| Coming Back from the Brink; [Naoya wakes up. Open.] | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jun 27 2013, 10:50 AM (1,020 Views) | |
| The One True Nobody | Jul 19 2013, 10:47 AM Post #41 |
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"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
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"Sap ain't a bad thing, y'know, that's what they use t' make syrup for waffles and waffles with syrup are the shit, yo," Kyo said without missing a beat. "Yeah, dude, just say whatever ya wanna say however it comes out. Ain't like we're judgin'." Kyo paused. Her eyes lost what little humor they'd gained as she said that last. Was was an awful word. It implied that something had only been the way he described in the past. Kyo wanted to ask What happened to her? but restrained herself. She didn't want to push. And honestly if anyone pushed that question on her when she was pouring her heart out about Kenshin, she'd probably have slugged them in the jaw. |
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| RickenbackersAllTheWay | Jul 20 2013, 01:26 AM Post #42 |
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birb was here scruffs is a loser
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"And I know what you guys are thinking. What happened that caused everything to get fucked up. Just wait. I'm building it up by making her seem kinda sympathetic. After all, it's not like I'm the sort of guy you could see with a girlfriend, right? People used to be so surprised by that back in the days." said Charles with a shrug. "And I'll stop that before it gets sappy." Now for the hard part. Could he describe it again without breaking down? He described it to Ayane once, but that was it, and it was incredibly veiled at that. Describing how they first met was a good way to stall for time, though. "But yeah. We met in like, third grade? I was actually a quiet kid back then, gasp!" The boy made jazz hands to facetiously emphasize the mock surprise. He had to do his best to wave away any sort of tension in the mood, after all. "But yeah. I was as much of a shrinking violet as it got back then. I couldn't look most people in the eyes back then. Except her, because we did that little kid thing where you showed your feelings by being as mean as possible to one another. So I used to pinch her nose, she used to punch my arm a whole bunch, steal my food, and call me names. All that jazz. Then I moved away and didn't see her again for two years." Charles took a moment to compose his thoughts and let the two digest what he said. Memory lane was opening up again. And all the cars were still just as crashed and burned out as the day everything happened. "By then, I had soaked in a whole bunch of those cartoons about justice and superheroes, and I'd met Enrique by then. So I was still kinda quiet, but a bit more confident and a lot more upright in character. So I see her getting bullied and shit, some girls were talking shit about her 'cause she was Chinese, you know, yelling shit like 'chink, slant eye, gook', all that shit. So I try to step in but the time I got over, the girls picking on her ran away and threw her stuffed rabbit in some mud. So I figure, the least I can do is pick up the rabbit, and hand it to her, since she was too busy crying to do anything." A large grin and a slight chuckle overtook the tanned youth, as he scratched his head bashfully. The butterflies and the warmth of May's body flew back to his mind. That hug shattered any sort of wall stopping Charles from communicating with people and probably turned him into the person he was now. The shine of her bright eyes when she smiled burned the back of his brain. For a moment, he could see every moment she smiled at him flashing through his mind. The first time they kissed, the time they ate in the Revolving Restaraunt. When they awkwardly had sex for the first time, even. Then the hospital after his coma. Then when he rescued her from Enrique. Then. Lunch. And the last smile she ever gave him, as every bit of life leaked out of her as a red maelstrom that took his innocence with it. "You know, the look she gave me along with the really giggly hug still gets to me, even to this day. And this was like, five years ago this happened. But yeah. She stopped crying like right away and gave me like the world's tightest hug and the world's most sugary giggle." Being a kid was a really fun time. Everything seemed so easy and straightforward. A crush was just someone who you pecked on the lips sometimes. Fights were just little scuffles where you punched each other once and that was it. Not like all this adolescent bullshit where teenagers magically became cave people because of their hormones. No. Being young was fun. Maybe that's why Charles strived to maintain his inner child. It was easier than this shit. Or he couldn't let go of the past. Either or. He shook his head a bit as he laughed at himself again. "The funny thing is, I couldn't recognize her at first. But when she laughed at me, I remembered it as the one that I heard when I got punched in the arm or when I got called a name. So you wanna know what I did next?" Charles braced for a reaction, hoping he had stoked them up with anticipation. |
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| Czernobog | Jul 20 2013, 09:43 AM Post #43 |
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Best Influence.
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Naoya could grasp what Charlie was talking about, even if only loosely. Whatever it had actually been, to Charlie it had been this perfect series of moments, tarnished near the end by some grievous event. This girl -- Mei -- had been his first love and it had proceeded for a long time before it actually blossomed into anything definite. They had been passing each other like a pair of celestial bodies in the void, captured by one another's gravity and then spiraling closer and closer and closer, revolving about one another, their course altered forever. Of course, the only option there would be either stability or destruction; but even destruction could be a positive act of creation, properly handled. He drew breath to speak, but stopped. He didn't actually have anything to say at this point -- he was an audience, now, not an adviser or teacher or confidante -- and that was what he needed to be, for himself and for his friend, so he left it to Charlie and Kyo to speak. Maybe she would have something productive to say, but Naoya was worried about his own impulses: jealousy, voyeurism, and all the other small and petty and harmful things that slid without his permission through his leaky brainpan. He nodded, showing that he understood. |
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| The One True Nobody | Jul 20 2013, 12:22 PM Post #44 |
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"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
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"...Didja pinch her nose?" Kyo asked with a somewhat exasperated chuckle, although there was some degree of envy in it. As dear as she held every memory of her time with Kenshin, and as dear as she held Hiroko and the memories she was still making with him, Kyo didn't have anything quite on this level yet. There was no long-standing, long-lived childhood crush that had blossomed into anything, and her time with both of her boyfriends--with Kenshin while he was alive, and with Hiroko so far--wasn't very much time, when she got right down to it. And her own childhood was quite empty, barren of any meaningful relationships at all. The question was more of an obligation on Kyo's part than anything, though. She didn't want to speak, didn't have anything productive to say, felt more and more out of her element the more Charles spoke. It was clear that thing had almost certainly grown to a point between Charles and Mei that far exceeded anything Kyo had ever known with either of her own two boyfriends. On the one hand, she wanted to know what that felt like. On the other, she knew that this story was going to end in crushing loss. She tried not to think about that, and focused on the memories Charles was sharing now. Happy, fond memories. The things that made that loss as sad as it was--there had to be something of value in a person before their removal from someone else's world could qualify as "loss," after all. Edited by The One True Nobody, Jul 20 2013, 08:27 PM.
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| RickenbackersAllTheWay | Jul 21 2013, 05:12 AM Post #45 |
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birb was here scruffs is a loser
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[Bog, I hate you. You're not allowed to summarize my character's feelings better than I can.] "Fuck you, I was supposed to say I pinched her nose. But yeah. I pinched her nose and she gave me another hug. And then she glowed red for a while. Then her brother picked her up. Then we hung out the next day." Despite all the traumatic things, Charles still appreciated the childhood he had. It wasn't the best one, but he had some great and fulfilling times. He had a good group of friends, he had a really good girlfriend, he got into a whole bunch of activities, and developed quite largely as a person. All in all, minus the scarring, the physical and mental torture, the murders and death, and the cynicism earned from it, it would've been the perfect way to grow up. "But. Yeah. As good as that childhood was, the bad was bad. After... Enrique went nuts and shit, uh... Fuck." Charles rolled his tongue in his mouth a bit. The sequence of events was a bit odd. But he had to kinda remember now how it went. It was still a bit of a blur, honestly. "He kidnapped May, long story short. I kicked his ass, but not after getting stabbed and shit a whole bunch. I carried her home. I think her parents didn't want me around any more. But she inherited my rebelliousness and hate for authority and still hung out with me anyways. Keep in mind, she was that stereotypical Chinese girl that got straight As and read as a hobby too. It surprised the hell out of me." He bit his cheek and wiggled his nose a bit. "But that's off-topic. Gotta get to the money shot. So, after a while, her parents were good with me again. We ate lunch for the first time in ages, since her family ran a Chinese restaurant. It was a really sunny day." The reminiscing teen closed his eyes to recall the day as much as he could. "Pork dumplings, barbeque pork fried rice, and some steamed buns. She was eating some waffle eggs and a little bit of chicken on steamed rice. Her perfume was peach and strawberry scented, and it was a brand she got from my mom. Beige turtleneck, black skirt and pantyhose. We were talking about how I was going to get into track again and maybe do some wrestling. She told me about how she didn't feel scared around people anymore because..." "Thanks, Chucky. I'm glad... You helped me... I can stand on my own two feet now. After everything I went through and survived, I know that I'll be safe. Just as long... As you're around. You're like a superhero. And I love you." "She called me a superhero and said that I was what helped her stand on her two feet. And then guess who showed up right after she said that?" Now the memories were full force. Charles could feel his stomach coursing and his arm stinging again. The sound of breaking glass and gunshots once again were ringing in his ears. All the smells and sensations all again. They were all mixing into a general unease that he couldn't even distinguish elements of anymore. "Enrique does. Starts rubbing a knife-" He pulled his butterfly knife from his pocket. It was red and gold, in alternating ridges up and down the handle. For the most part, it was a normal knife. But owned by a certain someone that elevated its value. "This one, right on the window next to us. Then, right as he's about to run in, a car stops right outside. It pops the windows down." Tires screeching and rubber burning. Then, gunpowder and shells flying to the floor. All hell broke loose again, in the back of the boy's mind. "It was a driveby. But one of those drivebys that hits everyone but the person it was intended for. A rival gang decided to pick off Enrique that day. But they missed. I took a bullet to the arm and some glass to the face and I dived down a good few seconds early. May just barely turned her body over and..." He could see her smiling face. In full vivid detail. The flesh of her jaw was missing. Blood was splattered around her face, taking away from the slowly cindering life in her eyes, as they twitched in their sockets. The girl whimpered in pain for the last few moments, in a vain attempt to speak. Her sweater was leaking scarlet blood out onto the floor, and he could feel the exit wounds on his palms. But she still smiled, like the young girl he knew as a child. And every moment of happiness, every kiss, every hug, every single sign of embrace and love was in his arms. Twitching like a fish gasping for air, only to leave him with the most haunting words of his life. Barely audiable to him, but he still remembered her pained voice as she strained to finish her sentence. "I love you Charles." "Just like that. She was gone. In front of my eyes, when I couldn't do a goddamn thing to save her or help her or fucking anything." He stared at the floor and went silent. His nose was running, and his sniffling was starting to get louder and louder. The sound of tears on the linoleum filled the void of silence that his voice left. He dropped his knife to the ground. Edited by RickenbackersAllTheWay, Jul 22 2013, 12:26 AM.
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| Czernobog | Jul 21 2013, 05:05 PM Post #46 |
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Best Influence.
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[I refuse.] Naoya listened attentively, without interrupting, and just soaked up the story Charlie was telling. The sudden appearance of a drive-by shooting at the end of the story surprised him, but he supposed it was entirely appropriate, somehow. Charles and that innocent family being punished for someone else's actions, as the innocent or nearly-innocent so often were. He was silent for a long moment, then decided that it would be inappropriate for him to simply remain quiet. He instinctively jerked toward Charlie when the other boy began to cry, reaching out to loop his arm over Charlie's shoulder. Of course, this was now the second time he had forgotten he had an IV in his arm, and he stopped as soon as he got some tension on it. He slapped his hand down on the needle and hissed. "Shit!" Naoya frowned at Charles, and said: "Goddammit. Charlie, get...er...get over here so, so I can give you a fuckin' hug." |
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| The One True Nobody | Jul 21 2013, 05:29 PM Post #47 |
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"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
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Kyo's face faded through a spectrum of subdued emotions, emotions she was obviously trying to keep back for the sake of being a respectful audience--but hiding her emotions, when she wasn't deliberately in that frame of mind where she wanted to deceive someone, and sometimes even then... that was something Kyo just didn't do very well. She snickered a bit when Charles confirmed the nose-pinching moment. The image she had in her mind (which substituted Isoroku's face for the unknown face of Mei) was just plain adorable, really. Her expression turned flat and stony when it came to the kidnapping portion, and then tentatively relieved when that, at least, ended well. A smile--strangely nostalgic--appeared on Kyo's face in response to Mei defying her parents' wishes to hang out with Charles anyway. And then the drive-by shooting. The end of Mei's story. Kyo's visible right eye flashed yellow and her face gave a twitch. "..." She remained motionless, letting Naoya have the friendship moment. For Kyo's part, her arms felt leaden. She couldn't help--as she so often did--placing herself in Charles's position, imagining herself in exactly the same situation with the closest thing to the same feelings she could approximate in her imagination. She also had a vivid enough imagination, and enough knowledge of what grievous injury looked like, to imagine what the scene must have looked and felt like, physically. After a moment, she had to close her eyes, and put a shotgun round in this line of thought. Her eyes were starting to tingle. |
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| RickenbackersAllTheWay | Jul 25 2013, 03:09 AM Post #48 |
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birb was here scruffs is a loser
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At the current moment, Charles' head felt like it was spinning in circles again, in the same way it did after the shooting. The floor was wobbling immensely, his heart was bending and weaving around like a flag in a tornado. His brain felt like it had been pulled apart and the pieces were now just flying around. All he could see right now through his teary eyes was the wreckage of his childhood and happiness all flying around and crashing before him. "There's no place like home. If I click my heels and wish to be home, I'll be home. And I'll wake up and this'll all just be a crazy dream." said the boy absentmindedly. As Naoya strained himself for Charles' sake again, he moved himself forward and wrapped his thin scarred arms around his friend. Might as well give him something. Since he could never repay his friends with anything but words and dedication in the first place. Or save them from themselves or anyone else. "That was something I said to myself a week after all that shit happened. It didn't help anything, but it felt like peace of mind at the time." Charles wiped his eyes and looked at Kyo. She was showing a lot of strain right now, from what little could be gleaned from her silence. She was smiling for a bit, but now she just kind of face twitched too. It seemed to peak somewhere around shooting and kidnapping, but who really knew what made her feel how she did? Her feelings are feeling right now and her eyes are twitching now. "This shit hurts, don't it?" said the boy, reaching over to pat the girl on the back. "But you know, it was moments like this with people like you two that kept shit okay. So don't let my stress and grief and shit get you down too much. I'm just kinda fucked more than I let on. That's all." |
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| Czernobog | Jul 25 2013, 09:17 AM Post #49 |
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Best Influence.
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"Get y'r ass over here, Charinko-san," Naoya gruffly, wrapping Charles in a one-armed hug that took a little bit of its technique from a headlock. Given how much time he had spent lying in this bed not punching hot metal into the desired shape, his grip was a bit weaker than it would have been otherwise. The intention was clear -- less simply to be close to his friend, and more to grab him and hold him steady. The pressure he applied was a reminder: Stop. Be here. Occupy the present moment. He was silent for a second, then said. "Y' don't have to, y'know, t' continue if'n y' don't want to, Chuck. 'S okay." |
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| The One True Nobody | Jul 25 2013, 10:43 PM Post #50 |
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"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
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Kyo chuckled a bit, and stood up just long enough to sit back down near enough to be included in the group-hug moment. "Agh, don't mind me. Just have this thing about picturin' myself in other peoples' shoes. Sometimes I picture it a bit too hard, is all. That and--" Her voice faltered. But, it was something she needed to admit. "--I found my first boyfriend's body after he was killed. There was--there was a dog eatin' his face. Stray dog. Skin and bones. They always usedta call him a stray, come t' that. So--yeah. My own bad memories sorta got all jumbled up in yours, I guess." She paused, and then added: "I... usedta tell myself the same. That maybe it was a dream, I'd wake up and it'd all be fine again. I never did." You know, sugar, it's not often you're the least-fucked person in the room, Nevan put in out of nowhere. You really should savor this moment. ...Was that an attempt at another sex joke? Shut up, I'm not in the mood. Spoilsport. "...Anyway, what Naoya said. Go on or don't go on. I ain't pushin'. If ya wanna save the rest for another time, I'm cool with that." |
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