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He summons them, sometimes.
Nabbed Kuuga and Kivala from them, so it should be their echoes. He doesn’t talk to them, that hurts too much, but for just a moment it’s Natsumi and Yuusuke fighting beside him. It feels like coming home.
( It was always more your home than mine.
It’s true.
Tsukasa had pulled them together. It was Tsukasa, always and still. But it was still them, too. They always welcomed him in.)
(Despite himself, he misses it.)
The monsters are dead, and Daiki goes for the treasure.
When he turns, he realizes Kuuga and Kivala remain. They stare at him, and he stares back.
They aren’t the real people. He should keep them at the back of his deck, with the card that says Glaive. He should .
He misses them. Has considered, wondered if there was a treasure that could do it, but not seriously. That would give him hope, something he neither wants nor does he need it.
He still hasn’t done it.
(“It”. Such a nothing word. A word that avoids the reality. The way he wants to bring them back from their deaths. He wants Natsumi’s quiet understanding and Yuusuke’s bright acceptance. He wants to go home to somewhere more than empty, when he feels masochistic enough to return to the studio.
It. Revival.
But reviving the dead is never without consequences, and at the end of the day, Daiki is too much of a coward.)
With a disgusted movement, he sends the echoes of the Riders away.
It’s been years. He doesn’t even care anymore. All he was here for was a treasure.
“DiEnd-Shishou!”
“I’ve told you to stop calling me that, Shounen-Kun,” Daiki says (like a hypocrite). “Your mentor just pawned you off on me.”
Asumu smiles in that annoying way of people who know him, can see through him. He hates it.
(But then, he is fond of the kid.)
“Maybe so,” he says. “I like it, though. How are you?”
(How is he? He doesn’t think it much matters. He doesn’t care, anyways.)
“The usual,” Daiki replies. “How’s my treasure?”
Asumu’s eyes light up further. Daiki’s glad. Becoming a Rider is a hell path if you’re lucky, but Asumu had become a demon at 12. His World is nice enough, though.
“We’re in the middle of the inter school teacher exchange,” he says. “Amaki’s new students are very respectful and good at the arts. We’ll do an Ongekidou showcase in a week, can you stay?”
“I might swing back around for that,” Daiki replies. It’s true, he might. It is his treasure, after all. Asumu’s still smiling at him, though. “Stop staring at me like that.”
The teen forces his face into a serious expression that doesn’t match his eyes.
“Yes, DiEnd-Shishou.”
“And stop calling me that!”
He does go home, sometimes. He has other safe houses and store houses across the Worlds, but sometimes he can’t fight the nostalgia. And that’s all it is, nostalgia. He doesn’t sometimes lay in the bed upstairs, wondering what life would be like if Yuusuke had never jumped in front of that shot.
Maybe he would have died. Like that poison that he took a drop of and Yuusuke took a gallon of that took them the same time to heal. Nevermind his attack, it would have been overpowered. Natsumi still died, and Tsukasa and Yuusuke would have each other. Or the other way. They’d… support each other.
Maybe he would have survived, maybe they would all be here now.
Maybe the mix of anger and grief and undeniable love wouldn’t well up inside of Daiki every time he sees Tsukasa. Maybe.
He hates maybes.
He throws the treasure down, knocking the background on accident, and leaves without doing anything else.
He’s got Tsukasa up against a wall, kissing him so hard it must hurt them both, but that’s better than the tears if he lets the other be gentle for a moment. It’s better, at least, because he can’t stop himself, not when he gets near.
Tsukasa was always a drug in the way Daiki needed him.
The most Daiki can do is cling to any bits of control he has. Tsukasa lets him.
There’s something passive in the other now, something that broke when they died, or maybe he’s just playing the role he thinks Daiki most wants or needs or some… utterly Tsukasa bullshit, each time. Daiki’s a terrible person, so he figured he can take advantage.
(Then again, Tsukasa doesn’t hide the longing, either, the apology he’ll never say, and how dare he? He was the one who had told Daiki to go.
But Daiki can’t take it, can’t make the move back, and so it always ends up like this, at best.)
(Daiki still lets Tsukasa be close, after. On the nights where Tsukasa shakes in his arms or holds him just slightly too loose to be inescapable, desperate for comfort he knows it was never Daiki who could really provide.)
Sometimes, when he’s alone, he does feel it. Can’t stop himself. Remembers watching Yuusuke die, knowing it was his fault. Should have payed better attention. Letting Natsumi leave, frozen, not chasing after her until too late.
He hurts, and he misses them, but there’s nothing he can do.
So he goes back out, and he pretends to forget.
(He grieves in quiet anger, and in loneliness.)