WK 20 themes: before and after

Bonus theme 3. Music

Youji isn't the sort to have a background in music, couldn't tell you if a note was G sharp or B flat, and wouldn't care either way. Church organ music, the soft songs Omi listens to on the radio - they all fail to move him. The only exceptions he recalls are a keening violin and the chiming of a music box.

He doesn't recognise the sharpened cry of the violin the first time he hears it in battle. All he can think of, when he hears it for the last time, is a snowy night in a bar in Gion.




6. Thoughts

When left alone with their thoughts, all of them are vulnerable. Youji disdains the idea of an internal monologue, laughs at its similarity to those foreign film noir voiceovers. His scorn fails to silence the voices in his head; still, he's sure he can see the same thing going on in the empty brightness of Ken's eyes, the guarded silence of Aya's - he hasn't seen Omi for years, but can read whatever he wants in the unfamiliar coldness of Persia's voice - and there's a funny sort of comfort in the knowledge that he's not the only one who's lost it.




4. Wire

It happens only twice in the first few days of his life in Weiss. The first time, Aya-chan is there. He doesn't remember anything about the second time except how it ends.

( Like a rabbit in a snare, Schuldich says, laughing, before Aya wakes up. )

Aya only recalls that now because the chill of the wire biting into his neck reminds him. He can see how the emotion tightens around Youji's throat, hear how his words tremble and break. And he knows, as he meets Youji's desperate, pleading gaze, that this time he is not the one who cannot escape.




13. Betrayal

This time it is subtler than when it results from or ends in death: Omi giving in to Mamoru, Youji surrendering to himself, the two-year-long silence that Aya barely breaks even after they all reunite.

Later Youji betrays them all one final time. Ken lets it go only because he has to; when Ryou hands Aya's katana over, he supposes that it is as clean an ending as death would have been.

Meeting Omi feels a bit like redemption, though Ken is not sure whose it is. He seeks out Aya because there are things he still refuses to accept.