o4.
He has this habit of claiming loudly that he would never lowers himself to become Near's friend or even try to understand him. To Matt's bewilderment. Yet it's not as if he had never thought about it.
But it's not as if he always had the choice either.
Could he really be able to appreciate Near while they were both brought up in a institution where the golden rule had always been to do everything to become number one?—at any cost, with labor, work, and work. Could he be able to be his friend while he was still holding the place that everyone was pushing him to reach—the place he wanted with all his heart?
Perhaps in other circumstances, things would have been different, and the two young boys would have found in their differences something to build a strong and pretty bond.
But things are as they are, and despite we would like to change them, even the deepest of despair would not succeed.
There is nothing sad in that. It's just a story of 'wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong person,' or a 'bad luck' as it happens every day, to all the people on Earth. And it is those accidents that defines who we are.
Sometimes, even while being fully aware of all that, Mello wonders all the same if it would be useful to make an effort to try to tolerate, to understand Near's so strangely attractive and yet so repulsive personality.
To understand why he never expresses anything but indifference. How he can to such a point do not care about the impression of the other about him. Why each looks they exchange seems to be a provocation. Why he looks at him without seeing. Why he sometimes seems almost begging him to shoot when he points his gun at him when he can no longer see his face as impartial. Why... How...
And finally, all he knows and is sure about him is that his name is Near. And even that may be questionable, because it's definitely not his real name. He has nothing. And understands nothing. And yet he is there, every day, the same as every day. Nobody. Somebody. A ghost. He sees through, but not inside.
And really, honestly, he wonders if so much hatred towards a stranger is justified.
Then he thinks for a moment and decides he still prefers the current situation; he would not change that. Mello does not want to cease hating Near.
(because it's easier than trying to understand.)
(if at least there is something to understand.)