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Megumi asks him for the Full Story. The capitalization is implied in the way he shapes his words, in the grave tone he uses, in the careful tilt of his head like he’s afraid Satoru will run away like a scared animal.
Satoru just might. People don’t ask him for the Full Story. They can’t stomach it, or maybe they think Satoru himself can’t, and it’s more likely than not that both are equally true. Tragedy for tragedy’s sake is quite a vulgar thing.
Because the Full Story offers no lesson, no satisfying conclusion to pass on to your children as a cautionary tale. There was blood, it was sad, and it left everyone worse for the wear. This is what everyone knows. They don’t ask for more. And Satoru never offers more, because he has given away so much already. This he keeps.
But the thing is, the wheels of History never stop turning and the snake eats its own tail and Satoru finds himself watching their story play out all over again. Same script, same stage, different actors. Satoru is given a front row seat and forced to watch while someone he swore to protect plays a role that was once his.
The snake tries to swallow itself whole. Satoru cannot bear to watch it. Satoru cannot look away.
This is what he should tell Fushiguro Megumi, a boy in love with a devil:
You love him, but you can’t save him, and you’ll bleed yourself dry trying. He will go, and you will stay, but the most important parts of you will go with him. You are two against the world, but the world is cruel and unfair. You are running from your fate and yet you don’t mind because his hand is on yours as you pull him along desperately, tirelessly. The sound of ticking clocks and falling bodies wakes you up at night and these will never go away, even when he does. You are following him into hell, a perversion of Orpheus and Eurydice but you never even look back. You are in love with a boy who is a devil and who will soon be a ghost. You will be haunted for the rest of your life. You are haunted already, because the noose has been around his neck since the beginning.
If someone had told Satoru that, maybe things would have gone differently. But even now, after the blood and the tears and the broken promises, he can't find it in himself to regret. Even if someone had warned him, it would have taken only one look at his best friend not yet turned devil for him to discard it completely. Maybe they had been damned since the beginning, but their hands fit so well together. Satoru would have chosen that road even knowing where it led. He would have loved him with caution signs and all.
And because this role was his before, Satoru recognizes the look on Megumi’s face. This is a boy who has looked a devil in the eye and said, there is a soul inside of him and I will fight you for it.
Satoru doesn’t have the heart to tell him he knows how this story ends.
He doesn’t have the heart because he sees how their hands find their way to each other, even in the dark, even in their sleep. He knows too well how that feels.
So this is what he tells Fushiguro Megumi, a boy in love with a devil:
I know they only speak about the blood. But that was not all there was.
Megumi nods, and thanks him. For what, he doesn’t know.
Satoru watches him go and hopes for a better ending this time.
The snake eats its own tail.
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[The Full Story is this: you can have all the power in the world, but some monsters you just can’t kill]