[Huh. It's not the answer he expected. He'd thought -- it'd be more like that time they'd stood in the graveyard together and Erik had said You gotta turn your pain into a weapon. Got to brave the unknown to make the change. He's always seen Erik as the kind of man that changes the world, who never stops fighting. Someone like Akihiko.
It's strange to think of him as someone who's tired of existing. Someone like him. He can't judge, of course, but it leaves him strangely wrong-footed for the conversation he'd expected when he reached out. The thought-text catches his reaction before he's sure he wants to transmit it.]
why? i mean, all this shit we gotta do, just for that? there's easier ways to stop
[ erik doesn't believe that. it's a fairytale to think life is just a tree in a forest where no one is around. there are ripples, consequences. everything spreads out. ]
And I'm not talking about my end. I'm talking about the life. I don't hate it and I can't say I fully regret it all. But I figured it's the last thing I should do with my story.
Not that I fully buy into what they're selling. If power like that exists, I'd use it to end the suffering my people do, hands down.
that's more like what i thought you were going to say the first time
[He admits, which makes him wonder what Erik means. He doesn't hate his life, but the last thing he should do with his story is destroy it? Even if what he really wants is still to change the world? The two thoughts don't mesh right in Shinjiro's head.]
you were a soldier, right? the first time you killed someone how'd you get ready for it or deal with it after
[ it's certainly a juxtaposition. but that is what erik is. he knows he's a monster in his core. his anger keeps him burning. but when everything is burned down and you have no home to return to, what is really left? ]
I dunno if I'm the traditional experience here. My mom was killed and my dad was murdered. After all, I had nothing to lose and no one else I wish to give my life to.
Plus I was in the army. They desensitize you for this shit. Make sure you never think about it.
[So that's it, huh. Just care about your own desires more than theirs. It's not that it doesn't make sense. He's seen plenty of it in the years he spent on the street. But somehow he thought -- he thought Erik would have a better answer. He's come to look up to the man, perhaps simply because they've had so many heavy conversations like this, and he always seems to know what he's doing next.
It was easier to have that certainty when the goal he was moving toward with single-minded determination was simply to quietly disappear. There's a long pause, as though maybe Shinjiro's given up on this conversation and left.]
they made it sound like some shitty scavenger hunt i didn't want to hurt anyone guess this is the part where you say i told you so, huh
[ if it was someone erik actively disliked, he would. but shinji's just a kid. who made such a big mistake that it swallowed up his entire life. and yeah that mistake makes erik uneasy to his core, the way it was covered up and nothing was answerable to it.
but he's not so dense to recognize whose hands were working on it. and shinji . . . all shinji had was the guilt. he never made room for anything else. erik had his anger, his grief, but also his culture, his people, their suffering.
yeah, he's no avenger. or hero. he's a stamp in the cause. ]
I know you didn't want to. But these missions, what they'll ask of us . . . There's always a price.
[Another pause in the replies. Shinjiro all but rips out the earpiece just in case so he can curl up on himself and ride out the wave of shaking he wouldn't be able to identify as a panic attack without risking transmitting any of it. Once he feels like he can breathe again, he puts the earpiece back in.]
the kid still deserves to have his mom back i ruined his life i oughta fix it, now that i've got the chance but we're gonna ruin other people's on the way i should've just fucking stayed dead
it aint always gonna be shitty people we take the orb from
[He recognizes, for all his baggage, that these Families are not good people. They're not innocent bystanders, like Amada's mother. They are, arguably, doing more harm with the Orb than their team will have in any self-defense to obtain it. Still.]
the girl in the last place was already screwed but she aint like these families she was just tryin to save people maybe in the next place someone like her doesn't want to hand the orb over we just take it, that's nothing but repeating what i did to amada but on purpose this time
I ain't gonna commit to a system that stomps over other people while using our goals as a means to an end.
And maybe you shouldn't turn time back on a regret. You can't just swallow up someone else's pain even if you wanna save them from it.
The only thing a person can do is own it. And make it into power.
[ which is something erik has said before. even if he believes the orbs could help, it's a big if. and the minute he finds otherwise, he's ready to tear it down.
that doesn't make his motivations lofty. he may take the power for himself. work to his ends. plans within plans. but he's not lying. ]
cw generally suicidal themes throughout this thread
[Yet again, a pause. He knows the ice here is thin. But he did reach out to Erik looking for answers, and if he wants them, he has to understand where the older man is coming from.]
is the pain really better than having your dad back? you wouldn't be tempted at all?
[He means it as a legitimate question. It's true, what Erik noted. All Shinjiro's had is the guilt. He never wanted much for himself, even before his life fell apart. Back then, all he could imagine for himself was standing by Aki's side, drifting through life until it was finished with him. Their pain has come to define both of them, but for Shinji, there's nothing positive or meaningful about his own. It just represents everything about himself he wanted to disappear from the world.]
[ yeah, he'd be tempted. but erik knows having his father won't change what happened. it won't erase what happened to him and if he did, it would just mean that erik is content to live a blissful life and damn the consequences.
he is damning. he is damnable. he would hate for anyone to take a brush to his story. if he wants to remove his actions, he's doing it out of his own volition.
complicated, but erik always is. ]
I'd be tempted, but it wouldn't fix what happened to him and why. It's also my fucking pain. Who gets to decide what happens to it but me?
[Ah. It strikes him all over again, what this reminds him of. Aki, swearing to become strong enough to do what's right. Aki, telling him to move on from the past, when it's the very reason for everything he does too.]
yknow sometimes i don't get you all this about it bein your own pain and not somethin anyone should touch but you wanna fix everyone else's change the whole goddamn world how come yours is the only pain that oughta stick around?
[There's a layer of hypocrisy to this; Shinjiro doesn't believe he deserves to be happy, either. But he isn't like Erik. He doesn't aspire to make the world or Japan or even just Iwatodai a better place. He just wants to give one kid back the life he had before Castor came crashing into it.]
what's that even mean i'm the one who fucked his life up
[Part of the problem is there; he doesn't think of himself as someone suffering, even though he is. He doesn't think of himself as someone who needs help. He's not the same as Erik and Ken, who had their lives ruined by others.]
Edited (wait i had a better idea) 2021-10-09 04:28 (UTC)
i ain't stupid enough to think dyin was gonna fix shit for him in japan i just had to take responsibility better i kicked it than let it happen again here though hell already seen a skeleton guy and magic and a lady fallin over dead just to walk it off a minute later i could fix it here
[There's another gap. The next text appears a couple minutes later.]
he was eight it's only been two years not like he's grown up and gone to war and all that shit yet ain't it a coward move to have the chance to put his life back the way it was and throw it away because he might've gotten used to the pain?
But it's not just your pain. It's his too. And he doesn't get a say in any of this. If the role was reversed, you think you'd be down with someone coming over with a magic wand and waving it all away?
doesn't matter if i would or not i got someone killed if someone could turn back the clock so it never happened i don't got the right to complain about it
[He's not sure he would complain about it, honestly. Ever since that moment all he's wanted was to take it back. It's haunted him every night since, the moment the sky turned green with the strike of midnight. But either way, that's not the point, as far as he's concerned.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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cw for suicidal thinking / reference to committing suicide
It's strange to think of him as someone who's tired of existing. Someone like him. He can't judge, of course, but it leaves him strangely wrong-footed for the conversation he'd expected when he reached out. The thought-text catches his reaction before he's sure he wants to transmit it.]
why?
i mean, all this shit we gotta do, just for that?
there's easier ways to stop
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[ erik doesn't believe that. it's a fairytale to think life is just a tree in a forest where no one is around. there are ripples, consequences. everything spreads out. ]
And I'm not talking about my end. I'm talking about the life. I don't hate it and I can't say I fully regret it all. But I figured it's the last thing I should do with my story.
Not that I fully buy into what they're selling. If power like that exists, I'd use it to end the suffering my people do, hands down.
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[He admits, which makes him wonder what Erik means. He doesn't hate his life, but the last thing he should do with his story is destroy it? Even if what he really wants is still to change the world? The two thoughts don't mesh right in Shinjiro's head.]
you were a soldier, right?
the first time you killed someone
how'd you get ready for it
or deal with it after
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I dunno if I'm the traditional experience here. My mom was killed and my dad was murdered. After all, I had nothing to lose and no one else I wish to give my life to.
Plus I was in the army. They desensitize you for this shit. Make sure you never think about it.
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you can't know if enemy soldiers had families and shit
how'd you deal with that
[Erik had nothing to lose, but he's certainly killed people who did. Shinjiro knows at least that much about war.]
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But murder's murder. It's always going to be murder. Don't matter if they have families or lives. It's us or them.
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It was easier to have that certainty when the goal he was moving toward with single-minded determination was simply to quietly disappear. There's a long pause, as though maybe Shinjiro's given up on this conversation and left.]
they made it sound like some shitty scavenger hunt
i didn't want to hurt anyone
guess this is the part where you say i told you so, huh
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[ if it was someone erik actively disliked, he would. but shinji's just a kid. who made such a big mistake that it swallowed up his entire life. and yeah that mistake makes erik uneasy to his core, the way it was covered up and nothing was answerable to it.
but he's not so dense to recognize whose hands were working on it. and shinji . . . all shinji had was the guilt. he never made room for anything else. erik had his anger, his grief, but also his culture, his people, their suffering.
yeah, he's no avenger. or hero. he's a stamp in the cause. ]
I know you didn't want to. But these missions, what they'll ask of us . . . There's always a price.
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the kid still deserves to have his mom back
i ruined his life
i oughta fix it, now that i've got the chance
but we're gonna ruin other people's on the way
i should've just fucking stayed dead
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So now you've looked behind the curtain. Doesn't mean it's the end.
But you gotta figure out where you wanna go from here.
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it aint always gonna be shitty people we take the orb from
[He recognizes, for all his baggage, that these Families are not good people. They're not innocent bystanders, like Amada's mother. They are, arguably, doing more harm with the Orb than their team will have in any self-defense to obtain it. Still.]
the girl in the last place was already screwed
but she aint like these families
she was just tryin to save people
maybe in the next place someone like her doesn't want to hand the orb over
we just take it, that's nothing but repeating what i did to amada but on purpose this time
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But we have options. We can figure out what the orbs are for. And maybe stop it all.
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that'd mean giving up on our own shit, wouldn't it?
[He's struggling with this idea in particular, honestly. Being alive and not working toward saving Amada's mother feels pointless.
But saving Amada's mother and leaving other bodies in her place feels equally so. It's a Catch-22, and threatens to swallow Shinjiro whole.]
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And maybe you shouldn't turn time back on a regret. You can't just swallow up someone else's pain even if you wanna save them from it.
The only thing a person can do is own it. And make it into power.
[ which is something erik has said before. even if he believes the orbs could help, it's a big if. and the minute he finds otherwise, he's ready to tear it down.
that doesn't make his motivations lofty. he may take the power for himself. work to his ends. plans within plans. but he's not lying. ]
cw generally suicidal themes throughout this thread
is the pain really better than having your dad back?
you wouldn't be tempted at all?
[He means it as a legitimate question. It's true, what Erik noted. All Shinjiro's had is the guilt. He never wanted much for himself, even before his life fell apart. Back then, all he could imagine for himself was standing by Aki's side, drifting through life until it was finished with him. Their pain has come to define both of them, but for Shinji, there's nothing positive or meaningful about his own. It just represents everything about himself he wanted to disappear from the world.]
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he is damning. he is damnable. he would hate for anyone to take a brush to his story. if he wants to remove his actions, he's doing it out of his own volition.
complicated, but erik always is. ]
I'd be tempted, but it wouldn't fix what happened to him and why. It's also my fucking pain. Who gets to decide what happens to it but me?
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yknow
sometimes i don't get you
all this about it bein your own pain and not somethin anyone should touch but you wanna fix everyone else's change the whole goddamn world
how come yours is the only pain that oughta stick around?
[There's a layer of hypocrisy to this; Shinjiro doesn't believe he deserves to be happy, either. But he isn't like Erik. He doesn't aspire to make the world or Japan or even just Iwatodai a better place. He just wants to give one kid back the life he had before Castor came crashing into it.]
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. . . Cuz my pain made me. It's part of who I am.
Might be the same for that kid too. Not saying he shouldn't live a life without it, but who would he be? Does he want to give that up?
You don't. Even though you gotta make amends, you don't wanna give up your pain either.
dang it one of my line breaks failed rip
i'm the one who fucked his life up
[Part of the problem is there; he doesn't think of himself as someone suffering, even though he is. He doesn't think of himself as someone who needs help. He's not the same as Erik and Ken, who had their lives ruined by others.]
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and being black and white is what got you into this mess of thinking it was an easy fix, a quick death and the story's over.
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i just had to take responsibility
better i kicked it than let it happen again
here though
hell
already seen a skeleton guy and magic and a lady fallin over dead just to walk it off a minute later
i could fix it here
[There's another gap. The next text appears a couple minutes later.]
he was eight
it's only been two years
not like he's grown up and gone to war and all that shit yet
ain't it a coward move to have the chance to put his life back the way it was and throw it away because he might've gotten used to the pain?
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But it's not just your pain. It's his too. And he doesn't get a say in any of this. If the role was reversed, you think you'd be down with someone coming over with a magic wand and waving it all away?
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i got someone killed
if someone could turn back the clock so it never happened i don't got the right to complain about it
[He's not sure he would complain about it, honestly. Ever since that moment all he's wanted was to take it back. It's haunted him every night since, the moment the sky turned green with the strike of midnight. But either way, that's not the point, as far as he's concerned.]
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Then by all means, play god in this kid's life. That'll never backfire on him or you. You've clearly given this a lot of thought.
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