InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Why didn't you call me?"

kondo kozue | 近藤梢 (anthesphoria) wrote in disappear_rpg,
@ 2010-12-21 19:31:00

Entry tags:

kiriko, kozue, rank 10

Who: Kozue and Kiriko
What: A Very Special Conversation only less with the Hallmark Cards
When: Vicinity of Christmas. AFTER Kozue's Self 10.
Where: Their room
Why: I refuse to bow to the whims of this question.

Kozue was wrapped in a jacket and a large, downy scarf when she breezed into the dormitory entrance. She did not bothered to unwrap herself yet, for the hallways were a bit chilly, since people had been coming and going almost constantly, leaving the dorm doors wide open. Unpleasantly enough. But in their room it was warm, and once she had closed the door she could unwind the scarf from around her face. She just had to get there first.

For the last week or however many days it had been since they had come back from skiing (Kozue hated counting, so why bother?), she had felt as though she were constantly moving. Shopping, on the phone, on the bus, talking to someone; she would not have recognized it immediately, and she had blamed sources as various as the weather, her new haircut, and that ski instructor, but the motion had come from her. And, eventually, at its apex, that motion had prompted… had ended in… well, things now.

But in all that motion, she had not been home much; she had not seen Kiriko much to talk with her about what Reizo had said, though it had been weighing in her thoughts. Maybe that was even partially why she had been so active, for the more things she did, the less she considered the problem. But she couldn't leave it hanging forever; it made being home a bit awkward, even if that was only in her imagination, and she missed… just about everything about her best friend, actually.

Which prompted what she did next: pulling out her phone, she flipped it open and texted Kiriko. Are you in the room? I brought back snacks. Hopefully, it would be enough to tempt Kiriko to come back if she wasn't there, and to talk, if she was.

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anthesphoria
2010-12-22 03:00 am UTC (link)

It had taken her almost that long to get up the stairs and across the dormitory to their room anyway.

Once the delinquent was safely down the hall a bit, Kozue could not stifle a giggle, pleasant and kind-hearted though it was, at watching Reizo's ever-so-gentle eviction. "Don't worry about it, it's not like I've been around all that much anyway, so," she shrugged. Then, refusing to let that become an awkward pause and steal her momentum, she dug a hand into one of her shopping bags and produced a large box. "I was at this fancy candy store, and guess what they had?"

Beaming, she held the box out for Kiriko to open. It was marked in french, with pictures of the pastel petit fours they'd had at the hotel. "On sale," she added, "Compared to the Christmas candy I guess nobody is buying. So I thought we should binge."

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apathyisboring
2010-12-23 09:49 pm UTC (link)

Kiriko's eyes lit up as she reached out towards the box, inspecting the picture on the cover and then lifting the lid to peek inside and compare to the desserts within.

"So cute," was the verdict. She pulled a chair into the space between their beds and set the box on it, opening it for both of them to access, then began the difficult process of selecting which one to eat first.

"What brought you to a candy store?" she asked distractedly while delicately picking up a pink one with a sugar flower on top.

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anthesphoria
2011-01-09 11:51 pm UTC (link)

"I was hungry. It was at the mall." She shrugged; Kozue was not used to interrogating her own behaviors, not when they were in the realm of impulse satisfaction. "And it made me think of you, so I figured we should have some." After Kiriko had chosen hers, Kozue leaned over, surveying for only a moment or two before picking one. It seemed no challenge, for her at least, and though she was reasonably delicate in taking her own blue, vaguely present-seeming one out of the box, she popped it in her mouth with speed and gusto. These things were just that good.

There was a pause. After she chewed, she seemed to be thoughtful, considering something; "How's Shirai-san doing?"

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apathyisboring
2011-02-23 05:49 pm UTC (link)

Holding a hand under her mouth to catch any crumbs as she finished her first cake in a second bite, Kiriko leaned forward to select another. Her legs swayed back and forth, heels kicking against the bedskirt. She didn't pursue the question any further - she was happy to be thought of, and that much more so when it involved (delicious) material goods.

"He's okay," she chirped nonchalantly, wiping the corner of her mouth with her fingers and then inspecting them for the damage. "Same old." Her attention passed over the small-talk question completely and returned to the box of treats - or perhaps, passed over Kozue completely. She had hardly been unfriendly, but the smaller girl had scarcely received a look in the eye from the time she'd arrived.

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anthesphoria
2011-02-24 06:19 pm UTC (link)

This was weird. This was, undeniably, weird. Kozue swung her legs from the edge of the bed, and after looking at Kiriko for a moment, took another petit four. Pink, this time––she didn't eat it right away, instead watching her friend and the box of snacks alternately. "And how are you?"

Considering they lived together, maybe it wasn't a fair question, but for a while now, ever since that conversation after Kai's Paradise, Kozue had felt as though they almost didn't, as though there was this thick buffer between them. Which wasn't what she'd asked for or wanted. Was that the only way to have a friend who you didn't rely on, or who didn't do everything for you? Was closeness the same thing as dependency? Couldn't she have one without having the other? The strife might have been evident, at least a little, on her face, as she considered it and the little pink dessert on her palm.

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apathyisboring
2011-02-24 10:28 pm UTC (link)

Kiriko looked up to her friend with sharp eyes and the faintest of frowns. How was she, indeed. The not-quite-chilliness between them had hardly escaped her notice, but that was downright cordial, rapidly coming up on awkward. If she had been dating Kozue, this was where the "We Need To Talk" would happen - preempted by small talk and a consolation gift, even. Though, she supposed they didn't have to be dating in order for her to be getting dumped.

"Fine," she answered, voice a little higher and a little colder and a lot closer to the voice she used with people she didn't know or like so much as Kozue. She caught herself growing defensive and tried to ease off before continuing. "Is something up with you?"

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anthesphoria
2011-02-25 12:45 am UTC (link)

Was something up? That was––well, that was one way of putting it, certainly. Lots of things were up. She'd been home. She'd discovered that her Persona, too, could change, that it was not just a province of people who were special and had their shit together, like Kiriko was and did; that her true Persona was something pretty scary looking, when all was said and done, and that despite that, she found it beautiful? There was more––there were, indeed, several things. "Yeah," she answered, mildly, trying to figure out what was with Kiriko's tone, why it sounded so distanced. It actually hurt a little, she realized belatedly. (And this, something told her, was all her fault.)

"Well, I went home for a bit." How to explain… How even to begin. "I visited my grandmother's grave, which, do you know I only went the once and I didn't even stay until she was really buried." She fiddled with the cake on her palm, feeling suddenly very Renju-like. Hopefully, she wouldn't start taking the poor thing to pieces or wringing it like a wet towel, at least. She made herself ignore the petit four, and looked up with a smile that was more fragile than she was even aware: "My persona's different. She changed. And I––well, I think I realized that I pushed you away more than I really needed to." Or more than she needed to anymore; maybe it had been necessary, maybe nothing would have changed if Kiriko had been by her side the entire time, but now she didn't need to be alone. She felt like she could take care of herself whether or not someone else was there, trying to care for her as well.

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apathyisboring
2011-02-25 01:18 am UTC (link)

Kiriko's face softened. She had been wrong - on many counts, she now realized. Kozue was not dumping her. Kozue had not brought "I'm sorry for dumping you" cake. Kozue was not saying that she just didn't need her anymore - but Kozue didn't need her anymore, not in the same way Kiriko had thought she did.

Something in her mind was clicking and unclicking. Her memory reached back to the time they'd spent in the room together, right after Kozue had left Paradise. They had talked, and she'd understood and not understood, and it had troubled her. The feeling was similar with an important difference: the realization that maybe she didn't need to understand. Maybe not understanding Kozue wasn't failing one of the only people she'd ever wanted to truly be friends with, and maybe Kozue wouldn't hate her for it, or for not being able to help. Maybe Kozue didn't need her help. Maybe Kozue would wind up doing just fine on her own.

Maybe she already had.

The feeling that she was missing something lingered but didn't weigh, and Kiriko brushed it aside for the moment. She got to her feet, dusted multicoloured crumbs from her hands, and crossed the room to the closet door, the handle of which she turned backwards. A half-smile tugged at her lips when she raised her head, an expression that for once she didn't seem to be quite aware of.

"Can I see her?"

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anthesphoria
2011-02-25 01:30 am UTC (link)

Kozue was up on her feet even before she was sure of her response; on the one hand she wanted to show someone, and who better to show than Kiriko, who would she want to show more than Kiriko? But on the other hand, what if Kiriko thought that Persephone was frightening, or grotesque? Then, she decided, she would deal with it, and the smile on Kiriko's face was warming enough, all by itself, that Kozue was willing to risk it. "Okay. She's a bit… different from Kore, though." She left it at that; she came up to the closet door. Things had changed; changed immensely, but Kozue found it was not hard to believe that they were for the better.

"And, oh, uh, I'm not actually a quarter foreign." Because who else did you share scandalous details with? She let that statement sink in; "I just found out. I'm more. Not like, a half, but… more than just a quarter." She was not sure how to explain the math behind it, it was far past her understanding of things like fractions or percentages.

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anthesphoria
2011-02-25 02:49 am UTC (link)

Kozue stepped through the closet door, into a sort of blankish, undefined stretch of Paradise. Maybe, what Paradise looked like when divorced of emotional turmoil; it was not an ugly or an unfortunate place, at least; it could with some getting used to be kind of pretty. “It was a weird trip,” she finished, fishing in her pockets for her phone. She’d explain the whole story, later, maybe when she had had time to process it all fully.

She still hadn’t even processed Persephone, really, except to know that they really, for once, were the same thing. All the flowers were dead––and that was good, because she was a person, not a flower. Persephone, hard and beautiful like a metal or a diamond, remained. She pulled out her phone and flipped it open, dialing without even thinking about it––it was habit at this point and she found herself sometimes calling her own number outside of Paradise, purely by accident.

With a soundless motion in the air and a scent--no longer of just flowers although the floral scent remained, it was mixed with something pungent and sweet, pomegranate?, Persephone was before them both. There was no denying it, she looked kind of dead. Her hands were bone thin––bones even, maybe––but her face was majestic and paradoxically, far more alive than Kore had ever seemed.

It wasn't what Kiriko had expected, to say the least. Her eyes swept silently over the spectre before her (straight and tall and regal in her bearing, a queen to Kore's fairy-tale princess), her face blank as she considered Persephone. This was the part of Kozue she hadn't known, and the longer she stared at the persona, the closer she felt to admiration for it.

"So how did you--"

Kiriko was interrupted mid-thought - by her own ringtone, she realized after a moment, and dug into her pocket to fish out her phone, then stare at the screen in confusion. The number was Kitsune's - Tamamo's - and while Kiriko puzzled over what was going on, her persona sprang forth of its own accord, flashing red and white light.

Across from Persephone, Tamamo-no-Mae looked softer, warmer, (and faintly amused, perhaps by the apparent role reversal). The end of one of her tails twitched and curved as she approached the other woman, extending a slender, porcelain-white hand in friendship.

Persephone reached out and clasped Tamamo-no-Mae’s hand with her own bone-thin arm, quite independent of anything Kozue had thought or said or instructed, for Kozue was staring, perplexed and amazed; it looked so strange, dark and bright things standing together, but it also seemed very right. The gap––not between their personae but between the two of them, Kiriko and Kozue, it felt like it had been closed. Possibly, as she watched the two proud, strong creatures––no, women who stood before them clasp hands and smile at each other as they faded away again, the gap had been filled in entirely and they stood now closer than they had before. She looked across at Kiriko, her face awash in wonder and delight.

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	apathyisboring 2011-02-25 02:55 am UTC (link)
	Apparently the surge of delight had run through them both, because once the ethereal women were gone in a flash of light and revelation, Kiriko was grinning too, and laughing, and throwing her arms around Kozue in celebration of emerging victorious from a struggle she barely knew had been happening. (Reply to this) (Parent)

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