[ The finality with which Aragaki keeps on reiterating his own death only barely fails to make Kim flinch. He doesn't, of course. He has a better poker face than that, one he's been working on since early childhood, able to look at anything in the eye unflinchingly, unchangingly. It does not mean that he is unaffected. It just means he's good at not showing it. But it's still a difficult thing to swallow, the unjustness of it all. A part of him wants to protest and say that it's very much possible to come back from a bullet wound - he's done it himself, after all - provided he was given immediate care, that if he is alive here, then he is alive in the only way that matters, but...
He knows that will only be a comforting lie. He tries not to tell those, as a general rule. They only come back to bite him in the ass later, even if the only person he is telling them to is himself. So he remains silent, quietly nursing the uncomfortable fact that Aragaki seems to take more comfort in his death than dread. All discomfort is his own, to be managed in his own time. He sets it deliberately aside. ]
We all lose people. And we all have to move on.
[ He takes a sip of his coffee, letting the sweetness linger on his tongue. ]
You might need to pretend for a little while. He may not be ready to confront it immediately -- just give him time. But in time, you two will have to talk about it and sort things out. There's no getting around that one. [ It is undeniably tragic that the kid had to live so long with vengeance burning at his heels, with a mystery at the heart of his mother's death, but that, too, is not so unfamiliar to Kim. He's from a generation of children who don't know precisely how their parents died, who is responsible, where even they're buried. Kim visited the mass grave where his parents were purportedly buried once. He didn't find that it gave him the closure others said it would. He doesn't think that killing their executioner would do it either. Dead is dead. ]
I don't know if the difficult part is the fact that he's got to move on. I think the true sticking point we're looking at here is that you have to as well.
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He knows that will only be a comforting lie. He tries not to tell those, as a general rule. They only come back to bite him in the ass later, even if the only person he is telling them to is himself. So he remains silent, quietly nursing the uncomfortable fact that Aragaki seems to take more comfort in his death than dread. All discomfort is his own, to be managed in his own time. He sets it deliberately aside. ]
We all lose people. And we all have to move on.
[ He takes a sip of his coffee, letting the sweetness linger on his tongue. ]
You might need to pretend for a little while. He may not be ready to confront it immediately -- just give him time. But in time, you two will have to talk about it and sort things out. There's no getting around that one. [ It is undeniably tragic that the kid had to live so long with vengeance burning at his heels, with a mystery at the heart of his mother's death, but that, too, is not so unfamiliar to Kim. He's from a generation of children who don't know precisely how their parents died, who is responsible, where even they're buried. Kim visited the mass grave where his parents were purportedly buried once. He didn't find that it gave him the closure others said it would. He doesn't think that killing their executioner would do it either. Dead is dead. ]
I don't know if the difficult part is the fact that he's got to move on. I think the true sticking point we're looking at here is that you have to as well.