semi-closed;

[orangehoodie]

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!))

Comments

[hypnotherapy]

Something like a smile flickers across his face at the question. It's strange, not quite happy or sad. He's obviously considering it deeply.

Regret and guilt are - well, they cut deep when they affect him. All or nothing, again. But most of it just washes away; he lets it flood over him and pass. It's easier.

"I would do a lot to hold onto the people I want to be with. Anything or anyone that gets in my way will regret it." He leaves the answer deliberately ambiguous, but holding some weight; he's not going to tell Ken that he'd happily throw away his own life or badly injure himself in the process. Ken is not yet fully grown, and he'd rather not influence him that way. His callousness about his own life (and, to be honest, about the lives of many others he doesn't know) stems from...other places.

"That's an interesting thing to ask. How far would you go? You don't have to answer, if that's your wish."

[orangehoodie]

The answer sends a chill down Ken's spine, but he appreciates the honesty. He nods along, accepting Magicman's answer as nothing but his own, and telling himself that it doesn't mean that one of them is right or wrong. It's just what they would do. It's just who they are. He wraps his fingers tightly around the cup in his hands.

"I've always been the one that gets protected. My mom... I wanted to protect her, but she ended up saving me." And Shinjiro, too. And everyone else here did so much to protect him. From others. From himself? "I don't... I don't know. But I don't think I will place my own life over anybody else's, if I had to make the choice."

[hypnotherapy]

Action is, after all, his best trait. It's easier to strike first and prevent potential problems from flaring out than to let it fester into something more. He doesn't tend to think of things in 'right' or 'wrong', though he knows he should and tries to make the effort; but he processes things differently, in the end.

What he chooses to take is ultimately up to him. He notices that the answer seems to have shaken Ken somewhat, but he doesn't call attention to it.

"You'll learn what's best - for you. Often, you'll need protection or you'll get it from others without prompting, as you grow...and that's how things turn out." All you can do is accept what comes, is his thinking. He had been forced to, really. All you can do is live.

"Life has a way of pulling you along, doesn't it? People are unpredictable like that." He shakes his head. "But that's what makes them themselves. And every experience with a person changes you.

Isolating yourself won't do you any good, I suppose is what I'm getting at here, in a roundabout way." He knows he's rambling.

[orangehoodie]

"... I don't get it."

Or rather, he's still reluctant to admit to it. He's close. He gets what Magicman is saying, but being able to wrap his head around it is different from being able to accept it. It's not that he disagrees, but -- well, he doesn't think any of his friends will judge him for not going 'oh, I see' and accepting all these things immediately. He shakes his head.

"I knew that everything has a consequence. What I did affected others -- Aragaki-san, Sanada-san, everyone else in SEES. But it affects people, too, if I did things to myself."

[hypnotherapy]

"That's what happens when there's connection." He's not sure how to make the words come out the way he wants them to; it's difficult to describe what he's trying to get across, and he's not even sure he understands it fully, himself.

He smiles, another strange little flicker. "But that's how it works. You can always go off by yourself, like I said. But that only makes it so that you'll be lonely. It doesn't stop others from caring, even if it's something that only affects you. Nobody's really alone, unless you take steps to stop people from caring about you. And that's not something I'd recommend."

[orangehoodie]

"Didn't really have to try."

He shrugs. Take steps to stop people from caring? He thinks about his 'family.' Aside from his mother, nobody cared that he existed. He was a nuisance the moment she died and he was thrust into their hands, and even now, he received a blank New Year's post card each year with no attached message. The implied message there was clear.

"... Well, not until now. It really sucks."

[hypnotherapy]

It's sad to say that he understands the implications of Ken's words easily, and it drops firmly back into familiar territory. He knows what it's like to be unwanted, even if the situations aren't the same (he hopes they're not the same, because wow his situation sucked).

"Ah." That's all he says about that.

"It must be strange, having people care about you, after a period of time without it. At least -- it was for me. Adjusting was...difficult."

[orangehoodie]

"Haha. It was-- um, do you mind? If I tell you more?"

That's kind of stupid to ask considering how much he's already blabbered away at him, but, well, he wants to ask, this time. Maybe not about the suicide. Maybe not about the murder. But if it's about his upbringing...

[hypnotherapy]

"Ah? If you feel comfortable, go ahead." He sounds and looks a little surprised, but it's more because Ken feels comfortable enough around him to impart more information than anything Ken is actually doing. "I'm listening."

[orangehoodie]

He shakes his head. "It's fine."

People asked less questions when he announced to them oh and my mom is dead with a nonchalant attitude or smile. It kept them off his back. Sorry, Mom, for using you like that.

"It's just... I never knew my dad. I still don't know who he is, and that's okay. But it was just my mom for most of my life, and I didn't even know I had relatives until after she died. And the ones who ended up with me put me in a school dorm right after getting custody of me. I thought, the only person who ever wanted or would want me was my mom, and she's gone now.

"I never thought... I'd find this, you know? All these people."

[hypnotherapy]

He listens quietly, taking in the information and feeling another pang of sympathy; Ken has obviously had a hard life, moving from one place to another after the death of the person he valued the most, unwanted and alone.

He's barely a teenager, isn't he? He thinks he remembers that, at least.

"It's unexpected," he answers, slowly. Still thinking about his words, what to say. "You never think about the possibility that you'll be welcomed in, and yet people try to let you in anyway...and you're not sure what to think of that." He shrugs, after a moment. "But it's a nice feeling, even if it's strange."

[orangehoodie]

"It's really nice," he agrees, glancing back toward the part of the house where everybody else is. It's nice...

"I didn't think I deserved it after what I did, once the surprise wore off. People liked me, but they didn't know what happened. I felt like I was lying... but talking about it would've-- well, it's not something that only affects me.

"... I want to protect these people. They gave me somewhere to be."

[hypnotherapy]

"We all get things we don't feel we deserve," he says, simply. "But if all we can do is accept it, then with something like this, it's not too bad."

He feels like he has a lot of things he doesn't really deserve, deep down. At home and here. This is a person who straight up tells people "I'm a bad person", after all.

But accepting them isn't exactly a terrible thing. There's no balance to satisfy except himself.

"You're strong, aren't you? And likely to get stronger. So I'm sure you can do that." He flashes another brief smile. "Having somewhere to come home to is valuable, and worth protecting." Even at the cost of himself, or everything else. But that's just how he thinks.

[orangehoodie]

"Strong?"

Strong was the last descriptor he would've used on himself. It's the last he expected from somebody else, especially after something like this. After he had tried to run away... he looks up at Magicman, eyebrows furrowing, but after a moment he looks down again, clasping his hands in his lap.

"I don't know if I am now. But... I want to be. I want to be strong enough to protect what's important to me, this time."