2025-09-06: Brawl Tomorrow
- Log: Brawl Tomorrow
- Cast: Tsubasa Seki, Ichika Kawase
- Where: Hirasaka Ward, Sumaru City
- OOC Date: September 6, 2025
- IC Date: July 7, 2012 (Saturday)
- Summary: Tsubasa has some concerns about her boss not showing up today--and when they reach out, Ichika eventually touches base. She comes over, and hides out for a while.
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
Now it's Ichika's turn to skip school. Tsubasa didn't press her, but they sent her a message, once they'd given Lance a nice long walk after school, to say that they'd be at home if she needed them.
... they just kinda get the impression it might be one of those days she'd rather hide out inside, and if they do it this way they can get her to leave the house to get to another hermit shell.
They're actually put together this afternoon; still in their uniform, but their makeup and wig are on point for once while they're in here. Lance, having run around like a fighter jet for the past hour, is presently napping beside the table where Tsubasa's sat down to tackle their homework.
(Pages of numbers are visible, under the mathematics they're solving. Those aren't calculations; they're cell data. Don't worry about it.)
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Ichika did reply to the message! ...Eventually. It was just to say that she'd text them if she did. And then she stayed inside.
But, after a while--a little after school came to an end--Ichika got her phone, and...
Messaged Tsubasa!
>I'm going out
Ten minutes later:
>Can I come over?
Ichika has thought better of being Out and About after all. So when she shows up, she's not in uniform, because she didn't go to school even for the half-day. After a probably too-long shower (at least the water started hot), Ichika made her way out, and that was the first text. Now that she's here...
Well, the second text was a bit ago. And Ichika is now dressed in a maxi dress in light blue, sleeveless, with flats. There's some nice patterning on the dress. It's fine.
Ichika has fixed up her makeup, and it's not completely obvious that she was crying most of the day. Probably obvious to Tsubasa, though.
Knock knock.
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
> sure
Quick, easy, simple.
The maxi dress is... not as daring as Ichika's usual look, Tsubasa notes, when they open up the door. They note the eyes, too. Silently, though: "C'mon in," is what they actually say, stepping back to let Ichika enter the sardine can.
Lance, of course, is up as soon as she hears the knock, and all but shoves her face into Ichika as she insists on her due affection.
"Coffee?" They ask, having stepped into the kitchen to give Ichika room to kick her shoes off into the shoe nook anyway. "Don't panic, I finally got around to pocketin' somethin' decent, it's not gonna test your courage this time."
Damn. And here she was gonna raise her Guts.
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
It helped, talking to someone earlier, but it's all come rolling back into a knot in Ichika's stomach. When Tsubasa opens the door, Ichika looks at them. Even her makeup isn't quite as daring as usual, just some liner instead of the full red shadow. Dark lips, though. Have to have those.
But Lance is up. "Hey there, girl," Ichika says, and kneels down for a moment. "Good girl..." She pets her, and then stands back up, kicking her shoes into the nook. "Oh, yeah?" Ichika asks. "That's cool."
She does not really feel like testing her courage at the moment.
"I mean, yeah, that'd be great."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"Cool," Tsubasa says, checking the kettle to make sure the water's still bug-free and then setting it to boil. "Go ahead and sit wherever, Boss."
Practically, that means one of three places: on the chair, on the stairs, or up the stairs and on the futon.
Bubble, bubble, click...
Tsubasa pours out two cups of coffee, prepares Ichika's the way she likes it, and takes them over. They have two mugs, now. Most of this apartment is still designed to hold one person and one person only, but they have made a concession on keeping an extra mug around for Ichika.
"Rough day, huh," they start, open-ended, as they hand the cup over.
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Ichika does sit wherever. In this case... she climbs up the stairs to sit on the futon. Apparently, Ichika wants to be high up. Or maybe she just wants to be in the most enclosed spot she can find. She seems a little relieved once she turns around sitting there, though.
Bubble, bubble...
Ichika likes it black with a little sugar, as it happens. But the mug for Ichika is nice.
"Yeah," Ichika says. "Or like... Rough night."
"...Eiji stuff."
She drinks some hot coffee after that as if the too-hot liquid might burn away the name. But she doesn't actually burn herself in the doing, thankfully.
"He..."
"He was always like that, wasn't he?" Ichika finds herself asking. "I just didn't want to see it."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
Luckily, they have sugar. Thanks, charity.
The futon's a low seat, given how it's just kind of thrown over the ground -- but thankfully, there's enough floor space beside it to rest a coffee cup without threatening destruction.
Tsubasa takes a seat beside her, and Lance ambles up to wriggle around them and curl up on the futon behind them. Yes, it's full of dog hair. No, there's nothing they could possibly do about that.
They sip in silence, for a moment. There's a beat of comedy in the way they sip and then blow on the top of the mug, some unstated mishap of Tsubasa forgetting something they really shouldn't be forgetting, but they don't call attention to it. They're waiting for --
There it is. Eiji stuff, and a rough night. "Oh, yeah?" Tsubasa asks, glancing over.
Another beat of a pause, and...
"... yeah," Tsubasa nods, their gaze growing a touch distant as they say it. Well, don't think too much about the implications of that one. "He probably was. But it's not like guys like that show that side of themselves day one, either... they hide behind nice shit until they got ya."
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Lance is here. Ichika's glad of that. She is soothed by the presence of the dog-hair generator. ...Though she doesn't reach out to touchher just this moment. Instead...
Ichika isn't sure she's distant. She feels, instead, like she's right there, like she's right there among everything, and everything looms so big and so loud that she doesn't know if she can bear it.
"Yeah..."
"I just..."
"He... probably..." She can't explain how she knows for sure, "Wanted a son. ...Not my little girl."
Ichika looks down. "...It's too much," she says. "Too much to..."
She bites her lip, hard. "I..."
"I was due in February, you know. ...would've been... early in the month, probably." Her voice grows small. "...'Discipline'," she says.
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
Of course. The sons are always so... wanted.
Tsubasa takes a long draw of their coffee, and then puts the cup to one side, turning to Ichika. "Yeah," they say, quietly. "That's what my father calls it, too." ... he was so upset that Katsuya got in his way.
They take a breath. "It sucks. And it's real convenient they can talk about their violence like it's somethin' they gotta do for our sake."
It is convenient, isn't it?
Man...
"Wish you coulda met her," Tsubasa says. "Neither of you deserved that."
...
Tsubasa finally gets around to why they put their coffee down, as they pause, and ask: "You want a hug? It's cool."
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Ichika keeps hold of her cup for now, half-huddled around it like it's for warmth, but it's not really. As it turns out, she doesn't have to explain herself. Tsubasa just gets what she's talking about. But then, they would, wouldn't they?
"Yeah," Ichika says. "Real... convenient, for them. That they can think of it that way. That they can blame everyone else."
But...
Tsubasa says that, and Ichika chokes a little. "I-I--"
Tears are in her eyes again, when she nods at Tsubasa. "Yeah," she says. "I... really do."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"He was blamin' you, yeah?" Tsubasa scowls; there are a lot of broad strokes they can guess at, at least, given their own experiences. "If you ask me, he's the only one to blame. Well, him and his fuckin' dad."
... a father much like theirs, they suppose.
But Ichika chokes up, and Tsubasa scooches closer, wrapping an arm around Ichika's shoulders so that she can keep hold of her coffee and get human contact. "Hey," they say, with that voice that's been dragged through gravel until it's blooded and raw. (It was an execution method, once.) "Hey... door's locked, we're right here, it's okay. You can cry about it. Anyone would."
Tsubasa, of course, referenced them in plurality, and that's because Lance heard Ichika sniffling and has nosed her way to the edge of the futon to get in at Ichika's other side. Arooo...
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
"Mm-hm. I thought... I thought it was my fault. That I made him too mad. But now I'm not so sure."
Him and his dad. "Yeah..." Ichika trails off.
And then, well--Ichika finds Tsubasa's arm around her, and Lance on her other side. Once that may have been an execution method, but the voice that results is comforting for Ichika. "O-Okay..." She doesn't mean to stammer, it's just hard to talk through tears. And she is. She feels Lance at her side, glances down that way, and leans into Tsubasa to cry.
...It takes her a little bit.
She lowers one of her hands from her cup, eventually, to give Lance a few scritches.
"I had a friend come over," she says. "He just showed up after school, all worried. ...Regular friend, not--that kind of friend. ...Though if he'd pushed I'd probably have gone for it." She doesn't sound happy about what she would've done, for some reason.
"But no, he didn't. He just wanted to see if I was OK. Didn't want anything else."
A look down into her coffee, before Ichika takes another gulp. "Thanks," she says. "I, um..."
She's not sure where to go with that. "...Don't let me go yet, OK?" Ichika asks quietly. "I can't stand being alone."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"They love makin' you think it's your fault," Tsubasa frowns, glancing aside. "Mine, too. But it ain't normal to -- force someone, gettin' too angry. Y'know... Yasuda-san would get ripshit pissed at me, but he didn't... take it to the bedroom. You gotta think, man... if that were normal shit for guys gettin' mad, why'd one of 'em hold back and the other didn't?"
Tsubasa shakes their head. "Fuckin' A, man, like... I'm one of the angriest fuckers around, and I'm tellin' ya, I ain't never thought that my anger would be satisfied by takin' someone's safety away like that. It ain't what anyone just fuckin' jumps to."
But -- she had a friend, and Tsubasa smiles, briefly, as Lance noses at Ichika's hand for those scritches. "Yeah? Cool he was worried. Though... it don't sound like that's really what you're after right now. Yeah?"
If Tsubasa really were a guy, it would probably be harder for her, right now, they think to themself. The categories in her head work a certain way... or something like that.
But...
"It's okay," Tsubasa repeats, giving Ichika a light squeeze. "You can stay as long as you want. I'll keep an extra eye out... we watch each other's backs, yeah?"
Lance wags her tail, as if to indicate that she, too, is helping.
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
"Yeah," Ichika answers. "...Yeah. It can't be normal. It's not... like that. I won't believe that's normal." It's not quite the same as what Tsubasa said, but it's something. And as Tsubasa mentions anger, Ichika nods. "Yeah," she says. "But I..."
"I really wanted to hurt him," Ichika says. "Hurt him back. ...Hurt him bad." She says that with a note of guilt and dread both in her tone.
"Yeah," Ichika says again, of his worry. "Mmm... It's hard," Ichika says. "I want to, but I don't want to. I want to do anything but think about all this. I don't want to be alone. But I feel like I..."
"I feel like if I did that, then I'd just be thinking of him. And that makes me--that makes me sick. I'm not his. I'm not!"
She shakes with that one. But Tsubasa gives her a squeeze, and Lance is wagging her tail. "Right," she says. "We watch each other's backs. It's what we do."
Ichika is quiet for another long few moments. "I feel sick. And the things that would usually help feel like they'd make it worse."
"...I don't..."
"I don't feel strong enough. I feel like it's an act."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"I think that's just... normal," Tsubasa says. "... I got the link to this site from some chick I met the other day. 'Revenge Request'... you can pay 'em to do anythin'. Went on there, thought 'bout... thought 'bout it, but... I didn't end up postin' nothin'. Told myself it's 'cuz I didn't have the money to make it worth pissin' my father off, but... if I'm bein' honest... it's 'cuz I was scared I'd tell 'em to kill him."
Does it sound ugly, when they say it out loud? ... they're not exactly much to look at, either way.
"You're not," Tsubasa affirms, gently. But... he's stuck in her head, even though she doesn't want to think about it.
They know what they'd do; it takes them a moment longer to think through what Ichika might be looking for. They take the moment, anyway. She's what they're worried about right now.
"Maybe you're not right now," they say, against all logic which would state that Ichika is incredibly strong. (She is; but that's not how she feels.) "You been through a lot, and you're havin' to see him," a reasonable assumption, given her new information, "and no one's gonna kick every ass they come across, even if they weren't facin' your shit. Maybe... you gotta be okay with not bein' strong for a hot minute, stop actin', feel your feelings, get up ready to brawl tomorrow."
They rub her shoulder, gently. "... we can stay like this, if that's gonna help," they offer, a touch unsure of themself. "Y'know, like... bein' touchy without gettin' down or nothin'. Like... bein' alone sucks for you, but it's hard to just like... hug someone without doin' nothin' if it's a guy, right? Like... like maybe you're worried he was gonna push the issue if you didn't do it first, or... uh, maybe that's just me."
Tsubasa would rather not think about where they learned that.
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Revenge Request. Ichika hasn't heard much about it, but the concept is pretty simple. "...Yeah," Ichika says. "It's like that. I... I really wanted to. But it wouldn't help. ...All it did was cause trouble for everybody. Me included."
She shakes her head. "I think it's good, you backed off. ...You knew where your line was."
But Tsubasa affirms it for her at least. And... Well. Ichika is having a hard time.
"...Feel my feelings, huh?" Ichika asks. "...Yeah, maybe. I think... Yeah. Maybe I can just... live with that, until I get a little rest."
Ichika listens. She still has her coffee, but, she thinks about putting it down; she scritches at Lance again idly, and turns to look towards Tsubasa a little. "..."
"I'd appreciate that," Ichika says softly. "You got it, yeah. It's... hard. When I'm close to somebody... it feels better. But I'd be too tempted to just... stop thinking. Go for it. He might even push it to try to make me feel better." Ichika doesn't say she doesn't also have that experience, after all.
"But I'm all tangled up, and..."
"Yeah. Thanks," Ichika says, and closes her eyes for a moment. "But I need to feel it for a while. Even if I don't really want to."
She pauses, then. "...They're not supposed to push it if you don't want it, though. A guy who's gonna push you... or a girl, even. It might seem harmless, but if they don't respect you, it's not gonna work out. I mean, maybe a girl likes to be chased a little, but... not pushed."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"Yeah... but it's easy to think like that, yeah? Like... it's you or them." It's particular way to express having no escape, but Tsubasa's always been someone who thinks about things that way.
Someone wins, someone loses.
"Yeah," they encourage her, when she talks about getting some rest. "You deserve it, man."
Still... it seems like they get how she's feeling.
"... tangled up, yeah," they echo her, again, giving her another little squeeze. "But it's better to do that shit when you're feelin' alright, I reckon. And... I don't think pushin' it would really help you right now, not with how you're sayin'." They take a breath, a sigh, and they can't quite pretend they know what they're doing, so they settle for honesty instead. "... I feel kinda weird, since... I'm happy I can be there for ya like this. Like... I ain't a girl, so it's cool to be touchy like this, but I ain't a guy, so it ain't a sex thing, like... I dunno. But like, it's weird, since, like... I ain't all that touchy most times. I dunno, like... if that's okay, or..."
Feelings are weird and complicated, okay.
"Y'know, like... I don't wanna be pushy neither," they settle on, lamely. It's a deflection, but they're deflecting to their feelings, so maybe they'll even get away with it.
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
You or them. "Yeah," Ichika says.
But rest... That's hard, but maybe it's the answer. Ichika finally moves to set her coffee down, when Tsubasa speaks up again on this one. Pushing it would...
"Yeah," Ichika agrees. "...Doing it to run away... You just feel worse later."
But Tsubasa expresses some honesty. It's... Hm.
"...It's cool," Ichika says. "Yeah. A girl... it'd be hard to let it all go. To let myself be... not... strong. With a guy... Yeah. I'd have been out of my dress by now."
"But you're neither of those things. You're just... you. And that's really amazing."
"...You've got your own feelings. And maybe you're not that touchy most of the time, but you... you don't want to just be alone all the time, either."
"You're not being pushy," Ichika says, taking her hand back--and putting an arm around Tsubasa, too. "...You're kinda being..."
"Really great, actually. I feel..."
"I feel safer. With you here." Oh, and, "And Lance, of course."
"...Safe from stuff out there, but..."
"But safe from 'me', too."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
Tsubasa smiles, when Ichika says it's amazing, and... when she says they don't want to be alone, they nod.
"Most of the time," they say, again. "But when it's you, I... I feel okay about it. Like... it actually is cool, or... I dunno, safe, I guess." Emotional honesty is still hard, but look at them go! They're trying!!
Now Ichika's divested herself of her coffee cup, Tsubasa reaches over to squeeze her hand. "So that's great," they decide. "If I can... help you feel safe, too. I'm happy about that. Man, sometimes we're our own worst enemies, but... you always been there for me, Boss."
Lance whuffs, and Tsubasa lifts their hand to scratch her, too. "So I'm real glad I can be there for you too... y'know? Me and Lance, uh... we both give a shit, y'know. Like -- really."
Which is to say: they care about her.