lucetilogs | Could we all be dreaming of the suffering forming clouds on our feelings?

Could we all be dreaming of the suffering forming clouds on our feelings?

Who:

denyingreasons
What: a re-meeting of friends
Where: their apartments
Summary: The Master of Amala is gone, leaving just a brat in his place, and Naoki continues to be a too-forgiving idiot.
Rating: Possibly PG-13 for Isamu's apt-to-be dirty mouth?

It was difficult, coming to. Isamu's eyelids felt glued shut, and he wondered how long he'd been sleeping for. Surprisingly enough, he found that breathing came easier now. He'd expected things to continue to get worse, so this improvement took him a few moments to process. In fact, he was starting to realize that he felt better all around.

...He also felt filthy. How many days had it been since he'd arrived? And he hadn't cleaned up properly since then. He probably smelled pretty foul, covered in his own sweat and... whatever was falling off of him in a caked mess. That was something he preferred not to think about. Slowly, he pushed himself up onto shaking arms and rolled unceremoniously off the bed, hitting the floor heavily.

For a while, he just laid on his back, wings crushed painfully beneath him, and stared up at the ceiling. His legs had to work today - he'd make them work - because he wasn't crawling his way to the bathroom. Eventually he'd have to get up, so he focused on that, using the edge of the bed for support. It wasn't as difficult as he imagined. He was still bone weary, and his limbs almost felt like they wouldn't support him, but the more he moved around the more able he felt. Finally he stood, light-headed and a little nauseous but steady. This was promising.

Isamu made straight for the bathroom, shedding his boxers (the only thing he'd been wearing for the past day) before he even reached it. He realized belatedly that he had nothing to shower with. No soap, no washrags, no towels... nothing. His apartment was basically empty of the bare necessities because he hadn't taken the opportunity, or rather hadn't had the chance to take the opportunity, to get anything. That would have to be a first priority, and he began making a mental list of everything he'd need even as he turned the water on. As long as he could get it scalding, he might be able to live with just standing under it for a good long while. He'd shower again once he had everything he needed.

He hung his head under the faucet, watching the water make its way down the drain... frowning as it turned slowly brown. It took him a while to realize the source of the discoloration, and he stared down at his torso with a detached sort of shock. The emotions, the growths that had attached themselves to him in Amala, had turned to mud and dust completely. The water was washing the last remnants of them away, leaving the skin beneath smooth and perfectly human. Without thinking, he aided the spray in this process, wiping away bits with his hand until there was nothing left but faint traces of residue. He didn't step out of the shower until the water had gone cold.

When he'd finished, he walked out and stood in the middle of the bathroom, not caring how much he dripped onto the tile. He turned to the mirror and just stared at his own reflection for a good while. Gray eyes stared back at him.

Then he started laughing, hard enough that it became difficult to breath again. He leaned against the counter and just let it all out, cackling until tears were running down the sides of his face. A fist was slammed against the mirror, but he lacked the strength to do anything spectacular like cracking it. Eventually, his chest began to ache and he had to stop, remaining in place until he was able to get his breathing back to normal.

Once out of the bathroom, he took better stock of the other room. Dirt littered the floor, along with a few feathers - all from him. A vacuum cleaner, or at least a broom and dustpan, was added to the list of things he needed.

...He didn't want to leave the apartment, though. Leaving meant facing Naoki. Naoki, who most likely wouldn't do anything to him, and that only made it worse. He dressed slowly - no shoes, no socks, no belt... He only wore the loose shirt he'd picked up the other day and his jeans. And he left his hat on his bed with the excuse that his hair needed time to dry. He felt naked still, and perhaps that's the way it needed to be.

What time was it? Early morning? Did it matter. Isamu paced around his room. He needed to make sure he had his footing, was all. It wouldn't do for him to go stumbling around like an idiot...

"...Fuck this," he decided suddenly, and strode straight out his door and to room #25, knocking before he could wuss out of it.

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Sitting still was something Naoki had never been good at, ever since he was younger. He felt like he always needed to do something, to help or occupy himself, but there were only so many things short of looking for some kind of fight that he could do in this place. He didn’t want to sleep, either—it wasn’t like his body needed it all that much anyway. What he wanted to do was march right over to Isamu’s place and barge his way inside. He’d left his room quite a few times with that intent, got halfway to the door and remembered and decided that no, he’d been asked not to. Even if he did go in there, what was he supposed to do once he got inside?

’Powerless, huh—not that it’s that different from home, I guess.’ Naoki ran his thumb over the ring held in his hand, gazing down at the silvery glint of it and flicking it idly up into the air before catching it. He knew he should give it back, along with the necklace sitting in his pocket, but hadn’t managed to talk himself into it just yet. It was stupid sentimentality; he knew that, because they reminded him of the Isamu the way he thought…the way Naoki thought that he was supposed to be, not—

He looked up at the knock, tucking the ring back into his pocket. Rising up from the couch, he made his way over to the door, pulling it open with unneeded force. He paused a little, stared with fingers slackening and dropping from the doorknob, like he couldn’t believe what was in front of him. And it was hard to, really. It felt like forever—too damn long since he’d seen him like that, four months added on to the time at home. Naoki leaned slightly against the doorframe, like he couldn’t support his own weight.

“Good,” he said after a long couple of moments, releasing a heavy breath. “You didn’t die on me.” Gathering himself, he shifted his body to the side. “You wanna come in?”

There were several responses on the tip of Isamu's tongue after that. No, I just felt like standing out in the hall for a while, maybe run the length of it a few times for my health. He couldn't get himself to say any of them, though. Instead, he nodded and stuck his hands in his pockets in an almost sheepish manner. "...Told you I wouldn't."

When it all came down to it, he hadn't known. It had been easy enough to assume that he hadn't been brought into this place just to die (again), but it wasn't like he could be positive when he barely knew what their captors wanted with them to begin with. He stepped past Naoki into the apartment, distracting himself from the current situation by taking in what household items the other teen had that he was currently missing. At some point he was going to have to make a list...

“Well, you know.” Naoki rubbed the side of his neck slightly, shifting and pulling the door shut behind Isamu. He turned into the apartment, making his way over towards the couch, pausing before gathering the books that had been strewn over it and putting them in a pile on the table. He fell back on it heavily, leaning his arms on his knees, taking a moment to just look over at him, blinking slightly, and then he breathed out a heavy sigh, propping his chin up on his palm. Where to start.

After a few moments, he tilted his head at the spot next to him on the couch. “Have a seat. You can’t be feeling perfectly fine yet, can you?” It was all he could think of to ask, at least at first, but then again, there was something else. He slid his hand into his pocket and then withdrew it clenched into a fist. Naoki chuckled a bit to himself and loosened his fingers, holding out the necklace and ring. “And here—these are yours.”

Isamu shook his head. No, he didn't feel perfectly fine yet and yes he'd prefer to sit down, so he did. He couldn't help but feel that this whole thing was happening far too casually, too, but then he wasn't sure what he'd rather have happen instead.

And... Naoki had his jewelry. He stared at the offered items for a moment before slowly reaching out and taking them. "Did you have these the whole time?" He couldn't even get angry with him for it, since he already owed him and they were better off in his hands than someone else's. The necklace was slipped easily around his neck, but the ring was placed into his pocket. It went with the belt buckle he currently wasn't wearing.

"I got this at a flea market, you know." Isamu lifted the end of the necklace with his thumb with an odd little half-smile. "It's nothing special. But Ms. Takao commented on it a couple times I wore it, so I thought..." He snorted lightly, dropping it back against his chest.

“I did. Sorry.” Naoki’s smile was brief and apologetic as he hunched his shoulders forward a little, elbows resting lightly on his knees. He curled his hands up to the back of his neck, tangling his fingers together under the demon horn, thumbs tapping against the glossy surface lightly. He looked over out of the corner of his eye, noticing the smile and swallowing against the pained feeling that rose up in his throat.

He slid his hands down from his neck after a few moments, rubbing the backs of them across his cheeks. “It suits you.” Naoki fell silent, chewing the inside of his cheek. He knew what he wanted to say, but it was difficult to get it out. Even after months and months of going over it in his head, he couldn’t seem to remember even if he struggled to. Instead, what came out was a low, “I’m sorry, I…”

Sorry. Was that all he had to say? Why are you apologizing? he wanted to ask. No, seriously. Why? What have you done wrong lately that you need to apologize for? Are you really that self-sacrificing? But Isamu wasn't the sort of person who could just say something like that.

And besides... he wanted to know. If this wasn't his Naoki, and he knew it wasn't, then he wanted to know how the two of them were so differently. Why, despite the fact that he didn't support his reason, was he so supportive of him? Or was that just it? He cared for everyone too much to be part of a Reason that was completely self-centered. It was such a ridiculous, simple-minded way to look at things.

Yet he could take care of himself and others better than Isamu could even take care of just himself, apparently. He watched the demi-fiend carefully, waiting for him to continue.

Naoki looked down at his knees without saying anything for a minute or two before he smiled a little wryly to himself. “I could’ve done more, somehow.” A pause. “Even if I’m not the same Naoki that you know back home, I’m still gonna apologise for that much. I’ve never supported any Reason. I’ve never…agreed with you or anybody else. I went to Kagutsuchi on my own, without anything or supporting anyone, no matter if I was allowed to have a Reason or not…” He shrugged one shoulder helplessly, his focus on his knees. “I just wanted to put it all back to the way that it was.”

He blinked hard, raked a hand through his hair and looked over at him. “I couldn’t agree with Musubi. I couldn’t understand why you’d want it, why anybody would want to be alone. I can’t help but care about people, after all—it doesn’t matter if they don’t care in return. Like with Hijiri. I guess it really does make me an idiot.” Naoki snorted softly with a self-deprecating smile.

"The biggest idiot," Isamu murmured in agreement almost without thinking. Return everything to normal? Was that even possible? Everyone had died. There was nothing to go back to, not unless Kagatsuchi was capable of undoing everything that Hikawa had done when the Conception came about, and it was difficult to wrap his mind around something like that.

But what had he been expecting when he created his world, anyway? Would there be people already in it? What people? Would the world be starting fresh, or would everyone be brought to life then too? He realized only now that he hadn't actually thought about it. He'd been too busy trying to just bring it into being. In fact, it was all a little confusing now - especially after those conversations over his journal the other day (many of which he couldn't even remember anymore).

"Wouldn't it be nice, though...? No one telling you what to do, or dictating how you went about your life?" He leaned back in his seat, staring tiredly up at the ceiling.

Naoki worked up a small chuckle at his agreement, lowering his eyes briefly. It didn’t really bother him being called that, or so he told himself. He’d heard worse. He rubbed absently at the glowing lines on his arm with a palm, gazed at them and wondered for a few moments why was it me? He shifted, turned his head slightly, looking over at Isamu. His arms shifted, folding over his chest as he took on a thoughtful expression, switching his eyes to the wall in front of him.

“I don’t know. Wouldn’t you just try not to let people do that to you? No matter how difficult it may be at times?” He halted briefly, thought a moment, and smiled a bit to himself. “I’d…always take being around others, though, even with the possibility. The thought of everyone in their own little bubble, removed from one another…I think I’d be lonely in that sort of world. I mean, what’s life if you can’t share it with others? The good and the bad…”

He paused. “…Of course, that’s just how I feel. You and I have different lives, after all, Isamu.”

Isamu closed his eyes and said nothing for a while. When he did speak again his voice was dull, listless. "I hated it, you know. I would have traded you, but you were always everyone's favorite. Ms. Takao always liked you the most, and maybe you didn't get your own Reason, but you were stronger than all of us. You think I couldn't tell?"

He turned his head to look at the other boy. "I was just... powerless. You saw it. And then suddenly I wasn't anymore. Suddenly I had my own way to be just as strong, stronger, than anyone else. Defining my own Reason didn't seem like an impossibility anymore and I just... I wanted to prove that I didn't need anyone to rescue me. It was all so... messed up."

By the end of it he might has well have been a demon, right? With how he'd looked... Isamu sat forward again, matching Naoki's posture. "Look at this. You got me talking about all this shit..."

“It’s not so great, you know—my life. Maybe it seems like that. I get along with people, I guess, but it doesn’t always work out for me in the end.” Naoki paused, pressed his palms together with a grimace. “Ms. Takao—she’s got a funny way of showing her like. She gave me all that responsibility, no matter if I wanted it or not. Had me do what she couldn’t.” Naoki felt guilty for the bitter feelings that welled up, swallowing thickly.

After a moment, he looked over, gazing at his face levelly. “I wasn’t that strong, where it mattered.” He shook his head slightly, lifted his knee up to his chest. “I couldn’t do anything for anybody—I couldn’t help anyone back home but myself.”

“You know, sometimes I just wanted to give up. On everything. Just…try to stop caring about things, so that they wouldn’t hurt anymore. But I couldn’t. I’d never be able to, no matter how many things happened, no matter how much I was used, no matter that I was turned into a demon.” He breathed a low chuckle, hid his expression with a hand pressed to his face. He fell quiet for a few moments before murmuring, “Just keep talking about it, Isamu. Tell me everything you think and feel, no matter how bad.”

It was less difficult than Isamu thought it would be to hold back his desire to tell Naoki not to say anything negative about Ms. Takao. Maybe it was just because he hadn't seen her in a while. It was odd, really... once he'd developed his Reason he hadn't thought about her much at all. She'd faded into the background like everyone else, so why did she matter now?

He looked away uncomfortably as Naoki continued talking. He'd never been good at this sort of thing. When the other teen asked him to continue, he just rubbed at the back of his neck. "What else am I supposed to say? Didn't know I'd be walking into a therapy session when I came in here."

What he'd expected instead he wasn't sure. It was difficult listening to Naoki now, though, because hearing him and believing him meant he'd have to admit, at least to himself, that he'd been wrong about certain things. Isamu had always avoided taking the blame on himself.

With a tiny chuckle, Naoki leaned his cheek against his palm. “Anything you want to—whatever comes to mind. We can tone down the therapy session, if you want.” To be honest, he wasn’t used to talking like this. He had the tendency to bottle things up or push it aside, but he didn’t want to just forget and keep from saying what he’d wanted to say for a while now. Even if Isamu came from a different timeline, it didn’t change who he was. Naoki didn’t even know if people remembered things upon going back home or if it’d make a difference, but… “We can talk about whatever.”

After that, he closed his eyes momentarily, scratching his cheek with a finger in thought. He felt a bit awkward and nervous, but he felt like he had to ask it. “But I’ve got something to ask. I know I still think of you as one, but—we’re still friends…aren’t we?” Naoki glanced over at him out of the corner of his eye.

Friends? Isamu gave a bit of a start, his memories automatically jumping back to that odd man he'd met at the grocers who'd wanted to know what Naoki was to him. He hadn't had an answer then - did he have one now? This wasn't the Naoki he knew from home. He cared too much for that. Would he have hung out with him even so?

Apparently he had...

"I... Yeah. Sure. We're still friends." He smiled wryly. "I mean, who else do I have here?" So much for going solo, huh? Isamu wasn't an idiot. He knew it would be impossible to follow his reason in his current position. Perhaps it had been a ridiculous dream from the start.

As for what else to discuss, he felt as if he'd already filled his monthly quota on how open he had to be with his feelings. "Hey, I... uh... I haven't eaten in a while, so..."

Naoki just beamed at that and, if the marks that were all over his skin could glow any brighter, they would by now. It meant a lot to hear it, and his expression definitely showed it. It was strong enough that he barely registered the words and, when he finally did, he blinked rapidly in surprise. And clamped a hand over his stomach with an embarrassed laugh as it growled.

“…Right, food! I’m pretty hungry, too, heh—forgot about supper last night.” He rose from the couch. “Any requests?”

"Man... I don't think I've eaten in a couple days..." And the more he thought about it, the hungrier it made him. "Right now I'll take just about anything."

It seemed as if Naoki ended up feeding him half the time they got together recently, but who was he to turn down his generosity? The food was all free anyway, so it wasn't as if he was emptying his pockets or anything. Hell, it might even make the guy happy, since he was a weird sort of do-gooder like that.

He made himself more comfortable on the sofa for the time being, watching the glow of Naoki's markings as he moved around the room.

“Alright, I’ll just make a good Japanese breakfast.” Naoki grinned and made his way into the kitchen, piling ingredients onto the counter. It wasn’t as though he wasn’t used to cooking back home, even enjoyed it to an extent. One of the things that came with living alone, and he’d gotten lots of chances to practice here, never one for eating out.

He hummed as he began to cook, sincerely glad for the electricity (no matter how much Rubi disliked it and made a point of ignoring the existence of the fridge)—it was way quicker and easier with a rice cooker. It didn’t take long to put everything on the table by the couch and plop down. “Let’s eat.”

Was he... humming? Isamu was seriously beginning to believe that Naoki might actually be a housewife disguised as a demi-fiend. ...Maybe he was actually dreaming all this, and his subconscious was merging the egos of his mother and his best friend. That would explain a lot!

Except he certainly hoped those smells wafting from the other room weren't figments of his imagination, because they were making his mouth water. He peered over the back of the sofa to try and watch him as he worked. When he returned with the plates it took a great deal of effort not to get up and snatch one out of his hands.

"Shit, dude..." he muttered, smiling gratefully. "Marry me, already. ...Except... don't."

Naoki rolled his eyes good-naturedly at him. “Yeahhhh, no, we’re in agreement there. You don’t fit my prerequisites and besides—” He sighed, shook his head, as though sincerely regretful. “—I know that you really only keep me around for the food.” He grinned, picking up his bowl of rice and snapped apart his chopsticks. “Just eat.”

He dug in with gusto—really, he should have had eaten last night, but he’d forgotten. Oh well, it was fine as long as he was now. “So,” he said after he swallowed some tamagoyaki, “how much d’you remember from the last couple of days?” He blinked. “Man, I bet your place’s pretty messy by now.”

There wasn't going to be any argument on Isamu's end. He was eating even as Naoki told him to. The other teen was a good cook, and he wouldn't mind keeping him around if it meant he'd feed him on a regular basis. Ah well. He should probably grab some more food from the grocers for himself before Naoki decided he was asking for too much.

"It looks like I tried to kill a bird with a really dirty shovel." Isamu answered once his mouth wasn't so full. Then he shook his head, trying to actually think back over that span of time. "I... think I was out completely yesterday - if that was only just yesterday. All I recall before that was pulling that damn journal out and... geez. Being out of my mind. It's all a little fuzzy at that point."

Naoki laughed quietly at the analogy. “Lucky there’s vacuum cleaners down at the shop, then, otherwise it’d be a real pain to clean up.” He paused a moment to take a drink from one of the bottles of water he’d brought over—the other he nudged across the table in Isamu’s direction. After he swallowed, he blinked. “You were pretty out of it when I talked to you. It’s good that it’s all over now.”

He fell quiet to eat some more food and, after done with the mouthful, Naoki glanced over at him with a good-natured grin, a teasing edge to his voice. “Hope you didn’t manage to tick off anyone.”

"I'm sure I did. I'm not lucky enough not to have." He took a long drink from the offered water, and he could almost feel his throat thanking him for it. "At least it was mostly written, though I'm not even sure how I formed coherent responses - except for when I talked to you and... someone else. Some friend of yours." Some nosy friend of his, now that he'd thought about it, and he'd said way too much on his end.

Isamu was willing to admit that he was glad that whole mess where he was returning to 'normal' was over, but there was still a part of him that wished his Reason could have been seen through to the end. It had been so close, what with Naoki supporting him... The irony of that still managed to go directly over his head.

Naoki blinked. “One of my…?” He rubbed at his head, trying to recall who he saw had replied when he’d first scanned that entry—he was nosy like that, after all. He liked to keep tabs on things, especially when it came to the people that he knew. His eyes widened marginally and he snapped his fingers, blinking at him. “Do you remember if he said ‘shit’ a lot?”

That aside—and curiosity over what exactly Sanji had gotten Isamu to say pushed back—he finished off his food, setting his plate down on the table. He brushed off his hands idly, leaning back into the couch and closing his eyes, content to let the food settle now.

If he said... Isamu really did have to think it over, what with how everything had started to blur together after a time. "Yeah... I think that's the one." He wasn't even certain now why he'd opened up the voice channel with him except that it might have started being difficult to keep a good grip on his pen. His handwriting had been less legible over time. "Pried a bit too much, and I probably answered everything."

He finished off his food a little slower, despite how hungry he was, as he pondered this further. What all had he said the other day, and how many people were going to remember it was him? Was this something he should be worrying about?

His plate was set next to Naoki's once he was done, and he took the time after that to watch his... friend out of the corner of his eye without actually looking straight at him. After a few moments, he reached over with some hesitation and ran a finger along the markings on his arm.

“Huh,” Naoki murmured to himself, thoughtfully—he definitely wanted to talk to Sanji, in that case. He scratched at his hair, blinking, looking a bit lost in thought. “I never took him for the type to pry so much. Hmmm…” He leaned his chin on his palm, looking ahead of him, and spacing out a bit, obviously lost in thought. He didn’t notice Isamu looking over at him, nor the hand reaching out.

He jumped a little as soon as he felt the touch to his markings, though, turning his head fast enough that it almost looked painful. Naoki’s arm twitched before he drew it back towards his chest slightly, lifting his other hand to rest over the marks as though to cover them. “Wh-what? What is it?” he spluttered, face going red with embarrassment at his own reaction.

"Whoa, hey. Chill." Isamu held both of his hands up in surrender, blinking at the response. "Sorry. I'll remember not to do that again." So the guy didn't like getting touched on the tattoos. Not a problem. It wasn't as if he was going to go around hugging him all the time or anything. Might explain why he was never fully dressed.

It wasn't his fault they were so damn interesting looking. He'd been a little jealous of them for a while. Glowing tattoos were just cool - no way around it. "Are they sensitive or something? Do they do anything special?"

“Haha…sorry about that. Surprised me.” Naoki glanced at him sheepishly with a tiny grin. He extended his hands, eyeing the marks thoughtfully. By now, he’d gotten used to them, so he always ended up forgetting how they looked to other people. “Yeah, they are. They don’t really do anything in particular besides the whole glowing thing, though.”

He lifted one of his hands, curling his fingers and rapped lightly on the horn coming from the nape of his neck with his knuckles. “Those and this thing just came along with the magatama. Had to show the whole demon thing somehow, I suppose.”

Oh right. There was that horn. Sometimes Isamu didn't even notice it, despite how large it was. The tattoos were just that distracting. Given some of the other demons he'd seen while he was in the Vortex World, Naoki had gotten off easy in the looks department. Then again, some of them had looked almost human.

"Magatama?" He hadn't heard that word before. Was that what the markings were called? How much of an explanation had he ever really gotten out of his friend about 'the whole demon thing' anyway? He'd just sort of appeared that way after the Conception, and he hadn't had a whole lot of time to ask questions. (One might argue that he would have if he'd stuck around, but he was liable to ignore that argument.)

That was right, wasn’t it? Naoki had never told him what the magatama were—then again, when had they gotten to talk about anything back home? Oh well, might as well get the explanation out of the way. “It’s kind of like a demonic parasite—it’s what turned me into this.” He reached into his pocket, and pulled out one of the magatama that had shown up. It was still, dormant, and looked almost like a carving where it was held between his fingers.

Naoki rolled it around in his palm absentmindedly, seeming thoughtful. “There are a bunch of different ones. They’re the things that teach me abilities after I, er, ingest them.”

"A parasite?" Isamu stared at it. It did look like a carving, and he was having a hard time imagining it crawling around like something living. "You just swallow this thing?" He almost reached out to touch it, but figured that might not be the best thing to do if it was going to go in his friend's mouth at some point.

He smirked. "So do you think I'd turn into a demon if I ate it?" It was a mostly serious question, and if it didn't appear to be irreversible he might have asked to try. Having just stopped being... whatever he'd been before, however, he wasn't keen on immediately changing again. He laughed to show that he had no intention of trying.

“Yeah, I just swallow that thing.” Naoki grinned and eyed the magatama like it was going to uncurl and bite him before tucking it away into his pocket. He shifted, folding an arm behind his head, glancing over at him with an easy grin. “Well, to actually turn you into a demon, you wouldn’t eat it. It’s only after you’re turned into a demon that you can actually swallow it. The first time…”

He trailed off and shrugged lightly, uplifting his hands with a smile. “I don’t recommend it, man, if you can help it. It just hurts a hell of a lot. I would’ve stopped them from giving me it if I’d been able.”

"Would you have?" Isamu's tone lowered, eyes flashing down to the glowing lines on his arm again before they returned to the ones on his face. "But isn't this the reason you were able to defend yourself so well to begin with? If you hadn't been a demon, we all might have died before getting anywhere." And that might be as close as Naoki ever got to receiving thanks for the times he helped save Isamu's sorry ass.

He frowned. "You can't tell me you haven't been thankful for those abilities at all."

“No, I can’t say that.” Naoki leaned his chin forward on the palm of his hand. “They…I am grateful for them.” He just wished he had been able to do more…it was always more—maybe he was being unrealistic like that, but. “Without them, I wouldn’t have been able to do anything, huh? I’m pretty sure I would’ve been dead a long time ago, too.” He paused and glanced over at him. “And I would’ve ended up dying here.” He rubbed at his left side unconsciously, where a scar circled from his side up to his shoulder.

He wished it had never gotten to the point where he had to be a demon to survive, though. He curled a hand to the back of his neck.

Isamu turns away and slouches in his seat some. "Guess we just got it bad all around, huh?" And he could say this, because it wasn't only Naoki who'd had tough shit to go through. He might have had it worse, and he might still be suffering for it now, but it wasn't as though he hadn't had his share.

...His thoughts wandered briefly to Chiaki at that, and he quickly shoved that matter aside.

"So how bad is this place, really?" He regretted asking right after he had, but he'd have to know sooner or later. It wasn't the best of topic changes, though.

A wry smile followed the first couple of words but at the question, Naoki blinked. “It really isn’t that bad,” he said. “I mean, there’s things you gotta watch out for—demons and…er, crazy people and stuff. And the experiments…the village-wide ones I’ve seen haven’t been that bad.” Just horribly, horribly embarrassing and awkward in the aftermath. He fidgeted as he remembered one in particular. He’d never been taken away for the individual experimentation yet, so he couldn’t say much on that, but…

“Most of the people here are nice,” he told him. “Talking to them is something to do. There’s lots of interesting stories to hear.” He shrugged lightly, deciding not to mention the worrying that came with making friends in Luceti and hearing about them being kidnapped, or sent home, or killed.

Hearing 'stories' from the others here wasn't exactly at the top of his list of things to keep himself occupied with. He was going to read over that beginner's guide some more and figure out how to keep from being absolutely worthless during his time here.

If Naoki said it was that bad, then he was going to assume that some things were still going to be pretty lame, but otherwise take his word for it. This version of his friend seemed to have a terrible habit of being truthful. Chances were, these 'crazy people', other citizens no doubt, would be the worst of his problems.

"What about the individual ones?" he asked with a raised eyebrow. "The experiments, I mean."

Naoki scratched slightly at his hair with a hand, glancing over. “Well, when people are taken away—I don’t know exactly what happens to them. I’ve never been taken away individually yet, after all. But when they come back, sometimes they’ve got after-effects that can last up for two weeks. Er, looking at the people I know…” He paused in thought.

“Well…one was changed into his ten-year-old self, another lost her memories of this place—I dunno how varied the effects can be. A lot of people just come back really tired and injured sometimes. Or they’re missing one of their senses.” He rubbed the side of his neck.

"So basically whatever they feel like, huh?" Isamu grimaced, just hoping he'd be as lucky as Naoki was when it came to being dragged off for experimentation. Hell, he could be lucky by relation, right? Except neither of them were generally very lucky, him especially, and the demi-fiend might be using up enough luck for the both of them.

He really needed to stop having such weird lines of thought.

"Guess it's nice that there are decent places to live, seeing as we're gonna be stuck here and all." Isamu pulled his legs up onto the couch in front of him, wrapping his arms around them. "You don't mind me grabbing a spot nearby, do you?" He already knew the answer, and he wouldn't be moving regardless, but at least asking gave him some semblance of being polite."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Could we all be dreaming of the suffering forming clouds on our feelings?

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