Disclaimer: Not Ayingott's characters. Plot though… that's a different thing.
Handprints in the shape of puddles.
Lovers. That is what they were supposed to be. But the word sends a shiver down Ryoma's spine and leaves a disgusting taste in Akutsu's mouth.
For one moment, one small imprint of time, they both stand at the same place, fingers barely touching and their swords lying by their feet. Neither of the two knew limits, neither thought that it was time to stop, even when blood began to bloom on pale skin and painting in angry purple and weeping yellow made their bodies into twisted kind of canvas.
Akutsu was the first to leave, the first to end this broken thing that they had tried to piece together – slowly, slowly. Ryoma doesn't cry. He picks up his blade and runs fingertips over the sharp edge of it.
There was a beauty in pain that Akutsu had showed him.
He had never known the kind of fire that Fuji gifted him. It burned and burned and scorched his arms and legs raw. It was like trying to hold on life and yet never being able to do so. And still he loved the burning, the thrill and the freedom that came when you were caged down.
Fuji was an angel in devil's disguise and then the other way around. Ryoma thought that he was beautiful either way, no matter what the other chose to be. Cactus needles bloomed on the path that they chose to walk but they broke them all down with the soles of their feet.
This time Ryoma was the one who chose to flutter away. Quietly during the night. Leaving behind memories that seemed to be too precious to be locked away. He kept the chain around his ankles as a reminder of the fire, of the cage that defined his freedom.
They placed their palms together and laughed like little children that had just finished a treasure hunt. Ryoma's hands were cold but Jiroh had enough warmth for them both. And they continued to laugh for a long time, hands still together and eyes closed to hide the mirth dancing down below.
It was always easy, simple. Too easy perhaps. But Ryoma liked it that way and Jiroh didn't seem interested in diving down below to see what else they could find hidden behind the murky depth. It was just enough to be together and laugh out the problems. Nothing else seemed to work for them.
What was left in the end was a lonely plush toy sitting on a chair, left in the empty room that they had shared. Both had wanted a piece of it but didn't have the heart to cut it in two. So it would be left in Ryoma's room of treasures as a substitute for the warmth that they shared.
As he placed the toy next to the sword and the chain Ryoma wondered just when they had pulled their palms away from each other that he realized – it didn't matter. What has been done can never be undone.
They danced and danced and danced some more, breathing harder with each tap of the foot and curl of a finger. Ryoma gave his all. Sanada had not even started yet.
Never did they talk, never truly revealed the questions that sometimes floated up as they slept covered in warm sheets and breathing in the cold night. They danced and they looked for something beyond the tango slowly leading to destruction.
Their dance was brief, fragile like the wings of a butterfly and pale. They weren't meant to be and Ryoma never tried to make them last. Sanada was meant to dance and Ryoma was not. As they parted he was given a small ball with a glass butterfly trapped in it and a quiet You should aim higher whispered in his ear.
Kintaro is a ball of energy, never resting, never looking back. He's everything that Ryoma is not and nothing that he is. Ryoma fails to see why he had said yes and why he stays and slowly walks the path that the other had left behind.
Perhaps it was the need for something else; perhaps it was the curiosity that had killed the cat. Or perhaps Ryoma was just too tired care anymore. Finally he simply stopped following, took a piece of candy that Kintaro gave and he never ate and turned his back to the other, walking back the way he had come from.
Tezuka brings calm to his tortured soul with quiet understanding and careful touches. He treats Ryoma like a valuable piece, like a glass sculpture that has been treated wrongly this whole time.
It's a little weird at first, to get used to this kind of touch, but Ryoma soon learned to depend on it, to crave for it, to love it. There were places of his heart that he hid from Tezuka still but at least now he did not feel like a madman running down the streets in hopes of crashing.
They worked almost like one, with silent words and light kisses on the corner of their lips. It was all done in silence so thick that it felt like second air. Something soothing, something that saved him and made it easier to breath.
As a reminder of this peace Ryoma kept a small glass jar with trapped silence. He kissed the lid of the jar and then caressed Tezuka's cheek with calloused fingers. An apology and a yet another silent thank you. They started with the quiet and ended with the quiet.
Falling. Falling deep into the black, black dream. That is all that Ryoma feels. Or dreams. He doesn't know, he can't tell. It's suffocating and it's cold. It's nothing like he has felt before – the way Yukimura treats him.
A puppet of sorts. A doll that is too valuable to even be scratched. A property that cannot be looked at by others and touched with dirty hands. Once again caged but this time he was not free. Ryoma didn't mind, once again. He didn't crave for the wings that had been taken from him. He didn't yell back at the words that pushed him deeper down.
It was something he had wanted himself. Something that he used to fill the cracks that started to become too big to be held together with tape and bandages. Yukimura made him unable to think, to feel. Yukimura gave him time to become one again – something broken and clumsily put together.
Ryoma keeps the shards left over as Yukimura leaves, the light once again shining on him.
Once again he could be the Ryoma that the people were used to knowing. He became the Ryoma that teased and gave soft kisses, the Ryoma that loved secret touches and burning desire and need. Atobe woke up the sleeping beast; he tamed it into a wild tornado that it had been once before.
They kissed and they fought. They hid in empty rooms and they had no shame in the open. There was something addicting to the way Keigo knew what to say and what to do to make Ryoma feel alive again. There was something that Ryoma loved about the way Keigo's fingers played with the instrument that was his body.
When even this had come to an end Keigo gave him one last kiss, something that spoke of a hope that Ryoma does not fall again and left the key to his house in Ryoma's hand. It was cold and heavy and would never again be used – they both knew it all too well and didn't care.
Winter air licked along his skin, turning his breath to ice and snow as Ryoma breathed slowly, in and out. In and out again. Akaya stood next to him and breathed in the same cold that froze them both to their cores.
Both looked somewhere further ahead, somewhere where the world ended and started anew. Somewhere where it could all be far simpler than it was here. Ryoma grasped tightly on the gloved hand of the devil next to him, fingers bitten red and colder than the winter blooming around them. Akaya did not move.
Night fell many times before they moved - each on their own worlds beyond the horizon and so far apart that nothing could bring them together. Ryoma kept the glove that he had held onto so tightly and Akaya was the one to say the last farewell.
Some things were not meant to be. And some things were just too far apart to even begin.
Smiles bloom on Shiraishi's lips. Smiles that melt everything and bring life to the deserts dried out and earth dead.
Those smiles seem contagious, something that travels from one human being to the other, slowly creeping on lips and warming up the eyes that would be empty otherwise. Ryoma cannot say no. Nor does he want to.
They were for but a short flicker of the camera's shuttle. A picture perfect about something that breathed for a second and then went to sleep again. Those smiles were contagious but not everlasting. They were compatible but not meant to be so for forever.
Ryoma pins the picture on the wall above the jar of silence and the butterfly trapped in the glass. His eyes sweep the dust off from the sword that still held onto dried up blood and the candy that he never ate. He blows spider webs off from the chain and the shards that still reminded him of how broken he truly had been. With gentle fingers he ruffles the head of the plush toy that still held that warmth he had loved so. The glove he shifts in a better position and the key he hangs to a leather strap and hangs under the picture.
Those were his memories, his treasures. Some broke him, some fixed him, and some were just weak tries of something. But he held on to every little thing and placed in this room that was kept locked and hidden away to the eyes of strangers.
He closed the door behind him and locked it once, twice, before saying the last goodbye for today. Come tomorrow perhaps more will be added. Come tomorrow he will come again.
A/N: I don't like the ending. But I like how I wrote everything else.