psychedelica | (no subject)

(no subject)

You might not be dead yet, you know. You're acting like it's all over.

[ Hikage catches Jae-ha at some point before he can vanish into his room or wherever else. They're not friends, and they're hardly even acquaintances - but Hikage is a practical man, and he wants to talk to him before this is over. It might be his last chance. Jae-ha had a lot of connections to both the victim and the culprit, after all. ]

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Am I?

[Jae-ha blinks in confusion.]

Why is it that everyone's mistaking gratitude for resignation? I thought my ugly outburst yesterday was already more than enough....

Gratitude?

[ that's about a hundred times more confusing than stress about dying; Hikage squints at him. ]

What do you have to be grateful about? There's no one coming out of this worse off than you.

It would be a thousand times worse if we condemned the wrong person for my Captain's death, and I had to continue through another day here not only knowing that I wasn't able to protect my Captain, but that an innocent person's blood was spilt on my watch.

[ . . . ]

But this? Being told that my time is limited? It might as well be any other day.

[ he tries to remember what it said on Jae-ha's profile so that he can figure out what he means by that, exactly, but all he remembers is "dragon" and "leggy." god fucking dammit. ]

... In other words, you're planning on getting out of it some way or another, anyway.

[don't worry hikage just ask you need to literally be friendship level 0.27 to get jae-ha's tragic backstory

hence why he's confident as he answers - ]

Running away from my fate is my specialty.

[ unfortunately his caring level is only 0.26 so he doesn't ask...

still. running away from fate, huh. he kinda likes that, for some reason, and he offers a wry half-smile. ]

That confidence will take you halfway there. [ a beat. ] I wanted to ask you about your partner.

Then salvaging a door out of this place, or a way to break my deal is the other half.

[The night's still young - he's not giving up.

When Hikage brings that up next... he snorts a soft laugh.]

Miss Sharpay?

Feel free.

Do you have any idea what they might have offered her?

[ he's worried about it, for some reason... ]

None.

[SIGHS.]

At least - nothing that I could understand motivating murder. She wanted to be a performer, and she wanted to get out of this place. But to give in to their game for that...?

[ a small tch. he doesn't want to say he'd believe it, but... he'd believe it. not because of anything she did, personally, but because something inside him knows that's the way people are - something he doesn't really remember. ]

I guess that was enough. She never told you anything...?

No.

[Which.

He doesn't bother hiding how annoyed he is by that fact.]

If she had, I would've talked her out of it. Done something. She likely knew that, so it was easier to string me along instead.

... I should have figured.

[ obviously, jae-ha would have done something if he knew; the one who died was his captain. Or his mother. Both, maybe? He's still not entirely sure. ]

She's the one getting punished, but Tiger and Dragon are really behind this. If we want to stop this, we need to learn more about their actions.

You're not wrong.

[Jae-ha sighs - ]

The Dragon confirmed that they've been meeting with others in secret, right? I wonder what it would take to get an audience....

Have you tried asking?

... who? Where?

[THERE'S NOT EXACTLY AN OPPORTUNITY AT THE MOMENT]

I'll take that as a no.

[ well, based on his past experiences... ]

... Just try asking when you're by yourself. Where I'm from, that was enough. [ a beat. ] If you live, anyway.

[what the fuck]

Where are you from?

[ presented without any particular care: ] Somewhere in Japan when I was alive, probably. But before I came here, I was in a mansion in the in-between - the space between the world of the living and death.

When you—

[ ??????? ]

What?

No wonder you were so on edge when we all first arrived.

[ explaining this is getting annoying!! he took everyone else being in his situation for granted in the old manor. Hikage sighs. ]

... I'm already dead. You can think of me as a lost soul that got brought here from Purgatory. It sounds dramatic, but that's basically what happened.

[ . . . Purgatory.

Jae-ha thinks about that - for some reason, he'd thought that of everyone here, he'd be the closest to death. His brow furrows.

It comes as a surprise that someone else already beat him to it.]

... and you're alright with that? It sounds like you've had time to make peace with it - as much peace as you can have with something like that, anyway.

[ his expression becomes a little blank at the question. ]

There's not much I can do about it. I've tried.

[ he's tried and tried, but no matter what he does, he just can't seem to- ]

Supposedly, I can come back to life if I fulfill certain requirements there... I never heard about tigers or dragons or any place like this, though.

The only dragons that I've heard about being able to come back to life.... is more complicated than that. More often than not, it's about reincarnation rather than the same life.

[It's Complicated(tm).]

But there's never been tigers in the legends I've heard. Only dragons, castles, and fallen kings.

Reincarnation is more normal.

[ his case is just weird. ]

You're not much like the other "dragon."

She doesn't feel like my type of dragon.

There's only meant to be four of us, after all.

[ he almost asks "since when," but that would probably be pointless, wouldn't it. ]

Figures. Maybe it's just a nickname. [ a shrug. ] Anyway, they can probably see and hear everything we do here.

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