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first meeting
Izumi is way too early to class.
Because it’s his first day at a new school, he budgeted extra time to find his way around the building, but the layout is more straight-forward than he had anticipated, and now he’s sitting alone in an empty classroom, a whole fifteen minutes before class is supposed to begin.
He pulls out his phone to pass the time, scrolling mindlessly through Yumenosaki Academy’s website. He did plenty of research before applying for the prestigious high school, but doubts still plague his mind, the decision to deviate from his initial intended career path still being one he isn’t entirely confident in. He reads through the list of opportunities and benefits afforded to the students at the school (which he has practically memorized), but the fact that their teacher still hasn’t arrived in the classroom with less than ten minutes to go until the start of class puts a sliver of doubt at the validity of those claims.
Students slowly begin filtering in, many of them in the middle of conversations with others as they walk through the doors of the classroom. As the seats fill up, the desks around Izumi remain empty until there’s no choice but for people to sit in them.
Izumi doesn’t care. He’s not looking for social acceptance from anyone.
The bell rings to signify the start of class, and their teacher walks in right as the ringing stops.
“I showed up right on time, so I can’t get in trouble,” the teacher says under his breath, but Izumi’s seated near the front of the classroom so he can hear him clearly. He doesn’t look the slightest bit apologetic.
In an apathetic manner, the teacher begins to go over the class expectations— he pulls up a syllabus that looks like it had been written the night before, and Izumi struggles to follow along, the teacher’s speech being nonsensical and extremely boring.
Izumi’s seconds away from simply taking out a book from his bag to read when the door slams open and a ginger-haired boy bursts through the doors, his school uniform disheveled.
“Am I late?” The boy asks, seemingly oblivious to the fact that all eyes in the classroom are trained on him.
The teacher blinks. “Y- yeah, I guess.”
The boy slumps over in disappointment, and Izumi strangely finds himself drawn to how animated the boy is. “I thought I had made it on time! Sorry, sensei , it won’t happen again!”
The teacher looks to be at a loss for words, silently watching the boy take the only open seat left in the classroom— the seat to Izumi’s right. After a moment’s hesitation, he resumes his entry for the competition of most boring syllabus read possible, and Izumi, once again, feels his eyelids growing heavy.
“Hey,” a voice whispers— or rather, tries to whisper. The boy from earlier taps Izumi’s desk to get his attention, and Izumi glances over at him half-heartedly, not responding. “Do you have a pen and paper?”
Izumi glances at the teacher, who’s completely facing the board as he reads off the syllabus. “What do you need a pen and paper for? There’s no way you want to take notes on this .”
The boy laughs too loudly, and Izumi winces when he sees the teacher’s head tilt in their direction. It doesn’t seem to concern him too much, as he continues reading off the policies regarding classroom structure (likely taken directly from the school-wide handbook).
“I have inspiration for a new song, but I have nowhere to write it down,” the boy whispers. “Please, come on! You seem like the kind of overly prepared guy who carries paper and pens around all the time.”
Izumi does in fact have both those items in his school bag, but he resents that assumption. To avoid making a larger commotion, he rolls his eyes and pulls out the requested items to hand to the boy. “I want the pen back,” he says.
“You got it!” The boy mock salutes, and begins writing furiously.
Izumi never gets that pen back.
first rehearsal
Izumi tightens his grip on his school bag, standing outside a rehearsal room. He opens his email to check once again that yes, this is the correct room number. His heart beats with anticipation, and his hand trembles slightly when he reaches out for the doorknob.
He expects to see people warming up within the room, but when the door slides open, he’s greeted with—
Nothing.
The room is completely empty, and Izumi feels his blood run cold at the thought of either a) he did get the wrong room or b) no one showed up.
Izumi walks in, the dread slowly setting after realizing in that yes, the room is correct and yes, no one showed up for rehearsal.
He had done his research, and Backgammon was a unit with a long-standing history at the school, so he assumed that if he joined a group with that kind of prestige, Izumi would be able to have a solid foundation for his time at Yumenosaki. But seeing as there’s not a single person in the room, it appears that Izumi is wrong.
Izumi takes a moment to stand in the empty room— observing the flawless wooden floor, the dust collecting on the chairs, the cloth covering the mirrors at the end of the room— and comes to the realization that this prestigious school is that only in name.
However, he can’t, and won’t , go back on this commitment he made to the place, so he sets his school bag down in a corner and begins stretching. He at least won’t let this room reservation go to waste.
Minutes pass in silence.
Izumi has gone through every stretch he can think of, but he’s at a loss for what to do next. He surveys his surroundings, trying to see if there’s an item somewhere that will give him an idea, but as he takes a step forward, the door to the practice room slams open.
“Sorry, I’m late!” A lively voice rings out from the doorframe, and Izumi turns around sharply to be met with the boy from his class.
“Are you ever on time to anything?” Izumi scoffs.
The boy’s eyes widen. “Oh, you’re the guy from class!”
“The class I’ve only seen you in twice,” Izumi replies. “Do you still have my pen, at least?”
“Nope! I lost it a couple days back!”
“You could sound at least a little sorry about it,” Izumi says, rolling his eyes.
The boy walks into the room, turning around in circles. “Where’s everybody else? I thought this is where Backgammon’s rehearsals are.”
Izumi’s face tightens. “No one showed up.”
The boy turns to Izumi, surprise written on his face. “Really? Maybe they were all busy.”
“All 95 of them? All busy?” Izumi’s voice is filled with disdain, and he doesn’t care to hold back the bite in his words.
The boy sets down his bag next to Izumi’s. “At least the two of us are here! We can do something together.”
“Like what? We don’t have any music to rehearse with.”
The boy has a self-satisfied smirk on his face. “I’ve got us covered,” he says, pulling out a laptop from his bag. “I recently wrote an EDM song, we can totally dance to it!”
Izumi watches the boy pull up the song with apprehension. He calls himself a composer, but is his music good ? He only just entered high school, there’s no way his music would actually be good enough to dance to.
Izumi is very quickly proven wrong.
The song has no words, but the beat and use of synths makes for a very catchy tune, and Izumi finds himself subconsciously tapping his foot to the music. After the piece ends, with a flourish of drums echoing in the silence, the boy turns to Izumi. “So, what do you think? Is it something we can rehearse with?”
Izumi nods. “Yeah, it’ll do.” It’s a gross understatement, but Izumi won’t admit that just yet.
The boy smiles brightly. “What’s your name, by the way? I’m Tsukinaga Leo.”
Izumi reaches out a hand to pull Leo up to his feet.
“I’m Sena Izumi.”
first performance
Leo’s hair is glowing under the spotlight, and Izumi finds it impossible to take his eyes off him.
They’re performing in a group of six, members from Backgammon who showed up to just enough rehearsals to know the choreography. The other four members are clumsy, and Izumi has to adjust his movements several times so as to not crash into them. Normally, this would irritate Izumi to no end, but every time he looks out into the audience and sees the numbers in the crowd, all there watching him , the irritation melts off his skin and is replaced with with a feeling of wonderment, of amazement, that he’s able to stand on this stage and have the opportunity to demand their attention.
Leo is basking in the attention just as much as he is. They’re almost competing on stage, fighting for the audience’s attention and adoration, and Izumi forgets that there’s other people on stage besides the two of them.
However, Izumi finds himself falling for it too, Leo’s charisma capturing his attention in the same way as their fans, and he has to catch himself from being lost in the same way, not letting himself falling back into Leo’s shadow.
This competition between them is exhilarating , and Izumi wouldn’t have it any other way.
Leo catches Izumi’s eye and winks, and Izumi feels a heat rise to his cheeks that he can’t blame on the exertion of dancing.
first fight
“I’m tired of this, Sena!” Leo pushes Izumi aside and makes to leave the practice room, and Izumi hurriedly latches onto Leo’s wrist, holding him back.
“You can’t just leave like that!” Izumi exclaims with irritation bleeding out from every word. “Are you just going to quit the second something gets hard?”
Leo turns around to face Izumi, his face red from anger. “So what , do you want me to just run myself into the ground trying to please you?”
Izumi blinks, his grip loosening on Leo’s wrist at the biting words. “I obviously don’t want you to do that!”
“Why? Isn’t that all I’m here for, Sena?” Leo laughs bitterly. “I promised I’d help your dreams come true, and now I’m taking that away from you!”
Izumi feels the anger ebbing away from him, like the waves of the ocean outside of Leo’s house that they would often frequent. “Leo-kun,” he says quietly, not knowing what else to say.
“I’m going home,” Leo says sharply.
Izumi watches the door to their rehearsal room slam shut, and feels a deep ache in his chest at the ringing silence.
meeting (again)
Izumi sits on a bench, watching the Arno River flow gently by him. The waves sparkle in the evening sun and reflect onto the nearby houses, giving the neighborhood an almost ethereal glow.
He checks his watch. 7:12pm .
Izumi rolls his eyes. Of course he’s late.
As if on cue, he hears a person sit down at his side with a thump , unceremoniously dropping a bag on the ground below the bench. “I’m late, aren’t I?”
Izumi looks to his side, sees Leo with an apologetic smile on his face. His eyes glitter with the reflection of the river’s light, and Izumi almost forgets to respond, entranced.
“Of course you are,” he finally says. “You’re never going to be on time for anything, are you?”