Yuuki Reacts WHO: Yuuki Araki WHEN: Right after this post WHERE: The Araki Apartment SUMMARY: Yuuki deals with ... a lot. CW: Negative thoughts, potential undiagnosed depresssion
He was mad. It was nearly a relief.
It had been years since he felt any emotions very strongly. Not since the end of high school. Not since Rahul.
Yuuki had accepted there was something wrong with him. Something deep and unknowable, something he couldn’t fix, and it was his fate for people to walk in and out of life with ease. If he was so wrong even his parents didn’t care for him, how could he blame anyone else for it?
He learned to play the part, to be polite and social and friendly, but not to give into hope. What was the point? All he would do in the end is hurt.
Mar Luna changed nothing. Not that he expected it to. It was picked because it was the best for his future, not because of familial ties or a hope that, somehow or some way, things would be different.
They weren’t. His mother still disliked him. His brother seemed to like him, but he liked everyone. Yuuki trusted and liked him well enough back, regardless of all the logical reasons to not. Icchi was close to their mother, he was as charming and charismatic as any Araki and as trustworthy ... which was to say, not in the least.
Yuuki never was good at making good decisions. At least he knew Icchi would be perfectly fine once he left. He’d built a good life for himself here.
At least now he knew Rahul wanted what he stood for or had more than for him alone.
It was easy to pretend. No one thinks to look beneath the surface and, as Yuuki found out when he was occasionally honest about things, no one wanted to think bad things about someone else’s family. It turned out he could tell someone point blank his mother hated him and they’d deny it. What a life they must live, he wondered occasionally, that the mere idea of a parent disliking their child is impossible.
Things were weird with the whole magic and reincarnation thing, but he dismissed it as a game they were playing. No one told him the rules, but he could play along if it meant he could get delicious food. He wasn’t out to stop anyone else’s fun. Even the talking cat was ... okay, that was weird.
And now. Now.
He had a name on why he was wrong. A reason. He’d compartmentalized to talk to his grandparents and his father - conversations that had no right to go as well as they did, with his family engaged in talking to him about anything - and it was done. He’d reported his findings.
Then locked away his phone and his laptop, found enough alcohol in the apartment to make him regret it in the morning, and holed up in an effort to make as few bad decisions as possible. And there were oh so many he could make.
Find Rahul, to forget everything and throw himself back into the emotional briar patch of pain and suffering. Find a stranger to do the same, but with the safety of anonymity that would only last so long in this forsaken place.
Get on a plane and get out of this mess entirely.
Instead, he sat in the corner of a room and stared at a wall in an effort to calm his thoughts.
Yuuki was angry.
A deep anger at the unfairness of life. How dare this thing invade his mother. How dare this thing make him wrong. How dare this thing steal over twenty-five years of their life. How dare this thing ruin their family.
Yuuki was afraid.
He was afraid things would change. Bridges destroyed decades ago would be rebuilt into something better.
He was afraid they couldn’t save her and everything would end in tragedy.
He was afraid things wouldn’t change. They’d save her, get a happy ending, but he was still wrong and there was no fixing that and he’d be alone again.
That whatever happened to him was irreversible and he couldn’t escape his fate.