Yogen IC Inbox

[notsosou]

It says Inbox but honestly this is for all your Shin-bothering needs. He has a dorm room now.

Comments

11/08

[commences]

( when shin comes to the main building from the dormitory, he'll find a letter in his locker that's addressed to him.

he'll be told to come to this location. )

12/25 — door handle

[commences]

☾ 1

Depending on who opens the door, they'll notice that the door won't budge as smoothly as it normally does, but once they're able to get out of their room; they'll find that a few items have spilled over. A shame, they'll have to figure out which belongs to who, but it seems that everything belongs to them given the stocking has both their names written on it!

[commences]

sou hiyori: there's cute little cat pins for him to attach to his scarf for a little variety, as well as an usb nestled inside of a furry eared headpiece with a little face — meowrry christmas! not only that, there seems to be a few assorted colors of toques for him to choose from, and this way he can keep himself warm, especially when he washes his main beanie!

[sisters]

addressed to sou hiyori, is a particularly cozy and warm looking blanket, a small heater, and a cat-faced bowl.

12/25

[decrypter]

[slid under the door in the morning is a CD in its case. there's no indication of the sender, but clearly, there's only one tech nerd in that room, so it's clearly meant for him.

if put into his laptop, there is one program on the disk.

decode.exe

run program?]

[notsosou]

[I'm going to assume he's appropriately cautious about an unknown, unmarked CD even if it does seem to be some kind of Christmas present, and will take all the suitable pre-emptive precautions to avoid it going off like a bomb in his computer.

Now it's appropriately quarantined and inspected... moment of truth. He presses the button to run it.]

[decrypter]

[it's clean! it's safe! it's very simple, according to anything he runs on it.

the screen is black, and the text that pops up is white.

progress 0%
check power
check connection
decipher

ꞗᛍঋȺꝽůঋ𝓽ᶇꝽঋ𝔣
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

>_

the cursor sits there, blinking, waiting for an input.]

[notsosou]

[Huh, inch resting... He's going to scoot a little closer to his laptop, where he's sitting half-under the kotatsu, and type in the given commands. Might as well see what they do in order, right?]

[decrypter]

[the first two return command not found - clearly, this program isn't as interactive as the designer wanted - but decipher gives a reply! or well, it doesn't error.

the cursor blinks under that one, waiting for him to reply. it won't take him long to figure out that as he begins to type, if he types the correct letter one of the empty spaces above will fill with a white box, waiting for the next input. if he mistypes, the boxes clear, and he has to return to start.

it's a memory test, to type out the letters in order without mistakes. but by the time he's gotten it, he'll be able to see the decoded sequence.

bcragurtngrf

filling the spaces leads to a new command.

password:

straightforwardly typing the sequence will not work. it's another layer of the cipher - but perhaps he'll guess it, considering it's been used in Yogen's halls before now, and some people discuss puzzles enough for it to have come up at least once.]

[notsosou]

[Oh, that's the mood. He's no stranger to butting his head against something until he has to admit to himself he should set it aside to work on it later. He's guessing whoever made this was caught by the Christmas crunch...

After spending most of this month working with technically perfect but marred and cold code, elaborate marble architecture and carefully pieced-together paper under glass and red light... Someone just trying things out and hitting bumps... it's charming in a way, that incompleteness.

It takes a few tries, but he quickly works out what the game wants, and his memory is very good so it's just a matter of finding the right keys. Memory Dance was a breeze for him, except it wasn't because he had to actually dance.

It's worth a shot to try the sequence first and... no dice. Like in the Escape Room he defaults to giving rot13 a try here, since he knows people use it, he talked about that with Helena a while back, and gives a little amused huff when he sees what it comes out to and types it in.]

Open sesame... ♫ Let's see what you have.

[He does find puzzles fun... when there isn't anyone staring at him to see him potentially screw up. It's nice when things behave logically and have rules they're going to stick to, it's just a matter of finding out and using them.]

[decrypter]

[progress 100%

the screen clears, and the program closes. but there is a text file there - s.txt, also meant for him.]

S,

I hope you enjoyed the game. There are still many bugs to work out and things to build and make before it can become a true ciphering game, but I wanted to show you the fruits of your tutoring and your tireless attention. Hopefully it did not stop working before you were done.

Merry Christmas, my friend. To hours spent in peace together, to discovering new things and puzzles, to better times than now. The sun still shines for us, and so we'll get through.

Check your pillowcase, if you could.

H

[and looking there will yield a wooden carved rabbit patiently awaiting him.]

[notsosou]

[Oh he loves these. The blanket is going on his bed and so is the space heater, tucked in the corner like the fire hazard it now is. The bowl he's putting on his shelf and putting the gacha rocks and Rei gifts in because he's starting to run out of space.]

[notsosou]

[These beanies are rapidly going to see use, and the pins are something he doesn't want to lose so he's putting them on his shelf. The USB is going to be found hanging from the keychain of his dorm key in short order.]

12/26 night are you sick of me in your inbox yet

[decrypter]

[gentle, quiet knocks.

it's been a few hours. time has passed, and whether or not this door opens is up to chance.]

no never

[notsosou]

[There's the sound of footsteps pausing, then coming over. There's the sound of the lock clicking and the door sliding open.]

...Helena?

[It's a lot more uncertain than the stressed defensive bravado he usually reaches for.]

Err... umm... About before...

[A few workings of his throat and then he falls silent.]

[decrypter]

[her hair has dried by now, and the redness has left her eyes. overall, she just looks tired - like the day sapped her of all energy, and that she's not going to be making any more outbursts in a hurry.

still, still. she pushes the door the rest of the way open instead of saying anything, slipping past Shin to go to where the kotatsu is - it's on, she finds, and putting her cane aside, tucks herself underneath it up to the neck. the warmth is a comfort, especially after a stressful day.]

...I'm very upset with you, Sou.

[she doesn't sound upset. nor does she look it, bundled as she is.]

[notsosou]

R-right...

[It'd be... surprising and frankly worrying if she wasn't, honestly. He's waiting for the music and then... she goes and tucks herself in and becomes cozy?]

Uh...

[He closes the door behind him and goes over to the opposite side of it, sitting down but not getting under the blanket, fidgeting with his scarf.]

Ahaha, that was you earlier, wasn't it?

[So that's what it's like, to be on that end of it...]

[decrypter]

Yes. I'm sorry about that, I lost my temper. It won't happen again.

[because that sincerely she's sorry about, that she lost control to the point of using that power on a friend. someone who she hopes still is a friend, despite the disconnect they're having. and right now, she doesn't want to be bitter at him - she wants, dearly, that him fragmenting at the end was because he realized what he did.

it's hard to be honest, and people do stupid things whey they start to get nervous.]

...You could have just told me you didn't want to speak about it from the start. You didn't have to make up a lie like that. It was cruel to us both.

[notsosou]

...

T-that's okay.

['It won't happen again'. He doesn't like how that itches at him, but what is he going to say to that? 'Hit me as many times as you like'? He doesn't want that. Still, it doesn't sit well, in ways both bone deep and inexplicable.]

...Be honest, Helena. Would you have let me leave it at just that? Besides, the lie wasn't just for you...

[It's not even accusatory, so much as just... this is who she is, she searches for the truth. It's the way someone might mention a friend's height or propensity for a particular kind of snack.]

Ah it... was cruel, yeah.

[Maybe he should have just run away, it's not like she has a gun... actually wait hang on a second.]

[decrypter]

You're not that terrible of a person as the lie would make you. Even if you've killed to survive, it doesn't make you heartless. Every living thing wants to stay that way. That's why it's cruel...to call yourself that brutal.

[Shin Tsukimi is a good person. this is a hypothesis that may still survive.]

And I wouldn't have liked leaving it at that, I'd have hated it...but I would have. Until you were ready to speak on it, to open it back up.

[tucking herself a little more into the warmth, she sighs softly.]

...You don't have to say it's okay if it isn't, by the way. I won't lose control like that again.

cw gruesome imagery again? sorry

[notsosou]

...Sou Hiyori's that cruel. Or he's supposed to be... cruel people survive, right? [A hypothesis that's since been tested.] But, ahaha, maybe I really should have pinned it on Komaeda in the end. It's a lot more believable, since he actually did it...

[He's not sure why he didn't, took it all on himself. Maybe he just didn't trust Komaeda's commitment to the plan, to lie when asked. Shin knows his help was contingent only on his amusement, and that festering coal of dislike and disgust in him only has gotten worse. All the horrible squirming feelings about the one student he didn't save have a handy nearby sink in the person who killed them.

The idea that this facade was cruel to him and not just Helena isn't quite sticking, sliding off the teflon surface of his own mangling of himself, chewing off a leg, clawing and contorting himself into shape that's calcified and only managing a pale imitation for what turned out to be no good reason... it still feels as 'cruel' as that guy who had to cut off his own boulder-pinned hand with a pocketknife. Grim, maybe. Self-destructive... painful. Cruel?]

Hnmh.

[It's kind of sad that he doesn't really believe that. He took the wrong message from that disaster back then; not that Helena wouldn't look, but that he should let her... well, unless other people were in danger. But she's really insistent on it so... it's a non-committal kind of noise.]

...You waited until I couldn't get away, didn't you? You probably didn't even want to go swimming...

[You tricked him! It's a little sharp, partly because he can't believe he didn't notice and isn't happy about it, and also in making the point. That's not the action of someone who'd take 'oh I can't tell you' as an answer.]

Lose control, huh... I'd been expecting worse, actually.

[Yelling, insults, cut ties... maybe being outright smacked with her cane. The idea of everyone knowing where he is is, well, terrifying in a way Helena would know, but the edge is blunted a bit in that 'in his room' would have been a fairly safe bet anyway, and the door was locked... he won't think about the fact she can do that at any time, because if he starts thinking too much about that with any and all of the magic users here he'll turn into even more of a nervous wreck.]

[decrypter]

Don't expect anything at all. It's not happening again.

[I'll make sure of it is threaded in that tone. she'll figure out how to bandage the raw and seeping wound of her own agitation, pack it full of snow so it goes numb. quiet, quiet, until it's sealed over and just leaves a scar, instead of running hot and infected, leaving her sick from its presence.

she has to be better than this. she has to be.]

...Swimming was an excuse, yeah, but I needed to talk to you in private. The pool was the only place I could think of where someone might not walk in at the wrong moment. Even this room...if Sara was here, how could we talk openly?

[there's a small shuffling, as she adjusts position.]

You could have left any time you wanted.

[notsosou]

...

...If you say so.

[There's a steel threaded throughout her words, and Shin isn't really equipped to unpack all that, as much control as he tries and often fails to keep over himself so... he'll leave it at that for now.]

Could I now? We could have just talked in the pool building, you know.

[It's just a touch sardonic. Once he's grasped onto a conclusion he's loath to second-guess himself just because he was tied in knots with the rope of his own benefit of the doubt previously. But he's fairly sure it wasn't a coincidence it was then. She blocked the pool ladder too... but it's a bit harder to be sure on that one, which doesn't feel as planned.]

Ah, well, Sara already knows....

[His gaze has shifted away by habit, hand on scarf.]

She uh... Ahaha, I guess the second time I was a lot more convincing, huh?

[Or maybe she's just seen you at the lowest possible point you can stoop, Shin.]

[decrypter]

Or it's that I really believed your words. I wanted to believe everything you told me, that included...to trust you like that.

[one hand snakes out of the warmth to remove her glasses, reaching to gently toss them up to the kotatsu table.]

Can I? Or should I doubt you?

[notsosou]

Y-you...

[There's a flash of fear, hidden as fast as it appears. He can feel the wheel of history repeating, turning.]

...

......

...

You... shouldn't trust anyone, Helena.

[Even he knows that's a bit... much, though. He sounds like an anime villain... but it's important. He still has a chance.]

I-I mean, you should trust people but... it pays to be careful, right? There's some bad people out there. And if they hurt you, if just being around them doesn't feel great a lot of the time... You can keep giving someone chances, and try to be understanding, and make excuses, and they'll... it won't change. They won't. You can only...

[Do what? Shin never found a solution. Far away, someone else's murder he had nothing to do with or knew about stopped it. A well he was throwing himself, piece by piece, down. Trying to pretend Midori was just bad with people, like him, that he didn't know rather than didn't care, worse than didn't care, found it fun... that maybe if Shin was patient enough and his friend enough, he'd understand and get better about it over time, and maybe, this was just what friendship was like?

It took long, painful time to realize it shouldn't be. The full extent of it. Left to inexpertly set the shattered bone himself in an empty apartment, going over it over and over. The creeping horror on realizing something that there might still be more, and that hasn't stopped now that he's dead. Maybe he's a little selfish, in his reluctance to open the box of more puzzle pieces, to let the thing lie dead.

He hopes it's obvious why he doesn't blame her for using the stick on him, why he wouldn't blame her for being sick of having anything to do with him, and why her words and actions now fill him with such ill fear. He really, really does.]

Ahaha, well, doubting others... I said I didn't want you to end up doing that, didn't I? S-sorry. For such a stupid pointless lie.

[He's had a few hours to go over it, hasn't had much of a choice really, and... while it had a point in being told to the school... what was he expecting would happen, telling it to her? He really should have just left or dodged the issue...]