Chapter Text
ACT ONE: STELLAR NEBULA
Half of all stars may develop in binary systems—those in which two stars are born in each other’s gravitational embrace and go through life orbiting a common center of mass. For these stars, the presence of a close-by companion can have a profound influence on their evolution.
Rogue Planet:
n; a celestial body not tied to any star.
Rogue planets may form in isolation, and never latch onto a planetary system.
Alternative, a rogue planet may form within a planetary system,
from which they are later expelled.
☆☆☆
For exactly three days, the audition team for Sanrensaidanga challenges Yokohama’s performing artists to give it their all. The largest show of its kind the nation has ever seen, to score a place in San-ren-sai is to score a future beneath stage lights. A pedestal for the best of the best, a way to secure a career.
Chuuya’s way out of this godforsaken city.
The pinned post announcing the dates and locations of auditions for the year, like a tour in and of itself that travels the country before ending back in Yokohama, stares up from the confines of Chuuya’s phone as he flattens his chest to the ground in a middle split. Both legs are propped up on thick yoga blocks, giving a deeper stretch as he flexes his feet. He rocks back gently, forcing his legs to stay perpendicular when all the muscles and tendons of his hips want nothing more than to snap back down into place.
His phone beeps, a calendar notification warning him his audition starts in two hours. Three would be preferable. Time to properly stretch, to run through his performance another five, ten, times, to make himself presentable. Talent or not, the flare, the ability to perform, is what makes or breaks an audition. Chuuya has known several gymnasts and circus artists alike who threw their all into a San-ren-sai audition just to be told they brought nothing new to the stage.
Chuuya isn’t like that.
He refuses to be like that.
He knows how to perform, how to get people to watch him. How to get people to want to watch him.
His music cuts out as his two minute alarm dings, and he swipes it off as he pulls out of the split, sitting up and gently guiding his legs in front of him. He folds in half over a partial butterfly stretch, shifting his weight from side to side until it feels like his hips have settled back in place.
He wastes no time moving on from legs to back, running through stretches and warm ups before rocking up into a chest stand. He hugs his ankles, pulling his legs closer to his body, holding his feet down with one arm while the other hand fiddles with his phone, switching songs and quadruple checking the audition location. Auditions are being held in a large circus gym by the water, a 20 minute bus ride from here, even further from his own gym. He’s already in his show make up just to cut down on time, he needs enough leeway in case the busses run late or explode or any other manner of delay.
He lets go of his feet and straightens his legs, a transition which forces his hips back and unbends his spine a little, leaving his straightened legs a whole foot in the air. With a scowl he grabs for the edges of his leggings, trying to pull his legs further down to little avail. He still holds the pose as best he can until his timer goes off. He immediately unfolds at the noise to roll over and fold forwards into a pike, going down, then back up, just as slow, repeating until he no longer feels like his vertebrae are flattening into each other.
Though he could perform as a contortionist in a pinch, it has never been a main area of interest for him, preferring the rush of weightlessness to the comfort of confinement. A waste of natural talent, his first coach used to say.
Chuuya never thought there was anything natural to it.
If it was natural, he wouldn’t spend every free minute in the gym, running routines until the blisters on his hands burst and bled. The tops of his feet are still rope burned, they have been for the passed month, and he rubs a cooling lotion over the irritated abrasions while checking the bus schedule.
He can make it to his gym in 15 minutes if he leaves soon.
His stretches end with shoulders, tugging and twisting and swinging circles of all sizes in all directions, then his wrists, rolled out and stretched and warmed up all the way to his fingertips, bringing his routine to a full circle. It’s easiest that way, like moving down through his body and back up again, always ending with his arms and hands right before he gets on the bar.
He checks his phone, cursing quietly at the time. He tosses a water bottle into his bag alongside a phone charger and two protein bars, then pulls on the two thickest sweatshirts he owns. He’s downstairs and yanking on his sneakers, nearly free, when he’s interrupted.
“So I take it you finished that essay? Or do you plan on writing it hanging upside down?” His mom leans against the doorway into the living room, arms crossed over her chest.
Chuuya’s finger slips from the back of his sneaker as he glares at the floor. He allows himself exactly three seconds to test the durability of his molars before he fixes his shoe and replies.
“I’m catching a bus,” is the only response Chuuya dignifies her with, anything else would come out harsher than he really means. He doesn’t have time for a spat.
“I’ll be back around nine.” He wrenches the door open, escaping out into the cold.
Chuuya’s leggings do little against the winter chill. He pulls up the hoods of both sweatshirts, trying to conserve some warmth. He lost his coat privileges two weeks ago, something about spending too much time at the gym, and he hasn’t gotten them back yet. Because he’s still spending too much time at the gym. He has to. If he doesn’t then he won’t get this audition and if he doesn’t get this audition then that’s the same thing as losing—the same thing as quitting. And Chuuya is not a quitter. He said he was going to join Sanrensaidanga and he will. He said he was going to get the fuck out of this city and he is going to get the fuck out of this city.
He’s had a bag packed for weeks.
Even if his audition fails—and it won’t—but even if it does, even if San-ren-sai dances on and leaves him in the strike marks, he’s still leaving. To where? It doesn’t matter. Anywhere. Maybe he’ll run all the way back to France, try his hand in Paris.
The bus pulls up in his field of view, and Chuuya fumbles to pull his bus pass from his sweatshirt pocket. He nearly drops his keys in the process and can’t stop himself from swearing loud enough the driver glances in his direction. His heart thrums in his veins as he boards, collapsing into the first available seat. He just needs to get to the gym, get up in the air and run through his act a few times, then everything will be fine. Provided the gym is empty, that is.
The gym is not empty.
Chuuya nearly spins on his heel and leaves at the shock of silver hair flashing from the far side of the room. Instead, he just grits his teeth and tugs his shoes off with more force than necessary.
Ignore it and it’ll go away. Right?
No one has taken down his trapeze from how he rigged it yesterday. The silks are supposed to be the only permanently rigged aerials, but he’s been at the gym so frequently the past month he managed to negotiate keeping his trapeze up, on the condition he doesn’t complain if someone else swaps it out for a different apparatus when he’s not around.
The floor mats are stored on the far side of the gym, where his lingering problems are spotting each other on a low tightrope. He drags a few of the mats out from under the silks instead. It’s not like anyone’s using them.
He doesn’t go out of his way to drop the mats extra loudly along the path of his trapeze, but he doesn’t try to hide his actions either. If they hear him, they hear him.
With everything prepped and the rigging double checked, Chuuya wastes no time inverting into a knee hang to do a few sit ups. Most of his warm up was completed at home, trying to cut down time wasted in the gym for the exact reason why he’s avoiding that tightrope, but his little door frame pull up bar broke a few days ago, old as it was. Though he’s not entirely convinced his mom didn’t have something to do with it.
Chuuya is finishing up his ab set, and daring to think himself lucky, when the universe proves he shouldn’t waste time believing in something as trivial as luck.
“Chuuya! Hey!” Shirase’s voice stabs through Chuuya’s brain like a tuning fork.
Chuuya puts one earbud in, hoping Shirase will get the message before he puts in the second.
He doesn’t.
“Chuuya—man—I was hoping I’d run into you. I heard you’ve been here every day, don’t know how the hell I kept missing you.” His voice is too bright, too cheerful, too expectant. Too much like it was a year prior, before it turned sour and cold and accusatory.
Chuuya climbs up to sit on the bar, choosing to swallow his tongue and glare.
Shirase at least has the decency to look uncomfortable.
“I… uh… I heard you’re auditioning for San… I just wanted to say good luck. I… that’s gotta be insane, man. I know you’re good enough though, you always were.”
The words sound polite, unassuming on the surface, but Chuuya is gripping the bar hard enough to white his knuckles. It’s a twisted reprise of Yuan’s words from last year, the bitterness still there, though hidden behind pleasantries.
You always were.
As in, you’re too good.
As in, you’re making us look—
“Yuan and I, we were thinking of trying out. But our new flier isn’t up for it yet, so…”
Chuuya can hear the accusation layered in there. The not-so-subtle plea for Chuuya to return to his supposed rightful place among them. The urge to windmill and kick Shirase in the face is growing nearly unavoidable.
“Yeah? Well maybe you shouldn’t have run me out.” Chuuya’s voice is clipped and low, harsh in the back of his throat.
“We didn’t mean anything by it,” Shirase protests. “I’m serious! Yuan… she felt awful for months after. She kept trying to contact you, but it would never go through.”
“Why the fuck would I keep in touch with people who don’t fucking like me?”
Shirase cringes at Chuuya’s choice of words, finally stepping away.
Chuuya can’t place the look on Shirase’s face. If he were a fool, he might call it hurt, regret, even. But he knows better, knows that’s impossible. Knows how good Shirase is at pretending he cares.
“Cut the fucking act.” Chuuya’s voice is sharp enough to shred the tense silence. He puts his other earbud in, climbing to his feet so he can start rocking motion into the trapeze.
“We wanted to apologize!” Shirase calls over the blare of Chuuya’s headphones.
Yeah fucking right.
Chuuya says nothing.
☆☆☆
There’s a clock ticking somewhere to the left.
Dazai’s right leg bounces exactly triple-time to it.
Auditions are halfway through, and all Dazai can focus on is the folds of the curtains above his head, the heavy material draping like a willow, ready to drop, to suffocate him. God, he hopes it suffocates him.
His gaze wanders, restless, around the large gym. It still resembles the theater it once was, with a stage and lights and a sound booth way in the back, though all the floor seats have been ripped out and replaced with a spring floor, the space dotted with a myriad of apparatuses and pre-rigged… things. Not that Dazai cares enough to know the names of all of them. They’re all basically the same anyway. Things you balance on, things you swing from, things you throw in the air. In as many variations as possible. Like sports. Ugh.
Two of the crew are setting up for the next audition, something with a flying hoola-hoop thing, while the audition team shares notes on the latest performance, leaving Dazai to spin around in his desk chair and see how close he can roll to the edge of the stage before Odasaku tells him to sit still.
The judging table set up on the stage, overlooking the gym floor, holds three occupants, two of whom Dazai knows, one he has never seen before auditions started. As the stage director for this upcoming show, Fukuzawa’s notes are full of comments on the auditionee’s technical skill, their talent when it comes to completing the tricks asked of them.
As one of the show writers, responsible for the themes, the tone, the flow of the show, Odasaku has been focusing more on the potential artists’ visual flare, what they would bring to the performance itself. If their character, their style, could even find a place among the acts regardless of their physical abilities.
Dazai listens in on their quiet debate, Odasaku arguing in favor of the latest act, but Fukuzawa claiming their demonstration was intermediate at best.
It’s an endless cycle. Flare versus raw talent, raw talent versus passion. The conversation dawdles through Dazai’s brain like a buzz of fruit flies, arresting his attention while simultaneously giving him nothing concrete enough to grab on to. He wishes he had a Switch, a Gameboy, a rubber band. Anything to occupy his hands other than the edges of his fresh, thick bandages.
Dazai rolls back towards the judging table, crashing into it hard enough to warrant a stern look from all three occupants.
“I’m bored,” he whines in answer to the unasked question, slumping forward with his arms draped over the table like he plans on melting through it.
“You have those math sheets to work on, don’t you?” Odasaku doesn’t look up from where he’s scribbling neat edits to his bullet pointed notes.
“I don’t wanna do math! It makes my head hurt.” Dazai likes to think he’s perfected the art of pouting, but Odasaku remains unphased.
“If you’re struggling, I can help walk you through it after auditions.”
And that’s not the reaction Dazai was looking for at all. So he tries again.
“I’m not struggling and I don’t want help! I want to be entertained! I’m bored!”
Odasaku finally puts down his pen, meeting Dazai’s petulant glare with an unbothered gaze, like the ocean on a windless day. “What do you actually want, Dazai?”
And Dazai sighs, low and soft, because that’s not a question easily answered. He wants attention. He wants to disappear. He wants to roll off the edge of the stage. He wants to lie down and never move again. He wants to eat every sugary confection in the city just to hate himself for it. He wants everyone to love him and he wants to never see anyone ever again and he wants to die.
He doesn’t want to do anything.
He doesn’t want to be here and he doesn’t want to do anything at all and he wants to die.
But he can’t just say that. Even if words would allow it, even if Odasaku could just know, implicitly, read his mind and know, it’s not something to be shared, a key to the very reason why he has the lock in the first place.
So he grins like he’s the sun instead of a black hole and says, “To annoy you!”
His voice lilts with a cheer that drips, honey-thick and cloyingly sweet, from his tongue, near tangible. It feels like he’s dragging his limbs through molasses as he springs lightly from his chair, whirls it around him and shoves it towards the table, taking off with a cackle as it collides with its target.
He ducks into the stage left wing and slips back into the shadows. The curtains here aren’t pulled up, he can reach out and touch their thick, tingling velvet texture. He clenches a fistful in his hand and is nearly overtaken with the desire to wrap himself up in the heavy material, cocoon himself away from everything and everyone.
He slumps down to the ground, limbs still leaden, near numb now that he has nothing to distract himself with, though somehow still buzzing with an energy he can’t shake. He knows the clinical jargon well.
Psychomotor agitation.
Psychomotor retardation.
Psychomotor shut the hell up.
He hears the next audition run through. And the next. And the next. And by the time he no longer feels like he’s sinking through the floor, there are only three auditions left.
Dazai drags himself to his feet between performances and collapses in his desk chair that’s been moved off to the side, by the wing he occupies. It’s a middle ground. Still enclosed, separate, to feed the part of him that’s still eternally falling inwards, backwards, through himself and into oblivion, but close enough to the action to watch it all happen, to engage if he feels like it. The wheels of the desk chair are an extra benefit; rolling back and forth between that threshold is easier than walking.
From his position, he can see the next auditionee walk in and—his interest is finally piqued.
Dazai is positive the casting call said 15 and up. He would know, he wrote the damn thing.
Dazai is also positive this kid is a middle schooler. There’s no way he clears five feet, and just by looking at him Dazai can tell he’s got the emotional volatility of a 7th grader.
Dazai rolls his chair out a little further onto the stage, leaning forward to catch the kid’s introduction. His eyes latch onto the kid’s hair, bright orange and brushing his shoulders in choppy, uneven locks, as though growing out a hand-done shorter cut. The stage lights dance in his eyes, glittering like diamonds. In fact, his whole being seems to sparkle under the lights, a sunset over the ocean. It’s like he’s leaning into the light, bathing in it, wrapping it around himself. No, like the light is wrapping itself around him, embracing him, welcoming him home.
Dazai hates him on principle.
“Chuuya Nakahara?” Fukuzawa confirms, glancing down at the resume in front of him. All audition sign ups include both a CV and a recent physical alongside the regular introductory information.
The boy nods and bows. “Just Chuuya is fine.” His voice is deeper than Dazai expected, and rough, too, like he’s speaking through his teeth. Dazai briefly wonders how much he spends on dental a year, what with all the jaw clenching.
“Alright, Chuuya, would you like to introduce yourself?” Odasaku asks, in that voice he uses when speaking to kids. In that voice he uses when speaking to Dazai.
Dazai has the sudden, violent fantasy of shoving his stupid desk chair off the stage hard enough to knock this kid out.
Chuuya straightens, hands folded politely in front of him in a way that suggests he’s not used to such a stance. He’s wearing gloves, Dazai notices. Thin, matte black gloves that encase his whole hands down to his wrist, they aren’t even fingerless.
Dazai picks at the edges of his bandages.
“My name is Chuuya Nakahara, I’m 15 and a first year at Yokohama International. I’m an aerialist, primarily trapeze, both flying and swinging. But I also have a background in power tumbling and contortion.”
God, Dazai wants to fucking throw up. There’s no way this kid is the same age as him and there’s no way he’s already this decorated.
“I was a trapeze flier for the Tokai no Mure Junior Division,” Chuuya continues.
“Was?” Fukuzawa picks up on the past tense, inquiring with a tilt of his head.
“I had better things to do.” For a moment, Chuuya’s shaky façade of politeness cracks, his words a snarl as his eyes flash.
Dazai leans further forward, rolling slightly with the motion. He was right, there’s far, far more to Chuuya than his appearance would first suggest. He seems entirely insufferable.
The audition continues from the introduction, and Dazai watches, intrigued, as Chuuya shows off the basic skill set required of all those auditioning, tying himself into knots and flipping around on the floor in complicated sets Dazai can’t track the pattern of. Fukuzawa must like whatever he sees in Chuuya, because he keeps Chuuya’s demonstration going longer than most of the other auditions they’ve seen today.
Dazai recognizes showmanship when he sees it, it’s his entire damn job after all, and he hates the sinking, stone-set realization that Chuuya is giving the audition team exactly what they’re looking for. He hasn’t even gotten to his actual performance yet, still just doing acrobatic front-back-corkscrew-whatevers on the floor at Fukuzawa’s whim, and yet the way his deep red leotard seems to glow under the stage lights is mesmerizing, showing off every contour of his body, every delicate arch of his limbs. He barely touches the floor when he moves, like he’s hovering through each trick, like gravity forgot about him all together.
When the basic demonstration is over, Chuuya doesn’t even have the decency to look remotely tired, merely settling back into that unpracticed polite stance and awaiting his next instructions. Dazai’s fantasy of knocking him out with his desk chair blossoms into beheading him with it.
The crew lowers the trapeze they put up between auditions on the far side of the orchestra pit, Dazai gets a rush of satisfaction watching them lower it more than they usually do.
Once Fukuzawa gives Chuuya the okay to start, Chuuya taps the trapeze once to judge its height, its weight, its motion, and pulls his gloves off one finger at a time as he walks backwards. He sets his gloves neatly on the edge of the floor and then—
Dazai blinks and Chuuya and the trapeze are gone, swinging to stage left faster than they should, faster than that other trapeze performance four hours ago. He watches Chuuya hang from his knees as he swings back, then take what has to be the most complicated route possible to sit up on the bar, and that stone-set realization engraves itself in metal.
Chuuya is mad.
Murderous, even. A storm burns through him so violently he’s sure his skin blends in with his leotard.
His teeth are clenched so hard he’s going to break one. Again. It wouldn’t be the first time and it certainly wouldn’t be the last but who fucking cares.
The wrap around the trapeze is either brand new or upkept by some neurotic caretaker. It’s almost unnerving, the grip of it, so unlike the worn, fraying wrap of the bars at his own gym. It doesn’t matter though. He can use anything and he can doanything and Shirase won’t be able to say a fucking thing about it.
The world is a blur on either side of him and his trapeze, but it’s better that way. The world doesn’t matter. What matters is the weightlessness at the height of his swing, where his hands leave the bar and he twists himself into a pirouette before catching the bar again in a sweep as it all starts to drop. And he’s barreling back the other way, breathing through the headrush as he inverts briefly into an underbar split before pushing into a single leg birdcage, with his front foot braced on the bar like he plans on fucking leaping off it and he does . The swing peaks again and he throws himself into the void—like he thinks Shirase is still waiting to catch him, like he thinks anyone is waiting to catch him besides his own two hands—pushing off the bar in a way he really shouldn’t because he’s pushing the bar away from himself but he doesn’t fucking care because if he’s good enough—and he is good enough—he can flip back around and catch it before it falls too far.
We wanted to apologize.
His hands slam back into place, blisters ripping with the friction as he pumps his whole body forward to keep his momentum going. Always always always forward, faster. If he stops moving he will plateau and he can’t have that.
He can’t.
His mind is a whirlwind of drops and wraps as he careens through the air, each movement a punch. This isn’t static trapeze or dance trapeze, this is war and he is going to win it and if Shirase ever dares show his face again he will break it.
If they wanted to keep him, they would have kept him.
Pullover and balance for a second, pose, don’t fall—the bar digging into bruised hips—ouch—now up and invert and crochet into a manta ray and pose and unwrap and drop into a side angel—his ankle slams into the bar—you’re losing moment, force out, sweep, again, now let go and flip and catch an ankle hang—holy fuck the tops of his feet are already rope burned enough—single arm and side straddle now snap out of it and and roll up—
She felt awful for months.
The trapeze is rigged on a swivel. Use it. Spin. Faster.
If they wanted to keep him—
Ankle hang to gain momentum, now up and crochet to a sparrow keep it tight to spin faster and—fuck that’s way too fast—he can’t fucking see—wrap a split until you stop spinning—his ears are ringing. Roll a pegasus and pose and drop down into a gazelle, now down and sweep and you call that a pirouette?
We didn’t mean anything by it.
—they would have fucking kept him.
His next pirouette has an extra full rotation.
Dazai can’t keep up with Chuuya’s perpetual motion.
He realizes he was wrong, before, about Chuuya’s basic demonstration. He thought he was weightless then, but that was nothing. That was less than nothing.
Now, it’s less like gravity forgot about him and more like he put gravity on a leash and made it beg to keep him. He’s a blur of twisting poses, only staying still long enough to show off the shape before he’s throwing himself into the next thing, into flips and leaps and catches. The rigging clangs and jolts with each move, protesting under his momentum. At one point, he catches himself in some ankle hang with such velocity Dazai hears him hit the bar from all the way up stage.
It seems to go on forever.
It seems to end as fast as it started.
By the time Chuuya is letting himself swing to a stop—dismounting in some type of black flip that he lands solidly, arms up, like a gymnast—Dazai almost feels dizzy.
Chuuya bows to the judging table, and it doesn’t take long for them to make a final note and send him on his way.
Dazai watches him go like he’s the only thing in the world worth watching.
The door to the gym closes like a gunshot.
☆☆☆
The last two auditions are more uneventful. Dazai retreats further back into the wings, more focused on slowly spinning in circles than watching the performances. And all too soon Odasaku is fetching him from his hiding place.
“C’mon, kid,” he says, grabbing the arm of Dazai’s chair and pulling him back out into the stage lights. “What’ve you been doing back here this whole time?”
Dazai bounces to his feet with a grin. “I found a centipede and I tried to catch it but it was too fast! And then I found a different centipede and caught that one, but I had to let it go.” He slumps with an exaggerated sigh at that.
Odasaku chuckles good-naturedly, reaching out to ruffle Dazai’s hair. Dazai dodges backwards, landing back in the chair as he does so. He rolls out of Odasaku’s range, a giddy adrenaline biting through his brain fog when Odasaku takes two steps after him.
Sparks shoot through Dazai’s brain and behind his eyes, flashing up and down his spine with a sudden shiver of energy, like he’s just been shocked. Dazai deftly evades Odasaku’s attempts to catch him, a trembling giggle bubbling past his lips before he can stop it.
To his credit, Odasaku humors Dazai for longer than Dazai expected, chasing him around the stage as Dazai tries to roll out of reach in his desk chair, spinning and dragging his feet along the ground to maneuver. For the first time all day, he doesn’t have to force the smile that grows across his face, painful, almost, like it’s splitting him in half, threatening to rip his jaw clean off. The chair catches on the edge of a curtain and topples, sending Dazai sprawling to the floor. That does nothing to damper the euphoria still sparkling under his skin, and he just lays where he landed, cackling breathlessly, slightly manic.
Oda pauses in his advance, letting Dazai laugh it out as he’s consumed by whatever brief energy rush had started the game of tag. Oda isn’t entirely sure what prompts the sudden dips and peaks of Dazai’s mood, seemingly random, prone to change at a moment’s notice, but they’re often all-consuming. Like he’s drowning in whatever he’s feeling before he can orient himself enough to swallow it all back down, or before it fades of its own accord, leaving him hollow and haunted once again.
Dazai’s laughing fit ends abruptly as he catches sight of the crew taking down the trapeze—the last audition had also been trapeze, but without all the swinging and flare of Chuuya’s act—Chuuya—Dazai needs to keep Chuuya far, far away from the circus. He saw how Fukuzawa and Odasaku were watching his performance, he knows what their notes say.
Dazai should be excited to have someone his own age joining the circus.
But Chuuya joining just means Dazai will lose everything he’s carefully collected over the past year.
This isn’t the first show he’s watched get set up, he knows how much work goes into it, how busy Odasaku will be in the coming months. It’s nothing new. But it feels different this time, dangerous, like he’s slid out onto a half-frozen lake, waiting for one wrong move to plunge him into an icy embrace. Like this time, he won’t get Odasaku back.
Dazai exhales slowly, shakily, shielding his uncovered eye from the light as he feels something form in the back of his throat just to rapidly fall inwards, crashing through his heart and lungs and all his organs, a dark blue chill dripping through him.
Something heavy, cool, smooth is suddenly dropped over him, blocking out the offending light and collecting his wayward soul, cradling it back into the confines of his body. It muffles the world for a few minutes, and Dazai revels in the void it provides, taking the precious minutes allotted to recollect himself before Odasaku lifts the edge of his tan trench coat to meet his gaze. Odasaku is crouched in front of him, face carefully neutral as he studies Dazai’s blank expression.
Dazai’s visible eye is back to being a black hole, all warmth from five minutes prior faded, swallowed into cold depths.
“C’mon, kid,” he says, a repeat of earlier, like maybe he can reset the whole affair. “Everyone is leaving, it’s time to go. You can rest in the hotel.”
Dazai stares through him for a moment, before he finally blinks slowly and hums once to show he heard. Oda gives him time to properly process the upcoming steps, gather the energy to complete them, until Dazai finally pushes himself up, shedding Oda’s coat like snakeskin. His hair is mused from rolling around on the floor, and Oda can’t help himself from reaching out to fix it, gently untangling Dazai’s bangs from where they got caught in his eye cover.
Dazai freezes at the sudden touch, Odasaku’s hands like frostbite and a campfire at the same time. Something to lean into, something to run from. Something to lose lose lose because he’s going to lose Odasaku.
He shivers as a wave of misery springs forward, spiking sharply just to spite him before finally draining away, taking everything else with it.
He’s going to lose Odasaku.
Whatever.
He’s lost everyone else. It’s not like Odasaku should be any different, Dazai’s not sure why he thought he would be.
☆☆☆
Chuuya trudges back through the cold. A light snow had begun to fall some time while he was in the theater, and now it collects in the folds of his sweatshirts’ hoods, on the tops of his shoes. It’s colder than it was before, and he’s convinced busses take longer to show up the lower the temperature is.
Every muscle in his body aches, and the lining of his gloves stings against his freshly opened blisters. He’s fucking starving, and tired, and cold cold cold. He’s damn lucky he’s got a good immune system. And the sweatshirts. The sweatshirts help. Last year he spent all of January in one of Shirase’s old winter coats after his mom left him with nothing but t-shirts and his uniform blazer. He can’t rely on Shirase for proper winter attire now, though. All he can do is hope his gloves and sweatshirts and the leggings over his leotard do enough.
His foot skids on a patch of ice and he damn near falls into a split. The only downside of his flexibility, there’s nothing stopping his legs once they slide out from under him.
He catches himself with a shuddering breath, clamping his bottom lip between his teeth as he skirts around the ice. It’s too fucking cold. And his head hurts. And everything hurts. And he’s pretty sure if he blinks for too long he’ll just fucking pass out right there in the snow.
The bus stop isn’t even that far, but it still feels like he’s been walking for a week by the time his house comes into view. It’s an unimpressive thing, two stories but small and weathered, leaning. Chipped paint and uneven front steps, no yard to speak of, just a cracked driveway and a small patch of packed dirt. One living room window is still boarded up from the time he put his fist through it.
He shuts the squeaking front door with a sigh, kicking his shoes off wherever and peeling his top sweatshirt off, shaking snow all over the entryway. He takes a moment to lean back against the door, eyes closed. God, he wouldn’t mind just falling asleep like this, standing or sitting, it doesn’t matter.
“I thought you said you’d be back before nine.” At his mom’s voice, he cracks his eyes open, eyelids anvil heavy and half frozen shut. She’s once again standing in the entrance to the living room, though he can see the glow of the kitchen lights behind her. She must have been waiting up for him.
“Nine, 9:30, same difference,” he mumbles.
“It’s 10pm.” Her voice is quiet, but sharp, like a thin blade between his fourth and fifth ribs.
“Bus was late.” He needs to stand up and get to his room. He needs to take his damn leotard off.
“You could’ve let me know.”
“I did.”
“When?” She sounds too smug, like she’s caught him in a lie.
“I texted you.” Chuuya finally pushes himself off the door, dragging his hand through his uneven hair as he gathers the will to brave the staircase. He shouldn’t have stopped to rest. Inertia and all that.
“You know I put my phone away at nine.” His mom follows him to the stairs.
“Then why didn’t you check it if you were so fucking worried about me?”
That shuts her up long enough for Chuuya to make his escape, skipping steps up to his room despite the protest of his muscles. He slots the crossbar in place as soon as his door latches shut, then drops to the floor to pull out his menagerie of muscle rollers from beneath his bed, massaging his aching limbs while running through his usual cool down routine. He spends extra time on his wrists and shoulders.
With his mom still downstairs, dinner is out of the question. He makes do with another two protein bars that he chokes down with what’s left in his water bottle.
But even done with that, rest has to wait further still, as he picks himself up off the floor to shower. He spends so long under the spray, just watching the remains of his makeup run down the drain in rivers of black and red, that by the time he’s finally collapsing into bed it’s 11:38.
And yet even with his heavy limbs and aching eyes, sleep eludes him.
There was little reaction to his audition.
He let himself hope, when his technical demonstration went beyond what was listed in the audition requirements, that maybe he was doing something right, maybe they wanted to see just how far he could go.
And then they dismissed him just like that.
He hasn’t felt that good about a performance in at least a year, and they had nothing to say but to thank him and show him the fucking door.
He rolls to his side, eyes landing on the duffle bag half buried in his closet. A week’s worth of clothes, a spare phone charger and two fully charged power banks, a roll of cash hidden inside a collection of pens, his passport. A small first aid kit, his back up supply of meds, some non-perishables and a reusable water bottle, a toothbrush.
It’s not enough for anything long term, but he doesn’t need long term he just needs to leave. Whether that’s with Sanrensaidanga or not, it doesn’t matter. He’ll figure it out if he has to. He always does.