ryuusea⭐︎ミ

Erin poking fun at his King for turning into a loser around Tsumugi is absolutely brilliant. 🥺 I love when canon dynamics making themselves known.

Poor King Orion. 😂 I can see him trying to hype himself up to talk to her and then Erin gets to watch him walk into a wall.

I'm not entirely sure what my dynamic would have been. The plot bunnies multiplied too quickly and world building turns into a monster I can't run from. I like to think it would have been power couple but they're both goofy dorks.

“King.” It was just one word, spoken soft and carefully devoid of all emotion and yet to his ears, it sounded broken, in agony, heavy with regret.

“Er-” he coughed. Harsh and wet. “Erin.”

A slender hand combs through his hair, more gentle than ever. “Rest, my king. Everything is in place. Queen Andromeda has settled into the position of regent until Prince Rigel is able to take the throne. The transition of power went smoothly.” The report comes in that same soft voice. Assurance that everything was in place for his inevitable passing as he details the current state of politics.

“Ah…” he breathed a raspy sigh of relief. “Erin. Watch- watch over-”

A painted smile showed no pain, it didn't suit him.

“Don’t ask for the impossible, King.” The words are gentle but resolute. “As your assassin, I am the only one who can kill you. And as your servant, I will follow you, only you, anywhere. Even to death.”

It’s telling that he can’t even muster up the strength to be alarmed at that. It doesn't really surprise him. His protest dies with petal soft lips on his, the bittersweet liquid that he had no doubt was a poison flowing past their twined tongues. He swallows obediently.

“As your lover, Orion, I can’t live without you. Let’s meet again, in our next life.”

-

Shuu wakes with ragged breath and tears in his eyes, the whisper of a name on his lips.

The memory of his past life is still fresh in his mind.

“Aniki?” Gaku murmured from his side of their shared room.

“Bathroom.” Shuu replied absently, voice quiet and soothing to help Gaku’s sleepy mind ease back into its previous state. “Go back to sleep.”

Gaku mumbled indistinctly before burrowing himself back into his warm blankets.

Shuu drapes his blanket around his shoulders, bare feet sliding over the cold hardwood floor, letting the fabric pool around him as he makes his way out the door of their room. If he closed his eyes, he could almost pretend that he was back in Lama, wearing his mantle with the pride of a King. But… the weight is wrong, the way it falls and drapes is wrong, everything about it just makes him feel like a child playing pretend.

And maybe he is.

What is a king without a kingdom? (Just a man.)

Who is Orion without Erin? (A stranded man, the world crumbling around him.)

Where does Orion end and Shuu begin? (...)

He wraps himself up on the couch, staring at nothing as he ponders his existence, wondering why he’d been reborn like this.

Who is he?

“My name,” He whispers to himself. “is Yaotome Shuu. I have a twin brother named Yaotome Gaku. My parents are Yaotome Sousuke and Yamamura Nemi.” His voice comes out shakier than it should. “I like helping my father with his company. I like playing piano to my mother's violin. I love my grandparents and their soba restaurant.”

He knows it’s true. He loves them all and all their flaws. He just wishes that he could accept that it was his. Because he doesn’t feel like Shuu, he never does after those dream-memories, where Orion’s mindset was strongest. Even if he’d been both ever since he had decided to stop mourning his life as Orion and try to live as Shuu.

He was King Orion. The King of Lama who tamed the Crimson Blade and dragged Lama into an era of peace and prosperity. He is Orion, just a man who was lucky enough to have Erin as a lover.

He refuses to deny having been Orion.

But Shuu wonders if Erin had cursed Orion with his last words.

It’s a cruel thought. Reserved only for his worst days.

He wonders if he, as Orion, had simply loved Erin so much that he had forced his way through whatever afterlife there was, carefully protecting these memories just to make his lover’s dying wish come true. Wonders what it would be like to have a love like that, such reverent devotion.

He remembers having it. At the same time, he doesn’t remember what it was like.

Was it because it had been so long, he had begun to question if Orion had ever been real? Has he begun to separate Orion and Shuu in his mind?

What had it been like, loving and being loved by Erin?

Erin. Erin. Erin.

How the red haired former assassin haunts his thoughts as surely as he had haunted Orion’s life in Lama. Mischievous ruby red eyes, innocent face, a teasing smile, the hypnotic sway of his red ponytail as he passed by.

His eyelids begin to droop again but footfalls on the hardwood floor catch his attention and prevented him from falling back to sleep. Gaku walks in and sighs with exasperation. “Aniki, you’re going to hurt your neck and back if you sleep there like that.”

Blearily, Shuu blinks and notices the grey-blue skies of the dawn breaking outside their windows. Had he been here for that long?

“Bad night?” Gaku’s voice had softened with concern.

“Mn.” is all he can manage. He allows Gaku to coax him into changing positions so he can brush Shuu’s hair from its ends and work his way up to the crown.

Shuu had grown his hair out in Erin’s honor, maybe to remember that swaying bright red tail that had mesmerized King Orion for so many minutes out of a day or maybe he’d just wanted to feel closer to that lover he remembers having but couldn’t and can’t have. He’s not really certain other than that it had felt right to do so.

Gaku had tried to match him when they were kids, because they were twins but he had no patience for caring for his own hair, especially since it had gotten in his way when helping in the soba shop and ended up chopping it off at chin length by their second year of middle school. But Shuu knows Gaku still has the steel hair cuff in Lama’s style that he had made for his brother to match his own, which was a replica of Erin’s, without being a copy of Erin’s. (Erin was his.)

Ironically, Gaku had nothing but patience when it came to caring for Shuu’s hair. Most days, Shuu wears it in a ponytail like Erin’s, but some days like today, he allows Gaku to pamper him a little with a different hairstyle.

-

Additional notes:

Queen Andromeda = Tsumugi.

Prince Rigel = GakuTsumu child. 5 when Orion first got sick. 8 years old when Orion dies.

It's funny because all I have is angst right now but I fully intend for this fic to be chaotic circus energy. The following are my current plans but they're subject to change.

- No one had expected some illness would be the thing to Kill Orion. Erin is so mad and devastated it's not something he can fight for his King.

- The original plan was Orion as Gaku but I kept writing, I found it so much more fun if Orion got to be his own separate person. Because it means I can have OriEri and GakuTsumu AND bully both Tenn and Gaku at the same time. Originally Ryu was just going to be chilling in the back but I got a scene in my mind of an interaction between Ryu and Orion that leaves Ryu with a crush on Shuu and a personal crisis of having a crush on his unit member's brother. So it's Trigger booling hours.

- As per Law of I7, every one who has a brother or sister is a bro/siscon. Orion and Gaku are not immune.

- Orion remembers from birth. But Erin only has vague dreams until Tenn leaves. So Riku is convinced that these memories are dreams that his lonely mind conjured up to make up for the loss of his brother. (It won't last once he actually meets Shuu.)

- Tenn remembers Riku's nightmares where Riku is begging the King not to leave him. He does not approve of this dream King even if Riku never remembers these dreams.

- Gaku remembers his brother's sleepless nights from their childhood to present day where he wakes up crying for someone named Erin. Gaku is not particularly like this Erin person.

- Gaku grew up with stories of an Iron King and his Crimson Blade as bedtime stories when their parents were too busy arguing. He eventually forgets about it when Shuu has enough and starts playing mediator for their parents.

- Gaku: Our father uses dirty tactics and doesn't care about people. He only sees them as tools to be used.

- Orion, used to warfare and murder and emotional suppression and remembering Lama's royal family history: Our father isn't perfect. But at least he isn't finding a war for personal profit. He doesn't even kill people. He's probably easier to convince than the royal court to take an alternative option. Also I think he just has communication issues. I should fix that so Gaku has a better home life.

- Orion: anytime this family starts fighting I am holding court.

- Yaotome family when Shuu is in a bad mood: oh shit get the cake wrapped in red ribbon

- There's a scene I unfortunately had to drop in the fic graveyard where Erin was stalking Gaku for a week and Gaku reports this to Shuu and Shuu just goes to the window 23 stories up and is like Pspsps Erin get in here.

- Erin!Riku is a gremlin agent of chaos living his best life. Tenn is not having a good time watching his brother backflip out windows and getting involved with police on the regular. Turns out being a former assassin in your past life means you are hyper sensitive to crime taking place around you. (And Orion would be disappointed if he doesn't step in.)

- Orion!Shuu and Erin!Riku can sort of pass off as normal until you put them together and they start operating on Lama logic, which comes off as unhinged in the canon-verse. Shuu is better at this than Erin.

- OriEri living their best life, in love, while Trigger is in the background having a crisis.

- Gaku is certain that he knows his brother best. His brother does not smile often and has trouble showing emotions but he does feel them. In comes Erin!Riku and suddenly his brother is openly smitten and Gaku didn't even know his brother could laugh like that??? He should be happy but he's also so jealous.

- Tenn actually respects Shuu the most out of all the Yaotome. And then he finds out Shuu is dating Riku. Shuu is dead to him.

- Orion!Shuu confuses Nagi because this man is most definitely 100% not a member of any royal family but he keeps tripping Nagi's royalty instincts.

- Orion squinting at GakuTsumu because that lady looks like Queen Andromeda and while he's not in love with the way he's in love with Erin, but she had his child and was married to him for roughly a decade. It's just a little bit weird. (Wait are they going to have a Rigel look alike as their child?)

- Idolish7 trying to follow Erin! Riku's chaos and venting about it on their streams. No one believes them and everyone just thinks they're really good at creating skits until something ends up on live television.

- Orion!Shuu cuts his hair to let Riku braid it into his own ponytail. They use it in place of an engagement ring. Gaku is shook for a week. They match again but at what cost.

- Trigger Kidnapping Event except they accidentally took Orion!Shuu and Erin!Riku goes ballistic. (No one does but it is a close thing.)

- everyone knowing Erin!Riku has a lover and there are forums dedicated to finding out based on his hints. Erin!Riku challenges the fans to figure it out as a way of easing them into it and measuring their reaction before a reveal. Plus it's a fun prank.

- there is a separate forum trying to keep track of all the Riku/idolish7 shenanigans.

When it comes to his King, Erin can’t help himself.

He brushes silver hair away from the delicate skin of his king. Long, lovely lashes flutter and he finds himself arrested by a half-lidded glare with silver eyes, brighter and more beautiful than Lama’s twin moons.

“Erin.” His pouty voice is like honey, thick with sleep and sweet enough to make his mouth water. It’s poison to Erin’s mind, to his resolve to let go of his love for their duties. “Sleep.”

“Let me indulge, my King.” Erin very rarely begs, but he cannot help it tonight knowing that he might never be able to hold his king like this again once the sun rises. “At least for tonight.”

His king needs an heir he cannot bear. His king needs a queen, one who has noble blood and influence in the courts to support him where Erin cannot. His king needs-deserves a lover who can openly be by his side.

His king needs everything Erin cannot be.

Orion was strict on others, and stricter on himself. That strict king would never cheat on his wife, loveless marriage or not. Loyalty to Lama, to his duty to the people came first, always.

That was their promise. That was why Erin had fallen for Orion in the first place. To change that fundamental part of his King…

Erin cannot be so selfish as to ask his King to change.

To ask Orion to stay with him was to ask his King to turn his back on duty, to ask his King to turn his back on his duty would be to destroy the very foundation of their trust and relationship and Erin cannot bear to lose Orion so thoroughly.

They had both known going into the relationship that it wouldn’t last.

Erin had know it was coming. Even if his King didn’t have his duty, everyone he's ever known leaves him in the end.

At least, like this, he can stay by his King’s side.

At least, like this, he can watch over-

He hears a sigh and strong arms wrap around his waist, they bring him down and pull him close enough to feel his King’s breath against his neck.

“I won’t be king forever.” Orion whispers, nose buried in his shoulder. Erin's breath catches at the thought. “One day, Lama will be at peace, my heir ready to take the throne. I’ll quietly divorce the queen. If, at that time, you’ll still have me…”

An assassin could die any day. Erin isn’t in the habit of thinking beyond the immediate future aside from keeping his King alive and what he might want at his funeral. Hadn't considered that the King might retire.

What his king was offering…

“We could travel around Lama, report everything we see back to my heir and let them take care of any problems we might come across. We could join Fang, take to the stars and see all the other planets have to offer. We could be together… just exist together.”

It’s a dream, a goal. It’s something for him to hold onto.

Another promise for a future he doesn't dare imagine for himself. Again, just like that night they first met.

Orion doesn't break his promises.

“I'll wait.” He whispers. “I'll wait for you forever if I must.”

-

Additional notes:

I shall send you both. I love your art and I think you deserve something back. Also, I requested your old art to use as an inspiration boost for my writing. It just feels right.

Unfortunately, I'm not in any of your other fandoms. (Yet. I am eyeing Moriarty but the stars have yet to align.)

They're both flashbacks from the same fic so it's no trouble. Which, now that I think about it, probably makes this scene a bit more sad.

- Orion has to have a child because there are no others of royal blood to carry on the line even if they trace the line back several generations. Succession battles were rough.

- I really like the idea that Lama has two moons (Not just so we can compare them to Orion's eyes it absolutely is.). They don't always appear in the sky together, but when they do, it is so pretty. There is probably some romantic folk tale that Curse will hear and be like lmao and not explain unless Hope asks.

Just the idea every star planet has a different number of moons because the original planet splitting apart must have left some debris that turned into satellites aka moons. Sometimes the moons crash into each other so you might lose one. (The incident in Hoshimeguri where the star and thus the original planet reforms for a moment implies they might get some new moons and maybe caused some of the older moons to crash into each other. But also that must have been a devastating incident, like holy-)

HC: Eterno has a whopping 16 moons of various sizes so it is a very good thing they do not have a lot of water. (But hydromancers that visit may get a bit drunk off moonlight at night.) It makes me wonder if the hypothetical tsunami just gets replaced by frequent and turbulent sandstorms.

Sirena, I like to think, has 3 moons but they're small or far enough that it doesn't cause issues with living on water like they do. And I cannot decide for the rest of the planets but the idea that Alba has moons they can't see because the sunlight doesn't reach them makes me feel kinda sad. If they can't have sunlight, they should at least have moonlight.

I ended up going off some inconsequential world building. Hoshimeguri's backstory just has some wild implications. Or maybe I've misunderstood something and am wildly incorrect. But it's fun to think about.

How okay would you be with me dropping “temporary character death OriEri/reincarnated in canon I7" in your ask box as a thank you for finding that old Riku in Lama art for me?

Or would you prefer OriEri established relationship but it's their last night together because Orion needs to get married and have a child for duty? (It has a poly ending with Queen Tsumugi that I never got to.)

Or should I try to find something less angsty?