#you meet mikage reo with his arm slung around nagi's shoulder like they're old friends and your first thought is Murder

[seoafin]

you and nagi meet in middle school. he is a loner with a penchant for playing videos games and sleeping during class. you are a high maintenance individual with dismal grades known for your dour disposition and carrying around the violin you practice obsessively. the two of you have no friends. your middle school has designated and granted you a music room to use where you can practice in peace for your upcoming competitions. until one day you find nagi curled up in a corner of the room, asleep. obviously you're peeved. this music room is for your use only, not some secret hideout slackers can use to catch up on sleep. but also it's not like he's being a disturbance. you'll let him off. just this once. then you'll start to lock the doors.

it's not until the sky is pitch dark outside and your fingers twinge with use do you begin to gingerly pack your violin. you get so absorbed in playing you wouldn't be surprised if the slacker got up and left hours ago. you are surprised when you turn around to find nagi spread out on the floor, gaze latched to the ceiling, wide awake. in a drowsy voice, he tells you that that single song you were playing over and over again sounded like the OST of some game he likes. (you are immediately offended. the great composer bach didn't die to be compared to some video game soundtrack). then he asks if you're in this room everyday, practicing, because he can't comprehend that level of effort and devotion to anything because he isn't that interested in anything. but he liked it. the sound of you playing. you were good. the best he's ever heard. and all you can hear is the best the best the best and you're so pleased that you don't mind when he comes back the next day. and then the next. then the two of you are walking to school together and walking home. (wow the two of you were neighbors?) and when you get into the prodigious hakuho academy on a violin scholarship, nagi tests in with ease because he didn't bother to do any research and just chose the rigorous high school you got into.

it's good for a while. then it isn't. there's a violin competition gone wrong. you lose. badly. second place, which realistically isn't bad. but you wanted first. you wanted to be the best. realistically you've always known you weren't a genius. you weren't born with the talent. your fingers were fumbling over the same strings other fingers were gliding over. but you practiced. every single day. hours every morning before school and hours every night after. it's the first time you've ever competed against a genius, and you're heartbroken at the gap between your skills. your competitor took up the violin only four years ago. you've been playing since you were a child. the news outlets call him a prodigy while you're just a temporary talent.

nagi tells you to give up. realistically, he says, you'll never be first as long as long as you're up against a genius. what he doesn't tell you is that the devastation on your face made his heart hurt. he doesn't want you to hurt. but your heart breaks all over again. you lash out. it's the last time the two of you speak together on friendly terms and nagi doesn't talk to you again. turns out, there's somebody else occupying and monopolizing his attention now.

you meet mikage reo and it all goes even further downhill from there.