➔ After costing Vivid BAD SQUAD a win at a battle event, Akito’s guilt is evident but he’ll keep it inside himself to feign strength around others. Well, that’s what he would have done if Kohane wasn’t so adamant that he shouldn’t be sorry.
★ Wordcount: 2,129
☆ Fic takes place earlier in canon, probably a bit after bout for beside you
★ /p, can be interpreted as /r if you please
“Shinonome-kun, you always tell me I apologize too much but…” Kohane fumbled around with her fingers, attempting to find the right words to say, as if she were treading a tightrope rather than solid pavement. She met his gaze again, “I do find it a little hard to take you seriously when you do it even more. The thing is, you don't expect forgiveness. At all.”
Akito nearly stopped in his tracks entirely, “What?”
She smiled at him sheepishly with a subtle shrug, “I just…I don’t think you’ve said a sentence without the word ‘sorry’ in it since we left the venue.”
“Well, I am.” He huffed, looking at the road ahead of them again. “I totally screwed things up back there. Is this you trying to take the blame for it? I told you to stop doin’ that.”
His steps were undoubtedly heavier on the ground, it wouldn’t take a genius to notice that. With a grunt, he attempted to fix his composure so as to not look weak. Of all people, he didn’t want Kohane to see that side of him.
It had been strange lately. Kohane was his fuel, watching her improve so rapidly pushed him to reach for greater heights. Despite their differences in experience, oddly enough Akito felt this need to…impress her? No, not that. He wanted her to see him just as he saw her; someone who’s resolve was infectious, someone who you couldn’t bear to imagine pursuing your passions without.
Along with her developed confidence, Kohane had also grown unrelenting with time. With that, a sprinkle of stubbornness was always sprinkled into her speech. “It’s not fair of you to take the fall.”
“Well, who’s fault is it?” He attempted to keep his tone level. The last thing he wanted to do was to lash out at her. Kohane didn’t deserve that, just like he didn’t deserve her. How she somehow stayed by his side (even if it was just because of Vivids and BAD DOGS merging) despite how much of a prick he used to be towards her was beyond him. Kohane was the type of person he didn’t think had ever gotten angry in her life. He thought it would be good for her. Especially if she got mad at him. It was something that would suit him right.
“No one’s!” Kohane tried, sounding a little desperate. Screw Akito and his awful perception, sometimes he didn’t want to be able to tell what others thought about him. Sometimes, he hated that he even cared about trivial things like that in the first place. Those kinds of worries wouldn’t bring him any closer to surpassing RAD WEEKEND. They anchored him in the past.
He sort of regretted offering to walk her home after the event. Kohane lived the furthest away from Vivid Street out of them, closer to Miyamasuzaka for reasons that probably had to do with the proximity to her school and all. This meant that Kohane had ample time to refuse to accept his apologies. And it gave him an even longer time to mull over things.
As they reached a crosswalk and waited for their signal to cross, Kohane tugged on his sleeve to garner his attention, as if it was on anyone but her in the first place. The look on her face was so sincere, Akito honestly thought his self loathing was warping how he processed things. She should be mad at him. “Shinonome-kun…If it were me who had made that mistake during the show, what would you say to me?”
His voice had cracked during one of his solo parts, at the end of the prechorous where the hype had the strongest potential energy. It was so obvious, too, that he felt as if BROWN simply shouldn’t have let him in there in the first place. As a result of his complete blunder, it had costed Vivid BAD SQUAD their victory and shattered their winstreak.
The MCs would always set Vivid BAD SQUAD up as these teenage hotshots who’s talent rivaled long-time performers. In the couple months they’d been a team, they’d already built a name for themselves. Everyone had to do their part to uphold it. It was that reputation that allowed them to get into more famous livehouses were they could stand on the stage and walk in the footprints of the legends who had built Akito’s dream up from the bottom simply with the memories they had paved Vivid Street with. He couldn’t go out and destroy it, make them look like a liability to certain livehouses. Maybe a part of him was somehow attatched to the time he and Touya had spent performing together as BAD DOGS, when all sorts of livehouses would invite them to perform as some sort of sick comedy routine. To see some kids try to perform, expectations unfairly low.
Music was more of a battlefield than the soccer field could ever be. Music had taught him how to fight. It wasn’t until he had found Vivid BAD SQUAD and the vocaloids that it had taught him how to love.
Noticing how he completely zoned out, Kohane seized his wrist lightly (although he was sure she was holding him as tight as she could muster) and pretty much pulled him across the crosswalk. Oh, he needed to stop his pity party right now, because at this point Kohane was practically walking him to her house—not the other way around. He couldn’t waste her time like that.
They turn a corner, onto the street where Kohane lived. He hadn’t answered her question yet, but she wasn’t at all pushy. Not expectant that he answer it right away and still not mad at him for some reason.
If it were Kohane who had made his mistake…
“I would tell you to tough it out.” Akito said simply, “And not to go so hard on yourself if you were upset about it.”
“You would say that me,” She grinned at him and held her hands behind her back curtly, brown eyes nearing amber in the gold of the setting sun, “You’d say the same thing to An-chan and Aoyagi-kun, and you’d still find a way to shift the blame over to yourself.”
Akito halted and turned to face her entierly. He probably looked like he was drowning on air. Maybe it would have been better if he was.
“Why cant those words apply to yourself as well?” Kohane asked. “Why do you have to be sorry?”
“Because I…uhm—” Akito suddenly hated the fact he decided to wear so many layers. They had never felt so suffocating or that they were heavy with absorbed sweat (ew). He wavered for a few moments.
Now that he thought about it, usually he’s the one being blunt about the other person's problems, like An’s. She had been so stressed out about Kohane, so Akito decided it was his apparent right to help her discover how she actually felt about it all. But now, it’s as if the roles were reversed and now he was the one getting a slap in the face of a reality he hadn’t realized he’d be living in.
Hypocrite.
And it was Kohane who was telling him all of this. He never looked at Kohane—back when they had first met and she had her hair long and his face was in a permanent scowl—and ever once though they’d actually grow this close. Where they’d be having this conversation and Azusawa Kohane of all people could read him like a book. He didn’t even wear his heart on her sleeve like she did; she just knew him. A part of that was terrifying.
“I just….” He trailed off, at a loss.
“I hope it’s not coming off like I’m trying to dictate your emotions or anything—It’s really important to feel things!—I want you to know…it’s not just your burden anymore.”
“So, why aren’t you mad at me?”
“Eh?”
“Kohane, you have every right to be angry at me,” Akito breathed, looking down at the sidewalk under them. “I don’t understand…why you’re so good to me.”
Kohane’s face wrinkled in confusion as she tilted her head at him.
“I never apologized for being an asshole to you, when I questioned your resolve every chance I got. I never apologized to you for calling you a shrimp and all those other things. You deserve so many apologies. It’s why I tell you not to apologize to me over stupid things. ‘Cause I should be the one apologizing to you instead.”
Kohane blinked. “What?”
“I’m sorry. Im sorry for everything—“
“Shinonome-kun.” She said firmly, sending an unfamiliar jolt up and down his body. She placed her hands on his shoulders and huffed, “When you said all those things to me, that wasn’t the you I know now. And, um, if you ask me, you said those words to a completely different person, too.”
“That doesn’t excuse anything I did, though.” Akito protested, and Kohane shook her head.
“You and An-chan are always preaching about moving forward, right? ”
“Yes…” Then, Akito realized, “Oh.”
He wasn’t the type to get so in his head about little things—especially if they were far behind him. But Kohane…she brought out this side of himself he hadn’t realized existed…or maybe the parts of himself he had been trying to shut out. He was a big proponent of the idea that if you couldn’t go back in time to change things…there was no point in worrying that much about it. Like most things, it was far easier said than done.
“Besides,” Kohane removed her hands from his shoulders at last with a heavy breath. She ran a finger through a pigtail, “I think I forgave you the moment I cut my hair.”
Kohane started walking again so Akito followed along like a lost puppy. They stepped onto her front porch just as the sun dipped under the horizon.
“Will your parents be angry that you’re coming home so late?” He asked, knowing it was his fault for keeping her out later than necessary. “Touya’s dad gets real pissy when he’s out late, so…”
“They’re used to it by now.” Kohane replied with an airy laugh, bending down to lift the doormat up and grab the key from under it. “My dad says for every hour past curfew I stay up, I owe him one picture with my camera.”
“Oh.” Akito scratched his nape. “I’m sorry for keeping you for so long.”
“Shinonome-kun, it’s really rude to ignore everything I’ve been saying.” She crosses her arms indignantly, but her face tells a completely other story; a lighthearted one.
He didn’t know why after all of this, he still wanted to tell her ‘no’.
So close to the door, they might as well be stalling time to stay in each other's gazes, like it was an honor to be embraced by the attention of the other. “Even if you forgave me…that doesn’t mean I deserve to be forgiven.”
“You do.” She said earnestly. “When it first happened, I really…was hurt by it all. But, we both watched each other as we grew into better people. And I hope we continue to do that by each other’s sides.”
She looked down, suddenly shy and twiddled with the key in her hands, watching the porch-light be reflected on the metalic material. “I really admire you, Shinonome-kun. So, I want you to be able to forgive yourself as well. Can you promise me you’ll try to do that?”
I admire your courage to be so forgiving, he thought, but settled with, “I’ll try. I…” he wasn’t the best at verbally communicating how he felt, so he probably sounded strained as he told her, “I admire you as well.”
She looked a little surprised. Even he was a little bit. He was normally as blunt as a knife, but when it came to…emotions, his edge was dulled with ease.
“That settles it, then.” Kohane decided. She opened her arms up, but quickly glued them at her sides with the flush of her cheeks.
“Go ahead,” He said, even though he felt a little embarrassed at the prospect of giving someone the clear to hug him. Kohane echoed his feelings, but eventually wrapped him into a hug. Huh. It was a little strange they’d never hugged before…
Instead of saying sorry, he uttered a small, “Thank you,” Into the crown of her hair. “For giving me a chance to grow as well.
She whispered into his shoulder, “I think you’ve been feeling really guilty for a really long time.”
“Maybe.”
“At the end of the day, we’re not that different from each other. We both just want to prove ourselves. It drives you mad, too, doesn’t it?”
