Abel Lazarus It’s a good thing that wasn’t said out loud because then all of them would be crying.
Just a group of sad, sad people with parental issues at the end of the day, huh?
FAsuka’s gut reaction, the first thought in her head, is to scream it isn’t. Nothing is okay, and she doesn’t know if it ever will be. She keeps trying and trying, but she can’t be sure that will ever prove to be enough. Something in her head, though, is still too scared to make a scene, focusing on the potential, non-existent consequences. So, instead, FAsuka forces her mouth to stay shut.
She can stop anger, even if it’s clear she’s lost in the war against evident misery.
It’s probably for the best Abel learns that, on some level, Asuka had already internalized that, isn’t it? Sadness was a war to fight, to avoid losing. Anger, with time, less so.
At least screaming made you feel better about the situation, sometimes. At least violence let you pretend you had control of those who couldn’t bother.
Abel Lazarus “It’s okay to cry. It’s not always going to hurt like this, and when you grow up you can choose to be around people who give you what you need.”
“Wha-What if I don’t like them? What if I try and they go away!?” What if she’s alone again? It’s not logical, not with what Abel is saying, but that doesn’t make Asuka any less scared. She looks at Abel, as though he’ll hold those answers, and then at FAbel. Those words, somehow, are scarier than anything Asuka’s ever encountered. That things could get better, when they might not ever change, and they’d bloom differently and beautifully. The idea she’d be able to stop trying so hard for her parents.
The idea that it won’t just be babysitters around.
“You’re gonna leave too! You’re… You’re just gonna leave and th-then I’m gonna be alone! T-Teachers don’t stay! Kids at school don’t! Right now means you leave!”
It’s not something Asuka can properly think about. She’s not even sure if she believes it. But it’s what she knows, and when you’re a scared kid, confronted with the possibility things will get better when you never get what you want, it’s so much easier to just yell everything in your head than it is to think. To calm.
Any grip Asuka had on Abel tightens, as though that will change anything if she’s right.
“Don’t go! Please!”
Don’t give her hope, and then vanish with it.
(How can a child know Abel doesn’t have the choice? How can a child understand the nature of this train?)
