fall at the ground and miss

Tadao Myojin | 18 | SHSL WIngsuit Flier The best of the best, and don't you dare forget it. Affiliation with Mr Monty's Neighbourhood (Living) | Dead

[teenieterror]

Shark Tank - MMN Chapter 4 Open

[shslwingsuitflier]

teenieterror:

[x]

“Personification,” Rachel chuckles as Tadao looks at the sharks. “Giving something a name makes it relatable, giving you a bias to be sympathetic towards it. That’s why you shouldn’t let your kids name the local strays. Having a personality to relate to makes it harder to let go.”

She stops when Tadao brings up her own dirty laundry again, her mouth dropping into that neutral state again. She sighs deeply, blowing a stray strand of hair out of her face.

“You have every right to hate me, and I know it. I’ve known it from the moment everything boiled over on that campus. That’s why I came here,” She says, staring at her own shoes as she picks her words carefully. “I’m a jerk, I always have been cause I’ve never had the opportunity to be anything else. Or maybe I’ve never given myself that opportunity. It didn’t hit me that the flames I was fanning would grow into a bonfire until it was too late. I don’t know when to back off.”

Her lip curls up, mad at herself.

“That’s why I ever came to Japan in the first place. That first despair incident, I saw myself in the perpetrators. I don’t like that there’s more people like me that can cause that kind of stuff, on such a large scale,” Rachel looks up at Tadao again. “I wanted to stop anyone else going that far again.”

She raises an arm and gestures around at their general situation.

“And apparently I’ve failed.”

“Sounds pretty funny to me, ‘cause...I hate a lot of things in this world that have names, y’know?” Names like Sumino, Yanaihara, and now Aberle in particular. “Pretty sure the fact that animals don’t have personalities like humans do makes ‘em more sympathetic than whatever the fffrick you’re talking about. You know, like no campaigns of secrecy and revenge or whatever, ‘least they’re pretty up-front about wanting to eat your face. But I’m starting to get pretty sure everything you say is BS anyway, so...”

Tadao’s voice trails uncertainly away when Rachel started talking. At some point his over-confident demeanor drops away and he ends up staring with folded arms and a frown at the ceiling, letting the words bounce around in his head. Well, if she was specifically going for the sympathetic bias thing she must’ve had a lot of practice.

“Okay, guess that sounds pretty good and repentant and all, but--how the...insert swear word here, whatever, how do you start a giant riot by accident. Hope’s Peak’s one thing, obviously, a big thing, the biggest thing, of course people were gonna lose their minds when someone like you was--I don’t know, pushing for it. What were you expecting, then? And you probably shoulda ‘seen yourself in the perpetrators’ ‘cause you were one! Like you--like you were even trying to improve stuff, like you even could’ve--”

Sadly, if words are free to bounce around in his head, they have all the time in the world to turn into mocking echoes. Why is it that ‘you have every right to hate me’ sounds so fucking smug? Before he’s really thinking about it, his fist smashes into the shark tank, leaving no damage, just abrupt sound. Should be glad it wasn’t her face. He wants to turn this whole building to rubble barehanded. Give her a fucking riot.

“You don’t know anything about anything, okay? Maybe if you stop trying to act like some ivory-tower idiot I’ll believe you better, ‘cause I know when people’re trying to fake me out.”

[teenieterror]

Shark Tank - MMN Chapter 4 Open

[shslwingsuitflier]

teenieterror:

[x]

Rachel sighs, pushing back her thoughts just enough to put her usual snarky facade up.

“This may just be a hunch on my part, but something is telling me you’re in the market for a shark tooth necklace,” Rachel says, pointing a thumb at the tank behind her.  “And if you are, I’d say you’re best off taking them from my friends here. They can grow ‘em back.”

She looks up at the tiny sharks again, and, remembering Hotaru’s lack of glasses as of late, quickly takes off her glasses and tucks them away. Not that she knew that Tadao crushed them, but he seems the type. And she can barely see without them.

“You know, Georgie, Brillo, Methuselah, Lil’ Stripey,” Rachel names them at random, pointing at the one with a little stripe-mark on it’s back last. “They got more teeth than they know what to do with, probably just waiting to give those bad boys away.”

She pauses.

“What I’m saying is. I’m pretty sure you feel like punching my face in given the whole riot thing. And I’m giving you an option since actual shark punching is gonna sound better on your resume than metaphorical shark punching.”

Maybe he really just has the smallest attention span (it wasn’t like he was always in a rush to beat people up), but this part of the conversation makes Tadao cross his arms and stare critically up at the tank. Lil’ Stripey seems like a reasonable shark especially, they don’t need to be enemies here.

“Okay, I do kinda feel like punching your face in, but my punching resume’s kinda the last thing on my mind, yeah? Since apparently it gets you on more people’s shitlists than actual murder nowadays and I’m pretty sure I’m gonna come off as the bad guy here no matter what you did. ...That’s a...compound noun or something, by the way, no one’s swearing here, ‘couuurse not,” he adds in the direction of the ceiling like the Mayor’s about to swoop down from it and chastise him. “Also, those guys are totally the innocent party here too, wow. Lil’ Stripey’s feeling all kinds of betrayed here. Even literal sharks aren’t so backstabby.”

He stares back down at her, lips pursed...the personification of unimpressed. Distracted for ten seconds max. It was a good effort.

“Maybe you could just, like, admit to yourself that some people here got reasons to be all personally pissed and just accept it ‘cause you know you deserve it? Like, christ, what kind of person says ‘yeah, let’s start a riot for science’ and doesn’t think they’re the bad guy? How about you give me one good reason I shouldn’t actually hit you? And ‘cause I’m tiny and helpless’ doesn’t actually count, getting that one out of the way first.”

[teenieterror]

Shark Tank - MMN Chapter 4 Open

[shslwingsuitflier]

teenieterror:

No one was supposed to know that. That fact had resounded in her head all through the night, all through the morning, and all during the train ride to the next area.  Rachel’s mind was in a haze- Like the part of a dream when you fall into waking yourself up. But this was a jarring awakeness that left her feeling beside herself.

She knew she had to at least try to scope out the newest area- While avoiding the small amount of people that were still here.  Her thoughts were still dizzy, but she still knew that she should be wary- The Mayor had revealed the target on her back that she could no longer hide.

“Everyone here had witnessed the previous despair event,” She was mumbling to herself in English as she walked through the aquarium. “And- except for Agatha, perhaps Sumino- The rioting brought by that left an emotional chip that strikes a deep chord with all of them. Not everyone left is prone to violent reactions- But. Tadao. Definitely. Agatha, possibly. However, everyone has a snapping point.”

She stopped, gazing up at a small cloud of angelfish as they flittered by in the glass across from her.

“It’d be best if I kept my distance from everyone,” She agreed to herself, before continuing on.

She became quiet then, wandering along until she came to a tank that stood in the middle of it’s room, a cylinder that housed a few small sharks. Rachel stopped here, following one that she picked at random with her eyes as it swam about. It was possibly the quietest she had ever been, watching the little hunter circling with it’s compatriots.

Rachel sensed movement, and tore her gaze to look through the tank at the other person who had just entered. She locked eyes with them for several seconds, before inhaling sharply and ducking down below the tank, pressing her back against the wall. Maybe they would leave. Maybe they wouldn’t.

The little shark would just have to wait.

He would be lying to himself if he said he wasn’t looking for someone in particular. Most of the revealed secrets (aside from his own, if he was being really honest) were interesting from a faraway standpoint, but there was nothing to do about it in here, nothing to do with him. The only big change between pre-murder and post-murder was the fact that he didn’t have to panic every time he blinked, didn’t feel like his head was stuffed full of cotton, didn’t feel like a slow-thinking, slow-moving waste of space...and Rachel Aberle.

Honestly, he was aware that getting near her, too, would probably cause more harm than good. Sure, she might have been trying to manipulate everybody from the start, but being unmasked as some creep doing human experiments--yeah, he was thinking of it like that, definitely not dramatic at all--would probably put an end to it. Everyone would know to be 200% on their guard. Still, long term planning wasn’t his forte, and most honestly? He was pissed. He was pretty sure he had a right to be. When he found her, maybe he could make her regret something too.

The blue light of the aquarium should have made everything seem calming, but it really just made the whole situation seem less real. After being just on the cusp of sleep for days it was like being in a wish-fulfillment dream. Him, finally strong enough to scare someone, languidly stalking someone who deserved it. And then the voice from rooms away, voice familiar, words unintelligible, sharpened everything back to normal. Around here somewhere. Good--he’d spent long enough just aimlessly wandering.

Tadao stepped forward into the shark room and stared at Rachel for a few seconds through the blurry glass before her head ducked away. Not a lot of places to hide, and not much of a way for her to run.

“Aw, don’t be like that, Aberle,” he called out, slowly walking up to his side of the tank as if he just wanted to observe the sharks after all. “I mean, sure you’ve gotta be self-conscious and all, but what’ve I ever done to you? I kinda feel like the wronged party right now and you’re only making it worse.”

[theshslseamstress]

Secret Stitches || OPEN

[shslwingsuitflier]

theshslseamstress:

She’s not sure why his voice was rising. She’d assume he was getting mad at her, but…he didn’t sound mad. Maybe he was just good at hiding it. Still, he explains himself and it makes just a little bit of sense. 

“It’s fun for…a moment? That’s…weird?”

How can something only be fun for one moment and then be scary the rest of the time? She couldn’t picture having fun if she was scared mostly-the haunted house was proof enough of that.

“Well…I guess if it scares you more than it is fun then…I guess, stop doing it when it’s no fun anymore?”

Scary, not scary, there’s starting to be really hard to tell when something is or is not scary. This being said, she does smile a little at Tadao sticking his tongue out-thankfully, this means she misses the part about him being perfectly capable of being scary when he needs to be. Which was probably a good thing; she’s scared enough of him already, she doesn’t need any more of that.

She tilts her head; does she hear the train in the distance or is she just hearing things…?

“O-Oh…so everyone gets one, then? That’s nice! I’m glad.”

His tone changes at the heroism bit-probably because it leads to mentioning a bloodbath. Oh dear.

“…Does it? I don’t know…maybe we need a lot of good things, right now? Especially with the, um…codes and everything.”

At Hina’s words Tadao rubbed his eyes as though her questions had just caused him to mentally age twenty years. “...Okay, how about we just drop this whole subject. ‘cause I’m pretty sure we’re just talking in weird circles now. Not even sure why it got brought up. I’m not a psychologist or anything and I’m pretty sure other people could tell you about what actually makes mob mentality run better’n I can.”

Not like anyone would probably want to get into that conversation with Hina of all people, and he should know better. Wasn’t he supposed to be making everything seem less dire? It’s so weird how no matter how he tries to start a conversation it literally never goes according to plan.

“Well, we’re all participating, yeah? ‘least our esteemed Mr. Mayor could do is give us all a ribbon for not losing our minds right off. Do they not...I mean, I guess it’s more a sports thing than an arts-and-crafts thing, it’s just funny, I thought being pissed off about those was a universal thing.”

The train was, in fact, on its way at last! There it was, off in the distance, slowly chugging along through the water. There was something comforting about routine even if the routine was a cycle of death and destruction. People would put all kinds of awful shit about dictators aside so long as they made the trains come on time, right?

“Yeah, I mean...you’re probably right about that. Go out n’ be the change you wanna see in the world or something. Be the hero, Fukunaga. Or, I dunno, maybe that’s too much responsibility. The thing is, most people just aren’t built for hero-type stuff and trying just burns people out, you know?”

[shsl-wanderer]

that sinking feeling | open

[shslwingsuitflier]

shsl-wanderer:

She switches arms now, and is no less deft with her left hand than her right. Her left arm has started bleeding more, now that all the rocks are out, but she doesn’t care. As long as she doesn’t stain her own clothes, she doesn’t care how much she bleeds. 

She looks up at Tadao as he flounders his way through that sentence, and frowns at him. He’s not on the same level as everybody else, simply because they’re alone together, and even now he could overpower her and murder her. He’s athletic, she’s still reeling from a seizure. It wouldn’t be hard. Maybe nobody even knows he’s here with her. She almost wonders why he hasn’t killed her yet. Maybe the motive’s not good enough yet. Maybe she’s not worth it. She doesn’t believe that he didn’t consider it.

She puffs a strand of hair out of her eyes. It’s annoying her. “People are afraid of what they do not understand,” she says flatly, “It has been this way since the dawn of time. A girl collapses and spasms uncontrollably? Frightening.” She pauses. “A girl speaks to the dead? Also frightening. You can see that I am an expert in this.”

She continues to toss rocks away, ignoring them skitter across the floor. “I don’t care if you tell me,” she says, which such bland neutrality that she really does sound as if she doesn’t care one way or another. “What satisfaction would that bring me? Knowing your action will not un-break mine, nor am I petty enough to break your action in payment.” She tears a rock from his skin and immediately a new stream of blood begins to ooze forth. She clicks her tongue in annoying and shifts her position to avoid getting any on her dress. “Tell me if you like. Or don’t. It does not matter to me.”

He might consider staining clothes the last of their problems, but what did he know. Did most people really not know how to get bloodstains out of clothes or just learn how to ignore them? Geez. Every moment of silence seems to needle at him and he starts tapping his foot just for a more controllable sound.

“Yeah, fair enough, but I figured that was kind of a...pretty well understood thing nowadays, unless you take your vacations two hundred years ago or something. Eh, guess I’m not the expert on it. And...I dunno, I was trying to do some kinda nice gesture, but guess you’re right, doesn’t matter either way. If you don’t care then...lips zipped.” He even makes a little lips-zipping gesture, though the lack of enthusiasm is palpable. (What, he wasn’t worth being even a little bit curious about?)

“Okay, but, wait, back up. So you’re really going hard with this whole medium thing?” He squints suspiciously at her face as she works, trying to make a change of expression into some kind of usable information. How did people like Suishou do it, anyway, reading people in general? “I guess I’m the one who’s gotta ask the obvious question. So...if you really can do that...”--and his tone of voice reiterates that he doesn’t believe she can--“Then why not fess up? Wouldn’t that be, like...the first thing you’d wanna do when you’re investigating a murder? Check a firsthand source while they’re still floating around being pissed off?”

[shsl-wanderer]

that sinking feeling | open

[shsl-wanderer]

She reaches out and takes the tweezers, and, in silence, spends several moments carrying out the rather gruesome task of pulling the last of the bits of gravel from the angry red and oozing scrapes in her arms. There’s absolutely no sign of it hurting her. She tosses the first shard of gravel away; it hits the floor with a dull plink.

“I know that now,” she mutters. Her arms is bent back, hand resting on her shoulder, while the other picks at the wound with the tweezers. “I did not before. But can you blame me? It is nothing personal; I cannot trust anyone.” Not here in Tiramisu Town, and not anywhere. She sighs. She’s so tired. “I suppose I should thank you. For not murdering me.”

It would’ve solved a lot of her problems if he had, though.

Plink goes another little piece of gravel. It leaves a tiny smudge of blood where it lands. She doesn’t care. “Your reaction is… tamer than most. Some people are frightened by my seizures. It makes things awkward.” She shrugs, which is a pretty useless gesture with all of her limbs pulled in. “They just happen; I cannot control it. When I am… very stressed they can be triggered, but other times they simply happen.” She exhales a humourless laugh. “My brain is constantly conspiring against me, Mr. Myojin.”

Plink.

She looks up. Her eyes look exhausted. “Your bracelet code must be an easy one,” she says, bitterness staining the edges of her voice, “That is good, at least.” She’d hate to have to deal with that on top of her own problems. There was only so much Fuu to go around, and she was quite preoccupied.

[shslwingsuitflier]

The sound of the individual gravel bits, bouncing away across the floor...it was almost kind of nostalgic, even if the setting was anything but. If he closed his eyes he could put himself back home with E’s pinched frown superimposed over Fuu’s face, almost hear her say you push yourself too hard. But that was so far away it was basically irrelevant, so he almost felt stupid for thinking about it, and he forced his eyes open again.

“Nah, I mean. Considering how the other ones went. If we’re really in ‘trust no one territory’ at least I’m on the same level as everybody else, y’know? I’m not asking for you to thank me ‘cause that sounds dumb as hell--heeeell--enism? Yeah, okay, let’s go with that. How about we stop thinking about it, actually.” She was starting to make him feel bad, considering his actual thoughts on the subject were ‘yeah, he probably could do this, but probably wouldn’t get away with it.’ The worst kind of uninvited thought.

“What, seriously?” He leaned forward, propping his face in his hands and kicking at one of the nearby bloodied gravel bits. “I mean, I’m not gonna say it wasn’t kind of scary but at least I’m not thinking you’re doing it ‘cause you’re possessed or whatever. Sorry for your brain, I guess.” And he truly was. If he had to stop, drop and flail every time he got randomly stressed...well, he might deal with it better than most people since he of course never has been stressed in his life, but it would still be hella inconvenient.

“Easier than what most people are dealing with, far as I can tell, yeah. Buuut promise it’s gonna start hitting me hard at some point, I’m not totally off the hook here. Since...since yours is already broken,” he said slowly, since the phrase ‘since I broke yours’ seemed considerably worse and probably unfair, “I mean, I could just tell you, if you wanna know. Not like it’s gonna make a difference how I deal with it, y’know?”

[theshslseamstress]

Secret Stitches || OPEN

[theshslseamstress]

“Oh…I see. I thought you meant…worrying about being killed, uh, specifically.”

Even with her misunderstanding, Tadao’s explanation gets very…very confusing. He at one point calls it fun in some way and its to this comment that she tilts her head and looks at him confused. How could something so scary sounding be fun? Especially if they had bloodbaths with them? Tadao…did he really like things like that…? 

“Scary…”

She doesn’t mean to let that thought slip but she does. Her eyes widen upon realization and she nearly claps her hands over her mouth. 

“Ah-not that you’re a…um, you just seem to find scary things to be, um…fun.”

That isn’t much of an explanation but she’s not going to tell Tadao that he had kind of become much more scary to her. She hastily tries to latch on to the other topic he’d brought up.

“A-Ah…they are…? That’s…not good. The news already made it sound bad but…ah, that’s scary.”

That was not the right topic to latch onto, clearly. She tried again.

“ I won a ribbon…? Um, I didn’t do anything though…”

Well, this was better than possibly offending him at the very least.

[shslwingsuitflier]

Okay, this was going to require some extensive damage control. Tadao pressed his hands to his face, and when he spoke again, his voice was too high, faux-cheerful, like he was talking to a literal baby. “Oh, nah, no, that’s not what I meant. I just mean it’s gotta have some kind of draw in the moment if people are doing it, ‘specially lots of people all at once, not that I really get it.” It sure sounded like he got it, but... “But yeah, that stuff is pretty much scary, especially how it messes with your head, no getting around it. Aaaand I’ll be the first to admit I can get scary sometimes too. Y’know, when it’s important.” He stuck his tongue out in almost a joking manner, like he didn’t really believe it himself. How could you not trust this cute face?

Anyway--was it just him or were the train tracks vibrating? The train itself must have been on its way, then. Maybe this conversation would get less heinously awkward when they were in motion, or maybe talking to Hina was just always destined to be hard. 

“Well, that’s what the participation ribbon’s all about. You’re here whether you wanna be or not, and you’re not making things any worse, so that’s kinda ribbon-worthy in my book. Not sure there’s much straight-up heroism you can get into in these kinds of games, but,” he said in a tone that was clearly remembering the ‘mysterious room vote’ that felt so long ago now, “if everybody tried to be the straight-up heroism type it’d probably be worse than a bloodbath, even. Too much of a good thing gets outta hand real fast, y’know.”

[theshslseamstress]

Secret Stitches || OPEN

[theshslseamstress]

She did kind of know what he meant. Kind of. It made sense but at the same time, she still wasn’t entirely sure what being cheerful had to do with anything.

“Well…I don’t know…what if you’re not worried and you get k-killed? Doesn’t that still count?”

She wasn’t actually sure if that made sense both in the logical sense or in the actual literal sense. This topic was kind of weird.

“A bloodbath? Ah…that’s…”

He had a point there. Though she only knew about mobs from TV-the riots from a while ago, for one-she wasn’t all too sure how they worked. Irrationally, apparently. Things going badly for delicate people…was he talking about her? He must be, that’s why he was asking her, right?

“Er, are they? I’ve never seen one-um, in person I mean. I heard on the news about…some. I don’t want to see one in person if they’re like they are on the news. To answer your question, they…probably would, I think.”

[shslwingsuitflier]

“Good question! The answer’s...no. Mostly ‘cause I’m pretty sure there’s never been a person in the history of ever that wasn’t worried about something.” A+ deflection right there. “And yeah, it’s not like it’s this cerebral stuff, everyone standing around and going ‘why, I do declare it would be beneficial to toss a brick through this church window.’ It’s more like... kind of fun in a weird way because you don’t have to think about anything and everything kinda feels like justice even if it doesn’t really connect to anything and you’re just somewhere without really remembering how you got there...and...lotsa shoving, mostly. Feeling like nothing’s your fault ‘cause you’re just one snowflake in an avalanche.”

Tadao blinked and scratched the back of his head, staring pointedly down the tracks. Seriously, when was the next one coming, just standing around waiting for a train was the worst feeling in the world.

“Or, y’know, that’s how it sounds, right? Not good. Worse than it looks from the news. Not something anyone’d want to start on purpose, you feel me? So even if it’s not like keeping your chin up is doing a lot by itself, you don’t wanna be the snowflake that starts everything, yeah? Even if all you’ve got to yourself is not rioting that’s kinda better than nothing. Fukunaga gets the participation ribbon for bein’ the thing that keeps us all out of the abyss or something.”

[shsl-wanderer]

that sinking feeling | open

[shsl-wanderer]

Her immediate instinct is to push him away, just like she did everyone else. But she’s too tired right now. She feels like shit, and sometimes, when she felt like shit, having someone around made things feel less like shit. Unfortunately that someone was Tadao Myojin, because the universe was apparently a cruel place. At least he had the sense to not be awful right now.

With one hand she pushes the hair back from her face, but otherwise she remains curled up exactly where she was. “None of us thought that Mister Violinist or Miss Ken were that much of a bad guy, either. There… there is so much evil in this place, I do not know who to trust. How should I know what you are?”

She sighs. She’s not feeling up to fighting right now. “I can see just fine, Mister Myojin,” she mutters, “I am just tired and weak. I will be for a while.” For ever. “You do not have to play nurse for me.” The implication being, of course, that Kazae can handle her own damn self. She’d had seizures on dirt roads in the middle of nowhere with only birds for company, and had been just fine. This was nothing. Or it should be nothing. It wasn’t nothing, was it? Everything had changed on a dime.

God, she just wants everything to go away. She rests her forehead against her knees, curling up even tighter. Her voice is muffled. “I will not do that every time, no… Extreme stress can cause seizures. The doctors say I have… brain damage. Epilepsy.” She makes a weak hand gesture - which causes a stab of pain in her arm. She groans. “Pass me those tweezers, please.”

[shslwingsuitflier]

The universe is a cruel place full of mutual killings happening over and over. It could be worse, probably. There could be four of them in one universe. Or more! Not like anyone’s willing to test it right now, though. They’re already in the middle of something.

Tadao grimaces and stares at the ceiling as though repressing the urge to yell at the mention of Toshi and Ken. Yeah, no one needs to remind him that he’d been a fucking idiot both times, thanks. He’d be thinking the words and you, Tada-chan, you had no idea! for the rest of his life. “Okay, well, now you know who to trust, you’d think. You’re the one thanking me here, I thought.”

It probably shouldn’t be so annoying, having his concern meet such a frosty reception, but every time he does act concerned with anybody it’s like everyone tries to band together to make him regret it, and every time he gets pissed at someone for making things worse for the group it seems like people get mad at him for that too. Would Fuu (it seems stupid to keep thinking of her by this fake name, but he’s not calling her Kazae, definitely not Yanai) seriously have preferred it if he just left while she was still convulsing or something? Why did it seem like everyone here just wanted to suffer by themselves?

He blows out a sharp annoyed breath and considers it a victory that he did just that instead of screaming. “Fair enough, I guess.” He offers the tweezers in her general direction, because he probably couldn’t handle it if he tried to set them in her hand or offered to do it himself and she accused him of ‘playing nurse’ again. “I mean, I know what epilepsy is, just haven’t ever seen it all up close and personal, it’s not that weird.”

[shsl-wanderer]

that sinking feeling | open

[shsl-wanderer]

Watching Kazae convulse for nearly two minutes straight is never terribly pleasant for anyone, as she had learned over the years. Not that she’s thinking about that right now. But as the convulsions slow, and her body relaxes, and her consciousness bleeds back in, her first thought is that Tadao just watched that happen. Her second thought is that she isn’t dead. She’s honestly not sure how she feels about either of those things.

Her eyes flutter open. She sighs. Still breathing. Still Fuu. Still Kazae. Still full of strange things in her head. She lifts her arms, heavy as lead, and rubs at her eyes, trying to clear the visions and voices. It never ended. Never ended. 

“Thank you,” she says after a few breaths, still lying on the floor, “For not hurting me. It would have been very easy. You would not have had to worry about your bracelet anymore.” 

She pushes herself up to sitting, long hair spilling over her face and shoulders. She realises there are streaks of blood on the tiled floor from where her arms hit. She feels so tired, so heavy. Always did after seizures, but… moreso, this time. Maybe it was because she had to be Kazae again. Fuu was light as air, vanished into nothingness as easily as she came. Kazae Yanai was a real person, though, more grounded, more substantial.

She sighs again and pulls her knees up to her chest, rests her chin on them and hugs her arms around herself. She doesn’t care about the scrapes right now. “I am sorry, Mister T-T-Tadao Myojin,” she mumbles, “That you had to see that.” And from where her dress shifts with her legs, the end of a nasty-looking scar is visible partway up her thigh.

[shslwingsuitflier]

It’s weird--the most prevalent emotion he’s feeling when she comes back is relief. They could hardly call each other friends, but maybe he’d just rather not be responsible for the accidental murder of someone after he’d made a totally reasonable decision not to commit intentional murder just then. It wasn’t like he could imagine their esteemed Mayor executing itself for the secret reveal. Then again, just the possibility might be pretty funny.

Sitting back and rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands--he really wasn’t qualified for this shit--Tadao shakes his head dismissively. “Look, even if I did have to worry about it all that much, I don’t think I’m that much of a...bad guy.” Now that he thinks about it, is the duct tape brigade coming for her in a minute? Would she just automatically trip her code the next time she saw anybody, since she couldn’t respond, and then there goes her name to the world? Eesh. “And you’re the one who was actually, y’know...doing it, so let’s just both be glad it’s over, ‘kay? I mean, ‘kay like...if you actually are okay? Am I supposed to do the whole how-many-fingers-am-I-holding-up thing, I’m kinda new to this.”

...Maybe that was a bad question to ask, since she pretty obviously looked not-okay, and not even just because she’d just had a seizure. Good thing he wasn’t squeamish because the image of her convulsing bloodily probably would have been too much for most people. The tweezers are still sitting next to him on the floor, seeming more and more pitiful in the grand scheme of things, and he suddenly doesn’t even want to go near them.

“I--okay, trying not to repeat this whole thing, honest, but do you do that every time you hear your own name? ‘cause I figure I’ve already stepped on enough toes today.”

[theshslseamstress]

Secret Stitches || OPEN

[theshslseamstress]

Tadao’s analog, while well-meaning, doesn’t exactly work the way he wants to as Hina begins to think perhaps Tadao should spend a bit more time inside. Whatever being shanked was, the way he puts it, does not sound all that pleasant. 

“Oh-um, I didn’t think you were saying I was. But um-”

He’s turned back forward and continued talking. Drat. It didn’t look like she was going to go home after all-or not for some time at least. Though she could just blurt out her apology and bolt, that would not only be highly rude to do while someone is still talking, but last time she did anything close to running, she’d slammed right into Tadao and that is how she even got into this situation. So she just sighed quietly and resigned herself to the turn of events she’d gotten herself caught up into.

Tadao’s new topic confuses her, though and she decides to ask about it. After he’s done speaking, of course.

“…I thought what they wanted was um, for us to…k-kill..e-each other…”

It takes quite a bit to say that, to acknowlege that people had to kill to even stand a chance at leaving. She clears her throat and continues on, as if the other words waiting to be spoken will somehow rid the bad taste the topic of murder out of her mouth.

“Um, and…if being cheerful isn’t working then…ah…well, does it matter?”

That doesn’t sound any better than talking about murder, if she’s going to be honest.

[shslwingsuitflier]

Tadao raises a pointer finger to respond to this, but...honestly she has a point, and he spends a few seconds just staring at her wordlessly. Does he even think before he speaks. “Okay, that’s kinda the end result of what they want,” he revises. “But people aren’t just killing each other without any incentive or whatever ‘cause this isn’t total anarchy, so that’s what the motives and the fricking giant floods are for. So people end up killing ‘cause they’re afraid of what everybody else is going to do, or right now the point is to make people scared about their secrets and everything. If you’re not worrying about it then you’re out of the equation, know what I mean?”

Except for the fact that the two people who had ended up murdering so far had done so because the so-called victim was starting shit, and the people who had drowned in the flood had just been unlucky. It was so much easier to think of this as something you could control with your mindset and not a pathetic string of meaningless tragedies.

“And, well, it’s working for me. Like, I’m not dead, so I’m pretty sure that counts as doing good for now. Bad stuff’s happening but mindset’s important. If everyone just decided tomorrow that everything was hopeless it’d probably be a bloodbath, you know what I mean? Thing about mobs is...they’re kinda...irrational.” He says the last part in a tone of a wise monk imparting a secret and not the obvious statement it was. “And things’d probably go worse for the delicate people in that scenario, don’t you think?”

[theshslseamstress]

Secret Stitches || OPEN

[theshslseamstress]

So much for trying not to be a bother to anyone, as Tadao ended up suggesting she tag along with him to Puri Puri Land. Almost from instinct, she flinched upon hearing of the attractions coming back. In his defense, she wasn’t sure he knew that she’d been stuck there when the storm hit and so it wasn’t really a change of scenery after all, much less a nice one.

She’d been preparing a quick and apologetic refusal to his offer, but he was already walking away. She walked after him hesitantly, waiting for a good chance to speak up. Unfortunately, with Tadao choosing that moment to tell her that she shouldn’t actually stay indoors for too long, she missed said chance entirely.

“A-Ah, really…? I wouldn’t really…I didn’t know that…?”

Though it was odd he’d say that to her, given that his talent meant he had to be outside (unless he flew inside…? Where does one fly inside, though…) while hers was mostly restricted to her staying indoors; though she could sew outside, she was never given the chance to. Besides, her head was fine-at least she thought it was okay. Maybe not the best recently, but not “bad”.

[shslwingsuitflier]

“Yeah, seriously. ‘specially when you’re just ending up in a house avoiding everybody, that’s like...a recipe for going stir-crazy right there. Sure, maybe you don’t get shanked in the middle of the night, but at what cost. You gotta get out and see the sun and talk to people, y’know? Not saying you’re off the deep end or anything but still, this kinda stuff escalates.”

Or maybe a better symptom of stir-craziness is telling sweet little girls that getting shanked in the night is somehow preferable to not having an active social life, while being oblivious to them wanting nothing to do with you. Still walking backwards, he spun around only when they reached the train station and kicked at the water still stagnant around the tracks. A train should be coming by soon, which was...pretty impressive given all the water, but like hell was he going to compliment the construction of anything in this town, even in his own head. 

“And anyway, fear’s what they want from this whole thing, you’d think, so being cheerful as all heck just for spite sounds like a pretty good idea to me. Would work better if other people would actually stop killing each other, but y’know.”

[shsl-wanderer]

that sinking feeling | open

[shsl-wanderer]

As soon as she’d said it, she knew she’d gotten wrong, and the mayor’s voice broadcasting through the town is like a bullet to her heart. She physically staggers back at the sound of her name, screamed to all those here, hands crawl to her throat because she suddenly can’t breathe. There is nothing else. Kazae Yanai. Kazae Yanai. The irreverent statement of the name echoes in her ears.

She stares at Tadao, her mouth moving as if to talk but no sound coming out. She stares in horror both at him for being an idiot and at herself for fucking it up. Sorry? He’s sorry? Sorry couldn’t fix it, not now. Sorry couldn’t give her back her anonymity. Sorry was a meaningless and empty word.

“I…” she starts, but her voice chokes off. Is she crying? She feels something on her face, but not in her eyes. Maybe she is crying. “I can’t… remember…” she forces out. “M-my head…” It doesn’t make sense, she doesn’t understand, how can they all know?

She blinks at him, twice, and then, in an oddly calm voice states, “I am about to have a seizure, you shitface.” As if on cue, her knees buckle under her, and down she goes.

[shslwingsuitflier]

Maybe this does make him an idiot and a shitface, but he has no idea why she’s freaking out about this. A name’s just a name, right, and a talent’s just a talent, both of those are things that pretty obviously have to be known by other people already, and it’s not like he even recognizes her from anywhere. At least he’s not going all the way with the dickishness, since he’s not bothering to say any of this--but by the time he finally approaches her with the tweezers, she announces calmly that she’s about to have a seizure, and then she’s going down, so it’s not like he could make things any worse at this point.

“What do you--hey!” Shit, uh, what’re you supposed to do for this? He vaguely remembers a bunch of well-meaning first-aid lessons, their words disjointed. Put something under her head--his jacket gets whipped off and becomes an impromptu pillow. Don’t restrain her but make sure there’s nothing nearby she could hurt herself with. And...start counting, so if it lasts a weirdly long amount of time, call an ambulance. Okay, that’s fantastic, Tadao, good on you for remembering that detail when there’s no way an ambulance is coming, he snaps at himself, but starts counting anyway, if just because it’s a way to occupy his brain and stop thinking about shit he really doesn’t want to think about.

Thirty seconds...a minute...he could pretty easily kill her like this if he wanted...but then someone probably saw him going after her...a minute and thirty seconds... 

If only because he’s pretty sure she’s off in her own little world right now, he mutters, “I am so completely sick of weird brain stuff.”

[theshslseamstress]

Secret Stitches || OPEN

[theshslseamstress]

As usual, he’s rather nonplussed about it, even giving her a head pat before asking after why she was actually running around so quickly. She’d begun to apologize again and try to gracefully leave but he’d asked to walk her to her destination anyway so she was stuck. She shook her head hurriedly.

“It’s…I mean, okay. I’m going back to my house to um, worry about the motive?”

It came out as a question more than a definitive answer, which made sense since she herself wasn’t all too sure about that plan. One thing was for sure, she didn’t want to bother anyone any more than she felt she had to.

[shslwingsuitflier]

Going back to the house to worry. Well, Hina sure led an exciting life. She should be glad she knew someone like him who would rather everyone not just wallow. Besides, what kind of awful secrets could someone like this kid be hiding anyway? (Why did he even think that, hypothetical questions always led to the worst answers and it wasn’t like the two murderers thus far didn’t seem like perfectly nice people. Trust no one, especially not the cute ones, etc.)

“Okay, how about you don’t do that and you go somewhere with me instead. Like, this is probably the chance to do something cool considering we’re finally done with the soggy BS. I’m pretty sure they were putting the carnival thing back together last time I checked? Not sure how much I wanna ride anything considering the ferris wheel was stuck in a roof a couple days ago but, y’know, change of scenery.”

Seizing on her questioning tone, he figured what she really wanted in these trying times was someone to hang out with, someone who could make decisions for her. Group dynamics were a pain unless someone was willing to be the voice of authority once in a while, so...field trip it was. Sticking his hands in his jacket pockets, he walked backwards in the vague direction of the train station, expecting her to follow.

“Staying inside all the time is pretty bad for your head, y’know, Fukunaga.”

[theshslseamstress]

Secret Stitches || OPEN

[theshslseamstress]

Ah, it was Mister Myojin. That made her stumble a little less awful; if that had been her first impression to one of the people she didn’t know very well, that would have been incredibly more embarrassing. She took his hand gratefully and slowly picked herself up off the ground.

“Ah, sorry-um? Oh no, I’m okay.”

His joke manged to fly over her head. An oven…? Did her kitchen have an oven? Surely it must have. But if it was on? She’d never used it to her knowledge, but maybe…? She hesitated, clearly thinking this over before answering as best she could.

“ Our-My…oven? No, I don’t think so…? I didn’t use it so unless Mister Saito did…uh, I don’t know.”

Not to speak of how an oven left on for too long was the least of her worries.

[shslwingsuitflier]

That’s the problem with wingsuit fliers making jokes. He’s doomed to never have anyone understand. Sadly, or maybe happily, he couldn’t bask in his own unfunniness because was derailed by the mention of Takehiko. It had been a while since he’d seen the guy, and now that she mentioned it, he hadn’t appeared at the motive announcement either and hadn’t gotten a cool mention like Agatha, so... (No way, they wouldn’t just have another person die and not mention it. Katsumi was bad enough. He’d ask around--someone other than Hina, because if it was bad news he wasn’t going to be responsible for making the kid sad.)

 “...Okay, so you’re being nice to your appliances and everything, good to know.” He put a hand on Hina’s head and ruffled her hair obnoxiously. In the nicest way possible, of course. “So where are y’going in such a hurry? It’s not like all these things are gonna be constantly tripping by accident, or it wouldn’t be fun, right? Mind if I walk you anyway?”

[shsl-wanderer]

that sinking feeling | open

[shsl-wanderer]

Her brain is stuck in panic mode and she turns slowly, trying to look for places where she might be able to hide. She sure can’t run; there’s only one door, and that boy is on the other side of it, and if he acknowledges her existence she’s screwed. But she can’t think, there are alarms going off in her mind and they’re drowning out any semblance of rational thought.

The click of the door rips her out of her thoughts so fast it gives her whiplash. She twists and stares at him through the door, eyes wide, beads of sweat rolling down her face, bubbles of blood rolling down her hands. The colour visibly drains from her face. She can hear her own heart assault the inside of her ribs.

“H-h-hello,” she says, forcing a smile, “M-Mister… Mister…” Why did she have to drop her book? Why? If she hadn’t been so stupid and so rash she wouldn’t be about to ruin everything! Her brain was frozen in place, couldn’t think, couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. “Mister… Tarou… Myojin?”

There’s a pause.

“That… that isn’t your name, is it?” she says hollowly. That sinking feeling. She looks down, at the specks of blood on the hardwood floor. “Shit.”

[shslwingsuitflier]

There’s nothing like the feeling of realizing you were wrong. Exceptionally wrong. Like, ‘misinterpreted everything possible to interpret’ wrong, and then getting evidence of your wrongness blasted all over town. ...Sure, Fuu’s probably more upset by this development, but he feels like he deserves to be a little bit self-centered too. Just for a minute. (What other person would feel this spike of annoyance that she couldn’t get his name right after all this time?)

But then the announcement was over, and he was still stupidly paralyzed in the doorway, staring at her--not Fuu, Kazae Yanai, a name that made him instinctively jump when he heard it, for whatever reason. Kazae Yanai the ‘spirit medium.’ He was supposed to be the one who knew how to react right away and here he was, just watching her freak out and bleed. Okay. Okay. He could deal with this. As far as secrets went, it was just her name and talent, right? No reason for a person to hide that shit in the first place. It wasn’t like it was SHSL Contract Killer or anything--for some reason he wouldn’t put something that outrageous past her.

“...Tadao. Tadao Myojin.” He pushed his bangs off his face and stared at the ceiling for a few seconds, gathering himself. “Okay, so that was kind of nutty, but whatever. Maybe if I actually believed in that stuff and thought it could’ve helped I’d get in your face wondering why you kept it a secret, but I don’t, so...doesn’t matter to me, won’t mention it if you don’t want me to.” Which was great for her, because Suishouryuu (Hotaru now, he’d never let the guy forget it) had certainly gotten an earful about being shady, and treating a forgetful girl so roughly just seemed over the line. “Maybe bigger priority now, you’re still bleeding all over the place, holy sheet.”

If he was going to come in here and break her code on accident, he might as well help out like he came to do, right? Sure, she might want him around even less now, but it didn’t seem like she was taking care of this blood thing herself. The gravel had to come out of her arm before it got covered up, so he immediately got to work retrieving the tweezers she didn’t seem to have yet, left scattered in the other room, for some reason unable to make eye contact with her now after that prolonged staring. “Sssss...” The word came out as a hiss the first time. Call him unused to this. “Sorry. By the way. Thought it was something else.”

[theshslseamstress]

Secret Stitches || OPEN

The robots work fast, it seemed. As did Mister Mayor, for hardly any time since the storm had passed before he’d called them all in to impose another motive on them. As one of the robots slapped a bracelet onto her wrist, she felt herself shying away from the contact. What was this thing…? Was it like those ones that would inject poison and kill her? Or, or, those ones that wiped your memory and knocked you out after a certain amount of time?

…Mister Mayor’s explanation put both of those thoughts to rest in favor of raising up an entirely other one. It was not a pleasant thing either, threatening to expose her secrets if she broke the rule written on her bracelet. Taking a small peek, one word caught her eye and she bit her lip to stifle a small cry. Why did it have to be this way…?

Everyone dispersed and she was left to think of her situation; something she really didn’t want to do. Mister Mayor was far too cruel this time. All the other things, motives, she could’ve just put out of her mind and just watch her back. But this time, she had to actively think about this and it was troubling, to say the least. The added threat of a mole was also incredibly unpleasant. But that, that, she could ignore.

She decided that maybe heading back to her house-right, it was solely hers now since her roommate was gone, wasn’t it?-and sorting this whole mess out would do her good. Of course, she was a bit too hasty in actually doing so and this is how she nearly managed to plow right into someone standing around the town center. The method of doing that, unfortunately, was to try to skid to a halt, fail to do so properly, smack right into and past them and ultimately topple over for Mister Mayor and everyone to see. 

“Eep-!”

That could have gone better. She looked up at the person she’d tried so valiantly to avoid, an embarrassed look on her face.

“I’m um-! Um, very sorry, are you okay? Gh…”

[shslwingsuitflier]

At least his code had the benefit of not being something he had to worry about for a while, maybe not at all. As panicked as everyone else looked when they cleared out of the area, and taking into account the missing Agatha, that wasn’t the case for everybody. But he wasn’t going to panic. He was going to manage things, whether anyone else wanted him to or not, because evidently they all needed some guidance right about now. This was definitely not the time for everyone to do the lone-wolf thing again.

But before he could plan for that either, someone ran into him. Like, literally ran into him, bounced off because they were considerably smaller and lighter, and fell down. He probably could have guessed Hina before he even looked down, and true to form, there she was on the ground, looking embarrassed.

“Takes a little more than that to leave a mark on me,” he said with an easygoing grin, holding out a hand to her so she could pull herself up again. “How about, are you okay, since you’re the one on the ground and everything. Also, geez, what’s the hurry, remembered you left the oven on at home or something?”

Part one on the managing agenda, apparently: morale boost whenever possible. Everybody knows panic only begets more panic and then you’re frothing around in the middle of a mob with no idea how you got there. Set an example of conspicuously not panicking. That’s what you’d expect from a leader.