Chapter Text
“You’re either great, or your nothing.”
That was the principle grounded into Toya’s mind and bones the moment his small hands were able to hold the erhu. His brothers left home before he could get to know them, and their mother was often absent from his life. Their father was the one who stayed with Toya the most. Toya wanted more than anything to make him proud. He practiced twelve hours a day, going through the songs on his own before playing them for his father at the end of the day. On the rare moments that he played through a song without mistakes, his father would give a single nod. Even rarer were the times when he actually complimented Toya:
“Good.”
“Well done.”
“I see you’ve done as I’ve told you to.”
Each word was like a shot of dopamine straight into Toya’s system and he couldn’t help beaming, before growing bashful and looking away. And so his days passed this way. Toya didn’t have friends in the village, and sometimes he would pause his playing to look outside the window and watch the children running down the dirt road holding makeshift kites. It made his chest feel tight. But Toya always smothered the feeling down, after all, becoming the best erhu player in the Celestial Kingdom was more important than anything else. He didn’t need anything else—he just needed to give a thousand percent of his energy, and then maybe…Just maybe…His father would tell him he did a good job.
Toya was 9 years old when his father entered him into his first erhu competition. The lowest age allowed to enter was 12, but Toya’s father was adamant towards the organizer that his son was ready and able to enter—as well as win the competition. Toya’s heart swelled with pride when he found out about his father’s recommendation. He swallowed down the dread and fear that threatened to spill out like vomit. His father trained him even harder before the competition. Toya felt like his fingers were about to fall off by the end of his sessions and his fingertips would be raw and bleeding. He lost count of how many times he had to change the bandages. Toya knew it would be worth it. Greatness could not be taken without blood.
Toya found out about his powers by accident. He was on the brink of collapsing in the middle of the night. The instrument slipped from his grip and clattered on the ground. As Toya bent down to retrieve it, he noticed white carnations sprout out from the wood and bloom at his feet. His vision grew hazy and Toya looked up when he heard a gentle woman’s voice come from the open window. In place of where the moon stood, was the blurry figure of a woman clad in blue,
“Lost child…Come back to me.” She spoke with such sorrow that stirred Toya’s heart. He got off the chair and stepped towards the window.
“Who are you?” He begged to know. But she was pulling away from him, as if drifting back towards the moon. Just as Toya opened his mouth to call out to her, the door to his bedroom slammed open. In an instant, the flowers all wilted and faded back into the wooden floors, sucking away the light with it. Toya turned to see his father standing at the door with a horrified expression on his face.
“Father…?” Toya’s chest seized in fear as he watched him approach.
Toya’s father grabbed Toya by the shoulders and shook him, “Did you use your powers?” His whisper was quiet but filled with anger.
Toya was about to say that he wasn’t aware of them, but his father cut him off, “You must never use them! Ever! They will kill you for it, and you will be grateful that they granted you such a mercy.”
Toya knew that magic was forbidden in the Kingdom. Still, the questions as to why he had such powers itched at his mind. As well as the identity of the woman from the window. His fingertips were still tingling and there was an itch that resided beneath his skin. Toya clenched his hands into fists, tight enough for his blunt nails to dig into his palms, “I promise, I will never use my powers ever again.”
And Toya kept true to his promise. By the time it neared the day of the competition, Toya had forgotten about his encounter with the woman entirely.
Toya dreaded the day of the competition, but it came upon him like his worst nightmare. He sat on one of the chairs lined up in the pavilion. The guests that sat in the creaky, wooden chairs were all men and women who lived within the palace walls. They fanned themselves, some bearing a scrunched expression as if they had eaten something sour, and all of them complained under their breath about the heat. The judges sat in the very front of the stage of the pavilion and had fountain pens in their hands already, as if they couldn’t wait to decide the fate of their contestants. Toya watched them call the names from the order they sat in and he tried not to think about the fact that he was second to perform. He watched the first girl bring her erhu to the center of the stage where she took a seat in the lavish chair. Toya could barely hear her playing over his frantic heartbeat. He looked out into the audience and couldn’t find his father in the crowd. Admittedly, it was a small relief. Having his father stare at him would only hang Toya’s nerves further up the wire.
He tried taking deep breaths, wiping the sweat from his palms onto his pale blue robe that his mother had specifically chosen out for him. Everyone put in their own efforts to make this happen—Toya couldn’t let them down. If he did…
“Next, Aoyagi Toya.”
Already?!
Toya’s head snapped up. He saw the previous performer walking back with a stoic look, while the judges continued writing down notes onto their wooden tablet. Toya rose to his feet and gripped his erhu tightly, feeling the strings bite into his skin. He walked over to the chair in the center of the stage, his footsteps resounding on the smooth wooden floor. His steps, his breathing, everything sounded far too loud. But once Toya took a seat, it was like he lost his hearing entirely. He looked towards the judges and noticed one of them speaking to him, but he couldn’t hear him. The other two judges put down their pens and interlocked their fingers to gaze at Toya expectantly. Toya looked down at his erhu and saw the way his hands and legs were trembling. No…Perhaps his entire body was.
He pulled back on a string and watched it vibrate, but the sound was muffled. He couldn’t hear it clearly like he did just a few hours ago. It felt like he wasn’t present in his own body, and the erhu was alien under his fingers.
“Aoyagi, you may proceed.”
Toya sucked in a breath. He could hear him! He looked up and saw one of the judges staring at him with a fed up look.
“My deepest apologies!” Toya squeaked and glanced down at his erhu, “Can you…Give me a moment?”
Murmurs grew throughout the audience and Toya wanted to disappear into the chair (with such luscious cushioning). The judge who spoke closed his eyes but gave a single nod. Toya exhaled the breath he had been holding and quickly tried to review the finger placements for the song.
Tap, tap, tap.
The other judges hit their pens on their tablet with impatience.
Toya glanced up and gave a nervous smile,
“I’m ready.”
The last tune faded out, and Toya watched as the none of the judges looked at him as they wrote in their tablet.
“Next, Zheng Xiao’en.”
Toya quickly rose to his feet and that’s when he saw his father. He stood at the furthest end of the audience and he looked…
Toya’s heart dropped to his stomach.
Someone cleared their voice beside him, and Toya noticed the next contestant glaring at Toya who still occupied her spot. Toya bowed to her and to the judges before hurrying back to his seat. The shaking was back tenfold, to the point that Toya wondered if he was rattling his chair.
The rest of the competition was a blur. The contestants all went up one by one, but Toya wasn’t able to focus on any of their performances. He could only see his father’s face in his mind. He felt like he was going to be sick.
“We will now be announcing the results for the Arts of the Kingdom competition. In last place…
Aoyagi Toya. ”
The erhu slipped from Toya’s lap and clattered to the ground. Last…? Not even third…Or fourth…He was…The worst of them all?
Bile shot up from Toya’s throat and his stomach heaved as he closed his mouth to hold it in, “Excuse me,” he whimpered before turning and rushing off the pavilion and into the gardens at the back. He fell to his hands and knees in front of a rose bush and coughed out saliva and bile. A sob wrenched itself from within Toya, deep and primal. His fingers dug into the dirt and pulled up grass and roots.
Footsteps stopped behind him. Toya turned back and saw his father. He couldn’t get a word out before the man grabbed him by the wrist and tugged him to his feet.
“The embarrassment and shame you’ve brought onto me today…” His father’s voice was quiet but filled with violence, “After I spoke so highly of you…Do you take your father for a fool?” Toya shook his head quickly and was about to apologize, to beg for forgiveness that he didn’t deserve, but his words got stuck in his throat when he saw his father hover a hand in the air, and then bring it down on Toya’s small wrist. It was Toya’s first time experiencing such a sharp pain and he cried out. He tried to pull back out of fear and shock, but his father held him fast and landed several more slaps on his wrist. He only stopped once Toya’s wrists and palms were blooming red.
“These useless hands…I will make sure that they never make a single mistake again.”
Toya couldn’t see his father through all his tears. He pulled his arm back once he was let go, and hid the stinging underneath the fabric of his sleeve. It was the first time his father struck him, and it only continued from that day.
Whenever Toya made a mistake, he received a harsh slap on the wrist. As time went on, his father switched out his hand with a wooden stick. It provided the reach that could strike Toya even as he stood beside him. The school they had initially enrolled Toya in—his father pulled him out of it so he could focus all his days on perfecting his playing.
As Toya grew up, he no longer screamed in fear whenever his father brought the stick. But he still cried from the pain—the pain of the lashes, as well as his father’s constant disappointment in him. Ever since that day, his father had never uttered another word of praise or positivity towards him. Nothing he did was ever good enough, and Toya felt like it embodied his entire soul.
Whenever he cried, his father would pretend he didn’t see it and tell Toya to wipe his face and calm down before they proceeded again. And again. And again. Through all the fatigue, bloody fingers, and tear-stained vision. When Toya wasn’t holding the erhu, he was studying theory on the notes and composition.
Practice. Study. Practice. Study. Practice. Study.
Toya knew that they were immortal and could not die by normal means. But there were times that he wished he wasn’t cursed with this blessing.
What’s the point of living forever if every day was filled with this much misery?
The first time he met Akito, it was by accident. He was only supposed to venture to the outskirts of their backyard, but Toya was so lost in his own feelings, that he didn’t realize he was in the bamboo forest until he looked up and saw the tall stalks of bamboo looming over him and swaying with the wind. Dread filled his stomach and Toya immediately turned to head back. He couldn’t give his father another reason to get upset at him.
“Hah!”
Toya stopped in his tracks. He looked back and noticed a figure moving beyond the grove of bamboo. It felt like an invisible force that pulled him to take a closer look. He hid behind a cluster of stalks and peeked out to look at the person alone in the clearing.
It was a boy. A boy with hair the color of the sun and clothes that looked like they were made of silk. Was he royalty?
“Yah!”
Toya watched the boy swing the wooden sword down, splitting the air in front of him. He raised his sword and struck again, and again. Toya saw passion burn like a flame in the boy’s eyes. It was admirable, how hard he was training. But at the same time, Toya couldn’t help noticing the way the other struck with a hundred percent of his body. It seemed nearly self-destructive.
Toya turned and left. He didn’t think he would see that boy again.
But then he did.
Each time Toya saw him, his curiosity grew. After the third time, it became muscle memory for him to walk back to the exact spot every afternoon.
He had never expected the boy to notice him. That day, he was observing the mysterious soldier practicing his sword skills when all of the sudden, the boy lowered his sword and spoke out loud,
“Whoever is stalking me, come out while I’m still being nice about it.”
Toya tensed as goosebumps rose along the back of his neck. He considered making a run for it, but his legs felt too heavy to carry him. So he swallowed his fear and stepped out from the shadows and into the clearing. The boy had his wooden sword pointed towards him, but Toya didn’t sense any threat to hurt him with it. If anything, the boy seemed more bewildered and on-guard.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized on instinct. He noticed the boy take a step closer and he spoke quickly, “I was just passing by and I couldn’t help but be curious…I’ve never seen a soldier out here before,” his words were only half-truths.
“I am no soldier.”
Toya’s eyes widened and he reached to grasp his opposite wrist before wincing when his fingers brushed over the swollen welts on the back of his hand. The boy glanced at his hand and Toya didn’t know why he felt the need to explain himself, “I was practicing the erhu. M-My teacher told me to take a break.” Again, more half-truths.
As the boy continued staring at him, Toya suddenly became self-conscious of how he looked. His eyes were probably still swollen from crying earlier, and his robe dirty from rubbing against the bamboo.
“You must not be very good, then,” the boy responded.
Out of all the responses, Toya would never have predicted that one. He had gotten used to pity and disappointment from those around him-to the point where he hated the sad looks people would give him whenever they passed by. It would always make him sick to his stomach. But this boy…
Toya laughed so abruptly that it surprised even him, and he ended up coughing before hiding it behind his sleeve. He looked back up to see the not-soldier smiling at him. And that was how Toya’s second life began.
Toya had expected falling in love to be similar to learning an instrument: getting to know someone, finding out all their quirks and talents, playing off each other’s strengths and weaknesses.
The two of them were sitting in the grass. Him, and Akito. He found that he really liked the other’s name. And even more so, saying it. He liked the way it made his chest warm whenever he did, and the pink that would tint Akito’s cheeks when he heard him.
Toya was weaving a small basket using fallen bamboo and long blades of grass. He thought it would serve as a nice basket for him to bring food with if they ever decide to share a meal together. Akito looked up from the middle of wiping his sword and paused before putting his things aside and shifting closer to Toya.
“Let me see,” he said.
“Huh?” Toya glanced up and spluttered in surprise when Akito suddenly took his hands and opened his palms.
“Am I hurting you?” Akito asked gently.
Toya shook his head, “N-No…It’s just…” He felt the strong desire to pull back. The swelling in his hands had gone down already, but they were still filled with scars and mangled from his years of playing. Toya thought his hands were the ugliest parts of him, not just in terms of physical appearance, but also from all the mistakes that added up over the years, caused by them. He wished Akito would stop looking at them.
“Aki-“
“They’re beautiful.”
“…Huh?”
Akito looked up to gaze into Toya’s eyes, “Your hands—they’re beautiful.”
Toya’s body felt like it was engulfed in fire. He watched the sun set behind Akito and he wanted to say that Akito was far more beautiful than him. He wanted to say the words, but his throat was constricted and the back of his eyes stung with tears.
Love consumed him with such a force and speed that Toya never anticipated. It left him gasping for breath, terrified beyond belief. But at the same time…
“What are you smiling about?” Akito teased with a small grin.
Toya’s face was hurting from how hard he was smiling. He lowered his head and shook it before turning his palms to interlock their fingers. He wondered if he was allowed to feel this much happiness.
Toya’s world only continued spinning faster after that:
Akito kissed him. And they both found out that Toya (still) could do magic.
They shared their first persimmon of the Fall.
Toya lost Akito and found him again. He kissed him and at the same time, for the first time in his life, disobeyed his Father’s wishes.
When Toya was with Akito, it felt like time no longer existed. He wished it didn’t—he would have been content spending forever with Akito just like this. They found healing in each other and Toya wondered when had his surroundings looked this bright and vibrant?
He bore Akito’s warmth like a jacket, and his laughter sounded beautiful compared to the haunting melody of the erhu.
It was the middle of Fall and the yellow and orange leaves squished under shoes from the rain. They were both soaked to the bone despite the many layers of fabric they had on. Toya’s teeth chattered from the cold and Akito picked him up to spin him around. “Akito!” The soldier’s name was laughter and adoration coming from Toya’s lips. Akito boots slipped on the leaves and they fell back in a heap, laughing and blinking away the rain.
Toya rested his arms on Akito’s chest and brushed his damp blue bangs away from his face. Their hair had grown long enough that Toya would spend some days braiding Akito’s hair and decorating it with white lilies.
“Akito Shinonome,” he spoke over the sound of the rain, “I swear my love to you, until the day my soul perishes and I can no longer utter your name.”
Akito looked taken aback by the sudden proposal but his expression melted in warmth. He caressed Toya’s cheek and warmed it, “And I swear to love and protect you, and if I am ever struck down may it be by your feet so that I can feel your touch one last time.”
Toya choked on the combination of a sob and a laugh. He cupped Akito’s face and leaned closer, “I will never allow you to come to harm, nor for such a horrible future to come to pass.” As if to emphasize his promise, Toya closed his eyes and channeled his energy out of his body and towards the sky. In an instant, the rain came to a stop and the clouds parted to reveal the moon that shone brighter than previous nights.
“You continue to captivate me,” Akito whispered while Toya leaned closer.
“And I’m never letting you go,” Toya whispered back as the distance between their lips disappeared. Whenever Toya used his magic, he would hear faint whispers and a woman’s voice echoing in the back of his mind. Calling for him. But this time, he ignored all of that. The only thing he cared about was the feeling of his lover’s lips against his neck, lighting his skin on fire with kisses; their hearts that pounded in synch; and how beautiful the moon looked that night.