Thank you so much for your comments! Pretty much everyone ends the fic in a terrible situation but of them I sympathize with Akira the most; it's heartbreaking watching him try to empathize and understand and facilitate and distract and focus and do all of these things trying to help Hikaru, whom he treasures, but who keeps pulling further and further away from him. Akira isn't a saint, and the things Hikaru is doing must hurt him horribly, and it's really for him that a sequel is gnawing at the back of my brain OH GOD MUST WAIT 'TIL AFTER DEATHMATCH IS OVER AHHHH