2025-09-06: A Promise
- Log: A Promise
- Cast: Ichika Kawase, Hyousuke Suzuki
- Where: Kasugayama Girls' Dormitories, Hirasaka Ward, Sumaru City
- OOC Date: September 06, 2025
- IC Date: July 07, 2012
- Summary: Ichika skipped classes today--Saturday. Hyousuke came to visit her.
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
The Kasugayama High School Girls' Dormitory is a dingy building, off-white like an office, with a few trees and shrubs outside--and an iron fence with a couple of brick pillars. The sign indicates what it is--the dorms--and it is not so far from the boys' dormitory... though, despite that, there's not actually a ton of supervision, especially not today. The day is clear, at least. It's nice out.
But Ichika Kawase hasn't seen that, because she skipped classes this morning.
She hasn't been texting anyone, hasn't been going out, and has generally stayed in her dorm so far today.
She might answer texts. She certainly isn't answring calls.
As for the inside of the dorm--nobody's at the counter. The lounge has old, tattered couches and metal tables, with an empty dining area and two central staircases at the back. In theory, the entrances and exits are watched, but in the middle of the day visitors are fine. The carpets are old, but in decent condition.
But that requires going in!
<Pose Tracker> Hyousuke Suzuki has posed.
Hyousuke was, to put it bluntly, worried. The pictures he'd seen in that accursed place would have been enough to set anyone off, were they the subject of them, but everything that had followed... It left him with a feeling in his gut that he had to talk to Ichika. The fact that she'd not turned up to classes had only reinforced such a thought, and by the time that the midday bell had rung, he'd drummed his fingers against the desk in frantic - but quiet - worry a thousand times over.
Nobody was at the desk. Good - that made things a lot easier. He had no doubt that a few odd looks would be garnered by some scarred blonde stumbling towards the dorms, but he didn't care. Ichika was the closest thing to a friend he had in the school, and someone he - while not trusting completely - was inclined to believe did not mean him ill. She'd gone out of her way to look out for him, and he couldn't stomach the idea of simply leaving her to rot after all that.
Three soft, but quick, raps at her dorm room door announced his presence.
"Ichika?" He said softly, speaking just loud enough to be heard. "It's Hyousuke. Just wanted to ask if you're alright."
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Oh, a few girls do look askance at Hyousuke--until they see that he's heading to Ichika's room, and then there's not much questioning that a boy's in the dorms.
Raps at the door--her door is as nondescript as the others, except for a nameplate that says 'Kawase'. But after Hyousuke knocks, there's silence. Then, a little more silence.
Then--"Hyousuke-kun?" Ichika's voice is a little muffled through the door. "Um, hold on a sec."
Another bit of silence--before Ichika opens the door in a long robe. "..." It's just cracked at first; her makeup is gone, though, and her eyes are red and puffy. It might be strange to see her lips an ordinary color, but the novelty probably doesn't make up for the general poor condition.
"...Um," she starts, "You can come in. Though..."
A bitter laugh, "Not how I'd usually invite a boy over."
She steps back and opens the door more fully. Inside there's a bed and a desk, a futon folded up in the corner, and a number of posters and articles from fashion magazines on the walls.
There is also a blooming cactus in the barred window. It's in good shape for now.
"Sit wherever you want. ...Unless you didn't want to talk, and just wanted to check in. That's OK I guess."
<Pose Tracker> Hyousuke Suzuki has posed.
Hyousuke stood for a moment, silent and unwavering. But if she could peer inside his mind, Ichika might have seen that worry of his grow far beyond what was initially there. The sight of her in such a state was not disconcerting, but just concerning - something that left him lost for words until he could finally push past it all, and step gingerly into her room. he creaked the door shut behind him, closing it with a gentle click, before taking a cursory glance about the place. It was more something done out of habit than conscious effort, and in the blink of an eye, he returned his attention to her.
He made no attempt to respond to her jokes, and only sat when he was invited. The sight of him might have worried others that only knew his sunnier side. Sombre and silent, he was a far cry from the loud and proud brawler that usually strode through the halls.
"Is both alright?" He asked, having settled at the far end of the bed. Perched at the edge, there was plenty enough room for her to sit by his side if she so desired, even with his comparatively large frame. "I wanted to talk about last night. Ask if there was anything you needed to..." His lips grew tight for a moment as he searched for the words, fingers drumming on his leg before he managed to finish the thought. "...Get off your chest, I guess."
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Ichika can't peer inside Hyousuke's mind, but his presence is stable, and that's good enough for her for now. She can't read him right now, but she also isn't that worried about doing that. The glance around finds--well, that Ichika is more into fashion than someone might expect for someone in her position, mostly. And the cactus is well cared-for.
"Both is fine," Ichika says, and moves to sit at her desk, turning the chair around to face Hyousuke. He has to find the words, but that means he doesn't talk as quickly, which makes it easier for Ichika to keep up in the moment.
"...Mm," Ichika answers. "Yeah, you saw..."
"You saw a lot," Ichika says quietly. "Thanks for getting me out of there. I... shouldn't have run off like that."
"..."
"We were going to get married," Ichika explains. "Because I was pregnant."
<Pose Tracker> Hyousuke Suzuki has posed.
In the silence between her thanking him, and her speaking of the marriage, his lips parted. Just for heartbeat, and so little that it could easily have been confused with him drawing breath rather than having anything to say. Whatever he had thought to say was stifled the second she continued, however, and he listened without a sound. He said nothing afterwards, but there was no doubting that the revelation had left him thinking. Brow furrowed and hands tightened as they clasped, he considered his next words carefully, unsure of how to proceed. Blunt a man as he was, to tread carefully was a Herculean labour.
"Married, to that..." He caught the word before it could reach his lips. Whatever derisive terms he had in mind for him, now was not the time for it. "...Man." Hyousuke eventually managed, though the word had to be dragged from his throat. It was said with undisguised venom, as if calling him one dragged down the rest of humanity to such a level too. "So all those pictures around the Palace... That's what he saw you as?" Every word spoken was done so quietly, and with as much care as he could muster He second-guessed each, unsure of whether it was right or good of him to say such things, but he couldn't just stay silent. Not after everything.
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Ichika wonders what Hyousuke's thinking, in the moment. But she can't quite bring herself to keep watching him to figure it out. He's definitely thinking, but...
"Mm-hm," Ichika says. "I didn't know he was like that, back then. ...But the signs were there. It was stupid. He told me what to do, controlled what friends I could have... and I just didn't see it. I just thought it was normal."
"...he didn't hit me until that night. Not really."
The pictures. "Mm-hm. Some of them were... like how it was. Some of them I don't recognize."
"..."
She bites her lip. "My baby would be about seven months old, now. If... If she'd..."
<Pose Tracker> Hyousuke Suzuki has posed.
His hand trembled. Half of him wanted to storm out, and bring back that man's head on a pike. The other half wanted to reach out - to hold her hand like the night before, and provide what little comfort he could. The muscles in them strained as he willed himself to remain still, but though his hands kept in place, there was no disguising what appeared on his face. First, it was disgust. With it so barely restrained, there was no hiding the fact that he found that man utterly contemptible. But then... sadness. The thought of what had happened, the image of it that flared up in his mind - he couldn't stop himself from showing it.
"You don't have to say it." Someone else might have been able to provide comforting words, or at least phrased what he'd said more delicately. Someone smarter, someone more sensitive, someone that could restrain their rage enough that it didn't show in every twitch of their fingers or tensing of their muscles. But it was just them, and he had to do the best he could. "You don't have to tell me anything." He spoke calmly, for someone that had show such utter revulsion not a moment ago. Voice kept low and soft, he spoke with an even tone, each word delivered slowly and deliberately.
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Ichika keeps glancing back at Hyousuke, so she can see his expressions. The disgust; the sadness. She can't entirely place what should be for what, internally. She knows intellectually, but...
"Mm." Hyousuke assures her she doesn't have to say it, doesn't have to tell him anything, and Ichika leans back a little against the desk, in her chair. "Yeah," she says. "I don't have to do anything, right? It's... fine, whatever I want."
"Nobody can tell me how to feel."
She lets that hang for a while.
Then, Ichika says, "I loved her. I wanted her. ...I know it's stupid. That it would 'ruin my life'. But I did."
She turns her head, looking back over to Hyousuke. "It's fine," she says. "Telling you, I mean. You saw it anyway. It's not like I didn't know how cruel he could be."
"...You're right though. I don't have to."
"Still, I..."
A shake of her head. "So what about you?" she wonders. "...What do you think? I think..."
"I think I must be really stupid."
<Pose Tracker> Hyousuke Suzuki has posed.
Hyousuke all but froze when she spoke of herself as stupid. For a moemnt, the skin on his knuckles grew pale as bone, and his nails threatened to carve away his skin, such was how tightly his fists clenched. Disgust wrote itself into his features again, but not at her - his gaze did not meet hers. It was at him. That wretched filth that had done such a thing to her. Thoughts and memories of another person, in another place, from another life, flooded his mind and stunned him, leaving him without words for some tense few seconds.
When he did finally dredge up a thought that he could put to speech, it was delivered slowly and quietly, with a voice that trembled with emotions kept in check with every mote of effort he could spare.
"No." Was all he said at first. The word hung in the air for a moment, before he continued with that same wavering tone. "You aren't. You weren't. This... This wasn't you. This was him. He did this to you. You aren't... You're not..." He couldn't find the words, but beneath the rage and sickness that plagued him at the mere thought of that man, there was something odd. Desperation. A pleading, wide-eyed look that begged her to see herself how he saw her. "...You're not stupid for wanting to be happy."
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Ichika doesn't notice at first, but she does after a moment. He seems stunned. Ichika can't know what he's thinking. Not until he just answers--
No.
"No...?"
Oh.
Ichika opens her mouth and closes it, and listens. "...Mm," she says. "Thanks. I think... I really could've been," she says. "If he hadn't..."
A shake of her head. "Just, learning that he was like that all along... That he thought of our baby that way..."
"I couldn't handle it. So I put everyone at risk."
She looks back at Hyousuke, at that pleading look. "...Thanks," she says. "You're right. That part... isn't stupid. I won't insult her memory by acting like it was."
"It just hurts. And he said..." Sigh. "He thinks I belong to him, forever. ...But you see? That's why..."
"I want to prove to myself I'm 'mine'."
<Pose Tracker> Hyousuke Suzuki has posed.
"You were never his." He spoke with such certainty, in spite of whatever else lingered in his voice. There was no hesitation when he said it, and so determined was he to make sure that the point was made, that he barely even blinked when he held her gaze. He wasn't sure what else he was supposed to say after that - what platitudes could a man like him offer someone that'd ben through what she had? Such a thought manifested as silence after he'd made the assertion, and - desperate to fill the void before things grew awkward - he continued on.
"I don't give a shit about getting in danger. Hell, I probably would've decked him if you didn't. I just..." Again, he faltered, unsure of what to say. He wished he was smarter, or quicker, or more resolute. Someone that was any of those three might have been able to handle a situation that couldn't be solved with brute force. But in that moment, in this place, it was just those two. He couldn't rely on someone else, and had to forge ahead. And if he couldn't be those, then at the very least, he could be honest. "...I want to help. Whatever it takes to see this through, just say the word."
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
"?" Ichika looks up in surprise at that certainty. Never? Ichika sees no hesitation. Not so much as a blink. Still...
"..." He would've. "That..."
When he finishes Ichika nods. "That makes me feel a little better," she admits. "I tried to lead everyone, but instead I was a liability. I didn't like that."
"...Thanks. You are helping. Coming to see me... I appreciate it. I've sort of been hiding in here since last night..."
She bites her lip. "I don't know what to do yet," she admits. "Doing it the way we were doing it won't work. But I don't know another way, yet. I need to... figure that out."
"Once I have a plan, I'll tell you. Until then..."
"We both need to get stronger, I guess."
"...Never, huh?" she repeats. "I think I did. But maybe it's thinking it that made it that way."
All channels have been gagged.
Maria Sakurai has arrived from Iwatodai Station.
Maria Sakurai has left for Kameya Alley.
<Pose Tracker> Hyousuke Suzuki has posed.
"Whatever started it, we're ending it. Together." Another shift in his voice, and one in his expression to match. It was conviction this time, stony and unyielding. Whatever wavering had still lingered in his voice had begun to fade, and drew away with every word that he spoke, replaced instead with a desire to help her - and to get revenge on that horrific man. "I'll be with you on this. No matter how long it takes, or how many monsters I need to fight to get you to him. Promise." The last word slipped from his mouth before he had a chance to stop it. He'd not known her for long, and certainly not long enough to pledge his allegiance in such a way. Yet, despite it all, he didn't regret it, and found himself meaning it with every fibre of his being. "But you're right. We need a plan, and we need to be stronger. We can't just kick the doors down and take what we want."
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Whatever started it...
"Yeah," Ichika says. "Why, though?" she has to wonder. "...I'm not questioning that you care," she makes clear. "But... Why do you care so much?"
Ichika hesitates. "I don't mean to sound ungrateful. I really appreciate your help. Knowing you're in, even after I messed up like that... It helps."
"But why? Why would you promise something so dangerous to yourself, for me?"
<Pose Tracker> Hyousuke Suzuki has posed.
There it was. A question he didn't really have an answer to. He could tell her that they were friends and that was just what friends did, or that his power meant he had a duty to right wrongs, or just that he was angry at the man and wanted any excuse to turn him into a red smear on the ground. However, all those explanations seemed to ring a little hollow. They were truthful, and had he said any of them, he would have meant it. But there was something deeper that lay at the root of it all, and the storm that had passed had seemed to unearth it from wherever he'd pushed it down and buried it.
"...I was part of a gang before I came here." He began, softening his tone to something softer. "Wasn't a big one. Didn't even have a name. But they made me feel like I mattered. But I didn't, and when I fought with them over it, they... gave me this." He pointed to the scar that ran across his eye. Reaching from the base of his brow to the top of his cheekbone, it looked as though it had been carved into his skin with a knife's edge. It was a canyon in his flesh, deep and prominent - something that could hardly be ignored.
"And when I saw you swing at him back there, I saw you get angry. Like me. Thinking about it, I guess... I guess I didn't want a friend to make the same mistakes I did, and get hurt because of it. Not when I could help them."
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Those might do, as answers go. But Ichika is waiting for one at all. And there...
Hyousuke explains, and Ichika looks immediately concerned--and sympathetic, then. "Ah..." It explains a lot, actually. A number of reactions. A number of actions.
"I see," Ichika says. "I'm sorry." That that happened. For the scar. For--
For not mattering, back then.
"...OK," Ichika says. "That's fine." She nods, after a moment, as if trying on the answer. "I was. Hearing that he thought that way about our baby, I..."
"I couldn't take it," Ichika admits. "I thought... I thought he just lost control. That I made him so mad that he wasn't thinking. But maybe he was thinking, if he called it 'discipline'. And I just... I hate it. I hate him."
"...There's other reasons I would've accepted," Ichika admits. "But I'm glad it's like this."
"We'll do our best, OK? I just... need some time to recover."
<Pose Tracker> Hyousuke Suzuki has posed.
Hyousuke remained quiet. What could he say in response that would matter? What thoughts did he have that had not already been spilled into the open? All he could do was give her a firm nod, and quiet words of reassurance. Something to make it abundantly clear that he would be by her side throughout it all, as if everything prior had not already made such a thing obvious.
"Just call if you need me." He said, with a firmness to match his movements. "I'm not good for much, but I'll do what I can. Promise."
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
The nod is reassuring. Ichika's the kind of girl who likes actions as well as words, so Hyousuke's quiet certainty is appealing. It was already clear, but...
"I will," Ichika says. "Thanks. I mean... Thank you."
She looks down. "I think we all feel like we're not good for much," Ichika says. "In a place like this. Maybe that's the problem."
A look. "...My crew... can't solve stuff like this," Ichika explains. "So I need the help."
"But..."
She nods. A promise. "...I'll call," she says instead. that's the best answer she can give to that offer of support. "But..."
A second but, but this time it's, "I should... probably get dressed."
<Pose Tracker> Hyousuke Suzuki has posed.
Hyousuke responded with a slow blink, then more silence. The words echoed in his mind, bouncing around until they finally managed to sink into his brain and be processed. When they finally did, his eyes widened, then darted off to one side. Her cactus suddenly seemed to be a far more interesting site than it had mere moments ago, and kept him captivated even while he spoke to her.
"Right. Yeah. Dressed. I'll let you do that." The tonal whiplash would have been enough to give anyone a sore neck, but he gave no thought to it. His focus was instead on the exit, which he started towards abruptly. His hand caught on the latch, but before he left, he spoke one last time. "I'll see you around. Whenever you need me."
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Ichika waits for it. And waits a little longer. And there--there it is. The cactus, to be fair, is a very good thing to look at. It's green, with a pink flower. It has spines, and a nice pot. It's healthy, for now.
"Thanks," Ichika answers, and she manage a small smile at how embarrassed he seems to be.
It makes her feel a little better.
"Cool," Ichika says. "I'll call. Thanks."
She'll see Hyousuke to the door and then close it.
...Then, maybe she can see about not hiding in her room all weekend.