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Tsukasa doesn’t love lightly.
There are things he does lightly but love is not one of them.
Daiki almost wishes it was.
If Tsukasa loved lightly, he could leave.
(But if Tsukasa loved lightly, he would never be here, in the first place.)
Tsukasa doesn’t love lightly which is why Daiki can’t help but feel the same. Except… that’s not entirely true.
Daiki needs Tsukasa, deep in his soul. Tsukasa’s a light he’s always reaching for, and Tsukasa would catch him, if he ever thought he could fly close enough on his weak, wax wings.
He knows better.
He tried, and he fell in moments.
That sick smile was on his brother’s face by choice, and he knew he’d never recover what he lost.
(Daiki doesn’t love lightly, either.
But he’s much more susceptible to betrayal.)
And yet.
Tsukasa meets his gaze, and Daiki can never run.
Tsukasa loved the broken thing he dug from the trash.
Tsukasa tried to save the villain he didn’t know he created.
At the end, when their epilogue began, Tsukasa welcomed him, finally.
(Tsukasa needs him, too.)
But does Daiki love Tsukasa?
…Sometimes, he just doesn’t know.
“What are you thinking about?” Natsumi asks. He looks away from the studio window at her. Yuusuke’s following Tsukasa on their usual mentor service route, Kivala is off doing weird bat demon things, and…
The less they all think about Hikari Eijiro’s endless mystery, the better.
Natsumi has an ability, different from Tsukasa’s yet complimentary. A lense, just like him.
Someone who wants to understand. Someone who can often see right through you.
Someone who, and this last one extends to Yuusuke as well, draws you in like a magnet.
The ones who are suns.
Today is no different.
“Tsukasa used to call me ‘my Kaitou’,” is what Daiki says. “…Before. I guess it’s why hearing my last name never felt like the insult it should on his lips.”
“Oh,” Natsumi says. “Do you… miss who he was before?”
“Oh, god no,” Daiki says. “He was a monster… And yet, even back then, he loved heroes. I think he wanted me to save him. Or he wanted to save me. Or both.”
“So you do miss him.”
…Goddamn human camera lenses.
“I miss the way he looked at me,” Daiki says. “Like I was precious. Like he looks at you and Yuusuke.”
“He still loves you,” Natsumi says.
“He loves you and Yuusuke,” Daiki counters. “I just refuse to leave.”
And it’s not true. He knows it. But sometimes…
Sometimes he doubts.
Sometimes he thinks. When will he fly too close?
Some sort of half-baked metaphor from an old myth he shouldn’t have known about but read anyways, as a kid.
He used to love forbidden myths and old religions.
But gods are real and most suck ass. One of them decided his reason for being shouldn’t even exist.
And one godling’s girlfriend is why he still has no G4 chip in storage.
Love conquers all bullshit. He hates how a part of him has allowed himself to believe it. He likes it, too. It feels like hope.
It scares him.
“Well, you do,” Natsumi points out. “But you belong here. We all know this.”
“I’m a good backup, at least, since he can’t get rid of me,” Daiki jokes. Natsumi takes his hand, and he jumps.
“You’re not a backup,” she says. “He needs you in ways I’ll never understand. You understand him in ways Yuusuke and I never will. And, if it’s any consolation… I care about you. So does Yuusuke.”
Daiki pulls his hand away.
“You’re right,” he says. “You don’t understand.”
And yet… she understands, at the same time.
He’s so fucking tired of complexities.
Tsukasa’s awake late at night, like he often is now. Often was, Before, but that used to mean he slept in the next morning.
( “We’re nocturnal,” Tsukasa had explained, a rare time he’d deigned to be open with Daiki and not wrap himself in the powerful and self assured persona which kept him safe. “Oya-San’s lucky Mom was a night owl. Made me an easy kid. Now Sayo…”
And then he trailed off. He never liked talking about his sister.
But then, Daiki knows, a living loss always hurts worse than the dead.)
Daiki should be asleep, but the insecure loops are running and they like to run for far too long. He feels familiar fingers caressing his cheek.
“Daiki,” Tsukasa says. “…My Kaitou. I used to call you that, right. You’re so beautiful. So soft like this. I wish I could photograph it.” A sigh. “Maybe someday, I can fix you.”
…but Daiki doesn’t want to be fixed. Not anymore.
“Do you love me?” He asks a few days later.
“I don’t know,” Tsukasa replies. “I want to, I suppose. You’re a part of me.”
(Tsukasa doesn’t love lightly. Tsukasa does something that’s more than love.)
“Do you love them?” Daiki asks, then. Tsukasa rolls his eyes.
“You’re all my World,” he says. “Have you ever considered that makes simple words like ‘love’ lesser?”
(It’s not an answer.)
Icarus fell.
Daiki found his way to orbit.
He’s so goddamn sick of orbit.
“I’ll make you love me, then,” Daiki says. Tsukasa smirks.
“I look forward to it,” he replies.
(He never says he does. )