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"You played the wrong chord. Do it again."
"Father, I'm already..."
"Again. Until you play it right."
The very moment the last song of their playlist ends and the lights turn off, a gnawing feeling settles inside of Toya. Not that he could name it — it's always been hard to pick his emotions apart — but there's something about the way the audience's cheers quietens, the clapping faintens, and Akito's expression darkens, that leaves him somewhat restless.
Toya just barely catches a glimpse of Akito gripping hard on his mic from the corner of his eye, and he briefly loses control over his own breath before the lights blind his eyes once again, and Akito takes the stage.
"We're BAD DOGS!" His face shines bright under the stage lights, as it's always been. It's comforting. "Thanks for coming!"
The audience cheers again, and Toya is kind of able to regain his composure. But it's then that Akito turns and walks towards backstage with thumping footsteps, and speaks to his ear in a low, almost grumbling voice.
"We're leaving, Toya."
That hollowing gut feeling settles again, and it's maybe worse than it was before.
He doesn't say anything though, and goes after him like he's always done ever since their unit was formed. It's what he's always been doing; following, following, following... Following directions from someone who's projecting his unrealistic expectations onto him, following the steps of someone who saved him from being lost and running away directionless. He's fine following for now.
So they go down the livehouse's stairs. Their footsteps echo through the walls of the alleys in Vivid Street, and it's a noise Toya finds anything but calming. He hates silence, he hates that Akito hasn't said a single word since they got out. As soon as they step out, it's raining — raindrops fall over Toya's scalp and drop like ice to his face.
That's when Toya decides to risk a small part of him, perhaps because he trusts him — a little too much. "Say, Akito."
Akito doesn't respond. It's still raining and he keeps walking, hands on his pockets, and Toya notices his jacket is starting to get a little wet too. There's no light surrounding his silhouette; it's too dark, too quiet besides the sound of rain falling down to the ground. Toya breathes in, and he shivers a little. He continues. "I can't tell what it is exactly, but something felt off about today's live, don't you think?"
He still doesn't turn to look at him, but he snorts, and Toya feels his stomach turn when he speaks again. "Wonder whose fault was it."
And it's strange — the way he looks down to the puddle-filled asphalt. He feels like a scolded child, a child that's never been allowed to say what he believes, what he thinks, what he feels.
"This isn't really about blaming..."
It's then he turns, startling Toya and making him face back up. Akito's eyes do not seem like his, they take him to a place he wants to forget, a place he thought was far, far away now, a place that wouldn't hurt him anymore. "But what if it is?"
Akito's stare looms over him. Toya freezes. No moving, no talking — he fears what might happen if he dares do otherwise.
"Listen, Toya," he speaks again, and the tension seems to loosen up for a bit but the knot in his chest doesn't go away and it's driving him up the corner. "I can tell better than anyone if something's off about our gigs, when and who did it." He pauses, walks towards him and Toya holds himself in his place like stone. He hopes whatever he's feeling right now does not show. "Even you, who bugged so much about pitch and timing and whatever the fuck not, managed to mess it up."
You messed up, the words ring in his ears, like an off note. He messed up, he messed up. He made a mistake, he got it all wrong and now...
"Akito, that wasn't..."
"Yes it was!"
Akito takes a sudden step, hostile, and pushes Toya into the wall. The pain spreads through his body whole and numbs him — Toya doesn't even notice when Akito grabs him by his jacket and punches his face. This is his punishment, this is what he deserves for failing him, this...
Toya bears with the pain in his cheekbone so he could catch a glimpse of his face, and it's a horrifying realization; that the expression Akito is wearing will engrave into his mind like a cursed painting — like a music sheet his father made him play time and time again until it hurt, like the face his father made every single time he made played the wrong key or went too fast or slowed too far down, and made him feel small, useless, replaceable. Akito was uncannily similar to his father then, showing him with the bare pain of his fists hitting again skin that he would not allow his son to be anything other than a prodigy.
"We practiced," Akito hits him again, Toya feels his frustration, the rage in his ear. "We practiced," another fist to his face. "We practiced, we sang, we polished what we could, and yet..." Every hit feels weaker, more desperate. "And yet, you still manage to fuck it up?!"
His screams turn deaf, and only then Toya notices the air he's been holding, how fast his heart has been beating, of how weak, how fragile, how humiliating he looked at that very moment. Akito is now grabbing his jacket with his both hands, with a grip so hard it trembles, and shows him again that face that now chases him, haunts him...
"I can't surpass RAD WEEKEND if we keep up like this!!"
Akito's last punch goes to his stomach, and it's punitive enough to make Toya drop to the floor, finally breaking in tears and fear and everything he did not imagine would come out after this, putting his arms over his head and shrinking himself like it wasn't humiliating enough, like he was a kid; helpless, fearful, with no way of asking for help because of the terror that was engrained in his mind if he dared ask for it.
"Shit." Akito mumbles — Toya can barely hear amongst the noise in his head — and it sounds like silent, disturbing realization. "Shit, shit— I'm sorry, I didn't…"
Toya is shaking, put into his most vulnerable form at force, and just barely conscious to know Akito is seeing him like this. Akito then sighs, aggravatingly so, and walks away. No, no... Toya almost voices his thoughts. Akito was leaving. Akito was leaving him, because of him, because he messed up, because of whatever he did to make him so mad. Because he made a mistake so stupid like that, Akito, who saved him from his own demons and made him find a place in which he could belong, was going to leave him alone and lost and Toya wouldn't know where to go—
The rain stops suddenly. "C'mere." Toya, still trembling, looks up, and there he is. Akito, holding out his hand, umbrella in the other and with a face right now he can't read, but... "Let's go home. I'll treat you coffee at WEEKEND GARAGE or somethin', just...
It's gentle.
He stares at his hand — every fold, every vein —, with wonder and fear that Toya still can't digest. He still feels like a lost child, looking for someone to guide him, that takes him under their wing and teaches him something better than what he grew to know.
Toya takes his hand and it's so warm — he could melt, drown in the touch. Despite it all, despite how low they would go, despite how many times Akito would take out the worst of him, he would always take care of Toya. It's how this all works.
Akito lifts him from the cold ground, and they start walking; side by side, hurt and fragile, but Toya is sure that, if it's alongside him...
Akito puts a hand to his waist and pulls him closer, mumbling a 'You'll get sick' as a flustered reasoning for the closeness they're now sharing. It's like this, Toya thinks. His face hurts, his stomach is still churning in instinctive fear, but he just knows.
That Akito will always be his only home, and wherever they would go, if it's with him, he'd be safe.