Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There’s a pounding in her ears, blood thrumming in her veins, making its way to her head, threatening her ear drums with the risk of them bursting. The contents of her mind would leak out as if the dam built up in her brain finally let go, crumbling against a river of thoughts. Her throat is closing, the dryness causing her to cough loudly in the once peaceful silence of three in the morning. Before she knows it, she’s throwing the blankets off her body in a rush, eyes blinking rapidly, trying to get a sense of her surroundings. Her eyes try to adjust to the pitch black as she scrambles blindly, hands reaching towards the bedside table. With a click, the lamp is on, shining a deep yellow light around her.

She’s drenched in sweat, dark spots growing on the silk sheets below her. As she sits up, her soft pink nightgown is now sticking uncomfortably to her skin, adding another stressful stimulus to the ever-growing list.

Feet slip down from the bed. A single glance tells her that she forgot her slippers downstairs after dinner, right before making the trek up for a shower. A shower that means nothing now. She grimaces, peeling the front of the dampened garment from her chest before finally settling her feet on the cold hardwood.

She winces but rises, practicing a breathing exercise taught to her by a close friend (“We’re all going to need this, better to learn it now than suffer later.”) as she stumbles about the dimly lit room. She avoids the vanity, covered with a floral sheet that is starting to grey due to a thin layer of dust. The maids don’t question it anymore, don’t touch it or try to clean it, less they face the wrath of the queen.
But she wouldn’t be angry, wishes they knew that, wishes they knew she wasn’t him.

Instead she thanks a baseless god for the lack of explanations she’s had to give. If the sheet were removed, she would catch one glimpse and then be drawn in. Sitting down and staring mindlessly into nothingness, emptiness, an abyss she didn’t really understand. She dealt with that a month after everything ended, not again. It’s not like it mattered, makeup was useless pastime when you couldn’t see the result.

The door creaks, a noise that makes the pounding in her eardrums grow louder. Curses the old house, perfect in every way but incapable of escaping the ever-threatening presence of time. Wood settles, paint chips, maids and maintenance try to fix what they can see, but with something so big, who could blame them if they missed a few spots? Especially the room of a queen who has fallen from her throne.

Peaking across the hall, she slips out the room, trailing along as she brushes her fingers against the smooth paint gracing the walls around her. Picture frames hang all around her, grown obsolete in the absence of pictures. She’s removed all evidence of her existence from her precious castle, as if she were just a ghost left to haunt her biggest nightmare. Her nightmare being the other person who stood beside her in the images, just a glimpse would cause her to spiral. It was easier to just tuck them in storage, hidden deep within dusty books that she rid the home of upon his passing. Bedtime stories now holding memories of a happier time seems bittersweet, but some things from the past belong together.

Luckily, there is no lone maid patrolling around the hallway to apprehend her panic attack. She knows they worry, knows that they whisper when she walks down to the kitchen after not awakening until two in the afternoon, knows that they wonder when she’ll finally get a grasp on herself. She wonders too.

The bathroom door isn’t that far, but the walk feels like a 5k marathon, leaving her gasping for breath. Is it the activity or the panic that grips her lungs, closes her throat, and refuses to let valuable oxygen enter? She pauses to lean against the door frame, bracing for a moment before stumbling onto the tile. It’s freezing, stinging her bare feet and risking the terrifying fate of frostbite. But it’s just a wolf in sheep’s clothing; she isn’t in danger of her appendages dropping off from lack of circulation. Things are just too much, even the simplicity of a cool tile flooring, chilled from a cracked window that a maid accidentally left open to air out the sharp scent of cleaning chemicals.

The vanity in the bathroom is large, sweeping across the entirety of the wall with a matching mirror. There was no sheet big enough to cover it. The queen knows this, knows that she usually turns off the lights, squeezes her eyes close until it hurts, emotionless tears dripping from the corners as she stands and lets the water rain down on her as hot as she can manage.
But tonight is different.

She avoids looking up, eyes set straight on the ground, counting tiles as she ambles forward to close the window. The feeling of the glass against her fingers is sharp, painful with the cold of winter seeping into her bones. Everything is so cold, she doesn’t know the last time she felt the warmth of sunshine, summer, and beach trips with those closest to her heart. It’s been like this for two years, it’s the new normal.

She knocks into the knob of a drawer, eyes shooting up as she realizes her fallacy with a small curse. Never loud enough for any eavesdropping maids to hear, it’s unladylike for a queen to say such foul language, not like she could dampen her image even more. Her hands fumble with the knob, drawing it forward and grasping for a small white bottle. The rattle of the contents inside is louder than expected, causing a wince and the blood to begin drumming again as if it were a hundred-piece percussion symphony. But she manages, rolling the cap between her palm, pulling it off and letting a white pill rest on her tongue. Before the bitter taste can dissolve into her taste buds, she’s already gulping down water from a cupped hand, leaving the faucet of the sink dripping slightly.

More staring at her hands gripping the vanity rather than looking up, more breathing exercises while his soothing voice echoes in her mind, more fidgeting of her feet against the cold tiles, cursing herself for forgetting such a vital item such as slippers downstairs. Stimulus needs to be muffled, everything needs to be like a stereo system that can be set on the lowest volume, no bass, no treble, no reverb.
Minutes that feels like hours pass, her grip loosens, and her eyelids are growing heavy. Color begins to reappear on knuckles that were a stark white just moments before. Wringing out her hands, she glances up, the light is on this time. There’s no pressing her eyes closed until the moment the water shuts off and she’s hurrying out the door in nothing but a towel. It’s time to stop running, even if it’s just for one small breath of time at three in the morning.

Her hands stroke through once vibrant, caramel brown hair. Fingers get caught on a tangled curl, tugging it free causes a wince of pain to shake through her, but it’s good. It’s grounding. A feeling that isn’t just cold snaking its way under her skin and freezing all her organs to a startling stop. It’s longer now, tickling her shoulders with split ends. She reaches towards a small stand holding accessories and pulls a hair band on her wrist with plastic cartoon pandas attached. A gift from a friend from what feels like an eternity ago but was likely two weeks prior. Time doesn’t make sense anymore, nor does it matter when you only leave bed for meetings with the palace council and to put something in your stomach before it caves in on itself.

Her hands are grabbing at her hair, pulling it into a short but tight knot behind her head. The tightness of its grip pulls at her scalp, but at least now she can get a good look, to stop hiding behind a floral sheet.

Her face is gaunt, cheeks sunken in just the slightest below her cheekbones. There are fading freckles that dot the bridge of her nose, the delicate apples of her cheeks, once hidden behind layers of concealer due to the bright summer sun darkening them on a fairly eventful class trip overseas (“I think they’re beautiful,” a soft voice echoes somewhere already lost.). Another change is that she’s older, face less round and more angular in the jaw. Her eyes are dull, lacking the twinkle of an excited teenager on a wild adventure with her friends, instead being replaced with a grey film that resembled a tired, overworked factory worker.

The comparison was a mistake, bile rising to her throat. She spits once in the sink, filling her pressed-together palms with more water, letting it rush down her throat to soothe the burn before it turns worse. It’s time to stop hiding.

Sometimes it’s only yellow that she sees. A striking color that she assumes her irises took on during her Awakening. It’s not like she’d really have a reference besides the glow of her father’s and Sae’s during their palaces, she was too late to see the others’ awakenings. Always too late, always too far along to save others from their fall from grace.

The yellow is a reminder of what’s gone, a piece of her soul, a piece of rebellion that was there for her. Power, absolute power and strength. Now only despair has replaced it.

She doesn’t remember the trek back to her room until she’s curled up in her bed, the plush mattress pressing against her back as she scrolls through a phone of the latest model. Of course it is, of course the council wouldn’t leave her with any less. But does she even deserve their mercy? Does she deserve a luxury where others collapsed from exhaustion, never to rise, on land that is now under her name?
She avoids social media, instead just dragging her thumb across the screen, reading the words of a small, cheesy romance novel that she’s been trying to push through for the last month. It’s too early to start getting ready, to get a meal to sustain her the rest of the day, but too late to go back to sleep, lest she risk appearing like a zombie in front of the council. Not like it’s much different from how she normally is, but after being reprimanded lightly from a maid following the last meeting, she’s been more conscious towards that sort of thing.

Nothing processes in her brain before she settles her phone down beside her, realizing that she’s reread the same paragraph five times without retaining a single word. A pause. She grabs her phone against, pressing a thumb clumsily to the bottom of the screen, unlocking it before she begins to scroll through a small list of phone numbers, contacts of her closest friends and business partners. Council members and confidants of the queen.

Her thumb hovers hesitantly over one name, followed by little emoticons of a panda and a purple heart. There’s a gentle longing in her heart, a hand reaching out from inside her to try to grasp at a connection that she’s be actively tearing down without meaning to. Her eyes glance to the window where the curtains shift lazily with the breeze of an AC unit connected below. The sky is pitch black, and with that realization is when her decision is made.

She quickly thumbs back up to the top of her contacts, pausing momentarily before pressing a bright green call button. There are a few moments of repetition of the ring, buzzing in her ear at an irritating volume. She accidentally brought the stereo dial to a five with the phone instead of a calming one, something that would’ve punished her if she hadn’t already had her nightly panic attack.
“Hello?” Echoes into her head, interrupting the rumble of thoughts like the slicing of an axe. Ironic.

Her mouth opens, but instead of words, the cold air seeps in, drying out her tongue and throat. It feels like sandpaper grinding against her vocal cords, keeping her from spilling out the river of thoughts. The dam already broke earlier but there is nowhere for it to go, the dryness of her throat soaking them up like a sponge, never to reach her mouth and to the ears of the person on the other end.
“Haru?” A tired voice repeats, this startles her, she self-consciously twirls a finger through the end of her hair. Yes, that’s her. That’s her name, though it sounds like the calling of a stranger, a shadow of what once was.

“Hi,” she murmurs, voice like gravel. Haru politely coughs into her elbow, clearing out the phlegm like a good, courteous queen would. “Akira-kun.”

There’s a yawn on the other side, very quiet but noticeable. She’s warily looking at the vintage, analog clock next to her bed. The yellow light from the lamp illuminating the hands, showing it to be almost four in the morning. Time had gotten away from her.

There was a pause on the other end, she realized he was giving her a moment to collect herself, to explain the issue. To try to explain why any sane person would call someone else at four in the morning, just an hour until the sun rises.

“It, ah…” Haru pulls the phone from her mouth, holding her other hand against the mic as she exhales deeply. Her nightgown is still damp, she really should’ve changed out of it during her moment of life-questioning and self-discovery, also known as a visit to the bathroom to ride out her panic attack.

“It happened again,” she draws the phone back towards her, lips close to the receiver.

There’s rustling on the other side, covers being pushed to the side she assumes. There’s a disheartened “mrow” that can barely be heard, if she were to breathe in that moment, she would’ve missed it. Her heart twists and tugs inside of her. Not only had Haru disturbed one person from their peaceful slumber with her nightly ramblings and anxiety, but two.

“Let’s breathe, okay?” The voice is distorted, but still too kind, too warm, desperately trying to overcome the chill and thaw out her insides. Before she knows it, he’s running through the motions with her, counting, holding, releasing. It takes a few minutes, but her heartrate is down to a calming level, the panic attack from earlier finally making its leave with the anxiety built up inside of her. “Better?” He asks from the other side.

He feels far off, a world away, though she knows he’s only a short train ride and a small five-minute walk from the station. Haru is tired. She’s so tired and her eyelids are betraying her, fluttering lightly as the gentle breathing coming from the speakers soothes her. “Yes,” she murmurs. “Very much so.”

She can almost see his smile on the other end. “Do you want to talk about what set it off this time?” His sleepy voice prods at her, trying to coax out the inevitable.

“Gunshots,” Haru explains in a frail, shaky voice. “In my dream of course, but… He was there.” She’s explaining, but not straightforward, not explaining of the “he” is Father or him. Akira knows. She knows that he knows and that’s good enough.

Guns use to be her specialty in the Metaverse and Palaces, her careful eye and quick reactions lead to her being an expert shot. But it feels tainted ever since the revelation in the boiler room, that the gunshot she thought she just imagined upon leaving Father’s Palace was a reality. An end to the reign of the King.

There’s a thoughtful hum. Akira is thinking through his words. Haru thanks him silently, he always knows what to say, always takes time to pick out the right words, doesn’t overstep or tread on the fragile land that is Haru’s heart. One wrong word could set her off, not in anger but in despair and self-doubt.

“You’re okay,” he assures her, voice getting smoother and gaining confidence the more he wakes up from the disturbance of sleep. That’s their Joker. “Just remember we’re never going to experience something like that again. What’s in the past is over, and we’re never going to hear things like that or see things like that, yeah?” The final word lifts at the end, ever hopeful in Haru’s time of need.

She has a gentle smile set on her face before she even realizes what is happening. She touches it lightly with dry hands, lips feeling chapped, yet a glow set deep in her heart. “Yeah,” Haru responds, bringing the hand back down to lay limp in her lap. “Never again.”

They’re chatting amongst themselves afterward, Haru instigating a change of subject by asking Akira what classes he has in the morning. Lucky for her, they’re all in the afternoon, scheduled that way so Boss could have a morning with Futaba twice a week while Akira watches over LeBlanc.

Before she has a second to say goodnight, she pauses against. Akira notices the gap in conversation and stays quiet, listening expectantly and politely for Haru to continue. With a new sense of calm and confidence, she’s inhaling deeply again, preparing.

“You know how you cut your own hair when it gets too long?” She doesn’t give him a chance to respond before she’s speaking again. “I need some help. Maybe tomorrow evening after your classes and my meeting with my advisers?”

It takes a few moments of silence for her to assume Akira is processing that “some help” means going at her long, tangled hair with a pair of greedy scissors.

She doesn’t answer his question afterward on why she wants him to do it. Haru knows that she can’t face the others yet, not after a week of radio silence. Yes, she’s been on the spiral downward for the past two years, but she has never abstained from contact for longer than a day or two. Now a week has passed, a week ignoring texts from the name followed by panda emoticons, a week ignoring an endlessly ringing phone, a week letting the final string snap that has held together a dying friendship.

“No problem then,” Akira confirms to her delicately, there’s a soft rumbling coming from the speaker, an indication of a purring Mona laying in his lap, drifting back after an interrupted snooze. “I’ve got you, Haru.”

There’s a cool metal scraping lightly against the skin on the back of her neck. She’s curled in on herself, wrapped in an overly soft towel, watching as tendrils of brown fall into the tub. The extra layer from the towel is comforting, like a small shield protecting her from the outside world. It’s a fleeting feeling however, as in the next minute the cutting is over, and a trivial weight on her head has lessened.

Her knees creak as she rises, wincing a little at the stretch after she’s been cramped up for nearly thirty minutes. She didn’t think there were so many tangles and mats lodged deep into her curls, but Akira was there to prove her wrong, continuously snipping away a year’s worth of neglect. He holds out a hand for her. It’s far too warm, far too soft and kind, hands slightly callused most likely from constant use of a pen in class and meticulous cafe work at LeBlanc.

Haru steps over the wall of the tub and settles herself down on a plush stool by the bathroom vanity. She keeps the towel wrapped tightly around her, shivering slightly from a few steps on the frosty tile. The window was left cracked again; the bathroom freshly cleaned for the second time in just a day. It seems as if her late night breakdown wasn’t entirely unnoticed. The maids have eyes like a hawk, always watching.

The younger man is kneeling by the tub on dark, worn blue jeans. They fit more loosely than Haru remembers, signifying the decline of muscle mass. Daily excursions to the Metaverse always kept them all in peak shape, even Haru noticed the definition in her arms and legs. Muscles allowed her to stride bravely across Palace terrains, tearing down Shadows left and right without a care in the world. But now there’s no Metaverse, no Shadows to curl around the minds of the people around her, dragging them into their selfish desires. This should be a happy occurrence, a grace towards mankind. But instead, she just feels empty.

He’s scooping up the longer pieces into his hand, bringing them towards the trashcan on the other side of the bathroom. The smaller pieces that don’t threaten to clog the drain are swirled down with a turn of the faucet. He’s on his feet again, wiping stray drops of water onto his jeans as his hand gently rests on Haru’s shoulder. She’s startled from her thoughts again, eyes trailing up to meet his as he slowly turns her in the stool to face the mirror.

Fingers begin to feather through her hair, she’s pulling her hand through without much thought, releasing a few stray pieces leftover from the trim. Where her hair was once brushing against her shoulders is now just a few centimeters above her chin. Shorter than she usually had had it a year prior, but not unwelcome.

Haru exhales a breath she didn’t realize she was still holding deep in her chest. A weight has been released, physically and metaphorically. While her head sure is lighter, it also signifies a piece of herself that’s she’s been holding on far too long. A piece full of desertion of her appearance, her pride, a lack of care for how she looked and felt.

It’s a simple change, but one in the right direction at that.

“It’s a little shorter than intended,” he’s speaking a little sheepishly, hand going to rub at his neck, a nervous tick developed long ago. “There were just a lot of tangles and breakage… That sort of thing. I know I’m not the best at it but-”

“It looks great.” Haru is smiling at him, eyes sparkling a little, bringing light to what was once glazed with grey.

They clean up the area, tossing the towel into the laundry and avoiding prying eyes of maids as they head down the stairs into the dining area. The house is far too large, far too open and empty, yet they always seem to be watching her carefully, scrutinizing her every move. She can practically hear their hushed whispers amongst each other, questioning Haru’s sanity due to bringing a teenage boy upstairs. How dare she taint the Okumura name, violating the privacy of the home and her image with a commoner to whom she isn’t engaged?

But she doesn’t heed them any mind. Akira is a friend, a best friend, nothing more than that. Their bond was close, him being a sole confidant in her time of need, when facing all the others was a task too daunting for Haru to undertake. It’s not like she isn’t at the age of twenty now, with Akira just being a year her junior, anyways.

She was their senior, supposed to be a shining symbol of leadership for them to look up to. She was supposed to be a good influence, encouraging others to take their college entrance exams. However, she never even sat down and did it herself; a business prematurely fell onto her shoulders. The rest of the time had her being pushed around by The Council, just a figurehead queen, pretending to be a leader while the others tugged on her puppet strings.

Now her past friends further their futures at a college, while she’s trapped at the top of a company she never wanted to own.

They settle themselves at an overly large dining table, solid oak and formidable to any passerby. The lights are dimmed, but Akira doesn’t seem to mind, and if he does, he doesn’t mention it. Haru appreciates that, sometimes the fluorescents are far too striking and overwhelms her after hours trapped in a pitch-black room.

He pulls out a notebook from the black messenger back he has draped over the arm of the wooden chair. While he sets up his studies, black pen held loosely as he twirls it between his fingers, the maids and butlers are bustling in.

With a very fancy white floral kettle in hand, they place down dainty teacups on pink doilies that are slid into place. Haru stares as the teacups are filled with a dark, pungent coffee rather than a refreshing afternoon tea. Her face grows hot, knowing that the maids did this for her, it’s her favorite brew. Expensive of course, but flavorful and mild, not too bitter for her tastes. One of them smiles down as she finishes filling up Akira’s cup, eyes knowing as Haru’s meets with hers, glancing towards her hair and then back. There’s a gentle nod among them and the room is emptied until only Akira and Haru remain.

The raven-haired teen lifts his coffee, smirking slightly as he clinks it with Haru’s matching porcelain teacup. They each gingerly sip, slowly to avoid the piping hot liquid from burning their tongues. Haru relishes in the taste, calm instantly smoothing over her, warmth pulling into the pit of her stomach as she swallows each gulp.

Akira is back to his notebook, going over what looks to be test questions for his class tomorrow. Unlike today, it’s an early morning one, one that Haru knows he stresses over due to it being vital towards his major. She sits silently, staring out the window in the dining room at the setting sun. The sky is an array of pinks, oranges, and reds. She can’t remember the last time she watched a sunset and wasn’t stowed away in her room with the curtains tightly drawn. It feels nice, feels peaceful, to be able to enjoy the silence with her companion as he diligently works on his studies.

“Have you visited him lately?” She breaks the peace, releasing the question that had been building up inside her for days, knowing it would be brought up the moment she called him last night. It’s a new feeling that’s bubbling inside, it is apprehension mixed with a sense of pride. She hasn’t been able to mention him in months, the grief and uncertainty building up until just his name felt like poison on her tongue. Just subtly referencing him has filled her with more dignity than it should.

Akira pauses between sips, turning to follow Haru’s gaze towards the sunset gleaming from the window. The pen slows its twirling between his long, lithe fingers. He’s clutching it tightly once it stops movement, pursing his lips slightly. Haru’s eyes flitter from him and back to the window, not wanting to stare, but catching each change in his body language.

He releases the pen, pulling his hands into his lap, leg bouncing slightly. “He’s refused to attend anymore visitations,” Akira explains, smoothing his pant leg with a shaky hand. “I mean- except for Sae, of course. But that’s a given with her involvement in-“ a pause, “-legal issues.”

She brings delicate fingers to grip Akira’s laying in his lap. His hands are once again so warm, so hospitable, like arms outstretched wide to pull her into a hug. Haru knows that Akira misses him terribly, knows that he is purposely cutting himself off from Akira, knows that the relationship is strained, and Akira is hopeless at what to do. It’s always been like this, been like this for the two years he’s been incarcerated. Now contact is cut off completely.

Haru doesn’t know what she would do if one day she weren’t to wake up to a message with panda emoticons in the title. But knows that the person on the other side has lasted a week without a single reply. There’s guilt brewing inside of her, but this isn’t about her, it’s Akira’s turn to show a glimpse of the pain he’s going through.

He squeezes her hand back, and the conversation once again dies off. It isn’t abrupt, but Haru knows not to pry. Any courteous queen would know not to overstep delicate subjects. Akira never does it for her, and she wouldn’t do the same to him.

The rest of the evening is spent in blissful quiet.