doreimi | IC Inbox | prismatica

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. ]

[There's a part of her that doesn't want him to go away, even for an instant. And she knows, deep down, that all she would have to do is say so, and he would stay. He'd suffer through the soaked clothes and uncomfortable damp, just because she wanted him to. He thought she'd died again; he would do anything for her, right now.

And that's exactly what she's never wanted for him. Herself, her sacrifice, used against him. It's why she doesn't tell anyone who he really is to her, what connection they share. Someone would use it against him, and it would work.

And if that's the case, then that someone shouldn't even be her, herself. She has no right to use that against him, either, even if it's only by accident.

So she lets him get away, but before he can move entirely, she reaches out from beneath the blankets, her hand going to his wet hair and gently finger-combing the strands back behind his ear. She can feel the little sparks of chroma in her fingertips as she does it, too. She's warmer now than she's been, and he won't be gone for long.]

I didn't die again. I'm right here.

[Where he can watch her. Where he can know.]

Come back soon, okay...?

[ How is it so easy for her? How can she so easily touch his hair? How can she think it's easy to give him hugs, cuddle up to him, return that -- kiss. How can she knowing that she's not a part of his past in the same capacity. He wonders. He's curious. He always has been curious about how people tick. It's not that he wants to know for the sake of his art this time, though.

He wants to understand so he understands her. He doesn't understand it all, not yet. And she's the only person he can talk openly with. So, for now, he lets those thoughts linger and disappear, quickly replacing them again with the present concern about her life and condition.

She is priority now.

That touch makes him pause, but it helps, at least a little. It makes him feel better just a small amount. But honestly, he'll take what he can get. He's glad to get any attention from her that she'll give him. And sometimes, he'll demand more.

Oh yeah - he should hurry.

He does despite how hard it is to pull himself away from that touch and attention granted.
He has much less clothes here than at home - everything costs Chroma. Cordis consumes Chroma, and he has a hard time getting close to people, so it's not like he generates it at the same rate as he he would if it were simply money he needed.

Regular currency that didn't require touch and interaction. He returns in something more simple than he'd normally wear (pen motif everywhere as necessary, of course). No one except Reimi will see him.

He doesn't say anything yet, just crawls under those blankets with her because even if she's better now, he knows Chroma will help her, and it'll be good for him. It'll be good to be reassured that she's alive. ]

You went in there, too? Or, you at least saw it.

[There's a moment, one single moment, when Rohan breaks the contact between them and she's afraid. It's nothing rational; in fact, it's perfectly natural to feel that little stab of uncertainty when something that she knows is helping to keep her alive is removed, even for a temporary period of time.

But, she reminds herself, she'll be all right. It won't take long for him to come back, and he will come back. She's got plenty of chroma to tide her over, and even if she doesn't, Rohan will come running to help her. She's not stranded out in the Solemn Grounds right now, she's on his couch. He's right here with her. It's going to be all right.

So she watches him dart off to get changed, and while he does she holds as still as she can and dozes, like she's hibernating to conserve energy or something ridiculous like that, and when he comes back she doesn't waste any time in gravitating back against him, wanting the reassurance of feeling the chroma they're generating by being in contact.

(This isn't normal. Normal people don't cuddle up under blankets and kiss each other and send fifteen text messages out of sheer worry for each other. This isn't normal, but if she thinks too hard about it, she'll have to acknowledge it, and she doesn't want to.)

She tucks against him instead, rubbing her cheek against his shoulder.]

Yeah. It was like...it's a place for ghosts. It felt like it kept drawing me in.

[Difficult to admit, but she has to. The way that spring had made her feel...now, in retrospect, that scares her, too.]

I kept going in and I couldn't get back out again.

[ He wants to feel better - knowing she's okay. Knowing she's alive right here. But... he doesn't. He's stuck in some loop knowing that he's never felt like that before that he remembers. Knowing that he's never felt afraid of losing someone. Even in those times he fought against other stand users, even when his own life was on the line. He had never before been afraid in a way like this.

But, for the sake of this own sanity, and for the sake of not letting Reimi know how much it had impacted him - he decides to push it down as much as he possibly can.

For now, he'll listen to her.

Let her share her experience. It's better, easier, for him.

She tucks easily against him. They do this often, especially doing Cordis. ]

But you did get out and you came here.

[ Maybe someone helped her, that would be good. He tugs her closer. ]

Good.

[ She knew, even if he's never said it directly - that he would do anything. Anything to help her. ]

Mista pulled me out.

[She has, of course, seen Rohan's opinions on Mista; they don't see eye-to-eye on much. But maybe this much is a step in the right direction. They both care about her; that's at least one thing they could both admit they have in common.]

But ever since then, I keep running out of chroma. I don't mean to. I'm not even buying anything, or using it if I can help it...

[If it weren't for his arms around her, she'd be shivering. Whether that's because of the chroma they're generating or the security his presence provides is anyone's guess.]

So then I was out tonight and I felt it starting to happen again. So I just...came here. You weren't home and I didn't know where you were, so I just waited.

[ Oh. Good. Mista, despite whatever Rohan thinks of him, seems pretty much, otherwise, harmless to him. So, that's good. He's glad she got out. He's glad she has someone who cares about her enough to do it. To do what he needed to do in order to help her. He wants that for her. He wants her to be safe and happy.

And he wants to know she's there for him, which she always has been. ]

Good that he did.

[ His fingers move, soft over her arm under the blankets that he's tugged over their shoulders. It's the best way to stay warm. And the way they are staying? It's been a nice, easy way to generate Chroma, too.

A comfortable way. ]

I always come back here.

[ He doesn't need to explain why he was out. There's things going on and it figures that he'd check it out, at least a little bit. But everything is unpleasant, so he didn't' stay out too long. Plus, he got wet. So there was no way he was going to stay out like this. Even if he didn't message her, she knew he'd be back without too much time passing, but it was good that he did.

Really good. ]

Good I didn't stay out long.

Rohan...

[For a minute she stays quiet and holds still, just feeling the way he touches her, mulling over the weight of her thoughts. Something has changed in his voice; she can tell that there's a stilted brevity in his tone now where there wasn't before, like somewhere along the way he realized he was letting too much of himself show and snapped walls back down around it again as soon as it sank in. Maybe he's uncomfortable with the knowledge that now they've kissed. Maybe he's more rattled than he wants to let on about the way that he found her.

Whatever it is, it sounds painful. Not the sharp sort of pain that stabs and releases, but a duller ache like loneliness that one just endures and endures.

She wishes she could tell him that he doesn't have to. That she doesn't care about any of that, because what she cares about is him. But deep down, she suspects that even she, who gets away with far more than anyone else ever has or ever will, wouldn't be able to get away with that.]

I know you're upset.

[She reaches for him, tentatively. Finds his hand. Twists their fingers together.]

You can be upset. It's okay to be. I won't...tell anyone.

[ Upset doesn't begin to describe it, but he doesn't want to say the words. The combination of what he saw then and walking in and the texts between? Yeah. It all rattled him. It's everything. Everything that happened between stepping out of his house and well, not that long ago. This is the first normal thing that's happened to day - cuddling on the couch underneath blankets, keeping them warm.

He takes her hand. There's no resistance in the action, and he returns the grip on her easily. Holding her hand - another piece of normalcy. Another thing he likes. Another thing that lets him be just close enough without letting down every wall around him.

It's good she doesn't say it. Her offering that to him is more than he needs to try and process right now. He doesn't tell her exactly what he's feeling, not that he could even if he wanted to. But, he can tell her what he thought was happening. Maybe, maybe he hopes it'll make sense. ]

It's not that I'm upset, Reimi.

[ Easy for him to say. ]

I thought you were going to die.

[ Scared. Can he tell her that much? There's a lot of hesitation, just as much as in those moments of trying not to admit he cares. ]

I was scared.

[ Phew. ]

[She's well aware of how much it must've taken out of him, to make that admission. Rohan is never scared of anything, never anything but steadfast and defiant. But this frightened him. The thought of losing her frightened him, so badly that he had to come running to find her just to make sure that the awful visions he was experiencing weren't really true.

But she has a creeping, ugly suspicion that the root of his fears isn't really in the possibility of something happening to her in the future. It's in the guilt over what's already happened to her once, that he was powerless to prevent.

That, and —]

Rohan.

[She gathers up her strength, reaching up to press a kiss against his cheek, and even after she's done she lingers there near his ear, where she can murmur secrets low enough that they're only for him, and no one else.]

It wasn't your fault.

[Everything that's happened to her. Everything that still might. None of it is his fault, and she's almost certain that part of him believes that it is.]

You know that...right?

[ There's a soft feeling of Chroma when she kisses his cheek. He's jealous of how easy it is for her to just do this. Talk like this. It's not because no one ever tried to help him do it, he just never really wanted to.

Still, he logically knows that he is not at fault for how things went with her. But that doesn't help how he feels about everything. And, for him, that means that if he can do something to change the way her future here goes? He's going to try.

He'll do what he can. She deserves that much, doesn't she? ]

Yes.

[ Maybe. He turns his head, leaning a little to, again, rest his forehead against hers. ]

I know. [ But what he knows means little. ] But I can do things now.

[ I'm not four anymore. ]

[He couldn't have said it louder if he'd actually voiced the words. I'm not a little kid anymore, and it makes her wonder, all of a sudden, if that's something he worries about and never lets on that he does. She struggles herself with who she'd been in Morioh — craving the opportunity to be seen just as Reimi the average girl, instead of as the ghost girl who stayed behind to protect her town until her killer was found.

Somehow, it never really sank in that Rohan might struggle with how she sees him. That he might worry that he'll always be four years old in her eyes, and not seen for himself. Maybe that worries him a lot, and she's never caught sight of it; she doesn't know.

But at least he's opening up to her. He's still gravitating to her, keeping contact, and it's starting to seem like it's as much for his own sake now as it is to keep her rich with chroma.]

I know. You do so much for me.

[Lightly, her fingertips run down his cheek, a soft touch just to add to the contact between them.]

You keep me safe. I know you do.

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