henshined | shotaro and ryu in addressing dream issues (never a pornography)

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shotaro and ryu in addressing dream issues (never a pornography)

Shotaro is dazed a lot lately, lost in thought in the middle of anything that wasn't immediately paramount to his survival. He's been cupping a mug of now-cooled coffee between his palms for the last twenty minutes, eyes distant as the radio at the other corner of the office played the weather and the traffic stats in a gentle woman's voice that was decidedly not Princess Wakana's.

He shifts in his chair, crossing his right knee over his left, and finally lifts the cup to his lips. He makes a face as he swallows, but lowers it right back into his lap instead of getting up for another. The fact that Akiko popped out for a quick run to the grocery store is a distant note he's not thinking too much about.

Instead he is--as always--thinking about Philip.

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Ryu knocks once before entering, but he doesn't wait for a response. He is functionally a member of the office, or at least he considers himself to be so. Still, no sense in being rude. "I'm here," he intones as he enters.

He comes in and takes off his jacket, hanging it on one of the hooks by the door. He notices that Akiko's shoes are gone and turns to Shotaro. "Has the Chief left?" He looks at Shotaro for confirmation.

Shotaro doesn't move until the door shuts, and then his head jerks up. Philip's name dies on his lips, and he sits back in his chair. "She went out," he says, attention slipping to his cup.

Finally, he sets it down on his desk. "Grabbing groceries, or something," he clarifies. "You get off work, or...?"

He raises his eyebrows, slipping off his shoes. "I'm taking a half day. Things have been slow, lately." Both of them know why that is.

He strides across the room towards the kitchen. He tries to pour himself a cup of coffee, but when he lifts the carafe and smells it he makes a face. "This is burned," he comments. "I'll make a new pot." Since the Sonozaki case had been closed completely - barring the still-missing Wakana, of course - Ryu had become more of a fixture around the office. Not entirely because of Akiko.

He knows about losing someone. He knows about losing the people you care about. And he and Shotaro were similar enough that he knows that the best he can do is continue to be there for him to rely on. He measures out the grounds and takes out the filters.

"Oh," Shotaro says, and shifts to glance at his watch. He double-takes: somewhere along the line, he's lost track of time. He twists in his chair, halfway to watch Terui brew coffee, halfway to try and drag himself back to the typewriter at his fingertips, but it's not working, so he pushes himself up to his feet and collects his mug one-handed.

He swings around the desk to lower the mug into the sink one-handed and empty it out. After a moment of thought, he runs the faucet to rinse it out. Then he leans back against the counter, looking down at the mug in his hands. "You ever wonder--" he cuts off.

"You ever wonder if this is all a bad dream?" he asks, after a moment of the most seriously awkward silence ever.

The second most seriously awkward silence follows. Ryu has never been good at this. But he says, "No." And then, "But I used to."

He sets the filter and the grounds and then flings his arm out to rinse the pot. "My sister used to call me often at work. It was years before I stopped thinking, 'That'll be Haruko,' whenever the phone rang." With swift motions he deftly sets the coffee to brewing.

And he turns to lean against the counter next to Shotaro. "Sometimes, I still do."

Shotaro's gaze drops at the denial, but he looks up when Ryu continues. Ryu's explanation is like a drop in his stomach, familiar and heavy, and he breathes out, letting his hands hang down at his sides. The mug dangles by its handle from his fingers.

"I keep trying to call him with keywords," he admits, "or just, you know, to ask what he wants for dinner, or if we need any more shampoo."

He turns his head a little to sneak a glance at Terui. "Sometimes I feel like he never left, and he's just... waiting at home."

He shakes his head, and watches coffee drip into the carafe.

Ryu doesn't look at him. He just gazes steadily forward. "I often feel that way about my parents. Especially now that my life isn't consumed by the desire to avenge them." He listens to the tinny drip of the coffee machine percolating.

"And you are obligated to pretend that he's in America, and will someday return." He crosses his arms. "It's no surprise that you feel that way."

He's still not used to being this open, especially not with Hidari. But bit by bit his heart has been coming open - maybe being prised open - by Akiko. And even though some part of him still thought of going to a home that no longer exists, Hidari Shotaro is part of his family now.

"Almost wish I had revenge to swear," Shotaro muses. "Business as usual without my partner there to make it that way is..." He swallows. "Hard."

He glances over. "Sorry," he says, "guess I just feel like having a direction for all this'd make it easier."

The reminder of the cover story makes him flinch. He's told that lie countless times since Philip faded away--since Philip died, he reminds himself, there was nothing soft about their separation. "Doesn't make coming in through the front door and realizing the garage is still empty any sweeter going down, though."

He's not used to admitting things to Terui, either, but there are some things Akiko doesn't quite understand. She's lost Philip, too, but reminiscing with her hurts him in his chest, and they can't do it. Her losses are all so caught up in Shotaro's guilt, in Shotaro's sins, that trying to talk to her about things usually makes him feel worse, after. On the other hand, Shotaro remembers trying to save Terui, to change his mind about the city he loves. Maybe this was how it felt to be on the other end of that.

"The best revenge is living well, they say. For you, making sure this city lives well." The platitudes fall hollowly out of his mouth. "That'll have to be your new usual."

He nods. "It's even worse, I'm sure. You feel like you're mourning alone, because most of his friends aren't even aware that he is well and truly gone." Ryu's family was his burden alone to carry, at least until recently. He knows how it feels to be nearly broken under the weight.

He turns to assess the amount of coffee in the machine, a touch frustrated that it isn't the kind he has at home, where you can fill the cup before the brew cycle is finished. "You aren't, though. Even if your feelings run deeper than the Chief's, and mine."

"I don't--" He cuts himself off. I don't want a new usual, I want the old one feels whiny and, worse, impossible. He swallows it, annoyed with himself, before Terui's description lands on him.

It's completely apt. He's had to make up anecdotes, invent things for Philip to be busy doing at school, to share with Queen and Elizabeth, Santa and Watcherman. They're lies he can't bring himself to rectify, but the fact that he has to shake off the miasma that's been slowing him down every minute of every day if anyone is paying attention lays as heavy and odious as his grief.

He nods, silently, when Terui moves. "I know," he says, because that's all there is to say to that. "And... thanks for that." That it's not quite enough is obvious. He won't say it: it's not their faults, and he doesn't blame them.

He looks over at Shotaro for the first time since their conversation started. His gaze is long and intense, even moreso than usual. He turns to face the private detective, noting with his own detective's eyes the long shadows under his eyes, the paleness of his cheek. Misery of a sort he usually doesn't see from the outside.

He calls to mind the Shotaro who used to exist, when Philip was still alive. The man who stands before him is like a hollowed out version of that man. Whether because there hasn't been enough time yet or because he just doesn't want to fill the emptiness yet, he is a shadow of who he used to be. He wonders for a moment whether the Shotaro who existed before Philip was anything like this man.

Then, he puts a hand on Shotaro's shoulder and squeezes it. "The Chief is worried about you. That is why she bothers you so much. You and I are her only family." The tacit request not to follow Philip that is in those words hangs in the air. He looks aside, but keeps his hand on Shotaro. "Sometimes this life is terrible. But it is real. The worst nightmares often are." The pain of Philip's loss finally shows in his face. "But eventually we wake up. We can't sleep forever."

Shotaro notices Terui's stare: it'd be hard not to, really. He shifts his grip on his mug, tugging it up to his stomach and wrapping the base in his left palm. When Terui's hand settles on him, he jerks in surprise, watching Terui's face as he speaks with a set to his jaw that's part shame (about being so weak, about not being able to move on, about not being able to save him in the first place, about this clear worry that he was going to break his promise to Philip and give up, about everything), part trying to keep down the stinging at the back of his throat from his battered resolve.

"I know," he croaks, before he pauses to gather himself back in. "I know, all right, we're all we've got. Nobody knows that better than me." He breathes, and Terui's face causes a pang in his chest. He's not the only one hurting. He fixes his eyes on a ding in the tiles at his feet. "Like I didn't have enough nightmares already, huh?" he asks, a bad attempt at shying away from Terui's--not advice. Wisdom, he guesses. Experience. Terui endures, and Shotaro feels a little like he's offering up a little of that endurance to share. God knows he needs it.

He nods once, acknowledging the difficulties he sees in Shotaro, having to take it in. He's sure that there is something he should be saying, about the difficulties that men go through to become strong... Something to refer back to those detectives in those books that Shotaro idolizes so. He knows that noir detectives come to their stoicism and stubbornness honestly, the way that he did. But recalling Philip's tendency to mock Shotaro for being soft-boiled wouldn't do either of them any favors.

The coffee is finally finished. It's a little bit of a relief. He pours himself a cup and then offers to pour Shotaro's. "Sooner or later the nightmares don't come as much. And you can remember them without the sadness clouding your feelings." He touches his necklace with two fingers, without seeming to notice that he has.

He repeats something he's read in a book, since he's begun to actually process his grief in a functional way. "Everyone grieves in their own way, Hidari. I would have lashed out even if I had someone to rely on. Even if I had no one to take vengeance on. Allow yourself to be sad. It is a natural feeling to have."

Edited 2013-02-13 10:12 (UTC)

A beat after Terui's offer, Shotaro lifts his cup. "Thanks," he says, softly, watching the cup fill. "Guess you'd know better than me."

He tightens his grip on the handle of his mug. "I never had a chance to stop having the old ones before the new ones started up," he admits uneasily, which is hard, because he'd thought he'd laid the Chief to rest back when they finished dealing with the Dummy Dopant. He'd hoped he'd put the Chief to rest, anyway, since it was only becoming more and more obvious to him that he couldn't leave that behind any more than he could his partner fading to nothing. Seeing red spots on white suits in his dreams had only made the empty hole in him named Philip ache more; Philip had been all he'd had left of his time with the man who'd set him where he was, besides the hat still hanging on the door to Philip's workroom. Philip was gone, and the Chief was gone, and he was stuck right here, rooted to the floor, remembering it over and over again.

Terui's next words do sound exactly like they were pulled from a book, but Shotaro's done that more than once himself. Easier to use someone else's words to say something embarrassing. "If I did that, I'd just be sad all the time," he says, curling his cup in toward his body. His mouth is dry, but he can't take a sip yet. "I promised him I wouldn't let this city cry. That means me, too. Can't go around looking like a dead man, Terui."

He glances up. "A man hides his sadness behind the brim of his hat," he says, echoing the Chief, "or in his office, I guess."

He recalls what he's heard about Soukichi Narumi, from his detectives and cops, as well as his girlfriend. A stoic man, almost impossibly so. Somehow he'd inspired fierce loyalty and grief in this soft protege of his. Akiko had once told him that her father had only ever referred to Shotaro as 'some green kid with no dad who helps me out sometimes.' She had been surprised that he'd been so tenaciously holding onto the business when she came to close it down.

"Things keep moving, keep happening, whether we're ready for them or not." It sounds grim, the way he says it. If he were willing to be honest, if it were his turn to burden Shotaro instead of the other way around, he would talk about the feeling he has that the other shoe has yet to drop. That after losing his family, losing Philip and Shroud and the rest of the Sonozaki clan, (regardless of how he felt about each of them) he would only continue to lose. Instead he just speaks around it. "It's at times like this that you learn what you can handle, with the help of those around you."

He has no standing to criticize stoicism. His own feelings of grief had once almost destroyed him. But it's not a disservice to Shotaro to know that his grief is destroying him, even if it's more slowly and quietly than Ryu's had. "That is your choice. I must warn you, though," he closes his eyes and sips his coffee and then says, "You can't hide from the Chief."

Shotaro hadn't spent much time with the Chief, comparatively. But he'd spent a lot of time alone as a kid, strange and too quick to fight, and in gratitude for waking him up from the road he'd been walking down, Shotaro had fixed his eyes on the Chief's back and tried to follow him as best as he could, for as long as he'd been able. Even now he's trying to follow in the Chief's footsteps, in his legacy. Leaving the office--after the Chief's death, and now--was a non-option. The place they were standing in was full of them both, and Shotaro needs as much of them as he can get.

Things keep moving, whether you're ready for it or not. That's certainly the way Philip's death had felt, after the days of terror inflicting by his father, the Evil Tail, that final case. One blow after another with no rest, and he was still reeling. "It's heavy," he says, "I couldn't--" He swallows, eyes clouding over. "I couldn't do it alone."

"No, I can't," he admits, snorting a little through his now stuffed-up nose. "Nobody can, you know her." He lifts his mug to sip tentatively at his coffee. "It's not really about, y'know, hiding. From you guys. I've already spilled things once when I shouldn't have." That was a truly spectacular spill, too. He's not proud of it. It weighs a little, too; the fact that no one's seen Wakana since tastes like the broken promise it is.

He nods and swallows his coffee. "You're not alone." He says, simply.

"Believe me, I've tried." He gives a little chuckle. He had tried to hide from her, the way he hid from everything back then. She was dogged in her pursuit, and had somehow ended up at his side enough times that he had begun to expect her there. To miss her when she wasn't around. She became a part of him without him realizing it, and brought the rest of them with her. That pain had come as well... That was to be expected. Philip's death had unlocked the sadness that he'd locked away with rage so long ago.

He thinks about Wakana's face, when Shotaro had told her the truth, that she was the only one left. "That wasn't your fault." It wasn't the right thing to do, but.... She had to know the truth, eventually.

"I know," he says, and sips his coffee again. He swallows before he continues.

"Everybody tries," Shotaro says, humor coloring it. He remembers trying to keep the Chief's death from her, remembers when he and Philip had first formed Extreme. "She's strong." A lot stronger than him, anyway.

"Still shouldn't'a said anything," he answers, sighing full-body. "He wanted to protect her from... all this." It rankled, that he hadn't been able to keep his damn mouth shut. That Philip's death was so close under his skin that at the first provocation he'd spilled.

He nods, thinking about the iron will that keeps such a weather eye on the two of them. He wonders if she had to learn that strength or if she came by it naturally. Perhaps if Soukichi had been as open and warm as Akiko... But there's no sense in going down that road. "She is. We reap the largest benefit."

"You can't protect someone from the truth. Eventually it comes out, and knowing you didn't know can be unbearable. Chief could have told you that."

Shotaro doesn't have an explanation for her strength, though he'd probably lay that blame squarely on her stubbornness. Narumi Akiko couldn't give in out of her sense of pride, so she didn't, or something like that. "You're tellin' me," he says, a little bitter. He wasn't even sure what he'd have done about the rent, if she hadn't shown up when she had. Lost cats were best found with the threat of the Wrath of Slipper.

That hits like a blow, despite the fact that Terui says it plain as day. "Yeah, I know," he admits, small. At least a dummy version of her dead family hadn't been attacking him, at the time? "Woulda liked to be able to sit her down for it, though." If nothing else, in order to confirm where she was, where she was going, after she was made aware of the truth.

He takes a long draught of coffee, blinking slowly. It's been clear to him from the moment he started paying attention to anything other than his single-minded quest for revenge that Shotaro's relationship with Akiko is as truly a brother-sister relationship as any. Though Akiko is definitely the older sibling... He puts the idea of Shotaro being his brother-in-law out of his mind.

"It's not your responsibility, Hidari." He is tempted to leave it there. But he pushes on, despite not being altogether good at being long-winded. "It's up to her what she does with the information you've given her." It really isn't good enough. Wakana should be here to share the weight of Shotaro's grief, Philip's only living family member. But perhaps she's ashamed of what she has done... Ryu is not qualified to make that assessment.

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