The dressing room smells faintly of hairspray, coffee, and heated stage equipment.
Twenty-six years together and somehow this part never changes.
Staff moves in practiced currents around them. Someone is arguing about costume adjustments near the mirrors. Jesse loudly insists he looked better in the anniversary jacket than everyone else combined. Shin tells him to shut up without any real heat behind it.
On the floor between the couch and the low table, Juri is asleep.
Again.
Half-curled on his side with one arm folded beneath his head, phone still loose in his hand like he’s lost the fight against exhaustion mid-scroll.
Jesse steps over him dramatically.
“If I trip and die before the live, I’m haunting all of you.”
“You’d haunt us even alive,” Shin shoots back immediately.
“True,” Hokuto mutters without looking up from the lyric sheets in his lap.
The room laughs softly around the edges.
Routine.
Warmth.
Twenty-six years of knowing exactly how to move around each other.
Taiga looks over only after the laughter fades.
Juri hasn’t moved at all.
Not unusual, technically. Juri could sleep through almost anything once exhaustion finally caught him hard enough. Dressing room floors, rehearsal studio couches, the backseat of moving vans. Somewhere over the years, everyone had simply adapted around it.
Still.
Taiga crosses the room quietly.
Up close, Juri looks colder than the room should’ve allowed. Even asleep, there is something tense in the line between his brows, like his body had forgotten how to rest properly.
His phone screen dims slowly in his hand.
Taiga crouches beside him carefully and touches the back of his fingers lightly.
Cold.
His expression tightens for half a second before smoothing back into something unreadable.
“Hey,” Jesse calls from across the room. “Is he alive?”
“Unfortunately,” Taiga answers automatically.
A few weak protests fly across the room.
Juri sleeps through all of them.
Taiga reaches for the spare blanket folded over the couch without thinking about it. Years of habit move easier than thought does now.
He drapes it carefully over Juri’s shoulders, adjusting the edge so it wouldn’t slip off immediately.
Juri stirs faintly at the movement but doesn't wake.
For one quiet second, Taiga’s hand lingers near the side of his face.
Then the staff calls a five-minute warning from outside the room.
The moment breaks apart instantly.
“Come on,” Hokuto says, standing. “Places.”
The room shifts back into motion around them.
Only Juri stays still beneath the blanket while the anniversary lights wait somewhere beyond the walls.
The apartment is quiet in the way only grief can make it. Not peaceful. Not restful.
Just emptied out.
Juri sits on the floor with Taiga’s pinstripe suit folded carefully beside him, dry-cleaning plastic half-peeled away and abandoned. The television glows soundlessly across the room, frozen on paused concert footage.
Taiga mid-laugh. Head tilted back. Alive.
Juri hasn’t moved for almost an hour.
His phone vibrates somewhere nearby. Probably Yugo again.
Eat first. Answer me. At least send a sticker.
He doesn’t pick it up.
Instead, he reaches for the remote and presses play.
Music floods the apartment immediately. Too loud. Too bright.
Six voices. Then five.
No—still six here.
The footage moves normally. Taiga steps across the stage, effortless and radiant beneath the lights, smiling at something Jesse says off-mic. The audience screams.
Juri watches himself in the recording laugh back.
The disconnect is unbearable.
Because that version of him still exists somewhere inside the screen: breathing, moving, expecting tomorrow.
His chest tightens.
At first he ignores it. He’s exhausted. That’s all.
Too much caffeine. Too little sleep. Too many days pretending functionality means recovery.
Onscreen, Taiga glances sideways during harmonies, eyes briefly finding Juri’s.
The familiar instinctive alignment of years.
And suddenly Juri remembers—backstage afterward, Taiga sitting down too carefully, that small tired smile.
“Good show, right?”
Something inside him caves inward.
His breathing goes uneven.
Juri bends forward slowly, forearm braced against his knee as if pressure alone can hold his body together. The apartment blurs at the edges.
The music keeps going.
Of course it does.
The final chorus begins onscreen.
Taiga is smiling.
Juri’s hand shakes violently when he reaches for the table beside him, fumbling for the medication bottle already lying there unopened.
Empty.
Right.
He forgot. Or maybe he didn’t.
His vision pulses white.
For one awful second, the thought slips through him—not panicked, not even sad anymore.
Just tired.
Ah. So this is how it happens.
No audience. No stage lights. No final words.
Just him alone on the floor while the last concert continues playing to nobody.
A laugh catches from the television speakers—Taiga again—and Juri breaks.
Not loudly.
Just a single wrecked sound dragged out of him like something torn open.
“Taiga…”
The room tilts violently.
His shoulder hits the couch on the way down. Then the floor.
The concert footage keeps moving above him in flickering light.
Taiga dances across the screen untouched by gravity, untouched by death, forever midway through a song he already finished.
Juri stares upward, breathing shallow and uneven.
His phone vibrates again. Yugo.
Juri lets it ring.
For a terrible moment, he genuinely considers not reaching for it at all.
The phone vibrates again against the floorboards. Persistent. Steady.
Juri stares at it through blurred vision.
The screen lights up briefly with another message preview.
where are you
A weak laugh almost escapes him.
Not because it’s funny.
Because of course Yugo phrases concern like that. No dramatics. Just: where are you
As if Juri is merely late returning somewhere he still belongs.
His fingers twitch uselessly against the floor.
The concert footage shifts into MC now. Jesse is talking too loudly. Shintaro is laughing in the background. Hokuto is pretending not to laugh and failing.
Taiga is there.
Alive enough to interrupt people. Alive enough to grin sideways at Juri like he has all the time in the world.
The pressure in Juri’s chest worsens.
He closes his eyes.
And underneath all the exhaustion, all the grief, all the terrifying relief of maybe finally stopping—another memory surfaces.
Not Taiga collapsing. Something smaller.
Yugo standing in a convenience store weeks earlier holding two canned coffees and frowning.
“You keep disappearing.”
Juri had laughed it off.
Yugo didn’t.
“I’m serious.”
At the time, Juri thought: He means emotionally.
Now, lying half-curled on the floor with numb fingers and fading strength, he realizes: Yugo had been noticing for much longer than anyone else.
The phone vibrates again.
Then stops.
Silence.
For one awful second, disappointment hits him. Because if Yugo stops calling—if nobody comes—then Juri can just stay here.
Quietly.
No more carrying. No more surviving out of obligation. No more waking up into a world where Taiga does not exist.
The thought terrifies him. Because part of him wants it.
His throat tightens violently.
“Fuck…” he whispers, voice breaking.
And suddenly, horribly, he remembers Taiga laughing while writing funeral instructions.
“You are not allowed to make yourself disappear with me.”
Juri had rolled his eyes reading it. Called him dramatic even through tears.
Now the words feel less like a joke and more like a hand around his wrist refusing to let go.
The apartment swims dimly around him, edges dissolving in and out of focus while the concert footage continues flickering against the ceiling.
The phone lights up again. For a second, Juri just stares at the screen.
Incoming call: Yugo.
Juri stares at it some more.
Then, shaking badly enough to nearly drop the device, he reaches.
His fingers don’t feel connected to him anymore.
But he presses accept.
“…hello?”
Nothing comes out. Not properly.
His throat works uselessly around air that won’t shape into sound.
On the other end, Yugo speaks immediately.
“Juri?”
The concern in his voice is automatic at first. Still expecting an answer.
Juri tries again.
A weak rasp escapes him—broken, barely audible.
Yugo goes silent instantly. Listening.
“Juri.”
He sounds different now. Sharp.
Juri squeezes his eyes shut, fighting to stay conscious long enough to explain, but words feel impossibly far away. His chest hurts. Even breathing requires concentration he no longer has.
Somewhere in the background, Taiga’s recorded laughter spills from the television.
Yugo hears it too. “…are you home?”
Juri manages the smallest sound. Maybe agreement. Maybe just breath.
“Unlock your door.”
The command comes fast now.
No panic yet. Just terrifying focus.
Juri tries to push himself upright using the couch, body trembling violently with the effort. The room tilts so hard he nearly blacks out immediately.
The lock.
Right.
He still has to—
His knees buckle halfway there.
The phone crashes against the floor beside him.
“Juri?”
Distantly, through rushing static in his ears, he hears Yugo’s voice becoming louder.
“Juri!”
Juri opens his mouth again, desperate suddenly—not because he’s afraid of dying, but because Yugo sounds afraid.
And after Taiga—after all of this—Juri cannot bear becoming another voice people scream for helplessly.
But all that comes out is a tiny wrecked inhale.
The last thing he hears before the world drops out beneath him is Yugo swearing violently on the other end of the line.
...
The apartment door unlocks on the third try.
Yugo nearly drops the spare key in the process.
“Juri?”
No answer.
The television light flickers weakly across the dark apartment, blue-white against half-packed funeral flowers and garment bags abandoned near the couch.
Concert audio spills softly through the room.
Six voices. Warm. Alive.
Yugo’s stomach drops instantly.
“Juri?”
Still nothing.
Then he sees him.
Collapsed halfway between the couch and the low table, one arm curled awkwardly beneath him like he simply ran out of strength mid-motion. The phone lies nearby, screen dark now. An open medication bottle rests on its side beside scattered pills that never made it into shaking hands.
For one horrible second, Yugo cannot move.
Because the scene looks wrong in the exact same way backstage looked wrong after the concert.
Not dramatic. Not violent. Too still. The terrifying absence of movement where there should be some.
The television screen shifts.
Taiga laughs brightly into a microphone.
Yugo’s chest caves inward.
“Juri.”
This time his voice breaks.
He crosses the room so quickly he nearly slips on discarded fabric, dropping hard to his knees beside him. Juri’s skin is cold with sweat when Yugo grabs his shoulder.
“Hey.”
No response.
Yugo shakes him harder, panic climbing fast now, ugly and breathless.
“Juri.”
A weak sound escapes him at last—not even words, just a rough exhale.
Relief hits so violently Yugo almost feels sick.
“Fuck.”
Juri’s eyelids flutter slowly, unfocused. “…Yugo?”
The television continues playing behind them.
Onscreen, Taiga spins laughing into Shin’s shoulder while Jesse yells something incomprehensible to the audience.
Alive.
Yugo abruptly reaches for the remote and kills the screen.
Silence crashes into the room.
Juri flinches weakly at the sudden darkness.
And somehow that tiny reaction frightens Yugo more than anything else.
Because it feels less like interrupting someone resting and more like pulling someone back from very far away.
His hands shake while checking Juri over instinctively despite not knowing exactly what he’s searching for.
Too pale. Breathing uneven. Barely responsive.
And beneath all of it—exhaustion so deep it no longer looks survivable.
Yugo’s throat tightens painfully.
“How long have you been like this?”
Juri gives the faintest shrug against the floorboards.
“Dunno.”
The answer is slurred.
Wrong.
Yugo looks around properly for the first time then: the untouched food containers, the funeral paperwork, Taiga’s carefully folded pinstripe suit laid out beside the couch like something sacred.
Understanding arrives all at once.
This is not grief alone.
Yugo feels something terrified and furious rise in his chest.
“Why didn’t you call someone?”
Juri’s eyes drift shut again.
A tiny exhausted laugh escapes him.
“…busy.”
The laugh barely leaves Juri’s mouth before it fractures apart.
Not even into pain. Just absence.
His head slips sideways against the floorboards.
“Juri?”
No response.
The change is immediate and terrifying.
One second there’s still somebody barely holding on behind unfocused eyes—the next, nothing coherent remains.
“Juri.”
Yugo grabs his face carefully, panic surging hard enough to make his own hands clumsy now.
“Hey. Hey—look at me.”
Juri’s lashes flutter once, weakly, then still.
The silence in the apartment becomes unbearable. Because Yugo has already lived through this once.
Already watched someone fade while everyone desperately tried to pretend there was still time.
“Don’t do this,” Yugo whispers immediately, voice cracking. “Not you too.”
His hand shakes badly while fumbling for his phone.
Emergency call. Address. Words stumbling over each other.
He can barely hear the operator properly over the roaring in his ears.
All the while Juri lies frighteningly limp against him, breathing shallow enough that Yugo keeps checking just to make sure it’s still there.
Weak. Thready.
Relief and terror crash together violently enough to make him dizzy.
“Come on,” he whispers. “Come on…”
Juri stirs faintly. Just drifting somewhere near the surface for half a second.
His lips move weakly.
Yugo leans down immediately, desperate for anything coherent.
And softly—so softly Yugo almost thinks he imagined it—Juri whispers:
“Sorry. I couldn’t make it very far either.”
Yugo freezes.
Everything stops for one microscopic terrible second.
"Don't say that."
The words leave Yugo immediately. Sharp. Fierce.
Like if he says them fast enough, hard enough, reality might listen.
Juri's eyes drift half-open again.
Unfocused. Tired.
So tired.
Yugo hates it.
Hates the apartment. Hates the flowers. Hates the suit folded beside the couch.
Hates the fact that Juri is apologizing. As though any part of this is his fault.
"No," Yugo says again.
His hand tightens around Juri's shoulder.
"Don't."
A weak laugh catches somewhere in Juri's chest.
Not amusement.
Just exhaustion.
"Sorry."
The word barely forms.
Yugo almost swears.
Instead he reaches up and pushes damp hair back from Juri's forehead with shaking fingers.
An old gesture.
One he's used after fevers, after injuries, after too many nights when one of them stayed awake longer than they should have.
This shouldn't feel familiar.
Nothing about this should.
Yet somehow it does.
Because twenty-six years teaches people how to care for each other.
Even when they don't know what they're doing.
"Look at me."
Juri tries.
For a second, he succeeds.
Dark eyes finding his.
Present.
Still here.
Relief hits so hard Yugo almost chokes on it.
"There you go."
The encouragement slips out automatically.
Like he's talking someone through standing up after a bad fall.
Like this is temporary.
Like there will still be tomorrow.
Juri blinks slowly.
His mouth twitches. Almost a smile.
Then his eyes start drifting shut again.
Panic surges immediately.
"Hey."
Yugo leans closer.
"Stay with me."
The plea escapes before he can stop it.
Raw.
Unprotected.
"Please."
For one brief second, Juri's attention catches again.
Just enough.
Just long enough.
And quietly, with all the exhaustion in the world weighing down every syllable, he says:
"I am."
For a second, Yugo believes him.
The rehearsal ends without ending.
People are still moving.
Staff are still talking.
Someone is discussing camera positions near the stage. Someone else is making notes about lighting cues that may never be used.
The anniversary banner still hangs overhead.
Twenty-six years. Taiga stares at it without really seeing it.
Everything hurts. The deep, grinding ache of a body that has been running on borrowed time for far too long.
Somewhere nearby, Jesse is arguing with a staff member about something completely unimportant.
Shintaro laughs.
The sound catches unexpectedly in Taiga's chest.
For a second, he almost turns around to look for Juri.
Habit.
The realization hits a moment later. Juri isn't here.
…
“Can somebody get Juri?”
For a moment, nobody answers.
People are still moving around the stage. Staff are discussing schedules. Someone is collecting abandoned water bottles near the monitors.
Then Yugo sighs.
"I'll get him."
The response comes automatically.
Twenty-six years of habit.
…
Someone says it quietly behind him.
"He would've liked this setup."
A pause. Another voice answers.
"We'll show him later."
Taiga closes his eyes.
Later.
Right.
…
Someone laughs behind Yugo.
"Good luck."
"Tell him rehearsal's over."
"Tell him we're leaving him behind."
A few scattered chuckles follow.
Yugo rolls his eyes.
"Like that'll work."
…
"Let him rest."
The words land strangely.
Taiga lowers himself onto the edge of the stage because standing suddenly feels more difficult than it should.
…
The hallway outside the rehearsal room is quieter.
The further Yugo walks, the more the noise fades behind him.
Juri is probably still asleep.
Again.
…
His headache has been getting worse for hours.
The lights overhead blur.
The conversations around him smear together into meaningless noise.
For a while he just sits there listening to the space breathe around him.
Then he looks up. And freezes.
Someone is standing near the far end of the stage.
White suit. Hands in his pockets.
Watching.
Juri.
For a second, the sight makes no sense. Not because he's there.
Because of what he's wearing.
Taiga squints.
"...what are you doing?" The words come out rough.
The distance between them feels oddly difficult to judge.
Juri doesn't answer.
Just smiles.
Small. Familiar. The kind of smile that usually means he's about to say something annoying.
Relief hits before confusion can.
There you are.
The thought arrives automatically, as natural as breathing.
Taiga starts to push himself upright.
Pain shoots through him immediately.
His vision flickers.
The stage tilts alarmingly.
He drops back onto the edge before he can fully stand.
Somebody nearby says his name.
Another asks if he's okay.
Taiga barely hears them.
Because Juri is still there.
Not speaking.
Not moving.
Just watching.
Waiting.
The white suit still looks wrong. The smile doesn't.
Then Juri lifts one hand.
Tiny motion.
Two fingers curling inward.
Koi, koi. Come here.
The gesture is so familiar it hurts.
Twenty-six years of shared instinct compressed into one movement.
Taiga laughs weakly despite himself.
"...seriously?"
His voice barely works.
Juri's smile widens. Just slightly.
…
The dressing room door swings shut behind Yugo.
The room is quiet now.
Too quiet.
Most of the others have already gone back toward the stage.
The blanket still covers the shape curled on the floor.
For a second, relief comes automatically.
Still sleeping.
Of course.
"Oi."
No response.
Yugo crosses the room.
…
The headache worsens.
Something warm slides down the back of Taiga's neck.
The lights above him blur into stars.
People are definitely talking now.
Louder.
Closer.
Someone is kneeling beside him. Someone is calling his name.
Taiga doesn't look away. Because Juri is still there.
Waiting.
Patient.
Like he has nowhere else to be.
The gesture never changes.
Koi, koi. Come here.
…
"Juri."
Yugo crouches.
The blanket slips slightly as he reaches down.
Nothing.
Not even the usual irritated twitch.
Yugo frowns.
"Hey."
Still nothing.
Something cold settles uneasily in his stomach.
…
For one strange moment, Taiga feels a flicker of irritation. Because Juri could walk over himself.
Lazy bastard.
The thought makes him smile.
…
Yugo reaches for Juri's shoulder.
Cold.
Not freezing.
Not impossible.
Just wrong.
Too wrong.
The smile falls from his face immediately.
"Juri?"
This time the name comes out sharper.
…
Someone kneels beside Taiga.
A hand settles against his arm.
Another voice asks if he's okay.
The words blur together before reaching him.
The stage lights smear into gold and white.
Juri remains perfectly clear.
…
"Juri."
Yugo shakes him harder.
Nothing.
The phone is still trapped loosely in his hand.
The screen is dark.
The position unchanged.
A terrible feeling opens inside Yugo's chest.
No.
No.
Not this.
Not—
"Juri."
…
The gesture never changes.
Koi, koi. Come here.
The smile remains.
Patient.
Waiting.
As though he already knows Taiga will follow eventually.
…
Yugo grabs both shoulders now.
Panic arrives all at once. Ugly. Immediate. Real.
"Juri."
No sleepy complaint.
No swearing.
No, Five more minutes.
Nothing.
The room suddenly feels much too large.
Much too empty.
"Juri!"
…
Then everything slips.
The lights.
The voices.
The stage.
The pain.
All of it falling away together.
And suddenly—standing feels easy.
No dizziness.
No weight.
No ache buried deep inside his bones.
Just movement.
…
Outside the dressing room, people are beginning to run.
Inside it, Yugo still hasn't let go.
"Stay with me."
His voice breaks.
"Hey."
Another shake. Another desperate attempt to pull him back.
"Juri."
But somewhere else entirely, someone is already waiting.
…
Taiga blinks.
The rehearsal hall is gone.
Or maybe very far away now.
Someone is standing in front of him.
White suit. Small smile. Hands in his pockets.
Closer this time. Close enough to touch.
Taiga stares.
The wrongness finally settles into place.
Not frightening.
Just impossible.
"...oh."
Juri's expression crumples immediately. Like he'd been waiting for that realization.
For a moment neither of them speak.
Then Taiga says, "You look awful."
"You don't look great either," Juri shoots back.
Then he looks down. Laughs once. Small and embarrassed.
And says quietly:
"Sorry. I couldn't make it very far either."
Taiga’s throat tightens.
Juri keeps looking at the floor.
Silence.
Then Taiga lets out a broken laugh.
Shakes his head.
Idiot. Absolute idiot.
His eyes burn.
"...you couldn't make it very far either, huh?"
Juri laughs.
Taiga laughs too.
Silence settles between them. Warm.
Neither lets go.