Work Text:
I.
“He said it was a gift,” Akashi said, bringing his hand to the side of his face. He looked at Midorima without actually seeing him, and they both took a moment to listen to the clock while Akashi swung his legs. “Like me. He said I was a gift, too.”
Midorima leaned across the desk and pointed to Akashi’s open notebook and the words he’d spent hours trying to ingrain into Akashi’s mind. “Tell me how it happens, then. Explain the gift.”
Akashi looked down at the notebook and back at Midorima. His fingers rested just below the gold eye, a centimetre away from his lashes. “Someone gave it to me. That’s what gifts are, are they not?”
Midorima leaned back against the chair and pulled his hand away from the notebook. Akashi knew what he meant - there was no way he couldn’t - and was instead enjoying himself by making a fool of Midorima. He supposed he had no reason to be surprised; it wasn’t as if Akashi hadn’t done this before, anyway. He looked at Akashi again, the rich fabric of his clothes, the easy way his chest rose and fell as he spoke. Something tightened in his chest.
“Scientifically. Explain it scientifically.”
This time, Akashi looked him in the eye, and the swinging of his legs stopped. His foot brushed Midorima’s own. “Unbalanced pigmentation in the iris.”
Midorima kicked him in the shin, though gently. “Study more.”
(He looked at Akashi again, bent over his books, and felt the tightening in his chest once more. If it was a gift, it was a pretty one - Akashi was striking enough between the refined angles of his face and the red hair, but there was something in the gold eye that stopped Midorima from looking away.
It was, he reasoned, nothing other than guilt.)
*
II.
He was five when Akashi was born, and around seven when he was able to understand the silence in the great mansion’s silent walls. Even as a child he’d noticed how the house stretched far and wide. There were more rooms than he could count and the vast majority of them were empty. As he got older, he realized that wasn’t really right: they were full of furnitures and dust, but no people. No people. For such a large house, there was no life to it besides the butlers running up and down its stairs and halls. It felt wrong living in a ribcage of a house without a heart, but he would come to realize it was not only the emptiness that made him uneasy; it was the quiet. It fell upon them like a horrid fog, slowly, and then all at once.
(Five-year old Midorima called it a fog. The older Midorima would call it smoke, call it poison - and all the people would only breathe it in/out.)
If there was a heart beating away in his home Midorima could not hear it, and doubted he ever would.
*
III.
(“The only man who would ever need a house this large,” his father had told him once, “is either lonely or dead.”)
Midorima never saw a woman, a mother, a wife walking through the mansion’s halls and assumed the one that once did was now dead.
*
IV.
When Midorima asked about it, Akashi blinked at him and said, “She passed away after I was born.”
*
V.
“Do you get lonely?” Midorima said to him, and Akashi stopped in the middle of the song, drawing his hands away from the keys. His fingers weren’t quite large enough to fit into all the white space the piano had to offer, and Midorima nearly found himself sighing. “In here, I mean.”
Akashi went back to the instrument and busied himself with the wrong notes and timing. Midorima cringed.
“Why would I? I have my father, and my butlers, and…” He looked at Midorima without stopping. “I have you, don’t I? What else could I need?”
*
VI.
(She was dead, of course she was dead, but Akashi never asked of or about her and Midorima wondered who, exactly, was the ghost.)
*
VII.
The Door in the basement was a large one, but it was never guarded, and it was always in plain sight. They’d gone to the basement once or twice - Akashi was interested in seeing his servant’s quarters for God knew what reason - and every time, Akashi stopped in front of the door. His eye was always brighter when it was darker and Midorima had seen it it look up and down the door like a flame.
When he turned to Midorima, it took all he had to speak.
“You know the rules,” Midorima had told him. The Door stood before them like a wall. “Don’t open the door. Don’t ask about the gold eye.”
They’d been younger, then - Akashi twelve and Midorima seventeen, but the door wasn’t any smaller. The basement always reeked of week-old rain and it gave Midorima a headache.
“Why not? What do they even have in it?”
“Something bad,” Midorima said quickly. Akashi drew his eyes away from the door. “Something you can’t see.”
“And why not?”
“You’re too young,” Midorima said, telling the first lie. Cold sweat slipped its way down his back and he shivered against it.
Akashi only looked more interested. “Does that mean I can find out when I’m old enough?”
Midorima licked his dry lips and lied again. “Yes.”
(Akashi forgot about The Door, but Midorima did not, as much as he wished otherwise.)
*
VIII.
It happened when Akashi was asleep. He’d been sitting awake on the mansion’s steps, watching the butlers come and go as they pleased. Mibuchi had told him it was a special occasion or something like that, but Midorima dismissed it. Not a lot could happen, anyway - he very rarely saw anyone enter or leave who didn’t live in the mansion to begin with. Whether that was by choice or not, Midorima didn’t know, and reasoned he did not care.
The door swung open and a woman stalked into the mansion. He was first drawn to the white skirt falling at her ankles and then her red hair. She stopped in the middle of the hall and looked around, and Midorima could see the way her body tensed as she did.
(Red hair. Red eyes.)
None of the butlers were in plain sight and, standing up, Midorima said, “Did you need something?”
(Akashi’s father had neither red hair nor red eyes.)
She nearly jumped right out of her skin, but when she calmed, the lines in her face were hard. Only up close could Midorima see the grey streaking her hair. “I need to see Masahi.”
Midorima opened his mouth, and Mibuchi clamped a hand onto his shoulder. “I’ll bring you to him.”
(Dead?)
Sharing a look with Midorima, Mibuchi began to lead her away.
“Are you?” Midorima asked, and they both stilled. “Akashi’s mother?”
By the time she answered, she’d turned to look him right in the eye. “I was,” she said, as if he knew exactly what she was talking about.
He did.
*
IX.
While they spent majority of the day studying (which, Midorima thought, wasn’t studying so much as it was Akashi getting under his skin and staying there), Midorima allowed him a few breaks. Akashi cared little for them until Midorima brought up the prospect of them going to the garden.
“The garden?” Akashi said, eyeing him. “We have a garden?”
“Mibuchi tends it,” Midorima said, as if that answered the question. “It’s large and nice. He does a good job.”
Akashi hopped off the chair and stood beside Midorima, hardly reaching his ear. He did not say anything until Midorima did first.
“We can see it,” said Midorima. He’d come to recognize when Akashi was interested in something, and prided himself on its accuracy. Akashi’s words and face were hard to read, but it was all in his eyes. “If you want, of course.”
Akashi sniffed and coughed into his arm. “Only because it’s too stuffy in here.”
(Midorima had also come to recognize when Akashi was lying.)
The garden was beautiful. The midday light that fell upon it was soft and slow, and when Akashi stepped into it, Midorima swore it parted. It was beautiful, but it was almost as large as the house itself. Midorima felt helpless as he stared into a sea of flowers. How easy would it be to get lost? How hard would it be to be found?
Roses grew around the arches and paths, beside the bench and gate, and in rows and walls. The ones that stayed by the door kept a watchful eye and their thorns spiralled up and down in a way that only made Midorima think of hands.
Akashi sat on the bench and reached out to touch a rose before yanking his hand away. Midorima sat beside him and saw a drop of blood. When he tried to take a closer look, Akashi only pulled his hand away again.
“Thorns,” Midorima said by way of explanation.
Akashi sucked at the wound. “Teeth,” he corrected, and Midorima did not answer.
*
X.
He’d come to realize two things about Akashi: 1) he did not like the piano, or the violin, or any other instrument Midorima had the misfortune of trying to teach him and 2) he liked science, which Midorima also had the misfortune of teaching him.
“A clone,” Akashi said, and then said it again to himself: “A clone.”
“Yes,” Midorima said, ignoring the itch in his fingers. “That is what I said.”
“Ridiculous.” Akashi shook his head and laid it back on the table, looking at Midorima from the corner of his eye.
The light swept in and there was so much of it Midorima feared it would take Akashi away. It bathed him in gold and Midorima had to blink to make sure he was a boy of bone and not something else.
“Why?”
Akashi closed his eyes, shrugged, and stayed quiet for a moment. “It just seems ridiculous, I suppose.”
Midorima returned the shrug. “How so?”
Eyes still shut, Akashi said, “Hypothetically, someone could build an army of themselves and take over the world. Doesn’t that scare you?”
Of course Akashi would think of that scenario first. He tried to stop himself from laughing and it twisted into an ugly snort. If Akashi noticed it, he did not say. Midorima felt his face colouring. “It doesn’t work that way.”
“And why not?”
“The clones are always imperfect.” Midorima opened his mouth and closed it again, looking away from Akashi and instead at the open window behind him. The curtain billowed like a sail and fell still.
“You looked as if you wanted to say something else,” Akashi said. Midorima noticed he’d opened his eyes. “What is it?”
The way he spoke told Midorima it was an order more than a question. “They have shorter lifespans.” He felt a familiar dryness on his lips and throat and tried to swallow around it.
At once disinterested, Akashi looked away. He started swinging his legs again and Midorima watched him until it got slower, and slower, and eventually stopped.
The gold gave up and moved on.
*
XI.
He only ever saw Akashi’s father once after the birth. Akashi spoke fondly of him and so Midorima assumed they spent time together when Midorima wasn’t trying to teach him anything and everything a rich boy should know, but he had yet to see if that was actually true. The first and last time he saw Akashi’s father, he saw a man in a black suit with deep hollows under his eyes and something dark in the thick wrinkles of his face.
(Dead, or lonely, Midorima’s father had told him.)
If there was anything Midorima was good, at it was knowing when to ask questions and when not to ask them, but it was a habit he slowly abandoned when he talked to Akashi and thought of the man in the black suit.
“What is your dad like?” he said to Akashi. Akashi nibbled on one of the cookies Mibuchi had brought in and offered another to Midorima. Mibuchi’s job was to be a butler, but Midorima was certain all he actually did was spoil Akashi rotten.
“Old,” Akashi said, and Midorima waited for him to laugh before realizing he was serious.
“Old?”
“Am I wrong?”
Midorima pursed his lips and looked from the open textbooks on their table to Akashi’s face. “Not exactly.”
“What kind of an answer did you want?” Akashi reached for another cookie.
“Does he talk to you?” Midorima said. The cookie Akashi gave him lay unbitten in his hand. “I never see him around, so--”
The look Akashi gave him was so sharp and quick Midorima felt the Something tighten in his chest again. “What are you trying to say?”
“Nothing,” Midorima lied, “I wasn’t--”
The tightening returned and Midorima felt his breath fluttering in his throat where it stayed. “Of course he talks to me. I’m his son, and--”
“--you’re his son, and you don’t ever question the rules he gives you? Ever?”
Akashi was silent. Midorima crushed the cookie and sprung to his feet. His head began to spin and the tightening worked its way to his heart. Everything stopped for a moment but Akashi did not, the gold eye did not, the--
He’d bitten his questions back before and he would not do it again. “Don’t ask about the gold eye? Don’t touch the door in the basement? You don’t question those at all?”
Akashi only stared at him, but Midorima saw his hands curl into fists. “Why should I?”
He felt at once weak and powerless. It wasn’t fair - he knew it wasn’t, had known it wasn’t. Was it worse to lie or tell the truth? Akashi was happy living in a lie, and Midorima didn’t want to be the one to break it.
He bit his lip so hard he tasted blood. “You don’t wonder why they’re lying to you?”
Akashi didn’t meet his gaze, and he knew it was because Akashi had once asked himself the same question.
(Midorima thought of The Door, the eye, the woman who--)
“If we’re done with tutoring for today,” Akashi said, “then it would be better for you to leave.”
On his way outside, mouth still tasting like a handful of blood and glass, Midorima saw the expression on Akashi’s face. His eyes were blown and wide and he’d let his hands uncurl. Angry, red crescents stayed on his palm where nails bit into flesh. Midorima had seen the look before and knew what it was. Akashi was recovering from a blow.
Outside, he heard Akashi coughing, and it didn’t seem to stop.
*
XII.
The hallways were lined with doors. The floor with the bedroom had a single painting on its walls. Dust covered its surface, and both Midorima and Akashi stopped to look at it. Caught in the frame, a red-haired boy in a black suit stared right at them.
“I didn’t know there was a painting of you up here,” Midorima said.
“Me neither.” Akashi ran his finger along the bottom of it, face unreadable. They were close enough for Midorima to feel the warmth coming from his skin, but the space between them was vaster and larger than he had words for. Midorima swallowed.
When he was alone in his bed, he realized something, and it made his insides twist so tightly he could hardly breathe.
The boy in the picture had two red eyes.
*
XIII.
Akashi didn’t go to tutoring. Midorima sat beside him - the small boy in a large bed - and thought of so many things it felt as if he wasn’t thinking at all.
When Akashi opened his eyes, he stared at the ceiling above him. His skin was almost bone-white, and Midorima could see it was covered with a thin layer of sweat. Akashi shook and opened his mouth. A barrage of coughs shot through his body and he lay there shivering.
“Did you take medicine?” Midorima said. He wasn’t sure if Akashi could hear him, but decided it didn’t matter. The guilt wormed its way into his heart and stayed there.
“Not yet,” Akashi said, voice hoarse.
Mibuchi brought him tea and medicine and blankets, and he slept the rest of the day away.
(Midorima did not realize Akashi’s father hadn’t visited him once, but if he did, he would have laughed.)
*
XIV.
“We’re going to have to tell him someday.”
“We don’t have to.”
“I know you just want to pamper him, but don’t be stupid. You saw, didn’t you?” There was a poisonous pause. “He’s already getting weaker. Oh, God.”
“What are we supposed to do? What is he going to do? Repeat it again?”
“You know they’ll get weaker every time he does. Just doing it once was already a huge risk.”
*
XV.
“Do you ever get lonely?” Midorima said to him, and Akashi sat awake in bed. He busied himself by looking at his hands.
“No,” Akashi said, “but I do get curious.”
He wasn’t sure which was worse.
*
XVI.
“There’s something you aren’t telling me,” Akashi said, and Midorima ignored only continued playing. Tuesdays were piano days.
Every time he asked, Midorima didn't answer, and Akashi eventually gave up.
*
XVII.
On good days, Akashi was able to walk around as he pleased, and on bad days - which were far more common - he was hardly able to move. When he did move, it was only to struggle against the coughs. His hair looked limp and dull, and Midorima wondered if all the colour had bled right out of it.
The sheets ruffled as Akashi sat up, clutching his fingers beneath the golden eye. This time, when he looked at Midorima, it was as if he was seeing through him.
“You know what’s behind it, don’t you?” Akashi said. He didn’t sound as if he expected an answer. “The door?”
Midorima looked at the floor. “Yes.”
“Tell me what’s behind it. The rules only say not to touch the door - we won’t be breaking any of them, you know.”
Loyalty ran deep. Midorima closed his eyes. “I can’t.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Akashi snapped. The coughs returned. “Of course you can. Of course you can.”
Midorima stayed quiet.
“If I told you the gold eye tells me when you’re lying, would you believe me?” This time, Midorima could not look away. Akashi’s fingers curled and they were dangerously close to his eye. He ran them along his lower lid, watching Midorima all the while.
“No,” Midorima lied again.
*
XVIII.
Vaguely, Midorima remembered the first time he walked through the mansion halls. It was before Akashi’s birth - it must have been - and before he was able to understand anything and everything.
He’d been four and clumsy and confused when he walked right into something, and it took him a while to realize it was a someone.
The boy had knelt down and looked at Midorima for a moment before smiling. It was the kind of polite smile that could have only been trained. “My apologies. Are you alright?”
Four-year old Midorima, who was then taken aback by the sudden splash of colour, could only look at his red eyes and hair. Had it been livelier, then? He wasn’t certain. Rain slapped at the windows with its shapeless hands.
Somewhere, at the front of the door, a woman called: “Seijuurou, please hurry. Your father says it’s an urgent meeting.” She opened the door. Rain and cold forced its way inside.
The boy - Seijuurou - had given Midorima another quick, pressed smile before hurrying out the door.
He would not realize that was the last time he’d ever see Seijuurou alive.
*
XIX.
“I don’t think you’re thinking straight, please--”
“This is your future, Seijuurou.”
“This isn’t my future. This is sick and wrong, and you know it. It’ll be alright. Everyone dies.”
“But you won’t have to.”
*
XX.
Midorima woke before the sun did and sat in his bed. The tightening came again and it made his head spin. Everything in front of him was a beautiful blur and his heartbeat fell into the rhythm of his ragged breathing.
Wrong. It was wrong; it was unfair. It was--
He had the nagging feeling that he was forgetting something.
Midday rolled around and he got up, making his way to Akashi’s door. If Akashi was ever bored by spending his days with his tutor and butlers, he didn’t show it. The coughs last night had been particularly bad, Midorima remembered. He put his hand to the doorknob. Still, he could not shake the feeling of unease that grew like a weed.
When he opened the door, Akashi wasn’t in his bed.
(It’s alright. He’s with Mibuchi. He’s with his father.)
Midorima turned away from the door and raced down the hallway. The last thing he needed to do was think and yet it seemed to be the only thing he could do.
His hands were shaking and sweaty as he sped down the stairs. The pounding in his chest had begun to spread to his head.
(He wasn’t with Mibuchi. He wasn’t with his father.)
Midorima slammed the door to the basement open, stumbling into the open area in front of The Door. He swore his legs would give way and if they did not, his heart would.
Akashi stood in front of the open Door, and inside it Midorima saw what he had perhaps always known would be inside: the body of a fifteen-year old boy with red eyes and red hair, frozen across time and space.
*
XXI.
Akashi heir killed in car accident;
A one-car accident near the Osaka International Airport killed the fifteen-year old heir of the Akashi family.
Accident investigators say the car lost control and struck a light post. Akashi died from his injuries and was pronounced dead at the scene.
Shiori and Masahi Akashi are currently in critical condition.
The cause of the accident is currently being investigated by police.
*
XXII.
“He said it was a gift,” Akashi said, bringing his hand to the side of his face. He looked at Midorima, and Midorima could not and would not look back for fear of what he would see. They were alone in Akashi’s room, and the quiet spoke miles more than Midorima would ever be able to.
(He’d been slow; he’d been unable to stop it from happening.)
“It’s not a gift, is it?” Akashi turned on his side and Midorima felt rather than saw him staring at him. The hand he drew away from his face was trembling at his side. “It’s an imperfection. The clones are always imperfect.”
(If he had been able to stop it, he wouldn’t have. His heart drummed in a one-two beat.)
“Did he tell you?” Midorima said. At the sound of his voice, Akashi looked at him, and that was all it took for Midorima to see the emotions flash across his face. Akashi grabbed fistfulls of the blanket and let out a shuddering breath that soon became a cough. “Your father?”
Akashi glared at him for a very long moment before looking away again, and Midorima felt the taste of vomit rising in his throat. The dark just under his eyes painted a familiar picture and it made him look slimmer and smaller. Slowly but surely, the shadows were swallowing him whole.
He was oddly certain that Akashi would have laughed if he could. “Who else would?”
(There were no fingers to point. A chill ran its way up his spine and stayed there. The look Akashi gave him was sharp - he couldhavewouldhaveshouldhave told, and yet he did not. He knew Akashi would find out eventually, but they were all content living in the ghost of someone else’s life, and he’d been stupid enough to assume it would stay that way.)
A gift. He said it was a gift.
“I’m sor--”
“Don’t bother,” Akashi snapped. “Especially if you’re not.”
The space between them was stretching so wide Midorima wondered when it would snap.
I am sorry, Midorima wanted to say - but what was he sorry for? Who was he sorry for?
(He knew.)
“What should I do, then?” he said instead.
“Leave,” Akashi said immediately, and Midorima did.
*
XXIII.
When Akashi didn’t show up to tutoring on time, Midorima climbed the stairs. His father’s room was on the top floor and he was nearly out of breath by the time he reached it, but it did not matter.
The painting that had once sat beside the door now lay on the floor. It’d been torn - clawed - out of its frame. All that remained were shreds of colour scattered across the carpet floor, making another painting of their own. Akashi lay beside it, fast asleep. Midorima took a step towards him and Akashi curled into himself, but did not stir.
(It wasn’t right.)
If he was anywhere near accurate when it came to estimating personalities, Akashi’s father wouldn’t notice the thing was gone in the first place. Cleaning it up, Midorima threw the remains out.
It wasn’t right, wasn’t right at all, and yet--
Midorima picked Akashi up, heading for the door. He’d known Akashi since birth, had seen Akashi grow from a toddler to a seventeen-year old.
Loyalty ran deep, but it didn’t run deep enough, and Midorima swore to tear the last bits of it out.
*
XXIV.
He closed the door to Akashi’s bedroom and was greeted by Mibuchi.
“Is he okay?” Mibuchi asked, looking from Midorima to the door and back to Midorima. He looked as if someone had set a firework at his core and it had begun to eat its way up. “I heard the coughing, and--”
“He found out.” He trusted Mibuchi to understand what that meant. Judging by the way his face crumpled, he did.
“What are we going to do?” Midorima began walking towards the kitchen and Mibuchi trailed after him. They both paused. “What happens when the rules are broken?”
“I don’t know,” Midorima said. “His dad is the one who told him, so I’m guessing nothing.”
The way Mibuchi’s face twisted again told him he didn’t agree. “You don’t think so?”
“He’s talking about cloning again,” Mibuchi blurted, and Midorima stilled. “Before Akashi dies. Since he already knows, once there’s another clone, I’m guessing he won’t need him anymore and--”
“That’s enough,” Midorima said. He did not recall his mouth moving.
“There’s something else.” Mibuchi walked towards Midorima and stood beside him. “He’ll be going on a business trip in three days.”
“Three days,” Midorima repeated. “That should be enough.” It had to be enough.
Mibuchi, once again, understood.
Outside, it had begun to rain.
*
XXV.
Akashi awoke in a room that was dark and empty. Mibuchi and Midorima stood in it, looking oddly tall among the suitcases.
(shorter lifespans)
“What are you doing?” Akashi said. He sat up and eyed at first the both of them and then the suitcases among them. The rain battered against the glass without pause. “Where are we going?”
“Away,” Midorima said, and it was enough.
*
XXVI.
The car stopped at a red light and Midorima and Akashi sat in silence, leaving Mibuchi to drive. Rain made the night darker and louder than Midorima had anticipated, but it was alright, and if it wasn’t, it would be.
“You have the plane tickets, right?” Mibuchi said. “Where are you going to go?”
Midorima hadn’t once stopped to think, and it was spectacular. The car behind them honked, and Akashi only watched.
“I don’t know,” Midorima answered. Even with the car’s heater on, it was a little chilly. Akashi coughed into his arm. “Wherever we feel like.” He glanced at Akashi. “Somewhere warm?”
“That would be best,” Akashi agreed, speaking for the first time since they’d gotten into the car. There was still space between them no plan or words could ever recover, but again, Midorima thought it was alright. It was alright.
Mibuchi hummed and the car began to move again. The streetlights bled over them in yellow. In the distance, the airport was alit with colour.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Akashi said. When Midorima looked at him, he was smiling, just barely. He said in words what both of them knew: “Clones have shorter lifespans, remember?”
Midorima shoved his hands in his pockets. “Shut up.”
“Won’t I make things harder? You’ve been working for my - his - father for so long, and--”
“Shut up,” Midorima repeated, returning Akashi’s smile. This time, it was much larger. “I’m sure, alright? I’m sure.”
Akashi looked away from him and up ahead, hand inching closer and closer to Midorima’s own. The streetlights had changed again. The entrance of the airport came into full view.
The car slowed and Mibuchi tilted his head towards the doors. “Here you are.” It was a goodbye as much as it was a thank-you, Midorima knew. His chest tightened and he willed it away.
Midorima opened the door and was met with rain. Was it hard enough to wash him away? “The suitcases are in the back, right?”
Shorter lifespans. It wasn’t right. It would be.
Akashi stepped out after him, hands buried in the pocket of his coat. He looked at Midorima again and this time, he did not speak. Midorima grabbed the luggages.
All of it was crazy - he was crazy - but it was far too late to look back. He thought of the house both of them would never return to again and realized with full clarity that he would not miss it one bit. The lights ahead were overwhelming.
He offered his hand to Akashi, and Akashi took it.
“Ready?” Midorima said. There wasn’t a choice, as there often wasn’t when it came to Akashi.
Squeezing his hand weakly, Akashi said, “Ready.”
Midorima knew, as much as he’d known anything, that he meant it.