andsuddenlydynamite | (no subject)

Straight to the point. At least Tsuna could get that right, even though it only annoyed him further at the moment. His face didn't show anything of it though. Instead he smirked his usual smirk, giving away nothing of what was going on inside of him.

"He's in the library, if you want to go looking for him. But I'm afraid I have to warn you, fortune might not be with you when you talk to him. He's not... very communicative these days. But since it's you maybe things are different?"

"Not very communicative?" Tsuna's face takes on an almost exasperated look, mixed with a good deal of his usual ~~derp~~ insecurity, "H-he's doing that thing again isn't he? Where he pushes himself too hard?"

And he starts heading toward the library, obviously this had been some sort of concern... and not the first time he's pulled a stunt like this. Tsuna himself appeared to be both worried and a bit tired of Gokudera's antics. Lord knows what he's gone and done this time...

And squatting in front of the library peeking into the keyhole is Yamamoto, looking cheerful as ever, in his full kendo garb, clearly having just finished as well.

"I suppose you could very well describe it as 'that thing'", Ryuutaro replied, following Tsuna back to the library. He didn't mean to leave for longer than a few minutes anyway, he'd just needed his head cleared.

...

...and another person. Another reason Ryuutaro really wanted to get out of this underground-place. It was crowded.

"Is there anything interesting to see?", he asked sweetly, because concern or not this was spying on his boyfriend and honestly, Ryuutaro was not amused.

Yamamoto looked over, simply beaming and starts to wave the two over to come check something out, but there's a moment. Tsuna stops right in his tracks and Yamamoto's grin is wiped clean off his face as a sudden wave of heat comes off the wall of the library. Yamamoto bolts towards Ryuutaro and Tsuna and tackles them both to the ground just as the entire front wall of the library is blows through by a massive wave of red storm flames.

In the smoking aftermath, there are a few flashes of light as Gokudera recalls his weapon, however an angry cat yowling can be heard.

"There I got it... now I just got to find a way to explain this little guy to the boss..."

And the smoke clears, revealing a dirty, tired Gokudera. His glasses are broken and half hanging off his face, his hair has been tussled up, and a familiar feline is clinging to his head possessively. Clearly he wasn't even aware anyone was nearby.

Ryuutaro untangled from the other two boys as quickly as he possibly good and his first proper action afterwards is crawling away.
Only after that is done, he turned to look at Hayato. With Uri.

So he did it. So he really did it, after all this time. For a moment Ryuutaro was just relieved. Everything needed to turn out right now, there was not a single bit of doubt.
With the relief came a desire to just run over to Hayato, press against him, then put him to bed...

But no. What did he even think? Leaving everybody hanging like this, doing stupid things, making him worry, leaving him basically on his own in this horrible, hateable place?
Suddenly Ryuutaro'd pride didn't allow him to move a single inch towards Hayato. How could he? He was such an idiot sometimes!

... and then there was this part of him which he desperately wanted to ignore. The one who still couldn't believe that this world, this weird, horrible place, was going to be his homeworld.
And who told him Hayato wouldn't do this more often? Tsunayoshi had seemed used to it. And he knew perfectly well how Hayato could be.... how he was most of the time actually.
This was... stupid. And just a bit too much to take.

The different feelings and urges just crashed down on Ryuutaro like he expected the ceiling to do earlier.
He knew, if he did anything now, it'd be stupid.
So Ryuutaro remained where he was, doing nothing at all in a desperate try to seem composed and get himself together already.

"G-Gokudera-kun?"

Tsuna just looked up at Gokudera, quite frazzled about the whole... library exploding thing... and getting tackled... and now random cat on fire.

And Hayato turns around to see the trio staring up at him, and he just stands there in awkward surprise.

"U-uh hey bo- AGH!"

And of course, that foul tempered cat makes a go at his face. It takes him s a few moments to peel her off and throw her off to the side, glaring DAGGERS at her. He was tired and his mood was a touch temperamental... well, more so than usual, and he turns back to the group. Noting Ryuutaro's look in particular. He knew his boyfriend was going to be furious with him, and he couldn't blame him for it. But he didn't regret his decision. This was something he had to do... even if it meant he had to hurt Ryuutaro, which broke his heart to even THINK about, but he would rather have a justifiably angry boyfriend, than a dead one. So he turned to Tsuna again, though now his tone is a bit meek.

"Uh, Boss, can I meet you in the kitchen in a bit, I'll tell you all about it then..."

Tsuna looked from Gokudera, to Ryuutaro, and back to Gokudera and just nodded, pulled Yamamoto off to the kitchen.

~~They gone Ryuutaro! Now's your change to drag him to the bedroom to UNLEASH THE BEAST!~~

At least they were alone now. It made Ryuutaro feel a tiny bit better. Keeping this between them gave him a bit of safety. Then again it meant that there was no distraction, no escape at all.

The fortune-teller still had no idea how to feel, but he stood up at least, without moving over to Hayato though.

"You did it", he said, "I'm glad."

It came out a bit toneless though. He just couldn't make up his mind about a single thing right now. It wasn't a lie though. If not anything else, at least he was telling the truth.

"Th-thanks..." His words came out awkwardly, and he glanced off to the side a bit, "Ryuutaro I... I..."

I didn't mean to leave you alone, I didn't mean to hurt you, either of those would have worked. But the shame just weighed so heavily on him, words didn't seem to work right. He was just so expecting Ryuutaro to lash out at him for what he did, and not getting it... or any reaction for that matter, felt even worse. The anticipation just crushed him to the point where he couldn't wait for Ryuutaro to make a move any longer. He quickly drops to his hands and knees and slams his forehead into the ground. Luckily he's somewhat gotten over the repeated mashing into the ground, but the initial impact was probably a bit rough, and he is grinding his forehead into the ground as hard as he can.

"RYUUTARO I'M SORRY! I'M REALLY REALLY SORRY!"

This head-smashing did have it's effect on Ryuutaro. It was really hard to stay angry, when Hayato did it, but right now his anger didn't vanish, just melt a bit.
Ryuutaro now moved over to Hayato rather quickly, sitting down in front of him.
"I'm aware of that", he commented and his voice was a bit softer than before, "Please stop this, you're already worn enough..."

He knew and understood why Hayato did all this... but it didn't make a thing about it better. Sometimes Ryuutaro missed the times when he was harder and only thinking and feeling for himself, not them both.
Maybe this little display of worry would calm Hayato down. Hopefully. Because Ryuutaro really didn't know what he wanted to say at all.

Hayato peeled his head off the floor and looked up at Ryuutaro, almost pleadingly for a moment. But then he turned his gaze down to the floor, weighed down by his own shame. If he had been stronger he wouldn't have had to push Ryuutaro away like that... he wouldn't have had to hurt him. If he wasn't so damn pathetic all the damn time...

What's worse is that he didn't know what Ryuutaro wanted him to do. If he wanted him to go away... as much as he didn't want to right now he would, or if he wanted him to stay, he would also do so, even if it was just to be yelled at... but this uncertainty was crushing. He needed to know what Ryuutaro wanted, he needed some sort of direction to go.

"What do you want me to do?"

"I.... I'm not.... I don't know, honestly", it came out weaker than he wanted it to.
Hayato was not the only one who felt pathetic in this moment. Ryuutaro wished he was stronger, he wished he'd seen the sky sometimes in those last days, he wished this was a world where he had something to hold on to, that wasn't Hayato, some sort of safety.
He loved Hayato, that was a thing he was more sure of than anything else, and even if it meant to leave everything he knew, he wasn't going to ever give him up. That much was sure.

The problem wasn't even really Hayato. He could've overlooked all this so much easier, if he had his own life. He wanted it, desperately. Just being an addition to Hayato's for the past days had weakened him so much.

Hayato looked back up at Ryuutaro, surprised by the unsure tone. Surprised and heartbroken. He had hurt Ryuutaro so much more than he had thought, his whole world had. This place... it was hurting everyone, but at least Hayato and everyone else had seen this world at it's best, Ryuutaro never got that opportunity. Out of everyone here he had to be hurting the most.

Very slowly Hayato held his arms out to Ryuutaro, like he wanted to touch him, but was afraid the other boy might be too angry at him to want any sort of physical contact with him. But Hayato wanted to just hold him so badly, hold him and try to make all his pain go away. He bit his lip nervously, and decided to go onto his next nervous habit whenever he noticed there was something wrong with Ryuutaro: try to feed him.

"A-are you hungry? We could go get something in the kitchen..."

If he hadn't felt downright terrible, Ryuutaro might have laughed at this offer. It was so typical and silly, that it was comforting again.
But he shook his head. He wasn't hungry and other people were in the kitchen... He didn't feel like seeing these people. Even if he knew he should adapt to them as they were going to be his company, he just couldn't. It wasn't them. It was they're existence in this place.

"Thanks, but I'm afraid, no, thanks", he replied silently, looking at Hayato and his open arms.
A part of him wanted to get away, but there was no place to go at. If he had been able to go outside he would've went there and returned when he felt more normal again, but this possibility just didn't exist.
So instead he leaned forward- still expressionless- until his head rested against Hayato's shoulders.

He hated himself for this obvious display of weakness, when he should be strong, but there was nothing he could do about it. He was tired, so very tired of this.

Hayato just held the boy he loved tightly in his arms. He had never seen him like this. So... broken... no... he had seen this once before, when he had been locked away in that cell. Hayato nuzzled his face into Ryuutaro's hair, kissing it. He had failed as Ryuutaro's crutch... as his pillar. He failed the boy he loved who had always supported him when he needed it. Well... may it wasn't do late. There had to be SOMETHING he could do....

"Ryuutaro... what can I do to make this better? Please, tell me, I'll do anything... anything at all..."

All tenseness seemed to fade from Ryuutaro's body, he leaned against Haytao, completely limb, as if any muscle in his body had disappeared. The boy laughed weakly.

"It's not you... you don't need to do anything about something that's not really your fault."

This was about him. His life. And the worst wave of insecurity he'd ever gone through in his life.

This hurt. Ryuutaro was in so much pain. This was all his fault, he knew Ryuutaro would have been better off with someone else. Someone safer...

"It is my fault... I wasn't strong enough. I-If I had been stronger then I could have been with you." He holds him tighter. "But I did it... j-just a few more days here then we can go home... So please..."

And then there's a sniff as Hayato tries to fight back tears in his eyes. Seeing Ryuutaro so weak like this scared him. If he couldn't fall back on Ryuutaro for support... then... he had to do what he did before. He had to hold it all inside. No one could know he was scared, that he was weak... not even Ryuutaro. He at least owed it to Ryuutaro to try and support him, for all the times his boyfriend had supported him. In an instant he forces himself to look happy and cheery, forcing the tears away. This was how he was with everyone else, he would put up this barrier again, for Ryuutaro. He didn't need to deal with Hayato's stressors too.

"We attack in two more days. Then everything will go back to the way it's supposed to be, and we'll go home." He tilts Ryuutaro's face up to him, smiling at him hoping it would be enough to ma, "We've been through worse than this! We can do it!"

and he intertwines his fingers in Ryuutaro's, "We're stronger than this!" And he swallows a lump forming in his throat, but still fights to keep that damn smile on his face, "A-and if you really wanted..... I'm sure we could find a way to take you home.... if that would make you happier..."

And Ryuutaro felt so much anger rise while Hayato talked. He knew Hayato only mean the best for him, but it just didn't feel right at all.
The fortune-teller sat up again and then suddenly he raised his hand, untangling it from Hayato's, slapping his boyfriend accross the face. It wasn't forceful, but there was a considerable amount of anger and hurt in it.

When Ryuutaro talked his voice was shaking with rage and fear and sadness.
"Don't give me this look! Don't give me this talk either, least of all this... this offer!"
Ryuutaro scoffed.
"Listen to me. Just listen to me for once! This is my decision. I'm not chained to you by an invisible chain, like you seem to believe. I don't have to stay with you until you give me permission to leave. I want to be with out and you should do your best to finally understand that it makes a difference!"
Ryuutaro paused for a moment, but really only a moment.

"And I'd be extremely thankful if you stopped treating me like I'm made of glass. I'm stronger than this! Than all of this!"

Ryuutaro heard his voice getting weaker again, somewhere through the sound of blood rushing in his ears, but he paid no attention.
It's been ages since he'd lost it like this, he really didn't know what he was saying anymore.

And Hayato's hand instantly went to the side of his face and he scooted back away from Ryuutaro in shock.

He hit him.

Of course it didn't hurt, not in comparison to everything else he's gone through... but he could still feel the sting as his cheek started to heat up. Ryuutaro had never hurt him like this before... even if it was minor, Hayato was shocked. Shocked and scared. Had he really messed up that badly?

Well it shouldn't surprise him that much... all he had been doing since he got here was messing up for everyone. He had failed the Tenth in future and let him die, he had lost his temper and because of it he and Yamamoto got hurt, and it had taken him so long to try to figure out how to use the Systema C.A.I again, that he had hurt the boy he loved so much.He had this coming. He failed everyone... especially Ryuutaro. He had been trying his best though... he had honestly been giving it his everything... but it wasn't enough. It had never been enough...

He just looked up at Ryuutaro, wide-eyed and fearful. He opened his mouth to try and talk, but his words just got stuck in his throat, so his jaw just hung open as he sat there, paralyzed with the weight of everything that had just happened.

And Ryuutaro's facial expression slowly returned to normal. What was he doing here? He was making it worse. Everytime he tried to make Hayato understand how he felt, let it be willingly or not, he made it worse. Just like Hayato made it worse for Ryuutaro everytime he tried to fix things.

"You want to know what you can do, right?", Ryuutaro sighed, "Step one would be accepting that I'm here and I'm staying, even if...", he trailed of and then restarted, "I'm staying. You could kindly stop trying to shove me off at every other ocassion, because I'm not going to change my mind. And even if I was, I am capable of speaking for myself."

Ryuutaro just leaned back against Hayato, feeling tired again.

"I am myself. I can think for myself. Fight for myself. You can stop making all of me about you. It's true, I'm here for you, because I love you" -and that meant more to him than beyblading even!- "But that doesn't mean you have to try and treat me like... like... like... something so easily breakable. I can take the weight of my own choices."
Even if he felt like he couldn't. But he just had to or he couldn't look at himself in the mirror again.

Hayato tenses up for a brief moment when Ryuutaro lays on him, but recovers, meekly wrapping his arms around Ryuutaro again. He was still rather afraid of meriting himself another slap.

His head was spinning, just from everything. He was exhausted. Ryuutaro was sad, then mad, then he hit him... and now he was leaning on him again. Did he need him to hold him? He was finally trying to take in what Ryuutaro was saying again, just in time to catch the unfinished sentence, which he finishes for him, almost absentmindedly.

"Even if you hate my world..."

And Hayato held him closer... he was so confused. The way Ryuutaro was acting and what he was saying didn't match up at all. Right now he just felt so fragile... so dependent on Hayato to be strong. Then of course, those three words, Hayato once again tunes out the conversation so that he could just bask in them. Finally he feels able to verbalize his thoughts into words.

"I love you too Ryuutaro... I-I'm sorry... I just... I just... wh-when I see you like this... I just want to make it better, and you've been so miserable here... I'll do anything just to make you happy again!"

Even if it meant working himself to the point of exhaustion. Even if it meant becoming Ryuutaro's pillar when he was already at his wits end... and even if it meant letting go of the boy he loved so he could be happy. He would do it. Anything for that smile and that lighthearted skip in his chest when they were together...

Ryuutaro twitched as Hayato said his own thoughts out loud just so easily. But then he figured that it wasn't all surprising that Hayato knew it... It was so obvious.
Ryuutaro didn't even want to hate this world. He knew that there was more to it than this hideout, this cruelty... but in his mind these few aspects he knew always just added up, the fact that this world almost killed Hayato again, and he couldn't do anything but hate. Hate in a very childish way, but still hate.

Ryuutaro listened on to Hayato voicing his feelings and what he heard didn't make him angry anymore. He'd do anything... Ryuutaro nuzzled his face in Hayato's chest, over time he'd become almost immune to finding dirt on Hayato disgusting- but his voice still came out almost clear.
"I know.... And I... I'm trying, too, you know? It's not enough for your world yet.... but someday it will be." "
Ryuutaro had been working to get on top of his world, he'd been working a lot for it back then, and he'd be able to do it, too, in this world. He'd get to the top. With something.
Taking shouldering all of my fate as well as yours is an impossible task."

Hayato took a deep breath,to relax. It felt so nice after those past few days just to hold and cuddle his boyfriend. This was what he was fighting for, so he could keep loving his boyfriend like this. Hayato started running his fingers through Ryuutaro's hair as he spoke... god if they weren't in the middle of the hall and Hayato hadn't promised to report to the tenth he could fall asleep just like this...

"I don't doubt it." a sleepy smile spread across his face, "You're an amazingly strong person..."

Hayato nuzzles up to Ryuutaro as well.

"...You've been shouldering all my problems for all this time... why can't I try to take one yours? If it'll make you happier, I'll do it..."

A strong person... Ryuutaro knew this, but right now there were no words explaining how much he needed to hear somebody else say it.

"But that's it...", he sighed, "It doesn't make me any happier... not like this at least..."

Hayato pushing Ryuutaro away and pushing himself too far? It combined two things Ryuutaro hated. But even if Hayato tried another way... Right now Ryuutaro doubted he'd be able to do much. This was about him. Hayato could be there for him, but not solve the problem in itself.

Hayato continued gently rubbing Ryuutaro's back. He needed him right now, and there was no way Hayato wasn't going to be there for the boy he loved, now that he had rediscovered the Systema C.A.I. He finally felt like he could keep Ryuutaro safe in his arms again. He could relax, they both could.

"You wanna go back to Hibari's place then? You liked it there." And there's a big yawn, "I gust gotta report to the Tenth really quick first... he needs to know my progress with the Systema C.A.I."

If they were quiet, they could probably find a little corner where Hibari wouldn't notice them.... if he did, Gokudera would take the blame. He couldn't have Hibari 'biting' Ryuutaro to death after all. He didn't need that. Besides, Hayato was far more used to Hibari's abuse...

Ryuutaro removed himself a bit from Hayato, smiling slightly.
"That's not necessary, but thank you a lot...", he reached up and let his fingers brush through Hayato's hair softly, "You go and do your report and then just go to sleep."

Ryuutaro didn't exactly know what he wanted to do, but somehow relaxing wasn't one of the options. He felt so far behind and that just needed to change. He couldn't have Hayato (and possible someone else, which would be worse) rescue him all the time.