| The Space Between Buildings; [Treo] | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Dec 30 2015, 03:24 PM (429 Views) | |
| Yes | Jun 12 2016, 10:12 PM Post #21 |
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They were doing this dance again. Despite his downplaying, this was something that affected him deeply, something to do with his uncle. The name Treo was probably a nickname or something self-assigned. Or he was pulling a fast one on him. Some things couldn't be said. Had to be said. The time and place were important, especially if it were so fundamental to who he was. But this was the time. This was the place. So again, Kumori would lead. If they didn't want this conversation to go to waste, they had to move out of their comfort zones. They had to delve deep, and Kumori needed to make his expectations clear. He closed his eyes. "I helped to kill Toru Watanabe. He had given up on himself. Everyone else had given up on him. He was going to bring us down with his sinkhole." That was his rationale at the time. He wasn't trying to justify it to Treo. It sounded like a borrowed phrase, something repeated, something echoed so often in private thoughts they they ceased to be words. It was a chant weighted with guilt. "I shot on him. I shattered his legs and blasted him with Megidola. My only regret was that I didn't aim to kill to begin with. And I hate that I measured a human life. And I know that it was the best I could do. And I know that there was no other way. And I resent that. And I will not let it happen again. It cannot happen again. We have... so much power and still we have Ruwashi Park. Nana Samurakami. Aleksandria Fyodor. Kyomu Monto." His voice wavered. "Kyousuke." This was no bargaining chip. He didn't bring Treo here to swap stories and confessions. To debate morality and hypotheticals. To tease apart puzzles and toy examples, moral quandaries, the stuff of philosophy classrooms, of seminars, of whimsical intellectual amusement. That passed the time. He was here to attain visceral understand. To push forward as far as he could. Both one another, and the ruins, and what lay beyond. Kumori was here to carve it all into his very soul. What fear remained in his heart ebbed away. He wouldn't run away. He wouldn't let Treo either. Treo was genuinely crushed knowing that they could not trust one another, but his instincts to control the interaction still prevailed. But here, they needed sincerity. They couldn't go back to where they were before and still say that their teamwork was growing, that they had somehow become more trusting, better collaborators, closer friends. If they were to speak as equals, Kumori would not have Treo set the pace of the conversation. No more lip service. No more artifice. "That's what drives me." They had to be true to themselves. "I can't do it by myself." Kumori shifted in the bench, leaned forwards as he folded his hands together, set his forearms on his lap, turned so that piercing grey would meet clear green. Treo was so much taller, but in that moment, Kumori seemed to match him. The presence he normally erased was out in the open. All pretense of sleepiness, quietness, pedestrian were gone. He was awake, intelligent, firm. Strong. "And that's why I'm being honest with you." They had to be true to each other. "I trust you, aibou." The first time he tasted Treo's nickname on his own tongue. He would not let the word be empty. "Do you trust me enough for me to understand you? Treo?" He had taken the first step. Treo knew what introduction Kumori was expecting now. It was up to him now. |
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| Dante | Jun 13 2016, 04:39 PM Post #22 |
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WHERE THE FUCK IS MARIO
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Finally after dancing around the point, Treo had been brought to the reason Kumori wanted to talk. It had all been a big game, a chessboard of interactions and questions leading to the final move. He sat and he listened. He did not offer an opinion, nor did he weigh his partner's words. Each word was taken in and considered. It was a long and storied speech, giving Treo time to construct his own opinion. Everything he had said was to lead. Kumori never lead but in this instance it became powerfully clear what his gameplan was. His eyes met Kumori's. It was if a lion had finally awoken. The boy did not seem to be passive, meek, led. Rather the opposite. They were equals. They stood together. Treo nodded his head and smiled. He seemed to smile a lot. Smiles help to disarm people, was it genuine? Was it simply a tic he had taken from someone else? But there was a reason to all this. To speak openly, to ask him to do the same. It wasn't forcing him to agree, it was forcing him to be honest. To finally come clean. To make that final step. It had to be here, in this park. "I think I do." He stopped smiling. Instead he was looking at him with intent green eyes. "As you guessed. Its not my name." He paused for a moment. "I know what you're thinking, but before you judge my actions, let me explain myself." He shook his head. "I'm... I've been pretending to be something I'm not. Pretending to be Treo. He's... kind of like my Persona. He's the person I pretend to be. I'm not some calculated manipulator Kumori, I'm not some... 'judge of evil'." He chuckled, then he laughed. "I know what you want me to say so I'm going to say it." He chuckled again. "I've been pushing the truth away every time you got close. Every time you asked the meaning, or why I had a strange name. The real reason I can't trust people, it all stems from what I chose to do. I chose to become someone else, so that I could handle the pressure that my life gave me. So I could take a new personality and move on." He looked at his feet. "Tell me aibou what good is trust when you can't even trust yourself? I couldn't take the last step because I was so afraid to throw away what I created." Finally he held out a hand. "My name is Trevor Ashdown. It is a pleasure to meet you Yatsu Kumori-san." |
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| Yes | Jun 17 2016, 12:29 AM Post #23 |
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Kumori smiled and accepted the handshake. "The pleasure is all mine, Trevor Ashdown-san. I trust that 'Treo' should be fine." The gentle rustle of leaves came to a stop as the branches stopped waving, the slight breeze settled down. The gentle sway of the grass stopped. Stillness. Calm. Kumori collected his thoughts as the passion began to drain out of him. He wasn't choosing his words as he pulled his hand away from Treo's, folded them in his lap, leaned against the bench's backing, let his head hang down backwards, curly hair hanging in the air, closed eyes facing the clouds. He unreeled the months behind them, every haphazard expedition, every meeting and source of speculation, every chaotic frenzy and quiet moment. "I suppose that explains a lot." He pulled his head forward but stayed leaned against the bench, meeting Treo's gaze. "If I'm not misremembering, we've had a similar conversation. Your Persona at the time... Perturbator, I believe. You felt you lost sight of who you were and what defined you. So I think that's always been in your mind." A second wind blew through, carrying the scent of freshly mowed grass with it. "I don't think you have a lot to be afraid of, Treo. We remake ourselves every day. And we don't spring from nothing. What we see, what we do, even if it is in imitation, isn't that fundamentally who you are?" Kumori yawned and blinked in dismay. "Some habits are hard to break. But we're always in the middle of becoming something. You can't just drop a personality like a tool, I think. You carry it with you even when you're through." |
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| Dante | Jun 19 2016, 07:48 AM Post #24 |
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WHERE THE FUCK IS MARIO
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"Treo will be fine. No need to buck the status quo just because of it. Besides, only you know and for the moment... I'd like to keep that way." The two returned to what would be called the status quo. Treo's shield went up, his rambling gave way to silence and for moment he was quiet. Doing the same as his partner. Remembering every little thing they had done together. Every discussion, plan, training.. He was about to speak when Kumori did, staying silent. "Percussor, it was called." He said with no real emotion. Reflecting on the past was not a comfortable thing for the wild card. He nodded slowly. "He was a manifestion of myself. Which admitedly sounds egotistical." He paused. "But it was... it wasn't me. It was what I thought I was." That seemed to cover it. He went back to being silent. The two had returned to a status quo, but Treo had not taken the lead. He would not take the lead until this was over. "I often described myself as walking across a sandy beach, every time the tide comes and washes it all away. But I was the person walking the beach, those experiences are etched into my body." He chuckled. "Its a bad metaphor. I'm not sure what I was thinking. I don't think I saw it as a mask Kumori, I saw it as a shadow to hide behind. To shroud my real intentions and emotions in a figure who was larger than life." The teen gave a yawn of his own. They were kind of infectious. "But then again, isn't that what we all do? Play up our strengths and present ourselves as the best we can be, because the part that hides behind it is like a festering corpse, we don't want to believe people want to see those." The teen nodded his head. "You can't. I don't think I ever did." |
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