2026-01-21: Rooftop Revelations
- Log: Rooftop Revelations
- Cast: Shinjiro Aragaki, Ririka Kawase, Hitomi Mandai, Yukari Takeba
- Where: Iwatodai Dormitory
- OOC Date: January 21, 2026
- IC Date: September 13, 2012
- Summary: Shinjiro, Ririka, Hitomi, and Yukari all end up on the roof of the SEES dormitory to get fresh air. After learning how and why Shinjiro 'betrayed' SEES, he confides his illness and impending death to the three, which results in anguish all around.
(|============================ Iwatodai Dormitory ============================|) -================================================== Iwatodai City/Iwatodai ====- A large four-story dormitory used by the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad, only five minutes from Iwatodai Station. Upon entering, one passes a desk with a sign-in book for guests to find a large carpeted common room that's well appointed for co-ed gatherings. A TV is usually on with the local news or a movie that's been loaded into the DVD player for a student to enjoy. A table for shared dinners, or more often study sessions, takes up the other half of the dorm, as well as a kitchen should one dare to show off their skills to their fellow students. There are two winding staircases on either side. The one on the left simply says 'Boys' while the other on the right states 'No Boys Except By Invitation.' The implicit threat of execution need not be written down for those who violate these rules. The second and third stories are living spaces divided by gender with common spaces that have study areas and bookshelves available. The fourth story is the command center with surveillance capabilities for not just different parts of the city but each room within the dorms. The Chairman has assured all who live here that this capability is strictly necessary. BGM - Dormitory Theme - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj-FrFI0qnM <Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
It's been a rough two days since the SEES dorm raid. Shinjiro talked to Suzume earlier while surveying the kitchen, and then sent everyone a text letting them know what absolutely needed to be replaced and what was still usable (mostly, fridge food is scrap, pantry food is fine).
He currently can be found on the roof, where it's rather nice out, surveying the damage from his own attacks. Castor is strong, but the damage is cosmetic, if noticeable. There doesn't seem to be a risk of the roof caving in, at least.
Shinjiro takes a moment to check the garden, which was unharmed in the fight with Niko. He's not sure he wants to cultivate it right this second, but being around the plants is calming, as he stands on the edge of the roof and takes a look out towards Iwatodai silently.
<Pose Tracker> Ririka Kawase has posed.
Ririka... well, she's been in a bit of a precarious mental state lately. Anger about the attack got her through the initial battle, at least, but that anger could only distract her for so long before it wears off, and other matters get to her. Classes help, but only so much.
There are some footsteps announcing her arrival, but Ririka doesn't call out, since she doesn't really expect to see anyone else up here.
She pauses, thoughm, when she sees Shinjiro. "Oh-- Aragaki-senapi. I..." She takes a quick look around the garden, surveying the damage. "If... if you're working I won't bother you." She's already starting to back up down the stars.
Look, there's really no way to hide it, even if she's still trying: she's got her acoustic guitar with her.
<Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
Shinjiro turns as he hears the footsteps and door, glancing over to Ririka. When she pauses and greets, he shakes his head.
"You're fine. I was just surveying damage. Getting my mind off things."
Ririka's got her guitar. She's gonna back off, so in the moment, he considers. He's scared of talking to the others right now, with what happened, but...
"Come take in the day with me. I hear plants like music, yeah?"
He also doesn't really want to be alone if he has an alternative. Warring emotions chose that, in this vulnerable time, loneliness is the enemy.
<Pose Tracker> Ririka Kawase has posed.
Getting his mind off of things. Ririka looks around a moment more. She was kind of thinking of doing the same, honestly. And then Shinjiro knows just how to get to her.
Plants like music, right?
"Thaaat's what they say," Ririka admits with a small, forced, half-smile. "But if you insist..."
Ririka leaves the stairwell, stepping properly onto the roof and then moving to the edge, next to Shinjiro. With some careful shuffling she sits down on the edge, legs dangling off, guitar in her lap, and starts to idly strum.
There doesn't seem to be a song, yet, just a sort of quiet musical stream of consciousness.
"Nice day," she says after a while. "... the fresh air is nice for clearing your head, huh?"
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
Hitomi Mandai has also not been having a great time.
Shortly after everything stopped - ended is a wrong term, but at least the antagonists left - Hitomi had been taken to the hospital where SEES people tend to go. She had been there overnight; she was back the next day, at indeed about the same time when it had happened! Ha ha! That's funny.
"ugh" is the first thing Hitomi says, before she comes in view. She is down the stairs. "no, it's fine"
She shambles into view. Hitomi is wearing a different T-shirt, this one sky blue and a little too big for her - which means it's *quite* the big T-shirt - as well as a pair of gray sweat-pants and some house shoes. She looks somewhat more pallid and subdued than usual; she is not moving without pain.
Her right arm has bandages wrapped around the forearm and the bicep, though the elbow is clear. There's a taped-on triangular patch of gauze on the right side of her head, covering a strip of her temple and coming down to her cheek. Her glasses are helping to hold it in place.
"... I guess I'm not going to fall over, if I made it to the roof," says Hitomi in the doorway, leaning against it with her left shoulder for a moment. Her head turns, then. "They just told me I could skip gym for a while, it's not like I broke my leg or something..."
"... still, thanks," concludes Hitomi, to an individual NOT YET SEEN as she straightens up and steps outwards. Her voice lifts. "Hey, Ririka?" Her head swivels as she sees Shinjiro as well. "Hey," she tells him, raising her left hand to wave.
<Pose Tracker> Yukari Takeba has posed.
Yukari Takeba has also not been having a great time.
Oh the wounds are less visible than Hitomi's, but she got shot, by a guy- because she was concerned with 'vanity'.
And because he thought Minato was worried about her. She does not feel great about this. You come to admit to yourself you care about the people you surround yourself... and promptly a bunch of violent Persona Users invade your home.
Great. Wonderful.
Yukari is here because she noticed Hitomi coming up the stairs, and while she doesn't want her to think she's concerned about her...
... she was going to be ready to catch her if she fell. "What'd they put you on for the pain anyway?" She asks, as she comes up out of the stairwell and around her, "No offense but, you look pretty out of it."
That's when she surveys the damage herself, her expression falling, "Up here too... huh?" She keeps looking about, "Ugh. Everything's such a mess..."
Even if it was cosmetic, it's like it's all scarred from the fighting. And then - she casts a glance towards a certain figure, "Somehow... the stupid gnome survived. Though I'm not sure how."
Maybe the Gnome was in on it. Maybe.
No she's not going to seriously present that as a theory.
<Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
Shinjiro takes a seat as well as Ririka approaches and does so herself, nestling his hands together as she starts strumming. He's watching Iwatodai move, making an affirmative noise to her question. "Yeah. It's nice."
And then, he hears OTHERS. As Hitomi and Yukari come up, he shifts, a hand waving.
"Hey, Mandai, Takeba," he starts, before hearing Yukari's thing about 'up here too'. "They were attempting a pincer attack. Niko Kirisaki was up here, pink hair, muscles."
He sighs, looking back out as he says that.
"I considered kicking him off the roof when no one was looking, but..." he jokes, trying to see if he can add any levity.
"I think I would have been cursed."
<Pose Tracker> Ririka Kawase has posed.
Ririka, all things considered, had fared okay herself... the worst injury was the indignity of being punched in the face by the Joker Killer. (She resisted going to the hospital; her dad works there, and she definitely doesn't want to make him worry.)
The same can't be said of Shizuka and Koh, though... and Ririka might've spent some time beating herself up for not supporting Koh better as her fight partner.
She doesn't stop playing as she hears her name spoken, though she does look over at Hitomi as she steps onto the roof. "Mandai-san... how are you feeling?"
Yukari comments on the Gnome. "... maybe it creeped them out too much to mess with it," Ririka offers quietly. There's not a lot of cheer in her words. "Hey, Takeba-san."
But Shinjiro mentions that Niko was up here. "Seriously? Ugh. Sorry, I wish I could've sensed things better... but they've got someone who can block all that. It was hard enough trying to establish a link to talk with."
She is trying very hard not to think about those muscles.
"So they were on the roof, in the dorm, out front with an explosive..." Ririka mutters to herself. "Were they even after anything?" She keeps strumming, without even really thinking about it.
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
"Opium, I have to eat a whole poppy four times a day," Hitomi answers Yukari, if with an air of her more typical attitude. Just a whiff, though. "I forget which it was... it's just like big pills of... I want to say paracematol? It's got a name like that. It's just like, three pills in one since it's from the hospital." She sniffs once.
"I just feel like shit," she tells Yukari.
Her attention turns back to Shinjiro. "... like... did he come up the fire escape or something...?" She scratches her cheek, the one without the bandage, and looks around for a moment. This probably addresses some of the more severe possibilities. She's not cringing from the mere mention.
"Like shit," she answers Ririka, slightly more brightly.
Hitomi adjusts her glasses - wincing as she reached up with her right, using the left hand instead, more clumsily. "... the one in the kitchen said he was after the food. I think he was making fun of us." She looks to Yukari; she was, after all, right next door, as it were.
<Pose Tracker> Yukari Takeba has posed.
"... Right." With a roll of her eyes at the idea of her eating a poppy. "I could have guessed by all the petals hanging out of the side of your mouth." Before - Hitomi reveals the real answer, "That's.... rough. Doesn't seem like enough for something like that."
She sighs, as she gives the gnome one last look, "Probably." To who does she mean? Shinjiro or Ririka?
'Yes'
She then looks towards Ririka, "Hey, Kawase-san." There's a groan at Hitomi's comment, "Probably. It wouldn't make sense for them to set off a bomb to just - raid our fridge and break our TV after all."
Before she then looks at Shinjiro furtively, giving him a discreet look, in an uncomfortable silence, before she eventually breaks it.
"...Senpai. There's something you and I need to talk about... something that happened during the fight. It's... kinda a sensitive subject - if you'd prefer it being private but... maybe it's best if I ask it out in the open too."
She laces her arms together, looking more concerned, than accusing of anything. "Your call."
<Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
"A jammer?" Shinjiro asks, considering. It makes sense for Strega to have someone like that.
"I think it was more or less to kill morale. If we get our home attacked we're less likely to fight back, after all. Niko was upset we were trying to destroy the Dark Hour, too, which must be a factor."
Hitomi gets a shake of the head. "I didn't see. I think she leapt the roof, though."
Though then there's Yukari's question, and he goes silent for a moment, considering. Something that happened...?
He has ideas, but no true knowledge. So, in the end, he turns to Yukari, looking over to make eye contact. It's best that this kind of thing be dealt with without secrets.
"Go ahead."
<Pose Tracker> Ririka Kawase has posed.
Ririka turns to just give Hitomi a very worried look as she says she's on opium, and it takes her probably longer than it should to put together that it's a joke. Still, for a moment she looked like she was about to say something before Hitomi mentions a medication.
"... well, if you have any questions about it, let me know. I can try and ask my dad about it," she offers, after a moment.
Ririka winces a little as Hitomi describes how she's feeling. "... yeah. I hope you feel better quickly."
She makes a face at that. "Our food? These guys get landmines from who knows where and they need to raid our kitchen for food?" She's kind of on the same wavelength as Yukari, for that one.
"Yeah... when they attacked Kasu, I couldn't sense anybody in the air raid shelter until... I guess until their concentration slipped or something? That Yumi woman with the weird Evoker can do it, too, I think... Strega's 'jammer' or whatever makes everything really quicket. Yumi makes it all confusing."
Ririka stares at Shinjiro. "Why would she be upset...? Also why are you on a first name basis with her, of all people?"
But Yukari wants to talk about something, and Ririka looks between her and Shinjiro curiously. There was something weird, but she'd kind of written it off, so... did something else happen?
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
"I mean it doesn't really *hurt* hurt," Hitomi says. "Unless I bump it or move it wrong. And I can take like six of them a day if I need to, just not more'n two in six hours." Hitomi may change her opinion later, especially if she's remembering her PILL RATION over generously.
Her eyes turn to Ririka wordlessly - how are *you* doing, they say - for a second or two, before they start to traaace back to Shinjiro and Yukari as Yukari raises a question.
But...
"I was pretty much saved by Aigis," Hitomi says, not to anyone in particular, looking downwards. "... Uh."
After this Hitomi takes a couple of steps away from the stairwell. Inevitably this puts her nearer to the edge of the roof though she is, visibly, not joining Ririka - there's a look, she sees how Ririka's sitting, she doesn't get closer. She sits down, about a Hitomi-length and some change further back than Ririka, and smiles at her faintly.
(Then she looks back at Yukari, though. This might be good.)
(For a certain value of good.)
<Pose Tracker> Yukari Takeba has posed.
"You got stabbed. And you're telling me it doesn't *hurt* hurt." She echoes it back, as if to repeat to Hitomi what she just said, "Well, if you say so." She says, as she reluctantly acquiesces.
"That's what they said at least- though their leader kept claiming he was trying to talk to Minato-kun while he was trying to kill us... then not, doing that." Her expression, as she responds to Ririka is an unimpressed sigh on the matter, before nodding at Hitomi's statement, "It was a good thing we had her down there... if not for her, I'm not sure we would have made it out of there." In part because, if Noriaki had joined Takaya... they'd have been in trouble.
"Basically... one of the guys we fought said you're the reason they found us. That you told them where we live and detailed to them who we are and what we can do." Ririka's question doesn't bother her personally. She knows he knows Niko. She's known that much for a while.
Which is the only reason she's giving the accusation the slightest time of day at all, because part of it rings true, just not all of it.
One of her arms rubs the opposite, self-conscious about what she was bringing into the open, "And well, he was acting like you were some kind of traitor- but, I get the feeling that he wasn't telling the whole truth. It felt like he was just trying to paint something you did in the worst possible light to us, in order to undermine our trust in you."
She lets that hang in the air for a moment, before stating, "I'm asking you now because I wanted to give you an opportunity to explain, before anything spun out of control."
In other words, she's afraid the longer she holds onto this, the worse it'll be for him when it does come out to everyone.
<Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
Shinjiro considers what they all have to say. He's considering the jammer and Yumi when Yukari and Ririka ask important questions. He starts with Ririka's.
"...we're friends," he says, before looking over to Yukari with a sigh. He rolls his shoulders, shifting his neck for a moment before he shifts where he's sitting.
"Two years ago... I met Strega."
Hitomi may also remember that two years ago is an important arc number for him. After all... something bad happened.
"They had something I needed, after I left SEES. I started paying in cash, but eventually, Shirato started asking for information. He's the guy with the grenades. He asked questions about what was going on in the supernatural world sometimes, anything I heard on the streets."
He's silent for a long moment, breathing slowly.
"When Yamagishi was trapped, I knew I couldn't just let someone die in Tartarus. But I also didn't... want to come back. So I made a deal. They wanted a favor in exchange for an Evoker. They cashed that in the next time I saw them, and asked about my 'new friends'. Names, capabilities, general opinions on cohesion, that's what I gave him. It wasn't just all of you, either."
His Sumaru friends, too.
Shinjiro rubs the back of his neck. "The next day, I got arrested in Sumaru. Long fucking story. Kirijo bailed me out, I told her... part of what was going on, and she asked me to come back. I asked for a week to think on it. The rest is history."
Shinjiro's trying to stare out away from the group. He doesn't want them to see his face, which is definitely wracked with guilt.
"I haven't talked to any of them but Niko since before I was arrested, and never about my work with SEES."
<Pose Tracker> Ririka Kawase has posed.
Ririka catches that look, and all she can really do is just kind of shrug back. She's not sure. The attack has her rattled, and there's definitely something else that's been weighing on her recently that she hasn't brought up with the group yet.
"I'm glad she was around to help, then..." Ririka comments softly. Hitomi gets close, but not that close, and Ririka sets her guitar down so she can shuffle around and face inwards, instead, towards the rest of the group. She offers Hitomi a small smile back that she hopes is encouraging.
... And then the guitar goes back in her lap and she keeps idly playing, drifting from one musical idea to the next.
Ririka knows Shinjiro knows Niko--but the recent attack does kind of draw more attention to that detail. But Yukari brings up something Ririka wasn't expecting, and she sits up a little bit more. "Oh, yeah, the Joker Killer and... Shirato? Were saying that, too..." She glances to Shinrjio. "They kept calling you Shin-chan, but I mean... I just figured they were screwing with us."
She pauses and frowns. "... though... Shin-chan sounds like something Kirisaki would call you..." she mutters quietly.
They're friends. "She's got a funny way of showing it attacking the dorm like that."
But two years ago... he did, in fact, meet Strega. Ririka's meandering strumming slowly slows until it comes to a stop as she turns to look at Shinjiro.
That look soon turns to a stare.
"Wait, wait. You gave them information on us? For an Evoker!? What the hell were you getting from them before that?" Ririka should probably take a breath to calm down. She is not going to take that breath just yet.
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
Hitomi puffs out her cheeks a little bit at what Yukari is saying. Don't invalidate her tough girl act Takeba!! But she doesn't dig into it. Thinking about it is, if anything, making the sort of throbbing-metal-wire feeling along her arm, side, forehead come back.
But it's a little nice to be outside.
In the sun.
With other people.
Alive.
And speaking of life, Hitomi's head turns slowly and her eyes gradually widen as Yukari relates just what, exactly, her shiftless bum of a heavily armed home intruder was talking about. All Hitomi had been able to hear was the generalized racket and distant eye-shot suggesting that Yukari was alive and so was Minato, which meant that the gunshots she'd heard must have missed, or at least not really *hit*.
Since Yukari's right there, with few to no visible new holes.
Hitomi looks to Ririka, smiling at her as she moves a little closer. It's tired, but there. She's just not doing great right now. And... Hitomi's eyes turn to Shinjiro as Yukari speaks her mind.
Her eyes widen-- and then there's a glimmer of something in them. Her face, momentarily, looks slack, almost vacant, but it's actually the sum of several small currents pulling against each other. Her lips part...
and pull into a small, almost sly smile. She's sitting up a little straighter. Her left hand comes up to splay fingers across the side of her face for a moment.
But then Ririka speaks. Hitomi's eyes shoot towards her, the position of her hand veiling part of her expression.
Then towards Shinjiro again. Her voice is, weirdly, sweeter and significantly more femme-ish when she says, "I'd like to know, myself, Aragaki-sem-pai." Hm, that word got drawn out more than usual. "But it's true that you did help us with Yamagishi-san and as far as I can tell, there wasn't any reason to do so other than a real desire to help. And if Kirijo-sempai really did pay your bail..."
Hitomi's eyes squeeze shut. "Isn't that just like her?"
<Pose Tracker> Yukari Takeba has posed.
You can't front a tough girl act to someone else putting on a tough girl act Hitomi! It doesn't work out.
"Friends?" She echoes it back to Shinjiro like she's skeptical that part is true, before looking at one of the gouges on the roof, "... Yeah... real funny way..." As she echoes back towards Ririka
Two years ago...
"Hmmm. Something you needed..." She doesn't press him on that one, just echoing the idea again back, as she listens.
But he spells it out. A favor. One they cashed in on.
"Hmm..." She says, brow furrowing just slightly as she looks his way.
Ririka is upset, demanding to know what it is, but Yukari just watches him for a while longer, as Hitomi reasons through it.
"You know he lived on the street, right?" She says to Ririka, "He didn't have any real responsibility to look out for us at the time... but he kinda did anyway."
Shifting her arms, she places them behind her back, "There's nothing really I can get mad at there. I don't think he figured they'd come to attack this place or anything, or he wouldn't have done it..."
He's too loyal to Mitsuru Kirijo, she figures. Which, is still weird for her to think about, but she understands he wouldn't do anything to directly harm her.
"I guess I just gotta ask. If you think of them as friends... what are you gonna do if they keep coming after us?"
<Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
Shinjiro is quiet, as the three girls confront him. He lets them work through their own words, their own feelings, before he tries to defend himself. No, he doesn't actually try to defend himself, but instead...
"I did," he tells Ririka.
Hitomi takes a different tack, becoming oddly sweeter, and Shinjiro looks to her. He still doesn't quite answer what he had bought. He only said that part to avoid a gap in the topic, something that felt like he was hiding things, but...
"I've only ever seen Niko as a friend," he corrects. "And... I think there's something still good in her. Scarred, but good. But..."
He takes a breath. "I'm not a member of Strega. I'm a member of SEES. And she knows that. If we have to fight again... so be it."
He's struggling with something, though. What did he buy? He told Suzume, sure, but he's closer with Suzume. But he feels a bond fraying here. If he keeps this quiet, refuses to answer them...
He likes it here too much to do that to these people.
"There's a medicine I only know of a couple sources for. One of them is Strega."
<Pose Tracker> Ririka Kawase has posed.
Ririka's not doing great. And this information isn't really doing many favors for her mood. But she doesn't miss the way Hitomi's expression shifts, or the way her pronunciation is drawn out, and she recalls what Hitomi said in Eiji's Palace.
"... Mandai-san," she says softly. She doesn't want to out her secrets, but... she's still trying to show some concern.
Still, she can't fault Hitomi's reasoning. But she's got other reasons she's thiniking of to be angry.
Yukari mentions living on the street. "Well, yeah, I know, but-- Strega attacked Kasu. I know people who go there." Like her sister, whom she isn't naming. "And they're connected to the Joker Killer somehow. Who was also there that night."
Yukai says she figured Shinjiro didn't think they'd attack here. "I guess he gave them info on more people than just us..."
She's vascillating on being angry or not. It might come down to what Shiunjiro says next.
There is a bond fraying--Ririka would've had a hard time trusting Shinjiro completely, especially with the sensitive matter she'd discussed with him a few days prior.
But the mention of a medicine makes her pause. "... a medicine...?" It's half-statement, half-question. She normally wouldn't pry, but under these circumstances...
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
Hitomi's eyes cut towards Ririka. Her mouth, half veiled by her fingers, is smiling. But...
That strange gleam fades. Does it go away? Hard to tell, outdoors, but it is at least dimmer. She slouches a bit. There's a faint intake of breath through teeth that are set but not clenched. Urgh. Her lips purse for a moment; her hands go to fold in her lap.
She takes in a deep breath; and pushes it out of her mouth with a faint 'huu.'
"I don't really understand these guys at all," Hitomi says, "but I guess I've only really met them once, so it's hard for me to say. They seem like pricks, sorry, I don't think I should hold out. But..."
Her left hand comes in a momentary vague gesture... until the medicine comes up. Her head rocks a bit to the side.
"Are you alright, Aragaki-sempai?" There is maybe a ghost of that sugar-sweet lilt a moment ago, but only a ghost. It's not a rhetorical question, playful at most.
<Pose Tracker> Yukari Takeba has posed.
"... You must be looking pretty deep..." Yukari says with a hint of skepticism about Niko, "That girl definitely isn't normal." She wants to humanize her too, so badly- she even indicated as much to her.
But she laughed at the effort...
"Gotcha... Well, alright, I believe you." She says to him fighting for SEES. But, a medicine? That startles her subtly.
Now she's looking at him as if searching for 'what's wrong'? 'what's so wrong that you need to go to strega for medicine?' but mostly 'what's wrong?'
There's no potential answer to that question she likes.
"Right... I mean I don't think it's wrong to be upset. Just- you gotta look at things in a certain way too." She tells Ririka, responding to the idea Strega attacked Cuss and are involved with the Joker Killer.
"Sure but... did he know that when he traded them information?"
It may seem a little odd that Yukari's on his side here, given past arguments, but she's also someone who's weighing his responsibility in what just happened.
If he'd been a part of SEES? Sure, she'd be furious. But...
"There's not much to understand, really." She tells Hitomi, "They believe that having a Persona means... having the power to do whatever they want. Killing whoever they want. Human life just doesn't mean anything to them really."
If she has one thing to condemn Shinjiro for - it's hanging out with people like them, even when he's just trying to get by...
... but...
She's tabling that thought for now and just waiting to see if he answers either of them.
<Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
"I have no love for the Joker Killer," Shinjiro says bitterly. Ririka knows why.
But... they ask if he's alright. Yukari's also defending him, which does unsettle him just a bit. Does he deserve that?
"...I'm sick," he admits. He leaves it there for a long time. What does he say? What can he say?
But they'll probably keep fishing, so...
"...I don't have a lot of time. The medicine's the only thing that keeps me alive. I'm getting my supply from Kirijo now, but before I decided to rejoin SEES, Strega was my only supply."
He can't say the medicine is what originally doomed him. He wishes he could. But that's wrapped in so many things that he just can't explain right now without fraying further.
Preempting any questions, he does finally turn towards them. "Kirijo's doing her best to help me, but... it doesn't look good. In SEES, only Kirijo and, as of today, Fukura, are the ones who know."
He didn't even tell Akihiko.
"I... I didn't want to share it yet. I'm still scared."
<Pose Tracker> Ririka Kawase has posed.
Hitomi seems to shift, again, and Ririka's watching her now. She flashes her a concerned glance, eyebrows slightly raised. 'Are you okay?' is the silent question. She doesn't want to call too much attention to it, but she still wants to show some support.
Yukari calls Niko not normal, and Ririka wonders, again, about what she saw at arson of the art gallery.
She looks to Yukari and then looks away. "I don't know what to feel about this," she says, honestly. "... and maybe I need some time to process this."
Did he know that at the time? Yukari explains what they want, and how little they value human life. "He might not have known, but... just because he wasn't in SEES then doesn't mean he should automatically get a pass for supporting shitty people." She glances at Shinjiro. "... unless you didn't know what they were about?" She sounds skeptical on that front, though.
No love for the Joker Killer. "Well he seems pretty buddy buddy with Strega."
But... Shinjiro is sick. That seems to quiet Ririka for a moment as she processes that.
Not much time. "... shit. How long?" That might have finally defused her anger, for the moment. 'Caring' seems to have overtaken 'being mad.' Though she won't pry into what the medicine is.
Ririka looks down at her guitar, picking at a few of the strings again as she thinks. He's scared. "... yeah, that's... kind of heavy." She strums a chord after a moment--it's minor, with a dissonant sound--and looks up. "I'm still a little mad, but... if you need something let me know, okay?"
She kind of defaults to 'helping others' to take her mind off her own problems, though... 'helping someone with their limited time' might not be the best distraction from the anniversary of her brother's death.
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
"They should go to Sumaru, some time," Hitomi answers Yukari, which is a rather cryptic answer and might indeed have happened, but her thoughts behind that remark remain opaque. But it's Shinjiro who has the turn now. Hitomi gives Ririka a passing smile, but soon enough her eyes turn to rest on Shinjiro.
He's sick.
He doesn't have a lot of time.
Strega was his only supply.
Hitomi's eyes saccade for a moment.
She rocks forwards...
... and she feels like she's pummeling at what Shinjiro had just said. He said that and already she can see him laying there, still and cold, like those poor old people, like she'd imagined for Fuuka, like that nightmare when she had seen a half-dozen others laying arrayed in their own blood, just like a horror movie come to life. Hitomi's imagination is quite good. She saw all of it.
And she'd sort of groped somewhere else, a way to hide from it. A shield; a shelter. In the back of her mind, Hitomi does it again. It doesn't feel like a rush of adrenalous joy down the back of her spine, this time. Though something about it whirls through Hitomi's mind, more a feeling like pages ruffling than anything else...
... and rocks back upright, eyes lifting to Shinjiro.
Hitomi stands up. It takes a couple of seconds. Heavily favoring her left side, she's able to do it quickly enough that there is no stumble or reopened wound, just the faint hiss of pain in stitched skin before she gets upright.
Her left hand comes up to rest over her heart as she looks at him. "... I think I get it," she says, meeting his eyes (if he doesn't avoid her gaze) for a moment. There is a ghost of a smile... and then it exhales as she slouches a little, her left hand coming up to rest on the back of her neck as she looks down.
"... I won't pass it on," Hitomi says, more like usual.
<Pose Tracker> Yukari Takeba has posed.
"I mean who does?" She looks away, "Except for Niko, I guess..." Before she gives Ririka a- well she gets it, but at the same time, "Uhhh... I get what you're saying but, I don't think you understand the kind of place where he lived..."
After all, it was Junpei, Minato, Minako and her that went to the alley that night, when they first met him. "... it's a pretty rough place to even get by."
She's still wondering what's going on there. But Shinjiro outright says he's sick.
And Yukari looks at him, really looks at him for some time, at his physicality - the signs she didn't see before, and tries her best not to show any pity. He doesn't have a lot of time...
which means death
just like her dad
you can't
Yukari Takeba knows what it means to attach to someone so much that their death takes a part of you with it. It means... she needs to back away, now, before it's too late.
She can't get too close to him. Too close to this.
"... From Kirijo... and Strega?" For now, she focuses on that part, what kind of medicine could it possibly be? But more than that, all of her suspicions come back- about the Evokers out there.
About what Niko said about Kirijo.
What truly is the connection?
But, he says he's scared, and despite her best efforts, she can't avoid that one. The tough guy from the alleyway headbutting someone to save them...
... he's scared to share it. That comment kinda... forces her back here instantly, despite her best efforts to detach.
"So... what are you saying? That it's just a 'fact' now? That you just accept it's going to happen?" It's a rising crescendo of desperation and emotion, "That you're just going to die!? And you were planning on just hiding it until you were- were-! I-"
She places a hand against her face, then takes a deep breath, and forces herself to be a touch calmer, even if she can't, not completely... a few moments pass, before the words become, less heated, a little colder, "Word of advice? Get over yourself. Whatever you think is the worst you can happen? It doesn't even compare to how badly it'll shatter them if they go on living thinking there's something they could have done differently... about how much it's their fault!"
Is she projecting? Absolutely... but, it doesn't matter. She never go to say a single word to her father to find any kind of closure before he was gone.
There one day, gone the next.
And right now Shinjiro makes a convenient target, realizing he hasn't said anything to someone who cares about him.
"I'm going back down." She announces, before turning towards the staircase, and starting to walk, "I'm not going to attend a pity party for someone who can't even get their priorities straight."
It's harsh, even a little cruel... but she's mad now- and may be for a while. The moment she starts to care about SEES and who's a part of it, she's going to lose one of them.
Fate must really be laughing at her right now.
<Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
Shinjiro is too in his head to pay attention to what's going on with Hitomi. But as Ririka asks if he didn't know what they were about, his silence is damning - he knew a bit. People are complicated, right?
"A year at most," he says.
He doesn't really get a chance to reply to Ririka or Hitomi about what's going on. Yukari starts getting frustrated. Shinjiro is smart enough to realize that this is at least partly her own trauma speaking, but in the moment, it inflames his worst impulses, and he simply freezes.
"...I don't know what the fuck I'm doing," he says quietly. "I don't want it to happen, but..." Trailing off, he looks over as Yukari decides she's leaving.
She thinks he needs to tell the people who care. He doesn't know how to.
This is how it should be. People distancing themselves from him.
Shinjiro Aragaki doesn't deserve to infringe on the living.
"...sorry. We all came out here to get some fresh air," he decides on once Yukari has begun to leave. He rises, though he won't follow after Yukari until she's gone. He needs to get out of this dorm for a bit.
<Pose Tracker> Ririka Kawase has posed.
Hitomi's smile gets a fleeting one from Ririka, though all too soon her attention is also turned to Shinjiro.
But when she sees Hitomi struggling to get up, she sets her guitar aside and rushes up to her feet. "Mandai-san, here, let me help." It might still be an awkward production, but she can at least be a shoulder to lean on. "You good?" she asks softly, making sure she's steady before letting go.
Yukari says she doesn't understand the kind of place. "Yeah, I guess I never say it, but just... I just need time to sort out my feelings, okay?"
Shes not unsympathetic, but even so... emotions can be messy.
But it's Yukari's turn to get heated, and Ririka looks to her. "Hey, Takeba-san. Come on." Are they just going to trade off holding the angry ball? Let's hope not.
But she sighs as Yukari walks off. But... she kind of gets it, too.
But Shinjiro doesn't answer. Ririka frowns and takes her answer on that subject. It's hard, not to trace the lines, when you start thinking about how things--people, systems, societies-- ripple out.
She stoops down to pick up her guitar. "I won't tell anybody your business, but... there were things I never got to say to my brother before he died. Maybe think about how you want to spend that last year, and what people might want to say to you."
And with that, she'll head downstairs, too.