[ he stares at her for a moment, unblinking, uncomprehending but trying to make sense of these questions and why she's asking. is she asking about syo? makima? he's never died before. not as himself, the him raising his hand to catch fukawa's before they slip away, pressing cold fingers against his face, damp with tears but warm. ]
No. You don't have to do anything you don't want to.
[This does something to her, a simple phrase. As loaded as a cannon, though, considering what she's been asked of by ghosts. By effigies of people she knows.
He hadn't been there for much of it. player-run cyoas limit crew doxxing. But he'd been an inciting incident. The threat that he could have appeared, could have made the same demands of her...that alone makes her wary.
But he doesn't demand anything from her at all. Just begs for her hands. Touch itself.
Fukawa shifts, wincing at the soreness of her muscles. The injurys were gone, cosmetically, but the interiors needed time to massage back into place. For now she'll stay gentle with herself as she tries to crawl closer, meet him at the lip of the pit.]
Then I p-picked a life where you're still here. Is that wh-what happened? Or is it about to go wrong again?
[ well. he can't exactly promise that nothing will go wrong, with the track record this place has. he thinks he's been spending more time crying his eyes out at the medical tent or by the antenna than he has been working on sets. every day something happens.
it's a difficult question to answer, and so he doesn't. ]
Toko. Look at me.
[ look into his eyes. feel his hands. just for a second. ]
[She does. Her hand reflexively tightens around his, and she wets her lips.
Looks around, as bidden. Gnaws on her bottom lip while the upper trembles, watery eyes darting between things that are familiar and things that never were.]
I d-don't know. We were — in the village, together. But then we're here, together. This — c-c-camp? Basecamp? [She pants, as if retrieving the word had required a sprint.] I don't know which one I'm supposed to be in. Wh-which life.
Can't you tell me? I'm n-not smart enough. Tell me where I'm s-supposed to be.
[ he massages her hand as he listens, giving her an encouraging smile when she offers "basecamp" but lets her think things through and try and sort out her thoughts. he's never experienced it himself, but from watching the living stumble back every week and asking fjord about it last week, he can gather enough about overlapping reality shows out there that people are being forced to go through, minds splintering in different times and places compared to reality.
She feels a tear cut and run. Sniffs and presses her cheek to shoulder, erasing it.]
But I've n-never earned the r-right...to have a life with you in it. Any of you.
[that's for certain. After looking at each and every one, there are so few where she's earned even this simple kindness. Least of all from someone like him.]
I'm a bitch. And I'm a c-coward. I t-tear people down and I tell them the worst things and I b-blame them for hating me, when I make them do it.
And I'm a k-killer. I have a killer in me. She k-keeps cutting people up. I never s-say anything to warn anyone, because I'm t-too scared about what will happen to me.
That's true in every life. Every o-one I've looked at, I'm one or the other, or both. I just hurt people. I'm going to hurt you again. Aren't I?
[ again he can't make promises for things that are inevitably going to happen. besides, they're the same in so many aspects, cowards and killers living in a world determined to keep their heads underwater, just doing what they can to survive day by day. ]
That's part of being human, hurting and being hurt. Like how it hurts me to see you like this...
[ not just physically mangled but how she's verbally putting herself down, highlighting the worst parts of herself and undermining everything else. ]
[She writes about it a lot. None of her stories were without pain. Shallow people write shallow, happy novels, or so she's always said. People turn away from those stories after a while, because they offer nothing. Pain is real. It happens. It's relatable, just as ugliness is. In more than one sense.
People like the story best when you can surpass them, though. He says he loves her, again. It's not the first time she's heard it.]
...I hurt, too. Loving you. It really h-hurts so much.
[Fukawa puts her forehead to his. Her hair is long overdue for a cut, and maybe his is a little too. She thinks it looks fine though. Stupid thoughts, to distract her from the piercing pain in her chest where he'd lanced her through the heart.]
[ okay but he doesn't want to hear it turned around on himself, to hear that it hurts to love him. a coward, a killer, a hypocrite who can't stand to hear that he's causing somebody else pain even with good intentions. it's like how he presses his forehead up against hers but really wants nothing more than to pick her up out of that pit and pull her into a hug, tight tight tight. it kills him to have to leave her there and let the treatment run its course. he just wants to take her and run, doom them both.
instead he smiles that smile again, the soft sad one. ]
That makes us equals. So, don't you think we deserve each other?
[there's a version of him she remembers that never was a killer. Where it's only her sins that counted.
There's the version here, where she thinks they hurt each other. No — she's certain of it. If she were the type to believe in such corny things she'd almost think pressing together like this had triggered the recollection. Her memory of this place comes in spreading, erratic patches, like a timelapse of infection.
Deserve is a strong word. He had far less culpability than she did. Maybe she's damning him, clinging so hard.]
You d-deserve the world. [She moves, their noses touched together at the side, her glasses losing grip as they balance between her face and his.] I d-don't know if I'll be able to g-give it to you. But I'll try. I'll give you everything I can. Okay?
[Did they have this conversation already? Versions of it, maybe. She's seem some. Sometimes she's giving it to other people, and in most of those they never say it back. They walk away, and Syo follows them.]
I'm b-being selfish, choosing the one life where someone like you w-would want someone like me.
[Her grip tightens. She nuzzles him, lips dusting his.]
I'm sorry.
[She pulls him into a kiss then. Greedy, loathesome girl. Can't resist taking a bite of forbidden fruit, even when she knows the price.]
[ he kisses her back, as generous as she is greedy because the font of love he has is vast: he can give himself to her, wholly, a deep a kiss as he can manage without crawling into the pit with her.
he doesn't deserve the world, but that's okay, because he doesn't need it. to love and be loved is enough. ]
Are you sorry, Toko? For being with me?
[ he brushes her hair back with his hand, places a palm on her face, thumb stroking her cheek so he can make sure it doesn't tremble and betray him. ]
She takes everything he deigns to give her, tongue to tongue and stealing breath. In a way, it puts life into her better than this plastic tub of balls ever could. That he would still choose her, knowing her at her worst, gives her a new rung on a ladder she thought she'd reached the end of.
Is she sorry for being with him?
Is she happy?
She huffs, half cry and half laugh against him as she clings close.]
I w-was made to see so m-many versions of my own life. Nearly all of them w-were complete shit.
But the ones were I had you...I was n-never happier. Not anywhere else.
[Komaru came close. Komaru was, and is, key, the first step she ever made to living a normal life, knowing she could be worth something to somebody.
But Mikoto made her want to live with a burning passion. For him, for herself, for the things they could be together.]
You m-make me want to be a better person. I don't f-feel like it's impossible anymore, when I'm with you.
Was that what your "challenge" was, trying out different lives?
[ in literally any other production company that would've made for great tv. imagine a life where he got therapy and actual coping mechanisms. imagine a life where he became a photographer instead of a designer, or maybe he was actually good at baseball and went the athlete route, or any other little tweaks in his life- any little change might have made life more bearable than it was
but then he wouldn't have come here
he wouldn't have met fukawa
in another life maybe he would have been happy and healthy and well adjusted, but he wouldn't change anything for what he has right now. ]
[It's a little clearer now, the whole of it. She doesn't feel as lost in any part of it. Something about the sharpness of the words exchanged here, each one a knife to cut through layers of delusion. She feels very raw, a skin peeled back. Simplified.]
There was some k-kind of medieval theme. Sorcery. A dragon. [The state of her arrival, legs mauled and covered in vomit and spit might shed some light on what happened there.] But there w-was a part with some kind of magic...thing. I got sent to this place full of m-mirrors, and my lives were playing on them. Every v-version of them I might live. Syo was with me there, separately. We both had to watch.
People I knew kept appearing, telling me I had to choose...ch-choose one.
[Like she'd said. None of them were very good. Fukawa grimaces, and moves to let the side of her head rest on his shoulder. Let her tell the rest of the story to the soft skin of his neck. Confessing sins to the mortal wound she once made.]
I th-thought I'd picked right. Then Komaru came. I think it was...it looked just like her? Sounded...And sh-she asked if I was sure. S-said that if I was choosing a life wh-where I'd hurt people before, then I'm basically refusing to change. That I might as well just stay in that in-between place, than go back and hurt someone else.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
He puts a second hand atop hers. She reaches with hers, disbelieving until fingertips are putting soft hollows into his cheek. Warm, real.
Warmer than she had been.]
...She killed you.
You're...here to sh-show me it again. Aren't you? I have to watch it again?
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No. You don't have to do anything you don't want to.
no subject
He hadn't been there for much of it.
player-run cyoas limit crew doxxing.But he'd been an inciting incident. The threat that he could have appeared, could have made the same demands of her...that alone makes her wary.But he doesn't demand anything from her at all. Just begs for her hands. Touch itself.
Fukawa shifts, wincing at the soreness of her muscles. The injurys were gone, cosmetically, but the interiors needed time to massage back into place. For now she'll stay gentle with herself as she tries to crawl closer, meet him at the lip of the pit.]
Then I p-picked a life where you're still here. Is that wh-what happened? Or is it about to go wrong again?
no subject
it's a difficult question to answer, and so he doesn't. ]
Toko. Look at me.
[ look into his eyes. feel his hands. just for a second. ]
Now look around. Tell me where we are.
no subject
Looks around, as bidden. Gnaws on her bottom lip while the upper trembles, watery eyes darting between things that are familiar and things that never were.]
I d-don't know. We were — in the village, together. But then we're here, together. This — c-c-camp? Basecamp? [She pants, as if retrieving the word had required a sprint.] I don't know which one I'm supposed to be in. Wh-which life.
Can't you tell me? I'm n-not smart enough. Tell me where I'm s-supposed to be.
no subject
funny thought, calling this place reality.
but it is. ]
It's your life, Toko. Your one and only.
no subject
She feels a tear cut and run. Sniffs and presses her cheek to shoulder, erasing it.]
But I've n-never earned the r-right...to have a life with you in it. Any of you.
[that's for certain. After looking at each and every one, there are so few where she's earned even this simple kindness. Least of all from someone like him.]
I'm a bitch. And I'm a c-coward. I t-tear people down and I tell them the worst things and I b-blame them for hating me, when I make them do it.
And I'm a k-killer. I have a killer in me. She k-keeps cutting people up. I never s-say anything to warn anyone, because I'm t-too scared about what will happen to me.
That's true in every life. Every o-one I've looked at, I'm one or the other, or both. I just hurt people. I'm going to hurt you again. Aren't I?
no subject
That's part of being human, hurting and being hurt. Like how it hurts me to see you like this...
[ not just physically mangled but how she's verbally putting herself down, highlighting the worst parts of herself and undermining everything else. ]
It hurts because I love you.
no subject
[She writes about it a lot. None of her stories were without pain. Shallow people write shallow, happy novels, or so she's always said. People turn away from those stories after a while, because they offer nothing. Pain is real. It happens. It's relatable, just as ugliness is. In more than one sense.
People like the story best when you can surpass them, though. He says he loves her, again. It's not the first time she's heard it.]
...I hurt, too. Loving you. It really h-hurts so much.
[Fukawa puts her forehead to his. Her hair is long overdue for a cut, and maybe his is a little too. She thinks it looks fine though. Stupid thoughts, to distract her from the piercing pain in her chest where he'd lanced her through the heart.]
no subject
instead he smiles that smile again, the soft sad one. ]
That makes us equals. So, don't you think we deserve each other?
no subject
There's the version here, where she thinks they hurt each other. No — she's certain of it. If she were the type to believe in such corny things she'd almost think pressing together like this had triggered the recollection. Her memory of this place comes in spreading, erratic patches, like a timelapse of infection.
Deserve is a strong word. He had far less culpability than she did. Maybe she's damning him, clinging so hard.]
You d-deserve the world. [She moves, their noses touched together at the side, her glasses losing grip as they balance between her face and his.] I d-don't know if I'll be able to g-give it to you. But I'll try. I'll give you everything I can. Okay?
[Did they have this conversation already? Versions of it, maybe. She's seem some. Sometimes she's giving it to other people, and in most of those they never say it back. They walk away, and Syo follows them.]
I'm b-being selfish, choosing the one life where someone like you w-would want someone like me.
[Her grip tightens. She nuzzles him, lips dusting his.]
I'm sorry.
[She pulls him into a kiss then. Greedy, loathesome girl. Can't resist taking a bite of forbidden fruit, even when she knows the price.]
no subject
he doesn't deserve the world, but that's okay, because he doesn't need it. to love and be loved is enough. ]
Are you sorry, Toko? For being with me?
[ he brushes her hair back with his hand, places a palm on her face, thumb stroking her cheek so he can make sure it doesn't tremble and betray him. ]
If you're happy with me, don't say you're sorry.
no subject
She takes everything he deigns to give her, tongue to tongue and stealing breath. In a way, it puts life into her better than this plastic tub of balls ever could. That he would still choose her, knowing her at her worst, gives her a new rung on a ladder she thought she'd reached the end of.
Is she sorry for being with him?
Is she happy?
She huffs, half cry and half laugh against him as she clings close.]
I w-was made to see so m-many versions of my own life. Nearly all of them w-were complete shit.
But the ones were I had you...I was n-never happier. Not anywhere else.
[Komaru came close. Komaru was, and is, key, the first step she ever made to living a normal life, knowing she could be worth something to somebody.
But Mikoto made her want to live with a burning passion. For him, for herself, for the things they could be together.]
You m-make me want to be a better person. I don't f-feel like it's impossible anymore, when I'm with you.
no subject
[ in literally any other production company that would've made for great tv. imagine a life where he got therapy and actual coping mechanisms. imagine a life where he became a photographer instead of a designer, or maybe he was actually good at baseball and went the athlete route, or any other little tweaks in his life- any little change might have made life more bearable than it was
but then he wouldn't have come here
he wouldn't have met fukawa
in another life maybe he would have been happy and healthy and well adjusted, but he wouldn't change anything for what he has right now. ]
no subject
[It's a little clearer now, the whole of it. She doesn't feel as lost in any part of it. Something about the sharpness of the words exchanged here, each one a knife to cut through layers of delusion. She feels very raw, a skin peeled back. Simplified.]
There was some k-kind of medieval theme. Sorcery. A dragon. [The state of her arrival, legs mauled and covered in vomit and spit might shed some light on what happened there.] But there w-was a part with some kind of magic...thing. I got sent to this place full of m-mirrors, and my lives were playing on them. Every v-version of them I might live. Syo was with me there, separately. We both had to watch.
People I knew kept appearing, telling me I had to choose...ch-choose one.
[Like she'd said. None of them were very good. Fukawa grimaces, and moves to let the side of her head rest on his shoulder. Let her tell the rest of the story to the soft skin of his neck. Confessing sins to the mortal wound she once made.]
I th-thought I'd picked right. Then Komaru came. I think it was...it looked just like her? Sounded...And sh-she asked if I was sure. S-said that if I was choosing a life wh-where I'd hurt people before, then I'm basically refusing to change. That I might as well just stay in that in-between place, than go back and hurt someone else.
[She goes quiet a moment.]
Then Syo killed her.