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If we send it to Nami, he won't care about that though?

[ Leo is Assuming. He has no idea what else he'd do with a picture of Hiyori, minus keeping it in the same way anyone does photos of their friends. If he can take a good photo, though, it should go to the person who will like it most?

...it will take him way more than one try to get something good. Leo is not a photography genius. ]

So do a cute pose!

[Print it out, frame it, make hundreds of copies, build a shrine with them... Some of his fans probably do that stuff with his photos.]

Well, I guess that's true...

[It's not like he hasn't sent Jun plenty of pictures of him. They're just usually not sweaty ones! But this seems like it could be good for Leo's education, so...]

Fine, but hold on a moment!

[He gets off the couch and disappears into the main bedroom again. When he returns, he's holding a stuffed animal—not the white bear belonging to that child he posed with at home, but a stuffed toy won from the arcade machines at Chickadees!

He sits back down, hugging the stuffed animal to his chest. This kind of cute photo, with him wearing a cute sweater, called for a cute prop! And a cute smile, but that goes without saying.]

There, all set! ♪

[ Leo will not be making a shrine, Hiyori. What he WILL be doing is probably worse by Hiyori's standards? Because, well. He takes the first photo and doesn't focus it long enough, and he's too zoomed in on another, and so on and so forth...

After each one he goes "whoops" and then, like, sends the mistake to Jun in its own message.

By the time he gets a clear photograph and grins he has sent Jun like, seven cryptid level photographs of Hiyori weirdly framed and focused and getting somewhat better each time until his successful shot.

Then he sends that one, too! ]

I did it~!

[As an idol, Hiyori has no problem holding a pose for a long time. He's used to photographers wanting to take multiple shots, and he's always happy to let people bask in his beauty! Still, watching Leo fiddle with the watch haphazardly is... something. He continues to smile beautifully, despite the repeated "Whoops" not inspiring much confidence. But surely at least one of those photos will come out right. He's taking so many, after all.

Hiyori takes Leo's grin as a sign of success and sets the stuffed animal aside, scooching over so he can look at Leo's phone screen.]

I told you to wait for it to focus, didn't I?

[Still, seeing the final photo displayed on the screen and not any of the cryptids, he smiles again.]

But I guess it all worked out. Now we wait for Jun-kun to acknowledge how cute I am...♪

[He doesn't realize Leo sent all the mistakes, too...]

Looks like I'm a genius here, too~

[ Says the man who took eight tries to get one decent photograph...at least Jun will immediately understand the explanation for the cryptid photographs when he sees the sender, since Leo is often enough of an explanation for anything even slightly confusing. ]

Was the toy a present to you?

It's more that you kept mashing buttons until you succeeded, kind of like a child would do! But since my cute face and my cute pose were both captured, I have no complaints~♪

[Jun might have some complaints about the spam, though. He may very well be puzzling over the messages he received right now! But it's still him and Leo for the time being.]

Oh, that?

[He picks up the stuffed animal he just put aside and sets it on his lap.]

Sort of! Jun-kun won it for me at the arcade. And I won him something too, using my own skills! ♪

[He puffs up with pride.

And then says, more thoughtfully:]

That was shortly after we arrived. Those suit tattoos had just appeared, and we were feeling stressed out, so we went there as a pick-me-up.

[It was back before he and Jun were even dating. Back when the kidnapping was fresh, and he thought they'd be home soon. It's odd, reflecting on how things have changed since then, as well as how they haven't.

But he hates to focus on gloomy stuff, so after a moment he says:]

Speaking of pick-me-ups, let me show you something funny!

[Then he reaches for his phone.]

[ Arcade games are pretty fun. That far back then, something treasured, and Leo decides he wants to keep the photograph, too. He should get one of Nami at some point as well, because he's pretty sure he doesn't have anything of Rinne.

It never occurred to him to take any. ]

Funny? Is it gonna be some kind of picture you took? Or a weird toy? Or a song?

Close!

[He pulls up his camera roll, finds what he's looking for, and turns the screen to face Leo.]

It's Tsuum-Tsuum! ☆

[Specifically, it's a picture of Tsumugi covered in snow. There's even some on his glasses!]

Remember when we had that snowball fight? All that snow fell down from a tree and landed atop his head! He looked so silly afterwards! ♪

[Hiyori's face is full of cheer as he recounts this. Poor Mugi.]

Oba-chan! [ Leo beams, grabbing Hiyori's wrist to drag the phone closer before letting go once he's done. Whoa, he hasn't seen or heard this guy in way too long - though it's not like he's in danger of forgetting. ]

He always gives off a vibe just like he's had something like this happen, huh, even when it hasn't!

[Hiyori nods along to that assessment.]

Yes, yes he does! ♪ Luckily, his fans don't see him as someone misfortunate. They see him as a magician! But coming across that picture was so nostalgic...♪

[And so is every other picture in his camera roll. Tsumugi's wasn't the only face he hadn't seen in about a year. He proceeds to scroll back, the screen still tilted towards Leo, causing other pictures to appear in succession: pictures of him and Adonis and Leo all posing with that white teddy bear for the kid; then some pictures of Mary playing in the snow and dressed up for Christmas.]

Thanks to his hair, Tsumugi-kun always looks a bit like a poodle. But speaking of dogs, Mary also looked cute playing in the snow! ♪ Look, isn't she adorable?

[ It's easy to laugh and smile for an animal. Cute, pictures from home, and Leo's eyes flick over Adonis with his lips curled up, and he's all peaceful and calm until the exact second he isn't.

Hiyori's seen flashes and bits of Leo being serious before, usually over text or in a flippant way that comes and goes in a heartbeat. And then, further back, a time when he'd been serious almost all the time and killing himself with it - something Hiyori hasn't seen in years, but -

But there's suddenly that edge. The desperate, utterly determined one that had him throwing himself at fine - at Eichi - in the past until he'd broken on the stage set up to break him. Leo's all at once surging forward even though he'd already been the weirdly close he is when he's being friendly, moving on instinct more than rational thought. One hand on Hiyori's knee and one on his wrist and his expression is like he's never smiled in his life before and he's pale, not flushed, but Leo's never been so abruptly wanting before ever because he just realized: ]

Hiyori - [ Never done that before, either, but - ]

Pretty 5. Flavor - Getto Spectacle -

[ Normally he doesn't care about answers. Normally he likes to imagine silly things or serious ones and the things that are true matter so much less but Leo's fingers are gripping way too tight.

Hiyori's phone has pictures of things he likes and does in it. A phone from home. And while Leo can recognize people from it, while he'd vaguely wondered about other new songs it might hold, he didn't until just now think -

Naru. Two reasons there might be Naru. Maybe Rittsu at that tea circle. He knows Suo grew up in the same circles but doubts he's that lucky, and there's no fucking reason for Sena, but -

Naru and Rittsu. He wants to see them - he wantswantawants to see them. He hasn't seen them outside of his own head since he got here and Leo feels like he's gonna be sick and he feels like he's gonna fall apart, but - ]

[Anyone would smile after seeing Mary. It's impossible to do anything but smile, even as these photos fill Hiyori's heart with longing and trigger a worried pang. Where is Mary right now? In Ibara and Nagisa's care, or frozen in time somewhere? Will he ever see her again? These are questions he's pointedly trying hard not to think about. He wants to keep that pleasant mood up, for his sake but also for Leo's. Leo, after all, confided in him that his suit makes him more depressed.

He has plenty more photos of Mary to share. But while he's scrolling to another one, he feels that hand suddenly grab his knee, and his eyes dart up from his phone and his dog and then he sees Leo. Not smiling but looking wild-eyed. His own eyes widen and his brows shoot up.]

Huh—?

[He shifts underneath that hand, tensing beneath Leo's grip, but he doesn't shove him off, even though he's kind of scaring him. At first he doesn't get it—Leo's just saying the name of his circles and his shuffle unit. Are those requests? For photos? But then he thinks about it for a second—what those things have in common—and then he does get it, all too horribly well.

"I keep forgetting how lonely you must be," he'd typed earlier. It's not because he lacks empathy, for all that his words can be mean. It's because Leo always seems so carefree, like he's off on his own little planet.

Hiyori nods, his throat feeling tight, and announces:]

Right, Pretty 5 first!

[And then he starts scrolling fast, the pictures blurring together.

Getto Spectacle was recent and he would've come upon those photos first if he'd kept going back in order, but there are more Pretty 5 pictures. So many. They all love taking pictures of their clothes and accessories and fancy drinks. And of themselves, too, even when they're not dressed fancy. It doesn't take long at all before he finds one where they're all posed together. Him, Tori-kun, Mika-kun...

Arashi.]

See? Look!

[He thrusts the phone more towards Leo, not that he wasn't already close enough to see anyway.]

We took this one together completely on a whim! And then we added cat ears, because Arashi-chan told me about some app that lets you add stickers! Aren't we the cutest?

Edited 2024-12-23 03:42 (UTC)

[ When he'd left Yumenosaki back then, Leo had been able to see Knights on television or online whenever he really felt like it. Back then it had been something like repeatedly grinding his hand into an open wound, but he'd still done it sometimes anyway just because he couldn't help himself and Madara never made him stop. Here, that hasn't been an option and it wouldn't hurt in the same way it had then anyway.

This time around Leo didn't deliberately leave.

His grip loosens immediately and the hand on Hiyori's wrist lifts and it's like Leo wants to touch the phone screen but he doesn't quite do it. It has that open wound feeling to it, kind of, but in the way that makes him feel more settled.

It's not like he forgot her face. But he hasn't gotten to see it in ages, and Leo's attention is still singularly focused like it is when he's composing, but instead he's just memorizing, again, the face of one of his best friends. ]

...Mm, she sometimes would teach us about filters or stickers too. Well, me and Suo, anyway. [ Leo's always more annoyed with his phone than he isn't until he needs it - always losing it because he doesn't care - and Tsukasa is the kind of buttoned up to whom unbending to use cute apps is an Event. ] I used to use those alien stickers that she sent me a download link for, that you can use on messaging apps?

[ He'd spent a solid week sending nothing but stickers to his unitmates. ]

[He's already spent hours looking at Nagisa's face. And Mary's. And even Ibara's. Leo hasn't had that kind of time, and so Hiyori lets him look for as long as he needs.

It is a good thing. Being able to see the face of a loved one again, even if it hurts.]

Ah yes, those! It's a shame these watch things don't have that option. I've already gotten bored of using the same emojis. But you know, that app she showed me was pretty fun. You could even add text! For example, here~♪

[He pauses, then, not wanting to interrupt Leo's viewing time. But he's just moving to another picture that also has Arashi in it, so he goes ahead with it—it's something like this with the circle name written across it in cute pink font. And the five members are all looking cute, too, of course.

Then he adds, casually:]

She was the best at making circle meetings fun. Along with me, of course. The other three were always a bit soft-spoken, but she was good at bringing them out of their shell.

Hehe, do you think so?

( But he's kissed again before he can fish more praise out of him. Honestly, it's nice to hear if he's coming across as "smooth" or anything close to it. After all, he started in this place with no knowledge outside of terrible, raunchy smut novels... Maybe he ended up better than he could have, in that regard.

As much as he wants to push back, to to wrestle with it, he's far more interested in the moment in seeing where Leo takes this. So, he accepts the press back, shifting slowly, carefully, and reaching his arms to wrap around Leo as he tugs him along with, even moving one leg up to run along the side of the shorter man's leg in turn.

Another hum, this one pleased and muffled by the kiss, sounds out. It's kind of fun, just messing around like this, clumsily trying things out, seeing where it'll go. And he meant it, when he said they could do anything— and that's the thrill of it, too. He has no idea what to expect, yet.

But it won't stop him from moving on his own, either, the fingers of one hand lacing through Leo's hair once he's settled onto his back enough, fingernails trailing along the side of his scalp as he goes. )

[ Leo's pretty sure pictures from a phone from home can't be sent to a watch, but he wonders if Hiyori will take shitty small copies on the watch for him from it if he asks.

He ends up drawing his knees up, looping his arms around when he notices he'd gotten grabby about the pictures he's still watching. ]

Yeah, Naru was always kind of a moodmaker for us, too. Everyone else leans to kinda snappy, depending. [ Leo isn't exactly that - he's easygoing and even nicer than Naru is underneath it all, but Leo is also easily the most mercurial of all of them, swinging from brightly cheerful to throwing a temper tantrum to forgetting all about it within the space of five minutes. When he sets the mood it's a rollercoaster. ]

Well, everyone else has caused more problems overall, anyway, Suo aside. Well, he did kidnap Magi's kid that once?

[ #Knights, the unit of crime sometimes ]

[ Flirting or dirty talk or whatever - Leo probably isn't the best judge of it, honestly. He enjoys it when people are enjoying themselves and being themselves, and even the way people act when they're trying hard not to be themselves because sometimes that's more telling. He laughingly accepts things that sound more like death threats at times and he thinks they're probably charming - his sense of "normal" never has been, and while he actually can turn on a more normal sort of charm, it's just when he bothers to lean into the usual fanservice Knights gives. He does it sometimes on a whim, but when he's being entirely honest what's actually flirting for him is always going to be more musical than it isn't.

The other stuff isn't not real, but it's different.

A different hum, a different meaning. Leo would like to somehow make those sounds physical things with weight he could pick up and pin to the walls, and he actually knows how to do that. He can break any sound down onto paper if he really thinks about it, can create notation that doesn't exist if there's a need. His left pointer finger sketches out how it'd go on Esikko's thighs, notation that won't be understandable as anything other than something specific from the methodical pattern, because Esikko probably cannot actually read music through touch the way Leo is crazy enough to be able to.

...not that anyone is weird enough to write it, but if they were he could read it.

He forgets a lot of things - names, often times - but as long as he writes down music he'll remember it. It's why it's fine if he writes it on his own skin or someone else's to wash off, or on walls or the floor. As long as he's written it, it exists and he can recall it. So now he has that second hum down forever, and then he annotates the second in nothing more than the same pressure of a warm finger writing on cold skin, trailing up Esikko's thigh in distracted exploration.

He wants more sounds to memorize, so the next time he needs a breath Leo goes about seeking them out. Different kisses in different places should yield various results - everyone always seems to have different likes and dislikes and reactions, and while there's significant overlap in some areas there's not much at all in others. Figuring out what people don't like is less fun than the opposite, but being too worried about that gets nowhere.

Still, he usually is at least a little bit gentle as he figures out the boundaries. So when he nips under Esikko's jaw it's not enough to draw blood or anything, but more the first tuning of a piano. Like that? Less? He listens. ]

( If reactions and sounds are all Leo needs, then perhaps this is a good match after all. Esikko isn't shy about letting his reactions be known, openly and honestly— he only gasps when those kisses hit the right spot, that tender area along his neck, just beneath his jaw and close to his earlobes. The area around his ears seems sensitive in particular, in a nice way, a little less so near his collarbone. The true favorite spot is his navel, but no one's really figured that one out yet.

When something isn't going the exact way he wants, he pushes for it. Greedy hands pull Leo closer when he wants more, which is just what he does in response to that graze of teeth, as small as it is. He breathes out a little laugh, in the midst of it, eyes sparkling even while half-lidded, hips stretching up in an arch of his back that shows clearly that he wants more. He does try to keep his more embarrassing sounds lower, by habit, by embarrassment, he'll find soon enough... but it's just as ease to press a little further and tease them right out.

There doesn't seem to be anything that he doesn't like in this, at least not now, at least not in sight. And it's not that those things don't exist; it's that Leo is so far from them it doesn't matter.

He hooks his leg around the back of Leo's hips to draw him closer still, his face tilting up and to the side to allow for more of that attention, that adoration, content to be spoiled. )

[ He's good at playing chess. Leo is, he can actually casually beat down people who actually play chess except he obfuscates the wins because he thinks it'll just be a bad feeling to be a sole winner like that with the game ending. So when he sees checkmate he makes up stupid rules and messes around like a kid who doesn't know what he's doing, but when he's serious, he's good at chess. He can pick up musical instruments he's never touched and figure them out just by playing around with them. The quality that helps with those things, with similar things, is observation skills he pretends he doesn't have half of the time (neatly hidden behind his disinterest in anything that isn't his current focus and temperamental whimsy) and a sort of patience to try things from any angle until he gets the sound just right.

So he has fun doing this, learning how to make someone happy in a way that means open affection and physical touch. Sound and body language and anything people say are spread out like a composition he has to rearrange, and the fiddly work of shifting everything around to make something entirely new is always, always rewarding.

So, more pressure. He's allowed to bite down, and so he does and wonders briefly if blood from someone who uses blood magic tastes different or something? He still has no idea what's up with that and that means he can still make up a billion stories to himself to chase after and try to figure out. It's nice to have open feedback he can read, even if years of dealing with Sena have made it easier to figure out how to read feedback that's all between the lines of the stuff yelled openly.

A laugh in a lower key than his own, traced onto Esikko's hip this time because Leo thinks it's pretty and that's the fastest way for him to keep it in mind and he hasn't been scolded yet for tracing symbols like that.

Seems like right at the jaw is good but he figures out the nearer the ears faster and decides to suck a mark there to tease it out more. It's kind of a lazy speed to be doing things at, but if he goes breakneck Leo thinks he'll miss things that matters, and he doesn't want to do that.

He tries to find the right pitch against Esikko's skin, humming back the second happier note like that's a normal thing people do. The pitch is perfect. ]

[For continuity's sake, we'll say it's possible to transfer pictures from a smartphone to a smartwatch even if it's not instantaneous. Since getting his phone back, he's tried showing off Mary pictures over the Network! The rando he was showing them to really didn't care, though. Sharing these Pretty 5 pictures with Leo is definitely more worthwhile.

He blinks at the comment about Tsukasa, taking a moment to remember what that was about. The summer of the MDM seems so far away now.]

That just makes it sound like his seniors are a bad influence!

[He wasn't around for the Izumi kidnapping scandal, but given his social connections to some of the Knights members, we'll say he's heard about it through the grapevine.]

But I guess you're still a better influence than Eichi-kun...♪

[He goes quiet for a moment after that, looking down at the picture. Should he switch to another Pretty 5 pic? He's pretty sure he has a solo one of Arashi in there somewhere. But instead of doing either, he looks at Leo and says this:]

Want to go through the pictures yourself? I don't have anything I'm trying to hide in there.

[He is the ideal idol, after all.]

Hey, I'm not the bad influence for that part of things, though! [ Leo isn't a kidnapper. The high bar of Knights innocence, here, because more than one of them can't honestly make that claim....

But he will take the phone when offered. ]

Is there a way for me to get copies of them? [ He's never bothered to save anything but pictures of sheet music here so ]

[He answers affirmatively at once.]

Yep, that I can arrange! It took me a bit to figure out, but basically you just have to upload them to some cloud server thing. That still works apparently. Though I can't get any Internet connection on my phone, and I can't reach any of my contacts, either.

[Not that he expected to be able to. He figured there'd be no signal.]

But once I do that, I can send them over the watch just like a normal picture! Unless you were hoping for print copies. I haven't made any of those yet, but if I go to one of the shops, they might be able to figure something out.

[He's willing to try. He gets the importance of all this. As for what Leo will find on his camera roll?

Lots of photos. So, so many. He wasn't a social media addict, but taking pictures that could be uploaded to the official accounts was part of his job. And he'd never hesitate to spam people with images over text conversations, either. Pictures of trinkets he found in shops, pictures of cute desserts or drinks he ordered, pictures of scenery, pictures of things that reminded him of someone he knows (like a gemstone that calls to mind Nagisa's eyes.) Mostly, though, it's a lot of pictures of loved ones.

For starters, Mary! He has so many of her. Pictures of her alone or with him or with Jun, pictures of her frolicking outdoors or snuggled up indoors, pictures of her dressed for Halloween or sakura-viewing. There are pictures of himself, too, of course, since he loves himself and his own looks: mirror selfies and cafe selfies, photos taken dressing rooms or behind the scense of some photoshoots, selfies with other familiar faces. And then there's the unit he loves. His camera roll is a treasure trove of behind-the-scenes content, including some funny candid shots. These are the photos that tend to make it onto their public social media accounts. But there's more private, domestic stuff, too: Nagisa proudly holding a plushie of Ibara, wearing a face that would definitely not suit his persona, or knelt on the ground petting Mary; Ibara with a funny smudge on his face from tapping a pen against his chin.

And then there are the pictures of people outside his unit. The photos featuring Eden members heavily outnumber the photos of people that don't, but that doesn't mean there aren't still plenty of the latter. He really did take a lot of photos at Pretty 5 excursions, both group shots and otherwise: photos of the various members trying on clothes and accessories, holding up plushies, gathered around cafe tables. Arashi features in lots of them, and there are at least a couple where the main focus is on her: here she is trying on make-up, there she is sporting a grin and wearing sunglasses. She's more photogenic and confident in her looks than Mika or Aira, after all.

There only seems to be one group photo of the tea circle. It was his idea, actually: he had so many pictures of Pretty 5, but none with them, and that seemed a bit unbalanced. The trade-off is that this means Eichi Tenshouin's mug is there on his camera roll, waiting to jumpscare him, but he decided that trade was worth it. This is sadly all Leo will see of Ritsu, though there is one other relevant photo: a black cake that seems to be oozing some type of red filling. It's rather creepy-looking. Why take a photo of that? So he could post it to the Eden groupchat with the caption "You won't believe how good this tasted! I know it looks horrible, but it's absolutely delicious!" <--- That's why. Then he just forgot to delete it afterwards.

There are behind-the-scenes photos from Getto Spectacle, too. A few where the members are dressed up backstage, and several where they're dressed more casually, sitting around the dorm. They all lived together in Crazy:B's old room, after all. Speaking of Crazy:B, Hiyori's roommates show up a few times, too. Here's Kanata trying to entice Mary with the isopod plush; here's Rinne with Mary. It looks like Rinne took that photo himself.

There are some photos of people and places Leo won't recognize. Those are photos from home, mostly. He doesn't have as many of those as one might assume, given how often he invokes his family name. But an idol's schedule is busy, so perhaps it's no surprise he isn't home very often. Either way, he was living a full life back home. There are photos from around Reimei, of Mary growing up in his and Jun's shared dorm room, but a huge chunk of the pictures were taken during that first year of ES. He had a happy life there, and remembering that fact feels like a blessing and a curse and a terrible heartache all rolled into one.]

Want to go out for some ramen sometime?

[Hiyori has informed him Leo needs companionship and food.]

No, digital is fine. I can't lose my watch, after all. [ His phone had always been another matter. Leo was constantly leaving it places and the only reason it had even ever had a lock code was due to Sena choosing one and programming it in. Knights was totally used to Leo forgetting about his phone somewhere or just not answering it a solid half of the time.

They'd probably enjoy having him have a phone strapped to his wrist and inescapable actually - ]

I want a picture of you and Nami, too, when you send 'em! I didn't notice until recently but all I've taken pictures of have been music.

[ Help he has since forgotten about the whole matchmaking thing but luckily Leo is easy enough once he notices his wrist is buzzing with a message on his watch and finally surfaces for air to answer it from the music he'd been working through.

He totally forgot Senku's username and actual name, though he'd recall a face, but knowing who the hell he is talking to actually isn't high on Leo's list of needs. ]

sure! wow, how'd you know i was hungry? are you a psychic?

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