[The past tense makes him want to cringe. Not in a vast, high-magnitude way — Polnareff doesn't lean on the word, doesn't try to call attention to it, doesn't try to make it the keystone of the entire statement so that it will deliberately cut like a knife — but in a lighter, more bittersweet way, like a faded photograph going old at the edges.
What strikes him then, with quiet memory, is the thought of that month or so that he'd begged from Kakyoin back in the day, back when Kakyoin had been so much braver than he'd been and leaned up and kissed him and said here they are, these are my feelings, and he'd asked for more time to think about what it was going to change. He'd thought back then that it might, and he knows full well that there have been ways that it has. But the foundation wasn't supposed to shift. It was always supposed to be —
But Polnareff didn't see that. Polnareff saw what is, what's standing now. Polnareff doesn't have the benefit of seeing how it was built.
Polnareff is braver than he is, too, isn't he. Here they are: these are his feelings.]
I didn't know there was — I mean I didn't really think about whether there even was something to notice.
[He hesitates.]
Most of the stuff I worry about with him...it doesn't feel like we're that different. Whatever we are, it just feels like something just got added to what we already were. Like boyfriend just...got stacked on top of everything else that was already there. Not that it's a whole new or different thing.
I never wanted it to change what we already were. I don't want it to have to...change you. Or me and you. Maybe it has to and that's another thing I can't fix, but...I don't know.
It feels like it shouldn't have to be some kind of zero-sum game. Moving closer to him shouldn't have to mean ending up farther away from you.
no subject
[The past tense makes him want to cringe. Not in a vast, high-magnitude way — Polnareff doesn't lean on the word, doesn't try to call attention to it, doesn't try to make it the keystone of the entire statement so that it will deliberately cut like a knife — but in a lighter, more bittersweet way, like a faded photograph going old at the edges.
What strikes him then, with quiet memory, is the thought of that month or so that he'd begged from Kakyoin back in the day, back when Kakyoin had been so much braver than he'd been and leaned up and kissed him and said here they are, these are my feelings, and he'd asked for more time to think about what it was going to change. He'd thought back then that it might, and he knows full well that there have been ways that it has. But the foundation wasn't supposed to shift. It was always supposed to be —
But Polnareff didn't see that. Polnareff saw what is, what's standing now. Polnareff doesn't have the benefit of seeing how it was built.
Polnareff is braver than he is, too, isn't he. Here they are: these are his feelings.]
I didn't know there was — I mean I didn't really think about whether there even was something to notice.
[He hesitates.]
Most of the stuff I worry about with him...it doesn't feel like we're that different. Whatever we are, it just feels like something just got added to what we already were. Like boyfriend just...got stacked on top of everything else that was already there. Not that it's a whole new or different thing.
I never wanted it to change what we already were. I don't want it to have to...change you. Or me and you. Maybe it has to and that's another thing I can't fix, but...I don't know.
It feels like it shouldn't have to be some kind of zero-sum game. Moving closer to him shouldn't have to mean ending up farther away from you.