Chapter Text
It’s been almost two months since Rui was released from the hospital. He had pretty much fully recovered long ago, and now the incident was slowly fading to an old memory. The only one who never forgot, though, was Tsukasa.
Ever since the incident, Tsukasa never forgot, never let go. His relationship with Rui was still stable, almost like it was before; almost.
Now, Tsukasa wanted to be careful. He couldn’t stand the thought of something similar happening again. So to prevent anything from happening, he monitored Rui. Very closely. Now, Rui wasn’t allowed to work on his inventions, at all, unless Tsukasa was watching him closely. This meant that Rui almost never got to work on his inventions. But that was okay. Because Rui understood. He knew that to be with Tsukasa, to make him happy, he had to agree to these conditions. So he was okay with this.
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At least, that’s what everyone thought.
Rui sat in his room late at night, his desk lamp on. There was nothing on his desk.
‘I’m bored,’ he thought to himself. Unconsciously, his hand reached towards his toolbox. He paused.
He looked towards his hand. There was no toolbox there. ‘I forgot Tsukasa had taken everything.’
Rui turned his hand so that he was looking at his palm. There were no more bandages; there were no bandages for the past few weeks. His hand looked just fine from this distance. But when brought closer, there were faint scars, almost completely faded away, just like the memory of the incident.
Rui closed his fist and lowered his hand. His eyes wandered, looking for something interesting on his desk. As his eyes flitted past his pencil jar, he paused. His eyes moved back towards the jar.
There were no more pens or pencils in the jar; Tsukasa had taken everything sharp in here, from sharpened pencils to knives to even Rui’s blueprints. But in the jar, there were still two things. One, a twisty crayon; two, a sharpie. Rui stared at the two items. Then, he reached out and grabbed the permanent marker.
Rui took off the cap and stared. He hadn’t remembered the last time he had a use for this marker, so either it was full of ink or dried out. He looked around for a paper to test the marker on, but of course he didn’t have any. So with nothing to draw on, he lowered the Sharpie and made a mark on his desk.
‘Full of ink.’ Rui stared at the little dot he had made with the Sharpie. Then, he lifted his arm forward and made another mark; he looked down at the tiny smiley face he had drawn.
Before he knew it, he was drawing even more. It started with tiny faces, or little stars. But then, it got bigger, going from hearts to tiny people to drones; then, it escalated to a full-on sketch of a drone.
Rui dropped his Sharpie.
‘What did I do?’ The panic only now settled in at the realization that he had drawn all over the surface of his desk; and with a permanent marker, no less. He quickly grabbed a napkin and some water to wipe his desk, but it did little to nothing.
“I am going to leave this problem here and deal with it later,” he muttered to himself, putting a desk mat over the drawings and heading to bed.
Over the next few days, Rui found a new hobby to keep his mind off inventing; sketching. Everyday, he had a pen with him, either in his pocket or shoved behind his ear. During class, if he was bored, he would pull out the pen and start sketching some drones or little shapes in his notes. And sometimes, if there was no paper around, he would make little drawings on his arms.
Rui’s favorite tool was the Sharpie. Even though it was disastrous to his desk, he somehow found comfort in the fact that he was making permanent marks. It was like he was leaving a piece of himself in this room, in his notes, on his arms, everywhere he drew. That’s why Rui decided to go digging through an unlabeled box in his room to dig up some more markers.
Tsukasa had combed Rui’s room and taken everything dangerous out of it. But Rui had so much “junk” that Tsukasa couldn’t have possibly searched every corner of it. That’s how Rui found a couple sharp objects in his unlabeled box as he searched for Sharpies. But none of those things mattered to him. His new hobby was interesting, and a lot less painful.
Rui woke up at one in the morning. Even though he was lying down, he was drenched with cold sweat, clenching at his shirt and breathing heavily. A nightmare, one would call it.
Rui lied there for a few minutes, catching his breath, then sitting up. Grabbing his phone, he scrolled through his contacts and pressed the one labeled “My Star.”
Not long after, Rui and Tsukasa were reunited by the stage, Rui laying his head in Tsukasa’s lap while the blonde comforted his beloved.
It was not exactly legal for them to be here after hours, but yet again they were ambassadors of Phoenix Wonderland. As long as they said it had to do with their work, they could get off scot free. Probably.
Everything was going well. Rui lay in the warm embrace of his beloved, while Tsukasa gently ran his fingers through abnormally bright purple hair, pinching at the blue bits. Everything was just fine. Until Rui asked a question.
“Can I go work on my inventions for a bit?”
Rui always remembered feeling calmer after a nightmare by tinkering. It was an innocent question from him, devoid of any hidden intentions. But that wasn’t the way Tsukasa heard it.
What was once a light, warm mood quickly became soured by the slowly rising voices of Rui and Tsukasa. What was once gentle whispers became loud arguments that, if not for the emptiness of the park, would have caught the attention of the visitors nearby.
Both of the two boys were in distress. Neither knew how to get out of this situation, this argument, how to go back to what it was before. And so, the coward stayed silent, burning in guilt and sorrow. And the other, trembling with near-bursting emotions, turned and walked away, leaving the lone boy to collapse to his knees and weep.
Rui doesn’t know how long he stayed at Wonder Stage. All he knew was that after crying for a lost amount of time, he had somehow gotten up. He had somehow started walking, going back through the hole in the fence, and started heading home.
He doesn’t remember how he got back into his room. He doesn’t remember if his parents had seen him, either. But one sensation was clear to him; the sensation of picking up a familiar marker.
He drew. He drew and drew and drew and drew. He drew on the quickly covered desk. He drew on the walls, tearing away posters that got in his way. He drew on the door, circling up past the doorknob and back down towards the ground. He drew on the floor, passing by books and boxes that he paid no attention to. He just kept drawing and drawing and drawing and drawing and drawing.
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Until he ran out of space.
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He blinked and stared at his drawing that had bumped into another sketch.
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For the first time in the past few hours, Rui looked around himself.
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All around him, covering the walls, the floor, his desk, the ceiling, even…
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It was all covered in black lines.
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Rui sat there.
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He didn’t think. Didn’t say anything. Didn’t move. All he did, was just sit there, and stare.
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Rui looked down.
‘There’s still room to draw.’
He started to roll up his pant sleeve.
And then he continued to draw.
Drawing lines and swirls on his legs, his hands were starting to numb. He had been holding a marker for so long that he was getting tired of making literate words or genuine shapes. Now, he was just making nonsense, not even caring anymore what he made, just that he wanted to create something.
And then, an idea came to mind.
“Tsukasa had combed Rui’s room and taken everything dangerous out of it. But Rui had so much “junk” that Tsukasa couldn’t have possibly searched every corner of it. That’s how Rui found a couple sharp objects in his unlabeled box as he searched for Sharpies.”
Rui looked back at the unlabeled box. He crawled towards it. And reaching his hand into the box, his mind completely devoid of any thought, he pulled out a retractable letter opener.
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Rui stared at his arm.
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He pulled up his sleeve and pushed open the blade.
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The clock read 4:36 AM when he dropped the blade.
“Sharpie.”
“Written by Kaifwa.”
“Thanks for reading.”