Things Like the Truth
There is a sadness in this world, for we are ignorant of many things. Yes, we are ignorant of many beautiful things… things like the truth. – The Log Lady
He asks what happened to you. As if you could tell. He asks again and again, words and letters like raindrops through the years. You treat him as a shadow of the past – very persistent, but no more than the others. You do with him what you do with the rest of your memories; you wait for him to leave you alone. But if nothing else does, so doesn't he.
When it looks like he is gone, he shows up in person, and the message returns to you with his every gesture. It hurts ten times more. Nothing in the world could prepare you for this – the incarnation of a memory and a dream, a sign of the things you might have been and aren't. You were not able to become like him. Maybe the chance was taken from you. But you cannot face him today, not like this. Before you know it, your time runs out.
At some point in his clash against your refusal, he quits asking. He does things on his own. He gets on his feet every time he is beaten down – it is more, so much more than you can say about yourself. But he is more all the way, he is too much, he grows and spirals around your fate until it cracks to pieces.
Without needing your words, he stops the clockwork of your future. Your half-death is never completed. Life slaps you violently instead, forcing you up and out and breathe, he smiles at you, he talks to you, he has won. You have no strength nonetheless. After ages of darkness, the sun hurts to look at.
What now, your mind wonders. You cannot pay mind to the answers he tries to give, as long as you have no purpose. The cut strings left you to wilt on the ground, devoid of any reason to go on. Still, all the slopes and paths bend towards him at some point, and it is bad, too bad – the emptier you feel, the deeper he cuts through you. When you decide you cannot bear it, you turn to your last resort. You run away.
Even after it happens, he gives you something to look up to in the worst moments. That's what amazes you about him. You forgot and came back to find it all unchanged, the way you click together in this daring route no one else ever tried, with your voice and his face and the sharp sting of intelligence. It's like it was meant to be, yet arranged by nobody. As hard to believe as it flows naturally.
But why did you run away, he asks again, some quieter time later. The storm has passed, the danger is gone – there is just you two, in a cloud of daily, mundane calm, way scarier than any other challenge. He gently waits for a word, the edges of his figure calm and comforting. He is living reassurance, he is all that you need right now. How tenderly terrifying.
But why did you run away. You lower your eyes. I never imagined you cared about me so much. And the answer you don't speak, but he gets it. The look in his eyes burns into your memory for years.
It is better to contain your mistakes, you decide, seeing how easily he molds the currents of your mood. So dangerous to believe, to give in to such depths of abandon. He is tranquil and unreadable and yet always so open, so ready to trust you with his whole being. He is splashes of warmth and colour in a grey, struggling world. Just too much. You flee him over and over, little escapes in small chunks of time, each time before it is too late.
As he always does, he sweeps your plans off their feet anyway. A touch, and your houses of cards fall. The thought of him breathing, or not, crushes all that lies in between the phone call and the hospital. Something way more powerful than you can picture drags you, as if all pain and fear and happiness had broken the strong walls of your dam. What was he thinking, you hiss to yourself, swallowing back the breaking ache in your eyes. What was he thinking.
You correct that soon enough. What were you thinking when you did the same to him. You see him in his lonely hospital bed, and nearly bite your tongue until it bleeds. Now that you understand what he has been through, in a devastating way, you are even.
In spite of everything, he smiles to you every time you meet afterwards. While it seems to be all over, it is barely starting – all around, the air is warm and swelling with relief. You could get used to this, a small voice whispers to you, deep from within his eyes. You could.
You don't talk much, though you see he would want to. It's safe, but still fair. You leave in silence, not without wondering how long you will last this time.
What he was never supposed to hear, he comes to know eventually; because Larry got dumped, again, Larry dragged him to the bar, again, Larry ended up weeping all over his tired shoulders. It's always Larry in the end, all things start and end with him. You were sure you would rue the day you – it just had to turn against you, didn't it?
He barely follows Larry's prattle, until he mumbles complaints about sweet Iris, about how late you were, the annoying stick in the mud, and still with enough money to –
And Larry, again, does not care. He never notices how he shifts in his seat, how his gaze softens in delicate shock. He drops his glass of soda with a quiet clink, which Larry never hears, like his next, only words – he didwhat?
He confronts you as soon as he can. You smell the traces of danger too late to retreat, and you figure, in a quick bat of your eyelashes, that he's got you this time. For what, you do not really know. What do you know, in the end? Nothing of what he does to you is explainable. It just works. Somehow.
But why did you come back, he asks. There were calls, the police, the flights, there were better ways, so why – he walks so many paths which never were, destroying you, each time, with the awareness that you cannot really explain.
But why did you come back so fast. Similar the concept, similar the solution. I never imagined I would care about you so much.
He asked, you rushed to his aid. It would be so easy to just tell him. So hard.
You answer with a question yourself. Why did he cross the bridge – before you speak, you want to hear that first.
And it pains you to recognize how sharply he answers. He did not have any reasonable motives. It was instinct, a gut feeling. There was only Maya in the blank of his mind, no obstacles, no other distraction than her safety. If it meant save her, nothing else would matter.
He told me you were dying.
Your own words ring in your ears in slow motion. He covers his mouth with his hands, and the rest of the world slows down with you.
Can't you see it is the same thing, you say out loud, too tired of an eternal fight you don't even understand. Though he looks shaken by the crack in your voice, you cannot stop. The same thing. To hell with money and time and work and whatever else. You couldn't care less about any of it. You just wanted to see him once, just – just in case –
He has no idea what to say, he silently tells you, driving his hand up your forearm.
You cannot lie. You don't either.
His last words wouldn't make sense to anyone else but you. Where you are running off to this time, he asks. It sounds like an expectation – a part of a ritual which is always going to happen, sooner or later.
You make yourself raise your fingers to his face, and rest them there. He is not wrong – but he may be, this time.
If you are fair to you both, there is really nowhere else for you to be.
NaruMitsu character study, 1-3-post-game. As always, canon divergence, trilogy-only universe. I blame two things for this convoluted experiment: Twin Peaks and my brain, which went how bout I dooo anywayyyy