[When he's finally drank everything and seems to have a little more color to his face, Aki dares to step away for just a moment, long enough to get a damp rag and begin the careful process of cleaning off his face of blood and who knows what else. He figures if Denji dozes off now it's okay, since he doesn't seem like he'll actually faint, just sleep from exhaustion. But he'd still like to make sure he's clean, changed, proper, before any of that happens. Folding the rag over to find a cleaner spot, he pauses when Denji starts talking.]
[...In truth, he just never liked the song. He thinks it was one of the songs they sang at that orphanage because all of them had been whisked away from their homes in some fashion, blown by the wind into a lake and ended up crying because they missed the woods. To think of himself as the loach, as someone who had always been without a home to fall from, like he was someone they would play with for a little while without actually solving anything... He remembers being so upset about that. Crying like a child. And being scolded for it by the caretakers, told he should be a better role model. He's older, after all.]
[But, to think Denji might have thought of his role as something permanent after all, a problem solver who, really hasn't solved much... He presses the rag into his forehead and carefully massages at a reddened mark on his skin.]
You can be so stupid, sometimes.
[Most people would say he's always stupid. But Aki knows he has his moments. He's clever in an annoying way. A problem solver, even if his solutions are skewed and Aki can't see his work to understand how he arrived at them. He likes to think Denji wouldn't ignore someone who needed help. That he wouldn't leave it to another sucker. He hopes he's impacted him enough to think about it differently. But it opens at a sore spot in his own logic to be told he's looking out for others, when he knows he's purposefully avoided something major.]
...I don't want to take you to the hospital. Because they might not let us visit you, or share your information with us.
[Being that he isn't Denji's legal guardian and their actual legal guardian is, essentially, the government, he can't bear the thought that something like that would separate them. That Denji might be taken. Again he folds the rag to scrub over his cheek next.]
But you should see a doctor again. At least to see if there's anything we can do here.
no subject
[When he's finally drank everything and seems to have a little more color to his face, Aki dares to step away for just a moment, long enough to get a damp rag and begin the careful process of cleaning off his face of blood and who knows what else. He figures if Denji dozes off now it's okay, since he doesn't seem like he'll actually faint, just sleep from exhaustion. But he'd still like to make sure he's clean, changed, proper, before any of that happens. Folding the rag over to find a cleaner spot, he pauses when Denji starts talking.]
[...In truth, he just never liked the song. He thinks it was one of the songs they sang at that orphanage because all of them had been whisked away from their homes in some fashion, blown by the wind into a lake and ended up crying because they missed the woods. To think of himself as the loach, as someone who had always been without a home to fall from, like he was someone they would play with for a little while without actually solving anything... He remembers being so upset about that. Crying like a child. And being scolded for it by the caretakers, told he should be a better role model. He's older, after all.]
[But, to think Denji might have thought of his role as something permanent after all, a problem solver who, really hasn't solved much... He presses the rag into his forehead and carefully massages at a reddened mark on his skin.]
You can be so stupid, sometimes.
[Most people would say he's always stupid. But Aki knows he has his moments. He's clever in an annoying way. A problem solver, even if his solutions are skewed and Aki can't see his work to understand how he arrived at them. He likes to think Denji wouldn't ignore someone who needed help. That he wouldn't leave it to another sucker. He hopes he's impacted him enough to think about it differently. But it opens at a sore spot in his own logic to be told he's looking out for others, when he knows he's purposefully avoided something major.]
...I don't want to take you to the hospital. Because they might not let us visit you, or share your information with us.
[Being that he isn't Denji's legal guardian and their actual legal guardian is, essentially, the government, he can't bear the thought that something like that would separate them. That Denji might be taken. Again he folds the rag to scrub over his cheek next.]
But you should see a doctor again. At least to see if there's anything we can do here.