InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "I can has nu jurnal!"

Toru Ishinomori [石乃森都丸] (2dbeauty) wrote in disappear_rpg,
@ 2010-08-26 03:57:00

Entry tags:

reizo, toru

WHO: Toru and Reizo
WHAT: Postdungeon followup.
WHERE: That convenience store that Reizo lives over.
WHEN: Before school starts, after Reizo is bailed.
WHY: To investigate the possibility of jazz hands, clearly.

In his recollection, the last time Toru had been to this particular location was back in the spring, when he'd attempted an extremely misguided apology to Reizo after his shadow's sexual harassment of his classmate. Said attempt ended in laughable failure, which really shouldn't have surprised Toru at all. Hindsight, after all, is 20/20.

He hoped with all his heart that this visit would not be quite as ill-fated. This time, it was really just a talk. A friendly chat. An attempt to reach common ground after what had happened in Reizo's dungeon. Not something to get optimistic about.

There were also his misgivings about loitering around a convenience store until the other boy showed up. Sure, it would be expected behavior for a delinquent, perhaps, but he was obviously not. The next best thing Toru could think of was going across and down the street to a seedy bakery, where he rather unsubtly waited at a table by the window, obnoxiously flavored and artificially colored soft drink in hand. With hawklike eyes he watched the entrance (and sides) of the store that he recalled Reizo living above, mentally crossing his fingers and hoping that Reizo would show up soon so as to make his behavior less questionable.

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some_other_dog
2010-08-27 03:39 am UTC (link)

Reizo came down the steps not long after Toru found a place to properly spy, a small bag of trash swinging from one hand and a cell phone on the other. He looked thoroughly involved in the conversation, but once he reappeared from behind the stairs where a dumpster was kept he was texting someone, mild annoyance shining through on his face.

He folded the phone shut and disappeared into the side door of the convenience store, was seen a minute later speaking to the old man behind the shop’s counter, and finally came out the front door of the shop, tucking a fresh pack of cigarettes down into his front jeans pocket and carrying a bottle of water. He plopped down onto the chair the man left sitting near the front of the store on nice days when customers weren’t too frequent, and lit a cigarette before going back to texting.

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2dbeauty
2010-08-27 03:46 am UTC (link)

This was his chance! Which still made Toru feel mildly creepy. Rather than directly walking towards Reizo, he meandered out of the bakery, still sipping his blatantly unhealthy soda, and went in the opposite direction of the targeted convenience store. After "window shopping" for a couple of minutes, he felt comfortable enough to walk back by where the larger boy was engrossed with texting.

With all the nonchalance he could muster, the otaku walked past Reizo by a few yards, then backtracked to give the impression that he had just noticed that Reizo was there.

He smiled and greeted his classmate. "Oh, hey, Shirai-san. You're doing better now, I see."

Even after all of that, Toru felt as if he was giving himself up to be mauled by the wolf a second time. Some things never change, huh...

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some_other_dog
2010-08-28 12:17 am UTC (link)

Reizo glanced up from his phone for a moment, nailing Toru with a stare, and then went back to texting. Smoke rolled up and away from him, caught in the winds of fall, the red ring of his cigarette flaring to life as he sucked away at it, and before he looked back up again he’d eaten through nearly half of the cigarette. He punched in a few more texts, flipped the phone close with an air of finality, and looked up at the tall skinny nerd standing awkwardly in front of him.

“Better.” He said, tasting the word for accuracy. “Well, that’s one way to put it.”

His eyes flicked up and down the boy, sizing him and his body language up, and then he sighed, great and exasperated.

“You’d think someone who had the balls to feed himself willingly to the wolves would have a little more confidence. You look like you’re about to piss yourself.”

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2dbeauty
2010-08-28 04:23 am UTC (link)

Toru felt the uncomfortable silence weigh down on him in the interval between Reizo noticing him and Reizo actually speaking to him. With some effort, he forced his posture more straight and tall. Less like he wanted to fold in on himself. Once the other boy did respond, he relaxed a tiny bit.

"I'm glad that you didn't get held up too long with the... y'know, being arrested thing. How about your injuries?"

Reizo's searching eyes made his stomach squirm, but Toru held his ground. Chin up, chest out, don't even think about shuffling or wringing your hands... It was a little difficult, even now.

"This time, there isn't adrenaline or anything backing me up... something like that. Heh." This seemed to allow him to relax, if even just a tiny bit. "I'm still working on it. Real life is harder."

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some_other_dog
2010-08-29 11:11 pm UTC (link)

“Ain’t got no injuries,” he answered, a fair deal more curtly than he’d meant to. It was still hard, realizing he wasn’t the invincible beast he’d desperately tried to make himself. Mortality had reared its ugly head again, and at times he’d find himself recalling the first time he’d ever really been made aware of it, when the stupidity of real youth had been ripped out of him by a desperate man with a sharp knife. His stomach would open up into a great and yawning abyss, and a cold finger would probe up and down his spine, and he’d grow angry at himself. Again.

He sat back in his chair and folded his arm, chewing sullenly at the butt of his cigarette. The flame had eaten up nearly all of it by now.

“It’s not harder. It’s just longer. You’re stuck here. Over there, one way or another, you know it’s gonna end and you’ll either be back here or dead.”

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2dbeauty
2010-09-25 07:59 pm UTC (link)

"Oh, that's good, then..." Toru unconsciously touched his throat at the word 'injuries'. It made sense that Reizo wouldn't... But wait, what about all of the stuff before he went into Paradise? Guess it wasn't as much as I thought....

"...guess a better question to ask would be 'how are things in general?' I-I mean, I know 'in general' is a lot to cover, especially given what's going on right now..." He was trying so hard to stay calm, but nerves shone on through the weak facade like a beacon.

That much was true. Paradise was all about fight or flight, the brief and brutal struggle. There weren't options, just instincts, half of the time. "...longer, yeah. Plus, there'll come a day when we won't have to go back in there anymore, right?"

Toru smiled wryly. "It's up to us whether that day comes with our victory or our deaths, though."

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some_other_dog
2010-09-29 03:33 am UTC (link)

His eyes narrowed, the look sharp and mean and cold. He bit back the first response he could think of, and his broad shoulders slumped as he forced himself to relax. The nerd hadn’t meant anything by it, he was only trying to be friendly, but who went around asking yakuza what was up? No one with any sort of will to live.. But he wasn’t yakuza yet, was he? Not technically.

He pursed his lips into a thin line around his cigarette, mulling the thought over, but eventually he nodded, spat his cigarette out onto the sidewalk, and dug his hand into his front pocket to get another.

“Going as good as they can,” he told Toru, flicking his lighter to life and bending his head down towards the flame to light the fresh cigarette he had dangling out of one corner of his mouth. He snorted and shook his head at the last thing Toru said.

“Not up to just us. Up to those things we got hitching a ride and luck just as much as anything. We’re just lucky there’s so many of us.”

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2dbeauty
2010-09-29 04:15 am UTC (link)

The long pause caused Toru to freeze up. There it was, the nagging suspicion that he'd done something gravely wrong. Was it now time for him to be laughed off or punched? Would Reizo pretend he wasn't even there? His feeble attempt at hiding this anxiety was sticking his hands in his pockets and biting his lip, universal signs of discomfort. Smooth.

"Oh, I see..." As well as they can. Probably not well at all- his dad's dead and the yakuza world is in an uproar. God knows what he's been dealing with in the past week or so. Toru smiled weakly at this. "Good luck."

This last statement inspired an even more strained expression. "You make it sound like our personas might betray us... which, admittedly, is something worth worrying about."

Toru edged closer to Reizo, as close as he would dare (about two feet away), and in a lower voice asked "You couldn't use yours when you were in there with your shadow, right? That's how it was back in my place, too. If it weren't for the whole team showing up, we'd have been dead for sure."

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some_other_dog
2010-10-15 04:14 am UTC (link)

The look Reizo shot at Toru when he came closer and whispered to him could charitably be described as murderous. He took several long pulls off his cigarette before he snorted and flicked it away onto the road, where it bounced, dropped a small spray of sparks, and ended up shored against the sidewalk. He rose then, unfolding up and out of the seat, and glanced back briefly into the store, where an elderly man sat behind the counter, head tilted to one side and eyes closed, a bikini magazine open across his face. Definitely asleep.

“Maybe. I didn’t need it. The gun worked on the thing.”

He didn’t sound angry, annoyed, or even melancholy. It was a simple, neutral statement, and his expression gave away as little as his words. He looked at Toru, and tilted his head curiously, an eyebrow lifting, "you, though, well. Your shadow probably woulda had some fun with you before you kicked it, huh?"

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2dbeauty
2010-10-15 07:33 am UTC (link)

All Toru could do when he caught the glance was back several paces away from Reizo, to a comfortable distance. Better safe than punched. It was a bad idea to get so close to someone who was only days ago the wolf who tore out your throat.

I need to work on separating stupidity from bravery. Shirai-san is probably a good place to start, huh...

But he was pleasantly surprised to see that the larger boy's response wasn't charged with the same emotions he'd seen in his face. "Oh. Yeah, that..." Toru looked around with the same sort of caution. "Wish we could just tell the SDF or something to go in there, in that case. It'd save us a lot of trouble."

Half-truths aside, he found himself blushing at Reizo's statement. "Ugh, did you have to remind me of that? My shadow was-"

There's no right answer, huh.

"-a different sort of monster, for sure. But that's a bit..." He paused to think about this for a second. "What would that even be? Is it masturbation, 'cause your shadow's also you? Or, like, incest? God, why am I even... Dammit!"

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