2026-01-05: Lying to the Gods
- Log: Lying to the Gods
- Cast: Yua Ijuuin, Miho Ijuuin
- Where: Aoba - Penthouse
- OOC Date: 2026-01-05
- IC Date: Wed Sep 05 2012
- Summary: Yua wakes Miho with a nightmare, the night after the night of her wedding. But when she keeps trying to find reasons why she feels badly about her situation, Miho grows upset, too... particularly as Yua opens her eyepatch and causes herself horrible pain to try and tell whether the awful things she heard during the wedding were due to her eye. She decides that she's lied to the Japanese Gods, and needs to clear the air... but will that really settle Miho's heart?
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
Eventually, Yua and Miho did go to sleep. And Yua was quite happy to tuck her head under Miho's chin, wrapping herself around her as she slept on her side; it's a little more comfortable to her, these days. (She's taken to wrapping her legs around one or both of Miho's, like she's some kind of living pregnancy pillow.) And normally, that would be fine; Yua has slept in Miho's arms over countless nights, arranged one way or another.
Except -- tonight, after they've gone to sleep, Yua ends up restless; she shifts, in Miho's grasp, with a disconcerted hum.
"Nn..."
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
Miho sleeps lightly enough tonight that Yua stirring wakes her up. Her eyes open, staring out into the dark, before she recognizes the source of her wakefulness.
"Yua?" she murmurs.
She gives Yua a light squeeze, and does not move to check the time. It's 'late enough'.
"What is wrong?"
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
"Ah--!" Yua gasps, as she comes into reality again; she tightens, for a moment, before she realises where she is, and so clutches Miho tightly. "Mimiiiii..." She whines, against her chest, plaintive.
Give her a moment longer, and she's put together thoughts enough to reassure her: "I-I... I was just having a nightmare... I was in the King's court, but everyone knew I wasn't supposed to be there, and I had to keep convincing people I wasn't suspicious, but every time I tried I was just more suspicious... and then I was on a train, and they were after me, but I kept falling over because the train was rocking back and forth, and when it stopped my carriage was never on the platform so the doors wouldn't open..."
... it sounds a lot like a normal, regular nightmare, but it's not hard to guess why she might be feeling that way.
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
It does sound like an ordinary nightmare, but that doesn't mean Miho isn't sympathetic. She strokes Yua's hair softly, and inclines her head. "I see..."
She does have her thoughts together. "That unfortunately makes sense," Miho says gently. "You were worried..."
She considers that one.
"You were distressed, before, at the wedding, before... Kimitake-san was able to reassure you."
"Do you think it's related to what you felt?"
"You seemed... lost, as you might be in that position."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
Yua sighs, feeling Miho's fingertips through her hair. "Sorry," she murmurs, "I woke you up..."
She knows Miho is a light sleeper. ... she's a pretty light sleeper, too, which might explain why that nightmare stirred her so easily.
"Nn... the wedding..." Yua's face scrunches up, and her shoulders scrunch a little, too.
"I think... I must be..." Going crazy, but she realises it's a poor way to say it to Miho before the words leave her lips. "Hearing things," she settles on, instead. "Everyone... everyone was talking about how they knew I was a bian, how I'd abandoned my family, how I was a -- a w-w--" but she never manages to say it, burying her face against Miho a little more sternly instead.
"Most of them were people who liked me... and they were nice to me after... but I really heard them, Mimi! Uuu... something like that's never happened before..."
Yua thinks it hasn't, certainly.
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
Miho shakes her head lightly. "It's fine," she says. "I cannot sleep soundly when you are distressed." That isn't Yua's fault! It's just a fact of nature.
But the wedding... Miho does listen. Miho can imagine what she would've said; she doesn't get mad at the moment. Instead she says, "Hmm..."
"I didn't hear those things," she says. "I'm not saying that you didn't either--merely that if they said them, they said them out of earshot of me."
"But you are not that thing," she says. "You have not abandoned your family." Pause. "...You are a bian, and for that I am grateful," she offers in utter seriousness. It would be a joke from someone else.
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
"Thanks, Mimi," Yua murmurs, her fingers curling at her side.
But... Miho didn't hear them, either. (How many times has it been Yua, assuring Miho that she didn't hear anything?) "Mm," Yua hums, unsettled.
"Mimi..." Yua sighs, fondly, hearing her gratitude. "Mm, I like women. And I like you best!" She adds, nuzzling her cheek beneath her neck. "But... but it was stuff like... like, how I'm too simple to know how your traditions work, or... or how I thought the whole wedding was just some joke, or... or how I'd forsaken my Gods, too... how I couldn't even lie for one day, so I was gonna mess it up... how I needed, you know, help..."
Yua takes a shakey breath. "But that's all... things I was worried about, Mimi," she says, sadly. "So I thought... maybe I made it up...? I said I got scared because I thought I was going to be ill, but... but that was a lie, too..."
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
"Of course."
Yua is unsettled, it seems. Miho can tell. But, "Yes. You do. And I'm very pleased that that's true." She pauses. Miho's eyes have adjusted, more or less, to the dark; she can vaguely see the outline of Yua's form against her. And she watches, as she works through it.
"You have no history of simply hearing things," Miho says. "Not... Like I do, sometimes."
She knows that, at least. She knows in theory that it's not real. But...
Well, today is a better day.
"It is possible that stress brought it on," she allows. "That you heard what you feared because you were under strain. ...But it is possible that some of them really said it, too."
"I'm sorry," she says. "I think it's best that you used such an excuse, in this case..."
"But whether they said it or not, I will not allow anyone to treat you that way. ...We are doing it for Hiroki."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
"You're the prettiest," Yua insists, and she's still kind of talking into Miho's neckline, but that's fine, it's dark.
(She's kicked the blanket off of her, again, even though Miho is always trying to tell her that just because she feels too hot doesn't mean she won't still catch cold. ... luckily, the AC has been calibrated for this eventuality.)
Yua does wonder -- briefly -- if somehow it's contagious; they've always assured her that's not how diseases of the mind work, but what if it's different when her eye's like this? But she wonders only briefly; surely that isn't how it works, even for someone like her.
"I'm glad you can tell," Yua says, instead. "I didn't want to make things worse for you either, Mimi..."
Yua sighs. "Maybe... maybe the first comment was real," she supposes. "T-that's when Captain Shimazu called me an Okinawan -- um -- he said something not very nice." ... she can believe that he'd view her as a whore, given the speech he definitely did make. "But... maybe I heard that, and... and got really upset and worried, and... and then I just thought I heard the other stuff?"
She makes a small, sad noise, and says, "I dunno..."
A breath. "Mooouuuu... is it always this hard for you...?"
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
Miho smiles, and does not insist on the blanket's return to Yua.
"Thank you," Miho says. "But..."
Hm. "I see... Well, I didn't hear it, but that doesn't mean he didn't say it to only you, if he was near you. If anyone else had heard, though, I'm sure there would have been reactions..."
She considers.
"I'm not sure," Miho admits. "But yes. It is... difficult, when you cannot always trust your senses. I'm aware that such things can be brought on by strain, but..."
"I am no expert. I simply deal with it."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
"I guess... but what if they all agreed with him?" What if it's obvious what she is, selling her womb and her body to a man she doesn't love --
She hums, burrowing in against Miho a little more; her long hair splays, on their fine silk pillows, behind her. Her hair is dark, and the pillows are light, and so it stands out in the moonlight filtering in through the window.
"When... it's the Dark Hour, or when we're in Mementos, that kind of stuff... I can't always trust myself then, because I'm seeing so many things, I don't know what goes where. I get really confused when that happens... I don't make a lot of sense." Miho knows this, of course; equally, she would know that explaining the obvious thing is important to Yua's brain.
"... but that's never happened in the real world before," she concludes, unsettled. Mimi... what if the person who's treating me that way is me...?"
(She does not disagree with Miho's evaluation of the experts; Yua is not immune to the culture she dwells in, which involves not only stigma of mental illness but deference to doctors. She has no mental model for expertise by experience.)
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
"They don't," Miho says, and she is sure that it is true. "So it must be that he said it only to you." That seems logical to her, anyway. She won't countenance the idea that her entire family is in on such a feeling...
Miho hugs Yua close. "...Hm. Yes, I understand," she says. It needs pointing out because it's the basis of her next statement; that is clear enough to Miho, anyway.
"...Mm." What if? "We don't have enough evidence to conclude that yet," Miho says. "Consider it when we have more. ...Until then, it could as easily be something else."
Miho thinks that makes sense, too.
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
"Mm... maybe..." Yua isn't quite as convinced, but... Ritsuko isn't that mean, right? And if Yume was saying such a thing about her sister, she'd really be the worst!
But Yua explains, and Miho understands, and Yua is at least glad for that. She successfully explained something..! ... knowing that kind of thing gives her a dopamine hit goes a long way to explaining how much she enjoys her job.
Still... something else...
Yua's head wriggles out, from under Miho's chin, so she can look... well, in the direction of her face, anyway. It's still very dark in here.
"Mimi... what if my Eye's doing stuff in the real world, now, too?" She asks, with clear concern. "What if something changed when I got married, and, and now I'm going to be all confused forever now?"
There's a very clear way to test that; thankfully, she hasn't freed a hand from Miho.
Yet.
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
"I'm sure of it," Miho says.
But? Miho looks down at Yua, more or less. It is very dark. But the Eye...? "I do not sense anything from you," she says. "In that way that I usually sense, when you do something with your Eye."
She pauses. "I do not think that would happen. ...Unless you think that there really is some spiritual change in you, being married to him..."
She shakes her head. "I do not. It is a business and social arrangemennt. There is nothing like that in play."
"We belong together."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
"It's..." Yua sighs, shaking her head. "It's complicated, Mimi. The Eye -- the Eye they gave me, it -- it was different, before. Even before the gift..."
She makes a frustrated little noise, looking up in the general direction of Miho. "But we were married in the eyes of your Gods," Yua insists. "That -- that means something, right? Even if it's not real, we still told your kami... and at a place that's sacred to you, too."
She frowns. "I prayed to the Hinukan, so he knows... and I told the Hinukan I'm praying to the others, so they were listening, too." Yua offers her most extensive prayers on the first and the fifteenth of each month -- though not on the Gregorian calendar; today is the 20th of July 2012, though, by the Lunar date, so she still updated the Gods very recently. "But your kami, they don't know anything... mouuu... what if something happened, Mimi?"
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
It was different... Hm.
Miho listens. Prayers... and what they mean. For Miho, this ceremony was just a social matter, it wasn't real in any particular way. Considering it otherwise is... discomfiting. "Nn."
But Yua's gods were listening. There is that. Miho considers it. "...I suppose," she allows.
She doesn't really have a solution, after all. If some magic thing happened that makes Yua secretly Kimitake's now...
"Any kami that tries to claim you're his instead of mine will meet my blade," she settles on.
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
Miho's uncomfortable noise...
Yua isn't comfortable, either.
"Mm... I'm worried, but... I can just check!" Yua decides, bravely, as her hand lifts from Miho's side, escaping from under the sheets, to --
oh no.
Miho may well realise she needs to grasp Yua's wrist, but it is only after she's loosed the latch on her eyepatch and cracked it open. The effect is as immediate as it is predictable: Yua SCREAMS, and if not for the soundproofing she would surely wake Eiko up, in the apartment beside their penthouse.
"Eeeeeiiaaaauhhhhh--!!"
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
Miho doesn't like it. But she isn't quick enough in that dislike to catch Yua before--
Ah.
Miho quickly takes hold of Yua's wrist in one hand and uses the other to un-crack the eyepatch. ...It's not going to immediately fix everything, of course.
But it is something she can actually do. "Yua..."
Her voice is pained.
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
"Uwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhh... wahhhhhhhhhhh!!"
Yua sobs and wails, but the fact that she tries to hold onto Miho again is clue enough that she has the mental capacity to do -- anything but seize, really; she's afraid, but she's always afraid, when that happens.
It takes her a while to go from sobbing, to whimpering, to...
"Uuuhh... ih, uh... it's not my Eye," she manages to get out, finally. "It's still not working... in the real world... not one bit... uuu..."
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
Miho is there, but... still discomforted by the earlier implications, so she finds herself looking into nothing in particular as she idly soothes Yua. "It's all right," she tells her, petting her hair, holding her close.
But... While her thoughts don't go under control, Yua gets able to speak. So there's that.
"That's all right then," Miho says. "...I'm sorry."
"But at least now you know."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
"I was worried... I was worried I was confused in the real world, too... owwww..." Yua retreats against Miho again, tucking her head beneath her chin so that she can bury her face against her skin.
"It's not your fault, Mimi... mm... mmmnnn," still disregulated, she just tries humming harder.
"How do you talk to your kami...? We need to tell them we were lying to them... uuuuu, but will they even listen to me?!" Yua definitely makes more -- noises when she's discombobulated. "If I'm telling them it's a fake marriage, that means they have nothing to do with me, too! Unless they believe in us, but... if the kami are fine with people like us, why is Japan so mean about it...?"
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
Miho holds Yua there. And she hears the humming, but...
"Shrines?" Miho wonders. It's not something she's thought much about. It's upsetting to be thinking of it. "I don't know," Miho says instead, still uncomfortable. "I don't think Japan's laws have anything to do with the kami. If Japan were listening to the kami, perhaps it would be different--perhaps it would be better for us."
"...But it is man who controls the country now. It is man who opposes us. And it is man who is keeping us from the True World."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
"Mm... then maybe they'll listen to me..." Yua's frown is audible, though her face is still buried. "Since I'm with you, maybe they'll listen..."
She sighs. "... sorry, Mimi. You're right... it's not the kami's fault what people are doing."
Yua curls into her, a little more, trying to dispel the headache rocking through her with the power of Mimi. "I'll... look up how to talk to them properly, okay?" She asks, her voice a little thin. "I'll fix it! They won't get the wrong idea if I tell them what's really going on, right? A--and the Hinukan will understand, I'm not praying for luck, or anything like that! I haven't forsaken them, I just need the kami not to think anything weird!"
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
The power of Mimi!!! ...Well, Miho's doing her best.
"All right," Miho says. It's not that she doesn't think these kami exist, of course--it's that, outside of going to shrines or the wild places, she's not used to them... impacting her life overmuch. But then, they were at a shrine...
So maybe there's something to it.
"I think simply talking to other gods shouldn't be a problem for yours," Miho says.
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
Yua of course has a much more impactful view of spirits and her ancestors; her mother might not have been deemed suitable for the priestesshood, but that hardly means her life wasn't steeped in spirituality, particularly when she'd visit her Grandmother. She prays often, she observes what holidays she can in Sumaru, and she makes sure to keep the Gods' homes in theirs clean and welcoming.
... most of the time, it's not terribly obtrusive; Yua is the eldest, after all, and so she sees to these things as a matter of custom.
"I hope not," Yua sighs. "Our kami are like your kami, kind of, but... but I'm worried they'll be offended, Mimi," and she deflates, a little, against her. "I'm not a priestess, or anything... I just take care of the household. That doesn't mean I know the Gods' will... and if I go to a Sumaru priest, he'll just tell me it was a good thing I went to the mainland Gods..."
She makes a small, sad noise. "Sorry, Mimi... I'm just scared."
That much, at least, is universal.
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
Miho never prayed for luck in her competitions; fortitude, perhaps. Health, maybe. But never luck.
"That may be true," Miho says. Of a Sumaru priest. "...You know more of these things than I do."
Miho gives Yua a squeeze. "It's all right," she says. "If it were easy to divine the will of gods, then everyone would be a priestess." It seems logical enough to her, anyway.
"But it's all right. ...I'm here."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
Yua's prayed for luck many times, though not for Miho's sake.
... for Miho, she prays for a light workload, good health, and challenging opponents.
"Mm..." Yua hums, frowning. "It is a lot harder than it looks... especially now people think praying to God is much more mystical than it needs to be. Grandmother needs to reassure people that their best effort is fine, even if it isn't what they heard was proper." She sighs a deep sigh, as she adds: "Half the time, they got their ideas from Japan, too..."
She buries into Miho, as she says: "It's important to me... but I guess I didn't really have time to think about it." She was kept out of wedding planning... how could she have really known what was going to happen? "But it's okay, Mimi... I'll make sure they know the truth..." The Gods won't be mad at Miho, then, she thinks.
She clings a little tighter. "I'm r-really glad you're here," and her voice wobbles, a little, as she says it. "And, and I'm here, with you, where I ought to be... Mimi..." Yua takes one long breath; another.
"Mimi, hold me tightly...? Don't let go..." She beseeches that pressure, burrowing her face against Miho's chest. "I love you... I want to be with you! I'm sorry I lied to the Gods, I couldn't help it... do you think the Gods will care how no one asked me in the ceremony...? Oh..."
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
"Hmmm..." More mystical than it needs to be? That's an interesting thought. "I suppose it benefits those in power to hoard such things for themselves. To say it is too hard for most to do properly, so that they can't have the same blessings." Ideas from Japan...
She was kept out of wedding planning. "Would it have changed anything, if you had known?" Miho wonders. "...Well, I appreciate that, then."
The gods could be mad at Miho subverting Yua's marriage. ...Of course, some might instead appreciate it, given the circumstances. One never knows.
"YUa..."
"I won't let go," she assures her, and holds onto Yua more fiercely. "I love you," she says.
"...Only that love will matter. The gods will understand. ...One day, I'm sure."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
"But that's not the spirit of Okinawa," Yua insists. "We're tege people, easy-going, allowing, not too serious... our Gods aren't really stuffy, I think." Yua was often criticised for being too diligent, back home... but never for being too cute. "But people think it's like that, since they see things from Japan or America..."
America is the worst at that.
Yua sounds sad, though, as she admits: "I guess not..." Even if she'd known it was going to be very religious, there's nothing she could have done about it. "But... but maybe I could have talked to the Gods before it happened... explained what was going on?"
She sighs, sinking into Miho, her legs wrapping tightly about her, too.
"Only that love matters," she agrees, though she's a touch muffled. "It's okay, Mimi... I'll make sure your Gods listen to us, too."
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
"No," Miho says, "But it wasn't Okinawa I was thinking of, when I said that. It seems more true in the world here..." Not Japan as a whole, necessarily, but certainly where the Order holds sway. But then, Miho might be getting into paranoia territory there.
Maybe.
"Maybe," Miho agrees.
"Thank you," Miho says, though it's... not really her it's for, from her perspective.
It still bothers her, though.