Can you make some Makoto hurt/comfort? Cause the pressures of being the Ultimate Hope would PROBABLY be suffocating I think. Any ship that you'd like would be fine :)
(if you don't mind doing it, that is.)
Okay, you said "hurt/comfort" and my brain went "ANGST", so if after this you want something with a kind of lighter, easier-breezier tone, let me know. 😅
Also, I hope this is good, because I did not go back over it to revise and edit.
(CW: despair-typical self harm and self termination, on the part of unnamed background characters; it's not described in detail, but your mileage may vary wrt the impact and how sensitively I handled it)
When the Future Foundation planned public appearances for him (and especially international ones), they did not do so lightly. Just the act of putting Makoto Naegi on a plane spoke to some amount of urgency on the "foreign policy" front.
Usually, some allies beginning to backslide into despair. Junko's despair, or a new viral offshoot. They deployed Makoto to restore their allies' confidence in the Future Foundation's mission.
"It's panda diplomacy," Byakuya had said before their first such excursion. Byakuya almost always came along, to translate languages and also to set the boundaries Makoto wasn't allowed to set anymore. "You're the panda."
"And what does that make you?" Kyoko had teased. She usually didn't go along on the diplomatic visits. (When she did, she was often pretty vague about why, and then later Makoto would find out that she had been keeping tabs on some underground ring or following up with a whistleblower or something. And she took separate transportation, seemingly because losing Byakuya and Makoto at the same time was acceptable but losing Kyoko and Makoto at the same time wasn't.)
"Evidently, the zookeeper," Byakuya had replied wryly.
'Panda diplomacy' was a comforting way to look at it. It was nice to think that he was making everyone feel better and more connected just by being there.
But really, each of those appearances was more like acting out that Last Trial all over again. Again, being asked if it was worth it. Again, hope keeps on going. Again, watching everyone mull over whether he was worth it. Again, don't lose sight, don't let her win.
Not literally, of course. There were more complicated problems and complicated answers, outside the "sterile" environment of the killing school life.
Which...wasn't always what people wanted to hear. He had to be careful about that.
(Needed to be more careful!!)
Currently, Makoto was on something of a "grand tour".
They were very secretive about where he would be appearing and when, and very deft about thwarting all attempts to track his route. Once they got him on the contiguous continent, it was all ground travel, and they often stopped to change vehicles. No one could know what the Ultimate Hope was riding.
The extreme security measures weren't the reason he eventually had to take a break.
He was fine with waking up early, and waking up frequently, and letting people basically manhandle him through the checkpoints. He understood it. It was fine.
More as a result of the realities of ground travel in the world's crumbled infrastructure than as a real built-in accommodation for his health, there was typically just enough time between public appearances for his voice to come back:
A day packed with speeches and reassurances, talks with important leaders and talks with beleaguered citizens, then a few days without a voice. It cycled pretty neatly; there were very few days where he had to power through speeches with a bad throat, and there were very few spare days where he got his voice back before he needed it.
"Tea, whiteboard," Byakuya always ordered, when they returned to the local base of operations after a day of public speaking. A cup of warm tea (with honey if they could get it), a little portable whiteboard to write down what he couldn't say.
"Probably just go to bed for the night," Kyoko would say, if she was there. Which, on this particular trip, she was. "We're leaving early."
It was physically taxing, but that also was not the reason he eventually had to take a break.
In Germany, they met a man who built bridges for a living. He looked even more exhausted than Makoto felt, and there was a desperate, feverish light in his eyes. He spoke to them (in Japanese, so Byakuya didn't have to serve as a middle man) about how frequently the bridges were attacked and needed to be rebuilt. And he asked Makoto, "When do you think it will end?"
Makoto tried really hard not to give people false promises.
(He needed to be more careful about that.)
"I don't think there's going to be one moment where it's just all over," he said carefully. "I think there will be a lot of little moments where different things are just better than they were before. And sometimes moments where things are worse, but...the point is to keep trying to make those moments where things are better happen more and more for each other. Maybe it feels demoralizing to have to rebuild a bridge that you've already built, but, it's important to remember that it's not wasted! By building the bridge, you're adding moments where people's lives get to be a little easier, and that will always have been true. Even if you can never be sure that the next time is the last time you'll have to rebuild-"
"Never be sure?" the man echoed, with an incredulousness that lacked the energy even to raise his voice. "You're saying I just have to keep doing it, over and over again? Hope keeps on going, but then so does despair? Do we never win? Do we only fight?"
"We fight, we rest, we comfort each other-"
He could think of better answers now. Better things he could have said. He could have done better. Been more careful. The answer he gave was, "I don't know. Winning isn't-"
"You don't know. Then what's the point of an Ultimate Hope? What's the point of hope for a future that will never really be here?"
"That's not-...Whoa, hey!"
In that moment, the man pulled out...Was it a box cutter, or a letter opener? (Kyoko would know.) It had all been so fast, all Makoto could remember was a body falling into him, and a lot of raised voices.
When they first hauled the man off him, everyone thought that Makoto was the one hurt. That the blood covering him was his own. He had to cry out, "He needs help!" a few times before they understood.
Byakuya hustled him away from everyone else. Ordered for him to be brought clean clothes. Makoto tried to blink away the image of the man's lifeless body.
...Makoto needed a break.
He didn't ask for one. In fact, Kyoko was the one who took one look at him (hair still wet from the shower, dressed in blood-free clothes) and said, "We'll delay the next appearance by a week. Come eat something."
He lost his voice, as usual, and didn't bother with the whiteboard in the first couple of days that followed. All he needed were his hands, to give a thumbs up when people asked how he was doing.
(He could think of a million different things he could have said, and he didn't know which ones would have been better.)
The others lumped the man in with the despair radicals who did things like, say, blow up bridges.
"He was trying to upset you," Byakuya said, with that air of finality he was good at putting on. "Forget him."
Makoto shook his head, no.
"No he wasn't trying to upset you, or no you won't forget him?"
Makoto held up two fingers.
Byakuya sighed and forced him to drink some more tea.
Days later, just as Makoto was beginning to rebuild his drive (to do his best even if...), he happened to stumble into a room and overhear that the break he was taking was coming at the cost of a great deal of the world's faith.
"The rumor that he died when the radical fell on him will go away when he makes his next appearance," one member of his security detail remarked to another. "Unless they think the Ultimate Imposter is in on it, somehow."
"Whereas the rumor that we're keeping him out of the public eye because the demonstration caused him to fall to despair, will probably be sticking around for at least another few months. Nothing we can do about that. He's not ready to go out again. Not yet. And even when he does, there will be people who are convinced he's despair, no matter what he says."
Makoto left the room quietly and knocked on Kyoko's door.
When she let him in, he found that Byakuya was already inside, sitting on a desk chair (that she apparently had? Makoto's room didn't have a desk...But it made sense. She did way more actual work than he did.).
"What is it?" Kyoko asked, shutting the door behind him.
Makoto cleared his throat. "I can be ready to keep the tour going." His voice wasn't great, but it was usable.
"You 'can be' ready," Byakuya echoed pointedly.
"I'm ready," Makoto rephrased.
"No," Kyoko said. "It was already a lot at once. The incident was just the final straw."
"They can't keep not hearing from me. They'll-"
"I-It's not important." He didn't want to get anyone in trouble. "I can process everything later. If you guys need me to be ready now, I can be ready!"
"If we wanted that from you, we would have said so," Kyoko replied. "Makoto, you haven't..."
The way she trailed off without finishing her sentence made panic shoot through him. "What? I haven't what?"
She sighed, her brow furrowing with concern. "You haven't expressed a need once since the incident. Not discomfort, not hunger, not thirst. You haven't complained about being trapped inside the compound, and I know we all get easily claustrophobic. When you arrived back, that day, you were just sitting in your stained clothes until Byakuya told you to go wash the blood off. It's been days, now, and it feels as if you're subtly punishing yourself for what happened."
"I'm not! That's..." The idea of punishing one's self had terrible associations, now. She had to know that.
Kyoko walked up and hugged him. Which was not a common gesture, for her. "What happened wasn't your fault. No one has any right to expect you to talk down everyone who's at their wit's end. Do you understand that?"
He sniffed, which was how he realized he was crying.
"You were right," she added. "I reviewed the footage after the fact. What you said was good, Makoto. It was fair. The man was going through something that had nothing to do with you. You didn't harm him."
In a strangled, warbling voice, he half-sobbed into her shoulder, "I could've said-"
"You didn't have to say anything else," she said sternly. "I wouldn't change a word of what you said. And even if it wasn't what that man wanted or needed to hear, he wasn't the only one in earshot. I'm certain your words meant a lot to someone there. If you never helped anyone else, a day in your life, you've done more than enough."
Makoto sniffled, his sobs puttering on while the tension in his body unwound. Kyoko must have taken that as a sign that she could let go, because she withdrew from the embrace and directed him to sit on her bed.
Byakuya, who must have slipped out at some point during that...kind of embarrassing display, placed a warm cup in Makoto's hand. "Tea," he said firmly. He placed a familiar slate and marker on his lap. "Whiteboard. Don't talk, now; you're making my throat hurt."
Makoto offered him a grateful smile. "I wonder if pandas ever feel like this," he wrote.
Byakuya exhaled, in his equivalent of a medium laugh. "I imagine not. They care nothing for the propagation of their species. Drink your tea, before it gets cold."
