Archive of Our Own

The last person in the world that Eichi expects to see when he opens his eyes is Leo Tsukinaga, but that’s exactly who is sitting by his bedside when he wakes up. Leo’s eyes are rimmed with red bright enough that it almost looks like makeup, and Eichi inhales too loudly through the oxygen mask that weighs heavy on his face. It gives away the fact that he’s awake, and Leo’s gaze snaps up to meet his, face twisted into something like pain.

“Were,” Leo asks, so quietly it’s hard to hear over the familiar noises of hospital machinery, “we ever friends?”

Talking is still hard, for Eichi; he still feels like he can’t get enough oxygen, like every breath might really be his last. His entire head feels like its wrapped so firmly in gauze that it’s a miracle he can even see, much less think. He struggles to try and make the words he wants to say happen before he finally reaches out, instead, curling his fingers around Leo’s as best he can with the fingertip monitor still attached.

Leo’s head ducks, and Eichi pretends he doesn’t feel anything when hot tears drip down onto his hand and sting the point where the IV connects into his skin.

Eichi lets himself drift in and out of consciousness – there isn’t much that he can say, right now – up until Leo finally stands up, blowing his nose on a tissue without dislodging his hand from Eichi’s loose grip.

Eichi’s hand is shaking when he removes his oxygen mask, moves it up so he can speak more easily. His chest seizes almost immediately, and he wishes he was strong enough to have a simple conversation without running the risk of dying, but there isn’t any point in regretting that now.

“I wanted,” Eichi says, “us to be friends.”

Leo’s lip quivers, and Eichi puts his oxygen mask back on, eyes fluttering closed again. When he wakes back up, Leo is gone, and all Eichi can think is that he didn’t mean to say it in the past tense.

The last person in the world who Leo expects to see when his bedroom door opens is Eichi Tenshouin, but that’s exactly who’s there, silhouetted by the light. He looks exactly like the angel that Leo told him he was, once, and it makes a familiar pain seize up in Leo’s chest. He pulls the blankets back down over his head rather than try to confront Eichi – he must be hallucinating.

“You haven’t been to school,” Eichi says, conversationally, his voice as easy and melodic as ever. Leo wishes that the hospitalization had somehow changed Eichi, made his voice harsher, not so easy to listen to –

No. Leo doesn’t really wish for that, but he wants to be able to.

Eichi sits on the bed, and it dips down with his weight, Leo sliding until his back is pressed against Eichi’s. Leo decides it would be most prudent not to try and reply, because he isn’t sure he can do it without his voice cracking, and that isn’t any less embarrassing now than it was during puberty.

“You should come back. Things are different now,” Eichi continues. The great Emperor of Yumenosaki has no trouble addressing his subjects, and Leo supposes he’s no different now despite what Eichi says – he’s just a fallen king and a failed knight. In the end, Leo couldn’t manage to be anything special.

“I think they’re more like what you wanted.”

Leo hesitates, for a long moment, before he reaches up to pull the blanket back down, to look at Eichi over the top of the fabric of his star-print comforter. Eichi continues to look as smooth and well-put together as ever, even if he isn’t wearing his uniform – is it the weekend? It must be – and Leo knows full well that he himself looks like the sort of drunkard you’d find in a red light district after all the bars close.

Leo keeps his mouth firmly shut, because it’s better to not say anything than it is to just say the wrong thing, he thinks he’s learned that by now, but all it does is make him aware of how unsteady his breath is.

“I wanted to tell you that, in person,” Eichi says. His hand lifts up, reaches towards Leo, only to drop when Leo flinches automatically, cringing away from the contact. “The reign of the Emperor is over. The school is ready to have a King again.”

“I’m not,” Leo objects, before he can stop himself. “Not anymore.”

“Knights is doing admirably well, but they can’t very well be knights if they don’t have a king, can they?” Eichi says, and his hand does move, this time, reaches up to twine into Leo’s tangled hair and start working the hair tie loose.

Leo lets him.

“They’ll do better without me. I’m not—“

“They want to be your friend.” Eichi’s voice is quieter than usual, and the sound of his fingers combing steadily though Leo’s hair is almost loud enough to drown him out. Everything feels too loud; the presence of Eichi on his bed, fingers in his hair, the weight of his words. “Like I did, once.”

Leo tries to blink back the tears he can feel springing forward, but it only makes them spill over more quickly.

“I didn’t want to fight you.” The admission feels more intimate than anything else Eichi has shared with Leo, pushing the boundary of what Leo had thought their relationship was. They’re enemies now, aren’t they; they were never friends, and they have to fight until the bitter end –

“I don’t regret it,” Eichi continues, his voice still soft. His fingers are moving more easily through Leo’s hair, now, combing through the tangles with ease that Leo doesn’t think Eichi has any business having, given the length of Eichi’s hair. “I did what was needed.”

“Why are you here?” It’s too bitter in Leo’s mouth. The question leaves behind something acrid and burnt, and he doesn’t want to taste it. It’s too late once it’s out, though, Eichi’s fingers stilling before they finally pull away. Leo doesn’t want to hear any of this, he doesn’t want to hear how ruthlessly Eichi destroyed him, tried to destroy Sena, tried to destroy everything. He doesn’t want to hear how little he meant, when it came down to it.

Eichi offers him a smile. “To encourage you to come back to school,” Eichi says, and his voice is back to normal, that light and airy voice that makes Leo want to compose even though he knows the notes won’t come to him.

Leo just stares at him, trying to make sense of what Eichi must actually be after, but it’s one of the more futile things he’s done in his life. Trying to understand Eichi just makes him realize how incompatible they are as friends. Friends are meant to understand each other, aren’t they?

“I’ll see you Monday,” Eichi says as he stands to leave, fingers dragging through Leo’s hair one last time and letting it slip, loose, over his shoulder.

Leo doesn’t go back Monday. He spends Monday composing for the first time in weeks, and he tries not to imagine Eichi singing the lyrics when he crams the notes into his bag on Tuesday and goes to school.

“You’re asking me to join your temporary unit?” Eichi clarifies for the third time in as many minutes, because he feels a little like he’s fundamentally misunderstanding something very vital to this conversation. It wouldn’t be the first time.

“Yes, of course.” Leo doesn’t look up from where he’s writing, very rapidly, on the back of his English textbook. A series of half notes and some lyrics; Eichi doesn’t particularly try to make it out, knowing better than to try and decipher any of Leo’s works when they’re still in progress. “You’re one of the most talented idols I know. When you’re not collapsing, ha!” Leo turns, shoots Eichi a glance over his shoulder. “You aren’t sick, are you?”

“Not more than usual,” Eichi says automatically, and that appears to be enough for Leo, because he turns back to his scribbling, seemingly satisfied. “I just thought you’d prefer to work with your Knights.”

“They aren’t my Knights,” Leo says, and Eichi gives the back of Leo’s head the most unconvinced look he can muster. It’s wasted, given that it’s – you know – the back of his head, and Leo can’t see it, but it makes Eichi feel better. “Or rather, they certainly won’t be, if they lose! Or if they win. Either way, they need to move forward, you know – they can’t let themselves be held back by a fallen king like me! I just have to make sure they’re good enough on their own. That newcomer, he doesn’t seem so bad…”

“If you wanted to see if they still wanted to be friends with you,” Eichi says, very deliberately, “you could just ask them.”

Leo’s pen stops moving, so Eichi knows he’s hit exactly the nerve he wanted to.

“This isn’t about friendship! It’s about talent, about the Knights name—“

“Are you afraid they’d tell you ‘no’?”

The look that Leo gives Eichi over his shoulder reminds Eichi so strongly of a kicked kitten that he can’t help but sigh. He wants to cross over, to run a hand through Leo’s hair, to take the pen away from him and stop the manic, frenzied scribbling, but he knows better. They aren’t close enough for Eichi to do that.

Eichi isn’t sure they were ever close enough for that.

“I’ll join your unit,” Eichi says, because a friend would agree, and he still, desperately, would like to be friends with Leo. “But it doesn’t seem very fair, that whether or not you win or lose, you’ve already decided you aren’t worth their time. That kind of decision should be up to them, shouldn’t it?”

He doesn’t know why he’s trying so hard. He threw away everything that he and Leo had without a second thought, without a regret. Eichi did exactly what was necessary – but he isn’t the Emperor anymore, not really. He isn’t ruling the school with an iron fist. There’s new blood, new life, and Eichi thinks that things might be better than they were when he was in charge.

The weight of the Emperor’s responsibilities has been lifted from his shoulders, the heavy crown off his head, and he thinks now that the throne seems awfully lonely.

Eichi never wants to see someone crying at his bedside again. He doesn’t want to spend hours alone in a hospital; he doesn’t want to watch people crumble underneath him. He never wanted that, really. He just wanted to change things.

Wish granted, he supposes.

“Well,” Leo says, finally, sounding a little like a petulant child whose arguments are being run in circles, “they don’t know me that well.”

“One of them does.”

“Sena,” Leo says, giving the name that same odd weight he always does, “is a special case. You stay away from him.”

Eichi holds his hands up in the pose of surrender, like he hadn’t already stepped down from his role of terrorizing other units. “I’m certain he’d threaten me the same way on your behalf.”

Leo makes a frustrated noise. He sets his pen down with a little too much vigor, the noise loud as he spins to face Eichi properly and step over. With the way Eichi is leaning back on the desk, the height difference isn’t as stark as it usually is, and Eichi finds himself at a slight loss now that he isn’t looking down at Leo.

Leo grabs Eichi by the shirt, considerably more roughly than most people would likely prefer, and starts to drag him to the door.

“I just need you to perform in the unit! You’ve agreed, so you can leave now! I’m trying to concentrate!” Leo says, his voice loud and brash and rude, and something about it is so familiar that Eichi doesn’t want to leave his side.

“What am I performing?” Eichi asks, catching his hand on the doorframe before Leo can push him out.

Leo growls at him, frustrated, then turns again to dig some music out of his bag and pass it to Eichi. It’s dog eared and slightly stained, but legible enough.

“It’s for four people, so make sure you learn the right lines, you blockheaded Emperor!”

The door to the room clicks shut, and Eichi wonders if maybe that couldn’t have gone better.

It was the wrong music. It was definitely the wrong music. Leo knows that it was the wrong music because there’s an extra copy of the songs he intended to sing at the live, and he knows for a fact that he gave it to both of his classmates, as he meant to – but there’s one copy left in his school bag, the notes and lyrics marked all in Eichi’s range.

That means that Leo gave him the other music. The music he’s been working on for the past several days, that Eichi was never meant to see, music with a working title so shameful that Leo’s cheeks burn just thinking about it.

He’d just – wanted to write a song for Eichi, that’s all! He’d wanted the harmony of the lyrics and the notes to combine to tell Eichi how he actually felt, instead of trying to rely on his actual words, which always seem to fail him when he really needs them.

Leo slips down to the floor of his bedroom to exercise his right to unending despair, rather than to continue looking through his book bag. He’s at home here, on the ground, among all the half-written sheets of music he’d discarded when he was writing. He picks one up, squints at it for a minute to see if it’s incriminating evidence – ah, yes, it’s definitely one of the ones he’d been working on. Certainly not for Eichi, just about Eichi—

“Oniichan?”

Leo crams the paper into his mouth automatically before he turns to look at Ruka.

Wait. No. That wasn’t what he wanted to do, now he looks like an idiot chewing paper in front of his baby sister, he’s supposed to look cool in front of Ruka. It’s too late to go back now; spitting it out would be even worse. He grinds his teeth through the paper as subtly as possible, like maybe she won’t notice as the silence drags on for ten seconds, fifteen…

“Hmm?” He can still make noises while chewing, he just can’t talk. That’s like success, right?

Ruka stares at him, teeth worrying at her lip. She looks… more than a little dubious. Leo wants to die.

“Dinner’s ready,” she says, voice soft, and she steps away. She pauses again in the doorway to give him another look, brows drawn together like she’s concerned for the sanity of her older brother, and then she leaves again.

Leo spits the paper out. Maybe the ink was toxic and will kill him? He can only hope. It would be better than letting Ruka see how uncool he’s being, and it would definitely be better than having to face Eichi tomorrow.

Remembering that Eichi has the wrong sheet music (the most wrong, the literal worst mistake Leo has ever made in his entire life, up to and including the time he miswrote a note on a commissioned composition that wound up in the on-air radio version) makes Leo’s stomach twist in a knot so tight he isn’t sure he’s going to be able to ingest any food.

He skips dinner, and pretends he doesn’t hear the worried voices of his parents when they ask if it’s going to start again, if he’s going to stop going to school. He pulls the blanket over his head and lays down, trying to pretend he doesn’t still curl around the spot Eichi sat in the last time he visited.

It takes longer than Eichi would like to catch up to Leo. He gets the choreography second-hand from the classmates that Leo has recruited to join them in their knight killing crusade, and that’s all well and fine, but Eichi doesn’t actually know what he’s meant to be singing, not really. He has the lyrics and notes as they were written for people who aren’t him, and he knows from experience that Leo writes everyone’s parts with their own vocal range in mind.

It isn’t until they’re right before the show that Eichi finally manages to catch him, to drag him closer by the sleeve of his outfit. Eichi tries not to think about the fact that they’re wearing matching outfits, that they’re here and so close together. It’s easy to pretend they’re on the same side, that they aren’t just members of a temporary unit –

“Sing the notes for me,” Eichi says, and he’s a little breathless because he’s been running around for the past half hour trying to find Leo in the first place.

Leo stares at him with wide eyes, frozen in place like a deer in headlights, and Eichi can’t blame him, not really. He knows that Leo has been avoiding him ever since he gave Eichi the wrong music, and Eichi can’t blame him; Eichi can hear what Leo was trying to say in the music even just looking at the notes, and he’s been trying his best not to think about it.

“I need you to sing my part,” Eichi says, “so I can sing it.”

Leo doesn’t reply. He looks down at where Eichi’s hand is wrapped firmly in the sleeve of his costume, too tightly for Leo to manage to escape without causing a scene.

“If you want me to fight with you, ou-sama,” Eichi says, swallowing down how wrong it feels to call Leo that when Eichi is the one who broke his throne and took his crown, “then you have to tell me what I’m singing.”

It’s no wonder Leo gets hurt so easily, when he wears his feelings so obviously on his face. His eyes are so expressive, Eichi can see all the individual emotions flash through them – fear and anxiety and the deep longing that Eichi understands with a perfect clarity. Leo’s lip quivers, and he squeezes his eyes shut for a long moment, taking in a breath and holding it so that Eichi’s breathing is the only sound in the room.

Then he opens his mouth and sings, the gentle spill of lyrics a steady rhythm. It isn’t his part but Eichi’s part, and Leo shifts his voice to be in Eichi’s range as best he can. Eichi follows it, commits every note to memory with his ears even as his eyes catalogue everything they can see, too – the color of Leo’s hair in the school lighting; the way his throat works around every words; the way Leo keeps his eyes shut as he sings what Eichi needs to hear.

Halfway through, Eichi thinks he has it, thinks he can grasp the notes well enough. He joins in, cautiously, and tries to ignore the way Leo’s eyes are glassy and wet when they open. He follows Leo’s lead, holds onto the notes. It’s only one song, it isn’t nearly enough, there was more than just one song in the plan for the live, but Eichi doesn’t know how much time they can spare.

He doesn’t know how much time he can spend listening to Leo sing to him without risking wanting to hear it forever.

Leo stops after the song, and so does Eichi: they look at each other for a long moment, and for once, Eichi isn’t sure what Leo is thinking. He isn’t sure what he should be doing, right now – he’s the fallen Emperor facing down a fallen King, and the distance between them is filled with all the mistakes they’ve made up to this point.

Slowly, Eichi drops his hand away from Leo’s sleeve. The fabric is bunched, now, wrinkled around the edges, but it shouldn’t be noticeable to anyone that isn’t looking for it.

“Make sure you sing all your notes right,” Leo says, taking a step away from Eichi. “I’m counting on you not to mess things up, Emperor!”

Eichi leans in, like he might take another step forward, like he might try to close that distance between them – and then he doesn’t, offering Leo a smile, instead. He knows that just makes the distance worse, the same way it always has, but there’s something comforting in the normal state of things that Eichi doesn’t want to reject, yet.

“I’ll do my best,” Eichi says, and steps away, leaving as easily as he’s done a hundred times before. He tries not to think about all the times he’s turned his back on Leo, because it should be a practiced motion, by now.

In the week following Tsukasa’s decision to personally drag Leo back and refuse to allow their wayward leader to stray, Duel or no Duel, Leo finds that he doesn’t actually have much time to think about the sheet music Eichi still has, or how exhilarating it felt to be side by side with Eichi again. Like old times, maybe, except that now they both have scars they never anticipated, and the dynamic has shifted so drastically that Leo doesn’t even know what notes he’d apply to it anymore.

Things are, for the first time in a long while, going okay. His Knights have fallen back into sync with him so easily he can’t imagine how he could have tried to reject them, and even if he’s a dirty and battle-worn king, now, he knows that he’ll keep leading them into battle. Even if Ritsu is still oversleeping and Arashi is too worried about his makeup and Izumi pretends he doesn’t like anyone, Leo thinks Tsukasa is going to singlehandedly drag them all forward whether they like it or not.

It’s a nice feeling, to think that there’s a future for Knights that may manage to shrug off all of the tarnish Leo put on them. He spends his energy writing new songs on every available surface, up to and including a sleeping Ritsu’s arm, at one point, much to Tsukasa’s chagrin. Overall, it’s easier than Leo thought to lose himself back in the rhythm of school, of lives, of a unit that he loves more than anything (except Ruka-tan).

Leo manages spend so much time thinking about his unit, in fact, that he manages to entirely forget about the song he wrote Eichi until he catches himself rewriting the refrain on the back of his math notebook. He jerks back from the book when he realizes, reaching out to start to rip off the back cover – and then promptly stopping, because class is still in session and he doesn’t want to run the risk of trying to eat it.

He flips his book over, instead, and looks out the window. It wasn’t like he was paying attention to class in the first place, and he isn’t planning to start doing it now. He keeps one ear open for the sound of the next break, and as soon as it hits he’s out of the classroom and slamming his book into the burnable trash as quickly as he can manage.

“What are you doing.”

Leo is interrupted from his minor victory by a voice that he doesn’t necessarily want to hear interrupting his reverie.

“Ah, Se~na!” Quick, cover for it, pretend that he isn’t throwing away his math book and – oh, he might need that later, huh… too late! Leo flings himself forward, instead, reaching his arms out for Izumi with well-practiced ease. Izumi, with the same ease, just tolerates it with an irritated huff, turning his face away from Leo and ignoring the way Leo presses his face into Izumi’s neck like a cat.

“That’s not an answer,” Izumi says, with all the resignation of someone who knows that it’s pointless to fight against the whims of the naked king. “Get off, you’re being weird again. You’re missing lunch.”

Izumi does not, pointedly, try to actually push Leo away. Leo’s arms go around Izumi’s deceptively small waist and hold there, easy and contented, practically purring. Izumi is familiar in his arms and his hands know just where to go, it isn’t like –

It’s with a certain stab of guilt that Leo realizes he’s comparing Izumi and Eichi, and he shoves the entire thought process aside, locks it in a box, and sends the box to the depths of the oceans where he’ll never have to worry about it ever again.

“Eat lunch with me, Sena!” Leo chirps, instead.

“I already ate,” Izumi says, and when he moves, it’s at a sedate pace, slow enough that Leo can move with him, slow enough that it isn’t a big deal. Leo’s good at moving in sync with Izumi – that’s part of why they work together so well at “Knights”, isn’t it?

“Really?” Leo sounds dubious, even to himself. He knows Izumi has a bad habit of skipping meals. Well, it’s not as though Leo has any room to talk, really…

Izumi looks at Leo, and Leo slowly leans back, loosening his koala grp on Izumi.

“Hey,” Izumi says, once the moment has drawn out long enough for Leo to be well and truly anxious. “Why did you come back?”

There are certain moments that Leo has experienced in life that make his stomach drop, bottom out and rearrange itself artfully somewhere near his feet, and this is one of them. He grasps wildly at potential answers for a moment before he manages to recover himself.

“Ah-ha, if Sena didn’t want me back, he should have tried to—“ he starts, pitching his voice up into the best imitation of his kingly self as he can manage, even as he starts to remove his arms. He’s made a terrible mistake, hasn’t he? He’s made all sorts of terrible mistakes. He’s a terrible mistake.

“That’s not it,” Izumi says, and he reaches up, grabs onto Leo’s wrists before Leo can pull away entirely. Leo looks down at Izumi’s grip on his arms, then back up to Izumi’s face, resolve to laugh the entire situation off wavering dangerously. “I wanted you back.” It looks like it hurts Izumi to have to say words like that, to be so deliberately affectionate.

Leo doesn’t know what to say, in the face of a confession like that. He could confess his love for hours, proclaim that he loves Sena from the top of the school, and it wouldn’t carry any more weight than his other thousand declarations have. It’s different to hear it from Sena.

Leo opens his mouth, but he can’t grasp the words that he wants to say when he doesn’t even know what it is he’s trying to convey.

“You didn’t come back for me,” Izumi continues, because Leo isn’t filling the silence and someone has to. His tone is matter-of-fact, and Leo can recognize that it’s to prevent the hurt from welling up and spilling over. Izumi takes in a breath, sharp and taut, and looks away. “You came back for him.”

For a second, Izumi isn’t Izumi at all. Those blue eyes are so achingly familiar that for a second, silver hair turns blond and all Leo can smell is disinfectant and tea.

“Sena,” Leo says, to cement it down. This is Sena, Sena, his Sena, who has always been there. He reaches up, puts a hand on either side of Izumi’s face and holds on desperately to the person that he’s meant to be seeing and not an afterimage. “Sena, you’re my knight—“

“I’ll always be your knight,” Izumi says, and he brings a hand up to place over Leo’s. He starts to curl his fingers around Leo’s, and then hesitates, dropping them both and pushing Leo a step away. “You’re my king, dumbass.”

Leo doesn’t know what to do. His hands stay in the air, like he might still be able to hold onto Izumi if he concentrates hard enough.

“You’re my king,” Izumi says, and averts his eyes again. This is all too close to real emotion for someone like Izumi. “Even if you’re his, too.”

Leo’s hands don’t drop until Izumi has walked away and he can press his palms hard into his eyes. Seeing spots in his vision is better than the alternative, when his breath can’t come naturally and his heart is pounding in his ears.

Eichi has bruises in the shape of Leo’s fingers on his hips, and it isn’t because of anything fun. He presses his own hand over the marks while he tries to catch his breath backstage – it’s hidden and as quiet as it can be, when he can hear lingering applause from the audience. The ground is a good as place as any, tucked in a corner with the feeling of the cool wood beneath him.

“Hey,” Leo says, peering down at him, damp with sweat from performing under the stage lights. “Are you dying?”

“No,” Eichi says, and it’s probably true. He reaches up and wraps the end of Leo’s scarf around his fingertips and pulls.

“—Tenshi!” Leo hits the ground next to Eichi with a noise that echoes, hard enough to bruise his elbows. He only just avoids slamming into Eichi himself, which is for the best, even if Eichi doesn’t think he’d have minded. “—ouin! Tenshouin! What do you think you’re doing!”

“Rest with me, wandering tsujigiri,” Eichi says, twining the scarf more around his hand. The only way to escape is for Leo to take it off, now, and Leo sets himself to trying to do it, even if the angle is awkward. Eichi keeps shortening the length of the scarf between them until there’s barely any room left and they’re face to face.

Leo’s eyes glow like a cat’s, even in the darkness. “There’s a performance,” Leo says, but he stops trying to detach the scarf from around his neck and puts a hand on Eichi’s shoulder, instead, steadying his slightly precarious position.

“Our parts are done,” Eichi replies, because it’s true in more than one way. Graduation isn’t that far off, anymore, and they’ll both be retiring from their roles soon, entering an entirely new work force with people who have never known them as the king and the emperor.

Eichi can’t tell if he likes the idea or hates it.

“Then why are you still here? You should rest somewhere less inconvenient than the floor!”

It sounds hilarious, coming from the king that so routinely sits on classroom floors to scribble musical notes across walls, desks, and people. Eichi can’t quite blame him for trying, though. Anything to fill the silence between them. It’s a gap that was never there before; the silence was formerly a way for Eichi to hear the reassuring sound of Leo’s pen scratching across paper. These days it’s just tense with the weight of all the things they haven’t said to one another.

“I wanted to see you,” Eichi offers. It’s not entirely true – his body is betraying him, as it always does, but he doesn’t want to raise Leo’s alarm any more than he wants to raise Keito’s or Wataru’s – but it’s true enough that it isn’t an outright lie. He usually wants to see Leo.

He lets the scarf fall from his fingers and waits for a moment to see if Leo’s instincts will have him immediately pull away. Leo doesn’t. He bites his lip, instead, shifting his weight until he has one leg in between both of Eichi’s and can look down at him, propping himself up with his hands on Eichi’s shoulders.

“I never know what you mean,” Leo confesses. “I don’t understand you at all.”

Eichi reaches up and threads the end of Leo’s ponytail through his fingers, just below the costume ribbon that keeps it pulled back. Their faces are close, in the darkness, and Eichi’s stomach churns with something almost like anxiety.

“I don’t understand you, either,” Eichi says, and his voice is quiet. If he’s too loud, he’ll break the tenuous mood they have here, with the distant sounds of the stage and applause. Everything feels like a dream, with Leo’s hair soft between his fingertips. He can smell his shampoo. It hasn’t changed.

“Ou-sama,” Eichi says, carefully, and he knows that he’s moving closer to Leo like a Leo has his own field of gravity that Eichi is being effortlessly pulled into.

“Eichi! Are you back here?”

Keito’s voice is the interruption that Eichi didn’t anticipate, and he and Leo snap away from each other. Leo jerks his head all the way back, slides off of Eichi and runs before Eichi can think to even try and tighten his grip. He’s gone so rapidly that for a moment Eichi thinks that it was a dream, a drug-fueled hallucination when Eichi is in the grip of pain.

The ribbon from Leo’s hair is still in Eichi’s hand.

“I’m here, Keito,” Eichi says, pushing himself shakily to his knees and slipping the ribbon into his pocket. “I was just resting.”

Tsukasa cries when Leo and Izumi graduate. Arashi cries, too – much more theatrical, dabbing at his tears with his handkerchief and draping on a visibly irritated Izumi. Leo actually isn’t sure that Ritsu made it to the graduation ceremony for a good long while, but he’s there in the end, and that’s what matters. Probably.

“I’m gonna start calling him ou-chan,” Ritsu says, draped over Izumi’s shoulders and patting Tsukasa’s head while their youngest child cries into Arashi’s shoulder.

“That’s cute,” Arashi says. Tsukasa hiccups.

“That’s not a word,” Izumi says.

“You’ll do great,” Leo reassures Tsukasa, because despite the fact that Leo himself tried his hardest to break Knights up less than a year ago, he really does want to see them continue on. Even without him. Especially without him.

“Leader,” Tsukasa says, and there’s the muffled noise of a sob before he flings his arms around Leo. Leo staggers back half a foot before he manages to get his ground, and then he picks Tsukasa up, albeit a little awkwardly, and swings him around.

“Su~o!”

Leo manages to duck out on the crying before his own tear ducts rebel against him, and it’s a good thing, because even Izumi was starting to get a little misty-eyed. Ritsu wanders off to go harass his brother, and Tsukasa winds up distracted at the last second by picking a fight with the small pink one from fine, and Leo makes a haphazard dash to the front gates before he can get roped into any other sorrowful goodbyes.

It’s fine, he tells himself; it’s just graduation, it isn’t like any of them are dying. There’s university and jobs to look forward to, and even if the idea of leaving Ruka behind makes Leo want to die inside, he’d rather move out than risk locking himself up for weeks on end again.

A car pulls up to the school, and Leo stares at it without really taking in what he’s seeing until Eichi steps out of the school gates and towards the car.

“I thought I would be the only one leaving early,” Eichi comments, and Leo stares at him and the way the sunlight refracts off his hair.

“I thought you’d stay until the end,” Leo says, and the fact that he’s falling so easy into a paralleling Eichi’s words is both familiar and vaguely discomforting. “You’re the student council president, so shouldn’t you be—“

Leo breaks off when Eichi starts coughing. Leo’s eyes track Eichi’s handkerchief automatically when he moves it away from his mouth, and he’s relieved that there’s no blood on the fabric.

He shouldn’t care so much, maybe, but the idea of Eichi dying is still something that makes his whole chest seize up.

“Don’t die,” Leo says, a little too hurriedly to be anything but honest.

“I’m not dying so easily,” Eichi says, but his smile is thin and wane.

“Well, good!” Leo shoots his voice back up, letting it fall into the range of an untouchable king, like he isn’t worried at all. He might have managed to keep up the act, but when Eichi steps forward his leg gives out, and Leo reaches out automatically, wraps his arms around Eichi to keep him standing and wonders when Eichi became so frail.

There’s a rustle as the driver of the car gets out.

“We’ll take you—“ the driver starts, reaching for Eichi, and Leo tightens his grip without thinking. Logically, he should hand Eichi over, he should let what’s probably Eichi’s personal security detail take him home or to the hospital, but all he can do is remember how Eichi looked spread out on the white hospital sheets with an oxygen mask on to help him breathe.

Leo doesn’t want to abandon him so easily, this time. Not when Eichi came back for him.

“I’m coming,” Leo interrupts. Eichi coughs, but he curls a hand into Leo’s uniform like he’s clinging on for dear life, so Leo just shifts Eichi’s weight a little so he can get the door and start to awkwardly slide into a car that’s far nicer than anything Leo’s ever ridden in before.

“That’s—“

“It’s fine,” Eichi says, gathering his strength about him until he can slip into the seat next to Leo. He manages to drag himself upright and get the seatbelt on, but his breathing has a high whistle to it, and his face has the pinches look of someone that’s in pain.

The driver looks equal parts annoyed and frustrated, and Leo can relate, because he’s pretty sure that’s how most people feel about Eichi (and, probably, about Leo himself), but he gets back in and starts the car regardless.

“I’ll be taking you to the hospital,” the driver says, in a voice that leaves little room for argument.

“It’s just a cold,” Eichi says, but doesn’t protest, letting his head fall onto Leo’s shoulder. His lips are tinged blue as he trades attempting to breathe through his nose for his mouth, but it doesn’t look like it’s much better. The whistle in his airways is ringing in Leo’s ears like tinnitus after a concert, but without any of the victorious adrenaline.

“I wrote you a song,” Leo blurts, because he can’t handle any more of the ringing that fills the silence between them.

“Will you sing it for me?” Eichi asks, his voice quiet. Each word is deliberate, the need to cough clear, but he doesn’t give in.

“No,” Leo says. “Don’t be stupid. It’s a duet. The part that I gave you—“ –accidentally, several months ago—“is only part of it. I need your help with the lyrics. I don’t know the ending.”

“Oh,” Eichi says. His breath is warm against Leo’s collarbones. “Then we’ll sing it together, as soon as I’m better.”

“Yeah,” Leo agrees, because it’s easy to agree with things like that, things that don’t involve the idea of Eichi dying. It’s just a cold, right? Eichi hasn’t died yet, but something about it being graduation and the shift into adulthood makes Leo anxious. Everything is already changing, who’s to say –

“You’d better not be off key,” Leo continues, before he can keep thinking. Eichi’s fingers twitch, and his hand rises only to fall back down, and Leo grabs it automatically. He threads his fingers through Eichi’s. “Your fingers are like ice! You should wear gloves if you’re going to be this cold. You couldn’t even use a microphone!”

“Mm,” Eichi says, a noise that doesn’t quite count as a proper response, but Leo keeps talking regardless. If he fills the space between them with chatter, he can’t hear that whistling in Eichi’s throat; if he keeps his eyes forward, he can’t see the blue in Eichi’s lips; if he keeps his fingers wrapped around Eichi’s, then Eichi’s fingers won’t be cold to the touch anymore.

“You can’t rely on headsets, they don’t always pick up the notes as well – which is okay if your composer knows it, but you can really utilize the capabilities of a microphone more than people think! You shouldn’t be boring about it—“

Eichi wakes up and knows he can’t be in that bad of shape, if all he has is a nasal cannula instead of an actual oxygen mask. His throat is sore, and he can tell without looking that his arm is a mess of bruises from trying to find a vein that would allow for an IV.

He’s used to checking over himself whenever he wakes up in the hospital. There’s a routine that he goes through that he’s done since he was a child, taking in the deepest breath he can and making sure he can feel everything, that he can move everything. He rouses into a more awake state with the motions, rolling his legs and twitching his fingers as the distinct sound of humming washes over him.

When he opens his eyes, he isn’t surprised to see Leo. The shock of ginger hair paints the room like a sunset, and when Eichi realizes what the warmth in his hand is he tightens his grip on Leo’s hand.

“Good morning, ou-sama,” Eichi offers, and his voice is rougher than he was expecting.

Leo stops humming immediately and puffs his cheeks out, doing his best impression of either a furious cat or a defensive pufferfish. One of the two.

“It’s three in the afternoon! What kind of an emperor doesn’t wake up until three in the afternoon? Everyone else has already been by to see you!” Leo gestures emphatically at the table in Eichi’s private room, which is filled to the brim with flowers and fruit and every sort of gift imaginable. He can make out some of them – a bouquet that’s obviously from Keito, given the content; a box of sweets that looks homemade and exudes an aura of black magic is likely from Ritsu; an extremely over the top flower arrangement made entirely of roses is probably from Wataru.

“An emperor without a kingdom,” Eichi offers, moving his eyes back to Leo and offering him a smile. He tries to sit up, but the world swims in an alarming way, and he lowers himself back down immediately. From what he remembers, what he’d thought was a mere cold had turned to pneumonia, and then there’d been something about this and that and antibiotic resistance. It wasn’t the worst illness he’d faced.

“You don’t deserve a kingdom, you’re sick all the time,” Leo huffs, but he hasn’t moved his fingers out of Eichi’s grasp no matter how weak it is.

“Was that the song you wrote for me?” Eichi asks, and Leo’s cheeks flush all the way to the top of his ears.

“I’m still not singing it to you until you’re better,” Leo replies, like that’s an answer. It counts, Eichi supposes, and he finally tugs his hand out of Leo’s grasp so that he can reach up to touch his cheek, instead.

Leo’s skin is warm, and Eichi’s eyes flutter at the feeling. He wants to wrap himself up in the smell and the warmth of Leo, to bury his face in Leo’s chest and feel what it’s like.

Well, the nurses would probably frown on that…

“You asked me if we were ever friends,” Eichi says, his voice barely above a whisper. He moves his fingers across Leo’s cheek, even when Leo freezes, looking down and going shock still. “I wanted to tell you that I wanted to be.”

Leo inhales, slowly, like he isn’t sure of his own breathing. Eichi’s breath is coming too easily in his lungs. Adrenaline, maybe, the high of the confession unleashing a torrent in Eichi’s chest that even the remnants of pneumonia can’t begin to compete against.

“I don’t want to be friends,” Eichi continues, softly. Leo’s breath catches, and Eichi slowly pushes his chin up so that he can look into Leo’s eyes. They’re shining. They’re always a brilliant green, but the unshed tears reflect the sunlight back at Eichi until it’s almost blinding.

“I won’t settle,” Eichi says, “for just being friends with you.”

Leo looks at him, for a long moment. There’s months and months between them. Eichi didn’t just burn this bridge, he nearly annihilated it, and the fact that he’s trying to repair it now may not do any good when there’s barely even a surface to start paving over, but he has to try. He’s wanted to fix things since he broke them, and even if they can’t manage to fix what they had – well. Eichi will settle for having something else.

“You’re not a king anymore,” Eichi says, and his voice is soft. It’s harder to hear how hoarse he is from coughing when he speaks quietly, and Leo only leans closer, presses his face slowly into Eichi’s palm. “And I’m not an emperor, and I don’t need a knight.”

“Then what do you need?” Leo asks. “Stupid emp—stupid Tenshouin, why don’t you ever just come out and say what you mean--“

Eichi breaks him off with one of the more irresponsible things he’s done in recent memory, pressing his lips to Leo’s. It uses all his strength to surge up, and he can feel how chapped his lips are when they press against Leo’s, he can feel how much warmer Leo is than Eichi, he can feel Leo’s pulse quicken where Eichi’s hand rests at the side of Leo’s throat.

When Eichi pulls back, Leo blinks, and a tear runs down his cheek.

“You could have just said that months ago,” Leo says in a rush, and he manages to look very cross for someone who just unintentionally admitted that he’s been thinking about it at least as long as Eichi had been. Eichi had known that from the song, but –

“Is everything all right in here?” The nurse leans into the room, looking only vaguely curious instead of overtly worried. “Your heart rate is elevated.”

“Ah,” Eichi says, glancing down at the arm that’s been rendered more or less useless between the IV and the pulse monitor. “Everything is fine, we were just talking.”

The nurse raises a slim eyebrow, but accepts that, because the Tenshouin family pays too much money for nurses to pry into Eichi’s private affairs. His heart rate isn’t that elevated, at any rate, even if it feels like it’s pounding out of his chest.

“If you write your part of the song,” Leo says, “then I’ll consider it!”

Leo leans back in and presses his forehead to Eichi’s, and Eichi exhales with a clarity he’s surprised his lungs possess.

Eichi’s money buys an apartment in the city where Little John has his own room and doesn’t need to sleep on top of Leo’s piano. She does it anyway, of course, because that’s what cats do, and Leo doesn’t try to stop her.

Eichi theorizes that she’s just imitating his owner, and Leo disagrees, because Leo has never slept on top of a piano. Eichi gets about three items in on his list of “weird places Leo has slept” before Izumi chimes in, and then Keito chimes in, and then Leo has to cover for his embarrassment by insisting that at least one of those times it was the fault of aliens.

“Anyway,” Leo insists, and changes the subject to Keito’s latest manga serialization, which is much more embarrassing, probably.

There are about twelve million things that Leo wasn’t expecting, when he moved in with Eichi. He expected the oxygen and the doctor’s appointments and the luxuries of the rich. He didn’t expect that Eichi would have no idea how to use a washing machine, or that the entire floor below their apartment would wind up rented out by the Tenshouin security detail, or exactly how heart wrenching it would be the first time Eichi woke up in the middle of the night unable to breathe.

Slowly, Leo rebuilds his memory bank, allows the new to replace the old. The memory of his first heartache at Eichi’s hands is slowly overwritten by the memory of Tsukasa nearly setting their stove on fire; the memory of the weeks he spent locked in his bedroom is replaced by the housewarming party that wound up becoming a “gather the two dozen doves Wataru has released” party. He replaces the memory of Eichi’s face, pale and drawn with an oxygen mask, with the vision of Eichi’s head against his shoulder, colors lighting up his face when they watched the fireworks from their balcony.

Eichi refuses to let Leo change the title to his song, and Leo finally relents enough to sing it with him anyway. The first time through, Little John sings along, and they keep the recording saved on both their phones.

“I love you,” Leo says, over and over. He says it every morning when they wake up, and every night before they go to bed, and every time Eichi is admitted into the hospital. He says it whenever he can, because Eichi says it back, and always presses a kiss to Leo’s lips whether they’re in public or not. Leo always thinks that it’ll wear off one day, but weeks stretch into years and Eichi still smiles at the words and repeats them back and makes Leo’s heart flutter dangerously.

Leo writes another song: it’s a story about a king and an emperor and a forbidden love. It’s not the sort of song that would ever get any radio play, in part because Leo’s left the ending unfinished at the pivotal scene.

“Tenshi,” Leo says, when they’re alone and Leo is stretched across the couch and Eichi’s lap, competing for prime real estate with Little John. “I have another song I need your help with.”

“Hmm?” Eichi says, carding his fingers through Leo’s hair. One of Wataru’s magic shows is on television, the volume turned low enough that Leo can hear the summer cicadas outside. Leo sits up, even if it means Eichi’s hand slips out of his hair, and grabs the sheet music out of a clear file that features one of Arashi’s photos on it.

“Yeah,” Leo says, “I need to know whether I should write “yes” or “no” in this line here.”

“Are you proposing?”

“I’m writing a song.”

“Well,” Eichi says, and reaches out to tug Leo closer, “it wouldn’t be a very good ending if the answer was “no”, would it?”