Chapter Text
“Ritsuka, I can barely breathe. Let me come home properly first, hm?”
Pulling back with a low mutter, Ritsuka pouts, and Mafuyu laughs heartily at him. He gives Ritsuka an apologetic kiss on the cheek, and Mafuyu just knows that Ritsuka, as always, can’t stay grumpy for longer than five entire seconds. Maybe even less. It’s something Mafuyu can’t help but adore, how Ritsuka tries to be upset but just can’t no matter how hard he tries. He’s always been like that, ever since before they even started dating, and it’s probably a habit Ritsuka won’t be able to shake anytime soon.
“I missed you, too. And I don’t mind you jumping me as soon as I come in through the door, but I’d like to retain my ability to breathe. If possible.”
“That wasn’t really on purpose,” Ritsuka protests, and he’s still very much pouting almost like a petulant child. His expression softens shortly thereafter, and he lifts a hand to caress Mafuyu’s cheek. Mafuyu, of course, leans into the touch, and closes his eyes briefly while smiling. “I can’t help it; you’ve been gone for an entire week. And that’s longer than we’ve ever been apart, I think.”
“I know. It feels a little strange.”
Business trips is something Mafuyu would’ve never associated himself with if he’d thought about it just a few years ago. But then life took a few more strange turns—as if it hadn’t already up until then—and Mafuyu found himself employed at a fashion magazine of all places. Ritsuka had been a little questioning about it at first, but they both came around to the idea soon enough. Mafuyu has come to really love his job: he loves going out to chase his next interview, hearing all kinds of stories as part of those interviews, and he loves bringing one of the office cameras out to snap photos for his monthly feature.
This time, Mafuyu had found himself halfway across the country with two other co-workers for location hunting. It’s the biggest feature Mafuyu has ever been in charge of, which is why he’s glad he’s not the only one working on it. But it’s definitely been a fun and educating experience for Mafuyu who still feels rather new to the whole thing. It wasn’t what he’d imagined for himself a few years back, but now, it’s become a passion of his.
One of the good things about his job is that Mafuyu doesn’t have to sit and rot away in an office all day long, because sometimes he does have these kinds of trips, or he’s off somewhere locally for an interview or a photo shoot. It helps to keep things interesting, and he’s just thankful to have landed himself a job like this where he gets to constantly discover new things.
Ritsuka sighs through his nose before he pulls Mafuyu close for a kiss. “I’m just glad to have you back. Welcome home, Mafuyu.”
Mafuyu smiles so widely that his cheeks almost start to hurt, and he exhales a laugh. “I’m home, Ritsuka.”
Mafuyu zigzags between Ritsuka and the fridge, placing a gentle hand on Ritsuka’s back as he moves past so Ritsuka doesn’t suddenly take a step back right into Mafuyu. He loves their apartment, he really does, but sometimes it feels a little bit too small for two grown men to live in and navigate around. They could absolutely start looking for a new place to live, but that sort of stuff takes a lot of time, planning, and discussing—and is probably best saved for a rainy day.
They’re both really good at putting off stuff like that, always saying ‘we’ll do it some other day’ but that day just never seems to get any closer. There might also be a sense of reluctance hanging in the air that prevents them both from springing to action in terms of finding a new place to live. Mafuyu and Ritsuka have lived here for so long that they’ve perhaps become complacent and set in their ways. Moving would indeed take a lot of effort but it also means getting used to someplace new. Mafuyu has never been good at that sort of thing, but Ritsuka is way worse at handling change.
“Have you seen my reading glasses?”
Mafuyu huffs a quiet laugh. “The irony in that question is off the charts. No, I haven’t seen them.”
“Ha ha,” Ritsuka replies. “God, this place drives me insane sometimes. I mean, I love it, but… maybe we should think about moving.”
“Funny thing, I was thinking the same a little bit ago. As I was trying to squeeze my way past you and the fridge, I think it was.”
Ritsuka gives up on his search for his reading glasses and instead approaches Mafuyu with a smile and maybe a little mischievous glint in his eyes. “But, you know,” he says, “it’s also kinda cosy. Because we get to be so close, like this.”
“Yeah?” Mafuyu says, laughter bubbling in his voice like a carbonated drink. “Sometimes at night I get the feeling you don’t like being so close to me.”
“The person I am when I’m asleep is an asshole. Don’t focus on him, focus on the me when I’m awake, like right now.”
Mafuyu raises his eyebrows slightly. “Oh, I know he is. Kicks me out of bed, hogs the duvet, snores loudly…”
“Like I said,” Ritsuka interrupts. “That’s not who I really am.”
“It’s like a Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde situation, huh?”
Ritsuka stares incredulously at Mafuyu for a moment, and then he sighs. “You’ve been spending too much time with Haruki. Haven’t you watched his entire film collection, like, twice at this point?”
“That’s beside the point,” Mafuyu laughs. “So… should we maybe look into a new apartment? Get more space, and perhaps a bigger bed so Mr Hyde won’t keep kicking me out of it?”
“You really are spending too much time with Haruki,” Ritsuka says, and Mafuyu snorts.
“Don’t tell me you’re jealous?”
“Mmm, no.” Ritsuka moves in closer to the point where their noses almost touch. “He’s not your type. I am.”
“Exactly.”
Mafuyu wakes up to the sun shining right into his face through a crevice in the curtain one of them hadn’t closed properly last night. He squints angrily at the light before he turns in bed with a muted groan, and instead faces Ritsuka’s back. Judging by the way Ritsuka’s body slowly moves with his breathing, he’s still asleep, so Mafuyu lets him be. Since he knows he won’t be able to fall back asleep, Mafuyu carefully crawls out of bed and almost tiptoes into the bathroom as to not wake Ritsuka.
A shower later, Mafuyu trudges into the kitchen to make breakfast. He glances towards the bedroom, and then shrugs to himself as he decides on making a portion just for himself. The floor is a little cold beneath his feet, but he’s too lazy to go get a pair of socks or his slippers now that he’s already started up the stovetop. He’ll have to make do; maybe he’ll get warmer as he spends more time around the stove.
Haruki had asked him on Friday if they should have one of their semi-usual film nights tonight, and Mafuyu had responded with a maybe with the hopes that maybe something might be different about today, about tonight. It’s still too early to say, and he knows that Haruki will keep that spot open for him, as kind as he is. As kind as Mafuyu probably doesn’t deserve him to be.
He winces at the sudden noise of the bedroom door clicking open. Keeping his eyes on the pan, Mafuyu quickly scrambles his eggs with the kitchen chopsticks, reaching for the salt. He almost drops the salt shaker and realises that his hand is trembling ever so slightly. Is it that cold? No, that’s just his imagination. It must be something else. Mafuyu lets out a quiet sigh as he seasons his eggs and shortly thereafter turns off the stove. When he’s plated his breakfast, he turns around to see that Ritsuka isn’t anywhere around, and only then does he hear the shower water running.
Mafuyu sets his breakfast plate down on the table before he sits down and fishes his phone out of the pocket of his sweatpants. Despite the sound of the shower in the background, it feels like it’s somehow quieter around him than before the shower was running in the first place. Shaking his head to himself, Mafuyu busies himself by stuffing his face with bacon, eggs, and mushrooms, and he only somewhat pays attention to the news articles scrolling by as he moves his index finger up on the phone’s screen.
The bathroom door opens and Mafuyu holds his breath. All he does is listen—his right hand has frozen in motion where it hovers with his chopsticks just above the eggs on his plate. He listens to the mixed sounds of his heartbeat and Ritsuka’s footsteps, but the growing silence is quickly grating down his nerves. He doesn’t know why he has to steel himself for something so simple as greeting Ritsuka in the morning, but he does, anyway.
“Good morning,” a voice says that Mafuyu barely recognises as his own. He turns his head slightly, and catches Ritsuka just at the entrance of the kitchen, his footsteps having come to a halt probably as Mafuyu broke the silence.
“Ah… yeah.”
Ritsuka bows his head slightly, stiffly, just once. Then he steers his footsteps towards the living room, and Mafuyu feels like he’s grasping at straws. He searches his brain frantically for something, anything that could prevent that god-awful silence from settling again.
“Do you want any breakfast?”
“I’m… I’m good,” Ritsuka replies. “I’m going out to have breakfast with Akihiko, actually.” Then, there’s a pause. Mafuyu thinks he’s done speaking when Ritsuka finally says: “Sorry.”
Mafuyu puts his chopsticks down. Maybe he’ll finish the rest later.
(He doesn’t.)
“It’s fine,” he says. But he’s not sure if he’s speaking the truth.
Moments later, Ritsuka leaves the apartment, and Mafuyu goes to put his unfinished breakfast in a container he then puts into the fridge. He feels a shiver run up his spine, goosebumps breaking out over his arms. It is a little chilly in the apartment, after all.
“I’m gonna be at Itaya’s today. Says he needs help painting his living room.”
Mafuyu hums as he scrolls through his Instagram feed on his phone. A very strange last-minute plan, considering what it entails. Well, it probably isn’t last-minute; it wouldn’t be the first time either of them have failed to mentioned sooner that something has come up.
“’Kay. Will you be home for dinner tonight?”
“Mmm, probably not. Sorry.”
Ritsuka doesn’t sound all that apologetic, despite the word chosen. Maybe because, again, this isn’t the first time he’s apologising for something he could’ve mentioned sooner, planned better. Mafuyu can’t be angry about it, because he knows he’s no better. So all he can do is accept.
“It’s fine.” It’s expected. “Tell Itaya I said hi.”
Mafuyu doesn’t get up from the couch, but looks up to meet Ritsuka’s gaze where Ritsuka hovers uselessly in the hallway. Ritsuka nods once at him, and then turns to the door. Mafuyu holds his breath for a moment that feels just a beat too long.
“I’ll see you tonight?”
Mafuyu can’t help but raise his eyebrows a little. He exhales through his nostrils slowly, gaze dropping to his phone display once more. His hands feel a little more slack now than before, but not yet to the point where they drop his phone onto his lap. “Yeah.”
The door clicks shut, and as Mafuyu hears the door lock, he leans back against the couch, staring up at the ceiling. He feels touch-starved, almost. To be fair, he’s pretty sure he’s barely touched Ritsuka at all today. And yesterday. Maybe this has been going on for longer than he realises. He wonders to himself where it all started, how the change in their relationship is this instead of what he sees and hears about in other people’s relationships. Why his relationship instead seems to include less and less intimacy.
Mafuyu lifts his phone and presses ‘call’ next to one of his now most frequent contact in his phone. He chews on the inside of his cheek as the signals go through, counting the very few seconds that still feel like minutes before a voice reaches him and finally fills the silence threatening to drown him any moment now.
“Hey, Mafuyu. What’s up?”
Mafuyu swallows, denies to himself that his lower lip quivers. He opens his mouth and attempts to speak, but all that comes out is a broken whisper. “Haruki…”
“Mafuyu? Are you okay?”
No. No, he’s not okay. He’s been less and less okay every day but he’s kept denying it because he didn’t want to admit that this is actively happening. He still can’t admit that he isn’t okay—all he can do is ask for help and hope that Haruki can connect the dots himself, as selfish as that is. Mafuyu knows it’s a lot to ask of his friend but he’s still trying to cling onto his last shred of hope that maybe it isn’t as bad as he thinks it is. Maybe it’ll get better.
“Can I come over?” he manages to ask.
There’s a moment of silence on both ends of the phone line, but then Haruki speaks up. “Did something happen?”
“Maybe. I think so. I… I don’t know.”
He’s not really lying; Mafuyu really doesn’t know, because he knows not a lot has happened. But maybe that counts as something, because it probably isn’t supposed to be like this. It most definitely isn’t supposed to feel like this, he knows that much. Especially when nothing has happened and yet it feels like something has.
Haruki hums in a concerned tone, and Mafuyu doesn’t have to see Haruki’s face to know that he’s already wearing a worried expression. Mafuyu has seen it far too many times in just the past two weeks that, really, he knows by now. And of course, Haruki does, too.
“I’ll come over instead. Give me ten minutes.”
Mafuyu nods uselessly, and he lets out a trembling sigh. “Thanks.”
The wait until Haruki rings on his doorbell feels entirely too long and excruciating. But then it takes everything within Mafuyu to not jump right into Haruki’s arms when his friend finally stands outside, and he lets Haruki in to help combat his awful loneliness that really shouldn’t be there. He knows he’s overreacting and Haruki probably thinks the same, but Mafuyu doesn’t know how else to think or feel.
For now, maybe he doesn’t have to think too much about it. But at some point, he’ll have to.
He notices it in the way that Ritsuka doesn’t always return his grasp when Mafuyu takes his hand. He notices it in the way that he’s not always very enthusiastic about hugs and embraces anymore, that sometimes… he only returns the gesture because he feels like he has to. The desire to return it has been lost somewhere, and Mafuyu doesn’t know where nor when he lost it in the first place. Maybe it was gradual and maybe that’s why it doesn’t hit him until now. Now when he’s lying in bed staring at Ritsuka’s back, feeling like they’re miles apart despite Mafuyu being able to physically touch Ritsuka if he wanted to.
If he wanted to.
Does he? Mafuyu tentatively reaches his hand out in the dark of their room, fingers preparing to touch Ritsuka’s bare skin that Mafuyu knows is warm, because it always is. But then he stops, and he suddenly wonders to himself if, like the way he’s mostly lost the desire to embrace his boyfriend, maybe he’s also lost the right to touch him altogether.
Mafuyu swallows, closes his eyes, and retracts his hand.
He doesn’t sleep well that night, and as he finds out the next morning when he enters the kitchen, neither did Ritsuka. It’s obvious in the way that Ritsuka is slightly hunched over as he nurses a mug between his hands where he sits by the kitchen table. His eyes are squinting ever so slightly, and he’s definitely going to have dark circles under those eyes soon.
This… is what they’ve become. This, Mafuyu realises, is what happens right before a couple decides that they should part ways.
His feet feel heavy as if weighted down with lead as he trudges towards the table to sit down opposite Ritsuka. There isn’t a single part of his brain that even considers breakfast, because he’s got other things to think about. Other things he needs to deal with right now. That they need to deal with. But it’s probably the hardest it’s ever been for Mafuyu to open his mouth and start talking, because he knows that once he starts talking, he’s on his way towards ending things with Ritsuka. An unthinkable thing is fast approaching and no matter what he may want to try, he knows he can’t stop it.
Mafuyu inhales a trembling breath through his nose. He clenches and relaxes his fist on the table, stares down at said table that they got together almost three years ago now. He remembers how much of a hassle it had been to just get the heavy package loaded into the lift and then into the apartment, not to not to mention how hard it had been to put the table together. But they finally managed to do it after what seemed like hours, and it had been such a great feeling to see it where it stands now. That they managed to put it together, just the two of them.
He remembers how, in their post let’s-just-build-that-fucking-table euphoria, Ritsuka had embraced Mafuyu, had laid him down on top of this table, and like with other places in the apartment, they made yet another memory on top of a piece of furniture. Thinking back on it now… it seems like such a long time ago. It really wasn’t, and that’s why it makes Mafuyu’s heart ache probably more than it should.
They’re just memories. There’s nothing else to retrieve or create here. This chapter has come to an end, and they both know it.
“Ritsu—”
“Mafuyu.”
Mafuyu blinks in surprise, does a double-take, and then looks up at Ritsuka. At some point in their relationship, they would have laughed at the fact that they spoke at the same time. Ritsuka used to joke that maybe they can read each other’s thoughts, after all. But there are no laughs, not even smiles. Instead, Ritsuka looks at Mafuyu like he, too, is surprised that they still have this going for them, when everything else has seemingly been lost.
Ritsuka sighs, too, and his upper body slouches more now than it did before Mafuyu sat down. “I think we both know what this is about.”
“Yeah,” Mafuyu whispers. “Yeah… I know.”
“I don’t want this, you know. I fucking hate it.”
Mafuyu nods. He looks down at his hands, though he knows he should probably look back up at Ritsuka. Right now, he lacks the courage to do so, and needs to gather it before he can properly face Ritsuka. He’s a coward and he knows it, and maybe that’s a factor that plays into why they’re here now. Just another reason for them to end what was never supposed to end.
“I don’t like it either. I… I’m sorry, Ritsuka.” Now, Mafuyu almost has to force himself to look at Ritsuka, despite how much it scares him because he knows what he’ll see when he does. “I’m really sorry.”
Ritsuka gets up from the table, and Mafuyu does the same. Maybe this is the last time they’ll move synchronised like this, as if they can tell what the other man is thinking. This might also be the last time that Mafuyu embraces Ritsuka without feeling like he has to. He wants to, and he feels that Ritsuka wants it, too. There have been a lot of things they haven’t wanted as of late, whether they consciously knew it or not, and there’s been probably even more things they’ve both taken for granted. But this is not one of those things.
Mafuyu grabs a fistful of Ritsuka’s shirt from behind, and he takes in Ritsuka’s scent. His breath hitches in his throat, and he feels Ritsuka tighten the embrace. That gesture alone makes Mafuyu’s tears fall, and he buries his face into the fabric of Ritsuka’s shirt.
“I really loved you, Mafuyu,” Ritsuka says, voice trembling and wet with tears Mafuyu is glad he can’t see. “I really did. More than anyone and anything. More than life. This… this fucking sucks.”
“I loved you too. I probably still do. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t fight for us.”
Ritsuka shakes his head as he lets himself cry for a moment, and Mafuyu does nothing but allow Ritsuka to break as he seldom does. “I’m sorry I didn’t fight for us, either. I fucked up the one thing I promised myself I wouldn’t. I failed you, failed us.”
“I guess we both did,” Mafuyu replies. “I’m responsible for this, too.”
He doesn’t know for how long they stand there and apologise to each other back and forth. How much time they spend finally talking about what went wrong and what they still don’t know caused this all to happen. It took a breakup to get to this point, and Mafuyu thinks that this might be the very definition of cruel irony.
At some point, Mafuyu and Ritsuka have returned to bed. They lie in each other’s arms and don’t say nor do anything, but just lie there.
When Mafuyu wakes up later that afternoon, he’s alone, and Ritsuka’s side of the bed is cold.
There was a time when they had everything and it almost felt overwhelming, too much. Mafuyu and Ritsuka had time, they had love, they had gained a sense of understanding and patience for each other that could’ve only come out of the hurdles they had to overcome as relatively new into their relationship. They had love, so much love, and Mafuyu felt that love every single day. He felt how much Ritsuka cared about him, how willing Ritsuka was to fight for their relationship to work. And Mafuyu always worked his damn hardest to return all of that to Ritsuka because it only seemed fair given everything Mafuyu himself was given.
There was a time when they really did have everything, but that was then and this is now. Mafuyu desperately wants to deny that things are actively slipping through his fingers as if he’s trying to hold water in his cupped hands. It’s a fool’s errand to try but he’s tried for so long now that it’s all he knows how to do. There’s still a voice inside his head, maybe it’s in his heart—he can’t tell—that tells Mafuyu that there’s no use in trying if all of his efforts so far have ended up being in vain.
He used to think that most, if not all, break-ups ended with loud screaming, someone crying, maybe someone throwing something at a wall to make it shatter all over the floor. That there would be fighting, arguing, and at least some sort of fight, verbal or otherwise. But he has to find out the hard way that not all break-ups look like that. Some are apparently like the one he’s just experienced. His own breakup, which doesn’t fit any of the ‘classic’ categories.
Somehow, that doesn’t surprise him.
Mafuyu isn’t sure who raised the white flag in the end; it might have been Ritsuka, but it may as well have been him, too. Considering just how many times he’s had to seek comfort elsewhere but in the person he’s supposed to just in the past two months, there’s a possibility that Mafuyu himself finally gave up.
Or it could just be that they both know when to call it quits and that’s why they’re here now.
Mafuyu doesn’t hide the way he winces when Ritsuka only briefly looks his way before walking back into their bedroom. Or what used to be theirs. Unlike other times when Mafuyu hasn’t felt the need to take action like the idiot he was for taking things for granted, this time, he stands in the living room by the couch he usually, passively, sat down on whenever they were in situations that could’ve easily led to this.
And of course, in the end, they did.
All he does is stand. He listens, watches the door to the bedroom, counts his heartbeats. Loses count at some point, starts over. It’s all he can do in order to ground himself and not completely break down. He can’t do that now, because it would be incredibly selfish. Even though Ritsuka is the one moving out, Mafuyu knows he’s hurting, too. They both are, and that’s probably what makes it so much worse. This was inevitable because both of them started taking things for granted, started losing interest in fighting for what they once swore they would fight tooth and nail to uphold.
No matter how much Mafuyu wants to leave the apartment and escape the reality happening before his eyes, he doesn’t. Not this time. So many times before has he ran away from his problems and from reality because he couldn’t handle confronting it. That doesn’t mean he’s that much more capable this time around, and he doesn’t know how anyone would be strong enough to handle a break-up. But he remains in that living room while Ritsuka is packing his necessities, and soon enough, he’ll have to watch Ritsuka leave. For good.
The thought makes him nauseous, makes him feel like he could pass out any second. At the same time, his heart aches like it never has before, and it’s an awful combination of feelings to experience all at once. It’s a wonder Mafuyu is still standing.
Ritsuka emerges from the bedroom with a duffel bag that he’s zipped up and that is definitely filled nearly to the brim with whatever he could take this time around. It doesn’t need to be said that he’s absolutely getting the rest of his belongings sent to wherever he ends up next. Mafuyu doesn’t want to know, doesn’t want to admit that they’ll be living at separate addresses starting today.
No words are exchanged as Ritsuka hastily steps into his shoes and reaches for the door handle. Mafuyu expects him to immediately get out and never look back, but the way he does turn his head and look at Mafuyu makes Mafuyu’s heart break into a thousand pieces. He holds onto the edge of the couch for dear life as Ritsuka exits the apartment, and this time as he hears the door click shut and lock, he falls to his knees, and Mafuyu feels like his entire world has just come to an end.
He doesn’t know for how long he sat on the floor like that, but at some point, he wakes up in the dark lying on the couch. The mental image of Ritsuka leaving comes back, and Mafuyu shoots up from the couch, making a beeline towards the bathroom into which he just barely makes it before he hurls into the toilet.
Mafuyu takes back everything he’s ever said and thought about the apartment being too small. With just him in it now, it’s far too big. Even his quiet footsteps feel like they’re echoing, the sound bouncing between the walls. It’s probably just his imagination, but it certainly feels that way and it’s driving him insane. There’s a lot more room to move around in the apartment now that many of Ritsuka’s things are gone, but Mafuyu has never felt so confined before in his entire life.
He knows, despite how much it hurts, that breaking up was the only option, because neither of them were happy as it was. And neither of them had the right tools nor the right amount of motivation to keep trying. Maybe it was them taking the easy way out by just breaking up instead of continuing to work on their issues. Mafuyu will most likely never know, because they’re already here. He feels like he spent most of his life with Ritsuka, and yet… now it feels like it was all over in the blink of an eye. It took so long to build what they had, but such a short amount of time to just tear it down.
Haruki sighs into Mafuyu’s hair as he pulls Mafuyu closer towards himself, and Mafuyu selfishly lets himself be held, comforted, even though he probably doesn’t deserve it. Haruki has always been this nice, maybe too nice. It’s hard not to take him up on his kindness when Haruki seemingly so easily just offers it to Mafuyu as if it’s the easiest thing in the world.
“Just… just so you know, he lives with Aki right now.”
Mafuyu looks up. “He does?”
“Yeah. So… well, I might as well be here. With you. You know?”
Mafuyu frowns, lowering his gaze. “I’m sorry. I really don’t want to be responsible for putting a strain on your relationship with Akihiko.”
Haruki laughs softly, ruffling Mafuyu’s hair with his fingers. “What are you talking about? That’s not on you. That’s our thing to deal with. Though… well, no. Never mind.”
“No, what is it?”
Haruki lets out a slightly frustrated sound as if he’s struggling to come up with the right words. “Aki told me that I’m being too nice. That I shouldn’t spoil you. He’s… well, he’s not really being all that merciful on Ue, I’ll say that much.”
Mafuyu doesn’t need to know more than that, anyway, because he can very clearly imagine how Akihiko would chew Ritsuka’s head off about what happened, probably blame Ritsuka for this and that. But the truth is that they’re both to blame here, and Akihiko is absolutely right that Haruki is too kind to Mafuyu. Maybe Mafuyu needs a proper scolding, too, to screw his head back on correctly.
“Oh,” is all he can say in response, and Haruki sighs as he rests his chin atop Mafuyu’s head.
“I’m just gonna offer my advice and ignore what Akihiko thinks I should do. I think that you two definitely need some time apart, but then you really need to talk things out. Like actual adults, not running away, not meeting each other halfway. I know you didn’t even really fight, and maybe that would’ve been better, but the best thing would be if you just talked. You know? Sort shit out and then see if you still wanna be together.”
Mafuyu nods slowly, and he bites down on his lower lip as it trembles. “I still really love him, Haruki.”
“I know,” Haruki says, and the tone of his voice makes Mafuyu’s heart ache. It doesn’t sound like pity, not at all, but Haruki sounds empathetic if nothing else. And that’s another thing Mafuyu doesn’t feel like he deserves, because he’s partially responsible for landing himself in this situation in the first place. So, naturally, he has to be part of the force that gets him out of it, however he’ll go about it.