FANFIC: Don't dream it's over.
16 June 2023 06:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cyanoscarletWord count: 786
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“Over here, Risetsu.” It takes a while for Hanrin to realize she’s being called; she still isn’t used to all the noise, nor to her Hourai name. At least it’s become easier over time to breathe amid the heavy pollution, now reduced to a somewhat tolerable inconvenience after the first two weeks. She still keeps her face mask on though, more out of habit than anything.
She carefully zips up the back of Tsuki’s costume, lighty placing a hand over the girl’s trembling shoulders. “You look great, dear.” Hanrin nods when Tsuki beams at her, adding a gentle squeeze for reassurance before making her way across the room to her master.
Ranjou is busy reapplying Hoshi’s lipstick for the umpteenth time that morning while admonishing her not to bite on it to calm her nerves. He motions Hanrin to sit beside him, meeting her concerned look with an encouraging smile. All in a day’s work, he all but says to her. It’s become his personal mantra of sorts over years of hard work, even as more people left the team and his responsibilities increased tenfold.
“Anything to survive, huh,” Hanrin ponders to herself later, while watching the girls record their fifth take of the song. Apparently two whole weeks without sleep is nothing for those in show business, as well as for everyone else working with them. It doesn’t even take being a kirin to abhor how people could even live this kind of life— not that she ever says it out loud, of course. Not until they return to Han, anyway.
Amidst the backstage hubbub, she doesn’t immediately notice Ranjou taking a seat beside her. “Everything okay?”
“So far, so good.” Hanrin accepts the tea her master proffers, keeping the warm bottle close to her chest as she continues to observe the performance. “Say, Your Majesty,” and her voice carries an uncertain quiver, “are some dreams really worth risking one’s life over?”
“... That’s a hard one.” Ranjou purses his lips in thought, seriously considering the question. He’d already given up shushing her whenever she addressed him reverently— finally, she’d harrumphed, as you so deserve— and Hanrin secretly hopes it also means he’ll eventually, finally, come back with her to Han, where they belong. She hasn’t meant to indirectly follow up on it so soon, but apparently he sees through it anyway.
The music slowly fades into silence, giving way once more to directions from the filming crew. The shoot is probably ending soon, then they’ll change studios for the interview segment. Hanrin rubs her temples to ease the ringing in her ears; how everyone else seems to carry on unbothered is beyond her.
Ranjou stands up before she does, fishing out from his pocket a small picture of Tsuki and Hoshi, when they still looked more their actual age than they do now. “They said MoonStar would never last the year,” he reminisces. “They said the same thing about everyone, really. Realists, all of them.”
He was one, too, the day Hanrin appeared before him, his eyes almost devoid of light after years of witnessing failure and hurt in this suffocating place. But she realized that a dying ember can still become a fire, so she decided not to prostrate herself before him yet, no matter how much her heart yearned for it. In hindsight, being Risetsu for the past month has probably been the best thing to happen to her yet, if only because she has had her master all to herself before giving him up to Han once and for all.
“Well, they’ve certainly come far,” and she is beaming with the same pride Ranjou feels in his heart now, as loud applause fills the studio to wrap up the shoot. “Seeing it all up close was more than worth it, I guess.” Worth all the exhaustion, she doesn’t say to him. Or the noise, or the breathlessness and the heavy pollution, among many other things that made Hourai a terrible world to be in. And Hanrin fondly keeps this past tense and more close to her heart, because her master, whom she loves above all else, is worth everything.
Ranjou chuckles quietly in agreement, gently patting her shoulder and giving it an affectionate squeeze. He’d learned early on that her forehead was off-limits, though the exact reason for that hasn’t stuck with him yet, the same way the whole idea of their birth place in the other world still hasn’t. It’s probably not long now, Hanrin presumes, before everything falls into place, but she found that she no longer cared as much. Because either way, she’ll continue to stay by his side for however long he may need, and forever after that.
