[ fear. old fear. and new fear. why. what's wrong with you.
i love you.
murata ugetsu hears all of it. a song you scream rather than sing. or whisper in your sleep instead of out loud when you're awake. or nothing nothing nothing.
everything.
the nurse obscures him from yuki while she continues to fuss, casting not one but two suspicious looks back over her shoulder at the blonde, a similar flicker of recognition there as the receptionist had. his burned and bleeding hands re-bandaged just now, sit shaking violently in ugetsu's lap. he doesn't want yuki to see him like this.
at the same time, the way yuki's voice sounds right now to him is shattering with anxious warmth. ugetsu feels like it's touching him across his skin, then pushing inside along his broken bones and drawing through his depleted blood. when he trembles and shivers the nurse takes his temperature again. his head hurts; partially shaven at one side so they could suture and dress and wrap it. but really it hurts more because there's a familiar tension behind his blind eyes he won't let come to fruition.
a little more fussing and the nurse finally steps back. visiting hours ended some time ago and ugetsu's manager actually did try to enforce a no-visitors policy for safety reasons while they investigate if the car accident really was an accident. maybe she sees the desperation in every aspect of yuki's body language. maybe she thinks it's a shame and a pity no family has called or come. whatever reason, she murmurs only,
"he really needs to rest."
then she quietly leaves the room.
despite not being able to see, ugetsu turns his head away from where he can tell the door is, and therefore where yuki came in.
and it occurs to him, cold and far away from himself: maybe this is where he has to end it. ]
you're stuck with me (and this tragic mess of a pair lmao) <333333
[ whatever this relationship of theirs is - love, hate, something in between - yuki knew from the start it couldn't end well. not only because they're both extremely damaged in a myriad of ways, not only because they're both nursing lost loves, not only because they're each built to worship music above all else - but because, mainly, yuki could not help but fall in love with murata ugetsu.
he never meant to. he still doesn't realize it, not properly. he promised himself there would never be another mafuyu and, in many ways, there never will be. ugetsu and mafuyu are nothing alike. they're both prodigies, perhaps, but mafuyu has the most innocent soul in the entire universe; ugetsu spent his childhood crushing insects and daydreaming about death.
maybe it's better that yuki ended up with him.
the nurse leaves but yuki doesn't hear whatever she says, doesn't catch the way she looks at him. he's pushing through layers upon layers of compounded anxiety to cross the room and stare down at ugetsu, his expression invisible to the other but no less panicked because of it.
ugetsu is shaking. ugetsu has bandages everywhere. ugetsu's hair, soft and black as midnight rain, has been shorn into razor-sharp blades of obsidian.
ugetsu does not look like ugetsu.
yuki wants to throw up. ]
Was it really an accident?
[ an awful, horrible thing to say. to accuse. but yuki knows ugetsu too well not to ask. his fingers tremble at his sides, not knowing where to go. he does not want to be sober for this. ]
i think yOU are stuck with ME (and this tragic mess to end all messes)<3 <3 <3!!!
[ the slow deep breath ugetsu takes is as sharp as his bones. sightless eyes still gaze downward at what he assumes are his legs. was it really an accident? he laughs. it hurts. ugetsu can't get any paler but he goes impossibly rigid. his hands, still shaking, feel disgustingly heavy.
not mine. ]
Ha... [ another sharp breath. it struggles through ugetsu's lungs. ] ...I don't know. They haven't found anything.
[ about the other driver.
or about me.
and of course, ugetsu won't tell. not yuki. not the investigators.
not himself.
he doesn't remember anyway.
who had he last spoken to? or seen?
again ugetsu breaks into laughter. like a wine bottle shattering. like a still burning cigarette put out with hands in panic as they took light to sheet music. it's funny. it's so funny. it's hilarious. he can't stop laughing. he's not laughing. he can't breathe --
-- sometimes, after getting high with yuki, ugetsu would drop. the most severe lows were explosive. tantrums devolved into fights devolved into bouts of hysteria. this is like that but worse.
they said ugetsu was lucky. they pulled him from the fire and called him lucky and ugetsu wanted to strangle them.
gasping for breath hurts.
yuki is here.
yuki shouldn't be here.
why did you come...why did i let you...
why did i also...want you to.
why. ]
SHARES MY TISSUES WITH U 😭😂💖 also psst here's a song for them 😈
[ ugetsu's laugh is a dangerous thing. he rarely laughs the way normal people do; instead, it's only when he feels particularly cruel, or vindictive, or scorned. he laughs when he shouldn't. yuki likes that about him, most of the time. it sets him apart from all the boring people that make up the world around them. when ugetsu laughs yuki doesn't know if he's going to be kissed or slapped; the surprise is, always, exciting.
but right now? yuki hates it.
it doesn't take much for the pain to show through, ugetsu's usual mask full of cracks and holes that expose just how badly he's been injured. yuki knows that feeling well enough to recognize the tension in ugetsu's body, the way his breathing changes when he speaks. everything takes effort. the body, trying so hard to keep itself together, cannot function normally. yuki did not break any bones the night he tried to die but he knows what it is to sit in that hospital bed with his body crying out against him.
there are so, so many bandages.
ugetsu's laughter twists into something ugly and yuki wants to reach out, to clutch him close to his chest and hold tight no matter how hard ugetsu strikes him. the pain is never enough, never close to what yuki deserves, but in taking it he sometimes thinks he can make amends. thinks he can, maybe, help this lonely soul escape the oblivion that comes with a person like yuki.
he should never have given ugetsu drugs. he might not be addicted, not the way yuki is, but he knows it's wrong.
[ if ugetsu knew yuki had truly fallen in love with him, he wouldn't know what to do with that information -- not now and not before either. he knows a little: that yuki accepts his violence and his fragments because he considers himself deserving of that pain. also: the amends he is trying to make have nothing to do with ugetsu himself. someone else.
someone else.
the touch to his temple is light but ugetsu feels it more strongly than he felt the car crash, than he felt the fire. or so he tells himself. later, when he finally tries to sleep, this won't be the case at all. for now though, it's enough. along with yuki's voice, it tethers; anchors. it calls down the moon from a ledge where moonlight always arcs and asks it to stay a little longer. ]
Y -- uki.
[ no more laughter. it's quiet. almost drowned entirely under all the machines. he's so...so...
dangerous stillness exists abruptly and completely as ugetsu's choking breaths even out until they can be almost nothing too. ]
...sorry.
[ he isn't. ]
Aha...hm. It was just such a funny question for you to ask.
[ then he tilts his head and angles it just the way he would if he could see yuki. stares at him without seeing him and feels his own mouth curve upward. it's cracked. so dry. bleeding. the red stands out starkly against ugetsu's pale skin and his dark hair and eyes. disappearing right in front of him. ]
Now that's done...you can go.
[ it's not clear: 'tonight'? 'forever'? a string wound tight enough to snap. so ugetsu lies. what good would the truth do him now?
what good would it do anyone? ]
RIGHT it's also a perfect ugetsu/akihiko/haruki song T____T
[ yuki has never stopped loving mafuyu. even while he's been with others, with ugetsu, that fact has always remained true. loving mafuyu is a part of his soul; he cannot help it. he never thought it would matter. he assumed, foolishly perhaps, that if ugetsu knew he wouldn't care. neither of them are meant for one another; ugetsu has his own lost love to pine for.
but yuki is standing here and listening to him laugh like a creature gone mad from trauma and realizing that this is the fate he barred from mafuyu.
he never let mafuyu into his hospital room. never let him see the state Yuki had put himself in, even though it was Mafuyu who pulled him down, who called the ambulance, who held his hand all the way there. as soon as yuki regained consciousness he told the nurses and doctors and his mother and hiiragi and shizu: not him. don't let him see.
because, in the depths of his heart, yuki loved mafuyu too much to let him suffer like that. even though keeping him away meant he would suffer, too. he wanted to call. wanted to text. stared at his phone night after night, at the missed notifications that eventually trailed off.
he never got the courage to respond.
and now ugetsu is telling him to go. ]
Yeah right.
[ yuki snorts, derisive, almost cruel. he knows that tone; ugetsu is dismissing him, though whether or not he actually wants to is another matter entirely. yuki's fingers brush into the longer strands of ugetsu's hair and, without warning, grasp so firmly that there's no way it can't hurt him. ]
You fucking dumbass. I'm not just gonna leave like all your other boytoys.
[ because he loves him. because he hates him. because the sea and the moon cannot be parted, no matter how great the distance between them.
yuki lets go of ugetsu's hair and runs his thumb over the cracked, broken skin of his lip. presses in. pulls it away, bright with blood, and lifts it to his own mouth. the taste is sharp and exhilarating and forbidden. death. life. ]
Did he hit you?
it really is ,,,....ugetsu why do you bring disaster to everyone...why is it so good...OTL
[ the pained sound that escapes ugetsu is involuntary. he'd bury that too, if he could. also involuntary: how blind eyes water. he tastes salt before he registers the feeling of the warmth of their tracks down his face. it says more about his state than anything that he doesn't bite yuki, that all he can do is stutter broken breaths as he tries to recover from the electric shock of hurt from something so tame it would make ugetsu laugh again if he could.
he hears it: the sea reminding him he's real by speaking, by moving, by opening its all devouring self and saying the moon can't make him leave but even if it did, it is also the moon that pulls him back. isn't it.
isn't it.
ugetsu's next inhale and exhale almost sound wet. there's so much wrong, so to say something isn't 'right' is understatement and redundant as well. does it taste good? does it taste bad?
did he hit you?
tabloid rumors have been running yuki yoshida and ugetsu murata scandals with growing traction. ugetsu had not deigned to tell yuki or his manager the threats he'd received. some veiled in politics unafraid of the recourse. some in fanmail he watched burn without any satisfaction. and some just a gut instinct: the sense he'd been being followed for a week or so, unable to parse his waking hours from his maddened stupors of practice and the stolen pills from yuki's pockets in jackets left behind. how lucky, he thinks, that none of it was in his system when the accident happened. but whether they meant to enrobe him in a drug scandal or kill him outright, he has no idea.
later, they'll tell him the name of the other driver and ugetsu will have an answer for yuki: well yes. but ugetsu had always hit him back. a fling. he doesn't even remember when except that he was still of again on again with aki back during or around that time. sort of.
for now, thin shoulders shrug. even that hurts. under the hospital shift and the myriad of bandages, ugetsu's moonpale skin is blue, black, red, yellowing and almost green. as if a cosmic joke, his face is almost alright if one overlooks the head wound and the thick swathe of gauze around the right side of his neck. they're not sure what will or won't scar.
ugetsu isn't sure he cares either way.
he licks his lips, swallows salt and blood and the smile isn't there anymore. ]
They say death makes you honest.
[ ugetsu's voice is still, like the reflection of the moon in water that cannot move. ]
I guess that was close enough.
[ when he blinks, it's very slow. it gives the impression he might not open his eyes again if he lets them shut one more time. ]
You know --
[ he looks straight at yuki without seeing a thing, but this might be the strangest ugetsu has ever looked to anyone, not because of the injuries but because he feels almost...not real. ]
-- he'd take you back, I think.
[ no guesses as to who 'he' is. ]
When he sings, that's what it sounds like to me.
[ and if ugetsu is bad at every other thing in his life, well, sound is the one thing he's always, always gotten right.
whether it's kind. whether it's devastating. whether it's the sea or a shooting star.
the moon pretends he doesn't understand sometimes, but the trouble is...he does.
he really does. ]
he just Feels So Much All The Time... he can't help it... :'c <3 poor little meow meow
[ it's revenge, perhaps, making ugetsu hurt like that. yuki knows he isn't doing anything more than the other can handle; in fact, he's taken worse from ugetsu during his many, many meltdowns. if this happened before yuki started using them maybe he wouldn't be such an asshole but the fact is: he's jonesing, worse than he has in a long time, and being in this hospital, staring down at a broken ugetsu murata, is not helping.
yuki is angry. yuki is scared. yuki does not know what to do.
he doesn't mean did he hit you the way ugetsu interprets it but, later, the dual meaning will make him laugh bitterly. of course it's someone from his past. some ex-lover who can't stand seeing ugetsu with anyone else. who could? what kind of man, after loving the moon itself, could ever be happy watching it frolic with some other being? yet the moon has an orbit of its own, tied only to the earth.
akihiko.
it's a safety net, knowing that ugetsu cannot forget him. it means yuki can never be loved in return - something he does not want. does not deserve.
yuki sees his name in the tabloids often but the appearance of ugetsu alongside him is troubling, though he pretends otherwise. buys copies to throw onto ugetsu's bed, to laugh at together, joking about his bed head or the stupid clothes he decided to wear when he left that cold, cold basement early in the morning one day. but yuki knows what kind of people read them sincerely, believing every word. yuki knows he has fans that might hurt ugetsu. and, more importantly: yuki knows mafuyu could see.
he still has no idea that their lives have crossed through ugetsu, of course. he knows only that mafuyu plays music now, that he frequents the small clubs yuki got his start in back during high school and then afterwards. he only plays bigger gigs now but those venues are always in his mind, constantly in his peripheral vision. ugetsu's drummer goes there with his new boyfriend. plays shows with mafuyu. with that other guitarist, the dark-haired one.
yuki does not realize he's thinking about mafuyu until ugetsu speaks. until ugetsu says he knowing that there is no other 'he' in yuki's heart. until ugetsu talks about mafuyu's sound.
and, of course, ugetsu is never wrong when it comes to sound. ]
Fuck off.
[ it's a visceral reaction, completely unconscious; the words spill sharp from yuki's lips like a bark, a warning. his fingers twist tighter against the metal support on the side of the bed, knuckles as pale as ugetsu's bloodless skin. ]
Don't talk about him.
[ in the back of his mind, yuki knows what ugetsu is doing. bringing mafuyu up, encouraging yuki to go back to him, so that it's easier to break things off between the two of them. ugetsu wants yuki gone - whether it's because he's finally grown tired of him or, as yuki suspects, because it hurts too much to keep him around. it's a familiar game, one that leaves a bitter, acrid taste on the back of yuki's tongue. the problem is that ugetsu still has no idea what convictions yuki holds in his heart; has no clue that yuki has promised himself to never, ever speak to mafuyu again.
and yuki - yuki wants to hit ugetsu. he wants to kiss ugetsu. he wants to shove powder up his own nose until he's so high he can't tell the ground from the sky anymore; until he can finally, finally float away into the stars. past the moon. past all sources of light. past everything until he's adrift in endless, beautiful darkness. ]
This isn't about him.
that one art of him and aki with cat ears and stuff...lil meow meow indeed..he really is overwhelmed
[ if yuki were to reach out, to hurt him again somehow, ugetsu wouldn't mind. this in and of itself is not a good thing. part of him knows this. but it's buried alive somewhere the sound does not reach, neither up nor down. the moon goes on. the phases cycle. love and hate.
yuki tells him to fuck off and he means shut up, he means not to bring mafuyu up not now not ever. and he doesn't have to use the exact words for ugetsu to hear: that mafuyu is too good for him even to mention, that mafuyu is also too good for yuki. his thoughts encapsulate what yuki's truth once was without asking either: he never let mafuyu see him. that much is clear.
the way mafuyu sang, one would believe yuki really did die that night.
the way mafuyu sang, ugetsu and akihiko really did.
what kinds of songs is he writing now? ugetsu hasn't seen him in a while. their schedules don't allow for it, and now he can't even leave this bed for who knows how long. what card should he play? he could continue to be cruel. or he could try to get yuki to sneak him out somehow. it's not impossible. though ugetsu has never been under quite as much surveillance. then again, no one has actively ever tried to kill him on such a scale before.
maybe he could try once yuki leaves.
maybe if he waits, his body will finally relent and do the rest for him.
maybe.
in yuki's voice there is a tremble like the way the earth shivers in warning before it splits apart, the way the water of the ocean's surface flickers as if by light and shadow but truly means a storm.
ugetsu is well versed in both.
shaking. hurting. held together by no one even knows what or how or why.
you don't want to be here.
part of what keeps them circling each other and swallowing each other down even if it chokes them is both the understanding of music and silence and also this: contradictions. in themselves. in other people. when they're sober. when they're high. when they're alive.
when they're dying.
for a little while, ugetsu was. but they brought him back. he doesn't care for the details.
does yuki know?
he doubts it. seems like he rushed here.
what would have been a slow breath and then maybe words... becomes a cough. it spasms. the pain is enormous even as drugged up as he is. sweat breaks out across his forehead, his nape, clammy and pale. ugetsu though is one of those bizarre creatures who almost looks as beautiful or the same when he's destroyed, but he looks more like a painting than a person. less real. less. less. less.
more.
he can't tell if he's coughed up blood in his mouth or if he bit his tongue. he swallows. and only realizes as his blind eyes blink fiercely, that where one bandaged hand shot out to steady himself against the bedrail, he ended up resting it against something else instead. through the swathe of fabric and tape, it's still clear enough. the warmth there. yuki. ah.
yeah. he really shouldn't be here. but ugetsu doesn't pull his hand away. ]
[ they've been trapped in this cycle since the first night they met. hurting each other over and over, pleasure and pain all mixed up until there's no telling which is which, hands around throats in the dark. it's good. it's terrible. were it not for their shows and rehearsals and managers, yuki thinks they might lose themselves forever in that basement.
yuki is grateful to ugetsu for it. yuki hates that ugetsu allows it. new moon, waxing, waning, full, gone again. endless.
hearing mafuyu's name on ugetsu's lips is too painful to bear. in a better headspace yuki would admit that he doesn't mind hearing ugetsu talk about him, that he craves whatever knowledge he can get from secondhand sources, that he wants to know mafuyu is doing well. moving on. happy.
but how could he be?
yuki has not listened to mafuyu sing for any meaningful amount of time. one glance at the guitar in his hands was enough to snap whatever self-control he had left that night, enough to send him into a spiral of panic and desperation that led to a phone call he should never have made.
i tried to kill myself he told ugetsu once, not knowing it would lead to this. not knowing that they would end up in the hospital together, ugetsu blind and broken and bandaged, yuki absolutely useless as always seems to be the case nowadays. even if ugetsu tells him he did not mean for this to happen, yuki can't fully believe it. can't fully believe that there is not some part of ugetsu that wishes this had been the end.
there are many things they have in common, but this is the biggest one: that they both yearn for death. that they've been chasing it ever since they were children. searching for the answer to the darkness inside their souls.
ugetsu goes to speak but he coughs instead and oh, oh, he's in pain; yuki can see it, yuki can hear it. flecks of blood paint pale lips and all yuki can do is watch, his body shaking, not even thinking that he should probably call the nurse. it stops soon enough but not before ugetsu's hand rests against his own. the touch feels like a shock and yuki jerks in response, though he doesn't pull away.
he can tell that ugetsu's eyes aren't working so he knows it wasn't on purpose and yet -- ]
Ugetsu...
[ his voice is soft. sad. broken. filled with regrets. apologies.
hope.
yuki finds himself kneeling next to the bed, legs shaking too strongly to hold him up any longer. he rests his forehead against ugetsu's knuckles and sighs, long and bitter. ]
You should rest, [ he echoes. and then, after a moment, in that ridiculously charismatic way of his, he adds: ]
[ ugetsu feels how yuki's legs give out, not so much through the faint and obscured touch of their hands but through the reverberation of the sound. it takes any if not all of the punch out of that witty one-liner. it would be easier if yuki laughed at him, if yuki yoshida did not actually care. but he does.
it would be easier if ugetsu did not actually care.
but he does.
on the tip of his tongue: if i was supposed to rest, why am i here? why am i listening to this?
at least it's blindness. if ugetsu regained consciousness to a soundless world, that would have been what the cliches call a fate worse than death.
another shuddered breath struggles through his body. like being dragged through the mud when you're already sick. like telling someone goodbye when you want nothing more than for them to stay.
it hurts.
yuki's forehead touches against wrapped knuckles and ugetsu swallows a sharp feeling of something like failure down into the blackhole of himself.
all of yuki yoshida's reactions tell him things without telling him things: that mafuyu is forbidden to yuki as a kind of cross to bear, that he's afraid of mafuyu seeing what's written in tabloids even by accident, that he misses him because you never stop missing the people you love. ugetsu, at least, understands that one. nicer if he didn't, but you can't win it all. no. anyone who says 'i didn't have time to think' doesn't really know; doesn't really care. if you care, if you really do, the anxiety and regret and impossible love all come up around the edges. water flooding your house to remind you it could have been a home.
but.
yuki is here.
ugetsu is alive.
for better or for worse.
they both are.
better. and
worse.
the little laugh is like static. ugetsu doesn't recognize himself, but he cards burned fingers through yuki's hair: there there. yet even this conventionally comforting motion...isn't. what it is: anchor in the sea. ]
Then I guess it's a good thing I can't see myself.
[ dry. like he's not talking about something as serious as it is. like none of this is happening. the moon in drought. deny. refuse. and then the truth imbibed will be its own questionable substance. ugetsu can't see a thing, and the only warmth he feels is from yuki. there's no reason, no practical reason for how his quiet traitorous self opens the wound of fear and shame and murmurs, ]
...but can you turn the light off.
[ it's still ugetsu, so of course it doesn't sound like a question so much as a command. if yuki still cannot stand though, it's not like anything bad will happen when the lights stay on. the faint buzzing ugetsu can hear so keenly amongst the machines keeping him monitored, hydrated, stable, drugged, ten thousand things but above all keeping him...somehow that buzzing is so loud. drowning him in fluorescent noise he'd take a knife to if he could.
he'd rather listen to yuki. his inhales. his exhales. his heartbeat.
his hope and his fear. his brilliance and his withdrawals. his love and his hate. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
<3!!!!!!!!!!!
i love you.
murata ugetsu hears all of it. a song you scream rather than sing. or whisper in your sleep instead of out loud when you're awake. or nothing nothing nothing.
everything.
the nurse obscures him from yuki while she continues to fuss, casting not one but two suspicious looks back over her shoulder at the blonde, a similar flicker of recognition there as the receptionist had. his burned and bleeding hands re-bandaged just now, sit shaking violently in ugetsu's lap. he doesn't want yuki to see him like this.
at the same time, the way yuki's voice sounds right now to him is shattering with anxious warmth. ugetsu feels like it's touching him across his skin, then pushing inside along his broken bones and drawing through his depleted blood. when he trembles and shivers the nurse takes his temperature again. his head hurts; partially shaven at one side so they could suture and dress and wrap it. but really it hurts more because there's a familiar tension behind his blind eyes he won't let come to fruition.
a little more fussing and the nurse finally steps back. visiting hours ended some time ago and ugetsu's manager actually did try to enforce a no-visitors policy for safety reasons while they investigate if the car accident really was an accident. maybe she sees the desperation in every aspect of yuki's body language. maybe she thinks it's a shame and a pity no family has called or come. whatever reason, she murmurs only,
"he really needs to rest."
then she quietly leaves the room.
despite not being able to see, ugetsu turns his head away from where he can tell the door is, and therefore where yuki came in.
and it occurs to him, cold and far away from himself: maybe this is where he has to end it. ]
you're stuck with me (and this tragic mess of a pair lmao) <333333
he never meant to. he still doesn't realize it, not properly. he promised himself there would never be another mafuyu and, in many ways, there never will be. ugetsu and mafuyu are nothing alike. they're both prodigies, perhaps, but mafuyu has the most innocent soul in the entire universe; ugetsu spent his childhood crushing insects and daydreaming about death.
maybe it's better that yuki ended up with him.
the nurse leaves but yuki doesn't hear whatever she says, doesn't catch the way she looks at him. he's pushing through layers upon layers of compounded anxiety to cross the room and stare down at ugetsu, his expression invisible to the other but no less panicked because of it.
ugetsu is shaking. ugetsu has bandages everywhere. ugetsu's hair, soft and black as midnight rain, has been shorn into razor-sharp blades of obsidian.
ugetsu does not look like ugetsu.
yuki wants to throw up. ]
Was it really an accident?
[ an awful, horrible thing to say. to accuse. but yuki knows ugetsu too well not to ask. his fingers tremble at his sides, not knowing where to go. he does not want to be sober for this. ]
i think yOU are stuck with ME (and this tragic mess to end all messes)<3 <3 <3!!!
not mine. ]
Ha... [ another sharp breath. it struggles through ugetsu's lungs. ] ...I don't know. They haven't found anything.
[ about the other driver.
or about me.
and of course, ugetsu won't tell. not yuki. not the investigators.
not himself.
he doesn't remember anyway.
who had he last spoken to? or seen?
again ugetsu breaks into laughter. like a wine bottle shattering. like a still burning cigarette put out with hands in panic as they took light to sheet music. it's funny. it's so funny. it's hilarious. he can't stop laughing. he's not laughing. he can't breathe --
-- sometimes, after getting high with yuki, ugetsu would drop. the most severe lows were explosive. tantrums devolved into fights devolved into bouts of hysteria. this is like that but worse.
they said ugetsu was lucky. they pulled him from the fire and called him lucky and ugetsu wanted to strangle them.
gasping for breath hurts.
yuki is here.
yuki shouldn't be here.
why did you come...why did i let you...
why did i also...want you to.why. ]
SHARES MY TISSUES WITH U 😭😂💖 also psst here's a song for them 😈
but right now? yuki hates it.
it doesn't take much for the pain to show through, ugetsu's usual mask full of cracks and holes that expose just how badly he's been injured. yuki knows that feeling well enough to recognize the tension in ugetsu's body, the way his breathing changes when he speaks. everything takes effort. the body, trying so hard to keep itself together, cannot function normally. yuki did not break any bones the night he tried to die but he knows what it is to sit in that hospital bed with his body crying out against him.
there are so, so many bandages.
ugetsu's laughter twists into something ugly and yuki wants to reach out, to clutch him close to his chest and hold tight no matter how hard ugetsu strikes him. the pain is never enough, never close to what yuki deserves, but in taking it he sometimes thinks he can make amends. thinks he can, maybe, help this lonely soul escape the oblivion that comes with a person like yuki.
he should never have given ugetsu drugs. he might not be addicted, not the way yuki is, but he knows it's wrong.
and yet. ]
Ugetsu --
[ ah, there's that cry again. i hate you. i love you. ]
[ yuki reaches out without thinking. his fingertips brush the side of ugetsu's temple, where they've cut his hair. his eyes are --
a wave of nausea overtakes him; his free hand grips the railing at the edge of the bed, fighting to stay upright.
why? ]
Stop it, [ he whispers, though whether it's to ugetsu or himself, he doesn't know. ]
o h no this is so perfect for them....also all that sea imagery...takes tissues thank you .....
someone else.
the touch to his temple is light but ugetsu feels it more strongly than he felt the car crash, than he felt the fire. or so he tells himself. later, when he finally tries to sleep, this won't be the case at all. for now though, it's enough. along with yuki's voice, it tethers; anchors. it calls down the moon from a ledge where moonlight always arcs and asks it to stay a little longer. ]
Y -- uki.
[ no more laughter. it's quiet. almost drowned entirely under all the machines. he's so...so...
dangerous stillness exists abruptly and completely as ugetsu's choking breaths even out until they can be almost nothing too. ]
...sorry.
[ he isn't. ]
Aha...hm. It was just such a funny question for you to ask.
[ then he tilts his head and angles it just the way he would if he could see yuki. stares at him without seeing him and feels his own mouth curve upward. it's cracked. so dry. bleeding. the red stands out starkly against ugetsu's pale skin and his dark hair and eyes. disappearing right in front of him. ]
Now that's done...you can go.
[ it's not clear: 'tonight'? 'forever'? a string wound tight enough to snap. so ugetsu lies. what good would the truth do him now?
what good would it do anyone? ]
RIGHT it's also a perfect ugetsu/akihiko/haruki song T____T
but yuki is standing here and listening to him laugh like a creature gone mad from trauma and realizing that this is the fate he barred from mafuyu.
he never let mafuyu into his hospital room. never let him see the state Yuki had put himself in, even though it was Mafuyu who pulled him down, who called the ambulance, who held his hand all the way there. as soon as yuki regained consciousness he told the nurses and doctors and his mother and hiiragi and shizu: not him. don't let him see.
because, in the depths of his heart, yuki loved mafuyu too much to let him suffer like that. even though keeping him away meant he would suffer, too. he wanted to call. wanted to text. stared at his phone night after night, at the missed notifications that eventually trailed off.
he never got the courage to respond.
and now ugetsu is telling him to go. ]
Yeah right.
[ yuki snorts, derisive, almost cruel. he knows that tone; ugetsu is dismissing him, though whether or not he actually wants to is another matter entirely. yuki's fingers brush into the longer strands of ugetsu's hair and, without warning, grasp so firmly that there's no way it can't hurt him. ]
You fucking dumbass. I'm not just gonna leave like all your other boytoys.
[ because he loves him. because he hates him. because the sea and the moon cannot be parted, no matter how great the distance between them.
yuki lets go of ugetsu's hair and runs his thumb over the cracked, broken skin of his lip. presses in. pulls it away, bright with blood, and lifts it to his own mouth. the taste is sharp and exhilarating and forbidden. death. life. ]
Did he hit you?
it really is ,,,....ugetsu why do you bring disaster to everyone...why is it so good...OTL
he hears it: the sea reminding him he's real by speaking, by moving, by opening its all devouring self and saying the moon can't make him leave but even if it did, it is also the moon that pulls him back. isn't it.
isn't it.
ugetsu's next inhale and exhale almost sound wet. there's so much wrong, so to say something isn't 'right' is understatement and redundant as well. does it taste good? does it taste bad?
did he hit you?
tabloid rumors have been running yuki yoshida and ugetsu murata scandals with growing traction. ugetsu had not deigned to tell yuki or his manager the threats he'd received. some veiled in politics unafraid of the recourse. some in fanmail he watched burn without any satisfaction. and some just a gut instinct: the sense he'd been being followed for a week or so, unable to parse his waking hours from his maddened stupors of practice and the stolen pills from yuki's pockets in jackets left behind. how lucky, he thinks, that none of it was in his system when the accident happened. but whether they meant to enrobe him in a drug scandal or kill him outright, he has no idea.
later, they'll tell him the name of the other driver and ugetsu will have an answer for yuki: well yes. but ugetsu had always hit him back. a fling. he doesn't even remember when except that he was still of again on again with aki back during or around that time. sort of.
for now, thin shoulders shrug. even that hurts. under the hospital shift and the myriad of bandages, ugetsu's moonpale skin is blue, black, red, yellowing and almost green. as if a cosmic joke, his face is almost alright if one overlooks the head wound and the thick swathe of gauze around the right side of his neck. they're not sure what will or won't scar.
ugetsu isn't sure he cares either way.
he licks his lips, swallows salt and blood and the smile isn't there anymore. ]
They say death makes you honest.
[ ugetsu's voice is still, like the reflection of the moon in water that cannot move. ]
I guess that was close enough.
[ when he blinks, it's very slow. it gives the impression he might not open his eyes again if he lets them shut one more time. ]
You know --
[ he looks straight at yuki without seeing a thing, but this might be the strangest ugetsu has ever looked to anyone, not because of the injuries but because he feels almost...not real. ]
-- he'd take you back, I think.
[ no guesses as to who 'he' is. ]
When he sings, that's what it sounds like to me.
[ and if ugetsu is bad at every other thing in his life, well, sound is the one thing he's always, always gotten right.
whether it's kind. whether it's devastating. whether it's the sea or a shooting star.
the moon pretends he doesn't understand sometimes, but the trouble is...he does.
he really does. ]
he just Feels So Much All The Time... he can't help it... :'c <3 poor little meow meow
yuki is angry. yuki is scared. yuki does not know what to do.
he doesn't mean did he hit you the way ugetsu interprets it but, later, the dual meaning will make him laugh bitterly. of course it's someone from his past. some ex-lover who can't stand seeing ugetsu with anyone else. who could? what kind of man, after loving the moon itself, could ever be happy watching it frolic with some other being? yet the moon has an orbit of its own, tied only to the earth.
akihiko.
it's a safety net, knowing that ugetsu cannot forget him. it means yuki can never be loved in return - something he does not want. does not deserve.
yuki sees his name in the tabloids often but the appearance of ugetsu alongside him is troubling, though he pretends otherwise. buys copies to throw onto ugetsu's bed, to laugh at together, joking about his bed head or the stupid clothes he decided to wear when he left that cold, cold basement early in the morning one day. but yuki knows what kind of people read them sincerely, believing every word. yuki knows he has fans that might hurt ugetsu. and, more importantly: yuki knows mafuyu could see.
he still has no idea that their lives have crossed through ugetsu, of course. he knows only that mafuyu plays music now, that he frequents the small clubs yuki got his start in back during high school and then afterwards. he only plays bigger gigs now but those venues are always in his mind, constantly in his peripheral vision. ugetsu's drummer goes there with his new boyfriend. plays shows with mafuyu. with that other guitarist, the dark-haired one.
yuki does not realize he's thinking about mafuyu until ugetsu speaks. until ugetsu says he knowing that there is no other 'he' in yuki's heart. until ugetsu talks about mafuyu's sound.
and, of course, ugetsu is never wrong when it comes to sound. ]
Fuck off.
[ it's a visceral reaction, completely unconscious; the words spill sharp from yuki's lips like a bark, a warning. his fingers twist tighter against the metal support on the side of the bed, knuckles as pale as ugetsu's bloodless skin. ]
Don't talk about him.
[ in the back of his mind, yuki knows what ugetsu is doing. bringing mafuyu up, encouraging yuki to go back to him, so that it's easier to break things off between the two of them. ugetsu wants yuki gone - whether it's because he's finally grown tired of him or, as yuki suspects, because it hurts too much to keep him around. it's a familiar game, one that leaves a bitter, acrid taste on the back of yuki's tongue. the problem is that ugetsu still has no idea what convictions yuki holds in his heart; has no clue that yuki has promised himself to never, ever speak to mafuyu again.
and yuki - yuki wants to hit ugetsu. he wants to kiss ugetsu. he wants to shove powder up his own nose until he's so high he can't tell the ground from the sky anymore; until he can finally, finally float away into the stars. past the moon. past all sources of light. past everything until he's adrift in endless, beautiful darkness. ]
This isn't about him.
that one art of him and aki with cat ears and stuff...lil meow meow indeed..he really is overwhelmed
yuki tells him to fuck off and he means shut up, he means not to bring mafuyu up not now not ever. and he doesn't have to use the exact words for ugetsu to hear: that mafuyu is too good for him even to mention, that mafuyu is also too good for yuki. his thoughts encapsulate what yuki's truth once was without asking either: he never let mafuyu see him. that much is clear.
the way mafuyu sang, one would believe yuki really did die that night.
the way mafuyu sang, ugetsu and akihiko really did.
what kinds of songs is he writing now? ugetsu hasn't seen him in a while. their schedules don't allow for it, and now he can't even leave this bed for who knows how long. what card should he play? he could continue to be cruel. or he could try to get yuki to sneak him out somehow. it's not impossible. though ugetsu has never been under quite as much surveillance. then again, no one has actively ever tried to kill him on such a scale before.
maybe he could try once yuki leaves.
maybe if he waits, his body will finally relent and do the rest for him.
maybe.
in yuki's voice there is a tremble like the way the earth shivers in warning before it splits apart, the way the water of the ocean's surface flickers as if by light and shadow but truly means a storm.
ugetsu is well versed in both.
shaking. hurting. held together by no one even knows what or how or why.
you don't want to be here.
part of what keeps them circling each other and swallowing each other down even if it chokes them is both the understanding of music and silence and also this: contradictions. in themselves. in other people. when they're sober. when they're high. when they're alive.
when they're dying.
for a little while, ugetsu was. but they brought him back. he doesn't care for the details.
does yuki know?
he doubts it. seems like he rushed here.
what would have been a slow breath and then maybe words... becomes a cough. it spasms. the pain is enormous even as drugged up as he is. sweat breaks out across his forehead, his nape, clammy and pale. ugetsu though is one of those bizarre creatures who almost looks as beautiful or the same when he's destroyed, but he looks more like a painting than a person. less real. less. less. less.
more.
he can't tell if he's coughed up blood in his mouth or if he bit his tongue. he swallows. and only realizes as his blind eyes blink fiercely, that where one bandaged hand shot out to steady himself against the bedrail, he ended up resting it against something else instead. through the swathe of fabric and tape, it's still clear enough. the warmth there. yuki. ah.
yeah. he really shouldn't be here. but ugetsu doesn't pull his hand away. ]
no subject
yuki is grateful to ugetsu for it. yuki hates that ugetsu allows it. new moon, waxing, waning, full, gone again. endless.
hearing mafuyu's name on ugetsu's lips is too painful to bear. in a better headspace yuki would admit that he doesn't mind hearing ugetsu talk about him, that he craves whatever knowledge he can get from secondhand sources, that he wants to know mafuyu is doing well. moving on. happy.
but how could he be?
yuki has not listened to mafuyu sing for any meaningful amount of time. one glance at the guitar in his hands was enough to snap whatever self-control he had left that night, enough to send him into a spiral of panic and desperation that led to a phone call he should never have made.
i tried to kill myself he told ugetsu once, not knowing it would lead to this. not knowing that they would end up in the hospital together, ugetsu blind and broken and bandaged, yuki absolutely useless as always seems to be the case nowadays. even if ugetsu tells him he did not mean for this to happen, yuki can't fully believe it. can't fully believe that there is not some part of ugetsu that wishes this had been the end.
there are many things they have in common, but this is the biggest one: that they both yearn for death. that they've been chasing it ever since they were children. searching for the answer to the darkness inside their souls.
ugetsu goes to speak but he coughs instead and oh, oh, he's in pain; yuki can see it, yuki can hear it. flecks of blood paint pale lips and all yuki can do is watch, his body shaking, not even thinking that he should probably call the nurse. it stops soon enough but not before ugetsu's hand rests against his own. the touch feels like a shock and yuki jerks in response, though he doesn't pull away.
he can tell that ugetsu's eyes aren't working so he knows it wasn't on purpose and yet -- ]
Ugetsu...
[ his voice is soft. sad. broken. filled with regrets. apologies.
hope.
yuki finds himself kneeling next to the bed, legs shaking too strongly to hold him up any longer. he rests his forehead against ugetsu's knuckles and sighs, long and bitter. ]
You should rest, [ he echoes. and then, after a moment, in that ridiculously charismatic way of his, he adds: ]
You look like shit.
no subject
it would be easier if ugetsu did not actually care.
but he does.
on the tip of his tongue: if i was supposed to rest, why am i here? why am i listening to this?
at least it's blindness. if ugetsu regained consciousness to a soundless world, that would have been what the cliches call a fate worse than death.
another shuddered breath struggles through his body. like being dragged through the mud when you're already sick. like telling someone goodbye when you want nothing more than for them to stay.
it hurts.
yuki's forehead touches against wrapped knuckles and ugetsu swallows a sharp feeling of something like failure down into the blackhole of himself.
all of yuki yoshida's reactions tell him things without telling him things: that mafuyu is forbidden to yuki as a kind of cross to bear, that he's afraid of mafuyu seeing what's written in tabloids even by accident, that he misses him because you never stop missing the people you love. ugetsu, at least, understands that one. nicer if he didn't, but you can't win it all. no. anyone who says 'i didn't have time to think' doesn't really know; doesn't really care. if you care, if you really do, the anxiety and regret and impossible love all come up around the edges. water flooding your house to remind you it could have been a home.
but.
yuki is here.
ugetsu is alive.
for better or for worse.
they both are.
better. and
worse.
the little laugh is like static. ugetsu doesn't recognize himself, but he cards burned fingers through yuki's hair: there there. yet even this conventionally comforting motion...isn't. what it is: anchor in the sea. ]
Then I guess it's a good thing I can't see myself.
[ dry. like he's not talking about something as serious as it is. like none of this is happening. the moon in drought. deny. refuse. and then the truth imbibed will be its own questionable substance. ugetsu can't see a thing, and the only warmth he feels is from yuki. there's no reason, no practical reason for how his quiet traitorous self opens the wound of fear and shame and murmurs, ]
...but can you turn the light off.
[ it's still ugetsu, so of course it doesn't sound like a question so much as a command. if yuki still cannot stand though, it's not like anything bad will happen when the lights stay on. the faint buzzing ugetsu can hear so keenly amongst the machines keeping him monitored, hydrated, stable, drugged, ten thousand things but above all keeping him...somehow that buzzing is so loud. drowning him in fluorescent noise he'd take a knife to if he could.
he'd rather listen to yuki. his inhales. his exhales. his heartbeat.
his hope and his fear. his brilliance and his withdrawals. his love and his hate. ]