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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.
no subject
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.]
no subject
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. ]
no subject
[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. ]
no subject
......
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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But she looks quietly off into the distance at his second request, feeling uneasy. ]
That other one... it might be a little trickier... [ She rubs her forehead, already trying to think if there's anything she doesn't remember. ] This place already does weird things with memories.
[ And with how terrible and wonderful her old memories were and are... she can't even tell which ones she'd want to stick around, anyway. ]
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[It is a relief, her agreement, his shoulders fractionally relaxing a little.]
Right... he's not the only one here who can do it. Ahaha, the same goes for the Counselor, really.
[While Midori is definitely the one making Shin's brain scream rn, there's enough similarity in rumor for Shin to file him under the same umbrella in a taxonomic sense.]
Safalin's memory machine showed up here too... I wouldn't use it if I were you.
[Not that Shin necessarily knows about the brain melting side effects of repeated use of it, but mostly because he doesn't trust like that. Safalin wigged him out a little, as an understatement.]
It's hard to know if something's not there, isn't it? Because it's not there... [It took a lot of picking over his memories for Shin to realize just how many things weren't there. He can pass on what he learnt at least...] Just... gaps of time. Stuff you know, but don't know how you know. Everything leaves traces of some kind or another... it's impossible to get rid of everything. So look for things that don't add up in the world.
[It's a deeply held-to belief, for this reason. It has to be true, or so much of Shin's careful scaffolding falls apart. But everything in the world is the product of it's history, isn't it? Even in it's destruction.]
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That's a lot of ways to lose your memories all in one place. [ She frowns. If this was a game, that'd be a hint or something... signposting that this was a way you were supposed to proceed. It'd be too much of a coincidence. But this isn't one... right?
"Things that don't add up" is also pretty vague, just based on how memories and dreams and life and death all interlink here -- but she gets it. Combined with the ways she's learned to ground herself, that does help. ]
I'll keep an eye out. [ An eye, or a mind... er, whatever the right saying is. ] Um, is it random, how he does it...? I don't want to forget any of my friends. [ Here, or from her life. ]