Thanks! I...tend to write Ritsuka as less the flaily kid and more serious than he's usually portrayed, but then I tend to write him older, too. I think that Ritsuka'd read...well...blushed through...at least one book on psychology of submissives and probably a few on abnormal psychology by the time they'd this conversation. I was hoping that a bit of the psychology would come through on this: Ritsuka knows what he SHOULD do to help Soubi, but at the same time he knows that doing that would destroy Soubi as he was, and he wasn't all that confident that Soubi could put himself back together again. And if all Soubi needed was a little pain now and then to prove that Ritsuka loved him? Ritsuka figured that in the grand scheme of things, that's a small price to pay.

Glad you liked! :)