maskormenacelogs | 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!))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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."

Hiro had almost forgotten about the Dark Hour. Sure, he'd logged it away when Minato had told him about it, but only as a curious kind of "oh man I wish I got an extra hour in the day to sleep" kind of thing. When Ken puts it that way ... Hiro pales a little, trying to picture it. Especially considering that Ken's mother was killed by a Persona ... He has enough trouble facing Callaghan as it is, much less with an hour every day as a living reminder.

"So you could protect people. Who couldn't protect themselves." Not a bad plan.

"That too."

If he arrived on time to save them, he might have, he thinks. But he never had time. By the time you heard the screams it was over, and he didn't have Fuuka's navigating skills to locate the attacks before it happened. Usually by the time he got there, everyone was just a puddle.

He grimaces.

"Mostly, it was so that I'll be prepared to kill whatever was out there that killed my mom. I was convinced it was a Shadow."

"... And then you found out it was Shinjiro?" asks Hiro, unsure if that would make it worse or better. He'd been almost relieved to know that it had been Callaghan who had killed his brother. Someone he could punish, unlike a real accident...

"Yeah. I overheard him and Sanada-san talking once."

It was an accident. He didn't get along with Shinjiro before then, anyway, because of the guy's attitude, but it was an accident how he figured that out.

"It was less that he did it... and more that he said he just wanted to forget it even happened."

Oh. Hiro's jaw clenches a little at that - Callaghan would have enraged him just as much if he'd said something similar. And isn't "that was his mistake" something along the same lines? A complete lack of responsibility for something horrible. But at the same time, he's also met the guy ... "That doesn't sound like Shinjiro," he says. "What'd he mean?"

"We both said it: He's a good person. He regretted it. All the time, ever since."

There's no humorless laugh. Just an empty smile. Hiro won't have to worry about Ken doing anything; he's calmed down enough and he's in no danger of doing anything, but he's no happy camper.

"But... I think-- no, he warned me about it. About carrying the weight. He carried the weight of what happened to my mom for all that time, and he just wanted to be relieved of it, I think." And he was the one who could have done it. Should have done it!

"Aragaki-san always blamed himself."

Ah. That does sound like Shinjiro. He relaxes a little, despite himself. Despite Ken's reaction twinging a bit of worry in Hiro. He knows that emotion all too well, himself ...

"He wanted to die?" Just that, simply.

He shrugs. "I don't know. I don't think he knew then, and I don't know if he knows right now either."

If he really wanted to die, it was probably easy. If he could access suppressants he could probably have gotten any other sort of drug. Any weapon. He could've been like Ken; they were both connected to the Kirijo through SEES and had access to any weapon they wanted as long as they could convince people it was to fight Shadows. But Shinjiro didn't. He stuck around, hung out with Akihiko, came back to SEES, went on Koromaru's walks and they were probably similar in that way, too.

"When he died, he said that that was how it should be... but I think he liked SEES a lot, too. He cares a lot about everyone, especially Sanada-san. He just didn't think he deserved to live."

semi-closed;

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