@DEEP Fic~
Title: Up
Author: analineblue
Fandom: Akihabara@DEEP
Characters/Pairings: Box, Page (friendship ^_~)
Warnings/Spoilers: None, worksafe. Spoilers for episodes 10-11.
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~3500
Summary and notes under the cut for spoiler reasons. ^_~
(x-posted to akanechin)
Summary: Box and Page discuss their feelings about the disbanding (and regrouping) of @DEEP.
Notes: This takes place immediately after Page calls everyone together to regroup in episode 11. The flashbacks take place after the group has disbanded in episode 10. I mostly wanted to write this just as a way to get into the characters heads, because we don't ever really get to see what they've all been thinking about the whole disbanding thing?
And I must admit too, I started writing this a long, LONG time ago, and it was kind of a weird coincidence that I ever actually finished it? zukkii got me thinking about the show again, and then a comment on one of my other fics got me thinking about writing again, and this fic, so... If it seems like it's out of left field for me to be posting this now? It kind of is. ^_~ But I hope you enjoy it. ^_^
And of course, comments are always greatly appreciated~
***
Box’s voice is starting to sound almost comically frantic as he kicks at one of the seemingly bottomless stacks of papers near his feet, mumbling something about how he can’t stand this mess, how it’s impossible for them to clean everything up in such a short period of time, and how they should have been the ones to go out for food anyway, because this would have been an infinitely better and more fair decision, given his “condition”.
And then the papers topple over unceremoniously a moment later in a puff of dust that causes Box’s nose to twitch unconsciously.
Izumu and Taiko are already gone, having left under the pretense that acquiring food was a necessity, if they were going to be able to regroup properly, and with the agreement that Box and Page would clear a space for them to eat by the time they returned. It had seemed like a reasonable trade-off at the time, but… Now Box isn’t so sure. The mess is more than a little overwhelming.
Page smiles at him apologetically.
“A-all we have t-t-to do is c-clear a space,” he says quickly. “If w-we don’t, I-I-Izumu and T-T-Taiko will b-be-”
“I know, I know, let’s just do it quickly okay? I don’t know how more of this I can handle.”
Box lets out a dry cough. He picks up the corner of a magazine between two fingers, tilting his head curiously, wondering where the hell all this stuff has come from in the first place. It had never seemed particularly crowded at headquarters before, but looking at everything in piles like this makes him wonder how it was possible that they weren’t overcome by all of this clutter ages ago.
Without the hum of the computer in the background the large room is quiet though, and when Page turns to face Box, clutching a thick stack of flyers to his chest, even though his voice is quiet, the sound seems to echo a little in Box’s ears.
“Y-y-you know, I-I’m really g-glad. To be a-a-able to r-regroup. I-I wish I w-would’ve called s-s-sooner.”
“Me, too,” Box tells him truthfully, nodding. He watches as several papers escape from Page’s hands and flutter to the floor. “But it’s okay. We’re back now, so…”
Page nods, but then he shakes his head quickly, frowning.
“I-I-I… On the r-r-roof… I-I-I…”
Page repeats himself a few times without really getting any further. His voice has the same quiet determination as it did when he called Box earlier, and even though his expression is slightly guarded, his eyes barely conceal the underlying emotion there. It was the same when he stood up in front of them earlier. Seeing him like this unnerves Box, to the point where he has to resist the urge to grab his friend’s shoulders and just shake him until everything is back to normal again, and looking at him doesn’t have Box squirming with unease like this. Instead, Box finds himself moving towards his friend after a moment though, taking the papers from Page’s hands, and gesturing toward two chairs.
“Relax, okay, it’s just me,” Box reminds him quietly, because even though part of him hates seeing this side of Page, it’s still Page, and there’s something comforting about this right now. He sits down first, and gives his friend what he hopes is an encouraging nod.
“What about the roof?”
**
Page drew a long, shuddering breath and opened his eyes.
The sky was still there, and the buildings jutting up against the landscape around him hadn’t moved at all. He could feel the wind moving across his face - it still felt a little chilly even though the weather was fairly mild. He could feel and see these things, and when his knees touched the metal of the roof, the impact caused a vaguely unpleasant sensation, but despite all of this, and despite the very logical part of himself which reminded him that of course nothing had changed about the world around him, Page felt... Well, it was close to how he'd felt watching Yui-san that day, except much worse, and much more empty. It seemed as though everything that mattered at all had suddenly become completely out of reach.
It wasn't that he hadn't expected them to agree - much of the reason he’d decided on this plan depended on everyone trusting his decision. He really hadn’t expected to be met with much in the way of arguments. But he guessed that maybe he just hadn't expected everyone to leave him here like this. He’d thought that Box, at least, even if it was just to yell at him, or to hit him… He thought that someone would say something. That it wouldn’t be quite so easy for all of this to just disappear.
That was what this meant though, to disband--it meant true separation from everyone, and he knew that this was better than having to watch all of them get hurt by Nakagomi, but… Somehow he hadn’t expected it to be this painful.
Because he didn’t know what else to do, Page replayed in his mind, over and over again, his last memory of everyone.
It had been quick - before he’d even realized it, they’d been gone. No one had said a word. No one had echoed his words back to him. There had been no plans made to take one last trip to headquarters, nothing. He’d heard their footsteps, flat and cold and dull, and then there’d just been nothing. It really wasn’t very much of a memory at all, he realized, but somehow it was the only thing he could think of right now.
After a while, he began to wonder if he shouldn’t just walk away too.
Page had prepared himself, after all. He'd forced himself to face the consequences of standing up there like he had today, of saying those words, but… He realized now that when it came down to it, now that it was all over, he had no idea what to do next. He hadn’t planned this part at all.
Logically, he knew that he had to move, but he also knew that once he moved from this spot he'd have to keep moving, and he’d have to leave this behind.
Page was fine with moving - it was important to him to have a plan, to have something to focus his energy on, that wasn’t the problem. But moving forward, moving on... He knew that the only time he'd even come close to being able to do that had been with @DEEP. Without everyone around him, he felt impossibly and embarrassingly weak, as if he could stay in this one, horrible place forever, and never look backward or forward again.
And so instead of moving, he was waiting.
For Box to come back and grab the collar of his jacket in anger, to maybe even punch him in the face for being so useless to them as a leader, or for Izumu to cry to him about Yui being gone, or for Taiko to try to reason with him. Akira was probably ready to fight him too, though he doubted he’d be anything even close to a worthwhile opponent.
For any of these things to happen - anything at all, even if it was really, really bad - Page would wait.
He’d wait for the city lights to dot the sky around him, and for the wind to pick up a little, causing him to shiver, and wish he’d brought another scarf.
He’d wait until he was so hungry that he started to feel dizzy, pacing back and forth on the roof until he could move freely without paying attention to where his feet were going at all. He’d wait until he realized that he wasn’t really waiting anymore, because he knew all of them well enough to know that no one was coming back, not right now, anyway.
**
“I w-waited,” Page finally tells him. He looks up at Box, and the look on his face carries just a hint of apprehension. “For a l-long t-t-time, and n-no one came b-back. B-but I think I’m g-g-glad... B-because this w-w-way, I had to m-m-move on my o-own.”
Box watches as Page’s posture relaxes a little.
“I think we all had to move on our own, maybe,” he says after a moment.
This realization surprises Box a little, because he isn’t sure he’s thought about it exactly like this before. He’d been thinking a lot of things, since that afternoon up on the roof, but for some reason, nothing really seemed to make any sense until now.
Page is shaking his head.
“T-today… I wasn’t s-s-sure if a-anyone w-would come.” He pauses, letting out a quick breath. “Y-you were the f-f-first one I c-c-called, and when I heard y-y-your v-voice, I was r-r-really r-relieved. I wasn’t s-s-sure you’d w-w-want to t-talk to m-m-me.”
Page draws his knees to his chest, the heels of his sneakers dangling precariously from the edge of the chair for a moment before he shifts, and the rubber makes a soft thunk against the plastic of the chair. Box smiles a little, because he just can’t get it out of his head how much Page reminds him of a kid, sometimes. A really smart kid that he probably would have wanted to smack around, if they’d known each other then, but…
Box turns sideways in the chair to face his friend.
“You know, I thought about it a lot. What I would do, if you called. If Taiko or any of you guys contacted me; I imagined what I would say, how my voice would sound when I told you there was no way I was ever coming back. But then today, when you called, I just… I really wanted to hear what you had to say. I think part of me knew that if you asked me to come back, I’d say yes.”
Page gives him a shy smile, but it fades from his face after a second. The look in his friend’s eyes, his posture, and the set of his shoulders reminds Box, suddenly, of the sense of resignation that he’d felt so acutely that day when they were all on the roof together. It makes him wonder if Page is capable of allowing something like that to happen again. Thinking this, and realizing again how real the idea of separation still feels, fills Box’s voice with a strange sense of urgency.
“I don’t know what I would have done if you’d made us wait much longer though, geez!” Box leans forward, jostling Page’s shoulder. “I thought I’d lose my mind!”
Page just blinks. “I d-didn’t think a-a-anyone w-wanted to-”
“Well, you were wrong,” Box says quietly. Several moments pass. Page sniffles, the sound mostly muffled by his knees, and Box frowns. “You weren’t the only one waiting that day.”
**
Taiko had tried to stop him on their way down from the roof, and Box knew that he probably should have taken a minute or two to listen to what his friend had to say, but as soon as he'd realized that Page had been serious up there, all he'd really wanted to do was to get as far away from everyone as possible.
Box had never seen Page like this before. Or maybe he had, but in the past when Page had been serious like that it had been for @DEEP, or for Akiba, or to defend his friends, and so watching all this passion and drive become so focused on separating them had been really, really infuriating. After a while, it had become unbearable.
Box found himself wishing that he'd never met any of these people. That he'd never come across Yui's site. That he could somehow forget the last few months of his life and walk away from this rooftop and never, ever look back.
He’d been alone before, of course. In fact, Box knew that all of them had at one point been well-acquainted, content even, with living their lives alone.
But somehow even right now, even when he was so angry, walking down this crowded street alone felt wrong. Without Page next to him, stuttering excitedly in his ear about something that he’d be lucky to understand half of the meaning of, without the people he cared about around him, and without knowing that he had a place to go back to where people would understand and accept him…everything felt wrong.
@DEEP meant a lot of things to Box, after all. It had become something that he couldn't imagine living without, and his friends had become the kind of people he couldn't imagine parting with. And even if he'd known all along that them being together like this was something that wouldn’t last forever, he guessed that he'd counted on his friends to value it as least as much as he did. He’d counted on the fact that someday when they did all move on, at least his memories of their time together would be good ones.
He hated Page for ruining things like this. For making him believe that they couldn't do anything to save Yui, that they weren’t going to stand up for what had happened to Daruma--that they couldn't even be bothered to try.
He hated Page for having the nerve to stand in front of him and tell him to go back to being the person he'd been before he met all of them. That might be fine for Page, or for the rest of them, but... Box liked who he was when he was with @DEEP, and he hated the person he'd been before. There was no way he was going back, ever.
Box had really though that @DEEP was stronger than this. He had no idea what had happened to them, why suddenly all it had taken had been a few words from Page, and they’d all given up without a fight. It made him sick, thinking about it.
But they’d agreed, right? They’d all agreed to disband. It didn’t make any sense, but… He knew it wasn’t something they could take back easily.
Still, Box was confused, and with Yui gone, and Daruma hurt, he’d wanted so badly for someone to tell him what to do next. He’d been waiting for Page, or for any of them, really, to come up with a plan.
But looking at Page today, standing up there in front of them, Box realized that more than anything, Page was scared. Page had no idea what to do. Their leader had no answers, and no plan. None of them did. They were helpless. Page had probably been right to say that they were no match for Nakagomi. Page was always right, after all, and he’d probably spent a long time thinking about what he was going to say to them before he stood up there and actually said it.
When Box thought about Page, on his own, trying to decide what was best for them, it made his chest ache a little, no matter how many times he told himself he didn’t care. Page, trying to do the right thing, taking a stand for something, in front of all of them, something that he knew must have been really, really hard to do... Even if he’d failed miserably, it was more than Box could say for himself, in the end.
But no matter how he looked at it, the Page standing in front of them today had been a coward. Box wasn’t sure if he could forgive him, or if he even wanted to try.
Page had called the entire meaning of what they were doing at @DEEP into question when he’d spoken those words. What did any of it mean, if they gave up now, without a fight? If this was all it took for each of them to walk away.
It made it seem as if everything they’d done up until now had been a mistake, and there was no way Box could agree with that. Just thinking about it made his skin crawl with anger. There had to be another way, and he had to find it, though he wondered how much meaning that would have, without anyone to share it with. If they couldn’t even fix this, then… Box wondered how any of them could possibly move on.
**
“I was waiting for someone to tell me what to do. I had no idea what I should do next.” His voice was suddenly quiet. “I was angry.”
“I’m s-s-sorry.” Page’s voice is quiet too. “I s-s-should’ve-”
“It wouldn’t have mattered,” Box interrupts. “It’s like you said. We each had to move forward on our own. The only way is up. Right? It took me a while to remember those words, but once I did… Everything started to make sense again.”
Page just nods, and Box’s eyes scan the room, focusing here and there on parts of @DEEP, parts of this place that earlier this morning, he really hadn’t been sure that he’d ever see again.
Yui’s words seem to hover there in the air between them.
Box doesn’t want Page to feel responsible anymore, he realizes, for anything. There was definitely a time when he did, when he wanted Page to be able to fix everything, when he wanted to blame him, but… He realizes now that he really wants is to have his friend back. He wants @DEEP to be fun again. He wants everyone to be together, for as long as they can, until it makes sense for them to go their separate ways.
Box places his hand on his friend’s shoulder, and immediately, Page’s shoulders fold in, his face crumpling.
“S-sorry… I r-r-really thought e-everyone was a-a-angry-”
“Page.”
“I thought y-y-you h-hated-”
“PAGE.”
Page looks up at Box.
“I was angry. Really, really angry. But I’m not anymore. You did the only thing you could have done, right?”
Page hesitates a little, then nods his head.
“You’re a good leader, Page,” Box says truthfully, because letting Page know this seems important, suddenly.
Page shakes his head quickly, his face turning a shade darker.
“I mean it.”
“B-but I-”
“If it had been anyone else asking, I wouldn’t have come back,” Box tells him, not sure that he’s realized this until now, maybe. He pauses for a moment. “Yui-san chose you, you know?”
Page just blinks at him. “She ch-chose a-a-all of u-us.”
Box nods. “It’s a good thing too.”
Box glances around the room. He’s not sure why he never realized it before, but… Everything here is filled with memories. Right now, they seem so real, and so tangible, despite the mess and the chaos, he feels like he should be able to reach out and touch them. It seems crazy how close they’d come to having all this disappear. He wonders if Page feels it too.
“I’m really grateful, you know,” Box says, and Page looks a little confused. “For calling me today,” he clarifies, bowing his head slightly. “Thank you.”
Box watches Page’s lower lip quiver a little, and then adds, with a bright smile, “But if you cry right now, I swear, I’ll take all of it back. I won’t forgive you.”
A long moment passes, and then suddenly Page is laughing, and kicking over a pile of papers near Box’s feet. Box jumps a little in his seat.
“Idiot,” he mutters to Page, smiling. He glances around at the mess that obviously hasn’t cleaned itself up yet. “Come on, we said we’d make this place presentable, right?”
Page nods, and then a huge smile breaks across his face. He looks as determined as ever, as he stands up. “Y-y-yosh!”
Box stares up at him, grinning. He watches Page watch him, confused, and then sees the realization flash in his eyes after a few seconds.
“N-n-no. I’m n-not saying it a-a-again!” Page sputters. “A-and besides…. T-this i-i-isn’t a p-p-plan this is j-just-“
“Aaaaah! Shut up!”
“Y-you d-don’t have t-t-to-“
“Yes I do, because if I didn’t you’d never shut up!”
“W-what’s that s-s-supposed t-to-”
“It means you talk too much!”
Page frowns a little at this, but his eyes are bright, and then he smiles, and Box thinks that maybe this is the happiest he’s ever seen his friend.
“I think things will be okay, you know,” Box says a moment later, turning to face Page, answering a question that he knows hasn’t been asked, but that he’s sure Page is wondering about just as much as he is.
Page agrees, by way of a nod, and a convincing smile. “Y-Y-Yui-san’s w-words…”
“Yeah…” Box nods, and with the heel of his shoe, forces several papers to disappear satisfyingly under the bottom of the couch.
“We won’t forget them again.”
***
Author: analineblue
Fandom: Akihabara@DEEP
Characters/Pairings: Box, Page (friendship ^_~)
Warnings/Spoilers: None, worksafe. Spoilers for episodes 10-11.
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~3500
Summary and notes under the cut for spoiler reasons. ^_~
(x-posted to akanechin)
Summary: Box and Page discuss their feelings about the disbanding (and regrouping) of @DEEP.
Notes: This takes place immediately after Page calls everyone together to regroup in episode 11. The flashbacks take place after the group has disbanded in episode 10. I mostly wanted to write this just as a way to get into the characters heads, because we don't ever really get to see what they've all been thinking about the whole disbanding thing?
And I must admit too, I started writing this a long, LONG time ago, and it was kind of a weird coincidence that I ever actually finished it? zukkii got me thinking about the show again, and then a comment on one of my other fics got me thinking about writing again, and this fic, so... If it seems like it's out of left field for me to be posting this now? It kind of is. ^_~ But I hope you enjoy it. ^_^
And of course, comments are always greatly appreciated~
***
Box’s voice is starting to sound almost comically frantic as he kicks at one of the seemingly bottomless stacks of papers near his feet, mumbling something about how he can’t stand this mess, how it’s impossible for them to clean everything up in such a short period of time, and how they should have been the ones to go out for food anyway, because this would have been an infinitely better and more fair decision, given his “condition”.
And then the papers topple over unceremoniously a moment later in a puff of dust that causes Box’s nose to twitch unconsciously.
Izumu and Taiko are already gone, having left under the pretense that acquiring food was a necessity, if they were going to be able to regroup properly, and with the agreement that Box and Page would clear a space for them to eat by the time they returned. It had seemed like a reasonable trade-off at the time, but… Now Box isn’t so sure. The mess is more than a little overwhelming.
Page smiles at him apologetically.
“A-all we have t-t-to do is c-clear a space,” he says quickly. “If w-we don’t, I-I-Izumu and T-T-Taiko will b-be-”
“I know, I know, let’s just do it quickly okay? I don’t know how more of this I can handle.”
Box lets out a dry cough. He picks up the corner of a magazine between two fingers, tilting his head curiously, wondering where the hell all this stuff has come from in the first place. It had never seemed particularly crowded at headquarters before, but looking at everything in piles like this makes him wonder how it was possible that they weren’t overcome by all of this clutter ages ago.
Without the hum of the computer in the background the large room is quiet though, and when Page turns to face Box, clutching a thick stack of flyers to his chest, even though his voice is quiet, the sound seems to echo a little in Box’s ears.
“Y-y-you know, I-I’m really g-glad. To be a-a-able to r-regroup. I-I wish I w-would’ve called s-s-sooner.”
“Me, too,” Box tells him truthfully, nodding. He watches as several papers escape from Page’s hands and flutter to the floor. “But it’s okay. We’re back now, so…”
Page nods, but then he shakes his head quickly, frowning.
“I-I-I… On the r-r-roof… I-I-I…”
Page repeats himself a few times without really getting any further. His voice has the same quiet determination as it did when he called Box earlier, and even though his expression is slightly guarded, his eyes barely conceal the underlying emotion there. It was the same when he stood up in front of them earlier. Seeing him like this unnerves Box, to the point where he has to resist the urge to grab his friend’s shoulders and just shake him until everything is back to normal again, and looking at him doesn’t have Box squirming with unease like this. Instead, Box finds himself moving towards his friend after a moment though, taking the papers from Page’s hands, and gesturing toward two chairs.
“Relax, okay, it’s just me,” Box reminds him quietly, because even though part of him hates seeing this side of Page, it’s still Page, and there’s something comforting about this right now. He sits down first, and gives his friend what he hopes is an encouraging nod.
“What about the roof?”
**
Page drew a long, shuddering breath and opened his eyes.
The sky was still there, and the buildings jutting up against the landscape around him hadn’t moved at all. He could feel the wind moving across his face - it still felt a little chilly even though the weather was fairly mild. He could feel and see these things, and when his knees touched the metal of the roof, the impact caused a vaguely unpleasant sensation, but despite all of this, and despite the very logical part of himself which reminded him that of course nothing had changed about the world around him, Page felt... Well, it was close to how he'd felt watching Yui-san that day, except much worse, and much more empty. It seemed as though everything that mattered at all had suddenly become completely out of reach.
It wasn't that he hadn't expected them to agree - much of the reason he’d decided on this plan depended on everyone trusting his decision. He really hadn’t expected to be met with much in the way of arguments. But he guessed that maybe he just hadn't expected everyone to leave him here like this. He’d thought that Box, at least, even if it was just to yell at him, or to hit him… He thought that someone would say something. That it wouldn’t be quite so easy for all of this to just disappear.
That was what this meant though, to disband--it meant true separation from everyone, and he knew that this was better than having to watch all of them get hurt by Nakagomi, but… Somehow he hadn’t expected it to be this painful.
Because he didn’t know what else to do, Page replayed in his mind, over and over again, his last memory of everyone.
It had been quick - before he’d even realized it, they’d been gone. No one had said a word. No one had echoed his words back to him. There had been no plans made to take one last trip to headquarters, nothing. He’d heard their footsteps, flat and cold and dull, and then there’d just been nothing. It really wasn’t very much of a memory at all, he realized, but somehow it was the only thing he could think of right now.
After a while, he began to wonder if he shouldn’t just walk away too.
Page had prepared himself, after all. He'd forced himself to face the consequences of standing up there like he had today, of saying those words, but… He realized now that when it came down to it, now that it was all over, he had no idea what to do next. He hadn’t planned this part at all.
Logically, he knew that he had to move, but he also knew that once he moved from this spot he'd have to keep moving, and he’d have to leave this behind.
Page was fine with moving - it was important to him to have a plan, to have something to focus his energy on, that wasn’t the problem. But moving forward, moving on... He knew that the only time he'd even come close to being able to do that had been with @DEEP. Without everyone around him, he felt impossibly and embarrassingly weak, as if he could stay in this one, horrible place forever, and never look backward or forward again.
And so instead of moving, he was waiting.
For Box to come back and grab the collar of his jacket in anger, to maybe even punch him in the face for being so useless to them as a leader, or for Izumu to cry to him about Yui being gone, or for Taiko to try to reason with him. Akira was probably ready to fight him too, though he doubted he’d be anything even close to a worthwhile opponent.
For any of these things to happen - anything at all, even if it was really, really bad - Page would wait.
He’d wait for the city lights to dot the sky around him, and for the wind to pick up a little, causing him to shiver, and wish he’d brought another scarf.
He’d wait until he was so hungry that he started to feel dizzy, pacing back and forth on the roof until he could move freely without paying attention to where his feet were going at all. He’d wait until he realized that he wasn’t really waiting anymore, because he knew all of them well enough to know that no one was coming back, not right now, anyway.
**
“I w-waited,” Page finally tells him. He looks up at Box, and the look on his face carries just a hint of apprehension. “For a l-long t-t-time, and n-no one came b-back. B-but I think I’m g-g-glad... B-because this w-w-way, I had to m-m-move on my o-own.”
Box watches as Page’s posture relaxes a little.
“I think we all had to move on our own, maybe,” he says after a moment.
This realization surprises Box a little, because he isn’t sure he’s thought about it exactly like this before. He’d been thinking a lot of things, since that afternoon up on the roof, but for some reason, nothing really seemed to make any sense until now.
Page is shaking his head.
“T-today… I wasn’t s-s-sure if a-anyone w-would come.” He pauses, letting out a quick breath. “Y-you were the f-f-first one I c-c-called, and when I heard y-y-your v-voice, I was r-r-really r-relieved. I wasn’t s-s-sure you’d w-w-want to t-talk to m-m-me.”
Page draws his knees to his chest, the heels of his sneakers dangling precariously from the edge of the chair for a moment before he shifts, and the rubber makes a soft thunk against the plastic of the chair. Box smiles a little, because he just can’t get it out of his head how much Page reminds him of a kid, sometimes. A really smart kid that he probably would have wanted to smack around, if they’d known each other then, but…
Box turns sideways in the chair to face his friend.
“You know, I thought about it a lot. What I would do, if you called. If Taiko or any of you guys contacted me; I imagined what I would say, how my voice would sound when I told you there was no way I was ever coming back. But then today, when you called, I just… I really wanted to hear what you had to say. I think part of me knew that if you asked me to come back, I’d say yes.”
Page gives him a shy smile, but it fades from his face after a second. The look in his friend’s eyes, his posture, and the set of his shoulders reminds Box, suddenly, of the sense of resignation that he’d felt so acutely that day when they were all on the roof together. It makes him wonder if Page is capable of allowing something like that to happen again. Thinking this, and realizing again how real the idea of separation still feels, fills Box’s voice with a strange sense of urgency.
“I don’t know what I would have done if you’d made us wait much longer though, geez!” Box leans forward, jostling Page’s shoulder. “I thought I’d lose my mind!”
Page just blinks. “I d-didn’t think a-a-anyone w-wanted to-”
“Well, you were wrong,” Box says quietly. Several moments pass. Page sniffles, the sound mostly muffled by his knees, and Box frowns. “You weren’t the only one waiting that day.”
**
Taiko had tried to stop him on their way down from the roof, and Box knew that he probably should have taken a minute or two to listen to what his friend had to say, but as soon as he'd realized that Page had been serious up there, all he'd really wanted to do was to get as far away from everyone as possible.
Box had never seen Page like this before. Or maybe he had, but in the past when Page had been serious like that it had been for @DEEP, or for Akiba, or to defend his friends, and so watching all this passion and drive become so focused on separating them had been really, really infuriating. After a while, it had become unbearable.
Box found himself wishing that he'd never met any of these people. That he'd never come across Yui's site. That he could somehow forget the last few months of his life and walk away from this rooftop and never, ever look back.
He’d been alone before, of course. In fact, Box knew that all of them had at one point been well-acquainted, content even, with living their lives alone.
But somehow even right now, even when he was so angry, walking down this crowded street alone felt wrong. Without Page next to him, stuttering excitedly in his ear about something that he’d be lucky to understand half of the meaning of, without the people he cared about around him, and without knowing that he had a place to go back to where people would understand and accept him…everything felt wrong.
@DEEP meant a lot of things to Box, after all. It had become something that he couldn't imagine living without, and his friends had become the kind of people he couldn't imagine parting with. And even if he'd known all along that them being together like this was something that wouldn’t last forever, he guessed that he'd counted on his friends to value it as least as much as he did. He’d counted on the fact that someday when they did all move on, at least his memories of their time together would be good ones.
He hated Page for ruining things like this. For making him believe that they couldn't do anything to save Yui, that they weren’t going to stand up for what had happened to Daruma--that they couldn't even be bothered to try.
He hated Page for having the nerve to stand in front of him and tell him to go back to being the person he'd been before he met all of them. That might be fine for Page, or for the rest of them, but... Box liked who he was when he was with @DEEP, and he hated the person he'd been before. There was no way he was going back, ever.
Box had really though that @DEEP was stronger than this. He had no idea what had happened to them, why suddenly all it had taken had been a few words from Page, and they’d all given up without a fight. It made him sick, thinking about it.
But they’d agreed, right? They’d all agreed to disband. It didn’t make any sense, but… He knew it wasn’t something they could take back easily.
Still, Box was confused, and with Yui gone, and Daruma hurt, he’d wanted so badly for someone to tell him what to do next. He’d been waiting for Page, or for any of them, really, to come up with a plan.
But looking at Page today, standing up there in front of them, Box realized that more than anything, Page was scared. Page had no idea what to do. Their leader had no answers, and no plan. None of them did. They were helpless. Page had probably been right to say that they were no match for Nakagomi. Page was always right, after all, and he’d probably spent a long time thinking about what he was going to say to them before he stood up there and actually said it.
When Box thought about Page, on his own, trying to decide what was best for them, it made his chest ache a little, no matter how many times he told himself he didn’t care. Page, trying to do the right thing, taking a stand for something, in front of all of them, something that he knew must have been really, really hard to do... Even if he’d failed miserably, it was more than Box could say for himself, in the end.
But no matter how he looked at it, the Page standing in front of them today had been a coward. Box wasn’t sure if he could forgive him, or if he even wanted to try.
Page had called the entire meaning of what they were doing at @DEEP into question when he’d spoken those words. What did any of it mean, if they gave up now, without a fight? If this was all it took for each of them to walk away.
It made it seem as if everything they’d done up until now had been a mistake, and there was no way Box could agree with that. Just thinking about it made his skin crawl with anger. There had to be another way, and he had to find it, though he wondered how much meaning that would have, without anyone to share it with. If they couldn’t even fix this, then… Box wondered how any of them could possibly move on.
**
“I was waiting for someone to tell me what to do. I had no idea what I should do next.” His voice was suddenly quiet. “I was angry.”
“I’m s-s-sorry.” Page’s voice is quiet too. “I s-s-should’ve-”
“It wouldn’t have mattered,” Box interrupts. “It’s like you said. We each had to move forward on our own. The only way is up. Right? It took me a while to remember those words, but once I did… Everything started to make sense again.”
Page just nods, and Box’s eyes scan the room, focusing here and there on parts of @DEEP, parts of this place that earlier this morning, he really hadn’t been sure that he’d ever see again.
Yui’s words seem to hover there in the air between them.
Box doesn’t want Page to feel responsible anymore, he realizes, for anything. There was definitely a time when he did, when he wanted Page to be able to fix everything, when he wanted to blame him, but… He realizes now that he really wants is to have his friend back. He wants @DEEP to be fun again. He wants everyone to be together, for as long as they can, until it makes sense for them to go their separate ways.
Box places his hand on his friend’s shoulder, and immediately, Page’s shoulders fold in, his face crumpling.
“S-sorry… I r-r-really thought e-everyone was a-a-angry-”
“Page.”
“I thought y-y-you h-hated-”
“PAGE.”
Page looks up at Box.
“I was angry. Really, really angry. But I’m not anymore. You did the only thing you could have done, right?”
Page hesitates a little, then nods his head.
“You’re a good leader, Page,” Box says truthfully, because letting Page know this seems important, suddenly.
Page shakes his head quickly, his face turning a shade darker.
“I mean it.”
“B-but I-”
“If it had been anyone else asking, I wouldn’t have come back,” Box tells him, not sure that he’s realized this until now, maybe. He pauses for a moment. “Yui-san chose you, you know?”
Page just blinks at him. “She ch-chose a-a-all of u-us.”
Box nods. “It’s a good thing too.”
Box glances around the room. He’s not sure why he never realized it before, but… Everything here is filled with memories. Right now, they seem so real, and so tangible, despite the mess and the chaos, he feels like he should be able to reach out and touch them. It seems crazy how close they’d come to having all this disappear. He wonders if Page feels it too.
“I’m really grateful, you know,” Box says, and Page looks a little confused. “For calling me today,” he clarifies, bowing his head slightly. “Thank you.”
Box watches Page’s lower lip quiver a little, and then adds, with a bright smile, “But if you cry right now, I swear, I’ll take all of it back. I won’t forgive you.”
A long moment passes, and then suddenly Page is laughing, and kicking over a pile of papers near Box’s feet. Box jumps a little in his seat.
“Idiot,” he mutters to Page, smiling. He glances around at the mess that obviously hasn’t cleaned itself up yet. “Come on, we said we’d make this place presentable, right?”
Page nods, and then a huge smile breaks across his face. He looks as determined as ever, as he stands up. “Y-y-yosh!”
Box stares up at him, grinning. He watches Page watch him, confused, and then sees the realization flash in his eyes after a few seconds.
“N-n-no. I’m n-not saying it a-a-again!” Page sputters. “A-and besides…. T-this i-i-isn’t a p-p-plan this is j-just-“
“Aaaaah! Shut up!”
“Y-you d-don’t have t-t-to-“
“Yes I do, because if I didn’t you’d never shut up!”
“W-what’s that s-s-supposed t-to-”
“It means you talk too much!”
Page frowns a little at this, but his eyes are bright, and then he smiles, and Box thinks that maybe this is the happiest he’s ever seen his friend.
“I think things will be okay, you know,” Box says a moment later, turning to face Page, answering a question that he knows hasn’t been asked, but that he’s sure Page is wondering about just as much as he is.
Page agrees, by way of a nod, and a convincing smile. “Y-Y-Yui-san’s w-words…”
“Yeah…” Box nods, and with the heel of his shoe, forces several papers to disappear satisfyingly under the bottom of the couch.
“We won’t forget them again.”
***