2025-07-09: Beneath the Bravado
- Log: Beneath the Bravado
- Cast: Tsubasa Seki, Ichika Kawase, Lance the VERY GOOD DOG
- Where: Hirasaka Ward
- OOC Date: 2025-07-09
- IC Date: Thursday June 07 2012
- Summary: Ichika and Tsubasa break into an abandoned office building in order to leave a message for the Storm Boss, and then drop back to Tsubasa's apartment so no one can arrest them for their CRIMES. They get to talking about the Phantom Thieves... and about why Tsubasa has to miss Eikichi's concert, eventually.
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
There's an abandoned office building, out here in Hirasaka.
That may as well be 'there is litter out here in Hirasaka'. There are many things true in Hirasaka which wouldn't be thinkable elsewhere in Sumaru or the greater Tokyo area; no one wants to be here when they could be in a better ward. If someone can move out, get to a place their salarymen will more like to inhabit, of course they would. And who wants to raise their children in a place where the most accessible high school is Kasugayama?
Anyway: no one lives here. That means no one's going to mind, tonight, when some punk kids break in. The lock on the door isn't that hard; Tsubasa slides a piece of metal in, jimmying it until it catches on something inside, and yanks.
Lance helpfully barks in excitement as the door opens. "Shh," Tsubasa reminds her, as they slip inside.
Once they're here, of course, the true work can begin:
Vandalism.
These windows are free real estate and anyone can see what they put here.
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Office buildings are nice. Ichika's come to appreciate them; good offices, occasionally nice furniture, even here in Hirasaka. Ichika appreciates Hirasaka... but she sure wouldn't if she had had a choice in the matter. Rengedai was certainly nicer.
Still, it is what it is, and tonight, Ichika has a backpack with various spray paints in it. She's tall, and good at carrying things in backpacks, good at loading the backpack to be easy to carry. Since Tsubasa's doing the work...
"Right," she murmurs back, and takes off the backpack, opening it up. "Here." She passes over a can.
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"Cool," Tsubasa takes the can, shaking it up. Of course, whatever they spray on the inside of the windows here will be seen reversed in the street below; the obvious route would be to just write normally, and let them figure it out.
Tsubasa, on the other hand, wrote out their messages on a piece of paper, mirrored it, and copied out the mirrored version of the kanji. They take that paper from the pocket of their board shorts, now, holding it up for reference.
-pssssssht-, the spray can protests, as they proceed to scrawl out in one window:
STORM BOSS AIN'T SHIT
Before they proceed to another, to impart...
EAT SHIT, STORM BOSS
And so the messages repeat, as they move from window to window. Lance growls at the hiss of the spray cans, but it's Ichika's job to pet her and tell her everything's going to be okay, because at some point Lance has to learn that spray cans aren't angry cats.
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Ichika trusts Tsubasa to think of these things. They're very good at remembering.
Ichika crouches down to pet Lance. "Shhh," she says. "It's OK."
"It might bring us extra trouble," she admits, "But he got on my nerves the other day. He's involving Gekkoukan students in our shit... And won't fight his own battles."
Tsubasa has the tagging covered, though. Ichika continues to pet Lance. "You're doing good, girl," she says soothingly.
Pause. "But that's why I picked him to mess with this time."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
Lance whines, looking up at Ichika with big, soulful brown eyes. Isn't there an angry cat?! She can hear the angry cat!!
-pshhhhhh-
Having fouled all the windows with their message, Tsubasa grabs another can to mar the inside of the office. These messages, intended to be seen by the enraged young men busting in here, can be a bit more off-the-cuff: WE KNOW WHAT YOU DID. WE'RE COMING FOR YOU. COWARD SHIT FUCK OFF. STORM BOSS EAT SHIT.
Well, can't argue with branding.
While trading out another empty can for a full one in the backpack, Tsubasa takes a minute to instead search out the bag of dog treats and offer one to Lance. "Good girl!" They enthuse, much more brightly than ... have they actually said anything yet, or are they just listening to Ichika?
Nope, they were just listening. Anyway, another can. pshhhhh, EYES ON YOU. As they're covering this wall in threatening messages and profanities, they ask a gruff question, as they work: "We bringin' it to him?"
'It', as an operator in this sentence, obviously means 'senseless violence'.
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
There is no angry cat. Ichika is neither angry nor cat.
The dog treats! Ichika pets Lance some more to accentuate the treat's message. Good girl!!
But that gruff question?
"I'm gonna see if he brings it to us," she says. "If he doesn't, he's proving himself a coward, and that'll cut down his options for stuffing up the Death Boss. If he does..."
"Well, we handle it. He's got a lot of guys to fight for him, but we're good."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
Lance borks, wagging her tail, when Ichika pets her on top of getting a treat. Wow! Maybe the angry cat isn't a big deal! Lance has learned: don't worry about hissing cats!
oh no.
"See if he takes the bait," Tsubasa shrugs, as they scrawl out some more messages about the Storm Boss's imminent doom and everyone being against him. Who wouldn't bring it to them when they think they're the ones being brought to?
The strangest thing is, Tsubasa sounds like they've been smoking a six-pack a day since they were six, but Eikichi would personally teleport into the room if they ever lit up a cigarette at school. The stranger thing is that they don't even smoke. They just have a voice dragged through gravel and pitch for... no reason, apparently.
Certainly no reason anyone can really see in bad lighting like this, anyway.
"I ain't scared," they shrug, as they finish up with EVERYONE KNOWS. STUPID COWARD. WE SEE YOU STORM BOSS.
Thanks to Ichika, they'll get those empty cans packed properly back in the backpack, too, once they've finished turning the office into a horror show.
"We done here?" Tsubasa asks.
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
...Ichika is not an animal training expert. it's fine.
"That's right." It's a risky strategy, of course. But it also shows exactly what she thinks of him. If he doesn't show up himself...
But Tsubasa's voice is fine with her. No reason? Well, Ichika's not going to comment on that reason right now.
"You usually aren't," Ichika answers, in the matter of 'we knew that'. She relies on them.
And the cans are packed away...
"We're done," Ichika answers. "Let's go." She starts for the door. They can talk when they're somewhere else.
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
Being fair: Tsubasa isn't, either. They had a bird growing up. They can tell you all about how teflon is the devil's saucepan, but as for how to handle a dog? Yeah, they've just been looking that up online. They're pretty sure safe exposure is how they train dogs to not be scared of things. The example they read was for vacuum cleaners, but, like, potato, potahto.
They're also not a coward. And Ichika knows that. Cool.
"Aight." Out they go, Lance trotting out behind them. Sticking around at the scene of the crime is rookie shit; they might be able to get away with it in one of those abandoned warehouses which has been tagged up for ages, but the messages in these windows are new.
They close the door on the way out. They can't lock it again, but that's kind of by design. They want the Storm Boss to storm in here, after all.
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Of course Ichika knows! She does need to say it every now and then, though. That's important.
There's abandoned buildings you stay and hang out in, and abandoned warehouses you tag up and then leave. This is the latter. So out they go, and Ichika leads the way--not towards their territory at the school, but towards where Tsubasa lives. It's better there than Ichika's dorm, especially with Lance around...
"Your place still good?" she confirms when they're alone, before they get all the way there. Just because it's better to ask.
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"Sure," Tsubasa confirms, behind her. They wouldn't invite most people to their place -- not even most of their fellow gangmates -- but the Boss is different.
And so, they make their way into... the less reputable part of Hirasaka. The part everyone really wants to move out of, except for the people who really, really don't have another option. There, on the second level...
Tsubasa's apartment is tiny and miserable, bars over the one window it has facing out, paint flaking off the door. Ichika, especially, will have to duck on the way in -- because a staircase stretches over the entryway, set into the anterior wall of the apartment, leading up to a loft with a few cupboards crammed in at the side of a futon. (There's another cupboard, hidden beneath the lower portion of the stairs. It definitely doesn't hold all the things Tsubasa has stolen and is still waiting to fence away.) There is still place to store one's shoes, though it's just a tiny square jammed in under the stairs. No house slippers; suffer in sock indignity.
The lower floor has a desk with a mirror affixed to the wall behind it (it doubles as a dresser!) crammed into one corner, a single chair beside it. A kitchenette with a microwave, mini-fridge, and kettle is crammed in under the loft, the tap dripping into the sink and most of the surfaces which could be devoted to food preparation instead devoted to tupperware containers for storing the world's most boring-looking food. (Rice. Cans of beans and tuna. Instant coffee.) Lance's bowls are on the floor, one for dog food and one for dog water; her big bag of dog food lives in the cupboard in front of them. A sliding door leads to a toilet, a sink for washing one's hands... and the one thing this place going for it, an actual shower. (Good luck having any space to move around in there, but even if the hot water doesn't always work, it's functional.)
There's homework on the desk, and... something which distinctly isn't homework, scrawled pages and pages of data entry tables, numbers listed over and over, points underlined and circled in red. They're half-hidden, beneath the legitimate paperwork, deranged and obsessive and unexplained. Of course, crammed in at the side, there's also a bunch of makeup and a few different, equally rainbow wigs. Sometimes their concealer gets on their homework. Don't worry about it.
"Coffee, Boss?" They ask, as they kick their sneakers off and duck in. (They don't have to duck quite as much; they're only five-foot-five, which is either short for a man or tall for a woman, and they're not telling which it is.)
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Ichika's been here before. She knows what the deal is. She also knows to expect to wear her socks. That's fine; that's one of the many important reasons that one should wear socks.
She glances around the place as much as it's possible to glance around, mostly to make sure things haven't changed since the last time she was here. Ichika does have to duck a good bit, because of just how tall she is... But she's willing to do it.
"Yeah, that'd be great," Ichika says, and leans down to pet Lance as she moves towards her bowls, just in passing.
"Good work tonight. You were really smooth with those. Always turns out better than the other crews."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
Nah. Same as ever. Home shit home.
The last corner of the stairs wraps around to the side wall, leaving them facing the desk; that is, effectively, like another seat. Tsubasa sits there when Ichika's visiting, of course; she can have the actual chair. There's not really enough space in here for a lounge, or even many more chairs. Perhaps a couple of beanbags might fit under the desk -- they might be able to drag them out into the few steps of foot-traffic space when needed -- but Tsubasa definitely doesn't have the scratch free to get something like that, and furniture isn't the kind of thing they can slip into their pocket on the sly.
Lance is way too big for an apartment like this, herself, but somehow her Tosa Inu majesty manages to fit inside anyway. She ambles into the kitchen with Tsubasa, and after they flick the kettle to boil, Tsubasa leans down to scoop up a cup of kibble and pour it into her bowl, checking to make sure her water's filled too.
Two mugs -- they had to get a second one for Ichika after the first couple of times she came over -- find empty spaces on the countertop, and they spoon out some granular instant coffee into them from a little tin. The bigger tins are more cost-effective, but Tsubasa didn't pay for it, so they were prioritising inconspiciousness instead. Boil, boil...
In goes the water, and they stir it up. No sugar, obviously. They're both tougher than that.
... and Tsubasa, at least, doesn't really give a shit about going to sleep before midnight.
"Here," they say, dropping off a mug on the desk beside Ichika before they squeeze past her to sit on the stairs with their own mug.
And then, "... thanks. Freehand's trickier, but we had to go bigger than a stencil."
Sip. It's terrible! It probably raises their Guts just by enduring it.
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Ichika takes the chair. ...It's easier to sit there than on the stairs with her height, and Ichika is the Boss, sot hat's natural enough anyway. ...She's got more money than Tsubasa, but she can't casually furnish an apartment, either.
Lance will have food! That's good. And the cups...
The coffee is terrible. Ichika's Guts go up. She remembers Chagall's coffee, and tries to find something good to say about this blend, even if she's not actually going to say it.
"Right," she says. "...Freehand, like that guy whose art I showed you before. Still surprised an adult is at it..."
A pause. "That reminds me. You thinking of going to that concert the Death Boss is putting on?"
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
Ichika is very helpful for getting Lance that food, at least. She's helping!
Don't worry. There's nothing good to say about this coffee. It's designed to be a trial.
"Yeah," Tsubasa says. "Weird. Cool, though. Good shit." They're not sure what to think about an adult managing to do graffiti like that, so they just avoid thinking about it too much.
Maybe they'll run into that guy one day, though. That'd be cool.
What isn't cool, is...
Tsubasa frowns. It's harder to tell when they're frowning, because they don't have eyebrows, but the makeup at the top of their eyes draws inwards in a rough approximation. Under the shitty bare-bulb lighting of their apartment, it's more obvious that one side of their face isn't quite the same as the other; a little lighter, a little more textured, a little rougher around the edges.
Don't worry about it.
"I was gonna," they say. "But somethin' came up. I'll make it up to him."
Don't get them wrong, they tried to make it the one time they weren't available. But as soon as a certain someone heard they were available any other time, well -- suddenly, the only time he could hear out all the repairs they needed here was that specific evening.
The context doesn't matter, though. The important part is that they know they'll let the crew down, not attending the Death Boss's event like that. They'll take responsibility.
That's what matters.
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
It... teaches endurance!? No, that's not a good thing to say about a food.
"Yeah," Ichika agrees with Tsubasa. Maybe she will see him again, too. ...When she does more dry cleaning. She actually has enough money to have things to have dry cleaned.
But Tsubasa is frowning, and Ichika can tell because she's made a specific study of her friend's expressions. It's necessary. But?
"Oh," Ichika says, and she's a little disappointed, but she notices the way they're down about it, so she's not going to rub it in. "...It's fine," she says. "He won't mind, as long as I'm there. I'll just... ask Gotou to go with me."
A pause. "..."
"...It's probably fine, anyway. Sevens kids might not even come." A pause. "But... Maybe I should catch you up on what's gone down lately."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
Nah, that's a totally normal thing to say about a food.
(Which might explain why Tsubasa is so scrawny.)
They have to go to the laundromat to clean their clothes, too. Half the time, they end up having to re-stitch them afterwards, because their clothing alterations end up getting battered loose by the world's roughest tumble driers. It wouldn't be such a pain in the ass if they had a proper sewing machine, but...
Well, come on. Where the fuck would they put it? Needle and thread's good enough.
But Ichika can figure something else out for the concert. "Cool," they say, gaze darting off to the side, a little tug back of their lips. It's not really cool, but it's not Ichika's fault, so they're not going to make her deal with it.
Lance, having scarfed her kibble, ambles back to her humans, sitting down and resting her snout on Ichika's leg with a snuff.
"Sure," Tsubasa says, about the things Ichika's been up to, lately. They've had their own things to keep up with in the gang; they had to answer the Foundry Boss's latest insult, which means that they and Shuyo have been busy handling the standard violence. It's been handled, of course.
(Shizuko wasn't a part of that, for some mysterious reason.)
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
The dorms do have a place to do laundry for most things. There is that.
"..." Ichika can tell it's not cool, actually. She frowns a little. "...What's up?" she wonders.
But Lance is here, and Ichika pets her gently. "There you go," she says. It's nice.
As to things... Well, "So, the Storm Boss, the guy he was messing with. An Aragaki-san from Gekkoukan High. Apparently he's looking into some rumors about the Joker Killer. ...I said I'd say if I heard anything, but I kind of doubt it; the stuff we get up to, we don't have to deal with serial killers much."
"Festival was OK. Saw Ririka-chan." Her sister. Obviously Tsubasa knows that. "...Oh, I uh..."
"I got interviewed," she says. "For a magazine. This reporter lady. She was... nice. So I might show up in it."
A pause. "...And I've been hearing a lot about Shujin lately," she finishes. "About things happening there."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"Eh," Tsubasa grunts, shrugging a shoulder. Which means it's something hard to talk about, because it's not like them to just blow off a direct query from the Boss. Which means...
Whatever it means, they're focusing on Ichika's news, first.
That's more important.
"Ain't heard'a Aragaki-san as Gekkoukan," Tsubasa frowns, which serves two purposes: registering that Shinjiro being a Gekkoukan student is new information to them, and registering that the presence of a guy called Aragaki isn't new information to them.
He's a known presence amongst deliquents! Something between 'cool' and 'don't mess with him', which is also cool.
They're frowning, though, because of the rest of Ichika's news. "Freaky shit. Can do without a serial killer showin' up, thanks." They probably will not be ringing their own number anytime soon...
... except, well, they can think of one name they might surrender to their own phone.
But there's no guarantee it works, and if it pisses him off... they're not gonna put Ichika in the crosshairs. Not while he hasn't made a move for a while, anyway.
"Cool," they say, of Ririka. That's a more unambiguously positive 'cool'. They're happy for Ichika, being able to reconnect with her family like that.
If it's her family, it's not a tragedy.
And, "What magazine?"
They take another gulp of coffee, finally, as they consider the school they were exiled from. "Bet they hate that." That there are rumours other students are hearing. How ruinous to the school's reputation.
They wonder who's on the chopping block this time.
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Hard to talk about. ...Well, Ichika will let them both focus on her news first, sure. But she's going to remember that Tsubasa has something on their mind. And it's not Aragaki. "Third year," she confirms. "He wasn't in uniform or anything, but it came up."
Ichika's not going to mess with him. Well, not unless he buys her dinner, maybe.
"Me too," Ichika agrees about the serial killer. "I'm not interested. But if we hear anything, that means we might have trouble. So I'm going to keep an ear out. So to speak."
He hasn't made a move in a while. But it's possible that he might...
Her sister is good news, but that's also pretty brief to mention. It's going well.
"Coolest," Ichika answers of the magazine. "...Her name's Amano. She's..." She considers. "A unique person. Her style is really... distinct. And she was nice. She put me at ease, you know?"
But the school they were exiled from... "Yeah," she says. "Shujin, and these 'Phantom Thieves'..."
"I might need to check some things out over there sometime. You gonna be OK for that? I can go myself if it's a problem for you."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
So he's a third-year at Gekkoukan. Huh. They wouldn't have guessed.
"Be careful," Tsubasa advises, sounding just a hair freaked out about discussing an actual serial killer on the loose right now what the fuck. Though, what are they supposed to do? Just lock their doors and stay inside and pray the guy can't break in?
Nah. They gotta keep doing what they do. Like, yeah, they're the exact match for the kind of easily-disappearable person who gets got by a serial killer, but that's not a big deal. There's plenty of people who wouldn't be missed by more folks than their crew in the city, and they're at least unfuckwithable enough that it's easier for a murder man to target the wretch who doesn't carry a knife.
Right? Cool.
Speaking of cool: Coolest. "Huh." 'Unique'. So, like, Maya was wearing a banana hat or something? Nah, Tsubasa's thinking of the Gekkoukan teachers. Gekkoukan teachers are the weirdos who would go around wearing banana hats. "Nice."
Shujin.
Tsubasa's jaw sets. Tragically, they don't actually have an Adam's apple for the motion; they just drew one in. "I can do it," they say, stiffly. "Probably won't recognise me now, anyway." It's an effort, though. Maybe give them a week.
Not that they'd ask for one.
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Be careful, and Tsubasa does sound kind of freaked out. "I will," she says. "...It's weird that he's looking into it," she admits. "But it's personal for him."
It's probably fine. It's not like Ichika is expecting him to come around anytime soon. And Maya, well--
"Yeah," Ichika answers. Maya wears hearts over her boobs. This is like a banana hat.
But, "OK," Ichika says. "Not soon," she adds. "I need to figure some more stuff out." They probably won't recognize them... That may be true.
"Just..."
"...It's nice," she says. "To hear about some people getting justice. Even if it's not most people. Now and then."
"Guess that's just sentimental, though. ...It's not like I'd trust these 'Phantom Thieves' to solve my problems or something. But they're solving somebody's. That's better than nothing."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"Too bad," Tsubasa says, having reasonably assumed that someone close to Shinjiro was targeted by the Joker Killer. "Good luck to him, I guess."
They nod, when Ichika says she needs to figure things out. "Sure." But then she goes on, and...
"You think?" They ask, having not heard terribly much about the Phantom Thieves -- and not put much stock into what they have heard. "Sounded like bullshit to me. You reckon they're solving shit?"
Tsubasa shrugs a shoulder, looking down at their mug. "... and you sayin' you don't want them messin' with yours?"
They gulp some more coffee, having asked that.
Of course, it's Ichika's problems they're thinking need a solution.
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
"Yeah." Good luck to him.
"I heard it from somebody at Shujin," she says. "They really did take down that teacher, Kamoshida. He was abusing students... and they put up some calling card and put some kind of fear in him, because he confessed everything." A pause. "I heard there was another, but I haven't tracked the rumor down. ...But that's part of why I want to look into Shujin. If they really had something like that happen... They don't need more trouble than they've got."
Coffee!! Delicious. But Ichika's problems? "I..."
"I dunno," she says. "It's not like I could hire them or something. ...But it's not like there's much I can do, either..."
A sigh. "It's not that I don't want them to," she says. "I just don't know if they would. ...I mean, what I'd really want is... Well, that's impossible anyway."
"Sure, why not? And if we're dreaming, maybe I can get a horse."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"They got Kamoshida, huh," Tsubasa says. They're quiet, for a moment.
"He always got his way. But Father didn't think sports were feminine. So. It wasn't my problem."
They don't say anything like, 'there's nothing I could have done, even if I'd cared to know'.
The flat, closed depression to their tone says that well enough.
But, "... I'll look into it." That's Tsubasa's assurance, when Ichika talks about how she feels about the Phantom Thieves and what they can do.
If they can take down Kamoshida, the kind of guy who dominated the school and gave girls looks which made their spines crawl... maybe they really could do something about the bastard haunting Ichika.
Beat.
"Didn't think you for a horse girl." Tsubasa lets that sit for a second... and then cracks a smirk.
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Tsubasa remembers. Ichika didn't ask Tsubasa much about Shujin for obvious reasons. But she hears now that there's a memory. And, "...Mm, yeah." Sports...
She never did volleyball, at least. That would've been... too close a call. But the way Tsubasa speaks reminds her of earlier. And, well--
"OK," Ichika says, distant now on the matter of the Phantom Thieves. Instead, she laughs at Tsubasa's assessment. "I'm not," she says, "But it always looked like fun to be. You need a lot of room, though."
A beat, "...So what's got you?" she wonders. "You said something came up?" For the concert.
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"Yeah," Tsubasa says, and says all of three sentences, so you can tell they're having a good time. "And good shoes. Heard a horse can shatter your foot if it steps on it."
Horses: they're huge! True story.
But their cheer doesn't last, when Ichika reminds them what they said. That smile falls from their lips, and their foot taps on the floor.
Lance whines, sensing a disturbance in the force, and picks herself up to amble over to the staircase and thonk her head against Tsubasa's knee instead.
They down the rest of their coffee so they can put their coffee cup down on the step behind them, freeing up their hands to pet the dog. They're not a monster.
Well, they are a monster, but this is not about that.
They take a breath. They look at Lance, not at Ichika. "Nah. Just -- my father. Uh, microwave's fried. Keeps sparking when I use it. Was just ignoring it, but it got worse... so the only shit I can heat up right now is water. Tried explainin', but he said the only time he had free was that evening after work, so... shit out of luck." Shrug. "Whatever."
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
"Ouch," Ichika imagines, but she laughs anyway. It is a good time! "Probably not my usual, then..."
Ichika watches Lance go, quietly glad that the pup knows what she's doing on that front. Ichika downs the rest of her coffee, too, even if it's worth complaining about, because it was made for her and she wanted it.
Pet pet. Ichika approves.
"...Ah," Ichika says, and does not so much approve of this. "That sucks," she says. Then she frowns more firmly. "...Tch," she says. "Asshole."
"...Well, sorry to hear it," she says. "Fuck that guy."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"Prolly not." Ankle-high sneakers are great for expressing yourself. Not so much for preventing crush injuries.
Lance is very good at knowing when Tsubasa needs attention. She's a very people-oriented dog. When people are sad, she notices.
But... Ichika is angry at him.
And Tsubasa, who spends a not insignificant amount of time blood furious at the man who wronged Ichika, honestly isn't sure why she's spending so much effort on their father.
"... it's cool," they say, quietly. It's not cool.
"Just... ain't sure he's really that busy. Kinda think... when he heard I had somewhere to be... y'know." He's not the kind of person who can stand someone else being at the centre of their universe, even now he's thrown them out.
And it isn't even like that, anyway. It's just something they wanted to do.
Lance whines, and licks at Tsubasa's hand, even though they haven't noticed how tense their expression is.
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Ichika is angry at him, and she is going to stay that way. The fact that Tsubasa isn't... Well, it's nothing she blames Tsubasa for. But it's still a thing.
"You're probably right," Ichika says. "It's the kind of thing a man like that would do. He knows you're stuck and you'll go with it because you have to."
Lance whines...
"...But I'm not trying to wind you up or anything," Ichika relents. "I just... saw something was wrong, and I wanted to know what. I appreciate you telling me."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"I mean," Tsubasa says, a touch of whining to their voice, "I could just suck it up? I didn't have to bother him. Or, I mean, people dump shit onto the curb all the time, coulda just found somethin'..." They dump broken appliances onto the curb for whitegoods collection, but never mind that, it's theoretically possible one might still work fine.
Reminding their father they exist really is that bad. It must have taken them ages to work up the courage to ask him; they must have spent a not insignificant time thinking up reasons why they could have done something else.
But... Ichika was worried, huh.
"... sorry," they shrug, glancing up to her. Briefly, at least. Then they're back to focusing on the dog, who is getting her ears rubbed with both hands. "Don't mean to be that cagey, Boss. Know it's like pullin' teeth." Getting anything out of them, that is. "... it's cool you wanna know." Conveniently, their clipped sentence conveys two separate meanings; it's cool if she wants to know, but also, it's cool that she wants to know.
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
"You already don't eat enough," Ichika opines. "So that's not a good option." Broken!! It's theoretically possible, but, "Even Shuyo-kun doesn't know enough about electronics to fix the junk they leave out here."
It is that bad, though. Ichika knows it.
"...I worry," she admits. "But it's fine, it's not easy stuff to talk about. Just remember that you can, with me."
"...I'll prod you about it when I think there's something wrong, still. That's what friends do."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"That's just my diet," Tsubasa shrugs, as if the raw edge of poverty and the cracks they've fallen through are anything like the latest diets in the magazines. "But sure, I guess. ... thought about asking him to fix mine, but..."
But it's sparking, and Tsubasa couldn't very well live with themself if they accidentally set Shuyo on fire.
Tsubasa looks over to Ichika, again. Their layers of artifice save them from her being able to see the little details of their expression under there; between their concealer and their awful fake tan, no one's figuring out they've gone deathly pale. Well, not that they can entirely hide the fear in their eyes.
... not without cosmetic contacts, anyway, and those are too hard to shoplift. Maybe one day.
"I'm just never sure where to start," they admit. "It's, a lot." Will he be angry he has to spend money on them? Will he make them regret it? They already regret it, and they haven't even gone to see him.
"But like, it's cool you care, and shit like that."
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Just their diet. Ichika lifts an eyebrow, but doesn't push too hard. She diets, too. ...Not as heavily as some girls, at least, but enough that she's often thinking about it. ...As for Shuyo, he likes not being on fire. That's not the kind of hot he wants to be.
Ichika sees the fear, but she expects to see it, too. She knows the kind of things their father does. So...
"It's a lot," she agrees. "And that's OK. I'm not gonna be mad or whatever just because you didn't say."
"...But yeah," she says. "I do."
"I've got your back. And I know you've got mine. That means something."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
It's less embarrassing if they make it out into something they've deliberately chosen.
Ichika saying she won't be mad at least gets Tsubasa to relax a little; they definitely thought it was worth being mad at them, at least when the conversation's on this topic. They nod, then. "Yeah." It's a lot.
And, "... yeah." It means something. "I really don't want anything to happen to my father," which is a pertinent wish to have, when they were just talking about the Phantom Thieves, "but... it's not like I'm really hurtin' him havin' friends or whatever."
(The fact that that's even a question they'd have to answer, in their head...)
"We look out for each other," they affirm, as they scratch at Lance's ears.
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Ichika had a feeling that might be the case--it's easy to jump from 'you should tell me' to 'I'll be mad if you don't tell me', after all. For some reason, she knows that feeling. ...Some reason.
Ichika nods. "...That makes sense," she says, though she would like something to happen to him. ...But that's not what Tsubasa wants. "You're not," she agrees.
"...And we do. And Lance, too." She smiles.
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
For some reason. Tsubasa doesn't press on that reason, though.
Lance's ears perk up when she hears her name, and she barks, her tail wagging.
"Heh," Tsubasa chuffs, leaning down to scratch Lance's big barrely chest. "Yeah, that's right. You too. Who's a good girl?"
Lance might not really know what they're talking about, but she's helping, anyway.