At first, he wasn't going to follow. No, he'd let him walk away because he's right. Every time Aoba reached out, he slammed the door in his face. Locked him out. Blocked him without ever explaining to him what was going on in his mind. Aoba had changed, and to him, it had seemed like it was for the worst. He joined up with a band of criminals he was certain must have hurt him at some point, and his personality did a 360. Before he'd known it, his hair was snow white and so was the rest of him. He just... hadn't seemed the same.
In his mind that had only led him down a dark road he'd already been going down when Aoba had gotten separated from him and the others on the way to Platinum Jail. He realized that ever since he'd returned to the island, he'd failed to really find out if anything had changed. They'd both gone on almost as if he'd never been gone, and he never once questioned, even during the fiasco with Toue, if something could have changed or if there was something about him he didn't know about. Just as well, he'd been keeping something from Aoba, too...
That was when he decided he'd follow. Despite the decently large distance that'd already formed between them, he lurched forward and ran after him. He'd considered being rough. Forcing him to look at him and to listen, but he thought back to the terrified look in his eyes when he'd so much as grabbed his shirt, so instead he simply hugged him hard from behind and closed his eyes.
"You're right. It took some nerve asking now after how much shit I put you through along with everyone else." His voice is soft. He's not going to hurt him, and he's hoping that much is clear from the fact that he hugged him rather than doing anything else. "I over-thought things. I warped and twisted things in my mind until all I could see was someone who wasn't the same. I had the image of you when we were kids burned into my mind to the point that seeing you as anything other than innocent and sweet was impossible. It felt wrong seeing you go down that road, and I... got mad because it reminded me of myself."
Is that true? Did it really remind him of himself? Something happened to strip that innocence away, and now that he thinks of it, he hugs just a tiny bit tighter. "I hated you for what you became, but even more than that I hate myself for what I am. You haven't really done anything awful. Not like me. You never deserved any of it."
A wheeze bursts past his lips. He's so angry with himself. All those times he screamed in Aoba's face and told him to leave. All those times those eyes had looked at him like someone whose hero had let them down. He had let him down. They'd promised one another they'd be friends forever, no matter what. And that promise was broken the first time he'd tossed him aside. There's no reconciling that.
Dropping his hold on him, releasing a broken friendship and accepting it for what he turned it into, he put his face in his hands. "I can't stay angry with you for not telling me what happened to you because I never told you what happened to me either. I want to be angry. You've associated yourself with disgusting people. But you must have a reason. Something happened. Something I have no right to know about. I'm sorry. You can leave now. You won't get any more nasty looks from me or Benishigure's members. I'll tell them to lay off Scratch members. Thank you for the gift, too. I-- yeah. Bye."
He has to leave. Has to go home. Put up that picture. Remind himself every day of yet another way he's fucked up. He'll put it near the mirror where he'll always see it. What a bastard he is. A mother killing, friendship destroying bastard.
So now he's trying to walk away. Not run. Walk. He's almost hoping to be stopped, but he feels as if that won't happen. He's done too much. Said too much. He's such an asshole. How much of that was I, I, I? Stupid.
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