2025-07-31: ... and a Morning which Cannot be Lazy
- Log: ... and a Morning which Cannot be Lazy
- Cast: Yua Ooshiro, Miho Ijuuin
- Where: Aoba - Penthouse
- OOC Date: 2025-07-31
- IC Date: Monday, June 18 2012
- Summary: Yua struggles to face the day, after what she's done, but she realises amidst her complaints that Miho's suffering just as much... and through her desire to care for her girlfriend, finds the strength to get going.
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ooshiro has posed.
The first thing Yua did when Miho escorted her safely back home was to throw up, as if her body could physically purge all that overwhelmed her during the mission. It's a hopeless endeavour, but once she was free of her armour and safely in her 'home clothes' again, she collapsed into bed. She managed to force herself out to eat dinner... but she was in no state to make it, and in no state to do much else than go right back to bed. She's lucky that Miho is here to handle reporting back in, because she's in no state to handle the Powers that Be.
(... Rokuro isn't happy to hear that Persona-users found them, but he's satisfied with the results of the mission, resistance notwithstanding. Yua's state is within acceptable parameters, though he pays token lip service to how regrettable it is that she struggles with her gifts. His main concern -- though one he at least veils, speaking to Miho -- is whether Yua performed well in live combat, and whether he can still effectively field her in future operations. Tellingly, he simply assumes that Miho will continue to comply. He emphasises that they ought to take personal responsibility for what they've done when they meet resistance; it will cause problems for him, if they carelessly cite the forces behind them. How terrible for him.)
When their alarm goes off, at four in the morning, Yua reaches over blearily to silence it... and slumps right back against Miho's chest, again, pulling her sheet stubbornly over them. (She's Miho's blanket, right now, and her personal opinion of blankets on herself is deeply negative. Even now, she's kicked out a foot from under the sheets.) "Dun wanna," she whines, still half asleep, clutching Miho tightly. "Stupid." What, precisely, is stupid isn't immediately clear. Perhaps it's the concept of consciousness.
"Stay," Yua whines, though she must know how futile it is. The clock turns; they've still more work to do. Yua somehow has to get out of bed and go shepherd the youth to safe dancing practices, even though she just made all those young people so unsafe.
This isn't the first time she's ended up like this, after one of Rokuro's tasks. Yua -- dutiful, hardworking Yua, who sleeps late and wakes early, who always has breakfast ready, who throws herself into physical improvement with joy -- is reduced to this weary, weepy creature who can't get out of bed. She was always the one to prompt Miho to wakefulness, when she struggled. But now...
"Mrmmm," Yua hums, burying her face against Miho's nightclothes, weight shifting and settling down anew. "Mm, mi. Mm-i... safe..." Too tired to even say her name right, Yua's going to go right back to sleep without intervention. And she'll be trapping Miho in the process! ... but... there might be something to her half-coherent mumbling as to why she'd cling to her like this, too.
She must be... so scared.
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
Miho was more stoic about the matter. This is usually the case... in part because she's the one who's obligated to talk to the higher-ups, specifically Rokuro.
She is not particularly concerned with what makes Rokuro happy. His assumptions are tolerable for the moment. But his talk of personal responsibility... Well.
It's nice to want things.
But Yua sinks against Miho, and Miho listens. She does not want to get up... and it is something stupid. Still...
"We must get up," Miho points out. "It is not optional."
She gives her a squeeze, though, carefully holding her and giving her another minute or two. "There is much we both must do..."
A sigh. "But I understand you feel ill at ease."
How does Miho talk so coherently when the alarm went off?
Well, she copes with the stress by waking up before her alarm and brooding for a while. It's fine.
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ooshiro has posed.
"Nnn," Yua whines, clutching Miho tighter. "Nooooooooo..."
She at least starts shifting, more, even if it's only to wriggle in against her and hold on tighter. The first step to waking up is getting moving! ... well, for Yua, anyway; Miho seems far more practiced at waking and remaining still.
But... Miho says they have to wake up, so they have to wake up, and Yua sighs deeply as she looks up to her, head at her shoulder. (She can see her, if barely; Yua doesn't like the dark, so there's a nightlight, dimly illuminating the edges.) "Can we... talk...?" She's at least rested enough to venture, now, though the idea of addressing any of that was far too crushing yesterday. "... I feel really bad, Mimi..."
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
Nooooo....
Miho says many things. They are often true. ...Not always, but often.
Miho looks to Yua, and her eyes close for a moment, as she decides, "Of course."
Miho does start to rise, but not so quickly that she will make Yua fall. "Talk to me," she offers.
"...Yes. I'm sure..."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ooshiro has posed.
"NAAAOOOOOOHHHHH," Yua makes a terrible complaining noise, in her throat, but at least lays a hand on the bed to push herself sitting.
... at which point, she coils around Miho again, wrapping her arms around her midsection and burying her face against her chest. "muh."
Miho might be a gold medalist, but can she defeat her own clingy girlfriend?!
"Is this what our life is going to be, now...?" At least that's more coherent. "Before this... I never fought people. I mean... in 'that place', I... but that was different," she cuts herself off before she illustrates that dark chapter, shaking her head against Miho's shoulder. "I'm always so tired when it's done... more than normally."
Yua doesn't make a big production out of her fatigue, in her normal life, but it's also true that only one of the pair naps during the day, even though they're both so industrious.
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
It's a terrible noise. But Miho can handle it. She is... distant, at the moment, but able to compensate for it. She's off in her own little world, and reaching out from it towards Yua.
She can win.
"Up we go," she says gently, and lifts Yua until they are both standing. She just straight up lifts her. It's great.
...less great...
"For a while, yes," Miho confirms. "Until and unless we can find another way... or the dreams come true."
"I can avoid it sometimes," she says, "There are things they cannot force. ...But fight we must."
"But they will live. We are not obligated to take their lives. ...Whoever is fielding youths must surely realize what they are doing."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ooshiro has posed.
"Uwah?!" Yua yelps, as Miho swings her feet onto the ground and then hefts them both up. She stumbles, a little, finding her own feet, but Miho's more than strong enough to hold her up until she does. She pouts, still latched tightly about her chest. "Mimiiiiiiii! No fair! You know I like being picked up, you tricked me!!"
She turns her head to gaze longingly at their bed. Nice, welcoming, soft bed... theoretically, she could let Miho go and flop right back down onto it. She might even let her laze around while she got her morning started!
Unfortunately, holding onto Miho is a far greater priority to Yua, so all she can really do is try to tug them back bedwards. ... well, she can try.
"I feel bad," she huffs, sinking against Miho again. "How can I teach those students, then hide beneath a veil and torment them? How am I supposed t-- to show my face, today, when I know very well those children go to Gekkoukan?" Oh, no... Yua's scheduled for Gekkoukan on Monday this week. "I don't want to... if they knew who I really was, they'd never trust me again!"
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
"I do," Miho says, and smiles, despite the subject. "And perhaps you shall be part of my early exercise routine today..."
But their bed, while nice, is not the destination. Miho does not allow herself to be deterred, carrying Yua a little further away from it. But...
She feels bad.
"Is it your fault that someone has armed them, sent them into the wars of the night?" Miho starts. "...it is difficult. It is troublesome. But they do not have to oppose you."
"...If you would rather give up on your teaching, I understand. But I think you can still do some good. Help them to grow into proper adults, despite these matters they're involved in."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ooshiro has posed.
"No exercise," Yua whines. "Mimi time now." Technically, those two things aren't exclusive.
But Miho is inexorable, and Yua, attached to Miho, is inevitably swept up into moving into the day. "Don't they...?" Yua wonders, tilting her head into the crook of Miho's arm, when she says they don't have to oppose them. "We're doing something wicked... it's normal to get in our way."
She heaves a great sigh, fingers curling in Miho's bedclothes. "I like teaching them how to dance," she says, sadly. "But I'm sure... I'll just end up hurting them. I can't stop it... I have to do those awful things. Really, they're awful things!" And is it better, that she's got more life in her voice when it sounds like she's about to start crying again?
"It must be so awful for you, too," Yua sniffs, hugging Miho tighter. "I'm sorry... I know you had to talk to them all alone yesterday. I was just... I really didn't feel well, Mimi..."
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
"Both," Miho says. She is inexorable. Then, a shrug. Yua can feel it, since Miho is still holding her. "It is normal for some to. I do not think that children have organized themselves into such a force, though."
A pause. But Yua... Hm. "There is good and bad," she says. "They must learn that as well. ...If they wish us to begin killing youths then perhaps they have some lessons to learn of their own. But to live is to fight."
A pause. "It..."
Hm. "...I do not object to speaking to them alone," she says more carefully. "It is stressful, but I am glad to spare you that much. ...besides; they make me angry, when you are present."
"One day they will make me too angry, and we will have a new 'supervisor'."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ooshiro has posed.
"Mooooouuuuu..." Yua complains, though she lets Miho set the pace, anyway. She sighs, head tilting against Miho's shoulder. "You're right... what wretched creature would use children as their footsoldiers...?"
Yua doesn't know there are a good half dozen creatures wretched enough to do that. Anyway.
"To live is to fight..." Yua sighs, looking up to Miho. "So, you think... we can make them stronger? I think... I think I did have to tell them how things worked, a couple of times..." No one tell Yua she's supposed to be a tutorial voice for her side, not the other team.
But Miho starts picking her words carefully, and Yua blinks, looking up to her anew. She unlaces an arm from around Miho's midsection, but it's just so that she can reach up to her face, instead, cupping her cheek in a hand. "Mimi," she murmurs, with concern, as she puts aside the sinking feeling in her gut that maybe Miho isn't just venting when she says something like that. "What did that loathsome man say to you...?"
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
"I do not know. But I wish to learn. ...Ours is not the only organization I mistrust."
But to live is to fight. "...Yes," Miho says, though that is not immediately what she had thought of. "You did. Perhaps we shall train them. ...And in the end, they will oppose our employers for us. It could be a useful opportunity to weaken those we wish to topple..."
"...he sought to blame us for 'resistance'," Miho says. "That it was our responsibility that we were 'caught'. That your condition was 'acceptable'. He is most concerned with performance."
"It is... irritating."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ooshiro has posed.
"It's not... just the Powers that Be? Mooouuuuuu..." Yua deflates, in the face of such treachery.
"But... if we can help them... I don't like that the young are placed in such danger, but if they are, it's worse if they're unprepared, isn't it?" Yua works on a way to cope, in her mind, though she knows that the people she's fighting ought to be fighting nothing more terrifying than their midterms.
Yua frowns, though, when Miho shares just what she had to endure. She straightens up, a little more, so that she can cup her hands to either side of Miho's head; she has to tug her down at the same time as she lifts up onto her tippy-toes, though, because Miho is EXTREMELY tall, and she's a little short. She eventually achieves her goal of resting her forehead against Miho's, though, with a little help from her girlfriend.
"Listening to someone talk about me like that, talk about us like that... it's hard, Mimi. It's really hard... and it's scary, isn't it? Even though you're the most powerful woman I know, you can't just make them stop... it must be even harder, since I can't keep up. You must be so worried, right? What's it like...?"
... Miho might be a stoic woman, but Yua knows there's a deep lake underneath that ice. Just because Yua wears her emotions on her sleeve, that hardly means Miho has none.
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
"I would be surprised if it were. There are many actors on this stage."
To help them. "...That is true," Miho agrees. It's a way to cope, all right. But it also makes sense to Miho. Not to mention--if they can empower their 'opponents', then perhaps that will provide opportunities...
But Miho looks to Yua, and indeed leans down to press her forehead to hers.
"It is difficult," she agrees. "It is... hard." Somewhat less formally. "I am worried. It is like..."
"It is like a kettle on the stove. I must exert much effort not to begin whistling. For when I whistle, these petty men die."
"And that is... inconvenient."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ooshiro has posed.
Yua is concerned about whether she can equip her so-called enemies to defeat them, but right now, she's mostly concerned with her girlfriend. She holds Miho's head, gently, and stays up on her toes to look into her eyes even after she lets her up so she doesn't have to lean over quite so much.
She's formal... that's the armour she wears, after all. Yua strokes at the back of her short hair, as she listens to her liken herself to a kettle. "You're under so much pressure," Yua says, gently. "Not only with the Olympics almost upon us, but in their shadow world, too... it must be so hard to keep yourself under control."
But... now, Miho's the kind of person who kills people when the pressure builds up too much. She...
"... you're here because of me," Yua says, softly, mourning the innocence her dear partner has lost. "All that pressure, you took it on for me... oh, Mimi. I wish you didn't need to know what men like that say at all!"
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
She is under pressure, that is true. But, "The Olympics are a pressure I welcome," she says. "That does not trouble me. I will thrive, or not. There is no added matter, no... Not the same."
"But this shadow world..."
Yua says it, and Miho shakes her head. "I would not react so, against normal men. But these men..."
"I appreciate it," she says, and gently moves to set Yua down. "...But perhaps I would have found some of this pressure regardless. The dreams always had me."
"...Perhaps a less bloody path, but still difficult. I must see where it leads us."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ooshiro has posed.
"Yeah... you're right," Yua affirms, because Miho's told her how her world is built, and that's what matters. "... it's not the same."
Those men are... different.
... even so, Yua feels unsettled by the idea of killing them.
Yua clasps Miho's hand, but she lets her set her down, finally. "The dreams are nicer than they are," she reflects, a touch darkly. "Their 'sinless world', our perfect world... it's hard to remember we can use them to achieve it, sometimes. But there's no way... no way men like that deserve to live in our world! I don't even know how they've seen it! However it works, I won't let a single one of them come with us!!"
Yua's never seen it, but she speaks with fervent belief, anyway, shaking her head violently.
"But I'm coming with you," she affirms, her other hand stroking over Miho's fingers. "You saved me, Mimi... you keep saving me, even now. Talking to those men, those... those people who look at me like I'm just some valuable object for their use... it really hurts. So, I notice... I notice when you get between me and them. Even though it means you have to hear them talking instead..."
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
"It is not."
Miho is more inured to conflict at this point. But still... the dreams.
"Yes," Miho says. "I do not believe that theirs is possible. A world without sin? You may as well ask for a world without people. ...Everyone has dark and light both inside them."
A shake of her head. "We will not allow it. ...No men like that will live in our world."
This may not be quite the same thing they're saying, though.
"You are," Miho agrees. "...I will save you every time," she says. "Now that we're together again."
"...I can bear it. I can. And I will."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ooshiro has posed.
"... what if they ruin our world, Mimi?" Yua asks, anxiety stabbing into her voice. "With their -- their stupid, impossible ideals! Even if we ran away... even if we ran away, they might befoul it, and then we wouldn't know!"
Maybe it doesn't work like that. Maybe they have more than one shot at this. But maybe they don't; the creation of a perfect world is hardly something one does every Tuesday.
Yua smiles, though, a hand pressing at Miho's shoulder as she rises up to her toes again to try and get her down to kiss her. "My King," she praises her, with a gentle expression. "I know you can. You're mightier than any of them, they'll see. But you don't need to bear it alone... I'm right here with you. We're a team, right...?"
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
"They can't," Miho says simply. "It exists in higher reality--a reality they can only dream of touching. ...It is not possible for them to ruin it."
She is sure of that. That it is already there, and they simply must get there.
Still, Miho smiles, and does lean down to kiss her. "My Queen," she answers. "Yes, we are..."
"And yes. I will bear anything I must... with you."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ooshiro has posed.
"It's really safe...?" Yua asks, brow creasing with concern. "So long as it's safe..."
Should she be worried about the fact that they're setting out to ascend to a higher plane of reality? No, that must be fine.
And it is more than fine to hear Miho address her that way, Yua all but glowing as she looks up to her. "Let me make your burden a little easier," she says, rubbing at Miho's arm. "I'll get started on breakfast, and it will be ready by the time you're done with your early sets, okay...? I'll make you a cute lunch, too!"
Yua's bentos are much larger than the ones schoolchildren take to the cafeteria, but they're just as visually appealing... and tasty!