Inside and Out - #16, Denial - Chapter 7

Apr 04, 2009 12:41

Title: Inside and Out
Author: jibunnohana
Theme: #16, denial
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Ni~ya x Sakito
Band[s]: Nightmare
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Comments: Okay...first I need to apologize for taking absolutely forever to update this. Please don't hurt me too badly. X3;; It was delayed originally because I couldn't figure out where I wanted to take the story next, aside from introducing Ruka, and then I got busy with other things and it slipped my mind. I'm quite excited about this new chapter, and I'll try to start updating regularly again. Hope you all enjoy it! ♥

Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3 (plus companion ficlet by josietries)
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6


Maybe it was the heat of summer or maybe it was the disappointment of loosing a key band member that caused apathy to settle among the four remaining in Nightmare. Niya, Sakito, and Yomi turned twenty; no one practiced with any real momentum; they spent their time playing videogames or thinking about playing videogames.

“I’m bored,” Yomi declared loudly from his prone position on Hitsugi’s living room floor. “And I’m sick of this game.”

“You’re only bored because you keep loosing.” Niya grinned, in the midst of battling Sakito, to whom he was loosing spectacularly.

The vocalist raised his head just enough to see the screen and the two combatants’ life bars. “So are you. That’s not the reason, anyway.”

“Oh?” Niya grunted, turning the controller side to side in his hands as if the movement would force a victory out of his dying fighter. Futile, of course, when Sakito delivered the final blow a second later, and the guitarist turning to offer Niya his quiet gloating smile. That smile - lately, any smile - from Sakito caused his stomach to tighten uncomfortably.

“Hitsugi, you beat him,” he grumbled, passing on the controller. He slid back to lean against the couch near Yomi’s head. “If it’s not being constantly owned by all three of us, then why are you so bored?” he asked with a light chuckle.

“I miss singing,” Yomi answered promptly.

Uncomprehending, Niya laughed. “You sing all the time, even when we tell you to shut up.”

“That’s not what I mean, you dolt.” The short boy’s tongue darted out of his mouth and his brow knit together. “Anyone can just sing, I want to sing. Like, for real. There’s a difference, you know.”

Niya did know, though he couldn’t understand the other boy’s intense urge, his apparent need to make music at any given moment. “Join a band.”

“I’m in a band!” Wrong answer, Niya thought, his mind shrinking back from the venom in Yomi’s voice. It was difficult to truly anger him, but he seemed to have succeeded unwittingly. “You guys don’t get it, you just sit there sulking because of one stupid little thing. This is how bands fail. I know, it happened to me before. Boo hoo, we lost a drummer. Big fucking deal. Why don’t we go out and find a new one instead of sitting on our asses in front of the goddamn TV?”

Sakito and Hitsugi stopped playing and turned at the vocalist’s outburst, surprise written on both their faces. Finding a drummer had been in the back of Niya’s mind ever since, but assumed that, like him, they had all been more concerned with licking their wounds. Drummers were just something that happened when it was necessary. He looked back at Yomi, at his jutting chin and flaring nostrils, and remembered the passion he had seen in the other boy on stage their first night in front of a crowd, how he had transformed into something more than the gremlin they saw everyday. Ambition: Hitsugi had it, Sakito surely had it, but Yomi was the utter manifestation of the word. He was perhaps the only one of the four that truly knew what he was doing.

“Bah,” Yomi said dismissively, nimbly hopping to his feet. The anger was gone as quickly as it had come. “I’m going home, guys. Call me if you decide to do something fun.”

“See ya,” Niya replied faintly, watching him leave. He turned back to his two remaining companions, mouth open to talk though he had no idea how he should follow up. The startled guilt on Sakito’s face was enough to wring any thoughts of flippancy straight out of his head.

** * *

The phone woke Niya up on his day off from the convenience store, a fact that he was instantly bitter about. The obnoxious tone near his ear was almost enough to make him screen the call, but his bleary eyes detected Yomi’s number on the screen. For several days Niya had been trying to be exceedingly nice and cooperative for the vocalist, and his sense of honor would not allow him to ignore this particular call.

He grunted into the phone, unable as yet to form words. “Get up, you lazy bum!” came Yomi’s voice loud and clear (but mostly loud) through the speaker. He sounded excited, though that may have been a gross exaggeration, Niya couldn’t quite tell yet. Definitely he had a triumphant lilt to his voice. “I ran into an old acquaintance…you gotta come meet him.”

“Right now?” Niya mumbled, squeezing his eyes shut as his rubbed his face with his free hand. What time was it? Felt like six AM to him.

“Yes, right now! It’s noon, Baba, get your butt outta bed. Tsugi and Saki are already on their way.”

“Noon?” Niya replied stupidly, feeling for his watch, and remembering he had forgotten it in the bathroom at work the day before. “Okay, okay…I’m getting up.”

Yomi rattled off the name of the café and how to get there, which Niya hastily scrawled on a old hamburger wrapped he found close to the bed. Later he would realize that he couldn’t really read his own sleepy handwriting, but he found the correct location anyway.

Yawning, Niya found Yomi and his companion sitting out in the sun with iced drinks. They had apparently been waiting for him before ordering lunch, Yomi chatting incessantly as per usual, with his hair up in an odd configuration he usually reserved for lives and drunken karaoke. It must be a special occasion, Niya thought amusedly as he approached. The guest seemed plain at first glance, but as he moved closer Niya could see that this was a misguided opinion. First of all, he was perhaps the tallest person he had ever seen. Both knees stuck out awkwardly under the table, taking up most of the available space, confirmed by the length of his slouching torso and the fact that he was still taller Yomi even in that position. He had a sleek, stylish hairstyle framing his curiously blank expression. The young man, for he was surely not a boy anymore, dressed plainly, but the beginnings of a large tattoo peeked out from under the sleeve of his T-shirt. Niya was cowed before he got to the table, and automatically took the chair closest to Yomi.

Yomi stopped his chatter and the guest seemed to wake up slightly. “This is Satoru Kano, from Luinspear,” he introduced proudly. “My old band used to do lives with them sometimes.”

“Who?” Niya said faintly, loosing whatever was left of his nerve. Yomi suddenly belonged to a larger world he wasn’t quite accustomed too.

The tall man’s face softened into a lazy grin. “Don’t worry about it. Call me Ruka.” He extended a hand easily across the table without even bothering to lean forward.

Niya shook it as firmly as he was able, which must have seemed awful weak in Ruka’s large hand. “I’m Yuuji, but apparently everyone’s supposed to call me Niya.”

That elicited a chuckle from Ruka, who studied him for a moment thoughtfully while he sucked on his soda through a novelty straw. “You’re cute,” he assessed abruptly, putting his half empty glass back on the table.

“Er…thanks?” Niya found himself blushing despite his better efforts, and Yomi laughed at him while flicking a few drops of his own drink across the table. It splattered Ruka in the face.

“Behave ya great brute. You’ll scare away our bassist.”

“Bass, huh?” Ruka went back to studying him. “You’re a dirty liar, squirt. How come he gets to play bass?”

“I never said you could play bass!” Yomi snapped in return. “I just asked if you wanted to join our band. And besides, you’re better at drums and you know it.”

“I’ll have to think about this….”

“How many instruments do you play?” Niya had to ask. The tall man intrigued him.

Ruka shrugged and sipped his drink. “A few.”

Before Niya could ask him to elaborate, Yomi stood and let loose a piercing “Oi!” over his head, waving frantically to Hitsugi and Sakito. They spotted their bandmates and started over, much to Niya’s relief. Safety in numbers, he thought only half in jest.

“Sorry we’re late, Sakito got us lost,” Hitsugi apologized breathlessly, offering his hand to Ruka. “I’m Hitsugi, and this,” he stepped aside to make space for the other guitarist, “is-“

“Well, I’m sold. Hey, Taka-chan. Long time, no see.” Ruka was grinning again, a bit wider this time and with a familiarity in his eyes that put Niya instantly on edge. Only then did he notice Sakito’s shifting reluctance as he stood a couple of feet back from Hitsugi. There was a frown on his delicate lips and a hint of worry in his eyes.

“Hello, Ruka,” he greeted warily. Hitsugi, for the first time, looked genuinely surprised at his best friend, and Yomi looked back and forth between them, obviously confused. Niya didn’t know what to think, but with a sinking in his heart he understood that despite their recent shy affection for each other, he really didn’t know Sakito at all.

nightmare::ni~yaxsakito, theme a16::denial

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