Broken Wings Part 3

[lilly0]

Title: Broken Wings PART 3 (of 3) *last*
Pairing: RyoJin
Rating: PG-15
Genre: angst, drama, romance, friendship
Mini-Series
Warning: It touches some serious topics like depression and desperation. It's more angsty than usual, but you don't have to fear CD.
Summary: We all carry it inside us... some dark corners in our soul. But what if they break out from their cage and fight their way to the surface of our being? 
Wearing a bright smile as a masquerade, Ryo is able to act in a perfect role in front of the others... None of them sees his silent cry for help, except one...
Dedicated to lybrint and dorayaki_chan  and go_chan2011

If Jin knew something well, then it were his friends. He knew Pi… every of his reactions. He knew how Pi would react when he was feeling embarrassed or sad. He knew that Pi became red points at his neck when he was angry. And he knew that Pi was never crying in front of others, instead he would force this robotic expression to his face.

He also knew Yuu. He knew that Yuu never talked about his brother, not because he didn’t like him like he always told them, but because he missed him so much when he was away. He knew that when Yuu was angry he would become totally calm… not saying anything… before he would simply burst.

Jin knew it all. Maybe he wasn’t the smartest of all guys or the most considerate. But when it was about the people he spent his time with, his family, his friends, he knew almost everything. So he knew what Ryo would do.

There was no use in chasing Ryo and making him admit his problems, he would react like a little bird with a broken wing… he would try to flap around and jump and get worked up… and in the end it would be worse than it was before.

Ryo was such a bird… he had been an eagle once, now he was broken. But Jin was damn determined to make an eagle out of him again. It was Ryo he was talking about here… and yeah, he knew him and hence he knew he could make him fly again.

Jin had to smile a bit. His stupid friend. He would definitely take his hand and pull him along again, away from all this darkness.

Yep, he knew Ryo. Hence he knew that Ryo would go almost insane if Jin didn’t talk about what just happened, about what he had seen.

At least Ryo made it 2 days.

During a few moments Ryo almost thought that Jin hadn’t seen anything, that he didn’t feel suspicious. Because he still slept in Jin's arms and he still felt the warmth coming from him. He kissed him out of the blue and joked around with him. He just never talked with him about… it.

Was there the possibility that Jin hadn’t seen it? But Ryo had to shake his head about that. Impossible. It was Jin… and Jin knew him so well that it should actually scare Ryo. But it didn’t. It rather made him feel protected.

But right now… he was feeling nervous and anxious. Until he couldn’t bear this situation anymore.

It was the night of the 2^nd day. Jin was stretching on his bed, tossing around to find a comfortable position. When Ryo came back from brushing his teeth, he rubbed his hands against his pyjamas, looking at Jin nervously. “Jin?”

“Hm?”

“Won’t you ask?”

Jin sat up in his bed, looking at Ryo insistently. He was doing his best to hide his joy and relief that Ryo finally came out of his little snail shell. “Do you want me to ask?” he returned the question, without even needing to think about what Ryo had actually meant.

“I don’t know” the other stuttered. He clenched his hands into fists, biting down on his lips. “I don’t know anything…” he suddenly blurt out with a force that actually even surprised Jin. “I don’t know where I’m going… I don’t know what’s in front of me… it’s so black, everything. I don’t know what I am… and what I should do. And I don’t know if I want you to know all that…”

Jin licked over his lips, trying to grasp everything that Ryo had said. Then he stood up, walking towards his friends. For a moment Ryo felt like pushing him away, afraid of Jin’s reaction, but something in Jin’s eyes told him that he didn’t need to be afraid, so he stayed there, waiting for the other to approach him.

Jin’s hand moved over Ryo’s hair softly, his fingers diving through the dark strands of hair, curling them a bit, before he trailed his fingertips down over Ryo’s face.

“What if I also struggle with the same questions?” Jin suddenly asked. “And Yamapi? And Yuu? And our other friends? There is something dark inside of each of us.”

“Why doesn’t it drive you insane then?”

Jin tilted his head a bit, considering this question for a moment. “Maybe it’s like with the ocean.” he finally said. “There are passages we can walk through… and those where we have to swim. And then there are parts we can’t even see the ground anymore. Maybe many people don’t even reach this area, because someone or something stops them before they do. Maybe you reached it and have to pass it now.”

“You want me to swim?” Ryo mumbled silently.

This was the only part of their conversation that made Jin really nervous. He bit his lips, feeling tensed up. Then he took a deep breath. “You don’t have to swim alone. I’m there… Pi is there… and the other idiots too. It just depends on how much you want it.”

Ryo’s stomach clenched a bit. He understood pretty well what Jin was telling him here. That he needed to open up… and that he actually was just doing exactly that. But that it might be too late for doing that on his own… that he might need someone to really help him. “It sounds so difficult.”

Jin smiled a bit. “Actually I think we are heading into the right direction.”

“We are?”

“Of course… I don’t think that you are sick or insane or something like that. I just think that you are really desperate and that you reached a dead-end inside you. Your body and mind can’t deal with the loads of work and emotions you put on them anymore. You keep too many things inside you. You should learn to talk about them so that they can fly away from you. After all these years you had to become a mess… That’s also why you are so thin… I’m just angry that I didn’t intervene earlier. But I think that the both of us can walk out of this again, without any bigger damage. There is just one condition.”

Hearing Jin talk about this whole mess he was stuck in, with this calm voice, in this random way, made Ryo feel calmer. For a moment he almost cursed himself for having kept this so long inside him. There had been no need for it to escalate like that… he didn’t need to have a break-down, he didn’t need to have all these anxiety and pain inside him.

Jin sighed. “I know you don’t want to hear this now.”

Ryo looked at the other sceptically. “What don't I want to hear?”

“Maybe we should visit a therapist?”

Ryo’s face grew pale at that, he bit on his lips nervously, wanting to turn around and immediately leave the room. This was one of the suggestions he wanted to avoid the most, but before he could get upset or angry and leave, he felt two arms being wrapped around his waist, pulling him back a bit. Jin’s voice was right next to his ear now. “Don’t leave.” he told him softly. “Didn’t you listen? I said ‘we’. I’ll go to.”

“Why would you go to a therapist?” Ryo huffed out, voice sounding a bit husky, but not as unfriendly as he had planned it to come out.

“Well…” Jin mused. “I bet he’ll find something about me too... Too much self-confidence for example. Or too hot for the world.” For a moment Jin sounded totally like the dorky guy he could be sometimes.

There was a tiny smile on Ryo’s lips and with that Jin knew that he had won the most important fight ever.

“Why are you doing that?” Ryo asked out of a sudden. “Why are you like this? Why are you helping me? Why are you so perfect?”

Jin blinked for a moment. “I’m far away from being perfect.” He grinned. “I promise you that I’ll happily show you lots of bad features and flaws of me. You’ll actually find a lot during the next months.” Jin smiled brightly. “In exchange to that I just want you to show me the real you too. The you from one year ago… We’ll bring that back.”

Ryo brushed over his eyes with the back of his hand, returning his hand almost immediately afterwards to hide his eyes from Jin. He didn’t want to look at Jin… or rather he didn’t want to have Jin look at him. “What if you hate the real me?”

Jin felt tears stinging in his eyes, but in the end he had to smile about this question. He pulled Ryo’s hand away, his thumbs stroking over the circles around Ryo's eyes. “What if I don’t care about that?”

“How don't you care if you'll find something about me you don’t like…?”

Jin tilted his head a bit. “What if you find something you’ll hate about me?”

“That’s impossible.” Ryo stated fiercely.

“See.” Jin smiled. “And it’s the same for me. I love you, so there won’t be anything I can’t deal with.”

For minutes the both of them stayed quiet, just holding each other’s hands. Then Ryo sighed a bit. “Damn, I feel tired… as if I just had sex non-stop for a week.”

Jin grinned at that, glad that one part of Ryo’s snarky self was back again. His heart jumped at that. “Well…I’m not sure if I can do it a whole week…non-stop. But a few times during one night are okay.”

“Eh?” Ryo blushed a bit, then he glared at his friend. “You really want to have sex now?”

Jin grinned. “I think I actually might always want to have sex. And believe me… I already wanted you since years.”

“Is that true?” Ryo stuttered.

“Yeah, I’m hopeless, I know.” Jin smiled, pulling Ryo along to their bed. He lied down there, pulling the other at his side.

“If you are hopeless, I’ll be the king of hopeless.” Ryo joked lamely, making Jin grin a bit.

“At least your gorgeous sense for humour and bad jokes is back.” Jin laughed. “I kinda missed that actually. I actually also missed the blushing you… and the snarky you… Good to see that it slowly appears again.” He took Ryo’s arm into this. “Just please get rid of this brace. I hate it.”

“But…” Ryo blushed a bit. He felt hardly able to say the next view words. “Underneath it there are scars…”

“I dislike the brace more.” Jin argued, sighing in relief when Ryo really took the brace away. He looked at his other arm, where he was wearing some bracelets. “And there?”

“There is nothing.” Ryo told him. “I…” he looked at Jin warily.

“Don’t worry.” Jin reassured him. “I have no reason to not trust your word.”

Ryo smiled at that, also taking his bracelets off. “I never used my left arm for it. I thought people might grew suspicious.”

“Good that you kept your smart mind going during that time.” Jin grumbled almost angrily, then he took Ryo’s right arm into his hands. “When did you start?” he asked softly, his fingers trailing over the scars on Ryo’s arm. He was glad that there wasn’t a new one. But there were a few older ones that looked pretty bad. He placed a soft kiss on them, making Ryo shiver at that.

“Around half a year ago.” Ryo admitted.

Actually Jin felt relieved. Half a year was not that long… so the damage that had been done to Ryo’s mind and body was still at the surface. They could go back to what he was… with some work of course. But it was not impossible.

Ryo’s heart jumped when he saw Jin’s eyes resting on him so warmly. He still wondered how all this had happened… within only one week. He had expected to spend some boring holidays here but in the end he ended up with starting to approach his problem. Slowly he started to feel alive again. And there was even a tiny spark inside him that was actually looking forward to work again.

“Ah…” Jin made out of a sudden, smiling brightly. “I almost forgot…” he took Ryo’s brace throwing it into the trash, ignoring Ryo’s protests. Then he angled in his bag, revealing a little…something… wrapped into some paper.

Ryo sat up immediately, eyes beaming like the one of a child. “Is this what you were working on during the last days?”

Jin grinned. “My…are we curious.” He nodded his head. “Yep. That’s for you.”

Ryo took the little present, unwrapping it. When he finally held the item itself in his hands, his eyes went wide. It was a bracelet… but not a normal one. It was a self-made one. Jin had made it out of different kinds of wool and threads, will all kind of colours. And apparently he had spent a lot of time with it, because it went over half of Ryo’s forearm. It was not perfect at all… it was clearly visible that Jin had never done something like sewing or knotting before, but for Ryo it was perfect. He swallowed a bit to chase away the dry feeling in his throat.

“If you cry now, I’ll take it away.” Jin grumbled, trying diffuse his own embarrassment.

“It’s just…” Ryo rubbed over his eyes a bit, his fingers clinging to the bracelet in his hands like a little treasure. “I don’t think someone ever did something so beautiful and nice for me…”

“Then it was about time.” Jin told him firmly, taking the bracelet and fixing it around Ryo’s arm, so that it wouldn’t move freely. “Just remember… whenever you feel like cutting…or hurting yourself… then you have to cut the bracelet too. Remember me then and that I made it for you, okay?” Jin’s fingers moved over Ryo’s wrist. “If you ever feel that desperate again… if you ever feel like hurting yourself again, don’t hide it.”

“Okay…” Ryo’s voice shivered a bit. “I’ll consider all that. I won’t destroy the bracelet, it’s too precious.”

Jin blushed at that. “It’s nothing special… If my mother saw it, she would faint because I did so bad.”

“I think it’s beautiful.” Ryo stated fiercely.

“See?” Jin smiled. “It’s beautiful… because you are beautiful.”

“I’m not beautiful” Ryo mumbled, lying down next to Jin again. He rolled to his side, feeling how Jin wrapped his arms around him from behind.

“Ah.” Jin grinned. “Believe me, I’ll make you see how beautiful you are.”

Ryo smiled a bit at that, then he grinned out of a sudden. “So…you were talking about flaws and bad features… What will I discover?”

Jin chuckled at that. “Well…” he mused. “Normal people are bad with morning… I’m bad with afternoons.” He paused. “I hate carrots and cucumber. I have no problems with spiders, but I hate ants... during summer I always check my room for them, otherwise I can't sleep. When I feel really down or really cheesy, I have the habit to listen to Gloria Gayner and Cher…”

Ryo had listened to Jin intensely, but at his last statement he giggled. “No way…”

“Believe me, it won’t happen often.” Jin snorted. “Oh…” he suddenly made. “And I like to cuddle.”

Ryo stayed quiet for a moment, then he giggled. “Who would have believed that Akanishi Jin, the almighty sex-bomb, listens to Cher and likes to cuddle.” He smiled a bit when he felt Jin biting into his ear, his knee pushing against Ryo’s butt teasingly.

And just like this…crawling into Jin’s arms, he slept without any nightmares for the first time since months.

******

“Where are we going to?” Ryo was panting heavily when he headed after Jin.

Jin merely grinned teasingly. “Wow… I thought you would be in a better shape. After you worked so much…” he smiled a bit when he saw how Ryo grumbled at that. “Don’t worry… you totally over-worked yourself… it’s okay.” He took Ryo’s hand into his, pulling him along.

Ryo smiled happily at that, looking around a bit. He let Jin pull him along a path, up a small hill. He blinked out of a sudden. “That’s a cliff…” he bent forward a bit, checking the area. There were rocks all over… and underneath them the ocean. “It’s beautiful...”

Jin smiled a bit. “I told you when we arrived that the whole place would be great.”

Ryo blinked for a moment. “You planned this?” he sounded curious.

“Well…” Jin grinned. “You have your secrets, I have mine…”

Ryo pouted at that, but in the end he had to smile a bit. What he liked the most about Jin was that nothing changed… though everything changed. Jin made it possible… for them to change and for him to change, without making the basic things between them disappear.

The way Jin treated him was still like always, so normal, so random… so full of love.

When Ryo sat down on top of the cliff, feeling the sea’s breeze in his face, he leaned back into Jin’s hug, feeling the other’s strong arms around his weak shoulders. He sill wondered why a perfect guy like Jin liked someone imperfect like him. But he decided not to care about that anymore.

Jin was worth it to fight the darkness…

A/N: The last one *squishestheboys* How did they manage it to get such a nice end? ^^

******
Note: Hey dear friends and readers! Thanks so much for all your support!! So, I wanted to tell you that my Request Post is open. If you feel like requesting a specific pairing or situation you can do so HERE