InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "I aim to misbehave!"

kondo kozue | 近藤梢 (anthesphoria) wrote in disappear_rpg,
@ 2010-06-14 23:09:00

Entry tags:

kozue, seiko

WHO: Kozue and Seiko
WHAT: Ice Cream and Consolement?
WHERE: Seiko's Room.
WHEN: After Seiko!Dungeon
WHY: Rocky Road

Kozue had waited what seemed, to her, like a decent amount of time after they had brought Seiko back; two days, and now, here she was. She had two large tubs of Betty and Jenny's in a bag and a bottle of chocolate sauce along with. (Her life was beginning to feel like the saga of the Head God Team Delivery Girl.) After she'd taken some time to think about what Seiko's Other Self had said, and after she had eaten more sweets than she probably should to make herself feel better about it, and feeling lighter even though in all logical senses she was heavier, Kozue had known she had to be here. This was what Seiko had done for her (well, something close to it). And now, knowing a great deal more about her upperclassman, Kozue thought that it probably had hit at least one nerve for Seiko.

It was the right thing to do, to pay her back. Maybe Seiko needed someone to tell her that they weren't mad about the penguins and the death by fabulous and all of that. Maybe Seiko just needed chocolate. And if she had to leave the ice cream and come back next week, Kozue could manage that.

She knocked on the dormitory door and, after a moment, called out, "Seiko-chan? It's me. Kondo. Are you there?"

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mellow_lellow
2010-06-15 01:58 pm UTC (link)

There were a few noises behind the door and finally the door opened to reveal Seiko. Her hair was tied back in a wonky ponytail, and she was still in her pajamas. The pajamas were pink, with purple and orange cats on them, and the buttons were sparkly, it was perhaps less of a mystery why her dungeon had been quite so fabulous when even Seiko's nightwear looked like that.

"Oh, Kozue-chan!" Seiko didn't even bother trying to smile, she looked exhausted, and for some reason she seemed to be dusted with glitter, as she moved it shimmered in the light.

"Oh um, do you want to come in? My roommate isn't here, well she never is, so we can talk in private, I mean if that is why you are here." Her voice so usually sounded so chipper whatever the time, whatever had happened and now she just sounded tired, no fake laugh, no forced saccharine.

She eyed the bag now suddenly with interest, she wasn't sure she wanted to talk to anyone, not after they had seen that stuff in her head, they had to all think she was insane right? The other places she had seen seemed more logical somehow, or at least far less showy and glittery. They'd heard her say some terrible things, to her boyfriend, they'd seen she was just a coward, surely they all thought that, even Kozue.

But, then again, she hadn't thought bad of Kozue, and Kozue had defended her, Kozue had put herself forwards she'd tried to help her, she at least seemed to understand. The fact that she was also close to Tom was a bonus if Kozue could help her work that whole thing out. That was an unusual feeling to, the idea she might even let someone else help her, properly help her rather than her always being the one to give advice, to give care. Instead perhaps she could let her friend just be there for her,.

She pushed open the door.

"I...Really hope there is ice cream or chocolate or sweets in that bag."

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anthesphoria
2010-06-15 11:03 pm UTC (link)

"Two out of three okay?" Kozue asked, hefting the bag slightly. "I hope you like Rocky Road. If not, I have that one that's named after the dead American musician. Y'know. I can't remember his name." She pursed her lips, thoughtful only for as long as it took her to stop caring even remotely about the Not Rocky Road flavor.

She smiled a little, eyes going to the lop-sided ponytail and the pajamas. It was familiar, for Kozue had been there…oh, it felt like only days ago. It was getting weird to believe that time had passed. "I brought this for you, since you did the same for me. It's for you, but if you just want to take it and hermit with the calories, I understand. If you want to share and talk, I'm here for that, too."

The old Seiko, Kozue was confident, would have ushered Kozue in and insisted on talking, without so much as missing a beat. But that had been part of the problem, or at least, it had seemed like part of the problem; Kozue settled and resettled on her feet, a bit uncomfortably, trying to figure out whether she should actually push to talk. Whether it would do any good. It had done good for her, but there was that old saying about geese and ganders; whatever it was. She could remember the content, if not the phrasing itself. So she tried for delicacy. "It's up to you. If you need more time, you need more time."

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mellow_lellow
2010-06-16 05:16 pm UTC (link)

The fact it was ice cream in the bag removed any doubt Seiko had about letting Kozue into her room. It had to at least mean Kozue wasn't too mad at her or was trying to get in to berate her for what her shadow had said about using people. She pulled the door open to let Kozue in.

"I uh, think I have spoons somewhere." It wasn't exactly a direct agreement to talk, or to go over these things that were all too fresh and painful in her mind. But it was something.

Her room was still covered in glitter, thought the bed seemed clear, at least one of them was anyway, on the other was stacked lots of industrial looking boxes with different colour names printed on them, though 'sparkletastic' was also on one box, held together with extra tape and a warning label.

Seiko perched herself on the edge of her bed, waving her hand at Kozue to indicate she could sit down.

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anthesphoria
2010-06-16 09:13 pm UTC (link)

"... which one is your roommate's bed?" Kozue couldn't help but ask, as she picked her way carefully into the glitter-filled room. She was looking around, somewhat impressed, and wondering if the Shadow had done this, or if this was pure Seiko. If the Shadow had, she'd either been very industrious and fast-moving, or Seiko had been a Shadow for longer than they had thought.

Either possibility was a bit unnerving.

"If you don't have spoons, I brought plastic ones. They're in the bag."

Having gotten to the other side and picked up relatively little glitter, Kozue searched for a place to sit down, finally choosing another section of the bed and settling. She pulled out the first tub and passed it over to Seiko, wordlessly, before retrieving said plastic spoons.

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mellow_lellow
2010-06-17 12:05 am UTC (link)

"The one with the boxes on, she seems to hate me I think, when we first met and I introduced myself she pulled this face like..." Seiko waved her hands, "I don't know, like she was angry and disappointed at the same time, and I haven't seen her since."

She took the ice cream, and a spoon quietly, opening the ice cream and digging in with approximately zero elegance. She didn't even smile when eating it, partly because she had hardly eaten anything, and partly because she just couldn't bring herself to do it, it just felt so fake, such a lie.

After a few minutes she finally looked up at Kozue. "Uh, Kozue-chan, um." She looked down again. "You don't sort of, secretly hate me or anything over all that stuff do you?" Seiko looked very uncomfortable and kept her eyes down looking and the ice cream she was resting on her knees.

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anthesphoria
2010-06-17 12:10 am UTC (link)

While Seiko ate quietly, Kozue pulled out her own spoon and did the same, although in a much less starving miserable woman sort of way; she had less pain, and therefore, less need for something eatable to dull it. So she ate slowly, leisurely, waiting for something to happen other than eating-and-feeling-awful.

And her patience was rewarded. When Seiko spoke, Kozue looked up, and tried to smile in the most reassuring manner she could; "If I secretly hated you, I wouldn't bring you food. Especially not really good food. I mean, I might bring like, Hundred Yen Store Ice Cream. Or that hot sauce stuff from Kiga Kiga. Nobody who hates you, secretly or not, brings the good stuff." She hefted her tin of ice cream slightly to illustrate. It was, after all, not only delicious, but imported from somewhere in America. Vermont. Which, from Kozue's understanding, was somewhere close to Florida. Very, very far away.

"Seiko-chan, if you didn't secretly hate me after I went into Paradise, why should I hate you now?"

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mellow_lellow
2010-06-17 12:28 am UTC (link)

"It was different with your place, your repressed side didn't tell everyone you were using them. Or tell you...Boyfriend all that stuff that just." Seiko slumped a little poking her ice cream with a spoon. "I don't like those things about myself, so why would anyone else accept them?" She sighed and lifted her head.

"Its also, everyone became my friend when I was this sort of, happy bouncy person, what if you all don't like what I become?" Her voice was small and she continued focusing on her ice cream with greater intent than ice cream really deserved, however delicious.

"The ice cream point is a good one though, hot sauce flavour would be awful and a much better revenge ice cream. I mean not that I think you are the kind of person to take revenge or uh..." She trailed off, awkward again and staring down at her ice cream.

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anthesphoria
2010-06-17 12:37 am UTC (link)

"Seiko-chan, do you remember that my Shadow locked you in a classroom and hog-tied Mikio-san? Deep down, I'm absolutely the kind of person who'd take revenge." She took a breath and, for the increased strength and ability to function while she kept talking, took a bracing bite of ice cream.

"And my other self—Look, we could argue about whose was worse but... Kiriko-san said this to me, after I came back. It's going to get better with time. And we all understand. We all do this. It's not…" Was there a kind way to say that Seiko wasn't unique? Her own personal flavor of problem, maybe, but at the end of the day the base was the same for all of them. Wanting to run away. Wanting to hide something bad about themselves.

"Maybe other people will care, but when have I ever been bothered that someone was using me?" She smiled again.

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mellow_lellow
2010-06-17 12:55 am UTC (link)

Seiko nodded, "well okay, not ice cream revenge, other kinds of revenge maybe." She continued to pick at the ice cream, wondering how exactly to word things without seeming self centered, she found herself almost about to try to get Kozue to start talking about how she was but that, that wasn't why Kozue had come to see her was it? She should at least try to talk about her own feelings for once.

"I'm just not really sure who I am under all this stuff, I spent so much time relying on being pretty, or being flat on my back-" Seiko had gained a slightly less charming way of referring to things, "Or being the sparkle Queen, so I need to work out where I go from here." She now smiled, ever so slightly. "And where the Hell those damn penguins came from, I mean everyone has crazy stuff in their places, but I can't quite work that particular thing out yet." She rubbed her nose tiredly returning her attention to the ice cream.

She really didn't know how to feel about Kozue's last comment, it wasn't really something she wanted to hear, it being admitted out loud, but it was important to know, or at least to know she had one friend left.

"Well, Kozue-chan, for the record, I...I like you for a lot more reasons than just that. You understood my issues in there better than anyone, even Kiriko-san I think, but you always seem to sort of understand me, you know? Even if we weren't in this group thing together, I think if we had met properly I'd still really want to be your friend." New discovery, talking about how much you cared about someone's friendship was very difficult when you were saying it in all seriousness without a broad grin to hide behind and being able to laugh it off if they looked at you like you were crazy. She really hoped Kozue didn't give her that look.

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anthesphoria
2010-06-17 02:45 am UTC (link)

"I… Thanks." Kozue blinked, and then smiled; the last part was a surprise, but it was a welcome surprise. Even if they didn't have to be team-mates, Seiko would have still wanted to be her friend? "The more I get to know you, the more I think it's the same way for me," she added, after a moment. "And I mean that, really, even the parts of you that were in Paradise."

She paused once again.

"You were really fancy, after all. It was kind of cool."

It was a tacit way of avoiding, or not condemning, the other things about the Shadow. How it had said they, the team, were the problem; how it had tried to kill them. Not that Shadows trying to kill them was anything particularly new. "We have a lot in common. I'd have thought it before seeing your Shadow, but it's even more obvious now, right?" After all, when did Kozue not rely on being rich, pretty, or easy to get what she wanted in life? She could count the situations on one hand. "... I wish I could tell you who you are under everything, but I'm still working out how to figure that out for myself. Or, if not who I am, what I should do." She narrowly checked herself from saying what I'm for; it sounded wrong in the context of their conversation. Maybe it was wrong, in general; maybe doing something was better than being for something. "If I make a breakthrough discovery while I'm eating ice cream and buying shoes, I'll make sure you're the first person to know, okay?"

That called for another bite of ice cream, which Kozue took. And then, "Can't tell you anything about the penguins, though. They might be the most, uh, unexpected thing I've seen in there, but there have been weirder and there have been worse. Aoi-san's place, and Ren... Sonozaki-senpai's place, for starters. Tom-san's was pretty bizarre, too. Did you know it was all based on an American comic?"

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mellow_lellow
2010-06-19 05:27 pm UTC (link)

Seiko tilted her head, 'fancy'? It was one way to put it, she ate some more ice cream as she thought on this, slightly surprised when she realised exactly how much ice cream she had managed to consume in a short space of time.

"Actually you know the whole like, fabulousness and glitter is something I am more okay with than I thought. I mean, even if it just shows something about me I kind of, well, like it? I'm not going to turn up at school in a billboard, but it is giving me some stuff to think about that isn't depressing cause really, who could be sad about peacock feathers?" She did smile this time looking slightly more like her old self for a moment, but frowning again as Kozue continued.

"Its something I need to work out, and I should get there, I mean Kiriko-san agreed to help me work out how to be a bit better at handling myself and my..." She trailed off and waved her spoon in an attempt to find the word she wanted, she shrugged slightly "Oh I don't know, my inner bitchiness?" She still felt a little uncomfortable saying things like that, but felt she had to at least try. It was important to force herself out of those old restrained behaviors.

"I guess the penguins are just some part of me that is just a bit of a jerk." After all those penguins had been pretty mean. "Wait, huh, an American comic? What about?" She turned to Kozue, spoon still in hand but her ice cream forgotten, and a very obvious 'gossip now' expression on her face. After all surely she was entitled to know what was going on in her supposed boyfriend's head.

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anthesphoria
2010-06-19 05:49 pm UTC (link)

Kozue was busy working her way through the ice cream, too, trying to lend a sympathetic ear and keep focus on the idea that this was a time All About Seiko, and that she should not be musing on herself. Her own Shadow. Or the god-damned Prom. So, instead, she focused her attention on the god-damned Shadow Knight.

"I think it's sort of like a sentai show, except, with one guy? Like, a costumed hero. They're big in America." Which said something about America, she decided, that they liked singular heroes, loners like Tom. "He was called Shadow Knight. I guess that Tom idolized him as a kid or something? That's what the Other Tom ended up looking like. The whole place was a secret base and we had to get past all these, like, puzzles and traps and security measures." She paused, almost awkwardly, remembering the other things they'd seen. "And we saw his memories. You know how it happens, like that, sometimes?"

Kozue immediately regretted saying that, a little; of course Seiko knew how it had been. They had seen hers, too. It was something that Kozue had been glad about, in her own place in Paradise, that the team had not seen her memories so flat out there and bold like that; then again, her memories alternated between shamefully filled with Fumiko, and thoroughly X-rated, so… She shook her head a little, trying to get rid of the dull, unfocused expression. This was Time About Seiko, after all. And Seiko's Shadow had been right; helping other people was a great way to dull your own pain. So Kozue kept talking; "We also all got turned into super heroes. Not just the costumes, like you had; lots of people had super powers. Nawanaka-senpai could fly, and Satou-senpai could run really fast, and Ito-kun had like, lasers or something. Tachibana-san could talk to her pet ferret, I think." Which was a sweet thing to think back on; her own comparative uselessness stung a little less, she found, between having talked to Tom about it, and the events that had some between then and now. Which wasn't to say that it didn't sting, still, a little. "It was actually pretty cool in that way."

"As far as being a bitch, sometimes? Kiriko-san will probably be able to help a lot," Kozue stopped, and blanched. "I didn't mean it that way!" She was approaching sheet-white; "You know. Just. She knows what she wants and she knows when she needs to step up and get it. I don't do it nearly as much as her but it's… Well, it's good to have that every once in a while. Maybe I should work on it, too," she added, with a low laugh. And another scoop of cherry-flavored ice cream—that helped the regrets and the shame and all manner of things.

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mellow_lellow
2010-06-22 06:15 pm UTC (link)

"Wait, hang on, you are saying my boyfriend's deepest desire is to be a superhero?" Seiko raised her eyebrow looking at Kozue, her spoon halfway to her mouth, she then smiled fondly. "Actually I'm not really very surprised, this Shadowknight thing though, can you get it here?" Anything that was an interest of Tom's she felt she should pay attention to, and if it helped her understand him then it had to be a bonus.

"Oh memories." He smiled faded quickly. "I guess mine could have been worse, it wasn't really anything people didn't know, I mean you could have seen... Ah well you know." She was really about 100% sure Kozue would know exactly what she was implying, the content of both of their lives probably had good portions that should not see the light of day.

"I guess it's not really that those things are secret, it's more the emotions people got to see. And..." The hardest part was still the fact they had all seen what she had been like before. It was the first memory more than the second. The fact they had seen her with her mother, they had seem her with black hair and dressed up like a doll. It made her feel vulnerable that people had seen her that far back. It didn't feel like it was her, it hardly even looked like her, she sighed, and returned to eating her ice cream far too fast for a few moments.

"No Kiriko seems to understand the bitch thing, which is something I really admire about her. Being able to express herself, let people know she is angry or upset. I want to be able to do that so much." The last bit was said with more emotion than she intended, and she awkwardly looked over to the other side of the room. She wasn't used to talking about herself, when she had before she had always glossed over her real feelings, to reveal them to someone was far more terrifying than she thought it ever could be.

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anthesphoria
2010-06-24 11:12 pm UTC (link)

"I've always admired that about her, too," Kozue was quick to add, scooting a little closer as a silent testament of agreement. She could remember telling Kiriko that; it seemed like ages ago, but she knew it'd barely been two weeks. "That, and she knows what she wants," the smaller girl added, with the sort of tone that suggested and that's something I want so much was the kind of statement meant to follow it.

She stopped herself. Reminded herself that this wasn't about her. And kept on, after another bite of ice cream. "And I don't think that Tom-san really wants to be a superhero, any more than I wanted to be Prom Queen, or than you wanted to be a musician. You don't... uh, that's not like, your top life goal, is it?" She stopped and considered, not sure if that was the case. "I don't think what they turn into is really all that indicative of what's flat out, blatantly true, like you could write down on a piece of paper or your PlaceBook page or anything." And, yet again, Kozue was left at a loss for what, exactly, to substitute there. She knew what it wasn't, but she had no idea what it was.

"And you're right, the emotions were the worst part, even though nobody's really said anything to me… not about the things I was most ashamed of." She looked down and went for an exceptionally large bite of ice cream this time.

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mellow_lellow
2010-06-28 01:25 pm UTC (link)

"She's amazing, I mean a bit, sort of like, um, scary sometimes but She manages to do that, and that is hard when you are a girl particularly a girl who people value on their looks first." She phrased it awkwardly, not really sure how you could say 'hot' without it sounding strange, maybe Kozue would understand.

"I'm not so sure about Tom, I mean his clothes are filled with knives and like... Spy things. I don't really know, I haven't seen them all. But no I don't want to be a..." She frowned 'musician' was not really the term she'd use for her shadow, 'outrageous showgirl' or possibly even 'stripper' were terms that came too readily to the top of her mind. "I don't want to do what my shadow did for a living no. But really it made me think a lot about them, shadows I mean."

She tapped her spoon on the edge of her ice cream tub thoughtfully, taking a few moments to organise what she wanted to say. "I mean my shadow, she didn't really want to kill you til she got all mad, and even then I think she wanted to be beaten. She... She really just wanted to be accepted by me. And all the clothes and the glitter and everything have given me a lot to think about, it has to mean somewhere in here I am still, well kind of whimsical? I don't know, I think it is a good thing." She looked at Kozue for a moment, glad to finally be able to share what she had been thinking about since she had left that place, what it had all meant, why things had been quite so outrageous.

"Sometimes it seems the things we are most ashamed of aren't the things people have trouble with. My shadow told everyone I was using them and you all just wave it off. She says I hate just being seen as a pretty face and Ishinomori goes berserk." She sighed. "It's all difficult letting people know how I really feel, I don't even want to know myself, let alone other people seeing it all."

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anthesphoria
2010-06-29 09:03 pm UTC (link)

Kozue was quiet for a while, thoughtful or immersed in herself, or merely distracted by ice cream (it was very good ice cream, after all; she had good taste and had exercised it). Finally, she spoke up again.

"Why wouldn't we wave that off? What were you using us to do, benefit yourself? And be nice to us in the bargain?" Unless everything had flown over Kozue's head there towards the end—and it had been confusing, but really, she thought she'd gotten it, at least better than half the team. That was what she'd gotten out of it. "People use each other for much more selfish things all the time, and that's… well, it's kind of how everybody lives." Everybody, even people like Misaki—they'd seen that in her place in Paradise.

"But it does suck to have everyone see it, you know? And then they're all on their toes around you and…" She shook her head. "I don't know."

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