InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "It's better the second day."

kondo kozue | 近藤梢 (anthesphoria) wrote in disappear_rpg,
@ 2010-03-08 12:55:00

Entry tags:

beachthread, kiriko, kozue

dormroom rage: the sequel? who knows
WHO: Kozue and Kiriko
WHAT: Moar weighty discussion or something.
WHERE: Their room at the beach/maybe other places, depending.
WHEN: Just after the Kousplosion.
WHY: Kozue notices that Kiriko is nowhere to be noticed, and goes looking.

Kozue had slipped out of the living room as soon as the commotion had died down; she was not as much a mess as might have been expected, for along with disgust and a sense of betrayal and unpleasant confusion was a strong, strong sense of relief. At least things were over with Kou, and if they had ended poorly, well... Kozue had been party to worse breakups, if never to one quite that public.

What was bothering her now was that she knew Kiriko had been in the room with them before Kou had dropped the bomb (and the polariods), but by the time she had actually started fighting with Oubai, Kiriko had been nowhere to be seen.

So where had she gone? And, more importantly, why?

Kozue started by slowly pushing the door of their room open, and poking her head in; it was a sharp contrast to the last time she had entered the room after an interview with her now ex-boyfriend.

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anthesphoria
2010-03-09 04:13 am UTC (link)

The agreement soothed her worry some, initially, but when it was neither followed by further examples of why Kou was, in fact, a jerk, nor by anything else, the worry returned and Kozue sucked in a breath. It sort of helped settle her stomach.

If she was going to ask about it, she had to ask now; the longer she waited, the less acceptable it became to actually confront her friend about leaving, and about being so oddly distant now. Kozue steeled herself by glancing out the window, and opened her mouth to ask the question. "I—" it hung there, and then, "I don't know who gave him those ridiculous pictures."

She had come up to the point of it, and backed down again, and now was stuck on an entirely different thread of conversation. "But I guess it's over and done with now. Nothing for it." It was certainly out of her control—it had not ever been in her control to start with, Kozue told herself.

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apathyisboring
2010-03-09 04:44 am UTC (link)

"I know who gave them to him." She wrinkled her brow at the ceiling as if it were the source of her offense. She knew. She definitely knew. She hadn't worked out the logistical questions (in particular the "how" part) but all of that could certainly come later. She was chewing her tongue now, or biting it, more accurately. This would be an excellent time to take a stab at Kozue, really. But that wouldn't be fair. And by the time she convinced herself it wouldn't be fair, the pause had become kind of awkward anyway.

"I guess you didn't know you were being photographed?" That was a diplomatic solution. Neutral enough not to appear accusatory, accusatory enough to prompt her to spit up what had happened. She turned her head towards her and waited.

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anthesphoria
2010-03-10 09:24 pm UTC (link)

"I never saw a photographer," Kozue said, shaking her head. Which was impressive, given how close some of those shots had been; "He must have had a really good camera." He was a generic term; she hadn't the slightest clue who had taken the pictures. Probably a stranger, someone she wouldn't have recognized. "Oh? Who handed them over?"

A pause. "I don't know who else is involved, but I feel like it's Shirai at the heart of it, isn't it?" It was, at the end of the day, a very good explanation for why he had spent that slightly ridiculous amount of money on her. There had been no other perceptible reason--nothing he had gotten out of it. "Unless you know differently?" She perked her head up some; Kiriko was always on the pulse of these things.

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apathyisboring
2010-03-10 09:31 pm UTC (link)

Kiriko bit the inside of her lip. That wasn't a denial and it wasn't what she wanted to hear. Normally she might not have been sure that she wanted to hear that she'd been mistaken and there was nothing to worry about, just because there was something satisfying about being angry, but that wasn't the case. It just couldn't lead to anywhere.

"Of course he is." There was a pause before she spoke but it still sounded like snapping. She went back to chewing her lip. How could there honestly be any doubt about the situation? Stupid Kozue should stupid know. Maybe it even served her right for running off with him in the first place.

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anthesphoria
2010-03-11 05:13 pm UTC (link)

For the first time, Kozue heard something in Kiriko's voice that gave her pause—the other girl, when she had spoken, had sounded angry. Snappish, at the very least. Kozue could understand anger, but… this was what really stopped her, made her look at her hands for a moment in doubt, why was that anger directed at her?

Of all the people in this situation, Kozue had very quickly placed herself in a position of utter blamelessness, though it was a distinctly undeserved position. And thus, amid the confusion in her voice was a slight, slight hint of the beginning of self-righteousness. If Kiriko was going to be mad, why not be mad on Kozue's behalf, not at her? She tried to mask it in concern; it was mostly effective. "What's bothering you?"

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apathyisboring
2010-03-11 05:26 pm UTC (link)

"Nothing. Just, this stupid situation." She made some sweeping gesture that was clearly meant to somehow indicate "stupid," then dropped her arms at her sides. She was back to frowning at the ceiling, this time chewing the inside of her cheek. This conversation was going nowhere, fast. She would either have to take the forward approach or drop the roundabout line of inquiry altogether. She cleared her face (she could at least try to make it look like a polite question) and rolled her head to the side to look at Kozue directly.

"How come you never told me about it?"

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anthesphoria
2010-03-11 05:33 pm UTC (link)

"I did tell you," Kozue responded, at first perplexed, "I even brought you leftover pa--"

Then a thought hit her, a thought that explained, at least in part, Kiriko's cold, prickly demeanor; she remembered that Kiriko had left the room, probably before she had had the chance to outright deny screwing Reizo. "Wait, you mean. Kiriko, you don't actually believe that stuff? You know I didn't sleep with him. Right?"

For the moment, Kozue looked earnest, but suddenly worried. She had been perfectly (well, mostly) fine with the ruse because it had gotten rid of Oubai, but if Kiriko was really angry about it, for some reason that Kozue was busy following to its logical conclusion, then that changed things. Drastically.

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apathyisboring
2010-03-11 05:41 pm UTC (link)

Something in her chest lifted. Denial from Kozue was certainly more convincing than from Reizo. She was, for one thing, much less of a lying liar who lies all the time. All the same, it was hard to be completely convinced when faced with photographic proof. Maybe she was just being stupid and believing what she wanted to believe. Kiriko sat up slowly, brushing her hair behind her ear. She was looking at her knees instead of her roommate, now.

"Well... where did those photos come from...?"

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anthesphoria
2010-03-11 05:56 pm UTC (link)

Kozue watched Kiriko, as Kiriko watched something at about knee-level. This, she thought, confirmed that she'd hit on what was bothering Kiriko.... at least in a roundabout way. She was somewhere near the mark.

"Someone probably followed us. We did all those things—I mean like the shopping and eating pastries and walking around." A pause. "It rained and I forgot my umbrella, so we shared." And this was certainly not an unbelievable fact, at least, on Kozue's side: she was forever forgetting such things. It was more remarkable, perhaps, and Kozue should have found it more remarkable at the time, that Reizo had been amendable to the idea, had offered, even.

She thought back to what else had been on the table, what else had caught her eye. "The picture with my dress...? I don't know if you know what the dressing rooms at Comme des Filles boutique looks like? They have a really distinctive fuzzy carpet. I was trying on one of their fall collection dresses." A pause. "It had giant shoulderpads and I looked like a robot, but the point is... The pictures were," she furrowed her brow. "Not staged, but definitely meant to look bad."

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apathyisboring
2010-03-11 06:02 pm UTC (link)

Her mouth was doing something funny, shifting from one side to the other while Kozue spoke. Kiriko was vaguely aware of this (and how ridiculous it must look), but was busy trying to puzzle out what she thought about the whole thing. She was saying exactly what he had said. And what were the odds that they would have planned something like this together? Slim to none, most likely. Kozue didn't have any good reason to lie about it, either, at least not that she could think of. She went to tuck her hair behind her ear, found it was already tucked, and went to play with the loose strand hanging over her shoulder instead.

"It figures. We should have known something was up from the very start." She looked up, addressing her friend instead of her knees, now. "At least now you don't have to deal with Oubai, I guess."

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anthesphoria
2010-03-11 11:35 pm UTC (link)

"That's the good part of it." Well, that, and all the free stuff that Reizo had gotten her, which now was seeming less free and more bribery or payment, but… It was also very valuable.

Kozue could not bring herself to care that much that it was bribery of a sort, then. "I hope he just sulks in his room until we all go home. Not that it'd be different from how he's behaved up until now, of course." But seeing him around would be awkward, even more so, and Kozue imagined he'd not stay himself from giving out even more insulting diatribes to anyone who'd listen.

"I thought something was fishy but I… I guess I just couldn't be bothered to worry about it with everything else that was going on." This, the story of Kondo Kozue's life: something is wrong but there are swimsuits to buy, new expensive jewelry to appreciate, beaches to go to. People to rescue from Paradise, too, though it weaselled its way in there somewhere between jewelry and beaches.

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apathyisboring
2010-03-11 11:49 pm UTC (link)

"It isn't your fault." And it wasn't. If Kiriko hadn't even thought enough of it to investigate further beforehand or tag along and play chaperone, she hardly expected Kozue to have been worried about it. She could at least shelve the guilt from the Oubai situation too - her lack of suspicion left her kicking herself for not knowing better, but feeling nothing resembling guilt. The strings seemed to be tying themselves up, now, and she'd investigate some of the reconstructed pictures later on when she was alone to make absolutely extra super double sure.

There was just one thing that was still confusing her.

"You don't really seem mad at him at all. Shirai, I mean. Don't you want to get him back?"

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anthesphoria
2010-03-14 04:02 pm UTC (link)

Kozue shrugged. "I was thinking about it. I'm sure that me being unhappy isn't a bad thing for Shirai, but I don't think it was like, the point." If it was, she felt bad for Reizo for having missed that memo. Or series of memos. No, thinking back to how they had interacted that day at the park, it really seemed like some kind of bad blood between him and Oubai. Which was not a far-fetched theory at all: Reizo and Kou were, it seemed, both very good at collecting grudges. "I was a means to an end." Not surprising. Not surprising in the least.

"It got me out of a shitty situation, and I kind of profited." She shrugged. So she'd come out ahead of where she had been, even if this could never be called 'winning'. Being the best or the most benefited wasn't something she could hope for—coming out less damaged and slightly ahead of where she had been was, in Kozue's book, a victory. This, though, she had the sense she couldn't say to Kiriko, so she said nothing.

She looked at her hands—she needed a new manicure, the salt water was chipping at the current paint, and ugh, going back to school would mean going back to clear polish and the occasional French tips when teachers weren't in a disciplinary mood, she should schedule with her stylist after they were back in Iburi—and was quiet for a moment. The chatter of inane, nail-related thoughts kept out the other thoughts, and that was good.

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apathyisboring
2010-03-16 01:16 pm UTC (link)

Kiriko frowned. That was something she just didn't understand. If it had been her, she'd be out for blood, no matter how inadvisable and likely to wind up in endless circling it was. It wasn't as though she hadn't noticed that their approaches were always a bit different, but Kozue barely seemed angry at all. Just ambivalent, from what she could read.

On the other hand, this was a relief. Ambivalence meant she didn't need to do anything on her friend's behalf. Ambivalence meant it could be put behind her.

But, still...

"Are you alright, then?"

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anthesphoria
2010-03-17 02:28 am UTC (link)

She continued to look at her hands, fascinated--at least, she seemed a decent impression of fascinated. "Yeah."

Kozue did seem ambivalent, although that ambivalence was a careful, balanced front for a deep, ugly knot of doubt: just because she said it could not make her believe it. Just because she said that being used this way didn't make her angry, or make her want revenge, didn't mean that it didn't...

Kozue didn't know.

She glanced up. "Thanks for worrying."

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