[ Sometimes you are eighteen, and plucked away to a weird pocket dimension battle royale while in the midst of a mental health crisis, and trying to hide said mental health crisis from your best friend with whom you get to be close again, and also people are dying left and right, and you both might also die at any moment, and then your best friend tells you that you did not in fact triumph over your struggles and murdered a village full of people as well as your own parents. And also your ass is fat as hell.

It's a lot to process, and Satoru getting in his face doesn't help. He can't reconcile I don't want to leave him with you're a curse user with I care about you, and for a moment he embraces the future that Satoru had just described. It obviously doesn't matter anymore. He's not going to survive this marathon, anyway. It would be easier just not to care.

His hand drops, and he looks at Satoru as requested. ]

You only care about yourself.

[ Not true. He knows it's not true. But he's ricocheting between fear and hurt and apathy, and he just wants Satoru to leave him alone so that he can sort out his thoughts. But there's a fog in his head, emotion taking over reason, and he can't think clearly anymore.

His hand closes over the one Satoru has bunched in his shirt. ]

You don't want to be alone, so you're trying to manipulate me into staying. Isn't that what it really is?

[ In his mind, he delivers this with a cold cruelty, and maybe in another time, without all of this, he might've. But in reality, his voice shakes with uncertainty, mind begging his heart to give up on the fear that's currently suffocating him. He can't keep up, that he already knew, but now he doesn't even want to try.

And now, he has no right to ever even ask Satoru for help.

He can't put any of that it words though, so he just tightens his hold on Satoru's hand and lunges forward to headbutt him in the face. ]