#neodaedalus

♪ Chrono Crusade OST - Azmaria singing Star of Bethlehem ; College AU

Kaito has a noisy neighbour since he moved in into the small apartment under the roof for his engineering classes.

Ryouga.His name is Ryouga, and this is all Kaito knows of him since he moved in. And Ryouga had a guitar. Kaito became painfully aware of that fact when he had rubbed his eyes after tucking Haruto in, and opened his textbook again. It wasn’t an easy life, having run from Faker and bringing up his ten year old brother next to his part-time job at a 24-hour groceries shop and his studies at Heartland College.

An engineer.Kaito was going to graduate and become an engineer and feed his brother himself.

…He drops the bag of groceries on the table and checks after Haruto doing his homework, hearing these noises again. It’s the twenty-second time if you count again each time it stops and starts again, and Kaito pinches the bridge of his nose. Singers have no future. Musicians have no future. Art doesn’t pay rent…it just pisses neighbours off….Kaito sighs again.

He doesn’t like that Ryouga guy.

"My brother needs to sleep!""I only play mornings, noon and evening, not night, don’t get so stressed out."…"That’s bad enough!"

…Kaito stays…unforgiving.Until the week of Christmas rolls around, he guesses. He remember the warm smells and Haruto baking, and for all the stress and sleepless nights, he always had a soft spot and a smile for his little brother.

They missed some butter, so Kaito buttons his coat up and slips into his gloves and scarf, noting how cold it had become outside.

It is only when he passes the mall building that he really sees him. Ryouga, he means. Ryouga sits in his obnoxious purple hair and his leather jacket and guitar on a blanket and he…sings Christmas songs for little kids. They pass him by and laugh.(…Kaito remarks maybe he has a nice voice after all.)

'Star of Bethlehem, Star on high Miracle of love on midnight sign Let your luminous light from heaven Enter hearts-'

He stands towering above him, snorting."Fancy seeing you here. Got nothing better to do?"Ryouga smirks and laughs, and it’s somewhat sad."No-one’s gonna miss me."

51. Mascots at a theme park; Mafia AU

He came as a kid.

So much did Kiryuu know, shouldering his gun and holster over his black suit and the white dress shirt and black tie. When he smiles to the new recruit, there is no gentleness. When he stares, it is empty. He had come here a stranger himself, to this theme park.To this path to Heartland’s circuit at night. What was else here…but the illegal races and people who are kept awake at night, he thought…Heartland is run-down like this, in it’s heart. Beneath the flashy artrificial lights, controlled by different families and gangs.That strange boy with the purple hair snorts and lifts his chin."I’m a man."

And this boy, with no family to look back, longed to join. Kiryuu gives him an empty cold smile."…Do you wish to give up yourself, boy……?

…Kiryuu smiles a bit in the cold apartment above the streets at night. In his office with the old-fashioned mahagony desk…at the field when they had a shoot-down with BARian, the opposing gang.It’s only…only then when Kiryuu realises why Ryouga had come to him…what he had run away from. He sees how their sides suffers all defeat. Ryouga, as stubborn as ever…"It’s all we are…mascots at this theme park, the stage of Heartland City…" Kiryuu laughs, ignoring the open gash in his side. It stains his dress shirt red…He stands behind Ryouga, with his chin atop the other’s shoulder. He sees the open back entrace under a colourful door. The empty street that would lead out.

His breath condensates in the air when he turns back only once to the bloody shoot-down scene in the park, and he draws back slowly and pushes Ryouga on towards the entrace. His breath is somewhat laboured. It throbs and stings in his side. He kisses Ryouga’s neck and pushes him."Go…go because you’re a man.”

Kaito remarks it’s him, the obnoxious purple-haired boy named Ryouga, when he stands in the bus. Ryouga sits alone with his hands on his knees on the last bench. He doesn’t move. He only stares and glares apathetically outside. He doesn’t see.Two lewd men approach. Kaito does nothing. Ryouga makes no visible movement. He stands up and a dark aura surrounds him until they scream. Kaito sighs.

He had seen the same scene over and over. He had run in to help. Ryouga had shaked him off. The worst is his glare. He had forsaken pain and emotion to kill. Given his soul to heal a girl. Signed a pact to kill the monsters in the dark until he became one. So did Kaito. Existing without existing…in a vicious cycle.

"Ryouga…"

Ryouga doesn’t listen, and Kaito nods again. Ryouga shrugs and stuffs his hand in his pockets, Kaito follows.Ryouga dons his purple attire and swords and hacks on a dead enemy…he breaths and bleeds. He doesn’t feel it. In the moment he can’t stop, he becomes the shade, becomes the monster."Ryouga."

Fears, they consume you alive.Kaito stands still.Time doesn’t count - he doesn’t care of it…Kaito runs, and he tears open his spear. Ryouga had become become Shark Drake once again. Kaito picks up the pin shaped like a bass note and kisses it.His expression is stern. He smiles a bit when he reaches out in a flashing blue light. “Ryouga, it’s okay. I can’t let you live, but I won’t let you die alone…”

29. Illegally leaving the country

Kiryuu bends over the rim of the great wall as his hair falls into his face. But he pays it no mind while they hide and stare out into the distance. The Wall is made out of brink and metal at parts, sprayed in graffitti and the blood of those who tried and failed..

Kiryuu lifts his chin.This is no place of hope.

They say behind the Wall, there is nothing.

No. That is not true. Even Kiryuu in his apathy does not believe that…freedom is not nothing but by every right everything encompassing us…not touchable, not inhaleable, not to be devoured. Like life. Like death.Kiryuu smirks at the purple haired teenager and the blue haired girl running and trying to climb. They look nearly the same, in hate and desperation for life…only that his eyes have colour. The boy’s not afraid to break the law. But then again, if you wanted to climb, you need to be bold (Kiryuu still had a few troubles with the law, he’s sure). “You seek escape outside to be completely on your own…?”

Kiryuu grins down at him with a shared smirk, nodding confidently.He reaches down and offers him his arm.

"Ryoga."

“Ryoga. Fancy seeing you here, eh?”

"Do I look like an idiot?! Ryoga, stop staring." Kaito smirks and snorts and looks at him from over the bent form of Orbital motorcycle mode. Kaito was never the sort of patient person. There’s well…Ryoga. With a purple jacket. And rhinestones. And a bass guitar he probably couldn’t play. Wow. Well, Kaito sometimes forgets it’s Ryoga’s, like, normal attire.

Well. But for some reason - hey, that’s okay. Heartland’s still intact and they’re living and that’s something, he supposes. Huh? Although Kaito can’t explain it, in all the mess that was their lives (and deaths) and his relationship with Ryoga (relationship is a crude word), all he can see is still not the Barian King, but the embarrassing teenager, but for some reason it this thought calms his mind.

"Ryoga," he says again with a gentle smirk, "You’re an idiot."

He rubs his eyelids and lets out a snorting sound that could be perceived as laughing. For some reason Kaito doesn’t mind being idiots. Kinda. Like this.

Pricks weren’t part of Ryouga’s “have a nice day and drink some hot chocolate at the cafe” plan, but that one had rudely butted in. Whoever the douchey blond was, lady luck was with him for the moment. Ryouga’s patience was still full — if it ran out too fast though, he wouldn’t take responsibility for the consequences.

"I didn’t know a gorilla escaped from the zoo. The things you miss when you don’t watch the news."

A gorilla? "So that's how you talk to duelling royalty?" Jack spat. Really though, Jack had never met someone so rude to him! ...well, other than his friends, but they barely got away with it. Jack was in public - he was a famous figure, for God's sake.

"At least I don't look like I rolled my coat in some kid's art project," he said, gesturing to the tacky gems. What was Octopissbaby gonna do about that?

Durbe looked over the data again and again, finally sighing and deciding that yes, his mind wasn't messing with him, and his sales were actually down. He tapped his fingers on the table, and rested his head on his hand, unsure of what to do. He thought he had been improving, that his last book should of outdone the rest, but apparently he had been wrong. Again.

Biting his lip, he realized that the best course of action would be to get a second opinion on his writing, or perhaps someone to help him learn something new. He really didn't want that, for some reason he seemed to always prefer to keep things the same, even when such ways did more harm than good but...

Pouring the now cold coffee down the drain, Durbe knew he'd have to make a change. If he wished to continue doing what he loved as a livelihood, he'd have to up his game so to speak, even if that meant getting outside help. And he knew who that help would be. Ryouga.

Ryouga was really his best bet, they had been friends since middle school where they had discovered their love for writing together, though they had very...different styles and genres, to say the least. To this day, Ryouga continues to write cheesy romance novels under the pen name "Nasch". Durbe never admitted it to his face, but personally, he himself could not stand them.

Still, he always sells well, so it couldn't hurt to get some pointers from him at least. Finally arriving at the old house, Durbe rang the doorbell, waiting awhile for the door to open.

Just when he was thinking it would of been a good idea to call first and make sure he was home, the door opened, revealing a (very tired) looking Ryouga.