Ken's eyes are shining as is his face, wet from tears he smeared across it with his hands. And fear flickers across them when he finally looks up at Minato, resigned to the fact that there's no hiding from him, momentarily distracted and horrified of the future for the first time in months. He had been so caught up in the past and the present that he was so convinced he didn't deserve, he hadn't thought to think about what could lie ahead for him. He's terrified for a moment, then he deflates again. It was only natural; living meant you will lose more, that even if you gained something, all hellos came with goodbyes.

"I want to live." It's a quiet confession. One he hasn't worded that way yet, feeling like he shouldn't, like those should belong to people who didn't try to end theirs deliberately. He wasn't one of them. But he finds himself saying it anyway, lifting his hand to find Minato's, clasping it gingerly. "I want to. I wanted to... but every time I see everyone, it's hard."

Even to him, it sounds entirely backwards. To want to die because he wanted to live. But there was no other way to say it if he approached this with honesty; he thought he didn't have anything to be alive for after his revenge, but by the time he realized it there was a lot. His housemates all crowded onto a couch, fighting over a single bowl of popcorn while trying to keep Koromaru from diving into it. Traveling to Virginia every day to come visit the others and staying for dinner sometimes, traveling to the other cities to take Koromaru to the park. And that scared him; it felt like he was forgetting. Like he was walking away from what happened without learning anything, and that scared him. He wasn't supposed to have any of this.

His hand tightens around Minato's now. "I wasn't alone. But... isn't this something I have to carry on my own?"