Work Text:
Nothing worked.
How long would the others accept excuse after excuse for the lack of progress in their current song, half of them simply lies?
Kanade laid across her bed, stretched out over it with an arm resting on her forehead as she stared at the ceiling, grimacing. The light of the computer screen nearby mocked her. The pen and papers nearby laughed at her endlessly.
She wasn’t unfamiliar with creative blocks. They happened plenty—usually she could even fight it off with the help of the rest of Nightcord, as they offered new experiences as inspiration and talked her through it. But...none of it helped this time. Nothing broke through, and Kanade couldn’t even grasp why it didn’t.
Every doubt she held inside herself, every fear and worry culminated and grew just for moments like this. They didn’t happen often, thankfully, but when they did, they made up for all the time they spent dormant. Voices nagging in her head never stopped. They taunted her inability to create the songs she needed to create. Every minute she wasted sitting around unproductive was another minute someone was pushed closer to the edge. Another person she could be keeping above the water. Every minute was a minute she could be trying to pull Mafuyu away from that edge, and a minute closer to the song she still worked tirelessly to create just for her.
Every day, it felt like she was that much closer to the very real possibility of just...failing. Maybe she would realize eventually that her songs never saved anyone. Never helped. Maybe she’d accidentally push someone too far.
Maybe she never would find a way through to Mafuyu’s feelings. Sure, the girl said she would wait for that day...but what if that day never comes? Just how long is she willing to wait for her before she realizes nothing would come of it?
It was pathetic, really. She was supposed to be giving Mafuyu a reason to want to exist, yet here she was living this sad, pathetic excuse for a life herself. The same girl she was trying to save had to constantly keep an eye on her to make sure she ate and took care of herself. She had to pull Kanade out once in a while to make sure she got outside sometimes. She had to make sure that Kanade did not in fact try to constantly live off of cup noodles, even if more often than not, Mafuyu simply folded and did the same.
Some savior she was.
Sitting up, Kanade hunched over at the edge of the bed, a hand pushing itself up into her hair. Her eyes squeezed shut as her ears somehow drowned in the utter silence of this place that was supposed to be her home. Mafuyu wasn’t home right now. The silence was deafening when she wasn’t home. Pulling herself onto her feet, Kanade trudged over to her chair and sat down, eyes staring forward at the computer screen. She stared at the barely started notes, already picking apart every unacceptable flaw in what little she even managed to make earlier. She couldn’t do this right now. She really couldn’t. It hadn’t even reached demo stage, and she was already considering scrapping it. Another failure. She really could fail Mafuyu at this rate. Just the thought of that...it scared her. Her chest felt tight at the acknowledgment, her hand balling into a fist and giving a frustrated slam down against the keyboard. Dammit. God dammit. Her chest hurt. Her feet picked up to rest at the edge of her chair, knees pulled up to her chest as she took an anxious breath, her sense of control gradually beginning to slip, thread by thread. Note by note. Just like the messy, discordant notes on the piece taunting her on her screen. How pathetic could she be? All she had to do was keep composing. What was so hard about that?
She didn’t deserve to look her own dad in the eyes if she couldn’t at least do this much. If she couldn’t make up for what she did to him, then why was she even here? What could she possibly hope to offer anyone else? To Mafuyu? Her other hand fidgeted with something hidden in an open little drawer of her desk, shaky fingers studying the familiar feeling of plastic and metal.
She can’t. It’s been so long. The others told her she deserved more than this. She wasn’t sure she believed that. She tried her hardest to at least allow herself to feel a little bit of happiness once in a while, but even that made her feel...dirty. Like she was asking for something she shouldn’t even be allowed to see, much less feel herself.
How was someone who hated herself this much supposed to make a song that would save Mafuyu from her own self-loathing? Would a song so hypocritical and shallow even make a dent? No, it wouldn’t even make a sound. Her fingers wrap around the object in her grasp. What a waste of time. A waste of breath, a waste of life, and a waste of effort. She felt like a waste. The way her entire body trembled, it was as if it agreed with the sentiment. Lowering her chin onto her knees, a hand unsteadily buries itself into silver hair as her hidden away hand finally pulls itself and its item from the drawer, slamming it shut after.
---
Three quiet knocks.
“Kanade?”
“You’re home...it’s open.”
Turning the doorknob, Mafuyu opened the bedroom door, revealing Kanade inside the room. As usual, she was seated at the computer, still looking over a mostly empty melody with her elbow propped on the desk and chin resting in her hand.
“Are you still stuck?”
“Unfortunately.”
Walking over, Mafuyu placed a tall bottled drink on the corner of the desk. Cold oolong tea. “Here.”
“Oh...thank you.” Calm as ever. Yet...strange, in a way Mafuyu can’t put her finger on. Just because she was still getting a grip on her own emotional understanding didn’t mean she had lost her ability to read a room. Yet, everything in Kanade’s behavior screamed that she wasn’t aiming to make it obvious or have it pointed out. Maybe...she should just leave it be then.
“We can go somewhere again, if you want to. Maybe doing that without Ena and Mizuki tagging along would help you think?”
“No, it’s fine...I’ll work it out, somehow. Thank you though.” Kanade glanced over at her, giving her a small, apologetic smile. A considerably tired one. She gave the awkwardly perched girl a once-over glance, eyes pausing a moment at Kanade’s right sleeve.
“There’s something on your sleeve.”
“Hm?”
Wandering over, Mafuyu leaned over to get a better look. Kanade turned her head to look at it, though her realization over what she was looking at was seconds too late to try and redirect Mafuyu’s attention. Her stomach dropped at the sight of high-placed red stains that had bled through the material of her sleeve, something she must not have noticed all this time.
“O-oh—”
“Did you get hurt?” There was an obvious hint of concern in Mafuyu’s tone, but when she reached for Kanade’s arm, the smaller girl almost seemed to shrink away like a reflex.
“A-ah, well…”
“Kanade?”
“Y-yes I just…I...fell earlier, I thought I’d cleaned myself up afterwards but I guess I didn’t realize that I got my sleeve dirty…” With a slightly nervous half-chuckle, Kanade shook her head. “It’s okay, it’s not fresh or anything.”
“At least let me check on it.” Mafuyu’s insistence alarmed Kanade, for reasons she didn’t want to disclose. Fingers find the shoulder of her jacket, but Kanade’s hand find them after and hold them still, the composer clearing her throat.
“N-no really—I mean it, I’m fine, Mafuyu.”
“When you say it like that, it doesn’t usually mean that you’re fine.” A blunt observation. Kanade couldn’t catch herself before a brief moment of panic makes her push her computer chair away from Mafuyu a step, the girl wrestling her shoulder out from under Mafuyu’s grasp.
“D-don’t.”
That’s new. Mafuyu looks at Kanade’s face blankly, studying it in silence. She...wasn’t sure she liked that reaction. Why was that? She didn’t feel agitation or anything like that, she was pretty sure. No...it was more along the lines of...worry. A chill that spread in her chest and pulled a sense of anxiety up to the surface. She would upset Kanade if she pushed any further. But...all of her suspicions and concerns...was there ground to them after all? Kanade...had something to hide. From her, even.
She stepped closer again, extending her hand like before. This time, Kanade practically slapped her hand away, tensing up. “I-I’m sorry, but I’m being serious...please, just leave it alone. I’m okay.”
“No. You are not.” A weak smack like that wasn’t going to knock her terribly off-course. Honestly, Kanade wasn’t all that strong at all. Especially compared to Mafuyu. Her free hand grabbed the wrist of the one that was moving to stop her again. Before Kanade could really register that she’d been stopped like that, Mafuyu grabbed at the edge of her open jacket and gave it a rough pull downwards, revealing Kanade’s shoulder and arm underneath.
“...ah.”
All of the weak strength behind Kanade’s struggling in Mafuyu’s grasp seemed to drain out of the composer all at once as Mafuyu studied the sight she was seeing. There was a line of gauze pressed against a part of Kanade’s arm, wrapped with medical tape to keep it in place. That explained the blood. But what stood out more was the skin around that sight. From just under the start of Kanade’s shoulder down to a few inches above her elbow, the outer side of Kanade’s arm was decorated with a...fair number of scars. Their depth varied. Some were shallow or barely visible, while others were etched in deep enough that whatever had left them before had to be something...painful.
Mafuyu let go of Kanade’s wrist, only for it to land back in Kanade’s lap, resigned. Slowly, she decided to push the other side of Kanade’s jacket down as well, revealing about a similar situation on the other arm.
Anyone would be a fool to assume this was anything aside from what echoed in Mafuyu’s mind.
And that fresh gauze...this wasn’t a forgotten habit, was it?
Her chest…
...it hurts, actually.
It probably paled in comparison to what went through Kanade’s mind right now. Not that she could understand it herself.
“Can you...leave me alone for a moment?”
Mafuyu dropped her hands to her sides, silent for a moment. Maybe that would be the polite thing to do, after discovering someone’s dirty secret.
It wasn’t the right thing, though.
“I don’t...think I can, no.”
Kanade almost seemed to scoff as she turned her head to the side, looking at the computer instead. Instead it was just a pained grimace. A look of intense shame.
“When did you do that?”
“...This morning.” Kanade’s answer was quiet. She could barely hear it. Blue eyes shift just a little bit, glancing at the keyboard now instead. “It isn’t like I do it like I did when I was younger. They’re all old scars. I hardly do it anymore.”
“But, you do.”
Quietly, Kanade rolls her shoulders, hands pulling her sleeves back up and straightening her jacket back out. “...you know...before you came along—Ena and Mizuki too—this house was quieter than it already is now. Did you know that was possible?” Pulling her knees up to her chest again, her feet rested on the chair.
“My mom passed when I was still a young kid. My dad is in the hospital, still trying to claw back the person he’s supposed to be right now. Barely coherent most of the time. Mafuyu...I don’t really know how you get some sense of warmth from his place. Maybe it’s because you don’t have the associations that I do—I envy that. To me, most of the time this place just feels...cold.”
When the house got silent, it mocked her.
“Kanad—”
“I hate it, Mafuyu.” Kanade cut her off, burying her face behind her knees. “They called me gifted, but all that gift’s ever done for me is ruin whatever it touches. I don’t know why I keep trying to spin it all into music that could save people. It’s just...it’s all I can do. I ruined my dad’s life. My composing ruined his life. But composing is all I can do. So what else am I supposed to do? My music is supposed to save people, Mafuyu. I have to save people. I have to do something. I can’t...I can’t hurt any more people. I can’t take it.”
Her hands slide over her ducked head, hands messily slipping into her hair. “If I can’t compose, I’m worthless. If I can’t compose, then how am I supposed to pay for what I did, Mafuyu?”
They already knew that answer, didn’t they? Kanade’s fingers curl in her hair. “I started doing it every day for a while. It hurt. It hurts a lot and I deserve every second of it. I thought...when I can’t help someone, then I’d have to hurt just as much in its place. I have to pay for what happened one way or another, don’t I? And if I can’t do the one thing that I’m good for…the one thing I know I can do…”
She wasn’t sure if she really knew that much.
There it was again. An aching feeling in her throat and behind her eyes. It felt like tears, but it never was. She was starting to wonder if she even could do such a thing. Not that she was allowed to. What a slap in the face that would be, to let herself cry over these things when she was at fault in the first place. To play victim when she was the criminal. To...to…
What was she even doing anymore? She wasn’t even doing the thing she was condemned to do right now. She...needed to make a song. Anything. Picking her head back up and moving her hands towards her desk, she didn’t even look at Mafuyu as she grimaced and turned her gaze straight to the computer. “I need to get back to—” Somewhere mid-turn of her chair, she felt something physically stop her. A hand grabbed the back of her chair to stop it. Without missing a beat, Mafuyu’s other arm extended in front of Kanade. Deliberately, it wrapped around her head, the young woman’s sleeve blocking Kanade’s vision entirely.
“W-what are you—let me go—” She reached up to try and pry the girl off of her, but Mafuyu was already moving her other arm around her torso. It was awkward, honestly. In Kanade’s increasing struggling, the arm could only reach around a shoulder and then end up grabbing a hold of Kanade looping under the smaller girl’s other arm. It was hard to tell if it was intended to be a comforting gesture, or a restraining one. It was turning into both. Kanade writhed in her chair carelessly, one hand crawling at each of Mafuyu’s arms to fruitlessly try and pull them off of her. “Stop it! Stop!”
Kanade’s frantic clawing and struggling was starting to turn into real panic. Honestly, it felt almost wrong to keep holding her still like this. Steeling...some kind of resolve in her, Mafuyu simply yanked herself backwards, the commotion only growing worse in a second. The chair was kicked a small distance away as Kanade was forced out of it. Mafuyu toppled backwards, bringing the shorter girl with her as they both ended up on the floor. Both of Mafuyu’s arms now insistently held tight around Kanade’s midsection instead, holding Kanade’s back firmly to herself as Kanade’s hands resumed their attempts at pulling herself free.
“Kanade, stop—”
“P-please, let go! S-stop, just let me—just let me work!”
“Kanade!” That single shout probably betrayed more emotion than Mafuyu’s felt in a long time. It was strange to feel that much at once. How long had it been since that happened last? Even Kanade’s shouts and struggling seemed to ebb out as the two of them settled down in a deep silence. Kanade was disheveled. Her jacket hung clear off her right shoulder; her clothes were a mess, as was her hair...she looked like a mess.
“Please, Mafuyu…”
“I can’t do that.”
Kanade exhaled loudly—it was shaken up, but it didn’t seem like Kanade was interested in struggling anymore. She was still tense in Mafuyu’s arms, but she simply seemed to resign to her situation despite how much she was against it.
“I can’t do it.” When she finally does speak, the words are...eerily cryptic. It could mean a number of things—none of them were particularly good. “How much longer can I...I…”
“Kanade.” Mafuyu cuts through Kanade’s mutters, speaking the girl’s name quietly. Her hold relaxes—not enough to risk Kanade trying to escape, but enough that it was clearly no longer an act of solely restraint. Kanade took another shaky breath, simply going quiet. Mafuyu stared ahead, then simply glanced down towards the disheveled girl. “...I’m here. Do...you remember when you told me you weren’t going to go anywhere? I won’t, either.”
It felt so strange to be embraced so firmly. Even if it had been to hold her down a moment ago, the warmth of another person this close to her—the presence of a comforting touch refusing to let her go felt so...nostalgic. One one hand, it was strangely comforting. On the other, it held such a cruel irony underneath all those pleasant layers that it almost made Kanade feel sick to think about right now. Feeling sick for so many other reasons wasn’t helping that.
Removing a hand, Mafuyu let it drift towards Kanade’s shoulder, hesitating as it lingered in the air close to the girl’s fully visible scars. She stared for a moment, but instead lowered it enough to get a hold of the girl’s jacket sleeve and pull it back up, gently fixing her clothing. She’s suddenly moving, arms shifting around Kanade as she pulled the girl back up onto her feet somewhat while standing up too. However, her arms slipped under Kanade’s legs and behind her shoulders, lifting her with entirely too much ease off of her feet entirely. The exhausted composer could hardly put up much of a fight in her resigned state, merely keeping her eyes down as Mafuyu carried her over to her bed and carefully set her down.
“I can give you space, if you really want tha—” She was answered before her question was even asked in entirety, as a small hand reached out and grabbed hers firmly, like she was afraid to let it go once she had a hold of it.
“I...can’t...I can’t handle that right now…” She admitted quietly, betraying that usual, nagging desire to lock away and lock down when she felt like this. Everything was a mess right now, and Mafuyu was the only clear thing in here right now. Maybe because she was such a separate part of the room. Everything here was a piece of Kanade. Evidence of her holed-up life and her shortcomings. Everything here was a piece of one big jigsaw puzzle, scattered around and impossible to piece back together. Mafuyu wasn’t, though.
Still...it felt pathetic. For the one who was supposed to be doing the saving, to ask for comfort from the very person they were supposed to save. That was just sad. Was she that desperate to have some warmth again? She hadn’t done anything to deserve to have it back.
Her focus pulls itself back down to Earth as she watches Mafuyu finally decide on some kind of action. To Kanade’s surprise, she simply climbs onto the mattress next to her, laying onto her side and watching Kanade calmly.
“You don’t...have to go that far, you know…” Unfortunately, Mafuyu’s only response consists of reaching over to Kanade, sliding her arm around the other girl, and abruptly pulling her closer with enough sudden force that Kanade doesn’t know how to protest until she’s already been pulled into Mafuyu’s space, her face near Mafuyu’s collarbone and the rest of her recovering in posture until she was awkwardly curled under Mafuyu’s still resting arm.
“You should...rest.”
“The others are going to be waiting soon—”
“They’ll be fine. I’ll tell them you weren’t feeling well.”
The rest of Kanade’s arguments fell away pathetically as Mafuyu’s hand slid itself higher, until it rested behind Kanade’s head. She gently stroked the girl’s hair. What a strange feeling. An icy pain in her chest—it normally made her anxious. Scared her, sometimes. It was such a dreadful feeling. Yet, she felt it now not out of any of that. Sure, it still made her anxious, she had to admit. But it was out of a sense of...urgency. Like there was something she needed to be doing right now. For Kanade. Like if she did nothing at all, that ice would find its way into Kanade next—and she didn’t really want to think about what that would do to the composer in her state right now. That sort of scenario...that was all too familiar.
“Kanade...later on, will you...talk to me more? About your feelings. About...this.”
What a terrifying request. Kanade grimaced, hiding her face more against Mafuyu’s clothes as she forced another steadier exhale. That was hardly fair. Mafuyu couldn’t be the only one who had to make herself more open about the things she felt at times, could she? Still, Kanade wished she wouldn’t have found out—there would be nothing to weaponize. No reason to try and pick apart Kanade’s feelings. Her fingers curl into the sheets slightly, betraying the buds of anxiety in her stomach.
“...I can try.”