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Sometimes Rui feels like the worst person on earth. Unable to get up from bed, much less act like a functioning adult.
It hits in waves, sometimes sudden; mood dropping from one moment to the next though nothing happened to trigger it.
It wrecks him with a guilt almost undescribable, for Akito will sit at his side, telling him about one thing or another, will hold his hand tightly; effortlessly a rock to cling to.
No matter how Rui apologizes, Akito will smile and say that it's fine; will look at him with the same love he did the day before.
Rui used to think it unfair. How could someone so perfect ever see enough in him to stick around even so?
Honestly, he still thinks it's a little unfair sometimes. But he doesn't think Akito is perfect anymore.
No, he won't do him such a disservice. Akito struggles too after all, there are chips in his soul and pain hidden under the surface.
Where Rui is stuck in bed, Akito is stuck outside, running around, doing task after task until nothing is left. Until he has to break something just to fix it.
It was hard, at first, for Rui to figure out how to help. But he knows now. To hold him tight and bind the fractures with his own hands, to let him fall apart - properly fall apart in the way he would never allow himself alone.
Perfection is nice to behold, but Rui much prefers Akito above it. A humanity so viceral, it pulls Rui in, bedazzled by the beautiful and even more endeared by the broken.
Or rather by the trust he sees in it, the unwavering faith Akito places in him again and again.
And Rui vows to never allow it to go unanswered, will answer faith with devotion.
Akito used to think Rui is a weirdo. He was weary at best, at times perhaps even bordering on mean.
He didn't understand Rui nor did he want to.
Truthfully, he still thinks Rui is a weirdo. It isn't a lie to say that his ideas are nothing like what most people would think up.
But it would be a lie to say that Akito is still weary of him. For all that Rui is weird, he is kind and compassionate; adoring until the end.
There isn't a single doubt now, that Rui would run to the ends of the world for any he holds dear.
And even his weirdness has grown into a positive - weary as he once was, Akito instead finds himself hopelessly endeared. Even if he gripes or scowls a part of him will always think "That's my Rui", embarrassing as it is.
Weird and utterly ridiculous, Akito finds himself falling more in love by the minute. He was scared once, of the committment and all it held.
Honeymoon phases and needless pressure to rush after checkpoints in life.
Yet even years after and Rui is still by his side, still weird and ridiculous. Adoring and compassionate - the same person he knew before.
With Rui it feels less about checkpoints and more about fun, about existing together in the ways they want. Existing together until the day they die.
It worries Akito, sometimes. Death is a thing many people fear, but he just finds he'll miss existing with Rui, day in and day out - such a fun thing even when the world feels like its crashing down.
Until death do us part. They had never made such a vow and Akito hopes they never will - even in death he wants to stay by Rui's side.
Until death take us away. If he could rewrite the promise, that would be how he'd say.
It isn't vows they will ever speak. It isn't truly necessary, after all. Akito doesn't stray and neither does Rui; pulled together not by fate, but by true adoration. One without the other, half as fair.
Until death take them away - Rui and Akito, Akito and Rui.