(no subject)

[insaneidiot]

Title: All That Glitters
Fandom: TB/X
Pairings: Seishirou/Subaru, Fuuma/Kamui, Sorata/Arashi, Yuuto/Karen... eh. There are others but I'm too lazy to list them all.
Genre: MEGA AU. All the genres you can possibly think of! Okay, maybe not. But there is crack, and there is angst, and there is other stuff.
Word Count: 36,415 (total to date); 10,337 for this part.
Notes: Continuation of boyband!X, after a long period of writer's block. I wrote 9000 of this in the last month, and 6000 of THAT in the last week, if that tells you something.
Summary: It's saved on my harddrive as "Boyband!X". I think that's really all you need to know. *cough*


PART IV

~CHAPTER 5~

The inescapable question was one that had first been asked by Keiichi but now hovered on everybody’s lips: why did neither Seishirou nor Subaru write or lead sing the singles of their respective bands?

(There was also the question of why Seishirou had moved from piano to electric guitar, but as he was undeniably brilliant at both and had a tendency to answer flippantly that he’d felt like a change when asked about it, the press had mostly given up on that count.)

Subaru dealt with this harassment rather ineffectually, stammering “I don’t know!” and “no comment!” while looking desperately for an escape route, and frequently needed to be saved by Karen or his band or, on one memorable occasion, their coordinator Aoki. Actually, “dealt with” was probably an exaggeration; it would be more accurately described as reacting.

Seishirou, on the other hand, was from all appearances enjoying the whole experience, particularly Subaru’s awkward suffering. He was probably smug about being one of the major causes of it, however indirect.

Which was why, when faced with the same insistent questions as Subaru, Seishirou merely smiled and said, “Previously that wasn’t what our fans expected and there was no need, but if that expectation has changed, I certainly won’t rule out the possibility.”

That was interpreted as “yes, I’ll be writing and singing our next release” by pretty much everybody, undoubtedly according to Seishirou’s intention. Then, in the natural progression of cause and effect (which Subaru was really beginning to hate), that apparently meant that obviously Subaru was going to make a similar announcement, never mind the fact that he had absolutely no desire to do so.

When such an announcement failed to materialise, the media hounding got worse, which Subaru previously hadn’t thought possible. He was darkly certain that this was all part of Seishirou’s master plan to make him suffer as much as humanly possible.

In fact, thinking about it, Subaru really shouldn’t be surprised. Given how much Seishirou had managed to make his life hell for the five years where he hadn’t even been around or affected Subaru in any way other than indirect and unknowing, he should have expected how much better Seishirou could be at it when he was actually trying.

“I hate my life,” Subaru told Kamui, curled up on the couch hugging a cushion in abject misery as the television spewed replays of interviews with Seishirou and various rehashes of Seishirou and Subaru’s musical careers to date.

“Life kind of sucks,” Kamui agreed with a sigh, because while there hadn’t been anything to do with him or Fuuma in print or on screen recently, distracted did not mean permanently dropped in the exciting world of PR. “Our lives suck. The Angels of the Sepulchre and the media make our lives suck. Why did we ever want to be famous?”

“I didn’t,” Subaru mumbled, burying his face in the cushion, and really, there wasn’t much to say in response to that.

~

“I didn’t agree to this!” Fuuma snapped, stomping into Kanoe’s office with the sulkiest scowl she’d ever seen on someone upwards of seven. Ten, maybe, if she were being generous. They’d have to be a pretty bratty and immature ten-year-old, though. “I’m not doing it!”

“Oh, really?” Kanoe asked him, deceptively mild. “What, pray tell, aren’t you doing?”

“I’m not agreeing to Sakurazuka stealing my place as lead singer! That wasn’t part of the deal!”

“I think stealing is somewhat of an exaggeration,” she said, still the picture of Zen. “And as for it not being part of the deal, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t try to pretend you had nothing to do with this,” Fuuma growled. “I know this is your fault.”

Kanoe, who in fact hadn’t had anything to do with Seishirou’s sudden decision to bow to media pressure and hadn’t even heard a thing about it before rest of the world, raised her eyebrow at him.

“Of course it is,” she lied, because it might not have been her idea, but that wasn’t to say she wasn’t pleased by it. “What exactly is your problem with it?”

“My problem? My problem is that I’m the lead singer,” Fuuma said, smacking his hands down on her desk, “and someone has to play the goddamn fucking guitar!”

Kanoe let herself smirk at that, just a small quirk of her impeccably painted lips. “I seem to recall, Fuuma, that you can play guitar.”

“Sakarazuka is better,” Fuuma admitted grudgingly. “Which is why, just in case you’ve forgotten, he’s the guitar player, not the lead singer!”

“And yet you can’t deny he’s a good enough singer that he could be,” Kanoe said snidely, getting a little of her own back for Fuuma’s smug I-told-you-so behaviour over first acquiring Seishirou as a member of a band and the weeks of frustration prior to that. “Face it, they’re not going to give up until you record a song written and sung by Sakurazuka, so unless you want to deal with the constant media scrutiny over the reason for the continued lack of one and be throttled by Yuuto for making his job ten times more stressful than it has to be, you’re going to suck it up, sing backup and play the damn guitar. Is that clear enough for you, or would you like me draw you a diagram?”

There was a very long, very sullen silence. Fuuma was glaring at her in a way that suggested he knew she was right but didn’t care because he was going to have his temper tantrum if he damn well wanted to. Kanoe rolled her eyes.

“Sakurazuka could very easily be a solo artist,” she told him bluntly. “You, however, are much better off in a band. If he leaves, he’ll be very successful and you’ll have to share your fan base with him, plus you’ll be out a guitarist and you’ll certainly not be as popular with whoever your replacement turns out to be, assuming you even find one.”

Kanoe took the continued stony silence as an invitation to go on.

“If, on the other hand, you allow Sakurazuka to sing lead on one or two of the band’s singles, it can only improve your overall popularity. His first song is guaranteed to be a hit no matter what, simply because of the media build-up,” she said, the voice of slightly condescending sense. “You show you can just as easily play guitar and sing back up as you can sing lead, that’s another asset we can use to our favour. It can hardly hurt for the band to gain a reputation for being versatile and capable of playing in different styles, can it?”

Fuuma visibly considered this, obviously not thrilled but reluctantly conceding the benefits of giving in versus the negatives to holding his ground.

“And it’s just one or two songs?” he asked suspiciously.

“I shouldn’t think it’d need to be much more than that. Sakurazuka hardly strikes me as an ambitious man, when you consider the fact that he completely disappeared from the music scene for five years when he could easily have made a name for himself. You’re still the lead singer; no one is suggesting otherwise.”

“Fine,” Fuuma muttered, after momentary pause, and eyed her warily. “But only if I get to write my own guitar riffs. I let Sakurazuka write his, he lets me write mine.”

“Oh, I’m sure that won’t be a problem,” Kanoe all but purred, and the self-satisfied smile she gave when Fuuma slunk out of the room was that of a woman who knew she’d gotten exactly what she wanted while the men thought they’d won.

~

Subaru and Kamui frequently spent time in each other’s company, partially because being in the band together necessitated close quarters, especially considering Kamui often liked to use Subaru as a soundboard during the creative process, but mostly because they were very similar in a lot of respects and it could be comforting, in a depressing kind of way, to be with someone who understood your despair and reflected it back like a mirror.

Not so today, however. Today, Hokuto had decided, was a day for retail therapy, which admittedly was more her style than Subaru’s, but it would do him good to be resigned instead of completely miserable for a change. Therapeutic, or something. Besides, she need to go shopping, so Subaru may as well come along and be her model instead of Kamui’s soundboard for a change.

(Not that Hokuto had any problem with Subaru hanging out with Kamui. The rather self-perpetuating nature of their angst aside, she thought it was a positive thing, as a matter of fact; she had actually invited Kamui, on a sidenote, but he’d gone pale and stammered something about pressing prior engagements before running off, heedless of Subaru’s mildly betrayed expression.)

So. “Cheer up, Mr Mopey Pants, we’re going shopping,” she’d said, brooking no arguments. “You need to get out and spend some time with your sister once in a while, you know!”

Subaru being susceptible to guilt trips as he was, that worked nicely to dislodge him from the hotel, and they’d headed over to Ikebukuro for the day, Hokuto dragging him by the wrist from all the lesser known but, she’d informed him, much more creative clothing stores in the area.

Hokuto shoved piles of clothes at Subaru at every shop they visited, making him try everything on twice and model them for her (or as much as Subaru could really be persuaded to model anything, anyway; it took a lot of work just to stop him scrunching in on himself in self-conscious embarrassment) so she could try and spark off some inspiration for her own designs. He spent the whole time with a very long-suffering expression, but she liked to think it was good for him. He was too busy being resigned to be thinking about Seishirou, right?

Of course, Hokuto being who she was, Subaru wasn’t the only one trying on clothes, though admittedly in her case it was a lot more enthusiastic. By the time they reached the fifth store, a cramped basement-level j-rock style gothic punk-type place, she was carrying a large number of very full shopping bags, with a few more offloaded onto Subaru for good measure. So okay, maybe she could and did design her own clothes, but sue her, she liked having an extensive wardrobe. Why shouldn’t she treat herself every once and a while?

The only shop assistants in sight were two teenage girls behind the counter, snapping gum and chatting to each other without paying any attention at all to the customers, so Hokuto rolled her eyes and ignored them right back, grabbing a few things off the rack to try on in the back change rooms.

“Mind my stuff!” she called to Subaru, who was leaning against the wall next to the changing stalls with a chagrined expression, and dumped her bags at his feet on her way in. In her usual manner, she gave him a running commentary as she worked her way through the various outfits, each one more outrageous than the last, yelling a little to be heard over the radio which the girls at the counter had turned up loud.

“Oh my god, can you believe how shoddy the seams on this dress are? Seriously, I could do better blindfolded with one arm tied behind my back…”

“Maybe it’s an intentional fashion statement?” Subaru suggested, barely audible over the music, but the lack of conviction in his tone made Hokuto suspect he was just saying it out of politeness rather than because he actually believed it. Hokuto certainly didn’t, and she snorted loudly in response.

“Maybe, or maybe it was mass-produced in a sweat-shop factory and is now being grossly overpriced for profit,” she said cynically, shimmying out of the dress to try on the next thing in the pile. Out in the store she could half-hear the last song ending, the radio announcer saying something about long-awaited new releases before a new track started and one of the girls at the counter squealed loudly.

Hokuto didn’t pay it much attention, her mental filter automatically weeding out the things it deemed unimportant, which, aside from occasionally humming along to a favourite song, generally included shop music. After all, she was picky enough from living around musicians all her life that if she actually listened to the music everywhere she went, the muzak alone would drive her crazy.

“Anyway,” she continued, struggling to work out how she was supposed to put the next dress on, or even which way up it was meant to go, “I guess it’s okay to have cheaply made clothing as an affordable option for teenagers, but this stuff is cheaply made without actually being cheap, you know? I bet it was produced by exploiting a factory full of poor women who work ridiculously long hours and get paid, like, fifty yen an hour!”

Meanwhile, as she finally discovered the bit that undid so she could wriggle into it, she caught snatches of the music playing over the radio, and there was something about the smooth, low voice of the singer that niggled at her subconscious with its eerie familiarity.

‘You wanted this, so sad to see the sweet decay of ecstasy, and you want it all, and you want it all.’

Hokuto paused for a moment, a small frown on her face, but shrugged it off. It was probably just one of those popular cult bands you heard all the time in places like this; maybe she’d heard another song by this singer before, somewhere, or someone who sounded a lot like him.

Momentary distraction passing, Hokuto resumed from where she’d left off, both in her chatter and her attempt at getting dressed. She was beginning to really question how worth it something that took this long to get on and presumably off could be, but it had looked good on the hanger, and, well, she was always willing to put in some sacrifices in the name of fashion.

‘A frozen sun would guide you there as shadows hide the deep despair, and you want it all, I’ll give you something more.’

“Anyway, I guess even a grossly underpaying job is better than no job at all, but it still stinks. Argh I can’t get this thing on! Have I put on weight? But everything else fits and I don’t think it’s too small, it’s just a weird design, though it might look okay if I can ever get it on. Do you I should try a bigger size? I mean, not that I think that it’d really help, but…Subaru?”

Hokuto cut herself off, realising that Subaru hadn’t said anything for a few minutes now, which wasn’t unusual, exactly, but he hadn’t been replying to her, which was.

“Hey, Subaru, are you listening? Subaru? You’re still there, right? What’s…”

Wrong, she’d been going to say, but she trailed off, a horrible suspicious dawning over her. When she actually paid attention for a moment and let the sound penetrate her automatic filter, mere background noise reformed into meaningful words. Hokuto swore loudly, the familiarity of the singer’s voice suddenly making an awful lot of unfortunate sense.

“Shit shit shit, hold on, Subaru, I’ll be out in a moment, just-“ she babbled, cursing her mostly undressed state, because she could just burst out of the dressing room like that and even considered it for a moment, but the best thing would be to get out of here as soon as possible and she couldn’t do that half-dressed in store merchandise. She struggled to get out of the complex straps and buckles and safety pin catches on the clothes she’d been trying on, all the while chanting a litany of curse words under her breath as Seishirou’s voice continued singing over the speakers.

‘And you’ll fade away, one last kiss before you fade away, lives you once adored will fade away, lies you can’t ignore you’ll soon repay as you fade away, as you fade away…’

The song was almost over by the time Hokuto stumbled out of the changing stall, still doing up the buttons on her shirt as she went. Subaru was crumpled against the wall, hands over his face and shaking a little like he was several seconds away from total breakdown, so she grabbed his wrist and started dragging him out of there, away from the intrusively curious eyes of other people in the store. Whether they recognised him or not, she needed to get him away from here, and if she forgot a few of her shopping bags… well, that wasn’t the biggest sacrifice she’d pay for her brother.

“Subaru?” she said sharply, when she’d found a small and thankfully empty alley for them to have this conversation in. “Subaru, snap out of it!”

“Seishirou-san,” he mumbled, still terribly shaken. “Seishirou-san, he…”

“I can always punch him for you?” Hokuto volunteered, but wasn’t very surprised when Subaru gave her a horrified look. She didn’t think he would agree, somehow. “Seriously, though, what do you think he’s playing at? See, I told you he’s obsessed with you! You should listen to your older sister!”

“It’s just a song, it doesn’t have to have any deeper meaning,” he said weakly, and she could tell not even he believed what he was saying, because he didn’t even try convincing her that it she couldn’t assume it was about him.

“Yeah, and maybe in some universes a kiss is just a kiss, but not this one, buster!” she retorted, stabbing a finger at his chest to emphasise her point, and maybe she was expecting Subaru to turn red because that was what he did, but she wasn’t anticipating a blush of that magnitude or the slightly flustered, guilty look on his face.

“But how could a kiss be anything but a kiss?” he said, something defensive and a little plaintive about his tone, and Hokuto narrowed her eyes at him, suddenly suspicious.

“Is there something you might have forgotten to tell me?” she said pointedly, and Subaru winced.

“Um,” he managed, eyes sliding helplessly away to the floor like the terrible liar he was. That was all the answer Hokuto needed, and she couldn’t restrain herself from the ear-splitting shriek that followed.

“You mean he kissed you and you didn’t tell me?”

“Shhh!” Subaru hissed desperately, glancing nervously at the end of the alley like he was afraid someone was going to come see what all the yelling was about at any minute. “I did mean to, I just…”

“I can’t believe Sei-chan kissed you and I didn’t know about it,” she continued, still utterly aggrieved and but at least a little more quiet about it now. “When was this?”

Subaru’s trapped expression suggested she wasn’t going to like the answer.

“At the industry function,” he admitted reluctantly.

Hokuto’s initial assessment had been right; she didn’t like the answer.

“Subaru,” she said dangerously, “that was two months ago.”

“There was never really a good time to tell you,” he protested, eyes beseeching like a kicked puppy, and some of Hokuto’s righteous indignation deflated in the face of such patented Subaru misery. He had a point, which was the hell of it; unless you caught him while he was still in shock or asked him directly, it was never the kind of thing he’d talk about. He just wasn’t the sort of person who would bring something like that up.

“Hmph,” she muttered, but decided to let it go for now. She had bigger fish to fry, anyway. “So he stalks you, he kisses you, and then he writes a creepy song about you, and you still don’t think he’s obsessed with you?”

“I-he-it’s not like that, Hokuto, you know it’s not,” he said defensively, a hint of pleading in his voice like maybe he was begging her to let him off easily just this once, not force him to confront something so inherently painful to him as hope when it came to Seishirou or his motivations. “Seishirou-san is just playing a game, like always. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“If you say so,” Hokuto sighed, but only because she knew she’d pushed this as far as it was going to get for now and Subaru wasn’t going to be convinced. Personally, she was just as sure Subaru was wrong; she was pretty good at reading people, after all. Had to be, considering her status in the family, and maybe she hadn’t been actively involved in the underworld for years now, but some things stuck. If Seishirou were simply toying around the way Subaru thought he was, there was no way he’d go to all this trouble.

And, okay, maybe her conversation with Seishirou back three months ago helped in forming that conviction, but that wasn’t the point. The point was this: Seishirou was still mafia. His intentions were hardly “nice”, and were certainly not anything other than selfish. But she was now utterly certain that his interest in Subaru, twisted as it was, was genuine.

Hokuto, to be honest, was still not exactly thrilled about this. Being the centre of Seishirou’s intense, possessive focus brought incredible pain, as it had already and would undoubtedly continue to do so. But for Subaru, unfortunately, happiness was bound up too intricately with that suffering, and he would never be content if Seishirou truly were disinterested.

Life, in conclusion, sucked, and for all her connections, legitimate and otherwise, there was nothing Hokuto could do to fix this. All anyone could ever do was work with what they had, and what Hokuto had was two idiot men-boys, really-one of whom had cripplingly low self-esteem to the point of complete obliviousness, and the other of whom had all the emotional development of a particularly egocentric two year old.

“Come on,” she added, since Subaru still hadn’t responded and was staring unhappily down at the ground. “I’m all shopped out for today. Let’s get some afternoon tea, and we can grab a copy of Sei-chan’s single on the way back to the hotel.”

Subaru’s head snapped up at that. “What? But… I don’t…”

“Sure you don’t,” she said dryly, rolling her eyes, and by his flush he knew he’d been caught out in a semi-lie. Oh, to be fair, he was definitely conflicted about it, because listening to the song was like an exercise in masochism for him, but, well, Subaru was pretty masochistic, emotionally speaking. The larger part of him did want a copy to play on endless self-inflicted painful repeat, even though his conscience was telling him he shouldn’t. A sister knew these things, or at least a sister like Hokuto did.

As for her, she wanted a copy so she could analyse the lyrics line by line. Noble or underhanded, she didn’t care; that was her motivation, and she was perfectly willing to cop to it.

And if she happened to slip in a second copy while she was buying her own, well. These things happened, really. She knew Subaru would accept it once she’d already bought it, and he’d thank her for it in the end. Even if he did just shut himself up in his room and angst to it on repeat.

“So anyway,” she said, prodding him in the side, “afternoon tea? There’s this place that does these awesome-looking brownies I’ve been meaning to try…”

~

Having planned to spend the day hanging out with Subaru-okay, moping, and maybe “planned” was a slight exaggeration-Kamui found himself at a bit of a loss when Hokuto decided to drag Subaru out shopping. Yes, she’d invited Kamui along too, and it wasn’t that he didn’t like her, but god, she was scary enough as their wardrobe manager. There was no way he was brave or stupid enough to willingly agree to be her mannequin on a shopping trip, best friend or no best friend. Subaru had looked a little betrayed, possibly hoping for moral support or someone to share his burden, but, well, there were some things Kamui wouldn’t do, not even for Subaru.

Which, in the grand scheme of things, left Kamui both plan-less and best friend-less for the day. Technically he could have spent some time with the rest of his band, but it was just… the thing was…

The thing was, with Subaru, it didn’t matter how badly his mood had crashed, because Subaru didn’t just sympathise, he understood. When Kamui was too snappish or too depressed to even stay in the same room as someone else, he could still talk to Subaru easily. Sharing the misery between them was almost soothing, in a bizarre way.

Besides, even if Kamui had been inclined to seek out someone else to hang around with, Karen was having a lunch meeting with Aoki, Arashi would probably prefer to have some time to herself for a change, and Sorata and Yuzuriha were talking about going out to the ice-skating rink or something. The thought alone was draining enough, the way he was feeling.

On the other hand, if he stayed in his hotel room any longer by himself he would honest to god snap like a twig, and there would possibly be trashing of hotel décor involved, and in conclusion it was better for everyone if he got the hell out. So. He couldn’t stay in the hotel and since he wasn’t in the mood to do something with someone else, that basically left him with the option of loitering around outside by himself.

Maybe other people had a number of places they went to think, places with special significance or the gravity of nostalgia to draw them back; it was possibly a sad reflection on Kamui’s life that to him there was only one place to go, the only place that really mattered to someone otherwise so rootless.

Nevertheless, go he did, and there he was, fingers curled loosely around the heavy chains of the swing he was sitting on, swaying gently back and forth with his eyes staring blankly forward and seeing nothing but the past.

It had taken him half an hour by train to get here, to this little park in one of the outer districts of Tokyo. So little had changed in three years, in ten, but it seemed so much emptier now than it had when he’d been younger, and it wasn’t just the fact that he was alone. The feeling of isolation, desolation, stretched far beyond his immediate surroundings: it was made up of the echo of Kotori’s voice singing and laughing ringing in his ears and the memory of Fuuma’s warm, open smile blinding him that made him feel so alone, surrounded by the reminder of everything he’d lost.

He was a pop star with money, fans, fame, even number one hits, everything he’d dreamed of and hoped for even so recently as two years ago, yet now that he had it all he could wonder was where things had started to go wrong. Was it his fault? Could he have changed things, somehow?

It was easier to blame everything on Fuuma, but that didn’t take away the sting of guilt or the malingering air of dissatisfaction that he just couldn’t shake. Kamui knew what the problem was; he’d gained everything he’d wanted, but he’d lost everything important in the process. They were meant to do it together, all three of them, and Kamui flinched at the memory of all those days spent lazing in the sun with Kotori’s fingers twirling clover chains as she sang, making it up as she went along while Kamui and Fuuma argued over sheet music and talked wistfully about how one day someone would discover them and sign them up to a label.

Well, he thought cynically, hands clenching so the metal chains cut into his palms, he and Fuuma had certainly made it big, but not the way they’d always planned. Not together; not with Kotori, either.

Meanwhile, caught up in his own bitterness, he was completely oblivious to his surroundings. The park was deserted, and there was every reason to expect it to continue to be so, considering it was a fairly suburban district and most children would be at school at that time, so when interruption did come, Kamui, lost in the past and in his own thoughts, quite literally didn’t see it coming.

“You know, I’m fairly certain you don’t live here anymore, which makes me wonder what you’re doing,” a familiar and even more unwelcome than usual voice greeted him, and Kamui would have fallen backwards off the swing when he tried to jerk around violently if a pair of hands he knew almost as well as his own hadn’t caught him from behind. “But then again, you don’t really live anywhere now, do you, Kamui?”

Kamui stared up at Fuuma’s upside-down mocking smirk in wide-eyed shock for a moment before his expression melted into rage that now of all times and here of all places Fuuma had to show up to give him a forceful reminder of the way everything had soured. Fuuma’s hands burned through Kamui’s shirt where they touch him, but their grip on his shoulders was firm enough that he’d have to struggle to break it and would likely end up on the ground with bruising and a concussion from the swing.

“Let me go,” Kamui said, tone all ice and sharp, clipped edges, then: “What are you doing here?”

“Ah ah ah, I asked first,” Fuuma chided, smug condescension not ruffled in the slightest. “Besides, if I let go, you fall. You don’t want that to happen, do you?”

Kamui gave a short, harsh laugh, because it was like a fucking metaphor for their entire relationship: if Fuuma let go, Kamui would fall and crack his skull open, and yet it still somehow almost seemed an attractive alternative to letting Fuuma continue to toy with him. “Who knows,” was all he said in response, lips twitching slightly in a moment of gallows humour.

Fuuma’s face flickered briefly with curiosity, perhaps wondering what was running through Kamui’s head and if he’d finally lost the plot, but then it was gone and the smirk firmly reasserted itself.

“Aw, is something wrong, baby? You don’t look happy.”

Faced by Fuuma’s caustic sarcasm, Kamui had to close his eyes for a second against the pain that sliced through him. Breathe, he told himself. Just breathe. Don’t give him the satisfaction.

“My neck’s hurting,” he said finally, opening his eyes to be greeted once more by Fuuma’s cruel smile. “Let me up.”

“Mm, I’ll have to think about that,” Fuuma said, in an exaggeratedly thoughtful tone that obviously meant ‘no’. Asshole, Kamui thought resentfully, and rather than help, Fuuma hands slid over Kamui’s collarbones in a creepily proprietary way. Kamui would still fall and crack his skull if Fuuma let go, and his muscles were still burning with the tension of holding his body suspended at an awkward angle; all it did was make him feel even tenser and more keyed up, which was presumably Fuuma’s intention.

It really was the perfect metaphor: not only the fact that Kamui was incapable of sitting up without Fuuma’s help or getting free without killing or at least seriously injuring himself, but the way Fuuma was keeping him stuck in an uncomfortable limbo that ached with a dull burn. Perhaps fast, merciful death would be preferable to the slow torture of letting Fuuma keep him hanging indefinitely, after all.

Or maybe that was just a little melodramatic, even for a metaphor.

“That’s not letting me up,” Kamui snapped peevishly, not because he’d ever expected Fuuma to let him go that easily nor because he expected his complaint to have any effect, but rather for the sake of complaining. It was the only thing he was able to do, in the circumstances. “Don’t you have anything better to do?”

“I didn’t say I was going to,” Fuuma pointed out, but distraction and pointless bickering weren’t going to get Kamui out of this as easily as he’d like. “You never did answer me, you know. Why are you here?”

Before Kamui could respond, Fuuma took a step forward and jerked Kamui back toward him so that he was resting against Fuuma’s chest in a bizarre parody of a lover’s embrace, effective as any prison. One of Fuuma’s arms slid across Kamui’s chest, restraining him, and Fuuma’s other hand curled around Kamui’s throat, nails digging into the skin and the heel of his palm pressing down just hard enough to establish a threat without being enough to choke him.

“You don’t need anything or anyone here anymore; didn’t you make sure of that?” Fuuma continued, taunting him, but beneath the veneer of derisive amusement Kamui sensed something deeper, something ugly and angry and betrayed, something he couldn’t help flinching away from. “There’s nothing here for you now.”

“There’s nothing here for you, either,” Kamui managed, shaking a little and voice choked by the light pressure of Fuuma’s hand on his windpipe. “There’s nothing here for either of us.”

Fuuma was still smirking, but his eyes were cold and hard and Kamui wasn’t the only bitter one here. “No, there isn’t, is there,” he said, not a question, and then he snorted. “And whose fault is that, Kamui? Maybe you should think about that for once, instead of always trying to play the martyr.”

He let Kamui go, abruptly, and it was only the way Kamui’s fingers had locked themselves around the swing’s chains that prevented him from toppling painfully back to the concrete beneath. There was a moment where neither of them moved or spoke, then it broke when Fuuma stepped back, let it go, gave up on the encounter in disgust. Kamui, shaken and still feeling the absence of Fuuma’s chest pressed against his back and the sting where Fuuma’s nails bit into his skin, stayed silent and still and didn't turn to look when Fuuma walked away, staring blankly up at the sky, bleak and empty.

“It’s not my fault that Kotori isn’t here,” he said out loud eventually, but the only one left to tell was the deserted park, devoid even of birds. Fuuma was long gone.

Kamui thought he should probably be used to that by now, but somehow it still hurt, every single time.

~

Since he’d gotten back to the hotel, Subaru had done little else than obsess over Seishirou’s new single. Even though he’d said he didn’t want a copy Hokuto had forced one on him anyway, and he couldn’t refuse when she’d already paid for it, which was a weakness he knew she was perfectly happy to exploit when it suited her. Beyond that, however, he did have to admit that Hokuto was often right about these things and he would probably just be brooding even more over it if he didn’t have a copy.

As it was, he spent most of the afternoon lightly fingering the cover of the case, staring down at Seishirou’s faint smile and dark glasses as he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Fuuma, each with a guitar case slung over opposite shoulders-Fuuma’s right, Seishirou’s left-and their other band members standing around in the background, looking off to the side.

Just seeing Seishirou’s image was enough to make a lump catch in Subaru’s throat, and it had taken him about an hour before he’d even worked up the courage to stick the disc into his Discman and hit play.

Three hours later, and he was still playing Seishirou’s song on an endless loop, sitting in the couch in their shared living room with headphones blocking out reality and Seishirou’s voice filling all his senses. He could understand now, more than he could before, what had driven Kamui to listen to Fuuma’s second last song repeatedly even while it drove him to rage, though it wasn’t anger that Subaru felt.

At this stage, he wasn’t sure he felt anything but numb shock. It hadn’t sunk in yet. He wasn’t even really listening to the lyrics, not yet; it was the sound of Seishirou’s smooth, achingly familiar singing voice that hit him like a punch to the solar plexus.

Nothing, Subaru felt, could have prepared him for this. It had been hard enough seeing Seishirou again, knowing he was in their rival band, watching him play guitar, but none of that had managed to affect Subaru on quite the same visceral level as this. Even meeting Seishirou in person, though it had shaken him equally badly, had possibly not struck quite so deeply, because this was music. This was the only thing that had ever made sense in Subaru’s life.

Hearing Seishirou sing, that made it all somehow more real to him. Subaru hadn’t listened to any of the songs he’d recorded with Seishirou since the night of their fateful last performance, and Seishirou hadn’t sung at all in any of the previous Angels of the Sepulchre songs; it had been five years since Subaru had heard Seishirou sing, but he sounded just the same, though maybe a little more matured, like no time had passed at all.

It felt almost like a weird kind of vertigo, like everything between them had been a forever ago and just yesterday all at once. But what it came down to, in the end, was that Seishirou was singing: he was singing, and it was the first time Subaru had heard him sing anything they hadn’t written together.

It felt… Subaru wasn’t sure how it felt. Indescribable. He was too much in shock to figure out anything that complicated yet.

He was still contemplating that problem-and still in shock, honestly-when Kamui came home, which was why he didn’t notice until Kamui dropped down onto the couch next to him and slumped over into his lap. Subaru started out of his trance, blinking down at Kamui’s expression of abject misery before hitting the stop button on his CD player.

“I hate Fuuma,” Kamui said when Subaru pushed the headphones down around his neck, voice muffled against Subaru’s thigh. “I hate men.”

Subaru could have pointed out that technically this meant that Kamui hated both Subaru and himself, too, but he understood the sentiment, even if it didn’t exactly make much sense the way it had been framed.

“I wish I hated Seishirou-san more,” he sighed instead, because maybe he’d feel a little less guilty about loving him then. It could only make his life easier, surely.

Then again, looking at Kamui, perhaps not.

The two of them continued to sit there in silence for a while, or, more accurately, Subaru sat and Kamui sprawled. Subaru contemplated telling Kamui that Seishirou’s single had been released today, but he couldn’t quite work up the energy to have that particular conversation again. Once in twenty-four hours was more than enough.

He also considered asking what Fuuma had done now, but Kamui didn’t really look like he was in the mood for talking. Usually Kamui would bring it up first if he wanted to; Subaru figured Kamui would tell him sooner or later, anyway, and he wasn’t going to pry.

Of course, Kamui being Kamui, the quiet only lasted until he noticed the headphones still hanging around Subaru’s neck and he sat up with a narrow-eyed look, apparently clicking to certain things he hadn’t noticed when he’d come in.

“Hey, what’re you listening to?” he asked cautiously, and okay, it looked like they were having this conversation today, after all.

“Um,” Subaru said, because it was much easier when he didn’t have to articulate this kind of thing, and then passed the CD case over to Kamui with an air of resignation. It didn’t really need any further explanation.

Kamui took one look at the cover, scowled, and gestured for the headphones. Subaru handed them over wordlessly, slumping back into the couch with a sigh as next to him Kamui slipped the headphones over his ears and unpaused the song.

Of course, Subaru’s luck being what it was, Sorata and Yuzuriha returned from ice-skating at around the same time that Karen came back from her lunch with Aoki, and all three of them came in while Kamui was still listening to Seishirou’s single with a progressively darkening expression. Subaru had hoped to avoid any more of this topic than strictly necessary, but by this point it seemed explanations were more or less unavoidable, particularly when Karen darted a look from him to Kamui and back, raising her eyebrow pointedly.

Subaru sighed again. “Seishirou-san released his single today,” he said shortly, just as the song came to an end and Kamui pushed the headphones off.

“Also,” he added, “Fuuma’s a total jerk. Not that that’s news. And Sakurazuka is a jerk, too, not that that’s news either.”

“All men are jerks,” Karen said sagely, curling up in the armchair next to their couch with her stockinged feet folded up beneath her. “Trust me, if you’re going to date them, learning that is part of growing up.”

“Urgh,” Kamui groaned, and Subaru stared miserably up at the ceiling, because life was clearly unfair.

“I have pocky?” Yuzuriha offered tentatively. “It’s chocolate flavour.”

Karen tapped a finger to her lips, a thoughtful and calculative expression crossing her face before she moved to stand again. “Get the triple choc fudge ice cream,” she said decisively. “I’ll order the chick flicks. I think a girly ‘men are pigs’ night in is in order, don’t you?”

“Hey, where’s Nee-chan?” Sorata butted in. “If we’re having a chick night, we can’t have it without Nee-chan!”

“She’s in her room,” Kamui said, which surprised Subaru, who’d thought he’d been the only one there, but in retrospect he supposed she was just as prone to seeking out solitude as he was. “Anyway, who says you’re invited?”

“Aw, you don’t mean that,” Sorata said cheerfully, slinging an arm around Kamui’s neck from behind and from all appearances half choking him in the process. “Besides, I like chick flicks! And I can hate men too. They’re all bastards!”

He beamed. Kamui rolled his eyes.

“Whatever,” he said, shrugging out of Sorata’s grasp. “Just… go. Get Arashi-san.”

“Okay!”

Which was how they ending up sprawled all over the chairs and couches in front of the television with a subbed version of 10 Things I Hate About You, one of what Karen had dubbed her top five romantic comedies, playing on the screen. Subaru was curled in a ball at the end of the couch with a bowl of ice cream, feeling mildly guilty over the indulgence, but Karen and Yuzuriha were right: sometimes you just needed the comfort food. Kamui kept shifting, sometimes leaning on Subaru, sometimes moving to lie across Sorata’s lap, sometimes sitting up straight to argue with his hands flying through the air when he got worked up. Arashi was sitting in the chair, a little apart from the rest of them and looking bewildered; Karen was sitting on the floor in front of the couch, having moved on to painting Sorata’s nails having already painted her own and Yuzuriha’s. (Kamui had flat out refused, and Sorata was the next nearest target. He’d been more than enthusiastic about the idea, to Kamui’s disgust, holding out his other hand for Karen to paint pink while Yuzuriha, leaning over the back of the couch, slicked large amounts of glittery gel through his hair, humming as she moulded it into improbable spikes.)

“Why are you so good at this?” Kamui demanded, sounding almost exasperated, and Subaru stifled a smile, because for someone who was so open and boyish, Sorata really was amazingly into the whole girls’ night thing.

“Don’t be a baby,” Sorata teased, wiggling his fingers to admire his finished sparkly manicure. “We’re pop stars! You should be used to people slapping make-up on you all the time by now.”

“Yeah, but usually it’s not pink,” Kamui pointed out. “And also, usually? It does not involve nail polish!”

“Or curlers,” Karen said helpfully, obviously amused by the whole situation. She glanced at Yuzuriha, whose hair was still tightly twisted up on top of her head, and then turned her gaze thoughtfully to Arashi, who looked slightly terrified and perturbed when Karen’s intentions became clear. “We do still have a few of those left over…”

“No!” Sorata yelped, before a flustered Arashi could even find words to defend herself. “Not Nee-chan’s beautiful straight hair! It’s too perfect the way it is! We should use them on Kamui instead!”

Subaru, silently splitting his attention between the movie and the antics of his band members, found himself glad to be in the position of simple bystander on this particular occasion. He didn’t know if it was because he was exuding an aura of wanting to be left alone, if the others had reached an undiscussed consensus to leave him be for tonight, or if he just didn’t lend himself to this kind of teasing (and if the last was true, Hokuto had clearly missed that memo); whatever the reason, he was grateful that he was being included physically whilst not having to participate, able to let it flow over him and pull back without completely withdrawing.

"You are not putting that shit in my hair," Kamui said warningly, edging down along the couch towards Subaru, who didn't want to get involved and had enough traumatic memories of all the things Hokuto had tried doing to his hair over the years. "No!"

"Aw, come on, pleeeeeeeeeeease? It'll be fun!"

"No! I'll look like, like, I don't know, like a demented poodle-head freak," Kamui argued, but he sounded like he was weakening, and he was running out of couch to scoot down, in any case. "What are you... oh, fine. Jeez."

"Whoo!"

On the other side of the room, Arashi just looked confused. Subaru could sympathise; Sorata seemed to inspire that reaction in a lot of people, really.

They continued on in this way for half the movie, Kamui submitting to Sorata’s zealous administrations (with help from Yuzuriha) with a minimal level of complaint while the conversation bounced back and forth between the noisy side of the room and Arashi made the occasional contribution, Subaru letting their chatter and the movie wash over him alike, not thinking of anything much and glad to be distracted.

“And- ooh, ooh, everybody quiet, I love this bit,” Sorata said brightly, interrupting himself mid-sentence. “Any guy who’d sing a song like that in front of the whole oval deserves to win!”

“Fuuma doesn’t even try getting me to forgive him,” Kamui grumbled sullenly, letting his now curly head flop heavily onto Sorata’s shoulder as on the screen the male protagonist cheerfully made a fool of himself. “When he writes songs about me they’re always mean.”

“Have some ice cream,” Yuzuriha offered solemnly, handing him the rest of the half-melted tub that had been sitting next to her on the floor. “It’ll make you feel better.”

“Thanks,” he sighed, accepting the tub and poking at it half-heartedly. “He told me to stop being a martyr today, you know. After half choking me.”

They all digested this in silence for a moment.

“Have you ever thought that maybe you need a new boyfriend?” Sorata suggested, oblivious to Karen’s withering “please shut up now, you have all the tact of a sledgehammer” look, but Kamui didn’t even seem to notice that Sorata had even spoken.

“Fuuma’s an asshole,” he said unhappily, digging his spoon into the ice cream Yuzuriha had offered him. “I’m in love with an asshole. Life sucks.”

Subaru had to agree with that sentiment. In fact, replace “Fuuma” with “Seishirou”, and it was pretty much the story of his life.

“You should dump him,” advised Sorata, who by this point had pretty much cemented his place as Best Girl Friend Ever, which was ironic considering he was actually the only straight male in the room. Kamui scowled.

“I can’t,” he said, stabbing the ice cream viciously, and Subaru would be very surprised if it hadn’t been reduced to complete mush by this point. “I’m pretty sure he already dumped me first. Asshole.”

“Oh.” Sorata paused, apparently considering this for a moment. “Yeah, okay, men suck.”

“Amen to that,” Karen agreed, leaning her head back against the couch with an air of weariness. Kamui’s eyes flicked to Subaru briefly, clouding over before he snorted.

“They’re all bastards,” he said firmly, twisting around again so his head rested on Subaru’s thigh once more and his legs stretched across Sorata’s lap. “Especially if they’re in any way associated with Angel of the Sepulchre. Let’s just watch the movie.”

~

They watched about three and a half movies, in the end. Since it was almost five in the morning by the time they were halfway through the fourth movie and Yuzuriha, Arashi and Sorata were all asleep, Karen had gotten up to turn the television off and get blankets to cover them with. Kamui was half dozing on Subaru’s shoulder; Subaru was staring blankly up at the ceiling, wide awake and in a world of his own.

“Subaru-san?”

Subaru startled a little, having almost forgotten there was anyone else in the room, and glanced over at Karen, who had returned with the blankets. “Mm?”

“I’m going to the kitchen to get some camomile tea, and then I might go to bed,” she told him, draping one blanket each over Yuzuriha (lying on the floor with Inuki), Sorata (sprawled across the other half of the couch) and Arashi (still curled up in the armchair) before handing the last one to Subaru to share with Kamui. “Do you want anything?”

Subaru gave her a wan smile. “No, but thank you. I’ll be fine.”

“Well, if you’re sure,” she said, ruffling his hair lightly with her own tired answering smile, and then she padded off into the kitchen, leaving Subaru alone with his sleeping band members and his own thoughts.

Subaru went back to staring off into space, letting the quiet atmosphere seep in. The whole night there had been the ghost of a tune flittering at the edges of his mind, a melody that lingered and wouldn’t go. He started to hum along with it softly, barely even noticing he was doing it, and let the up and down rhythm of the song flow through him and soothe away the jarred discordance that Seishirou’s song had caused.

It was freeing to feel this way again, as if the music was part of him and not a chore or a current working against him as he so often had since Seishirou had shattered his world. This was music the way it used to be, a refuge, uncomplicated joy, at the edge of his tongue without needing to reach for it. He’d helped Kamui write parts of some of their non-single tracks, had done some song writing work for Princess label over the last few years, but it hadn’t been this easy, not for a long time.

It was ironic, in a way, that while it was Seishirou who had taken his inspiration away it was Seishirou who had brought it back.

“What’re you singing?” Kamui mumbled into Subaru’s arm, and Subaru broke off, blinking in surprise.

“I didn’t realise you were awake,” he said, somewhere between apologetic and embarrassed, and Kamui made a soft huffing noise, the sleepy equivalent of his usual snort.

“Don’t stop,” he said, still not opening his eyes, and let out his breath in a tired sigh, voice quiet and blurred with exhaustion when he spoke. “I like it. What is it?”

“Nothing, really,” Subaru answered honestly, eyes open but seeing something completely different from the blank screen they were facing. “It’s just something that’s been floating around in my head for the past few hours.”

“You should write it down,” Kamui told him, only at the very edge of coherency as he burrowed his face further into Subaru’s side to hide from the lights in the living area, dimmed down low though they were. “You should record it. ‘s good.”

“Maybe I’ll write it down,” Subaru conceded, because he knew it wouldn’t leave him so easily otherwise, a wry tilt to the corner of his lips. “I’ll let you sing it, though. You know I don’t like being the lead singer.”

“You did it before,” Kamui pointed out, cracking one eye open to look at him with bleary recrimination. “Like the papers said, with Sakurazuka. Anyway, I can’t sing it.”

“Why not?”

“Not me. ‘s your song. Not my style, wouldn’t sound right. And everyone would think it was about Fuuma. It’d just confuse everything.”

“It’s just the melody,” Subaru said, reluctant to breach this line he’d drawn for himself even for Kamui. “How can you know that?”

“Even that’s not my style. And there are words,” Kamui said, and it wasn’t a question. “Even if you’re not singing them yet, I know they exist.”

Subaru didn’t say anything. Kamui was right; there were words, though they’d need work and were only half formed so far. This was his song, not Kamui’s, even if he wasn’t ready to admit that.

“Besides,” Kamui added, eye sliding shut again, “you may as well sing it. The press aren’t going to stop hounding you now Sakurazuka’s released his song, so it’s easier if you do.”

Also true. For someone not fully lucid, Kamui had an awful lot of good points.

“Sing it for me some more,” Kamui said, breaking for a yawn. “Please? ‘s nice.”

So Subaru started singing it again, Kamui sinking back down into sleep by his side as Subaru’s voice softly rose and fell and slipped smoothly between words and wordless humming, following the words as they came.

~

Seishirou had known, of course, that Subaru had written Garden of Eden’s next single. It was hardly a secret; for the past three weeks the band had made the fact more than clear, undoubtedly hoping to ward off any further media pestering about whether Subaru intended to follow Seishirou’s lead. Seishirou had even known, in a general way, when the single would be released, which was why he was watching the music charts in the first place.

The song had shot straight to number one, which wasn’t surprising after all the hype behind it. His own single had done exactly the same when it had been released. What Seishirou was mildly surprised about was that Subaru had agreed to sing the main part of the song himself, even considering media pressure.

When the presenter’s waffle finally wound down and the track began to play, Seishirou was even more surprised that Subaru had allowed himself to be filmed as the main focus of the music video accompanying the song. He suspected that there had been a lot of arguing over that, a lot of guilt-tripping and Hokuto cajoling and probably a lot of failed takes before the one perfect run that had ultimately ended up on television.

The clip had opened with scenery changing in time with the chord shifts of the acoustic guitar playing the lead in, starting with Subaru in a dilapidated building and flicking quickly through the other members of the band. Kamui, motionless on a swing; the long-haired girl and the other boy sitting facing opposite ways on a bench in the middle of a busy sidewalk; the younger girl in a bleak field of dry, waist-high grass with a dog and an overcast sky; then back to Subaru, still sitting on the damp, algae covered cobblestones of the building and leaning against its walls, of a similar nature to the floor. It was a well-orchestrated scene, all shadows and muted blues and greens that set off Subaru’s eyes when he lifted them to sing, so impossibly deep and green.

‘I thought I saw a man brought to life; he was warm, he came around and he was dignified,’ Subaru’s image sang, a faint self-mocking smile on his lips. ‘He showed me what it was to cry.’

Seishirou noticed for the first time the faint rivulets of rain running down the walls and down Subaru’s face, the water dripping from hair that always curled when it was damp, and was reminded abruptly, inexplicably, of the last time he and Subaru had played together and Subaru’s hair had curled like that. He frowned lightly, lighting a cigarette.

‘Well you couldn’t be that man I adore, you don’t seem to know, seem to care what your heart is for, well I don’t know him anymore.’

For a few moments the screen flicked back to Kamui in the desolate, colourless park, and then it returned to Subaru in his dank stone room, head now leaning back against the wall with his eyes raised to the dark grey sky, stretching overhead with no roof to block it out.

‘Nothing’s fine, I’m torn, I’m all out of faith, this is how I feel; I’m cold and I am shamed, lying naked on the floor,’ Subaru continued, voice filled with bitterness but still so beautiful. ‘Illusion never changed into something real, I’m wide awake and I can see the perfect sky is torn.’

The song, Seishirou knew, was an honest reflection of Subaru’s emotions, pure and undistilled. Subaru was incapable of lying convincingly; he wore his heart on his sleeve, hard though he tried not to. His feelings were perfectly transparent, even if his thoughts and motives were increasingly less so.

‘-I should have seen just what was there and not some holy light, but you’ve crawled beneath my veins and now I don’t care, I have no luck, I don’t miss it all that much,’ Subaru sang, and the bitterness was still there but so was that smile, and Seishirou knew that the bitterness was now as much self-recrimination as it was aimed at Seishirou himself. ‘There’s just so many things that I can’t touch, I’m torn.’

It occurred to Seishirou, with a flash of irritation, that this music video was a national broadcast and would be very widely viewed. He didn’t like the idea of so many people seeing Subaru this perfectly vulnerable; he had previously been able to comfortably rely on Subaru’s reserved nature to avoid this kind of occurrence, and he would have preferred it to stay that way.

The image changed away from Subaru to the girl and boy in the street as he launched back into the chorus, passers-by a blur in motion while the two sat perfectly still. Seishirou ignored them, still mulling over this last realisation; he noted when the video flashed back to Subaru on the tail end of the chorus, but then it changed again to the girl in the endless field of brittle grass scorched by the summer heat and the dull grey clouds hanging overhead, the first signs of an early autumn.

‘I’m all out faith, this is how I feel, I’m cold and I’m ashamed bound and broken on the floor,’ Subaru finished, camera back to him for the final chorus. ‘You’re a little late, I’m already torn.’

Seishirou remained until the end of the song, watching impassively through the scenes of the other members of Subaru’s band that accompanied the instrumental lead out. The video, when the audio faded away, was left as it began: Subaru alone in the weathered building, sitting against the wall with his head bowed and eyes fixed on the floor.

Seishirou picked up the remote control and switched the television off as soon as it was over, not in the mood for any further inane babble by the presenter.

“I’ll give it a nine,” Fuuma said from the doorway, arms crossed and body leaning casually against the frame. “Very clever manipulation of the broken heart angle, nice use of colours.”

Seishirou glanced at Fuuma sharply, and found himself annoyed not by Fuuma’s flippant comment but the fact that Fuuma had presumably been there for a while and Seishirou had failed to notice.

There was a pause before Seishirou answered; he ground out the cigarette that had burned down in his hand without being smoked in the ashtray on the coffee table, and then his attention returned to Fuuma.

“Quite,” he said, cool and non-committal, and nothing more, because expectant silence was a useful tool: do you have anything further to say, or are you going to leave now?

“I bet they had a hard time making Kamui agree to do his shots in that park,” Fuuma replied blandly, a complete non sequitur, and Seishirou took a moment to study his expression, but for once it was fairly inscrutable, just like the tone. It held some significance, no doubt, but Seishirou had little idea what. At this point, he didn’t particularly care beyond the irritation of not knowing something; he had more important things to consider.

“And yet it seems they managed,” was all Seishirou said, not bothering to add that he’d had the same thought about Subaru agreeing to do the video at all, and contemplated lighting another cigarette. He had never actually smoked the first one, after all.

“Apparently,” Fuuma said, and raised an eyebrow. “So, everything going according to plan, Sakurazuka?”

“Of course,” Seishirou said smoothly, although he wasn’t quite as certain as he sounded. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“In my experience, these things rarely do,” Fuuma said, and shrugged. “But hey, great for you. Have fun with your perfect plans, I’m going to go order room service.”

Fuuma turned and walked out of the room, and Seishirou, gaze still resting on the blank screen, told himself that he had watched the video out of curiosity, nothing else.

It bothered him that even in his own mind, the words rang hollow.

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