[Yusuke sees Steve moving around out of the corner of his eye, but he doesn't look at her. He just keeps his eyes on Blake, and regards him levelly for a while before responding.]
Y'know, the whole reason I brought all this up in the first place was because I've seen people who've done some pretty horrible things in their lives turn things around. The two guys I was talking about, my teammates? I don't exactly have a list of all the stuff they did wrong, and I don't want one 'cause I don't think it matters, but I can tell you that they've lied and stolen and probably killed a bunch of people for their own gains. As for me? Skipping school and smashing peoples' faces into the concrete might not be that bad, but I can tell you straight up that if I hadn't gotten hit by that car and experienced all the weird crap that happened after that, I woulda gone on to do much worse. I mean, c'mon, d'you seriously think there isn't a reason why not even the guys upstairs expected me to do anything good? I didn't think anybody gave a shit about me, so I didn't give a shit about anybody else. Didn't care what I did or who I hurt. The only thing that mattered to me was that at the end of the day, I felt better about myself, even if it meant stepping all over everybody else.
Basically, I was a selfish piece of shit. Tch, hell, I probably still am, in a lot of ways. In fact, I think the only real decent one out of the four of us on my team is my rival, and he's kind of a screw-up too. Leader of a gang, gets into fights all the time, pisses off our teachers about as much as I do. But he does his best to do the right thing, and so do the rest of us. I mean, Hiei's a little... eh, but uh...
[Yusuke stalls for a second, then shakes his head. He's just not even going to try to explain Hiei right now. After all, just because he understands that Hiei's a good guy despite being angry and misanthropic doesn't mean Blake will.]
Look. The point is, if a couple thugs and criminals can help people and redeem themselves and all that junk, I don't see why anyone else can't. I don't know what you did, old man, but whatever it is, you don't have to go to Hell to make up for it. That doesn't have to be the solution.
no subject
Y'know, the whole reason I brought all this up in the first place was because I've seen people who've done some pretty horrible things in their lives turn things around. The two guys I was talking about, my teammates? I don't exactly have a list of all the stuff they did wrong, and I don't want one 'cause I don't think it matters, but I can tell you that they've lied and stolen and probably killed a bunch of people for their own gains. As for me? Skipping school and smashing peoples' faces into the concrete might not be that bad, but I can tell you straight up that if I hadn't gotten hit by that car and experienced all the weird crap that happened after that, I woulda gone on to do much worse. I mean, c'mon, d'you seriously think there isn't a reason why not even the guys upstairs expected me to do anything good? I didn't think anybody gave a shit about me, so I didn't give a shit about anybody else. Didn't care what I did or who I hurt. The only thing that mattered to me was that at the end of the day, I felt better about myself, even if it meant stepping all over everybody else.
Basically, I was a selfish piece of shit. Tch, hell, I probably still am, in a lot of ways. In fact, I think the only real decent one out of the four of us on my team is my rival, and he's kind of a screw-up too. Leader of a gang, gets into fights all the time, pisses off our teachers about as much as I do. But he does his best to do the right thing, and so do the rest of us. I mean, Hiei's a little... eh, but uh...
[Yusuke stalls for a second, then shakes his head. He's just not even going to try to explain Hiei right now. After all, just because he understands that Hiei's a good guy despite being angry and misanthropic doesn't mean Blake will.]
Look. The point is, if a couple thugs and criminals can help people and redeem themselves and all that junk, I don't see why anyone else can't. I don't know what you did, old man, but whatever it is, you don't have to go to Hell to make up for it. That doesn't have to be the solution.