![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madimpossibledreamer~dreamer~
Main Points: Persona 4 .hack inspired AU
chapter summary: yukiko and chie demand a few answers. in the past, souji chats with koual.
word count: 2120
rating: T
When he makes it to school, thoughtful and walking slower than usual, Chie grumpily gets up from her desk and stands in front of his own. “Grrr. Koual’s as much of a jerk in game as he is in real life.”
Souji blinks at her, then urgently asks, “Is he okay?” Had something happened to him after he’d left? Yosuke was an idiot.
“Wha? Oh, yeah, he’s fine, as far as I can tell. Finally got ahold of him today, which is different, even though he kinda blew me off with the reply. Did you actually get in touch before he went perm CP? How does that work when he’s actually contacting us again? Is that actually him, or are the rumors about gold sellers real?” She’s not usually one for asking a lot of questions before they can be answered, but she’s upset.
“I did.” By the surprise on her face, she’s never seen him angry. This is actually probably true. Before, no one had really been worth the energy. Being angry requires actually caring. Or the humiliation of a public display. “He ran away, saying I couldn’t help him. I found him again. And then he kicked me out during the middle of our conversation yesterday. Even though he knew I still had things to say.”
Her expression turns to sympathy and indignation on his behalf. “That jerk. Sheesh, what’s he thinking? Are you okay?”
“I’ll probably take a swing at him the next time I see him. But yes, I’m fine.” It takes him a moment to realize that he’s not joking. That’s a surprise. Violence was for commoners, but he’s not a Seta anymore, so their expectations should have no hold over him.
“I brought work for you to catch up,” Yukiko says quietly, holding out a stack of papers for him to take. Along with what looks like typed up versions of all her notes in the meantime. “I wasn’t aware until recently that you played innocent sin online. You should have told us. I don’t usually have time, but it would have been nice to have someone else to play with.”
A while ago, he would’ve been hesitant. His mind’s opened up since, and he’s a little more flexible. Dealing with Aon, for instance…the Spell means well, but he’s also prone to doing stupid things. It’s easier to deal with problems, to see things as less of problems and more just the eccentricities of the individual. So he doesn’t mind as much about admitting the truth, letting them know a secret about himself He even graces them with a rare smile. “I’d like that.”
That actually gets the few people sitting nearby buzzing. He didn’t really mean to, but it seems like he fit the stereotype of ‘mysterious transfer student’ over the last few months. He also, discreetly, rolls his eyes.
It brings up the question of exactly how he’s supposed to deal with all of this. Technically, it’s Yosuke’s secret to tell, and he doesn’t plan on bringing up their last topic of conversation before he’d been unceremoniously kicked out. At the same time, Yukiko and Chie deserve to know at least that playing the game could be kind of dangerous.
He bites his lip and thinks about Yosuke. Yosuke, brave, selfless idiot. He could be a jerk like Chie. Always so high-strung in real life. Trying too hard to be laid-back, but that was just a mask. And he could get ticked off, with Aon especially, but he was always so much better put together when he was playing. Even when he had his issues, he could work through them.
Without Yosuke, without Nanako, where would he be? Yosuke, you made me so much better. I don’t know if this is love, but…I can’t imagine not having you in my life. You’re right, I got to know you as Koual, but that doesn’t make you any less of who you are.
And he makes his decision. “During lunch, come to the roof. There’s things you should know.”
He trusts them not to be stupid about the whole CP thing, and Yosuke’s the jerk who couldn’t be bothered to figure out how to get out on his own to tell them himself. He won’t mention that Yosuke’s now an Immortal. That’s his deal.
Chie’s eyes widen, but she quickly sits down as Morooka enters the classroom and glares at them all.
Souji just stares back, respectful but not backing down.
School had never felt like it dragged on so much. Usually, Souji was interested in practically everything, but right now, he can barely concentrate enough to even take notes, and he realizes that others are noticing and whispering about it. It’s annoying, but then, he’d been missing for a few days (sick, but rumors about Innocent Sin Online, ironically enough, travel fast). He can always use the excuse that he’s sick. He’s not usually one for using excuses like that, either, but he’s changed so much since he’d joined Yasogami High in spring.
The second the bell for lunch rings, he’s efficiently packing up his things and breezing out the door. Yukiko and Chie are only seconds behind him.
“Okay, what’s so important?” Chie asks the instant they reach the roof and close the door. “Something about the whole CP thing?”
“The both of you were right. The entire rumor about being a CP is real,” he informs them. “Currently, Yosuke’s stuck in the game. I plan to get him out. It is not without its dangers, as you might expect with the whole ‘Coma Players are real’ part. If you want, you can help. Otherwise, just be careful if you plan to continue playing.” He’s not going to bother pretending he wasn’t CATMAN now.
Chie immediately starts chattering at him—rather like Yosuke, actually—while Yukiko is quiet. “Does it have to do with the Immortals, like the rumors say?” she finally asks when she can get a word in edgewise.
He nods, still cautious—but he needs allies. He can’t fight this war by himself. “I ended up fighting one. And I got pulled into the game.”
“But you’re back out of it!” Chie pokes him, as if assuring herself that he’s real. He chuckles. “How?”
He looks back on it. It doesn’t feel real. Like a dream. But it’s real, he reminds himself. He has a friend to punch, and rescue, and he’s not sure in what order he wants to complete those objectives. “Immortals can do that, apparently.”
“Which one?” Chie asks, and it’s then that he remembers, oh yes, trialofthedragon had posted on the threads arguing Fienahr was the best. Something about woman power in enemy variety.
He hesitates, then figures it’s an easy enough question. And will only implicate Yosuke if the damn kitsune actually feels like answering any questions.
Maybe he’s a little ticked off.
“Ceirahn,” he answers, and watches as her shoulders briefly slump.
“Perhaps you should tell us what happened,” Yukiko contributes softly, and he begins. There’s a brief moment of déjà vu before he realizes that the last time he talked this much, out loud anyway, was at the trial.
A sobering thought.
Previously:
He’s about to log in when he receives a message. “You might wanna stay off for the time being. There’s a really nasty virus going around that’s taking screencaps every couple seconds and posting them to chat or the forums if you’re connected. They might be going for passwords or account cloning.”
It takes him aback for a full minute before he realizes that he’s been consistent enough for Koual to have memorized his schedule. “So I guess we just type in forum chat, then?”
“Btr than u having ur info stolen” is his reply, at which he blinks. Koual likes to switch between typed out responses and barely readable near-gibberish, which has made Souji wonder whether he’s bipolar or just has a hidden lazy streak. It’s more likely the latter, from what they’ve said in various conversations, although from his depths of knowledge about the game you’d hardly know that.
“You continue to surprise me at how quickly you go from professional to casual,” he quickly types, eyes smiling, and instantly gets a reply.
“on break”
And then another one, “txh dad, ttly need shift not hmwk”
It takes him a minute, but annoyed as he is at actually getting used to it, he really is starting to get used to it. “You work for your dad?” Maybe it’s a mistake calling attention to the fact that Koual’s actually shared real information about himself, since it’ll probably get his friend to clam up, but he truly is curious. For once, he’s wanting to get his homework done. Which probably means it’s serious, which probably means he’s procrastinated enough it’s due very soon.
Also, he usually hates typing on his phone. It’s not fast enough to keep up with his conversations. He usually doesn’t like using his phone in general, but he’ll put up with it if it means keeping up with iso, a sentiment Souji is starting to understand and even agree with.
“Well, I appreciate the company.” He glances over at his work, but doesn’t feel compelled to start on it yet. He’s only a week ahead, which is not that much in the scheme of things, but he’s trying to stop pretending to be perfect, as perfection is unattainable.
And even, the newspapers all said, undesirable even if it wasn’t unattainable. He shoves the thought away.
“dude u shudv picked up an mmo b4.” The thought is enough of a non-sequitur that it does a good job distracting him from his morose thoughts. It’s interesting. Usually, Koual isn’t one to initiate topics.
“What do you mean?”
The next reply is five minutes away. Three minutes in Souji starts fidgeting and glancing over at his homework, wondering if he should start on it because Koual’s break is over or his phone got confiscated or something. “Well, think about it. I mean, yeah, you have to actually try like any friendship, but…an mmo is the same all over the world. People might be more shallow, sometimes, and sometimes people drop a game or whatever, but…you can form real friendships and no matter where you have to move as long as you’ve got the game and a computer with internet connection, you’re set. You don’t have to lose connection with anybody.”
He can’t think of what to say in response. Apparently it was an important enough thought that Koual had taken the time to write out the response poking determinedly at his phone’s keys. “Guess u nvr thought abt that? its whr I socialize, tht’s how i came up w/ it. Haha ;)”
It seems more like nervous laughter than what his online friend is trying to convey, so he responds with a smiley face.
“woah i broke hm. Snd help. O.o” he gets in response and grins.
Maybe Koual doesn’t want to talk as much about his father or life situation, and maybe that’s okay for now. They can leave the heavy conversations for later.
“I’m not broken, but it’s hard to tell emotions through text. It’s one of the most serious problems of the internet. Emoticons are an expedient way of expressing the emotions and trying to replace tone and body language in a medium where they are absent. They’re not perfect, since you can read it as sarcastic or other problems, but they are nonetheless useful.”
“…defensive mch?” Koual asks, and as much as he believes the generalization about printed text being inable to convey emotions, he’s interacted with the kitsune enough to know that his friend is probably feeling overwhelmed and a little worried. He hadn’t really meant to worry him.
“I like sprouting off random theories and facts, but I only do that when I’m comfortable ;)”
There’s an even longer pause. “mbbe too much”
“sry, gtg, breaks over”
“but ill be on after my shift if ur still up”
“i swear theyr workin me 2deth”
He smiles at the computer. Maybe he’ll ask Koual then about good ways to earn Trait cards. He’d expected to be able to level them up as well, given the length of the bars and the fact that new Skills were earned only every five levels, but then he and Nanako had found some Strength and Agility cards and had found that using them increased the Traits by one. The cards were rare enough drops, though, he was a little nervous. Maybe he’d research whether they were on sale at the Bazaar, or whether there were better areas while they were still stuck in Sumaru to go searching.
