2026-02-03: Like Coating Medicine With Candy
- Log: Like Coating Medicine With Candy
- Cast: Tamaki Uchida, Maki Sonomura
- Where: Seaside Mall
- OOC Date: February 03, 2026
- IC Date: September 20, 2012
- Summary: Since one of Tamaki's courses is Criminal Psychology, she texts fellow university student Maki to meet together to study, ostensibly to keep each other on-task ... but the topic soon turns to some supernatural matters. After talking about the extent of compassion they should give their adversaries, their different ways of Resonance perception (or lack thereof), what happens to people who stay behind in a collapsed cognitive space, and other current affairs, Maki reminds Tamaki that they're really here to hit the books, the latter sheepishly agrees to actually resume their studies.
(|=============================== Seaside Mall ===============================|)
-================================================== Sumaru City/Konan Ward ====-
The Seaside Mall is well-named: it's directly across from Ebisu Beach, though
it's a short walk to the road that leads down to its sands. The view remains
magnificent, and outdoor tables dot the parking lot so one can take in the sea
breeze. For those sensitive to it, there is a door to the Velvet Room there. For
everyone else, there's a decent variety of stores.
Pirate-themed restaurant Jolly Roger is the place to go for drinks, desserts,
and curry; its melancholy owner, a blank-eyed man who was once a sailor, loves
to hear and share rumors. The interior brings to mind a wooden galleon ship with
a massive ship's wheel behind the counter, rope rigging overhead, and a Jolly
Roger flag draped on one wall between various paintings and a world map.
For those anxious about the future, there are two options. One is Hiiragi
Psychotherapy, where Dr. Reiko and her protégée Maki offer counseling amidst a
fairy tale forest aesthetic, complete with decorative pastel carousels; her kind
eyes and smile encourage one to get everything off one's mind and heal heart and
soul in the process. The other is the Sumaru Genie, where a dark-skinned woman
of the same name utilizes an Egyptian aesthetic to lend herself and her
fortune-telling a sense of authentic mystique. Her fortunes were garbage until
she recently switched to Wang Long style fortune-telling, though.
And, of course, it's not Sumaru City without a local Satomi Tadashi Pharmacy
branch. This one looks the same as all the others: aisles and walls laden with
medicine of all kinds, overseen from the back counter where magazines are
available by one of seven identical sisters. Satomi Sister #2 runs this one; an
acoustic guitar version of the store's theme plays here. "o/` o/` o/` ..."
<Pose Tracker> Tamaki Uchida has posed.
Several weeks have passed since the school semester has resumed. After some introductory lectures, many teachers may have now given their students their first assignments for the semester -- and if not, it's still a good idea to be proactive when it comes to reading the course's material.
Earlier, Tamaki shot over a series of texts to Maki asking if she'd like to study together:
>> hey! i should have some time after a therapy sesh >> if you're free, do you wanna study together? too many distractions at home and work >> not that we're taking the same classes, but we can hang out and keep each other on task (mostly) (maybe we can talk a LITTLE)
Now, after Tamaki's aforementioned session at Hiiragi Psychotherapy, Tamaki stands in the lobby, peering about for where Maki may be seated, either to start their study session or, if Maki had turned down the offer, to at least just check in and say 'hi'. If she remembers right, she was around ... thataway ...
<Pose Tracker> Maki Sonomura has posed.
As it happened, Maki said yes! Maki has a lot to keep up with in her classes, too, and while she wasn't 'on' at her job at Hiiragi today, hanging out there is hardly unusual for her. So she decided to come over and help with some paperwork around the time Tamaki would be in-session, so that she could already be here when she got out. And in point of fact, the messages were like...
>> sure! i'll be there!
You can tell Maki's cheerful because she uses exclamation points. And indeed, Maki is just--over--there.
"Hi!" Maki greets Tamaki when she walks by, seated at a desk. "How's it going?"
<Pose Tracker> Tamaki Uchida has posed.
"Better than the last few times we saw each other!" Tamaki's response is bright and jovial, and she flashes a grin at Maki afterwards. "How's it going with you?"
While she has some supernatural topics that she would like to speak about with Maki, she can't entirely put aside her classwork. "I've got some honestly interesting material to read on crime prevention. At least in academia, things look like they're going more in the direction of inclusive social policies and support networks than punitive measures."
If only those could be adopted more widely, then maybe things wouldn't have gotten as bad as they had in the first place.
The ideas have also been around for decades. Tamaki's hopeful, but isn't exactly holding her breath.
Tamaki rubs the back of her neck. "I wonder if our studies do overlap in this Criminal Psychology course I'm taking, too."
She glances around the office as if to gauge its suitability as a study location, then gestures at the desk. "Do you think here's good, or should we find another place?"
<Pose Tracker> Maki Sonomura has posed.
"That's good!" Maki smiles. "I'm okay." It has that note of 'there's stuff going on, but I'm fine' to it. The interesting material is interesting to Maki too, though. She listens. "Hmm. I hope that translates to criminal law too," she starts, "But I have a feelinng..." T hat might be a while.
Still, "They might! Psychology is the name of my game."
But it is suitable... Not as suitable as, "There's an empty room back here--it's a workroom that isn't being used today. Let's head back, there's a table and such."
Maki leads the way!
It's a therapy room, of course, which means there are posters on the walls and the same lively decor as the rest of the place.
It's a peaceful sort of room.
<Pose Tracker> Tamaki Uchida has posed.
Tamaki nods at Maki's nonspecific response. They're in the same boat there. "Eventually, someday."
Psychology is Maki's game. Tamaki flashes her a thumbs-up and grins. "Yeah! Maybe we can help each other out there."
Her smile widens after Maki points out the unused workroom. "Fine by me."
Tamaki takes a seat at the table and places her bag on it to retrieve a textbook, pen, and notepad. Within moments, she's settled into the quiet nature of the room, with its decor and atmosphere contributing nicely to her ability to concentrate.
After a bit, she pipes up. "Hey, uh ... do you think what you're studying has any applications for Persona stuff? I know Jung's writings influenced a lot of our terminology for it, but uh ... I mean past Jung."
<Pose Tracker> Maki Sonomura has posed.
"Yes." She might get into it i a few; but for now...
Maki also proceeds to grab out some textbooks, a pen, and a notepad. It should be easy to concentrate in here, and Maki starts reviewing some notes she made. But when Tamaki speaks up...
"Yes," Maki answers, without hesitation. "...Not directly," she hedges a moment later. "It's nnot like I can learn 'Dia' by picking up another module in Psych classes. But I think anything that helps you understand yourself and others is going to make you better at wielding your Persona. Especially, but not only, with navigation abilities."
"Persona... is the power of the self, of the heart. The better you know yourself, the stronger your Persona."
<Pose Tracker> Tamaki Uchida has posed.
Tamaki tilts her head and taps her cheek with her pen. "Yeah, yeah, I'm not talking about that aspect of it ..." She knits her brow while she tries to search for the words.
Eventually, the words come. "I mean when it comes to preventing or ending certain situations that crop up. Heck, I'd even take just understanding what gave rise to them."
She exhales out a sigh. "I'm alright with fighting monsters like Demons and Shadows, but I don't want to end up fighting people. I don't want to file them all under the same 'adversary' category."
With a somewhat guilty glance away from Maki, Tamaki mutters as she admits, "I've been pretty closed off for years. Tried to recuse myself as much as I could from all that, even tried to hide evidence that it existed, but ..."
"That's a lonely road, so I don't understand others as well, and I'm beginning to think I know myself less than I had thought."
<Pose Tracker> Maki Sonomura has posed.
Oh, not that type. But...
"Oh," Maki says, and shakes her head. "...No."
"What I've learned is... sometimes, even when you understand someone, you can't prevent coming into conflict."
"I thought about that a lot, myself."
"Nobody really knows themself completely," Maki says then. "Not unless you're some kind of... I dunno, a bodhisattva or something. But I've talked to Igor a lot about it. Sometimes I just go to the Velvet Room to listen, and see what I can hear in the songs there."
A look back to Tamaki. "But I think you're right not to want to file them away. We can't prevent a fight, but if you keep reaching out..."
"Maybe you can end one without having to hurt someone."
"That's what they did for me. It's part of why i want to study psychology in the first place."
<Pose Tracker> Tamaki Uchida has posed.
Tamaki's gaze is distant and pensive. Conflict is likely inevitable. "You and me both, Sonomura-chan. You and me both."
'Nobody really knows themself completely' gets a self-deprecating chuckle out of Tamaki. "That's a relief, though it feels like I flipped over from experiencing the Dunning-Kruger effect to imposter syndrome."
Mention of the Velvet Room and the songs that its attendants play within it causes Tamaki to bite her lower lip and lean forward, supporting her forehead with a hand. Maki's unknowingly struck a wellspring of emotion within Tamaki, but she can't fault her for that.
She's quiet for a few moments as she tries to maintain her composure, then sniffles somewhat loudly. Despite it all, or perhaps in spite of it, Tamaki tries to smile at Maki. "Yeah, uh -- it hurts to listen. I have a lot of good memories of that place -- good at the time, but painful in retrospect."
Reiko Akanezawa was a member of the Music Club. Her singing voice, the music-related conversations the two of them had ... Tamaki's smile turns humorless. "Heh. Why does it have to be a music lounge?"
"We -- er, she did that once before. I was just kind of ... there. I know it's possible because of her." She briefly glances down at her notebook, then frowns. "Think it's even possible to do that for someone like the Joker Killer, though?"
"... what do you think happens to people who just stay in a cognitively-formed space like that? What happens to them when it collapses?"
<Pose Tracker> Maki Sonomura has posed.
"Heh," Maki answers. "Even I don't, really. And I had kind of a head start. I got to meet 'me' more than onnce."
But the Velvet Room... Maki picks up on that emotion all right. She waits, quietly, for Tamaki to compose herself, or not. But at that smile, Maki offers a genntle one in return. "...That makes sense," she says. "Sometimes, being 'real'... hurts a lot."
But why? "...Because a 'smell lounge' would be the other good way to get people to introspect, and that'd be kind of weird?" Maybe the humor will help. Maybe not.
"I think it would be possible... if he wanted it to be," Maki says. "But I don't know that he does. There's too much I still don't know about the Joker Killer to say anything like that."
But, "...Mm."
"I've been in pretty 'deep' spaces, cognitively," Maki says. "I don't think I've been as far as there is to go. I think..."
"Where dreams are," she settles on. "That's where they go. Somewhere in there."
<Pose Tracker> Tamaki Uchida has posed.
Maki got to meet 'herself' more than once -- Tamaki stares wide-eyed off into the distance of some poster on the far wall. "Like I said, you and me both."
The joke honestly helps to defuse the atmosphere and cause Tamaki to crack up a little. "Snrrrrk. Okay, fair. Hahahahaaaa, when you put it that way, just about every other sense-based alternative seems worse."
Tamaki perks her head up curiously towards Maki. "He has to want it, too, you're saying?" She lowers her gaze to her desk and narrows her eyes as she chews on the thought for a moment, then nods firmly. "Yeah, that lines up with what else I've seen. Just because we reach out doesn't mean it always works. It might come to pass that you've just got to cut your losses."
Where dreams are.
That sounds better than 'nowhere.' That sounds better than obliteration. Quietly, Tamaki offers Maki a heartfelt, "... Thanks."
More sheepishly, with a furtive glance to each side before she settles on Maki again, she continues to ask, "How, er -- how do you get better at 'navigation'? Are there exercises or anything? I, er, finally started talking to Nameless again, but I figure I might get a more direct answer from you."
<Pose Tracker> Maki Sonomura has posed.
oth of them... Well, at least the joke lands. Maki laughs too, caught up in Tamaki's reaction. "Right?" she asks.
But thenn, "Yes, that's just it. We can't forget that our enemies are still their own people--that they work just like we do." It linnes up for Tamaki, it seems; Maki's eyes stay on Tamaki now, her notes left on the table. "Right. And at a point... Sometimes that's all you can do."
She shakes her head. "I wish it weren't like that, though. That we could just... understand each other."
She considers it a tragedy still, that they couldn't save Kandori, too.
But, "Hm? Oh, well..."
"I meditate," she offers. "I can give you some prompts to think about. But it's really just practice; you have to learn how to separate the noise from the data. ...To separate out what you 'think' about something from what it 'is'."
"He'd probably say something about how many people think instead of the map when they're talking about the territory... or something. Fifty-two people have come here... Something like that."
<Pose Tracker> Tamaki Uchida has posed.
Tamaki and Reiko got lucky that Hazama was so easily dissuaded, in the end. It could have been worse. As painful as the loss of both of them is, it could have been much, much worse.
... fast-forward to today, and now there are several things going on at once. She doesn't like the apparent odds of none of those going awry.
Tamaki hangs her head forward slightly. "As do I."
Maki offers meditation and the advice to practice, to separate signal from noise. Tamaki furrows her brow. "I mean, I'm getting good at that in a different sense; I took a course on logic and set theory, but that involves more active thought than intuitive perception." With a snicker, she adds, "Feels like I'm better at generating noise than separating it, too."
Tamaki gives Maki a flat stare at her apt description of Nameless. "That sure sounds like him. Guy loves his numbers." She almost doesn't give it any further thought, but then remembers something. "So like ... see past the phenomenon, try to see the noumenon?"
<Pose Tracker> Maki Sonomura has posed.
They can agree on wishes; maybe they can agree on solutions, too.
"That's the difficulty," Maki agrees. "It's sort of... like having to achieve no-mind. It's completely distinct from active thought. For me, at least. I'm sure others can see it differently; my expereinncnes led me to this path." A soft laugh, then. "Generating noise is usually more fun, too. Sitting around is hard."
But that is like him. And then--
"...Yeah, actually," Maki says. "I've studied a little philosophy, too." So she knnows the term. "But it's just like that. Our ideas of what something is can interfere with our ability to really understand it."
<Pose Tracker> Tamaki Uchida has posed.
Try to instead see the noumenon, even though the phenomenon is what exists once filtered through the senses. As Tamaki tries to process this paradoxical thought, her eyes start to cross and she starts to become dizzy.
She rubs her eyes with both hands as she tries to snap herself out of it. "Yeahhh, I might need to figure out my own route. Oof." She shakes her head, then laughs and leans back in her seat. "You're something else. I don't know how you do it!"
'The idea of what something is can interfere with our ability to understand it.' Tamaki squints as she tries to understand. "... Like how almost everyone inside that Palace seemed faceless?"
Agitatedly, Tamaki taps her pen on her notepad a few times. "There's a lot going on still ... there's a Seven Sisters student who's gone missing. A friend texted me about it, but uhh ... I don't think I'd want to go in alone."
"Anything like that going on in your neck of the woods?"
<Pose Tracker> Maki Sonomura has posed.
That's because Maki doesn't use her conventional senses for Navigating, though sometimes she can supplemennt innformation or explain in terms of her senses. ...But that is pretty head-trippy.
"Sorry," Maki says, that she cann't be more helpful. "Heh. Well, when your experiences are like mine... You learn to think a little differently about things, so you can survive."
She smiles though. And then--"Right!" Maki says, "Good example. Because he didn't care what the people around him were really like, his ideas of them didn't even have faces. It showed us his perspective. People were just interchangeable to him... and that was a weakness that helped us get through." She frowns. "Well, almost. It was still really rough..."
But a lot going on? Maki is thoughtful there. "If there's a missing student, I'd like to help. Annd honestly, not much supernatural has been going on for me. Igor tells me there's something out there that needs me... but he won't tell me what."
"Maybe it's this. Besides, my social calendar just freed up a lot."
<Pose Tracker> Tamaki Uchida has posed.
Tamaki chuckles. "It's okay."
'You learn to think a little differently about things so you can survive.' Tamaki narrows her eyes at that. At first she sounds uncertain, but then finds her confidence midsentence. "Sssure ... I think you and I differ in our respective ways of doing that."
"Sometimes I feel like mundane life weighs me down so I can't see as well as you can, and it's like I'm working with blinders on." She tilts her head and closes her eyes. "But other times, when everything else feels overwhelming, when I start to feel small and insignificant, it feels less like being 'weighed down' and more like being 'anchored'."
Tamaki shrugs. "Probably not a good idea to stay tuned out like that permanently, but a reprieve via sensory deprivation can help here or there."
Igor's got something in mind for Maki? Tamaki raises an eyebrow at that. "Curious. Wonder what he's on about with that ... I've been wondering if some SEBEC scientists with knowledge of the DEVA system got paperclipped onto some later projects going on today."
Tamaki nods. "And if it isn't, well, I'm sure she's not going to complain about getting help. We should rustle up the others and see what we can do."
<Pose Tracker> Maki Sonomura has posed.
"Everybody does, I think." Differ there. And Maki's experiences are different from anyone's that she knows.
"Anchored is a better way to think of it," Maki agrees. "...I try not to think about what I'd trade, or how I'd want things to be different. I'm content where I am. That has to be enough."
A reprieve... Hmm. "I guess that's true. Kind of like when you want to go in a dark room for a while."
"I wonder, too, but he just says that I have to find my own destiny. I guess it shows he does't think thigns are over for me...?"
DEVA. Maki frowns. "If that's the case," she says, "Then I definitely want to know."
"OK! Then, I'm in. Hopefully it goes better than last time... But even if it doesn't, it's important that we try."
<Pose Tracker> Tamaki Uchida has posed.
Tamaki had someone who'd know her own experiences, but she's been gone.
'That has to be enough.' Tamaki sighs, then smiles. "Yeah, that rings familiar."
A dark room. To Tamaki, it brings to mind a cathedral of shadows sunken underneath the waves, no sensation but the sound of one Debussy's compositions playing in her ears. (BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJILQWePbt4 Debussy - La cathédrale engloutie)
For the first time in a while, the memory of that performance brings comfort rather than tears.
She clarifies, "Kind of. In my case, it's more like filling things up with noise so I don't fixate on something. Like coating medicine with candy."
Tamaki bites the inside of her cheek when Maki says she wants to know. "Fair warning, knowledge of it might get some dangerous people breathing down your neck."
She breathes in deeply, then exhales for just as long. "Yeah. We'll give it our best shot. Thanks."
<Pose Tracker> Maki Sonomura has posed.
For Maki, it's more mundane; she still gets overstimulated sometimes, especially with the supernantural inputs she gets sinnce the SEBEC incident. Those aren't all the time, but...
"Ohhh, OK," Maki says. "I see. That makes sense."
But, "That's fine," Maki says of getting dangerous people involved. "That's already true when someone mannages to get past the secrecy about SEBEC. I'm on borrowed time on that front in any case."
"Cool," Maki says.
"...Well, that didn't get a lot of studying done," she says with a wry smile. "Want to try again, or just accept that we've got other stuff on our mind today after all?"
<Pose Tracker> Tamaki Uchida has posed.
Tamaki nods. "It's different for everyone, like we've said, right?"
"Ah." Her utterance is sharp. She hadn't expected that but now feels that she should have. "In for a penny, in for a pound. Had I known that seal was already broken, I would have mentioned it sooner ..."
Tamaki breaks down into exasperated laughter at herself. "Yeah, uh. My bad there, we can try again." She solemnly places her hand over her chest. "I've got it out of my system for now, I swear. Thanks."