Chapter Text
The aroma of frying yakisoba was usually enough to pull Akito out of any funk, but tonight, even the sizzle and the excited chatter from the bustling street market felt distant. He watched Toya flip noodles in his pan, the steam curling around his steady hands. An was laughing somewhere nearby, probably haggling for a discounted trinket. Akito, however, was fixated on the figure across from him.
Tsukasa Tenma.
He was, as always, a beacon. Even amidst the chaotic glow of the market stalls, Tsukasa’s smile shone with an almost unnatural luminescence. He was gesturing wildly, recounting some grand anecdote about a recent rehearsal, his voice carrying just a touch too loud, as it always did. Every few seconds, someone passing by would stop, point, and whisper, "Isn't that Tsukasa Tenma? The Star?" A blush would bloom on Tsukasa's cheeks, his smile widening, and a small, almost imperceptible shimmer would ripple across his form.
Akito had first noticed it a week ago, during a particularly enthusiastic performance by Wonderlands x Showtime. Under the dazzling stage lights, when the audience's applause had reached its peak, Tsukasa’s outstretched hand had seemed to flicker, like a bad projection. Akito had dismissed it as exhaustion, a trick of the light.
But now, it was undeniable.
As Tsukasa took a dramatic bite of his takoyaki, proclaiming it "the taste of a true Star," a group of teenagers pointed at him, giggling excitedly. Tsukasa beamed, puffing out his chest. In that very instant, Akito saw it clearly: the tips of Tsukasa’s fingers, holding the skewer, seemed to become translucent. Not like glass, but like thin, highly polished plastic – almost there, but not quite.
Akito swallowed hard, the taste of his own yakisoba turning to ash in his mouth. He cleared his throat. "Hey, senpai," he began, trying to keep his voice casual. "You, uh, been getting enough sleep?"
Tsukasa waved a dismissive hand. "Nonsense! A Star like me thrives on passion and dedication! Sleep is but a mere suggestion for the truly ambitious!" He struck a pose, narrowly avoiding jabbing a nearby pedestrian with his elbow. Another round of whispers and admiring glances followed.
And with each new whisper, the translucence on his fingers seemed to spread, just a millimeter, like ink bleeding on a wet page. It was horrifyingly subtle, easily missed by anyone not looking for it. And Akito was looking. He couldn’t not look.
"Seriously though," Akito pressed, his voice sharper now. "You look… a little pale. Maybe you should take a break." He wanted to say, You're literally starting to disappear, you idiot! but the words caught in his throat. How do you even begin to explain that?
Tsukasa finally turned his full, blinding smile on Akito. "Pale? Akito, my complexion is radiant! Perhaps you are simply jealous of a true Star's glow!" He laughed, a booming sound that made a few heads turn. "Don't worry, even a brilliant sun such as myself needs to rest, but the show must go on!"
As Tsukasa gestured again, his palm briefly caught the light. Akito’s breath hitched. Not just the fingertips now. A faint, almost invisible patch on the back of his hand, near the thumb, had also taken on that unnerving, paper-thin quality. It was like looking at a photograph of a hand, rather than the hand itself.
Akito’s knuckles whitened as he gripped his chopsticks. This wasn't just a trick of the light. This wasn't exhaustion. Something was happening to Tsukasa, and it was tied directly to his brightest moments, his most celebrated performances, his very identity as "The Star."
The crowd began to thin as they reached the edge of the festival grounds. The vibrant lanterns were replaced by the cold, sterile hum of streetlights. Toya and An had already drifted ahead, their voices fading into the night, leaving Akito and Tsukasa in a heavy, lopsided silence.
"You're being awfully quiet, Akito! Usually, you have at least three insults ready for me by this time of night!" Tsukasa laughed, but the sound felt hollower now that the audience was gone.
He reached out to pat Akito’s shoulder, a gesture of camaraderie he’d done a thousand times. But as his hand approached, Akito flinched. He didn't just pull away; he grabbed Tsukasa’s wrist mid-air.
The contact sent a jolt of ice up Akito’s arm.
It didn't feel like skin. It felt like holding a photograph that had been left in the sun too long—smooth, unnervingly thin, and lacking the warmth of a pulse. Through the translucent patch on the back of Tsukasa’s hand, Akito could see the faint glow of the streetlight shining through the flesh.
"Akito? You’re gripping quite hard," Tsukasa said, his voice dropping an octave. The bravado flickered, just for a second.
"What is this?" Akito hissed, his voice trembling with a mix of fury and genuine terror. He held Tsukasa’s hand up between them, forcing the older boy to look at it. "Look at your hand, Tsukasa-senpai. Look at it!"
Tsukasa looked. He stared at his own hand—the hand of a future world-class star—and his expression didn't shift into horror. Instead, he smiled. It was a soft, terrifyingly serene smile.
"Ah. So you can see it too," Tsukasa whispered.
He didn't try to pull away. He let his hand hang limp in Akito’s grasp, looking like a piece of delicate tracing paper about to be torn by the wind.
"You knew?" Akito felt a surge of nausea. "You knew you were... disappearing? And you just kept going? You kept going out there and performing like nothing was wrong?"
"Nothing is wrong," Tsukasa replied, his voice regaining its theatrical clarity, though it sounded whispered now. "Every star has its peak, Akito. Every star burns until it is nothing but light. Isn't it beautiful? To be so loved that you finally become the very thing you've always chased?"
He stepped closer, his eyes shimmering with a fervor that bordered on madness. "The more they cheer, the more I become 'Tsukasa Tenma.' The real me is becoming the Star, Akito. I’m finally shedding the weight of being just... ordinary."
Akito felt the bile rise in his throat. He let go of Tsukasa’s wrist as if it had burned him. "Ordinary? You’re talking about dying, you idiot! You’re fading away because you’re addicted to the applause!"
"It’s not addiction. It’s a transformation!" Tsukasa declared, throwing his arms wide. In the dim light, the edges of his entire silhouette seemed to blur, losing their sharpness against the dark background.
"I won't let you," Akito said, his voice low and dangerous. He took a step forward, his shadow looming over the shimmering, fragile boy in front of him. "If 'The Star' is what's killing you, then I’ll make sure nobody ever claps for you again. I’ll make them hate you if I have to."
Tsukasa’s smile faltered. For the first time that night, a flash of genuine fear crossed his face—not fear of disappearing, but fear of the silence Akito was threatening.
"You wouldn't," Tsukasa breathed.
"Try me," Akito snapped, his eyes cold and focused. "I’d rather have a living, 'ordinary' idiot to argue with than a ghost made of stardust."
As Akito turned and walked away into the darkness, he didn't look back. He couldn't. He needed to hide the fact that his own hands were shaking, and that the coldness from Tsukasa’s skin was still clinging to his palms like a curse.
The silence that followed was heavier than the noise of the market could ever have been.
Akito walked until the soles of his sneakers felt like they were dragging through wet cement. He didn't look back to see if Tsukasa was following him. He didn't want to see that shimmering, translucent figure standing alone under a flickering streetlight, looking like a dream that was half-forgotten.
He stopped at a vending machine near the station, the hum of the cooling system the only thing anchoring him to the present. He punched a button for a bitter black coffee, the can clattering into the bin with a violent metallic thud.
Transformation.
The word tasted like poison. Akito gripped the hot can so hard his knuckles turned white, but his palms still felt like they were coated in that unnatural, paper-thin frost from Tsukasa's skin.
He felt a presence behind him. Not a footstep—because Tsukasa’s steps were becoming suspiciously quiet—but a shift in the air, a faint scent of stage makeup and something sharp, like ozone before a storm.
"You're being quite dramatic, even for my standards, Akito."
Tsukasa was standing a few feet away, leaning against a brick wall. In the shadows, he looked almost normal, but the way his blonde hair caught the stray light was too bright, too saturated. He looked like a high-definition image pasted onto a low-quality background.
"Go home, senpai," Akito said without turning around.
"I am going home. But we have practice tomorrow at the Phoenix Wonderland. The troupe is expecting—"
"Cancel it."
Tsukasa laughed, a short, sharp sound. "Cancel it? Saki is coming to see the new routine. Emu has already bought the props. Nene has spent hours on the script. You're asking a Star to abandon his stage? That is simply—"
"That is simply the only way you don't turn into a puff of smoke before the weekend!" Akito whirled around, the coffee can nearly flying from his hand. "Do you even hear yourself? You're talking about Saki. You're talking about your sister. Do you think she wants to watch her brother turn into a fucking window?"
Tsukasa flinched. The bravado cracked, just a hairline fracture, revealing a glimpse of the boy underneath—the one who was terrified of being invisible, the one who had spent his whole life trying to be loud enough to be noticed.
"She won't see it," Tsukasa whispered, his eyes casting downward. "People only see what they want to see, Akito. They want to see the Star. They want to see the hero who never fails. As long as I give them that, they don't look at my hands. They don't look at the way the light passes through my chest."
He took a step toward Akito, and for a fleeting second, the streetlight above them buzzed and died. In the sudden darkness, Tsukasa didn't disappear. He glowed. A faint, ethereal amber light pulsed beneath his skin, outlining his ribs, his collarbone, the delicate vessels in his neck. He looked like a paper lantern with a dying flame inside.
Akito felt a chill that had nothing to do with the night air. He reached out, his hand trembling, and hovered his fingers just an inch away from Tsukasa's chest. He could feel heat—intense, radiating heat—but no heartbeat.
"You're burning up," Akito breathed, his voice breaking.
"It doesn't hurt," Tsukasa lied, though his eyes were wide and glassy. "It just feels... light. Like I'm finally unburdened."
Akito grabbed the front of Tsukasa's jacket, bunching the fabric in his fist. He needed to feel something solid. He needed to prove that there was still a person inside that glow. "Listen to me. I don't care about the Star. I don't care about the 'transformation.' If you show up at that stage tomorrow, I’ll drag you off it myself. I’ll ruin the show. I’ll tell everyone you’re a fraud."
Tsukasa looked at him, and for the first time, the "Star" persona was gone. There was only a boy, thin and fading, looking at the only person who had dared to see the cracks in his porcelain mask.
"Then you'll be the villain of the story, Akito," Tsukasa said softly.
"Fine," Akito growled, pulling Tsukasa closer until their foreheads almost touched. "I've always been better at being the bad guy anyway."
Akito didn’t let go. He held onto Tsukasa’s jacket until his knuckles ached, anchored by the sheer desperation to feel resistance. But the fabric felt unnervingly light, as if he were clutching silk spun from air.
Tsukasa didn't fight back. He simply stood there, bathed in that sickly, ethereal glow, his eyes searching Akito’s face with a curiosity that felt almost clinical.
"You're shaking, Akito," Tsukasa remarked. His voice was soft, devoid of its usual operatic vibrato. It was the voice of the boy who stayed up late studying, the boy who worried about his sister’s cough—the boy Akito was terrified was being erased.
"Shut up," Akito snapped, though the bite was gone from his tone, replaced by a raw, jagged edge. "Just shut up and go home. Sleep. If you can even still do that."
Tsukasa reached up, his fingers—those terrifyingly clear fingers—hovering near Akito’s wrist. He didn't touch him, as if he knew that the sensation of his skin would only make Akito’s spiral worse. "I still sleep. But the dreams... they’re different now. I don't dream of the stage anymore. I dream of the sky. It feels so close, Akito. Like I could just... step into it."
Akito shoved him back. Not hard, but enough to create a distance that felt like a canyon. "Don't say shit like that. You aren't going anywhere."
"The show at Phoenix Wonderland is at 2:00 PM tomorrow," Tsukasa said, his voice regaining a sliver of its usual stubbornness as he adjusted his jacket. The glow dimmed slightly as he pulled his persona back over himself like a protective shroud. "I expect to see you in the wings, as usual. Don't be late."
He turned and began to walk away, his silhouette flickering whenever he passed through the pools of yellow light from the streetlamps.
"I wasn't joking, Tsukasa!" Akito called out to the retreating back. "If you step on that stage, I’ll end it! I’ll make sure they never want to see your face again!"
Tsukasa didn't stop. He didn't even wave. He just kept walking, his form becoming more and more translucent until, for a split second, Akito thought he could see the brick wall of the station right through Tsukasa’s torso. Then, with a final, taunting shimmer, Tsukasa vanished around the corner.
Akito stood alone in the silence of the street. The coffee can in his hand was cold now.
He pulled out his phone, the screen blindingly bright in the dark. His thumb hovered over the group chat for VBS, then moved to his contacts. He found a name he rarely called unless it was strictly professional.
Asahina Mafuyu.
He remembered a rumor—something whispered in the halls of Kamiyama High—about a girl who had lost her "taste" for reality, someone who understood the weight of living behind a mask better than anyone. If anyone knew about the physical toll of a fractured soul, it might be her. Or perhaps she knew someone who did.
But as he looked at the name, he realized that a doctor or a specialist wouldn't help. This wasn't a disease of the blood; it was a disease of the image.
Akito shoved the phone back into his pocket and looked up at the moon. It was full, bright, and cold.
He knew what he had to do. To save the person, he had to kill the Star. He had to become the very thing he hated most: a critic so cruel, a presence so toxic, that Tsukasa’s "light" would flicker and die under the weight of his spite.
He began to walk toward his own home, his mind already spinning. He needed a plan for tomorrow. He needed to find the one thing Tsukasa feared more than disappearing.
He needed to find Tsukasa's failure.
As Akito reached his front door, he glanced at his own hand—the one that had held Tsukasa’s wrist. There, on the palm, was a faint, shimmering residue, like the dust from a moth’s wing. He rubbed it, trying to wash it off, but it wouldn't go away.
It was a stain of light. A reminder that the countdown had already begun.
Akito didn’t sleep. He spent the night sitting on the edge of his bed, watching the digital clock on his nightstand blink away the hours. Every time he closed his eyes, he felt that strange, moth-dust shimmer on his palm. It felt like a phantom limb, a piece of something that shouldn't exist, clinging to his skin.
By 4:00 AM, he was in his kitchen, staring at a blank notebook.
He tried to think like a hater. He tried to think of every crack in Tsukasa’s armor. Tsukasa was loud, he was overbearing, his timing was sometimes too theatrical, his ego was massive—but none of it was real. It was all part of the charm. People loved him for those flaws. They fed the Star.
"Damn it," Akito whispered, leaning his head against the cool wood of the table.
He realized the problem: he knew Tsukasa too well. He knew that beneath the "Star," Tsukasa was someone who made sure Saki had a smile on her face, someone who practiced until his shoes wore out, someone who actually cared about the tradition of the stage. To kill the Star, Akito couldn't just insult him. He had to humiliate the craft. He had to make the audience feel pity, not admiration.
The sun began to bleed through the curtains, a pale, sickly grey.
Akito stood up and walked to the bathroom. He splashed cold water on his face, staring at his reflection in the mirror. He looked tired. He looked like the "bad boy" everyone expected him to be.
"If that's the role I have to play," he muttered to the mirror, "then I'm going to be the best damn antagonist he's ever seen."
He grabbed his jacket and headed out. He didn't go to school. Instead, he went to the Phoenix Wonderland.
The park was quiet at this hour, the giant mechanical colorful mascots standing like silent sentinels in the morning mist. He found his way to the Wonder Stage. It looked so small and fragile in the daylight, a wooden structure held together by paint and dreams.
He stepped onto the stage. The wood creaked under his boots—a solid, heavy sound.
This is what reality sounds like, Akito thought.
He walked to the center, where Tsukasa usually stood during his final bows. He imagined the lights, the roar of the kids, the "clasp" of a thousand hands coming together. He imagined Tsukasa standing there, glowing brighter and brighter until his bones turned to glass and his heart turned to light.
Akito reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, heavy iron bolt he’d picked up from a construction site on the way. He dropped it. It hit the stage with a dull, ugly thud. No shimmer. No magic. Just weight.
"I'm going to bring you down, Tsukasa-senpai," Akito said to the empty seats. "I'm going to drag you back to the dirt where it's safe."
He heard a rustle behind the curtain. His heart skipped.
"Akito? What are you doing here so early?"
It was Emu. She was clutching a bag of colorful ribbons, her usual "Wonderhoy" energy dampened by the morning chill. She looked at him with those wide, innocent eyes, but then her gaze dropped to his hand—the one still stained with that faint, shimmering dust.
She gasped, her face turning pale. "You... you touched him?"
Akito froze. He tucked his hand into his pocket, his eyes narrowing. "What are you talking about?"
Emu stepped forward, her voice trembling. "The light. It’s sticking to you. That means... that means he’s almost at the end of the script, isn't he?"
Akito felt the air leave his lungs. "You know about this? You’ve seen him fading?"
Emu nodded slowly, tears welling up in her eyes. "He told me it was a secret. He said it was the greatest trick a Star could ever perform. He said... he said he was going to become a legend so bright that no one in the world would ever feel sad again."
"The idiot," Akito hissed, his fist clenching in his pocket. "He’s not becoming a legend. He’s becoming nothing."
"I tried to stop him!" Emu sobbed, the ribbons spilling from her bag like colorful entrails. "But the more I try to be happy for him, the faster he fades! My smiles... my smiles are making him disappear!"
Akito looked at the crying girl, and then back at the stage. The realization hit him like a physical blow. Everyone in Tsukasa’s circle—Emu, Nene, Rui, Saki—they all loved him. Their love was the fuel. Their support was the oxygen that was helping the fire burn itself out.
He was the only one left who could provide the cold water.
"Stay out of my way today, Emu," Akito said, his voice cold and devoid of emotion. He stepped off the stage, brushing past her. "Whatever I do, whatever I say... don't try to defend him. If you want him to live, you have to let me destroy him."
He walked away, leaving the girl crying among her ribbons. The countdown wasn't just in his head anymore. The sun was rising higher, the park was waking up, and the 2:00 PM show was approaching like a guillotine.