standingonmyneck | FOREST COVERED: IC CONTACT

[I've met worse liars for worse offenses.

That was all she needed, Riye got up from her futon, matted hair and all. She didn't care.

She was slow moving but she knew two things that she was sure of.

1. Alexis was lying and/or needed help somehow.
2. She couldn't sleep, and it would be pointless to try to now.]

There's an idea, maybe I might go too. If I can't sleep I might as well not stare at the ceiling or look at other people sleep, I might get jealous.

[Pause.]

Need a partner in crime?

[As Alexis saw Ryie coming closer, she wasn't surprised. Dipper was probably the better one at hiding their emotions, Alexis wasn't. While there was a slight pout, it wasn't directed her. It was mostly at herself. Still, she wasn't going to say no to somebody when they just wanted to help.

Instead, she just flashed a quick smile at her roommate]

You bet. Nothing says a good walk in the garden when a friend's involved.

[She said before opening the entrance ever so slowly. Don't want to wake up anymore of her roommates. (Especially that one guy. He was super super creepy!)]

Right after you, miss! [She said with a giggle]

[Too much energy at this time of night, though it was most likely a facade now that she was caught? Hard to tell at this very second; only time would tell now. She went too far to give in. Besides, she was certainly not tired right now. Riye rubbed her eyes to wipe away some crust and slowly got up. She didn't bother making the bed.

She was quiet, surely. Moving around the other sleeping lumps before slinking through the door.]

Thanks, Jeeves.

[As soon as Alexis closed the door, she just giggled. Granted, she was exhausted but what better way to deal with that than to be as happy as possible? It wasn't like she had much of a choice anyway.

Although, she did have to wonder, if Ryie caught on to her facade]

You're very welcome! Although now we gotta be careful! We need to be as quiet as possible, we need to be ninjas running across the field!

We're practically stepping on time bombs with each step we take!

Thankfully, that's not literal. I wouldn't put it passed this place though. So maybe it actually is.

[She was highly suspicious, absolutely. That happens when you see a girl in near tears suddenly turn that frown upside down.]

Will we make it to the garden? Who knows?

[Wether if Ryie knew or not, Alexis was still going to keep the happy train a going!]

What better way to find out than to play it? We gotta be very very quiet! ...Or else!

[She said before taking one step at a time making sure there were no squeaks on the wooden floor. Although, it didn't take her that long before she got annoyed]

Edited 2016-06-19 13:55 (UTC)

[Riye just. Walked. Around. Slowly. With a slight shuffle in her step. Welp.]

Have we died yet?

[She didn't know how much longer she should have this go on, until Alexis was ready to possibly talk. It was so silly for this time of night. Alexis wasn't letting up, so she had to think this through. Think about that, and not about the probable bombs.]

N-No but that's fun of it! Trying not to die!

[Although, should Ryie listen, it seemed as if Alexis was slightly more anxious than usual. It would be difficult to talk normally when she had a series of death related dreams and when it was mostly about her brother? It would most definitely make her nervous!]

Or let anyone else die around here either! And how it'll be the greatest wish ever!

[Yup, this is what she'll go with]

[As much as he would normally be fretting about the idea of dumping his problems on a woman -- AGAIN -- he figures there isn't much lower he can sink in peoples' esteem. The idea that the only person who thinks he's a piece of shit right now is HIM doesn't even cross his mind. After all, everybody back home said it, his brothers say it all the time, it's true, right?

Especially right now.

So fuck it.]

need someone to talk to. get something off my chest. it's okay if you don't want to hear it though.

- Levant

Edited 2016-06-22 20:56 (UTC)

[She honestly didn't know how much other baggage she could take. Considering she wasn't in the best spirits right now herself anyway. So when she saw the note, it took a bit to process.

But it made sense.

Levant.

The one who seemed to try to get a grip on things the most. The one who internalized things the most.

This guy needed someone. He came to her.

No matter what she thought, she simply could not refuse it.]

There's a coffee shop close to the bathhouse. Meet you there.

Or at least a good distraction.

[Okay. She had enough. Alexis was just trying way too hard, and dodging and waiting did literally nothing. It never did. She had to always be blunt with these things, did she?]

Speaking of distraction, any reason why we're risking our lives out here?

[There was a long pause on her end. She was a wreck without her brother around wasn't it? It was funny to think that there was a chance they'll be separated and now? It looked like she had an early start to that.

But it also sucked that Ryie always had to be blunt with her too. This optimism thing sure wasn't working was it?]

N-Not really...? I figured it would be a lot of fun to just not think about it for a while. But...this isn't working is it?

[Sure enough, there he is. Or one would assume it's him, anyway; hard to tell when there's six identical brothers. But even for HIM, he looks wrung out; there are bags under his eyes, and whatever it is he's ordered, it's hard to tell if he's even touched it. If anything, he looks WORSE than when Riye would have first met him outside that movie theater, which is saying something.

He glances up and gives a bit of a weak wave.]

[...Oh no. She knew she was slow getting to the coffee shop. She expected to be beaten there. But what she didn't expect was to see that. Riye didn't look too good herself, but compared to him? She could pass off as feeling like a winner.

But she was frowning something serious. Was this all such a good idea? It wasn't like as if Riye knew how to seek anyone out genuinely. This was something Levant needed, and she wanted to be decent to him.

Looking at this made her really feel scared inside.

Something bad happened. It might have something to do with Ichimatsu.

All she could do was prepare for the worst, but she didn't really trust herself. But she actually wanted to try. She was the one called upon. Levant had the floor. She ordered a doughnut and a dark roast coffee. She sat down with her order, but didn't touch it either. She said nothing, she just sat there. Her face looked attentive, but she seriously didn't know how to break the ice.]

[He continues to stare into the cup, trying to think of how to get things off his chest. He talks more than his other brothers about himself, but it's still hard to, you know, TALK. He supposes he can at least start things off on a positive note, of sorts.]

Uh, Ichimatsu is back. Um. Don't know if you heard.

[They were both doing stellar. She was never a talker to begin with, but she should say SOMETHING to start this.

Riye looked at her cup and managed a sip.

She regarded to what she finally heard from him. Already she felt like she froze. She was ashamed of it. So another long sip before finally getting herself back into shape.

Not about me.]

I know. I saw him the other day.

[...]

Have you been okay?

[Nice, you start off with a redundant and obvious question.]

[He looks out the window, unsure how to answer the question. He finally gives a non-committal sound as an answer. Mm.

A while passes before he can work up the words to talk again.]

I need... I need to make sense of something. Something that's been rolling around in my head for a bit. I... it's not going to make a lot of sense to you, I think, and I'm sorry, but I can't really talk with my brothers about it. I just... I need someone to understand our situation, and not just the basic look of it. Um... if that's okay, I mean.

[Another sip. Oh boy, the show never stopped. The show was on rerunning recap marathons with a new episode everyday at 8:30. Riye had to be used to this by now. But she had to admit, she couldn't predict the magnitude of each quake whenever the siblings spoke of their shenanigans.

But she came, and Levant deserved an ear. He really did.]

I've been given bits and pieces of things that shouldn't make sense in any realm of reality ever since I came here. It just happened to lead to us sitting in a coffeeshop in a tourist town for spirits. I still live.

What's on your mind?

[He fidgets. How does he begin this? Does he leap straight to himself? That would be confusing though... maybe he should start from the beginning.]

Uh... I'm going to start with a story first. I'll... I'll get where I'm going in a bit, but... yeah.

[He clears his throat nervously.]

So, ah... once, there was a cartoonist, named Fujio Akatsuka. He became a very popular cartoonist, with his comics becoming renowned throughout Japan. There were even popular trends and catchphrases people picked up from them! Eventually, he became an important figure to Japan itself, and people called him "Akatsuka-sensei."

[He looks at her, seeing if he's lost her or not.]

[Not yet, he hasn't. She just looked at him, waiting for him to continue.

Prepare yourself, Riye. You have a bad feeling but you already did this.]

I'm assuming the cartoonist story isn't some long winded metaphor, right?

[His eyes flit upwards in a silent acknowledgement, but he doesn't say verbally one way or the other.]

Among his work, one of the most popular of his creations was a strip about six young boys, all identical, all nearly impossible to tell apart. Since it was a gag comic, nothing was taken seriously; people could be violent to each other, or mean, and it was all in the name of exaggerated humor. People loved it.

One day, years later, Akatsuka-sensei died. Years after that, those sextuplets, in honor of their creator, wanted to bring their presence back to Japan, to remind people of his work. But they knew that the humor that worked in the Showa era didn't work in the twenty-first century. And they wanted to make sure they wouldn't just become side characters in their own work either; being completely identical only goes so far! So... they grew up. And became their own people. The humor was still on the mean side, but now the six were capable of carrying things more on their own.

But, of course, one of them had to become the "tsukkomi." The straight man. So one of them would react the way other people would to what people do. It's... it's a humor style. And so one sextuplet, somehow, gained that role.

[He turns the cup in his hands again.]

...but the fact was, one can only do so much in a situation like that. And so that sextuplet frequently found himself on the outside of the situation, horrified at his brothers, but also on the inside, working with them. Both wanting to be like them, but also wanting to be "normal." Without a community really supporting the latter, he ended up falling back into the former a lot. And this was fine -- in a world where actions didn't really have long term consequences.

[He looks down.]

Except briefly, one time, they did. Then inevitably went back to normal. And then that sextuplet joined his brothers in a place where consequences were even more important. And suddenly, that sextuplet realized the truth:

[His fists clench.]

That what's funny to people from a distance is horrifying in person. And how terrible he really was.

[He's quiet, for a while longer.]

That's... that's my story, I guess.

[The sounds of the cafe were all they heard for a few minutes. Riye looked in her cup. At her doughnut, before slightly shuffling it closer to Levant.

It was a chocolate glazed, it was his.

She wasn't hungry.]

[Okay, maybe not "minutes". Maybe a whole minute. It might've felt like a few hours.

It just always got worse about this. The world they came from was just...how much could someone take before it all sounded insultingly absurd?

Was it SO outlandish? Maybe it was. But then she remember just how they felt about death, how she plastered shade at Larix for not believing in consequences. How to process any of this, especially at her state? How to even process this in the first place? How to even BELIEVE--]

So, what I'm gathering is, or what I can make out: you and your siblings are a cartoonist's creation made from what was considered to be modern ideas of crude humor. But to appeal to the twenty-first century demographic, you all grew up and became caricatures based on tropes. Parodies of them. You were allowed to be individuals, but also not.

Now you all are here, you're faced from the effects of what some real world logic does.

[Did she...get it?]

[The worst part is that, being the "straight man," when she says it out loud, it really DOES sound absurd.]

Sort of. Except we've also got our own lives. So we're sort of a creation and sort of our own thing - look, I did say it wasn't going to make a bunch of sense!

[He puts his head in his hands.]

It's just... somehow I'm supposed to be the adult! But I also just want to be free to be whatever I want, and I...

[He sinks lower, his head now resting on his arms.]

I just... want to be a good person, but I don't know if I can actually do it.

FOREST COVERED: IC CONTACT

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