Chapter Text
A certain famously miserable man once wrote: All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
Fujiki Yuusaku often recalled this line when thinking about Revolver, or exchanging messages with a certain “friend” from the other side of the internet. At times, he found the world’s definitions of happiness both narrow and punitive—so much so that “happy people” felt like a sliver of hair-thin filament on a statistical pie chart, while the vast remainder—the entire, bloated mess of the spectrum—belonged squarely to the domain of the unhappy.
Those with similar good fortune gathered together to celebrate their luck. But those with similar misfortunes—well, they were drawn to each other with the magnetic stench of festering wounds. That person… Perhaps it was precisely because of the uncanny symmetry of their suffering that Yuusaku had classified him as “someone from the same world.” After all, not only had they endured the same types of misfortune, they had endured them in similar layers—misery heaped upon misery. Even among the teeming mass of the unfortunate, such a pairing felt like a statistical aberration. And maybe, just maybe, that’s why their reunion felt so inevitable. So fated. So unavoidable.
“… Eight billion people sounds like a lot, but if you mashed all of humanity into a single meatball, its diameter would only be about 1.06 kilometres. Not even enough to fill Shinjuku Central Park.”
Playmaker—rising livestream star and the latest darling of the algorithm—murmured this strange and vaguely horrifying fact during one of his rare facecam streams, all while carefully tuning the strings of his bass. Fortunately, his AI assistant, Ai, was there to smooth things over and steer the broadcast back on course.
“Ahaha~ What our dear Playmaker-sama means,” Ai chirped from its usual perch in the bottom-right corner of the screen, “is that in such a vast and sprawling world, the fact that all of us are here together in this tiny little stream… well, who’s to say whether that’s random coincidence or destined encounters?”
Today, Ai’s virtual avatar wore the form of a garishly dressed dandy in absurd theatrical costume—an aesthetic polar opposite of the young man in the webcam feed: clad in plain black, his face mostly concealed by a mask, fingers deftly coaxing harmony from the bass in his lap. Playmaker, in the flesh, radiated a cool silence, his gaze lingering on the instrument with a faraway, unsettled look.
“And that’s why, in today’s celebratory stream marking Playmaker’s one-million follower milestone, he’ll be performing Revolver’s latest chart-topper—Fate’s Prisoners—just for you!”
The audience’s reactions came in real-time, flashing across the stream in the form of live comments. Most of them were cheerful, celebratory:
“It’s been forever since Playmaker-sama played live music!”
“Bass enka, hell yeah! Quicker, quicker!”
“A rare facecam today, huh?”
“Still so good-looking even with a mask on.”
But the moment Revolver was mentioned, the mood shifted.
Negative comments started to flood in—those tied to “Kougami Ryouken,” as if the very mention of his name had broken some invisible dam.
“So you’re a fan of that kidnapper, huh? Unsubscribed.”
“K-surname ex-child star? How’s that guy still not cancelled, lol.”
“Inc3st freak makes a comeback—guess clout leeching really works.”
These weren’t isolated jabs. There were plenty of them. A tide of venom, masquerading as opinions.
Yuusaku’s gaze flicked briefly over the stream of hate. Stretching his arms under the guise of warming up before the performance, he let his thoughts wander—for just a moment—to whether he should start banning these users, or IP-blocking them, or perhaps, if he followed the breadcrumb trail far enough, hacking into their machines and frying their motherboards.
He could, after all.
But then again, by Playmaker’s personal code of conduct, that would be excessive. Intentionally harmful. And now wasn’t the time to dwell on such things anyway.
Fujiki Yuusaku inhaled deeply and turned his full attention back to the performance ahead.
…Because maybe—just maybe—that person was watching this stream too.
Perhaps it was because he rarely went outside, but Fujiki Yuusaku’s skin was pale, and his frame looked lean, almost fragile. Yet beneath that fragility were striking lines of muscle—wiry, taut—giving his arms a tension that, in performance, looked less like he was playing an instrument and more like he was wielding one.
Or rather: like he was fighting a duel, and the bass in his hands was a weapon of choice.
And this wasn’t just posturing. That oft-mocked cliché in musician circles—the bass as the instrument nobody hears—was nowhere to be found. Under Playmaker’s hands, it struck with a kind of pressure that could rattle a listener’s eardrums. Pulse-like, relentless. A force.
The original version of Fate’s Prisoners, composed by Revolver, leaned toward modern jazz—its structure broken and rhythmic, laced with choruses that flirted with tango. The main instruments had been piano, violin, and cello. But Playmaker’s cover blew that framework apart. He reworked it into something harder, heavier, more violent: a burst of metal rock with the bass at the centre, supported by guitar and drums pre-recorded before the stream and triggered by his AI assistant, Ai.
As always, Ai kept the stream light, hopping around the corner of the screen in a virtual costume styled like an over-the-top band member, miming wild riffs one moment and waving cheer pompoms the next. But even Ai’s antics couldn’t pull focus from the boy at the centre of the stage.
Playmaker’s fingers moved with unrelenting speed, plucking each string like it was burning. The sound was dark and powerful, almost like a vengeful spirit howling through the amplifier. Where Revolver’s version had been graceful and desolate, this interpretation was raw, explosive—yet somehow, in the clash between elegance and fury, there was resonance.
The ending of Fate’s Prisoners had been much discussed. The violin spiraled into a technical frenzy, then faltered, collapsing into the eerie high notes of a waterphone—only to be abruptly cut off. The music video that accompanied it seemed to take place deep underwater, but the visuals were so blurred that no one could tell whether the subject was drowning or swimming, ascending or sinking.
In the final moments, everything faded to blankness. The sound dissolved into static. But when the audio file was cleaned up and enhanced, a child’s voice could be heard—soft, familiar, unforgettable to Yuusaku:
“Welcome to Hell.”
This sort of horror-tinged single had become something of a trend in recent years. It likely explained the song’s success. Many dismissed the ending as a gimmick. But to Yuusaku—who shared a history with Kougami Ryouken unlike anyone else—it wasn’t a gimmick at all.
That was why he wanted to perform it his own way: to replace the violin’s lament with the roar of bass and drums. No more silence. No more sinking.
Don’t go to hell alone. Don’t go gently into that good night—
And since thoughts like these, so deeply personal, could never be said aloud, he poured them into sound instead.
Fujiki Yuusaku played with everything he had. He didn’t notice that he’d been clenching his jaw the entire time. He didn’t notice the way his fingers had nearly torn open on the vibrating strings. Sweat ran down from his brow and split on impact against the metal.
He was completely immersed, and it wasn’t until the final note ended—and with it, the echo of drums in his in-ear monitor—that he realised his body was failing. His breath was shallow. A high-pitched ringing drowned everything else. He wasn’t sure if he was about to faint.
When the lights flared back on, it made him squint. The residual hum in his ears felt like a ghost refusing to depart. In the disorientation that followed, for just a second, he thought he saw the person he’d wanted to confess to standing just beyond the lifeless lens of the camera.
“That felt completely different.”
“Amazing… Is he really just a teenager?”
“So cool! This version hits way harder.”
“Way better than the original, lol.”
“I was watching the whole time just waiting for the bass to explode.”
“\Playmaker-sama is so handsome/”
“God that performance was so hot T T”
—The comments, though peppered with the occasional off-colour joke or poorly timed gag, were overwhelmingly positive. Line after line of praise rolled across the screen, forming a wall of text dense enough to obscure the stream itself.
Fujiki Yuusaku lifted his gaze between breaths to scan the chat, giving a faint nod to show his thanks. Of course, it was far too much to hope that he would show up just like that. Still, Yuusaku couldn’t help but search—growing more impatient with each passing second—for any trace of the one he was truly hoping to see.
Until a certain pair of comments caught his eye:
“Not bad.”
“Though the ending didn’t really sit right with me.”
The screen-side Playmaker visibly faltered at those words, his mind now clearly pulled away from the performance. Across the city, behind another screen, Kougami Ryouken watched with amusement as Yuusaku leaned a little too close to his camera, those neon-green eyes narrowing in focus as if trying to extract more information from the scrolling text.
Ryouken’s smile was subtle but unmistakable. There was something in it—dry and knowing—as he watched the boy on screen squirm under the weight of barely-veiled criticism.
In the flood of follow-up reactions—
“Don’t pay attention to jerks like that!”
“Wait… is Playmaker the type who only sees negative comments? lol”
“Classic kid behaviour, lmao”
—Playmaker suddenly looked a little flustered. He averted his gaze from the camera and scratched absently at the tip of his hair, which stuck up in its usual defiant spikes. The soft flush on his fingers and ears had blurred together, all embarrassment and no place to hide it.
“Cute.”
Kougami Ryouken, who had posted those exact critiques mere moments earlier, now leaned back in his chair, chin propped lazily on the back of his hand, half-lidded eyes lingering on Yuusaku’s shy, retreating figure.
He repeated the words softly to himself—what the chat was already flooded with, and what he too, perhaps, believed more than he let on.
Notes:
If you’ve been spying on this fandom for long enough, you’d know that some of the negative comments towards certain characters literally exist irl, which is partially why I decided to write this fic - it brought me so much excitement and inspiration to see others hating on my favourite characters with such a burning passion.
But please keep this in mind: for all those slurs towards our beloved fictional boys, I, the author, never mean any of them, even though some people do.
Chapter Text
“Good work. You did your best again.”
After ending the stream, Fujiki Yuusaku packed up quickly, washed up, and—following his usual routine—began exchanging messages with a user who went by the name Varis. As always, the other party sent back a few simple words of encouragement.
They’d kept up this kind of exchange for a while now. The two had met while playing an online card game called LINK VRAINS. Normally, Yuusaku disliked forming any kind of bond with his opponents, but something about dueling this one had felt… different.
Crisp. In sync. As though they’d known each other far longer than a single match could explain. So when the other player sent him a friend request, Yuusaku had clicked “Accept” without thinking twice.
From there, they’d ended up playing together almost every night. It was only when the other started teasing him—“Don’t you ever sleep?”—that Yuusaku even realized how many hours had passed.
Sometimes, he found himself wishing the game would never end. That this moment—just the two of them, everything else gone quiet—might stretch on forever.
It had been a long time since Yuusaku had felt so completely immersed in something… since he’d lost track of the entire world outside of himself and the person on the other end of the connection.
“I want to do other things with you too.”
That was what Yuusaku had said, plainly, when he asked Varis for another way to keep in touch. And Varis had agreed, just as straightforwardly.
They’d been messaging ever since—not quite best friends, not exactly strangers either. They played games, watched the same films, read the same books, made idle conversation. It had become part of the rhythm of Yuusaku’s life. Something quiet, but familiar.
Just now, he’d sent a brief message: “Shift’s over.”
Out of a mix of laziness and paranoia, Yuusaku had never told Varis about his life as a livestreamer. He simply called it “my part-time job.”
People sometimes ended up sharing their secrets with strangers. Not the kind tied to names or faces—just small truths, easily untethered. Yuusaku even had once told Varis that he likely had some kind of social anxiety disorder, maybe even agoraphobia. He’d never gotten a formal diagnosis, but talking to people was hard, and public spaces made him panic.
A while back, with help from someone close to him, he’d managed to get an appointment with a psychologist, and the result was vague—just “general anxiety disorder”—and the medication prescribed was barely effective.
Varis seemed to understand. He never pried, only offered a simple check-in every time Yuusaku reported that work was done. Yuusaku accepted it in his usual way. It felt like Varis, too, carried something fragile beneath the surface. And when he needed support, Yuusaku did what he could in return.
This kind of mutual, unspoken understanding—giving and receiving help in equal measure—felt right to him.
“…I’m so tired.”
Fujiki Yuusaku typed out the message, the words a soft echo of the thoughts still lingering in his mind—specifically, the criticism he’d received during the stream. Usually, he was good at ignoring that kind of thing. But this time, it had struck too close to the core. The part being criticized was something into which he’d poured his whole heart. It was impossible not to take it personally.
And somehow, he couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe these comments had come from Revolver himself. Though of course, the more logical explanation was that the commenter was simply a fan of Revolver—or someone with very similar musical standards.
“Wanna play a few rounds to unwind?”
Naturally, Varis was suggesting a duel.
Yuusaku pictured their usual matches and replied matter-of-factly: “If I try to play relaxed, I’ll just lose to you.”
“Humble as ever, and yet you’re one of the strongest duelists I have ever met.”
There were no emojis, no extra flourishes, but Yuusaku could almost see the way Varis might be smiling, a faint smirk tugging at one corner of his mouth.
“Then how about a good stretch and off to bed? A little rest wouldn’t hurt.”
“I want you to stay with me for a while.”
It was already deep into the night when the stream had ended. By the time Yuusaku had finished tidying up, it was long past the hour when most people would even think of staying awake. But neither he nor Varis lived by those rules. They’d both come to understand that “late” and “early” meant very little to the other.
Varis had mentioned before that he was “trying to keep up with school and part-time work—real life matters, after all.” And yet, judging by how often he was online, it sometimes felt like he never logged off. Maybe his job was internet-based. Or maybe he’d evolved beyond sleep entirely, just to juggle online and offline life more efficiently.
Yuusaku, on the other hand, had never cared much for society’s rules about what should be done when. He did what he wanted, until exhaustion knocked him out—and then he slept until his body woke naturally. Or until the distinct notification chime from one of Revolver’s accounts jolted him awake.
It was a peculiar feeling.
One of his most cherished childhood memories was being roused from unconsciousness by a much younger Kougami Ryouken. And now, all these years later, it was Revolver-related updates that served as his morning alarm. He wasn’t sure whether that counted as a continuation of his feelings… or their gradual distortion.
But back to the matter of Varis.
Over time, as they spent more evenings playing games or talking, they’d come to understand one another’s habits. Neither of them thought it strange when Yuusaku asked Varis to stay up with him a little longer. It might’ve looked like a childish plea for attention to an outsider—but they understood that neither of them lived by the rules of ordinary society. So neither of them felt there was anything wrong with it.
“Then what would you like me to talk about?”
“Anything is fine. I just like the feeling of you being here.”
And so Varis spoke, in that usual offhand way of his, about the science fiction novels and films they both liked. Yuusaku responded just as casually, their conversation drifting from the idealistic futures imagined in early sci-fi to how far removed reality had turned out to be. Yet even as he talked, Yuusaku was quietly, meticulously making use of the very real tools of the modern world—technology and knowledge—to follow Revolver’s traces across the internet.
First: he knew how to use Exif data extractors to pull metadata from the photos Revolver’s accounts posted. The timestamps, the device model, even GPS coordinates—he could get it all, if it hadn’t been stripped.
Second: he had a longstanding fondness for GeoGuessr, the game where players guess real-world locations from photographs. Which meant that even if the image had no metadata, he could still deduce the place based on visible details—architecture, signage, vegetation, shadows. Tracing Revolver’s movements that way wasn’t impossible.
Third—and perhaps most telling—was the simple fact that Fujiki Yuusaku wanted to be found. He had been making deliberate moves to draw Kougami Ryouken’s attention, hoping the other would somehow notice him again. And if he did, if he began searching in return—then maybe, just maybe, they might meet again.
He wanted to see him. To unravel the secrets of their shared past, to explain the plans he held for the future, to express what he was feeling right now—
It sounded simple. But even Yuusaku understood just how far outside the bounds of “normal” his behaviour had drifted. That was why he had never told Varis any of this. This friendly stranger of a companion, so decent and grounded, might be frightened off by the truth. And who could blame him?
Anyone would be disturbed to hear that their friend—or perhaps, at best, only an online acquaintance—was this obsessed with another person. That he spent his daily life tracing that person’s face, their work, their movements, their entire existence, as though they were a riddle he had to solve before he could breathe.
And anyone would think: something must be wrong with this guy.
“…Anyway, looking back at stories like A.I. Artificial Intelligence or Her in the post-AI era just feels a little absurd,” Varis wrote, launching without warning into one of his occasional monologues. “It’s like—what humanity obsesses over as ‘non-human’ was never really about the non-human at all. We’re just obsessed with distorted reflections of ourselves. With gazing into mirrors, basically. Whether it’s falling for a fictional character, a virtual avatar, an idol, or some influencer—it’s all the same thing, isn’t it?”
He had a tendency to drift off like this, caught up in his own thoughts. He didn’t expect replies.
Yuususaku, for his part, imagined his voice—calm, slow, slightly hypnotic—as if each message were a kind of written ASMR. He usually listened with a quiet kind of respect, responding here and there, allowing the flow of thoughts to wash over him while he busied himself with his own private rituals.
But this time, he didn’t respond.
“You’re not listening, are you.”
There was no annoyance in the message. If anything, it was probably laced with a faint smile.
Just a few moments ago, Yuusaku had still been half-engaged, splitting his attention between their philosophical musings on artificial life and his own quiet work tracking Revolver’s digital footprints. But now, all of that had vanished from his mind, swept away by a single, staggering discovery:
He hadn’t noticed it during the stream—too absorbed in the performance—but Revolver had posted something. A photo. At a glance, it looked unremarkable.
But the location was unmistakable.
It was the café where Yuusaku had worked part-time.
And on the table—his usual table—sat a glass of lemon water, the same drink Yuusaku always used to order or make for himself.
Notes:
Varis is the official English name of Kougami Ryoken/Revolver, though I guess you guys probably already knew it.
Chapter Text
Yuusaku had once worked at Nagi Café, and to be honest, he’d always been fond of the place. Maybe it was because the owner, Shouichi Kusanagi, had a younger brother who also struggled with mental health issues—whatever the reason, he had always been unusually kind to Yuusaku. But perhaps because of that kindness, Yuusaku didn’t feel comfortable going back there now.
He’d already seen Revolver’s public schedule on his official site and knew that the shoot was happening somewhere nearby, so it wasn’t shocking in itself.
But the idea of him sitting down for tea at that café—the one Yuusaku had known like the back of his hand—was still disorienting. His mind flooded with possibilities.
The first possibility:
For a brief moment, some instinct deep inside him whispered—maybe, just maybe, the same way you’ve been watching him… he’s been watching you too.
Even the abyss, once stared into, is said to gaze back. And Revolver wasn’t the abyss. He was a person.
Still, Yuusaku refused to dwell on that thought. It was absurd. That way of thinking was how psychotic sasaengs and delusional fans ended up in psych wards. When you follow your idol so obsessively that you start believing your idol is secretly following you… there’s no coming back from that.
The second possibility:
At this point, Yuusaku was starting to question whether that so-called “Revolver’s private account” really belonged to Ryouken at all.
The account was set private, both the nickname and username were random strings of letters and numbers, and getting a follow request accepted by him was next to impossible—Yuusaku himself had used his carefully curated music lover persona to get accepted.
That account rarely posted anything other than brief, cryptic thoughts on music or theatre, along with the occasional food or drink snapshot from a restaurant or café.
Still, Yuusaku found something oddly familiar about that habit. Where had he seen it before? Wasn’t there a celebrity known for rating onion rings in her secret account as well?
The third possibility:
Well—Yuusaku had done his “research” on the film Revolver was currently shooting.
Of course, nothing detailed was available early on, but by watching Revolver’s interactions on his public account, Yuusaku had deduced who the director was. And from there, it hadn’t been hard to piece together that the project was a psychological horror film.
As for the plot—he wasn’t sure whether to call it classic or just plain old.
A group of high schoolers gets caught up in an urban legend.
To make a wish come true, they perform a forbidden ritual.
At dusk—逢魔時, the witching hour—something starts to go wrong.
It sounded like the setting from some old-school game like Twilight Syndrome.
Yuusaku found himself drifting: Actually, it’s not that different from what happened to me. Meeting someone like you at the edges of twilight… someone who wasn’t quite human.
Only, the experience that he had built so much of his own identity around—what he’d thought of as rare, profound, even sacred—might just look like a recycled plot device to everyone else.
That thought flickered across his mind for a moment.
But Yuusaku had never cared much about what others thought.
After a moment’s pause, he simply turned his attention back to his work—continuing, as always, with his little investigation.
By analyzing the photo Revolver posted on his private account, Fujiki Yuusaku deduced that it had been taken around six in the evening—likely during a break from filming.
With the help of social media APIs and web scraping tools, Yuusaku tracked down information on the director’s frequent collaborators, eventually locating a private account run by someone on the photography crew. There, as he’d hoped, he found confirmation that the movie would be filming at that same location for the next two weeks.
Of course, that didn’t necessarily mean Revolver would be on set every single day… Yuusaku had briefly considered the possibility of staking out the place, but the thought of returning to his former workplace without explanation weighed heavily on him. He had never properly told the café owner, Kusanagi Shouichi, why he’d disappeared so suddenly due to mental health issues. Was he supposed to show up now asking to work again? That would be absurd. Would he just end up quitting again without warning and causing more trouble?
Fortunately, fate seemed to throw him a bone. Two days into his decision to lay low and keep gathering infos, Revolver’s private account updated once again. This time, there was no sign of the lemon water Yuusaku had once ordered. Just a simple photo of a hot dog and coffee set. But the caption gave everything away:
“Thanks for the meal. Looking forward to the weekend’s special menu.”
That one line revealed a crucial piece of information.
Having worked part-time at Nagi Café, Yuusaku knew exactly what that “special weekend menu” referred to: on Sundays, the owner, Kusanagi Shouichi, would test new dishes he’d developed with his younger brother. These prototype items made up a limited-run menu only available on Sunday afternoons and evenings.
At that moment, Yuusaku felt almost giddy, like a student realizing he’d predicted an exam question perfectly. The rush of disbelief and near-ecstatic relief overwhelmed him.
He reached for his usual disguise—face mask, oversized hoodie, crossbody bag, windproof sunglasses, nitrile gloves. The goal wasn’t just anonymity, but to avoid leaving hair, fingerprints, and any traceable evidence.
After suiting up, Yuusaku caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and couldn’t help but think he looked exactly like a wanted man.
Still, even fully armed with his precautions—even knowing he looked far more like a danger to society than anyone else—Yuusaku froze as he reached the door, paralyzed by anxiety. He couldn’t help pulling out his phone and messaging the person on the other end of the internet he trusted most:
“I’m going out today…”
The ellipsis at the end showed his anxiety without further explanation.
He had long lived by the rule “don’t leave the apartment unless absolutely necessary.” He ordered delivery when he needed food, bought essentials online, and avoided going outside unless it was something like picking up his medication—a task that required his physical presence.
“Going out today, huh? That’s rare.”
Varis knew full well that today wasn’t one of his “medication” days. And he also knew that, once again, Yuusaku needed his support.
Yuusaku had told Varis long ago about his particular mental health issues—how going outside alone often triggered extreme distress, even full-blown panic attacks or fainting spells. What he appreciated was how Varis never pried, never asked invasive questions, never offered saccharine sympathy. He respected boundaries.
Instead, Varis had offered a simple suggestion:
“I’ve had similar experiences. What helped me back then was carrying something familiar from home—an ordinary item from my room. That way, it felt like a part of home came with me. In a sense, I wasn’t truly leaving it behind. It made things more bearable.”
It was a good idea.
Yuusaku had tried it a few times, and it worked—at least to some extent. It didn’t magically make going outside easy, but it gave him just enough courage to take that first step beyond his front door.
So today, he chose to carry a card young Kougami Ryouken had gifted him as his “protective charm” when heading out.
He’d also discovered something else: as long as he could exchange messages with Varis while outside, his anxiety would ease up. When he shared this with him, Varis naturally offered to help whenever he wasn’t too busy—saying Yuusaku could reach out anytime he needed company during an outing.
“Are you free today?”
“Not busy at the moment. I can keep you company. But I have to go to the hospital tomorrow.”
Although the reason remained unclear, Varis went to the hospital every few days. When Yuusaku first learned of this, he couldn’t help but worry. His mind jumped to the worst possible conclusions—that Varis had some serious illness, that his health was deteriorating, that one day they’d no longer be able to talk at all. That fear left him momentarily breathless.
But he also sensed that Varis valued his privacy and didn’t want to be asked about it. So he kept those questions to himself.
“Then I want to talk to you while you’re on your way tomorrow.”
It was a sudden suggestion, blurted out without much context—just a gut feeling that Varis seemed off whenever he had to go to the hospital.
But Varis turned him down right away.
“I appreciate it, but let’s not.”
Yuusaku typed out his thoughts directly in the chat:
“I just want to help you too.”
“Just log in to LINK VRAINS and duel with me when you have time. That’s enough. You don’t need to worry about the rest.”
It was clear Varis wanted to shut the conversation down—to draw the line firmly when it came to his personal life—and instead urged Yuusaku to focus on whatever he was supposed to be doing.
Not wanting to press further, Yuusaku changed the subject. Naturally, the focus of the conversation shifted back to himself.
“Where are you going? You sound in a rush.”
To that question, Yuusaku could only give a vague answer: “Going to see someone from the past.”
Fortunately, Varis didn’t press him. He simply replied:
“I see. I’m happy for you. Safe travels.”
The blessing of a friend, the possibility of seeing his “idol,” and the outside world—tense and full of hidden dangers. Fujiki Yuusaku wasn’t sure which of the three was making his cheeks feel so hot right now.
Back when he’d decided to rent an apartment in the bustling downtown area just to be closer to him, he’d thought it a sensible decision. In hindsight, maybe not so much. Rent swallowed nearly half his income, and the city’s noise often proved unbearable for someone dealing with PTSD and anxiety. The streets were packed with cars, the subway entrances teeming with people, and neon signs—like something out of a cyberpunk dystopia—flashed wild, lurid imagery. But rather than finding it aesthetically stimulating, Yuusaku only felt his senses growing raw from the overload.
He was forced to absorb a constant barrage of words and images invading his vision: new products, trending events, must-see media—each one screaming for attention, clamouring to prove how impossible it was to be left out.
Varis had once commented on this kind of thing with casual ease, saying it was called FOMO, the Fear Of Missing Out—a term coined to describe that very human tendency to chase after anything new, charming, or seemingly scarce. The moment you saw it, you felt an impulse to have it, to know it, to not miss out. And if you let that mindset lead you around by the nose, you’d quickly end up rushing into pointless events or buying things you didn’t need…
Yuusaku didn’t disagree. He understood the feeling. But it seemed he only ever experienced that kind of impulse when it came to things related to Revolver. Now, outside in the thick of it all, he felt like the central processor in his brain was about to fry from sheer information overload.
So he fled blindly into the crowd, like a fish swimming against the current, diving through the subway gate. Only while waiting for the next train did he finally remember to send Varis a message to let him know he was safe.
The soft “ding” of a reply was a relief. His breathing, erratic just moments before, began to settle.
“You made it?”
“That was fast. Your old friend must live nearby, huh?”
“…I only got to the station.”
Yuusaku boarded the train during the pause in their chat, cheeks burning from embarrassment at how even the short walk from his flat to the station had left him so winded. Thankfully, Varis—as always—knew just how to respond without making him feel worse.
“Well, that’s the beginner-level quest complete. Good work.”
He even sent a meme—a PlayStation trophy pop-up that reads: “Achievement unlocked: Out of the starter village.” Yuusaku couldn’t help but smile at the dry humour.
“Have you ever been to District L in D City?”
“Yeah, a few times. Why?”
“I live here, but I don’t go out much. And now I’m noticing how many people there really are… it’s making me nervous. You know I’m not good at social stuff, and I don’t like drawing attention.”
“Actually, you could look at it the opposite way—because there are so many people, the odds of having to talk to someone or being noticed go way down. There’s really no need to feel nervous.”
“That’s a fair point. But it’s also kind of depressing, isn’t it? I mean, I don’t care much what people think of me, but still…”
A wave of discomfort welled up in Yuusaku. He recalled how it had felt at one of Revolver’s concerts. The crowd had been so large it seemed as if their sheer mass might collapse the entire venue. Nearby, two TV presenters who looked like comedy show hosts kept up a ceaseless chatter. Yuusaku’s position only afforded him a view of the screens, not Revolver himself.
It had felt like his gaze was drowned out by the gaze of everyone around him—like his very existence was dissolving into the sea of other people’s presence. He couldn’t understand how anyone could believe that kind of encounter brought them closer to someone they admired. To him, it felt the opposite—it only made the link between him and “Kougami Ryouken” more distant, more fragile. Almost… frightening.
“But isn’t that exactly what makes a crowded and noisy place like this kind of nice? Not because you can blend in—but precisely because you can’t. No one cares about anyone else, so in that sense, you become no one at all.”
Varis really did seem like the type who took his privacy and anonymity seriously. Though Yuusaku was also careful about guarding his personal information, he couldn’t help but marvel at just how cautious this online friend was. Let alone anything concrete about his real-life profession, age, or appearance—Varis had never even revealed his face in the game. He had always presented himself as a masked figure… Was that habit connected to this way of thinking?
“…”
Lost in thought, Yuusaku let his mind drift—an eye-catching billboard flashed by in the dark tunnel, gone in an instant. On it, Revolver wore fashion-forward clothing, his eyes rimmed in deep blue eyeliner, cobalt accessories shimmering at his ears. He looked more like a character rendered in a game engine than a real human being.
Before his brain could even register “so pretty” or “so handsome,” Yuusaku was struck first by the thought: “So unfamiliar.”
Even he was a little startled by his own reaction.
Was it the uncanny valley effect caused by all the retouching in commercial photos… or had he simply become aware of how far the current Revolver had drifted from the Kougami Ryouken he’d once known in childhood?
Chapter 4
Summary:
*The piece of jewelry mentioned in this chapter belongs to the “Love Me, Love Me Not” collection of Stephen Webster. I just thought it really suited Ryouken. www
Chapter Text
To shake off that thought, Fujiki Yuusaku started looking up the details of the advertisement—just like any fan too obsessed with their idol—eager to blame his moment of unease on something simpler and easier to understand. Thankfully, it didn’t take long to find what he was looking for: the earrings’ concept seemed to be “Love Me, Love Me Not”—a five-petaled flower made of dark blue opal, split neatly in two. The vibrant jewel stood out sharply against Revolver’s pale, wheat-toned skin, almost as if the jewellery had more life to it than the one wearing it.
A five-petaled flower? That doesn’t feel like a very clever choice for a love-divination motif. If I already know there are five petals, and I want the answer to be “they love me,” I just need to start the game with that. The outcome would always be the same as the first line—predictable from the start.
To match the bright jewellery being advertised, the poster had boosted the depth and saturation of Revolver’s eyes—now a vivid blue quite unlike his natural shade, which leaned more toward silvery grey.
Back when he was a child, Ryouken had been slightly sensitive to light, probably due to the lack of pigment in his irises. When they played together, Yuusaku would sometimes catch him squinting faintly in the sun, and he’d always loved the way that expression made it look as if Ryouken were smiling.
If he ever did smile, those usually sharp features would soften, his eyebrows and eyes curving ever so gently.
Yuusaku had always liked Ryouken’s smile, ever since they were little. Maybe it was just his own foolish fantasy as a fan—but he couldn’t help but feel that Ryouken, when he smiled, really was different from the rest of the time…
And every time he thought of that expression, a feeling he couldn’t quite name would quietly rise up in his chest.
A bitter first love that lingers on the tongue like oversteeped tea—if what they had back then even counted as “first love” at all.
Tea bags, once brewed three times, begin to lose their flavour until barely a trace of the original tea remains.
Yuusaku had always remembered this little fact—because he liked the number three, because he’d once worked part-time at Nagi Café, and because there’d been a period in his life when he was so drained of energy that only strong coffee and dark tea could keep him awake.
Maybe revisiting memories worked the same way as brewing tea. You steep the same moment again and again, drawing emotion from it for comfort, over and over, until it runs dry. Eventually, there’s nothing left but pale water—flat, flavourless, unrecognisable.
And because he couldn’t stand the thought of letting this one connection—this bond that mattered so much—fade away and dissolve into the colourless sea of discarded memories, he’d come here, chasing after it with reckless desperation.
But would he really show up?
And if he didn’t—then what?
And if he did—what on earth was he supposed to do?
Yuusaku trusted his own feelings implicitly. He’d made up his mind: he would make their drifting paths cross again. But real life wasn’t a shounen manga with a clean, inevitable resolution. If the other party had already moved on, if he no longer cared about what had happened between them in the past—
Then to him, Yuusaku would be nothing more than an intrusive stranger. A stalker. A nuisance.
The thought left Yuusaku struggling to breathe. Following Varis’s earlier advice, he checked his pulse and body temperature and realised he was in the middle of another anxiety episode.
But he couldn’t afford to take medication right now—sedatives dulled his concentration, made him drowsy, numbed his emotions. That wouldn’t do.
So, after a brief hesitation, he turned once again to Varis, hoping that messaging the other would help him regain a sense of calm.
And just then, the café door swung open.
Revolver—Kougami Ryouken—had arrived, just as Yuusaku had hoped.
He stood at the entrance of the café, briskly closing his umbrella and removing the rain-slicked coat from his shoulders, revealing what was underneath: a kind of uniform. It looked like a school uniform, but the cut and design didn’t match any of the local high schools. It was fitted, formal, almost too serious—black with hints of deep red, giving it a sombre air.
Probably a costume for filming. His current movie project, after all, featured a group of high schoolers as the main cast in a horror film.
Unfortunately, Yuusaku didn’t know much about the plot—just that it supposedly involved some kind of urban legend about wish-making and fox spirits.
He really does suit a school uniform—Fujiki Yuusaku thought to himself, uncertain whether the flutter in his chest came more from nerves or something closer to infatuation.
Probably the latter, if he was being honest—after all, as he watched the older boy, he couldn’t help but think: I wish we could go to high school together.
If that incident hadn’t happened, maybe such a thing wouldn’t have been entirely impossible.
But now it was nothing more than a dreamer’s delusion.
Kougami Ryouken took a laptop out of his backpack and, after setting it up, turned it on and began typing—he seemed to be working on some kind of assignment.
A privacy filter coated his screen, so even though Yuusaku sat only a few seats away, he couldn’t make out what was on it or guess exactly what Ryouken was doing.
Driven by curiosity, Yuusaku instinctively leaned forward, trying to get a better look—but was startled by the sudden ring of his phone.
He hung up quickly, but the ringtone—a piece of music composed by Revolver—was recognisable enough that even Ryouken turned his head to look at him.
It wasn’t the charismatic smile he wore when performing.
It wasn’t the gentle look from Yuusaku’s memories, when he’d shown concern as Yuusaku suffered.
It was something else altogether: a cold, expressionless scan of Yuusaku from head to toe—an indifferent, detached, perhaps even clinical gaze.
And in that moment, Yuusaku realised just how much of a stranger he’d become.
The look lasted only a few seconds.
But it was enough to make Yuusaku question his appearance, to wonder whether he looked desperate or pitiful—to flush in shame at the fact that he’d shown up here like some unstable threat to the person who had once meant so much to him.
He could only sit there, silently, and watch as Ryouken turned back to his laptop, eyes no longer acknowledging his presence.
Only then did Yuusaku, still reeling, turn back to his phone.
Even before he opened the messaging app, he already knew who had called:
“Did you meet your friend? You haven’t replied in a while. I was worried.”
“Varis, now is really not a good time to call.”
He sent the reply with a flash of irritation—but as soon as he did, guilt followed.
After all, he had been the one to ask Varis to stay with him today. And Varis was probably just worried.
“Sorry—are you mad because you’re on a date?”
The teasing message left Yuusaku with a strange mixture of emotions: a low thrum of frustration, yes—but also something oddly warm.
For just a moment, he let himself wish it were a date with Revolver.
Not that it was a rare feeling. Probably thousands of other people had had the same thought. And he also knew—being a somewhat successful streamer himself—that there were likely people out there who felt that way about him.
Everything was strange in this internet era. So many people secretly longed to spend the rest of their lives with someone they’d never met in person.
And really, how different was he from those obsessive fans?
After all, he and Ryouken had only known each other briefly, and only as children.
After thinking for a moment, Yuusaku replied:
“I don’t think… It counts as a date. We haven’t seen each other in ages, and it’s kind of awkward between us.”
Awkward?
More like: we’re complete strangers now.
“So… the meeting isn’t going very well.”
“Then why not just leave?”
It was true that being in the same room as this unfamiliar version of Revolver was a little uncomfortable.
But if he left now, who knew when he might get another chance to see him again?
Travelling all this way—spending hours mentally and physically preparing for this—had already taken its toll.
Yuusaku didn’t want to let all that effort go to waste just because he couldn’t handle the pressure.
“…”
“Honestly… we don’t even have a way to talk anymore.”
“But… I still don’t want to give up on the chance of reconnecting. I don’t want to walk away so easily from a place where he exists.”
He sent those messages in a low, regretful mood. The moment they were gone, he felt he had overstepped.
But it was too late to take them back now.
“…Hang in there.”
As always, Varis offered gentle encouragement:
“And if it gets too much, it’s okay to walk away for now… well, not ‘walk away’—let’s call it a strategic retreat.”
“…”
Yuusaku sat in silence, the anxiety creeping up on him again until he was nearly in the throes of another panic attack.
Hands trembling, he kept typing:
“I really want to talk to him. But just thinking about doing it makes me panic—I can’t breathe… Even now, my hands are still shaking.”
Varis responded with calm practicality:
“Try the 4-7-8 breathing technique: breathe in through your nose for 4 seconds, hold for 7, and exhale slowly for 8. Repeat that a few times.”
Breaking the loop of panic with a structured breathing pattern—Yuusaku followed the advice, and little by little, his breath began to calm.
He couldn’t help but feel grateful.
Varis really was reliable.
He only wondered if this fluency came from knowledge—or from personal experience.
“Also, the human brain is a strange and powerful thing. If you give it the right orders, your body really will obey them. If you’re hiccupping, just tell yourself ‘I have lungs’—the hiccups will stop.
Same with panic: just remind yourself, ‘I’m only scared. There’s no real danger here. It’s okay to calm down.’ And it will help.”
“Okay…”
“Lastly—try not to cling to illusions. During a panic attack, what matters most is anchoring yourself in the real world. Let go of unnecessary imagination.”
Is he telling me to give up on chasing that person…?
Yuusaku silently pictured the childhood version of Kougami Ryouken comforting him, imagined that warm voice gently repeating Varis’s advice:
“First, come back to the present. Second, come back to reality. Third, come back into your body. Don’t float away… Yuusaku.”
But even if he knew he shouldn’t obsess over Revolver like this, Yuusaku still reached for his “talisman”—the card Kougami had given him when they were children.
As long as he held that card—this token of the bond they once shared—he could still believe…
Like a disaster survivor gripping the rope ladder dropped from a helicopter, Yuusaku felt a wave of calm wash over him again.
Even so—even he, someone terrible at socialising, knew better than to say something like “Thinking about my idol helped me calm down” to the online friend who had just talked him through a panic attack.
“Thank you, I—”
He was in the middle of typing when Revolver’s phone rang.
Immediately, Yuusaku froze, his eyes locking on the older boy, straining to catch every word.
“…Got it. So the shoot location has changed, right?”
Revolver quietly repeated the address and jotted it down almost offhandedly. Naturally, Yuusaku didn’t let the opportunity go to waste, but made his notes as well.
Call it what you will—“a thief never walks away empty-handed”?
Though he still hadn’t managed to say a single word to Kougami Ryouken by the time he left the café, at least he’d come away with one thing:
A new clue about where Revolver would likely be filming in the near future.
“…”
His nerves were still too stirred by what had just happened—too tense, too restless—for him to keep chatting with Varis. As soon as Kougami Ryouken left Nagi Café, Yuusaku got up and made his way to the seat the older boy had just occupied, checking whether anything might have been left behind.
The glass, emptied of lemon water, had settled into a temperature that was neither cold nor warm. Yuusaku was familiar with it. He knew that particular drink was always served ice-cold, but would gradually lose its chill as it sat. When two things came into contact, they would exchange heat, until they slowly reached the same temperature—thermal equilibrium, that was the term.
Without really thinking, he touched the rim of the glass with his fingertip.
And then, quietly, the thought came to him: if the glass was this warm, then his lips must have been too.
Even now—thinking about things he only half-remembered from science class, when he barely even went to school.
“Yuusaku!?”
Just as he was lost in thought, a familiar voice called out from behind him. He didn’t need to turn around to know who it was—of course it was Kusanagi Shouichi, the café owner who had once looked after him so kindly.
“It’s so good to see you again. I’ve been worried about you… how have you been?”
“…I’ve been doing fine.”
A perfunctory answer, nothing more. In truth, he’d been holed up in a rented apartment, living with his days and nights reversed, spending all the money he made as a streamer on games and chasing after his idol. Even the rare moments he went out and talked to people were driven by his desire to follow someone he couldn’t forget… Even Yuusaku himself found it hard to sincerely describe that life as “doing fine.”
Surely the lie was obvious—he watched Kusanagi as that thought crossed his mind.
Maybe Kusanagi had misunderstood the situation, and thought Yuusaku had come here hoping to ask for help. He seemed worried, but unsure how to start, sighing before saying, “If you need anything, call me again, okay? Here’s my new contact.”
From the drawer behind the counter, Kusanagi took out a business card, and along with it, an envelope—thick, clearly prepared in advance—and handed both to the boy standing before him.
Yuusaku didn’t need to guess what was inside. Of course it was money.
He tried to refuse several times, but in the end, yielded under Kusanagi’s insistence.
“Sorry. I know you probably think it’s none of my business,” the café owner said, a little sheepishly. “But you know, Jin went through something similar once… so I know how it is. I know how much help you might need.”
Kusanagi’s younger brother, Jin, had struggled with serious mental health issues in the past, to the point that he had to take a long leave from school. Lately, things had been improving—though he was still shy around strangers, and able to go to school, he’d started helping out at the café again.
It was during the period when Kusanagi had been taking care of Jin full-time that Yuusaku, who had been living with them and working at Nagi Café, quietly slipped away. So now, seeing him again, Kusanagi couldn’t help but feel responsible—as if it was his failure to look after Yuusaku properly that had led him to this rootless, solitary life.
He didn’t yet know that Yuusaku had since become a fairly well-known online streamer—enough to live comfortably, at least for a while. So all he could think of was how to help this troubled boy who still carried the signs of psychological struggle, and offering financial aid seemed the only thing he could do.
“I don’t need it.” Compared to him, Jin needed the money and the support more. So even as Yuusaku reluctantly accepted the envelope, he still tried to refuse it with a trace of stubbornness.
“You will,” Kusanagi said, his tone gentle but steady. “I’ve seen what it was like with Jin, so I get it—this stuff’s tough, and it costs more than people think just to start feeling okay again. Just take it, Yuusaku. I mean it. You’re like a little brother to me.”
“…”
There was nothing left to say. Pushing it any further would be pointless.
Still, Kusanagi was only in his twenties himself. Running the café was already a struggle, not to mention supporting Jin. And now, this too? The thought made Yuusaku feel a little ashamed, so he bowed his head and thanked him—seriously, sincerely.
I won’t spend this money. Not a single yen. And one day, I’ll repay this favour tenfold. A hundredfold.
He made that silent vow to himself as he walked home from the café.
There was a strange urge to cry. But because of the illness, and the medication and therapy he’d been through for it, it had been a long time since any tears actually came.
The heaviness made him instinctively want to message Varis again, but since who knows when, his status had been changed to “Busy.”
After Yuusaku sent the first message, all he got in reply was: “Sorry—something urgent came up at work. I need to take care of it. Can you wait for me a bit?”
So on the train ride home, he sighed and, with some reluctance, opened the AI chatbot named Ai.
“Ai, can you tell me a joke?”
As an artificial intelligence program, Ai didn’t mind how long he needed distracting, or how many times he wanted to be entertained. In every sense, it was actually a pretty good conversation partner—eloquent, talkative, always energetic, always cheerful.
If not for the fact that it wasn’t a real person, there really wasn’t anything to complain about.
But its jokes didn’t cheer him up. He couldn’t tell whether it was because he was in a state where nothing felt funny, or because talking to an AI for comfort just felt too much like speaking into an echo chamber.
ILoveTrunks on Chapter 3 Fri 30 May 2025 08:42PM UTC
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Talglicht on Chapter 3 Fri 30 May 2025 10:23PM UTC
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ILoveTrunks on Chapter 3 Sat 31 May 2025 12:23AM UTC
Last Edited Sat 31 May 2025 12:24AM UTC
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ILoveTrunks on Chapter 3 Wed 18 Jun 2025 08:29PM UTC
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Talglicht on Chapter 3 Thu 19 Jun 2025 12:12AM UTC
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ILoveTrunks on Chapter 3 Thu 19 Jun 2025 01:35AM UTC
Last Edited Thu 19 Jun 2025 04:12AM UTC
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Talglicht on Chapter 3 Mon 23 Jun 2025 06:17AM UTC
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ILoveTrunks on Chapter 4 Mon 23 Jun 2025 08:28AM UTC
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ILoveTrunks on Chapter 4 Sat 19 Jul 2025 10:01PM UTC
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Talglicht on Chapter 4 Mon 04 Aug 2025 10:29PM UTC
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ILoveTrunks on Chapter 4 Tue 05 Aug 2025 08:16AM UTC
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