estoria | OPEN

Who:

fadeling & Whoever
When: IC 8/1
Where: Shopping district
What: Cole has been avoiding people, if you want to talk to him now's probably the best time for an ambush
Rating/Warning:G/PG - No warnings so far

It isn't hard for him to avoid people--they don't see him if he doesn't want them to. And it was easier for everyone if he did for a while. He couldn't help and if he tried he might have put his hurt on them. Then he would be worse than what they'd already said he was.

And that circular logic ran itself around in his head until he was dizzy. He can't hurt anyone or it wouldn't be him. He's still him so he can't have hurt anyone.

But what if he had? He helped and he left them healed behind him, he thought, but...

But.

But he can't stay to see, there are too many others who need help. And if he hindered instead of healed, that was hurting them too. He was supposed to help people. Was he helping people? He couldn't tell anymore. It was all cluttered, unclear and clouded, cloying and clawing and clutching coy at clinging. It was hard to see through, hard to think through, hard to see, hard to hear. It hurt to look at but he couldn't look anywhere else.

He's not the one who's supposed to hurt, to be conflicted. He was only one thing, how could he do that wrong?

He crouched in the middle of the street, passersby flowing around him, not noticing that they even moved around him, but not seeing him either. That was part of it, too, and he didn't want to be noticed. He could still hear the hurting, but he hesitated, trying not to listen, trying to lose himself in the sounds of it. Maybe if there was too much to listen to, he could forget himself for a moment. Maybe if he couldn't pull it apart, he wouldn't have to try and then he wouldn't hurt anyone.

It really wasn't working.

"Touch and try and hurt or don't touch and don't try and don't hurt. Or touch and don't hurt. Too many threads, tied together tight in tiny tangles."

But they'd caught him in them, too when he was supposed to be clean. He couldn't even tell if he was that anymore.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Oh look at this, there's a statue game going on!"

It's not clear that she's talking about him. Shihoudou has this ability where she notices people that doesn't want to be noticed simply because they don't want to be noticed, because she loves to meddle, and, well.

Being the annoyance that she is, she decides to play this imaginary game as well. And she flops down, her back on his, and makes a dramatic pose. She needs to learn how personal space works but at her high age she's not going to do that.

As soon as he felt her touch him he vanished, appearing again a few feet down the road. The people still don't seem to notice, they just adjust their pats accordingly, not even looking at him once.

At least he was off the ground, if not out of the way. And more than a little bit startled.

"There aren't any statues. They're people."

Now wasn't that just impolite? (Not that she should comment.) But she didn't fall to the ground, because a cloud floated out of the sword tied to the back of her pants and she still got to pull off her dumb pose.

Then she pulls himself up on the cloud to sit on it, legs dangling just a bit over the ground. She points at him with one of those feet. "I meant you, you were doing a statue pose and everything, Statue-chan."

She was even more confusing than the people around him, but at least she was a distraction that kept him from focusing on his own hurting. It was still there, though, always in the back, behind and underneath everything else.

"I'm not either. I'm me."

Look, if you were gonna take the time to hurt, then make sure you hurt in a fun way. It's much easier to do that when you're not immobilized and almost dying for a month, and it's also much more fun to just shove down that pain until you're ready to face it.

"And in this case me---that is you--" she points at him, "is playing statue for some reason, but for some other reason the me that is you doesn't want to admit it, what's up with that, granny wants to know."

"I help people. I heal the hurt. It shouldn't hurt." It's confusing and painful all on its own, even without knowing that touching anyone to help--even himself--might hurt later.

"It's...like burning, bright and blinding but...invisible. Under your skin so only you can see it."

"Hmmm..?" Such seriousness. Oh well!

She lets her cloud float further down and pats on it as it stretches to accommodate two. "Have a seat and talk to Granny."

She's almost as strange as he is, and that makes him pause for a moment. Strange isn't always bad, but he still had to be careful. He doesn't want to be not real again.

After a few moments, he shakes his head.

"Why?"

"Because!" She leans back against the cloud, which folds to form a backrest. "It can help your mind or your heart to talk, be it about serious things, or silly things."

"Most people don't like when I talk." They were confused or angry, usually. There were some who didn't mind, but for the most part, he'd had a hard time finding anyone who would listen without complaint. Besides, it was his job to listen and how could he do that if he was talking?

"Same here, so why don't we talk to each other!" But on Shihoudou's end, it was because she tended to talk about poop and other stupid stuff. "Or you can take a nap with granny if you end up feeling like punching her in the face!" Naps are always nice, righT?

"I don't need it. I'm not a person." People could be more than one thing, but he couldn't. That was part of the problem. But at the same time, he didn't need the same things people did.

"Of course you are, every turd is a person, both turds like you, and turds like me! Don't take things so seriously because life doesn't take anyone or anything seriously!"

"Why? What would you do if it hurt?" Life did that sometimes. Wasn't it better to take that seriously?

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