AquaMelt Oneshots [Oshi No Ko]

with these tainted hands

Practicing outside during the summer, Melt learned, was anything but pleasant. The sweltering heat boiled his brain alive, up until the point where Melt couldn't even remember what he was supposed to be doing.

Practicing, he remembered. Right.

With more difficulty than he would like to admit, Melt reached out for his already damaged script and flipped through the pages mindlessly. He could hardly read some of his lines; written in Kanji he didn't recognize.

How embarrassing.

He thought to call out Aqua— who for some fucking reason, knew every Kanji that Melt threw at him— but realized that he hadn't seen the quiet boy all day. Melt stared blankly at the sky, searching through his hazy memories of the past few days, wondering the last time he really talked with Aqua.

The two hardly had real conversations with one another. Sure, Aqua and Melt would practice together, even though their characters never truly interacted. Aqua never seemed to mind helping Melt practice— he wondered if it was because Aqua noticed a difference. Noticed his growth since Sweet Today.

But even then, Aqua helped him in Sweet Today as well. It was thanks to that help that Melt even became a real actor to begin with.

Aqua had always been there to help Melt, yet he could hardly return the favor. Melt could do nothing when Aqua suddenly collapsed in the middle of practice. According to Kana, they were discussing emotional acting, which Aqua struggled with. Kana advised Aqua to pull out happy memories, and all of the sudden, he passed out on the floor.

He briefly overheard Akane mentioning how he had a panic attack.

Since that day, Aqua had carried a haunted look in his eyes that never seemed to leave. He would turn to Melt, never failing to make Melt draw back in surprise at just how tired Aqua looked. He seemed to hold the weight of the world in his eyes; Melt wished he had the slightest clue of what dragged the talented actor down so much.

Melt grumbled at his own incompetence. Not only was he a terrible excuse for an actor, but he couldn't do a damn thing for the guy who changed his life.

Frustrated, he swung into a sitting position. Since he spent all of his time thinking about Aqua, he might as well find the damn guy.

Finding Aqua proved to be more difficult than Melt expected. He searched everywhere outside, but Aqua never appeared. Even the bushes, before wondering why he ever thought that Aqua would hide in a bush. He asked the other cast members he ran into, all of them shaking their heads and saying they hadn't seen Aqua since this morning.

Ten minutes in, Melt started to feel like he was playing some dumb game of hide and seek. God, Melt hated hide and seek. If he had to search for Aqua in the stifling heat for a moment longer, he would surely go insane.

Thankfully, Melt ran into Akane, who gestured toward the practice building, saying that Aqua went back inside about an hour ago.

Walking into the building felt like walking through the gates of heaven. The building was nice and cold, filled with fans that kept the room from turning into a hellhole. While he was glad that he didn't have to search outside in that god forsaken heatfor any longer, he sure as hell felt betrayed by Aqua. Getting to go inside in the nice cold building while Melt boiled alive outside— he could have at least invited Melt to go with him.

Melt figured he would complain to Aqua the second he found him.

That plan of his, however, completely crumbed apart when he found Aqua.

Aqua, who gripped the bathroom sink and stared into the mirror like something terrible was staring at him back. Like something was lingering behind him, holding his shoulders. Or perhaps the thing Aqua stared so intensely at was himself. Despite the bathroom being freezing cold, Aqua was sweating and breathing heavily just as if he were outside in the heat. And the pure look of fear in his eyes... Melt had never seen such a look on Aqua's face before.