you love playing the victim when it’s convenient. / @runeians riko for jean?! 👁️
Jean does not have the luxury for his head to spin. He's been violently corralling his attention to the present since the moment he realized Kevin wasn't coming back — the moment he had met Riko's eyes and known, deep in the marrow of his bones, that something fundamental had shattered.
An hour, he'd asked for, just distract him for an hour.
Because he knew that Jean would. For him ? Anything.
So, no, Jean is certainly not a victim. He is a Moreau; this is precisely what he deserves. This is what he was born for, raised for, lives for, and will most likely die for: to serve the Moriyamas, all until the bitter end. Everything he has endured he has walked into willingly — whether it's his poor performance on the court, or the way his eyes instinctually wandered, or unknowingly lying long enough for Kevin Day to disappear from the Nest.
( he does not think about Kevin's hand and the mangled flesh and the spurt of blood as bones crushed and Kevin jerked under Jean's hold — )
❝ I did not know. ❞ Pleading his case is useless. It's an excuse. But there's this feral part of him that no one ever managed to kill that clings to life with every claw. And a softer, stupider part of him that should have died too that begs to see something in Riko's eyes other than distant fury.
( after all this, he's still just a stupid child, thinking that he might find any trace of affection when he looks at Riko. wanting it. )
❝ Kevin belongs here, ❞ he wheezes through the blood in his mouth. ❝ He — ❞ but it's not Kevin's fault. It's not Kevin lying. It's Jean's fault. It has to be Jean's fault. Flawless, untouchable Kevin could not have done something so wretched. ❝ I thought he would come back. I did, I would never let him go. ❞









