[ It's the same story told through a different lens–
All we can do is fight alongside each other, in this world and our own, and protect each other so neither of us ever feels desperate enough to make a choice like that ever again.
I know how dangerous this is. How dangerous I am. I can't change what I've done, and I never would. I can only change what I do going forward.
–and for the first time, Maruki dares to believe that the story will go on.
It's so easy for him to develop tunnel vision. Too easy, really. It happened with his studies, with cognitive psience, with his research, with the prospect of healing all pains – and lately, it's been happening with what awaits him after his time in this reality is finally through.
But for all the possibilities he's conjured up, all the contingencies he's planned for–
Maruki's never considered what his future holds.
Whether they're able to change Akechi's fate or not, whether he's able to change his own fate or not– life still goes on after, and not once has he spared a single second for what he might want to do with his life. He pictures it now, as Akira talks about moving on, and it's so foreign, so jarring – a great, vast expanse of blank white space and the daunting task of holding the pen to begin filling it.
Where would he begin?
How would he even start to move on?
Akira can't tell him how, but he doesn't have to. The first day they met, he told him the only thing Maruki has ever needed to know:
If I won in a world without you in it, I'll never lose in one that has you.
No matter how he chooses to do it, he will move on. No matter how impossible it seems with his heart still so mired in that tangled, distorted sorrow, he will move on. He will, because he has Akira at his side – in this reality, in the true reality, in so many others.
He will.
Maruki has felt the bone-deep catharsis of being able to share this pain and feel even a sliver of his grief several times over in this world. He's phenomenally lucky to have met a few people who he trusts with the very depths of his soul, and they've all given him more acceptance and comfort than he ever could have dreamed of–
But Akira's presence, here and now, heralds the first time Maruki has ever shared his terrible story and felt a swell of hope.
Their hands are stacked, one of his sandwiched between both of Akira's. It's silly, but he reaches up with the one free hand remaining and adds it to the pile, and the smile that blooms across his face is warm even as it wavers. ]
You truly are my guiding light.
[ Maruki stands, then, dislodging his hands so he can instead press them onto Akira's shoulders instead. For a moment, he only holds him at arm's length there, overwhelmed with such profound gratitude that he doesn't know what else to say.
A deep, trembling inhale, and– ]
I feel like I never know how to thank you. And I know you'll tell me it's not necessary, and you'll mean it when you do– but there has to be something, Kurusu. There has to be some way I can show you even... even just a bit of the light you've shown me.
[ His hands squeeze, desperate to pull him in for a hug, but staying still for now. That's only happened while they were in the throes of the flower illness; this isn't nearly so dire, no matter how close Maruki felt to death as he stared that doppelganger down. ]
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All we can do is fight alongside each other, in this world and our own, and protect each other so neither of us ever feels desperate enough to make a choice like that ever again.
I know how dangerous this is. How dangerous I am. I can't change what I've done, and I never would. I can only change what I do going forward.
–and for the first time, Maruki dares to believe that the story will go on.
It's so easy for him to develop tunnel vision. Too easy, really. It happened with his studies, with cognitive psience, with his research, with the prospect of healing all pains – and lately, it's been happening with what awaits him after his time in this reality is finally through.
But for all the possibilities he's conjured up, all the contingencies he's planned for–
Maruki's never considered what his future holds.
Whether they're able to change Akechi's fate or not, whether he's able to change his own fate or not– life still goes on after, and not once has he spared a single second for what he might want to do with his life. He pictures it now, as Akira talks about moving on, and it's so foreign, so jarring – a great, vast expanse of blank white space and the daunting task of holding the pen to begin filling it.
Where would he begin?
How would he even start to move on?
Akira can't tell him how, but he doesn't have to. The first day they met, he told him the only thing Maruki has ever needed to know:
No matter how he chooses to do it, he will move on. No matter how impossible it seems with his heart still so mired in that tangled, distorted sorrow, he will move on. He will, because he has Akira at his side – in this reality, in the true reality, in so many others.
He will.
Maruki has felt the bone-deep catharsis of being able to share this pain and feel even a sliver of his grief several times over in this world. He's phenomenally lucky to have met a few people who he trusts with the very depths of his soul, and they've all given him more acceptance and comfort than he ever could have dreamed of–
But Akira's presence, here and now, heralds the first time Maruki has ever shared his terrible story and felt a swell of hope.
Their hands are stacked, one of his sandwiched between both of Akira's. It's silly, but he reaches up with the one free hand remaining and adds it to the pile, and the smile that blooms across his face is warm even as it wavers. ]
You truly are my guiding light.
[ Maruki stands, then, dislodging his hands so he can instead press them onto Akira's shoulders instead. For a moment, he only holds him at arm's length there, overwhelmed with such profound gratitude that he doesn't know what else to say.
A deep, trembling inhale, and– ]
I feel like I never know how to thank you. And I know you'll tell me it's not necessary, and you'll mean it when you do– but there has to be something, Kurusu. There has to be some way I can show you even... even just a bit of the light you've shown me.
[ His hands squeeze, desperate to pull him in for a hug, but staying still for now. That's only happened while they were in the throes of the flower illness; this isn't nearly so dire, no matter how close Maruki felt to death as he stared that doppelganger down. ]