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You've always felt like poison in my veins.
I don't know how else to describe it. It's not precisely like it was instant, either. When I first saw you, I didn't think anything of you at all. I thought you were just some clueless loser who would die here, for a cause he could barely understand, just like the rest of them.
But I didn't understand you. That's the problem, I never understood you. Your words sent something burning in my veins, as you answered questions I never asked. It felt like we were never having the same conversation from the first. It always felt like I was speaking in facts, and you were speaking in fiction. Some clueless reality you lived in where kind lies were the only thing that mattered.
…People listened to you, though. They looked at you, and they didn't see you - how could they see you, as scared as the rest of them, hiding behind a title and a boastful attitude? The only thing they saw were your little white lies. It gave them hope, it kept them moving, it played into Monokuma's stupid little games but they always looked so happy when they looked at you.
And it burned me up, for the longest time, it did. I felt like I was going insane, you know? I felt like you must've been using them. As weapons, or as tools, or, or to boost your fragile little ego, something. It took me forever to realize the truth. While I tore at the scab to cleanse the wound, to get at the infection rotting them all from the inside, you were there to patch it all up, to set the bones I broke, to heal them.
I didn't understand. How could I understand? These hands were only ever made for hurting. And I wanted to tear it down, from the start all I ever wanted was to rip it to its foundations and start over again, free everyone, but it's not as if I would ever be the one starting things over anew. Who even would… well, I never thought of that, not really.
But if I'd had to put a name to the nebulous concept, if someone had ever bothered to ask me who I thought could build a future… well, I wouldn't have said it. Obviously I wouldn't have said it, nishishi. Who do you take me for?
…
Your face would've crossed my mind, though. It really would have, that's no lie. And at the time, that would've pissed me off even more, the poison in my blood making it boil and rage against me. It's funny to think about now. A little sad, maybe, but funny. What was the point of it all, the frustration, the needless pain? I don't know anymore. Maybe it was necessary for me, though.
To someone who's felt nothing but cold his whole life, your warmth in me felt like it was burning from the inside out.
You've always felt like eyes staring right through me.
I dunno. I've never known how to put stuff like this. Not when it counts. But when I looked at you, at those eyes that always seemed like they knew so much and those lips that never seemed to say a word of it straight, I always felt like an ant under a magnifying glass, you know? It felt like I'd never be able to make a wall tall enough to hide from you.
Because all I ever did was build walls. I knew if anybody saw me for what I really was, under all my big talk, my heroics, my loud mouth, they'd know. They'd all know I'm nothing but talk, just… words that don't mean anything, that never helped anybody, bluff and bluster and empty promises.
Not like you. And that always pissed me off so fucking much.
I never really understood you. I never was able to. But… I could see it, could see what you were doing. The way the jokes and the games hid what you really wanted, the way you would say everything for some reason, some purpose, all calculated strategy, all the time. I didn't get why.
I… always kinda thought you must be tired, though. Of putting up a mask all the time. Of lying and pretending and never being who you really were. It sure made me tired. And on top of that, you always acted so… carefree. Like you were above it all.
That part pissed me off, too. Hard to admit, but it did. You were always so in control, and I always felt like I was barely hanging on. Maybe I was a little bit jealous of that. Maybe I wished I could take control of a situation with some cheeky grin and a word or ten like consequences didn't matter to me. And maybe the fact that I was jealous only pissed me off more.
I tried, though, of course I tried, but it always felt so fake. And you knew it was, too, I could tell. Even when you didn't say anything. I felt so goddamn inadequate next to you, next to Shuichi, next to anyone. And it's not like you were ever modest about it.
So yeah. You pissed me off, all the time. Sometimes about nothing at all. I just never got it. Why you were the way you were, what you were doing, what reason you had to look at me with those piercing purple eyes and never say it, never say everything was an act, never tell them about the fear behind my eyes.
And the fact that you'd never say it, that you'd never bust through my walls and say what's true to me, maybe that pissed me off, too. The idea of someone seeing through me for what I really was, it was scarier than anything I could think of. Even dying didn't feel like a fear in the same way that did, raw and tearing at the real me I kept under my skin. But I think I wanted it a little, too. To have someone I could put down the mask with. Someone who could let me just… be.
Your eyes might've run right through me, but scary as that was, there was a comfort in it, a peace, a rest. It's just sad it took me so long to see it.
It doesn't burn me anymore, your fire in my veins. I never understood what it was until it was just you and me, death coming for me, for you, this whole stupid killing game coming down around us, but I get it now. I saw it, when you finally saw me for what I was. When you really, finally directed it at me.
Your warmth.
It wasn't exactly a warm kind of situation. I felt colder than I ever had in my life, so much of my blood on the floor, on my back, on your hands. That didn't matter, though. I never felt… scared, not really. There was a moment, when I was alone, when I was staring that hydraulic press down and you started it up, but that aside? No.
I had faith in you.
I've never had faith in another human being in my life, not really. I thought it was stupid. Faith, belief without reason. You always used to talk about faith. I thought it was just more of your stupid little platitudes. Words that should've meant something but didn't. I thought faith was for people who were stupid, people who didn't know better.
I didn't get it, but I get it now.
Your eyes on me mean something different now than they did then. It's almost a relief, seeing them here, looking at me again. Nah, scratch that. It is a relief. So much I don't even know how to put it into words. It must've started… when you confided in me, told me your plans, explained why you really did all those things you did.
When I saw what was behind those eyes of yours, an intelligence and passion I could barely even start to understand.
It was crazy. You know how absolutely fucking crazy it was, right? You've got to. But the way you planned out so much of what they said and did, and then they actually went and did it, it boggles my mind even now, dude. It's funny, though. I know you weren't exactly… there, with me, but it felt like you were. When I felt like it was hopeless, like I was done for sure, all I had to do was look at your words, read them in your voice, and it didn't feel like that anymore. No, it…
I felt like I had someone in my corner.
That was a new feeling. Incredible, really. Everyone else who looked at me and saw the Luminary of the Stars, it's not like I wasn't grateful? I was. I am. I always will be. But you, you were the only one who's ever looked at me and saw Kaito. And when I was up there, acting out your part, listening to them… the way they hated you… well, I don't think I understood just how much you did for the sake of ending the killing game before then. Even when I thought I did, I didn't really understand the depth of your passion, your courage, the kind that gives me courage, too.
I didn't get it, but I get it now.
I… I think I might love you.
I love you, too. You know that, right?
Yeah. Yeah, I do.