[Week 12, Day 3 -> Week 12, Day ?] Define 'Independence'

[erase_to_forget]

Who: Yoite and Raikou
Status: Closed
Style: Third person, past tense
Where: Mizusato. Yoite's shrine / Raikou's cave? Maybe?
When: Week 12, Day 3
Rating: PG- unless they get dirty mouths
Warnings: ....maybe angst? I mean...this IS yoite...but HOPING FOR CUTE

Comments

[erase_to_forget]

Yoite woke a little while later to Bani-Allen's soft white head gently butting into his own, either out of hunger, curiosity, or trying to tell Yoite that there was some new person in their new home. Or possibly all three, the rabbit was unexpectedly intelligent for a small fuzzy creature. Not to mention an equally voracious eater as his owner

[pinktintedgamon]

Nothing.

Not a single image, conversation, text message, video, or dream from the previous 'Raikou' is there for him to see.

The question now is, quite simply, why. Why can't he access any of that person's information? To what purpose are the gods - because they're the only beings capable of such an act, to remove all access as he picks up each different Hitomi - blocking him from this past

[erase_to_forget]

That voice.

....but of course. Who else could it have possibly been?

Someone he liked? It was Yoite, obviously it wouldn't be someone he liked.

Though that list was rather short of course and....technically Raikou's name was still on it if Yoite had to be hard pressed for an answer. But it wasn't that simple.

Why was nothing with this man ever simple?

It was like that name was still in some special folder in his mind that had finally been starting to be filled with notes and pictures and audio clips and he felt that he had gotten so close. To knowing Raikou? No. To understanding him? No, not that either. But to being something to him. And vice versa. And then in a time when Yoite really could have used that 'pick it up and carry on strength of Raikou's the man had been gone. Just like that. After promises and secrets and...for gods' sakes he had hugged the man. The first person in... he couldn't even remember how long

[pinktintedgamon]

It sounded like simple fact, the way Yoite spoke that single statement. Not a question or accusation…just bald-faced fact. And for all Raikou knew, it should have been right -

Except for the inexplicable ache that still resided in his heart at the sight of his tears, of the hollowness of his eyes, seen so easily even from Raikou’s perch as he sat vigil, a steady guardian as the teen passed the night in an eerie silence.

It didn’t make sense to him - he had no such close attachment to Yoite before coming here. No reason to feel as if his duty was to guard and protect this fragile soul, and yet. It was there

[erase_to_forget]

To actually see Raikou was surreal. The way light flooded in around him as the door opened and for a brief moment the man was just barely a silhouette in that overpowering combat between the glow of morning and the lingering darkness of Yoite's new home. And then from the flurry of white, Raikou stepped out looking...the same.

The same.

Wasn't that the problem? He looked exactly the same as he used to. As he always had since Yoite had met him.

That felt like a blatant lie. But what had he known about 'the original Raikou' in the first place?

Nothing. This Raikou was just a reminder that Yoite had known nothing.

And as the man seated himself below his new perch, Yoite watched him not like a cat eyeing a prey, not like a frightened mouse cowering in the corner, but instead like a raven eyeing a new presence in its territory, face steady and blank as it tries to weigh what exactly this meant.

"You didn't say goodbye," he murmured, the words empty of the emotion that should have been there were it anyone other than Yoite.