digiorno | ic inbox ( ruby city ) Ⅲ

Hm.

[That's a reason he can understand, at least. But on the other hand, it's not a reason that's applicable in every situation, and he doesn't know this situation well enough to say one way or another. And then of course--]

Well. Let me be totally honest with you.

[He leans forward a bit, lacing his fingers together on the table.]

I'm not objective on this subject, for my own reasons. So if you want total objectivity, you're going to have to go to someone else. On the other hand, I'm not going to sweeten my answers to spare your feelings. So it's up to you whether you want to keep talking to me about this, really. Whether you think I'll give the answers that you need to hear.

I'd like to stay. I don't need total objectivity, just — a different perspective than mine.

There's one request I'd like to make, though. If that's acceptable, in light of your refusal to sweeten your answers.

[He shifts, picking absently at the hem of his sleeve, then seems to realize that he's only doing it because he's looking for something to do with his hands and folds them again.]

Don't encourage my inclinations to be possessive of him. He's not a trophy, and my nature is often to treat the things I want as precisely that — something to be seized and won. Don't encourage me in that; that's all I ask.

[He can't help it: he laughs. A little giddy in a muted way, hidden behind his sleeve, and then he waves his hand apologetically.]

I'm not laughing at you. I just--

[Closing his eyes again, he focuses on the scent of the tree.]

I'm . . . glad you clarified. Again, considering my own lack of objectivity. I . . . [How does he put this?] I am not used to . . . getting what I want. And when I do, I feel as though I need to protect it, because--I do. So . . .

[No, that isn't clear at all. He sighs, opens his eyes, and presses his hands flat to the table, palms down.]

I won't encourage you. I promise.

That's where we differ, it seems. I'm very used to getting what I want.

[That ought to be a joke, humor in the form of arrogant hyperbole. The thing is, though, it isn't hyperbole, and it shows in the way he says it like a standard fact, like he's saying the sky is blue.]

But I agree to your terms, then. And to hearing your answers, whatever they may be.

[It isn't a joke, nor is Giorno surprised by it. He doesn't know as much about Kurama as he'd like to, but he knows enough to know this is the tip of the iceberg, awful things-wise.]

[Instead of worrying about that, he focuses on the question he's been asked.]

You said it yourself: you don't know if it'll interfere. And you won't know unless you ask. Your choices are say nothing and know nothing or say something and learn. The decision you make, then, must be determined by how badly you want the answer to be yes.

[A beat.]

. . . And how willing you are to take the risk.

And how willing I am to accept the consequences of an unfavorable outcome.

[So he finishes, as a touch of that sulky gloom starts to settle around his expression again.]

Because I'd have to, wouldn't I? Simply accept it, and deal with it. If it came down to that.

You would. That's how it works.

[It'd be funny if it didn't hit quite so hard, so close to home. He drums his fingers on the table for a moment before he sighs and adds, a touch reluctantly:]

And if you did it, and it ended favorably, he could still disappear from this place at any time and leave you . . . whatever he left you. Which is something to consider.

I still think you should do it. But we aren't the same person, so.

...I've seen true love, you know. What it looks like. It's a puzzling phenomenon, to be sure — I'm told there's a red string involved.

[He holds up one hand, extending the pinky as if for emphasis.]

I'm under no illusions about that part of it. I suppose I'm just worried I might be keeping him from the real thing.

[He stops, seems to reconsider that, and then laughs.]

That's arrogant, isn't it? A complete lack of hesitation, before suggesting that my interest is more compelling than something like true love itself, simply because it's mine.

[Oh, right. The red string. He gives a frown that nevertheless sort of looks like a smile, or maybe the other way around, a smile that looks like a frown, something convoluted and twisted and complicated. In principle it's a lovely idea. In practice, it doesn't help much in the moment.]

Sometimes arrogance is honesty. It's not as though I'm going to judge you. I'll judge you if you kill someone who didn't deserve it or hurt someone I care about; arrogance doesn't register.

That said, I don't believe in true love. [He rests his chin in his hand and stares at Kurama evenly, mouth set in a flat line.] Not just one. Several real things can coexist. I have ten fingers, five on each hand. Two pinkies. Love is more flexible than we're meant to think it is.

Most people don't ascribe to this worldview. Maybe you don't, or he doesn't. In which case, there's your answer and your resolution. If not, more questions arise.

Do you think they're mutually exclusive? Or I suppose I should say, does true love by definition have to be exclusive? Reserved only for one other person, ever, for all time?

[He looks up then, gazing right back at Giorno with an equally even expression, and drums his fingers lightly in the air.]

Demons tend to have lifespans vastly longer than a human's — dozens or even hundreds of times over. Suppose true love forms between a demon and a human — as it did in the case that I've witnessed. Once the human passes away, is the possibility of true love extinguished for that demon for the rest of their span?

[He stops, humming under his breath as it seems to occur to him that he doesn't really know who he's even debating with here — whether he's trying to make a case to Giorno or to himself.]

I think...exclusivity isn't what makes love "true", in my experience. I think there are degrees of love, some inferior to others, with "true" love superior to the rest. That's not to say it's...better, exactly, more desirable — but its character is different. I think that's how I want to put it.

But I'm getting off-track. You're proposing I pursue this for what it is, instead of getting caught up in notions of what it might be, or what it ought to be.

I hate the idea of there being a limit on love.

[There. He . . . actually said it, didn't he. Out loud to someone else. It's not that he's ever been uncertain in his own conviction; it's more that, quite frankly, he doesn't want to have the fucking argument. Not once, not twice, not ever. He doesn't want to have to justify himself to anyone. He doesn't want to waste his breath or have to turn the argument around until he can squash the round peg into the square hole that is the mind of someone who believes the world is a good place and rules are what they are for a reason.]

[But Kurama doesn't believe that. That must be why he said it, and why he said it the way he did. Gradually, something in his posture relaxes.]

I hate the idea that anyone but me gets to define my happiness. I hate the idea that the careful nurturing of one love is somehow superior to the careful nurturing of more than one. I hate the idea that humanity, with all its sweeping wonders and horrors, has some kind of universal upper limit on how much good a heart can hold.

I believe that true love can't be defined by anyone but the person who feels it, and all the songs and poems and stories in the world won't be able to pin it to a corkboard and define it no matter how hard they try. And I believe that if you believe you love him and there's even the slightest possibility that he might love you, you should pursue that possibility, because if you believe you love him then you believe he deserves the best things the world has to offer, and being truly loved is that. The best thing.

That's what I believe.

...Is that one of the signs, then. That love grows from, among other things, a belief that someone else deserves the best that the world has to offer...

[And if he grows distant for a moment there, it's only because he's running down a mental checklist of sorts, applying that to every instance of love that he can think of to see if it fits.

He thinks of his mother, putting herself in danger to catch him when he'd fallen, putting her care and concern for his well-being above even her own.

He thinks of Kuwabara, agonized over the prospect that Yukina might now hate humans because of the torments she'd suffered at the hands of a few; Kuwabara, who'd been faced with an enemy standing ready to fight and looked past him to the real monster in their midst, the one who'd taken Yukina captive in the first place.

He thinks of Yusuke in his first fight with Hiei, determined to win and furious at the thought of Keiko being made a pawn and a plaything against her will.

He thinks of the night of the Forlorn Hope, and how Yusuke hadn't even hesitated an instant before demanding that the mirror take his own life instead of that of a demon-turned-human's he'd only just met a handful of hours before — all so that demon-turned-human could avoid making his mother sad with the news of his death for her sake.

And he thinks, of all things, of himself — how he'd clumsily sought to make that sacrifice for his mother's sake because he'd known it was right, even if he didn't necessarily get it right in the execution.

He thinks of how fond he is of Yusuke's laughter, just because Yusuke deserves to laugh in the first place.]

...Oh.

[Oh. Well. Well, then.]

...That's...illuminating.

Heh.

[That's it for the moment. Just heh, and Giorno has descended from on high the shonen throne to become a boy again, elbow on the table and chin on his hand, looking at Kurama with smug satisfaction. He knows that look, all right.]

Yeah. Me, too. Don't worry, it only gets worse. Better. Worse-better.

You too.

[And for a few seconds he doesn't say anything else, until then he seems like he gets to a point where it's his turn to just kind of...explode with a confession of sorts, and he half-blurts out: ]

Do you by any chance suffer from the problem that you naturally assume yourself to be the authority on what "the best the world has to offer" is, for any given person? Whether that's really the case or not?

[He lets out a bark of laughter.]

Who, me?

Do you want to hear a story, Kurama?

I have a suspicion that I'm going to, regardless of whether I want to or not.

[...]

Which, itself, rather demonstrates the answer to the question in and of itself, doesn't it?

Yes. It does, actually.

[Sure as shit isn't gonna stop him, though. He folds his hands in his lap and adjusts his shoulders, looking at Kurama with near-clinical interest.]

Once upon a time, technically in my future but also not really, I looked at someone I'd known for a few days months ago and saw that he wasn't happy. I did research, and I decided, based on the results of my research, that I knew what he needed in order to be happy. That I could make it happen. That I had the right to, and that I should, and that once I'd done it, he'd be happy and so would I.

Then I did it, apparently. And it even sort of worked. And although I haven't done it yet, technically, I won't regret doing it when I do.

Now you.

Once upon a time, I told a friend of mine that he —

[But then he stops, letting the thought die off as it gradually occurs to him that there's something disingenuous about what he's offering here, in return. It's a story that fits the criteria, to be sure — telling Hiei how he ought to handle the question of Yukina certainly qualifies as thinking he knows what's best for someone else — but it's not the one that was on his mind when he'd said it, and that's what gives him pause.

More tentatively, he chooses his words carefully, and tries it over again.]

No. Pardon — let me try that again.

Once upon a time...I made the assumption that if there were one constant that must be universally true, it was that the thing that all living creatures value most highly is just that: their own life.

I...wanted to grant that person a gift. The most valuable gift I could offer. So I sought to trade my life to objectively better theirs.

...I assumed anyone would value their own life, most. But I was doing what I wanted for them — not necessarily what they might have wanted, overall.

[It's like someone's dumped a block of ice into his stomach.]

[It wouldn't be so bad, he tells himself, if he weren't so brittle about the whole issue right now. Except that's not true, as he's finally beginning to realize: he's always brittle about this particular issue, this one very particular and specific issue that everything and everyone reminds him of.]

[He struggles a little to maintain a neutral expression.]

I'm assuming that didn't go well.

Yusuke stopped me.

[And he's not particularly careful with his tone and inflection, not right now, not thinking about it — and the words are simple but the quiet emotion in the underpinnings is what says it all:

When I first knew my fox, he was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world.

He'd gained something that night, courtesy of the Forlorn Hope, and it'd had nothing to do with the wish of his heart's desire, and yet it had been everything he'd needed most.]

His job was to bring me to justice, not preserve my life. He did that part of it all on his own accord.

[Oh, that hurts. In a good way, though--at least part of it. Because he remembers. The two of them and their stupid costumes.]

[He glances down at the table and sighs a little.]

I knew I liked him.

[He doesn't like the way these cycles repeat. But he likes Yusuke. He's glad that Yusuke exists, and that someone like Kurama loves him.]

I think it would have ripped his heart out if he hadn't done that. Hadn't saved you. Just based on personal experience.

No one had done anything like that for you before, I bet.

...No. One person did, once. That was why I was trying to exchange my life in the first place — from the...loyalty? Sentiment. The...circumstances, born of that.

[He hesitates.]

I still believe I did the right thing. I can't regret the choice I made or the end I chased. But I'll admit I would've done more harm than good, if I'd succeeded in my aims by the methods I chose. I'm...glad, that I didn't.

He prevented you from dying and from being an idiot.

[There's the ghost of a wry smile.]

Sounds like he's a keeper.

I'd like to. Keep him, that is.

[He laughs a little under his breath, almost ruefully.]

I wonder if I don't want that a little too much.

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