(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]

[ Ah.

Taking a break had been hard for Yuji, too, who had spent the first week of his 'recovery' hiding from the world, drowning in his pain and his guilt with the tender hand of Nanami the only thing to anchor him and make him feel as if he could breathe. Learning to move past it was a long story, but he was slowly mustering the strength to stand up and step out of the protective wall his mentor had crafted for him.

It keeps happening; horrors that he can blame on himself, a nightmare of his own making, but there's nothing he can do to fix it, now. There's nothing he can do other than force himself to apologise to the people he cares about and try and work through it, to have those tough conversations and begin the process of healing, of moving forward and forgiving each other.

That doesn't mean he's completely ready to see Yuta again, though.

This is one of the conversations he knows is going to be hard because of what he almost did. He had been so ready to die, to become a curse and fold himself around his senpai, to become a twin to Rika, that looking back at it in hindsight is... A little embarrassing. Mortifying, really, and the strange guilt and horror mixes with the mortification to make him gape at his senior before he coughs, rubbing the back of his head. ]

Ah... Hey, senpai.

[ Damnit, Muramasa. ]

... I guess I should've expected to see you here.