2026-01-28: Do It Anyway
- Log: Do It Anyway
- Cast: Umie Akabane, Kurou Ryouhara
- Where: Umie's Apartment, Shibuya, Tokyo
- OOC Date: January 28, 2026
- IC Date: September 17, 2012
- Summary: Kurou has been the perfect house guest for Umie: courteous, quiet, and like a ghost. But is that really what's good for Kurou? What exists in Kurou's mind, and could one of Umie's masks provide a canvas for him to show it on?
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
The nice part of September is the middle to end part, where temperatures begin dipping at night, while the daytime temperatures stay nice enough that a person can open a window and let that wonderful outside air in.
The sky outside is robin's egg blue, but you really can't see it from Umie's apartment window. Whoever's in the apartment across the alleyway may have blue hair, however, but you'd need to peek past the frosted glass of Umie's windows to see it. Convienently they can either be slid to one side, or propped open at the bottom.
There's also the factor of it being an alleyway, with is privy to a whole host of smells that are not always pleasant, but the cooling air of early fall dampens its influence.
The flat screen TV's on and set to a low volume, the dead pixel near the top right a prominent and faithful companion to whatever visual treat is being shown. Umie sits cross-legged at her craft table, which is literally a small coffee table covered in paint-splattered newspaper. The 'mobile' of drying masks is sparse, as Umie's fallen to a dreadful fate.
She's run out of ideas.
For right now, she's taken to making plain masks for now, layering glue coated strips of newspaper onto a plastic mold.
A talk show murmurs unhelpfully, offering respite from Umie's plight.
<Pose Tracker> Kurou Ryouhara has posed.
Used to a view of a brick wall, Kurou does not find himself too concerned with the inability to see the beautiful, robin blue sky. The frosted windows are better, he thinks. More... secure.
As a house guest, Kurou barely makes sound moving about the apartment (or entering, or exiting), and rarely when existing within in. He leaves early to get to school on time, but not before picking up after himself and folding up his bedding to make it seem he was never there at all. Even his small pack of toiletries goes missing during the day. When it is there, it's unscented soaps and flavorless toothpaste.
Grocery errands are sometimes run before returning home, keeping a stock of fruits, vegetables, and rice.
He does not get meat, unless it is fresh fish to cook that day. ("I only know how to cook fish," he would confess, if asked.)
And he makes tea every single day. As he does today.
It is a simple but precisely brewed sencha that he sets -- in his practiced silence -- at the end of the coffee table and out of the way of Umie's craft work for her if she so wishes. Or if she doesn't. It doesn't matter, he can always drink a second cup if it comes to that.
His own he holds in both hands, fingers laced around to soak in the warmth as he adopts the same cross-legged sit at the side of the table. Kurou takes small, infrequent sips while attentively observing Umie's work rather than the TV.
Seeing the plain masks and sparse mobile, his head slips into a tilt. He does not say anything, but it seems he's noticed this is amiss.
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
Compared to Kurou's apartment, Umie's would seem luxurious in comparison (at least to someone like Shiryuu). The surroundings, while small, are clean and modern enough. The hallway outside is maintained, the security appropriate (if easily bypassed with anyone with a bit of above-average knowledge and skill). Lights come on when switches are turned on, and there's no live wires to be shocked by.
The messiest thing can only be Umie herself, and with Kurou here, she's taken much more care in picking up after herself. The painting, done with 'the latest technology', has been given the most treatment, Umie not allowing anything to pile up underneath it like it was in a display.
Sometimes, though, Umie'll wonder if Kurou moved back out, or found a better arrangement that allowed for more privacy. As quiet and strangely lacking in wants and needs as he is, Umie's certain there's still a teenager underneath it all, who needs and deserves a measure of privacy and quiet.
As it stands, Kurou puts her previous teenage self to shame. She never had to really *buy* groceries back then, unless it was something she uniquely wanted and/or wanted to keep secret. She never brewed anything for her parents- at least, not by the time she was Kurou's age.
"Thank you," she says, softly, wiping glue on paint-splattered pants before turning slightly to take the cup and sipping it. "... It's very good."
It's more than Kurou *should* be doing. "Hey, you sure there's not anything I can grab for you? I have some shifts at the Triple 7 on Central Street; it won't be a big deal for me to pick up a few things for you. It'll be cheaper. With the back and forth you need to do between here and Sumaru City..."
It *is* nice, to have a presence here.
"... School go okay for you? Need any help with homework?"
<Pose Tracker> Kurou Ryouhara has posed.
In a perfect world, Kurou would see the homeliness and safety of Umie's apartment compared to his own and realize that he is underselling his own needs, and may want to think about bettering his life. Unfortunately, we do not live in a perfect world. We live in the world with a boy who sees the world in terms like 'Kurou's space' and 'Umie's space'
And Umie's space has light and color, soft TV ambiance, and smells like paint and glue that bring masks to life inside of it. If there is a little mess, it is because this place is somewhere someone lives, rather than exists in.
It's comfortable.
Kurou straightens up, eyes a little brighter as Umie compliments the tea. The next one he takes of his own is longer.
But then Umie starts making offers to help him, and Kurou blinks openly.
"That is unnecessary. I understand I am putting a burden upon you, and appreciate the generosity you're already affording me."
And furth missing the point and intention behind her extending her help:
"School's workload is manageable for now... I am able to complete it between classes and during the lunch hour. It will not get in the way of my current priorities."
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
The white of the walls and the wood of the floor help carry light further into the space. The yellow tiling of the small kitchen area echoes it further, with enough inset light to keep the small hallway from the front door to the living space from getting too dark.
At night, Umie's preference has been keeping a lamp or two on, leeting the dark creep in like a vignette around an old photo; she can't handle things being too well-lit.
A dark corner may be where someone can hide, after all, but it also means someplace where *you* can hide.
"I don't mind it at all," Umie says, with a slow smile, drawing her cup to her lips again. "Honestly, I've been more concerned about how it's affected you. I know Shiryuu-kun's got you doing..." her face creases slightly, until she realizes she shouldn't think too deeply on the specifics. ".... Ryouhara things, but that shouldn't mean you shouldn't have some time to yourself."
How does this family operate, even? Does Kurou have living parents?
She really shouldn't ask. Any teenager would hate to be poked at, but a Ryouhara, especially....
"That person, at the Konan detention center..." she starts, carefully. "Is that... a family member? You were getting cookies for them, when we first met."
Current priorities...
What about the priorities of being a teenager...?
Wait. Of course. She realizes he's been watching her assemble the paper over the masks. Perhaps... ".... I have some dried masks that have been gesso'ed."
In fact, there's some that have been painted white, giving a neutral base for paint to be applied over it.
"Want to try your hand at one? At painting a mask, I mean."
(Shiryuu will forgive her for being a terrible influence, she's sure.)
<Pose Tracker> Kurou Ryouhara has posed.
It's more lit than Kurou's, but not so bright he feels under scrutiny. Enough shadow to slide into, but enough light to act by more than blind routine in the evening hours. It's a fitting Umie space from what he knows of her, Kurou thinks.
He tries not to think about what his space means. He is sure he already knows.
Kurou's brow furrows, just slightly, as Umie expresses some concern at Ryouhara things. Even Shiryuu had brought up unease regarding it, in his own way. "I... have time." Perhaps that's the problem itself: a boy who spends too much time to himself. Kurou's gaze pulls down toward the surface of his tea. Then he pulls the warmth of the cup in closer, against his shoulder, at the edge of his collarbone.
His gaze remains unfocused for a moment, until Umie ventures a question.
"My mother," Kurou says. He does not elaborate. He does not frown in the same way he does not smile, but his eyes are duller for it. He does not even recognize there is more he could offer. It speaks for itself, doesn't it? She is there, and so cannot be here with him.
What about the priorities of being a teenager?
Kurou looks up again. "'Gesso'ed?'" He looks to the white painted surface, and recognition from context seems to dawn on him. He points to himself, eyes brightened up again.
"You would not mind? I have never done it before."
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
"Alright." She's being too nosy. It's easier with Ren, in some ways; she's gotten to know him enough to step away from her nosiness with little effort needed on his part. (Plus, she's been fooled into thinking he's a normal teenager with nothing she should be concerned about.)
Kurou has so many reasons for someone like Umie to feel concerned, like, oh, _the fact that his mother's in jail_.
The dullness in Kurou's gaze can mean so many things, and Umie doesn't have enough information to know where it can point to. (She sure as hell can overthink about it, though).
(Is he sad? Angry? Overwhelmed? Disassociating? Is it because she's in jail and he can't be with her, or because of something she did before or leading to jail? Surely, the cookies would mean he *does* feel some love for her in some amount, but what if it's to play the part of the dutiful son to someone who's hurt him in some way? Maybe it's a lack of love from her side of things, and him wanting to gain it. Or...)
"I'm sorry you have to go through that," she offers, instead, keeping her expression as casual as she can manage. "I know how to do that whole process now, so if you need to send anything again, and I'm on staff... I'll make it as painless as possible." She almost says 'discreet', but wouldn't that imply he has something to be ashamed of?
The topic of paint provides a worthy escape. "It's just a fancy name for thick white paint. Some of the paint colors don't cover as well as others, so doing that helps mask whatever's on the newspaper." She carefully stands up, unhooking a blank mask dangling from a bent paperclip, and bringing it down. "It helps seal it a little, too."
He's... pointing to himself, like she's just offered him a golden ticket. This kid....!
"Of course you can," Umie says as she plops down. "You don't have to worry about wearing it, either; I'll give it a use. Just be careful you don't set your paintbrush in the wrong cup; I've done that a lot."
There's acrylic paints in the usual default range of colors, from red to purple, plus white and black, and some additives, like metallic gold powder, and some tubes of paint that are labeled by pigment ingredients. There's a container of water, and brushes, as well as rags to wipe on. "Don't worry about mistakes. You can always paint over it."
<Pose Tracker> Kurou Ryouhara has posed.
It can mean so many things, and there is so little about Kurou that offers any assistance about what it does mean. He reluctantly pulls his tea from his shoulder to sip at it instead, letting the warmth go in inside of pressed on him without.
He is oblivious to Umie's overthinking, though perhaps not blissfully, the way he seems to be temporarily moved inward. Her apology has him looking up abruptly enough to be called startled by it.
"Oh. Thank you." He looks at the tea again. "There are many restrictions on gifts, so it's been difficult to keep them novel..." It would probably be a conflict of interest with Umie's place of work to disclose he often tampers with the gifts beforehand to send his mother illegal treats.
Even if what's considered illegal is as benign as pastries from a bakery or letters he would prefer no one else read through to judge as appropriate.
"... I wonder if she would like my tea," he says, staring back into his cup. "Or if... she would think it were pedestrian, compared to her own..." Kurou lets out a small breath which could almost be a sigh.
Umie provides a distraction that gets Kurou out of his own head, and his pupils are dilated in a puppy-like look at he listens to her explain it. He accepts the mask as if she'd handed him a thin sheet of ice that cannot be broken. Kurou brushes his thumb over the white surface.
"Gesso," he echoes, with new understanding. "I will be careful."
Careful, but... don't worry about mistakes.
Kurou hesitates on this point, of all points, brush in hand and poised over the paints as he scans his eye over each color and additive. With determination, he finally dips his brush into black and begins.
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
"Maybe the fact that it's from you..."
'Or if... she would think it were pedestrian, compared to her own...' Her eyelashes lower.
So this is what it's like, looking at a situation like this from the other side. Just, without the bitterness and quiet resentment Umie herself had boiling within her at Kurou's age.
No wonder he sees small things like praise like they were precious, rare things. Of course, she could be reading into it, but despite her trying to level her reaction back, the urge to lean into that bitterness wins out.
Would Kurou's mother recognize how much it means to her son to hear her acknowledge his effort? Probably not. He'd bleed for her, and she'd not care. Better that she's in prison. The darkness of those thoughts shock her briefly.
... Anyway.
"I assume Shiryuu-kun likes your tea." She shares a little smile with Kurou, like she was sharing a secret. "He has good taste in things. Just don't tell him I said it. Or, maybe, tell him when he's being down on himself."
She's gotten the notion that Shiryuu gets like that, despite his self-aggrandizing behavior. (She's definitely not like that, it's purely something she observes in others.)
The surface of the gesso is rough against Kurou's thumb, giving a perfect surface to grab onto paint.
The black goes on easily, covering the white quickly. "Certain colors overwhelm others, or influence them," Umie says, hanging her most recent mold to dry, and grabbing another mask to paint herself. "Black is one color. It can quickly cover just about anything."
The white surface disappears under Kurou's brush.
Sitting back down, she grabs a paintbrush, taking a bottle of paint to squirt onto a piece of wax paper on a plate. "The other is red. Whatever it's added to will quickly be overwhelmed, but it can be more transparent than black."
<Pose Tracker> Kurou Ryouhara has posed.
"From me..." Kurou echoes in his way, unaware of the bitterness Umie's own heart takes to explain the gaps he does not fill himself. . He runs his finger over the side of the tea cup, feeling the exact moment it starts to become warm. "She made tea often. Herbal, though. I wonder... if that is why I started..."
It's strange to think about it now. He doesn't remember why he began. But his mother's methods and practices were quite a different subject altogether.
But Shiryuu...! "I believe he enjoyed it," Kurou remarks, then brightens again after a delay. Did he only put that together just now, or he taking a moment to experience it twice...?? Either way, Umie shares an important secret, and Kurou closes his eyes solemnly. "... Thank you, I shall keep this secret close until it is best wielded."
It's not impossible Shiryuu may need it later.
But where Kurou is confident in making tea -- his mother's hypothetical opinions notwithstanding -- he is less confident in painting. One might not be able to tell, if not for that brief hesitation at the beginning, for all the focus he puts into the task now. Black eats the white in sketching strokes, and Kurou pauses to admire the way the paint takes, and the new, deep contrast between colors.
He sets black aside with great care to make sure it is the proper area, and then selects yellow as he continues on.
"... I see. Then... black might be ideal in the later stages? But... it is difficult to hold the idea still enough to paint it..."
Despite this, his eyes retain that shiny brightness as he focuses on the mask and all the colors in front of him as he switches between them. Black, and yellow, and, blue, and purple...
He stops, looking to the white paint. "... And white still must be painted white?"
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
Was that why Kurou started?
It causes Umie to pause. "... Probably," she admits, trying to reign in her own thoughts. "I think it's natural for a kid to get interested in what their parents are doing..."
She trails off, her hand still on her cup. Her eyes don't become dull in the same way; her fingers tighten around her cup and lift it in an automatic fashion, allowing her to sip with mechanical ease.
'I believe he enjoyed it.' "See?" A lopsided smile crooks on Umie's lips as the cup is set back down. "And now, you can add me to that group. But I'm pretty easy to please when I don't have to make something myself."
Kurou swears himself to silence, until it's needed. Umie dips her chin sharply in a nod. "Protect it well," she half-teases. "And use it as an efficient weapon to exterminate Shiryuu's grumpiness." She mimicks a cutting weapon with her right hand, the Mark on it smudged with white paint from being dragged across it. "You can also tell him that I said to use this if he's being a grumpyhead, and that I like him just fine the way he is."
Now, will Kurou know the best context to deploy these sharp words? .... eh, she'll let him decide, and hope she doesn't regret saying them.
He's still a NWO agent, after all. Is this really... good? It's not like, say, becoming allies with the Phantom Thieves, or SEES. She agrees with their reasonings, more or less, and understands them to have heroic intentions in mind.
... She just doesn't want to think about it. Please, let her have this, let her pretend for a little longer.
..... Let her color it red.
But first, she watches Kurou focus in on that mask with fascination, unaware of the smile on her face as Kurou seems to let go of that hesitation in his heart.
"Do it anyway," she tells Kurou, brown eyes alit. "See what happens. No one's here to tell you no. Least of all, me."
Her brush strokes red against the white. While it's still wet, she takes out a pencil and draws little crescents around the eyes, radiating out, exposing the white undercoat. These she begins building out, like they were the small feathers around a macaw's eyes.
"It may look more uniform if you do, but you don't have to."
<Pose Tracker> Kurou Ryouhara has posed.
"Natural..."
Kurou's brow knits again. He wonders, too, if anything about him is 'natural' anymore. It's impossible to shake the idea, since reuniting with his mother... that she must be disappointed, or will be, once she sees the full scope of him again. But those are his own darker thoughts speaking.
They have tea now, even if it is just his own. But even just his own seems to bring a smile to Umie's face. "Easy or difficult... It does not matter, as long as you are pleased."
Before he leaves, he will want to serve her the matcha. He does have to ration it, though.
Unfortunately, Kurou remains immune to teasing in the worst way, and it is with complete seriousness that he gives a sharp nod to her decree. "Understood." Kurou glances to the 'high tech' painting on the wall. "Such words are... quite powerful. I will not let your trust in me be misplaced."
... So he says, but does he know the right context? That is an adventure we will all embark on together now that Umie has handed Kurou a word grenade.
The adventure right now is painting. And Kurou paints.
Do it anyway.
It is simply too late to do otherwise, so Kurou nods again. See what happens. Painting is a task with its own rules, and yet today, he is given no wrong way of doing it. So he paints, black first, and then colors, and then indeed, he takes up the white for something uniform. His brow scrunches with increasing severity as he tries to bring his mind's eye to life.
He pauses with a deeper breath, setting the brush down to hold his wrist, rolling his hand, while surveying the damage he's done so far. Black lines try to give the illusion of cracks against a white surface, where a sparkling myriad of colors is exposed. It is, of course, a first try, so what those colors are meant to be, exactly, is currently lost, and the white background and black cracks suffer for being put together in the wrong order.
Kurou's eyes flick up to the metallic powder and his pupils get big again. No. That one should come last. Except. Except...!
... Do it anyway.
Kurou gently sprinkles a tiny pinch of glittery powder onto the colored section, then stops to simply admire it for a moment.
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
It would be easy to look at Kurou and say that this, despite his state being different from what Umie expects someone his age to be like, is Kurou Ryouhara, the same way she'd imagine someone would look at her right now and say she is Umie Akabane. Umie doesn't know the Kurou of before, and Kurou, likewise, doesn't know the brown haired high schooler who lived two lives, never letting the two touch.
The Umie present is likely more uniform in how she acts than that one, but not entirely. The way she acts with co-workers is still worlds different from someone like Maria Sakurai, a normal person who knows that the supernatural exists, which is different still from the people who have Personas like her.
Different masks, for each. Older, younger, normal, supernatural, enemy, ally. Someone she's grown attached to, someone who she feels thoughts from afar. Someone she feels responsible for, as the one who gave him that Mark.
"As long as you feel comfortable in your time here, as my guest? I'll take anything."
It's an adventure Umie wouldn't have otherwise had.
There's a certain awe in Umie's expression, watching Kurou paint.
_Do it anyway_.
It's like seeing a window into his mind, as he struggles to communicate something, while pushing forward. She could infer something in it, or let it sit by its own merit, not trying to read Kurou's self in it.
Kintsugi. It almost seems like... Kintsugi.
"You can do whatever you want with it, Ryouhara-kun. Wear it, or display it," she murmurs softly. "Or I can wear it. We won't let it go without a purpose." That seemed important to Kurou, when she showed him the newly painted kintsugi mask weeks ago.
<Pose Tracker> Kurou Ryouhara has posed.
"Then... I may try other leaves," Kurou says. "I still think kabusecha would suit you."
Enough to suggest as a code name?? Well, at least there's one thing Kurou seems interested in outside of Ryouhara business.
Who he was before... Kurou had spoken once of how out of reach it was. There was a boy who lived with his mother, once. Sometimes it feels a lifetime away, with holes punched through it that he doesn't even remember that he forgot. Now there is a boy who was alone, until he became a guest in Umie Akabane's house. A boy who does not not seem to know how a teenager ought to act, and does not smile, even when he is happy.
And he is quite drawn to kintsugi.
Umie sees Kurou's intrigue toward painting masks for the struggle it is.
"Thank you," he says, the words heavier than the moment ought to be as Umie assures the mask will have its place. "... Someone should wear it. If it can do anything to protect you, Akabane-san, then that is a worthy purpose."
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
Kabusecha. Umie recognizes the name.
This is a part of Kurou that exists, outside of the name Ryouhara, and outside of what has made him him, in that way she can't identify.
"I'd love some." Finishing her tea and setting it down, she adds, "Tell you what. If you feel you need to give me something, I'll take tea. Whichever kind you want to do, I'll take it." It'd be better than the cheap stuff she usually gets for herself, and likely better prepared.
It's likely no accident that kintsugi draws both Umie and Kurou, with its implications. Something that was broken being mended, and instead of that mend being brushed over, it's filled with something precious like gold, stating that its beauty lies not in the whole it was before, but in the mended state it is now.
Maybe, someday, Kurou will have a choice to smile or frown, or express himself, but only if he feels it is necessary, rather than it being forced.
Maybe, someday, Umie will see a right wrist that is not colored black, or hear whispers that worm their way into her heart when she's at her weakest.
Neither may happen, and the selves they have will be mended by gold.
Umie rubs the side of her hand against her face, unwittingly leaving a red smudge over her cheek, like a spot of eager rouge. "Of course. I'd be honored, Ryouhara-kun. Whenever I need to hide, your mask will be one that will help me do it."
She knows that it works, as a matter of fact, and doubly so, if she believes in it.