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It had been years since Yuki had even bothered to ask.
The answer was always the same, anyway: No, you can’t see Ban, no, there’s been no change in his condition. No, there’s nothing more I can do. The more you see him, the less you can do to help him. You don’t want to hurt him by showing up when you could be working to make sure he survives, do you?
Yuki never wanted to hurt Ban. But sometimes, when Yaotome Gaku would snap at him because of his work ethic, or when he’d pass a stranger with just the right shade of blue hair, or when he’d hear a certain chord of music that sounded like the beginning of Our Incomplete Selves and feel a shadow of his old passion stir itself up within him, he thought he might have hurt him anyway.
Or, Ban would be hurt if he knew where Yuki was now, what he had done. Sometimes the Ban in Yuki’s head was upset because Yuki was hurting, wanted to take Yuki’s face in his hands the way he had when they were Re:vale and happy and dreaming and tell him, You deserved better, I wanted you to have better than this! Sometimes, though, the Ban in Yuki’s head was upset because Yuki was famous, and Yuki was loved by fans, and Yuki was successful, and Ban was none of those things and, according to the doctors Kujo had hired, never would be again, because he was what Kujo had kindly called in their last fight ‘completely brain-fucking-dead’.
Yuki thought about this a lot. He thought about it as he lay in bed in the moments before blessed sleep snatched him away and hid the hollow ache of Ban’s absence from him, and he thought about it on stage, and he thought about it when he looked at Gaku, and Gaku looked back, and it was clear in his eyes how much he hated him, though Gaku’s hatred could never reach what Yuki felt for himself.
Just focus on your music, Ban had said with a smile. I’ll take care of the people.
Gaku would’ve liked Ban, Yuki thought. He would’ve been reassured by Ban’s smiles, and trusted him to handle whatever it was Gaku yelled at Yuki for being unable to handle, and Ban would’ve smiled at Gaku, and told him what Yuki really meant when things came out wrong, and pulled them into a friendship--or maybe Ban would’ve hated Gaku with the protective hatred only he could embody, for yelling at Yuki, for taking Ban’s place, for pinning Yuki down with that look that only Ban should’ve been able to master, pinning his soul in place and not even bothering to examine it.
Maybe both. If it had helped Re:vale, Ban had smiled at people he hated and complained to Yuki later.
Yuki didn’t think he hated anyone anymore. He was too tired for it.
Well--maybe he hated Kujo. Maybe. On the days when he could muster up the energy to do so, but if he did, and if he fought him, that could hurt Ban. And it was tiring, oh so tiring, to keep holding up the hatred. None of it was going anywhere. Nothing was changing.
At least Ban was still breathing, even if Yuki couldn’t see it. At least Ban wasn’t really dead. At least there was some hope of him waking up someday, even if it was tiny.
And so Yuki went to work. He woke up early, he sang, he practiced dancing. He ignored everyone he could get away with ignoring. He went on talk shows with Gaku and without him, and pretended everyone didn’t hate him. He went on talk shows with Gaku and without him and pretended the host was Momo, because if it was Momo there was no way he wasn’t smiling back at him and answering as best he could, because Momo deserved it. Momo was so good, and Yuki was so, so grateful he’d never had the chance to ruin him like he’d ruined Ban. Sometimes, Yuki would see Momo, at concerts or at events. He never approached him, preferring to slip out of sight and watch his old friend. He wondered what Momo thought of him now. Greedily, he wished that Momo still liked him. That would raise the number of people in the world who didn’t completely hate him from one to two.
Because there was a single person in Yuki’s life who didn’t hate him, and he had no idea why. He knew why he didn’t hate her: Kujo Aya was fourteen, only a year younger than Ban when they’d met, and she loved music the way Ban did, and she had a similar haircut to Ban’s back when they had been Re:vale, and when she talked about the people who had once been her parents, her lips twisted in the same way Ban’s had twisted when he talked about his, and despite himself, Yuki loved her for it. When they were at home at the same time, he would cook for her--anything she wanted, anything at all, even though the times when Kujo was gone were the only times he could get away without eating meat. He taught her guitar, and she introduced him to King Pudding, and they would watch shows together on the couch, though usually Yuki would fall asleep before they finished. Sometimes he would wake up to a blanket around his shoulders, and sometimes he would wake to Aya curled against him like a cat or a small child, and he would look at her, and think that this must be what it was like to have a little sister.
He never said as much, though. If Kujo knew, he’d be able to use her against him, and if she knew, that was one more person that he could hurt. Yuki didn’t like hurting people. He didn’t like the way their faces fell when they saw him, or how terrible he was as a partner. He hadn’t ever realized it before with Ban, but he supposed that made sense. Ban was perfect and, above that, Ban knew him. Ban knew what he meant before he even had to say it, and he had loved Yuki without reserve, in a way Yuki didn’t and never had and never would deserve. He had been the best friend Yuki could ask for and the only family he ever needed, and he was brain dead because of Yuki.
The light should have gotten Yuki. Ban would’ve known what to do--Ban would’ve found a way to save him that didn’t involve Kujo. And if it had to involve Kujo, and Ban had signed his life away for Yuki--which Yuki wouldn’t in a million years want him to do, ever, but Ban had already done it with the falling light and maybe even with Re:vale too, so Yuki wouldn’t be surprised if Ban pulled what he did--and if he had, he wouldn’t have broken. Not like Yuki had. Ban wouldn’t have felt like waking up every day was the equivalent of getting hit with a truck, Ban wouldn’t wake up in the middle of the night, screaming, after another damned nightmare, Ban would still love music, even if it wasn’t his music anymore.
Ban would still feel something other than the deep, crushing grief Yuki had been buried alive in.
But most often, Yuki reflected in the moments before falling asleep, Ban would think of Yuki more often than Yuki would think of Ban, because most of the time, Yuki’s thoughts were occupied with doing what he needed to do, going through the motions of every single terrible day, and he could only think of Ban when he had a minute to himself or if something reminded him of him and tore through the empty shell of himself Yuki was hiding in.
Something like Yaotome Gaku, right now, pacing back and forth in the dressing room and muttering to himself about groupchats, some kid named Nanase Riku’s Instagram page, Momo, and con artistry. He was muttering this because he had somehow gotten it in his head that it was possible to help Yuki and Ban, and he wasn’t asking Yuki’s opinion because he had no new information on either Ban or Momo and, as such, Yuki didn’t care at all. There was nothing Gaku and his friends could do to help, no matter how much he insisted he had a plan and it would work. Nothing could stop Kujo--at least, nothing could stop him while preserving the life of the single person most precious to Yuki in all the world. It wouldn’t take long: just a moment, just a single word from Kujo, and Ban would be gone for good. Even though he was waking up now, which was a gift more precious than Yuki had ever thought he’d be given: even though he was waking up, Gaku had no idea whether or not he was off of life support, which meant that he probably wasn’t. But Gaku did know that Ban didn’t know about Trigger, or Yuki’s deal, or how much time had passed, which meant that if, somehow, Yuki was able to get away, find Ban, see him again, Ban would smile at him, say, “Hey, asshole, you took your sweet time,” say, “So I had an idea for our new song,” say, “You look tired, have you been sleeping well?”, say, “You know, if anything’s bothering you, you can talk to me. I’ll take care of it.”
As if Yuki still had that right. As if he had the right to any form of kindness from anyone, let alone Ban. He accepted kindness from Aya because she was fifteen and she didn’t deserve the harder sides of him, but nobody else was offering, because they all knew what Ban had never realized: that Yuki wasn’t worth it, that he was dangerous and painful to be around and deserved only hatred. And the only reason Ban didn’t know it too was because his brain had been smashed in and if and when he got better, he’d realize it and start hating Yuki too, and Yuki would be glad for it, because at least it would mean he was safe.
“Yuki, are you going to be useful in this at all?” Gaku said, annoyed.
Yuki looked up at him. “This plan’s only going to hurt Ban,” he said. “I don’t want to do anything to get him hurt.”
Gaku pinched his nose. “We are trying,” he said for at least the third time, “to rescue Ban. But, whatever, the thing we want you to do isn’t Ban-related at all. Can you please just do this one favor for us?”
“Yes,” said Yuki, because if Gaku hated him any more it would be very, very easy for him to go after Ban in order to hurt Yuki, and Ban had been used to hurt Yuki far too much already.
“Great. Can you locate Yotsuba Aya?”
“Who’s that?” Yuki asked.
Gaku paused. “...You don’t want to know anything that could cause Kujo to hurt Ban, right?” he said. “That’s why you’ve been disengaging from our plans unless you’re texting Momo, and only Momo, on my phone.”
“Right,” said Yuki.
“Then I can’t tell you, sorry,” Gaku said. “But Tenn wants to talk to Yotsuba Aya because he’s an evil little genius and he wants her help in his evil genius plans.”
“I’ll keep an eye out, though I’ve never met a Yotsuba Aya,” Yuki said. “I have met a Kujo--”
“Stop worrying about Kujo,” said Gaku. “We’ll take care of him, okay? I know I’m not your real partner, but I’m not so much of an asshole that I’m going to just ignore this situation. I swear, soon enough this is just going to be a bad memory that you’ll be unpacking in therapy.”
“What’s therapy?” Yuki asked.
“...That explains so much about you,” Gaku said. “Uh, look into it after all of this is over, okay? I think you could use it.”
“Hm,” said Yuki noncommittally. He didn’t think that this would be over any time soon, and he honestly couldn’t imagine what he would even want to do when it was over. His life had been music for as long as he could remember, and now there was a smouldering hole where his passion had used to be, and once Ban was safe again Yuki didn’t know what he would do.
Wait and see if Ban wanted anything more to do with him, probably, because even if he hated him (as he should) Yuki would do anything if only Ban would keep him around. But if, as was very likely, Ban didn’t want anything to do with him, Yuki would...Yuki would…
He didn’t know. Die in a ditch, most probably. It would be a gift to the world. But if he could stay with Ban, he would. He would do anything in the world for Ban.
Gaku sighed. “I’ll get Momo to pressure you into it,” he sighed. “Come on, we can’t plot bloody revenge forever, I guess. Or, well, Tenn can, but he’s the type that can’t really do anything but due to his debilitating brother complex. Anesagi’s gonna kill us if we’re late.”
If Anesagi killed them, Kujo wouldn’t have any reason to keep Ban alive.
Yuki stood up.
“Yeah, alright,” he said, and followed Gaku out.