Archive of Our Own ^beta

Yuu is lulled back into consciousness by the soft brush of a melody against his cheek.

He rolls over in bed, kicking off the covers that he doesn’t remember dragging over himself. The walls light up with the splashes of headlights through the window. Yuu checks the time: four in the morning. He squints. His lover croons sweetly from elsewhere in their shared apartment, the same mellow ballad that Yuu drifted off to yesterday evening. Mika has always worked far too hard.

He cards a hand through his bedraggled hair and swings upright. By the time he reaches the door, fingers ghosting the knob, the song has faded; it’s replaced by the low rustle of paper and the drumming of fingertips against wood. Yuu stares at the warm lamplight bleeding in from under the door. He shuffles out to the living room.

Mika is right where Yuu left him, perched at the end of the couch and hunched over sheets upon sheets of half-scribbled music. He doesn’t look up from the crumpled score in his hand, even when Yuu slides in behind him and lazily snakes arms around his waist. His chin finds a home on Mika’s shoulder.

“It’s late, darling,” mutters Yuu, voice thick with sleep, as he nuzzles his love’s jawline. Mika hesitates; his grip slowly slackens, muscles uncoiling, and Yuu hums his wholehearted approval. “Come to bed.”

Yuu reaches for the lamp beside them, but Mika gently seizes his wrist. His blue eyes are red-rimmed with exhaustion, brows drawn thoughtfully, and Yuu wants nothing more than the smooth them out with kisses and honeyed words. He leans in to do so, but Mika suddenly goes boneless, chuckling hoarsely and pressing his back into Yuu’s chest like it grounds him, and—Yuu eyes the sea of balled-up paper scattered around them—maybe it does.

“Let’s just stay here for a while,” Mika whispers, quiet enough to get swallowed in the silence, and dodges Yuu’s quizzical stare. Yuu lowers his arm—takes Mika’s down with it—and twines their fingers together. They sit. Mika opens and closes his mouth a few times, as if mustering the courage to say something, so Yuu waits. He listens to the forced pattern of Mika’s breaths and counts the pockmarks on the ceiling.

“Do you—,” Mika starts, air catching in his throat, and Yuu squeezes, “do you ever think that…. This isn’t what I’m meant to be doing?”

Yuu hides his frown behind golden curls. “What do you mean, love?”

Mika makes a helpless little gesture at the reject ideas on the floor. “I don’t know. The music, the writing, the—.... I’ve had slumps before, but this is just….”

“That tune you were working on earlier was good,” Yuu says. He rubs soothing circles into Mika’s skin when his shoulders begin to hike, trying to ease away the frustration seeping back into his bones. “I liked it a lot. It was rich and soulful, kind of like the one you wrote for—”

—“Shinoa and Mitsuba’s wedding? Yeah.” His lips curl up at the corners, mirthless. “I was looking at it earlier. Thought visiting my old stuff would help, but nothing’s good enough.”

Mika lowers his gaze to the music sheet still caged in his grasp. He lets it go. Yuu watches it flutter to the ground. “I’ve been working on this song for weeks, but I can’t even come up with something that even resembles what I’m trying to do. Maybe I’m just,” his voice cracks, “...not cut out for it.”

Something in his gut twists horribly in response, wrenching even harder when Mika untangles his fingers from Yuu’s and moves to get off of him. Cold air floods the empty space that he occupied. “I’m sorry, this is stupid. You’re right, I should just go to sleep—”

—that’s as far as Yuu lets him get before he yanks him back down. A surprised noise escapes Mika as Yuu clutches him to his body like a lifeline, burying his face in the crook of Mika’s neck and inhaling deeply. Mika trembles against him, hands fisting and unfisting themselves numbly at his sides like he doesn’t know what to do with them. And it hurts to witness, because Yuu has seen those hands in so many ways—curled around the neck of a violin, splayed over monochrome piano keys, dancing along the lengths of flutes and clarinets and all manner of music-making machines—and he can’t stand the thought of Mika giving up the very thing he lives and breathes.

Yuu is not a musician. Yuu is not a musician, but he knows Mika, and that will have to be enough.

“Baby,” he murmurs, threading their fingers together once more, “That’s complete bull . You’re dedicated, you’re a hard worker, and you’ve got more talent in your pinkie finger than I’ve probably got in my whole body. Don’t say you’re not cut out for the thing that makes you happy.”

Mika makes a distressed sound in the back of his throat. “ Yuu-chan —”

“No, you need to hear this. You need to hear about the way your eyes light up when you make music. About how your voice steals the air from everyone in the room. I remember when Shinoa and Mitsuba asked you to compose that song for their wedding, and the way you positively glowed with happiness; you threw yourself into it with everything you had and chattered my ear off every chance you got. You had everyone crying halfway through your performance the day of because it was just so beautiful. That…that’s why I can’t let you quit. Music makes you come alive, and…I don’t know how I ever breathed without you by my side.”

“You don’t know how you—” Mika laughs, fond and incredulous all at once—“God, Yuu-chan, that’s my line .”

Yuu blinks, genuinely baffled, when Mika manages to loosen the arms around him enough to bring Yuu’s hand up to his face. He’s still chuckling as he kisses each of Yuu’s knuckles reverently; Yuu’s cheeks redden.

“You’re all that I think about. All that I dream about,” Mika says, voice raw with devotion, into his lover’s skin. “I’d drop music in a heartbeat if it meant I could be with you. You’ve given me the whole world and expected nothing in return. A life with you… that’s the kind of hope everyone talks about. The kind of feelings we sing about, and,” he lays Yuu’s hand on his cheek and covers it with his own, “if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have any music in me anyway.”

There is silence. Bewildered, Mika swivels around to the sight of a bright flush spiralling down the collar of Yuu’s t-shirt. He chortles, and Yuu scrambles to recollect his composure.

“ Dammit , Mika,” he says weakly, “Give a guy a warning, will you?”

Mika’s laughter grows fainter as he re-adjusts himself, tips his forehead against Yuu’s, breathes in his space. His eyes are closed, so Yuu studies the sweep of his lashes and the way they glimmer in the artificial light. His vision blurs from the proximity.

“I want to write the perfect song.” Mika looks at him dead on, eyes intent and so very blue. They snatch the oxygen right out of Yuu’s lungs. “I want to write the perfect song, and I want it to be about you.”

“Then do it,” replies Yuu quietly, cupping his other cheek. Mika leans into the contact with a warm exhale. “You can. I believe in you.”

Mika breathes out and Yuu breathes in, and god, he loves this feeling. “You make me feel like I’m actually living. There’s just a jumble of emotions inside me that are all associated with you. I can’t do it justice.”

And it’s Yuu’s turn to grin and giggle now, because his lover is so silly, sometimes. “This is what you’ve been stressing about for all these weeks? Darling, I’ll love the hell out of anything you write for me. I’ll make you play it for me all the time, blast it on the speakers while I’m driving, and make you cringe by singing it in the shower. You can do it. Take your time.”

Mika nods, and a beautiful smile blooms on his face as his head slides down to Yuu’s shoulder. “Okay…. Thanks, Yuu-chan.”

Yuu hums in lieu of a response, gripping Mika tighter when it becomes apparent that he’s falling asleep, warm and solid in his arms. He huffs a little in mock exasperation, but gathers his snoozing lover up anyway, heaving them off the couch, down the hall, and to the bedroom. He manages to situate them both under the covers—despite Mika’s clinging and gangly limbs everywhere—and checks the time again: four fifteen in the morning.

“Good night, Mika,” Yuu whispers. Mika doesn’t speak, but the curl of a pinkie finger around his says enough.

Good night, Yuu-chan.