Title: When at Once, Darkness Disappears
Fandom: [K], Project K
Characters: Suoh Mikoto/Totsuka Tatara.
Disclaimer: [K] does not belong to me, nor do I make any profit out of this work.
Warnings: unbeta-ed, grammar errors ahoy, possible OOC-ness. Set way, way, way before the TV series began.
A/N: Written in late, late hours of February 14th 2013, intended to be Tatara's birthday fic. This was really not what I intended to write for Tatara's birthday, but it came out so eh, whatever. Like, it doesn't even mention birthday in the slightest, and wow, accidental angst slipping in. D:
A [K] Project fanfiction
When at Once, Darkness Disappears
Tatara woke up from his nap with a start.
He paused for a second, because he wasn't sure what woke him up in the first place. A nightmare, he thought, but of what he couldn't remember. There was a cold sensation on his back, one that couldn't go away even as he curled himself further into the cocoon of his blanket. It unsettled him; like he was sleeping somewhere unfamiliar and having his back to the door. So he poked his head out of the blanket and took a peek of the bar only to see—nothing.
"Huh?" He murmured, slowly shuffling up and letting the blanket fall onto his shoulders. "Did everyone go while I was asleep, I wonder…"
Tatara buries his face onto the couch armrest, inhaling deep, and let himself smile when he recognized Mikoto's scent.
He closed his eyes back, but the silence was too deafening. He wasn't used to this kind of silence—not anymore. Not since Mikoto and HOMRA became a part of his life. His life was always full to the brim nowadays, every second threatening to burst with warmth that he wasn't sure how to contain. There were always people and laughter and sometimes domestic violence, but Tatara loved every single moment of that, too.
It was quiet. Tatara thought it was quite disturbing that he couldn't hear a single noise. He spent the next five minutes wondering if he'd turned deaf somehow, and what would happen if he really did (would King spend longer times with him instead of sleeping upstairs? Would Saruhiko still mind if Tatara called him by his first name? Would Anna be disappointed, because Tatara wouldn't make up songs anymore?), before deciding that that was silly, because he could still hear his own voice earlier, couldn't he?
He cleared his throat just to make sure, and grinned at the raw, sleep-heavy sound he made.
The clock on the wall said it past five in the afternoon. He should probably get up and turn on the lights. It was getting dark; he could see shadows growing from the corners of the bar, darkening the wooden floor as they crept up on the wall. His eyes tracked them, unblinking, unable to wrench his gaze away. The unsettling feeling clawed on his back, and for the first time in a long while, Tatara felt his breath catch.
He blinked. Twice. Thrice. And then opened his mouth, but he didn't know what sound to make, so he clamped back down, nearly biting his tongue in the process.
Oh, right. It had been so long, he'd nearly forgotten what this feeling was.
"…it's lonely.."
He pulled his knees up to his chest, curled back into the blanket and let it cover his whole head, until he couldn't see the shadows anymore, until everything was completely dark, until his eyes involuntarily closed tightly, until he began chanting senseless words in his head to distract himself, even if the silence weighed on him, pressing him from every side, cold and sad.
"Oi. What are you doing."
He started, nearly throwing himself back in defense, but his blanket was pulled off him in one single smooth motion. It was completely dark now—he couldn't see anything but hazy shapes, but the scent of cigarette assaulting his nose was too familiar that it banished the previous weight in his chest in an instant. Then it was warm again—flooding his chest like it had never been before, and Tatara was so grateful to be alive right now.
"King."
He opened his arm and reached out, a smile slipping onto his face so easily because even if it was still so dark, this person before him was a the very essence of red—of light and fire and warmth. A person lonelier than anyone else, a person Tatara couldn't ever properly understand, a person Tatara loved above everything else.
Mikoto made a short humming noise, and the couch dipped as he sat before Tatara, leaning in to press their lips together.
In the dark, Tatara still couldn't see anything, but that was okay. Mikoto was here.