[She's glad, the longer the explanation goes on, that she'd given the caveat she had about becoming upset, because she does (given the subject matter, of course she does) and more importantly she does in a way that she knows she couldn't have suppressed no matter how hard she'd tried to hide it. She can tell from the way her throat grows tight and her fingers go cold that she's likely turned pale; it's undeniably hard to hear words like I used to harm people for pleasure without thinking of the tall, ash-blond doctor whose hatred she'd tasted in the moments before she'd died.
It makes her remember other things, too — his odd moments of reservation where she might've anticipated empathy, that day in the woods when he'd said so calmly, Sometimes you need to decide that your life is more important than someone else's.
She realizes, a few moments after the fact, that her fingers are pressed to her mouth, either in astonishment or in some emotion she can't place.
But what saves it, perhaps, is that he keeps talking, and gradually the things he's saying grow to sound much more like the Mr. Tsukiyama she knows — the sort of person who might look at his faults and seek to be better, to recognize a need for forgiveness and ask for it.
And, as it turns out, it's very hard to judge someone for confessing to reprehensible things when thoughts of that doctor have also brought back memories of her own, accusations of you self-serving narcissist and don't you have any self-consciousness about the fact that you're a monster escaped from your grave?
That young man named Percy had died right in front of her, and they'd taken the pieces of Emmeline and —
And in a way, horror or not, she almost has to envy him that calm, matter-of-fact tone in admitting to his sins, because she's certain she couldn't have if their roles were reversed.]
I-I see. You...w-want very much to help, and...to live up to your promise. But you can't, when he's forgotten the forgiveness you...remember him giving.
no subject
It makes her remember other things, too — his odd moments of reservation where she might've anticipated empathy, that day in the woods when he'd said so calmly, Sometimes you need to decide that your life is more important than someone else's.
She realizes, a few moments after the fact, that her fingers are pressed to her mouth, either in astonishment or in some emotion she can't place.
But what saves it, perhaps, is that he keeps talking, and gradually the things he's saying grow to sound much more like the Mr. Tsukiyama she knows — the sort of person who might look at his faults and seek to be better, to recognize a need for forgiveness and ask for it.
And, as it turns out, it's very hard to judge someone for confessing to reprehensible things when thoughts of that doctor have also brought back memories of her own, accusations of you self-serving narcissist and don't you have any self-consciousness about the fact that you're a monster escaped from your grave?
That young man named Percy had died right in front of her, and they'd taken the pieces of Emmeline and —
And in a way, horror or not, she almost has to envy him that calm, matter-of-fact tone in admitting to his sins, because she's certain she couldn't have if their roles were reversed.]
I-I see. You...w-want very much to help, and...to live up to your promise. But you can't, when he's forgotten the forgiveness you...remember him giving.