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Only thorns digging into his skin, the sneaking vines, adorned with buds of roses wrapped around his entire body, sprouting from the ground and walls of the prison cell he was encased in.
The floor underneath covered in a mixture of blood and petals that have fallen off the restraints.
Another one silently dropping into the red pool as Wataru tugged desperately, biting his bottom lip to prevent a pained whimper from escaping. If he showed any sign of weakness, if he gave in to his despair, only his tormentor would win.
All of a sudden, the sound of his labored breathing has become overshadowed by a song, echoing through the cell.
Freeze. All his body could do was freeze, at the familiar, gentle sound, then his muscles would ease, as if the physical pain had never existed.
That is until he heard a second voice, together with the previous. A beautiful harmony, and yet Wataru’s heart spread black all along the roses. Churning, twisting around him, but he didn’t feel the pain as much as he felt his soul shattering.
Disorder, chaos, his body jerked and struggled like he could still separate the two voices, like he could prevent them from being one, but the roses now turned pitch black, with thorns increasing in number, the vines covered his mouth so he could no longer even make a sound.
Not make a sound, while he had to watch the show. He, who he found so precious, getting farther and farther away while he could not follow. He made it. He made it out of the dark, out of this place. Carving a life for himself, one that no longer included him.
He didn’t want to hold him back, no, he simply wished to follow. Step out into the light, too, and stand next to him proud, on the shining, dazzling stage, as equals, as one.
A silent cry left his lips, muffled by the vines covering his mouth, something akin to that person’s name, with one last effort lunging towards the light, but he was yanked back, back into the dark, no longer able to see, not even a glimpse of that light.
The tears that streamed down his bloodied face were the only sign of life left as he lay in the empty abyss, without another attempt to fight his restraints.
°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･❀˖ °
From the dazzling stage, he could barely see. The reflectors shining in his eyes, yet he squinted to find the seat, the 23rd seat. Find it empty.
As the other voice prompted him to sing, Tomoya, for a moment only, hesitated.
No matter what, he’d always find a way. So otherworldly, even if it was impossible, by some sort of magic, he would make it.
So why wasn’t he here? The person he was doing this for. The person he wanted to prove himself to the most.
His guiding mentor and mysterious existence, someone so out of his reach and yet so close to him.
He wanted him to see. Hear. Feel his performance dedicated to him.
What was the point if he didn’t even see?!
But Tomoya’s starting anger dissipated to worry, immobilizing him on stage.
He would’ve let him know.
If he couldn’t make it.
A brief glance to his fellow actors and they all knew. Even with his face behind a mask, they knew what he was thinking by the glow of his eyes.
A shake of a head.
They had to finish the performance. He couldn’t escape now.
But his gut told the opposite. He knew how it ends. He may have known him better than anyone else.
“I’m sorry.”
With those words, he threw the mask off his face, the thud that it landed with on the creaky wood of the stage freezing the audience in their seats.
But he wasn’t frozen. His legs moved on their own, rushing off the stage.
Off the stage, but where?
Instead of the staff, the dressing room, he was greeted by a dark, gaping emptiness. But as he reached into it, the darkness let up around him. With that brief light, he wasn’t afraid to rush in, rush right in, with his heart as the only guide of where to go.
Time wasn’t real in these corridors. Tomoya could have been rushing forward for hours or only a few minutes, it would all be the same.
But he finally saw a figure, the figure he’d been so desperately looking for.
Almost lifeless. Laying on the ground. A sleeping beauty, waiting for a kiss to awaken.
“Hibiki-senpai!”
One, two steps in his direction, but he could manage no more as vines sneaked around his ankles, with no origin other than the abyss surrounding them.
He was so close.
If he could reach far enough, he could almost touch him.
So he did. He desperately stretched out his hand, his palm the source of light that wished to reach him.
He stood still, but it felt as if they were getting further from one another. A moment ago he could almost grasp the end of his braid, but now he was almost out of his sight.
Yet he continued to reach.
“Please!”
His voice was hoarse, yelling at the top of his lungs, but the abyss had muted him, reducing his voice to a whisper.
And as Wataru’s body faded out of sight, the ground beneath Tomoya opened and like he was sucked into the endless bottom of the darkness, he free-fell until there was solid ground underneath him again.
It wasn’t a violent fall. He didn’t hit the ground. It was as if it just appeared and he was no longer falling.
As he tried to stand up once more and rush ahead, he was pulled back, and now the rose vines tangled around him all the same. In the same cell, he was held, as Wataru once was.
A cruel joke, this had to be.
He was almost there!
He could’ve reached him.
And though it may have been doomed from the beginning, he was not one to give up on things.
Struggle, until you make it. Struggle desperately for your goal, even if it seems out of reach.
And who was more out of reach than him?
As the image of him being pulled further and further from his echoed in his mind, his heart twisted on itself, like it was trying to tear itself apart.
Why?!
The answer was easy.
He loved him.
The brief glimpses of his soul he managed to catch, were even more dazzling than the mask he wore.
It was his goal.
His heart and his soul.
So why?
Who was it who locked him here?
Who did these thorns belong to?
“Show yourself!”
He yelled into the abyss, tearing a hand out of the vines’ grip and reaching out into the darkness in front of him.
And the light from his palm illuminated a familiar blue.
As he lifted his head, he came face to face, with the very person he’s tried to reach before. The very person who was taken away right from his grasp.
Wataru’s face was covered by a mask, but not even that could hide the sorrow with which he gazed down at the boy.
“Tomoya-kun.”
As he spoke his name, he kneeled.
“I’m sorry.”
“Why..?” Was all Tomoya could manage to whisper. “Why do you keep playing with me? Why do you keep-” He shook his head. “No. Why do you keep hurting?”
No response. Wataru simply continued to kneel there, now with his gaze on the floor. Fixated on the puddle, the mixture of blood and rose, left in the cell as a reminder of the previous occupant.
“Let me go!”
“If I let you go, where will you go?”
Tomoya hung his head at the question, then lifted it right back up to stand his gaze.
“To find you.”
Silence.
“I won’t give up now! Even if you’re going to hold me back forever, one day I’ll reach you!”
“Tomoya-kun. The path is treacherous. Filled with nothing, but darkness and pain. I am simply trying to stop you, before you make your way somewhere you’ll regret..”
“It doesn’t have to be! Stop hurting yourself because you’re afraid! I already saw, I already started, so why does it matter? I’m not going to stop and… Don’t you see that your fear is now hurting me too?”
Wataru’s gaze flickered to Tomoya’s wrist, the one still reaching out towards him, the light so perfectly illuminating the bloody scars that remained of his struggle against his thorns.
“You… You can’t keep hiding in the dark forever! I’ll tear away that mask myself!” With another violent motion, he launched himself forward and snatched the mask from his face, thus exposing the tears underneath. He threw it aside, chest heaving from the exerted effort, but he never once looked away.
Wataru just sat there, body frozen in shock, though he stood Tomoya’s gaze, it was as if he was looking right past him. “Why?”
“I don’t know! There doesn’t have to be a reason! What I saw that day made me fall in love with you, that’s all I know! But what I also know is that… that… Until my life ends, I’ll keep trying to make you hear me!”
Like the roses were under his control, as Wataru reached out a hand towards Tomoya, the vines retreated, back from where they came.
Without waiting a single second, Tomoya lunged forward again as soon as he was free, his arms wrapped tight around Wataru, and like he became the vines themselves, his fingers dug into Wataru’s back in a desperate hold.
Finally, he could embrace him.
And Wataru shattered. One sob, followed by another.
As he allowed himself to embrace Tomoya as well, the cold floor of the cell became something warmer and next time his eyes opened, the darkness had dissipated.
°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･❀˖ °
He was lying on a bed. With Tomoya cuddled into his side.
Shaken, stuck between reality and whatever he had just experienced, he lay frozen.
But as Tomoya nuzzled his chest, with his soft, little smile, Wataru’s rapid heartbeat began to ease.
He turned to his side and embraced him, close and tight, a smile making its way to his own lips as well.
This boy…
As he gazed at Tomoya, his fingertips tracing along his soft cheek, tears once again gathered in his eyes.
“You really had defied not only me but fate itself. Congratulations, Tomoya-kun.”
And though all he got in response was an incomprehensible, sleepy mumble, that was more than enough for him.
Enough to allow him to drift back off to sleep.