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toplvl2020-10-10 07:38 pm
make amends
make amends
Remember that terrible shit you did? Time to make it right. Ish.
Top Level with the start of your apology(ies). Public or private. In person or over txt.
Well That Was Awkward ↦ Maybe you’re nervous. Awe struck. Tongue tied. Just a little socially awkward. Whatever. This is going to be bumpy.
Total Catastrophe ↦ You fucked up so hard with this one there might not be any coming back from it.
Not Again ↦ You know this wasn’t the first time. This is kind of your MO.
Sorry Not Sorry ↦ Maybe you’re prideful. Maybe you really aren’t to blame. Either way, this only debatably qualifies as an apology at all.
Wildcard ↦ You know what you did.
Comment to see where their sorry song goes. Maybe it’s an apology you didn’t know you had coming, maybe it’s long overdue, completely unnecessary or anything else. Whether or not you’re feeling forgiving is up to you.
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Does he understand? Okuyasu sucks in a slow breath and looks over those words again for any sign that he is what's been found lacking.
He keeps not finding one. He shifts, uneasy and uncomfortable and increasingly not sure where exactly he's supposed to get the energy and determination to turn that all into anger, instead. ]
Do you mean you don't... You don't like what you do, either?
[ Initiated when he was his age. How old was he when he saw Keicho kill someone the first time? It was actually pretty recent, and a harrowing escalation of the violence Okuyasu had been raised by his whole life anyway. He'd sort of assumed he'd seen it all, but he'd been so, so wrong.
What else has Nishiki seen, if he's been doing this for longer than Okuyasu's been alive? ]
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[ What rushes out on the heels of that sighed phrase, just barely touched by a smile, brushing against amusement, is if only it were. If only it were as simple as a clumsy career choice that didn't agree with him. If only he were an office drone with a quick mind and quicker fingers, sighing about how he should have pursued music instead of consigning himself and his genius to a dim little cubicle for the remainder of his years. If only.
But the vile truth of it sits in Nishikiyama's throat like a white-hot coal. He doesn't dislike what he does. He doesn't dislike it at all. He's held himself under his own knife and excised all of the things which didn't fit this mold he's slotted himself into until he fit perfectly. There was no place in society that would accommodate him so readily as this, and he didn't think he even wanted to find it. He's sharpened his mind until he could navigate the serpentine underworld politicking with ease. His forked tongue and the second mouth he's cut for himself has served him well in getting signatures and cutting deals. He's hardened himself until he can no longer feel any human touch. Nothing exhilarates him now like rising numbers and a cooling corpse. A monster always had his place, and his is here. Nothing could change what he's done to himself.
But he finds shreds of his old heart still beating in him every day - pesky things that they are. Some neglected corner of him is still holding out hope for something resembling an amicable parting between himself and Okuyasu - loud, stupid, strange boy that he'd loved like his own flesh and blood. He could keep his forked tongue behind his teeth for a little while longer, if it let him believe that a clean severing was possible.
He takes an uncertain breath, and he tries to pair up his words. ]
For everything that this life has given me, it has taken something immeasurable in value. [ Would Nishikiyama tell him how his green incompetence and soft heart had killed his own sister? Would he reveal the depths of his own treachery? Would he shine a light on the deepest and most secret regrets? ] It killed Yuko. My oath brother is gone. I lose something that I never thought I could every day to the choices I made when I was a boy.
[ Yumi, Yuko, Kiryu - and the losses that he didn't dare to manifest with his voice, himself and Okuyasu. A road lined with casualties. ]
Okuyasu. Believe what you will of me. [ His voice is the rasp of a snake. ] I came from nothing, just the same as you have. I thought there was nothing in my life worth losing. I was wrong. I will be wrong yet, I'm sure. Even as I am now, if the decision is mine, you won't be permitted to follow in my footsteps.
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Right now, Okuyasu is angry, sure, but that's cooling and congealing into something a lot less defensive and appealing. He's mostly scared and hurt and he's so used to letting those scab over into rage that he almost can't recognize his own emotions for what they are anymore, either. Most of his life has been being encouraged to stay blind, and now even when he tries to open his eyes, it's hard to see.
He clings to each of Nishiki's words and he can tell they're veiling something else behind them, can see the shape, but can't make out much more than that. It's embarrassing, frustrating, a little frightening.
He tries anyway, heart thundering away still, hands going from fists to loose at his sides, more antsy than furious by now. ] I know that, like...hurting people feels good. Like, people wouldn't do it if it didn't get shit done, right? Dead people can't hurt you the same way anymore once they're dead. [ They can still hurt, though. It's just different once it's not their literal voice doing the hurting. ]
I got complicated feelings on that shit too, but like... You sound like you get that it's wrong, right? And that it's hurting you, too? Why don't you run away? Maybe we-- you-- maybe you could go somewhere they can't find you. [ And here, Okuyasu is aware he must start sounding stupid, if he hadn't already. He gets what he thinks is being said - that being in a gang, killing dangerous people, probably kinda feels good even while it's a bad thing - but then his heart can't help but shove him towards...
This. Just get rid of the problem. Just run. Underneath his skin, The Hand aches, ready to rip things right out of reality itself just so Okuyasu doesn't have to deal with that shit anymore. He could get back in that elevator and shove every single person in that building into wherever it is The Hand throws things, assuming no one shot at him faster than The Hand could absorb it...
And all of those thoughts are just because Okuyasu's starting to feel the chill of the outside and the exhaustion of a late night, and he's scared of losing what he thought he'd had with the first father figure he's ever found who's never laid a hand on him. ]
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He can still hear him simmering under the surface, yes. That was something that probably wouldn't go away for some time yet. He wouldn't be surprised if the bitter poison this encounter would leave weren't entirely bled from him in a day, a week, a month, years from now. He wouldn't be surprised if the betrayal still hangs around him like miasma well into adulthood. One more adult who shouldn't have been trusted. The thought hardens to stone in his chest.
But Okuyasu isn't all piss and vinegar, as he had been when he'd first emerged trembling in rage to the open sky and the streets below. This wasn't just anger and bitterness, no cutting edge to his tongue, no rebuke.
Instead, something conciliatory and perplexing. Bargaining. A child trying to reason with death. Trying to convince a monster to cut his claws and file down his fangs. Clemency which Nishikiyama, of course, doesn't deserve.
His shoulders fall with a quiet, deep exhale. He keeps his eyes on the moving streets below, and swallows. ]
Do you think it's so simple?
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Okuyasu thinks about being trapped in a house with Keicho and his dad. He thinks about the way Keicho always talked about it - being caught, kept a prisoner until he could figure out a way to cut their ties from each other. Keicho's search for something to sever his remaining tie to their father had been enough to sever his remaining ties with Okuyasu himself, in the end.
'Do you think it's so simple?' ]
I know it's not supposed to be. [ His voice isn't steady, but he isn't shouting anymore, either. He feels like he just hit a wall while running, like even his adrenaline can't quite get him over the next hill. ] But why shouldn't it be, if you ignore everyone yelling at you that it's a bad idea.
[ The city below them keeps making its usual background noise - traffic, occasional shouts. It keeps the silence from really taking root, but it still knots anxiety further into Okuyasu's chest. ] What the hell's the point of being around at all if we're always trapped, right? [ He scratches the back of his neck, wants to close the gap between them but isn't sure how. Instead he just keeps lingering a few feet away, edges towards the ledge where Nishiki still stands. ]
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He's not sure he should be relieved. The anger is easier to deal with than what Nishikiyama's inviting upon himself by continuing this line of questioning, this bartering with the nature of what's happened to him. The appeal for something impossible, bartering against a rot that's extended its hold far too deep to be argued with or cut out.
Overpoweringly puerile, from anybody else. If it were Kiryu standing before him, arguing for whatever human piece was left of his heart, he'd shut his ears and terminate the conversation here. Kiryu's words on the matter wouldn't be worth hearing. Why are this boy's?
Nishikiyama falls still as he listens, tries to find rejuvenation in his childish idealism. Had the world ever been so simple for him? Had ignoring the cage he stepped into as a boy ever been an option?
His hand slips into his breast pocket, and returns with a cigarette case. He takes a smoke and retrieves his lighter - a strange thing nowadays. He can't remember the last time someone else wasn't ready with one for him. ]
And if you were me, Okuyasu, [ He sparks his lighter and sucks the flame through his cigarette, then snaps it shut. ] how would you manage this escape?
[ He could indulge in this childish fantasy just a little while longer. He has time. ]