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i.
There is a boy who plays in the music room every day.
It’s a soft yet powerful melody— faint and almost ethereal, as if it were a scene from a dream, and yet rich like velvet. There’s a hint of nostalgia to the song, as if Midorima has heard it many times before but can’t possibly recall the title. There's some kind of magnetic quality to it as well, so much that one day, Midorima finds his feet dragging him towards the music room as if they had a mind of their own.
As he looks in, the first thing he sees is a head of striking red hair. The boy is rather small in stature, and clad in a white blazer as opposed to Shuutoku’s black gakuran. Midorima thinks it rather strange and begins to wonder whether he should venture in at all.
But as his hand reaches tentatively for the door, something strange happens— his body is suddenly paralyzed. His muscles tighten of their own accord and his heart begins to race in his chest, as if somehow alerted to danger. An uncomfortable feeling swells in his chest. He bites his lip and blames it on Cancer being ranked last for the day, but he’ll be fine, he thinks, squeezing the stuffed penguin in his hand for good measure as he walks in.
Midorima’s loud footsteps do not seem to alert the boy at all. He simply keeps playing, caressing the keys of the piano with such eloquent grace that Midorima stops in awe to observe even more closely. The emotions pour from the song like a stream in which Midorima is caught like a rock against the current, unable to move.
Finally, the boy finishes the song and tilts his head back. He seems to be about a year younger than Midorima. He looks pleasantly surprised to see Midorima and smiles at him before looking away again.
Was that all the acknowledgement he was going to get?
Midorima clears his throat awkwardly. “Ah,” he stammers. “I really liked the song. I hope I am not intruding.”
The boy jolts, then, with an expression of pure shock on his previously serene face. He opens his mouth, and no words come out.
“You can see me?” he says finally, quiet and soft.
Midorima blinks. “Why wouldn’t I be able to?”
The boy smiles bitterly and shakes his head. “Most people can’t. It’s been a while since I’ve interacted with a human.”
“Who are you?” Midorima blurts out against his better judgment. And for a split second, an indescribably sorrowful expression crosses the boy’s face that can only be described as heartbreaking. Midorima does not know why this tugs at his heartstrings so.
The boy looks down, adjusting the hems of his sleeves— perhaps to hide his slip-up— and when he looks up again, he is smiling softly.
“Akashi,” he says. “Akashi Seijuurou.” He extends a hand, perfectly friendly, as if the previous moment had never happened. “I wonder if you can shake my hand.”
“Midorima Shintarou,” Midorima replies, frowning as he reaches out his hand. “Am I not supposed to be able to—”
His heart stops, then, as his hand passes clean through Akashi’s. He jolts and stumbles backwards.
“Impossible,” he chokes out. “You— you’re not human. Who— just what are you?”
Akashi looks off to the side somewhere, his expression unreadable. “You’re right,” he says. “I’m not human. I’m a ghost.”
Midorima’s jaw drops. “That’s downright absurd.”
Akashi chuckles a little, bringing a hand up to cover his mouth, and Midorima’s heart stutters for some reason— adrenaline, it must be. The adrenaline from the sheer horror of having experienced such a thing. He must be dreaming.
“Sorry. I scared you, didn’t I? But the expression on your face was quite priceless.”
Midorima feels his face heat up. “I still don’t believe you, you know,” Midorima says hesitantly. “Ghosts simply don’t exist in this world.”
“I’ll show you.” Akashi stands up, conviction written on his face. “Stay here and watch.”
Midorima watches and tries desperately not to pass out as Akashi walks into the hallway and passes through a crowd of five girls. He looks over his shoulder and sticks his tongue out playfully at Midorima, who is desperately clutching the edge of the piano because his knees have turned to jelly.
Akashi walks back in and closes the door.
“If,” Midorima says hesitantly, “you really are a ghost, then how did you do that? How did you open and close the door? And play the piano?”
“I can touch objects if I wish,” Akashi explains, “but not humans. No one can see or hear me but you, apparently. I wonder why that is.” He smiles, and again there is a hint of bitterness to it that shouldn’t be there, like a child drinking black coffee.
Midorima sighs. “I did not ask for this,” he mumbles to himself. “I simply came out of curiosity to see who had been playing this song all this time.”
Akashi tilts his head. “Since when have you been hearing this song?”
“Since two weeks ago,” Midorima admits. “I never had the courage to come here, though. Have you always been here?”
“Ghosts are bound to a certain...place,” Akashi says, but his mind, Midorima can see, is elsewhere. “Forever. So yes, I suppose I have always been here.”
“Why? Can’t you… go to heaven, or reincarnate, or…” Midorima fumbles for words.
Akashi seems to understand, however. “Only those who have unfinished business with the world remain in it.” He doesn’t elaborate, and Midorima feels he may be toeing a fine line, so he doesn’t ask.
Akashi sits down on the piano bench and pats the spot next to him. Midorima sits obediently. He isn’t really sure what to make of Akashi, and yet he already feels comfortable around him. “Say,” Akashi says, dragging his fingers slowly and silently across the edge of the keys without pressing down, “do you know the title of the song I’ve been playing?”
Midorima shakes his head no. Akashi keeps dragging his fingers across the keys, back and forth, back and forth, as if concentrating on the motion would distract him from something else. “It’s called ‘Time Forgets,’” Akashi says as if speaking to the piano. “By Yiruma.”
“Ah,” is all Midorima can say. It’s a shame, really, that he can’t understand just why Akashi seems so sad. Perhaps the song reminds him of someone he loved. “‘Time Forgets,’ huh,” he repeats to himself. “It’s a very nice song, and you play it well.”
“Thank you,” Akashi says rather bashfully.
“Somehow,” Midorima goes on, “I feel as if I have heard this before.”
Akashi does not respond, but his hand stills its repetitive motion across the keys. He drops both of his hands on his lap. An awkward silence befalls them both, and Midorima feels the need to fill it. But before he can, Akashi speaks up.
“Do you need to head home? I wouldn’t want to keep you.”
“Sorry.” Midorima stands up. He has crossed many boundaries today, he admits. He hopes he has not hurt Akashi’s feelings, because ghosts do have them, apparently. “I’m sorry for intruding. I just wanted to say that you’re very...talented...and I really enjoyed your playing.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Akashi says with a warm smile. “I do enjoy your company much more than you know. It gets lonely in here, all by myself.”
“Then, if it’s not too much of a bother, I’ll be back,” Midorima says with a little bow, and takes his leave. He knows he will keep his promise whether he wants to or not.
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ii.
When Midorima returns the next day, he is greeted with a smile. Akashi, however, does not stop playing until the song is over. Only then does he scoot over on the bench. Midorima sits next to him, a little closer than he had the last day. He reaches out and strokes a key absentmindedly with his finger.
“Itching to play?” Akashi asks, leaning close.
Midorima jumps, surprised. “How did you know I played?”
Akashi shrugs. “A gut feeling.”
It’s funny, because ghosts don’t have guts. But Midorima keeps that comment to himself because it is probably very insensitive. He has never been socially skilled, but he would like to think he has found a friend, albeit a strange one, in Akashi, and he doesn’t quite want to lose that.
“I did,” Midorima admits with a sigh. “But I haven’t since…” He pauses. “Since the accident.”
Akashi tilts his head curiously. “The accident?”
“There isn’t really much to say on the topic,” Midorima says, a little defensively. “I got into a car crash. I don’t remember much of it. But since then, the doctor and my parents have told me to avoid doing anything strenuous, and apparently playing the piano falls under that category. I used to play basketball, too, I think. I had to quit that as well.”
“I’m sorry,” Akashi says.
“Don’t be,” Midorima replies quickly. The last thing he wants is to make the conversation awkward.
“It is a shame,” Akashi says with a sigh. “I was hoping you might be able to play a duet with me.”
Midorima blushes, flattered at being asked. “I- I would love to, but I’m not sure if I- if I can.”
“No worries,” Akashi says, shaking his head. “I was just lonely, that’s all.”
“You can talk to me,” Midorima blurts out. “About anything… you can tell me more about yourself. If you’d like.”
Akashi flashes him a wry smile. “There isn’t really much to say on the topic.”
Midorima chuckles a bit at that. Perhaps Akashi has his own stories he’s unwilling to share, and understandably so. If Midorima were dead, he probably would not want to bring up the topic either. “Then...do you know any other songs?”
“Many.”
“Why don’t you play me one?”
“Okay,” Akashi says, rubbing the palms of his hands along the fabric of his pants. “Is there a song you would like to hear?”
Midorima shakes his head no. “Anything is fine.”
“Well, then,” Akashi says, and dives right into an extremely complex tune. His fingers dart across the keys of the piano with such vigor and such speed that they look like blurs to Midorima, and his eyes widen in shock. Akashi’s whole body rocks back and forth, playing the song with such intensity that it is as if the song is playing him.
When the song is over, Akashi sits up straight and smiles bashfully at Midorima. “How was it?”
Midorima has to physically use his hand to close his dropped jaw. “I had no idea your playing ability was so advanced. I mean, ‘Time Forgets’ is not a particularly difficult song, but this—”
Akashi brings a hand up to cover his mouth and chuckles. “I’ve been playing for a while. I only play ‘Time Forgets’ because I am attached to the song.”
Midorima wonders just how much more there is to Akashi that he does not know, and suddenly feels the urge to know more. “Do you play any more instruments?” he asks.
“Violin,” Akashi responds.
“Sports?”
Akashi hesitates at this. “Basketball.”
Midorima nods understandingly. “It seems we have a lot in common. Would you, by any chance, know how to play shogi?”
Akashi lets out a laugh, ringing loud and clear. “Of course,” he answers, as if it were inevitable. A grin splits Midorima’s face for the first time in a while— he doesn’t think he’s ever met someone so similar to him and so easy to get along with.
Akashi gets off the bench and rummages around in the cupboard at the back of the music room. He emerges with a shogi board and sets it up on the desk in the corner, a wordless challenge in his eyes.
Midorima accepts it.
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iii.
It has been three weeks, and Midorima has not won once.
He doesn’t know why he keeps returning to the music room to be beaten by someone who does not even have a literal brain. Nor does he know why this feeling of inevitable defeat is so familiar and so satisfying, but he returns begging for more each time, waiting and hoping for that one, glorious moment when he can reign victorious over Akashi.
Akashi, for his part, never looks particularly happy to win. Midorima has a sneaking suspicion that Akashi secretly wants to lose, but he doesn’t voice the thought, for he knows it would offend Akashi.
On the day after his monthly check-up at the doctor’s, he arrives at the music room wearing a smile. Akashi notices, of course, and asks about it.
“I think,” Midorima says, “that I will be able to play a duet with you today.”
Akashi’s eyes widen. “Are you feeling better?”
“I saw the doctor,” Midorima explains, taking his usual seat on the bench, pressing even closer to Akashi than he normally did, just close enough for the fabric of his gakuran to pass right through Akashi’s blazer. “He told me that my condition has been rapidly improving, and that at this point, music may help me to relieve my stress and to exercise my brain cells to speed up my improvement.”
“I’m happy to hear that,” Akashi says, and he really does look happy. Midorima smiles at that. “Is there a song you would like to play?”
“‘Time Forgets,’” Midorima says.
He’s not sure why Akashi falters slightly at that, but in a minute the boy has brightened up again. “Do you know it?”
“I don’t think so,” Midorima says, shaking his head, “but I figured you could teach me.”
“Of course.”
Akashi rummages through the back cupboards again, pulls out music sheets that look as if they were handwritten, and spreads them across the top of the piano. He guides Midorima through the process, step by step, and Midorima is surprised to find that his fingers find the keys easily as if they had a mind of their own.
Almost as if he had played the song before.
Midorima’s heart begins to beat fast, ringing in his ears, and his fingers stumble. Akashi reaches over to pat his hand in reassurance, but his pale fingers only pass right through Midorima’s flesh. As if shocked by a current of electricity, Akashi yanks his own hand back and nearly stumbles over the bench, steadying himself just in time.
“Sorry,” Akashi says breathlessly. “I-I’m sorry.”
“What’s wrong?” Midorima asks, rather alarmed. “Did- did I hurt you?”
“No,” Akashi says, his voice small and miserable. He turns so that his back is facing Midorima. “No, not at all.”
“I don’t believe you,” Midorima says sternly. “Does it- does it hurt to touch my hand?”
Akashi doesn’t respond. Midorima walks in front of him to see his face, but Akashi only turns away, covering it with his hands.
He watches, dumbfounded, as Akashi’s shoulders begin to tremble slightly, and only then does he realize that Akashi is crying.
“I’m sorry,” he says hurriedly. He isn’t sure what he has done, but he knows it’s something bad, and the sight of Akashi like this creates an inexplicably visceral pain in his chest. “I’m sorry, Akashi.”
Akashi shakes his head. “No,” he says, and Midorima has never heard him— has never heard anyone— sound so desperate. “No, don’t be. Please. I just wanted to touch you— I’m sorry. Can you— can you leave?”
Midorima stands there for several seconds, unable to move and unable to speak. And then, slowly, he treads out the door and closes it behind him.
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iv.
Midorima has never felt so helpless.
It has been a week since he has been to the music room, and it has been a week since he has heard Akashi play. What was previously his and Akashi’s safe haven is now forbidden territory. The only thing he can do is lie awake in bed, tossing and turning, as he wonders just what went wrong.
The song Akashi always played repeats itself over and over in his mind, ceasing to stop. The tune is driving Midorima crazy— combined with everything that has happened, it feels as if there is something missing. Something he should know, but doesn’t. Something that just doesn’t quite connect in his mind.
It’s a terribly familiar feeling. The first time it had happened had been in the hospital, when a strange, blond-haired boy had stormed in and begun to cry on Midorima’s shoulder. He had asked the boy who he was, and that had only made him cry even more until the nurses had arrived to drag him away. He was told, after that, of the boy’s identity. Kise, his old friend from the middle school basketball team. He was also told that the team consisted of five people, himself and four of his closest friends. They didn’t seem like the people he would usually get along with, but when they visited him they were certainly nice to him. Slowly, one by one, he began to remember them.
The doctor had told Midorima not to fret. He had said that memory loss was normal, and nothing to worry about. His memories were largely unaffected save for his middle school years, which remained a hazed blur in his mind. His family and friends had filled him in on most of the details, so Midorima could function mostly normally in his daily life. The doctor was awed that he had begun to remember his teammates and remained hopeful that the rest of his memories would return in the future as long as Midorima did not stress himself out too much. And so he stopped trying to remember.
It hadn’t happened again until recently, that nagging feeling of nostalgia whenever he hung around Akashi. And it was happening more and more frequently. Sometimes, when he was in the middle of reading a book he was almost certain he had never read, his hand would begin to shake and he would drop the book and be unable to pick it up. Sometimes, when he was on his way home, he would pass a certain tree and his feet would be planted on the ground as he looked up and watched the petals fall and see a flash of bright red that disappeared moments later.
The worst of it is when the image of Akashi crying flashes through his mind. Even though it happened a week ago, it is as if recycled from an old film, as if Midorima has witnessed it before, as rain fell about the both of them, as voices yelled and tires screeched and—
His head begins to pound like it never has before, and he is left to grit his teeth and clutch his head with both hands, just barely able to collect his wits enough to reach blindly for the nightstand. With violently shaking hands, he pulls open the first drawer, uncaps the bottle of pills, spilling them across his bed, and takes three, even though he is only supposed to take two at a time.
Only then does the pain finally dull.
Midorima realizes that that is only one possible conclusion, and that is that he and Akashi have met before. And that somehow, Akashi was involved in the accident.
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v.
When Midorima walks into the music room, Akashi is sitting at the desk in front of the shogi board, his right hand clutching a single shogi piece as he stares blankly out the window.
“We’ve met before,” Midorima says, and Akashi nearly jumps out of his seat.
“You—” Akashi opens and closes his mouth, searching for words. “You remember me?”
“That confirms it,” Midorima says, and Akashi visibly relaxes, letting out a breath. Midorima sits down across from him. “Fragments of my memories have been flashing through my mind, and you are always in them. I still don’t know who you were to me, but I figure that you must have been someone important.”
Akashi turns away, unable to meet Midorima’s eyes, unable to reply. He looks positively distraught.
“I’m sorry,” Midorima says. “I’m sorry if— if I did something horrible to you in the past. Even if I don’t remember, I will try my best to make it up to you now. I feel as if we were close friends before.”
“Friends,” Akashi says with a painfully bitter laugh.
“Am I wrong? But even if we weren’t, you are very important to me now, so I—”
Akashi holds up a hand, signaling him to stop, so he does. Akashi takes a minute to collect himself. When he looks back up at Midorima, his eyes are sad even though he is smiling.
“I should be the one saying sorry. After all, it was my fault, and it’s best if you don’t remember.”
Midorima furrows his eyebrows. “What do you mean it’s best if I don’t remember? Of course I want to remember. You mean a lot to me.”
“Shinta— Midorima,” Akashi corrects himself. “Please. The doctor’s right. It would do you no good to try to remember such things now.” A look of determination crosses his face. “I was wrong to have talked to you. I was simply caught up in the novelty of it, and I didn’t think about the consequences, and I’m sorry. So please, can we just forget about this? Don’t come back here, don’t talk to me ever again, and please, just pretend this never happened.”
Midorima has never been stricken so speechless in his life.
“What?” he chokes out finally, getting up out of his seat. “How can you say that? The time we’ve spent here together— even if I don’t remember our old memories, we can create new ones, can’t we?”
“I’m dead,” Akashi cries, his voice shaking. He swipes his hand across the desk and sends the shogi board and its pieces clattering to the ground. “I’m dead. There is no point in being caught up in the past, because nothing will ever change. Please,” he gasps. “Please, just leave.”
“No,” Midorima shouts. It hurts to see Akashi likes this, hurts so bad he has no words for it. There is no way he is going to leave without getting to the bottom of this. If he has done something terrible to Akashi, he wants— needs— to make up for it. “I won’t.”
“Then I will.”
Before Midorima can so much as move, Akashi turns and passes right through the wall. Hastily, Midorima climbs up on the desk and tumbles out the window, landing on the grass outside. When he looks around, though, Akashi is nowhere to be seen.
He runs as fast as he can, through the hallways, around the field, looking everywhere until finally he’s off school property. It seems that his feet are taking him somewhere, and so he lets them. Perhaps his body has some memory, some idea, of where Akashi might be.
He runs until he is out of breath, until it feels as if there is no oxygen left in the world. He doesn’t know where he is, only that the streets are lined with cherry blossom trees and it has begun to rain just like that night. He looks around, and Akashi is nowhere to be seen and he keeps running, blindly, and something is ringing in his ears and how could you do this to me and something is screeching and Shintarou, watch out and red hair flashes before his eyes and he feels a body pressing up against his own, pushing and he waits for the impact and—
— and it all disappears.
The car has stopped mere inches away from him and is honking like crazy. Midorima jolts back to reality, hollers an apology, and runs off the road. Once he is on the sidewalk, he collapses to his knees.
Akashi had been there that night.
Akashi had been the one to save him.
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vi.
Midorima recalls it all now. Their relationship had been a ticking time-bomb from the start.
Their feelings for each other had been budding for quite a while, due to all the time they spent together on the team and even outside of school. They did everything together— piano, shogi, walking to and from school, even staying at each others’ houses. It was only natural that Midorima had begun to regard Akashi as something other than a friend, but it came as a shock when Akashi told Midorima, an uncharacteristic blush blooming on his face, that he felt the same.
They kept it under lock and key, of course, for obvious reasons. Exchanged notes and casual, meaningful brushes of fingers across skin became the norm. The time they spent in the music room only increased after that, for it was the only time the two of them could be truly alone. The only time when the expectations of society and of Akashi’s father did not weigh down upon them like bricks. The only time when they could sit next to each other, fingers brushing across the keys, and lose themselves in a song, feather-light, lifting them like wings.
“‘Time Forgets,’” Akashi had told Midorima the first time he played the song for him, and Midorima had fallen in love with the simple tune. It had been written for one person, but Akashi had arranged a duet version just for the both of them. Midorima recalls Akashi’s steady hands helping him through the song, recalls them skirting lightly across his skin as he leaned in and touched their lips gently for a brief second. The song stopped playing and Midorima’s face heated up, but Akashi only laughed and said, “Come here,” and tugged Midorima in by the tie and kissed him hard until they were both breathless.
That had been their first kiss.
And there were many more to come. Over time, they grew needy and careless with their affection. First it was kisses in the locker room, then behind the stairs in the hallway, and then even a peck on the lips just as Midorima was about to head home from Akashi’s house. Even though Midorima had been the one to initiate that particular kiss, it was Akashi who pulled him in for more, Akashi who licked hungrily across his bottom lip and whimpered into his mouth, who fisted a hand in his hair so tight it was as if he never would let go.
Midorima still thinks, to this day, that he had dreamt that entire scenario. For only the next day, Akashi was the one who let go.
The look in Akashi’s eyes was cold, empty beyond belief as he spoke the words that shattered Midorima into a thousand pieces. He clung, helpless, onto the hem of Akashi’s sleeve.
“How could you do this to me?” he begged. “How could you do this to us?”
“Don’t you see?” Akashi turned away, as if Midorima did not even deserve to be looked in the eye. “There never was an ‘us.’ You were simply a childish experiment, and now I am done with you.”
“You can’t— that’s—” The words lodged themselves in Midorima’s throat, unable to come out. Hot tears filled his eyes as Akashi yanked his sleeve out of Midorima’s grasp and walked away and did not look back.
Midorima stood, feet planted firm against the floor as he tried not to collapse under the weight of what seemed like the sky falling on him. His entire body was numb, and he could neither think nor move. Only the sight of Akashi finally disappearing around the corner made him snap to his senses once again.
He couldn’t lose Akashi. Not after all the time they had spent together. Not after all the things they’d done and the words they still hadn’t said.
And so he ran. He ran blindly until he couldn’t breathe, until the only thing powering him was his barely beating heart, until finally he saw a flash of red across his vision, across the road and he sprinted as fast as his legs would take him, reaching out and calling Akashi’s name.
Akashi whirled around, and the look of contempt on his face quickly morphed into one of utter horror. Of fear.
“Shintarou, watch out—”
Everything from then on happened in slow motion. He heard the sound of tires screeching, saw Akashi running towards him and felt the impact of a body charging straight into his own, pushing— and then something hitting and both of them tumbling across the asphalt.
The dull pain in Midorima’s head was nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to the claws that clutched at his heart when he opened his eyes and saw a pool of blood forming underneath Akashi.
“No,” he screamed, his voice hoarse and foreign to his own ears. “No, no, no. Seijuurou, please, please wake up.”
He reached up with shaking hands, brushing them across Akashi’s face. Akashi’s eyes fluttered half-open, and he smiled weakly up at Midorima.
“Shintarou,” Akashi rasped. His hand trembled weakly at his side as if he wanted to reach up, but didn’t have the strength. Midorima took them in his own— they were already growing cold.
“Why?” Midorima sobbed, wet tears falling down his face and onto Akashi’s shirt, only to be swallowed up by the red blooming across his chest. “Why?”
Akashi opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Tears slid down his pale cheeks as he opened and closed his mouth helplessly, until finally, his eyes fell shut for the last time.
-
vii.
There he sits on the concrete sidewalk, legs folded under him as his chest heaves and pants with every breath. The realizations pierce through him in quick succession like bullets and he gasps for air, clenches his fists in the fabric of his pants, the wetness running down his face much more than just the rain.
“Shintarou!”
And this voice is very much real, and Akashi is very much real, or as real as a ghost can be as he hurries towards Midorima. “Shintarou, are you alright? Are you hurt? God, I—” He gasps and falls to his knees next to Midorima. “You have no idea how scared I was.”
Midorima looks up at Akashi, his eyes wide with concern. “Why? Why did you do it?” The words force themselves out of his throat, guttural and hopeless and helpless.
“Do what?”
“Everything,” Midorima pleads. “Why did you end things between us? Why did you save me? Why did you act like everything was fine when I saw you in the music room? Why didn’t you tell me I was responsible for your death?”
Akashi bites down hard on his lip. “You weren’t. You didn’t do anything wrong. It was all me.”
“Why?” He repeats it like a mantra, as if the word would drive away the horrible, sickening feeling of cold seeping into his body. “Why, Seijuurou?”
“It doesn’t matter why,” Akashi sighs. “It’s all over now. Like I said, I’m dead.”
“Of course it matters,” Midorima cries out, reaching out his hand and then faltering as he realizes he can no longer touch Akashi, no matter how hard he tries. He thinks about how Akashi had flinched away and begun to cry that day in the music room, and how it must’ve been because he had recalled the memory of their first kiss, and— and suddenly he can’t look Akashi in the eye anymore. It’s too much. It’s all too much.
“Of course it matters,” he repeats, more to himself than anyone else. “You’re dead, and that’s why it matters, because—” He sucks in a breath. “Because you died instead of me.”
“It was Father.”
Midorima’s head snaps up. Akashi’s eyes are looking somewhere just past him.
“Father found out that day when you were over at my house. One of the servants must have seen us and told him. He didn’t see us the way I do. He didn’t see that the boy he thinks is a mistake, a failure, is really the only thing that has ever felt right in my life. You were but a nuisance he wanted to get rid of, and now he has lost me, too.”
Midorima lets out a sob. He should have known. He should have believed in Akashi. There was no way Akashi would have betrayed him if it weren’t for an outside factor with the kind of strength that could destroy the both of them.
“There you have it,” Akashi says with a shaky laugh. “There’s the truth. It was because I was weak. It had nothing to do with you.”
“But you saved me. You saved me, and that’s why you—”
“It happened because you ran after me,” Akashi replied, cutting him off. “It shouldn’t have, and I’m glad you were safe. When I found out that you had lost your memory, you have no idea how grateful I was that it was all that had happened to you.”
“You’ve been watching over me all this time?”
Akashi nods. “Remember when I told you that ghosts are bound to a certain place for all eternity? What I didn’t tell you was that sometimes, it’s not a place, but rather a person.” His smile stabs right through Midorima, like shards of broken glass. He looks so pale and almost translucent in the dim moonlight. Midorima wants nothing more than to hold him in his arms, and yet it is no longer possible.
A question burns on Midorima’s tongue, a question he doesn’t dare to ask because he knows just how twisted it is. He looks down at Akashi’s hand, which appears to be flickering and changing opacity. Only then does it finally hit him.
He’s fading away.
Akashi, too, notices this, looking curiously down at his hand. “It appears that my time has come.” His voice is calm as a lake on a windless day, and that hurts Midorima more than anything, how accepting he is of his fate.
“No,” Midorima says, waving his arm in a futile attempt to hold on to Akashi, but it simply glides right through. “No, Seijuurou, please don’t go. I’ve only just— we still haven’t played our duet.”
“‘Time Forgets,’” Akashi says, tilting his head up and looking at the sky. He flickers again, and Midorima hears the familiar melody in the back of his mind. “Maybe that is why we have hearts. To hold on to the things that Time lets slip through her fingers.” He turns to Midorima, whose stomach tightens painfully when he sees just how content Akashi’s smile is. He reaches up, stroking the side of Midorima’s face with such reverence that Midorima can almost feel his touch. “I’m glad you were able to remember me. That was all I ever wanted.”
He flickers once more, and then, just like that, he vanishes into thin air. As if he had never been, as if Midorima had imagined this all entirely. Cold fear grips at his throat when Midorima considers that this could all have been a hallucination. There was not a single tangible piece of evidence that their conversations had taken place.
There is only one thing to do.
He runs, as fast as his feet will take him, back to the music room.
As he walks in, he squeezes his eyes shut, afraid of what he might see, or rather, not see.
One. Two. Three. He counts three deep breaths before he forces his eyes open.
There are shogi pieces littered haphazardly across the floor and music sheets spread across the top of the piano. He picks up the pieces, puts them away, and walks slowly over to the piano.
He sits down and begins to play.