Work Text:
The Orikasa parents enrolled their only son in the closest private school to their house and thought nothing else of it. It was a Catholic school, which said something about the level of thought they put into it, since nobody in their family was religious, but Yukito was enrolled anyway, and told to do well in school, and left mostly to his own devices.
These devices mainly included making sheet music out of his composition notebooks and transcribing songs he heard and liked, and, as he got older, composing his own, and then sneaking into the music room to play them out.
Yuki knew several ways to the music room, which was good, because several subsequent music teachers in a row had banned him. He didn’t know why they kept quitting, but he supposed it wasn’t any of his business. And so he would go to the music room during lunch, and in the breaks between classes, and during classes, and during choir practice, when he was actually allowed in, because his parents didn’t want him going home until the school closed and they couldn’t actually ban the most talented member whose parents had been trying to convince the school to keep him after hours when he wasn’t involved in activities for years.
It was, of course, a choir at a Catholic school, so they mainly sang at Mass, and never anywhere fun, but at least they were singing. And, singing or not, none of the other children tolerated Yuki’s presence, so it wasn’t like he particularly minded Mass.
This Mass, however, was especially awful. Awful, and boring, and long, long, long. It was some sort of Congress, or Conference, or something-or-other, and most of it was spent sitting, as the Mass droned on.
They had sung—Yuki’s choir, and every other Catholic school choir in the general area (they referred to it as a diocese, which was dumb—why use a stupid made up word when real words would suffice?)—for nearly an hour, which Yuki had liked (even if most of the songs were really bad) and nearly everyone else had hated, and now they were singing at intervals throughout the Mass, which was longer than usual because everyone hated Yuki, personally.
The single bright spot was the boy from some other school, seated next to Yuki because one of his classmates had tripped and spilled a cup of hot, milky coffee all over his book of music and dress uniform, and by the time he’d gotten cleaned up, there were no seats left where his school was, and so the teachers had conferred among themselves and told him, “Ogami will share his book with you,” and seated Yuki next to the other boy, whose name he promptly forgot in favor of going through his new music book.
The boy had taken the book back when they began singing, and held it between himself and Yuki, like Yuki had seen friends in his choir doing, though he’d never done it himself, because he had no friends.
The boy’s shoulder was pressed against Yuki’s, now, as someone up on the stage (altar, they called it, for whatever reason) read a story about a couple people named Ruth and Naomi, and the boy’s finger followed along in their music book, since this one, unlike Yuki’s, wasn’t only music.
Yuki was not particularly interested in the story—there was nothing less realistic than someone choosing to stay by someone else’s side no matter what, and it hurt to think about—but he was very interested in the feel of the other boy’s shoulder against his, of the curve of his hand as it rested gently on the page. He was interested, too, in the boy’s singing voice; though he had put his speaking voice out of his head before he heard him sing, but now that he had, he really wanted to hear this boy singing his songs.
The idea thrilled him: the other boy, the beautiful warm kind boy beside him, singing Yuki’s song with that voice of his, Yuki’s song and no other. Yuki had barely spoken to him—in fact, he had not spoken at all to the boy—but there was something about him, something Yuki was drawn to, something he couldn’t quite name.
Maybe the soft curve of the boy’s lips, or his slightly-shaggy hair, or the crisp and perfectly done up uniform, or maybe something else that caused this stirring in Yuki’s chest. He didn’t know what it was, but it was a similar feeling to some of those love songs he’d learned when he was younger.
Odd.
Yuki spent the rest of the Mass either singing or staring at the boy next to him or both. When it finally ended, he tilted his head and asked the boy, “What do you think of music?”
“I’m in a choir,” said the boy. “Also, I play three instruments and sometimes I write songs.”
“I play five,” said Yuki. “Can I hear one of your songs?”
The boy looked at him oddly for a second (Yuki thrilled at the feeling of those blue eyes on him) before shrugged. “I mean, alright, I guess,” he said. “Not here, though.”
Yuki and the boy both looked at the other children swarming down the bleachers they’d been sitting on.
“I’ll take you to the food court,” the other boy decided. “We can listen to it there. I mean, Eucharistic Congress’s food isn’t the best, but it isn’t awful either, and I haven’t had breakfast yet—have you?”
Yuki shook his head. He was responsible for feeding himself, but had chosen to sleep as late as possible (in this case, until 6 in the morning) instead of eating this morning.
“We can go there then, I guess,” said the boy, and Yuki followed him down the bleachers.
They sat at one of the tables near the food stalls, and the boy, flushing slightly, took out an old iPod Touch and passed it over to Yuki along with a pair of earbuds, curled like a small animal on the table.
“Could I hear something you wrote?” the boy asked, and Yuki shrugged, pulling out his own iPod and handing it and its earbuds over.
“Sure.”
Yuki put in the boy’s earbuds, and the boy put in Yuki’s, and Yuki had the pleasure of watching the boy’s eyes light up upon hearing the beginning notes of his song before being swept away himself in the other boys music.
“Woah, this is really good!” the other boy said, eyes shining, after Yuki’s song finished and the other boy’s song finished and Yuki took the earbuds out of his ears.
“Yours too,” Yuki said. “What’s your name?”
The boy looked slightly surprised. “I introduced myself earlier…” he mumbled. “I’m Ogami. Ogami Banri.”
“I’m Yuki,” said Yuki. “It’s nice to meet you, Ban. Do you want to make music together?”