#echosdeath.

“are y’sure?” she takes a bite of kaki-pi. because of matsugane, his clan, and yaeko’s girl, she’s come to know yagami too. over twenty years, she’s watched him stumble, rebuild himself, and keep going anyway. much like she has with @echosdeath. “i mean, tābō’s quite the charmer... and not exactly subtle. neither are you.” and if either of them had the courage to confront what was already obvious—- to themselves, let alone each other—- it would’ve saved them—- and everyone else—- a lot of trouble. “it’s kinda cute. embarrassin’, but cute.” and if they had eyes, too, maybe it wouldn’t have taken this long. so much for perceptive types.

she exhales softly. taps her manicured nails on the table. “and the way ya talk about him...” a laugh. “honestly, i’m startin’ t’wonder which one of ya’s actually foolin’ themselves worse.” her eyes crinkle deviously, pausing her tapping to point at shams. “like yer face... it does this... thing whenever he comes up. y’know? real annoyin’. makes it hard t’take ya seriously.” when shams makes an expression opposite of what she’s describing and sinks her head onto the counter, chizuru smiles to herself. cards fingers through dark waves of her daughter’s hair, listening to the bar’s music. [what about this dream again, i wonder? is there still love to be found? in the moment our hands touch, all the feelings i’ve held back rise up...] “no, but really, listen.” she often hears stories about other people in love, people falling out of it, or people simply talking about it, what with her bar attracting the hopeless romantics, hopeful fools and every cynic in-between. “ya don’t survive what we survived without gettin’ good at buryin’ things.” it’s been years since she’s let herself call anything love. that’s what she thinks, at least. maybe if the fates were kind, her boys down in sōtenbori—- and yasuko, too, if she were alive—- would poke and prod at her the same way she’s doing with shams now. ...two outta three, anyway.

avoids eye contact, keeps her eyes on her hands. communication is supposed to happen here. something reciprocal. something that closes the distance instead of defining it. she’s still learning how to do that, how to answer, how to meet speech with speech, after years where silence became the only fluent thing she had, where it became easier than translation. there’s a point where the conversation should require her to respond. should catch up to her, arrive in time to be met, become something she can step into instead of fall behind.

it doesn’t. at least, until @echosdeath says, “it’s not my fault, but it’s my problem.”

but it’s my problem... akie’s bitten-down nails worry at the skin around them, before pressing down into the soft, tender flesh, too hard, too far, until it hurt. pinpricks of blood well up on her thumb. shams, who’s been more-or-less enduring the lopsided exchange, reaches over to stop her, an attempt to calm akie’s nerves, but her hands dart away and retreat into sugiura’s jacket instead—- hers now, in the way things become hers when no one is actively using them anymore.

“i d-don’t...” her voice comes out rough, scratchy, shaky. she hates how small it sounds. “i, um... d-don’t need you making it your problem.” with skin-picking off the table, akie curls further into herself on the couch, and focuses elsewhere in sugiura’s apartment. “i don’t n-need that.” she decides on his shelf, sparse except for a singular picture frame: him and his sister. emi terasawa looks back at her. she wishes she had a picture of shiori still.

god, @echosdeath is ruthless. does she say this to all her business partners too? good afternoon, thanks for meeting with me. by the way, you seem mentally unstable! “‘not entirely insane’...” akiyama repeats it back to her, visibly pouting harder as she plucks the magazine off his face. “see, the ‘not entirely’ part somehow makes it worse. if you’d just called me insane outright, i could’ve worked with that. but this?” he presses a hand to his chest. “this feels targeted.”