2025-09-10: Pizza Forged in Suffering
- Log: Pizza Forged in Suffering
- Cast: Saika Kikuchi, Tsumugi Kujaku
- Where: Peacock Silk, Shimokitazawa, Tokyo
- OOC Date: September 10, 2025
- IC Date: July 18, 2012
- Summary: "What's your feelings on serial killers?" "I'm against 'em. They take all the fun and spontaneity out of it."
<Pose Tracker> Saika Kikuchi has posed.
It's late.
How late? Late.
It's a weeknight; Tokyo, despite its reputation, is actually a town with something of a bedtime. Certainly, it's starting early and ending late, but there are a solid handful of hours in which almost everyone is either at home or is comfortably coccooned somewhere they don't mind being until the train starts running again. Izakaya. The pachinko parlor. Perhaps a coffin hotel, if you don't mind the imagery.
At Peacock Silk, though, time is a mutable boundary.
Saika's coming is heralded by a CLANG from upstairs, followed by a secondary 'tang!' and a bunch of aftermath clatter, the sort of staccato drum fill that suggests something else fell over.
'fuck'
It takes three minutes for the delivery to arrive.
Saika descends from above, wearing a T-shirt and her good cooking underpants. In one hand she holds a little caddy, containing several bottles of cold beverages chosen by the exciting process of 'grabbing them out of the fridge, whatever was in the front' with a couple of cups from the 100 yen store to the side. The other is holding a long piece of wood: a pizza peel.
And what a pizza it is!
Home-made wheat dough, hand-made tomato sauce with generous amounts of oregano and garlic. Shredded mozzarella cheese (and it must be said, a rather scant amount; the pizza is more red and yellow than what). Atop it, crumbled tofu that had been marinaded in balsamic vinegar and some shredded basil, along with sliced mushrooms and crushed garlic. To the left, a gentle drizzle of kewpie mayo and a little honey: to the right, crushed red pepper, sliced shishito pepper, and shichimi.
SAIKA KIKUCHI PIZZA
HEAVEN AND HELL
"Oiii! You better be down there," Saika announces as she stomps into the (currently empty) shop floor. Her head turns. "I made dinner," she continues, approaching. "I'd better see you eat at least a slice. I got pepper in my eye when I was making it, you know, this is pizza forged in suffering!"
<Pose Tracker> Tsumugi Kujaku has posed.
What, really, is 'late' night, when you are aware of the latest a night can possibly be, when only a handful of people around the world could be qualified as awake?
Whatever hour of the day this is, it's not nearly anywhere close to that, so why not just treat it like any other hour?
Take, for example, Tsumugi Kujaku, still hard at work at the store floor even this hour of the night stitching together what looks like an - extremely - brightly colored chest binder. The door outside still reads OPEN; anyone who tries to enter, however, finds it very much locked, and Tsumugi seems oblivious to anyone outside calling out to them, so invested are they in their new project.
Like 'what time it is,' the outside world doesn't really concern Tsumugi in moments like these. All that matters is their own world. And nothing
CLANG!
can really
tang!
threat
BANGWHANGWHAMWHUDWHUDWHUDDWUD
en
CRASH
... that.
...
Tsumugi Kujaku glances up towards the second floor after the third second of post-calamity silence, expectant.
fuck
... and then they nod once and resume their work.
---
Three minutes later, Saika descends to BABYMETAL's latest single, Headbangeeeeerrrrr!!!!! piping out egregious decibels of sugary deathpop through the shop floor speakers.
Oiii! You better be down there!
There's no answer except for the righteous chant of HEDOBAN HEDOBAN HEDOBAN
I'd better see you eat at least a slice.
Still nothing. Tsumugi's workstation is empty. Did they just decide to ghost Saika, right on the eve of her greatest pizza triumph, after she suffered so much?!
--this is pizza forged in suffering!
"Let me see."
No, of course not.
Which is why they're just suddenly slipping in from behind -right next to Saika-.
GHOST
Tsumugi, implacably placid as ever, is just sort of -there-, dressed in what might as well be 'dressed down' for them in the form of a sleeveless white v-neck of a blouse with a piped ruffled neckline that settles into a comfortably upturned collar at around mid-neck, and a high-waisted black skirt ending at around mid-thigh to make way for the artfully torn stockings and heavy duty boots with prominent, gold heels that come after.
(it's dressed down, you see, because the fancy coat is off hanging on their work chair)
Currently, they're leaning in, one hand looking to tilt Saika's head this way and that to inspect her eyes with a curious green stare.
The other?
Is grabbing the slate of pizza to abscond with it the very second their satisfied with their inspection.
"Do you think it made the final product better?" they ask with that distant curiosity of theirs, underscored by the way they delicately set that steaming pizza down on the countertop of their work station and pat the empty space beside it for Saika to occupy with her randomized bounty of cold brews.
Does the great pain of Saika's unfortunate run-in with capsaicin make for a better pizza?
They think it's worth wondering, anyway.
<Pose Tracker> Saika Kikuchi has posed.
Given the nature of Earth, there's always someone awake somewhere. Even the Pacific Ocean in its enormity is not large enough to make it so that there is a time when everyone on Earth is asleep on moving towards that.
This will be important, later.
NOT RIGHT NOW THOUGH
BABYMETAL is playing. Saika is already bobbing her head as she arrives. When she turns the corner and sees the mysteriously empty space where a Tsumugi ought to be, she goes 'tch!' and looks around for a moment. Left. Right.
But not behind.
There is a shivering of Saika's spine, rolling from her hips up along her sides and to her shoulders at that sudden ghostly whispering. She sets the pizza-peel down (there may have been an Incident a few months ago) before whirling around in order to tilt her head.
Left.
Right. Her eyes half lid. Her lips pout. She lets out a hot breath. "Kyah~" she exhales... and then trails off with a giggle, shaking her head for a moment -- as the pizza is *seized*. And palced aside, safe and sound. She sets the tray down with a DON (actually more of a 'clonk' but it's spiritually a DON!, that's for sure) before exhaling.
(The collection of drinks contains one beer and one juice. What will the solution be? It's actually lemonade, just kind of hoity toity upscale lemonade with real juice in it.)
"I think so," she says. "You don't know what you have until know what it's like to lose it, you know...?" Saika lingers in the clasp of their hand for a second, two seconds, then turns her head away. There's perhaps a hint of scenic tears.
(More interstitially, Saika narrates, "It was mostly cuz I was chopping up the hot hot peppers here and then I put everything in the oven to cook, and I went to wash my face *before* I washed off my hands, which is good in a way because I could have gone to the bathroom first instead?" Her right eye does seem slightly irritated, even now.)
"So! It's heaven or hell - you can have both, but you can't have them at once," Saika continues, raising up a fingertip. "Though," her fingertip goes to her lower lip, "I could have cut it so there were some halfsies slices, couldn't I? That would've been a good idea." Her eyes turn slightly upwards to the side, slyly. "But you can't cut the same pizza twice."
<Pose Tracker> Tsumugi Kujaku has posed.
Heaven or hell?!
FIGHT
Or, well. Soon. IN THE PRESENT, Tsumugi takes in Saika's tears dramatique, and in response--
"That's true. Stolen things or lost things -- both are more valuable than owned things."
steals her pizza.
"Yoink."
At least they're endlessly upfront about their inherent shamelessness.
("That's what I love most about you, Saika. Your optimism," they helpfully aside before setting up the tabletop for their meal.)
The drinks are laid out with two possibilities. Juice? Beer? Tsumugi considers for a moment as Saika lays out the sacred pizza rules. Those are very clear. But the drinks, well...
You can't cut the same pizza twice.
"Mm," they exhale. "But you can torture people's imaginations with the impossible of what could have been."
They turn that green-eyed stare Saika's way. They don't smile, but the subtle cues of their body language is all someone who has known them as long as Saika has to infer their amusement even in the flatness of their tone:
"And now I have to eat this pizza imagining a world where virtue and vice could have coexisted."
The wicked and the divine, two sides of the same coin--
Tsumugi banishes old memories in favor of drawing themselves up onto the countertop; gold heels push on the chair they had been formerly occupying, the legs squeaking against hardwood as they tilt it at a diagonal in offering for Saika to occupy. After this?
Their first stop is the drinks. They pop open the lemonade.
And then they pop open the beer.
They pour half of the lemonade into both cups,
and then half of beer after,
and then holds out one freshly-made forbidden cocktail, the shandy, Saika's way.
It's only once they're done and Saika's drink delivered that they peel off one slice of pizza -- the spiciest slice of hell first, of course.
Virtue tastes better in a cool contrast to freshly-experienced vice, after all.
"Do you like it?" they ask suddenly, curiously. The pizza? The SHANDY?
"Cooking."
<Pose Tracker> Saika Kikuchi has posed.
"Oh, goodness," answers Saika breathily. "Which am I?"
yoink
"Awww," Saika pouts briefly as the pizza is claimed. But there's certainly plenty for both, even if Tsumugi might, secretly, harbor an appetite to devour all they survey. Maybe. She takes a deep breath afterwards, perhaps to enjoy the aesthetic fruits of her cooking.
She quirks an eyebrow, one hand on her hip. Oho~, her face says. But after that wan, almost diffuse statement, the beverages are breached... and mingled, the interlude and boundary between them cast scornfully aside in a hoppy, fizzy delight. "Oho," her *lips* say, and she raises it up:
"Cheers!" She takes a swig, a healthy one, a third of the rather voluminous cup in one swig followed by a huge sigh outwards.
"Yeah," Saika says.
She leans her hip against the counter then, not impugning on the pizza herself just yet. Wanting, perhaps, to give Tsumugi free rein; if they wish to devour heaven into nothingness, she can cope. If they choose to look to Hell? Then it's time for dessert. No matter which way they go, Saika can win.
Unless Tsumugi eats it all, obv. that'd be tricky then.
"It's comfy, it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy," Saika continues. "I guess I just like doin' stuff with my hands. You get a lot of good sensory stuff, right, like the textures, the good satisfying sense of chopping through a rough piece of root or something... You can get creative with carving, go for classics, moods... Some different herbs can make everything different. I could make this same recipe and swap a couple of things and it'd be mild stuff you'd eat when you're sick!"
"With tea and some soup, obviously," Saika amends with some grace, as if remembering what being sick is about.
"You think we should start a restaurant or something...?"
<Pose Tracker> Tsumugi Kujaku has posed.
When a difficult choice is put before you, it's not really all that difficult at all when you remember: you can just choose greed.
Why not just have it all?
And thus: the shandy.
Cups raise; Saika drinks deep of hers. Tsumugi's is a more measured, calmer thing, and yet the end result is more or less the same; a third gone, at a more languid and savoring pace than their enthusiastic co-founder of this little boutique(-slash-criminal-organization).
The cup set aside for now, Tsumugi instead focuses on their slice of pizza even as Saika answers them. They consider the valley of red with the curious cant of their head. A second passes.
"'I too was created by eternal love,'" they recite, and then have themselves a carnal bite of Hell.
Quoting Dante - or Nietzsche - like it was a fine substitute for itadakimasu?
It's more likely than you think!
Saika answers. And Tsumugi chews, indulging in the sensation of spice igniting their tastebuds to that sweet, heightened sensitivity to the heat dancing on their tongue. None of this, of course, ever enters their expression as they chew and regard Saika. The sole indicator of their enjoyment comes from a single noise followed by a solitary syllable:
"Mm. Hot."
And then another bite.
It's comfy, says Saika. Working with your hands.
Green eyes glance down to where she leans against the counter. Talking about how easy it'd be to swap a recipe for the sake of the sick.
"..."
Their green gaze shifts again a second later.
"Ara," they drone lazily. "Will you serve me medicinal pizza when I'm ill, Saika?"
A tease? A request? Who can say? It's as ambiguous as their next question is confident, asked as they lean forward and dangle a cooked piece of pepper Saika's way, like a little offering of the Inferno:
You think we should start a restaurant or something...?
"Why not?"
As if the only thing that could ever stop them from doing it is a lack of desire.
"Of course... you could always see how you stack up against others," they suggest, off-handedly. "The Curry Festival will be starting again in three months."
The question - and suggestion - linger for a few moments longer, before they suddenly wonder,
"What are your feelings on serial killers?"
<Pose Tracker> Saika Kikuchi has posed.
An elegant solution, for a more elegant time. The taste is unusual enough that Saika is savoring it, silently. It tastes almost like a very fruity beer, or perhaps something nearer to chuhai? But not quite - lighter, really. Refreshing.
Perfect for the summer to come.
After this she watches Tsumugi. She watches them lift the slice of hot red pizza, throbbingly incandescent and with the silky seductions of capiscum's manifold talents drawing their tongue closer. Drawing their lips towards crisp wheat, succulent cheese, savory sauce, and the volcanic magma atop them.
Saika briefly goes from her thoughtful and contemplating face to, quite literally, this face: ^O^ - for the space of about one second. Yaaaay, her face spoke. She takes another sip of her shandy afterwards.
"I will," she murmurs in a lower voice. "If you're sick, I'll find the finest remedies and put them with lots of good healthy carbohydrates and veggies and protein and every single delicate herb rubbed and brought to the peak of flavor." She leans forwards slightly. "I'll feed the slice to you in bed, if you need it. Holding it there, drawing it back and letting that long string daaaaangle..."
Why not?
Saika's fantasy is interrupted. She is briefly stymied. Maybe she's planning a pitch --
-- And then there's another topic. Her head cants to the side. Her eyes narrow. "Curry," she says, with something like relish and something like contempt. "These guys don't know anything. I mean, I'm not going to put it THAT down. It's pretty good. But they've never had dal mahkini."
INTERLUDE - 2 MONTHS AGO
"Oh, what's this? Dal... Makhini... damn, I gotta get your recipes," says Saika at the counter of Maharaja Gudhwara, authentic purveyor of Indian cuisine (in an alleyway near Kichijoji and thus not appearing in this curry festival).
"For the love of the gods," says the Japanese owner as his Indian wife leans into frame while glaring, a line of thirteen people already forming behind where Saika is standing in the way and not making up her mind to order: "On the house, move to left please HELLO and welcome to Maharaja--"
BACK TO NOW
"Though I could try to..." Saika's eyes turned down, towards the pizza, as she thought. They flick back up.
"Hanh?" is her immediate answer. She squints, perhaps in case this is some kind of a pun on pulses and legumes. But she does not shilly-shally further: folding her arms loosely, she says, "I'm against 'em. They take all the fun and spontaneity out of it. No, seriously, you mean like Carthago Speaker and stuff?"
<Pose Tracker> Tsumugi Kujaku has posed.
The finest of remedies.
The best of herbs.
The sweetest of treatments.
Saika's voice, pitched ever-lower, weaves a tempting fantasy that Tsumugi indulges in with every slow fractions of inches they lean inward --
up until the exact moment their interests shift to something else.
Such as: Peacock Silk as a food franchise. OR:
Curry, in all its magnificent multitudes!
Curry, the name upon which Saika both savors and spits! For, after all --
INTERLUDE - 2 MONTHS AGO
NOT PICTURED: Tsumugi Kujaku, just out of frame, quietly encouraging Saika Kikuchi into deeper distraction by off-handed, curious comments about Indian food.
Because Tsumugi's love is like an accelerant.
BACK TO NOW
-- Saika Kikuchi knows TRUE mastery of the curry arts. And curry-adjacent.
"Hmmm," muses Tsumugi Kujaku, dabbing a loving dollop of catalyzation to Saika's train of thought:
"Shouldn't the festival be the time to innovate? Maybe you should show them how it's done."
But it is, for now, the last point that they offer on -that- topic. Instead, their attention pivots once more to a new subject, after which the tailor of Peacock Silk indulges in some more of their pizza. It's hard to say just when they've been eating, in between these little curious exchanges -- yet their slice has been whittled down to the last little bits of crust already, the last vestiges of the gates of hell vanishing between pale lips with the push of one well-manicured thumbpad.
As if to underscore their enjoyment of Saika's depraved works of spice and mozzarella, they proceed to lick their fingers clean before they actually explain themself further:
"Mm. No. More like..."
They lean to the side, picking up their phone from where it rests at their workstation. There's a few canny swipes and taps before they hold their phone up and recite, in a tone of incandescent excitement completely at odds with their typical monotone:
"'It's totally real dude! I saw it happen for real!' 'STFU, no you didn't. For real?' 'FOR REAL! My friend's cousin is the one who CALLED IT ON PRINCIPAL HANYA! And now he's TOTALLY DEAD! I saw it! It was so gruesome! His face was like'"
Tsumugi crosses their eyes and sticks out their tongue
"'bleeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.'"
This part -- this is completely monotone, and dragged out the -exact- length of the message. It's a gift, and a curse.
A second later, their expression goes back to normal placidity. So too, their tone, as they turn that phone and offer it to Saika to peruse.
"They call it the Joker Killer. Call your own number on your phone in Sumaru, say a name, and the Old Maid will come kill that person without fail. People are saying the principal at Sevens was a victim, but there's been multiple potential cases. It's all just rumors... but we both know what rumors mean in that city."
Their head tilts. And they add, off-handed:
"The real interesting part is the lack of coverage. The police don't seem to care. I wonder... is it indifference, or malice?"
Green eyes glance Saika's way. They lean forward, ostensibly to get a slice of heaven. But it also lets them pitch their voice toward a lower whisper.
"What do you think?"
<Pose Tracker> Saika Kikuchi has posed.
C U R R Y H E A L S A L L W O U N D S
"Mmmm... I think you might have something there, but you're also coaxing out my competitive spirit," Saika says, before stomp-stomping for a moment and making an extremely :|-style face, as if she were, indeed, a yokozuna opening up the latest basho.
But.
Tsumugi has an idea. Saika listens to the demonstration of the idea, including the sudden and surprising enunciation!! (Her eyebrows lift slightly but she is unperturbed at the shift.) Her lips purse. Then she grimaces at the Dead Face and the extended bleh(repeat H).
They're going somewhere with this. A truth.
"The Joker Killer...?" Saika echoes, and that playful coursing of expressions fades into something more philosophical. Thoughtful. Her lips purse for a moment. "Yeah... that's a hell of a name, though. It's so ambiguous," Saika continues, leaning her hip against the counter again. "Do you become a 'Joker' when you call that number? Or is the killer a joker, who's also a killer?"
"I"m probably making light of something horrible," Saika says, eyes turning downwards.
"Maybe the police are using it to get rid of the cases they can't crack," she continues, cynically. "But -- You said they have to say the name. It'd be one thing if it was some spooky ghost that comes for you if you do something like take a shit in the school restroom after it gets dark." Aka Manto, presumably, is just scientifically verified under the laws of Saikalogy.
"But instead, you say who it is... and it kills the *right* person."
A pause for several long seconds.
"Do you know? If there was a case lately, or anything. It sounds pretty interesting. I don't know if it's ultimately our job, but if they're doing it here around where *we* live... (murdering, I mean)"
<Pose Tracker> Tsumugi Kujaku has posed.
I think you might have something there, but you're also coaxing out my competitive spirit.'
Stomp-stomp goes Saika. Truly, one could feel the walls tremor with her burning spirit, if not with her scanter mass! Tsumugi observes this great ceremonial flex with the respectful silence it is due before they note, blasé even at this grand sight,
"I am. I like it when you're being competitive. It's electrifying."
ONE DRAMATIC RECITAL OF COMMENT SECTIONS LATER,
Tsumugi is once more at blasé base levels as they set their phone down for Saika to peruse should she choose. Busying themself with plucking a piece of heavens-blessed pizza, they don't look Saika's way as her thoughtful - perhaps glib - commentary turns towards the guilty. I'm probably making light of something guilty, she says.
"Probably," they say as they draw up, prized slice of cheese-on-bread in hand. They say it without reservation or concern, but most importantly,
without judgment.
With that out of the way, they offer a tantalizing thought in the wake of Saika's musings: "Maybe it's both. After all... you lose if you draw the Joker in Old Maid, don't you?"
Taking a bite out of their pizza, Tsumugi continues to wordlessly listen to their more punkish co-founder as she works her way through her thoughts on the matter. They don't interrupt or interfere (though they do note with off-handed aplomb "that probably happens in sumaru too" re: suddenly aka manto'ing); no, they only really directly react when Saika asks a question of them, hooded eyes glancing from their pizza to their phone.
"The last confirmed killing was in May. Takashi Hanya, the principal of Seven Sisters High." Likely the one the comment sections Tsumugi recited have mentioned. "There's been more rumored attacks since then but the police haven't seen fit to confirm any. It seems the lead on the case has changed hands in the department at least once so far." They look at Saika over the brim of their pizza. "... Some of the targets might have even survived, apparently."
Saika, however, maks a very good point: -is- it their job? "No," answers Tsumugi plainly and without hesitation. It's not their job, or their problem. "And the killings don't seem like they'll be spilling out of Sumaru." Of course... Yanagi is a semi-frequent visitor of that city, for her treatments, a fact that Tsumugi doesn't seem to see fit to point out as they set their piece of pizza aside, perhaps confident Saika can connect those dots herself.
They shift on their perch, slip off, and
*CLICK*
goes golden heels on hardwood as they circle around towards Saika,
behind her,
until pale, slender arms are wrapping draping across her shoulders, and a face is settling in next to hers, cheek to cheek.
"... But wouldn't it be fun to play master detective?"
Who is the Joker Killer? Why are they doing this? HOW are they doing this? And just why do the infamously Sumaru PD feel such a strong need to cover up the case...?
Who can resist a good mystery?
<Pose Tracker> Saika Kikuchi has posed.
'I like it when you're being competitive.'
That gets an eyelash flutter.
Saika doesn't go for a pizza slice just yet; she purses her lips again when the Old Maid is raised. "That's right... I'd thought it might have been like the pet ghost of someone or something," she says. "I always thought that'd be an interesting twist for a horror movie, you know? Someone who found out about something awful like that, but really, the monster - ghost, zombie, whatever - was just getting led around by their nature. The real villain was Man."
Ever was it thus.
Slow nod at the mention of the last confirmed killing. "So... that's where to start. Maybe there's been others, but I guess if it's just someone working part time or if it got hidden well, it'd just look like an ordinary death," Saika muses, but -- it's *not* their job.
Though.
Saika's purse-lipped pulchritude continues as she reasons down that road, raising a hand to cup her chin lightly and tap an index finger along the left side, where she has, very subtly, a slight callus there. Nothing too bad, the sort of thing that you have to get up *really* close to see - perhaps the tiniest of warts, or an old scar, or simply a minor error of the body.
Which is what she's doing as Tsumugi circles her.
Approaches her.
Wraps their arms around her.
Leaning forwards. Cheek against hers. Her eyes turn to the side - that chin-stroking hand unfolds, curling up lightly, her eyes cast to the side staying that way as she slowly brings that hand up. One finger held aloft... reaching out...
To touch Tsumugi's nose.
Get booped.
"It'd be satisfying," she says. "And, you know... where the hell does he get the excuse to just murder people, right? And for some part of a rumor engine thing? There's like a million or two people in Sumaru, and like a jillion here in Tokyo... if you make something sound exciting, people will try it just to see what happens. Then you're putting blood on their hands. Or something like that."
"We could be heroes," Saika says, before her nose-booping hand blooms; fingers spreading out to stroke along the side of Tsumugi's face. "Just for one day."
"And now that I think of it... If there was someone who just one day decided they'd set up some kind of phone tap and do something like this... That sounds like someone who might have had a really bad spell for a little while, and then come back a completely different person," Saika adds, tilting her head to rest her cheek against Tsumugi's. "Wouldn't it?"
"I mean, maybe not."
"But then again, maybe so."
<Pose Tracker> Tsumugi Kujaku has posed.
Boop.
Nose graced with the sacred blessing, Tsumugi Kujaku's vivid green eyes turn inward to regard the schismatic perspective of that index finger placed gingerly upon their nose.
A second in silence passes. But really, what can be said in the face of this, what word could pass by pale lips as they part, but,
"Boop."
uttered in the utter deadpan that is Tsumugi's signature?
"Maybe he doesn't care about the killings," muses Tsumugi, who seems indifferent to the loss of life themself; but, at least, they're not going around serial killing for anyone who calls them. So there's that. "Maybe it's the rumors that really matter." Millions of people in Sumaru; it's inevitable the rumor would get traction, just playing the odds, and the more evidence mounts it's happening, the more real it becomes. Blood on the hands that become a painstaking, unavoidable reality.
But if so, then for what? ... That's what Tsumugi is really interested in.
Saika's fingers splay, finding purchase on Tsumugi's cheek. The tilt of their head is a subtle thing to help fill the framework of Saika's palm with their presence, even as a small, amused smile makes its way across pale lips at Saika's declaration.
"We can beat them," they answer the call. "For ever and ever."
Saika muses on wire taps; on what could have happened to make someone go down this road. The choices they made; the choices they had inflicted on them. Wouldn't it explain it?
Tsumugi's answer comes in the form of a quote, from a very specific, very relevant book: "'There was none among the myriads of men who existed who would pity or assist me; and should I feel kindness towards my enemies? No: from that moment I declared everlasting war against the species, and, more than all, against him who had formed me...'"
Green eyes regard the periphery of the face leaned against their own.
"Maybe you're right. Maybe the real villain is Man."
Ever was it thus.
But then, in that case... what manner of monster did society make this time?
And by whose hands was it molded?
Tsumugi plants the seeds of curiosity, because they're curious too. And then...
"There's a few people in Sumaru you might be able to get answers from. A client of ours, Myunghon Yeo, works as a Rumormonger out of a shop called Cardboard Dragon in Hirasaka. I'm sure they could point you in the right direction. And besides... they're interesting."
A second passes, before they add:
"Did you know? That journalist's assistant who was at the store, Sassy-san?" No, Katsuya is not ever escaping that name-- "Is a detective for the Sumaru PD. Katsuya Suou."
A Persona Using cop.
"Fascinating, right? Maybe he'd make for an interesting contact."
Or someone to steer clear from. But really -- since when has something like 'is a respectable officer of the law' stopped them?
<Pose Tracker> Saika Kikuchi has posed.
Saika's lips smile, at the acknowledgement of the 'voop'.
She stays just where she is.
"Huh," Saika says, when the rumors are held above and beyond the killings. "That's so strange to consider... putting yourself in a position where you have to slay and take life to fulfill something, all for the sake of these rumors?" She clicks her tongue several times. It couldn't be her.
"Forever," she says, "and ever," a raising of a loose clenched fist, "and ever."
Her eyes do lid, in full, at the recitation. For reasons quite clear, Saika's internalized the text herself. She smiles afterwards, and opens one eye. "Still," she says. "Some of 'em just got in the way on accident. You don't end up half dead just because it wasn't justified."
But then there are words. Names. "Oh, Myunghon, I remember them," Saika murmurs, her eyes returning to something normative. Her lips purse at the mention of Sassy-san -- perhaps she glimpsed him but did not Meet him. There were a lot of people there. "But I'll remember Sassy-kun, don't worry," Saika concludes with a slight nod, more of a gentle rock of the head.
"Ohh... he's a cop?"
A moment passes.
"Did you make him admit it? Or did he come in in uniform one day?" Saika asks, in confidence. "Maybe I should remember to *avoid* him... but if he's the murder investigator, he'd know the leads. I could milk him for information, or dump the perp on him after I break a few of their teeth off in the road..."
She says it flirtatiously.
"I guess we should be flattered they're riding all the way out here for us... I went to a show out there the other day, you know? I guess it was a couple of weeks ago, now... it was pretty decent, for a high school band. The painful acoustics of that concrete hole really make punk pop. In a manner of speaking~."
Saika breathes in.
"I'm a little excited about this mystery... do you want me to brief you every night, or just as events warrant?"
<Pose Tracker> Tsumugi Kujaku has posed.
"Is it?"
Is it strange?
To Tsumugi, in the end...
"Maybe it's just another fetter."
Maybe even the Joker Killer can't escape the demands of the ravenous collective. What are rumors, after all, if not that?
For now, though -- Tsumugi seems content to let Saika come to her own conclusions. About the Joker Killer - about the rumors that might have helped craft this creature - about the victims... and whether he himself should be included in that list. All they do is offer suppositions, possibilities --
But I'll remember Sassy-kun, don't worry.
And names, to help her find the road worth taking.
The smile on pale lips persists a moment longer.
"Good."
But other than that? They don't push one way or the other as Saika mulls on possibilities. No: in the face of flirtatious musings, Tsumugi's only response is a thoughtful "Mm," as their arms slip off and away from around Saika's shoulders. The warmth of their body is replaced by the cool of conditioned air as they glide away, smooth click-click-carried movements sending them pivoting back towards the table to their perch, closer now to Saika.
"Sounds like a place you'd fit right in." They lean to the side, scooping up a spicy slice of hell(-or-oven)-forged pizza. "And now you're riding all the way out there for them." In a manner of speaking, anyway.
"People will cross just about any distance for the things they want, if they want it badly enough."
And they hold out that slice, just out of reach of Saika's lips. For her to be fed, just like she offered Tsumugi in their little hypothetical before.
"I want you to brief me whenever you find something that excites you, Saika."
If she wants it badly enough.
<Pose Tracker> Saika Kikuchi has posed.
"I did fit in there, for a little while," Saika says, "but it was kind of isolating. I think I was too old. Can you believe it? Horrible feeling... You can come along sometime, if you don't think it'll be too loud for you, you know?" She stretches afterwards, once the warmth of closeness is left with the lingering saudade of cool and absented air.
The thoughts are in her head. An actual mystery. It's a parlor sort of trick, the kind of thing you hear about or read about. Saika has, of course, read her share of mysteries -- fewer than might be expected from an omnivore, but hey, they can let you ease out your brain between several heavy books on the grim destiny facing Japan, or the world, or the latest brain-shattering discoveries of just how profoundly insignificant humanity is in the sight of --
Anyway.
"Alright," Saika says. "And if I bust the case wide open -"
Saika leans forwards, now, far enough forwards she has to swing out her other leg to counterbalance her lean. At least that's how she would express it -- it probably isn't quite necessary, but it's scenic. Excellent arch! Her calf and heel clears the counter as she leans forwards -
Lowering herself down with just the slightest bit of counterbalancing contact on the shop's sales surface --
To take the tip of that triangle into her mouth, letting out a soft 'ahh' as she breathes out and then:
crunch.
A long string of cheese dangles out as Saika rights herself, raising upwards -- it lands down, thick and glistening, on her chin. She sweeps it up with her finger and pops it in her mouth with an 'mmh.'
"Make me a hat. The kind Sherlock Holmes wears. I'll be ever so grateful~."