[series] Lies & Truth; 01 The Train Station
Title: Lies & Truth
Author: b_sim
Characters/Pairings: Ken/Hyde, Tetsu
Rating: NC-17 in future chapters, maybe?
Genre: General, romance, friendship
Summary: It is 1991. Hyde's been L'Arc~en~Ciel's vocalist for a few months now, but is still unsure of the band's future. Ken is still studying in university, and is unsure of his own future as well. While they look for a guarantee of future happiness in each others' choices and lives, they find a completely different kind of assurance.
Notes: I'm gonna be totally honest and say I have no idea what the plot/story is. I just knew that I wanted to write Ken/Hyde during the formation of L'Arc and then it turned into this. Gonna take some time to figure out what's actually happening and what is going to happen before I attempt writing the second chapter, haha.
This dressing room sure is small, Hyde thought to himself. He looked around, his gaze falling over the tiny room, over his fellow band members. Tetsu was speaking with the club manager. Pero and Hiro were removing their make-up, and laughing about something or other. But it is bigger than the last one, at least.
Even now, months after he’d joined L’Arc~en~Ciel, Hyde was still working on art and manga-drawing. He drew everyday, usually only when Tetsu wasn’t around. He also made sure Tetsu never found out about the black art portfolio that Hyde kept with him at all times.
Yet, every now and then, there’d come a time when Hyde would stand on stage, look back at the faces peering up at him, and he’d smile. On those nights, Hyde’s feet seemed to melt into the stage, physically linking his body to the music pounding through it. Those nights, Hyde never picked up his drawing pencils. He’d just write music, or strum his guitar.
Tonight was one of those nights. Already, there were unfinished melodies running through his head. Music notes popped up one after another before his eyes, his fingers (the ones not holding his cigarette) tapped out drum beats on his knee, and shapeless Japanese characters floated at the back of his mind.
Tetsu’s face busted into the equation moments later, with an unfamiliar face beside him.
“Hyde, this is Ken,” Tetsu said, dragging the lanky geek beside him forward. “My childhood friend. The one I told you about.”
There was now a face to put Tetsu’s childhood stories behind. Classroom shenanigans, school group projects, shaved heads. This was the famous Ken. Hyde could also now put an actual person behind the amazing guitar-playing Tetsu had let him listen to two nights ago, on tape.
“Ah, it’s nice to meet you,” Hyde said, standing from the table and stretching his hand out.
“Same here,” Ken replied, and he shook Hyde’s hand.
Where Hyde’s grip was limp, Ken’s was firm. One guess as to which of the two had taken entrepreneurship classes.
Hyde returned his hand to his knee. Ken’s hand went back into his pocket, and his fingers traced the corners of the L’Arc~en~Ciel demo tape Tetsu had lent him. Ken’s tape player was overly familiar with it, as were Ken’s ears with the music.
Hyde’s voice had put into Ken’s mind a tall, handsome man, not a short, beautiful one. It was a surprise, but not an unpleasant one.
At the same time, after watching their performance tonight, Ken now couldn’t picture the cool, manly Hyde that he’d envisioned before. Of course the strong voice he’d been listening to for the past week had come from this petite man with long, flowing hair. He couldn’t see anyone else singing with that voice anymore.
“Your performance was really good,” Ken said.
“Oh, thank you.” Instantly, the part of tonight when he’d forgotten his lyrics, and missed a beat, came to mind. “I was kind of off tonight, though.”
Ken laughed a little and took a step closer. “No, no, you were great.”
Hyde smiled back and tapped his cigarette ashes off into the ashtray. “You’re too kind.”
“Ken-chan, we’re going to an izakaya later for the after party,” Tetsu said. “You wanna come? It’s still early so you can definitely catch the last train back home later.”
“Sure,” Ken said, with less hesitation than Tetsu had expected. “I’m game.”
It was a Friday, but that didn’t stop university exams from getting closer. And the last time Tetsu had visited, there were still mountains of textbooks and worksheets on Ken’s desk, as well as architecture blueprints pasted up on Ken’s bedroom wall. It’d been a challenge to even get him out of the house tonight.
“Okay,” Tetsu said. He jerked his head towards Hiro and Pero. “Come on, meet the others.”
Tetsu turned and led the way towards the other two, and Ken followed, but he paused just long enough to surreptitiously look back at Hyde and watch him stub his cigarette out.
If Ken had stared a moment longer, Hyde’s eyes would’ve met his.
Four blocks away from the live house, musicians still high on the excitement of the concert, filled an izakaya. It was past ten now, and they were in a fairly unknown neighbourhood, so the standard rules of Japanese etiquette didn’t quite apply. That meant that tonight’s entertainment entered the izakaya, as loud as they could possibly be without getting turned away by the staff.
Upon entering, Hyde made a beeline for the table in the corner. Dealing with drunk musicians after a concert was not his favourite past time. Besides, he had an incomplete song in mind that he didn’t intend to leave incomplete.
Tetsu did what any band leader would do in social gatherings - make connections. Leaving Hyde to his own devices, Tetsu sat with other musicians and crew members. Hiro and Pero followed suit, though Hyde was pretty sure they were looking for openings more than contacts.
Among the loud and stylishly-dressed people with equally stylish hairstyles, Ken, with his recruit cut, faded t-shirt, crumpled cotton jacket, and out-of-style jeans, stood out like a sore thumb.
Hyde had just ordered a drink and was about to take out his pen and notebook when he noticed Ken looking around, presumably wondering where to sit. Hyde’s hand twitched, his lips were slightly parted, and Ken’s name was on his tongue.
But then Tetsu waved Ken over to his table.
Hyde felt a tinge of disappointment, but he couldn’t deny the relief either - Hyde’s second least favourite pastime was to make small talk with new acquaintances, especially if he was in the middle of writing music.
Once Hyde’s drink was served, he flicked a switch on in his head, and the noise around him - voices, laughing, utensils clinking - morphed into the noise he constantly heard in his head instead - voices, images, memories, music.
He put his pen to his notebook and he didn’t stop for a good, long while.
Ken, sitting beside Tetsu, put a wide grin on his face and attempted following the conversation at his own table, instead of the one he wished he was having at another. He had to consciously fight the urge to turn and look in the corner.
Despite the fun stories he listened to, despite the good food and drinks, Ken found himself twitching and coming up with excuses to leave. He couldn’t deny it - he was bored. He was more bored than if he’d stayed at home to study.
What was a five-hour-long two hours to Ken was twenty-minutes to Hyde, and the only reason he’d known time had passed was the alarm on his phone. The last time he’d neglected to set an alarm, he’d missed the last train and had to get a hotel room. He didn’t plan on doing that this time, not while he had a sixteen-year-old drum student back in his own neighbourhood, expecting him in the morning.
He dutifully packed his notebook and pen, and took out the money for his drink.
Hyde approaching Tetsu was the best get-away excuse Ken hadn’t thought of.
“Tecchan, I’ve gotta go. I’ve got a job in the morning, and the last train is in fifteen minutes,” Hyde whispered to Tetsu.
“Ah, okay.” Tetsu turned to Ken. “Ken-chan, you should go with Hyde. You’ve gotta get home too, don’t you?”
Ken couldn’t get to his feet faster if he’d tried. “Yeah. Thanks for inviting me tonight. It was really fun.”
Ken and Hyde said their goodbyes to the others and then left the izakaya.
“Hyde-san, d’you know the way to the train station?” Ken asked.
“Yeah, it’s over here,” Hyde said, jerking his head in one direction.
“So, how long have you known Tetsu?” Ken asked as he quickened his pace to match Hyde’s.
“Just a few months,” Hyde said. “And you’ve known him since, what, middle school?”
“Yep. He hasn’t changed much, honestly,” Ken said, smiling. “Even back then, he was all about music.”
“Aren’t you?” Hyde asked, finally looking up from the road and at Ken beside him. Hyde could still feel the shivers that’d ran down his back when he’d listened to Ken’s guitar tape. When Tetsu had told him that Ken was studying construction in university, the first thing that’d came to mind was “why?”. “Tecchan let me listen to your tape. I thought it was amazing.”
Ken laughed, and in the cool fall night, it warmed Hyde up. “Thanks.”
When Ken didn’t elaborate, Hyde didn’t pursue.
“Sorry to ask, but do you have a light?” Ken asked after a stretched minute of comfortable silence. It was then Hyde took note of the cigarette between Ken’s lips, and he felt the urge for one himself. “I think I left my lighter at the izakaya.”
“Yeah.”
Hyde retrieved his lighter from his pocket and handed it over while getting his own packet of cigarettes out. He lit his own stick when Ken handed the lighter back seconds later.
Out of the corner of his eye, Hyde watched Ken smoke. In a few years, Ken would be a salary man, smoking with other salary men in a smoking room. They’d all be in black business suits with black briefcases standing by their feet. For some inexplicable reason, the image hurt. Not so much because it was Ken but because it was a person with a natural talent for guitar.
And, maybe, because there was an element of harsh reality in it. In this day and age, did diplomas and degrees really trump talent? Was securing a job more important than your own passions?
Hyde’s black art portfolio suddenly weighed a ton in his bag, as did Ken’s presence beside him.
It wasn’t as though Hyde hated art. In fact, in art, he could express himself explicitly and perfectly in a way that he couldn’t with music. Yet, if faced with a set of drawing pencils, and a pencil and music sheet, he knew immediately which he’d take. It was so much easier to imagine himself in a recording studio than in a art studio.
“When’s the next live?” Ken suddenly asked.
Hyde’s mind went blank. He wasn’t good with numbers and dates, just pictures and words. “Uh, we have a live in three weeks, but I’m pretty sure there’s one more before that one.”
“I’ll ask Tetsu.”
“You’ll come?” Hyde asked.
“Well, I’ll come if I can,” Ken said, smiling sheepishly. “I mean, I have exams coming up, so…”
“Ah, right.”
They’d reached the train station, but stayed outside for another five minutes to finish their cigarettes. The silence between them was pure silence - no unspoken words, no loud thoughts - just silence, made more comfortable by the lack of pressure to break it. It was uncanny and, in some ways, special.
Oftentimes, Ken scrambled to keep conversations going, just to appear interested, as his lecturers had taught him. Hyde, on the other hand, wouldn’t, but he’d also feel the brunt of awkward silences the most.
In this case, they seemed to understand that they both appreciated the quiet, at least for now.
There were cicadas screaming, the sound of cars from faraway, and the wind whistling. There and then, wrapped up in the cold of the night, at a unpopular train station, two new acquaintances shared five minutes together to smoke. Though they were actually near Umeda, one of the busiest parts of Osaka, the darkness surrounding them, interrupted only by the murky yellow lights of street lamps and the bright, hospital-like white lights of the train station, made them feel so far away, as though they were in the countryside.
Hyde found himself thinking that he wouldn't mind being in the countryside with his current companion. Ken thought the same.
With no pressure to speak, Hyde felt as though he freely could.
“Ken-san, this might be obnoxious of me, since we just met,” Hyde began, looking away from the dark landscape and to Ken. Half of Ken’s face was shrouded in the dark of the night, the other half lit up by the train station’s lights. “But, why don’t you try getting into music? Like, I think you’re really, really good with the guitar. A lot of bands would love to have a guitarist like you.”
Ken laughed again and stubbed out his cigarette, and the conversation, with, “Well, I guess.”
The words were there in Ken’s head, perfectly formed sentences to explain his decision to study instead of play guitar. But if he uttered them, even to someone he barely knew and who barely knew him, Ken didn’t think he could leave them tonight without giving his entire life story to try and change their impression of him.
In middle school, he’d frowned and mumbled ‘robots’ under his breath while watching the other students study. He didn’t have to have super good hearing to know others now said the same about him. And, no, god forbid Hyde think that about him too, even if Ken knew that it was, to some extent, true.
“I’m going here,” Hyde said, pointing to an escalator leading up to a platform.
“I’m in the other direction,” Ken said. He stretched out his hand again, this time consciously doing so instead of doing it by reflex. Hyde was no business partner nor a potential employer. But Ken stretched his hand out to say goodbye anyway. “It was nice meeting you.”
Hyde smiled and shook Ken’s hand, his grip firmer than the first time. “It was nice to meet you too. Thank you for coming to watch us perform.”
“It was a pleasure, really.” Ken let go. “Good night, Hyde-san.”
“Good night, Ken-san,” Hyde said.
They turned to leave at the same time, but Hyde paused and looked at Ken’s back. He imagined it clad in a black business suit and he suddenly felt the need to yank Ken back and force him into a recording studio.
Ken-san, he wanted to call out. Instead he turned and walked towards his own train platform, leaving the words just where they were; in his head. Ken-san, do you think you’ll regret not getting into music? If I go for my interview with the animation studio tomorrow, will I regret it?
In the opposite direction, just as Hyde looked away, Ken looked back at him. Ken’s eyes were drawn to Hyde’s legs, the way Hyde’s steps were soft and light, yet his footsteps were solid and heavy. Ken’s eyes rose to Hyde’s stubby little fingers and he felt himself smile. Those fingers had looked incredibly cute holding a cigarette earlier.
Even if Hyde had voiced his questions, Ken wouldn’t have had an answer for him. After all, he was still just a kid. What did he know about the secrets of the universe, of the flow of time, of the winding of fates?
But if Hyde had spoken, Ken wouldn’t have minded sitting down with him to figure it out together. Screw the last train, screw studying over the weekend. He’d have gladly found a 24-hour café for them to sit in and talk, because god knew it’d been so long since he’d been so enamoured of someone he knew so little of.
In Ken’s eyes, Hyde was living the life he thought he’d be living, and vice versa. They were two different people, two different paths, all unwinding at the same time but separate. Yet, they felt as though they lived one life - they were just the two different outcomes.
It was like the subway, Hyde reasoned as he reached the train platform. While he and Ken were going in separate directions, it was still on the same track lines, and they were at the very same train station. On the first floor of the train station, they’d made their choice and they were now going through with it. Hyde reaching his home was one outcome, Ken reaching his own home was another, but they originated from the same point, and they were on the same track.
But which outcome was the ‘correct’ one?
They both watched each other closely, trying to figure it out before the other, in hopes of saving themselves, and the other person too, hopefully.
Ken reached his own train platform just a few seconds after Hyde. They stared at each other, the train tracks between them.
Unlike before, the silence between them was heavy now. And Hyde knew he had the questions in his head to blame for this.
“Ken-san,” Hyde surprised himself by calling out. He knew he wouldn’t have if the train station weren’t empty. Maybe it was sign.
Ken looked just as surprised and he took two steps closer.
“When do you graduate?” It was always good to know your time limit.
Ken felt like laughing. Instead, he just grinned.
“Next year, around this time,” he replied.
“Ah, I see.”
A cheerful female voice resounded on Hyde’s platform, alerting passengers of the arrival of the train.
“See you around,” Hyde said.
Ken just nodded and waved back.
The train pulled in and Hyde got on. When Hyde looked out the window at Ken, Ken was putting on his headphones. For the first time tonight, their timing was perfect and Ken glanced up to meet his gaze. Ken took out his portable tape player from his pocket and then pointed at Hyde.
I’m listening to you sing.
A wide grin appeared on Hyde’s face.
Seeing Hyde grin like that, Ken could only grin back.
What a funny, invasive dance they were dancing.
The train left the station and Ken sighed as Hyde’s voice reached his ears through his headphones. Hyde’s voice seemed to hold a promise - I will be a success story, I will make it onto billboards and CD covers, I will share my music with people, and I will be happy.
Five bands performed tonight. Hyde was the best vocalist, Ken thought. And if one vocalist out of five made it, would Ken be one of five guitarists to make it, too?
Ken shook his head - seven out of ten graduates from his university made it into big-name companies.
Seven out of ten trumped one out of five.
Hyde’s voice reached a high note in the song and Ken sighed. For tonight, he would leave it at this.
Notes: This is the first time I'm writing a multi-chaptered Ken/Hyde fic, and with this style of writing. Please let me know what you think!
Author: b_sim
Characters/Pairings: Ken/Hyde, Tetsu
Rating: NC-17 in future chapters, maybe?
Genre: General, romance, friendship
Summary: It is 1991. Hyde's been L'Arc~en~Ciel's vocalist for a few months now, but is still unsure of the band's future. Ken is still studying in university, and is unsure of his own future as well. While they look for a guarantee of future happiness in each others' choices and lives, they find a completely different kind of assurance.
Notes: I'm gonna be totally honest and say I have no idea what the plot/story is. I just knew that I wanted to write Ken/Hyde during the formation of L'Arc and then it turned into this. Gonna take some time to figure out what's actually happening and what is going to happen before I attempt writing the second chapter, haha.
This dressing room sure is small, Hyde thought to himself. He looked around, his gaze falling over the tiny room, over his fellow band members. Tetsu was speaking with the club manager. Pero and Hiro were removing their make-up, and laughing about something or other. But it is bigger than the last one, at least.
Even now, months after he’d joined L’Arc~en~Ciel, Hyde was still working on art and manga-drawing. He drew everyday, usually only when Tetsu wasn’t around. He also made sure Tetsu never found out about the black art portfolio that Hyde kept with him at all times.
Yet, every now and then, there’d come a time when Hyde would stand on stage, look back at the faces peering up at him, and he’d smile. On those nights, Hyde’s feet seemed to melt into the stage, physically linking his body to the music pounding through it. Those nights, Hyde never picked up his drawing pencils. He’d just write music, or strum his guitar.
Tonight was one of those nights. Already, there were unfinished melodies running through his head. Music notes popped up one after another before his eyes, his fingers (the ones not holding his cigarette) tapped out drum beats on his knee, and shapeless Japanese characters floated at the back of his mind.
Tetsu’s face busted into the equation moments later, with an unfamiliar face beside him.
“Hyde, this is Ken,” Tetsu said, dragging the lanky geek beside him forward. “My childhood friend. The one I told you about.”
There was now a face to put Tetsu’s childhood stories behind. Classroom shenanigans, school group projects, shaved heads. This was the famous Ken. Hyde could also now put an actual person behind the amazing guitar-playing Tetsu had let him listen to two nights ago, on tape.
“Ah, it’s nice to meet you,” Hyde said, standing from the table and stretching his hand out.
“Same here,” Ken replied, and he shook Hyde’s hand.
Where Hyde’s grip was limp, Ken’s was firm. One guess as to which of the two had taken entrepreneurship classes.
Hyde returned his hand to his knee. Ken’s hand went back into his pocket, and his fingers traced the corners of the L’Arc~en~Ciel demo tape Tetsu had lent him. Ken’s tape player was overly familiar with it, as were Ken’s ears with the music.
Hyde’s voice had put into Ken’s mind a tall, handsome man, not a short, beautiful one. It was a surprise, but not an unpleasant one.
At the same time, after watching their performance tonight, Ken now couldn’t picture the cool, manly Hyde that he’d envisioned before. Of course the strong voice he’d been listening to for the past week had come from this petite man with long, flowing hair. He couldn’t see anyone else singing with that voice anymore.
“Your performance was really good,” Ken said.
“Oh, thank you.” Instantly, the part of tonight when he’d forgotten his lyrics, and missed a beat, came to mind. “I was kind of off tonight, though.”
Ken laughed a little and took a step closer. “No, no, you were great.”
Hyde smiled back and tapped his cigarette ashes off into the ashtray. “You’re too kind.”
“Ken-chan, we’re going to an izakaya later for the after party,” Tetsu said. “You wanna come? It’s still early so you can definitely catch the last train back home later.”
“Sure,” Ken said, with less hesitation than Tetsu had expected. “I’m game.”
It was a Friday, but that didn’t stop university exams from getting closer. And the last time Tetsu had visited, there were still mountains of textbooks and worksheets on Ken’s desk, as well as architecture blueprints pasted up on Ken’s bedroom wall. It’d been a challenge to even get him out of the house tonight.
“Okay,” Tetsu said. He jerked his head towards Hiro and Pero. “Come on, meet the others.”
Tetsu turned and led the way towards the other two, and Ken followed, but he paused just long enough to surreptitiously look back at Hyde and watch him stub his cigarette out.
If Ken had stared a moment longer, Hyde’s eyes would’ve met his.
Four blocks away from the live house, musicians still high on the excitement of the concert, filled an izakaya. It was past ten now, and they were in a fairly unknown neighbourhood, so the standard rules of Japanese etiquette didn’t quite apply. That meant that tonight’s entertainment entered the izakaya, as loud as they could possibly be without getting turned away by the staff.
Upon entering, Hyde made a beeline for the table in the corner. Dealing with drunk musicians after a concert was not his favourite past time. Besides, he had an incomplete song in mind that he didn’t intend to leave incomplete.
Tetsu did what any band leader would do in social gatherings - make connections. Leaving Hyde to his own devices, Tetsu sat with other musicians and crew members. Hiro and Pero followed suit, though Hyde was pretty sure they were looking for openings more than contacts.
Among the loud and stylishly-dressed people with equally stylish hairstyles, Ken, with his recruit cut, faded t-shirt, crumpled cotton jacket, and out-of-style jeans, stood out like a sore thumb.
Hyde had just ordered a drink and was about to take out his pen and notebook when he noticed Ken looking around, presumably wondering where to sit. Hyde’s hand twitched, his lips were slightly parted, and Ken’s name was on his tongue.
But then Tetsu waved Ken over to his table.
Hyde felt a tinge of disappointment, but he couldn’t deny the relief either - Hyde’s second least favourite pastime was to make small talk with new acquaintances, especially if he was in the middle of writing music.
Once Hyde’s drink was served, he flicked a switch on in his head, and the noise around him - voices, laughing, utensils clinking - morphed into the noise he constantly heard in his head instead - voices, images, memories, music.
He put his pen to his notebook and he didn’t stop for a good, long while.
Ken, sitting beside Tetsu, put a wide grin on his face and attempted following the conversation at his own table, instead of the one he wished he was having at another. He had to consciously fight the urge to turn and look in the corner.
Despite the fun stories he listened to, despite the good food and drinks, Ken found himself twitching and coming up with excuses to leave. He couldn’t deny it - he was bored. He was more bored than if he’d stayed at home to study.
What was a five-hour-long two hours to Ken was twenty-minutes to Hyde, and the only reason he’d known time had passed was the alarm on his phone. The last time he’d neglected to set an alarm, he’d missed the last train and had to get a hotel room. He didn’t plan on doing that this time, not while he had a sixteen-year-old drum student back in his own neighbourhood, expecting him in the morning.
He dutifully packed his notebook and pen, and took out the money for his drink.
Hyde approaching Tetsu was the best get-away excuse Ken hadn’t thought of.
“Tecchan, I’ve gotta go. I’ve got a job in the morning, and the last train is in fifteen minutes,” Hyde whispered to Tetsu.
“Ah, okay.” Tetsu turned to Ken. “Ken-chan, you should go with Hyde. You’ve gotta get home too, don’t you?”
Ken couldn’t get to his feet faster if he’d tried. “Yeah. Thanks for inviting me tonight. It was really fun.”
Ken and Hyde said their goodbyes to the others and then left the izakaya.
“Hyde-san, d’you know the way to the train station?” Ken asked.
“Yeah, it’s over here,” Hyde said, jerking his head in one direction.
“So, how long have you known Tetsu?” Ken asked as he quickened his pace to match Hyde’s.
“Just a few months,” Hyde said. “And you’ve known him since, what, middle school?”
“Yep. He hasn’t changed much, honestly,” Ken said, smiling. “Even back then, he was all about music.”
“Aren’t you?” Hyde asked, finally looking up from the road and at Ken beside him. Hyde could still feel the shivers that’d ran down his back when he’d listened to Ken’s guitar tape. When Tetsu had told him that Ken was studying construction in university, the first thing that’d came to mind was “why?”. “Tecchan let me listen to your tape. I thought it was amazing.”
Ken laughed, and in the cool fall night, it warmed Hyde up. “Thanks.”
When Ken didn’t elaborate, Hyde didn’t pursue.
“Sorry to ask, but do you have a light?” Ken asked after a stretched minute of comfortable silence. It was then Hyde took note of the cigarette between Ken’s lips, and he felt the urge for one himself. “I think I left my lighter at the izakaya.”
“Yeah.”
Hyde retrieved his lighter from his pocket and handed it over while getting his own packet of cigarettes out. He lit his own stick when Ken handed the lighter back seconds later.
Out of the corner of his eye, Hyde watched Ken smoke. In a few years, Ken would be a salary man, smoking with other salary men in a smoking room. They’d all be in black business suits with black briefcases standing by their feet. For some inexplicable reason, the image hurt. Not so much because it was Ken but because it was a person with a natural talent for guitar.
And, maybe, because there was an element of harsh reality in it. In this day and age, did diplomas and degrees really trump talent? Was securing a job more important than your own passions?
Hyde’s black art portfolio suddenly weighed a ton in his bag, as did Ken’s presence beside him.
It wasn’t as though Hyde hated art. In fact, in art, he could express himself explicitly and perfectly in a way that he couldn’t with music. Yet, if faced with a set of drawing pencils, and a pencil and music sheet, he knew immediately which he’d take. It was so much easier to imagine himself in a recording studio than in a art studio.
“When’s the next live?” Ken suddenly asked.
Hyde’s mind went blank. He wasn’t good with numbers and dates, just pictures and words. “Uh, we have a live in three weeks, but I’m pretty sure there’s one more before that one.”
“I’ll ask Tetsu.”
“You’ll come?” Hyde asked.
“Well, I’ll come if I can,” Ken said, smiling sheepishly. “I mean, I have exams coming up, so…”
“Ah, right.”
They’d reached the train station, but stayed outside for another five minutes to finish their cigarettes. The silence between them was pure silence - no unspoken words, no loud thoughts - just silence, made more comfortable by the lack of pressure to break it. It was uncanny and, in some ways, special.
Oftentimes, Ken scrambled to keep conversations going, just to appear interested, as his lecturers had taught him. Hyde, on the other hand, wouldn’t, but he’d also feel the brunt of awkward silences the most.
In this case, they seemed to understand that they both appreciated the quiet, at least for now.
There were cicadas screaming, the sound of cars from faraway, and the wind whistling. There and then, wrapped up in the cold of the night, at a unpopular train station, two new acquaintances shared five minutes together to smoke. Though they were actually near Umeda, one of the busiest parts of Osaka, the darkness surrounding them, interrupted only by the murky yellow lights of street lamps and the bright, hospital-like white lights of the train station, made them feel so far away, as though they were in the countryside.
Hyde found himself thinking that he wouldn't mind being in the countryside with his current companion. Ken thought the same.
With no pressure to speak, Hyde felt as though he freely could.
“Ken-san, this might be obnoxious of me, since we just met,” Hyde began, looking away from the dark landscape and to Ken. Half of Ken’s face was shrouded in the dark of the night, the other half lit up by the train station’s lights. “But, why don’t you try getting into music? Like, I think you’re really, really good with the guitar. A lot of bands would love to have a guitarist like you.”
Ken laughed again and stubbed out his cigarette, and the conversation, with, “Well, I guess.”
The words were there in Ken’s head, perfectly formed sentences to explain his decision to study instead of play guitar. But if he uttered them, even to someone he barely knew and who barely knew him, Ken didn’t think he could leave them tonight without giving his entire life story to try and change their impression of him.
In middle school, he’d frowned and mumbled ‘robots’ under his breath while watching the other students study. He didn’t have to have super good hearing to know others now said the same about him. And, no, god forbid Hyde think that about him too, even if Ken knew that it was, to some extent, true.
“I’m going here,” Hyde said, pointing to an escalator leading up to a platform.
“I’m in the other direction,” Ken said. He stretched out his hand again, this time consciously doing so instead of doing it by reflex. Hyde was no business partner nor a potential employer. But Ken stretched his hand out to say goodbye anyway. “It was nice meeting you.”
Hyde smiled and shook Ken’s hand, his grip firmer than the first time. “It was nice to meet you too. Thank you for coming to watch us perform.”
“It was a pleasure, really.” Ken let go. “Good night, Hyde-san.”
“Good night, Ken-san,” Hyde said.
They turned to leave at the same time, but Hyde paused and looked at Ken’s back. He imagined it clad in a black business suit and he suddenly felt the need to yank Ken back and force him into a recording studio.
Ken-san, he wanted to call out. Instead he turned and walked towards his own train platform, leaving the words just where they were; in his head. Ken-san, do you think you’ll regret not getting into music? If I go for my interview with the animation studio tomorrow, will I regret it?
In the opposite direction, just as Hyde looked away, Ken looked back at him. Ken’s eyes were drawn to Hyde’s legs, the way Hyde’s steps were soft and light, yet his footsteps were solid and heavy. Ken’s eyes rose to Hyde’s stubby little fingers and he felt himself smile. Those fingers had looked incredibly cute holding a cigarette earlier.
Even if Hyde had voiced his questions, Ken wouldn’t have had an answer for him. After all, he was still just a kid. What did he know about the secrets of the universe, of the flow of time, of the winding of fates?
But if Hyde had spoken, Ken wouldn’t have minded sitting down with him to figure it out together. Screw the last train, screw studying over the weekend. He’d have gladly found a 24-hour café for them to sit in and talk, because god knew it’d been so long since he’d been so enamoured of someone he knew so little of.
In Ken’s eyes, Hyde was living the life he thought he’d be living, and vice versa. They were two different people, two different paths, all unwinding at the same time but separate. Yet, they felt as though they lived one life - they were just the two different outcomes.
It was like the subway, Hyde reasoned as he reached the train platform. While he and Ken were going in separate directions, it was still on the same track lines, and they were at the very same train station. On the first floor of the train station, they’d made their choice and they were now going through with it. Hyde reaching his home was one outcome, Ken reaching his own home was another, but they originated from the same point, and they were on the same track.
But which outcome was the ‘correct’ one?
They both watched each other closely, trying to figure it out before the other, in hopes of saving themselves, and the other person too, hopefully.
Ken reached his own train platform just a few seconds after Hyde. They stared at each other, the train tracks between them.
Unlike before, the silence between them was heavy now. And Hyde knew he had the questions in his head to blame for this.
“Ken-san,” Hyde surprised himself by calling out. He knew he wouldn’t have if the train station weren’t empty. Maybe it was sign.
Ken looked just as surprised and he took two steps closer.
“When do you graduate?” It was always good to know your time limit.
Ken felt like laughing. Instead, he just grinned.
“Next year, around this time,” he replied.
“Ah, I see.”
A cheerful female voice resounded on Hyde’s platform, alerting passengers of the arrival of the train.
“See you around,” Hyde said.
Ken just nodded and waved back.
The train pulled in and Hyde got on. When Hyde looked out the window at Ken, Ken was putting on his headphones. For the first time tonight, their timing was perfect and Ken glanced up to meet his gaze. Ken took out his portable tape player from his pocket and then pointed at Hyde.
I’m listening to you sing.
A wide grin appeared on Hyde’s face.
Seeing Hyde grin like that, Ken could only grin back.
What a funny, invasive dance they were dancing.
The train left the station and Ken sighed as Hyde’s voice reached his ears through his headphones. Hyde’s voice seemed to hold a promise - I will be a success story, I will make it onto billboards and CD covers, I will share my music with people, and I will be happy.
Five bands performed tonight. Hyde was the best vocalist, Ken thought. And if one vocalist out of five made it, would Ken be one of five guitarists to make it, too?
Ken shook his head - seven out of ten graduates from his university made it into big-name companies.
Seven out of ten trumped one out of five.
Hyde’s voice reached a high note in the song and Ken sighed. For tonight, he would leave it at this.
Notes: This is the first time I'm writing a multi-chaptered Ken/Hyde fic, and with this style of writing. Please let me know what you think!