[He certainly takes a breath like one, at any rate, sharp and guttural as though his head has been yanked out roughly from water. It goes straight into him, a contrast to the short shallow versions which follow after as if trying to fill his lungs as quickly as possible. His eyes flick around the room, surveying it with practiced speed, but there's no real thought behind it. Escape routes, hiding spots- it's all information he absorbs on a basic level. When you run long enough, certain things become ingrained in you. No thought is needed.]
[Soon enough, however, his gaze finally returns to Mukuro- less from his welcome or even voice, and simply because that's where it always returns to. Movement catches his attention, but when Chikusa looks, to his bewilderment, it's just one of his own trembling hands. Granted, he can't see the way his normally stoic facade is clearly under threat of crumbling.]
[It'd been too much.]
[Feeling tension he's had all his life ease away, replaced by a strange and cautious curiosity at every mundane event that seeps into his life. The hollowness, aching in his chest and rattling in his jaw. Paranoia being proved wrong time and time again, worn down patiently by softness- ]
[(Except when it isn't, a weapon in his hand, blood on his shoes, a strangled noise behind him, and he is so blissfully detached)]
[Frustration- a grating sandpaper against his nerves, because he doesn't know how to make everything work, and panic because he doesn't know, and if Dokuro is like this, what of- Fond exasperation and wariness and I want this to work with his fingers curled along blond hair as a restraint, only now his fingers are curled around a yoyo and he is unsurprised, he is telling himself he is unsurprised, yet there's something acidic on the back of his tongue as blood sinks into the soles of his shoes and it could be bile or hatred and...]
[It's not betrayal. It's common sense. That meant it wasn't supposed to ache, like a knife in his gut, the way it did. And then whiplash, wounds smoothed over like mud over a hole, but he's so goddamn tired-]
[Chikusa stares. This is nothing like the mess he'd thought his emotions before. It's worse.]
[It takes a few tries before his voice works, low and a little hoarse.]
Mukuro-sama?
[Not an illusion this time, he's fairly sure. And if it is, well, he guesses he'll find out. The state his head is in, he can't bother to think much past that.]
no subject
[He certainly takes a breath like one, at any rate, sharp and guttural as though his head has been yanked out roughly from water. It goes straight into him, a contrast to the short shallow versions which follow after as if trying to fill his lungs as quickly as possible. His eyes flick around the room, surveying it with practiced speed, but there's no real thought behind it. Escape routes, hiding spots- it's all information he absorbs on a basic level. When you run long enough, certain things become ingrained in you. No thought is needed.]
[Soon enough, however, his gaze finally returns to Mukuro- less from his welcome or even voice, and simply because that's where it always returns to. Movement catches his attention, but when Chikusa looks, to his bewilderment, it's just one of his own trembling hands. Granted, he can't see the way his normally stoic facade is clearly under threat of crumbling.]
[It'd been too much.]
[Feeling tension he's had all his life ease away, replaced by a strange and cautious curiosity at every mundane event that seeps into his life. The hollowness, aching in his chest and rattling in his jaw. Paranoia being proved wrong time and time again, worn down patiently by softness- ]
[(Except when it isn't, a weapon in his hand, blood on his shoes, a strangled noise behind him, and he is so blissfully detached)]
[Frustration- a grating sandpaper against his nerves, because he doesn't know how to make everything work, and panic because he doesn't know, and if Dokuro is like this, what of- Fond exasperation and wariness and I want this to work with his fingers curled along blond hair as a restraint, only now his fingers are curled around a yoyo and he is unsurprised, he is telling himself he is unsurprised, yet there's something acidic on the back of his tongue as blood sinks into the soles of his shoes and it could be bile or hatred and...]
[It's not betrayal. It's common sense. That meant it wasn't supposed to ache, like a knife in his gut, the way it did. And then whiplash, wounds smoothed over like mud over a hole, but he's so goddamn tired-]
[Chikusa stares. This is nothing like the mess he'd thought his emotions before. It's worse.]
[It takes a few tries before his voice works, low and a little hoarse.]
Mukuro-sama?
[Not an illusion this time, he's fairly sure. And if it is, well, he guesses he'll find out. The state his head is in, he can't bother to think much past that.]