#/ he's laying *a lot* on yanna rn but i think it's reasonable to say they'd probably sit down and talk about this at some point anyway

[inun4ki]

"I can see you struggling. Take your time. I'm listening." //Yanna

for muses who can't open up

They'd been sitting on a park bench for what'd felt like hours - talking, as if anything Kaede'd had to say had mattered. Maybe it was merely Yanna's nature to listen, to participate, to sit beside him and know something was wrong - she was good like that, maybe better than he deserved. Makeshift family, the closest thing he had to a grandmother that might've loved him once, found by chance circumstance long after the damage had been done and the dust had settled. There would be no repairing what's broken, burying the truth, ignoring the pain, pretending, hiding, sneaking, lying--

He owed her an explanation, he owed her something. Surely, Yanna could only take so much of his reckless abandon in combat, his incessant and inevitable self-mutilation as necessary and extra curricularly, his occasional blackouts and failing memory, crude and vulgar malcontent, flashbacks, anxiety--

What would she think of him, if he told her...? Would she still fight alongside him? Would she trust him to protect her as she protects him? Or would her opinion of him change, morph from the almost-tender and pleasant into paranoia, judgment, and uncomfortable tension that crackles and burns? Would she think him weak and foolish, clawing at himself to distract himself from his responsibilities and the pain he'd caused? Would she think him a coward...? Fingertips nervously tugged through long violet strands, catching on too many tangles at a time - he yanked his fingers through. Again, and again, silently drifting further and further into the agonizing cess pool poisoning his mind. He didn't want her to point all the same fingers at him as Kurai - he didn't want her to think he'd have been better off dead, too, that everything would be fine and everyone would still be alive if he'd never taken his first breath. He didn't want her to see his shame, his inaction, his cowardice. He didn't want her as the frightened and inept child he really was. He couldn't bear it. The idea of it alone caused his chest to tighten, his throat to sorely close, his body already screaming in its preparation to run.

But he owed her. He owed her something.

Gnawing on his lower lip, head bowed, gaze affixed to dirt and the sparse tuft of grass just beginning to peek through it, he made himself smaller. Shoulders sloped forward, thighs and calves firmly pressed together, spine slouching...with his hair to hide every bit of his face as his toes curled into the dirt. But his breaths caught on the knot in his throat and his teeth chattered, fear sparking into a roaring flame that burned and burned and burned in the pit of his stomach. Ripping the band-aid off and telling her was all he could do, and no matter how kind and gentle to him she'd been, she expected an answer... Why did this have to be so hard? Why couldn't he trust in turn, trust that he might be held with warmth and care and understanding and acceptance and-- Why couldn't he let it go?

He swallowed again, trying his damnedest to maintain any semblance of stoic composure, fingers shifting from his hair to the fabric concealing his wrists and picking at the seams, but he was failing - and he'd no choice anyway.

"T-twenty years ago," he rasped shakily, words like ash in his mouth. "Twenty years ago, there was... a massacre. Over sixty members of my clan were slaughtered and fed upon by curses and I...I watched them. I hid under the dining room table and cried, watching as my cousins were taken one by one and killed by my grandfather. I was stronger than they all were - I didn't know how to wield it, but still, I was stronger than them. I could've-should've done something, but I let them die... My grandfather was also killed, by the time the bloodshed had come to an end. He'd brought those curses into the estate and unleashed them upon us all, and no one knew why - but that was my fault too. He was already showing signs of severe mental instability, but the facilitation of my birth sent him spiraling. I only fanned the flames of his paranoia, the terror he already had that one day, he'd be usurped and any threats to his hold over the family must be dealt with. He planned to use me as a vessel in some desperate vie, to take my strength for his own, and in the midst of enacting this plan, the curses he'd aligned with turned on him and ripped him limb from limb. He left...a journal, outlining his plan in great detail. I found it hidden beneath the estate one night when I'd been punished for covering for Aoi and Terin again, tucked under the straw and floorboards in the cell - where no one else could possibly find it or bother to go looking."

He couldn't stand being vulnerable like this, couldn't stand talking about his family history, being seen, heard, known for even a moment. He wanted to trust her. Wanted to believe this would be okay. It was far too late to back out now. His heart and stomach lurched in tandem, his ears beginning to ring.

Please don't change your mind... Please don't turn your back on me.

His thoughts were beginning to get to him, a childlike urge to crumple and cry washing over him. The longer he dragged this out, the more pathetic and miniscule he felt, the more cowardly and weak. Kurai would've turned him away, and Aoi vowed never to speak to him again after Terin's death... They blamed him for it all, and rightfully so. Had he been able to do something, he could've used their techniques to exorcise the curses quickly and no one would've had to die... Had he not been born, Taisho would've been dealt with sooner. Terin would still be alive. Mom, too...

"I took the journal to my father - everyone deserved to know the truth behind what my grandfather was planning. I thought it would be closure for them, to finally have a real explanation... I even thought the same for myself. I didn't realize, at the time, that I was handing them my own confession. Everything begins with Taisho, but ends with me. I may as well have killed them all myself. I've no right to sit beside you now, when there's so much blood on my hands, because it's not just them I'm responsible for but countless others... People who were simply doing what they needed to in order to survive among curses and killers and the other perils of every day life, working to achieve their dreams no matter how benign or totally fucked-- I'm just as guilty. I fight to redeem myself, but I can't wash away the stains. Yet, even-even so... I don't want you to think of me as any lesser. I don't want you to see me as the sort of person who would condemn his family to death through inaction and cowardice."

#死/// Inquiries. #死/// Blood of the Covenant; Yanna. #self harm mentions / #/ nothing crazy tho. just a passing reference for effect #/ also his feelings are really just amped up anxiety. sadness. & survivor's guilt w/ a dash of #' i don't want you to think of me the same way everyone else does ' #' i hate that i feel like i *have* to tell you...but i want you to trust me. i don't want you to go away ' #/ the big sad as u kno #/ he's laying *a lot* on yanna rn but i think it's reasonable to say they'd probably sit down and talk about this at some point anyway #/ he's trying to be objective but you can kind of see that even tho he hates it he kind of...agrees with his family #/ and there are passing references to some of the things they'd to do him #/ v sad #/ also i'm sorry this is a mile long