(no subject)
Title: Water and Stone
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Family
Series: Yu-Gi-Oh GX
Shipping(s): None
Character(s): Shou Marufuji, Ryo Marufuji
Summary: As Shou reached out, his brother walked away.
Notes: Written for Serpentatsunset on tumblr, who gave me the prompts Ryo & Shou and “Only Human”. Contains spoilers for much of the series. Also, I apologise for the probably inaccuracies, it's been a long time since I've written for GX and even longer since I've watched the series itself.
Shou cried a lot. This was one of the first assessments that Ryo made about his brother.
From when he was a tiny baby, lying in a cot, Shou would cry all through the night. Ryo didn't blame him for this - he was just a child who wanted food or comfort or changing, without having any other means to express this - it was merely an observation.
But Shou kept on crying when he got older. Whenever he fell and scraped his knee or the other kids had picked on him in class, he would cry. Then it would be up to Ryo to deal with these problems.
The first real distance Ryo had from Shou's crying was when he went to Duel Academia, two years ahead of his younger brother. In that time, he forged his own way, even managing to make some new friends. Of course he still worried about Shou, but without the constant demand on his attention, it became merely a nagging worry in the back of his mind, instead of the constant ringing to deal with it right now.
By the time Shou himself came to Duel Academia, Ryo had made the decision to distance himself from him, for his own good. It fast became apparent that Shou had not changed enough in those two years - he still wanted to cling and cry. So if Ryo forced him away, perhaps he would be made to grow up and learn how to deal with life without hiding away from it.
At first this did not go well. In the absence of Ryo being there for Shou's comfort, the boy soon found a friend to cling to and deal with all his problems for him. But Juudai was... perhaps better for Shou than Ryo was. He protected him, but not in a conscious way. It wasn't as if he was protecting Shou for Shou's sake so much as protecting Shou just happened to be a consequence of what Juudai was doing anyway.
And this too came to fade.
One day Juudai made a new friend, a friend that consumed his entire self. Someone he was so recklessly absorbed in that everything else seemed less important in comparison. Protecting Shou might have been a fortunate side effect of various other actions, but protecting Johan was deliberate.
This didn't stop Shou from following Juudai for a while, but he quickly became disillusioned and hardened as a person because of it. He was all on his own in a strange world with no brother or friend to look after him. Crying wouldn't solve anything.
When Ryo encountered Shou after the Dark World, it was clear that his brother had grown so much. It had been happening all this time, even before Johan came along. Even when Shou had relied on Juudai, he had also had to learn to rely on himself. And now he was a better person than Ryo because of it. Shou had stepped with caution where Ryo had leaped blindly ahead. Neither brother was wrong, they had just both approached life in a different way and yielded different results.
But when it was all over, when Shou had become the successful pro-league duellist that Ryo could not, Shou still cried. Because crying hadn't been what had made him weak as much as co-dependence had been. Crying was merely an outlet for the emotions he had become overwhelmed with.
So he would cry while resting his head against his brother's wheelchair and Ryo would stroke his hair comfortingly. Because they both knew that it everything was all right now and that they had grown so much, simply so they could end up back in the same place with reaffirmed conviction.
They were brothers and Shou cried a lot. But Shou was stronger than Ryo and that was fine by both of them.
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Family
Series: Yu-Gi-Oh GX
Shipping(s): None
Character(s): Shou Marufuji, Ryo Marufuji
Summary: As Shou reached out, his brother walked away.
Notes: Written for Serpentatsunset on tumblr, who gave me the prompts Ryo & Shou and “Only Human”. Contains spoilers for much of the series. Also, I apologise for the probably inaccuracies, it's been a long time since I've written for GX and even longer since I've watched the series itself.
Shou cried a lot. This was one of the first assessments that Ryo made about his brother.
From when he was a tiny baby, lying in a cot, Shou would cry all through the night. Ryo didn't blame him for this - he was just a child who wanted food or comfort or changing, without having any other means to express this - it was merely an observation.
But Shou kept on crying when he got older. Whenever he fell and scraped his knee or the other kids had picked on him in class, he would cry. Then it would be up to Ryo to deal with these problems.
The first real distance Ryo had from Shou's crying was when he went to Duel Academia, two years ahead of his younger brother. In that time, he forged his own way, even managing to make some new friends. Of course he still worried about Shou, but without the constant demand on his attention, it became merely a nagging worry in the back of his mind, instead of the constant ringing to deal with it right now.
By the time Shou himself came to Duel Academia, Ryo had made the decision to distance himself from him, for his own good. It fast became apparent that Shou had not changed enough in those two years - he still wanted to cling and cry. So if Ryo forced him away, perhaps he would be made to grow up and learn how to deal with life without hiding away from it.
At first this did not go well. In the absence of Ryo being there for Shou's comfort, the boy soon found a friend to cling to and deal with all his problems for him. But Juudai was... perhaps better for Shou than Ryo was. He protected him, but not in a conscious way. It wasn't as if he was protecting Shou for Shou's sake so much as protecting Shou just happened to be a consequence of what Juudai was doing anyway.
And this too came to fade.
One day Juudai made a new friend, a friend that consumed his entire self. Someone he was so recklessly absorbed in that everything else seemed less important in comparison. Protecting Shou might have been a fortunate side effect of various other actions, but protecting Johan was deliberate.
This didn't stop Shou from following Juudai for a while, but he quickly became disillusioned and hardened as a person because of it. He was all on his own in a strange world with no brother or friend to look after him. Crying wouldn't solve anything.
When Ryo encountered Shou after the Dark World, it was clear that his brother had grown so much. It had been happening all this time, even before Johan came along. Even when Shou had relied on Juudai, he had also had to learn to rely on himself. And now he was a better person than Ryo because of it. Shou had stepped with caution where Ryo had leaped blindly ahead. Neither brother was wrong, they had just both approached life in a different way and yielded different results.
But when it was all over, when Shou had become the successful pro-league duellist that Ryo could not, Shou still cried. Because crying hadn't been what had made him weak as much as co-dependence had been. Crying was merely an outlet for the emotions he had become overwhelmed with.
So he would cry while resting his head against his brother's wheelchair and Ryo would stroke his hair comfortingly. Because they both knew that it everything was all right now and that they had grown so much, simply so they could end up back in the same place with reaffirmed conviction.
They were brothers and Shou cried a lot. But Shou was stronger than Ryo and that was fine by both of them.