Hikaru Shinta (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
icarusalsoflew) wrote2013-12-24 01:52 pm
icarusalsoflew) wrote2013-12-24 01:52 pm
003. and in every raindrop... // open post.
Take a prompt, take some time, drop in as you like. If you're from Eudio, though, mosey on down here.
Take a prompt, take some time, drop in as you like. If you're from Eudio, though, mosey on down here.
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[ Brig had been busy at the bar, talking to Becket Duskrider, and the others were winding down.
He tosses Hikaru a smile just then. Just a small one. ] Thank you, by the way.
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[Mm, coffee. Coffee is great.
He'll congratulate himself later for sounding calm, unaffected.]
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Josh just shrugs. ]
Just... thanks.
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You came all the way here to say that?
[In retrospect, maybe he should have ordered the boy's geist to keep his kid off of his back for at least 24 hours. (But he doesn't like doing that at all. Hits too close to home. Reminds him of way too much.)]
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And then he gets up to make his way to where the food is. ]
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...Seriously? It's hard to resist the urge to sigh, and rub out the building ache between his temples.
He quite possibly did not have the spoons for this. At all.]
i am so sorry this is so kalat.
And then of course there's one other truth: no matter how different two people can be, there's always something that echoes from one person to the next. It's just not always that obvious.
Take Yulia for example. Josh will never tell it to her face, but part of the reason that he's personally decided never to push too hard when it comes to her opening up about past is the truth that, he might never have lost people the way she lost the blade she used to run with -- but to some degree the cards she's been dealt are cards he sort of knows as well.
She won't think them the same, the paths they'd walked prior to that fateful meeting on the plane people would say were as different as morning and evening. She had wanted to be the best hunter that Jotunheim could offer, he had gunned for pro football. But night and day share the sky, and in a manner of speaking, they'd both had teams to rely on, to care about, to lean on when support was necessary--
--and in both cases, those were snatched away by things neither of them could control.
But of course, all this is his personal take on the matter.
Josh is thinking on this as he walks over to the tables, ducks his head in a shy greeting to the staff before he starts scooping food onto his plate. He doesn't rush, but he doesn't hurry either, as he gets a modest plateful of food before finally wandering back to Hikaru, offering an easy smile as he sits again. ] How's work?
[ He doesn't have any illusions that Hikaru knows why he's here, or that the Blade King probably thinks of him a person with zero survival instinct given how he'd had the gumption to stare Dearth down in that classroom in Korea, telling him no, not this one; not today.
But there's one thing that's been going on in his mind ever since they got back -- Hikaru walking off right after Brig had spoken words that had made the Malice King look just about ready to cut something. Or someone.
There's no chasing if you're the one doing the running. He turns to his own cup of coffee then, sips quietly at the hot liquid as his own words from the Saturday before come back to rattle around in his head. ]
but it's pretty!
[Kid was in lockdown, university was being restored, students and faculty were being processed, and the media machine was in full swing. There were also several chat boxes blinking on his screen, waiting to be acknowledged.
Aria: Heard about Korea. You okay?
Kang Dae Moon: Respectfully, sir, if I may be so forward... I worry for you. Is there nothing else that I can do for you at the moment?
Alistair: Wings activated. Kid let it. Your take's appreciated.
Satsuki: Please forgive me for my impertinence, Hikaru-san. I am merely wondering why you have not been responding to any of my messages as of late. Would it be all right if we could arrange for a meeting soon? We can take your schedule into consideration more than mine.
He minimized each and every window. There wasn't enough nicotine or caffeine in him yet. He closed his laptop, and leaned back, fixing his gaze right on Josh.]
Why are you really here?
[And since he didn't really have it in him to beat around the bush, be charming, be nice, be evasive, he might as well shoot straight.]
s-sob /)(\
Just wanted to say thank you.
[ A beat, and then: ] And to apologize.
For crossing you the way I did -- not, [ there's a pause, for emphasis, ] for sticking by my principles.
[ He leans back into his seat at that; shrugs. ] You probably do know all about what that kid is gonna do, if he's going to go nuts again and prove me wrong.
But everyone deserves a second chance. [ He offers a small, mildly apologetic smile. ] And for the record, I never said that you didn't believe in them. [ He hadn't missed that look in the Blade King's eye before he'd stormed off. ]
Man with your history?
[ He leaves off at that and thumbs out a cigarette, even if he doesn't make a move to light it. ]
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[He speaks very, very quietly. Strange how letting them know all about him had backfired. Most others had quailed, and had - as he had predicted, as he had hoped - been content to draw up their own conclusions. More often than not, said conclusions meant staying the fuck away from him.
That suited him just fine. There were better people, and better things.
Perish the thought. Back to the now, where he's sighing, pursing his lips, cutting himself off from saying more.]
Anyway. It's fine.
[Can't be a part of Zangyaku if you get upset over a single person insulting you. And you most certainly can't be their Wolf if you're so easily affected by such things.
(Right?)]
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When he looks back up, there's a frown between his brows. ]
And isn't it? [ This time, about the lives, tough as they are. Hard as they looked on paper, on file and video. Because Josh has always believed in making the most of the cards that life deals you. ] You've done a lot of good.
[ And then, amending: ] Even if you say you didn't intend to.
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It never gets easier, hearing that. One would think that after over a millennia of living, one would build a little more confidence in one's self.
He used to deny it. He used to deflect, send people down another path. He used to try to remind them not to look at the sum of his good deeds, but at all of the terrible and ugly things that had come before them, between them.
"You need to let people who care about you care, you know."
(Forgiveness is a virtue, right, Aria Skye?)
Back in the Great Hall, Hikaru's reaching out and closing his laptop.]
I stand corrected. [A pause, as he's looking up and really looking at Josh for the first time since their conversation began, as he's grasping for the right words to say. (Read: the ones that won't give away too much, even if it's a bit too late to be careful.)] It will be fine. I just lost it a little earlier.
[And it wasn't going to happen again, if he could help it.]
You do what you've got to do... that's how things work here. If you don't get used to it, then it just makes things more difficult in the long run.
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That's true. [ He offers a small smile. ] But someone as generous as yourself-- [ he says that with deliberate weight, because Hikaru Shinta didn't have to show up on that plane, didn't have to do a lot of the things that he did for Josh's fledgeling of a blade, nor the other countless people Lorenzo Reyes showed them that day he'd called Kaz to the Arcanum to share his findings.
He just did. And every single, last one of those people, Josh can imagine -- were grateful. Whether they owned up to it or not.
A man didn't have fiercely loyal followers like the Zangyaku if there wasn't something worth believing in where it concerned him. ]
You were different. [ He says quietly, thumb tracing the edge of his drink. ] And I get that you're the almighty Death, sir. So I guess I came here because I want to understand.
[ A breath. ] Because you broke pattern.
[ He shrugs at that.
Josh sees things, patterns he can't quite find context for, but that his gut asserts fit a certain way. And when that pattern is broken, he's pretty convinced that there always is a reason behind the divergence from the tried and more or less tested. ]
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Time for another cigarette. It takes him longer than usual to light up. He's forgotten, for the moment, all about the coffee.]
Sometimes, people break their usual patterns because they don't have a choice.
[(Three admonitions, and three only. Like the cock crowing thrice at the crack of dawn.
Poetic, no?)
He takes a long drag and breathes out, because silence is always an option.]
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You don't strike me as someone who'd stand for having his choices taken away.
[ The words are said out loud, but mostly as a means to process his thoughts. Nevertheless, it is the truth that Josh knows based solely on his observations of the man seated across him.
And then, quietly offering: ] I have a question.
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[It's not a no, at the very least. He has a feeling that he knows what's going to go down next.
It doesn't make him feel any better.]
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If it's fine by you sir, I'll ask anyway.
[ He leans back into his seat at that, eyes still fixed on the Blade King. ] Do you think he deserved to die?
[ He stresses the 'you', looks straight at the other man as if to say: not Death, but the man, Hikaru Shinta. ]
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Right?]
I don't think that my opinion matters much in this case.
[And he's left, briefly, to wonder why he's hedging, why he can't bring himself to do it.]
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[ A simple, honest statement.
Josh looks back down at his coffee; shrugs. ]
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Taking a drag.]
...No. No, I don't believe he deserved to die.
[This was going to come back and bite him in the ass someday, wasn't it?
(Soft.)
Shut up.)]
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He's thinking, turning Hikaru's words and the events only hours before, over and over in his head.
Was he a mage? Stanley had asked.
Not this one. Words from his own mouth.
And then Brig, one hand falling to his shoulder.
His eyes snap up; narrow again, the brows above them knitting together. ]
You said no twice. But backed off on the third.
[ And of course, the unspoken question: Why? ]
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[His own gaze is sliding away. There are few better words to describe the tiny smile on his face as something other than bitter.
Just having this conversation was sending a tiny chill down his spine, and spreading little tendrils of hurt across his brain. Warnings.
Bans were terrible, terrible things.]
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He lets a few minutes pass, gives the conversation pause, if only for the moment and rests his chin on the heel of his palm, free hand taking out his Vice-issued mobile phone for him to poke through.
Eventually, though, he looks back up. And just like that, it clicks.
He's remembering that one day Inquisitor Aria Skye talked them through he subject of spirits after they'd all come in to see the big white wolf that sat in quiet attention at her side. One of the younger kids had been unable to resist asking, his hand shooting up, eyes wide in wonder--
Teacher Aria, is that a werewolf?
Um, no, sweetheart. Werewolves can't have children with their own kind. Or the resulting offspring ends up like White Walker here, a spirit child, and werewolves kill those on sight.
--and suffice to say, that had set the tone for the rest of the day.
There had been questions then, and a segue into why the Changing Breed could reproduce where werewolves could not ( they had a Changing Breed in class, a quiet little boy with too-large eyes who occasionally couldn't help the urge to snatch up the wayward flying insect who wandered in through the open windows ), before Aria went into the place of werewolves in the world as guardians of the Spirit Realm and why that was a pretty big deal.
Spirits all have bans, she'd gone on to say, and the stronger the spirit, the stricter the ban. They'd been shown then, how White Walker could not act unless it was in Aria's defense, and true enough, a ball of paper had been lobbed at the wolf by one reluctant volunteer and all White Walker had done was blink back, head canted to one side. When a second ball arced Aria's way, then and only then did they see the wolf move.
Not all bans are like this. Some are silly and others are harsh. Josh hadn't given much thought about the brief flicker of sadness that had crossed the inquisitor's face, had shelved it aside as she went on to tell them all about one particular demon whose ban was to rhyme out everything that he said.
But he hadn't known about Hikaru's connection to his instructor at the time -- now though, Josh knows better. ]
You've got a ban.
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The nicotine, he hoped, would help. The pain was starting to spread, like an itch. Was he going to be lucky this time, and be able to keep it under wraps?
(No. The ring was creeping into sight again, around his eyes. The graying was probably going to follow soon, in his hair.
It's been a long, long time since he could call his body his own and really mean it.)]
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Josh reaches for his pack of cigarettes at that, tugs a stick out, the slightest of tremor in his hands as his old Sunday school lessons come back to him, as if it was only yesterday that he and Cindy were sitting in the old, worn church that their mother would insist that they attend mass at every week. ]
I never liked that story, [ he murmurs quietly, taking a slow drag. He'd said at the beginning of everything, that he wouldn't pick up the habit. Looks like he was going to, after all. ]
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