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A few weeks after Kaname Tojou wakes up, he decides to voice a request to his brother.
“Onii-chan, I want to see someone…” Kaname trails off, tugging nervously at his blanket. His brother sits patiently at his bedside with a curious expression, just as he’s done daily since Kaname woke up.
“I want to see Sazanami Jun.”
His brother frowns and Kaname feels himself withering a little. His brother hasn’t shared much about his old…acquaintances in the ES dorms, and he isn’t even sure if his brother has even acknowledged Jun in the same way that he’s painstakingly put up with tolerating Kazehaya Tatsumi’s presence to keep up appearances.
He knows about his brother’s one-sided dislike for Tatsumi-senpai, and that had been a source of one of their many arguments since his brother revealed the truth to him - that he’d been impersonating as HiMERU for the past 2 years in a brand new unit.
But Kaname is over that. For now. He’ll try to process it when he can scream into a pillow without an army of nurses coming to make sure he hasn’t gone into cardiac arrest.
When he’d finally been handed a new phone to use (because his was smashed during the whole shitshow that went down), he immediately looked up Kazehaya Tatsumi’s name. He saw how much happier Tatsumi-senpai looked in his lives with his new unitnames, and an ugly feeling quickly rose in his chest.
Looking for a distraction, he decided to ignore every Alkaloid and Crazy:B video that popped up for his sanity and clicked on any other unit that appeared. This then quickly led to him falling down the rabbit hole of videos of ES units, leading him to Eden and Sazanami Jun. He’d stared at his phone in shock for the 4 minutes that Eden’s MV played, and proceeded to find out everything he could about Eden and how Sazanami Jun has somehow become part of the Big 3.
He remembers the boy that gently held his hands, no matter how much he complained throughout the journey, as they walked to the catacombs in the dead of the night. The boy that never gave up despite his family name dragging him down and forcing him into the bottom of the barrel.
They were 2 sides of the same coin. Except Jun was always more headstrong and stubborn than anyone else in that shithole, and Kaname knew this because he always heard Jun getting up early for his secret practice despite being forced to clean up after his seniors the day before.
But to see that someone managed to climb their way out of the gutters of Reimei and reach the top, doing what he always declared that he would do…Sazanami Jun was truly impressive.
“I’m not sure if Sazanami has been informed of your situation yet, Kaname,” His brother sighs. “I fear it may bring about some complications.”
Kaname rolls his eyes and waves his hands dismissively. “Let that viper handle it. Aren’t they in the same unit anyway?” He knows it’s a low blow, but he decides to push his luck. “I can’t let him go on thinking that I’ve been ignoring him for the past 2 years, you know? Really, couldn’t HiMERU have tried a little harder to remain acquaintances with Sazanami Jun?”
His brother’s face flashes through a range of emotions, and eventually lands on something akin to weariness. He’s clearly still weak to anything his dear younger brother demands, because he relents easily. “Fine. I’ll contact Ibara and arrange something. Have you considered that Sazanami may not want to meet you?”
“I’ll drag my body over to your ES dorms and find his room. I know he rooms with that Kohaku kid from your...Crazy:B.”
Another topic that they have not and will not breach today. Kaname’s too tired to even start that conversation. Asking his stubborn brother for permission to meet Sazanami Jun already took everything out of him.
“If you do that,” his brother begins sweetly, “I’ll drag you back myself and strap you to the bed with chains. Would you like that?”
—
Kaname’s busy scrolling through Crazy:B’s channel when he hears 2 soft knocks at the door, followed by a slow creak as the hospital door slides open. Kaname carefully pushes himself up and forces himself to make eye contact with the pair of golden eyes that he secretly missed so dearly.
“Your hair’s long now,” Jun says in lieu of a greeting, standing awkwardly at the entrance.
The Sazanami in front of him hasn’t changed much from the one of 2 years ago. Sure, his muscles are much more defined now, his skin is glowing, and there’s a certain newfound spark in his eyes - that much is obvious, but everything else is the same. His hair remains short, and unlike Kaname, he’d still chosen to go by his real name, like he’d stupidly done in their first year.
He’s almost as stunningly pretty as the famed Sazanami Jun of Eden that Kaname watches through the screen on his phone, except the guy in front of him has deep eyebags that could definitely rival those of a panda’s. His hair’s an absolute mess, with tufts of hair sticking out wildly, and Kaname would’ve teased him if he didn’t feel slightly responsible for it.
“You look horrible,” Kaname states, and points to the uncomfortable plastic chair that’s been placed beside his bed for his brother. “You can sit there.”
Jun wordlessly moves to the chair and settles himself down. The tension in the air is thick, and Kaname wishes he could use one of the many needles stuck in him to burst open the many elephants in the room.
“Sorry, I’m still trying to come to terms with all this,” The blue-haired boy waves his hand, letting out a depressing sigh. He glances between the numerous hospital equipment lying about him, eyes landing on the IV drip that’s connected to Kaname’s arm. “Goddamn, I can’t believe I didn’t figure it out sooner. It should’ve been obvious when HiMERU stopped annoying me and became pleasant to talk to.”
Kaname scowls and crosses his arms. “Fuck you. Can’t you have more sympathy for the hospital patient?”
“Right. You just got out of a coma, didn’t you?” Jun mutters. He sits straighter and looks Kaname in the eyes. “Ibara told me everything. He sat me down and gave me the full rundown of everything that happened, from that day the ambulances were called, to your brother deciding to act as your stand-in until you woke up, everything.” Jun lets out a bitter laugh. “I didn’t know whether to punch him or not by the end of it. That idiot told me he wouldn’t hold it against me if I did, so I got out of there. I almost wanted to believe that this was some crazy plot from a manga, but your brother sent me the details of the visitation, and here I am.”
“You’re the first person that I’ve asked to meet,” Kaname admits softly.
Jun furrows his eyebrows. “..Not even Tatsumi-senpai? I always thought you two were attached by the hip.”
“That’s why I can’t meet him!” Kaname cries, gripping tightly onto the blanket on his lap. “He never once suspected that the HiMERU that returned from the hospital wasn’t Tojou Kaname! He thought I’d recovered! I can’t…”
I can’t face him. He can’t see how pathetic I’ve become.
The room lapses into silence as he trails off, tears gathering in his eyes. Jun stretches his hand out, almost as if he wishes to comfort the teary-eyed boy on the bed - but it eventually retreats back into his lap.
“Did my brother imitate me that well, Sazanami?” Kaname asks, wiping his eyes dry. “Did he have everyone fooled?”
Jun doesn’t reply immediately. He leans back on the uncomfortable chair and takes a deep breath, exhaling loudly as Kaname dreads the incoming answer. “You know,” he finally starts, “there was a time where I kept wondering: Was HiMERU always like this? Did those months spent in that hell together not matter to you?” Jun’s voice lowers into a whisper. “Guess I was wrong. It wasn’t even you behind that persona.”
The bedridden boy barks out a laugh. “Of course you’d figure it out, Sazanami. You were always the smart one down there,” Kaname replies, watching as the other raises an eyebrow in disbelief. “You refused to get involved with the group, even after every other NS student gave up on ever succeeding on their own. You would wake up at the crack of dawn after being subjected to the seniors’ anger the day before just to practise, even though we weren’t given any opportunity to succeed.”
“You knew?”
“You always woke me up, you noisy brute,” Kaname snorts. “Doesn’t change the fact that I was impressed, though.”
“If you continue praising me like this, I’ll start thinking that you actually liked me, you know,” the boy teases with a smile.
“Don’t say stuff like that so casually!” Kaname shouts, cheeks tinted pink with embarrassment as he’s reminded of the adolescent crush he held during his first week of school. Sure, maybe he found it a little cool that Sazanami managed to stand up for himself against those bastards, and maybe his heart started beating like crazy when he snuck out after Jun to watch him dance in secret, but that didn’t mean anything.
Jun, on the other hand, looks deep in thought. He tilts his head and watches as Kaname covers his face in embarrassment. “….Say, did I ever mean anything to you?”
Kaname looks up. “What?”
“After you got your Special Student status back…Nevermind, it’s just-“ Jun cuts himself off and rubs his eyes in defeat. “Nevermind.”
Did Kaname care? Did he have time to care about anything else? He remembers being busy with trying to rebuild his reputation and helping Tatsumi with his revolutionary dreams, remembers crawling his way out of the pit that he was dumped in, only for everything to come crashing down on him.
But even when his interactions with Jun dwindled to almost nothing, he still thought about the boy that gave his everything despite the odds stacked against him. In the midst of the night, far away from the catacombs and the hauntings of the idol industry, he thinks about Jun’s hands, callused from part-time jobs and weightlifting, carefully cradling his as they stumbled through the forest.
No one’s ever held him so gently before. The night was freezing, but his hands were so, so warm.
The carefully constructed walls that Kaname put up for years come crashing down.
“You were one of the only people that was nice to me,” Kaname mutters, “of course I cared about you. Even if I never showed it.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Jun says offhandedly, waving a hand in the air. “It’s all in the past now. But…” he flashes a small smile, “I’m glad to know that I meant something then.”
“You know, I watched all of Eden’s performances,” Kaname abruptly says, ignoring Jun’s shocked look. “You’ve become an amazing idol, Jun.”
He’s pleasantly surprised to feel his lips ticking upwards into a smile. If he’d heard this news when he was still in Reimei, he thinks he would’ve thrown a hissy fit at the idea of a Non-Special student bypassing him like this.
A few years of being stuck in a coma and a few weeks of doing nothing but reflecting on the past changes one, he supposes.
Jun silently gapes at Kaname for a few moments, before he seemingly jolts out of his stupor. “You…”
“Do you need me to repeat it?”
“No, no,” Jun rapidly shakes his head from side to side. “I just..never expected to ever hear this from you.”
Kaname pouts. “Don’t make such a big deal over it. Reimei was full of idiots who shouldn’t have been allowed to determine your worth. You would’ve proven them wrong no matter what.”
Jun’s eyes widen. He opens his mouth to reply, but they’re interrupted by a knock on the wooden door. Both of them glance over to see a nurse waiting with a clipboard, along with a tray of medication.
“Excuse me, visiting hours are over,” the nurse says with an apologetic smile.
“I guess that’s my cue to leave,” Jun declares. He flashes the bedridden boy a hopeful look. “It was nice meeting you after so long, Kaname.”
Kaname finds himself surprisingly regretful that their time has been cut short. He wants to learn about the world 2 years into the future. He wants to learn about the idols that manage to put their past behind them and move on for themselves , and not for the sake of fulfilling the chasing after the vestiges of their parents.
He wants to know Sazanami Jun, and the idol that he has become.
“Come visit me again?”
Jun grins. “Sure. I’ll come again.”
-
“You look happier,” his brother comments when he walks in the next day. “I presume it went well?”
“It did,” Kaname laughs, staring wistfully at the message notifications from a Sazanami Jun. “I’m glad I got to meet him again.”