week 6

[airlockedmods]

[Even with three deaths two weeks in a row, life in the Fantasy Sweet returns to some semblance of normalcy come Sunday morning. The messes are cleaned up, the bodies are safe in the morgue (or in Kip's case, still in a liquor bottle in the garden) and with this new week comes a fresh crop of returning memories.

There is no new floor this week.

Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday



[ooc: Don't forget to to turn in your activity for week 5, submit your memory regains and put in your threads for the Benefactors!]

Comments

[serrata]

[ Yes I do. she thinks. Yes, I absolutely do.

What would she have done, all those weeks ago, if her open arms in the garden had been met with a rebuff? Where would she be now if there wasn't a warm bed, a warm body to sleep next to every night? Yuuri cares for the others so much -- they've all, in their own way, helped her and saved her. But that's different, so different from this sort of warmth and this sort of connection -- from Junpei's arms around her, his hands in her hair, his mouth pressed against hers.

She lets out a shaky breath she hadn't been aware she was holding and nods slowly. ]

I... I promised. Mai-chan, way back then. I promised her that I'd live. And... I--I'll promise you the same thing.

[ It's all that gets her up some days here. That promise: the idea that just surviving this place was not enough when she had looked Mai in the eyes when she'd cast her vote and sworn she was going to live. ]

I won't die. We're going to get out of here together and... and somehow... we'll find a way to live. Properly.

[ There aren't very many of the things or people Yuuri loves left. She's not going to let go of the things, the people that still remain. ]

[misanthropicprinciple]

[After a moment, Junpei pulls back, but he puts one hand on her shoulder. They never need to be not touching, not even for this.

Because he's holding up a pinky between them.

Seal the deal, Yuuri. Make this most solemn of oaths. We are going to live.]

[serrata]

[ A pinky promise. She looks a little surprised for a moment. But then, all her breath comes out again in a soggy little laugh. Of course. What good is a promise if you won't pinky swear on it?

Her hand is shaking when she hooks her pinky finger around his, but she's finally smiling. ]

I-- I promise.

[misanthropicprinciple]

Promise.

[He repeats it softly, then leans over their linked pinkies to kiss her between her eyebrows.]

In the meantime, it's my turn to take care of you. All right?

[serrata]

.. I...

[ And still that little voice wants to insist that Junpei is the one who needs to be cared for here, Junpei is the one having a worse time than her. But just this once, Yuuri can't make herself listen to it.

She unlinks their pinkies but only so she can take his hand and entwine their fingers again. ]

Th--then... would you just... hold me for a little longer...? And... t--talk about anything that isn't this. I need to hear you talk about... something, anything.

[misanthropicprinciple]

[Junpei is most certainly not having a worse time than her. Junpei doesn't have a sister, hasn't spoken to his family in a year, doesn't have anything to lose with these memories. Not anymore.

So he holds her and he settles back. He'll hold her for as long as she needs.]

Uh, something to talk about...

[He looks at the ceiling as he thinks, his thumb moving idly, rhythmically over hers.]

...I never explained about the rabbits, did I? Why a rabbit tattoo would mean something to me.

[serrata]

[ A shake of the head. ]

No. You said it was... something to do with why you decided to become a detective. But you didn't say anything else about it.

[misanthropicprinciple]

[His voice is a little distant as he remembers.]

When I was twelve... my elementary school, we kept animals, you know? Rabbits, chickens, guinea pigs. And of course, taking care of them was one of our morning duties.

No one wanted to do it... I mean, we were twelve, so at least we guys were at that age where we didn't want anything to do with anything cute. But... I had one friend. My... my very best friend, I guess you could call her. We'd been together since we were six. Akane... Akane Kurashiki.

[He's not sure he's ever said her name aloud, here in the murder mansion. It's only floated in the air around him like a ghost he can't--or won't--escape.]

She volunteered, so I did, too.

[serrata]

[ Her eyes are shut -- she's got the dull headache that comes with crying pounding behind them and the relative dark of having them shut is soothing it a little. But she's awake and she's nodding along to let him know she's listening. ]

That sounds nice. [ and then, as she connects the dots: ] Is she the friend you were talking about a few weeks ago? The one you said your parents knew you were always with whenever you went out.

[misanthropicprinciple]

Mm. She was kind of weird, so the other kids thought she was creepy. It was always just the two of us.

[I.e., Junpei was kind of a weird kid, too.]

One day, though, I overslept... and when I got to the hutch to take care of the rabbits, Akane was there. Crying.

Someone... had killed them. [His arms tighten gently around Yuuri. She didn't ask for something so gruesome, so he tries to move on quickly.] Even when the teachers came, she couldn't stop crying, so--so I told her...

[He closes his eyes, remembering not the event itself, but Akane retelling it to him in a timeline he's not even sure is this one.]

"Don't cry. I'm gonna catch the person who did this."

[...]

That was the only thing that helped. Those words... brought back her smile.

[serrata]

[ She can't imagine how awful and spiteful someone would have to be to do something like that. Hurting animals is bad enough but to break in and terrorize a pair of children like that -- it makes her feel a little sick to consider it.

But then she gives the tiniest smile and reaches up with her free hand, feeling a little blindly, fingers trailing over his jaw until her hand comes to rest on his cheek, her thumb brushing it lightly. ]

... That sounds exactly like the sort of thing you'd do. [ Even back then, he was still so very Junpei, wasn't he? ] Did you manage it?

[misanthropicprinciple]

Well... sort of. Not at the time. The two of us, we snuck out and stayed there every night that summer vacation because we thought they might come back for the other animals, but they never showed up.

['Yeah, but the animals didn't get attacked either. I think all that work amounted to something, you know?'

He leans into Yuuri's hand.]

A little later on, though, I found some local junior high school kids torturing a stray cat. Turns out it was them.

[serrata]

Middle schoolers...

[ Not much older than Ruu, probably. She can hardly imagine it -- children can be cruel and thoughtless but it stuns her a little to imagine middle schoolers going that far. ]

So what did you do? Report them to someone?

[ There's a beat as she considers her own words and lets out a sigh that's almost a laugh. ]

No, no, I know exactly what happened. Did you go wading in with both fists swinging?

[misanthropicprinciple]

Someone had to save the cat!

[He's almost whining. Come on, cut him some slack, it was for a good cause! ...And maybe, just maybe, he's hoping it'll cheer her up a little.]

He was just a little guy, he never did anything to them. I threw him to Akane and she went to call the police, and... okay, yes, it did come to blows in the meantime, but they were assholes, can you blame me?

[serrata]

[ And it works -- mostly, anyway. The laugh she gives this time is a warmer one, a real one, even if it still comes out sounding like a real effort. ]

No, I don't blame you at all, I just... I was just thinking. It sounds so much like the exact kind of thing I'd expect you to do.

[ It's... reassuring, in a way. That, even as a tiny, scrappy little boy, that was still the kind of person Junpei was. ]

That was almost like... your first case then, wasn't it? Your first investigation.

[misanthropicprinciple]

Hm. Yeah.

[He started to say as much to Queenie the other day, didn't he? His first stakeout.]

Guess so. Though I'd like to think I got better at it since elementary school. ...Also better at fighting, though I'm afraid to ask Nishitani-san for his opinion on that front.

[serrata]

I'd bet on you in a fight. Maybe not against Nishitani-san, though.

[ Rabbits. He'd made a joke of it back then, like he thought Yuuri might laugh at him anyway so he might as well own the derision. But now she can't imagine anything less funny. ]

That's what you wanted to remember, then. The first time you solved a case.

[misanthropicprinciple]

...It's less about solving anything, really. I kind of stumbled over the answer by chance. But...

[His thumb strums idly down Yuuri's arm.]

That feeling... when I told Kanny I'd catch those assholes for her, and she stopped crying...

[Has he ever been anything else?]

A lot's happened since then. I--I've forgotten how it felt, then, more than once. But I think. I think that's the first time I ever felt... like I knew exactly what I had to do. And that I could do it. And that I was.

Have you ever felt like that?

[serrata]

[ "Me and Yuuri-chan decided on it. It'll be so much fun, I promise!"
"How could anything... be fun, ever again?"
"Because we're starting a club! All of us together. The School Living Club."
"... a... a club...?"

Yuuri lets out a long, slow breath. And then she nods. ]

... yes. Something like that, anyway.

Like everything just... clicks into place. And you feel silly for never even considering it before. That kind of thing?

[misanthropicprinciple]

[His fingers find the ends of her hair again, play idly through them without holding or smoothing, as if it's rain, free to fall on him where it will.]

Yeah. I don't--I don't believe in fate, or that God has a plan or anything. But... I think when you find that thing that means something, nothing ever really turns you back from it.