fic: Kaktos
Title: Kaktos
Beta: pinkeuphoria1
Pairing: Hayato/Ryu
Rating: PG
Genre: Angst
Notes: Short HayaRyu for pinkeuphoria1. Post!movie, Ryu-centric.
Word count: 1,900
Summary: Life has complications. Ryu’s been conditioned to lack faith in himself.
”Tadaima.”
The ambience of the silence in his apartment echoes all around him when he comes home. When the answer doesn’t come, he gives up, lowering his head in apathy as he removes his shiny shoes and leaves them in the neat row by the wall. He doesn’t bother with slippers as he makes his way in. The barely audible sound of his socks sliding on the floor as he drags himself to the kitchen comforts him. He feels a little less alone as he tiredly picks up a glass from the cupboard, closes its door with a soft sound and enjoys small gulps of cool water.
So he isn’t home. He should’ve maybe expected it, he thinks absently as he leaves his suitcase on the table, with all the pop quiz sheets he should correct before tomorrow’s lessons inside it. He’s hoping someone has passed. He isn’t sure, though - delinquents hardly do.
He isn’t an inspiring teacher. He doesn’t have the guts to intrude and insist. Since forever, he’s only been heard when his listener has wished to hear him. It isn’t a usual occurrence. He has a habit of fading in the background like someone who was there, always, but people never noticed until years later when they looked at all the photographs from old times and wondered if they ever really knew what was going on in his head at all. Mostly, they didn’t.
He doesn’t know why he did this. It’s not for him, this job. He’s constantly lost and useless. He doesn’t have the ability to change lives. It’s all he ever wanted to do, maybe, even if just a little. Still, in the end, he’s only able to see how he can’t ever achieve that. It’s his own qualities that keep him from it, too.
He strips himself from his suit jacket and leaves it on the back of a chair. The floor creaks as he walks to the bedroom, loosens his tie knot and finally pulls it off, rolling it neatly around his hand before leaving the bundle on the table. He picks up a packet of cigarettes set on top of a file of his current class’s student records and leaves the room. The silence is making his head feel hollow and his lungs, empty. Breathing in doesn’t grant him enough oxygen.
When he gets to the living room, he stops, stomach sinking. A sound of heavy, even breathing lulls him, arising from the figure half curled up on the tiny, shabby couch, face half buried in the decorative pillow. Hayato’s overgrown hair has been pulled up into a ponytail, but it’s coming loose in his sleep. Strands of curls cover his face, moving slightly as he breathes in and out, ever so peacefully.
He hasn’t gone anywhere, after all. He’s such a nuisance, thinking he can freeload just like that, which he can. There’s today’s paper on the floor beside the couch, though, job ads circled with a yellow highlighter, most likely stolen from Ryu. At least he’s trying.
When he suddenly left for Los Angeles to get educated, Ryu thought he’d return a bit more successful than this. He didn’t. He’d done shady part-time jobs and lousy full-time jobs throughout Ryu’s university years, collecting money to follow his dreams, to get far there abroad. Kuma and Yankumi had written him outstanding references.
After everything, they’re still unable to break free from the failure’s web. He should’ve thought so. It’s a bit depressing, how nothing ever really changes.
He wonders if he should return to university to get another degree. For what, he doesn’t really know yet. He doesn’t want to beg for money from his parents, though, so he’ll just have to put up with this profession for now. He brought it upon himself.
Why he always panics and makes wrong choices, he doesn’t know. He’s too good at losing his path and failing to believe in himself. No one ever told him he was outstanding or just good enough. All he’s ever heard is how badly he’s fucked up, what a disappointment he is and how he’s never going to be anything. So far, the varying voices have been right.
“Ryu.”
Hayato’s eyes are still closed. Ryu snaps out of the haze he’s in, squeezes the packet of red Marlboros in his curled fingers a bit tighter. The persistent resistance around his chest is back. In the end, he just stares, standing still. Hayato grimaces drowsily, presses his head in the pillow and lets out a long, heavy breath.
Of course.
Ryu pads towards the room’s tiny balcony door. There’s shuffling behind him, Hayato turning over. When Ryu pulls the door open, a chilly rush of air gives him goose bumps. He doesn’t mind much. He didn’t mind when he lived at home and his balcony was his only escape.
“Welcome home,” Hayato greets him with a hoarse voice before Ryu steps out, not looking behind his shoulder. He leans against the rail and pulls out his lighter and a cigarette from the package. The wind gives him trouble when he tries to light it, killing the flame before the tobacco catches light. When he finally succeeds, he stuffs the packet with the lighter in his trousers’ pocket and inhales smoke heavily. He gazes somewhere below him, to the city.
The sun is setting, painting the sky with hues of orange and red. The light it casts is golden, colouring even his pale skin to look healthier. It gives everything a soft glow, something that cannot really be artificially created. He appreciates its aesthetic value.
There’s shuffling behind him and an arm around his shoulder. He lowers his head a little, the cigarette dangling between his fingers, smoke rising from his nostrils with a slight sting. Hayato steals a drag from him and his thumb is drawing circles in his bony shoulder, assuring and comforting.
“I can’t save them,” he tells Hayato regrettably as he lets the ash drop somewhere far down towards the city. His tone is indifferent; it’s the content that speaks for his emotions. The sun is giving his vision blind, colourful spots. “One just got a lawsuit,” he fills his friend in and takes another heave of smoke, concentrating on the burn in the back of his throat. “There’s nothing I can do. He’ll probably go to juvenile training school.”
“That’s bad,” Hayato agrees with him. His side is warm as it presses against Ryu, firm muscle beneath his black t-shirt. Ryu hasn’t felt his eyes stinging like this in years, but now they do. He’s at his breaking point. It’s a stupid thing to deny. He wishes Hayato would just go away. “But there’s only so much you can do, Ryu. You can’t save everyone.”
“More like anyone,” Ryu corrects him shakily, gaze averting elsewhere. His vision blurs - tears. They aren’t falling, but they’re forming in his eyes threateningly. He takes in a deep breath and plays with the burning cigarette in his hand anxiously. Hayato presses a gentle, long peck on his temple.
Hayato guides him back inside, keeping him close with his arm. The rhythm of their steps differs, making the touch of Hayato’s arm press and loosen constantly. They turn around and Hayato closes the door, locking it with the tiny key in the keyhole. Everything feels slow when they walk further in. Hayato’s presence in his apartment is everywhere.
“I think you can save a life,” Hayato murmurs to him quietly. His gaze is averting, the shy side of him raising its head hesitantly. He has that wounded look on his face, eyes rounder than usually and cheeks somehow puffier and skin smoother. Maybe it’s because there’s no extreme expression. He isn’t grinning, smirking, grimacing or howling, not even crying. Ryu hardly ever meets this face. It looks alien on Hayato. “I think, in a way, it was you who saved us all back then.”
Ryu snorts, disbelieving - it wasn’t. He never did anything. His lips were sealed and he just followed like part of the wolf pack commonly addressed to as 3-D. He hit, he shoved, he kicked, stumbled and fell hopelessly after a quiet, warning growl. There was no one he saved, not even himself.
“Take,” Hayato presses. They don’t come across this topic often. Ryu wonders if it’s a taboo, most of the time. He hadn’t been honest. He hadn’t been open to Hayato, his closest friend who was always abandoned miles away behind the slamming door of the unwelcoming Odagiri household. He wonders if he’ll ever truly be forgiven for that, yet he knows there’s no way he could’ve done it any different. “You stood up for him. You started everything, you took the first step. You let Yankumi in, gave her a second glance. You saved us all.”
“Sounds far-fetched,” Ryu sighs and lets Hayato push him to sit down on the futon. His long fingers awkwardly curl behind his nape to cup him lovingly. Mostly, it’s just uneasy; they don’t really work like this. Hayato’s pushing himself too hard. He looks so vulnerable behind his eyes.
Ryu’s never taught him how to stand by his side and support him. He doesn’t know how. It just doesn’t work for him. He’s a lone one. Not that Hayato would ever understand that, having always had his rowdy friends around him, giving him the constant attention he’s required.
“You’re saving me now too,” Hayato shrugs, settling down on the floor on his knees before Ryu. “You’re giving me a roof over my head. I owe you. Somehow, I always end up owing you.”
“That is not true,” Ryu insists - it isn’t. Just isn’t, and he wonders where Hayato’s gotten such an absurd idea. The man’s lips are curved into a tiny smile. His eyes remain sorrowful as they peer at him, though. The orange light is reaching inside the room from the window. Hayato pulls him down for a long kiss, not much tongue or anything, oddly.
Then he rests his head on his shoulder and they stay there, just sitting. Eventually, Hayato’s sound asleep again. Probably just got bored out of his mind again. He’d tried, though, sincerely so. Sometimes Ryu finds it disturbing how people change when they mature.
He pulls Hayato on the futon and places a pillow under his head and a blanket for warmth. Sleep isn’t coming to him, so he just sits beside him, listening to the sound of his sniffles, holding Hayato’s hand in his, heart racing guiltily. He’s still afraid of getting caught like this. It was only a month ago when a very unruly Hayato returned from Los Angeles to his doorstep, pounded his front door, rang the doorbell way more than he really needed to and roared at him how he was in love with him, like it was somehow entirely his fault.
He was tightly embraced like never before back then, Hayato’s familiar odour around him to trigger all the painful memories he’d enshrined. It had been rough and forceful, no room for either of them to say no. Ryu thinks he’d gained something back then. Hayato’s return had saved him, lighting up a tiny fire inside of him that had already died miserably years ago.
The light on the other side of the window dies. Ryu wonders if he, too, will someday succeed.
Beta: pinkeuphoria1
Pairing: Hayato/Ryu
Rating: PG
Genre: Angst
Notes: Short HayaRyu for pinkeuphoria1. Post!movie, Ryu-centric.
Word count: 1,900
Summary: Life has complications. Ryu’s been conditioned to lack faith in himself.
”Tadaima.”
The ambience of the silence in his apartment echoes all around him when he comes home. When the answer doesn’t come, he gives up, lowering his head in apathy as he removes his shiny shoes and leaves them in the neat row by the wall. He doesn’t bother with slippers as he makes his way in. The barely audible sound of his socks sliding on the floor as he drags himself to the kitchen comforts him. He feels a little less alone as he tiredly picks up a glass from the cupboard, closes its door with a soft sound and enjoys small gulps of cool water.
So he isn’t home. He should’ve maybe expected it, he thinks absently as he leaves his suitcase on the table, with all the pop quiz sheets he should correct before tomorrow’s lessons inside it. He’s hoping someone has passed. He isn’t sure, though - delinquents hardly do.
He isn’t an inspiring teacher. He doesn’t have the guts to intrude and insist. Since forever, he’s only been heard when his listener has wished to hear him. It isn’t a usual occurrence. He has a habit of fading in the background like someone who was there, always, but people never noticed until years later when they looked at all the photographs from old times and wondered if they ever really knew what was going on in his head at all. Mostly, they didn’t.
He doesn’t know why he did this. It’s not for him, this job. He’s constantly lost and useless. He doesn’t have the ability to change lives. It’s all he ever wanted to do, maybe, even if just a little. Still, in the end, he’s only able to see how he can’t ever achieve that. It’s his own qualities that keep him from it, too.
He strips himself from his suit jacket and leaves it on the back of a chair. The floor creaks as he walks to the bedroom, loosens his tie knot and finally pulls it off, rolling it neatly around his hand before leaving the bundle on the table. He picks up a packet of cigarettes set on top of a file of his current class’s student records and leaves the room. The silence is making his head feel hollow and his lungs, empty. Breathing in doesn’t grant him enough oxygen.
When he gets to the living room, he stops, stomach sinking. A sound of heavy, even breathing lulls him, arising from the figure half curled up on the tiny, shabby couch, face half buried in the decorative pillow. Hayato’s overgrown hair has been pulled up into a ponytail, but it’s coming loose in his sleep. Strands of curls cover his face, moving slightly as he breathes in and out, ever so peacefully.
He hasn’t gone anywhere, after all. He’s such a nuisance, thinking he can freeload just like that, which he can. There’s today’s paper on the floor beside the couch, though, job ads circled with a yellow highlighter, most likely stolen from Ryu. At least he’s trying.
When he suddenly left for Los Angeles to get educated, Ryu thought he’d return a bit more successful than this. He didn’t. He’d done shady part-time jobs and lousy full-time jobs throughout Ryu’s university years, collecting money to follow his dreams, to get far there abroad. Kuma and Yankumi had written him outstanding references.
After everything, they’re still unable to break free from the failure’s web. He should’ve thought so. It’s a bit depressing, how nothing ever really changes.
He wonders if he should return to university to get another degree. For what, he doesn’t really know yet. He doesn’t want to beg for money from his parents, though, so he’ll just have to put up with this profession for now. He brought it upon himself.
Why he always panics and makes wrong choices, he doesn’t know. He’s too good at losing his path and failing to believe in himself. No one ever told him he was outstanding or just good enough. All he’s ever heard is how badly he’s fucked up, what a disappointment he is and how he’s never going to be anything. So far, the varying voices have been right.
“Ryu.”
Hayato’s eyes are still closed. Ryu snaps out of the haze he’s in, squeezes the packet of red Marlboros in his curled fingers a bit tighter. The persistent resistance around his chest is back. In the end, he just stares, standing still. Hayato grimaces drowsily, presses his head in the pillow and lets out a long, heavy breath.
Of course.
Ryu pads towards the room’s tiny balcony door. There’s shuffling behind him, Hayato turning over. When Ryu pulls the door open, a chilly rush of air gives him goose bumps. He doesn’t mind much. He didn’t mind when he lived at home and his balcony was his only escape.
“Welcome home,” Hayato greets him with a hoarse voice before Ryu steps out, not looking behind his shoulder. He leans against the rail and pulls out his lighter and a cigarette from the package. The wind gives him trouble when he tries to light it, killing the flame before the tobacco catches light. When he finally succeeds, he stuffs the packet with the lighter in his trousers’ pocket and inhales smoke heavily. He gazes somewhere below him, to the city.
The sun is setting, painting the sky with hues of orange and red. The light it casts is golden, colouring even his pale skin to look healthier. It gives everything a soft glow, something that cannot really be artificially created. He appreciates its aesthetic value.
There’s shuffling behind him and an arm around his shoulder. He lowers his head a little, the cigarette dangling between his fingers, smoke rising from his nostrils with a slight sting. Hayato steals a drag from him and his thumb is drawing circles in his bony shoulder, assuring and comforting.
“I can’t save them,” he tells Hayato regrettably as he lets the ash drop somewhere far down towards the city. His tone is indifferent; it’s the content that speaks for his emotions. The sun is giving his vision blind, colourful spots. “One just got a lawsuit,” he fills his friend in and takes another heave of smoke, concentrating on the burn in the back of his throat. “There’s nothing I can do. He’ll probably go to juvenile training school.”
“That’s bad,” Hayato agrees with him. His side is warm as it presses against Ryu, firm muscle beneath his black t-shirt. Ryu hasn’t felt his eyes stinging like this in years, but now they do. He’s at his breaking point. It’s a stupid thing to deny. He wishes Hayato would just go away. “But there’s only so much you can do, Ryu. You can’t save everyone.”
“More like anyone,” Ryu corrects him shakily, gaze averting elsewhere. His vision blurs - tears. They aren’t falling, but they’re forming in his eyes threateningly. He takes in a deep breath and plays with the burning cigarette in his hand anxiously. Hayato presses a gentle, long peck on his temple.
Hayato guides him back inside, keeping him close with his arm. The rhythm of their steps differs, making the touch of Hayato’s arm press and loosen constantly. They turn around and Hayato closes the door, locking it with the tiny key in the keyhole. Everything feels slow when they walk further in. Hayato’s presence in his apartment is everywhere.
“I think you can save a life,” Hayato murmurs to him quietly. His gaze is averting, the shy side of him raising its head hesitantly. He has that wounded look on his face, eyes rounder than usually and cheeks somehow puffier and skin smoother. Maybe it’s because there’s no extreme expression. He isn’t grinning, smirking, grimacing or howling, not even crying. Ryu hardly ever meets this face. It looks alien on Hayato. “I think, in a way, it was you who saved us all back then.”
Ryu snorts, disbelieving - it wasn’t. He never did anything. His lips were sealed and he just followed like part of the wolf pack commonly addressed to as 3-D. He hit, he shoved, he kicked, stumbled and fell hopelessly after a quiet, warning growl. There was no one he saved, not even himself.
“Take,” Hayato presses. They don’t come across this topic often. Ryu wonders if it’s a taboo, most of the time. He hadn’t been honest. He hadn’t been open to Hayato, his closest friend who was always abandoned miles away behind the slamming door of the unwelcoming Odagiri household. He wonders if he’ll ever truly be forgiven for that, yet he knows there’s no way he could’ve done it any different. “You stood up for him. You started everything, you took the first step. You let Yankumi in, gave her a second glance. You saved us all.”
“Sounds far-fetched,” Ryu sighs and lets Hayato push him to sit down on the futon. His long fingers awkwardly curl behind his nape to cup him lovingly. Mostly, it’s just uneasy; they don’t really work like this. Hayato’s pushing himself too hard. He looks so vulnerable behind his eyes.
Ryu’s never taught him how to stand by his side and support him. He doesn’t know how. It just doesn’t work for him. He’s a lone one. Not that Hayato would ever understand that, having always had his rowdy friends around him, giving him the constant attention he’s required.
“You’re saving me now too,” Hayato shrugs, settling down on the floor on his knees before Ryu. “You’re giving me a roof over my head. I owe you. Somehow, I always end up owing you.”
“That is not true,” Ryu insists - it isn’t. Just isn’t, and he wonders where Hayato’s gotten such an absurd idea. The man’s lips are curved into a tiny smile. His eyes remain sorrowful as they peer at him, though. The orange light is reaching inside the room from the window. Hayato pulls him down for a long kiss, not much tongue or anything, oddly.
Then he rests his head on his shoulder and they stay there, just sitting. Eventually, Hayato’s sound asleep again. Probably just got bored out of his mind again. He’d tried, though, sincerely so. Sometimes Ryu finds it disturbing how people change when they mature.
He pulls Hayato on the futon and places a pillow under his head and a blanket for warmth. Sleep isn’t coming to him, so he just sits beside him, listening to the sound of his sniffles, holding Hayato’s hand in his, heart racing guiltily. He’s still afraid of getting caught like this. It was only a month ago when a very unruly Hayato returned from Los Angeles to his doorstep, pounded his front door, rang the doorbell way more than he really needed to and roared at him how he was in love with him, like it was somehow entirely his fault.
He was tightly embraced like never before back then, Hayato’s familiar odour around him to trigger all the painful memories he’d enshrined. It had been rough and forceful, no room for either of them to say no. Ryu thinks he’d gained something back then. Hayato’s return had saved him, lighting up a tiny fire inside of him that had already died miserably years ago.
The light on the other side of the window dies. Ryu wonders if he, too, will someday succeed.