InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Chicks dig me...Orz!"

ofmanydevices (ofmanydevices) wrote in disappear_rpg,
@ 2010-08-24 20:58:00

Entry tags:

kozue, tom

Who: Kozue, and Tom
What: Tom goes to visit the Princess in her tower
When: While Kozue is in her hotel
Where: Fancy pants hotel
Why: Why not?

Tom shifted slightly as he knocked on the door to Kozue's hotel room. He looked back and fourth down the hall conspiratorially. Certainly the hotel would not have frowned on him brining Max in, but best not to risk it. The tiny puppy was all bundled up in Tom's long black coat, which Tom was now holding closed. Despite that he couldn't resist trying to claw and pull his way free, first so he could lick Tom's chin, and then so he could see what had made the noise.

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anthesphoria
2010-08-31 11:48 pm UTC (link)

Kozue blinked flatly a few times. "When did you even check my bathroom. There could be ten naked men in there and you'd never know. It's a really, really big bathroom." By then, she couldn't stop herself from laughing at her own claims; she reached out and tried to help Max with his giant piece of food, at least in getting it off the plate and to a place he could gnaw in peace.

"That was part of it, Tom. Because I could ignore the awful things as long as I had what I wanted—food, luxury, someone..." She waved her hand vaguely, unsure how to continue, precisely. To characterize her relationship with herself? How she had, in fact, been so easily able to make herself convincingly content with those things? How she had been so ready to throw everything else away, because pleasure in Paradise had been so automatic and accessible? "I could check in here and make someone take care of me and never check out again."

And god, but that still was appealing to part of her. It was the same solution as letting her grandmother take care of her, or a husband, or letting Kiriko or Tom or some boyfriend make all her decisions and following along mutely and agreeably as long as there was pleasure to be had there. She laced her fingers and glanced down at the leftover room service. She'd ordered that. She'd picked it out specifically, and specified the amount and the preparation. She'd chosen the room herself. (She could have insisted on a penthouse suite and had decided not to.) "But I'm not going to stay here forever. It's kind of like I hope you're not going to go around punching people and expecting everything to be solved."

Hopefully.

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ofmanydevices
2010-09-02 03:18 am UTC (link)

Max happily sat, gnawing on the piece of food until he managed to eat most of it. As he chewed he glanced back and fourth between the two of them. Finally when his food was finished he hopped down from the couch, and began sniffing at other parts of the room.

Tom folded his hands in his lap, listening contently to Kozue's description of the hotel room. He reached up a hand to his head, and scratched behind his ears.

"I realized long ago that problems would not be solved by simple violence. I mean on occasion some people just deserve to be hit, and it... feels really good to hit those people. But I realize that just as often it encourages our enemies to continue or increase their activities, as much as it might discourage them. The cowards run, the actual dangerous people, people with a mind set like Shirai... well them I have to watch more closely." He shifted slightly and glanced at the floor.

"Deep down I wish it was as easy as my dungeon. Screens that let me see everything, heroes and villains... but I knew that world was a lie, it wasn't rational or logical, and that's why I tried to escape it. It..."

Tom opened his mouth to speak, but then it struck him, that Kozue had refereed to him as Tom, for the second time in this entire conversation, meaning it was not a slip of the tongue. He struggled for words for a moment.

"You called me Tom."

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anthesphoria
2010-09-28 06:56 pm UTC (link)

"You just noticed?" She asked, a smile creeping onto her face; warmer and more at home than it had any right to be, given how she'd behaved and felt for the last day or days or however long it had been. "I did."

Maybe a few months ago, she would have retreated from the familiarity, apologized, or appended some sort of suffix. But a few months ago, she had not cared about people enough to want to address them like that. (Even in the throes of passion, in what some people considered the most intimate of moments, boys were senpai or kun, never completely themselves.) And she had not been as sure in herself, not sure in herself enough to risk saying how she felt—even in quiet terms, she was putting it plainly.

"I always thought it was strong of you, that you tried to escape your paradise."

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ofmanydevices
2010-09-29 05:34 am UTC (link)

"Was it?" Tom cocked his head to the side and looked at her. After a moment, he folded his hands up in his lap and looked toward the floor.

"Brave possibly... foolhardy, distinctly. I don't think it was very strong. The truth is..." Tom glanced at Kozue.

"The truth is that I tried to escape because I thought there was at most a fifty fifty shot anyone would actually fight all the way down to the shadow." He shrugged slightly. After a moment he realized he should admit what he was thinking.

"I was proved wrong. On numerous accounts. You and Seiko and... everything. The team has changed so much for me."

"...I suppose in retrospect, given what we know about the shadows, trying to escape, or fight it on my own would be a form of running away, and not helpful."

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anthesphoria
2010-09-30 12:09 am UTC (link)

She nodded, pulling a hand through her curls; "I said it was strong, not necessarily... right, or smart." But he had covered that. "I know it's nothing you would have listened to, but we'll always come for our friends, no matter what. Even...." She gestured, freeing her hand from her hair. Her creamy white hands with the light pink nails recently painted fluttered in the air for a moment, moving rapidly, haphazardly, but they found it an inescapable task to describe what had happened in that last place in Paradise. And Kozue sagged back, eyes drooping.

"Well, with what happened in Reizo-san's place, and I know that if someone else on the team went in tomorrow, I'd go back." She looked away, feeling the same sick sort of lethargy stealing over her, the one that she had been drifting in and out of ever since leaving the wolf's den. "... I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought that up, it's insensitive. It was worse for you, I'm sure."

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ofmanydevices
2010-09-30 07:40 pm UTC (link)

Tom nodded, leaning back slightly to look at her. His mouth hung open for a second as he thought about what he wanted to say. After a moment he frowned, then his expression softened.

"I… back then I didn't think I had friends. I suppose that was obvious though…" He glanced away, and a smile crept across his face as he thought about what he had now.

"I think that's really strong. I spend… more I used to spend my evenings running around, picking fights, doing dangerous things, it's nothing new. You weren't used to Paradise and you're still willing to go back in." Finally he shrugged. "I only died, it seems to happen to me a lot in there."

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