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“This shirt is uncomfortable,” Ryo grumbled. He tugged at his shirt collar, which was buttoned up all the way and felt far too tight. It was difficult to focus as Edo led him down the halls of the hotel, and Ryo worried he’d get lost if he had to leave the banquet hall himself. He wondered why he’d agreed to this.
“Of course it’s uncomfortable. You’ve got the top button buttoned.” Edo turned around and rolled his eyes at him.
“I can’t leave it unbuttoned.”
“You can…” Edo stopped in his tracks and sighed. Ryo stopped in front of him, and Edo looked up at his neck. He carefully reached up and undid the top button of Ryo’s shirt. “There. See, that’s better.”
Ryo felt his neck. He could feel the ridge of scar tissue in the opening of the collar.
“This isn’t going to work.” He quickly did the button back up, but Edo pulled his hand away and moved to undo it again.
“It’ll be fine. You look silly with it buttoned up all the way, this’ll be better.”
“But people will see…”
Edo took a deep breath. He ran his finger over the exposed patch of scar tissue on Ryo’s neck.
“It’s not so bad. They’ve gotten really pale. And, y’know, no one’s looking at your neck anyway. I really don’t think anyone will notice.”
“They’ll notice. People heard about… what happened to me. I don’t want to spend the night fielding questions about the mistakes I made when I was eighteen.”
“Look, you’re with me, okay? The Edo Phoenix. If anyone starts getting nosy, tell them to shove it. If they come crying to me about it, I’ll tell them the same thing. You don’t have anything to worry about.”
“Fine. I won’t worry about it. It’s your night, I don’t want to get in the way.”
“I mean, it’s not really my night. This whole KaibaCorp recognition is just a promo, it’s not like I even get to play.”
“But you’re being recognized for your volunteer work at the orphanage, right? It’s not just a promo, it’s… it’s important.”
“Yeah, I guess. Getting a Kaiba handshake and a special card in a little glass box isn’t really the important part of that, though.”
“That’s true.” Ryo’s hand went to his throat again, rubbing at the scar almost subconsciously. “It’s the younger Kaiba hosting these now, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it’s been him for a while,” Edo replied. “He’s a little more photogenic than his older brother, I guess.”
“Huh. I guess that makes sense.”
“Reminds you of yourself and your brother, doesn’t it?” Edo laughed. “Though I admit I never thought Sho would be the one doing media appearances.”
“He wasn’t supposed to be,” Ryo muttered. He’d always known public speaking was out of Sho’s comfort zone. He was supposed to stand up for his little brother, to do the things Sho couldn’t, to guide him as he grew into himself. But Ryo had already spent the formative moments of Sho’s life half-dead and unable to help him, and now he could barely show his face in public, so Sho was forced to be in the spotlight.
It should have been Ryo on stage, showing off for the cameras while his brother stayed safely inside to study his technique. If Ryo hadn’t destroyed his body and his one chance at life in the underground, it would have been him. But the damage was already done, and now Ryo was forced to ride his brother’s coattails, to ride Edo’s coattails, because he was too much of a failure to make a proper life for himself.
Edo held Ryo’s hand as they entered the banquet hall. Ryo tried to hold onto it for as long as he could. That hand was his lifeline. It was smaller than his own, and he could tell he was starting to hold it in a way that was probably uncomfortable for Edo, but he wasn’t letting go.
“New plus one, Phoenix?” A woman in a blazer and skirt approached them, nodding at Ryo with a smirk. Ryo didn’t recognize her. He hadn’t kept up with the professional dueling world very much since his last surgery. It was starting to bring back too many bad memories.
“He’s an old friend from high school,” Edo replied.
“A friend, hm?” She raised an eyebrow. “What sort of friend?”
“Don’t you think that’s a bit of a personal question, Ms. Tabata?”
She laughed. Ryo could feel her staring at him, so he turned away, trying to hide the exposed portion of his neck.
“Does he at least have a name?”
Ryo swallowed. It had been long enough since he’d dueled on the pro circuit that his face wasn’t exactly easy to recognise, but his name had certainly gone down in history. Whether he was Kaiser Ryo, the promising young Duelist who’d gone down a dark path, or Marufuji, the disgraced older brother of the up and coming league promoter, his name was tainted.
“Come on, be polite. Introduce yourself.” Edo tugged on Ryo’s hand. Ryo glanced down at his shoes.
“I’m… Ryo,” he muttered, hoping that somehow the name Kaiser Ryo had been forgotten, or at least that the name was common enough she might assume he was someone else.
“Hana Tabata,” she replied. “Though you’ve probably seen me duel, so…”
“I haven’t, actually,” Ryo said. “I don’t really follow pro dueling much. Sorry, I guess.”
“Where exactly did you find this guy?” She turned back to Edo, and Ryo started to breathe a bit easier. “You said you met in high school, I mean, how do you go from Duel Academy to not even keeping up with the pro league?”
“He keeps up enough,” Edo replied. “Maybe if you dueled more he’d recognize you.”
“Hey, my win rate is better than yours.”
“Yeah, real easy to keep up your win rate when you play five matches at the beginning of the season and throw in the towel after your first loss.”
“I’m not throwing in the towel. I have… other commitments. I just finished shooting a commercial, actually. I mean, damn. you act like I went Hell Kaiser or something.”
“Is that something you guys say now?” Ryo asked. “That someone ‘went Hell Kaiser’?”
“Sometimes, yeah,” Tabata replied. She looked at him again, and there was a long pause while she stared. Ryo could swear he heard the moment when it finally clicked. She opened her mouth to speak, but Edo was faster.
“We should probably go find our table,” he interjected, leading Ryo away. Ryo looked over his shoulder at Tabata, who still looked like she was about to say something, but to his relief she was silent.
“Is that really something people say?” Ryo asked Edo, who had busied himself reading the name cards on the nearest dining table.
“It’s… it comes up. And it happens, still. People leave the pro league, and they disappear.”
“So why me?” Ryo lowered his voice. It probably wouldn’t help, the moment someone knew he was there word would probably spread quickly. Soon everyone would be staring at him, gossiping, relaying the lurid story of Hell Kaiser to those newer to the dueling scene. “Why am I everyone’s point of reference for that? I left the pro league years ago, why… why am I the person that comes to mind when people leave dueling without a trace?”
“I don’t know, Ryo.” Edo turned to another table to begin scanning the name cards. Ryo was stuck on the first, trying to pick out names he recognized. There were a few he recalled Edo having dueled at one point, but he had never actually seen their faces. “Maybe because your story was more publicised, I guess. When they broke up the underground ring, the list of former combatants was a bunch of kids who couldn’t get signed after graduating from Duel Academy and you. People were always going to focus on the former pro. The fact you never gave a statement on it just made it more fun for people to speculate about.”
“But you said other pros disappeared. Why does no one ever talk about them?”
“Because a sadomasochistic underground dueling ring is flashy. It’s right out of the movies. It’s fun to gossip about. Usually when pros disappear, they get found in a crappy apartment half-dead from an overdose.” He paused, leaning with one hand on the table for a moment. “It’s more fun to imagine they followed in your footsteps. That’s fucking whimsical compared to the reality.”
“Yeah, because having multiple open-heart surgeries under my belt before I could legally drink was whimsical.”
“I’m not saying it’s a good thing. You asked why people thought of you. That’s why.”
Ryo couldn’t say it in front of Edo, but he would have preferred if his fall from grace had just ended in an overdose. He wished he could have faded into the background with all the other bog-standard celebrity gossip. His heart probably would have fared better. And drugs certainly wouldn’t have left the same scarring on his neck, wouldn’t have branded him as a cautionary tale for the rest of his life.
Not that there weren’t drugs in the underground, of course. He couldn’t tell Edo, and he was thankful the reports had chosen to focus on the illicit shock devices above all else, but it was difficult to keep a Duelist in the ring while their body was under that much stress if they were sober. It was never enough to be close to lethal, at least not for him, but it definitely didn’t help his heart.
“What do they say about me?” Ryo asked. “I mean, do they talk about me at all nowadays?”
Edo paused for a moment.
“Not really. Other than that expression, you’re not really a big topic of conversation. Given all the scandal that’s come out of dueling since, I guess people have moved on.”
“That’s good,” Ryo said, nodding.
“Like I told you before, you don’t have anything to worry about.”
Ryo wanted to believe it, but he couldn’t shake the feeling. He glanced across the table, taking in the crowd of smartly-dressed people all clustered into their own conversations. He was sure someone must have been talking about him, someone must have recognized him and before he knew it the whole room would be buzzing about him.
“Why don’t you get yourself something to drink?” Edo asked. “I’m going to go introduce myself to some of the duel promoters, I’ll just be over there—“
“I’ll come with you,” Ryo insisted. He squeezed Edo’s hand. To his surprise, Edo pulled away.
“We’re not teenagers anymore, Ryo,” he sighed. “You can’t cling to me all night. I have to look… professional.”
“You’re ashamed to be seen with me,” Ryo scoffed.
“Come on. I didn’t say that.” Edo turned back towards him, looking him in the eyes. “It’s just that I wanted to talk to some big people from the tournament scene tonight, and they don’t really like seeing duelists get all lovey-dovey. Something about wanting the stars to seem available to fans, and relationships being a scandal waiting to happen. Besides, we don’t need to be joined at the hip all the time. That’s not how relationships work.”
“Don’t you like holding my hand?”
“I do, okay? I just don’t think we need to hold hands all the time. We’ll only get tired of each other like that.” Edo glanced back at the opposite corner of the banquet hall, where a group of men in dark suits had gathered. “Look, I’m going to talk to some people, okay? And you’re going to get a drink and enjoy the night. I know you can do it.” He quickly kissed Ryo on the cheek before turning to leave.
Ryo shoved his hands into the pockets of his dress pants. His palms were already starting to sweat, but he tried not to let it get to him. He was an adult. He could function just fine without Edo there to stand up for him. The bar was just past a few more tables, so he followed Edo’s advice and went to get a drink.
There was a small problem, and that was that Ryo didn’t exactly drink. He’d shared a bottle of wine with Edo a couple times, on their more expensive dates. He’d shared cheap beer with Fubuki and Yusuke a couple times, whatever they could get with pocket change and a fake ID on their occasional trips to the city back in high school. However, he didn’t know the first thing about wine, and he doubted an event like this would even have the kind of cheap canned beer he remembered from high school—not that he would be in the mood to drink it ever again.
He approached the bar slowly. The bartender was older than him, but far from elderly, and he made eye contact with Ryo as soon as Ryo was at the bar.
“What can I get for you, young man?” he asked. Ryo heard a smirk in his voice.
“Um… a rum and Coke?” Ryo blurted out the first alcoholic drink that came to mind. He’d never tasted hard alcohol before. He hoped the soda would cover it up and he wouldn’t end up making a fool of himself.
“Can I see your ID first?” The bartender narrowed his eyes. Ryo narrowed his own in turn.
“Is there really anyone here under twenty?”
“I have to ask.”
Ryo sighed, reaching into the pocket of his dress pants and fumbling through his wallet for his ID. He held it out to the bartender, trying to keep his thumb over his name in the desperate hope the man wouldn’t recognize him. However, the bartender snatched the ID from him, and the moment he read it his eyes lit up.
“So it really is you.” He handed Ryo his ID and then reached under the bar for a glass. Then he paused for a moment, staring Ryo down. Ryo’s neck burned, reminding him of the shock amplifiers he’d left behind long ago. “I saw you from across the room, but I heard you’d quit dueling for good. I thought I was seeing things.”
“I did quit,” Ryo replied. “I’m here as a plus-one. Can I have my drink now?”
The bartender glared, but he turned around and started mixing the drink. Ryo tried to remember how to breathe normally. He looked around, hoping no one was looking at him, or close enough to hear the conversation. There was no one he could see, but somehow he still felt like someone must have been staring at him from across the room.
When he finally got a sip of his drink, all he could taste was sweet soda. He wasn’t sure if it was supposed to taste like that, or if the bartender had used less alcohol to spite him. Not that he would care if it was the latter. He was only getting a drink because Edo told him to, and because he figured it might make him look a bit less out of place, make him blend in with the crowd of people milling about. Across the room, Edo appeared to be in deep conversation with a group of men in suits. One of them patted him on the shoulder. It was a thing Ryo often noticed people doing with Edo: even as he became an adult, and even as his power in the dueling world grew, people still looked at him like a child because of his small stature and young face. It was subconscious, Ryo figured, never beyond encouraging pats on the shoulder or slightly condescending praise. When it came down to it, people would still treat Edo like the powerful Duelist he really was, and not the child he may have appeared to be.
Lost in thought, Ryo didn’t notice the presence beside him until someone tapped him on the shoulder, making him jump. He turned to see a man with a camera around his neck and messenger bag on his hip. The man extended a hand, looking for a handshake, but Ryo did not reciprocate.
“Excuse me,” he said, keeping his hand out. “I’m a writer for Duelist Chronicle, do you have a moment to talk?”
“No,” Ryo replied. He took another sip of his drink and a few steps away from the man with the camera. Unfortunately, the man followed.
“I’m sorry to bother you if you’re busy,” the man continued. He walked as he spoke, keeping close pace with Ryo despite Ryo being significantly taller than him, as was the case with most people. “Though it doesn’t look like you’re doing anything right now, so it’s as good a time as any to talk, right?”
“I don’t need to talk to a journalist.”
“I’m really sorry to bother you, but I just had to ask, since—“
“If you want dirt on Edo Phoenix, ask him yourself. I’m his guest, not your inside source.”
“Actually, I’m not asking about Edo Phoenix at all, Mr. Marufuji.”
“It’s his recognition ceremony. What the hell are you doing here if you aren’t?” Ryo felt his palms starting to sweat. Or maybe it was just the condensation from his drink. He hoped it was the latter.
“There are a dozen journalists here asking about him. And even if they weren’t, I’m sure duel fans are probably sick of hearing about his charity work. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m sure it’s great work, but it’s not exciting, you know?”
“Well, neither am I,” Ryo replied. He turned to walk away, but the journalist stepped closer, almost too close for comfort. Ryo had to hold onto his drink more tightly.
“I respectfully disagree, Hell Kaiser.”
Ryo looked over his shoulder. The man was shorter than him, barely coming up to his shoulder as he stood at Ryo’s side. Suddenly, as if spurred by the utterance of his former name, Ryo had the bizarre thought that he could hurt this man, if he wanted to. He could get this parasite off his back as easily as swatting a fly.
But he wasn’t the Hell Kaiser anymore, no matter what anyone else said.
“You never turned up again after the underground ring got busted. If you hadn’t been seen with your brother, or with Phoenix, people would probably assume they killed you in there. And now that I’m seeing you in person… that scarring on your neck never showed up in any of your photos, but it looks like the injuries some of the other survivors had from the shock amplifiers. It would make a nice picture, you know—people want to see how you’re recovering. Well, mostly they want to see the damage, but we can spin it as a heartwarming redemption.”
“I’m not letting you take any photos of me,” Ryo snapped, reaching up to button his shirt. It was proving difficult with his drink in one hand, so he opted to just keep his hand in front of his neck. Whatever worked, as long as he didn’t give this man and anyone else who might be watching the show they were looking for.
“Are you sure? People have been waiting years for you to give a statement. The survivor stories were huge back when they shut down the ring, and even that ‘five years later’ miniseries still made a killing. And, you know, all of them kept saying how good it felt to get everything off their chests. It must be awful to have kept the whole thing to yourself all these years, especially since you had so far to fall.”
“I’m fine, thank you,” Ryo insisted. “Giving the press a sob story isn’t going to do anything for me. And you know that, don’t you? You just want something to gawk at. You want something that’ll sell tabloids. So don’t you dare act like you care about me, or any of the other duelists that got chewed up and spit out in the underground. Or even any of the duelists that made it, with the shit you and your people write about them.” He was holding his glass so tightly he felt like it would break. If the journalist got any closer, Ryo thought he might smash the glass over his head.
Thankfully, the man backed away.
“Hey, whenever you’re ready,” he said, holding his hands up. “You start missing your spot in the limelight, you know how to get it back.”
“In your dreams,” Ryo scoffed. He downed the rest of his drink and stormed over to the bar, slamming the glass down onto it before stomping out of the banquet hall.
The hotel lobby was almost shockingly quiet in contrast to the countless overlapping conversations of the banquet hall. It made Ryo feel like he could breathe for the first time all day. He wandered throughout the vacant halls of the ground floor a while before he found a bathroom, which he quickly entered. Not that he particularly needed the privacy, since there wasn’t a soul outside the banquet hall anyway, but in the event someone did come looking for him he wanted to make things as difficult as possible.
On his way to the bathroom stall, he passed the mirror over the sink. He’d trained himself in his years since leaving the underground to avoid mirrors whenever possible, to avoid looking at the worst of the damage the shock amplifiers had caused him. However, some magnetism drew him to this mirror, and he couldn’t help but lean over the sink to take a look.
In the intervening years, while his body recovered from the damage done to it by the underground, the scar on his throat had started to fade. It had gone from a disgusting mess of purples and reds to a uniform pale pink, the flesh had become softer, less like leather; it was generally far less noticeable than it had been when he’d first left the hospital. But when Ryo thought about it, it didn’t matter that the scar was less noticeable. It was still there, twinging when he turned his head too far, drawing his gaze when he looked in the mirror, serving as a scarlet letter for passers by to point and stare at. Ryo hated that scar more than anything else, even more than his heart which had threatened to kill him. At least his heart was hidden away, not on show for the world to stare at.
He touched a finger to the scar, picking at the edge with his nail, wishing for a moment he could just tear it off. It was so ugly. Maybe it was vain, but Ryo missed the days before he was ugly, when the dueling tabloids would fawn over his beautiful youthful face instead of picking apart every blurry image of him for signs of his sickness. He wanted to be the pretty duel prodigy, not the poor damaged victim.
But he’d been young and stupid and angry, and he’d spoiled that forever.
Ryo was crying. He’d been doing that more often since leaving the underground—once he was no longer able to release his emotions through violent duels, they seemed to come out in tears more often than not. It was yet another aspect of his body that he’d grown to hate, the way his face turned a blotchy red and his eyes itched and his chest tightened like he was dying all over again. Sometimes he wished he was. Sometimes he hated living as a broken, empty shell of what he used to be.
At last, Ryo retreated into the stall. He had to: his face was a mess of tears and snot by that point, and he couldn’t let anyone see him in that state. At least he could cry quietly, snivelling into his shirt sleeve like the miserable thing he was. No one had to know how much of a mess he’d become.
“Ryo? Is that you in there?”
Ryo choked. He recognized Edo, but he still felt anxiety blossoming in his chest at the sound of another voice. No one was allowed to see him like this. Even Edo, who had seen him in a worse state, couldn’t see him like this.
“Ryo, hey, it’s Edo.”
“I know,” Ryo said, trying not to sound like he’d been crying.
“Are you okay?” Edo asked. Ryo heard him walking, his footsteps approaching the stall door. “Did something happen?”
“No, I’m not okay,” Ryo snapped. “I’m not—I haven’t been—when was the last time you saw me okay? Did we even know each other before I was… like this?”
“Like what?”
“Before I ruined my fucking life.”
“Ryo… I can tell something happened in there, okay? Do you want to open the door and talk about it?”
“No.”
“Can you at least let me see you?”
“I said no.”
“Look,” Edo sighed. “I’m sorry I made you come. You told me you didn’t want to, that people were going to make a thing out of it, and… I should have listened. I’ve been dueling long enough, I should know the kind of people it attracts.”
“Someone asked about me, didn’t they?”
“A few people. But I didn’t tell them anything. Just that we were dating, which… I mean, I went through the whole outing thing already.”
“And you want your first public boyfriend to be a disgusting washed-up freak?”
“I didn’t want to keep you a secret. I’m sorry, I guess I should have asked you before I went public.”
“I don’t mind. I’m worried about you. Won’t it hurt your reputation or something if people know you’re with someone like me?”
“Probably not. I honestly thought people would see it as some kind of reconciliation, considering I was your last duel as a pro.”
“Yeah, I guess I could be your next charity project.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Maybe not, but it’s what people want to see. I’m not a Duelist anymore, I’m… I don’t even know what I am.” Ryo sighed and leaned against the stall door. “There was a journalist, a writer for some tabloid who wanted to talk to me, and he kept talking about how I was one of the survivors of the underground. Like it’s something I should be proud of. It’s bullshit.”
“I’m sorry. It was rude of him to bring that up.”
“But why wouldn’t he, you know? It’s like a car crash. No matter how gruesome it is, people want to keep looking. They want to hear all the disgusting details about what happened in there, and they know my story is probably the worst.”
“It doesn’t mean they have a right to know.”
“Did you ever see any of the interviews? With the other people from the underground?”
“When they came out, yeah. And I watched some of that documentary.”
“See? You wanted to know what happened. It’s natural.”
“Ryo, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. If they want to talk about it, and you want to hear about it, that’s fine.”
“But you don’t want to talk about it.”
“No. Not to the public. I don’t want people looking at me and seeing something so awful, I mean, the scar is bad enough.”
Edo was silent at that. He can’t even argue.
“They’re serving dinner soon, right?” Ryo asked. “You should probably start heading back.”
“Are you coming with me?”
“No. I can’t go back in there.”
“Ryo, you need to eat…”
“I’ll order room service. I’ll put it on your tab.”
He heard Edo sigh loudly.
“Fine. As long as you eat.”
“Will you be mad if I miss your ceremony?”
“No. I told you, the important part’s already done.”
“I’m gonna go back up to the room, then.”
There was a pause. Ryo waited for Edo’s footsteps, but they never came, or rather they never left. He took a deep breath and opened the stall door, telling himself he’d have to face Edo eventually.
“Oh, honey…”
Ryo rubbed his eyes. He’d stopped crying by then, but he always looked especially dishevelled for quite a while after crying.
“I’m good now,” Ryo said, leaning down to kiss Edo. “Enjoy your night, okay? Don’t worry about me.”
“Are you going to be fine on your own?” Edo took his hand gently.
“Yeah,” Ryo replied. “Like you said, we can’t be together all the time, right?”
“Right.” Edo still looked uncertain. “Just call me if you need anything, okay?”
“I will. Don’t worry.” Ryo squeezed Edo’s hand. He held on as long as he could, until he could feel Edo starting to pull away. Part of him wanted to pull him closer, to not let go, but he knew it was better for them to go their separate ways for the night. Edo needed to attend his event, and Ryo needed to be alone, where no one could see him in this state.
When he got back to the hotel room, he kicked off his shoes and undid a few more buttons on his shirt, exposing more of the scarring on his neck. It was okay this time; the door was locked, and there were no mirrors around to look at. No one had to see him, not even himself.
Ryo traced a hand over his throat, brushing across the scar on his neck and moving down to the exposed area of his chest. His chest bore more scars, though he thought about them less often as they weren’t constantly on show. They were also cleaner, delicately carved by a scalpel and not carelessly seared into his flesh. These scars were tolerable, nothing more. That was all he could hope to be anymore: not pretty, but tolerable.
He wasn’t hungry. His stomach was in knots, and he was confident he’d throw up anything he ate, so he didn’t. Instead, Ryo opted to shower, to hopefully wash some of the tears from his face. Showers were always a burden now, as they forced him to look down at the full expanse of his sick, scarred body. At least he no longer had to deal with new surgical wounds that he had to protect from the stream of water, at least he wasn’t so sick he needed someone to help him bathe. It could always be worse.
But, somehow, knowing that didn’t help. A lot of people seemed to think it did. He’d heard from doctors and strangers alike that he’d been lucky, that he could have ended up dead or permanently handicapped. It took all of Ryo’s restraint not to respond that he’d rather be dead. And, as difficult as it may have been to spend the rest of his life needing help moving or bathing or eating, his independence was just another thing to lose. He’d lost so much else: his looks, his career, his youth, a life without pain. What would one more loss be?
He collapsed into bed practically the moment he got out of the shower. That was another thing he’d lost—the ability to be awake for a full day without feeling like he was about to collapse. His long hair was still sopping wet, cascading down his back and soaking the sheets. It was a level of discomfort he could handle. Wet hair seemed far less cumbersome to deal with than getting up again.
His hair was dry by the time he awoke to Edo petting it. He nuzzled into his hand. He barely had the energy to move any more than that.
“You still awake?” Edo whispered.
“Mhm,” Ryo replied. “How was the ceremony?”
“It went well. Did you get something to eat?”
Ryo didn’t reply.
“Ryo…”
“I’m not hungry,” Ryo protested.
“I get nervous when you skip meals.”
“I’m not skipping meals. I’m just not hungry.”
“You didn’t eat, that’s… nevermind, I guess. But you’re eating breakfast tomorrow.”
“Fine.”
“Everything else okay? Are you feeling better, at least?”
“Edo… you can’t keep worrying about me.”
“I mean, there’s a lot of things about you for me to worry about. It’s kind of hard not to.”
Ryo rolled onto his back. Immediately Edo’s hand was on his neck, gently stroking the scar on his throat. Ryo reached up slowly to push his hand away.
“Don’t touch that,” he muttered.
“Sorry,” Edo said. He moved down to Ryo’s shoulder. At least there were no scars there for him to fuss over.
“I don’t even know why you want to touch it. It’s gross.”
“It deserves love.” Edo lifted his hand, and Ryo could feel him reaching towards his neck, but he didn’t touch. “You’re so ashamed of it. I don’t want you to be.”
“Why wouldn’t I be? It’s this big ugly reminder of everything that happened to me. Whenever anyone sees it, all they can think about is the awful shit I was involved in. It’s all I can think about, when I see myself. I mean, isn’t that what you’re thinking when you look at that scar?”
“I… I don’t know what happened to you. I can imagine, but I don’t know the details.” He paused, his hand still hovering over Ryo’s neck. “And I don’t need to. You don’t have to tell anyone. Not even me.”
Ryo took his hand and moved it slowly to his neck, letting it rest over the scar. Edo gasped softly. He went still, as if any motion would hurt Ryo.
“You’ve seen the other stories, though. You can speculate. Everyone loves to speculate.”
“But you had it worst. At least, that’s what everyone says.”
“Yeah. I guess you could say that.” Ryo patted Edo’s hand. Edo still didn’t move. Ryo could still feel a tightness in his chest at the sensation of someone else touching the scar, but it was beginning to fade. He was getting used to it, just like anything else. “Do you really want to know what happened, Edo?”
“You don’t have to talk about it.”
“Are you saying I don’t have to tell you? Or that you don’t want me to tell you?”
“If it’ll make you feel better to talk about it, you can.”
“I get it if you don’t want to know. It’s fucked up.”
“I don’t…” Edo sniffled, and his hand finally shifted on Ryo’s neck, pressing a bit more firmly into the edge of the scar. “That documentary that came out recently… I couldn’t finish it. It made me sick to my stomach. I just couldn’t watch anymore.”
“That’s understandable.”
“But it’s not!” Edo cried. “You lived through that, everything those people went through and worse. And I can’t even listen to people talk about it without wanting to scream or cry or… I don’t even know. I know you don’t feel brave, I know you don’t feel like you survived, like you have something to be proud of, but you’re wrong. You’re the strongest, bravest person I’ve ever known.”
“I’m not brave for letting myself be tortured. I’m just stupid.”
“You’re brave for making it through that. You’re brave for still living.”
“I’m barely living. I don’t want to be brave. I just want everything to go back to how it was before.”
“I’m sorry.” Edo laid down beside him. He leaned in close to Ryo, and before Ryo knew it he was trailing a line of kisses over the scar on his neck. Ryo took slow, heavy breaths, trying to get used to the sensation. He wondered how the scarred flesh felt against Edo’s lips. He figured the answer was something like disgusting, a grim reminder of Ryo’s awful past.
“You’re braver than me, if you’re really so eager to kiss me there.”
Edo hummed softly against his neck.
“Not really,” he replied. “It’s just your body. There’s nothing for me to be scared of.”
“Except that I’ve ruined it. I mean, you remember I used to be pretty.”
“And you still are.” Edo reached over and ran a hand through his hair.
“No,” Ryo sighed.
“Yes,” Edo protested. He swung his leg over Ryo’s hips, laying on top of him. He’d changed out of his formal clothes, into flannel pajama pants with nothing above the waist. Even on Ryo’s weakened body, Edo was light enough that his weight felt pleasant as opposed to suffocating. Ryo could enjoy the skin-to-skin contact, Edo’s bare chest against his own, warm and soft and perfect. He didn’t deserve someone like Edo. Edo didn’t deserve to have to touch someone as awful and broken as him.
And yet, Edo kissed deeply into his scarred neck, as if it was the most beautiful thing in the world.
“I love you,” Edo whispered, his warm breath prickling against the scar.
“I… I love you too,” Ryo replied. Of course he loved Edo. Edo was perfect. He just didn’t know how Edo could love him.
“I love you so much, okay? You’re so brave and strong and beautiful, and I don’t want to hear you deny it.”
“Edo—“
“Shh.” Edo quickly planted a kiss on his lips, keeping him quiet. “You are. Don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise, not even your own brain.”
He petted Ryo’s hair a bit more, and Ryo’s eyes fluttered shut. He was still exhausted, and he wanted to fall asleep with Edo on top of him, kissing him and petting him and making him feel like something other than a disaster. He wrapped his arms around Edo, pulling him close, silently begging him not to change his mind. Maybe one day he would, Ryo’s sickness and ugliness would become too much for him to bear and he’d leave him on his own again. But for now, he was here, and he was warm and gentle, and Ryo felt like there was good in the world for once.