compnetwork | > 01. [text]

Yeah, if you want.

When?

[Not even a protest. That's a good start.]

Maybe after dinner?

Or we could get something and bring it back...

[As long as she's out of his apartment by ten like a respectable young woman. His bedroom is also off-limits. It's blocked by an intimidating cardboard box.

His response comes a minute later.]

You know what you want?

[He doesn't know the city yet, but he can scout out a place that'd be decent. Or, hell, just make it if everywhere else was crappy. At this, he wonders vaguely which option would be less awkward.]

Edited 2012-09-15 02:07 (UTC)

[Cardboard, really... That's the best he can do?

Although she's actually not thinking of invading the bedroom at this point in time. As for the food, though, she's maybe not so secretly hoping he'll make it...

He did promise earlier, right?]

I'm up for whatever you are!

[It has the bus stop sign Q gave him in it. What more can you want?

There's a longer space between replies this time around as he debates between the options, taking mental stock of the available cookware he has in his apartment. There's not much, which limits what he can cook efficiently if he goes that route. But there is a rice cooker and a few pans and some bowls. Small as hell gas stove, but he can make do with enough time. Some kind of nabemono? He'd only need one main bowl going that route. But no, too many damn implications in that. Stupid as hell idea. He doesn't need to start implying anything.

Some kind of donburi? That's safe, familiar, and simple. Substitute frying with something healthier—screw tradition. Vegetables, rice. She liked sweeter things, didn't she? So a sweeter sauce.

Might as well. He needed to grab food anyway. Shove some damn vegetables into Aki's refrigerator while he's at it.]

Chicken, beef, or pork?

[You should hang that sign proudly on the wall, not stick it in a box!

While she wouldn't normally mind the implications, it would probably make tonight's topic a little easier without them...]

Hmm.... beef!

[She's a growing girl and needs lots of red meat. Also, good luck giving vegetables to Akihiko.]

[He had a feeling.

If she wasn't planning on something serious, she would have just ambushed him on his way back to his apartment, considering his place is only two doors down from hers. Half of why he agreed without some part of him protesting in silence for even a few seconds.]

Alright.

[Word economy. He embraces it.]

7:30 fine? Should have things done by then.

[the previous question, added to 'have things done' is a very good sign for her.]

I'll be ready!

[and she will, knocking at the door right on the dot. Of course, it's not like the walk was very far.]

[Of course she will. And Shinjiro's ready when she does. At the very least, he knows how to budget cooking time.

The meal's ready and still hot, though cooling on the Western-style table where the places had been set. The dishes, save the ones they're eating from, are washed and put back where they belong. The intimidating cardboard box is still where Shinjiro had set it while going through his things that had been packaged inside. It's now empty, languishing in Nietzschean-brand Nihilism in its little corner. Stare into it long enough, and it might just stare back into you.

Other than that, his apartment is as empty as his room back in the dorm had been—though that is likely true for most people at this point. Nobody came with all their baggage, and the apartments are small enough that space is at a definite premium.

When he hears the knock at the door, he immediately goes to open it, for once lacking the familiar pea coat that's as much his calling card as anything else is. Without an apron, he wasn't about to chance getting cooking stains on it, though, as usual, his clothing remains unsoiled from his cooking ventures.

He sighs, shaking his head (guess it's now or never then), and finally opens the door, letting her inside. He'll try to push back the awkwardness that still remains. He gestures to the table.]

It's done, so you can sit down if you want.

[The smell from his small kitchen is enough to permeate the door and set her mouth watering even before he lets her inside. She's not surprised to see the sparse decorations... It's actually a little comforting, in a way, to see he hadn't changed in that. Maybe she should buy him a plant or a picture sometime.

...Or maybe not. She'd never been particularly good at filling her own living space, either. The frequent moves conditioned her against buying anything too hard to transport and too precious to leave behind.

She quickly kicks off her shoes and steps into the room. The food still smells amazing and she wastes no time in sitting as he requested.]

Thanks for the food!

[She picks up the chopsticks and... waits expectantly for him to sit down as well. She's not greedy enough to start when he's not ready, too.]

[He arches an eyebrow, shutting the door.]

You don't need to wait for me.

[He follows her to the table, sitting down, picking up his chopsticks by the side of his beef bowl—one that has enough green in it to satisfy his idea of a meal with balanced nutritional content.]

Just dig in. That's what the food's there for.

[She won't complain about vegetables... With the way he cooks, every bite is delicious. Even the healthy ones.]

Okay, then... [And she starts to eat.

As expected, it's amazing.]

[He follows suit, mentally making a note to shop at that market after. The ingredients meet his standard, and the pricing was reasonable. Feels pretty damn strange to have his own kitchen to make use of, without having to share with everyone else in the dorm. Smell Fuuka dutifully burning food every morning. Watch Aki dump a cupful of protein over his damn pancakes. Wonder why Iori even ate that cheap store-bought ramen.

It's absurd, but a part of him actually misses it.]

Well, might as well tell me what trouble you all've been up to. Sure you've got a hundred stories up your sleeve.

[And he doesn't mean about Tartarus or the Dark Hour or the harder things that embody the wolf that's listening at the door. He means the softer things. The ones that don't seem to mean much in the beginning, but in the end mean everything, because in the end those are the things that balance out the scales and keep the void at bay. They're the stupid things everyone's supposed to get up to while you have the chance to make mistakes you can look back on fondly. The simple every-day occurrences that make the dark corners seem lighter.

He's always been able to listen to those, even though he has never been able to offer much in return.]

[She knows that's what he'd rather hear. It's what she'd rather talk about... the silly days in school, what strange things her friends said or what she'd watched on TV last week. But that's not why she came here. Things after his accident had snowballed into stress and worry and saving the world. It was impossible to just separate the good from the bad, as if one part had never happened.]

Mm, I do... but I'll need to start at the beginning.

[He arches an eyebrow in an almost silent "you sure?" But nods after a long moment.]

Do whatever you need to do.

[She nods.]

After you went to the hospital... nothing big happened until next month, when we went to fight the last Shadow. That one was the Hanged Man.

[In her opinion, she's said nothing strange so far. But he might disagree.]

[Yeah. No. That statement catches him off-guard, and it takes all he has to not give into the inclination to choke on his food. His voice comes out as a strained, surprised "What?" He knows what Aki had told him, read into the implications of what he said: that he had died and that was the end of it.

He can't even think of how they managed. Hospitals didn't operate during The Dark Hour. He remembers the world suddenly not making much sense anymore and how everything across his vision started to turn into simplistic streaks of color, accompanied by the dull thought that he was bleeding out. When you go down that fast, there's usually not much to save. He was supposed to die anyway. That's what Ken had wanted, isn't it? He had deserved it. A bullet for each of them. One for for Ken, one for his mother, and one for everyone else—Minako and Aki included—that he had done wrong to.

But it also can't be that simple, because if he was just simply alert and hospital-bound, Minako wouldn't have acted the way she did.

So how the hell—]

So I'm not—

[His reaction catches her off guard, as well.

Did he not know?

She'd thought - in those last days, she'd heard some students talking, about how the guy in the hospital had woken up. She hadn't been able to follow up on it. She was too tired, and besides, it would have been painful to go there only for him to not remember anything at all... or worse, find the rumor wasn't even true. But she'd hoped.

Even after she's gone, he'd be able to keep living.

She's stupid. She should have realized earlier there was something off. If he'd known about the hospital he would have said something, been happier to see her. Maybe she'd just brushed it off as his usual stoic air of gloom. But then why hadn't Akihiko said anything either? It would be like him to tease, 'so you've finally gotten out of bed.'

Maybe, he'd assumed the same? Or -]

No! Of course you're not - [she can't bring herself to say the word.] You've just been in a coma. [Even though 'just' is obviously understating it.]

You... really didn't know?

[He shakes his head. Looks somewhere else.]

No. The Dark Hour's the last thing I remember.

[So that's it. He's just hooked up to a bunch of machines then. Nothing but a body full of wires instead of bullets. What are the chances of waking up from that? Or even being the same? A coma hints at some kind of neurological damage, doesn't it? His body had probably just went into shock and spiralled down from there. With his body as shitty as it apparently is—he may not like Takaya, but he had probably known what he was talking about—maybe he shouldn't be surprised. Except he is.]

And... [he pauses] that's not what Aki told me.

[Her heart is plummeting, mind already coming to conclusions she doesn't want to reach.

She shouldn't ask. She doesn't want the confirmation -]

What did he tell you?

[Now he's not sure not sure what to think. Was this just another way the timeline was screwing with them, or had he just died later on? Aki did seem to remember more than anyone else. He hadn't gotten the specifics from him, about what had happened that night and afterward, but he didn't think he had to. He thought the outcome had been pretty damn clear.

And now it looks like he'll have to ask Aki later, though he doesn't want to, but it looks like it needs to be done, and no one else should have to do it.]

He said he wasn't too happy with me leaving him behind.

[It's the kindest way he can think of putting it.]

[But she already knows. Akihiko wouldn't have made that kind of admission unless it was the truth.

In his world, he'd been left behind.

One timeline, death. The other, a coma. What’s the missing link? The trigger of the butterfly effect? The answer comes rushing out, unbidden -]

The pocketwatch....

[That old watch he’d given up on completely, despite it being precious to him. The watch she’d scoured the city and badgered Officer Kurosawa into handing back over. The watch the doctor had said deflected the second bullet, saving his life...]

Edited 2012-09-15 21:38 (UTC)

[He tilts his head, a brief, quizzical look coloring his expression.]

My—

[He cuts himself off, trying to follow Minako's trail of thought in the ensuing silence. It takes him a moment, his own thoughts racing from one line of reasoning to the other like an electric current, until they suddenly find a point of connection, taking to it like a sudden spark that brings a room to light—and from there, the answer comes to him, and he finally thinks he understands.

He sets down his chopsticks, pushing back his chair and standing up wordlessly. Within another few seconds he's slid open the door to his bedroom, entering inside, finding his coat and digging the pocketwatch out of its usual hiding place.

So this was the proverbial nail?

Would he have even said anything to Minato about it? Minato seemed like a quiet guy, more prone to understanding the value of silence than about the benefits of filling the void and making sure nothing stayed empty for too long. Minato wasn't someone he'd stay up talking about aimless things into the night with (even if he wasn't the one doing much of the talking). He can only see their conversations being brief and to the point. He hadn't intended to say anything about the watch in the first place. It just happened as an off-hand comment; he really hadn't expected Minako to actually look for it. That was why he hadn't told Aki, because that idiot would have gone looking for it and probably gotten himself into trouble over something he had stupidly lost in the first place.

He had told himself he didn't need it, sentimentality be damned.

He returns to the table with the pocketwatch in hand, staring down at the bullet-shaped indentation in its casing for a few seconds before offering it to her.]

This thing?

[The casing doesn't close all the way because of the indent in the metal, and the glass inside is damaged where it took the bullet, a cobweb of cracked lines that make the IV almost unreadable, but it's still ticking, oddly enough. It's keeping Port Island time, he supposes, or maybe its own. He hasn't dared correct it. He doesn't want to break it.]

Edited 2012-09-16 00:10 (UTC)

[Looking at Shinjiro now, one would never guess just how bad he'd looked that night. The coat is clean and repaired. The watch, though... it told the whole story.

She'd seen it once after the accident, when the doctors told them about it, but it hadn't been in the box of things left in his room. Maybe Akihiko had kept it, or maybe he'd left it in the hospital room. The latter felt more likely. It was a wake-up-soon charm.]

They said if it hadn't been there you'd probably have died.

[No, now they knew he would have died.

She doesn’t know for certain how Minato and Shinjiro’s friendship went, but she can imagine. Minato isn’t pushy the way she is. He wouldn’t have shoved his way into his senpai’s private life and business. They likely sat at the same table in the dorm, or leaned against the same wall, not speaking but sharing the same space. Minato would have supported Shinjiro quietly, with brief conversations and an unstated trust, and Shinjiro would have come to respect the distance. Acted like a real senpai. Not troubled his leader with ‘minor’ things.

Minato probably never even knew the watch was lost.

Her thumb runs over the bullet marking for a moment before she sets it back on the table.]

Please... don’t tell Minato. [One tiny act no one could have predicted had meant the life or death of a friend. Minako knows how she’d react, if the situations were reversed. She doesn’t want her brother to even get the chance to feel that guilt. He doesn’t deserve it.]

Edited 2012-09-16 00:29 (UTC)

He doesn't need to know.

[If this was really the only thing that stood between him living and dying—regardless of how much time it actually bought him when coupled with everything he knows and feels—then her brother doesn't need that haunting his mind.

In fact—]

None of them do.

[At all. Not Aki and not Mitsuru. There are a lot of things that are better left unsaid, even if the truth is something that they're probably owed. Honesty and kindness don't always go hand-in-hand, and there are often times you are forced to choose between the two. They don't need to know he's in a hospital bed, veins plugged with wires, probably with some machine doing the breathing for him. The outcome might even be the same, in the end. And if not, he still sees a gravestone with his name on it somewhere along the horizon.]

I just died that night, all right?

[They'd be happy knowing he was alive, he's sure, even if it isn't currently much of an existence, but he doesn't need them thinking that they had maybe done something wrong. He lost the watch. The fault, ultimately, is his. And the dying part isn't something he regrets—or that his other self would; it had been what Amada had wanted. All he regrets is hurting other people in the process. If he could stop that, he would.]

Edited 2012-09-16 00:58 (UTC)

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