Akira's fingers flex on the table like he's been struck, even if the rest of his body is still.
"Everything!!!"]
...I know.
[Akira shouldn't have done this. Meeting his eyes is more painful than staring into the sun.
"Why Rumi...?!"
...He wants to think he shouldn't have done this, because it would've been easier on both of them if he hadn't. Facing Maruki in pain is still more raw and gutting than facing him on the battlefield ever was. But to think that is to reject the truth that he's just acknowledged, that this moment will still mean more than anything to him even if it turns out that fate has deigned neither of them will ever have the memory of it.
So he balls up that pain in his chest to give himself just a little bit more strength.]
But that doesn't mean your life has to begin and end in that place.
[And then, for a second time, Akira breaks the one thing he told himself not to do the first time he ever saw him in this world - he reaches out and gently places his hands over Maruki's.
He holds them there, just for a moment. And then he presses down, so together they set the cup on the tabletop where neither of them can cause it to shake.]
What happened to you... to both of you was terrible. I won't condone what you did because of it, and I won't condemn you for it either. But you've punished yourself enough for it.
[Over and over and over, until Akira helped him flay himself raw on a glass staircase to heaven, freedom found in the pain that he rejected so fiercely.]
Letting go of that doesn't mean that you're terrible, or wrong, or selfish. It doesn't mean that you didn't love her, or that you can't still. And it doesn't mean that you've forgotten her or what both of you went through. What it means is you're learning how to heal from something that hurt you.
[Fingers squeeze over the backs of his hands. Here, he thinks with all his might against a distortion and broken heart that he can't fix with these too-weak hands. Stay here, with me, in this moment right now. Don't look backwards anymore.]
You still have many tomorrows, Maruki. You don't have to live in one yesterday anymore.
yet another terrible day for all of us to have eyes
Akira's fingers flex on the table like he's been struck, even if the rest of his body is still.
"Everything!!!"]
...I know.
[Akira shouldn't have done this. Meeting his eyes is more painful than staring into the sun.
"Why Rumi...?!"
...He wants to think he shouldn't have done this, because it would've been easier on both of them if he hadn't. Facing Maruki in pain is still more raw and gutting than facing him on the battlefield ever was. But to think that is to reject the truth that he's just acknowledged, that this moment will still mean more than anything to him even if it turns out that fate has deigned neither of them will ever have the memory of it.
So he balls up that pain in his chest to give himself just a little bit more strength.]
But that doesn't mean your life has to begin and end in that place.
[And then, for a second time, Akira breaks the one thing he told himself not to do the first time he ever saw him in this world - he reaches out and gently places his hands over Maruki's.
He holds them there, just for a moment. And then he presses down, so together they set the cup on the tabletop where neither of them can cause it to shake.]
What happened to you... to both of you was terrible. I won't condone what you did because of it, and I won't condemn you for it either. But you've punished yourself enough for it.
[Over and over and over, until Akira helped him flay himself raw on a glass staircase to heaven, freedom found in the pain that he rejected so fiercely.]
Letting go of that doesn't mean that you're terrible, or wrong, or selfish. It doesn't mean that you didn't love her, or that you can't still. And it doesn't mean that you've forgotten her or what both of you went through. What it means is you're learning how to heal from something that hurt you.
[Fingers squeeze over the backs of his hands. Here, he thinks with all his might against a distortion and broken heart that he can't fix with these too-weak hands. Stay here, with me, in this moment right now. Don't look backwards anymore.]
You still have many tomorrows, Maruki. You don't have to live in one yesterday anymore.