Work Text:
[“Okay. Hey so I’m gonna call it a night here. I left the work I have done so far on the illustration in chat, I’ll look at the feedback tomorrow.”]
[“Got it Enanan! I’m headin’ out too, I’ve got some plans tomorrow and I don’t wanna be too drained for ‘em. Night Yuki, K. Don’t work too hard.”]
[“Good night Amia.”]
[“Night.”]
There’s a string of silence when Yuki and K are the only two left on the call. It isn’t like it’s necessary to stay connected when it gets to that point. Mafuyu was upstairs. Kanade could just find her. Not that...she would.
[K?]
The sound of the chat notification startles her. Mafuyu had muted herself, sticking to chat only now that there was less reason to keep speaking aloud. Sighing, Kanade did the same, typing out her response instead.
[Yes? Something on your mind?]
[...nothing. I’m almost done with these lyrics, but I’m going to log off for now. Please don’t stay up.]
[Of course of course. Good night.]
[Good night.]
Kanade sighed as the last other member icon dims, leaving her alone until she does the same. Minimizing the window, she allowed herself to look only at the sections of music scattered through her program. Truth was, the others could still take their time. She hadn’t perfected her demo yet. It still sounded...wrong. Off. She couldn’t even figure out what to do. She hasn’t been able to focus for days. The trip to the aquarium was a week ago, and even through that entire event, Kanade had been lost in her own troubles and thoughts, unable to pull her head out of them the way she was supposed to be able to do.
It used to be so easy. Had she really messed up this bad?
Grasping at her headset, Kanade pulled it off and firmly pushed it onto the desk, pushing at her keyboard a little bit in the process. Her sigh was louder than she intended.
She messed up. She couldn’t fix this. That’s what happened when she let herself cross lines she shouldn’t be. Even the line she still didn’t dare to cross mocked her, daring her to blur this as well, just to see what came of it. It no longer mattered if she crossed it or not—the damage felt like it had been done. Leaning over, she hunched in her seat as her elbows rested against the wood of her desk, a hand burying itself into silver hair. She took a breath. No—try it again. Take another. Her jacket felt stuffy and this room felt...too small. Like something was trying to suffocate her.
How could she? The audacity of something like her, to think that she could even glance twice at emotions meant for the souls of genuine people, shining bright with so much to offer this world other than pathetic melodies and wavering notes. Her eyes stared at the headset nearby, her body still trying to take breaths that it felt like it wasn’t getting enough of.
Did it always feel like this room lacked real oxygen?
Her pulse was hammering louder and louder inside of her ears. It was a dull thumping she could feel in her head by now. That was just another part of her that she felt she shouldn’t have. It felt wrong by now. Every little heartbeat and every little breath—why did she need either of them? Why couldn’t she just function without them? She could exist exactly as she was supposed to in the first place. A savior extending its hand to those in need of it—something that shouldn’t need anything in return. She shouldn’t have to do any of this! She shouldn’t need air, she shouldn’t need a heartbeat and she didn’t deserve the soul that supposedly existed somewhere in her being. Not that she could say for sure if she still had that or not. Maybe she never had one to begin with.
No...she did. Everything she’s needed lately, everything that she wanted...it was proof alone of the soul and the feelings that lived in her frail little body. It was proof that she was still human at the end of the day, and she was still a person with thoughts and feelings that had to face consequences. She had a soul and a heart that was always beating so, so hard in this little chest of hers.
She hated every little bit of it.
What have you done? What have you done? The question repeated itself nonstop in the back of her mind like a persistent knock at the door. There was no doubt, how important her mission to save Mafuyu was. It was everything to her. It kept her going. When everything felt like it was too much and she felt like she was too exhausted to remember why she was still here, remembering Mafuyu kept her grounded in reality. Even while Mafuyu took so many impressive and incredible steps on her own to discover her own existence and reasons for living, surely there was still room to need that one special song from Kanade, right? She clung to that thought with everything that she had. She held tight, as if the moment her knuckles weren’t white and sore with her exertion she would simply find herself plummeting right into that black hole that waited underneath her feet.
It would take her. It was always meant to. But not before she did what she needed to do.
Yet...what did she do when it started getting complicated?
She was supposed to make music for her. That’s all she’s supposed to do. She only exists to shine a light on someone else. To shine a light on their path and show them what they deserve: the entire universe. She’s barely even a person. She isn’t supposed to be, she felt like. If not for the intervention of the others, she’s sure that her health would have diminished her existence so much that anyone looking at her would question if she was a real, physical being taking up space in this vast house, or some strange and lonely apparition that only knew the same, monotonous routine. But she wasn’t like that.
Is that okay? She wished questions like that were things she could just ask out loud, alone in this room she worked in, and simply receive an answer from...whatever higher power existed. If there even was something out there. Surely there had to be. She was the butt of someone’s cosmic joke, after all. Something allowed her damned existence to continue so that her duty could continue. Maybe she would see that something, the day she was finally allowed to leave.
Her head lowered onto her arm as her other draped against her head, eyes staring blankly at the door. She couldn’t close her eyes. Sleeping was a waste of time, even if she tried to do it because Mafuyu and the others worried so much about her. Most of all—sleeping just made her think about the very things that were ruining her now. That warmth she felt when she spent time by Mafuyu’s side. The melodies that flowed through her mind when they shared space together and the way those melodies would burst whenever Mafuyu did simple, common things like look over at her or touch her hand. The vivid memories of Mafuyu’s forward and subtly desperate kisses plagued her thoughts alongside the other memories of the young woman’s hungry touches and the way she sounded when it was just the two of them sharing a moment together. The way that she looked at her. Mafuyu twisted her stomach into knots and made her heart beat so hard that it felt like she was simply about to die. It hurt. It hurt her chest and it hurt her head and it hurt her very soul. It hurt the very thing that shouldn’t be.
It didn’t hurt the way people sing about in their lyrics. It hurt like a knife directly into the center of her chest. Pushed with enough force to shatter through the sternum, if the universe had any mercy at all for her, it would simply drive through until it found the very core of the so called human soul, and dive straight into it. Keep going, until no life could be found within.
The universe isn’t that kind. It doesn’t have that kind of mercy to spare for her. She exists to do one thing, and she’s failed it. All that she had to do...was not feel this way. The only rule was that she could never be. The pure, unbridled enjoyment and bliss of living was never meant for her, and here she was experiencing little bits of it anyway, like a selfish and greedy little rat, starving enough to trespass into a home it wasn’t welcome in for just a scrap of food that wasn’t meant for it. If only she could be that rat. She was something so much worse. She’s sinned, hasn’t she? She’d never considered herself very religious. She hardly knew anything about the teachings of Christianity and the stories from the Bible. She never knew of other theologies and their depictions of existence and the human experience. In a way that was just another part of human existence that she wasn’t supposed to think she should have.
Still...somehow, the snake had found her and in a lapse of judgment, she had accepted the apple and devoured it like the starving little rat. Picking her head back up, her hands moved to her lap as she looked down at it, once again struggling to find her proper breath. Her body churned out each exhale, and yet no matter how deep the inhale and exhale, it didn’t feel like she had done anything at all. Her fingers curled until she was clenching her fists in her lap, dots of silver in her vision mocking her struggles.
What have I done?
She couldn’t fix this. She couldn’t take it back. She didn’t want to. It was everything to her, and that was horrifying. This was never meant to be hers in the first place, but she claimed it anyway. This feeling of attachment and longing. Her desires and her needs, everything that she wanted. Fantasies of some peaceful future alongside someone who actually cared for her and watched after her, who could see her as something more than what she did for others. All of it, some ugly, wretched little lie conjured in the delirious head of a savior that was failing to do the only thing that she was entrusted to do. Empty herself, and save others. Empty herself and pour everything that flowed out of her, into those that had more to live for.
How could she screw it up this badly? She shuddered, the room spinning from her vain attempts to even out her breathing. She would hyperventilate if she kept going like this. But she still couldn’t breathe. It wasn’t enough. Just like her selfish desire for human connection, she needed more air. More life. All she did was want, want, want. To need, to desire—that filthy little heart and soul in her body screamed against her purpose, desiring a freedom she still had not earned. A freedom that she wasn’t supposed to have.
The only freedom that awaited her was the cold void beyond a song that was yet to exist. The culmination of her efforts and her existence. The string that would guide Mafuyu somewhere better and brighter than this lonely, suffocating house. And yet...that freedom would take her away from Mafuyu. That freedom meant that she could no longer watch Mafuyu shine.
Leaning forward again, Kanade grimaced, the taste of blood on her tongue but the sharp pain of where she bit into the inside of her cheek muted to the point of a simple, dull feeling. Her fingernails threatened the palms of her hands. She regretted handing that box-cutter to Mafuyu. If she couldn’t even repent through her music and duty like normal, and she couldn’t repent through pain and blood...what exactly was she supposed to do? Was that why she felt so sick, suddenly? Was that why she let the nauseating taste of her own blood stimulate her sense of taste and why her fingers pushed into her palms so hard that she could feel the uncomfortable warmth of skin breaking and finally giving to the pressure?
She pulled her feet up onto her chair, curling up with her still tight fists between them and her chest and her eyes squeezed shut.
She loves her so much.
Mafuyu Asahina was absolutely everything to her and more. Mafuyu Asahina was the worst thing that could have possibly walked into her worthless, meaningless life. They never should have met. Kanade would walk through this city on fire just to meet her, again and again.
You can’t do this.
This feeling is not hers to have. This love was not hers to keep. Mafuyu wasn’t hers to admire and lay down her false heart for. She couldn’t lay this defiant, dirty soul bare for someone like Mafuyu. She deserved to see so much more than that. She deserved so much more. And Kanade...deserved nothing. She could never let herself believe she deserved genuine happiness, much less something as precious and innocent as love. Love was for the living. Love was for the real and genuine. Love wasn’t for the little machine of a composer sitting here right now, hearing nothing in this quiet room but the beating of a fake, machine heart that only functioned to keep her moving and making, and a soul so burdened with curses and poison that it could hardly be considered human at all.
Love from such a creature would do nothing but spread its poison. It was a blight that wasn’t supposed to exist. She was terrified to think of what it could do to a soul as bright as the one that must be in Mafuyu. The one that still pulsed steadily, shining a little brighter every day, waking up to new hopes.
Just because she was a failure...she couldn’t dare let that mean she was going to taint such a brilliant existence with her sins. But what could she do now? The soft, wonderful way Mafuyu looked at her...it felt like it was already too late. That red string around their necks was ready to tighten until neither of them could breathe. But she can’t do that to her. Kanade could deal with the possibility of that suffocation and the darkness that it brought with it, but Mafuyu? She couldn’t do that to her. She couldn’t drag her down to the hell that was reserved specifically for Kanade Yoisaki.
“...is that it then?” Her voice is barely audible. A raspy whisper, the room still spinning a little bit from earlier’s erratic, heavy breaths.
There’s…really nothing else, is there? Her half-lidded eyes look down at her hands as they open, blood staining her palms and her fingers.
“...”
Of course not.