[ While Akira speaks, all Maruki can do is stare up at him, completely arrested.
The hand on his shoulder is the anchoring weight that tells him this this hasn't all been some sort of dream. Because what else could it be, when he's finally admitted the worst truth of all to Akira and received not only acceptance and understanding, but a peek into the depths of his own heart as well?
It would've eroded away me, and all at once, Maruki has so many questions that may never be answered. Akira speaks so little about himself, and somehow even less about the circumstances that he came from. He's always thought that the beginning of his time in Tokyo must have been so painful, so isolating, and maybe it was, but–
It was an escape. A necessary one, to keep from slipping away from this world, to become the person he was meant to be.
Had Akira not escaped, they never would have met. That goes for the Akira in his own reality, and the one who stands before him now.
And–
for the first time in his life–
Maruki wonders if he hasn't been crushed under an impossible weight for all these years too.
Just like that, with nothing more than his own story relayed and a comforting grip on one shoulder, Akira shifts something that's been stubbornly stuck inside his heart. Some twist of the knotted, gnarled distortion that still lives in there begins to unwind. If his own pain is real, if it goes beyond the all-consuming grief of losing Rumi, if he's been drowning himself in this guilt and loneliness–
Who will set him free?
No one can do that but Maruki and the person standing before him.
Somewhere above them, stretching so high into the sky that it reaches another time in another reality entirely, there is– was– will be a staircase, and a battle, and a hand wrapped around his wrist.
Here and now, Akira's palm is warm over the tense, tired muscle of his shoulder, and Maruki finds himself reaching up to cover it with his own hand. ]
No.
[ There's so much more he needs to say, to all of that, but first– ]
No, I haven't. I can't. I haven't even seen her. Today was the first day I've ever– but it wasn't her, of course.
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The hand on his shoulder is the anchoring weight that tells him this this hasn't all been some sort of dream. Because what else could it be, when he's finally admitted the worst truth of all to Akira and received not only acceptance and understanding, but a peek into the depths of his own heart as well?
It would've eroded away me, and all at once, Maruki has so many questions that may never be answered. Akira speaks so little about himself, and somehow even less about the circumstances that he came from. He's always thought that the beginning of his time in Tokyo must have been so painful, so isolating, and maybe it was, but–
It was an escape. A necessary one, to keep from slipping away from this world, to become the person he was meant to be.
Had Akira not escaped, they never would have met. That goes for the Akira in his own reality, and the one who stands before him now.
And–
for the first time in his life–
Maruki wonders if he hasn't been crushed under an impossible weight for all these years too.
Just like that, with nothing more than his own story relayed and a comforting grip on one shoulder, Akira shifts something that's been stubbornly stuck inside his heart. Some twist of the knotted, gnarled distortion that still lives in there begins to unwind. If his own pain is real, if it goes beyond the all-consuming grief of losing Rumi, if he's been drowning himself in this guilt and loneliness–
Who will set him free?
No one can do that but Maruki and the person standing before him.
Somewhere above them, stretching so high into the sky that it reaches another time in another reality entirely, there is– was– will be a staircase, and a battle, and a hand wrapped around his wrist.
Here and now, Akira's palm is warm over the tense, tired muscle of his shoulder, and Maruki finds himself reaching up to cover it with his own hand. ]
No.
[ There's so much more he needs to say, to all of that, but first– ]
No, I haven't. I can't. I haven't even seen her. Today was the first day I've ever– but it wasn't her, of course.