[36] what you don't know
"...But he doesn't understand. He doesn't... he just doesn't..."
He quivers like the string of a wooden bow, clutching himself as though he were in danger of falling apart, eyes wide, golden, and strained. He feels an embrace from behind, its shadow offering him shelter for as long as he needs it. For all he cares, he could use it forever, and nothing would ever change.
"Have I gotten to the point that I can't even be trusted anymore? What am I doing... what have I already done? Where am I going? I... he's the only one here I felt I could reasonably trust, even if I couldn't express it... was it that he wasn't being truthful about it?! And yet in return, I...!"
"Don't think about it."
His own voice, again. Stronger... harsher in nature, but gentle in tone. The most emotional he can be around any one person... that person is and perhaps always will be himself. The shakier voice echoes back, hardly able to see through the darkness, only able to feel his way about tentatively.
"But I... all it made him do was avoid me! I tried to protect him and all it did was drive him further away...! It's all that ever happens, no matter what I do!!"
The embrace closes more firmly and comfortably around him, painfully sympathetic. "I allowed it for a time, and this is what resulted... Juudai, let go of him. You don't need him anymore."
He jerks slightly. When there is no response, his darker gemini continues.
"You don't need his help to stand on your own. You don't need his friendship just as much as you don't need anyone else's. The only thing that can be done is to break away."
"I don't want to... I just can't... Yubel..."
Hands reach down to grab his own from over his shoulders and grip them in a solemn, vaguely encouraging way. "Juudai. At least Yubel truly cared for you, no matter how she may have gone about it, or what her reasons were."
The pain of the realization spreads physically through him rapidly, as though he's just been stabbed in the gut, and continues as the knife is twisted deeper and deeper until it hits his very soul. But it is true, isn't it? It makes sense... to an extent. If that was so, why was he so insistent on being friendly towards him earlier? Perhaps there was a reason he couldn't see, then or now, but whatever it was, it matters little at this point. He feels the betrayal grip him cruelly, gnawing away at his resolve and begging him to let go in a way he is almost afraid he cannot manage.
When Juudai offers no answer, Haou murmurs quietly in his ear, "Don't worry about it. I won't let him hurt you anymore." It sounds almost like there is a threat thinly veiled beneath those words, and Juudai jumps quickly to say what springs to his mind, this time with little hesitation.
"Don't hurt him..."
Haou considers this briefly, and then replies, back to being impassive. "I won't. As long as he does not try to hurt you again."
Why, something in him suggests, shouldn't you hurt him back? Being lied to is not something he should get away with. His sense of justice, perhaps, but he tries not to listen. Whatever it is about him that does not want to see Johan hurt, its logic wins the entire gestalt that is his mind over. For now.
"Rest," Haou says, brushing a tendril of thought -- darkness? -- against Juudai's sensitive and vulnerable core, and he shudders at the touch of sorts. "You will figure out what is right soon."
Gradually, he feels Juudai slip through his fingers as he succumbs to mental sleep, and rises slowly from where he had been laying physically.
It is the truth, Haou tells himself. At least Yubel knew this.
[Hastily written note left to Johan in their apartment]
Johan,
I've decided that I will spare you the effort of evading my presence and leave on my own, for both our sakes.
Moreso, however, because I don't appreciate being lied to.
-- 覇王
((OOC EDIT: Uh, I should mention that Haou is findable. Any comments in response to this can be assumed to have found him... probably lurking in the town somewhere. He has his mask down and is extremely apprehensive, probably emanating dark energy to an extent.
...Er, I'd really like for even just one person to comment, despite Haou being rather antisocial his mun is starved for RP it seems. I don't care who at this point, ehehehe.))