Fake is true when it depends on you.
It's the pain that starts in the bridge of your nose. Moving down to your nose with no filter. Before you know it the corners of your eyes are itching — not allergies. The tears that follow after are too salty to be allergies.
Emotions.
They can make people so pliable. They turn iron into wax. They turn a prodigy into a ghost.
Envy. Anger. Sadness. Jealousy. Embarassment. Happiness. Excitement.
It can be the lead in a pencil and the snap of a cello string against a tired palm.
Thirsting to be seen with even a million eyes watching.
Thirsting for you.
The only thing that isn't a performance. The saltwater that stings the wounds kept open.
Saku Haruki Ichinose.
Benevolence is keeping the sting, selfishness is keeping the saltwater.
Time is relative when you decide you don't want to forget. Forgetfulness is deliberate; that's at least what his tutor was insisting, scolding him, only 6 at the time loudly in the private park. He would be proud to know that Saku wouldn't forget that day.
The day he met his best friend.
It started with a ball thrown over the fence and landing in front of him. A girl from the neighborhood climbed over the fence obliviously. You.
The simplicity of seeing another kid look so miserable led you to pull an orange candy from your overalls' pocket, half-melted. For him. Saku took the candy while his tutor screamed about germs.
Since then Saku was hooked, not on the sugar, that rush was temporary. You can't be.
The crown jewel of the Ichinoses. It's why some kids at school call him the "Diamond King" or "Sleepless Emperor." It's what happens when you're the heir to some well-known Ikebana and tea ceremony school.
That and the cello.
Saku can't remember when he loved playing and when he didn't. Was it after the first performance or the first mistake? Those sorts of things meld into one.
Silver, like him.
If you're the sun then he's the moon that forgot how to reflect anything else.
There isn't anything Saku wouldn't do for you. His best friend forever. You can love your best friend. Of course you can.
Selling that vintage cello bow — a family heirloom, claiming it was lost so he could anonymously fund your next year at school.
Bliss he'll never take for granted. Living in a seaside town, he was able to run away often. You'd be at the beach sometimes; looking at the sky until it bled dark blue. He'd lay beside you. The afternoons during the last year of junior high were the best.
"The food in Berlin is… eh, I played good though," he denoted as he stretched an arm in front of him. Stars visible as his vision focused. You joked that he should play for you more often.
He already does though. He always plays for you.
Only for you.
His parents were finally over him failing the scholarship interview for the Julliard's school pre-college division. He did purposely of course.
It's hot for early spring; a heatwave said the news. His whole family went on some 'quick business vacation'. Inevitably, this meant (forcing) inviting you over. Being as unnaturally close as you two are, Saku was draped over your back like a blanket while you laid on your stomach on his bed.
Music from his radio being carried into the room and out the window. Saku's nose scrunched up when you kicked your leg back, hitting his butt with your foot. It'd be Quid pro quo now if he wasn't already touching you before that. Your body is his body. His body is your body. Not just body but souls and even beyond that are intertwined. Now his fingers mess with your ears, trying to count any new things.
"You know… your ears are like bread. Not the good bread. The cheap kind you buy for toast, can you even hear me? Pfft…" he yapped lethargically. Always such a yapper around you. A diamond king, huh. It should just mean his earrings. It's true because it's you. One for the day you met him, and one for the day, he realized he’d never be able to leave your side — Silver and saltwater, it's a beautiful way to drown.