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It’s something only you can do, Madoka-san had said.
And Yuuji had believed him, which was always stupid, in retrospect, when it came to Madoka-san, but to his credit, Keiichirou-san had been there too. And if Yuuji couldn’t trust Keiichirou-san, then he didn’t know who he could trust in that household, besides—
Besides.
Yuuji blinks. Besides Chihiro. And therein lies the problem, he thinks, and sighs.
It’s been a working theory of his, really, for the past three years, that Keiichirou-san and Madoka-san conspire to keep Chihiro work-free during this time of the year. But up until recently, it had only been that: a working theory.
On Monday, they pull Yuuji in for tea.
Their living room is giant. Yuuji has been here before, of course, but he can’t find it in himself to stop being stunned by the mansion, which has only gotten nicer over the years under Chihiro’s care.
“It’s unfortunate,” Madoka-san murmurs into his teacup, “that we can’t be here this year. I have—” A pause. Madoka-san wrinkles his nose, ruining his own graceful image. “—work. Abroad. And Keiichirou-kun needs to be with me.”
The room lapses into silence, save for the soft clink of Madoka-san’s spoon as he stirs his tea. Keiichirou-san tilts his head forward, giving his brief acknowledgement. His glasses glint in the dim lighting, and Yuuji’s hands tighten where he’s placed them on his knees, sweating slightly. The air conditioning, Yuuji’s thinking. It must be broken. He makes a mental note to tell Chihiro later.
“Ideally,” Madoka-san continues, pressing onwards in the silence, “at least one of us would be present with him on the day. But seeing as we are both otherwise preoccupied—”
“You chose me to watch him, instead,” Yuuji says, interrupting him. Madoka-san nods mildly, quiet for once, and Yuuji downs his own cup of tea, scalding his tongue in the process. He sucks in a quick breath. Exhales. “Alright,” he says, finally, as if it were a question. The way they’re doing this, it seems more like a business deal than anything else, and the air is stifling him. Mostly he’s just wondering if they’d thought he’d refuse. “Alright,” he says again. “Chihiro’s my best friend. I’d do anything for him—you know that.”
Madoka-san smiles brightly, and just like that, the heavy atmosphere is broken. He hums, lowers his lashes. “Anything?”
“Almost anything,” Yuuji amends quickly.
“Well then,” Madoka-san says brightly. He lets out a loud laugh—too loud, even—and Yuuji is struck again, suddenly, by how strange Chihiro’s uncle is. He says, “It’s good that Chii-chan has such a great friend, isn’t it?”
Behind them, Yuuji has clear view of the picture of Chihiro’s mom, placed on one of the tables. Light filters in through the windows, bouncing off of it, and briefly he entertains the idea of asking if they’d placed it there strategically. It seems entirely something that Madoka-san would do. He tilts his head to the side.
And instead, he says, softly, “Thank you.”
“Yuuji,” Chihiro says flatly. “Yuuji, listen—God, I can’t believe he pulled you into this. I know they put you up to this, but you don’t have to tail me, I swear.”
Yuuji smiles. And blinks. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says blithely.
Chihiro runs a hand down his face, his groan muffled by his palm, and Yuuji smiles again, genuine this time. He’d decided to meet Chihiro at the front door today, and Chihiro had gotten one look at him and immediately grimaced. If it were in any other circumstances, Yuuji might’ve felt offended.
Of course, he amends in his head, if it were in any other circumstances, Chihiro probably wouldn’t have reacted that way to begin with.
“Chihiro,” he says. He shakes his head real slow, because he’s decided that he’s laying it on thick today, just for the sake of it. “Am I not allowed to see you in the morning?”
Chihiro rolls his eyes. “You’re awful,” he says, crossing his arms. “You know that, right? Completely awful. And to think I almost offered to make breakfast for you.”
Yuuji shrugs, hands spread placatingly. “It’s not too late,” he says. He makes a show of glancing at his watch. “Homeroom doesn’t start for another fifty minutes, you know. I can wait.”
Maybe this won’t be as hard as he thought. Really, he’s surprised Madoka-san didn’t try to recruit him earlier. Or maybe it was just a family thing. Yuuji leans against the open doorway, shutting his eyes as Chihiro stomps back upstairs to—presumably—get something to eat, muttering viciously to himself.
There had been the faint scent of incense clinging to Chihiro’s skin, too, but Yuuji tucks that knowledge away for another time.
Chihiro says, “Let’s watch a movie.”
(It’s four in the afternoon. In the morning, Chihiro’d said, “I’ll play along,” to which Yuuji’d said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about” again, and Chihiro had just snorted. And sometime along the years, Chihiro must’ve gotten better at acting, or at least better than Yuuji, for sure, because he’d gone through the whole day as if it were any other day.
Which.
Yuuji doesn’t want to think about it too hard, not really.)
Yuuji, to his own credit, doesn’t bat an eyelash. “Sure,” he says, easy. He’d already resigned himself to missing his after-school club, anyway. “Which movie?”
Chihiro tilts his head forward. His long lashes dip downwards, considering, and he pulls his smartphone out, quickly opening up a movie catalog. He studies the screen and for a moment he looks so suddenly, intensely upset that Yuuji almost wants to reach out, but the expression passes as quickly as it came, gone in a flash. There’s a lump in Yuuji’s throat, thick, the kind that he has to swallow past.
“I have no idea,” Chihiro says, looking back up at him. He laughs, and it sounds real, for all Yuuji knows. Nerves rise in his stomach. “We can decide when we get there.”
They buy tickets for a rom-com, the third one in its series, and Yuuji stubbornly doesn’t feel out of place getting into his seat next to a billion couples. Chihiro had been the one to pick it, inexplicably, and Yuuji wouldn’t contest it, not today of all days.
None of it makes sense. Chihiro falls asleep halfway through the movie, and Yuuji leaves near the end to get a refill on their popcorn, and then gets distracted watching the movie trailers playing outside for a solid fifteen minutes. He’s not sure how this is supposed to work out, but probably not like this, he thinks, shaking Chihiro wake.
Chihiro yawns, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Wordlessly, he glances at his phone’s clock and sighs, stretching as he gets up. “C’mon,” Chihiro says, grabbing his bag. He steps over a mess of popcorn on the floor, and rolls his arm back, glancing back at Yuuji over his shoulder. He quirks a smile. “I have a detour to make before I get back home, Mister Guardian.”
It isn’t until they get on the Shinkansen that Chihiro says anything again. He’s nodding off in his seat, Yuuji clutching the train handle and standing over him, when he says, “My mom was waiting for that movie to come out for ages.”
Yuuji chews on the inside of his cheek, silently willing him to go on. Chihiro glances up at him, taking in his expression, and half-smirks.
“The first two movies were really boring,” he says candidly. “I was hoping the third one would be better, but I fell asleep too soon. Was it any good?”
It hadn’t been. Maybe as much is evident on his face, because he hasn’t opened his mouth to say as much before Chihiro’s rolling his eyes, leaning back into his seat.
“Figures,” he says. And then, fondly: “She always did have bad movie taste.”
And this right here—it feels like Yuuji’s intruding on something a little private, despite how long he’s known Chihiro. He’d known Chihiro’s mom when she was alive, too, but he hadn’t really known her, not really. And he’d always felt that the subject of his mother had been taboo, after she’d died. There was a certain boundary he didn’t want to cross with their friendship, and so he hadn’t.
He exhales loosely. Maybe it wouldn’t be there anymore, after today.
“Seems like it,” he says after a beat, half a joke, and Chihiro laughs and laughs and laughs.
Their detour takes them to a cemetery near the ocean. Maybe Yuuji should’ve expected this, but he hadn’t.
“Mom,” Chihiro says steadily, to the grave in front of them. There’s a picture placed on one of the steps, next to a pot of incense, and Chihiro’s mom stares back at him. It’s the same one he’d seen before.
Chihiro begins talking. Yuuji tunes him out in order to give him some semblance of privacy, and instead studies the way the light’s bouncing off the picture here, too, in the same way it did back in Madoka-san’s mansion, in the same way it bounces off of Chihiro’s hair. They really do look alike, Yuuji realizes. Chihiro and his mother.
And the cemetery, too, is a fitting place. Chihiro’s presence has always felt like the force of a tidal wave, and his mother had been the same, back when she’d been alive.
When Chihiro finishes, it feels as if it had been too short a time. He has his offerings out, a bouquet of flowers and the movie tickets and, finally, a container of sweets that Yuuji hadn’t known he could even fit in his bag, let alone have in it the whole time. The incense has already been lit, and Yuuji bows politely, kneeling to light a small candle as well.
“It’s nice out here,” says Yuuji conversationally, after.
“Uh huh.” Chihiro looks around, hands shoved in his pockets. He doesn’t look anywhere close to crying, somehow. “She always liked the sea,” he says, “so we decided to move her grave after the first year. There’s a few other people from the family buried here, I think. Over on the far side.”
Again, that feeling of intrusion. Yuuji clears his throat. “We?”
“Madoka and I.”
“Hmm.”
The air tastes and smells like sea salt. Yuuji can feel the breeze coming from the ocean, cooling over his skin, and he can hear the waves, too, crashing in the distance. It really is nice. He’d like to be buried here after he dies too, if he could.
And Yuuji doesn’t realize he’s said it out loud until Chihiro blinks at him, once, twice, and lets out a soft wheeze of laughter. His eyes shut and Yuuji feels incredibly stupid, face flushing, but he’s thinking too, thinking belatedly about how fiercely glad he is that they’re friends, and that Chihiro’s way, way stronger than him.
“You can be buried here next to me, then,” Chihiro says, and smiles. Again, nerves rise in Yuuji’s stomach. Then, without precursor, Chihiro lolls his head to the side, says quietly, “Thanks for looking out for me today.”
Yuuji lowers his voice too. He’s not sure why. “Not sure what you’re talking about,” he mumbles.
It gets Chihiro to laugh again. Yuuji can feel himself relaxing on reflex, and his shoulders slump forward. “They do that every year, you know?” he says. “Madoka and Keiichirou. At first I wasn’t sure why they kept following me, but I think they need it. Or at least they need it more than I do. Every year the house is blessedly clean in the morning, and I’ve got one or both of them watching me the whole day. But neither of them actually go up here with me, even though they follow.” He shrugs. “I always figured they just paid their respects before I woke up.”
There’s that lump again, lodged high in his throat. Yuuji nods, for lack of anything to say, and Chihiro bumps shoulders with him, like he’s comforting Yuuji instead of the other way around, as it should be. “Thanks again,” he says. His smile looks only a little stiff, just around the edges. “Let’s go home, Yuuji.”
Yuuji bumps shoulders with him, too. “Okay,” he says, rubbing his nose, and reminds himself to speak to Madoka-san, later. “Let’s go home.”
.
.
.
fini.