(CLOSED) no more calling like a crow for a boy

[copy]

WHO: Yuta & Yuji (ft. Muramasa??)
WHAT: Awkward run-ins at peepaw's
WHERE: Outside the Forge
WHEN: Sometime over a week after returning from the Underworld.
WARNINGS: None.

[ For once, Yuta listens when he's told to take a break. With the wounded tended to as much as reverse cursed technique will be useful for with the worst of the aftermath dealt with, there is time for it. There is space for it, too, now that he's finally spoken to Muramasa and has been welcomed back (home) to the forge. Being within the rejuvenating barrier's embrace is the most restful thing he knows — the single place where neither the eager fingers of nightmares nor that of night terrors can seem to catch firm hold of him — and he's missed it dearly.

It also helps that the heavy cloak of guilt and regret has had time to settle, the weight of it familiar now. At least most owed apologies have been made (save for one he hasn't been sure how to approach yet when any approach had been barred) and although it does nothing to assuage any of the guilt, the need to go grovel has lessened and that's something.

Enough that he can rest better, maybe.

One last quick shift at the medical bay that leaves him close to depleted of energy and hopelessly drowsy has him hurrying back to the forge, finally willing to take the extended break he's been urged to take and desperate for a nap on the engawa.

Of course fate has other plans.

It could be because of the exhaustion or the eager rush to reach the only real sanctuary he knows — quite possibly it's both — that Yuta does not realize whose presence is near until he's unexpectedly faced with the familiar shock of pink hair and both his steps and his heart stop abruptly. ]

Ah.

Comments

dw he's going now

[eyescar]

[ Couldn't Yuji have ended up like Geto, if he wasn't careful? Eating cursed objects, losing friend after friend, wanting it all to stop and hating himself over and over again - it would've been so easy. If he had been anyone else, he thinks he would've fallen victim to that grief, and that pain, and totally given up. It could be that he was cursed, that his grandpa punished him with his last words, or it could just be he has a different heart, but...

His path could have been different. ]

Yeah? Me too, senpai. I don't want you to change.

[ Leaning in to him is easy, comforting him is easy, and Yuji does it without thinking. His hand rubs careful shapes into Yuta's back, and he chooses not to let go, not yet, not just because he doesn't want to, but... They both need this. They've both earned a reprieve, a moment to let all the emotion sink into their bones and try to relax after suffering so, so much.

Who else would understand as intimately?

Tilting his head, he smiles fondly at Yuta as they lean back, still grasping hold of each other. ]

Any time. It's okay, really.

[ And then, hesitantly - ]

You can rely on me for real this time, Yuta.

thank u geto 🙏

[copy]

[ Kind. So kind. Yuta does not deserve it after everything he's done, how he's hurt Yuji with his monstrous plans and actions, what he almost did to him in the depths of the Underworld. And yet he's still being treasured as he is, held in strong, gentle arms that feel like how the rays of the sun on his back felt when he was still young and carefree and chasing his heart around the garden with water balloons to the sound of her laughter; so very warm and nostalgic. He hasn't been held quite like this since then either. Can't recall any other time he felt hands press shapes into the planes of his back, only the lithe fingers tracing pictures there and making him guess the shapes (a star, the sun, the moon, the very heavens their small hands would hang for each other) until he forgot what he was even crying about. It's been so long.

He distantly thinks, unbidden, of his conversation with Geto; the enormity of a realization looming behind the horizon. The knowing that he could if only he let himself. It doesn't matter because he's not going to. That is not meant for him. His heart belongs to someone long gone. He has found his home with a ghost two parts divine. He is not meant for the living at all. He is a dead boy walking, cleaved in two.

But maybe it's okay to pretend to be a part of the living a little while longer, to let the heat of a too kind touch seep into his cold, tired skin to make the illusion he still belongs all the stronger. Yuji says it is with such fondness. Who is he to argue?

("It's okay that I'm alive", words he keeps needing to chase after to reaffirm their meaning again and again. Maybe they feel a little more believable coming from someone else's mouth, someone who understands.)

Amidst all the suffering, there is still joy to be found. Yuta finds it now in the hesitant syllables of his given name, allowing the burst of it to unfurl across his face in a bright smile wide enough to force the lingering saltwater to the edges of his eyes to form fat droplets that stubbornly refuse to spill. He does not let go. ]

Then I'm holding you to that. [ A playful lilt, ever so slightly teasing, refusing to let the joy be diminished by any embarrassment of needy words spoken all those many layers beneath the earth. ] And please rely on me too, it will make me happy if you do. It's the whole reason I became a sorcerer after all.

[ To be needed. ]

[eyescar]

[ Yuji doesn't really consider himself to be a kind person.

He knows that he tries hard to be good, and he wants to be helpful and kind to others, but he doesn't know if he can think about how kind he could be when he thinks he has done so many bad things, too. He is a good kind, and he is strong, and he keeps fighting for it, and he hopes one day he can believe it without hesitation, but it is a struggle. It's an internal battle he's going to keep fighting.

Being surrounded by friends and people who care about him helps, and his heart feels warm, and he comes to accept the good parts of himself as well as the bad. Not just a sorcerer, or a cog, or part of a machine, but a boy, too, who has been through a lot and is trying to figure out how to exist in a world where he was destined to die. It's hard, but he's strong enough to handle it, isn't he?

Leaning back, he smiles, expression warmer, softer, now that they've overcome this difficulty. ]

I'll do my best. I know I failed last time, but... I'll work on it in future.

[ Yuji wants - likes - to be needed, too. ]

[copy]

[ Although Yuta eases his grip when Yuji leans back, it's more so to flatten his palms against his back and keep lingering contact, his thumbs tracing along the lines of Yuji's shoulder blades in steady, gentle brushes to lend reassuring weight to his words. ]

It's okay. You're here now, that's all that matters to me.

[ Yuta means it, wholeheartedly. The disappointment and hurt utterly pale in comparison to the sheer relief of having Yuji back after weeks of not knowing his fate and fearing the worst. Yuta's all the more glad for the soft smile he receives despite everything that happened between them and despite the awful suffering he's perceived in Yuji. He knows to treasure the genuine warmth in its curves more than ever now.

They survived once again. Maybe they will end up coming out of this more fragile rather than stronger, but maybe that's all right, too. They have each other; they can learn to rely on that fact. Trying to live when you did not expect to is already such a difficult thing, but it's a little easier with company. ]

We'll both probably mess up again at some point, but we'll figure it out together, right?

[ They have so far, surely they can keep doing it. ]

[eyescar]

[ Neither of them want to go far, it seems, and Yuji is fine with that; he doesn't mind staying close while they finish talking and work through their pains and their hurts, the way it makes it easier to bear all these burdens. Yuji understands it, and Yuta does too, the two of them twinned in their shared understanding of what it means to exist in a world as monsters, as the things that they'd been forced to become.

Would they have chosen this route otherwise? He doesn't know. ]

It's the same for me, too.

[ He's glad Yuta is alive.

He's glad Yuta is breathing.

(Yuji thinks he's glad for himself, too, that the same is true. ]

It's inevitable. Let's try not to do it too often though, okay?

[copy]

[ There is strength to be found in having the sentiment be echoed back to him because then it's okay. It's okay to be alive. So long as someone needs him, someone wants him around, someone is glad for his continued existence, then it's okay for Yuta to live and draw breath still. After all, he does not exist for himself. He will bear anything — even his monstrous, awful self and all his failures — so long as that remains the case. It is the only self-affirmation he needs. With this blessing, he can go on a while longer. For a moment, he can even allow himself to just feel glad to be standing here, tears clinging to his lashes, a friend warm in his arms, a welcoming home so nearby. It wasn't that long ago that he didn't think he'd ever have such things again at all.

He is truly blessed despite everything.

They will continue to struggle, no doubt, but that is life and especially theirs as sorcerers. There is hope as long as they're alive to mend things. Yuta smiles, a little wryly, a little watery still, but warm and genuine as he nods. ]

Okay. I promise.

[ There is only a brief flicker of hesitation before Yuta is leaning back further, removing his left arm (deliberate, mindful choice) from around Yuji to hold it between them, pinkie finger extended. It's childish (and scary, so scary, when the last promise he made like this ended up being a curse) but it feels apt for one made with the future in mind; a promise to rely on each other, to safeguard one another's hearts as much as they can. ]