[fic] M for Moon
Title: M for Moon
Pairings/Characters: Miyata/Tamamori
Rating: pg there’s a The Sound of Music reference.
Summary: au - Miyata was the moon and Tamamori was his world.
Note: A hard to explain au. It originally started as a series of .gifs made and posted to tumblr [link] in which Miyata is the moon, sometimes called Miyamoon, and then it somehow became a fic.
-
The man on the Moon - Miyata - was lonely.
Miyata led a solitary life of routine and little happening. He pulled the waves with his fingers and marked the months with a crescent smile, he bounced and rolled in his craters and threw pebbles and stones to watch them fall to Earth and burn up, ablaze, or crash and form mountains. As civilization rose and fell and rose all over again he laid on his belly, cheeks cupped in his hands, and watched, all the world a stage and he a spectator. Miyata couldn't remember a time or place before the Moon but he knew in his heart that there must be something more to do with this thing called life than to watch over others living their own; to do nothing but watch the Earth spin slowly asleep under his glow. He just had to find it.
One night as Miyata laid in the powdered stardust, staring into the spiraling depths of a far off nebula, making up stories of Space Princesses adventuring with magic wands to entertain himself he finds it. Later he’ll joke that he never would have dreamt his calling would quite literally call him, but it does - the sweetest voice he’s ever heard sings Moon-san and drifts into his ear, shivers along his spine, and warms him down to his toes with a whisper. Battling Princesses abandoned, he strains his ears to hear it again - people wished commonplace on the twinkle of stars or worshipped the heat of the Sun, but rare it was for the Moon to be called upon by a living thing other than the prowling, howling wolves, but there it was again, the whisper calling his name.
Moon-san, will you listen?
and Miyata, tripping over his own feet in eagerness, scurries over rocks to a vantage point on the plateau of Montes Apenninus to find the source. With a breath and a blow from his nose he clears the sky below of clouds and searches the whole world. In a field with fireflies and a bed of bent grass blades, damp with summer dew, he finds him. Hair falling into his eyes, looking maybe 16 going on 17, maybe a year or two younger than Miyata in appearance if Miyata wasn’t already older than time. His skin iridescently pale in the Moon’s glow so pretty Miyata could scarcely believe.
Pressure pushes down contracting his chest, the breath he never realized he was holding squeezes in his lungs forcefully before rushing out as a gasp, the shock of it violent enough to shake a nearby tree, triggering the fall of loose autumn leaves. One leaf floats and dances down and gently lands on the boy’s nose - it furrows his brow, makes him pout in annoyance as he picks it up, inspecting it curiously as he twirls the stem between his fingers.
Why’d you do that?
Sorry.
Miyata winces at his own awkwardness and whispers in reply even if he knows the other has no hope of hearing him across the vast mass of cosmos between and instead calls up a late warm breeze in apology to brush away the wrinkles from the boy’s forehead.
They stay for hours, the Moon hypnotized by pink lips murmuring under breath, lips talking endlessly, unfurling all their problems, telling all as if they’ve been bottled and zipped up waiting for a friend. How he’s still teased in class for being weird, for once talking to a pencil. How his mother won’t let him go fishing when he wants. How his limbs ache with growth spurts and his hair won’t sit right and he cares too much about it all and he too has a life he doesn’t know what to do with. Miyata listens as best he can, tries to ease the other’s mind as only he is able with a calming presence.
Thank you.
Astronomers will wonder why the Moon blushed a peach hue that random night. Something, possibly pollution, in the air as explanation.
The white glow of the Moon follows the boy home along a worn deserted path by the banks of a stream - Tamamori - writes the name on the gate - Yuta - an inward voice calls at the slide of a door. And through the gaps in the curtains, the light tucks him safely into bed and with that Miyata falls in love.
His love is unnoticed for years. Maybe it was completely unnoticeable, as there was nothing signifying change. The same orbital path was followed. Gravitational laws obeyed. No discernible difference apart from how the Moon would shine ever so slightly brighter over a certain part of the world, or how Miyata was no longer annoyed by the Sun glaring too bright in his eyes or the asteroids constantly peppering his back. He would brush them off and instead focus on Tamamori as he walked and kicked pebbles along nighttime strolls, talking softly to the sky - to Miyata - about all that occupied his mind and the details of his day. The boy became a man and Miyata became a little less lonely.
On the occasions when the solitude would still nip away at Miyata, he’d turn blue and appear full twice in one month just so Tamamori would maybe ignore school work or soccer or any earthly thing and pay twice as much attention to him. And Tamamori does, attention easily wavered from where it’s supposed to be, leaning so far out an open window Miyata worries about the sturdiness of the wooden window sill carrying all the other’s weight just to say Hello.
Tamamori learns to surf, most often in the grey dark of early dawn but on rare occasions at night, and Miyata learns to drop low over the ocean so he reflects in the ripple of the sea there beside the other as if they were together.
You’re always too quiet. You should speak up more.
And Miyata shakes free a large wave that topples Tamamori from his board just to see his eyes flash black as he breaks the water's surface and glares.
Miyata wants to know what Tamamori does during the day. Wants to follow where he goes - a silly little jealous part maybe wonders who he sees. He slips into sweet daydreams more and more often in his constant night, imagining a life he plays no part in other than observer. Sometimes at dusk or twilight he catches glimpses - Tamamori with sleep dazed unfocused eyes fixing his hair as the rush of a morning train pulling into the station blows it out of place. But then the Moon is forced to set and Tamamori is gone for another day.
One day, Miyata promises himself - for one day, he’ll find a way to spend every minute of it with Tamamori.
And then he does.
-
Tamamori has been worrying for years.
He worries about picking university classes, about buying a sharp suit for interviews, worries to pay attention, to decide on a future and obtain it. He worries he doesn’t worry enough and is easily distracted and unfocused and loses hours and whole nights staring up into the universe and not at a heavy book with small complex type. Tamamori studies for tests, he passes tests, but it doesn’t feel like he’s achieving anything; there isn’t a dream at the end of it all waiting for him. His mother fixes his crooked collar while he eats his breakfast and says when she was his age she was already married and raising a son and so maybe it’s okay for him to take his time, but it only adds to Tamamori’s restlessness, the pressure of what she might hope for him.
Tamamori worries so much he’s the last to notice.
But the world was slow to notice something amiss, something off, something they couldn't quite put their finger on at first. Half the world lay bathed in darkness under a clear night sky, something so obviously missing that had always been there before. The other half looked up one bright day in surprise. A shadow motionless in the sky, synchronous rotation broken - the Moon in broad daylight.
When the realisation of the truly impossible sinks in, the world turns to panic and confusion. The tides rise high and never falls. The Sun moves steadily and regularly across the sky but the grey orb of the Moon stands motionless. Astronomers and scientists with cameras shoved into their faces under the bright lights of television news shows rush to explain. Orbiting bodies often wavered in speed and proximity; changes were nothing to initially alarm over. With an air of authority and all knowing they spouted nonsense, for truly no one knew what had happened.
But Tamamori. Tamamori felt he knew because it seemed to be here for him.
The Moon, as silly as it may be to think, has always felt like it was floating in the sky for him. On overcast nights - skies a heavy black with clouds - Tamamori couldn’t help but notice a missing presence, that everything was a little darker, a little lonelier. Even on the dark nights of a new Moon the thin lines of a crescent felt like arms reaching down to embrace him, inviting him to curl into its concave. And now the Moon was suddenly always there. Out every window Tamamori looked, at every glance to the sky, no matter the direction, no matter the time, there was the Moon.
The streets around him fall into disorder and alarm, the apocalypse is predicted, and Tamamori stands amidst it all and smiles softly upwards.
-
The bed scratches in a line along the wooden floor as it drags. Tamamori’s mother complains of the noise and the marks and if the neighbours might hear, questions why he’s arranging furniture so late at night. Certainly you’ll catch nothing but a chill sleeping flush along an open window curtains left drawn all night. To Tamamori, that night, as he lay with the whole galaxy a blanket above him, the Moon suddenly felt closer - bigger - brighter - like it was about to drop from the heavens and cover him in all its light. The Moon wormed and warmed its way into his veins.
Eventually, lids heavy, arms brushed with goosebumps, he falls into a deep sleep filled with dreams of someone he’s never met and always known. A man with a nose too big that smiles like a crescent moon waving at him broadly and enthusiastically from across the sea of tranquility, calling for him to come visit, come to his side of the bluish basalt, cross the space between them. It’s a dream he’ll remember with perfect clarity when he wakes.
The following morning the sky is vacant, its only occupants being the glaring sun, a wisp of cloud, a morning bird’s song - none of what Tamamori is searching for. The sea has fallen, the waves receded with the return of the natural tidal fall and with them Tamamori’s heart falls to the pit of his chest.
Over breakfast and morning news shows, Tamamori listens as the scientists once again drone on in explanation. Perhaps it was all an illusion, none of it real. Time. The perception of the eye. The speed of light. The Moon, of course, hadn't - couldn't - suddenly change course and direction and speed. He switches the tv off with an angry blip when a balding man with a beard and coffee stained tie tells Tamamori it was possibly sunspots and/or solar flares playing tricks on his mind.
You’re wrong.
Tamamori curls into a chair by the household computer, toast for breakfast still between his teeth. He opens a browser window and searches - Space Cadet Application - he contemplates a question mark but decides to stay firm in his query.
There’s someone up there waiting for him.
Pairings/Characters: Miyata/Tamamori
Rating: pg there’s a The Sound of Music reference.
Summary: au - Miyata was the moon and Tamamori was his world.
Note: A hard to explain au. It originally started as a series of .gifs made and posted to tumblr [link] in which Miyata is the moon, sometimes called Miyamoon, and then it somehow became a fic.
-
The man on the Moon - Miyata - was lonely.
Miyata led a solitary life of routine and little happening. He pulled the waves with his fingers and marked the months with a crescent smile, he bounced and rolled in his craters and threw pebbles and stones to watch them fall to Earth and burn up, ablaze, or crash and form mountains. As civilization rose and fell and rose all over again he laid on his belly, cheeks cupped in his hands, and watched, all the world a stage and he a spectator. Miyata couldn't remember a time or place before the Moon but he knew in his heart that there must be something more to do with this thing called life than to watch over others living their own; to do nothing but watch the Earth spin slowly asleep under his glow. He just had to find it.
One night as Miyata laid in the powdered stardust, staring into the spiraling depths of a far off nebula, making up stories of Space Princesses adventuring with magic wands to entertain himself he finds it. Later he’ll joke that he never would have dreamt his calling would quite literally call him, but it does - the sweetest voice he’s ever heard sings Moon-san and drifts into his ear, shivers along his spine, and warms him down to his toes with a whisper. Battling Princesses abandoned, he strains his ears to hear it again - people wished commonplace on the twinkle of stars or worshipped the heat of the Sun, but rare it was for the Moon to be called upon by a living thing other than the prowling, howling wolves, but there it was again, the whisper calling his name.
Moon-san, will you listen?
and Miyata, tripping over his own feet in eagerness, scurries over rocks to a vantage point on the plateau of Montes Apenninus to find the source. With a breath and a blow from his nose he clears the sky below of clouds and searches the whole world. In a field with fireflies and a bed of bent grass blades, damp with summer dew, he finds him. Hair falling into his eyes, looking maybe 16 going on 17, maybe a year or two younger than Miyata in appearance if Miyata wasn’t already older than time. His skin iridescently pale in the Moon’s glow so pretty Miyata could scarcely believe.
Pressure pushes down contracting his chest, the breath he never realized he was holding squeezes in his lungs forcefully before rushing out as a gasp, the shock of it violent enough to shake a nearby tree, triggering the fall of loose autumn leaves. One leaf floats and dances down and gently lands on the boy’s nose - it furrows his brow, makes him pout in annoyance as he picks it up, inspecting it curiously as he twirls the stem between his fingers.
Why’d you do that?
Sorry.
Miyata winces at his own awkwardness and whispers in reply even if he knows the other has no hope of hearing him across the vast mass of cosmos between and instead calls up a late warm breeze in apology to brush away the wrinkles from the boy’s forehead.
They stay for hours, the Moon hypnotized by pink lips murmuring under breath, lips talking endlessly, unfurling all their problems, telling all as if they’ve been bottled and zipped up waiting for a friend. How he’s still teased in class for being weird, for once talking to a pencil. How his mother won’t let him go fishing when he wants. How his limbs ache with growth spurts and his hair won’t sit right and he cares too much about it all and he too has a life he doesn’t know what to do with. Miyata listens as best he can, tries to ease the other’s mind as only he is able with a calming presence.
Thank you.
Astronomers will wonder why the Moon blushed a peach hue that random night. Something, possibly pollution, in the air as explanation.
The white glow of the Moon follows the boy home along a worn deserted path by the banks of a stream - Tamamori - writes the name on the gate - Yuta - an inward voice calls at the slide of a door. And through the gaps in the curtains, the light tucks him safely into bed and with that Miyata falls in love.
His love is unnoticed for years. Maybe it was completely unnoticeable, as there was nothing signifying change. The same orbital path was followed. Gravitational laws obeyed. No discernible difference apart from how the Moon would shine ever so slightly brighter over a certain part of the world, or how Miyata was no longer annoyed by the Sun glaring too bright in his eyes or the asteroids constantly peppering his back. He would brush them off and instead focus on Tamamori as he walked and kicked pebbles along nighttime strolls, talking softly to the sky - to Miyata - about all that occupied his mind and the details of his day. The boy became a man and Miyata became a little less lonely.
On the occasions when the solitude would still nip away at Miyata, he’d turn blue and appear full twice in one month just so Tamamori would maybe ignore school work or soccer or any earthly thing and pay twice as much attention to him. And Tamamori does, attention easily wavered from where it’s supposed to be, leaning so far out an open window Miyata worries about the sturdiness of the wooden window sill carrying all the other’s weight just to say Hello.
Tamamori learns to surf, most often in the grey dark of early dawn but on rare occasions at night, and Miyata learns to drop low over the ocean so he reflects in the ripple of the sea there beside the other as if they were together.
You’re always too quiet. You should speak up more.
And Miyata shakes free a large wave that topples Tamamori from his board just to see his eyes flash black as he breaks the water's surface and glares.
Miyata wants to know what Tamamori does during the day. Wants to follow where he goes - a silly little jealous part maybe wonders who he sees. He slips into sweet daydreams more and more often in his constant night, imagining a life he plays no part in other than observer. Sometimes at dusk or twilight he catches glimpses - Tamamori with sleep dazed unfocused eyes fixing his hair as the rush of a morning train pulling into the station blows it out of place. But then the Moon is forced to set and Tamamori is gone for another day.
One day, Miyata promises himself - for one day, he’ll find a way to spend every minute of it with Tamamori.
And then he does.
-
Tamamori has been worrying for years.
He worries about picking university classes, about buying a sharp suit for interviews, worries to pay attention, to decide on a future and obtain it. He worries he doesn’t worry enough and is easily distracted and unfocused and loses hours and whole nights staring up into the universe and not at a heavy book with small complex type. Tamamori studies for tests, he passes tests, but it doesn’t feel like he’s achieving anything; there isn’t a dream at the end of it all waiting for him. His mother fixes his crooked collar while he eats his breakfast and says when she was his age she was already married and raising a son and so maybe it’s okay for him to take his time, but it only adds to Tamamori’s restlessness, the pressure of what she might hope for him.
Tamamori worries so much he’s the last to notice.
But the world was slow to notice something amiss, something off, something they couldn't quite put their finger on at first. Half the world lay bathed in darkness under a clear night sky, something so obviously missing that had always been there before. The other half looked up one bright day in surprise. A shadow motionless in the sky, synchronous rotation broken - the Moon in broad daylight.
When the realisation of the truly impossible sinks in, the world turns to panic and confusion. The tides rise high and never falls. The Sun moves steadily and regularly across the sky but the grey orb of the Moon stands motionless. Astronomers and scientists with cameras shoved into their faces under the bright lights of television news shows rush to explain. Orbiting bodies often wavered in speed and proximity; changes were nothing to initially alarm over. With an air of authority and all knowing they spouted nonsense, for truly no one knew what had happened.
But Tamamori. Tamamori felt he knew because it seemed to be here for him.
The Moon, as silly as it may be to think, has always felt like it was floating in the sky for him. On overcast nights - skies a heavy black with clouds - Tamamori couldn’t help but notice a missing presence, that everything was a little darker, a little lonelier. Even on the dark nights of a new Moon the thin lines of a crescent felt like arms reaching down to embrace him, inviting him to curl into its concave. And now the Moon was suddenly always there. Out every window Tamamori looked, at every glance to the sky, no matter the direction, no matter the time, there was the Moon.
The streets around him fall into disorder and alarm, the apocalypse is predicted, and Tamamori stands amidst it all and smiles softly upwards.
-
The bed scratches in a line along the wooden floor as it drags. Tamamori’s mother complains of the noise and the marks and if the neighbours might hear, questions why he’s arranging furniture so late at night. Certainly you’ll catch nothing but a chill sleeping flush along an open window curtains left drawn all night. To Tamamori, that night, as he lay with the whole galaxy a blanket above him, the Moon suddenly felt closer - bigger - brighter - like it was about to drop from the heavens and cover him in all its light. The Moon wormed and warmed its way into his veins.
Eventually, lids heavy, arms brushed with goosebumps, he falls into a deep sleep filled with dreams of someone he’s never met and always known. A man with a nose too big that smiles like a crescent moon waving at him broadly and enthusiastically from across the sea of tranquility, calling for him to come visit, come to his side of the bluish basalt, cross the space between them. It’s a dream he’ll remember with perfect clarity when he wakes.
The following morning the sky is vacant, its only occupants being the glaring sun, a wisp of cloud, a morning bird’s song - none of what Tamamori is searching for. The sea has fallen, the waves receded with the return of the natural tidal fall and with them Tamamori’s heart falls to the pit of his chest.
Over breakfast and morning news shows, Tamamori listens as the scientists once again drone on in explanation. Perhaps it was all an illusion, none of it real. Time. The perception of the eye. The speed of light. The Moon, of course, hadn't - couldn't - suddenly change course and direction and speed. He switches the tv off with an angry blip when a balding man with a beard and coffee stained tie tells Tamamori it was possibly sunspots and/or solar flares playing tricks on his mind.
You’re wrong.
Tamamori curls into a chair by the household computer, toast for breakfast still between his teeth. He opens a browser window and searches - Space Cadet Application - he contemplates a question mark but decides to stay firm in his query.
There’s someone up there waiting for him.