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Mitsuba Sousuke knew what a hard life was. Despite his mother’s kindness, and a roof over his head, he knew what it meant to live a life that had obstacles thrown at you from every corner, knew that the world wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows and dreams come true and maybe, they had known it too when they appeared in his bedroom at the opera house two weeks in, maybe his mother knew the world would eat him up and spit him back out when he packed his bags and stalked towards the spotlight on a stage with red velvet curtains, maybe fate had other plans for the boy who lived near the well, constantly throwing down coins in hopes of his wish being heard.
They had come to his room two weeks in, late at night as he feverishly tried to practice, with a lopsided smile and gloved hands that were held behind their back. Rightfully so, he had cursed and screamed and threatened with all the methods he could remember in his head. Yet, somehow, they hadn’t been phased, only grinning with that damn mask covering half of their face, with a weird ensemble of purple and black and a coin they kept throwing up and down. “Heads or tails?” They had asked him when the silence dragged on for too long.
“Wh-huh?” It wasn’t everyday you saw a random stranger in your bedroom, it wasn’t everyday you got to play a random coin game that determined your future within a house that had chandeliers dropping at each and every turn. Of course, had he known that flipping a coin and choosing a side would result in the future, then sure, maybe he wouldn’t have played the game at all, maybe he would have denied the next offer that slipped past their oddly decorated face when the coin landed on tails and he had won zero to four yet again.
That lopsided smile seemed to grow as their lips curled and if he had been any less upset with his sub-par and below voice then maybe, he’d have chosen the boy on the other side of the opera house instead. “Then, if I’ve won all four games and you’ve agreed to keep your promise—” He shouldn’t have made it, he shouldn’t have been so desperate, but a hard life wasn’t indicated by how many bad choices you made and he supposed, for his sake—it had been better than nothing at all. “—I’d like for you to do me a favor, Mitsuba.”
His name had been said softly, almost getting blown away by the breeze if he hadn’t been careful enough to listen, and then those bright eyes stared at him in the dark, curling as they smiled, pupils dilating just until the color was nearly gone from their face. “A favor?” He had stupidly stammered, wringing his hands, playing with the music he had been trying to sing for three hours straight, maybe he would have had better luck with the ballet teacher.
“Yup,” They had chirped like a little excited bird, “all you have to do is….”
“ Sing for me.”
Dreams came at a price, was what he had learned after that fateful night, and while it varied from person to person, changed depending on who was gifting you your impossible chance at fame, his dream had been pulled out from his heart and created into reality before being harshly shattered into pieces. To sing on a stage with velvet curtains, to entertain the mass audience before him as they threw thorn covered roses at his feet, to have a voice that was the leading power behind the opera house— that had been the reason why he packed his bags and left his mother, why he stayed in a house with rumors circulating the halls and goosebumps trailing along his skin.
Glass vases would litter his room, filled with water and roses that had been thrown upon his stage, set on the window sill or on the table of the balcony, maybe even near his bed if he was kind enough to indulge. It had been as if the world had opened up for him then, blue skies and white clouds and the tell tale visits of a boy with a mask over one side of his face, whisking him away down the halls, down and up the stairs, hands expertly sliding across the piano keys like they just knew where they had to go without them even looking and even as he sung, aided by the melody striking like thunder with every slide of their fingers, it felt like magic was being performed and all he had to do was open his mouth and let his voice fill in the gaps with a spell on the tip of his tongue.
The piano was old, dusty and brown yet kept in perfect condition, and the piano bench looked rickety—set to break at any sudden movement—and yet, they had played as if their soul was being puppeteered through the motions. Hands that slammed down on the keys, laughter that bubbled up from deep in their chest, a smile that was lopsided and wide and covered by one white mask where he couldn’t see the other eye. They played as if the piano didn’t shake under their movements, as if each and every melody would become a memory, distant and lost in time, and they had to keep the tempo going lest it fall off and disappear.
Even with the harsh chords and the loud laughs, he sang as if there was nothing else to do in the world and if the rest of the house was deaf to their noise then perhaps, he preferred it that they were the only two to hear each other’s voice.
Then, when all was said and done, he’d find the melody slowly tapering away before it ended, disappearing just as he woke up in the darkness of his bedroom, a brand new rose on his pillow—bright blue and casting a glow as the moon shone down, it was a dark contrast to the red roses littering his room in glass vases, thrown upon the stage in fruitless love that they had called him out on during one of their estranged visits, sitting as far as possible and twirling a brightly colored flower in their gloved hands. “They don’t really love you.” The rose is red and has thorns poking out from the stem, he’s glad they’re wearing gloves, he doesn’t want his sheets to stain. “I mean, they throw these around so effortlessly .”
And really, he wondered how many of the audience had red roses to spare, how many had bought bouquets and thrown them aside whenever he came on stage, smacking onto the floor in piles upon piles of red. How many had thrown them about without a care in the world, entranced by his voice and the melody it carried, sweetly washing over them and filling the opera house with more clapping than he thought was possible. “It’s only logical after all,” they had mused, “you’re better than that girl, breaking her notes and shrieking into the air, I wouldn’t throw her a red rose.” He is better than the girl who passed by him through the halls, popular and prettier and with a room filled with roses, he was the star of the opera.
But all stars, no matter how bright they shone, died out eventually.
“How do you give a rose then, if not by throwing it to your nearest source of warmth?” His voice was as warm as the sun, able to settle down crowds with just a clearing of his throat and their eyes are glinting when they stare up at him and walk forward, trapping him between the wall and their body which was short yet intimidating all the same.
He gulps, stares at those eyes that look like they belong on a predator rather than whoever this being was, and blinks when a blue rose is presented in front of them, that same lopsided smile upon their face. “Like this, of course.” His hands curl around the flower without him meaning to, “right to their face, with no hesitation.” They smile at the end of their words and he lets the rose dangle from his hand as he reaches out, fingers barely grazing the suit they wore.
“Then, would you ever give me a red rose?”
Silence had settled upon them, a silence that felt as if it had wrapped its hands around his throat and was suffocating him with each passing second. The blue rose has no thorns, stem smooth as his fingers glide across over and over, and he thinks— this is the end, this is the deadline— when those bright eyes narrow at him, flecks of gold in the darkness that resemble dreams lost within the hands that had held them for so long. “Would I?” They mumbled, head tilted ever so curiously at his stiff form. “Don’t you like the blue roses I give you? They’re not like the ones you have scattered all over your bedroom like a narcissist.” It’s supposed to be an insult but he can’t deny the amount of red clashing severely with the blue stuck within the same vase, it looks so pretty and yet—he feels disgusted just looking at them.
So, he stepped forward instead.
“Maybe I want a red rose.” Maybe he wanted to see what was under that mask, maybe he wanted to see if their lips tasted like stars and dreams and everything in between, maybe he was desperate to find someone in the disastrous opera house and they were all too convenient to bring their wares and to bring themselves just to make his wishes come true. “Maybe, I just want to see what’s under your mask, or—”
“Under my mask?”
They laugh as if he’s said something funny, he finds it almost insulting. “You can’t see what’s under my mask,” their grin looks too genuine for him to keep staring at, “it’ll make you revolt, go back into hiding, maybe you’ll go back home and never see me again.” The choice of words, and delicately put together phrases, make him drop the rose on the floor all together, stalking forward despite their attempts at stepping away.
Red petals are crushed underneath their feet when he finally has enough, reaching up and grabbing at their face before they can disappear. He can only see one eye because of the mask, one bright and gold and was this how people felt when they wanted to see his other eye? Was this how it felt to want to know something that people never showed to anyone else? “Are you going to kiss me? You’re staring an awful lot,” their voice sounds distorted with a mask covering half their face, “not that I mind but you know who I am, you know what happened, besides…” the lopsided smile returns twitching at the corner of their lips, “…I highly doubt kissing me with a mask on would be so comfortable.”
He knows what they are, knows that the chandeliers dropping every which way weren’t a cause of faulty wiring, that the strange coincidence of having two people with the ability to sing, practicing into the dead hours of the night, was nothing short of a planned motive and yet—he keeps his hands on their face, they keep their fingers encircled around his wrists when he tries to pry the mask off with his fingers. “You’re really stubborn, you know that?” They almost sound upset, “what if I give you a red rose, then what? What will you do ?” They’re standing in a room filled with the efforts of his labor, petals of red littering the floor and memories of singing to a piano’s bittersweet melody flashing before each other’s eyes and yet, he finds the words he wants to say even without the kiss on his lips.
“That’s an easy answer.” Their face feels cold, his hands are twitching just to let go, “I’d cherish it, just like the blue roses you leave me every other night.”
He should have realized that dreams were meant to be impossible for a reason.
Freedom was what the patron had told him when he awoke in a bed that was not his own. Protection was what the patron said he’d done when he could no longer sing, let alone raise his voice to curse the blond boy to all nine pits of hell and the cottage deep in the woods feels too lonely without his red roses decorating his room or the blue ones on his pillow whenever he woke up. He strains to hear the slamming keys of the piano and avoids the patron like the plague itself, wishing that he had listened to his mother and stayed home, that he had taken the advice of the opera house’s phantom that stood on the opera box with his cape flowing behind him as he bowed before an audience throwing fake roses at his feet.
“Dreams come with a price, boy.” Even his voice had sounded different, dark and cold as if he was trying to shut down the performance all together, “I’m sure you know that, don’t you?”
He had disappeared when Mitsuba continued to receive praise, when he had continued to sing into the night drinking in the bittersweet melodies of the dusty old piano and littered his room with roses the same color as the stage curtains. And yet, his words repeat in his head as his phantom glides through his bedroom, lecturing and flailing his arms, keeping his mask on and throwing down blue roses onto his pillow as if Mitsuba would pick them up and stare wistfully at the smooth stems, thorns cut and sharpened off until he could twirl it in his fingers without any gloves.
Maybe he should have listened that fateful night while singing on stage, maybe he should have warned the ombré haired girl who was no better than him about her phantom giving her the gift of voice, maybe he shouldn’t have taken the patron out on his offer to protect him whilst not knowing what protection he needed anyway—singing to the content of both the ballet instructor and the second phantom that roamed the halls at night, slipped into his bed and disappeared the moment he felt a feather light touch leaving nothing behind but a rose draped in blue on the other side of his pillow.
The novice’s phantom appears again when the stage is littered with roses. In his hand, he twirls a red rose that looks as if it’s withering and his throat is already closing up when the curtains fall close, burning as he tries to breathe yet chokes and sputters on his favorite drink instead with a goblet on the floor, pink liquid spilled out like the blood that stained his fingers whenever he plucked a red rose from the stage. “ Dreams come with a price, boy…” he repeats his words, the patron stands in the shadows with eyes that glow and another goblet of juice in one hand. “ And it looks like, you’ve just paid it in full.”
When he wakes up again, sweat beading down his forehead and chest tightening as his throat burns at the memory, his skin catches upon the thorny stem of a rose laid delicately on his pillow and gently picking it up, the ex-popular singer rises to his feet, gliding across the floor to look out the window towards the horizon, across the expansion of twinkling stars and a bright full moon in the sky. The rose petals gently sway in the night breeze as he rests his head on his arms and wonders if the phantom has chosen a new singer to sing for him.
“Would you ever give me a red rose?”
The singer tries not to smile when gloved hands lay them back in bed, fingers gently curling around the only rose he’d ever keep by his side.
“ Absolutely .”