InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "how do I look"

kondo kozue | 近藤梢 (anthesphoria) wrote in disappear_rpg,
@ 2010-04-29 20:49:00

Entry tags:

kozue, toshimi

Who: Kozue and Toshi
What: Laundry-ing.
When: After things have calmed down somewhat.
Why: They are Team Suffering And Some Stuff.
Where: Dorms, Laundry Room.

Contrary to popular belief, Kozue did in fact do her own laundry.

Sometimes, at least.

Tonight was one of those nights; she had come downstairs to the laundry room for a change of scenery. Sitting in her dormitory waiting for her bereavement leave to end was beginning to get old; at first she had thought she needed a change of scenery, and had gone out on the town looking for it. But being out didn't help much, either, and she was beginning to suspect she needed a change of something else. The problem was what.

So for now, it was a change of clothes she was after. Her delicates were in the washer, her uniform skirts in the drier, and Kozue was sitting on top of one of the driers, swinging her legs and zoning out and thinking about Not Unpleasant Things.

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thrown_to_winds
2010-05-17 08:02 pm UTC (link)

"Yeah..." Toshi was still going with the theory that matching another person's mannerisms made it easier to relate, so she thought it might be a good idea to say something equally brainless. "Nice clothes are nice," she said, and regretted it immediately. It sounded so dumb. Had she sounded like that, before?

But then, she'd been better at making conversation before, too. "Me too," she stated as she thought this. She kept on with her sorting, letting herself slip for the umpteenth time into thoughts of whether it would have been better if none of it--none of the beach or the Personas or the deaths--had ever happened. "Pointless," she chided herself under her breath, and then reminded herself she wasn't alone in the room. "It was always easy before," she said, more out loud. "At home, I always knew what to talk about, and here..." She didn't want to force herself to say I never actually talked about anything worth talking about, so she let the sentence go unfinished. This, too, was depressing.

"Well," she attempted, "forget that. It's not important."

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anthesphoria
2010-05-18 01:30 am UTC (link)

Kozue looked down, but listened; "Well, we could give a real honest try at having a conversation about absolutely nothing. I could tell you all about how cute... uh, some upperclassman is. Probably from a sports team. You could either agree and we could decide what his best feature was, or disagree and say a different name, and we could argue over it. That could eat up an entire laundry cycle easily. I bet we could make it really believable, even. Alternately, we could discuss local sports teams."

And yet Kozue seemed more or less uninterested. It was effort, and it was probably a problem that she could still, despite nearly dying and everything else, call up the best features of the entire baseball team's Year Three contingent. Did she really want to be able to do that? "Or I guess... I mean, discuss things you have in common."

And they had things in common.

She glanced up at Toshi, waiting to gauge the other girl's response.

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thrown_to_winds
2010-06-08 08:05 am UTC (link)

Toshimi knew that Kozue's first 'suggestion' was not a serious one--but, maybe because shallow conversation was what she was used to by now, she felt she had to defend it a little. "Hey, some of the upperclassman are okay," she remarked halfheartedly, sorting. "And Iburi's sports teams are..."

But she lacked the wherewithal to finish. What was she trying to accomplish, anyway? Just to avoid the matter at hand--what she'd been worried about since she entered the room--any possible discussion of the events that had recently transpired. At the notion of discussing what they had in common, Toshi had stopped her sorting and turned to look at Kozue with raised eyebrows, but couldn't bring herself to look the other girl in the eye and turned her head back to her clothes almost immediately. Instinctively, the inane version of the conversation started coming out of her mouth at a rapid speed. "We're both girls and we go to the same high school. We're both on sports teams. We both live in the dorms and are from out-of-town..."

Her instincts screamed at her to keep backing up and avoiding the situation, but she'd made a big deal about saying that she wasn't going to run away. Going back on your word was sort of like failing to repay a debt, wasn't it? And she couldn't back up that "don't-talk-about-it" instinct with any kind of logic, anymore--so if Kozue wanted to discuss it, Toshi would have no ground to stand on if she refused. Even indirectly.

After a moment's pause, she said, "You meant something else. I know. I'm sorry. You meant...about what they said about...everything."

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anthesphoria
2010-06-08 05:18 pm UTC (link)

Kozue looked up at the ceiling, if only because she didn't want to make Toshi more uncomfortable by just staring at her. People didn't like those dead blue eyes fixed on them, like…

She blew out a huff of air. It was the voice of her grandmother, almost, the part of her that had memorized and believed everything her grandmother had said. And Kozue was sick of listening to it. (The fact that it, too, had been in her place in Paradise was at once a confirmation that it was there, and that maybe she had the capacity to tell it to shut up once in a while.) "I didn't really mean that, I actually meant, you know, sports teams." She shrugged. "... Maybe not. Maybe I meant both."

"I don't want to push to talk about it, or pry into your business. Well. Any more than everyone kind of already has," she amended, fidgeting a little.

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thrown_to_winds
2010-06-22 08:04 am UTC (link)

Toshi was quiet for a moment as she placed the last few articles of clothing into their respective piles. There it was, clear as day. An opportunity to back out and forget that the subject had been approached. She was supposed to take that opportunity, right? Since that was what she'd wanted. But now that it was staring her in the face, she wasn't sure if it was actually what she wanted.

Finally, she said, "Both is fine. After what happened, I think...I think you probably deserve to talk about whatever you want to talk about."

She gathered her pile of whites and hoisted them into a machine. "Actually, everyone's been quite respectful," she said thoughtfully. After a pause she added, "I kind of wish they wouldn't. It's more than I deserve."

She focused very intently on digging the necessary coins to operate the machine out of her pocket before adding, "But it's good if it means that nobody has to worry about me."

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