[ Leave it to freaking Ryuji to follow where his train of thought is and then step over that line. If Ren laughs it's mostly recognizable at that, brittle and a bit (a lot) broken by virtue of how stretched out on the cosmic rack this has got him, how much he's had to talk to prove he was there. ]
Was that supposed to be a meow? Lisa would be judging you so hard right now.
[ Who the heck knows where she is right now. Looking after Akechi because he had no one else to look after him. It's telling that Ren doesn't say a word about Mona, far away from home and going further by the minute. The second.
He isn't at peace with it, not by a dman sight. But there's peace to be found if he lets his mind be still and be present with Ryuji. He's more or less said his goodbyes, knowing where we wanted to be if this was really where he was going to buy it, and nothing is like he imagined it but he's always adapted, always found ways that he could live with it. But that's an inaccurate turn of phrase.
Ren takes his place beside him, oddly reassured of something. Some of that burden is off his shoulders. He doesn't have to be seen, all he has to do is sound strong and it will carry him, it'll do what he can to shield Ryuji to the last and Ryuji can't fight him on it, for once. He wanted to see Ryuji.
So. Ren absolves him from being a burden. On principle he doesn't accept it, not now that they're going to die, not then when he spilled that they're Phantom Thieves or that Haru's dad was murdered, not ever, anymore. Asshole. Hypocrite.
Eventually Ren starts talking, directionless, a message in a bottle tossed out into space that'll get sucked into a black hole or something when they're both gone. ]
I hated leaving you guys.
[ I will hate it when I leave you, to Ryuji. Time is weird and inevitable but it makes you make the most of things, too. Ren is right now, finding what he needs to say that can't be encapsulated in a vague three word sentence. ]
That was the deal, but I hated it. Almost more than our time as Phantom Thieves, we all got to hang out before school was going to start up again in spring - just us being kids, hanging out without homework to worry about - if it was stuffed underneath a mattress, hah. Endless rounds of Smash and you catching me up on the manga issues I missed when I was in jail.
I was happiest then, I think. You guys worked so hard to help me clear my name so that we had a few more months together. Weeks. The day I left you told me - you'll tell me that my home town is worth seeing because I'm there.
And I felt like... I could only think of it as my home town, not my home.
[ Where is he going with this? It's not like it'd mean anything if Ryuji doesn't get to see it one day. Maybe it's important to him that Ryuji knows it anyway, knows where he's coming from and that he has regrets and it's not a shameful thing. The happiness eclipses that and he hopes that that comes across because - ]
Going back, leaving you behind when I said I wouldn't - I was angry for a few weeks. But then... I saw that maybe I wasn't the best son before I got arrested. My parents skirted around me and I was mad a long time that they seemed to just agree with the court and threw me out, but I started to be reminded of when they tried to be a bigger part of my life and be involved and I just shut them out. I wasn't interested in them. And when I got back I couldn't get why that didn't feel like it was what I wanted anymore until I thought about how much you helped out your mom and you really were each other's best friend when the whole world was against you, and I didn't have that with my parents at all.
You made me want to be better. And I guess what I'm getting at is... I'm glad I met you, Ryuji.
[ This is probably the last chance he'll get to say it. ]
[If he thought he had some time left, if there was some bend of reality where he didn't think and accept that he was going to die, this conversation would've went entirely too different than where it is right now. He knows not to fuck with time, at least, from what he's been told, and he had made the conscious effort to try and not dig any details out from Ren, since it was undefined for Ryuji, still. These sort of things could mess with... everything.
But more than the science of all that, the gut feeling he has when he tells him this sort of stuff just paints a picture in his mind of where things end up. He can see himself in the arcade, the day Ren leaves Tokyo, and knows how he'd feel when it happens. Can almost see himself running to give him a hug when they get to meet up again afterward.
But they're not, and it's just... it's this instead that they get.
His head shifts downwards a little bit, some dark, black material coming out of his eye that he has to wipe with his hand away.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Was that supposed to be a meow? Lisa would be judging you so hard right now.
[ Who the heck knows where she is right now. Looking after Akechi because he had no one else to look after him. It's telling that Ren doesn't say a word about Mona, far away from home and going further by the minute. The second.
He isn't at peace with it, not by a dman sight. But there's peace to be found if he lets his mind be still and be present with Ryuji. He's more or less said his goodbyes, knowing where we wanted to be if this was really where he was going to buy it, and nothing is like he imagined it but he's always adapted, always found ways that he could live with it. But that's an inaccurate turn of phrase.
Ren takes his place beside him, oddly reassured of something. Some of that burden is off his shoulders. He doesn't have to be seen, all he has to do is sound strong and it will carry him, it'll do what he can to shield Ryuji to the last and Ryuji can't fight him on it, for once. He wanted to see Ryuji.
So. Ren absolves him from being a burden. On principle he doesn't accept it, not now that they're going to die, not then when he spilled that they're Phantom Thieves or that Haru's dad was murdered, not ever, anymore. Asshole. Hypocrite.
Eventually Ren starts talking, directionless, a message in a bottle tossed out into space that'll get sucked into a black hole or something when they're both gone. ]
I hated leaving you guys.
[ I will hate it when I leave you, to Ryuji. Time is weird and inevitable but it makes you make the most of things, too. Ren is right now, finding what he needs to say that can't be encapsulated in a vague three word sentence. ]
That was the deal, but I hated it. Almost more than our time as Phantom Thieves, we all got to hang out before school was going to start up again in spring - just us being kids, hanging out without homework to worry about - if it was stuffed underneath a mattress, hah. Endless rounds of Smash and you catching me up on the manga issues I missed when I was in jail.
I was happiest then, I think. You guys worked so hard to help me clear my name so that we had a few more months together. Weeks. The day I left you told me - you'll tell me that my home town is worth seeing because I'm there.
And I felt like... I could only think of it as my home town, not my home.
[ Where is he going with this? It's not like it'd mean anything if Ryuji doesn't get to see it one day. Maybe it's important to him that Ryuji knows it anyway, knows where he's coming from and that he has regrets and it's not a shameful thing. The happiness eclipses that and he hopes that that comes across because - ]
Going back, leaving you behind when I said I wouldn't - I was angry for a few weeks. But then... I saw that maybe I wasn't the best son before I got arrested. My parents skirted around me and I was mad a long time that they seemed to just agree with the court and threw me out, but I started to be reminded of when they tried to be a bigger part of my life and be involved and I just shut them out. I wasn't interested in them. And when I got back I couldn't get why that didn't feel like it was what I wanted anymore until I thought about how much you helped out your mom and you really were each other's best friend when the whole world was against you, and I didn't have that with my parents at all.
You made me want to be better. And I guess what I'm getting at is... I'm glad I met you, Ryuji.
[ This is probably the last chance he'll get to say it. ]
no subject
But more than the science of all that, the gut feeling he has when he tells him this sort of stuff just paints a picture in his mind of where things end up. He can see himself in the arcade, the day Ren leaves Tokyo, and knows how he'd feel when it happens. Can almost see himself running to give him a hug when they get to meet up again afterward.
But they're not, and it's just... it's this instead that they get.
His head shifts downwards a little bit, some dark, black material coming out of his eye that he has to wipe with his hand away.
Yeah.
He's glad he's met you, too, Ren.]