Young Yuji

Diary

Young Yuji swears the war is still going somewhere, maybe two towns over, maybe just behind his eyes, so he keeps swinging like the bell never rang, and that night in the alley he swings at Ikari until both their knuckles are singing the same broken song. Someone hands him a bottle after, the way someone always does when a kid mistakes exhaustion for peace, and he drinks it like it's the last drop of glory left on this earth. By the third pour he's not fighting anymore, he's floating, laughing at the moon, telling Ikari he loves him like a brother even as blood dries between them, and somewhere in that haze he decides, loudly, that he is finally free. He wakes at dawn on the cold stone with his sword unsheathed beside him and no memory of drawing it, another morning where the plan was discipline and the result was chaos, another L he'll ape straight past on his way to the next brawl. Free, he tells himself, rubbing his skull, still chasing a war that left without him and never once looked back.