Mourn me

Requests: closed

   How do you mourn something you never met? You never remembered?

   Jin was getting better. It started small. A few more words here, a few more steps there, and that was all it took to get the ball rolling. He started eating more, he starting talking more, he started writing more, he started doing everything more. He no longer felt the need to hide and though it scared him, he let a nurse take scissors to his hair whilst his brother watched. Snip, snip, snip: a cascade of purple fell around from him and he flinched every time but the nurse called him a good boy for being brave and it made him feel warm and fuzzy inside.

   He didn’t know why.

You’re right! It’s a very good prompt with lots of potential. My brain still went straight for angst. Oops. It’s kinda long too.

I wasn’t sure if you meant for the ship or not but it ended up not being shippy anyway.

23. “You have a picture of me? On your fridge?”

—

Yusaku was… more than uncomfortable.

This was just supposed to be a school project. Emphasis on school. But here he was, standing with Aoi in the elevator going to the top of the highrise she lived in.

He was not prepared for this.

Despite everything, he found himself wishing he could have grouped up with Naoki, instead, but the annoying boy wasn’t in this class, and nobody else wanted to group with him.

Nobody except Aoi, at least. She’d specifically asked him, almost immediately after the project was announced.

“You could have grouped up with someone else, you know.” He broke the silence in the elevator, startling her.

Her head dipped forward slightly, in what he thought he recognised as disappointment, but then she raised it again and shook it.

“It’s fine.”

She said nothing else on the subject, and soon the elevator stopped, giving a light ping before the door slid open.

They were greeted immediately with a living room, which made Yusaku’s eyebrows raise. When she’d said she lived at the top of the building, he’d expected her to mean just an apartment, not the entire floor.

Thinking about it, her brother had money, so he shouldn’t have been surprised in the slightest. Especially when Akira had been reinstated as the security manager following the Tower of Hanoi incident.

Aoi had stepped out of the elevator while he mused, turning to give him a light smile. “Are you coming in?”

Tentatively, he nodded, stepping slowly out of the elevator and taking his shoes off. The place gave him an alien feeling, but he had to deal with it. They didn’t have enough time to do the project at school, and his own apartment was out of the question, run down as it was, so Aoi had suggested her own place, which he’d reluctantly accepted.

“Welcome home, Aoi. I see we have a guest.” A robotic voice interrupted him from his thoughts, and he saw a maid robot, one that was quite advanced.

“I’m home. Please don’t disturb us.”

“Understood.”

She nodded, turning back to him. “Sorry about that.” She moved further into the abode, letting him follow her. “Would you like a drink? We have a larger collection than I’d ever drink, so there’s no worry about taking too much.”

They stepped into the kitchen as he responded. “I’m fine, don’t-” A flurry of movement made him stop, eyes following Aoi as she dashed to the fridge, snatching something off of it with wide eyes.

Not before he saw it. A picture of him? Judging from the state of the fridge, she’d taken it off a now empty spot that was surrounded by drawn flowers.

He heard her talk to herself, voice shaking. “I forgot it was there.”

Yusaku stared at the empty spot, then back to her hands, which she’d clasped together around something which she now held to her chest.

“You have a picture of me? On your fridge?”

Silence. Perhaps he shouldn’t have said anything. He took a few steps towards her, slowly, and then he was close enough to hear her half-whisper to him.

“You can leave now, if you want. It’s alright. I can do the project myself.” As he crouched down beside her, he could see tears forming in her eyes as she continued. “I know it’s creepy. My brother knows it’s creepy, too, but he didn’t say anything so I left it there.”

“Zaizen.”

As he said her name, she began to emit a keening noise, in clear distress.

He reached forward, prying her hands open to take the picture out of them. The noise stopped as she made a strangled noise of confusion.

He flattened the photo back out, then attached it back to the fridge.

As he turned back to Aoi, she stared back with confusion in her eyes.

“Why?” She whispered.

“I won’t say it’s not creepy, but it’s clearly important to you for it to be there, right?”

She nodded silently.

“Do you.. want to tell me why?”

“Really?” Tears began to run down her face, and he nodded in return.

She took a deep breath, then stood, turning and leaving the kitchen as he followed.

She sat down on one of the couches in the living room waiting for him to sit down across from her before she began to speak.

“Ten years ago,” He almost flinched at the time frame. “I had a friend, but I made a horrible mistake that caused me to lose her forever. I’ve been so self conscious about it that, along with my brother’s position at SOL, I was never able to make any more friends after that.”

Yusaku nodded along, only listening and not making any comments in case she stopped talking because of them.

“I put your picture up because- because you’re the first person in that time who I’ve been able to feel like I’m friends with, and not just being used for benefits.”

The words struck his heart as he remembered that he had, in fact, approached her for selfish reasons, even if he’d abandoned them almost immediately.

He couldn’t tell her that. Barring the fact that he would need to fully explain himself, it would probably break her.

He was completely lost for words. Silence filled the room as she quietly cried, and he sat watching her with no idea how to respond.

Every moment that passed made him feel worse. She’d thought of him as a friend, yet he’d never made any effort to really make room within himself to have such a thing.

He’d stubbornly clung to his old habits, even though they’d taken down the Knights of Hanoi and ended his revenge.

He needed to change. He’d always planned to, but never had the courage to go through with it.

“Zaizen.”

She blinked away tears, and wiped at her face with her hands, though her face was still wet when she looked up at him.

Knowing he had her attention, he continued. “I think we should put the project on hold for today.” Seeing her grimace and shrink back, he raised a hand to reassure her. “You’re not in any state to work on it.”

He stood up, grabbing his bag. “How about I come around tomorrow? It’ll be the weekend, so we can spend most of the day working on it and then-”

He bit back on his words, cutting himself off, but forced himself to finish. “Then maybe we can hang out for a bit.” He scratched the back of his neck, looking away slightly. “As friends.”

It wasn’t much, but he saw her give a small smile at his words before nodding.

“I’ll, uh, I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

Both of these names are accepted, and will be added to the suggestions page.

Nah, plenty of people do enjoy Man in the Killer as well. I’m trying to remember what the general gist of the posts I saw back then were - I don’t want to accidentally exaggerate the sentiments I saw... I know that one of the more common detractors was Raz Smith, who can be hard to take in large doses for some fans. There are some other things that do come to mind, but I don’t want to leave anyone with the impression that Man in the Killer is outright hated. That’s just not the case. 

Series: Durarara!! Pairing: Kujiragi/Tsukumoya Summary: Shinichi sends Kasane a bouquet. She’s just glad it isn’t a threat. Notes: I’m out of good prompts and decided to make up one of my own. Colors and pairings are fun and this is what I came up with for @immicolia who sent me these two and yellow. AO3

At first, the sound of knocking only brought caution. While Kasane hadn’t been staying here for too long, she’d been starting to think that it was about time to switch hiding spots. Currently there was no one who should know of her current location, nor had she been anticipating anyone’s arrival.

With careful composure, she was instead surprised to see a delivery person at the door carrying a bouquet, though this surprise isn’t present in her expression at all. They asked her to sign for it all the while trying to remain calm in how eerily blank Kasane’s expression stayed throughout the entire exchange. The flowers themselves didn’t appear to hold any romantic meaning, but normally people show at least some kind of response to receiving a bouquet.

The former secretary wasn’t even all that sure on flower meanings herself nor was she currently interested. All that she’s fixated on is that in order to receive this someone must know where she, but depending on who that person is it could be dangerous.  

When she turned the card around all that’s listed was that the gift is from ‘A friend’, but no one who’d send something like this springs to mind. She’d recently become more acquainted with Erika Karisawa, but the woman didn’t seem the type to send something like this out of the blue unless she had explicitly mentioned she’d been injured in some way. Same for the reporter Kazane Kinomiya she’d been trying to get closer to, so who could have sent such a thing?

There was one other person that had mentioned wanting to be a friend, but admittedly she had considered it either a joke or a means of precaution. Shinichi Tsukumoya didn’t seem like the type to make jokes of that nature, but she couldn’t say that she knew him well enough to know if he’d do something like this either.

It was a simple mix of yellow daffodils, sunflowers and one single orange rose. The apparent meanings behind them after a glance on her phone only echoed the sentiments he’d try to say, but as to why he sent them it made no sense. Furthermore, it also implied that the information network he claimed to be was capable enough to figure out her location this quickly. Perhaps that’s why he sent it? As a reminder that even if they were friends now, that he was still capable of such things.

She’d been readying the bouquet to place in a proper vase almost mechanically all throughout trying to figure out what it meant when her phone alerted her to an email.

“‘I hope my gift wasn’t too forward, but I figured it would get my message across had you misunderstood our last discussion. Though you declared yourself a villain, the fact you are now able to turn over a new petal—forgive my pun—is something I admire and wish to support.

I assume you’ve already researched the bouquet’s meaning so I won’t waste your time in rehashing it, just know I am indeed serious and you know where to find me if you wish to talk’” She finishes reading, still uncertain on how true it was. He was cryptic and there was good reason to be wary, yet the potential to have another friend was something she found herself looking forward to.

oh wow you cant believe how happy i am that you wrote me. youre pretty much what i like to call a ‘fandom pillar’ as in the sole person who seems to be interested and creates content for an underapreciated thing. in this case tsukumoya. 

i was treking through the tsukumoya tag in search for something that would satisfy me in my tsukumoya interest and friend did you satisfy me.

the first one i read was ‘Unraveling’ and it hit the canon spot just perfectly. then ‘Displaced’ and boy! i have a huge soft spot for robots imitating humans thanks to my love for Megaman (MegaMix/GigaMix) and Dramatical Murder (Clear) and it was just AMAZING. tsukumoyas counterattack on nebula was actually my favourite part because i love supernatural being flexing just how powerful they are.