The Fear – Ben Howard
He spent his life being crushed and built back up with pretty promises and apologies, and in his worst moments he felt he was more tape and glue than man, shards of the person he could have been stuck together in a vague shape and left to struggle his way through the world. It had been a repeating thought when he had been a child, that somewhere out there was a version of himself that was loved and loving in return, not cold and apathetic in return to everything.
Would Misaki still have liked him then? Was the boy run by his compulsion to help? Was Akihiko only a project? – something to distract Misaki from his day to day life and to salve the wound that was his parents' deaths, that he could have done nothing then so he had to do something now?
Akihiko tells himself – no. Misaki would still love him, even if he was the most well-balanced person on the planet. Misaki's love can't be conditional on how fucked up his partner is, because Akihiko knows he's getting better and Misaki doesn't seem to love him less. He's no longer just tape and glue holding together dust, but mostly whole with bandages covering the last of his wounds. And when it all gets too much, and the past creeps up and starts to grind him down again, it's Misaki who shoos the pain away and tightens the bandages back up.