2025-11-19: Are You Suffocating

• Log: Are You Suffocating
• Cast: Myunghon Yeo, Tsumugi Kujaku
• Where: Peacock Silk, Shimokitazawa
• OOC Date: November 19, 2025
• IC Date: August 13, 2012
• Summary: Rumourmonger Merry intrudes upon Tsumugi Kujaku and takes no for an answer, finding a different side to the tailor they haven't yet before. As the seething, strangling hope within the garden grows, however, Tsumugi dispels the notion with but a simple question.

---

<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.

    Myunghon Yeo has found themself up on Tsumugi Kujaku's lap.

    *record scratch*

    Yyyyyes, that's them right there! How did they get into this situation, you might ask?

    Well, So-young somewhat goaded them into masking into Merry when they were waiting at a cafe just before this, and that was how they ended up swanning right into the front entrance of the Peacock Silk, finding the tailor present, and then, without even so much as a greeting or warning, barged right into the middle of whatever it is they were doing, and rather rudely just pulled themself in and cattishly planted themself right ontop of their lap, whether or not it was convenient.

    They're dressed not in Tsumugi's designs, but Mei Arisugawa's -- the chocolate ruffle-blouse, the black brooch ribbon tie, the white A-line inverted pleat skirt, the leggings, the white Mary Janes... the white coat slung over their shoulders. They've got their lily-of-the-valley fragrance worn again today.

    And now they're making themself Tsumugi's problem.

<Pose Tracker> Tsumugi Kujaku has posed.

Tsumugi Kujaku has been away.

It started maybe a week ago; though, given how irregular their schedule is, and how often they just elect not to be part of a given conversation or activity at any point in time, for any length in time, how long ago it actually started is very much an open question. Regardless: what matters is that for some reason, the young tailor of Peacock Silk just seemed to disappear. They stopped taking orders; they stopped with their various... side jobs...; they stopped replying to texts, dms, or answering or returning phonecalls for the truly oldest of schools;

They simply became a ghost, for that maybe-a-week, before suddenly their commissions reopened and they started returning calls or answering whatever their latest texts and dms were (and literally no others) as if the past maybe-a-week had never even happened.

The rare regulars at Peacock Silk have gotten used to this by now; the variety of services that they provide are simply too valuable.

But it does make some of them rather anxious to pick up the work when the opportunity arises.

Which leads to--

                                    NOW

Where the double doors of Peacock Silk boom wide open with the sight of--

--not a rumormonger?!--

but an impatient-looking, middle-aged business man, marching straight towards Tsumugi Kujaku's atelier.

"Kujaku! I know you're here -- I have an urgent matter I need to--"

He gets about halfway towards said atelier before he catches sight of--

--a rumormonger?!--

dressed in a chocolate ruffle-blouse, a black brooch ribbon tie, a white A-line inverted pleat skirt, leggings and Mary Janes, the sleeves of their coat whipping past his face like streamers in the wind as Myunghon Yeo catches up past him and overtakes him, on their way to--

*record scratch*

-- planting themself right on Tsumugi Kujaku's lap?!

Yes; Tsumugi Kujaku is here, seated on their work station. Dressed in a black suit (and, it seems, little else besides, beyond the canny glimpse of a gold binder before the precarious plunge of that suit is buttoned up), matching slacks and polished oxfords that have been modified to be gold-toed, with lips a matching shade to go with the deep and aggressive black of their eyeliner and shadow, they make for a silhouette shadow that nigh-perfectly frames Myunghon's slightly more colorful figure as they suddenly find themself with a lapful of the rumormonger.

Unexpected. Do they blink?

--do they look a little paler than usual--?

Neither questions with answers in the immediate sense as Myunghon finds a black clad arm wrapping 'round them, from shoulder to collar bone, to draw them closer against their new perch.

"It'll wait," is all they say to the increasingly flustered-looking man.

He starts to bluster out a, "But it's been waiting--"

Before Tsumugi, perching their chin on Myunghon's shoulder, looks at him with that steady, placid stare.

"Unless you want to discuss your business now?" they suggest, simply. The man hesitates visibly.

And then just throws his hands into the air and mutters out all sorts of frustrated noises as he leaves Peacock Silk angry.

Not for the first time.

All this leaves Myunghon in Tsumugi's lap. And now in their grasp. Their gaze is still focused forward, towards the space that man once occupied. Their gaze almost... off somewhere else?

"You made yourself comfortable," is their first observation for Myunghon, regardless of anything else.

They sound.

Fascinated.

<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.

    "It will wait," Merry adds in a practiced business tone to the middle-aged businessman. For a moment in time, the funerary body is evoking the dead spirit of Myorei Yukichi telling someone that their issue isn't important enough to be a meeting, it will be an e-mail they will check on their own time, in concert with Tsumugi's statement of fact. They drape one of their arms carefully (it does hurt) around the tailor's black suit, a rather dangerous gleam in their one gray eye as they seem terribly at ease at their sudden newfound role as armcandy. Lapcandy? (Why do they have nothing on underneath except their binder. That gold binder is really cute--)

    Then there is silence, as the man disappears.

    "Hmmm. And now it's just us," Merry remarks in turn as a quiet smile creeps into their face, leaning their head forward to rest against where Tsumugi's chin had roosted on their shoulder.

    "You look rather wan. Has your disappearance afflicted you?"

    They trail a long finger up Tsumugi's cheek, softly, so as to not smear against any of that beautiful eyeliner or mascara. It's all very attractive, after all. "But now I am here too. And you, in turn, can make me wait," comes the almost-pleased observation of Rumourmonger Merry, almost in contrast with what they said last time.

    "It would not be the first time."

    It's said almost playfully, not annoyed or demanding, as if it were just an observation of fact. This isn't the sobbing, drowning Myunghon of their last few encounters; this is the mask Myunghon wears, the one that bears such a Hope that would seethe and strangle all other sentiments in its spread.

<Pose Tracker> Tsumugi Kujaku has posed.

You look rather wan. Has your disappearance afflicted you?

They sound fascinated, you see...

"Ara."

... because this is fascinating.

The way Tsumugi so casually and brazenly holds Myunghon close -- it's something they would do normally, of course, but right now? Right now it's an improvisational calculation made in a moment of rare, sublime, uncertainty. Something unexpected happened; and now Tsumugi wants to test it. They're certain that normally such a situation - drawn so intimately close, in a public setting, with company - would be mortifying for Myunghon Yeo. They can imagine a whole host of responses from the proprietor of the Cardboard Dragon.

None of them are this.

And yet... it's not unfamiliar either, is it? Tsumugi's seen glimpses of this before. This fascinating... mask? ... Myunghon wears.

But never like this. So how could they help but prod?

Myunghon is right, of course: 'wan' is the most appropriate way to describe how Tsumugi looks right now, subtle and easily missed with their demeanor, but there. But at the moment, Tsumugi's response is just that simple 'ara' as green eyes finally drift back towards Myunghon, catching only glimpses of them in the periphery of their vision thanks to their respective positions.

"Are you worried about me?"

The question comes and goes; a finger draws up towards the high and prominent curve of Tsumugi's cheekbone. They're here. Tsumugi can make them wait. That voice, so close, tickles at their ear.

Playful. Confident. Brazen even, perhaps. It pairs well with that floral scent, evoking memories of the first pair of times they met.

They could make them wait, couldn't they? They've done so before; they likely will again. Or--

They don't provide a verbal answer; not yet. Maybe they are going to make Myunghon wait again. And yet body language, too, is a language, isn't it? The way they shift, head lifting and pulling away to urge Rumormonger Merry's comfortable perch up and off; the way their hand at their collar lifts, arm crooked at the elbow, until they can capture Myunghon's chin.

The way they tilt their own head until they can look at the rumormonger eye-to-eye, or as close as one can get in their relative situations, to watch them with an expression writ with pension. Rapt.

They could ask what caused this sudden change in attitude in Myunghon. It'd be the easy way; and they might still yet. But for right now, Tsumugi settles for the thing that they're most curious about, as they inspect Merry's pale, bandaged features.

"How do you feel?"

<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.

    For those who've seen Myunghon in supernatural spaces, the difference is quite stark -- gone is the meek, soft, gentle proprietor of the Cardboard Dragon who, even today, never truly feels comfortable on the streets, looking around every corner and feeling as if a shadow is creeping on them, a response built from the trauma both emotional and physical they've endured in just the past few months.

    In its place is the bold, vivacious, dangerous leader of the Cardboard Dragon group who wrested Hirasaka's safety back from the hands of Kaneshiro. Who saved Taro Nakata from the clutches of the Homunculus with the others. But it is true, glimpses of it have peeked out before...

    "Hmmm. Yes," answers Myunghon -- Merry -- rather succinctly, not in that typical gentle way of theirs, but as if they've decided worry for Tsumugi is also something they'd rather grasp into their hands rather than discard. "You are an enigma, after all. You carry yourself so splendidly, that even your disappearances cannot help but intrigue... and yet..."

    The smile creeps to dangerous territory, their gray eye widening and looking a bit duller, that gaze seemingly drinking in that body language, every moment of their entire time together.

    "You can tire, too. That which rests under so many layers of masks that we both wear..."

    As Tsumugi adjusts themself, Merry follows suit slowly, though they don't resist one bit when the tailor brings their hand to lift their chin up. Merry themself leans themself so close their noses could touch. The lily-of-the-valley. A poisonous flower. A poisonous hope. Its meaning in the language of flowers is rote -- purity, joy, love, sincerity... and yet it isn't without danger underneath. Perhaps danger attracts danger.

    "How could I not find that fascinating? As you yourself have found me fascinating this last month."

    But Tsumugi's not the only one wan -- as powerful as the facade the Rumourmonger is presenting, they're shattered right now; the bag underneath their eye is heavier than normal, and they, too, are paler than their usual. The way their clothes drape against them feel a little less lively, like they don't have the energy to be as fastidious with their image as usual. Behind that mask that's presenting itself so powerfully...

    The Myunghon Tsumugi's become intimately is screaming even louder underneath.

    "I'm just fine," answers Merry in contrast.

<Pose Tracker> Tsumugi Kujaku has posed.

So your Hope seethes throughout a garden, strangling out every other sentiment in its spread?

Mm. I like that. I hope I can see it with my own eyes some day.

The words Tsumugi gave Myunghon the day they first truly talked ring no more clearly than they do at this moment. The bold leader of Cardboard Dragon drapes on the tailor this day; the roots of their inspiring confidence wind throughout the soil that is Myunghon Yeo, musing as to the nature of Tsumugi's current, pallid state not out of concern, but rather interest.

The vines stretch out beautifully, musing on the mystery that is Tsumugi Kujaku. How they carry themself. How they intrigue

How even they can be weak too.

It's a beautiful thing, the way Rumormonger Merry flowers in Myunghon's proverbial soil.

'Return to happiness'. It's a rather fitting meaning for a poisonous flower, Tsumugi thinks in this moment.

What - after all - could be more poisonous than that smile on the rumormonger's lips?

Merry leans in towards their touch. Nose dares to just barely bump nose, until the slightest shift brings the very tip of Tsumugi's brushing Merry's in a practical phantom touch. The tailor says nothing to the rumormonger's fascination in the immediate. Those bright, intense green eyes just watch them. Watch the widening of that single, gray eye, and how it emphasizes the bags beneath. Watch the pallor of Merry's skin as lips purse out the syllables of their fascination.

Watch the way fabric slides against pale skin in the loose drape of guttered weariness.

I'm just fine.

"..."

They watch it all, for four seconds of contemplative silence, absorbing the answer spoken by Merry, and the answer glimpsed of Myunghon. Black lips part.

"I can tire," they suddenly say, echoing the revolutionary's earlier observation. Their hand shifts, the pad of that manicured thumb drawing a clipped, lacquered-gold nail up the line of Merry's jaw. "I can sweat. I can bleed." Up, to that point at the corner of their jaw, to that junction point where the ear lingers just above, and the pulse just beneath.

"I can get sick. I can suffer. I can cry." The pad of that thumb slips, pressed to Merry's pulse.

"I can lose."

Vivid greens lift until they lock with Merry's gray, for a brief moment.

"I can feel them. I can have them inflicted on me. Because I'm human. They're my right, and my curse."

The soft shift of Tsumugi beneath Merry sees their head listing towards the side as they speak. Thoughtful. Quiet. "I like you like this. Is this how you want to be? Or what you think you have to be?" The words are quiet, and just growing moreso with every one -- distant, like Tsumugi wasn't speaking to Merry, but past them.

Until the lazy drift of their head draws suddenly inward. Until black lips press against Merry's ear, to whisper a question directly into it.

Lily-of-the-valley is very beautiful, but very deadly. But the poison isn't the only dangerous part of them.

"Are you suffocating, Myunghon?"

It's also how it seethes through the garden when left unchecked.

<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.

    If there is concern, someplace, it surely hides in the dullness of those eyes; perhaps, in the compartmentialisation of Myunghon Yeo, it is Myunghon Yeo who worries. Because a revolutionary's role is to become something greater than flesh and blood, of pale human worry; no, Merry's seething, strangling presence is there as they inevitably must become something greater than someone who can tire, who can get sick, suffer, cry.

    Lose.

    That's right. The only thing Merry can become is No Longer Human.

    The moment in which they've drawn so close can be described as anything short of electric. Merry's excitement and intrigue is displayed rather evidently in that rigid, showman-like smile of theirs. Drinking in the charge of their bright green eyes, as they in turn are scrutinised. Four seconds of contemplative silence pass, and yet,

    Here, Tsumugi speaks of their limitations too. How they are invariably trapped in the same trappings that each and every one of them are. They can feel... 'them'.

    Who is 'them'? The sickness, the suffering, the tears? Or something far, far beyond, as they gaze distantly? Tsumugi's gold-laced finger explores the line of Merry's jaw, soft-featured and less defined than Tsumugi's own, and broken, violated, underneath those bandages. Scars run down there, hidden underneath the soft gauze.

    And Tsumugi is human.

    Myunghon is human, too, as Tsumugi has reminded them prior, no matter how much they act the funerary part, drifting from day to day as if a corpse propped up upon strings. It is Tsumugi's right -- and curse.

    "Ara," the non-human speaks, then. There's an almost trembling excitement in the way Tsumugi questions them -- the words growing quiet, more distant, as if they might, might just be perturbed by this disturbingly bold Thing that so badly wants to be Myunghon Yeo that they have to try to reach beyond the pale to speak out to someone that isn't quite listening and awake at present.

    Even if they say I like you like this.

    It's in such contrast that they challenge them -- is this how they want to be... or who you think you have to be?

    "How so... very fascinating. What if I did say 'yes'?" To which question? The thing that which is no longer human doesn't answer. "Am I not here, the embodiment of someone who embraces the best of all possible worlds? Someone who has attained the truest mark of freedom, cast from society's chains? And yet..."

    It's warm, longing, the way they pull closer as Tsumugi's black lips part and whisper, so husky and delicate--

    Are you suffocating, Myunghon?

    The whisper reverberates through their body, a genuine frisson of surprise causing the Rumourmonger to quiver and cling harder-- the body language changes in but an instant, their hands shaky, trembling; there's a soft little noise, a little sob, and they very gently draw their head down to nestle against Tsumugi's shoulder again.

    "M-mm," is all Myunghon can squeak out, fighting back tears.

    Hope is but an illusion, and the garden is tended to.

<Pose Tracker> Tsumugi Kujaku has posed.

What is being human?

What is being inhuman?

What's the difference between a person and Homunculus? A person and a thing?

Tsumugi Kujaku came to their own answer on this matter years ago, and it set them on the path they walk today.

They came to it through sickness, and suffering, and loss.

It's all a matter of that unattainable goal: absolute freedom.

The best of all possible worlds.

And now they find someone trying to determine what that means, to them. Someone occupying a mask they need - a mask they attempt to embody - a mask that is, as Dazai proclaimed before them, No Longer Human.

Is that the way they can free themself of their own burden? Are they not, as they say, the pinnacle of freedom, thrown loose the yoke of society's fettering expectations?

Are they not?

Or are they just echoing the possibility of what could be, without understanding?

...

So-young cast this spell on Myunghon, such as it is, by invoking the supernatural, where they so clearly and effortlessly embody their mask. And now Tsumugi dispels it with an invocation of their own, four words long,

calling to the part of Myunghon Yeo still bound tight within reality's fetters.

Are they suffocating?

Like a flipped switch, firm confidence gives way to trembling insecurity. The Rumormonger of Cardboard Dragon - no, the proprietor of Cardboard Dragon - clings all the more tightly to Tsumugi. Freed from the strangling vines by way of the shackle, Myunghon gently buries their face against Tsumugi's shoulder.

And in response? Tsumugi stares forward towards those double doors Merry - Myunghon - so boldly strode through, where they flagrantly dismissed a man instead of panicking in the face of him. Where they sought what they wanted without hesitation. Their hand falls from the bandaged stretch of Myunghon's throat.

"I was told once, you can't escape society. Ignore it, and it would devour you." Their voice has once more resumed that normal tone, silken but deep and unerringly level. The arm that abandoned Myunghon's face now wraps around their body, joined by its opposite number.

"She said you had to feed it scraps of its expectations and trick it into thinking it was a feast, allowing you to enjoy the true bounty." In other words... "Show society a pleasing mask, and the world can be yours."

Play the fool, accept the fetters. And use them to drag the world behind you.

As they speak, Tsumugi suddenly falls backwards with Myunghon in their grip, as if they had decided to just... stop fighting gravity. They fall into the messy streams of unrolled fabrics arrayed across Tsumugi's workstation with a soft bounce of impact - a sea of colors and possibilities.

"Now I wonder: 'why bother even giving it scraps? If society is such a ravenous beast...'"

Green eyes fixate, lidded, on the ceiling above them.

"'... why not just kill it?'"

Scarlet silk pooling beneath their head bundles with the turn of their head, as they regard Myunghon against them.

"... Change is the privilege of someone who has opened their eyes to the truth. I like that side of you. I like this one, too. But are you satisfied with them?"

<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.

    Tsumugi Kujaku knew the truth of the Homunculus and the Ateliers two years ago. Were they here on more business-like grounds, that would have been the first thing out of Rumourmonger Merry's mouth. And yet, despite believing that they have no business in Myunghon's intimacy, they didn't simply reach for business either. How complicated the masks we wear! How clean the lines we believe they delineate (do they really? do they really?).

    Do you really know, Myunghon-ssi?

    There's a small hitch of breath as they listen, rapt still despite teetering on the edge of a breakdown. There is a 'she' in Tsumugi's life, once. Who could that be? Even dispelled of the notions of Rumourmonger Merry, their mind is still their own -- it's a tantalising little detail, a little morsel of someone who after sharing so much physical intimacy they know next to nothing about. They need it, even as Tsumugi recovers to that normal, unerringly level tone, as if they've now reversed their positions.

    They were afforded a peek, and yet the door is now shut.

    To ignore society is to let it devour you. Myorei Yukichi has arguably been a person who has had that tempered into them all their life. From the high-society, award-winning actress that is their mother, Suzie Park, to the corporate heavyweight that is their father, Seiichiro Yukichi, who chose to so throughly mask their Zainichi identity until it was all but erased. From the academic grinder, to university, to corporate life...

    Myorei Yukichi has done nothing but feed society.

    But the words of this unknown 'she' is intriguing -- something akin to how their own mother would view it, someone constantly exploiting others in society. A mother? A mentor? A lover? Even... a tormentor?

    "... a pleasing mask alone only stimulates the beast's appetite," Myunghon quietly whimpers. "You have seen it firsthand in the month and change you have known me. People, like that horrid Ishiba, lay hands on me violently and-- and even my own mother describes me as someone she can act upon without consequence, before she attempts to kill me," breaking into a louder sniffle, that last part spoken with terror tearing their tone apart.

    It's a very dire confession they've made.

    Tsumugi falls backwards, though, and they are in freefall for a moment -- there's a quiet gasp from the white-haired Myunghon as they fall into bolts and ribbons and drapes of cloth.

    They're very beautiful in this moment, Myunghon's entire mind echoes.

    Especially as Tsumugi speaks of killing society.

    Their gray eye gazes against Tsumugi against scarlet silk, as if it could represent the sea of blood that they'd spill to enact their change. And isn't that what, eventually, Rumourmonger Merry can accept? No one said the revolution would be bloodless. Especially if it is their own.

    It's because it has to be their own.

    "Perhaps I still wear the mask of Optimism," Myunghon murmurs. "'I'm afraid to say that it's a mania for insisting all is well when things are going badly,'" they quite Candide, as he speaks to Cacambo, at the cusp of truth.

    "But..."

    They lean forward, stroking gently at Tsumugi's cheek again, then at their hair, lovingly running their fingers through, then says: "The closer and closer I am drawn to you, the more I will understand..."

    Then they plant a kiss on those beautiful black lips, letting themself surrender to them.