⋆ ★ pegasus ★⋆ @pegasusmind - Tumblr Blog

can u perhaps do drummer!megumi x lead singer!reader🥹🥹🥹

a/n: hi anon!!! thanks for being my second request ever !! This prompt inspired so much but i felt like shit so i made it so angsty im so sorry. i'll do a part2 one day i guess (if anyone wants it) !!!

content warning & tags : +18 mdni, characters are over 18, fluff & angst, drummer!megumi, rock band, established relationship, fluff, soft megumi, megumi my beloved, breaking up

More Megumi <3

word count : 11.3k (?? got carried away)

⋆ When a life-changing world tour is offered to your band, the dream you’ve chased for years begins pulling lead singer!you and drummer!Megumi in opposite directions...

The rehearsal room always smells like old wiring, and coffee someone forgot on an amp.

You notice it every time you come in, even though it should have stopped mattering by now. Maybe because you always arrive first, or maybe because noticing small things keeps you from thinking too hard about the bigger ones. The window unit rattles in the back corner. Somebody has left a cable half-coiled near the keyboard stand again. Your lyric notebook sits on the floor by the mic stand where you dropped it last night, pages fanned open.

You bend to pick it up, skim the lines you crossed out at two in the morning, then shut it before you can judge yourself for them. The door opens behind you with a scrape.

You do not have to turn around to know it’s Megumi.

He never slams doors nor does he call out when he walks into a room. He comes in quietly enough that most people miss him if they are talking, but after two years, you know the sound of him anyway. The way he pauses just inside, taking in the room before he moves, or that second of stillness that makes him seem like he is listening for something.

“Morning, you” you say, turning in order to see him, smiling fondly.

Megumi has a coffee in one hand and a stick bag slung over his shoulder. His dark hair is still a mess, like he got out of bed ten minutes ago and made no attempt to negotiate with it. He looks tired, which is normal for him and somehow still manages to make you want to smooth your thumb under his eye.

He lifts the coffee a little in your direction. “You forgot this at my place.”

It takes you a second to realize he means the black hoodie draped over the top of his bag, his hoodie, the one you keep stealing from him, to the point that it is now yours, basically.

“You could’ve kept it.”

“You’ll complain when you get a cold later,” he answers simply.

“Be careful, that sounded like concern.”

He gives you a look that would seem flat to anyone else. “Don’t start.”

You grin and take the hoodie from him anyway. The sleeve is still warm from wherever it touched his arm on the way over. You put it on without thinking. It smells faintly like the soap he uses and his house.

He moves past you toward the drum riser, setting his coffee down on the floor before unzipping his stick bag. He has a routine with his kit, the exact same, every time. Within a minute, he checks that the snare is adjusted, makes sure the hi-hat is checked, that the cymbal angle is well shifted by half an inch and that the kick pedal works, with a quick test of two taps of his foot. When he's done, everything looks exactly the same as it did before to you, but you know from experience that if anything is off, he feels it immediately, and is a pain about it.

You watch him while pretending to fiddle with your mic cable.

He catches you looking after about fifteen seconds. “What.”

“You’re pretty.”

He stares at you for a beat, expression unreadable, then drops onto the drum stool. “You’re prettier.”

“You never say thank you,” you raise an eyebrow.

“Because you never stop after I do.”

That is true enough that you cannot argue with it.

The others arrive in pieces. Nobara barrels in with too much energy for the morning and a breakfast sandwich in hand, already talking before the door closes behind her, Yuji follows carrying a crate of water bottles in case a fire starts, apparently and Maki comes last, nodding once at everyone before heading toward her amp.

Within minutes the room fills with the usual sounds: tuning strings and half-finished jokes.

It feels ordinary, and that’s part of why you love this part of the day so much.

Before there are cameras or promoters, or before anyone asks you who inspired your lyrics, or whether the band has plans to “break into the global market,” (which is a phrase you hate so much it makes your teeth hurt). In here, there are no media trained answers, just the band. Sweatshirts and coffee and cables underfoot. Megumi spinning a drumstick once around his fingers while pretending not to listen to the argument Nobara is having with Yuji about whether his playlist is embarrassing.

“Listening to Disney in the morning is not embarrassing!” Yuji hisses. “Some of us like starting the day with a little hope.” You catch.

When you finally start with the first song, he’s already watching you.

Not in a way anyone else would notice, no. Megumi never stares, instead, he looks and then looks away and then looks back when it matters. He tracks your breath more than your face, he sees the slight lift of your shoulders before the chorus and the way your wrist tenses when you are about to come in early because you are excited and trying not to be. He misses very little. He adjusts before you even realize you are drifting, he pulls the whole song back into shape from behind the kit with that steady control he seems to use on everything in his life.

Halfway through the set, you miss a cue because Nobara makes a face at you from across the room. Megumi shifts instantly, changing the fill and giving you room to come back in clean. You do, and by the end, nobody but the two of you knows there was a mistake at all.

When the last note rings out, Yuji lets out a low whistle. “That one actually sounded good!”

Nobara throws a guitar pick at his head. “You say that every time, like you’re shocked we’re talented.”

“I’m shocked you’re consistent,” he fires back.

Maki is already checking something on her phone. “We need to tighten the bridge on the third song.”

Megumi twirls one drumstick once, then points it at you. “You rush the second verse when you’re tired, be careful.”

You put a hand over your chest. “And good morning to you too.”

“You asked me last week to tell you when you made a mistake.”

“I know. I just wanted to act offended,” you smile at him.

His mouth moves, not quite a smile, but close enough that warmth spreads through your chest anyway.

Practice drags into noon, and by the end of it, Yuji and Nobara leave to get lunch, Maki follows after taking a call from the manager, and suddenly the room is quieter than it has been all morning. You sit on the front edge of the low stage, one leg swinging over the side. Megumi stays where he is behind the kit, tapping an idle rhythm against his thigh with one stick while he checks something on his phone.

With him, silence is still a kind of conversation. You used to think it would, before you knew him well enough that you knew that he just does not fill space unless he means to. Truthfully, it makes every word from him feel chosen, even the blunt ones (maybe especially those).

You lean back on your palms and look up at him. “You hungry?”

“In a minute.”

“You say that every time and then forget.”

He slips his phone into his pocket and tilts his head. “Then remind me in a minute.”

“Maybe I want to see what happens if I don’t.”

“You’ll get dramatic when I don’t eat.”

“You know me so well.”

He hooks one stick into the little loop on the side of the snare, then hops down from the riser. You hold a hand out toward him without thinking. He glances at it like he is considering whether to be difficult on principle, then takes it and steps closer.

His hand is warm and rough where his fingers meet his palm. Drummer’s hands, you think. You used to tease him about them and he used to deny he was self-conscious. You used to kiss the calluses anyway.

Now you tug him lightly until he stands between your knees.

He looks down at you, guarded by habit even here, even with nobody around. “What.”

“Nothing.”

“You’re looking at me weird.”

You grin. “Come here.”

You do not have to pull hard. Megumi leans in enough for you to rest your forehead briefly against his stomach through his shirt. His fingers pause against your shoulder. Then, with the slow care he uses when he is tired, he touches the back of your head.

You stay like that for a few seconds while the room hums around you. After a few seconds, Megumi’s thumb moves once against your hairline.

When you lift your head again, he is looking at you with that quiet, unnerving focus he gets sometimes.

“What,” you murmur.

“You didn’t sleep much,” he simply states.

You laugh softly. “That obvious?”

“You get restless when you’re writing.”

There it is again. He rarely asks direct questions about your songs because he knows you talk when you are ready, but he notices the side effects. He’d seen the bitten skin around your thumbnail or the way your mind wanders in the middle of conversations.

You reach for the sticks in his hand and steal one. “Play something.”

He leans his hip against the stage. “You’re the one writing.”

“Exactly, my brain hurts,” you sigh.

“You say that like it’s my fault.”

“It usually is,” you wink at him, grinning;

He snorts under his breath, then, he takes the stick back from you and starts tapping a pattern against your knee, softly at first. A lazy four-count, then something more dramatic. You feel the rhythm through your denim and skin alike. He does this a lot when you are alone, like your body is just another surface for him to test out an idea on. Sometimes it is absentminded, sometimes it means he is thinking too hard to say anything and needs to let the feeling go somewhere.

You rest your hand over his wrist, stopping him after a few measures. “Keep that one.”

Megumi glances at your hand and then at your face. “For what?”

“I don’t know yet.” You smile a little. “Something.”

He accepts that because he is used to you building songs from moods and half-lines scribbled in the margins of receipts. “Then write it down before you forget.”

“You write it down,” you say, pretending to be offended.

“I’m not the songwriter.”

“You’re not not.”

He looks like he wants to deny that, but he knows you will argue and you know he knows, so neither of you bother. Instead he sets both sticks on the stage beside you and, after a second, he bends to kiss you.

Megumi kisses the way he does most things: restrained until he is not.

There is always that first touch, always pretty careful, as though he is giving you a chance to pull away even after two years of learning you never do. Then you slide your hand up to the back of his neck and he exhales against your mouth and the whole thing shifts. His hand closes around your jaw and he leans in harder.

When he pulls back, you are smiling before you mean to.

He notices that too. “You look smug.”

“I am smug.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because I’m dating the hottest drummer alive.”

“There are definitely better drummers.”

“That wasn’t the category,” you deadpan, half annoyed and half amused.

He rolls his eyes, but color rises faintly high on his cheekbones all the same. It is one of your favorite things about him, how embarrassment on Megumi is never loud, it just appears quietly, betraying him against his will.

He picks up his sticks again. “Come on, baby, you need food.”

“You say that like I’m a stray.”

“You do act like one,” he says as he offers his hand again anyway. Obviously, you happily take it.

The offer comes three weeks later, on a Thursday evening after a show so good it leaves your nerves buzzing long after you get offstage.

The venue is bigger than the rooms you started in and smaller than the ones you still daydream about in the worst possible moments, when wanting things turns embarrassing inside your own head. Eight hundred people, the kind of crowd that is big enough to roar when you say the city’s name and intimate enough that you can still make out individual faces under the lights.

Afterward, everyone is half-drunk on adrenaline and heat, backstage is a blur of sweaty congratulations. You notice Nobara stealing your water because she finished hers or Yuji trying to recount a story from mid-set that nobody else had time to experience because they were busy performing.

Your manager, Kento Nanami, appears in the doorway with the expression he wears when something serious has happened and he is trying to package it in a way that will not make musicians impossible to deal with.

“Meeting,” he says strictly.

Nobara groans. “Can the meeting wait until I’m less damp?”

“No.”

“That’s not an answer to the spirit of what I asked.”

“It’s the only one you’re getting.”

You laugh and follow the others into the green room. Megumi comes in last, toweling the sweat from the back of his neck.

He drops into the chair beside yours with a kind of contained tiredness you know means the show took a lot out of him even if he would never admit it. His knee brushes yours once and stays there.

Nanami closes the door.

“I’ll keep this brief,” he says, which means he is about to say something that will ruin the concept of brief for the rest of your lives. “Promoters are offering a global run, to make you guys more international.”

The room goes quiet around the words. Nobara lets out a disbelieving laugh, Yuji actually says, “What?” twice in a row, louder the second time and Maki goes very still, which for her means she is paying full attention. Also, beside you, Megumi’s knee stops moving.

Nanami keeps talking : dates, cities, a run across North America first, then Europe if the numbers hold. Venues bigger than anything you’ve played before but not so large they feel impossible, the kind of rooms bands grow into when something finally starts moving for them.

An eighteen-month touring cycle, with short breaks in between each continent, press appearances between shows, the label willing to push international promotion if the first round goes well.

The scale of it starts to sink in piece by piece, until your pulse is beating so hard it feels almost ridiculous, like your body understands the weight of it before your mind does. Your hand finds Megumi’s without looking, and his fingers close around yours automatically, but his grip is lighter than usual.

“This is huge,” Yuji says, stunned.

“No shit,” Nobara snaps, though she looks just as overwhelmed.

You hear yourself laughing under your breath, not because anything is funny, but because the alternative is crying in front of Nanami and giving him a story to tell for the rest of his life.

“Who’s putting it together?” Maki asks.

Nanami tells you and the room breaks again.

There is talking over talking after that, questions, too many all at once. Logistics, rehearsal timelines,which cities come first,when contracts would arrive, whether the label is officially backing the international push, how many shows they’re actually talking about, and Yuji asks something so poorly phrased that Nanami pinches the bridge of his nose before answering.

You ask questions too, though you barely hear your own voice over the noise building in your chest.

Excitement climbs higher with every sentence Nanami finishes.

One minute you are sweating through a show in a venue you know by heart, and the next, you're trying to picture your band’s name on posters in cities you have only seen through airport windows and movies.

You turn to Megumi at one point, needing his face in the middle of all that noise.

He looks calm, too calm, maybe. Listening with his elbows braced on his knees, one hand folded over his mouth as Nanami talks schedules. His eyes flick toward you when he feels you looking.

You squeeze his hand. “Can you believe this?”

He lowers his hand. “It’s real?”

Nanami hears him. “As real as it gets at this stage, yes.”

Megumi nods once and looks back at the manager. “How much downtime between dates.”

Nanami tells him.

Megumi’s expression does not change. “And travel days.”

“Built in where they can be.”

“Where they can be,” Megumi repeats, absently.

He says it in the same quiet way he always does when everyone else starts getting ahead of themselves, the kind of grounding question that usually keeps the rest of you from running straight past details.

Still, something in you lingers on it for a moment longer than it should, not because of the question itself but because of how he sounds when he says it, quieter than the rest of the room, as if some part of him has already stepped back.

Well, that is until Nobara is grabbing both of your shoulders and shaking you hard enough to make you yelp. “Do you understand what this means?”

“Apparently I’m going to need a passport holder that doesn’t look humiliating,” you say, and she laughs loud enough to bounce off the cinderblock walls.

Later, when everyone has scattered into smaller conversations and Nanami is stuck in the corner explaining visa timelines to Maki, you turn toward Megumi fully.

“Well?” you ask.

He looks at you. “Well what?”

“Say something normal,” you say, slightly annoyed by his nonchalance.

“I asked questions.”

“That’s not normal, that’s admin.”

He studies your face for a second, like he’s deciding how honest to be. “It’s big,” he finally says.

You laugh, half in disbelief, half because the understatement is so him. “That’s what you’ve got?”

His mouth tilts faintly. “You want me to start yelling?”

“Maybe a little.”

“I’m happy.”

The words are simple, and true, probably. But there is a reserve to them you do not know what to do with. Maybe because you are too full of your own excitement to make room for anything quieter.

You lean into his side anyway. “We’re going on a world tour.”

Megumi’s shoulder settles against yours. “You’re already saying it like you’re trying to convince yourself.”

“I am convinced.”

“Then why do you keep repeating it?”

“Because I can.”

That gets a small breath of laughter out of him, better than most people can claim.

On the ride home, you sit in the back of the van with your thigh pressed to his and your phone glowing bright in your lap while messages pile up from everyone who has heard whispers already. Nobara is in the row ahead, texting like she is being paid by the word. Yuji has fallen asleep against the window with his mouth open. Maki is on a call with someone and sounds like she is negotiating a hostage exchange.

Megumi sits beside you in silence, just quiet in the way he gets when too much is happening inside him at once. You know him. So when you rest your head on his shoulder and say, “You’re thinking too hard,” it comes out fond instead of accusing.

His cheek brushes the top of your head when he answers. “You’re not thinking enough.”

You grin. “I’m allowed one night of being stupidly happy.”

“I didn’t say you weren’t.”

“Then be stupidly happy with me.”

Megumi turns his face slightly toward the dark window. You can just make out his reflection there, shadowed and thoughtful. “I am.”

And you accept that, because deep down, that's all you wanted to hear.

For the first week, everything feels touched by possibility. You start measuring time differently almost immediately, not in months anymore, but in before and after. Before the tour announcement and after the tour announcement. Before you knew this could happen and fter you have proof that it can.

Meetings multiply, calls with the label, and everything that comes with planning a tour. Discussions about stage design, marketing angles, whether the setlist needs to shift for bigger venues and new audiences.

It is exhausting, but it makes you feel sharpened instead of worn down.

Every part of you seems awake. You start carrying your notebook everywhere again because lines arrive while you are brushing your teeth, while you are waiting for coffee, while Nanami is droning through budget forecasts and you should definitely be paying attention and are instead writing half a chorus on napkins.

At first, Megumi only seems quieter.

You tell yourself that because it is easier than examining the shape of his silence too closely. He comes to the first few planning sessions and he asks the practical questions nobody else thinks of until they become a problem : Storage for gear, recovery days, whether the rental kits at the overseas venues are actually reliable or just cheap, whether there is room in the transport budget to move his own snare and pedal instead of gambling on inconsistent equipment.

Nanami starts looking at him with the kind of respect managers reserve for band members who understand that dreams still require functioning logistics.

You love that about him, the way Megumi does not get dazzled into stupidity. The way he can stand in the middle of a life-changing moment and still remember to ask who is carrying the weight of it.

But after those first few sessions, he starts opting out.

Not dramatically, no, never. It’s not the obvious “I’m not coming because I hate this and everything it represents”, instead, he says he has classwork to finish, says he wants to use the time for individual practice and they are all reasonable and technically true, as far as you know.

The first tim you come back from a meeting and find him alone in the rehearsal room, running the same fill over and over until it tightens into muscle memory, you stand in the doorway for a second and watch him.

He does not notice you immediately, which means he is fully inside whatever he is doing. Shoulders tight, the sticks moving with that precise intensity he gets when he is working irritation out through rhythm. You know him well enough to see the edge of it even if nobody else would. The extra useless force his uses on the snare or the way he resets too quickly after each attempt.

You step inside. “Hey.”

He stops on the next beat, not because you startled him but because he heard you as soon as the door opened and chose to finish the pattern first. “How long have you been standing there.”

“Long enough to know you’re taking your mood out on the kit.”

Megumi sets one stick across his lap. “You don’t know what happened before you entered the room. It’s not cooperating with me.”

You laugh and move closer. “Productive meeting report.”

“Was it?” he asks, uninterested.

“It was, actually.” You climb onto the edge of the stage, facing him. “They’re talking about adding two more European dates if pre-sales are good enough. And Nanami thinks we should workshop one new song into the set before summer.”

Megumi’s expression gives nothing away. “You have one in progress.”

The sentence lands strangely. It’s just flat in a place where you wanted enthusiasm.

“I know,” you say. “I’ve been working on it extra, lately.”

“I noticed.”

Something in his tone makes you look at him more closely. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He shrugs, eyes on the drumhead instead of your face. “You’ve been somewhere else all week.”

The defensiveness rises in you faster than it should. “I’ve been busy.”

“I didn’t say you weren’t.”

“Okay.”

Megumi’s jaw shifts, like he is grinding down whatever else he wants to say, then he picks up the other stick again. “Forget it.”

Usually, with him, you know when to let something drop and when to tug at it until he admits the thing underneath, usually you are better at this.

Today you are tired and over-caffeinated and still carrying the high of a meeting where someone said the phrase international press strategy without laughing.

So instead of crossing the room and putting a hand on his knee and asking what he means, you say, too lightly, “You’re sulking.”

That gets his attention.

Megumi looks up at you then, dark eyes steady enough to make something uncomfortable twist low in your stomach. “I’m not sulking.”

The restraint in his voice makes you straighten up.

You hop off the stage because standing over him suddenly feels wrong. “Talk to me, Megumi.”

“I am talking.”

“Stop that.”

Megumi breathes out slowly through his nose. “You want me to be excited the way you are.”

“I want you to be here.”

“I am here.”

“You’re physically here,” you say before you can stop yourself.

The words hang between you, harsher than you intended. His gaze drops for half a second and comes back colder. “Right.”

You regret it immediately. “Megumi.”

But he is already standing up from the stool, stick bag in hand. Not storming, instead, he moves with that shut-down calm he gets when something has cut deeper than he wants it to.

“I’m going to get food,” he says.

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Okay.”

“Can you not do that?” you say, accusingly.

He pauses. “Do what?”

“Act like you don’t care and then make me guess what I did wrong.”

His face changes and anyone else would miss it, but you, you, oh know the signs.

“I said okay.”

“That’s not talking to me.”

Megumi looks at you for a long moment. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“Whatever you’re actually thinking.”

He gives a short, humorless breath through his nose. “You don’t want that.”

And then he walks out. You stand in the empty rehearsal room listening to the door shut behind him, your own pulse suddenly too loud in your ears.

What you tell yourself for the rest of the day is that it was nothing. A bad moment. The result of two tired people talking past each other, yeah, that was probably that.

The song starts as a line you write on a train and nearly cross out and you keep it because it bothers you.

It is too bare, a little self-serious, probably trying too hard. You keep it anyway

You write around it over the next week, whenever you have like thirthy seconds: in the green room while Nobara does her eyeliner and complains about a blogger who compared her stage style to someone she hates or in cabs. The words come easier than they should.

The first verse settles around distance before you consciously choose the theme. Not physical distance, exactly, but stranger. The feeling of standing beside someone and still losing your sense of where they are. the panic of recognizing a shift before you can name it, the awful selfishness of wanting someone to stay in the shape you understand because you do not know what to do if they grow away from you, or them.

You tell yourself it is not about Megumi, maybe because you believe that or maybe because you need to.

When you bring the bones of it to rehearsal, you do it casually.

“I’ve got something new,” you say, flipping the notebook open on the mic stand.

Yuji perks up immediately. “Is it sad?”

“Why is that always your first question.”

“Because your best songs are sad.”

“That’s insulting to both me and my emotional range.”

Nobara points at him with her pick. “He’s right, though.”

Maki looks up from tuning. “Play it.”

You glance toward Megumi without meaning to. He is adjusting the hi-hat clutch, head down, listening.

Your throat feels dry, ridiculous. After all this time, after all these songs. But new work always does this to you, especially the ones you do not fully understand yet.

You play the progression on guitar first. Sing through the verse once, not quite meeting anyone’s eyes. By the second chorus, the room is very still.

When you finish, there is a beat where nobody speaks.

Then Yuji says, softly for once, “Oh.”

Nobara recovers first. “That chorus is disgusting.”

You squint at her. “In a good way?”

“In a way that makes me hate you, so yes.”

Maki nods once. “Bridge needs work. The rest stays.”

You look at Megumi.

He is already thinking, you can tell. Stick tapping soundlessly against his thigh, eyes on some point just past you. When he catches you waiting, he says, “The chorus needs more room.”

“What kind of room?”

“Less guitar under the second line, let it breathe before the drums come in harder.”

You blink. “That’s good.”

He gives you a look. “Obviously,” he smirks then.

The others laugh and rehearsal moves forward. You build the song together the way you always do, piece by piece, until it starts to have a pulse outside your notebook. On one hand, Maki thickens the bridge while Nobara finds a sharper countermelody on guitar. On the other hand, Yuji, miraculously, suggests a harmony that does not make anyone threaten him. And Megumi... He’s building the song spine.

You should know better than to be surprised as he does this all the time. He hears structure where you hear feeling, finds the frame that lets the rest of you throw yourselves into the walls without bringing the whole thing down. But something about this one seems to catch in him. He strips the rhythm back, then rebuilds it with a restraint that makes the chorus hit harder when it finally opens up. There is one fill he keeps adjusting, only slightly different each time, until on the seventh try it lands and a chill runs over your skin.

“There!” you say.

He glances at you from behind the kit. “Yeah.”

That night, after everyone leaves, you stay behind with him to run it once more. The room is dimmer with only the side lights on. Your voice sounds different in the mostly empty space.

You sing and Megumi plays, and because there is nobody else there, the song feels uncomfortably intimate all of a sudden. The lyrics feel too close now, close enough that you stop wanting to look at them directly

When the last note dies out, Megumi stays still for a second, sticks resting against the snare.

Then he says, “Who’s it about?” He asks without accusation, but your whole body goes alert anyway.

You busy yourself setting the guitar aside. “No one.”

“That’s a lie.”

You laugh weakly. “All songs are lies.”

He does not return the joke. “Not yours.”

You look at him. “You say that like it’s a compliment.”

“It is.”

The directness of it catches you off guard. Megumi is not generous with praise.

“I don’t know,” you admit after a second. “It started as one thing and now it’s…” You wave a hand vaguely, irritated by your own inability to pin it down. “Messier.”

He watches you with that steady focus again. “You usually know.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I’m branching out into confusion...”

His mouth moves almost into a smile, then the expression fades.

“You should keep the drum part in the second verse sparse,” he says. “If you fill too much there, it’ll bury the words.”

It takes you a moment to catch up to the shift. “Okay.”

Megumi stands, stretches one arm over his head, and reaches for his bag. “You heading out?” you ask

“Yeah.”

You want to ask what he is doing. Why every conversation with him lately feels like stepping across boards you thought were solid and finding them give slightly under your weight.

Instead you say, “Come over tonight?”

He hesitates just long enough for you to notice. Then, “I’ve got an early morning.”

“Oh.” You force a smile that probably looks thin. “Right.”

He nods once and lifts his hand briefly in goodbye.

You watch him leave and tell yourself not to make more of it than there is.

That is becoming a habit you hate.

The contracts arrive on a Tuesday.

Nanami sends a message to the group chat that says only, Conference room. 4 p.m. Read everything before you sign.

Nobara reacts with three fire emojis and a knife one. Yuji sends a thumbs-up and then, almost immediately after, asks if this means he should dress nice. Maki tells him no. You stare at the screen a second longer than you need to, your heartbeat already starting to climb for reasons you do not want to examine too closely.

By the time you get to the label office that afternoon, the conference room table has already been set up with neat folders, bottled water, and enough pens to make the whole thing feel less like a discussion and more like a decision someone expects to leave in writing.

Nanami passes the contracts out.

The legal language would starts blurring if you look at it too long. Conduct clauses, cancellation penalties severe enough to make your skin go cold, blah blah blah. You force yourself through it anyway, line by line, even when the words begin to swim together and your eyes start crossing over the same sentence twice.

This is what you wanted, you remind yourself.

Maybe not the paperwork itself, nor the strange weight of your own name waiting at the bottom of the page, but what it means and protects.

After forty minutes, Nobara signs first with a flourish so dramatic it looks like she is stabbing the paper. Yuji goes next, too quickly, like he is afraid he will somehow jinx it if he hesitates. Maki signs after one final question you do not bother to listen. If it’s important, she’ll say it again one day.

You sign fourth and you set the pen down and glance toward Megumi.

His folder is still open, the contract untouched except for the page corners he has turned, his signature case still empty.

At first you think he is just reading slower than the rest of you, being careful the way he always is, but then you realize his eyes are not moving at all. He is looking at the page without really looking at it, one hand flat on the table beside the contract like he is holding himself in place.

Nanami notices a second later. “Megumi.”

Megumi lifts his gaze.

“I’m not signing today.”

The room goes quiet in a way you have never heard it before, like the sound has been sucked out of the air all at once. You let out a short breath that almost turns into a laugh, because sometimes shock arrives wearing the wrong face. “What?”

Nanami folds his hands together on the table. “Explain.”

Megumi does not look at you. He looks at Nanami. “I need more time.”

“For what.”

“To decide.”

The words land so heavily you actually feel your stomach turn.

Yuji straightens in his chair. “Wait, decide what?”

Nobara’s voice cuts in sharper than his. “Megumi.”

He still does not look at you. “The tour.”

The sound that leaves you is small and humiliatingly wounded, not quite a laugh. “You’re deciding now?”

His jaw tightens. “I’ve been deciding.”

Nanami’s voice goes flatter than usual, which is saying something. “You should have raised this before contracts were issued.”

Megumi’s expression does not change. “I know.”

“Then why didn’t you.”

There is a pause.

Megumi’s fingers curl slightly against the edge of the table. “Because I knew how this would go.”

That hits harder than the refusal. Before you can stop yourself, you say, “How what would go?”

This time he looks at you and you almost wish he had not.

There is no anger in his face, and that would have been easier somehow. Anger gives you something to push against. What is there instead is restraint pulled so tight it has started to look like exhaustion, and something in it makes your stomach turn over again.

“You’d act like I’m ruining everything,” he says.

You stare at him. “You are,” The second the words leave your mouth, you want them back.

Megumi’s eyes flicker once, so quickly no one else would catch it, but you do.

Across the table, Yuji mutters, “Jesus,” under his breath.

Nanami cuts in before anything can get worse. “We are not finishing this conversation here.” He looks at Megumi. “You have forty-eight hours.”

Megumi nods once. After that, the meeting does not really end so much as fall apart. Nobody seems to know where to put their hands or their eyes. Nobara gathers her papers too quickly while Yuji looks like he wants to say something and cannot find a version of it that would help. Maki’s mouth has gone into the hard line it gets when she is both irritated and concerned and would rather die than admit to either one directly.

You say nothing, because if you do, you know something ugly is going to come out.

Megumi knows it too. He keeps his distance in that infuriating way of his, and under any other circumstances you might have hated him for it.

By the time you leave the building, your chest feels too tight for your lungs, he catches up to you at the curb.

“Y/n, can we talk?”

You do not stop walking. “Oh. Now you want to?”

“Don’t do that.”

You turn around so fast a couple passing on the sidewalk glances over. “Do what? React like my boyfriend just waited until everybody signed a world tour contract to tell us he might not go?”

Megumi takes the hit without flinching. “I said I needed time.”

“You’ve had time.”

“I know.”

“Then what have you been doing with it?”

A cab passes too close to the curb, sending a gust of cold air against your legs. Megumi shoves his hands deeper into his pockets.

“Thinking.”

“That’s not enough.”

His eyes darken. “You think I don’t know that.”

The force of it makes you stop for half a second, and then the hurt comes rushing back so fast it almost makes you dizzy. “Then help me understand, because right now it feels like you let all of us build around something you knew you might tear apart.”

“I didn’t know.”

“You just said you’ve been deciding.”

“Because I keep trying to get there and I can’t.”

You shake your head hard once. “But why?”

Megumi looks away toward the street, jaw working. For a second you think he is not going to answer at all. Then he says, quietly, “Because I don’t want this.”

“What?” you whisper, and everything in you goes still.

“I don’t want eighteen months of airports and hotel rooms and being told where I’m sleeping a day in advance.” His voice stays level, but you know him well enough to hear the strain under it. “I don’t want every part of my life scheduled. I don’t want to wake up six months from now and realize I haven’t had one quiet day that actually belongs to me.”

Your first feeling is not empathy, though maybe later it will be, maybe later you will hate yourself for that. Right now all you can feel is disbelief, immediate and almost insulting in its scale.

“You’re in a band,” you say.

Megumi’s mouth hardens. “Yeah.”

“So what did you think this was leading to, big brain?”

His gaze snaps back to yours. “I knew we’d get bigger.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“I didn’t think it would have to be like this.”

You let out a short, disbelieving laugh. “Like what. Successful?”

The second it leaves your mouth, you see the anger flare in him for real. Megumi’s anger almost never looks like shouting, instead, it looks like his whole body pulling tight around something dangerous. Every word after that comes out quieter which somehow makes it worse.

“Do you hear yourself right now?”

“Do you?”

“Yes.” His voice stays low. “Now, do you?”

There are people moving past you on the sidewalk. You take a step closer because distance suddenly feels unbearable. “You don’t get to make me feel guilty for wanting this.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I’m telling you the truth.”

“Now,” you say, and that is the wound under all of it. “Now, when everything is already in place.”

Megumi looks tired all of a sudden, more than angry. “I know.”

“That doesn’t fix it.”

“I know.”

The repetition makes something inside you want to scream.

Instead you say, “Then what am I supposed to do with that?”

For a moment neither of you speaks. You become aware of stupid, useless things all at once: the way your fingers hurt because your nails are biting into your palms or even the way the cold air catches in your throat and does nothing to cool you down.

Megumi’s eyes drop briefly to your hands and then back to your face. He notices everything, even now.

When he speaks again, his voice is quieter. “I wanted to want it.”

You close your eyes. That hurts more than if he had refused outright. There is something unbearable about effort that still fails.

You look at him again. “So what? You just don’t come? You stay here and the rest of us go?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then figure it out.”

“I’m trying.”

“No,” you say, shaking your head. “You’re hiding.”

The words leave you on a breath of pure frustration. The second they are out, you hate them, but you cannot take them back. Megumi’s expression blanks in a way you know better than to mistake for calm, it is damage.

“Okay,” he says.

Your throat tightens. “Don’t fucking do that.”

“Do what?”

“Shut down and make me sound unreasonable.”

His laugh is so brief it almost does not register as one. “You really think that’s what I’m doing?”

“What else am I supposed to think?”

He looks at you for a long moment, and when he speaks again there is something frayed in his voice you have almost never heard before. “That maybe this matters enough that I’m trying not to say something worse.”

You swallow. “Megumi.”

He rubs a hand over the back of his neck, eyes on the pavement now. “I can’t do this out here.”

“Then come home with me.”

He hesitates for a second and it is enough.

ut you know then, before he says anything else, that the real argument has not happened yet.

Your apartment is too small for anger.

You think of it the second the door shuts behind the two of you. Two mugs in the sink, his charger still plugged in by your bed from three nights ago.

Megumi stands just inside the living room with his hands still in his coat pockets while you put your bag down too hard on the table, you do not know how to start.

Or maybe you know exactly how and hate it.

“So tell me now,” you say finally, turning to face him. “What happens if you don’t sign.”

He looks around the apartment once before his gaze settles back on you. You know why he does that. He always looks for something steady when he is trying to collect himself.

“I leave the band,” he says.

You stare at him, the room seems to tilt very slightly.

“No.”

“It’s the only option.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“It is if the band is going.”

“Megumi.”

“You can’t drag a drummer through a tour he doesn’t want and expect that to end well.”

You take a step toward him. “So you’d rather leave.”

His jaw flexes. “I’d rather not be there.”

You laugh in disbelief. “That’s not what I asked?”

He exhales sharply, frustration slipping through now too. “Then don’t ask questions you only want one answer to.”

The anger that has been sitting high in your chest all afternoon rises fast and ugly. “Do you hear how selfish this sounds?”

Megumi’s eyes flash. “Selfish?”

“Yes.”

He goes very still. “Right.”

“You let us build toward this. You let me-” You stop, swallow, start again. “You knew what this meant to me.”

“I know what it means to you.”

“Then how can you stand there and tell me you’d walk away.”

“I’m trying not to lie to you, because I love you, Y/n.”

His voice is still controlled, but you can hear the edge of his temper now, dangerous because he is doing everything he can not to let it loose, that almost makes you pull back.

Almost.

“You could have said something sooner.” you say, accusing, still mad.

“I know.”

“You keep saying that like it helps.”

“Because it’s true.”

“Truth after the fact doesn’t fix anything.”

Megumi drags a hand through his hair. “What do you want from me?”

You do not answer immediately because the answer is too obvious and too impossible at the same time. You want him to want what you want, you want this dream to fit both of you the same way.

Instead you say, “I want you to try.”

He stares at you. “You think I havent?”

The hurt in that is so naked it almost undoes you., then your own frustration rushes back over it, because if you soften now you are afraid the entire conversation will collapse before you get to the thing that scares you most.

“Trying quietly where no one can see it doesn’t count if nobody gets to respond,” you say.

Megumi’s mouth parts, then shuts. He looks away, and when he speaks again the words come clipped. “So I’m supposed to say every ugly thing the second I think it?”

“No, but maybe before contract day.”

“You were gone.” The words land flat and hard.

You blink. “Gone where?”

“Everywhere.” His eyes are back on yours now, exhausted. “Meetings, calls, interviews, writing until two in the morning and then staring through me the next day because you’re still in your own head. Every time I tried to talk about this, you were already ten steps ahead.”

“That’s not fair,” you say.

“It’s true,” Megumi replies.

“Because I’m working,” you shoot back, frustration rising faster than you can soften it.

“So am I,” he says.

“That isn’t what I meant,” you insist.

“I know what you meant,” Megumi says, and there is something tired in the way he looks at you that makes the words land harder than they should.

You bite down on whatever comes next because it would be mean and frightened and too close to panic. You pace half a step toward the kitchen and stop again because turning your back on him feels worse. Megumi watches you move and then stop. When he speaks next, his voice is lower, and harder to hear.

“I’m not asking you not to go.”

You let out a breath that trembles despite your best effort. “Then what are you asking?”

His face changes, only slightly. “I’m asking if there’s still room for a life in there, for us.”

You do not answer. Not because you do not care nor because you do not love him.

Because the truth is horrible and too damn complicated. There should be room, of course, there should. You want to say that and you almost do. But the image that flashes through your mind is not of the two of you finding quiet inside the tour. It is airports, hotel doors clicking shut at midnight, rehearsals in borrowed studios, your pulse racing with every new city, that hunger you have spent years trying not to admit is this big.

And he sees that you do not know. It is small, barely there at all, just the slightest drop in his face like something inside him loosens not in relief but in resignation. He nods once.

“Megumi,” you say, because suddenly you need to stop whatever just happened. “That’s not-”

“Do you want the tour,” he asks quietly, “or do you want me?”

The question hangs there. You have imagined versions of this argument before, in the half-formed fears you never let yourself look at directly. In none of them does he ask it like that. No raised voice, no accusation.

You open your mouth and nothing comes out.The silence is not long. Two seconds. Three seconds.

It is enough.

Megumi looks at you with an expression so unreadable it becomes worse than anger and so much worse than pain.

“Yeah,” he says.

You take a step toward him. “That’s not what this is.”

“What is it, then?”

“I just-” Your throat closes around every answer. “You can’t ask me like that!”

He lets out a breath that almost sounds like a laugh and does not. “How should I ask?”

“That’s not fair.”

His eyes narrow faintly. “You’ve said that every time I say something you don’t want to hear.”

Something hot stings behind your eyes. “Because you’re making this sound simple!”

“I’m not,” he answers calmly, quietly.

“You are!”

“Then tell me the complicated version.”

He waits and you fucking hate that he waits. That he makes room for the truth instead of filling the silence with his own. That he knows if he stays still long enough, you will have to look directly at what you mean.

You press the heel of your hand to your forehead. “I want this tour,” you say at last, the words ragged. “I have wanted something like this for years. I can’t pretend I don’t. And I want you too, but I don’t know how to answer a question that asks me to cut myself in half and then act like one side matters more.”

Megumi’s face does not soften. Maybe because your answer, as honest as it is, does not actually change what he needs to know.

“So if it comes down to it,” he says, “you go.”

You look at him helplessly. “I don’t know!”

He nods again. “That’s enough.”

“No, it’s not. Megumi, listen to me!”

“I am listening.”

“Then don’t decide what I mean before I can say it.”

A sharp edge slips into his voice at last. “You already did.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

He takes one step back when you move toward him. That hurts so badly it wipes your mind blank for a second.

Then he says, with a tone that makes every word feel carved out of stone, “You made room for the tour in your life the second it was offered. You never once asked whether there was room for me in the version of you that wanted it.”

You flinch, and like always, he sees it. He closes his eyes for half a beat, like he hates that he said it and also means it too much to take it back. When he opens them, the anger is still there, but buried deeper, almost.

“I’m done fighting to be considered after the fact,” he says.

Your whole body goes cold. “Don’t,” you whisper.

He looks at you for a long moment, you can almost see him forcing the next words through his teeth.

“I think we should end it here.”

You shake your head before he has even finished. “No.”

Megumi’s mouth tightens. “Don’t make this harder.”

“Harder than what.” Your voice cracks and you hate it immediately. “You ask me one impossible question and decide that’s enough to throw away two years?”

His eyes flash. “You think this is one question?”

“Then tell me everything else.”

“I tried.”

“You didn’t fucking try enough!” The second it leaves you, you know it is cruel.

Megumi goes very still. Then he nods once, almost to himself. “Right.”

He bends to pick up the charger by your bed and wraps it carefully around his hand. The sight is so ordinary it almost knocks the breath out of you. This, apparently, is how people leave. With chargers and the extra toothbrush in your bathroom and the sweatshirt you never really stopped borrowing.

You follow him into the bedroom. “Megumi, please.”

He does not look at you while he opens the drawer where he keeps a few things. “Don’t.”

“I didn’t mean that.”

“I know.”

“Then stop acting like you don’t care.”

That makes him turn, yhe hurt on his face is so raw you almost wish he had shouted instead. That he had broken something or done anything easier to survive than standing there looking at you like you have managed to touch the one bruise he could not protect.

“You really don’t know me at all when you’re angry,” he says.

The room goes silent except for your breathing and Megumi looks away first.

He packs quietly after that. He never kept much here, because half his life was already split between your apartment and his. You stand there uselessly, wiping the tears at your face once in a gesture so impatient it almost feels violent.

When he shoulders his bag, he pauses at the door. For one impossible second, hope rises in you anyway. That he will turn around, that he will look at you and say none of this is too broken yet.

Instead he says, without looking back, “You should take the song up half a step if you’re opening with it at the concert. You strain on the last chorus when you’re tired.”

The practicality of it hurts worse than if he's said something straight up cruel. You laugh once, helpless. “Are you serious?”

Megumi finally turns then. His expression is exhausted and more devastated than you have ever seen him let himself be. “I always take you seriously.”

Then he leaves.

The door shuts.

You stand in the apartment and listen to the sound fade from the hallway until there is nothing left to hear.

The practical cruelty of it nearly takes your knees out from under you. You laugh once, helpless. “Are you serious?”

Megumi finally turns then. His expression is exhausted and more devastated than you have ever seen him let himself be. “I always take you seriously.”

Then, he leaves.

The door shuts.

You stand in the apartment and listen to the sound fade from the hallway until there is nothing left to hear.

You do not sleep.

You lie awake until dawn with your notebook open on your chest and the lyrics of the new song blurring in and out above you every time your eyes sting hard enough to force themselves shut. At some point you realize your phone is still face-down beside your hand. There are messages on it, you think, probably Nobara first, maybe Yuji trying too hard to sound normal, maybe Maki saying only what matters and nothing more. You know that there is nothing from Megumi.

You do not check.

By late morning, you are at the rehearsal space because the alternative is staying in your apartment with his absence sitting in every corner like a second piece of furniture and everyone is already there. Conversation cuts off the second you walk in.

Nobara is the first to really look at you, and concern on her always comes out looking irritated, like whatever hurt you has personally offended her. Maki watches you with that quiet, direct focus that means she already understands enough to stop asking pointless questions. Yuji straightens too quickly from where he is sitting on an amp

Megumi is not there.

You knew he would not be, at least not yet, but the empty drum stool still hits you harder than it should.

“Did you sleep?” Nobara asks.

“No,” you say.

“Obviously.”

Yuji winces. “Nobara...”

“What? She looks like shit.”

You try to smile and fail halfway through it. “Good morning to you too.”

Maki sets her pick down. “What happened?”

You try to swallow, your throat still hurts. “He broke up with me.”

The room goes still. Yuji says, “What?” so softly it almost does not sound like him.

“Because of the tour?” Nobara asks.

You nod once and Maki’s eyes flick briefly toward the drum riser. “Did that emo say anything about the band?”

“If he doesn’t sign, he leaves.”

Yuji mutters something under his breath that sounds a lot like a prayer. Nobody says the obvious thing, which is kind and awful at the same time, the obvious thing being that the show is in three days. The obvious thing being that your private disaster has somehow managed to become a problem for everyone else too.

Nobara comes over first and squeezes your shoulder hard enough to hurt a little. “He actually said leaves?”

“Yes.”

“What a fucking idiot!” she states.

You laugh weakly despite yourself. “That’s not helping.”

“It’s not supposed to help, it’s supposed to be correct.”

Maki glances toward the door. “He coming today?”

Yuji checks his phone. “He texted Nanami. Said he’d be here.”

Your stomach knots. Of course he would come, of course Megumi would still show up. He could be furious, halfway out the door already, and he still would not let the band suffer for it.

He arrives twenty minutes later and no one says anything when the door opens, for a second, it feels like the whole room is holding itself still for him.

Megumi looks like he slept even less than you did. His hair is damp, probably from a shower taken instead of rest, and there are shadows under his eyes that he clearly did not bother hiding. He nods once in the general direction of the room and starts setting up without looking at anyone for very long.

He does not look at you.

That hurts more than you expect. You thought anger would hurt most, but instead you get distance and professionalism. Megumi moving through rehearsal prep with the same quiet precision he always does, as if he did not leave part of himself behind in your apartment a few hours ago.

Practice starts and it is excruciatingly normal.

No one mentions the contracts, no one mentions the breakup. Nobara swears when she misses a chord and Yuji loses his harmony halfway through one of the older songs and pretends he meant to do it while you sing because there is nothing else to do.

Megumi plays like his life depends on it.

Maybe it does.

He is sharper than usual, if anything, every beat exact, every transition clean, every tiny flaw in the room caught and corrected before the rest of you can drift too far and he barely looks at you unless the song forces him to.

Halfway through the second run of the new song, your voice catches on the last chorus. You recover fast enough that almost nobody would call it a mistake.

Megumi stops playing and the silence that follows is immediate.

He sets one stick across the snare and says, without looking at you, “Take it up half a step.”

Your whole body goes rigid. No one else reacts, because no one else knows that was the last thing he said to you before he left your apartment. Or maybe Nobara figures it out from your face, because her expression darkens all at once.

Maki breaks the moment first. “He’s right.”

You swallow. “Okay.”

Megumi nods once and counts the song back in.

That is how the next few days go.

Nanami corners you after rehearsal the night before the show.

“Can you do this?” he asks.

You almost laugh. “That depends what you mean by this?”

“The concert.”

You know what he is really asking. Whether the band is about to implode in public. Whether Megumi is going to vanish before a sold-out show. He is asking if this shit is about to be expensive. You look past him toward the stage, where Megumi is packing up in silence.

“We can do the concert,” you say.

Nanami studies your face for a second. “And after?”

You look away first. “I don’t know...” you sigh.

He nods once, like he expected that answer. “Then do the concert.”

The day of the show, you throw up in the venue bathroom before soundcheck. Nobara holds your hair back and says, “If you pass out onstage, I’ll drag your corpse by the ankle and make you finish the set.”

You laugh weakly, wiping your mouth. “You’re so kind.”

“I know.”

When you come out, Megumi is at the end of the hall talking to one of the techs about his monitor mix. He glances toward you once, his eyes flicking briefly to the paper towel in your hand and to the color in your face. Concern moves through his expression so quickly you almost think you imagined it. Then the tech says something and Megumi looks away.

You stand there for a second longer than makes sense before forcing yourself toward soundcheck. The venue is the biggest you have ever played on your own.

By the time the lights go down, your pulse is beating so hard it feels like it has moved up into your throat. Backstage, everyone has gone quiet. Megumi stands a few feet away, checking the tape on one of his sticks.

Someone calls places.

The room shifts.

Then you are moving, because there is no other option.

The first half of the set passes almost on instinct. The crowd is loud and so generous. Your body knows what to do even while the rest of you stays horribly aware of where Megumi is at all times, of how little you look at him and how much you still feel him anyway like the way he still adjusts when your breath runs shorter than expected after crossing the stage too fast.

By the time you reach the new song, your throat hurts in a place that has nothing to do with singing and Nobara glances at you while she retunes.

You nod, to reassure her, to also reassure yourself, maybe.

The crowd quiets when you step to the mic. “This next one is new,” you say, and your voice sounds steady enough to fool strangers. “We haven’t played it live before.” They cheer anyway.

♫⋆｡♪ ₊˚♬ ﾟ.

When the last note cuts off, there is half a second of complete suspension, then the room explodes.

The crowd screams so loudly it almost shoves you backward, the energy crashes over the stage in one huge wave and all you can do is stand there breathing hard, staring out into the lights because if you look at Megumi again you are not sure your face will hold.

Beside you, Nobara leans just enough into your space to mutter, “Holy shit.”

The rest of the set happens anyway, of course. You finish, you bow, you leave the stage to the sound of people chanting for one more song, and backstage the adrenaline drains out of you so fast it leaves you cold.

You find Megumi in one of the side rooms near the cases and he senses you there almost immediately and lifts his head. So, you close the door behind you, neither of you speaks at first. Until, your voice comes out thinner than you want it to. “That song wasn’t supposed to be about you, you know.”

Megumi looks at you for a long moment, then he says quietly, “It is now.”

“I mean it,” you say, throat aching. “When I started writing it, I wasn’t thinking-”

“About me?” he asks, “That’s worse.”

You flinch. “Megumi.”

He stands slowly, and somehow that is worse than if he had done it fast. Megumi laughs once under his breath with no humor in it at all. “That’s the worst part.”

“What is?”

He looks away for a second, jaw tight. “I still knew where your voice was going to break.”

The grief of that goes through you so cleanly it almost feels simple. You step toward him without thinking. “Megumi, please.”

His eyes cut back to yours. “Don’t.”

You stop and he breathes in slowly, like he is restraining himself from saying something worse, and when he speaks again his voice is steady in a way that hurts even more. “I gave Nanami my answer this afternoon.”

Your skin goes cold. “What answer?”

“I’m out after tonight.”

You stare at him. “No.” He says nothing. “No, you don’t get to tell me that after the show like it’s some schedule change, what the fuck is wrong with you?.”

“What did you want me to do?” The anger flickers through him then. “Tell you before we went on and wreck the set?”

“So that’s it?” you ask. “You leave and that’s cleaner?”

“Cleaner than dragging this out while everybody waits for me to become someone I’m not.”

“That’s not what I wanted.”

“Maybe not,” he says. “Doesn’t change what happened.”

Your voice breaks despite yourself. “You’re punishing me.”

Something sharp flashes over his face. “You think this feels good to me?”

“I’m sorry,” you whisper. You do’nt say why. You don’t say that you are sorry for wanting this so badly and sorry for making him play that song in front of thousands of people before either of you understood what it really was.

Megumi hears all of it anyway. He always hears what you mean underneath what you say. “I know,” he says.

You wipe the tears off of your face. “What am I supposed to do with that song?”

His eyes flick briefly to yours, then away. “Whatever you want.”

“That’s not fair.”

He lets out a tired breath that almost sounds like a laugh. “No.”

“You built the drum pattern.”

“I know.”

“It’s yours too.”

His jaw tightens. “Not anymore.”

For a second anger flares through the grief. “You don’t mean that.”

He does not answer.

Megumi glances toward the door. “They’ll need us out there.”

You stare at him. “That’s all?”

For the first time something naked appears through his face. “If I say more,” he says quietly, “I won’t leave.” He looks away first. Then he reaches for the door, and, you do not stop him.

He’s gone by morning.

Nanami sends a message to the group confirming that Megumi has officially withdrawn from the band and that rehearsals for a replacement will start after a short pause.

You do not hear from Megumi again.

The clip of the new song from the concert is everywhere before the week is over.

Fans post slowed-down videos of the two of you looking at each other across the stage like they are witnessing romance instead of collapse.

Then the label wants to release it as a single.

You hear yourself answer before you think too hard about it. “Then release it.”

The song comes out two weeks later.

It climbs faster than anything you have ever done.

Biggest debut week yet and added to major playlists.

You hear it in cabs and in convenience stores, where no one notices your face until the chorus is already halfway through the room. Every time it starts, your whole body recognizes Megumi before your mind does.

Even when another drummer plays it live now, the shape of him is still there, and that is the cruelest part.

The song that finally gives the band everything you worked for becomes massive only after Megumi is already gone. The song becomes theirs before it stops hurting you

You open your mouth and sing anyway.

a/n : thank you guys so much for all of the likes of my first tumblr post!! i got so excited that i needed to put this one out as soon as possible. Hope it's not too long/too much. i'm going to try to do shorter ones also haha. thanks for all of the reblog and comments, it means so much to me !!!

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