JBB: An Artblog!
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@inkyara
howdy all! it may take me a hot minute before i tackle replies ‘cause i made a breakthrough in one of my cardiogram remix projects and it actually sounds good I could 😱 screeeeeam!! (yes i am trying to remix every cardiogram in yttd yes i am hyperfixated af lemme bite you grrr) THIRD PEAK BABYYYY
Incoming delivery! A jade green pouch with a brown ribbon makes an appearance! Inside are mint chocolate cookies with dark chocolate chips! A little note! "A little thank you gift! It's been fun hanging out with you pal despite whatever you might think hehe! -Eiden Itadori"
Sou read the note several times, the thoughtfulness of the gift and kind words making his gut flutter. Intrigue and fuzziness crinkled his raised hair. He was wary of the happiness building inside, and unthinkingly popped half of a crunchy cookie in his mouth. No one had ever given him a gift like this except his parents and… Hiyori…
The explosion of flavors snapped him out of his daze, and his heart sank guiltily. His tongue rolls over a chocolate chip and recoils away from the hidden creamy filling before he reluctantly swallows his mouthful. He tried to keep eating, hoping that he'd get used to the taste, but couldn't help but feel like he was eating dessert flavored toothpaste.
Wrapping his cookies back up, he decided to give them away. What Eiden didn't know wouldn't hurt him. Still… he couldn't just leave it at this. He began browsing online for a decent deal. After some searching, Sou prepared a custom message to ship with his order to Eiden's address. "Hiya Itadori! You really shouldn't have sent me anything. Do you enjoy house plants? Well, I hope this Red Maranta grow kit will liven up your space. - Sou Hiyori"
"... There. Now I don't owe him. Au... but what if he thinks it's too formal? Hell, it's too late now..."
there's a moment when yuri's almost thrown off by the reciprocated eye contact (sou's getting bolder, it seems). he ultimately breaks it off himself, though... it's giving him the heebie-jeebies...
"don't sell yourself short, i bet you know your way 'round computers better than i ever will. i'd consider that pretty damn impressive," a genuine compliment played straight (it's just the truth, after all). too bad IT skills are practically useless here...
"the hard work's only for today, promise. i actually wanna enjoy our island getaway," he reassures with a hearty pat; they'll both be deadweights sipping on coconuts soon enough! "how about i text you a list of what we need so we can divide 'n conquer, then meet back up here later? think you can handle that?"
Sou's eyes widen a moment at the compliment, his smile shrinking and curving to a deceptively tame shape. It might have been appreciation overtaking him; warmth and gratitude stretched on either side...
"That means a lot coming from you, Lowell," He said mildly, happy to have a clear task to focus on more so than some awkward platitudes to chew on. His voice is so soft he has to clear his throat to finish speaking. "I can... handle that... I'll get started right away. I won't let you down." He pulled his phone out of his pocket, feeling as if he's on the edge of something. A shiver; not entirely unpleasant, runs down his spine as he's touched. He felt as if he was about to fall off a cliff... yet he stills as if any subtle movement would break the spell.
"OH, YEAH?! YOU WON'T fuckin' believe how hard it's been to hold back every time I've had to see your punchable mug walking around smug and scot-free, assh—"
Click. It's heard not with her ears but in the caverns within her body. A breath hitches in her throat, then crawls back inside her.
Honest and hollow, she watches her hand fall free from her wrist.
"No... no, no, fuck no, I'm real," she says in the tightest whisper, a secret meant only for herself and the child she remembers in the deepest recesses of her past. But hers is not a hippocampus. Hers is a solid-state drive, buried into the folded liquid cooling that comprises her temporal lobe, and here Sou unravels her programming as easily as he'd guessed an eight-character lowercase password.
The effort doesn't send pain shooting up her nerves, nor does blood pour from the hole it leaves. It simply hangs in stasis for this infinitisimal moment in time.
This, this is very much real. And she — tragic she — is not.
Thud. Those moments catch up with her. In clumsy momentum, her still-consolidated arm swings right at Sou's face, striking him across the face. Her wrist is empty, divorced of its modular limb; its exposed metal threading catches the sunset in its gleam.
A nearby child screams and runs away, followed by a chorus of horrors.
"It's not me, please, it's him — you, what is this?! Why did you make me like this?! You sick fuck!" He has to have known what she was from the start, traitor as he is. Even she hadn't thought this was possible... Even she had still hung onto hope.
Shin staggers backward with the force of her blow, wincing in pain as heat radiated from the wound. With a cocktail of shock, disbelief, and horror, cortisol raced through his arteries. He knew her body was inorganic, but he never imagined it would be so easy to remove one of her limbs. Still... his fingers curled tightly around the cold ceramic, feeling it's weight and texture with his median nerve. He knew it was a strange and macabre to do, but this gambit was a tangible piece of evidence that confirmed his suspicions about his and Reko's true natures. Vindicated, he tucked the detached limb under his arm and raised his other in front of his face. Blood seeps out of his mouth as he speaks. "You're wrong," Shin's fear and anger betrayed his coarsened tenor, "You need to stop lashing out with incomplete information, if you even can! There was more than our collars keeping everyone trapped — an entire security system was deployed in case someone like me decided to revolt! I'm just a programmer, Reko! I couldn't even hope to disable it on my own!
"I didn't create you, and I didn't create that twisted game! I was powerless! But you...! There was always the risk that you were coded to destroy us from within! Nao knew that better than anyone after the Mishima AI appeared in her room, and she took the burden into her own hands!" Shin touched his swollen flesh, the shortness of his breath making it difficult to remain standing. The crowd trickling in grew more oppressive the thicker the air between them raged. The onlookers could feel the weight of their words, and the implications of their relevations. "I'll say it one more time since you're stubborn as hell! Get ahold of yourself! This is a place children play for pity's sake, not the Death Game!"
Eiden is patient in his wait, giving Sou space and time to figure out his reply. The answer however comes with a word missing from Eiden's vocabulary. He tilts his head in confusion.
" Youkya? What's that? "
He's not going to reply something like youkyatch these hands or whatever is he?
Sou takes a deep breath, realizing that he might have to explain more than he initially thought. Still, a question of his own deflects that realization for another. He opens his mouth, the words not coming out quite at first.
"Well, um... not to be rude, but... were you homeschooled or something?" He asks, frowning bemusedly. "You'd be precisely the type I'm talking about. The sunny, lively, extroverted people that have voice and influence... the type that'd be surrounded by many friends..."
popping in to say i'm gonna be doing replies today after some grocery shopping!! hooray! i've been under the weather and got sick yesterday so yeah
With a nod, they gently pat Sou's shoulder. "You stay right here. I'll be an earshot away, so shout if you need anything, alright?" And they smile before rising to their feet and stretching.
"Hope you like fish~." They chime with a sing-song like tune before stepping away. They're about to leave the area, but they spare Sou one last look. It should be relatively safe. When they were here with Chain, there were no danger other THAN the storm that caused them to quickly make way to hide into their little shelter.
"I'll be back, kiddo."
A moment after, Indigo returns with a wooden spear-full of fish in one hand and a whole coconut in the other.
Sou really regretted not speaking up. He stared at the fish in front of him with trepidation. He wasn't certain he was ready to eat yet, though he knew he needed sustenance to survive. He tried to push all his thoughts aside and focus on that fact. "... I'll be honest... when I cook fish, it wrecks my stomach." He sat hugging his legs, not prim in the least. The mildness of his bearing betrayed no contrariness. Sou seemed willing to risk the impending meal, but was more concerned with the coconut.
"Though... I think I'd be okay with the coconut water..." He eyed the fruit with interest. Maybe if he was sweet enough, he could get by without the fish...
SILENCE FILLS THE BUFFER between them, trickling in until Reko is up to her neck in it. The echoes of Sou's words refract around them, developing into foreign vocabulary, masquerading as sentences that are inevitably turned away at the gate of her mind. All she has to protect herself is her stubbornness — Sou's sentiment is parried by the tried-and-true defense of That doesn't make any sense, the incessant question of What does he mean by zero? Should the rest remain unswallowed, Reko is fine not knowing. She's happy to.
Yet Nao's face is still carved into her retinas. Not the wide smile she always sported, pulling her features into a marquee of beautiful ideas for sale. That image is too noisy now, muddied in the tarry slurry pouring 'neath her eyes. No, it's Nao's look of dark desperation boring into her, panting and posturing, erasing her regard for Reko with every solitary blink—
A tight, unyielding grip wrenched him off his feet; cold outside of the hellish kiln whence it came. Panic was explosive within Shin's agrestal glare. His hands enclosed her vice, deathly pale and looking bloodless together.
"Agh!! You just want to take someone down with you! Let go! I don't want... You're out of your mind!!" Shin squalled. His desperate grapple did nothing to curb her iron onslaught. Each sentence was waspish and rippled like the bullet that once tore through his girdle. He didn't possess any strength to ebb away. Her knuckles were brassy and sheathlike, but beneath his skin... the blood rutted in a burst of flame. "St-Stop! You always make the easy choices! Y-You never...!" His chest heaved as if she'd caught his breath instead, and the effort it took to draw in oxygen was making him dizzy. His lungs kept pushing for shallow air, pulse beating against her as a scathing brine blurred his peripheral. He felt detached from his legs and torso as his head swam in tears. Yet... Driven by adrenaline and determination, Shin poured all of his grievance into roughly twisting Reko's wrist. Threads and crests scraped within the joint... a well-oiled metallic squeak invaded his ears; lacking resonance but enough to give her a unique sensation.
what i did yesterday instead of drafts 😎
extra:
buff sou giving eiden a [ piggyback ] i DARE you
PROMPTS FOR COMFORTABLE INTIMACY (ACCEPTING)
" Ehh but you're kind of err... "
Scrawny, he wants to say but he holds the word in fear of seeming like he's talking down to him. Will he really be able to lift him up... To Eiden's knowledge he doesn't have any super powers... Then again if he's piggybacking it might just be about positioning...
" Well, I guess we can try --- "
Before Eiden can finish Sou produces a recently popular protein drink and starts drinking -- Shadow emerges out of nowhere. Eiden can hear buttons coming off, one flies directly into his cheek, smacking him as it bounces down to the ground.
" Err... "
" I see.... So this is your true form hmm? "
" Strong! Sou! Lift! Eiden!! "
Muscles are flexes as Eiden is rised for piggybacking. The neck is barely there, replaced by a mass of thick muscle, shining with the force of thousand suns. The evening lights of the city glitter around as they frolic along the path towards the sun. However as they run Eiden suddenly loses his grip and starts falling, in slomo---
" Ahahahaha! Catch me Sou--- Sou? Sou can you hear me--- "
Eiden's voice grows distant as he speaks. For the final hit he closes his eyes---
CRASH!!
Eiden wakes up on the floor, legs still sprawled up against the bed, lower body on the floor.
That day, a text message is sent to Sou. A short and strict sounding message with a cryptic ring to it:
[txt] sou [txt] you don't have to grow muscle ok? [txt] you're fine as you are - never change
SEVEN-POINT-SEVEN PERCENT?
Familiarity sounds a faint chime within her, but she doesn't truly know the statistic of which he speaks. It's reminiscent of a conflict that feels foreign now, distant and displaced. The words he wields as weapons torrent around that sharpened phrase, embedding it in a black box. Clenching her body to ward off malice, Reko roots herself into the concrete. From her teeth, she grinds blood — nay, metal.
"Ain't that what you wanted, for everyone to hate you? All you did was lie and cheat and screw up everything on purpose. Now I know it was to get us killed, for the kidnappers you've been bootlicking this entire time!"
Her vocal chords aren't used to this reverberation, unrestrained and lacking in a guiding passion, clanging up to eventually be ripped through her esophagus. It hurts. This is one of the few times she's screamed and it's hurt.
"And I'm not a killer! I didn't kill her because I wanted to! I killed her because I didn't have a choice! You've had a choice, every damn time, to work with us — you just saw us as pieces in your little fuckin' game! If you were in my place, you would've done the same thing and then some!"
Reko tosses the scarf straight down onto the boardwalk, except it never reaches the ground. It gets whipped up by the ocean wind and tumbles down the pavement past her.
Sou's quakes, his laughter, and even his breath wound back up abruptly; snapped up like strummed puppet strings within his windpipe. His eyes leered at his scarf retreating from his view as his hysteria came down. It was like an ugly carp streamer fleeing his mania. He put his hand over his neck, covering his collarbones momentarily. He had always used that scarf as a crutch, something to hide behind when scared or unsure. Sou stood in the exposing sea breeze and swallowed the taste of bitter liberation as the ghost of Shin Tsukimi possessed his senses. He'd been putting up a facade for so damn long, he didn't know who he was... but his knees stopped shaking.
"... ... ... Ahaaa. I see." The gates of Hell opened simultaneously with his cold parting teeth. Bells were pealing again, just as they would for two locked under a timer. "I've been set up... I was mistaken! You're not who I thought you were at all. You're another zero!" His hand skimmed down his chest, taking in that suffocating clarity. All this time, he didn't have to hide... but he did anyway, just in case someone like this doll came back to crucify him. Shin Tsukimi settled back over him like a heavy blanket. "You know... one thing I never did was steal another zero's right to choose. Nao told me and Kanna all about what you did... I seem to remember Ms. Sara's testimony too. You never split the clear chips you earned that were supposed to go to Gin. You killed Ms. Reko when it wasn't your place to decide. That was Nao's decision, and you spit on her trust. You want to stand there and scream at me that we're the same...? "You don't care about what I'd do or why! Don't use that pathetic excuse. You just wanted to take someone down with you! You never cared about any of us, just yourself!"
WHITTLED DOWN TO BEADS, Reko scans the words Sou puts in front of her. Horror creeps into her features, embedding itself in every shadow cast by the beachview beside them. It's not Floormasters — it's Stars. It's not a facility — it's this Radial Island...
She can still hear the beeping. The metronome she had no hope of keeping up with. Trembling and white-knuckled, her hand ascends to the level of her collar, her dormant volcano. It's still locked tightly around her. It could very well be a part of her.
If this isn't another trial, then why...?
Though they've the make of porcelain, her hands still bear the stains and scars of the sin she had condemned all her recent years. The adrenaline of hatred still possesses them. Without hesitation, she yanks Sou's scarf forward, and he can either sway with it, or let it go.
Either way, the only thing down there is skin.
"I can't fuckin' trust you, Sou. You've been with them this entire time, huh?" she spits. She's plugged in her amp again, bellowing from the core. "I'm not surprised! You're going to tell me how exactly to get out of this — this hellhole trial! Don't you fuckin' threaten me!"
Sou could have been plucked up by the scruff without all of Reko's brutish violence. He'd at first resisted being seized by her, but when he felt the harsh air erupt against his neck... ... ... he let it go. Involuntary brittle laughter oscillated as Sou backed away from her. He consumed Reko's besetting hatred as it ebbed into his flesh. His bones ingested it and it intoxicated, enthralled, and thwarted him so; just like Sara's rueful plea, don't kill Sou; he was engulfed by loathing! This was... his trial, not hers. He hated the sour pit in his belly! It was a sensation unlike any other, his sunken heart attempting to feed him blood through his twisting gut. "That's fine...! That's fine, Ms. Reko! Ahahaha, aha! Maybe it's a trial, maybe it's something else! That's all I know! I'm not going to threaten you, I'm not! I don't want to die... but it's my right! It's my right, and you'll see to it, won't you? You love doing this every single time, don't you, Ms. Seven-Point-Seven Percent?!! You hated me from the start! You hate me!
"Don't you want to survive? You'll vote for me! You'll kill me! You'll do it... I can always trust you to make the right decisions!" Sou convulses with self-satisfaction, agony, and euphoria. He shows his pointy teeth in menace, or submission. His phone fell forgotten by his feet.
heads up and sowwy if my regular replies take a lil longer than i'd normally make them! i'm going hamshit wild over juicy juicy sou and reko drama lately!!
THOUGH REKO'S EYES GRASP for the silver straw that could — should — ring around Sou's neck, she hasn't even caught a glimpse. Is it because he doesn't have one, or is it just hidden in the shadows? Come to think of it, she'd never seen one on him in the first place.
"Y... You..." she starts, no longer projecting from her diaphragm, still forcing the hiss through her teeth. There is an ounce of surrender in how she turns her volume dial all the way down - even when her softer tones deliver venomous words. "What, you want me to give you time to make up more bullshit? What's the excuse this time?
'How could you be taking a stroll in the middle of this? None of this is real. A... Are you even..." Her eyes bore into the back of his head through his own, expecting a battery embedded into his skull, or lines of curly brackets and semicolons. This place is clearly some kind of simulation — is he?
But he's all she has to ask.
"Fuckin'... fuck, shit." Her cursing is robbed of the wind in its sails, breathless and broken. "Beanie guy. Explain what the hell is going on, now."
Sou knows Reko is not a force to be trifled with, and he needed to tread carefully if he didn't want to taste her fist. He tried to collect his thoughts, tucking his chin under his scarf while he gripped it securely. He might not have had his collar anymore, but he was definitely still tethered by the article he held close; his very own eye-searing leash. "Look, Reko," he starts, his voice measured with a heavy lilt, "Firstly... I know this is... crazy, but have you checked your phone? For some reason, we're being assimilated to this Radial Island... I don't get what the stars want with us, but I would advise against trying to leave the city. I tried some of the teleporters and.... it's useless, at best. At worst...
"... ... ... It's excruciating. Like it or not, this is our reality. You can find out for yourself, but I warned you. If the pain doesn't get to you, something else might." Sou paused to let his words sink in, his hand grasping the phone in his pocket. He studied Reko's face for any sign of understanding or recognition. ... He didn't like the remote look in her eyes one bit. Quietly, Sou pulled up the first text he ever received and offered his phone for her to examine.
RADIALE: Radial Island. Home to the city of spirals. Travel outside of the city may result in unpleasant side effects. Communication of further details complete…
THE MOMENT SHE WAS put in her place, she left it. With her heart racing, Reko scans the bright and raring line-up of bokeh blurs on the boardwalk. This photographer's dream is sickening. What a child would find larger than life is a graveyard to her. There's no way she can call this a home — there were only supposed to be eleven attractions, and she thought she'd finished her last.
"Kh... Damnit!"
She carves dark grooves into the decking with her shadows. She stomps the lulling waves into a tempest, boots shaking the earth. Her bongos cla-clunk-cla-clunk against her thigh. She can't tell how much of it is real.
That is, until she sees him.
"It's you... You fuckin' asshole! What are you doing here?!" Reko makes a beeline for that unfortunately familiar face, right at the centre of her dutch angle. "Is this another trial? I've had it with this shit!"
It's just Sou. There's no Kanna in tow. Something feels amiss, yet she puts herself mere inches away from him, staring him down. Maybe if she peeks down, she'll catch metal.
@inkyara
A fluffy ball of pink and blue sugar breaks Reko's descent in the stead of a bed of spikes. It was a soft and inviting cloud to lose oneself in. Sou's fleeting, melt-in-the-mouth indulgence couldn't shake the flashes of despair despite the attempt at refreshing his own deathly context. Children laughing in the distance faded bitterly away, and suddenly he was back to scheming just to skate by life-threatening attractions. "A-Augh!!! H-Hold on, hold on...!!" Emptiness lingered within him before, but now... the taste of grounding sweetness against his teeth dulled, and his heart sank into his stomach. Sou raised his hands in a placating gesture, dropping the cotton candy he failed to savor. His moment of solitude was shattered, and now all he could do was brace himself for Reko's wrath... still...!
"St-Stop for a second! Ugh, you're always so hateful to me! I'm not hurting anybody by enjoying a little stroll! Sheesh!" This was looking more and more like a warzone than an amusement park. "Calm yourself, Ms. Reko! Please!"
Eiden could repeat himself and just say there's nothing that he wants but he supposes there IS something there.
" I want to be friends. I think just about anyone in a place like this would want friends --- "
It gets lonely after all. And he was a fun guy, albeit sometimes unintentionally it felt like, Eiden felt a little awkward to think of that... Sou obviously didn't share his vision there. Looking at him he tilts his head.
" I mean I hope I haven't been too pushy or anything. "
" Say, Sou.... What kind of guy do you think you are then? "
Sou fidgeted with his cap and struggled with all the jumbled thoughts under it. He traced circles on the table with his finger, trying to word his self-view without alarming the other. He wasn't sure what to say. He fully expected Eiden to insist there was nothing, nothing at all that he wanted. He expected a lie he could poke at, at arm's length. This straightforwardness caught Sou off-balance.
"Well... I'm not one-hundred percent a youkya..." He said quietly, as if this was a grand relevation that pained him.
thick as the silence is, yuri lets him solve whatever puzzle he's got in that head of his. while the eventual response is hardly an acknowledgement of any sort of team-up... he's still here, yuri curiously notes, and actions speak louder than words. doubly so for anyone as evasive as this guy.
"uh, what..? not a fan of meat?" he tucks his catch away with a shrug. that's what he hopes sou means, at least -- last thing he needs is him passing out for real this time. "i can work with that. getting stepped on every now and then isn't so bad."
(...phrasing, yuri).
he moves to lean on the shorter man's shoulder, the sliiightest bit pushy when he suggests, "maybe we'll find something more your speed while we set up camp. you do have a useful skill or two under your belt, right, chuckles? aside from your charming wit, obviously"
"Pfft, you're just saying that...!" Sou's fragile clarity of mind nestles under his skin and shakes his small frame briefly. He held eye contact, brimming despite a fear of losing himself in another's gaze. It's back where they left off last time, though warmly; What use am I? "I'm pretty useless outside of computers," He states with some gentle diffidence, "I'm even pathetic with what I'm good at. I'll do my best not to be a deadweight, fuahaha...!" Sou's actions and words finally led up to acknowledgement, as skewed as it was. Sou's thoughts were rapid as energy washed over him. He strained with it, but he miraculously said nothing to protest the physical contact. It was as if he was too enraptured with his own extreme mood.
