( the difference is amazing, really. he can recognize his knee-jerk response is anger: anger because there's no way that fuuta would understand, anger because he still doesn't get it, anger because he's trying to talk him out of something that he truly believes in, something that has never been a second thought. he had known, back then, known when he'd woken up after three years, known when his voice creaked out of his throat sounding like puberty all wrong: his body would only last as long as he could force it to last, and even that might not be good enough. the world is all wrong, heroes are all wrong, society is fucked beyond repair, and if all he can do is take out one part of the disease, wipe out one part of the infection? then at least he can do that much, and at least he won't be a part of it anymore.
but that urge to take fuuta up in his hands and shake him, that acid anger to fuel him to hit him, beat into him, light him aflame: none of that stays. unlike that stupid game in the library, he doesn't feel any of that, doesn't want to rip fuuta away from him and say all the words that he knows he could, words that he could force between them to make fuuta turn away. the thing is, he doesn't want fuuta to turn away. it's fucking terrifying to think that it could happen, if he isn't careful--and that extinguishes all that anger like dirt thrown over a campfire.
instead, there's a sort of morose disappointment that he has to tell fuuta things that he knows he won't like. a part of him wonders if it even matters--someday this place won't matter, will it? someday they won't be here, and fuuta won't think of him anymore.
his arm tenses, a little, around fuuta's shoulders, but it's only so that he can tuck him in a little more comfortably into his side. there's a brief shake of his head. )
I already died. ( it's not necessarily true--or is it? he's never really known, despite the scant conversations he's had with garaki, how far it had to go. the organ replacements, the skin grafts: that he can understand, but had he really been alive, when they'd hauled his steaming husk of a body into the hospital? had he ever actually died? given out? had they brought him back? the panic he'd felt waking up in that hospital had overridden a lot of that information he'd been given; he had just wanted to find--
his head shakes again, a little, more like he's warring with himself, rather than anything else. head bowing, cheek brushed against fuuta's hair, he continues: quiet, low, like he's describing scenes out of a book, like they have no relation to him at all. )
--He kept making kids, trying to replace me. I kept training. I asked him to come meet me, to see how much I'd--to see how good I'd gotten, and he didn't come. I was like...thirteen. Up on this mountain near our place, this mountain he used to train at. He never came. He never came, and I lost control. And I burned to death. ...Near death. Whatever.
And now he has to die, and I don't have that much time left, like this. He has to die. And I'm dying with him. ( why does it feel--shameful? to admit that. it's the first time in his whole damn life that he's ever wondered: is this not right? ) That's the only reason I exist.
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but that urge to take fuuta up in his hands and shake him, that acid anger to fuel him to hit him, beat into him, light him aflame: none of that stays. unlike that stupid game in the library, he doesn't feel any of that, doesn't want to rip fuuta away from him and say all the words that he knows he could, words that he could force between them to make fuuta turn away. the thing is, he doesn't want fuuta to turn away. it's fucking terrifying to think that it could happen, if he isn't careful--and that extinguishes all that anger like dirt thrown over a campfire.
instead, there's a sort of morose disappointment that he has to tell fuuta things that he knows he won't like. a part of him wonders if it even matters--someday this place won't matter, will it? someday they won't be here, and fuuta won't think of him anymore.
his arm tenses, a little, around fuuta's shoulders, but it's only so that he can tuck him in a little more comfortably into his side. there's a brief shake of his head. )
I already died. ( it's not necessarily true--or is it? he's never really known, despite the scant conversations he's had with garaki, how far it had to go. the organ replacements, the skin grafts: that he can understand, but had he really been alive, when they'd hauled his steaming husk of a body into the hospital? had he ever actually died? given out? had they brought him back? the panic he'd felt waking up in that hospital had overridden a lot of that information he'd been given; he had just wanted to find--
his head shakes again, a little, more like he's warring with himself, rather than anything else. head bowing, cheek brushed against fuuta's hair, he continues: quiet, low, like he's describing scenes out of a book, like they have no relation to him at all. )
--He kept making kids, trying to replace me. I kept training. I asked him to come meet me, to see how much I'd--to see how good I'd gotten, and he didn't come. I was like...thirteen. Up on this mountain near our place, this mountain he used to train at. He never came. He never came, and I lost control. And I burned to death. ...Near death. Whatever.
And now he has to die, and I don't have that much time left, like this. He has to die. And I'm dying with him. ( why does it feel--shameful? to admit that. it's the first time in his whole damn life that he's ever wondered: is this not right? ) That's the only reason I exist.