みんな大好き！

———

"I can't come back here anymore."

Rhys felt his body go cold at the sudden admission.

"Did you get a new deployment?"

Cyrus sighed, eyebrows pinched. "No."

"Then why—"

"Because I don't want to."

Rhys opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He closed his mouth, turning away from his friend. "Oh."

With a groan, Cyrus stood up, shoving one hand into his hair. "It's driving me insane Rhys, seeing you like this. You just…sit there, staring into space like the world is ending and—"

"I can't walk Cyrus, what in the hell do you expect me to—"

"Dammit, I know that!" He walked away from Rhys's bedside, pacing the room in front of it instead. "You're in pain and you feel useless and I get it, I do! It's impossible to go from being strong and responsible and everyone's rock to needing people's help constantly. I can tell it's eating away at you!" He stopped pacing to meet Rhys's gaze, "But at the same time it's like you can't recognize the gift you've been given."

Indignant anger sparked in Rhys's chest. "What gift could this possibly be?"

"You got out, Rhys! Alive! You get to have a life, a future that's not just bleeding yourself dry for the sake of this Maker-forsaken country!"

Heavy silence blanketed the room as they stared at each other.

"…I didn't know that's how you felt about it," Rhys said quietly.

"Don't look at me like that," Cyrus snapped, "You're getting ready to sympathize with me and I don't want to hear your fake comfort. There's no way you understand and you shouldn't bother to try."

Stung, Rhys sat up straighter in bed, struggling not to raise his voice. "And how are you so sure of that?"

Cyrus laughed bitterly. "The golden boy, following in his general father's footsteps so closely the bootprints match up on the ground? You've been on this path your whole life. How would you know what it's like to be forced into it against your will?"

Something inside Rhys cracked. "Is that really what you think? That's how you see me?" His voice was dull, numbed.

"…Yeah Rhys. It is." Cyrus was avoiding his eyes. "I've watched you kill yourself trying to meet expectations for almost a decade now. If you wanted to stop, you would have done it by now. Which means you want it." Fists clenched, he looked up, towards the door. "And I don't. But I don't have a choice. You do, now, and instead of seeing it for the blessing it is, you're sitting here feeling sorry for yourself, refusing to do anything but mope about what you've lost."

"Get out.”

Cyrus nodded stiffly, once. "Good luck with your recovery."

He walked out the door without looking back.

———

I’ve been thinking a lot about what happened with Rhys and the one person he ever really loved. I knew it was someone he knew for a long time, they separated and can’t reunite but I didn’t want Cyrus to die because that felt too trite. It had to be something irreconcilable, and not just distance. There’s something about losing closeness due to a big change, someone unable to accept that the world isn’t the same as it used to be, that you aren’t the same as you used to be, and resenting someone who has something you want despite how much they suffered to get it.