[That's a whole lot of words Shinjiro wasn't ready to hear, even if he probably needed to. It's a little like that one Hyperbole and a Half comic with the girl holding her dead fish and yelling why don't you understand that my fish are dead?!, except in this case Will isn't trying to get him to revive his dead fish but rather to maybe bury them in the yard rather than keeping them in his pockets and stinking of dead fish all the time.
Anyway, he doesn't really know how to process any of it, least of all that weird disclaimer at the beginning, and he kind of wants to argue about just giving up and accepting the idea of causing them pain because some part of him still feels like he can fix it, or at least mitigate it. Feeling sad about some guy you talked to a few times isn't the same thing as being sad about a close friend. He's not naive enough not to realize Aki was the one to suffer the most from his fate, despite all his best efforts to push him away.
But really, that's only half the problem. He can't let go of the guilt of forming connections not just because he struggles with the desire to live, and the fact that it would be painful for others if he died, but also because he doesn't feel he deserves them.
It's not a thought he's aware of rationally -- more an undertone that seeps into everything -- but whenever he spends time with people like Kaede and Maya and even Qrow, he feels a churning in the pit of his stomach, and a poisonous voice in his ear that tells him he shouldn't. He should pull away, he should leave, he should hold himself apart. He tells himself it's because he doesn't want to hurt them, and that's true, but there's always more to it than that, just underneath the skin: He doesn't have the right to build a life, after all. Especially not one on the bones of Amada and his mother.]
...Tch.
[It's all he manages, at first, but the request for a subject change is a relief, this time, because he didn't know what to say.
He doesn't know what else to talk about either, though.]
Why don't you pick a new topic, huh?? You know all this shit about me by now, and I still don't know shit about you. Hell, I figured you were some kind of "not human" ages back, but I don't even know what kind. Death god, maybe? Sounded kinda death god, from all that shit at the beginning there.
no subject
Anyway, he doesn't really know how to process any of it, least of all that weird disclaimer at the beginning, and he kind of wants to argue about just giving up and accepting the idea of causing them pain because some part of him still feels like he can fix it, or at least mitigate it. Feeling sad about some guy you talked to a few times isn't the same thing as being sad about a close friend. He's not naive enough not to realize Aki was the one to suffer the most from his fate, despite all his best efforts to push him away.
But really, that's only half the problem. He can't let go of the guilt of forming connections not just because he struggles with the desire to live, and the fact that it would be painful for others if he died, but also because he doesn't feel he deserves them.
It's not a thought he's aware of rationally -- more an undertone that seeps into everything -- but whenever he spends time with people like Kaede and Maya and even Qrow, he feels a churning in the pit of his stomach, and a poisonous voice in his ear that tells him he shouldn't. He should pull away, he should leave, he should hold himself apart. He tells himself it's because he doesn't want to hurt them, and that's true, but there's always more to it than that, just underneath the skin: He doesn't have the right to build a life, after all. Especially not one on the bones of Amada and his mother.]
...Tch.
[It's all he manages, at first, but the request for a subject change is a relief, this time, because he didn't know what to say.
He doesn't know what else to talk about either, though.]
Why don't you pick a new topic, huh?? You know all this shit about me by now, and I still don't know shit about you. Hell, I figured you were some kind of "not human" ages back, but I don't even know what kind. Death god, maybe? Sounded kinda death god, from all that shit at the beginning there.