2025-10-27: Isolation
- Log: Isolation
- Cast: Myunghon Yeo, Remi Ryuuja
- Where: Cardboard Dragon, Hirasaka Ward, Sumaru
- OOC Date: October 27, 2025
- IC Date: Wednesday, August 01, 2012 (Evening)
- Summary: After the disastrous run-in with the Ferryman and the failed attempt to protect both Hayashi siblings, everyone is feeling the weight of Akira's murder. Myunghon goes to the Cardboard Dragon to check on Myunghon, and they both try to grapple with what this means for their friendship, Myunghon continuing to hold Remi's secret, and Remi working at the Cardboard Dragon. Remi is prepared to leave to spare Myunghon the difficulty, but Myunghon has another suggestion in mind.
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
Remi would know that from texts, it sounded like Myunghon has been up all night and through the hours of the morning arranging for protection for Hinata Hayashi (albeit in less specific terms due to opsec, but as someone who was there, it's easy enough for her to extrapolate). It sounded like people have cleared out for now, needing to tend to other matters of their own by the time Remi arrives at the Cardboard Dragon again.
It is deathly quiet when she unlocks the door, the bell softly ringing, and she can immediately spot her high school friend and Rumourmonger dozing off on the couch, draped in a blanket someone else has very likely tucked them into. There's still a pile of medical supplies half-spent and not tidied away, in case Myunghon needs them, and... a half-eaten pizza box? And an empty one.
It's hard to imagine Myunghon eating pizza, so the others were here, clearly.
<Pose Tracker> Remi Ryuuja has posed.
Remi is not offended by opsec. Indeed, she would rather not know--any amount of plausible deniability she has is something she can deny knowing later, should those holding her leash deem it necessary to yank on it.
... No, Yukari, it's not an ecchi thing. Just a really depressing metaphor.
Remi hadn't shown up to work today. She may have sent some vaguely worded message to that effect or she may not have. She honestly doesn't really remember much of the immediate aftermath, thanks to a rather unhealthy amount of wine she had consumed.
But at some point she had dragged herself out of the bottle and gotten dressed enough to come to the Cardboard Dragon. She's wearing her normal outfit--excessive layers, though she doesn't look nearly as put-together as she normally does.
As she steps in, her steps quiet, she takes in the situation and sighs. There were others here caring for Myunghon, but they don't seem to be there now. That's... probably for the best.
She looks to Myunghon for a long moment, her expression wavering for a moment before she sighs and composes herself, beginning to tidy up just a bit.
She might have a couple of slices of pizza as she does so. She doesn't really remember eating much.
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
Myunghon turns in their sleep restlessly, and then at one point seems to feel someone's presence and flinches with a wheezing gasp, clutching their breast and fumbling weakly for a bottle of disinfectant that isn't there anymore. They blink a few times, then looks up--
"Oh... Remi. When did you come in? I must have fallen asleep. Again." The rumourmonger rubs their eye with the tip of their fingers, before sitting themself up. Their shirt is still not all the way on, and there's no small amount of discomfort they're feeling especially *after* sleeping and their body is allowed to start to convalesce, which means swelling and soreness.
<Pose Tracker> Remi Ryuuja has posed.
Remi left most of the medical supplies alone... though if there were any uncapped bottles near Myunghon she did, at the very least, cap them. Don't want spills, after all.
She does turn, when she hears Myunghon stir, a half-eaten slice of pizza in hand. "Hello, dear," she says, subdued. She sounds tired, and her eyes are probably a little bloodshot, too. "Only a few minutes. I... didn't want to wake you, so..."
She's cleared the one pizza box, the other is put away in a fridge, and the supplies are still on hand but tidied.
"I..." Remi starts to say something and then falters, before looking down. She rubs her face. "I didn't want to be alone, but... I didn't know where else to go."
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
Myunghon looks at Remi for a good few more moments as their brain starts to spin up into something resembling cognisance; they drape that black coat around them a little tighter, like it's a lifeline. Their legs pull up slowly into that fetal position Remi's so used to them going into, but they stop halfway and gasp again, feeling too much pain from their ribs to do that.
"Mmf... it's dark... I've slept through the entire day," they murmur. "Everyone went home..." A longer pause, as they listen to Remi admit that they didn't want to be alone. But she didn't know where to go.
"... sit down, then." They pat the couch next to them, worming their way to one side with the blanket still cocooned around them.
<Pose Tracker> Remi Ryuuja has posed.
Remi won't have any comments on that position... injury to ribs notwithstanding. But she say Myunghon do something similar at her apartment earlier, and that night she gained more of an understnading of her friend.
... it feels like there's more of a gulf in the understanding between them, now.
"It seems so," she agrees quietly of others leaving. She's pretty sure it wasn't Myunghon eating the pizza, after all.
After a moment she nods, picking up her paper plate and moving to sit next to Myunghon on the couch. She places her plate in her lap and just stares down at it. "... this was never going to work, was it?" she asks quietly. "Me, working here, I mean."
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
Myunghon blinks a few times, before quietly reaching to hold Remi's hand before anything else. That seems to be all they can do for their friend for now, the emotional, id-like part of her brain screaming twelve different ways at all the different ways they could be in danger, others could be in danger, how much they've failed, how Akira Hayashi's blood will never wash off and they'll be playing the part of Lady Macbeth the rest of their life.
"... it is harder to think of now, now that someone is dead because of-- me," they insist on the guilt. Oh, guilt! Shinjiro did well to point it out. It's not bad to have a name to it. It's hooking them in the ribs and tearing them from the inside out.
"Perhaps I was also foolish to think that the harm would be limited to me." Which in itself has terrible implications! It's fine if Remi hurts them, but not others!
But...
"... I promised you," Myunghon affirms quietly. "That I wouldn't cast you out."
Rational brain's clawed its way to the top, though that kind of promise can be argued to be far from rational indeed.
<Pose Tracker> Remi Ryuuja has posed.
Remi lets her hand be taken, and even gives Myunghon's hand a squeeze in turn. She is glad, at the very least, that one of the siblings left, but... yes. The blood is on her hands as surely as it is on Hiroto's shoe, even if she didn't deal the killing blow.
"The guilt is not yours, Myunghon. You did what you could. If I hadn't been there, perhap you could have overwhelemd that.... that brute." Her voice strains on the word 'brute.'
"... yes, well. A great deal of harm has come to a great many peoeple, and by my hand, whether it was forced or not."
"... you did. And you are a wonderful friend for having done so, dear." Remi looks to Myunghon, her expression a bit crestfallen. "I have so few friends, Myunghon. I can't lose you. But to hurt you, no matter how indirectly... feels intolerable."
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
Myunghon trembles, and insists, as they squeeze Remi's hand in turn, "... let me feel it, please. This horrible, gnawing, cold feeling of... failure, of myriads of what-ifs, even when I rationally soothe myself into saying I've done all I could, that it could've been worse." Even when they talk about what-ifs, they seem pointedly uninterested in the what-if of if Tsurugi wasn't there, splitting their forces in two. Could they have saved Akira?
They'll just have to let him live as a ghost for the rest of their life in their memories. He's not the only one to.
"I will not back out on my word," Myunghon insists, yet their lips quaver afterwards. "... even if the world feels dark and large at present, and I can still feel the drowning sensations threatening to sink me."
They clatter six coins onto the table, gently. Remi's seen them hold onto these before... they're unusual. They have a square hole in the middle - mon coins, they explained.
"... do the others know? They must have an inkling, after you rescued me in Mementos, I imagine. ... it feels dark to know I am holding a secret from them too."
<Pose Tracker> Remi Ryuuja has posed.
"... it is surely my failure too," Remi admits quietly. "I... I could only act in accordance with my orders. Leashes and chains... they have us bound tightly, forced to perform at their beck and call. And if I try to go against my orders..." Remi glances to the side, away from Myunghon. "... my own body rebels against me." she finishes darkly.
"... I could relieve you of the burden of your promise. I could quit," starts Remi. "It would be... the sensible thing. I would no longer further your danger your operations." Even suggesting the idea leaves a foul taste in her mouth.
Remi glances as she hears the clattering of coins. She recognizes them, and she studies them curiously for a moment.
Remi shakes her head. "I do not know. Shimizu-san and Aragaki-kun have both surmised that I am Ariel, which was, perhaps, inevitable. Though Aragaki-kun is unusually sharp for one his age..." She shakes her head. "I know not if anyone suspects me of being Tsurugi. Though..."
She sighs, closing her eyes. "... the day before last I went to a fencing club. Seeing Miho perform in the Olympics inspired me to take up sport fencing again--or perhaps I was grasping for a piece of myself that I have missed. Whatever the case... I fear I should give it up. My sparring partner was none other than Tamaki Uchida."
The woman Myunghon was working with to try and protect the sisters.
"... I was not my normal self, but... it may be too easy to give something vital away."
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
These mon coins, Myunghon explained once, are the price that one has to pay for safe passage across the Sanzu River. Myunghon's own belief, in other words, of the obol and the River Styx, contextualised in the east. That they have these coins so well in hand is perhaps suggestive of something else, but in the present... it is proper, perhaps.
They are in charge of caring for Akira's dead body as well, after all.
But Remi speaks of how it is with her and the NWO. If she goes against her orders... they'll take control of her body too. Myunghon knows all this, and yet... she still offers to relieve them of the burden of their promise.
They could quit.
"And then what? You would be lonesome, cut off, distant, and yet still bound to do your duty anyhow," Myunghon rationally observes. It's masking, and they know it's masking, but right now, they feel especially quite fragile.
So Shinjiro and Shinobu both know Remi is Ariel, and from there... would it be too much to surmise that they also have suspicions? But there is another -- Remi took up fencing again, inspired by Miho's performance. And she sparred against Tamaki Uchida.
"... mm," Myunghon quietly shrinks into themself. "... I know the truth, of course. And... here, we at the Cardboard Dragon hold messy truths about ourselves. I still hold some others that you do not know yet," and yet Remi can probably guess, with their ties to the Baengyong, to crime.
"Have you thought about... sharing the burden with others? It has been a time for it, this past month."
<Pose Tracker> Remi Ryuuja has posed.
The significance is not lost on REmi, in the moment, of the coins. And she wonders, too, of what they might signify otherwise... but that is a puzzle she can't bring herself to focus on right now.
Myunghon points out the problems with her qiutting, how it would negatively impact her. Remi sets her jaw. "Perhaps," she says, darkly. "... but it would be kinder to you, in the long run."
Remi doesn't really have the wherewithal to try and detect Myunghon's masking in the moment. She's barely capable f doing any of her own, after all.
"Yes, and I would not ask you to share them," she says of secrets and messy truths. She gets the goals of opsec and the problems of conflicts of interest.
Remi shakes her head. "What would I tell them? That I am Tsurugi, that I am responsible for the death of a brother and the very near-killing of a police offier? Do you think they would simply accept that?" she stares down at her lap. "Besides, I... I couldn't."
She closes her eyes. "Part of what they did to me was to ensure that... th-that..." Her hand clenches, and she withdraws it from Myunghon's before she hurts her friend. "... that I would protect their assets. And I..."
She can't bring herself to say it, but... she is one of their assets. She can't endanger herself.
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
Myunghon's eyes widen as Remi starts to clench onto their hand, wincing and startling as they gasp, "R-Remi, you're--" And then Remi's pulled her hand away. It's enough of a jolt to really awaken them from any traces of slumber, with even the slightest hint of physical violence being... well, rather obvious to Remi, something of a traumatic trigger for the Rumourmonger.
There is a longer moment of silence, as they also point out: "No... you should lay out the terms of your unjust imprisonment. That it does not come as a more bitter surprise, later. It does not affect just you -- it affects me, and the rest of the Cardboard Dragon too. I, too, thought of the choices as simply to grin and bear it or to walk away, but..."
They frown quietly. "... would you like me to help? After all, I know the truth, and marked as I am, I still live and breathe at present. I don't believe this is something that you and I should endure by ourselves."
<Pose Tracker> Remi Ryuuja has posed.
Remi winces as she hears Myunghon's reaction--she wasn't fast enough. "Je suis vraiment désolée," she mumbles, unable to meet Myunghon's gaze for the moment.
But Myunghon elaborates, and Remi is deadly silent for a long moment, too. That's right, it affects Myunghon and the Cardboard Dragon, but... "It also affects Yua-chan," she points out. "... and I must still protect her. And Miho, as well."
Even that blasted Ferryman, if she's ordered to, again. But she doesn't know who is real identity is and frankly doens't care to.
"... I do not know, Myunghon." Remi rubs sets her pizza aside and leans forward eblows on her knees, face in her hands. "I trust you, implicitly, but... it would be quite the feat to ask for the same trust from everyone else. Even if... e-even if I could admit to it... ngh."
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
Myunghon shakes their head, even though it's clear they're a bit spooked. And then they're annoyed that they're spooked, because they don't need this if they're going to succeed at the kind of violence that they're required to engage in with the supernatural. That masked salesman already knew how to exploit them.
"... it is true," Myunghon quietly admits. "That is why I cannot and will not force this of you, but... at the very same time, the NWO operates by making you feel isolated. You know this better than any of us do."
Even after Remi's reaction, however, Myunghon does still dare to pull forward and -- put their left arm, the less wounded one, around Remi gently.
"... one step at a time. It does not need to be a great reveal of any kind. This is not theatre. And you do not need to answer me right now, of course. But if this *is* something you'd like to pursue, if you'd like to work on this together... then I will do this for you, because you are a dear friend."
<Pose Tracker> Remi Ryuuja has posed.
Isolation.
The very thing she had been prepared to retreat into, by quitting her job at the Cardboard Dragon.
... The very thing she came here to avoid, because she found drowning herself in wine unbearable.
This argument is compelling to Remi. The NWO has already upturned her life, turned her into a weapon for their purposes. She only empowers them further by playing into their hands. Still... it is not quite so easy to just say it out loud, is it?
Remi leans against Myunghon, just a little. "Tch," she mutters to herself. "To think that you are consoling me, when I feel as if it should be the other way around..."
".. I will consider it," she says quietly, her voice ever so slightly shaky. She removes her face from her hands and looks to Myunghon. "Their hold on me is not absolute, though it is great. There... there may yet be a way to shine at least this small light on the truth."