tuesday evening?! yeah

[psychedelica]

[ he said he'd get information about what happened out of her that night, and he meant it, dammit!! Hopefully, Stephanie managed to find someone to take care of her leg properly; otherwise, Hikage is actually willing to help her hobble back to their room when the time comes.

He wants to know about the attack, of course, but there's something else he wants to bring up, too. ]

Are you willing to talk yet?

[ also, he's not in the bed tonight (yet...?) Tragic. ]

Comments

[psychedelica]

[ there's a lot to unpack here, for more reasons than he's told to Steph. He was dead, yes - but he'd been dead for a long, long time. Long enough to abandon any hope of finding out who he was before. Long enough to become someone else. He'd had to find new goals to drive him forward as years of nothingness dragged by in limbo.

And now he's remembering that he had other reasons to survive - reasons that were quite opposed to what he'd settled on in the afterlife. ]

... Ha ha... I'm an idiot. [ even if it wasn't on purpose, he's clearly blaming himself, anyway. ] ... She was my half-sister. She was... sick. When she was stuck in bed, I'd keep her company and read stories to her. I hated that house, but she made it bearable. Hah...

[ why he hated it is just out of reach, but he can remember now that her room was the only place he could feel comfortable. ]

I... loved her a lot. I wonder what her name was.

[vigilantics]

... you made her happy. I could tell, uh, from the memory.

[ she doesn't know what condolences saying that would make. stephanie doubts she'd be able to make him not think it's his fault. they've been together for a few weeks now, but there's still a lot about each other that they don't understand. there's a lot about hikage himself that he doesn't understand. ]

We can try to see if we can get you to remember it. Her name.

[psychedelica]

... Yeah. [ a pause. The sharp pain in his head from recovering the memory begins to ebb - and, despite it all, he manages a little smile, because the memories are pleasant. Pleasant. How long has it been since anything felt pleasant to him? Well, anything other than... ] It's a good thing she can't see me now.

[ the last part is dry and self-deprecating, and probably not something he should say out loud, but it slips out before he can stop himself. He gets to his feet, rubbing his forehead. ]

... What did you have in mind?

[vigilantics]

You remembered her only after I described her, right? So... it is definitely possible to jog your memory then. Maybe if we can try guessing her name, or at least get as close to it as possible, something might come up?

[ it's a long shot, but it's still better than what they had before. ]

[psychedelica]

[ he wonders if he should... at the same time, in the short-term, he wants to. Still, he shoots her a rather amused look. ]

How many Japanese girls' names do you know? From your point of view, it'd probably be an old-fashioned one, too.

[ the place she was in her dreams certainly looked different from the cities he knows... and it was also definitely not Japan, which obviously wasn't surprising, but. ]

[vigilantics]

I never said I would be any good at this.

[ she huffs. look... she realized after saying that that she may not actually be much help in the name department. but it's fine. she's committed. [

[psychedelica]

[ such a hero

hikage... rubs his forehead one last time with an amused huff, then, somewhat hesitantly, wanders over to sit on the side of the bed again, although he's careful to give her a wide berth. She's injured pretty badly this time. ]

You won't be. [ a pause. his head still hurts, a little, and the fact that he's remembering things - well, he doesn't know what that means for his future. But right now, the memory feels warm. Like a piece of himself that he never realized he missed until now. ] ... Thanks.

[vigilantics]

... it's no problem.

[ she'll reach over and place a hand on his arm, because he is treating her like a plague victim apparently with this distance. ]

We're friends, after all.