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It didn’t matter that he could feel the wind through his hair, or hear the leaves rustling in the trees and bushes around him. Didn’t even matter that he could feel the ground beneath his own feet.
All that mattered was the feeling of cracks and the shattering sounds of his world with Dark, and his world with Riku, as she asked that piercing question.
“Are you really Niwa-kun? Or….are you Dark?”
His world was that question alone. And if he wasn’t careful, it would all fall apart.
The arm Daisuke had reached out to Riku abruptly stopped. His wide eyes could only bear to look at her for a few seconds before their gaze fell downward to his own chest. The hand he had previously tried to reach out to her turned back and instead gripped at the torn fabric of his shirt.
His mouth opened and closed, false starts and half sounds the only things Daisuke was capable of producing. Riku patiently waited, if only because it was clear to her that something (something dangerous, something traumatizing, something I’m not sure I get) had just happened to him.
Finally, Daisuke lowered his arm to his side. His hands both balled into fists, preparing for the fallout.
“…I….I’m not sure.”
The sounds of indignation rising from Riku’s throat were exactly what he expected.
“Niwa-kun! How can y-you say something like that! I saw the whole thing! I may not understand it, but–”
“Riku-san!” Daisuke interrupted, finally looking up. “Um…”
She breathed in deeply. "I don’t know what’s going on here. Please…“
Daisuke nodded stiffly, eyes once again trained on the ground. "You’re right that…Dark and I are connected. It’s not normal. It goes–it goes really deep. But something just happened and…”
“Niwa-kun?” Riku drew closer, extending a hesitant hand towards Daisuke’s shoulder.
He flinched, and she quickly drew her hand back and hugged it to her chest.
“Ah–! N-no, Riku-san, I’m…really sorry. About earlier.” He ran frustrated hands through his face and hair, breathing heavily.
“Something terrible happened. And I’m not sure where to begin, but I’m really nervous because of it. Even so,” he looked up at her and tried to reach out just once more. “I shouldn’t be treating you like this. You…deserve to know.”
Riku stared at Daisuke’s outstretched hand, and then up at his eyes. She stared, hard, into the red color she had grown to love so dearly.
These are Niwa-kun’s eyes.
She took Daisuke’s hand in her own and took a single step forward, putting the two not a foot apart.
“But…?” she quietly asked.
Daisuke’s smile was solemn, but filled with a sadness she hadn’t often seen.
“But I really don’t know. And I don’t want to tell you something confusing, or something that could change later.”
Daisuke squeezed Riku’s hand, but her’s didn’t respond in kind. Now it was her gaze that flitted to the floor, eyebrows scrunched in confusion.
“Riku-san.”
She looked in his eyes one more time. “Yes?”
“I can promise you one thing.” He bent over enough to reach for RIku’s other hand and held them both close to his own heart. It was all he could do to ignore the massive blush he was sure was forming on his face–one that he was sure reflected the bright red Riku was turning.
But he had to say this.
If he didn’t say it now, he wasn’t sure he’d ever get the chance.
“The one standing here right now, looking at you. That’s Niwa Daisuke. And he–I–will always…will always love you. Only you, Riku-san.”
With each word he spoke, Riku’s face grew redder and her eyes wider. By the end of it, she could barely breathe.
They had certainly told each other that they liked each other several times. But this was the first time since the very first time that Daisuke had ever said it so strongly and with such straightforward honesty.
Finally, Riku squeezed Daisuke’s hands back, and they both smiled.
With that done, Daisuke slowly let go of her hands and moved backwards towards the edge of the gazebo. “Go have fun with Harada-san,” he smiled. “There are still some things I need to do.”
Riku brought both of her hands back to her chest, refusing to move.
“Will you be okay?” she finally asked.
Daisuke’s only response was a nod.
“…Does it have to do with…?”
Despite leaving the question hanging, the intended meaning was clear enough, and so Daisuke responded once again with a nod.
“I promise, I’ll tell you everything once I get it sorted out.” He smiled, attempting to reassure her.
Even though he wasn’t so sure himself.
Either way, Riku seemed to (reluctantly) take it and turned to leave. But before she was out of sight completely, she turned her head just enough to have her voice heard.
“Please be careful….D-Daisuke-kun.”
And then, she disappeared.
“‘Daisuke-kun’…she just called me…my name…” he murmured. His heart was beating so hard that he was sure it was visible to anyone back in the hall.
Even so, you’re not coming out.
Silence.
Daisuke sighed, and found a decent spot to sit against the railing. He got as comfortable as he possibly could in a suit and on the ground, and closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, he was surrounded by white. Something akin to a flame burned far, far above, but it didn’t give off any heat. “Temperature” couldn’t quit exist inside the mind. With a sigh, Daisuke began walking.
It didn’t take long for Daisuke to find who he was looking for. How could it.
“Good of you not to come out when I was talking to Riku-san.” Daisuke stated tersely, slowly walking towards the only blotch in the otherwise pure white.
“It was too interesting,” Dark responded blithely, not quite turning around completely. “Nice collection of white lies you told her. Wonder how you’re gonna get away this ti–huh?”
Much quicker than should have been possible, Daisuke was standing in front of Dark, staring holes into his chest.
“'White lies’, huh?” Daisuke responded, slowly putting a hand in the center of Dark’s chest.
“…Daisuke?”
“What’s worse,” Daisuke mused while putting increased strength into his hand. “White lies, or lying by omission.”
Faster than Dark could blink, he found himself shoved onto his back by Daisuke’s own strength. He tried to recover, but it became impossible when Daisuke added his own weight, straddling Dark. Daisuke’s knees were squeezing at about his waist, and Daisuke’s hands on either side of his head were dangerously close to his neck.
“Oi, Daisuke, what’s gotten into you?” Dark attempted to wriggle his way out of Daisuke’s hold, but something was preventing his hands from moving. He could hear Daisuke’s fingers claw at the 'ground’, and his head was lowered so that Dark couldn’t see his eyes.
“I’ve heard so much, from so many people. People who know so much more than me.”
The echoing sounds of something scratching its way across the floor reached Dark’s ears, but obviously Daisuke didn’t care.
“But I never listened. Everything they said…none if it ever matched the Dark I knew.”
Dark tried to lift his hands, to shift his legs, but none of them were moving.
“Even so, I thought I knew. I thought I understood.”
Finally, he could feel the scratching as well as hear it. Something digging into his wrists and ankles, slowly working it’s way up each of his limbs.
“I-I thought I could do something. Because I thought you really were different. Because you pushed me to do so much, to be the best I could be.”
Daisuke’s hands slowly moved towards Dark’s neck. And with that slight movement, he finally saw it.
Chains, deep blood red, cascading from the space around them and from Daisuke’s own body, hanging from invisible hooks, slithering towards Dark’s limbs and wrapping themselves around them, stripping him of all autonomy.
Dark always knew that the Niwa family had a peculiar talent for sealing and controlling. They weren’t the “all or nothing” that the Hikaris were. They could only create or destroy…but the Niwas. Oh, they could control, they really embodied everything the word “Tamer” had to offer, good and bad. But because they had chosen to live in concert with him, no Niwa had ever exercised this particular ability of theirs, consciously or no. Dark was rather convinced the power had actually been forgotten.
Apparently not.
“But what happened back there…Dark, what happened back there?!”
“Daisuke, please!” Dark struggled against the chains slowly crawling onto his torso, against the hands gently closing in on his throat. “Daisuke, this power, this is–!”
“You pulled me in. I trusted you, and you took advantage of me,” Daisuke raised his body up to put more into his hands. He raised his head to look Dark directly in the eyes. “And I was okay with it! I….I felt comfortable, Dark! You’ve got me so I can’t live without you!”
Dark’s eyes widened at Daisuke’s face, stained with tears and contorted with more emotions than Dark ever had memories of seeing on his face. Daisuke’s face–his sweet, loving, kind, gentle face–was now contorted with rage, loneliness, sadness, and a terrible kind of resignation.
Daisuke moved to put more pressure on his throat. “You really weren’t kidding when you told Harada-san you were a monster, did you?”
“I’m nothing–” Dark spat out through the pain, tears at the corner of his eyes “–compared to you right now. Y…You’re scaring me, Daisuke. Don’t do t–”
Dark hacked, pressure removed from his throat at last. When he was at last able to open his eyes from the coughing fit, he couldn’t look away from Daisuke’s awe-stricken face.
Daisuke took in the scene below with with a kind of reverential fear. He wouldn’t–couldn’t–follow the chains around Dark to their source; he already knew where they were coming from, and he didn’t need more proof of Dark’s statement than what he was already seeing. His hands fell limply, resting on Dark’s heaving chest.
In such a catatonic state, the chains couldn’t keep their tautness, and with a small sigh of relief Dark felt them give way. They weren’t gone, not completely, but he could move now. And the first thing he did was to reach his hand up towards Daisuke and caress the side of his face. Daisuke leaned into it, a good sign for Dark if there ever was one.
“You know,” he quipped, voice still hoarse, “you really are a lot more like me than you might imagine.”
Daisuke let out a bitter laugh and closed his eyes. “In other words, you’re dangerous.”
It wasn’t a question, but Dark felt the need to answer anyway.
“Yeah. Kinda comes with the territory, unfortunately.” I’m a Hikari artwork after all remained unspoken, but was nevertheless understood.
“Maybe I’ll tell you everything soon. But not now. Even I…have to properly understand what happened.”
Daisuke laughed again, this time slightly more sincere. “Aren’t those the same words you called a white lie?”
Dark couldn’t respond.
“Maybe…we really are surprisingly alike.”
Dark was startled by Daisuke’s response, but even so couldn’t be entirely pleased. He brought his other hand up to Daisuke’s face, forcing him to look at his eyes as he asked a silent question.
He could only hope the intent was clear. This was something he couldn’t ask with words. It felt far too trite to do so.
When Daisuke grabbed Dark’s hands to pull them off his face, Dark thought the worst. That Daisuke was finally following the route of his ancestors, and properly turning his back on him.
Instead, Daisuke gripped Dark’s hands in his own and let the tears fall down once more. "Maybe we both are. And….I could never. Not you.“
There was love in Daisuke’s eyes, and Dark couldn’t help but return the gesture as he pulled Daisuke down on top and wrapped his arms around him, ineffectively hiding his own tears.
Daisuke opened his eyes to the blinding darkness around the gazebo. He didn’t know how long he had been out for, but it was long enough that the sounds of the Dance Party had instead turned into those of crickets and the wind through the trees. But Daisuke didn’t mind this kind of silence, choosing instead to bask in the glow he felt inside
He put his hands on the hard ground, ready to get up, but his right hand instead brushed against what felt like a small, hand-sized package
He rummaged in his pants pocket until he found a small penlight, and inspected the ground. What he found was a small packet of tissues, and an even smaller letter. As if remembering his own face upon seeing the tissues, he reached up and found the last vestiges of drying tears. Brusquely wiping at his own face, he then used the penlight to inspect the letter.
Daisuke-kun
Please be careful. Please don’t forget the things that make you you. Please call me when you feel okay, and remember I trust you.
-Riku
On the other side, Daisuke saw another small note
Niwa-kun
I don’t know much, but I heard things from Riku. I trust you, and I trust Dark-san. I just wanted you to know that.
-Risa
They came back here for you. They saw you….us. Crying.
"This is gonna be hard. I think they both know something now, Dark.”
Daisuke meandered out of the gazebo and headed to the garden wall. With the Dance Party over, the main hall was likely closed; he would have to get out using more unconventional methods.
We’ll figure something out. Dark spoke quietly. Daisuke could feel Dark’s hand on his back.
I don’t want it to end yet either.