2025-12-11: It's No Small Feat
- Log: It's No Small Feat
- Cast: Shiryuu Ryouhara, Myunghon Yeo
- Where: Cardboard Dragon, Hirasaka Ward
- OOC Date: December 11, 2025
- IC Date: August 24, 2012
- Summary: Shiryuu collapses outside of the Cardboard Dragon in a matter of survival after his narrow escape from the club. Myunghon, fresh off their own attempt to escape the mortal coil, finds and treats him.
- CWs: Discussions on suicide
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
He almost died, several times.
The smoke, toxic to anyone who breathed it. The steel beams and catwalks, shorn molten and piled atop him like jackstraws. They precluded any effort to wriggle loose no matter how much he paid attention to his escape lessons.
Not to mention the gaping sword hole through his middle. Among other things.
Escape was a matter of desperation. A matter of fast thinking. He had, in certain ways, been prepared for it. He'd been training to trace the contous of the zones, to pay attention to the feeling in his 'eye' with the shift of the ghostly world's heartbeat. To follow where they had left. To find the last vestige of that darkness that consumed his club, somewhere in the curling fire and the snickering laughter of devils. To aim, to lift a beam so that he could see -- and force himself through.
.... but that's not really important right now, is it?
Survival is a matter of degrees. Clawing himself loose of the fire with only one functional hand was an uphill fight. Getting clear of the club before his agents swarmed it was moreso. Shiryuu -- injured so and only a year's shy of a civil war in his clan -- is no fool.
Pigeon-toed steps made on melted soles in shoes with ripped laces, it was impossible to know how far he'd walked. A makeshift binding from his haori and cinched tight with a ratcheting cord to keep from leaving a trail, the silks already turning foul. A hand wrapped in gaffer tape. Holding onto his pack as a struggle. His sword, absent its saya, jammed through the pack entirely and wrapped in a torn sleeve in absence of a proper scabbard. He only needed to make it... a few more miles.
That was when he fell face-first into a brackish puddle, bloodstained hair haphazardly sprayed across the damp, filthy pool in the back alley. One eye frozen blue and bleeding, one eye brown and dim.
A small, cheap flip-phone lays by him, open and shining a pale light on his face. The fingertips of his good hand lay nearby, impotent.
On the screen, the messages app is open. A few numbers, broken coordinates that could either be down the street from the burning club or somewhere in the middle of nowhere in the sea off the coast of Shandong, China. And a single cat emoji. The cat is sad.
At the top of the message window: RMM.
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
At some point, in his diminished sense of werewithal, someone is very vainly trying to move him and finding it incredibly difficult given their utter lack of arm strength and the fact that they've got to go up a whole flight of stairs, but it is done anyway -- especially as a surge of Blue assists them in the matter once they've crossed the threshold and the assassin finds himself spirited away on something more efficient and masterful than some nobody trying to use FLESH and BONE and can instead use MAGIC SILK--
It might be quite a while before Shiryuu wakes up, but by the time he does, it's to the scent of tea and, less favourably, bleach in the background, in the... one could say dismal, but perhaps comforting? second floor of the Cardboard Dragon, which at the very least is Clean unlike the nightmare third floor he's been through. Whoever's been taking care of him has done the needful of doing first aid and emergency stapling of wounds to make sure that Sword Hole doesn't become a cause of death, like they have some experience with sealing sword wounds shut themself.
He finds himself with a lot more bandages and his clothes replaced. They ARE clean, but they might be a far cry from the fashionable threads that he's used to, though he does find his shredded, battered clothes and melted shoes in a reasonably neat -- if bloodied -- pile on the coffee table, along with his sword, which at least has been carefully placed so the blade isn't going to horribly grind against coffee table glass or anything.
His clothes?
Shorts, and an oversize t-shirt of a goofy clown with giant shoes with a sad face and the text:
IT'S NO SMALL FEET, BEING A CLOWN... :(
And across from him? Myunghon Yeo, who looks just about as deathly, face pale and a little blue with the bags under their one eye even more evident and heavy. They, too, have a really lame shirt with an anthromorphic bicycle proclaiming it's TWO-TIRED to go. They have a white skirt and leggings on.
The rumourmonger has a cup of tea in their hand, trembling, and their Cognitive Coat is draped over them like they're certain someone else is going to come finish the job on Shiryuu, so they've been on watch.
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
Even fitful, he sleeps like a prince. The young man rests mostly where bidden, though through either illness or sheer wont he doesn't appear to be the type to curl up, even with staples in his middle and a wrapped hand.
Truthfully, the matter of attending to him is as much a mechanical process as it is a physical one. Even absent the obvious logistical effort of moving him, most of the devices on him seemed to be of entirely alien, or warlike purpose. Among the knives, bombs, and papercraft he carries, there is also wires, and a little control surface for operating a synthesizer. The red cord around his middle was some sort of autotourniquet (?) device that needed to be broken to strip the silk from his middle, and it matches one from the emaining sleeve of his haori. It is very, very clear from the context that he's been run through, burned, and cut his hand open on a sword.
Of course, no amount of attention seems to stop his eye from bleeding randomly, weeping from beneath his eyelid, apparently following its own will. At least he doesn't seem to be very sensitive to pain.
The boy, for all of the unhidden pride with which he sleeps does not himself have peace. His brow is set harshly throughout the time, exactly as he was found, and his breathing is slightly faster than the norm. The young man shifts in short, small bursts. Tiny little murmurs, sotto voce, pepper the intensity of his voice. "revenant." "sharper." "faster." "better." "shinigami." "save her." "no!" just a skill issue--" "have to follow him..."
"coward."
"k--!!" His bandaged hand twitches as he flinches. An instant later, the boy snaps awake with a start, borderline startling his clown motif as his eyes shoot open. By this time, both of his eyes are brown again, but one would be given to think his eyes shot fire, the way he behaves, glance snapping around him like a caged animal, his right hand fisted.
It dawns on him a moment later where he's at.
The locked bracelet on his bad hand has opened, spilling a chain-linked line of microblade sections from the bracelet in a circuit to the ground, the tail gleaming where it hasn't been burned. It does no good -- it belongs to an injured hand, clutching the whip lamely.
....The grey-haired boy finally notices Merry, watching him. The whip dangles, impotent and comical for a very, very long and awkward second.
"...um."
Shiryuu, despite all appearances to the contrary, is not accustomed to words by nature.
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
The thing about Myunghon is that no matter how involved they are in crime, they still aren't... terribly used to weapons, and this is by design. They don't want to get so desensitised that they're used to a gun, still remembering well the day they took the gun So-young bought on a lark when they were pushed beyond their mental and emotional limits to try to erase someone -- and themself, and had to be coaxed out of a sin they already felt like they'd already committed.
So it's with care that Myunghon puts the various devices down, unsure if they're going to kill them just by virtue of being touched. They're still here, though, so...
Shinigami.
There is someone, in that past. A woman. A reason. And... it's clear, what happened to him.
Burns. Sword slashes.
There's one hot topic of a sequence killer in Sumaru that fits the mark. But Shiryuu leaps to attention, drawing a whip that Myunghon can't even BEGIN to pretend they know would've been here -- and it's tiredness that prevents them from having a particularly startled reaction.
"... good morning, Ryouhara-kun," Myunghon says weakly. It's dark, but it must be in the wee hours of the morning. "I took the liberty of putting you back together as best I could," they murmur, voice a little hoarse from how damaged and painful their throat feels.
"I take it that you made good on your promise to summon the Joker Killer," Myunghon remarks fatiguedly, looking to their laptop where -- Shiryuu can see the article on the club fire. Looks like they've pieced some things together too.
"... I have some pear juice, if you'd like."
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
To be honest, he hadn't intended on calling them.
Taking care of things himself was his preference, came easily the reasoning. Piecing together what collusion of events must have transpired to end up here -- mercifully, here -- of all places was a matter of observing the evidence. His clothes, Myunghon's -- so stripped of that grandiose whimsy known as Merry -- the haggard draw in their voice, the tremor in their hands. These are details that, once his pupils actually focus enough to tell, he won't miss.
But for the moment, there is unfocused, raw uncertainty, confusion, and awkwardness. For a moment, the shihaisha is not at all the leader to which he is accustomed, gingerly realizing that perhaps cutting down the person responsible for your continued living is not the appropriate response to being greeted. What time is it?
"Uh," he repeats, because it feels better than saying nothing. A bandaged hand mitten-paws helplessly at the flexible microblade of Juurishojin, snapping it back up. A click, a rattle, and a winding retracts the blade into lock, seaming against the metal of what appeared only a few moments ago to be an ornamental bangle.
"....sorry," he apologizes. The first whole thought that entered his mind. He doesn't say what he's apologizing for.
The Joker Killer. Invoking the name seems to drive the young man into a quiet piece of obsession, balling the fabric of his shorts into his one good hand, the tightening fist worrying the out of place khaki tightly. For a time, he is silent, brooding and sullen, until his eyes brighten at the prospect of p--
A wave of nausea hits Shiryuu like a hammer. Suddenly, the boy doubles over, clamping his bad hand over his mouth, stifling a dry heave. "Urrp--!!"
The pain in his middle brings tears to at least one of his eyes.
"Hh-- I'm -- I'll be fine," he assures Yeo. "I need to --" Instead, he turns a quarter, thinking to slide out onto his bare feet, immediately noticing the pile of his effects in the middle distance. Suddenly, that seems to be that -- Shiryuu's made up his mind, and is likely about to fall face-first onto the floor again.
...at least, until he notices Myunghon's ghastly state. Just like before... but now..
"....aa," the shihaisha relents. "I think so." He is very authoritative in his clown shirt and shorts, confirming for Myunghon what may have been obvious. His head dips, gripping onto the one resolve he has, his mouth a thin, pressed, flat line.
"...but you're safe with me. He won't come, not now."
The notion carries more meaning than one, the boy's haphazard mess of hair falling over his eyes briefly. "....what happened here," he asks, finally.
He can intuit some things, but the cast and pallor of Myunghon's voice sticks in his mind.
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
Myunghon allows the grace to let Shiryuu rewind his micro-weapon, thinking, perhaps, what kind of life they would be living if their own personal pipeline to professional murder involved knives, bombs, katana, and microfilament whips, instead of corporate buzzspeak, high-class parties where everyone is smiling but no one is happy and doesn't mean a single word they're saying, and the singular, focused hatred of taking everything away from poor people so that they, as the oh-point-oh oh oh oh oh one percent can be unnoticably richer at the expense of another's life.
To kill someone with Juurishojin, in their mind, must feel better than deleting someone's existence by pressing 'Send' on an e-mail.
"No, no need..." Myunghon does attempt to reassure, before alarm does ring in their eye as they rise at Shiryuu's nausea, getting up and saying, "Don't make any sudden moves for now. I stitched you back together, but you'll need proper treatment. I do know a doctor that won't ask questions." Hello, Tae Takemi, you're now involved with stitching up an assassin back together. Isn't life wonderful?
They hand some pills in a small film canister over. "Painkillers." And water. The good stuff, too. They're about to coax him to not get up, but it seems like Shiryuu's decided something on his own. Myunghon doesn't look particularly more lavish either, the coat clashing bad against their own punny t-shirt.
"I could ask that of yourself... but..."
Myunghon glances to where Shiryuu can follow the trail to where even now, the powerful stench of bleach is accompanied by a whole pile of-- used duct-tape? The pallor brings to mind poisoning, and other more subtle aspects on their body lines up. Bleach is of course already a corrosive, but it doesn't take much to make a poisonous gas even with common goods. The duct tape, also a way to hermetically seal a space with even common goods.
A pause, and as if knowing Shiryuu will intuit it already:
"... you could call it a coward's act. A lot of people do," they admit, suddenly sounding a lot more sorrowful than before. Then they get up to go to the fridge, to bring him that pear juice.
"Here you go, it's on the house."
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
There are, not too far from one another, two forms of killings in the room. One are the tools of the contractor, the garrottes, blades and grenades of the cold blooded. Then there are ... just like that send button, far less overt means.
"So... it's you I have to thank for my life," Shiryuu remarks sullenly, accepting the illicit container thoughtfully. A moment of self-evaluation reminds him that being run through is not an easily managed state. A spray of thoughts paint the back of his skull -- and Myunghon can see exactly where the boy hesitates, where he frowns. There is no suspicion, but ...
Almost as if run out of objections before he ever raised them, Shiryuu splits the difference. The lid comes off of the canister, a single pill examined. Swallowed dry, then chased with water, each in one hand. The rest are set aside him. "I owe debt already," when the idea of adoctor is brought up.
Now two dissimilarly brown eyes peek from beneath silver strands, conspiratorially following Myunghon's glance from one method to the other. Ryouhara has, unfortunately, been made all too aware of many of the finer points of ninkou-kagaku. A single bottle of bleach can do a lot of damage even when the means aren't meant. The vicious, acrid scent gets a lot of context in the shadow of that haphazard ball of duct tape.
"...." The boy's eyes narrow suddenly in a stab of shock at that word. There is no hardening of his mien, nor does he respond with the same abject warmth of worry one might ascribe to someone of a modern sensibility. Instead, the young man grows uncommonly distant, letting the subject fade before accepting the bottle of juice from his caretaker. He holds the juice sealed in his right hand, contemplating tersely. A momen's decision, and he nods lightly, pressing the cool surface to his cheek with a long, low sigh unsheathing from his chest.
"..no, it's..."
He starts to say something. Something strong, powerful and brave. Then the boy just doesn't, trailing off. It takes him a long time to start again.
"... when I fought that man," Shiryuu begins, a little lost in the sense of things. "...he said I was a coward as well."
The dmission hurts. There is a morose thread of intensity from the young shihaisha in that moment. Almost as if the word itself hits closer to a guilt than he would like.
A moment, dark and sullen and shadowed, passes in silence. And then the boy adopts a screwed-on smile, a mild uptilt of sudden recognition. He still has the pear juice pressed to his cheek. Yeo will notice it's on the side of his face that was bleeding from the eye earlier.
"Now look at us," the boy points out, cavalier.
"Where did these getups even come from?"
Nobody desses like this for real. Right? ...right??
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
It may be a romanticised view, but Myunghon thinks a garrotte, a blade, a grenade is honest -- an act of violence that can't be misconstrued. A detached, cold e-mail of denial, a 'peer review' process that can't be construed as anything but malicious, but all legal -- lauded, even, because the process in which it has been shaped has become so ingrained into the rot in society...
Am I the only one who kills people? You, you don't use your swords. You kill people with your power, your money. Sometimes you kill them on the pretext of working for their good. It's true they don't bleed. They are in the best of health, but all the same you've killed them. It's hard to say who is a greater sinner, you or me.
That quote of Akutagawa's rings in Myunghon's head often.
"We can worry about debt and payment when I am certain you will pull through," Myunghon murmurs, not having any of that grandiose vivaciousness when they are wearing the mask of 'Merry'. It's hard to tell whether that makes them more or less human. They think a little, looking at those brown eyes, the way that Shiryuu's eyes bled earlier when they were trying to care for him. The 'blue' eyes that people talked about...
But Shiryuu shares something unexpected. That when he fought Sudou, he called him a coward too.
"Do you know why...?"
Myunghon does notice, the way he presses the coldness against the eye that was bleeding. Worry starts to return to their heart. Shiryuu's eye was clearly injured, but they have no idea how to treat an eye injury. "I can-- call them now. They can be here within the hour," they advise. "And..."
A pause, as they think to do this now before they forget, moving to their shop counter and returning with a key -- and a piece of paper. "A safehouse, some six blocks from here, when we can move you safely. This one is not compromised by the police."
But look at them. Two cowards, with their silly shirts. That sad smile is still on the rumourmonger's face.
"Omoroi Tees dot co dot jp, for 200 yen for a box of forty shirts, when they ran out of business."
Can you withstand it, Shiryuu? The indignity of wearing a t-shirt that cost them FIVE YEN?
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
His arm folds over his middle. His injured hand absently fingers the shirt, right where the clown's big comically oversized shoe is making a big comically oversized step. Coincidentally, over the bandages in his middle. No, the painkilers haven't kicked in yet, so it's a bit like teasing a dragon fully intent on eating you whole. Each little touch takes a conscious amount of thought, his fingertips shifting and moving out of sync, as if pulled by strings, as if pulled by an amateur puppeteer. Press. Press. Shiryuu is definitely the type not to leave well enough alone. "I'll survive," he tells Yeo, in no uncertain terms and accompanied by a very instinctive gilded edge of impatience. Like most people his age, he is very quick to dismiss the idea of his own mortality.
A mortality that only hits him a minute or so later.
The vertigo of the mortal coil levels the boy's bubble right back where it was, where it sat, where he's currently missing a significant amount of blood, and can't move from one end of the shop to the other without collapsing. Well. He hasn't tried yet, right?
As if annoyed, the boy does seem like he's testing how the floor feels beneath his bare feet, the ball of one brushing the floor in sullen defiance of being bedridden.
There is a strange pallor to one of the boy's eyes when he looks back at Yeo, at the person behind that Merry. If he weren't so very lacking in a favored side, it would be easy to think that he's blind on one eye, the shade of brown subtly different in one eye from the other. It's nothing he's paying attention to, the press of cool juice against his face more of an absent self-soothing than anything else, an idea that dies with the question posed. He lowers the juice to his lap, and occupies himself with trying to pick the foil under the cap open with failing fingers. It's a serving distraction for him. A reason not to have to look Myung in their eyes anymore.
"....The cops don't have Persona, do they," he remarks, as grudging as he is sullen. Watching Yeo move about, he's seemingly happy to skate entirely past the idea of 'that question'. "I'll... I'll go as needed," he relents. "I'll only be a few days. I need... I need to meditate."
He doesn't explain literally any of that. Instead, he shoots Myunghon a nettled look -- he's wearing what? For how much? It's a welcome distraction. "Mm."
....until it doesn't distract him anymore.
"... it's because ..." Shiryuu starts in complete nonsequitur, his gaze suddenly hard. The very secure juice pays dearly for its insolence. Poke. Pick. Poke. Smack. The shihaisha's mouth sets in a hard, grim line as he focuses entirely on the bottle.
"... I wasn't strong enough."
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
Another.
Here's another youth who's so quick to dismiss their well-being -- there's so many of those these days, that, in one way or another, society doesn't care about. It might not be so readily evident, but that Shiryuu's clad as an assassin for contract already speaks volumes as to what his childhood isn't, and what his designed purpose in life is, now is it?
But they can't say anything about that without feeling like a hypocrite.
The soft gentleness of Myunghon Yeo is rather a stark contrast, perhaps. Merry is a bombastic figure designed to not be a flesh and blood creature. A designed, purpose-built mask in which they can interface with to the world's woes with aplomb. But Rumourmonger Merry wasn't the one who haphazardly attempted to treat him all night. That isn't their role. For the revolution, Rumourmonger Merry by design must shed blood...
"... the ones who treat me the worst do not, fortunately," Myunghon murmurs, shriveling into themself for even thinking of the violence again. "But there is one that does... and I do daresay he might be quick testing his luck on how long he continues to be a cop."
There's a deep frown as Shiryuu relents on going, however. "I would have you rest now. I will arrange things in the next hour -- it is still only four in the morning, we can still move you under cover of night," they say in no uncertain terms, because they think that Shiryuu's someone who can probably appreciate details.
But Shiryuu shares that the Joker Killer called him a coward because... he wasn't strong enough.
"..."
Myunghon frowns deeper, saying, "We are not strangers to skirmishes with that man by now, Ryouhara-kun, and every single time, he's eluded capture or defeat. That wound you have -- I have a near-identical one on my own torso. This is not... an opponent you defeat alone, and it is not a matter of skill or pride."
That frown creases deeper still. "He has many... dark blessings. Perhaps even ones we still don't know the true form of yet."
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
"It's not fair play for the police to have supralunary power," Shiryuu breathes in controlled exasperation, both colors of his eyes flicking about as he looks from left to right, the little saccade stabs of motion gifting him a quietly manic air.
"Give me a list of the ones bothering you, and I'll take care of it." He doesn't even seem to think about it. He's already authorized the breaking of one leg, he will simply give the list to Zakuro.
But the notion dwindles as Shiryuu thinks, his mind latching onto fine details as he rolls on, a cart laden and rolling downhill without stop. "....Iie," he breathes, flatly rejecting the notion, his mouth tight, his lips pressed together. The notion of dark power does not mollify him in the slightest.
"There is 'a power' backing him. But ... I saw. I was right there. I had him. He wasn't moving anymore. I just had to focus. Bankasoujin was in my hand." What? "I could have. There was a way. There had to have been. I just had to do it. I just needed to ..."
The boy's eyes rail against the walls. Coming to grips with the moment is a fast, brutal affair, and the lump in his throat feels like an iron ball. He blinks, hard, and his eyes come back wet, his lips pursed tightly. There is a tiny -pop- and pear juice shoots a full foot or two across the boy's lap as he finally plucks the foil loose of the bottle's mouth. "!"
He drips, quietly.
"...what use am I to her if I can't--" his mouth presses in a dark, annoyed line. The pear juice is now being coddled in his bad hand, the boy raising a single finger of his good hand, as if to pin down his own thoughts.
"It is my station in life to decide," he repeats. It's familiar to him, and there is nary a ghost of the manic energy that existed a moment prior. He's no longer having to choose his words, as if they were something written on the back of his hand. "I won't ask anyone else to endanger themselves if 'my life' is what will solve it."
He roots himself in place, his hand lowering to strangle the life from his juice bottle. He looks down at it, annoyed. Then he offers it back to Merry, suddenly both hands thrusted out.
"Drink," he tells them, in no uncertain terms. "Become strong. I will rest. Take care of your body. As shihaisha, I will tell you now that there won't be any forgiveness if you bring any harms to yourself before I've reached full power and we can talk again under my full authority again."
Pause.
"Also, you are very frugal."
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
"... no," Myunghon does seem a bit firmer on the topic of giving the names of the cops harrassing them. "I already told someone who offered that I don't wish to become someone who can only be comfortable when I've only condemned all my assa--" the voice hitches a bit, "... all my enemies to death."
A pause, and then they say, "I have a plan... to protect myself and those around me from them, regardless."
But Shiryuu describes the moment. He was there, dead to rights, his weapon in hand. He could've... could he? Now, the account seems more vague. It's unclear, Myunghon thinks, whether he was gripped by a crisis of conscience of some kind, or whether he encountered some other supernatural outcome that he wasn't expecting...
-pop-!
Pear juice is not going to be denied anymore.
Myunghon quietly hands a napkin his way, but then places it beside him instead as he laments on not being of use to 'her'. Myunghon isn't certian whether they should probe. This 'her'...
"Someone quite dear, no doubt..." Someone you need to avenge, comes the other side of that coin, that Myunghon doesn't voice. They want Shiryuu to have a deniable out.
But the next few words have him rising to something more imperious -- as the shihaisha, the one who decides. The Ruler. Myunghon deeply frowns as they don't quite reach for the pear juice yet. "You sound just like him," they murmur, not clarifying on who. "Why do I know so many people who have such a self-sacrificing nature... 'it's all right if it's my life', they always say..."
A despondent noise. "Don't speak with such authority to me of what I shouldn't do to myself when you've mired yourself in much the same pool of thought," they ruefully murmur -- not quite... angry, but... yes, despondent is the word for it. "I'm certain you think it noble. He does too. But there is something satisfying, deep down, about the fact that you won't have to face all the people concerned about you, isn't there...?"
Their face wrenches, agonised because they're just describing themself. They quietly accept the pear juice. It's going to taste like ashes, but they don't mind. They can share some pear juice.
"It's not a small feat indeed to be a clown..." they whisper.
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
It is a measurable self sacrifice to give away pear juice, for the record.
Eyebrows shooting up with quickness, Ryouhara briefly shows a shade of alarm when Myunghon wonders aloud what he was talking about. The response i immediate: the boy's mouth preses shut, his right eye closing, leaving the russet left to fix on the equally-Omoroi dealer. A moment passes, and the young man roughly flings himself back into the couch cushions, with a quiet -paf-.
"I don't know what you're getting at," Shiryuu points out, matter-of-factly. "Just some unfinished business with someone.."
An unspoken concern knits his eyebrows for a moment or two after that, but he seems very eager not to say more on it.
The young man grimaces as he adjusts, lifting both of his arms over the armrest to fold his hands behind his head. The painkillers are starting to kick in; he can do this now without feeling lightheaded. And for a bit, that seems to be the long and short of it, the boy transparent to the rebuke as he makes a good show of evaluating the ceiling.
"...it's not like that," he points out.
"We live our lives in this world with our roles dictated to us by that world. We might think for a time that we're 'someone different' or 'something else entirely,' but in time, we achieve a 'synchronicity' with our ultimate fate and role. Some of us are meant to toil in the dark. And some of us are meant to be beautiful."
A glance, absent, at the curling form of that Cognitive Coat.
"You're probably one of the ones meant to be beautiful, I think."
"Anyway." Shiryuu's eyes return up ahead to the ceiling above, letting Myunghon drink. "Self sacrifice is something different than nobility... it's the same for your person, too, I bet. It is a choice. Not.. noble. If they had the opportunity to see 'that person' again..."
Shiryuu drifts off into uncomfortable silence, the former sureness of the shihaisha fading away. He breathes out.
..... "Honk," he remarks, defeated.
The shihaisha smirks, suddenly wry and mischievious. A whip-lean smile edges his lips in sharp white. Satisfaction is a heady drug.