Work Text:
He knows.
He knows that the looks of familiarity you bestow upon him aren’t intended for his person. And yet he relishes in those gazes all the same, selfishly so. He doesn’t care. Your misplaced affections are enough for him, far more than enough. He wants to collect those stars that fall from your sky and hold them near and dear to himself: to bask in that glow from lights not meant for his eyes.
Madara doesn’t care.
He doesn’t care because he likes the homemade bentos you make for him everyday (on the days he’s not there, you give them to some other ravenous idol. Goodness knows what those stars-in-training would do for a lunchbox prepared by the [Name].) He likes when you ask him to meet you in the library after school to help with your homework. He likes the encouraging thumbs up and cheers you give him before concerts. He likes it when he feels the soft press of your stare against him when you think he doesn’t notice.
He knows that you don’t see him. You see your former older brother.
Actually, it’s a funny story — how the two of you first met. You had broken down crying in the school courtyard because Madara just reminded you so much of him . He , who died in a motorbike accident a year before. Madara wore his hair the way he did and even the way he acted was like him to a tee. The boisterous and sometimes irritating affection and the joyful shouting; you saw so much of him in Madara it practically made Madara sick.
When you had seen Madara riding his motorcycle, you ran up to him in a daze and shouted at him to get off of it. Naturally, he was a bit taken back and you had snapped out of whatever trance that sight had put you in. You apologized profusely and hurried away, but not before Madara noticed the shaking in your voice and tears that threatened to burst past your eyes.
Sometimes, he prays desperately to a god he doesn’t believe in that, one day, you would lift up the veil you saw Madara through and still love him. But he doubts that you could love someone like him — you, who were so pure and unaffected by the dangerous dealings of underground idol work; you, who were like rays of sunlight filtering through grey and stifling storm clouds. You, who could not love someone like him. A monster. A demon servant that lived by the mantra of kill or be killed .
On one hand, he hopes that you could still love him in all that he was. On the other, he knows that you can’t.
(Oh, and to expand — he doesn’t just like it when you love him. He adores it. He adores the way you diligently patch his wounds after a somewhat orchestrated fall, brows furrowing and tongue slightly sticking out in admirable concentration. He’d never admit it but sometimes he trips just so you can help him get back up. What an awful man he is.
Madara adores the way you hum his songs when you think no one can hear you; quietly, oh-so-quietly murmuring the lyrics to Blooming World as you file away paperwork and clean up after the other idols. He sees the way you sway and dance to his music, unbeknownst to you the adoring eyes that gaze your way. When you smile along as he sings, he is reminded as to why he chooses to still pursue this path.
He adores the way you sink into the sofa beside him after a long day and lean shyly against his shoulder, muscles slack and eyes fluttering shut. If he could elongate those few moments into a thousand, God knows that he would still be experiencing them now.
This idol hopes that he can love you more than he hates himself.)