Does that factor in, to what you want to put on me?
[Honestly, it's a miracle that he manages to even get off a line like that, because as soon as it hits the air between them he goes as still as if a ray of sunlight had washed over him; in both cases, he's rendered beautiful and silent and stone.
It's not like it comes as any sort of surprise. He's known for a while that it was true. He's spent hours and hours sitting on rooftops with the faint edge of hunger grinding in his abdomen, people-watching and thinking about it to take his mind off of it.
He also knows it's not unrequited. That's the part that's a little terrifying — how easy it would be to echo the sentiment, if it weren't for the potential for it to get all tangled up in his throat on the way out. They act like a married couple, Josuke had remarked once, but the truth is it isn't a married couple that the two of him remind him of.
Rohan reminds him of car rides and bumped knees, shared hotel rooms and moments of mutual peril.
Rohan reminds him of how it felt when he was surrounded by people he cares about, and all of them were alive.
That's what he's afraid of. That it has to be too good to be true, somehow. That if he looks too hard at this, it'll shatter. That if he observes the electron, it'll jump to someplace else and be gone forever.
Heisenberg's Feelings Principle. How ridiculous.
But he's also acutely aware that he's kept Rohan waiting on him, and there's something to that, something about it, that bothers him. Stringing people along isn't something he likes to do, and sooner or later it's going to start feeling like that. His tendency to avoid is the immovable object, and his tendency to do the right thing is the immovable force. Sooner or later something will have to give.
He has to clear his throat before he can manage to answer further than that; when had it gone thick and dry? Somewhere in there, probably.
He looks at himself in the mirror, looks at Rohan with his hands on him.
no subject
[Honestly, it's a miracle that he manages to even get off a line like that, because as soon as it hits the air between them he goes as still as if a ray of sunlight had washed over him; in both cases, he's rendered beautiful and silent and stone.
It's not like it comes as any sort of surprise. He's known for a while that it was true. He's spent hours and hours sitting on rooftops with the faint edge of hunger grinding in his abdomen, people-watching and thinking about it to take his mind off of it.
He also knows it's not unrequited. That's the part that's a little terrifying — how easy it would be to echo the sentiment, if it weren't for the potential for it to get all tangled up in his throat on the way out. They act like a married couple, Josuke had remarked once, but the truth is it isn't a married couple that the two of him remind him of.
Rohan reminds him of car rides and bumped knees, shared hotel rooms and moments of mutual peril.
Rohan reminds him of how it felt when he was surrounded by people he cares about, and all of them were alive.
That's what he's afraid of. That it has to be too good to be true, somehow. That if he looks too hard at this, it'll shatter. That if he observes the electron, it'll jump to someplace else and be gone forever.
Heisenberg's Feelings Principle. How ridiculous.
But he's also acutely aware that he's kept Rohan waiting on him, and there's something to that, something about it, that bothers him. Stringing people along isn't something he likes to do, and sooner or later it's going to start feeling like that. His tendency to avoid is the immovable object, and his tendency to do the right thing is the immovable force. Sooner or later something will have to give.
He has to clear his throat before he can manage to answer further than that; when had it gone thick and dry? Somewhere in there, probably.
He looks at himself in the mirror, looks at Rohan with his hands on him.
Strange how it doesn't look wrong.]
I...owe you more than just a bribe, don't I.