Chapter Text
Kunikuzushi didn't want to die. He wished he'd never been born at all.
It probably wasn't normal for a 15-year-old to have absolutely zero will left to live, but what the hell was there to live for? The socioeconomic political state of the world is in shambles. His mom's shit. And looking across the class he's been with for a whole year, he realizes, I don't think I'd care if a single one of these fuckers dropped dead this instant.
He'd sat in the very back, left corner of the classroom. He kept his head down, only spoke when spoken to, and if anyone tried to befriend him he'd promptly tell them to fuck off. That's how he fell into his reputation: the quiet kid who you're better off leaving alone. And Kunikuzushi liked it that way.
"Kunikuzushi?"
His head snapped forward. The boy in front of him, soft-faced with a pretty smile, picked a manilla card from the top of the stack and slid it across his desk.
"Your end of year report," Kaedehara said, peeking at the list of grades. The lowest number on the page was 97.8%. "Wow."
Kunikuzushi took his sheet with no response.
This was the part when people usually thought, Ew, this kid's so arrogant or Yikes, this is awkward and promptly left Kunikuzushi in his preferred state: alone.
So imagine his surprise when Kazuha pulls up the seat in front of him, leans over his desk and starts chatting.
"Do you study a lot?"
Kunikuzushi squinted. "Go away."
That made Kazuha freeze. He blinked once, twice, and then the saddest kicked-puppy expression crept onto his face, and he whispered with the most pitiful, broken little voice, "Did.. did I do something wrong?"
Shit. Ugh, now Kunikuzushi felt bad. "No, it's just- do you need something?"
Kazuha tilted his head. "No?"
"Then why are you still here?"
"Can I not talk to you unless I need things?"
Kunikuzushi shrugged. Usually people didn't.
"Well, then, I need someone to talk to."
"You're the most popular person in our class- scratch that, our year."
"I need someone smart to talk to."
"You're the second highest graded in our year as well."
Kazuha blinked. "You know a lot about me."
That tends to happen when you blend into the background. People treat you like wallpaper, gossip in front of you like you're not even there.
"Kaedehara," Kunikuzushi starts, like he's about to go off on a long spiel. "Student council president. Beloved by teachers and students alike. You like cats and poetry and dry-braised fish. A pair of hands couldn't count how many girls are into you."
He looks dead straight into Kazuha's eyes and hopes it creeps him out enough to back away.
Instead, Kazuha leans in closer, starry-eyed and inquisitive. "Oh, you're interesting," he smiles like a kid with a new toy, "How aren't we friends yet, Kuni?"
"Do not call me Kuni."
"Y'know you don't have to call me Kaedehara either right."
"Okay, Kaedehara."
.
They, to Kunikuzushi's great dismay, become friends.
What's worse is Kunikuzushi starts fucking enjoying it. Conversations with Kaedehara are adequately stipulating. No matter what out of pocket joke gets thrown his way, he takes it in stride, never seeming put off.
(When he offers to start walking Kunikuzushi home, for the first time in his life, he consents to social interaction.)
"Fucking bullshit, how was I supposed to know lactobacillus makes yoghurt? Why is she putting questions on the test if she's never taught us the damn answer!?"
Kazuha laughs into his palm. It's a melody. "Kuni, you got one question wrong. Stop complaining."
"I hate Ms Sara with a searing passion."
"You hate our classmates, then our teachers. Really, is there anything you don't hate?"
"No. I hate the entire damn world," he glares, and then turns around, looking their shabby Inazuman highschool up to down. "And one day, I'm getting the fuck out of this place."
"You're studying overseas?" It's actually scary how good Kaedehara's getting at maneuvering these conversations.
"Yea."
"Where?"
"Wherever the fuck I can get."
"What about your family?"
"No dad. Hope my mom burns."
Kaedehara stops in his steps. He looks at Kunikuzushi with a sort of horrified expression, and, not for the first time, Kuni thinks he's finally done it. He's finally showed Kaedehara the part of himself too ugly to be accepted. He waits for the but she's your mother or but she loves you.
But instead, what he gets is Kaedehara's merciful voice breathing, "I'm sorry," and then arms around him wrapped tight.
He stiffens, unsure what to make of this.. gesture. How long has it been since he was last held? Actually, how long since he last let anyone hold him without slicing off three fingers?
"I don't need your pity," he says.
" It's not pity, " Kaedehara pulls back, frustrated gesturing, "It's- that's- I don't have parents either."
Kunikuzushi gaped. You don't get it: Kaedehara was the pretty boy. He'd always just assumed he had the perfect life to match his perfect everything else. "You don't?"
"No. So, I don't wanna say I understand but, just," He balled his hands into fists. "I feel like you could maybe understand me ."
Kunikuzushi stared. No, really, he just stared.
What the hell else could he have done? He was sick of people telling him they understood, people only befriending him out of pity. But this boy who lived in the spotlight, in a whole other world from Kunikuzushi's dark shadowy corner of the classroom- to think that someone like Kuni could ever mean something to someone like Kaedehara?
"..You put too much faith in me," he said. And then walked off, face hidden behind his long hair.
.
Kunikuzushi slams his hands against the keys of the piano.
He hates her, oh, he hates her so much. He wishes someone would come along and stab a knife through Ei's stomach. Rip her teeth out with a pair of old pliers. Kill her, and make it painful.
Kunikuzushi would laugh at her funeral. He promises.
( I understand, she would say, We are creatures cut from the same cloth. I am your mother. Of course I understand, with that pretty violet smile that was almost enough to make Kunikuzushi believe her. And then she'd turn around, wreck his life, and leave him in the rubble to pick himself up.
That was her favourite thing to do: Abandon him. )
He pressed harder on every note. The music ragged and earsplitting, beautiful in a brutal kind of way. Feels like he could do this forever, pour his rage into music and wield it like a knife. What stops him is the creak of the door behind him, and he tenses up.
This is a school piano. It's like, the only cool thing about his shabby high school. And at school, he's supposed to be the quiet kid. That piano playing? Was not quiet.
He turns, fearing for his life and reputation, and then sees crimson eyes and a white ponytail and relaxes. "Oh, it's just you."
"...You didn't tell me you played piano," Kazuha breathes, and he sounds a little more.. breathless? Than usual?
"It's not that big of a deal," he says, but Kazuha's looking at him all wide-eyed so he adds, "I also play guitar and drums."
"Kuni!" he rushes up to him, beaming hard and cupping both his hands around one of Kunikuzushi's, "You're a sensation!"
And then, out of fucking nowhere, "Form a band with me!"
Kunikuzushi blanches. "What!?"
"Please? I need to hear that again!"
"Why the hell would I-"
"Come on, please? Please?"
Kunikuzushi gave him one mortified look and then sighed. "You act like a damn child. But sure."
"Really?" Even Kazuha seemed stunned. He took a seat on the huge piano seat, next to Kuni. "That was.. unexpectedly easy."
In truth, Kunikuzushi loved music. There was a reason he learnt three instruments. And Kaedehara was (though he'd never admit) probably his favourite person in the world. So really, why wouldn't he form a band with him?
"I want to be a musician," he says. Then meets Kazuha's eye. "Surprised?"
"A little, yea. I thought you'd be like- one of those people who say there's no money in music, get a real job."
Kunikuzushi laughed. He hadn't laughed in so long, it felt weird to, even for just a moment. "Sounds like something I'd say. What about you?"
"I wanna be a dancer," he glanced at Kunikuzushi, and mimicked him with a giggle, "Surprised?"
"Very."
He was waiting for the elaborate explanation, the tragic backstory as to why someone with grades and a future like Kaedehara wanted to dance. But he just put his fingers on the piano, and started playing Twinkle Twinkle.
A melody, beautiful in a soft and serene way. Nothing like Scaramouche.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Kaedehara asked, still playing. About what you were doing earlier, when I caught you practically abusing this piano?
Kunikuzushi flopped onto his side, resting his temple on Kazuha's shoulder. "Not really," he decided. Because what could he even have said?
Ei slapped him on rare occasions. Other than that, she never laid a hand on him. So he couldn't even claim abuse, especially since she was a woman. There was nothing he could claim at all.
"Okay," was all Kazuha said. As if it really was all okay. And he continued playing for Scaramouche.
.
"The Calm and The Storm."
"What?"
"Do you want that to be our Band Name? The Calm and The Storm."
He regarded Kazuha for a long moment and then broke out into a smirk, "Shit, that's perfect."
.
( "Why do you want to be a musician, Kuni?"
"I don't just want to be a musician. I want to make it big. The biggest star this world will ever fucking see. And then the first thing I do will be getting out of this place. All on my own. With the money made with my own bleeding, callused hands- not my mother's. Not anyone else's."
Kaedehara smiles. "Good luck," he whispers. Now there is someone in the world who knows and supports his dreams. That's a first. )
.
They spend hours everyday coming up with song concepts. They both agree to have one individual song each, Kazuha's titled The Calm and Kunikuzushi's titled The Storm.
One is a harmonious melody and the other heavy metal, but the lyrics parallel each other. Two songs, different in every possible way meet in the middle and they just.. work. Like a glitch in the matrix, a flaw in the system. He and Kazuha shouldn't work, but they do. They do so well.
Kaedehara was his missing puzzle piece. The last line to every song he'd written. The hand that fit into his. Kaedehara was his person.
.
Ms Sara catches them after school one day, loitering in class, music sheets splayed across a desk. They were supposed to do this at the park, but per Inazuman weather, the rain was keeping them in.
Kunikuzushi expects to be chased out, but Sara only leans her head against the doorframe, arms crossed and uncharacteristically fond smile. "You two have really gotten close, hm?"
Kaedehara tenses. There's something between them and Kuni picks it up instantly. "Miss."
"You know, I was so worried about you Kuni. Your whole first year I didn't see you speak to another person. But it's such a relief to see Kazuha managed to befriend you. " She smiles at Kazuha then, the way you'd smile at a kid who fulfilled a task you'd assigned them.
"Yes Miss," Kazuha bows his head, shame curtling in his expression. Fuck , he was gonna be sick.
Sara smiles at him again, wholly satisfied and then closes the class door. The moment she's away Kunikuzushi sits up, "So that was what this was."
"Kuni-" Kazuha reaches for his arm just as fast as Kuni slaps him off.
"Screw you," he says. And for the first time, he isn't angry. There's no fight left in him to scream.
( I want to die, he thinks, I wish I was dead. I wish I was dead. I wish I was- )
He's already packing his shit and leaving, ignoring Kazuha's pleas as he chases him down the hallway. Kunikuzushi walks into the gruelling downpour and doesn't even hesitate. Right now, he'd honestly take getting struck by lightning over looking Kazuha in the eye.
He should've known. That day when Kazuha came up to him and said he didn't need anything. And he thought he was just nice. He should've known nobody ever comes up to him unless there's another reason, like a teacher telling them to.
"God, please, just hear me out-"
His face is wet and he doesn't know whether it's from rain or tears. When Kazuha rushes in front of him and their eyes meet, he wonders if he ever knew this person at all.
(There's a wall between them now, the wall Kunikuzushi used to tear down for him and only him.)
"I swear it wasn't like that," Kazuha says between panting gasps and the loud clatter of rain, "Well- okay, it might've been at first-"
"Was it fun?" Scaramouche cuts him off, "You had me completely fooled. Are you happy with yourself?"
"I wasn't-"
"Were you ever even gonna tell me?" Pain bleeds into the cracks of his voice now.
Kunikuzushi thought he knew pain. He'd already been abandoned by his mother, surely the universe would give him a break. Turns out shit hurts a lot more when the one who betrays you is the one you trust.
(Once upon a time, Kuni lay his head in Kaedehara's lap and wrote odes to the boy's name.)
Whoever those two best friends were are gone now. Maybe they were never even real. The rain washes it all away, and Kuni thinks in that moment the sun might never rise again.
"I'm sorry," is what Kazuha ends up saying. As if that could possibly fix the fragments of whatever they once shared. "It wasn't all fake. I mean it."
Kunikuzushi takes one look at the boy who was a few moments ago his everything, and now he just wants to break it. He's pretty sure hurting Kazuha will vicariously hurt himself, but really, when has Kunikuzushi ever cared about that?
"I don't believe a single thing you have to say," he says, then really drives it home. "I never want to see your face again."
He walks past Kazuha and leaves.
Their band and the piano chair they shared and the smile Kunikuzushi never showed anyone else and the crimson eyes against lavender ones and their elaborate nicknames and the chair Kazuha pulled up to his desk and the report card and all of it. He rewinds to the moment they met and deletes every memory that comes after.
He leaves Kazuha behind.
.
This is his thirteenth reason. He was already on the edge, and then the cosmos gave him Kazuha and for a brief moment Kunikuzushi thought everything would be alright. Because Kaedehara was his person. They were going to be okay.
But maybe the universe wanted him to die. Maybe he was never meant to live. Kazuha's gone and the worst part is he was never real in the first place.
There is no beautiful memory to reminisce on. Every single one is stained in betrayal and hurt and the lie Kazuha told the very first time they met, when he went up to Kunikuzushi because of a teacher's request and pretended he genuinely wanted to know him.
He cries so hard that night his eyes puff up, his throat gives out, his breath races. He throws pillows across the room and tears stuffed animals apart. Nothing helps. Everything still hurts. He cries and cries and cries.
.
He skips school the next day. Ei's doing who knows what at work all day so she'll never find out.
He's splayed across the living room couch (a privilege reserved for when Ei's gone out) when his doorbell rings. Bedhead and hoodie and all, he answers.
"Kaedehara?"
"Kuni," he says, like the name is the most precious thing in the world. The umbrella fights against the rustle of wind in the heavy rain. The sky's still bright blue. Kazuha should be at school. He considers slamming the door in this asshole's face until- "I'm in love with you."
A beat. "What."
"Miss Sara did ask if I could try and talk to you that day," he confesses. Desperation bleeds into his tone, a sort of puppy-eyed expression on his face. "But she never told me to walk you home after school, start a band with you, call you Kuni-- I didn't do what I did because anyone else asked me to. I did it because I had a massive crush on you."
Kazuha flushes, ducking a little under his umbrella. "And I know it's hopeless, I knew way back then that you had no interest in romance whatsoever, let alone in me. But you were so- you- how was I supposed to not fall in love?"
"And I also know you're furious with me. And you needn't forgive me in the slightest. But if you're going to leave, I'm going to do everything in my power to make you stay, because I don't want to lose you Kuni. You're not the same to me as everyone else. You're my person. And if you want the truth; it's that I've always been in love with you."
The sun rises past the rain. Kunikuzushi only notices now, cradled under the umbrella is a bouquet. Holy shit, Kazuha ran to his house in this weather and still had the time to buy him flowers.
How childish. How stupid. Why was Kuni smiling so damn hard?
"You absolute idiot, get in!" he yelled, tugging Kazuha by the arm.
(Kazuha loved him. Kazuha loves him.)
He clicks the door shut behind them, setting Kazuha down on the couch and turning off all the aircons. The boy's socks are soaked. Kunikuzushi rushes to find him new ones + a hoodie + warm tea.
Kazuha just sits there, a confused puppy with an expression of absolute bewilderment on his face.
"Well?" Kunikuzushi glares, "Are you just going to sit there or are you gonna drink it?"
"Ah- um.. yea." He ducks downward, face the wildest shade of red. Shit, that was cute.
Kunikuzushi sighs fondly, takes a seat next to him, wonders what on Earth he did to deserve this beautiful person's love.
"I'd be a horrible boyfriend," he says. "Just snap your fingers and ten girls could fall at your feet, all much better than me."
Kaedehara frowns. And he says, like it's the simplest truth in the universe, "I don't want better, I want you."
.
A love song gets added the to the track list of The Calm after The Storm's album.
.
Kunikuzushi, in typical Kunikuzushi fashion, hated love. It was soft and sweet whilst he was sharp-edged and bitter. He lived sixteen years thinking he was unfit for it.
Then Kazuha walked into his life and Kunikuzushi had never wanted to be gentle until then.
Of course, he was still Kunikuzushi. Being boyfriends did not mean he suddenly knew how to handle compliments or engage in skinship. Love didn't fix his raging mommy issues. But it was nice. It was like despite how shitty the world continued to be, if Kaedehara would sit next to him in a garage and spend a minute with him everyday, all the suffering would be worth it.
He had lived his whole life without sunlight. Now that he'd tasted it, he knows why every human stayed alive- why they cried and screamed and agonized- for its few warm moments.
"I hate guitars," he said. The indented lines on his calluses started to bleed out.
Kazuha rolled his eyes with what could only be called hopelessly smitten fondness. "You hate everything, Kuni."
"Because everything sucks," he said. And then his eyes trailed to the side, to that smile on Kaedehara's face and... "Except you."
Kaedehara confessed with the L word that rainy day at his doorstep, but Kunikuzushi hadn't yet. (Was love even tangible for a creature like him?) Maybe this was the closest he would ever get.
Kazuha flushed, wide-eyed, and then turned away. "Go back to playing your damn guitar," he mumbled.
.
The following four years would go on to be the best years of his life.
As if, after sixteen years of falling short, the universe finally chilled the fuck out. It was years starved of happiness all condensed into a few months, and for the first time, Kunikuzushi did not want to throw himself off a cliff.
.
"Mother says I can't release an album under my name. Says it's bad for the family reputation."
"Oh."
"But so long as people don't connect my stage name with the Raiden Bloodline it's all fine."
Kaedehara sighed, shoulders relaxing, "Oh, okay. What name do you want?"
"....Scramsh," he mumbled.
"Hm?"
"Scaramouche."
.
He knew it was a stupid name when he chose it. A reference to a song and not at all Inazuman. If he told anyone else in the world, awkward faces and judgement would be all he was given back.
But of course this was Kaedehara, so he tilted his head, asked what it meant, and ultimately smiled that same smile Scaramouche fell in love with as he said, "How nice. It suits you."
Scaramouche wanted to kiss that smile off his face.
.
Both Scaramouche and Kaedehara lack a real parental figure to impose curfew on them, so after school they pay for whichever bus fare they can afford and go where the road takes them.
One day it's a beach, Kazuha knee-deep in the sea, humid air sticking to their skin, hair blown back in the wind and sunkissed features and for a moment he is not human to Scara's eyes.
The next it's raindrops dripping down the bus window, Kazuha's head on his shoulder whining about the freezing weather and Scara's hoodie over his skin.
At the heart of all their adventures is a song. They've been working on their debut album for almost a year now, slowly piecing itself together.
There's a sandcastle in their songs and a familiar bus driver. There's running in the rain and laughing till your lungs hurt. Whatever The Calm After The Storm ends up being will be what Scaramouche feels when he looks at Kazuha; it'll be love.
.
"I love you," Scaramouche says.
It comes out surprisingly easily. The three words that mortified him all his life, that he both craved and wanted to run far, far away from; they weren't all that scary when it was for Kaedehara.
(How could it be scary when it was so soft and sweet and simply just the truth?)
They were in Kazuha's garage, empty monster cans and lyric sheets littered everywhere. He was singing one of the very few lovey-dovey lines Scaramouche had allowed while trying to figure out the guitar's strumming pattern. He struggled super hard for a minute, then he got it, and he started playing flawlessly, eyes glazed over as if the lyrics really were something he'd say to his boyfriend and Scaramouche just- said it.
And then the music stopped.
Kaedehara stiffened completely, blinked, snapped his head toward Scaramouche and looked all of a sudden completely out of place. "What- did you just-"
"Sorry- nevermind, forget it-"
"I can't just f-"
"I take it back."
"No," Kaedehara smiled, something scarily excited working through him, "You said you loved me."
Scaramouche gulped, flushing. "So what if I did?"
"You love me," he breathed.
"...Go back to your damn guitar."
.
Calm After the Storm releases just after their end of second year exams.
The Calm After the Storm
Album • 2022
The Calm After the Storm
♡ ▶️
- Hey! - banger opening with a spoken word verse that perfectly encapsulates their dynamic.
- The Calm - a silly little melody sung and written by Kazuha alone
- The Storm - hilariously inappropriate death punk mental sung and written by Scaramouche alone
- Dreamer - an ode from Kazuha to a boy with big dreams
- Mother
- Resident Pretty Boy - 3 whole minutes of Scaramouche basically hitting on Kaz. one of the lyrics is literally "so if you're tired of being so perfect all the time, why not sleep... with me?"
- Ours - a song about all the meaningless things theyve turned into theirs. like beaches and park swings and music.
.
The album breaks 200 streams and then dies down. Not that it matters. They wrote this album for each other. The rest of the world didn't need to listen; music was theirs .
.
"I'm seventeen now," Kazuha says.
He's laid hands over his stomach across the couch, with Scaramouche leaning against its seat (as opposed to sitting on it, y'know, the purpose of a couch) when he breaks the news. Scaramouche's head snaps in his direction. "You didn't tell it was your birthday?"
"I didn't want anything," he laughs. The look of utter offense on Scara's face is a little (very) cute. "But I have been thinking."
Scaramouche turns, resting his chin on the seat and allowing Kazuha's fingers to card through his bangs. He wonders if he knows just how crazy every little movement he makes drives him. "About what?"
"Most idols start training at thirteen. I dance, but, I'm gonna have to start getting professional soon if I want to debut."
It's no secret that the future terrifies him. Kaedehara values freedom. And- well- idol companies aren't exactly known for that. Dancing is a dream he's willing to make more than a few sacrifices to pursue, but...
"You'll be fine," Scaramouche rolls his eyes and nuzzles into the touch. "Isn't the most important thing to these agencies that you're good-looking enough for girls to throw themselves at?"
That is an insanely disrespectful depiction of Kaedehara's ambition, but "Are you calling me attractive?"
Scaramouche freezes, "NO."
.
There are some days fear gets the better of him.
He is only sixteen after all, and sixteen-year-olds are supposed to have mothers. When he comes home and she's already sitting there, beckoning him onto the couch, smiling as if she loves him and wouldn't rip him apart if he wasn't moulded to the exact son she wanted him to be-- and imagining Kaedehara's voice isn't enough to calm his nerves--
There are still those days. Where he has to sit in the shower and leave the clothes on the floor and hide under the covers because existing is too hard. But those days, he holds Kaedehara a little tighter and gets through them. He thinks if Kazuha stays he'll be able to keep getting through them for two more years.
"Never leave," he says. It's a demand, one made with utter seriousness (even though Kazuha gives him that fond look that definitely doesn't seem like he's taking it seriously.)
"You couldn't get rid of me even if you tried." Kaedehara holds him a little tighter and Scaramouche thinks about how sad it'd be if he wasn't alive anymore. If they couldn't be there for each other.
He's never wanted to live more than he's wanted to live for Kazuha.
.
Kazuha signs up for a dance program. Scaramouche buys him food after every rehearsal. If one or two or eighty videos of his boyfriend's choreography end up in the Favourites folder of his gallery, no one needs to know.
.
The dream of turning eighteen and running away turns out to really just be a dream. Maybe it was possible a time ago, but in this generation? In this economy? There was no way.
Scaramouche was used to living with a fancy couch and a lavish room and cleaners to do his every bidding. When your mother is the most influential figure in Inazuma, it's difficult to sneak any nation else.
"One day," Kazuha tells him. He always knows just what to say.
.
He doesn't dare forget Kazuha's next birthday. Scaramouche is not a sap. But he's also not a horrible boyfriend. So he plans the horrendously romantic dinner date at a fine dining suite (mommy's money comes in handy occasionally, he supposes) and buys the bouquet of flowers and writes the sonnet and does in fact take him to watch the sunset over crashing waves when it's all said and done.
"You're too much," Kazuha mumbles, red-faced and unused to the affection.
Scaramouche kisses him for lack of better words. He tastes like tea.
.
Kazuha's always drinking tea lately. Which isn't new, but paired with the eye-bags, it's concerning. He expresses concern three times and is given three different responses.
You're one to criticize my sleeping patterns, you insomniac you.
I just really like tea. You know that.
Training is always rough when rookies start out. I'm okay.
Scaramouche can't help but feel like he's being lied to every single time.
.
One of the days he decides to drop by Kazuha's studio, (with boba. He made sure to get something with absolutely no caffeine) he opens the door to a man yelling down at his boyfriend.
.
Cue Scaramouche fast-walking after Kaedehara down a corridor, a loop of 'It's fine, it's alright, it's okay's as if, if he says it enough times he can will it into reality.
Scaramouche has always been so open with his problems so it's incomprehensible why Kaedehara can't just do the same.
.
They've never fought in all three years of dating. Turns out, they suck at apologies.
.
Ei brings a woman home. She's pink-haired and hard-eyed and behind his mother's back gives him downcast frowns. She is perhaps the second worst woman Scaramouche has ever come to know. He thinks she suits Ei perfectly.
.
Both he and Kazuha are at the end of their fuse.
.
Everything be damned, Scaramouche is not missing another one of Kazuha's birthdays. They have one civil chat. Everything still sucks but they make each other tea. Kazuha offhandedly mentions he's going to apply for a new idol company, GNSHNMPCT Entertains.
Scaramouche smiles. He says, with utmost pride, "Good."
.
The rough patch is sealing. Yae's existence has her perks (like forcing Ei to spend less time at the house.) Kazuha seems happier than ever, knowing he could leave his current agency soon. They've always loved each other and Scaramouche thinks that no matter how much grief they both have to untangle on their own sides, in the end, they'll always meet in the middle.
.
Lumine GNSHNMPCT
Re: Application
Hello, Kaedehara Kazuha.
Your application to GNSHNMPCT Entertains was wonderful. We would be more than welcome to offer you a place in our company.
However, there is a slight issue. You requested to be located in our Inazuman Headquarters. The market in Inazuma for idols is oversaturated, and I'm afraid our HQ is full and understaffed. It's also difficult to import equipment and promote events in such a closed-off nation.
Therefore, I'm offering you the option to come work in our Liyuean Headquarters- which has higher quality facilities, and since Liyue is so close to both Mondstadt and Sumeru will make your debut much smoother.
I understand moving so far away from your home nation is a huge step. All expenses will be paid for, of course. Take your necessary time and get back to me with your decision.
.
Dancing was a dream Kazuha was willing to make more than a few sacrifices for. But was that sacrifice Scaramouche?
.
It's stupid.
.
He knows it's stupid.
.
Your lifelong ambition or a boy you fell in love with when you were fifteen? This should've been an easy choice. It should've. But things had just been going so well between them. Kazuha would've married him if he asked.
Intellectually, he wanted to go. Emotionally, he wanted to stay.
.
He tells his trainee friends and they all congratulate him. They don't even consider he might want to stay.
.
Gorou tells him if he stayed, he'd be insane.
.
He goes to his parents' grave and asks.
.
He asks the sakura leaves and stray cats.
.
He asks everyone except Scaramouche.
Would Scaramouche understand? Maybe he'd say it was alright, that they could still love each other over the borders and ocean?
Who was he kidding. They couldn't. If there was one thing he and Scaramouche had it was quality time. Their love was built on teenage freedom and it couldn't survive adulthood.
.
The news hits Scaramouche like a ton of bricks. Heavy, heavy bricks. There's something in his throat; betrayal. An emotion he never thought he could associate with Kazuha.
I was supposed to be the one who got out of this hell hole, he thinks, how dare you leave me here to rot?
Because-- Kazuha never even mentioned leaving-- he loved Inazuma-- and Scaramouche didn't, so why the hell was Kazuha going to Liyue and not him!?
"We always knew this was gonna happen though," Kaedehara laughs. The nerve of this man to say something like that, something like yea scaramouche didnt u see this coming? lol. and then to laugh .
Scaramouche was the cynicist. The one who expected the worst because that was the only way not to get crushed. He was supposed to be the pessimistic, nihilistic asshole. He was supposed to know better.
But then Kaedehara barges in with those eyes and that blinding smile and the drop-dead gorgeous voice and for the only time he lets himself hope. Something so sick like hope.
And now it's all crashing, burning, falling apart. He thought he knew better.
"I didn't," he spat. "I thought you cared as much as I did."
That makes Kazuha frown. "Cared?" he nods, like a challenge, "You're the one who doesn't care."
"I love you and you're leaving. Of course I fucking care!"
"Oh, right, love ," Kazuha drawls the word out with a bitterness he's never heard. It almost feels wrong. "You claim you love me but turn around and actively don't support my dream. What even is your definition of love?"
"Am I supposed to just be happy that you're leaving then? You promised not to! "
"I made that promise when we were teenagers! Oh my-" Kazuha huffs, exasperated, "Don't act like if you had the chance, you wouldn't fly out of Inazuma and leave me too. Stop acting like a victim when you're just jealous."
He balled up his fists. He wanted to punch something, but Kazuha kept speaking.
"I don't owe you to stay. Certainly not if you're going to react like this, actually, I don't owe you anything."
Scaramouche was used to being abandoned. He thought he knew its teeth and claws like the back of his hand.
He thought he had Kazuha figured out too.
Now all those promises are emptied and the memories are burning. Their beaches and playgrounds and garages. Their report cards and bouquets under umbrellas. It was something, whatever the hell it was- something that when Scaramouche thought back to he would smile so hard his cheeks hurt. It was love. It was softness and it was passion and it was theirs . And now it's ruined, stained by this one fight, and he isn't sure if he hates Kazuha for it- if he could ever hate Kazuha at all.
"Fuck off then," he says. And he's not sure if he's losing the only person who's ever known him, who ever even tried despite Scaramouche's every attempt to stand in his way, or if he's the one throwing it all away.
He's not sure how the disconnect between what he says and what he feels can be so far apart. How he can say Fuck off while his heart bleeds, Please, stay. You're the best thing that's ever happened to me. You're what wakes me up and soothes me to sleep.
"I don't need you."
I can't do this without you.
"I don't even care anymore."
I can't go on without you.
"Go wherever the hell you want and don't come back."
Don't leave me like this.