2026-02-07: Mandatory Game!?
- Log: Mandatory Game!?
- Cast: Hitomi Mandai, Aigis
- Where: Iwatodai Dormitory
- OOC Date: February 07, 2026
- IC Date: September 22, 2012
- Summary: Aigis pays a visit to Hitomi's dormitory out of concern to check up on her after the Strega raid. They talk about their own particular sets of intrinsic traits, then admit to more parts of their respective pasts.
- Content Warning: Discussion of mental illness.
(|======================================== +port ## or <name> to teleport ====|)
(|============================ 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> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
Hitomi's dorm room door is fine.
Nothing happened to it.
She had thrown it open a while ago, carrying something heavy with hysterical strength, but that didn't really damage the door. Whatever horrors the Strega invaders visited, they didn't manage to get down here. That said, Hitomi is relatively cozily set on the second floor, and many of them seemed to come from a roofward direction.
When a knock and a greeting come, there's a "huh?" followed by a "hold on" followed by some footsteps. Something is moved out of the way. The lock on the door is audibly acutated; she *had* locked it. The door swings open, revealing Hitomi in a T-shirt and sweat pants, her hair loose and messy.
"Oh, hey," she says. The door is opened further. "Cm'in."
Inside is something of a mess. Not a huge mess, mostly disorganized: stacked stuff here and there, a couple of pieces of rumpled clothing on the floor. Several large hairbrushes, tangled up with stray strands of all that wavy black hair.
"I don't really have a lot but uh... do you wanna sit down?" Hitomi pivots the desk chair around. There's a computer tower on the desk but no monitor, even now. Everything else is there, keyboard and mouse and several notebooks. (There's also a cup of pens and pencils, currently on its side, not yet righted.)
<Pose Tracker> Aigis has posed.
Aigis seems to have been unperturbed from the attack, at least by any surface indicator. Fuuka had repaired the physical damage she had sustained in short order and she had returned to normal operating capacity. If she was shaken up from the incident, she doesn't show it.
She is, admittedly, still rattled -- but she's good at hiding it, and has even tried to speak to a few of the other members of SEES to reassure them in the aftermath. Morale is a necessary strategic asset to maintain, she thinks.
Aigis' visit to Hitomi's dorm is for this very purpose. Wearing a light-blue dress with an array of white ribbons, she stands outside her door and knocks lightly. "Mandai-san?"
The door swings open. For a moment, Aigis wonders if she's overdressed.
In reply to being asked if she wants to sit down, Aigis answers, "Sure." Her head slowly pans from one side of the room to the other as she takes in the details. "How are you doing? After the series of recent events, I mean."
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
Hitomi was less lucky. Hitomi doesn't seem greatly uneased by it, not in her room, but there are still bandages on her right arm, and on the tip of her left middle finger. She pivots the chair around for Aigis.
"Thanks for dropping by," Hitomi says. Once Aigis is inside, she closes the door. She also locks it, though, the lock is a simple latch.
Other key items in Hitomi's room:
* A few long but not broad or wide cardboard boxes. One is open, containing cards from a known commercially-successful Collectible Card Game. One of them has a 'Club Property' sticker.
* A shelf with a number of books. Mostly school related along with a couple of beat-up looking paperback copies of Buddhist scriptures, along with some miscellaneous ones... game things, mostly. Several Blade World books.
* The discernible absence of a 19 inch color monitor. (was it 19 inches? It was probably something she saved from getting tossed.)
Hitomi sits on the bed.
She doesn't answer right away.
Her head turns down. Seconds pass.
"... pretty bad," she says. "At this point it's just... itches I can't scratch, mostly." She looks back up: "How are you?"
<Pose Tracker> Aigis has posed.
"Of course." Her reply is calm, in the tone taken when exchanging pleasantries as if absolutely nothing is wrong, regardless of the underlying reality.
Aigis lets her gaze linger on the bookshelf for longer than the other things in Hitomi's room. She's taken to reading frequently as a means to improve her comprehension skills. As far as she can discern, she has reason to be interested in everything on the shelf.
She pauses again at the void where the monitor had used to be. "Are you in need of a replacement screen?"
Aigis is silent and eerily motionless for several moments after Hitomi responds. After she considers her own answer, she lowers her own head and directs her eyes to the side. "... I think I understand your meaning. I would like to pursue some kind of plan to prevent this from happening again in the future, but given that we had failed to predict what had occurred in the first place, it is difficult to identify the proper course of action."
She raises her head and looks directly at Hitomi again. "I am supposed to protect you all. It is painful to dwell on the worth of a tool unfit for its very purpose, but simply blaming my own construction does not seem to address those feelings."
"... please refrain from repeating this sentiment of mine to others. I feel as if I could have done more to protect you in particular. I feel that you deserve to know, and I would like to apologize for any insufficiency on my part."
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
Are you in need of a replacement screen?
Hitomi blinks.
"... I guess," she says, scratching the back of her neck with her left hand. She looks at Aigis then. She is quiet for several moments. Her face has that beleaguered and flabby-slack expression on it, that look that varies from 'i'm present and awake' to 'i'm slightly happy' to 'i'm slightly bullied.'
It fades for a moment.
Hitomi's hands come down. They wrap together. She looks at the floor for a moment. Then back up.
"I've been telling people this and I want to tell you too," Hitomi says. "You... I don't know what the company told you, it sounds like you're not exactly full of all their databases or whatever..."
"... I'm crazy," Hitomi says. She gestures at her head. "I don't judge risks well. Or, like, I do, but I like them, I wanna go towards them. It's a *disease*, like, the rest of me, right now, this is... normal, but sometimes, like..."
"When it happened I was really scared and I was so scared I had to kinda turn to that because otherwise I would've just hidden here until they came and killed me," Hitomi says, her eyes turning downwards. "So... so I did something... STUPID... which worked a LITTLE... for a MINUTE."
Hitomi sniffs, in a way that suggests tears are much nearer than they quite look.
"... You saved my life so I should be apologizing to you for keeping you busy," Hitomi continues, voice thicker. "And for getting you hurt. I... I dunno if you worry about it but... ugh. I don't know what I should've done. Sometimes in my head, like... I remember it, you know? But I feel like..."
"It's pointless, right? If I had whipped out one of the knives I'd probably have gotten killed. I was totally out of my shit. I didn't even think of calling my Persona until I saw you do it, and, I guess I was lucky, heh, I don't use the Evokers like everyone else."
"So... I'm sitting here itching. And... I guess my fingernail's going to grow back weird. But I'm gonna *be* here, not... you know, in Hell or something. So thank you," she finishes.
<Pose Tracker> Aigis has posed.
Aigis dips her head. "Then I will bear this in mind and notify you if I find a suitable monitor."
She is quiet as she listens to Hitomi speak about her own circumstances -- her brain issues. With a shake of her head, she replies, "I had not been informed of this, no. The Kirijo Group has not provided me with any privileged information regarding any of you."
That isn't to say that she doesn't have any -- just that she found out through other means.
Aigis mentally compares Hitomi's description of her risk assessment to her own. Every decision Aigis takes, especially in combat, has been the result of some algorithm or another, each action along the branching paths assigned coefficients and weights to tally up a final score in order to determine the most preferable course to follow. The numbers are visible to her, plain as day.
By definition, human brains don't get that same degree of clarity when it comes to risk calculation, even ones which do not share Hitomi's particular trait. Even on a good day, let alone during a life-threatening situation.
What it sounds like is that Hitomi's 'algorithm' assigns greater preferential value to paths with lower likelihood of success.
Her own voice is as steady as ever, absent of the fluctuations that come with emotion. "I believe I understand, if only to a limited extent ..." she trails off. "If the alternative was that you would have remained hidden until they had found and killed you, then I am glad you did the 'stupid' thing."
Aigis shakes her head. "I only truly worry about my core being damaged, if that eases your conscience any. Everything else can be repaired. There is no need to apologize for 'keeping me busy,' either -- if I take some course of action, rest assured I did so with full knowledge of the resources I had available and what I should spend them on."
Some final thoughts cross her mind after Hitomi thanks her. Could she have been more aggressive in chasing that hooded man out? Would it have been worth injuring him more greatly to spare Hitomi her fingernail? Could she have fully entrusted Minato's safety to Yukari and focused entirely on defending Hitomi?
These are not thoughts she expresses aloud -- not entirely. "... again, I believe I know what you mean about the 'itching.' And you are welcome."
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
Where will Aigis procure such a thing? Surely Hitomi would prefer a flat panel; they're the new hotness, and all around better in every way. She has no GamesBox to play Jack Bros Melee on, so there is no reason to prefer a CRT, except for its possible anti-Strega applications. Could this be a need for a Shady Commodity?
Questions for another day.
"Mm," Hitomi says, about the risk. She smiles, a little. "Maybe. Or maybe you'd have laid down the law without me to focus on. That's... that's kinda what the part of me that screams about it says, sometimes. You don't know what'll happen... and that's beautiful."
Another deep breath.
"... is the core your head? I just... like, if it comes up. If it's personal, it's not... It's not a big deal," Hitomi trails off, looking back to the floor. She rubs her left finger, near but not at the fingertip.
"... haha, this is so lame of me," Hitomi says, but despite this, she seems to brighten a little. "I wanna ask you just... a bunch of stuff, I guess, but I feel like you probably already get all of it." Hitomi does straighten up, though, rocking back, hands going to rest on her knees.
"Can I ask you something, though? I mean, like, other than the thing I just asked you, hah."
<Pose Tracker> Aigis has posed.
Uncertainty is 'beautiful', according to Hitomi. While that may be a valid perspective, it isn't one that Aigis currently shares. All too often lately, she has found herself further and further ensnared by decision paralysis in the face of an array of choices which all seem to bring her closer to her aims.
However, it also isn't one she entirely rejects. She stares at Hitomi with a new measure of intense curiosity. "I think I understand your fascination with games which have an element of chance, then. I could stand to gain some experience with this approach."
Aigis shakes her head, then holds a hand to her chest. "It is located within here, approximately where a human heart would be if their anatomy were purely symmetrical. While my head does perform several necessary functions, it is not ... vital."
She settles further back into her chair and places her hands in her lap. "Ask away," she encourages. "Anything else you would like to. I have nowhere else to be at the moment."
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
Aigis tells Hitomi where her 'heart' is. Hitomi glances down at the indicated point for a moment, but only for a moment, because it is rude to stare at people, even if, Hitomi supposes, she and Aigis are...
Bound now? It feels right to Hitomi to think of it like that. Her eyes swing back upwards. "I'm a little jealous," Hitomi says, reaching up to scratch the stuck-on gauze over a spot on her temple. Aigis can match this to the injuries pretty well -- indeed, if Aigis mocked up a hypothetical PHANTOM HITOMI, noted where she saw blood, and compared to the bandages, it's an over ninety-five percent match!
"They're taking care to make it as small as they can, but I'll have a scar here... it actually really sucks because they had to put in staples. I mean, do you have any idea what that even feels like...?"
But then she's given the prospect of a question. Hitomi's hands come up, fingertips pressed together and palms not quite touching. Her full lips purse. She can ask anything else, but it feels, somehow, like she ought to ask the important thing first.
But what is the important thing?
Hitomi considers some of the options wordlessly, inside of her mind.
What does it feel like when you get hurt? -- Kind of gross, difficult to analogize. Nah.
What do you want to do after the Dark Hour's handled? -- It feels somehow cruel to Hitomi.
Do you have to poop? -- A good question, but not appropriate for a conversation between girls, even if one of those girls is a robot, Hitomi judges.
"... Are you close to Arisato-kun? The boy, I mean. Like," her pinky finger lifts up, "no judgment. I just had a feeling. Which is part of why I was so thankful because sheesh that guy had an actual no-shit gun!"
<Pose Tracker> Aigis has posed.
Meanwhile, several parts of Aigis have already been entirely replaced; her chassis sports a shiny-new torso and left limbs. In contrast, she's a veritable ship of Theseus -- one with more discrete parts than the process of cell division allows for.
Jealous? Well, yes, Aigis feels some sense of responsibility for not having re-awoken sooner, for the Kirijo Group to have asked SEES to bear the weight of their sins rather than herself, someone designed to do it. With a tentative tone in her voice, she replies, "... I can imagine some equivalent, but I do not think I can truly know how that must feel."
As she waits for the series of questions, she expectantly stares at Hitomi. Aigis does have answers to all of those questions, as it turns out -- but those answers will only come should Hitomi actually ask.
"Do not misunderstand," Aigis answers as she gestures with a hand. "I wish to monitor and ensure the safety of both him and his sister, and we have gotten to personally know each other more since my reactivation. Still, my proximity to him is primarily driven by my responsibilities, my mission -- not sentiment."
She glances towards the now-locked door. "Takeba-san once informed me that some of my actions may have seemed to others to be some statement of romantic intent. This is not accurate, if that is what you are asking."
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
Hitomi brings her left hand up, touching her chin with a fingertip at the question. Her lips purse, and her eyebrows lift, but she listens. "She's a brat, but she's pretty perceptive," Hitomi muses, about Yukari. "I'd had similar thoughts."
Her eyes move now, to meet Aigis's.
Her lips quirk up. "I believe you," Hitomi says, though her tone has a certain slyness to it, a heavy dollop of 'mm hhhhhhhhhhhm' that remains unvoiced. "Still. It's good you're looking out for him. It's funny, really, they're like twins, right? But Minako's pretty peppy and friendly and Minato's just --"
Hitomi's face becomes completely neutral.
And remains that way.
For four seconds.
No, six.
No, seven point four before she breaks the imitation to rock her head to the side, saying with curiosity, "Was I getting it right? I know we don't really have the same face shape, exactly."
Hitomi seems more at ease, after this. "I guess I could keep digging, but... I feel like that'd be rude of me. I owe you a lot... and we only just met, like, a few weeks ago. It took me like two months to get tight with Fukura, you know? I guess that's what they mean about bonds being forged in battle. I like everyone here."
A wan, but more authentic smile. "But I do have someone I like best.~"
"Do you want to hear a secret from my side? I -- well, it's something the company knows but it's never come up, but... I feel like I need to tell someone or I'm going to just, die from shame at some point."
"You're really easy to talk to, you know." (at least to Hitomi, it would seem)
<Pose Tracker> Aigis has posed.
Aigis nods. "I truly appreciated her insight. It has helped me to better navigate the expectations of our peers and classmates." She knits her brow in mild confusion. "Still, she seemed to be unaware that she had done similar things and runs the risk of people erroneously misinterpreting her own actions. It was to the point that I was about to doubt her advice, so it is good that you mention that you had the same thoughts that she did -- it lends her claims some stronger credence."
"I am looking out for them both," Aigis corrects. "No one seems to comment on my interactions with Minako, even though I feel the same way I do for her as her brother."
She stares at Hitomi's impression of Minato with an expression just as blank. While it may appear that she's mimicking Hitomi in this moment, she's thinking about one strong possibility why the siblings' personalities may be so different.
'Funny' isn't the word she'd use for it.
"... You got it as right as you were able to," she reassures Hitomi about those seven-point-four seconds.
Oh, so it isn't just her being slow to adapt to being thrust in the deep end of social and school life. Aigis finds that to be a relief. "I like everyone here, too. They have all been very accommodating."
Aigis tilts her head. "Who do you like best?"
She quietly nods at Hitomi's offer to hear a secret. "Please, go on." Aigis has one of her own, of course, but ... she has not seen an opportunity to share it with anyone. It's her problem to fix.
Hitomi's compliment causes Aigis to briefly give a puzzled glance at the floor, then looks back at Hitomi with surprise. That is literally the first time someone has said that to her, at least so directly. Usually if someone expresses a sentiment, it's the opposite. "Thank you for saying so, Mandai-san. I am glad that I can provide you with such an outlet."
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
"Haha, you sound pretty enlightened there," Hitomi says, after Aigis remarks on the wisdom of Takebas, or their complexity thereof. At the rest of it, Hitomi grins, a wide, teeth baring grin of genuine surprised delight before it seems to catch - and slide down to a more demure if still quite wide smile.
"They are pretty accomodating. I was surprised too."
Who do you like best?
Hitomi taps her nose with her index finger. "That's a secret~. And I don't feel like telling that one right now. But... if you want... study me and everyone else, and see if you can figure it out. I can tell you that as of right now, they're a member of SEES. If you can guess it right, I'll owe you a big favor."
MANDATORY GAME!?
But at the rest, there's a secret.
The jollity erodes. Hitomi speaks, more falteringly, but without major stops or prevarications. Painful, but not agonizing.
"... Before I came here, my family came into money. We won the lottery, no shit, it was in the papers and everything... And... well, I guess you don't need all the backstory. It was a temple, and I stole money from the collection box."
Hitomi pauses.
"Which I used to play pachinko," she continues. Her right hand comes up over her heart as she keeps going, Hitomi giving Aigis a level look. "When I put it down like that, it sounds stupid, right? But I mean. At the time it was like this... this huge secret thing. Because I kept winning! I kept stacking it up! I want to say I was thinking 'oh, I'll double the money and surprise dad,' or some shit like that, but it was really just that I kept winning."
"It wasn't every time," Hitomi continues, "since pachinko isn't that kind of game, and I even went to other machines, and stuff like that. So I didn't just happen to have a knack for shooting the ball. It happened with the slots too, *with slots* -- you know, the totally random things. They kept breaking my way, nine times out of ten, and it just got bigger and bigger. I came in because if I dress kind of conservatively and put my hair up, I look kind of mature, right? And I'm already big. Anyway."
"It was... a lot of money, and I kept stacking it up, I even put back some of what I took originally, which is why they didn't really notice. Like a fifty yen coin here or there, that's not something you're constantly watching. But then I got invited to come to the *real* shit, a VIP room, instead of playing pachinko. Ugh, it felt so amazing. It was, just, everything, I can compare to stuff but it's not really something... anyway," Hitomi concludes, "then a demon tried to eat me and that's when I manifested Tyche for the first time."
"The police had all the information," Hitomi says. "That was it for me. A hundred percent over. The only reason they didn't press charges was because my parents didn't want to, but they *could* have. But my dad's temple is pretty old, and... I hadn't done it before. Haha, shit, I'm even leaving out the time I got caught at HOME, but..."
"Mm," Hitomi concludes. "So... that's what happened. I guess it got to the Kirijo people somehow. They offered a scholarship for me here, which also got me out of Sumaru, so my parents were like yes please, take our criminal daughter, if anything we should pay you. And that's how I got out here." Her eyes lift up. "Now you know."
"If Iori's listening at the door, you're going to execute him, right," Hitomi then says, but for a wonder, nothing happens. Probably. Her eyes turn away from Aigis, towards the door. ... it's probably an effort at a joke.
<Pose Tracker> Aigis has posed.
To put a finer point on it: while she has observed Yukari's actions, it has completely escaped her notice that Yukari likely holds some genuine romantic affection for Minato. Aigis has the right set of facts, but has drawn the wrong conclusion.
Likewise, it may be a long while before Aigis can claim that 'big favor' for guessing correctly. She has not yet gathered enough data, as Hitomi has advised her to do. This game clearly requires a painstakingly thorough examination of all such permutations. "Very well, then. I will attempt to do so."
Hitomi's story puts some of her previous statements into greater focus -- earlier musings on sin and redemption. Aigis lowers her head near the end of Hitomi's tale. "Now I know. Thank you for trusting me with this information. I am ... curious about something. How do you intend to atone, if you intend to do so at all?"
Aigis replies matter-of-factly, obliviously, naively, "No, I believe 'execution' is Kirijo-senpai's specialty. He would not be up here in any case, correct? This is the side of the building where boys are not allowed." (aigis you JUST listened to someone literally confess to crimes, people are capable of defying orders!!)
Meekly, she asks, "... If you promise not to tell anyone, may I admit to something as well?"
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
Confession complete. Insert 10 eurobucks for absolution!
Hitomi considers Aigis's first question. She actually brings her legs up now - sitting cross legged on her bed, wiggling backwards slightly. She looks slightly to the side, considering. Hitomi's eyes come back.
"So," she says, "here's one thing I need to make clear."
"What I did wrong... is that I took the money that wasn't mine. I knew better. If it was the only way to pay the mortgage or buy food or something, or if someone else had put me up to it, it'd get complex. But I just helped myself. Didn't even just, take a few coins, count them, go, 'wow, the Buddha didn't explode me with the Buddhist palm,' lose faith, put 'em back. I *used* that money."
Her head rocks to the side. "Legally... what I did wrong was underage gambling. If my parents were total dicks, I could probably beat the case."
Hitomi's head straightens up. "... So, I just don't want to embarrass them. My brother's already texting me now and then, so maybe... it'll be fine. Maybe when I graduate, at least, I can go home. We'll have to see. But I'd like to do something good for the temple. Just to make up for the priests having had a shitty daughter."
Hitomi said that in a pretty neutral tone. A datum.
"I promise you I will not tell anyone," Hitomi says, hand on heart again. Then she leans in slightly. Her voice lowers. "Go ahead."
<Pose Tracker> Aigis has posed.
Complex. Complex? Aigis is of two minds on the topic: her onboard electronic self, her rigid sense of protocol believes that taking money from the temple would have been wrong no matter what, but something else in her agrees that it would have, in fact, required a nuanced understanding of all the factors in order to form a proper judgment.
What's the 'something else', though? She cannot seem to identify the part of herself which feels that way.
Aigis nods once, slowly. "I hope you are able to repay the temple and your family, then."
Here, finally, some measure of remorse seeps into Aigis' voice. She lowers her head, opting to stare at her hands placed in her lap. "In a similar vein ... it is highly likely that I am at least partially responsible for why the Arisato twins are ... like they are. I remain close to them not out infatuation, but out of a desire to make up for what I have done. To them. And their lives. It is to right a wrong."
She raises her head again and turns to face Hitomi head-on. "I do not believe either of them have any memory of this. I would not like either of them to know. I would simply prefer to do what I can to remedy my past mistake without their awareness or acknowledgment."
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
"We'll see," Hitomi says, about the payment back.
And then she blinks. There's a slightly puzzled brow-knit. As if she's not sure what Aigis said, with the possibility of some kind of accidental glitch that -- well, no, humans have that too, there's even a syndrome about it. But Aigis's statement gives her cause to think -- her immediate thought is 'oh, like Minato being a dead-eyed MP3 appreciator?' but Minako's completely different.
"... you mean, with the thing, with multiple Personas?" Hitomi asks. She leans in slightly. "And they don't seem to remember it. I did notice you guys were talking on the beach but I had no idea you were... you, not some foreign tourist."
AT THAT TIME
Hitomi floats like a jellyfish in warm Pacific water. She doesn't know how good she has it. At the time, she had zero knife-related injuries!
<Pose Tracker> Aigis has posed.
"At minimum, that." The multiple Personas thing, she means.
Surely it's enough for her to at least admit to culpability, she doesn't have to be forthright about everything, right?
"... and their parents' deaths."
That's still not everything. That's not even close. The sheer magnitude of the consequences should harm befall either of them is mind-boggling. World-shattering.
"That level of deception was my intention at the time, yes. Posing as a tourist. Though I had mainly sought to avoid the notice of the Kirijo Group -- I had wished to act independently."
Aigis feels the remaining weight of her past deeds in her heart, still, but the burden is made somewhat lighter by her admission of this much.
"Mandai-san? I find it easy to talk with you, too."
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
"Ah," Hitomi says.
For a moment, the thought occurs to her: I match them, and I don't match them. My parents are alive and fine, at least unless dad decides he needs to start smoking again so he can go see Amida Buddha personally. But I've seen dead bodies; they were our stock in trade.
Huh.
It's parked away. "I guess we're both masters of disguise, huh? We'll have to use that." She smiles after.
"Really...? Heh. That's sweet of you.~ I'm glad to talk any time. If you want, come by the Games Club, too. ... I'm not an officer or anything, though maybe next year. That's who the Magic cards really belong to."