Work Text:
The lights are out all through the house. A young boy sets his half-rim glasses to the side, the dull clink against his glass of water reverberating in the emptiness. He sits up in bed and waits.
Tap, tap.
He slides his window open and greets his familiar ray of sunshine with a smile.
"Come fly with me." He invites, hand open and warm. The boy picks up his glasses and takes his hand and follows him past the garden, feeling the winter chill even in his warmest butterfly pyjamas.
He follows the sunshine boy out the window, and he's shown places he could never see in the daylight. They make snow angels and Rei swears that the sunshine boy's angels are perfect, even if his glasses are covered in frost.
"Will you come tomorrow?" The boy asks.
"Always." He replies.
Rei closes the window and sets down his glasses. He writes his favourite things about his sunshine in his diary and sleeps for exactly two hours.
---
"Come fly with me." The boy says with a smile. Rei chases him out the window.
The sunshine boy takes him to their secret spaces and they play together until he realises there is someone else around. He's stoic and silent and slightly older than them.
"Who is he?" Rei asks.
"Another." The sunshine replies. "He gets lonely just like you."
The intruder looks out of place but the sunshine boy's smile for him is just as bright as it is for Rei. He takes both their hands and they play in the Autumn leaves.
He feels jealous, he realises, of sharing his sunshine with this boy. He feels jealous about anyone who could possibly take him away from him.
He thinks, this stranger with his deep blue eyes could be everything he is not.
The boy remains silent and when Rei returns to his room he finds it hard to sleep.
---
"What happened to the other boy?" Rei asks.
He hides the fact that he couldn't be happier about the missing member of their group.
"He's not lonely any more." The sunshine replies.
"Will you stop seeing me if I'm not lonely any more?" He asks, hands shaking, eyes stinging.
The sunshine gives him a sad smile and it seems so out of place.
"If you're not lonely you won't need me." He answers.
Rei's eyes fill with water but they stop as the sunshine boy wraps his arms around him, holds him to his chest.
"Don't cry," the sunshine boy hushes. "it's good to not be lonely."
He thinks that he might very well spend the rest of his life lonely if it means having the sunshine boy all to himself.
---
"Come fly with me." Comes his invitation. Rei steps out his window taking the sunshine boy's hand for support.
He takes one step, two, three before falling to the ground, legs shaking.
"What's wrong?" The sunshine asks, pressing his warm hand to Rei's warmer forehead.
"I'm sick." He explains, body trembling as it becomes too hot and too cold all at once.
The sunshine takes him in his arms. He carries him back to his bed but Rei holds on to him for dear life as he lays him down.
"I wanted to see you, can you stay with me?" He begs in a whisper. The sunshine lays him down on the bed and lays next to him, and Rei thinks that surely he's dreaming.
He feels a hand glide across his sweat-slicked forehead and Rei swears he feels a pair of chapped lips touch him ever so briefly.
He holds him until he falls asleep.
Rei wakes up the next morning and finds himself alone, wrapped only in blankets. He was hoping his sunshine would stay with him, press his lips to him once more, hold him and never let go.
He realises he loves the sunshine boy more than anything else.
---
Rei sits in his class, and he thinks how funny it is that the real sunshine takes away his colour.
He spins his pen as he pays no attention to the teacher.
He drowns out his mind with anything, everything but he's brought back to reality when he sees a droplet on his notebook.
He breaksbreaksbreaks and lets out a muffled sob as he presses his head to the desk. Each member of his class turns to look at him and they murmur.
He reminds himself there really is no use in crying, after all it's what the sunshine boy said. He excuses himself from the class.
He runs to the bathroom and washes his face, watches when his face slowly lose those unsightly red patches. He takes the medication out of his pocket and swallows two pills. He counts backwards from one-hundred.
---
"The sunshine boy." He tells the woman behind the desk. She raises a quizzical eyebrow.
"And who is this sunshine boy?" She asks and Rei realises no matter what he answers he won't be able to give a satisfying answer.
"I have a friend who comes at night." He decides to tell her, because she's here to listen to him, after all. "He hasn't seen me in a while but I know he'll come back for me."
The woman writes takes notes on her paper pad.
"Do you know his name?" she asks and it occurs to Rei that he doesn't.
She asks him so many questions about him, and he feels uncomfortable sharing him. She listens and probes and he has never felt so exposed.
She talks to his parents in a private conversation later on and they sit him down and tell him it's okay to like boys and that there's nothing wrong with his mind, just because he has friends that aren't real.
He screams and screams and screams, he tells them he's as real as can be.
He touched his hand, he played with him when no-one else would. And he's so lonely and he wonders why he would ever leave him.
He slows down with each worrying glance his parents give him until he can say nothing at all.
He questions his own mind.
---
Rei hasn't slept in four days.
He nurses his cup of coffee that he stole from the pantry. Gives the bitter liquid a sip and keeps his eyes locked on the window. He tells himself he will come again, that somehow he must have slept through each opportunity so far.
He leans against a giant penguin plush his parents bought him, a 'friend to tell your problems to' in their own condescending words.
He waits and waits and waits until daybreak.
His parents find him sobbing into his pillow, ask him what the matter is.
He tells them his sunshine didn't come, tells them he can't wait any more. Tells them all about his wonderful beautiful sunshine boy and how he's forsaken him.
He admits for the first time in his life, he is lonely and afraid.
His mother calls her work to inform her boss she isn't able to attend today.
---
It's his ninth day of high-school, nose buried in a book, alarm on his watch set for exactly ten seconds before his stop.
He drowns his mind in theory, in the perfect angles to achieve the most beautiful pole-vault. Memorises what the position of his feet should be as he runs, the moment to take off.
His watch beeps, he swiftly stops it and slots in his tassled butterfly bookmark.
He steps out of the train one stop early, preparing for his daily jog to school.
Tap, tap.
He turns to the sound and he thinks he's imagining it until he sees the boy from his class knock from the train door's window, his bookmark in his grasp.
He sighs and resigns himself to the fact that he will never see the bookmark again as the train pulls out. That is until he arrives at his locker and finds his bookmark staring back at him, laid out on top of his shoes.
He ignores it and changes his shoes over, heading to the library before class begins.
---
"Heeeeeey Ryuugazaki!" The boy calls out. Rei turns the other direction but finds him leap into his path.
"You can't ignore me forever you know." He smiles and winks and it makes Rei feel a little sick.
"I can." He retorts, walking around him. He catches a brief glimpse of Hazuki's face, disappointed but in a childish way.
"I don't see why though." Hazuki ignores Rei's irritation and follows him.
"You want a reason." Rei deduces rather than asks. Hazuki nods enthusiastically, looking more serious than he'd thought he could be capable of. Rei clears his throat.
"Well, the matter is simply that you do not exist." He says calmly before walking away. Hazuki lets out a sound of surprise before he hears the patter of running behind him.
"I exist, how can I not?"
Rei does not acknowledge him, after all it's better to be safe than sorry. Even if he did, one more person thinking he were crazy wouldn't matter.
Hazuki pulls on the back of his shirt, begs with all his might for him to listen to him.
Rei swipes at him walks off muttering the same words over and over again;
'The mind is a powerful thing'.
---
"Rei honey, can I talk to you for a moment?" says his mother, a look of concern on her face.
Rei turns away from his homework, questioning.
She clears her throat, deciding what the best way to phrase her question is.
"Well a classmate of yours just came to the door." She stalls for time lost in thought.
"Who was it mother?" He asks.
She clears her throat.
"A Mr. Hazuki, asking me why you seem to think he isn't real? Are you having troubles with him at school?"
Rei laughs, too boisterous.
"Oh mother, that's because he isn't real." He continues his laugh but peters it down, as he wonders why she isn't joining in.
"I... see." She looks out the window for a moment before directing her attention back to her son. "I'm certain he's real, after all he just talked to me."
Rei sighs.
"The mind is a powerful thing." He recites. She knows the line well, he has twenty notebooks full of that very line after countless psychology sessions.
She simply nods and excuses herself.
He doesn't let on that he hears every last word of concern in a phone conversation she has with his father.
---
Rei's mechanical pencil scratches on his notebook. He aligns his ruler to the page and strikes down.
Tap.
Glances behind him, watches Hazuki from two seats back and one to the right tap his fingers on the desk.
Tap.
His eyes boring into him, wide and focused.
Tap.
He turns back to his own sheet, sets up his page for the next topic.
Tap.
He clutches his stomach and gasps, timing his breath as to not fall into another bout of hyperventilation. His chair and desk screech as he pushes both, needing more space, more room, more air.
He feels everyone's eyes. He excuses himself to the bathroom and rushes out, ignoring the abrupt chatter that follows.
Rei washes his face, counts backwards from one-hundred. He reaches into his pocket for his blister pack and pulls it out.
Empty.
He groans and sinks to the floor, leans his head up against the sink cabinet. He counts backwards again, trying his hardest to compose himself, drown everything out.
The door squeaks open, but he ignores it. There is nothing for a few moments until he feels a warm, hesitant touch to his back.
Despite his will he sinks into it, lets himself fall into comfort.
The next thing he knows his head is laying in Hazuki's lap as he cards his fingers through his hair, and even if he doesn't exist he lets him for just this moment.
"You can't exist." He murmurs to himself rather than Hazuki. His fingers stop petting his hair but they're still there and they feel so real.
"I'm not sure what that means exactly." Hazuki replies. "I most certainly do exist."
Rei blows air from his nose and he realises he's calmer than he has been in years.
"You're too kind to exist." He justifies, and Hazuki seems to stop breathing as if he were so startled.
He resumes petting him, letting the moment fall into comfortable silence, and they're both surprised that Rei is the one to break it.
"You remind me of someone I knew once. Or I invented, rather." he explains and Hazuki says nothing.
Another moment of silence passes before he speaks again.
"I don't understand something though."
"What don't you understand?" Hazuki asks.
"How you didn't just give up after I was being horrible."
Nagisa sighs and thinks for a moment.
"You were never horrible to me. And I see you alone a lot. No-one deserves to be alone."
Before he knows it, Rei is quietly sobbing into Hazuki's thighs and holding onto his hands for dear life. Hazuki remains silent, rubbing the back of his hands with his thumbs, lets him vent.
Rei thinks 'why did you leave me' over and over again, but Hazuki won't understand what he means so he keeps it to himself.
Eventually he hands him his bag collected from the classroom, Rei takes his tablets and finally calms down.
---
Nagisa lays with Rei in his bed, spooning him, stroking his hair, sparing the occasional kiss to the back of his neck.
Rei reaches up to hold his arms, wrapped around his own torso.
"Will you be here when I wake up?" He asks and Nagisa giggles because it's routine for him to ask now.
"I'll stay as long as you want me to."
Rei realises he's smiling, actually smiling for the first time in a while. For once, he decides, the homework can wait, everything can wait and time can just stop in this moment forever.