Transcendency: Chapter 24
Title: Transcendency
Pairing: OT5, Matsumiya
Genre: AU, Angst, Dark Fantasy
Disclaimer: Plot is mine, Arashi is not. Unfortunately.
Summary: Down the rabbit hole they fell.
Author's Note: Happy birthday Nino!
An air of awkwardness surrounded the group after the verdict of the game was announced. Though they watched Okada walk away, most of the other players chose to linger in the quad instead of following.
“Not bad for a rookie,” Yamashita broke the silence as he looked to Nino. “It’s a shame you won’t be joining us.”
Kamenashi nodded. “You did well to keep up and that was one crazy gamble you took up there.”
Toma gave Jun a playful nudge. “Reminds me of a certain someone during his initiation.”
“At least my gamble paid off,” said Jun.
“Keep telling yourself that,” Toma teased. “The official ruling said otherwise.”
Jun scowled at him. “You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?”
“Only when it stops being fun.”
“So never,” Yamashita chuckled, to which Toma nodded with a grin.
Rolling his eyes despite the amusement that threatened to show on his face, Jun shoved the two of them away in a less-than-subtle attempt to shut them up. Toma’s smile never fell despite them taking the hint. As the rest of the group began to break off and go after Okada, the pair continuing snickering under their breath even as they followed suit.
Nino observed their interaction with a pout. Seeing how easily Jun’s expression went from troubled to relaxed while he conversed with them, hearing him laugh and joke along with them, all the while acting like he wasn’t even there, bothered Nino immensely. It annoyed him how effortlessly they seemed to mesh, as if they’d been friends for as long as he and Jun had been. This thought alone caused Nino’s stomach to twist and writhe. It was reminiscent of their days together and somehow made his heart ache to witness the younger converse with others in that same manner as he once did with the four of them.
Nino gazed at Jun expectantly once they were alone. “Well?”
Jun stared at him hard. “Well what?”
“Are you coming with me or are you staying with them?” Nino asked, his own gaze hardening.
When Jun’s only response to his ultimatum was conflicted silence and a refusal to look him in the eye, Nino felt his heart sink. He tried to hide his disappointment behind a scowl.
“You saved me.”
“I would never let you fall,” Jun murmured. “But it doesn’t change things. The only life I want to be responsible for is my own.”
Nino scoffed in disbelief. “We only just found each other and you’re going to leave again?” Accusation laced his tone as he spat his last word in the most scathing way possible.
“I knew where to find you this whole time,” Jun remarked, seemingly unbothered by Nino’s venomous guilt-tripping. “If I wanted to come back, I would have.”
Nino couldn’t believe his ears. He thought back to the countless hours he and the others had spent scouring the city in search of their missing friend; while they eventually came to accept that he didn’t want to be found, a part of them refused to give up hope. Every word Jun said now was like a dagger to his heart as it reconfirmed their worst fears.
Jun held Nino’s gaze for a moment before looking away with a heavy sigh. “I never should have come back with you last night.”
Sheer sadness laced his declaration, as if confessing to some terrible burden. Nino’s heart was pounding as he watched him start to walk away. A mix of anguish, disbelief and genuine confusion caused his brows to knit together.
“What happened to you?” he called out after him. “You didn’t used to be like this.”
Jun’s steps halted and his whole body stiffened. “Who I used to be,” he echoed through gritted teeth. His eyes blazed defensively when he whipped around. “Was someone too weak to look after himself. You of all people should know that. I couldn’t go back knowing how you all truly felt about me, so why should I go back with you now?”
“I defended you,” Nino protested. His voice dropped back a little when he lamentedly added, “I always have.”
“Until you didn’t,” Jun retorted, unchanged by his friend’s uncanny moment of honesty.
Nino shook his head. “The things we said that night might have been harsh but we were only trying to protect you.”
“I don’t want to be protected,” Jun seethed. “Don’t you get it? I never wanted to be that person so weak, so pitiful, that everyone feels they have to protect him.”
Every depiction was spoken with such vicious contempt, it had Nino wincing. He always knew Jun strived for more in life; even as teenagers, he never hid the fact that he wanted to be strong and successful, but Nino never did understand it. To him, his friend was already perfect the way he was. He was one of the most thoughtful and generous souls Nino ever had the privilege of knowing. What he lacked in physical strength, he made up for in strength of character; he might be the first among them to show fear, but his heart knew true courage in the face of danger and adversity. Nino would never wish for that to change.
Jun was practically trembling. He turned to face the direction the others had gone, taking a determined stride towards them despite needing to take a breath or two to steady himself. “And now at last, I don’t have to be.”
To see him the way he was now made Nino’s heart ache. He stared after Jun sadly. “I liked the old you,” he murmured. “The real you.”
Jun stopped again, though he did not turn back this time. His tone was cold as he muttered, “The old me is dead.”
Without another word, he paced across the clearing to rejoin the rest of the troupe. A sudden and familiar heaviness took claim on Nino’s heart; worse than if he’d been physically struck, it left him trembling with emptiness. His bottom lip quivered slightly and when a dampness threatened to form in his eyes, he forced himself to turn away. He didn’t bother going after Jun again, knowing it would be a waste of time to do so. It really felt as though he had lost his friend all over again.
Leaving the campus, Nino stormed down the street. With every step he took, he could feel his heartbreak twisting into anger. His yearning for answers was still as strong as ever while what little he had learned that morning confused and infuriated him. Discovering what Jun had been doing all these weeks was a shock his system couldn’t handle but the confirmation of just how much his friend had changed only added insult to injury. A part of him wondered if he wasn’t better off believing Jun was dead after all.
He was no closer to coming to terms with things by the time he returned to the ryokan. Yamazaki looked up as the young man entered the reception.
“There you are,” he said. “I was wondering where you’d gotten off to.”
He quickly fell silent when Nino slammed the sliding door behind him. He squatted down in the genkan, angrily tearing off his shoes and replacing them with slippers, or at least he tried to. It took way more attempts than it should have for him to untie his laces and when he did finally get his shoes off, he nearly tripped over in his rageful haste to get the sippers on and stand up at the same time.
“Did something happen?” Yamazaki asked, watching the scene with an anxious expression.
Nino threw his companion a glare that conveyed his unwillingness to talk. He hoped it would be enough to get Yamazaki to back off and leave him be, though he should have known his signals would go completely over the other guy’s head.
“Where’s Matsumoto-san?” Looking towards the door as if expecting to see him walk through any second, Yamazaki tilted his head when it remained closed.
“Out with his real friends,” Nino growled.
Yamazaki pouted. “I don’t understand.”
“That makes two of us,” muttered Nino. “Turns out he’s not only been alive this whole time, but he’s been living some crazy double-life with a bunch of parkour maniacs.”
From the perplexity that crumpled Yamazaki’s brow, Nino knew he wasn’t following, not that he expected the other guy to. He was still struggling to understand the truth himself.
“Is he coming back?”
Nino shrugged. “Who knows? He said he wouldn’t; then again, he also said he missed me, so who’s to say he meant either.”
His struggle with the slippers was forgotten as he slumped defeatedly in the genkan. A sudden bout of exhaustion and loneliness swept over him.
“He’s just so different now,” he whispered. “All these secrets and new people in his life…it’s like I don’t even know who he is anymore.”
His head dropped to his chest with a sigh. Despite going unseen by Nino in his deflated state, Yamazaki nodded sympathetically behind him. His eyes glowed with a wisdom beyond his years.
“I imagine he probably feels the same way about you.” When Nino cast him a side-glance, he elaborated, “You’ve also changed. Look at it from his perspective: you come back into his life and all of a sudden you no longer care about solving the games, only getting the reward no matter the cost.”
Nino tensed at his claim. While the logical side of him knew his companion could only be referring to his previous actions, a part of him couldn’t help worrying that Yamazaki somehow discovered what he did to Himura in last night’s game. Whether he did or not, he continued as if completely unaware of Nino’s apprehension.
“And instead of your best friends, you’re accompanied by someone he barely knows. I could understand if Matsumoto-san also thought you were a different person now too, because you are. Neither of you are the same as when you were together before.”
There was silence as Nino mulled over his surprisingly profound observation. He already knew he had changed and had come to terms with this about himself, but he had never once stopped to consider how Jun might handle such changes in him. If it was anything like the way he was handling the younger’s changes, then their reunion was fraught with more complications than Nino ever realised.
“Even if you’re right, that doesn’t mean he has to be so secretive with me,” Nino argued, ignoring the pang in his heart as Yamazaki’s assertion hit a bigger nerve than expected. “Sneaking around, lying about the people he knows and what he’s been doing all this time-I can’t stand it.”
“He probably thinks you’re being just as secretive with him,” Yamazaki pointed out. “Does he even know about your friends yet?”
When Nino refused to respond, the former sighed softly.
“I think if you want any chance of trusting each other like you used to, you need to be totally honest.”
“About what?”
“Everything.”
“I’ve tried,” Nino said. “He refuses to tell me anything.”
Yamazaki shook his head. “Trust is a two-way street. Perhaps the reason he’s not willing to open up is because you aren’t either.”
Nino pondered his words; they resonated deeply with him and brought to mind the conversation he and Jun had last night. It was the closest to honest they’d been with one another and the last time he felt they had been truly close, like the best friends they once were. For a while at least. Jun had tried asking him what happened to their friends but Nino shut him down, and in turn Jun shut down his questions about where he’d been and why he’d left them in the first place, and had continued to do so ever since. It was an uncomfortable thought but perhaps Yamazaki had a point in saying Jun was feeling frustrated by his friend’s reluctance to talk.
The more Nino considered it, the more he was able to empathise with Jun’s situation. His reunion with Nino was as unexpected for him as it was for the latter; suddenly finding himself back in one friend’s company was hard enough but knowing absolutely nothing of the others’ whereabouts and being denied answers at every turn could only be described as devastating, even if Nino did have good reason for withholding such information. It made him question if Jun didn’t have his own reasons for denying the answers Nino sought.
“What am I supposed to do?” he asked.
“You can start by telling him about your friends,” Yamazaki suggested. “Don’t hold back. Tell him everything that happened. You don’t have to be strong for him; rage together, mourn together, take a chance and let yourselves be vulnerable. If you can’t open up to him, who can you open up to?”
Nino couldn’t bring himself to respond. He understood what the other was saying-it made a lot of sense-but he was terrified by the thought of doing it. Just the idea of telling Jun about their friends made him sick to his stomach. He didn’t know if he had it in him to relive it again, let alone force that suffering onto Jun.
As he watched Nino internally battle himself over what to do, Yamazaki’s lips upturned in a faint yet wistful smile. “Take it from someone who knows, you regret the things you didn’t do more than the stuff you did. Don’t make the same mistake I did.”
Leaving his profound statement to linger, he gave Nino’s shoulder a small squeeze before stepping past him to reach the door. Nino stared blankly after him. The exact implication behind his remark was unclear to him and it took him several seconds longer than it should have for him to react.
“You’re leaving too?”
In his heart, he knew his companion was merely going out for one of his daily ventures, likely with the goal of finding more relics from the old world. But the reality of being left alone again disappointed him somehow.
“For a little while,” Yamazaki replied. “I’d say you’re welcome to join me, but something tells me you have more important things to attend to right now.”
When Nino’s only response was a conflicted look, the other flashed him an encouraging grin. He uttered something about being back before dark, then headed out into the city. While Nino’s gaze initially stayed with Yamazaki, it soon drifted down the road he’d walked earlier that morning in search of a different figure.
With a sigh, he removed himself from the doorway and returned to the foyer. He wandered around aimless for a few minutes before grabbing his guitar from where it rested in the corner. He lay back on one of the benches and strummed a basic tune. Mindlessly playing helped to both distract him and clarify his thoughts. As the music reached deep inside of him and drowned out the chaotic cacophony of his brain, he felt a feeling of resolve soon settle in his heart. He found himself staring at the entrance even while he played. Yamazaki’s advice replayed in his mind. Every passing minute brought with it a reminder that if he didn’t act soon, he might lose his chance for good.
Close to half an hour passed before he finally acted. His fingers paused mid-strum and he sat up, walking in silence over to the door. No matter how much he dreaded it, he knew exactly what needed to be done.
Nino sighed as he squatted outside the campus. It had been close to ninety minutes since he returned and still there was no indication of when or even if his friend would reappear through those gates. When he first came back, he’d hesitated over going inside. He knew Jun would not be pleased to see him there again. He wasn’t too keen on getting into another argument and knew the likelihood of them both putting their walls up would only increase in front of an audience, so he decided to wait outside until their training concluded. Nino had no clue exactly how long that would take, but it didn’t stop him from sitting patiently with a heart full of hope and dread just the same.
After what felt like a lifetime, he heard the sound of approaching footsteps. He glanced over his shoulder and rose to his feet in anticipation. He’d spent the last hour going over this scenario in his head; he practiced every possible way to phrase what he would say and braced himself for the likely reactions from the younger. But now that the time to act was upon him, his heart fluttered. He forced himself not to abort the plan even as he stepped out from behind the stone pillar to face his friend. Jun’s steps halted when he saw him.
“I thought you left,” he sighed and wiped his face dry with the towel that was strung around his shoulders.
Fighting against his instincts, Nino swallowed the snarky retort he wished to give. He could feel his heart beating faster with every second that brought him closer to the moment of truth but he refused to back out now.
Jun frowned at the lack of response and cast him a suspicious side-glance. Seeing the way Nino was staring at him with a shockingly earnest gaze, he felt a sudden discomfort overcome him. He tensed slightly when Nino approached him with slow steps.
“What?” he asked, a twinge of nervousness seeping into his otherwise controlled tone.
“You asked me what happened to our friends and I said I needed more time,” Nino replied curtly. He paused long enough to meet the younger’s eyes. A glimmer of hurt broke its way through his otherwise resolute gaze as he echoed the very words Ohno once spoke to him. “I’m ready now.”
Jun’s eyes widened, his expression turning to one of stunned disbelief. But before he could say a word, they were interrupted when someone called his name from somewhere behind them. Nino frowned at the oddly familiar tone. He narrowed his eyes on the player who approached them to hand Jun the water bottle he’d forgotten. He’d caught fleeting glimpses of the taller guy during the Tag game but only now did Nino get a proper look at the man’s face.
“You!” he gasped.
The tall player looked to him in bewilderment, then a noise of recognition sounded from his agape mouth. Their interaction drew Jun’s attention.
“You know him, Shun?”
Shun nodded tentatively. “We were in a game together a while ago.” As the memories came flooding back, he struggled to hold Nino’s gaze. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more for you guys.”
Jun’s heart was pounding as he questioned his friend. “Nino, what’s he talking about?”
“He was there,” Nino spoke distantly. “The night Sho-chan…”
His sentence cut short as images from that awful night flashed in his mind, bringing with it the taste of bile. He glanced at Jun, who looked absolutely terrified as he was left to piece everything together on his own. Of all the scenarios he’d come up with on how to break the news, this was not one of them.
Despite coming up with but one explanation, Jun couldn’t bring himself to believe it. “No,” he whispered under his breath.
Shun’s expression was overflowing with compassion as he watched him reluctantly connect the dots. “I’m so sorry.”
Jun shook his head over and over again. Slow at first as he fought to overcome his shock, it became a furious act of denial, almost to the point of giving himself whiplash. The sympathetic confirmation of the pair in front of him only fuelled his refusal of the truth.
“It can’t be,” he whimpered.
“They’re dead, Jun-kun,” Nino told him softly. “All of them.”
Jun’s gaze shot to him. In spite of its watery glaze, his glare was as ferocious as ever. “You’re lying!”
“I’m not lying!” The emotion Nino had been holding back was released in the form of a ragged yell.
His bottom lip quivered and his voice dropped to a whimper. This wasn’t at all how he wanted his friend to find out and he could tell from the shattered look on Jun’s face that it was everything he hoped it wouldn’t be. Despair threatened to drown Nino as the realisation that there was no going back hit him like a brick wall.
“I wish I was, believe me.”
Jun shook his head again. Disbelief continued to grace every inch of his expression but rather than stemming from doubt over what he’d been told, Nino could easily read the denial painted across his face, as if he was simply refusing to accept what he knew in his heart to be true. No longer could he hold Nino’s gaze, or Shun’s for that matter. He took a few staggered steps back, his breathing quickening to hyperventilating gasps. His expression became a dizzying blend of emotions that ultimately created a distant and somewhat unstable look in his eye. Nino reached to take his hand in a gesture of comfort but Jun flinched at the touch as if he’d been shocked by a current.
“Jun-kun,” Nino tried but the younger shook his head.
“You’re lying,” he gasped like his lungs were deprived of oxygen. He repeated it a few times as if hoping to convince himself. His eyes darted about, looking from Nino to Shun to the campus and to Nino again before whispering a piteous, “I can’t.”
With a few increasingly loud and desperate breaths that he couldn’t seem to catch, he spun around and fled into the city, leaving behind a gutted Nino in his wake.
---
Jun couldn’t breathe. His surroundings were nothing but a blur as he sped through the streets away from his friend and the truth he couldn’t bring himself to face. He didn’t know where he was going, only that he needed to get out of there. Every instinct he had was screaming for him to go back to Nino, to finish getting answers, but his legs refused to stop. He forced his conscience into silence and kept running. Part of him hoped that if he ran far enough, he would somehow outrun a reality he would never be ready to confront. He knew doing so was impossible, though that didn’t stop him from trying.
In his distracted state, he failed to notice the sidewalk that arose in his path. His foot snagged on the slightly raised pavement and sent him tumbling to his hands and knees. Jun gasped when he landed upon the concrete. Tears stung his eyes, owning not to the blood that seeped from his freshly skinned kneecaps, but as the onslaught of emotion he’d been running from finally caught up with him.
He couldn’t understand it. When he’d left, all four of his friends had been alive and well. Now they were simply gone. It didn’t make any sense and the more he tried to comprehend it, the worse his grief became. A haggard yell tore from his throat. He pounded at the cement until he lost both his voice and all the feeling in his hand. When the majority of his energy was spent, he crouched on the ground, a series of quiet sobs wracking his chest.
It wasn’t that the possibility of his friends being dead hadn’t crossed his mind-it occurred to him the moment he realised Nino was no longer with them-but he refused to accept it. Until now, he’d held onto the belief that his friends were merely elsewhere. Nino never explicitly stated they were dead, so he allowed himself to hope even if deep down he knew better. But hearing the conversation between Nino and Shun brought every last shred of hope crashing down. He wanted so badly to pretend there was another explanation for their previous encounter, that it wasn’t Sho who fell from that building, but he could lie to himself no longer.
Tears continued to flow down his cheeks even as he struggled to comprehend the truth. He thought he was the biggest threat to his friends’ lives; he believed he was protecting them by leaving. He never expected them to die once he was gone. Reflecting on what might have been ultimately left him feeling so much worse as no scenario he could conjure came close to assuaging his guilt.
Jun feebly lifted his head and scanned the area with red-rimmed eyes. He unsteadily raised himself from the ground and hobbled his way down the road. He traversed several blocks of the city before the terrain became more known to him, having spent many of the last couple of weeks in this exact neighbourhood. He made his way down a narrow laneway and stepped through the door he came upon.
The air inside was stale and smelt of dust and whiskey. Overcome by a powerful urge to kill his pain, Jun walked slowly over to the counter, glancing at the cobwebs gathered on the bottom of each stool. He slipped behind the bar and reached for one of the bottles that lines the shelf, unscrewing the tight cap and pouring himself a neat glass. He downed half of it in one gulp. Disappointment followed to discover it was not nearly as numbing as he hoped it would be.
Keeping the bottle nearby, he slumped down on the floor behind the counter. His throat burned with the familiar and painful warmth. His vision began to blur around the edges and his sense of focus distorted somewhat as he was numbed from the inside out, though not nearly enough to dull the agony that continued to ricochet from his heart through his entire body. He gazed at the dozens more bottles of alcohol behind him, silently wondering if they would be enough to drown his pain.
He was halfway through the bottle when he heard the door open. Jun shied away from the blinding glare that reached just far enough over the counter to illuminate his grief-stained face. Despite this, he made no attempt to do anything other than continue drinking. He refilled his glass while he listened to the footsteps encroaching on where he was hidden.
A shadow was cast over him. Jun didn’t look up; he just sat there quietly, nursing his drink that seemed to grow saltier with every sip. He had his legs drawn to his chest while his bangs fell tousled over his eyes, their shadows only emphasising his anguish.
“Did Nino send you?” he choked out.
Shun shook his head, his gaze filled with pity as he stared at the broken man on the floor. “I promised him I would find you to make sure you were alright, but I’m pretty sure he was too upset to hear me.”
He grimaced when he remembered the despairing look on Nino’s face as he stared after Jun. It was so similar to the look he’d worn when they discovered Sho’s body under the wreckage of the building, and was a look that had stayed with Shun all this time. He’d witnessed plenty of loss in the games but that incident had left a bigger impact than most.
Stepping behind the bar, he took a seat beside Jun. “I can’t imagine what you must be feeling.”
He’d lost count of how many times Jun had told him about the friends he’d arrived with; through his recounts alone, Shun could tell they were more than mere companions. They were his everything. Even though he was no longer with them physically, they were the inspiration Jun drew strength from. They were the reason he continued to fight his hardest, so that one day he could return to them and do for them what they had done for him for so long. Now that dream was no longer possible.
Jun inhaled a shaky breath, his head falling to his chest. “Why didn’t you tell me it was them?” he asked, his voice weak yet agonised.
“If I’d known who they were, I would have,” Shun replied.
His words, though sincere and apologetic to the greatest extent, were of little comfort to Jun. While logically he knew there was no way Shun could have known who they were at the time, his reasoning was clouded by grief.
“You said there were only three players that night,” he seethed. His eyes burned with fury and tears as he lifted his gaze.
“There were,” Shun told him softly. Though aware of the anger in the other’s expression, he felt nothing but pity for him. “Your friend who came to training today, a guy with an injured arm, and the acrophobe who fell.”
With the simple albeit indisputable description Shun provided, Jun was given no room to doubt which of his friends were present that night. Aiba’s missing whereabouts disturbed him immensely, almost as much as the confirmation that the poor player who’d been crushed by the building was Sho.
Jun recoiled, reliving the gruesome details Shun had recounted for him the morning after the game some weeks ago. The devastating end the latter witnessed that night left him shaken and he’d confided in his fellow parkour trainee to cope. He’d gone into some detail about the height-phobic player who’d died but while Jun had been disturbed by the details at the time, he never once stopped to consider said player might have been Sho. He was more concerned for Shun than the unnamed players, knowing the triggers of the height-related game would be nothing short of traumatic for him. Discovering it was in fact his best friends who played alongside him that night left Jun completely shell-shocked.
“Why didn’t you help them?” he whimpered.
“I tried,” said Shun. “But the beam was one-way and there was no time left.”
Jun wanted to yell that he should have done more but couldn’t bring himself to hold onto his anger any longer. Eventually his gaze fell away with a defeated sounding sigh. When he went to take another numbing mouthful, Shun reached over and placed a hand on his arm to stop him. He pried the drink out of Jun’s grasp. An echoing clink sounded when both the glass and bottle were placed rather forcefully on the counter out of the latter’s reach, followed by a stifled sob. Jun buried his head in his arms in a feeble attempt to hide his tears.
“I should have been there,” he cried. “I could have saved them.”
Shun lay a compassionate hand on his shoulder. “Don’t do that to yourself. No one could have stopped what happened, you know that.”
Jun shook his head. He wasn’t certain of anything anymore. He’d believed his friends were better off without him and that he in turn was better off without them, but perhaps he was simply fooling himself in thinking so.
“I thought I was doing right by them in staying away. I thought I was protecting them but if I’d been there…” His sentence trailed off as a half dozen what-if scenarios played over in his mind, not a single one of them making him feel any better about what had actually occurred.
“I know better than anyone what it’s like to blame yourself,” Shun murmured, his expression becoming grave as he watched Jun battle himself over what could have been. “After Yuu-chan died, I spent weeks stewing in guilt, trying to find every possible answer for what more I could have done to save her.”
Jun felt a different pang in his chest at the mention of Shun’s fiancée, recalling the story the latter disclosed to him soon after they met. Shun and Yuu had entered this world together and managed to survive three games before tragedy struck in the five of spades. The game had forced players to ascend a climbing wall to reach allocated point zones within increasingly constraining time limits, all while avoiding a laser grid on the floor. Impaired by his fear of heights, Shun had struggled to clear the fifth level. Despite having already won her points for the round, Yuu backtracked to assist him, only to lose her footing some seconds after helping him clear the level. Shun’s efforts to catch her were for nought as she slipped from his grasp and fell to her death. Ever since having his greatest fear realised, he’d done everything in his power to make up for it. He deliberately challenged himself in their training sessions by taking on feats of great height so as to overcome the very phobia he believed was responsible for his partner’s death.
“But trust me, it’s not worth it,” Shun went on, emotion causing his voice to catch at the memory of his lost love. He forced it back as best he could to focus on the suffering of the friend in front of him. “That guilt will forever be a part of me, but I have to live looking forward and so must you. Remember what Okada-sempai says: the only obstacle that will hold us back is ourselves.”
Jun didn’t respond, those very words stuck on repeat in his head. Since the moment he first heard them, he’d made it his personal mantra, drawing strength from it whenever things were tough. The idea that sheer will could overcome anything else was inspiring. But now they seemed nothing more than meaningless words. Feeling utterly defeated, he lay his head against Shun’s shoulder. The latter was the first in the troupe to have accepted him and Jun knew this was mostly owing to their shared feelings of helplessness when it came to protecting their loved ones. It was the only comfort he could draw now as he lamented the loss of his three dearest brothers.
Stillness claimed the interior of the bar as the two of them sat in morose silence, letting the weight of everything that had been stirred up settle once more.
“What about your other friend? Nino, was it?” Shun asked after a while. Even now he couldn’t shake that look on the shorter guy’s face.
“I can’t face him,” Jun murmured, already knowing what the other was implying. As anticipated, he could hear the frown in Shun’s voice when he spoke again.
“You aren’t seriously going to desert him, are you?”
“He already resents me for leaving in the first place,” Jun responded, lifting his head to look his friend in the eye. “And I don’t blame him. If I hadn’t, the others might still be alive.”
“Maybe before you draw that conclusion, you should find out what actually happened,” Shun pointed out. “If he’s really the friend you described to me all those times, he could never hate you.”
Jun bit his lip and shook his head. “I can’t. If it is true, I can’t betray him like that. He’s better off without me.”
“No, he’s not,” Shun told him curtly. “I was there when he lost one of your friends. I saw how much it killed him.” He sighed and shut his eyes in quiet reflection. When he opened them again, he held Jun’s gaze in earnest. “Don’t let him lose you too.”
Though Jun opened his mouth to speak, he had no words. Shun rose to his feet. He grabbed the unfinished bottle from the counter and resealed the cap, returning it to the shelf before stepping out from behind the bar.
“I would give anything to have even one more moment with Yuu-chan.” His voice was quiet, almost mumbled as he reflected once more on his personal loss. Jun could hear the way he sighed under his breath before speaking again in the same muted tone. “Three of your friends are already gone, Jun. Can you really live with yourself if you let Nino slip away as well?”
Pairing: OT5, Matsumiya
Genre: AU, Angst, Dark Fantasy
Disclaimer: Plot is mine, Arashi is not. Unfortunately.
Summary: Down the rabbit hole they fell.
Author's Note: Happy birthday Nino!
An air of awkwardness surrounded the group after the verdict of the game was announced. Though they watched Okada walk away, most of the other players chose to linger in the quad instead of following.
“Not bad for a rookie,” Yamashita broke the silence as he looked to Nino. “It’s a shame you won’t be joining us.”
Kamenashi nodded. “You did well to keep up and that was one crazy gamble you took up there.”
Toma gave Jun a playful nudge. “Reminds me of a certain someone during his initiation.”
“At least my gamble paid off,” said Jun.
“Keep telling yourself that,” Toma teased. “The official ruling said otherwise.”
Jun scowled at him. “You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?”
“Only when it stops being fun.”
“So never,” Yamashita chuckled, to which Toma nodded with a grin.
Rolling his eyes despite the amusement that threatened to show on his face, Jun shoved the two of them away in a less-than-subtle attempt to shut them up. Toma’s smile never fell despite them taking the hint. As the rest of the group began to break off and go after Okada, the pair continuing snickering under their breath even as they followed suit.
Nino observed their interaction with a pout. Seeing how easily Jun’s expression went from troubled to relaxed while he conversed with them, hearing him laugh and joke along with them, all the while acting like he wasn’t even there, bothered Nino immensely. It annoyed him how effortlessly they seemed to mesh, as if they’d been friends for as long as he and Jun had been. This thought alone caused Nino’s stomach to twist and writhe. It was reminiscent of their days together and somehow made his heart ache to witness the younger converse with others in that same manner as he once did with the four of them.
Nino gazed at Jun expectantly once they were alone. “Well?”
Jun stared at him hard. “Well what?”
“Are you coming with me or are you staying with them?” Nino asked, his own gaze hardening.
When Jun’s only response to his ultimatum was conflicted silence and a refusal to look him in the eye, Nino felt his heart sink. He tried to hide his disappointment behind a scowl.
“You saved me.”
“I would never let you fall,” Jun murmured. “But it doesn’t change things. The only life I want to be responsible for is my own.”
Nino scoffed in disbelief. “We only just found each other and you’re going to leave again?” Accusation laced his tone as he spat his last word in the most scathing way possible.
“I knew where to find you this whole time,” Jun remarked, seemingly unbothered by Nino’s venomous guilt-tripping. “If I wanted to come back, I would have.”
Nino couldn’t believe his ears. He thought back to the countless hours he and the others had spent scouring the city in search of their missing friend; while they eventually came to accept that he didn’t want to be found, a part of them refused to give up hope. Every word Jun said now was like a dagger to his heart as it reconfirmed their worst fears.
Jun held Nino’s gaze for a moment before looking away with a heavy sigh. “I never should have come back with you last night.”
Sheer sadness laced his declaration, as if confessing to some terrible burden. Nino’s heart was pounding as he watched him start to walk away. A mix of anguish, disbelief and genuine confusion caused his brows to knit together.
“What happened to you?” he called out after him. “You didn’t used to be like this.”
Jun’s steps halted and his whole body stiffened. “Who I used to be,” he echoed through gritted teeth. His eyes blazed defensively when he whipped around. “Was someone too weak to look after himself. You of all people should know that. I couldn’t go back knowing how you all truly felt about me, so why should I go back with you now?”
“I defended you,” Nino protested. His voice dropped back a little when he lamentedly added, “I always have.”
“Until you didn’t,” Jun retorted, unchanged by his friend’s uncanny moment of honesty.
Nino shook his head. “The things we said that night might have been harsh but we were only trying to protect you.”
“I don’t want to be protected,” Jun seethed. “Don’t you get it? I never wanted to be that person so weak, so pitiful, that everyone feels they have to protect him.”
Every depiction was spoken with such vicious contempt, it had Nino wincing. He always knew Jun strived for more in life; even as teenagers, he never hid the fact that he wanted to be strong and successful, but Nino never did understand it. To him, his friend was already perfect the way he was. He was one of the most thoughtful and generous souls Nino ever had the privilege of knowing. What he lacked in physical strength, he made up for in strength of character; he might be the first among them to show fear, but his heart knew true courage in the face of danger and adversity. Nino would never wish for that to change.
Jun was practically trembling. He turned to face the direction the others had gone, taking a determined stride towards them despite needing to take a breath or two to steady himself. “And now at last, I don’t have to be.”
To see him the way he was now made Nino’s heart ache. He stared after Jun sadly. “I liked the old you,” he murmured. “The real you.”
Jun stopped again, though he did not turn back this time. His tone was cold as he muttered, “The old me is dead.”
Without another word, he paced across the clearing to rejoin the rest of the troupe. A sudden and familiar heaviness took claim on Nino’s heart; worse than if he’d been physically struck, it left him trembling with emptiness. His bottom lip quivered slightly and when a dampness threatened to form in his eyes, he forced himself to turn away. He didn’t bother going after Jun again, knowing it would be a waste of time to do so. It really felt as though he had lost his friend all over again.
Leaving the campus, Nino stormed down the street. With every step he took, he could feel his heartbreak twisting into anger. His yearning for answers was still as strong as ever while what little he had learned that morning confused and infuriated him. Discovering what Jun had been doing all these weeks was a shock his system couldn’t handle but the confirmation of just how much his friend had changed only added insult to injury. A part of him wondered if he wasn’t better off believing Jun was dead after all.
He was no closer to coming to terms with things by the time he returned to the ryokan. Yamazaki looked up as the young man entered the reception.
“There you are,” he said. “I was wondering where you’d gotten off to.”
He quickly fell silent when Nino slammed the sliding door behind him. He squatted down in the genkan, angrily tearing off his shoes and replacing them with slippers, or at least he tried to. It took way more attempts than it should have for him to untie his laces and when he did finally get his shoes off, he nearly tripped over in his rageful haste to get the sippers on and stand up at the same time.
“Did something happen?” Yamazaki asked, watching the scene with an anxious expression.
Nino threw his companion a glare that conveyed his unwillingness to talk. He hoped it would be enough to get Yamazaki to back off and leave him be, though he should have known his signals would go completely over the other guy’s head.
“Where’s Matsumoto-san?” Looking towards the door as if expecting to see him walk through any second, Yamazaki tilted his head when it remained closed.
“Out with his real friends,” Nino growled.
Yamazaki pouted. “I don’t understand.”
“That makes two of us,” muttered Nino. “Turns out he’s not only been alive this whole time, but he’s been living some crazy double-life with a bunch of parkour maniacs.”
From the perplexity that crumpled Yamazaki’s brow, Nino knew he wasn’t following, not that he expected the other guy to. He was still struggling to understand the truth himself.
“Is he coming back?”
Nino shrugged. “Who knows? He said he wouldn’t; then again, he also said he missed me, so who’s to say he meant either.”
His struggle with the slippers was forgotten as he slumped defeatedly in the genkan. A sudden bout of exhaustion and loneliness swept over him.
“He’s just so different now,” he whispered. “All these secrets and new people in his life…it’s like I don’t even know who he is anymore.”
His head dropped to his chest with a sigh. Despite going unseen by Nino in his deflated state, Yamazaki nodded sympathetically behind him. His eyes glowed with a wisdom beyond his years.
“I imagine he probably feels the same way about you.” When Nino cast him a side-glance, he elaborated, “You’ve also changed. Look at it from his perspective: you come back into his life and all of a sudden you no longer care about solving the games, only getting the reward no matter the cost.”
Nino tensed at his claim. While the logical side of him knew his companion could only be referring to his previous actions, a part of him couldn’t help worrying that Yamazaki somehow discovered what he did to Himura in last night’s game. Whether he did or not, he continued as if completely unaware of Nino’s apprehension.
“And instead of your best friends, you’re accompanied by someone he barely knows. I could understand if Matsumoto-san also thought you were a different person now too, because you are. Neither of you are the same as when you were together before.”
There was silence as Nino mulled over his surprisingly profound observation. He already knew he had changed and had come to terms with this about himself, but he had never once stopped to consider how Jun might handle such changes in him. If it was anything like the way he was handling the younger’s changes, then their reunion was fraught with more complications than Nino ever realised.
“Even if you’re right, that doesn’t mean he has to be so secretive with me,” Nino argued, ignoring the pang in his heart as Yamazaki’s assertion hit a bigger nerve than expected. “Sneaking around, lying about the people he knows and what he’s been doing all this time-I can’t stand it.”
“He probably thinks you’re being just as secretive with him,” Yamazaki pointed out. “Does he even know about your friends yet?”
When Nino refused to respond, the former sighed softly.
“I think if you want any chance of trusting each other like you used to, you need to be totally honest.”
“About what?”
“Everything.”
“I’ve tried,” Nino said. “He refuses to tell me anything.”
Yamazaki shook his head. “Trust is a two-way street. Perhaps the reason he’s not willing to open up is because you aren’t either.”
Nino pondered his words; they resonated deeply with him and brought to mind the conversation he and Jun had last night. It was the closest to honest they’d been with one another and the last time he felt they had been truly close, like the best friends they once were. For a while at least. Jun had tried asking him what happened to their friends but Nino shut him down, and in turn Jun shut down his questions about where he’d been and why he’d left them in the first place, and had continued to do so ever since. It was an uncomfortable thought but perhaps Yamazaki had a point in saying Jun was feeling frustrated by his friend’s reluctance to talk.
The more Nino considered it, the more he was able to empathise with Jun’s situation. His reunion with Nino was as unexpected for him as it was for the latter; suddenly finding himself back in one friend’s company was hard enough but knowing absolutely nothing of the others’ whereabouts and being denied answers at every turn could only be described as devastating, even if Nino did have good reason for withholding such information. It made him question if Jun didn’t have his own reasons for denying the answers Nino sought.
“What am I supposed to do?” he asked.
“You can start by telling him about your friends,” Yamazaki suggested. “Don’t hold back. Tell him everything that happened. You don’t have to be strong for him; rage together, mourn together, take a chance and let yourselves be vulnerable. If you can’t open up to him, who can you open up to?”
Nino couldn’t bring himself to respond. He understood what the other was saying-it made a lot of sense-but he was terrified by the thought of doing it. Just the idea of telling Jun about their friends made him sick to his stomach. He didn’t know if he had it in him to relive it again, let alone force that suffering onto Jun.
As he watched Nino internally battle himself over what to do, Yamazaki’s lips upturned in a faint yet wistful smile. “Take it from someone who knows, you regret the things you didn’t do more than the stuff you did. Don’t make the same mistake I did.”
Leaving his profound statement to linger, he gave Nino’s shoulder a small squeeze before stepping past him to reach the door. Nino stared blankly after him. The exact implication behind his remark was unclear to him and it took him several seconds longer than it should have for him to react.
“You’re leaving too?”
In his heart, he knew his companion was merely going out for one of his daily ventures, likely with the goal of finding more relics from the old world. But the reality of being left alone again disappointed him somehow.
“For a little while,” Yamazaki replied. “I’d say you’re welcome to join me, but something tells me you have more important things to attend to right now.”
When Nino’s only response was a conflicted look, the other flashed him an encouraging grin. He uttered something about being back before dark, then headed out into the city. While Nino’s gaze initially stayed with Yamazaki, it soon drifted down the road he’d walked earlier that morning in search of a different figure.
With a sigh, he removed himself from the doorway and returned to the foyer. He wandered around aimless for a few minutes before grabbing his guitar from where it rested in the corner. He lay back on one of the benches and strummed a basic tune. Mindlessly playing helped to both distract him and clarify his thoughts. As the music reached deep inside of him and drowned out the chaotic cacophony of his brain, he felt a feeling of resolve soon settle in his heart. He found himself staring at the entrance even while he played. Yamazaki’s advice replayed in his mind. Every passing minute brought with it a reminder that if he didn’t act soon, he might lose his chance for good.
Close to half an hour passed before he finally acted. His fingers paused mid-strum and he sat up, walking in silence over to the door. No matter how much he dreaded it, he knew exactly what needed to be done.
Nino sighed as he squatted outside the campus. It had been close to ninety minutes since he returned and still there was no indication of when or even if his friend would reappear through those gates. When he first came back, he’d hesitated over going inside. He knew Jun would not be pleased to see him there again. He wasn’t too keen on getting into another argument and knew the likelihood of them both putting their walls up would only increase in front of an audience, so he decided to wait outside until their training concluded. Nino had no clue exactly how long that would take, but it didn’t stop him from sitting patiently with a heart full of hope and dread just the same.
After what felt like a lifetime, he heard the sound of approaching footsteps. He glanced over his shoulder and rose to his feet in anticipation. He’d spent the last hour going over this scenario in his head; he practiced every possible way to phrase what he would say and braced himself for the likely reactions from the younger. But now that the time to act was upon him, his heart fluttered. He forced himself not to abort the plan even as he stepped out from behind the stone pillar to face his friend. Jun’s steps halted when he saw him.
“I thought you left,” he sighed and wiped his face dry with the towel that was strung around his shoulders.
Fighting against his instincts, Nino swallowed the snarky retort he wished to give. He could feel his heart beating faster with every second that brought him closer to the moment of truth but he refused to back out now.
Jun frowned at the lack of response and cast him a suspicious side-glance. Seeing the way Nino was staring at him with a shockingly earnest gaze, he felt a sudden discomfort overcome him. He tensed slightly when Nino approached him with slow steps.
“What?” he asked, a twinge of nervousness seeping into his otherwise controlled tone.
“You asked me what happened to our friends and I said I needed more time,” Nino replied curtly. He paused long enough to meet the younger’s eyes. A glimmer of hurt broke its way through his otherwise resolute gaze as he echoed the very words Ohno once spoke to him. “I’m ready now.”
Jun’s eyes widened, his expression turning to one of stunned disbelief. But before he could say a word, they were interrupted when someone called his name from somewhere behind them. Nino frowned at the oddly familiar tone. He narrowed his eyes on the player who approached them to hand Jun the water bottle he’d forgotten. He’d caught fleeting glimpses of the taller guy during the Tag game but only now did Nino get a proper look at the man’s face.
“You!” he gasped.
The tall player looked to him in bewilderment, then a noise of recognition sounded from his agape mouth. Their interaction drew Jun’s attention.
“You know him, Shun?”
Shun nodded tentatively. “We were in a game together a while ago.” As the memories came flooding back, he struggled to hold Nino’s gaze. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more for you guys.”
Jun’s heart was pounding as he questioned his friend. “Nino, what’s he talking about?”
“He was there,” Nino spoke distantly. “The night Sho-chan…”
His sentence cut short as images from that awful night flashed in his mind, bringing with it the taste of bile. He glanced at Jun, who looked absolutely terrified as he was left to piece everything together on his own. Of all the scenarios he’d come up with on how to break the news, this was not one of them.
Despite coming up with but one explanation, Jun couldn’t bring himself to believe it. “No,” he whispered under his breath.
Shun’s expression was overflowing with compassion as he watched him reluctantly connect the dots. “I’m so sorry.”
Jun shook his head over and over again. Slow at first as he fought to overcome his shock, it became a furious act of denial, almost to the point of giving himself whiplash. The sympathetic confirmation of the pair in front of him only fuelled his refusal of the truth.
“It can’t be,” he whimpered.
“They’re dead, Jun-kun,” Nino told him softly. “All of them.”
Jun’s gaze shot to him. In spite of its watery glaze, his glare was as ferocious as ever. “You’re lying!”
“I’m not lying!” The emotion Nino had been holding back was released in the form of a ragged yell.
His bottom lip quivered and his voice dropped to a whimper. This wasn’t at all how he wanted his friend to find out and he could tell from the shattered look on Jun’s face that it was everything he hoped it wouldn’t be. Despair threatened to drown Nino as the realisation that there was no going back hit him like a brick wall.
“I wish I was, believe me.”
Jun shook his head again. Disbelief continued to grace every inch of his expression but rather than stemming from doubt over what he’d been told, Nino could easily read the denial painted across his face, as if he was simply refusing to accept what he knew in his heart to be true. No longer could he hold Nino’s gaze, or Shun’s for that matter. He took a few staggered steps back, his breathing quickening to hyperventilating gasps. His expression became a dizzying blend of emotions that ultimately created a distant and somewhat unstable look in his eye. Nino reached to take his hand in a gesture of comfort but Jun flinched at the touch as if he’d been shocked by a current.
“Jun-kun,” Nino tried but the younger shook his head.
“You’re lying,” he gasped like his lungs were deprived of oxygen. He repeated it a few times as if hoping to convince himself. His eyes darted about, looking from Nino to Shun to the campus and to Nino again before whispering a piteous, “I can’t.”
With a few increasingly loud and desperate breaths that he couldn’t seem to catch, he spun around and fled into the city, leaving behind a gutted Nino in his wake.
---
Jun couldn’t breathe. His surroundings were nothing but a blur as he sped through the streets away from his friend and the truth he couldn’t bring himself to face. He didn’t know where he was going, only that he needed to get out of there. Every instinct he had was screaming for him to go back to Nino, to finish getting answers, but his legs refused to stop. He forced his conscience into silence and kept running. Part of him hoped that if he ran far enough, he would somehow outrun a reality he would never be ready to confront. He knew doing so was impossible, though that didn’t stop him from trying.
In his distracted state, he failed to notice the sidewalk that arose in his path. His foot snagged on the slightly raised pavement and sent him tumbling to his hands and knees. Jun gasped when he landed upon the concrete. Tears stung his eyes, owning not to the blood that seeped from his freshly skinned kneecaps, but as the onslaught of emotion he’d been running from finally caught up with him.
He couldn’t understand it. When he’d left, all four of his friends had been alive and well. Now they were simply gone. It didn’t make any sense and the more he tried to comprehend it, the worse his grief became. A haggard yell tore from his throat. He pounded at the cement until he lost both his voice and all the feeling in his hand. When the majority of his energy was spent, he crouched on the ground, a series of quiet sobs wracking his chest.
It wasn’t that the possibility of his friends being dead hadn’t crossed his mind-it occurred to him the moment he realised Nino was no longer with them-but he refused to accept it. Until now, he’d held onto the belief that his friends were merely elsewhere. Nino never explicitly stated they were dead, so he allowed himself to hope even if deep down he knew better. But hearing the conversation between Nino and Shun brought every last shred of hope crashing down. He wanted so badly to pretend there was another explanation for their previous encounter, that it wasn’t Sho who fell from that building, but he could lie to himself no longer.
Tears continued to flow down his cheeks even as he struggled to comprehend the truth. He thought he was the biggest threat to his friends’ lives; he believed he was protecting them by leaving. He never expected them to die once he was gone. Reflecting on what might have been ultimately left him feeling so much worse as no scenario he could conjure came close to assuaging his guilt.
Jun feebly lifted his head and scanned the area with red-rimmed eyes. He unsteadily raised himself from the ground and hobbled his way down the road. He traversed several blocks of the city before the terrain became more known to him, having spent many of the last couple of weeks in this exact neighbourhood. He made his way down a narrow laneway and stepped through the door he came upon.
The air inside was stale and smelt of dust and whiskey. Overcome by a powerful urge to kill his pain, Jun walked slowly over to the counter, glancing at the cobwebs gathered on the bottom of each stool. He slipped behind the bar and reached for one of the bottles that lines the shelf, unscrewing the tight cap and pouring himself a neat glass. He downed half of it in one gulp. Disappointment followed to discover it was not nearly as numbing as he hoped it would be.
Keeping the bottle nearby, he slumped down on the floor behind the counter. His throat burned with the familiar and painful warmth. His vision began to blur around the edges and his sense of focus distorted somewhat as he was numbed from the inside out, though not nearly enough to dull the agony that continued to ricochet from his heart through his entire body. He gazed at the dozens more bottles of alcohol behind him, silently wondering if they would be enough to drown his pain.
He was halfway through the bottle when he heard the door open. Jun shied away from the blinding glare that reached just far enough over the counter to illuminate his grief-stained face. Despite this, he made no attempt to do anything other than continue drinking. He refilled his glass while he listened to the footsteps encroaching on where he was hidden.
A shadow was cast over him. Jun didn’t look up; he just sat there quietly, nursing his drink that seemed to grow saltier with every sip. He had his legs drawn to his chest while his bangs fell tousled over his eyes, their shadows only emphasising his anguish.
“Did Nino send you?” he choked out.
Shun shook his head, his gaze filled with pity as he stared at the broken man on the floor. “I promised him I would find you to make sure you were alright, but I’m pretty sure he was too upset to hear me.”
He grimaced when he remembered the despairing look on Nino’s face as he stared after Jun. It was so similar to the look he’d worn when they discovered Sho’s body under the wreckage of the building, and was a look that had stayed with Shun all this time. He’d witnessed plenty of loss in the games but that incident had left a bigger impact than most.
Stepping behind the bar, he took a seat beside Jun. “I can’t imagine what you must be feeling.”
He’d lost count of how many times Jun had told him about the friends he’d arrived with; through his recounts alone, Shun could tell they were more than mere companions. They were his everything. Even though he was no longer with them physically, they were the inspiration Jun drew strength from. They were the reason he continued to fight his hardest, so that one day he could return to them and do for them what they had done for him for so long. Now that dream was no longer possible.
Jun inhaled a shaky breath, his head falling to his chest. “Why didn’t you tell me it was them?” he asked, his voice weak yet agonised.
“If I’d known who they were, I would have,” Shun replied.
His words, though sincere and apologetic to the greatest extent, were of little comfort to Jun. While logically he knew there was no way Shun could have known who they were at the time, his reasoning was clouded by grief.
“You said there were only three players that night,” he seethed. His eyes burned with fury and tears as he lifted his gaze.
“There were,” Shun told him softly. Though aware of the anger in the other’s expression, he felt nothing but pity for him. “Your friend who came to training today, a guy with an injured arm, and the acrophobe who fell.”
With the simple albeit indisputable description Shun provided, Jun was given no room to doubt which of his friends were present that night. Aiba’s missing whereabouts disturbed him immensely, almost as much as the confirmation that the poor player who’d been crushed by the building was Sho.
Jun recoiled, reliving the gruesome details Shun had recounted for him the morning after the game some weeks ago. The devastating end the latter witnessed that night left him shaken and he’d confided in his fellow parkour trainee to cope. He’d gone into some detail about the height-phobic player who’d died but while Jun had been disturbed by the details at the time, he never once stopped to consider said player might have been Sho. He was more concerned for Shun than the unnamed players, knowing the triggers of the height-related game would be nothing short of traumatic for him. Discovering it was in fact his best friends who played alongside him that night left Jun completely shell-shocked.
“Why didn’t you help them?” he whimpered.
“I tried,” said Shun. “But the beam was one-way and there was no time left.”
Jun wanted to yell that he should have done more but couldn’t bring himself to hold onto his anger any longer. Eventually his gaze fell away with a defeated sounding sigh. When he went to take another numbing mouthful, Shun reached over and placed a hand on his arm to stop him. He pried the drink out of Jun’s grasp. An echoing clink sounded when both the glass and bottle were placed rather forcefully on the counter out of the latter’s reach, followed by a stifled sob. Jun buried his head in his arms in a feeble attempt to hide his tears.
“I should have been there,” he cried. “I could have saved them.”
Shun lay a compassionate hand on his shoulder. “Don’t do that to yourself. No one could have stopped what happened, you know that.”
Jun shook his head. He wasn’t certain of anything anymore. He’d believed his friends were better off without him and that he in turn was better off without them, but perhaps he was simply fooling himself in thinking so.
“I thought I was doing right by them in staying away. I thought I was protecting them but if I’d been there…” His sentence trailed off as a half dozen what-if scenarios played over in his mind, not a single one of them making him feel any better about what had actually occurred.
“I know better than anyone what it’s like to blame yourself,” Shun murmured, his expression becoming grave as he watched Jun battle himself over what could have been. “After Yuu-chan died, I spent weeks stewing in guilt, trying to find every possible answer for what more I could have done to save her.”
Jun felt a different pang in his chest at the mention of Shun’s fiancée, recalling the story the latter disclosed to him soon after they met. Shun and Yuu had entered this world together and managed to survive three games before tragedy struck in the five of spades. The game had forced players to ascend a climbing wall to reach allocated point zones within increasingly constraining time limits, all while avoiding a laser grid on the floor. Impaired by his fear of heights, Shun had struggled to clear the fifth level. Despite having already won her points for the round, Yuu backtracked to assist him, only to lose her footing some seconds after helping him clear the level. Shun’s efforts to catch her were for nought as she slipped from his grasp and fell to her death. Ever since having his greatest fear realised, he’d done everything in his power to make up for it. He deliberately challenged himself in their training sessions by taking on feats of great height so as to overcome the very phobia he believed was responsible for his partner’s death.
“But trust me, it’s not worth it,” Shun went on, emotion causing his voice to catch at the memory of his lost love. He forced it back as best he could to focus on the suffering of the friend in front of him. “That guilt will forever be a part of me, but I have to live looking forward and so must you. Remember what Okada-sempai says: the only obstacle that will hold us back is ourselves.”
Jun didn’t respond, those very words stuck on repeat in his head. Since the moment he first heard them, he’d made it his personal mantra, drawing strength from it whenever things were tough. The idea that sheer will could overcome anything else was inspiring. But now they seemed nothing more than meaningless words. Feeling utterly defeated, he lay his head against Shun’s shoulder. The latter was the first in the troupe to have accepted him and Jun knew this was mostly owing to their shared feelings of helplessness when it came to protecting their loved ones. It was the only comfort he could draw now as he lamented the loss of his three dearest brothers.
Stillness claimed the interior of the bar as the two of them sat in morose silence, letting the weight of everything that had been stirred up settle once more.
“What about your other friend? Nino, was it?” Shun asked after a while. Even now he couldn’t shake that look on the shorter guy’s face.
“I can’t face him,” Jun murmured, already knowing what the other was implying. As anticipated, he could hear the frown in Shun’s voice when he spoke again.
“You aren’t seriously going to desert him, are you?”
“He already resents me for leaving in the first place,” Jun responded, lifting his head to look his friend in the eye. “And I don’t blame him. If I hadn’t, the others might still be alive.”
“Maybe before you draw that conclusion, you should find out what actually happened,” Shun pointed out. “If he’s really the friend you described to me all those times, he could never hate you.”
Jun bit his lip and shook his head. “I can’t. If it is true, I can’t betray him like that. He’s better off without me.”
“No, he’s not,” Shun told him curtly. “I was there when he lost one of your friends. I saw how much it killed him.” He sighed and shut his eyes in quiet reflection. When he opened them again, he held Jun’s gaze in earnest. “Don’t let him lose you too.”
Though Jun opened his mouth to speak, he had no words. Shun rose to his feet. He grabbed the unfinished bottle from the counter and resealed the cap, returning it to the shelf before stepping out from behind the bar.
“I would give anything to have even one more moment with Yuu-chan.” His voice was quiet, almost mumbled as he reflected once more on his personal loss. Jun could hear the way he sighed under his breath before speaking again in the same muted tone. “Three of your friends are already gone, Jun. Can you really live with yourself if you let Nino slip away as well?”