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madimpossibledreamerchapter summary: yosuke and souji start dealing with their fears. in the past, nanako and souji finally get to play iso and meet someone familiar.
word count: 2210
rating: T
notes: upon rereading i notice i had a different kitsune run into a wall earlier, too.
The next time Yosuke wakes up, he wakes up slowly, and there’s no sudden realization in his eyes. By the haunted expression, Souji guesses correctly that Yosuke remembers everything.
“I don’t remember everything,” Yosuke corrects, voice dead and distant. “I remember enough. I did horrible things, and yet…you saved me. And probably a lot of other people.” His tone says that these other people are worth a lot more than he is.
“I saved you because you’re my friend.” With the look he’s getting, he’s coming across as an absolute child. And perhaps he is, really, with regards to friendship, but that’s why it means all the more to him. “What do things like friendship mean, if we treat them as mere words? If we’re not willing to back it up?”
He takes a deep breath and realizes his hands have begun to shake. He’s nervous and exhausted and, oh yeah, he nearly died or worse, but. “I said I don’t blame you, and I meant it. I love reading. You know that. I picked up one of the Lovecraft translations, and the things that happen there…the world of HP Lovecraft can come across as one in which we’re all helpless dolls, twisting in the strings of the puppeteer. But I read another one, and you can fight back. Maybe it’s a delaying action, only, but we can choose to hope. Here…Here Philemon’s giving us the tools to fight back. It’s not a lost cause. We can’t see the end from here, and that’s scary, but. Nanako’s writing about hope, and how can I…”
He puts up a hand to the fur on his face, astonished. He’s nearly crying. His tail is twitching up a storm, and Yosuke’s watching him with muted panic on his face.
“…how can I write off anybody as a lost cause? How can I give in to despair when Nanako…?” His voice seems loud, but the way Hanamura makes a face, he’s barely heard.
Yosuke sits up on the couch and gently pulls him down to sit, awkwardly patting Souji’s head with one hand and putting the other around a shoulder. He’s still being careful with the claws, but Yosuke is nice and warm and if he buries his head in the brunet’s shoulder at least the guy can’t see him cry.
He’s bawling and what he’s saying has pretty much turned to gibberish. His tail (which, it’s still weird that he can feel it there just like another limb, just like he’s been a catperson all his life) has wrapped firmly around Yosuke’s arm like he never wants that hand to stop moving in his hair. It’s weirdly comforting.
“My parents, and everyone…everyone sees me, and they see them. I don’t want to be them! I won’t be!” He’d kept up that look of respectability all through the trial, just like they would’ve wanted. Why try to make them proud, though? When they would’ve abandoned the boy next to him to his fate? When they’d look down on Nanako, for all her intelligence? When his mother acted like his uncle was beneath her, contagious with something? Humanity? When his uncle was the only adult figure who’d even made him feel adequate, like love, pride, wasn’t conditional? Like flaws weren’t something to be ripped out, just something that marked him as human?
He feels Hanamura stiffen beside him, then a short laugh that sounds much more like the flawed guy he’d met in the real world so very long ago. “You never really did tell me about your parents, but then, I guess I didn’t give you a chance to.”
He backs away, looks at the face beside him in astonishment. It’s amused, alive, warm and fond.
“Don’t worry, I haven’t lost myself to my dark side or anything. It just…it reminded me of something someone said once, when I first came to Inaba. ‘Parents are parents. You are you.’” Suddenly Yosuke looks sad, lonely. He’s staring into space, and suddenly he’s not sitting beside Souji anymore, but he’s somewhere else. Is that…is that what looking like being in a coma is? Because I don’t like it. At all. Souji’s tail gets just a little tighter around the arm, and suddenly the brunet is back.
“I won’t lose myself again. Now that I’m not working for Nyarlathotep anymore, he shouldn’t be able to get into my head. And…” Maybe in the real world the sniff would be weird or creepy, but here, where Souji’s a cat and can suddenly smell everything, it just makes sense. “…And I was right.” That’s a smug smile. Since when did the grey-haired student miss it? “You suddenly smell of the Lost God. So when I pledged myself to you, I basically allied myself on the other side. That’s protection.”
Souji can’t help it. “So, did you basically just get engaged to me?”
“Wh-wha…” He could’ve predicted the spluttering and blush, and notes the exact second the brown eyes spot the mischief in the grey ones. “D-dude! Seriously, that’s just…you’re a jerk, you know.”
“I’d prefer that, actually. To…to the alternative.” Souji shivers, and Yosuke tries to stand. The tail doesn’t want to let go, though. “Where are you going?”
“I was trapped in the game for weeks,” Hanamura states, matter-of-fact. “After a while, I didn’t need to sleep, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t notice the temperature or anything. I’m actually reasonably comfortable now, and your fur probably means that you’re not actually cold, but that doesn’t mean that a blanket wouldn’t be nice right now anyways. And then we can talk about what happened to me and—yeah, okay, if we have to we can talk about what Ceirahn said. Which, yeah, I know, Ceirahn is me. It’s weird and complicated.”
Yosuke returns with more than just a blanket. He’s holding a plate with a couple slices of pizza in his teeth and a couple cans of soda in either hand. He looks ridiculous and disarming, and suddenly Souji’s stomach rumbles.
“Yeah, I got hungry. But it sounds like I wasn’t the only one, so let’s just chalk it up to proper planning, okay?” He holds the food out as much as he can without dropping everything, and Souji quickly stands and grabs the food from the brunet. He isn’t given much time to get it out of the way before the blanket is being carefully arranged around his shoulders, and that makes him suddenly feel warm and at ease. Yosuke bites his lip as he inspects the arrangement, and Souji’s almost reluctant to disturb it.
Almost. But a hungry stomach waits for no one.
He should maybe post that and see what responses he gets. It sounds cool. …If he can even log out. It’s not happening yet, but he finds he doesn’t care too much, for the moment.
Instead, he reaches out and grabs one of the slices, to Yosuke’s dismay. “Dude, you’re not getting everything! That’s my food! I paid for it. And I was gonna share, but if you’re going to be a jerk about that, too…”
The clawed hands could skewer his own, but they’re gentle as the two of them fight over the remaining slices. He’s almost so caught up in it he doesn’t realize that he can taste the actual flavors, and they’re practically indistinguishable from the real world. The only difference, possibly, is the addition of a cat’s sense of smell. There’s probably a difference in taste between cats and humans, but he can’t really compare the two at the moment.
Yosuke practically downs the soda and licks his lips. Then he burps and colors again. “’Scuse me.” He earns a pat from a sleepy Souji. I should’ve remembered that, given that I’ve fed cats.
Souji feels the stare, but he’s too tired to have the conversation right now. He lies down on the couch instead. It’s fairly comfortable, and it smells faintly of Yosuke. His tail hangs off the side, and even though he doesn’t usually sleep on his back, today it just feels right.
He feels no fear as the gauntlet scratches behind his ears. The world just slips away.
Previously:
It’s a good thing that he’s played the game before and read a few of the posts, or he’d be surprised when they load into what looks like a main area in the starting zone before they start the tutorial. Nanako blinks, looking a little shocked at how crowded it is, and shuffles a little closer to him.
She giggles a little as a male Kitsune runs into the opposite wall, though.
‘whoops ignore that folks autorun accident’ quickly pops up in chat, but really, that’s not what catches Souji’s attention.
It’s the name of the character.
‘Koual?’ he types quickly, making sure to correct the mistake, and sends.
The kitsune turns to face them, and it’s really…distinctive, for lack of a better word.
Like most kitsune in humanoid fox form, it’s hard to tell gender, but whatever it is, it’s certainly pretty. Or handsome. Or both, really. The auburn fur looks soft, pettable. Interestingly, too, there are tattoos, visible marking fur and skin, one marking the kitsune as a kitsune on either cheek and two on either shoulder. The fur is a little longer on the top of the head, looking a little more like hair, complete with bangs. The outfit is probably hardly a character creation thing, but even that is well-coordinated, some sort of steampunk design. (At least, that’s what Souji thinks it’s called. He doesn’t pay too much attention to these things.) There’s a sleeveless leather jacket with a lot of buckles, showing off the shoulders. The pants have several pockets and are a little looser than one would expect from leather pants, but they still look good. (Maybe it’s to accommodate the three tails sticking out the back.) And a belt helps keep it in place. Brass goggles with gears and other designs rest just below the ears, upright and aware. The boots are also metallic, rather than leather, with the same odd designs on them.
For someone who doesn’t ‘like to put too much thought into something that’s supposed to be fun’, or however the ‘friendly neighborhood kitsune’ had put it, the player had obviously spent a lot of time on character design.
“This is one of the people who was helping me learn about the game,” he tells Nanako. It feels a little weird to admit he needed to ask for help, but on the other hand, it’s not as if he’s not working to swallow his pride when it’s not needed.
‘I’m sure you don’t recognize me, since I didn’t have a character when we talked, but I’m S,’ he types further, and soon gets a response. Koual seems to be just as fast of a typer, but then, it would probably come in useful in a game where communicating with people you can’t see is a daily (and probably urgent, judging by the thread about dungeons) occurrence.
‘Oh, man, hey! Nice 2 cu! ;)’ is the response. ‘Interesting 1st Type choice most go for human for their 1st char.’
He can’t fully translate the texting gibberish, but he has enough of an idea to be able to respond. ‘Actually, my first character was a cat, but that was just to test it to figure out how it works.’
‘Wildren, huh? Adventerous! Or mbe u just have a cat prob…’
‘There is no such thing.’ He responds quickly, and gets a smiley face in return. It’s easy enough to interpret, and shows that there’s no hard feelings, despite his lack of experience showing his true feelings.
‘So, whos ur cute friend?’
‘My sister,’ he responds, and suddenly the text-speak disappears.
‘I wasn’t lying. She’s adorable. B-’ A second later, he finishes. ‘I hate accidentally hitting enter. But I’m not hitting on her or anything, don’t worry about that!’
‘Well, good,’ he types, allowing a smile to show on his face.
‘I don’t know if you’re against it now or anything, but I could maybe help you guys through the tutorial and show you some good starting missions?’
‘I’ll trust that you have no ulterior motives,’ he types, but doesn’t hit send yet. He turns to Nanako. “Do you want to play with him?”
She looks torn.
“Whatever you say is fine,” he reassures her. Koual had been a very friendly, helpful player, but it’s not like he really knows the other that well or anything.
“I…I kind of wanted to play with Big Bro, but I’d like to meet his friends, too!”
It’s not as if they’re friends, but he doesn’t particularly want to disillusion her on that front when he’s started to convince her he’s a human being.
She reaches over and hits ‘send’.
‘haha I’m not the one who’s attracted to cats trust me’ is the response he gets.
‘I like to get to know a lot of people, that way I can group whenever anyoen’s on. Not like I mind soloing but it’s less fun, you know?’
Maybe it’s his newfound realization of the fact that he’s lonely, but he senses loneliness from that message. Instead of sneering at it, he feels what can only be…sympathy.
