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The clock stalled around 11:12 AM. Out of all possible time-frames Rui could find himself in, he just had to be stuck in the ordinary slog of a literature class below his level of expertise. Typically, Rui loved the ordinary—there was a lot of beauty in the ordinary. What Rui didn’t love was boring.
Class, for instance, was boring. To already know all the content of their course was both a blessing and a curse—a blessing in the sense of being lucky enough to have a simple, teenage life, but a curse in how it couldn’t hold his attention easily. Then again, the life he had now was a dream in and of itself, something he never thought possible. All in all, it wasn’t so bad.
That ordinary ‘boring’ allowed Rui to work on shows, to daydream, or to sneak in sleep on days where his own creative drive kept him up the night prior. If years of loneliness could afford him the gift of ‘ordinary’, perhaps Rui could be grateful for it.
In loneliness, he gained many precious treasures; loneliness was a home that nurtured ideas and dreams, but more than that, hope and knowledge. Presently, that knowledge also afforded him time, and Rui had no shortage of yet another treasure. After the formation of Wonderlands x Showtime, it was as if time were a beast woken from hibernation. In loneliness, he never realized how precious that time was, not until he had something to lose to it.
Time was always hungry, always let itself in. But it starved, and Rui knew it wouldn’t attack; it wouldn't relentlessly take from him. As things were, he had all he needed in the world, and as his eyes drifted across the classroom to the sunrise splash that was the Oddball One to his Two.
Tsukasa’s leg bounced with nervous energy as he scribbled something down. It was a familiar sight to Rui, not unlike the body language Tsukasa had as he ran through a new script. And perhaps Tsukasa was indeed immersed in one of his scripting notebooks—he shuffled aside his school notebook for the sake of making room for whatever he was writing.
The sight brought a smile to Rui’s face. Tsukasa’s body language was enough to alert someone who spent enough time analyzing his movements that he was up to something. Perhaps someone like a director to an actor; that was to say, someone like Rui.
Thanks to Tsukasa, Rui grew to treasure his time, holding his friends close as he made the most of the moments they had together. It was with great fondness that Rui rested his chin against his palm, absorbed with the movement of Tsukasa’s hand. At the bell's chime, would Tsukasa rush to tell him? It could be a new costume idea, or a character study he would want Rui’s notes on. If he was so lucky, Tsukasa might even come to him with an idea for a show. Those were Rui’s favorite moments; the scripts the two could dream up together.
Five minutes passed. Rui’s gaze flitted briefly to the blackboard before lazily falling back on Tsukasa; his furious pencil hadn’t stilled once. No matter what Tsukasa might come to him with, he was positive it would be worthwhile.
With an unspoken promise of showtalk, Rui closed his eyes. The white noise of Tsukasa’s writing swept him away in a wash of sunset gold into moonlight.
Jolting upright, Rui opens his eyes—but the sunlit classroom has vanished. He finds himself in a sea of stars, and the earth rises like a curtain over the moon he finds himself on. It’s baffling, it’s unreal, it’s fantastic.
Something is supposed to happen. Rui doesn’t know how he knows, other than a director's sense. The stars painting the universe remind him of lines on a script and of warm lights dimming in a theater. The show is about to begin, after all.
Play your role.
Rui’s partner for the scene is missing, though. Tsukasa-kun, his idle mind supplies. Amidst all the stars abound, the beloved future star is nowhere to be found.
As if on cue to the thought, Tsukasa enters stage right.
“Ooooooooh!” his familiar voice calls out, and Rui lifts his eyes to a galactic bloom of balloons, securely wound around the left hand of Tsukasa– no– the left hand of a little clown with dazzling curiosity. “Who are you?!” the pierrot yells, descending onto the moon's surface and skipping over to Rui.
Oh, Rui thinks, I know this story. The Nameless Pierrot and Forgotten Dreamer. Precious memories tied together with promise, making up a helium bouquet, carrying the Pierrot across the universe. It’s a script and a show, and Rui knows the blocking like the back of his hand.
If the Tsukasa before him played the Nameless Pierrot, then that meant Rui was the deuteragonist of this daydream.
“I’m simply dreaming,” Rui replies easily. “Who are you to wake me up?”
“Who is boring! I am who I am and I have the need to be,” the Nameless Pierrot declares. The words are familiar to Rui. He doesn’t linger on it too much, as the clown continues, “When is far more interesting, wouldn’t you agree? When can be any time, anywhere. But you’ll find that our when is right now! So, where is this, and who are you?”
“Who is boring,” Rui parrots, “so why are you here? You should leave, as I’m exactly where I’m meant to be.”
“Why not? No one is ever satisfied where he is.” Pierrot hums and shrugs. “A smile would be nice.”
“As would a name.”
“Indeed! So, give me your name, and I’ll give you mine!”
“A name,” Rui hums thoughtfully, reciting his own lines in turn. “I don’t have one.”
“No name?”
“None that I remember,” is his dismissive reply, changing the subject. “But I agree, when is far more interesting. My when is 10,000 years past the sun, even if our when is now.”
The Nameless Pierrot gives pause. Rui feels fond. The expressiveness reminds him so much of Tsukasa’s acting — which shouldn’t be a surprise, since this is a show. Even here, Tsukasa has made himself into the role. And yet, his Pierrot has a certain stubbornness not unlike Rui’s Tsukasa.
It all feels so familiar, Rui thinks. The Forgotten Dreamer spent year after year as nothing more than stardust — 2 years became 10,000 until the Nameless Pierrot stumbled upon him.
It wasn’t unlike how Tsukasa found him on the rooftop a year ago. Even if the lines between the two are unpracticed, the roles come naturally. The Dreamer was always waiting, after all.
“Then count backwards from 12 days time, and I’ll give you a name!” Pierrot laughs, drawing Rui back from his thoughts. “Emit!”
The Dreamer scrunches his nose. “Emit?”
“That’s your name. If in 12 days time, I can’t make you smile, then I’ll never leave. But,” Pierrot dramatically points at him, “I’ll get you to smile! And the light you emit will carry me home!”
“10,000 years alone, and you think you can make me smile in 12 days?” Rui scoffs. “It’s impossible.”
“So you agree!” Pierrot exclaims. “And so we shall see.”
“Fine,” Emit replies. “I’ll be waiting.”
The Nameless Pierrot does not get the Forgotten Dreamer to smile, and 11 days remain. Yet, for such a long promise of time, it’s within seconds Pierrot returns. Oh right, Rui thinks, it’s a play, after all.
“You’re back,” Emit hums, “Do you really intend to return every day?”
“Of course,” Pierrot responds, placing his hands on his hips. “Until the day you smile!”
Emit doesn’t smile today, either. The next day isn’t much different.
The passage of time feels odd here, almost ethereal. When Pierrot is gone, Rui is left with only a few seconds to think on how he might play the role — but the time the little clown is gone is short, not unlike a stage play, and Rui only gets a second of reprieve before Pierrot returns, announcing the change in scene thunderously. Each day, the Pierrot tries something new to make him smile — and as much as Rui sometimes wants to, his role of Emit won’t.
Their routine continues for seven days to no avail; Rui is confident that he can play the game and fulfill his role, yet something in his heart longs to change the script, to find a more suitable ending for the Pierrot and Emit. Something less lonely, more lively — just as these days are. Days eight, nine, and ten slip through his fingers, and he still doesn’t know how to change the script.
By the nightfall of day 11, Rui already knows what’s supposed to happen on the 12th day of their time together; it’s all but memorized from the script of his mind, and according to the blocking, he’s to smile. The Nameless Pierrot will carry that memory, too, with the dozens he already has in hand. Emit doesn’t want to become another memory — he wants to continue making memories. He wants to see how the Pierrot will meet his expectations, for their showtime to be never-ending, but more than anything else—
Don’t leave me behind.
Yes, Rui doesn’t want to become another memory, either. So, he refuses to smile, no matter how much he knows it’s the proper conclusion to this show; no matter how this little clown has spent every day trying to make him smile. But that’s the conclusion everyone wants in the end, isn’t it? When the show is over, the smiles of those who shared in that unique moment became nothing more than precious memories, be it an audience or cast member.
“Well, I’m off, then,” Pierrot declares, balloons firmly in hand as he prepares to leap into the atmosphere. Without looking at Rui, he adds, “Tomorrow, I swear I’ll make you smile—”
You won’t, Rui fails to respond, You’re out of time.
There is no tomorrow. There has never been a 13th day in the script.
It’s almost like Tsukasa knows what he’s thinking, and the Nameless Pierrot hesitates, as if to defy the fated narrative. Rui wants him to; Rui knows he won’t. The show must go on, and so must the Pierrot. He’ll jump off the edge of the moon without looking back, with nothing more than memories of their time together carrying him forward, to another belt of stardust and memories to be. And Emit will still be on the moon, waiting, waiting, always waiting.
…Still, what if the Pierrot looks back, instead? Tsukasa could change the script and return at earthrise, for the sake of exceeding Rui’s grandest expectations and nothing more. Maybe then, Rui could forget that he ever knew loneliness.
…Of course, even here, I’m still greedier than ever, he thinks. What a selfish thought — it almost makes him smile.
The moon shifts on its axis. Tsukasa follows suit.
When they lock eyes, realization and regret hit Rui all at once, because Rui is smiling. Despite everything, he’s smiling. Be it dreams or reality, leave it to Tsukasa to find a way to make him happier than ever.
Tsukasa isn’t smiling, though. Why? You got your wish, Tsukasa-kun. Please, smile.
How did it feel to get your wish?
The Pierrot offers a teary smile, and shakes his head. It’s as if he didn’t want Rui to play his role, either.
“What’s with that?” Tsukasa questions, incredulous and off-script. His grip on the balloons in hand tightens, because he already knows the answer. There’s desperation in his tone, accompanied by a pleading why in his gaze — and then it’s gone.
“…Aha! You smiled, just as I promised,” comes Pierrot’s next, forced line. “Thank you for sharing such wonderful memories. I will always carry them with me.”
Pierrot holds out a hand, and within his palm, the universe melts into a tiny rocketship surrounded by the moon and stars. It reminds Rui of a snowglobe.
All this time, it was foolish to forget his own role. The script can never be changed. Here, he was never Rui, the enigmatic director; he was Emit, a lost boy on a lonely moon.
“I fulfilled my promise,” Pierrot recites, and as magnificent strings of stardust erupt from his fingertips, the speckled memory is tied off. It joins the other balloons in his hands. “I hope it will be your treasure, just as it is mine.”
With an elegant bow, he turns on his heel. They were drawing near to the end of the script.
But this — it’s not the ending either Emit or the Pierrot want; it’s not the ending Rui wants, and if Tsukasa were here, it isn’t the type of ending he’d much like either.
With nothing left to lose, save for a bouquet of starlight, Pierrot jumps. Emit lifts a hand to wave. As silence settles, he mumbles,“It was my treasure,” mostly to himself. A wonderful daydream show—nothing more. “I didn’t want it to end,” Rui adds.
Their time comes to a close, as do his eyelids for the curtain call, and—
“Emit!” A voice yells.
Yes, this wasn’t the ending Tsukasa would want at all. It brings Rui to tears, and as he looks up, he sees a familiar bloom of precious memories cascading into the sea of stars. At their center comes his Pierrot, arms outstretched and reaching, those small hands seeking to cup Rui’s cheeks.
He laughs, eyes teary, and calls out, once more—
“—Rui!”
Jolted from his daydream show, Rui looked up at Tsukasa before him, donned in his school uniform rather than a costume. Was class over…?
“Rui,” Tsukasa repeated with excitement, “are you free to work on our next show? I had a grand idea during class!”
“Oh,” Rui gave a nod, chin still resting in his palm as Tsukasa spoke. His previous observation was correct, as was his hope. Normally, in this type of situation, he would tease Tsukasa for not paying attention; however, given Rui did the exact same thing, that felt unfair. No, that was putting it lightly — Tsukasa had once again exceeded his expectations. “Is that so? It’s funny you should say that, actually.”
“Hm? Why’s that?”
“Ah, well,” Rui offered a bright smile to Tsukasa, who illuminated his world like daybreak on the horizon. If that light could be reflected back, if only by a fraction, then Rui would be satisfied. “I also had an idea. Or, rather…it feels more like a wonderful memory.” His smile softened. “That being said, why don’t you tell me your idea first?”
He was met with surprised hesitation. Why, Rui couldn’t be sure. He expected Tsukasa to respond with fervent enthusiasm, but instead, Tsukasa’s mouth hung agape, cheeks flushed ever so slightly. A staccato second stuttered by, before he finally came back down to Earth.
“...‘I will continue to carry it with me’,” Tsukasa mumbled slowly, then grinned. Rui blinked and stared. Just as an impossible thought washed over him, Tsukasa asked:
“...Say, Rui. Have you heard of The Nameless Pierrot and Forgotten Dreamer?”