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

[halfboiledhope]

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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[halfboiledhope]

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."

[exceller_8]

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."

[halfboiledhope]

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.

[exceller_8]

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.

[kirifuda]

"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.

[exceller_8]

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."

[kirifuda]

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.

[exceller_8]

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.