Komaeda Nagito (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
eyeswideopen) wrote2015-10-14 07:21 pm
eyeswideopen) wrote2015-10-14 07:21 pmEntry tags:
Messenger Box
If you need to get a hold of Komaeda, here's where you do it.
Messenger birds, action, what have you.
eyeswideopen) wrote2015-10-14 07:21 pm
1/?
It's all he wants to write to Nagito. His hand never twitches, but it's there in his mind, in the back of his throat, on the front of his tongue. He stares at the paper, knowing what it's there for and his intentions, and he pushes himself away from it all.
He doesn't want to say good bye. It's too late for that, but the emotion tightens at his lungs and his head hasn't stopped feeling foggy, scattered, free of anything but what's been left there by allowing himself to acknowledge the departures gone. That, too, should be impossible to ignore, the house empty of the cheer and spark of another, one who brightened him and made him feel so, so warm. But it was an option just in grasp--because everyone leaves. Why should this be any different?
This was just the way it was. It was a mindset that had helped him for nearly two years.
The paper stays blank as leaves the room and everything it asks of him. ]
2/?
But it's only then that he realises he has to speak. He struggles with it as he had the pen.
So Red thinks instead.
He thinks about how emptier the house feels, and it's not just because of Cilan. It's because of you, too. I miss you. But he reconsiders the direction his mind goes, not wanting to encourage tears he doesn't want to shed.
It's a hard battle to fight, but he works his way around it despite the thoughts he reaches for from the depths of his mind, bringing the faded images to the front that cling on. The day they met in person--wasn't it incredible? How things turned out the way they did? Did Nagito think his luck had anything to do with it? What did he have to lose to make up for it, if that's the way it went for him?
( What kind of luck was this, Nagito? You didn't want to leave! This was your home!
—But even Red knows it doesn't work like that. )
His mind empties as he looks for a new thought, his room lit by nothing but the night outside his window. Hot ciders together in a busy little business; sharing with Nagito his starlit memories of Seafoam Island; Nagito, in starlight, his white hair and tall body; his wedding night, dancing in his bliss.
Gold, star shaped flowers glistening in the air around them.
( I still don't know what kind of hat Thras got Sosyne, Nagito.
...
Did your wishes come together...? Like a mirror... )
He shouldn't dare to get up and go for the book that Nagito crafted for him, but he does. It stays closed, pressed near to his face on the surface of his knees for the longest time, until he nearly loses the battle inside of him and he has to rise from the bed. The book slips onto the sheets, and he pushes the bottom of his palms of his hands into his eyes, but it isn't enough. He walks instead, leaving the house to a cold and uninviting night, and keeps going until the chill's dug deeper than just his skin, until he's sure that there's a chance he'll get sick and all his thoughts become detached. Until it doesn't hurt quite the same way.
It feels like hours. It feels like nothing.
It's just another night in this world, he thinks bitterly.
It's not comfortable, but it's enough to let him sleep that night, removing the bits and pieces from the bed without much stirring in his chest. ]
3/?
4/?
It is. But sometimes it's necessary, to give the shock some time to dull, when the brain doesn't even realise it's in shock. Because shock should be for the unknown suddenly found out, for something other than what Red already knew.
He already knew Nagito was gone. Somehow, the letter made that more real than his figuring it out or Hinata's announcement.
His body weighs as it should, yet weighs as it shouldn't; his spirit is what is heavy when he returns to the letter shoved inside a drawer, out of sight and out of mind, or at least pushed far, far back into the recesses of it. He touches along the folded paper, thoughts on how Nagito had touched it before him, how he often looked with his head down, reading a book or scribbling some new note.
Alvin, Cilan, Nagito. It feels like he's known them forever, and the way his mind lingers on them, he wonders, he's not sure-- Is this really like being a trainer on the road anymore? Meeting people, experiencing a piece of them, moving on. Was this ever like that?
And will he be the next to go?
His hands feel weak at the realisation of how little they can hold onto. ]
I don't want to say goodbye, [ he whispers, the note against his chest. He knows what the response to that would be, but there's nothing but the quiet of the room that follows than the voice and presence he wishes were there, and he refuses to let the words of a ghost settle in his mind, even as they slip through the cracks.
( It's not goodbye. All life is connected. Your voices and hands will always reach to me, no matter where we are. )
Red exhales, shaking off the tired emotion he knows he's only making worse by pushing down on, but not now. It's too soon, even if now, there, the pang of guilt where he knows he's being unfair.
But even if he was--I don't want to see the future without you guys, is the thought he wants to selfishly cling onto.
Not yet. He's not ready today. ]
5/6
Somehow, someday, Red finally remembers this. It must be the stage of grief where his emotions finally have no lower they can go than to fall down into acceptance. Nagito's gone, and he may never come back. Just like Cilan. Just like Alvin. Just like Lu Meng. Just like all the rest.
The likelihood of seeing them again was lower than the possibility that he would. This was very well it.
And it's okay. It doesn't feel okay, and in the day it finally dawns upon him, out in the island's open air and the world continuing to move on despite his disregard for it, he knows that it's fine to feel that way. The tears don't fall as they've wanted to thus far, but they get the chance later on when he returns to the letter and soaks it in completely.
He lets it all out until he's dry, until all he has is hiccups and pains and a shaking body. And yet still he finds more to give, letting himself miss them in more than just anger; to think about them, to remember, every good and every bad and every recollection of their face in his heart. He lets it hurt as bad as it'll get, just so he can know how much he loved them. How much he'll miss them. How much he is.
His body and mind eventually give way to an early night, and the next day--
The next day is just another day.
But it'll be alright. ]