2025-10-18: Twenty Questions
- Log: 2025-10-18: Twenty Questions
- Cast: Reiko Shimizu, Tsumugi Kujaku
- Where: Peacock Silk, Tokyo
- OOC Date: October 18, 2025
- IC Date: July 28, 2012
- Summary: Reiko goes to Peacock Silk in search of new clothes. Instead, she finds something and someone more than she expected... and something she isn't quite ready for.
<Pose Tracker> Reiko Shimizu has posed.
Reiko stops before Peacock Silk, having heard about it. She heard the clothes here are quite amazing. And the exterior, with the outline of a peacock and the Art-Nouveau decor, seems promising. She is off-duty today, and she is dressed accordingly. Her hair is down; she looks up, over the rims of her black glasses, at them. She has a light blue dress and a darker blue jacket on over it.
She has a bag over her shoulder. She sucks her breath in, then she nudges the door open -- and steps inside. She glances over the gleam of the wooden floor, the cash register, and all of the clothing on display. The jewels glitter in her eyes, and she looks at the outfits on display.
There's a soft exhale.
Then, a little more nervously, she calls out: "Ah, pardon me! Hello...?"
<Pose Tracker> Tsumugi Kujaku has posed.
The world of Peacock Silk unfolds before Reiko Shimizu to the serene piano melody of Erik Satie's Gymnopédie No. 1.
The music piped in through the store floor speakers provides the boutique's an almost melancholic, ephemeral ambiance as she explores. It's a fact that's only heightened by the initial impression that she may well be one of the only people in the store at the moment. The Silk's owners have a reputation for being eclectic: the hours they keep, and who keeps which, seems like a riddle to be solved than a standard to set your watch to. Some days they're all there - even the peacock! Some days, only a precious couple. And some days...
"Ara."
... There's only one.
The voice is low, but silken. It comes just off to Reiko's right: she only needs look to find the source, leaned against a nearby wall, a book labeled CANDIDE in one hand, supporting that reading arm palm-to-elbow with the other. Their outfit has a high feminine aesthetic to it today, all centered around the long, sleeveless high-necked gown dress they wear. Slit on one side, it starts the deepest, most abyssal black one could imagine at the neck -- but as the dress lowers, that black hue fades towards dark reds, to scarlets, then finally towards a fiery red towards its skirts, as if it was a recreation of a spark in the dark. Over this they wear a black long coat, accented in gold with a scarlet interior.
... The word 'wear', though, is doing a lot of heavy lifting, considering they only -actually wear the coat at one sleeve, leaving the entire coat half-hanging off and leaving their opposing, pale shoulder bare, the whole thing managing to stay draped on them thanks to the not-so-modern miracle of collar clasps.
Lips painted a dark ombre red part as vividly green eyes roll to regard Reiko beyond the brim of trendy black glasses.
They regards her in silence for five whole seconds, before,
"I know you. Don't I?" they wonder, calm but curious.
Do they?
They've certainly never met before now, at least.
And yet, Tsumugi Kujaku sounds so ineffably, nonchalantly certain of it.
<Pose Tracker> Reiko Shimizu has posed.
Reiko can't quite identify the music. But it sounds familiar, and that gives the sensation like she has been here before -- maybe like one of the games she plays. She heard a little about their reputation, and that she might be lucky she found them when they are open. She looks about, and then she blinks when she hears the voice.
She looks at them -- and then Reiko blinks. She blinks again, and there's a little nervous -- half awkward, half confident, and all flustered -- laugh. She can't help but take in the dress, with its smooth transition of colors. Her own dress feels plain in comparison.
She pats it out at the side, her eyes shifting up from Tsumugi's shoulders to her eyes. Her own green eyes are wide behind her glasses. "W-Well, I'd like to think I'd remember you," Reiko stammers to them, before she gets some composure. "But sometimes I'm accused of being scatterbrained."
She does a quick, polite bow.
"Reiko Shimizu. Um, unless you already knew that," she says. "Wait, even if you did know that, I'm still Reiko Shimizu." She laughs nervously again, the laugh bubbling up. "I like clothes?"
A beat.
"That's why I'm here," she says. "The clothes."
Reiko nods her head, and inside, she dies a little of embarrassment.
<Pose Tracker> Tsumugi Kujaku has posed.
W-Well, I'd like to think I'd remember you.
The well-worn spine of French satire snaps shut.
"No... that's not it."
It's sharp, the contrast between Reiko Shimizu's flustered, contradictory laugh and the cool detachment with which Tsumugi Kujaku receives it. It's not a judgmental look they regard Reiko with -- there's nothing inherently good or bad about the way those striking features scarcely shift in the wake of her stammered pronouncement. It's just... distant.
Like someone always just barely out of reach, no matter how far you stretch to cross that uncrossable distance.
In that much, it might be a relief, like all that nervousness just doesn't register to them, even as Reiko quietly dies inside. Instead, the sinuous roll of pale shoulders sees them slipping out of their wall lean as they regard Reiko with that bespectacled green gaze, distant but curious -- interested. In her. Tsumugi's hands clasp behind their back, book held between them, as they approach, the click of gold heels ringing throughout the store.
Reiko Shimizu.
Their head cans.
"Ah," they exhale. "Now I remember. You're one of the officers who brought in Junya Kaneshiro, aren't you?"
And the cool veneer of their expression breaks, with the hint of a red smile.
"Ara. Interesting. We have a celebrity in our midst."
It'd be easy to write off as teasing, especially with Reiko in the state she's in. And yet that professed interest seems compellingly sincere, too.
Whether that makes it better or worse for her embarrassment, well--
"What do you like about them?"
--at least she doesn't have to dwell on it -too- long before Tsumugi is smoothly moving on, the click-click-click of their heels sending them brushing past Reiko as they offer up that silken question on the way towards the tailoring work station just beyond, with an unspoken invitation for Reiko to follow - if she wants. They still haven't introduced themself, but, well.
"Clothes."
They have curiosity to sate, first.
<Pose Tracker> Reiko Shimizu has posed.
Candide snaps shut -- and Reiko's eyes are drifted to it. She blinks at the sudden declaration from Tsumugi, and the flustered look fades a little from Reiko's face. For a moment, as she seems to calm down for a second. At least, until Tsumugi approaches -- with the best of all possible worlds hidden behind their back. That makes Reiko fluster, again, if in a different way.
Even if there is some relief, at the fact that her nervousness hasn't made a fool of her. It takes more than one person to become a fool, after all.
Then, she blinks -- and there's a nod. And a hint of disappointment at the recognition of her role, minor as it was, in apprehending Junya Kaneshiro.
"O-Oh, I don't know about that," she says. "I didn't really do anything. He turned himself into us. It was... those Phantom Thieves, I suppose."
She isn't sure how they could have done it.
She does fluster again as Tsumigi smiles -- and brushes past her. Reiko pushes her glasses up, sighs a little, and then she turns after them. There's a rustle of her sky blue dress, and she peers after Tsumugi. She considers the question for a second.
"...W-Well..."
For another second, the superficial responses are considered. Then, they're dismissed. And Reiko doesn't stammer, but she speaks softly. "They say the clothes make the person," Reiko says. "And... well, most of the day, I have to wear a uniform. So that's what people see when they see me. Not that I have much choice about what I wear on duty. But... off duty, I like when I can wear something that says who I really am."
She follows them, towards the tailoring station.
"Rather than what I have to be," she finishes. Then, with a bit more of a stammer: "I-If that makes any sense at all."
<Pose Tracker> Tsumugi Kujaku has posed.
I didn't really do anything, Reiko insists.
It was the Phantom Thieves, in the end.
"The spotlight doesn't care who it points at or why," is Tsumugi's calm counter towards that disappointed resignation in the face of just why they recognize her.
"It only cares about what you do when it chooses to shine on you."
Whether Reiko embraces the spotlight, or shies away from it -- Tsumugi Kujaku seems to pass no judgment, either way.
Within their little atelier tucked away in the far corner of the store, Tsumugi sets their book down on their workstation before carrying on towards the reams of fabric just beyond. Silk, cotton, velvet -- and in so many arrays of colors, the selection is positively dizzying. And yet Tsumugi sifts through them like they know each like the back of their hand, even as Reiko offers up the answer to their question.
She could have answered a superficial reason.
That she doesn't, however, earns a brief pause and a look of approval over Tsumugi's shoulder before they return to their work.
Does it make sense? At all?
"Fashion is the means through which we can express ourselves to the world." The words come like a distant echo of Reiko's own -- a reinforcement of her own beliefs, as slender fingers dance an eloquent, confident dance through selections of fabric.
"People see what you wear, and society determines the person you are based on that fact. It's shorthand." They pull one ream half-out -- and then another. Another. And then...
"Fashion is a process of reinforcing the way the world sees you... or becoming how you want to be seen."
... each slides back into their proper place.
Tsumugi turns, then. Leaning against those shelves, fabric frames them like a wreathe of decadent luxury as that bright, intent stare settles on Reiko once more, eye to eye.
"Fashion can be the shackle. Or it can be the punch and hammer that breaks it."
Their head tilts.
"It's just a question of which one you want."
Does Reiko want to reinforce the way the world sees her?
... Or does she want it to see her as she wants to be seen?
<Pose Tracker> Reiko Shimizu has posed.
Reiko's eyes blink when she hears their answer to that. A spotlight that shines on her, whether she intended it or not -- and that will shine down on her, regardless of whether she was really the one who brought in Junya Kaneshiro. "That... mm, I suppose you're right. I'm still... getting used to being recognized, I suppose."
She shakes her head. She follows after Tsumugi, and she looks at them -- and all the reams of fabric behind them. Clearly, they are a skilled tailor -- and they command a large selection.
She nods at the idea of it being shorthand. Her hand comes to the breast of her jacket; where, in a different jacket, her badge as a patrol officer would rest. Clothing is, indeed, a shorthand for what people would expect of her.
And it can be a shackle.
She hesitates. It almost feels like a betrayal, to admit that such clothes could be a shackle. And yet, there's other parts of her. She glances to the side, her green eyes cast down on the ground.
But then she looks back up at them. Her eyes meet Tsugumi's, not quite able to look away.
"I'd rather be seen as... me," she says. "Rather than shackled to who I'm expected to be." Her fingers fall away from where the badge should be, and slip down to her side.
<Pose Tracker> Tsumugi Kujaku has posed.
What does Reiko want?
Hesitation fills the air with silence, its only accompaniment those melancholic strains as Satie transitions nigh-seamlessly into Chopin's Nocturnes. Tsumugi doesn't intrude on that silence; they don't push impatiently for the answer they wish for.
They just watch with quiet curiosity. In interest. In the process. In the answer. In Reiko.
I'd rather be seen as...
For a second time, that suggestion of a smile touches the corners of painstakingly-painted lips.
"Then I can make you that.
"You just need to see the mask that fits you, and take it."
It's a vague, abstract kind of statement... to anyone not in the know. A test, maybe -- but not one that lingers overly long before Tsumugi is moving from the luxurious, confident comfort of their position to approach Reiko once more. Their stride is languid in a way that makes the fiery skirts of their dress dance with every step, the -=CLICK=- of heels spaced few and far within their loping gait. One arm crossed over their stomach, the other elbow-perched upon their palm to better cup their chin, they draw closer towards Reiko's personal space... and then slowly, quietly circle around her with that same, scrutinizing stare, so intense and vivid it's almost as if it's looking right through her into the heart of who she is --
Who she could be.
"Hm."
They're behind Reiko when that contralto voice murmurs,
"Close your eyes, Reiko-san."
It's a request - command - that comes with casual confidence, coupled with the way they say Reiko's first name so lackadaisically it might as well not be a faux pas, but another recognition.
"I'm going to ask you some questions. I'd like you to answer them as quickly as possible. Don't think; just answer.
"Are you ready?"
<Pose Tracker> Reiko Shimizu has posed.
Reiko doesn't know much classical music -- but the effect, nonetheless, is not dulled by not knowing. It's recognizable; the fact she recognizes the music, but doesn't know it intimately only means she is focused on her thoughts. She looks at Tsumugi, watching the smile across their lips.
"A mask...?" Reiko asks. There is a blink. She hadn't thought of it as a mask. The deeper connotation -- no, that, she doesn't know. She hasn't learned of that world. Her sisters haven't told her about it.
Perhaps that is for the best, or perhaps she simply isn't ready yet.
She watches Tsumugi approach, and she tenses a little with their stride sounds -- and then tenses more as they begin to circle around, with those perceptive eyes.
And Reiko's own blink. "As quickly as possible?" she asks. Then, she nods. "Right, um--right. I can do that."
She exhales. A couple of seconds pass.
"Ready!"
<Pose Tracker> Tsumugi Kujaku has posed.
She doesn't know the significance of the mask. A soft "Ah," barely audible, escapes Tsumugi's lips. But it's fine.
As quickly as possible?
"As quickly as possible."
Not knowing isn't the same as lacking the potential to know.
The words echo at Reiko's back, reinforcing the idea. Tsumugi is more a presence felt than a sight seen, lingering just out of the periphery of Reiko's vision. The sound of their voice; the whisper-soft sound of silk on silk; the weight of their personal space, just beyond Reiko's.
It's a suggestion of presence, a weightlessness of their proximity that helps frames that first question the second Reiko's eyes close, and she announces, at the tail end of an exhale,
Ready!
"What's your name?"
There is a delay after that question. A healthy breadth of time in which Reiko -can- mull over a question already answered if she wants to.
"Your favorite color?"
The delay shrinks a little more, a few milliseconds of a moment lost yet still more than enough for Reiko to indulge in thought, despite the premise.
"Your favorite food?"
It shrinks again. And with every successive question
"Your favorite pastime?"
the time between the next
"What animal do you think is cutest?"
shrinks
"Scariest?"
a bit
"Your parents names?"
more
"The most appealing quality in a person?"
until
"The most annoying?"
there's no space at all.
"Do you follow the rules?" "Is there anyone you admire?" "What's your favorite book?" "Was that really your favorite color?" "Do you prefer tea or coffee?" "Do you care what others think of you?"
Until questions come so swiftly there's truly no time to think, and even then, perhaps, no time to answer out loud. Further and further, honing the answers towards a kneejerk reflex until--
"How do you want the world to see Reiko Shimizu?"
That last question comes.
Left to linger, along with its awaited answer.
<Pose Tracker> Reiko Shimizu has posed.
Reiko nods to Tsumugi's instruction. And she closes her eyes, too. She has always been good at following directions -- drilled into her by her parents, then at school, then in the Metropolitan Police Department. She does so here, with this person she has just met. And she feels their presence, ephemeral, even if she doesn't see it.
The questions come.
What's your name?
"Reiko Shimizu," she says. It's automatic. And yet--yet, she wonders, afterward. Why did they ask her that? She had already told them.
The questions begin coming more rapidly.
"Blue."
"My sister's chocolate chip cookies."
"Video games, uhm, RPG's--"
"...dogs!"
"Scariest--uh--um--boars?"
"Satsuki and Kenzou Shimizu..."
And faster, until she is giving answers the moment they stop talking -- and leaving Reiko breathless in the response.
"Sincerity."
"And--um--being controlling."
"Always..."
"My older sisters."
"The Stories of Ibis by Hiroshi Yamamoto."
That one comes /immediately/, with a certain passion. Then, it's back to fast replies.
"Maybe a light blue--"
"Tea, most days."
"W-Well yes--"
Her answers are fast, a kneejerk response, so she can't hesitate even when she wants to. But then the last question comes, and Reiko sucks a breath in. She hesitates for a second, but she has been wound up to reply quickly.
"Friendly, and kind, and--and creative," Reiko says. Her voice is quiet, almost a whisper. It trembles when she speaks. "And not... not having to hide who I care for. Or that I care at all. Even when it's inconvenient."
<Pose Tracker> Tsumugi Kujaku has posed.
There's moments within the tidal wave of inquiries that stand out. Moments where certain questions evoke certain responses that fascinate with the possibilities of why.
The Stories of Ibis, the fire behind that instant claim, for example. The way her answer trails off just so about whether she always follows the rules. The simple fact that she follows -their- instructions at all.
The stammer to her voice as she says she cares what others think of her.
Interesting. She's interesting.
But the one that truly matters--
Friendly, and kind, and--and creative.
The one that inspires the tiniest tremor in her voice.
And not... not having to hide who I care for.
... Is the one the entire series of questions was meant to answer.
Tsumugi's voice is suffused with an underscore of approval beneath its placid exterior as they whisper,
"You can open your eyes now, Reiko-san."
... and that distant voice is suddenly so close Reiko can feel the warmth of it brush her left cheek.
By the time her eyes open, Tsumugi is once more entering her field of vision as they pull away from their position at her shoulder.
"I can make something for you," they say, simply, their tone once more so utterly disaffected. "We can take care of your measurements now, if you have the time to spare. Once I've started up a draft of the idea, you can decide how you'd like to proceed."
Just like that? Is it because of how she answered those questions?
Because of her position in the police department?
Or because the spotlight's choosing to shine on her now?
It's a question that lingers like it's waiting to be asked, yet Tsumugi doesn't elucidate on their own. They just settle themselves back onto the table of their work station, one long leg crossing over the other, seated like royalty on their throne as they say,
"I'm not sure you'll be ready for it by the time it's finished... but it'll be waiting for you, for when you are."
Their head tilts. Their black brows lift faintly, like a punctuated question.
"Do you want that?"
The only question that matters.
<Pose Tracker> Reiko Shimizu has posed.
That whisper brushes against Reiko's ear. That note of approval -- that's something she catches, something that makes her eyes widen a little bit as she hears it. And it makes her smile and makes her heart flutter -- that who she wants to be seems to have won over this mysterious tailor, even if just a little.
She opens her eyes, watching as Tsumugi walks in front of her. She looks at them -- and then blinks, at the shift in tone. "Oh--oh, yes, I have the time to spare," she says, and she flusters again.
Reiko hesitates for a second. "I--um--" She wants to ask so many questions. Why did they decide to do this? Was it something about the questions? Was it something else. "You're... sure? You want to make one, for me?"
She hesitates, though. Tsumugi asks her a question. And she senses a hidden meaning in what they asked -- that Reiko might not be ready for the outfit.
She swallows, then. But, she nods her head. "Yes." Her voice is caught, for a moment. Then, she affirms: "I want that."
<Pose Tracker> Tsumugi Kujaku has posed.
Are they sure?
"Yes," Tsumugi says, without hesitation, without second's thought.
"You fascinate me."
Like they could never be suffered to feel doubt about anything.
Their answer scarcely lingers in the air before they are chasing after that brazenly self-professed interest with that singular, important question, layered with meaning beyond the simplicity of what it says on the surface.
And when the answer comes...
"'Nothing happens if you just dream,'" they recite, a little line from the light novel Reiko so passionately claimed as her favorite. Green eyes hood.
"Good."
And with that, they slip off their perch, the soft -swffff- sound of chasing measurement tape following as they draw it up off the table alongside them.
"Then let's begin."
Ready to measure the framework of the Reiko Shimizu that Reiko Shimizu wants the world to see.
<Pose Tracker> Reiko Shimizu has posed.
"O-oh."
Reiko says that without hesitation or a second's thought -- but it's more of an awkward, non-verbal stammer. And her face turns flushed at that, but there is a small nod of her head to them. She glances at Tsumugi.
She breaks into a smile. "You've read it!" she says, energetically, her eyes lighting up. Reiko shifts a little -- but then Tsumugi slips off their seat, and comes forward with the measuring tape. And Reiko reminds herself that she does have something to attend to.
"R-Right, just tell me what you need to me to do."
She holds her arm up for them. She doesn't know if she will be ready for it, still.
But there's only one way to find out.