Chapter Text
Being half-Swedish and half-Japanese essentially means Ukyo could win the repression Olympics.
His parents are wonderful - thoughtful, supportive, fiercely loyal - but they are not what anyone would call emotionally forthcoming. Ukyo doesn’t think he’s ever heard his father say out loud how he feels, not in direct terms. When he’s upset, or stressed, or unexpectedly overjoyed, he always does the same thing: presses a soft kiss to Ukyo’s mother’s cheek and disappears into his woodworking shop like a ghost slipping through a crack in the wall. Hours later, he’ll emerge again, quiet and steady, carrying whatever he’d been working through, transmuted into cedar or maple or oak. Bookcases with gently curved corners. Shoe racks with elegantly flowing lines. Dala horses, hand-carved and painted in traditional reds and blues, but stylized with cherry blossoms and gentle waves.
The more intense the emotion, the more intricate the final result. Ukyo learned early how to read his father’s silences like other kids read facial expressions: a flawlessly dovetailed jewelry box meant he’d been furious about something. A cedar breakfast tray with a hidden compartment? Sadness. A set of perfectly matched nesting tables? Joy, quietly spilling over.
His mother was no different, just subtler. She communicated through precision and choice - how she stood when she drew her bow, what song she chose for them to sing together. The whole house moved at a low hum, respectful of Ukyo’s sensitive hearing and quieter nature. Peace wasn't just valued, it was expected. Emotional displays were folded into actions, into craftsmanship, into ritual. His parents never raised their voices at each other. They disagreed in the language of pauses and compromises, of long looks over shared cups of tea. Their favorite thing to do together was sit on the back porch with their books and a cup of tea, reading in companionable silence while the sun set behind them.
Ukyo’s childhood was steady, loving, safe. Emotionally anchored but deeply internal. That self-discipline served him well in the JDF, and even more so during his time in the Empire of Might. When surrounded by volatility and chaos, Ukyo remained calm, methodical - he could compartmentalize with almost frightening ease. What might break someone else just became another room he could quietly lock behind a door in his mind.
It makes sense, then, that Gen feels so familiar to him. Gen’s life was shaped by a different kind of pressure - fame, resentment, a mother whose love and anger came in unpredictable tides. But the end result is the same: Gen, too, is exceptional at hiding what he feels. He wears emotion like a costume, changing it as needed, keeping his real self buried under six layers of sleight-of-hand and deadpan wit. Ukyo understands that. He respects it.
Which is maybe why he finds Ryusui so destabilizing, for lack of a better word.
Ryusui couldn’t repress a feeling if his life depended on it. He lives like he’s afraid of running out of time - fast, loud, in technicolor. He wants things - wants everything, really, and everyone - and makes no attempt to hide it. His father, from what Ryusui’s let slip, was rigid and cold, a man who saw Ryusui’s endless hunger for life as a problem to be fixed, a flaw to be smoothed out. Francois seems to have been the only one who saw Ryusui clearly from the start, who understood that his ambition wasn’t selfish, it was relentless, yes, but also generous in a way. Ryusui doesn’t just want for himself. He wants for everyone.
And he shows it. Ryusui touches without hesitation, laughs too loud, cries without shame, and wears his passion on his sleeve like it’s the only shirt he owns. He is the exact opposite of Ukyo’s quiet, structured upbringing. He doesn’t try to control his emotions - he uses them, like wind in his sails. He’s chaos, but intentional. A storm with purpose.
And it draws Ukyo like a tide.
There’s something addictive about how unfiltered Ryusui is. Something dangerous, too. Ukyo is used to reading silence, to finding meaning in what’s not said. But Ryusui doesn’t do silence. He shouts his feelings to the world, and sometimes, Ukyo doesn’t know how to respond. Sometimes, it feels like standing too close to the sun, brilliant and burning and impossible to look away from.
“You are truly incredible at singing,” Ryusui says to him while they watch Gen try to get Senku to take a break from fixing the clogged pipe and drink some water. The day is stretching towards evening, the light gold and beautiful. It lingers in Ryusui’s blond hair like a crown. He’s of mixed-foreign blood too - his mom a wealthy American actress, who Ryusui bluntly said had more looks than any particular skills. His birth had been somewhat scandalous, because his mother had divorced his father shortly after and jetted back to the States.
Ukyo ducks his head, feeling shy. He’s not one to downplay his skills, but he’s never known what to do with a direct compliment. “The hearing helps. I’ve always had good pitch.”
“Even beyond that, you’re delightful to listen to,” Ryusui says sincerely. “You had no intention of doing this more professionally back in the modern world?”
“Not really,” Ukyo says after a long moment, watching Gen talk to Senku. There’s a whole mess of its own, really. “I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. But my tour with the JDF was going to last for another three years and it seemed like something I’d figure out at the end of it.”
He’d have been twenty-seven when that happened. What would it have been like, to be twenty-seven in the modern world and still not really have an idea of what to be? He’d joined the JDF sort of out of an odd kind of panic, but the choice always felt like one that didn’t sit right with him. He was a pacifist who was incredible with a bow and arrow, a vegetarian with links to two different heritages that prioritized meat. In some ways, he appreciates that the modern world was petrified. In some ways, survival is more concrete and straight-forward than his slow-burning existential crisis had been.
Maybe that’s selfish. But in the quiet hours, Ukyo has come to terms with the fact that the old world made him feel like a broken piece in a too-complex machine. This one - raw, stripped down, sun-drenched and wild - feels more honest.
Gen shrieks suddenly, interrupting his thoughts. Ukyo turns to see him sprinting from Senku, laughing, as Senku flicks something small and wet in retaliation. There’s an odd look on Senku’s face - bemused, maybe a little bit fond, a bit tense and almost sad - as he watches Gen vault over a crate, nearly colliding with Ukyo.
Ukyo catches him without thinking, steadying Gen by the waist.
“I’m being bullied,” Gen announces, clearly not that upset, his grin bright and breathless.
Ukyo snorts. “If you ever want this to progress beyond flirting,” he says dryly, “you’ll have to be more direct.”
Gen flushes, caught, and makes a noise halfway between a scoff and a laugh.
They’ve never really talked explicitly about Gen’s feelings for Senku, but Ukyo is observant enough that he’s picked up on it. Gen, he suspects, felt somewhat similar to how he did in the modern world - slightly adrift, a little bit panicked at the expanse of life before him, somewhat bored and caged in at the same time. By Senku’s side, Gen’s found purpose, meaning.
“Desire really should be expressed,” Ryusui says, folding his arms behind his head.
Ukyo glances at him, wishes it were that simple.
Sometimes, desires aren’t clear. Sometimes, they’re inconvenient. Sometimes, they feel like standing on the edge of a cliff, unsure if what waits below is water or stone. Sometimes, you’re not even sure if you’re allowed to want the thing at all.
He’s a few years older than Ryusui - only four, but enough to feel like a chasm, sometimes. Not in life experience, but in orientation. In how they moved through the world. Ukyo was raised on silence and structure, on reading between lines. Ryusui was raised to take up space, to demand the horizon.
In some ways, Ukyo thinks, he was more sheltered.
“I should really get to helping dear Senku,” Gen says, and Ukyo lets him go. Gen’s cheeks are still red. He’s probably going to hide for a minute until he can collect himself.
“You ever think about what you’d be doing now, if things hadn’t happened the way they did?” Ukyo asks suddenly, half to distract himself from the way the light is catching in Ryusui’s brown eyes. “If the world hadn’t ended?”
Ryusui is quiet for a rare moment. Then he hums, thoughtful. “Sure. I’d probably be halfway through a plan to become the world’s most powerful shipping magnate,” he says, like that’s not an insanely grandiose thing to say. “But it wouldn’t have been as fun. Or as real. My father already controlled so much. This world’s a bit more raw, and dear old father will just have to wake up to my new empire.” He grins, suddenly sharp. He turns to Ukyo, grinning. “What about you?”
Ukyo looks away. The light is edging towards evening, and the air is edged with the chill of the coming fall. All of his problems in the modern world feel so distant. Something about the moment makes him want to be honest.
“I think,” Ukyo says slowly, “I would’ve kept waiting. For the perfect idea. For something to click. I think I would’ve let my life pass quietly by, always meaning to figure it out...later.”
Ryusui tilts his head. “And now?”
“Now,” he says, and this time, he allows himself a small smile, “I’m still not sure. But I think I’m closer.”
Ryusui watches him for a beat longer than necessary. Then, with his usual unshakable confidence, he says, “Well, if you ever want help deciding what to do with the rest of your life, I make an excellent co-pilot.”
And just like that - like always - he leaves Ukyo speechless, heart ticking somewhere too high in his chest.
“Thanks,” he says, looking at Ryusui, square in the face. “I might need that.”
Ryusui grins, delighted. The sun slips lower on the horizon, and for the first time in a long while, Ukyo thinks maybe he’s not afraid of where the future is going.
—
Senku is jealous, Ukyo knows that much. He’s not oblivious, just hesitant to draw conclusions when the emotions involved are murky and, frankly, a bit adolescent, and it's not like Senku's really been subtle. He’s seen the signs. The way Senku’s expression shifts - tightening at the jaw, his mouth flattening into a line - whenever Ukyo and Gen are laughing together, heads tilted in close conversation. The way his voice gets a bit sharper, snappier, when Ukyo volunteers to help Gen with some task, like organizing the storehouse or teaching the children math.
It’s not personal, Ukyo knows. Not really.
Senku’s just eighteen. And dealing with more than any eighteen-year-old should have to.
Ukyo doesn’t miss being a teenager. He’s always been reserved and self-possessed, but he wasn’t some flawless paragon of maturity - he’d had his own fair share of unbearable mood swings and deeply embarrassing decisions. With the distance of time - and a much more stable hormone balance - he can give Senku some grace. Frankly, he deserves it.
Because it’s insane, what Senku has endured.
Eighteen years old, leader of a village, bearer of the entire legacy of human science. He’s fought a war- won a war - under impossible constraints, especially with Ukyo’s non-negotiable pacifism in the mix. He stood between Hyoga’s blade and Tsukasa, a man who had killed him, just to protect the fragile alliance they’d built. From whispers and shared pieces of the story, Ukyo has pieced together enough to know Senku stayed awake for the 3,700 years of petrification, keeping time with nothing but the will to return. That he woke alone. That he found out his father had never been petrified and died centuries before, and that he, unknowingly, left behind the origins of the Ishigami village.
And still, Senku keeps moving forward.
Ukyo is good at handling stress, at adapting, at carrying things quietly. But even he finds it remarkable that Senku hasn’t collapsed under the sheer psychological weight of what he’s lived through.
So he can give Senku some leniency for his lack of emotional introspection. Ukyo is a steady, stable person, who is good at handling stress and trauma, but he has to admit that the fact that Senku hasn’t crumbled under the psychological weight of everything he’s survived is incredible.
He can give him a little room, a little forgiveness for being emotionally underdeveloped in the ways that matter most.
Still, it’s a bit much.
“You know Senku’s jealous of us spending time together,” Ukyo says to Gen one night, while they’re sitting by the fire. The tarot cards they’ve been making together are spread between them, scattered in careful disorder as Gen works on inking in the Tower card.
Gen wrinkles his nose at the comment, his hand stilling slightly before he resumes the delicate tracing of lightning bolts and crumbling stone. He doesn’t say anything at first - just a faint, deliberate hum of indifference that Ukyo knows well by now means he’s listening but is desperately hoping the topic will change.
“He keeps getting a bit terse with me,” Ukyo adds, reclining back on one arm and watching the way the firelight dances in Gen’s silver hair. The Star card lays half-finished in front of him, the lines hesitant and uneven. Ukyo had offered to help, but he’s really not that good at drawing. If Gen wanted polish, he should’ve asked Yuzuriha. “Snippy and defensive,” Ukyo continues, “like I’ve done something wrong just by helping you with this.” He gestures vaguely at the cards.
Gen sighs, dramatic. “You’re imagining things,” he says, and it’s not even slightly convincing.
Ukyo raises an eyebrow. “You know I’m not.”
There’s a long pause. Then Gen mutters, “He’s just…he’s emotionally constipated. That’s not new.”
Ukyo snorts. “No, but I feel like you could say something to him. I doubt he’s even aware of what he’s feeling.”
Gen sets the pen down with a soft click, studying the Tower card with narrowed eyes. “Yeah, well. Pot, kettle, etcetera. I’ll talk to dear Senku when you talk to dear Ryusui.”
“That’s not the same thing and you know it,” Ukyo says mildly. He’s never directly said anything to Gen about how he feels for Ryusui, but it’s not a shock he’s aware. Gen’s whole existence is based off of reading people, interpreting their feelings, saying it in a way that seems like magic when in reality he’s just very good at picking up on social contexts.
Gen sighs. “Even if he’s jealous - which is a large if, mind you - he’s not the type to take it out on you. You’re a very essential person to the functioning of the Kingdom, and dear Senku’s not the type to hold grudges.”
“Is it that hard to think he’d be jealous of you spending time with other people?” Ukyo asks, and Gen purses his lips, staring at the cards in silence for a long moment.
“Do you know what he said when we met?” he asks after a long moment. “He said my books were trash, and I was a fraud magician.” He sighs heavily. “My books were largely ghost-written, and I didn’t get much of a say in their content. But it did hurt, to have my work dismissed as that. Especially by someone who is so clearly smart and kind and driven.”
He’s quiet for a moment, the edge of the Tower card balanced between his fingers.
“It’s hard, you know?” he continues. “When someone like dear Senku sees you - really sees you - but only in terms of what you can do. Not who you are. He doesn’t mean to, but sometimes it feels like if you’re not helping him build something, you stop being real to him.” He swallows hard. “I doubt we’d have been friends, if we met in the modern day. Our paths never would’ve crossed. And if they did, he wouldn’t have respected me. The only way we can know each other is through the ending of the world.”
“I think there’s many things we have now that wouldn’t have come about without the petrification,” Ukyo says.
Gen smiles thinly. “True,” he says. “I didn’t have many friends back then.” He pauses. “Any friends, actually, which sounds sad to say out loud.”
“I was in the military,” Ukyo says, “Which is also wild to look back on. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
The code of conduct had been rigorously enforced in the JDF, but Ukyo is very aware that he’d been the source of rumors and whispers. Most everyone else was taller and much more muscular than him. He flinched at loud noises because his hearing was so sensitive, and he’d always had softer facial features. His dad’s Swedish blood shone through him, through the lightness of his hair and the blue of his eyes. When he did go back to Sweden, it didn’t matter that he spoke flawless Swedish - he looked too Asian, with his slanted eyes, to fully fit there either.
“There was this sense of never quite fitting,” Ukyo says. “Not entirely, and not anywhere. So I did what I thought I was supposed to, tried to find the structure and meaning, despite being a pacifist and a vegetarian and mixed race.” He gives a faint, wry smile. “Maybe it’s horrible to say, but sometimes I think the petrification saved me from a life that didn’t belong to me.”
Gen exhales, slow and thoughtful. “You’re not wrong. Sometimes I wonder if we all got lucky, in a way. It’s a horrible thing to think, but this feels like…” he trails off, looking vaguely guilty.
Ukyo hums. “A second chance. That’s what it feels like.”
“You said it, not me, if anyone asks.” Gen picks up the pen again, idly tracing over the Tower’s lines. “You ever going to tell dear Ryusui how you feel?”
Ukyo chuckles. “You first.”
Gen huffs. “Ugh. Coward.”
“You say that like you’re not one too.”
“I’m dramatically cowardly,” Gen corrects. “It’s different. No one expects anything different from me.” He smiles thinly. “After all, I am the world’s shallowest man,” he says, his tone sad, like he’s thinking of something he wishes he didn’t remember.
They fall quiet again. The fire crackles, and an owl calls from the trees. The moon overhead is large and silver, the light almost bright enough to navigate without any additional lights. The world feels very small for a moment, like it’s just the two of them, suspended in time. Most everyone else has gone to bed already. They’ll probably have to go peel Senku off the floor of the lab in a bit so he doesn’t bitch about his back hurting in the morning.
Ukyo doesn’t want to go just yet. The world is quiet in a way that doesn’t strain his ears, and Gen is good company, a little more emotionally open now than he thinks he’s ever been.
“I think I’d like to finish the Star card,” Ukyo says after a while, reaching for the pen.
Gen hands it over without a word, watching him.
“You know,” he says finally, “I think you do belong here, with the rest of us. We couldn’t have gotten this far without you.”
Ukyo doesn’t answer right away. He just nods, grateful, and starts to draw.
—
Ryusui has much the same taste in music that Ukyo does, which shouldn’t make his stupid, foolish heart flutter, but it does. Ukyo’s always liked older genres - rock, lounge, jazz. Songs with weight to them, melodies you could linger in. His voice is suited for it too: low and rich, with a quiet power that doesn’t need to scream to be heard. He’s no Lilian Weinberg - no one is - but he holds his own.
“I always liked Fly Me to the Moon,” Ryusui says one evening. They’re sitting close to the fire, knees almost touching. The remains of one of Francois’s elegant-yet-rustic dinners sit between them - something involving mushrooms and wild herbs that smells too good for a world without spice cabinets.
It’s a far cry from Senku’s foxtail ramen, though even that had been leagues better than the Empire’s flavorless hunting stews.
The camp is quiet tonight, tucked into the soft hush of the forest. Crickets chirp in a rhythmic drone. Low conversation murmurs near the tents. Gen is hovering next to Senku like he might physically repel stress by proximity alone. Senku’s been buried in blueprints since morning for the ship and the new mine Chrome found, and the only reason he’s eaten is because Gen hand-delivered him a tray and physically took his pen away for five minutes.
It’s been a few days since they took the speedboat out to sea, since they heard Whyman’s voice come down from the sky like some inverted god. Ukyo’s still rattled from it. He can feel it in his shoulders, taut and wired, in the way his eyes keep scanning the stars like they’ll offer an answer this time. A soft, persistent tension has settled behind his ribs. The fear has come back - more refined now, more familiar. The knowledge that everything could end again, just as suddenly as it once did.
Ryusui is staring up at the stars, not smiling for once. His expression is thoughtful, strangely quiet. “Kind of fucks me up to think about it now,” he says, voice low. “That song. Knowing there’s something on the moon that already ended the world once.”
Ukyo glances at him. It’s such a rare expression - genuine disturbance. Ryusui is almost always a force of nature: grinning, untouchable, brash in the way only those born to win can be. But right now, in the flicker of firelight, he looks human. The weight of what they’re facing has settled into him too.
Ukyo swallows. “It’s surreal,” he says finally. “To think the moon - the thing people used to write love songs about - is something to be afraid of now.”
Ryusui laughs, but there’s an edge to it. “Right? Used to be romantic. Poetic. Now it’s like - ‘Fly Me to the Moon…and get annihilated by a space-born god.’ Not exactly Sinatra’s vibe.”
Ukyo chuckles softly, but his chest feels tight. “I used to sing that one a lot. In the shower. It’s one of those songs that always made me feel untethered, in a good way. Like there was room out there for dreaming.”
Ryusui turns to look at him. His eyes are sharp even in the firelight, studying Ukyo like he’s only just seeing him.
“I bet you sounded amazing,” he says, a little softer now. “You’ve got that voice, like old records. The kind that makes people close their eyes when they listen.”
Ukyo flushes before he can stop himself. He looks down at the dirt, pretending to pick a bit of char off the edge of the pan.
“I’m alright,” he says, because compliments still make him awkward. “Better with an instrument to guide me.”
Ryusui bumps his elbow gently against his. “You should sing it for the show,” he says, grinning now - but the soft kind, not the cocky kind. “Fly Me to the Moon. I mean, thematically, it’s a little on the nose. But it’d be perfect.”
Ukyo huffs a laugh, trying not to sound as affected as he feels. “You’re seriously not worried the song might be bad luck?”
“Nah. If the moon wants to come for us again, it’s gonna take more than a ballad to provoke it,” Ryusui says. “Besides, we’re not singing to Whyman. We’re singing to everyone here. We need a little hope.”
Ukyo glances over at him, watching how the firelight flickers against Ryusui’s features. The smile there is real, determined, like he’s already seeing a path past the new threats in front of him. There’s always been something about him, like he's the kind of person who laughs in the face of catastrophe and makes you believe everything’s going to be okay just by standing next to him.
“You’d better know all the chords,” he says instead of everything else he’s thinking.
“Of course I do,” Ryusui says, slightly offended. “Piano and guitar.”
“We’ll have to figure out the drumming for Kohaku.” They had originally tried to get Chrome on the drums, but it was a disaster. Within ten minutes, he’d smacked himself in the face twice with a drumstick, dropped one into the fire, and managed to snap another clean in half. They’d all agreed, kindly but unanimously, that his talents were best left to science.
Kohaku, on the other hand, had taken to it with wild precision.
“She’s terrifying with rhythm,” Ryusui says, grinning wide again. “Like she was born to beat war drums at the front of an army before stabbing people to death.”
“She might still,” Ukyo says dryly. “Depending on how this whole moon thing goes.”
Ryusui barks a short laugh, but there’s a note of something genuine in it, like even the jokes aren’t quite enough to cover the nerves underneath.
They lapse into silence for a beat. The fire crackles. Somewhere in the trees, a night bird calls once, low and long.
“We’re lucky to have Francois,” Ukyo says after a moment. “They’ve kept everything running. Instruments, arrangements, tuning…Honestly, they’re the real conductor here. Managing that and cooking is truly incredible.”
“They’d say they’re just doing their job,” Ryusui replies. “But Francois wasn’t the world’s best butler for no reason.” He looks over at Ukyo again. “We all got a little lucky, ending up with each other.”
Ukyo’s not sure what to say to that. There’s a part of him - buried deep - that agrees. Not just about the music, or the show, or surviving. He could belong here, to this time and place, to these people. Maybe to someone in particular.
The thought rattles in his chest like a pebble in a glass jar. He looks away, up at the stars, hoping he’s not flushed. The problem with being as pale as he is is that everything shows when he’s embarrassed. He can feel Ryusui’s presence beside him, warmer than the fire, steady in a way Ukyo hadn’t realized he was craving.
For the first time in a long time, Ukyo doesn’t feel like he’s standing just outside of something good.
He’s in it. With all of them, with his friends, with Ryusui.