murata, ugetsu (
inexpressibly) wrote2028-06-06 02:23 pm
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❝in the flow of time (still crazy after all these years)❞

* * *triggers for both the character study and the au rundowns combined: ideation of death both general and self, self destruction, unhealthy coping, unhealthy relationships, broken things, prostitution, anything you might imagine goes hand in hand with all of that. let me know if i should add something big by name that i haven't, please. thank you.
[ one clear sunny day i happened to listen to some music that was playing on the old man's radio. it was 'in the flow of time' by paul simon [1975 album original title: still crazy after all these years] even though i was only a kid, i thought 'wow i want to die', it's a good day isn't it? well, there are other things too but somehow i wonder if i've basically been chasing that feeling of dying from back then. ] 21.5 (ugetsu's pov)。 [ and thus i would become ugetsu's first 'friend'. feeling utterly overwhelmed by ugetsu's talent i virtually gave up on playing the violin at that time. murata ugetsu was by no means detached from life -- nor was he free of worries and grief. he had feelings too the same as anyone else but unlike ordinary people, his heart and his emotions were overflowing. while i listened to ugetsu's music that day to the sudden flood of music [kanji used for music here is 'emotion/feeling'] that was amplified so many more times than usual, i found myself wondering: how -- just how was this child prodigy able to live? be it joy, or sorrow, or suffering, ugetsu lived with feelings which were much more complex, and exponentially larger than those of ordinary people -- just accumulating it all within himself. and i felt both incredible envy...and immense pity. the hands that hesitated behind my back when i sensed them touch my skin through my clothes i felt a tension akin to being pierced by needles. ] 17 (akihiko's pov)。 [ but for my heart to be touched like that...long story short, it was because i slowly got spoiled. and i was quickly becoming a coward. still, first love was really fun. akihiko used his parents' divorce as an excuse and in our third year in high school he came over to live with me. after we graduated from high school, at that time when i was actively performing as a musician, one day all of a sudden i realized: the existence of the other was the one thing we both chased after the most in the world. as long as akihiko is with me, i'll be unable to become free with my music. and for akihiko, my existence fundamentally meant suffering. after that [ending things], as i expected, him and i, we have been causing each other nothing but despair for almost two years now. ] 17 (ugetsu's pov)。 [ perhaps i just really wanted someone to understand -- since it doesn't show on my face. just a little bit is enough. ah i'm the lowest son of a bitch towards akihiko and i guess he kind of resents me, you know? but i love him to death. i've been pushing him away but he hasn't given up on me at all. i've been trying to leave him every chance i get but it seems like i'm still no good at doing that, so. i've always been waiting...for him to let go of me. well, that's that! ] 17 (ugetsu's pov)。
[ if we don't clear it up properly right now, if you don't say what needs to be said and you use the wrong words instead, it will be too late. ] 18 (mafuyu's pov to uenoyama, thinking of yuki and him as well as akihiko and ugetsu)。 [ around the time we had first started to live together, when he brought me my first gift, somehow i hated that very much. and i refused it -- saying "I don't want it!" even though it was only a mug. back then i should've just said "I'm happy." i want to be with him. i want to be with him. i want to be with him. but i'm in love with music...still, never more than that. ah. he really is a good guy, isn't he? ] 17 (ugetsu's pov)。 [ ugetsu was the first genius i'd ever met, with unreal talent -- almost devastatingly powerful. [. . .] -- his phantasmagoric presentations skills, extraordinary technique... the sublime magnificence of his music...the cool clear cadenza, with overwhelming emotion and sensuality. ] 16 (akihiko's pov)。 [ i want to hold on i want to run away i want to give up i cannot give up i want to touch you. ] 20 (akihiko & ugetsu pov)。 [ akihiko, what if he never came back, just like that? i’ve thought about it countless times. yet i’m still not really able to imagine it. tomorrow he might come back all of a sudden? or maybe he won’t? but just the same, i want this suffering to end. but on second thought, i don’t really want that. all the stuff that’s in this room right now, the thought that everything might disappear……will nothing, not one thing, remain? [ even if we can never go back, even if you’re far away, ] i wish that the music alone would be left behind. [ it’s okay. even so, inevitably another day will come… and because i can go anywhere….it is okay. ] ] 27 ([mafuyu] & ugetsu)。
[ either way there's no going back for me. whether you choose or don't, just about everything, including this moment will change. even the path that led you here, won't return to how it was. ] 48 (ugetsu to mafuyu)
[ it's okay . ] 48 (separated from mafuyu at syh live)
[ at the beginning of a certain summer. the story of a certain night. the story of someone's wonderful music . ] 50 (bookend narration)
[ thank you for sending it to me. i feel relieved. i didn't know how things would turn out afterward. which is why i'm glad you continued with music . i just wanted to tell you that. ] 51 (mafuyu sent ugetsu their cd)
[ oh also about what you told me long ago -- you said you wished music alone would be left behind. at the time i didn't really understand. now i wonder if this is what you meant when you said that. if so, i think that you absolutely do exist within music, ugetsu-san . i'm certain that's just how music works. ] 51 (mafuyu to ugetsu)
murata ugetsu, 21. father: diplomat. grandfather: politician. trilingual -- japanese, and we are headcanoning that the other two are possibly italian, and probably english. met akihiko their first summer of high school, dated. broke up after they had already started living together (3rd year high school) but continued living together afterward. some key terms for ugetsu: prodigy, genius, sensual, beautiful, selfish, hungry, unstable, careless, self-sabotage.
he is: poorly socialized yet able to play the social circle game, musically gifted to an offensive degree both in performance and composition, compellingly attractive, bad at saying what he means unless with music, bad at loving someone, unparalleled at being in love.
he has: 1 friend, his ex boyfriend kaji akihiko.
he does not: actually want to cause suffering but it's very apparent he can't tell the difference sometimes.
when addressing ugetsu's horrible social behavior in terms of akihiko, it goes back to what akihiko first perceived in him: an outpouring of emotion he can neither control nor articulate, something that is the high draw of ugetsu to many including akihiko himself. ugetsu is a perilous kind of love and it's not out of hand to suppose that the good, warm, better days of their first love in high school was in part because ugetsu had never known it before. now that he does know and he's older and more mired in his bad habits, it's easy to see how his remaining relationship with akihiko spiraled so deeply and darkly -- not in part because he was, backwards as it was, trying to persuade him to leave for his own good but only hurt akihiko in the process without actually communicating what he meant. akihiko took it to mean he was not needed. ugetsu meant that what akihiko himself needed was to leave regardless of what ugetsu might or might not need. it's reasonable to say also that ugetsu's tendencies towards flings were as often to convince himself as akihiko -- he does not need me, he needs to leave me, this is what must be done, this is how to make him do it. he knows his own truth of course: akihiko is someone he loves and likes and maybe he'll never meet so good a guy again. when akihiko lets go of his hand for the last time ("i'm rooting for you, now please... let go of me." - ugetsu), he squeezes it tight first, which is so patently indicative of the compassion and truth of akihiko's love for ugetsu even though it's over. ugetsu struggles to reach out, turns to go after him, but then he hears mafuyu's song -- which in essence is also his song, akihiko's song, haruki's song, yuki's song, uenoyama's song -- "it's okay, just a little is fine." he is inarticulately sobbing. then he says 'bye bye akihiko' even though he's already alone.
he has spent all this time waiting for akihiko to let him go but he hasn't thought about this part: letting akihiko go. he manages.
back when akihiko left to stay with haruki, we saw snapshots of ugetsu's home which quickly went into disarray. ugetsu is an unstable, conditional, almost wild kind of a human being. not really fit for the society he's already been well bred into. he is in love with music, and when people listen to him perform they somehow know everything he wants to say with those notes. this is in polar contrast to what people can discern from his actual words which, unless speaking of music or about akihiko, can be almost certainly confirmed as either double-meanings, lies, evasions, or at best, half-truths. ugetsu feels a great deal and doesn't know what to do with it. a lot of it gets infused into his music, and he's often abroad for contests or performances in general. it's shown that he does still attend university but it's clear this takes a back seat to his music -- like everything else. when akihiko lived with him, it was shown several times that he fed ugetsu, made him coffee, and we can presume in seeing the aftermath of his departure, tidying and just keeping things in a semblance of order. without him there are empty beer cans on the counter, broken glass and porcelain on the floor, and just a general mess of music stands and paper and books.
which leads to the position we're taking that ugetsu doesn't look after himself. one would think someone who values his music so much would be careful of his hands, but we've seen him strike akihiko without holding back and it's likely the same with his other flings gone wrong as well, and demonstrably applies to his poor relationship with breakable objects. ugetsu's emotions take precedence over everything, which makes him dangerous both physically and emotionally, to others and to himself. on a day to day conversation he can come across alarmingly normal, easy to talk to, and even likable. but there are reasons he never had a friend before akihiko and the main of these is perhaps that he 'knows' himself even if he can't explain it. akihiko thrust himself into ugetsu's life and ugetsu -- needy, greedy, overwhelmingly in love ugetsu -- let him.
it's likely he won't do so again or won't intend to, maybe ever if not for a very long time.
that's assuming he has a long time.
in note of his throwback to his childhood when he heard the old man's radio, it's significant that so many markers of how ugetsu lives his life do point to a timeline that burns bright then out, quite quickly. in note of akihiko's perception of him -- 2/3 of the emotions that come to him the first time he hears/experiences ugetsu's music are rather dark: sorrow and suffering. yet he does view ugetsu as a human being, not a tragedy housed in a body. to the end, he treats him like a human being and this is what ugetsu both needs the most and cannot accept at all. he lives at the pinnacle of emotion whether bad or good and it bends to his will only with the draw of his bow and the curious desolation of a stage whose country couldn't matter less to him.
tl;dr ugetsu is a recurring breaking of the dam.
in all likelihood after akihiko he: doesn't eat enough, sleeps either way too much or way too little, practices even more than before, has increasingly unhealthy flings, lets his hair get even longer, drinks too much beer, drinks too much coffee, breaks at least one inanimate object daily/nightly. his music, on the other hand, probably flourishes as he pours every last bit of him that always went to akihiko no matter what ugetsu himself 'said' about it, into the violin instead. he will complete his status as a living marvel and because even excruciating pain is beautiful when made through music, it's possible no one will know the way it manifests offstage since the only person who ever did 'know' is gone. slight headcanon that mafuyu might know or come to know, as they are at least musically of a cut of cloth and i can see mafuyu seeking him out again and discovering...some truths. but that's tentative headcanon at most, and ignorable/disregardable too.
the pursuit of that death is metaphorical and also not. ugetsu is a body that is just a cage for a storm. he is the type to think that there might be something liberating in death, though he loves music too dearly to do anything about it while clearheaded. while not clearheaded is a different matter and this isn't just about being influenced by alcohol or aught else. in fits of high emotion, he gets into fights, he shatters things, he doesn't clean up, he doesn't protect himself, as if it's a dare for what next. not so much inviting death firsthand but saying: if that's what happens, that's what happens.
in recent bonus updates we do see that ugetsu has continued with his music and even placed first in at least one international contest. he looks put together but not happy, which lends itself to either still nose-diving in the bad end but also plateauing in a neutral end or also just continuing on ambiguously on his talent alone which, admittedly, is seemingly unrivaled in canon. he seems to at least be in touch with mafuyu enough to send cute stickers, though how much of that is pure unto their interaction and how much of that is him knowing akihiko is there and probably has told them he doesn't reply and therefore wanting to prove him wrong is.....debatable. bc he's petty like that. as we know. (as of 200912)
the above will be edited/added likely every time i reread, but as a wrap up for now: ugetsu can be nice and he can be mean but his threshold for going one way or the other is considerably narrower than most. even if he happens to like you, he might be sharp or unkind depending on the circumstances. other times he might be so tunnel-visioned it wouldn't make a difference. akihiko, the love of his life if ex, is someone he thinks of as 'a really nice guy' and will call him a loser to his face without any of the jokeyness of so-called friends. the chances of triggering any kind of more volatile episode with him is dependent on the situation and the factors the situation subsequently involves/can involve and likely would be clear enough from the outset OOCly that i can give fair warning. this interpretation of the extrapolations made from canon is, of course, creative license, and anyone who doesn't want to have to deal with these parts of him probably won't have to because on the flyby night memes it's usually just catty texting or such.
[ placeholder for more text also separation from random interested paths ]
some paths of interest (more or less AUs);[refrain] murata ugetsu, forgotten god cursed to be mortal repeatedly but only ever live until the end of his 22nd year. he does not remember prior lives though sometimes there is a chord struck upon meeting someone and he has started to take this as an indication that he knew them before even if he can't Remember. in the 'current' life he's leading, it's as canon has presented with the added facet of him 1. knowing he'll die and when but not how; 2. whether or not he has told anyone this (probably not) and/or if he would how that would happen and why and then how that would effect their relationship(s).
[dystonia]ugetsu loses the one thing he has been sure of all his life; the fallout is, as one might imagine, a natural disaster. everything as in canon but leads into this, either very abruptly close to canon timeline or a few years out. this path has a bad end no matter what, so it's understandable if it's not something people would want to play out knowing that.
[haunt you] murata ugetsu died at 16 and has haunted this school ever since by playing his beloved violin, and no one has ever heard him until (insert your character.) much like the living regular character of ugetsu, he would after he understood your character cared about him, become both possessive and petty and prone to emotional fits or utter absence. if their friendship/relationship persists there is always, across the years of that character's high school career, the conversation of: what happens when you leave?
[tchaiko] courtesan au because of course had to have one for ugetsu of all people -- renowned for beauty both his body and his music, the eight-span crow fetches a high price from his debut to now. patrons vary in everything except money. ugetsu debuted at 16 and is now turning 21. he continues to work like this because it is his livelihood and the one guarantee he has that he'll always be able to play his beloved violin, which includes of course taking the utmost care of it.
[mixed bag of other self indulgent things interested in ] not limited to: bodyguard (ugetsu is a young, beautiful, renowned prodigy violinist who performs abroad as well as throughout all of japan so it wouldn't be a far leap to say he gets one at some point; add to that his father is a diplomat and his grandfather's a politician and it makes even more sense), 'the nightingale' (complete au obviously -- taken for his skill with the violin (aka sold by his family for promised status in the legislature or some such) and is asked to play every day for the emperor to whom he was given -- a world that can be played in with other characters as guards, the emperor himself, advisors, visiting monarchs, etc.), annnd i'm sure i'll add more over time...
**********2022*****
update, per the updates as things go surprisingly well and i'm not mad about it: ugetsu is growing, as are the others in different ways. my stance remains that even someone who grows/blossoms into a phase or shape they did not expect (or with different wings or roots), will sometimes experience some backsliding.
**********2023*****
ugetsu decided to move to new york, albeit probably temporarily. he's pursuing music, as we knew he would. and is shown doing performances in paris, etc. as expected, but still so good to see.
i can write him from here or earlier or divergences, but i do feel that it's fair to say even a more seemingly well-adjusted ugetsu is still a bit of a wildcard, and i'll draw from canon nuances thread by thread.
if you've read this far...thank you??? i'm sorry???? unsureface dot gif. but it's 2024 and i'm still crying about this character...so thanks really. for reading, interacting with him, etc.