Circus of Hell (Oliver x Fukase)

The Final Stroke

"It's nice to have you back," Len grinned and clapped against the smaller one's back. The blond didn't get any reaction, whatsoever, and rose his eyebrow reluctantly. Rin joined her brother's ironic sense of glory and chuckled. "Now we slowly get back our wasted little Oliver."

Also she didn't receive a sneer or any other snappy comment. She didn't expect one to begin with. The twins noticed the old Oliver has died long ago. The attempt out of the building meant for the blond to leave everything behind, his inner self included. Instead of hearing pert exclaims, there was silence.

There was not more time to think any further about Oliver. Everyone quickly got to their position as rehearsal was about to start anytime soon. The blond on the other hand ambled down the hall. He was still on time and there was barely anything stressing him out by now anyway.

His dull eyes quickly wavered across the room. He took notice of a few familiar faces, a few new ones...and significant red hair. Quickly, Oliver turned his head away and frowned displeased. Every time he perceived only small signs of Fukase's presence, memories dwelled up inside of him. Much to Oliver's dismay, who tried his best to keep his mind busy enough to not stand a single chance wasting energy on memories.

He and Fukase haven't exchanged words much since the incident. Weeks have passed since then and things started to completely return to normal for the blond. As long as he kept the redhead out of his head, that is. It proved as fairly difficult, but Oliver tried anyway. He didn't have the energy to devote his entire self to Fukase, particularly not if all he gained from his attempts was rejection.

Letting himself allow to dig too much into these kind of thoughts, Oliver frowned heartbroken and turned away completely. Even if it sounded like a maniac's words, he wished for rehearsal to start already. That way, he had something to focus on again, which made it easier for Oliver to withstand the temptation to risk a glance to his side. Despite knowing how bad it was for him to think about Fukase, an inner urge pushed him every now and then to not completely ignore the redhead. Oliver couldn't fully make out why that was as all Fukase did to him now was creating a suffocating feeling of guilt and longing for his friend's old self in the blond's chest.

Everyone got to their position and the music went on. Oliver internally sighed in relief. The next hours meant extreme physical labor, but at least now he wasn't alone with doing nothing. As familiar as Oliver was with his choreography by now, he set in his movement and let his body and memory do the work. He remembered he didn't have to fully focus on what he did anymore and so, decided to shut down his mind.

Solely when every once in a while Oliver stumbled or tripped, he came back to his senses in shock and quickly tried to compose himself again. It has been months since his return to the building, but his body hasn't fully regained its strength back. Surely the healing process of his eye took a lot of energy during the first weeks, and only now, his muscles start to grow back, now that he wasn't excused from regular rehearsals anymore. However, mistakes still occurred more than usually, slightly worrying the blond. It felt like he was never about to get better again, even though it just required more time. Time he had anyway. After all, he wasn't going anywhere now.

"Oh god...," Oliver pressed out between his teeth and winched in pain. Letting himself fall on his back, he tried to calm down his breathing to ease the excruciating pain in his lungs and face. It was hard to relax, but eventually his body calmed down from the hours of excessive training. The only thing still stabbing in Oliver's head was the pain on his injured eye socket. It has healed somewhat properly, but the detached nerves still reacted after he would strain himself too much. This made the aftermath of rehearsal more of a hell for the blond, but he couldn't do much about it. Pressing his hand palm against the bandages to numb the throbbing feeling, Oliver exhaled heavily. Rehearsal appeared to him lately as more energy-consuming than usual, but he assumed this was only his imagination. His mind hasn't been on the best level recently, after all.