#madeletedscenes

“Let me take a look at your leg,” Youichi said, sitting on the couch and patting his thighs like he expected Ryou to just flop all over him.

“I’m fine,” Ryou said, more to be contrary than anything else. He really just wanted…he didn’t even know.

“Sensei said the scar massage would help you heal faster,” Youichi insisted. “Your scars finally closed up enough to start that.”

“I said I’m fine!” Ryou snapped, because he’d had it with the false cheer and the pain and the never-ending, interminably slow healing.

Youichi gave him this sad reproachful look that actually made him feel bad for snapping, because really, it wasn’t Youichi’s fault that bones took forever to heal.

“I know you’re upset, but I’m not gonna be your punching bag,” Youichi said. “Don’t yell at me for shit that’s not my fault.”

And now Ryou felt like a complete asshole. Youichi had been nothing but helpful, and all Ryou could do in return was be a dick because he was angry at the world and Youichi was the closest to him.

“Sorry,” he said, laying down across the couch and draping his legs across Youichi’s lap. Youichi picked up his right leg carefully and rubbed his thumbs around Ryou’s surgery scar.

“S’okay,” Youichi said, even though it wasn’t. “Being injured sucks.”

It really did. Ryou wasn’t sure if it was better or worse that he was definitely healing, even at such a slow rate. It would be easier, maybe, if there was something wrong, something tangible that he could fix. But he’d moved from crutches to a cane, and he could walk with only a slight limp, and he was definitely getting stronger, getting his range of motion back.

Some days, that only reminded him of how far he had to go. Those days, when he’d have shooting pains that radiated all the way up to his hip and down to his toes, when bending his knee even a little made him grit his teeth in pain…those were the worst, even if they were increasingly few and far between.

There weren’t many days when Ryou truly missed being a demon, but those painful days made him wish for his essence back.

“You think it’ll ever be better?” Ryou asked, more to himself than Youichi.

“Of course it will,” Youichi said, ever so gently digging his thumbs into the skin around Ryou’s scar. “Look how far you’ve already come.”

“No, I mean…better. All the way better. The way it was before.” Youichi’s hands stilled.

“I don’t know if it will,” he said softly. “Maybe you’ll always have a limp. Maybe you’ll always have days where it hurts.”

Ryou wasn’t entirely sure they were talking just about his leg anymore.

“Guess I’ll have to settle for improvement, then,” Ryou said, because Youichi deserved a lot better than Ryou had been giving him lately. Youichi shot him a quick smile, resuming his gentle scar massage.

It hurt, a little, but it was a good hurt. A healing hurt.

“For what it’s worth, Sensei thinks you’ll be able to walk normally again, and I agree with her,” Youichi told him. “I know it feels like it’s taking forever to heal, but it’s only been a few months and you’re already almost walking on your own. Most humans wouldn’t even be able to put weight on that leg yet, no matter how much magic they poured into it.”

Ryou did seem to have just enough demon magic burned into his circuits to make healing faster than a normal human, but it was nowhere near where he’d been. Still, he was grateful for it. If he’d had to wait for months to even try walking again, he’d have gone crazy.

Someday, he’d be walking again, and hopefully, running too.

“Thank you,” Ryou said.

“You don’t have to thank me,” Youichi replied. “Of course I’d help you with this.”

“I meant for everything,” Ryou said. “I know I haven’t exactly been pleasant to be around recently. Thanks for sticking with me anyway.”

“At this point, you’re stuck with me,” Youichi told him, giving him that big grin, and this one even felt genuine. “Until you tell me to leave, I’m not going anywhere.”

It would definitely be too sappy to tell Youichi that he was never going to ask that, so Ryou didn’t. He hoped Youichi understood anyway.

“So do you want to go over to Miyuki and Sawamura’s later?” Youichi asked. “Apparently Haruichi and Furuya are going too, Haruichi has some new fighting game he wants everyone to try.”

“Pass,” Ryou said. “Miyuki and Sawamura are still in the honeymoon phase. They’re insufferable.”

“They’re not that bad,” Youichi said.

“They make those eyes at each other. There’s no way we were that bad when we got together.”

“You want to see Haruichi, though, don’t you?”

“You just think Haruichi can beat me in that game.”

“I can neither confirm nor deny.”

Ryou rolled his eyes, not that Youichi would be able to see that. He hooked an arm around Youichi’s neck in a kind of hug, pulling until Youichi’s face was buried in his neck. The physical contact wasn’t usually something he sought out, though he didn’t hate it, but he’d noticed that Youichi took a lot of comfort in it, and that was more than enough reason for Ryou to give it out.

“Fine,” Ryou said. “I’ll put up with the newlyweds so you can watch my little brother kick my ass at video games.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, it’s whatever.” You deserve something nice after how mean I’ve been.

Ryou could feel the grin Youichi pressed into his skin.

“Cool.” Youichi didn’t make any move to leave the embrace, and Ryou didn’t try to make him. They still had a lot of healing to do, and Ryou’s leg was only part of it. But they were getting better.

“We’re going on a what?”

“A McDonald’s date,” Youichi repeated. “It’s what all the broke college kids are doing. I’ll buy you a burger or whatever else you want.”

Ryou looked a little skeptical, but he wasn’t saying no, which was more than enough room for Youichi to herd them both out the door and down the street to the closest McDonald’s. His mouth was already watering from the smell of cheap, questionable quality fast food.

Youichi walked up to counter manned by a probably underpaid, high school aged cashier, slamming money on the counter.

“Ten of your finest hamburgers, please.”

“Uh…”

“And a small drink.”

“Is this a joke?” the cashier asked, eyes pleading for a yes. Youichi shook his head and pushed his money closer to the cashier’s hand. The cashier looked terrified at the idea that he might, in fact, be serious.

“Ten hamburgers and a small drink it is,” he said faintly. “Will, uh, will there be anything else?”

“A strawberry milkshake,” Ryou said. “And a small fry.”

“If you want a burger, get your own,” Youichi told him. “I’m not sharing.”

The cashier looked to be nearly in tears.

“I’ll take a burger too, then,” Ryou said sweetly. Youichi held back laughter at the look on the cashier’s face. Poor kid.

“It’ll, um, probably be a minute?” The cashier said it more like a question than a statement.

“We’ll wait,” Youichi assured him.

“That’ll be ¥1680,” the cashier said. Youichi gave him the money.  Ryou gave him another one of those sweet smiles that dripped poison as they found a booth to sit. Youichi tapped his foot impatiently.

“I can see why broke college students like this place,” Ryou said. “You just bought enough food to feed a small army for less than ¥2000.”

“Isn’t it glorious?” Youichi asked. “I can already feel my arteries clogging up.”

Ryou gave him a look.

“Humans are weird.”

“Sometimes you have to eat something you know for a fact is bad for you just to make yourself feel alive.”

“I stand by my earlier statement.”

They were interrupted then by someone bringing them their food. There was something intensely satisfying about the way the burgers had to be stacked on top of each other to fit on the tray.

“Are you really going to eat all ten burgers?” Ryou asked, sipping from his milkshake as he removed the only burger that belonged to him.

“I said I was going to,” Youichi said. “I wasn’t kidding.”

He unwrapped the first burger, biting into it with a satisfied moan. It was just as disgusting and greasy as he’d been hoping. After almost a full year of chicken, he couldn’t be happier to be eating questionable beef again.

Youichi inhaled five burgers before he finally slowed down enough to pay attention to Ryou again. Ryou was dipping his fries in his milkshake, fixing Youichi with a look that was equal parts horrified and fascinated.

“What?” Youichi asked before he remembered that he still had some food in his mouth and that was probably gross.

“I’m attracted to you for reasons I can’t explain even to myself,” Ryou told him bluntly.

“I thought we already had this conversation,” Youichi said.

“No, I mean right now,” Ryou said. “Who knew watching you put away that much food like it’s nothing would be attractive. Scary, and kind of grotesque, but attractive.”

“I’m going to take that as a compliment,” Youichi said. “How are you enjoying your first McDonald’s experience?”

Ryou considered his discarded burger wrapper and nearly finished milkshake.

“This food is terrible,” he said. Youichi nodded because, yeah, the food objectively sucked. “Why do I want more of it?”

“Welcome to being human,” Youichi told him. “Sometimes you want what you know you shouldn’t.”

“Maybe that explains you.”

“Hey. You were still a normal demon when you decided you were attracted to me. That one’s on you.”

“So it would seem,” Ryou said silkily, but he didn’t sound particularly upset about it. Just curious in the way only a centuries-old demon recently introduced to McDonald’s could really be.

Youichi started to slow down, chewing more mechanically as he moved into his eighth burger. Maybe ten had been a little ambitious. McDonald’s didn’t exactly keep – or maybe it did, he didn’t want to think too hard about it – so he kept chewing.

He didn’t protest when Ryou stole one of the remaining burgers, though. Youichi wasn’t a quitter, but who was he to refuse a helping hand.

“I think you’re gonna have to roll me out of here,” Youichi sighed, satisfyingly full. He’d probably regret having this much McDonald’s in one sitting tomorrow, but today, he felt great.

“I’m not carrying you up any stairs,” Ryou warned.

“That’s fair.”

Youichi managed to walk out under his own power. The early spring night was still chilly, and he wrapped his arms around himself. Ryou tucked his arm into Youichi’s.

“Hey,” Youichi said, realization dawning. “This was our first date.”

“We’ve gone out together before,” Ryou countered.

“Not just the two of us,” Youichi argued right back. “We’re always going with the team, or just Haruichi. This is the first time it’s been just us.”

“Unless you want to count that time we went to get the chicken.”

“I really don’t.”

Still, he couldn’t completely suppress his laughter at the memory. That damn chicken really had broken a lot of the ice between them. Youichi had almost been sad to kill it, but sacrifices to keep his demon alive had to be made, and then food was food.

“It was a nice date,” Ryou said, looking up at the scattered stars that were starting to show above the street lights.

“It was a cheap date,” Youichi said. “I’ll take you on a better one at some point.”

Ryou shook his head.

“I liked this,” he said. “It seemed…fitting.”

And in a way, it had been. Less because of the location, and more because Youichi would’ve been happy anywhere as long as he got to spend time with Ryou. He was starting to suspect that Ryou felt the same way, though he would never admit it in so many words.