"Wake up, sleepy heads!" Kaede's voice makes Kotetsu startle. "Uncle Muramasa and Aunt Monica are here and it's dinner time!"

Kotetsu stands up, stretching and groaning. He looks over and there's Yuri, pulling himself up as well. Giving him a smile, Kotetsu tries to act like his bones aren't aching from sleeping sitting up.

"Ready to go eat? You must be hungry!" He chirps.

"Mmm, I suppose I am," Yuri replies with a nod. "Lead the way, then."

Kotetsu makes it back to the kitchen first and, without thinking too hard on it, hides the cookies from view right before Yuri comes into the room. He sits him down before sitting down on his own and digging in. Dinner goes well enough, chatter here and there from all sides.

Except for Yuri, who keeps answers curt and vague. Never quite rude, but defintely not friendly, either. Muramasa is giving Kotetsu a look, one that tells him he has a lot of questions for him. All Kotetsu can do is smile with a promise of later.

"I found them sleeping together," Kaede says at one point, and he almost chokes on his drink. "I mean, who falls asleep right before dinner?"

Anju clears her throat, clearly trying to recover from the first words, too. "Well, they did travel a long way! They must have been tired."

"True enough, especially since Kotetsu never knows when to take a break," Muramasa says. "Probably extended to the move, too."

"You know me!" Kotetsu laughs. "Never the type to back down, even when it would probably be the smart thing to do."

"And we love that about you!" Kaede chirps.

"Aw, thank you, honey!"

He glances at Yuri, and thinks he sees the slightest phantom of a smile on his face. Either he's imagining it or it's a good sign - he decides to hope it's the latter. No time to press on it, though.

Dinner ends without too much, and Kaede spends time with Anju, Monica, and the children. Yuri excuses himself back to the room, and Kotetsu finds himself dragged outside to chat with his brother.

Well, it is later, he guesses.

"So, who is that guy to you?" Muramasa gets right to the point. "Your boyfriend?"

"What?!" Kotetsu flusters, words hard to come by for a moment. "If this is about what Kaede said-"

"I know she meant literally, relax," Muramasa says. "I'm just trying to figure out what other reason you'd have for bringing a guy like that out here."

"A guy like that?"

"City boy who's been real damaged by it," Muramasa says. "Probably still holding onto some stuff that makes it hard for him to be away. Can't see him being all that happy about leaving unless you two are really close."

"I… don't know about that," Kotetsu admits, blue and green flames at the back of his mind. "He didn't seem to when we decided he'd come along."

"And how much time did you put into that decision?" Muramasa asks.

"Not… too little," Kotetsu says vaguely. "But trust me, Yuri needed this break!"

"Well, you sound sure, but you could have convinced yourself and not convinced him," Muramasa says. "He didn't seem like he wanted to be here to me."

Kotetsu can't tell him that Yuri likely didn't want to be anywhere. He had tried to kill himself for a reason, tried to burn himself away. He grits his teeth, where should he even go from here?

"I'll talk to him about it," Kotetsu says. "He's not exactly the open type, even with me… But I'll try and see what's going on in that head of his."

"Good," Muramasa nods. "It's not a good idea to force them somewhere where they don't wanna be, Kotetsu. You know that better than anyone."

"I guess so," Kotetsu sighs. "But I guess there's some places I can't just let someone go."

He walks back inside, Muramasa doesn't stop him. He can probably tell Kotetsu has a lot on his mind now - he always can. He just hopes things go a bit better, a little less stewing and a lot more acting from the start.

The problem isn't with him directly, right? So he should be able to. A lot easier to put things out there when they aren't ones he can swallow down and ignore until they explode.

Kaede checks in on him when he sneaks back into the kitchen and puts the cookies back out on display. Somehow, someway, he plays it off. She seems to have something on her mind, too…

But like father like daughter, she brushes it off. Kotetsu worries, but he supposes he has to take this one thing at a time. Making sure Yuri wasn't resenting every moment of what was supposed to help him heal was probably a bit more important.

He would have plenty of time to work things out with Kaede now that he was without his job, anyway.

He tries not to let that thought sting him too much.

Back to his room, he opens the door. Yuri is sitting up and turned away from the door, but there doesn't seem to be crying this time. Just staring at a wall, hands in his lap and gripped together.

Kotetsu sits next to him and takes a deep breath. There's always something about disrupting a silence like this that hurts. It feels like the words are sharp knives, cutting through something important.

He's been on the receiving end of those knives before, too. It's not fun. He hopes that Yuri can forgive him for it, at least.

"So," he says after a long moment of prepping himself. "I think we need to talk. I didn't exactly give you much of a choice coming here, did I?"

"No, you didn't," Yuri says. "Just realizing that now?"

"No, no! I know that, it's just…" Kotetsu scratches his cheek. "I acted in what I thought was the best interest because I'm worried if I didn't…"

"If you didn't?"

"That I would have let you go and hurt yourself again."