[It's a scathing look he gives her up and down, eyes linger on the rollerblades on her feet with undisguised disdain. He's not asking why she's wearing rollerblades, but it's obvious that whatever reason she might try to give, he's not going to approve or see as valid.]
Just talk while you... [He gives a vague wave of his hand as he joins her, his hand moving back down to give Arnold a brief scratch on the top of his head. (Don't get an ego, pooch. It's brief.) He says the next word like he can't even begin to fathom how something could possibly be so beneath him.] Skate.
[It's naturally easier to condescend about her mode of transportation than it is to address anything else.]
[Arnold, delighted for the attention, utterly fails in that implicit directive not to get an ego, and instead just happily wags his tail and falls into step beside Rohan with an eager bump-brush against the side of his leg. Meanwhile, Reimi's back to needing to build up momentum on the uneven pavement again, and wobbles a little before righting herself as she pushes off at a pace easily matched by walking speed.]
...Okay.
[She stays quiet a minute, arms swinging lightly as her balance shifts from foot to foot, and draws in a slow breath.]
I don't like...not knowing much about Heaven's Door. It's like in a movie, when all the suspense comes from not seeing the monster — the not knowing is scarier than anything they could put out on the screen, you know? And I think that's wrong. To go on feeling like that, I mean, it shouldn't be like that.
...So I want to talk to you about it, because that's not something I can fix alone. And I don't really know what the best way would be, either. Maybe you could just tell me about him, or...maybe you could use him on me, I don't know. I don't know what the right thing to do is. But I know that the wrong thing is to keep...letting him be the elephant in the room. So...will you help me figure it out? Please?
[Rohan's brow furrows a little when he feels the bump-brush against his leg and he looks down at Arnold with an exasperated huff, but that's both the beginning and the end of it as far as Arnold is concerned. Rohan doesn't do anything from discouraging Arnold from walking beside him.]
[He wants to say that Heaven's Door isn't the elephant in the room. Not really. She knows the pertinent information already, such as the current extent of Rohan's abilities, and how he was used once on her and the reasons why. Anything beyond that isn't particularly relevant and won't inform her any better than what she already knows, not really. No, what she's really questioning — what Rohan thinks she's really questioning, anyway — is him. But he won't say that out loud. As quick as Rohan is to make accusations to throw someone onto the defensive and give himself the upper hand, that's not particularly something he wants her to have to defend to him. Not with that interesting choice of analogy.]
[Rohan barely looks at Reimi out of the corner of his eye. At least that proves his theory. She's afraid. Even if she won't say those words and be honest in a direct and undeniable manner, she's afraid. And he knows why. It's obvious once she's finished talking what the problem is. Reimi only sees half the picture. She sees the damage and the harm that he could easily bring down upon anyone or anything if he willed it, and she's afraid that he won't see that line anymore. Or maybe that he doesn't at all in the first place. She sees what Heaven's Door can do and she understand the connection between Heaven's Door and Rohan, but she doesn't see Rohan. And that . . .]
[He wants to pull away from her right here and now. Stop walking, turn back around and go back home instead of trying to explain something he holds the expectation that she should see, know, and understand implicitly. But it's a wrong expectation to hold apparently and that's what hurts, that he's wrong about something as important as this and — no, that she's wrong and he's placed his trust in the wrong person. And so all he wants to do is punish her by withholding everything still and let her be afraid in her ignorance because why should she have a right to know and understand if she can't see? Rohan is loath to hold anyone's hand, but he's especially so when it comes to matters like this, like . . . like having the one person in the world who believes in and almost always sees the good in him lose that faith that it's there strong enough to cast aside any temptations to the contrary, to question and carry doubt over his ability to choose in a way that isn't destructive.]
[So, he just wants to punish her by more than just his usual proclivity to pick and tear at loose seams and by denying her any chance to know him. And he almost gives in because there's a subtle dip in his gait where it seems like he might stop walking and really turn away, but he doesn't because in some ways, he's too angry to allow something like that to lie, to let her just pass judgment like that over him on her own biases and misconceptions.]
You're afraid because you think too narrowly, Reimi. You think I use my Stand like some kind of petulant child looking to spite anyone who irritates me even mildly because it's simply within my power to make them walk straight into the ocean and stay there even when they can't hold their breath any longer, or start tearing out pages until they only have a vague sense of who they are and no way of figuring anything else further than that until I decide I'm done toying with them.
But have you even taken the time to consider anything from my perspective? [He looks at her now and he doesn't look happy. Granted, he didn't look particularly pleased to be dragged out of his home before, but he looks and sounds legitimately angry now.] You look at what I did to you and you see it only from your eyes, like I took something away from you. Maybe because I wanted to, or maybe just because I could.
But I only used my abilities in the first place because until I did, I didn't know your intentions. And whether you see it or not, Reimi, I had to be the one to act. Koichi is a far less experienced Stand user than I am, not to mention younger than me. And if he had used his Stand in front of you and you were an enemy Stand user, that would have completely shown Koichi's hand prematurely to you. I told you once before that Heaven's Door requires intellect to use effectively and that's precisely what I meant.
I have to be quick in reaching a decision and judging whether it's the right time to use my ability because being a Stand user means that hesitation at the wrong moment with the wrong person could mean the difference between life and death not just for the user, but the people around them.
[He looks ahead of them again, tightening his jaw for a moment.]
But for the record, I didn't make you forget just to cover up my abilities to you or because it was within my ability to do so. I made you forget seeing Heaven's Door's image and activating my ability because when I saw you were just a regular girl, I didn't want you to be afraid or getting involved by asking questions.
That's what I use Heaven's Door for. It's not for my personal gain or my amusement. [And the period in which that wasn't the case was so incredibly short-lived because to some extent, that's part of growing as a Stand user as well. You want to see the extent of your abilities, how far you can push yourself and grow. For someone like Rohan, ambition can be blinding. But he grew past that. Forcibly with the combination of a beatdown from Josuke that landed him in the hospital and Kira's growing shadow over Morioh, but he still grew out of it.] I use Heaven's Door to stay alive and to keep people who have no business getting involved out of it.
...Seriously? "Have I even tried to see it from your point of view", you're seriously going to say that to me?
[She's the one, then, who comes to a halt, gliding and putting her heels at right angles to keep from starting to drift any further than she intends to.]
You know what happens when I try to figure things out for myself about you? "Don't make assumptions about me, Reimi, you don't know anything about it." Okay, so maybe you're right, I don't get it, I don't know anything. So then I try to know something and it's "stop nagging me, Reimi, it's none of your business, leave me alone, Reimi, I'm busy. You're just a little girl, Reimi, what would you know about it, you don't get it, you don't understand."
So now here I am, asking, giving you every chance to make me understand, and it's my fault again because I haven't tried hard enough to see things from your perspective.
[She trails off, shoulders tight, as she brings her hands up to push her hair back away from her face and behind her ears.]
So...fine. Tell me I'm wrong again, because this is what I see. I think you're scared. And I think whatever it is you're scared of, it's what makes you say things like "I don't want to show him to people, hurting someone's Stand also hurts the user, he's a vulnerability if someone uses him against me", and "I did what I had to do when I used him", and "It's to stay alive". You sound like you're afraid of people asking about him.
And I think that you're afraid of what happened when you and Koichi found me, because of how bad you need me to see your side of it. I think you're scared, so you have to be right.
So how do I make it so you're not afraid? Show me how to see that through your eyes, I want to. I don't know what it is about me that I'm supposed to say or do or fix. How do I make you feel safe again, because that's what I want and I can't see how.
[Rohan gets a few steps ahead of her. He knows she stopped from her dropping out of his peripheral and the rough sound of the skate wheels and brakes scraping on the cobblestone. But he still takes a few steps ahead of her before he comes to a much softer stop than she does, a gradual decline in speed and length of stride until he's still in front of her.]
[The first and only thing he can think of is how frustrated he is. It's the immediate thought that leaps into the very front of his mind, his hands clenching into fists at his sides so tightly that his nails dig into his palms painfully. It's a long stretch of silence as he stands there, back rigid and with his heart pounding loud in his ears. It's not until his jaw begins to ache that he loosens it a little.]
[Afraid of people? Him? Please. The last thing Rohan ever has to be is afraid of people. Being careful about who he trusts with Heaven's Door, keeping his Stand hidden even here, isn't fear. It's being careful and cautious. It's not taking the naive view that somehow the danger's passed. But why would she understand something like that? She's dead. There's very little that can do anything to her anymore. And she's not a Stand user. She doesn't understand the trouble that attracts even if you live a relatively quiet life the way Rohan does. She doesn't understand that Heaven's Door has a very specialized use and there's no need for Rohan to have him summoned all the time like some of the others around here. Him. It.]
[He stews in his frustration long enough to reach the boiling point, where whatever tight control he has simply evaporates as he turns around to face her. Simultaneous to this motion, Rohan summons Heaven's Door, leaving his Stand to float just behind his shoulder. It's so quick that it seems almost as though Heaven's Door has been violently torn away. Heaven's Door regards Reimi with a cooler expression than Rohan, but it's carrying the same tension in its fists and shoulders.]
You told me you wanted a chance to know me, to believe in me, but what chance have you really given me, Reimi!? [Rohan holds out an arm behind him to gesture to Heaven's Door.] Do you really think that if you say one second that you understand Heaven's Door is an extension of who I am and then in the next compare it to the monster in a movie that I'm going to be all that eager to have Heaven's Door anywhere near you or make it a conversation topic!?
[He lowers his arm back down at his side as he continues.]
It's not Heaven's Door you're afraid of because it can't make decisions on its own. [Rohan brings a hand to his chest, laying it flat over his heart.] I'm the one who decides when and how it acts. So whatever you think it might do to you? That's not trusting me! That's being afraid of me! And don't you dare lie to me and pretend like you haven't had a single thought like that, worrying not about how much damage I could do, but how much I would do. Don't you dare act like it's never crossed your mind that all it'd take is a foul mood or someone who pisses me off, and just like that I'm getting back at them with Heaven's Door.
The thing I don't think you think about it is what that's like for me. You don't have a single fucking idea what it's like to have the person who died for you think of you like that even for a second! You want to see through my eyes, then fine. I'll tell you exactly what I see when I look at you. [Rohan closes the distance between them to stand directly in front of her. Heaven's Door hangs back.] I see someone who doesn't trust me or believe in me anymore, and is the only person who can actually make me feel this shitty. And that was before you even knew about any of my mistakes because the truth is Reimi, I don't know you. It wasn't just that night that I can't remember. I can't remember any of it. You died for me and I forgot about you!
So, you tell me! Why do you think I want you to understand so badly!? Why do you think I avoid you as much as I can!? [He shrugs and his eyes burn, but he refuses to give her anything further.] I'd love to hear what you think!
[There's so much to process, and to her eyes, it seems like somehow it all happens so fast.
She jumps, of course, when Heaven's Door comes hurtling out, and what hits her like a second punch on the heels of the first is the way the tension simmering in Rohan looks so wrong when it's reflected through his Stand's more childlike appearance. And for a second it's all wrong, both halves of him, because for a second he's right — for a second, it's like she doesn't really know either half of him, the adult or the child, the user or the Stand.
But then he's hurt, and it startles her with how unexpectedly devastating it is to see him this hurt. It's there in the words, of course, beneath the anger, but it's even moreso in the gestures — the rough sweep of his arm in the direction of Heaven's Door, the hand over his heart like she's just dug a knife into it. And every bit of it, every sentence, every bit of truth he flings at her, it's all a flurry of knives in return, and every one is a hit.
Because of course, she's thought that.
How many times, now, has she thought how did the sweet boy I remember grow up into someone like this?
But then he's advancing on her, and even made taller by the wheels of her skates he's taller still, and every word keeps landing, every one keeps making another burst of pain flare up because he's still not wrong, but now it's like he's finally decided to show her who he is, finally letting her see inside, but he's going to do it by wrenching open his ribs and tearing his heart out to throw at her feet.
The word that undoes her is anymore.
Because she knows that word too well, knows what it means, what it carries with it. She's ranted and raged against it in her own time, when telling her own secrets; it means you had something once and now it's gone, gone, and it's not coming back, like the life she was supposed to be living, like the chance to be normal that's been taken away.
But even then he's not done.
It's not for her own sake that her tears well up and spill over at the last of it. It's not for her own pain that her whole expression shatters. It's the recognition of how much anger and frustration and self-loathing he's managed to encompass into just a few short sentences, I don't know you, I can't remember, I forgot about you.
And maybe, just a little bit, it's the realization that on some level she hadn't been wrong. She is what he's been afraid of, and he has been afraid. She just didn't know why.
Not until you died for me and I forgot about you.
But he's right there, and she's glad for it, because it means she doesn't have to fuss with the cobblestones or her skates; she can just lunge and get her arms around him as fast and as tight as she can, and hold on like she's never going to let go.]
I'm sorry —
[Like her own personal Heaven's Door, that gets ripped out of her mouth, out of her chest; Arnold, distressed at her distress, is starting to hover in anxious, uncertain circles, unable to work out what's wrong.]
I'm sorry, I'm s-sorry, I — stop it, stop it, I didn't, maybe I did, maybe I did everything you said but I never stopped believing in you. I'm never going to stop believing in you, I don't care if I live a hundred more years in an alley or this stupid city or Heaven or anywhere else, you're everything to me!
[And she's crying again, and she doesn't even know what from anymore, sadness or pain or sympathy or empathy or anything else in between.]
I didn't die for you because I wanted you to remember me. I did it so you'd be alive, I just wanted you to be alive and h-happy and —
[She pulls back, just enough to shake her head roughly from side to side, resisting the irrational urge to pound weakly on him with trembling fists.]
And, so, so look at me and see somebody who loved you and still does and isn't going to stop, and maybe I'm all of those other things too, but I'm still always that, don't you get it? I'm always that!
[Rohan doesn't reciprocate when she throws her arms around him and tightens her hold. It's likely uncomfortable for her, but it's equally uncomfortable for Rohan. So, he merely stands there with his tension, his anger and irritation seemingly impassive in the wake of her proclamations that she has and always will be on his side. He lets his eyes stray over to Arnold, watching him pace because Rohan doesn't need to look at Reimi's face to know that she's crying. It's evident in the shake in her voice, the hiccups that swallow parts and whole words, and in the way she seems so small and weak even as she holds onto him with a physical strength he couldn't have anticipated her possessing.]
[It doesn't feel good hearing her say any of this. Arguably, it should. It's all the affirmation in the world from the singular person who has meant to the most to Rohan once he knew who she was even if he's consistently demonstrated it poorly to her. It's everything that any sensible human being would want to hear, to know that there is one person out there who will love them unconditionally regardless of whatever mistakes or flaws they might bear. In fact, it's not something that everyone is fortunate enough to have. And even those who have it must frequently never realize it or only do so once they have squandered it away.]
[But Rohan doesn't feel any joy in hearing it as he thinks he ought to. It's not because he doubts its sincerity — Reimi is too honest a person, but also too kind and gentle to make up a cruel lie like that — but it's the timing of it. It's following everything he's just said, everything he's just admitted and let go in the height of his anger. And in letting everything that he'd once held from her to protect her — no, to protect himself. Everything that he'd held from her to protect himself, his anger, too, was released from its duty of protecting him. And when something as hot and caustic as Rohan's anger leaves, in its place, it leaves a barren, empty space.]
[So, he listens to her. He does truly listen to her. But the words have nowhere to go, managing to only slip in perhaps skin-deep before either remaining there or being turned away by the numbness that's overtaken. The numbness that, to some extent, makes Rohan wish he could take everything he said back, that there was some way to move time back to those moments before he snapped to make a different choice. He doesn't wish she would forget even though it's a feasible thing he could do. Forgetting wouldn't undo it, however, and it would only create more problems in the end. He simply wishes it had never happened and he wishes she wasn't crying and he wishes she wasn't saying these things now and he wishes that she wasn't hugging him at all let alone this tight and he wishes he could be cruel right now and he wishes he couldn't care any less about any of this or about her and he wishes she was in Heaven and he was home where they belong. But wishing is never enough and he knows that because it's the precise reason why he never really wishes for anything. Yet he's wishing now. He's wishing and nothing is happening.]
[Nothing except at some point, he'd let his hands go lax at his sides and not long after, he dismissed Heaven's Door once again. And somewhere along the way, his vision blurred until his cheeks were suddenly wet. So, he gives up. He gives up and he wraps his arms around her. Loosely at first, and then tighter. Mumbling, he says something over her shoulder that could almost be taken as I'm sorry, but it could just as easily be nothing at all.]
[It occurs to her, distantly and at length, that she's crying into his shirt and probably ruining it; as things to be worried about right now, that's utterly silly and entirely inconsequential, and yet it's still somehow what gets her to get control of herself a little, like a tiny pinprick of fact to anchor her in the midst of a hurricane of emotion. It's a good excuse for why she should get control of herself, and so slowly but surely she does, winding down and blinking away the remains of her tears and turning her head a little to the side so that she can better speak without muffling everything against his chest.
Which doesn't mean she even knows what to say, but it frees her to say it, nevertheless.]
Y-You guys...you called me a guardian angel, you know, before you said goodbye?
[It's tempting to slip and say remember?, but she won't, because she's made enough accidentally cruel slips of the tongue already, and even distraught, she knows better than to be careless, now more than ever.]
...I don't think you guys were wrong. But I'm...n-not good for anything without something to guard. You know? If that's what I am? It made sense when I had Morioh and now Morioh is gone, and I ought to be gone but I'm here and...
[She trails off, finding a breath.]
It feels fake. It doesn't feel like a new life or a second chance, it feels fake. Like I'm playing make-believe, like I'm pretending.
You make me feel real. I'm not fake when it's you, I'm someone real. I mattered. You just being here, just being, being you, you're proof that I matter. Mattered. Matter.
...I-Is it really so different, Rohan? I only remember things from fifteen, sixteen years ago. I can't "remember" who you are now. It's not that different. You don't remember me from back then...but I don't remember all the years that I missed, when you grew up from that little kid into the person you are now.
People keep telling me, be selfish, be selfish. Maybe that was the most selfish thing I did, all along...just, just expecting to be important to you instead of earning it. It's supposed to go the other way around, right? People meet first and then figure each other out, and then they end up important to each other, like you and Koichi...but this is backwards, we're important first and doing all the figuring afterward.
I always knew it hurt you when people got mad at you, when they'd use me against you, bring me into the middle between them and you. I get mad at them for it...I don't know if you knew. Know. I always get mad at them, I tell them to stop. I tell them never to do that ever again, or just plain ever, but I never say why, I just say don't. I didn't...I didn't really think about how I might hurt you. Be hurting you. I didn't...
[...]
This place makes it so I'm not just Reimi the ghost. It makes me have to be Reimi the girl along with Reimi the guardian angel. Maybe if I were just Reimi the ghost...
[She laughs, shaky and halfhearted.]
Isn't that selfish, though? That I don't want to let go of the only person who makes me feel real? That's what it feels like to me, when I don't understand. And I — I know I don't belong here, you know? I don't belong anywhere, I know I don't, and that's what I'm really afraid of. Not you, not even Heaven's Door, not —
...There's so much I don't know, you know...? But I always know what I feel about you, that I believe in you. Sometimes that's the only thing I know. That's what I mean. That's why I can say, I'm always someone who believes in you and loves you more than I love anything else in the world. Because that always comes first, and it never goes away. Because sometimes it's the only thing I'm sure about, when I know I don't belong anywhere else.
[When she first starts talking, it seems like she's just talking. Rohan's sure there's a point buried in there somewhere and she's taking her usual roundabout way of getting there, but a lot of it is just talking for the sake of filling the air instead of letting things settle down into silence. But then she trails off and Rohan thinks that's maybe the end of it, maybe he doesn't need to tell her to stop talking, and stop trying to explain. Then she starts talking again and Rohan can't imagine a scenario in which he'd ever interrupt her.]
[Despite all the times Rohan's accused Reimi of treating him like a kid, she's never managed to successfully make him feel like one until now. And it's not in a way that feels he's being patronized to or that she's condescending to him, leaving him frustrated and ready to instigate a fight. It's the opposite, in a way, where feeling small and even a little dependent isn't such a terrifying thing to experience. Rohan holds her a little tighter as she bares her insecurity of not belonging. His natural instinct is to scoff at that. In what reality does Reimi not seamlessly integrate with the rest of the world? He may not remember her from all those years ago, but he knows her as she is now and she's not someone who should find herself alone. Of course, he knows she spent all of those years alone with the exception of Arnold, but those were circumstances beyond her control. To do what she had to do, she had to be alone until the time was right. But now? Now she doesn't have to be, so she shouldn't and won't be because she's warm and kind and gentle, and none of those traits could possibly be mistaken for weakness.]
[Which is precisely why it's not such a terrifying thing to be dependent upon her in ways Rohan's never been really dependent on anyone because if there is one person who can handle it, it's Reimi. Of course it's her, without a single doubt.]
Don't be stupid, [he mutters, harsher than he means to be as always because it's the only way he knows to be kind.] You aren't going to get a chance to grow up like you were supposed to. There's no going back to Morioh for you either. Nothing you do here is likely going to change that. So what? Just because you're not supposed to be here doesn't mean you don't belong, Reimi. Regardless of what you think about yourself, you do. You belong. I'm the only person still here that knows what you've done, how much it mattered, but everyone can see your worth without you having to explain all of that to them because you're more than just what you did for me or for Morioh.
[And that's part of why people always throw it in Rohan's face that they can't see what she sees in him that's worth valuing. She wears her worth on her sleeve whether she means to or not, and it's next to impossible for them to understand why she would seemingly waste her time on someone as abrasive and intentionally cruel as Rohan has the capacity to be.]
That's why Koichi called you a guardian angel. It's not because you protected Morioh, it's because you meant something to each of us. You mean something to...
[It's here he falters a little. But Rohan purses his lips and at that moment pulls away from Reimi, holding her by the shoulders in front of him.]
I don't understand why you put so much weight into what others think of you. I never will. But I know it means a lot to you, so I'll say it just this once. It doesn't matter to me whether or I remember you or not. You're still the most important person in the world to me and you always will be. But it's not selfish of you to not want to let go. You're still human, Reimi. It doesn't matter that you're dead, you're still human. You still had hopes and dreams the night you died, but you still carried them with you all those years while you were waiting. You said it yourself that you wanted me to live and to be happy. That wasn't what kept you from moving on, but that doesn't mean you let go of them.
So, it's not selfish, it's just stupid to limit yourself just to me because it's familiar. You turn a blind eye to what you want — to your hopes and dreams for yourself — and to the way you matter to other people here clinging to something familiar like that. But you don't have to be afraid because you already did the hardest thing you'll ever have to do and you're never going to have to go through something like that again. At the same time though, you don't get the luxury of telling yourself that you're done because you did what you set out to do while you're here.
[One of Rohan's hands leaves her shoulder to fix a few strands of her hair that were beginning to bother him with their displacement. His eyes move from hers to look at what he's doing. It rests back on her shoulder after he's done fixing her hair, his gaze settling back down on her.]
You're not alive, but you still have a chance to live, Reimi. You just have to stop defining yourself by what you've already done and allow yourself to move on it from it in a way that you didn't plan. And if that means for right now just learning to take it one day at a time, then that's fine. But you have to give yourself a chance first before writing it off as pretend or fake.
[You meant something to each of us. You mean something to...
He doesn't need to finish the sentence, not really, for her to immediately derive the two most important things from it. One is that she already knows the last word that belongs there, right at the end.
The second is that the tense changed from past to present — from something that once was to something that still continues.]
...It matters that I'm dead. I-I know that's not what you meant, but...but it matters, a lot, that I'm dead. Because...
[She hesitates, her gaze drifting to the side and down before slowly sliding back to Rohan's face.]
M-Maybe that's my "Heaven's Door". I think...maybe that's the thing I need people to understand, like you need for him. Dead is a part of who I am, now. I-I have this friend, who's dead like me, and...he feels that way, too. That it's hard, because...
...B-Because it feels like your chance is gone. Like you got left behind. Like anybody who cares about you, like you're cheating them out of being able to care about somebody with a future. Like you're different, it makes me different.
There was a place for me in the past. I don't know how to make it start feeling like there's a place for me anywhere else. I don't mean I'm not trying to! I just...I don't know how to make it...
[She reaches up, clearly intending to rub her eyes, but then seems to hesitate; her hand stays suspended in the air a moment, wavering as if hung by an invisible string, and then comes to rest over one of his on her shoulder instead.]
Hey...c-can we make it a promise, then? If I keep trying to live...then will you promise to never let me forget that I deserve to?
[The impulse is there, of course, to start withdrawing again. There's only so long that Rohan can sit with these feelings — or more accurately, the expression of them — before his skin starts to crawl uncomfortably and he begins to want the protection afforded to him through his prickly demeanor. And everything right now feels particularly raw and vulnerable, but he tamps down on that impulse because Reimi's probably not that much better off than he is right now. While he's generally okay with minor injuries to her and able to look away, he thinks right now even a minor comment would be enough to cut deeper than he intends.]
[So, it takes a moment. In that moment, he wrestles with every impulse he has, but he manages to get control of it before he starts to feel a little nauseous. And then he nods.]
[She nods a little, slowly, and tries to spare him some dilemma by being the first to draw away instead. It's hard; deep down it's the exact opposite of what she really wants, which is to throw herself at him and hold on tight again. But it's been about her for long enough already, and the whole point of who they are is that there's an ever-shifting equilibrium, back and forth between the two of them. He's been strong for her; now she needs to do the same in return.
So she draws back, but whimsically keeps hold of his hand as it comes away from his shoulder, curling just the tips of their fingers together in a last slight attempt to keep from breaking away entirely.
After one last slow swallow, she finds her voice again, mercifully steady despite the potential for it to shake.]
Okay. Me too.
[She nods again, this time following through on her attempt to reach up and wipe her face dry.]
C-C'mon. It's getting pretty late, and I haven't even gotten to show you my surprise yet...
[And once they make it there, she will: the warehouse-turned-nightclub that she's taken for her own, and the work that she's done over time toward restoring it to a fun and happening place to be.]
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Just talk while you... [He gives a vague wave of his hand as he joins her, his hand moving back down to give Arnold a brief scratch on the top of his head. (Don't get an ego, pooch. It's brief.) He says the next word like he can't even begin to fathom how something could possibly be so beneath him.] Skate.
[It's naturally easier to condescend about her mode of transportation than it is to address anything else.]
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...Okay.
[She stays quiet a minute, arms swinging lightly as her balance shifts from foot to foot, and draws in a slow breath.]
I don't like...not knowing much about Heaven's Door. It's like in a movie, when all the suspense comes from not seeing the monster — the not knowing is scarier than anything they could put out on the screen, you know? And I think that's wrong. To go on feeling like that, I mean, it shouldn't be like that.
...So I want to talk to you about it, because that's not something I can fix alone. And I don't really know what the best way would be, either. Maybe you could just tell me about him, or...maybe you could use him on me, I don't know. I don't know what the right thing to do is. But I know that the wrong thing is to keep...letting him be the elephant in the room. So...will you help me figure it out? Please?
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[He wants to say that Heaven's Door isn't the elephant in the room. Not really. She knows the pertinent information already, such as the current extent of Rohan's abilities, and how he was used once on her and the reasons why. Anything beyond that isn't particularly relevant and won't inform her any better than what she already knows, not really. No, what she's really questioning — what Rohan thinks she's really questioning, anyway — is him. But he won't say that out loud. As quick as Rohan is to make accusations to throw someone onto the defensive and give himself the upper hand, that's not particularly something he wants her to have to defend to him. Not with that interesting choice of analogy.]
[Rohan barely looks at Reimi out of the corner of his eye. At least that proves his theory. She's afraid. Even if she won't say those words and be honest in a direct and undeniable manner, she's afraid. And he knows why. It's obvious once she's finished talking what the problem is. Reimi only sees half the picture. She sees the damage and the harm that he could easily bring down upon anyone or anything if he willed it, and she's afraid that he won't see that line anymore. Or maybe that he doesn't at all in the first place. She sees what Heaven's Door can do and she understand the connection between Heaven's Door and Rohan, but she doesn't see Rohan. And that . . .]
[He wants to pull away from her right here and now. Stop walking, turn back around and go back home instead of trying to explain something he holds the expectation that she should see, know, and understand implicitly. But it's a wrong expectation to hold apparently and that's what hurts, that he's wrong about something as important as this and — no, that she's wrong and he's placed his trust in the wrong person. And so all he wants to do is punish her by withholding everything still and let her be afraid in her ignorance because why should she have a right to know and understand if she can't see? Rohan is loath to hold anyone's hand, but he's especially so when it comes to matters like this, like . . . like having the one person in the world who believes in and almost always sees the good in him lose that faith that it's there strong enough to cast aside any temptations to the contrary, to question and carry doubt over his ability to choose in a way that isn't destructive.]
[So, he just wants to punish her by more than just his usual proclivity to pick and tear at loose seams and by denying her any chance to know him. And he almost gives in because there's a subtle dip in his gait where it seems like he might stop walking and really turn away, but he doesn't because in some ways, he's too angry to allow something like that to lie, to let her just pass judgment like that over him on her own biases and misconceptions.]
You're afraid because you think too narrowly, Reimi. You think I use my Stand like some kind of petulant child looking to spite anyone who irritates me even mildly because it's simply within my power to make them walk straight into the ocean and stay there even when they can't hold their breath any longer, or start tearing out pages until they only have a vague sense of who they are and no way of figuring anything else further than that until I decide I'm done toying with them.
But have you even taken the time to consider anything from my perspective? [He looks at her now and he doesn't look happy. Granted, he didn't look particularly pleased to be dragged out of his home before, but he looks and sounds legitimately angry now.] You look at what I did to you and you see it only from your eyes, like I took something away from you. Maybe because I wanted to, or maybe just because I could.
But I only used my abilities in the first place because until I did, I didn't know your intentions. And whether you see it or not, Reimi, I had to be the one to act. Koichi is a far less experienced Stand user than I am, not to mention younger than me. And if he had used his Stand in front of you and you were an enemy Stand user, that would have completely shown Koichi's hand prematurely to you. I told you once before that Heaven's Door requires intellect to use effectively and that's precisely what I meant.
I have to be quick in reaching a decision and judging whether it's the right time to use my ability because being a Stand user means that hesitation at the wrong moment with the wrong person could mean the difference between life and death not just for the user, but the people around them.
[He looks ahead of them again, tightening his jaw for a moment.]
But for the record, I didn't make you forget just to cover up my abilities to you or because it was within my ability to do so. I made you forget seeing Heaven's Door's image and activating my ability because when I saw you were just a regular girl, I didn't want you to be afraid or getting involved by asking questions.
That's what I use Heaven's Door for. It's not for my personal gain or my amusement. [And the period in which that wasn't the case was so incredibly short-lived because to some extent, that's part of growing as a Stand user as well. You want to see the extent of your abilities, how far you can push yourself and grow. For someone like Rohan, ambition can be blinding. But he grew past that. Forcibly with the combination of a beatdown from Josuke that landed him in the hospital and Kira's growing shadow over Morioh, but he still grew out of it.] I use Heaven's Door to stay alive and to keep people who have no business getting involved out of it.
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[She's the one, then, who comes to a halt, gliding and putting her heels at right angles to keep from starting to drift any further than she intends to.]
You know what happens when I try to figure things out for myself about you? "Don't make assumptions about me, Reimi, you don't know anything about it." Okay, so maybe you're right, I don't get it, I don't know anything. So then I try to know something and it's "stop nagging me, Reimi, it's none of your business, leave me alone, Reimi, I'm busy. You're just a little girl, Reimi, what would you know about it, you don't get it, you don't understand."
So now here I am, asking, giving you every chance to make me understand, and it's my fault again because I haven't tried hard enough to see things from your perspective.
[She trails off, shoulders tight, as she brings her hands up to push her hair back away from her face and behind her ears.]
So...fine. Tell me I'm wrong again, because this is what I see. I think you're scared. And I think whatever it is you're scared of, it's what makes you say things like "I don't want to show him to people, hurting someone's Stand also hurts the user, he's a vulnerability if someone uses him against me", and "I did what I had to do when I used him", and "It's to stay alive". You sound like you're afraid of people asking about him.
And I think that you're afraid of what happened when you and Koichi found me, because of how bad you need me to see your side of it. I think you're scared, so you have to be right.
So how do I make it so you're not afraid? Show me how to see that through your eyes, I want to. I don't know what it is about me that I'm supposed to say or do or fix. How do I make you feel safe again, because that's what I want and I can't see how.
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[The first and only thing he can think of is how frustrated he is. It's the immediate thought that leaps into the very front of his mind, his hands clenching into fists at his sides so tightly that his nails dig into his palms painfully. It's a long stretch of silence as he stands there, back rigid and with his heart pounding loud in his ears. It's not until his jaw begins to ache that he loosens it a little.]
[Afraid of people? Him? Please. The last thing Rohan ever has to be is afraid of people. Being careful about who he trusts with Heaven's Door, keeping his Stand hidden even here, isn't fear. It's being careful and cautious. It's not taking the naive view that somehow the danger's passed. But why would she understand something like that? She's dead. There's very little that can do anything to her anymore. And she's not a Stand user. She doesn't understand the trouble that attracts even if you live a relatively quiet life the way Rohan does. She doesn't understand that Heaven's Door has a very specialized use and there's no need for Rohan to have him summoned all the time like some of the others around here. Him. It.]
[He stews in his frustration long enough to reach the boiling point, where whatever tight control he has simply evaporates as he turns around to face her. Simultaneous to this motion, Rohan summons Heaven's Door, leaving his Stand to float just behind his shoulder. It's so quick that it seems almost as though Heaven's Door has been violently torn away. Heaven's Door regards Reimi with a cooler expression than Rohan, but it's carrying the same tension in its fists and shoulders.]
You told me you wanted a chance to know me, to believe in me, but what chance have you really given me, Reimi!? [Rohan holds out an arm behind him to gesture to Heaven's Door.] Do you really think that if you say one second that you understand Heaven's Door is an extension of who I am and then in the next compare it to the monster in a movie that I'm going to be all that eager to have Heaven's Door anywhere near you or make it a conversation topic!?
[He lowers his arm back down at his side as he continues.]
It's not Heaven's Door you're afraid of because it can't make decisions on its own. [Rohan brings a hand to his chest, laying it flat over his heart.] I'm the one who decides when and how it acts. So whatever you think it might do to you? That's not trusting me! That's being afraid of me! And don't you dare lie to me and pretend like you haven't had a single thought like that, worrying not about how much damage I could do, but how much I would do. Don't you dare act like it's never crossed your mind that all it'd take is a foul mood or someone who pisses me off, and just like that I'm getting back at them with Heaven's Door.
The thing I don't think you think about it is what that's like for me. You don't have a single fucking idea what it's like to have the person who died for you think of you like that even for a second! You want to see through my eyes, then fine. I'll tell you exactly what I see when I look at you. [Rohan closes the distance between them to stand directly in front of her. Heaven's Door hangs back.] I see someone who doesn't trust me or believe in me anymore, and is the only person who can actually make me feel this shitty. And that was before you even knew about any of my mistakes because the truth is Reimi, I don't know you. It wasn't just that night that I can't remember. I can't remember any of it. You died for me and I forgot about you!
So, you tell me! Why do you think I want you to understand so badly!? Why do you think I avoid you as much as I can!? [He shrugs and his eyes burn, but he refuses to give her anything further.] I'd love to hear what you think!
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She jumps, of course, when Heaven's Door comes hurtling out, and what hits her like a second punch on the heels of the first is the way the tension simmering in Rohan looks so wrong when it's reflected through his Stand's more childlike appearance. And for a second it's all wrong, both halves of him, because for a second he's right — for a second, it's like she doesn't really know either half of him, the adult or the child, the user or the Stand.
But then he's hurt, and it startles her with how unexpectedly devastating it is to see him this hurt. It's there in the words, of course, beneath the anger, but it's even moreso in the gestures — the rough sweep of his arm in the direction of Heaven's Door, the hand over his heart like she's just dug a knife into it. And every bit of it, every sentence, every bit of truth he flings at her, it's all a flurry of knives in return, and every one is a hit.
Because of course, she's thought that.
How many times, now, has she thought how did the sweet boy I remember grow up into someone like this?
But then he's advancing on her, and even made taller by the wheels of her skates he's taller still, and every word keeps landing, every one keeps making another burst of pain flare up because he's still not wrong, but now it's like he's finally decided to show her who he is, finally letting her see inside, but he's going to do it by wrenching open his ribs and tearing his heart out to throw at her feet.
The word that undoes her is anymore.
Because she knows that word too well, knows what it means, what it carries with it. She's ranted and raged against it in her own time, when telling her own secrets; it means you had something once and now it's gone, gone, and it's not coming back, like the life she was supposed to be living, like the chance to be normal that's been taken away.
But even then he's not done.
It's not for her own sake that her tears well up and spill over at the last of it. It's not for her own pain that her whole expression shatters. It's the recognition of how much anger and frustration and self-loathing he's managed to encompass into just a few short sentences, I don't know you, I can't remember, I forgot about you.
And maybe, just a little bit, it's the realization that on some level she hadn't been wrong. She is what he's been afraid of, and he has been afraid. She just didn't know why.
Not until you died for me and I forgot about you.
But he's right there, and she's glad for it, because it means she doesn't have to fuss with the cobblestones or her skates; she can just lunge and get her arms around him as fast and as tight as she can, and hold on like she's never going to let go.]
I'm sorry —
[Like her own personal Heaven's Door, that gets ripped out of her mouth, out of her chest; Arnold, distressed at her distress, is starting to hover in anxious, uncertain circles, unable to work out what's wrong.]
I'm sorry, I'm s-sorry, I — stop it, stop it, I didn't, maybe I did, maybe I did everything you said but I never stopped believing in you. I'm never going to stop believing in you, I don't care if I live a hundred more years in an alley or this stupid city or Heaven or anywhere else, you're everything to me!
[And she's crying again, and she doesn't even know what from anymore, sadness or pain or sympathy or empathy or anything else in between.]
I didn't die for you because I wanted you to remember me. I did it so you'd be alive, I just wanted you to be alive and h-happy and —
[She pulls back, just enough to shake her head roughly from side to side, resisting the irrational urge to pound weakly on him with trembling fists.]
And, so, so look at me and see somebody who loved you and still does and isn't going to stop, and maybe I'm all of those other things too, but I'm still always that, don't you get it? I'm always that!
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[It doesn't feel good hearing her say any of this. Arguably, it should. It's all the affirmation in the world from the singular person who has meant to the most to Rohan once he knew who she was even if he's consistently demonstrated it poorly to her. It's everything that any sensible human being would want to hear, to know that there is one person out there who will love them unconditionally regardless of whatever mistakes or flaws they might bear. In fact, it's not something that everyone is fortunate enough to have. And even those who have it must frequently never realize it or only do so once they have squandered it away.]
[But Rohan doesn't feel any joy in hearing it as he thinks he ought to. It's not because he doubts its sincerity — Reimi is too honest a person, but also too kind and gentle to make up a cruel lie like that — but it's the timing of it. It's following everything he's just said, everything he's just admitted and let go in the height of his anger. And in letting everything that he'd once held from her to protect her — no, to protect himself. Everything that he'd held from her to protect himself, his anger, too, was released from its duty of protecting him. And when something as hot and caustic as Rohan's anger leaves, in its place, it leaves a barren, empty space.]
[So, he listens to her. He does truly listen to her. But the words have nowhere to go, managing to only slip in perhaps skin-deep before either remaining there or being turned away by the numbness that's overtaken. The numbness that, to some extent, makes Rohan wish he could take everything he said back, that there was some way to move time back to those moments before he snapped to make a different choice. He doesn't wish she would forget even though it's a feasible thing he could do. Forgetting wouldn't undo it, however, and it would only create more problems in the end. He simply wishes it had never happened and he wishes she wasn't crying and he wishes she wasn't saying these things now and he wishes that she wasn't hugging him at all let alone this tight and he wishes he could be cruel right now and he wishes he couldn't care any less about any of this or about her and he wishes she was in Heaven and he was home where they belong. But wishing is never enough and he knows that because it's the precise reason why he never really wishes for anything. Yet he's wishing now. He's wishing and nothing is happening.]
[Nothing except at some point, he'd let his hands go lax at his sides and not long after, he dismissed Heaven's Door once again. And somewhere along the way, his vision blurred until his cheeks were suddenly wet. So, he gives up. He gives up and he wraps his arms around her. Loosely at first, and then tighter. Mumbling, he says something over her shoulder that could almost be taken as I'm sorry, but it could just as easily be nothing at all.]
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Which doesn't mean she even knows what to say, but it frees her to say it, nevertheless.]
Y-You guys...you called me a guardian angel, you know, before you said goodbye?
[It's tempting to slip and say remember?, but she won't, because she's made enough accidentally cruel slips of the tongue already, and even distraught, she knows better than to be careless, now more than ever.]
...I don't think you guys were wrong. But I'm...n-not good for anything without something to guard. You know? If that's what I am? It made sense when I had Morioh and now Morioh is gone, and I ought to be gone but I'm here and...
[She trails off, finding a breath.]
It feels fake. It doesn't feel like a new life or a second chance, it feels fake. Like I'm playing make-believe, like I'm pretending.
You make me feel real. I'm not fake when it's you, I'm someone real. I mattered. You just being here, just being, being you, you're proof that I matter. Mattered. Matter.
...I-Is it really so different, Rohan? I only remember things from fifteen, sixteen years ago. I can't "remember" who you are now. It's not that different. You don't remember me from back then...but I don't remember all the years that I missed, when you grew up from that little kid into the person you are now.
People keep telling me, be selfish, be selfish. Maybe that was the most selfish thing I did, all along...just, just expecting to be important to you instead of earning it. It's supposed to go the other way around, right? People meet first and then figure each other out, and then they end up important to each other, like you and Koichi...but this is backwards, we're important first and doing all the figuring afterward.
I always knew it hurt you when people got mad at you, when they'd use me against you, bring me into the middle between them and you. I get mad at them for it...I don't know if you knew. Know. I always get mad at them, I tell them to stop. I tell them never to do that ever again, or just plain ever, but I never say why, I just say don't. I didn't...I didn't really think about how I might hurt you. Be hurting you. I didn't...
[...]
This place makes it so I'm not just Reimi the ghost. It makes me have to be Reimi the girl along with Reimi the guardian angel. Maybe if I were just Reimi the ghost...
[She laughs, shaky and halfhearted.]
Isn't that selfish, though? That I don't want to let go of the only person who makes me feel real? That's what it feels like to me, when I don't understand. And I — I know I don't belong here, you know? I don't belong anywhere, I know I don't, and that's what I'm really afraid of. Not you, not even Heaven's Door, not —
...There's so much I don't know, you know...? But I always know what I feel about you, that I believe in you. Sometimes that's the only thing I know. That's what I mean. That's why I can say, I'm always someone who believes in you and loves you more than I love anything else in the world. Because that always comes first, and it never goes away. Because sometimes it's the only thing I'm sure about, when I know I don't belong anywhere else.
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[Despite all the times Rohan's accused Reimi of treating him like a kid, she's never managed to successfully make him feel like one until now. And it's not in a way that feels he's being patronized to or that she's condescending to him, leaving him frustrated and ready to instigate a fight. It's the opposite, in a way, where feeling small and even a little dependent isn't such a terrifying thing to experience. Rohan holds her a little tighter as she bares her insecurity of not belonging. His natural instinct is to scoff at that. In what reality does Reimi not seamlessly integrate with the rest of the world? He may not remember her from all those years ago, but he knows her as she is now and she's not someone who should find herself alone. Of course, he knows she spent all of those years alone with the exception of Arnold, but those were circumstances beyond her control. To do what she had to do, she had to be alone until the time was right. But now? Now she doesn't have to be, so she shouldn't and won't be because she's warm and kind and gentle, and none of those traits could possibly be mistaken for weakness.]
[Which is precisely why it's not such a terrifying thing to be dependent upon her in ways Rohan's never been really dependent on anyone because if there is one person who can handle it, it's Reimi. Of course it's her, without a single doubt.]
Don't be stupid, [he mutters, harsher than he means to be as always because it's the only way he knows to be kind.] You aren't going to get a chance to grow up like you were supposed to. There's no going back to Morioh for you either. Nothing you do here is likely going to change that. So what? Just because you're not supposed to be here doesn't mean you don't belong, Reimi. Regardless of what you think about yourself, you do. You belong. I'm the only person still here that knows what you've done, how much it mattered, but everyone can see your worth without you having to explain all of that to them because you're more than just what you did for me or for Morioh.
[And that's part of why people always throw it in Rohan's face that they can't see what she sees in him that's worth valuing. She wears her worth on her sleeve whether she means to or not, and it's next to impossible for them to understand why she would seemingly waste her time on someone as abrasive and intentionally cruel as Rohan has the capacity to be.]
That's why Koichi called you a guardian angel. It's not because you protected Morioh, it's because you meant something to each of us. You mean something to...
[It's here he falters a little. But Rohan purses his lips and at that moment pulls away from Reimi, holding her by the shoulders in front of him.]
I don't understand why you put so much weight into what others think of you. I never will. But I know it means a lot to you, so I'll say it just this once. It doesn't matter to me whether or I remember you or not. You're still the most important person in the world to me and you always will be. But it's not selfish of you to not want to let go. You're still human, Reimi. It doesn't matter that you're dead, you're still human. You still had hopes and dreams the night you died, but you still carried them with you all those years while you were waiting. You said it yourself that you wanted me to live and to be happy. That wasn't what kept you from moving on, but that doesn't mean you let go of them.
So, it's not selfish, it's just stupid to limit yourself just to me because it's familiar. You turn a blind eye to what you want — to your hopes and dreams for yourself — and to the way you matter to other people here clinging to something familiar like that. But you don't have to be afraid because you already did the hardest thing you'll ever have to do and you're never going to have to go through something like that again. At the same time though, you don't get the luxury of telling yourself that you're done because you did what you set out to do while you're here.
[One of Rohan's hands leaves her shoulder to fix a few strands of her hair that were beginning to bother him with their displacement. His eyes move from hers to look at what he's doing. It rests back on her shoulder after he's done fixing her hair, his gaze settling back down on her.]
You're not alive, but you still have a chance to live, Reimi. You just have to stop defining yourself by what you've already done and allow yourself to move on it from it in a way that you didn't plan. And if that means for right now just learning to take it one day at a time, then that's fine. But you have to give yourself a chance first before writing it off as pretend or fake.
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He doesn't need to finish the sentence, not really, for her to immediately derive the two most important things from it. One is that she already knows the last word that belongs there, right at the end.
The second is that the tense changed from past to present — from something that once was to something that still continues.]
...It matters that I'm dead. I-I know that's not what you meant, but...but it matters, a lot, that I'm dead. Because...
[She hesitates, her gaze drifting to the side and down before slowly sliding back to Rohan's face.]
M-Maybe that's my "Heaven's Door". I think...maybe that's the thing I need people to understand, like you need for him. Dead is a part of who I am, now. I-I have this friend, who's dead like me, and...he feels that way, too. That it's hard, because...
...B-Because it feels like your chance is gone. Like you got left behind. Like anybody who cares about you, like you're cheating them out of being able to care about somebody with a future. Like you're different, it makes me different.
There was a place for me in the past. I don't know how to make it start feeling like there's a place for me anywhere else. I don't mean I'm not trying to! I just...I don't know how to make it...
[She reaches up, clearly intending to rub her eyes, but then seems to hesitate; her hand stays suspended in the air a moment, wavering as if hung by an invisible string, and then comes to rest over one of his on her shoulder instead.]
Hey...c-can we make it a promise, then? If I keep trying to live...then will you promise to never let me forget that I deserve to?
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[So, it takes a moment. In that moment, he wrestles with every impulse he has, but he manages to get control of it before he starts to feel a little nauseous. And then he nods.]
I promise.
[He can't risk say anything further than that.]
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So she draws back, but whimsically keeps hold of his hand as it comes away from his shoulder, curling just the tips of their fingers together in a last slight attempt to keep from breaking away entirely.
After one last slow swallow, she finds her voice again, mercifully steady despite the potential for it to shake.]
Okay. Me too.
[She nods again, this time following through on her attempt to reach up and wipe her face dry.]
C-C'mon. It's getting pretty late, and I haven't even gotten to show you my surprise yet...
[And once they make it there, she will: the warehouse-turned-nightclub that she's taken for her own, and the work that she's done over time toward restoring it to a fun and happening place to be.]