week four | mingle

[marriagebroker]

Final week at the estate! Final week with your friends. Final week with your beaus. Time to make the most of it, everyone!

In fact, to celebrate this fact, today there is a cake. It's nothing special, just a nice little cake to enjoy with your morning coffee or throughout the day. Yay, cake!

And when Wei Wuxian arrives that morning, he is going to call out once again for everyone to join him, near the cake.

"Everyone, I have another announcement!"

Hell yeah, announcements.

Boom Boom Room | Dates | Property Damage
Truth Booth Voting | Match Ceremony Voting

Comments

[irreversal]

[ Shoko, whether in a willful, stubborn attempt to ignore what's happening, or to break the tension - who knows - has her box of cigarettes in her hand, but is pointedly holding it away from Edamura. ]

Ah, ah. You have to ask me this time instead of pulling that shit from the other day.

1/2

[ordimame]

[her voice pulls him back from. . . wherever he had gone during those few quiet moments after his own secret had been read aloud. back from the sea of memories best left forgotten. . . ? it's hard to say. either way. . . he tilts his head towards her, expression softening, though it still remains fairly unreadable]

[ordimame]

[a sharp exhale. . . and he holds out his hand, fingers slightly curled]

Spare one for a guy who can't seem to quit?

[a pause]

. . . please.

[irreversal]

[ Without another word, she flips the top of the box open and slips a cigarette into his palm, pulling her lighter out of her pocket with the other and igniting it, so they can light their unlit cigarettes together. ]

Hah, your mom probably hates me right now.

[ordimame]

[. . . a soft exhale. something that is almost a laugh, and the light upward tilt of his lips is wry]

Nah. She wouldn't blame you for my bad choices.

[a pause as he inhales a deep lungful of smoke, the glow of the cigarette almost lighting up his features]

. . . she'd hardly blame me.

[kind, thoughtful, patient, loving as she was]

[irreversal]

[ She does the same, falling silent as she draws the smoke into her lungs and savors it, savors the way it burns and numbs at the same time, before expelling it through her lips. ]

She was a good woman, huh.

[ She waves her card at him - the one about suturing a friend's corpse to let a student take over it - just. To get it out of the way. To let him know just what her hands are capable of, after leaving his question unanswered the other day. ]

[ordimame]

She was a great woman.

[he says, exhaling smoke with each word. it lingers in the air around them like a heated fog before dispersing into the night. and before he can say anything else. . . she offers him her card]

[. . .]

[he takes it after only a brief moment of hesitation, flipping it over to read the words written on the front. a sharp inhale]

Shit, Shoko.

[what a fucking awful thing to have to experience. as if having to mourn the death of her friend wasn't bad enough]

[irreversal]

I told you, didn't I? You should be afraid of me...

[ there's a playful lilt her voice, but it's also... a tired sort of lilt, given in a half-hearted way. ]

It was the only way we could win against the King of Curses, though. Okkotsu... he knew only a monster could help beat another monster. So I helped turn him into one.

[ordimame]

[. . . . . . . . gods]

[another sharp exhale, jaw setting tightly, teeth gritted together. he crumbles the card into his free hand, knuckles white, lowering the one with the cigarette down to his side. mostly to get it out of the way so he can--]

[-- dive right into her personal space, slinging one arm around her shoulders, and yanking her in for a tight hug]

[irreversal]

[ —Oh.

Jeez, right after she'd told him he should be afraid of her... a hug isn't at all what Shoko expects, and she goes rigid in his one-armed grasp. ]

M—Makoto—!?

[ordimame]

[he has seen his fair share of monsters. wicked, twisted, corrupt individuals who pretty themselves up with wealth and power. he knows all too well what it takes to tear those people from their thrones]

[. . . her monsters may be different from the ones he has encountered, but. . . the sentiment is the same]

[and thus, he could never be afraid of her]

[even after Shoko stiffens, he doesn't draw away from the hug. if anything, his grip only tightens. words quiet. only for her]

You did what you had to do, didn't you?

[needs must. sometimes in the ugliest of ways]

. . . I'm just sorry that you had to do it at all.

[irreversal]

[ She did, didn't she? They didn't have a choice. They needed Six Eyes and Limitless to beat someone like Sukuna, needed that edge, no matter the cost they incurred, they needed everything they could pull. She knows that, and yet still—

Receiving each severed part of his body like they were mere playthings to be put back together—

Patching it back together—

Seeing how utterly he'd exhausted every fiber of his being in that fight—

Being unable to do anything despite being there, too—

It's a lot. And it hasn't really hit Shoko until now. ]

...Yeah.

[ Her steady voice falters just the slightest bit. ]

I'm not sorry. Like you said, it's— it's what I had to do.

[ordimame]

You shouldn't be sorry.

[he means that. he says it with every bit of his chest, words firm and unwavering, punctuated by another squeeze]

. . . but it's your right to feel however you want about it. Even if that feeling is. . . shitty.

[irreversal]

My right...?

[ To feel however she wants about it, he says, but up until now, Shoko had deprived herself of even that right. Gojo was their strongest sorcerer; the friendship they shared in their youth was only a memory, and had taken on a different shape once they graduated. He became... someone who practically didn't live in the same world as the rest of them, perhaps, but he also became a lonely man. She was, there, too, but... does she have any right to these feelings, when there was such a divide between them? ]

I... don't know how to feel, if I'm honest. [ a low laugh. ] Must be all the booze and smoking.

[ She says, like this isn't the exact reason why she self-medicates. Like she doesn't do it to keep those feelings at bay. ]

[ordimame]

[Edamura's weakness isn't booze, but the cigarettes. . . at his lowest he certainly was a chainsmoker. the heat and ash does numb the senses, doesn't it. . .? making it slightly easier to face the horrors of the world around you]

Yeah. It definitely is.

[but recognizing that is a lot easier than just. . . taking care of yourself, isn't it?]

[. . .]

[a heartbeat passes, and he draws away from the hug, leaving his hand resting against her shoulder as he lifts his own smoldering cigarette back to his lips]

. . . last one?

[a pause. and then, sincerely]

For real, this time.

[not just a light joke. not just a tiny jibe at their poor coping skills. a genuine promise that means a lot more than just quitting a nasty habit]

[irreversal]

...Yeah. Sure.

[ It doesn't sound convincing at all, but at least she does pocket the pack and her lighter for now. She straightens a bit as his grasp around her loosens, but she doesn't step away. Just stands there, appreciating the contact, the support, the solidarity. The understanding that her feelings about all of this will always be more complicated than she lets on, and that she's only barely scratched the surface. It was never something that was going to heal in the four weeks away from home, even if this had come up earlier. But...

...it helps, that it's not a burden she bears alone in her thoughts. ]

Stay here for a little bit? Just until we're done with these.

[ She's here if he wants to talk about his card, too, but she won't press him to. ]

[ordimame]

[she doesn't even need to ask!! but. . . his features do soften when she does]

I'll stay for even longer, if you want.

[deep down, he wishes he could help with more than just. . . this. give her something other than a shoulder to lean on, or someone with whom to share a quiet moment coated with cigarette smoke. but her world is so. . . incredibly foreign to him, that. . . this has to be enough]

[. . .]

[the hand on her shoulder lingers for a few more short seconds before he draws it back. his gaze flickers back towards his own envelope, sitting alone on the table, now that the others have been collected. a tiny sigh. . . and he reaches out to scoop it up, tucked between his knuckles before he holds it out for her to take]

[One of you killed your father. Or did you?]

[irreversal]

[ She doesn't say as much, but she's thankful for that offer. To stay. She only offers a small smile in place of words.

...

After a while, though, as he hands her what she presumes to be the card about him, she hums, speaking around the end of her cigarette: ]

...You said he left. Right around when your mother got sick.

[ordimame]

Yeah.

[a quiet affirmation of what she recollects from that conversation]

. . . but I didn't tell you he was in the same business as me, did I?

[not that Edamura had known at the time. . . nor was he aware when he delved into the world of con artistry himself. it makes him a little twitchy, to think of it as a "family business" when it is most decidedly not]

[irreversal]

...No, you didn't.

[ And Shoko won't call it a family business, either. ]

Must feel really complicated, huh?

[ordimame]

[wryly]

"Complicated" is one way to put it.

[exhales a long trail of smoke, flicking a bit of ash from the tip of his cigarette. maybe one day he'll tell her how he feels every time someone compares him to his father]

His stupid job is the reason he left. One of them went totally sideways on him, and he got arrested for a dumb crime he didn't commit.

[. . .]

. . . I'd feel sorry for the bastard if he had come around at all after he finally got out of jail.

[but from his perspective. . . ? even after being released from prison, his father had completely abandoned them. sure, he has his reasons, but those reasons weren't good enough. not in Edamura's eyes]

[irreversal]

But he didn't. Sounds like a coward to me.

[ Direct as ever. She has no qualms about calling Edamura's father as such. How does someone even have the balls to be a con man without being able to face his own family? She shakes her head. ]

So. [ She flaps the card in her hand again. ] Did you?

[ Did he kill his father? Or was this a roundabout way of saying that his father is as good as dead, in Edamura's eyes? ]