[ It's easy enough to bottle these things up, when you know nobody will know. When you get to decide who gets to hear it, if anybody ever will. It's second nature to keep his history locked up tight, keeping everything down in his shadow with him. It's not anybody's problem but his own. Not anybody's burden but his own. It'd be easier if people would learn that and just quit asking, know he's doing them a favor by doing it.
It's not so easy to lock it up, naturally, when the world puts it on stage.
What good does understanding and being forgiven do? Or wishing for something else? These things have already happened, regardless of what he wanted.
The question, itself, does make him twitch. 'Did you truly want to die this way' isn't something most people get asked. ]
....It's too late to be thinking about shit like that. [ His voice is slow. ] What-ifs don't matter anymore. Wouldn't have mattered much to me back then, either. Was already on borrowed time.
[ The loud crunch of a foot slamming into skull hits the air, and he doesn't bother turning this time, to watch himself hit the floor again. He does, however, to look once Ken steps forward.
The Navigator...It's me.
Did he always look this small? He'd always been a short kid, but here, he just looks...tiny. The lines under his eyes are as deep as Shinjiro's, even if the grip on his spear seems to shake minutely.
It's the only reason they let me join, even though I'm a kid.
A sputter. Another kick.
...It doesn't matter now. I'll never get my revenge. His grip falters, and his own gaze falls, face scrunching in a form of despair that makes Shinjiro's features tighten. I don't have any reason to live...what's the point in fighting anymore...?
Now that he hears it again in some clarity, that isn't muffled by the sinking nightmares he usually had, it's almost sickening how similar they are. That he spent so long wallowing in his misery, when he'd made someone the same as himself. That he knew that, too, and maybe that's why he kept running.
If he didn't know, then maybe Ken would have been better off. But would he really have wanted that, to have gotten away with it somehow? ]
...He shouldn't have had to feel like that. [ Ken, not him. Because he'd always put everyone else before himself, even in his darkest hour. ] And I figured I deserved it, 'cause it was my fault.
cw: suicide ideation
It's not so easy to lock it up, naturally, when the world puts it on stage.
What good does understanding and being forgiven do? Or wishing for something else? These things have already happened, regardless of what he wanted.
The question, itself, does make him twitch. 'Did you truly want to die this way' isn't something most people get asked. ]
....It's too late to be thinking about shit like that. [ His voice is slow. ] What-ifs don't matter anymore. Wouldn't have mattered much to me back then, either. Was already on borrowed time.
[ The loud crunch of a foot slamming into skull hits the air, and he doesn't bother turning this time, to watch himself hit the floor again. He does, however, to look once Ken steps forward.
The Navigator...It's me.
Did he always look this small? He'd always been a short kid, but here, he just looks...tiny. The lines under his eyes are as deep as Shinjiro's, even if the grip on his spear seems to shake minutely.
It's the only reason they let me join, even though I'm a kid.
A sputter. Another kick.
...It doesn't matter now. I'll never get my revenge. His grip falters, and his own gaze falls, face scrunching in a form of despair that makes Shinjiro's features tighten. I don't have any reason to live...what's the point in fighting anymore...?
Now that he hears it again in some clarity, that isn't muffled by the sinking nightmares he usually had, it's almost sickening how similar they are. That he spent so long wallowing in his misery, when he'd made someone the same as himself. That he knew that, too, and maybe that's why he kept running.
If he didn't know, then maybe Ken would have been better off. But would he really have wanted that, to have gotten away with it somehow? ]
...He shouldn't have had to feel like that. [ Ken, not him. Because he'd always put everyone else before himself, even in his darkest hour. ] And I figured I deserved it, 'cause it was my fault.