Beyond the fact that I can't tell you when I'll really be available for Zangyaku? No, I don't think so.
[ It might be telling for you, how the "no" is not as certain as he could afford to make it. Words are the first thing that the Blade King starts to lose when things gets difficult, and that loss starts to affect everything else, including his conviction. ]
I need to see to things in the Infernal Realms alongside our in Arcadia. [ Both because of the disturbing news of disappearing souls and because of Estanislao Marisigan III, whom Tohru Fukuzawa has taken to viewing as another one of his sons. ] I also need to be on call for Aidan, and check up on a few leads that we Kings have found with regard to some old acquaintances of ours. [ "Aidan" again. Not "the Voidseeker", not "Clayce". An improvement, that. ] I'm sorry that I have to leave a lot of important things to you.
[ That is said with genuine feeling, so much so that he can't even look up at you. He's busying himself with setting his tablet aside and fetching his cigarette case. ]
[ Nodding again, and growing even more concerned because yes, she is hearing all these important matters, but there is something ( a mother's sixth sense, perhaps, though it is not quite as honed as her other skills ) that is weighing on you and it holds more weight than the responsibilities you readily bear. ]
This is what I am here for.
[ She has managed Zangyaku before, in your absence. She is the Mother of the Wolf for a reason. ]
[ And while he knows that, it's never been easy for him to accept the level of devotion that any of his operatives - "family", "friend", or otherwise - have to him. To his so-called "cause". It's only grown more difficult since dad Tohru Fukuzawa nearly died, and since Seigi was attacked and you were there. ]
Of course. [ Swallowing the small lump of emotion down, lighting up, taking a drag, exhaling. ] I should go after this. Sorry for the disturbing you.
[ Another apology, coupled with how he's still not looking at you. ]
[ Were things only so easy as passing you a bento with a kiss to your cheek before sending you on your way. Or calling you back and reminding you that you are her son, that devotion to your cause and to you as her leader is not mutually exclusive to offering you a place to come and sit and talk.
That before anything else, you are also her child.
Forgive her, Akihiko, if she has not done well by your promise. ]
[ He freezes, and looks up at you before he can stop himself. Can you blame him for being so surprised? It's been years since you've called him that. The last time had been...
...And while he is remembering it, he really doesn't want to remember the day that you called to him back in the 27th, when he was sixteen years old. He had been frightened by the summons, if only because the other ones had ended in broken things, tears, suffocating silence. Even if that meeting had ended with apologies and an almost-normal conversation, watching you - much thinner, eyes clear but sad, smiling at him yet unable to reach out and touch him - had cut deep.
Since that day, you had never called him by the name you had given him. It took him years to stop thinking about why, because doing so drove him a little crazy. ]
I'm all right, Kasumi. [ It's easy to call you "mother" when there's a crowd, somehow. ] I'm just tired.
[ Lies and lies and lies. He should get back out of the habit of telling them, shouldn't he? ]
[ It is terrible that the first thing she thinks of is: Have I failed you that much? She will not say that, of course. She knows your propensity to firmly believe that any failings are mostly your own.
She feels that phantom itch her fingers that long to run through your hair. You had been such a beautiful boy, small as you were, the day they had first held you close under the sun. She has watched you grow from that boy into the man you are now. ]
There are many gradients to the color of smoke. As there are nuances to the words you choose, my son.
[ My son. That should not feel both so foreign and so right on her lips, but it does.
She looks away, fingers cradling that pipe now. ]
Have I ever told you how beautifully crafted this pipe is?
[ And how she numbers it among the few, most precious things she will allow herself to keep. ]
[ There is a particular weight that comes with names and titles, especially among the Wolfborn. More often than not, to be called any one of the names he had owned in previous life cycles feels like a chain wrapping itself tight around his neck and dragging him down, or a tie that keeps him linked to people who will inevitably break and suffer simply because they choose to stand too close to him.
He does not know what to make of that. The fact that you've called him your son again, and there is no one but him to hear it. ]
No, you haven't.
[ He had made that for you for your birthday - the pipe, the box, the initial mix of tobacco, mint leaves and cloves - back in 2012. He had not, however, managed to muster up the courage to deliver the gifts to you himself, much less tell you that it had been something wrought by his own two hands. ]
I'm glad you like it.
[ It's becoming harder for him to speak. He takes another drag from his cigarette in the hopes that it will go some ways towards settling him down, or at least provide a distraction from the ache in his heart. ]
[ She is testing the weight of it now, lifting it up and gauging the balance of it's length between her fingers. She remembers how, upon lifting the lid and seeing the pipe resting on the inner lining, she had found herself at a loss for words.
You craft things with your own hands out of love. The higher the attention to detail, the finer the make, the deeper your affection.
Such is the case with the sword that the Voidseeker rarely carries for the sword is not his weapon. Or the knife that the Seer keeps holds close. She knows of the Daywalker's most favored pocket watch was no doubt pieced together with care, and is it poetic in it's own way, given that sleep takes time from that powerful one.
And even when you cannot build items that would best express the regard you hold those who you keep dear in your heart, there are other ways. The Assassin, after all, is not a man most would imagine would keep another creature closeby on his own walks. And yet that falcon is never far from his side. ]
He would have loved this pipe, your father.
[ It is deliberate, son, the way she uses these words. Names can speak of intimacy, but the right titles do as well. ]
You should take it with you, on one of your visits.
[ She is not brave enough yet to ask if she may join you. She understands what the peace and silence means, when you sit in the company of that marker. ]
[ The words slip out before he can stop himself, just like how he doesn't realize that the mask he's tried to keep on his face has cracked.
His free hand clenches, matching the way his lips press together right before he tries, once again, to smooth himself over with a little bit of nicotine. ]
...You should be the one to go and show it to him, if you want to.
[ He doesn't yet know how you'll take the possibility of him asking you to come with him, so he does not try. ]
[ Perhaps, if it were not so difficult to see the ease by which a mortal woman such as Asami Fukuzawa merely moves around you, the weight over her own heart might be easier to lift.
Smoke and mirrors, facets of a whole, are much easier to manage than straightforward truths.
A proper family. That was the broken dream. ]
I would not know what to tell your father if I went and you were not there beside me.
[ Apologies covering two lifetimes and more are far too trite, Mitsuru. She is the mother she could have been to you. All rivers run towards the sea. Structures may seek to guide it, dams to contain it -- but all stone weathers and the earth erodes given time. ]
[ The relief catches him off-guard, as does your words. It's enough to rob him, for the moment, of any possible reaction that could smooth things over.
Are you sure about this? He can't help but wonder, given how everything between you has the tendency to do nothing but widen the yawning chasm of unspoken words, unresolved issues, actions never taken. And yet. ]
Perhaps, when things are less busy, then...
[ Then.
He still can't bring himself to ask you. He decimated your world just by being born, but there are few other things he would want more than to be able to talk to you properly again, or maybe simply be with you as your son. ]
[ She will puff from that pipe once, her eyes falling again beyond that window. It is the last night of September and tomorrow is another day.
When she turns to you again, she takes your hand in hers and turns it over to study the lines of your palm. Time is a luxury she can afford, where it concerns giving you space. But even luxuries should not be taken for granted.
She will put the pipe between your fingers now, Mitsuru, and then reach for the box of tobacco and set some for you to enjoy.
All rivers return to the sea. And the sea is much like the darkness. As a Warden, she will do well to remember that. ]
in winter, snow falls / a forest draped in ashes
[ She has not done as she promised, Akihiko, but before she is the Mother of the Wolf, she was your beloved, and this boy, is both yours and hers. ]
tomorrow, the sun
[ She must still examine her feelings regarding the possibility and wisdom of Hikaru Shinta returning to the karmic cycle, for that is something that warrants long and careful thought. But for Kasumi Aoi and the child she carried in her womb for nearly a year, the boy she swore to provide for, it is a mother's right to wish her son happiness and not more tears. ]
Where is your smile tonight, Mitsuru? [ It is a mother's right to ask why your eyes are so dim, is it not? ] Will you allow me the honor of an answer before you leave for your walk?
[ He watches you that entire time with a look that only begins to graze the surface of the full extent of his feelings. When you ask, though, there is a smile that comes to his lips. It's the knee-jerk one that comes around when he's feeling very helpless and a lot alone.
The cigarette he was smoking through crumbles to ash with a turn of his fingers. He focuses his attentions, for the moment, on lighting up the pipe in its place. ]
[ Perhaps it is because you have given her this, perhaps it is because the smile you have rewarded her is a smile that wakes the wolf in her, but she is gently reaching over now to stroke your hair, hesitating only to give you a chance to shy away if this is still too soon for you. ]
Begin where it feels right to begin.
[ And if, by any chance, whatever that is needs to be 'seen to' you need only say the word and it will be done. ]
[ He'll look so painfully young in that moment when he feels the way you reach out and touch him. He's missed this, and he hasn't given himself any time to really allow himself to miss it.
Swallowing, willing himself to calm down. Then, once he finally does just a little (it takes much longer than it should), taking a drag from the pipe. Then another. ]
You approved the request. You know about Brianna already, and what I've allowed her to do.
[ Besides, even before you were ever the Magistrate of Seigi or the Lady of the Night, nothing in Zangyaku ever escaped your notice. At least not after your first and only fall. ]
[ Most days she forgets that you only saw your twenty-first birthday earlier this month. She will need to address that oversight, at least, on occasions such as this, when none will dare listen in.
She will tuck a errant strand of hair behind your ear at that. ]
I admit it seemed sudden, that request.
[ You do not take betrayal lightly. Tala had been one way to gauge your feelings on the matter, since she had not had the means at the time, to check in with you. She can, if you will allow her eventually, make up for that.
She will not outright ask the details of your exchange with Joshua LaRue. If you are comfortable enough to speak of it, you will. Matters between lovers are after all, private affairs. ]
[ It's very, very hard to resist the urge to find somewhere in this room to curl up tight and hide away right now. Just the mere mention of what caused him and Josh to fight is bad. ]
I can't... I can't forgive her yet, and that's hard on everyone in her blade. On him.
[ Breathe in, breathe out. Try not to so sound so shaken. Try. ]
I guess this is just another reminder of how it seems like the only thing I ever do is screw things up with him.
[ Her hand is falling to your shoulder, and then down your back in a gesture that is meant to soothe. She has observed the Hounds as closely as she could, at first because of their proximity to her son and then, because of their own merits.
The night that Brianna Lopez had decided to leave them all she had received a call from the one in their number who had set his sights on becoming one of the Wardens. What she had heard over the phone call from Brigade was grief. When whispers reached her ears that you had not gone on your nightly walk, she had taken time to sit an contemplate the situation. And then Tala, and the pieces fell into place.
She is not surprised that your feelings are what they are. She would question were they otherwise. ]
The road you are on is not one that can be traveled with ease, Mitsuru. [ She lets you go for the moment, folds her hands gently over her lap. ] It is often the case when one's eyes are fixed on the horizon.
[ That leaves him the space to clench his hands together. Better that than get stuck watching the way that they shake.
Doesn't he?
It's the question right on his lips, and yet just considering the possibility of walking away from Joshua LaRue now, even if it's for his own good, rips him apart.
Is that, too, not weakness? Not being able to end things before they get too painful, too destructive. ]
[ She'll watch that and then take a second puff while she lets you recompose yourself.
She's remembering now, the occasions wherein she had been able to watch the Sin-Eater up close. Two float to the surface easily: the look on the boy's face the day she asked him and Brianna Lopez to take you away from the Assassin's bedside; and the way Joshua LaRue had looked when she, Tohru, Asami, the Seer, and the two other Kings who in their own way view you as a son, sat down with him at King's Rest. ]
My son, [ a breath now, for emphasis ( because you are, you are her son ) ] If a question is left unanswered, is it better to let it lie and sit in uncertainty... or is it not wise to pursue the truth?
[ She says that evenly now. It is not her place to tell you whether or not your relationship with the War Hounds' blade leader will be good in the long run. At the end of it, the pursuit of the your relationship with him will only merit her attention if the boy destroys you in ways she cannot allow.
If you leave him, if you can walk away, that is your choice. His feelings are his own. He is not her son. ]
[ Asking him that only makes him aware of what he's been trying not to deal with. That ending them was going to crush him. Wouldn't keeping at it, though, just make things harder for Josh in the long run? Did he have the right to subject Josh to that?
Thinking on that more, though, makes him remember, almost distractedly, the look on Josh's face when the two of them had ended up having an interesting conversation at the Tower. The one that had started everything.
Kid gloves. ]
I'll need to ask him first, huh? How he feels about all of this.
[ Instead of fucking up even more by carrying on with what he believes is right.
[ A couple. That was what they were. Yes, it wasn't like he had never been in a relationship before but could anyone honestly say that those had been normal in any fashion?
He was really, really bad at this.
Sighing now, because the exhaustion's curling his shoulders and bowing his head down low. ]
I think I need to give him some space first. [ A pause. ] I think I need a little bit of space too, to think.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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[ It might be telling for you, how the "no" is not as certain as he could afford to make it. Words are the first thing that the Blade King starts to lose when things gets difficult, and that loss starts to affect everything else, including his conviction. ]
I need to see to things in the Infernal Realms alongside our in Arcadia. [ Both because of the disturbing news of disappearing souls and because of Estanislao Marisigan III, whom Tohru Fukuzawa has taken to viewing as another one of his sons. ] I also need to be on call for Aidan, and check up on a few leads that we Kings have found with regard to some old acquaintances of ours. [ "Aidan" again. Not "the Voidseeker", not "Clayce". An improvement, that. ] I'm sorry that I have to leave a lot of important things to you.
[ That is said with genuine feeling, so much so that he can't even look up at you. He's busying himself with setting his tablet aside and fetching his cigarette case. ]
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This is what I am here for.
[ She has managed Zangyaku before, in your absence. She is the Mother of the Wolf for a reason. ]
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dadTohru Fukuzawa nearly died, and since Seigi was attackedand you were there. ]Of course. [ Swallowing the small lump of emotion down, lighting up, taking a drag, exhaling. ] I should go after this. Sorry for the disturbing you.
[ Another apology, coupled with how he's still not looking at you. ]
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That before anything else, you are also her child.
Forgive her, Akihiko, if she has not done well by your promise. ]
Mitsuru.
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...And while he is remembering it, he really doesn't want to remember the day that you called to him back in the 27th, when he was sixteen years old. He had been frightened by the summons, if only because the other ones had ended in broken things, tears, suffocating silence. Even if that meeting had ended with apologies and an almost-normal conversation, watching you - much thinner, eyes clear but sad, smiling at him yet unable to reach out and touch him - had cut deep.
Since that day, you had never called him by the name you had given him. It took him years to stop thinking about why, because doing so drove him a little crazy. ]
I'm all right, Kasumi. [ It's easy to call you "mother" when there's a crowd, somehow. ] I'm just tired.
[ Lies and lies and lies. He should get back out of the habit of telling them, shouldn't he? ]
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She feels that phantom itch her fingers that long to run through your hair. You had been such a beautiful boy, small as you were, the day they had first held you close under the sun. She has watched you grow from that boy into the man you are now. ]
There are many gradients to the color of smoke. As there are nuances to the words you choose, my son.
[ My son. That should not feel both so foreign and so right on her lips, but it does.
She looks away, fingers cradling that pipe now. ]
Have I ever told you how beautifully crafted this pipe is?
[ And how she numbers it among the few, most precious things she will allow herself to keep. ]
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He does not know what to make of that. The fact that you've called him your son again, and there is no one but him to hear it. ]
No, you haven't.
[ He had made that for you for your birthday - the pipe, the box, the initial mix of tobacco, mint leaves and cloves - back in 2012. He had not, however, managed to muster up the courage to deliver the gifts to you himself, much less tell you that it had been something wrought by his own two hands. ]
I'm glad you like it.
[ It's becoming harder for him to speak. He takes another drag from his cigarette in the hopes that it will go some ways towards settling him down, or at least provide a distraction from the ache in his heart. ]
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You craft things with your own hands out of love. The higher the attention to detail, the finer the make, the deeper your affection.
Such is the case with the sword that the Voidseeker rarely carries for the sword is not his weapon. Or the knife that the Seer keeps holds close. She knows of the Daywalker's most favored pocket watch was no doubt pieced together with care, and is it poetic in it's own way, given that sleep takes time from that powerful one.
And even when you cannot build items that would best express the regard you hold those who you keep dear in your heart, there are other ways. The Assassin, after all, is not a man most would imagine would keep another creature closeby on his own walks. And yet that falcon is never far from his side. ]
He would have loved this pipe, your father.
[ It is deliberate, son, the way she uses these words. Names can speak of intimacy, but the right titles do as well. ]
You should take it with you, on one of your visits.
[ She is not brave enough yet to ask if she may join you. She understands what the peace and silence means, when you sit in the company of that marker. ]
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[ The words slip out before he can stop himself, just like how he doesn't realize that the mask he's tried to keep on his face has cracked.
His free hand clenches, matching the way his lips press together right before he tries, once again, to smooth himself over with a little bit of nicotine. ]
...You should be the one to go and show it to him, if you want to.
[ He doesn't yet know how you'll take the possibility of him asking you to come with him, so he does not try. ]
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Smoke and mirrors, facets of a whole, are much easier to manage than straightforward truths.
A proper family. That was the broken dream. ]
I would not know what to tell your father if I went and you were not there beside me.
[ Apologies covering two lifetimes and more are far too trite, Mitsuru. She is the mother she could have been to you. All rivers run towards the sea. Structures may seek to guide it, dams to contain it -- but all stone weathers and the earth erodes given time. ]
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Are you sure about this? He can't help but wonder, given how everything between you has the tendency to do nothing but widen the yawning chasm of unspoken words, unresolved issues, actions never taken. And yet. ]
Perhaps, when things are less busy, then...
[ Then.
He still can't bring himself to ask you. He decimated your world just by being born, but there are few other things he would want more than to be able to talk to you properly again, or maybe simply be with you as your son. ]
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When she turns to you again, she takes your hand in hers and turns it over to study the lines of your palm. Time is a luxury she can afford, where it concerns giving you space. But even luxuries should not be taken for granted.
She will put the pipe between your fingers now, Mitsuru, and then reach for the box of tobacco and set some for you to enjoy.
All rivers return to the sea. And the sea is much like the darkness. As a Warden, she will do well to remember that. ]
in winter, snow falls / a forest draped in ashes
[ She has not done as she promised, Akihiko, but before she is the Mother of the Wolf, she was your beloved, and this boy, is both yours and hers. ]
tomorrow, the sun
[ She must still examine her feelings regarding the possibility and wisdom of Hikaru Shinta returning to the karmic cycle, for that is something that warrants long and careful thought. But for Kasumi Aoi and the child she carried in her womb for nearly a year, the boy she swore to provide for, it is a mother's right to wish her son happiness and not more tears. ]
Where is your smile tonight, Mitsuru? [ It is a mother's right to ask why your eyes are so dim, is it not? ] Will you allow me the honor of an answer before you leave for your walk?
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The cigarette he was smoking through crumbles to ash with a turn of his fingers. He focuses his attentions, for the moment, on lighting up the pipe in its place. ]
I don't really know where to start.
[ That's not an evasion. You'd recognize that. ]
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Begin where it feels right to begin.
[ And if, by any chance, whatever that is needs to be 'seen to' you need only say the word and it will be done. ]
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Swallowing, willing himself to calm down. Then, once he finally does just a little (it takes much longer than it should), taking a drag from the pipe. Then another. ]
You approved the request. You know about Brianna already, and what I've allowed her to do.
[ Besides, even before you were ever the Magistrate of Seigi or the Lady of the Night, nothing in Zangyaku ever escaped your notice. At least not after your first and only fall. ]
Josh and I talked about her.
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She will tuck a errant strand of hair behind your ear at that. ]
I admit it seemed sudden, that request.
[ You do not take betrayal lightly. Tala had been one way to gauge your feelings on the matter, since she had not had the means at the time, to check in with you. She can, if you will allow her eventually, make up for that.
She will not outright ask the details of your exchange with Joshua LaRue. If you are comfortable enough to speak of it, you will. Matters between lovers are after all, private affairs. ]
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[ It's very, very hard to resist the urge to find somewhere in this room to curl up tight and hide away right now. Just the mere mention of what caused him and Josh to fight is bad. ]
I can't... I can't forgive her yet, and that's hard on everyone in her blade. On him.
[ Breathe in, breathe out. Try not to so sound so shaken. Try. ]
I guess this is just another reminder of how it seems like the only thing I ever do is screw things up with him.
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The night that Brianna Lopez had decided to leave them all she had received a call from the one in their number who had set his sights on becoming one of the Wardens. What she had heard over the phone call from Brigade was grief. When whispers reached her ears that you had not gone on your nightly walk, she had taken time to sit an contemplate the situation. And then Tala, and the pieces fell into place.
She is not surprised that your feelings are what they are. She would question were they otherwise. ]
The road you are on is not one that can be traveled with ease, Mitsuru. [ She lets you go for the moment, folds her hands gently over her lap. ] It is often the case when one's eyes are fixed on the horizon.
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Tell me about it.
[ He's tired, see. Tired right down to the marrow of his bones. ]
Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all.
[ It hurts to say that. It hurts to even think of it. But it's becoming very, very hard to deny the possibility of it being true. ]
He deserves a lot more than this.
[ Than me. ]
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Does he?
[ She's lifting that pipe from your fingers a taking a puff for herself. ]
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Doesn't he?
It's the question right on his lips, and yet just considering the possibility of walking away from Joshua LaRue now, even if it's for his own good, rips him apart.
Is that, too, not weakness? Not being able to end things before they get too painful, too destructive. ]
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She's remembering now, the occasions wherein she had been able to watch the Sin-Eater up close. Two float to the surface easily: the look on the boy's face the day she asked him and Brianna Lopez to take you away from the Assassin's bedside; and the way Joshua LaRue had looked when she, Tohru, Asami, the Seer, and the two other Kings who in their own way view you as a son, sat down with him at King's Rest. ]
My son, [ a breath now, for emphasis ( because you are, you are her son ) ] If a question is left unanswered, is it better to let it lie and sit in uncertainty... or is it not wise to pursue the truth?
[ She says that evenly now. It is not her place to tell you whether or not your relationship with the War Hounds' blade leader will be good in the long run. At the end of it, the pursuit of the your relationship with him will only merit her attention if the boy destroys you in ways she cannot allow.
If you leave him, if you can walk away, that is your choice. His feelings are his own. He is not her son. ]
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Thinking on that more, though, makes him remember, almost distractedly, the look on Josh's face when the two of them had ended up having an interesting conversation at the Tower. The one that had started everything.
Kid gloves. ]
I'll need to ask him first, huh? How he feels about all of this.
[ Instead of fucking up even more by carrying on with what he believes is right.
That frightens him. ]
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That is usually what couples do, Mitsuru.
[ Lifting that pipe again now. ]
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He was really, really bad at this.
Sighing now, because the exhaustion's curling his shoulders and bowing his head down low. ]
I think I need to give him some space first. [ A pause. ] I think I need a little bit of space too, to think.
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