Work Text:
ただ、ただ君だけを描け
I just, I just picture you
— 藍二乗, ヨルシカ // ai ni jou, yorushika
i. me (俺)
“are you happy, ban?”
“of course i am,” he says, like there's no reason to doubt it.
yuki makes a soft humming noise, considering. it's getting late and one of them should hang up, but it feels like one of those nights where they both stay up too late. there's some rustling from yuki's side and the slide of fingers against guitar strings, like it cannot wait to start singing too.
banri's forgotten the last time he'd picked up a guitar. the calluses on the tips of his fingers are soft now even if he still remembers the shapes of chords and the feel of strings against his fingertips, another testament to the passing of time.
“that's good then.” there's a soft note, a strum, a chord hanging heavy between them. “i want you to be happy.”
i wanted the same for you too, banri thinks. yuki's started plucking now, soft and gentle and not particularly yuki. it sounds almost familiar, like one of the songs that have been playing on the radio, or some old song that escapes banri. but yuki stops suddenly, hands over the strings to stop the music.
“ban?”
“yes?”
“ban.”
“yes?”
there’s a long pause. “just checking you’re still there,” yuki says, his voice soft, almost inaudible.
the words sink in his chest, heavy with the years between them. “i am,” he says. “i’m still here.”
ii. a dream (夢)
the wind. the waves. the sea. banri has been here before in some distant memory, except it isn't really that distant. he's sure if he looks, he'll find yuki somewhere behind him, attention caught by something in the wind.
except maybe, it is just him alone on this endless beach. maybe, the ribbons around his wrist do not tie him to anyone anymore, fraying ends trailing in the wind. maybe he'd been the one to cut it, if the scissors in his other hand are any indication.
ah, how lonely it is.
iii. regret (後悔)
banri likes what he does. sougo and tamaki are a sight easier to manage than yuki, even with two of them. everyone else at takanashi productions says he is reliable and dependable, and idolish7 treat him more like an older brother than a manager. they make him laugh with their earnestness, their straightforwardness, their desire to keep pushing forwards and onwards.
it's not that he's unhappy with how things turned out. it's just that sometimes—
—sometimes he still wonders about the them that could have been, if they'd kept going. where they would be now, if yuki would have become someone more dependable by now. if they would have kept writing songs together, late nights and early mornings. if he would still feel that strange thing in his chest that ached anytime it was just him and yuki and their guitars and the music they were writing.
if he’s honest, he might say he misses it. if he’s honest, he might pick up a guitar just to feel the comforting shape of it pressing into his thigh, the way his fingers curve over the frets. if he’s honest, he might say he misses seeing yuki look up at him and the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled, that everything had been enough but not quite nearly enough at all.
banri thinks it's too late for regrets; he’s never believed in them. he'd made a choice that changed their lives, the same way yuki had when he'd asked banri to form a band with him. he doesn't regret it, but it doesn't mean he doesn't occasionally think about what they had then and what they could have been if things hadn't turned out the way they had.
iv. a choice (選択)
sometimes the choices you make are just the choices you can live with, not the ones that make you happy. he looks at re:vale now and the smile on yuki's face, the way he still can laugh so openly and he thinks that there is a kind of happiness there too, even if it’s no longer his alone.
good things were always meant to be shared, and banri would never begrudge yuki any happiness the world had to offer, just as he never could have accepted any choice that meant yuki had to clip his wings or stifle his voice.
if he had to make a choice again, he would choose this again, the path to yuki’s happiness, always.
v. memory (記憶)
the wind, the waves, the cry of seagulls overhead. yuki sitting on the sand, head tilted up to the sun. he looks like he might fall asleep there and then.
they'd gotten a train out here on a whim, and banri's glad they did. already, it is soothing his frayed nerves. already, yuki seems to be less unhappy in his skin. they’d walked the length of the beach and back, barefoot, hands brushing, shoulders bumping. now they’re sprawled on the sand, wet sand cool under their feet. his shoes are neatly placed side by side, whereas yuki’s are just carelessly tossed next to him.
fingers curl around his wrist and he glances down at yuki, who has a strange look on his face.
“what is it?”
yuki just smiles at him and shakes his head, but he doesn't let go either. banri shifts his grip, twining their fingers together.
the smile yuki gives him is blinding.
vi. you (君)
he’s doing working late, waiting for sougo and tamaki to finish up with their current show. yuki is yawning, but these phone calls have become something of a habit now.
“you should go to bed,” banri chides gently. he knows yuki’s been up since six that morning for some guest appearance on a morning show, then had a busy day with rehearsals for an upcoming live. there's another yawn and some shuffling about, like yuki's settling in. banri wonders if he's going to fall asleep at his table again, wonders if he’ll get cold if he does, if there’s anyone to get him a blanket or chase him to bed. he still hasn't learned how to stop worrying about yuki, it seems.
“i wrote a song for you, you know," yuki tells him, apropos of nothing. banri raises an eyebrow, but yuki can't see him. he must sense it somehow, if only because they know each other that well. “i thought i would quit music after that last song,” he says quietly.
that makes banri feel guilty. yuki now is far stronger and more resilient, but banri remembers a younger yuki that he’d looked after. yuki had been far from helpless, but he’d been flighty and unreliable, solely focused on the music he wanted to make to the detriment of everything else. banri had taken care of everything else; because he had been selfish enough to want to hear yuki sing and keep singing. he’d always thought everything else could come after they’d made it, and they very nearly had.
he doesn't ask how yuki made it through after he’d disappeared, because he doesn't really have the right anymore, nor does he want to bring up this old pain between them.
“you're still here,” banri says quietly.
there's a soft laugh from yuki. “i guess i am.” he sounds distant, like he's drifting off again. banri can almost picture yuki's smile, the familiar curve of it set against that old room with the leaky tap and the messy dining table, the tiny balcony that could barely fit one of them. the guitars crammed into the corner to make space for the bed that really wasn't nearly big enough for both of them, the sagging shelves of the cupboard where they stored their clothes. it hadn't been the greatest or the best, but they’d made it work somehow.
yuki yawns again and he checks the time; sougo and tamaki should be done soon. he should go wait for them outside the studio.
“i need to go,” he says.
“okay,” yuki says, but he doesn't hang up.
“okay,” banri repeats, softer this time.
he looks at his watch again. a couple more minutes can't hurt.
vii. memory, again. (記憶、もう)
the amp screeches when banri plugs in the jack and he winces. yuki’s already plugged in and is fussing with the wires, rearranging them just so. people are calling their names, excited to hear them perform. anticipation hangs heavy in the air as the two of them step up to the mics and greet the audience. a nod, and then they launch into it.
banri’s always thought that there was something magical in the way yuki sings, how he throws himself into it wholeheartedly. it’s not just him witnessing it now, he thinks. a lot of people have come to watch yuki sing, to listen to the music they are making, and the thought makes banri proud of where they are now.
they’ve come a long way from messing around in banri’s old apartment, scribbling songs on the back of school notebooks after classes, trying to get gigs in the area that didn’t side-eye them for being too young, staying up too late because the music couldn’t wait. they’re standing on bigger stages these days, more people coming to hear them, cheering them on. re:vale now is more than two teenagers trying to get people to hear them.
banri’s breathless and sweaty at the end of the set as they thank the audience and make their way backstage, but the performance high has him smiling so wide his face hurts. yuki has a similar smile on his face, laughter bubbling out of him now they’re out of sight. the way yuki laughs is infectious, the kind of joy that can’t be kept in.
banri laughs with him, the sound of it resounding in his heart, something to hold onto forever.
viii. us (僕ら)
one summer’s day, a vending machine clanks as banri gets another drink for himself, having offered yuki the one he’d originally gotten. one summer’s day, they start a band together. one summer’s day, they are sitting on the floor with their knees touching, bent over a piece of paper as they start writing a song that will become theirs in a way none of the other songs will.
one summer’s day, he leaves the hospital and starts over, praying that this will let yuki make the music he wants to make.
one summer’s day, banri sees yuki for the first time in five years. there’s a strange longing in it, the way he wants to reach out and see if yuki’s hand will still meet his halfway, the words that he wants to say pushed aside in favour of good-natured scolding.
one summer’s day, he and yuki walked along an empty beach hand in hand, talking about a future that never materialised, talking about a forever that had ended with the crash of a stage light, leading them to a now where they stand before each other again, their lost years between them.
one summer’s day, they remember their incomplete selves all those years ago, now walking different paths.