chibi_trillian

Wahoo. Fic.

Title: Let Go
Fandom: Yami no Matsuei
Pairings: Watari/Tatsumi, Tatsumi/Tsuzuki

Let Go

Yutaka’s crying again.

This doesn’t happen that often, but when it does it’s always bad. It’s like he saves it up and gets it all out his system in a rush so he can be his happy self the next day. Like a thunderstorm in the desert, it rains like it’s never going to stop, and then suddenly it does and it’s like it never happened.

He lied, and told Seiichiro that he had to spend the night watching an experiment. That way, he can be alone and Seiichiro won’t ask why his eyes are puffy and bloodshot come morning. All I can do is sit next to him, make comforting noises, and nibble on his fingers to remind him that he’s not all alone. I’ll know he’s starting to feel better if he starts petting my head.

I think this wouldn’t be quite so hard on Yutaka if Seiichiro didn’t need him to be happy so desperately. He told Yutaka once that he loves his smile, how it’s never forced, and how he doesn’t get upset by things. How he lets everything go in a way that Seiichiro wishes he could.

What Seiichiro doesn’t know is that Yutaka doesn’t let quite everything go. He has his angry moments, his depressed moments, and every time Seiichiro looks a little too long at Tsuzuki he goes absolutely rigid for just an instant before he relaxes and laughs it off because Seiichiro needs to see him smile that summertime smile.

I think Bon knows what’s wrong, or at least that something is wrong. He’s an empath, after all. If he missed this outpouring of emotion, I’d be very surprised. Last time this happened, he brought Yutaka breakfast the next morning. He said he was just bringing it by so that Tsuzuki couldn’t eat all of it before some more deserving soul got a hold of it, but he stuck around for a bit and asked some very oblique questions about how Yutaka and Seiichiro were doing as a couple. Yutaka laughed him off, but I think Bon got the answers he was looking for. He’s the only shinigami that knows about this, because I know he wouldn’t tell Tsuzuki. Tsuzuki couldn’t handle this. He would think it was his fault, even though it’s not. It’s not anybody’s fault, really. Bon will probably bring Yutaka some tea and a cinnamon roll in the morning. I hope Yutaka talks to him this time. Bon will probably understand.

Seiichiro loves Tsuzuki. Yutaka knows. He’d have to be blind not to. Seiichiro has loved Tsuzuki for longer than Yutaka and I have been around. Tsuzuki is not for him, though—there’s someone else for Tsuzuki now. Seiichiro stepped aside gracefully and tried to find love elsewhere…for Tsuzuki’s happiness. Yutaka knows of both Seiichiro’s love and Seiichiro’s pain, and it hurts him in ways he dares not show and makes him do what he’s doing tonight.

It’s kind of sad, watching two people so determinedly reach out for each other and miss over and over again. Yutaka feels like he’ll never have Seiichiro completely because Seiichiro and Tsuzuki have History with a capital H together that started before he was born. Seiichiro feels guilty for loving Tsuzuki and like he’s using Yutaka to run away from his own feelings because Yutaka is safe and doesn’t cry while trying to smile for him.

Both of them try so hard to hide their forbidden feelings from the other, but only one of them succeeds. Ice may be cold, but it’s transparent from the right angle. Sunlight is blinding unless you look away, and somehow, at the right/wrong moment, Seiichiro always does. The Shadow Master never sees the shadows he casts over the sun.

I can’t get too angry with him, even though there are days when I want to peck his eyes out in his sleep just for spite. Seiichiro really does attempt to control that part of him that cares for Tsuzuki too much, both for Yutaka and for Bon. He overcompensates, actually. Seiichiro won’t fight with Yutaka over important things because he doesn’t want to make Yutaka upset. He holds onto him like he’s the only important thing in the world at night. The sex is fantastic…at least, I guess it is. I usually flit out of the room and give them some privacy when that comes up, but unless I leave the house I can’t avoid the noise. Seiichiro cooks, he cleans, he listens to Yutaka ramble about his latest experiment even if he doesn’t understand more than half of what it entails and is planning on arguing with him about the funding for it at work tomorrow. He’s the model of a perfect boyfriend except for the tiny little problem of him loving someone else.

I may be biased, but sometimes I think Yutaka and Seiichiro would have been better off without each other. At least Yutaka wouldn’t be crying now, if they had never gotten together, if Seiichiro had never responded to Yutaka’s first casual little flirtations.

Some days I hate him for that, for walking into this relationship while knowing that his heart lay elsewhere.

Some days I wish Yutaka would just tell him that it’s over.

Some nights like this I’m tempted to go get Seiichiro, just so he can see what he’s doing to my Yutaka. Seiichiro would shatter if that happened—Yutaka crying, Yutaka leaving; both would break the Ice Prince into a thousand tiny melting pieces. And Yutaka wouldn’t be able to stand seeing what he’d done to Seiichiro. It would eat him up inside with guilt, and guilt is something he can’t shake off by having a crying binge.

So I sit, and watch, and wait for the rain to end and the sun to come out again. Sometimes Yutaka talks to me, after, and tells me exactly what set him off this time, and sometimes he just cuddles me and tells me I’m a good owl for sitting here with him while he cries over silly things that he ought to just let go.