Chapter Text
“Hey, Yuki?”
“Yes, K?”
“... Are you alright?”
“Of course.”
“Ah… I just thought I’d ask.”
Mafuyu didn’t know why Kanade’s words had filled her with the amount of dread as they did when she first heard them. Then again, she never knew the source of her feelings whatsoever. They were all too muddled and faint for her to understand, or at least…, they usually were. But this pang in her chest… the way her head started to pound when K asked the simple question… It was so unfamiliar.
She didn’t do well with unfamiliar. She didn’t do well with her emotions at all. That wasn’t something Mafuyu knew how to do.
But she thought she would’ve at least been able to respond to K with less of a quiver in her voice. She thought she could’ve closed her laptop after the end of their session, and gone to bed as normal.
Yet, here she was, laying in bed two hours after she would’ve usually fallen asleep. She stares up at the ceiling, her mind a mess, trying to make sense of these foreign feelings. It was so uncomfortable. She felt exposed and alone, with no one who could save her. She felt her recent grades she had received sink deeper and deeper into her brain as the words “Are you alright?” echo through the expanses of her mind.
It hurts.
It hurts so much.
It hurts so much, and she can’t tell anyone. She can’t speak up. She doesn’t even know what to say. She just feels so worthless, not being able to help her mother. She is lost, being pulled farther down into an ocean, drowning as she does nothing to help herself.
Because she knows it won’t do anything to reach out… she knows the words, the music, the open arms.. None of it will work. She will never find herself, never feel at peace, never know what any of this means. She doesn’t know how she’ll survive this. She doesn’t know what to say to her friends – to Kanade – anymore.
It was unbearable.
But she had to live with it. She had made her choice.
____
Kanade had always worried about Yuki.
She was Kanade’s closest friend, after all; it was in Kanade’s best interest that Mafuyu was cared for.
So when she heard Mafuyu’s shaky voice when she asked the question, “Are you okay?” and how she seemed to go quiet for the rest of the call, Kanade knew something was wrong. She had known Mafuyu for too long to think otherwise.
That’s how she found herself composing at 4 AM, trying desperately to make even the smallest of melodies that would bring comfort to Mafuyu. Kanade needed to make sure her friend wasn’t so upset, even if she said she was feeling better. She thought things would get better now that Mafuyu was with her family, but clearly something else was going on. Something Kanade couldn’t fully understand yet… but she would try so, so hard to.
Her hands worked in perfect harmony with her mind on her keyboard. She wouldn’t let herself sleep until this was done. It needed to be done soon, perhaps in time for Yuki to wake up and get ready. Ah.. the idea of Kanade’s music helping Yuki start her day on the right foot.. That was what she hoped for. Yet she wouldn’t let herself stop and daydream about that moment. She had to stay focused.
Hours pass, all in a blur of notes and rhythms and warm feelings translated to music. Kanade is nothing short of determined to make sure this song helps. She’ll do anything, anything at all, to make sure the door to Yuki is open and ready for her at any time.
She just has to compose the right song that will do just that.
____
One new unread message.
It was from K.
When Mafuyu opens it on her way to school, her eyes immediately dim. She had a feeling she knew what it was before she even pressed on the notification and entered in her password, but the confirmation made her shoulders drop as if new weights had been added.
It was a new song.
One new melody to criticize her empty existence.
She’d listen to it after school. Perhaps it would give her more “solace” then.
__
Mafuyu sits at her desk, her earbuds plugged into her phone. She had just gotten back to school, and after diligently completing her work, she re-opened the message K had sent.
She exhales, pressing play on the track.
Warm instrumentals. Soft melodies. Stereotypically comforting sounds.
Nothing she hasn’t heard before.
It was crushing how little it changed her mood. Perhaps it moved something deep inside of her, buried away long ago. Perhaps it didn’t. How would she know? Mafuyu didn’t know anything about herself, let alone how her emotions shifted. She thinks back to the times she had agreed to continue searching for herself. All of the songs K had created for her, as if pleading for her to get better.
Why, just why, couldn’t she get better???
She felt utterly useless. She felt so ashamed that nothing worked. Her mind was so scattered, despite everyone trying to help. Why couldn’t she solve her problems? It made her guilty, despite the feeling being almost teasing.
Teasing. That’s what it was. All her life, she had been teased by her emotions and the concept of feeling like herself again. Mocked and pitied by her own thoughts, laughed at by her disordered expressions, thrown around and around by her mind as she tries to make something finally work.
Why didn’t it work? Why didn’t she understand any of this? It was painful.
… Painful.
She takes her earbuds out, sending K a simple message before standing up.
Painful – that was something she did get. While she couldn’t get anything else to change her, pain was always there. Always able to be understood. When she lost her mother at the theme park as a child, she felt pain at the idea of losing her forever. Pain at the childish decision that led her to that moment. The harsh hum of her recent mistakes within her mind was accompanied by something simpler – pain.
Maybe she just had to physically express that, so she could truly grasp its simplicity. Maybe then she could cope with all these closed doors.