doreimi | IC Inbox | prismatica

Reimi?

Hey, text me back when you see this?

Actually.

Text me back now.

Are you okay?

Alive, I mean?

Edited 2019-10-24 02:16 (UTC)

Or whatever.

Just, soon.

Soon, Reimi-oneechan. I need to know you're okay.

[It's not soon. It's actually quite some time before she's able to get back to this, half because she's so tired and half because she's afraid to pick up her communicator lest that weird eyeball app activate again, after what had happened to her the last time.]

ro han

i dnot feel ghood

...Reimi?

Hey. Wait. What? No. What happened? Where are you? I'm going to find you right this second.

It doesn't matter where you are.

[ at least she seems... alive? ]

don topen red eyye appp

dont

d

[Okay. Okay. Come on, Sugimoto, you have to rally. Time to regroup. Get it together.]

tired

no chrom a

I won't.

[ okay, ask questions, maybe yes or no? He's really determined okay. It takes him a few minutes because he's figuring out the rest of this. ]

Are you home? Just. Send "Yes" if this.

My apartment? Send "A" if this.

Elsewhere, send "E".

[Look at him. Look at him go, he's so smart, Rohan's so smart.]

A

[ Clearly, when he really wants something, he finds a way to make it happen. This is the way that he can make this happen. Reimi doesn't have to wait long for him to get back. He was already heading that way anyway as he messaged her. He didn't know where she was, but maybe if he knew where to start, it would be easier.

Plus -

He was still wet and grumpy from his time in the water.

His bad time in the water that keeps powering through his mind as he hurries back to this apartment. The way that he saw her there, that he needed to reach her. That he couldn't just stop himself for going for it. It was Reimi. He swore to himself he'd keep her safe, and if he failed her, he wouldn't forgive himself or anyone else.

And, he would have rather risked going for her there and have it not be her, than not and have it be her.

He nudges his door open, it's his place, he doesn't bother knocking. ]

[She went to Rohan's house, because of course she did.

Of course she did. She could've gone home, but there's no one at her own apartment except for Arnold and the cats, no actual person to find her and realize that something is wrong if it turns out that she's right, and something is wrong. Abbacchio would've known that something was wrong, of course, except that he's disappeared and maybe crystallized and possibly gone home, and the world is lonelier without him.

So of course she'd gone to Rohan's house when she'd started feeling the now-familiar effects of chroma deprivation, because sooner or later Rohan would find her. The last time it took him fifteen years to find her, but this time would be shorter. In the worst case scenario, he'd come back from wherever he'd gone out to tonight and find her, and all she'd have to do is hold out until then.

She's lying on her side on the couch when he comes in, buried under a mountain of blankets like she's trying to stave off a chill that isn't in the air. Only her head is visible beneath the mound, but thin threads like crystal-white seams are just barely there crisscrossing her cheeks. The communicator is lying a few inches from her nose, face-up on the cushion. No wonder she was having such a hard time typing to him, when he was messaging her.

She doesn't raise her head, when the door opens. She doesn't even make a sound. But her eyes do open, halfway, as she sluggishly tries to glance toward the door.]

[ It means so much to him that she chose this place to come to when she needed help. It means so much that she wanted to be there with him. It means that she knew she could count on him. She knew he would do whatever he could, anything in his power, to help her. He pauses when he steps inside.

The distress that he felt shifts and changes. From the fear of her being gone again when he was there in the water - straight to the fear of losing her while he's here to watch it.

Oh yes - Chroma.

None. She said she had none.

Get yourself together, Rohan. If that's all it is, he can help, can't he? He knows he can. But if it's not - then he's failed her and he knows it. He takes those long few steps to the couch and crouches down near it, so he can look her in the eyes.

A deep breath, he leans in, and places a lingering kiss on her forehead, one hand resting on her cheek. ]

[As grateful as she is, she feels terrible that her being here like this has put him into this position. Rohan has never been the most forthcoming person when it comes to physical contact; frankly, it's halfway a miracle that he even lets her get away with the things he does, curling up against him during Cordis and holding his hand when they walk together. Those are things that dance around at the verge of things that constitute moonlacing, platonic and easily excusable. It's for chroma, they always tell themselves. It's just about the chroma, that's all.

And now look at her. This time it really is about the chroma, and yet she feels awful that it's come to this, because she knows full well that holding her hand or lacing their fingers isn't going to be enough to pull her out of this, and look at what choice that leaves Rohan. Sacrifice his personal comfort, or watch her waste away and believe that it was because he didn't do enough to save her.

She feels wretched, and not just because she's so cold and there are crystals threatening to form beneath her skin. She'd cry, if she could, but she's so exhausted she can't even muster that.]

M'sorry...

[It comes as a whisper, a few seconds after his lips touch her forehead and the warm bloom of moonlacing starts to wash over her greedy, starving soul. She struggles, trying to find the strength to push one hand up and out from underneath the weight of the blankets, sliding up to cover over the back of his where it still rests against her cheek.]

You don't hafta. I'll be okay. [She squeezes his hand lightly, as if to try to say, this would be enough.] Jus'...don't leave...?

[ He feels awful. He feels like he could be doing so much more. He doesn't move his hand, he doesn't flinch. He presses his forehead against hers, letting it rest there. His hand doesn't move. She says that he doesn't have to. He does. She says not to leave - he wouldn't dare right now. And he doesn't think for a moment that she'll be okay in all of this.

He is worried he'll lose her when he could have done something.

Everything that is inside of him to tell him to just stay like this, to not push himself. To ignore his personal boundaries.

She was willing to die for him before. ]

I know. I won't.

[ Simple. Easy answers for something much more complex.

He thinks quickly. The information processing. He's considering all options.

All options.

And - well, he knows what he should do. Has to.

It's like he's mentally preparing for what he's going to do. That shift of his head, leaving his hand where it is, feeling her hand on his. Knowing that he would die for her as she has. Knowing he would absolutely kill for her.

He leans in, it's soft, gentle - the way he presses his lips to hears. He lets them linger, feeling Chroma himself. God, he hopes this works, because he certainly didn't picture himself doing this. ]

[There's a vague, distant thought somewhere far in the back of her mind, hard to grasp and even harder still to hold on to, that wonders whether this is Rohan's first kiss. It's possible, probably. She doesn't know what he did or didn't do in all the years that she was malingering in her alleyway. He might've, somewhere along the way — but it's just as easy to imagine that he didn't, because it's Rohan, who doesn't like anyone (except her) and never lets anyone get close (except her).

Last Cordis, she told him that she's selfish when it comes to him. There's always that part of her that doesn't want to share him. That's the part of her that hopes that maybe it is. He's not her first kiss, but maybe she's his. One more memory for the tally they're trying to build together. One more way she's a part of him that won't disappear.

It would be terrible if that were the case, she thinks. And it would be nice.

But it's the right answer, because of course it is. Of course Rohan came up with the solution, because it's Rohan. Their lips brush and the chroma blooms like a springtime flower waking up in a thaw, and gradually the scatterlines of crystals begin to fade away from where they're set in her skin, returning some of the color to her face.

She keeps her eyes closed, in part because they're kissing but mostly as a kindness to him, so that he can pretend whatever he needs to in order to reconcile himself to this. She doesn't look; she just lifts her chin to find a better angle and nudges more firmly against him, slanting her mouth against his because it feels better that way.]

[ It's new to him, sure. He doesn't let people even get close enough to him to care about them. He didn't much like others, and keeping to himself was easy. He liked it like that - still did. And then there was Reimi, who he did let in. Just a bit at first. The need to protect, the need to keep safe on a personal level is entirely new, too. Sure, at home he had helped save others - even Josuke. But with them, it was never something personal, it was just something he had to do. With Reimi - it was both.

He was doing this to save her. That's all. It's about Chroma. It was always about Chroma.

That's all it was he keeps reminding himself.

That fear from what he had seen at the lake had pushed him enough that there was nothing, nothing right now that he feared more than losing her. He forgets that his hair and clothing are still wet and sticking to him uncomfortably. He forgets everything other than what he had seen there in the water. It had been so easy for them to pull him in with her. Too easy.

He doesn't deepen the kiss, though she feels her lean into him. And that's how he knows it's actually effective. More effective than just kissing her forehead or holding her could be. He knows he will, though, after he knows that there's no immediate risk. He lingers there for a few more moments. It's - nice, but he pushes that thought deep down.

Then, when he pulls away, he almost regrets it (stop that, he tells himself). A sigh, closing his eyes and leaning his forehead against hers. ]

Are you feeling better?

[ His tone is soft, unusually so, even for moments with her. There's the slightest hint of fear and worry, only noticeable when you know him as well as she does. He's never heard himself sound like that before. He's usually so confident in what he wants and needs to do. He's glad she's the only one here to witness it. ]

[If she doesn't think too hard about it, she won't have to actually acknowledge what just happened. She knows, objectively, what happened, of course; She'd been chroma-drained, and Rohan found her, and Rohan kissed her, and now she feels warm again instead of the bitter cold she'd been before. The crystal formations budding beneath her skin have begun to recede; she doesn't feel as stiff and aching as she used to, and moving seems easier now, less weighted-down.

If she doesn't think about the rest of it, then she doesn't have to take it into consideration. She doesn't have to feel guilty, or selfish, or ashamed. She can just float on the dreamy half-conscious sensation that chases after moonlacing like an afterglow.

Rohan says something, and it takes a second to register that he was talking to her. It's another after that before she realizes that he sounds scared — not scared like a normal person gets scared, but scared the way that only Rohan does, where scared isn't synonymous so much with afraid as it is with vulnerable, where he steps down off his high lofty pillar and disappears among all the normal people for a while.]

Yeah...I don't feel as bad anymore...

[It's nice, feeling his forehead against hers, a softer glow of chroma exchange warming from it than his kisses had been. It's nice to whisper things into the slim space left between their lips, like every word is a secret.]

You're all wet. Is it raining out...?

[ Even if she needed this to live, even if he knew exactly why he had done it. He felt like maybe he shouldn't have done it. Maybe it wasn't okay to do. If he would have thought he'd need to do this, he would have preferred to know she was okay with it. Maybe she still thought of him as that little boy she knew so long ago.

Maybe he should have just held on and hoped, eventually, that she would come back to it. Maybe he would burn himself out trying to. This worked, there wasn't a better option. And while he didn't regret it --

Was it okay?

His voice is quiet, no one else is there, and yet - this is only for her. ]

Good.

[ Stern. Straightforward. Sincere, still, despite that. He doesn't move. If anything, he's making every effort to get every bit of contact he can with her. ]

It's not rain. It was a lake.

[ He was so afraid. Is still afraid, really. ]

I went in thinking I saw you there.

[ There's an honesty there. He doesn't share the feelings attached to that moment. He doesn't want to share that total fear, that loneliness he knew he would have without her. ]

You saw...me?

[Not rain; a lake. Something made him go in — he thought he saw her in there. It sounds eerily like her own venture into the spring (those glimpses of things she remembers from way back when, her mother's apron, her father's favorite tie), except that —

How could he have seen her in there? If it was really that spring in the solemn grounds, then it should've only been for people who are —

...dead.

Oh.

Oh, so that's...why.

That recognition only lingers for a few moments, however. Then her own memories of being draw into the spring come rushing back, and it's everything she can do not to jolt upright in horror, eyes wide as she searches his expression like she's looking for even the slightest trace of the same crystalline growth that had infected her.]

You went in?! Into that spring?!

[Then that's why. That's what made him afraid. It swallowed him up, too, just like it tried to devour her.]

You...didn't know where I was, so you thought...

[ He thought he lost her. He thought he had lost her again - actually. This would be the third time. As a child, when he was at home, and here. And this time, having her again, felt more permanent than anything else prior to that time. He knew if she had a chance at life here, and it was pulled away that there was a chance he'd never see her again.

And after being here -

No.

He wouldn't accept it. Not at all. ]

I went in.

[ He risked it. He wanted to go for it, no matter what. He wouldn't let her get hurt or go missing. And if he didn't go and something really did happen to her, all that would have been left would have been emptiness and regret. Two feelings he's unfamiliar with anymore. Two feelings he wouldn't have known how to manage.

So, it was worth it. ]

I thought you died again. Or would.

[ Too blunt and straightforward? Probably. He doesn't need to say it like that, and yet. Maybe the way he says it will help her understand why he went in. His reasoning sounds totally reasonable to him. ]

Hey I'm --

[ He slips his hand away for a moment. ]

Going to put on something different so if I get under the blanket I don't get you wet, too.

[ He was starting to feel the chill of being wet combined with the air. But, the way he says that means a few things: he'll be back soon, he'll be crawling under the blankets with her, and that he's sure she won't fade away from lack of Chroma now. If she believes differently, he's confident she'll say something, so he waits there, waits for her answer. Waits for her to tell him she's okay so he can do it. ]

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