Work Text:
The aftermath is nothing short of atrocious.
That orchestra of taunts and jeers remained to echo in his head, but nothing compared to the way Wataru had smiled, with amethyst crinkled in bliss would be branded into his mind, he was as joyous as a saint undergoing self-immolation. He had treated every scathing word with no regard, and even went so far to remain bowing and thanking his terrible audience.
Hokuto can’t lull his heart into stillness. Even with the corner of his eye catching Wataru now helping that foul Tenshouin to his feet - he had collapsed onstage or something, the same way an ornament topples off a mantle - Hokuto knows how important it is help the sick and those who are weak, as his role prescribes, but… truly, truly, that angelic emperor that swirls upon his empire of broken marble needs to have more things coming for him.
It doesn’t matter though.
The final curtain falls, and the bell tolls for the Thirteenth Day.
He rips his mask off as soon as possible, merely to toss it to the ground. He’s sweating in his costume, a common courtesy of the stage lights beating down as hard as the audience sneered.
An assistant says something to him, someone congratulates him, someone stares, but he ignores it, ignores it.
He can’t calm his heart down, not at all.
He can hear the sound of blood clawing and rushing and crashing in his ears.
Before he knows it, Hokuto finds himself outside the theatre club door - feet having carried them of an automatic accord for safety.
Yet, he hesitates on the threshold, clammy palm firm against the wood. The safety he had sought would feel tainted now; regardless of the matter, he shoves his way inside and is immediately enveloped by the odd, warm darkness and hanging curtains that used to feel welcoming.
Wataru is already inside, already mostly through the motion of straightening up by the time Hokuto spots him, leaving Hokuto with absolutely no idea what he was doing just seconds before.
Hokuto still blinks his eyes a few times in rapid succession, waiting for the strange illusion to dissipate, to clear that it was merely his own exhaustion playing up on him.
Well, Wataru’s appearance here isn’t that odd.
…Sure, he’d left Wataru behind him on the stage, but he’s long past being surprised at anything Buchou does, like suddenly being here. He won’t be surprised until he comes up with new tricks.
If he has the capability to do so, anymore.
“Ah?” he says when he sees Hokuto come in.
It’s a sign.
Usually there’s much more fanfare. Obviously not of Hokuto, but of the simple and sheer fact of Wataru’s presence.
He does so love making a scene, he’d jump at any opportunity - even with an audience of one.
“Why did you do that?” Hokuto asks.
“Do what?”
“Don’t play dumb. That on stage. What you just did. You just let everyone hate you and laugh at you. You didn’t defend yourself once.”
“Hokuto-kun, that was the script.”
And Wataru can so easily do this, he can act like it was nothing and no big deal. Hokuto can see an angry red welt blooming on his cheek, occupying the space underneath his makeup to affirm that a full can of who-knows-what-soda had hit because he hadn’t actually been able to dodge all of them.
His once-pristine uniform is smattered with things that look fished out of the cafeteria garbage can, multitudes from where he had stood in the way of Hokuto himself getting decorated with garbage, and to top it off, he smells utterly appalling.
He looks bored, like he’s bored with Hokuto and everything he’s saying, so tired of explaining things to an insolent, silly six-year-old named Hokuto Hidaka - when at five Wataru exceeded above and beyond, but Hokuto swears he can see the lie. There’s something worn and pinched in the set of Wataru’s lips.
Hokuto knows what they look like from spending every day after school sitting across from them. He can tell this bothers Wataru too.
Or maybe it’s just his own imagination.
“You’re quite close, Hokuto-kun.” Wataru utters, and for a second, Hokuto feels a sickly, warm flush of pride wash over him like a fever.
But of course, it was not Buchou affirming his thoughts.
Wataru only means that Hokuto is physically close to him, which he is.
Somehow, during this conversation he’d put himself directly in Wataru’s space, the space he tries himself to keep an arm’s distance from.
From here, Hokuto only has to tilt his head the faintest bit up to look into Wataru’s eyes, and Wataru’s back is now flat against the wall. He looks down at Hokuto with a tilted head, eyes dark and reflecting the gloom back at him without any stage lights shining down.
Wataru looks beady and uncanny, like one of his dear birds.
Hokuto is so mad, and hurt, and so many other feelings, all of them dark and all of them terrible, boiling around inside of him. Wataru cocks his head, much like his birds once more, he is anticipating something - Hokuto wants to hit something as his expectancy.
He does.
He does, and he doesn’t want to hit Buchou. He wants to scream. He doesn’t want to hurt Wataru, despite everything. Hokuto opts to hit the wall next to him, in the dreadful fashion of a teenage boy flooded by his burning feelings; his fist feels hot to connect with the aged plaster of the wall, and he feels sick.
Wataru only smiles, the practised motion never reaching those lightless eyes.
“My, my. Hokuto-kun, that was no 'kabedon', far too harsh. You’re really no good at seducing me. Was that meant to be my farewell present?”
“No,”
“No?” For once, he sounds taken aback.
“I wasn’t planning anything. I just– You just–”
“Use your words,” Wataru chimed in a perfect preschooler’s voice - not the teacher, the preschooler: “Take your time~”
“I’m upset,” Hokuto bites his lip, knowing that his revealed piece of vulnerability is doomed to be trampled underfoot, but it is too late now. “And you’re not. But you should be.”
“If you’re trying to upset me,” Wataru drones,
“Punching these old walls isn’t the best way to go about it. I’ve been doing theatre since I was five. There’s more upsetting things. You could figure that out.”
“That’s not even true.”
“Are you sure?”
“Nothing you ever say is true. You’re the worst, Buchou.”
He hadn’t realised he had started to cry, and he’s frustrated at himself for it, swiping tears off his cheeks with brisk hands.
Wataru has the gall to imitate him, pearly tears streaking down his own cheeks, the cascade cutting lines through his stage makeup that doesn’t even have the decency to be terrible up close.
“A farewell present, Buchou, means I’d be going somewhere. I’m not.” Hokuto spits stubbornly, wet cheeks and all; like the petulant child he is.
“Oh,” Wataru breathes softly, and maybe there’s a little genuine tenderness in it, a bit of relief.
But a liar cannot change in a statement.
Hokuto knows that.
Yet, he wants to pick up that tenderness, what he thought he heard - the smallest truth under these endless masks - he wants to put it in his pocket, take it out every so often like a seashell to hold it to his ear.
A memento of Wataru, the real Wataru.
To think he’d think about him this way. Does seeing someone suffer so greatly really change everything?
He speaks again.
“...It hurts, it hurts worse that you don’t do anything. Don’t you hate it?”
“Lots of things hurt, Hokuto-kun. Don’t you know that?”
It doesn't change anything at all.
The nonchalant response is enough to make him snap away, bitter; worse than when he came here - he’s become hyperaware of how the rickety air conditioning has prickled his heated skin underneath layers of costume. The final dismissal is enough for him to retreat.
When he releases Wataru from his prison of wall and his arms to his side, the other uncharacteristically slinks to the ancient couch, flowing across it like the sea meets sand.
Wataru reclines, and swoons with his arm over his eyes like a fallen heroine in a tragedy, content with her doomed fate.
Once Hokuto is out of frame, he is free to act like he is not present anymore.
And yet he persists, Hokuto. He stands there, hands clenching at his sides, working up the nerve to say something as if overcome by stagefright.
“Hmm?” Wataru hums, slowly dragging his hand from his face to do a double-take at Hokuto, violet eyes wide in faux surprise when all of Hokuto’s ignored fuming and rumbling grows far too tiresome after several minutes. There were no tear streaks to be seen when his face was revealed once more.
“And you’re still here? You can show yourself out, can’t you? The door is right there~?”
Hokuto sputters, his hackles raised to hiss again. “You. You–”
The liar waves tiredly at him.
He’s bored again. Hokuto has bored him once more. Yes, yes, me. His hand says.
He isn’t even graced with eye contact; role fulfilled and welcome worn.
Hokuto can show himself out. He does, with nothing to say after his spirit tampers out from such a pathetic display. He grits his teeth, and marches, and the door to the theatre room slams in his face as he leaves the warm darkness.
He feels no comfort here.
There’s a flicker of anger, too, burning kindling stuck in his throat that matches with the scorch in his knuckles from connecting with the wall. He’ll eventually feed it to become the flame of a revolution, but that’s for another day he cannot see yet.
For a day when he doesn’t feel like he wants to dry heave at this sensation coming over him.
Hokuto doesn’t know why he came here. He doesn’t know why he’d find solace here, why his feet moved before his mind processed. No room in this wretched school could provide that, only the right people in them.
He should have never bothered.
Hokuto walks away into the uncertain light, and Wataru burns down the sanctuary of the theatre club.