Chapter Text
When was Tenn defanged? He’d used to test their sharpness whenever the lights were turned away, the privacy of their practice rooms the perfect place to bare them against pestering company. Hunting for the next bite into any exposed weakness, he’d at least had his fair share of fights, snarling and scratching with Gaku. Even Ryuu pulling them apart with a soft laugh had been a kind of unwinding. He needed the resistance, the chance to stab where the embarrassment was strongest, to stretch his deadpan from where it had been hidden under his tongue all day. But now he couldn’t find his fangs anymore, tongue slipping over dulled teeth in a smile that stretched his mouth too often. His annoyance slumbered, tranquilized by too many wishes and interviews and magazine covers. The demon was smothered by angelic feathers, the world’s softest down the slowest killer as his face forgot how to frown and his fangs rotted inside his gums without any meat to sink into.
When did the spark in Gaku’s eyes turn to a chill gleam? Perhaps not from one day to the next, that would be too sudden a change and cause too much alarm, but the slow chisel will still wear the rock down to the bone, and even to the marrow itself. Kaoru couldn’t remember a time Gaku wasn’t being trained, even when he’d only been weighed down with his first school backpack and his father’s expectations, his molding had already begun. That he’d held out as long as he had was proof of his headstrong heart, until it wasn’t enough. The eyes that looked so like his father’s—except for when paired with a smile bright as mercury—were now bereft and burning cold and cutting. Thousands of words on his womanizing and exploits, generated by fans and father alike, cast him in an ever-renewing role with no final bow in sight. Sold as seductive, posed as one who hungered and could never be sated, held up to be viewed behind glass; when the curtain never falls, the truth is whatever stays on stage the longest, is it not? His allure caged inside his silence, his voice only allowed to be heard in song or in sex, a silver tongue forever swallowed and the last spark dying behind mirrored eyes.
When did Ryuu’s unbridled laugh fade into a sultry smile? He’d found his footing after moving, rooted himself in the unknown soil and started blooming anew, and perhaps that was why he’d been the most aware of the inexorable change that they’d been caught in. He bore witness to Gaku and Tenn’s metamorphoses, faster than his own by virtue of their longer history in the industry, and its corrosive effects. Ryuu had enough time to see his own alterations start, but not enough time to escape. First his words, their foreignness fading until he couldn’t remember how to follow the ones his brothers spoke, their horror at his incomprehension turning to acceptance and apathy. He knew the commercials were at the center, plastering the mask he was forced to wear on billboards bigger than his father’s house. The day came when he couldn’t take it off, couldn’t unmew or unclench, couldn’t recognize his face except as the advertisement that it was. Stuck with a body viewed only as meat, displayed for the purpose of salivation and sensuality, his soul withering slowly inside its prison.