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Shu Itsuki has always dreaded the day Nito would confess his love to him.
He always knew it was coming, and Itsuki’s worst fear was that the hands in his chest would claw open from empty ribs and grab, and his carefully constructed masterpiece would all crumble down. Because of course Itsuki would say yes. His repeated ‘yes’ to everything Nito asked for is what gave birth to Valkyrie, for better or for worse.
“Nito! Why are you smoking?” Shu attempts to snatch a cigarette from delicate fingers, rattled already. There’s just too much coming up, because, “We face that uncouth group tomorrow, finé, in their garish Dream Festival! We have no choice but to compete, we need you to at least breathe when you get there! Your voice will be unsalvageable if you smoke!”
Not to mention it’s not allowed on campus grounds, and not at his age. Shu glances around nervously in case anybody is watching— the beloved marionette of Valkyrie, tarnishing his lungs with tobacco! Shameless! The night sky hides any shadows on the rooftop— why does Nito like coming up here so often, anyway? It’s dangerous!
“…” At first, Shu thinks he’s going to say nothing like usual, but Nito parts his lips, and a faint rush of grey escapes those perfected teeth, ridged by youth. “We’re going to lose tomorrow. You know that, right?”
Shu can’t help but let a wrecked, ragged laugh shudder out of his throat. So now, Nito can speak? Now, of all times? “Nito! Your voice, if it really can work, if we can record everything again—“
But when Nito’s pale face turns to him, glassy eyes dulled with grief, apathy, a shade of cynical sorrow pulled over like monochrome stained glass, Shu finds their roles have been switched this time. Nito takes another drag, dark wisps slipping past chapped lips that Shu is dying to fix.
“The lights are going to fail,” Nito sighs, leaning his head back as his blue blazer rumples, the bitter stench of smoke polluting the cool night, freshened by the wind. His cigarette dangles precariously between two fingers, the burning end pointed to the concrete below. He leans on the railing so heavily that if it broke, he’d go tumbling to earth. Nito looks at Shu through light eyelashes, moonlike, and Shu feels his words shrivel in his chest. “The sound is going to cut. Everybody’s going to find out I can’t sing. And we’ll lose.”
“Ridiculous,” Shu snaps, reaching over to pluck the cigarette from Nito’s fingers, but Nito dodges him, swiping it back with a line of soot. “That won’t happen. Everything is going to be perfect, as we designed.” He wonders when this moment is going to end, when Nito’s voice is going to give out.
To his surprise, Nito barks out a laugh, blinding and raucous and scarred by smoke. His Nito laughs, laughs, and laughs, leaning back as if to taunt the sky, all those soft edges scratched away, and turns to him with a crooked smirk. “I forgot how arrogant you were, Itsuki.” Itsuki? Shu hurts a little, tries not to wince. That’s a little cold. “Shu-san,” Nito says quieter, “I’ve missed saying your name. Like this. When I could.”
“You’re the one who always called me a teacher,” Shu snaps, rolling his eyes. “You’re speaking nonsense. Get to the point?”
But Nito must have finally cracked, or is enduring some kind of psychosis, because his hand curls around Shu’s jaw and pulls him into Nito’s lips, causing Shu to sputter into the best kiss he’s ever had. Nito is lazy with it, casual, like they have all the time in the world, none of the wild passion or sensual desperation that Shu had shamefully fantasized about when Nito wasn’t in the room. His breath reeks of cigarette smoke, which Shu can’t spit out no matter how hard he tries.
Nito kisses him like he’s trying not to cry, and he pulls back, wetness clinging to his lips. Shu swallows hard as he watches Nito’s lower lip brighten with blood circulation, heavier than before.
“I loved you,” Nito breathes, bittersweet, “I love you and that’s why I let you do anything. I just don’t understand why nobody understood that.”
“You’re speaking nonsense,” Shu stutters, flustered, “Nonsense!” He doesn’t understand. Why is Nito acting like this? When did he become so forward? And where did he gain such a terrible sadness in his eyes?
“A little further back,” Nito murmurs into his ear, humid breath at Shu’s collar. “It’s too soon, anyway. I needed you to need me. You’ll have your Nito back.”
Despite how ominous those words sound, that promise strangely comforts Shu, childishly. “Well, be quick about it,” he complains, “You better make sense tomorrow morning.”
Nito rests his head atop Shu’s hair, steady and warm, and Shu realizes he’s standing on the ledge of the railing just to reach. Something wet slips down Shu’s cheek, spilling over his eyelid, and Shu thinks it’s his own tear at first, but he then realizes that Nito is weeping. Tears that don’t belong to him slide down Shu’s face, and he vaguely wonders if he should be crying too.
“Where did we fall apart?” Nito cries, “Where did I fail you?”
Shu croaks, “Never. It was never you.”
“Where? Where did it go wrong?”
The cigarette long dropped to the concrete inexplicably erupts in white flame, and everything is washed away.
—
Shu is berating Kagehira again in the studio, having missed half a beat on the metronome, before he realizes Nito is just staring, with a strange intensity.
Nito seems unsurprised, but a little sour. It’s the most emotion Shu has seen out of him in a year, so much so that he instantly rushes to his dear marionette’s side— maybe something is broken?
Somehow, Nito doesn’t have to smile for Shu to sense the bittersweet on his lips.
Nito darts out the door before his eyes, but Shu doesn’t have the strength to stop him.
—
“Beautiful! So beautiful!”
Shu claps twice, a bright sound in the studio as Nito sighs, releasing his breath. “That was gorgeous, Nito! Your voice is phenomenal, why, your range is unmatched among any young men our age! So sweet, angelic, almost like a girl’s! I don’t understand how nobody has ever noticed it before, it’s like walking past Monet! It’s like walking into the Sistine Chapel and never looking skyward!”
Nito’s ruby gaze is oddly empty, the shine lost out of the fire that lingered there and drew in Shu like a particularly lost moth. He’s perfect, Shu repeats to himself like prayer, he’s perfect! Doll-like blush, so feminine, skin like glass and a voice of crystal, Shu doesn’t dare touch and ruin him. “Is that why you liked it? Because it sounded like a woman’s?” He quiets. “Do you want it?”
“I— um—“ Shu startles. That’s not a question he evr really bothered to give much thought, but now that Nito mentions it, something squirms uncomfortably in his gut, something naked and parasitical and begging to see light. “I— perhaps— no, of course not,” Shu insists, stumbling on his syllables. Ridiculous. “It’s simply artistic. It’s not something I’d— I’d crave for myself.”
“I don’t want it,” Nito rolls his shoulders, stretching out the cracks, “so you can have it.” He sweeps towards Shu before stopping before him, looking him directly in the eye like he can reach out with fingers outstretched and claw something out. “You really don’t know yourself at all.”
“Where did this line of questioning come from, Nito?” Nervous aggression stirs up in his shoulders before he forcibly flattens himself. That’s not sophisticated at all. “Is this an interrogation?”
“… If I told you there was a medicine that would take it away,” Nito starts, “And it would make me happy. But I would never be able to sing like this again. If I took it, would you say?”
Shu resists the urge to lunge forward, to grab Nito’s gorgeous shoulders and scream, to shake him out of his possible hypothetical because that is positively insane. “What? You can’t just—“ He shudders, “Nito, your voice is god-sent! Anybody would be lucky to have such a voice, everybody would die for one! To throw it away? Nito, you are so blessed! Something like your voice, it’s too precious, it’s too—“
The knowing stare Nito has isn’t piercing, but almost pitying.
“Not now,” Nito laments, “It’s too late. Have to go back further.”
“Too late?” Something horrible suddenly opens up in his chest, a gaping maw, suddenly hungry and yet knowing that it’s caught in famine. All of a sudden, Shu wants, he knows it’s too late but Shu wants something, he can’t quite grasp what, he wants Nito, wants to love him, to dissect him alive, wants to pull at his throat and pull at that voice, his slender shoulders, the sweet slope of his jaw, not too sharp, silk and angels, he wants that voice, the porcelain, he wants to be—
“Not too late for you. Never too late for you.” Nito rubs a thumb into his palm, careful, caring, and Shu doesn’t understand how Nito can just know. Valkyrie has only just come together. He doesn’t know how Nito knows him. “Oh, Itsuki, there is still time.”
“Nito?” There’s an ache that’s stirred in Itsuki now, personal and longing.
But Nito is gone, torn away by the wind stirred up by the curtains’ close.
—
Shu signing up for training rooms, Shu hunched over a sewing machine, Shu yelling for some reason or other, Shu crying, for no reason at all: it absorbs him, consumes Nito like starvation as he keeps searching and searching.
He claws through the white veils, through the past, grasping the delicate weave of fate before it slips out of his fingers. There has to be something he can do, but the further he goes, the more inevitable it seems, the more tangled, the less converged—
He pushes through, to the next event, and his vision opens to a familiar sight.
—
Nito is wagging a piece of dragonfruit furiously in front of him, speared on a fork, and Shu really has no idea what to think of his new unit partner.
“Eat it! Why won’t you eat it?” Nito nearly shouts, drawing the attention of some of the nearby customers trying to enjoy their café experience. And Shu thought he was obnoxious. “You’re so impossible! It’s just a fucking fruit! Eat it! What made you such a prude back then, about an ugly fruit! Just take a damn bite, you picky fucking eater!”
“Nito! I don’t want to eat it!” Shu argues fiercely, throwing up his hands in case Nito throws it. This was a terrible idea, he languishes, his unit mate is insane. They’re going to die at Yumenosaki. Clearly that beautiful face was hiding a foul personality. “Is that so wrong of me? Is it a sin not to eat dragonfruit? You’re making a scene!”
“You’re fucking impossible!” Nito shouts, “Such a fucking pain! I keep chasing you in time, thinking I can fix your pathetic ass, maybe turn things around, but you’re always like this!” Ceramic plates scatter to the ground, shattering, and Shu almost weeps at the floral patterns snapping irreparably. English rose designs are so rare. “You were always like this! You’re helpless!”
“Then stop trying!” Shu yanks his arm away from the spilled tea, restraining the disgust he’s sure is spreading across his face like a stain. “I have no clue what you’re talking about, but it sounds horrendous! Keep it far away from me, I have no interest in being fixed!”
That seems to silence Nito for a moment, heaving in frustration, before slumping back into his chair and throwing an arm over his face.
“Of course you don’t. Tell me, were we always made to fail?”
Shu wrinkles his nose, picking up a napkin to wipe up the jasmine. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”
Tangled blonde runs through Nito’s fingers as he releases a ragged huff. “I keep thinking that maybe if I can just find the right spot, I can change what could have happened. Find where we went wrong. But this is the beginning. There isn’t really any further I can go.” Exhaustion leaks through his voice. “I just wanted you to love me as much as you could,” he admits, “I just don’t understand why that was so hard.” A pause, and a laugh. “Sorry. I sound insane.”
Something shifts in Shu like broken clockwork, like a piece is out of place but it’s still clicking, still scrabbling forward, and Shu snatches onto that feeling like a snag of silk. “Whatever it is, I’m willing to listen. Please, tell me more,” he insists, hoping Nito can see the sincerity he’s working hard to convey.
Nito’s eyes widen, minutely, the fire shrinking. “You’re kidding,” he says rudely, and Shu just rolls his eyes insultingly.
“Frankly, you exhaust me. Consider it a thought experiment.”
Nito picks at Shu’s fruits, which he had all intention of sharing. “I just wish there was something I can do,” he says, “because all of this is going to fall down in two years. It’s going to be our fault.”
“Perhaps it was never meant to be.”
“But wasn’t it?” Nito looks at Shu so desperately, like he’s trying to imprint his face in his mind forever. “I mean, God, Shu, you don’t even know how young you look to me. You know, you’ll get bags under your eyes, right here, and here,” and a finger delicately brushes on Shu’s cheeks. Shu is shocked still by the intimacy of it. “You’ll get a wrinkle here when you smile—“ another touch, “And here, when you worry. You’re going to get a mole under your waterline no matter how much sunscreen you apply. You’ll tell everybody it’s a beauty mark, and tell people it’s where your lover kissed you in your past life. But it’ll be me,” Nito breathes, “and I’ll smile and keep my mouth shut. I didn’t even remember what you ordered today. I don’t remember this face, so untouched by worry, I don’t remember when that rage took over your heart.”
Nito’s smile cracks, worried by loss, and he looks so much older than fourteen. “I don’t remember seeing you so happy, and that’s the worst part. Because all I can remember is that I wasn’t able to save you. How could it not have been meant to be, if we were so happy? How could that be torn away from us?”
“There are many wonderful things that are torn away,” Shu points out, “Like the Library of Alexandria, or the destruction of Warsaw. The British Museum doesn’t help.” Kiryuu’s mother, for one, Shu regrets. “It’s not uncommon.”
“But why us,” Nito slumps into his arms, thick sweater sleeves hiding his face. “I loved you. It’s in the past, and I wouldn’t bring it back, I can’t move on from the idea that at some point, there was no return. That if we had done things differently, maybe it could have worked. How far back do I have to go to not lose you?”
“I have a combative personality,” Shu apologizes, “Not many people can tolerate it. Perhaps we clashed on an intrinsic level. We must have had our differences.”
“I did more than tolerate it,” Nito says sadly, “That’s what I loved most about you. Sounds like a horror movie. The very thing I loved most about you is what pushed us apart.”
Shu says nothing, spearing a piece of dragonfruit on his fork and poking at Nito’s cheek gently, a weak smile pulling at his lips. “Don’t waste your time on me. If I really loved you, I’d want you to be free.”
That knocks a regretful laugh from Nito’s lips. “Wouldn’t you know it,” he says, sarcasm sharp on his tongue but not laced without longing. His lips part, and Shu lets him bite the dragonfruit off his fork.
“I can’t live it all over again knowing we’re only going to hurt each other.” Nito’s voice cracks, in the way it always will; it will become more like Shu’s, hesitate on the high notes, and that will sentence them to death one day. “I can’t fail you again.”
“I’m never going to change. But you can,” Shu says firmly, because if there’s anything he’s sure of, it’s that. “Don’t obsess over changing the past a second longer. You deserve better than that.”
Nito chews slowly, savoring the taste knowing he’s never getting it again. “Since I’m not getting this opportunity, what did you really want from me today?”
Embarrassment clouds his judgement in vicious red, but again, they’re never getting this opportunity again.
“I wanted to make you my girlfriend,” Shu admits, and Nito breaks out into bright laughter, weeping a little as a shimmer slips from his eye, and he wipes it away, relieved.
“I know,” Nito laughs, a little teary, “I just like hearing you say it.”
—
Nito makes his way through campus, already knowing who he’s looking for— he glances up to the window a floor overhead, blinding with the sun bouncing off the glass. There’s a familiar shatter, like birdsong, and Nito turns to it with fond nostalgia burning across his lungs.
Shu rushes out in shimmering silk, surrounded by shards of sunlight, a Valkyrie, and Nito rushes forward to embrace him as they crash to the pavement together, inseparable despite the spiking hurt in his spine.
“My soulmate!” Shu tumbles forward to beam at him, innocent of the pain to come ahead, and Nito can’t help but meet that gaze with open arms. “Please, mon ange, beautiful muse, oh, moon, I beg of you, join my unit and I’ll show the world your smile!”
Nito remembers when nobody had ever called him beautiful before, and those words take a different meaning now, but he’s no less loved than he was then. He can’t change anything at all. For now, in this moment, he just lets himself be happy, because that’s what Shu did to him. Under those hands, he felt beautiful. If only for this, he can live it all over again.
Maybe Shu isn’t the only one who will never change, because Nito laughs, cries, without any grief, and takes Shu’s hands all over again.