trainerlyra | pulls you back to daylight from the deep dark blue

title: pulls you back to daylight from the deep dark blue
date written: jan 31st, 2019
ship: ryoken/yusaku (ygo vrains)
notes: second? datastorm thing i wrote but never finished/was happy enough with it to post. so i am throwing it here lol. completely untouched since jan 2019.

When Yusaku first laid eyes on Ryoken, ten full years after he had met him as a young boy, it was like the world bloomed into color around him again. The Lost Incident had left it’s mark, turning a young boy’s world into shades of gray and desolation; to the point where Yusaku wondered if there was any hope for him. But just like that day, when he was stranded in Hell all alone, Ryoken somehow reached him.

It was too bad they had to fight.

“I can’t stay here,” Ryoken told him firmly, after taking a moment to catch his breath. They had both been thrown out of Link VRAINS forcefully, but Yusaku didn’t have time to care about how tired his body felt; how his lungs burned.

“What do you mean?” There was some kind of desperation in his voice, but Yusaku didn’t even register it. Please don’t leave I just found you please don’t leave ran on loops in his head, and he found himself reaching out for the older boy without a thought. “You can stay here. I’m the only one who knows who you are, I won’t--”

“No,” Ryoken cut him off, though the normal edge in his voice was chipped away. “There is a lot I have to think over. But we will--” he stumbled over his own words, coughing to hide it. “We will sort things out between us another day.”

Reluctantly, Yusaku lowered his arm back down to his side. This wasn’t at all what he wanted, but --

“I can wait,” he said, his green eyes finding Ryoken’s blue with ease. He had waited ten years, after all. What was however long more?

Something twisted on Ryoken’s face, but it was gone before Yusaku could process it properly. “Right,” he finally replied.

Without another word, Ryoken turned around, not looking back as he descended down the stairs. Yusaku watched, not moving his eyes the entire time, watching until he could no longer see Ryoken’s figure anymore. He wasn’t sure why -- he wasn’t sure what the point of it was, why he couldn’t look away. All he knew was that he couldn’t, yet.

And when he heard the boat rev up from the dock below, he went over to the window and watched again -- not even caring that Kusanagi came in; not even caring about anything else, in that moment.

“He’ll be back,” Yusaku said, confident in his words. Ryoken had said they would sort everything out, someday, between them.

Yusaku wasn’t sure why, but he believed him; without a trace of doubt in his mind.

Every day, he dreamed about him. It wasn’t that unusual -- for years, Yusaku had been dreaming about his voice. Now, however, the dreams had morphed. What were once nightmares with an ending of hope became simple pleasantries; the two of them gardening together, or going for a walk near Stardust Road. Every morning, Yusaku woke up feeling a little more rested, a little more whole then he was used to feeling. He wasn’t quite sure what this meant, about his dreams, but he didn’t dwell on it.

All he knew was that he wanted to see Ryoken again.

The first month had been a bit of an oddity. Yusaku wasn’t used to having nothing to do, in real life or in Link VRAINS. Playmaker was no longer needed, now that the Knights of Hanoi had been disbanded and Revolver had not been seen since the Tower collapsed following their final duel. The dreams only got more and more vivid as the month went on, but still, Yusaku didn’t put much thought into it.

He worked at Kusanagi’s hot dog shop, continued falling asleep in school, and still refused to become friends with anyone in his class. Sometimes, Naoki or Zaizen would say hello to him, and talk to him about… whatever it was they talked about, though. Unlike before, he didn’t go out of his way to avoid it.

Maybe he was moving on.

But honestly, that didn’t sound right to Yusaku. It wasn’t so much that he was moving on, but more so…

Maybe it was that now he could rest; now that he knew Ryoken was okay. The ten years he had thought about that little boy, that voice, worrying over him and hoping to save him one day… All those thoughts could be laid to rest.