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[soft_focus]

WELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE CHANNEL, CCC-REDHORSE. FOR SECURE COMMUNICATION, USE 134.64.202.69 *** CCC-REDHORSE has joined 134.64.202.69 <CCC-REDHORSE> This is Reira Akaba! <CCC-REDHORSE>I'll try to answer you but sometimes I'm busy or sleeping, so I don't think about the message right away.

Comments

[soft_focus]

...They feel different.

...they tasted different too, when I was a wendigo, [he says quietly. It's hard to describe. Hollow, empty...just different. Different.

But either way.] ...I don't like how it feels with a normal person, [he whispers.] ...it's wrong...it doesn't feel like me any more...!

[abysmalactor]

[Sawatari still doesn't completely get what point Reira is trying to make, what with different tastes and all, but he freezes, all nerves on end at those last words.]

Doesn't feel like you, huh...?

[His mouth feels dry. Wordlessly, he leaps down onto the floor, movements unnervingly more cat-like than ever as he lands on all fours.]

[soft_focus]

[He's rather curled in those blankets, but if Shingo manages to move a bit of the toys and things aside, he'll see tears-it's not something he wanted to say. Not to Shun, at least, for fear it would just be seen as an excuse, some attempt to get his way again.

But the more he thinks about it the more he dreads it, and his breath is shaking each moment.] ...I didn't like it...but I did too-I don't feel like that in the arcade, it doesn't feel like anything there...

[abysmalactor]

Mmhmm...

[Sawatari nods sagely, not that Reira can see it, buried in plushies as he is. He doesn't make any movements to move them aside, either, instead pacing back and forth across the room, on all fours, his knuckles somehow padding against the floor as silently as his back feet.]

It feels like you, but it's not you, eh? That feeling...

[What's he getting at.]

[soft_focus]

...yeah.

[He nods, the toys rustling a bit from over him. He can hear Shingo coming near, but he makes no further motion to move.] ...'s like there's someone else there, even though it's me.

im sorry sawatari is being needlessly dramatic

[abysmalactor]

Yeah, I get you. It's the same feeling I get sometimes too, see? You see people walking by, and...

[His voice lowers, tone becoming unusually ominous.]

You want to stalk them, watch their awareness of your presence change, from ignorant, to dismissive, to paranoia...they start looking around nervously, their whole demeanor changes, and eventually they slip up, duck into an alleyway or into a heavily wooded area to escape you, and the whole time you can feel their fear increasing, and it excites you. Or is it you?

[Sawatari's pacing stops and he sits on his hind legs, tail lashing back and forth.]

Then you corner them, and instead of finishing it off fast, you want to have some fun. So you toy with them, reveling in their suffering. You want to feel disgusted, and you do, but at the same time it's so satisfying, isn't it, feeling that fear? So despite yourself, you keep going, and when that fear and desperation reaches it's peak...

[Suddenly, Sawatari's face barges in through the plushies, scattering some of them and flinging others upward. When did he get there? He must have leaped forward in a pounce.]

Boo! You strike! Another satisfying hunt, completed!

[Several of the flung plushies land back on him, fully encasing Sawatari's head in a wall of them. It looks absolutely ridiculous, especially with the mischievous expression he adopts when the dramatic monologue is all done with. He continues on, regardless of Reira's reaction.]

Like that, huh?

oh my g od this makes me want yuuri cr even more lmfao

[soft_focus]

[.......Well, by the time Shingo's monologue is finished, Reira is sitting up, tearstained face in full view and eyes wide. It helps that the stuffed animal cover is gone. He's back somewhat against the wall, the rest scattered quite away while Shingo's face is almost in his own.

It's...not quite the same. But at the same time it is-feeling the fear as the body realizes it's shutting down, deprived of precious oxygen; seeing the eyes widen in the case of the conscious, feeling the futile struggles grow weaker and desperate as the very sensations of fear and despair and agony literally satisfy that craving for another's life.

With the draining of their energy, the extension of suffering, the frantic beating, beating, beating of the heart, he can remember having laughed back then, the sound muted and hidden by the water before it sprang into cackles and he tore out an already dead throat.

...He shakes his head.

And his eyes well up again.] ...I don't want to feel like that...

...not again...

[abysmalactor]

...Yeah. I get what you're saying.

[His expression sobers, and the plushies all fall to the wayside as he sits up properly and clambers into the bed.]

Don't think any of us particularly enjoy that bit...I still haven't figured out where I end and the manticore begins. Dunno if I even wanna find out.

[A wing extends as an offer for it to curl around Reira as a silent apology for throwing aside the majority of the plushies just moments ago.]

We'll figure out something for ya, right?

[soft_focus]

[The boy sniffles. He sniffs, and rubs his eyes, and curls into the wing with quiet sobs as his voice breaks.] Why doesn't he listen? [he eventually cries, voice still quiet.] I know I didn't say why...but whenever I talk about the arcade, he always says I have to 'learn'. He says it's more dangerous in there, but it's never been safe here...!

...I can still feel like me when I eat in there.

I don't feel those things from them when I eat in there...

[abysmalactor]

Well, you know how Kurosaki is. Stubborn guy...

[He shrugs, pulls the wing in a little closer.]

So that's how it is...maybe if we both say it to him, he'll understand?

[soft_focus]

[He immediately shakes his head.]

...kurosaki just thinks you can't do anything.

[abysmalactor]

Of course he would.

[It's not like Sawatari's ever done anything to increase his worth in Kurosaki's esteem, either.]

But this isn't about me, anyway! [as impossible as it seems.] We gotta get you at least some leeway!

[soft_focus]

....I have to eat tomorrow, or else.

...I won't change his mind that fast, [he says quietly, curling up.] ...I'll just wait until I'm not grounded... ...and move back home, after that I think.

[If it wasn't for this after all, he'd already be there.]

[abysmalactor]

Nah, especially since that argument's still fresh...

[He sighs.]

Usually, I just try not to think about it. Not the advice you wanna hear, but...

[And then Sawatari snaps his fingers abruptly.]

Oh! You could ask Yuzu, too! She doesn't like that kinda feeling, either, we've talked about it. Maybe she's got some ideas...she'd probably back you up against Kurosaki, too, come to think of it...

[soft_focus]

[There is more headshaking. And then more. And more-] It's not about thinking it..!

I feel THEM..! I have to eat their energy..! [He doesn't know how it works-and honestly trying to explain it feels more and more futile, at this point. It's already happening-and he doesn't want to cause trouble, not now.]

[abysmalactor]

Wait, you eat like that-?!

[He blinks owlishly, before deflating.]

Geez, you really do have it bad...guess not thinking about it wouldn't help much...

[soft_focus]

I have to drown them, [he whispers quietly.] ...You bring them into the water and drown them, and when it's a real person everything they do feels...wrong but good and you can't stop or you'll have to try again...

[Which, realistically, is worse.]

...I know Kurosaki wants me to be able to hunt. And I knew how to do that, [he cries softly,] but that feeling...it's different even from wanting to chase people..! It's different from making someone feel scared..!

And I don't want to get used to that like I did hunting..!

[abysmalactor]

Hey...oi...

[Is Sawatari out of his element? Hell yeah he is. All he can do is sink down back to all fours, lying down amidst what's left of the plushies (the result is a sort of half-nest of stuffed animals, with his wing acting almost like a blanket) in an attempt to get more down to Reira's level. It doesn't quite work.]

I know...I know. Getting used to that kinda thing...even if it makes things easy on you, you end up...

[He closes his eyes, huffs, then opens them, looking a little more determined.]

Well then, you're not gonna get used to it!

[soft_focus]

[It feels like an odd thing to say, the way Shingo brings it out. Curling up in a nest of fur, toys, and wing, is nice at the least, but the words result in Reira staring. And staring.

And...]

...that doesn't make it feel less bad, though.

[...It doesn't make him less scared.

He just knows, knows for sure, what's coming.]

[abysmalactor]

...Yeah.

[His chin rests on a plush, but it doesn't make his face look any less solemn.]

I mean on one hand, it's hypothetically a good thing that it doesn't get easier, but...doesn't change how it feels in the moment. Can't really say anything about that.

[soft_focus]

Mnh. [Indeed...he cannot.]

...I just wish he would listen, [he says quietly.]

...he won't even listen when I say I trust someone. Like I can't even do that right.

[abysmalactor]

Heh. There's being an overprotective big brother, then there's that.

[Huff.]

Like I said before, that guy's really stubborn...

[soft_focus]

I don't even feel like it's that. [He huffs, and sighs, able to at least feel a little more opinioned about it.] It just feels like if he doesn't like someone I'm not allowed to trust them at all.

[abysmalactor]

'Cuz, that guy doesn't trust other people's decisions, right?

[He puffs up indignantly, but it honestly looks like he's trying to make fun of Kurosaki by posing.]

Gotta keep up that cool war-survivor image, you know.

[soft_focus]

How come I'm allowed to ask Yuuya, or Yuuto, or Yuzu then? [he counters.]

...he just doesn't want me to talk to anyone he doesn't like.

...it's not fair.