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There comes a point where it is like the tip of a scalpel held to a vein, this chokehold Ramuda has on him whenever he turns laughing eyes on Gentarou time and time again, goading him to dig harder, try again, let's see if you can even find anything to fucking gain.
It is a challenge, always, and Gentarou for once admits that he is too stubborn for his own good. How many times will he allow himself to scale this fathomless wall, only for him to sink gracelessly to the ground as a baby bird would on its very first attempt at flight?
There is only so much hot shame he can take and hide within before Ramuda finds out and (hatefully) claim this victory as his.
(Gentarou does not want to see him smile and wonder if any part of this was real, if any turn of his lips was actually joyful.
That pondering leads to nowhere and he is not fond of it.)
Still, he never balks. He never ceases to hide his faces behind his sleeves and hem and haw towards Ramuda's every wiles and whims, a dancing marionette straining against its strings, waiting for that one fateful moment when tensile strength meets immoveable force and they'll snap.
(They'll set him free.)
He'll resurface from this abyss Ramuda has tried dragging him into and never look back, never heeding that gremlin's calls to follow me down, Gentarou, fall into hell with me!
Only, there is hot coal in his heart when he thinks of this, wooden pegs weighing down his hips and planting his feet to the floor of Ramuda's 1LDK apartment, his body never wilfully leaving. The hum of Ramuda's sewing machine and Dice's snores have become a constant, and they chain him to these bonds he never really should have taken on in the first place.
(Keep it, some treacherous voice answers, keep them.)
Still, as the tale goes, the nightingale continues to sing and sing; Fling Posse giggles and resumes stumbling their way into things.
Only, Gentarou does not know what the end of their tale will bring.
(He wishes that none of them had to go deeper to find out, but it is what it is.
It is the quietest just before a dream.)