2026-07-19: Together For Now
- Log: Together For Now
- Cast: Isabeau Fontaine, Kanae Fuyuki
- Where: Rooftop, Shujin Academy, Aoyama-Itchome, Tokyo
- OOC Date: July 19, 2026
- IC Date: December 12, 2012
- Summary: Isabeau goes to the rooftop to escape the stares and gossip, but Kanae has the same idea. They discuss Shinichi's Homunculus--and the things he's done. TW: discussion of assault and possibility of sexual assault.
<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.
OST: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tzk4vn-hiOQ Nobuo Uematsu - The Loser
"Did you hear about the witch?"
"Yeah, Shinichi totally humiliated her!"
"She had it coming..."
"I heard she's even being nice to poor Fuyuki-san now."
"Did she really dump Okazaki-kun for Nagisa-kun?"
"Ta-chan was telling me how Nagisa-kun totally put the moves on her yesterday, though..."
"Well, he did suddenly sort out his personality. It's normal for guys to play the field."
"You don't think... Fuyuki-san's playing, too?"
"No way, she knows it's different for girls."
"Ah, well... at least the witch isn't as much of a bitch any more."
"Did you see how Fujihide-kun approached her yesterday?"
"Wow... do you think he'll actually get a date, for once?"
"I heard some weird things about that guy... Utara-san said it wasn't just his weight which made him a bad pick..."
"Ehhhh? In that case, it's gotta be karma!"
... they're saying all kinds of things, around school. The gossip's flying... and every time Isabeau tries to reclaim some ground, the girls insist they're going to go get Shinichi, or one of the rowdy boys raises his hand up with a flat palm, and the worst part is how many people laugh about it.
Isabeau is used to eating lunch alone, but after two days of that, she's about sick of dealing with everyone --
-- so she just trespasses onto the roof to go sit down. It's off-limits, but that sign won't stop her because she can't read!
(It's a funny joke until you think about it.)
<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.
'It's not like that!' Kanae had insisted to Touma about the rumors flying with Shinichi.
'Then what is it like?' he asked. 'Because it sure sounds like he thinks you're his girl, instead of with me.'
'I mean--yes, he thinks that, but it's not because it's true!'
'Then why didn't you correct him?'
'Because, he... he scares me...'
'Did he hurt you? Do I need to go straighten him out?'
'NO! I mean--No. No, it's fine. Nothing like that happened. I just--promise me you won't go after him today, okay? Or tomorrow.'
'...'
'Please.'
Kanae is not eating lunch with her boyfriend today. Kanae doesn't really feel like eating today at all, with the way the rumors are going around. But unlike Isabeau, she can read the sign on the door to the roof.
She opens the door anyway, because it's still unlocked, and starts outside--
Only to stop halfway across the way when she spots Isabeau.
Kanae hesitates.
<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.
"... tch." Isabeau's sitting on one of those abandoned desks, up there; she's half obscured, because of how the ventilation works up here, but she looks back as the door opens to see Kanae coming out.
That irritated grunt, as it happens, comes mid-sandwich-chomp, and she lowers it down in a hurry as she swallows.
(Isabeau, one notes, does not like to be seen eating.)
"You, too..." her eyes narrow, before she shakes her head, gesturing loosely. (And, of course, speaking French.) "... pff. Go ahead and stick around, if you want. Better here than somewhere you're really alone, if that monster shows its face again."
Shinichi.
<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.
Kanae looks at Isabeau--and notices her lower her sandwich. She looks back up to her face, instead.
Kanae also speaks French as she answers, "All right."
She moves over, and sits on one of the desks, too--notably facing away from Isabeau.
She doesn't have to watch her eat, that way. Maybe Isabeau will actually finish her lunch.
"..."
"Yeah," Kanae answers. "I don't want to be alone with him if I can help it. At least he hasn't come to my apartment yet."
"..."
"I'm sorry," Kanae says. "I couldn't help."
"But I will. I'm going to find those Threads and the Eye, and I'm going to get the real one back."
<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.
"Does it know where you live?" Isabeau asks Kanae's back, watching her, for a few moments, to figure out whether she's going to stick to the distance.
Then she keeps eating.
It's not as if she doesn't have remarkably healthy things in here anyway -- cold-cuts, lettuce and tomato, for this sandwich -- but people say things, regardless of what she's putting in her goddamn mouth, and that's before you get into how snobby Japanese people are about sandwiches in their lunchbox.
She scowls down at hers. "I didn't ask for help," she says, dourly. "I don't need anyone's help. Haven't I made that clear yet? Even if you tried, you couldn't do anything... you'd have been better off staying out of it."
Isabeau's still scowling, as she adds: "... but if you're going to get the Thread and stop it, I'm coming with you. I have my own reasons... besides, I'm not about to let a monster like that rampage around school."
Or hurt Kanae, apparently.
<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.
"I don't know." Kanae's voice is quiet when she says that. It's not as if no one knows, after all. He could find out, if he wanted. But Kanae does keep that distance.
And she doesn't say anything about lunch.
"You never ask for help," Kanae says. "Not even when you need it. And you do. You couldn't stop him any more than I could."
"...Maybe it'd be better for my reputation if I'd stayed out," she admits. "But not for me. I couldn't live with it."
Kanae listens, and she was going to keep Isabeau out, but... "All right," she says. "I've got some people together, and we might find more. We're already doing research on him--where he went, what he did--to find what wwe need to find to stop the Homunculus."
"You can come, if you promise you won't go off on your own this time."
<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.
"Tch. And you can't stay with that boy you're seeing with all this nonsense, either, I'm guessing." Isabeau scowls, a heel tapping irately at the leg of the table. "... well, whatever. Call me if you're in trouble. I need to do more observations on it before I bring everyone my findings, anyway." See, she's not offering to help her, she has her own reasons...
But when Kanae says she did need help, Isabeau snaps: "I don't! I don't need you, I don't need anyone! I can take care of myself!" If that's true, why did she have to mumble into dinner to her father about how everything was fine, she just -- mistimed a swing and took a tennis ball to the face, it's just kind of embarrassing...
(Well, she was at least honest about it being embarrassing, even if the embarrassment is what kept her for telling the adults what was really going on.)
"Pff... it's me who wouldn't have been satisfied if it had taken you out." To the nurse's office? On a date? Well, you know, generally speaking. "There's some things I just won't tolerate."
There's a lot of things she's intolerant about, but anyway.
Finishing up her sandwich, there is instead an angry CRONCH, behind her. Munch, munch... Isabeau's got an apple! "Why would I make a stupid promise like that?" She says, when her mouth's free again. "Bah... but I guess I'll work with you on this one. It's... not the kind of thing the Wild Hunt can take care of, right now."
<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.
"Not while we're fighting like this," Kanae answers. "And even if we weren't..." She sighs. At least Isabeau isn't getting on her case about ever staying with him at all. "I can't ask him to stay over with me, either. And frankly... I don't--"
"I don't feel like... staying over, right now."
She keeps her gaze out on the ground. "...Right. Observations." Call Isabeau... so she can get hit again?
Isabeau insists though. "..." Kanae doesn't have the heart to argue the point right now.
But, "He's not trying to kill me, Isabeau." Kanae's voice is flat. "...But, thanks."
Cronch!! "Good enough," Kanae says. "Right. So, I'll give you a call when we learn more."
<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.
Obviously not.
She'd bring a big stick.
"... yeah," Isabeau scowls, when Kanae confirms she's alone.
Apparently, she's not arguing, either.
"That's not what I meant!" She snaps, when Kanae takes the entire other meaning of being taken out. "Just -- you know!"
Cronch, cronch. "Good," Isabeau says. "You'd better."
Cronch, cronch, cronch...
how does she even make eating an apple sound angry
"..."
Isabeau takes a long draw of water, as she stares at Kanae's back.
"It isn't trying to kill you," Isabeau says, grim and direct as death's finger, "but it's already forced something on you, hasn't it. That's why you don't want to see him... and why you locked up like a deer in headlamps when it looked at you."
<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.
But Isabeau is quick to say that's not what she meant, even after all Kanae's other euphemisms. "All right," she answers, tonelessly. But cronch, cronch, cronch. Kanae has nothing else to say for the moment Not until Isabeau makes her direct statement, pointing straight to exactly what Kanae was trying to hide.
"..."
"Yeah," Kanae answers. "He kissed me."
"...I hate it," she says. "It's so, so stupid. I can't even fight back. I just get so scared."
"I know what he wants. He's an 'it' but he sure acts like a boy," she says sourly.
<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.
Does no one understand what Kanae means when she talks around it...?
It might seem that way, but only until Isabeau bulls right through the polite fiction.
"So that's it," Isabeau scowls, putting her things back away in her bag and folding her arms. "... of course you can't. You'd remember how it was, after all." She's not going to bring up the way she flinches when people tease her by raising their hands. She's fine. Shut up. "But that's what they say. If you end up with a man," and she does indeed speak of men, not boys, "forcing the issue, he'll kill you if you bite him... while if you're limp enough, he'll lose interest. From that perspective, there's a point where collapsing is logical."
Her fingers drum, against her arm.
"Do what you like," she says, of giving the monster a gender. "But I still won't be dignifying it with the polite fiction." Which is, at least, more latitude than she tends to give these things...
<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.
Kanae isn't sure--until then. Then, she's sure.
"...Right." Remember how it was. "He'd go from nice to cruel and back all just in seconds. As long as I acted the way he wanted, he didn't hurt me." Though, that was a kind of hurt, too. She doesn't recognize that. But, "...Mm. I don't even know if going limp would put him off," she says bitterly. "All those girls... Talking about how a 'strong man' like that makes them blush--they haven't been opposite one like that."
"...Touma-kun's never been like that. But he's..."
She sighs, and then shakes her head. "It's not that," Kanae says. "It's..."
"So, I know it's a monster. But everything that scares me about it is because it's shaped like, looks like, acts like a boy. If it were just some monster in Mementos or whatever, I wouldn't be half as scared."
Kanae starts to turn, "...You get it, don't you?"
<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.
"Unpredictability can be challenging to deal with," Isabeau says, and tries not to think of her mother as she says it. Being a weird girl is different, obviously? Obviously. "You enforced order as well as you could."
She frowns, hearing her say Touma isn't like that, and...
For once, she keeps her own counsel on it.
Don't say she's being nice.
There's something else she doesn't say, as Kanae turns, though the sharpness of it cuts at her tongue. She will find her, there, arms crossed over her chest, bag looped loosely over one shoulder, one broad leg crossed over the other with her ankle at her hip. (Good thing they're wearing tights.) "I do," she says, her gaze intense and intent, brow knit, readying. "That's why, Kanae. It is a monster. So long as it is a monster, it is a thing I can Hunt. It is a thing I can kill. If it is a monster, I do not feel so stupid listening to my mother's friends, when they would tell me not to worry about that. I'm not confronted with the weight of my own irresponsibility, assuming she would not leave me as she did all those men, and I would still be free to ask when I was older."
Is that what happened? That Isabeau's mother left?
... it does fit her general vibe, even if she'd apparently settled down when she moved to Inaba. She was always telling stories about her adventures.
"A monster, I am not unprepared for," Isabeau concludes, fingers drumming. "Get it?"
<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.
Order and unpredictability. It's that simple, is it? Kanae is dissatisfied with the idea. She's dissatisfied with that frown. And she's dissatisfied with--
...Ah.
Kanae is frowning until she isn't frowning, until she looks at Isabeau in a different light. It's about the time when she says she feels stupid--or does not feel stupid, as the case may be. Her own irresponsibility...
Kanae feels that she understands Isabeau a little more, in those moments. At the same time...
Kanae bites her lip. Her mother. Her mother... left?
"Isabeau..."
She stops, and knows that Isabeau would hate it if she said something soft here. So instead--
"I get it," she says.
"...But I can't do the same thing."
Kanae pushes up off of the desk again. "Like I said, I'll tell you when we know more."
"We'll just... finish this, and put it behind us."
<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.
There's a time in your life you gotta grow up fast, and while Kanae might have reached that point long ago, Isabeau's not the sort of person who'd be satisfied without catching up.
Even if it's things like... realising what things really mean, and what's really at stake.
But her mother is simply gone: she insists this, and her frown tightens, hearing her name from Kanae in turn. (If someone leaves, they can still come back...) Her silence is stony, for a moment.
Kanae just says she gets it, though, and Isabeau nods sternly. She doesn't, of course; Isabeau is lying to her. Part of that is letting her think that she does, even knowing that Kanae, of all people, would have things to say about having a dead mother.
... no, it's precisely because she would.
"Fine. You do your thing, and I'll do mine... but since we both have reasons to put that monster in the ground, this one time, I suppose we can still do it together." Still, because it's not the first time Isabeau's worked with Kanae... but of course, that was before she refused her father.
"Good," she says, shortly.
"Just don't underestimate me. If you can't fight it, I will. Even if it's a matter of accompanying you so it won't get involved... I'm not satisfied letting it have its way. It hasn't beat me."
Of course, it did, and it's causing her no end of problems, but...
... maybe that's why it's so important to Isabeau not to let it have its way with Kanae, too.
Or maybe the selfish answer's just a good excuse.
<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.
Kanae gets something. ...It just isn't the whole story, there. Because indeed, she doesn't have the truth in front of her.
But Kanae would have a lot to say about that.
"All right." Kanae will accept that, this time. Especially since it doesn't mean inviting the whole Wild Hunt along for the ride.
Still--
"..."
"Fine," Kanae says, and her shoulders slump in shame.
"I'm..."
"I'm going to go for now," Kanae says. "I'll see you."