There is, almost inevitably, a moment when Riku's temper results in a thrown punch. Usually it comes hot on the heels of a line being crossed and the delay, in this case, is because Riku does try to pull himself back, his knuckles white and fingernails pressing crescents into the heel of his gloved palm. What happens first is he grimaces, when he says when you have no one left, stung because that's something he trusted M.K. with, the graves on the hill and who he's lost.
He says because they're dead or you pushed them away and Riku feels like kicking him in the gut would've been kinder.
They say you hurt the ones you love. Riku's not sure he could say he more than likes M.K., there's an attachment there, a connection strong enough to share secrets with, not all of them. The potential to slot in besides friends he had to bury, but on the right side of the ground.
M.K. believes he is right, because his own experiences tell him there are certain inevitable truths about the world. They're similar in some areas, Riku and he, but they are not the same.
With him are a lot of experiences to reiterate bleak thoughts like that - that he's selfish, that he only hurts his friends, that he doesn't deserve the friends he still has - but he's grown. He's made great strides to accept his shortcomings and his strengths, to care about himself enough to stand his ground on the lines he draws for himself. That lesson was harder learned and harder to practice. Bruce had to tie him down, at first, just to make him rest.
All that growth doesn't mean the guilt has disappeared - it's still manifest in the way he can't move on from the friends he's lost, the countless sleepless nights, the sense of misguided responsibility that leads him to spend himself up for others without a thought to himself, the very thing he dropped off the figurative grid to address. It isn't fair to expect M.K. to understand because he hasn't told him everything, but it isn't fair what he's doing, either. To demand he relinquish his own privacy and lay it down for all of them to see - M.K. and everyone else, even a young child - to call it selfish and immature not to.
"Got it all figured out, don't you?" he shouts. Riku hates how wheezy his voice sounds, not caring if his swing hit, and how could it have? His eyes shimmer in the lantern light, they burn, he can barely see, "Screw you!"
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He says because they're dead or you pushed them away and Riku feels like kicking him in the gut would've been kinder.
They say you hurt the ones you love. Riku's not sure he could say he more than likes M.K., there's an attachment there, a connection strong enough to share secrets with, not all of them. The potential to slot in besides friends he had to bury, but on the right side of the ground.
M.K. believes he is right, because his own experiences tell him there are certain inevitable truths about the world. They're similar in some areas, Riku and he, but they are not the same.
With him are a lot of experiences to reiterate bleak thoughts like that - that he's selfish, that he only hurts his friends, that he doesn't deserve the friends he still has - but he's grown. He's made great strides to accept his shortcomings and his strengths, to care about himself enough to stand his ground on the lines he draws for himself. That lesson was harder learned and harder to practice. Bruce had to tie him down, at first, just to make him rest.
All that growth doesn't mean the guilt has disappeared - it's still manifest in the way he can't move on from the friends he's lost, the countless sleepless nights, the sense of misguided responsibility that leads him to spend himself up for others without a thought to himself, the very thing he dropped off the figurative grid to address. It isn't fair to expect M.K. to understand because he hasn't told him everything, but it isn't fair what he's doing, either. To demand he relinquish his own privacy and lay it down for all of them to see - M.K. and everyone else, even a young child - to call it selfish and immature not to.
"Got it all figured out, don't you?" he shouts. Riku hates how wheezy his voice sounds, not caring if his swing hit, and how could it have? His eyes shimmer in the lantern light, they burn, he can barely see, "Screw you!"