While he wouldn't say he'd been looking for an agreement, just voicing what he thought was true about the situation, the fact that he gets one quiets him. It doesn't take that many clues or emotional depth to recognize when someone has been treated similarly. He reminds him of Takaki, a little. Someone whose sweetness seemed all the more pronounced for the hardship he'd endured. That was life — fists against the crests of their cheeks, batons cracking over backs. Some were stern, some were angry, some still sought leverage. Some, like him, weighed anger against patience.

And some were just gentler for it.

"Whether or not you should die isn't something for someone else to decide," Mikazuki replies first, perhaps focusing on the wrong part of the conversation. It sticks with him as something he's had to choose, over and over. "But it's good that you had something to help."

What Atsushi describes doesn't sound all that dissimilar to why he'd wanted to read in the first place... he reaches out to the books sitting on the table again.

"Being able to read is supposed to make your world bigger."