TRUST YR FRACTIOUS ❤❤❤!

[shsl-meridian]

> ｢(ﾟﾍﾟ) inferArgs() ~ [TR4.2] ~ RE: ALL!

Oh! People were…responding positively to Kimi’s nosey-blood suggest.

Huh.

…Maybe it was worth it to speak up in trial after all?

(She was…trapped here, after all. There was no such option as a “refresh”. It would be sad, sad, tragic if people…thought she couldn’t be useful. – If they didn’t trust her. For something.)

( – But then, she didn’t want to make anyone…like…like her. Kimi didn’t wanna make anyone ANYTHING! And, moreover – what if she made someone…anyone…multiple anyones…)

(…Vote…for…)

(…It was…tricky, all right. It was a REEEAL doozy.)

A real, live, ACTUAL, SUPER DOOZY that kept her silent for – well – y'know – a li’l bit! (Nearly two full revolutions of her gaze around the podium. 1.8, she thought! But that, dear reader, was not of importance to you.)  And yet she still needed to speak up…she still needed to…

…Ask…

(For if she missed her chance now – right? This was a weird, weird, tipsy-turvy world. She was trapped here, she hadn’t spoken to Moms in a month, she hadn’t spoken to Kazu in a month – and if she didn’t multitask, at least a little, if she didn’t ask…she might never have the chance to ask again. …The cons were very outweighed.)

– And this was very real-time, too, bee-tee-dubs. So. –If you’re gonna do it, then DO IT!

“Hey, um – did anyone smell banana? On Kurosawa-chan’s mouth? Because Kimi sure didn’t…“

“But she didn’t smell…everyone else's mouth-air? How’s everyone not-Kurosawa-chan on the Banana Scale today? Because this is super confusing me, you guys – why would someone just leave a big ol’ glass of pooper-quicker in the kitchen without someone having drank any…”

(Well, Kimi, how ‘bout you try thinking about it a li’l!)

( – Because you gotta. Remember?)

Kimi put on a voice.

“Hey, hey A-chan, I bestow upon thee: A GLASS OF WATER! To quench thy spirit! – “

And another voice.

“B-chan this is OBVIOUSLY spiked with something. It smells like banana, it’s not even CLEAR, and also, TO HECK with your SUSPICIOUS BANANA JUICE in our SUSPICIOUS MURDER GAME! I THREW IT –”

“ – ON THE GROUND.”

And she mimed that very action. To finish. For good measure.

(This was probably not the right way to respond to a murder trial in any circumstance, but what could she do? She was just ~ being ~ random. Teehee.)

(…It felt kind of refreshing, given – well. Her previous concerns about the whole shebang.)

(”Previous”. As if they had stopped being things already? As if she would have even said any of this had everyone continued to talk like it was definitely Yutaka who drank the stuff? – PFFT.)

BUT ANYWAY, REALLY, she was only presenting scenarios for the sake of elimination. Better that everyone else offer their input on the REAL LIFE EVENTS first. Won’t that be a fun learning experience?

(Just ~ being ~ herself…)

“ – Maybe something like that? But then, the glass would be on the ground, right? In pieces. If that was an actual happen-y thing. Instead it was just in the kitchen…chillin’. And if someone made it for DESTINATION: THEIR OWN BELLY…well, would they drink it? Or, why wouldn’t they drink it? – How come any of this? Uwah…”

A small noise of non-confidence. Of this is TOO MUCH! for SILLY OL’ KIMI!

– Because of course that would make up for everything else she just said.

Eheh… 

[shsl-meridian]

> DON’T! makeFun() ~ [TR4.1] ~ RE: TANAKACHAN, MYSTERY KITCHEN-DRINKERS??

If…

If she kept an eye on the mayor, nothing bad would happen.

– Kimi had genuinely believed that.

(How could she have possibly thought it would be so simple? How could she have possibly been so – so silly?!)

But the strings the mayor pulled had been so easy to follow, hadn’t they? (Once.) (Silly.) Announcement of a motive, fear, pressure, and eventually:MURDER. No, it was the strings pulling on him Kimi had wanted to know even a tiny bit better – better than zero, better than “Kimi has no idea!”, better than –

– “Kimi might – miiighta jumped to a coupla EARLY CONCLUSIONS on that one! Teehee.”

(Funny, right? When she needed to know, to get out, to not die here. When she needed to know…to…not…be lousy.She was NOT allowed EITHER. And here she was, sampling BOTH fruit! AT ONCE!)

(Which was worse: Decimation or Stagnation? Trick question! They could HARDLY afford EITHER.)

( – Silly.)

So she had spent the evening on it. Basically. And what had that gotten her? THIS.

This! Is what she got. For being…so careless.

(So lousy! LOUSY!)

Once she was done with all this aftermath, she’d have to think on it…a tiny bit more…huh.

BUT.

Places to be! Things to do! Tasks to complete!! The aftermath was a DOOZY.

– As in, the investigation was. …A doozy. Kimi had to do the best she could! Kimi had to fulfill THAT routine, start THIS routine, let people see her ROOM – thrilling. Super-super-heart-pound-y! Kimi…wasn’t sure whether to hope for the same in the trial.

Since, like – she wanted to try actually asking questions this time, right? A super energy-require-y thing!

(…Now that she thought about it, Kimi didn’t think she could even if she tried – ask questions. Not yet! Not right away! Investigation left her WAY too dizzy-dizzy to even HAVE a brain.)

So there she stood – trying for, or rather falling into, “inconspicuous”. Breathing as slowly, gently, soft as she could – (through…pursed lips.) Otherwise she stood still. As if they couldn’t see her that way? (L-O-L.)

But she wanted to ask questions this time. Stay on top of things. Get the practice in!

(It was super weird and mega freaky. The thought! Like – watching and talking at the same time. Hadn’t that been the thing she had to learn not to do, once? Her second nature…)

“ – But, hey, who drank the banana juice in the kitchen?”

Having prepared a question in advance helped, right? Maybe.

“ – Oh, sorry sorry, let’s give some deets on that first. Like: I-D-K what it tasted like, and it didn’t look like, y’know, actual banana anything, but it smelled like bananas – the candy kind, not the fruit. Anyone know what that’s doing there? And who drank it – wait wait, I JUST asked that, whoopsies. I meant – how’d that go for ya? Jaaaay-W.”

…A realization hits Kimi a minute or so later.

(One that maybe, maybe, she should’ve had earlier? If she was a little less dizzy. If this wasn’t so…like…REAL-TIME.)

“ – Wait, maaaybe that was the wrong time to bring a New Thing up. AWKWARD. So, hey, change of subject – 3-F Bathroom Tissues. ‘Twisted into themselves’. Tanaka-chan, you just said that, right?”

“ – Like how you’d twist them to…STUFF A BLOODY NOSE?! – Mayhaps?!“

:OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Maybe Kurosawa-chan could have provided the cheap shock-response gags…had things been different. …None of this had…needed to happen.)

(…That, or she just – had yet to stick her eyeballs to the right set of strings. Maybe she was just being silly about it. Which was worse?)

( – Which should – Kimi think is worse, she meant…)

“ – Eh? Eh? Maybe not. I-D-Kaaaay, REALLY.”

[badkidsjokes]

Fire Water

what do you call fire water fire water fire water fire water fire water

a patern

[science-junkie]

Artist: Eleanor Lutz

Website: Tabletop Whale

[toywaving]

Pika Crewneck (x)

[shsl-meridian]

“Lovey-Love Life Lessons!” ~ [AN INTERMISSION.] ~ by: ki(TR3) -> ki(CH4)

[CW: bullying implications?]

– The trial.

The noise.

The EVERYONE!!!

They were – a building pressure in her temples. Vision swaying in and out of focus, or staying both at once, motion passing by as if under strobe light – first here, then there – everything happening so fast, faster than light, faster than brain, speedier than sodium! more RAPID THAN POTASSIUMMM!! HAHA – and through her mind crossed the thought and then popped, vanished, like distracting = bad thought -> no thought! –> NO THOUGHT AT ALL!, SHE WAS – wait.

– Who was?

Who was, again? – Kimi was? – No, that can’t be right.

– Because, see – Kimi wasn’t THERE – see?

…Nuh-uh. Was not! Not REALLY! So this post’s about the world instead. The world and all its intrigue, the world and all the cute inhabiting it – the cute! The intrigue! The all! We can catch up with Kimi once she’s…ready.

– Because Kimi wasn’t there. – Because Kimi isn’t here.

Because the world wouldn’t be so special if processing was easy, right?

CHAPTER ONE: RINA-CHAN!

Rina-chan, who had taught her a BIG lesson: READING WAS IMPORTANT!

She had barely even known how to readback then. And Japanese! She had only had an hour a day with Shimajiro-kun, right? Right. Because she had more important games to play back then, right – like SAFE MOUSE, like MOTOSKILL, because if her Moms had played at her age – right. She was sure. She knew this.

But Rina-chan guarded her backpack bad. And Rina-chan wrote sloppy!

(And Rina-chan hated nori; and Rina-chan hated being alone. And Rina-chan HATED Quigley-sensei! Rina-chan wrote those one time each.)

(And Rina-chan hated ANNOYING Mariko, STUPID Orika, STUCK-UP Shizue. RIna-chan wrote those THREE times each!)

And Rina-chan loved –

BABY CARTOONS! For BABIES!

– Rina-chan said so herself! And Rina-chan WATCHED THEM ANYWAY. The “island VHS”, the “space VHS”, and the “Kenta-kun VHS” – one per day, over and over, until Rina-chan was sleepier than the dark was scary.

(…Twenty-three!)

So…Rina-chan taught her TWO big lessons. The first was reading. And the second was – numbers. Sometimes they mattered!

(Know your surroundings! Don’t go one against four! Mariko-chan bit.)

– And sometimes – well. The baby-cartoons thing – blew over. It turned out Rina-chan’s out-loud words had more say in what and wasn’t for babies than the ones in her journal! WEIRD. And, equally weird, if Kimi really had been going for dirt – if Kimi had been going for a good defense, a good offense –

– Rina-chan had felt more about the backpack theft than the declaration of her favorite show, and Kimi didn’t process it for weeks. And Kimi didn’t process why for – four years. Four years, two months.

There’d been just too much!

(”Demons Don’t Keep Diaries!”)

Kimi did come back eventually! But it was in bits and pieces. Bits and pieces like:

“Hey, who were those two to one another?”

“Hey, who were…they?”

“Hey, what did Kizaki-chan end up…DOING with…”

(And – “hey, didn’t someone say something? Didn’t someone say ‘Kimi’? Didn’t Starre ask, ‘Kimi, how was –’” – but she had missed her chance to reply. She had missed a lot of things. It had all happened so fast!)

(…This had to be what it’s like to run a marathon, right? Or – to stay up working on something for days in a row? Or…something close. Close enough? She couldn’t tell – she’d figure it out later – focus, conserve, prioritize – )

She left the trial room once she could – that is, ages later. Walked to her room as quickly her dazed body would let her – that is, even less so than usual! And while her head hit the pillow almost – almost immediately – “once it could”, once she was allowed –

The – noise – running through her mind refused to stop. Freed from what little structure her pen could impose upon it, the murmur began to take wilder shape; no longer quotes or memories but rather some casserole made of their liquefied components, snippets of this voice and those words and that afterimage, cut-and-pasted into slapdash sentences – the uncontrollable search for grammar. The irrepressible need to process, given at last its free rein.

– A “trial potpourri.”

(Kimi wasn’t sure if even her dreams quite stopped it.)

But it was a familiar feeling. Why wouldn’t it be? Seeing as, seeing as…

CHAPTER TWO: HATO-KUN!

And Rokuda-chan. …And Inukai-chan. Who had taught her a BIG lesson, too!

– About like – humans. Or – maybe just them specifically? Or. No. She wasn’t being general enough. 

– About everything.

– About – either you account for interaction, or you account for NUTHIN’. Or: everything was more complex than she could ever really know. But that was made it fun, right?

None of those three had been on her radar, actually! But then, BUT THEN, they hadn’t been…NOT on her radar, either. They could’ve been a threat! At ANY moment! JUST as much as anyone else.

(At least ~Quigley-sensei~ wasn’t here anymore. Right?)

But it was important that she stay on top of new friendships. Friendships were strange, fragile, but oh-so-powerful, scarily so; one-against-four. (Two to restrain, and four fists left over. Numbers were important!) If they could be broken up before they started, then…

But what a friendship it was…quiet Hato-kun, lone Hato-kun, supported by the combined energies of the third- and fourth-loudest girls in her class. Rokuda-chan, who started sentences, and Inukai-chan, who finished them. RokuKai, who sat with Hato-kun when he was sitting alone; InuDa, who pushed Hato-kun to talk when he had no courage. Rokuda, Inukai, who filled silence with – friendly jokes. Friendly jabs. Friendly requests! Loud, LOUD laughter.

(They were the first to help when Hato-kun’s shoes were lost. The first to help when Hato-kun’s desk got dirty. The first to know, it seemed.)

She had to defend herself against all three. 

– That was how she saw it. Because she didn’t process. …Because she didn’t re-analyze. 

(Not until the spring, when Hato-kun stopped coming to class. And she didn’t know why she was wrong until – years. Ages. Two years, one month.) 

(”Wendigos Don’t Wisecrack!”)

But she had to get back on it – the wagon. The horse. The second she opened her eyes.

There was no time!

“Bits and pieces” and their return-y speed be SUPER gosh-dee’d!

Because, meanwhile, there was –

Building the memorials.

Decorating the memorials. (Talking. “Interacting”. She couldn’t get into those rooms alone.)

Inquiring as to Kurono-chan’s health; inquiring as to Snuzzlefeeti’s health; asking favors, making parties, making plans…

Moving the body forward was easy. Moving the conversations forward was hard. But Kimi was still young, relatively, and free of fatigue – free of hardship, protected from – absolutely. Right? She was! So it was no biggie.

And she could always spend some RECHARGE DOWNTIME on…exploring alone…after all. That took no bits, right? No pieces.

– Or…it shouldn’t have.

(Kimi learned of a few new bit-taking things – bits of stuff – over those several days. Baffling names called up from her memory. Her feet as they walked the perimeter of a room. Images swimming through – formaldehyde? through – her eyes; past her eyes. And words on LED screens, that went – that lit up like – )

( – The feeling of – needing to protect – this one room in particular. …She didn’t trust it to stay untampered-with. She couldn’t afford it.)

…And then there was that cat.

A thing to process. But – a less bit-take-y thing, in theory. BUT – why was she…wasn’t Kazzy better for…

…But Kazu wasn’t here…but…she wasn’t allowed to want them here, either.

…Oh.

(But she couldn’t stop and wait for guilt. Not about her thoughts! Not about her actions – not about the mistakes she had to make, now, the super sloppy following, the embarrassing-SQUARED like…physical manipulation of…oh, poor kitty must hate her, hate this, and all she wants is for kitty to be free, for Kazzy to do it instead, but – )

(She had…no bits to spare. She had to…do the best she could! Because, because…)

CHAPTER 3: THE OFFICIAL-ISH GUILD OF THE SHINY NIGHT COCONUTS!

…No. 

She didn’t want to talk about this!

She had missed so much while she…had…processed. …Of her youth. (But not, at least, of her childhood.)

(…She knew that she had messed up almost immediately. And it wouldn’t wouldn’t WOULDN’T leave her ALONE until she figured out…why…)

She’d never felt so bad. She’d never been so bad. She wasn’t ALLOWED to be bad!

– But they had taught her a BIG LESSON too, though, right?

(”Humans Don’t HAVE Feelings!”)

Something like that.

…Or that…she had…a lot to process. A lot. A LOT a lot a lot. All the time. She KNEW THAT!

…A lot to unlearn.

( – Why?)

The point was: mistakes happened.

The point was: mistakes happened to her a lot.

As in: happened – to her. AS IN: happened – to Kimi. 

The point was – Kimi made. A lot of. …Mistakes.

( – And not always about others! But Kazu would tell that story better. All Kimi needed to know was that she needed to be CONSCIENTIOUS, always. That was the BIG take-away.)

( – because everything happened too, too – too much – )

– THE POINT WAS.

When the festival started! – Kimi was ready.

When the festival started! – when Kimi squinted out into the crowd of (almost) all of her peers at once for the first time, the first time since – last time –

(Bright-eyed, bushy-tailed…with a new baby-blue bandaid on her forehead. …Oopsies.)

She was as ready as she ever was. She was…as ready as she ever could be.

…Not ready enough to trust any of this. Any. BUT.

…

Ready enough!

(Limited resources and all that stuffs. …She was only living.)

“ – And THAAAT’S the story! Of where Kimi was ALLLL this time! Of how the WORLD works! Any questions? Hey? Any questions, Ka –” 

– Well. 

– DUH!! 

Liiike, first of all: WHAT THE HECK DID THAT MAYOR THINK HE WAS DOING WITH THOSE POOR MINNOWS??? 

( – Maybe she should try resuming [OPERATION HONEY] AFTER all?)

[shsl-meridian]

[ki] "The Most Major-Main Moral Man Ever Could Manage!" [SHION END.]

Hey, hey – y’know the one?

The one about – not counting unhatched chickens? About multiple baskets? Early-often aliquots? Back-up plans?

Be prepared for MESS-UPS!

But…

DIDN’T 

KIMI 

KNOW THAT 

ALREADY??

– Because – hadn’t she been prepared for the motive, at least?

Hadn’t she been prepared since the motive?

Of course. Of course, right? …Of COURSE, SILLY!

It’s not like Kimi didn’t know what kinds of things money bought. It’s not like she didn’t know need.

…Here’s how Kimi saw it. How she had seen it, in Dead Desert Detention, as she was – landlocked by FEARSOME FOREST, FORSAKEN, whatever – and yet! Here she was! Surrounded by life…

…There was no these people without them living, after all.And there was no life without…vulnerability. Because, hey, wasn’t that the Big, SUPER-ACTUALLY-IMPORTANT Moral of last motive? That humans were people, after all? That they had vulnerabilities. NEEDS. Lives to protect…

…And, hey…life wasn’t free.

(T’was no better than starving the sharks.)

But whatever. Nothing she could do about that! Better to focus on her peers – on the surrounded by life part. On her friends! On her plans! On the two new arrivals, the second and third new-shiny-FRENDZ! she’d seen in as many days, but that far from made them any less exciting – any less inevitably distracting, no matter how much she reminded herself to pay attention, stick to script…

Since. Y’know. A KITTY! …PINK!!

(How would Kazu feel about it, she wondered. Surrounded by life, sure, but…oh, how short she was on eyes…)

But Kimi was - fine. Responsible. Self-sufficient! Prepared!

…Prepared for a death. 

It hadn’t been inevitable – nothing was impossible, but – be prepared for OOPSIES!

She was outside when the announcement came, and yet! She wasted no time. Because she was prepared, right? Straight to the scene. No room-detours. No seconds spilled.

Because she was prepared.

– Half-prepared.

“Tsu…zu…”

…ki-chan.

There was no need to finish that mumbly-stuff, though. Kimi knew what she was looking at just fine. Didn’t she? Didn’t she? Kind of…sort of…not really…did she want to, why the – how come – ARM?? –

– SHE KNEW WHAT SHE SAW, THOUGH, RIGHT?? And Kimi knew what Kimi FELT.

…And Kimi was starting…just starting…to suspect that…Kimi could’ve done things differently…

(She had just seen Shion. She could’ve – told Shion her feelings about the motive, maybe. Her reasoning. Would it have been fine to push? Would it have paid off? Would Shion have allowed her? Would it have…been…a l l o w e d…?)

( – Goshdang risk. What did risk mean for someone who was just gonna die on her? What did it matter now?)

She had no excuse even if she – hadn’t expected anyone to take the motive. Even if she had hoped!

(She had just seen Shion, they had just talked, fancy tea and greyhounds, on the tippy-top of her brain, she should! have! remembered!)

Be PREPARED! For EPIC FAILS.

– Yes, actually, that was was how it went. Right? Being prepared for failure, right? Teehee! LOL!

…“Memento mori”, maybe.

(…Because not everyone could be lucky in life. Or lucky. Or in life.)

Kimi knew how to deal with this. There was only one thing to do. KIMI ALREADY KNEW THAT. Technically.

But – there was never a knowing, was there? Never not a new nillion questions. Just around the corner! Surprises every day!

…Nnn.

Who was going to be Jumin Han now?

[shslclone-blog]

?? thread track

...Oh yeah...I forgot here was a place I could post things, too...

Public Threads:

???

Private Threads:

???

???:

Like...three people I actually need to get back to? From the Thread Solicitation Tweet...GIMME A SEC, I’LL GET ON THAT...

BUT...

OTHERWISE...

HIT

ME UP?

[shslclone-blog]

...Oh yeah!

Kimi’s room is CLOSED, so ask her if you want in! Most likely she’ll say say “sure thing! S’long as you let Kimi into your room!” Fair trade and all.

She miiight come off a little cranky, depending on when you happen to catch her, but. ...She’ll be fine. She’s fine. Probably.

.........I swear I’ll have her actual room blog done one day. 

(In the meantime...hit me up...messaging-ways. Skype or Twitter work equally well for me!)

[dragonomatopoeia]

Visit Original Link

This is my Magnum Opus

[biolegend]

Which do you prefer to do? Comic by www.facebook.com/sketchingscience.atgc

[platypussecretary]

The Golden Rat-io, 2015

[shsl-meridian]

[ATTN: ALL!!] "A STICKY-NOTE SEND-OFF!" [ATTN: ALL!!]

Picture this:

It’s been a day since execution. (Somewhere over twenty-four hours. Somewhere under forty.) You’re standing at the kitchen door – as one sometimes must. Or using the elevator – as one sometimes has to. It’s a high-traffic area. It’s been a day.

And you run into this.

What’s…this supposed to be.

[shsl-meridian]

“Blameless Yellow, Yelling Blue!” ~ [CH3] ~ BY: ABIKOCHAN! ( + KI! )

– So she did need to get that started again, didn’t she?

…”She” being “Kimi”.

And “that” being…

…[OPERATION SPRING].

(What was life without some SIMULTANEOUS OPERATION-RUNNING, after all? And cute operation names. The good stuff.)

So went the thoughts of one Kimi Inaba, having left Mei back in Scorpion Dorm with a hug and a confession. A dangerous confession, but, well…they had gotten to know each other so well, right? As in…Mei had entrusted her with so much already! – right? So it was…okay for Kimi to share it. It was…safe. A safe confession, after all.

…Right? …Right?

(”The truth is, if I don’t go back to my room every several hours to plug my laptop back in or out it’ll EXPLODE! And I CAN’T AFFORD THAT, MEI-CHAN!! And several hours is NOW!!!!!!!”)

( – A 100% false confession. Whoopsies! Kimi just really really really needed to get back to her room! But – don’t judge her, okay? She knew what she was doing.)

(…If only they could’ve had this field trip somewhere more…dry? More…wintry??? Kimi could feel the localized cold from her pocket seeping into her thigh, and when even she was a li’l bothered by something like that, then…)

(…Maybe it would scar? OMG – ) ( – BUT – NO. Bad Kimi. It has to happen on its own. Wishing is CHEATING!! – YOU’VE GOTTA HURRY!!!)

And there she had gone. Out of Mei’s dorm, into her own. EXIT KIMI. PURSUED BY…HER CONSCIENCE.

Whether it was in time for anything she wanted to happen would remain to be seen. But at least she had a good…ten minutes to herself before she had to get going again.

(To go cook something for poor, hungry Mei-chan – ‘cuz Kimi had promised her!)

(And then – to go have a nice chat with…Abiko-chan. …’Cuz Kimi had promised KIMI.)

(And what promise was more important than THAT – right?)

For Kimi had left Mei with MORE than just new memories! She had ALSO left with…a NEWFOUND PURPOSE.

…That being the one where she needed to resume [OPERATION SPRING] again. The thing she had technically started ages ago, it felt like – before the town guard meeting had even happened, and so much had happened since then. So, an old-found purpose, really! 

(The point was that she couldn’t put it off anymore.)

(…Hopefully that’d be…fine.)

The point WAS that now she needed to talk to! Abiko-chan! The one person Kimi figured was most likely to know about this kind of thing. (Or, at least, the only one she knew from experience could be asked about this kind of thing in casual conversation. Getting too heavy was unproductive here, sadly enough!) 

…This kind of thing…

…Kimi still didn’t know what exactly to call it.

A support group? Remembrance? Memorial?

Funeral?

There was certainly no point in using her own opinion here. This wasn’t even a teeny bit about her. It was about THEM, like it ALWAYS was, and she couldn’t exactly ASK all of them – it was risky, risky, messy! messy! She’d have to –

She’d – start walking.

For the sake of your PEOPLE…

Start searching!

To act as the ambassador of your KIND…to take in the IDENTITIES of your CONSPECIFICS as 100% TOTALLY YOUR OWN…

BECOME MY EXPERT ONCE AGAIN! PROVIDE MY CASE STUDY! TOUCH THE UNTOUCHABLE, BREAK THE UNBREAKABLE!!

(technically she was only asking about posters, about words this time, but – )

“ABIKO-CHAAAAAAN!! – ”

“ – I CHOOSE YOU!!!!!!!!!!”

( – those were important!)

She’d stopped in front of the museum.

So had Mitsusuke, apparently. Stopped to…frown at the metal detector? For some unspecified period of time. 

…Until Kimi arrived. Several feet in front of him. Yelling nonsense. Pointing dramatically??

Well this was awkward to say the least.

Without the arrival of an infirmary, or anything particularly useful in general, Mitsusuke was a little bit irate, not that he would say that. Mitsusuke Abiko, of all people, needed to stay positive in times like this!

(Still, an infirmary would be nice. He was getting more and more worried about how little medical supplies they had by the day).

This though.

This wasn’t something that could be worked around, not without agility.

Mitsusuke Abiko had been nervously glancing at the metal detector, then back at his knee, then back at the metal detector again for the better part of five minutes. Eyes wide as he slowly stepped back from the contraption, embarrassedly holding his face in his hands.

This was so disappointing!

Mitsusuke had apparently been barred entry to the museum. The first place he’d taken an interest in. Selfish as it was, he was really starting to resent his inability to enter without likely causing a scene (no, Mitsusuke didn’t want any drama or people bringing things like that up, he was the responder, not the person being responded to after all! He should be the one shouldering the brunt of the work without drama, getting excess attention was always embarrassing after all).

And so, in a cruel twist of fate, drama is exactly what he got. Removing his gaze from the metal detector for a moment, he hear

(At least it wasn’t setting off metal detectors).

It felt like his heart had stopped.

(Oh dear! Being caught off guard was never fun- he should really work on not getting surprised by people).

Even visibly stressed, Mitsusuke’s usual smile was plastered on his face, giving a short wave to Kimi upon….. noticing her presence. Her stance was eccentric, but Mitsusuke couldn’t exactly call her out on it, it was just what she wanted to do after all, and it wasn’t like she was doing any harm!

“Ah-ah! Hello!!”

Truth be told, after their last interaction, Kimi wasn’t the person he’d be the most calm around, but Kimi wasn’t exactly a bad person! There was no reason to avoid her, and in any case, that would be rude towards his classmate, and he did not want a bad atmosphere around this place so long as he could help it.

(He still hoped she wouldn’t pry though).

(…Kind of a risky thing to hope around Kimi Inaba! But perhaps Abiko-chan had some luck for the gamble. For Kimi looked at his anxious figure, his stuttering voice, his yet-to-be-explained hanging behind the metal detector…in silence. Total silence! She scanned him, she processed, and she said nothing!)

( – Because Kimi, at least, definitely appreciated the option to play it safe. And asking was risky, too! And she could always wait until…later.)

(…Ehe. UNTIL THEN…)

Kimi coughed. Scratched her neck.

“For a – question, I mean. Or – advice! Do you…remember when we talked about…closure? Can you…help again, with the next part?”

Oh she just wanted help! That was good…

Mitsusuke had been a little worried for a second (that was just because he overthought this! This class was really giving his brain a workout!)

“Ah, Inaba-san, if there’s anything you need help with, I’m always here to lend a bit of advice! Did something happen involving Ito-san or one of our other deceased classmates?”

Mitsusuke idly touched his face again. He wasn’t entirely sure what this could be, but at least he’d just been overthinking.

Kimi, meanwhile, decided…against offering her first response. Her first instincts in answering her pal’s li’l headscratcher.

“Well, besides there being two more of ‘em now?”

…No.

Instead, she went for:

“…Humm…well.”

“ – I’m wondering how to design a poster that…lets people know things’ll be okay eventually…?”

Yeah.

Yeah, that was exactly what she was doing here.

(…Nice honesty, Kimi! But, again, she knew what she was doing. …GOSH – )

[CONTINUED IN PRIVATE]

[shsl-meridian]

[MEI!][ch3][ki] | PROOF | of | EXISTENCE | [／(=´x`=)＼!!!]

[ TW: Allusions to suffocation and drowning ]

Somewhere between the written words of a boy who had long accepted his fate and the spoken words of a girl who had found common ground much too late, Mei had completely lost sight of just what she was supposed to do now – in the end, sleep had won out, just scarcely, and Mei laid down to rest in the bedroom she was slowly beginning to acknowledge as her own.

Even this little luxury had been denied to her, and Mei found herself waking back up just a few hours into a nap – marked with a sudden gasp as if a pillow had been covering her face, followed by a tingling feeling that radiated from her foot all the way up her thigh. All this, at least, could be explained by her awkward sleeping position, face-down with a leg hanging off over the edge of the bed.

(Why, then, did her head feel like she had been held underwater the whole time?)

She had tried to go back to sleep, once her limbs weren’t crawling with such an unpleasant prickling sensation, but she had waited just a few minutes too long for her to just nod back off as if nothing happened, and instead all that she squeezed out of this was ten minutes of lying alone quietly, getting too deep into her own head. And right now, that wasn’t the best place for her to be in.

Right now the best place to be was inside a little cafe where the waiting staff could smile and pout and laugh perfectly on cue – or maybe on a street corner, laughing with friends and trying to figure out which store or arcade to hit up next – or perhaps in a park museum, ignoring whatever lessons her family was trying to teach her as she watched the fish in the aquarium swim by. All of this was the past, though, and Mei was stuck in the present, in an unfamiliar city run by unfamiliar rules that brought up much-too-familiar feelings.

An odd feeling of longing had suddenly overtaken her. Mei’s head felt too congested and too muddy and for one long aching minute she wondered what it would take to lift herself up out of that mire, and if it was something she could do in such an isolated place, and if it was something she would do if given the chance.

(didn’t you hear she was)

Her stomach hurt. On second consideration, this was probably the main reason she was finding it so difficult to sleep – when was the last time Mei had eaten? (Last night, surely, because after that was sleep-search-trial-read-sleep, and no time for anything else.) Between hunger and exhaustion, it was usually the former that won out. And caused even more of the latter in the process. Mei had been down that spiral a few times, on busy days where there was to time to think about anything but whatever was in front of her in that moment.

…That settled it, then. She wasn’t going to get any more sleep at this rate, and staying alone with her thoughts was dangerous right now. Having something to keep herself from idling would be enough to take the edge off, maybe, hopefully. Still, even as she tried to get herself looking at least somewhat decent for walking outside, Mei was too exhausted to take care of herself in other ways. She was just going to slip in and out of the kitchen anyway, and…

and she didn’t really want to linger in the bathroom right now. The room was undeniably the battleground between her and Haruka as they tried to crowd all their cosmetics together, but there were still a few soap scents from items that didn’t belong to either of them.

Trusting that the scant makeup she had on hadn’t rubbed off yet, Mei wandered outside, dressed down in her sundress, and made her way to the elevator, trying not to think of mud and beads even as the rusted contraption slowly rose to the floor above, where the kitchen awaited.

(The ladder had fewer dark thoughts tied to it, but with Mei in the condition she was now, there was no way she’d make it up there.)

And…there she went, huh. Mei-chan! Magical Mei-chan!

Bestest of bestest friends busy with Haruka for HOURS SUPER IMPORTANT

Mei-chan! The girl of the hour…

Out of her dorm. Down the hallway. Out the door. Up a floor. Aaaaaand…into the kitchen.

(Kimi didn’t see that last one happen, though! Kimi wasn’t about to run in and take the same elevator as Mei! So she had to guess-and-check. So, really, it was 100% good luck that the third-floor kitchen was the first place Kimi did check…)

(…Well, that and…like. Common sense. The third floor was the closest to the floor they were just on, going upways! The kitchen was the closest to the elevator, going out-of-it ways! Where else would she have checked first. Honestly.)

Mei had been in there for something like a minute and a half before Kimi walked in – assuming she had maintained the same walking speed as before, and assuming the elevator had maintained the same elevating speed as it…always did. A minute and a half. Mei was carefully eating slices of a single raw tomato. Then Kimi walked in.

“Hey…Mei-chan?”

OR: My♡My♡Mei-chan! Me♡My♡Mo♡Mum-chan! Manana♡Mo♡Manna♡Mo♡MEI~! Or something.

But Kimi wasn’t going to say all that. Mei-chan looked tired. (And like she was eating slices of a single raw tomato. What to make of that Kimi had no idea.)

( – BUT, ALSO, her reason for coming here was…kiiiinda serious, and kiiiinda urgent. This was neither the time nor place nor vibe for jokes!)

So Kimi said none of that. She said “hey”, and “Mei-chan”, and then stopped. She said it softly, and cautiously, like putting a feeler out – like either the equivalent to a comforting pat on the shoulder, or else the – preceding –

Kimi patted Mei on the shoulder. Comfortingly.

“Is…now a bad time?”, she continued.

“…How ya dealin’?”

(“The preceding gesture” it was, then.)

Keep reading

[shsl-meridian]

“Cagey-Clever Kitty Clique!” ~ [ITONA END] ~ BY: KI!

< – It almost feels like one dude over there and maaaybe Kimi gives a half a shit about who he even is, but – >

But she DID. She did care!

– JUST – AS – MUCH as she cared about EVERYONE, silly!

(It was a silent kind of care, the one Kimi practiced. A careful kind of caring. …That was all.)

Her pen moved, her page filled, almost without her. Gentle loopy motions. Practiced, but loose. Almost too loose – the grip almost losing the pen to gravity – a precarious grip. But she wasn’t watching her pen.

(Nor did she need to. She better grokked the grip of nitrile than she did her own fingertips, at this point.)

She was watching a spot just above her pen, just above her notebook – just smack dab at the center of her voting panel, say. 

(Maybe she’ll actually vote this time? Ha ha! HOO HOO! NOPE.)

– Plus the spot directly to its left. Plus the spot directly to its right. Her eyes, partially lidded by angle and eyelid – glassy – swept her podium. Looking at nothing, looking at no one, resting nowhere. She was watching – nothing at all.

– Letting her periphery catch what it might, rather.

(…Kimi wasn’t that bold, you know?)

(…And wasn’t that…reasonable? Wasn’t it too direct, too aggressive, for her to look directly at people as they were in the middle of – as they were – she could see better from here, anyway. So there!)

Her eyes: about half the speed of her pen. Her pen: about half the tempo of her heartbeat. (Her heartbeat: thump-thump-THUMP-ing away!) But it wasn’t quite half, and it wasn’t quite even, and it wasn’t quite right, and it didn’t make sense yet – 

Rover-chan. Starre-chan. Chono-chan. Lowell. Nakano Uoya Hase rover kuro 25 – was this how they all really were? Was she, GASP!!, GETTING SOMEWHERE?!!

(But there was nothing real about anything of this! Nothing natural! Didn’t the violence of this all bother you – Kimi?) But it DID! But –

She could move her eyes from her podium for half a second at a time, only. To look at the silent Itona alone. Focused, drilling, glimmery, as if trying to communicate something across hundreds of miles of open ocean with her eyes alone. All meaningful and fluff.

“Hey, why…?”

Would he answer? Would he react? Would he react, after all?

…Why wouldn’t he answer?

The votes were tallied. Itona reacted.

Kimi cared so flippin’ much her heart could burst. 

Who was he?

A new Itona. Novel. On the verge of death. …Carrying the experience of knowing-death-is-super-definitely-imminent. Wasn’t he, wasn’t he? And oh, if she could only say he was –

Free not to pretend, too! Safe, too!

One consolation prize in death! One liberty! SILVER LININGS, SILVER LININGS! For him and her and them all…

– But none of this was natural.

– None of this was…real. 

All she could do was watch…

(Takenaka-chan and Lowell-chan. Takenaka-chan and Rover-chan. Takenaka-chan and Mei-chan.)

– And approach.

(Takenaka-chan!)

( – and I.)

She greeted him and left him with a hug. It was…all she could do here.

Kimi did care. So much. Too much.

(Kimi didn’t even totally know if she should even like him, but – that wasn’t his fault, was it? He was doing the best he could, wasn’t he? She liked him just fine, didn’t she? She did! She should, even! She liked all her kids EQUALLY! She…)

(Takenaka-chan and sharks.)

But she was watching the sharks more than the human, to be honest.

Where had they been kept all this time? When the last time they’d been fed!!

(Super wrong. Beyond the pale! Yuck.)

(…Was she watching Itona at all, actually? Maaaaybe…noooottt…)

The curtain fell. Now! Where was she!

– Oh yeah – Mei-chan.

She needed to talk to Mei-chan RIGHT AWAY!!!

…But! Mistakes happened. To everybody, didn’t they?

So Kimi watched as Haruka got to her (temporarily) bestest super-important-est favoritest human in the whole wide world…first…or, rather, as said human got to Haruka. (Order was important! Order was important!) She watched…

…Them, the others, nothing at all…staring out into the podium as if for the first time. Keeping her head fully raised for the first time since she finished her silly old shoeprint spiel. 

Pulling the glove off of each fingertip…and pulling back on.

Standing there.

If she didn’t have to be in such a hurry after all, then…

(…Because…she didn’t.)

(….Because…Takenaka-chan was only getting deader…either way.)

As Rover approached her – a note and a picture in his hand, and a look on his face like – ooh, that SUPER looks like a pain –

– Kimi whispered – to tell him.

“I do too give a poop.”

And again she went into silence. Gently; willingly.

…Because she cared.

Because she did care.

(Because how else could she care?)

[shsl-meridian]

KIMI INABA DEFAULTS ONCE AGAIN! Her voting panel remains dusty and unused as the day she first laid eyes upon it (probably). Thanks, pal.

Vote recorded!