[It's a nice sentiment, of course; no, neither of them should've gone through it. He'd give anything to take it back if he could, but you can't change the past. It had always been straightforward to him, the notion of simply fading away and letting others move on without him, but now that he's confronted with the very evidence of the future that's carried on without him, he feels off-balance.
So he doesn't really know how to react to Kitsuragi's compassion when it comes, nor his very sensible understanding of the position Amada was in as a newcomer to this strange, terrible place. Instead, he reacts to the most straightforward part of the message:]
sure your place or somewhere else
[Shinjiro's not just going to assume he's welcome to drop by the man's place again even when he's been otherwise open to this conversation. At the same time, he's not going to insist on some neutral location either, if the man would prefer not to inconvenience himself any more than he already has.]
That depends. If the kid wakes up and goes looking for you, is he going to be all right if you're as far as my place?
[ He had clung to Aragaki in a moment of weakness, or so it seems, someone he had previously known as dead. To wake up and find him missing - even with a note - may be... startling. But as of right now, that's his biggest concern. ]
You can leave a note, of course. If you think it'll be fine, then come here. If not, I'll come to you.
[Shit. He hadn't thought of that. Would Amada be alright, if he woke up in the middle of the night and found himself alone? Shinjiro's instinct is, of course, he's a tough kid. Volunteered to be part of SEES and everything. The idea of giving someone else an accounting of his whereabouts, too, is discomforting; he'd prefer no one pay attention to or care about his existence to the extent that his absence for a few hours might be noticeable. But then, leaving the kid alone again feels like a shitty thing to do, when he has nobody better to take him. Watching Amada's back is the least he owes him, as far as not being in the ground goes.
There's a long stretch of silence, probably a good five minutes or more of internal debate, before the next response.]
i'll leave him a note
[...It's selfish of him, he knows it. But he can't bear the risk of Amada waking up and actually overhearing them talking. What's one more shitty thing on his conscience, on top of everything else?]
[ As the minutes draw by, Kim practically thinks that Shinji has lost his nerve, changed his mind, chosen to stew in the dreadful discomfort of the situation he's found himself in. Or had fallen asleep, body crashing after the thrum of adrenaline he must have been running on for so long. But eventually, Kim's communicator buzzes again, and Kim steels himself for the difficult conversation to come.
This, at least, Kim is at least halfway equipped to talk about. Not the loss, not the responsibility of bearing the weight of a child's well-being, not being plagued with the devastation of all this at Shinji's young age -- but guilt is an old bedfellow of Kim's. A stranger that dogs his steps, shadowing his step, a gentle lover that slips into bed with him and wraps him in its arms, a parent leaving a light on in the window and beckoning him home.
By the time Shinji arrives, Kim hasn't bothered changing out of his sleep clothes - grey sweats with the drawstring strung tight and a loose white shirt, hair stubbornly rumpled - but the familiar smell of coffee permeates the air. ]
Hello. Coffee's on, if you don't intend to sleep any more tonight.
[As Shinjiro makes his way over, he has the slow-dawning uncomfortable realization that this will be the third time Kitsuragi has invited him into his space to handle a difficult situation. The first had been fresh from arrival, when he was still healing from the gunshots and the man had wanted him to have a safe, clean place to rest for a few hours. The second, he'd wandered there in a daze, not even realizing where he was going until he'd landed at Kitsuragi's doorstep shaking and hyperventilating.
Now here he is heading over there by choice to talk about his shit because he can't sleep. It's embarrassing. At the back of his mind he wonders if there's anything the man needs done around his place...maybe he can ask later. Seeing Kitsuragi with his sleep tousled hair and informal clothes is jarring in its own way, too, and he half-wonders if the man had been entirely honest about having already been awake when Shinjiro had contacted him, but he pushes the thought aside and nods at the man's greeting. ]
Thanks.
[He makes no move toward the table where they sat at before, though, simply lingering inside his threshold while he waits to be directed wherever Kitsuragi would prefer he goes.]
[ Kim locks the door behind Aragaki, gesturing for him to sit down at the table. Kim's place looks nearly as sparse as it did last time, if Aragaki has the presence of mind to look around; there is a crossword puzzle half filled out in pen on the table, the book folded over on itself, traces of a tv dinner cardboard shell neatly folded and tucked in the recycling as though recycling means anything in this place, a pair of dark blue weights inobtrusively placed in a corner. Kim sets two mugs of coffee down on the table between them, dehydrated milk powder and a small bowl of sugar already waiting for them.
Kim tries to take his coffee black for the most part, but for this conversation, he allows himself a spoonful of sugar as he looks Aragaki over. He looks just about as tired as Kim would expect him to look.
For all that Kim's appearance is uncharacteristically disheveled, the way he sits perched on the edge of his chair, spine straight and expression stoic, creates the illusion that he may well be in uniform. ]
So. Things here have become even more complicated than they already were, hm?
[He finds himself feeling a lot more aware of the space than he did before, perhaps because he was simply too out of it to be self-conscious either previous time. Now, every little thing he's intruding upon, such as the unfinished crossword, stands out in sharp relief.
The coffee makes for a great distraction, though; he's not quite so much of a tough guy that he needs to pretend to like coffee black on a good day, and the idea of pretense tonight is especially exhausting. He does up the coffee to his own taste before he looks up, taking a sip to buy him a moment before speaking.]
You can say that again.
[A small sigh. He stares back down at the mug after a moment, feeling a little too exposed and vulnerable to hold the older man's gaze.]
I heard this kind of thing could happen, but I never actually expected it would.
[He's been here five months already with no sign of anyone he knew, from SEES or otherwise. Most seemed to have their fellows from their world with them upon arrival or shortly thereafter. It's weird.]
What, people from home arriving? I suppose that must have come as a surprise.
[ It's something Kim has been preparing for himself, even if a larger part of him doubts that he'll ever see anyone again. It was difficult not to think of it, after everything that happened in the shopping mall. To prepare for criminals he had long since handed over to the MoralIntern, the bereaved families he never cared for just right, Eyes -- hell, even his parents. Who knows? Nothing here is an impossibility.
But Aragaki must not have even wanted to dwell on such a painful thought. Too bad. What you want, what you deserve, and what you get are most frequently three disparate concepts. ]
But we deal with what comes to us. I never expected to be here either. [ He rubs his thumb - bare, absent of the gloves he's almost always wearing - against the rim of his cup, radiating heat. ] I suppose the question is now... what is your priority, now that he is here? Will you try to get him to live somewhere safe away from you? Or will he stay with you?
...More like, people showin' up from after I died.
[It's a little pathetic, maybe, that he would've had an easier time if Amada came from a time when he still wanted revenge, but instead he no longer really knows where he stands in the kid's life -- they're now tied together mostly by a sense of mutual obligation and guilt rather than any true camaraderie.
He rubs at his neck somewhat uncomfortably as Kitsuragi shifts toward the practicalities, though. That is ultimately the crux of his current crisis, after all.]
I mean...s'like I said, I ain't about to tell him he can't stay with me. When I ran into him, I told 'im if he never wanted to see my face again, to say the word and I'd disappear.
[There's a long, hesitating moment where he considers confessing the favor he'd been prepared to ask, if Amada had taken him up on that offer, but ultimately thinks better of it. Better he doesn't saddle Kitsuragi explicitly with the notion that he has nobody else. He shakes his head with a sigh.]
But he didn't, so. Here we are.
[Of course, if it were as simple as that, he wouldn't have been trying to get advice at 3 am, but he's not sure how to grapple with his complicated feelings or even how to define them. He keeps staring into his coffee, as though the liquid might hold some great answers for him along with his reflection.]
It's not...the living together part that's the weirdest. We shared a dorm for about a month before I died. If we were just stayin' together temporarily for convenience again, that'd be different, y'know?
[It wouldn't be so terrifyingly close to forgiveness.]
[ Kim laces his fingers together, humming a little under his breath as he considers the situation. It's a thorny one, and one he has no business sticking his nose into. He has no answers, barely has a good grasp on things as it is; underneath different circumstances, he would urge Aragaki to ask a teacher, a mentor, a parental figure, a mental health professional, someone with a better idea of where Aragaki is coming from. This feels too much like getting involved. It may well backfire on any one of them, and then who's to blame?
But it's gone a little beyond the sole purpose of duty now. If it was still duty alone, perhaps he wouldn't feel so uneasy. He cares, though, wants life to be easier for this poor kid - this dead kid - grappling with things beyond most adults' grasp. He wonders, momentarily, if he should be advocating for Aragaki's well-being or the new kid's.
Or perhaps their well-being is one and the same, in the end. ]
Guilt is something that... sometimes you feel that you must live with it, in order to atone. It's a natural way to feel. But even if it doesn't feel that way, guilt can be a very selfish emotion. We have to wonder who it's serving to feel that way, and why. How it can burden the very people we want to do right by.
[ He looks up at Aragaki. He will not share who he's thinking of in this moment. He cannot. In many ways, he is not as strong as Aragaki is; it has been years since Eyes' death, and yet it still pains him too much to speak on it. But he can't help but think of the horrible aftermath, how his guilt did nothing but burden the wife and child that Dom had left behind, how what they needed was support and not the murmured apologies and cringing deference of the partner who had survived. It had been a terrible thing to grapple with. He had half hoped to be reprimanded, hit, scorned.
That's not what they needed. They needed someone to share in the good memories. To bring groceries to their door. To crouch by his child and play with her, in Kim's own graceless way. His self-recrimination did nothing but hurt them, nothing but wounded misery in his wife's eyes until Kim managed to sit down and speak with her like a human being.
He removes his glasses, polishing them with his shirt. The way the world is cast in blurry shadows makes this easier. ]
If you want to do right by this kid, sometimes that means letting go of what you think you deserve, and accepting what he thinks you deserve. It's the only way for him to heal too. Don't get me wrong -- it's a difficult pill to swallow. It's more difficult to bear forgiveness than blame, sometimes. And it doesn't mean you have to sacrifice yourself to look after him either, if living with him is too painful for you both. But -- it is something for you both to consider.
[ He exhales, putting his glasses back on. There is something heavy in his bearing. These aren't platitudes; this is the life he's lived. ]
[Kitsuragi's unease perhaps isn't exactly unmerited; at this point, he is the closest thing to a mentor figure that Shinjiro has ever had. Perhaps it began with duty, but over time, he has proven himself a reliable and trustworthy figure even as Shinjiro's been difficult and cagey in return. Even now, the message he'd sent had been a shot in the dark, a whim he wouldn't have thought twice about if Kitsuragi hadn't responded.
And in truth, he hadn't really anticipated the conversation to be more than a diversion, something to occupy himself with until he could pass out from sheer exhaustion. It's a natural way to feel hits him right in the gut, though. His hand freezes in midair, the act of reaching up for a sip of tea suddenly stalled out. A muscle jumps in his jaw.
It's a natural way to feel.
In two years, that might be the first time he's heard it. He's so used to the attitude that his feelings are unreasonable, unnecessary, that he ought to be able to get over it and move on with his life. Kitsuragi really does get it, doesn't he. At least the sense of obligation, the burden that feels wrong to even consider setting down. Kitsuragi doesn't elaborate on his own experience, but Shinjiro doesn't need him to. The only reason Shinjiro had bothered to say anything about himself was because he'd been the one to initiate this whole thing in the first place; he doesn't expect reciprocation.
His throat's suddenly gone dry, but he sets down his arm with the tea anyway. Seems too much effort, now. The older man's words are turned around and around his mind, each seemingly more pointed than the last. His kneejerk instinct is to reject it, of course, but at the back of his mind, he ultimately knows Kitsuragi isn't wrong. For all his discomfort, he couldn't bring himself to actually push Amada away, to reject the hand reached out to him if only because he's always known he could never deny the kid anything. His life has belonged to Amada ever since that day two years ago, and if he's obligated to live for now, if only to keep from leaving the kid all on his own again, so be it.
It's just ... it's just forgiveness that tears at his insides. More difficult to bear than blame, another thing Kitsuragi somehow understands, and he's gone and lived on all these years past it. Shinjiro can justify himself all he wants that it's different, that Kitsuragi comes from an ordinary world in which he might have made mistakes but he can't cause harm simply by existing, but it can't quite stem the flow of what-ifs and uncertainty. Could he have done anything differently? He's never thought so, but it's not like his life isn't a whole trash heap of mistakes and bullshit, like his track record in life isn't filled with failures in the few places in life he'd bothered to even make an effort.
He doesn't know what to think. His stomach hurts. There's a moment his eyes go sort of distant, like they were that night Kitsuragi had found him curled up on his doorstep, but he's gotten better at catching himself since then with the method Kitsuragi showed him. His breathing comes in too-measured and rhythmic for the next few moments, until he feels like there's air in his lungs again.
At length:]
...You know what the news headline was when she died? [he starts, non-sequitur at first glance] That a drunk driver crashed into her house and died along with her. Because she died in the Dark Hour, nobody could know what really happened.
[He stares down into the tea.]
For the two years it took the kid to find me...he was the only one that knew her killer wasn't dead. And I ain't stupid, not like the truth'd change anything when we're both in the ground now anyway, but it just seems like --
[He grits his teeth, struggling with the words. To even figure out what he's feeling, exactly. It's confusing. It hurts.]
I dunno. After everything, after the choices I made dealing with all that, I dunno how I can just ... pretend like we can start over like none of it happened. Like it doesn't matter, when...when he's gotta go move on with his life again, after all this.
Edited (5 million nitpicks rip) 2023-11-21 04:49 (UTC)
[ 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.
[It's a little like a bucket of ice water to the face, to feel understood in one moment and utterly not in the next. On the one hand, it does hit differently to hear the same words from someone who has actually hurt people himself than it had from Aki, but it comes back around to the same thing, doesn't it? Forgive yourself and move on. Let go of the past, stop beating yourself up over it, it wasn't your fault. He feels like he's heard every possible variation releasing him from culpability and he's just so, so tired.
His death was meant to give the kid closure, back then. Just being alive now is ripping those wounds back open, but there's a difference between something like that which he has no choice in and building some kind of relationship with the kid, letting him get to know the person behind his mother's killer. The thought of it makes him feel sick, even as obligation has prevented him from refusal. It's not so simple as "losing" him the way Aki had lost Miki, after all; it would be building something new in full awareness that it is destined to be dashed on the rocks sooner than not--layering grief upon grief, something Shinjiro can only see as a cruelty. One he's supposed to inflict for the kid's own good? What a joke.
And yet for all his dismay at that notion, it really doesn't compare to how much that last part hurts, liquid fire all through his veins. Indeed, for half a moment he looks for all the world as though he's been decked, here, before his teeth grit, nails digging into his palms hard enough that he risks drawing blood.]
Tch...don't you get it? There is no moving on, for me. It's already done and finished with, I made my choices an' reached the end of the line, and there's no goin' back on any of that. I didn't even want anything to do with the shit around here, but I ain't scum enough to let him rot in this cage with me. But that's all I've got to give him, understand? There's nothin' else left here.
[He has been dragging along the shambling husk of his for years, now, just waiting for it to finally crumble. And now he doesn't even have that much. He's just a pathetic ghost trapped haunting its own corpse, and people keep acting as though he should pretend this is some kind of gift.
There is. Because we're here. Even if we wanted to die, that option is not in our hands.
[ He regrets the words as soon as they leave his mouth; Aragaki is as suicidal as Harry was, yes, but he is not at Harry's old age, and Kim has more responsibility here than he necessarily had for Harry. Harry was his superior. Aragaki is... something else. But his approach usually remains the same. If someone is drowning, he will offer them his hand. He will do everything in his power to help them, even if that means more labour on his part than he cares to think of. He will help them get on their feet, he will help with finances if he can, with clothing, with education, with care. He is not heartless. He wants to help, deep down. But if someone doesn't wish to be helped, he will not belabour the point, will not leap into the water to save them himself. It's not something he has inside him. He's known this since he was very young.
There is some deficit in him. He's always known that. It's part of why he hopes that Aragaki has someone else to go to; he is too terse, too cold, too unemotional, too rigid. He's known that since he was very young, and very little changed as he aged. Aragaki is not his first time dealing with someone suicidal, someone so on the brink that their whole being is like an exposed nerve, sparking with pain and misery and a desire for things to end. But if Kim said that his every interaction with someone in that state - even those he cared deeply for, more deeply than they likely knew - ended well, he would be a liar.
Aragaki is lashing out out of trauma and hurt, Kim realizes that much. On the surface, he looks utterly unmoved by the situation, his expression a still, placid lake, his hands unmoving from his coffee cup, his furrowed brow unchanged. Raising his voice, reacting in kind -- maybe that's what Aragaki needs. But it's not what Kim has to give him. The only thing he knows how to do is to deal with things calmly, reasonably, as though every conversation is another shoot-out that he's trying to negotiate his way out of. What would someone else do, someone better with this sort of thing, with juveniles? Harry would have some way to empathize with him, to relate with him. Maybe put a hand on his shoulder. Hell, maybe he'd even give the kid a hug.
Somehow, Kim doesn't think that would go very well from him. ]
As long as we draw breath here, it is not the end of the line. He is here, and so are you. That's just the truth of things. [ He looks out the window. The city outside is well-lit, but quiet, a ghost town; nothing like his beloved Revachol. He misses it terribly. The sound of the people rising for early shifts, or going home after a long night out, the sound of the machines roaring to life as construction workers pull night shifts, the buzz of a city at life. Here, there is nothing, as though he is forced to live in a permanent twilight. ] If you don't believe yourself capable of giving any more to him, if you wish to sever ties, that's your decision. I won't try to convince you otherwise. Do what you must.
[ He's being sincere. If Aragaki wants to give up, rot in his room and never see another soul, that is his decision. He can't make it for him. He would like for Aragaki to reach that conclusion, but he will not reach it because Kim tells him to. He doesn't have that power, though he wishes that he did. More of his friends would still be alive that way. ]
It doesn't have to be one or the other. The decision does not have to be made here and now. If the people I have hurt come here, then I will have to deal with it too. [ A small, humourless smile. ] Then I'll have some decisions of my own to make. But -- I prefer to take it day by day.
[Whether or not it would be more beneficial to him, Shinjiro was certainly expecting the escalation to match his own. Aki would've punched him in the face by now, and Kitsuragi maintaining his calm feels a lot like swinging a punch and missing himself, stumbling forward with momentum that suddenly has nowhere to go.
What's left of the anger from that momentary outburst fizzles without further fuel, and Shinjiro's quiet as he struggles to find his balance in this conversation again. It's strange to be understood yet not, but there's something distinctly comforting about I won't try to convince you otherwise. Do what you must. Usually, when people don't understand, they're upset about it. Aki tried to change his mind for two entire years, had punched him in the face over the suppressants. Kitsuragi would not to try to stop him from fading away, and it's a relief, in a weird way. He's grown weary of hurting people around him because they simply cannot let him go.
But Kitsuragi is alive, and so is Amada, and that's where the gap lies between them, ultimately. Taking it a day at a time is what he's been doing, until now, but he hadn't had to worry about the end of that road because he wasn't about to let anyone else join it with him. Amada is different, an exception. He has no right to deny the kid anything. Yet, it feels unconscionable to simply carry on as though he won't inevitably be hurting the kid--just as how he could never simply "get over" what happened with Castor, could not take the chance it could ever happen again, no matter what. That's the part that nobody understands, not Kitsuragi, not Don, not Aki. He's as alone as he's ever been in bearing that weight.
He sighs. The lack of sleep is wearing on him, at this point. If he drags this out much further, he does risk just crashing out here, and the thought of waking Kitsuragi with his night terrors again is desperately mortifying. He should go, soon.
Shinjiro scrubs at his face, and after a long moment, he finally says:]
The guy whose place I've been stayin' at...he disappeared months ago. Still dunno what that means for us, exactly, but best case scenario'd be throwin' us back where we came from, and -- well. Time's already gone on for the kid. There's not gonna be any miracle second chances, here.
[For much of the conversation, he's avoided the older man's gaze, but here, at last, he looks up properly, right at him.]
...I ain't exactly lookin' for you to convince me life's worth livin' or some shit, Kitsuragi. I respect that you haven't tried, honestly. But I don't think you believe in false hope, either, in lyin' to yourself or anyone else. So just answer me this: if you knew the end was coming, probably sooner than later, would you put people through losin' you? More than once, even?
[ No miracle second chances? Some would argue that this is a miracle second chance, though Kim would personally disagree with them. As second lives go, this is not one worth living. This isn't life. No wonder many - including Aragaki - wondered if this was purgatory, at the beginning, because it certainly doesn't even remotely resemble anything he would consider a life worth living. What he does consider this, however, is as proof of concept. If this place is capable of bringing people back from the dead, then that means that other places likely are as well. And when it comes to where they go when they disappear from this place... Kim prefers to believe that they go home. It's the most palatable option to him. But it also seems like the least likely one as well. ]
Mmh, well. I don't know many people that would.
[ Be put through losing him, he means. He says it baldly, without any particular emotion; it's not something that makes him sad. It's simply statement of facts. He's grown distant from old friends, old flames, enough that if they heard of his death, they would be briefly saddened, but that's all. His occupation is as such that his death is likely, a when, not an if.
The Detective would be sad, he supposes. He tries to imagine it, this reality where Harry had lost him once, and in this place, would inevitably have to leave him again. He takes a long moment to answer, clearly putting serious thought into the question, as challenging as he finds it. ]
I suppose... I would not have the heart to part from them. Though, not necessarily because I would think it was the best course of action. [ He thinks, briefly, of people he's lost. If Dom came here... if Dom came here, Kim would stop at nothing to see him, even if he was faced with the other man's righteous, rightful fury. Thinking about it makes something in him ache. He's certain that this kid Aragaki is talking about feels the exact same way; there's likely something in him that's just desperate to do enough here to gain some sort of absolution, some sort of closure. ] But because if I myself had a chance to see people I've lost, even for just one day? It's something I would fight for. So I don't believe that I would deprive others of the same. But that's just me.
[ Whatever Kim thinks Aragaki should do, it truly has nothing to do with the kid's well-being. It's Aragaki's own well-being he has in mind. He's not convinced that mending ties with the kid is for the best, really. The only thing he really wants is for the man in front of him to find some sort of equilibrium, some space in which he can stop torturing himself. ]
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no subject
So he doesn't really know how to react to Kitsuragi's compassion when it comes, nor his very sensible understanding of the position Amada was in as a newcomer to this strange, terrible place. Instead, he reacts to the most straightforward part of the message:]
sure
your place or somewhere else
[Shinjiro's not just going to assume he's welcome to drop by the man's place again even when he's been otherwise open to this conversation. At the same time, he's not going to insist on some neutral location either, if the man would prefer not to inconvenience himself any more than he already has.]
no subject
[ He had clung to Aragaki in a moment of weakness, or so it seems, someone he had previously known as dead. To wake up and find him missing - even with a note - may be... startling. But as of right now, that's his biggest concern. ]
You can leave a note, of course. If you think it'll be fine, then come here. If not, I'll come to you.
onto action?
There's a long stretch of silence, probably a good five minutes or more of internal debate, before the next response.]
i'll leave him a note
[...It's selfish of him, he knows it. But he can't bear the risk of Amada waking up and actually overhearing them talking. What's one more shitty thing on his conscience, on top of everything else?]
be there in ten
action!!
This, at least, Kim is at least halfway equipped to talk about. Not the loss, not the responsibility of bearing the weight of a child's well-being, not being plagued with the devastation of all this at Shinji's young age -- but guilt is an old bedfellow of Kim's. A stranger that dogs his steps, shadowing his step, a gentle lover that slips into bed with him and wraps him in its arms, a parent leaving a light on in the window and beckoning him home.
By the time Shinji arrives, Kim hasn't bothered changing out of his sleep clothes - grey sweats with the drawstring strung tight and a loose white shirt, hair stubbornly rumpled - but the familiar smell of coffee permeates the air. ]
Hello. Coffee's on, if you don't intend to sleep any more tonight.
no subject
Now here he is heading over there by choice to talk about his shit because he can't sleep. It's embarrassing. At the back of his mind he wonders if there's anything the man needs done around his place...maybe he can ask later. Seeing Kitsuragi with his sleep tousled hair and informal clothes is jarring in its own way, too, and he half-wonders if the man had been entirely honest about having already been awake when Shinjiro had contacted him, but he pushes the thought aside and nods at the man's greeting. ]
Thanks.
[He makes no move toward the table where they sat at before, though, simply lingering inside his threshold while he waits to be directed wherever Kitsuragi would prefer he goes.]
no subject
[ Kim locks the door behind Aragaki, gesturing for him to sit down at the table. Kim's place looks nearly as sparse as it did last time, if Aragaki has the presence of mind to look around; there is a crossword puzzle half filled out in pen on the table, the book folded over on itself, traces of a tv dinner cardboard shell neatly folded and tucked in the recycling as though recycling means anything in this place, a pair of dark blue weights inobtrusively placed in a corner. Kim sets two mugs of coffee down on the table between them, dehydrated milk powder and a small bowl of sugar already waiting for them.
Kim tries to take his coffee black for the most part, but for this conversation, he allows himself a spoonful of sugar as he looks Aragaki over. He looks just about as tired as Kim would expect him to look.
For all that Kim's appearance is uncharacteristically disheveled, the way he sits perched on the edge of his chair, spine straight and expression stoic, creates the illusion that he may well be in uniform. ]
So. Things here have become even more complicated than they already were, hm?
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The coffee makes for a great distraction, though; he's not quite so much of a tough guy that he needs to pretend to like coffee black on a good day, and the idea of pretense tonight is especially exhausting. He does up the coffee to his own taste before he looks up, taking a sip to buy him a moment before speaking.]
You can say that again.
[A small sigh. He stares back down at the mug after a moment, feeling a little too exposed and vulnerable to hold the older man's gaze.]
I heard this kind of thing could happen, but I never actually expected it would.
[He's been here five months already with no sign of anyone he knew, from SEES or otherwise. Most seemed to have their fellows from their world with them upon arrival or shortly thereafter. It's weird.]
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[ It's something Kim has been preparing for himself, even if a larger part of him doubts that he'll ever see anyone again. It was difficult not to think of it, after everything that happened in the shopping mall. To prepare for criminals he had long since handed over to the MoralIntern, the bereaved families he never cared for just right, Eyes -- hell, even his parents. Who knows? Nothing here is an impossibility.
But Aragaki must not have even wanted to dwell on such a painful thought. Too bad. What you want, what you deserve, and what you get are most frequently three disparate concepts. ]
But we deal with what comes to us. I never expected to be here either. [ He rubs his thumb - bare, absent of the gloves he's almost always wearing - against the rim of his cup, radiating heat. ] I suppose the question is now... what is your priority, now that he is here? Will you try to get him to live somewhere safe away from you? Or will he stay with you?
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[It's a little pathetic, maybe, that he would've had an easier time if Amada came from a time when he still wanted revenge, but instead he no longer really knows where he stands in the kid's life -- they're now tied together mostly by a sense of mutual obligation and guilt rather than any true camaraderie.
He rubs at his neck somewhat uncomfortably as Kitsuragi shifts toward the practicalities, though. That is ultimately the crux of his current crisis, after all.]
I mean...s'like I said, I ain't about to tell him he can't stay with me. When I ran into him, I told 'im if he never wanted to see my face again, to say the word and I'd disappear.
[There's a long, hesitating moment where he considers confessing the favor he'd been prepared to ask, if Amada had taken him up on that offer, but ultimately thinks better of it. Better he doesn't saddle Kitsuragi explicitly with the notion that he has nobody else. He shakes his head with a sigh.]
But he didn't, so. Here we are.
[Of course, if it were as simple as that, he wouldn't have been trying to get advice at 3 am, but he's not sure how to grapple with his complicated feelings or even how to define them. He keeps staring into his coffee, as though the liquid might hold some great answers for him along with his reflection.]
It's not...the living together part that's the weirdest. We shared a dorm for about a month before I died. If we were just stayin' together temporarily for convenience again, that'd be different, y'know?
[It wouldn't be so terrifyingly close to forgiveness.]
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[ Kim laces his fingers together, humming a little under his breath as he considers the situation. It's a thorny one, and one he has no business sticking his nose into. He has no answers, barely has a good grasp on things as it is; underneath different circumstances, he would urge Aragaki to ask a teacher, a mentor, a parental figure, a mental health professional, someone with a better idea of where Aragaki is coming from. This feels too much like getting involved. It may well backfire on any one of them, and then who's to blame?
But it's gone a little beyond the sole purpose of duty now. If it was still duty alone, perhaps he wouldn't feel so uneasy. He cares, though, wants life to be easier for this poor kid - this dead kid - grappling with things beyond most adults' grasp. He wonders, momentarily, if he should be advocating for Aragaki's well-being or the new kid's.
Or perhaps their well-being is one and the same, in the end. ]
Guilt is something that... sometimes you feel that you must live with it, in order to atone. It's a natural way to feel. But even if it doesn't feel that way, guilt can be a very selfish emotion. We have to wonder who it's serving to feel that way, and why. How it can burden the very people we want to do right by.
[ He looks up at Aragaki. He will not share who he's thinking of in this moment. He cannot. In many ways, he is not as strong as Aragaki is; it has been years since Eyes' death, and yet it still pains him too much to speak on it. But he can't help but think of the horrible aftermath, how his guilt did nothing but burden the wife and child that Dom had left behind, how what they needed was support and not the murmured apologies and cringing deference of the partner who had survived. It had been a terrible thing to grapple with. He had half hoped to be reprimanded, hit, scorned.
That's not what they needed. They needed someone to share in the good memories. To bring groceries to their door. To crouch by his child and play with her, in Kim's own graceless way. His self-recrimination did nothing but hurt them, nothing but wounded misery in his wife's eyes until Kim managed to sit down and speak with her like a human being.
He removes his glasses, polishing them with his shirt. The way the world is cast in blurry shadows makes this easier. ]
If you want to do right by this kid, sometimes that means letting go of what you think you deserve, and accepting what he thinks you deserve. It's the only way for him to heal too. Don't get me wrong -- it's a difficult pill to swallow. It's more difficult to bear forgiveness than blame, sometimes. And it doesn't mean you have to sacrifice yourself to look after him either, if living with him is too painful for you both. But -- it is something for you both to consider.
[ He exhales, putting his glasses back on. There is something heavy in his bearing. These aren't platitudes; this is the life he's lived. ]
Does that make sense?
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And in truth, he hadn't really anticipated the conversation to be more than a diversion, something to occupy himself with until he could pass out from sheer exhaustion. It's a natural way to feel hits him right in the gut, though. His hand freezes in midair, the act of reaching up for a sip of tea suddenly stalled out. A muscle jumps in his jaw.
It's a natural way to feel.
In two years, that might be the first time he's heard it. He's so used to the attitude that his feelings are unreasonable, unnecessary, that he ought to be able to get over it and move on with his life. Kitsuragi really does get it, doesn't he. At least the sense of obligation, the burden that feels wrong to even consider setting down. Kitsuragi doesn't elaborate on his own experience, but Shinjiro doesn't need him to. The only reason Shinjiro had bothered to say anything about himself was because he'd been the one to initiate this whole thing in the first place; he doesn't expect reciprocation.
His throat's suddenly gone dry, but he sets down his arm with the tea anyway. Seems too much effort, now. The older man's words are turned around and around his mind, each seemingly more pointed than the last. His kneejerk instinct is to reject it, of course, but at the back of his mind, he ultimately knows Kitsuragi isn't wrong. For all his discomfort, he couldn't bring himself to actually push Amada away, to reject the hand reached out to him if only because he's always known he could never deny the kid anything. His life has belonged to Amada ever since that day two years ago, and if he's obligated to live for now, if only to keep from leaving the kid all on his own again, so be it.
It's just ... it's just forgiveness that tears at his insides. More difficult to bear than blame, another thing Kitsuragi somehow understands, and he's gone and lived on all these years past it. Shinjiro can justify himself all he wants that it's different, that Kitsuragi comes from an ordinary world in which he might have made mistakes but he can't cause harm simply by existing, but it can't quite stem the flow of what-ifs and uncertainty. Could he have done anything differently? He's never thought so, but it's not like his life isn't a whole trash heap of mistakes and bullshit, like his track record in life isn't filled with failures in the few places in life he'd bothered to even make an effort.
He doesn't know what to think. His stomach hurts. There's a moment his eyes go sort of distant, like they were that night Kitsuragi had found him curled up on his doorstep, but he's gotten better at catching himself since then with the method Kitsuragi showed him. His breathing comes in too-measured and rhythmic for the next few moments, until he feels like there's air in his lungs again.
At length:]
...You know what the news headline was when she died? [he starts, non-sequitur at first glance] That a drunk driver crashed into her house and died along with her. Because she died in the Dark Hour, nobody could know what really happened.
[He stares down into the tea.]
For the two years it took the kid to find me...he was the only one that knew her killer wasn't dead. And I ain't stupid, not like the truth'd change anything when we're both in the ground now anyway, but it just seems like --
[He grits his teeth, struggling with the words. To even figure out what he's feeling, exactly. It's confusing. It hurts.]
I dunno. After everything, after the choices I made dealing with all that, I dunno how I can just ... pretend like we can start over like none of it happened. Like it doesn't matter, when...when he's gotta go move on with his life again, after all this.
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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.
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His death was meant to give the kid closure, back then. Just being alive now is ripping those wounds back open, but there's a difference between something like that which he has no choice in and building some kind of relationship with the kid, letting him get to know the person behind his mother's killer. The thought of it makes him feel sick, even as obligation has prevented him from refusal. It's not so simple as "losing" him the way Aki had lost Miki, after all; it would be building something new in full awareness that it is destined to be dashed on the rocks sooner than not--layering grief upon grief, something Shinjiro can only see as a cruelty. One he's supposed to inflict for the kid's own good? What a joke.
And yet for all his dismay at that notion, it really doesn't compare to how much that last part hurts, liquid fire all through his veins. Indeed, for half a moment he looks for all the world as though he's been decked, here, before his teeth grit, nails digging into his palms hard enough that he risks drawing blood.]
Tch...don't you get it? There is no moving on, for me. It's already done and finished with, I made my choices an' reached the end of the line, and there's no goin' back on any of that. I didn't even want anything to do with the shit around here, but I ain't scum enough to let him rot in this cage with me. But that's all I've got to give him, understand? There's nothin' else left here.
[He has been dragging along the shambling husk of his for years, now, just waiting for it to finally crumble. And now he doesn't even have that much. He's just a pathetic ghost trapped haunting its own corpse, and people keep acting as though he should pretend this is some kind of gift.
He is so god damn tired.]
cw: suicide discussion
[ He regrets the words as soon as they leave his mouth; Aragaki is as suicidal as Harry was, yes, but he is not at Harry's old age, and Kim has more responsibility here than he necessarily had for Harry. Harry was his superior. Aragaki is... something else. But his approach usually remains the same. If someone is drowning, he will offer them his hand. He will do everything in his power to help them, even if that means more labour on his part than he cares to think of. He will help them get on their feet, he will help with finances if he can, with clothing, with education, with care. He is not heartless. He wants to help, deep down. But if someone doesn't wish to be helped, he will not belabour the point, will not leap into the water to save them himself. It's not something he has inside him. He's known this since he was very young.
There is some deficit in him. He's always known that. It's part of why he hopes that Aragaki has someone else to go to; he is too terse, too cold, too unemotional, too rigid. He's known that since he was very young, and very little changed as he aged. Aragaki is not his first time dealing with someone suicidal, someone so on the brink that their whole being is like an exposed nerve, sparking with pain and misery and a desire for things to end. But if Kim said that his every interaction with someone in that state - even those he cared deeply for, more deeply than they likely knew - ended well, he would be a liar.
Aragaki is lashing out out of trauma and hurt, Kim realizes that much. On the surface, he looks utterly unmoved by the situation, his expression a still, placid lake, his hands unmoving from his coffee cup, his furrowed brow unchanged. Raising his voice, reacting in kind -- maybe that's what Aragaki needs. But it's not what Kim has to give him. The only thing he knows how to do is to deal with things calmly, reasonably, as though every conversation is another shoot-out that he's trying to negotiate his way out of. What would someone else do, someone better with this sort of thing, with juveniles? Harry would have some way to empathize with him, to relate with him. Maybe put a hand on his shoulder. Hell, maybe he'd even give the kid a hug.
Somehow, Kim doesn't think that would go very well from him. ]
As long as we draw breath here, it is not the end of the line. He is here, and so are you. That's just the truth of things. [ He looks out the window. The city outside is well-lit, but quiet, a ghost town; nothing like his beloved Revachol. He misses it terribly. The sound of the people rising for early shifts, or going home after a long night out, the sound of the machines roaring to life as construction workers pull night shifts, the buzz of a city at life. Here, there is nothing, as though he is forced to live in a permanent twilight. ] If you don't believe yourself capable of giving any more to him, if you wish to sever ties, that's your decision. I won't try to convince you otherwise. Do what you must.
[ He's being sincere. If Aragaki wants to give up, rot in his room and never see another soul, that is his decision. He can't make it for him. He would like for Aragaki to reach that conclusion, but he will not reach it because Kim tells him to. He doesn't have that power, though he wishes that he did. More of his friends would still be alive that way. ]
It doesn't have to be one or the other. The decision does not have to be made here and now. If the people I have hurt come here, then I will have to deal with it too. [ A small, humourless smile. ] Then I'll have some decisions of my own to make. But -- I prefer to take it day by day.
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What's left of the anger from that momentary outburst fizzles without further fuel, and Shinjiro's quiet as he struggles to find his balance in this conversation again. It's strange to be understood yet not, but there's something distinctly comforting about I won't try to convince you otherwise. Do what you must. Usually, when people don't understand, they're upset about it. Aki tried to change his mind for two entire years, had punched him in the face over the suppressants. Kitsuragi would not to try to stop him from fading away, and it's a relief, in a weird way. He's grown weary of hurting people around him because they simply cannot let him go.
But Kitsuragi is alive, and so is Amada, and that's where the gap lies between them, ultimately. Taking it a day at a time is what he's been doing, until now, but he hadn't had to worry about the end of that road because he wasn't about to let anyone else join it with him. Amada is different, an exception. He has no right to deny the kid anything. Yet, it feels unconscionable to simply carry on as though he won't inevitably be hurting the kid--just as how he could never simply "get over" what happened with Castor, could not take the chance it could ever happen again, no matter what. That's the part that nobody understands, not Kitsuragi, not Don, not Aki. He's as alone as he's ever been in bearing that weight.
He sighs. The lack of sleep is wearing on him, at this point. If he drags this out much further, he does risk just crashing out here, and the thought of waking Kitsuragi with his night terrors again is desperately mortifying. He should go, soon.
Shinjiro scrubs at his face, and after a long moment, he finally says:]
The guy whose place I've been stayin' at...he disappeared months ago. Still dunno what that means for us, exactly, but best case scenario'd be throwin' us back where we came from, and -- well. Time's already gone on for the kid. There's not gonna be any miracle second chances, here.
[For much of the conversation, he's avoided the older man's gaze, but here, at last, he looks up properly, right at him.]
...I ain't exactly lookin' for you to convince me life's worth livin' or some shit, Kitsuragi. I respect that you haven't tried, honestly. But I don't think you believe in false hope, either, in lyin' to yourself or anyone else. So just answer me this: if you knew the end was coming, probably sooner than later, would you put people through losin' you? More than once, even?
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Mmh, well. I don't know many people that would.
[ Be put through losing him, he means. He says it baldly, without any particular emotion; it's not something that makes him sad. It's simply statement of facts. He's grown distant from old friends, old flames, enough that if they heard of his death, they would be briefly saddened, but that's all. His occupation is as such that his death is likely, a when, not an if.
The Detective would be sad, he supposes. He tries to imagine it, this reality where Harry had lost him once, and in this place, would inevitably have to leave him again. He takes a long moment to answer, clearly putting serious thought into the question, as challenging as he finds it. ]
I suppose... I would not have the heart to part from them. Though, not necessarily because I would think it was the best course of action. [ He thinks, briefly, of people he's lost. If Dom came here... if Dom came here, Kim would stop at nothing to see him, even if he was faced with the other man's righteous, rightful fury. Thinking about it makes something in him ache. He's certain that this kid Aragaki is talking about feels the exact same way; there's likely something in him that's just desperate to do enough here to gain some sort of absolution, some sort of closure. ] But because if I myself had a chance to see people I've lost, even for just one day? It's something I would fight for. So I don't believe that I would deprive others of the same. But that's just me.
[ Whatever Kim thinks Aragaki should do, it truly has nothing to do with the kid's well-being. It's Aragaki's own well-being he has in mind. He's not convinced that mending ties with the kid is for the best, really. The only thing he really wants is for the man in front of him to find some sort of equilibrium, some space in which he can stop torturing himself. ]