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Daiki wakes up underneath something. This is very bad, as he is a light sleeper. For something to get on top of him and him not notice, he was probably drugged.
Eyes still closed, he shifts. The thing on top of him does, too. It’s… warm.
“Daiki?” A family voice asks, voice heavy with sleep or exhaustion or chemicals or some mis of the three.
Daiki opens his eyes, too quickly. What?
Oh. Yuusuke. Right, there was a fight, the monster got in a lucky hit and…
Yuusuke groans softly as Daiki slips out from under him, some. Of course he’s still hurt too. He may be Kuuga but that attack still had a poison in it. Why the hell had Yuusuke even taken the blow for him?
(He knows why, because Yuusuke is so incredibly good and giving not out of some perfect nature but by choice , because Daiki is frustratingly human next to Kuuga, Decade, Kivala. Because for whatever reason, Yuusuke chose him despite the fact that Daiki is nothing like him, can’t let himself be.)
It hadn’t taken the whole thing, of course, but Yuusuke had gotten the brunt of it.
The still not fully aware Yuusuke clings stubbornly as Daiki moves. He sighs. It does feel nice, like this, but he does so hate having no idea what’s going on .
He manages to dislodge the other enough to sit up. Yuusuke finally seems awake enough to open his eyes, smiling.
“You’re okay,” he says.
“Of course I am,” Daiki says. “And I would have been.”
“Maybe,” Yuusuke replies. He still hasn’t let go of Daiki’s arm. It’s unfairly cute. No wonder Tsukasa fell for him. Finally able to go for real heroes rather than broken pi— “I’m glad.”
Daiki blinks.
“What?”
“I’m glad we were together,” Yuusuke replies, finally letting go of Daiki’s arm so he can sit up, too. Daiki doesn’t move, though, and Yuusuke’s still smiling, even though his arm almost gives out when sitting up and his eyes are still slightly glassy. “I’m glad I could protect you.”
“Is that what you want out of me?” Daiki asks. “Something to protect?”
“No,” Yuusuke says. “I want us , the same as you.”
Us, the four of them, the strange configuration they’ve created. Orbiting Tsukasa even still, but not just for him.
Daiki hates Yuusuke, or at least he should. Too bright, it should burn like looking at the sun in the desert.
He doesn’t.
He…
(He loves him, maybe. Doesn’t need him the way Tsukasa does, but he’s glad that he’s here. It’s complicated. He doesn’t want to consider.)
He keeps drifting. Definitely not all out of his system, either. Which really only says how much Yuusuke took. Yuusuke who always takes the worst the Worlds can offer by choice or circumstance yet doesn’t let it shatter him.
Yuusuke takes his hand again.
“I wouldn’t have done it,” Daiki says, without thinking. He hopes it’s a lie, but he knows himself. He runs, when things go bad. He still doesn’t think he could stay here forever.
(But he also comes back here, again and again. He’s stopped denying it’s where he belongs.)
“I know,” Yuusuke replies.
Daiki has nothing to say after that. He gets up. Yuusuke lets him. He doesn’t get up, yet.
Maybe Yuusuke was right, maybe he wouldn’t have survived.
But that shouldn’t be even a short term weight on someone like him.
(Yuusuke’s fine by the end of the day, of course, and Daiki isn’t guilty at all. No less guilty than ever, at least.
He should probably leave before this becomes something deeper than he can take.)
(It all leaves him wondering… just what Yuusuke is to him.)
“You’ve stayed,” Tsukasa points out. “Longer than usual.”
“It’s only been two weeks,” Daiki says, frowning.
“There’s something on your mind.”
Daiki looks away. Tsukasa’s gaze is piercing when he’s looking for something and he’d rather not make it easier on him.
“Maybe so,” he says. “Why…”
Why do you need them?
An awful question to ask. So for once, he doesn’t. He doesn’t want to fight, he wants…
(He wants to understand.)
(He wants to know what broken piece that Yuusuke can fix in Tsukasa despite being too bright a light to stare directly at. He wants to know if it can work on himself and whether he thinks that’s a good thing.)
“If you don’t give more, Kaitou,” Tsukasa says, and he only uses his family name still in moments like this. “I’m not doing the work.”
An offer formed in a taunt. Daiki takes it.
He’s in love with Yuusuke. It shouldn’t be a surprise. It was the only missing piece in their little group’s web. He has something not exactly romantic but far beyond friendship with Natsumi, he’s eternally stuck, trapped by Tsukasa’s gravity. They are, too. They all…
Well, it isn’t a surprise. Shouldn’t be.
And the thing is, it isn’t the sacrifice. That isn’t what hits him. It was waking up with the other, the casual understanding. The understanding that despite being who Yuusuke was, it wasn’t… it felt right .
So he decides that it isn’t a big deal at all. Or perhaps it’s the most important thing in his life. Both and neither.
He has another treasure worth more than ever.
Yuusuke blinks, when the kiss ends.
“It’s just the two of us,” he says.
“Yes,” Daiki replies.
“Oh.”
Yuusuke grins, and he kisses him back.