SixthMoon, the band Kaigaku's only half-heartedly a part of, meets up again for the first practice session in over a month. For the first time since his life went straight down the toilet in a way that he maybe had some modicum of control over.
His bandmates are a sibling duo who'd been looking for a keyboardist and who'd been willing to pay for his skills. Not a whole lot, but more than he's ever otherwise earned from the musical training he'd wasted so much of his life on. Given that it's at most five hours of commitment each week, he'll say it's worth it. At the very least, it's not as bad as his "real" job.
He does his best not to let anything show on his face. He's reluctantly become somewhat close to Gyuutarou and Ume after all the time they've had to spend together - as close as he'll ever be to any other people - but there's still some unfathomable distance between them that he doesn't care to bridge.
Unfortunately, whenever there's another party involved, his will never seems to be respected.
"Heard you moved back in with your gramps," Gyuutarou says casually, hovering annoyingly over Kaigaku's shoulder as he zips his keyboard case shut after practice. He stiffens.
"He's not my real grandfather."
"Wh- I didn't say that," Gyuutarou sputters. "The hell is up with you? You got some sort of complex?"
"And how did you find out?" Kaigaku continues aggressively. Family shit is family shit, and the last thing he wants is that garbage leaking into his personal life and turning it into a dumpster fire too.
Taking a step back, Gyuutarou puts his hands in front of himself defensively.
"Chill. Ume says your brother was posting about it on whatever website she follows him on. Intergram or something?"
"Ume does what now?"
A look that screams "oh no" flashes across Gyuutarou's face.
"Look, man, it's not a big deal, okay? You're taking things too seriously. Lighten up. We're on your side."
The door opens. Kaigaku whips around as Ume walks back into the practice room to gather her belongings, blissfully unaware of the gravity of her sins.
"You follow my brother on Instagram?"
Ume stops in her tracks, eyebrows raised. Her eyes flick from Kaigaku's face to somewhere above and slightly to the left - presumably her brother. He seems to signal something to her because her expression grows unexpectedly defiant.
"Your brother? Yeah." She smirks. "What can I say? I saw those scrawny little arms and badly bleached hair one day, and I just couldn't help myself."
Even though he can tell her words are sarcastic, he can't help but gag. She breaks out in laughter.
"Oh my god, I'm just kidding. We stalked you on social media because you're so fucking cagey about your personal life. Couldn't find anything actually from you, but you were in a bunch of his pics. He followed back, if that makes it any better."
"Better!?"
She shrugs. "Worse then, I guess."
"What the fuck is wrong with you? Do you have any fucking sense of decency? You want me to fucking dig up all your dirty laundry too, bitch?"
"Hey, don't talk to my sister like that," Gyuutarou says, an edge forming in his voice.
Kaigaku turns, straightens up to his full height, and squares his shoulders, balling his fists for good measure. "Yeah? You wanna make me?"
He takes the first punch directly to his stomach, and even if Gyuutarou's holding back, it's still dirty as hell. Which is all well and fine by him because he sure isn't in the mood to play fair either. He hits back however he can, wherever he can, leveraging his lower center of mass to topple Gyuutarou over onto the floor.
"Alright boys, break it up," Ume sighs, yanking Kaigaku off her brother by the back of his shirt. He struggles out of her grasp.
"If you ever say shit like that to Ume again," Gyuutarou warns, panting, "I'll kill you."
"Get in the fucking line," Kaigaku spits, gingerly pressing his fingers against the tender spot on his cheek. He'll need to ice it quickly - if it bruises too badly, Gramps and Zenitsu are bound to ask questions.
"No," Ume snaps. "You two are gonna go home and cool your fucking heads for a few days, and then it's gonna be practice as usual next Thursday night. We're finally getting the chance to play at a real fucking venue, so if either of you blows this for us, I'll be the one doing the killing."
It's the same threat she and her brother always use, and Kaigaku can see why he's the only keyboardist whose services they've managed to retain for any significant amount of time. They're both stubborn and entitled, and yet they're somehow also the only two people he can get along with without inevitably feeling like disappearing from this earth.
By the time he gets back, the bruise is rapidly painting his cheekbone a dark red, but at least it's late enough that no one's around to comment. Grabbing an ice pack from the freezer and a towel from the bathroom, he slinks off to his room to nurse his injured pride.
Why. Why is everyone so goddamn nosy.
There's Gramps and Zenitsu always poking around, asking questions, pretending they care, and now there's Ume and Gyuutarou following Zenitsu (Zenitsu!) on social media because they "want to get to know their bandmate better." Honestly, the only saving grace of his job is the fact that everyone's too dead on the inside to give a shit about his life.
Or maybe that also upsets him, if he dwells on the notion for too long. He tries not to.
For yet another night, he doesn't sleep well. The next night isn't any better, and after tossing and turning for an hour, he gives up and gets out of bed. Part of him, a remnant of the fifteen-year-old gremlin Kaigaku that lives on to this day, considers cracking open the piano and banging out a nice Beethoven or Rachmaninoff. Twenty-two-year-old Kaigaku wrestles him down and seats himself at his desk instead.
He picks up the book. It's some bullshit novel Gramps had given him for his birthday one year. He'd read the first page five different times over the course of several years and never gotten past that point.
Might as well make that six, he decides, and picks it up again.
Sometimes, as the exhaustion that permeates his existence waxes and wanes, his mind wanders and he thinks. He ruminates on the shelf life of a memory, the half-life of happiness, the lives that, despite his best efforts, have become hopelessly entangled with his. The way he's expected to comprehend multiple human lives when the scale of just his one already escapes him.
Most of the time, though, his head is filled with an angry blue haze.
He gets an email from the company he interviewed at three weeks ago, back when the bruise was a sickly green splotch across his cheek and everyone kept looking at him as if he were something to pity.
Dear Mr. Kuwajima, the email starts. Thank you for taking the time to -
He deletes it. Another rejection, but at least it doesn't sting (because that would require him to have cared in the first place).
The next morning, he puts on his business casual outfit and drives to yet another interview. This one's at a company he thinks - on paper - he wouldn't hate, but as soon as he steps into the lobby, with the fake potted plants and monotonous office noises, he knows he absolutely would hate it.
The interview itself is a horrible ordeal that barely leaves an impression on his memory. As he leaves, he asks for verbal rejection right then and there so no one else's time has to be wasted. The hiring manager gives him an uncomfortable look and repeats his earlier line about expecting an email within two weeks.
On top of all that, it's his turn to get the groceries and cook dinner today. Despite Gramps's insistence that they can afford it, anxiety still weighs heavy in his chest as he skips over the discount section. He makes a few simple dishes that are decent at best, but Gramps and Zenitsu praise it like he's about to win an award or something. An award for having the most annoying family, maybe.
As usual, he leaves as quickly as he can. As usual, his stomach starts growling around ten o'clock. He gives it an hour to either settle or become so unpleasant he has to do something about it; the latter happens, as has become the norm these days.
He's digging through the fridge in the dark for something that won't be too gross to eat cold when he hears something move behind him. The lights flicker on, and he freezes like a child with his hand caught in the cookie jar.
"Kaigaku?"
He turns around as Zenitsu lowers the violin he'd been brandishing by the neck.
"Are you for fucking real?" Kaigaku hisses, gesturing at the violin. "If you broke that over some asshole's head, I'd kick your fucking ass into your next life."
"What're you doing?" Zenitsu asks, ignoring him.
"Getting something to eat. What else does it look like I'm doing, dipshit?"
Zenitsu shrinks a bit from his words, pulling the violin closer to his chest, and the disgust is as fresh as ever inside Kaigaku's mouth. His brother has always been like this, so half-hearted in everything he does. Half-hearted at school, half-hearted practicing music, half-hearted trying to confront him.
Except now things have changed. Now, he's setting the violin down on the dining table and has the gall to look upset, as if he weren't the root cause of Kaigaku's suffering.
"Since Gramps won't ask, I'll do it. Why don't you want to eat with us?"
"Why don't I want - why would I want to?" Kaigaku slams the fridge door shut. "You're so goddamn annoying. Both of you. Always talking about stupid shit and wasting my time."
"We want to spend time with you because we care about you," Zenitsu says, his tone equal parts indignant and bewildered.
"Oh, don't give me that crap," Kaigaku spits.
His heart is racing - from what, he can't tell. There's so much, just so much going on inside him, something falling apart and something getting torn down and something spilling out, messy, like the paint he'd knocked over once in the living room years ago that, despite his fears, Gramps hadn't yelled at him about.
"I'm not lying! I love you! Gramps loves you!"
It's hard to loom over someone taller, but he steps forward and does his best.
"If he really cared about me," Kaigaku snarls, "then why did he want you?"
Why else had his grandfather wanted another kid, some brat who wasn't even grateful enough to take his name, if not to fix everything he'd fucked up trying to raise the first one? What else was Kaigaku supposed to have been except a test case? How else could he have spent years watching everything he'd thought was special and sacred about family gifted so freely to some snot-nosed little twerp like Zenitsu?
Fuck. His nose stings and his eyes water, and he feels so weak. Feels so fifteen, hearing the news from his adoptive grandfather for the first time, and so ten, haunted by the fact that his birth parents never wanted him.
"Kaigaku," Zenitsu says, and to his credit his voice barely shakes, "family isn't a zero-sum game. Gramps never loved you any less after he took me in. I never loved you any less after you ran away. Neither of us did. That's not the way it works."
Nineteen-year-old Kaigaku screams. Twenty-two-year-old Kaigaku, the disgraceful weakling, doubles over, unable to stop the tears of frustration that have been dammed up for so long.
"That's easy for you to say," he snaps, and the waver in his voice sounds foreign, like he's listening to someone else speak. "You always had it so easy. I could be good at everything and you could suck at everything, but every time he'd find the one thing you were good at and make as big of a fucking deal out of it as anything I ever accomplished."
"This isn't a competition," Zenitsu says, averting his eyes. "It never was."
God. If he'd known how much this night was going to suck, he would've just gone to bed hungry. He turns around without another word and grabs his keys off the kitchen counter.
"Where are you going?" Zenitsu asks, grabbing onto his arm. "It's almost midnight." Kaigaku shakes him off.
"Out. Don't bother waiting for me."
The night is cold, and he can't suppress his shivering as he stomps to his car. He hadn't brought a jacket - or anything other than his phone - on his late night excursion for food, and it's biting him in the ass now. When it rains, it sure fucking pours.
In the rearview mirror, he can see his so-called family idling just outside the front door, watching. Two strangers who'd forced themselves into his life and somehow still managed to leave him feeling lost and adrift.
To hell with them.
He drives off. He doesn't remember the exact address, but based on the couple of times Ume and Gyuutarou asked him for a ride after practice, he does remember the general neighborhood they live in. It's run down, like the location of his old apartment, and the only street parking he can find is several blocks away from what he thinks is the building they live in.
can i stay over, he texts Gyuutarou. He gets a response almost immediately.
?
dont wanna explain right now whats your address
The typing symbol bounces at the bottom of the screen for an excruciatingly long time. Kaigaku glares at his phone, wishing there were some way to beam his annoyance directly into Gyuutarou's brain. Really give him a good, thorough thrashing in there. But at long last, after many pauses and restarts and more pauses, Kaigaku finally gets what he's looking for.
Gyuutarou's waiting at the entrance.
"The fuck is going on?" he asks, his breath coming out in little clouds. He lets them into the lobby, and they walk past the rows of mailboxes along the wall. "You know what time it is, man?"
"I got in a fight with Zenitsu," he mutters, sullen. There's an "out of order" sign taped next to the elevator, but Gyuutarou presses the button anyway.
"Who?"
Kaigaku groans. "Flamingthunder7."
"Oh, your brother?"
"He's not - "
"Not your real brother, gotcha." The elevator dings, and the doors open to reveal a dingy interior and a rank smell. Gyuutarou steps in and motions for him to follow.
"Isn't this thing out of order?" Kaigaku asks, eyeing him warily and trying not to breathe in too deeply. Death by shitty elevator, strangely enough, isn't very high on his list of acceptable ways to go.
"You wanna climb up ten flights of stairs? Be my guest."
Kaigaku grimaces but concedes. The ascent is jerky, the ceiling lights flickering more than a few times. He's pretty sure someone must have pissed or vomited or died or something-ed in there because the smell is just awful and overwhelming.
He thinks back to the citrus that lingers, awful and overwhelming, in the memory of his room.
They manage to make it up to the eleventh floor in one piece, though it's definitely not a mode of transportation that Kaigaku plans on ever using again. The carpeting in the hallway is scuffed, worn all the way down to the backing in some patches. Muffled yelling comes from one of the rooms close to them. Gyuutarou doesn't spare it a second glance.
"Welcome to the Shabana residence," he says with exaggerated pomp as he opens the door to his and Ume's apartment. The place is messy, but not as messy as Kaigaku had pictured. Loose papers and unopened mail cover a good portion of the surfaces he can see, but the trash cans are mostly empty and there's even a vase of fresh flowers on the dining table.
"Alright, we've got a couch or a sleeping bag for the floor," Gyuutarou continues. "Take your pick."
The floor in question is a cheap linoleum that doesn't look like it's been swept in a while. The couch, on the other hand, has a few rips in the cover and a mysterious stain on one cushion. Kaigaku suspects they got it off the curb somewhere.
"I'll take the couch," he says, though what he really wants is his bed at the house he's just left yet again.
Unsurprisingly, he has trouble staying asleep. By the time he realizes the birds cawing outside aren't going to shut up, it's six in the morning and he's maybe gotten a couple of hour-long naps in. He digs around the pantry for something to eat, but nothing particularly piques his appetite.
"Are you really gonna be okay like this, man?" Gyuutarou asks later in the day. The couch is the lumpiest piece of shit Kaigaku's ever slept on and a good half a head too short, so no, he's not going to be okay like this because he's tired as hell. And his neck hurts too, to add injury to insult.
"Of course I am," he snaps impatiently.
"Why do you keep checking your phone?" Gyuutarou points at it with the spoon he's using to eat stale cereal. "You gonna call them?"
"Hell no." The thought alone makes him want to puke.
"Waiting for them to call you?"
Shit. He's good.
"Mind your own goddamn business," Kaigaku says, scowling and setting his phone face-down on the table. It doesn't buzz.
"Man, do you even realize how lucky you are?"
"Lucky?"
"Yeah. You've got people who care about you. Hell, who cared about you when you were growing up, even. Me and Ume sure didn't have anyone like that. And here you are, throwing it all away like a fucking idiot."
"What do you mean?" Kaigaku asks, the anger condensing inside him. "They don't give a shit about me. They haven't even called."
Gyuutarou slaps a hand down on the table.
"That's bullshit and you fucking know it, man," he says heatedly. "You always take everything and find the worst possible way to look at it. You're so fucking stupid. Get the fuck out of my house."
"Fuck you."
"I'm dead serious! Unless you admit right here, right now, that you're the world's dumbest bitch and call your goddamn family, I'm kicking you the fuck out!"
"Could you guys be any louder?" Ume shouts, throwing open the bedroom door. She's dressed in an oversized t-shirt and a pair of shorts, a blanket draped over her shoulders. Behind her, Kaigaku can see a rickety bunk bed and several posters of herself plastered on the wall. Unlike the Ume standing in the doorway, they're all smiling sweetly.
"I'm teaching this dumb piece of shit a lesson," Gyuutarou explains.
"Well, do it quieter," she huffs, slamming the door closed.
The two of them glare at each other across the dining table. Gyuutarou's hand twitches.
"Do it, asshole."
Kaigaku growls, but he takes his phone and dials the number. Zenitsu picks up superhumanly quickly.
"Kaigaku?" He sounds breathless, panicked even. "Where are you?"
"I slept over at a friend's place."
Zenitsu releases a long breath and mutters something to himself that Kaigaku can't pick up over the phone. He waits for his adoptive brother to say something, but it instead falls on himself to break the silence.
"So, uh, I'll be back for dinner, if that's okay?"
"Actually," Zenitsu says, and there's a startling, sharp anger in his voice, "no. It's really not okay. You can't just do that."
"I- what?"
"Gramps and I were worried sick! We didn't know what you were doing or where you ran off to! I used to let these things slide because I didn't want you to hate me, but you know what? It's not fair to us!"
Zenitsu's starting to to cry, Kaigaku can hear.
"What do you mean it's not fair to you? You're the one telling me I can't go back to my own damn house."
"It's not your home, it's ours. All of ours. So, you can come back when you're ready to be an adult."
When he's ready to be an adult? He's been an adult for years already, for so much longer than Zenitsu has had to be. Zenitsu has absolutely no right to be lecturing him about anything, much less growing up.
But he's tired, and something like citrus occupies the back of his mind, and he really doesn't want to spend another night on Gyuutarou and Ume's couch.
He doesn't have the energy to do anything but concede.
"What do you want from me? A fucking apology?"
"Yeah. That's a good place to start."
He freezes.
Apologizing. To Zenitsu. God, he's reached the lowest of low points in his life. Just right down there with his face pressed in the mud.
He glances to the side. Gyuutarou rests his chin in his palm and raises his eyebrows, nodding a bit as if to signal something to him. He's not Ume, but even he gets what that's supposed to mean. And he's not happy about it.
Kaigaku presses his lips together tightly before sucking in a deep breath. "I'm sorry," he says, each of the words feeling like a punch straight to his pride.
"Sorry about what?" Zenitsu asks, and Kaigaku has to take a minute to make sure he understands the meaning of his brother's words correctly.
"About running off and making you and Gramps worry."
"And?"
"And what else?" He can barely keep his frustration down. Just how much more humiliation does he have to endure? Until Zenitsu feels some sort of sick satisfaction from putting him through this whole ordeal?
"Well, what are you going to do in the future?"
"I don't know?" He throws his free hand into the air. "What do you want!? Me to tell you things? Me to listen to you?"
"Within reason, yeah, that'd be nice."
Sixteen-year-old Kaigaku yells at him not to give up, not to give in. There are fights that need to be fought, and this is one of them. He doesn't owe Zenitsu jack shit, and everyone damn well knows that.
Twenty-two-year-old Kaigaku has a horrible cramp in his neck and just wants to go home, however little joy the prospect of changing his routine and behavior for Zenitsu, of all people, elicits from him.
He'll do it for his grandfather's sake, then.
"Fine," he mumbles.
Zenitsu lets out a resigned sigh. "I'll let Gramps know you'll be home for dinner. Don't try this again, you hear me?"
Kaigaku isn't sure where this new Zenitsu came from, and he isn't sure which is worse: half-assed crybaby Zenitsu who can't ever do anything right, or terrifyingly resolute Zenitsu whose will overpowers even his.
He desperately wants to shower and change out of the clothes he slept in, but he doesn't manage to find the motivation to get up and drive until his empty stomach slaps his brain around a few times. The house is exactly as he left it the night before and exactly as he'd returned to it after the last time he ran away, except today Gramps and Zenitsu aren't outside waiting for him. This time, he has to take the first step in.
He wonders if there will be the smell of citrus again, and if so, whether or not that would mean anything had changed.
A/N: let's pretend kaigaku chose to take kuwajima as his surname (´;ω;｀)
ume and gyuutarou's surname in the gakuen au is shabana so i just used that here lol ( /chapter/487139/14)