“Haven’t you taken enough from me?”

There were only a few memories that Yuzuru could vividly recount. Everything else blurred together like an accidental photograph taken between two inseparable moments. Names of schools and cities blended into an incorrigible mess while faces of people he was supposed to call colleagues quickly dissipated from his memory. Sometimes it was hard to remember what happened just last week. At first he considered his lack of attachment concerning, but after his fifth transfer it was simply easier to gloss over the meaningless details. An attempt to befriend anyone or even to learn their names would by fruitless once he was whisked away from another false sense of security. His life simply wasn’t his own. He was always at the mercy of his parents.
One particular memory however, persistently stained his thoughts to the point where the very first step he took back into town inundated his senses with his face. In a perverse way, the fact that his first thought was of Naoki made it seem like he was finally home—whatever home was to his constant nomadic state.

“God, are you even listening to me?”

Yuzuru blinked slowly as though that was a sufficient answer. Naoki’s seething glower was a stark contrast to Yuzuru’s deadpanned expression. Naoki wasn’t always like this, he thought, but the more he dwelled on the matter, he realized he knew so little about the person he used to consider his best friend. Yuzuru studied Naoki’s irked expression carefully, and like an etching in his mind he recognized it so vividly as the same look he gave him three years ago. Maybe he was masochistic, but the fact that he could recall anything so strongly gave him a refreshing thrill. His lips twitched upwards, but in poor timing it only made the look of hatred on Naoki’s face turn purely acidic. Like a switch, his impassive gaze returned. He briefly wondered if this moment would be forgotten, just like the others. But something about the way one  emotion after another crept into Naoki’s face resembled a slowly developing photo. And each imaginary shot was carefully embedded into his thoughts.

“Sorry,” he half-heartedly apologized. After a long pause, he finally replied with a sad excuse, “I couldn’t hear you.” He knew his response was nothing but kindle to Naoki’s lingering resentment toward him, and yet like a scripted interaction he said his part.

 “You’re a fucking idiot.”