He doesn't understand, in this moment, exactly what Minato is referring to. His own what? Regrets? Ken didn't find himself so clueless that he'd think there were people who lived without any regrets; with a person like Minato, he's not surprised to learn that he has any, just surprised to hear him bring it up. But it make sense now, says a small voice in the back of his head, the one still processing these small thoughts even while the rest of him is still struggling with the other, heavier, suffocating emotions. It makes sense right now. Minato, who had always shown him little bits of himself when he thought Ken was feeling alone in their conversations here. He isn't entirely distracted by that reference to his mysterious leader -- his friend -- but maybe he's just simple. It works, as usual, and the smokey thunderclouds choking him up part just a little at those words and gives him some room to breathe.
And breathe he does, though it's shaky and more like a gasp than an actual breath. He always felt emotions keenly, but letting them out was a different story; he could never cry to the point of feeling refreshed after. He's tense, not knowing how to truly release these feelings even if he could string together words to describe them. Will he ever be strong enough to carry this weight? He felt like it was crushing him every day, and every day his regret grows thinking that Shinjiro carried this, too, alone, for two years. And he had just...
"... I didn't plan to live long enough to regret it." If all had gone as planned, then he was supposed to die at the same time as him. When it turned out that it was pointless anyway, that Shinjiro was going to die no matter what he did, when he realized that he did this out of regret for what happened to his mother, his rage popped like a balloon and -- had revenge ever mattered to him at all?
"When I found out that Aragaki-san was going to die no matter what I did, when Takaya said -- he knew that I planned to die after that, it's too late now, but I wanted to die more than I wanted him to. Even if I never found out who he was and this never happened, I think, eventually, I would've tried to die anyway."
That was something Crane pointed out, too. He called him out on it, how he was grasping for anything that could fill how empty he felt. Ken had been too young, at the time, to have expanded his world to outside his mother, and he was hardly given an opportunity to find anything else after she was gone. Fighting Shadows and discovering who Shinjiro was were just short-term goals that he latched on to and pretended were his purpose. He had always known that in the end, he ultimately lacked the will to live.
"I just wished, this whole time, that I died at the same time that Mom did. I didn't want to live knowing she was gone. It never -- 'justice' was just a convenient excuse to drag someone down with me. All I wanted was someone to pay for how miserable I was, when the one I was the most angry at was me because I couldn't protect her. And now, now Aragaki-san is dead."
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And breathe he does, though it's shaky and more like a gasp than an actual breath. He always felt emotions keenly, but letting them out was a different story; he could never cry to the point of feeling refreshed after. He's tense, not knowing how to truly release these feelings even if he could string together words to describe them. Will he ever be strong enough to carry this weight? He felt like it was crushing him every day, and every day his regret grows thinking that Shinjiro carried this, too, alone, for two years. And he had just...
"... I didn't plan to live long enough to regret it." If all had gone as planned, then he was supposed to die at the same time as him. When it turned out that it was pointless anyway, that Shinjiro was going to die no matter what he did, when he realized that he did this out of regret for what happened to his mother, his rage popped like a balloon and -- had revenge ever mattered to him at all?
"When I found out that Aragaki-san was going to die no matter what I did, when Takaya said -- he knew that I planned to die after that, it's too late now, but I wanted to die more than I wanted him to. Even if I never found out who he was and this never happened, I think, eventually, I would've tried to die anyway."
That was something Crane pointed out, too. He called him out on it, how he was grasping for anything that could fill how empty he felt. Ken had been too young, at the time, to have expanded his world to outside his mother, and he was hardly given an opportunity to find anything else after she was gone. Fighting Shadows and discovering who Shinjiro was were just short-term goals that he latched on to and pretended were his purpose. He had always known that in the end, he ultimately lacked the will to live.
"I just wished, this whole time, that I died at the same time that Mom did. I didn't want to live knowing she was gone. It never -- 'justice' was just a convenient excuse to drag someone down with me. All I wanted was someone to pay for how miserable I was, when the one I was the most angry at was me because I couldn't protect her. And now, now Aragaki-san is dead."