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❝It's Arakita. I'm not here. Leave a message.❞

[Beep!]

[yeah, he knows that. If it was a month ago, a week ago, he'd dismiss her claims of multiple deaths as complete nonsense, but now it's painful reality he knows he's facing. he'd been slapped upside the head with enough memories to understand that now.

what the hell was he supposed to say? moving forward in the face of a harsh reality was something he's lived by, but that was back in a world where he didn't have to accept the threat of death as a daily reality, or that he had to live his life by the whims of a unseen and completely inhuman organization. this wasn't some whiny kid yapping on about how hard practice was or that her parents weren't being fair, this was a girl who fucking died more than one time, and knowing this place none of those times were peacefully.

he isn't cynical or hardened by the city enough to get angry about her acceptance of inevitable death, but he isn't content to stay silent and accept it either. this is more or less a stranger, he shouldn't care about her. wasn't doing exactly that what got you killed in those cheesy end-of-the-world movies he used to snort and snark at with the rest of his team?

if only it was a movie. maybe it's fortunate that he isn't cynical nor hardened enough because he finds himself actually- sort of- kind of- caring.]

Don't say shit like that. [it's really the best he can do, the best he can say without feeling like he's spouting bullshit.]

So what if you died before? None of that means a goddamn thing now. It's in the past- it's not going to affect your chances now unless you let it.

[it's not "everything will be alright" or something similarly useless, but it still feels... hollow to say it.]

You've only got one life now, so don't give up on it that easily. [he frowns more deeply, letting himself get a little more frustrated.] Are you that willing to accept that you're going to die here? [a discontent click of his tongue.] Doesn't your life mean more to you than that?

[he doesn't want to imagine getting to that point, even from just hearing a "yes".]

[ 'in the past,' he says, and she wishes it was true. how nice it would be to wake up and not worry about the day she leaves haven for good - the day she's done for, inside and outside of this place. it's not like he isn't right, he is definitely right, but this has now become advice she can't follow. she'd love to answer with a yes, it's a privilege she didn't realize how much she would miss. but she can't. she's going to die and there's no changing that, so she can't keep on willfully living.

no matter how strong you become, you'll still die.

becoming stronger doesn't have anything to do with her death. becoming stronger means that she was able to accomplish something, that she was able to die as mikan tsumiki and not the girl who was always in tears and on the ground, that she didn't die wasting anyone's time with her useless existence. she knows she'll leave the world as she came on jabberwock island. unwanted and disgusting. but in haven she'll be remembered as a friend, as someone who tried.

to save herself the pain she considers hanging up to cry as loudly as she'd like and run away from her problems. but on the other hand, she could just be honest. after all, arakita has been trying to help her, he's forgiven her for the terrible thing she did to him, and she'd be lying if she said she didn't trust him despite not knowing him all that well. ]

T-The place I come from... nothing good has happened, in that place! I fear that my classmates are unsafe... [ the ones she knows survives as of right now. ] Many of them died at the hands of each other, but it wasn't anyone's fault! They were forced to do it! Our world was terrible...

[ she begins to get cold feet though. would telling him really be appropriate? how do you casually tell someone who isn't straight out asking that you're currently on the waiting list for hell? ]

W-When I was there, I was selfishly happy, you see. Because no one was hurting me, and we all came together as... as friends! Before then, I had never felt friendship. Everyone around me, they were always kicking me, and pouring water on me, and giving me cigarette burns... But not in that place! I was beginning to become happy with my class. [ she takes a deep breath. it's always awkward for her to talk about her life because she's only ever done it to like 2 people, but she's channeling all of that strength she's earned so far.

and hoo boy will she need it for the next part. ] That's why, once I was told I died in that place too... I lost the will to live, even here.

[ it doesn't sink in until she's done saying it all that she's just dished out her life story to yasutomo arakita. oh god should she hang up oh god ] D-Do you hate me now, for talking so much?! Please, please, please don't hate meeeee!

[For all his aggressive bluster and opinions on just about everything, Arakita knows there is a time and a place to be quiet and actually listen to people. He's learned that by now. So he is (probably surprisingly, for her) completely quiet as she recounts her story- her fucked up, objectively painful to listen to life story.

He opens his mouth, and closes it again into a forced scowl. A harsh criticism, an expected frustrated response, doesn't come out.

Why was she telling him, a stranger who was completely useless at open emotional honesty unless it came in the form of layering it with curse words and unspoken mutual understanding on what he actually meant under those layers?

He wishes he knew, if only because if there's anything Yasutomo Arakita hates, it's feeling completely useless in a situation. He knows he's already fucking this up monumentally and she's become fucked up monumentally because of fucked up people and fucked up situations long before he started talking. He knows he can't fix either of those things, nor is he certain enough that he could to try immediately.

She's fucked up, this is fucked up, her story is more than fucked up, but he sees a bit of himself in her- even if she's whiny and way too prone to crying and awkward and annoyingly pitiful, he knows that, if not for Fukutomi's intervention and consequently showing him a better path, he would still think like her. That because of who he was, he should have expected the rejection and hatred she constantly fears to happen to him- that he was ultimately hopeless when it came down to it, and that there was no way to change or avoid inevitable reality.

There's a world of difference between the two of them and how they expressed that, as well as the severity of their pasts, but the bottom line is the same and that's what drives him to talk again.]

...Life here fucking sucks. Nobody's living the way they want to be living here. But giving up on life entirely just because you're dead back home is idiotic. It's a shitty second chance you're getting here, but it's still a second chance. It's better than giving up and dying.

[A nasty thought enters his head- he says this, but if his team was in danger back home and he was told he would inevitably and unavoidably die back there too, would his will stand up then?]

...Hey, you said there are people here who are nice to you. [He still doesn't consider himself one of them.] So care about those people. If the only reason you were happy living back then was because of your friends, then that's a reason to want to live here. It's a fucking weak reason and you should find another one, but start with that. [He clicks his tongue.] And stop thinking everyone hates you for stupid reasons. Most people's priorities aren't that messed up.

[He pauses, but not long enough for her to start on another rant, or to start crying again.]

Why are you telling me all of this? [Because he cannot, for the life of him, imagine why she would tell him.]

[ a little bit sick of being a sad sack, mikan smiles at his answer once again. sometimes she feels like if people knew the real disgusting truth about her, they would never speak to her again.

but, she feels like that regardless of how much people know about her.

it's a relief, but she reminds herself he still doesn't know about the part where she kills some people too. no biggie. she's told him enough anyway. though it feels sort of like she's playing devil's advocate, she'll tell him one day, when she herself can accept it, probably. Probably. ]

My life here is something I'm grateful for. S-Sometimes, it's hard for everyone, and those are the times I don't think I can go on... It's hard for someone like me to take it. After all, I'm a weakling! [ she takes a deep breath. COOL IT, MIKAN. we can't scare this guy off.

anyway.

it's her turn to listen, and that's what she does. stop thinking everyone hates her, though? come on, that's like asking her to stop breathing!

nonetheless, she miraculously manages to retain her smile throughout all of this, even if it may have faltered a bit. ]

Fr-Friends... as well... A-Arakita-san? [ what's grammar? what's speaking without stuttering? what's making friends?! she's blushing so ferociously you can pretty much hear it in her voice. ] You said... to c-care about those who are nice to me! In that case, I care about you! [ she wheezes it out and i'm wheezing too ]

[When he's not putting it to use through narrowing his eyes and moving his big mouth, Arakita usually stores most of his tension in his shoulders. He surprises himself, then, when he feels his shoulders falling as soon as she says she's grateful for her life. It's coated in more of that familiar self-hatred, but she's come to at least a little bit of goddamn sense.

Even if she was a virtual stranger, he could accept being satisfied with her wanting to live instead of losing the will to. He could admit to himself that he cared about her on that level.

But now, after she sputters out a declaration about him, well, now he almost wishes she was still talking about what she was before, because no matter how little he knew about how to deal with that, he was still vastly more knowledgeable on how to react and process it instead of what she just said now.

It may go without saying that not many people (girls especially) approach him often, and even less with any sort of positive intention- he's not used to being told someone likes him, or cares about him, outside of that someone being within his team. Especially in such an earnest, fumbling, clearly blushing sort of way.

So Mikan isn't the only one turning pink here, even if Arakita does (tries) much more to cover it up.]

I'm not being nice, moron. I'm telling you crap you should already know.

[Maybe it is a sign of his growth that he doesn't say "so you shouldn't care about me", but he leaves his words hanging awkwardly in the air for the moment. More tellingly, his next words are mumbled.]

...Call me whatever you want, I don't care. ["Friends" or "someone to care about"- it's his way of saying that she can care.]

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i'll be seeing myself out. so much tl;dr shit

bury me honestly

THIS IS SO ANIME BURY ME TOO

it's not anime enough here's some tsundere