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Alone. Alone alone alone.
Tsukasa isn’t the type to cry, or to rage, he usually just finds himself empty.
Today isn’t an exception. He’d stayed the night at the studio, after Daiki left him at the safe house, because he wasn’t ready yet to go on, and he’d remembered like a brick to the face when he woke up that he is alone, and now all he wants is to go to sleep and never wake up. He’ll get over this, probably. He usually does. But he isn’t entirely sure.
He’s so very tired. Wouldn’t it be nice to fall back asleep right here and not wake up until the others are all back, which will never happen, not in a World not ruled by evil where Tsukasa is nothing but a half-brainwashed tool? Daiki will have to find his body, and he doesn’t want that, can’t do that to Daiki on purpose, but…
He doesn’t care.
Except that he does care, he cares a lot. As always, the Worlds spin around each other, hover ever close but every safely apart from each other. As always, somewhere out there, someone will need him,and he’s… he’s okay with that, he really is. Isn’t that the journey he accepted, long ago?
(But no, it’s not. That journey was with his everything, that journey was one full of hope, and of heroism. This is one of almost… obligation.
The one before, he never would find himself playing the villain or now even truly becoming a villain once more, over and over, to watch young hero after young hero only hopefully succeed. Only hopefully not turn out like him.)
He tries not to think about it. If he does for too long, he really will let himself not get up.
He should leave. The studio now has as high odds of being a comfort as it does of being… this, a stark reminder of all he’s lost and who he’s become.
But as he drags himself from bed, goes through his closet for something to wear… he wonders. Wonders if he should even try to look like who he was, anymore. It seems his forever role, now, is to come in, powerful and experienced and an antagonist as often as an ally, and fight with all of his experience and often very little of his power.
At heart, his role has always been Decade.
Maybe he should stop trying to be anything else.
He slips his shirt over his head and resolves to go shopping on a World where someone rich owes him a favor.
(Not a friendship, a favor. He’d rather not be seen by people he knows, not when he’s still… struggling.)
So he goes out, and he picks out the perfect clothes, richer than before, perhaps, and a little bit cleaner. Magenta shirts that shimmer, everything made to look the part.
This is moving on too, right? Moving on and away from who he was with them. Maybe it isn’t healthy, but he just doesn’t have it in him to care, today.
He can’t deny he looks exceptionally good in a nice suit, and finally one he’s bought, in his colors.
(He doesn’t think of how three shirts don’t match the others, ones in purple, in red, in cyan. That would break this illusion, too.)
Not just suits, of course, some outfits are the same as the old, more or less.
Because when he goes home, he finds his old wardrobe and burns it, and he thinks…
Burning.
(Yuusuke’s body wouldn’t burn and so they took two weeks to bury him. Just in case. But he never woke up, never healed… the Amadam never sinking below his skin, all black and broken.)
He leaves only after the fire is out.
This is moving on, isn’t it?
He can regret this later. He’s done far worse with his life, after all.
(“Trying something new?” Daiki asks when they next meet, late enough for Tsukasa’s regret to fade into the background of everything else far worse that he’s done with his life.
Late enough to forgive Daiki for running, for simply being his nature.
“Why do you ask?” Tsukasa replies.
“I just never thought being a Rider would give you another uniform,” Daiki says, which gives away he’s absolutely visited the studio, seen the row of these same suits and jackets next to the mere 3 new sets of casual clothes he doubts he’ll ever wear but still bought for… reasons he can’t define. “Not that it doesn’t look good on you.”
A fragile peace, still. He’s glad this conversation didn’t come up at home.
“Kaitou— my Kaitou, I’m—”
“What’s done is done,” Daiki says in a voice that absolutely means he’s still sulking. He walks closer, pulling on his collar. “You really do look good in everything.”
“Of course,” Tsukasa replies with a smirk.
(They never do talk about the why of it all.))