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It didn’t hurt anymore.
This was a strange thing for Banri to be fixated on; everyone still-living whom he loved was panicking all around him, and since they were stuck in the same enclosed space and would be for the next day and a half, he got a very close view of everyone losing their minds with terror and worry, but…for whatever reason (Banri knew the reason) he couldn’t quite bring himself to care. It was terrible that they were upset, of course, and Banri wished their pain would go away, but he couldn’t help but get caught up in how much less he was feeling. It had been terrible before; he knew that logically, though he couldn’t quite bring up that feeling now, but now there was just a faint emptiness, an opaque spiderweb of cracks shielding himself from the worst pain he’d felt in his life, and Ogami Banri was an expert in pain.
As the hours rolled on, though, and everyone pretended everything was okay, and Momo and Yuki continued looking like someone had killed their dog right in front of them, Banri slowly came to the conclusion that the pain wasn’t gone. It was just—obscured.
The literature he’d read when he was younger had discussed souls breaking, as though they were things that could be snapped clean in two or crushed onto the floor. And any of the literature he’d read would have said this was it, Banri’s soul was shattered, Ogami Banri as he had been was done for, he was literally a dead man walking.
But the pain was still here.
It was lessened, yes; once Banri had had a minute to himself to think on it the relief had nearly buried him alive. But the operative word here was alive, and anyway he hadn’t been buried, he was still sitting here as Yuki clung and the children fumed and Momo appeared to be beating himself up in the corner. Banri’s soul had snapped—or perhaps been obscured—nearly an entire day ago, and yet Banri was still here, still breathing, still speaking, still himself in every way that mattered, and even if it took more effort to do things like interact or care, he could still do them.
If Banri were an academic, he might want to study this fact of himself; he seriously doubted that anyone who had studied soulbonds had ever risked their own soul breaking, even for an experiment, and if he were the sort of person who wanted to devote themself to a life of study, this would probably have been the best day of his life.
Banri was the sort of person who wanted to take care of people, though, even if sometimes now that his soul had broken he looked at the people he wanted to take care of and barely recognized them, and so the current condition of his soul wasn’t anything other than an inconvenience.
But it hurt so much less.
And by God wasn’t that the worst of it? That Banri knew somewhere, deep down or floating above the opacity over everything he’d ever loved, that he could come back from this, that he could, if he so chose, reach down and dive into the pain and rip it up by the roots, bring it back, be who he had been once more. But…
Banri didn’t like pain. He didn’t think anyone did. He had accepted the torture to protect his kids and because of the mind control; he couldn’t see any real benefits to taking this pain into himself once more. Everyone he had loved back then was still with him, right? Yuki had not once let go of Banri since they’d escaped, let alone since Banri’s soul had shattered. The kids were all plastered around them, in varying states of fury.
Momo was…
Momo was avoiding them almost guiltily, and Yuki was unhappy about it, though he was loathe to leave Banri even for his husband, which was a load of steaming hot bullshit. Momo…Momo seemed like he was the least likely to be okay after all of this. Momo looked wrecked.
Above all, this fact was what gave Banri the most motivation to attempt to reach past the obscurity over his soul to the pain, though he found himself still flinching away from it, and wasn’t quite able to bring himself to force his way all the way back through to feeling. He exhausted himself with trying, though, and eventually drifted off to sleep in Yuki’s arms, and, as he drifted, for the first time in years, colorful futures danced around his eyelids.
When Banri awoke, they were at the Okazaki castle, and he knew what he had to do.
At least, he assumed it was the Okazaki castle; he was lying in a plush bed, clean and in a pair of new, high-quality pajamas, surrounded by pillows and blankets. When he pushed himself into a sitting position, he found that he was surrounded by people doing a terrible job at pretending not to be watching over him. One, a young man with long silver hair, had a blackened eye and a bloodied nose, and a younger man (a child) had bruised knuckles and the expression of someone who very much wanted to commit a murder but heavily doubted he’d be allowed to.
Banri blinked, and then they were Yuki and Yamato again, with Momo, Tsumugi, the Izumis, Sougo, Tamaki, Nagi, Riku.
Banri probably should have been more unsettled by the fact that he’d just forgotten all of them, but he couldn’t summon up the necessary emotions. Things…were worse than he’d thought.
“Ban, you’re awake,” Yuki said, and oh…right. That was his nickname. He knew that.
…Shit.
“Is there anything we can do for you?”
“May I speak with Momo alone?” Banri said. Most everyone looked surprised, though nobody denied him this; Banri had the sneaking suspicion that, at this moment, nobody would deny him anything, if only he asked for it. He received affirmation, and the others left, some more willingly than others, until it was only him and Momo left in the room.
“Ban…I’m so sorry,” Momo said.
“You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” Banri assured him, though, admittedly, his memory was foggy enough now that he had no idea whether or not this was true. “I…I have a request for you, actually.”
“Anything,” said Momo.
Banri smiled wanly. “Don’t say that when you don’t even know what I’m going to ask of you,” he chided.
Momo looked chagrined for a moment, before his expression became even more determined. “I know you, Ban,” he said. “I know you wouldn’t ask anything of me that would hurt—any of us. So.”
Banri sighed. “Still…”
“Alright,” Momo said, moving over to sit next to Banri on the bed. “I won’t accept without knowing what it is.”
“Thank you,” said Banri. “Momo…I know this is asking a lot of you, but would you please make a soulbond with me?”
Momo’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head and his face turned crimson. “Yes. Absolutely. Always. Anytime. I would love to. I am in love with you.”
“...You’re married.”
“Yuki and I are both in love with you.”
Banri blinked. “I…I am going to unpack that when my soul isn’t about to completely be destroyed,” he said.
“It won’t be,” Momo said fiercely.
“That’s the plan,” Banri replied. “But…it’s not something I can do alone…not anymore, which is why I’m asking for your help.”
Momo nodded, eyes darkening. “Earlier in the carriage you mentioned studying soulbonds,” he said. “I’m guessing this is related to that?”
Banri nodded. “It’s…my soul isn’t breaking, ” he said. “It’s dissipating. Similar, but not the same. I…read a few theories talking about it, back then. Over the next few days, more and more of ‘me’ will vanish, until my soul is truly dead. The process has already gone on enough that my current soulbonds can do nothing but delay it…which is why I still know who you, Yuki, the princess, and my boys are. But they can only delay it, not stop it entirely. It would take a new soulbond to tug my soul back entirely, though…it’ll most likely be hard, and get worse before it gets better, if it does. But…if I make a new soulbond, then there’s a chance that my soul will pull through.”
Momo’s eyes were wide and watery, though Banri felt entirely detached, as though the soul he was talking about was not his own.
“And…you want me for that soulbond…?”
“Of course,” Banri said easily. “In order for the soulbond to even take in my current state, it needs to be someone whom I care about and trust deeply enough that I can still feel emotions about them right now, and you are the only person who fits that bill. If you don’t want to, though, I have absolutely no intentions of insisting or begging or forcing you to. I’m far past caring if I live or die, let alone whether or not my soul survives.”
“You’re faking that smile,” Momo said. “Ban, you don’t…feel anything right now, do you?”
Banri shook his head. “I was worried about you earlier, though, back in the carriage,” he said, “so that ought to count for something.”
Momo nodded. “In that case, let’s do it now,” he said. “Before it gets any worse.”
“It’ll hurt,” Banri said, either to himself or to Momo—he wasn’t sure.
Momo bared his teeth in a cruel grin. “Good,” he said, and reached out his hand. Banri pressed his own against it, shoving past the fog to his soul, which tried to dart away, but found its way into Momo’s grasp, and—
The pain burst back in full-force, like the brand of a pink star over Banri’s heart.
Banri screamed, and he screamed, and he felt.