yogen | [CLOSED] everybody knows that

[Add has still been trying to avoid people, even after all the forest nonsense... but he can only keep this up for so long. It's awkward. He knows he can probably just... walk up to some of those people and they'll forgive him, but it doesn't feel right... there has to be some way he can make sense of it, understand what it is that makes people keep coming back, what might be enough to make them leave, the limits he has to work with...

so it only makes sense for him to go to the last person he tried to scare away. Noah had his own reasons to stay friends with Add, but maybe he has some insight on how others might feel...?

anyway, the best time to do this is when Noah is alone, so right in the middle of his quiet reading hours a hand suddenly appears from nowhere and pulls his book down. Add is casually reaching through a hole in the wall like this is a totally normal way to initiate a conversation.]

Hey. I need to ask about something...

[Noah is genuinely having a good time being engrossed in his reading, and he just so happens to be reading an old novel about vampires — spooky, creepy, people drink blood, par for the course for every teeth-stealing blood-drinking bastard in this school honestly — and because of the source material, the hand reaching through the wall scares him more than it would otherwise.

He lets out a piercing shriek that can probably be heard down the hallway for anyone nearby, jolting and nearly throwing the book — were it not for the hand holding it anyway.]

Hi?! Could you use the door next time?!

Don't make so much noise. [frowning sternly like this is Noah's fault

he leans on the edge of the portal, sighing... hesitating, just a little, but he already initiated the conversation so it's a bit late to back out. give him a moment to decide where to start so that he doesn't sound pathetic.]

... have you spoken to Komaeda recently? [Sara he can probably deal with, but Komaeda... is tricky.]

[Noah just makes a face at that. Yeah, okay, sure, "don't make so much noise". Asshole—]

Not... more than usual? [??] He and I usually talk, yeah, but I guess I haven't spoken to him in a few days...? Why? Did something happen to him?

Not recently... [does he really have to explain that, c'mon Noah your memory can't be that bad it wasn't even a month ago]

How is he doing? Does he seem... normal? [...] For him, I mean.

We haven't spoken at all since the meeting, but... if he's doing fine, I should just leave him alone.

[he says it like he's already decided that's right, but he's also giving Noah a look... like "please tell me if I'm wrong, I actually have no idea what I'm talking about"]

[...oh. Noah has a sinking feeling he knows what this is about, only confirmed after Add says that last thing. That's right... he watched that whole scene go down while he was in the middle of his own fit.

So they haven't made up, then? Oooooh...]

Komaeda is... Komaeda. He switches his thoughts and actions at the drop of a hat sometimes — how he'll be on about hope one day and lock himself in his room the next. So... I guess he hasn't done anything I consider out of the ordinary, but it's not like I can read his mind.

[It's not really an answer to the question, but it's not Noah's place to put Komaeda on the spot when he really doesn't have a single idea what the guy's up to.]

I thought you guys would've talked by now. [You know, like adults? ...thought Noah Ebalon, Guy Who Doesn't Talk About His Problems.] Sorry. But— if you get in a fight with someone, you're supposed to go talk to them. Even if he forgave you, maybe he thinks you want space still. Or maybe he's still mad and he's just not showing it, which is all the more reason to go say hi.

[... that's not the answer he wanted to hear, why would you do this to him

Add sighs, retreating slightly into his void hole... even when Noah lays out the possibilities like that, he wants to argue against it. what if Komaeda is still mad... what if he doesn't want to see Add at all anymore? if that were true, then...

it's hard. he knows the words, but he can't say them out loud... it's too embarrassing, too honest. he's taking baby steps over here.]

... I don't want to make things worse. Can't you just ask him for me? If he wants to see me again or not... but pretend it's not me getting you to ask. You can pretend you're asking as a concerned third party. That way his answer won't be swayed by my presence, either... ah, we can even put a listening device on you. You just have to act natural, it'll be easy.

Come out of the hole, Add.

[It's Noah's best attempt at a mom voice and he realises a second too late that he's seriously starting to sound like Clamor. Uh. Like father like son?]

The most I'm willing to do is go with you to mediate, but... if I learned anything while I was here, it's that you have to talk to people yourself when there's an issue. Wouldn't you have thought I was stupid if I came to you and asked you to talk to Yukio for me and see if he was interested in me? Him or Nene?

[He shakes his head to himself like, not quite the point, but the anecdote might get it across.]

...are you scared to talk to him? Is that it?

[he's not coming out of the hole....... might be hiding even more now

he glances away, muttering into the edge of the portal] I'm not scared...

[...

...

...]

... what if he's still mad?

If he's still mad, then you have to talk to him so you can find out how you can make stuff better. But, how are you supposed to know if he's still mad if you won't even go do that much?

[Noah puts his chin in his hand and props his elbow up against his knee, trying to gaze into the portal to see where Add is, exactly, since all he got earlier was an arm.]

...Clamor and I got into a fight of... some sort, a while back. It was all because of communication errors, though. We weren't on the same page about things at all — we both had to listen to each other and talk to solve the problems. [And then Noah cried and hugged the sickle but he leaves that part out.] So, you and Komaeda have to do the same thing.

[he's just kinda floating in his void now with one hand loosely holding the edge of the portal... but he's listening, really. Noah is truly the keeper of goth catboy wisdom.]

Talking with that idiot... he'll just make me mad, and then I'll say something stupid again... if that's how it's always going to end, then it's a lost cause I should give up on. [and yet... here he is, trying to figure out how to fix things. he can't even make sense of his own actions.]

... ugh, isn't there a better method than that? Talking is— it's too messy, I can't predict what he'll say so it'll be too difficult to prepare a script, and there's no way to practise or retry. It's way too risky, there's no room for any kind of error... I don't even know what I'm supposed to say, there's no way I can do it flawlessly on the first attempt. The chances of succeeding under those conditions, they're abysmal...

Maybe... if I make a drug that can make him forget, I can get a couple of attempts out of it... [add no]

You know... the point of talking to people is supposed to be the mystery. Isn't it boring if you know everything someone will say or do before they even get to that point?

[Noah, who usually has no will to live, thinks that the fun of life is in the mystery. If he'd known everything Clamor would've done or said after they discovered the remnants of House Rosso's manor and all the experiments, of the incubator spell that led up to Clamor's demise, then they wouldn't have been as close as they are now — Noah wouldn't have learnt from his outbursts and ire because he would've already known the explanation.

Knowing everything slots into some kind of perfection that he's genuinely not interested in.]

Please don't drug Komaeda and make him lose his memories. As someone who spent his entire youth being drugged and having his memories altered, it sucks.

[What the fuck is wrong with you Add.]

[do you want an essay or bullet points

there is a slight wince and a sigh at that response, though. okay... fine. he can't really argue with that.]

I never said I was going to... [he was absolutely considering it, he would've tried it if Noah didn't protest]

Knowing the response ahead of time... details like that aren't important, but if it's something you can only attempt once, it's common sense to want to maximize your success rate. If it's possible to make multiple attempts, there's less pressure to get it right the first time, but for something like this...

[if he says something wrong, if his plan goes off script, if he gets upset and does something stupid again... there are too many ways he could screw this up. and he doesn't even get an opportunity to practise? not even one redo?]

I don't want to make any mistakes. It has to go perfectly... that's the only way I can be sure.

You can "maximize success rate" or whatever by being honest.

[Noah just shakes his head. He's one to talk about all of this, but you know what, he'll be damned if he doesn't try and teach Add something he learnt in the course of being a massive fuckup for his whole life.]

You're being too much of a perfectionist. Most people don't want that — what's more meaningful to me is an honest attempt to make things right rather than being so exact that it's surgical in precision. I'm sure Komaeda and any other person is the same way. I mean... most people consider honesty and legitimate attempts to be better than saying what the hurt person wants to hear.

[Maybe he should tell Add about the incident with Clamor in the manor... maybe that would help, he thinks, but then he considers the fact that it's Add and Add doesn't quite think like him. An anecdote that's unrelated to him personally might not be helpful.

Noah shoots for a different one instead.]

Do you remember when we weren't getting along, and I kept trying to get your attention? Do you think I was just saying what you wanted to hear? Making you pancakes because I thought you might want them? I was just trying to apologise in the way that I know how to apologise — being honest even though I thought you might never want to talk to me again. I didn't think I'd try and alter your memory or "maximize success rate" or anything like that. That kind of thing doesn't come from the heart.

That's...

[that's different, but... it's really not, it's the same. it was what Add wanted to hear, because it was Noah making an honest attempt to make amends with him even after he'd tried so hard to make them into enemies. all he wanted was to be wanted.

is it the same for Komaeda? is he just waiting for Add to say he regrets it...?

but it's still not that simple... it's a mess he's tried to ignore for years now, and trying to untangle it now only gives him a headache. he leans out of his little void window, chin resting on his folded arms.]

... "You're kind of like me." That's... what you said back then. [someone who doesn't think they deserve to be loved, but... someone who overcame it, eventually. someone worthy of love.]

Even if he forgives me... I don't know. I've never thought about the future before.

Uh-huh. I'm glad you remembered.

[It's a long, arduous journey to get to a point of learning that one is worthy of love and attention, of being forgiven for things even if those things are heinous — a path that Noah's tried to set himself down on and, though there are several moments where he's failed, he'd like to think he's improved.

To forgive, to be forgiven, to love and trust without borders, to be able to atone for mistakes — they're the hardest things in the world to him.]

Ideally, if you apologise and he forgives you, or if he's really not mad after all... "the future" would be sort of what it's like now, just with a better understanding of each other. [Like him and Clamor, a thought Noah doesn't bother to voice out loud.] You'd know what hurts and you'd know to avoid doing something like that in the future. That's... kind of the entire point of saying "sorry", really.

...

You're friends. Friends don't just give up on each other after a fight.

No, I mean...

[he sighs, getting frustrated again... why do feelings have to be this complicated, how did this turn into goth catboy therapy]

Having a future. I've never really thought about it... I was working so hard to change the past, it seemed pointless to worry about something that would be erased anyway.

No matter how much you increase something's value... if the equation ends in multiplication by zero, you get the same answer every time. I guess... I was trying to be more efficient. I didn't want to have regrets. Adding value to something that would be erased...

Then... why erase it in the first place?

[A genuine question, because at the end of the day Noah wouldn't know what it's like to be able to erase a timeline he didn't agree with; there are times when he wishes he could, and there are times that the moonstone perhaps does that for him — but sometimes he truly does want to move forward and not have to atone for his mistakes retroactively. To carry memories with him that others don't have is troublesome.]

In some ways, isn't... isn't everything you do valuable? Even if you got rid of something in the end, you still probably did something you liked, right? Maybe not everything was good, but not everything is... supposed to be. I don't think, anyway. 'Cause it's boring otherwise — if there's too much joy, you don't get to experience happiness, and then life gets stagnant.

...

Plus, if I personally could've undone everything I didn't like of my own volition, I'd probably still be... kind of an asshole, honestly.

[He used to be such a little shit to Clamor in specific — and he's still kind of that way to others here, to a lesser degree. Character development, maybe?]

Mm...

[he goes quiet for a bit... part of him wants to just stop talking and forget about all of this, but... maybe it's because of what happened in the forest. even if he can't really remember it, it feels like... it's a little easier to approach, for some reason?

there are certain things he's still not ready to talk about, but maybe he can admit to this much, now.]

I didn't have a lot worth living for back then... so the plan made sense at the time. Why build on something that doesn't have any value to start with? You gain more by starting over.

Oh... I... I get that.

[Oh boy does he get that, on a level that he should not be getting that — but Noah's not going to make this about him. These are Add Hours, this is goth catboy therapy for Add.]

But... you have that now, right? Even if it's kind of ironic in this place. Here, you have friends and people who care for you. I won't try to shove words in your mouth, but I hope you consider that worth it. Something you... you don't need to rewrite.

[He leans a bit to get a better view of Add in the portal. There's the temptation to reach his hand out and pull Add from it, the fleeting thought that maybe Add would accept something like that, but it dies as quick as it came. He has the feeling that Add wants to hide right now — it's scary, after all, when your entire world shifts so drastically.]

[he's hearing this because he gets it... Add knows that much about Noah. it made him angry back during their first fight... but he understands it a little better now. Noah gets it.

does he have a life worth living now...? he's scared to say yes, because then that means it's something he could lose all over again. in a way... that's what it felt like with Komaeda, lashing out like that. if Sara hadn't stepped in, if he'd pushed just a little harder...

having something he wants to keep... it's dangerous. he's not used to living this way. he doesn't know how to act.]

... if it doesn't work out, I'll just rewrite everything later, so... I'll try it the other way this time.

[the being honest and talking like adults way]

[Noah smiles softly, gently. That's... good enough, he supposes. Getting to rewrite the past at all is a little unfair, but Add's trying, and like he said earlier — it's the attempt that counts.]

I'm glad to hear it. And... honestly, I'm proud of you.

[Funny that a 17 year old boy is now proud of an Adult Man, but you know what? It's the little things.]

It's scary, apologising to people and talking things out, but I don't think it'll go bad. And you can come back and grab me if you do wind up needing something, too.

[... this conversation is getting way too honest and corny. Add scoffs, glancing aside. do not perceive his embarrassment rn]

I can handle it myself. This was just for intelligence-gathering.

... Thanks, I guess.

[it sounds a little forced, but that's just Add being Add.]

You're welcome, "I guess."

[Gonna throw that attitude right back at ya, bud. But really, he's glad he can help, even if Add's going to be all cagey about it.]

We're friends, so this was the least I could do. I hope it goes well.

[friends........ ugh

he opts to ignore that warm and fluttery feeling in his chest... just focus on something, anything, other than his own embarrassing feelings. his eyes land on the book Noah was holding.]

Whatever, that's all I wanted to ask. Go back to reading your... whatever this is. [he already kinda stole it when he reached in here, so he's gonna flip to a random page. too bad its not a teen vampire romance novel but idk maybe it is i wont judge] Vampires? How childish... kuku, you don't really believe in things like that, do you?

[CLOSED] everybody knows that

also for Noah, late March/early April

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