Sound and Silence: Epilogue
#15 of Sound and Silence
The story of friends finding a home comes to a conclusion... for now.
Tying up a few loose ends.
After confessing their love for one another, not much really changed. Reyson still spent most of his time after work gaming, and Clair spent most of his time clubbing, and continued sleeping with other men-though while he used to occasionally sleep with the same person on occasion, he has sworn to no longer do that... not that Reyson would have minded either way (he happens to think that Clair's sexual liberation is quite attractive).
Once a week or so, Reyson would take Clair to Game Engine, and Clair would take Reyson to the club, usually on the nights of one of his performances. Due to his raw intuition and athleticism, Clair quickly became extremely good at CDE and even surpassed Reyson's skill in no time at all-something which Reyson was honestly slightly miffed about, but he eventually learned to take it in stride. Reyson, sporting new clothes Clair had picked out for him at the club (they were much more modest than Clair's choice of attire, as per the wolf's tastes). Became unsurprisingly popular with the local men. His quiet, mysterious nature and one-off quips made him sought after by many horny boiz-but he would regularly turn down their advances-except for the rare occasion where Clair was present to propose a group love-making session.
Perhaps the main thing that's particularly new is that now, every once in a while (a month, give or take a few weeks), they have sex. Sometimes it's just a quickie for one or the other to let off steam, and other times it's a highly intimate love-making session, but it's always a good time.
Clair still regularly came up with spontaneous activities for the two to do together, and Reyson never refused. They weren't officially dates-neither of them called it that, anyway-but they were pretty much dates.
Reyson and Sarah remained friends. He continued teaching her techniques for CDE, and at one point, they almost did have a fling, but Reyson ended up stopping it before it went too far. Occasionally, Reyson will call her Sal, now, to her delight.
Reyson ultimately gave up on the idea of saving his father, and went to seek therapy to try and work through the trauma he went through. It seemed to have had some positive effect, because he has gained a bit more of the confidence in himself that he had back then. However, he still indulges in the occasional self-depreciating humor and will sometimes relapse into self-loathing depression on particularly bad days. Clair is always there to support him during his times of need. One step at a time.
Up until his father's dying breath, Clair regularly visited him in the hospital, where he learned a bit about his father's life growing up (he went through a similar experience as Clair, but his family was poor, placing even more pressure on his father to "make it in life"), and played music for him. It was mostly classical piano music, but occasionally Dale asked him to put on the same kinds of performances that he would at the club, curious about the kind of pop music the "young'uns" listen to. Against all odds, the two became friendly by the time his father passed. Clair cried at his funeral, which Reyson also attended.
Clair also made amends with his mother, and while Reyson still will never forgive her transgressions, he has become quite adept at putting those events in the back of his mind, and will generally tolerate and be amicable towards her. The three occasionally meet up for dinner.
Clair and Reyson stayed at the apartment for a few years, but eventually decided to buy a house together. Despite this, they never acknowledge that they're basically an old married couple when the topic is brought up by friends and strangers alike.
Reyson was offered a job at Clair's father's company, which he accepted, as they offered higher pay for less work hours. This gave him more time to work on his personal projects such as his rhythm game project. Amusingly enough, even though nearly all the songs are composed by Clair, Reyson used a variety of aliases to give the illusion that the music used came from a wide cast of musicians.** Clair sold the illusion pretty well, having a mastery of a wide variety of music styles. That said, he still favored EDM and Trance.
Clair eventually quit his fast food job (he stayed friends with the manager, who still offers him free food on occasion) and started writing music full-time, enabling him to work at home. With the fan following from his club performances as well as his brief stint as a male idol, his album releases were never unpopular and provided him a stable source of income. He started streaming performances online as well, something he could do to emulate the feeling of live performances without the overwhelming exhaustion of a live crowd. He regularly asks Reyson for his opinion on his compositions. While the wolf didn't think of himself as much of a musician, his feline partner still greatly valued his opinion.
The additional time allotted to both Reyson and Clair gave them much more time to spend together, which they exploit unreservedly and regularly. They are quite happy together. They do butt heads on occasion; Clair sometimes gets fed up with the wolf's passivity, and Reyson occasionally feels that Clair should be less hot headed and opinionated-but a healthy dose of communication (and post fight love-making) has done wonders for ironing out those bumps in the road.
**This is something that has actually happened in real life. In early versions of Dance Dance Revolution, Bemani did not have very many artists to make music for them, so one of their main artists, Naoki, produced a large portion of the music for the early DDR games. Bemani didn't want to brand them all as made by one artist, however, so they used many aliases for the songs as they varied between genres. A full list of these aliases can be found here: Naoki Maeda - RemyWiki
That's everything for the main character story and development I wanted to cover. There are a few more side stories and sub plots I have in my mind that I may explore and share with you all in the future, and If I submit those, then I hope you all will be around to read that as well. If you've come this far, thanks for reading.