RYSLIG | IC INBOX

[abysmalactor]

WELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE CHANNEL, neonewtheatre. FOR SECURE COMMUNICATION, USE 018.07.154.55 *** neonewtheatre has joined 018.07.154.55 <neonewtheatre> wwelcom one and aal to my sstage. <neonewtheatre> ill fix tthis later when my hands arnet mincmeat ok

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<neonewtheatre>

[abysmalactor]

[Sawatari's not really sure what to make of the message. It's been a while since he and Yuzu have had said anything to each other than small talk, cure shenanigans aside.

So when the message comes in the late evening, he's not entirely sure what to make of it.]

Huh?

[operadiance]

I heard everything. Did you think I wouldn't recognize you? Did you think at ALL? I spent so much time defending you, but I really was the idiot this whole time for trusting you in the first place.

Fine. Do whatever you want.

[abysmalactor]

Huh? Heard what?

[Seriously, what is she even talking about?]

I don't get it, what are you even saying?

[operadiance]

I'm saying
I hope whatever she offered you was worth what you gave up.

Apartment's yours.
I'll have my stuff out by daybreak.

[ YUZU...... ]

[abysmalactor]

Er...I didn't get offered anything, though...

[This is sounding like a buisness deal gone bad. But...]

Huh!? Mine?! Wait, where are you going?!

[operadiance]

Nowhere the Fog can go.

[abysmalactor]

so somewhere indoors?

[he is so confused. also he apparently didn't notice the capitalization there. er.]

i don't get why you'd have to leave the apartment for that...it's not because of the hole in my room's roof, is it?

[oh sawawtari, you card]

[operadiance]

You really are the stupidest person on the entire peninsula, aren't you?

I'm leaving because of YOU.

[abysmalactor]

HEY. It's not like I'm that dens

[wait. what. what?]

what did I even do?!

[operadiance]

YOU GAVE YOURSELF OVER TO THE ONE THAT'S BROUGHT US ENDLESS SUFFERING
THE ONE WHO TOOK AWAY OUR FRIENDS

YOU BETRAYED EVERYONE

[abysmalactor]

HUH?!

WAIT, BACK UP, I THINK THERE'S SOME KINDA MISUNDERSTANDING. I DIDN'T GIVE UP ANYTHING? ESPECIALLY NOT MYSELF. LIKE THE GREAT SAWATARI-SAN WOULD BE BEHOLDEN TO ANYONE!

ALSO I'D NEVER BETRAY YOU GUYS???? SERIOUSLY? WHERE IS THIS COMING FROM ALL OF A SUDDEN

[operadiance]

Don't you dare try lying to me
i heard everything
i know where you went
i know what you did

i hope it was worth it.

[ screw this. she has a whole ton of shit to move into the arcade. ]

[abysmalactor]

i

i think you're going to have to be a little more clear because right now it sounds like you could be talking about anything?

i mean if i did it i guess it probably was worth it because i totally don't do anything not worth doing, ha!

oh, uh. but i guess it made you mad, too, so uh...sorry, for whatever it is? Uh.

[operadiance]

[ It's probably for the best that she's not reading his messages anymore. She's already killed him at home once already.

But hey, it's not like she'll be hard to find, right? ]

[abysmalactor]

uh. yuzu? Yuzu?





Ten?

[after a couple more minutes of no answer from the text, Sawatari figures she might not be answering out of anger. Is she really actually packing up her stuff and leaving?

Time to check out her room and see for sure, he guesses. Oh god. Please don't let her set him on fire.]

[operadiance]

[ There's nobody there when he walks in. There's a radio playing quietly atop one of her dressers, but Yuzu isn't there. Neither are a lot of her things. The closet is open, scattered accessories along the floor, dresses that slipped off their hangers, but the bar itself is bereft of wardrobe. The bottles she kept on the bureau, gone. The case for her viola is still propped against one of the walls, and small knickknacks still litter many of the flat surfaces. Her bookcase is only halfway emptied, and all the dried wreathes and bouquets still hang from the walls.

A hurried move, but still in progress. ]

[abysmalactor]

[The room is seriously in disarray. He didn't expect it to be this bad. But on the other hand, it being this bad means he hasn't completely missed her yet. That...that's a good thing, right?

It almost feels like he's sealing his doom by stepping into the room, but he does it, feet clinking and scattering small accessories on the floor as he pads along. He stops at the bookshelf, tracing the spines of the remaining novels. The title of one of them seems familiar: a book about parasites. Ha. Wasn't this the one he tried to read last year, when they were all infected? He never really did get much reading done that night, did he?

They were able to joke around pretty easily back then, weren't they...? So what happened to change that now...?]

[operadiance]

[ The door closes behind him, untouched. The music is quiet, some old instrumental piece with heavy reliance on strings; the upbeat tempo is not comforting. The disarray of the room and the open drawers reveals some hidden and forgotten trinkets. On her desk, a set of curled white horns — the remnant of her time as a demon, made into a holy weapon as she exists now; the polished knives in the open drawer are likely Kurosaki's. A few sets of earrings on her dresser, some necklaces, an old pair of sunglasses. On the bookshelf, most have the bindings of published works, but the bottom shelf has only five spiral notebooks, several with slips of paper and improvised bookmarks sticking out from their pages. On her bedside table, two polished stones — chunks of amber, they look like, with small daisies laid to rest within their centers. They look strange: the amber is filled with little cracks that shimmer, like bolts of suspended lightning.

The door swings open. Yuzu crosses the threshold, not from the apartment hallway, but from a deep darkness, a stretch of black and electric light that seems to tunnel back eternally. She looks sick. The pallor of her skin, of her scales, the darkness around all four of her eyes — she'd barely seemed to be recovering from Kurosaki's disappearance when Yuya vanished, too, and the sickliness has clung to her like a cloak since then. The thinness of her face and limbs, the consequence of her self-imposed starvation, only worsens her appearance.

She is not well; she has not been well for a long time. Standing there against the deep black of that forbidden realm, anger in her eyes and twisting at her mouth, only seems to exaggerate her decline. ]

What do you want now?

[abysmalactor]

Eh? Isn't it obvious? I want an explana-

[The words come out of his mouth without thinking, before he can even turn around to face her. The book he'd been toying with, a finger on the spine tilting it somewhat out of place on the shelf, falls back into place, then topples over as he lets go of it.

Turning around, he's welcomed with a deathly apparition. Yuzu being pale with grief is nothing new to him, she's been bleached since Kurosaki vanished, and any color regained was lost when neither of them could find Yuya again. Since then, the freedom of not having to feel the hunger has seemed more like a curse than a blessing in Sawatari's eyes-it feels more and more like an excuse to not eat, to hurt, to waste away. Seeing the gradual changes day by day didn't seem like much, but now presented in front of him with all her anger, all her exhaustion, all at once, it's jarring and uncomfortable, and he wonders just how long things can really go on like this.]

...Jeez, Ten, you look horrible...

[Seriously bad timing on that, Sawatari. Even if your face is crumpling into resignation rather than anger, it's still really bad timing.]

[operadiance]

[ She bristles, pride alive and well; her tail flicks behind her, back and forth with aggressive threat. Her wings pull in tighter, and with a noise in her throat more animal than human, she strides into the room. She pushes past Sawatari with excessive force, snatching the two gems of amber from the side table with the priority of defensiveness. It's not until the stones are in hand that she glowers back at him. ]

Like I care what you think about me now.

[ But it is not anger alone: the redness in her cheeks, the over-brightness of her eyes, the way her arms tremble as she moves towards the desk — anger is the crumbling rock she clings to, rather than endure once again the storms of hurt. ]

[abysmalactor]

Whuf-!

[With all the fur on him now, and with how little Yuzu has been eating, somehow, it doesn't feel like it should have as much force as it should. Indeed, Sawatari only stumbles back, his own wings furling out somewhat to help balance him, clumsily knocking over the pair of sunglasses off the dresser.]

S'not like you ever cared what I think about you...Agh...seriously, I don't get it! What'd I do?!

[operadiance]

Stop it.

[ The room is unbearably warm. She answers with her teeth clenched, tail still swaying behind her. ]

You can't pretend you didn't know what would happen!

[abysmalactor]

What would happen with-what?

[He can't feel the heat, but there's sweat trickling down the back of his neck anyway. Hell...what did he do to get into this?]

Jeez...can't you just tell me what's eating you? You're acting like I should understand, but I don't-I can't figure it out!

[There it is, all over again. Yuzu refusing to communicate, Sawatari being unable to understand, just like the old days. Over and over and over again.]

[operadiance]

[ Too stubborn to change her path, to learn from her mistakes — burning bridge after bridge until there's no connections left. A volcanic island, isolated at sea.

There's steam in her eyes. ]

I was there, you idiot! Did you really think I would ever forgive you for joining her?

[abysmalactor]

Huh...? I haven't joined up with any...

[Joining her. Her. There's only one person-or well, he should say being-that Yuzu would be so vehemently biased against, and as he puts a hand to his chin in thought, it's easy to see the realization dawn in his eyes.]

Oh. Ohhhhhhhh.

[Oh. Right. Yuzu works there. Ha. She did spot that little meeting, didn't she? Sawatari chuckles awkwardly.]

So that's what this is about...