[fic] Lead
Title: Lead
Pairings/Members: Miyata/Tamamori
Rating: pg-13
Warnings: au, borderline stalking
Summary: It starts with a sketch.
Notes: Written for this years's kis-my-fic2 - orginally posted there.
“Over here!” a gentle voice calls from a few dozen feet away and it carries through the branches of low hanging blossom trees and over the loud hanami crowds and catches Miyata’s attention instantly. His head turns in the direction of the call on reflex despite knowing that there’s no chance of it having been directed at him. Miyata’s there alone, not waiting for anyone or looking for anyone only there to sketch and follow the his life drawing instructor’s orders, but it’s an unknown automatic reflex that makes him look and that’s how the story starts.
Miyata’s first impression is a glimpse of dark hair and porcelain skin and a crooked smile but it burns deep enough and he turns to a fresh blank page of his notebook and puts mark to paper instantly.
The boy, he doesn’t look much younger than Miyata, early twenties, starts of as a little stick figure slowly expanding into 3D form with an eloquent figure of long limbs and stylish clothes and all drawn with a graceful touch. On the opposite page Miyata focuses on the face, the naturally pouted lips and the contrast of sweet almond eyes and sharp challenging almost angry brows. There's the clash too of heavy black lead pencil lines against the bleached white paper that mirrors the contrast of perfectly styled dark ebony hair against translucent skin.
Miyata adds last the curve of a his long neck and the peak of collarbone that shows as the boy leans back on his elbows stretching out on a picnic blanket laughing with his friends. Cheeks coloured pink like the blossoms with happiness or from the warm spring day or maybe there’s alcohol in the boy’s yellow plastic disposable picnic cup.
And that's all Miyata draws. He's too scared to keep adding for fear of ruining the sketch like does to so many and he wants to keep it perfect like a memory.
Tamamori-kun, a girl in the group refers to him, and Yuta-chan a boy calls him, and Miyata overhears and scribbles the name below and turns to the next page.
"Ew."
“Not ew.” Miyata protests clutching at his new character sketch protectively.
“It's too moe even for you.” Yokoo deadpans.
“What? No!” Miyata defends, but then everything Miyata draws is too moe for Yokoo who sticks mostly to fantastical coloured pencil illustrations for surreal children’s books. “I was trying something different this time. It's not set even in a high school!"
“But then why is she in a school uniform?” Yokoo questions.
“It's the costume for when she magically transforms...” And Miyata, turning sheepish now, doesn’t even need the dry patronizing look Yokoo gives him as saying it out loud is enough for Miyata to realise the problem on his own.
"And the eyepatch?" Yokoo carries on questioning, biting back a smirk as he throws salt on Miyata’s artistic wounds.
Miyata has no defense for that, he thought it was cute, maybe mysterious, a detail that he could leave to explain for later when he fleshed out the backstory of the plot further.
“Maybe you should try a boy as your lead for once.” Yokoo suggests, switching back to helpful sempai and done with teasing. It’s good advice too, Miyata’s never ventured far from the magical girl genre and the results have always been lackluster.
“Tamamori Yuta.” Yokoo pronounces carefully and Miyata’s eyes widen in alarm as he looks over to find Yokoo thumbing freely through Miyata’s own personal sketchbook, the book naturally falling open to an often visited page. “You've already named him, it’s perfect to start with, a new style for you, work it up into something to present for next week." Yokoo encourages.
There seems no point informing Yokoo that Tamamori Yuta isn’t a character he invented but a boy Miyata spied on in a park, no point as it most likely will be nothing more than another 20 page proposal turned down, going no further, and ending crumpled up in the wicker trash basket with the rest of Miyata’s failures.
For convenience - and the fact that apparently Miyata struggles drawing without reference anything but girls in school uniforms - he enters himself too into the story as a supporting character, the closest friend to Tamamori’s lead. Plus, every other character design he works up and sets next to Tamamori to his eyes never seems to fit quite right beside the other, doesn’t match.
Borrowing further the background is set as a neighbourhood he already knows, a cram school he went to before finally being accepted by art school on the third attempt. Miyata always had the ambition but not always the talent.
And then Tamamori Yuta is given the ability to see ghosts Miyata decides as there needs to be some form of catalyst to the plot and Yokoo rips up any pages he sees featuring magical transformations.
“I'm the artist.” Miyata confirms for the umpteenth confused schoolgirl surprised that the young fresh author of a newly popular manga series is far from the image they expected, that he’s only a bumbling forever student stuck repeating his final year trying to reach the level to graduate and working in a downtrodden second hand bookshop to make rent. The ink on Miyata’s fingertips and paper cuts apparently are not enough proof and most decline having their volumes signed even when he offers treating him like a fraud or a pervert.
“Well, aren’t you popular.” Fujigaya comments after witnessing another girl walking out. “Big shot manga writer now huh, maybe they're just all shocked that your nose is really as a large as you draw it - hey are you even listening to me?” Fujigaya complains when Miyata doesn't join him in laughing along with his own jokes.
“There’s a deadline soon.” Miyata excuses and Fujigaya, despite being clearly bored, thankfully just leaves him too it.
Deadline is an excuse Miyata comes to use more and more frequently when friends call to make plans or invite him out. There’s an honest truth to it, Miyata does need to work, the schedule of regular chapter releases requires him to work at a challenging fast pace. But despite the heavy load Miyata loves the work, loves to waste evenings drowned in drawings of Tamamori and fantasies of them as two best friends with secrets and bonds and ghosts with missing limbs and organs.
Miyata's never had a best friend, never was as popular as his brother or sister in school. Even now, of the two people he sees most often, Yokoo is more sempai than friend and Fujigaya is Yokoo's first and foremost and just Miyata’s acquaintance by association. Yet now he has Tamamori and ideas for scenes run through Miyata’s mind like a tap he can never turn off and drip through his pencil onto the page.
As the months pass and the manga goes from one off special stories to chapters to volumes their imaginary friendship grows from two unknown strangers - One a mysterious beautiful boy that isolates himself from the world and speaks to objects and empty spaces as if there was someone or thing there that no one else can see. And the other the awkward too friendly fool that uncovers the secret of the ghosts and spirits that Tamamori can see but doesn’t run in fear away from the other.
“Am I haunted?” Miyata asks in one of their first conversations to break the ice.
“Yeah,” Tamamori simply replies eyes trained on what, to Miyata, is apparently nothing in the far corner of Miyata’s room and confirming all of Miyata’s suspicions about the flickering lights and chilling nights. “Did you used to have a pet turtle?”
“Yeah, he died when I- oh.”
A internet search - that Miyata conducts on a whim - for Tamamori Yuta returns the majority of hits for a celebrity using a similar kanji and not much more of any interest until you reach the fourth page of results where a trickle of posts and sites reviewing Miyata’s manga start to spring up and then Miyata’s own website where he posts extra chapters and short scenes online. Finally on the twelfth page of results there’s a blog. The real Tamamori Yuta's blog.
It's rarely updated or visited and mostly a collection of photographs of daily outfits and Tamamori’s dog but the internet is a scary place Miyata discovers as he’s able to determine from such a small amount of content both the area where Tamamori lives and where he works.
In the manga community it’s most likely less scandalous than tracing or directly copying Miyata defends internally with himself as he refers back constantly to photographs of Tamamori open on his computer screen for visual references while he works out first drafts of new chapters..
And when the photographs aren’t enough, there's still life drawing.
“I thought you were scared of the ocean?” and then Yokoo cackles as Miyata practically jumps out of his skin in surprise.
“I’m too scared to swim, the beach is fine.” Miyata corrects once his heart has recovered from the shock of his friend’s unexpected appearance.
Yokoo doesn’t notice, too preoccupied dusting sand off his damp skin, as Miyata slams his sketchbook securely shut and stands quickly “Hey, is that Taipi over there, did you two come together?” Miyata asks hurriedly trying to distract Yokoo and lead him back to where he came from down the opposite end of the shore. “If you’re both done surfing for the day we should head back to town together, maybe get lunch?”
But it’s too late Yokoo’s eyes are already narrowed in confusion, focused on something over Miyata’s shoulder, and then they widen in realisation and Miyata’s stomach twists with nerves and crawls up his throat. Tamamori sits on the sand barely a few strides away beside his own surfboard and preoccupied staring out to sea watching and waiting for the waves. Yokoo glances between the sketchbook in Miyata’s hand and the boy on the beach and puts it all together.
“It’s like you’re writing him a love letter that’s he’s never going to see.” Fujigaya comments because of course Yokoo tells him too once they’re all gathered back at the latter's apartment. “A creepy love letter.” Yokoo continues as he moves from one volume to the next, re-reading Miyata’s manga under a new inspection. “Still with excellent shading if I do say so myself.”
“You did the shading.” Miyata reminds and then rolls his eyes when Yokoo just grins.
“But,” Yokoo starts and Miyata stiffens expecting the finally feel the brunt of some judgement yet instead all he finds is Yokoo for once seeming just as lost as he often feels and his face drawn tired. “I get it. Inspiration is so elusive and if you have it, if you somehow found your source of it then you wouldn’t want to lose it. I know you don’t mean but Miyata please just know where the lines are and don’t cross them - or don’t cross any more of them.”
“Or,” Fujigaya translates less tactfully with a leer, “keep the fantasies to the page.”
“Stay close.” Tamamori insists, his skin too unnaturally cold for a summer evening, goosebumps spreading along bare skin of his forearms, his breath in puffs lingering in the air. “Is someone else here?” Miyata whispers worriedly, almost believing he can see the reflection of some bloody corpse in the pools of Tamamori’s shaken eyes if he looks deep enough - and then there’s perhaps more manga frames than strictly necessary dedicated to the way Tamamori clutches to Miyata for warmth as a ghost gurgles murmurs of death into his ear.
Miyata feels bold adding in details that Yokoo or his publishers never seem to pick up on or questions. In one chapter there’s a full page dedicated to Tamamori and Miyata embracing after Tamamori is freed from a possession and they cling tightly releasing the pent up desperation of almost losing the other. Slowly, he regrets unable to stop himself, their story of innocent friendship is corrupted.
“I wish you could see them too, so I wouldn’t be alone.” Tamamori laments.
“I wish you could hear the living as clearly.” Miyata whispers under breath, his current character arch one of frustration and subtle heartache on how Tamamori never seems to notice the obvious feelings of anyone but the spirits. Never notices him.
It’s Tuesday and Tamamori is late.
Tamamori’s late more often than not but Miyata still grows anxious as his sits waiting at the train platform wondering if perhaps Tamamori won’t show today due to some unknown break in his schedule or that despite arriving early Miyata somehow already missed him. Miyata fidgets impatient with a takeaway cup of coffee in one hand and a pencil in the other, sketchbook perched on his knees, there truly is a serious deadline this time and Miyata’s stilted inspirationless waiting for his muse and ignoring enquiring persistent status report mails from his publisher.
Miyata smiles broadly in relief and whispers an unheard good morning as Tamamori finally enters the scene appearing on the opposite platform across the tracks. Tamamori yawns once, then twice and then widely a third time and his eyes look glazed and dream like - like perhaps he really is sleep deprived from ghosts haunting him all night. It’s a good look, a suitable one, and Miyata sketches fast to capture it. It’s a good starting point but it’s not a plot.
The pencil moves across the page blindly as Miyata’s attention stays on Tamamori drinking in every detail he can catch. Miyata only pauses in his design when he registers how Tamamori is now staring straight ahead across the tracks, almost unnervingly directly back meeting Miyata’s eye. He doesn’t seem quite as tired anymore, Tamamori’s gaze suddenly keenly awake and alert, and then the trains speeds through the station before pulling to a stop, the carriages a wall between them.
When the train pulls out Tamamori is gone with it but Miyata has his idea. A man that jumped in front of a train, a suicidal soul with unfinished business trapped tied to the platform. Miyata rushes to outline the story before the inspiration passes. Maybe a salaryman or maybe a spirit more troubled, it could be targeting the living, pushing others onto the track or urging them to jump, or-
“It's you.” Miyata looks up from the page on reflex not expecting it to be directed at him but it is, his pencil halts mid line and it's a voice he knows, and it's Tamamori’s standing directly in front of him.
“You’re the guy. You’re the one writing the manga. Do you know me?” Tamamori asks and Miyata sits there gaping like a fish lost on land. He tries to stand but he can't move. He tries to think and his mind statics.
“You’re always staring me.” Tamamori continues and Miyata just nods as there seems no point to deny it, he can’t even stop staring now, fascinated lost in the details he could never see from far away, the gold flecks of Tamamori eyes, smalls marks along his skin he never noticed.
“You’ve read it?” Miyata asks surprised. His mind working on a delay.
“Weren’t you drawing it for me to read?” Tamamori demands, clutching tightly at his bag, breath ragged from running the stairs of one platform to the other.
“I- Maybe. I don't know." And maybe Miyata was hoping Tamamori would find it one day. Find him. Notice him. He didn’t even take the obvious caution of at least changing Tamamori’s name because of it.
“My brother’s girlfriend gave the volumes to me. She said I look just like the lead, and that we had the same name. They seemed to think it was a funny coincidence but it couldn’t be, right?” Miyata just nods dumbly in agreement again. “I read it all in one night and it was odd at first - creepy - or it should have been creepy but then, the adventures and the story, imagining it like this other life I had, it was fun.”
“Tama.” Miyata gasps.
“I don’t even know how you know my name.” Tamamori wonders but it doesn’t seem to bother him.
“I know you better than anyone.” Miyata whispers breathless, and part of him truly believes it forgetting what’s fiction and what's not.
“You’re weird.” Tamamori replies yet it doesn’t seem like that much of an insult.
“You still can’t draw hands. They look like squids.” Tamamori remarks as he draws angry lines through a sketch. “Re-do this page.” He orders as he shoves the sheet of paper across the table.
“Give me something to work with.” Miyata requests, holding out his left hand like a plea, and without a pause to question it Tamamori slips his own hand into Miyata’s and threads their fingers together to mimic the pose on the page.
"Which of us do you like more?" Tamamori asks not even looking up to make eye contact. It’s been a common question recently, the topic often coming up as they work together hunched over and sharing the small space of Miyata’s work desk. Their feet brush under the table and their arms bump into one another as Miyata pours over the final artwork and Tamamori assists helping to letter in the text to the finalized pages.
"He's nicer, the things you have him say and the way he acts, he’s nicer than me.” Tamamori argues. “And you draw his nose without the droop at the tip. You know, it’s more flattering.”
“But you’re the original. There’s nothing better than that.” Miyata always replies with a smile.
When they kiss, despite the months that have past and trust they had to build it’s still awkward and new, their noses bump and their hands are clumsy but it’s more perfect that any graceful piece of art. Unconsciously Miyata still traces the lines and curves of Tamamori’s lips but not to ever recreate them on a page, just for his own story.
Pairings/Members: Miyata/Tamamori
Rating: pg-13
Warnings: au, borderline stalking
Summary: It starts with a sketch.
Notes: Written for this years's kis-my-fic2 - orginally posted there.
“Over here!” a gentle voice calls from a few dozen feet away and it carries through the branches of low hanging blossom trees and over the loud hanami crowds and catches Miyata’s attention instantly. His head turns in the direction of the call on reflex despite knowing that there’s no chance of it having been directed at him. Miyata’s there alone, not waiting for anyone or looking for anyone only there to sketch and follow the his life drawing instructor’s orders, but it’s an unknown automatic reflex that makes him look and that’s how the story starts.
Miyata’s first impression is a glimpse of dark hair and porcelain skin and a crooked smile but it burns deep enough and he turns to a fresh blank page of his notebook and puts mark to paper instantly.
The boy, he doesn’t look much younger than Miyata, early twenties, starts of as a little stick figure slowly expanding into 3D form with an eloquent figure of long limbs and stylish clothes and all drawn with a graceful touch. On the opposite page Miyata focuses on the face, the naturally pouted lips and the contrast of sweet almond eyes and sharp challenging almost angry brows. There's the clash too of heavy black lead pencil lines against the bleached white paper that mirrors the contrast of perfectly styled dark ebony hair against translucent skin.
Miyata adds last the curve of a his long neck and the peak of collarbone that shows as the boy leans back on his elbows stretching out on a picnic blanket laughing with his friends. Cheeks coloured pink like the blossoms with happiness or from the warm spring day or maybe there’s alcohol in the boy’s yellow plastic disposable picnic cup.
And that's all Miyata draws. He's too scared to keep adding for fear of ruining the sketch like does to so many and he wants to keep it perfect like a memory.
Tamamori-kun, a girl in the group refers to him, and Yuta-chan a boy calls him, and Miyata overhears and scribbles the name below and turns to the next page.
"Ew."
“Not ew.” Miyata protests clutching at his new character sketch protectively.
“It's too moe even for you.” Yokoo deadpans.
“What? No!” Miyata defends, but then everything Miyata draws is too moe for Yokoo who sticks mostly to fantastical coloured pencil illustrations for surreal children’s books. “I was trying something different this time. It's not set even in a high school!"
“But then why is she in a school uniform?” Yokoo questions.
“It's the costume for when she magically transforms...” And Miyata, turning sheepish now, doesn’t even need the dry patronizing look Yokoo gives him as saying it out loud is enough for Miyata to realise the problem on his own.
"And the eyepatch?" Yokoo carries on questioning, biting back a smirk as he throws salt on Miyata’s artistic wounds.
Miyata has no defense for that, he thought it was cute, maybe mysterious, a detail that he could leave to explain for later when he fleshed out the backstory of the plot further.
“Maybe you should try a boy as your lead for once.” Yokoo suggests, switching back to helpful sempai and done with teasing. It’s good advice too, Miyata’s never ventured far from the magical girl genre and the results have always been lackluster.
“Tamamori Yuta.” Yokoo pronounces carefully and Miyata’s eyes widen in alarm as he looks over to find Yokoo thumbing freely through Miyata’s own personal sketchbook, the book naturally falling open to an often visited page. “You've already named him, it’s perfect to start with, a new style for you, work it up into something to present for next week." Yokoo encourages.
There seems no point informing Yokoo that Tamamori Yuta isn’t a character he invented but a boy Miyata spied on in a park, no point as it most likely will be nothing more than another 20 page proposal turned down, going no further, and ending crumpled up in the wicker trash basket with the rest of Miyata’s failures.
For convenience - and the fact that apparently Miyata struggles drawing without reference anything but girls in school uniforms - he enters himself too into the story as a supporting character, the closest friend to Tamamori’s lead. Plus, every other character design he works up and sets next to Tamamori to his eyes never seems to fit quite right beside the other, doesn’t match.
Borrowing further the background is set as a neighbourhood he already knows, a cram school he went to before finally being accepted by art school on the third attempt. Miyata always had the ambition but not always the talent.
And then Tamamori Yuta is given the ability to see ghosts Miyata decides as there needs to be some form of catalyst to the plot and Yokoo rips up any pages he sees featuring magical transformations.
“I'm the artist.” Miyata confirms for the umpteenth confused schoolgirl surprised that the young fresh author of a newly popular manga series is far from the image they expected, that he’s only a bumbling forever student stuck repeating his final year trying to reach the level to graduate and working in a downtrodden second hand bookshop to make rent. The ink on Miyata’s fingertips and paper cuts apparently are not enough proof and most decline having their volumes signed even when he offers treating him like a fraud or a pervert.
“Well, aren’t you popular.” Fujigaya comments after witnessing another girl walking out. “Big shot manga writer now huh, maybe they're just all shocked that your nose is really as a large as you draw it - hey are you even listening to me?” Fujigaya complains when Miyata doesn't join him in laughing along with his own jokes.
“There’s a deadline soon.” Miyata excuses and Fujigaya, despite being clearly bored, thankfully just leaves him too it.
Deadline is an excuse Miyata comes to use more and more frequently when friends call to make plans or invite him out. There’s an honest truth to it, Miyata does need to work, the schedule of regular chapter releases requires him to work at a challenging fast pace. But despite the heavy load Miyata loves the work, loves to waste evenings drowned in drawings of Tamamori and fantasies of them as two best friends with secrets and bonds and ghosts with missing limbs and organs.
Miyata's never had a best friend, never was as popular as his brother or sister in school. Even now, of the two people he sees most often, Yokoo is more sempai than friend and Fujigaya is Yokoo's first and foremost and just Miyata’s acquaintance by association. Yet now he has Tamamori and ideas for scenes run through Miyata’s mind like a tap he can never turn off and drip through his pencil onto the page.
As the months pass and the manga goes from one off special stories to chapters to volumes their imaginary friendship grows from two unknown strangers - One a mysterious beautiful boy that isolates himself from the world and speaks to objects and empty spaces as if there was someone or thing there that no one else can see. And the other the awkward too friendly fool that uncovers the secret of the ghosts and spirits that Tamamori can see but doesn’t run in fear away from the other.
“Am I haunted?” Miyata asks in one of their first conversations to break the ice.
“Yeah,” Tamamori simply replies eyes trained on what, to Miyata, is apparently nothing in the far corner of Miyata’s room and confirming all of Miyata’s suspicions about the flickering lights and chilling nights. “Did you used to have a pet turtle?”
“Yeah, he died when I- oh.”
A internet search - that Miyata conducts on a whim - for Tamamori Yuta returns the majority of hits for a celebrity using a similar kanji and not much more of any interest until you reach the fourth page of results where a trickle of posts and sites reviewing Miyata’s manga start to spring up and then Miyata’s own website where he posts extra chapters and short scenes online. Finally on the twelfth page of results there’s a blog. The real Tamamori Yuta's blog.
It's rarely updated or visited and mostly a collection of photographs of daily outfits and Tamamori’s dog but the internet is a scary place Miyata discovers as he’s able to determine from such a small amount of content both the area where Tamamori lives and where he works.
In the manga community it’s most likely less scandalous than tracing or directly copying Miyata defends internally with himself as he refers back constantly to photographs of Tamamori open on his computer screen for visual references while he works out first drafts of new chapters..
And when the photographs aren’t enough, there's still life drawing.
“I thought you were scared of the ocean?” and then Yokoo cackles as Miyata practically jumps out of his skin in surprise.
“I’m too scared to swim, the beach is fine.” Miyata corrects once his heart has recovered from the shock of his friend’s unexpected appearance.
Yokoo doesn’t notice, too preoccupied dusting sand off his damp skin, as Miyata slams his sketchbook securely shut and stands quickly “Hey, is that Taipi over there, did you two come together?” Miyata asks hurriedly trying to distract Yokoo and lead him back to where he came from down the opposite end of the shore. “If you’re both done surfing for the day we should head back to town together, maybe get lunch?”
But it’s too late Yokoo’s eyes are already narrowed in confusion, focused on something over Miyata’s shoulder, and then they widen in realisation and Miyata’s stomach twists with nerves and crawls up his throat. Tamamori sits on the sand barely a few strides away beside his own surfboard and preoccupied staring out to sea watching and waiting for the waves. Yokoo glances between the sketchbook in Miyata’s hand and the boy on the beach and puts it all together.
“It’s like you’re writing him a love letter that’s he’s never going to see.” Fujigaya comments because of course Yokoo tells him too once they’re all gathered back at the latter's apartment. “A creepy love letter.” Yokoo continues as he moves from one volume to the next, re-reading Miyata’s manga under a new inspection. “Still with excellent shading if I do say so myself.”
“You did the shading.” Miyata reminds and then rolls his eyes when Yokoo just grins.
“But,” Yokoo starts and Miyata stiffens expecting the finally feel the brunt of some judgement yet instead all he finds is Yokoo for once seeming just as lost as he often feels and his face drawn tired. “I get it. Inspiration is so elusive and if you have it, if you somehow found your source of it then you wouldn’t want to lose it. I know you don’t mean but Miyata please just know where the lines are and don’t cross them - or don’t cross any more of them.”
“Or,” Fujigaya translates less tactfully with a leer, “keep the fantasies to the page.”
“Stay close.” Tamamori insists, his skin too unnaturally cold for a summer evening, goosebumps spreading along bare skin of his forearms, his breath in puffs lingering in the air. “Is someone else here?” Miyata whispers worriedly, almost believing he can see the reflection of some bloody corpse in the pools of Tamamori’s shaken eyes if he looks deep enough - and then there’s perhaps more manga frames than strictly necessary dedicated to the way Tamamori clutches to Miyata for warmth as a ghost gurgles murmurs of death into his ear.
Miyata feels bold adding in details that Yokoo or his publishers never seem to pick up on or questions. In one chapter there’s a full page dedicated to Tamamori and Miyata embracing after Tamamori is freed from a possession and they cling tightly releasing the pent up desperation of almost losing the other. Slowly, he regrets unable to stop himself, their story of innocent friendship is corrupted.
“I wish you could see them too, so I wouldn’t be alone.” Tamamori laments.
“I wish you could hear the living as clearly.” Miyata whispers under breath, his current character arch one of frustration and subtle heartache on how Tamamori never seems to notice the obvious feelings of anyone but the spirits. Never notices him.
It’s Tuesday and Tamamori is late.
Tamamori’s late more often than not but Miyata still grows anxious as his sits waiting at the train platform wondering if perhaps Tamamori won’t show today due to some unknown break in his schedule or that despite arriving early Miyata somehow already missed him. Miyata fidgets impatient with a takeaway cup of coffee in one hand and a pencil in the other, sketchbook perched on his knees, there truly is a serious deadline this time and Miyata’s stilted inspirationless waiting for his muse and ignoring enquiring persistent status report mails from his publisher.
Miyata smiles broadly in relief and whispers an unheard good morning as Tamamori finally enters the scene appearing on the opposite platform across the tracks. Tamamori yawns once, then twice and then widely a third time and his eyes look glazed and dream like - like perhaps he really is sleep deprived from ghosts haunting him all night. It’s a good look, a suitable one, and Miyata sketches fast to capture it. It’s a good starting point but it’s not a plot.
The pencil moves across the page blindly as Miyata’s attention stays on Tamamori drinking in every detail he can catch. Miyata only pauses in his design when he registers how Tamamori is now staring straight ahead across the tracks, almost unnervingly directly back meeting Miyata’s eye. He doesn’t seem quite as tired anymore, Tamamori’s gaze suddenly keenly awake and alert, and then the trains speeds through the station before pulling to a stop, the carriages a wall between them.
When the train pulls out Tamamori is gone with it but Miyata has his idea. A man that jumped in front of a train, a suicidal soul with unfinished business trapped tied to the platform. Miyata rushes to outline the story before the inspiration passes. Maybe a salaryman or maybe a spirit more troubled, it could be targeting the living, pushing others onto the track or urging them to jump, or-
“It's you.” Miyata looks up from the page on reflex not expecting it to be directed at him but it is, his pencil halts mid line and it's a voice he knows, and it's Tamamori’s standing directly in front of him.
“You’re the guy. You’re the one writing the manga. Do you know me?” Tamamori asks and Miyata sits there gaping like a fish lost on land. He tries to stand but he can't move. He tries to think and his mind statics.
“You’re always staring me.” Tamamori continues and Miyata just nods as there seems no point to deny it, he can’t even stop staring now, fascinated lost in the details he could never see from far away, the gold flecks of Tamamori eyes, smalls marks along his skin he never noticed.
“You’ve read it?” Miyata asks surprised. His mind working on a delay.
“Weren’t you drawing it for me to read?” Tamamori demands, clutching tightly at his bag, breath ragged from running the stairs of one platform to the other.
“I- Maybe. I don't know." And maybe Miyata was hoping Tamamori would find it one day. Find him. Notice him. He didn’t even take the obvious caution of at least changing Tamamori’s name because of it.
“My brother’s girlfriend gave the volumes to me. She said I look just like the lead, and that we had the same name. They seemed to think it was a funny coincidence but it couldn’t be, right?” Miyata just nods dumbly in agreement again. “I read it all in one night and it was odd at first - creepy - or it should have been creepy but then, the adventures and the story, imagining it like this other life I had, it was fun.”
“Tama.” Miyata gasps.
“I don’t even know how you know my name.” Tamamori wonders but it doesn’t seem to bother him.
“I know you better than anyone.” Miyata whispers breathless, and part of him truly believes it forgetting what’s fiction and what's not.
“You’re weird.” Tamamori replies yet it doesn’t seem like that much of an insult.
“You still can’t draw hands. They look like squids.” Tamamori remarks as he draws angry lines through a sketch. “Re-do this page.” He orders as he shoves the sheet of paper across the table.
“Give me something to work with.” Miyata requests, holding out his left hand like a plea, and without a pause to question it Tamamori slips his own hand into Miyata’s and threads their fingers together to mimic the pose on the page.
"Which of us do you like more?" Tamamori asks not even looking up to make eye contact. It’s been a common question recently, the topic often coming up as they work together hunched over and sharing the small space of Miyata’s work desk. Their feet brush under the table and their arms bump into one another as Miyata pours over the final artwork and Tamamori assists helping to letter in the text to the finalized pages.
"He's nicer, the things you have him say and the way he acts, he’s nicer than me.” Tamamori argues. “And you draw his nose without the droop at the tip. You know, it’s more flattering.”
“But you’re the original. There’s nothing better than that.” Miyata always replies with a smile.
When they kiss, despite the months that have past and trust they had to build it’s still awkward and new, their noses bump and their hands are clumsy but it’s more perfect that any graceful piece of art. Unconsciously Miyata still traces the lines and curves of Tamamori’s lips but not to ever recreate them on a page, just for his own story.