View source for 2022-04-10: I'm Having Lots Of Fun, But

*'''Log: 2022-04-10: I'm Having Lots Of Fun, But'''
*'''Cast:''' [[Character :: Akane Shinjo]], [[Character :: Rikka Takarada]], [[Character :: Yuta Hibiki]], [[Character :: Sho Utsumi]]
*'''Where:''' Tsutsujidai - Park
*'''OOC - IC Date:''' 0096-04-10
*'''Summary''': ''Tsutsujidai High's incoming Class 2-E enjoys the last little slice of their spring break and catches up with one another.''

----


 <Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
<poem>
It's the last Sunday before school starts up again. A few clubs have already started doing early meetings, but Akane -- as a proud member of the Going-Home Club -- doesn't have anything to do with that.

Her weekend has been pretty miserable, though... she could use a win or two. At the very least, she might like confirmation on some of her hunches... and maybe just a check-in on her friends. Despite her rapidly increasing certainty that their mysterious Gridman is one of her classmates, and that however he goes from a teenager to a Vessel of Light has to do with one or more of her &#42;other&#42; classmates... part of her still wants to engage them as friends.

She sends a text to the usual suspects.
</poem><code>Tried making some soup this weekend but I made it a little too robust for me. Do you guys want tonjiru? We can meet up at the park, I guess.</code>

<code>Maybe we'll have better luck than last weekend!</code><poem>
(The truth of the matter is that miso soup is about the closest thing Akane will put in her mouth to an actual meal, and that it's so, so easy to turn it into something heartier.)

So it goes, then, that Akane situates herself at a familiar park bench with a few large thermoses full of soup and a few cheap plastic bowls.

</poem>
 <Pose Tracker> Rikka Takarada has posed.
<poem>
Rikka's been... pretty busy lately! She's had a lot of Outside Tsutsujidai Activities, but now she's back to spend the rest of the break with her friends back home before school starts up again. Rikka is ''also'' a member of the Go-Home Club, so she happens to be free when she receives an invitation!

...This is pretty convenient, anyway, since if Akane hadn't texted her first, she probably would've done so herself. Or, at least, she ''told'' herself she would, as long as she didn't get nervous about it.
</poem><code>Sure, that sounds great. I'll be right there.</code><poem>
And so, after getting ready, she heads right there, soon arriving at the park in question. It doesn't take her long to spot Akane. With a wave, she diverts from her path to head her way.

"Hey, Akane." Rikka greets. "How have you been?"

</poem>
 <Pose Tracker> Yuta Hibiki has posed.
<poem>
After Yuta and Rikka had made a long and arduous journey earlier in the week to visit and befriend the hospital-bound Rei Ayanami, he'd spent the time since then trying to sharpen his cooking skills to something marginally above 'hardly edible' - his diet, if not for the people around him, would consider of the atypical latchkey kid food groups, after all.

And he didn't want to drag down Rikka and Rei when they finally met back up to fulfill the promise of learning to cook that particular veggie pizza together.

    Which...

"T-this is..." Borr blanches. Riku was thankfully not home to take part in this sordid affair of theirs.

Even Calibur and Max looked on with concern, at the incredibly unfortunate hot pot before them. "Fuu~...wow...isn't making totally disgusting food to poison someone totally a mean girl thing, Yuta?" Vit questions, lazily and flippantly waving a hand while pinching his nose. "You're wrong! I mean, uhm .. well, I can't really defend the food, but .. I tried my best .."

Calibur frowns, "..er..maybe though, it just smells bad but tastes good? ...you followed the recipe, right?"

"Y-yeah. Well, sort of ... we didn't have some things, so I substituted a bit .. "

    Borr shudders, "Don't continue."

"I really don't want to know what you did to make this purple muck..!" he whinges, as Max appraises it with a leery squint. "Isn't this supposed to be a spicy beef stew..?"

Yuta smiles slightly, "Yes. Well, it called for beef, and I didn't have any - " nor did he want to buy it at the market, " - but I did have some tofu, and I heard that people can substitute beef for tofu in vegeterian dishes!"

    " ... " "..." " .... " "~fuu...."

"Also, since I didn't have lobster, I used substitute crab instead. They're basically the same thing, I thought ... and - because I didn't have any shitake or enoki mushrooms, I used maitake mushrooms instead!"

Yes, more and more, how this awful event happened was starting to make sense. Basically, unsupervised and with a totally cursory knowledge of cooking fueled by personal optimism and agency, Yuta braved an unknown frontier. It goes without saying that nothing good came out of it.

" .. s-so .. hey, Vit, wasn't your stomach growling earlier?" Borr questions. Vit, titters to the left on the ball of his left foot, "Eh~? No way. I'm stuffed. I had a lot of imaginary ramen for lunch, so I couldn't possible eat more.."

"And before you say something like, 'guh?! so you're just admiting to being a coward, repent by eating this and dying!' - someone who claims to be the guts of the group shouldn't be so quick to pass the buck, Borr-chama."

    "HUH?"

Yuta scratches his cheek at the critical hit. As Borr attempts to wiggle out of taste testing it, Max stares with sweat dribbling down his forehead, seeing something in the deep purple swamp of the hotpot that is beyond human understanding.

In the end though, the tension is broken by a wordless, brave spoonful scooped into Calibur's mouth. His expression fierce as he swallows -

    "..well? How is it?" Yuta asks, with a tinge of worry.

Wordlessly, and without moving a muscle, Calibur falls onto his side like a plastic figure. "C-calibur..!"

    Sometime later...

After banishing the toxic waste to the sink disposal and getting Calibur off the floor, Yuta receives a text from Akane. "Eh..?"
</poem><code>ok! if its not trouble then that sounds yummy</code><poem>
Even for a wicked fiend who gave someone food poisoning, it seemed that fate smiled on him. He'd make up for it later, he promises himself.

And that's the story of how Yuta appears before Rikka and Akane with an extra grumbly tummy. " - yeah. Are you doing alright? It's been a while since we've been able to try and hang out.."

Yuta's mind flashes back to golden week as he closes his eyes to give a smile, hiding the uncertainty behind the flesh of his eyelids. "As for the soup .. hehe, it's like you're always looking out for us. I appreciate it - "  - but it also feels like you're burning your wick at both ends.. he thinks to himself, letting his spoken words trail off as he rubs the back of his head.
</poem>

 <Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
<poem>
Ah, good. Bites. Maybe the whole gang will get together again by the time the night is up. "Oh, hey," Akane says, with a small wave. She gets to work pouring soup into bowls, with her usual middle-of-class smile.

"Mrmr... I'm busy with a lot of stuff," Akane answers Rikka, sliding a bowl toward her. "Lately it feels like nothing's going my way... though seeing you guys here is pretty good." She quickly finishes pouring everything out, sliding the other bowl toward Yuta -- a larger helping for him. She can tell he could use it.

Yuta's comment on the soup -- and her looking out for them -- gets an excited nod. "Even if I couldn't hack it as class rep, I don't mind doing this kinda stuff," she says, getting the other bowl situated across from her on the park table. "I wish we'd gotten a little more time together on that trip to the mountains... things got kinda crazy. But that's just how it is lately, I guess. Things are changing a lot around here."

Putting her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands, she's all smiles as she asks, "And you guys are transforming too, aren't you? Especially you, Hibiki-kun~"

... It's pretty on the nose. Where in their rooftop meeting Akane had been playing pretty cautious, now she's... decidedly less so.
</poem>

 <Pose Tracker> Yuta Hibiki has posed.
<poem>
The pork and vegetable soup is delicious - and its just so cozy, sitting on a bench with two people he wanted to feel close with, enjoying the fare with disposable chopsticks. Though, it sometimes feels like there's a gulf of difference between us - especially to Akane..

And that gulf had never felt as pronounced as it did right now as she drops most pretenses of subtlety. A thin film of broth forms a moustache on Yuta's lip, at incredible odds with his somber expression.

"You think so?" he questions, tilting his head slightly to one side. "I'm not so sure. But, if I am, then it's probably not a bad thing. I mean .. isn't it the nature of all living things to change?"

"I think there's a saying ... uhm, 'time doesn't stop for anyone' or something like that. What I mean is.."

Yuta leans forward, thoughtfully, but careful not to spill his bowl.

"Seasons change. People grow older. Trends ebb and flow; it's impossible for things to stay the same. But when things change, there's potential in that too, isn't there? To be more than you were before, and to pass everything on to the next 'you'."

Somehow, saying that felt - like something stirred deep in his chest. As if it were more meaningful than he could consciously attribute to himself.

It was almost jarring how his spine seemed to shift in consistency between an iron rod and something that could be mistaken for an amoeba.

" - was that weird of me? Sorry. I've been thinking a lot about stuff like that recently. But maybe that's just part of passing through your 'springtime of youth'." Yuta smiles, gingerly.

"The park is really pretty when the sun sets, don't you two think?" he asks a beat afterwards, almost out of the blue, while returning to eating some more of his soup.
</poem>

 <Pose Tracker> Rikka Takarada has posed.
<poem>
"Oh yeah...? That sucks, I'm sorry." Rikka says sympathetically. It sounds like things have been rough for her... "We're here for you if you need us, Akane."

She does smile a little, though, when Akane says that seeing them is good.

"Yeah, it's nice." She says, accepting the bowl offered and nodding when Yuta says that he appreciates it. "Me too. Thanks, Akane."

Akane laments about not having enough time at the trip and Rikka nods, a bit sad.

"...Yeah. It was nice having time with everyone...  I feel sorry for Ako and Marusa, they couldn't have expected  ''that'' to happen." Rikka says, shaking her head.

Rikka tries some of the soup... and, she lights up a little!

"Oh, this is pretty good... You said this was tonjiru, right?" Rikka asks, with a glance toward Akane. And then, as she's working on more of the soup, Akane asks that question. It's... very pointed. Rikka ''nearly'' sputters a little but manages to make a save, glancing away briefly before looking back at Yuta. With a grin, she points a chopstick in his direction.

"Wow, I didn't realise you were that deep, Hibiki." Rikka comments, lightly teasing... but, she looks thoughtful a moment afterward.

...He's not wrong, though.

"It's heavy..." Rikka murmurs after a moment, before pausing and clarifying, "Not the soup, I mean... it's just right."

The setting sun...

"Yeah, it really is..." She agrees.

</poem>
 <Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
<poem>
"Wow. That's a big step up from you," Akane answers, eyes widening a little as Yuta waxes poetic. "Kinda over my head, to be honest, but it's a pretty nice thing to say." She can almost -- &#42;almost&#42; -- let herself feel it, for a moment. Feel like the turning of the world, its forward motion, is more than just some horrible nightmare she needs to retreat from.

It doesn't click. She can't bring herself to resent him with her whole heart, but she can't get herself &#42;not&#42; to resent him a little, either. How can he face all these horrible, world-shaking changes in his life and just... take them as they come?

... that's a power she'd like on &#42;her&#42; side, actually. She lets her foot snake out toward him, across the underside of the table. A few wiggles of the toes, a couple tilts, a little press against the bar underneath the table -- one shoe off.

"Do you often spend your time appreciating pretty sunsets, Hibiki-kun?" Akane asks, with feigned playfulness. Where the last time they'd eaten, the brush of her leg against his was pretty incidental despite its clear purpose, this time it's obvious; the medial arch of her right foot slides along the side of his shin. Her toes curl in a bit.

The instant she makes contact, though, her &#42;gaze&#42; shifts toward Rikka. "Yeah... though it seems like they don't remember, so I guess it's not so bad." And as for the soup: "Yeah, tonjiru. I'm pretty used to cooking for myself, but sometimes I make something that's just too heavy for me..." She giggles a bit, then concedes, "I guess I don't know what I like lately!"

She muses aloud, "If you like it, I can start bringing it to school. I know it's more of a lunch or dinner soup, but I have the feeling you wouldn't mind having it for breakfast..."

She seems to process something, and ends up withdrawing her foot from Hibiki (and from her mouth) and going to a hard topic-shift -- and one that'll include both of them again. "So... have you two been up to much exciting lately?"
</poem>

 <Pose Tracker> Sho Utsumi has posed.
<poem>
Goddamn it, Sho Utsumi. Akane Shinjo sends you an invitation and you're on delivery duty?

Showing up a bit late to the meeting, he does not 'yo' as he usually does when he shoes up. He apologetically tilts his head down, and speaks up. "Sorry...family had me running a package to the post office. I hope the soup didn't get cold." And then he spots the thermos! Hopeful!

Rikka and Yuta get a nod. "Sup." It's not a yo.

Instead, as he gets his soup, he had heard the last question, and takes a seat near them. He wasn't asked, so he's not thinking about much of anything. He's been in a little pool of emotional suffering lately, ever since the fight with Anti, but he's trying to busy his mind out of it and drag himself upwards. "I'm curious too."

Sho forgets that he spends most of his time hanging out with them.

</poem>
 <Pose Tracker> Yuta Hibiki has posed.
<poem>
It was far from an unpleasant sensation. But - When people rub and touch at eachother like that, it should close distances .. right? Yet.

Unlike before, he didn't have the convenient excuse to do the mental gymnastics with to explain the contact. Though, if he were being plainly honest with himself, he'd already known that it probably wasn't so incidental then, either. But he hadn't been quite ready to contemplate it or bring it to attention, and so he'd put his brainpower into diverting it away from his forethoughts.

And so at the time, he'd scootched away.  .. but what really made me uncomfortable back then, even if I couldn't articulate it, is that I still feel as distant to her as I did just a few seconds ago. I still can't really describe it, but I .. I don't like it.

Yuta's eyebrows scrunch just so, and he shifts his leg once, testingly - "I wouldn't say I do it ''that'' often. With the way things have been going in the city, however, I do guess I stop and 'smell the roses' when I can." he alludes, bowl now thoroughly emptied. Evidently, he was quite hungry.

Akane describes her cooking sensibilities, and Yuta responds, "Is that so? I see."

I think I'm starting to get what's bothering me, now. he thinks to himself, as Akane disentangles her leg from his. Even though you're reaching out to touch me, you can't stand having that gesture returned, can you..? It's just like with your food. Even as you make these big bowls of yummy soup, you won't eat a bite of it. And if someone tries to feed you, you'll never accept it. It's like grabbing someone by the wrist, instead of holding their hand.

The wheels in his head turn and churn, grinding in ways he didn't know that they could. "Ha ha.." he laughs, embarassed, to Rikka. " - thanks, I guess .. I don't think I'm all that deep, or anything, though - oh, hey." he turns with a small tilt of his neck, waving at show with his free hand, now that his chopsticks have been left lonely in an empty bowl.

Now that Sho was seated with them, Yuta touches the tips of his fingers together with a small, ghost of a smile. "Well, besides the usual - Rikka and I actually went to a place called Tokyo-3. To visit one of the pilots who helped defend the class .. she got seriously, really hurt badly in the process. Her name is Ayanami, she's very kind."

</poem>
 <Pose Tracker> Rikka Takarada has posed.
<poem>
"I guess that's true..." Rikka admits. Even if it means no one will remember how brave everyone was... Watching her classmates get together to see each other to safety really made her appreciate them a lot more. ...But, maybe it's for the best they don't remember such a harrowing time.

She nods as Akane continues.

"Oh yeah? I guess it can be pretty hard to gauge sometimes." Rikka considers. And then, Akane makes an offer.

"Oh, that'd be-" She starts... and then pauses as the connotations catch up to her and her face goes a little red. W-was she joking? Or had she not noticed it herself...? Akane's really smart, though...

Fortunately, there's a convenient distraction in the form of Utsumi's arrival!

"H-hey, Utsumi." Rikka greets, finishing off her bowl as a way to hide her face.

She looks toward Yuta, then.

"You shouldn't be so humble all the time, Hibiki." She replies with a shake of her head, and then considers the question - have they been to anything exciting? Yuta brings up the Tokyo-3 trip, and Rikka nods.

"Yeah... Tokyo-3 is... a little weird. I think you probably would've liked it, though, Utsumi." Rikka comments.

"A couple of days after that, I went out to Macross City for a big concert. It was great, but I felt a little out of place. It was my first time for that kind of thing." Rikka comments. And then, looking a little proud of herself, "I did get to go backstage for the singer's autograph, though."

</poem>
 <Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
<poem>
The gang's all here. Good, Akane thinks; it's good to see them all. "It should still be pretty good. I have a nice thermos," Akane answers Utsumi, brightly. "Well, a few nice thermoses, but that's beside the point!"

Akane shoves her foot back into her shoe, trying not to let the mess of feelings bouncing around in her brain drive her too crazy. Of course he doesn't want her that way. He's a good person. Someone like that could never want what she has to offer -- at least, not like that.

Time to get back to fulfilling an easier need! "If you want, you can have a little more, Hibiki-kun! And if you're not hungry now, well -- I'm probably not gonna take this stuff back home... just bring the container to class this week." She slides one thermos across toward him.

Ayanami... one of the people who helped defend the class. That's a lot to think about. And if she's someone who got badly injured, then... the pilot of NERV's giant, right? She thinks back to what Kaworu said --

'Her name is Rei Ayanami. She's quite dear to me, as is the Ikari--Shinji Ikari--she spoke of. I hope you'll treat them kindly if you see either of them again.'

Well, that's a bust among busts.

Still, she manages to keep the facade up. She's gotten some good practice at that lately; it's getting easier to keep the mask up longer. (She doesn't dare think about what that might mean.)

"Oh -- one of the pilots got hurt...? I'm guessing she was in the big orange one... I saw a lot of that. I ended up getting stuck behind a mudslide... someone came and got me out of the forest, at least, but I ended up way up in the mountains." The card. She'd been the one to insist on it, and that's what led to someone --

It's... still fine. Just the cost of carving out her world. It's not like she killed someone.

Besides, there's a more interesting thing! "Oooh? Is that the kinda thing you like, Rikka?" It's not actually a surprise. "Haha, you're so lucky..."

She looks between all three of her... what &#42;are&#42; these relationships? With them all assembled, maybe she can ask... the conversation's getting a little more serious. "Hey... you guys have been pretty great about humoring weird questions, so let me ask you something..."

There's a bit of hesitation -- and a bit of expectation, maybe. "If you guys knew someone who was in trouble, who didn't &#42;think&#42; they were in trouble... what would you do about it?"

It'd be easy to rub this against other known parts of Akane's fact pattern -- very logical to conclude she's talking about Renais. Thinking about doing something only she can do. Getting cold feet.

"Do you help them, even if they're going to get really mad, or just... let it go and hope things don't get messy?"

But if she were asking that, she could ask some of the otherworlders she's met. Maybe there's a reason she's asking these three.
</poem>

 <Pose Tracker> Sho Utsumi has posed.
<poem>
Sho finds the soup delicious, and confirms as much as he listens to the talk about Rei Ayanami. "Ah...what's Tokyo-3 like?" He clearly didn't go.

But when Akane asks her important question, Sho wracks his brain. A weird question to humor, and a time to be honest...but his self-esteem's been down. Whatever he says is gonna feel a little hollow to him, because he's currently not sure he's a guy who can help people. But even so...his statement is true.

"I'd want to help them. I may not be sure how - but I can't just let it get messy and hope. The real thing would be...I can't let my emotions get in the way."

"But I've had the lesson hammered into my head. When someone's in need...you do something, right? Whatever you can figure out."

He doesn't say that he had them hammered in from kids shows.

"And if they get mad, well, maybe they're still getting help from your actions, right?"

</poem>
 <Pose Tracker> Yuta Hibiki has posed.
<poem>
Yuta nods, "Yeah, that's right. The one that got.." stabbed, he finishes the thought for himself, recalling how grim a lens he'd viewed things through at the time. Something about Akane's face catches his eye, in a way he can't place. The way it scrunches feels more like a cringe than anything, even though she's not really making any different kinds of expressions than usual. It was just the way he saw it.

Or .. If it's not any different than usual, does that mean I'm only noticing it now?

What an awful thought. But it also wasn't one he was willing to run away from, now. Part of being brave was facing what you knew you didn't want to face, like how Calibur swallowed that nasty soup he made even though it was obvious to all of them that it'd make him sick. The way Yuta's lips press into a firm and thin line has an air of finality to it - or maybe, resolution, instead.

"You're probably right," Yuta says to Rikka, " .. I can't really help it, sometimes. It's hard to feel like I'm worth praising in any capacity. I'm not all that smart, nor am I very wise. I have no strength to speak of, and if I were left with my own determination, I'd give up really fast."

"So being complimented is a challenge in and of itself, so I still appreciate it." Yuta says, closing his eyes  as he leans to the side, just a bit. " - hm ... let me think for a second..." Yuta says, leaving Akane hanging for all of maybe three or four seconds before responding to the topic of food.

"I'm hungry pretty often, if I'm being honest .. hey, I know. Why don't we make a promise? Let's eat lunch tomorrow."

Doing nothing and keeping the status quo .. isn't that the same as standing still?

Without missing a beat, he bridges this with the answer to the hard question.

Shyly at first, as if trying to work up the courage, Yuta visibly steels himself and reaches for Akane's hand. This wasn't an insincere, backhanded touching like he'd taken her rub earlier as, rather -

It was a physical expression of his answer, "Part of caring for, or maybe loving others, means intruding on them in ways that are both big and small. Then, of course I'll help that person."

I'm lacking in many ways. Even so .. you, Rikka, Sho, and so many others have put parts of yourselves into me, and changed me forever. I can tell that much. So it goes without saying that I'd return that favor and give up part of myself, too.
</poem>

 <Pose Tracker> Rikka Takarada has posed.
<poem>
"It's sort of... it's kind of like it's built for defense? It's like it could close up at any time... It's cool, but a little scary thinking about what they might need that for?" Rikka replies, answering Utsumi. "Our trip actually took us underground for a while."

She nods, though, as Akane mentions the pilot.

"Yeah..." Rikka confirms. "...I'm glad you were alright through all that, though. We were all worried when you got separated."

...Even if she and the others 'got separated' themselves, not long after.

Akane moves the conversation back to a lighter topic.

""Hahah, yeah... Listening to music at home is great, but going in person is a different experience, entirely." Rikka says, and then nods. "Right? I couldn't believe it..."

And then there's Yuta. Rikka studies him for a but. Sure, she could tell him that's all not true, but that kind of thing is hard to beat with just words...

"Well... don't forget that we're here with you too, Hibiki. Right?" She says, glancing from Utsumi, to Akane.

...The latter of which has a 'weird question' for them. It must be serious, so Rikka gives her her full attention.

If they knew someone who was in trouble, but didn't think they were in trouble, what would they do? Rikka can kind of guess what she's thinking about...

But, she thinks about it seriously, a pensive expression crossing her face. Hibiki and Utsumi's answers... they're both really good. As for herself...

"If there's someone in trouble in front of me, and it's possible that I can help them, even if they don't want it, or they'd get mad for it... I'd have to do something." Rikka replies.  "I couldn't stand the thought of wondering what might've happened if I chose not to help, and things went wrong. It'd eat away at me. ...Does that make sense? I guess that makes it sound like I'd be doing it for personal reasons, but..."

She trails off, uncertainly.

</poem>
 <Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
<poem>
Utsumi offers an answer... that Akane can get her head around, at least. It's even pretty close to the one she's circling around in the place where it most obviously matters. She'll do what she has to -- and if that makes her loneliness worse, well... at least she didn't let her own desires get in her way.

"You've got a good head on your shoulders. Maybe teasing you about being squishy is mean... they say brains are mostly fat." She giggles at her own joke (even if it's a little bit mean, a little bit at Utsumi's expense), and agrees, "I like that."

Yuta... offers lunch together. "I -- I mean," Akane starts, clearly startled. "I usually have a pretty light lunch, but... yeah, okay." She can cringe her way through being observed with a thermos full of miso soup. (No pork, no veggies, no mushrooms -- just plain.) Just once.

She takes the opportunity to top up Utsumi and Rikka's soups a tiny bit with the thermos she didn't offer Hibiki. It occupies her hand -- and lets her conveniently deny the one reaching out for her. It almost makes the initial withdrawal look more like a startled worry of being a poor hostess and not the sort of movement you make when your hand drifts onto a hot stove. "Huh... love is -- an intrusion?" Well, &#42;that&#42; makes sense to Akane. "That's ... yeah, I think I can buy that. You're gonna get tangled up with someone if you choose to help them."

Rikka's answer, though... that's -- something about it hits Akane like a truck. "... Haha, wow. I think that's actually a pretty mature answer... and I think that's kinda where I'm at, too, sometimes. You sound like you have a better handle on it, though... aah, Rikka's so nice~."

... It's a good thing they're not really -- that they're -- well... they'll let her approach a problem at her own speed. Even if they'd never let anyone else go... if Akane asked, they'd just let her do whatever she wanted, right?

... Maybe the whole line of questioning is silly. She's less and less sure what she was even hoping to accomplish here!

"Ahahaha, jeez, you guys are gonna think I'm a downer if I dwell on this stuff too much!" she suddenly says, laughing at herself. "Here you guys are, exploring a whole other world, and I'm dragging it down getting all moody... it sounds like you guys are really finding interesting stuff over there." Her feelings trail off before her words do, with a slightly distant, "Stuff you'd like."

Stuff that you'd never find in the heart of Tsutsujidai.
</poem>

 <Pose Tracker> Sho Utsumi has posed.
<poem>
"H-hey! My brain's all musc- no, wait." Sho almost self-owns, but catches himself, nonetheless, he's happy that she liked it! The others answer, Sho not noticing Akane directly avoiding Yuta's hand, and he nods.

As Akane speaks again, Sho nods once more. But, he considers.

"It's interesting out there, yeah. But it's not the same as home, you know? I'm not going to say something as sappy as 'home is where the heart is', but...yeah? Yeah." Yeah.

</poem>
 <Pose Tracker> Yuta Hibiki has posed.
<poem>
Yuta's hand misses Akane's. He takes it in stride, after all, even if he didn't close the gulf between them instantly he did secure an opportunity to try again when they had lunch. Even when he didn't think too much of himself, he's not by himself, just like Rikka had said. That's how he could find the inner strength to start being persistent.

While he couldn't be entirely sure what the Yuta Hibiki from before all this started would have felt, as he didn't possess those memories - he did know that Rikka and Akane were maybe the people closest to his heart. And if this little bubbling bit of suspicion tapping away at the back of his mind was right, then ...

    It didn't change anything.

His answer would be the same. And, he'd be true to himself no matter what, whoever that happens to wind up being.

Yuta's blue eyes seem to billow for a moment as he narrows them into a squinty and almost sad grin, "I don't think it's quite that simple," he says, after she mentions that they'd been finding things they'd liked in the outside world.

"It's not like everything on the outside is strictly better than here, even if it has things that you'd never see in this city. Take Tokyo-3 for instance .. the Geofront really was beautiful .. but no one living there was really comfortable. Even as much of a beacon of progress and industrial beauty as it was on the surface, it was sterile and cold, and the people there seemed quietly oppressed by it, in ways they might have not even realized."

Just like Rei's hospital room. The facility itself was a medical marvel, and she had of course received more than adequete treatment there; but it was lacking in other, less physically substantial ways.

"Places kind of have a life of their own, I think .. that's my impression from my time spent outside of Tsutsujidai." he concludes.

"I'm kind of a windbag today, huh? Basically, I'm saying that - I treasure this city."

Yuta makes very pointed eye contact with Akane. The eyes were the windows to the soul, weren't they? He wanted to be extra sure she could see his.

"Even if no one else were to do so, even though I don't remember anything about living here before my accident .. I've come to hold this place in my heart, and have made new, special memories here."

"Besides - you just agreed with me, right? That caring is an intrusion? That has to go both ways, y'know - it makes me happy that you opened up a little with that question, Akane."
</poem>

 <Pose Tracker> Rikka Takarada has posed.
<poem>
Akane pours some more soup and Rikka accepts, listening as she addresses the other answers. And as for hers... Rikka chuckles.

"Ahah... you think so?" She replies, accepting the praise. If someone else thinks it sounds right, then maybe it isn't a selfish way to think...

"It's alright, really." Rikka says with a shake of her head, as Akane comments on dwelling on it. "It sounds like you've got a lot on your mind."

Things outside of Tsutsujidai, though... Rikka thinks about that - and about what Utsumi and Hibiki said about that.

"Yeah, what they said. And, I mean..." She pauses, nibbling on one end of the chopstick as she considers how to put her thoughts into place. "This is where everyone I care about lives. You three, Hass, Namiko, my mom... It's great seeing everything there is to offer outside, but at the end of the day, this is the place, and you're the people, I want to come back to."
</poem>

 <Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
<poem>
"That &#42;would&#42; explain your math grades," Akane teases Utsumi, picking up the abandoned self-own and not letting go. "... I mean, it kinda is, though, I guess. Or at least, I get what you're trying to say."

Not better, just different. Hearing Yuta talk about how oppressive Tokyo-3 was -- that catches her. (She'd been through there a couple times, en route to Nouvelle; her assessment of the vibe would match his. It makes her wonder just how much of her is wound up in him. Then again -- without his memories, he's like a whole new person, right...?)

The sunset-red of Akane's eyes meets the watery blue of Yuta's. Akane sees that rippling pool in his, and wonders what it'd be like if she were to plunge the monster behind hers into that pool and hold it down until it stopped kicking.

It'd certainly wrap this up neatly.

Yuta expresses that he's happy Akane opened up a bit -- and she shrinks a bit, albeit with a smile on her face. "I -- I'm not sure it's that big a deal," she stammers. ... Is she really so open?

Her thoughts drift a moment to what Nanai had asked her, not long ago. Is the real reason the world's wall remains ruptured... because part of her wants to go back? And if that's true --

-- why would killing Vessels of Light close it off?

When Rikka says that these people are the ones she wants to come back to, Akane lets out a breath. Even after seeing how much more the outside world has to offer her -- things she loves, things she'd be happy with -- Rikka still wants to come &#42;here&#42;?

(... Of course she does. She's helpless to want anything else. In the end, she values only the things you want -- even if it'd break your heart to see her choose you.)

For a few moments longer... Akane can pretend. She leads the conversation around toward lighter fare for a few minutes -- the start of the year, the nice parts of their day trip to the mountains, a little more about this concert Rikka snuck off to -- but it's not long before she excuses herself. Last-minute shopping for school supplies... or so she says.
</poem>

[[Category:Logs]]
[[Category:Phase 1]]
[[Category:Phase 1, Turn 1]]