Work Text:
"RIKKA! You ungrateful cave troll!"
Ristuka sighed heavily, eye twitching. He glanced at the round clock on his wall. Shit.
He ripped his headphones out as his bedroom door slammed open, revealing his sister. She brandished a pizza box. "I called you for dinner forever ago! Do you have any idea what time—"
Yayoi visibly deflated at the disaster before her. Ritsuka was hunched over a notepad on the floor by his bed. Crumpled bits of paper surrounded him. In comical slow-motion, he turned his head to face her. Voice hoarse from lack of use, all he could muster was a grunt.
"Oh my god. Uhh, here," She thrust the box at him.
"I left plenty, but it’s cold." She sounded a little guilty, "Want me to reheat it?"
"It’s fine." Ritsuka cleared his throat, reaching up for a slice while Yayoi made space for herself on his bed. "Thanks." He practically inhaled two pieces in a row, hungrier then he’d realized.
"Sorry. Guess I lost track of time.”
"It’s cool, I didn’t realize you were in mad-scientist-composer mode."
They settled into a comfortable silence as Ristuka munched down another slice. Muffled music floated up from his headphones. “Hows uhh…” Yayoi gestured loosely, "How’s it all…going?"
Ritsukas expression darkened. He chewed slowly, taking his time to respond.
It wasn’t going well.
He scowled at the memory of Hiiragi’s smug face. "It’s fine if you can’t do it!” his bandmate had goaded. It was, thankfully, a temporary arrangement. He was just covering as guitarist to get Hiiragi and Shizu(the drummer), through their debut as SYH. Hiiragi had gotten under his skin. So he’d agreed. It wasn’t until he’d listened, that he’d realized. It was a love song.
He tore another bite.
However, cocky little shit as he was, Hiiragi was Mafuyu’s oldest friend, and if it mattered this much, it had to be done. Besides... maybe, if Mafuyu heard this song, that grief-stricken look behind his amber eyes would fade, just a little.
"It’s going fine." He finally offered.
Unconvinced, Yayoi cocked her head, “You figure out a name yet?”
"…Yuki’s Stupid Love Song: To my Boyfriend." He was being childish, but Yayoi allowed it.
"Ouch."
Her sympathy made him feel worse. "I just need to figure some parts out, and the uhh, title." He said gruffly, "I know it’s not meant to sound like me, but..." a dark feeling unfurled in his gut, "...it’s just, it’s hard, to get into that persons mindset."
He hated how insignificant he felt. Yayoi had previously compared finishing Yuki's song to restoring an old painting. He had to preserve the notes, dust around the lyrics, uncover ideas without altering intention. You have to understand Yuki better than anyone, she’d said. Truth was, he didn’t want to think about Yuki at all. It only made him think of Yuki with Mafuyu and, well, he’d rather not. It felt like he was intruding, somehow. An outsider straining to eavesdrop on his boyfriends past.
Yayoi sighed, "Well you’re not your boyfriend’s dead ex." She spoke matter-of-factly, like it wasn’t a dark cloud hanging over him of late. "You’re you, Rikka!" She reached down to ruffle her little brothers hair. He was too tired to protest.
Eating had broken his one-track-fixation and the rest of his body clamored for attention. His head ached, plus he was both thirsty and needed to use the bathroom, an annoying combo.
"I’m gonna get some water."
Yayoi stood up with him, "I’m gonna hit the hay. You should, too. You have school tomorrow, in seven hours, actually."
"Ugh." He’d really lost track of time.
"Pizza’s going in the fridge. Good night, idiot."
"G’night."
In the bathroom, he relieved himself, then leaned over the sink to wash his face. He made eye-contact with his reflection, emotions bubbling too close for comfort. He squinted, bright blue eyes unusually dim, heavy with dark circles. No wonder Yayoi had gone easy on him. He looked like he was about to cry. Tears rarely happened for him, though, too tightly wrapped in anxiety.
Mafuyu hadn’t texted him at all today. Was he asleep now? Lonely? Was he thinking of him, or of...
Anxiety circled his chest. "Get your shit together!" He murmured. Beneath that swirled something worse. He didn’t pay much attention to it, usually. Yuki had known Mafuyu in ways Ritsuka hadn’t. So what? He just, lacked experience in certain…departments. No problem. So everyone who’d known Yuki revered him as some sort of musical prodigy. Fine. He could still finish this. It surely wouldn’t push Mafuyu away even more. He grimaced, remembering how Mafuyu had physically shied from the ticket he’d offered him.
Everyone seemed to forget that Yuki had died on purpose. He’d left everyone behind to pick up the pieces. He remembered Mafuyu wilting against him, staring up at the clock in his bedroom. He remembered his voice, scream-singing the most gut-wrenching lyrics he’d ever heard, clinging to his shirt afterwards like he might shatter. Yuki had done that to Mafuyu. If Yuki had meant these romantic lyrics, he would never have hurt Mafuyu like he had. Ritsuka pressed his palms to his ears, trying to slow the steady stream of thoughts.
Anger and Jealousy unfurled in his belly, two snakes. I’ll finish your stupid song, asshole, but I won’t forgive you.
Grumbling, he made his way back to the bedroom and sank down to the floor. He rested his head back against the bed, one hand fumbling for his earbuds. He ran the other hand through his dark hair, musing. If he just kept listening, he’d find the missing pieces, surely…
His focus ebbed as he sagged against the bed, head nodding. He drifted. The melody mingled with his memories. Laughter. Sneakers squeaking against a gym floor.
Lockers slammed. A flash of red hair, warm and herbal-scented. Salty air. A swing creaking, metal whining, wind whispering.
—
Blinking groggily, Ritsuka opened his eyes. He noticed a vine wrapped around vertical chains on on either side of him, bearing tiny red strawberries. It stained his fingers red as he pulled one off the vine and tasted it. Sweet, mingled with that metallic zing he got on his fingers after playing guitar. He glanced to his right and saw a figure, hazy, humming, swaying on a swing. He glanced down, realizing that he must be sitting on a swing, too.
He rubbed his eyes, trying to focus. "Hello?"
The figure —startled— spun to face him. "I was waiting for someone else. Who the hell are you?"
Reminds me of Hiiragi. “Uhh. My name is Ritsuka Uenoyama. Nice to uhh… meet you.” Ritsuka wrinkled his nose at the attitude, squinting as the figure came into focus.
The guy looked similar in age. Sandy hair framed warm brown eyes, which narrowed as he scanned Ritsuka. He cocked his head and spoke again, voice tinkling, like icicles right before they snap.
“Do…you know where we are?
Ritsuka looked around. The playground reminded him of the one he passed on his way to Mafuyus house, but this one was thickly surrounded by greenery. Everything seemed hazy, as if shrouded in a fog. Seagulls whirling overhead suggested that they were near the ocean. Mafuyu didn’t live by the ocean.
“…no. I don’t, actually.”
The boy laughed, swinging higher, teeth bared in a grin. It was a good-natured sort of laugh that made Ritsuka want to be in on the joke.
“I’m Yuki Yoshida, lead singer of SYH!”
Ritsuka froze.
“I was pretty fucking great at it, too! “ He barked out another laugh, “Then,” he skidded to a stop for dramatic effect, “I killed myself!” He turned to Ritsuka, grin slightly manic.
Mafuyus face swam in his mind, that haunted look behind his eyes, filled with tears, gazing up at him. The two snakes twisted in his gut, burning white-hot.
Yuki had broken Mafuyu, and he was sitting here, smiling about it.
Something inside Ritsuka snapped. All of his helplessness, anger and envy poured out in a torrent of words,
"You HURT Mafuyu! You died and you left him all alone! How could you betray him like that?! He—" he choked on the words, “He loved you! How can you SMILE?!!”
Yuki’s grin tightened, not quite reaching his eyes. He stared straight ahead, voice brittle. “You know Mafuyu?.”
"I love Mafuyu,” Ritsuka said darkly, “You didn’t even say goodb—"
"Ah!" Yuki cut him off, pointing, gaping at him.
"You’re the one he sings for!"
Ritsuka didn’t know what to make of that.
"Wh—" His head buzzed with rage and confusion, heart pounding in his hears. The air around them felt heavy, thick. He found it hard to breathe, ears ringing. He clapped his hands over them as his vision swam, fading to darkness.
—
Cold air nipped Ritsuka's mind awake, a winter wind tugging at his hair. He opened his eyes to see the ocean, dark and churning. His feet carried him, one in front of the other, along the waters edge. The sun struggled to break through a layer of clouds. In his mind, unfamiliar music played, discordant.
As the waves shifted, a chilling, hollow apathy seeped into his chest. Waves writhed in spirals, self-destructing before they could reach his booted feet. He clenched his fists, surprised at a sudden urge to just…walk into the ocean. Everyone would be better off if I did. The thought alarmed him, though more pressing was the pull of the deep, gaping hole in his chest. The pain wasn't physical, yet he found it unbearable. He needed to slow down his thoughts. Before it swallowed him, before—
A damp, gloved hand brushed his hair out of his face, startling him. Soft amber eyes met his, brimming with love, tinged with concern.
Chapped lips broke into a small smile, partially obscured by a massive scarf. He wanted to touch them. Firey hair stood out against the gray sky.
Mafuyu.
A wave groaned against the rocks and dissolved into thousands of foamy bubbles with a hiss. Ritsuka felt his shoulders relax.
“Yuki, you stopped talking.” Mafuyus voice, but higher. Younger.
Um, Excuse me? He couldn’t open his mouth to speak. He watched as Mafuyu took his gloved hand. Whose gloves are these?
The water seemed calmer, shimmering as the sun peeped through. Mafuyu’s eyelashes fluttered, “The ocean is so pretty, isn’t it? I feel like it’s whispering to us.” His smile was almost secretive, like he and the ocean were in on something. Something was different about his expression. Mischevious.
The haunted look that Ritsuka had grown accustomed to wasn’t present.
Because he was looking through Yuki’s eyes, wasn’t he?
Mafuyu squeezed his hand gently. Ritsuka could feel it, despite a loose awareness that he was an observer. Yukis emotions were a mess, and it was hard to pick his own out of the confusion. One feeling swelled, familiar and warm, trying to break through the swirl of apathy.
“We can leave if you want. I saw an ice cream stand on the way here. “ Mafuyu kept speaking softly as they trudged along the shore, ”It’s kinda nice that they stay open even when it’s cold…” his voice sounded like honey, a salve to the roaring chasm in his, —Yukis?— heart. Every now and again he broke into a soft hum. He kept glancing up, checking on him.
Mafuyu seemed to understand that he was helping. He wasn’t a very chatty person by nature, so this was really… a lot, for him to be doing. The warm feeling in Yukis chest bubbled over, drowning out the roaring darkness. Ritsuka knew this feeling too well. Love. Adoration. Yuki’s heart swelled with it.
He didn’t want Mafuyu to take care of him like this. He was the protector. He was the one who fielded the rumors, darting fierce glares at prying eyes. But it helped.
I should be the one pulling you up.
Ristuka couldn’t tell if these were his thoughts or Yukis anymore.
Mafuyu interrupted both. “You have band practice again tomorrow, right?” The question seemed innocuous, but the beat of silence that passed between them suggested otherwise. “I figured.”
He felt Yukis urge to wrap around Mafuyu, to engulf this light-being and shrink the gaping hole in his chest. He could almost smell the sea salt in his orange-streaked hair. He felt a stab of shame, of guilt.
I miss you.
Nauseating grief washed over him.
He sank to his knees, succumbing to that roaring darkness, and kept sinking.
—
“Hey, Uenoyama, Ritsuka, was it? You alright?”
Ristuka jolted, head spinning. The air was warm again, humid. He was leaning forward, half-falling off the swing, hands grappling the chains.
"Uhh. yeah." His anger had drained. He turned his head slowly to look at Yuki.
Yuki: Superstar performer, social butterfly, prodigy.
Yuki: chased by a loneliness only he could see, who stared sadly ahead at his feet, legs stuck out straight, heels in the dirt. He seemed so childlike. Rituska felt himself deflate. The bitterness inside him drained, replaced with compassion. Understanding. How could someone so pompous, so vibrant carry such a dark vacuum inside them? How long had he just…walked around like that? Before…
Yuki interrupted his thoughts. “I can hear him from this spot, you know. When he sings.” He huffed out a sigh, teeth gritting as his smile wilted into something more genuine, sadder. “That’s how I know he isn’t lonely.” He took a shaky breath.
“I wanted to be so much more for him. My- both our dads, drank. One night I just wanted this feeling to stop. “ He placed a hand over his chest, gripping his shirt before he continued. “I loved performing. The stage lights burned almost bright enough to drown out—I felt alive. I craved it. So I buried myself in music, and I neglected everything… everyone else. One day, I looked out at the audience and realized that I only wanted to see one person there, and he wasn’t. I let our string stretch too thin.”
Ritsuka winced, recalling how Mafuyu had rejected his invite to the SYH show. “I get it.”
“I even started a song for him! It was gonna be my moment, you know? To make it up to him.” Yuki chuckled bitterly.
Ritsuka wrestled with himself, unsure of the potential response to what he wanted to say.
He blurted it out. “I’m working on your song. For Mafuyu.”
Yukis eyes widened, shocked, then narrowed, suspicious. “Wait, who’s singing lead???”
“Err, Hiiragi.”
Yuki snorted, good-naturedly. “Of course he would. Shizus probably over the moon about that.” His eyes twinkled. “Ahh how did it go again…?”
He started to sing. Softly, at first, building in intensity as the lyrics unfolded all the love he held.
Ritsuka understood why Hiiragi called himself junk food in comparison. Yukis voice was a little deeper, velvet to Hiiragis silk. It changed the whole atmosphere around them. He shivered, rubbing the goosebumps on the back of his neck.
Yuki stopped where he'd left the song unfinished. “I was gonna add a guitar solo next, kinda like..daaa da-na-na” he sang out the rough part. “I was trying to catch that feeling, you know, when Mafuyu looks vacant? But you can tell that right under the surface he’s thinking about like, the whole world. So I was gonna add another layer here—"
Ritsuka blinked in surprise. It wasn’t so different from the part he’d written. The idea was the same. Emboldened, he interrupted, “Actually, I put a guitar part there, it goes more like this, though, then as we build the sound can kind of expand…” he demonstrated, fingers plucking the frets in the air. He couldn’t help getting a little excited. They were talking about music, after all, and Mafuyu. Those were his favorite subjects.
Yuki understood, eyes brightening in equal excitement, “That works! That works! What if...?” They continued this exchange for a while, excitedly mapping out the rest of the song. Yuki was on board with pretty much everything Ritsuka had laid down already. All that was left was…
“Backup vocals!” Yuki decided. “Hiiragi is gonna need backup.”
Ritsuka grimaced, “I'm not really a vocalist."
Yuki was having none of it. He gestured at Ritsuka to join as he started sing again.
Hesitant at first, Rituska added his voice to the mix, growing bolder as they started to harmonize. His heart glowed as they sang, voices mingling on the soft breeze, layers of love—gentle, protective, yet passionate—building. As they reached the crescendo tears pricked at Ritsukas eyes. He wanted Mafuyu to hear this, to hear both of them. He needed this to reach him.
Yuki breathed the final notes. He let them hang for a moment, then he took an unsteady breath. “There was so much more I wanted to say. I don’t know if he knew just I felt about him. I mean, I just...left.”
Yuki shivered. “He gets all quiet, you know? You think he’s being cold. But really he’s a swirl of emotions."
Ritsuka got it. Deep and constantly shifting. Reading Mafuyu was like reading the ocean.
"Loving Mafuyu was like loving…”
Ritsuka finished for him, “…the sea.”
“Yeah. You hear him?”
Over the wind, and the grass and gulls, ever so faintly, a familiar voice hummed a soft melody. Mafuyu was humming quietly to himself, wherever he was. Ritsuka suddenly missed him so much his heart could break. He glanced over at Yuki and saw tears streaming down his cheeks, eyes locked in the direction of the sound. Clinging to it.
He wondered how long Yuki spent sitting here, listening for a whisper of his lost love. He remembered too well that gaping hollowness, and so he slid his swing over and bumped Yukis. He awkwardly put an arm over Yukis shoulder, pulling him into a half hug. The other boy leaned into him, silent tears dripping.
“It’ll be okay, “ he murmured.
I just need to know he’ll be okay.”
More than anything else, Ritsuka realized, Yuki wanted Mafuyu to forgive him.
“He is. He will be. I promise.”
“Will you sing our song for him?”
“That’s the plan.”
Yuki pulled himself away, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. “I’m glad. I’m glad he’s with you.” He cleared his throat and cracked his knuckles.
Mafuyus voice had faded, a faint buzzing building in its place.
“I guess it’s time for you to go,” Yuki grinned, his eyes soft.
“Go where?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be listening.”
Ritsuka opened his mouth to respond, but the buzzing intensified. Bleeding into his surroundings, it grew louder still, shriller, cutting through his vision. Yuki and his swing wobbled and faded as Ritsukas whole body jolted into consciousness.
—
“Shit!”
Eyes snapping open, he tore his headphones out as his phone alarm blared offensively. 6:30AM. He rolled onto his back, one hand clutching his chest, heart pounding as it caught up with his rude awakening. Definitely his heart, right? His floor. His bedroom. He brought a hand to his cheek, wet, as tears rolled down his face. Echoes of Yukis feelings swirled in his chest alongside his own.
He carded his fingers through his hair, damp with sweat. The emotions started to settle, leaving only a deep knowing. His love and Yukis, one and the same. He could hear the lyrics. The name lingered on his tongue like sea salt. This was their song.
“To Mafuyu..." he said to the ceiling.
He slid back onto the floor and grabbed his pen, scribbling the songs title in blue ink onto his strawberry-stained palm.
“To the Sea.”