#im continuing my reply in the tags bc im embarrassed now LMAO but fr words cant explain how much i appreciate everything you have said

[touyaz]

I just read "let us love each other until the end" on AO3 and had to run to gush about it. The bathroom scene, with Toge signing "I'm sorry" in Japanese over and over is one of the most beautiful pieces of literature I have ever read. (I should preface this with I am deaf lol) There's a certain intimacy with signing wholeheartedly like you described, and I can tell how much work you put into researching how to convey signing while writing and I really appreciate it. <3

HIII first of all I'm so sorry for getting to this sooo late but pls know I've thought abt it countless times since you sent it in & it makes me so 🥰💗🥹 I'm really glad you liked it so much!!! I think the bathroom scene is like. one of my most favourite scenes ever written. and him sitting on a stool in a bathtub, staring at the ground, hair soaking wet, was the only thought I had going in to write that fic lmao

also I'm like. over the moon at how that kind of intimacy came through!! for me bathrooms have always been this kind of safe space where you're free with your own thoughts. you're like an open wound but you can control what infects it (you) - you can let in whoever you want. and inumaki doesn't /want/ to let the reader in, per se, but he bears the pain and lets them in anyway. and I think there's this added vulnerability that comes with being so exposed (literally and figuratively lol) in a bathroom when you're not alone and your safe space isn't just yours anymore. and it's like he's at his lowest and he feels useless and pathetic and utterly unlovable but he's already let you in so now he thinks you should stay. the damage has been done and now he wants you stay. despite it all. is that too much to ask for? that you stay even though you know he's not worth it? he finds himself desperately clinging to the hope that you say no. that you shut the door behind yourself and you lather shampoo in your hands and you tell him that he doesn't even need to ask. there's just something so needy, so pleading in his repetition. his begging the reader to look at me. please look at me. please don't leave me, too.