Pipipipipipi

[inthejunk]

Hanamura Yosuke. I can't answer right now, but if you leave a message I'll be sure to get back to you!

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[inthejunk]

Oh.

[Blink, yawn.]

Right. Yeah, of course not. Uh. I'll be over in a...mmf. You'd better give me half an hour. I don't even remember where my shoes are.

[reassures]

If I woke you then you don't need to come over now.

Or-- I could still go there, if you'd like.

[inthejunk]

It's fine. I'm awake now, right? But if you'd rather come here, I won't complain.

[reassures]

I don't mind going there. You won't have to find your shoes that way.

[inthejunk]

[He actually laughs, at that. And sinks gratefully back down to the table to try and work the kinks out of his neck again. Good, he doesn't have to go anywhere right now. That sounds nice.]

I'll just wait here, then.

[reassures]

Okay-- I'll see you soon.

[And she'll be on her way! And there in about 30 minutes I think? However long it takes to get from one place to the other, and an extra ten minutes to give Yosuke a little more time to relax.]

[inthejunk]

[He looks a lot better by the time she gets there. Hair combed, face washed...well, he's still rubbing his neck. But he smiles brightly when he sees her there.]

Please come in. I uh...I keep meaning to buy some better tea or something, but we just have the plain stuff...maybe there's a soda in there somewhere, though.

[He doesn't even shut the door -hey, Nill knows how they work, right?- he just turns back into the kitchen and starts opening doors. He gives up a minute later, with a shrug.]

I hope you're not thirsty.

[reassures]

[Nill smiles in return, of course, though it isn't quite as bright - she's slightly more apprehensive about this than her texts had let on. She closes the door behind her, thinking nothing of it, and wanders in after Yosuke to the kitchen.

She waves a hand quickly at his question though, smiling. No, she's not thirsty, it's fine. She can live without tea or soda - and honestly she doesn't much like soda. The carbonation bothers her.]

[inthejunk]

[That's good enough for him. He relaxes and stops trying to play a good host, instead dropping back to the chair he'd been sleeping in earlier and kicking out the one across from it for Nill.]

What's up?

[reassures]

[Nill takes the seat with a brief smile of thanks, and places her hands on the table. After a moment of looking at them, she pulls out her NV, the usual communication when yes or no answers were just too difficult.]

I never told you what my power is. [She pauses once he's read it, staring down at her NV.] So-- I wanted to tell you.

[inthejunk]

[Yosuke stares, for a minute. It's a complete surprise to him. For starters, he can't believe for a moment that he's never thought to ask.]

[He glances dumbly between Nill and her NV for a few long seconds, trying to think of a response. Finally, he settles for a nod.]

[reassures]

[Nill is very aware that Yosuke never thought to ask. She's pretty sure the entire fact that she could even have a power had just never really crossed his mind before, and that had served her pretty well - it gave her more time to figure out what the right and wrong things were in this situation, and what to finally do about it. But not it was a little awkward, because it was all the more obvious that she'd been keeping it from him.

Nill pulls her NV back to herself, and after a brief, nervous pause, she turns it off, and puts it into the pocket on her dress. Then she looks up at Yosuke again, and smiles.]

Hi, Yosuke.

[It's pretty strange, the voice that pops up in his head. More thought than actual voice, but it's obviously soft, slightly worried. Probably all the things that Nill's voice would be, if she actually had one.]

[inthejunk]

[Yosuke's eyes traced the NV right to Nill's pocket, and then wandered up to her face, confused. He's not sure what to expect. Fire, maybe? That one girl had been burping up fire, right? That would be pretty co-]

[-and then, he falls right out of his chair, knocking his chin off the table on the way down. He tastes a bit of blood, feels a little dazed, but mostly, he can't believe what he just 'heard.']

You can speak!

[reassures]

[Of all the reactions, Nill wasn't expecting that. She jumps up from her chair immediately and goes around the table to kneel beside him, and make sure he hasn't given himself a concussion or something like that.]

Yes-- but not exactly. There's more to it.

Are you okay?

[inthejunk]

[It doesn't even hurt, actually. Just in that far off way that doesn't matter. He's still too busy staring at her, though after a moment he shakes his head out and gives her a grin. It's silly to overreact like this. It was just the last thing he could have guessed for a power, but for Nill-well. It makes perfect sense, actually.]

I'm fine, it didn't hurt. You...could you always do that? And what do you mean, 'there's more?'

[reassures]

[Nill still seems to be fretting, looking him over and... possibly putting off the rest of the conversation, just a little bit. If that was his reaction to just "talking", then it wasn't going to be pleasant from hear on out.]

Yes. ...My powers manifested after I'd been here for a few months - so I've had them as long as I've known you. [Much longer than that, by the sound of things.]

I can hear things. See them, too. Even though I've had this power for a long time, and I can almost control it, I still can't totally turn it off.

[inthejunk]

Hear things? Like-

[Like, things that happen inside his head? She can see things that happen inside his head?!]

[The resulting wave of panicked images is as predictable as it is mortifying. Everything he doesn't want her to see vies for a front of the parade for the next five or six seconds.]

[It's best to take the opposing stairs at the train station because you can often get a flash of a girl's panties if she's wearing a short enough skirt and going down the opposite escalator. And also the most effective way to rub your thumb along the underside of...oh, god. Oh, god.]

[Yosuke grabs his head helplessly and makes a miserable sound.]

[The platform at the train station, again, and everything is spinning so badly that he has to hold on to the floor to keep from falling off. Gilbert is exasperated-]

[NO!]

[Head in a bucket, and Souji is grimacing, trying not to look. Sick as a dog, and -Ugh!]

[Shika. Shika, completely out of it. Talking about snow, and trains, and-ow. And holding on too tightly, super strength, Shika has some kind of super strength...no. No, not that. It's too close to-]

[-the window. All he has to do is remember not to open the window, and-]

[Yosuke groans, and gets to his feet, still holding his head. Something dark in his mind, but he shoves it, violently. Tries to snap down all the mental blinds and close up all the shutters, or at least stop thinking about this stuff.]

[The result is a really annoying song in both of their heads suddenly. But that's good, that will work. He just cranks up the volume. La la la, can't hear you, so you can't hear him!]

[reassures]

[This is a lot more like the reaction Nill was expecting (though dreading), but the sheer level on which it hits Yosuke and the resulting panic it causes surprises her.

Yosuke's thoughts have always been a little overwhelming for Nill, though. He has so many different feelings about so many different things that she's fairly helpless to block them out when he gets panicked, and so while he stands she stays where she is crouched on the ground, that strange, startled but not entirely with it look on her face. If Yosuke's actually paying attention, it probably won't help that he actually knows that face. She's made it a few times around him and she knows it.

But the train - that's nothing. Troubling, but Yosuke was a teenager, and Nill expected thoughts like that from him.

Gilbert helping him isn't so strange either, although it's funny to see Gilbert again like this after so long. And Souji; Nill has to swallow the bitter taste he brings to her mouth, because she's a terrible person--

But then it's Shika, and Nill understands what she's seeing, kind of. It's too fast, but it seemed... close enough.

Had Shika been high with Yosuke there? On more than just pot - that was the other stuff, wasn't it?

That dark thing in his mind nearly pulls her in, but Yosuke shoves it down and Nill pulls back enough that she doesn't understand what it means at all. Nill finally moves to stand, back in her own head properly, and gives Yosuke some strange cross between an apologetic and worried look.]

Yosuke?

[inthejunk]

[Yosuke doesn't answer her, though, not out loud. He shakes his head desperately and concentrates on the song. It's no good, though. He's already wavering a little with it.]

[Yellow eyes. His eyes. A ghostly liquor store, and a feeling of severe vertigo. Souji, again, like a big damn hero in the fog, all cool and-and who knows, because Yosuke blacks out at that point.]

[And then his eyes aren't yellow, they're just blank and cold, nothing reflected back, like a reptile's, and the blade of a kunai slashes forward, fast-]

[No! That one gets shoved away just as violently as the dark one from before.]

[A funeral, instead-no, the inside of a supply closet, the huff of his breath, too quick- no, the backroom of a department store, a girl smiling and hanging up her apron after work, saying something in Japanese-]

[Blood, and Shika in a puddle of it, writhing-]

[Oh, hell no.]

Out! Get out!

[But he doesn't wait for Nill to get out. Yosuke does it himself, jumping up and bolting for the door of his own apartment, shoes be damned. He knocks his shoulder off the wall, with his eyes squeezed closed that way, but he doesn't even stop to complain.]

[He doesn't stop at all until he's in the stairwell, locked out of his floor because he forgot his keys, and without his shoes or his NV. Tugging at his hair and panting a little, definitely looking undone to the surprised guy who was smoking in the stairwell.]

[Whatever, Yosuke has told that dude like 5 times that it's against the rules to do that, anyway. For the first time, though, the dude actually puts the cigarette out. It freaking figures.]

[reassures]

[Nill reaches out to put a hand on his shoulder, to try to reassure him, something - but before she can actually make contact there's another onslaught of images that she doesn't know what to do with and the whole thing is so overwhelming that that hand ends up gripping the table instead so that she keeps her balance.

It was fine. If she just concentrated then she could block most of it out, talk to Yosuke, something, but he was so much more emotional than so many people she knew, and it was hard-- Especially when Souji is one of the first things to show up again, and the bitterness rises in her throat like bile.

Too fast. Everything goes by too fast, and she barely has the time to register anything. People, Yosuke breathing, a pretty girl with a nice smile...

Then it's Shika - who is impossible not to recognize even under these circumstances - writhing in a puddle of blood, and no, Nill thinks that might be actual bile threatening to come up. She gets trapped in that image, looking over every detail of it as it burns itself into her mind.

She was definitely going to be sick.

But then Yosuke is shouting and Nill's head jerks up to stare at him when he runs - away from her, she knows, and Nill sinks down to her knees.

She hadn't wanted this at all... scaring Yosuke ('Again', she thinks, and instantly hates herself for it) was the last thing in the world she'd wanted to do, and now the poor guy was probably terrified she went snooping in his head.

It takes her a few moments, but once she recovers from the onslaught of extremely unpleasant thoughts Nill pushes herself back to her feet. She considers just leaving - it would be the better thing to do, wouldn't it? - but she notices the keys on the counter, and of course Yosuke forgot them. He'd ran out of there in such a panic.

She lingers inside for a few moments longer, giving him more time to calm down a little, before grabbing the keys off the counter and leaving the apartment.

It takes her all of five seconds to find Yosuke out in the stairwell, and when she opens the door she knocks against it with her knuckles so that he notices. Better not to catch him off guard, probably. Then she holds up the keys, and jingles them.

Just making sure you can get back inside later. She'll leave after that really she will.]

[inthejunk]

[Yosuke is slumped against the opposite wall by that time, and he startles at the tapping, and knocks his head off of it. He rubs the sore spot with a wince, but it does help to clear his thoughts.]

[After a moment of definite hesitation, he gestures to Nill to come in. Because he's still kind of seeing stars, here, and he needs to hold very still and not think about anything horrible for a few minutes. So she'll just have to come to him again.]

[reassures]

[Ouch. Nill winces a little herself watching him. Honestly, he seems like such a clutz sometimes, she's grateful he hasn't fallen down any stairs. ...that she knows of.

She waits, and then quietly steps over to stand and then crouch beside Yosuke. She smiles, and then reaches over to drop his keys into his lap - no words, no pulling out the NV, just a smile.

It probably looks a lot like the few she wore when Shika was gone.]

[inthejunk]

[Instead of reaching for the keys, Yosuke smiles a little shakily and drops his face into his hands, rubbing at the spot that hurts behind his eye when he screws something big up.]

Sorry.

[It comes out oddly hoarse, even though most of the shouting was in his head.]

I didn't mean to-ugh. I promise it's not always like that in my brain.

[reassures]

[Oh... Nill wasn't quite expecting that. She hesitates, before reaching over to lightly touch his arm. It's okay, Yosuke. You don't need to apologize, really.

Of course, it kind of goes without saying that she knows his mind isn't always like that. But it's probably not the best thing to say right now - she's fairly certain she shouldn't say much of anything.]

[inthejunk]

[He jumps a little at the touch, still half wrapped up in those thoughts from before. They get another violent, exhausted shove from him, and he focuses on the light in the ceiling instead. It hurts his eyes, but it keeps his mind clear of everything but dead moths. They really should clean in here more often...]

Does it hurt?