[It's better that Kariya doesn't pursue the issue. Byakuya is sure that if he did, it would end in a meltdown for him -- that kind of thing isn't something he's supposed to hear. It's kind, but at the same time it's immeasurably cruel. Like hugging a child who's never been touched, what should be comforting is so alien as to be painful.
For one, encouraging words are, in his head, something reserved for the face and voice of someone who is gone. They're the special property of the person who embodied "hope" and "happiness" for a man who never had any -- and who, along with those things, was brutally torn from him because of his own uselessness. Not only that, it's Kariya's own actions that could be blamed for the situation that resulted in her death. The thought of it is unbearable, and there's a part of him that wants to reach into Kariya's wounds and rip them further open in vengeance.
Matou Byakuya is worthless. This is a basic fact that he's known since he was old enough to understand that a human could be worthless. Even when he's been the better son, when he's given more and suffered longer in order to be better than Kariya, he's always known that he was only reaching for scraps that meant nothing. She was the only person to whom he had value. She was an existence that ran contrary to the entire universe, so for Kariya to speak her words seems vulgar. How dare he even approach the place reserved for the woman whose death he caused? When Kariya's own choice to throw his brother into the pit like trash is the reason she's gone?
And yet at the same time, even though it makes him intensely angry, hearing it also instantly created a seed of something at least resembling the "hope" that died eight years ago. That shakes his very sense of self, and is unable to be separated and kept apart from the anger. So he squashes both of them ruthlessly, and in the aftermath withdraws until he's acting completely mechanical and flat -- as unlike his usual self as the prior stillness.]
no subject
[It's better that Kariya doesn't pursue the issue. Byakuya is sure that if he did, it would end in a meltdown for him -- that kind of thing isn't something he's supposed to hear. It's kind, but at the same time it's immeasurably cruel. Like hugging a child who's never been touched, what should be comforting is so alien as to be painful.
For one, encouraging words are, in his head, something reserved for the face and voice of someone who is gone. They're the special property of the person who embodied "hope" and "happiness" for a man who never had any -- and who, along with those things, was brutally torn from him because of his own uselessness. Not only that, it's Kariya's own actions that could be blamed for the situation that resulted in her death. The thought of it is unbearable, and there's a part of him that wants to reach into Kariya's wounds and rip them further open in vengeance.
Matou Byakuya is worthless. This is a basic fact that he's known since he was old enough to understand that a human could be worthless. Even when he's been the better son, when he's given more and suffered longer in order to be better than Kariya, he's always known that he was only reaching for scraps that meant nothing. She was the only person to whom he had value. She was an existence that ran contrary to the entire universe, so for Kariya to speak her words seems vulgar. How dare he even approach the place reserved for the woman whose death he caused? When Kariya's own choice to throw his brother into the pit like trash is the reason she's gone?
And yet at the same time, even though it makes him intensely angry, hearing it also instantly created a seed of something at least resembling the "hope" that died eight years ago. That shakes his very sense of self, and is unable to be separated and kept apart from the anger. So he squashes both of them ruthlessly, and in the aftermath withdraws until he's acting completely mechanical and flat -- as unlike his usual self as the prior stillness.]
You should practice. I won't be here forever.