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“Ryo.”
The first call of his name doesn’t faze him in the slightest- too caught up in untangling all the revelations about demons and humanity that have come to the surface lately. It isn’t until the voice is sharper and more demanding that he finally reacts.
“Ryo!” Akira’s voice is a splash of cold water, dragging him out of his own head and into the present. A present where his friend is leaning down in front of him, a frown pulling at his mouth as he pokes Ryo’s forehead. “Earth to Ryo! Are you still in there or has staring at that laptop 24/7 finally fried your brain?”
Ryo huffs, swatting away Akira’s annoying hand. “I’m busy.”
“Busy with what? Staring at a blank wall?”
“Thinking.”
“You’re going to burn a hole in it looking at it like that.”
“What do you want, Akira?” He asks curtly, and Akira takes a step back.
There’s a sheepish expression that crosses his face, and Akira lets out a low whistle. “I dunno.” The non-answer is a waste of time, and Akira knows it annoys him so he follows up quickly. “Well, I just had this feeling.”
“This… feeling?” Ryo repeats slowly, as if it’s some alien concept.
“Yeah. You know one of those gut feelings that something’s not quite right?”
“About me?”
“About you.”
“Mhm.”
“It was right.” Akira says lowly, bending down so they’re face to face. He’s too close again. The tip of Akira’s finger presses lightly against his cheek. “You have dark circles. I know you’re barely eating.” Ryo held back an involuntary shudder at the warm breath against his ear. “And I can smell the exhaustion on you.”
He raises an eyebrow and sniffs the sleeve of his shirt.
“No- not like that.” Akira pushes his arm down and actually laughs. It brings a slight frown to his face as he suddenly feels like he’s done something stupid. “Hey, don’t pout.” Akira tugs at his cheeks forcing a laughable, terrifying smile onto the blonde’s face. At least until Ryo swats his hands away a second time.
Akira gives up and falls onto the couch swinging his legs across Ryo’s lap.
Ryo watches him carefully. He might have been joking around a bit, but what he said before held some weight to it. He can see it now in the heaviness in Akira’s eyes. Ryo’s brow furrows, nose scrunching in the way Akira always makes fun of and calls ‘cute’.
Realization sparks. “You’re worried about me.”
It almost makes him laugh. Because he is the one that got Akira into this hell. He isn’t the one fighting demons on a weekly basis- that's Akira- yet he's worried about whether Ryo is getting enough sleep cooped up in his little ivory penthouse.
Humans are so strange.
But maybe they aren’t the only strange ones.
His own reaction is one he hadn’t anticipated. He should have been indifferent because it didn’t matter if Akira worried about him- they both had their roles and they were both in danger. And hadn’t he been the one to say he’d do anything to protect Akira? It’s some strange perversion of that promise to have Akira looking at him with pained concern.
It should irritate him.
It didn’t. In fact, it is the opposite.
He likes it- likes the way Akira’s brows dip a little, crease forming between them with his eyes boring into blue ones as his mind is caught up in thoughts of him and only him.
It makes him tremble slightly, and if he didn’t know better, he’d almost say it makes him happy.
His eyes drop lower to Akira’s mouth, moving again to form words. “I might be the one fighting the demons but be careful, okay? I know you’re practically hiding a fucking armory in that coat of yours but guns only do so much.”
“I’m always fine.”
Even so, Akira never fails to come to his side.
When the time came, would he do the same?
Akira’s a mess.
Broken in ways Ryo hasn’t seen before. All hollow eyes and palpable tension. The loss of his parents hits him hard. Ryo can’t empathize. Nonetheless, Akira seeks him out for help, and once again he feels this perverse sense of satisfaction knowing that he is the one Akira came to when his world was crumbling (even if he didn’t have any other options).
What he’s not satisfied with is the boy coming back to his house dripping in blood from a kill, pent up, torn, and searching Ryo’s face for answers he doesn’t have.
What he has is money and a suggestion to forget.
He thought that’d be the end of it. Akira would go fuck someone, get wasted, and come back the all the better. Then things would reset, and he would slowly claw his way to being the only person Akira could trust. The incident with his parents proved that, yet he still insisted on staying at the Makimura house instead of his own.
But Akira doesn’t return. He’s gone for over a day, and something inside him aches.
Ryo wakes up in a cold sweat. The stench of phantom blood lingering heavily on his mind. The images of Akira dead and dying flash behind his eyes from the fresh dream. He can still see his face lifeless, and his own hands covered in blood. It makes him feel sick- this cloying corruption that pulls tightly at his heart.
He hates it.
Ryo takes a deep breath, trying to regain his composure. This is reality- not that dream. But its hard to separate the two when Akira’s still missing. He bites his lip while trying Akira’s phone again fruitlessly, tossing his aside because it’s just as useless as he is right now with this unnerving worry.
What would he do without the one thing he’s always had- the only thing that made this world worth anything?
He realizes then that he’s probably too close to Akira, and that he’s useless with these feelings clouding his mind with this insufferable, human irrationality.
His hands ball into fists, nails digging into his palms painfully. It’s a reminder that this is real, but it doesn’t matter because the same unsettling feeling that gripped him during his dreams maintains its hold in the waking world.
What had Akira called it before-a gut feeling?
Ryo’s on his feet as soon as the thought crosses his mind, grabbing his coat and a gun and tearing through his apartment. He’s determined to find Akira before something terrible happens, but is too late.
It was like his body just knew it too, the way it plagued him with terrible dreams while Akira was left alone in some fucking warehouse maimed and bleeding out on the floor. Ryo’s blood runs cold the second he catches sight of his friend. He’s simultaneously furious beyond belief and gripped with something he’s never felt before… fear.
“Akira!” It’s torn from his throat, as he stumbles into the warehouse.
He knew this was dangerous- knew that he risked Akira dying the moment he brought the boy with him to the Sabbath but he never thought-
Ryo’s knees hit the ground, the pooled blood soaking into white fabric. He’s always been so quick to think and act, not at all like the sea of irrationality that is human existence. But for once he feels an inkling of it welling in his chest. He freezes up, if only for a brief moment, pressure pooling behind his eyes with each blink threatening to make it burst.
He staggers out a shallow breath, hands dragging through the blood on Akira’s body to press against his neck searching for a pulse. His brain is screaming at him. He’s dead. He’s dead, and it’s your fault. He tries to quiet the insatiable blame for long enough to feel the faint sensation of something thrumming against his fingertips.
“Alive.” He mutters, and the cold in his veins warms with relief. Akira is alive, if barely, and as quickly as his world shattered, it feels like it’s being put back in place as he physically pieces Akira together.
Akira breathes. It’s a shallow thing, but to Ryo it is everything.
“Akira. Hey, Akira.” He heaves Akira’s injured body into his arms. He spares a glance to Akira’s arm watching as it slots into place, fibers reconnecting just as he thought it would. Akira would be okay. He just needs to- “Akira. Akira listen to me- snap out of it!”
There’s a slight movement of the body in his arms. His eyes never leave Akira, glued to his face waiting for any sign of consciousness. Akira’s eyelashes flutter, wincing at the bright morning light that encircles the face above him. “Am I alive?” He asks hoarsely, and Ryo has never been happier to hear his voice.
There’s a hint of smile on his face. “Does this look like hell?”
Akira’s laugh is more of a wheeze that has Ryo's heart leaping in his chest, but he pulls off a weak smirk. “Not with you here.”
Ryo scoffs, but it’s softer than usual. “Drink this. You’re going to be fine.”
According to Akira, Ryo’s been too caught up in his own world lately.
“You know if you want to talk about all this stuff, I’m all ears. Even if you think its something I won’t get, I’ll still listen.”
Ryo’s about to shoot his offer down but what comes out is a curious, “Ah,” when he sees what Akira’s doing. He’s trying to be nice and supportive. It makes his chest feel tighter than it should like he’s slowly being crushed under his kindness. “Thanks.”
Not that he can talk to Akira about these thoughts because nowadays they are more and more focused on him. He’s too invested to be aloof anymore. He realized that the moment he ran to Akira’s broken body. He doesn’t give a shit about humanity and this world, but the dark, earnest eyes looking back at him- the same one’s he’s seen for over a decade- give him pause.
Because maybe there’s one thing in this world that’s worth saving.
Akira cracks a grin, and it covers up the slight flush that the intensity of Ryo’s gaze brought on. “You’re doing it again you know.”
He knows, yet he doesn’t stop searching Akira’s face for the answers he already has.
Why does he care so much?
Because Akira’s useful?
Because they’re friends?
Or because…
Ryo’s mind screeches to a halt. It made sense. All this time. He swallows sharply and his voice comes out hoarse and raw. “Hey, Akira. Can you do something for me?”
There's concern on Akira's face again, and it makes him feel just as uneasy. "Yeah, what is it?"
"Don't die."