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Kim Kitsuragi ([personal profile] aceslow) wrote2023-06-14 12:45 am
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INBOX text / audio / video / action "Kitsuragi speaking." art credit code credit
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[personal profile] petsthedog 2023-11-21 04:13 am (UTC)(link)
[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)
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[personal profile] petsthedog 2023-11-23 12:16 pm (UTC)(link)
[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.

He is so god damn tired.]
Edited 2023-11-23 12:17 (UTC)
petsthedog: (pic#12716680)

[personal profile] petsthedog 2023-12-02 01:12 am (UTC)(link)
[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?
Edited 2023-12-02 01:25 (UTC)