This Looks Like When U Try To Bring Your Bf To A Metalcore Concert And He Doesn’t Like The Experience

My Hero Academia AU: Living Ghost

A little bit different than my other comics; I've never done a time lapse before.

In the Ambush Simulation notes, I mentioned that Dabi has a canon divergence in this AU where he returned home after the three years he was missing/presumed dead, but nothing in the household changed and he was still an unhinged mess.  This is the AU comic behind ‘unhinged mess’ and the partial reasoning behind his antagonistic behavior in The Summer Camp Ambush Simulation.

…

All right, so canonically Dabi is a walking, half-dead, Lovecraftian nightmare of mental and physical health issues who's keeping himself going through sheer willpower/hatred.  Ujiko says that after waking up from the three year coma, he should not have survived longer than a month as a result of the injuries he sustained from the fire.  So even in an AU where he was reunited with his family after the fact, that’s still the reality of his situation.

Enter Endeavor: In this scenario, at that point in his character arc, I think he would have retreated back into his usual pattern of refusing to face the issue. The Todoroki family got Touya back, but they also learned that he wouldn't be with them long. If a missing/presumed dead child turns up after three years, they're immediately going to a hospital to establish mental and physical condition, so the health issues resulting from the fire would have been discovered almost immediately.

From the point of view of Endeavor, Touya's return was cause for celebration and was initially viewed as a second chance/an opportunity to repair some of the damage he'd already done to his family...but then the severity of Touya's prognosis becomes apparent and they're told he has weeks to live. In Ambush Simulation, Endeavor takes the coward’s way out and leaves the problem for everyone else to deal with so he doesn't have to face Touya.  He told himself it was a way of not getting attached and so on, and no matter how much he tries to deny it, the avoidance is his guilty conscious.

The same goes for Rei. She refused to see Touya after he came back just so she wouldn't have to say goodbye to him a second time.

But Touya doesn't die.

Despite what the doctors predicted, he survives '...albeit with complications, various emergencies, experimental treatments to delay the inevitable, no clear answer on how the hell he was still breathing, and no promises that he would ever live a full life...' And now, just like in canon, he has 7-8 years of simmering resentment with the trauma of a near-death experience, the realization of having lost three years of his life due to the coma, the fallout of terminal health, and the crushing disappointment of what should have been a heartfelt reunion turned into a second abandonment.

In this AU as a vigilante, Touya has the Pandora’s Box of being an outrageous public menace and a potential family embarrassment because he figured out the only time his father pays any attention to him is when he’s ‘acting out’ and he decided he’d rather be the problem child than the invisible child.  And unfortunately, this mentality has also ruined his relationship with Natsuo.

In some respect, canon is a happier outcome for Touya because at least in canon, the poor bastard has a purpose instead of reduced to a living ghost.

…

The piano panels are him rehabilitating his hands.  Technically after a three year coma, he should not have been walking and talking as quickly as he did.  Not with that kind of atrophy.  So I’m balancing that inaccuracy out with the headcanon his fine motor skills were likely completely ruined.

Plus, if your life is a train wreck, have at least one positive hobby.

...Yomaha...

my brother, my wound

Hi! I loved your web weaves, would you mind doing another one for isagi? I’m having shrimp emotions about him rn

ISAGI YOICHI - “Me, As The First Grave”.

Oscar Wilde, “The Picture of Dorian Grey” / Catherynne M Valente, “The Orphan’s Tales: In The Night Garden” / Jennifer Willoughby, “Beautiful Zero: Poems” / Virginia Woolf, “Orlando” / Cameron Awkward-Rich, “The Child Formerly Known As” / Sylvia Plath, “The Bell Jar”.

in light of recent events (bllk manga 282 - 283. im crazy about them) i wanted to post a part of the rinsagi zombie apocalypse au i was writing for bllk halloweek (and didnt finish. oops)

implied major character death, rinsagi typical freakishness, descriptions of a zombie bite wound. also guns

The zombie bites a huge chunk off Isagi's shoulder.

Rin punctures the zombie in the head with a bullet—feeling rage melt into dread, as Isagi crumples on the floor, clutching his bleeding shoulder with a hand. Blood spills all over it, trickling down and pooling at his elbow, a slow and painful drip, and Rin cannot feel his legs when he rushes to Isagi's side.

"I have you," Rin says, even though he can already spot the signs of Isagi losing himself, the hyperventilating, skin growing cold under Rin's touch. The sweat everywhere.

How everyone keeps leaving; Sae, Bachira, and now—

Rin brings his mouth to Isagi’s wound.

Isagi hisses. “What are you doing, you idiot?”

Rin doesn’t hear, doesn’t care. He sucks as much of Isagi’s blood as he can from the wound, almost drinking it, infection on his tongue, and at some point it gets too much, maybe. He spits it out on the sidewalk beside them.

Isagi groans, back arching, either away from Rin’s mouth or into it—and Rin wishes he was, wishes for vastly different circumstances. Wishes that this wound was one he made. “This won’t work, Rin. It’s an infection. Either kill me now, or run—”

“I’m not letting you turn before me,” Rin says, voice hoarse. There’s blood on his lips. There’s blood in his mouth. “You promised you would kill me. You have to be the one to do it.”

“Didn’t you say—you would, too? Kill me?” Isagi says. "You promised."

Rin closes his eyes, breathing heavily. His mouth hovers over Isagi’s wound. Blood and iron and rot. He imagines Isagi Yoichi, with purple veins and discoloured skin, green and grey and black in places that aren’t supposed to be. Eyes white.

An Isagi less alive. An Isagi less interesting. An Isagi reduced to a lump of mindless flesh.

Rin bites his cheek. “I lied. I can’t do it.” I can’t look at you like that.

“Do you realise what you’re asking of me, then? Rin, get up,” and Isagi pulls on Rin’s hair, even if the strength of it is weakened by the bite. “Get up, Rin! You have a life after me. You have a life beyond me. Live it.” Isagi growls.

“No!” and Rin is startled with how much he means it. Isagi must be too. He’s still beautiful: wide-eyed, despite the wound on his shoulder. Looking at him like biting into a cyanide pill, a heart-stopping brain death.

“If you turn, I turn. That’s my new rule. My new promise.” Rin brings his mouth to Isagi’s wound, lapping at it, ignoring the taste of metal on his tongue. Urging everything into his bloodstream. Wants to cauterise the wound with his own tongue. Wants to be burnt by him. These are the things that have made him stronger, before—wanting to have an effect on Isagi, wanting to be affected by Isagi. These are the things that will be his undoing.

There’s a hand in Rin’s hair, gently stroking, and then pulling him up into a kiss. Isagi heaves a heavy sigh, and Rin captures the feeling of life on his lips. Blood and saliva—Isagi licks into his mouth, like trying to clear Rin of the infection. Salvation. Once, Rin had wished for something like this: for someone to save him.

Rin feels Isagi push cold metal into his palm, and then guide his hand to the side of his temple. Isagi’s hands are cold and wet with blood and rotting. It’s hard to swallow.

“Close your eyes,” he hears Isagi whisper. His face is so close, flushed and pale at the same time, and Rin desires to commit it to memory. “It’s like you’re simply teaching me how to aim. Remember?”

The things Rin has seen of zombies—of humans, turning, that moments before it they turn delirious. Manic, even. And Isagi is here, purpling veins, cold sweat, bleeding, and still coherent, if to just tell Rin to kill him.

It's that easy, Rin hears himself say in a memory, revolver in hand—Isagi's, Rin remembers—before it became his. The makeshift target infront of them with a bullet through the head. What Rin means, now: It's that so easy to lose someone.

Maybe Isagi closes his eyes. Rin wouldn't know, because he's closed his too.

The gunshot that follows is the most deafening sound for miles.

I made some funny comics a little while ago about the potential effects of Fukuzawa's ability on Chuuya's, and how it perhaps could make it revert to a pre-Arahabaki state.

I realized later that some of you lack the context for where that came from, and that I might be creating confusion, so this is a (hopefully) comprehensive walkthrough of things we learned in Storm Bringer that lead to this conclusion.

tldr; The lab created "Arahabaki" by manipulating an ability into a destructive force. That ability existed before the lab, and the nature of that ability is heavily implied to be the power to enhance other abilities through touch.

Explanation and sources below (so you can judge yourself) ⬇

- spoiler warning for Storm Bringer, hopefully written in a way that you'd understand even if you haven't read it yet -

In Storm Bringer, Chuuya meets the scientist that was responsible for Project Arahabaki, Professor N.

Project Arahabaki, N explains, was the Japanese government's secret project to create an ability singularity they could have control over and freely use as a weapon.

What are singularities? Singularities are what happens when abilities clash in specific ways and create a new, unforeseen reaction. The easiest way to create a singularity is to pit two contradictory abilities against each other to create a paradox; examples included the ability to always deceive and the ability to always perceive the truth, and to have two ability users who can see into the future (*coughs* Oda and Gide) try to one-up each other. The result is usually much more powerful than the original abilities on their own.

Some singularities are said to have been explained as god-like interventions, because of their often destructive nature. This is what inspired the name "Arahabaki", after the mythical being (here's a post of the subject and I'll it link at the end too) These events are described as very rare.

Like mentioned in that passage, there is another way to create a singularity: to have a single ability user use their ability in a way that contradicts itself. This is what the lab was trying to do.

For that explanation, Professor N gives an example. He first shows a video of a child, whose face is hidden from the camera, holding a coin (described as having a certain melancoly to it), with a moon and a fox engraved on it. The video is from one of the lab's tests. The child is made to recite some activation lines, which are directly taken from one of Nakahara Chuuya's poems, Upon the Tainted Sorrow (which does mentions a fox, as a fun fact).

The coin then starts glowing, the glow turns into a black mass, and from there the experimentation goes bad: the coin starts attracting things and absorbing them, the space gets distorted, the child's vitals flatline, panic spreads and someone calls for an emergency stop, we hear a scream. The video ends.

N explains that the child in the video had the ability to enhance the ability of others. That child then used that ability on themselves, effectively enhancing the enhancement which enhanced the enhancing, in an infinite loop. That loop created a lot of energy; the surplus of energy was so intense its mass deformed space (physics!) and it created a black hole.

Here's where it gets tricky: N claims that child died during that accident, that the child was absorbed by the black hole created by their ability. We never actually learn their identity.

But N is a lying liar who lies; he said about one and a half truths the entire book. The only reason he was telling them any of this was that he thought he'd get rid of all of them within the next few minutes. His objective was always to regain control over Chuuya, his pet project.

Plus, during the epilogue, we learn that Chuuya was assumed to have died during the war. That's what his parents think. That's what is officially recorded.

Furthermore.

Project Arahabaki was based off French research papers; someone else had done this kind of experimentation before, and their result was Verlaine.

-

Verlaine's gravity-manipulation is a singularity. Better yet: Verlaine also has a Corruption state, named Brutalization. Their abilities are the same, because the lab copied the techniques that were used to create Verlaine when they worked on Chuuya.

Here's a passage of Dazai nullifying Corruption, at the very end of SB:

"The self-contradicting skill, which was supporting the energy of a singularity". This passage confirms that the source of Chuuya's ability is, in fact, like the child's and Verlaine's, if any doubts remained. "[...] weakening the singularity's output. It wasn't long before it returned to its normal state, and the Gate closed." The Gate refers to releasing Arahabaki, it's basically a limiter, just like the passage above when talking about Brutalization. When Dazai nullifies Corruption, he gives that limiter the opportunity to come back and seal Chuuya's power away again, but does not stop the singularity, only allows it to go back to its stable state.

From all that, we can say that Chuuya's ability wasn't always gravity manipulation, but that it was another, unconfirmed ability that was exploited in such a way that it became a permanent, stable singularity that allowed him to have control over gravity.

-

Bullet point recap:

Chuuya's gravity manipulation comes from a singularity, like Verlaine, like that child;

You need a self-referencing/self-contradicting ability to create that singularity;

Such an event is rare;

There is a substantial amount of time spent describing a "random" child that was experimented on during the war;

That child created a black hole through their singularity;

That singularity was activated using a passage from Nakahara Chuuya's poems, while holding a coin that references it;

That child supposedly died;

Chuuya's parents think he died during the war;

N is a pathological liar with an agenda.

So no, there is no "confirmation" that Chuuya's ability was ability enhancement before the lab took him. But an author writes a story with an intent, so I am asking what Asagiri's intent was when writing all this, and if perhaps we weren't indirectly given the answer already.

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What is Arahabaki (Fifteen and Storm Bringer lore, with too many citations)

My own perceived timeline of the true events behind Storm Bringer (was originally gonna be part of this part, also with too many citations)

just going to leave this here

I am treating the Cannibalism stage play as, like, an official fanfic, but it gave me emotions about Chuuya and he is my blorbo I need to share more details about the infamous "Chuuya cries" moment with full context:

Since they did not have a costume or actor for Poe, they got rid of Chuuya and Ranpo getting stuck in his story, and instead gave Chuuya a mini arc about leadership. They made Chuuya doubt his own legitimacy as a leader (for the Port Mafia) every step of the way.

He started out by saying that as the ex-leader of the Sheep, an enemy organization, it made no sense for him to be the interim boss of the Port Mafia. He even told Kouyou she should take the role because he used to be her subordinate. Kouyou convinced him to step up to the challenge by pointing out he usually didn't hesitate to lead people ("but those times I was acting on the boss' orders") and that she had 8 boxes full of Steel Oracles written by subordinates who wanted and trusted him to be up to the task.

Steel Oracles were the stage play's answer to the Silver Oracles. If the Silver Oracles are the boss entrusting a subordinate with power to act, the Steel Oracles are the subordinates entrusting an individual with the power to lead them. They are check notes with the name of the individual being entrusted written on the back, signed by the person submitting it, and symbolizes the submitter entrusting that individual with everything that they have and are. Chuuya had 8 boxes with his name on it.

He later (obviously desperate) goes to request Verlaine help them assassinate Fukuzawa. Chuuya says the PM his family that he needs to protect. He wants Mori to live. He's having a very rough time. (Verlaine refuses but makes him realize Dazai is plotting something)

When all is said and done, he meets with Mori and Chuuya says he'll be returning the Steel Oracles to the subordinates. Mori jokes about Chuuya being more popular than him, so shouldn't he name Chuuya boss instead? Chuuya refuses immediately, saying that the people were only saying he was strong, not that he had their respect, and says he could never be a boss like Mori. He makes a comment about Mori having already said he wanted Dazai as the next boss anyway.

Mori agrees, Chuuya looks a little resigned and starts walking away. But then, Mori produces 5 new Steel Oracles: they're all signed by the Flags. Mori says he was given these long ago, by "experts" who had seen Chuuya's potential way back then. Mori says he had promised to look after Chuuya until the time came. He says that the people he considered family also considered him family. Chuuya hears the voices of the Flags calling out to him, takes the Steel Oracles with a stiff nod and excuses himself (the first anime ending, namae wo yobu yo, starts playing then). He avoids looking at Kouyou, who asks him if he's crying, and exits as quickly as possible.

During the outro section, we see Chuuya again, holding the Flags' Steel Oracles. He smiles (smirks really) and puts them in the interior pocket of his coat, before joining in on the choreography.

For bonus points, when Chuuya was the interim boss, he still had that "nobody needs to be hurt more than necessary" attitude he has in the manga. He fought Kyouka in Mori's room by using martial arts instead of gravity. He was also ruthless in filling in for the role of the Black Lizard for this story: he wanted to use Tanizaki as a hostage to get the ADA, and told him that once Tanizaki was no longer of use, he would be disposed of, just like every ADA member would be killed off until they got Fukuzawa. He wanted to cut Tanizaki's ear off to send to the ADA to tell them the deal was off. It was clearly business for him. He said he took no pleasure in it.

All in all, with tone, acting and context, Chuuya's hesitancy to lead the PM here was clearly an issue of self-confidence. Nobody would trust him with the role. Someone else would be better for it. He has too much baggage to be up to the task. People fear him more than they respect him.

And that issue is "resolved" (big word) when it turned out people he held in high esteem and cared about actually believed in him too. They saw him, they knew him, they cared for him, and they thought that, in time, he would be great. And that's what got to him.

On Heroes and Villains

(or: how I stopped worrying and learned to hate the system)

Now that I’ve gone off a bit about how Midoriya sees heroes and how he sees himself, it’s time to go off about how he conceptualizes villains. The definition of “hero” in BNHA society veers off of what we’d consider the idealistic definition, and indeed the definition that the Western-style comic books Horikoshi was apparently partially inspired by follow — a hero is someone who acts to save others, often at great risk, without being asked and without asking for payment in return. Unlike BNHA’s heroes, heroes in Western comics are sometimes viewed negatively by society and civilians (see various eras of the X-Men, Spider-Man, Batman, etc) but that doesn’t change the fact that they are heroes at their core. Heroism under the idealist/Western comic definition is both intrinsic and chosen. Heroism in BNHA draws a government salary.

That’s heroes. How about villains? In Western comics, villains are people who do bad things, often using supernatural abilities on civilians who aren’t able to defend themselves the same way. Villains are sometimes portrayed as evil for evil’s sake (ex. the Joker), but more often they’re humanized. A classic example is the X-Men’s Magneto. In his initial appearances in the comics, he’s unquestionably a villain — a mutant supremacist who believes that the human majority should be subject to the mutant minority. This is a bad look. Plus ultra bad, one might say. But when the comics reveal Magneto’s backstory, it becomes clear why he holds that viewpoint: As a Jewish character alive during World War II, he was a member of a tiny minority, persecuted and murdered en masse by the majority culture. The phrase “never again” is often used when referencing the Holocaust, and Magneto takes that concept and broadens it. Never again will he or anyone like him suffer at the hands of the majority. Magneto’s backstory, tragic as it is, doesn’t excuse his villainous actions (prior to his various redemptions, that is), but it does explain them. The reader understands why Magneto does what he does, and more importantly, the reader is meant to care. In Western comics, ‘villain’ isn’t a personality trait, but a descriptor of someone’s actions — and quite crucially, they can choose a different action at any time.

BNHA takes a different viewpoint. Villain isn’t a description of a person’s behavior, but an intrinsic trait. And this gets problematic when one thinks about the fact that all someone needs to do is use their quirk in the committing of a crime to qualify as a villain.

Moving on. At the beginning of BNHA, there’s no evidence that Midoriya or anyone else has much sympathy or even a desire to understand the villains. Notably, the first villains we’re shown are thieves — the purse snatcher on the train, who activates his quirk out of panic when he’s caught, and the Sludge Villain, who by virtue of his heteromorphic quirk is using his quirk at all times. (That begs an interesting and horrible question. Some heteromorphs are theoretically using their quirks all the time. Would getting a parking ticket while “using their quirk” then classify them as a villain?) In any case, the motivation of these characters is identified as greed or enjoyment of stealing. But there are a lot of reasons why a person might steal. I don’t expect Midoriya to ask those questions in Chapter 1 as a fourteen year old who idolizes heroes. But it would bother me less if it hadn’t turned out to be a harbinger of things to come.

The first villain Midoriya encounters as a hero student is Shigaraki, who at first glance during the USJ attack appears to be the least threatening of the main trio. He’s also the youngest and the most physically vulnerable of the group. Unlike the previous villains, Shigaraki actually has a chance to explain his motivations — which are admittedly not phrased well, and are thoroughly infected by All For One’s ideology. However, Shigaraki is given multiple chances to explain his motivations, and his ability to articulate them improves by leaps and bounds. Shigaraki also has something in his back pocket that villains such as Toga and Twice don’t have: He’s related to a hero, and particularly a hero that All Might holds in the highest esteem. And yet, while Midoriya can sympathize with or “understand” Stain and Gentle Criminal, he can’t or won’t reckon with Shigaraki. (He also fails to understand Overhaul, but there’s an important difference in that Overhaul has no desire to be understood, saved, or stopped.)

On the surface, this makes no sense. Stain explicitly targets heroes, members of a group Midoriya is aiming to be part of. Gentle Criminal threatens to ruin the school festival, which Midoriya and his classmates have worked hard for, and unlike Stain, Shigaraki, or Overhaul, Gentle Criminal turns his villainy into a performance. His motivation is entirely selfish. Stain’s motivation doesn’t arise from a personal grievance. Why can Midoriya acknowledge common ground with them and not with Shigaraki?

Because in Midoriya’s worldview, “villain” isn’t something a person does. Villain is something a person is.

On some level, Midoriya is able to identify with Stain and with Gentle Criminal. Because he can identify with them, he makes a small but significant leap in logic — they’re like me, and I’m not a villain, so they can’t be villains, either. Under this paradigm, Gentle Criminal’s selfish crimes are relevant only where they might put Midoriya out. Under this same paradigm, Stain’s murders become a misguided offshoot of his veneration of All Might. Villains that Midoriya personally understands are seen as people. Villains he can’t relate to aren’t.

Shigaraki and the League of Villains have legitimate grievances, causes of their misery that they’re able to name and point to. The bystander effect, heteromorph discrimination, the school-to-prison pipeline, general intolerance, parental abuse, and so on. They also get chances to articulate these viewpoints to the heroes. But because Midoriya can’t personally relate to Shigaraki, because Shigaraki got angry in the face of his mistreatment instead of accepting it in silence like Midoriya did, Shigaraki never escapes the category of villain.

A villain in BNHA society is effectively unpersoned. They can be injured with impunity, to the point where villain-specific hospitals exist to treat the injuries caused by heroes. They can be imprisoned under inhumane conditions. They can be written off completely. This inverts the Western comic understanding, wherein heroism is intrinsic and villainy is a choice; under BNHA’s paradigm, heroism is a choice, and villainy is intrinsic. Villains can’t be saved, and it doesn’t matter, because there was nothing there to save in the first place.

In fact, the only way Midoriya is comfortable acknowledging Shigaraki is by acknowledging that he was once Tenko Shimura — an innocent child, a victim of All For One who should have been saved. This viewpoint has the benefit of being uncomplicated and not requiring Midoriya to think too hard. To reckon with Shigaraki as an adult, Midoriya would have to accomplish the Magneto dialectic; that is, acknowledging that while Shigaraki’s actions are terrible, the person taking those actions didn’t spring fully formed into the world as the Symbol of Fear. Shigaraki is still a victim of All For One, and arguably the victim who suffered the most at his hands. It’s entirely reasonable for Shigaraki to be hurt and furious that he wasn’t rescued. But rather than understanding that the innocent child and the adult villain are facets of the same individual, Midoriya separates them — which allows him to metaphorically “save” Tenko while literally murdering Tomura.

To summarize: Unless he’s able to personally relate to the villain in question on a superficial level, Midoriya makes no distinction between person and action. “Villain” is seen as an intrinsic, immutable trait, a label that effectively dehumanizes the individual it’s applied to. In BNHA, the only “redeemable” villain is a dead villain, and neither BNHA nor its main character ever takes issue with this premise. At least not enough to matter for the villains themselves.

I’m going to take a second to vent about this heroes act/villains are bullshit. We see multiple heroes take actions while on the job as heroes that should disqualify them from the label. Even as a full-blown hero, Bakugou is an utter shit whose main interests are becoming Number One and beating Midoriya, rather than actually helping anyone. Present Mic, as much as I love him, attempts to murder Kurogiri in cold blood even knowing that Kurogiri used to be his friend and that there’s at least a possibility that his friend’s consciousness is still present. Hawks straight up murders someone on camera. These characters aren’t even acting like heroes at this point. But as long as they don’t earn the label of “villain”, anything can be excused…and is excused, by the narrative, by BNHA society, and by BNHA’s creator.

how long do you think Kevin took to grieve riko fully ? Did he stop grieving jm public or in front of the foxes because they couldn't understand it or

Oh. Oh I don't think Kevin ever got to fully grieve. I've probably talked about something similar before but no, I don't think so. Not in front of the foxes, anyway. I think there were glimpses, maybe, moments where he broke and couldn't keep it in for just a second or two at a time. But he'd hide it well until he was alone.

Then there's David and Kevin, back in an almost empty hotel bar, black suits on and several drinks deep, and Kevin's been silent for a couple of minutes.

"You can cry," David says, and Kevin just looks at him, breathing like it's the only thing worth focusing on, like if his mind slips for just a millisecond he'll self destruct. "I promise it won't make how he treated you suddenly okay."

Maybe David tells him a story about his parents death - how he struggled with his grief, grief that came in short and intense and incomprehensible bursts. Grief that didn't make sense. Grief that felt shameful, or guilt-filled, or grief that felt like it didn't deserve to be felt. Maybe Kevin doesn't say anything for a little while longer, or maybe he starts to tell a story. It's hard for David not to feel disgusted, knowing what he did to him, listening to a fond memory of two 10 year old boys who just wanted to be famous, as if that was all that Riko was. As if this one memory, these two or three memories, were who Riko really was, as if it was who he could've remained to be. But I think maybe David puts the stories he already knows aside to give Kevin the space to feel these confusing and guilty and shameful feelings of being nostalgic and wistful for the man who almost killed him.

I think Kevin shares his grief in secret for that one night, a closed casket freshly burned into his brain, a rest in peace winning over a rot in hell. Just for one day, at least.

Maybe he shares his grief with Bee - again, that horrible, conflicting feeling of I know how bad he was to me and I know how he treated me. But I miss who he used to be. And maybe I don't think he deserved to die.

But maybe even still, with David, with Bee, he holds himself back. He can't let himself grieve how he needs to grieve because he just can't. He can't let himself think, "I miss him," when he hadn't thought that for a very, very long time, and only feels it now in fleeting moments after his death. He can't let himself believe, "I'm sad that he's dead," when he silently wished it upon him every time his healed hand cramped or hurt, every time the remembered pain flooded his fingers when he moved a certain way.

Kevin's grief with Riko is complicated. That was his brother. His first friend. His first abuser, his worst abuser. That was the person who ruined his life, that was the person who pushed him to be better and better until better became best. That was the person who nearly killed him, the person who held his opinion with such high regard it was deadly. How do you grieve someone that you were scared of, when death makes you think of all the times he swore he was keeping you safe? Or at least, pretended he was. Or at least, did so for his own personal gain. How does he grieve someone who everyones sees as a monster, who he sees as a monster, but who smiled a pre-teen grin his way and said it's you and me against the world.

I don't think anyone would understand. Or, he thinks so, anyway. He doesn't think anyone will get it. He doesn't think it makes sense, or that it's okay, or that he's allowed to feel these conflicting feelings about him. I think Kevin grieves on his own, and that makes it worse, in some ways. It makes it a much longer process to work through. It makes it a long time until he is able to come to terms with it all.