They can be a real bitch stings, and Matsu feels the skin on the back of their neck prickle. She was right, of course, so it wasn’t surprising to hear…. But what was surprising was Abel defending them.
“They aren’t the only one who had to change! Some of us wanted to change with them! There are other instruments besides oboe, they’re just too stubborn to–”
“I don’t– I didn’t want to play anything else! How many times do I have to fucking say it?” Matsu interrupts, raising their voice a little. They kind of wish they were the one in the book so they could close it and be gone, metaphorically wrapped in a blanket cocoon and curled up in bed. The way they look down at the book in their hands shows that the thought occurred to them that they could just… snap it closed and make her leave.
They could keep ignoring it.
Minori adjusts her glasses again. It seems to be a nervous tic. “You’re still on about that, how many years later? Matsukaze, I can’t play any instruments again. Nothing! And you’re just standing there, not even asking what I’m doing like this,” she gestures at her clothes, and as she continues her voice breaks. “I might as well just be one more ignored friend request. One more series of messages that you never open.”
“I died. I died without you having read anything I sent, without getting a chance to say goodbye. And look at you. You still didn’t even know, did you?”
Matsukaze pulls their arms tighter across their chest, and their silence is enough of a confirmation. “How…?”
She throws her hands in the air in exasperation, very clearly on the verge of crying. “How? What a mystery! It’s almost like you ignored everyone who wasn’t you. I was sick. I tried to tell– fuck, Kaze, I spent almost a year begging you to talk.”
Her words hang in the air for a moment, and when she next looks at Abel there’s something pleading in her expression. Matsukaze doesn’t look up, if anything they seem to wilt.
