[When he first came here, Nene told Shin about the way the things of the deceased would disappear without trace. The clear toll it had had on her had taken root in his mind enough to contemplate leaving a thing living enough to survive for her if he disappeared, even as he'd later starkly realized how Asunaro that was, thanks to Ranger.
Still, knowing about something and experiencing it are two different things. Up until now, in Shin's experiences the dead had always left some kind of trace, some of it in the form of evidence collected on the room's shelf. The past always has an effect on the present, and that's something he's held to before. Nobody can just disappear completely... can they?
Her games have remained, and the note tucked in the closet's depths, but all other signs of Nanami having lived here are gone, erased as if they'd never been the moment he woke up. He hasn't turned them on since, because all their old save files are still on them; if she returns she might want to pick up where she left off... For this reason he's hidden them away, too.
It's the thing he can't erase about himself, no matter how he might try and sometimes succeed, and the thing about him he fears on bad days; he gets attached, and cares deeply when he does. It always hurts.
It does help it's Alice who's moving in, for multiple reasons, some of the practical kind like that he's proven himself trustworthy enough to sleep around and probably wouldn't let Midori in if he came knocking, and others more a sort of osmotic pressure of inclination. He lifts his head at the sensation of eyes on him from where he sits cross-legged on the top bunk, although his gaze remains on the laptop in front of him.]
Ugh, that thing... [Creepy as hell. Shin's not fond of it... it's also always a bit embarrassing being jumpscared by a stationary object. It really does feel like it's biding it's time to get up and move, he's trying not to think about that phrasing of volition.] Dynamo probably moved it...
[Since Add was obsessed with it in a way you couldn't not know if you were in his vicinity whenever he got going about it... Shin'll pick this option over 'it moved back there on it's own' even if that's mostly trying to convince himself. He doesn't have much cause to go into the science lab anyway...]
...if I was superstitious I'd say it was the number, ahaha.
[It would be easier to set it at that instead of the constricting sense of dwindling numbers his brain has gripped onto like a vice, sometimes catching his lungs in the bargain.]
[ "Dynamo probably moved it" is the sensible explanation. On the other hand, in this place, it isn't farfetched that an anatomical model could come to life, and in her grief, pining for her lost love (though Add looks so young), she fled from a lonely room filled with reminders of his absence. It's still unclear who placed her in Add's bed that horrible morning! It's no less impossible that her feelings were hurt — she may have felt more and more unwelcome, treated as creepy.
An empty room, nothing more to it, wouldn't be a problem. Instead, something about the entire thing is difficult to articulate, knowing that it somehow seemed as though Komaeda had come to consider Star 4 protected from any curse, yet there's no one left, an apparent pattern. ]
Four... I wouldn't rule it out. After all, Moon 4 is a questionable room, so perhaps the fourth room of every set found in this dormitory is unlucky.
[ Ultimately, it's an admission that he welcomes fewer reminders of all of that, too — and these days, he's strangely unaccustomed to a room all to himself — but not if it becomes a reminder of other upsetting incidents.
So far, he hasn't noticed anything to suggest it. Seated on the top bunk, Shin Tsukimi is merely going about his work, quite focused on his screen. That bunk must have been his all along, then.
Alice's gaze travels lower, past the ladder to the bottom bunk. Finally, he leaves the kotatsu, approaching to bend down and begin making the bed, smoothing the covers into place. ]
I mean, Sara Chidouin was bitten in that room...!
Edited (minor tweak for a clearer sentence...) Date: 2022-05-29 10:35 pm (UTC)
[Maybe it's it's own sort of robot or doll, like those Attraction animatronics... but that'd subtly change the nature of the dislike. He's already on rocky terms with Maple right now.]
...Should we be worrying about Sun 4, then?
[He's trying to be light about it in tone, but the other Nanami is in there, isn't she?
As Alice moves to start making the bed, Shin shifts on his elbows to idly watch him. The top bunk is indeed his, claimed through debate battle with Sara, though it's debateable itself how much that was just her not being particularly attached to one over the other. Speaking of...]
She... was what...?
[Bitten? Dito coming into the meeting eating an arm is fresh in the memory. He fumbles in his pocket for his PDA and scrolls to something he hadn't paid too much attention to at the time. Sure enough...]
Don't tell me she actually went in there...
[He can picture it... barged in with pointing finger and full force of personality... He puts some stock in Sara's proven prowess i.e. bullying ability but that's still highly dangerous! Isn't she a little more cautious than that? It makes something in his stomach tighten, because it's another thing the past has set outside of reach... even in the ever-moving present he only has a small amount of time and energy to work with but it still doesn't feel great to find out.]
Indeed... It seems we shouldn't let our guard down in any number four room!
[ In other words, of course it should apply to Sun 4, and tragically Star 4 proves that something is surely afoot, even though it should have lived up to Komaeda's description praising it as the perfect room. Alice pauses in his squishing the pillow into shape, glancing back up then to see Shin checking his PDA — for confirmation of the arguments with Dito, he supposes. The records should be visible, both the exchange between Sara Chidouin and that lunatic, and the conversation aiming to persuade the girl to reconsider seeking him out.
Every word of Dito's discussing Add's arm and other such topics was public as well!
Lately, some of the tension between Sara Chidouin and Shin Tsukimi has lessened, Alice thinks — certainly compared to what he recalls during the Death Game. Right now, Shin Tsukimi seems rather shocked to hear of the outcome of that Moon 4 visit, enough that it's cause for hesitation. ]
Err... As you can see, I advised her against it. Even a schoolgirl like her should take care... But she returned with all of her limbs intact, meaning that S. Dito's attempt to eat her failed. Rejoice...
[ He contemplates trying a nickname or a code name now, but decides against it in the end. It leaves that sentence oddly unfinished, some part of it missing where a name belongs. ]
[I'm picturing them both showing up at AInami's door with a list of much better rooms to move into and pleading expressions at this rate. If you ask Shin, Komaeda's endorsement is in and of itself a bad omen when it comes to these things...]
That was the bandage around her neck, wasn't it?
[All her limbs intact was maybe a little too specific there Alice... He's looking at her saying she found her gun and wondering when she lost it. Maybe... teaching her how to use it better wasn't the mistake he thought it might be at the time, if he's already failed that presumption to take more responsibility such that she wouldn't need it, even if it wasn't put in such stark terms. A still-bitter part of him thinks about what might have happened if she hadn't tossed it aside on the rooftop. They've reconciled recently in a sense but that wound's left a scar.]
For someone who talks about working together so much, she sure takes it all on herself...
[It's something that's consistently rankled at him for one reason or another, and here almost killed her.
The trailing off absence where a name should be... He's been thinking about it ever since begging Rantaro to call him anything but... the question is who he wants to be, because that's what a name is, in the end. After a pause he spares Alice.]
Ahaha, if you're really fumbling for something... What about 'Touma'? Not much of a leap...
[One extra kanji in front. Just adding something, or denoting something... rather than a complete stripping out of identity as done before. And, with responsibility currently on his mind... that would fit, wouldn't it? Taking it on so as to become it... it worked before.]
[ That bandage... Alice makes a sound to confirm Shin's observations, conveying something of his own displeasure over these matters at the same time. Sara Chidouin conceded that she should have listened to him, but it wasn't a satisfying victory at all, and the conversation now leads him to think back to words exchanged on a rainy afternoon weeks ago — that day, the girl confided in him, confessing things that burdened her heart. Her doubts, her resentment... Yet she continues to shoulder the leader's role, doesn't she?
Shin Tsukimi, meanwhile, strikes Alice as considerably less resentful here. Straightening up once all four pillowcase corners sit fitted over the pillow — narrowly avoiding hitting his head on the underside of the top bunk's edge — he regards the other man curiously.
Then, abruptly, his expression turns mildly affronted. Before anything else to discuss, there's one matter in particular to clear up! ]
I never said that I was fumbling, you know! It's merely strange to refer to you as the Lord of Beanies, and so on... And Nagito Komaeda may use a cute and cool nickname such as "Shiki-kun" naturally, but I obviously can't. I don't wish to force a name on you, either — that defeats the purpose!
[ With that voiced, Alice goes quiet in sudden astonishment; "Touma" registers, and so does the difference between an alias that contains the truth — every stripe shaping Shin Tsukimi's own name — and discarding the truth for a lie. Instead of erasing a person, the kanji placed before that name could be something like a shield. ]
"Touma"... I see!
[ Alice isn't silent for long. The new name chosen by Shin Tsukimi himself is significant, he imagines — much like everything borrowed from Sou Hiyori undoubtedly was. ]
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notsosou
!!
Date: 2022-05-29 11:34 am (UTC)Still, knowing about something and experiencing it are two different things. Up until now, in Shin's experiences the dead had always left some kind of trace, some of it in the form of evidence collected on the room's shelf. The past always has an effect on the present, and that's something he's held to before. Nobody can just disappear completely... can they?
Her games have remained, and the note tucked in the closet's depths, but all other signs of Nanami having lived here are gone, erased as if they'd never been the moment he woke up. He hasn't turned them on since, because all their old save files are still on them; if she returns she might want to pick up where she left off... For this reason he's hidden them away, too.
It's the thing he can't erase about himself, no matter how he might try and sometimes succeed, and the thing about him he fears on bad days; he gets attached, and cares deeply when he does. It always hurts.
It does help it's Alice who's moving in, for multiple reasons, some of the practical kind like that he's proven himself trustworthy enough to sleep around and probably wouldn't let Midori in if he came knocking, and others more a sort of osmotic pressure of inclination. He lifts his head at the sensation of eyes on him from where he sits cross-legged on the top bunk, although his gaze remains on the laptop in front of him.]
Ugh, that thing... [Creepy as hell. Shin's not fond of it... it's also always a bit embarrassing being jumpscared by a stationary object. It really does feel like it's biding it's time to get up and move, he's trying not to think about that phrasing of volition.] Dynamo probably moved it...
[Since Add was obsessed with it in a way you couldn't not know if you were in his vicinity whenever he got going about it... Shin'll pick this option over 'it moved back there on it's own' even if that's mostly trying to convince himself. He doesn't have much cause to go into the science lab anyway...]
...if I was superstitious I'd say it was the number, ahaha.
[It would be easier to set it at that instead of the constricting sense of dwindling numbers his brain has gripped onto like a vice, sometimes catching his lungs in the bargain.]
no subject
Date: 2022-05-29 09:41 pm (UTC)An empty room, nothing more to it, wouldn't be a problem. Instead, something about the entire thing is difficult to articulate, knowing that it somehow seemed as though Komaeda had come to consider Star 4 protected from any curse, yet there's no one left, an apparent pattern. ]
Four... I wouldn't rule it out. After all, Moon 4 is a questionable room, so perhaps the fourth room of every set found in this dormitory is unlucky.
[ Ultimately, it's an admission that he welcomes fewer reminders of all of that, too — and these days, he's strangely unaccustomed to a room all to himself — but not if it becomes a reminder of other upsetting incidents.
So far, he hasn't noticed anything to suggest it. Seated on the top bunk, Shin Tsukimi is merely going about his work, quite focused on his screen. That bunk must have been his all along, then.
Alice's gaze travels lower, past the ladder to the bottom bunk. Finally, he leaves the kotatsu, approaching to bend down and begin making the bed, smoothing the covers into place. ]
I mean, Sara Chidouin was bitten in that room...!
no subject
Date: 2022-05-30 05:05 am (UTC)...Should we be worrying about Sun 4, then?
[He's trying to be light about it in tone, but the other Nanami is in there, isn't she?
As Alice moves to start making the bed, Shin shifts on his elbows to idly watch him. The top bunk is indeed his, claimed through debate battle with Sara, though it's debateable itself how much that was just her not being particularly attached to one over the other. Speaking of...]
She... was what...?
[Bitten? Dito coming into the meeting eating an arm is fresh in the memory. He fumbles in his pocket for his PDA and scrolls to something he hadn't paid too much attention to at the time. Sure enough...]
Don't tell me she actually went in there...
[He can picture it... barged in with pointing finger and full force of personality... He puts some stock in Sara's proven prowess i.e. bullying ability but that's still highly dangerous! Isn't she a little more cautious than that? It makes something in his stomach tighten, because it's another thing the past has set outside of reach... even in the ever-moving present he only has a small amount of time and energy to work with but it still doesn't feel great to find out.]
no subject
Date: 2022-05-30 06:12 am (UTC)[ In other words, of course it should apply to Sun 4, and tragically Star 4 proves that something is surely afoot, even though it should have lived up to Komaeda's description praising it as the perfect room. Alice pauses in his squishing the pillow into shape, glancing back up then to see Shin checking his PDA — for confirmation of the arguments with Dito, he supposes. The records should be visible, both the exchange between Sara Chidouin and that lunatic, and the conversation aiming to persuade the girl to reconsider seeking him out.
Every word of Dito's discussing Add's arm and other such topics was public as well!
Lately, some of the tension between Sara Chidouin and Shin Tsukimi has lessened, Alice thinks — certainly compared to what he recalls during the Death Game. Right now, Shin Tsukimi seems rather shocked to hear of the outcome of that Moon 4 visit, enough that it's cause for hesitation. ]
Err... As you can see, I advised her against it. Even a schoolgirl like her should take care... But she returned with all of her limbs intact, meaning that S. Dito's attempt to eat her failed. Rejoice...
[ He contemplates trying a nickname or a code name now, but decides against it in the end. It leaves that sentence oddly unfinished, some part of it missing where a name belongs. ]
no subject
Date: 2022-05-31 04:06 am (UTC)That was the bandage around her neck, wasn't it?
[All her limbs intact was maybe a little too specific there Alice... He's looking at her saying she found her gun and wondering when she lost it. Maybe... teaching her how to use it better wasn't the mistake he thought it might be at the time, if he's already failed that presumption to take more responsibility such that she wouldn't need it, even if it wasn't put in such stark terms. A still-bitter part of him thinks about what might have happened if she hadn't tossed it aside on the rooftop. They've reconciled recently in a sense but that wound's left a scar.]
For someone who talks about working together so much, she sure takes it all on herself...
[It's something that's consistently rankled at him for one reason or another, and here almost killed her.
The trailing off absence where a name should be... He's been thinking about it ever since begging Rantaro to call him anything but... the question is who he wants to be, because that's what a name is, in the end. After a pause he spares Alice.]
Ahaha, if you're really fumbling for something... What about 'Touma'? Not much of a leap...
[One extra kanji in front. Just adding something, or denoting something... rather than a complete stripping out of identity as done before. And, with responsibility currently on his mind... that would fit, wouldn't it? Taking it on so as to become it... it worked before.]
no subject
Date: 2022-06-11 08:02 am (UTC)Shin Tsukimi, meanwhile, strikes Alice as considerably less resentful here. Straightening up once all four pillowcase corners sit fitted over the pillow — narrowly avoiding hitting his head on the underside of the top bunk's edge — he regards the other man curiously.
Then, abruptly, his expression turns mildly affronted. Before anything else to discuss, there's one matter in particular to clear up! ]
I never said that I was fumbling, you know! It's merely strange to refer to you as the Lord of Beanies, and so on... And Nagito Komaeda may use a cute and cool nickname such as "Shiki-kun" naturally, but I obviously can't. I don't wish to force a name on you, either — that defeats the purpose!
[ With that voiced, Alice goes quiet in sudden astonishment; "Touma" registers, and so does the difference between an alias that contains the truth — every stripe shaping Shin Tsukimi's own name — and discarding the truth for a lie. Instead of erasing a person, the kanji placed before that name could be something like a shield. ]
"Touma"... I see!
[ Alice isn't silent for long. The new name chosen by Shin Tsukimi himself is significant, he imagines — much like everything borrowed from Sou Hiyori undoubtedly was. ]
Very well. Touma Tsukimi... I won't forget it.