(you can pm me here or on plurk if you'd like to beforehand, but also if you'd just like to drop something at my doorstep with no preamble please do!!)
[He knows at the end of the day, he wouldn't choose any differently. But it doesn't change the fact that living in the machiya is torturous.
It's warm, and it's loving, and that's why it's a dagger into his back every day. Every moment, he can see the echoes of the Maruki Takuto that he lived with for almost an entire year, and it eats away at him, heart and mind.
This world is a cruel prison in which he must repent for both of the people he couldn't save.
With every new trick the world throws at him, it feels like he'll lose a piece of himself. The Kurusu Akira that went home after changing the heart of the person that was one of his best friends, and the Kurusu Akira that tumbled through worlds to find him again. Bleeding together, split apart, both of them ground down to dust until there's nothing left. When the flowers come for his throat, it's no surprise. Only a bitter acceptance.
He's tired all the time. Weak, and even after the alcove, still full of things he can't bring himself to say. Akira knows what he needs to do, but he still can't find the words, let alone the will.
Maruki didn't see it all. He didn't see the best and the worst of it. He wonders if he'd be better off, just letting the disease take him than having to say any of it.
The disease doesn't alter his mind, but thinking about all of it weakens his heart. Perhaps that's why he wanders, away from the kotatsu and down the halls, thoughtless yet with purpose.
Maybe that's why he ends up in front of Maruki's room.
He knocks quietly, and there's no answer. He pushes open the door, and the light is on.
Nothing else registers but Maruki, slumped over uncomfortably and asleep, glasses still on, so achingly familiar that he feels it in his teeth, slouched over the desk in their apartment in 7, and it takes months before they both overcome the pain enough to be near one another, and one night starts the rest of many, silently and gently sliding his glasses off without waking him
because his heart is weak.
and his heart is weak.
And his heart is still so very, very weak.
His confidant. His ally. His betrayer. His friend. Around Maruki Takuto, there has never been a day that his heart wasn't weak.
His hands reach out with muscle memory.
Akira's known that since he woke up here... hasn't he?
His fingers touch the frames he knows as well as his own, but- maybe it's because he's sick, so unsteady. Maybe it's because he's had to try so hard to stamp out the reflex to make sure he didn't fall asleep in them every night.
Whatever it is, Maruki stirs before he finishes.]
...!
[A wordless, breathless exclamation slips out of him, his whole body locking up as brown eyes blink open still unfocused with sleep.
He can't get himself to release his grip on the glasses. There's no words for how bad this is.
It's- too late to get out of it. Too late to explain it away. Akira swallows, and says the only thing left to say.]
I'm sorry. [A hoarse whisper dropped between them.] I didn't mean to wake you up.
This is why you get such bad headaches, you know...
If you didn't do it every time, I wouldn't have to say it every time. Silly man.
Come on. You're done working.
No, I know.
I know...
It'll still be there in the morning. Unless the zashiki-warashi comes to mess up all your papers? Ooh...
I'm kidding!
Oh, you look so tired.
No, I'll hang onto them, don't worry.
Just come close your eyes with me.
It's two in the morning. She has to be awake in four hours. Got up to get water, found him facedown in his books. A hand between his shoulder blades, a soft but sleep-roughened voice. Their apartment is a darkened blur as she takes him by the hand to lead him back to bed.
It's two in the morning. There's no one else in his apartment. No one is coming to look after him, and he never learned to be very good at looking after himself.
It's two in the morning– ]
Kurusu...?
[ Some synapses have crossed in his feverish mind, shoved this way and that by the flowering vines pushing their way up from his chest cavity. Surely that's the reason he dreams of Akira, and–
He blinks, feels how heavy his eyelids are. Tries to pick his head up, feels how it swims as the room around him lurches.
There are still wildflower petals in his pockets.
It's the farthest thing from a dream.
Maruki's eyes open wider, some of the haze clearing away. Akira's fingers are still curled around the frames.
At every turn, for months now, he's discovered something else that the Kurusu Akira he left behind on Christmas Eve would have no reason to know about him – yet it's all common knowledge to this Akira, the kind only afforded to a person over an extended period of close, constant contact.
He knows he's not the right Maruki. He saw the fear in Akira's eyes when they first met in the garden. He's seen the grief behind them ever since. Somewhere out there, there is a Maruki Takuto who knew a year of care with the most precious person still left in his life, and he's just as lost as this Akira is, and there is nothing Maruki can do for either of them.
He doesn't try to move his head, doesn't reach up to bat Akira's hand away. Just watches him, brows creasing in the middle in confusion and sympathy, illness and desperation making him weak. ]
It's alright. How did you know...?
i have to drop this. anyway cw: blood and petals we know the drill
[It comes for his throat, the way it always does. Petals and blood that choke him on their way up, slip out between his fingers even though one hand goes up to try and cover the resultant cough. It hurts. It's orange-yellow and purple, the way it always is.
He remembers everything from Rafflesia. It's always calendula and hyacinth. It's never a surprise.]
...You always fall asleep with them on.
[It carves out a piece of him to say it, but it's the only person he's willing to say it to. He refuses to talk to anybody about Maruki except with this Maruki himself. It already hurts him enough to tell it; he can't share with anyone else what belongs only to them.
Maybe that's something that will kill him, thanks to this disease. It's still too early to tell.]
I wasn't supposed to come in here. I don't know why I did. But when I saw you, I couldn't...
[He couldn't leave him like that. But really, he can never leave Maruki alone.
Because you're still him, no matter how much it hurts.
Because I couldn't save you, and I still don't know if you died.
Because there's no Kurusu Akira that can ignore the pain of Maruki Takuto, in this life or any other.]
[ Wishes are dangerous in a reality like this, but Maruki can't exactly help himself. Sometimes, he finds himself wishing that he and Akira could experience that phenomenon of altered memories from other realities entirely. He wishes he could stumble upon a rift one day and emerge as the Maruki Takuto that Akira knew in that strange city. Even if it only lasted an hour, at least he could have that time with the ghost that's been haunting him all these months.
Maybe it would hurt more, in the end, but...
Everything hurts, these days. One has to choose the lesser pains to endure.
Bloody flowers slip from between his fingers, and Maruki finally looks away from those honest eyes to watch a few flutter onto his desk. He picks them up, uncaring of the mess, thumb smoothing over the thin orange petals. ]
You're allowed to come in here. [ He hesitates before lifting his gaze again, knows his own soul will be bared when he says– ] I'm glad that you did. I've told you, I don't want you to hold back from the way you're used to acting with me.
[ Maruki isn't him, he knows that, but maybe he can be something close to it, if Akira keeps letting him in.
He scoots his chair back from the desk, looks around his room for want of any place for Akira to sit; there's really only the bed, or the desk itself. Still, though... ]
I'm not tired. [ Surely something Akira's heard him say before, with those glasses slipped off the bridge of is nose. ] Stay in here a while and talk to me. You're ill, and it'll help.
[ They both are, but he refuses to let Akira die. From anything this reality can throw at them, but especially this. ]
[He knows he should say no. It's terribly late, and Maruki was already tired; he shouldn't keep him up any longer when he's already feeling so poorly. And yet...
If he can get Maruki to talk, it might cure him. There's so much Akira knows, but it still might be enough.
And more importantly... he knows the time has long past since Akira could refuse a request like that from him.]
...Alright. [He shifts his weight, but doesn't sit.] Just for a little while. It's still late, and you should be resting.
[More, more, more - more knocks behind his teeth, ready to be let loose. I can make you tea, the non-caffeinated kind. It'll help. I can get blankets for you. I can stay in here until you fall asleep. Blood and petals and words mix together messily, and he isn't sure he can tell them apart.
Maybe he can distract Maruki with his own confessions long enough Akira can ignore any of his own.
Maybe the disease will take him before he has to worry about any of it.
Akira swallows it all down.]
But it isn't right to burden you anymore, with weights you shouldn't have to carry. [It's not your fault, he doesn't say, that I'm haunted by your every step and every breath.] Tell me what's been on your mind. Talking about it might help.
well no we can't BOTH go to the drop page. one of us has to suffer
[ It comes out small beneath Akira's words, the whisper as thin as a breath but insistent. He can't seem to make this Akira understand that. Maybe it would be the same with any Akira, but...
It tugs at his heartstrings in a particular way. He must feel like his existence here is nothing but a burden, when that's never been the case. All Maruki wants is to know him as well as that other version of himself did; there is no version of Maruki Takuto who could ever want something different.
It all coils inside him, thorny vines tugging and tearing at his trachea, thin petals sticking to the coating of blood at the base of his tongue. He tries to swallow it back and winds up coughing again, doubling over for a moment in his chair with the force of it, head pounding when he eventually raises it again. ]
Sit. Please. Honestly...
[ The exasperation is fond, despite all the pain still wheezing through his voice. Maruki gestures to the end of the bed not far away.
There's a spot of hesitation before he tacks on: ]
You're on my mind. You always are. I'm– [ Another cough, short and tucked into the crook of his arm before he drops it away again with an apologetic wince. ] I find myself envying the version of myself that you knew. Is that strange?
you're so right. thanks for letting me go first <3
[For a moment, his entire body locks up. A protest builds in his throat, ready to spill out and decline the seat.
Maybe it's the words, carving a hole straight through his chest. Maybe it's the cough, squeezing his throat like a voice for how much he can't stop it. Or maybe it's the fond exasperation, the weight of it achingly familiar... but not from their days in Tokyo.
Whatever it is, it makes Akira sit.]
...Not really. [A quiet answer dragged out of him over a protestation, yet even more words are shoved down. Whether it's about me or something else that's caught your eye... It's like you, to want to know more.] You're different enough that it catches me off guard sometimes. But he's still you. You're still him. I'd expect you to be curious about it.
[There's a pause, like he doesn't plan to say anything more, and then-]
It must feel so strange for you. [There's an unreadable tone that slips between his words, but... It almost feels sad. Maybe a closer word is melancholic.] Dealing with a Kurusu that shouldn't know all of these things about you.
[You're not a burden, but Akira has never felt heavier than he does now, and it has little to do with the malady plaguing his body.]
[ Maruki can catch the melancholy seeping through the cracks of Akira's tone; he's so attuned to sorrow, seeking it out in others like a bloodhound.
His chest is already heavy, and Akira sounding like that makes the vines twist tighter around his lungs. It must feel so strange, and it does, but... that's not the word Maruki would use. ]
Would you believe me if I told you that I take some amount of comfort in it?
[ Of course he does. When he looks at it only from the perspective of this Kurusu Akira, of that Maruki Takuto, how could he feel anything but grateful for what they had in that strange world? ]
I'm so glad that we've known one another in more than one life. It makes me wonder how many other realities are out there like that.
[ And it does. None of that is a lie.
None of that is a secret either, though. The only reason Maruki hasn't said it outright before is because they don't go out of their way to address the elephant in the room. It's shared freely, easily, and it doesn't lessen the tightness of his throat, doesn't make his lungs expand any easier.
He folds his hands in his lap, stares down at them as they wind together, thumbs stroking over knuckles methodically. From somewhere else in the machiya, there's distant coughing. They're all going to suffocate under the weight of their own secrets at this rate.
Maruki can't help them if he doesn't help himself first. An old axiom, one he's always hated for how true it is.
When he looks at it from their perspectives, he can't feel anything but gratitude. But when he forces himself to look at it from his own– ]
I just wish I could have lived that life too. For both our sakes.
[ It's only sorrow, in the end. Only a strange sort of jealousy for a world he'll never see, a Maruki Takuto he'll never be. Only regret, heavy at the base of his throat since the moment he failed to recognize their shared history in the garden. ]
I wish I was the person you left behind, because I want you to be able to smile again when you see him.
well. i've got bad news, boss. we will almost certainly do this again.
But it's easier, most days, to imagine that Akira failed. It isn't a lack of belief that he could live. It's that Akira must take responsibility for the life he didn't save.
His very worst dreams will always be the ones full of his hand, outstretched and useless.]
It still isn't fair to you. [Hoarse, quiet, and entirely truthful; it gives him the smallest measure of relief in his lungs, though that hadn't been Akira's intention. There's nothing else that Akira could ever imagine himself saying.] I don't want you to burden yourself with who you were to me. I want you to be able to smile, here, with the people that you've grown close to.
[Eren. Dolph. Akechi, inexplicably, of all people.
I just want you to be happy.
There are so few things that Akira wants for himself. But this is one of them.]
You don't have to chain yourself to the Maruki Takuto that I knew. I want-
[think of even one thing Maruki Takuto wants to do]
[ He does smile here with the people he's grown close to, but still–
In the end, he wants to smile with Akira, too. More than anyone else.
Opening himself up to that burden, getting through it together... he wants to believe that will make it possible for them to be happy, but perhaps it's not true. Perhaps the only thing that will ever soothe this Kurusu Akira will be making it back to the Maruki Takuto he left behind.
Still, all of that is swept away from the forefront of his mind at those words, weighted down heavy with a profound meaning he doesn't understand the source of.
I want you to want for yourself.
Maruki blinks at his friend, his guiding light, as another vine slowly unwinds from around his trachea. ]
He wasn't any better at doing that than I am, was he?
[ How could any Maruki Takuto learn to want for themselves? ]
I'm sorry. It must be frustrating, having to have the same conversations with a different version of me... but– [ It isn't their shared affliction that gives him pause this time, only sheer embarrassment. ] I don't really know how to do that. I've been trying. It's difficult.
He wasn't. [It's a quiet, thin whisper. Fragile as a gossamer thread.] But that isn't something you have to apologize to me for.
[Even later, he'll never know why he does it. He never had a conscious thought of it until it happened.
But his hand reaches out, out, out-
-and gently rests atop Maruki's joined hands.]
It isn't frustrating. I'll tell you that, in every life, no matter how many times it takes.
[Maybe he reaches out because he can't stop caring about Maruki Takuto, in any lifetime.
Maybe it's just that-
Even if I don't remember this, I'll never truly forget it either.]
I know it's difficult for you. It always has been, and I understand why now. [A year of watching his joys, his pains, his struggles.] It's just so hard to see you smile and give of yourself, over and over. It's so hard to see you smile over your pain. It... It hurts.
[A vine loosens in his chest.
Akira smiles, bittersweet, and he can't tell if it's from that, or from what he's about to say. After all... it's karmic, isn't it?]
...Maybe that's what I get. I'm sure that isn't dissimilar from what people think about me.
[It's not identical, but-
It's similar. Similar enough that Akira can finally understand the ways his friends worry for him. Similar enough that he wishes he knew the exact roadmap to guide Maruki out of the trappings of his own nature.]
Maruki's tired eyes go impossibly wide behind his glasses at that confession; he thinks he can hear Akira breathing easier after it's said, the words still lingering in the air between them even as he goes on, echoing softly. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts.
In trying to spare others the burden of his own feelings, he's hurt the person who always manages to see through his mask. Of course. Of course. It only makes sense, doesn't it? Because– ]
I– I understand. [ His hands twist together beneath Akira's grasp, so terrified to admit it himself. ] It hurts me to watch you do the same thing. It always has.
[ He can taste his own blood in his throat as thorned vines dislodge and slink away. The blossoms in his lungs are following suit, painfully slow but steady.
It's never hurt so badly to breathe clearly once more. ]
Maybe... [ The words come softly, slowly, because for once, Maruki is speaking the thoughts as they're occurring to him. There's nothing carefully considered and calculated about this now. ] Maybe showing our pains, at least to each other, would hurt less than plastering over them. That sounds counterintuitive, but... don't you think, Kurusu?
[ His hands turn over, fingers clasping clumsily around Akira's, as if he needs a lifeline for what he's trying to say. ]
I don't know if either of us can stop giving ourselves to others entirely, but if we at least try to be a little less selfless just with each other... [ His breath shakes, the backs of his teeth aching from how anathema this is to his entire being. Change requires discomfort, though, and Maruki knows he must change. ] Maybe we can both learn to want something for ourselves.
7dead subject line vc i always knew you'd come back
Regardless of what he thinks, wants, wishes - Akira knows that there will never be a world where it isn't wrong, where it isn't something unfair to saddle onto Maruki. He doesn't bear responsibility for Akira's pain anymore than he does his grieving heart. Wouldn't it only be cruel, to make him witness a pain he can never fix?
He doesn't want to be selfish with Maruki. He's beeh selfish with Maruki back home, in the other world, in this one. He's seen some demands on him here. It isn't right, to ask more when he's already asked too much.
Akira opens his mouth, and something else seizes his throat.]
If it's you... [His own fingers tie themselves against the ones clumsily grasping for him.] ...I think I could try.
[His ally. One of his dearest friends in any world. Betrayal and forgiveness and the only one that could ever, ever just see.
The moment those hands reached for him, the answer was already sealed with wax against his soul.]
I hope you can forgive me, if I take just a little bit more.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
i know we need to finish part 1 + alcove remix. but listen. nvm actually i can't talk abt this.
It's warm, and it's loving, and that's why it's a dagger into his back every day. Every moment, he can see the echoes of the Maruki Takuto that he lived with for almost an entire year, and it eats away at him, heart and mind.
This world is a cruel prison in which he must repent for both of the people he couldn't save.
With every new trick the world throws at him, it feels like he'll lose a piece of himself. The Kurusu Akira that went home after changing the heart of the person that was one of his best friends, and the Kurusu Akira that tumbled through worlds to find him again. Bleeding together, split apart, both of them ground down to dust until there's nothing left. When the flowers come for his throat, it's no surprise. Only a bitter acceptance.
He's tired all the time. Weak, and even after the alcove, still full of things he can't bring himself to say. Akira knows what he needs to do, but he still can't find the words, let alone the will.
Maruki didn't see it all. He didn't see the best and the worst of it. He wonders if he'd be better off, just letting the disease take him than having to say any of it.
The disease doesn't alter his mind, but thinking about all of it weakens his heart. Perhaps that's why he wanders, away from the kotatsu and down the halls, thoughtless yet with purpose.
Maybe that's why he ends up in front of Maruki's room.
He knocks quietly, and there's no answer. He pushes open the door, and the light is on.
Nothing else registers but Maruki, slumped over uncomfortably and asleep, glasses still on, so achingly familiar that he feels it in his teeth, slouched over the desk in their apartment in 7, and it takes months before they both overcome the pain enough to be near one another, and one night starts the rest of many, silently and gently sliding his glasses off without waking him
because his heart is weak.
and his heart is weak.
And his heart is still so very, very weak.
His confidant. His ally. His betrayer. His friend. Around Maruki Takuto, there has never been a day that his heart wasn't weak.
His hands reach out with muscle memory.
Akira's known that since he woke up here... hasn't he?
His fingers touch the frames he knows as well as his own, but- maybe it's because he's sick, so unsteady. Maybe it's because he's had to try so hard to stamp out the reflex to make sure he didn't fall asleep in them every night.
Whatever it is, Maruki stirs before he finishes.]
...!
[A wordless, breathless exclamation slips out of him, his whole body locking up as brown eyes blink open still unfocused with sleep.
He can't get himself to release his grip on the glasses. There's no words for how bad this is.
It's- too late to get out of it. Too late to explain it away. Akira swallows, and says the only thing left to say.]
I'm sorry. [A hoarse whisper dropped between them.] I didn't mean to wake you up.
diabolical of you
Takkun. Wake up.
Hey.
Let me take those. Isn't that better?
This is why you get such bad headaches, you know...
If you didn't do it every time, I wouldn't have to say it every time. Silly man.
Come on. You're done working.
No, I know.
I know...
It'll still be there in the morning. Unless the zashiki-warashi comes to mess up all your papers? Ooh...
I'm kidding!
Oh, you look so tired.
No, I'll hang onto them, don't worry.
Just come close your eyes with me.
It's two in the morning. She has to be awake in four hours. Got up to get water, found him facedown in his books. A hand between his shoulder blades, a soft but sleep-roughened voice. Their apartment is a darkened blur as she takes him by the hand to lead him back to bed.
It's two in the morning. There's no one else in his apartment. No one is coming to look after him, and he never learned to be very good at looking after himself.
It's two in the morning– ]
Kurusu...?
[ Some synapses have crossed in his feverish mind, shoved this way and that by the flowering vines pushing their way up from his chest cavity. Surely that's the reason he dreams of Akira, and–
He blinks, feels how heavy his eyelids are. Tries to pick his head up, feels how it swims as the room around him lurches.
There are still wildflower petals in his pockets.
It's the farthest thing from a dream.
Maruki's eyes open wider, some of the haze clearing away. Akira's fingers are still curled around the frames.
At every turn, for months now, he's discovered something else that the Kurusu Akira he left behind on Christmas Eve would have no reason to know about him – yet it's all common knowledge to this Akira, the kind only afforded to a person over an extended period of close, constant contact.
He knows he's not the right Maruki. He saw the fear in Akira's eyes when they first met in the garden. He's seen the grief behind them ever since. Somewhere out there, there is a Maruki Takuto who knew a year of care with the most precious person still left in his life, and he's just as lost as this Akira is, and there is nothing Maruki can do for either of them.
He doesn't try to move his head, doesn't reach up to bat Akira's hand away. Just watches him, brows creasing in the middle in confusion and sympathy, illness and desperation making him weak. ]
It's alright. How did you know...?
i have to drop this. anyway cw: blood and petals we know the drill
[It comes for his throat, the way it always does. Petals and blood that choke him on their way up, slip out between his fingers even though one hand goes up to try and cover the resultant cough. It hurts. It's orange-yellow and purple, the way it always is.
He remembers everything from Rafflesia. It's always calendula and hyacinth. It's never a surprise.]
...You always fall asleep with them on.
[It carves out a piece of him to say it, but it's the only person he's willing to say it to. He refuses to talk to anybody about Maruki except with this Maruki himself. It already hurts him enough to tell it; he can't share with anyone else what belongs only to them.
Maybe that's something that will kill him, thanks to this disease. It's still too early to tell.]
I wasn't supposed to come in here. I don't know why I did. But when I saw you, I couldn't...
[He couldn't leave him like that. But really, he can never leave Maruki alone.
Because you're still him, no matter how much it hurts.
Because I couldn't save you, and I still don't know if you died.
Because there's no Kurusu Akira that can ignore the pain of Maruki Takuto, in this life or any other.]
You should get back to sleep.
opens up the drop page- wait what
Maybe it would hurt more, in the end, but...
Everything hurts, these days. One has to choose the lesser pains to endure.
Bloody flowers slip from between his fingers, and Maruki finally looks away from those honest eyes to watch a few flutter onto his desk. He picks them up, uncaring of the mess, thumb smoothing over the thin orange petals. ]
You're allowed to come in here. [ He hesitates before lifting his gaze again, knows his own soul will be bared when he says– ] I'm glad that you did. I've told you, I don't want you to hold back from the way you're used to acting with me.
[ Maruki isn't him, he knows that, but maybe he can be something close to it, if Akira keeps letting him in.
He scoots his chair back from the desk, looks around his room for want of any place for Akira to sit; there's really only the bed, or the desk itself. Still, though... ]
I'm not tired. [ Surely something Akira's heard him say before, with those glasses slipped off the bridge of is nose. ] Stay in here a while and talk to me. You're ill, and it'll help.
[ They both are, but he refuses to let Akira die. From anything this reality can throw at them, but especially this. ]
Please.
hold on. bring me too.
If he can get Maruki to talk, it might cure him. There's so much Akira knows, but it still might be enough.
And more importantly... he knows the time has long past since Akira could refuse a request like that from him.]
...Alright. [He shifts his weight, but doesn't sit.] Just for a little while. It's still late, and you should be resting.
[More, more, more - more knocks behind his teeth, ready to be let loose. I can make you tea, the non-caffeinated kind. It'll help. I can get blankets for you. I can stay in here until you fall asleep. Blood and petals and words mix together messily, and he isn't sure he can tell them apart.
Maybe he can distract Maruki with his own confessions long enough Akira can ignore any of his own.
Maybe the disease will take him before he has to worry about any of it.
Akira swallows it all down.]
But it isn't right to burden you anymore, with weights you shouldn't have to carry. [It's not your fault, he doesn't say, that I'm haunted by your every step and every breath.] Tell me what's been on your mind. Talking about it might help.
well no we can't BOTH go to the drop page. one of us has to suffer
[ It comes out small beneath Akira's words, the whisper as thin as a breath but insistent. He can't seem to make this Akira understand that. Maybe it would be the same with any Akira, but...
It tugs at his heartstrings in a particular way. He must feel like his existence here is nothing but a burden, when that's never been the case. All Maruki wants is to know him as well as that other version of himself did; there is no version of Maruki Takuto who could ever want something different.
It all coils inside him, thorny vines tugging and tearing at his trachea, thin petals sticking to the coating of blood at the base of his tongue. He tries to swallow it back and winds up coughing again, doubling over for a moment in his chair with the force of it, head pounding when he eventually raises it again. ]
Sit. Please. Honestly...
[ The exasperation is fond, despite all the pain still wheezing through his voice. Maruki gestures to the end of the bed not far away.
There's a spot of hesitation before he tacks on: ]
You're on my mind. You always are. I'm– [ Another cough, short and tucked into the crook of his arm before he drops it away again with an apologetic wince. ] I find myself envying the version of myself that you knew. Is that strange?
you're so right. thanks for letting me go first <3
Maybe it's the words, carving a hole straight through his chest. Maybe it's the cough, squeezing his throat like a voice for how much he can't stop it. Or maybe it's the fond exasperation, the weight of it achingly familiar... but not from their days in Tokyo.
Whatever it is, it makes Akira sit.]
...Not really. [A quiet answer dragged out of him over a protestation, yet even more words are shoved down. Whether it's about me or something else that's caught your eye... It's like you, to want to know more.] You're different enough that it catches me off guard sometimes. But he's still you. You're still him. I'd expect you to be curious about it.
[There's a pause, like he doesn't plan to say anything more, and then-]
It must feel so strange for you. [There's an unreadable tone that slips between his words, but... It almost feels sad. Maybe a closer word is melancholic.] Dealing with a Kurusu that shouldn't know all of these things about you.
[You're not a burden, but Akira has never felt heavier than he does now, and it has little to do with the malady plaguing his body.]
this sucks let's never do this again
His chest is already heavy, and Akira sounding like that makes the vines twist tighter around his lungs. It must feel so strange, and it does, but... that's not the word Maruki would use. ]
Would you believe me if I told you that I take some amount of comfort in it?
[ Of course he does. When he looks at it only from the perspective of this Kurusu Akira, of that Maruki Takuto, how could he feel anything but grateful for what they had in that strange world? ]
I'm so glad that we've known one another in more than one life. It makes me wonder how many other realities are out there like that.
[ And it does. None of that is a lie.
None of that is a secret either, though. The only reason Maruki hasn't said it outright before is because they don't go out of their way to address the elephant in the room. It's shared freely, easily, and it doesn't lessen the tightness of his throat, doesn't make his lungs expand any easier.
He folds his hands in his lap, stares down at them as they wind together, thumbs stroking over knuckles methodically. From somewhere else in the machiya, there's distant coughing. They're all going to suffocate under the weight of their own secrets at this rate.
Maruki can't help them if he doesn't help himself first. An old axiom, one he's always hated for how true it is.
When he looks at it from their perspectives, he can't feel anything but gratitude. But when he forces himself to look at it from his own– ]
I just wish I could have lived that life too. For both our sakes.
[ It's only sorrow, in the end. Only a strange sort of jealousy for a world he'll never see, a Maruki Takuto he'll never be. Only regret, heavy at the base of his throat since the moment he failed to recognize their shared history in the garden. ]
I wish I was the person you left behind, because I want you to be able to smile again when you see him.
well. i've got bad news, boss. we will almost certainly do this again.
Maybe. The real answer is maybe.
But it's easier, most days, to imagine that Akira failed. It isn't a lack of belief that he could live. It's that Akira must take responsibility for the life he didn't save.
His very worst dreams will always be the ones full of his hand, outstretched and useless.]
It still isn't fair to you. [Hoarse, quiet, and entirely truthful; it gives him the smallest measure of relief in his lungs, though that hadn't been Akira's intention. There's nothing else that Akira could ever imagine himself saying.] I don't want you to burden yourself with who you were to me. I want you to be able to smile, here, with the people that you've grown close to.
[Eren. Dolph. Akechi, inexplicably, of all people.
I just want you to be happy.
There are so few things that Akira wants for himself. But this is one of them.]
You don't have to chain yourself to the Maruki Takuto that I knew. I want-
[think of even one thing Maruki Takuto wants to do]
-you to want for yourself.
you're right we are our own worst enemies as ever
In the end, he wants to smile with Akira, too. More than anyone else.
Opening himself up to that burden, getting through it together... he wants to believe that will make it possible for them to be happy, but perhaps it's not true. Perhaps the only thing that will ever soothe this Kurusu Akira will be making it back to the Maruki Takuto he left behind.
Still, all of that is swept away from the forefront of his mind at those words, weighted down heavy with a profound meaning he doesn't understand the source of.
I want you to want for yourself.
Maruki blinks at his friend, his guiding light, as another vine slowly unwinds from around his trachea. ]
He wasn't any better at doing that than I am, was he?
[ How could any Maruki Takuto learn to want for themselves? ]
I'm sorry. It must be frustrating, having to have the same conversations with a different version of me... but– [ It isn't their shared affliction that gives him pause this time, only sheer embarrassment. ] I don't really know how to do that. I've been trying. It's difficult.
i hate what yama does to us
[Even later, he'll never know why he does it. He never had a conscious thought of it until it happened.
But his hand reaches out, out, out-
-and gently rests atop Maruki's joined hands.]
It isn't frustrating. I'll tell you that, in every life, no matter how many times it takes.
[Maybe he reaches out because he can't stop caring about Maruki Takuto, in any lifetime.
Maybe it's just that-
Even if I don't remember this, I'll never truly forget it either.]
I know it's difficult for you. It always has been, and I understand why now. [A year of watching his joys, his pains, his struggles.] It's just so hard to see you smile and give of yourself, over and over. It's so hard to see you smile over your pain. It... It hurts.
[A vine loosens in his chest.
Akira smiles, bittersweet, and he can't tell if it's from that, or from what he's about to say. After all... it's karmic, isn't it?]
...Maybe that's what I get. I'm sure that isn't dissimilar from what people think about me.
[It's not identical, but-
It's similar. Similar enough that Akira can finally understand the ways his friends worry for him. Similar enough that he wishes he knew the exact roadmap to guide Maruki out of the trappings of his own nature.]
surprise bitch bet you forgot about this one
Maruki's tired eyes go impossibly wide behind his glasses at that confession; he thinks he can hear Akira breathing easier after it's said, the words still lingering in the air between them even as he goes on, echoing softly. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts.
In trying to spare others the burden of his own feelings, he's hurt the person who always manages to see through his mask. Of course. Of course. It only makes sense, doesn't it? Because– ]
I– I understand. [ His hands twist together beneath Akira's grasp, so terrified to admit it himself. ] It hurts me to watch you do the same thing. It always has.
[ He can taste his own blood in his throat as thorned vines dislodge and slink away. The blossoms in his lungs are following suit, painfully slow but steady.
It's never hurt so badly to breathe clearly once more. ]
Maybe... [ The words come softly, slowly, because for once, Maruki is speaking the thoughts as they're occurring to him. There's nothing carefully considered and calculated about this now. ] Maybe showing our pains, at least to each other, would hurt less than plastering over them. That sounds counterintuitive, but... don't you think, Kurusu?
[ His hands turn over, fingers clasping clumsily around Akira's, as if he needs a lifeline for what he's trying to say. ]
I don't know if either of us can stop giving ourselves to others entirely, but if we at least try to be a little less selfless just with each other... [ His breath shakes, the backs of his teeth aching from how anathema this is to his entire being. Change requires discomfort, though, and Maruki knows he must change. ] Maybe we can both learn to want something for ourselves.
7dead subject line vc i always knew you'd come back
Regardless of what he thinks, wants, wishes - Akira knows that there will never be a world where it isn't wrong, where it isn't something unfair to saddle onto Maruki. He doesn't bear responsibility for Akira's pain anymore than he does his grieving heart. Wouldn't it only be cruel, to make him witness a pain he can never fix?
He doesn't want to be selfish with Maruki. He's beeh selfish with Maruki back home, in the other world, in this one. He's seen some demands on him here. It isn't right, to ask more when he's already asked too much.
Akira opens his mouth, and something else seizes his throat.]
If it's you... [His own fingers tie themselves against the ones clumsily grasping for him.] ...I think I could try.
[His ally. One of his dearest friends in any world. Betrayal and forgiveness and the only one that could ever, ever just see.
The moment those hands reached for him, the answer was already sealed with wax against his soul.]
I hope you can forgive me, if I take just a little bit more.
[Because I'll never be able to forgive myself.]