The dimly glowing lamps outside illuminate the city in a rich orange and purple hue. Chuuya finds himself staring down from his rooftop perch, letting the chilly air rush against him, tug at his luscious red locks, seep into the seams of his clothing.

Tonight feels heavy, suffocating.

He exhales a shaky breath and drops his gaze to the bustling city below. The people, tiny and oblivious from his view, move forward without a pause, without a doubt on their minds…without looking back. Chuuya finds it bitterly ironic. Everyone just moves forwards…except him—not him.

His feet anchored to a past filled with promises made and promises broken.

The silence gnaws at him, granting his doubts to consume him. His greatest fear—the fear of being abandoned—has a way of creeping into his soul. Chuuya’s tough exterior, the arrogant confidence that normally masked his fears, is now nothing but a fragile mask threatening to crack.

He thinks back to all the people who crossed his path, who left just when Chuuya believed, for a second—for a moment too long, that someone might stay. His comrades…his partners…ones who fell, ones who walked away…each departure took a piece of him. A piece Chuuya feared he’d never get back.

And for Chuuya, you were meant to be different. There was a softness in you that denied all the defences Chuuya spent years fortifying. There was a light in your eyes when you looked at him, a spark of hope that made him believe—against all odds—that you’d be different, that this time might be different.

That this time, someone might stay.

But then it happened. Your messages grew short; your promises more distant; your phone calls fell into silence. He tried to pretend it didn’t affect him, tried to stay tough and unfazed—but it was all a losing battle. Doubts about himself filled his mind—whether there was something fundamentally flawed within him.

He tried to pursue you, to confront you directly, to grab your shoulder and demand, beg for an explanation…but something made him pause. Chuuya could read you, could see it in your eyes—you weren’t pulling away because you didn’t care. There was something you were battling, something you hadn’t told him. Whatever it was, it seemed to be tearing you away from him.

This only made Chuuya’s fear cut even deeper. Here was someone who wasn’t meant to leave…yet was forced to anyway. It seemed to prove what he had feared all along: that happiness was a temporary illusion for him—destined to vanish just when it reached the palm of his hand.

He turned away from you without another word, letting the silence fill what used to be your love, letting it cut into him. Chuuya tried to stay composed—tried to hide the tremor in his hands—but when you called after him, how your honey-sweet voice faltered in trying to explain…it made him tremble all more.

He walked away, into the purple-black heavens above the city. His silhouette seemed small against the sprawling cityscape. A single soul battling doubts, promises, memories—all at once. Chuuya pressed his hat tighter against his head, forced himself forward. Ignoring the crack in his own soul.

He told himself it was better this way. That attachment only made the eventual goodbye more painful. That letting go of you was a form of mercy—for you and for himself. But he knew the lie when it crossed his mind.

The silenced trailed behind him, a chorus of doubts, questions and memories. The fact a piece of him remained with you—and a piece of you remained with him—made it all too raw.

In the end, he was left once again, alone in the dark, unsure if the path forward held healing or further tragedy. But through it all, the feeling remained: you were different. Whatever had forced you away, Chuuya knew it wasn’t from a lack of love. It came from something much more painful—something neither of you could control.

And Chuuya would carry that feeling forward, letting it become a part of his soul—a bittersweet thread tying him to you, no matter how far you walked away.