[ There's another significant pause before he does his best to spit it out. Like trying to catch a ghost in his hands. Grains of sand slipping through cracks between his fingers. How does he begin to make Akechi understand– ]

What happened to us was... only for us.

[ A hand comes up out of the water to wave off a protest before it starts. ]

I don't mean that for sentimental reasons. [ Well, not entirely. ] I value what little privacy either of us can still have. I do believe that those other lives were real in their own way, but who's to say anyone but us will ever experience them?

[ A beat, and then– ]

If Okumura lived through the fight against my ideal reality, I still wouldn't consider it the same as what you and I found ourselves remembering. When I try to think of my interactions with anyone other than you and Kurusu, it gets too hazy. I don't think others are meant to see what we saw, in any of those realities.