Work Text:
1.
The weight of eyes on you is familiar. It feels like you're always being judged—by strangers, by teachers, by what passes for your family. Akihiko's eyes on you aren't a surprise, but they're not familiar, either. Everyone else watches you and weighs you, assessing your interpretation of the voices of dead masters. Akihiko watches you like you might have something to say yourself. Like he'd listen, maybe, if you spoke.
So you don't.
"You sound different today," Akihiko says. He's sitting at his desk, his cheek smushed where it leans against his palm. "Did something happen?"
You were going to start playing again, but hesitate.
"No," you say.
He considers you for a second, his pale eyes unblinking as they meet yours. "Liar," he says, his lips curving. "It sounds like it was good, whatever it was."
He never comments on the technical aspects of your playing. Only the interpretation: A crescendo like a lightning strike. Or, I've never heard it sound so sad.
Never, Did something happen?
"I don't want to talk about it," you say, but you lower your violin. His smile widens.
"Yeah?" he says, voice lilting.
"You wouldn't understand it even if I said anything."
"Mmhmm."
"I wouldn't know how to talk about it, anyway."
"So play," Akihiko says. "I'll get the idea."
You bite your lip. "No. I'm done for today."
"Stingy," Akihiko says, laughing. But he doesn't press. He never presses you. He just listens, he just lets you take whatever shape you want, endlessly accommodating.
Where's the limit? You think.
--
2.
You paid your cleaning service extra to come on short notice and tidy the apartment after Akihiko listened to your impulsive offer and said, "Sure. Why not?"
Akihiko's music is tender, each note clear and soft, and though he seems rough around his edges he treats his belongings with care; you didn't think your usual mess would suit him. But he stands in the middle of your living room like a manmade disaster, bags overflowing with belongings hastily crammed in anywhere they would fit, wearing a shirt three days old and with eye bags to match, and you can't help but laugh at him.
"Did they throw you out or something?" you ask. "You didn't have time to pack?"
Akihiko shrugs. He's holding two trash bags in one hand, and a bulging duffel bag is looped across his body. Still, he holds his violin case all by itself in the other hand, the hard brown plastic only worn a little at the edges. You blink at it; it's been a while. He doesn't play the violin at school any more, at least not around you.
"I just wanted to go," he says.
"That excited to see me?" you say, teasing.
"Yeah," he agrees.
You watch him look around at the single bed, neatly made; the cement floor, freshly swept. You're expecting him to needle you in turn—"You live in the basement?"—or say something trite—"Nice place." Instead, what he says is:
"You live alone?"
Your amusement pops in your stomach, dissolving.
"I don't," you say. "You live here now, don't you?"
You watch each other. Slowly, his shoulders loosen. "Yeah," he says. The word makes something slither down your spine, equal parts delight and unease.
"So then," you say, "make yourself at home."
After he's put his toothbrush next to yours by the sink and hung his only suit on a hanger beside yours, he reaches for his violin case. "It's really okay to practice here?" he says, pulling the violin out.
"Of course," you tell him. "The place is soundproofed."
You watch him stretch and flex his fingers, warming up his joints. "You're still going to Keio for violin, right?" you ask.
"Yeah," he says, his eyes focused on the sheet music as he sets it up on your stand.
"I'm glad," you say. "Now I can hear you practice all the time."
A complicated expression crosses his face. He looks at you and gives you a fleeting smile.
You lie on the bed, listening to him practice. His pile of sheet music and textbooks leans haphazardly against yours. Over time it evolves into an entire cupboard filled with music of all formats and genres, CDs and books of music and several pairs of headphones, your tastes blurring together as your lives merge.
--
3.
Akihiko is making coffee in the kitchen, listening with one ear to your practice until it cuts off with a tiny twang and a sharp cry from your lips.
He spins, seeing you clutch at your cheek and crumple to the floor, your violin held carefully aloft in one hand. One of its strings has snapped, forming a twisted snarl in the air.
In a moment he's rushed over. "You okay?" he asks, kneeling beside you; then, shocked, "You're bleeding."
You hiss at him. He takes in your wild eyes, the tension in your shoulders, but he doesn't move away. His calloused fingers are gentle as they peel your hand away from your cheek, exposing the thin line of red there. A drop of blood is smeared on your fingertips.
"It doesn't look too bad," Akihiko murmurs. You turn thoughtlessly at the sound of his low voice, instinct more than anything. The movement presses your cheek against your entwined hands and you yelp at the new pain. His hand flinches back. "Stay there," he tells you. "I'll be right back."
Your eyes track him as returns to the kitchen, fetching the first aid kit that you keep stashed beneath the kitchen sink. The cut has settled into a stinging pain entirely out of proportion to how small you know the injury must be, but he doesn't admonish you or tell you that you're overreacting when he comes back and finds you huddled down against the ground, rocking yourself back and forth.
You're not good with pain—you never have been. When you have your nastiest fights, the ones that roll into bed with the both of you ripping each other's clothes off, Akihiko knows the fastest way to get you to stop hurling abuse at him is to make it hurt a little bit, to be a little bit mean when he's fingering you open. Pain drives you out of your head and down into some wordless animal core of you. But this time, Akihiko is comforting you. This time his roughened hands are gentle on your cheek as he daubs the blood away. He smears antibacterial ointment on the wound and covers it with a band-aid. His eyes are cool and focused as he works. He's handsome, breathtakingly so, when he's focused; especially when he's focused on you.
"You're lucky," he says. "It could have hit your eye."
You shake your head, wordlessly rejecting the idea. He sighs and pushes your bangs up, pressing a kiss to your forehead.
He loves you, and you trust him more than anyone else in the world. One day he'll leave you, and you don't trust him at all.
--
4.
You can't feel the music, lately. You can hold your teacher's notes in your head: This was a piece commissioned for the king, this ornamented passage is all flattery. But what you'd add on top, your own interpretation that adds depth and nuance, you can't find it any more. You try to tap into yourself and you keep running into a wall, as blank as the concrete walls that encase your apartment.
It's the rainy season, now. You spent the afternoon lying in bed, bathed in the watery gray light from outside, watching water streak down the narrow high window. When the sun set you got up to practice, as you always do. There's an ache in your chest like a bottomless pit widening. He's going to leave me, you think. Then, Why won't he leave?
The pain is a yawning agony so all-encompassing that it's hard to think through, but you can't let any of it come out. This piece has nothing to do with pain. That can't be your interpretation. Your fingers never stop moving on the strings, practicing the same four measures, the burst of complicated notes, over and over. How long have you been playing?
"Hey. Hey, Ugetsu. Ugetsu, stop." The urgency in Akihiko's voice means he's probably been calling your name for a while. He grabs you, eventually, fingers clasping your wrist and gently lifting it. The last note skids sideways, ugly and sharp, and the silence that follows it is jarring. You struggle immediately, ripping your way out of Akihiko's hands, your bow falling to the floor as you throw a wild punch that sends both of you staggering to the bed. Your violin falls on the soft mattress and Akihiko rolls to the side, away from it.
You follow him, snarling, shoving, and he grabs your shoulders and completes the roll until he's pinned you beneath him. Holding you down against the rumpled sheets. You scream in his ear, thrashing, and he just sinks against you, dead weight. You're not strong enough to push him off, all the muscle he's gained from endless odd jobs and drum practice, but that doesn't stop you from trying. You buck and writhe, and his breathing remains steady in your ear, just letting you. He always lets you. He always fucking lets you.
Eventually your body settles into the rhythm of dry sobs, shaky heaves of breath.
"What's wrong," Akihiko asks again.
"Nothing. Everything. You," you grit out, voice thick.
Akihiko doesn't even go tense. He just sighs.
"Are you hungry?" he asks.
"No," you spit.
"I'll make some tea then," he says. He makes to get up and you drag him back down in a panic, so that he falls back over you, his strong arms bracketing you in. He casts a shadow, shielding you from the glare of the overhead light. The scent of his aftershave is so familiar.
"You're shaking," Akihiko says after a while.
"I hate you," you whisper. "Don't leave me."
Akihiko doesn't answer. He just lays down beside you, his proximity radiating a stifling heat. You listen to him fall asleep, his breaths hissing between his lips as he goes under. You both lay there until morning.
--
5.
Akihiko's taken to wearing headphones when you practice. You pause, your eyes sweeping over his close-cropped hair, the nape of his neck. Broad shoulders, and the line of his spine leading down to his tapered waist. It's such a familiar body to you, even as it has changed over the years you've been together. You changed too, of course. You remember how growth spurts made your body feel clumsy, changed your center of balance enough that it affected your violin playing until you got used to it. It never seemed to affect Akihiko the same way, but he's always had an easy physicality that you could never match.
As you watch, he bobs his head to a song you can just barely hear through the cups of his headphones. His fingers tap a foreign pattern against one muscled thigh.
You're not dating, but you still have sex. He loves someone else, but he still lives in your house. You're so used to his body next to yours at night that you sleep worse when he's not there, even if the bed is filled with someone else. You're not sure you know who you are without him anymore. You're not sure you want to find out.
You desperately want to find out.
You take more overseas tours. Your life blurs into a series of hotel rooms. He used to call every day, but that was years ago. The silence between you lengthens, but he still picks you up from the airport and you still don't ask him for rent.
He'll come to your local performances, but he won't listen to you practice.
You turn away, your bow returning to the strings. Your eyes close, your chin lifts. You let your music rise into the air, free of an audience. On the other side of the room, his chin drops to his chest, lost to a different sound as he taps out a rhythm with his fingertips, practicing the drums in his head. Practicing two different pieces, your backs to each other.
--
1.
When you saw his name on the list of competing violinists your heart clenched, an overworked muscle grown weak from disuse.
Like how people's voices sound different when they speak different languages, softer or higher in pitch, Akihiko sounds different when playing each of his instruments. His violin has evolved from the soft, delicate sound he had in high school. He's picked a turbulent piece for the competition and moves through it with a hungry ferocity. You can hear something of his drum playing in it. You can hear a passion in it that has been missing for...years, maybe.
You've been a musician for too long to lose your professionalism. You swallow the lump in your throat and write a few judge notes. He makes a few fingering errors. He takes an unusual approach to the cadenza. He plays well off of the orchestra. When he finishes playing, you want to hear more of it.
He was telling the truth, you think. He didn't abandon the violin. Maybe this is his way of proving it to you.
He squints past the glare of the stage lights but his eyes don't meet yours. You're sure that he can't really see you, wearing your customary all black, your hands steepled before your mouth. Not like you can see him, sweating underneath the hot lights, in the suit you bought him after he took up drumming and his shoulders became too muscular for his old one. He bows deeply and leaves the stage.