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Post by aislinn01 on Jun 11, 2012 2:47:12 GMT -5
my heart is your home ,
THIS HEART IT BEATS, BEATS FOR ONLY YOU; MY HEART IS YOUR HOME That morning was overcast, a little bleak with a tingling sense of rain on the horizon. When Kouryou stepped out of his small, meticulously-cleaned apartment, he took a deep breath of the air - tasting the electricity coursing through it on his tongue - and knew that he was going to have an interesting day ahead of him. That, or he was going to have a ridiculously bad hair day.
Not that you could really keep your hair in place at all times working with big cats, mind you. There was no doubting that Kou loved his job, even when the younger cats (and sometimes the older ones) would take a good swipe at his honey-gold hair and mess it all up. He came home looking tousled and ruffled, but he didn't care. He was too busy trying to think of what he was going to do the next day to really take much notice of how his hair looked.
Running his fingers through it, he trotted down the steps from his apartment door and headed across the street, embarking on a brisk journey to his favorite place in the whole world. Overhead, the sky rolled like great waves of wedding silk, soft shades of off-white and damask gray and silver colliding together in a mesh of ash-gray color. This was likely the best weather to be working in, he thought - it was cool outside, not entirely too hot, but it wasn't cold enough that he wanted to stay inside all day.
When he arrived at work, dressed and ready to go, he made his way to the first exhibit. A sleek young spotted jaguar was waiting for him near the gate, anticipating a delicious meal brought to him by his own personal butler. Kou tsked his tongue; slipping inside the exhibit, he waved at the passersby. Small children paused to watch the young man make his way through the exhibit to the back, entering a small room where the food for the cats was kept. When he returned, he dropped the meat down a good distance away from them, stepping aside and scooting along the edge to give them enough space to eat in peace. From the thick jungle vegetation within the cage, another dark jaguar appeared, slinking toward the meat before snatching up a piece and carrying it into the trees with her.
He walked, as he usually did, backwards out of the cage near the front; unfortunately, it was this regular routine that assisted him in running into one of the patrons. Kou stumbled, managing to catch himself on the gate before he fell; he closed it, swiftly, and turned around.
"I - uh, sorry," he apologized, "but you were kind of in the way."
notes: woop sorry this sucks so much.
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Post by MARUMARU ITSUKI on Jun 11, 2012 6:17:34 GMT -5
This felt like a date. Even though he was in the place on his own, and even though it was for a biology assignment, and even though he was having absolutely no fun at all, it felt like a date. Perhaps that should have been a warning to Itsuki from the start, but for the moment, it just made him depressed. All of his classmates had done this leg of the work with their girlfriends, and when he'd discovered that, reality had just come crashing down. When was the last time he'd actually done something that wasn't for uni? It felt like months, at least.
So it goes without saying that Itsuki was already in a foul mood by the time he got to the zoo. The fact that it was cold (here having the meaning of 'less than 25C') was doing little to improve things. Then there was having to pay for the entrance fee and actually pay attention to what was going on in the reptile enclosure.
Itsuki was not one for scaly animals especially ones marked as 'extremely poisonous'. He had intended to go to the enclosure and finish his work nice and quickly, but was soon overcome; the place was filled with darkness, the only light coming from the low-level heat lamps in the enclosures themselves. The glass was so immaculately kept that it seemed like it wasn't there at all - and his heart was working overtime, just waiting for one of the horrible monsters to leap at it and break free. Things, quite predictably, did not go exactly according to plan, and it was less than ten minutes before he was out the door and back in the fresh air.
Damn this. Damn all of it! He was at a zoo, he was going to see something exciting, not be cooped up in some dark, cramped building just filthy with slithering slimy dangerous monsters.
He didn't really care what he went to see, so long as it was mostly outdoors and as far away from those snakes as possible. So he'd ended up in front of... some cats, or something, he wasn't really paying attention - and he was promptly walked in to.
He'd stumbled, and only managed to get a good look at the person when he apologized. That voice sounded familiar... but from where? It wasn't one of his classmates, was it? But a look up proved that it was a voice from a much further part of his past, and also that Itsuki was just flat out of luck today.
"K-Kou-" Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. "Kou-kou... Koalas! Sorry, I was looking for the koalas, I wasn't paying any attention. Aren't they the cutest? I'd really like to see them, sir, do you know where they are?" He put on his best innocent smile, tried to look as... as much unlike himself as possible. Fuck. Of all the people to run in to, of all the people he could have seen - heck, even out of everyone he'd ever gone to school with, he just had to cross paths with Ieyasu Kouryou. Today was just not his day.
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Post by aislinn01 on Jun 11, 2012 18:02:28 GMT -5
my heart is your home ,
THIS HEART IT BEATS, BEATS FOR ONLY YOU; MY HEART IS YOUR HOME Inside the cage, the jaguar paced beside the door. The food that Kou had already provided it had been enough for its strict dietary regime, but not enough for the insatiable hunger of the jungle cat. It stopped, sat, and pressed its face against the bars of the gate, releasing a low and rumbling growl in Kouryou's direction.
Unfortunately for the cat, Kou had no intention of feeding it any more until the next meal time - that, and he was much too preoccupied with his current situation.
Once upon a time, Kouryou had been in high school. He hadn't necessarily gotten the best marks - he'd done well enough, not the usual grades for an Ieyasu boy, but he'd done well - and he had been enticed more often than not by the lure of parties and fun to be had in high school. He didn't drink much (he got drunk much too easily and didn't have much of a taste for booze) but he liked going to the parties to meet new people and hang out with his friends.
Once upon a time, he'd had friends. One friend in particular - Marumaru Itsuki. Naturally, Kou had always been picky about the people he actually decided to call his friends - but Itsuki had been one of the few he hadn't had to take much debate about. Unfortunately, after the accident, Itsuki had decided that his high school friends were unnecessary. A tiny part of Kou hated him for it.
A larger part of him wanted to punch him in the face for it.
When he turned around to look at the man he'd bumped into, Kou paused - but only briefly. He almost instantly recognized Itsuki, and he thought Itsuki was going to recognize him, too. The butchered nickname - Kou, Kou - was enough to give him the impression that Itsuki was going to try and brush off his abandonment like it was no big deal. He waited, eyes narrowing the tiniest bit, for the apology. It never came, though.
"The koalas?" he repeated, clearly unamused by this whole fiasco. "You drop off the face of the earth and abandon you're friend and the best thing you can pull off is asking me where you can find the damn koalas?"
The part the outweighed the anger was mostly hurt. An eddy of questions swirled in his mind - hadn't he mattered at all to Itsuki? Didn't Itsuki care? - but what was most important right now was the indignation welling up inside of him.
"Honestly," he continued. "Where the Hell have you been? Do you think it's okay to just - just leave like that?"
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Post by MARUMARU ITSUKI on Jun 11, 2012 21:10:59 GMT -5
had he really expected hat weak excuse to work? ...Well yes, yes he had, actually. It had been what - five years? More? Itsuki had been hoping that time played more havoc on his old friend's memories than it had on his, which in hindsight, was a rather stupid thing to think. Regardless, he was half tempted to keep playing the lie - 'oh no sir, what ever could you be talking about?', and all that - but even he could tell that his poor acting would convince no-one.
"Yeah, I do, actually." He said shortly, quickly dropping the act. he'd been cornered, yes, and maybe it was his fault things had gotten to be like this, but he wasn't just going to cower down and admit it. So what if he'd done things other people didn't like? "And I don't have to explain that to you. That was high school, for Christ's sake, do you really think they were friendships we had to keep forever?" He was avoiding the point, and he knew it. But what did Kouryou expect? That he could just come straight out and explain every little detail of the choices he made five years ago?
Besides, it wasn't really a thing that he'd decided on at all. It had just... happened. Understandably, he didn't have much recollection of what happened straight after the accident, and that was probably intentional. He didn't want to remember. He didn't want to go back to school, to see his classmates, to have to explain everything and suffer their judgement. He'd wanted a change, a fresh start, so as soon as he was well enough to go back to ordinary life he'd applied for a transfer and that was that. That was where that part of his life ended, and the new bit began. Was it really that hard to understand?
If his old friends had really wanted to keep in touch, they should have put in the effort. Sure, Itsuki had changed his number and refused visitors at hospital (and once he got home, Ayato had kept everyone else away), but if they really cared, none of that should have mattered. As it was, he'd just picked up his life and moved on. Was it really so hard for everyone else to do the same?
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Post by aislinn01 on Jun 11, 2012 23:26:49 GMT -5
my heart is your home ,
THIS HEART IT BEATS, BEATS FOR ONLY YOU; MY HEART IS YOUR HOME If someone had told Kou this morning that he was going to run into Itsuki again, he would have laughed. Right, he would have said. Because Itsuki frequents the zoo so often? In fact, Kou was kind of glad that his job at the Ueno Zoo had left him out of contact with Itsuki for this long - before, when the hurt had been more fresh, he didn't think he would have been able to approach the situation with as much composure as he was approaching it with now.
Well, at least he had more composure than he would have had.
Truth be told, Kou had never had a lot of friends. He'd had people that he called his friends but inside didn't really consider them as such; so maybe his lack of experience with these things called "friends" left him in the dark when it came to dealing with something like this. Maybe he ought to not be a little insulted and a little hurt when it came to Itsuki. Maybe Itsuki had every right to drop him like he didn't matter.
Indignation flared up in him; Kou straightened and crossed his arms over his chest firmly. "I'm not saying you had to stay my friend for eternity," he snapped. "I'm just not sure that dropping off the face of the earth and never leaving any options for contact isn't a very friend-like thing to do." He wished he could have kept the venom out of his voice - there were things he wanted to say, things he wanted to tell Itsuki, like I was worried about you, why couldn't I ever get ahold of you? but it was too much to deal with, especially at work. Pushing past Itsuki, he said, "But maybe I don't know what a real friendship is like, because my friend abandoned me."
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Post by MARUMARU ITSUKI on Jun 12, 2012 0:21:36 GMT -5
Was it all really that traumatising? People disappear from each others lives all the time - at least, Itsuki assumed that. His parents were never around, so maybe he had grown to get used to that loneliness, but it was just something people would have to deal with. What did Kou want? If he really cared, he would've found a way to keep in contact. He would have. If he just kept repeating that, he could convince himself that none of this was his fault.
"Yeah, I guess it was pretty dickish of me to not think of my friends. Totally should've asked those doctors if I could take the IV to the movies, eh?" He couldn't keep the sarcasm from his voice; hell, he didn't even try. Couldn't he understand? Was it that hard to comprehend that maybe, just maybe, he had had other things on his mind back then?
No, obviously. Because the blonde pushed past him, and did not sound in the least bit impressed. And suddenly, Itsuki was gripped with the urge to reach out. A hand went to his shoulder, the shoulder that Kou had pushed past - the same one that now, hidden beneath the surface of the skin, was more metal than flesh. He'd pushed so many people away, made his world so much smaller, just to have the comfort of that solidarity. For the first time, he was starting to question that. So long as he had kept himself distant from all that, he could cope - so why did his past have to come back and throw doubt on it all?
"Kou..." He called out after the blonde, a sudden change of tone to accompany that sudden change of heart. "Kou, I'm - I'm sorry, all right? But it was hard for me too, you know. It's not like you know what I went through." And in an instant, all that sincerity was gone again. Was he whining? Probably, yes. But he felt entitled to a little bit of winging, all things considered.
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Post by aislinn01 on Jun 12, 2012 0:49:32 GMT -5
my heart is your home ,
THIS HEART IT BEATS, BEATS FOR ONLY YOU; MY HEART IS YOUR HOME Kou had grown up surrounded by people. It was interesting, because he was so uninterested in making deep, meaningful relationships with most people; he was so used to being with people that it was odd for him when anyone left his life. Maybe not the random passerby on the street - he honestly did not care much about them - but even a mild acquaintance left him feeling lightly perplexed when they disappeared from his life forever.
As a child, his house had been full of aunts and uncles and cousins almost all the time. When they weren't around, his brothers were a constant in his house; his parents had five children, including himself, and most of his brothers were loud and noisy. It was this insistent noise and company that he had often complained about, but never realized he actually liked, until it was gone.
It had been the same way when Itsuki left. He'd gotten so used to having a friend that when he disappeared, Kou had been left feeling like he didn't know what to do with himself.
He shook his head, an incredulous noise escaping his lips at Itsuki's first comment. Right. Super ridiculous. How could he have expected Itsuki to possibly give his friends any kind of notice before he left? Kou was being so insensitive.
He stopped, though, when he heard the change in tone. The sincere apology was enough to make him turn around and study Itsuki, but he still seemed thoroughly wary and not entirely pleased with anything at all.
"You're right," he agreed tartly. "I didn't know. Because you never came back after that."
Kouryou took in a deep breath. He needed to calm down, stop the hurt from twisting into anger because he didn't think Itsuki deserved all of his venom. No, he needed to reserve that for stupid people.
"Listen," he started, a little tentatively now - which was strange, because when is Kou ever tentative about anything? - and cleared his throat. "I wish I could say I'm not mad at you. But I can't, because I am." He paused again. "But I'm only mad because I - because -" He rubbed his forehead, struggling for a minute. "Well, because I was worried about you. And I tried getting ahold of you, but everything I tried was a dead-end. Then you never showed up, you never left a message, nothing - and I thought, well, maybe he just doesn't care about you the way you thought he did."
Kou cleared his throat again, feeling a little stupid. He just rubbed the back of his neck and looked exhausted. Sighing, he said, "Anyway, I just thought you should know that, I guess. Before you leave again."
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Post by MARUMARU ITSUKI on Jun 12, 2012 2:14:57 GMT -5
Maybe he did have a point. Maybe he should have found a way to let people know he was OK, somehow. But Itsuki had thought the teachers would have taken care of that. Maybe he was just trying to run from it all - from the kind of person he was, who would be stupid enough to make the mistakes he did. And maybe that was hard on the people he knew. He'd kind of just assumed people would get over it. No-one could possibly have worried over him as much as his brother had, and maybe that had desensitized him to the feelings of others, because Ayato was a hundred different kinds of over-the-top. Itsuki had kind of just assumed that no-one else would have his brother's level of investment in his wellbeing.
Unless... he'd been wrong about that.
"I..." he trailed off, suddenly aware of all the people around them. That's when it hit him: this was a zoo, and they were standing outside one of the most popular exhibits and yelling at each other. It was no wonder they were getting looks from practically everyone, from the surreptitious glances of parents are caretakers to the outright blatant stares of the children who didn't know better. It was rather unnerving, actually.
"I didn't mean... I didn't want to hurt anyone, I was just trying to protect myself." He made an effort to keep his voice down this time, and tried his best to be civil. Now that he'd noticed them, the stares were rather unnerving. Judging. Like he'd done something wrong - and he must have, or he wouldn't be feeling this guilty. Like always when he was under pressure, he started to massage his shoulder, at the point where 'he' ended and the machine started. "I don't want to talk about this, not now, not here. You can understand that at least, can't you?"
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Post by aislinn01 on Jun 12, 2012 8:46:51 GMT -5
my heart is your home ,
THIS HEART IT BEATS, BEATS FOR ONLY YOU; MY HEART IS YOUR HOME Kou hesitated briefly, giving the surrounding area a quick sweep with his eyes. Right. That had been a stupid move; not only did they look like a bickering couple, but they were doing it in one of the most populated areas of the Ueno Zoo. Not that Kou cared very much, mind you; he did, however, think that maybe this wasn't exactly the place to dredge up old skeletons and refill their closets with new ones.
Still frustrated and a little wounded, he pushed some hair out of his face. He should have known. He'd felt it in the air, even, thought to himself, something's going to happen today. But was he clever enough to listen to himself? Of course not. That would have been ridiculous. Taking in a deep breath, he checked the watch on his wrist.
"Yeah, fine," he replied, glancing around once more at the eyes following their movements. "That's fine. In case you're not feeling like taking off again, I get off for lunch in about an hour and a half. Will you still be around then?"
Kou held his breath briefly. He sincerely hoped that Itsuki would be around, that this wasn't going to have to be the last memory of his - friend? Whatever Itsuki was. He couldn't even distinguish a clear line anymore. But then, distinguishing lines had never been an easy thing, not for anyone.
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Post by MARUMARU ITSUKI on Jun 12, 2012 9:32:34 GMT -5
He wanted to run. This little interlude had given him the perfect chance, had it not? And running had been working so wonderfully for the past few years - but no, it was time to man up and get this all sorted out. He couldn't keep hiding forever, because without a doubt he'd run in to more people from his past, eventually.
"Y-yeah, I'm here to do work actually..." It felt awkward, making a time to meet up after what had just happened. Itsuki knew he had to eventually get his uni work done, but he was very tempted to just run off home and leave it for another day. He doubted he'd have the courage to face Kou after what had just happened, but he'd have to find it somehow. Because he made up his mind - he was going to get this sorted, and then they could put this behind them and never had to see each other again. And that would be that chapter of his life done and dusted, for good.
Being in this position, being forced to think about what he'd done, had put Itsuki in a rather awkward situation. After the accident, everyone who wasn't Ayato was degraded to the same status of 'never want to see again'. How had he thought about Kou before that? He vaguely remembered that they had been close, that their lifestyles had gone well together, and in turn they'd... meshed. Whether that was still true now, he had no idea, and he was a little afraid of finding out.
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Post by aislinn01 on Jun 12, 2012 19:56:23 GMT -5
my heart is your home ,
THIS HEART IT BEATS, BEATS FOR ONLY YOU; MY HEART IS YOUR HOME Kou gave a short nod. "Alright," he replied, "I'll meet you back here in an hour and a half, then." He cleared his throat thoroughly and then gave another nod, lifting his hand in farewell as he turned on his heel and made his way to the next exhibit of the day.
Perhaps Kou would have been better off not meeting Itsuki again. After all, now his mind was all sorts of befuddled. Kouryou did not do well with things that upset a rather plain but comfortingly familiar lifestyle - and Itsuki was doing just that, leaving him soundly perplexed with his current state. How was he supposed to feel, besides hurt and a little bit of betrayal? His job - feeding large cats, giving them love, showing them to visitors - was not exactly one you could afford to have a preoccupied mind on. One mistake and he might get his arm bitten off.
But it didn't stop him from having a furrowed brow when he fed the lions, or from having a bit of a distant tone to his voice and expression on his face when he was showing a group of children a leopard cub. Each exhibit and job he went to, he seemed only to become more bothered by his predicament. He felt like there had been something more to his relationship with Itsuki - and if there was, why wouldn't he have at least sent him a letter or something?
Finally finishing his last job before lunch, he washed his hands at the nearest station and made his way back to the original meeting place. For now, the place was relatively empty; Kou moved to the bars of the jaguar exhibit, watching the she-cat doze in the warm sun that had come out. She looked back at him with luminous eyes, twitching her tail lazily. She seemed to be asking him, Well? What are you going to do about it?
"I don't know," he told her. "What am I supposed to do, cat? I don't know how I'm supposed to ask him, or even where to start."
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Post by MARUMARU ITSUKI on Jun 13, 2012 1:03:20 GMT -5
He simply nodded, not trusting himself with words. He might start yelling again. Itsuki would be the first to admit that he had changed, probably because he saw it as a good thing. He'd learned to keep a hold on his emotions, and on his impulsiveness, and think through things before doing them - but just that short conversation (if it could be called as such) with Kou was enough to undo that resolve.
He left almost as soon as it was polite enough to do so. Head filled with thoughts, he didn't even realise he was heading back to the reptiles until he was actually there - and then he was just faced with a whole new dilemma. But just like this confrontation, Itsuki would eventually have to get his work over and done with. Why had he chosen this subject again? It was useless, a timetable filler, just an elective; something biological to tie in with the whole medicine thing, he had thought. Not about snakes.
But at least it kept his mind off the meeting. At least, so entrenched with fear, he was thoroughly distracted. And the time was gone so quickly, he barely even noticed it - in between darting down notes and praying that there was, actually, glass fronts to the enclosures, Itsuki had managed to spend the whole time without once thinking about Kou, or what he felt about Kou, or what he might have felt about Kou. In fact when he did remember it all came back with a jolt. Thankfully he had finished his work and would not have to risk another trip to the area; but in being so preoccupied, he realised how little time he actually had to get back in time for the 'meeting'.
Which was probably a good thing. It gave him far less time to panic about what he was going to say, or how he was going to say it, and he didn't even think once about running away, it was all such a rush. When he did get there, he managed to overhear just a little of what Kouryou was saying to (apparently) no-one. Itsuki had a feeling it was something he wasn't meant to hear, but curiosity caused him to speak up none the less.
"Ask me about what, exactly? Not what you were yelling at me about before? Because you didn't seem to have too much trouble then."
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Post by aislinn01 on Jun 13, 2012 2:18:45 GMT -5
my heart is your home ,
THIS HEART IT BEATS, BEATS FOR ONLY YOU; MY HEART IS YOUR HOME The jaguar offered little advice to his predicament; in fact, Kou came to the conclusion that his big cats, pretty as they were, weren't good for much more than looking handsome and eating copious amounts of meat. Scaring people might have been in there, too, but these cats were far too pampered to be considered much of a threat when they were treated so nicely. The blonde gave a heavy sigh, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hands.
This was ridiculous. He didn't want to feel this bothered by everything - but there was still that nagging feeling in the back of his head, telling him that there was something else to everything. Had something happened between him and Itsuki? There must have been at least a little thing, or some tiny incident; he was struggling, though, to remember it. Those years of high school were a bit of a blur. He didn't get drunk often, but he slept little enough that it made it hard to recall what exactly he'd been doing every second of every day - and that's the rate he was going at to try and figure this out.
Itsuki's voice startled him though, so thoroughly was he enveloped in his thoughts. He jumped and turned, looking almost sheepish. Perhaps even a little guilty. Guilty because he couldn't remember? Or guilty because he so impatiently believed there to be something else? He couldn't quite tell.
"I-" He paused, shut his mouth; taking a deep sigh, he collected his thoughts. "I was just - the cat -" Again, Kou had to stop, turning his head to glare at the she-cat. She blinked lazily back at him; stupid cat, he thought. Now I look crazy. "It's just," he started again, more calmly this time, "I keep feeling like there was... Something else. Don't you? Feel like something happened?" He stuck his hands into his pockets. "Before the accident. Before you left. But I can't, for the life of me, manage to remember..."
He took in a deep breath, shutting his eyes very briefly before opening them again to study Itsuki. After a moment, though, he ducked his gaze to the ground.
"I really missed you, you know," he said quietly. "Back then. Now. Even now it feels like you're hundreds of miles away, you dick. So you should cut it out so we can go back to being friends or whatever it is we were."
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Post by MARUMARU ITSUKI on Jun 13, 2012 9:32:09 GMT -5
"Maybe something did happen. Maybe we were close - but do you really expect me to remember that?" He scoffed, perhaps a little too harshly, but the idea just seemed ridiculous to Itsuki. "God, Kou, it was years ago! We were stupid kids, doing stupid things. Isn't it enough to leave it at that?" Obviously not. If it was, it wouldn't be something he'd held on to for so long. He knew how Kouryou felt - well, at least he thought he did, a little. He often wished he could go back in time, too, although mostly for far more selfish reasons. But still - just the other day he had been wondering what his life would be like, if he hadn't had the accident, what healthy and cheerful and bright sixteen year old self him would've ended up doing with his life.
But that was something no-one would ever know.
"You know what I remember from back then? I remember it being just before Summer, and then I remember being in hospital," he said shortly, not lingering over the words, getting them out quickly and moving on to the next. "I remember being in hospital for ages and barely even understanding what was going on. I try not to linger on that stage of my life, for reasons that should be obvious." What was he thinking, anyway? That 'something' had happened? Things happened all the time, and if they weren't important enough or shocking enough to be remembered then they mustn't be worth the effort.
But that still didn't make this - this conversation they were having - feel any less... awkward. Yes, Itsuki was beginning to feel a bit of guilt about just cutting everyone out of his life, but it was more than that. Like he really did owe Kouryou a sincere apology, for business that had been left unresolved. But exactly what kind of business that was, he had no idea.
"And anyway... isn't it better like this? Can't you just go back and pretend it's like we never met? I kind of like being 'hundreds of miles away', 'cause..." 'cause if I do die, it means no-one will get hurt. Or something like that. Itsuki wasn't entirely noble like that, but it was something that had occurred to him. Hadn't he been doing everyone a favour? Distancing, desensitizing. Instead of getting caught up on the past, they really should just take the present for granted and move on.
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Post by aislinn01 on Jun 13, 2012 17:04:08 GMT -5
my heart is your home ,
THIS HEART IT BEATS, BEATS FOR ONLY YOU; MY HEART IS YOUR HOME Kou blinked a little, taken aback by the push of Itsuki's words. A frown creased his expression, leaving him looking years older than his actual twenty-one. A nasty, cruel part of him was thinking, well, if that's all he remembers, some friend you must have been. You did such a great job of supporting him, didn't you? You were such a fabulous person in his life - how dare he think of you so lowly? Even though he wanted to believe that he was as important as he thought to Itsuki, it was possible that maybe he wasn't.
But that couldn't be right - could it? From what Kou could remember from high school (despite countless nights leaving him sleepless and exhausted) he and Itsuki had been good friends. Maybe he could have tried harder, sure. But when you were left feeling abandoned and unwanted by one of the only people you actually considered a friend, how far were you expected to go?
"Fuck you," Kou bit out suddenly. "You know what? I'm sorry. I never said you didn't have it hard. What happened to you was tragic, and I'm really sorry it happened - in fact, it hurts me that you had to go through that alone." He was close to Itsuki now, unbearably close, and it kind of reminded him of a time somewhere in the back of his mind, when he was exactly this close to Itsuki - "But you didn't have to. Are you listening to me? Maybe they - the others - wouldn't have been there for you, but I would have." Kou paused a little heavily, the anger welling and dying as steadily as the tides of the ocean. "But you never even gave me the chance, Itsuki. Not once."
notes: THIS IS GETTING SO HEATED TANBO WHAT IS THIS
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