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Later, he couldn’t recall that bastard’s retreating back.
His body was on fire, his chest felt like it was being torn apart.
He was so angry.
Saruhiko had just been joking, right?
Yata slammed his fist into the wall next to him, the flames he was emitting was beginning to melt the things around him. He bit his lip, slamming his fist into the wall again. Saruhiko had no right to burn that mark.
They were comrades, right?
He tasted blood, he must have bit through his lip. The wall stayed in front of him, unmoving and unmoved by the emotions roiling within him. He could punch it all night, and with his aura he could probably punch through it at some point, but that wouldn’t make Saruhiko walk back.
“I want you to look at me.”
He didn’t even know what that bastard had meant by that – he was looking at him. He was thinking of him. They were together, they finally had a purpose.
They had been saved, hadn’t they?
Or was that only what he thought? He slammed his fist into the wall one more time for good measure, shouting into the night in frustration.
He really wanted to clear his head, he didn’t understand. He needed his board.
It was in the bar, where he left it when Saruhiko had pulled him into him into the alley. Saruhiko was just joking, so he had to hold it together – there was no reason to pull the other members of HOMRA into this. Saru would come to his senses, he’d come back to them, to him.
Taking a deep breath, he plastered on a smile – nothing was wrong, after all – and opened the door to the bar.
It was noisy, everybody talking over one another – home. Totally normal, like nothing had happened at all. Like the world hadn’t ended.
Because nothing had happened, Saruhiko had to be joking.
He just wanted his skateboard. He wanted to skate around the city, to clear his head.
He headed straight for his board – he had left it with Kamamoto, because there was no chance the older man was going to be moving for a while with the amount of food he had in front of him.
“Eh, Yata-san, what’s wrong?” The older man looked at him in concern, pausing mid-bite to question him.
Yata just tried to smile at him, feeling disjointed from his own face. “Nothing, just feel like skating.”
“Yata-san…” Kamamoto frowned at him and reached out a hand, Yata wasn’t sure why the fat man was blurrier around the edges than usual, but he brushed away the hand, irritated.
“tch, the hell’s your problem?! Nothing’s wrong!” Silence greeted him – maybe he had said that a little loud. Kusanagi-san always said he was too loud. “Ah, sorry. I just need to skate.”
“Yata-chan, you’re crying.” Totsuka had come up to them, frowning. “And bleeding. What happened?”
“I’m not crying, don’t worry about it. I just want to skate.” There was no way he could be crying, since that bastard was just joking. “I just want to skate, Totsuka-san.”
Kamamoto and Totsuka exchanged a worried glance, which just pissed Yata off more. “Seriously! Nothing is wrong. Nothing happened.”
He grabbed his board and rushed for the door, “I’ll be back.” Unlike him, whispered a traitorous voice in his head.
Kusanagi called out behind him, “It’s already 10 o’clock at night! Yata-chan, you’ll disturb the neighbors!” The door closed on his voice.
Yata was already on his board, speeding off into the night. He’d go and skate through the park, work on his noseslide on the railing there.
The wind blew through his hair, “Where's your pride now, Misaki?”
He bit his lip again, ignoring the taste of blood. Bastard, who did he think he was? Wasn’t it his pride too? Why didn’t he want to be part of HOMRA?
Why didn’t he want what he wanted?
Didn’t he want to be his comrade? It had been the same for years, him and Saruhiko against the world. HOMRA had given them stability, a way to look beyond what they could scrounge up as brats, friends who they could share their meals with. A family.
It was everything they had ever wanted. He tensed to jump some stairs, dodging under some railing. The park was still a little bit away. That park was where they used to spend countless evenings, idling away the hours when they weren’t doing odd jobs. He was coming up to an intersection, even at this time of night there were still a lot of people around. He began weaving in and out of the crowd, trying to go even faster, to leave everything behind. People kept looking at him, startled and wide-eyed as he nearly ran into them. He ignored them, resisting the urge to use his aura to make his skateboard go even faster. There were too many people around, it was suffocating.
Now he was even beginning to sound like him.
He broke through the intersection, narrowing his eyes at the railing on the side of the road. He jumped up, grinding along the rail. The park was just over the hedge next to him, so he gave into the temptation and used his flame, to give him enough momentum to clear it.
He stood in silence, surveying the park for a moment. It was quiet and dark, and not comforting at all. Memories of Saruhiko were everywhere here, it wasn’t the comforting place he wanted. And Saruhiko wasn’t here, like he had been half-hoping. There was no one there, nothing.
“Where's your pride now, Misaki?”
He slumped to the ground suddenly, pounding his fist into the pavement below him, a strangled sob escaping him.
Saruhiko had left him.
That bastard had turned his back on him, on their family.
He finally gave into the pressure in his chest, tears leaking out freely as he mourned his friend. If he wanted so badly to leave, if he wasn’t happy, then that was fine by him, Yata lied to himself.
He pounded his fist against the ground, not caring that his skin was tearing.
He welcomed the pain, it anchored him here.
There was no point in trying to pretend anymore, that bastard wasn’t, hadn’t been, happy.
He knew that, but he ignored it. He wanted him to be happy with the same things he was happy with, with him. With HOMRA.
But that bastard had betrayed them, he betrayed him instead of just being happy.
Left him behind, like he had promised to never do.
Abandoned him, that bastard had been the only person who hadn’t abandoned him yet. Laughter tried to bubble up out of his chest, he couldn’t believe he had forgotten that everyone betrayed him at some point. Saruhiko had abandoned him, he had betrayed him. Everyone did. He was dead to him. That bastard had no right to ask him anything, there was nothing that bastard could do to salvage this. He was just another traitor to him, to HOMRA.
“Yata-chan, I know you want to be alone, but when you’re sad, it helps to be around friends.” Yata jerked unconsciously up, quickly rubbing his face to hide his tears from Totsuka-san who had silently come up and sat next to him.
“Sorry, Totsuka-san, I just… want to be alone right now.” He smiled at the blonde, “I’ll be fine, I just needed some air.”
The older man rustled his hair affectionately, “If you want to talk about it, I’ll listen. Sometimes, talking about it helps.”
Yata stared off into the darkness, ignoring the memories in every crevice of the place, “There’s nothing to say, really.” No words to waste on a bastard like that. He’d once heard that the dead could hear your thoughts when you thought about them. He didn’t want to think about him.
Totsuka didn’t reply, sitting in companionable silence next to Yata. Yata stared up at the sky, at the darkness. There were no stars, the city’s light took care of that, and there was no moon that he could see. Cars drove past outside the park, distant chatter from the city drifted around them. He could almost hear that bastard clicking his tongue before complaining about the noise.
He dug his fingers into his palm, fingernails digging into his palm.
He didn’t want to think about him. He was a traitor.
A ghostly memory drifted by, after he realized his parents really were gone, and how he had sat in this park with that bastard, silently crying into his shoulder. All those years ago.
When he had sat here, with that bastard, who had cried into his shoulder. He so rarely cried, preferring to mask his pain with sarcasm and indifference.
“That bastard… Saruhiko…” he began, searching for words, “he joined Scepter4.”
Totsuka hummed slightly in response, “I see. Want to go back to the bar, Yata-chan?”
Yata stood up, stretching slightly. The thought of the bustle of the bar, the constant chatter, had been unbearable earlier, but was better than being left in silence with the ghosts of memories.
Totsuka ruffled his hair again, smiling sadly at him. “If you ever need a friend, Yata, I’ll be here for you. It’ll all work out somehow.”
Yata wiped his eyes, and tried to smile back at him, his lip hurt. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Let’s go get you cleaned up first, though. You’ve got blood all over your face, you know.”
“Ah… I guess I do…”
Totsuka walked next to him, letting him determine the pace as they headed to the fountain.
He heard a mocking, ghostly voice behind him, “Where's your pride now, Misaki?"