He may not be as small as he was when he joined the school a few month prior, adolescent growth spurt permitting, but he certainly feels small, under Nanami’s attentive, hawkish gaze. By all accounts, he shouldn’t, really; for as intimidating as Nanami Kento could be, time and habit had slowly shown the boy how much more alike than different he and his mentor could be. Pain, he gathers, is one strange way of bringing the most unlikely souls together. Yuuta can clearly remember Nanami’s initial shock, the first time he had been confronted to Rika’s overwhelming energy; but he can also remember the look that had flashed across stoic features once Gojo-sensei had, in his own whimsical way, told the story behind the curse.
“Always nightmares.” The boy replies with pained softness, like nettle crumpled in the palm of his hand. He is grateful for Nanami’s honesty - as depressing as the statement is. It feels like lived experience; and Yuuta is tired of people tip-toeing around his grief like it is a monstrous thing not to be awaken. They never realise it is always awake. Only Nanami really does.
He holds his hand up to contemplate the ring on his finger, and drops it with a sigh, before he looks up at his teacher-who-is-not-a-teacher. “It’s a weird thing to say, but it feels unfair. Rika-chan was my only friend. We had so many good memories together before she died.” The rain hammers on the roof of the bus stop, and he looks up, reminiscing of olden days when he and Rika would run to the bus stop under the pouring rain after school. Those days were fun days. Today, they feel grey and heavy. “But it’s like only the bad stays.” And it doesn’t feel right; and he wonders if Nanami, too, suffered the same ailment of memory.
Nanami wasn’t one to dwell in his memories for very long. not only were they a fast track to inviting emotions into his work, but they often ached more than they soothed. though, in contrast to the teen who sat sorrowful beside him, he’d had far more years to parse through the pain, to pick through the needles to find the golden strands.
“That’s not out of the ordinary,” the older man murmured, crossing one leg over the other. “And you’re not wrong that it’s unfair. There’s a lot of things our bodies to us that seem unfair to us — one of them is your mind’s obsession with keeping you alive. It normally does a pretty good job, forcing you to breathe if you hold your breath, coordinating your immune system so you don’t get sick, but — when it comes to our thoughts, it’s not as simple, is it? All of the bad things that happen to you throughout your life, your mind sees them as threats to your life. It fixates on them because it cares far more about what can hurt you than it does about what makes you happy.”
running the risk of sounding clinical was a calculated effort.
i don’t bring emotions to work.
a glance down at his watch set the time at 5:04pm.
not at work any more, for all intents and purposes.
“... it took me years to stop the nightmares. I had to convince my mind that replaying those moments, those images, the smells, the pain — all of it brought me closer to death than it ever helped me stay alive. I know you know that pain well.” he needn’t explain himself any more for now. slowly, he leaned forward, letting his hands be splattered by the rain, some attempt at grounding himself. “Tell me, Yuuta,” Nanami murmured, staring at the way the droplets ran through his fingers and gathered on his calloused palms. “What’s your favourite memory of Rika?”
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