freshprints | IC Inbox

[She doesn't even do it to try to psychoanalyze him, and yet look at Noriaki Kakyoin go, handing her a perfectly detailed report of...something. Not her, that much is for certain; too many of the aspects are wrong, and he doesn't try to relate aspects of the scenario to her own qualities or observed behaviors. He just lays out a foundation of one assumption after another, peppering in themes like futility and inevitability and uselessness. None of those are hers. She's never once given him any reason to think that she cares about her own efforts being meaningless.

They see two different things, when they look at the garbage chute. He sees becoming garbage. She sees thrown away.

For her, the garbage chute is a reminder of something that already happened, a last insult to injury, a tableau of a school setting where her father is the headmaster and she is thrown away.

For Noriaki Kakyoin, the garbage chute is a defining environment. His interpretation of the execution puts the victim there because it's where they belong.]

Is that what you're afraid of?

[ He doesn’t answer for a long time. Hierophant folds and twists another rose. ]

He gets married. After I die, he gets married. They have a kid.

I'm not having a child with you.

[The fact that she says it so instantly is...comical, almost. Certainly it's the first faint spark of something that feels human inside her since this whole mess started. She wonders what would set Noriaki Kakyoin off like the sight of those boxes had inexplicably, unexpectedly set her off. It's none of her business and she still wonders anyway.

Noriaki Kakyoin did everything right and still wound up with nothing. She wonders if "he" is the one the message was for, the man with the star on his shoulder. Hierophant likes stars best; it's only to be expected. Noriaki Kakyoin died wretchedly trying to send a message to the person that mattered most, and after he dies the person that mattered most gets married and has a child.

Discarded. Garbage. He'd called her in a panic needing her to be his girlfriend just so that he wouldn't look so pathetic by comparison.]

Marriage, we can negotiate.

[ He regrets it the second he says it, of course, the same way he regretted it instantly when he announced to Jotaro that he has a girlfriend. For fifty days he learned to be imperfect. To say that it's the best I can do and tolerate that and he can't put it back. He can't make himself perfect again and when he tries he keeps cracking at the edges. Letting things escape. You put garbage in the incinerator so that you never see it again. Garbage isn't meant to find out what happens after you don't need it anymore.

But then she responds immediately. Like it was a request instead of a breaking. And it's his turn to laugh. It's his turn to laugh and it comes out ugly and desperate and sad and Hierophant's rose comes out lopsided and so he puts it to one side to throw in the recycling when he leaves and he's still laughing. ]

I hate children anyway. [ He says eventually, still laughing. ] We'll be better off, not dealing with that hassle.

That's fine. I wouldn't put up with you being a deadbeat father.

[Little by little, reality is starting to seem like reality again. Color is seeping back in at the edges of a world gone gray. And as she does, she starts to notice little things again — little things that should have occurred to her before, but didn't because they were lost in the avalanche of sorrow and trauma and hyperfixation.

He broke into her apartment.

He picked the lock and broke into her apartment and he was out of breath when he came through the door, like he'd been running.

He tried to make her mad once and hurt her feelings and reveled in it. This time he wasn't trying and what he did about it was — was —

...

The opposite of throwing away garbage, maybe.

She sets the crane and rose down. It doesn't matter where, so she just puts them down onto the floor because that seems like a good idea. They'll be fine there. Hierophant-kun will probably pick them up and spirit them out of harm's way, anyway, if it comes to that.

She turns in place and walks directly into him, a car accident in slow motion, short enough that her face presses into his chest and her arms go around the part of him that's half flesh and half gemstone underneath his clothes and she just stands there, holding on to him, skinny gangly gawky thing that he is, and doesn't know whether it's for her sake or his.]

Garbage is garbage because it's unwanted. So I'll want you. If the definition doesn't fit anymore then it can't be accurate. That's just how it is.

[ It's not like this is the first time he's been hugged. It's not like this is the first time someone has thought that they wanted him. He's good at being wanted. He's good at doing everything right. ]

I'll want you, too. [ It starts out uncertain. Cautious. But he wraps his arms around Kirigiri. Around a girl whose name he never really needed to know. And the first few words feel awkward, but he falls into a rhythm. ] I'll put all your gifts in bags. And I'll only ever hurt your feelings on purpose. And baseball doesn't really have to involve baseballs, it's better when it's just a lot of spreadsheets.

[ She can't see Hierophant. She can almost see him, but she can't. It doesn't matter so much anymore. It doesn't even matter that much that she can nearly see him. She can see what he represents. She can see how fucked up he is. He wouldn't be able to hide it from her if he tried. He's told her that he's a dick and he's tried to piss her off and he just started laughing like a madman in a conversation about her dead father that he started by fucking up when trying to outdo her fake valentines gift and she's still willing to want him. ]

We can not be garbage together.

[He's bony and tall, like hugging a scarecrow. She's not even altogether sure if she's reassuring him or grounding herself, anymore. He makes promises that sound like he's doing set dressing on a stage before the curtain rises, sculpting a reality as false as Seiko's. I'll do this. You'll do this. It'll be like this. It'll be all right.

But maybe it's not so bad to lie to each other. And anyway, she's used to assuming promises are falsehoods so she can't be disappointed by them when they're broken — but sometimes they don't break. Abbacchio said I won't abandon you and didn't. Prompto Argentum said I'll protect you and did.

She wonders if he can manage it, Noriaki Kakyoin who wants a man who lived when he didn't, a man who went on to get married and have a daughter while his corpse was discarded like garbage. It's doubtful that he has any room to want anything else, when he's already preoccupied with wanting someone who's already lost to him so much.

But maybe he'll end up doing it, anyway.]

I want to apologize to Hierophant-kun. Will you tell me how to do that?

You don't need to. But yeah.

[ He doesn't want to let go. She's so small. It feels like if he lets go he won't be able to find her again. But he manages, slowly. Awkwardly. Untangles his too-long limbs from her.

One of the sheets of wrapping paper floats upward, then starts to wrap around something round. pattern side down, just in case. ]

He's shaped roughly like a human, right now. He can change. And since I'm here, he can use me to see. So it's okay if he-

[ The paper starts to push in. Flattens down against a surface, mapping out the nooks and crannies of a masked face. ]

You don't really need to apologise. He's not scared anymore. But he'd like it if you could see him. Just for now.

Oh. He's wearing a mask.

[It's sort of neat to watch, actually. Like rubbing graphite gently over a notepad and seeing the indentations of what was previously written on it coming to light. Hierophant, like this, is no longer the writhing blob of tentacles her imagination has always sort of inadvertently pictured him as; he's "roughly humanlike" now, with a head and a face and...shoulders and hands, presumably, if she were to get down far enough.

Well, that's another assumption to consider, isn't it? Just because he's human-shaped doesn't mean he's human-proportioned. Maybe he has horrifically long limbs like an urban legend cryptid. Maybe he's a head dragging behind his own entrails like a Southeast Asian vampire.]

...What color green are you, Hierophant-kun? Can you show me something the same color as you, so I can imagine you better?

[ Cupboards start to open, one by one. The wrapping paper head stays roughly in place, looking from side to side occasionally in a way that's probably more like fidgeting than actually looking around, considering his eyes are covered with wrapping paper. ]

...what do you even eat? You really don't have any fresh produce, do you?

[ Kakyoin sighs, turning around to let Hierophant move his hair to one side and pull down at the back of his jacket to reveal the emerald in the back of his neck. ]

He's around the same colour. His body is mostly composed of a translucent non-Newtonian fluid, with a more solid exoskeleton of opaque white plates, and so light passes through him slightly.

Why would I keep something on hand that I wouldn't use? I don't know how to cook with produce. I eat takeaway.

[And, y'know, coffee. Like the half-dozen bags of it stacked in the cupboards that are otherwise devoid of normal human cooking ingredients.

But — oh. Hm. It's weirdly intimate, being shown the back of a long-haired boy's neck like this. It feels strange. Or maybe that's just the leftover trauma — that's got to be it. It's just the leftover trauma.]

I see. That's how he makes himself into puddles or ribbons.

[...]

Why does he need a mask?

He has a mouth. Which is itself entirely unnecessary, because he doesn't breathe, eat or talk. The mask keeps anything from entering it. And he likes how it looks.

[ He'll just count his blessings that she can't ask about the rest of Hierophant's 'clothing'.

He rearranges his jacket and turns back while each cupboard door carefully closes, none of them making a sound as they do. What the fuck. At least it's takeout and she's not living on instant ramen. ]

His body hardens into a glasslike substance if part of it is separated from him. The colour makes it difficult to distinguish from emerald, if you can see it.

Ah. You like to look cool, don't you, Hierophant-kun? I understand. It's fine to look the way that makes you feel satisfied, even if no one will ever see it but yourself. Girls paint their toenails even if they're only ever going to keep them in their shoes, so I think you should wear a mask if you like it.

[Not that she gets any say whatsoever in how he looks or otherwise, but she's trying to offer amends for scaring him earlier, so...maybe being supportive of the invisible green eldritch creature (in a mask) is the right way to go.]

Is that why you would up with an emerald gemstone, do you think? Because of Hierophant's color?

It's possible. I hadn't considered it in too much depth. But it is convenient that they match. It means that I can disguise him as the later stages of crystallisation to test people for the ability to see him.

[ Meanwhile, Hierophant is just delighted that someone thought his mask was cool. This time when his head moves it's more deliberate-looking. The paper nods, then falls off his face with the force of the movement. It stops in mid air, moving back up to where his head presumably is. ]

He's glad you like it.

Here, like this.

[She steps over to him deliberately, hopping a little to gently snatch the paper away from where it's floating in midair, and turns it over in her hands to find the right shape and angle before efficiently folding it into an unfortunately smallish paper hat.

It's mostly just a square cone with a brim, but nobody's going to judge her after giving her PTSD over a White Day present, so it's fine.]

There. It's a hat.

[She explains, offering it up to the expanse of nothingness in front of her.]

[ Ah. Hierophant knows how one is meant to operate a hat.

Which means that instead of putting it on his head after taking it, he holds it so the brim is over his eyes. Or over one eye, it being so small. This is what one does with a hat.

He can't help it. He laughs. It's still ugly but- less desperate. Less mad. He isn't burning anymore, rocks are just funny. ]

Sorry- sorry, you can't see. [ He explains, after a moment. Gets his breath back. Wipes his eyes, and he's not sure when they started to water. ] He's playing with it. Wear it properly.

[ The hat floats up to sit about where the top of the paper was before. ]

Don't laugh at him. He can play with it if he wants to.

[It feels a little weird to be defending a person's green eldritch abomination familiar ("Stand") from, y'know, themselves, but Hierophant seems to like the praise, and Noriaki Kakyoin seems considerably more capable of dealing with rudeness than his shyer, more skittish counterpart.]

What was he doing that was so funny?

He's imitating someone he knows.

[ The hat lowers itself again, tilting itself forward like something's hiding behind it. That's it. That's the only trick he knows and he's delighted by it. Hit hat on head, lower hat to cover one eye. Return hat to head. Lower it again. It's not quite as funny by the third time, but it's still- an odd shared sensation for Hierophant to be so entirely delighted by something. It feels like he's drunk too much soda, like it's bubbling inside him

The paper rose floats upward. The base of it twists a little tighter, so there's a part that can be tucked into the top of Kirigiri's braid and held in place by her hair ribbon. ]

...he thinks that's funny, too.

What a flirt you are, Hierophant-kun.

[She has no way of measuring the reaction, of course, except by the speed at which the things Hierophant is manipulating move around, and the apparent enthusiasm that comes attached to it. But still, there are ways she can follow along. It's not unlike cold reading someone, in a way; she just has to watch for whatever clues she can glean, and tailor her own responses accordingly to it.

Such as, for example, reaching up to secure the paper rose behind her braid, tightening the ribbon just so to help hold it in place.]

Does he imitate everyone he knows?

[ The paper hat jumps a good two inches higher into the air at that, in a sudden way that implies that the wearer moved, rather than lifting it. The fidgeting begins again, the hat turning from one side to the other in the air before it lowers again. Ah. That’s what the hat is for. It’s a hiding place.

This is embarrassing. Why is his stand a dork. ]

This is the first time he’s done it. But he’s never had a hat before.

[perhaps it is because HE ALSO IS A DORK]

You should give him things more often, then. He clearly likes them. Doesn't he have toys, or...something to exercise with?

[she says, as though hierophant green is in fact a puppy and not a manifestation of a human being's fighting spirit]

That seems like it would be important. Healthy stimulation.

He’s not a pet.

[ The hat remains in place, a collection of incredibly embarrassed tentacles hiding behind it. And then, without a hint of irony- ]

He has one of those hamster play areas.

...

[That's her cue to just kind of stare at the only one of them she can actually see, which happens to be Kakyoin. Not that she would stare blankly at Hierophant, anyway, even if she were able to see him. He's able to see her, after all, and he's far too good of a weird eldritch creature buddy to be stared at so callously.]

Does he fit in a hamster play area? Even elongated to fit through the spaces, there still must be a...lot of him.

[ To his credit, he catches himself before launching into an explanation of how a human-sized thing can have its parts rearranged to fit into a box-shaped thing. ]

It's best to disregard commonly understood wisdom about the conservation of mass when dealing with stands. He's not really made up of atoms, so many of the rules as we understand them don't apply to him. He'll reduce his total mass if he needs to fit inside someone smaller than he is.

[ Something. He probably meant something. Probably. ]

The smallest he's managed to become was around the size of a red blood cell.

Did you use him to fight off a cold?

[That would be a white blood cell, Kirigiri. Or I suppose in Hierophant's case a green-and-white blood cell. BUT YOU KNOW.]

I had no idea "Stands" were so versatile. I was under the impression that they were useful in one particular way, not in a variety of them.

IC Inbox | noctiumrp

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