The Puzzle Needed Glue

Yutaka doesn’t love him.

He keeps telling himself that: that he doesn’t need him, that his heart doesn’t still hurt (even though it’s been years that that lie has been rebounding against his skull’s black and gray walls), that he hates him. He’ll be mature about this, be okay okay okay, but he knows he’s just a big fucking liar that doesn’t deserve the credit he’s being given for everything.

Absolutely everything.

They’re biting and scratching and there’s nothing left in the world other than them, naked and complete and perfect in how they fit together, mesh together, all swear words muttered when they hit the right spots, draw blood in the right places. They trust and they share and they’re whole when puzzles are finished.

When Akira finds him in a janitor’s closet, sitting on the ground, huddled in the corner with a mop nearly falling on top of him and multiple bottles of Windex perched on a shelf to his right, crying into his knees, the bassist knows why and doesn’t say anything about it. He only pulls him up, swipes the mop away, and hugs Yutaka tight because he knows words won’t make a difference. The blond knows, in a way, that they never did.

Akira knows the line that separates comfort and just talking. He’s smarter than Yutaka once thought.

And he’s whispering that their company doesn’t want them together. They found out; someone snitched and now he’s going to face the consequences and fuck, Yutaka’s sobbing into his chest, clutching his shirt, telling him no no no no no he can’t go. Not right now. No. This isn’t what he’d planned.

And when Yutaka sees him again, one day, all rainbows and smiles and calmer antics but still spastic, jumpy, spontaneous gestures, his heart squeezes itself with arteries and bones; his chest is tight and he blinks profusely and he forces himself to look away, focus on the suddenly appealing upholstery of the sofa the television studio had directed him to sit on.

He passes Yutaka, stops in his tracks, backs up, smiles down at him as though nothing was ever wrong.

“Hey, Yu-chan,” he says softly, sitting down next to him, gingerly, cautiously as if the drummer’s about to lash out, attack, beat him to death with his bare hands. His skeletal fingers fidget with the denim of ripped jeans, bleached hair somewhat hidden beneath a ball cap set in a juxtaposition on top of his head, fashionable, gangster, Western, everything that he’d tried out, tested before he left. He smiles at him, and Yutaka still can’t bear to so much as look at him.

He chokes out, “Hey, Takamasa.”

And he’s leaving, gone, in his car and too far away and Yutaka digs the small, velvet box out of his pocket, throws it at the wall, gritting his teeth and falling to the ground, heart beating too many miles in one minute and he can’t stop the tears. He feels like a baby, a child, an idiot, and he reaches for the box again, opening it, taking out the golden band that’s set inside, slipping it around his own finger, jaw tense.

Yutaka breaks.

Takamasa’s smile falters a bit, but the drummer sees nothing. His voice is still soft. “How’ve you been?”

“Just fine.” He slips off the ring, palming it and letting the slick texture bring him some sort of comfort, except there’s nothing anymore. Only mindless numbness, some sort of sick way to quench the pain. “You?”

“O-oh, just great!” Takamasa’s desperate, trying too hard to keep his cheery tone. “My– my wife just gave birth to our second ch–”

“I don’t care.”

Yutaka’s angry, Yutaka misses him, Yutaka never takes the ring off, not because he’s spiteful, but because it hurts without it. Money would’ve been wasted, anyway, and Yutaka can’t stand that. Everything needs a purpose.

Except him. He lost it.

Nothing.

Takamasa says nothing, bowing his head.

“Why d’you think, after years of not seeing each other, after the way you just left without so much as a chance for me to speak, I’d care about the woman you’re fucking?” he whispers, the accumulation of three years’ anger flowing out of his mouth like a whirlpool of verbal vomit. His voice increases in volume as he continues, turning to face him. “You just kissed me on the head and left, you fucking asshole! And now you’re gonna tell me all about your fucking happy-go-lucky life?!”

Takamasa expects it, the slap he receives across his face, but it doesn’t help the sting hurt any less. The anticipation, if anything, worsens it.

“Y-Yutaka, I–”

“I still love you, you idiot! And I fucking hate you!” Yutaka stands, the ring heated in his fist, and he’s staring the other man down with dagger-eyes. “I hate everything you fucking stand for, Takamasa, but I still need you, okay?! I can’t live anymore.”

“Y-Yutaka…”

The drummer doesn’t answer, only throws the ring at him, the band and diamonds breaking the skin on Takamasa’s chin, and the guitarist hisses in pain. And Yutaka feels no pity, feels nothing at all.

He only whispers menacingly, “I was going to propose that day.”

And no matter how much he wants to crush those awestruck lips with his own, Yutaka is already walking away, leaving Takamasa holding the ring in his hand, just barely trembling, biting back sobs, but not tears.

They’re broken. Both of them. Together and apart.

The puzzle needed glue.