2025-12-05: ... Flock Together (Prologue)
- Log: ... Flock Together (Prologue)
- Cast: Tsubasa Seki, Ichika Kawase's mother
- Where: Kawase Household, Iwatodai
- OOC Date: 2025-12-05
- IC Date: Tue, Aug 21 2012
- Summary: While Ichika is out taking care of her own business, Tsubasa is working hard investigating a man connected to Eiji... when Ichika's mother brings them a letter. Unfortunately, it's from Eiji Kamiya, and the revenge pornography he includes has them seeing red -- they burn the photographs and the letter, and storm out of the house screaming vengeance.
- Content warning: Coercive control, revenge porn, human trafficking, immolation
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
Tsubasa's in the study that is, unofficially, their room right now, though they're typing on the computer at present. Dr. Ichika's Dad is aware that they're doing research through EDINET for the Kuzunoha Detective Agency on here. Of course...
... right now, the company they're looking into isn't one Tamaki's pointed them at, yet.
'Furudate Development Industries'... they've been making a lot of acquisitions around Yongen-Jaya. A lot of forward planning work. They're collecting all the reports here so they have something to bring to Tamaki... but they've visited Yongen-Jaya, once or twice, and even this much investment is sinking their stomach.
This isn't the kind of money you put into supporting a ramshackle batting cage.
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
It's a lovely day. And Mrs. Ichika's Mom is arriving back in the house after her shopping, having picked up an envelope from the front step. She is curious about that, but it's not her name that's on it. So, shortly...
"Tsubasa-kun?" her voice comes as she knocks on the study door.
"Something came for you. Odd that there's no return address..."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"Yeah?" Tsubasa looks up, from the monitor. They wheel the chair backwards -- they didn't break it, mom, it's fine -- and stand, heading over to poke their neon blue head out so that Mrs. Ichika's Mom can see their confusion.
"For me, huh...? That's weird..." They take the letter, blinking down at it as they take it into their scarred hands. "Wasn't expectin' nothin'... uh, thanks for bringin' it up, anyhow. You need help gettin' ya shoppin' in, Mrs. Kawase?"
Tsubasa isn't the kind of boorish guy who doesn't offer to help a housewife carry her potatoes inside, c'mon.
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
The chair is fine... for now. No teenagers are falling over in it today.
But Mom notes the confusion. "Right? I didn't think that many people knew you were staying here. But here you go."
The envelope is heavy; it contains more than just a letter. "You're welcome. And no, no, that's fine. I already got most of it before I brought this up to you."
She smiles. "Thank you for offering. Everything going all right with your research?"
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"Yeah..." Tsubasa frowns, considering the envelope. ... it's not just a letter. And it wasn't sent through the postal service, which means none of the checks on mail safety have been performed, either. But when they press their fingers down against it, it's all flat... anthrax would be grainier.
... so it's probably not 'them', but just to be safe, they had better wait until Ichika's mom is out of the room to open it up.
"Oh, yeah?" They're distracted from the grim thought of their father's men murdering them through mail by Mrs. Ichika's Mom assuring them she already got her shopping in. "Uh, sorry I didn't hear ya get back earlier... I been wrapped up in this stuff."
Which is to say: they're as bad as Dr. Ichika's Dad at zoning out the world around them and focusing on their research when they're really into something.
"Yeah, it's cool," they add, glancing back to the computer. "Just a bunch a borin' crap... like, th' allocation of total purchase considerations an', uh, stuff like that."
You know. Accounting. A normal thing for someone who's about to turn eighteen to be doing all day.
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
It's a little weird, but 'murder mail' is not something that has occured to Mrs. Ichika's Mom in the least. It does occur to her it might be a little less than savory; she's not blind. Still... Tsubasa can speak up if they're being threatened or something, right?
...Right?
"It's fine," she says. "I was quiet! I didn't want to bother you." A smile. "You're just like him, when you're studying. Maybe it brings back good memories."
But boring crap and... Hmm. "Ohhh," Mrs. Ichika's Mom says. "Yes, I see. Well, keep it up. It'll pay off."
She smiles, and starts off. The door can close behind her.
That just leaves the letter.
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
... can they speak up?
No. They really can't. The stuff Tsubasa's dealing with... it's too heavy for someone nice like Ichika's mom. They can tell she's already bothered by what she does know about their family... how can they tell her it's worse?
They don't wanna hurt her none.
Tsubasa nods, when she says they're like 'him'. "Guess so," because they're guessing she means the Doctor, but they're sure as hell not going to challenge her if it isn't.
And, "Thanks. Lemme know if ya need anythin'." It's Tsubasa who says that to Mrs. Ichika's Mom, despite her being the mom of the house. They're actually very polite for a no-good punk, surprisingly! Indeed, they've even asked her to show them how to help with the garden out back, apparently because 'Auntie Taeyun next door' has a little garden of her own and doesn't always feel up to weeding it.
(Just because Etsuko deals in flowers, that hardly means she has a garden.)
Tsubasa stares down at the letter, for a long moment, and then breathes out a long sigh as they go to the desk to open it up.
"Jus' bein' paranoid," they mutter, to themself, as they slide a fingernail through.
Why would any of them use their real name when they could use the name their father uses for them, after all?
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Mrs. Ichika's Mom smiles at Tsubasa. "You're sweet," she says to them. "Very diligent. I'll let you know later, mm? I could use some help with the gardening later..."
But she goes, and there, the desk. There, the letter. Tsubasa opens it and inside is a nice, typed letter.
'That's the name you prefer, isn't it? A new name is a good way to escape your past... if it were possible for you to do so. You must realize by now that your father will never really let you go. All you can do is drag others down with you. Others, like Ichika. Ichika, whose beautiful hair you ruined. Ichika, who used to know better how to be a woman.'
'But don't worry. I have a place for you where you won't ruin anyone at all anymore. There's someone lined up to take care of you.'
'And so you have some incentive to remember, I've enclosed pictures of what a real woman looks like. Unsullied, untouched by your dirt. I'm sure they'll prove very informative.'
'If you happen to show them to her, maybe she'll remember what she's supposed to look like.'
There is no signature. Enclosed are a number of nude photographs of a slightly younger Ichika Kawase, with long, black hair and a variety of expressions. Most are self-taken.
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"Cool," Tsubasa nods, with the ghost of a smile.
(They're not the kind of kid who smiles much... though Mrs. Ichika's Mom has definitely caught them doing it a lot more when they think they're alone with Ichika.)
And then... there's a letter.
The benefit to all the layers of Tsubasa's artifice is that it's downright impossible to tell when the blood drains from their face -- at least in terms of their colour; the way their teeth grit as a breath sucks jagged through them, though, that's unmistakable. The way their blue eyes widen, the way their lips pull back over their teeth, the way their nostrils pinch and their chin lowers to protect their neck --
"Hhhh--" they try to make noise and find nothing but the rattling, ragged remains of their throat as the air passes through. They must -- they must --
well of course they do; just moments ago --
-- 'it's too heavy', wasn't that the thought?
No, Tsubasa thinks, though the way their lips shape the word as they begin to hyperventilate, they look more like a fish gasping for water on the deck of a boat. They find their hands trembling -- their grip strength has always been a little embarrassing, if anyone cared to look too closely -- still, there's more.
A place for --
Tsubasa's gaze darts back up, to their monitor, to Furudate's accounts, to a man whose company seems determined to gut the soul out of the places people live so they can shape it into something profitable.
If he can knock down a house before its time is due... a person is far less sturdy.
Their fingers tighten a little more, against the paper. It crinkles, but not so badly it can't be read. As they get to that incentive -- to a real woman -- an unsullied --
"you didn't," they rasp out, as their eyes scan over the letter again. Over the name they can't escape -- the hair they ruined -- the safety he's engineered --
"no way." But there's nothing here which would disprove the horror in their gut, nothing in the way he has spoken of how dirty they are, how much they've ruined her, of the memories --
They just can't finish a thought. They shouldn't finish the letter, either.
But they have to know.
Tsubasa tears into the envelope, scattering the photos to the table, and he's right about one thing: they do remember her brown hair, just as it's shown here. They remember advising her how muh fiercer bleach would make her look. They see that she does not look fierce, here.
"yyyyyYYYYYOU RAT FUCKING BASTARD!" Tsubasa screams, slamming their fist down on the desk. They grab the photographs and the letter and the envelope all in a rough fist, and almost fall again as they stumble out of their chair, slamming the door open. They're not thinking all that much, as they charge into the bathroom. It's the best place they can think of to dispose of this trash, except --
Except, there. There's a lighter, beside the incense Ichika put out by the bath to calm her down.
There's a lighter at hand, again.
And there's only one thing Tsubasa can do.
Grabbing that lighter, roughly, they hold it up to that rough ball of photographs and paper. The paper sparks, first; it is quicker to burn. (Has always been quick to burn.) The photographs take a moment longer, and the smell is sick with chemicals, bruning off as the photographs warp and twists in their hand.
"FUCK!" They scream, as at length the fire burns them, and they toss the whole burning heap into the sink, slamming their fist down on the ceramic so hard they might have feared damaging it were they thinking of much at all.
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Ichika's mother has seen a number of those smiles. It's wonderful, really. ...Not just because it's good for Ichika, but because she's grown fond of the hardworking Tsubasa, too. Delinquent or not, they're part of Ichika's life.
However...
She is not there, when Tsubasa opens the letter.
She's going to be shortly though.
"What on earth!?"
Tusbasa might hear it from Mrs. Ichika's Mom as she rushes back towards the back, up to the bathroom there, where Tsubasa has--
"Tsubasa-kun!" she shouts, and it might in the moment seem as if she is angry instead of worried--until she reaches to Tsubasa's hands, to see that burn.
"What happened!? Why are you setting that on FIRE!?"
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
For a few moments, Tsubasa just stands there, hyperventilating, and their lungs are filling with smoke again and the heat is spreading over their skin again and they can't see a thing again and the pain's becoming numb again and they're getting lightheaded again
and
her mother's here.
How much of what they've felt is just another thing for them to remember escapes them, as their wild eyes fall on Ichika's mother, as she grasps their hand. She will find them full of tears -- but they are not just distressed.
They are ANGRY.
"DON'T TOUCH ME!" Tsubasa screams, as they finally realise they're being grabbed, and all they can think of is the man they can't escape. (They'll just drag her down -- ruin her, and --) They yank their hand back, pushing roughly past her and running, full tilt, down the stairs.
"RRRRRAAAAAHHHHHH--!!"
... but something's still burning, in the sink, and it stinks of chemicals.
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Full of tears, but also angry. Mrs. Kawase watches another young person pushed to the brink, and lets go Tsubasa's hands as they scrream at her. "Tsubasa-kun--"
The scream doesn't dissuade her. But the fire does. They run, and she is only able to see them go. "Wait!" she calls, but there's fire in the sink, and she has to make sure her house doesn't burn down.
It smells of chemicals; best not to just turn on the water. But as she grabs a towel, she sees it--
Suika Kawase sees her daughter, half-illuminated by fire, in the photographs, and understands something.
"Oh, God..."