the life of a shut-in

[glassempty]

Who: glassempty, spellsdeadwrong
What: Hito's life as a shut-in is coming to a close.
When: Wednesday evening, after Asuka's entry.

Comments

godmoding cleared by Jade, juuuuust for the record o/

[spellsdeadwrong]

Unfortunately for Hito, Asuka didn't forget about people he cared about. Especially not people he'd been traveling with for long periods of time prior to coming to an odd keep in the middle of who-knew-where run by a man with unclear motives, and especially not when they had become his second little brother. So when there was no response from Hito in the journal, when he'd finally finished talking with all of those that had responded to him, he'd made his way back to where his and Hito's rooms stood just one room apart.

And he didn't bother with knocking. Why would he give Hito the opportunity to run like that?

So he took a couple deep breaths on the outside of the door, trying to prepare his body for the strain he was about to put on it. He hadn't tried yet to teleport in the keep, but he'd noticed that both his water and fire magic had been dampened by some unknown power, and he was betting that this was going to work the same way. So he waited, waited until he was as ready as possible... and then he teleported to the inside of Hito's room, landing just inside the door.

"C'mon, tadpole," he ordered with a grin as he caught sight of the green-haired boy, scanning the room for a journal even as he started to cross toward him. His heart was leaping, his breath coming shallow, but he didn't allow himself to stop, spotting the journal and grabbing it before turning to face Hito fully. "It's time you stopped trying to become decoration for the castle and get out here."

And then he was grabbing Hito's arm, hauling him up just enough that he could pretend the two of them were standing side-by-side, concentrated... and jumped back to the other side of the doorway.

...that was a bad plan. His head began spinning almost the moment they stepped out of air, his heart pounding so hard he felt like it was trying to beat right out of his chest. His breath came in sharp gasps now, and briefly Asuka wondered if this wasn't what having a heart attack was like.

But he'd gotten the kid out of his room, and that was the important part. So he just grinned, waiting for his heart to slow down and his breath to fill his lungs before he could speak to Hito proper.

[glassempty]

Hito didn't even... he had no time!

When Asuka appeared, he had jolted, pressing himself toward the wall of his bed at the sudden appearance. And then before he could get out more than a strangled, "Don't do that...!" Asuka had hauled him to his feet. Hito would have been infuriated with just that. But the teleporting pushed him over the edge.

Hito exploded. "That wasn't funny! I was just fine in there, and..."

There was a moment where Hito just stood there, breathing hard through his nose, then a look of horror stole over his face.

His key.

Before he could even notice Asuka's problems, Hito threw himself at the door, jiggling the handle frantically.

Locked... he kept it locked! Because there was no way he would need it unlocked where just anyone would come in, and Hito would never be so careless as to forget to take the key with him.

A strangled cry of "Asuka!" slowly petered out just as Hito's frantic attempts to get back inside did. The green haired boy stood silently for a moment before the door, before slowly turning to face the older boy, doom in his eyes.

"You did that on purpose."

It was not a question.

[spellsdeadwrong]

The grin stretched across his face, even as Asuka nodded. "Yeah," he answered, still breathless. He'd backed out of the way almost immediately and was leaning heavily into the wall now, allowing it to take responsibility for holding him up as he recovered. "I did. You need..." huff, huff, try for a deeper breath but the lungs just wouldn't hold it "t'get out. You need..."

He still couldn't speak. Asuka held up a finger to signal Hito to wait, the other hand going to his heart as he bent forward, still trying to catch his breath.

This was much worse than it had been anywhere else. What was going on with him?

[glassempty]

Hito was on the verge of summoning up a lightning strike -- his health be damned -- when Asuka bent over. Hito paused then, his hand dropping to his side from where he had lifted it and a flash of concern chasing away his scowl.

"I need what?" he prodded cautiously, now frowning slightly. "Asuka? You okay?"

He looked like he was about to keel over. Which would put a hitch in Hito's plan of murdering him at the moment.

[spellsdeadwrong]

The hand that he'd used to signal Hito to wait moved now, flapping away at the concern. But he shook his head at the question.

He still couldn't breathe.

Slowly, slowly, breath came back to him, his ability to take in air growing slowly as the seconds ticked by. And finally, he was able to speak, though he still sounded rather breathless as he did so. "You need to actually go out and talk to people, kid... not just... stay cooped up in there ignoring everybody else. Y'know that?"

[glassempty]

Once it was clear that Asuka was not dying (probably), Hito switched back to his scowl and folded his arms over his chest. He jerked his chin back toward his door as he stepped away from it.

"I was fine in there."

Why did he need to talk to people? They weren't the people -- the person he wanted to see and talk to. What was the point anymore?

Glancing back at Asuka, Hito lifted an eyebrow and remarked dryly. "You look dead, you know."

[spellsdeadwrong]

Asuka raised an eyebrow at him, able to deadpan perfectly in spite of his quick breathing. "Sure, if by fine you mean wasting away hiding yourself in a room after you were one of those people lucky enough to not lose their lives when the worlds were destroyed."

He'd had enough of the moping. Asuka frowned, folding his arms at the younger boy. "Not everyone was lucky enough to make it out, you know. Maybe instead of moping around regretting the fact that you managed to survive, you ought to start living in respect of everybody else that didn't."

He wasn't touching Hito's comment that he looked dead. It wasn't pertinent anymore. He'd recover.

[glassempty]

It was the last thing Hito wanted to hear. It was the thing he was fighting to forget about so much that he almost reached up to cover his ears and block any more comments like that out. He didn't want to think about everyone dying. There were too many people who deserved to live more than he did.

People like her.

Shaking his head, Hito backed against his door, wishing he could back straight through it and continue "wasting away".

He shouldn't have said it, but it slipped out before Hito could stop. "Maybe without me they'll pick somebody else to save."

[spellsdeadwrong]

It was lucky for Hito that Asuka had been halfway expecting him to make some sort of comment like that. "If there's one thing I've learned about life, kid, it's that you don't get to try and influence what the higher powers decide. You're here now, and they're not gonna up and decide that someone else is more deserving just because you're too scared to try and live without a safety net."

He was being harsh. He knew that, but he didn't care. Hito needed to hear this. "You've had plenty of time to grieve, Hito. Now you have to pick up the pieces and try and make something of it. You can't just stop moving."

[glassempty]

"It seems better than wandering around in circles," he snapped.

He wasn't used to Asuka being harsh. Asuka rarely said anything serious enough to rub Hito too hard the wrong way, but apparently this time was going to be the exception.

Hito didn't like this place. It was too enclosed and it didn't allow for running away to the next world if things didn't seem promising. He felt trapped here, and wandering around trying to live some sort of life with the others who were just as trapped and had no more idea than him about how to get out didn't seem very productive.

"There isn't anything to make out of this."

[spellsdeadwrong]

Asuka frowned. "For a lot of people, this place is better than the one they left behind," he said. "For those people, there's a lot to be made from this. And even if you don't think it's better, what do you expect sitting around inside all day long is going to do? At least if you get out you can make friends."

He stopped. That was a good one. "Or are you still wishing I'd left you alone when we first met? Sat there smoking and refused to do anything? Think about it, Hito. We may not be able to change anything here, but you definitely won't be able to do anything if you just stop functioning altogether."

[glassempty]

Was he? No. At that time, moving forward had been the right idea. Hito didn't know what he would do if he had been left on his own at that point. He remembered some of those first worlds. They had been terrifying, full of things he couldn't even begin to deal with.

To stop that soon in his search for her would have been something he couldn't live with himself for doing.

This was different, though. Hito clenched his fists, staring hard down at the ground. "Making friends won't replace the ones I lost. Going on won't help them. Living out of respect won't even help them."

And that was the root of the matter, wasn't it? Before there was a chance everyone else was just on another world and maybe he would find it going through the next weird portal that showed up. Here, this was it. No more. Game over. Life is screwed and the only thing left to do was either pretend it was okay or give in to the fact that it wasn't and wall himself off.

If he could get past the hope being snatched away, he could go on. But he couldn't. And that was that.

[spellsdeadwrong]

"They're not meant to replace the ones you lost," Asuka said simply, moving away from the wall and stepping toward Hito. He reached out, intending to lay his hand on the younger boy's shoulder as he continued, "But being miserable isn't going to help anybody, either. It's just going to make you hurt more."

Asuka didn't plan to let him keep hurting himself like that.

"Besides, who ever said that this was the only hub like this out there?" he asked. "Don't you remember Traverse Town? It brought a lot of people together like this, too. It's possible that the people we haven't found yet are on one of those, and that we just can't get to them from here."

[glassempty]

That surprised Hito enough to not shake Asuka's hand off. Other hubs...?

He guessed... that might make sense. They had been told that everything was gone, right? But who was to say the people in charge weren't lying... or mistaken?

Hito pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, trying to decide if it was worth it to believe there might be other hub worlds. Hope was a dangerous thing if it turned out to be crushed again too soon.

"Prove it." Hito dropped his hands to fold his arms over his chest, choosing to hold on to a little bit of anger instead of letting depression pull at him. "If there's another hub world, there should be proof? A way to get in contact... anything."

[spellsdeadwrong]

Asuka considered it.

He had no idea if what he said was correct or no, but he had to hold onto it. He couldn't back down, not without shaking whatever faith Hito might have had in him. "Okay," he said, without really knowing what he was going to do for proof. "I can prove it."

How...?

"People keep showing up here." There, that was a good starting point. "I've seen a few instances where people from the same world showed up here, but at different times." He'd also seen a few instances where those same people later disappeared without a trace, but hell if he was telling the kid that. "So there's nothing saying that my brother or your girl won't eventually show up here, too. Right?"

[glassempty]

"Then the one who brought us here is lying."

He didn't know that people from the same worlds had shown up at different times. How could a world be gone if more people came from it later...? What would delay their arrival.

Hito felt like he was fighting a migraine as he reached up to run his temples.