If you'll be my star

I'll be your sky

You can hide underneath me and

come out at night

Yamaguchi Tadashi was in love with a boy who maybe, just possibly, loved him back.

The love that he felt for that boy had grown gradually: over the evening walks home from school; the cramming sessions before exams; walking side by side after the stifling heat of a graduation ceremony and then sitting beneath scattered stars across a lawn browning under the summer heat.

When Tsukishima Kei had brushed his fingers against Yamaguchi's own as they sat under that midnight painted sky and then not moved them, leaving them in place despite the blush that rose to the blond edges of his hair, neither of them had spoken.

They had been together for too long for that, for them to need words to express how they were feeling. The tingling warmth where their fingers brushed proved to both of them over and over in tiny electrical messages that maybe, just maybe, they loved somebody who loved them back.

When I turn jet black

And you show off your light

I live to let you shine

I live to let you shine

He knew that when Tsukki was around, he himself faded a little, but Yamaguchi didn't mind. It was just part of being around someone as reluctantly bright as the tall boy; he almost drew people in, if that was the right way to put it. No, it was more that Tsukki had that indescernable quality that made people want to be near him even despite his cold words.

Maybe the reason that he didn't mind were the small searching glances that Tsukki threw his way throughout each day. Small glances that reassured them both, because even in this new world of work and class and studying, they had remained the cornerstones in one another's lives.

Even when these glances grew few and far between, Yamaguchi didn't mind. Tsukki was settling into this new part of their lives, finally finding a place that he could comfortably stay until it was time for them to move again, onto the next segment of growing older.

And you can sky rocket away

from me

And never come back if you

find another galaxy

Yamaguchi had known, known, that something was different.

Changed.

Maybe it had been the way Tsukki hugged him closer than usual, or the soft presses of cool lips on his own becoming more desperate. Maybe Yamaguchi had needed those desperate kisses, too, needed to feel as though he was doing something to stop the spiralling sensation in his stomach.

But it had turned out that that spiralling sensation was Tsukki falling further away from him, bit by bit, and then all at once when he was in the arms of somebody else: kissing somebody else; loving somebody else.

He should never have assumed that they would move on together. That had been stupid, naive, the outlook of a dewy-eyed child at a world to large to comprehend.

Stupid.

Yamaguchi wasn't sure how to deal with it. He'd never been good with shock; when he was younger and skinned his knee on the playground or bit his tongue particularly hard, the tears that filled his eyes hadn't been from the pain, he was used to that, but from the jarring transition between laughter and blood beaded skin.

The shock of losing his cornerstone was incomparable to anything else.

He wanted to throw up everytime he thought of the name that had meant more to him than his own for so long. Tsukki. It would be much easier to never think of it again, at least that's what he told himself, but some small part of him screamed that no, to forget that name would be to disregard the times when they had had something special between them. And even though it hurt, Yamaguchi couldn't bring himself to forget.

"Pathetic."

Far from here

with more room to fly

Just leave me your stardust

to remember you by

But Tsukki didn't leave stardust, or anything else for that matter - and although Yamaguchi swore that he didn't want to keep any part or piece of the blond, that still hurt, chipping away at the weak veneer that had covered the gaping pain that pulsed as it grew in his chest, a festering infection fed on tears and lonely nights.

A quiet knock on Yamaguchi's bedroom door was followed by the intrusion of the one person he didn't want to see, and yet longed to see at the same time; a face that brought nausea and hate and love and tainted memories to a tumultuous turmoil at the forefront of his thoughts.

Yamaguchi hated his busy mind. He hated that it couldn't stop tick tick ticking over every detail, pouring over every hint as far back as he could remember, as if his jumbled memories were some kind of map that could tell him where everything went wrong.

Maybe it had been the beginning.

Tsukishima's face was impassive as he carefully picked his way through the room that had changed as he left traces of himself over the years. Memories in the form of cold objects and crumpled photgraphs were taken by his quiet hands and placed into a worn cardboard box that he held by his hip.

Yamaguchi watched.

Tsukki took.

Tsukki left.

That was the last time that Tsukki had knocked on his door. They didn't walk home together anymore. When Yamaguchi lay on his bed, there were no long legs to tangle with his own, no cold toes pressed against his calves to send shivers up his back.

No Tsukki.

He was alone again, and that disgusting, small part of him said over and over that somehow it was his own fault, that, as always, he was in the wrong.

This time, the words felt cold as they fell from his lips; there was no enamoured glow to warm them with misconceptions of love, or what Yamaguchi had thought love should be.

"Sorry, Tsukki."