It was easy to neglect yourself out here. Lose yourself in killing and running and hiding and doing it all again. The soldiers get a break, Yuto and Shun do not.
Shun is lifted from despair only by fury, but Yuto tries to appreciate the little things that are still good about Heartland. The way the weather is pleasant in spring, the little dandelions that grow from the pavement, when they find plastic postcards from the old amusement park.
Can't eat postcards, and the old amusement park is an Academia camp now.
He shakes that off and makes a dandelion crown during the endless waiting for Academia to come. They're always waiting. Waiting for orders, waiting for Academia to attack, waiting for people to return who never do. There was a girl, Yuto muses, who was with him on the day Academia attacked, before he found Ruri and Shun. He doesn't remember her name. He doesn't remember a lot of names. People come and go, that's something he struggled to get used to. There aren't many people left, and those who are left are desperate. They're all slowly losing hope, and the Academia is starving them out. Yuto misses the old days.
It was a Saturday when the Academia came, so they weren't wearing their school uniforms. For some reason, Yuto remembers that clearly. He went home to find his parents after Shun and Ruri came for him. After the first round of fires burnt out. What he found instead was a crater filled with rubble, and Yuto never went back. It hurt too much to think about. His new family is Shun and Ruri, everyone else comes and goes.
When they told Kamishiro, the leader of the dwindling rebellion, that they were going to chase Ruri to Standard, he was against it. Told them that it was a fool's errand. It probably is, Yuto reflects. He knows Shun will break if either of them say so, though, so he keeps it to himself. They're in Standard now, and it is dizzying. Cars rush past them in the streets like electric tornadoes, and crowds of people hurry past them like they've somewhere important to be. They don't know how inconsequential their worries really are.
The first time Yuto walked into a grocery store, he nearly passed out then and there. It's been god knows long since he last had fresh fruit, yet they toss it out as if it wasn't worth more than jewels. Yuto digs it out of the dumpster behind the supermarket and eats like a king.
He brings what he can carry back to the meeting place he and Shun agreed on, and they feast again on slightly moldly bread and dented canned soup. Shun is angry that they threw it out, Yuto can't muster the energy.
When he meets Yuzu for the first time, his breath dies in his throat. Her arms are well muscled like a gymnast, and her face still has traces of baby fat. She doesn't have the tired, tired eyes of everyone who's seen Heartland. She's everything they could have been if not for the Academia.
"I don't want you to get hurt anymore," he says, and he means it, even if she's not Ruri. He wants to protect that smile, let them have the future that has been destroyed for him and Shun. They can reconstruct, but things will never be the same as they were before. Yuya and Yuzu have never suffered like that, they still look to the future with hope. It's inspiring.
Yuto wants to protect it all.