Chapter Text
Someone screamed.
A sudden voice which filled the concert hall out of nowhere, it penetrated the air which was buzzing with excitement and blended in with the sharp tenor of Yamato’s voice.
Riku was sure that no one else onstage had even noticed it. Riku himself wouldn’t have noticed it if he hadn’t been scanning the faces of their fans for their reactions.
That is, the moment everything went wrong.
Something creaked lowly, so soft it was drowned out by the high tempo of Memories Melodies.
Riku followed the gaze of a stunned fan upfront, and he saw it just as it was happening.
The metal wires securing the stage light break with a resounding snap.
“IORI!” Riku dashed forward.
He remembered in that instance – how Tenn-Nii used to reproach him for chasing after him; how Banri had mentioned a stage accident similar to this during his idol career.
Was this an accident?
No, that didn’t matter. All that had been occupying his head in that instance was saving Iori.
Even as the yells of his stunned groupmates filled his buzzing ears. Even as Iori looked down at him with a confused expression, mic lowered from his mouth.
Riku pushed him away.
And then, his world caved in on itself from pain.
-
These are the things he saw when the pain dulled into numbness:
His hand stretching out limply before his eyes. Horror painting the faces of their fans.
“…anase-san…anase-san…”
The frightened Iori…crouched before him.
Trembling fingers not unlike that their Black or White live reached out and withdrew from him.
‘What are you scared of?’ Riku had tried to say.
All that came was a wet squelching sound that failed to even enter his ears through all the ringing. He can’t even turn his head.
“…all the ambulance!”
Ahh… It hurt. It hurts.
But Sougo leaned in, damp lashes fluttering as he reached out with clammy hands. Yamato was barking out orders to the staff backstage. And Nagi… Nagi spotted someone off in the audience and was crying out as he leapt offstage.
A familiar suited figure can be seen in the peripheral edges of his sight. Someone had sabotaged their live.
But… that doesn’t matter.
Not when Iori had collapsed to his knees, tears tracking out one after another heartbreak tear.
“…why…did you save me…Nanase-san?”
Iori squeezed his eyes shut. His fists tremble on his lap in self-blame.
As darkness swallowed up his consciousness, Riku wanted to reach out to comfort Idolish7.
‘It’s fine.’ ‘This is nothing.’ ‘Don’t cry, Iori. We’re Idolish7. Isn’t it normal to help each other out?’ He wanted to say.
But not a single one of those phrases make it out before darkness enveloped him.
-
Someone is crying. Riku doesn’t know who it is.
There are hands hovering above him when Riku drowsily pries his eyes open by a crack. The familiar texture of latex presses firmly into the side of his cheek. Something’s shoved down his throat – A breathing tube. It’s a familiar feeling which he’d hated but learnt to accommodate ever since he was young. Tenn-Nii used to tell him it’s necessary, for Riku to not be stolen by the Angels up in the sky. The last time he’d been awake through this procedure was when he was fifteen.
“…he’s awake… Can you hear me, Riku-kun?”
His attending physician, Nobuyuki Takao, moves himself into view. He’s Nanase’s go-to on matters relevant to Riku’s health for years. A stern but kind-hearted man with a squarish jaw and more recently, white streaks on black Riku’s guilty for, Nobuyuki used to level him with a berating look whenever Riku dreadfully finds his way back with an apologetic Tenn as an escort, and he’d lightly whack Riku over the head with a clipboard in private. It’s not patient-abuse. It’s tough love. But in front of his parents, Nobuyuki never failed to take his side. ‘It’s just how Riku-kun is.’ He’d say, even if it’s with an exasperated, pointed look at Riku, and a long, resigned exhale.
Nobuyuki’s specialization is in respiratory ailments. This incident is hardly anything of that strain.
He nods regardless, figuring Nobuyuki might be here because his asthma is a complication in the surgery.
Is surgery even required in fixing… whatever happened to him?
The doctor looks surprised by his response. He smiles, keeping hands gentle on the side of Riku’s face.
“We’ll be increasing the dosage of medicine so you could sleep this off, alright? Don’t be scared. You’re doing very well for your first time on the tube. Now, can you just think about the answers to these questions for me? You don’t have to answer them aloud—”
The sounds grow muffled again in his ears.
Riku blinks sleepily and hears another cry coming outside.
It must be Idolish7. Tamaki must be throwing a tantrum again. He hopes Sougo doesn’t have trouble stopping him.
Beep. Beep. The machine’s really noisy.
Even so, that steady beeping grows distant amidst queries of what 3x5 is, what the biggest fish on the planet is, how many siblings does he have…
Riku doesn’t get it. He only has one, and that’s Tenn-Nii. It’s not as if Nobuyuki doesn’t know that already.
That’s his last thought as his vision drifts back into black in a cadence that’s long since become familiar.
(He wonders when Iori will stop crying so noisily out there.)
-
He dreams – of Tenn-Nii forsaking him again, even though they’ve long since reunited and made amends; of that shadowed man – Kujou – reaching out and tearing the new family he’d found apart, even though Idolish7 has never done anything wrong to him.
Carnelian eyes snap open and the first large gasp of air Riku takes infiltrates his lungs with a sharp stinging pain. Riku flinches.
“…!”
He would grunt but not even the sound appears to come.
“…Riku…?!” A gasp of his name.
Someone lurches up by the side.
Riku shakily held himself still, head turning to catch sight of his visitor.
“…Mom…?” Carnelian eyes gradually widen through his tiny whisper of a croak.
Nanase Megumi is pretty, Riku has known that ever since he was young. However, through years of weathering through their failing club, shouldering Riku’s hospital expenses, and then the loss of a child, age had marred her youth in the form of constant lines of worry and a dimmer, worn smile that hardly belonged on the same woman of years before (who had grabbed a whisk when he was five, smiled determinedly down at her children, and punched the air with an ‘OH~!’ in resolution of making a good cake for her husband).
Her scarlet locks never seem quite as shiny or bright, and it’d pained Riku to see her gradually wasting away because of Tenn-Nii’s absence.
But that Nanase Megumi is not the same Nanase Megumi he’s facing.
Mom stares at him for a long moment, eyes that are as equally carnelian as his own, wide with disbelief.
It’s heart-wrenching – even if Riku’s heart pounds harder, and it grows harder to breathe as realization dawns upon him, upon both of them – the way relief makes her arms collapse where they’d been pushing her from the edges of the chair.
Mom stands.
Riku is just beginning to shake his head in denial of what’s happening.
He doesn’t even manage a single full side-to-side motion before his Mom is gathering him up in her arms, breaking down in relief.
“…I’m so glad… I’m so glad…!” Mom breaks down with loud, unglam sobs.
They ring hollow in Riku’s ears.
He lifts a hand, stunned, to her arm nonetheless.
Distant steps close in.
“What happened to Riku?!”
Two figures break in through the door. One is Dad. The other is…
“T-Tenn-Nii…” Riku murmurs in disbelief.
Young. Six. With eyes more rounded than sharp, more open-worry than sharp berating.
Riku doesn’t know what to do when those eyes meet his and relief floods them.
Tenn takes a step forward, and he all but throws himself onto the bed to cling onto him.
“Riku…!” He sighs in relief.
Fingers that are trembling just like Iori’s wrap around the other side of him which Mom had not taken.
Riku is wrapped securely in a Nanase burrito, and his heart rate is escalating, breaths going shallow at the dawning realization that hits him as Tenn all but buries his nose into Riku’s other shoulder.
This can’t be happening.
Tenn’s feathery locks tickle the side of his cheeks. Mom’s scarlet locks too; were they so bright the last time round?
“D-Dad,” Riku’s voice shakes. “W-Where is Idolish7?”
The question comes frail, tiny, weak.
However, all his Dad returns is a confused look.
“Idolish7? What is that? Ah, a new ranger merchandise that you want for Christmas?”
His small hope sinks and crumbles away.