werites | no looky for real this time

I know. [Ryo gets a small squeezing.] I’m here now, and I won’t leave you again. Okay?

I promise.

[They may fight again. They probably will. But he has had a long life since learning ways to navigate those kinds of things, making it so everyone is the least hurt.

Hopefully, it will come in handy this time, and they will for once have an argument instead of the fights they always had before.]

[ he knows part of it is because there's really no one else left. granted, if they look around enough, they'll probably find others who are still around out there-- but it'll still be a small enough number.

there's a pause, and he presses a small kiss to akira's shoulder. it's subtle enough it can probably be confused as just an accidental brushing against him. ]

We can do whatever you want.

[ even your weird feeding kink...... ryo really is just going to continue believing this forever until proven otherwise. ]

[He stands there and quietly holds Ryo to himself. There is actually a lot he wants to say, to just blurt out. He wants to get it all out of the way so they can move on without walking on weird eggshells by each other.

He wonders if it’s too soon to just say everything he wants to say. He also wonders if it will simply cause the fight they are both probably dreading will happen.

But not talking had always been their problem before (one of them anyway). And even without anyone else, it’ll still be an issue if it’s left to dodge.

So he whispers,] I left, but I still loved you. [He thought maybe if he used his brain to make choices for himself, it’d be less painful than his heart. But it never worked out that way. He doesn’t know how Ryo always did it.]

Everyone wanted me to make the choices I wanted, but it wasn’t something I could just get over. For a long time, it felt like a piece of me was missing, but then I made myself not think about it. Seeing you again… reminded me.

If it’s not okay, you have to tell me. You have to be honest with me. I’ll figure out what to do, but not unless you tell me how you really feel, Ryo.

I just wish we had more time.

[ he wishes he knew that there was a clock running that he wasn't aware of, besides the deadline to the party. ryo can't say for sure that he would have actually used that time wisely, or if anything would have ended up differently than it did. it's impossible to know that now. but he knows that he would have made a few different choices, at the very least, even if they still amounted to nothing in the end.

ryo pulls away though. now far enough to leave akira's grasp, but so that he can look at his face. ]

I love you, Akira. I never stopped, and I never will. It might not be the same kind of love as yours, but... I'll always want you next to me.

[He still doesn’t think their own world should have been only him and Ryo and the demons, but he doesn’t say that because it doesn’t matter anymore. None of that matters.

His eyes look over Ryo’s face, and he reaches up to brush some of the blonde hair to the side gently.]

We have a lot of time now. The rest of time. It’ll just be you and me.

[And, like, hell. But that’s a given.]

Did you go home?

[ ah.

he had wanted to avoid this one, for a little bit, but he figured it would come up at some point. ]

I did. After I left Teyvat. The cat died-- nothing bad, just naturally, so I decided I might as well go and see. I tried things differently. Didn't instigate the demons to hunt down the humans. Didn't reveal your identity. I attempted every suggestion so it wouldn't lead in the same direction that it did for you.

[ his gaze shifts over to to look at the lava. ]

There was a faction of demons that did not care for me. Apparently my insistence on not going into an outright war, like they all thought I would, made it worse. They ended up attacking the humans anyway, and it still more or less ended the same way. I couldn't convince you that the demons that supported me weren't the ones going after humans. And then God came, like a bullet from the sky.

[ he shuts his eyes, trying to reimagine it. ]

I came back here. Where else would I go?

[ and jd was here, like some sort of consolation prize for another failure. ryo decided to just settle down, and got a house, and has been here since. ]

[A frown slowly eases onto his face as he listens. He doesn’t like it just solidifies what both of them argued about so often before, what both of them ultimately came to understand at separate times: nothing they could ever do would change their fate in that world.

It was always going to end terribly for them, huh? One way or another.

He brushes the backs of his fingers over Ryo’s cheek.]

I’m sorry, Ryo. That nothing changed.

[That Ryo maybe wasted time trying.]

I’m here now. We’re here together.

[ the thing is, he isn't really sure if he even expected there to be a change. maybe he wanted to see if learning about the archons would give him insight against his own god. or maybe he just wanted the last bit of proof that nothing he could do would matter.

ryo reaches up and takes akira's hand in his. ]

Well, we knew it would happen that way, anyway.

... we're about to reach the island.

Mm.

[He glances away from Ryo and out over the lava in the direction they’re headed. He swallows quietly.

Ryo’s hand gets a squeeze, and then he pulls away so he can bend down and gather their shopping back up in his hands and arms. For when they have to get off. He looks at Ryo as if to say he’s right behind him.]

[ once the ferry reaches the dock, he will disembark, glancing back to make sure akira is following behind him. when they reach the house, he opens the door and jd immediately runs out to scurry around their feet needily. ]

We weren't even gone that long.

[ cat......

but ryo just walks to the kitchen. ]

I'll see if we can make... curry, was it?

[He dutifully follows along behind Ryo with all of their stuff. Which they totally stole from thr hell grocery store.

JD makes him grin, and he pauses to let the cat desperately swerve through their legs before carefully going in, making sure not to step on said cat in the process.]

Look out, JD. We’re home. [ He goes to put their loot in the kitchen.] Curry, yeah. It’s easy. Even I can make it.

We need some rice, too.

[Does Ryo wash his rice…]

[ HE HAS A PHD. DON'T ASSIGN HIM MYSTA

although he is not sure if he has any, so he is just going to go dig through his kitchen in search for rice... ]

Alright... [ hmmm ] I can prepare a bath for you, after you eat.

[Genius level intellect but no street smarts. Ryo doesn’t wash his rice (no).

He takes things out and sorts them so they can go into the fridge or the freezer. He really decided curry when they lack so many curry ingredients. He might as well just eat cooked meat only.

The bath offer makes him ?????? because it’s really sweet, but it bewilders him coming from Ryo.]

Oh. Thanks…

[ akira this is never going to happen again after the shock of seeing you wears off. appreciate it.

but he does not respond and will. grab some rice. he has no idea when he got this but it's fine, whatever, he will just deposit the bag of it on the table like a cat bringing over a dead lizard. ]

... did you go to school there?

[RYO... 🥺 WTF. Make him more baths later........ Can't believe he's going to be right back into the malewife position once all of the honeymoon phase wears off Ryo.

The question surprises him, and he sort of freezes to look at Ryo. But then he thinks about how Ryo probably doesn't want him to make it a big deal, so he quickly carries on with what he's doing as if it's simple conversation.]

Yeah. I had to get an English tutor. [Oh, right. He glances sidelong at Ryo. In English, he says:] I know a little, I guess.

[ the difficulty of wanting to know but at the same time wanting to dodge certain topics. he wants to know about his schooling, but not how he spent his free time while there, because he knows who it ties into. he wants to know if akira got a job, and if it was something he liked. he's scared of it skirting around more intimate things, like if they got married and had a family.

akira is with him now, but these are all reminders that ryo was never the first choice. he doesn't think he's even the second, considering how much time has passed.

he shoots back in english, ]

Did you go back to Japan after?

[Ryo is suffering. But... Akira has the wherewithal to understand. So he tries not to talk about the parts he knows Ryo doesn't want to hear.

The question makes him sort of grin weakly. It takes him just a rusty second to parse it.]

I was in Boston for a while. It was... different. American cities aren't like Japanese cities at all. [(eiji voice)] But yeah, then I went back to Japan.

[He takes the rice so he can wash it and make sure it's still good.]

I was a model for a while, [Not because he thought he was sexy, but because the twins' family had big dealings in the fashion industry.] But... when we realized I wasn't aging, I stopped doing after too long so no one would find it suspicious. I couldn't really do a lot in public afterward... People might start asking questions.

[Did he have much of the life he expected to have if he had been able to age? No. He was kind of like... Rapunzel. After so long, he had to be hidden away, or be forced to reveal his Tuck Everlasting plot.]

[ hmmm.

the really fucked up part of ryo thinks it's kind of funny that if they continued to be around public, then kaoru would have seemed like a giant pervert, but also ryo thinks everything terrible should happen to him and he hopes his death was agonizing. he is, once again, smart enough to not say this out loud.

so he just listens, and watches akira work. ]

What did you do to pass the time?

[He pauses to playfully flick some water onto JD who is chilling with them, just to watch JD get offended about it. The cat does not run away, merely sits there, offended. Familiar.

One shoulder shrugs.]

I kept learning English... because it reminded me of you.

[Under normal circumstances, he would have never admitted this probably. Since... he was like Ryo in the sense of not understanding at the time exactly why he did it. But now, looking back, he knows it was because it reminded him of Ryo.]

I modeled clothes, but not in magazines. Privately. I helped design some of them, I guess. [He watches what he's doing in a distant sort of way.] I learned how to work on motorcycles.

[ he glances away at the admittance. it's weird, because it was easier to imagine that akira had completely forgotten about him when he left. it made him not do something reckless, like rush to that world to do something potentially stupid.

he walks over and scoops up the cat, who struggles for a few seconds before calming down. ryo sets his chin on top of jd's head. ]

Mm. Were you at least happy?

[Ryo slamming into that world to do something stupid would have been IC and also a funny AU. But sometimes, you shove your feelings out of the way to try to make a different choice even if you feel those feelings.

He glances at Ryo with JD, but then looks away again when he's asked the question.]

In a way, yeah, I was happy. But if I didn't stay busy, I would always feel like something was missing.

[ ryo squeezes jd a little too hard, and the cat reacts by swiping at his arm. ryo bops jd on the nose immediately in retaliation. the action is automatic because ryo is simply used to it at this point.

he just looks at akira for a long moment. ]

Emotions really are a funny thing. But you always had a lot of them.

[He turns his head to check on the two of them for a moment, but JD has been fine for a long time apparently, and also JD seems to have some spitfire... so he again looks away.]

I know.

[Time to make rice the old fashion way unless Ryo happens to have a rice cooker. The man doesn't fucking really eat.]

I thought about you a lot. [He doesn't mean to hurt Ryo's feelings in any way. Just... making conversation. Trying not to talk about Kaoru and the others, so instead, it falls once more to Ryo if it isn't himself.] Like... if I saw something interesting, or did something interesting, I'd wish I could show you, or tell you about it.

[But opening that bridge wouldn't have been a good idea maybe. And as much as Ryo hates Kaoru, it wouldn't have been fair to Kaoru either.]

[ they are definitely going to need to get a rice cooker at some point. ryo forces akira to use a fuckin pot.

some things probably would have been less painful if they saw each other, but... it would have ended poorly. ryo knows himself well enough that he probably would have done something crazy at some point, so it was better to just have a clean break. well... 'better' ]

You can tell me about it. Whatever you still remember.

[ it has been a long time. he doesn't expect akira to remember every little thing he wanted to tell him. ]

I took pictures. I can show you sometime.

[Yeah, he is having to use a pot out here. He will go get things later. Not just a bunch if meat snd whipped cream.

The idea of photos gets a weak, but genuine smile out of him. He starts hunting for spices before starting anything else.]

Okay. I want to see them. [Ryo took pictures…] For each picture I get to see, I’ll try to remember some of the stuff I wished I could have shown you.

If I can.

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