My mother used to tell me, how my father changed after I was born. He'd work too long, he'd take too much on himself, he'd push himself to do things he wouldn't before. She said he calmed down after a few years, that it was like he was re-learning what was 'allowed'. [Allowed without a spirit watching through his eyes.] ...I'm taking longer than him to learn, aren't I?
[Ah. Minakami wasn't sure which outcome he was more afraid of: This, or coming back to find that his confession had been lost in the week of delirium. He's too fatigued to go to pieces over this again, not after that genuine moment of thinking he was about to die. Instead he shifts the camera onto the other side of the bench (where his sword is sitting next to one of the Hihi'irokane daggers, cocooned in about four or five layers of fabric). There's too many people still rushing around in and out of the building to actually reach for Tama's hand, but he leans sideways into him, as well.]
... Not that many. [That didn't mean anything, given the scale of time. ] I didn't want to tell you. Even if you believed it -- I don't want this to be because you thought you didn't have a choice. [As it is, for the last couple of years, he'd been sure Tama had made his choice clear.] ...I wish... you wouldn't say that about yourself. Every time I've known you-- [even if it wasn't for long] --my life was better for it.
[At the mention of that injury from some unknown timeline, he reflexively moves to grab his own arm, the same one that had gotten bloodied while fighting smugglers.]
i am going to dismantle you into individual atoms
My mother used to tell me, how my father changed after I was born. He'd work too long, he'd take too much on himself, he'd push himself to do things he wouldn't before. She said he calmed down after a few years, that it was like he was re-learning what was 'allowed'. [Allowed without a spirit watching through his eyes.] ...I'm taking longer than him to learn, aren't I?
[Ah. Minakami wasn't sure which outcome he was more afraid of: This, or coming back to find that his confession had been lost in the week of delirium. He's too fatigued to go to pieces over this again, not after that genuine moment of thinking he was about to die. Instead he shifts the camera onto the other side of the bench (where his sword is sitting next to one of the Hihi'irokane daggers, cocooned in about four or five layers of fabric). There's too many people still rushing around in and out of the building to actually reach for Tama's hand, but he leans sideways into him, as well.]
... Not that many. [That didn't mean anything, given the scale of time. ] I didn't want to tell you. Even if you believed it -- I don't want this to be because you thought you didn't have a choice. [As it is, for the last couple of years, he'd been sure Tama had made his choice clear.] ...I wish... you wouldn't say that about yourself. Every time I've known you-- [even if it wasn't for long] --my life was better for it.
[At the mention of that injury from some unknown timeline, he reflexively moves to grab his own arm, the same one that had gotten bloodied while fighting smugglers.]
Is the future so frightening?