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[ Alex takes a deep breath and then exhales through his nose.

This isn't like Death. That's what's taken Alex so much to comprehend, this is a person. A person who's killed him...who he can just talk to. Who responds. Who is almost as baffling as the force of nature that ripped his whole world apart and left him crawling through the wreckage.

Alex is tired. He wonders if Ogata is too. ]

I'm gonna lay this out here. I...don't like you. That's probably no surprise, right? You...killed me. And, before that, you were so...smug. All-knowing and hateful. Just so...disconnected when everyone else was in so much pain. But...

[ The train's rushing at the car, and it won't move. The door won't open. The seat belt snapped. But Alex isn't sure it's going to do that in real life. He has to take a leap of faith. He can't let a person die in front of him...even if that person has no regard for the lives of others.
Alex can't. Just watch. ]

...But that doesn't mean I want bad things to happen to you. You don't have to like someone to want them to live...and you don't have to have a use for 'em, either. I surely don't. I'm...done with people dying if they don't have to. Any people.

["I don't like you" feels wrong, to Ogata. It doesn't feel harsh enough. Ogata doesn't like mushrooms. He doesn't like it when the parts of his gun don't reassemble smoothly on the first try. He doesn't like Sugimoto Saichi. He doesn't like a lot of things.

He doesn't hate things. But he's not normal. He's missing something. Hatred is something you can only feel if you understand love, he thinks. They're similar in a terrible sort of way. But Alex should hate. He cares, so much. He should hate just as much. You should hate the person who killed you. That's why he hates how Yuusaku's always smiling when he shows up. Maybe that's why he does it.

After a long pause;]

... When I was seven years old, my mother died suddenly. It's the earliest memory I have of someone dying. My grandparents were so upset, It felt like they cried for days, even though they'd ignored how she'd been struggling for years.

But I didn't feel... anything. I didn't cry at all. Your mother should be the person you care about most in the world, right? [A soft noise that's something like a laugh.] All I remember thinking was that maybe Father would come to her funeral and she could finally be happy.

[He didn't, though. Of course he didn't.]
"You don't have to like someone to want them to live?" I can't understand something like that. I could never understand something like that.

[ What this is, it's a full confirmation. Ogata was talking about himself, about a person being broken from something beyond war or death. And this time, Alex isn't safe behind the veil of text.

What does it do, does it absolve him? No. No, of course not. That would be stupid of him, and while he's trying, so desperately, to cling to any kind of optimism life hands him, he's not naive. Alex sighs out something tired and heavy. ]

Are you scared of it? Not understanding?

Scared?
[It's not an emotion he really ever feels, he thinks. Fear is rooted in losing something. Your life, your family, your standing, your possessions. Ogata really doesn't have much of any of that to lose. He doesn't have enough of a connection to what he does have. His life isn't worth much, outside of dying to prove a point.

He thinks about Yuusaku, and as has become the theme as of late, swears he sees him out of the corner of his eye when he does. Luckily, he only seems to full materialize when Ogata's fallen out of his own head. If he had said what he'd just said to Yuusaku, he could imagine the reaction. It would have been the same as back then. You're not like that, brother! Had he been afraid, then? Afraid to understand, afraid to not understand, whatever it was, he'd simply decided to reject Ogata's own feelings. His experience. He can remember that hug feeling like a straight jacket, or maybe like a riptide.]

No. I think most of the emotions people feel- or claim to feel- are complete fabrications. People learn to act a certain way in order to get their desired results. Of course I'm not going to be able to understand something that's made up.
[That's how he's always rationalized it. It's become harder to justify in recent months but... if he doesn't have this, then...

Maybe he would actually have to be afraid.]

[ An audible exhale gives Alex a moment to think of what to say next. ]

You still think that? After all the shit you've seen, here? 'Cause, I can tell you... Anger, guilt, joy, sadness, love... They're far from made up. And maybe if you could try and accept that...you'd start to understand the rest of us, a little better.

[ Is he trying to help Ogata? Alex isn't sure. He remembers Mista's sure conviction, I'm gonna kill him. He remembers his own panic. Who is he doing this for, Ogata? Mista? His friends? Himself?

Maybe it's some sort of mix. Because Alex can't untangle it all, and because in that moment, he won't even try to. ]

[Ah, there it is. The rejection. He can feel Yuusaku breathing down his neck, blood rushing in his ears. He really has seen so many things here that don't fit.

They don't fit and he can't just get rid of them the way he has before. He can't excise them from existence with a bullet or a knife so he can slot things back into place. He can't just do that and move along to somewhere else, to some other temporary niche to slot into. He's not sure if he even really wants to, this time.

But if he has to just tolerate these inconsistencies, he has to think about them. To consider them. To consider that, maybe they aren't. Maybe Alex is right. And he's wrong. And he shouldn't exist. His hands reflexively go through the motions of loading his rifle, having done it so many times they know exactly where the gun would slot into his hands. His finger twitching at the trigger-

When he speaks, there's a strain in his voice.]

I can't do that.

[ He has to proceed carefully with what he says here. Alex knows that. That kind of voice... He can't push too much. ]

You can't...? As in it's impossible for you?

I've already told you.
[He doesn't feel things like other people. He was born wrong, born missing something.]

A world that really has things like that doesn't have a place for people without them, right?
[He can just hear that voice at the back of his head again, It's not right for people like that to exist!]

[ Unwanted children. He didn't feel anything, when his mom died. Unneeded, unwanted.

There's so much Alex wishes he didn't know. It'd be a simple thing, if he didn't, to just ignore Ogata. To avoid him and never speak to him again. That's what a normal, sane person would do, right?

But, he doesn't have the luxury of ignorance. He never does, it seems. ]

Who ever told you something like that?

... My half-brother, for one. I don’t know if he understood what he was saying to me but he was just repeating back what he’s been taught, anyway.
[Yuusaku didn’t think for himself after all. He just did whatever father told him to do.

Ogata’s tired, really. Exhausted. He doesn’t know how he managed to avoid just having a complete mental breakdown, feels like he’s suffering the same fatigue he felt after wonderland. He just wants all of this to be over with. Maybe death wouldn’t be a bad way to escape all this. Except it won’t stick here, and Alex would just be mad, which would only serve as further punishment. ]

You can be personally optimistic all you want but you can’t do anything about how anyone else thinks. How society thinks.

[ Alex opened himself a mighty huge can of worms, didn't he? Tends to be how it goes. He's faced down Death before, and- ...well. He survived for awhile. A lot longer than he thought he would.

So... This can't be more difficult than that. Right? ]

Maybe I can't. Maybe...the rest'a the world's just like that. But...there's a lot of worlds out there. Every one of them, every person... They can't all think like that.

...Hell, if I can sit here, 'nd talk with you... You know.

[Alex, you fool. Dealing with the living is usually so much more complicated and difficult than dealing with Death. You should know this by now.

It's a bit odd, he thinks, hearing Alex slightly concede that he could be right, maybe. At least partly so. Maybe that's why he tenatively probes at the matter.]

Yes. Your willingness to hold conversations with me is frankly fairly inexplicable. Almost as bad as Sayori, but she claims I'm her friend so I suppose it makes some sense.
[This is still deeply strange to him and probably should be to Alex as well??? In any case.]

I can't fathom what your reasoning is, though.

[ Complicated, but at least it's something he can comprehend. Perhaps that's the big sticking point between the two of them. ]

I'm not gonna start speakin' for her. If she says you're her friend, then she sees you that way, though. She ain't the kind of person to jerk someone around. Sayori... She can make her own decisions. [ See!!! She was right!! ] If I could guess, it's she saw something in you that made her want to talk to you more.

[ And... ] For me, I...

[ A pause. ]

I guess I see someone worth talking to, too.

[All the stuff about Sayori seems fine. Unsurprising because yeah it's exactly as she said. He does wonder, idly, what exactly it might be that made her want to talk to him more. If that's even the case. He had just assumed she was the type to be friendly to anyone as long as they didn't give her reason not to be.

But then there's the pause. And the last thing Alex says. It feels, vaguely, like he's just been hit in the head, so viciously unexpected the statement is. It's not as extreme as what Sayori said, of course. But given what he's done to Alex, it feels almost more absurd. It was barely a month ago when Alex was (logically) telling Ogata to stay away from him.]

I don't know how you could possibly see that.
[The tone of his voice low and restrained. Holding back the confusion and something somewhat analogous to panic.]

[ This is what they like to call the point of no return. Alex would've thought he'd already crossed this, but Death can only be the beginning, isn't that so? He hums lightly, noncommittal and soft. ]

First thing you gotta understand is... People don't make sense. No matter how much you try, they aren't...things to figure out. I've tried.

[ He doesn't understand either. But if Ogata keeps reaching out to him, it's for a reason. ]

[You know, he feels like this doesn't really answer his question at all. Granted he didn't really ask a proper question. But. You know. Still!!!!]

I don't need you to tell me that. None of what you people do makes sense to me. But I have to assume that what you're doing makes some sense to you?
[Which; please tell him. Please explain. It still hasn't occured to Ogata that once again he's the one who initiated this conversation.]

I- I'm-

[ That hesitation, it's going to cost him. He knows, or at least he thinks he does, but-

Hell. Why not use the words of someone else? ] ...It's a feeling. Alright? It's just a feeling.

[Ogata is quiet for a lonng time. Thinking. That feels like such a vague answer. Just a feeling? About what? What sort of feeling? Does Alex even know? He pauses, because he’s trying. Attempting to understand. It’s not something he’s used to really attempting, but, well, if all these weird kids are, he might as well try, too.

When he actually really thinks about it, it’s not actually entirely unfamiliar. He always finds some justification after the fact, but he’s acted on a feeling, he supposes. Underlying motives not fully realized. Whims. If that’s what this is, it’s a poor one. But isn’t that what teenagers are supposed to do?]

You’re what? [He pauses again, briefly, before adding, thinking perhaps it might help.] I’m trying to understand.

That.

[ The world's a damn puzzle that can never be solved. No matter how much time he's spent trying, how much time he's spent cheating the system. That extends to people, doesn't it? He couldn't micromanage the world to survive because the world includes people. ]

...Maybe you can't see it. But through all the talk...there's someone who wants to get it. That's what keeps me talking to you.

Edited 2019-11-30 00:29 (UTC)

[Well. Seems he was right to make that little addendum. That said, while he meant it, he hadn't really attached any sort of desire to it. A motive. Ridiculous, maybe, but he does plenty of things either just on impulse, or instinct, or simply because he was told to. So the suggestion that he's trying to understand simply because he wants to understand, it surprises him. Is that really right?

He tries to think of another reason. There's no strategic benefit to it. No one is ordering him to. He doesn't, as far as he's aware, get anything out of it. He thinks, briefly, about how impossible such a desire must be. He doesn't have the pieces to be like everyone else. He lacks some crucial component. Surely that rules out understanding as well.

But then, of course, he always knew, really, that he could never have the father he wanted. But that didn't make the desire go away.]

... Maybe so. But wanting something doesn't matter in the long run. I don't want to be like this but that isn't going to change what I am.
[He thinks this is a valid dismissal. Because he's stupid.]

Edited 2019-12-01 01:27 (UTC)

Yeah, of course, you dumbass, but that's not like it means nothing.

[ Alex says this with a light grumble, but alright, at least he's getting somewhere. ]

Wanting something doesn't mean you just get it, but it means I'm talkin' to someone whose not just jerkin' me around. Sure there's some of that in there, probably a lot, but you're...asking things, actually listening. Not just trying to fuck with everyone.

[ Maybe he's getting a little tripped up, but Alex- he has a point to make. Get it back in order, get your thoughts together- ]

...If you acknowledge it, that's the first step.

[There's a lot of things Ogata could say here. Things make a little more sense now. Alex has been willing to talk to him because he doesn't think he's being messed with... well, that's not wrong. For whatever reason, he's gotten over his initial annoyance at Alex. Taken over instead by confusion. Curiosity. He'd expect someone who'd died to be dulled to it. Alex is the exact opposite.

And he understands things Ogata doesn't. Things he didn't even believe to be real until his hand was forced, here. He doesn't like things he doesn't understand, and since he can't just shoot them away, he has to try to understand. That's all it is.]

... Alright.
[There's a deep wish to ask what Alex thinks the next step is since he sounds like he knows, but. That's too much. He's hit his limit.]

I can figure the rest out without your help.
[He absolutely cannot.]

[ No you can't, Alex doesn't say, because even if it's true it'd probably prompt an undesired reaction, to say the least. Does Ogata even know he's lying? An obvious, desperate attempt to end the conversation? Because what Alex recognizes now is exhaustion. He'll say anything right now to get out of this, won't he?

To give himself a rest.

It's funny, Alex always comes away from these conversations feeling less scared of this man and more sorry for him. What Sayori had said... He wonders if she's the same way. ]

Yeah. Okay.

[ That's that, then. ]

...Guess I'll see ya 'round.

[He's feeling very tired and fairly vulnerable. He likes neither of these feelings and needs to escape!! As evidenced by the snippy comment he makes right before hanging up;]

You won't. You told me to stay away from you.
[As if it's not far too late for that now and sending him many messages really qualifies as staying away from Alex.]

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