[RL with Shinjiro][Backdated to the end of the shadow plot]

[akihiko_sanada]

Akihiko had gotten really good at world-hopping by using the TV world by now, but as he climbed out through his television into his apartment, he caught his foot a bit and went into a sprawl on his living room floor

Comments

[mortal_son]

Stripping down quickly, bone-tired but eager to get clean and into bed, Shinjiro paused when Akihiko asked the question. It was so easy to claim he was fine. All week he would pretend he didn't need any help. That was the usual thing to do. But they were alone, and this was Aki, and maybe he was just too plain exhausted to bullshit. He continued shucking off his clothes as he spoke.

"'m tired," he muttered, but not so his friend couldn't hear him. "I dunno how the hell I'm supposta join SEES again, if it's going to be ... damn. It aint easy." Shinjiro believed what Akihiko told him about the future, but it just seemed even more improbable now. He didn't want to pick up his Evoker ever again, now more than ever. "Couldn't stop thinkin about what coulda happened, but I wanted to get shit done. Fightin's better than thinkin about it."

And he couldn't see a day when he wouldn't be without Castor, or when he wasn't homeless, or when he wasn't feeling half-whacked by the drugs. Shinjiro perhaps accepted what Akihiko told him because there would be an end to things. Perhaps some of that resignation was in his voice. But he fell into old patterns again, and said, "But now? 'm fine."