"Ryuu?"
"No."
"Ryuu, please?"
"I said no ."
" Akutagawa Ryuunosuke! "
The last one has him standing in attention, the fear of impending doom greatly overtaking the throbbing pain in his jaw. Ryuunosuke meets Atsushi's stern gaze with a glare of his own, trying to not grit his teeth the whole time. "I'm not going, and that's final."
Atsushi, in turn, tries not to sigh in exasperation, despite them both being at it for a little over two hours now. He's always had the patience of a saint, and everyone else who's been taken in by his patented "adorable kitten" expression can all attest to that.
Ryuunosuke's always been immune to it, though, for some reason. He'd found it unnaturally creepy the first time he'd seen it in action— had bluntly called him out for it, even. "Are you sure you're not doing that on purpose, Nakajima?" he'd asked then, hackles and internal walls raised in caution. Atsushi had only blinked at him in genuine confusion, and that was all it had taken for Ryuunosuke to admit defeat.
Not today, though.
"Why not?" Atsushi persists, both hands on his hips. They are clearly going around in circles at this point, apart from the fact that this isn't the first time Ryuunosuke's being such a child over trivial things. These tedious back-and-forth exchanges are really more so he can process his own emotions, and Atsushi knows this.
So they continue at it, as if flogging a dead horse, as futile as it may seem. It's a much-needed exercise in catharsis for them both, with neither side yielding until their masks crack and their walls break down.
As always, with these encounters, it's Atsushi who wins. Not that Ryuunosuke would ever stand a chance, especially in arguments where his own welfare is concerned.
"You really are stubborn, you know that?" Atsushi flops down on the sofa beside him, placing an ice pack on his swollen cheek. "Are you sure you're not doing that on purpose, Ryuu?"
He adds a raised eyebrow to that, a clear callback to the time Ryuunosuke had thrown that question at him some months ago. Come to think of it, it was probably the icebreaker that had brought them closer and eventually led to them getting together, but clearly, they still have a lot to work on when it comes to proper communication and all that.
For now, Ryuunosuke concedes to Atsushi with a tired but grateful smile, if only because his tooth pain is starting to get worse once more. The ice over his cheek soothes him more than it should, and he falls asleep on Atsushi's lap, even without the painkillers to knock him out.
The dentist appointment the following day goes very uneventfully, with Ryuunosuke hardly any worse for wear after. He attempts to make up for the previous night's trouble with a movie date, but Atsushi shakes his head, merely planting a kiss on his cheek. "Rest," he says. "I'll stay over tonight."
Ryuunosuke smiles as best as he could. He didn't have to say that, really.
Today's result: Atsushi wins, God bless his big, patient heart.