( it's a funny thing about being here, that people can know one of them and not the other. it was more of a difficult thing before gil's arrival, but by now it's a little bit of a curiosity of their position here. )
That's right! He's my best friend. ( which may seem a funny thing too, one to say of someone ten years his senior — but that'd only be if ruka knew him. ) He fusses a lot, and he thinks they're too dangerous to keep around.
That's too bad, then. [ Another quiet pause, sipping from her mug — it's not bad tea, and she's certainly had better, but it's nice, having it like this.
And at least there are no hearts in these cups. ]
He's someone you knew before you arrived here, right?
( a long time isn't quite the inflection on the word, but it's weighted nonetheless. gil had promised to be an unwavering presence more than once, and while it's still a concept oz struggles with believing in, it's not for any fault on gil's end. )
[ A weight she acknowledges, but cannot carry. And though it would be easy for the words to be bitter, self-pitying, they remain soft as ever. A best friend that you've known a long time -- she's never had anything like that. She had her twin brother, back in Neo Domino, but there is a difference between siblings and best friends. They didn't even get along most of the time, and they spent much of it roaming between the forests of guilt and resentment, anyway. Besides that, the brother that had joined her in the City had gone back, and grown up without the her that'd done the same. It was not the separation of universes that grieved her, but of years. She can pretend to see his face in the mirror, but she hasn't beheld it since when she could see with two eyes.
Best friends in the City were short, fleeting things: a year here, a year there. And then, her emotional stopgap, the important person she left behind... well, there was no hope there, was there? She knows she's never going to see him, the one who she's needed so much, ever again.
Her fingers pick at her bare wrist in absent habit, seeking affection no longer present. ]
( he looks up, surprised. the more cynical comment that comes is fairly expected, but the softer sentiment before catches him off-guard. it's easy to buy into her persona sometimes, genuinely believe she may care for nothing and no one, when in reality it's perhaps not so surprising, even coming from her.
is there really a person who can stop from hungering for affection?
her gesture gives away the change he'd more nebulously noticed previously, the ah right there was a bracelet. his eyes narrow slightly, briefly, but that's all. )
Isn't it a lot risky? Something like that.
( a little bit for her sake, and a little bit a slip. )
the first time I wrote this I got halfway through with "fabulous" instead of "familiar"
The stakes aren't always so high. Someone who would pay any price for a familiar face -- with a heart so willing, no risk would seem worth considering.
[ her plucking fingers cease their motion, laying flat down, slipping to the table when she lifts her mug again. ]
Or if it's someone they can't live without... but, the day that person vanishes would be so much more painful, wouldn't it?
[when, she says, like it's the most obvious and unchanging thing. the earth orbits the sun; the moon orbits the earth; the ones you love will be lost to you. ]
And worse than that, it's never promised that the person who wears their face is the one you remember, or the one that remembers you. That's the worst of all.
At least, [ added with the slightest shrug off her shoulders, raising the mug the rest of the way to her mouth, to scald the bile of her poison words from her own tongue, ] that's what I think.
( but they are always so high, he thinks, even if in different ways. there's no fear of someone vanishing the way they can here, be here one day and gone the next, returned to far-away places with no memory of anything that happened, it's true. but there's no 'absolute,' either, is there; something that exists one day can be gone the next, product of a misunderstanding or a straight lie or simply —
('i'd be happy if he hadn't been born.' 'don't touch me; you're filthy.')
— simply, being asked to believe in someone or in their feelings seems almost too much to ask or hope for. even with stakes that she doesn't think are so high, he couldn't bring himself to believe in even one person entirely, and isn't that the mark of a coward? )
No, ( says levelly, ) I think you have a point. Ah, for people who've been here as long as we have — and longer — we've all seen scenarios like those happen.
[ her smile is wane, shallow and pale, like the last light of a crescent moon after days of increasing darkness. ]
As long as we have... somehow, it's hard to think like that. It's felt so short...
But, even that was time enough for—
[ her speech falters, and her false smile departs. the pause, the stagger is obvious, and when she turns her face, embarrassment is the cloak to cover truth. ]
( it's felt so long — but then, ten years felt almost as short as the blink of an eye to him (almost), so he's the last who can speak to the passage of time. he knows better than to visibly react to her falter, than to show concern; he's instead insouciant. )
It's been time enough for a lot of things, don't you think?
( he's still, in all truth, not sure how he feels about the prospect of inevitably leaving and forgetting this place. it was something he'd used to dread, and then after september longed for deeply. the scales have righted themselves somewhat by now, but it's easy to wish for the barrier of lost memories with all the misery. )
[ she speaks so bluntly, when she doesn't look at him, her words on a distorted, mirrored path to where his thoughts have fallen—loss, memory, betrayal in a single sentence. buffers of cheer do not strengthen her own masks, layered and damaged on her damaged face. ]
( he wonders if he'd be happier if this did occur — if he were sent back and another took his place, however that would work. because it's attractive, isn't it, forgetting; and on the other hand it's so selfish a thought that he's glad no one else will ever know of it. )
But you know, even if I didn't remember you, I'd still be glad to be greeted by you.
Even if he holds his shoulders straighter than you? Or... has different sorrows, behind his eyes.
[ she knows why she asks, but she doesn't know why she's asking him. is it because of how heavy the burden of memory feels on her back, and him having no parallel in her past? is it a heart made unsteady by being recognized, by being mourned in her own presence?
( what sorrows, he might say to someone else. but no, haruka knows very well — at least in some ways. )
Even then. ( despite her request — gently ignored, perhaps, or just trampled underfoot. ) Though I wouldn't be able to make many other promises about him.
Thank you for the tea. [ it sounds like I'm sorry when it passes her lips; even on her good side, (or perhaps, she thinks, her less-bad side) her eye is closed against all light.
[ it shouldn't surprise her, but it does. it should be expected, but it isn't. caught off-guard, her eye opens when she turns her head to look at him, a faint startlement at the corners of her open mouth.
does he know he has her trapped, with a counter like that? she can't say he hasn't burdened her—hasn't let her feel some weight from what he endured. she can't say it isn't a burden, because wouldn't that diminish his experience? to say, i know what has happened, and it means nothing to me?
she lacks the courage for callousness, when she would have to meet his eye. ]
( it's less an accidental trap than an unknowing one; his baseline expectations of people are far from flattering, whatever a wide smile suggests, and so such callousness is almost anticipated.
instead, she startles a laugh from him.
he doubts it's meant to be a kindness so much as a reflection on her own misery — from you to no one, it's probably interchangeable — but it's still a foreign sentiment. not that it should be, really, but even a year of kindnesses he never would've dreamed possible can't paper over fifteen cold ones prior.
or rather, it could, but only if he'd let it. )
You shouldn't worry about something like "deserving." ( because feelings like that, friendship, aren't about 'worth' is what someone else would think while saying that, and it's the image he wants to portray anyway ) Looking at it another way, if I've given you a burden, and you've given me one, doesn't that make us even?
We won't ever be even. Not really. There's nothing of mine to match yours in weight, and... I don't think yours will match mine, in shape.
[ but he frames it as a transaction, as weights and debts, and somehow this is easier than sympathy. it's strangely impersonal, a secret for a secret, but then, if he'd spoken of a willing spirit and the bonds of friendship, she would already be leaving, wouldn't she?
( it's because, in part, he realizes that speaking of friendship would put her off, and also because it's an easy way for him to see these things. it'd bothered chrono — my confidence isn't a bargaining chip — but simple transactions make much more sense than the messier business of feelings. and she's right, he thinks, about weight and shape; he'll likely never quite follow or experience to understand the things that scare her, and he can hope she'll never have uncertainties about her right to exist. )
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( it's a funny thing about being here, that people can know one of them and not the other. it was more of a difficult thing before gil's arrival, but by now it's a little bit of a curiosity of their position here. )
That's right! He's my best friend. ( which may seem a funny thing too, one to say of someone ten years his senior — but that'd only be if ruka knew him. ) He fusses a lot, and he thinks they're too dangerous to keep around.
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( also the cats like riding around on them which terrifies gilbert )
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That's too bad, then. [ Another quiet pause, sipping from her mug — it's not bad tea, and she's certainly had better, but it's nice, having it like this.
And at least there are no hearts in these cups. ]
He's someone you knew before you arrived here, right?
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Yes. We've known each other a long time.
( a long time isn't quite the inflection on the word, but it's weighted nonetheless. gil had promised to be an unwavering presence more than once, and while it's still a concept oz struggles with believing in, it's not for any fault on gil's end. )
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[ A weight she acknowledges, but cannot carry. And though it would be easy for the words to be bitter, self-pitying, they remain soft as ever. A best friend that you've known a long time -- she's never had anything like that. She had her twin brother, back in Neo Domino, but there is a difference between siblings and best friends. They didn't even get along most of the time, and they spent much of it roaming between the forests of guilt and resentment, anyway. Besides that,
the brother that had joined her in the City had gone back, and grown up without the her that'd done the same. It was not the separation of universes that grieved her, but of years. She can pretend to see his face in the mirror, but she hasn't beheld it since when she could see with two eyes.
Best friends in the City were short, fleeting things: a year here, a year there. And then, her emotional stopgap, the important person she left behind... well, there was no hope there, was there? She knows she's never going to see him, the one who she's needed so much, ever again.
Her fingers pick at her bare wrist in absent habit, seeking affection no longer present. ]
But a little risky, too.
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is there really a person who can stop from hungering for affection?
her gesture gives away the change he'd more nebulously noticed previously, the ah right there was a bracelet. his eyes narrow slightly, briefly, but that's all. )
Isn't it a lot risky? Something like that.
( a little bit for her sake, and a little bit a slip. )
the first time I wrote this I got halfway through with "fabulous" instead of "familiar"
[ her plucking fingers cease their motion, laying flat down, slipping to the table when she lifts her mug again. ]
Or if it's someone they can't live without... but, the day that person vanishes would be so much more painful, wouldn't it?
[ when, she says, like it's the most obvious and unchanging thing. the earth orbits the sun; the moon orbits the earth; the ones you love will be lost to you. ]
And worse than that, it's never promised that the person who wears their face is the one you remember, or the one that remembers you. That's the worst of all.
At least, [ added with the slightest shrug off her shoulders, raising the mug the rest of the way to her mouth, to scald the bile of her poison words from her own tongue, ] that's what I think.
LMFAO
('i'd be happy if he hadn't been born.'
'don't touch me; you're filthy.')
— simply, being asked to believe in someone or in their feelings seems almost too much to ask or hope for. even with stakes that she doesn't think are so high, he couldn't bring himself to believe in even one person entirely, and isn't that the mark of a coward? )
No, ( says levelly, ) I think you have a point. Ah, for people who've been here as long as we have — and longer — we've all seen scenarios like those happen.
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As long as we have... somehow, it's hard to think like that. It's felt so short...
But, even that was time enough for—
[ her speech falters, and her false smile departs. the pause, the stagger is obvious, and when she turns her face, embarrassment is the cloak to cover truth. ]
—Ah. I suppose it doesn't matter now.
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It's been time enough for a lot of things, don't you think?
( he's still, in all truth, not sure how he feels about the prospect of inevitably leaving and forgetting this place. it was something he'd used to dread, and then after september longed for deeply. the scales have righted themselves somewhat by now, but it's easy to wish for the barrier of lost memories with all the misery. )
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[ she speaks so bluntly, when she doesn't look at him, her words on a distorted, mirrored path to where his thoughts have fallen—loss, memory, betrayal in a single sentence. buffers of cheer do not strengthen her own masks, layered and damaged on her damaged face. ]
Your ignorant successor.
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( ah, he thinks, he understands the problem now. )
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but then, ruka thinks, how is anyone ever going to understand her, when even she—who understands hearts better than anyone—cannot?]
Usually.
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But you know, even if I didn't remember you, I'd still be glad to be greeted by you.
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[ she knows why she asks, but she doesn't know why she's asking him. is it because of how heavy the burden of memory feels on her back, and him having no parallel in her past? is it a heart made unsteady by being recognized, by being mourned in her own presence?
is she really this lonely? ]
No... don't answer that.
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Even then. ( despite her request — gently ignored, perhaps, or just trampled underfoot. ) Though I wouldn't be able to make many other promises about him.
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how pathetic. ]
I won't lay further burden on you.
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straightens
and looks directly at her )
You haven't given me any burdens at all. ( then — ) I should be saying that.
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does he know he has her trapped, with a counter like that? she can't say he hasn't burdened her—hasn't let her feel some weight from what he endured. she can't say it isn't a burden, because wouldn't that diminish his experience? to say, i know what has happened, and it means nothing to me?
she lacks the courage for callousness, when she would have to meet his eye. ]
You don't deserve the misery of it.
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instead, she startles a laugh from him.
he doubts it's meant to be a kindness so much as a reflection on her own misery — from you to no one, it's probably interchangeable — but it's still a foreign sentiment. not that it should be, really, but even a year of kindnesses he never would've dreamed possible can't paper over fifteen cold ones prior.
or rather, it could, but only if he'd let it. )
You shouldn't worry about something like "deserving." ( because feelings like that, friendship, aren't about 'worth' is what someone else would think while saying that, and it's the image he wants to portray anyway ) Looking at it another way, if I've given you a burden, and you've given me one, doesn't that make us even?
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[ but he frames it as a transaction, as weights and debts, and somehow this is easier than sympathy. it's strangely impersonal, a secret for a secret, but then, if he'd spoken of a willing spirit and the bonds of friendship, she would already be leaving, wouldn't she?
even so...]
Is this what you want?
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What I want?
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