[Makoto, on the other hand, doesn't even notice what the problem is. As far he is concerned, he's still sitting inside a space that he's cleared for himself within Josh's brain, looking not out the window that he's currently sitting beside, but at the tangle of shadow and string of memory that last night has become for him.
He has materialized completely now, dressed in the black kimono that he used to go around in when he was still Bound (the kimono with the golden and green snakes moving through higanbana - a birthday gift from his Beloved, ragged and tattered now that it has joined him in the afterlife). He's 28 all over again, but wrapped up in the same bandages that had been wound about his body, down to the tips of his fingers and toes, in a futile attempt on Kaien's part to keep Makoto's guts from spilling out. The bloodstains on them are as old as 2047. They constantly shrink and grow and shrink again.
The dripping, of course, is coming from him. He is, from here until always, going to look like he just stepped out of the rain.]
He still tastes the same way.
[It's a soft statement, said in a voice that's as cracked as shattered glass. He thinks, even now, that he's still talking to himself, or perhaps into Josh's dreams.]
Who tast-- [ Josh catches himself as the earlier part of the evening reasserts itself: Shenanigans with Hikaru 101 over at the club called Hyve, the people, the Art of Reading Them and levelling the playing field and making it yours; and then, Hikaru asking for his rings, Josh handing them over with some visible reluctance before the Blade King walked off for a good twenty or so minutes.
With Makoto's statement, those twenty minutes he'd been left to his own devices -- productive, if he can say so himself, since he'd amused himself by making eyes at a pretty brunette who he is certain would have gathered the courage to wander over if Hikaru hadn't come back when he did, and Josh had realized that the evening was over.
Leaving the bed now and coming to sit by Makoto's feet, concern washing over his features.
Drowned, the geist had told him before. By my father. ]
[ --and of course now his mind is zipping through everything he's filed away on his kind and those that walk with them: the meaning behind this, how long it's been since Makoto had fallen in that engagement close to the Russian border, what it implies that he appears solid enough to touch. ]
[He doesn't want to feel. He doesn't want this crippling sense of loss, this overpowering grief, this debilitating desperation, this quiet bitterness, this uncompromising desire. He doesn't want any of the other nameless things that lay between the cracks within all of those, and then some.
He knows, logically, what this means. (That he has failed. That he is at the end of his rope, that the rope is on fire and he's going up in smoke with it.)]
I don't know.
[It's quite possible that, ever since they were introduced, Josh has never heard Makoto sound this way (human, on the brink of totally breaking down.)]
[ And maybe that is why Josh acts before he thinks, reaching out to close a hand over one of those that Makoto is looking down at, because the circumstances might be different but the look on the former Sin-Eater's face strikes a chord that echoes a little too loud in Josh's own chest--
( Was it my fault? Was it because I took you down and-- Angel, no, don't-- Josh, you're in a wheelchair.
The twist in his chest and the shakiness in his arm as he set a hand to his friend's back, as Angelo Salas pitched forward to bury his face in his hands. It's okay. Shit happens. Bad draw, right? It sucks. But it's... it's not your fault. Doctors said if it wasn't the training run, it could have been something worse. )
--blinking now, surprised that his fingers are curled around the geist's. A slow exhale because... well, shit. ]
Breathe, [ wincing a little because -- may be the wrong choice of words when talking to a dead guy ] you're alright.
[ Then a brief pause, before: ] You know this better than me. Geists are all about this: feeling and the excess of it. You can get a handle on it, just remember that this is part of it.
[But the feel of Josh's hand on his own makes him remember what it was like to hold Hikaru Shinta's face between his just hours ago, to be close enough to feel the warmth of the younger man's breath on his face as if he wasn't dead, as if they were still both alive, as if they were still both something, not nothing, that he could still...
"Please. You can't go on like this."
...then later, when he had crushed those wrists, gripped them tight with his own two hands. Later, when he had covered those lips with his own, trying to channel everything he wanted to say - wanted to do - in a bruising kiss.
The memory hurt, like a gunshot or a cut from a blade. It hurt as much as he had wanted to hurt him.
And still, he had taken all of it. He hadn't moved away, had only opened his eyes and looked at Makoto when it was finished.
"You have to let me go."]
I'm not okay. I can't. I can't.
[He isn't even sure what he's referring to for himself, really. Can't what? Can't possibly be alright? Can't control himself? Can't do this? Can't ever have the one thing - one person - he's ever wanted?]
[ It's a little like dealing with a good friend having a breakdown... if you add in the intimate knowledge that the man you're dealing with happens to be a total control freak, by virtue of having glimpsed a number of memories in your head.
As it is, Josh suddenly finds himself grateful that Makoto isn't his geist, that he isn't feeling the full brunt of whatever it is that his companion is feeling now, utterly wrecked as he looks just sitting there, talking.
Hands grasping both of Makoto's forearms now, a steadying grip as he tries to get through to him and quietly begging for support from Coach because -- maybe he can help? A little? Because he really isn't sure what he can do. ]
Makoto. Makoto, you have to focus. You don't have to deal with it if you don't want to. But you have to calm down.
[ What the hell had happened in those twenty minutes??? ]
[The boy is right, of course. It feels as though Josh's voice is coming to him from a great distance, but god, it had to be better than all of this.
It's getting cold in Josh's room, cold and darker than it should be. Makoto, in the meantime, is quietly sinking his head into his hands.]
I can't. [It's a tiny whisper, tiny and broken.] I can't let him go.
[(Because letting Hikaru Shinta go meant that he had crawled back up - lost his second chance, lost that shot at redemption - for nothing.)
Thankfully, Davis is stirring inside Josh's head.
We can bring him back together. Just keep holding on to him.
They both had to push for it. They both needed to stay calm, because that was one emotion that Makoto Kuzunoha just wasn't capable of feeling right now.]
Makoto-- [ fingers tightening as he joins the geist at the window, concern washing his features as he tries to grasp what it is that's going on.
Coach, can you talk to him? Feeling oddly young again, like the day he came home to his dad sitting blankly at the dinner table, a cup of coffee gone cold by an otherwise limp hand. ] Come on, man. Talk to me.
[ There is a sense of the room shrinking all around him, and he notes the goosebumps rising along his forearms. ] Makoto. Makoto. Snap out of it, man. Talk to me.
And maybe - just maybe - Davis sounds the way that he used to whenever he had set his mind on something back when he was still alive. Josh will feel it: the way the presence in his mind expands, and singularly directs itself to what is right in front of them both.
The former coach is manifesting himself now, materializing right behind Makoto, setting two hands down on the other geist's shoulders. The contact makes Makoto flinch as if he had just taken a bullet; his entire body trembles.
Josh won't hear what Davis is saying. He'll only see his geist bend down, and murmur something into the other geist's ear, and notice, as well, how even though Makoto's shaking his head, the cold slowly starts to recede.
Nearly a quarter of an hour passes before Davis is withdrawing, and Makoto's finally speaking.]
Sorry.
[He's raw, vulnerable, and so far from what he should be that it isn't even funny.]
[ Shaking his head now, fingers loosening from there place on Makoto's forearms but not quite letting go just yet.
Josh might be shivering a little, but he figures it's mostly because of the fact that the room's temperature is back to normal now and his body needs to acclimatize. ]
It's okay, man. [ There really isn't anything to apologize for. ] Better?
[There's another long delay, one that might be long enough to be a little unnerving. The room's temperature, though, does not shift again. The shadows do not lengthen.]
Sure. [ Taking the request like he would any other time, and moving off to dig up an unopened pack of Black Stones from where he'd stowed them away in a drawer. Picking up his lighter, too, before he joins Makoto again, and slipping out a stick. ]
-- and Josh is going to see things from his perspective now, and what that night was like: standing outside of the club, out back, with the heavy thrum of the music a distant vibration through one's body. The Blade King there, against the wall. Makoto's arms braced on either side of his head.
"You can't keep this up, and both of us know it. You need to let me go."
"Don't you dare even think that I'm going to do that."
More words, voices escalating - or, more accurately, Makoto's. Hikaru Shinta continues to remain painfully, infuriatingly calm, even as the look in his eyes is dark and maybe a little sad.
He still looked that way, even after Makoto closes in and kisses that mouth, fierce and rough. It's not the kind of kiss that's looking for reciprocation: it's the kind of kiss that demands a response, regardless of whether the other party wants to give it or not.
And he's letting Makoto do that. He waits all the way until Makoto's pulling back, breath harsh and accusing in his lungs, and watching him again with that same look that is driving him up the wall.
"You need to let me go."
Once the memory's done, Makoto's very quietly lifting the cigarette to his lips and taking another long drag.]
[ It's a strange thing to see all that like he was there, if he had been Makoto: insistent, desperate, heart-broken over the Blade King.
It's a strange thing, the feelings in the memory both distant and present at the same time, and for one quiet moment, Josh is grateful that he isn't Makoto's Bound, that Makoto is not his geist the way Davis is -- because he's not entirely sure how he might have handled resonating with the former Sin-Eater after a flashback like this.
As it is, he's not entirely sure what does it, what it is about the scene glimpsed in his head that brings back old memories, but it does.
And it hurts. It hurts like a fresh wound. Like the day Angel had rammed into him and he couldn't get his legs to work right. Like the day the doctors told him the final diagnosis I'm sorry, son. I'm really sorry.
( Maritess Cambio had left her old tablet with him that day, had kissed him on the cheek like the son she thought of him as before she and Phillip -- his best friend since he and the other boy were in kindergarten, getting in trouble for running up the slide -- left with that bus. She'd been on the other end, patching the game through for him to watch as Cindy hovered by his side because the disease wracking his body had progressed to the point that he had no choice but to sit in a wheelchair most of the time, robbed of strength and movement and the freedom to do as any other twenty-one year old boy would.
By the time the team had returned, he'd been waiting in their living room, had asked his sister to help him put on varsity jacket, his number still stitched to the arm, their school's name stamped to the back. There were no apologies spoken, just the bent heads of a quarter of the total number of his team because their house wasn't big enough to fit them all.
Julian wasn't in the room. Neither was Angel. Phillip was though, one hand on Greg's shoulder as Josh bent forward, coughing because he'd been scolding his peers for a good five minutes straight before a fit overtook him.
He was always cold now. And always in pain. But all that was a helluva lot more bearable to seeing the team he'd helped pull together fall apart -- and all because they couldn't wrap their heads around the idea that he would never step on that field alongside them again.
You get that through your heads. There's no miracle waiting in the wings. I'm not getting up from this goddamn chair and it's not right that you're not listening to your new Quarterback.
It was the one and only time he'd lost it in front of them all, feeling helpless and frustrated for a good twenty minutes until he'd finally calmed down.
I'm expendable, he'd whispered then, voice a little too loud in a room where everyone present was silent. You can't put that weight on your seniors and think that we'll always be around. There is a reason why we are a team and why we make it a point to groom the incoming kids.
Do you even know what I saw, stuck here at home? You could have won that game if you had just had a little more faith in Greg. He isn't me. And I don't want him to be me. )
Josh shuts his eyes now, shakes his head and stares down at the cigarette perched between his fingers. To the ash burning away at the end. ]
You still love him. [ Simple. Upfront. Factual. ] You're angry and you're hurt. But you still love him.
[He is catching all of that, watching it flash through your brain and straight to your heart quietly. No need to comment on it, though. As things stand, he's incapable of saying anything that might be comforting. That, and what you're saying now is... well. It's hard to hear. Hard to face.
[ Trying to shelve that memory away now, and failing -- a thing he accepts because given recent events, but it's time. He spent six years running away from a life he'd decided he could no longer have. Impossible was that first year away from home, putting Cindy and his father out of his mind.
Sure, he has them back now. But that was chance and maybe fate and a little intervention from people with more reach than him; people who weren't too close to the issue. ]
Nothing in the physical world is impossible to turn from. [ He doesn't know why he says it, only that it feels right. That, and for all that he suspects Makoto may react violently to being told this, Josh does sincerely think, it's time.
( You have to let me go. Unfinished business. The reasons why ghosts remained, why geists crawled up from the depths of the Underworld. ) ]
You just have to decide for yourself if stubbornly hanging onto something is good or bad for you. [ Flashing back again, to a girl whose laughter put him at ease, who he'd turned his gaze towards the window for, eventually giving up when it was clear she wasn't going to come by. ]
[There is no violent reaction: there's just a certain look, a painful twist of lips, and long and shaky sigh as he's sinking his face into his hands again, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes.
It hurts. It still hurts. It's probably going to keep hurting for years to come.
(And even when it fades, all it's going to take is a look from that one, or the sound of his laughter, or the precise way that he walks through the world and towards everything in it to bring it back, sharp and brutal, to his awareness.)
The words are gone for a long moment, but the air around them remains steady. He has a better hold on himself now, and - in as much as he hates to admit it - he needed to hear that. It shows.]
I'll... [Swallowing.] I'll have to work on that.
[Releasing his hold, he means, and hanging it over Hikaru Shinta like some sort of guillotine. This isn't going to do anything but hurt them both, after all.]
[ He doesn't know why he thinks of her now, only that he does given the ties she'd established with everyone else he'd left behind.
( Midnight Riders get shore leave, Josh. She takes hers and goes back home to your little town to touch base with your boys. )
He'd read up on the Riders then, tried to reconcile the girl looking helplessly out over that ledge with the lifestyle led by a conspiracy whose people were always on the road.
Remembering now, the look that Hikaru Shinta had sent his way when he'd quietly murmured I guess, we just... drifted apart. I got sick, she never came by and we just... it was just gone. And then looking up to feel a hitch in his heart, because the Blade King was still looking at him, with eyes that knew too much.
He'd tried to leave then, rising quickly from his seat in that bar in Shin Yamatai's entertainment district, the core of him utterly rattled because Annie Finnick had been his Great Perhaps -- and he'd missed any chance with her all because someone's wires got crossed. ]
Letting go usually is. [ A kind look now, sent Makoto's way. That sympathetic silence that just goes: I feel you, bro. ]
[The amount of relief he feels the moment he catches the expression on Josh's face is a little ridiculous. They had long since established that they had much in common, but there was also the fact that technically speaking? They had not been with each other for all that long.
Still. Why did he seem to regard Joshua LaRue in the same way that he used to look at Kaien Yamazaki, or Feranen?
Ridiculous, really, this thing people called 'attachment'. When he smiles, it's more for himself than it is for Josh, but that's probably going to be difficult to tell.]
I suppose you're going to be stuck with me while I figure it all out.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Oh yeah date: June 8, 2063 || 3 AM
He has materialized completely now, dressed in the black kimono that he used to go around in when he was still Bound (the kimono with the golden and green snakes moving through higanbana - a birthday gift from his Beloved, ragged and tattered now that it has joined him in the afterlife). He's 28 all over again, but wrapped up in the same bandages that had been wound about his body, down to the tips of his fingers and toes, in a futile attempt on Kaien's part to keep Makoto's guts from spilling out. The bloodstains on them are as old as 2047. They constantly shrink and grow and shrink again.
The dripping, of course, is coming from him. He is, from here until always, going to look like he just stepped out of the rain.]
He still tastes the same way.
[It's a soft statement, said in a voice that's as cracked as shattered glass. He thinks, even now, that he's still talking to himself, or perhaps into Josh's dreams.]
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With Makoto's statement, those twenty minutes he'd been left to his own devices -- productive, if he can say so himself, since he'd amused himself by making eyes at a pretty brunette who he is certain would have gathered the courage to wander over if Hikaru hadn't come back when he did, and Josh had realized that the evening was over.
Leaving the bed now and coming to sit by Makoto's feet, concern washing over his features.
Drowned, the geist had told him before. By my father. ]
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Clench, relax. Breathe in, breathe out (even if you don't need to do it anymore).]
I shouldn't be out.
[His voice sounds about as empty as he feels right now. Ironic, perhaps, that the dead feel emotion even more intensely than the living do.]
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[ --and of course now his mind is zipping through everything he's filed away on his kind and those that walk with them: the meaning behind this, how long it's been since Makoto had fallen in that engagement close to the Russian border, what it implies that he appears solid enough to touch. ]
How... how do you feel?
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[He doesn't want to feel. He doesn't want this crippling sense of loss, this overpowering grief, this debilitating desperation, this quiet bitterness, this uncompromising desire. He doesn't want any of the other nameless things that lay between the cracks within all of those, and then some.
He knows, logically, what this means. (That he has failed. That he is at the end of his rope, that the rope is on fire and he's going up in smoke with it.)]
I don't know.
[It's quite possible that, ever since they were introduced, Josh has never heard Makoto sound this way (human, on the brink of totally breaking down.)]
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( Was it my fault? Was it because I took you down and--
Angel, no, don't--
Josh, you're in a wheelchair.
The twist in his chest and the shakiness in his arm as he set a hand to his friend's back, as Angelo Salas pitched forward to bury his face in his hands. It's okay. Shit happens. Bad draw, right? It sucks. But it's... it's not your fault. Doctors said if it wasn't the training run, it could have been something worse. )
--blinking now, surprised that his fingers are curled around the geist's. A slow exhale because... well, shit. ]
Breathe, [ wincing a little because -- may be the wrong choice of words when talking to a dead guy ] you're alright.
[ Then a brief pause, before: ] You know this better than me. Geists are all about this: feeling and the excess of it. You can get a handle on it, just remember that this is part of it.
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[But the feel of Josh's hand on his own makes him remember what it was like to hold Hikaru Shinta's face between his just hours ago, to be close enough to feel the warmth of the younger man's breath on his face as if he wasn't dead, as if they were still both alive, as if they were still both something, not nothing, that he could still...
"Please. You can't go on like this."
...then later, when he had crushed those wrists, gripped them tight with his own two hands. Later, when he had covered those lips with his own, trying to channel everything he wanted to say - wanted to do - in a bruising kiss.
The memory hurt, like a gunshot or a cut from a blade. It hurt as much as he had wanted to hurt him.
And still, he had taken all of it. He hadn't moved away, had only opened his eyes and looked at Makoto when it was finished.
"You have to let me go."]
I'm not okay. I can't. I can't.
[He isn't even sure what he's referring to for himself, really. Can't what? Can't possibly be alright? Can't control himself? Can't do this? Can't ever have the one thing - one person - he's ever wanted?]
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As it is, Josh suddenly finds himself grateful that Makoto isn't his geist, that he isn't feeling the full brunt of whatever it is that his companion is feeling now, utterly wrecked as he looks just sitting there, talking.
Hands grasping both of Makoto's forearms now, a steadying grip as he tries to get through to him and quietly begging for support from Coach because -- maybe he can help? A little? Because he really isn't sure what he can do. ]
Makoto. Makoto, you have to focus. You don't have to deal with it if you don't want to. But you have to calm down.
[ What the hell had happened in those twenty minutes??? ]
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It's getting cold in Josh's room, cold and darker than it should be. Makoto, in the meantime, is quietly sinking his head into his hands.]
I can't. [It's a tiny whisper, tiny and broken.] I can't let him go.
[(Because letting Hikaru Shinta go meant that he had crawled back up - lost his second chance, lost that shot at redemption - for nothing.)
Thankfully, Davis is stirring inside Josh's head.
We can bring him back together. Just keep holding on to him.
They both had to push for it. They both needed to stay calm, because that was one emotion that Makoto Kuzunoha just wasn't capable of feeling right now.]
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Coach, can you talk to him? Feeling oddly young again, like the day he came home to his dad sitting blankly at the dinner table, a cup of coffee gone cold by an otherwise limp hand. ] Come on, man. Talk to me.
[ There is a sense of the room shrinking all around him, and he notes the goosebumps rising along his forearms. ] Makoto. Makoto. Snap out of it, man. Talk to me.
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And maybe - just maybe - Davis sounds the way that he used to whenever he had set his mind on something back when he was still alive. Josh will feel it: the way the presence in his mind expands, and singularly directs itself to what is right in front of them both.
The former coach is manifesting himself now, materializing right behind Makoto, setting two hands down on the other geist's shoulders. The contact makes Makoto flinch as if he had just taken a bullet; his entire body trembles.
Josh won't hear what Davis is saying. He'll only see his geist bend down, and murmur something into the other geist's ear, and notice, as well, how even though Makoto's shaking his head, the cold slowly starts to recede.
Nearly a quarter of an hour passes before Davis is withdrawing, and Makoto's finally speaking.]
Sorry.
[He's raw, vulnerable, and so far from what he should be that it isn't even funny.]
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Josh might be shivering a little, but he figures it's mostly because of the fact that the room's temperature is back to normal now and his body needs to acclimatize. ]
It's okay, man. [ There really isn't anything to apologize for. ] Better?
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Can I have a cigarette?
[Yes, it is quite odd for him to ask.]
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Three puffs in:]
Sorry. You're probably tired.
[Another oddity, Makoto Kuzunoha apologizing for anything.]
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And all the while, even with a relatively neutral face on, his mind is already spinning with questions. ] I'll be fine.
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[No wit here: all of it has bled out, because the pot it used to contain has most definitely broken.
Taking more than a few drags again before he's talking.]
I think I'd rather show you than tell you.
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Go ahead.
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-- and Josh is going to see things from his perspective now, and what that night was like: standing outside of the club, out back, with the heavy thrum of the music a distant vibration through one's body. The Blade King there, against the wall. Makoto's arms braced on either side of his head.
"You can't keep this up, and both of us know it. You need to let me go."
"Don't you dare even think that I'm going to do that."
More words, voices escalating - or, more accurately, Makoto's. Hikaru Shinta continues to remain painfully, infuriatingly calm, even as the look in his eyes is dark and maybe a little sad.
He still looked that way, even after Makoto closes in and kisses that mouth, fierce and rough. It's not the kind of kiss that's looking for reciprocation: it's the kind of kiss that demands a response, regardless of whether the other party wants to give it or not.
And he's letting Makoto do that. He waits all the way until Makoto's pulling back, breath harsh and accusing in his lungs, and watching him again with that same look that is driving him up the wall.
"You need to let me go."
Once the memory's done, Makoto's very quietly lifting the cigarette to his lips and taking another long drag.]
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It's a strange thing, the feelings in the memory both distant and present at the same time, and for one quiet moment, Josh is grateful that he isn't Makoto's Bound, that Makoto is not his geist the way Davis is -- because he's not entirely sure how he might have handled resonating with the former Sin-Eater after a flashback like this.
As it is, he's not entirely sure what does it, what it is about the scene glimpsed in his head that brings back old memories, but it does.
And it hurts. It hurts like a fresh wound. Like the day Angel had rammed into him and he couldn't get his legs to work right. Like the day the doctors told him the final diagnosis I'm sorry, son. I'm really sorry.
( Maritess Cambio had left her old tablet with him that day, had kissed him on the cheek like the son she thought of him as before she and Phillip -- his best friend since he and the other boy were in kindergarten, getting in trouble for running up the slide -- left with that bus. She'd been on the other end, patching the game through for him to watch as Cindy hovered by his side because the disease wracking his body had progressed to the point that he had no choice but to sit in a wheelchair most of the time, robbed of strength and movement and the freedom to do as any other twenty-one year old boy would.
By the time the team had returned, he'd been waiting in their living room, had asked his sister to help him put on varsity jacket, his number still stitched to the arm, their school's name stamped to the back. There were no apologies spoken, just the bent heads of a quarter of the total number of his team because their house wasn't big enough to fit them all.
Julian wasn't in the room. Neither was Angel. Phillip was though, one hand on Greg's shoulder as Josh bent forward, coughing because he'd been scolding his peers for a good five minutes straight before a fit overtook him.
He was always cold now. And always in pain. But all that was a helluva lot more bearable to seeing the team he'd helped pull together fall apart -- and all because they couldn't wrap their heads around the idea that he would never step on that field alongside them again.
You get that through your heads. There's no miracle waiting in the wings. I'm not getting up from this goddamn chair and it's not right that you're not listening to your new Quarterback.
It was the one and only time he'd lost it in front of them all, feeling helpless and frustrated for a good twenty minutes until he'd finally calmed down.
I'm expendable, he'd whispered then, voice a little too loud in a room where everyone present was silent. You can't put that weight on your seniors and think that we'll always be around. There is a reason why we are a team and why we make it a point to groom the incoming kids.
Do you even know what I saw, stuck here at home? You could have won that game if you had just had a little more faith in Greg. He isn't me. And I don't want him to be me. )
Josh shuts his eyes now, shakes his head and stares down at the cigarette perched between his fingers. To the ash burning away at the end. ]
You still love him. [ Simple. Upfront. Factual. ] You're angry and you're hurt. But you still love him.
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Perhaps he'll try again later.]
He's impossible to turn away from.
[Always has been, always will be.]
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Sure, he has them back now. But that was chance and maybe fate and a little intervention from people with more reach than him; people who weren't too close to the issue. ]
Nothing in the physical world is impossible to turn from. [ He doesn't know why he says it, only that it feels right. That, and for all that he suspects Makoto may react violently to being told this, Josh does sincerely think, it's time.
( You have to let me go. Unfinished business. The reasons why ghosts remained, why geists crawled up from the depths of the Underworld. ) ]
You just have to decide for yourself if stubbornly hanging onto something is good or bad for you. [ Flashing back again, to a girl whose laughter put him at ease, who he'd turned his gaze towards the window for, eventually giving up when it was clear she wasn't going to come by. ]
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It hurts. It still hurts. It's probably going to keep hurting for years to come.
(And even when it fades, all it's going to take is a look from that one, or the sound of his laughter, or the precise way that he walks through the world and towards everything in it to bring it back, sharp and brutal, to his awareness.)
The words are gone for a long moment, but the air around them remains steady. He has a better hold on himself now, and - in as much as he hates to admit it - he needed to hear that. It shows.]
I'll... [Swallowing.] I'll have to work on that.
[Releasing his hold, he means, and hanging it over Hikaru Shinta like some sort of guillotine. This isn't going to do anything but hurt them both, after all.]
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( Midnight Riders get shore leave, Josh. She takes hers and goes back home to your little town to touch base with your boys. )
He'd read up on the Riders then, tried to reconcile the girl looking helplessly out over that ledge with the lifestyle led by a conspiracy whose people were always on the road.
Remembering now, the look that Hikaru Shinta had sent his way when he'd quietly murmured I guess, we just... drifted apart. I got sick, she never came by and we just... it was just gone. And then looking up to feel a hitch in his heart, because the Blade King was still looking at him, with eyes that knew too much.
He'd tried to leave then, rising quickly from his seat in that bar in Shin Yamatai's entertainment district, the core of him utterly rattled because Annie Finnick had been his Great Perhaps -- and he'd missed any chance with her all because someone's wires got crossed. ]
Letting go usually is. [ A kind look now, sent Makoto's way. That sympathetic silence that just goes: I feel you, bro. ]
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Still. Why did he seem to regard Joshua LaRue in the same way that he used to look at Kaien Yamazaki, or Feranen?
Ridiculous, really, this thing people called 'attachment'. When he smiles, it's more for himself than it is for Josh, but that's probably going to be difficult to tell.]
I suppose you're going to be stuck with me while I figure it all out.
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