S and the Maestro's Story IX

Seishiro leaned forward on the conductor's stand, relieving all of his weight on the metal, hands gripping the edges and knuckles turned white from all the squeezing. From the scene that was playing out in front of him and the migraine that was developing as an effect from it, he felt as though he could accidentally indent his fingerprints into the stand.

There were only two more weeks until the graduation ceremony—since the Holy Trinity colleges had their graduations early—and this was one of the very last few rehearsals the orchestra would have with its full members as trying to book over fifty students all at the same time, putting aside conflicting schedules, was already difficult as it was. Certainly, they'd have many more practices with individual sections, but full orchestra rehearsal was vital and rare.

And as every single second of practice time was precious during full rehearsals, the tiniest slip up caused unstoppable frustration within the members. It usually also caused Seishiro to threaten someone's life with his abnormally sharpened conductor's baton.

But everyone who had ever been in a music ensemble knew that there had to be at least one person or one concept that only days before the event, inevitably, would come crashing down even though times upon times before this person had done everything perfectly or this concept had never gone wrong.

Today, or rather, this time, it was a person.

Moreover, Seishiro couldn't even threaten the person's life with his rapier-resembling-baton.

For today, this time, the person was Subaru.

And perhaps any other day than today, or any other time than recently, Seishiro would have been able to threaten ever Subaru's life with his rapier-resembling baton, but recently, and especially today, Subaru had looked like he hadn't had any sleep in years. Moreover, the expression on his face had nearly made six of Seishiro's pretty flutists cry simply by an initial glance. And to add insult to injury, the Maestro had been receiving identical sky blue death glares since the very start of practice—one direction from the very front of the violin's row, and then another direction coming from Seishiro's side, all the way from behind the Steinway.

Fai and Yuui seemed to think for one inexplicable reason or another that probably only made sense to ridiculously incomprehensible twins that it was Seishiro's fault Subaru looked like he was on death row. To worsen things even further, the rest of the orchestra was now directing their death glares toward Subaru, who at this point, appeared to be on the verge of tears and collapse himself.

"Let's just restart it from measure fifty-one," Seishiro said briskly, and pointedly without looking at the trumpeter, he added, "Try to get it right this time, Subaru—just purse your lips more and the note should come out correctly."

Just as the conductor raised his baton, he managed to spare the tiniest, swiftest glance at Subaru's face, and the expression as the trumpeter raised his instrument, nearly caused Seishiro to drop the baton.

It was a face that Seishiro had only ever seen the twins wear so seriously and so clearly. A face that expressed such intense desperation and self-hatred, that it was obvious Subaru was not in the safe state of mind to be holding up the dual burden of keeping up his studies while having to be the one with the unbelievable stress as the main performer in the Maestro's graduation of all graduations. And everything that went along with that—be it the workload, the hectic scheduling, the lack of sleep, the necessary overdose of coffee, every single orchestra student knifing him with killing looks each time a mistake was made—

And, as per usual, as per every single fucking time, as per ever since Seishiro had ever come into Subaru's life—

It was the Maestro's fault that this kid's life was being screwed up again.

CLANG

There wasn't a single pair of eyes that weren't staring at Seishiro. Every single pair of eyes had followed the moment Seishiro's fingers let go of the baton to the millisecond that it had fallen and clanged against the metal stand. All instruments were to the students' lips and all instruments had bows on their strings, fingers to their keys, drumsticks to their drums, all ready to begin, until the Maestro's baton dropped.

"Subaru," Seishiro whispered softly, and yet it was somehow so loud it echoed through the silence. "Get out."

Although absolutely not a breath disturbed the deafening silence, just as somehow Seishiro's whisper was equal to that of a thousand screams, somehow, everyone's sharp gasps could be heard throughout the practice hall. And somehow, with some inhuman sort of strength, Seishiro managed to bring himself to look at Subaru's face—to look at the expression the conductor knew would haunt him until he died, whether heaven or hell was his destination.

And the Maestro had never been more right.

A description of the trumpeter's expression would just be an insult to Subaru himself. There was no form of sadness or hurt or perhaps even anger that wasn't present in Subaru's tragically beautiful green eyes. It was all there and it was all facing Seishiro with the force of all the natural disasters that had hit earth since the beginning of time.

It would only take one more word to get Subaru to move and for Subaru to finally, finally, hate Seishiro forever.

"Leave."

And Subaru left.

The hallway leading to the doctor's office was empty, and the entire medical building of Akamizu was rather quiet in all. Most likely it was due to the fact that the medicine students had been told to attend to their self assignments while the head of the Medicine and Health Department was packing for his trip to America for a spring convention.

Subaru didn't feel his body, didn't feel his legs walking him to Kyle's room. He merely saw his feet, moving one in front of the other in a slow steady pace, stepping over the tiles.

Seishiro never would have thought that pushing piano keys up and down all day could have ever resulted in the amount of remarkable strength Yuui was currently using to punch his face with. Naturally, the twins had stayed behind long after everyone else had more or less sprinted out of the rehearsal hall once the Maestro had set his baton into the case. Fai had wasted no time in locking the double doors, and his twin had wasted no time in walking up to Seishiro, hips swinging perfectly side-to-side, twisting back his fist, and then letting it loose so hard that Seishiro knocked his head back against the sharp edge of the piano.

Because Seishiro had allowed himself to be hit, he'd been able to catch himself so that he didn't lose too many IQ points, and all he'd have in a few hours was an immensely purple bruise. But the message was more than clear. And even if it hadn't been, Fluorite twins being Fluorite twins, they were about to make it so clear, it would be reach-through.

"You've went beyond bastard to the point where there's no longer a word for what you are," Yuui said, beautiful face contorted—angel to devil. Seishiro would've smiled; honestly he would've, if not for the fact that Yuui probably would have killed his own self just out of absolute frustrated anger. Fai, in the background, merely sat on a chair beside his violin case and stared silently into Seishiro's eyes.

But his unspoken words were far louder than the ones Yuui hissed.

"Even if I said I could explain, you wouldn't let me, would you?" Seishiro asked softly, readjusting his glasses.

Yuui slapped him this time—stinging across the cheek.

"I would love," the pianist said, voice dripping with cold sarcasm, "to hear the explanation this time, almighty Maestro. I would also love to hear the explanation you'd offer if I'd told Kamui about all of this, which you know that I only haven't because Fai loves Subaru too much and it'd be the end of what Kamui could take anyway even if he did know."

Seishiro merely raised his eyebrows, his face smoothly expressionless.

Meters away, Fai spoke. He said in a tone just loud enough, "Subaru doesn't care." The blue eyes were piercingly lovely. "He just loves you."

Only things weren't that simple. Perhaps to Fai it was, and perhaps even to Yuui, the anti-lover, it was, too. But it wasn't even close in Seishiro's view. It wasn't as simple as Subaru loved him, and he loved Subaru and therefore all was right with the world, happily ever after, the end. It wasn't like that and it would never be like that.

Maybe it could've been like that once upon a time. Maybe it could've been like that long, long ago in a kingdom far, far away. But never now, and never here, and never after all that'd happened.

Then again, Yuui and Fai wouldn't know this. How could they? How could they ever know how much it hurt you to have to let go of someone you loved for that someone's own good? How could they know how impossible it felt after you hurt that someone? How could they know how it felt that it wouldn't matter if the world split into three pieces as long as that someone loved you because that someone was your world?

Yuui and Fai couldn't know that.

They'd never been with someone they loved yet.

Yes, Seishiro knew that Yuui had a someone he loved, but if you hadn't been with that person yet—if you hadn't been in a relationship, been in something where you were allowed to touch him whenever you wanted, to stroke his bangs back while he bent his head at three in the morning finishing an essay; to see him for the first time with shadows under his eyes and sweat-pants two sizes too big, and think he was the most beautiful sight you'd ever seen; to laugh at him when he unwisely carried five textbooks all at once and toppled over; to hold his face in your hands and assure him that he wasn't going to fail his mid-terms because you'd watched him study through nights upon nights, even after he was exhausted after having sex with you, and because he was brilliant and he should know that.

And Fai. Fai didn't love Ashura. If Fai really loved Ashura, they would have overcome Fai's trauma long ago.

How could Fai and Yuui ever know?

Seishiro stared down at Yuui, crumpled on his side on the ground with Fai kneeling over him, tense and staring alarmed up at the Maestro. The conductor uncurled his fist and felt his knuckles pulse painfully. Fai was checking his brother over. "If you'd broken his nose…" Fai whistled softly. "Ashura would've been something."

"Ashura wouldn't understand either," Seishiro said quietly—dangerously. "Yuui doesn't. You don't. Don't fucking any of you try to tell me what to do with Subaru."

Fai stroked his unconscious brother's hair back, revealing the bruised cheek, and bleeding lip. The violinist looked up into the Maestro's eyes. "I know. Yuui shouldn't have said a lot of what he did. But you shouldn't have told Subaru to leave just like that. I know that you know better than anyone the hours he put into that piece. And who he did all that for. You also know that he probably thinks the reason you kicked him off today was because of the mistakes he was making, and you know as well as anyone that it was only because he was nervous. Subaru's a fucking amazing trumpeter, and he practices for as long as Yuui and I do during the entire year put together."

It was Seishiro's turn to say, "I know."

"You love him," Fai said simply.

"I hate him," Seishiro said.

Fai waited.

"I love him," said Seishiro.

The violinist smiled. "Four years is a long time. It feels longer when you're thirteen."

"It was long for me, too," the conductor gripped the edge of the stand. "I was fifteen. And, God," Seishiro stared steadily at Fai. "Whenever I see him, I see everything."

"Everything? All four years?"

"It goes through my mind in the time it takes to reach out and touch him."

Fai stared back just as steadily, cradling his twin in his arms. "So touch him."

Kyle was seated at his desk when Subaru closed the door of the infirmary behind himself. The lights were bright and fluorescent and somewhat harsh against Subaru's damp, reddened eyes. He coughed softly, waiting for Kyle to turn around. If possible, he wanted to get this done as swiftly as it could be done without being more of a bastard to the doctor than he'd been all year.

Kyle never turned around.

The doctor did, however, say quietly, "I already know."

And Subaru couldn't really say he was surprised. Because Kyle was smart, and Subaru knew that, and it wasn't all that unexpected at all that Kyle would know. Neither was the quiet manner with which the doctor seemed to be handling this with—either way, Subaru felt like he should run under a bus. And now, really, what was Subaru supposed to do? What was anyone supposed to do when someone you were supposed to have loved told you that they already knew how you'd never loved them in the first place? That instead of loving Kyle, Kyle who'd done nothing to Subaru but kindnesses, instead, Subaru loved someone who not only had stopped loving Subaru back ages ago (and that was if he'd ever loved Subaru at all), but also hurt Subaru like no one had ever hurt him before.

All of these reasons sprinting through Subaru's mind, in the end, was why the trumpeter did nothing to stop Kyle from punching his face. It was why he did nothing when Kyle kicked his stomach or swiped him in the legs or punched him again and again until Subaru hit the ground. It was why Subaru did nothing but lie unmoving and silent while Kyle beat him in equal silence. After all, compared to the pain Seishiro had given him before, and compared to the pain Subaru must have given to Kyle throughout the year, this was nothing.

Besides—it was nothing short of what Subaru deserved.

So Subaru planned to let Kyle do whatever Kyle wanted to do to him for as long as it took until Kyle was satisfied. And even then, Subaru probably wouldn't have had any guilt appeased.

Subaru couldn't breathe right now. He was up against the wall and with every blow Kyle was beating into him, his head knocked up against the metal legs of a gurney. One hit, two hits, three hits, and Subaru's head no longer hurt, but his vision was no longer clear either. The floor was tilting and shifting beneath his body and it felt as though his insides were fighting their way up his throat.

His equilibrium turned even further when he felt Kyle grasp his shoulders, wrenching him upright and sending the entire room into sickeningly blurry waves of color. Subaru couldn't process—couldn't process how it seemed as though Kyle was stronger than usual, Kyle was doing something that Subaru hadn't intended to happen. The trumpeter felt a rush of cold air from the air conditioning surrounding them against his own bare skin—bare skin that wasn't supposed to be bare. He heard the sound of ripping fabric, and his head spun and stung so badly that he wasn't sure even then if it was his own clothes.

"The Maestro loves you," Kyle's voice said into his ear. "The Maestro's always loved you, he loves you now, and everyone knows that he'll always love you, but you can't see it. You've never seen it, and you've never realized that Seishiro's the kind of person who needs someone to chase after him—something you thought was impossible. If you went after him, he wouldn't be hurting. If you'd gone after him, you wouldn't have had to play with me and hurt me like you hurt him."

Even with the nausea biting at his stomach, and Kyle's hands too tight on his body and his vision disoriented and awful and the air cold and painful, Subaru could still very clearly feel liquid warmth trickling uncontrolled down his cheeks. Adrenaline filled his head and a part of him could tell that Kyle's words couldn't be true, but they sounded so true, and whether they were lies or not, Subaru had fucked up either way.

Subaru knew that he was always causing Seishiro pain whether it was because the Maestro, by some impossible chance, really had loved the trumpeter by Subaru had always been too blind and stupid to see it, or because Subaru had always followed Seishiro around hoping that the Maestro would love him back when all it did was put more people on Seishiro's case—whether it was Fai and Yuui or Kamui or Fuuma or Yuuko.

Everyone had always pinned Seishiro as the bad guy, sympathizing with Subaru. Even the conductor's cousin had sided with Subaru, and Subaru hadn't asked any of them to do that. He'd always wished that he was brave enough, that he had enough nerve to tell them to consider how Seishiro felt—to consider that maybe Seishiro wasn't the one at fault and that it was Subaru's, and that Seishiro must feel like fucking crap when everyone was ganging up against him and it wasn't even his fault.

Everyone was always forcing Seishiro to fall in love with Subaru, when it was clear that Seishiro didn't want to love Subaru, and Seishiro didn't, and even now when Seishiro was going out of his way to be friends with Subaru, Fai and Yuui were right on his case again to be more than friends and Subaru just wanted to scream at them to stop.

Stop—because Seishiro shouldn't have to "love" someone he didn't.

Subaru didn't fight back as he felt Kyle's fingers wandering inside of him, wrapping around his cock and pumping it mockingly. He didn't fight back as he felt himself come, splattering to the tips of his hair just like that one time in the bathroom of his own dormitory—shameful and disgusting, and Kyle had every right to do this.

He didn't fight back as Kyle forced something into his mouth and covered his nose so he'd have no choice but to swallow. He didn't fight back as Kyle kicked him once again, knocking him to collapse onto the cold tiles. "You made your brother worry, didn't you? You made him and the Maestro's brother lose each other because you didn't know how to take care of your own issues by yourself. And because Kamui worried, Yuui worried. And because Yuui worried, Fai worried. Fai's been kind to you over the past few years, hasn't he? And all you do is take—you keep taking from everyone around you because you're always getting into trouble and you never give back. The exact same goes for me and for Seishiro."

Subaru shut his eyes, pushing out the tears. He tasted salt against his tongue. "I know," he whispered, voice hoarse.

Kyle's tone was the same calm and quiet and cool as it was at the very beginning. He kicked Subaru again, and this time, Subaru coughed, saliva leaking onto the tiles. "I don't hear you."

"I know," Subaru said a little louder.

Kyle kicked his bare stomach again, and this time said, "You're a whore."

Subaru coughed again, but this time, there was a different tasting liquid in his mouth, and when it flew onto the floor in front of him, his wet eyes and aching vision saw spots of red.

Blood.

Subaru wasn't afraid of the sight of blood, and even now the crimson droplets didn't incite anything in him but a further feeling of relief—relief that he was the only one in here and neither Seishiro nor Fai were here to see this, let alone Kamui. If anyone else was here, they'd instantly blame Kyle, and then they might even instantly blame Seishiro, too. Subaru didn't want that. He just wanted to be able to fix everything—to make everything right even though he knew that was impossible. He just didn't want everyone to go up against each other because of his faults.

He felt Kyle pick him up by his hair and drag him along the tiles, propping him up haphazardly against something cold and metal. It was only seconds after Subaru was leaning on the cold metal, digging into his skin, that he started to shiver. The trumpeter heard sudden footsteps that weren't Kyle's and a voice that wasn't Kyle's and then he felt Kyle's hand whip across his cheek, stinging.

There were more voices, swirling around Subaru like an unidentifiable mix of sounds, incomprehensible from one another. The speakers grew and lessened in volume and before Subaru had finished catching his breath, another impact slammed him against something hard and cold, and he felt his head snap back and something wet and warm was dripping out of the side of his head and it smelled like iron and tasted like iron and he felt familiar, gentle hands on him and it smelled like Fai but it couldn't be Fai but it was but it shouldn't be.

And then someone was lifting Fai off from Subaru and he could hear Fai's voice panicking and he saw the blurred outlines of Fai and Seishiro as the light blacked and whitened simultaneously and Subaru wanted to shield his eyes but he had to make sure he saw he couldn't fall asleep but he was so tired and it hurt everything hurt and hurt and hurt and his head was ringing and the wet and warm from his head was starting to flow closer to his eyes and he felt something hard and moist against his stomach and he needed to get it out because it was hot and screaming.

But then he heard a thump and the blurred outline that was Fai collapsed to the ground and Kyle was all over him and their shapes congealed together and everything was too bright and Subaru was fighting to keep his eyes opened and his hands instinctively drifted down because something wanted out and it started to hurt and he didn't know why anymore because he didn't care he just started pumping up and down fast even if it left his skin raw.

He heard Fai sighing and screaming and sighing and pleading and just as a tiny fraction of what wanted to get out of Subaru got out Kyle started getting off of Fai and the Kyle outline had started to make its way to Subaru and Subaru wanted something to happen because everything hurt and his insides and outsides and everything was burning up and he thought he would turn into ashes and he needed someone he didn't care if it was Kyle or anyone but someone had to fuck him because this needed out and Subaru couldn't take it anymore and it hurt—

A/N: Erm...I originally tried to squish the entire thing into one chapter, but it was going over ten pages single spaced (which for me is the max on how much I want for one chapter), so I decided to cut it off before Seishiro's POV. Plus, tomorrow, well, today, I guess since it's half past midnight, is my last day of my first year of high school so I felt like being productive and posting something. Usually when I post something it makes me want to write more, and I haven't written on Impulse for ages. Maybe I'll just put some drabbles up or something, later on. I'm kind of on a Watch This Space high even though that's probably collecting dust on FF. I'm practicing characterization before I continue that since I don't want my OCs to suck.

So, anyway, I'll stop rambling and let you revel in the...angst? I don't know if it's angst or just a lot of messed up.

Whatever it is, I hope it wasn't too bad. o_O