuyu's hand and stood next to him, eyes never leaving the headstone.
A squeeze filled the space between breaths while Mafuyu gathered his words. He wasn't sure who started it, but the mutual comfort sent a trickle of warmth up his arm.
"This is Uenoyama Ritsuka, my bandmate and boyfriend," he said. To his credit, Ue didn't flinch, but his grip on Mafuyu's hand tightened at the word "boyfriend." It was true, though — and Mafuyu refused to feel as if he could not tell his dead best friend something that was true. Even if he had also been his boyfriend, officially or otherwise. "He finished the song you wrote for me." Another breath, slower than the first. "It's beautiful." A storm crashed through him, and his words fled. If he'd told me about it, would it have changed anything?
Next to him, Uenoyama bowed low — lower than he had that day in Haruki's apartment — and Mafuyu marveled at this boy he loved. More facets of him revealed themselves every day. Polite, serious, and sincere were not new, necessarily, but the reverence with which Uenoyama treated this moment made his heart ache in a way he still wasn't used to.
Loud crinkling broke the silence as Hiiragi tore open his bag of chips and plopped down on the grass. Shizusumi joined him and quietly unwrapped his burger. "Uenoyama," Hiiragi said through a mouthful of chips, "has Mafuyu ever told you about the time in elementary school when…"
Mafuyu flicked him in the forehead as he sat down across from him. He complained, but continued anyway, dramatizing a story about Mafuyu's childhood affinity for trains. Ue sat close, legs crossed as the other three dug into their snacks. His stomach squirmed; he hadn't accounted for everyone else having something to eat.
Hiiragi, having inhaled his chips, dusted off his hands and leaned back to stare at the sky. He sighed, and Uenoyama cocked an eyebrow at him. Next had to be either waterworks or another childhood story; he wasn't sure which he would have preferred.
But nothing came of it. Instead, Mafuyu nudged at his knee and proffered his pork bun. Ue blinked multiple times — was it… okay for him to share something that was part of honoring a departed spirit? Before he could parse out that particular philosophical dilemma, Mafuyu tore it down the middle and handed him half.
Uenoyama just took it and stared. It would be rude, at this point, not to eat it. So screw it — he took a huge bite, only to find it mostly cold.
They sat in relative quiet — the cicadas never stopped their screaming this time of year — Hiiragi telling stories about trouble they got up to as kids. Mafuyu often corrected him on the details, and Shizu nodded whenever Hiiragi turned toward him. A soccerball to a window, Mafuyu's old cicada shell collection (Ue shivered at the thought), and finally, when all of them but Mafuyu had taken up music.
A tense undercurrent formed within the summer breeze. Hiiragi froze, suddenly aware of what topic he'd bumbled into, and then snapped his eyes to the guitar case nestled in the grass.
"Why'd you bring it?"
Mafuyu shrugged. "For later."
"Tch, alright, whatever. Go on and be gross together then." Hiiragi stood and slapped the grass off his jeans. Mafuyu fuorrowed his brow. What did that have to do with the guitar?
Uenoyama scoffed to hide a blush. "As if you two aren't all over each other at the studio."
A strangled, garbled noise caught in Hiiragi's throat as his cheeks turned crimson.
Shizu shrugged, stood up, and ruffled Hiiragi's hair. "Let's go. I'm still hungry."
Hiiragi harumphed, turned to give one last farewell to Yuki, and followed Shizu back down the path. He tossed a wave over his shoulder, with a casual, "Later."
The wind stirred, kicking up a whirl of loose hydrangea petals and scattered leaves. Mafuyu inhaled and paused, savoring the sweet scent of summer. He ran a hand through the grass; it was the soft, wispy kind he had liked as a kid. Summer days at the neighborhood park scrolled through his mind — somewhere where speaking wasn't loud and existing had been easy. How long had it been since he thought about those years?
A gentle hand brought Mafuyu back to the present. He turned to find steady, bright blue eyes on him as Ue picked a petal out of his hair. His face, normally scrunched in a scowl or concentration, was calm and open as he waited for whatever Mafuyu might do or say next. That same comforting warmth that always radiated from him coiled around Mafuyu's heart and squeezed. He pecked Ue on the cheek and then reached to unpack his guitar.
Uenoyama startled at the sudden kiss. He glanced around before tentative plucks of the strings pulled his gaze back to Mafuyu. He was tuning.
"What song?" Ue shifted to sit facing Mafuyu rather than beside him.
"To the Sea."
"You— " Uenoyama coughed to avoid choking on his own spit. "You learned it? Already? It's only been like two weeks!"
Mafuyu continued tuning for a few seconds longer before replying. "No. I'm going to sing it." With one final strum to confirm the sound was right, Mafuyu handed him the Gibson.
Ue's mouth fell open, wide eyes fixed on the polished red wood hovering between them. His heartbeat was suddenly louder than the cicadas. As he met Mafuyu's eyes, they were firm and bright as ever.
He tried to speak, but croaked instead; he'd forgotten to breathe. So he sucked in a big breath through his nose and asked, "…are you sure?"
"Yes."
He held Mafuyu's eyes a moment more, then nodded. Gingerly, Uenoyama took the Gibson with both hands — one along the fretboard and one at the base — and lay it flat in his lap. Something heavy settled across his shoulders and curled around his chest.
Ue had held Mafuyu's Gibson before. Twice, at least — the day they met and the night of their first live. He'd even played it that day in the stairwell. But today, on hallowed ground, Uenoyama held a ghost.
With slow, careful movements, he arranged it to sit comfortably over his crossed legs, then positioned his fingers for the first chord and hovered his borrowed pick over the strings. He looked up through his bangs, ready whenever Mafuyu was.
Blue eyes, a red Gibson, stark against vibrant green summer — Mafuyu's heart lurched in his chest. When a breeze swept Uenoyama's hair to the side, it tried to jump into his throat. Something tightened behind his eyes as he sat up straight to better manage his breath.
He inhaled deep into his diaphragm and sang. "Someday…"
He'd practiced a few times, and none of those attempts had felt as overwhelming as when he'd first heard it, but now… his voice began to shake earlier than he'd hoped. He stumbled as Uenoyama softly joined in where the harmony began, eyes snapping to his face and squinting as he smiled around the lyrics.
They took the song slower than it'd been on stage, Ue following Mafuyu's tempo as it wavered from one stanza to the next. It didn't matter; with no amp, the quiet jangs and twangs of the guitar barely carried beyond Mafuyu's voice.
Grief is a strange thing. It’s dull and sharp and sticks in your throat, clinging like sap to bark. Bleeding, weeping agony that you’re sure will never end. It perforates the boundaries between body and soul, tearing holes that won’t heal. Won’t scar. Just a constant ragged edge that recoils at the faintest touch.
And then, eventually, it's easier to live again. You can wake up and go twenty minutes before remembering. Then thirty. Then an hour. Mafuyu thought maybe he'd get to a full day at some point. Perhaps that was the naivety of new love. But one day, maybe he could sing this song and feel a comforting hand over his heart rather than the burning wound through his soul.
"…hand in hand, to the sea."
By the time Uenoyama strummed the final chord, tears streaked Mafuyu's cheeks and dripped onto the grass. Ue scooted closer, careful not to knock the Gibson, and cradled Mafuyu's face in his hands, swiping below his eyes with his thumbs. Then he pressed their foreheads together and waited.
A minute passed before Mafuyu stopped shaking. He sniffled and pulled out of Uenoyama's grip to wipe his shirt over his face. One more shallow breath, and then he spoke again.
"He saved me, you know. My dad… hit me. Yuki made it stop." Mafuyu stared at his shoes and wondered, distantly, why he had suddenly decided to share that. There was nothing Uenoyama, or anyone, could do about it now. Still, something in him that had trembled, overfull for so long, sighed as it tumbled out.
Uenoyama's stomach turned to stone. Whatever he had expected to come of this day, it wasn't that. He didn't know how to hold information so sharp and pointed and barbed — the kind that roots into your heart and can never be extricated. He only managed to blink a few times.
Mafuyu looked up from his lap, eyes puffy and red. "But… you saved me, too."
Uenoyama blinked again; the change of subject chipped away at the stone of his stomach and let him find his footing on more familiar ground.
He huffed a sharp breath through his nose and said, "You were pretty pushy." One corner of his mouth pulled up in a crooked smile as Mafuyu's quiet laugh broke the tension. Ue kissed his forehead. "Music did that. Not me."
Mafuyu didn't push. It was sweet, Uenoyama's stalwart commitment to that story he told himself. It was only half true, though. Without him, without his gruff encouragement, his kindness, Mafuyu would have never considered music anything other than a curse. What a gift it was, to have been wrong.
Ue tugged the case toward them and lifted the Gibson off his lap. Mafuyu took it and settled it into the black velvet. Uenoyama fidgeted with his hands; a question, buried at the back of his mind since Yayoi saw them in the bookstore, surfaced and bobbed around behind his eyes. Since they were talking about Yuki, it seemed less like an intrusion. At least a little.
"When…" he took a steadying breath. "When did you know you liked guys? Liked Yuki?" He clenched his hands together and peered through his bangs.
Mafuyu paused, head tilted toward the sky in thought. "Middle school, probably. Maybe earlier. But that's when we first kissed." A white-hot pang flared in Ue's stomach and cracked the stone in two. He inhaled, slow and controlled. There was no point being jealous of the dead. Mafuyu continued, "But Mom knew before I did, I think. About boys. Both our moms knew about us. She knows about you, too." He zipped up the case and then turned back to Uenoyama.
"Oh." The word slipped out of his mouth before he had even processed the information. An uneasy squirm in his gut left him faltering, offbeat. He quickly changed the subject. "I didn't know until a while after I met you."
Mafuyu stared at him for a moment, and Ue suppressed a shiver at how much those amber eyes perceived. "Did you… not like anyone before?"
Uenoyama shrugged. "Nope. Too busy with music." He stood, patted the grass off his pants, and then extended a hand to Mafuyu. Long, thin fingers gripped Ue's palm. The humid heat made them both a little sticky to the touch.
Mafuyu wondered about the details behind that statement as Ue helped him up. Maybe they'd talk about it, one day, when family was less of a tenuous subject. He bowed to Yuki one final time, then shouldered the guitar case, its weight a familiar burden now.
He nodded, quick and small; he was ready to go. Uenoyama took his hand again as they started back down the path out of the cemetary and toward the station. Shady willows fluttered in the wind as dappled light scattered over pastel hydrangeas.
"When did you know you liked me?" Mafuyu asked.
Uenoyama choked on a cough; he smacked his chest with a fist and cleared his throat before replying. "Um… th-the sports festival." A deep blush peeked out of the back collar of his navy t-shirt.
"Were you awake?"
Ue squeezed his hand and watched his feet. "…yeah. Sorry."
Mafuyu squeezed it back. "Don't be. I told you because I wanted to."
Uenoyama grunted an affirmative and let the tension in his shoulders go.
It wasn't until he was home, soaking in the bath, that he realized Mafuyu hadn't volunteered to answer his own question. Ue ground his teeth and clicked his tongue. Typical. And yet, the day hummed and glowed, a single, powerful memory that warmed him from the inside out.