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. )
[ it's as though they speak the same language, she thinks, different from the way of worlds or nations. what they say, and what they mean, they don't always align, but understanding still makes the journey. wanting and not wanting, that's the way of things, isn't it? nobody ever truly wants to know of another's suffering, unless they know that the suffering exists from the start. she understands his meaning perfectly.
she would mistake him for a monster, if he weren't so human.
but this means she has to tell him something, wants to, at least, make their burdens mutual, but some secrets are just too large for this conversation.
she purses her lips, and, finally, breathes out. ]
A few months ago, someone arrived from my hometown. Someone I knew, a long time ago.
( he breathes out, and his fingers tighten around his own mug. she says someone i knew and he hears someone i care about, or cared about, a friend at the very least. it's happened recently with kougyoku, and he knows he's lucky that lacie remembered in the time she's been back; but ten years passed in the blink of an eye and he remembers those fears, being forgotten and irrelevant and no longer important to people who matter. )
[ her hands find anchor on her mug, cooling now, lighter-weight. if they're free, she knows, she'll hold her arm where the birthmark lays hidden, and oz doesn't need to see that scar. nobody does.
when she goes on, her mouth keeps pulling back into half-smiles, defensive, punctuating feeling. isn't it funny? and pretty stupid, right? as though she's only telling embarrassing anecdotes. ]
Age-wise, that is. I could tell. I wouldn't have cared so much, if he were younger; after all, you can't remember someone you've never met, right? But it wasn't like that. When we talked, he... never knew me, for who I was. But when I realized it, I didn't tell him, either.
... I was too scared to say anything. [ her shoulders hunch, straighten, as ruka shifts between wanting to make herself as small as possible, and denying herself that same comfort. ] He was the first friend I ever made, but he can make friends wherever he goes; there's nothing special about me. He didn't need me, and it only would have hurt him to know the truth. He didn't deserve that. And everything's changed so much... how could he have known me? My own parents wouldn't be able to pick me out of a crowd.
[ it's telling, in ways she does not know; she's trying so hard to be honest, but not too honest, too focused on not speaking some truths to notice the ones that slip out unsaid. like always, she makes decisions about other people's feelings, without giving them the chance to experience them from the start. ]
When it's anyone else, I don't mind as much... but I always looked up to him. I guess I expected better, even though I know better.
( he finds his gaze lowering until he's watching his cooling tea instead of her, taking in her words and tone, the sounds of her shifting, more than anything else. )
I see, ( is said again, softer, because he'd do the same, wouldn't he. says i see but means i understand, in all honesty. it's a scenario that's all too easy to relate to, imagine, being not only unneeded — and hasn't he always been? — but forgotten too.
all too easy to think it's better this way and pretend not to care, not to hurt, no matter how strong those feelings are inside — but at least they're inside, and no one's problem. )
In worlds like this — no. ( it's not a problem exclusive to places like these, between worlds, and his own shoulders inch nearer his ears. self-effacing: ) In any case, I would've done the same thing.
[ there was a surprise. pulling her focus out of her memories, ruka looks at oz, almost perplexed by his response. her words are slow to emerge. ]
Everyone else calls me selfish.
[ not always in those words, and never with the foreknowledge that oz now possesses, but ruka always felt that weight in other conversations. that, for whomever she holds such intense feelings, she is obligated to reveal, that even those made strangers are entitled to the truth of her heart, no matter how heavy or painful to bear. somehow, her feelings for others were more important than her feelings for anything else.
but that confirmation, that echo... even if it's borne from something like cowardice, like hurt, like selfish defense, it's a comfort to know she wouldn't be the only one to make that choice.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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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It seems like a strange thing for anyone to say they want to see.
( but he understands her meaning, really, wanting to keep things locked away because no one would want them. )
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she would mistake him for a monster, if he weren't so human.
but this means she has to tell him something, wants to, at least, make their burdens mutual, but some secrets are just too large for this conversation.
she purses her lips, and, finally, breathes out. ]
A few months ago, someone arrived from my hometown. Someone I knew, a long time ago.
He didn't know me.
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I see.
( he didn't know her, too, not doesn't. )
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[ her hands find anchor on her mug, cooling now, lighter-weight. if they're free, she knows, she'll hold her arm where the birthmark lays hidden, and oz doesn't need to see that scar. nobody does.
when she goes on, her mouth keeps pulling back into half-smiles, defensive, punctuating feeling. isn't it funny? and pretty stupid, right? as though she's only telling embarrassing anecdotes. ]
Age-wise, that is. I could tell. I wouldn't have cared so much, if he were younger; after all, you can't remember someone you've never met, right? But it wasn't like that. When we talked, he... never knew me, for who I was. But when I realized it, I didn't tell him, either.
... I was too scared to say anything. [ her shoulders hunch, straighten, as ruka shifts between wanting to make herself as small as possible, and denying herself that same comfort. ] He was the first friend I ever made, but he can make friends wherever he goes; there's nothing special about me. He didn't need me, and it only would have hurt him to know the truth. He didn't deserve that. And everything's changed so much... how could he have known me? My own parents wouldn't be able to pick me out of a crowd.
[ it's telling, in ways she does not know; she's trying so hard to be honest, but not too honest, too focused on not speaking some truths to notice the ones that slip out unsaid. like always, she makes decisions about other people's feelings, without giving them the chance to experience them from the start. ]
When it's anyone else, I don't mind as much... but I always looked up to him. I guess I expected better, even though I know better.
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I see, ( is said again, softer, because he'd do the same, wouldn't he. says i see but means i understand, in all honesty. it's a scenario that's all too easy to relate to, imagine, being not only unneeded — and hasn't he always been? — but forgotten too.
all too easy to think it's better this way and pretend not to care, not to hurt, no matter how strong those feelings are inside — but at least they're inside, and no one's problem. )
In worlds like this — no. ( it's not a problem exclusive to places like these, between worlds, and his own shoulders inch nearer his ears. self-effacing: ) In any case, I would've done the same thing.
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Everyone else calls me selfish.
[ not always in those words, and never with the foreknowledge that oz now possesses, but ruka always felt that weight in other conversations. that, for whomever she holds such intense feelings, she is obligated to reveal, that even those made strangers are entitled to the truth of her heart, no matter how heavy or painful to bear. somehow, her feelings for others were more important than her feelings for anything else.
but that confirmation, that echo... even if it's borne from something like cowardice, like hurt, like selfish defense, it's a comfort to know she wouldn't be the only one to make that choice.]
... But you understand.
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