Work Text:
Never had a day moved so agonizingly slow in Emu's life. On a typical day, she always tried to enjoy each and every moment she could fit into the span of 24 hours to the fullest. Today, there was a slight change of objective: The only thing on Emu's mind was making it through today in one piece. Although the feat proved difficult at times, Emu was somehow able to scrape by. She had maintained her facade for the entire duration of a silent breakfast with her family, kept up appearances all throughout her classes for the day, and even managed to get through rehearsals without any suspicion whatsoever.
Now, for the first (and hopefully last) time in her life, she was actually happy to see the sun slowly start to sink beyond the horizon, bidding Tsukasa and Nene a chaste farewell as she hastily shoved her belongings into her bag. She was feeling far too eager to head home and put the events of today behind her, and with each item she forced haphazardly into her bag did she inch closer and closer toward the sweet release of solitude.
With all of her stuff inside of her bag, Emu forcibly zipped it shut, swinging it over her shoulder as she turned to face the gate.
"Emu-kun."
An involuntary yelp slipped past her lips as Emu tensed up immediately. In the blink of an eye, the mask of normalcy she had donned for the entire day fell from her face almost as heavily as her name had fallen from his. "Rui-kun!" she chirped, perking up as she promptly turned on her heel to face him, hoping to play off the flinch that he definitely saw. "Today was super duper fun and wonderhoy as always! I'll see you tomorrow—"
"—Actually, do you have a minute to chat?"
Of course. If anyone could see through her, it'd be Rui. Although both of them knew very well that something was off, and had been that way since before rehearsal even began, Emu still forced a smile, determined not to give up just yet. "Oh, I was actually in kind of a hurry," she said, waving her hand dismissively. "There's something I want to do when I get home. We can chat lots tomorrow, okay?"
"Oh?" Rui reciprocated the smile. "I didn't realize you had plans for later tonight. Care to indulge me a little more?"
Emu's eyes widened. She averted her gaze, fingers fiddling with the hem of her skirt. Her mind short-circuited, rendering her unable to give him a proper answer. The only sounds that came out of her mouth was an awkward laugh. "Um…"
With a kindness in his eyes and the same smile from earlier, Rui sauntered toward the stage, taking a seat smack dab in the center. "There's something on your mind." He cut to the chase rather quickly. "More importantly, I know you're the type to hide how you're feeling to be considerate of the others. Although you were able to slip past Tsukasa-kun and Nene unnoticed, I happened to catch a glimpse of it in your acting. Oh, and I also noticed the way you flinched earlier." Damn, so he did notice. (She knew that already, but a part of her still hoped that he hadn't.) "Not to mention I can see your rigid jaw and stiff shoulders from all the way over here," he added. "I want to be someone you can talk to. Both, as your director and as your friend. So, allow me to ask you again—" he patted the vast expanse of space next to him, "—do you have a minute to talk about it?"
Emu stared at him like a deer in headlights, tracing figure eights into the ground with the sole of her shoe. He wasn't demanding she sit down and have a chat with him, merely asking for a little bit of her time. It wasn't as if he was forcing her to stay against her will, either: with the distance between them, she could've very easily fled the scene right then and there. Judging by the look he gave her, he probably wouldn't have chased after her, either. Yet, as badly as she didn't want to face the music, her feet had a mind of their own, moving toward the stage instead of away from it. "I had a rough day," she finally admitted as she shrugged her bag off of her shoulders before hoisting herself onto the stage to sit next to Rui. "Today…" Emu's voice trailed off, similar to the way her gaze slowly wandered away from him. He could hear a faint strain in her voice, as if what she were about to say was hard. A part of him felt as if he already knew what was coming, but he remained silent anyway. "…Today marks the anniversary of Grandpa passing away."
Although Rui had braced for impact, he was still unable to stop himself from sucking in a sharp inhale at the admission. "Oh…" he blinked, uncertain as to what he should say. "I'm… sorry." Although he had truly meant it, he couldn't shake the feeling that his words came off as insincere. Fingers wrung together as he wracked his brain for something, anything, more to say. "I didn't know."
"I didn't tell you." Thankfully, he didn't have to come up with something. "I figured it'd be okay to keep this anniversary to myself," she continued, "which is kinda ironic, because it was Grandpa who taught me that anniversaries are truly special occasions. They should be a time to celebrate, where you can cherish the moment with your friends and your loved ones." As she recounted the memory with fondness tugging at her heartstrings, the corners of her lips quirked upward into the slightest of smiles. "I know Grandpa would've wanted me to celebrate this day instead of spending it feeling sad, so I did just that. I figured I'd do something special with my siblings, since he was their Grandpa as well, but when I mentioned it to Keisuke-onii-chan and Shosuke-onii-chan…"
As Rui watched the smile that had only just worked its way back onto her face vanish once more, he felt conflicting emotions stir within him. His heart felt as if someone had reached their hand inside of him and squeezed it, heartache and sorrow oozing out of its orifices. At the same time, he felt the prickling sensation of heat tickling the back of his throat: an anger set to simmer on the stove, slowly starting to bubble as it heated up, threatening to boil and spill over. "Did they brush you off?" he asked. He bit back the urge to add 'again' at the end of his sentence, pushing down all of the sudden feelings in favor of focusing all of his attention on Emu's feelings instead.
Much to his surprise, Emu shook her head. It was only after she slowly lifted her head up to meet his gaze did Rui realize that Emu hadn't looked at him at all since she first averted her gaze. "They didn't even remember it was today." Her voice had a certain quality to it that he had only heard a few times before, enough to count on one hand. Her pitch rose as her expression fell, an overarching strain just barely audible in her words. Even without the audio cues, all that was needed was a singular glance to see the heartbroken look on her face, as if she could burst into tears at any given moment. "As far as they knew, today was just like all the rest of them."
The internal war between sorrow and agitation that raged inside of Rui came to an abrupt end, waves of heartache putting out irritation's embers with ease. With a countenance that mirrored his internal state, Rui's face contorted into a frown. "What did they say when you reminded them?" he asked.
"I didn't," she answered curtly. "I couldn't bring myself to tell them. So I left them alone and went to Onee-chan's room instead." Her voice lifted toward the end, intonation indicating that perhaps the story would take a turn for the better. Rui didn't hold his breath, however. "But then, when I was in there, I took a look at the big calendar on her wall that she always updates, and I saw that today's date was empty." Surely enough, her tone fell flat once more, words trembling and unsteady. "She didn't remember either."
Yellow eyes flickered down upon sensing movement in their peripheral, watching the way Emu's fingers scraped against the stage as she curled them into a fist. Rui reached his hand out, but was unable to meet hers before she pulled it away, hopping off the stage in the process.
"I don't get how they could forget… He was their grandpa too, so why don't they care?" She paced back and forth, weaving in between the benches despite not even looking where she was walking. Instead, pink eyes were fixated on the sky, blinking frequently; a sad attempt at holding back tears now threatening to spill. "It feels like everyone stopped loving him after he died, and the thought makes me feel…" Her pacing came to a sudden stop, much unlike the gradual decrescendo of her voice. Her eyes remained wide, yet no longer were they blinking. After the silence had some time to linger in the air, Emu finally lowered her head. "…sad. Like an "I could really use a hug right now" kind of sad, except I can't even get a hug, because the one person in my family who'd always hug me whenever I felt sad was Grandpa. Now he's gone, Mom and Dad aren't the huggy type, and I don't feel like I can go to my siblings. It feels like I don't have anyone at all."
In the midst of her ranting, Rui followed suit, getting up from his seat to approach Emu with caution. As badly as he wanted to get closer to her, he couldn't bring himself to take another step forward, resigning himself to watching as she slowly unraveled from over an arm's length away.
"It's silly, I know. Especially when I have so many people in my life. I mean, I have a really big family, I have so many classmates and friends from school, and now I have you and Nene-chan and Tsukasa-kun, and everybody in SEKAI. I don't think there's been a day of my life where I've been on my own, and for that, I'm truly grateful. But… even though I'm never alone, sometimes, I can't help but feel so lonely."
Rui could feel her words scraping at his heart and chipping the surface. The familiar sinking feeling that came with the heaviness of loneliness came rushing back to him in an instant. Upon learning that Emu, the most cheerful person he had the pleasure of knowing, had felt the same despondency that he once felt, he felt as if his heart might finally crack under the pressure and shatter into a million pieces. "Emu-kun…" he swallowed harshly, throat suddenly and almost painfully dry.
"And when I get lonely, I don't know what to do. I don't know how to stop feeling this way, how to fix it. I mean— what am I supposed to do now, when I can't go to the only people in my life who could possibly understand how I'm feeling?" Her hands clutched desperately at the sides of her arms as she hugged herself, compensating for all of the people in her life who had failed to do it for her. Judging by the look on her face, it didn't seem to bring her any comfort. "When even they don't understand me?"
Her pink eyes stared directly into him, as if she were looking to him in hopes he had an answer for her woes. Although Rui knew a lot of things, this was unfortunately an area he had no expertise in. When words failed him, he decided to take the next best course of action. His body whirred to life like a machine with the switch triggered, his feet pressing into the ground and propelling him forward. His arms wrapped around Emu in a firm embrace, pulling her impossibly close against him. "Then you find someone who can," he finally answered, fingers curling against her shoulders as he clung to her desperately.
For a moment, Rui could feel Emu tense up against him. "Rui-kun…" she mumbled, uncertainty muffled against the fabric of his shirt.
"I haven't experienced loss like you have, so I might not be able to understand you exactly in the way you need," he admitted in earnest, still holding onto her. "Even then, I want to try. Will you let me be that person for you, Emu-kun?"
As he uttered her name, he could feel the way her entire body finally eased up. She didn't give him a verbal answer, but the nodding against his chest told him everything he needed to know.
The feelings Emu had spent the entire day stifling had finally started to crumple. The floodgates, both metaphorical and literal, burst open, as she allowed her feelings to wash over her while her tears were finally free to spill from her eyes. She bunched up his shirt in her fists as she wailed against it, gripping him tight enough to make her hands tremble. "I'm—" she choked out in between sobs, "—I'm scared, Rui-kun. I'm so scared that everyone will forget him. I don't want to be the only one who remembers Grandpa," she whimpered.
Rui sucked in a sharp inhale, clenching his jaw as he stifled tears of his own. "He won't be forgotten." Rui assured through gritted teeth. "We'll put on more shows, turn his stage— turn his entire theme park— into a place where everyone can smile. And when they leave the park smiling, his memory will live on through them. We'll make sure his memory will live on, together."
The tremor in Emu's hand had amplified; now, her entire body was quivering as she continued to weep into his embrace. Rui didn't say anything more, one of his hands now resting on top of her head. His grip never wavered, still clinging onto her for dear life, as if he'd press her closer to him if he were physically able to.
Save for the sounds of Emu's cries out in the open, the two of them embraced in silence, gently swaying side to side as Emu slowly calmed down. By the time she had stopped wailing at full force, the sun had nearly disappeared from the sky. "I'm sorry…" she mumbled against him, voice sounding weak and defeated. "This entire time I've been moping about how I had nobody, while you were right here for me all along."
"Hey, hey," Rui's grip eased up as he very gently pulled her away, just enough to look her in the eyes. "You don't have to apologize for that," he shook his head, "I know you didn't mean it like that."
Emu still looked a little downtrodden, guilt evident in the crease of her brow as she glanced down. When she averted her gaze, however, she suddenly perked up slightly. "Oh, no," she frowned, "your shirt… I'm so sorry!"
Rui glanced down at his shirt. Smeared across his chest were all sorts of colors that definitely weren't on his shirt before, beige and black and pink, accompanied with a rather giant wet stain. "Oh, this? Don't worry about it. It's nothing a little time in the washing machine can't fix." He offered her a smile. "In fact, I think it needs a little more color." Tugging his sleeve over his hand, he turned his shirt into an impromptu handkerchief as he carefully wiped away the remnants of tears still on her face. Her cries of protest fell upon deaf ears, with Rui only stopping after he had wiped her face completely clean. "There," he mused, "Now I have an excuse to use Lion Dance Robot's high pressure washing function to wash my clothes."
The thought of Lion Dance Robot absolutely drenching Rui's stained shirt in water was enough to make Emu chuckle softly. "I know I say this a lot, but you really are an amazing director, Rui-kun. Even when you're not putting on shows, you still always know just what to do to make me smile." True to her word, for the first time today, a genuine smile graced her features, one that came from the depths of her heart, directed entirely at Rui. "Truly, thank you, Rui-kun."
Even with puffy, red cheeks and smudged eyeliner and tear streaks on her cheeks, Emu's smile was still as radiant as ever. Finally seeing her smile after all this time made Rui's heart swell inside his chest. Letting out a breath he didn't know he was holding, he found himself smiling as well. He wasn't trying to make her smile as her director, but as a friend. He couldn't bring himself to correct her, merely humming in agreement. "I'll be there for you whenever you need me, Emu-kun. So please, don't feel like you have to keep these feelings to yourself."
Emu nodded, smile still plastered to her face even as she finally pulled herself away from him, albeit reluctantly. "We should probably get going soon…" her voice trailed off as she glanced at the sky that was getting darker with each passing second.
Given how the sun had completely set by now, she was right that it was probably time to get going. Yet, Rui couldn't bring himself to part from her side just yet. "Let me walk you home," he offered. He watched as she hesitated. "I want to," he quickly appended before Emu had the chance to insist him that he didn't have to.
The pink haired girl relented rather easily, considering she also wanted to walk home with him. "In that case… could we take a detour?" she asked as she grabbed her bag from where she left it earlier. "I know it's getting late, but…" her tone shifted, a new hint of hopefulness laced between her words. "…There's someone I want you to meet."
For a brief moment, Rui's brow raised in surprise. Very quickly did he realize what Emu was implying, his smile only growing further. "It would be an honor to come along with you, Emu-kun," he reached out his hand for her to hold. "Please, lead the way."