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“Agree to disagree.”
That’s what was spat out by Mikaela whenever they spoke about the topic. His voice filled with hatred and dripped with disgust, the syllables coming off his tongue as if they loathed to even exist there in the first place. Such disdain, one which Yuu wasn’t used to. Not from Mikaela.
The words weren’t directed at him, nor was the tone and anger. But still, every time they were said, they jammed a sword through his heart and pinned him to the ground, heart still pumping and bleeding around the blade.
Agree to disagree. This was always the consensus when it came to the topic of Guren Ichinose.
No matter how many times Yuu tried, how many times they argued about it, the result was always the same.
Agree to disagree.
Yuu and Mika hardly ever argued otherwise, and never as intensely as these ones would get. Yuu could not convince Mika, and Mika could not save Yuu. So it always ended with the phrase.
Agree to disagree.
But how could he? After everything, how could Yuuichirou just let the topic drift off to the side as if it never really mattered in the first place? It did. There was so much when it came to Guren. So much he has done for Yuu. But with every accomplishment, Mikaela only brings up a failure.
Guren saved him four years ago. He gave him a reason to live. He only did that because he needs you, Yuu-chan. Not because you matter to him.
Guren was there when things got bad, when the nightmares wouldn’t stop and he couldn’t sleep at all. Didn’t he give you Asuramaru? Who only plagued you with even worse nightmares? Didn’t he only raise you to work for his army?
Guren must care. Just a bit. He has to. He tried to kill you, Yuu-chan. And he’d do it again if it meant reaching his goals. He would leave you to the wolves if that’s what needed to be done.
But Mika didn’t get it. He didn’t get it.
Yuuichirou can’t just hate him like that because he should. He can’t. Guren has been the only one there for so long. How could he ever? Sure, maybe Guren did brainwash him. Maybe Guren did use him and fuck him up so bad.
But that didn’t matter. None of that mattered to him. Guren was there. Guren was there, even if it were for the worst thing in the fucking world. Guren was there.
Yuuichirou had no other choice but to believe in him. After losing everything, fucking everything he could have ever had, Guren was the only person willing to offer his pathetic life a chance to be something.
Truly, could anyone understand it? That at this point, when Yuuichirou has given all that he has, when that still wasn’t enough, when there’s nothing left for him to keep going, Guren was there. No matter the reasons, he shoved and worked all the broken pieces of his brain back together until it worked. And it did. It worked.
You honestly couldn’t expect him to just forget all of that, right? Right?
If Mikaela was Yuuichirou’s reason for living, then Guren was his reason for existing. If Mikaela gave him a reason to live, then Guren gave him a purpose. If Mikaela kept pushing him forward, then Guren was the justification to do so.
Because nobody would ever understand the feelings it gave him. Nobody could ever understand that, back then, if Guren asked him to die, he would have. Guren loved him. And Yuu knew that. Even if that was so fucking conditional. Even if the only reason he kept Yuu around was to fuck him up more, use him more, until they perfected whatever little experiment they wanted.
Still, Yuu was needed. And for someone like him, that knowledge was enough.
But no matter how many times they argued, everything boiled down to the same three words scowled into his face. Disregarded every complicated fucking feeling that came along with it.
“Agree to disagree.”
Did he not realize that without Guren, they wouldn’t have met again? Without Guren, he would not be permitted to leave the safety of the city. Without Guren, he wouldn’t have been on the battlefield. For all that he had done, how could he hate him for reuniting him with his reason to live?
But Mikaela didn’t see it that way. No, he would have found him another way. In a way that didn’t result in a sword through his chest. With less of a crowd. He was so convinced he had his own plan. So, it came back to square one. A sneer as they stared each other down.
With, or without. It was all the same. With Mika, without Mika. With Guren, without Guren. No matter if he were with them or not, they still existed within him. Neither of them truly left Yuu. In the form of voices which both comforted and clawed at his sweet, naive, and kind nature. For his name means that, you know? Kindness, gentleness. Though believed he was everything but that. Really, only the opposite.
Yuu could not leave Mika, but he couldn’t be expected to leave Guren either. They both sank their fangs into his very being, deep enough that he could cry and squirm but they would never let go of him. Shoved their way into his heart, unmoving, stationary. And, just like Yuu, Mika was stubborn. So no matter how much his head ran circles and circles, it really could only come down to one sentence in the end.
It always finishes with them sighing at each other and having to turn away, be away, from the other. Emotions run high and boil disgustingly in their gut, until it can settle down. And then it happens again. But even so, like an itch in the back of his mind, the phrase whispers in his ear, mocking every moment of peace he has.
Yuu curls up on the cold, hard floor, with only the old cot to ever so slightly give him comfort rather than the man standing just a few feet from him, just on the other side of the door. His hands knead and dig into it, fingernails chipped and aching, but he can’t stop his need to feel something.
Mika stands guard at the door, and usually, inside the room. They’d chat until Yuu felt his eyelids droop and feel far too heavy, passing out. This time, it’s silent. Suffocatingly so. Yuu has never liked the silence, he becomes prone to himself — to the things he’s struggled so hard not to think about. And yet, silence is the only thing between them. And it all comes crashing down into him.
It falls so naturally from his lips, so softly, you wouldn’t believe it’s been the thing tormenting his mind. Clawing and gnawing so much at his brain, until they tumble right off his tongue.
“Let’s agree to disagree…”