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now we've got bad blood
Who: Shin & close CR (and the Nanamis if desired)
What: Despairzone 2022, Flipside
When: Hope your Valentine's Day is going well, Shin's sure isn't
Where: People's phones and dorm doors, Moon 1
Warnings: Past abuse/toxic friendship is likely to come up
Midori is here. Let Sara and Alice know.
Eight words from Ranger that make Shin feel like all of his blood has turned to ice. His mouth is dry and his mind whirling as he stares down at the screen, thoughts and implications racing frantically through a brain that otherwise might as well have been suddenly replaced with cotton wool or cottage cheese.
He feels sick. With only a token effort at excusing himself, he just runs straight out of the room to the nearest bathroom. It's an off-kilter blur of the mirror, and the twinned shine off fixtures, and his own nausea and ragged frantic breathing, until the fact he's clutching his phone still tight enough for it to maybe break registers through the pain in his hand.
He swallows thickly, and tries to breathe, and sends a reply to Ranger with the slow, deliberate effort of someone trying to do something delicate while out of it. If this is some kind of joke, it's not funny at all. He tries to collect himself, pull himself back together into one place, every nerve on high alert because he can't afford to fall apart if this is true. He's staring at the screen with intensity and a taut, shivering frame. Ranger is... well he's not the sort to outright lie, right? Just mislead. So this is true? Probably... he'd really like this to not be happening.
His hand buries itself in the wool of Nene's scarf. It's a comfort and it isn't. He doesn't know anything. He- he needs to know what's going on.
No reply.
Here in Yogen Shin's let himself get comfortable, sprawled out like ivy, retreating with frost, reaching up towards sunlight, putting down roots. It's not until the possibility that he might need to withdraw completely back into his shell appears that so does the lurching horror that he just might not fit any more. Vulnerabilities exposed no matter what he does, and so many.
All he can do is try. There's nothing to do but to try, and warn as many people as possible before Midori gets his hooks in them like he did to him. He sends his final text to Ranger and lets his head thunk back against the bathroom wall, exhaling. Right now, Shin is at the closest to an advantage he'll get... he just needs to hold onto that.
He lifts up his phone again, and bracing with the other hand, gets to his feet.
What: Despairzone 2022, Flipside
When: Hope your Valentine's Day is going well, Shin's sure isn't
Where: People's phones and dorm doors, Moon 1
Warnings: Past abuse/toxic friendship is likely to come up
Midori is here. Let Sara and Alice know.
Eight words from Ranger that make Shin feel like all of his blood has turned to ice. His mouth is dry and his mind whirling as he stares down at the screen, thoughts and implications racing frantically through a brain that otherwise might as well have been suddenly replaced with cotton wool or cottage cheese.
He feels sick. With only a token effort at excusing himself, he just runs straight out of the room to the nearest bathroom. It's an off-kilter blur of the mirror, and the twinned shine off fixtures, and his own nausea and ragged frantic breathing, until the fact he's clutching his phone still tight enough for it to maybe break registers through the pain in his hand.
He swallows thickly, and tries to breathe, and sends a reply to Ranger with the slow, deliberate effort of someone trying to do something delicate while out of it. If this is some kind of joke, it's not funny at all. He tries to collect himself, pull himself back together into one place, every nerve on high alert because he can't afford to fall apart if this is true. He's staring at the screen with intensity and a taut, shivering frame. Ranger is... well he's not the sort to outright lie, right? Just mislead. So this is true? Probably... he'd really like this to not be happening.
His hand buries itself in the wool of Nene's scarf. It's a comfort and it isn't. He doesn't know anything. He- he needs to know what's going on.
No reply.
Here in Yogen Shin's let himself get comfortable, sprawled out like ivy, retreating with frost, reaching up towards sunlight, putting down roots. It's not until the possibility that he might need to withdraw completely back into his shell appears that so does the lurching horror that he just might not fit any more. Vulnerabilities exposed no matter what he does, and so many.
All he can do is try. There's nothing to do but to try, and warn as many people as possible before Midori gets his hooks in them like he did to him. He sends his final text to Ranger and lets his head thunk back against the bathroom wall, exhaling. Right now, Shin is at the closest to an advantage he'll get... he just needs to hold onto that.
He lifts up his phone again, and bracing with the other hand, gets to his feet.
WARNINGS
[Closed to Rantaro]
Are you busy? We should talk.
[Sadly, it's not a love confession. Shin's basically forgotten the date right now, in favor of much higher priority concerns in his mind. These two... they really do only contact each other this way in times of crisis I'm crying.]
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not particularly. where should i meet you?
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Shin looks down at the screen, mind whirring and the relief of getting a response suffusing it. Somewhere someone could hear him if he screamed, but not if they talked... It's not even about Rantaro at this point, so much as after the roof incident meeting alone somewhere to discuss things has viscerally felt like a bad idea.]
Behind the pool building... You know that L shape it does?
[That's a good spot, he thinks. Out of sight of most of the school, but not completely hemmed in either.]
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got it. see you there
( and it's as simple as that. amami is true to his word — trotting out by the pool building, and supposing this is probably more on the "strategic" side of things than the "friendly" one, but he'll take it gratefully even so. that's why he's quick to wave when he sees shin, whether it's rounding the corner of the building, or as shin does so instead and he leans against it. )
Hiyori-kun. What's up?
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When he gets there he'll find Shin standing in the shade of the corner itself, looking... well, strung out. There's a taut strain to his face as he looks up at the motion of the wave, returns it halfway with a smile that's a little warped and there because it's what his face defaults to now.]
Rantaro... Ahaha. Good to see you.
[His hand is firmly in his scarf, and his face too as he thinks. How to start, how to put this, how to encapsulate any of the sheer mountain Shin's feeling right now in a way that works.]
...
Did anyone... ever tell you much about my world? Sara, maybe?
[It's fishing, a little, because Shin sure hasn't... he's listened to stories and maybe shared a few of his own but there's heavinesses neither of them have touched. But it's also getting a read, testing footing on where he's going to go about this.]
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Not particularly, and I've spent more time chatting with you than Chidouin-san.
( as much as her power of friendship touches his heart, it isn't exactly as if they've had direct heart-to-hearts. concerns about others here and there, concerns that she can't read him well, concerns for her sake too... but nothing in depth. nothing as intense as the bits and pieces that slip through in the ways they act — opposite at a glance, but in many ways, not so different at all. marks on their behaviour that seem to indicate a difficult situation that amami's simply never had the context to make a guess at.
he could always give it a try now, though. )
Something happen?
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Ah, well... Someone from there arrived just now.
[His fingers curl and fidget. He could just leave it at that, but...]
It's... Before we arrived, we'd been kidnapped for a death game. [It feels strange to just say it out loud, to someone who doesn't already know. There's an element of band-aid ripping to it, or peeling off a long strip of skin. He knows Amami will get the implications, given this is an afterlife. If it weren't for the adventurer's own wild tales, the urge to pre-emptively hedge about something that should have stayed in fiction would be stronger in Shin.] And he was involved.
[There's a subtle inflection on the pronoun, a tone that packs years of complicated feelings into one syllable.]
What they call a 'Floormaster'... he ran the fourth and fifth floors.
[That Shin never lived to see with his own eyes, even if some version of him out there did. What does it say he's the lucky one out of the two of them?]
A place where he could play his twisted little minigames. He only cares about his own amusement, in the end... Well, that and not dying himself.
[The weakness that Sara unearthed... Amami should know it too, just in case.]
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I see... So now that he's here, you wanted to warn me about the threat.
( it takes him a little longer though, to decide where he wants to go from there. the interest he has, curiosity, is clear in the way his expression shifted at the very mention of a death game. of course he'd be lying if he said he didn't want to know more, but... right, this is a conversation that has a very clear purpose, isn't it? and shin's a cautious type besides. rather than pursuing his own curiosity by digging his fingers into what he can only imagine are still-fresh wounds, he decides on a route that may be more balanced. )
In a situation like that, it's the circumstances that give them their control, don't you think? I appreciate you letting me know, but I'm sure there's got to be more to it if it's important enough that you're telling me.
( there's something unsaid in his quick acceptance, and the assumptions he decides to voice; an unspoken kind of understanding. he won't shift the topic itself though, inviting shin to give a little more if he wants: the threat of life or death hanging over their heads is no longer one that's under his control, so exactly what kind of threat should amami be keeping his eyes open for? )
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[Closed to Helena]
As far as Shin knows, Helena doesn't have a phone, so he doesn't have her number; he's running around all the places he thinks she might be, panting and puffing. Her dorm room... the library... where is she?
Where-ever it is, he's rushing in, sound of fast footsteps and out of breath lungs towards her.]
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Are you alright?
[she won't know who it is until he speaks, though, but worry's written in her eyes.]
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[Give him a second or two, he's been getting his stamina up lately thanks to swimming et al but it's been a lot of school he's just covered and the adrenalin is starting to wear off. He gets his breath back a bit, swallows a couple of times, realizes he didn't actually plan how he was going to do this.]
Err... I-I'm fine... Can we talk in private?
[That's probably the place to start, the hall probably isn't the best area for this.]
It's kinda urgent, aha...
[He'd just kind of kept the laugh and now even his own habit makes his skin crawl. He swallows yet again.]
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[wherever he wants to go, be it his room or hers. wherever feels private, and safe. it's when they're there, and the door's shut and locked, that she'll start up with the concern again.]
...Shin, what's going on? You sound like you've been fleeing demons at your heels.
[what was chasing him? hunting him? it couldn't be one of the- no, definitely not. but he's definitely not fine, and this is definitely critical to address.]
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[He'll go to his room, pretty much entirely on autopilot because it's simply felt like the safest place he knows for a long while.
It probably says a lot that he doesn't immediately turn the kotatsu on, even offhand by habit. Instead there's a moment of buffering that the name snaps him out of.]
Demons, huh... He might as well be one...
[There's a tapping as Shin drums his fingers on his collarbone through his scarf, thinking about how to describe Midori. Where to even start... He's never so much as mentioned him to her. His fingers stop and close in the fabric.]
...
Helena, I...
I-I had a... friend, once... The original Sou Hiyori. He's here.
[The last word is almost a hiss. He's trying to press this on her with his voice, because she's the closest who hasn't experienced it to knowing what Sou Hiyori is. What that name means, from Shin's use and wear of it.]
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[she doesn't need to know him to know that only certain types of people instill that kind of fear, that panic. this is a warning, him cautioning her against what caused deep scars. and her waiting, to see how much he wants to reveal. what she needs to worry about, or if she needs to be a shield for him - to protect him from someone's attack. a healthy person can stand at least one blow for another, if not more.]
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[Ranger at least... probably discovered him today? He wouldn't sit on that right? Shin's mind feels like it's attacking itself, gnawing itself.]
Helena, you have to listen to me. You can't trust him.
[He's got his hands on her shoulders, close enough the spikes of his hair are brushing her forehead, voice low and urgent, because he knows he's said this before but it's so important here, she has to know.]
He'll say you can... that he's your ally. He'll be friendly, he'll be nice to you... but it's always a trap, or a distraction! He's a master of psychic attack... h-he'll make you forget things, and you'll think it's your fault. He's bad news, okay?
[His fingers are curled; he realizes himself and lets go hurriedly, turning away and stalking around the kotatsu with unearthed energy. He's barely scratched the surface.]
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she stays standing, but her expression says she's listening to him, every paced footstep. every important detail he chooses to give her, to be prepared, to be safe, because she recognizes this for what it is - trying to save someone from his own pain. likely she'd do the same, if certain people appeared here.]
...I won't. Not if he's hurt you so badly - I'll be on my guard.
[because Shin is her friend, even if they clash from time to time. Shin is someone she can fall asleep around and feel safe, someone who understands more than she'd like to verbalize aloud.]
You're the only Sou I care to know.
[thankfully, they already have two people with the same name - it will simply depend on context.]
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She's got a lot to process.
But it's hard for her not to notice her roommate bustling in and out, nervous paces around their little room, in general having a lot more nervous energy than before. In a quieter moment, when he's sitting on the bunk above hers, she eases herself out of bed and peeks up the ladder into his. ]
Something's happened... hasn't it?
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Nanami...
[Right... he's still been adjusting to having her as a roommate. She's quiet, she doesn't seem to leave much... he can't talk himself, but it reminds him of flat green eyes having seen things that left eyebags under them. Maybe it's that that tips the scales of his thought one way over the other.]
I-It's nothing too bad... [Lies.] Not like everything's on fire or something, ahaha. Someone from my world showed up just now, that's all...
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She rests her arms on the edge of the bed, worriedly contemplating him. He looks like he's doing awfully. And she can relate, but...
She wants to help. ]
Mmm... did they... hurt you, back home?
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Ahaha... i-it's that obvious, huh?
[It's a bit of an unhappy murmur into his scarf, glancing away and putting his face back on.]
It doesn't really matter... [It does. It matters immensely.] Just keep an eye out for your own sake, Miss Nanami... that's what I'd do. Don't place too much of your faith in a man with green hair and a rat-tail and you'll be fine.
[He hasn't seen Midori yet, even though in this small a school it's only a matter of time and it's something he's dreading. He doesn't know he arrived in two pieces. He's going entirely off his stark past image of him, refreshed by the dorm room portrait.]
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She climbs up into his bunk, hoping she's not intruding too much. But she wants to know. For her sake, yes, but for his too. ]
What happened? [ She asks quietly and gently. If he doesn't want to talk about it... she'll understand that too. ]
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[It's intruding a bit, in his space unexpected... He hasn't had anyone come up to his vantage point here in... ever, at all, more used to coming down the ladder himself to interact. He's shifting to sit crosslegged, facing her in that way that's like... he's well enough disposed to her to smooth down that small discomfort.]
...
[What happened... that's a question that's hard to answer even leaving aside his own reluctance to talk or think about it too much. It wasn't one single event or even thing he can point to... even a lot of the little things sound stupid when teased out on their own; Shin sure knows because he talked himself out of a lot of them at the time. Thinking that maybe he was just overreacting. He doesn't have the words for it.]
...Why do you want to know?
[It's less harsh than 'why should I tell you' and less honest than 'why do you even care?' It's the kind of question that like it's brothers is put there for a case to be made.]
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Maybe she's intruding. But sometimes, with her classmates... they needed an ear. A shoulder to lean on. Her heart twinges.
And there's so much nervous energy to him, right now. ]
I... I want to help. [ She hesitates. ] Whatever it is... maybe I can help it not happen again.
[ To him, or to her. Or to anyone here. ]
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......
Much as I appreciate the thought... It's over and done with.
[The past is the past. He's not the starry-eyed highschooler he was; he doesn't care about Midori any more, not in any way that matters, a painful extraction of the self. She can't help unless she's got time travel powers he doesn't know about, to go back and warn him the way he's trying to warn her... and that might not have worked out anyway.
He's still scared of Midori, deeply truly scared... but he knows not to trust him now, it's something he's clinging to. He's ignoring the voice in the back of his head commenting that he knew that about Komaeda and look how that turned out.]
Just be cautious and pay attention, that's all I need.
[He's already got his wounds, he doesn't want to see them on anyone else.]
....and if you happen to realize you can't remember something, talk to me or Sara.
[Midori's not the only thing or even person in Yogen that can erase memories, but specifying 'after talking to him' is tricky when you... might not even know you've done that, as far as Shin knows. Sara has the stolen real deal when it comes to restoring them... but Shin has learnt a little of how to walk someone through a repressed memory without the training wheels, his clumsy practice with Joe. It might not be enough - even now Midori holds a lot of power in his mind - but it's something.
And it's also, in it's own way, an answer to the question. One small piece of it, a fingerbone.]
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