How Unfortunate...

Yoruichi gasped and heaved, desperately willing his lungs to accept air until they finally did. He coughed sporadically, slowly righting himself, both his hands on his chest because his tea had spilled to the ground. For a moment, Yoruichi considered making a big deal out of this, but then... He erupted into cruel, boisterous, biting laughter, as bitter as their speaker, because he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"Left you for dead?" Yoruichi said incredulously, "I? Left you? Hah! You've got to be kidding me!" And he was laughing again, his mirth dripping with unadulterated venom. He didn't care anymore about keeping secrets, because he was pissed to the point of no return, and his ribs hurt, and his arm hurt, and his back hurt, and now his head was hurting too. And it was all Jeriya's fault. All of it. He wanted to make Jeriya hurt too.

"You think you were the one left for dead that night? Hah?! You have no idea what that means, Jeri-chan... And because of you, I got to find out about it the hard way!"

Yoruichi did his best to mask the pain with laughter, but it still bled through the crinkles of his frozen eyes. "You couldn't beat me up if you tried, Jeri-chan. You didn't do this to me, so don't you fucking flatter yourself or get ahead of it all," he spat, and his voice was chilled to the core. "What you did to me means nothing. You mean nothing to me. I've hated you since the first time I met you. Friendship was never, ever, ever an option, and I'm sick to my stomach to think that you thought it was."

He should stop. He wanted to stop. He did. Yoruichi was going too far, even for himself, and he knew he needed to stop before he earned himself another broken arm - or worse. He felt cruel - crueler than cruel - but he couldn't shut his mouth.

"Iago Jeriya, you are worthless to me. You always have been, you are now, and you always, always will be. So don't fucking flatter yourself."

The bomb was dropped, and his eyes widened at his own words, he waited to see the aftermath.

[Sensitive material referenced.]

Though he really should have been expecting the hit, Yoruichi was still recovering from the previous one, and the fist hit him directly in the jaw. He stumbled back, clutching it, a grunt escaping his lips despite his best efforts...

...his entire jaw was on fire...

...they just kept hitting him...

...over and over...

...he tasted...

...blood.

Yoruichi spat, a splatter of red now joining the tea stain that had already blemished the carpet. He tripped immediately after, landing on the hard ground with a thud that made his eyes water — his tailbone was sore, even in human form, from where the breaks were healing, and it jostled his arm and ribs quite terribly. Yoruichi wanted to scream and yell right then, and not even at Jeriya. He wanted to scream because it hurt, god fuckin' damn it, and because he couldn't block himself twice in a row from a man he should have been able to predict.

It was pathetic.

Yoruichi opened his sore mouth to fully tear into his counterpart, but when his swimming vision focused, the words died in his throat.

Jeriya was... sobbing. Really? Really. He was... crying... Because the man he hated, hated him back? What the fuck?

Maybe Jeriya was drunk. That would explain it.

The thing was, he had seemed pretty sober.

Yoruichi grimaced, unsure how to respond to this new development. In all their years of rivalry, he had never seen his enemy so... shaken. It was. Unsettling. And weird. He didn't like it, but not because he particularly cared. It was more that it was just plain unsettling and unnatural and far too human of a reaction for someone so disgusting. So, he kept his grimace, and reached for a shoe despite his body's protest.

Yoruichi ended up throwing the flipflop in Jeriya's general direction, though it didn't hit him. "Sh...shut up, Jeriya. It's pathetic and gross," he muttered. Yoruichi forced himself into a sitting position again, panting at the effort it took to move his injured body. "You have no reason to cry, god damn it all, so stop. Stop it now."

Yoruichi didn't want to care, and so he convinced himself he didn't. He finally had some sort of leverage against Jeriya, whatever the reason was, and he fully intended to exploit it... Even if his lingering morality screamed "enough is enough - you've already won!"

Seeing as Jeriya wasn't saying too much anymore, Yoruichi began to speak enough for them both.

"You're right, I don't," he spat, reaching for another flipflop to throw. He tossed this one too, but his vision was still jerky and his aim was off by a mile. "I also don't care how you feel at all." And suddenly, Yoruichi was off on a tangent.

"I don't know why you came here, Jeriya, but if it was to renewal my bones and sob on my floor, you've accomplished your petty, pathetic goal. Actually, you've done quite a wonderful job of it, because my ribs have probably been set back weeks, and I'll have to steam clean my carpet-" He refused to say 'our' carpet . "- Not that I assume you care. You're a stupid, overly-emotional brute who should really learn when not to react. It would be dreadfully easy to destroy you like this, and frankly, the thought is tempting."

The words were tumbling out, and Yoruichi was just as likely to self-destruct as he was to make Jeriya blow.

"Just - fuck. I don't understand you at all! Why are you here, weeping at my feet like I killed your new puppy? Why are you here at all?! I hate you. You hate me. Why are you here?!

"I cut you off on purpose, god damn you, and it wasn't so you could come crawling back with your tail between your legs. I was done, Jeriya. Why are you here?"

Yoruichi didn't understand Jeriya at all. He didn't know why the man was crying, but he knew he hated it. Yoruichi hated this sense of intimacy, watching his enemy break down before him. It bothered him immensely, and it bothered him more that he didn't know why. It was unpredictable and, in Yoruichi's opinion, out of character, even for this rash and wild hunk of steel and stuffing. He didn't like it.

So, he glared. As he waited for Jeriya's response, Yoruichi glared with everything he he. His aura seemed violent and sizzling around him, enraged and morbidly curious as to what possibly possessed his counterpart to act in such a way. Yoruichi's eyes were so cold they burned, and they looked onwards into Jeriya's very soul. However, deep within was a light he would deny, even to himself, until his very last breath and then some. It was the soft glow of bitter understanding, because he knew what it was like to be completely and utterly alone.

But he didn't want to understand. He didn't want to comfort this person. Yoruichi didn't want to care, and he didn't. He really, really didn't care at all.

He really didn't care.

He really didn't.

And though he was so curious, Yoruichi didn't want to know what was wrong. Not really.

He wondered idly why he didn't just leave the room.

"Psh..." Yoruichi breathed quietly, "maybe you are drunk..."

He didn't know if he was talking to Jeriya or himself.

He was pathetic. Utterly pathetic. Pitiful. It was disgusting.

Jeriya was being disgusting. Yoruichi was disgusted.

He felt sick to his stomach as Jeriya rose, his face more vulnerable than he had ever seen it. He hated this, and it wasn't because he cared one bit. Yoruichi hated facing the fact that Jeriya had emotions, and he hated the intensity of this situation.

The one thing Yoruichi could always depend on was Jeriya's independability, but not like this. Not like this.

He was silent as the man gathered his words, but he didn't like it. He didn't like this feeling creeping up on him, as if something was about to happen, as if things were about to change. He didn't like that he knew he wouldn't like what would happen next. Yoruichi had a gut feeling about what Jeriya was going to say, and he willed the man not to.

Don't say it.

Please, don't say it.

Don't change anything.

This must be a dream.

A nightmare, more like.

A nightmare.

Yoruichi was alone, and he was alone by choice. He was unloved, and he refuted love by choice. He was a terrible, nasty man, and he was this way by choice. By nature. By his very nature, Sakurano Yoruichi was unlovable and unloving, and that was never, ever supposed to change. He didn't want it to change.

Why was Jeriya trying to change that?

...He couldn't be serious.

After the hell they had subjected each other to throughout the years, Jeriya simply couldn't be serious.

Was this all some new game?

(Yoruichi didn't consider that he was the manipulative one.)

(He didn't consider that Jeriya, unpredictable as he was, at least stayed consistent with his bluntness.)

Yoruichi didn't accept his confession.

In fact, as the words began to wrap around him, as Jeriya ran from the room, he laughed. He laughed.

Yoruichi laughed like it was the funniest thing in the world, because if he thought about it, it was. This was all some game. Jeriya was trying to be manipulative, but it wasn't working. Yoruichi could see through it. He didn't believe his words for a second.

The man stepped forward, the words around him dissipating as he rejected them completely. His hysterical laughter dwindled into a manic, exhausted, enraged sort of smile that would unsettle anyone, even himself if he looked in the mirror. Jeriya was lying to him. He was positive of it.

Because he hated Jeriya, and Jeriya hated him.

That was their dynamic.

That was how it worked for the last six years. That was who they were. It wasn't allowed to change.

Jeriya was not allowed to love him...

And Yoruichi would make damn sure he never, ever could.

Ahh... It was settled then.

Yoruichi slipped on a pait of shoes, his body moving languidly, carefully, unconsciously, and he didn't change because he was already presentable, didn't clean his tea because he didn't have a steam mop, didn't chase after Jeriya because he didn't care at all.

He walked out the door, locking it because Jeriya probably had a key anyway, not that he would mind if the man was locked out.

Hmm...

Yoruichi needed a drink.