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“Hang on, I’m coming," Kouji muttered, slipping through the crowd clustered near the door—people leaning against the walls or perched on furniture clearly not meant for seating. The blaring music made it impossible to discern Mana’s exact words, but the tone alone told him he was short on patience. “Chill the fuck out —geez—I said I’m coming."
He wedged the phone between his ear and shoulder, patting his pockets for a lighter to ignite the cigarette already dangling from his lips. He’d likely need it.
He didn’t remember for sure whose house this was, but it was pure chaos. The air was so thick with smoke that guests further from the entrance were just silhouettes behind the haze. Voices near-shouted to overpower the music, as if turning it down wasn’t an option. Laughter rang too loud, words slurred by alcohol, while beer cans and bottles piled up on every surface. It felt like the last party before the world ended.
It was his favorite kind of place.
Kouji paused at the door when the colleague he had been talking to before his cellphone (which he wasn’t entirely sure how to use yet) started ringing and looked up, as if asking what was wrong. Kouji quickly covered the phone’s mic and hissed slowly, so he could read his lips over the din:
"The office."
The other man grimaced, sympathy laced with clear relief at not being in his shoes. Kouji shrugged— what can you do? —and he waved him off with a good luck gesture before vanishing back into the house.
Stepping outside, the rush of clean air hit him like a floaty high after hours of breathing in smoke and liquor. He inhaled deeply, lungs flooding with a crispness he’d forgotten existed. Nicotine made him feel real; fresh air made him whole.
Sometimes, he wondered if the real reason he smoked was for this exact moment—the contrast of pure air afterward.
Admittedly, it was an expensive habit.
Finally, his fingers closed around the lighter buried in his pocket. The deafening music muffled as he shut the door behind him.
"Done," he said, jabbing a finger in his ear to dull the residual ringing. "I’m all yours."
"What kind of hellhole did you get yourself into?"
"The kind I invited you to," Kouji replied, unbothered, voice muffled by the cigarette now lit. The flame’s glow briefly illuminated his face. "You could’ve been here too if you weren’t such a flake."
"Excuse me if I’m trying to become an adult."
"Boo, lame," Kouji muttered, exhaling smoke between words. "Anyway. Spit it out—what’s wrong?"
"I…" Mana started, then faltered. "... Need help with something."
"My help?"
"I’m not really in a position to be picky."
"Always so sentimental."
"Will you listen to me or not?"
"Go on, then. Help with what?"
He heard Mana open his mouth to speak—then hesitate.
"...With Gackt."
"Ohhh. Okay. Gimme a sec."
Kouji crossed the street to the empty playground, its swings deserted at this hour. Mana heard the chains creak as Kouji dropped onto the nearest one, deliberately stilling its sway. This’d take a while.
"’Aight, so Pretty Boy Gakuchan," Kouji said in a sing-song way, bracing his arms on his knees. "I thought he was visiting family. You two had a fight again?"
"He left a couple days ago. No, we didn’t fight or anything."
"Then what?"
"I wasn’t home when he left, so we didn’t say goodbye. But he sent me... something."
"Like a note?"
"A letter."
"Just to say goodbye?"
"Actually... It’s kind of a love letter."
Kouji paused, frowning in confusion.
"Saying what?"
"Exactly! " Mana blurted, his normally flat voice rising in bewilderment as if that was precisely the problem. "It doesn’t really say anything, it’s just… love stuff. Nothing else.”
Kouji opened his mouth to joke, then shut it. Mana rarely asked for advice, especially when he needed it most. Admitting uncertainty was agony for him. Kouji knew better than to make him feel stupid for not grasping something "obvious."
He scratched the scruff he’d grown over their week off. This could use some extra care.
"Uhm... That's cute, I guess. You didn't like it?"
"It's not about liking it or not, rather... I don't know what to do about it."
"Never got a love letter before?" Kouji laughed as if he already knew the answer. "I got one in sixth grade. She was cute. We dated for two days before she dumped me."
"Sixth grade," Mana repeated, emphasizing each syllable in case Kouji missed how absurd that comparison was. "I got letters in school too. Nothing like this."
"Oh no. Affection. Gross."
"It’s not funny."
"You're the one who gets the most fan letters, after all. You're telling me none of them swore eternal love to you?"
“This is different.”
"How?"
A pause. Then, the sound of paper rustling. Knowing Mana, he’d pored over those pages for hours before calling. By now, he’d memorized every line. His bottom lip would be bitten raw, eyes locked onto the same sentences again and again, as if they’d make more sense if he stared long enough.
Mana always assumed every word was a puzzle he’d missed the instructions for, so naturally, he had a tendency to overcomplicate things that didn’t need it. No wonder he was struggling.
If he couldn’t take it piece by piece and sort it into parts he understood, the whole thing just scared him. The abstraction of it all terrified him.
Kouji laughed to himself at that awkward silence of someone who didn't know how to start.
"Go on, read a bit to me. It can't be that bad."
A sigh. Kouji lit another cigarette, tapping the pack to loosen one.
As if prompted by the lighter’s click, Mana began, voice low and cautious:
"To... To you, whom I love so much."
"He opens with that ? Right off the bat?"
"...Yes."
"Damn. Poor bastard's done for."
"Kouji... "
"Sorry, go on."
"It's...," Mana continued, trying to read each word with the weight they demanded. "Some hour past six, in a dawn through which I have lingered upon every second of every minute. Marked by the cigarettes I craved, which satisfied me nothing. And by this night at last yielding unto day, a moment which I had long awaited, and now care nothing about."
"What’s ‘yielding’?"
"Surrendering. Giving way to something else."
"Got it."
"From my bedroom window, I watch the sun rise behind the mountains. Years ago, I chose this room for its view of every sunrise. Today, for the first time, it meant nothing to me, and I didn’t understand why.”
Then it hit me that my only memories of mornings these past years are of you. Sleeping beside me, breathing. Stretching like a bird spreading wings to the sun. Humming a tune while you make coffee. Even the scent on your pillow, which I pull close when you rise, breathing in the quiet joy of mornings that begin with you. Because nothing else in this world feels so much like home.
I try to remember mornings before you, but I can’t.
In a way, seeing you, feeling you near, is like being touched by sunlight itself. Your glow, your warmth, spreading through me at the most ephemeral thought of you.
And it's thinking about what it would be like to wake in a world without sunlight that I spend whole nights awake. I'm not afraid of the nights. I'm afraid of what it would be to wake up knowing I won't see you again."
"Remind me what ‘ephemeral’ means again?"
"...Something fleeting. Are you positively literate?"
"Oh, give me a break, you’re the one fooling around with Sei Shonagon."
"That's what stood out to you? Nothing about him comparing me to the sun?"
"Nah, I thought that was sweet. Guess there’s no accounting for taste."
"I’m glad this is amusing you."
"You bet. I love talking to you about things you pretend not to be clueless about." He let himself push off the swing, indeed amused. Mana was almost too easy to annoy. "Considering the things you do understand don't interest me at all, and I have to listen anyway."
"I should’ve called anyone else."
"But you called me ." Kouji dragged out the last word, teasingly. Mana could practically see his smirk through the phone. A lighter flicked. "Go on, sunlight. I’m listening."
Mana exhaled heavily, rolling his eyes. More often than not, Kouji was his only and worst option at the same time.
" I face… " He stopped almost immediately. Kouji heard paper sliding again, as if Mana turned the page.
"What?"
"Nothing, this part isn't important."
"Aaaah. " Kouji let out a long, mocking note of understanding. "It's ecchi , isn't it?"
"...I just don't think I need to read the whole—"
"Uh-uh, no way , sunshine, you dragged me out of the function right into this on my day off, you don't get to skip the juicy parts. Keep reading."
He tried not to laugh when he heard him grumble, knowing how much Mana regretted ever making that call.
"I...," Mana continued, voice steadier than he thought possible. Trying not to betray any embarrassment that Kouji could mock him for later. "face in the mirror the marks from last time.”
“The purple stains painted along my throat with your lips, the scratches on my back tracing the paths your nails took in the dark. I cherish each one like a flower you left on me. Over the days, I watch them fade, and in two or three, maybe there’ll be no trace of you left on my skin. Yet, just closing my eyes, I can still feel the warmth of every kiss. The rake of every nail dragged down my spine, each line left like a promise. The sound of my name in your voice, as if you could taste it on your lips. The taste of you still lingering on mine. Your scent wrapped around me, even the heat of your breath against my skin. Sometimes they come back all at once. Sometimes, just the memory is enough to make my heart race.”
"Aaw, you must be as red as a ripe tomato right now."
“Shut up.”
“The marks will fade, as all things do. But I will remember how you looked—lips parted, eyes alight with something so tender it burned—as you put them there. I feel each memory lighting up in my spirit like embers, replaying days that were and weren’t. Burning me inside until I feel smothered by the afterglow of your touch, by the ache of a body who remembers what it felt like to be yours.”
“Lover boy is reaching, right, there’s no way a nerd like you—”
"I'm hanging up."
"Sorry, sorry, I'll stop.”
“If even as narcissistic and spoiled as I am—and as you've so often scolded me for being—I could once think of someone's good beyond my own, it'd be yours. It'd be to wish with every fiber of this soul that you, my love, are spared from thinking of me with the same intensity I think of you. Always when least expected, always more than I'd like.”
“So forgive me if sometimes I ask for you too urgently. And then vanish for so many nights. But you know well how I hate what I can't control. I can't think of you less, want you less, no matter how I try. You say I need to learn to be strong alone. You're so strong, so much more than me. So that's what I try to do for you.
But I only want to be stronger so I can protect you when you need me. So I don't know if it's the strength you expect from me.
I think of my past and see a blur. I think of my future and see it void. But thinking I could be born at the same time as someone like you, and cross my existence with yours, I feel whole.
If I ever live long enough to find any meaning in my life beyond making you smile,
I promise you now, nothing ever made me so happy."
Mana stopped, expecting a quip. None came. He took a steadying breath.
"If I’ve lived every day until now for the time spent with you, then it was worth it. When even this voice, which is all I have in this world, seems made just to call you ‘my love.’
And if this is all a dream destined to end,
I promise that as long as this body exists, and in this body exists a heart, it'll be only yours. And while it's within my reach, I want to live to make you happy.
With love,
Camui."
The phone line hummed with empty static for a long moment after Mana finished reading. Kouji could hear him breathing—could picture him leaning back in that creaky kitchen chair, waiting. That weighted silence stretched so long one might have thought the call dropped.
Then Mana's voice came through, so soft it barely registered above the phone's ambient static:
"...So?"
The phone line hissed softly as Kouji exhaled a slow stream of smoke, which vanished into the dark.
"Well...I’m no expert, but the dude’s not just lovestruck—he's gone . Like mad gone. Heart-eyed as fuck.”
“God, you’re useless.”
“Really punch-drunk.” Kouji continued, undeterred. “Head over heels and then some.”
"That’s so helpful. I’m glad I called you."
"Actually, good thing you mentioned it—what scared you so much you thought I'd be any help? Are you afraid he means it? You like him too.”
“That’s not the point.”
"Kinda is, though.” He absently dragged one foot through the patchy dirt, keeping the swing in a lazy sway. “Nobody just casually says shit like that, especially not a stray cat like Gaku. I think he’s dead serious."
"People don't—” Mana let out a sharp, impatient sigh.”Nobody actually says things like this seriously , I thought you'd agree with me on that."
"Why not?"
"Because this is real life!" Mana stood up again, exasperated. It couldn't be that only he saw it. “Not some novel, not poetry, definitely not a romantic movie! Real people don’t—!” He exhaled sharply, shaking his head. "People don't say these kinds of things... not genuinely."
“Romeo here seems to disagree. As far as he's concerned, you're Eurydice.” The cigarette glowed orange in the dark as Kouji took another drag. His lips quirked at one corner.”You’re Meg Ryan kissing in the rain.”
"I know how it sounds, okay? You’re not—” Mana muttered in frustrated exasperation, bringing a hand to his annoyed face. "He doesn’t actually—”
"No, no, Manachan. Baby.” He cut him off with an uncharacteristically patient authority. He never judged himself as an authority on anything. “You think you know, but it's not how you're thinking. You see those big ass words and think no one could possibly mean them, but I’ll tell you: Nobody willingly sounds that fucking pathetic —no offense— or spills those embarrassing-lovesick-loser words unless they're dying to say them.”
A pause. Then Kouji’s tone shifted, sobering.
“You see it as too much to be genuine, and I get it. But no one writes like that unless it’s real for them. Isn’t that how real things feel at first? Like they’re too much?”
Mana went quiet, staring at the careful handwriting, the way certain words looked like they'd been written and rewritten until he got them perfect.
Until they meant exactly what he meant.
“You called me because it scared you. Big words. Right?”
Mana opened his mouth to deflect, but there was no need to. Kouji had known from the moment he’d read the first line. Maybe even before that.
The line went quiet except for Mana’s breathing. When he finally spoke, his voice had gone small.
"What… do you think he expects me to do now?"
There was a thoughtful pause. After a beat of consideration and a slight shrug, Kouji's answer came warm and relaxed as always.
"I think he just wants you to know. That's all.”
Another pause. Longer this time. Then, quietly:
"… It's really sweet but…” Mana started, then stopped. His voice thinned, words fraying at the edges. “the kind of thing he's… the way he’s saying it, it's just... I don't know…”
"Manachan."
Kouji interrupted, his tone shifting into something uncharacteristically gentle. Mana didn’t answer right away. He was quiet. Then, reluctant:
"...What?"
"Two questions. No jokes this time. Deal?"
The usual teasing lilt was gone, replaced by that unfamiliar patience that Kouji only used when things actually mattered.
"...Fine." He agreed tersely. Knowing he had no choice anyway. "Go ahead."
"What did you really think of everything you read? Honestly?"
The quiet stretched between them, comfortable in a way only years of friendship could make it. Kouji waited, giving him space in that way he always seemed to know Mana needed.
"I thought..." He murmured, as if his own thoughts were slowly clearing inside him. "... It was incredibly beautiful."
"Good. It is." He fished for another cigarette, knowing they could talk properly now. "And how do you feel reading it and knowing it's all about you?"
"I..."
He looked at the pages on his lap again, covering his lips with one hand as if unsure of his own judgment about them. Feeling the air leave his lungs the same way it had the first time he read them, earlier that afternoon. Heat prickled his skin where the words had seared themselves hours ago.
Kouji laughed, seeing he had a pre-made answer that didn't come out immediately. He heard Mana sigh on the other end, his voice muffled by the hand now covering his face.
"... I feel like I'll explode."
Gackt tried to focus on the melody, not the intensity of Mana’s gaze as he studied his reaction. Mana never really cared for his opinion on compositions—so this mattered.
Sitting cross-legged on Mana’s apartment floor, Gackt glanced at his own feet to avoid missing nuances in the instrumental. Behind him, his travel bag sat untouched since his return. Mana hadn’t given him time to unpack, dragging him straight to his room and handing him headphones plugged into the computer.
He’d liked the fragile chime at the start, and the piano’s melancholy. Normally, he hated when Mana handed him pre-made piano scores, but this one fit. He wouldn’t admit it, though, or Mana would never take his input again.
"I need you to hear something." Mana had said, the first words out of his mouth the second he had opened the door. They’d barely spoken since he left. Even for Mana, his calls had been monosyllabic. He hadn’t mentioned the letter, so Gackt didn’t either.
He wished they had. Sort of. But it was fine.
Gackt rested his chin on his hands, absorbing the violins. Their synthetic version couldn’t match the real thing, but their ache was palpable. It reminded him of autumn’s last days, winter’s first breaths. A farewell kiss. The moment after a good dream ends. Things he’d note for lyrics later.
He looked up. Mana was still staring, expectantly.
"It’s beautiful," Gackt smiled, hoping to soften his tense expression. "Do you have a concept for it? What should I write about?"
"No. I made it for you."
"Really?" Gackt’s grin widened. "I can choose? You trust me that much?"
"No, Camui. It’s... for you. Just you."
The smile faded.
"For me?"
"Yeah. I..." Mana sighed, restless. "I thought a lot about your letter. Read it hundreds of times. Couldn’t write a single line back."
"You didn’t have to—"
"I know ." Mana cut him off gently. "I know you didn’t expect a reply. That’s always convenient for me. But I couldn’t..." He dragged a hand down his face. "I couldn’t stand having all these... things inside me and no way to show you. Because I understood everything you wrote. Every feeling—I’ve felt it too. But I never... thought about it. Wouldn’t have, if you hadn’t written it first. And trying to articulate those sensations made me realize..."
A shrug.
"...I don’t feel them in words. When I’m with you, all I hear is music."
Gackt blinked. Not at the words, but how naturally Mana said them.
"Music? This melody?"
"This one is more like… a collage of things I tried to translate. Like the sound of you coming home. The way you look at me when you think I don’t notice. Your voice, your smile. Even that one time you called saying you wanted to sleep holding me—and did exactly that when you arrived."
Mana smiled softly, then sobered.
"I can’t... write like you do. But I wanted you to see that you do the same to me."
Gackt listened, stunned, as Mana’s words layered over the melody still echoing in his ears. But what struck him most was the clinical delivery—as if Mana had systematized each emotion, distilled them into chords. When all he’d really said was:
When we’re together, I hear music inside me.
The funny thing was, just as Mana claimed he’d only recognized his own feelings after reading Gackt’s words... hearing this melody, a patchwork of their moments together, Gackt felt like he’d always heard it too.
And it was so funny.
Mana tilted his head in confusion as Gackt’s lips twitched, then burst into laughter—soft and warm, like when they’d just woken up and he’d recount some absurd dream. Just as crystalline.
"What?"
"Nothing, I just..."Gackt chuckled, the sound tender. "I think it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard."
For the first time in his life, he was speechless.
And he didn’t mind at all.
Mana’s smile deepened. He leaned in, cupping Gackt’s face.
"And if I am the sun, I want you to be the moon. So your face is the first thing I see waking up, and the last before I sleep."
This time, the raw sincerity made Gackt beam. No theory, no technique. Just love, improvised.
"Deal."
I’ll be anything for you.
Mana moved to kiss him, then yelped as Gackt yanked him down to the floor. Where they usually made up for lost time.
He couldn’t say when the headphones fell off.
But the music never stopped playing.