"K-Kaito..? Listen... I know it's bad right now. But, you've got to keep trying, to hang in there. It'll get better. With time and a lot of help, you'll heal. I'm so sorry this happened to you, but you can't give up. You'll survive this, you're a fighter, and you can do this. It might not be today, or tomorrow, but.. I'm here for you, we all are. One day you'll wake up, and it'll be... you'll be okay again," Gakupo smiled tremblingly and ran his hand through Kaito's soft, short blue hair, gently. As if the other male might break from his touch. He was desperate to reassure the Vocaloid, to fix things for him. To let him know he was loved by all of his friends. That he was not alone.
"..." Kaito bowed his head further as the soft and gentle fingers stroking his hair were joined by an anxious, nervous, short embrace. His shoulders felt tense but his body was lax. He closed his eyes as if something was hurting in that moment but allowed the physical reassurance. "Gakupo... thank you but I... I know what you're trying to say. I'm grateful for it. I'm grateful. But you're wrong."
Freezing, the violette drew away and tried anxiously to look into Kaito's downturned face as the Vocaloid male continued to speak in a quiet tone.
"You're wrong. This... trauma. It's not something that can be healed. I can't get better from it. I can't triumph over it or fight it. I can't overcome it. It's a bad thing, Gakupo. It'll hurt me every time, for the rest of my life. It's not something that I can get over. There isn't a medicine I can take or therapy that will ever fix it, ever fix me. I've been damaged. That damage is permanent."
Gakupo's brow furrowed and he opened his mouth in dismay to speak, "No! Kaito, look, I know it feels hopeless now, but-"
"You don't understand, Gakupo. I know you want to help. And you can help. I... even if I don't deserve it, I need help. Yours. Everyone's. I am going to need... a lot of help. And I might not always be able to deal with it or ask for it or be able to hear it. I know I need it. This hurts. This hurts and I don't have the words to describe it. I'm not even sure I know what's going on in my own head right now. I feel like this is happening to someone else. Like I'm going insane. Like I'll never be normal again."
The soft voice continued, blue eyes still trained on the ground. Gakupo listened with continued alarm, wanting to correct him. It wasn't true; Kaito was right here. Even if he'd been broken, been damaged, it was still Kaito. He would always be himself. One day, he'd wake up, and things WOULD be normal again and-
"I'll NEVER be 'normal' again, Gakupo," the quiet words sounded bitter and longing and desperate and hurt, and Gakupo's chest felt tight and painful as he regarded the other male silently. "I'll never get over this. It happened. Nothing will ever make it un-happen. I can't heal from this type of damage. It is always going to be with me. I am going to have to live with it for as long as I'm alive. I can't change that. It happened. All I can do now isn't to try to heal. That won't work. I can only try to learn and gain coping skills to manage living it, the rest of my life. I love you, I love you. But you can't fix me. This trauma that's in the past is living in me now, here, in the present. It's in me, now. It doesn't matter why, or how, or what, or whether it's someone else's fault or my fault. It doesn't matter. It's real and it's here, and it can't simply be pretended away.
"I know... it won't ever get better. But it... it won't always be like THIS. Right? It... can't be," Kaito raised his head and looked at Gakupo, terror and agony in eyes that were red and filled with tears he tried with everything he was to hold back, even though he didn't know why he was trying so hard. Maybe because if he started to cry, he was afraid he'd lose the ability to control himself. The ability to ever stop. That he might lash out, uncontrolled. Hurt somebody, like the way that he'd been hurt. Lose what little bit was left of his grasp on his sanity. He felt cornered. It was terrifying. He couldn't lose control. He had to keep himself together. Had to. Wide blue eyes with overwhelmed, terrified, dilated pupils stared at Gakupo as Kaito kept speaking, trying to regain some control, explain things, not just to the violete, but also to himself.
"Some day in the future, I'll wake up, and... it won't feel as bad as this. I'll be living my life and maybe a whole day will go by and I won't even think about this day once. Maybe I'll start to believe that it really is just a part of my past on those days. But I know better. In this moment; I have that clarity. Maybe some days will be better. Maybe some days I'll cope in a way that's so ingrained and unconscious that it'll almost be like moving on from a nightmare. But it's not the same thing as healing from this. It's not the same thing as being fixed. It's not the same thing as being normal. Gakupo... I'll never be normal again. I'm broken, and I can't fix it. I'm sorry. There's nothing I can do now to stop that horrible thing from having happened."
Kaito lowered his eyes again. He couldn't bear to see the look in the violette's eyes of grief and despair and anger right now. But more that that... he couldn't stand to see the look of helplessness that was mirrored there in the other man's face.
"Kaito..." A hand tipped with purple fingernails reached for the bluenette, but then faltered, and dropped back down the the violette's side, defeated even before it could try to do anything to help. "I'm here for you, Kaito, but... I don't know what to do. I want to help. No matter what, no matter how you're feeling and what happened to you. Please don't forget that there are people who care deeply about you and want you to get bette-... to... to..."
Feeling fragile, Kaito wrapped his arms around Gakupo and buried his face in the other's shoulder. His body was shaking like a leaf.
Gakupo's trepid arms slowly wrapped around the slim male's frame and held him close as a horrible-sounding sob wrenched its way through the bluenette's throat, and Kaito gave into the desperation in his code. Tears and sobs turned into a long, high pitched keen of hurt as Kaito lost himself, wailing like something dying in a sound that put chills through Gakupo's entire body. The violette clutched him tighter, tighter, trying to give him a lifeline and find one himself as Gakupo's shirt dampened with tears and saliva from the huge, noisy panic breaths that Kaito gave in to between the keening, damaged, choked-sounded howling.
"I'm here. I'm here. Kaito. Its okay. I know, it'll never be okay. But right now, you're safe. You're here, and you're safe. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry." Gakupo murmured in his own wide-eyed desperation as he held the hysterical young man in is arms and just tried to rock back and forth with him, to comfort both of them. "I'm sorry, Kaito. I'm sorry. Please. Tell me what to do. Please, tell me what to do."
He closed his eyes and held on tight.