maskormenacelogs | semi-closed;

Entry tags:

semi-closed;

WHO: Ken + castmates/housemates and CR; planned threads
WHERE: Nonah#005, De Chima#001, and various places as needed
WHEN: May 19th to perhaps the 24th
WHAT: the aftermath of this and reconnecting with friends
WARNINGS: like last time, talks of death and suicide and shit

i: Nonah #005; (the prompt is for the 19th, but other days work too)
On the 18th, he left with a note on the refrigerator that he was sleeping over at a friend's with Koromaru and wouldn't be home that day. That, he thought, might keep his housemates from worrying when he didn't show up that night. But Ken ends up home anyway, much later into the night, with a certain blue-haired man in tow, and he curls into bed and falls asleep almost immediately then. When he wakes up, it's past noon and he has a headache but he's feeling oddly refreshed.

There are things he lied to his housemates about. There are things he wants to ask them, and clear up. He doesn't feel like putting on clothes so he just throws his jacket on over his pajamas and steps out of his room. It's a weekday, so he doesn't know who's going to be home, but he has plenty of time. Whenever he comes across someone who's at the house, he shuffles over to them, hesitating just once before mumbling: "Can I sit with you?"

ii: De Chima #001
After the talks at Nonah have been had, De Chima is his next stop. He isn't sure how far the news had spread, if it had at all, but he's sure he'll find out once he's there. It's daunting, but it's hardy the scariest thing he's dealt with at this point... right?

Lies. Facing his friends is the scariest part. Scarier than running off alone with a knife in his pocket and no idea where to go. He's absolutely terrified of confronting them, even if there's a voice in his head whispering that it really wouldn't be a confrontation. It doesn't help the nervous twisting in his gut, though, so he clutches the straps on his backpack as he enters the house.

And the nervousness is overwhelming. He can hardly handle it. It's to the point that the moment he runs into anybody at De Chima #001 and they so much as greet him, he jumps and lowers his head and immediately blurts out a hurried, "I'm sorry!" ... Sorry about that.

iii: a text message
And maybe you're not at either of those houses when he is and Ken still wants to see you, or he feels like going somewhere that's not the houses to talk with you. In such a case, there will be a text from Ken to you, short and to the point. He'd make it more specific, maybe explain more, but he ended up getting nervous and sending it off quickly so the actual message ends up saying nothing more than:

Can we meet up somewhere?

((ooc; I'll likely also make this a catch-all for Ken stuff during June, so if you'd like to do something with him, whether it's about the above stuff of anything else, feel free to shoot me a message at

squigstuff!))

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Privacy would be good. Space to breathe would be great. Ken, who was staring at the floor once the initial conversations died down, almost looks pleadingly at Hiro when he's given the offer. While it want the same as before -- he wasn't trying to isolate himself again, he wanted to believe -- he's more than a little worm out after being the focus of multiple people's attention. Before, he could have dealt with it or deflected it, but that would have defeated the purpose this time.

He feels eager, in a way, to get out of here and he nods quickly. "Yeah," he answers, short but immediate and already sliding off the couch to his feet.

That's what he thought. He knows he'd be desperate for privacy by then, so he's glad to offer it to Ken. Plus his room is mostly clean so they'll be able to sit on the bed. "Great," he says, taking a few steps towards the steps. Then he pauses, waiting for Ken. "I could steal the Xbox too." Another implied offer: if Ken doesn't want to talk, Hiro won't make him.

He and Hiro had a lot in common. He was convinced they deviated from each other as soon as Ken's choices resulted in death and Hiro managed to avoid it, but it turns out that does nothing to lessen the understanding. He's overwhelmed by the appreciation that rises up in him at his friend's offer, and he nods again, already picking up a couple of controllers.

He doesn't really want to play. He doesn't feel entirely up to beating the next level of the game he started last time, and the BGM was cheerful and upbeat and he isn't sure he if could stand listening to it. He doesn't know if he has the focus, but there was a relief in reaching for these normal things, of thinking about things like games even for a moment. Once they're in Hiro's room he's sure he'll talk -- Hiro would understand, out of anybody here -- but right now he's desperate to escape out of the living room.

And as he anticipated, once the door closes behind them he sets down the Xbox and lapses into silence for a couple seconds, hands on one of the controllers before he speaks up, quietly.

"... This is the third time."

Hiro sits on his bed once they get in his room. He hasn't touched either controller, himself; he'd just plunked himself down and waited for a sign from Ken on what to do next. And sure enough, he gets it as soon as the door is closed. The third time? Presumably, the third time he'd tried to ... Hiro swallows, slowly, as he takes that in. He'd never been quite to the point of actively considering that course of action, even in his darkest days after Tadashi's death, but he'd had many, many nights where he'd gone to bed hoping he wouldn't wake up again.

"What happened the other times?" he asks, his voice quiet. Important to have context, but also ... Reminding Ken of the reasons why he didn't choose suicide, multiple times, seems like something that might help.

"I got left alive."

He sets down the controller and sits on the floor, hands in his lap and twiddling his fingers to keep himself occupied. There were four occasions that Ken can remember, outside of battles in Tartarus, on which he could have -- and as far as he was concerned, should have -- died. The first was when his mother died, but the other three were different, though related.

"You saw the first," he explains, and he thinks he doesn't have to tell Hiro anymore. That was the first thing they talked about, after all, the memory Hiro saw about him and Shinjiro. And the second time... "The second time, I ended up in this world."

There wasn't, in the end, ever a moment when Ken actively decided not to go through with it. An interruption, an intervention, something happening or someone arriving just a moment too early. Even right now, it wasn't like those doubts had disappeared. "It felt wrong to be here," he confesses, the words mumbled at the floor. "It still does."

Ah. Not quite what he was hoping to talk about but ... something he understands more. It stabs through him with its familiarity, so he has to kind of catch his breath for a moment. And then he's quiet while he thinks. Ken's right, of course; that memory is already well ingrained in Hiro's mind, so he hardly needs any more details. That's really all Hiro needs to extrapolate. If Ken offers details, he'll listen, of course, but ... Maybe it would be better not to ask.

So instead, he quietly nods his head. Curling up a little on the bed. "Like - " he starts, then stops again. He has to pause to get the words straight in his own head. "Like, 'how do I deserve being alive when they aren't'?" When they were all the good in your world, and then suddenly they were gone...

"Yeah." He doesn't intend to talk about the details. They don't really matter, even now. He made an attempt and it failed, and he did it again and ended up alive and here anyway. That was all. He glances at the door, his mind on the rooms downstairs and the people in the house with them.

"You like Aragaki-san, don't you?" That's a rhetoric question. He doesn't think Hiro would hang out with a guy like Shinjiro and his grumpiness if there wasn't something he liked about him. Shinjiro was, no matter how he acted, a good person, and it didn't actually take a lot of looking to know that.

That's right. It didn't take a lot of looking. Ken saw it, too, and he had looked away. Looked away and refused to look and it was too late by the time he was forced to see. By then, Shinjiro was already gone from Iwatodai. It was thrown in his face after he arrived here, by the way Shinjiro helped him and introduced him to his roommates and there was so much that he did for him. People liked him. He was probably happier here. And Ken knew that his arrival had only served as a reminder of the weight the guy carried with him since two years ago.

"He's a really, really good person. He regretted what happened, and he also wanted to forget. He hurt himself because he regretted it so much." He sighs. "As long as I'm here, I'll just remind him."

Shinjiro was a good person; that was the confounding part about Ken's sad story. Or at least for Hiro, it reminded him too much of Callaghan. The possibility that he could be a good man, that Hiro was just too angry about Tadashi to see it ... He tries not too think too hard on that particular parallel. So he says nothing at first, only nodding at the end. Shinjiro specifically has been nothing but good to Hiro, despite the initial scare with the axe. He can easily see the point Ken's driving at.

"If you hurt yourself, that'd remind him too," he says softly. The image of his brother turning away to go into that burning building surfaces for a moment ... "Maybe he's not happy that you're here in this world, but he's definitely happier with you safe. Because he is a good person."

Because he's a good person. Ken looks up at Hiro, and he has to nod in agreement. He is. He remembers Shinjiro came back from his disappearance last month, heard about the virus that was going around and the first thing he asked was how Ken had been, announcing that he was glad that he was safe. Because he was a good person, even if he was, like Jaime said once, horrible at showing it. He knew that all along.

He takes a breath, dropping the controller. "And you guys would feel that way, too, wouldn't you?" He asks it, not as a plea for confirmation because he doubts it, but because he's sure that's true, and he dreads that.

Hiro sits up a little sharply at that. As if Ken should have any question about that. "'Course we do," he says. "Me and my brother both for sure. And the rest of SEES too." To be honest, he has no idea how Akihiko feels, but Minato? 100% sure there's nothing but fondness there. Plus he's already seen some of Ken's other friends at De Chima #1. He pauses for a moment, considers leaving it there, but then another thought bubbles to the top of his mind. "I know that kinda thing can be hard to believe."

"No. I believe it." Minato made that entirely clear. Akihiko, too, even if he was angry, had come out to fetch him multiple times. He could believe it, a lot more than he did at first after that night. A lot more than he did up until Monday. Even after all this...

"That was what was hard. Knowing all of that. It was hard because I... I was happy. I never had anybody after Mom died. My relatives didn't want me, and nobody believed it when I told them how it happened. I was able to make friends here, but I felt that I didn't deserve any of that. I-I still do."

He feels himself tensing, hesitating about talking any more about this with Hiro. How much should he say? Should he stop? Has he already said too much? He bites his lip, worrying it with his teeth for a few seconds.

"I still want to be here."

Hiro's lost Tadashi, so it's not hard to imagine himself in the same position. In fact, that is where he is now, isn't it? Just him and Aunt Cass left, with no one else in the family to go to if she were to die. That realization sends a slight tremor through him. At least in his case he has good friends who would probably help him, would certainly believe him if something weird happened. And while he'd hate to do it, he knows Fred would be excited to have someone else in his mansion other than Heathcliff...

He swallows for a moment. It's not a happy conversation, but he is determined to trudge on with it. As far as Ken is willing to go. "Trust me, there are people who deserve it less," he says quietly. "Having friends. Having another chance." Like Callaghan. "I want you to be here too."

Ken looks over at Hiro, and he doesn't say anything. He doesn't need to to know who Hiro is thinking of when he says that, and he doesn't have anything to say. Ken can't and won't tell Hiro not to be angry. He doesn't know the whole story, but Hiro's case is different from him in that their family's killers had different motives. Shinjiro's motive... he didn't even have one. That had been an accident, and Ken knows that now.

To say he forgives it is... he doesn't think there's anything to forgive, at this point. He wonders if they'll ever be able to talk about that, if they're ever ready for it.

"It still feels wrong. But I won't do it." That, he thinks, he's saying honestly. He can probably keep this promise. "It won't happen again."

That's a start, and one Hiro is grateful for. But ... somehow it seems to not quite get to the core of things, either. He's quiet for a moment as he looks over at Ken. "Maybe it'll feel better the more you stick with us," he says. "You've definitely got friends now."

"Ah... um, yeah." He shrugs. "Jaime-san said I should talk to people if I needed to."

Tadashi, too, had said to find someone if he needed to talk, and to him in particular if he couldn't catch anybody else. Ken was hesitant on that, having realized the similarities between Tadashi and Minato during that exchange, but he wasn't about to ignore what the two of them meant. Don't be alone. Don't be silent. It's weird how that's the exact opposite of what Crane said, but it doesn't occur him to think that what Crane said might have been that harmful. It's just different. Curious.

"Minato-san is staying with me. I don't know. When my mom first died-- I never had anybody to talk to."

"Jaime's right, I think." Easier said than done though - he knows that full well. It's not as though he's real great about talking to people either. He looks relieved, though, when Ken mentions Minato. That guy's probably just about the right balance of quiet. "Kind of tough, isn't it," he says. For Hiro, it's the thought of having friends that's new; he's had family but not those. "Doing this thing everyone else just - it's normal for them."

Ken didn't have either, but he's marveling at the thought of having friends, too. Family isn't something you can gain like that; not ones that are connected to you by blood. His blood family already let him down about that, and he doesn't feel particularly envious of people who have them. He stares at Hiro, thinking about how of the first people he met and really befriended, Hiro was the closest to him in age.

It was nice.

"They make it sound really simple. In theory, it probably is." Just talk to people. Be honest and tell people when you need help. But that's never as easy as it sounds... but Hiro had offered him this space, and he didn't even demand that he say anything in particular. Maybe that was okay too. "Will it be okay if I came up here to play games sometimes?"

Games he can definitely do. And space? No problem. There's a lot of genuine comfort to be found in sharing a space with someone but not saying anything at all; for an introvert like Hiro, it's basically the only face-to-face interaction he really enjoys. A shared activity - or a quiet space - makes all the difference. "'course," he says, smiling a little. "Long as you don't mind me working on my robots in the background."

"Not at all."

A shared space, each of them doing their own thing, sounds just fine. He'd prefer it. Just being allowed to be comfortable in someone else's presence without having to keep up appearances and pleasantries -- isn't that nice? It would be different from wall-flowering during those occasions when De Chima #001 held host to a large group of people. Ken wouldn't mind just watching Hiro work, either. The games were just an excuse.

"Thank you, Hiro. I really appreciate it."

Hiro ducks his head to hide the faint tinge of color in his cheeks. He still isn't used to the concept that he could do okay at a social interaction, or have friends roughly his own age. (Or at least not older than him, which is the case with most of his friends, here or back home...) Plus he just genuinely likes the idea of getting to hang out with Ken on his own terms. It feels good to be helpful with something he's had trouble with too.

"No big deal," he says. "You're just helping me do what I like doing anyway."

He can't tell if that's 'working on robots,' 'helping people,' or 'staying in my room' or all three, but Ken nods and lets a genuine smile finally come to his face.

Hiro and he had some unfortunate things in common. Tragedies, the following anger, the attempt at revenge. Not the sort of stuff a lot of kids their age would end up discussing. But even though it was that sort of stuff that brought them together initially, Ken sincerely likes Hiro. He'd be happy to have more chances to be friends with him without all this stuff weighing over them.

"I want to see what sort of stuff you work on, too. I don't have any real hobbies, so."

Ironic how having the same thing hanging over both of them can make it feel like it's lifted entirely, huh? They could discuss it, but there's also no need to, if they don't want to. It's nice not having to explain for once.

Hiro blinks a little at that admission though. Maybe it's because Ken had lost his mother so early? Hiro's been interested in robots all his life, it feels like; he can't imagine not having something fun to do. "Really? Nothing at all?"

"Well, I don't dislike sports, but you can't really do that alone. I kind of missed the chance to make friends when I transferred to Gekkoukan."

It's what happens when you transfer in at such a weird time of the year that kids wonder why you're there and the rumor mill turns. He ended up avoiding contacting most of them, and now in his second year there, that wall that got put up between him and the other kids is too daunting to climb. And unlike with Hiro or SEES, there was just so much that was different about him from the other kids. He likes his classmates well enough, but it's hard to talk to them when you're the only one who sees the world turn green, water to blood and people to coffins.

"I spent most of my time at the shrine before I joined SEES, and at night I trained in secret using a brush I stole from the dorm. So I guess... no."

Hiro knows how that feels. Would Hiro have made friends if he'd stayed in his grade like normal? Maybe not. But constantly skipping upwards and eventually getting to high school around nine or ten sure made sure he wouldn't get anything. His barrier had been his intelligence, not a supernatural Dark Hour, but a barrier it was all the same.

"Training?" asks Hiro, his expression curious. "For SEES? Or ..." He means Shinjiro, but he doesn't want to say it out loud.

"Just for anything." He shrugs. It was for SEES, once he found out they existed, but by the time he found out about Shinjiro there was no need to train in secret. He went on Tartarus expeditions every night anyway. But before then...

"I joined SEES because I gained my Persona, but I've known about the Dark Hour for way longer than that. The first night -- the first night I remember was two years ago, and it happens every night without fail." Every night, for two years. He used to curl up under the blanket of his dorm bed and tremble until it passed. When was it that he started practicing to fight it? He can't remember. But he had had plenty of nights to think and think until he came to the conclusion that something that went bump during this time of night was what killed his mother.

"I had a strong enough Potential so the Shadows couldn't get to me. But other people who don't -- they get attacked. And I saw one of them get attacked by Shadows, once, before I knew how to fight. So I thought that if I was gonna keep waking up in this place, I should prepare."

semi-closed;

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