Work Text:
- 01: お憑かれさまやん -
- Good Work Today -
At what altitude does a bird become a star?
Where the jagged edges of a wing turn to spokes of light. Where the contrail becomes a comet tail, spinning away into the dark. Where the hand reaches— too late, too far— and closes not on anything tangible, but only empty space; the echo of something still burning. Feathers left behind. A fading cloud of stardust.
One eye squeezed shut, Kanato forms a circle with his index and thumb and peers through. Even behind the studio glass, Hibari’s voice rings clearly. Never cracking, plane-smooth as it swings between octaves. Word for word clear, each line calculated for the exact way he wants it heard.
Too much of a genius. Too bright to look at without two layers of lenses.
Kanato’s hand drops to his thigh. The glass does not fog or distort, and the audio engineer at the soundboard mutters something under his breath and adjusts a red-buttoned slider. Sleek black, too warm in the padded room. Like watching someone through the window of a space shuttle.
You’re no slouch either, he’s told. But there’s a difference between loving music and being loved by it.
In the pause of an instrumental break, he glances up from his hands on his knees. Hibari catches his gaze, gold stare clouded over, lips pulled low in thought. From the bench behind the board, Kanato blinks back. Lifts and wriggles the tips of his fingers in a tentative wave.
Hibari does not respond.
Spacing out, maybe. Kanato lowers his hand. Looks away, bashful. Shakes it off like anyone would— ah, well. He didn’t notice.
The music picks its tempo up again, bracing for the next chorus. Hibari snaps back to the lyric sheet, palms pressed against headphones. His mouth opens. Audio surges.
POP.
A flare of light. A hiss, a spark. Electricity jumps in a miniature firework with the force of a shaken soda can, spreading the scent of burnt ozone, plastic and copper seared thin. The engineer startles, body jerking— “Shit!”— as they scrape out of their chair and stumble back. Kanato flinches hard as his foot gets stomped— “Ow!”. The soundboard retches like a smoker’s cough, garbles, and dies. There’s a loud click as the lights shutter off.
The emergency light kicks in overhead. A single bulb, too dim, casts the booth in crimson. The engineer is swearing now— opening panels, fanning heat off the melted slider. Without the playback, there’s dead silence from the other side. Eyes narrowing, adjusting to the red low-light, Kanato sees his shape turning circles like a confused dog, hovering between reaching for the door and waiting out the blackout.
Kanato can’t help it, he stands.
“Power surge?”
The engineer wacks something. No luck. “Maybe? This thing passed an inspection just yesterday, so—”
“Hold on, do you hear that?”
The engineer hesitates. “Hear what?”
Kanato raises his palm, gesture for silence. Strains his ears. Muffled through the soundproof glass, he can still hear the faint echoes of Hibari’s track, Hibari’s voice. Hibari’s silhouette shifts its weight nervously, dissonant. The engineer’s face twists.
“Could just be echo. Maybe the playback’s still working.”
Kanato nods vigorously in response, hovering nervously over the door knob. His fingers itch for the familiar weight of the holster on his leg. Loathe he is for not being stupid enough to bring a gun to work.
“I’m gonna check on him.”
He opens the booth door. A breeze rushes past, summer-sticky. Static clings to his skin, cold and dry.
“Hibari? You good?”
Hibari’s eyes catch on him, a little luminous. A little bright. A little too pretty. His lips don’t move save for, “Huh? Yeah, what’s going on?”
His lips don’t move— but the quietest hum of his sound reverberates anyway: A few bars of melody. A warble in falsetto. A harmony line that doesn’t match anything he’s recorded today.
“You don’t hear that?”
Hibari’s head tilts.
“Hear what?”
Kanato swallows. He feels his own heart rate start thundering through the veins in his neck.
“Never mind, maybe just imagining things,” Kanato says, too loudly. Before he remembers the audio engineer heard it too. Just a glitch, or an echo. “I think the soundboard shorted.”
Hibari frowns. “That’s weird. Too bad.” He pulls off the headphones on his shoulders, slowly. The hum warps, as if peeled off with the foam cushions. Then it cuts. A record ripped off the spinner. Delusion? Imagination? “Is it bad?”
Kanato stares at him, red light catching on the sheen of his hair. Unsure of what to make of this. “Kinda. The board’s fried. Lights too.”
“I almost didn’t notice.”
“You didn’t—?”
“Tuned out, I guess,” he chirps, shrugging. “Focusing. You alright?”
Kanato thinks about saying something else. Considers mentioning the glazed look in Hibari’s eyes, the way he spun confused like a janky compass. His voice is soft, a bit husky from recording; normal. Nothing different about it. Hibari looks at him then, curious in the flutter of his lashes, in the purse of his lips. Temperature in the room is too high. The music seems to cling like candied residue.
Kanato cannot unstick himself from the door handle. Is it that Hibari is sinking into the room, or that the room is sinking into him? Like he could twist the floor toward him with presence alone.
“...Yeah,” Kanato clears his throat, thick. “Spooked me is all. The blackout.”
Hibari smiles. Soft edges. All pastel. “Afraid of the dark? That’s ironic.”
Fear response, Kanato thinks. He chalks it up to adrenaline. That’s all.
Kanato forces a dry laugh. “Yeah, whatever. Good work. Take a break while it gets fixed.”
- 02: 瞼の裏や耳の中 -
- Behind the Eyelids & Inside your Ears -
At what altitude does a bird become a star? When it stops being a creature, and becomes a constellation?
Does it notice? Something giving way on the boundary of earthly and galactic— the heady rush of sensation when it breaks through the stratosphere. Or is it the moment it decides to roost in the cosmos, untouched? Surrounded by huge balls of gas and fire, that burn imprints onto the retinas of all who dare look from below? Or is it the very second it spreads its wings, born to fly, and intending for all the world, never to come down?
Is it ascension, or addiction? Outcome or ambition?
Kanato idles at the back of the underground club, and wonders— when did it happen?
When did Hibari stop being a boy, and become this?
Something that thrums underfoot, riding vibrations that shake through the spine and into the lungs. Something whose fingers crawl over the mic stand, whose voice melts through the world like acid. Narrowing it to the end of a telescope— a shock-pink pin-prick on a fisheye lens.
A slow, gradual death of everything else in the universe; all but the black hole called Watarai Hibari.
Fuwa Minato fades out. Ibrahim’s outline is watery on the edge of his vision. Lauren’s red hair bleeds into the stage lights and disappears. Even the sound of the instruments are devoured by the sheer scale of Hibari’s voice, rippling over the crowd in waves. Burrowing into pores, under skin, scorching itself into memory. Dead silence— or is it that nobody breathes? The audience, wrapped in the atmosphere like live fire in tinfoil, waiting to burst the moment this perfect storm passes.
Over, and over. Every track, another storm. Another fire. Another collective breath torn out of their chests, swallowed up and gulped down. Watarai Hibari owns the stage. He owns the people.
Someone jostles Kanato’s shoulder, disrupting. His stance goes off-side a step or two, the world snapping back into focus. Peripherals returned to him with consciousness; life suddenly forced back into his body. No longer a camera affixed to a tripod, no longer just something watching from the shell of a human.
“Sorry,” they say, in normal tones, not lilting or high or powerful like the vocals punching through the speakers. They’re squashed into the space beside him, sandwiched on all sides by the captive audience. In the corner of Kanato’s vision they raise a finger to the space above their upper lip and mutter harshly. It comes away red. “Huh.”
Kanato blinks, blinks again. Blinks-blinks-blinks until he has the willpower to rip himself away from the contours of Hibari’s shape, only to ask, polite but hoarse,
“Are you alright? Need a tissue?”
A different hand reaches into view. Another asteroid in Hibari’s orbit; another fan. Another worshipper.
“Got one. My nose is bleeding too.”
“Thank you,” utters the first, “Air pressure in here must be weird.”
The second laughs, “Right? But so worth it.”
Unrecognised, Kanato’s gaze cuts through them, back to the stage. The song has ended. The members are chatting through a talk section. He watches the way Hibari’s fingers work the cap off a bottle, watches the way his adam's apple bobs, watches the way his heel lifts when he leans over to set it back on the floor. Everyone else watches, too.
The weight of a thousand stares. A meteor under observation.
Hibari’s eyes flick up, searching, while Fuwa rattles through a joke and Ibrahim laughs. Background noise. Surround sound ambience. Their gazes meet, Hibari’s lashes shutter. A stone lodges in Kanato’s throat. Rows and rows of heads between him and the landing, where the lights are inlaid and Hibari stands with nothing but his hair mussed and his clothes casual and a guitar slung over his shoulder.
Lips tugging gently at the edges, he lifts his fingers in the slightest of salutes.
The crowd shrieks.
Kanato looks away.
Kanato’s head hurts. Pounding. Throbbing along to the beat of Hibari’s songs. Third in the row near the back, something warm collects under Kanato’s nose.
“Ah… ‘scuse me, do you have another tissue?”
- 03: 飛び立っていく彼方 -
- Flying Far Away -
At what altitude does a bird become a star? When it’s flown too far to be seen without binoculars?
Maybe it started the moment he took to the stage without Kanato, without Seraph or Akira. Maybe it started the first time he heard Hibari at karaoke. Maybe it started thirteen or fourteen years ago, when Kanato reached out and grazed fingertips with a child who carried the scent of clean wind and fresh grass.
Maybe it started three weeks ago, before the underground club. Before the electrical outage in the sound booth. Maybe it started when Kanato noticed something he couldn’t explain. Something unknown and distant and supernaturally terrifying. Like something unreal had crept into the space beside him and Kanato had never noticed.
Maybe it started the moment Kanato crouched low at the flap of a vending machine, two blocks down from the studio. Purple paint peeling off the side, leaving bare and rusted metal. When, in exchange for a five-hundred yen coin, he felt around for a bottle of cider and plucked it free. When he turned to his right— what do you want, hot or cold? — and Hibari was not there to answer.
He’d always waited before.
At the vending machine, blinking in the flicker of the neon light while Kanato fumbled for coins. By the train gates, bouncing on the balls of his feet while Kanato wrestled with his ticket. Waited at rehearsal, waving like a maniac through the glass, mouthing something stupid or weird or warm and grinning like a lunatic.
The silence is becoming more regular than the voice.
Kanato hoists himself out of the crouch, walks a few meters down and flops onto the bench on the sidewalk. Waiting for his manager to pick him up, ferry him back home so he can go through some papers on stock-take for Venti. He toys with his soda. With the lint in his pocket. With his phone, he mutes the volume and taps on the most recent archive— Hibari’s livestream from last night.
Just a clone, really. A digital body to fill the gap.
Smiling. Every note clean. Every line tuned to perfection. Every joke delivered with the right kind of charm. Kanato muted the volume. He hears it anyway. Phantoms crafted on the shape of Hibari’s mouth, in the way he moves. He sings with power, with joy, with nostalgia. Whatever else. He sings like someone holding wire taut between his molars, grinning through static.
Music printed on glass.
Kanato stares at the screen. Watches the way Hibari’s shoulders square between words. The way he breathes with his diaphragm, never his chest. The way his gaze darts between the red recording light and the chat ticker scrolling faster than he could ever actually read.
His skin is pale.
Kanato pauses the video. The screen stills. Hibari frozen mid-laugh, a little too white, a little too blunt. Not sharp. Not the sort that looks like a snarl when gritted tense. His eyes are glossed over by the reflection from his monitor. Milkyway caught in amber resin. Off-colour.
Not right.
The longer Kanato stares, the more it feels like Hibari’s image is watching him back.
♯♯♯♯♯
His manager pulls the car up at the curb, small and sleek as the window winds down. Swiping out of the livestream, Kanato’s hand closes around the cider sitting idly by— he’d forgotten about it. It’s cold. The wetness is numbing.
“Wear your facemask in public,” she chides.
Kanato snorts, “I’m not popular enough yet.”
Lie. Business mogul and upcoming idol-streamer is a two-for-two enough. His manager rolls her eyes.
“Did you return the USB? Sound design will be mad if you didn’t give it back.”
Reflexive, he feels around in his pocket. Just lint. His other pocket. Just his house keys. Feels around in his hoodie. More lint, his wallet— something rectangular and smooth.
“Give me ten minutes?”
His manager scoffs.
“I’ll park around back.”
The studio door is ajar, lights off. Staff gone for the Friday afternoon, for once devoid of work to be done. A welcome break for the unending grind the company often promises. Too rare to squander, leaving behind the ambience of fluorescent hallway lights and a low hum through the cracked-open booth.
Kanato knocks once and doesn’t wait; nobody is inside. He means to leave it on the table. Drop it off and run back. Refrain from inconveniencing his manager any further. But—
On the floor, a lump. A big bundle of grey wool, knees drawn in on itself, tucked up against the padded wall behind the glass screen. Hoodie pulled over, sleeves chewed at the cuffs. Phone face-down, headphones on. Fingers tangled in the drawstrings and pulled tight so the hood is bunched over his face. Hard to see, save for the shoes. White sneakers.
Shoes Kanato recognises— that weren’t even swapped for inside sandals.
He eases the sound booth’s door open. The room smells of carpet cleaner and guitar polish. There’s a sound— barely audible, stifled through warm clothes. Fast and shallow, and a wet sniffle that catches knotty behind the larynx.
“…Hiba?” Kanato says softly, uncertain.
Instinctive, Hibari flinches. Not large, just a tiny rupture through the tectonics of his body. He drags in a breath through his nose and lets it out like a stage cue. Shoulders rolling back, forcing feeling into his toes by stretching out his legs, languid. He steels himself, lets it build— a plate of armour over chainmail, lungs expanding as his posture uncurls. The training, the pose. The idol.
Still, he doesn’t speak. The drawstrings remain firm.
“…You okay?”
A long pause.
Then: “Mhm.”
The weakest lie yet.
Kanato stares, tongue heavy in his mouth.
“Rough day?”
“Mmm…”
Another pause. Kanato thinks about reaching out. Maybe unspooling the drawstrings and brushing back the hood, pinching cheeks until the lingering tears stop being tears and start becoming half-giggled complaints. He stops himself. Remembers himself. Realises he doesn’t know what to do, realises he’s never seen this before.
Instead, he steadies the cider and taps the bottle against Hibari’s knee.
“How about a drink? It’s that brand you like.”
A sniffle. A shift.
“From the vending machine?”
“From the vending machine.”
Feeling around empty air, Hibari gropes blindly with one hand.
“...You can’t drink it if your face is fabric.”
A noncommittal reply: “Mm.”
Their knuckles bump. Kanato refrains from withdrawing, refrains from letting himself colour— tilting his grip so Hibari’s hand finds the soda instead.
“Not going home?”
“...Don’t wanna.”
“Just gonna sit here all day?”
A huff inside the hoodie. Pause again, count the beats.
“...Don’t have a car,” Hibari mumbles. “Told my manager I was good.”
“Oh,” says Kanato, dumb. “How about your bike?”
“At home,” his fingers squeeze the drawstrings tighter. “Don’t wanna walk anyways. Or ride.”
“Uh-huh. Why not?”
Hibari does not answer. He fumbles the soda’s cap, unwieldy. Unable to open it one-handed while stubbornly clinging to his drawstrings. Kanato hasn’t a clue of what to say. How to fill this dooming silence, usually laced with the tones of Hibari’s endless babble. Effortless, smooth. Kanato doesn’t have that social skill. So he stands there, stupid, wondering, until Hibari ekes out a raspy,
“...Can I go with you tonight?”
- 04: 痛みが重なったら -
- When the Pain Overlaps -
Hibari holds his drawstrings the whole way home.
My face is ugly right now, he says, you’re not allowed to see it.
He doesn’t drink the cider, either. Only lets it rest against his arm.
So Kanato doesn’t look, not directly. Not in the reflection of the car window, not when he unlocks the door and nudges it open with his shoulder. Not in the mirror when they pass it in the entryway, and not when Hibari hits the edge of the couch and keels over in a ninety-degree arch.
There’s an idol on Kanato’s sofa. Curled up, drawstrings freed but face turned into the cushions, clutching a vending machine cider like something holy. If he stole a picture and printed it on a polaroid, he could sell it for an exorbitant amount online. It’s just an idle thought. Obviously, he wouldn’t.
Then Hibari grumbles, “I twisted my ankle tripping over aux cords after band practice.”
Kanato frowns.
“You haven’t had band practice since the concert last week.”
“I know.”
No lights flicker. Kanato taps the switch on the coffee machine and it rumbles on fine, steady whir and all. Nothing threatens to choke the life out of Kanato’s lungs. There’s no pressure; no gravity well promising to dissolve him in the tones of Hibari’s siren song.
Just silence. Kanato’s thoughts turning over in his mind.
The cushions are a little rumpled under Hibari’s weight. His sneaker has a frayed lace. The bottle of cider, still unopened, rolls an inch and wobbles in the dip of his lap. Kanato leans against the couch’s back, cranes over enough so his bangs curtain.
“You’ve been going to dance practice on a twisted ankle? For a week?”
Hibari turns his head a fraction, peeking from under the mop of purple hair.
“Tripped again today, too.”
Kanato remembers that, because his hand had stuttered at Hibari’s shoulder when he’d gone over. Bent himself on the side of his foot, then laughed about it and hopped right back up like a bunny, stretching out his hamstrings. Whoops, I’ll get it right the next go. Not a step out of place afterwards. Perfectly imitating the choreography. If he’d limped, someone would’ve noticed.
I’m good, he’d said, flexing his feet to prove it. Let’s try it again.
“You lied?”
Hibari flashes teeth in an aborted attempt at a comforting smile. Too white. Not because he’s flawless.
“Have you eaten today?” Kanato asks.
“Forgot,” Hibari replies. The cider creaks under his grip.
Too white, because he brushed his teeth and then skipped the lunch break.
Kanato looks again, more carefully now.
That’s not stage lighting. That’s oil. That’s not a glimmer; that’s a tear track that dried halfway. Not a sparkle, but his usual earrings, duller now without the aesthetics team to polish them. It’s not toner, it’s the red mark beneath his choker, formed because he hasn’t taken it off, even through his showers.
The whites of his eyes aren’t glowing with that eerie purity Kanato’s been imagining all this time. They’re bloodshot. Tired. Rimmed faintly with pink, a little swollen. Rubbed at.
“What?” Hibari rasps, “you’re staring at me.”
Kanato hums, thoughtful.
“Hibari, when do you think a bird becomes a star?”
Hibari’s head turns further, rolling off his stomach and onto his side so he can scrutinise Kanato properly. His nose scrunches. A lack of sleep has trenched under his eyes.
“What’s that? Like, literature?”
“No, just a question.”
Hibari squints. “That’s too weird. Doesn’t make any sense. I don’t wanna do philosophy right now.”
“Well, do you think a bird can dream of being a star?”
“Sure,” Hibari answers, without a beat, “But I don’t see why. It’s cold in space, right? Birds can’t fly that high, Kanato. You know that.”
Kanato clicks his tongue in faux disdain. “Since when were you a wiseman?”
“Since you became a dumb one.”
At what altitude does a bird become a star?
On the stage? At karaoke? Thirteen or fourteen years ago on the windowsill? Probably not.
Could’ve been the first time he saw Hibari’s name trending, and felt proud instead of worried. Could’ve been when he retweeted a clip without showing Hibari first. Could’ve been when Kanato began to agree more with compliments from strangers than with what he ever said to Hibari himself.
The facsimile of a laugh strains into a breath. A hushed acknowledgement, Kanato murmurs, “Guess so.”
You can’t worship your friends, Kanato used to think. If he stood on that stage with Seraph and Akira and Hibari, they were a team without divide. Kanato had been there since the beginning— knew Hibari when his voice cracked mid-note and his guitar strings snapped and he cried over scoring second in a karaoke contest. Knew him before the hair dye, before the posture lessons, before the honeyed tone, before his laugh learned to land in three-second bursts like confetti.
But somewhere along the way, he’d started clapping, too.
You’re amazing, he’d say. That’s my partner, isn’t he cool? Because talent and skill can’t be denied. There is music in Hibari’s bones, down to the marrow, and mastery is supposed to be praised.
Filtered vision.
Kanato leans further over the couch, lower. Hibari’s face smoothens, steady in its confusion.
“What?” he snips again, “You’re being such a weirdo, dude.”
His lips are dry. Not enough balm. The ends of his hair are starting to split. Not enough care. There’s a few pricks in his ear where he missed the mark and stabbed himself, scabbed over. Not enough focus.
“Sorry,” Kanato breathes. “I didn’t realise.” Too much worship.
Somewhere along the way, Kanato stopped noticing the small things.
The difference between a big grin and a fake one. The hand always resting near his throat after livestreams. The shift in his breathing after long meetings. That he always chewed gum after skipping meals but never said why.
Hibari’s brows knit, but despite it, he cracks a smile. He puffs a laugh, the sort that’s only air and exhaustion, before slapping a hand over Kanato’s face and guiding it away. If only so he doesn’t see the rose tint spreading on the shell of his ears.
“Is that all? You were freaking me out.”
Kanato leans back, pulls Hibari’s hand free but does not let go.
“Dude,” Hibari says again, but doesn’t let go either.
“Sorry, Hibari,” repeats Kanato, “I’ll do better next time. As your leader.”
“It’s fine,” Hibari blurts, desperate now. Flush spreading. “Just let go.”
Hibari’s fingers are calloused. Known fact, from guitar. Kanato holds them still, because it’s easier than admitting that mythologising constellations is the only way to touch them.
Easier than admitting the legend was just a tired boy. Than admitting Kanato could’ve done something earlier, but didn’t.
“What if I don’t?”
Even though he protests, Hibari doesn’t pull back. Grounded on Kanato’s stupid sofa with chip crumbs down the sides, rather than lightyears away immortalised in stardust.
“Kanato, you’re being super weird.”
“I can get weirder if you want.”
Hibari makes an ugly noise— between a strangled goat and a kettle— and rips his hands back to his chest. The soda hisses as the cap starts to froth.
Kanato laughs.
It’s a trick question. There is no star. Just a bird and a perfect lie, looking for a place to roost.