Archive of Our Own

   They first meet in junior high, the two of them. Nagi's sprawled on the ground in one of the school's yawning, glowing corridors with his violin case on his chest, and Reo is standing over him, between the window and his body, and the sunlight warms the back of his neck. Reo's panting after rushing down the hallway—there's someone on the floor, unmoving just like corpses are, and Reo's scared for this stranger.

   Reo reads the name tag on his case just as Nagi opens his eyes. "Move over a little," Nagi says. Reo does. His shadow falls over Nagi's face. "Thank you."

   Reo leans in, fiddles with the straps on his cello case. "Are you okay?" he says, slightly breathless. "Can you move?"

   Nagi's face shifts, just a little. He looks a bit exasperated now. "I'm not dying," he says. "I'm taking a nap."

   Reo sags. Nagi looks at him more intently. "Well, be careful," Reo tells him. "It can't be good for you, sleeping on the ground like that."

   "Are you Mikage?" Nagi says.

   "Call me Reo," Reo says immediately, stung as always by the mention of his family name, his father's name. Then, belatedly, "Yeah, how did you know?"

   "Everyone knows you," Nagi says. He shuts his eyes.

   Reo stares at Nagi as he shimmies his body across the tiles, sliding more of his torso into Reo's shadow. Nagi's cute. He's got soft eyes and dainty hands. "You play the violin?" Reo asks, even though it's obvious. Nagi nods without opening his eyes. "Do you compete?"

   "Mhm," Nagi mumbles. He tosses an arm over his face.

   "As a soloist?"

   "Yeah."

   Reo prefers to play in ensembles. He's good at it—he's good at knowing when to push and when to pull back, to let the others shine, and he knows how to make his instrument sing, maintaining the balance between charming and overpowering individuality. He likes the feeling of having someone at his side, on his back. It's less lonely, and Reo adores the rush, nailing a part after torturous long hours of practice and looking at each other, relishing in a secret victory known only to them. He could be a soloist, he thinks. His teacher had asked him about it, back in elementary school. He could have competed in both the soloist and ensemble categories, if he really wanted to; he'd just have to split the practice time. Reo had refused, unwilling to abandon his partner at the time.

   They've been separated now. They've gone to different schools. It was bound to happen, anyway, because Reo kept getting better and better and dreaming bigger, and Reo's partner—a smart, logical boy who loved the violin but loved his textbooks even more—wanted to go to university to study physics. So, Reo's here, looking for the rehearsal room at his new school, and yeah, going solo is okay, he'll have to learn how to stand on the stage by himself, and he'll have to get used to practicing in solitude, bearing the weight of everything on his own, but that's fine. He can do it. But he'd prefer another duo again, and there's Nagi, looking all sleepy and interesting, so Reo makes up his mind.

   "Try playing with me," Reo says, a bit too loudly. Nagi puts his arm back down to his side, eyes cracking open once again. "I'll teach you everything you need to know. We'll be a duo."

   "A duo," Nagi says, and nothing else.

   "Is being a soloist lonely?" Reo asks. Nagi nods. "If you play with me, we'll practice together."

   "Oh," Nagi says. His eyes open wider. His elbows twitch against the ground, like he's contemplating sitting up. "Will you carry my case around?"

   "Uh…sure."

   "And if it's two of us," Nagi says. "I can play less, right? It'll be easier?"

   Not really, Reo thinks wearily. "Yeah," he lies, because he cares more about convincing Nagi than honesty.

   Nagi's head clunks against the ground. "Tell me when we start," he says.

   So, Reo gets a new partner, and he's good, so, so good. Reo drags him to his teacher's place after one measly day of practice to show him off, and Nagi, still unknowing of all the ways to play with another, falls into a perfect rhythm with Reo, like it's a dance they've done all their lives.

   They play together all through junior high, into through high school. Nagi moves into Reo's place, because his parents are never home and he hates sorting out what to eat for dinner. They go to classes like good little students, and Reo does both of their assignments, because Nagi once told him, "If you don't do my homework for me, I'm going to play with someone else," and it had been a joke, but Reo was so scared, and they'd long since moved past that but Reo still does Nagi's homework anyway.

   Every couple of months, Reo's teacher finds a competition for them. There's another one for them now, and it's a routine at this point. Reo writes it into their calendar. Nagi sighs about it for a few days. "It's so much work," he says. "You lied to me. You said it would be less work, playing with you."

   "Well, I didn't lie," Reo says. "Who would carry your instrument if I wasn't with you?"

   Nagi just shrugs, so Reo knows he's won. It's not even a big deal—Nagi's violin is a feather compared to Reo's cello case. It's a small price to pay for such good company.

   They're a little more than just ensemble partners. They'd started off as such; they would meet up at the end of each school day, finding each other at the practice room furthest down the hall without a word. Then, they'd set up their stands, warm up, tune, practice, and Reo would make a few marks on his sheet music and on Nagi's too, and then they'd pack up and leave, both too unfamiliar with the other to speak on anything other than dynamics and tempo changes. It got easier with time, after Reo started asking about more than just the weather, and Nagi's repertoire of responses began to stretch beyond "yes" and "no."

   It's familiar, now. They eat at the same table, share utensils and plates without a second thought. They brush their teeth side by side and Reo will stare at Nagi in the mirror and wonder what it would be like to press him into the cerulean tiles and kiss him, sweet and chaste. More often than not, they fall asleep in the same bed. Reo keeps his mouth shut, and his budding crush bursts out through his fingers instead, when he lets his bow scrape against the strings with ardor, and the low notes groan through the sloping wood, in his ribcage like something deep and ancient.

   Reo's a little dramatic about it all, he supposes. They've known each other for just a few years, and he's been attracted to Nagi for just over one. He hardly knows if he can call it love, but he's never had anything in the past to compare it to. He also thinks it makes him a better musician, a better artist, so what does it matter?

   Nagi shifts on the other end of the bed. The mattress sinks and springs back up like the undulating waves of a stormy sea. "Decrescendo before measure forty-two," he mumbles, his words smudged into each other by sleep, and he promptly goes back to snoring.

   Reo is smitten. He's not brave enough to move closer on his own, but when Nagi inevitably rolls over and invades his space, Reo doesn't push him away.

   The competition goes smoothly. They play Ravel's Sonata for Violin and Cello for the third time this year and it's the best performance they've had. Reo is giddy and breathless by the time they finish, and he tries desperately to catch Nagi's eye amidst the polite applause from the judges across the room. Nagi stares through the piano in the corner like it's a window to another world. One of his gacha games, maybe. Reo has to wonder how someone so dispassionate could play the violin so gorgeously, like he'd been bowing across his own heartstrings.

   The judges give their feedback—they're still a little uncoordinated in their crescendos, and Nagi shouldn't make it so obvious he's following Reo through the slow phrases, and Reo shouldn't be afraid to bite on the staccatos, and then they're sent on their way. Reo lifts his cello onto his back and Nagi's violin in front, right up against his chest, his heart, so he doesn't complain even though the straps are fierce where they dig into the flesh of his shoulders, tugging him two ways.

   "We were great today," Reo says as they walk down the stairs. Their dress shoes click against the tiles, and it makes Reo feel fancy and important like nothing else ever has. "I think it's our best performance yet."

   "Uh, maybe," Nagi says. He's still staring into the distance. "I think I forgot to do my daily quests."

   Reo rolls his eyes. "Your games will be waiting when we get home."

   "The servers are going down at dinner time for the new update," Nagi says, a little mournfully.

   Reo sighs. "Oh, fine." He juts his hip out at Nagi, and Nagi reaches into his pocket for his phone, and Reo resolutely does not think about Nagi's fingers on his thigh. They stop there for a bit, with Nagi crouching on the stairs in Reo's shadow, fingers flying across the screen as he collects five strawberries from the digital town's local greenhouse. His game character is clad in all sorts of violet garb, and Reo allows himself to read into it, because the larger his heart swells, the more emotion he'll be able to wring from Ravel's lines the next time they perform.

   "Do your shoulders hurt?" Nagi says when he finishes with his game. As he stands, he tucks his phone back into Reo's pocket. He keeps his eyes on the other end of the corridor.

   Reo is flattered, as always, by Nagi's display of bare minimum etiquette. "Not at all," he lies. He feels his own gaze softening, his smile spreading, and he does nothing to stop it. "Come on, let's go."

   Nagi would never do anything as preposterous as offer to carry their instruments instead, so he doesn't push. They finally escape the dusty tower of the stairwell and emerge into the main lobby, where other musicians are waiting for their performances, or waiting to see the results of their performances. Reo and Nagi are one of the last ensembles of the day, and the room is collectively fatigued. Reo can read it in the way everyone's spines curl a little, in the way that the voices that bounce between the walls have been scraped rough and raw. It's this sight that has Reo truly realizing how exhausting these days are, how exhausting their day has been, and how exhausted he is in this very moment.

   "Let's go find somewhere quiet to wait for the results," Reo whispers, and Nagi follows like the lost duckling that he always has been at events like this.

   They slip out the doors and into a series of sprawling hallways that never seem to end. There are deep red carpets and empty practice rooms, and at one point they pass a pair of vacant folding tables that seem to have been for another event, clearly ended for a long time now. Nagi takes his elbow and Reo stops like a wayward boat yanked back by its anchor, and they creep into a dark room with nothing but chairs upon chairs to fill it.

   Reo fumbles along the wall and tries the light switch. He clicks it once, twice, three times. The lights inside don't come on. Nagi, understanding immediately, cracks the door open with one of the many chairs, and the soft glow from the hallway outside spreads its tentative fingers into the darkness in all shades of ochre. Clumsily, they knock the chairs out of the way until there's enough space for both instruments and them to sit comfortably, and then they do so, with nothing more than the occasional sigh or sniffle.

   "Do you think we won?" Reo whispers, once he's had his fill of staring at the soft red line that adorns Nagi's side profile.

   "Yes," Nagi says. Not I hope. Not maybe. Just quiet confidence, in himself, or maybe in Reo, or the pair of them, together.

   "You think I played well, then," Reo says, and he sees Nagi's silhouette shrug. "Come on, give me some praise."

   "Good job," Nagi deadpans.

   Reo kicks his shin. Nagi lets out a mighty huff that disturbs the air between them. "Well, I think you were amazing," Reo says, and he really means it. "But you should pay more attention to your entrances."

   "You didn't need to add the last part," Nagi says.

   "Well, it's true, and we would have practiced them more if you weren't so busy sleeping yesterday."

   It's a little hard to see, but Reo squints in the silence, and he notices that Nagi's eyes have gone wide and pleading. "Oh, Nagi, I'm not mad at you. I'm just—I'm just teasing."

   Nagi nods. Somehow, his eyes get wider.

   "We'll be even better next time."

   The soles of Nagi's shoes scrape against the carpet as he shifts. "Next time?"

   "Unless you're planning to quit on me—yes, next time."

   "I'd never quit on you," Nagi murmurs.

   It's such a soft, sentimental thing to say, and it's foreign coming from Nagi's mouth. It curls through Reo's ears, around his heart, squeezes tight until he's heaving to suck in his next inhale. When he smiles, his whole body aches. "I wouldn't want you to quit on me, either," Reo says. "I couldn't do this with anyone else."

   Nagi tips his head. Awkwardly, he says, "Thank you."

   It's not enough of a response for the magnitude of Reo's confession, and so he presses harder. "I mean it," Reo says, his voice hushed, reverent in all these warm tones he's never heard from himself. "You'll always be the one for me."

   Maybe it's a little too heavy-handed. Nagi winces; Reo can see it in the twitch of his shoulders, flinching up toward his ears. "You shouldn't say things like that," Nagi tells him.

   "But it's true," Reo says. The lights outside are so, so red. The color of romance, and of war, or whatever. He's feeling brave. "I love you."

   Nagi goes very, very still. Reo presses his fingers into the carpet while he waits. They're still stinging, dimpled with the imprints of the strings on his cello. Ravel rings in his ears, and crimson hues fill his field of vision. His pulse is going, going, violent like a jackhammer, and his ribcage is just about to give.

   "You can reject me, you know," Reo says, with a teasing quality that falls just short of sincerity. "I don't mind. Heartbreak makes the best music."

   Nagi's hands find Reo's jaw. His thumbs push into Reo's cheekbones, steady and calloused, forever worn by the years of practice Reo had dragged him through. This, maybe, is enough proof that Nagi loves him just as fiercely—then, their lips meet, and simply, that's that.

   Eventually, they wander back to the lobby. On the wall, at the top of the towering mountain that is the list of ensembles, are their names, preceded by the bold 1 that promulgates their victory.

   With much difficulty, towing the weight of both their instruments behind him, Reo turns to Nagi. He says, "Another win—good work today, Nagi."

   "I told you," Nagi says, and nothing more.

   The next competition is overseas. It's not one of those casual weekend affairs, not anymore—they'll skip school days, pack up their suitcases, and Reo worries himself sick about putting his poor cello in cargo until he caves and decides that he'll buy an extra seat for it.

   Reo's teacher thinks they can win. Nagi's does, as well. Reo has too much pride to make such grand declarations, so he tells everyone and himself that they can at least stand a chance, do well and show their competence.

   Nagi curls in on himself in the days leading up to it. He's like a hedgehog in many ways, prickly and defensive at the slightest provocation. He's too cute to be something as threatening as a porcupine—Reo's personal assessment—but he's also a little too soft-hearted, in the ways that Reo has had to learn over many quiet years together. He doesn't raise his voice, doesn't complain about anything more than the mundane. He shows his watery defiance in the form of no defiance at all; he speaks with silence, protests with inaction, and Reo has to scoop all the terrible things back into Nagi's free, uncaring fingers.

   It's happening again now. Nagi's poor mood trails him like a miasma, and it soaks into the very cracks of their little home, stinking up the closed rooms, sticking in all the hinges. Reo can tell his heart's not in it when he practices; it usually isn't in the first place, but there's something particularly special about the lethargy that clings to Nagi's limbs this time around.

   Eventually, in a rare show of initiative, Nagi brings it up over dinner. He plays with his food for a good five minutes before he does, and there's a blush crawling up his neck, and if Reo hadn't been kissing him just yesterday, he might think that there would be a confession tonight.

   "Reo," Nagi says, and he waits until Reo looks at him properly, and then he waits some more. "Are we—are we really doing this?"

   "Doing what?" Reo says. He knows the question is mildly infuriating, and the twitch of Nagi's brows confirms it for him. Still, there's not much else he can say; he doesn't have the slightest idea what had been torturing Nagi these past days, anyway.

   "Well, you know," Nagi says.

   Reo doesn't know. He raises his eyebrows and shrugs.

   "Flying," Nagi says. "Overseas," and that clarifies nothing at all, really.

   "Are you scared of planes?" Reo asks, a little dubious. It would be the first he's heard of it, at least.

   The click of Nagi's chopsticks on his plate is borderline vicious. He retracts his hand immediately, apologetic. Still, he takes his time to respond, biting the inside of his cheek, his bottom lip, the hangnail on his left ring finger. Reo sees blood when he pulls his hand away. "It's not that," Nagi says.

   Silence, once more. Reo rolls his chopsticks along the curve of his purlicue. He feels his patience draining, but he seems to have bottomless wells of it for Nagi. "So, what is it?" he says. He keeps his voice low, neutral, non-confrontational.

   "I just didn't realize," Nagi murmurs. His words tumble over each other, smear into a single string. "That we were so serious about this."

   Now, Reo's even more perplexed, and mildly concerned as well. "Well, we don't have to really be boyfriends, if you want," he offers hesitantly. "Obviously I still—my feelings for you haven't changed, but we can go slow, or—"

   "No," Nagi says, very emphatically. It's the most emotion he's shown in a month. "I meant—our ensemble."

   "Our ensemble."

   "…Yes."

   "What about our ensemble?"

   Nagi leans his head to the left, to the right. His gaze flutters from the top of Reo's head down to his chin, skipping his eyes entirely. In the end, he spits it out in one go, blunt as he always is; "I don't know if I want to do the competition."

   Reo nearly drops his chopsticks—they roll all the way to the tip of his thumb, and he has to clench his fist to hold on to them. They clatter together in the tight curl of his fingers. Nagi watches the movement of his hand, looking weary, like he's expecting some great speech or reprimand from Reo in retaliation. Reo doesn't think he could give one, even if asked to. Nagi's words just rattle around the empty dome of his skull, and Reo says, rather blankly, "We don't have to go if you don't want to."

   Nagi's expression grows exceedingly guilty. "I don't not want to," he says.

   "But you don't want to."

   Nagi tips his head again—kind of. "I just don't see myself doing this for a living," he says quietly.

   "Playing with me?"

   "Performing."

   "We don't have to do that."

   Nagi picks at the nonexistent remnants of his dinner. His chopsticks scrape distressingly against the ceramic of his plate. "Really," he says, soft and disbelieving.

   It's the first time Reo's been confronted with this crossroads. He'd assumed—naively, he knows now—that they'd simply follow the path they'd been set on, and that they'd practice, compete, win, perform, and keep on. He takes his time, turning the murky, shapeless lump of his future around in his mind. He places it on a little plate, rotates it like it's in a microwave. Nagi watches him anxiously. In the frame of Reo's microwave metaphor, it's like Nagi's peering in through the glass door. It's a bit of a funny image, and Reo thinks he's taking the microwave thing a little far, now.

   Nagi. Inconsequential, microwaved dreams. It's really not that serious, if he thinks about it, weighs his priorities properly.

   "Really," Reo says, echoing Nagi. "I mean, I want to go compete, but I don't mind if you don't want to. I won't be upset." Oddly, as soon as he finishes speaking, he finds that he means it.

   "You're sure?" Nagi says hesitantly.

   "I'm sure. I like playing with you most, anyway." Reo sets his chopsticks down carefully, the dirty ends resting on his napkin. "I can always become a soloist. I wouldn't play with another partner if it wasn't you."

   "You don't have to," Nagi says, quick and almost automatic. Then, like an afterthought, "Is that your dream?"

   "What, becoming a soloist?"

   "Performing."

   Reo doesn't have to think too hard about that, at least. "Of course," he says. "And, of course, preferably with you. But that's only if you want to." He smiles at Nagi across the table, and Nagi's lips curl a little in response. "I don't want you to feel like I'm dragging you along for anything."

   Finally, Nagi stops torturing the polished surface of his plate. He drops his chopsticks to the tabletop. "Well, if you want to," he says, and nothing else. Then, he slouches back in his seat and pulls out his phone.

   Reo gathers Nagi's plate, then his own. He stands and rounds the table to get a full view of the fluffy top of Nagi's head. "So?" he asks, hopeful.

   "I'll come," Nagi says. "But you have to buy my ticket for me."

   Far easier than Reo expected. "Are you sure?"

   "I don't like playing," Nagi says. "And I don't like performing. But if it's your dream, I'll come along."

   And maybe it is that easy. Reo sets the plates down and puts his knuckles into Nagi's shoulder, pressing insistently until he looks up. "You can quit whenever you want," Reo tells him. The gravity of Nagi's gaze is immense; Reo feels like Atlas, holding the sky on his shoulders when their eyes lock. "Seriously. Don't worry about my dream—worry about your own."

   "Your dream is my dream," Nagi says simply, and then he goes back to farming carrots on his screen.

   Easy, easy, easy. The sky holds itself up. Reo washes the dishes. They do their homework. Nagi vacuums half of the kitchen and gives up, and Reo buys their plane tickets on his phone. They kiss after they brush their teeth, and they keep on.

   As if they'd planned it together, in the same year, Reo's teacher retires and Nagi's teacher moves halfway across the planet. They have their teary, heartfelt goodbyes, because Reo loved both of them, and they'd achieved so much together—medals, trophies, gold in all shapes. Then, Reo and Nagi pick up new mentors: Ego and Anri, respectively.

   It becomes their new favorite topic to chew on before bed. Reo loves to complain about Ego and how devastatingly strict his teaching methods are, and Nagi, infuriating as always, agrees wholeheartedly. "Anri would never make me do that," he says with faux-innocence after Reo recounts a particularly brutal session with Ego, and Reo promptly tries to strangle him with their blanket.

   Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, Ego and Anri happen to be well acquainted, and they coordinate duo lessons immediately. Every Friday evening, the four of them gather at Ego's disturbingly minimalistic apartment and work on the Handel-Halvorsen Passacaglia in G minor from four to seven. Ego paces around them in circles and clicks his walking stick (which he does absolutely no walking with, and carries exclusively as a threatening accessory) against the leg of his chair whenever they rush through the measures. Anri perches on the sofa with crossed legs and makes notes in the score, then tells them, much more kindly than Ego does, the weakest points in their performance—dynamic balance, phrasing, and all the other tedious things that have made their homes in every musician's mind.

   They're good, of course, but their first gig isn't handed to them as a result of their shiny shelf of wins; instead, Anri tells them, rather apologetically, that one of the local universities needs an ensemble to fill in for a concert in a few months. "The previous duo backed out," she says as they're all packing up one rainy night. "They've gone and double-booked themselves. If you two are free—it won't be with a full orchestra, so you can just go ahead with the Passacaglia, or whatever else you've got prepared. No extra rehearsals."

   "Who cancelled? Noa's group?" Ego asks sourly.

   "Yes—Kaiser and Ness will be in Europe. It's a competition they can't miss."

   "Ugh," Ego says. He pushes his glasses so high up on the bridge of his nose that they slide back down instantly when he lets go. "Typical. I hate Noa."

   "I hate concerts," Nagi adds.

   "The auditorium isn't that big," Anri says helplessly.

   "We've never performed at one," Reo points out to Nagi at the same time.

   "I can imagine it," Nagi says. He shuts his eyes, and his hands go still, halfway through loosening his bow. "I don't have to try it to know I won't like it."

   "When is it?" Reo asks, directing his question to Anri. Nagi is lost in thought, torturing himself with his conception of a theoretical concert, and Ego seems uncommunicative at the moment, muttering under his breath about Noel Noa and other horrible adjacent things.

   "I'll send you the details," Anri says, lighting up immediately. "Will you do it?"

   "Please," Ego adds. It's wholly flat and unconvincing, but he puts just a little extra bite into it, and Reo knows that it's his way of showing desperation. "I don't want to have to recommend the Itoshi brothers."

   The Itoshi brothers are incredible musicians and Reo, who's only personally met Rin a couple of times in passing, thinks that he seems reasonable enough, but he'd much rather stand onstage himself, so he decides not to question it. Instead, he turns to Nagi and asks, "Do you want to do it?"

   Nagi opens his eyes. He finishes loosening his bow and tucks it into his case. Reo likes seeing him like this—kneeling against Ego's pristine off-white carpet, fingers dusted with the rosin off of his strings, like they're sugarcoated. He's stifling a yawn, blinking slowly at Reo, just as cats do. "I will if you want to," he says.

   "Well, I want to," Reo admits. He feels a little fragile, soft under the orangey glow of Ego's tripod lamps.

   Nagi nods, a single lazy dip of his head. "Then we'll do it."

   "Sweet," Anri says. Reo gets the sense that she's not just talking about concert arrangements.

   "It's past seven. Get out of here," Ego adds unhelpfully.

   Reo runs his hand down the side of his cello case—all the clasps are closed. A quick glance inside his bag confirms that he's collected all their sheet music. "Alright, we'll get going, then," he says. Nagi hands over his violin case to Reo, and they both make their way to the front door. "Thank you both for the help."

   "See you next week!" Anri says cheerily, waving them off.

   "Close the door on your way out," Ego snaps. He doesn't even look their way when they leave.

   So, that about sums them up, their new teachers. They're both sharp, both good at their jobs, and Ego lives within walking distance from Reo's place. It's a good deal, a good routine to fall into. There's a warm, billowy wind that greets them as they step into the street, and Nagi's hand, just as soft, skims over his own. He thinks he could live like this forever, a dreamy loop of home-lessons-practice until the end of time, but—

   "So, our first concert," Reo says conversationally. Nagi's face, almost helplessly, turns toward Reo's half of the sidewalk. "With new teachers, too. It'll be different from how it was before."

   The wind blows a little harder, carrying Reo's words into the night. Nagi leans into it and lets it ruffle his hair. He almost looks mournful. "I liked how it was before."

   Reo did, too. But novelty tastes like victory and he can already smell it, trickling back to him from whatever lies in wait in the coming years. He reaches for the empty air, finds Nagi's hand in the dark, a tiny miracle. "It's going to be exciting," Reo says. It will be for him, and it probably won't be for Nagi, but Reo likes to tease. "It's like a new chapter of our life. A new challenge. Right, Nagi?"

   Nagi makes his distaste known in the subtle crinkle of his nose. Still, he humors Reo, as he always has, as he always will. "How hard can it be?"

   Neither of their parents come. Reo only talks to his on holidays, when he really has to, and there's still a planet standing between Nagi's and himself. When they stand onstage, staring into the crowd, it really hits Reo—that it's just them, Reo and Nagi and the searing spotlight. It has been, ever since they met in that dusty hallway at school, years upon years ago.

   There are worse people to be stuck with, Reo thinks to himself when he sets his bow to the strings. Nagi's body faces the audience, straight-backed and rigid, ready to spring into action, but his eyes watch Reo. He thinks on it, amends his earlier conclusion: there's nobody else he'd want to be stuck with, not in this lifetime.

   Really, the performance is nothing special. Reo and Nagi play well, to their usual standards. It feels oddly like another practice session, with nobody but Ego and Anri and the neighbor's barking dogs to listen. This time, when they finish, it isn't the metronomic click of Ego's fingertips drumming the wooden arm of his chair, but rather the rainfall-hush applause from the darkened auditorium that congratulates them.

   Reo stands to match Nagi. They move their bows and their instruments into one palm each and join their free hands between them, then they take a bow under the column of fluorescent light that beats down on their shoulders. Nagi rises out of it faster than Reo does, and they share half a laugh. After that, they're going—Reo stops to retrieve his endpin strap, tosses it over one shoulder—and they melt into the wings, between curtains.

   Nagi's sweating. He looks like he's glowing. "You're happy," he tells Reo, a simple observation.

   It's a muted sort of happiness, one that he's anticipated, long since gotten used to. Reo's buzzing with it, half numb. He stretches onto the tips of his toes, and his shoes, still new and barely broken in, pinch the skin of his feet. He winds his free arm, the one not holding his cello, around Nagi's neck and leans in to kiss him.

   Nagi holds his violin out like it's on fire as he kisses back. Reo gets to feel Nagi's smile stretch out under his own lips, and then they're pulling back together, dancing further away from the stage, instruments held away and in the open air like the precious things they are.

   "Should we stay and watch the rest?" Reo asks. He tosses a glance over his shoulder. The next ensemble, a quartet, is setting up under the lights.

   "No," Nagi says. "I'm tired of this place."

   Reo turns back. He tugs the cuff of his sleeve into his palm, pulls it out, pats the fabric over the sheen on Nagi's skin. "Did you have fun?" he asks, quiet, more fragile than he'd like to be.

   Nagi's whole face goes soft—eyes crinkling, lips curling, eyebrows lifted high. "Of course not," he says. "But I liked that you had fun."

   It's only fair, then, that they balance the scale and follow Nagi's lead for the rest of the night. They wind through the deserted halls, footsteps echoing all the way back to the rehearsal room. It's empty when they enter, but they still pack their instruments in delicate silence, yet to shake the lingering traces of concert etiquette. Then, Reo lifts both their livelihoods onto his back, and they're on their way, creeping back through the corridors, out to the entrance, into the night.

   "Let's do this again," Reo whispers.

   The world is silver—the moon, the clouds, the concrete. Nagi's hands land in Reo's hair, and his lips on Reo's cheek.

   It snows hard right before the new year. Snowflakes cascade out of the sky without relenting, coming down in fluffy blankets that never seem to let up. Reo and Nagi stay in most days, and they only emerge when they must, for food and water and weekly lessons: Reo on Mondays, Nagi on Wednesdays, and both of them on Fridays.

   It's the middle of the week again. Reo throws together dinner as snow drifts down past the window. The sun sets early, these days, and seven looks like ten at this time of year. The kitchen light is halfway to fizzling out, but there's something about the dimmed orange glow that makes the apartment feel warmer than usual.

   The soup begins to bubble threateningly under his nose. He shifts the pot off of the heat, puts a lid on it, pulls up a stool. Nagi's going to be home, soon. He should have been a few minutes ago, but Anri likes to keep him late.

   Reo entertains himself, sorting and resorting the kitchen cabinets. Seven bleeds into eight. He puts the pot back on the heat, lets it simmer. Organizes the fridge. It's halfway to nine, and he calls Nagi twice. Two times, it goes to voicemail. Probably forgot to charge his phone, Reo thinks. He moves the pot again, lets it cool down.

   He calls Anri's number. She picks up instantly. "Hello, Reo, do you need anything?"

   "Nothing urgent," Reo says. "Sorry to disrupt your lesson—just wondering if you're going to send Nagi home soon. The snow's not stopping anytime soon."

   "Oh, he left already," Anri says. "About twenty minutes ago, maybe."

   "Ah—alright. Thanks."

   "You haven't seen him?"

   "Well, not yet." Reo wets his lips briefly with the tip of his tongue. "Maybe the snow is holding him up."

   "Hopefully the weather will clear up soon."

   "Yeah, hopefully."

   "Have a good evening!"

   And then it's quiet again, save for the crackling of the stovetop. Reo stares at his own face in the murky reflection of the soup. He calls Nagi again, just in case. Still, nobody picks up. Oddly enough, there's something cold creeping up his back. It tastes like dread when it crawls into his mouth. Through the glass, the snow spirals down with increasing ferocity.

   It's only going to get worse from here. Reo turns the stovetop off. The knob clicks between his fingers. He takes his jacket from where it's folded over the back of his chair at the kitchen table, fishes his keys out of the left pocket. He slips into his shoes and hurries out, and it doesn't occur to him until he's halfway down the stairs that he should have worn his boots. He supposes it won't matter much—he shouldn't be out for long. He'll just walk the fifteen minutes to Anri's place, see if he runs into Nagi on the way there.

   Fifteen minutes is far longer in a storm like this. Reo has to lean into the wind when he steps forward. It's nearly impossible to see—the headlights from passing cars light up the falling snow, and it's like swimming through fire, all sparks and burning pinpricks in his eyes. The frigid air scorches the skin on his nose. He realizes that there's no way Nagi would walk home in this storm; surely, he'd have called a cab, in weather like this.

   Reo takes a moment to catch his breath, wiping snow from his eyelashes with trembling fingers. His inhale is so cold, his throat goes numb. It's no use, going out to look for Nagi like this. It's freezing, and it's late, and—and there's a commotion up ahead, horns and sirens and lights and a smattering of broken glass across the road, and Reo had just been about to turn back and go home, but he can't just not look.

   The wreckage of the car crash spans half the street. There's a mangled bumper, half a door, shards of glass making a drag path, trailing all the way to a heap of metal under the traffic lights. High beams like spotlights scald across what remains of the vehicle. What catches Reo's attention isn't the main stage, but something in the shadows; a box of black fabric, about midway down the trail of glass, a tiny door swung open to the sky. Snow has already begun to pile inside the main body of the case. It's far away from the wreck that nobody stops Reo when he creeps forward to sweep his hand over it.

   His hand runs through a twisted jumble of wood. It creaks against his fingers, against itself. Under the burning snow, he scoops up a piece, small enough to settle easily in the valley of his palm. It's intricately carved, pale and stiff and halfway damp—the bridge of a violin. And those are broken strings, dangling from his fingers, wet like snow, like water, like blood.

   Reo's going to be sick. He's so, so sick. He forces himself to look up again. He makes his way over; there goes the bridge, slipping from his fingers, landing soundlessly in his footprints.

   The officers present peer at him through the flurry when he gets close enough. They're no more than blurry shadows, trembling in the wind, guarding the site of the accident from the world. Reo's tears freeze against his skin.

   "I think," Reo says, and then he breaks off, swallows, struggles to start again. He doesn't think. He doesn't want to. Doesn't want to think, see, breathe. "I think I know the passenger."

   The officers look at each other. Reo sees their pity in the curve of their shoulders. They step back a little and let him shuffle in to stare at the crumpled remains of the taxi. It's such a mess, the folded metal has completely engulfed both rows of seats. Like someone had flattened the vehicle between their palms. Reo averts his gaze, but it doesn't matter—he couldn't have seen into the back row, even it he wanted to. No way to see in. No way to make it out, either.

   It's for the best, Reo tells himself, as he shuts his eyes. For the best.

   Eventually, Reo comes home. He drops his shoes by the door, his jacket on the chair. He's left the lights on. The kitchen is darker than it was before.

   When he reaches for the side of the pot, it's cold. He nudges it closer to himself, turns the dial to switch on the heat for the stovetop. Three clicks between his thumb and index finger. He only has to grab one bowl from the cabinet tonight.

   His tears run down his nose as he eats. Everything that passes through his lips tastes like salt. He's shivering, but he's long since escaped the storm, and the wind can't reach him here, but still.

   Reo doesn't sleep for a little while. He takes his time finishing his dinner—he eats both portions, because they don't waste food. He takes his time, then he takes his time doing the dishes as well, and he lingers in the kitchen for a bit, too, until the light well and truly flickers out. Then, he brushes his teeth until his gums tear, and he sits in bed with blood trickling onto his tongue, counting seconds in the dark. It feels like if he stays still enough, breathes shallowly enough, the world might come to a halt around him. Might turn backwards, just one time, to bring him back to an earlier time—any time, but this one.

   The world spins. The snow stops, and the sun rises. Sleep drags Reo's eyes shut, and when he wakes, he wakes alone.

   Reo always liked to kiss Nagi before bed. He'd kiss and bite and gnaw at him like puppies do to wooden chair legs. Nagi would lay there and let him, even though it surely must have hurt, the prick of Reo's canines into the soft flesh of his shoulders.

   It never lasted very long or went very far. Every night, Nagi would lay in bed, still and obedient, and Reo would hug him close with all four limbs. They'd kiss, and Reo would waste the next five minutes doing something inane like nibbling on the neck of Nagi's shirt, like Nagi was his chew toy, or his—anything. Just his.

   Reo would get tired, and he'd kiss Nagi goodnight. They would whisper I love yous to each other, because they did love each other, so very much. Then, they slept, just as they did everything else together, sleeping and waking and all the things in between.

   Reo doesn't get to have Nagi anymore—not when he wakes, not in the in-betweens. Selfishly, he keeps Nagi when he sleeps, in saccharine dreams too warm and glittery to be real.

   How do you even hit a tree? Reo would have understood if it'd been a collision between two drivers. It's easier, then, with double the human error, and both cars volatile in snowy air and on icy ground. But trees don't move. They stand tall in all the terrible storms, all the howling winds, and against all the speeding cars that crinkle themselves against their trunks.

   Reo spends his time hating, lovingly and viciously. He hates the tree, and the taxi driver, and, rather irrationally, the weather. He hates Nagi for scheduling his lessons on Wednesdays, for not walking home that night, for leaving Reo alone. Then, he hates the tree all over again, because it's the only thing from that night that's still left on this earth for him to hate.

   He goes to see it one day, just because. It's a weeping willow, bald and scraggly, with branches stripped bare from the winter cold. The cascading, skeletal tendrils aren't quite thick enough to hide the mark left from the crash—a flat plane of clean, pale bark, freed from its confines by a wayward hunk of metal.

   Maybe Reo will be like this from now on; scarred, skin gouged, metaphorical innards bared for the world to see and hurt, branches arced downward like perpetually streaming tears. Or maybe he'll die before winter ends, just like he hopes this wretched tree will, so he never has to see it and feel what he's feeling right now ever again.

   But Reo is a human, and he needs to breathe and eat and drink and live, and so he does, and he will.

   Reo cries so hard that he loses his voice. That's his excuse for telling Anri and Ego about the accident over text.

   The more rational side of him acknowledges that he's turned into a child these days, shying away from anything that causes him the slightest discomfort. And there's something about having to hear the shock, the sorrow, the pity in their voices that has his intestines knotting themselves into a mess, so he opts out of calling and leaves the messages pressed safely within the confines of his phone screen. He copies the text from Anri's channel to Ego's to spare himself any more of a headache.

   It takes both of them a few minutes to answer back. Reo imagines them across the city, reading the news like another piece of weekly gossip, and going on with their lives. Anri might cry. Ego probably wouldn't—he'd drink, maybe, and push it to the back of his mind.

   Reo lets that train of thought go. He doesn't like thinking about much, these days.

   Anyway, that's his only chore for the day. There's nobody else to break the news to—this has been the two-point line of Nagi's life for a long time, bouncing between home and lessons and back to home for forever. Nagi didn't really venture out into the world; he'd dip his toes in, get a feel, play a few pieces for a few willing pairs of ears, and then he'd retreat back into his little bubble with Reo to play house. That was it. But whatever it was, it was good. It was simple and good, and completely enough for both of them.

   It's a bit of a curse now, drawing his circles so small that there's nothing left in them, now that Nagi's gone. Reo's life is an embarrassment without him. He just—he does whatever the moon would do, if Earth suddenly blinked out of existence. He floats in space, mindless, directionless, all orbits flatlined without warning.

   (In reality, the moon would probably keep orbiting. Most likely, it would settle around the sun, and it would keep making loops through the galaxy, slower and wider and different but still going, at least. But Reo's world never stretched that large—it's just him and Nagi. Moon and Earth and the hair-splitting distance in between.)

   Ego's responding text flickers, and then the screen goes dark. Reo doesn't get to read it, and he doesn't care much, either. Lately, his phone is the only window to the outside world, and he prefers to keep it shut as much as possible.

   It's pathetic of him, but Reo can't bring himself to do anything about it. Nobody's around to see, anyway. Nobody will judge him. Nobody will even notice he's locked himself inside his apartment, except probably Ego and Anri, and whichever audiences he and Nagi were booked to perform for in the coming months. They won't be able to hear the Passacaglia that the two of them had so delicately polished. Reo can't play a duet on his own. He'll have to figure something out soon, or he's going to disappoint a lot of people. Who the fuck cares!

   Reo sleeps, because it's his solution to everything, now. There's not much worth staying awake for. Maybe he'll sleep until the end of time, and Nagi will be there to greet him, like they'd never even been apart.

   Their apartment is a little box of pairs. There are two chairs at the dinner table. Every utensil has a partner. The cabinets are filled with twin bowls, twin plates, two mugs in complementary colors. Reo tries to use them all equally, alternating between one and two, so that each pair ages the same, shows the same amount of wear.

   There's a whole checklist of things Reo doesn't know what to do with. Nagi's clothes he washes and tucks into the back of the closet. He keeps Nagi's sheet music on his desk, pinned between a cookbook and his old binders. The shoes stay by the door; somehow, they make the apartment feel more lived-in. When Reo sets his own loafers next to Nagi's winter boots at the end of the day, he can pretend he's coming home to anything but silence.

   The toothbrush stumps him for a few long days. At first, it sits on the edge of the sink, parallel to the ground, the head protruding out into the air, because Nagi never remembered to put it back in the cup. Reo stares at it while he brushes his own teeth, and on one of those blurry evenings, he puts it in the cup where it belongs. Then, he keeps looking at it, because that's not where Nagi left it and some things feel wrong to move, especially something like this, so simple and mundane and obviously, obnoxiously Nagi's.

   The bristles are bent, and color on the handle is faded in the vague, fuzzy shape of his palm. It's an old toothbrush. They should have gotten a new one last month. It taunts Reo from under the mirror. He sets it next to the sink once again, but now it's by his own hand, not Nagi's, so that doesn't feel right, either. He shouldn't have touched it in the first place. It's useless, anyway, tearing his hair out over a toothbrush, of all things. He should toss it out.

   He tries. He holds it over the bin, and his grip is loose. The plastic of the handle pulls at the flesh of his fingertips. Gravity tugs downward; all he has to do is uncurl his fingers. He thinks of how old it is. Thinks that well, we were going to get a new one anyway. Thinks, good riddance, but it's not really good, and how could he ever, ever rid himself of anything from Nagi?

   Reo cries over it, just like he cried over the shoes and the sheet music and the clothes and the little lovers in the kitchen. It only takes him a few minutes to calm himself down. It's something he hates that he's gotten better at.

   In the end, he puts it in the storage cabinet under the sink. It's out of the way. It's practical, and now he can spend his time staring at the space where it used to be, instead.

   "You don't have to come in on Friday," Anri says. Her voice is tinny through the phone, like she's speaking through a metal pipe. "We'll reschedule when you want to practice. If you want to practice."

   "It's okay," Reo says. It's not okay. "I need to. Practice."

   "You don't have to," Anri says. She sniffles, hard. A hiccup fights its way through the static before she speaks next. "There's no need to rush into anything, Reo."

   "I have a performance," Reo says. "Next month. It's supposed to be a duet. So, if you have anyone I could rehearse with."

   Anri breathes in his ear, choppy, halfway to tears. "Are you sure," she whispers.

   Of course he isn't. "It doesn't matter," Reo says.

   Anri sighs. She clears her throat and hiccups again. "I," she starts, then trails off. Takes another breath.

   "I have a performance next month," Reo repeats. Horrifyingly, it comes out completely steady.

   "I'll see what I can do," Anri tells him. Reo hates how gentle she sounds. "Take it easy, okay?"

   Nothing will ever be easy again. Reo still says, "Okay," because it's easier to lie.

   Anri hangs up. Reo sets his phone down and wanders into the bathroom. He sits on the floor with his forearms folded against the toilet seat for a long, long time, battling nausea that never seems to be able to fight its way up and out through his mouth. Then, he crawls into bed and pukes over the edge and onto the carpet about a minute later, because it's all a fucking joke, of course.

   It doesn't matter. His mouth tastes like bile, but it doesn't matter. He'll get a new partner at the end of the week, and they'll play, they'll rehearse, and they'll perform, and Nagi won't matter, and none of it will.

   Reo closes his eyes and dreams. He opens them with the sun. It's beautiful out, and he spends the morning cleaning the carpet.

   Ego and Anri are perched in their chairs like statues when Reo slips into the room. They follow Reo with their eyes. Anri's are red and watery. Reo thinks that Ego's eye bags have gotten worse, but it's hard to tell with him.

   Behind them stands a young man. One of Anri's students, Reo assumes. He's shorter than Nagi, and he's swaying from side to side, tugging on the ends of his hair. He's got yellow highlights. His violin case, which hangs from his left shoulder, is baby blue and scuffed from years of usage. When he meets Reo's eyes, he smiles and holds out a hand for him to shake.

   "This is Bachira," Ego says, and nothing more. Nagi's replacement goes unsaid, but it doesn't matter. They're all thinking it, anyway.

   "It's nice to meet you," Bachira says when Reo takes his hand. He shakes it twice, lets go. Then, he adds, "I'm sorry."

   Sorry for your loss. Sorry for taking his place. Sorry, maybe just in general. Reo forgives him—what can you possibly say in a situation like this, auditioning for a dead man's position?

   "Don't be," Reo says flatly. He sets his cello case down by his feet with a thunk. "Let's play."

   Bachira lays his violin case down against Ego's ugly beige carpet and flicks open the clamps. Out comes his violin, chestnut brown, cradled in his palms. Reo averts his eyes as Bachira readies himself. He turns his back to open his own case. It's been so long since he practiced, he has to wrestle with all four pegs to get his cello back in tune. He feels three pairs of eyes on the back of his head as he does it.

   Eventually, they're ready to go. Bachira doesn't fill the space quite as much as Nagi does. There's too much empty air. Reo stares at Bachira from over their stands. Bachira stares back, tapping his feet. Eventually, he drags his cheek against his chinrest and says, "Are you going to cue me in?"

   Reo exhales, a quiet oh. He tries to smile apologetically, but there's a permanent downward curl to his lips now, and he doesn't quite make it past a grimace. He lifts his bow and his chin, and he cues Bachira in.

   It's immediately evident that they've never played together before. Bachira's bow rips across the strings with vigor, and he backs off almost instantly to accommodate Reo. They have different ideas for phrasing, and Bachira ends up following Reo's lead, eyes bright and watchful where they fixate on Reo's bow hand. Even so, their performance is passable. On another day, Ego would have stopped them a dozen times already to make room for some scathing feedback, but both he and Anri are eerily silent in their seats.

   Bachira is great, to be honest. He's fluid in his movements, unafraid to let his body rise and fall to the music. He's attentive, catching any of Reo's shifts in mood within half a measure. He's comfortable with the quieter, slower sections of the score, but Reo can see that he thrives when the music calls for him to drag as much sound out of his violin as humanly possible. Reo can envision a future where the two of them continue playing together, making violent, flawless music. Can taste it on his tongue.

   Anri and Ego let them finish the entirety of the piece, even with all their little hitches and stumbles. Anri is the one to ask, "Well, what do you think?"

   She's staring at the floor between their feet, so it's unclear who she's talking to. Bachira shoots an uncertain look Reo's way, then takes a decisive breath. "There's still a lot of room for improvement," he says. "But I also think there's a lot of potential. I could see us playing together for a while."

   It's just about what Reo had been thinking. He doesn't have anything else to add, really. He just needs to nod and get it over with. Three pairs of eyes land on him once more, waiting.

   "I, um," Reo says. He clears his throat. "I don't think this is going to work."

   Anri nods. Ego looks down and begins to pick at his nails. Bachira smiles at him, so very sweetly, and turns around to begin packing up his violin. He removes the shoulder rest, sets it inside his case. Loosens his bow, slides that inside, too. In goes his violin, slow and careful like glass in his hands. The lid drops, and the clasps click shut, and then he's tugging his jacket on, already halfway to the door.

   "Sorry," Reo says to Bachira when he passes, a little halfhearted.

   Bachira pauses. He tilts his head down at Reo and brushes a hand over his shoulder. "It's alright," Bachira says. "I'm sorry, too."

   "What for?"

   Bachira shrugs. He waves at Anri, then steps out through the front door.

   Ego unfolds himself from his chair. He stretches, slow and languid. He doesn't look at Reo when he asks, "Will I see you on Monday?"

   The thought of another lesson has Reo sick to his stomach. The thought of skipping it hurts just as much. He looks at Ego's face, his eye bags, then at Anri, who's still watching the front door. His gaze drifts to the space across, where Bachira's stand is still set up. Beige carpet. Lamplight, and Nagi, dusted with snow, on his knees, smiling up at him. It's a sight that haunts all his dreams, all his nightmares. It's making its way into his daylight hours now, too. He can't let it stay. He can't.

   "I always wanted to try performing as a soloist," Reo says softly. The words taste like blood.

   "Then, I will see you next week," Ego says. "We'll pick out a piece."

   Reo packs up in silence. Anri helps him line his sheet music neatly inside his bag, which is half as empty as usual. For the first time since they've met, Ego walks him to the front door.

   "I'm not made of glass," Reo says when Ego holds the door open. He feels defiant in a personal, pathetic way that stings at the corners of his eyes.

   Ego just looks at him. "Then you're not," he says. "But it's fine if you are."

   Reo sets up for practice at nine in the morning almost every day. He tries to make it a habit. He oversleeps sometimes, still laying drowsy on his half of the bed as nine slides into ten into eleven. But he tries, dragging his limbs into position, pressing his fingers into the wood of his instrument until the imprint of the strings on his skin is a permanent ache in his hands.

   Slowly, he stitches a schedule together. Cello practice in the morning and evenings, with lessons on Monday, and whatever fills the hazy hours in the afternoon. He's taken to cleaning the bedroom. There's not much, but there's always something, and he likes the mind-numbing work of sifting through the carpet for stray hairs. It's easy, and it keeps him busy.

   Reo has to cancel the handful of performances that he and Nagi had been meant to do. Kaiser and Ness fill in for the ones that they can—their way of paying back the favor, from what feels like decades ago. Ness even sends him a nice message about it, despite that fact that they've never even met face to face. Reo replies with a simple thanks, and the conversation dies there, which he's grateful for. He's not in much of a mood to make small talk.

   So, he keeps his circles drawn tight. The absence of Nagi is so loud that it hurts, threatens to crack through his skull. He keeps the television on, the volume ticked up just twice, so that there's some noise other than the sound of his own breathing to fill the apartment in the time that he isn't spending with his cello. There's nothing else to fill the weeks—just music, and missing Nagi, and stocking the fridge whenever it gets empty.

   He practices so much these days that his fingertips have memorized the slide down the length of the fingerboard. The ghost of it lingers on his skin even as he washes his hands. He plays in the hall between the kitchen and the living room, away from the bedroom where he and Nagi used to set up. The way the notes bounce off the walls is sharper, and he likes the way they ring. He can see the front door over his music stand, and it feels nicer, seeing the open space. Having to bring his chair out gives him something more to do every day, and doing is always good. And he doesn't have to sit in their old spot and remember all the ways Nagi isn't here anymore, and that's really the main reason, honestly.

   The main event of every week is Ego's lesson. Reo hums to himself on the walk there just to get his voice working again. Anri turns up sometimes, once a month, maybe, just to say hi. But it's mostly just Reo and Ego, and in some ways, it's the same, and in many others, it's not. Reo thinks that Ego's a little nicer now, like he's melted off all his sharp edges. He knows that they'll never really be close, him and Ego, but he also thinks that Ego can read him, maybe better than he reads himself, and it's something he appreciates.

   Ego signs him up for a small competition. It's a local one, hosted at one of the schools nearby, and it offers him absolutely no practical benefit. It's been years since Reo did one, but it's not really about competing, anyway. "Just so you can ease back into performing," is what Ego tells him. In truth, it's probably something a little more sentimental—in the same vein, but wrapped in all of Reo's murky sorrow.

   Reo practices for it, because he's got nothing else to do. Ego gives him criticism that doesn't bite quite as hard as it used to, and Reo is quietly grateful, because it's one less thing to remind him of before. He'll fumble a note, a measure, a phrase, and Ego will level him with a stare and say, all exasperated, "Come on." And Reo goes again, and again, and again.

   It's all very tiring. Ego lets him go right on time every night, like he knows that at the end of it, all Reo wants to do is escape back into his little hole of an apartment. And every time, he'll say, "I'll see you next week," like his own personal form of a goodbye.

   It's saved Reo, somehow. It keeps him playing the cello. It keeps him practicing. It keeps him coming back every next week. But he doesn't say so to Ego—they're not close. Reo probably won't ever be close to anyone again, unless they can fill the space next to him in all the ways Nagi did. But he does show up every week, just like he's supposed to.

   Today is Monday again, one just like all the Mondays that will come. Reo gets up at nine and stares at the cup under the mirror while he brushes his teeth. He drags his chair into the hall, sets up his stand, and practices until his stomach threatens to shrivel in on itself. He puts the TV on while he makes himself whatever meal goes between lunch and dinner. He eats and washes the dishes and burns a couple of hours vacuuming every surface of the bedroom. He packs his sheet music into his bag and lifts his cello onto his back when the sun goes down, and he hums on the way to Ego's place. He has his lesson, and Ego is adequately nice to him, for his standards. Reo leaps out of his seat as soon as it's time for him to go, and Ego waves. His hand says goodbye, and his mouth says, "See you next week."

   Reo walks home. He passes the tree, just to prove that it doesn't bother him. He stares at the calendar on his phone to give himself something to do. One more week until the next week, he thinks, which is obvious, but it helps a little, just to think it to himself.

   Nagi's boots greet him at the front door. Reo imagines the boy that used to stand in them. Nagi would kiss him, if he was here. He'd be sleepy and warm, probably just out of bed. He would get up at the sound of Reo's keys jingling down the hall. He'd hold Reo's hand, his left hand, and his callouses would line up with Reo's callouses, and then they would kiss like movie characters or star-crossed lovers, two humans making one silhouette in the doorway.

   Nagi's shoes are getting dusty. Reo sets his cello case down, shucks off his jacket, and uses one dangling sleeve to brush them clean.

   Maybe it's not a good thing, keeping his grief so well-maintained. It's just another part of his routine, just as inevitable as practice and seeing Ego next week. In all traditional analogies, it's the equivalent of keeping his wounds gouged open, or shackling himself in a dark room, or whatever other dreadful imagery he's heard in books and blogs.

   But Reo doesn't think Nagi's a wound. They're good together. They loved each other, and it's not something to forget, or get over, or move on from. He cherishes it, because, well—what else could he possibly do? It doesn't feel like an obstacle, or a hindrance. It feels just the same as it did back then—like something he's supposed to hold onto for the rest of his life.

   It must be okay. There's nothing wrong with being sad. He thinks that if their roles had been reversed, he'd want Nagi to remember him like this, too.

   Reo sets his shoes next to Nagi's, where they belong. He puts his jacket on the back of his chair and his cello behind the couch. He walks down the corridor to the bedroom and sets his alarm for nine.

   In the end, somewhat inevitably, Reo returns to the stage. It's not in front of a crowd, like he thought he would be. He doesn't have any performances lined up; he's just got the competition Ego signed him up for, with low stakes and insignificant prizes.

   This time, the evaluations are being held in an auditorium. In the past, in all of his competitions with Nagi, they'd play for the judges in empty meeting rooms or repurposed classrooms. But here he is, onstage, with three judges in the front row, clipboards at the ready. It's not a very impressive auditorium, all things considered. It's small, and the lighting is poor, and there's a huge digital clock above the exit that scalds his retinas with red light from the back walls. When Reo leans down to set up his endpin strap, he gets a good view of the floor—old floorboards, scuffed beyond repair.

   He straightens up, introduces himself on autopilot like he'd done in the mirror for the past week. He had to rehearse it—Nagi's name would fall from his lips after his own, otherwise. The judges give him polite applause, and then the floor is his.

   It's like a whale's mouth, is what Reo thinks as he begins his opening measures. The grand arc of the curved ceiling towers overhead, like the gaping roof, and Reo sits on its parched tongue, near-white planks of stripped wood. It feels like something that could swallow him whole. Every note he draws from his cello disappears into the yawning abyss. It's a little daunting, a little exhilarating. He's sad and tired and it makes him reckless, so he plays recklessly, throwing every note into the dark with a flourish of his bow hand.

   He wonders if the judges recognize him. Maybe they'd seen his name on application papers before, always stacked on top of Nagi's in the top left corner. He wonders if they wonder where Nagi went—whatever happened to the poor little violinist who used to be glued to Reo's heels.

   Reo's bow slips from the strings. He draws it back into place instantly; the bow hairs squeak against the metal. He glances to his left on instinct, but there's no need; it's just him under the spotlight, weaving a piece together on his lonesome. All of his mistakes are his own.

   Eat me, he thinks. Dares it, with the cacophony that he pulls from his instrument. He would let it happen. It would be a wonderful, fitting end to this story. He'd finish his performance, take a bow, and maybe it would go well, and maybe it wouldn't, but it wouldn't matter. He'd never have to find out if he could take it or not, because the hinges of the jaw would snap, and that would be the end of the scene. The curtains would drop, and Reo would just, whatever. He wouldn't have to figure it out.

   He finishes his performance and takes a bow. The judges clap again. The first on the left clears her throat, offers him a meager congratulations, and gets to picking apart his intonation.

   Reo smiles at every bit of feedback. He stares at the digital clock at the back of the whale's throat, time in red light. He thinks that the girders might be groaning, just about to give way—but no, they've wrapped up their comments, and he's being sent on his way with another round of gentle clapping.

   Reo's sigh shakes his whole body. He thanks them for their time and holds nobody's hand when he gathers his things and walks offstage. The darkened rows of empty seats see him out. Figure it out, they whisper.

   There's sunlight streaming in through the windows of the hallway when he escapes the auditorium. The straps of his cello case ache against his shoulders when he walks. The sounds of other performances flutter about above his head, mingling in a fuzzy, pastel amalgamation of noise. There's a bit of a weight off of his shoulders now—the natural consequence of finishing a performance. It would have been a day like any other.

   If it had been a day like any other—if, only if—Reo would have Nagi at his back and his violin in front, up against his chest. He'd probably think, as usual, that they'd do this until they turned gray and old, or as long as it meant whenever he said forever. And it would have happened, because Reo would have loved him for however long forever lasted for them.

   Today, though, all Reo gets to do is miss Nagi. Loving him, or missing him—in this time, they're crooked equivalents, in most ways. To miss him forever might be all there is to do, but Reo thinks that maybe, he could come to live with it.

   Reo wanders the sunlit corridors like he's lost at sea. Eventually, he comes back into the lobby. High up on the wall, there's his own name, preceded by a bold 1.