( mini-plot post: open to all )

[jawdacity]

Who: jawdacity & all of cerealia!
When: towards the end of the event (so this won't conflict with any event threads you may already have going). 2-3pm.
Where: Abandoned village + surrounding jungle
What: THERE ARE EXPLOSIONS. And mushrooms.
Rating/Warning: Possible NSFW for gore?

Details about this mini-plot HERE

"World of Loudening Screams" (Watch on YouTube)

(theme song of this post, courtesy of moribound.)



[ it's another muggy, meandering day in the jungle; nothing seems to be out of the ordinary. ]

IN THE VILLAGE

[ if your character is near the center of the village, they'll bear witness to the curious sight of a herd of shuffling mushroom beasts. in terms of threat level, to the experienced hunter they may have ranked low on the scale: slow, lacking an external fang or claw, they seem to be interested only in their endless march forward.

but, if your character is close enough, they may catch sight of a red-haired young man, a manifesto of anger written across his face. one breathless moment, the calm before the storm, and then he hurls a metallic pair of gloves at the closest beast, the gloves trailing arcs of flame.

what may strike your character first is the searing heat, the thrum of the earth below their feet. the whole village is demolished in a moment, the dying cries of the beasts rising above the din. the explosion lasts much longer than it should, the line of mushrooms going up one after another.

if you're too close, you might be torn in two. you might lose a limb, or two, or three. you might go deaf, you might lose your sight. you might lose all your eyelashes, your clothes. maybe the bag of mushrooms you'd collected for dinner is now little more than ash.

keep running. the smoke trails into the air. someone is screaming. the smell of charred meat follows you even after you disappear into the jungle. ]

IN THE SURROUNDING JUNGLE

[ if your character is close enough to the village, they'll feel the blasts, one after the other. the jungle is on fire, quickly spreading. maybe you'll hear the screaming, too; maybe your lungs will fill with smoke. maybe you'll run into one of the last mushroom beasts, fleeing from the explosion only to trigger a lesser one in the depths of the jungle.

it came from the village, didn't it? maybe someone you love was swept up in the explosion.

if you manage to escape the stampede of terrified jungle beasts (some of which may stop to crunch you up as a quick meal as they dash away from the blast), maybe you can venture closer to see what's happened.

or maybe you should get as far away as possible. ]

Comments

OPEN.

[jawdacity]

( A )

[ he keeps stumbling over his feet, his balance fucked to hell by the loss of --

he looks down at the charred remnants of his right arm. it's the smell that's the worst. cooked meat. his stomach growls, empty after days of substandard food, meat a luxury that he'd been unable to afford while hiding and flitting from tree to tree to avoid the monsters that appeared at the worst of times.

he tears his gaze away. the pain hasn't yet settled in. he's read about this, ravenous for information after sousuke's shoulder injury had rendered their shared dream impossible: the brain has a limit for pain. when it overextends, it's euphoria instead.

rin stumbles and tries to right himself with hand braced against the smoking remains of a house. the hand isn't there.

heine, too, eyes like glinting metal. rin had thought them friends, comrades-in-arms, something more than strangers. but heine's fury had been incomprehensible, a language too intricate to unravel in the wake of what rin had just done. he'd stepped over zack's body. he'd -- killed zack.

it feels like nothing. he should be crying, inconsolable after killing and injuring who-knows-how-many, but his mind is a blank canvas, no shade nor shape to fill its expanse. he can think only of the grit in his mouth. how his face itches, covered now with a fine layer of ash. his hair had blown into a disarray; thick locks of it stick to his cheeks, his nape. a dip in the river would be nice. a shower, with that sakura-scented bath wash that gou always bought for him without teasing him. a swim, maybe. butterfly, to flex his aching back. afterwards, he could ask one of the underclassmen to give him a rubdown with that new menthol salve he'd found at the sporting goods shop, the last time they'd taken the train into the city.

what would haru think?

rin takes a deep, gasping breath. he can't look behind him. he can't do anything but trudge forward, unrecognizable in tattered clothes and tattered hair, covered from head to toe in ash. he tumbles through the brush, catching himself with his remaining arm.

when he looks up, the bloody red smear of his gaze startling against his ashen skin, he could easily be mistaken for one of the jungle's many hungry inhabitants. ]

The hell are you staring at?

[ is the snapped response to any eyes upon him. his voice is gravel.

he struggles to his feet, refusing help if it's offered. ]

( B )

[ somewhere, far into the distance, gou tucks her hair ties into a drawer in the bureau that they share.

sometimes rin opens that drawer and runs his fingers through the colorful array, impressive already despite the short time she's lived with him.

he's thinking of her, remaining fist clenching and unclenching. he's sitting by the crater, surrounding by the remnants of a dozen mushroom beasts, of a ring of splintered wood. his scavenged gloves lay in his lap.

he's thinking about his sister. he hasn't been a very good brother to her, has he?

little sins, big sins. sins too huge to comprehend.

he won't deny his involvement in the explosion if anyone were to see the gloves and suspect. ]

( A )

[theoreitical]

[It's Rei's first instinct in the middle of that chaos to let out a cry of relief when he finally sees his friend emerge out of the undergrowth. He had been far enough out from the village--having deemed it both unsettling and unfruitful--to have missed the worst of the blast. The ground had shook, and the smoke settled over the air before the fire ever followed, enveloping the area with its caustic fumes like an unwanted, inescapable embrace. And of course, the fire itself, spreading quick and fast through the forest, had been impossible to ignore.

He had stayed out of the way of the relief efforts too, for the most part. Scientifically minded, perhaps, but his temperament is hardly made for medicine on better days, and he has no helpful "powers" to speak of ("mermaids...they have mermaids," is all he lets his mind settle on to numb the anxiety growing in his gut when the survivors begin to gather and he sees no one he knows, if only because some logical conundrums are still easier to swallow than intense, numbing fear); he had never felt like more of a liability than when surrounded by the panic and pain of a sudden battlefield, a concept that has always seemed more a literary metaphor than real.

The distance between he and the still-smouldering crater of the blast grows as he realizes there's nothing to be done for it.

To say that finding Rin is a relief is nothing small. Even under that matted hair, clumped together by who knows what, covered in dirt and ash, and whatever else, Rei knows it's him. He rushes forward, all instinct and no plan in the middle of an emergency, decorum cast aside only for those he considers the closest to his heart.]

Rin-san!

[It slips out right before Rei is cognizant of the whole picture. Covered in ash, clothing charred to unrecognizable rags, and that smell. His--]

R-rin-san...

[Quieter. No longer relieved. HIS ARM. He can only try to cover his mouth before that once relieved cry turns to one of shock and empathetic pain, a sound altogether alien as it tries to rip its away out of his throat.]

[jawdacity]

[ still, he doesn't feel it.

rei doesn't deserve the snap of his jaws, though, nor the misplaced anger that courses through him, hot as the flame that he'd left behind him.

fear isn't a stranger to rin, especially here in cerealia. but his days until now have been marked off by the occasional tremor, terrible in isolation but seldom carrying forward.

not like this, where one mistake feels inescapable. rin isn't thinking about the explosion, or strands of black sinew where his arm used to be, or all that must come from this point onwards. he's trying not to look at rei, knowing that one glance at that earnest face will - will unravel him to the barest bones. he's not ready for that. ]

There are people back there.

[ his hair in his face, his breath catching in his throat. he clears it; tries again. ]

Who need help.

[ is all that rin says, gaze fixed to a tree in the distance. broad leaves, saturated green. too bright. ]

[theoreitical]

[There's a nagging guilt that hits him when he realizes he doesn't care. His temperament was never one meant for disasters; terror is an easy-coming ebb and flow, where his emotions are mutable and everchanging, and so easy to incite. Panic comes with it, then worry.

Shock, seemingly, does not. But he knows it when he sees it, and trying to choke back the shaky cry that comes after, he inhales sharply and steels his expression.

It doesn't help much. He just has to try harder. He's not the one covered the afterbirth of an explosion, in lethal acidity and a foreign obscuring mask of smoke. He's not the one who has lost, here. He can feign strength, if nothing else.]

And you don't?!

[Maybe not the strongest of comebacks. It leaves too much to question, like Rin's state of undoing is up for debate. But if that's the case, well then, damn it, Ryugazaki, you are not allowed to lose.

That's when his breath catches in his throat again. It's too much, it's too much, and if this is what the real world is like, he doesn't want it. Real life isn't supposed to be fraught with so many tragedies rolled into one, as if they'd had a perpetual black cloud hanging over their heads, only shed by the coming of a hurricane.

But if he leaves Rin now, prioritizes strangers over one of his closest--projecting perhaps, too hopeful, but he considers it true--friends, what kind of friend does that make him?]

You're not in a state of mind to argue.

[It's a close to a discussion as he's entertaining on the subject. He doesn't need to theorize that. He knows.]

[jawdacity]

[ when they were four, when his father still came home from his fishing boat every night, gou used to experiment with cooking. the span of a few months when rin and gou gave the same answer when asked their age. gou at the stove, standing on one of the kitchen chairs, stirring a pot with the careful concentration of a child tasked with a responsibility.

the pot had spilled over despite her concentration, no amount of stirring enough to overcome the fact that their mother had turned the burner too high. her hands had escaped the flood, but her calves had been burned pink by the boiling dashi, even the hiss of a spill not enough warning for her to jump away quickly enough.

he'd remembered that moment. when words hadn't been quick enough on his tongue. that endless moment, suspended in midair, where he'd been about to shout, when the dashi had been about to spill onto his little sister's legs.

this is a lot like that. except the dashi has torn his arm away. even a shout wouldn't have saved anyone; there's death settling like a fine powder into the creases of his hands, settling there for perpetuity.

rei doesn't understand. how can he?

the pain has begun to rise higher, its noise drowning out all else. gou's tiny hands clutched about the ladle. the blue curtains. the waxy image of skin melting in the aftermath of the explosion. zack's ashen skin. skin burned away, leaving only bone. blood. blood congealing into black tar.

rin doesn't want him to understand. ]

I did that. The explosion. I set it off.

[ it's a gauntlet thrown, his voice like a lash. ]

Don't you get it?!

[ his gaze is still fixed on a faraway point. ]

[theoreitical]

["On purpose?" The question begs, almost slips unbidden, but even as soon as the possibly crosses his mind, Rei dismisses it almost immediately. There isn't any way.

Rei has known Rin as many things. Too ambitious for his own good. Incredibly driven, even sometimes to the point of self-annihilation. Egotistical and yet incredibly kind, often in the same intake of breath. He may not have the years of memories with Rin that his other friends do, stacked up and yellowing in a photo box tucked away neatly in some forgotten corner for occasional perusing on days where the light is soft and time seems to have all but stopped, but he's seen Rin as he is now, at both highs and lows. He's seen enough to know that this friendship means something, that his initial sacrifice for this boy he'd barely known meant something.

He may not be able to comprehend this sacrifice, violent in a way he's never seen, but he understands enough. He knows the answer to that question before his internal monologue even finishes the word.

Rei is quiet for a moment, possibly too long. The anger in his friend's voice, and his distant focus don't quite add up. It's not a challenge, though Rin seems to think it is. It's an invitation for guilt.

And that doesn't add up to "on purpose" either.]

Yes, I get it.

[Though perhaps not in the way he should. The statement is simple, but the tone is carefully taught, not a hint of anger in it. This blame isn't his to issue.]

I get that you're still too stubborn to ask for help when you need it!

[Okay, so his composure isn't rock solid. Especially not ever when the reality of the situation starts to settle back into his periphery.]

a

[rebelia]

[ he sees from the distance. it's a blur at best, and a part of a rundown house hides what exactly transpires, but iv is close enough – and far enough to dodge the worst – when the explosion strikes. the far reaching impact hurls him closer to the edge of the demolished village, jostling his bones and knocking the wind out of him. if not for his bracelet erecting a protective force field around him, he surely would have perished.

the fire licks the barrier, the heat unbearable. with a succeeding explosion, the fire penetrates and stops several feet short of iv's face. and it burns.

iv sucks in a breath, eyes wide as the memory of a raging fire in the alleyway envelopes his frenzied mind. the same memory rights him onto his feet, and coursing adrenaline propels him toward the surrounding jungle a mere few yards away. unshed tears prick his aching eyes, but his sleeves are covered in ash, and so he carries on while blinking furiously.

he loses track of how long he's dawdled at the edge trying to will the tears away. just as he takes another step, a hapless soul who's completely covered in ash and lost an arm staggers behind him, and he stops. he stares, the flicker of recognition somehow settling in his eyes (he could be assuming; this might be the wrong person; but he's angry, and iv sees only red now) and his blood boiling at the sorry sight. ]

. . . Get up! We're leaving.

[jawdacity]

What?

[ the question yanked from him, more breath than sound. instinct has anger rising in him to meet the anger displayed; he stumbles away, trying and failing again to steady himself with an arm that no longer hangs from its socket.

embarrassing, he might have thought. an hour prior. rin matsuoka, grace and beauty personified, now stumbling around like a toddler taking his first steps. ]

I'm not going anywhere with you.

[ because it's easier to bare teeth and close his heart for the moment, to focus instead on this stranger's face with stranger's eyes, the gleam of which rin knows all too well. the gritted teeth that hold back the tide.

an animal in a trap. rin snarls at him, willing him away: whatever sadness he's found in the flames, it isn't rin's to soothe. it isn't rin's to witness.

nothing else makes any sense, but of that - rin's certain. ]

[rebelia]

[ a part of him recognizes his demand as irrational, yet the vast majority of him takes offense at the rejection. iv scowls, the crease of his brow severe as he grits his teeth. ]

Then what are you going to do, stay here? Idiot. It's only going to get worse. If you won't come with me, at least start moving!

[ and stop that sorry stumbling. whatever disability that charred body is facing now, iv won't correct it. he refuses. it is not his place. the fool must carry himself and face the world beyond the depths of fiery hell as a man should.

he gestures wildly ahead of himself. whether or not the action is visible enough in the haze of thick smoke eludes his thoughts. ]

[jawdacity]

[ nothing makes sense. it's as if some great hand has closed around his mind, tearing it to pieces with its fingernails before shaking the tatters loose. a tangle of thoughts half-formed and worn at the edges. nothing that he can piece back together again.

above it all, the steady thrum of pain. low as distant thunder, growing louder as the moments pass. this stranger, bright-haired, is too much for rin's tired eyes, which are still flashing ghost-white explosions behind the lids. ]

Moving? Where?! There's nowhere to go.

[ anger, because that's the most accessible. keep it going, keep the fuse lit, even if rin knows he's reaching its end. ]

Idiot.

[ the insult is mockingly delivered, a parody of the tone used on him. ]

[rebelia]

[ iv grits his teeth, seething upon butting heads with the familiar mistress of anger. as if to argue the point, he takes a step aside, foot pointed in the direction of the inner depths of the jungle permeated with smoke from the village. ]

Then find a place!

[ find it, and then crumble there in the deafening silence of self-loathing. iv thinks this is so simple, and yet here they are. his body further tenses in agitation at the sight of the raging chaos behind them, the fool's plight, and his own nervous state over everything. he wants nothing more than to leave. ]

If this is how you're going to be, fine. Just don't do it here. Dying with the mess won't solve anything.

b!!

[hoasen]

[The village does not look anything like it did when she left it. A fire wouldn't completely decimate the area. But after witnessing a mushroom explode whilst making its escape, she could only assume that was what happened.

It's no time for jokes, but some disturbing god must be thinking "Never touch the mushrooms."

She was looking for anyone she knew, silently thinking that now is the worst time to raise the temperature of the jungle. If only it would rain. Hopefully her friends are well.

But she'll stop for anyone. Everyone suffered in this blast. But there's someone there at the crater and looking much smaller than he is (no I don't mean because his arm suffered. HAR HAR.) Vietnam walks closer to investigate.]

Hello?

[jawdacity]

[ rin, lost in his thoughts, doesn't immediately respond. it's only when the flicker of movement in the periphery catches his attention that he looks up. his spine creaks.

he doesn't recognize her, but her wholeness is welcome to him: strange, how his priorities have now shifted. before, he might have lingered on the shape of arms and thighs and calves, thinking of the stroke of a body against the water. his first thought upon seeing her would be - breast stroke, with her bird-bone frame.

now he thinks: all four limbs accounted for. light in her eyes.

he frowns, but it's quieter than his usual flash-bang scowl. he doesn't stand to greet her. ]

Not really a good time to be exploring the village.

[ considering that it's now splinters and smoke. the mushroom beasts might come back. whoever brought them here in the first place might take almighty revenge.

who knows. who the hell knows. ]

[hoasen]

[Closer, she notices the young man, his arm mutilated by the blast. It's lucky, considering what she saw of the fires, that he managed to come out with most of him still intact. There's a set of gloves with him, destroyed (but they don't quite look like normal gloves), and the bodies of mushrooms strewn around him.

He could've had it worse, but something about his expression tells her that it's more than that. The look on his face, she's seen it before. She just never thought she'd see it again so soon. Tired and full of lonely despair.

She didn't need him to stand up nor greet her, she instead moves in to sit down beside him, brushing soot off of her lap.]

I explored it previously. [It is a shame everything is lost, but she worries more about everyone else.] Were you in the village? [If she had known how he was involved, she wouldn't have even asked. What she thought was a mild question was one of the worst reminders to bring up.]

[jawdacity]

[ he watches her sit down next to him, apparently baffled by her desire to venture close. ]

I was the one who set the explosion off.

[ rin's passion is definitive, for better and for worse; curiously, for such a landmark proclamation, it holds little in the way of emotion. dry, sandpaper dry, his throat working convulsively afterwards to swallow down the aftertaste.

nonetheless, it feels oddly freeing to say the words, her anonymity making it all the easier. if she judges him, let her judge him. she's no one to him yet, though her gentleness makes something hurt in rin want to fold and keep folding until there's only a remnant of him left in the space he inhabits.

guilt: it's a terrible thing. he's dealt with quieter guilt in worse ways, casting his dreams to the wayside in favor of stoking his own self-destructive tendencies.

but this is different. there had been no ill intent behind his attempt to kill the mushroom beasts. it had been an accident, based solely on his desire to protect himself and those around him.

that's unimportant to mention. ]

[hoasen]

[The heat may still be radiating off the remains of the village, the humidity still warm and muggy. But Vietnam felt a violent chill rush through her body, and she stares at him. It wasn't horror. She wasn't even sure if it was surprise. Perhaps, disbelief?

Him? He was the one who made this all happen? Was it those gloves in he has, that looked abnormally bigger than your average glove? Why would he tell her this?!

No one admits to being the root of all of this, not with that kind of expression, because he's proud of it. His arm wasn't some kind of prized scar, it was like he too was a casualty. Her assumption now is he's warning her.

It doesn't make it right all the same, and Vietnam finds herself unable to find the words. Slowly, she pieces a question together.]

What happened?

[As someone who has been through many wars, she knows she has to give him a chance to explain himself. Even if he feels guilt.]

b!

[cordated]

[ makoto isn't sure when he'd fallen, exactly.

like a record needle stuck in one groove, the fire trickles recursively along wood and spindly underbrush, eating into the darkness of the foliage. veined leaves, green and distended, shriveling in, dropping sickly-sweet from their stems; rot and crackling shells split and trampled underfoot. the resultant crack splits the din in visible desperation. a sound so glassy with whistling disrepair it'd chime brokenly if struck. screaming, loud and sharp, incising to the bone.

(haru, haru, haru —)

and then makoto's off, sprinting with the air metallic and rusting away past his ears, heading toward the fire like it could be a beacon that fed into his greater misgivings. an indulgence for the same self-savaging, hysterical fears that have kept him sleepless for weeks on end. inertia carries him through the implausible distance, and it's only upon reaching the outskirts of the clearing that he slows.

blinking the ash from his eyes, makoto shakes off the wobbling unsteadiness about his movements, as if his body is something entirely foreign, and starts forward. it's slow progress, meandering past the dereliction, the doorways with their slanted, opening mouths, holding nothing, no longer capable of anything else.

his childhood friend is beside the cavity gouged out of the earth, the residue of soil and something incendiary leaving him entirely dispossessed. the mangled pair of gloves littered in his lap, deprived of their decals and liquid brightness that no longer clung to his extremities. ]

Rin! W-What are you doing ... ?! It's dangerous to space out in a place like this!

[ he registers the disproportionate absence where rin's right arm should be with a numbing grief, standing beneath the shredded light that could make any of them capable of disaster.

being his friend for as long as he has, it comes intrinsic that there are certain boundaries makoto never crosses. he isn't a part of rin's dream. he won't ever be, fated for the sidelines, but he can't ever leave well enough alone.

for once, makoto doesn't bother with formalities. he eschews politeness and courtesy alike to make the first step, the crepitating snap of branches beneath his heels, and then his hands spanning the width of rin's shoulders, bent down close enough to gaze at him the only way he knows how. ]

We're going together. We'll find our friends, so ... there's no way I'm leaving you alone.

[ there should be tears. there should be shock, but there's only shrill, ceding selfishness irradiating his throat, past the detritus of solemn imprecations and exiled panic. ]

Please don't turn me away.

[ rin has no practice at staying in one place for too long, but makoto's never been one to stray, either.

that much holds true. ]

[jawdacity]

[ strange, how makoto can exist in a space like this. rin would have thought him incompatible, crumbling to dust at the edges of the crater. existing in a reality separate and sacred from the present, untouchable by rin. by rin's ilk.

even now, he seems incorporeal. broad shoulders, eyes too green for the ashen air between them. sometimes, when rin was caught in the bowels of australia in the night-time, he'd thought of his childhood friends like characters in a fairy tale. far and away from rin's reality, living out a life that rin would never be able to understand. not someone like rin, who threw himself into the water, day after day after day, and still couldn't step forward into the future.

he shudders away when makoto leans to him. that touch is anathema. not because of rin's branded-hot nerve endings, not because of his shorn arm or the plastic smell of his burned hair. it would be easier for makoto if he left. ]

You should be out looking for Haru.

[ it doesn't sound like rin. it sounds like someone has run a palm down the surface of a mirror to wipe away the steam, a slip-slide of sound, too soft and too shapeless for rin's sharp mouth. he usually bites away the softness of words, giving cutting edge to even the sweetest of sentiments. here, reality has been spun on its axis, one-eighty degrees. an inverse of reality. rin, wanting of nothing but a quiet moment to feel the weight of his twisted metal gloves and blink away the exhaustion. until - perhaps - his surroundings resolve into a picture more easily understood.

--he hadn't seen haru amongst the bodies. he hasn't seen haru at all. ]

I'm fine. [ and he sounds it. he has to. it's not so much an act as one that rin, too, has bought into. ] Go find him.

[ what does makoto think he can do for rin? when he doesn't belong in this ruined landscape in the first place?

better, then, that makoto-and-rin and the friendship implied therein should be cast to the wayside.

for now, rin tells himself, hopeful even when he's uncertain of its place. just for now. ]

[cordated]

[ fear portrayed as vivisection: the dream of rin's father a birthright gutted out, entrails spread around his feet. grotesque, but only upon closer examination. outwardly, rin's visibly diluted, trading out sullen verbal slipknots for writhing distance. another strange reversal; lighter fluid for the encroaching separation. rin, even bereft of impetuosity, is still transparent.

it's as if he's regressed, shifting back into the boy along the wharf with his sister clutched around his wrist, following his father into the burial mound. anger completely sapped. ]

... How can you say that?

[ no excuse exists for the inscrutable blotchiness to makoto's demeanor. a trade of dispositions.

if the horizon hadn't been eaten up by shadows and the line of receding trees, makoto would've deduced him as yet another delusion, the same as all the others. so many nights spent on unabsolved loss, haru gone out of sight but never out of mind. the fissuring smoke might be undergoing a nicotine fit around them, bilious plumes of smoke a sequel to the near-inconsolable fire, but all makoto sees is the pretense of a drowning man.

he forgets to release his grip even as rin flinches back. bad to worse. makoto can't entirely absolve him for giving up. ]

Listen to me. I'm not leaving you.

[ it's the simplest thing in the world, recognizing guilt in someone else. ]

I can't let you do this to yourself. Isn't that what you told me when I didn't want you to understand? You saw right through me. No matter what, you wouldn't leave well enough alone.

[ a low blow. ]

I need you too, Rin. You have to keep going.

[ his fingers graze the burnt fabric, snagging in with no discernible intent in release. ]

You're important to me.

b!

[covenantal]

[ To his dismay, Yu had been far away from the blast by the time it had gone off. Dismay, because he'd been too far to do anything to help. By the time he arrives, the immediate carnage is over. The wounded have been tended to and the fires are out. All he finds is the blast crater - and the boy he met before. The one he'd fallen asleep on. That moment seems especially cute now, in the midst of all this destruction and pain. Rin is ... his arm.

Without any hesitation he'll walk up to sit beside Rin, careful in his movements so as not to startle the other boy.

The gloves... he was barely awake at the time, but he seems to remember seeing something like those when they met. Rin had put them in a bag, but... are those the same? He isn't sure. He wishes he hadn't been so out of it. But that can wait. Rin is hurt. And obviously upset. ]

Rin-san.

[jawdacity]

[ there are a few fires that still flicker in the periphery, more smoke than flame. rin nonsensically, is thinking about the effect of secondhand smoke on an athlete's lungs. especially for a swimmer, for a freestyle swimmer, smoke is deadly. lung capacity can be increased, genetics overcome by hard work, but how easily all of that could be cut down. a few too many carbonated drinks. a few too many cigarettes. and then you're taking last place, not making the national cut, stuck to teaching five-year-olds how to swim in some old city natatorium. where the paint's peeling from the walls, where the metal fixtures in the locker rooms are all rusting over.

no one gets to the olympics without an arm, too. maybe he can get a new one installed. something in chrome and plexiglass, stronger and more efficient than skin and bone. maybe he'll be the first in the world to win the gold after killing a handful of his friends.

how's that for setting records.

he doesn't look up when yu draws near, though the shock of gray brings to mind a certain timid junior before rin remembers where he is. no samezuka rice porridge in the morning. just a breakfast of ash and ash. ]

Finally woke up, huh?

[ wry, softer than rin usually is. ]

[covenantal]

[ He's unhurried as he arranges himself on the ground, one leg curled against his body, the other knee bent with foot planted against the ground. He leans against that knee as he watches the other boy, gray eyes clear and inscrutable. If there's one thing Yu has learned from a year of becoming all things to all people in his life, it's that listening is more powerful than any other action one can take. Listening isn't just about words, about what's said or how it's said or even why it's said. It's about the silences. What's not said, or why it's not said. Rin's so quiet now. He'd been chatty before, bright like a lit flame and quick to curse, coarse and uncaring and laughing. He'd been sound and light. Listening to him had been what had gotten Yu to wake up.

He's silence now. Snuffed out to only a thin column of trailing, silent smoke, threatened by the merest breeze. Whether to go out entirely or to erupt into new flame, Yu isn't sure.

For a moment, he keeps his eyes trained on the other boy's face. Then he drops his gaze to the crater and nods once. ]

Thanks to you.

[ His eyes crinkle in an expression that would be a smile under other circumstances. ]

Why are you here?

[ It's a loaded question. Here beside the crater; here at all; it's open to Rin to interpret how he pleases. ]

[jawdacity]

Mm.

[ a non-answer. maybe it says more than a true answer might have.

rin might have protested at the scrutiny, any other day: his confidence comes with too many caveats to name. they barely know each other, strangers fastforwarded into friendship by circumstance, but still yu is the sort that rin might have wanted to impress, had they been classmates or teammates or anything with an underscore of normalcy.

rin manages half of a shrug before wincing - violently, his bones shivering under the fine shroud of skin - and dropping back into the absence of motion.

it's not about atoning, because rin - for all of his bravado - doesn't have the grandiloquence of self that would allow him to take responsibility for all that has transpired. it had been an accident. caused by his hands, singular now in recompense, but an accident nonetheless.

--still, death is no easy burden. neither is hurt, or anger, or fear. somewhere in the passing from then to now, rin has become less of a victim and more of an accessory, and that's why he sits now with his gloves in his hands, unable to look back or to move forward. ]

You look like you'd be a good swimmer.

[ is what rin says instead. he's picking idly at the grooves in the metal gloves, iron flaking like paper under the pressure. yu's a careful presence, body tucked in with neat precision. he moves like zack does, like heine does; it's more than the awareness of an athlete. there's more to it. the focus of a fighter.

--maybe rin does want to impress him. even after all of this. ]

Butterfly, maybe. You look like you've got the flexion and the strength for it. Or the crawl, maybe — with your build, you might even give me a run for the money.

[ finally, a glance askance. ]

How 'bout that? Once we get out of here, you repay me with a race.

[covenantal]

[ Something about Rin now makes him want to fold inwards, a magnetism he almost finds difficult to resist. It's instinctual to want to comfort him, like they've known each other for a longer piece of time than the space of a few days. He's not sure why, other than Rin's space is now a vacuum where before it was a bubble, and he feels pulled into it in a way he wants naturally to fill, like he always does with people he meets. He can't fill spaces with air or light or sound, because that's not how he is. He's coolness and grounding and constancy, the mirror to reflect light back, the wick of the candle; he doesn't really light the flame himself. He helps nurture it.

Yu wants to help Rin, despite what his mind is putting together here in slow but inexorable pieces. Rin's injury, the gloves, his quiet, the crater; it's all too strange, too indicative of a single answer that's horrible to contemplate. He knows it without having to be told, mostly because Rin's body is telling him. Rin's mouth is telling him without actually saying the words of admission. What would other people be saying in this situation? Different things; they'd be helping, worrying, reacting; but Rin is talking about swimming. Not about who could have done this, or why.

His glance moves to meet Rin's at the same time. Without a single beat of hesitancy, he nods. ]

Yeah. I'm not sure I'll be any match for you, but I don't mind a race.

[ He's not much of a swimmer, after all. As if Rin's arm won't be an issue at all.

A beat. ]

Have you seen a healer?

B

[espersions]

Hey.

[ Hyoubu is able to put two and two together. It's because he uses esp and he cheats. He approaches Rin, with one hand stuffed in his pocket and the other holding an exquisite jungle flower. ]

I don't care how you Normals choose to occupy your time. It's nothing to do with me. Except, well. You ruined my flower.

[ Upon closer inspection, it's clear. The flower was formerly exquisite. It's partially singed and beginning to wilt. Several of its iridescent purple-green petals has been blown off. ]

That sort of thing puts a damper on my mood. That crime, I'm afraid, is unforgivable.