“If one day you woke up, and the person you love was suddenly gone from this world, how would that make you feel? How would you describe it?”

While we usually get along with the people we care about, there’s always bound to be arguments. They more often than not revolve around subtle things, but sometimes, they do get deadly serious in a hurry. And when they don’t get resolved, well, let’s just say that boundaries have been crossed for the worst.

I just started reading Natsuki Kizu’s Given and the first arc (which was the entire 1st season of the anime) explores the tension of wanting to express yourself while being overwhelmed with grief that you can’t easily explain.

Given is about a rock band made up of 4 young men whose troubled pasts and their shared love of music brought them together. The first arc is about two members, Ritsuka Uenoyama and Mafuyu Sato. The story starts off with Uenoyama wanting to take a break at a staircase in his high school. He catches a very timid Mafuyu sitting there as well and notices that the latter is carrying a guitar. When Uenoyama notices that a string on the guitar is broken, he offers to fix it. The two would connect and Uenoyama introduces Mafuyu to his other bandmates, Akihiko Kaji and Haruki Nakayama. Mafuyu is offered to join the band and is even asked to sing for them.

When the 4 of them are getting ready for a performance at a concert, Mafuyu’s past is slowly revealed. Uenoyama and Mafuyu run into each other after Mafuyu’s job interview. They would bump into an old friend of Mafuyu’s, who reveals that the guitar Mafuyu has in his possession is from someone he loved in the past. Mafuyu panics and Uenoyama tries to comfort him. However, Mafuyu can’t bring to words about his past while Uenoyama starts to realize that he’s having a strong feeling towards Mafuyu. Tension between the two starts to happen and threatens to tear the band apart.

We later learn that the guitar is from a childhood friend turned lover of Mafuyu’s, Yuki Yoshida. Yoshida would later die and it was suspected to be a suicide. Mafuyu is unsure about the role of Yuki’s guitar in his life as he just took it for Yuki’s mom’s sake. Is he moving forward or running away?

It’s difficult to talk about suicide and especially if it was your partner. Mafuyu comments how he’s not really good at expressing himself outside having a great singing voice. I sometimes think about how hard it is talk about the dead. You think things will be fine as long as you’re together. Sadly, it’s not always that simple. The past is strong. Your memories of someone you lost just don’t go away easily. Sometimes, you still see the person wherever you go.

When I look at Mafuyu, it felt like Yoshida’s death hasn’t fully sunk in yet. He carries the guitar and his mind in a in-between phase between holding on to his old reality and his new reality. Things that were once neat and organized are now scattered. Mafuyu is struggling to catch up or is in the process of doing so.

What complicated Mafuyu’s thought process were the events leading up to Yoshida’s death. The two would have an argument about Yuki’s growing love for music, which was slowly drifting them apart. Yuki said he would quit and that he couldn’t live without Mafuyu. Mafuyu then said that Yuki should die for him if that’s the case. Those words became the hammer that drove the nail in as Yuki drank himself to death.

There’s a part I enjoyed before the concert in Volume 2 where Mafuyu finally realizes what he has to do. During one rehearsal a week before the concert, Akihiko tells the band to stop practicing because of the constant tension between Mafuyu and Uenoyama. He would later talk to Mafuyu about lyrics for a song they want to do. Akihiko acknowledges Mafuyu’s pain and tells him,

“If you don’t come to terms with your past, you won’t be able to write those lyrics. You need to make a decision. Do you want to express those feelings? Or do you want to run away from putting them into words?”

The magic would start to happen at the concert when Uenoyama becomes able to communicate how he feels about Mafuyu’s impact on his life. Mafuyu would finally express his loneliness in dramatic fashion in front of a crowd. He says something that made me tear up,

“The truth is…the truth is, I’ve always just wanted someone to hear me scream out this pain and misery that’s stuck inside. Even if it’s just a little…I wanted someone to understand.”

Many of us carry something emotionally heavy inside of us. While it’s considered not okay by most of the public to talk about it, we have to talk about it. At the same time, there’s definitely people out there who don’t want to understand the pain we’re in. They don’t want to see the weight we carry.

It’s funny because while we talk about preventing the stigma about talking things mental health-related, the stigma still exists. I wonder if that’s because there’s definitely topics that hit too close to home for some people and we can’t take on that kind of pain. There’s also a cultural aspect that makes awareness movements just lip service. I see this in Mafuyu because he didn’t know who to turn to about processing Yuki’s death.

What saved everything was direct communication with people who were willing to listen and not be freaked out by the trauma. Uenoyama was a bit bothered at first, but he realized how much Mafuyu was trying to be a good performer and wanted to love him for it. Akihiko and Hikari were the senpais offering their ears and voices as needed without being too preachy.

I see myself in Mafuyu quite a bit as I know someone I loved will die one day of a terminal illness. There’s definitely words that I regret saying and not saying. I carry parts of them in my life and I pretend they’re still talking to me. Mafuyu said “I’m so lonely” and I still feel that way at times. But lately, I’m starting to have a different outlook and know that my life isn’t over when they’re gone. I’ve replaced them with newer people I care about gradually.

I hope that people who need someone who’s compassionate enough to listen to them are given that someone like Mafuyu has.