| [Nov. 9th, 2011|03:36 am] |
“I think,” Ryouma said, very quietly, “I’m done with runnin’.”
Had been done with running even before he woke, dizzy and sick with the lingering drugs, in a dungeon in Sunagakure no Sato. He’d known his feelings long before that, but that was only more reason to run, when they’d fought at the Heroes’ Stone and he’d heard every word like acid in his ears.
Weak. Broken. Failure.
In his moments of lucidity in Lightning Country, he’d told himself he didn’t care what Kakashi thought--he just had to prove him wrong. It took him until Wind Country to realize that Kakashi had never actually said any of that in the first place. Whatever Ryouma heard had been the old self-loathing still snaking through his head, triggering a flinch every time he saw Kuromaru, boiling into fear and fury when he heard Kakashi say broke under torture. Because he had, and he knew it, and he was terrified of what Kakashi would think of him once he knew it, too.
Terrified that he’d see Ryouma the same way Ryouma saw himself.
But Ginta had been right, he’d realized one blazingly hot morning in Sunagakure, lying on his bed in a clean white room and counting the hours away. Maybe Kakashi wasn’t the man Ryouma’d thought he was. And if he wasn’t--if that fight at the Heroes’ Stone had hurt him as much as it hurt Ryouma, if he’d meant what he said about letting Ryouma make his own choices and fix his own mistakes--then maybe there was still something to come back to.
When Kakashi greeted him on the Hokages’ Monument, he’d thought that was enough. He’d never dared hope for this.
“You warned me once,” he whispered, “not to run around givin’ my heart away. Said you didn’t want it. You changing your mind now? ‘Cause if you’ll take it, it’s yours.”
Kakashi let out a slow, shaky breath, and Ryouma’s courage nearly failed him. He dropped his gaze, cursed himself for a coward, and dragged it back up just in time to see the anxious tension in Kakashi’s face blaze into a smile like the sun coming out. A real smile, relieved, happy, like a man with a future handed to him as a gift. “You losing your memory too? I said I didn’t deserve it.”
“You did,” Ryouma said fiercely. “Do. If I can be wrong you can, too. An’ I’m not wrong about this. But it’s your choice. I came back, an’ I’m not running again. Whatever you want, I’ll stick around. Strings or no strings or, I don’t know, bondage ropes, it’s up to you.” He drew a burning breath, and added belatedly, “Though we’ll have to talk about the kinky stuff.” |
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