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Tweak says, "I'll see you in your dreams."

kondo kozue | 近藤梢 (anthesphoria) wrote in disappear_rpg,
@ 2010-06-14 23:26:00

Entry tags:

keiichi, kozue

WHO: Kozue and Keiichi
WHAT: Present! A Present!
WHERE: Chagall Cafe.
WHEN: After Seiko's Dungeon.
WHY: Kozue cannot resist her compulsion to buy the world.

Kozue had been medicating her doubts and worries in much the same way she had done after other stints in Paradise—aside from her own—shopping and ice cream and cake. Of course, she had covered two out of three of those things in her own place in Paradise. So she was out for coffee and cake; she was also being productive.

At the used bookstore, when she'd meant to buy a Feel Better gift for Renju, or an I Regret That Your Head God Is On Vacation present (they didn't make cards for that), she had ended up buying... More things. For other people. At least, in a used book store, she hadn't found anything for herself, which had probably saved her some money in the end.

She'd texted Keiichi to let him know she had something to give him—and she'd gotten a piece of peach pie while she waited. With a side of ice cream. If Ito showed up in time, he could have some.

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keiito
2010-06-15 04:00 am UTC (link)

Chagall Cafe was one of the few Iburian haunts that Keiichi spent any amount of time at. Especially lately, he had been getting out less and less, spending lots of time in the dorms.

Still, he always had a stomach for a nice baked treat. He was perfectly capable with brownies and cupcakes and the like, but if you wanted a chocolate filled croissant, that was beyond Ito's capabilities.

He had dressed in a hurry to meet Kondo-san after her text, throwing on the first clean pair of jeans he saw and one of his father's "The Ice Age Cometh" t-shirts. Given his elemental alignment, he found the shirt somewhat amusing, but it mostly reminded him of the Crimson Lotus Academy, and almost exploding into a frozen pile of innards.

Not the best image before getting something to eat, really.

Opening the door to the cafe, Keiichi's eyes scanned the establishment briefly, finding her sitting at a table. He wanted something to eat, but decided to meet up with Kozue first. Delicious baked treats could wait.

"Heya," Keiichi called, from a few steps away from her table. At his greeting of Kozue, the cashier looked at Ito for a few moments and shot Keiichi an annoyed look.

Sometimes, Keiichi thought, the world just disliked him for no good reason. Shrugging the stink eye off, Keiichi pulled up a chair at Kozue's table. "Holding up okay? After...you know?"

Discussing Paradise and magical head gods in public had to be done in an oblique manner, after all.

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anthesphoria
2010-06-15 11:10 pm UTC (link)

Kozue looked up from her pie, waving a little as Keiichi approached the table; she smiled, but her attention fluttered away towards the annoyed-looking cashier. Since she could not afford to alienate the staff at every place of tasty baked goods, she stuck up a hand to wave for a waiter or... You know, the cashier to come over. Whatever they did here—Kozue always got table service, but that did not mean that table service was what was actually offered.

"Mostly, I'm just kind of pissed off," she admitted, as Keiichi sat. Which was probably the first time she'd admitted that, to anybody, at least on the team. She sighed, and picked up her fork again. "But it's always worse there, and better out here." Internal emotions, and external ones, too, she reflected; Paradise was more intense, and it always seemed to have a way of getting at you in the worst spots. "Though it's not like I'm..." She pursed her lips. "Why do you ask?"

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keiito
2010-06-16 12:02 am UTC (link)

Keiichi was generally constantly amazed at Kozue's way with people. With the exception of some of the Persona users, she was remarkably good at getting people to help her out.

Said cashier, actually was on his way over to the table.

"Pissed off at what," Keiichi asked, shaking his head. "I can imagine a long list. I'm still picking glitter out of my shoes. Probably will be all week.

That explained why, even in the chilly weather, Keiichi was wearing sandals.

Ito-san's eyes were focused on her peach pie. With vanilla ice cream. Delicious. But he could resist. This was an important discussion.

"Just curious," he admitted. "I try to check up on people after going in. It's...sort of miserable for most of us, really. Myself included, but..." How the Hell did he put this?

"...I've almost killed myself in there enough that I'm kind of, sort of used to it."

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anthesphoria
2010-06-16 12:12 am UTC (link)

"One more of these?" She asked Keiichi, pointing to her own dessert, and then indicating the cashier (who she fixed with a glowing smile as he approached). "It's good. Thanks, can I get another of these?" She was already reaching into her purse for bills; if she was ordering for the man, she should be treating, too. And neither the fact that she did have a way with people, nor that she was making decisions with confidence she never would have had, a month ago, crossed her mind.

As the cashier shambled away again, Kozue turned to Keiichi. "... no, not about the glitter, this wasn't as hard to get out as the first time, anyway. About… Well, I can't believe how much of our team doesn't have a clue." She lifted a bite of pie and watched it for a moment. "How are you holding up?"

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keiito
2010-06-16 12:25 am UTC (link)

Keiichi's hand was halfway to his wallet when he noticed her reaching for her own. Said hand went back to rest on the table.

"Thank you, Kondo-san," Keiichi said, a broad smile on his face. Peach pie! Today was already turning around.

"The team doesn't have a clue about a bunch of things," Keiichi grumbled. "We're still not so much of the team, though we are getting better."

"I'm okay," he admitted. "Not really as drained as usual. Didn't have to do too much and didn't get myself almost killed. You and Ikeda-san took care of the...situation, so..."

Part of him was upset by that fact. It was, he knew, the part that had nearly killed the girl he was sitting with by doing something Toru had told him was called the Divine Trinity.

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anthesphoria
2010-06-16 12:44 am UTC (link)

She nodded. Maybe a little more tensely than was warranted, given the casual situation and the surplus of desserts. Her mind was somewhere else—not on when she had fought Keiichi's Shadow, though, not in particular. Perhaps it was not healthy that she had moved past much of that, much of all the things that happened in Paradise, so quickly, yet refused to move past this.

"... Why do you always get so angry at them?" She asked, after a moment. "The ... people we go there to get, their other selves. You aren't the only one, but what you were talking about, this time."

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keiito
2010-06-16 12:54 am UTC (link)

"Because they generally try to kill us," Keiichi replied, easily. "It's...them but not them, you know? Exaggerations of repressed qualities."

That was generally his viewpoint. Keiichi thought it was a heck of a lot less "thou art I" and a lot more "thou art a part of I."

"I also like to try and get their attention. Engage them. Keep them focused away from other people. Some of them respond better than others. Others complete ignore me, like Sonozaki-san's. Those are my least favorites."

Keiichi scratched at his jaw. "I guess it's less actual anger and more...bluster? I don't know. It helps me get through there. When I'm quiet is usually when I'm doing worst."

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anthesphoria
2010-06-16 01:12 am UTC (link)

She hadn't thought of that. She finally took that bite of pie, and chewed, thinking it over. "That makes more sense," she said, not adding, than I had given it credit for. "But do you think your friends and team-mates really need that? Does it help them do what they need to do?" She went for another bite of food and stopped, about halfway there. "It is us."

She said it decisively, more decisively than she had planned, and it was only after she said it that she realized to what extent the truth of that mattered to her. "I think every piece of us is us. Trying to distance ourselves from them, that's how we've all ended up in this ugly mess to begin with."

"The more we try to distance ourselves from them, the more we fall back into the habits that made them so exaggerated in the first place. Isn't the whole lesson... well, embracing them?" She put down her fork and let out a short breath, followed by a shake of her head. "No, I'm sorry, maybe I'm not making that much sense."

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keiito
2010-06-16 01:30 am UTC (link)

Keiichi raised a hand to his chin as she spoke. Only once she finished did he speak.

"It is about embracing them, I suppose. But it's not about giving into them. If we gave into them we would be no better than they were. We'd be exactly what they claimed we were -- JUST them."

It was one of the few things Keiichi thought he'd figured out.

"I want to be more assertive. I want to play a bigger role. But I don't want to be..."

"A Balinese Nazi" went unsaid.

"It makes sense," Keiichi replied. "As much as any other theory we can have. We're sort of in the dark here."