All That Bloodshed

Chapter 14: sweet dream was over

Notes:

trigger warning: sexual assault things

Being home was weird.

When he was still at the hospital, being back hadn't quite felt real. It was easier to exist in the liminal space that was the hospital. It somehow felt distant enough that he didn't panic right away even if he did have a few fits along the way.

It had only been a few weeks — practically nothing in the grand scheme of things — since he'd woken up, but with the 'time' he spent in the Borderlands, it seemed so much longer. It didn't seem right that home looked just the same. Nothing had changed. His room was devoid of dust, but that only made seeing it all the more jarring. It looked like something out of a time capsule — a frozen moment of the person he'd been the day everything went wrong.

His video games were exactly where he left him. Looking at it, he could almost convince himself that Karube and Chota would be waiting for him at Shibuya Station. All he'd have to do was grab his phone and go.

As it was, he stood awkwardly in the doorway of his room, just... looking in like it was some kind of museum exhibit. Both his father and Hajime were at work, Hajime rushing back after dropping Ryouhei off at the house. He was grateful for being alone. The idea of them hanging over his shoulder now made him sick to his stomach.

He took a step forward, almost breaking the spell freezing his room in time. His bed was perfectly made, the sheets pulled tight over the mattress. When he sank onto it, the sheets wrinkled and folded. It was so clean .

For as disorganized as his desk was, the rest of his room was immaculate. He could be careless, but he'd never been able to stand too much mess or clutter. The spotlessness of his room just served to highlight how alien the Borderlands had felt despite being a near perfect recreation of Tokyo. He rubbed his hand absently across the duvet, taking in the softness of the fabric. Hospital beds weren't exactly the most comfortable thing, and before that, he'd been effectively squatting in different places for months in the Borderlands. Compared to that, his bed felt alien.

He felt alien. Like he didn't quite belong in this room anymore.

"Going back to school, huh?"

Ryouhei jolted, sitting up violently in his seat to look for the voice. He didn't have to look far, because Kyuma was casually reclining on Ryouhei's chair, looking at him with a raised eyebrow. He looked just like how Ryouhei remembered him; at peace and unfortunately, still completely nude.

If his subconscious was going to continue to torture him like this, then couldn't it at least not traumatize him further? Was that really too much to ask?

"Inspired by Mira?" he continued.

"Kyuma," Ryouhei whispered. For a moment, he set aside the other man's comment. "Why are you here?"

Kyuma raised an eyebrow. "Come on, Arisu! Aren't we friends? Seems to me that you could use someone to talk to."

Ryouhei sunk back into the bed. He hated how despite everything that had happened in the King of Clubs game, he didn't feel ill-at-ease with Kyuma. He should have felt anxious or distressed. Instead, he just felt calm. He understood Kyuma. He'd had to get into his head to win, and now this was the consequence of letting him stay in his head. His words were not trapped in his chest or throat like they usually were these days. He had no difficulty speaking.

"Maybe so," Ryouhei admitted. "But I already have friends."

"Not ones that understand you like I do."

Ryouhei had to concede to Kyuma's point. He loved his friends — they were his people and he would not have made it as far as he did without them — but they didn't understand . They didn't think like he did; couldn't. The closest would be Chishiya, but the other man was still too different to truly understand him. He didn't blame Chishiya. They may have had similar upbringings (and hadn't that thrown him for a loop when he'd found out), but they'd chosen such different paths.