[It would be an odd question from most other people--most especially from civilians. But Sai is not a civilian, and as such the question even in all its formality gives Giorno a certain measure of comfort in the midst of this chaos. It even makes him smile, the tiniest ghost of an expression as he reads the message and answers--honestly for once, even.]
[He's unsure where to start, really. How does he ask a question about something when he can't even quite formulate the problem properly?
After a moment, the reply arrives. It's slightly tangential to what he really wants to understand, but he thinks perhaps if he understands Giorno's behaviors, he might better understand his own. Giorno might be among the only recruits capable of understanding him, after all.]
at the mall, you said that it was standard to worry about one's friends during a crisis situation but i was the only one you wanted to check in on why?
[Oh. That's an interesting question, certainly. But part of the conditions of this arrangement, unspoken though they may be, are that he isn't going to criticize or question Sai's lines of reasoning or his questions. It's possible that Sai wouldn't feel discouraged by it, but it's also possible that he would, so Giorno prefers to err on the side of safety.]
i suppose that's because i had my most important people besides you with me already
jin and fugo and i came together jin i knew was safe, i knew where he was and fugo stayed with me the whole time
he's the one i'd have been most worried about, but i didn't have to be, since he was right there does that make sense?
[It does make sense, which is the entire problem. Sai can't find anything illogical about that reasoning, nothing that would point to sentiment rather than efficiency, which leaves him back at square one.]
did the three of you return to your residences together, or did you part ways after escaping the mall?
[A second attempt. He is going somewhere with this, though it might not be immediately obvious where. It might even seem like he's prying, which would be especially strange; in the time Sai has known Giorno, he has never done such a thing. It's always been an exchange of sorts--an ability for an ability, that first time, information for information, assistance for assistance.]
[It's a response that, even through text, shows a surprising amount of visceral discomfort. Just the idea makes Giorno a little afraid--the idea of leaving them to their own devices after something like that.]
we made sure jin got home safe, and inside but fugo and i went home together like always
and even if we weren't in the same apartment anyway, i don't think i could've left him alone after that i would want to make sure he was all right
is that it? maybe. he's not yet good at parsing the emotional resonances in text communications, even with the extra telepathic touch the jewelry has.
sai hesitates, then:]
is that what you meant, then? by ... worrying, sometimes for no reason? even though you escaped safely ....
[...]
[It might be obvious, by now, that there's more to this than an unresolved curiosity from their conversation that was interrupted by Zombie Time. A few more beats pass, and then he adds:]
naruto and i returned to our respective apartments individually after our escape
then later, i decided to find him
and then i remained there, while he slept
[The messages each come with delays, as if he's struggling to arrange his thoughts in a meaningful way. His communications are usually so precise, efficient, to the point, but these seem -- fragmented. scattered. whispers of thought on the wind, thrown this way and that by forces out of his control.]
he was ... confused by my presence, when he woke
[and so, that touch of psychic imprint with the text connotes, was he, when called on it]
Edited (weird random line break) 2017-04-12 08:08 (UTC)
[Giorno waits. He waits. He's so good at waiting. He waited for more than ten years to find his place in the world; he'll wait as long as it takes for it to come to complete fruition. In comparison, waiting for Sai's point is nothing. Besides, Sai needs it.]
[More than Giorno expected. There's a touch of surprise, once that emotion finally comes through. Then several things: comprehension, relief, fondness, concern. For Sai's confusion, not for any physical danger, naturally. It's hard to feel things that don't make sense to you.]
it's possible that he was confused because it's something you haven't done before
but you're right. that's what i meant. sometimes i sometimes people, in general, feel things that don't make sense and after a dangerous situation, sometimes the thought of being away from the people you care about is simply--abhorrent
just because i know rationally that fugo is probably fine doesn't mean i can stand not knowing for sure, after something so awful
why is it that you decided to find naruto? do you remember?
[Something interesting happens, then. They're talking through text, which means their thoughts are captured and transmitted, as opposed to chosen and formed via speech. And here, the magitek grasps onto a flash, a fleeting spike of irritation that might not have been voiced, if they were speaking in person.]
are there feelings that make sense?
[That's been his experience with feelings, after all. Illogical, irrational, impossible quantify in any meaningful way...difficult identify, when they occur. The experience of emotions is a lot more confusing than his existence before them. But ironically, it's that very quality of emotions and sentimentality that drew him in in the first place. It wasn't until the questions started building up that he even considered the idea of an existence for himself, something that went against all of his conditioning to that point. It wasn't until he was confronted with something he couldn't understand, but which he could not ignore nor dismiss.
He's trying to understand those things now, but it's difficult, still. There is only so much he can get from books, after all.]
i ... i had found myself thinking that it would be better to be close by, consolidate our forces in case percy were to surface and we needed to move to capture him, or if another incident was to occur, but ...
[But the more he thinks about it, the more that reasoning doesn't make sense. Why not contact him to arrange a meeting? Why didn't he return to Naruto's residence with him in the first place, if that was his goal?
Why had he felt the need later? Sai can't describe it, the itch under his skin that had led him to follow Naruto's magitek marker to the place where he lived immediately, with no room for patience or forethought or planning. He doesn't know. He can't figure it out.]
[Oh. He laughs, and that feeling--that fond sympathy--translates, even if the laughter doesn't.]
no. i suppose they don't. some make more sense than others, you learn to recognize the patterns of your own feelings . . . but overall, objectively, no. feelings don't make any sense at all.
[Sai's right, though. The explanation is missing something. It's difficult, because Giorno is so familiar now--has become so familiar, over the past year, although he never was before--with the feeling of protectiveness that trying to tease out the logic versus illogic of it is difficult.]
[But, after a pause, he bites the tip of his tongue thoughtfully and nods to himself.]
"consolidating your forces"--that means planning, that means logic. that means level-headed thinking but you weren't level-headed when you went to see naruto, i don't think, or you would have gotten in touch with him first. he wouldn't have been surprised.
were you afraid that something might happen to him? that you might lose him?
[He sighs, frustrated. In this gentle volleyball of emotional resonances transferring, there's a tinge of that carried across, along with his own impatience at himself for how difficult it's been to understand these things. Give him a book about combat strategy and he'll be able to give you a detailed analysis of the points within in an hour. But friendship? Emotions? Bonds? Six months and he feels like he's barely made any progress from where he began.]
we weren't to have them, in root
[It's the first he's mentioned it to Giorno. Not out of any sense of embarrassment or a desire to hide his past--it simply...never came up.]
"you have no name, you have no feelings, you have no past, you have no future. there is only the mission"
...it was less complicated
[On some unquantifiable level, Sai realizes that he's changed, that now that the door has been opened, it cannot be closed again. They're getting off the point, though, possibly because he's struggling enough with the concept that his confusion and frustration is taking center stage, in the magitek's dictation.]
i am not sure i follow do you mean...that he would die?
[The concept of "losing" someone isn't one he really has. Even when his "brother" died, Sai didn't have the emotional tools to process his reaction as grief. To protect itself, his mind had instead repressed most of his memories with the other boy, right down to what he intended to draw for him in that picture book...
He thinks on it. Thinks on what Sakura had said, back then, about Naruto seeing Sasuke as his own brother.
...]
i do not know
[He thinks he has a general idea of what fear is. He was able to recognize it when he displayed the physical signs, after looking into Sasuke's sharingan. But that was different than what he felt when he went to see Naruto.
He thinks harder. Naruto was upset when he failed to retrieve Sasuke.
(If you have a brother, can't you imagine what it's like when he's not there?)
he can't remember
{idly, he thinks, the water has been running for awhile. naruto will start to wonder, soon.
he remembers his brother's death he can picture it in
d e t a i l
but what did he feel? did he feel anything at all?
[It's unfortunate timing, really. As much as Giorno does want to know the source of Sai's misunderstanding--why it is he's so disconnected from his own emotions--he's been realistic about the fact that his reaction is going to be a negative one. He doesn't want to be angry now, but then again, there's no way to stop it. He can't escape that wave.]
[you have no name, you have no feelings, you have no past, you have no future. His response, emotional and uncontrollable and vicious and brutal, is anger. Hatred. He hates. He hates, he thinks how dare they, how dare they, how dare they, his mind for a few short seconds a violent righteous scream--]
[And then it's over. He steps on it, and he moves on. Focus on Sai, not the anger. Not now. Not right now, but later, maybe.]
[Root. He'll remember.]
i suppose that makes sense it is easier in a way i remember but it is very empty all the same
[I do not know how to answer that. Does Giorno? He thinks about it, and in the end isn't sure. Which he might as well say.]
that's part of what i mean, yes but there are other fears not being able to see someone again; being abandoned no longer being loved
and then there are nebulous fears, what-ifs that don't make sense or don't even have words
fear, of all the emotions, is the hardest to control, in my opinion it pries open your jaws and crawls down the back of your throat and chokes you sometimes it's all you can do to breathe, much less reason out where the fear came from
[I remember, Giorno says, and Sai is both surprised and unsurprised. He's had the sense, ever since the winter ball, that the other boy is like him somehow, that he's someone that could understand how he thought, the way the world looked through his eyes. "I'm not normal," he'd said, and Sai remembered what he say in Perdition's Rest--a man who could torture another without laying a hand on him, with a creature of his own making. Sai doesn't know much of anything about Giorno, not really, but it'd been then that he'd realized that the boy was something akin to shinobi; something that had to fight, who knew how to destroy, how to kill effectively.
He reads the explanation, and sighs. Emotion is still something he feels as akin to viewing through a glass of water. Condensation blurs the view within, and even trying to wipe it away left distortions -- clarity still just out of reach.]
how can one begin to understand feelings that they cannot even describe in words?
[Will it always be this hard? Will he never quite understand? Or will he find the clarity that Giorno has, someday, and be able to look back at this time as "empty" the way he does?]
i remember the first i noticed experiencing fear i didn't realize, until i slipped to my knees and felt the sweat drip down my cheek i am still uncertain why i was afraid
[He doesn't think it would be so impossible to kill Uchiha Sasuke, despite that moment when he'd looked into the missing-nin's sharingan eyes. Now, when it's a fear so much less tangible than that of his own mortality, it's even less clear where it came from, what it is, and how to deal with it.]
are you saying that because i hold a bond with naruto, i am afraid of losing it? and this will happen whenever danger presents itself, regardless of whether we are significantly threatened by it?
[Sakura had said something similar once, about his picture book. That the reason he never let go of it was because he wanted to hold onto that one fragment of his individual existence, as someone's brother. Maybe that applies here...?]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
yes, i am. all clear. what is it?
no subject
After a moment, the reply arrives. It's slightly tangential to what he really wants to understand, but he thinks perhaps if he understands Giorno's behaviors, he might better understand his own. Giorno might be among the only recruits capable of understanding him, after all.]
at the mall, you said that it was standard to worry about one's friends during a crisis situation
but i was the only one you wanted to check in on
why?
no subject
i suppose that's because i had my most important people besides you with me already
jin and fugo and i came together
jin i knew was safe, i knew where he was
and fugo stayed with me the whole time
he's the one i'd have been most worried about, but i didn't have to be, since he was right there
does that make sense?
no subject
did the three of you return to your residences together, or did you part ways after escaping the mall?
[A second attempt. He is going somewhere with this, though it might not be immediately obvious where. It might even seem like he's prying, which would be especially strange; in the time Sai has known Giorno, he has never done such a thing. It's always been an exchange of sorts--an ability for an ability, that first time, information for information, assistance for assistance.]
no subject
[It's a response that, even through text, shows a surprising amount of visceral discomfort. Just the idea makes Giorno a little afraid--the idea of leaving them to their own devices after something like that.]
we made sure jin got home safe, and inside
but fugo and i went home together like always
and even if we weren't in the same apartment anyway, i don't think i could've left him alone after that
i would want to make sure he was all right
no subject
is that it? maybe. he's not yet good at parsing the emotional resonances in text communications, even with the extra telepathic touch the jewelry has.
sai hesitates, then:]
is that what you meant, then? by ... worrying, sometimes for no reason? even though you escaped safely ....
[...]
[It might be obvious, by now, that there's more to this than an unresolved curiosity from their conversation that was interrupted by Zombie Time. A few more beats pass, and then he adds:]
naruto and i returned to our respective apartments individually after our escape
then later, i decided to find him
and then i remained there, while he slept
[The messages each come with delays, as if he's struggling to arrange his thoughts in a meaningful way. His communications are usually so precise, efficient, to the point, but these seem -- fragmented. scattered. whispers of thought on the wind, thrown this way and that by forces out of his control.]
he was ... confused by my presence, when he woke
[and so, that touch of psychic imprint with the text connotes, was he, when called on it]
no subject
[More than Giorno expected. There's a touch of surprise, once that emotion finally comes through. Then several things: comprehension, relief, fondness, concern. For Sai's confusion, not for any physical danger, naturally. It's hard to feel things that don't make sense to you.]
it's possible that he was confused because it's something you haven't done before
but you're right. that's what i meant. sometimes i
sometimes people, in general, feel things that don't make sense
and after a dangerous situation, sometimes the thought of being away from the people you care about is simply--abhorrent
just because i know rationally that fugo is probably fine doesn't mean i can stand not knowing for sure, after something so awful
why is it that you decided to find naruto? do you remember?
no subject
are there feelings that make sense?
[That's been his experience with feelings, after all. Illogical, irrational, impossible quantify in any meaningful way...difficult identify, when they occur. The experience of emotions is a lot more confusing than his existence before them. But ironically, it's that very quality of emotions and sentimentality that drew him in in the first place. It wasn't until the questions started building up that he even considered the idea of an existence for himself, something that went against all of his conditioning to that point. It wasn't until he was confronted with something he couldn't understand, but which he could not ignore nor dismiss.
He's trying to understand those things now, but it's difficult, still. There is only so much he can get from books, after all.]
i ... i had found myself thinking that it would be better to be close by, consolidate our forces in case percy were to surface and we needed to move to capture him, or if another incident was to occur, but ...
[But the more he thinks about it, the more that reasoning doesn't make sense. Why not contact him to arrange a meeting? Why didn't he return to Naruto's residence with him in the first place, if that was his goal?
Why had he felt the need later? Sai can't describe it, the itch under his skin that had led him to follow Naruto's magitek marker to the place where he lived immediately, with no room for patience or forethought or planning. He doesn't know. He can't figure it out.]
that explanation is missing something
no subject
no. i suppose they don't. some make more sense than others, you learn to recognize the patterns of your own feelings . . . but overall, objectively, no. feelings don't make any sense at all.
[Sai's right, though. The explanation is missing something. It's difficult, because Giorno is so familiar now--has become so familiar, over the past year, although he never was before--with the feeling of protectiveness that trying to tease out the logic versus illogic of it is difficult.]
[But, after a pause, he bites the tip of his tongue thoughtfully and nods to himself.]
"consolidating your forces"--that means planning, that means logic. that means level-headed thinking
but you weren't level-headed when you went to see naruto, i don't think, or you would have gotten in touch with him first. he wouldn't have been surprised.
were you afraid that something might happen to him? that you might lose him?
no subject
we weren't to have them, in root
[It's the first he's mentioned it to Giorno. Not out of any sense of embarrassment or a desire to hide his past--it simply...never came up.]
"you have no name, you have no feelings, you have no past, you have no future. there is only the mission"
...it was less complicated
[On some unquantifiable level, Sai realizes that he's changed, that now that the door has been opened, it cannot be closed again. They're getting off the point, though, possibly because he's struggling enough with the concept that his confusion and frustration is taking center stage, in the magitek's dictation.]
i am not sure i follow
do you mean...that he would die?
[The concept of "losing" someone isn't one he really has. Even when his "brother" died, Sai didn't have the emotional tools to process his reaction as grief. To protect itself, his mind had instead repressed most of his memories with the other boy, right down to what he intended to draw for him in that picture book...
He thinks on it. Thinks on what Sakura had said, back then, about Naruto seeing Sasuke as his own brother.
...]
i do not
know
[He thinks he has a general idea of what fear is. He was able to recognize it when he displayed the physical signs, after looking into Sasuke's sharingan. But that was different than what he felt when he went to see Naruto.
He thinks harder. Naruto was upset when he failed to retrieve Sasuke.
(If you have a brother, can't you imagine what it's like when he's not there?)
he can't
remember
{idly, he thinks, the water has been running for awhile. naruto will start to wonder, soon.
he remembers his brother's death
he can picture it
in
d e t a i l
but what did he feel?
did he feel anything at all?
he can't remember.]
i do not know how to answer that
no subject
[you have no name, you have no feelings, you have no past, you have no future. His response, emotional and uncontrollable and vicious and brutal, is anger. Hatred. He hates. He hates, he thinks how dare they, how dare they, how dare they, his mind for a few short seconds a violent righteous scream--]
[And then it's over. He steps on it, and he moves on. Focus on Sai, not the anger. Not now. Not right now, but later, maybe.]
[Root. He'll remember.]
i suppose that makes sense
it is easier in a way
i remember
but it is very empty all the same
[I do not know how to answer that. Does Giorno? He thinks about it, and in the end isn't sure. Which he might as well say.]
that's part of what i mean, yes
but there are other fears
not being able to see someone again; being abandoned
no longer being loved
and then there are nebulous fears, what-ifs that don't make sense or don't even have words
fear, of all the emotions, is the hardest to control, in my opinion
it pries open your jaws and crawls down the back of your throat and chokes you
sometimes it's all you can do to breathe, much less reason out where the fear came from
no subject
He reads the explanation, and sighs. Emotion is still something he feels as akin to viewing through a glass of water. Condensation blurs the view within, and even trying to wipe it away left distortions -- clarity still just out of reach.]
how can one begin to understand feelings that they cannot even describe in words?
[Will it always be this hard? Will he never quite understand? Or will he find the clarity that Giorno has, someday, and be able to look back at this time as "empty" the way he does?]
i remember the first i noticed experiencing fear
i didn't realize, until i slipped to my knees and felt the sweat drip down my cheek
i am still uncertain why i was afraid
[He doesn't think it would be so impossible to kill Uchiha Sasuke, despite that moment when he'd looked into the missing-nin's sharingan eyes. Now, when it's a fear so much less tangible than that of his own mortality, it's even less clear where it came from, what it is, and how to deal with it.]
are you saying that because i hold a bond with naruto, i am afraid of losing it? and this will happen whenever danger presents itself, regardless of whether we are significantly threatened by it?
[Sakura had said something similar once, about his picture book. That the reason he never let go of it was because he wanted to hold onto that one fragment of his individual existence, as someone's brother. Maybe that applies here...?]
no subject
it gets easier, but only with trial and error
as a perfectionist, this is personally very frustrating
but
[Hm. If Sai were someone else to him, he might say something different. But with Sai, he finds he has no interest in lying.]
yes.
it may very well keep happening
at least until you're very certain he feels the same way about you that you feel about him