private: the light at the end of the tunnel
Ordinarily, if I neglect to make my personal notes for a week or so, it's because the week has been uneventful. I only wish I could say that was the case this time.
To begin with, Pink-san was killed by B the very night I warned him against it, though it took us several days to discover the body. He was smothered, probably after being drugged. Cuts were made in his arms, spelling out coded messages: THIS IS NOT L and ONLY FOR YOU. (Caesar Shift Cipher with the obvious key.)
I find myself extremely angry, yet while I could have prevented the murder, I am not sure what I could have done -- in the greater sense -- to prevent his death. We might have found him -- what? After he drugged himself? Cut himself?
Misa is bereft, and has required constant companionship. Lex was also there when we discovered the body; he and Pink-san had recently begun a relationship of some sort (I would have said sexual, but it seems to have been more than that). He blamed Misa for the death, attempted to prevent me from investigating the body, and refused to give it up to The Assistant when she came to collect it, which taxed my patience beyond a point I will tolerate.
He was eventually convinced through the application of the necessary logic.
On another note, I must say that while seeing the body of a friend or acquaintance is always a little unsettling, even to me, it is doubly so when it wears your own face.
All of this has been made much worse by one of this place's tricks. The last place I saw Pink-san alive was in a new kitchen that appeared, something like a cafe in Vienna. The majority of people who ate in that kitchen came down with a cold. In my own case, and in Misa's, it was a bad one. We spent days in her room, leaving only for food.
(I'd left my Powerbook in my room and, for once, felt no particular impulse to retrieve it.)
It was initially my intent to care for her, but my own condition worsened for a day or two, as hers began to improve; I know that I am a terrible patient, but I think that, perhaps, having someone to look after distracted her from her grief.
And she... confessed some things to me that were... difficult to hear, mostly how she tried to kill herself again and again after the deaths of her parents. I thought of what it might have been to have never met her, and I found myself extremely distressed.
So in this jumble of terrible events, what would have been the signal news has been pushed aside: Light has returned. He was gone from here for... about a week? Ten days or so? (The imprecision is frustrating, but I have been unable to acquire solid information related to the exact times of his departure and return.)
He was sent back to where we came from. He experienced the interval of time as 47 days. The change in his appearance since the last time I saw him is -- it is alarming. He is hollow and corpse-like and I have had enough of the corpses of people I know, for one week.
He heard about Pink-san's death, and apparently ran at a full tilt to console Misa; he was visibly shocked to find me there with her, both of us with heavy colds. Convincing him to stay took some doing. Meile apparently told him that I was looking for him and that I had violently attacked a microwave, which is fantastic in its absurdity, of course.
Yet he brought news from home: Watari is well, albeit concerned for me. The NPA has cancelled the Kira investigation at the instigation of whoever is currently acting under the title; Misa says that in her reality, it is someone involved with the Yotsuba group.
All of the task force members have left the NPA to work for me, with the exception of Aizawa, who is characteristically annoyed by my disappearance, and attributes the lack of communication to some sort of personality flaw on my part. Too bad; Aizawa is the sort of man we need, if we are to close the case.
(Are we ever to close the case? There's nothing left for me to solve, only things to prevent and subvert.)
I've also met a new Near. He is blind, yet perspicacious in the extreme... I find that I enjoy the conversations I've had with him.
I did not, however, enjoy yesterday's stunt room, which required us to escape from monsters from... movies? Television? I was unfamiliar with the creature pursuing me, which seemed to be a sentient cloud of smoke, clicking and roaring, accompanied by a rush of whispers.
I helped him find dinner after we escaped from the room. He is staying with Mihael, because nobody else offered, which means that he is staying with Light and Meile as well. Which means that he will probably soon need a new place to stay. He does not trust Misa, due to his acquaintance with the Misa from his own world (apparently blames her for the death of L, there), but I've told him to find one or both of us if he needs to be re-located.
And I met an A who is not dead, but he was unable to do much besides blush and stammer and apologize and assume that B is his friend.
Now that I am able to move, again, mostly without coughing, it's time to begin hunting for B. I have a plan in mind to make him tell me what I want to know, but I'm still unsure what would be appropriate to do with him here, aside from that.
When she woke up this morning, Misa found a note from The Assistant summoning us to a specific room for a memorial service for Pink-san. I have showered and taken the opportunity to write this record of events, but I have no time to write any more than this.
[[slightly out-of-timeline: before the memorial service, which is actually underway. On another note, LJ isn't displaying the links in this post at the moment, but they ARE there.]]
To begin with, Pink-san was killed by B the very night I warned him against it, though it took us several days to discover the body. He was smothered, probably after being drugged. Cuts were made in his arms, spelling out coded messages: THIS IS NOT L and ONLY FOR YOU. (Caesar Shift Cipher with the obvious key.)
I find myself extremely angry, yet while I could have prevented the murder, I am not sure what I could have done -- in the greater sense -- to prevent his death. We might have found him -- what? After he drugged himself? Cut himself?
Misa is bereft, and has required constant companionship. Lex was also there when we discovered the body; he and Pink-san had recently begun a relationship of some sort (I would have said sexual, but it seems to have been more than that). He blamed Misa for the death, attempted to prevent me from investigating the body, and refused to give it up to The Assistant when she came to collect it, which taxed my patience beyond a point I will tolerate.
He was eventually convinced through the application of the necessary logic.
On another note, I must say that while seeing the body of a friend or acquaintance is always a little unsettling, even to me, it is doubly so when it wears your own face.
All of this has been made much worse by one of this place's tricks. The last place I saw Pink-san alive was in a new kitchen that appeared, something like a cafe in Vienna. The majority of people who ate in that kitchen came down with a cold. In my own case, and in Misa's, it was a bad one. We spent days in her room, leaving only for food.
(I'd left my Powerbook in my room and, for once, felt no particular impulse to retrieve it.)
It was initially my intent to care for her, but my own condition worsened for a day or two, as hers began to improve; I know that I am a terrible patient, but I think that, perhaps, having someone to look after distracted her from her grief.
And she... confessed some things to me that were... difficult to hear, mostly how she tried to kill herself again and again after the deaths of her parents. I thought of what it might have been to have never met her, and I found myself extremely distressed.
So in this jumble of terrible events, what would have been the signal news has been pushed aside: Light has returned. He was gone from here for... about a week? Ten days or so? (The imprecision is frustrating, but I have been unable to acquire solid information related to the exact times of his departure and return.)
He was sent back to where we came from. He experienced the interval of time as 47 days. The change in his appearance since the last time I saw him is -- it is alarming. He is hollow and corpse-like and I have had enough of the corpses of people I know, for one week.
He heard about Pink-san's death, and apparently ran at a full tilt to console Misa; he was visibly shocked to find me there with her, both of us with heavy colds. Convincing him to stay took some doing. Meile apparently told him that I was looking for him and that I had violently attacked a microwave, which is fantastic in its absurdity, of course.
Yet he brought news from home: Watari is well, albeit concerned for me. The NPA has cancelled the Kira investigation at the instigation of whoever is currently acting under the title; Misa says that in her reality, it is someone involved with the Yotsuba group.
All of the task force members have left the NPA to work for me, with the exception of Aizawa, who is characteristically annoyed by my disappearance, and attributes the lack of communication to some sort of personality flaw on my part. Too bad; Aizawa is the sort of man we need, if we are to close the case.
(Are we ever to close the case? There's nothing left for me to solve, only things to prevent and subvert.)
I've also met a new Near. He is blind, yet perspicacious in the extreme... I find that I enjoy the conversations I've had with him.
I did not, however, enjoy yesterday's stunt room, which required us to escape from monsters from... movies? Television? I was unfamiliar with the creature pursuing me, which seemed to be a sentient cloud of smoke, clicking and roaring, accompanied by a rush of whispers.
I helped him find dinner after we escaped from the room. He is staying with Mihael, because nobody else offered, which means that he is staying with Light and Meile as well. Which means that he will probably soon need a new place to stay. He does not trust Misa, due to his acquaintance with the Misa from his own world (apparently blames her for the death of L, there), but I've told him to find one or both of us if he needs to be re-located.
And I met an A who is not dead, but he was unable to do much besides blush and stammer and apologize and assume that B is his friend.
Now that I am able to move, again, mostly without coughing, it's time to begin hunting for B. I have a plan in mind to make him tell me what I want to know, but I'm still unsure what would be appropriate to do with him here, aside from that.
When she woke up this morning, Misa found a note from The Assistant summoning us to a specific room for a memorial service for Pink-san. I have showered and taken the opportunity to write this record of events, but I have no time to write any more than this.
[[slightly out-of-timeline: before the memorial service, which is actually underway. On another note, LJ isn't displaying the links in this post at the moment, but they ARE there.]]