(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

[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. ]