If you were none of these (29/?)
anonymous
March 31 2013, 02:56:07 UTC
Kanji takes a few exploratory peeks outside the television. The police has moved all the TVs to the back, near the mattresses. The whole shop is closed, nothing but some police officers walking around and canvassing the electronics section. This will be an okay place for the TVs now.
They stay out long enough to text Rise to let them know what’s going on and to pick up some supplies: meat, clothing for Yosuke and Yukiko. Yosuke wants to take one of the police officers, since who knows when they’ll be able to eat again, but Kanji glowers at him. He’s surprised when Rise sends them a text back: himiko told me i can make it 2 the tv 2morow morning. i'll join you guys then!
wut shud we do bout ted + souji, Yosuke texts.
idk i dont know whats up with senpai :( :( but u kanji-kun and yukiko-senpai should be able to think of something! and then, the last text before he goes back into the TV: im sorry about chie-senpai.
He thinks about asking about Shirogane; but that guy deserves anything that happens to him, anyway. If Shirogane had just given them more time, if Shirogane had just thought before he ran into town like some asshole on a white horse, then they’d all be okay. Besides, Kanji’ll be all heartbroken about it, that dick.
The pants he’s wearing are looser than he likes. He bets he looks fat in all this clothing.
They wait for a while in the TV, because they’re not as hungry there. When Yukiko wakes up, she looks more like herself. She changes into the summer skirt and shirt Yosuke gets her, but she keeps wearing that damn cardigan. They almost fight about it, Yosuke angry because it seems filthy to walk around crusted in blood and stinking of meat. Yukiko has Kanji on her side. Kanji lost his father when he was a kid, said he knew what she was going through.
Sure, Yosuke thinks. If he ate his dad after he died, then sure.
They set up camp in the entrance room and sleep in shifts. They always get hungrier faster in the TV than they do outside of it. At first Yosuke thought it was just because they were fighting and transforming so much inside, but when Kanji came, Souji would sometimes leave Yosuke out to cover the rear. Not as hungry as he’d be if he were out in front with Souji, but still. He wishes he could’ve taken a bite out of Chie. It’d be practical, he tells himself. That’s all.
“Ever wondered if there’s a cure?” Kanji says. Yukiko’s asleep, or laying awake with her eyes open. Her legs kick out with too much purpose sometimes.
“You think anyone’s going to have a cure for ‘people-eating demon transformation?’”
“Dunno. Went to the shrine and made a few wishes. Got this cool advertisement from some detective agency in Tokyo. Kunohazu or something. Kuzuhoma?”
“Kuzunoha’s a movie detective,” Yosuke snaps.
“Shit,” Kanji mutters.
*
She goes to the hospital after dinner, with packs of fresh meat in her handbag and flowers. Not the right kind of meat, but it’ll do in a pinch. Himiko will be pleased by this offer, for now. As for Shirogane… She feels bad for him. She’s seen him lurking around town, and he’s always blushing and shy when he meets her eyes. He’s different around Souji, but everyone’s different around Souji.
“Oh, I’m not here to see anyone,” Rise says. “Um, these flowers are for my doctor.”
“Dr. Hitose, you mean?” the nurse says, her eyes narrowing. “He’s gone home for the night.”
“And my nurses,” Rise says. “And everyone who was on the surgical staff.” She curls a hand against her stomach protectively. The stitches still hurt.
“You’re here to see Shirogane-san, aren’t you!” the nurse says.
If you were none of these (30/?)
anonymous
March 31 2013, 02:56:56 UTC
“Oh, please? He’s a friend of mine. And, you know, I heard that he had some of the same symptoms as I did, so I thought I could offer him some comfort.” She tries her best to look demure and shy. It’s harder to do than it used to be. She wants to rip into this woman’s neck, and tear at the glistening muscle and fat underneath.
“Just be quick with it,” the nurse says with a sigh. Rise bows three times in thanks, and then runs off to the hall.
Shirogane’s room isn’t far from where her old room used to be. She sees Shirogane in the bed; the curtains are drawn around him, the sheets are on the floor, and he’s sweating hard through his hospital gown. She can’t see his atma from here. She waves when their eyes meet.
“Get away,” he says.
“That’s no way to treat a lady,” she says, and pulls out her pack of meat.
He’s still breathing hard, but now he nods his head. She steps in and rips the pack open. He holds tight onto the sheets until she drops a slab of pork into his lap. Then he grabs onto the meat and chomps straight through it. He’s cute without his hat. She tosses another bit of meat at him, and coos when he almost chokes on it. He snarls at her, his canines long and thin.
“You’re one of them,” he says.
“One of who?”
“One of Seta’s people. You’re one of those… things.”
“Like you are, you mean?” she says, crossing her arms over her chest.
“I assumed initially that you were an innocent victim,” he says. “But now I see that you and Seta must have planned this together. You must have been collaborating with them from the outside. Funneling victims towards them. Give me more.”
“I dunno, Shirogane-kun,” she says. “I mean, you did just slander me.” He growls, and swipes at her shoulder. She knocks his hand down, easy. He’s hungry and weak, and she ate the night before. “I didn’t know them until I came to Inaba.”
“You’re lying,” he says.
“Nuh-uh. You can smell it off me, can’t you?” She rubs her cheek, and smiles when he looks away. “It’s the truth. They saved me. They can help you, too.”
“Saved you,” he says. And then he lunges forward out of the bed, grabs onto the hem of her shirt and yanks it up-he covers her mouth with his other hand to stop her from screaming. She bites down on his hand, even more when his fingers run over the hole on her stomach: a shallow crater from her right hip, spreading across to her navel. Missing flesh. The end of her modeling career. She slaps him across the ear, and he releases her with a grunt. He touches the side of his face, as though astonished. He pulls himself back to the bed. She slaps him again, so hard that the back of her hand hurts.
If you were none of these (31/?)
anonymous
March 31 2013, 02:58:23 UTC
She rolls her shirt back into place.
“You’re lucky,” she says, “that I’m trying to save your life, you jerk, or you’d be known as the kind of guy who feels up girls!”
“I was proving a point,” he says, but guiltily. He rubs his face. As he shifts his hair around, his atma shows up, high on his forehead, on the left side. “They didn’t ‘save’ you, Kujikawa-san. Not if they have passed on their… condition to you.”
“You don’t understand,” she says. “I was already infected by the time they reached me. You can feel it, can’t you? If you starve yourself, you’ll go berserk and kill everyone here. Souji-senpai and the others, they’re doing their best to keep themselves under control so they can catch the real murderer.”
“I knew it,” he says, off to the side.
“Knew-knew what?”
“You’re soliciting me,” he says. “You are trying to gain my cooperation. But you are only doing it so I won’t prosecute you and bring you to justice-”
“‘Justice?’” she says, loudly. “What we’re doing is-”
“Is it?” he says. “You kidnap and blackmail. You kidnap people and eat them. How is any of that ‘just?’”
“So you’d wait until you get so hungry that you go berserk?” she says. “You’d rather let the person throwing everyone into the TV go unpunished?”
“I’d rather die than become like you or join your hideous cause,” he says. “That’s all I will say. Thank you for the meat, Kujikawa-san. I’ll call you later once I’m out of the hospital for interro-”
“You stupid jerk!” she says, and flings another slab of beef at his face. He grunts, and then throws the meat onto the floor. “Don’t you see? If you don’t help us, you’re going to hurt everyone around you. You jerk!”
She storms out of the room before the doctors and nurses can come see what all the noise is about. Her bag is still half-full of meat.
((... hello all! working slow but steady. next update should be soon-ish. thank you for ... tolerating the irregularities in my schedule.))
If you were none of these (32/?)
anonymous
March 31 2013, 07:47:50 UTC
It rains.
But what’s the point? They’re caught and found out. She’s just blown her cover on Shirogane, hoping that he’d understand instead of being a huge prick.
Rise watches the Midnight Channel anyway. She’s tired and still hungry. Her scars aches. Her sleeves smell like meat. At midnight, a fuzzy shape shows up-but she can’t tell what it is. Then is the news, claiming that they’ve solved the freak murder cases happening in town…
She rests in the bed and breathes shallowly. As she drifts off to sleep, she remembers that Shirogane’s flowers are still in her bag. She forgot to give them to him.
*
give in(the rescue remix/7)
“Hi guys,” Rise says when she steps into the TV.
Yosuke’s on shift. He nods to her and says, “Yo.” Kanji’s stirring next to him. Yukiko was sleeping nearby the last time he looked, but now she’s standing against a wall, fire flaring nervously around her shoulders and hair.
“Wow,” Rise says. “You guys all look beat. I brought breakfast.”
“Great,” Yosuke says. He yawns. Opening his mouth so wide without putting food into it makes him hungrier.
Rise lets them know, in no uncertain terms, that security in and around Junes has increased, and the police is circulating the footage of them attacking Shirogane nationally. They’re boxed in.
“Great,” Yosuke says, again. Maybe next they’ll find out that this is all just their shitty cancer dream or something. He would take cancer over this anyday.
After they eat, they go looking for Souji. Rise puts on her scary demon form, a demon princess stabbed through the face with a golden sword, and guides them through the fog and gloom to the shopping district, and then to a backdoor leading to a dark room full of boxes and bottles. In the corner of the room, sleeping on a pile of folded up boxes, is Souji.
Rise can’t say anything because her face is currently a sattelite dish. So Yosuke’s the one who goes out to poke at him, his arms and hands Jiraiya’s, and his eyes half-frog, half-not. He touches the thing’s shoulder. Souji spins around and digs his teeth into his arm.
“Ow!” Yosuke says. “Ow, ow, ow!” He hits Souji over the head, straight in the jaw, across the brow. Souji’s human teeth aren’t strong enough to break through armor, but it hurts anyway. And he’s drooling, which is really ugly.
At last, Souji jerks and shivers. His jaws go slack around Yosuke’s arm. He grips Yosuke’s shoulder with a hand. For a moment they stare into each other’s eyes, Yosuke searching desperately for any gold, and Souji’s face wan with hunger and fear. Souji’s body is heavy and slack, a length of rope without tension. Yosuke draws Souji into his arms for a long hug.
“Thank god,” Yosuke says. “Thank god you’re okay.”
After a moment, he feels Souji’s arms come up around him. “Yeah,” he says. “Thank you. For finding me.”
*
They saved some of the meat for Souji. Rise and Yosuke are the one who fills in most of the blanks for Souji: Chie’s death, Shirogane’s infection, Shirogane turning Rise down.
“Guess it’d be too much to hope for, to have him on our side,” Souji says. He rubs his chin. It’s stubbly, a few shades darker than his hair. He still looks exhausted, and he’s only looked worse since finding out about Chie, grave and serious. The only time he’s looked okay since they’ve found him is when they told him Nanako is okay. “All right. Well, this is what I’ve found out. Whoever killed Saki-senpai did it in the police station.”
“What makes you say that?” Kanji says, crossing his arms.
“Because this is where Saki-senpai died,” Yosuke says. He recognizes the interior now: the bottles of wine and beer, the dark splatter of blood everywhere. “You’re shitting me. That means whoever did this is a police officer, right?”
“Dunno about that, senpai,” Kanji says. “I don’t remember any of those assholes coming after me. Fact, they didn’t come nowhere near me.”
If you were none of these (33/?)
anonymous
March 31 2013, 07:48:49 UTC
“But they sent the police after Yukiko-san when they thought she vanished, right?” Yosuke said. “And they had Adachi-san for Rise-chan.”
“Yamano-san had some members of the police guarding her room,” Yukiko says suddenly. “They were on shifts. Adachi-san was one of them.”
“You’re just saying that because you want to kill him,” Yosuke says.
“I’m not making it up,” she says, her voice distorting in an ugly way.
“No, she isn’t making it up,” Kanji says. “I remember it. Amagi-san, Yukiko-senpai’s mom, was complaining about it to my Ma. Said they got that sleazy detective on watch.”
“You guys got to be kidding me,” Yosuke says. “That’s it? We all decide that it’s him, just like that?”
“Dunno,” Kanji says. “That all sounds pretty damning to me.”
“That guy always gave me the creeps,” Rise chimes in. They aren’t totally familiar with Himiko’s capabilities yet, but it’s true that Rise found Souji way faster than any of them could have-faster than Teddie had ever found anything.
Between Adachi shooting Chie right in the back of the head instead of, he doesn’t know, just hitting her with a stick, between him being everywhere in the wrong place… Yeah. He’s basically convinced.
“Okay,” he says. “Okay. So let’s say Adachi’s the real bad guy. So what does that mean-what are we going to do?”
They all look to Souji for this one. He blinks back at them, tired and slow.
“Let’s worry about one thing at a time,” he says. “We know our target. We get our hands on Adachi and take him here.”
“Yeah,” Yosuke says. But he can’t help but think what Chie would’ve said here, what she would’ve done. While the others are picking themselves up, Rise and Kanji talking amiably and Yukiko occasionally smiling at Rise’s jokes, he goes up to Souji, careful like. Souji nods to him in acknowledgment. “We’re partners, right?”
“All right,” he says.
That’s close enough to what Yosuke wants to hear.
“What I mean is,” Yosuke says, “you’re our leader. You’re that guy we all trust. And, I don’t know, things are crazy now. I just need to know what you’re planning on doing afterwards. You know?”
“Afterwards?” he says. He puts a hand to his head, thinks. “Yosuke, honestly? I’m planning on doing what I’ve always done. Keep us all alive and not die.”
“But we need to think of logistics,” Yosuke says. “Like, where are we going to go, where are we going to stay-hell, I bet the whole country’s on alert for us now. Are we going to stay here forever?”
“What does it matter as long as we’re all alive?” Souji says, calm and even, without even a hint of anger. “As long as we’re alive, there’s hope. Do you trust me, Yosuke?”
“Yeah,” he says.
Souji gives him a smile. And then he leans over and hugs him. Yosuke stiffens.
“It’ll be okay,” Souji says. “You’ll see.”
*
Souji falls behind as they head back to the hub in the TV World to talk to her. He doesn’t seem like his usual self: more tired, more hungry. Sadder. When Yukiko looks at him, it’s like she’s looking at half of Souji, so tired and so sad. At last. She’s glad he understands her. When he reaches out to her with one arm, she lets herself fall into him.
If you were none of these (34/?)
anonymous
March 31 2013, 07:50:30 UTC
He doesn’t hold her too tightly. She swallows down her hunger and focuses not on his warmth or his smell, but on the demon she can feel. His atma is on the back of his neck, perfectly centered and tempting. Even through the whole width of his body, she can feel its warmth.
“It’ll be all right,” she says. “Now that you’re here.”
He puts a hand on her shoulder, and eases her away. Yosuke is watching them with a suspicious eye. She wishes he’d stop looking at them so intensely. It’s weird.
“You’re holding up all right?” Souji says.
“Yes,” Yukiko says. She can feel Chie within her, icy and agonizing in her veins. Sometimes she focuses on that coldness inside her, but it’s fading. She tries now, but only feels a sharp twinge in her wrist-she focuses her attention back to Souji. “It’ll be fine,” she says. “It’ll be fine, now that you’re back. But Souji-kun, I need to know. What are you planning on doing to Adachi-san?”
“Ah. That’s easy. If he is the murderer, then we kill him. If he’s not guilty, then he dies for killing Chie.” He gives the answer without blinking. Is he only reflecting what she wants back at her? She can’t tell. She can tell that he’s being honest. That’s good enough for now.
“Good,” she says. “Thank you.”
That’s the last conversation she has with him for a while.
((WOW, please ignore that anon-fail.
last update for the night for real. it's strange to think about style changes over the years. I like to justify it with, "different stage of the story" but sssshh. Hope to see you at the next update.))
If you were none of these - info for future updates!
anonymous
April 30 2013, 05:10:41 UTC
I've thought about it a lot, and I've decided to post updates to AO3 instead of LJ for a few reasons: * the ao3 has the final version of previous chapters * the previous chapters have a few differences in scene+tone that I'm working from that don't make sense if you're reading off the bathhouse * convenience
I've posted it to an anonymous collection, and will be "deanoning," so to speak, once I've finished the fic. Hope to see you there!
They stay out long enough to text Rise to let them know what’s going on and to pick up some supplies: meat, clothing for Yosuke and Yukiko. Yosuke wants to take one of the police officers, since who knows when they’ll be able to eat again, but Kanji glowers at him. He’s surprised when Rise sends them a text back: himiko told me i can make it 2 the tv 2morow morning. i'll join you guys then!
wut shud we do bout ted + souji, Yosuke texts.
idk i dont know whats up with senpai :( :( but u kanji-kun and yukiko-senpai should be able to think of something! and then, the last text before he goes back into the TV: im sorry about chie-senpai.
He thinks about asking about Shirogane; but that guy deserves anything that happens to him, anyway. If Shirogane had just given them more time, if Shirogane had just thought before he ran into town like some asshole on a white horse, then they’d all be okay. Besides, Kanji’ll be all heartbroken about it, that dick.
The pants he’s wearing are looser than he likes. He bets he looks fat in all this clothing.
They wait for a while in the TV, because they’re not as hungry there. When Yukiko wakes up, she looks more like herself. She changes into the summer skirt and shirt Yosuke gets her, but she keeps wearing that damn cardigan. They almost fight about it, Yosuke angry because it seems filthy to walk around crusted in blood and stinking of meat. Yukiko has Kanji on her side. Kanji lost his father when he was a kid, said he knew what she was going through.
Sure, Yosuke thinks. If he ate his dad after he died, then sure.
They set up camp in the entrance room and sleep in shifts. They always get hungrier faster in the TV than they do outside of it. At first Yosuke thought it was just because they were fighting and transforming so much inside, but when Kanji came, Souji would sometimes leave Yosuke out to cover the rear. Not as hungry as he’d be if he were out in front with Souji, but still. He wishes he could’ve taken a bite out of Chie. It’d be practical, he tells himself. That’s all.
“Ever wondered if there’s a cure?” Kanji says. Yukiko’s asleep, or laying awake with her eyes open. Her legs kick out with too much purpose sometimes.
“You think anyone’s going to have a cure for ‘people-eating demon transformation?’”
“Dunno. Went to the shrine and made a few wishes. Got this cool advertisement from some detective agency in Tokyo. Kunohazu or something. Kuzuhoma?”
“Kuzunoha’s a movie detective,” Yosuke snaps.
“Shit,” Kanji mutters.
*
She goes to the hospital after dinner, with packs of fresh meat in her handbag and flowers. Not the right kind of meat, but it’ll do in a pinch. Himiko will be pleased by this offer, for now. As for Shirogane… She feels bad for him. She’s seen him lurking around town, and he’s always blushing and shy when he meets her eyes. He’s different around Souji, but everyone’s different around Souji.
“Oh, I’m not here to see anyone,” Rise says. “Um, these flowers are for my doctor.”
“Dr. Hitose, you mean?” the nurse says, her eyes narrowing. “He’s gone home for the night.”
“And my nurses,” Rise says. “And everyone who was on the surgical staff.” She curls a hand against her stomach protectively. The stitches still hurt.
“You’re here to see Shirogane-san, aren’t you!” the nurse says.
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“Just be quick with it,” the nurse says with a sigh. Rise bows three times in thanks, and then runs off to the hall.
Shirogane’s room isn’t far from where her old room used to be. She sees Shirogane in the bed; the curtains are drawn around him, the sheets are on the floor, and he’s sweating hard through his hospital gown. She can’t see his atma from here. She waves when their eyes meet.
“Get away,” he says.
“That’s no way to treat a lady,” she says, and pulls out her pack of meat.
He’s still breathing hard, but now he nods his head. She steps in and rips the pack open. He holds tight onto the sheets until she drops a slab of pork into his lap. Then he grabs onto the meat and chomps straight through it. He’s cute without his hat. She tosses another bit of meat at him, and coos when he almost chokes on it. He snarls at her, his canines long and thin.
“You’re one of them,” he says.
“One of who?”
“One of Seta’s people. You’re one of those… things.”
“Like you are, you mean?” she says, crossing her arms over her chest.
“I assumed initially that you were an innocent victim,” he says. “But now I see that you and Seta must have planned this together. You must have been collaborating with them from the outside. Funneling victims towards them. Give me more.”
“I dunno, Shirogane-kun,” she says. “I mean, you did just slander me.” He growls, and swipes at her shoulder. She knocks his hand down, easy. He’s hungry and weak, and she ate the night before. “I didn’t know them until I came to Inaba.”
“You’re lying,” he says.
“Nuh-uh. You can smell it off me, can’t you?” She rubs her cheek, and smiles when he looks away. “It’s the truth. They saved me. They can help you, too.”
“Saved you,” he says. And then he lunges forward out of the bed, grabs onto the hem of her shirt and yanks it up-he covers her mouth with his other hand to stop her from screaming. She bites down on his hand, even more when his fingers run over the hole on her stomach: a shallow crater from her right hip, spreading across to her navel. Missing flesh. The end of her modeling career. She slaps him across the ear, and he releases her with a grunt. He touches the side of his face, as though astonished. He pulls himself back to the bed. She slaps him again, so hard that the back of her hand hurts.
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“You’re lucky,” she says, “that I’m trying to save your life, you jerk, or you’d be known as the kind of guy who feels up girls!”
“I was proving a point,” he says, but guiltily. He rubs his face. As he shifts his hair around, his atma shows up, high on his forehead, on the left side. “They didn’t ‘save’ you, Kujikawa-san. Not if they have passed on their… condition to you.”
“You don’t understand,” she says. “I was already infected by the time they reached me. You can feel it, can’t you? If you starve yourself, you’ll go berserk and kill everyone here. Souji-senpai and the others, they’re doing their best to keep themselves under control so they can catch the real murderer.”
“I knew it,” he says, off to the side.
“Knew-knew what?”
“You’re soliciting me,” he says. “You are trying to gain my cooperation. But you are only doing it so I won’t prosecute you and bring you to justice-”
“‘Justice?’” she says, loudly. “What we’re doing is-”
“Is it?” he says. “You kidnap and blackmail. You kidnap people and eat them. How is any of that ‘just?’”
“So you’d wait until you get so hungry that you go berserk?” she says. “You’d rather let the person throwing everyone into the TV go unpunished?”
“I’d rather die than become like you or join your hideous cause,” he says. “That’s all I will say. Thank you for the meat, Kujikawa-san. I’ll call you later once I’m out of the hospital for interro-”
“You stupid jerk!” she says, and flings another slab of beef at his face. He grunts, and then throws the meat onto the floor. “Don’t you see? If you don’t help us, you’re going to hurt everyone around you. You jerk!”
She storms out of the room before the doctors and nurses can come see what all the noise is about. Her bag is still half-full of meat.
((... hello all! working slow but steady. next update should be soon-ish. thank you for ... tolerating the irregularities in my schedule.))
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But what’s the point? They’re caught and found out. She’s just blown her cover on Shirogane, hoping that he’d understand instead of being a huge prick.
Rise watches the Midnight Channel anyway. She’s tired and still hungry. Her scars aches. Her sleeves smell like meat. At midnight, a fuzzy shape shows up-but she can’t tell what it is. Then is the news, claiming that they’ve solved the freak murder cases happening in town…
She rests in the bed and breathes shallowly. As she drifts off to sleep, she remembers that Shirogane’s flowers are still in her bag. She forgot to give them to him.
*
give in(the rescue remix/7)
“Hi guys,” Rise says when she steps into the TV.
Yosuke’s on shift. He nods to her and says, “Yo.” Kanji’s stirring next to him. Yukiko was sleeping nearby the last time he looked, but now she’s standing against a wall, fire flaring nervously around her shoulders and hair.
“Wow,” Rise says. “You guys all look beat. I brought breakfast.”
“Great,” Yosuke says. He yawns. Opening his mouth so wide without putting food into it makes him hungrier.
Rise lets them know, in no uncertain terms, that security in and around Junes has increased, and the police is circulating the footage of them attacking Shirogane nationally. They’re boxed in.
“Great,” Yosuke says, again. Maybe next they’ll find out that this is all just their shitty cancer dream or something. He would take cancer over this anyday.
After they eat, they go looking for Souji. Rise puts on her scary demon form, a demon princess stabbed through the face with a golden sword, and guides them through the fog and gloom to the shopping district, and then to a backdoor leading to a dark room full of boxes and bottles. In the corner of the room, sleeping on a pile of folded up boxes, is Souji.
Rise can’t say anything because her face is currently a sattelite dish. So Yosuke’s the one who goes out to poke at him, his arms and hands Jiraiya’s, and his eyes half-frog, half-not. He touches the thing’s shoulder. Souji spins around and digs his teeth into his arm.
“Ow!” Yosuke says. “Ow, ow, ow!” He hits Souji over the head, straight in the jaw, across the brow. Souji’s human teeth aren’t strong enough to break through armor, but it hurts anyway. And he’s drooling, which is really ugly.
At last, Souji jerks and shivers. His jaws go slack around Yosuke’s arm. He grips Yosuke’s shoulder with a hand. For a moment they stare into each other’s eyes, Yosuke searching desperately for any gold, and Souji’s face wan with hunger and fear. Souji’s body is heavy and slack, a length of rope without tension. Yosuke draws Souji into his arms for a long hug.
“Thank god,” Yosuke says. “Thank god you’re okay.”
After a moment, he feels Souji’s arms come up around him. “Yeah,” he says. “Thank you. For finding me.”
*
They saved some of the meat for Souji. Rise and Yosuke are the one who fills in most of the blanks for Souji: Chie’s death, Shirogane’s infection, Shirogane turning Rise down.
“Guess it’d be too much to hope for, to have him on our side,” Souji says. He rubs his chin. It’s stubbly, a few shades darker than his hair. He still looks exhausted, and he’s only looked worse since finding out about Chie, grave and serious. The only time he’s looked okay since they’ve found him is when they told him Nanako is okay. “All right. Well, this is what I’ve found out. Whoever killed Saki-senpai did it in the police station.”
“What makes you say that?” Kanji says, crossing his arms.
“Because this is where Saki-senpai died,” Yosuke says. He recognizes the interior now: the bottles of wine and beer, the dark splatter of blood everywhere. “You’re shitting me. That means whoever did this is a police officer, right?”
“Dunno about that, senpai,” Kanji says. “I don’t remember any of those assholes coming after me. Fact, they didn’t come nowhere near me.”
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“Yamano-san had some members of the police guarding her room,” Yukiko says suddenly. “They were on shifts. Adachi-san was one of them.”
“You’re just saying that because you want to kill him,” Yosuke says.
“I’m not making it up,” she says, her voice distorting in an ugly way.
“No, she isn’t making it up,” Kanji says. “I remember it. Amagi-san, Yukiko-senpai’s mom, was complaining about it to my Ma. Said they got that sleazy detective on watch.”
“You guys got to be kidding me,” Yosuke says. “That’s it? We all decide that it’s him, just like that?”
“Dunno,” Kanji says. “That all sounds pretty damning to me.”
“That guy always gave me the creeps,” Rise chimes in. They aren’t totally familiar with Himiko’s capabilities yet, but it’s true that Rise found Souji way faster than any of them could have-faster than Teddie had ever found anything.
Between Adachi shooting Chie right in the back of the head instead of, he doesn’t know, just hitting her with a stick, between him being everywhere in the wrong place… Yeah. He’s basically convinced.
“Okay,” he says. “Okay. So let’s say Adachi’s the real bad guy. So what does that mean-what are we going to do?”
They all look to Souji for this one. He blinks back at them, tired and slow.
“Let’s worry about one thing at a time,” he says. “We know our target. We get our hands on Adachi and take him here.”
“Yeah,” Yosuke says. But he can’t help but think what Chie would’ve said here, what she would’ve done. While the others are picking themselves up, Rise and Kanji talking amiably and Yukiko occasionally smiling at Rise’s jokes, he goes up to Souji, careful like. Souji nods to him in acknowledgment. “We’re partners, right?”
“All right,” he says.
That’s close enough to what Yosuke wants to hear.
“What I mean is,” Yosuke says, “you’re our leader. You’re that guy we all trust. And, I don’t know, things are crazy now. I just need to know what you’re planning on doing afterwards. You know?”
“Afterwards?” he says. He puts a hand to his head, thinks. “Yosuke, honestly? I’m planning on doing what I’ve always done. Keep us all alive and not die.”
“But we need to think of logistics,” Yosuke says. “Like, where are we going to go, where are we going to stay-hell, I bet the whole country’s on alert for us now. Are we going to stay here forever?”
“What does it matter as long as we’re all alive?” Souji says, calm and even, without even a hint of anger. “As long as we’re alive, there’s hope. Do you trust me, Yosuke?”
“Yeah,” he says.
Souji gives him a smile. And then he leans over and hugs him. Yosuke stiffens.
“It’ll be okay,” Souji says. “You’ll see.”
*
Souji falls behind as they head back to the hub in the TV World to talk to her. He doesn’t seem like his usual self: more tired, more hungry. Sadder. When Yukiko looks at him, it’s like she’s looking at half of Souji, so tired and so sad. At last. She’s glad he understands her. When he reaches out to her with one arm, she lets herself fall into him.
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“It’ll be all right,” she says. “Now that you’re here.”
He puts a hand on her shoulder, and eases her away. Yosuke is watching them with a suspicious eye. She wishes he’d stop looking at them so intensely. It’s weird.
“You’re holding up all right?” Souji says.
“Yes,” Yukiko says. She can feel Chie within her, icy and agonizing in her veins. Sometimes she focuses on that coldness inside her, but it’s fading. She tries now, but only feels a sharp twinge in her wrist-she focuses her attention back to Souji. “It’ll be fine,” she says. “It’ll be fine, now that you’re back. But Souji-kun, I need to know. What are you planning on doing to Adachi-san?”
“Ah. That’s easy. If he is the murderer, then we kill him. If he’s not guilty, then he dies for killing Chie.” He gives the answer without blinking. Is he only reflecting what she wants back at her? She can’t tell. She can tell that he’s being honest. That’s good enough for now.
“Good,” she says. “Thank you.”
That’s the last conversation she has with him for a while.
((WOW, please ignore that anon-fail.
last update for the night for real. it's strange to think about style changes over the years. I like to justify it with, "different stage of the story" but sssshh. Hope to see you at the next update.))
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* the ao3 has the final version of previous chapters
* the previous chapters have a few differences in scene+tone that I'm working from that don't make sense if you're reading off the bathhouse
* convenience
I've posted it to an anonymous collection, and will be "deanoning," so to speak, once I've finished the fic. Hope to see you there!
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