2025-12-01: And Go Where?
- Log: And Go Where?
- Cast: Tsubasa Seki, Ichika Kawase
- Where: Kawase Household, Aoba
- OOC Date: 2025-12-01
- IC Date: Sun, Aug 19 2012
- Summary: Tsubasa comes by Ichika's room with breakfast after she sleeps in, only to find her deeply upset by her encounter with Shadow Hajime. But Shadow Hajime is the most vicious form of one of Tsubasa's monsters -- even before the revelation that the conspiracy really IS out to get them. They're only shaken from their paranoid torpor by their anger, a thing which sparks Ichika's own; sharp words lead them to a real conversation, where Ichika speaks about her over-familiarity and Tsubasa shares the opposite reaction, both stemming from the same core of abuse. There are things they can't challenge about each other, but they're at least able to be sad together.
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
Tsubasa got back from Sumaru kind of late, last night, which means they also woke up kind of late. Lance still needs walkies, though, so they went down to grab some breakfast and then made sure to go lavish attention and nyoom time on their dog.
When they get back, though, Mrs. Ichika's Mom asks them if they want to go and wake Ichika up, and --
"Wait, she ain't come down fer breakfast yet?" Tsubasa frowns, as they look at the clock now boldly declaring the time to be just after ten in the morning. They're clearly worried, under that mop of cyan and magenta and yellow 'hair', though it's not something that shows that easily on their face. "... can I, like, take somethin' up for her?"
Tsubasa pauses, as an old terror grips them. "Uh -- is that cool?" They add, looking to Ichika's mother. "You ain't gon' be mad?"
They might not have seen their father raging at their mother for coddling them during their depression, but... when the doors were open, it was pretty easy to hear them.
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Ichika was scarce yesterday after she came back from Tokyo, and she has been scarce since--it's after ten and she's not up, which is unusual for her. She'd definitely be down under normal circumstances...
But while Mrs. Ichika's Mom is right here, Ichika is not. Ichika's mother looks over at Tsubasa as they hesitate. ...It's a strange thing to worry over, but...
Well. Their parents are like that.
"She hasn't. But of course--just make sure she brings back the dishes. I won't have them piling up in her room."
She's certainly not going to be mad about it.
"You'd be sparing me doing it myself."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"Cool," Tsubasa nods, and doesn't speak of their parents, but Mrs. Ichika's Mom is correct.
Indeed, they're probably a little too concerned about the dishes, as they grab a tray, a glass of milk, and some cereal which they make sure to throw some sugar over because neither of them are grandparents. (They do not pour the milk over the cereal yet, though. That's why it's a big glass. Early milk just leads to soggy cereal.) And so --
"Yo, Ichika?" Tsubasa calls, from outside her door, when they get up there. "It's me. You up...?"
When they hear signs of life, they'll press a little further: "Can I come in? Uh, got ya breakfast..."
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Soggy cereal... is bad.
"Nuh?"
That's the sign of life. Ichika is awake-ish, but not eager to get out of bed. Still, with Tsubasa at the door...
"OK," she answers. "You can come in."
She looks a little bleary-eyed when Tsubasa does--or maybe it's not bleariness so much as she's been crying again. Could be both.
"Sorry, did I sleep in too late...?"
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
Signs of life!!
There's a bit of juggling at the door as Tsubasa silently argues with the door handle before they manage to push it down with their elbow; once they're inside, they push the door shut with a foot. (The foot is in a house slipper. They're not a monster.)
"It ain't that," Tsubasa says, and finds their voice gentling as they say it; they can see the look on her face as well as anyone. "Uh, I mean, it is ten, but like... I was jus' worried 'bout ya."
They slide the desk onto her bedside table, mindful not to knock over the lamp.
"... you need me to beat it?" They ask, when enough of that tray is on the desk that it isn't in danger of tipping over and causing untold destruction.
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Ichika is not wearing house slippers. Tsubasa is lucky that she's wearing a shirt; anything else is obscured by the blankets still gathered about her lower body. ...But Ichika can tell they're worried. That gentle tone, that statement...
"Sorry," Ichika apologizes again.
Then she shakes her head. "No, I want you to stay. Would you?" She glances at the tray. "Um, thanks."
She reaches out for the tray.
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"It's cool," Tsubasa says, because even though there's nothing to sorry over if she's apologising twice in a row then they're sure telling her that will only make her feel worse.
"Sure," they nod, and take a seat on the side of her bed -- more towards the end, so they're not between Ichika and food.
The cereal, if dry, is all ready in the bowl; and there ought to be enough milk in that glass to both hydrate it and Ichika. It's no one's idea of a fancy breakfast, but it is at least energy for a brain that's been starving for the past however many hours.
And Tsubasa... does not ask a bunch of questions while she's examining breakfast, c'mon, they want her to eat.
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Tsubasa's instinct is right; Ichika could easily end up in a loop there. But she doesn't, and instead she looks at the cereal and the bowl and the sugar and the milk, and starts to combine them, carefully lifting the glass to pour milk over the cereal. Sure, it's not fancy, but...
She starts to eat some. She gets through about half before she sets her spoon down and looks back to Tsubasa again.
"I'm..."
She looks down, and reaches to put the tray back on her bedside table, and continues to try to fumble through how to bring up what she wants to.
She folds her hands in her lap, and closes her eyes. "...I went to Mementos yesterday," she gets out eventually.
"It sucked. But there's stuff you should know."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
Only half her cereal, huh. It's that bad?
(Her situation, but also, like, a little bit the food.)
But Tsubasa pushes both that and the sudden stabbing anxiety that Mrs. Ichika's Mom is going to kill them for letting cereal fester in a bowl in her daughter's room to one side, because Ichika's finally managed to get the rest of her sentence out. "Yeah?" They prompt, but then...
"Sure," Tsubasa nods. "But it ain't gotta be now if it's too big, like... I ain't goin' nowhere? Uh, didn't mean to pressure you none..."
They're the one who barged into her room with breakfast, after all.
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
The food's fine!! ...Well, it's okay. It's not Ichika's favorite cereal. But it's mostly her situation. The cereal can be put aside, because...
"It's fine," Ichika says. "You don't pressure me. I mean, you're not."
"I just feel..." She trails off again, and shakes her head, curling her arms around herself. "It's not going to get any smaller if I wait, right?" Ichika manages eventually. "Besides, it's..."
"It was Hajime's Shadow," Ichika settles on explaining instead. "I was hoping... he could tell me more about what Eiji's up to. Give some insight, right?"
"...And yeah, he gave me insight. But not about Eiji."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
Tsubasa frowns, reaching a hand out to Ichika as she grasps her arms in hers -- though their fingers will scarcely brush her skin before she gets the rest of the way through her sentence, and they pull back, their hand curling to a fist as it comes to rest in their own lap.
It's not that their expression grows any less bothered -- rather that it is harder for it; tightened up, in the way they grasp their wrist in their hand.
'I recommend not searching for them... the Shadow represents our most extreme self, unchained from the niceties of polite society. It... would not be a pleasant experience.' The words Akechi said, in the Prince's mask, ring in their ears.
So it's their turn to say, "Sorry."
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
"Please don't..." Ichika says quietly a few moments after Tsubasa almost touches her. "You shouldn't touch me right now. I'm... I'm dirty. I don't want to make you dirty, too."
Apparently it was not a pleasant experience.
"It's not your fault," Ichika assures Tsubasa. "...It's really not your fault at all. He was awful to you. The things he said about you... I don't like them."
"...He was able to confirm one thing, anyway. Eiji was going to fix my and Hajime's reputations... by getting rid of you. Like it was your doing, everything that happened. That Eiji thinks you're just 'confusing me'."
"...And I mean..."
"You're why he couldn't make me go back, yeah."
"So you don't need to be sorry. I'm sorry."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"Sorry," Tsubasa says, when Ichika bids them not to
well
cause and effect's mixed up. anyway.
They heard it all. They are still. They are a rock, grasping their wrist in a visual metaphor of the restraint.
Why would she be so stupid -- as to seek him out?
In this way their thoughts are unkind.
Though to be frank, they think little at all.
"Don't worry about it."
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Thoughts are just thoughts. ...But Ichika shares that one. She was stupid. She is.
"Why wouldn't I worry about it?" Ichika asks. "...I care about you. And..."
She bites her lip.
"So Hajime doesn't know what Eiji's up to," she says. "I was sure he had to... but he doesn't believe it. But he knows the girls on the list you brought me are real--like... They're girls Eiji was with. And who disappeared after."
"...Hajime just wants to get 'entertainment' from girls. It's why he seeks out the ones with 'damage'--we're 'easier'."
"...Eiji's even the one who went to the media about Aoba. Tried to pin it on you."
"...To Hajime, all this with girls is... just a game. He called you a 'daddy's girl' and bragged about how 'sensitive' he acted."
"...And I found out what Eiji's planning for you, for real. And... that there's some other girl out there, who's at the same kind of risk, her parents working with this conspiracy and--"
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
Yeah. She cares. Stupid of her, Tsubasa thinks.
Tsubasa remains quite still, as Ichika relates the facts. There is a tension to their jaw which suggests clenched teeth. They do, now and then, remember to blink, though they stare out at the jamb of the door rather than to Ichika herself.
Of course it was nothing serious when they're nothing.
Of course Eiji could turn the world against them.
There is a shift in their gaze when Ichika mentions their father; a slight flaring of their nostrils, as they draw air in. But their armour up. There's no way to see the flush of shame across their cheeks, now.
Sensitive?
They believed it.
Stupid of them.
"That's right."
They find words, finally, ratchet-tight to the moorings, so fast the tone's all been choked away.
"There's Rumours in Sumaru about that, too. Eiji's with the New World Order. They won't use those words, though."
"Far as I can tell, knowing that name marks you for death."
"But you won't stop digging, so you'd better know."
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
"How would he do all this on his own?" Ichika asks, but it's kind of a rhetorical question. "...I already knew he's involved in something like that. He's got the police on his side. I think it's through his dad... he's supposedly hanging out with a lot of his dad's friends."
"...He's got a friend--some guy named Furudate, with a big company. Furudate Development Industries...? He said something about rebellious kids... They have to get in line, or someone makes them. He's the one who was leaning on the police for Eiji. He wants to give you to Furudate."
The more Tsubasa closes off, the more Ichika seems to fall apart.
"...Tsubasa," she says. "Do you understand?"
"It's not a coincidence. Everything you've been worried about, everything you're talking about... It's connected."
"Hajime targeted you. Eiji and this Furudate guy are working together to try to break you."
"And there's more. There's somebody else whose parents are supposed to crush her like that, for the good of this conspiracy. And like--"
"Like there were other people involved in trying to get you jammed up for the arson!"
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
Rebellious...
So it wasn't their father, leaning on the police. Another man. Who? 'Development Industries' -- tells them nothing. Whatever. A company name. All they need.
She asks if they understand.
They are already playing it through.
Another big company. Every big company? The upper echelons poisoned him. They're leaning on politics -- no, they're in politics. Those nice things which the other politicians' offices had, the ones Kenta Nakajima lacked.
Politics. Private businesses. Police.
Their knuckles are white, against their wrist.
"It doesn't matter."
"Looks like it does, since I'm one guy. But it don't. All this force is a drop in the bucket. I'm not special. I'm just an embarrassment. Her, too."
"You don't understand."
"You need to leave the country."
"Now."
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
"And go where?" Ichika asks, dumbfounded. "Tsubasa..."
"I need you to come back to reality," she says. "You're a million miles away right now. I don't know what you're thinking, other than that everything is hopeless. But I need you to come back. I can't do all this without you."
"Don't tell me you don't matter. Don't tell me you aren't special."
"If that's what you think, then you're the one who doesn't understand."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"Russia. Got its own problems, but politically adversarial to Japan. The Kuril Islands are proof you won't just get handed back over to make nice with them."
How do they... have an answer to that, right out of their pocket?
Ichika pleads with them, though, and Tsubasa closes their eyes and takes a breath.
She -- needs them.
Get it together.
Another breath.
Another avenue of compromise. They'll attack through her father. A doctor; beholden to his guilds and his organisations. If they're everywhere else, they're in academia, too. The teachings themselves --
Seriously, dude. Get it together!
Their face tightens into a grimace, and they huff out another breath, rolling their shoulders as they shift to fold one knee on the bed, so they can turn to face Ichika, look her in the eyes.
"Sorry." They still look far away, but -- "You're right. And this isn't about me, anyway. You were having a hard time."
They're not clipping their words like a thug, though they're clearly trying to affect some kind of tone approximating worry. Is that a bad sign?
"Do you want to tell me how he hurt you?"
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
"What the hell would I do in Russia?" Ichika asks, just as dumbfounded as she was before.
If she never knew just how paranoid Tsubasa could be, she sure knows it now. Compromise...
But that grimace...
Ichika sees how far away they still look. "That's not..."
"No," Ichika says. "Not like this."
"It is about you, was my whole point..."
"Just giving me what I want when you can't stop for yourself..."
"I don't ever want that."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"Stay alive."
That's what it comes down to.
That's what they're fighting.
They can't stop it.
They can't --
"I'm poison." And Tsubasa remembers to frown, when they say that. "It wasn't my call, but I see how it happened. If you can't beat them, join them... yeah. It would've been just like that."
They take another breath, and their gaze shifts off of her again, though something a shade more hurt crosses over their face.
"What were you expecting to find -- finding him without a filter? I could have told you if you'd asked me that he'd be no less upsetting than Eiji."
Tsubasa's frown deepens, as they look to Ichika.
"Promise me, right now, you won't go looking for my mother or my father out there. What's done is done. But no more of that."
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Stay alive. That's it. Ichika shakes her head.
"You're not," Ichika says. Poison. "I don't understand," she says--and hurt...
Well.
"Information," Ichika says. "There's a version of him in the Palace. He has a face and everything. So... maybe he'd know something. And he did. He knew that the names you found in those papers were real girls--real girls Eiji went through because he was upset about me."
"...I promise," she says.
"But he told me... a lot. About what he did to you. About Eiji's plans for me. The things he's been doing..."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
He's in the Palace.
Of course he fucking is.
"He hurt you," Tsubasa says, anger creeping into their voice. "And the shit he knows -- that's private -- you should have asked me to handle him!" Well, at least they're swearing again. Unfortunately, they're swearing again. "He's my problem!"
They're upset, and it's running hot. "You think I can't guess how he talked to you?! You think I'm STUPID?! I didn't WANT that for you, Ichika! Fuck! I wasn't even there -- so he just laid into you -- fuck! And now -- you must think I'm so fuckin' pathetic -- you could've ASKED me! I woulda just TOLD you the shit he said was WORSE!"
They don't know where he got it from, huh.
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
"Fucking everything hurts me!" Ichika half-shouts back, because Tsubasa running hot is getting her running hot. "I can't do goddamn anything about all of this without getting hurt! It's always hurting!"
She relents after a moment, though. "...I'm sorry," she says. "I didn't want to subject you to that. You don't want me to go through it? I don't want you to go through it."
"I don't think you're pathetic. But I do think you don't know the score."
"...Everything he does he learned from Eiji," Ichika says. "That's what he said. That Eiji's the one who's been teaching him how to do it."
"...It's not that he laid into me, it's..."
"It's that I'm too stupid to realize some of the stuff he was already thinking. ...That they both think."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"If it's always hurtin' how about you stop walkin' on the fuckin' broken bones already?!" Why does she think they fought through Eiji's Palace?! Because it was FUN?! Why is she throwing herself into the firing line and then COMPLAINING SHE'S FULL OF BULLET --
"Ugh," Tsubasa buries their face in a hand. "No, man, I..."
They trail off, with a grimace. She's right, of course. But if they want to set themself on fire to keep her warm, and she wants to set herself on fire to keep them warm, who's managing the firepit to make sure the whole damn forest doesn't go up?
But then --
"Fuck," Tsubasa says, into their hand.
"..."
"Eiji's a Sevens prick, yeah?" Tsubasa seeks the confirmation, something twisting in their gut.
"... doesn't matter," they decide, a moment later, as they drop their hand so they can look to Ichika again. "Why you think ya stupid? What they thinkin'?"
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
"I can't." Ichika would've said it a lot more sharply--but Tsubasa lowers their tone, and Ichika quiets, too. "...I can't just leave it to everyone else. I'm sorry. I know it's stupid. I should just... hang back. But if I do that I'll know..."
"I'll know for sure I wasn't strong enough. I wasn't good enough."
But Tsubasa...
"He is," Ichika says. "You sure?" she says. "...That it doesn't matter? I don't know what you mean..."
But they look back at Ichika, and ask outright, so...
"So... All that stuff about how... damaged girls are easier. And all they have to do is act 'sensitive' and girls love it when you talk to them and..."
"And it's all true, and it all works on me. Eiji taught him all he knows, apparently. ...But it works on me when anyone does it."
"How many guys have gone that way?"
"...I was proud of it. I was proud that I could get them to talk to me." Her tears are back, her eyes full of them, until she can't even see straight.
"I feel so stupid. I feel so..."
"I feel so dirty. Everything I thought, I--"
"H-how can they do that...?"
"I know what I am," she says quietly. "But that doesn't give them the right to take advantage of me like that. But all I can do is make it harder for everyone to help me."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"I get that," Tsubasa says, their voice tight. "Just... hard to watch you hurtin'."
Tsubasa shakes their head, though, when Ichika asks if they're sure.
"It's nothin'. Jus'... showin' me off. It's whatever."
That display Eiji was so polite about, back then...
But they'd rather focus on her.
Tsubasa lifts their knee up, so they can hug it to their chest. (She told them not to touch her. Keeps their hands occupied.) "You know what they told you," they say, quietly. "But even if you tellin' me it's what you sayin', I don't believe it."
They breathe out, looking to the side of her, off to one of the edges of her headboard.
"I ever tell you why I hate openin' up?"
They pause, for a moment, before they go on, keeping their voice low and level. "Never let 'em see you bleed... that's what I thought. Didn't trust no one, didn't want no one trustin' me back. Regular fuckin' island, that's me... yeah. But it weren't always like that."
Tsubasa's quiet, as they contemplate the headboard. "No one believes me when I say he was a real nice guy. Gon' be honest, don't reckon you even did." Past tense. Maybe she does, now. They can't account for the cold splash of reality. "He was... vulnerable. Hurtin'. Tachibana-san did him dirty... that's how he told it. I wanted to help him... he was real grateful for that. Got easy to tell him how I was hurtin', real fast... just took him needin' things enough."
And Ichika might recognise, in their story, the way they opened up to her after she asked them for help.
"I'm easy," they say, their voice flat. "He made that pretty clear."
Tsubasa takes a breath, and shakes their head, looking to Ichika. "... this is the part where I tell you ya ain't, right?" They ask, their tone a touch despondent. "I wrote enough speeches to know where the emotional shift goes. Reversal of expectations, rallying the crowd. Yeah... that's how it goes. But here's the shift: I don't got shit for ya." They look upset, to admit it. "You could tell I was frontin' if I did, anyway."
They blink, a touch rapidly, but the pressure of their teeth against their inner cheek keeps their own eyes dry.
"I don't like talkin'. Don't much like the sound a me own voice. Don't like givin' no one a straight shot to me gut, neither."
They don't even like what they know they have to say.
They think that makes them a bad person, too.
"... but if you're tellin' me it's wrong I did." Tsubasa pauses, to take a breath. "Wrong I fell for it again, an' said shit to ya. I don't accept that. I ain't gon' tell ya I ain't sittin' here, thinkin' I oughta shut up. Better if I did. Run my mouth off, always pay fer it. But if you're stupid for gettin' me to talk, I'm stupid for talkin'. An' I never signed up for fuckin' Eiji to audit my relationship."
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
"Right." It's hard to watch. "...Mm. Yeah." Showing them off. It makes more sense, at least. "..." She isn't sure if it's better or worse to share what Eiji seems to have thought of that 'showing off'. So she doesn't say yet. Instead...
She holds her hands so close together that it hurts.
Ichika looks down--and then back up, at the question. "...It was just sort of a fact," she admits, of why Tsubasa hates opening up.
But...
"I know now," she says quietly. "...Yeah." Him needing things enough. Ichika remembers that, too. It makes her wonder that for a moment.
But, "...Mm."
Ichika shakes her head at that despondent tone. "...No," she says. "Like I said, I know. If you said I wasn't what I am, I wouldn't believe you."
But they don't like talking...
"Tsubasa..."
"I guess I can't say that," she says. "But how are we supposed to know...? How are we supposed to know when someone really needs us, and when they're just playing games?"
"I don't want you to shut up. I don't want you to think you're stupid."
"...Maybe..."
"Maybe it's not stupid to... care," she allows. "Even if they take advantage of you."
She says more softly, "Hearing the way they talk, though... it still makes me feel dirty. It makes me feel used. It makes me..."
"It makes me feel like maybe I really am just a dumb whore," she says quietly.
"...But if you don't think it would make you dirty, too..."
"I could really use a hug."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"Facts don't sprout from nothin'. A fact with no supportin' evidence is just conjecture." So they lay out the evidence, as much they feel they oughtn't.
And it isn't like they're unfamiliar with the feeling.
"... yeah. 'Cuz I don't believe me 'bout what I am, neither."
They shake their head, slightly, when Ichika admits it might not be stupid to care. "Sorry. Dirty pool. Rhetoric's a bitch." Ten guesses where they picked that language up from, and the first nine don't count. "But that's what I'm sayin'. Carin' ain't nothin'. Close off, you jus' end up like me. Worst part? I never learn. Even now, runnin' me mouth off to other people. Anyone looks like they give a shit. Desperation's ugly as the rest a me. 'Course, then I snap right shut again. Get their fingers caught in the bear trap. So it don't get no better if you stop talkin'... or maybe that's just my weak-ass take."
Of course they keep spilling their guts. They never stopped being a girl; that's what girls do. Talk about their feelings. Touchy-feely shit. Real men don't give a shit about that, and they must feel so big acting like they don't.
Frontin'.
Still... Ichika feels dirty, and it's easier to think about how she feels used. "Don't --" they start, frustration clouding the word, when she calls herself a dumb whore.
Rather than trying to figure out how to say that with the priorities they have, Tsubasa first focuses on what they can do, planting a hand down on the bed to leverage them up. They kick their house slippers off so they can clamber over to where she is on the bed, though they remain above the sheets as they wrap her up in their arms.
And if their movements are a touch slow and creaky after they were locked up so tightly... they don't complain.
"It's okay," they say, into her hair, as they embrace her tightly. "It's okay. I've always been dirty. Ever since I was born. Ain't nothin' you can do to ruin me. Okay? Don't leave me just 'cuz you scared a that. Plenty of better reasons, man..."
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Evidence, supporting facts, conjecture... They're a lot of words that mostly rush past Ichika in the moment; when she feels stupid she just assumes she won't understand things that sound complicated, and then she doesn't, whether she might've or not.
"Tsubasa..."
"It's OK," she says. Rhetoric. "I think..." She shakes her head. "I don't think..." It's hard to really assert anything in the moment though, so instead of telling Tsubasa they're not ugly she says, "It's not a weak take. I don't want to be someone who cuts herself off from everyone, anyway. ...And I don't think you're weak, either. I never did."
Ichika doesn't think all that's true, either. But still--
They tell her not to say it, but it bubbles out, because she's been thinking the word since yesterday. She's been sure of it since at least then. And that's...
They don't complain, but Ichika doesn't, either. Ichika holds on to Tsubasa like they're a life preserver, crying into their shoulder. "I won't leave you," she says. "I don't want to."
"There's no good reasons to leave you," she says. "Not one."
She doesn't really want to be argued with about that one--but she knows Tsubasa might.
"You were never like them. You always tried so hard not to be."
"And that matters, doesn't it? What we try to do?"
"I want it to."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
For Tsubasa, it's all more armour. They used to be a champion of debate club; they could talk circles around anyone. No one could touch them.
And their father spared them.
"Yeah," Tsubasa says, when Ichika finds something she can say between all the assertions she can't. "You wanna be connected to people. That ain't wrong. Jus' makes you a good person." What does it say about them, then, that they struggle to trust and connect?
If you know it's wrong, why do you keep doing it?
Ichika might be expecting an argument when she says there are no good reasons to leave them, but what she receives instead is a sob, wretched and raw, from somewhere close to her ear. Tsubasa rocks Ichika, gently, on the bed, though to whose benefit is really an open question.
(They're both bleeding.)
"I'm," broken, and can't be fixed, the flawed design of an idiot God who gave me to a father who didn't want me and raised me to be a monster in his image,
is what Tsubasa might have said, if their throat weren't all choked up.
"'Course -- it matters," they say, instead. "You made that choice. You makin' it. Shouldna yelled at ya. Were just attackin' every angle... that's how shit gets done. Forward-thinkin'."
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
"I guess I don't think about good or bad for most people," Ichika admits to Tsubasa. It doesn't make Tsubasa bad. But it takes more than thinking it to get that across.
She does expect an argument, but what she gets... she holds Tsubasa more tightly at that, letting herself rock. "Tsubasa..."
They're both bleeding, and badly. But Ichika can at least recognize that much. She doesn't know what Tsubasa is thinking, can't say, but--
"So have you," Ichika says. "You decided not to be like them. ...Not to use me. Even sometimes when I wanted you to."
"...We shouldn't have yelled at each other," she settles on, because she shouldn't excuse it... but she did, too.
"I dunno about things getting done but..."
"But thank you."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"I do," Tsubasa says, of good and evil.
And really, it explains a lot.
"I don't wanna be like that," they say, muffled in all her hair. "Don't wanna hurt you like that." And it's a subtle variation, there, to insist that using her would be hurting her.
"You are strong," they insist, still teary. "Fuck, man, you're so much stronger 'n me... I just wanna bolt, man. They in politics, police, they CEOs... how can I fight that? Jus' gonna get people hurt pretendin'... I didn't get it at all. If I jus' got it, I... I'm jus' fightin' by accident, jus' 'cuz I was too stupid to get the score. Now I can't stop, but I can't win, neither..."
Tsubasa takes a ragged breath. "Everything I do is wrong," they finally figure out how to express the thought inside them, and truncate it by a factor of ten in the process.
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
It does explain a lot.
It is subtle, but Ichika gets it. On the other hand, today she's wanted to hurt herself, one way or another... some days it's like that. "I know," Ichika says.
"You want to," Ichika says, "But you're not."
"That counts for something. ...I..."
"I thought about running," she admits. "About... ways out."
She sighs, and brings her hand up to Tsubasa's back, carefully holding onto them--but tightly, too. She wants to stay close.
"I don't think that's true," she says. "You do a lot right with me. ...Not just me, either."
"I'm not going to tell you how you're allowed to feel," Ichika says. She knows about that. She wouldn't want it herself.
"But that's how I feel. You're doing right right now. You're talking to me..."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
Some days it is like that.
Ichika says that not running counts for something, and Tsubasa doesn't have the heart to tell her they were running just yesterday. They're always running from their problems.
With a sigh, Tsubasa sinks into Ichika, curled tightly around her, knees folded behind her back. She says they're doing right by her, so why do they feel so much like --
"You were upset," Tsubasa insists, "an' I made it all about me. Sayin' crazy shit. Wouldn't even let you be sad. You know -- he said -- he said I talked 'bout me father all the time, but I were too stupid to get it -- how familiarity breeds contempt. Uh. Like. We were the same, it's why I was always bothered..."
Tsubasa's breath hitches. "Look -- fuckin' -- doin' it again... he was right..."
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
"What, you're not allowed to be upset too?" Ichika asks. "...It's not like that. Feelings aren't some... zero sum game. If you give up on having feelings just because I have louder ones right now, that's--"
"That's wrong," Ichika is certain of. "I can't be a person who does that. I won't."
But...
"Hajime would focus on parents, though. He said..."
"He said all women were like that, because his mother was like that. Because she was never around, and he took it out on you. On the girls he's with."
"I'm upset. You can be upset, too. ...We'll feel it together."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
Everything, Tsubasa thinks, is zero sum.
For someone to win, someone else loses out. For the hawk to live, the sparrow dies.
That's how the world works.
But Ichika insists it's wrong, and Tsubasa digs a hole to throw the whole thought into; they're not able to make her feel more stupid, right now.
"Yeah," they affirm her, instead.
Even though it feels like they're lying.
"His mom worked hard," Tsubasa says. "His dad was a deadbeat, so she had to support him on her own... sometimes she lost her temper, but she told me once she was sleepin' six hours so she could get to work an' then do her housework too. Tch... if I had to guess... he an' that fuck Eiji got real close trashin' on the one who left an' the one who got left."
They shake their head, slightly, against Ichika's. "If I'd stop fuckin' cryin', I could... do somethin'... help ya... but this shit's all I got, man."
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Ichika will argue that one as long as she has to. ...But maybe it's a thought they can't agree on.
"I see..." She strokes Tsubasa's back. "Yeah. I'd guess that, too."
She leans her head against Tsubasa's, after that. "This is what I need," Ichika says softly. "...Like this."
"...Might be enough that I don't try to scrub my skin off when I finally get to the shower."
"...But not yet."
"Don't let me go yet."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"O--okay," Tsubasa nods, against Ichika.
They try to laugh, but it comes out as another ragged noise, instead. "I don't know if I could, even if I wanted to, man..."
... it's not just Ichika who needs the contact, right now.
"I'm sorry he was such a prick. I--I'm sorry he was tauntin' you 'bout Eiji's shit. I'm sorry you had to listen to that, man... what that guy really thinks, like... he'll tell you if you on the hook already, or if he ain't got no reason to care." Which might explain why Ichika hasn't seen him turn on his charm. "But the most extreme version of him... he had to be sayin' some mean-ass shit... he's a real fuckin' woman-hater. He really... really did jus'... guy was like a kid pullin' wings off flies, 'cept I was the fly, man. Fuck... he sure had his fun with that."
Tsubasa hugs Ichika a little tighter. "It was fucked up... woulda been fucked up. Jus' glad you're here now..."
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
"...That's okay," Ichika says. "I want you to need me, too..."
But they're sorry. "Thanks," Ichika says. She knows it's not their fault--she's sure they know she thinks so. And indeed, "...It was pretty rough. He was pretty mean. It... it really got to me."
"For all that though.. he still didn't believe how far Eiji's going...."
"It's weird to think."
Was and would've been. "I'm here," Ichika says. "...We're here."
She closes her eyes, and will worry about that shower sometime she doesn't feel like she'll blow away if she lets go.
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"I do," Tsubasa says, quietly. "I -- I really... need you," and they have to choke it out, because saying it has only ever ended up hurting them.
But they are trying to trust Ichika. Even if they're sure that the struggle means they don't deserve it to begin with.
"It got to me, too," Tsubasa says. "He made me cry... a lot. He was so paranoid, an' so fuckin' jealous, man... he'd get mad if I liked a guy in a movie we was watchin'..."
... which might explain why it's so important to Tsubasa to not be jealous of Ryuji.
And why they view their own fears so unkindly.
They swallow, when Ichika says he didn't believe it. "Fuck, man," they say, their voice thin. "If he ain't ready for that fuck Eiji to initiate him into the business, how bad are the guys he does work with?"
It's not a nice thought.
"We're here," they echo her, rocking her gently on the bed. "I'm here."
But if all those forces are looking to hammer them into shape... is that always going to be true?
...
Ichika promised to save them, Tsubasa reminds themself, as they squeeze a little more tightly.
She promised.