buying his empty dreams (and promises)
genre: friendship/romance/drama word count: 2,877 universe: yu-gi-oh arc-v (au) pairings: yuto!yuzu warnings: none summary: Smart as she was, Yuzu had always been a sucker for glittered rock stars that hustled their way into fame, and ironically--enough into her heart. Sequel to this. a/n: There’s this cute little song by Stefanie Scott that highly inspired this sequel. I was never planning on a sequel tbh, but while thinking of what fanfiction to base the song on, these two immediately popped into my head and I just had to write it down. Bc what’s better than dork Yuto trying to make it big and Yuzu ever supportive in the sidelines? Also, there’s drama so, why not? Anyway, it’s split into three parts, each part corresponding a song I have in mind and if y’all can guess it then I’d love for you to tell me!
Of all the uncertainties her life presented, Yuzu was at least sure of one thing; she was an idiot. Easily charmed by some dork with purple hair—dyed being the keyword—with his love for music and sort of awkward smile, she basically sold herself – her education, her house, her family, maybe even her dignity – just so she could vagabond her way into his ambitions.
About three months ago, Yuto had finally found the audacity to break up the band and head for the gold himself. This left a much frustrated Yugo, a teary eyed Yuya, and a Yuri who actually could not care less. And when Yuzu—the biggest fan of the band—caught word of Yuto’s leave, she was quick to escape out of her bedroom window and run for the quickest train traveling the Maiami route.
They met at the platform of the train station; she was halfway getting off the Maiami stop and he was just about to leave the city forever. There weren’t any words needed to be said, but when their hands finally touched after the long wait of the past winter that finally melted away, and the spring just about to end, they shook hands with promises whispered by their eyes. They then bought two tickets and rode the express train to the grandest city of them all, Neo Domino City where the lights were just as bright—maybe even brighter—as those of Maiami, and the roads were all a dissonance of a pattern that only ever lead to success or failure and nothing else in between.
And boy, was Yuzu a fool to believe this was ever going to be easy.
Getting gigs at bars were the least of their worries as the two found themselves sleeping in parks and scraping for food with the money they made performing right out the street. Neo Domino City – it would seem – was the bane of all wannabe rock stars. The standards for good music were high, and the city filled itself with aspiring singers in the hopes to be lucky enough to make it. But Yuzu did not give up because she knew that Yuto, despite what other people said, was going to make it with his ripped jeans, Phantom Knight Stickers and Revolution Falcon cigarettes.
And that lead us back to three months post all that struggle.
“Here you go.” She smiled down at him as he sat on the grassy park with his guitar case right by his side, handing him a cool bottle of water. “If I need it, you definitely do.”
“Thanks.”
He took a sip off the bottle, and Yuzu settled herself comfortably on his other side. She was humming the new song Yuto wrote just last night, a serene smile graced her features with her eyes a distant but warm glow of sapphire under the setting orange of the sun. Her thoughts wandered back to why after all this time, she still stuck by this hardheaded rock star.
“You don’t have to stay with me, you know.” He grunted as he laid himself down on the grass, eyes closed as a soft breeze blew past them. “I’ll just hold you down – not that I already haven’t.”
“Silly boy, I want to be with you.” He peaked one eye open, and stared at her as she played with her fingers. “When I see you, late at night working hard, writing songs, trying out new chords, it makes me want to stay forever.”
He called it reasonable enough, but even she knew it really wasn’t. The truth was, they were both aware of why she had been there the entire time. Because she wanted to make it just as much as he did – and his what would be fame, was her one-way ticket to the golden stage of success. Of course, the whole ambition had been riddled with the lust that had wrapped itself around the two teenagers, one that had been there since the day they met that almost winter. But they never spoke about feelings and such flimsy trivialities, because it would just remind them that there was more to life than making it—most of which they’d already left behind.
That day they managed to earn enough to stay a night at a bed and breakfast, all thanks to Yuto’s new set list – and despite the cynicism behind Yuzu’s support, she found herself proud of the fact that her should be, would be but could not be boyfriend had finally found his sound. Coincidentally, there was an open mic for the bar just right beside the bed and breakfast so they walked in to kill time, sing songs about lovers and cheap perfumes. Yuto heard for the first time ever Yuzu’s singing voice unfiltered, classy and natural—just the way he liked it. Apparently, he wasn’t the only one entranced by Yuzu’s cantata.
There were lurking talent agents amongst the bar audience who found interest in the pink haired beauty. They liked her spunk, but most importantly, they liked the elegance in her voice that contrasted Yuto’s rough guitar playing. By the end of her last song, the shaded men approached her, determined gazes and pleading voices, throwing business cards at her as Yuto was left sidelined and drinking empty his jug of beer – and yes, jug of beer is correct.
When the night ended, Yuzu was left with a range of record labels to choose from, and Yuto a drunken mess left to wonder how long their sort of arrangement would last. The answer touched their fingertips more than they would ever dare to admit but the silence spoke loudly for itself. So the night became some sort of a farewell/congratulations celebration amongst the two – in which Yuto would buy the ice cold liquor of neon pink and electric blue that’d light up under the retro black light of their cheap hotel room, and Yuzu would smoke a little more weed than she’d ever intended. Next thing they knew, they’d had blood and cherry on the white sheets, and spilled ashes on their clothes.
They acted fine after the whole misadventure, as if nothing had changed—even though something did change—and that Yuto was fine working hard and crying tears all over his lyrics because he’d been up all those pitiful nights writing songs the world could fall in love with had they given him a chance, when others out there would much rather prefer his pink haired groupie who’d only lived on classics and opera and only recently got herself into the fine art of mainstream and indie. He was absolutely fine – and he even promised his recent song about treacherous snakes and things taken for granted had absolutely nothing at all to do with Yuzu and her pretty sly smile—nope.
They stayed traveling together for a few more weeks. He sang words he’d never sung before and his audience doubled because they never thought they’d hear such an honest voice. But the clock was still ticking for the two of them and Yuzu already had another line of new dealers ready to offer her the life of wax and plastic mannequins, as long as she traded in her soul into a world that swallowed up anything as tiny as a pink haired wannabe singer. And finally, the contract was sealed the night of Yuto’s birthday and their relationship—or whatever it was they had for the past six months, and the two more before this whole damn escapade—had dried up. There was nothing really left to hold them in place together – he wanted to sing, and she wanted the fame. So she signed and he watched her back like she’d watched his this whole entire time.
He stuck around for a while, even with the lipstick too red and the stilettos too high. And she became some sort of an expert in fame and all the glory it brought her. A queen of the flashy lifestyle of dresses and magazine covers, she learned to adapt to the fucked up kind of reality she’d been thrown in, before she’d ever been close enough to be destroyed—because it was all crazy and vicious and everyone’s a competition and all they ever wanted was to tear each other down. And it was this sense of hunger that had her name glowing brighter than her eyes that used to shine, spelled by the lights that littered across Neo Domino City—and she forgot she’d been borne from the neon stains of alcohol and dull shades of pastel that charmed his songs of indie and black and white. In her pretty little mind, she wished it’d last forever like this.
The day he left, she’d stood on a balcony and sang like a sixties queen, her hair done in champagne and silver, lighter than he’d ever like it to be. It was the day he realized he’d no longer known her—from the way she gently gestured her words with her dainty fingers and fragile hands, to the wide blue eyes that told so much more than he knew she’d wanted them to express. He left the roses at the foyer, and his tux in their hotel room. Not a letter or a word of goodbye, he’d packed his bags and his guitar in its pretty black and gold case, spent the next few days busking for a tiny bit of cash – enough to afford the cheap thrills of bar wine and liquor, and underhanded packets of weed and cancer sticks. Then with just more than he needed to scrape by, he’d bought a ticket that took him straight back to Maiami.
And although Yuzu saw it all coming, she was still surprised when she asked the reception for his name and had been told he’s left the building.
“Is that so?” She tried her luck again, manicured nails tucked strands of light pink hair in blonde highlights behind her ear. “Could you check again please?”
“I’m sorry but he really has left, our staff even saw him lugging out his baggage from the tenth floor.”
With a calm nod and a breath of artificial air, she turned around to look at the hotel lobby filled with idols like her in their puffy dresses and sixties themed make-up. A knot formed in her throat that somehow managed to tangle in her heart as she saw her boss come rounding in from the corner with bright flashes directed at her that followed behind him. With a caked smile and dust in her eyes, she let him hold her by the waist as they posed for the cover of the bestselling tabloid, along with her secrets splashed across the front page.
“Miss?” The receptionist called in a confused manner, and she turned back to look with that same lidded eyes and forced painted smile. “These were at the foyer with a card addressed to you.”
Yuzu took in the bouquet that was handed to her, smile turned gently into a small frown as her ducks glistened in unwanted tears. She’d realized that Yuto, despite his dislike for all the girly magic and powders of bright sparkles, had left some sort of glitter in her eyes. It was then that she found herself spent from all her money buying into his empty dreams and ambitions of making it, before she left him behind to turn all of it into a colossal mess of status and materialistic objects that decorated her face, her body, and her voice, a process no longer free—even when everyone had said that the best things in life had never cost a dime.
So she left in a reckless abandon. Because the pressure only got worst from then on and despite all that headstrong stubborn bullshit she tried to put on, she didn’t exactly match up to everyone else’s expectations. A spunky little girl like her had never belonged under the bright screeching scrutiny of the fake and dazzling world of celebrities and high class fame. Instead she wanted to sing for unnamed guitarists that wrote songs about getting drunk and stealing people’s cars, and the highs that no one could ever bring her but a certain purple haired roughed up ruffian that liked phantom knight stickers and sang all day and all night to classical Disney soundtracks.
She planted roses in front of her hotel room, didn’t really leave a letter or a word of goodbye. Instead she wrote a song and stuck it behind her window sill for the next hopeful to see. She’d never told anyone that her fingers weren’t meant to dance to music, instead they were meant to play—the piano. Because classical music had always been her strong suit, and she never really wanted anything else but to be able to tell their story the way Yuto could with his lyrics.
So she wrote about short lived fame and about the damage it could cause, and how being famous didn’t really equate to being happy, and that pretending to be in love while singing some song about love didn’t feel even half as good as actually being in love. She wrote about breaking free and the taste of the high life, the alcohol and drugs, the smoke and the parties that looked more glamorous than they actually were, and how that wasn’t really anything special if she didn’t get two seconds of peace smoking out under fire escapes with the guy who taught her how to live. And she wrote to the people who’d read her song to remember that they’d always been the lucky ones, because they never had to learn her lesson the hard way, because they didn’t need to have all their secrets for the world to see, and they didn’t need to dance like puppets to prove their worth.
Because she had been small and tiny and the absence of Yuto made her realize that nothing about her dreams had been real—because all she really wanted was the ride he took her in and without all that, it had been pointless. And the gold will melt and the glitter will fade, and all the glory of fame will one day disappear—but never the magic of the music written by the boy she loved. And it was true—there really was more to life than just making it.
She scrambled to pack her bags, and ran away with her hood up and sunglasses on. She let the dye wash away with all the guilt she knew she’d been worth. And when she arrived at the Maiami City platform, she almost looked exactly like the girl that left with Yuto on that journey to Neo Domino City.
“Yuto?” She whispered into her phone, hidden beneath one of the trees in the back grasslands of the station. “Are you finishing up at eight or nine?”
“Nine, why?” The other line answered, rugged voice just like she’d always known him to have—even with the six months difference between them. “Want me to tell you the perfect time to come by?”
“Yes please.”
She shivered, a light drizzle started to come down on her, and she hid deeper under the tree.
“Very well, I’ll come by the station at ten.”
“You’re going to make me wait a whole entire hour?”
“Well you made me wait half a year for you so I think you could manage.”
And she smiled at the husky reply. Because she knew he’d always been sly, and she could feel the smirk of his lips in the way he said it, just like she felt it on her lips months before this predicament.
“Then I’ll be waiting, hiding from the rainfall.”
He ended the call, not seemingly in the mood, and she stood waiting, just like she promised him—even though he never really came through with his own. And when he finally got there, she’d looked just as young as he’d known her that first autumn night two years back, and he wondered then what had been the point of giving into her, if he knew he’d never be able to please her. But as he watched from his black car—named Rebellion Dragon because he was still a dork through and through—he saw the way she shivered, and the way her laced dressed stuck to her porcelain skin, and how her lips reddened from the frosty bite of this year’s autumn rain. And he smiled.
He got out of the car and she looked up in relief as his presence warmed her.
“Never really dressed for this weather, ever, are you?”
“Hush you up.”
He raised his hand up in an offer, a soft gentle smile that she never thought she’d ever deserve to see. The rain pelted against their shivering forms, and his eyes looked onto her soul, unravelling every bit of her defenses.
“Are my empty dreams and promises good enough for you?”
She nodded and took his hand into hers, a tight hold and a promise to never let him go.
“Yeah.”
And just like that, he pulled her into the car, and unraveled her dress with soft kisses onto her neck.