once you wrote a bunch of stuff to clear you head and just sent me. i think i should do the same, but i'm sending on purpose.
i've never been good at this talking shit. even now, i ain't good at it. i don't even know how to put this to you, even when i lived it two fucking times. my dad died in a car accident when i was 3, my mom was bedridden in the hospital for years thereafter - and all i ever wanted as a kid was to be just like my dad. she spoke about him like he hung the moon, how strong he was, how fun he was, how he never shed a single tear and how dependable he was. i don't remember shit about it.
i saw her once a week, and id tell her all the kids i beat up between visits, all the championships, all the things i'd be doing, and she'd always respond about how i was just like him. so i wanted to be strong, so she'd be happy. i never asked for help, and i did just like she taught me. in that previous life, up until takemichi died, i had never cried of sadness in front of anyone. all funerals, all deaths, all hospital visits, i was a rock so that everyone could have some emotional stability to hang on to.
and then the fucking curse. i've done horrible, horrible fucking things because of it. if i told you, you'd be disgusted just by looking at me, i sometimes am, too. every single time, i either sank everyone down with me, or made everyone despise me so they couldn't come to close. so i wouldn't... lose anyone else. never once had i reached back to the hands that tried to pull me out of it.
because i was scared. i was scared of so many things back then, and i couldn't-- wouldn't let anyone see that side of me. a weaker side. one that couldn't handle everything alone. scared i'd lose more if i were around. scared i'd ruin the people around me.
that was... a long time ago, for me. i still can't cry whenever i'm sad and this is the first time in forever i'm talking about how i feel, and i get it if you don't think it matters. i don't think it matters. fuck, you'd be well within your rights to not even read this, i definitely wouldn't blame you.
... but i miss you. it makes me feel weak, ridiculous, embarrassed and weak again, to come and tell you all this shit. im kinda getting why you wanted to delete the message now. part of me doesn't even think i have the right to miss you so much, when i'm the reason you're not here with me.
but i miss your laugh in the morning, the nerdy shit books on the shelves, your little shit grin, the way you hid your face when you liked something too much, the smartass comments, the way you'd shower me with kisses before bed, and it's fucked up to me personally to want something i've fucked up, and it's even more fucked up that i'm here with my head down, telling you all this shit.
... i need help. i don't know what i'm doing. i hope you come home one day. that's all i wanted to say.
[Yu reads the message, and then rereads. Again, again, again, committing things to memory, letting the words work their way into his mind, turning them over and under and inside out. This is how he works, generally; he thinks long and hard before committing to saying something aloud -- or by text, in this case. Maybe that's why his original outburst in text had felt so wrong. It was too impulsive.
Mikey is the exact opposite. There's merit in that, too, though.
In a way, he appreciates it.]
Can't believe you called my books "nerd shit"
[An icebreaker; a small attempt at levity while he tries to process all of this enough to formulate a response. It's a lot. Mikey himself is a lot. Yu doesn't mind at all.]
Parents can really mess you up, huh? Even when they're trying their best.
[This message is a personal attack on me, by me. Anyway, he types a few things, deletes, rephrases. TYPING... registers on and off a few times while he mulls over his response.]
It probably doesn't feel this way, but being able to say all of this...it's the strongest I've ever seen you. I think you know how I feel about that. About strength.
[My friends are my strength. He's candid about that sentiment, always.]
And [TYPING...] It does matter. Of course I'm going to read it.
[He should leave it at that. Send the message and turn off the tablet. Instead, he continues.]
I don't have any answers. It's complicated. But... I'm glad you told me this.
(he spoke so much, but what he has told yu right this moment doesn't even scratch the surface of what made him the way he is, but between what he just told yu right now, and what yu knows of him, he might be able to piece together what was left unsaid. shinichiro's legacy that mikey has always wanted to honor - but better, larger, bigger, a dream he couldn't help but yearn for as he watched his brother be so beloved when he lacked what manjiro had. the way his people looked at him with relief and admiration whenever he stepped forward in a fight. the way he managed to be everyone's ground, even when the one beneath him crumbled.
it's not an excuse, but he finds that this might explain something - it had never been a lack of faith in yu, or his friends, it had been manjiro's flaws from start to finish.)
i ain't graduated reading is for losers who cant motorbike
(an olive branch taken and responded in kind.)
i just internalized what she was saying all fucked, i guess, it's not on her. she was just in love. she loved him so much that years after he died, all she wanted was to be with him. she loved him just as much till the day she died. it was... actually pretty beautiful. i lived it again, i don't know if it made me better or worse.
(and that's where he got fucked up. the idea that being as strong and as incredible would make him just as loved.)
guess i have the same taste in men, so the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree. i never told you about her, but she'd adore you.
(but he has to step back from that text for a minute. it goes silent, because that's absolutely the opposite of what he feels. he feels at his weakest. he finds this whole thing as pathetic as he can go.
he doesn't get to have feelings about it. doesn't get to come to yu, of all people, with all of it. this is his mess. the break is massive, uncomfortable and a chilling silence from manjiro's side as he smokes far from his phone to process. a good 20 minutes pass before he texts back.)
i don't have answers either, and i'm don't know if i am glad i told you. i feel like throwing up big time. maybe another time ill feel differently.
(it's horrible - this feeling of being so damn weak, to show all the vulnerability that he has been hiding behind the easygoingness and smiles he has offered the other in the little opportunities that they have had since manjiro's come back.)
... i just... think you didn't sign up for this. you didn't know, but then again, i didn't, either. i even came to think - i'm the time-leaper now. but... do you regret us at all? would you change it?
[Yu is quiet for a little while, absorbing the words, the thoughts, the ideas. He can't help thinking of his own parents, and how they always meant well. The care with which they took on their responsibilities. Providing a home, providing opportunities...at the cost of isolation. Missed opportunities. They never mean to, do they?
... He wonders, a bit, what his parents would think of him now. What they would say, if they knew where he was.
He sets his tablet aside when it takes more than a couple minutes for Mikey to respond. He's not fussed, not worried -- they are the way they are, both of them. They'll come back to it.
These words, too, he has to internalize a bit.
Us. Do you regret us. The answer is almost automatic:]
I don't. I wouldn't.
[That's an easy answer, but the reason why is a little trickier. It has to do, in some ways, with his power -- or how his power manifests, or something. Either way, he tries to explain.]
My power is unique, even among Persona users. Bonds, friendships, love, they all make it stronger.
Even when you were gone, I could still feel that strength from you. From us.
I don't know if that makes any sense, but it's the best way I can describe it it.
(it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but who is manjiro now to say anything does or doesn't? he time travels, for fuck's sake - that makes even less sense, and he never really thought about the origins, or what it really does. how it can mess something up, or save something. much differently from when he was here at first, because it sounded insane to him that there's so little explanation as to why these persona things happen.
unsatisfying, but then again, now he gets it. it just is what it is.
... but the explanation doesn't satisfy, either. so, yu doesn't regret them because of his power? solely? but then again, he's not the one who feels that. might make better sense to yu - he has the answer either way.)
not gonna lie, i kinda dont get it, but it must make sense to you somehow. i never got this whole persona thing but at least now i ain't gon poke holes in it.
... i couldn't time-leap if neither of us are desperate to change anything.
[And he can tell that he didn't do it right, in some way. He doesn't talk much on his own; doesn't deliver the most detailed descriptions or explanations. Can't really put it all into words. So it's no wonder that he failed this time, when it's so complicated and complex.
My friends are my power. Power and strength aren't usually the same thing, but he considers them equally, in a case like this. The Strength arcana doesn't matter as just itself, not here. He doesn't have a Persona that matches in his roster; in that way, it's not really important. It's more of a signifier. A reminder that the bond is there, no matter what.
... But that...feels hard to say.]
All I mean is that...it's a reminder that things are still there. No matter how messed up it feels.
[It's a moment before he continues.]
It wouldn't feel genuine, I think. To change any of it. Even though it sucks.
we couldn't either way. this shit feeds on despair, im p sure, and it takes two desperate people to work anyway. just makes me feel a bit shitty that i ain't desperate about it.
(because basically, it just means that he's not desperate to make yu who - he wants to fix it, but he's not... desperate to change it. he's going to do it himself, and that's where his despair lies. on the how.)
... but that i can understand. it's what i... meant. that time.
(no matter what. he went away, but it was out of love. he isolated, but it was out of love. he killed - but it didn't change the fact... that he was in love.)
[He remembers. Of course he remembers. He had said the words too, and meant them just as much.
Means, even now.
It certainly would be easier, if he didn't...but here they are.]
I meant it, too.
[And that's why it hurts so much. Yu wouldn't call himself an expert on love --there was never much of it shared within his family-- but he's become so much more familiar with it after his time in Inaba. After the friends he made, the bonds they share. That is a kind of love. There are some things they would do that he would question, but they never would have left. It went against everything they all stood for.
But it happened, no matter what he believes or how he feels about it. So there's no use harping on the past. Instead, he does what the leader should do, and looks to the future instead.]
(everything surrounding them feels so complicated. finding solutions for them feels strange - solutions... to what? what are they after this? where do they stand in each other's lives? part of him is nearly convinced that there will never be peace for them in this place, something will always be amiss, something will always eat at them, either slowly, or at once - their fault or otherwise. regardless of what it may be, he came to a conclusion the night they spent talking, and he doesn't particularly like it.
... but being a leader also means leaving your likes and dislikes at the door for the good of something bigger.)
no news to us that i shouldn't try to do shit alone or keep shit to myself all the time. i also can't be mad at you and solve it by myself and tell you later.
and you can't keep you to you either. either we are honest with each other completely, or we ain't going to work again.
it's not going to be easy, i don't think. but this is how i think we move forward.
It's not what he meant, because where Yu trips up now is the ability to push past memories that sit with him in uncomfortable ways. Because Mikey tried to make things "equal" by saying that Yu could hurt him back. Because there's a difference between moving past and moving on, and he doesn't want to let these things cause their bond to decay.
It's not what he meant, and yet, there is something incredible in the way Mikey puts those thoughts to words; the way they both seem determined to push through their own discomfort and find a way.
And Yu wonders...if that's the answer, in the end.
He's smiling a bit, behind the screen of his tablet. Nothing monumental; just that small, fond expression, something soft behind his eyes, something proud and encouraging and confident all at once.]
(it's a fact of life. they're both so different, see things so differently, that they will inevitably run into their issues - they don't disappear because they are trying to make them better.
that said, it isn't an attempt to escape it. it's a warning, a reminder. something else they'll have to fight through.)
[That's a truth he's still getting used to. It had all been so easy, before he started making friends in Inaba. Nothing ever went below the surface. Even in groups or on teams, he had kept himself apart; kept himself to himself, because any real level of honesty wasn't worth the pain of saying goodbye so many times.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pain here and idk mikey lore
i've never been good at this talking shit. even now, i ain't good at it. i don't even know how to put this to you, even when i lived it two fucking times. my dad died in a car accident when i was 3, my mom was bedridden in the hospital for years thereafter - and all i ever wanted as a kid was to be just like my dad. she spoke about him like he hung the moon, how strong he was, how fun he was, how he never shed a single tear and how dependable he was. i don't remember shit about it.
i saw her once a week, and id tell her all the kids i beat up between visits, all the championships, all the things i'd be doing, and she'd always respond about how i was just like him. so i wanted to be strong, so she'd be happy. i never asked for help, and i did just like she taught me. in that previous life, up until takemichi died, i had never cried of sadness in front of anyone. all funerals, all deaths, all hospital visits, i was a rock so that everyone could have some emotional stability to hang on to.
and then the fucking curse. i've done horrible, horrible fucking things because of it. if i told you, you'd be disgusted just by looking at me, i sometimes am, too. every single time, i either sank everyone down with me, or made everyone despise me so they couldn't come to close. so i wouldn't... lose anyone else. never once had i reached back to the hands that tried to pull me out of it.
because i was scared. i was scared of so many things back then, and i couldn't-- wouldn't let anyone see that side of me. a weaker side. one that couldn't handle everything alone. scared i'd lose more if i were around. scared i'd ruin the people around me.
that was... a long time ago, for me. i still can't cry whenever i'm sad and this is the first time in forever i'm talking about how i feel, and i get it if you don't think it matters. i don't think it matters. fuck, you'd be well within your rights to not even read this, i definitely wouldn't blame you.
... but i miss you. it makes me feel weak, ridiculous, embarrassed and weak again, to come and tell you all this shit. im kinda getting why you wanted to delete the message now. part of me doesn't even think i have the right to miss you so much, when i'm the reason you're not here with me.
but i miss your laugh in the morning, the nerdy shit books on the shelves, your little shit grin, the way you hid your face when you liked something too much, the smartass comments, the way you'd shower me with kisses before bed, and it's fucked up to me personally to want something i've fucked up, and it's even more fucked up that i'm here with my head down, telling you all this shit.
... i need help. i don't know what i'm doing. i hope you come home one day. that's all i wanted to say.
no subject
Mikey is the exact opposite. There's merit in that, too, though.
In a way, he appreciates it.]
Can't believe you called my books "nerd shit"
[An icebreaker; a small attempt at levity while he tries to process all of this enough to formulate a response. It's a lot. Mikey himself is a lot. Yu doesn't mind at all.]
Parents can really mess you up, huh?
Even when they're trying their best.
[This message is a personal attack on me, by me. Anyway, he types a few things, deletes, rephrases. TYPING... registers on and off a few times while he mulls over his response.]
It probably doesn't feel this way, but being able to say all of this...it's the strongest I've ever seen you.
I think you know how I feel about that. About strength.
[My friends are my strength. He's candid about that sentiment, always.]
And
[TYPING...]
It does matter. Of course I'm going to read it.
[He should leave it at that. Send the message and turn off the tablet. Instead, he continues.]
I don't have any answers. It's complicated.
But... I'm glad you told me this.
no subject
it's not an excuse, but he finds that this might explain something - it had never been a lack of faith in yu, or his friends, it had been manjiro's flaws from start to finish.)
i ain't graduated reading is for losers who cant motorbike
(an olive branch taken and responded in kind.)
i just internalized what she was saying all fucked, i guess, it's not on her. she was just in love. she loved him so much that years after he died, all she wanted was to be with him. she loved him just as much till the day she died. it was... actually pretty beautiful. i lived it again, i don't know if it made me better or worse.
(and that's where he got fucked up. the idea that being as strong and as incredible would make him just as loved.)
guess i have the same taste in men, so the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree. i never told you about her, but she'd adore you.
(but he has to step back from that text for a minute. it goes silent, because that's absolutely the opposite of what he feels. he feels at his weakest. he finds this whole thing as pathetic as he can go.
he doesn't get to have feelings about it. doesn't get to come to yu, of all people, with all of it. this is his mess. the break is massive, uncomfortable and a chilling silence from manjiro's side as he smokes far from his phone to process. a good 20 minutes pass before he texts back.)
i don't have answers either, and i'm don't know if i am glad i told you. i feel like throwing up big time. maybe another time ill feel differently.
(it's horrible - this feeling of being so damn weak, to show all the vulnerability that he has been hiding behind the easygoingness and smiles he has offered the other in the little opportunities that they have had since manjiro's come back.)
... i just... think you didn't sign up for this. you didn't know, but then again, i didn't, either. i even came to think - i'm the time-leaper now. but... do you regret us at all? would you change it?
... selfishly, i don't, and i wouldn't.
no subject
... He wonders, a bit, what his parents would think of him now. What they would say, if they knew where he was.
He sets his tablet aside when it takes more than a couple minutes for Mikey to respond. He's not fussed, not worried -- they are the way they are, both of them. They'll come back to it.
These words, too, he has to internalize a bit.
Us. Do you regret us. The answer is almost automatic:]
I don't. I wouldn't.
[That's an easy answer, but the reason why is a little trickier. It has to do, in some ways, with his power -- or how his power manifests, or something. Either way, he tries to explain.]
My power is unique, even among Persona users. Bonds, friendships, love, they all make it stronger.
Even when you were gone, I could still feel that strength from you. From us.
I don't know if that makes any sense, but it's the best way I can describe it it.
no subject
unsatisfying, but then again, now he gets it. it just is what it is.
... but the explanation doesn't satisfy, either. so, yu doesn't regret them because of his power? solely? but then again, he's not the one who feels that. might make better sense to yu - he has the answer either way.)
not gonna lie, i kinda dont get it, but it must make sense to you somehow. i never got this whole persona thing but at least now i ain't gon poke holes in it.
... i couldn't time-leap if neither of us are desperate to change anything.
this fucking sucks, yuchin.
no subject
[And he can tell that he didn't do it right, in some way. He doesn't talk much on his own; doesn't deliver the most detailed descriptions or explanations. Can't really put it all into words. So it's no wonder that he failed this time, when it's so complicated and complex.
My friends are my power. Power and strength aren't usually the same thing, but he considers them equally, in a case like this. The Strength arcana doesn't matter as just itself, not here. He doesn't have a Persona that matches in his roster; in that way, it's not really important. It's more of a signifier. A reminder that the bond is there, no matter what.
... But that...feels hard to say.]
All I mean is that...it's a reminder that things are still there. No matter how messed up it feels.
[It's a moment before he continues.]
It wouldn't feel genuine, I think. To change any of it.
Even though it sucks.
no subject
(because basically, it just means that he's not desperate to make yu who - he wants to fix it, but he's not... desperate to change it. he's going to do it himself, and that's where his despair lies. on the how.)
... but that i can understand. it's what i... meant. that time.
(no matter what. he went away, but it was out of love. he isolated, but it was out of love. he killed - but it didn't change the fact... that he was in love.)
no subject
[He remembers. Of course he remembers. He had said the words too, and meant them just as much.
Means, even now.
It certainly would be easier, if he didn't...but here they are.]
I meant it, too.
[And that's why it hurts so much. Yu wouldn't call himself an expert on love --there was never much of it shared within his family-- but he's become so much more familiar with it after his time in Inaba. After the friends he made, the bonds they share. That is a kind of love. There are some things they would do that he would question, but they never would have left. It went against everything they all stood for.
But it happened, no matter what he believes or how he feels about it. So there's no use harping on the past. Instead, he does what the leader should do, and looks to the future instead.]
But we have to find a better way forward.
no subject
(everything surrounding them feels so complicated. finding solutions for them feels strange - solutions... to what? what are they after this? where do they stand in each other's lives? part of him is nearly convinced that there will never be peace for them in this place, something will always be amiss, something will always eat at them, either slowly, or at once - their fault or otherwise. regardless of what it may be, he came to a conclusion the night they spent talking, and he doesn't particularly like it.
... but being a leader also means leaving your likes and dislikes at the door for the good of something bigger.)
no news to us that i shouldn't try to do shit alone or keep shit to myself all the time. i also can't be mad at you and solve it by myself and tell you later.
and you can't keep you to you either. either we are honest with each other completely, or we ain't going to work again.
it's not going to be easy, i don't think. but this is how i think we move forward.
no subject
It's not what he meant, because where Yu trips up now is the ability to push past memories that sit with him in uncomfortable ways. Because Mikey tried to make things "equal" by saying that Yu could hurt him back. Because there's a difference between moving past and moving on, and he doesn't want to let these things cause their bond to decay.
It's not what he meant, and yet, there is something incredible in the way Mikey puts those thoughts to words; the way they both seem determined to push through their own discomfort and find a way.
And Yu wonders...if that's the answer, in the end.
He's smiling a bit, behind the screen of his tablet. Nothing monumental; just that small, fond expression, something soft behind his eyes, something proud and encouraging and confident all at once.]
No. Nothing worthwhile is ever easy.
But I agree.
no subject
(it's a fact of life. they're both so different, see things so differently, that they will inevitably run into their issues - they don't disappear because they are trying to make them better.
that said, it isn't an attempt to escape it. it's a warning, a reminder. something else they'll have to fight through.)
you're worth it for me, though.
no subject
[That's a truth he's still getting used to. It had all been so easy, before he started making friends in Inaba. Nothing ever went below the surface. Even in groups or on teams, he had kept himself apart; kept himself to himself, because any real level of honesty wasn't worth the pain of saying goodbye so many times.
Things have become so, so different, now.]
You're worth it, too.
[For him, but also not just for him.]
no subject
(he's difficult on a good day. imagine on a bad day that he decides to make it known.)
debatable.
... i should go.