InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Say it."

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.

(Read comments) - (Post a new comment)

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.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

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.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	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)

(Read comments) -