this is probably the most morally reprehensible thing i've ever written and i hate myself.

rolling off the same premise from "and like a comet burned," which is itself based on speculation derived from the now-known-to-be-fake summary spoilers for 121 and beyond. you should probably read that one first to get what's going on.

apologies also to c.s. lewis. deep abiding apologies.

When Yuuma had first seen Vector, back in school again after the Wall had slammed between the human world and the stars, it wasn't even that he was scared. Scared would have applied back when Astral was still here, when Yuuma was always worried for his safety when the Barians showed up, because Barians meant dueling and claiming Numbers and Yuuma and Astral being under attack. But now that Astral is gone, now that no one remembers Shark or Rio or any of the "transfer students," it seems pointless to be scared. Scared is for when you have something to lose.

He would have expected to be angry, but that doesn't happen either. Not that Yuuma isn't angry with Vector—anger doesn't even begin to describe it. But his reaction in that moment wasn't to access that anger, which is weird because you'd think that would be his first impulse. It was almost relief, what he felt, except it wasn't that at all because relief is a good feeling. It was more like: finally. Finally something was going to happen, something that had to do with Before. Finally there was something to feel other than alone and distant and different from how he used to be.

So even though the anger hit just a few moments later, the anger and the terror and the memory, and he'd had to ask to leave because he was afraid something would break inside him, that feeling never actually dissipated. Of: finally. Yuuma's gotten so used to things happening and sweeping him up into them that the absence of anything happening was slowly killing him.

The thing to know about Vector, Yuuma slowly finds out, is that Vector is really different. Well, he acts really different, anyway, which didn't always mean anything when it came to Vector. He doesn't always act like Vector. He doesn't always remember that he is Vector, is the thing. Yuuma remembers everything from Before, remembers all the Barians and Shark and Rio and Astral, the Astral world and Eliphas, and his dad, and Tron and Faker and Heartland and all the people who at one point or another were possessed by Numbers—and as far as he can tell, Yuuma is the only human left on earth who remembers it all the way it was Before, rather than the fake sliding-around of events that everyone in the After seems to know. Vector, on the other hand, can remember Before, which makes him different from everyone else. But he can't always remember it, which makes him different from Yuuma.

(To realize that he was still alone in his memories, that his only hope was his worst enemy and even that hope was dashed, hurt. It still hurts. It hurts every day Yuuma wakes up and grabs at his neck to feel nothing there.)

So when Vector can remember Before, he's pretty much Vector, albeit a Vector with no hope, no agenda, and no energy to cause too much trouble. When he can't, though... He's not really Shingetsu, at least not Yuuma's Shingetsu, because that Shingetsu was always just Vector, being really careful and really sneaky. It's more like he's the Shingetsu that the After wanted, a totally different person, sort of subdued and a loser and desperate for someone to talk to him even as he doesn't know how to talk about anything.

At first, Yuuma has no idea when Vector is going to be Vector, and when he'll be Shingetsu. He always acts normal in public, but when they are caught alone – sometimes at lunch, often when walking home, a few times after class – Yuuma has about a fifty-fifty shot of saying something about Before and getting a heartbreakingly blank stare, or saying something innocuous and being pinned against a wall, Vector's breath hot near his face, his violet eyes wide and mad, hissing I'm going to kill you one day, Tsukumo Yuuma. I should kill you right now. How dare you live. How dare you speak to me.

(The worst of it is that Yuuma's feelings are more likely to be hurt by the former scenario than the latter.)

For all that Vector stamps and threatens, he never moves to actually hurt Yuuma, at first. He's all talk and bluster anymore, without Numbers. Once he put a hand to Yuuma's throat, in a shortcut back alley by the overpass, but just left it there, his fingers against Yuuma's pulse so that Yuuma could hear it thudding in his ears. Yuuma had stared at him, so shocked by its suddenness that he had forgotten to get scared. Maybe he couldn't be scared of Vector anymore. Maybe he couldn't be scared of dying anymore. The only thing scary about dying is losing your precious things, and Yuuma has already lost everything.

Vector had stared at him, breathing hard, waiting for Yuuma to get scared, until the Wall-haze began to creep back into his eyes, until Yuuma put his own hand up to Vector's wrist and brushed it away, forcing a laugh, and said, Whoa, Shingetsu, let's not horse around too much before we get to school, okay? If we're late again, we'll get a detention, and Vector had stood there, blinking as if dazed, until something in him shut down totally, and then he was Shingetsu again.

That was the day Yuuma figured it out. Vector and Shingetsu aren't two different persons—if you are smart and understand people, you can always pick out the base personality traits that make Vector who he is, paranoia and desperate loneliness and a cruel sense of humor and a reckless brutal refusal to ever give up—but which of them he is depends on if the Wall has made Vector forget again. And every day that goes by, it is harder for Vector to remember he was Vector. Like the moving ocean labyrinth, the Wall is tenacious; sooner or later it will find a way to seal Vector away forever.

Yuuma is the only one who knows how to remind him that he used to be Vector, other than when he sometimes remembers by accident.

At first, Yuuma keeps this in mind to help Vector deal with school. When Vector remembers during the day, he becomes confused about his environment; he wants to leave because remembering he's Vector means remembering how long he's been trapped in the human world and how many times he's forgotten. So every time he remembers, he becomes less and less rational about it, afraid that this might be his last chance to find a way out, that he can't afford to do what he used to do and Be Sneaky for a long time, because he could sink back into the twilight of the Wall and his After-memories at any moment. When that happens, Yuuma puts a hand on his arm, if he can, or gives him a Look from across the room, promising that he will talk with Vector after class ends, that he'll remind Vector of who he is again later, and they'll talk.

Except then, a few times, Yuuma genuinely forgets to do this, and they pass a day or two straight with Vector as Shingetsu, pretty easy to deal with and sometimes even vaguely fun to be around. And then, Yuuma starts "forgetting" for longer. Because sometimes, the longer Vector goes between remembering, the angrier he gets when he's reminded, and when Vector is angry, he flings that anger at Yuuma, warranted or not. And by now, Yuuma knows they will never break the Wall. So why bother? What's the point in remembering?

(For some time, Yuuma lets himself think that he can erase "Vector" from existing at all. That if he never mentions the Before, ever again, Vector will just... be Shingetsu. Forever. And Yuuma won't have to worry when he goes to sleep that he'll wake up with Vector's thin, orange-splotched hands around his throat.

But then the thought occurs to him that if he lets this happen, then he will once again be alone, alone with memories of the Before and spending his whole life waiting for something to happen.)

"Shingetsu" knows that there's something wrong with him. (And maybe there really is and always was something wrong with Vector—the paranoid delusions and random, nonsensical breakdowns from nowhere—) He knows that Yuuma has something to do with making him or preventing him from remembering—and to him, when he cannot remember, these periods of lucidity seem like craziness from a distance. When Yuuma talks down an angry, betrayed Vector—accusing him of trying to kill "Vector" off with silence—until his ranting subsides to confused murmurs, to blankness, Shingetsu always looks so grateful that Yuuma hasn't left him after another "episode," glad to have such a patient friend.

(Yuuma should feel guilty to wield this kind of power, but he doesn't. He feels kind of relieved.)

Yuuma starts to wonder if there's a way to contain Vector, to make him remember in a way that doesn't make Vector shout at him or try to hurt him. Maybe even to make him remember permanently, although Yuuma's not sure how that could be possible. There have been nights when Yuuma had "Shingetsu" over and spoke to him as Vector all night, the both of them wary but too tired to fight, both of them grateful to just understand where each other lay in their estimations. Yuuma had thought that Vector would still remember the next day, but if left even briefly, he would start to gray out, fuzz out like static.

Anyway, those attempts were long past, weeks ago. Yuuma couldn't spend a whole night with Vector anymore, not Vector-as-himself. Vector doesn't trust him anymore to keep time for them, to keep them in the Before. Every time Yuuma bothers to remind him now, Vector screams at him, lunges for him, swears that he will pry Yuuma's skull open and take the memories, take away his last precious thing because how dare he, how dare he know better, how dare he live—

(and yet, despite these threats and the obvious danger, Yuuma keeps doing it, keeps resurrecting his own nemesis, because it proves he himself isn't crazy, because even when Vector strikes him in the face and spits invectives at him and tries to curl his fingers into Yuuma's eye sockets and gouge his soft eyeballs out, this is something that's happening. Astral is gone—Shark is gone, and his sister—half the Numbers Club have drifted away because they don't remember why they would have been friends with Yuuma in the first place—Tetsuo doesn't know how to talk to him because Yuuma forgets to smile a lot, anymore, or to get excited, or to kattobingu, or to care at all, really—Kotori is the only one who really tries to talk to him every day, but that hurts worse because sometimes Yuuma forgets she can't remember Before, and the moments when he says something to her only to see her give him a sad, blank look, hurt worse somehow than when any other person does it—when all of these things are going on, it's almost like, being in danger is the only time he doesn't feel like he's pretending.)

Tonight, in Yuuma's room, it's different. By the time he sits down on the edge of the bed, he knows he's already made an irrevocable choice. He can't take this back.

"You're Vector," he says aloud to the room. "You used to be a Barian. Your companions were Durbe, Mizael, Alit, Gilag, Merag... and Nasch." (His voice breaks on this last word.) "When you lost a duel and were reincarnated in this world, a barrier was suddenly put up between your world and mine that seals them away forever. You and I are the only ones who remember this—"

It used to just take "You're Vector" to make him remember, but now Yuuma has a pre-prepared mantra that brings Vector in and out of lucidity. This time, Vector's eyes catch ablaze by "the only ones" and Yuuma can't even finish the sentence before Vector is leaning forward in his chair, slamming up and down, screaming, "How dare you! How dare you do this to me! Do you—what do you—how—"

Vector's hands are tied behind him with some nylon rope that Yuuma has from his stash of adventuring gear. His arms are actually going through the spaces in the chair's back, so that he can't disentangle himself from the chair. His legs are also tied in front of him—bound together instead of tied to the chair legs, so that it would be seriously difficult to gain enough leverage to stand up.

"Hey, in the last three minutes, this was your idea," Yuuma reminds him, crossing his arms. Which it was...technically. Insomuch as Shingetsu seemed worried, and explained to Yuuma that he thinks he has the most "episodes" around Yuuma and no one else, and he just wished he could do something about that. And then Yuuma said—carefully! so carefully—that he can actually usually tell when Shingetsu's due to have one. Shingetsu had gasped, asked if that was really true, and wondered if Yuuma might be able to stave them off if he sees the signs. Yuuma said no... but since they usually don't last all that long, and they go in pretty regular patterns, maybe Shingetsu should make plans to restrain himself from getting violent, somehow. Shingetsu had said, well, how could we do that? His eyes were wide and pleading, pathetic. He'd said, he didn't want to spend less time with Yuuma, not because of something he couldn't control.

"You wanted this to happen," Vector hisses, his bound feet scrabbling at the floor for purchase, his chest heaving forward and then being yanked back by his own arms, already scratched on the chair's wooden edges. "You planted the idea in my head. You're trying to..."

"To what? Kill you? Make you disappear?" Yuuma stands up, mutters a bad word under his breath, runs a hand over his bangs. "You're the one who tries to break my neck every time I remind you who you are. New rules. Until you stop trying to kill me, this is how these things go."

Vector recoils. His eyes are even buggier than usual. His face is twisted into an expression that's somewhere between hate and fear, and maybe genuine shock. "You can't... you can't hold my memories hostage," he says, uncertain.

Yuuma crosses his arms. "I actually can," he says. "I mean—" here, he throws his arms up again, looks around the room, looks back to Vector—"I mean, what are either of us getting out of this? Let's face it, if I tried to help you keep your memories forever, I'd have to spend every minute whispering all this in your ear. Every five—seconds. I mean—Right? What—you gotta ask yourself—what's the point?"

Vector lunges forward so suddenly that he tips the chair over. Yuuma doesn't even move to right him. From the floor, he spits, "So that's it. You'll befriend me, give me my memories when it suits you, use me to—to work out your... your thoughts about it all, and then when you're done mourning the Astral Messenger, you'll throw me aside? To stumble blindly through this world?" His neck is wrenched against the floor. "What am I to you, Tsukumo Yuuma—a pet?"

Yuuma sits again, this time on the floor (a safe distance away). "I don't know what you are," he says. More softly, "I don't know what we are."

"I promise you now," Vector hisses. "You treat me like a dog to be caged, and I won't disappoint you. One day my jaws will reach your throat. Tsukumo Yuuma."

Yuuma props his chin in his hand, his elbow resting on a knee. "That's a dumb thing to say." When Vector flinches, Yuuma clarifies: "People train dogs."

Vector is shaking with rage. "How dare you."

"You need another line," Yuuma says. He's sitting on what is, for all intents and purposes, Vector's lap. This is the second time Yuuma's managed to get him into the chair before reminding him of his name. Yuuma himself is uncomfortable about this too-close distance (he can count Vector's freckles), but the discomfort it causes Vector is worth it. Today, Yuuma's feeling wild, and angry, and for once he wants to make Vector see how stupid this is getting. Vector's whole body trembles with barely suppressed fury.

"Why don't you just leave me alone?" Vector says.

"Because when I leave you alone for long enough, you beg me not to leave you alone." Vector flinches, turns his head to the side, blushes red with shame. Unlike the other way around, Vector-as-Vector can remember all the things he's done when he was Vector-as-Shingetsu. He can remember exactly how pathetic it is—and probably whatever he was thinking at the time, too. "You know—" Yuuma forges on recklessly, "when you hurt Alit that time, I stood up for you to Gilag. Yeah, I stood up for you. Do you know what I said?"

Vector grits his teeth. Yuuma continues, spitefully: "I said, you couldn't have done it, because you were too useless to do something like that."

Between his grinding teeth, Vector forces out: "I'm glad. It meant you fell for my act. You gullible fool."

"Yeah, your 'act,'" Yuuma says dismissively. (He remembers Vector's "act," remembers laughing and feeling confident that they could protect Astral, remembers feeling purposeful and strong, remembers I had fun playing pretend friends with you-) "You know, sometimes I wonder which of you is the real you. The crazy maniac who hates everyone, or the pathetic loser who's scared no one likes him." As soon as he says it, he hears how ugly it is, and he wishes he hadn't said it, even if it was true.

"Neither," Vector snaps, but it is all recoil, no power, "I am a Barian."

Yuuma reaches out and presses his hand to Vector's chest. "Feels like a human heartbeat to me."

Vector lunges suddenly and sinks his teeth into Yuuma's wrist, but he can't bite down because half the wristband of Yuuma's glove is in his mouth as well. Yuuma says, in a voice straining to keep from yelling in case his sister and grandmother hear, "For a guy who doesn't want to be a dog, you're sure acting like one."

"It's been three weeks, Tsukumo Yuuma," Vector says. He's angry, but in a different, less loud way. "How am I supposed to believe you aren't slowly letting my memories die behind the Wall?"

"You bit me in the arm last time, you idiot," Yuuma snaps. "You're lucky they didn't send you back to that hospital you were at for a while. Akari only just said it was okay for me to have you over again."

"I wouldn't have been able to bite you if you weren't sitting on me," Vector hisses. "You could have spoken to me at the school—"

"Well, I don't think you proved I can trust you not to hurt me if you aren't tied up." Yuuma paces at a short distance from the chair. "We can have these conversations more often if I don't think I'm gonna get killed."

"Last time I trusted you, you proved that you would only help me to remember my true nature when it was convenient for you." Vector struggles, but Yuuma's gotten better at tying him so that movement is difficult to manage, without actually hurting him with the ropes.

"I can't help that, we've been over this. If it were easy enough to call you on the D-Gazers and remind you every morning, I'd do that if it made you happy," Yuuma says, wearily. "But that doesn't work because in two minutes you'd forget. I can't help what the stupid Wall does. I didn't make it. I didn't put it there to make you mad at me all the time." Well, even without the Wall, Vector would be mad all the time at Yuuma anyway, but at least it would be for a sensible reason. "I'm sorry I don't like you enough to devote my whole life to making you happy."

(The irony is that they both know that, for a given definition of "happy," Vector is much happier remaining ignorant and timid.)

Vector turns his face away. Yuuma waits a little bit—then, concerned he'll lose him again, talks to him. "Look, Vector, we can do what we can. But we're stuck here. Maybe when next summer vacation starts, I can see if we can go... go out to that island your past self was from, see if that helps at all."

There's just a little sound in reply—and then Yuuma realizes that Vector is crying. "V-Vector..." Yuuma says. (He wonders if this is a breakthrough.) He sits on the floor, at an angle where he can see Vector's face a little more. Vector's face is twisted up, his eyes puffy, tears streaming. His face is red behind his orange freckles. "Vector..." and Yuuma doesn't know what to say. "What do you want?"

Vector chokes out, "I want to go home." A hitch, a sob, barely suppressed. "I want to go home. I want to shine again. If I forget... forever..."

"You won't forget forever," Yuuma says, his brows furrowing, leaning forward on one hand. "I'm here. When we can—when we can, we can go out. We'll, uh. We'll go adventuring. We'll find out how to break the Wall someday. You just gotta—Vector, you just have to trust me, a little bit." Even though Yuuma knows better. Vector can't trust anyone who has more power than he does.

Vector breathes a little, nods a few times. He seems to calm down a little. "Right." Breathing. "Right." He hangs his head a bit. "My fingers are going numb. Maybe we can talk... another day. About traveling."

Yuuma stands up. "I'm going behind you to untie you. Okay?" Maybe untying him before the Wall-haze fully comes back will be a goodwill gesture. Yuuma unties Vector's hands, and then unties his feet while Vector pulls his arms out of the chair's openings. "We can probably make plans anytime... Sis always said I could go backpacking some year if I keep my grades up, and maybe if we—"

Yuuma's words are cut short when Vector suddenly jumps on him from the chair the moment his legs are entirely free, slams him against the floor and wraps his hands around Yuuma's throat.

"Gh—?!"

"Crocodile tears." Vector's red-rimmed eyes glimmer with a wet, manic intensity. "You don't pay attention to the memories you're privileged to keep, Tsukumo Yuuma." He laughs, his hands ratcheting tightly around Yuuma's windpipe. Yuuma can feel his lungs heaving for air.

Yuuma strains to form—"B-but," he mouths.

Vector's hands let up for a moment—it's clearly not intentional to allow Yuuma another gulp of air, it's just that Vector's too disordered to think, speak, and choke him at the same time—"If I have to forget," he whispers, "then so do you. Forever."

(Yuuma's thoughts are racing so quickly in this instant. Or maybe they aren't. Maybe he already knows exactly what he should do to get out of this. Maybe that was the very first thing his mind jumped to, before thoughts of self-defense or acceptance or negotiation.

Maybe it's something that he knows is wrong, is the opposite of "trust me." But maybe Yuuma wants to live, and not to die, even if he has already lost everything. And maybe—maybe—maybe Vector's not totally wrong about him.)

Before Vector can seriously apply pressure again to Yuuma's throat, Yuuma reaches up and puts his hands, gently, on Vector's shoulders. "I'm sorry," he says, as clearly as he can while his throat is bruised and his windpipe is threatening to shut itself down. "I'm sorry, Shingetsu."

(Yuuma sees Vector's eyes widen for a fraction of a second, widen in fear. Not even in betrayal, because Vector doesn't trust him. Just terror. And Yuuma shuts down that part of him that knows why Vector has a right to be afraid of him.)

"I didn't know you felt that way," he continues. "I'm sorry we haven't talked about it sooner."

"Wha...?" Vector is confused, doesn't know what Yuuma is talking about, and every second Vector is confused about what's happening is a second when the Wall is moving in, running bricks over open pathways, spinning cobwebs across pictures, blowing smoke into his eyes. He's already forgotten to continue choking Yuuma; his hands are just on his throat, no longer applying pressure.

Yuuma swallows, with difficulty. "You didn't have to hide the way you felt, Shingetsu," he says—his voice rasps if he tries to speak too loudly, so he has to near-whisper—"I like you a lot, too."

Vector, eyes wide and near-blank with confusion, with the haziness closing in that is the sign of the Wall inexorably clamping shut, barely has time to say, "N—" before Yuuma is moving one hand from Vector's shoulder to the nape of his neck and drawing his face down to kiss him on the lips. (He can feel Vector shaking under his hands like a frightened animal.)(His hands are still touching Yuuma's throat, trapping the butterfly of his pulse against the skin.) Their lips part briefly and Vector whispers, again, helplessly, sadly, "No..." before Yuuma kisses him again, more bravely this time, and this time he doesn't let Vector move away until he feels the trembling slow and stop in his arms, feels Vector relax against him before tensing up again. They part—

"Yuuma," Vector says, his eyes worried and dazed, moving his hands away and sitting back on his legs, "what... were we...?" His eyes flicker to Yuuma's neck and widen; Yuuma imagines the bruises on it must be rising now. "Oh no," he says, in a very small voice.

"It's fine," Yuuma says, forcing a smile that comes more easily than the usual smiles he forces for everyone else. "It's fine. You're fine. It's okay."

He sits up, and Vector moves off him entirely, standing up, wringing his hands. "Did I—?"

"It's fine," Yuuma insists. "We're okay now. You don't have to worry."

Vector backs up, until the backs of his legs hit the chair, and he collapses back into it. "Oh..." he moans, putting his head in his hands. "It keeps... getting worse..."

"I think," Yuuma says firmly, "that it's going to get better from this point on. I think you're gonna be okay."

"But—"

"Do you trust me?" Yuuma asks. Vector looks at him. "Do you trust me?" he repeats.

Vector's eyes are sincere, heart-breakingly so. Yuuma feels his stomach twist. "...More than anyone else," Vector confesses. "More than any other person. You're the only one who puts up with me. The only one who believes in me, even when you get hurt. Why wouldn't I trust you?"

(And here's where Yuuma has to wonder again—which of them is the real Vector, if there's such a thing as a real anyone underneath everything else?

The one who trusts him, or the one who doesn't?

And more importantly—

which of them is right?)

"Okay," Yuuma rasps, rubbing his throat. "Then it's gonna be okay. I'll be there for you. Okay? Don't worry." He stands up, and puts his hands on Vector's knees, knocks their foreheads together, and grins. Vector looks surprised at the sudden contact, but he relaxes. "Promise me you won't worry."

Vector's lips are inches from Yuuma's, their breath ghosting together. His cheeks are still a little wet from before. "I won't worry," he agrees.

"I just want to try something," Yuuma had said, and that's why Vector's back in the chair, tied up the same as always, only right now he's just looking around with interest and shivering a little.

"What did you want to try, Yuuma?" he asks, and in answer all he gets is Yuuma sitting down on his lap again and kissing him, pressing his hands to Vector's chest to hold him steady and rolling his tongue against Vector's lips until he parts them, with a soft grunt of surprise. "Is," he breathes, between kisses, "is this... what we're trying?" (They're young, they're not supposed to know about these things, but there used to be fantasies Yuuma had about—anyway, well—they're not supposed to know but really, doesn't everyone wonder?)

Yuuma nips at his earlobe, eliciting a small yelp. "Just trust me," he says, reaching down and up under Vector's school uniform shirt, running his fingers over his ribs. "This is okay, right? You trust me?"

"Yeah..." Vector says, leaning forward every time Yuuma moves back, "yeah, it's good..."

"Good," Yuuma says, and his lips are pressed to the side of Vector's throat, and now he says between kisses, the words tumbling out near-mechanically: "You're Vector." (a gasp, in his throat, against Yuuma's lips.) "You used to be a Barian." (a stiffening in his neck muscles) "Your mission was to destroy the Astral Messenger and find the Numeron Code. You spent three months"—a low moan begins growing in Vector's chest, rumbling in his larynx—"under the assumed name Shingetsu Rei in order to"—and it's spilling out now, a hollow half-scream of an emotion Yuuma cannot identify, rage or hate or terror or humiliation, defeat or pain, or loss, this horrible sound coming out of Vector even while Yuuma's hands pull their hips closer, even as Vector does not so much as flinch away.

And after that long, awful, broken sound is over, there is silence. Yuuma has stopped moving too much, just rests his head on Vector's own shoulder. They are so close that Vector couldn't bite him or shoulder-shove him to the floor even if he were trying, which he isn't—just sitting there with an expression that is somewhere between stricken and empty.

"Why," is the only thing he is able to say. It flutters out of his mouth like a moth disturbed from wet long grass on a hot summer evening.

"Because," Yuuma says. Because the last thing Vector-as-Vector remembers is his hands on Yuuma's throat, and now Yuuma's lips are at his. Because Yuuma could abandon him, but he himself doesn't want that. Because Yuuma could break him into pieces, but he won't.

(But the important part is that he could.)

He adds: "Because you like me, when you don't remember... don't you?"

(He knows, by the way Vector's face is growing blanker and more horrified by the moment, that Vector is remembering the past few weeks, remembering that sometimes he holds Yuuma's hand when they walk home from school, remembering that the last few times they dueled tabletop at lunch they traded little kisses for the winner in the bathroom before class began, remembering that Kotori is finally warming up to him because Yuuma's stopped getting weird bruises and the two of them have stopped looking so unhappy all the time, remembering—

that he's happy.)

Vector's head droops down until his cheek is resting against the top of Yuuma's head. "Why remind me?" he asks. His voice is dead.

"Because I don't care if you trust me or not," Yuuma says. "Even if it takes years, or forever. I'm going to help you get home. I want you to know."

"It doesn't matter anymore," Vector says. And that's it, there—because Vector can't do anything, can't choose when he remembers or forgets. It's all in Yuuma's hands, and instead of throwing it away, Yuuma's said he'll help. So that if Vector refuses him, he renounces what he wants, his home, his identity. If Vector accepts his help, he places his life willingly into Yuuma's hands, except that it is already there. Yuuma can figure this out, because by now he knows Vector's thought processes pretty well. And when Vector doesn't remember—he's happy. Simple happiness, like a child. Like a dog. "It doesn't matter, now. You've won. I admit defeat, Tsukumo Yuuma."

(Is this supposed to feel good?
Like, revenge?)

Vector turns against Yuuma's ear and sucks on the lobe, shocking Yuuma enough to back away, look Vector in the eyes, to check and see if he is lucid or hazy. Vector is smiling, faintly, but his eyes are empty. "I hate you," he says. "I'll never forgive you, ever." His eyes slip shut, and he presses his lips to Yuuma's, kisses him deliberately and deeply. "But just..." he murmurs, "let me forget I hate you, for a while."

So Yuuma murmurs to him, calls him Shingetsu while they touch until Vector is gone from his own eyes and his voice turns soft and gentle again, and when there are no marks on Yuuma's body when he comes to, he is grateful and proud and so eager to please. Close to sundown, Akari shouts that Yuuma's friend needs to go home, and they pack up their cards from the table and Yuuma kicks the pillow fort down to rebuild next time and they brush fingers at the door.

I kind of wish this was my home, Shingetsu says right before the door closes on him, and Yuuma just smiles and says,

you know,

it basically kind of is, isn't it?

.