The door shuts with a resounding thunk, and then they’re alone.
Tenn’s first thought is, Damn it, now we have to push that stupid heavy door open again.
His second is, Wait, that door only opens with a key.
His third, Riku vocalises in time with it. “We don’t have the key.”
They stare at each other in disbelief as the realisation of their situation creeps up on Tenn ever so slowly.
This is an old unused storage room in a building they were asked to help tidy up by Takanashi Production’s director. It’s clean and relatively spacious, there’s light but not much in the way of furniture, and the door had been held open by a doorstopper that he even remarked upon not looking particularly trustworthy. It was the only one they had, after all, and there’s only one master key for most of the building, including this room. Said key currently being on Ousaka Sougo, who, if everyone kept to the schedule, should be out shopping right now, not to return until he’s worked his way down the ridiculously long list of items to gather that IDOLiSH7’s manager had handed him. He had a fleeting thought, when they were instructed on what to do with this room, that maybe it would be better to hand the key to someone else, but didn’t say anything, too preoccupied with gauging whether or not this would be too much of a strain on Riku. Everything happened pretty quickly.
Which means …
“We’re stuck,” he states matter-of-factly.
There’s not really much else to do. Panicking won’t help them, nor will shouting for someone to get them out. Phone reception in this place is basically non-existent, as they figured out soon after coming here. The only thing they can do is … Wait, he supposes. Maybe move some of the boxes that are still standing around here, although they were supposed to take them outside, so that would just be a very sad way to entertain themselves.
For a while, they just kind of stand there, looking around aimlessly. Eventually Riku tries to push the door open, and when that doesn’t work, he sits down on the floor and leans against the wall. “Uh … At least we’re together? And we have light.”
Right, without the ceiling lamp they’d be in complete darkness. On top of that, this room is perfectly clean and dust-free, so his brother won’t have any problems – he made sure of that before they got to work. As much as he’d like to get this done, there are worse times and places to be locked up in a small room for what could very well be hours on end.
And yet, he feels … Odd. Not restless, though he’s sure that will come eventually, and not necessarily anxious, either. But he cannot deny the budding feeling somewhere inside him, an unpleasant one that he thinks he’s felt before, though he doesn’t remember where.
Lacking a better alternative, Tenn sits down next to Riku.
He made sure to put a reasonable distance between them, but of course his brother immediately shuffles over until they’re much closer together, close enough that he could rest his head on Riku’s shoulder if he wanted to, that Riku could lean into him completely disregarding any idea of personal space if he so pleased.
That feeling grows a little bigger.
“I hope Sougo-san comes back soon,” Riku muses. “But I’m glad it’s you that I’m stuck here with. It could be worse.”
“If it was the other members of Trigger …” Yes, Tenn can also imagine worse. Arguing with Gaku can be fun, but not for hours on end, and Ryuu, while a marginally better option, would get extremely annoying after a while. Not exactly the kind of people you want to be locked up in a small room with, no matter how much he’s come to treasure them – not that he’ll say either of that out loud.
But if it’s Riku, then …
“I mean, Mitsuki or Nagi could probably find a way to entertain themselves. With everyone else it’d just be boring. Or, well, Iori would probably chew me out for a bit for letting this happen in the first place … Although it’s nobody’s fault but that doorstopper’s.”
“Sure, and who placed that doorstopper there and said it’d be perfectly fine? This is your fault.” Even if it’s also Tenn’s for not double-checking and simply trusting what Riku and the staff member who showed them around said.
“Ugh … You’re right, but you don’t have to say it.” Riku sighs and leans back a little. “So what now? Not like we have much to do with the door being closed.”
That much is true. If Gaku was here, he’d probably call this a bonding experience or something ridiculous like that. In truth, it’ll most likely just be boring at best, while at worst …
That feeling spikes when he thinks that, and he finally comes to recognise it as dread.
He’s suddenly very aware of Riku’s body next to his.
“Hey, maybe we can talk a little to pass the time,” his brother suggests.
“About what?” He’d rather not, to be honest. If they’re at it long enough, he might say something he’ll regret.
“Hmm … How’s work going?”
Leave it to Riku to pick the most innocent question imaginable when he was steeling himself for something worse. Tenn almost breathes a sigh of relief. “Fine. Not much different than normal.”
Riku pouts, just a little. “That’s it?”
“There’s not much to say. You already know all the real anecdotes from when Ryuu told you on the way here. Or do you want to hear about what kind of shirt Mister Shimooka was wearing last time I saw him?”
“I guess … Then how about …” He contemplates for a moment, then says, “Your daily life!”
That’s not much more exciting, which is fine by him. Topics like these are safe. “Not much to say. Although I did buy a book yesterday. I haven’t gotten around to starting it yet, though.”
“What kind of book? I remember when we—”
“Nothing like that,” Tenn cuts him off before he can finish that sentence. “It’s on music history. I met the author at an event once and figured I might give it a try if I have nothing else to do.”
“Sounds boring,” Riku says, and he doesn’t want to admit that yes, it kind of does. “If it was a story, I’d check it out too. You know, like the one that you read to me when we were young.”
He wasn’t fast enough to stop him this time.
He’s aware that he should probably just dismiss him until he gets bored, but that wouldn’t be fair to Riku, either. It’s not like he wants to make him feel bad – quite the opposite. But this … Dread is gnawing away at him, as if it’s telling him that he knows full well where this will lead, where it always does.
Despite it, he asks, “Which one?”
“I don’t remember the name, but … The one with the songbird. You know, where it couldn’t think of any songs to sing, so it flew around the world to hear everyone else’s. And in the end, it wrote its own little lullaby. How did it go again … Something about the clouds and the stars … Do you remember?”
Oh, he remembers alright. He remembers the song word for word, every last note; how could he ever forget? He sang it for Riku almost every night back then. And Riku would listen intently with a smile on his face, even in the dark moments, even when he was in the hospital again and nothing else would make him happy. The songbird should listen to you, he’d say. He’d love to hear your voice, too.
“Faintly,” Tenn says.
Riku is quiet then, and for a moment it feels like he can finally breathe again.
Just for a moment.
“Tenn-nii?”
“Hm?”
“Can you sing me a lullaby?”
Riku’s voice is so soft, so hesitant. It’s unlike him. Tenn supposes he’s the one to blame for that, making him feel like he can’t even ask.
Even so, this …
“No.”
Silence.
Then, quietly, “Why not?”
“You’re not a kid. You’re not supposed to go to sleep here. You’re not even legally my brother anymore. Should I go on?” It’s a half-truth, but it’s the best he has.
Tenn feels Riku shuffle next to him and then suddenly, in a display of more Riku-like determination, his brother is climbing onto his lap.
Before he knows what’s happening, he’s being stared down.
His hands move to Riku’s waist and he stops himself just before they touch it, letting them drop uselessly to his sides.
Something inside him is screaming at him, but he doesn’t know what for.
“You’re unfair, Tenn-nii,” Riku says, louder this time, or maybe it just feels that way with how close he is. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he wonders if he can hear his heart pounding against his chest in an uncomfortable mix of all sorts of feelings he’d rather not name, even to himself. “Who knows how long we’ll be stuck in here? Just one song, please. I’ll do something for you in return.”
Get off then, he wants to say, but no words come out.
Riku’s hands are resting on his shoulders only lightly, but his gaze is locking him in place regardless. He could shove him off. He could. He should.
“You won’t stop being my big brother just because you changed your name,” Riku says. “Haven’t we been over that?”
“Several times,” Tenn concedes. Thinking about Riku as not his family anymore is just as painful as the reverse is for Riku, maybe even more so. But it’s the best course of action, no matter what.
My brother, he reminds himself.
He should shove him off.
Riku is the one who breaks eye contact. Of course he is, when Tenn could never. His gaze drops to the ground, dejected.
They sit like that in more silence for a while, and it really is only a matter of time until Tenn can’t deny him any longer.
That feeling of dread eases off his heart a little with the first note.
“Do you know the light of the sun / when it rises in the morning?”
He feels Riku stiffen a little on top of him, then relax, and, finally, lean forward to rest his forehead on Tenn’s shoulder.
Tenn closes his eyes as he sings, as if that could make him forget.
“Do you know the twinkle of the stars / behind the clouds that lay the sleepy sky to rest for the night …”
Everything is warm like this.
Riku is, breathing calmly, as Tenn sings and absentmindedly strokes his back. The room is, although it’s only early spring, and comfortably so. His heart is, chasing away the shadows that cling to it.
He sings, just like he did every night so many years ago.
Riku is humming along ever so quietly, and he only barely takes notice. Together, their sound weaves something natural, as it always does when they sing together. Sometimes he wonders why they don’t do it more.
It’s not a long song, but it feels like an eternity passes until he’s reached the end, letting the last note fade out slowly to leave them with silence, and he keeps his eyes closed for as long as he can allow himself.
Riku sighs, contently now. “I love you, Tenn-nii.”
Tenn’s eyes snap open.
That dread is back in full force, spreading through his veins like ice, and suddenly everything is too hot even though he’s freezing on the inside and it’s all he can do to stop himself from shaking.
He remembers now why they don’t sing together.
His hands are on Riku’s back. Riku is sitting on his lap. Riku’s head is on his shoulder, Riku’s arms are wrapped around him, Riku is— Riku—
He should shove him off.
Rather, he has to.
He doesn’t move.
Someone with a lack of tact may remark from time to time that it feels like Tenn is avoiding Riku. He always denies it, but the fact that their schedules don’t often align is a very convenient truth indeed. It’s not like he doesn’t want to see him – quite the opposite.
Flipping through Riku’s photobook and imagining himself there next to him is one thing. Toeing a line, maybe, but in the end it’s only some pictures and a few thoughts that got out of hand. It won’t leave his room, or his mind. It has no impact on anything that actually matters.
This?
This is dangerous.
Riku is dangerous, by no fault of his own.
“Tenn-nii? Something wrong?”
Everything is wrong, he wants to say. “It’s fine. You’re just heavy,” he says.
A gasp, but no other movement. It seems like they’re locked in this position for now. “Are you saying I’m gaining weight? That’d be bad for our performances …”
“You’re heavy because you’re a grown man, Riku. I’d be more concerned if you weren’t.” Though thinking of him as that still feels wrong, like he’s defending himself from an accusation nobody is making. In the end, Riku will always be his little brother.
It takes all resolve he has to not tighten his grip on him in a feeble hope that it will chase away the feeling clawing at his body, and maybe something else.
“Yeah, makes sense,” Riku mutters, and he can feel the vibrations of his voice by his neck, just faintly, but enough so to send a different kind of shivers down his spine.
Tenn considers himself pretty good at faking his way through situations he’d rather run away from. It comes with the territory as a pro; you’ll have to do things you’re not good at or that you don’t want to do and work with people you despise. Over the years, he’s built up enough of an immunity to those things that he can get through just about anything if he has to. It’s just another aspect of his life, really.
But the thought of being stuck in this room with Riku for hours …
It hasn’t even been half of one and he’s already feeling like he’s going to break if this goes on any longer.
That dread has been nameless, shapeless, an abstract feeling settling in his gut and spreading its icy venom from there. He refuses to admit what he’s so afraid of.
That is, until he can’t deny it any longer.
But he won’t. He will not acknowledge it. He’ll sing his brother a lullaby if he wants, he’ll stroke his back and indulge him, just for now, until they go back to being Nanase-san and Kujou-san.
I love you, Tenn-nii.
Breathe. He should just breathe. He’s being paranoid, and he’s usually better than that. Nothing is going to happen. They’ll sit this out, they’ll wait for the others to return, and they’ll get back to work. Riku can say whatever he wants to him. He’s his brother. Brotherly love is a thing that exists; in fact, it’s what Tenn feels for Riku, nothing more to it than that.
Their silence now is suffocating.
Riku can probably tell that something is off. As much as he likes to pretend otherwise, they’re still connected, they know each other well enough to realise when the other is having trouble. Tenn maybe more so than Riku, though that’s more because he’s gotten extremely good at pretending. They’ve both changed, but Riku is still Riku and, underneath all that has been piled on him over the years, Tenn is still Tenn.
That person who thought of his brother when first asked if he was in love with someone, years and a lifetime ago, still exists. Though it’s only that, and he should be able to shrug it off. He was a child, after all. He’s grown out of that, as anyone does. He didn’t understand the true meaning of the question back then, or what love really entails, and now the closest thing he has to something like that is his fans.
“Tenn-nii,” Riku says ever so softly and everything inside him is screaming liar.
“It’s nothing,” Tenn replies to a question that wasn’t asked, though even he can tell his voice is shakier than usual. What an amateur mistake. “Forgive me if I’m not thrilled about being locked in.”
“Is it because you’re with me?”
Ah.
The way he said that was heartbreaking, adding a whole other kind of pain to the dread he’s already feeling, and yet he can’t deny it. He truly is an awful person.
He should lie. It’ll be easier if he just denies it and makes up some excuse about not being good with closed off spaces like this, or being paranoid about Riku’s condition. Anything will do, anything but the truth. Even a half-truth at this point would do more harm than good.
“You said you’d do something for me if I sing for you,” he says, careful to not betray any more emotion than he already has.
He could try and fall into something more playful, lean into Riku’s nostalgia even if it’s dangerous, as long as he knows what he’s doing. Avoiding it didn’t do him any good. But right now he’s not even sure what he’s going for at all. There’s plenty of masks Kujou Tenn knows how to switch through at a moment’s notice, and none of them fit, yet removing them spells even more trouble. Part of him is glad that Riku still has his head on his shoulder; he doesn’t know what his face betrays right now and he’d rather not find out.
“You didn’t answer my question at all.” He should be hearing a pout in his voice to match what he hopes is playful banter, but Riku sounds entirely sincere.
He can’t answer him. Instead, he says, “If Izumi Iori was here, what would you do?”
Silence. Tenn isn’t entirely sure either why that was what he asked. Or, well, he does know, but he should have known better than to voice it. So much for staying in control.
After a moment, Riku finally sits up a little to stare him straight down again, and he only hopes his expression is composed enough to be unreadable. “What does Iori have to do with any of this?”
Izumi Iori is a lot of things, though primarily a thorn in Tenn’s side. Someone who claims to know Riku better than he does, and someone who very obviously has feelings for him – as if that gives him any right to act like he knows best. The overbearing caretaker role should be reserved for Tenn. What’s a group member, even if they’re a good friend, to Riku’s brother?
It’s a different kind of dread that reminds him how of all the people in the world, the one who has the least right to walk with Riku is himself. He doesn’t care about facing that one, either.
“What would you do?” he repeats.
Riku doesn’t seem impressed, if the frown is any indication. “Uh … I mean, we’d probably argue. I don’t know if there’s anything in particular we’d have to talk about that we haven’t already been over. Things are going pretty well recently.”
“What do you mean by that?” That one slips out involuntarily.
“At work? And everyone’s getting along well enough right now. Oh, we’ve been having game nights recently! Mitsuki and I teamed up last time and we almost won, but then Yamato-san …” His words trail off into nothing and he shakes his head ever so slightly. “Why are we talking about this? Iori isn’t here and the others aren’t either. It’s rare that I get to spend time alone with you, even if it’s like this … But you just change the topic whenever I think we’re actually having a conversation.”
Oh. It’s … Admittedly almost funny how easily he sees through him in the end. He can’t resist the urge to pet his head, drawing a cute little sound out of him that approximates a squeak, which in return makes Tenn smile, just a little. “Fine.”
“Answer my question, then.”
And just like that, it all shatters once again. Their peace is always so, so fragile, and it’s always Tenn’s fault.
But what is he supposed to say? ‘Yes, it’s because of you’? Even if he wants to be honest, there’s some things he just cannot ever say, not to himself and certainly not to Riku. One answer leads to another question, and then another. Any of the paths he could go down would end in them fighting, and that’s if he’s lucky – if he were to be completely honest, spell everything out the way he never has before, the right thing for Riku to do would be to never look at him again.
If he’d stayed back then, that might be different. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. For Riku’s sake, and for his own.
It’d have been best if they’d never met again – that’s what it comes down to, and that thought digs its sharp, unforgiving claws into his stomach too.
“Tenn-nii—”
“It’s … It’s not. Because of you. It’s my own fault. Don’t think too hard about it.”
In a way, that’s probably the closest thing to the truth. Riku isn’t to blame for any of this, Tenn is. Tenn’s treacherous heart that wants to claim Riku as his, even though ‘his Riku’ is an existence he buried many years ago alongside Nanase Tenn. What a morbid joke it is that they share a grave.
“How do you mean that?”
His veins are frozen, but Riku is burning on top of him, as if he’s trying to thaw him from the outside in. In a way, that’s something he’s been trying since they met again. Some ice never melts though, even if you set it on fire.
“Like I said, don’t bother. There’s some things only the people that are feeling it can understand. You’ll just get unnecessarily agitated if you let it get to you.”
“So I should just not try to get it at all? Even though it’s hurting you?” Riku’s lips quiver as he says it, but his voice is stern. It keeps twisting the knife in Tenn’s heart further, but some messed up part of his mind is whispering, He’s beautiful.
He wants to run.
“There’s nothing you can do,” he says, which is the truth.
“I’m an idol!”
It’s like a slap in the face.
A declaration without a second of hesitation that freezes everything in place – their locked gazes, Tenn’s back against the wall, time itself.
“An idol’s job is,” Riku states and puts a hand on his chest, grips the fabric of his shirt, “to make people smile. Even when their lives are dull and grey, idols are there to bring colour into their world and to make them forget about their worries, if only for a few hours. I want to become an idol that can make everyone smile! I want that … But …” His shoulders fall and he slumps forward a little, gaze dropping to the floor and his free hand on Tenn’s chest now, without exerting any pressure at all. “Now we’re here alone, and you’re hurting and I can’t do anything, even though you’re someone who’s so important to me. What kind of idol am I?”
Kujou Tenn has sealed his heart off to the world, has built walls upon walls around it and surrounded those with barbed wire and impassable rivers.
And somehow Riku is still right there to break it.
There’s nothing else he can do. He’s already lost. His first mistake was being born as Riku’s brother, and any prospect of coming back from that is a mere illusion. Perhaps it’s true what people say – starcrossed lovers get reborn as twins.
He reaches out to tilt Riku’s face up so he can meet his gaze once more, maybe for the last time, then puts his hand on the back of his head and gently pushes him down.
There’s no resistance when their lips meet, and no push forward, either. It’s barely even a kiss – too soft, too fragile, laced with fear and melancholy and the knowledge that he’s currently destroying everything Riku worked so hard to rebuild.
Even that feeling of dread is stunned silent, and in this very moment, he feels a little bit more alive again.
He’s the one who breaks away first, leaning back only slightly – that something about Riku that draws him to him refuses to let him go any further than that, like he needs to feeling of his breath on his lips to survive. It might not be wrong. Or rather, he needs Riku to survive.
But this is just another corpse to bury.
Neither of them move as his heart is beating away in his chest almost violently. It hurts. Everything hurts. He made his choice, as if he ever had a choice at all.
Riku’s voice is but a whisper.
“Tenn…nii?”
