2026-02-14: Cleaning Up After Class
- Log: Cleaning Up After Class
- Cast: Tsubasa Seki, Hyousuke Suzuki
- Where: Kasugayama High
- OOC Date: 2026-02-14
- IC Date: Wed, Sep 26 2012
- Summary: Tsubasa and Hyousuke get to catch up while cleaning the classroom after class, the day after they were kidnapped. Unfortunately, it's also the day after Jun got kidnapped...
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
Tsubasa didn't come to class on Monday or Tuesday. They didn't come to the art exhibit after school on Tuesday, either.
... they did drag their corpse out of bed to come to class on Wednesday, though. Largely... because they didn't want to push Ichika into skipping. They skipped the first half of school, though, because they had to go see a doctor, which meant they weren't reachable during lunch. Since they got back after that, they've been totally fucking dead during class, except for the fact that they won't stop moving in their chair.
"Seki-kun!" Their Japanese Literature teacher scowls, looking to them. "Stop bouncing your leg!"
Tsubasa mutters something shaped suspiciously like 'fuck off' said without opening the mouth. "Not hurtin' no one, sensei."
"Ugh... that's it, you and Suzuki-kun are cleaning the room when we're done here." She turns back to the chalkboard, as Tsubasa mutters,
"... whatever."
They clearly haven't had a good time. The dressings over the pink markings of their myriad healing cuts are opaque, now -- the nurse dressed their wounds again, RIP paw-print bandages -- but there are a fair amount of them, and what they're covering is hinted at by the more minor cuts which have already healed up along their arms and legs.
They also just look... exhausted.
When everyone filters out of the room, they offer: "Hey."
They say that while going over to grab the chalk eraser so they can clean off the blackboard and then that thing, of course.
<Pose Tracker> Hyousuke Suzuki has posed.
The poison had long since left his system, but the effects still lingered. The first few minutes after the art exhibition had been agony, worsened further still by having to limp away before the police asked questions he could not answer. The first few hours were only marginally better. The acidic burning and the stabbing pains had faded, and the toxins were gone, but in their place were the aftershocks - dull aches in his flesh, strain upon his muscles with even the subtlest of twitches, and the strain of having to keep up appearances around the strangers plaguing his route home.
By the time he'd managed to click the door of his dorm room shut, it was all he could do to drag his aching body towards the bed, and crumple into it as a broken heap. What few vestiges of energy he had left, he used to type a message out to Ichika, hoping she could at least pass it on to Tsubasa. He would have made the attempt, but even his digits began to feel like leaden weights, and it was all he could do to place his phone upon the bedside table before he permitted himself to rest.
The morning following was better, but again, only marginally. He had enough strength to drag himself to the showers, and enough energy to lean against the wall while steaming water flushed the pain from his muscles. The reprieve did not last long. It only took minutes for the tendrils of yesterday's aches to creep back into his limbs, and that was to say nothing of the exhaustion - both physical and mental - that he had to push through. He needed to keep up appearances. He needed to speak with Ichika and Tsubasa. He needed to begin the hunt for Jun. He needed to do so many things, and he could do none of them if he was lounging around in bed feeling sorry for himself.
The whole day was spent in a haze. He could recognise when he was being spoken to, and could make out enough words to cobble together short, vaguely polite responses. He could recognise shapes and colours, but he couldn't concentrate long enough to make out the finer details. Hyousuke needed rest, and it was plain to anyone that studied him for more than a few moments. Yet, when the teacher called out his name, he seemed to receive a jolt through his spine. With that newfound energy, he found the strength to level an indignant look at the teacher, and give a short, markedly impolite, response.
"The fuck did I do?!"
Nevertheless, he did as he was bade, and set to work with Tsubasa. They covered the board, while he handled the broom, Were one to study him closely, they might've seen him leaning on it just a touch.
"Hey." Hyousuke said back. He didn't bother flashing them a smile, nor did he try to pretend he was okay. Whatever display he put on was for others, and for himself - not to fool them. A long, tense, pause hung in the air, before he finally spoke again. "...Where were you?" Accusatory as the words themselves may have sounded, his voice was weaker than it should have been, and wavering just enough to be heard. He was frustrated, yes - two of his friends had not backed him up. But, more than that, he was worried, because Ichika had told him that they *couldn't* back him up.
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
Stabbing pains... yeah.
"It's your turn," the teacher reminds Hyousuke, with a deep sigh. "In any case, returning to the Edo period..."
Tsubasa clears the board off, and goes to the window, leaning out to beat the eraser against the brickwork. A lot of teachers hated when they did that, but who was gonna stop them? They don't really give a shit about doing this 'the right way'.
And, of course, Hyousuke wants to know where they were.
"Not with you. Couldn't be helped. ... sorry."
Tsubasa swats the eraser against the brick, halfheartedly, leaning half-out of the room.
"Got tied up."
And without an expression to inform the gruff invitation, "... you can kick my ass if you want."
<Pose Tracker> Hyousuke Suzuki has posed.
The remark drew no response from Hyousuke. The followup did not draw one either. He was deathly silent, save for the staccato rhythm of the broom coursing across the floor. He didn't actually hit anything with it - he had probably swept the same spot ten times over before realising the fact, and moving onto a different spot he could absentmindedly scrape at. When Tsubasa made that invitation, however, the brushing stopped, and was replaced slow and heavy footfalls. They stopped just short of Tsubasa, landing Hyousuke less than an arm's length from them. He looked past the window, then turned to Tsubasa.
But that invitation was not accepted. Instead, Hyousuke levelled a tired gaze at them.
"The fuck would I do that for?" He seemed almost offended that Tsubasa would even *joke* that he'd do that to his friends, but shook his head and dismissed it so he could move on. "You weren't here Monday. Tuesday either." He would not have blinked at someone from skipping. Jun, perhaps, but he was an outlier amongst the student body. "I'm not... I'm not angry. I'm just..." Frustrated. Confused. Desperate for an answer. He didn't know what word fit him best, but not a one of them hinted at anger - certainly not at Tsubasa. "...Ichika-san texted me before the show. Said you both weren't gonna be there, and I... I just want to know why. I *needed* you."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"I know."
Tsubasa's not looking at Hyousuke. Actually, looking down a third-storey window is terrifying, but it's better than the alternative.
"I... told them you did. Asked them to let me go. They wouldn't listen... so... yeah, I let you down."
The chalk cloud dies down to a vague chalky haze, though, and Tsubasa plants a hand on the window-jamb as they lever themself back up to go put the eraser away.
"Look... it's..."
And of course they know that no one would believe them; but they suppose Hyousuke would, even though it's unbelievable. "... like I said. Got tied up. Uh. Kidnapped, or whatever. So... you get outta there alright?"
<Pose Tracker> Hyousuke Suzuki has posed.
Kidnapped.
The word hit like a sledgehammer. The possibility of doubting Tsubasa never even entered his mind. He believed immediately, in fact, if the abject and undisguised horror on his features was any indication. It did not stop there. His muscles seized against themselves, his knuckles grew pale as he gripped the broom handle tight, his legs shook as if the shock itself had threatened to send him staggering backwards. For the first few seconds after Tsubasa's explanation, he could not respond. He could not even move. He was silent as the grave, and still as one too.
"Who?" Was the first thing Hyousuke asked. "Who took you? Are you alright?" He was more than just worried by that point. He was *frantic.* His eyes seemed to both widen in fear and focus in like a hawk, and he turned his whole body to face Tsubasa. "Please tell me you're alright."
How *he* was did not matter. He was alive, and he was conscious - anything else could be ignored until he knew Tsubasa was fine.
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"I. Uh."
Tsubasa goes to busy themself with tidying up the chairs; it can't quite obscure the knotted expression on their own face. Grief tightens their brow, and it tightens their throat.
"Th' Ryouhara clan... they're fuckin' ninjas. Uh. That Kurou's in on it... th' one in second year."
They shove a chair haphazardly under its desk, shaking their head.
"I don't... I'm in deep shit, man, I... lot a it was boredom? Jus... not bein' able to move... or like, sleep proper up in a chair... or do nothin'... an' if I talked to someone I'd jus' get turned 'round by their weird-ass philosophy again... I don't know, dude. I don't know if I'm alright."
<Pose Tracker> Hyousuke Suzuki has posed.
Ryouhara... He did not recognise the one that Tsubasa specified, and even the name in its broader sense was not one that he believed he'd heard it before. But a ninja? He'd seen one, all those days ago in Tartarus, and his grip tightened just a little bit more. He could save his questions for the end, however. Tsubasa spoke, and he did not wish to do anything but listen. Even for moments after, he remained silent, his face still and thoughtful while he tried to figure out how he was supposed to address all that had transpired in his absence.
"But you're here." It was not intended as a rebuttal. Rather, it was intended to comfort - to ground, even if he did not know the word nor the finer points of the concept. "With-" He paused. Could he *really* say 'us?' He had not been there. He hadn't even heard that it was happening. He'd not been trusted with the knowledge of it until he'd asked Tsubasa, and he'd not been asked for help in a moment of dire need (never mind that he had been in the middle of his own mission).
"-With Ichika-san." He finished, quickly enough to pass off the momentary gap in his speech as lingering exhaustion and emotions running high. "It... all of that... Nobody should have to go through that shit. But she got you out of it." He paused again, but that time truly was just to collect his thoughts. "There was a ninja in Tartarus. With the painting. His friend was there, and they were at the show too. If they know something..."
It was grasping at straws, but it was all he had. That was not what caused the pained expression, however. The moment he finished speaking of the show, the image of his friend vanishing into the painting flashed into his mind, and he swore that he could feel his teeth grinding each other to powder.
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
There just wasn't enough time. They disappeared on Sunday -- and Hibari and the others searched all through Monday -- and the first thing they did after school on Tuesday was to launch into the rescue.
Leaving aside that the Phantom Thieves need to disguise their identities... it wasn't a comment on Hyousuke's closeness to Tsubasa.
It was just a desperate situation.
But Tsubasa -- who has gone through that ordeal -- simply doesn't have the energy left to read between the lines and realise Hyousuke's feeling excluded. They take his assurance that Ichika is here at face value, because it's true that Ichika holding tight to them has been an enormous comfort.
"Who's his friend?" Tsubasa asks, instead. "An' what happened at th' show? Look, sorry I weren't there for ya, but... it was important someone stopped that fuckin' Old Maid. Y'know?" They pause, a moment, to add: "Appreciate it."
They continue on with pushing those chairs in, as they talk.
<Pose Tracker> Hyousuke Suzuki has posed.
"A blonde. I didn't get their name, but they fought with... thorns." It was all a blur. The entire battle had been a desperate race against time, not made any easier by the fact that that he'd spent the entire thing poisoned and panicking. Had someone said her name? Had anyone acted like they'd known her? Hyousuke couldn't place it, and it was clear that it frustrated him just from the look on his face. "Sorry, a lot happened. I don't remember much. I think they said their Persona's name was Badb?"
Hyousuke went silent again. He didn't thank Tsubasa for the praise, and barely seemed to acknowledge it in the first place. Instead, his face tensed, while his fingers clenched and released around the broom, fidgeting instinctively. When he did speak, his voice was solemn, shaking, and - were one to listen closely enough - angry.
"I- we didn't stop him. The painting, it had this energy, and the Killer talked about people getting marked by it. I don't think he got anyone with it, but he- he..." Cracks formed in his voice. They were hairline fractures, thin and barely noticeable, but pain still lingered on his closing words. "...He took Kashihara-san."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
'Don't you know it's a bad omen to see the Badb before a big event?'
Tsubasa remembers Umie asking Shadow Eiji that, though Umie couldn't know Tsubasa was there. Her Persona...
"Cool," they nod, stern. "Thanks for tellin' me." They don't implicate Umie by name, though; she might still be innocent.
... maybe.
They listen, though, when Hyousuke relates what he saw. And they are quiet, until --
-- until they overbalance, pushing in one of those chairs, forced to grab at the edges of the desk to keep themself upright. "Jun-kun?!" They yelp, alarmed. "He got Jun-kun?! FUCK!"
Tsubasa's fist impacts on the flat of that desk; it rattles in protest, but it's hardly the first time it's been mistreated, that way. "You -- you know where he took him?"
Don't think about what happened to you when a guy obsessed with you kidnapped you, Tsubasa. And especially don't think of that purple mirror while you're trying not to do that.
<Pose Tracker> Hyousuke Suzuki has posed.
No name. Not even a sign that Tsubasa recognised that person. Perhaps it was something to ask Uchida-san, when next he saw her. It was a tentative link and there was the chance that it would go nowhere, but Hyousuke couldn't abandon it. Not when there was a chance his friend was still in danger. He needed every advantage he could get, no matter how tenuous - though it was a matter to be resolved later. He simply acknowledged the response with a grunt and a nod, and focused his attention on other matters.
When Tsubasa overbalanced, Hyousuke all but lunged forwards. His foot jerked out, ready to step in and catch them, but they righted themselves before he had the chance to make another move. He did not return to his sweeping, however, and the chair that he'd been pushing in remained jutting halfway out of the desk, the task abandoned as Hyousuke tried to steady himself against the guilt that threatened to flood his being.
"No! God fucking damn it, I don't know anything!" Hyousuke shouted, but it was not that animal roar of unbridled fury that he unleashed upon the battlefield. It was shaking and desperate, spoken in a hoarse voice and steeped in frustration. "The Killer, he- he was gonna drag someone else through the painting, but Kashihara-san took their place and went with him instead! He was right fucking there! I could've stopped him, and I-"
Hyousuke's voice wasn't the only thing that trembled. His fingers twitched, his shoulders heaved, his legs threatened to crumple if he ever thought to let go of the broom, and he could not even bear to look Tsubasa in the eye. "...I'm gonna find him. I'm gonna talk to Uchida-san. I'm gonna call in some favours. I'm getting everyone I can on this. I am *not* losing him again."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
Tsubasa's not trying to lie to Hyousuke about it; they just don't want to arm a bomb they don't have to. They trust Ren, when they said that Umie was innocent in all this.
They at least need to confirm it at the source before they run their mouth off again.
Their teeth grit, hearing Hyousuke roar.
"... it's not your fault," they insist, though they weren't there.
(It's not hard for them to guess that he's taking too much onto his shoulders.)
"I'll be there to help," they promise, a second time. "... so long's I don't fuckin' get thrown in a van again." It's the second time, they think, bitterly. "Be cool. Beatin' on yaself ain't gon' find him. Look, I don't know what's goin' through your head right now, I weren't on that side a shit... but it was a fight with th' Old Maid, man. Woulda fucked you up. You did ya best, yeah?"
<Pose Tracker> Hyousuke Suzuki has posed.
The fuse had long since been lit. Hyousuke was a ticking timebomb, after all - anger and frustration and aggression, all ready to be unleashed at whoever was unfortunate enough to earn his ire. The bomb was armed, the countdown primed, and all that was left was for him to get things done. But that would all come in due time. Tsubasa was - at least for that very moment - safe. He could not speak to the future. His expectations had already been subverted once, courtesy of Shiryuu. But they were with Ichika, and that assuaged his fears just enough to let him focus on his side of things.
Intellectually, he knew Tsubasa was right. On some level, he knew that - if he analysed the facts - there was nothing he could have done. But the truth of the matter did not change how he felt about it. It did not change the white-knuckled grip he kept on the thing length of plastic holding him upright like a beam. It did not change the frantic, pleading look he fixed Tsubasa with, as if they could give him answers that he had not been able to think of. And it did not change the memory of Jun being within arm's reach, choosing to walk through that painting with the Joker Killer, while he could do nothing to stop it.
"I-" Hyousuke stopped himself. He could not stop his mind from warping his feelings, but he could at least pretend like he was taking on Tsubasa's advice. "We threw everything we had at him, and he just wouldn't go down. He just kept reaching for the painting, and pulling shit out of it, and he-" He blinked. "...I think he was taking some kinda power from the painting. It had this weird aura on it, like it would've driven anyone mad if they looked at it. I think he said our Personas protected us, but I still got hurt by it..."
Then, dawning horror etched itself into him.
"Kashihara-san... He hasn't got one, and the Killer dragged him into it..."
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
And does Tsubasa realise that it's in one ear, out the other? They certainly have a feeling of danger; but it isn't something they can really articulate.
"... Jun-kun will be okay," they say, straightening up and shaking their head.
"'Cuz that guy is obsessed with him... he's not gonna kill him like he'd kill you. That's prolly why Jun-kun chose to go in someone else's place... just like I chose to meet aggression with aggression when that Ryouhara used his killin' art on us."
Tsubasa turns, shifting away. "... sorry, but to a twisted guy like that, our lives matter more than yours. That's th' long an' short of it. We should be worried 'bout why he wants Jun-kun's ass so bad... but don't worry so much 'bout findin' a corpse."
They look up, to the ceiling.
"... jus' ain't likely."
<Pose Tracker> Hyousuke Suzuki has posed.
Hyousuke couldn't decide if he was comforted by that knowledge or not, and his contorted expression showed it. Jaw clenched and gaze averted, his exhale came out as more of a sigh than a simple breath, and he shook his head to try and force some semblance of calm into his mind. It didn't work, but at the very least, it gave him a chance to reorganise his thoughts into something coherent.
"I hope you're right." He eventually said. He didn't sound hopeful. He sounded quite morose. But it made a change from his desperate anger.
"But I don't want to wait around and find out what he's got planned for Kashihara-san. We're gonna save him, Tsubasa-san, and I'll break that piece of shit apart with my bare goddamn hands if I have to."
There it was again - the anger, and the focus that came with it. Sparks of willpower, throwing faint motes of light into the dark. It was not much, but he welcomed it gladly if it drove back apathy and despair. "Shit... I'm gonna have a lot of explaining to do to him, ain't I...?"
<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Seki has posed.
"Yeah," Tsubasa affirms, "we're gon' save him."
They look aside, their teeth pressing lightly into their lip.
"... but I don't reckon you gotta explain like that. Look, blamin' yourself, it..."
They're worried about Ichika, too.
"... that shit can suck to hear," they settle on, at length. "Hearin'... how much the people who cared 'bout you beat themselves up for not bein' enough... when it weren't any of ya fault. ... feels bad, Hyousuke-kun."
They shake their head, as they finish pushing in the chairs.
"... anyway. They oughta pay a cleaner if they want a straight job up here... I'm gon' beat it. Talk to you tomorrow, yeah?"
Tsubasa ambles out, hands shoved in their pockets. The teacher can yell at them for doing a bad job, later. They always do.