the other side of the glass

[justforthegun]

STATUS: OPEN
CHARACTERS: justforthegun (Tohru Adachi, Persona 4) & ~*YOU*~
LOCATION: A prison.
SUMMARY: You are not visiting Adachi. Adachi is visiting you.
WARNINGS: Persona 4 spoilers.
NOTES: Adachi is visiting your character, who is in prison. Why are they in prison? Falsely accused or not, should be more interesting than the other way around.

Comments

[a_false_ending]

"Seta Souji."

The voice was calm as always, relaxed and soothing. Like water on summer days. At one time it might have been the type to lift those around it, to bring hope and succor. Not now. And not for a long time now. Now it was all slithering snakes in dark dry places.

Amused snakes at that. Silver dollar eyes looked up from staring at his shoes, the old metal chair squeaking as he shifted to look at the man questioning him. He wasn't the first, he wouldn't be the last. But when his eyes locked with the man in the suit a flicker of emotion finally showed beyond dull amusement.

Shock.

He covered it up well, he thought. Maybe a relitive he didn't know about, or a coincidence. Or he'd finally given in to his own insanity. Either way it promised to be more amusing then the last few times.

[justforthegun]

Someone who knew both their stories and the similar role they shared would likely have thought that Adachi should have been amused at this turn of events.

But he wasn't. He wrote Seta's name with careful indifference (though for Adachi, "indifference" looked like what most would call "kindness") on his face, but everything about this irritated him. The way Seta's natural teenage charm had matured, twisted, rotted into the man before him...and the way they were both on the wrong side of the glass

[a_false_ending]

The widening of his eyes was tiny, the black of his pupils eating just a tiny bit more of that dull silvery-gray. As much as Adachi had studied Souji, Seta himself had studied Tohru. And the mimic of the younger, brighter self was almost perfect. He had grown up about the way Seta had expected. Slouching and scraggy and dim eyed. (Not so much now. But he had seen it before he had switched, filed that away for later) The uneven tie was a detail that called his gaze most strongly, and he stared at it while he thought.

This should be impossible, he knew. But he knew in the way a blind man knew what a rainbow was: through the knowledge of others. In his own warbling mind such things didn't seem that strange at all. Tohru was here, a good 5 years plus older, and it didn't really matter if it was impossible. It still was.

He smiled at this Tohru-not-Tohru, his own masks going up. Less the madman and more the approachable detective and friend.

"Tohru, of course I know who you are."

[justforthegun]

Despite his better judgment, Adachi frowned immediately at the familiarity. Tohru. Did anyone call him Tohru besides his own mother?

And the change irritated him, too. Seta had clearly been set to play the indifferent prisoner... but as soon as the man recognized him, he slipped on a smile, smooth as silk. He'd compare it to his own if there wasn't something sickeningly self-assured about it. (Adachi's was much more about absent-mindedness than self-confidence.)

"Yes. Detective Tohru Adachi, Inaba PD." He looked back at the form- it would guide him. His ability to keep a front wasn't quite as important as it usually was- nothing would change the fact that Seta was somehow on that side, and he was on this side. But that was not exactly the game they were playing right now, and Adachi fought hard to suppress the irritation, the strange tight vicarious emotion he felt in his chest. In channeling his alternate universe teenage hero self's strength, he'd also channeled his weakness

[a_false_ending]

Seta smelt the weakness like blood in the water, and his smile curled and grew. He leaned forward, his posture strikingly familiar to that of his teenage self: hand dangling between his knees and somehow comfortable while still curled and protective of his core.

Even though he was on the inside, he somehow came off as the one in control. The winner.

Seta Souji always won. Sure, Tohru had gone up and beyond what he had expected. There was an almost parental pride in it, right along side his desire to tear the boy apart. The conflict of emotion didn't bother him in the least. He still won in the long run.

"Two counts murder, one attempted, evading arrest, conspiracy to commit. Should I continue?"

1/2

[justforthegun]

"No," Adachi closed his eyes. His pen hadn't even moved, because he realized quickly he could fill the entire form on his own. Everything was the same, except for the villain.

Then, where was the hero? He'd mimicked it earlier, but he found the role more than he could bear as the seconds slipped on. Had he been born and bred a hero, maybe. But it was not in his cards anymore. He was just a shell- the hero in him had long since shrivelled away from lack of use.

[justforthegun]

So he rolled his shoulders back in his chair and changed his game. He couldn't play the true hero to Seta's true villain. But he could certainly play a fake villain to Seta's fake hero.

"No, that's fine," he repeated, throwing the pen on the notepad with a lazy flick to show that he was done with the charade. He found it much easier to smile when he didn't have to fill the cracks of his mouth with "justice". Not only was it easier to smile, it was easier to sneer. He was much more comfortable like this; the relaxation transformed him from the nervous bumbling cop. He didn't have a wealth of confidence so much as an absence of shame, now.

After all, no matter what they said or did here, Seta was still over there, and Adachi was still over here. He knew the exact feeling of satisfaction in Seta from experience; it was the pride one had when they had nothing else left. Adachi had the upper hand here, and he always would as long as he didn't forget that.

After a pause, he felt safe enough to remark, "Not much difference, is there?"