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Kevin Day knew what was waiting for him. Knees drawn up tightly against his chest, he waited anxiously at the head of his bed. The door stared ominously at him.
He hoped —although guiltily— that when he came back, Riko would be too battered up to be angry with him.
Him and the Master had gotten into another argument, and if Riko had been more respectful to his elder, perhaps the man would have let it slide with a reprimand and a slap on the wrist, but Riko was angry, frustrated.
Had Kevin suggested these emotions were towards himself, he knew, Riko would’ve torn him a new one right there on the court, under the other raven's scrutinizing stares. It wasn't like he hadn't done it before, but Kevin wished to avoid giving the lesser ravens room to doubt him.
Riko had demanded to see his father. He had wanted him present at the finals, because he said he was sure the Ravens were to humiliate the Trojans this year, and write history with the gap in points at the end of the match. They would make so much money in bets, and his father would finally be proud of him.
For someone with so little tolerance for begging and hopes of this caliber, Riko surely threw a lot of tantrums.
Kevin felt a twinge pulling on his heartstrings. He had never met his own father. Perhaps if he had, he would understand Riko’s desperation for Kengo’s approval better. So, the only thing palpable to him was how affected Riko was, the shape his anger took. By the angry lines Kevin watched him carve into Jean, by the bruises Kevin himself sported all year around.
Without a clock or even a window in their room to help Kevin tell the time, he had no idea if it had been a dozen minutes or perhaps over an hour since he'd gotten back from the court. He left Riko behind at the master's orders.
Of course he hadn’t wanted to. Kevin was to stick with him at all times, but the Master had already struck Riko. Kevin’s blood ran cold then because never before —perhaps only when they were still children— had anyone, not the master, nor his father or brother put hands on Riko with an audience.
Riko's punishments were a private ordeal, as these instances didn't have humiliation as their main purpose. Although perhaps Riko was the lesser brother, he was still the greatest Raven, and so, his underlings were to pay their highest respect to him, right after the Master. If Riko were to ask any of them to jump, the universal answer would be “how high?”.
So, Riko's absence was at the very least unsettling. Kevin had showered and changed and he was waiting, and waiting stretched, with no finality. It had no edge to it like pain did. If Riko came back, Kevin could assess him, watch him, listen, talk, and if Riko decided then that somehow Kevin was at fault once again, it would also have a beginning.
Waiting crept, slowly, like the darkness of their room. It took root in his lungs and squeezed, raping him of his breath.
Kevin thought it was a very long time until he started hearing steps rapping down the hall, unmistakably Riko's. He caught himself bracing right before their door swung open and Riko stepped past, slammed it shut and locked it.
Kevin feared Riko and was so relieved by his return all at once that it made him nauseous. He swallowed past the knot in his throat.
Kevin had not seen Riko like this in forever. A flash of a memory, one that Kevin had thought long gone flickered in his mind’s eye. It overlapped reality. Then his partner looked small and vulnerable. Kevin was sure it was his imagination playing him when he thought he saw tears catch the dim light in Riko's eyes. The same boy from years ago, with black marker smeared across his cheek and bruises blossoming on his collarbones, legs and torso.
The violent urge to reach for him and strip Riko of his compression shirt to see for himself made Kevin dizzy where he sat across the room.
He saw the vicious look then, or what Riko wanted it to look like, at least. His eyebrows tugged together, but his eyes were glassy. He straightened his back, but his arms hung limply at his sides in loose fists, like a child that was on the verge of giving up their tantrum.
“What the fuck are you staring at?” Riko spat the words out.
Kevin flinched. Despite how much he tried to fight it, he flinched. Hoping Riko hadn't seen it, he averted his gaze.
“Nothing, there's nothing that— what did he say to you?”
“Say to me? What the fuck do you think?” Riko raised his voice.
Kevin pulled his knees closer to himself. He should have known better. Had Riko taken his words as pity, Kevin might as well have taken the blade to his own arms himself.
But Riko was too upset with himself to consider Kevin. He was too angry to see him.
Riko paced the room shakily, drove his feet onto the floorboards hard enough to rattle even the bones in his body.
“They don't think I'm good enough. I do everything for them. I hold this all together and they dismiss me.” Riko rambled on and on and on. “I will not be replaced!”
His fist came down onto their desk. Books and coursework slid to the side and thumped dully onto the floor. Kevin sat ever so still. Riko could swing at him any moment now.
“They need me! They all do and I—”
Kevin heard the hitch in Riko's breath before a broken laugh, wretched and sour, seemed to tear him apart from the inside. Kevin felt his guts turn in twists and knots.
That feeling, the tender thing that Kevin wished to nurse in his heart, a small Riko who had learnt drills alongside him, who had drawn a number two on his cheek with a sharpie every time it faded and who had smiled so wide when they received matching black and red jerseys, was gone in an instant as Riko grasped the back of a desk chair and flung it across their room. It hit the wall and rattled to the floor.
Kevin dragged his gaze at last from the chair to his partner. Riko was heaving, leaning onto the desk, braced on both hands, knuckles white as he held on as if it were his sanity.
Perhaps that had slipped away from all of them a long time ago.
Riko's head hung between his shoulderblades. Dark hair hid his face. Kevin could only see his arms flex and hear him breathe, ragged and shallow.
“I'll show them, I'll show them I'll show them. Just you watch. I am king, don't you dare ever forget it!”
“They won't.”
Kevin tried, despite his terror of having Riko’s cruel hands grab at him, he was still his friend. Kevin couldn't sit and watch, so he gingerly uncurled himself and reached out ever so slowly, the way one would reach for a wounded animal.
His fingers grazed Riko’s shoulder and he jerked so violently away from the touch it startled Kevin too. He lifted both arms in surrender, scrutinizing Riko for any trace of murder in his gaze.
He could cry, he could scream. Kevin could wrestle and tumble with Riko on the floor, punch and kick and scratch at each other. He could hold him so close in his trembling arms, but he knew it would never be the same as it once was.
Riko’s eyes were bleary, his cheeks red and his mouth twisted into the ugliest of scowls. His raised hand formed a fist, aimed at nothing. He struck down hard, but caught nothing in its way besides his mattress.
He was angry, deliriously so, like a child. A helpless one, hating himself and dragging everything as his rage swallowed him whole.
Kevin’s urge to reach for him was violent. He could protect Riko from all of it. If he tried hard enough, he could protect the both of them from Riko's own cruel hands. He could he could he could. He was angry, too.
Kevin thought he imagined it when Riko's shoulders shook the first time. A trick his mind played on him like before, but then came the second, and then a third and Kevin felt sick to his stomach.
Riko trembled and sobbed and gasped.
It was reckless and stupid and nonsensical, the way Kevin leaped at the floor and reached for him. It was all of it and more, it was the promise of a punishment and if it wasn't suicide, it was blatant stupidity.
Kevin’s hand closed on Riko's shoulder and pulled fiercely. He avoided looking at Riko's expression, avoided facing both their monsters.
He gasped in Kevin’s hold, throat full of saliva, an incredulous noise. He swung then, before his cheek got to make contact with Kevin’s chest. Riko's fist caught Kevin in the jaw, making his teeth rattle in his skull.
He tasted blood, maybe he'd bit his tongue, Kevin thought briefly that he wouldn't miss talking, not really.
Kevin held on every step of the way, even as Riko clawed at him, kicked and punched and writhed in his arms.
“I hate you” Riko gasped, sputtering, tears hot on his face.
“Me too.” Kevin struggled, but he didn't know who he was referring to. His voice sounded strange to his own ears, strained and rough.
Riko thrashed like he was drowning, and maybe they both were. The court demanded, greatness had a price. As it turned out, the air in both their lungs would suffice.
The thing about drowning is that panic is inevitable, and the chance of finding the surface again is slim the longer you sink. Riko and Kevin had been grabbing at each other, breathless and desperate for as long as Kevin remembered. Sometimes Kevin hoped Riko was drowning in him too, and not just the other way around.
Riko's fists still thumped against Kevin’s collarbones and he could barely feel it. Long days of being on edge took their toll on Kevin. His entire body hurt all the time. Riko’s strikes had lost their bite, and felt like nothing compared to the rest of the bruising acquired from vicious sparring.
Riko's snot and tears were warm and sticky on Kevin’s neck, seeping through his shirt at the shoulder. He held onto the trembling Riko in his arms, wishing it could all stop.
When the sons of exy would finally come victorious, when they would once and for all prove that Edgar Allan's Ravens were champions and everybody could see it— see them, the two of them— finally, there would be no doubt. The Master would be proud, Kengo too.
Kevin had to free the two of them. He could do it. Them alone, standing tall on the court. Kevin would be Riko's and Riko Kevin’s, finally, there would be nothing standing in their way. He could. He should. He needed it like he needed to breathe. To play or to die, there was no question there.
“Oh, Riko.” Kevin heard himself murmur, and immediately wished he hadn’t. His hands tightened around Riko's shoulders. Kevin couldn't let him wrench free, not now.
His stunned, incredulous silence was palpable even before he gave a violent jerk of his shoulders.
“Don't fucking pity me.” Riko said but made no move to look Kevin in the eye.
Kevin wouldn't have wanted to catch his gaze either. Kevin knew, although he'd never admit, that he didn't want to acknowledge anything that they would've found had they searched beyond the surface.
“I'm not,” Kevin protested, not as fierce as he would have liked. His voice was mellow and exhausted. His arms ached, but he didn't dare move. It was a lie, Kevin did pity him.
All the ravens loved and hated each other. They'd all rather gouge their eyes out than be apart but hurt and hit and spat in each other's faces viciously.
Kevin and Riko were the same. They were worse. They were the pinnacle of this awful, beautiful, exhilarating cycle. Fighting for a breath beyond the surface, then lovingly pulling each other below again, and again, and again.
Kevin could have never lifted Riko above, only drowned in his shadow, and he was bitter and in awe all at once.
The trembling thing in Kevin’s arms was not the men's King. He was just Riko, just Kevin’s friend, his cellmate. He was everything Kevin knew.
Kevin hated the way rage bubbled in him, wanting to strike him back, push him down below so he could take a breath of crisp air for himself. He imagined pushing Riko to the floor and punching him bloody. He imagined pushing Riko to the floor and kissing him bloody. Bite and scratch and punch at each other, push and pull, cruel and tender, like their bruised flesh.
But Kevin Day did not have a death wish.