Cri De Coeur ||Mikayuu||

⚜28⚜

"Mika... If you don't mind me asking.. When did you get other voices in your head?"

I asked the question quietly through the silence, knowing fully well we weren't going to sleep very soon. We were in my bunk, staring at each other while the others slept on through the night. His gaze seemed to contemplate it for a while.
"I think... Maybe a year after I joined? It's kind of blurry. It was right after I completely lost hope of leaving the circus soon, that's for sure. Directly after they joined the mix of my worthless being, Colette started on the painting of you." He said, foot gesturing to it from outside the blanket.
"You're not worthless." I sighed, poking his cheek with my thumb.
"Why are you the only person crazy enough to believe I'm not." Mika mumbled, kicking the blanket back over his leg, claiming mine as his own with the same leg.
"Because you're too perfect to be all the things the Ringleader's got you thinking you are. You're amazing and beautiful- although I'm still kinda sad that you won't smile, but I can't do much about your thought process and how your mind works-  and totally worth everything that people do for you." I said, not really caring about how he wasn't at all prepared for my bombardment of compliments. He blinked at me with wide eyes briefly, before his eyes changed to a pity filled gaze.

"Only you hold me on such a high pedestal. A monster like myself isn't worthy of it." He said. I flicked his forehead, enveloping him tightly in my arms beneath the blanket.

"You're human, Mikaela. Not a monster. You're capable of love and pain. That's enough for me. Even if you were a monster, I would still love you. Nothing ever has or will change this."

He stayed silent, face burrowed in my neck. Slowly and gingerly, his hands lifted, wrapping around to my back. Then, he cried. It was silent, no whimpers escaping him. I don't think it was tears of sorrow.

Gratefulness.

He was grateful.

For what, I couldn't tell you. Far too many possibilities.

For taking the time to talk to him? To praise him the way I did? No.. That doesn't seem to fit.

He was grateful that I loved him. To him, he was a monster. And the words of me loving him even if he was were soothing. To me, he was a human. Able to love,
Cry, joke, laugh, although he doesn't seem to show it, and smile.

Mika was grateful.

And at that night, so was I.

I was... I was grateful to have known him when I did.

Grateful... That we crossed paths. That the ringleader made the decision to take the hope he held of escaping and place it beside him in a cage. Although in my vision, there was a key to the door he has yet to see.

Grateful. No. That's not the word I'm
Looking for. Mika may hold that feeling, but it feels.. Different to me, somehow.

Thankful.

I was thankful for every thing I saw about Mika, both good and bad. I was thankful for the knowledge that the cheerful person I knew long ago was still in there, hidden behind pain. That he took pills to keep his pulse steady from anxiety, the voices from devouring him, and urges overcoming him.

I appreciated the things I had to be thankful for.

I appreciated the love I held so deeply for this unforgettable human being.

"Why are we here so early?" I asked, yawning as Mika flipped himself over the back of a chair, seating himself in it. Lola did a summersault onto the stage. Colette shrugged as she walked down the aisle. Current time, 7:35 AM. Ferid was no where in sight, having left the moment we were inside. We were left to entertain ourselves until someone came to tell us what to do. It was something I had grown used to. Obeying every word spoken to me,
Although I still disobeyed most.
What can I say? It's fun to piss off the ringleader.
"Masochist."

"Mika, what was it like, being in this circus? I mean, before I joined."

"Really.. Strange. Lola is the only person who hasn't changed since I joined. Ferid used to be really headstrong, kind of like you, and Colette was more closed off, although she never failed to comfort me when I got lonely. I was forced to perform on the first day, unlike you. You can imagine that anxiety. The beating I had earned for not being intimidating made it worse the next day." He said. When he was younger, Mika was never able to be intimidating. He occasionally looked the part, but would bust out a horrible pun at the same time and ruin the ambiance.

"I also got to help Colette fabricate a personality, which was really entertaining." He mused.
"Is it the one that's crazy?"
"Nope. Remember, we don't know where she came from. It's the sarcastic and angry one."
"Why am I not surprised?"
"No idea, I'm always a sincere and happy person." He said, looking at me with an apathetic expression.

That's why I wasn't surprised. The bastard is more sarcastic than Kimizuki on a bad day.

"I also got into a lot of fights with Ferid. He won when I was a kid, but once puberty kicked in I was beating his ass. I still lost, though." He noted.

"Mika getting his ass handed to him by Ferid? Where did the badass I learned to adore go!" I cried, shaking his shoulders rapidly. He placed a hand on my face, Palm covering my mouth and nose, spread fingers covering parts of my vision.
"It went into you, probably." He said, hand dropping once he was steady, although he traced a thumb over my lips.
"Nah, you've still got it in you." I said. We were in two audience seats facing each other my legs crossed and his against his chest, with his left arm slung over them. Colette was dangling from a curtain in the ceiling somehow, and Lola was trying to shake her out of it, shouting furiously in what I assumed to be Spanish.
"How do you know?" He asked curiously, cocking his head to the side.

"Cuz, you're the only person I know that has managed to steal my heart and my underwear."

"I don't think that's a good example, Yuu."

"Shut your pie hole and accept your bad-assery, Shindo."