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The notes rang out, sweet and crisp as they floated away and bounced back off the vaulted ceiling of the ruined theatre. There were still a few scraps of deep burgundy velvet… in an arch way… a few stained and ruined seats in the boxes… but mostly it had been stripped to concrete by decades of scavengers and wanderers. There was paint everywhere. The stage. The walls. The floor was a chaotic mess of a thousand different tags overlapping each other over something that must have at one point been coherent. In comparison the ceiling looked relatively freshly painted. How anyone got up there Kurogane never could know, but there in the spray paint, were angels and gods and monsters.
He let his gaze fall back to Fai, in a coat and scarf against the chill. His hands were covered with leather gloves Fai had bought casually back in Mitte as they left their hotel. He’d handed them over to Seishiro to cut off the finger tips. Kurogane had watched him do it with a growing sense of unease over how practiced Seishiro looked with his knife.
They were here somewhere, in the balcony or rafters. Seishiro and Subaru moved almost silently, only every few minutes a kicked stone or soft laugh giving away were they had gone.
Fai’s notes slowly shifted into little scales and arpeggios, getting to know the piano. Where its wires had pulled out of tune. Which keys were stuck. Kurogane watched from the proscenium moulding as Fai sat with it, center stage.
They were breaking maybe ten laws already. Five that a person could really get in trouble for. But after years as a lawer at the record label, Kurogane had learned that things were always different for the rich and famous. Fai had been the first for a while now, and it looked like he might soon become the second.
That and they’d all looked at him with varying amounts of derision when he’d tried to stop them.
“Kurgs, Subaru does this all the time. You don’t have to worry.”
“I just don’t want you out of sight.”
“I promise, just there and back.”
Kurogane had not missed the judgmental little eyebrow Subaru had raised as he packed up his guitar. Fine. He could be judgemental. He didn’t have a partner that disappeared for weeks without warning. Even if he had forgiven Fai, he was still feeling the bruises of being abandoned in Japan, some of them literal like the ones on his knuckles.
“At least let me go with you. In case.”
And Fai had just laughed softly at his concern.
“In case what?”
“In case,” he’d insisted, not wanting to spoil things by listing out every danger.
“It’s really not that much of a risk,” Seishiro assured him, coming back into the room, annoyingly blase about the whole thing for someone whose job was security. “Statistically speaking, Subaru is safer in a dark alley than he is on a sidewalk in broad daylight.”
Subaru’s attention shot up. “Really?”
But Kurogane wasn’t about to be distracted. Seishiro met Subaru’s gaze, and gave him a little non verbal shrug. They could talk about it later. For now he concentrated on Kurogane.
In the end Fai had settled things before they could escalate with a “You know what? I need you anyway. Carry this. It’s heavy.” A familiar case of recording equipment was handed over and Kurogane had the dubious victory of becoming the expedition's pack mule. After that Seishiro had insinuated himself into the group, if for no other reason than to spare Subaru an afternoon of being third wheel to a bickering couple.
Kurogane had been quiet after that, and it seemed Seishiro had the instinct to do the same. Of course things were different now, but they did their best to let Fai and Subaru collaborate without distraction.
In the theatre, Fai’s fingers finally fell still, and the last of the notes echoed into silence.
Then from the stillness, the warm strains of Subaru’s acoustic guitar. First six notes, tuning the fine little changes it had felt on their journey, then a few chords, full and round. Fai sat, just listening, smiling softly as he closed his eyes and got a feel for the sound.
When he too fell to silence, Fai let it breathe, almost a full minute before he brought his hands to the keys again. He started gently, simple and slow… Then it rose to something more… something far more classical than what Kurogane normally heard when Fai was working. It was the same embellishments. The same tendency to show off. The constant want to create something warm and full and embracing. For a moment Kurogane felt again the pain of everything that had been taken from Fai. This theatre should have been full. There should have been more than a machine and Kurogane’s own ears to witness it. But he took a deep breath and tried not to let the anger get in the way of listening. He owed Fai at least that much.
Then Fai eased again, notes soft and inviting.
And from some hidden place in the balcony, Subaru began to play.
Kurogane could see as Fai smiled, warm and satisfied. He began to follow Subaru, answer the breaths between phrases. It was different when he listened to Subaru. When he played with him. He looked so happy, leaving riddles in the notes. Happier still when Subaru could solve them and respond with his own little musical questions. They kept going… Kurogane completely lost track of time as Fai pushed them to something bigger. Something more complex. And Subaru for all that he for all that he could do with his guitar, couldn’t quite keep up, limited by what the strings and wood could do.
All at once Fai’s playing dropped off, foot down on the pedals but breathlessly letting his hands come to rest.
Kurogane’s eyes went wide as he realized what he was trying to do. He watched as Fai stared into the wings, so deeply hoping and wishing as he waited. This was clearly Subaru’s moment, but Fai was feeling the pain of going through so many of his own.
At last… after minutes of silence… no. Minutes of the half imagined chord reverberating through the room…
Fai heard the snaps of a case and he breathed out in silent relief. It was a few minutes more and some quietly plucked notes before a new sound began… clearer… stronger… almost like a voice. After so much time, Subaru had his viola in his hands again.
Fai was gentle at first. Slow… supportive. Playing only where Subar was leaving room for him. But soon Subaru was feeling it… remembering the ease and freedom his viola could give him. How much stronger… more precise… how expressive…
Then Subaru stopped thinking. Stopped trying to write anything that made sense. He just let go, letting a long silenced voice speak. Fai grew to something more beneath him, taking him to new places, urging him to find everything he’d forgotten.
Eventually Fai stopped compensating for the piano. He let his fingers hit poorly tuned notes and let keys stick and stumble. Seishiro was the only person close enough to witness Subaru’s grin as the surprise delighted him. Soon he was hitting the strings, letting his notes slide uncomfortable and discordant. Letting his bow drag so raw that it almost felt violent. Pushing Fai right back.
It built… until at last Subaru’s viola crescendoed with what was almost a scream. For a moment all was still. Then Fai took a breath and began with the soft and gentle intro he’d first played for Subaru. After a few bars Subaru caught his breath again. Soft notes found a melody Fai had tried before… weaving the song back together with itself. Creating an edge to the tapestry that made it feel complete and whole.
The song ended, predictable and gentle. The familiar pattern of closure Kurogane had heard over and over from the symphonies and operas Fai sometimes played on their radio when they had nowhere to be all day.
When the echoes had passed and there was no sound from the balcony, Fai quietly stood and found Kurogane again, hugging him for long minutes. “We should go,” he eventually said quietly.
Kurogane nodded, letting Fai go and moving to pack up the recording equipment, but a hand on his wrist stopped him. He looked back curiously and Fai just shook his head.
“Fai?”
“The song belongs to Subaru,” he said with a bittersweet smile. “Let him have control of it.”
Kurogane swallowed, coming closer to Fai once more. “It’s yours too.”
Kurogane first thought was that it was about more than just the music, but he corrected himself. For Fai, in the end… the music was everything. He was constantly recording melodies and experiments. Finding things he could pic apart and reshape to fit someone else. But he could own this. He could publish it. In his own voice and his own name.
Fai looked up at him, staring deep into his eyes. Fai squeezed his hands and leaned up for a kiss. Soft. Warm. Tender. Just like Fai’s thumb as it brushed over the bruises on his fingers. “One more time,” he said softly, speaking from just a breath away. “Once last song I’m going to give away, but this one by choice.”
Kurogane touched his forehead to Fai’s, chest aching for him, knowing none of his words could possibly be enough for the moment. “I love you,” was all he could think to say.
“I love you, too.”
They walked back, hand in hand through the sunset and then darkness. Being used to it, Subaru might have found comfort in Berlin’s little pockets of apocalypse, but Kurogane and Fai breathed a sigh of relief as they came back to city life and street lights.