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]

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]