Harutsumu, 1032 words. Commission for @/catboydecember on twitter!
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Haruto brings water to boil.
He almost doesn’t know how he got here, Tsumugi in his apartment—it’s as though he was caught in a whirlwind, and though Haruto can’t say he cares too much, he does mind it a little.
Haruto thinks about Tsumugi too much; they’ve seen each other before, over and over—a single glimpse of Tasuku’s life in Mankai revealed Tsumugi as a central point. Haruto watches Tsumugi with sharpness, and something makes him yearn to understand him.
Haruto is created from blood, sweat, and tears—Tsumugi, he assumes, is the same. But that doesn’t show when Haruto sees him on his day off—in casual clothes, not acting or anything. Tsumugi is honest and pure, something Haruto shouldn’t want to see from a rival like that.
“Are you sure it’s okay for me to be here?” Tsumugi asks. Haruto hesitates to call him confident, but he seems too relaxed right now for where he is.
“It’s fine.” Haruto sighs and turns back to him. “Just don’t expect anything too big from me. What did you want to talk about, anyway? Did you want to compare acting notes or something? Want me to criticize your Lucifer performance?”
Tsumugi blinks at him. “Not… quite.”
If Haruto was to believe his eyes, he’d call Tsumugi’s expression embarrassed. He narrows his eyes, ready for Tsumugi to say something ridiculous, or maybe too personal. For him to get close to Haruto is to get close to someone who succeeded while Tsumugi failed—a remnant of God Troupe’s days of turning people away.
“Then what?” Haruto busies himself with getting things out of cabinets, not meeting Tsumugi’s eyes, not lingering on their similarities or their differences.
“I was thinking,” Tsumugi starts. Haruto hears his fingers drum on his table. “About getting to know you. You’re important to God Troupe. To Kamikizaka.” He adds Reni’s name like an afterthought. Haruto feels its weight nonetheless.
Haruto doesn’t know what to make of it. He doesn’t understand how to read between the lines here—though he’s usually good at that, Tsumugi eludes him. He glances back at Tsumugi, and the eye contact feels too strong. Haruto is the one to look away first, again, and it makes him feel just short of weak.
“So it is for acting,” Haruto says, but it doesn’t come out as dry as he’d expected, doesn’t feel rough against his tongue. “I mean, sure. I am important.”
Tsumugi smiles at that, like he was expecting that. “How did you do it?”
This, Haruto suddenly realizes, is where they differ. Tsumugi smiles with all the confidence in the world, but that’s just because despite the unfamiliar territory, he’s still built up that confidence off the stage. Where Haruto hides his lack of confidence in everything outside his acting, Tsumugi comes off pure, his conviction clearer than anything Haruto has ever seen.
He stares at him for a second before turning away again, making tea instead of lingering on whatever that feeling in his chest was.
“I didn’t do anything. I just worked on my acting.” He’s not even the top star—he’s not even Reni’s favorite, even as he helps behind the scenes. But if Tsumugi is asking, there must be a reason for it. “I work hard. Don’t you?”
They’re different, and they’re the same. What betrays Tsumugi’s lack of confidence is the way his smile wavers. “I try,” he says. “But I still failed to get into God Troupe.”
Haruto stares.
He’s not annoyed, though he thinks he should be. Here Tsumugi is, a good actor, and he’s wondering why he didn’t get into God Troupe? How does that make any sense?
But all he feels is a kind of creeping emptiness, an understanding that he doesn’t know how to voice. He slides the tea he made in front of Tsumugi, and watches his fingers wrap around it slowly. He watches him, chewing on his words and hoping that he can find a way to say it without cutting Tsumugi on them.
“Yeah, but you got yourself back up,” he says. “It’s not like I immediately succeeded, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Tsumugi falters. “I wasn’t. I just need to know how you kept going.”
“You don’t need to,” Haruto insists, and then immediately wonders if he’s being too harsh. He clicks his tongue. “Listen to yourself. You’re a successful actor, and you didn’t need God Troupe to do that. Think about what you’ve achieved, and what kind of actor you are. Do you really want to be like me?”
He finishes that speech off by swallowing tea. It’s too bitter.
Haruto is an actor created by desperation. He may have picked himself up and turned himself into a shining star, might have learned everything Reni wanted to perfection when that was what mattered most, but he is not someone to look to when it comes to this. That much, he’s sure of.
Tsumugi licks his lips. Embarrassingly, Haruto watches that movement. “I don’t want to be exactly like you,” Tsumugi says. “I’m happy with Mankai. I like acting there.”
“Naturally.”
Tsumugi smiles nervously. “I thought you’d be able to understand what I mean when I say that I wanted to get into God Troupe so badly, back when I auditioned. You’re easy to talk to about it, Haruto.”
“I’m—what?” Haruto’s heart flips in his chest. “Excuse me?” What about this is easy?
“You’re a good actor too. I liked watching you.” Tsumugi keeps eye contact, suddenly so earnest it’s overwhelming. “If you don’t think I need to ask about it, I’ll believe you, but I still want to know more about God Troupe, and about you.”
About him. Not stated as something unnecessary, but an important component of this conversation.
They are similar, it seems—focused on what they need to focus on, lacking confidence in other places—and Haruto finds that he wants to be everything Tsumugi wants from him, to tell him all those things he wants to learn. He won’t share God Troupe’s secrets, but if it means being closer to Tsumugi, he’ll take this chance.
He’ll even accept that he’s good enough to give this advice; what a strange impulse. Haruto doesn’t hate it.
