( ooc: like... bane of my existence... you started this )
[ he still has trouble.
heine must be telling the truth. he has nothing to gain by lying -- rin has nothing that he might want, nothing that he couldn't otherwise take by force. heine narrates like he's telling someone else's story, reading from a technical manual, far away from the present moment.
that must be how he copes. taking someone's life seems impossible to rin, but to kill someone he'd loved --
rin should feel revulsion or fear. something. he'd nearly died in the same way, the dog goading him into a fight he would have surely lost. and yet he can only think of a fragment of the heine he sees now, a child with eyes like blood, frame too small to contain the violence that had been implanted in him.
rin tears a cherry blossom to shreds between index finger and thumb, the mulch catching between nail and fingertip. the springtime scent is too sweet in his throat.
he doesn't know what to say.
a moment passes. rin's eyes fill and fill and fill; he has to turn away, swallowing the knot in his throat. he thinks about the memorial he'd erected in the shrine. about the concrete dust in his throat after the dog had smashed his fist down. about that text heine had sent him when he'd first agreed to teach rin to fight.
it's stupid. of course he knows what to say. ]
That's all?
[ his voice is rough with tears, but no less decisive for it. he snorts, a soft sound broken up by the hitch of his breath; he has to pause to swipe at his face again. ]
Big deal. We get you a leash and a muzzle to go with that collar and --
[ there's ferocity in the way he's staring at heine. a challenge. for what, rin himself wouldn't be able to say. ]
you are the pain of my existence
[ he still has trouble.
heine must be telling the truth. he has nothing to gain by lying -- rin has nothing that he might want, nothing that he couldn't otherwise take by force. heine narrates like he's telling someone else's story, reading from a technical manual, far away from the present moment.
that must be how he copes. taking someone's life seems impossible to rin, but to kill someone he'd loved --
rin should feel revulsion or fear. something. he'd nearly died in the same way, the dog goading him into a fight he would have surely lost. and yet he can only think of a fragment of the heine he sees now, a child with eyes like blood, frame too small to contain the violence that had been implanted in him.
rin tears a cherry blossom to shreds between index finger and thumb, the mulch catching between nail and fingertip. the springtime scent is too sweet in his throat.
he doesn't know what to say.
a moment passes. rin's eyes fill and fill and fill; he has to turn away, swallowing the knot in his throat. he thinks about the memorial he'd erected in the shrine. about the concrete dust in his throat after the dog had smashed his fist down. about that text heine had sent him when he'd first agreed to teach rin to fight.
it's stupid. of course he knows what to say. ]
That's all?
[ his voice is rough with tears, but no less decisive for it. he snorts, a soft sound broken up by the hitch of his breath; he has to pause to swipe at his face again. ]
Big deal. We get you a leash and a muzzle to go with that collar and --
[ there's ferocity in the way he's staring at heine. a challenge. for what, rin himself wouldn't be able to say. ]
-- problem solved.