[ Yeah, Maruki could have guessed. And he knows enough to be able to fill in some blanks that Akechi glosses over with practiced ease. That much uprooting, that little attachment to stable adult figures, that level of uncertainty about something as basic as the security of a roof over your head and food on your plate– all have effects on a growing mind, and are hardly ever irrelevant.
Emancipation that young–
Makes sense, with regards to what he knows of Akechi's more recent home life, with the observations he's made about a loneliness he recognizes well in himself.
Makes no sense at all, with regards to everything he knows about the bureaucracy of their reality.
I do quite well for myself, as you know from the media – as if Maruki hasn't told him, recently at that, that he is more than that image. There is life outside of celebrity. What has he learned about that life? Akechi has been alone for three or four years, after an incredibly unstable childhood wrought by a traumatic event. He has never mentioned friends. He has never mentioned anyone. There is an image of doing well, and there is what lies under the surface. Maruki isn't a celebrity, not by a long shot, but he is someone who has to project the sense of having it together. He understands. He wishes he didn't – not for his sake, for Akechi's.
But none of it is anything he'll put pressure on or question. He's just grateful that Akechi felt comfortable enough to tell him anything, even if it's a sanitized version of the truth.
Maruki listens to him, watches him. Doesn't have any platitudes on the tip of his tongue as he normally would. Doesn't have anything except one simple statement: ]
I'm glad you're here, Akechi.
[ Here, in Somnius. Here, in the world at all, not a given by any means after a young life like that.
He doesn't let it linger. It isn't meant to start a sentimental, emotional conversation. It's just a fact. Akechi is here, and he's glad for it.
Maruki sits up enough to stretch his arms along the back of the tub, steam wafting off his skin. He rolls his neck to one side in a stretch, then the other. Laughs, just a huff of a breath, and a humorless one at that. ]
Anger against an unjust world, huh.
[ Nothing more to it than that. If their conversation about why their personas manifested wasn't as significant to Akechi as it was to him, then it can drop easily and they can move onto other topics. ]
no subject
Emancipation that young–
Makes sense, with regards to what he knows of Akechi's more recent home life, with the observations he's made about a loneliness he recognizes well in himself.
Makes no sense at all, with regards to everything he knows about the bureaucracy of their reality.
I do quite well for myself, as you know from the media – as if Maruki hasn't told him, recently at that, that he is more than that image. There is life outside of celebrity. What has he learned about that life? Akechi has been alone for three or four years, after an incredibly unstable childhood wrought by a traumatic event. He has never mentioned friends. He has never mentioned anyone. There is an image of doing well, and there is what lies under the surface. Maruki isn't a celebrity, not by a long shot, but he is someone who has to project the sense of having it together. He understands. He wishes he didn't – not for his sake, for Akechi's.
But none of it is anything he'll put pressure on or question. He's just grateful that Akechi felt comfortable enough to tell him anything, even if it's a sanitized version of the truth.
Maruki listens to him, watches him. Doesn't have any platitudes on the tip of his tongue as he normally would. Doesn't have anything except one simple statement: ]
I'm glad you're here, Akechi.
[ Here, in Somnius. Here, in the world at all, not a given by any means after a young life like that.
He doesn't let it linger. It isn't meant to start a sentimental, emotional conversation. It's just a fact. Akechi is here, and he's glad for it.
Maruki sits up enough to stretch his arms along the back of the tub, steam wafting off his skin. He rolls his neck to one side in a stretch, then the other. Laughs, just a huff of a breath, and a humorless one at that. ]
Anger against an unjust world, huh.
[ Nothing more to it than that. If their conversation about why their personas manifested wasn't as significant to Akechi as it was to him, then it can drop easily and they can move onto other topics. ]