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“I’m so effin’ tired of this!”
The words have everyone looking at him, and when moments before, Leblanc’s attic had been anything but quiet, it's suddenly silent. Akira and Morgana's soft murmuring, Fubata’s hurried typing, Makoto and Yusuke and Ann's whispers, Haru’s warm hum; all of it is gone in an instant as their heads turn to look at him, and Ryuji feels his face turn warm.
He hadn’t meant to say anything, not really. It’s just-
Ryuji’s seen the looks on their faces. Seen how their smiles have slowly grown tired and pained. There’s something draining about this whole thing, about repeating the same few shitty months over and over and over again, and it’s starting to show in all of them.
And maybe they’ve always been desperate, even at the start. Desperate for the world to change, desperately trying to be the change, desperate for something, anything to be different.
Because there's the desperation that's burning, a pulsing thorn in your side. The kind that refuses to leave until the source of it is dead and gone, buried six feet under, never to be seen again. It's hot and it's angry and it's energizing, somehow, adding fuel to a fire you never knew existed.
But this? This is a different kind of desperation.
It's like someone went and stole his heart right out of his chest, still bloody and beating, and Ryuji’s left trying to fill in the gap. There's something he needs to do, something they all need to do, and he knows it, but it's like he's been left a map with no instructions. They've lived the last few months a dozen times – and fuck, maybe it's been more than that, but Ryuji can hardly stand to think about that – and nothing changes.
The seven of them still remember. Goro still – still, always, endlesslyeternallypermanently – dies.
—Killed by Shido, killed by his double, ambushed by shadows, shot in the real word, assassinated before he even joined them—
No one’s saying anything, Ryuji notes, his words still ringing out for all to hear.
And really, he didn’t mean to say them, but they’re out in the open now.
And they keep coming.
“I’m just tired,” Ryuji says, and once he says it, he can’t stop. “We’ve been at this for who knows how freakin’ long, and the worst part is that nothing’s changin’. The only thing that’s goin’ on is us getting more and more desperate, and for what? Goro doesn’t remember any of it, and I’m so damned tired of watchin’ him die.”
And-
Morgana is suddenly purring curling up beside him, and the others are quick to follow. Akira throws an arm over his shoulders, and Ann leans against his side as Futaba practically throws herself into his lap. Yusuke grabs his hand, running his thumb over Ryuji’s knuckles, as Haru and Makoto crowd in around them. There are hands touching his hair, his hands, his face, wiping away tears that Ryuji didn’t even notice were falling.
The thing is-
He knows he’s not the only one to feel like this.
That he isn’t the one who’s fucking tired of it all, who’s done playing this game with fate, who just wants to hold each other close and never leave the safety of Leblanc. Who wishes they could eat curry and laugh over coffee, back like they used to do in the early days, before all the insanity started.
And it is insanity, isn’t it?
Maybe Ryuji isn’t as smart as some of the others – he’s not half bad at the subjects he enjoys, but he knows that he’ll never compare to Makoto or Akira, or fuck, Futaba, and he’s okay with that – but he knows that, if you look it up in a dictionary, insanity is the idea of doing something again and again, and still expecting that it will turn out different in the end.
Or maybe, he thinks, looking around him, they’ve always been a little bit insane.
Honestly, if they weren’t a little crazy, none of this would even be possible.
If it weren’t for Akira’s brand of crazy, for that cocky, unwavering grin, the three of them would still be normal students Shujin. They’d still be dealing with Kamoshida’s abuse, or maybe even expelled.
But none of that matters, not now.
“I just wanna make it stop,” Ryuji says, and it’s like a dam has broken.
Tears start falling from his eyes, and once they start falling, he can’t seem to hold them back. The moment they start, it’s like the room has come to life again, six voices talking over each other as the rest of the thieves grab at his hands. Morgana just keeps purring, the sound loud and echoing deep in his chest, and somehow, Ryuji’s hands find their way into his fur.
And all of this is grounding, in a way, a confirmation of what he already knew.
“We need to stop this loop,” Akira says, soft and solemn. “We can’t keep doing this.”
At his side, Ann nods. “Ryuji and Akira are right. Repeating the last few months over and over is just another obstacle in our way.”
Ryuji glances between the six of them, and all of them, each and every one of them, continue to look back at him, determination plain on their faces. Some of them are grinning – Akira is doing that unhinged look again, the one that really makes him look like Joker – and others’ look annoyingly blank – Yusuke, as usual, is the main victim of this, always showing emotions with words rather than physical things – and Futaba looks downright excited, eyes glinting behind her glasses.
And they’re still missing a person.
Someone who’s got more skeletons in his closet than the rest of them combined, who’s gonna try and lie and manipulate them and taunt them with as many masks as he can. There’s no promising which one they’ll run into first; the princely detective, who’s smiles are as sweet as they are fake, or the bloodied boy with his sharp grin, crimson gaze wild and deadly, and oh, Ryuji yearns for it.
Ryuji knows he’s not the only one who’s wanting, too.
They all know more about the Detective Prince than they should. There are the obvious things, of course, like his dual identities, his two warring personas – the God of Chaos and a renowned thief make quite the combination, if Ryuji does say so himself – but there are little things.
Makoto’s learned just what to say to get him going on an academic tangent that has the two of them debating for ages. Futaba, the little gremlin – and he means this affectionately of course, Ryuji loves the little bug – can tell you his favorite Feathermen series in a heartbeat. Yusuke will pick up a pen and the figure on the paper will be laughing, eyes crinkled and hair messy, and it isn’t one of them.
Ryuji knows that Goro’s hands, worn and calloused under the gloves he favors, tend to ache when it rains, and he knows exactly how to soothe away the pain.
—He knows now, much to his horror, what those hands feel like when they’re cold and clammy, the weight of his body gone still, the
pain
in his chest when those honey eyes glazed over and
hold on sweetheart, hold on, we can still get out of this, don’t leave us again, don’t—
But Goro doesn't know any of that.
Goro doesn't even know their names.
And Ryuji doesn't blame him. As far as Goro knows – and it breaks his heart to say this – there's nobody left in the world to care about him, that there's nothing left for him except for getting back at Shido. He doesn't know them, not like they know him, and how could he?
He hasn't lived through it countless times.
And as much as Ryuji wishes to hold him in his arms, and dammit, he wants to, he wouldn't force this on his worst enemy.
It's a nightmare, repeating the same months over and over and over again. Maybe it would be easier if there was a consistency to it, if there was just one event they were failing to change, but-
It doesn't just stay the same.
And, fuck, Ryuji doesn't want Goro to remember all the times he's died.
None of them do.
—Ryuji just wants all of this to
stop—
Futaba pushes herself up, flicking Ryuji between the eyes. “You’re an idiot,” she says, in that straightforward way of hers. “Of course we’re gonna beat this, we’ve beaten every other thing that’s gotten in our way.”
They still haven’t managed to get through this in one piece.
That’s another thing none of them mention.
“I just wanna be done with this,” Ryuji says, mouth moving before he can stop it.
He doesn’t want to be a downer, and something about the pessimistic thoughts is digging a hole inside of his chest. Ryuji’s always prided himself on being the cheerful one, the one to lighten the room when it starts getting dark, and this? This is exactly the opposite of that.
But they promised to be honest with each other, didn’t they?
Agreed that any major decisions must be a unanimous vote, said that they’d stick together through thick and thin, promised that they wouldn’t hide themselves away when the world became too much to bear.
So “I just wanna be done with this,” Ryuji says, and he doesn’t regret it, not for a moment. Not when all of them are sitting there with him, nodding their heads and humming their agreement. Not even when he sees a few stray tears roll down their faces.
“We will be,” Akira says at his side, and oh, Ryuji thinks, he’s using that voice. It’s the warm one, the steady one, the one that dares you to say that he’s wrong. “Don’t you worry, my darling thief.” A flashing grin, soft lips pressing to the corner of his own. “With all of you at my side, how could we possibly lose?”
Somehow, Ryuji finds himself laughing. “Well, when you put it that way,” he says, leaning into the people who surround him, “who am I ta disagree?”
And Ryuji still has his doubts, still feels that exhaustion in every damn inch of his body. He still hates this with everything he has, and he knows that won’t change until they can break the fuck out of it.
But he trusts in his partners, and shouldn’t that be enough?
—Shouldn’t that be enough to save the boy that all of them love?--