VIVIDWords | AkiToya (Project Sekai)

The Idol I Once Saw {14}

     When was the last time he practiced?

     The words echoed throughout his mind, the only audible thing within the internal static. He didn't want to answer it, let alone think about it. It wasn't as if he has given up on his dreams, that couldn't be the reason as to why he had no answer.

     Right?

     Sure, it had been weeks since he had picked up a microphone or had attempted to project his voice in any sort of style, but that wasn't something he could be ashamed of himself for. After all, he was working on a new song. It wasn't his fault that he put his time and motivation into it.

     A song he needed help with.

     He couldn't claim he put everything into it.

     "Akito?" An almost unfamiliar, unintelligible voice called out, yet all it sounded like was a gurgle of nothingness.

     He could feel himself trembling, shaking, something that, unlike the voice, had become familiar. He felt both too heavy and light, as if he could sink beneath the ground, yet get carried away by a single breeze simultaneously.

     He felt pathetic.

     He should've never tried to go down that path, he decided, he should have given up before he met Toya, before he had lost the chance to find a new hobby, a new passion. He couldn't stick to a single thing, abandoning things even when nothing had happened, he was weak. He was so god awfully weak.

     Weak, weak, weak.

     His fingers twitched every few moments, tears beginning to well up in his eyes. He didn't understand, why couldn't he just be like how he was at sixteen?

     Why had he peaked at sixteen?

     He had a job. He had his duties, to perform in some live event that he couldn't just quit on. Or he could attend a festival. Make a name for himself.

     Neither his reputation or faltering pride could risk giving up on either event, yet both sounded so unappealing, dragging his body down.

     He was useless, at this point.

     He had peaked at sixteen.

     At the ripe age of fucking sixteen.
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     "Akito?" An froze, her pent-up feelings doing the same, gaze fixated on the ginger. She could recognize the blank expression on his face, one she had had to console years prior. Fear was all that was plastered on his face, the raw core of years of something she had never known about.

     That single emotion, an alternative to the typical disappointment or anger that had appeared before, forced any reasonable actions to come to a sharp pause.

     "Akito, can you hear me?" She forced out, voice melting into a softness that had only appeared once or twice before, a foreign edge to it. Earning no response, her brows furrowed.

     What was she supposed to do?

     In the same way he had no right to waltz back into both her and Toya's lives - in the way that thought shouldn't have intruded back into her mind now - she didn't have the right to waltz back into his, not after attempting to yell at him.

     She would make it worse, she knew that.

     Toya.

     Fumbling with her phone, she pulled it out of her shallow pockets, desperately aiming for the right app.
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     Faintly, through the overbearing static that he had managed to identify as his own mind, he could hear shouting. Empty begs, swearing for something he couldn't hear what. He didn't want to know what.