Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal or any of the characters depicted in the story. Proper rights are owned by the respected owners individually.
Notes: Just a 2am venting fic that was encouraged to be posted instead of collecting dust, so I'll gladly be disowned by the fandom now.
Warnings: Slightly nsfw, speculations of an old set of summary spoilers during the war arc.
Pillar
by. Satari-Raine
She wakes up the day after the war with a sense of hatred coiling in her stomach and a sense of loss that shows in dried tear tracks, stains on her cheeks left overnight. Getting dressed is a blur, checking her phone – 'You have no new messages.' – is a blur, kissing her mother on the cheek is a blur, hiding the bags under her eyes from her grandmother's knowing eyes is a blur, but avoiding Yuma's house, avoiding what she knows is Akari crying and Haru weeping and Obomi dysfunctional and unanswered questions she herself could answer, isn't a blur – it's an ordered retreat.
Instead, she goes and finds Kaito.
He steps aside and lets her in; she hasn't heard his voice since they made it back to Earth, to Heartland City, so when he speaks and tells her to follow him, she wonders why she's so surprised at how tired he sounds, voice emotionless and tone quiet, rough and cracked as if he wants to keep his words in his throat. She's too tired to attempt and ask if he's okay, too scared to hear an answer, but she gets one anyway when they make it to his room and he falls into a chair with no grace, just a grunt and a curse and there's a hand over his eyes before he tells her to sit wherever she wants.
She stands and looks him over, seeing the way his skin's paler than usual, how it looks like he hasn't slept, how it looks like he was actually crying, and she's too lonely to keep quiet so she talks, cries, screams, not necessarily to him but he's her only audience, the man with a raised head and fists curled in his lap so tight the white of his knuckles are blinding. And when she's done, breathing heavy and eyes stinging, palms numb from clenching her fists so tight, he calls her by her name and says nothing else. She feels like she understands as she leaves, as his hand leaves her shoulder and he's grunting when she says goodbye, that there isn't a right way to deal with this grief.
Years pass. Visits to Kaito's come and go, conversations are spoken, but they don't mention what they've lost, at least not often. It's not easy for her to see blue eyes, ones she's always seen as strong, clouded with a haze that she knows won't fade. But mundane matters: school work, taking Haruto to school on the days Kaito can't, cooking over at the tower because Kaito mentioned to her once that he's not the best at it – she finds herself doing these things, and isn't sure if it's a distraction or a blessing, Kotori realizing that she's slowly involving herself in Kaito's life. And then she's older and so is he, so is everyone still alive, and she still hasn't found an answer for how to deal with her grief: she's still living with the guilt, bearing with the pain of losing near everyone she knows, and not even college and Haru's passing and nights spent with Akari in that lonely house or nights spent at Kaito's helps the pain, it only makes it worse because she's living the life that the others can't, that they were never given, that the damn war took from them.
One night finds her at Kaito's place, Kotori bundled up in that same orange coat he gave her all those years ago (because it still fits, it's comfortable, it isn't the pink one Akari bought her, the one she associates with the older girl saying, "Yuma would've gotten this for you, too.") And when he opens the door and looks as worse as she's been feeling since that morning, she doesn't say a word and somehow ends up in his arms for the night, a steady fall into something distracting and cowardly for her, for them, to take advantage of, at least for a while. She wonders if she's being selfish but at the end of the night when she's sore and he's breathing heavy and they're half ashamed and completely ruined, she figures he's being selfish too.
The next morning when she heads home and lies and says she was out studying with a friend, her mother accepts it with a understanding smile. Her mother doesn't see the bruises on Kotori's hips, the fingerprints on her swollen breasts – marks solid despite being made through clothing – and Kotori wonders as she changes clothes about how much self-control they must've had through their frantic actions to have her walk away still a virgin, with the both of them not as ashamed as they could've been. She leaves her room with a deep-set anger at herself, bothered that the choice to spend the night trading biting kisses and clawing touches through their minimal layer of clothes was the one she chose, and her mother catches her in the hallway and stares at her daughter. Kotori's bottom lip is pressed against a line of white teeth, chin shaking in pain, in shame she hopes her mother misinterprets, and her mother pulls her close and rubs the nape of her neck through Kotori's hair and whispers, It's okay, it's okay sweetie, and Kotori doesn't cry even though she wants to because what good does it do now.
Her mother ends up crying for her, and Kotori believes it is in the hopes that if she cries, her daughter won't have to. When Kotori prepares to leave for the day, her grandmother expresses quiet concern in the form of questions, conversation, and Kotori can't answer her, can't face her knowing looks, she can't – who would understand?
Only Kaito can understand. They're the only ones left.
She goes back one day, over a few weeks later, and he lets her in, talking in the form of silence before he mentions Haruto's gone, away at school, and she nods and asks how Haruto's been doing instead of focusing on an obvious bruise on the side of Kaito's neck. Conversation is clipped throughout the evening and when Kaito gets a call from Haruto saying he's staying with a friend, Kaito is hesitant before he gives into his brother's wish, agrees and tells him to be safe and to take Orbital (which results in a groan from Haruto and a sense of relief in Kaito's voice for the rest of the night.) Kotori's busy scrawling words on a page at the table, history homework due in a week, and Kaito's turning off the phone just in time to see her shoulders shake, Kotori slamming the book closed because there's a reminder, it's there in a way it shouldn't be, and then he's pulling her upstairs to a different floor than last time and saying something, sounding conflicted and determined in one breath, asking her to which she can only agree to, and then he's in her arms and she's in his.
A button from her blouse is snapped off, she hears a few threads in his shirt ripping, and neither of them care. Before his shirt falls to the floor, she leaves marks on his shoulders, her nails biting into the skin and she wonders if she should grow them out for a reason, for the way his breath hitches and he gasps her name, draws it out before ending it in a kiss on her neck, and she can't help but cry and burrow into his shoulder because emotion: it's there, it's there in the pain, and then he's biting her shoulder and she's writhing in his lap, almost wishing his pants were off but they'll never go that far, they won't risk it.
Her shirt's barely off her shoulders before she shudders in his arms, feeling the fabric slither off before he yanks it away and twists his hand, trailing fingertips up the center of her back – a laugh bubbles up and he stares at her, and she realizes how wrong it sounded in this situation – before he finds the clasps of her bra. It comes off after she feels his hand shake once, and she unwinds her arms from his neck and slides the straps down her arms, keeping her eyes locked with his, watching him watch her. Soon her bra is gone and her arms are back around him, breasts pressed firmly against his bare chest; she gasps quietly, he barely groans.
He's hard against the inside of her thigh as she starts to grind against his leg, the denim of his pants rough, blissfully rough, against the thin fabric of her damp underwear. She's probably leaving a stain but he's staring at her, eyes half-lidded and wild, a blue ethereal and struggling to spark with something other than the concept of void – and then he's gripping her hip with one hand, bruises now a promise in the morning, and Kotori feels so sensitive and delirious, feel all the quakes of nerves and tingles of heat on her skin as he meets every push of her hips with his own. And he's flicking a thumb over her nipple back and forth with a feathery touch, palm large enough to hold her developed breasts, and then there's a tongue in her mouth dominating, overruling, destroying her and she's gasping at teeth grazing her chin and she doesn't care, she doesn't – a stain of clothes isn't worth comparing to the wreck of their lives right now.
A point of pressure is placed at the base of her back, his hand cradling her as she's falling against the bed sheets, him above her, and she draws her gaze to his bare chest, to the toned features she's never let herself fantasize over, and she swears she sees a smile before it's gone. There's a mouth on her breast, over her heart, and his name is whispered in a shudder as she blushes at the wet sounds of his mouth on her skin, at the grunts they're groaning when he grinds against her bare leg; she doesn't need to look to know the rough fabric will blotch her skin with a rash, red and rough – she'll have to wear pants tomorrow. Her arms reach and fold over his shoulders, one goes and tangles itself in his hair, and she wiggles against the sheets with a moan, pressing her hips up into his and then he's cursing, one word after another, thrusting down to meet her hips, grinding as frantic as Kotori wishes she could be.
Her name sounds broken when it's whispered, his own echoes in a shout with the "o" trailing off into a intake of air. And then they're breathing hard and he's staring at her, brushing the sweaty strings of hair away from her forehead, and then he's gone, off of her to leave her cold, but then falling beside her and she's warm. They wind up curling around one another, her legs shaking as he pushes a knee in between her own, and Kotori ends up cradling his head close to her chest as she breathes in sync with the rise and fall of his chest.
It only serves as a moment of comfort, as a quick jolt to an absolute stop, and all sensuality fades, all thoughts of how wrong this is leave, and all that remains is the sudden urge to stifle her crying because one day, she knows, she'll cry and then he will too and that is the one thing she cannot see: her only pillar of strength crumbing to the ground.
She falls asleep to his breathing and dreams of nothing but Yuma, thirteen year old Yuma staring at nineteen year old her and telling her that this is wrong, that she shouldn't be subjecting herself to pain like this, to shame, and then he's gone, running after the others and it ends in a light and she wakes up to a dark room, in a cold sweat. She tries to jolt up, to chase away the chill, but her head is in Kaito's lap, cheek against his thigh, and then she feels a hand in her hair that is soft, comforting, and before she sits up she lets out a sigh, hearing it shudder as it passes her lips, and she cries, Kaito's pants stained with small dots before she lifts her head and rubs at her numb cheek. He sits her up and drapes some white shirt over her shoulders, going so far as to brush his lips against her forehead before he says something about food or time, something Kotori can't strain herself to hear, and then he's gone and she settles back in the bed, curling the shirt, his shirt, closer around her chest in an attempt to chase away the cold from the nightmare.
Unsure of the time, she wakes up in a daze to his voice. Kaito's standing there at the doorway, arms crossed, dressed only in sweat pants, hair still a mess from her fingers. She sits up, wraps her arms around her chest, and from the bed she can see a bruise on his bicep, can see a small set of teeth marks on his shoulder; it's too easy to blush at the sight, to stammer and excuse herself for her actions, but she doesn't, instead only staring at him, his eyes, and opening her mouth to ask what he needs.
"Should we stop this, Kotori?"
It's a question, of course. They've never discussed it much, any of it, and right now she assumes they're at a point where they are ignoring themselves, their worries and doubts and are intent on keeping their focus on one another because that's easier, it's too easy to only care about other people, and Kotori ends up looking down and shaking her head not in reply to his question but he takes it that way, moves and sits beside her on the bed and stares for the longest time until she can't bear the silence and lays her head in his lap.
Her voice feels distant when she asks, "How…did this start?"
He cards his fingers through her hair, mussed and sweat-slick strands clinging to his cold skin. She tries not to hum at the sensation but it's hard, because he knows her too well now, knows where it's pleasing to touch and where it isn't. After a year of using each other as a crutch, a year of her baring her body to him – now a woman's body, now beautiful, now fleshed out and curvy and everything boys whistled at her mother for – of course he'd know. And she knows him as well, as much as she knows he wishes she didn't.
"I wish I knew."
She accepts the answer, almost laughs at how it answers her thoughts, and sits up, leaning forward and kissing his cheek. He turns his head and meets her mouth with his, and as always he's quick to dominate, quick to overtake her with the sensation of tongues and teeth and biting and then they're back to how it was before, him over her with Kotori splayed against the sheets, hair a wild green mess against the sea blue of his bed.
When he pulls away, teeth pulling her bottom lip, teeth nipping at her chin, she giggles before a hand is pressed over her eyes, his hand. Something changes in the atmosphere, something settles over her as she closes her eyes to the darkness his palm has placed over them, and then he speaks, slow as if the words are being dragged out of him. As soon as she hears him open his mouth, she opens her eyes and wraps long fingers around his wrist.
"Should we have died with them, Kotori?"
Within seconds, she's staining his palm with tears and nodding, nodding so frantically he slips his hand away from her eyes and she opens her eyes to an expression so solemn, so wrecked, so unlike the mature mask he always wears, and it's enough to make her close her eyes so tight it stings. He trails his hand down her cheek, fingertips tracing her mouth and chin, and he's kissing away her tears but he's too slow because she can't stop now.
Kotori's not used to such gentleness, such care and consideration, which only makes her want to refuse his kindness because he's obviously forcing himself, that they're still in that mindset of each other, that his actions are aimless to his true desires and she hates that they've become this way. She can barely feel his hands buttoning up his shirt over her chest, his fingers adjusting her panties squarely on her hips from where they've slipped down in her sleep. His hand traces some pattern over her hip, fingers twisting and slow, and she wants to slip away from his touch and go somewhere so they'll never find each other, so she won't continue hurting him like she's doing now, like she's done to everyone because she's powerless, a civilian in a warzone crying until someone comes and saves her.
"But we didn't die. We're alive," His voice cracks before he grunts, breathes steady, and his eyes look as if he's lost in a memory. She hates that look, she hates when she wears it herself, and she wants to shake him out of it but he's pausing his words to a halt, sitting up and subconsciously being careful in avoiding crushing her hips with his weight.
"We're alive, which means we have to deal with this. They wouldn't want us to die."
"Kaito…"
There's an exhaustion in his voice, in hers, different from the ones she's been used to since the war. This kind of exhaustion has her head spinning, has her wishing for the fatigue where she's washed over with sleep instead of being blanketed with awareness, with attention locked on something so fiercely it drains her and charges every single nerve all at once.
"Not after all they fought for, not after they sacrificed everything to make sure our home was safe. We had to watch them lose their lives, their real homes," the word is spat like a curse, his hands curling against the bed sheets; she can almost taste the venom on her tongue, as if she's kissing his words away and taking only the pain.
"Kaito!"
"And then Chris," his eyes are locked on hers, grin twisted sardonically, a vision meant only for the nightmares she had when she was younger, when he was the man bent on stealing Yuma's soul instead of being the broken soldier who failed to save it. "Fucking bastard just had to sacrifice himself to keep me alive. Of course he would, he's always taken care of me."
She thinks she tells him to stop but her mouth doesn't open, and it's too late when he continues.
"Always kept an eye out for me in any way he could, even when I hated him, and now he's dead. He's dead because of me, Kotori, he's dead."
She can hear a ticking of a clock in her head although she knows Kaito doesn't have one in this room. Kotori doesn't speak for a moment and wonders how far deep does his loneliness run when she should know but doesn't because they've never allowed this, they never agreed to talk about it, and then he's taking a breath and cursing himself, bare shoulders shaking and she wonders then if he's cold. But anger runs hot and surely a blind man would be able to see the extent of his rage, so palpable before her, and without thinking, her arm trembling from the weight of their circumstance, she reaches forward as best she can and lays her palm flat over his heart, feeling the frantic pounding, seeing the adrenaline radiating off of him, the anger and shame.
She's never forgotten, but never mentioned, that not just Yuma, Shark, Rio – not just their friends were lost in the battle along with the Barians, but the Arclights were too.
He takes her hand and threads his fingers through hers, kissing her knuckles and staring at her as if he's sorry even though he'll never say it, and his eyes are a blue misty enough for Kotori to think of Rio, of the girl's smile and of her kissing Kotori's cheek as a joke that one time, the girl holding her hand, laughing at a joke and sharing some candy at lunchtime, and she can feel the sunlight from those days on her skin, can taste the laughter that seems foreign, and then she's shaking. She's shaking, hiccupping through her tears, and Kaito's sighing and saying something about how the both of them are complete messes but when you lose your friends, when you see them die right in front of you, when they all end up fucking smiling in some of your dreams because you're still safe, you're alive, you can live on as normal, what right do you have to be fine afterwards?
She feels him nose her shoulder, an apology, a touch with a accompanying whisper of, "Just…go to sleep, Kotori," follows until silence settles.
She doesn't disobey his order but only falls asleep, embracing him in her arms, when she hears him stifle a sob behind clenched teeth, behind closed lips. She denies herself of the realization that settles over her, that Kaito Tenjo is crying, when she hears his breathing, harsh and shallow, against the skin of her shoulder through the thin shirt. She denies that he's crying even when she feels something wet against her skin of her neck, something trickling down as soon as it lands, and she can't disobey, she won't, not when they just crossed some line their lives shouldn't have, not when they are this irrational, this broken with grief.
She wants to believe, as she falls asleep, that Yuma would forgive them both for not pushing on like he always did, like Kotori always said she would if she had to. She just never expected to having to be responsible for another soul, one who isn't making it easy to smile, one that's letting her show how broken she is instead of hiding it behind a picture perfect presentation of a girl who's lost but is still trying to live. But then her dream ends with Yuma's arms around her and his words of telling her to try, to Kattobingu, Kotori! – and what a fool she is, what she's been. What a fool.
In the morning, when she wakes and he's detached himself from her emotionally and physically, when that mask is back in place, she calls his name and is rewarded only with a stare that seems questioning but it's not a question, it's a warning. But she doesn't listen and somehow she wills herself to move, wrapping her arms around him, pressing his face to her chest, holding him close.
"You're right, Kaito: we have to deal with this."
Her voice is too loud but it falls short of authoritative when she bites back a sob.
"We have to keep going. We have to live. If not for us, then for them. They'd want us to."
He doesn't reply in words but he drapes an arm over her back and rests his forehead against her chest; if anything, she's learned of ways to take that mask off.
She figures that's as broken as he wants to be right now, clinging to a girl he knows but doesn't know much of. Her words, what she just said about them having to live in memory of the ones lost, are ones of positivity, something she's been running away from since the first night back, from all the nightmares and the reminders. She knows positivity is just one far cry from that metaphorical edge of balance where they could live and grieve but at least they'd be honoring the sacrifices made, that maybe one day shame wouldn't be in the forefront of their minds.
And if anything, it's is a concept she knows, one that she's lied to herself about for all those years with spouting words of friendship and caring and determination, and it's a concept she can teach if only to chase away some of the pain. But for the sake of their lives, this arrangement where it's a give and take, a sharing of the grief that she can't give up, she bites her tongue and says no more for the rest of the morning.
Comments and critique are always welcomed.