#i guess he relates to nanami more than anyone else | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

missyasf · 4 years ago

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Game Of Hearts

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↳ Summary: Your life is in monotonous tones of grey, day in, day out. Nothing matters besides your sister, the only thing you remember is seeing fireworks before waking up to Tokyo abandoned . Soon enough you are properly introduced to the deadly Borderlands where you must fight for your life in Games to survive. When things can’t possibly get worse soon division arises and rivalries are made. No matter what though, you are constantly plagued by a blonde who, no matter how hard you try, just can’t seem to go too far without.

↳ Pairing: Chishiya/Reader

↳ Genre: Angst, smut, thriller

Word Count: 11k

___| Next

Trigger Warning: ⚠️ much like the manga/Netflix adaptation this will be a dark fic which includes mentions of prostitution, attempted murder, child ab*se, sexual harassment, heavy grief and attempted suic*de among other things. Additional warnings will be added for chapters when triggers are brought up. Please read with caution if these are triggers for you or just skip all together!

Side mention: This could be considered a prequel to the current Alice In Borderland. I’m writing based off the Manga bc I was a glutton and couldn’t wait no spoilers will be present as of...

Escapism

noun

the tendency to seek distraction and relief from unpleasant realities, especially by seeking entertainment or engaging in fantasy ♡

You had known all about this during your short lifespan, as a child you’d often play pretend with your sister that you were movie stars living in a five star hotel rather than the shitty busted up apartment on the wrong side of town. Escapism came in, many forms. It was often a way for people to cope psychologically, simply because sometimes, facing the reality of your situation can be too much for one person to handle mentally.

Or at least, that was the topic of your lecture today in class. The human mind always fascinated you. Even at the young tender age when your mom died and you watched your once cozy little family fall apart piece by piece until nothing was left in its wake.

It was your fascination that drove you now for most things, why? Why, why, why? You always wondered what the motive was behind someone’s actions, not only thing but you wanted to understand them better, to try and sympathize. You were already fairly intuitive in nature. It wasn’t difficult to read people. In fact your line of work made it easy, you’d watch a man who would be excited to be with you reach for his left finger as if used to touching something. A wedding band perhaps?

The lowlife cheater was fairly common in a whore house after all. Or the man who had been pissy this morning behind you in line because you had decided to try something new on the menu and you weren’t fast enough, obviously because he was tardy and woke up late, his shirt unbeknownst to him was button the wrong way and his tie loose and even the way his hair fell were all signs of being late to work.

It was the little things you noticed in people’s facial expressions, the way they moved and spoke. You could read people like a book, and sure sometimes it was useful. But you often wished you weren’t so perceptive. It drove you mad knowing when a potential love interest was no longer interested through a simple text or a friend not wanting to talk by their tone. Sometimes you wished you could just blot it all out, still, you lived like this day in and day out, you were used to this kind of thing and honestly. Friends? Love? Your gaze dropped a little to your feet, the pumps you were wearing a jet black and the heel too high for any respectable woman to ever wear.

...It wasn’t like you ever had any of those in your life and you had struggled to come to terms with the fact that you could survive without that kind of support. Still...it made you envious, the couple happily holding hands on the sidewalk. The group of friends all laughing at a table while they studied. Oftentimes these feelings are muted, but when you’re faced with something you’ve always craved, those muted feelings suddenly become hyperactive in your mind.

It’s pathetic, honestly.

“How dare you! You disgusting slut!”

In this moment however, you were brought back to reality at just what was happening, you squeaked loudly as you dodged the shoe the woman had thrown at you. This was all a regular occurrence, you had a lot of regulars who weren’t the most amazing people but hey, money was money. But along with them they also left a trail which their wives and girlfriends always followed. And then they always blamed you instead of their partner for leaving them for a prostitute despite you never having agreed to anything such as that.

It really wasn’t your fault, you were just trying to make a living while juggling with keeping up your own education, paying your fathers debts, rent and still somehow getting food on the table. What part time college job could provide that?

Prostitution wasn’t a job you would’ve gone into willingly but given the past and your trauma that was already laced in it you had been learning that sometimes because of the trauma we experience, sometimes people go back to that same trauma and actively participate in it as a way of feeling like they’re in control.

That whatever happened before, would never happen again if you were in control. You weren’t sure if you qualified under this category, trauma came in many forms but the one most used as an example in your class was that a study showed that women who were assaulted often develop a kink for consensual non consent as a way of coping with what happened, except this time, it’s in a controlled environment where it can end the moment they want it too.

Again, you weren’t sure you fell into this category, but you often wondered if your line of work was intertwined with your earlier memories when you were younger, if anything it brought comfort to you. Much of it, blotted out now simply because your mind couldn’t take it. Trauma expressed through amnesia was also much more common than many thought, and it’s so small, so easy to miss. After all how can you be aware of something if you have no memory of it anymore?

“Security!” Your manager screeched, two of the bodyguards were already between you and the feral woman who was ready to gut you clean as she screamed hysterically, her husband...your regular....at her side trying to get her to calm down only for her to come to her senses and slap him clean across the face. You didn’t condone violence, but he did have it coming...

You weren’t about to justify cheaters, you couldn’t imagine the hurt someone had to feel that not only did their partner cheat on them, but it was with someone...like you...You had been trying not to put down your job occupation, sex workers were just as valid as anyone else...you knew you would’ve thought this way if it was anyone but you in this position.

You sighed as you ran your hands through your hair, watching the couple get dragged out of the tight space of the brothel, “Jesus christ....didn’t you say you stopped using perfume because of this?” Miki, your manager sighed as she crossed her arms. You didn’t want to say your manager was your friend but she was the closest you had as you’d often complain to her about most of your problems. Sex work often attracted broken people, it wasn’t something she wasn’t used to.

“Yeah, but apparently he never got around to washing his clothes…” You wiped your mouth on the back of your hand, “Lipstick stain,” You glanced down at the ruby pink color that stained your skin now, “Fuck...that did hurt.” You rubbed your sore cheek that was still throbbing from where she had first slapped it when she ripped the door open of the room where she got to see with her own eyes you riding her husband.

It had happened so many times now you weren’t even embarrassed about someone walking in let alone a partner. Miki gave you a lopsided smile as she patted your shoulder, “Guess that just pays for being one of the best here. Did you at least get paid.”

You nodded, “Yeah, I always make them pay in advanced but I was hoping to get a tip afterwards...He was a lawyer so you know he had good money.” You sighed, crossing your arms, you were well aware of his partner because a lot of the time he didn’t even come in for sex anymore. It was funny how humans work.

He often felt his wife was overbearing and you had suspected some sort of verbal abuse by the way he talked about her constant screaming. Truthfully, you don’t think he ever intended on cheating with her. He just wanted someone to talk to without being judged, you could relate with sympathy to that, but he unfortunately chose to walk into a brothel instead of a therapy clinic and this truly was the only inevitable outcome. Still, you hope if for anyone’s sake, he gets that divorce for himself.

“Hey I think I’m gonna call it a day. I need to get back to Nanami, she was wanting to talk to me about college applications.” You sighed as you rubbed your neck, ever since she had graduated high school she had been chomping at the bit to start applying for college, maybe to just get out of the house and into a dorm. You couldn’t blame her and if she did that it would lighten your load a little.

Guilt washed over you at the thought as Miki chuckled, “They grow up pretty fast huh? My brother was the same way, except the moment he found out I was a sex worker was the moment he called me a whore and we haven’t talked since. That was probably about five years ago,” She crossed her arms as she sighed, “Crazy how the things we do for the ones we love, never appreciate our effort...I’ll see you tomorrow then?”

“If I’m not bruising.” You offered a weak smile as you nodded at her before going back to your room to get changed. Truthfully, you much like anyone else, often wished you could go to a world where reality wasn’t a concept any longer. Where you could lay out in the sun for the whole day and just soak up it’s rays with no worries or trepidations.

But sooner then later everyone had to face their fears. Even you, you supposed. But no matter how hard you fought your demons, they always came back tenfold. Again, you supposed your story was no different from tens of thousands, and yet you all live on regardless. Maybe it’s you who should be the one seeking therapy. Pulling on your jeans and the cropped top over your head before pulling the jacket over your arms and grabbing your bag.

The walk home was as quiet as ever, your hood over your head and earbuds any unwanted attention, it wasn’t too late at night, only eleven PM and your work had just been getting started but that had ruined the night for you and besides, you had already failed a test today, you could use the sleep tonight.

Occasionally you’d hear the sirens of a cop car passing by or a bystander shout, nothing out of the ordinary in this neighborhood. Walking up to the apartment complex you pulled the key from your bag as you unlocked the door. Quietly stepping insides as you shut the door before locking it once more. Your nose wrinkled at the smell of stale air mixed with rotten...something…

If anything, you were always lacking in something, you had been so busy most of the day that you never had time to clean anything leaving the house in a horrible state. Not that you thought this was much of a house.

Walking down the narrow hallway you opened the rickety door with a missing lock as you gave a brief smile to the small clump of bedsheets. Your sister was curled up and on her phone, eyes darting to the door with a hint of fear before she jumped up, “Y/n! You’re home earlier from night shift already!?”

You offered a smile as you set down your bag and nodded, sitting down on the mattress that laid on the floor as you replied, “Yeah, a coworker needed the extra hours so I let them cover for me tonight. Besides, you wanted to talk about college applications?” Your sister was under the impression your late night job was bartending at some hole in the wall downtown, where in all actuality you just went there to drink a few days and talk to the loud and sometimes obnoxious, but good hearted bartender who loved talking about his nerdy underaged friends that couldn’t do anything beside stay and drink soda.

It wasn’t that you didn’t think your sister would accept you, if she knew what you were actually doing. Fear, most times came in many different forms and this was one of them. You simply didn’t want to be judged, even by her. So nobody in your life truly knew who you were, and therefore, how could you hold the expectation for people to accept you into society if you were already self sabotaging yourself?

All philosophy aside, you were simply a lost soul, looking for your way in the cruel reality called life.

“Yes!” Nanami was chipper as always as she squealed, clapping her hands, “I…! I was thinking about applying to the university you attend! Maybe I'll get a grant and move into the dorms there? I already applied for several jobs, I’m just waiting on a callback!”

You offered a small smile as you hugged your knees to your chest, “I think you’d like it there, there’s lots to do around campus. But what will you go in for? The only advice I can offer is be sure it’s what you want to do.”

Nanami’s face faltered a little as she hummed, “Well...I thought maybe working with animals? I’d love to be an assistant surgeon in veterinarian? I know it’s a pretty...sad job but...I really like the idea of being able to heal such innocent things.” Your smile tugged into a gentle one at your sister. She was too tender for this world.

It had been your goal sense the day your mother died that you took care of your sister, it didn’t matter what happened to you. You could rot for all you cared at the end of the day, all you wanted was to look up and see your sister's smile and her happiness in life blossom. She more than anyone deserved it.

“I think you’ll be great at it.” You encouraged as you rested your chin on your hand, always happy to see her bounce in excitement as you yawned, your body was used to your demanding schedule but it was always more than happy to welcome a few extra hours of sleep.”

Hearing the door loudly slam close caused you both to jump, Nanami hurriedly crawled back in bed, pretending to be asleep as you frowned. Your dad must’ve come back home from wherever he was.

“Y/n! Just stay here! Can’t you talk to him later?” Nanami looked scared, she always did when he was around. But you weren’t about to stand down to the bastard any day of the week, you offered a weak smile as you replied.

“It’s fine Nami, I’ll be just a few minutes.” You replied, you knew that she knew, that was probably a lie. But you’d try your best, for her sake at least. But somebody had to put this guy in his place occasionally and it was always you. It results in a lot of screaming sometimes, other times he’d break down in tears or on a bad occasion you’d get shoved to the ground, a few times hit. Nothing major.

Walking out of the room you leaned against the wall of the entrance of the hallway watching your father stumble around in the living room, “Did you finally talk to the loan company?” You called out as you asked, not in a forgiving mood tonight. He had said he’d do this for two weeks in a row. The company that sank your whole family into the ground. The reason your mother couldn’t take it anymore and put a blade to her wrist.

Your father stood up, looking a little wobbly, obviously drunk, “Now listen here little girl I don’t have shit to own to you or anyone else.” You sighed as you tucked your tongue into your cheek, annoyance flowing inside you as you straightened up. You weren’t going to be bullied into being scared of this guy.

“Actually you do,” Your smile twisted into something more sharp, more bitter and sinister as you walked forward, “See, if you hadn’t of gotten involved in something shady like loan sharks we wouldn’t be drowning in debt and mom wouldn’t have killed herself because of you and both your daughters wouldn’t hate you. I know you drink away all our money in some pathetic attempt to escape from the cold reality that you fucked up your whole life and watched your family slip from your fingers while not even trying to do anything other then put us in further shit,” You closed your eyes as you tilted your head, “But the least you could do, is admit that. You owe us at least that for being a total fuck up.”

You opened your eyes to find pure rage brewing in your fathers eyes as you smiled once more, this time a false sense of sickly sweet tone to it as you shrugged, “Or you could live in denial, at this point, there really isn’t anything you can do to get anyone back ♡ ”

You had turned around, planning to tell Nanami that maybe she should go sleep over at a friends house today but you never got the chance, suddenly being slammed into the wall and flecks of spit hitting your face, “I am your fucking father! I deserve respect from you and your worthless sister! Do you know how much I provide for you both?”

Anger splintered through your veins as you grabbed onto his wrists, his fingers digging into your neck as you squirmed, “Like fucking what!? A shitty broken down apartment that your vacant from because you’re too fucking ashamed of yourself to even look at us sober!?”

Much like years in the past you weren’t surprised to hear Nanami cry as she rushed out of the room at the sound of you both screaming, “Stop!” She cried out, trying to break you both up, “Stop! Don’t fight! Why…! Why can’t we all just get along!” She sobbed only for your dad to shove her down making her curl up in defeat.

Alarm bells were triggered in your head at the sight of Nanami on the ground, she had never actually gotten hurt while in your sight and it was triggering something deep inside you as you watched him stalk up to her. Your hands shaking and rage boiling in your mind as you grabbed the closet thing you could find. An empty beer bottle on the table.

Your vision blurred and you don’t quite remember what happened other than glass shattering over his head and the brute force of you shoving something before blood was stained on your hands.

How did you end up sitting against the wall? Why was there….blood on your hands…? Your fingers trembled at the metallic sticky substance. All you could hear were Nanami’s sobs and cries as she frantically pushed herself away from the body slumped on the ground.

“You…! He…!” Nanami’s eyes brimmed with tears as you heard a loud boom making you jump, your eyes darting to the open window where….fireworks, big and bold crashed and crackled before you felt like you were sucked into a vortex making your whole vision black out.

Your head felt fuzzy and there was ringing in your ears as you groaned, curling up into yourself as the darkness beckoned you closer before you forcibly opened your eyes. You were laying against the hardwood floor. Beams of light streaked through the window and you could see dust particles in the air against the shower of sunshine that streamed in.

...Wait...Light? The thought had perplexed your head enough to make you push up from the ground, memories pulling into your mind as your breath became shallow, suddenly looking to the side where...you slumped against the wall. It must’ve just been a bad dream….your eyes flickered to Nanami’s curled up figure...a really vivid dream…? Something wrenched in your gut as you rubbed your eyes. What happened? “Nami…!” You whispered, forcing your muscles to move despite their protest as she whined.

After another moment she reluctantly opened her eyes, flickering around before she suddenly scrambled up, taking a deep breath as if realizing what had happened before, looking towards where your dad once was she frowned, “...I...What…” She seemed just as perplexed as you and if her face was anything to go by, last night had obviously happened, “Is dad…” She looked at the absent place of the floor.

Leaning against the wall your eyes darted around the room, “I guess so…” You silently felt relief at knowing your dad was still very much alive as you leaned back as you closed your eyes, trying to remember what had happened before everything went dark...oh..! The fireworks...had it been a celebration last night? Your brows pinched together, something felt...off...getting up you opened the door to the apartment walking out.

“Y/n? Y/n! Hey! Where are you going!” Nanami called out, quickly chasing after you as you frowned, cars were parked odd and there was no one out on the street...as in...at all...Something was very wrong and you couldn’t figure out what.

“Wow...it..must be a slow day…” Nanami felt a sense of discomfort at the lack of life as you both walked down the side walk, it didn’t just feel like a slow day it felt, apocalyptic. As if humanity just left on it’s own leaving nothing but an empty city behind. Cars were parked on the curb and a few even left in the street.

“No, it’s like everyone vanished...This is really weird.” You wrapped your arms around yourself as you frowned, looking around as you came closer to where typically it would be a booming part of the downtown but it was empty, just as everything before.

“Well, maybe it’s a national holiday?” Nanami rubbed her head, trying to make sense of the situation just as much as you, surely everyone wasn’t...gone...right? She looked around as she bit her lip, second guessing herself at all the cars that were vacant, “Hey Y/n.”

You paused as you looked at your sister, curving an eyebrow as she offered a weak smile, “What if everyone got raptured away like they talk about in christanity?” Your expression flattened as she giggled, obviously getting a rise out of you as you crossed your arms.

Raptured? Where? To heaven? “Wouldn’t it be fire and brimstone then if that was the case?” Nanami pouted at your words as you shrugged, snickering yourself at her expression, the tables now turned as you sighed, “I don’t think there’s anyone left in Tokyo...I mean, it feels like...we’d have seen someone by now...right?”

“Well…” Nanami frowned once more, a little disturbed at your words as she spoke, “There’s no way everyone could be gone I mean, where would they go? And how could we miss something like that...Maybe the police found us and now we’re under some weird simulation.”

Chills spilled down your spine as you shoved her making her whine, “Don’t say that! That makes me feel all weird…! I didn’t…!” You cut yourself off, you didn’t what? Murder your own dad in cold blood...you looked down at your hands, they were free of any blood but it still felt like something like sin lingered. Like no matter where you went, it would always be stuck to you.

You didn’t like this, not one bit. Briefly you felt the urge to go hunt down your dad, he was a deadbeat but you would never...you’d never kill him....Right?

“Well…” Nanami hummed her eyes scanning ahead before they jumped to the mall that was up ahead, “Hey…! If nobody is here...maybe we could make use of it! Come on! Let's go!” You yelped at her grabbing your arm before dragging you ahead. Cars were all parked and yet not a single person exited through the mall's entrance. Something just felt off! You wrapped your arms around yourself as you warily looked around the empty mall, “Nanami I really don’t like this!” You looked around, concern bubbling inside you as she ran ahead into the store, digging through the section of clothes as she giggled.

“Relax! I doubt any of this is real and even so…! Who’s going to stop us!?” She shrugged as she bounced in excitement, “Oh my god! I had dreamed of something like this happening! Now we can do whatever we want! Go wherever we want! Y/n!” She gasped with a smile, “Now we don’t even have to worry about money!”

“We don’t even know if this is permanent.” You looked around warily, not partaking as she began plucking off the racks, “Regardless of what this is, I don’t like it. I want to go back home, our home. This just doesn’t…” You shook your head, “This just doesn’t feel right.”

“Well you can feel that way!” Nanami clacked her tongue as she gave a childish smile, “But I’m gonna go through this whole store and get a new wardrobe so feel free to sit on the bench and tell me what you think looks good!”

Looking away you sighed, unable to pinch the anxious feeling you had away as you sat down reluctantly as Nanami went into the changing room. Well...at least she was smiling and she was happy...With each outfit Nanami tried out and giggled, you giggled with her and maybe things weren’t so bad after all…

“What a perfect day.” Nanami hugged you close as she sighed, yawning as you looked up at the sky in awe, you had seen a single star while living in Tokyo before, but now it was filled with constellations and millions of stars that stretched for miles. You could stare at it for days and days. The sun had just set a little over half an hour ago and you were ready to retire and find something to eat at the apartment.

You and Nanami had tried going to the food court but much to your dismay everything had been...rotten...soiled and ruined, meaning there was no point in trying to find anything there and you were getting really hungry despite devouring bags of chips you had both got at the convenient store, another thing that stood out to you was that there was no electricity...at all..

Looking back up to the sidewalk something caught your eyes...was that…! Light!? “Hey! Nanami look!” You shook her making her squeak as she looked up ahead, “It’s the hospital! They have electricity there which means there’s other people! Of course! Why didn’t we think to check essential areas!? Come on! Lets go! I wanna figure out what happened.”

“Alright! It sucks that this is already over but at least I can finally charge my phone, the battery is pretty low.” Nanami nodded in agreement as you both made your way up the road.

The walk wasn’t too far and you felt excitement fill you at the sight of the hospital all lit up as you walked into the entrance, a frown slowly setting on your lips once more as you walked past the receptionist desk and…! Oh there’s other people!

You felt relief wash over your as you ran up, there were at least seven other other people here at least! “Hey! Guys oh my god. I thought everyone was gone! What’s going on?” You asked, smiling bright in relief that you and Nanami weren’t the only ones left behind. Was this some kind of evac point or…?

Silence ensued and you slowly began to frown as you felt everyone stare at you as if you were insane, “Um…” You wrapped a hand around your arm, suddenly feeling as if everyone knew something you didn’t, “What’s going on…?” You furrowed your brows as you tilted your head, unsure of why everyone was looking at you like this.

Somebody looked like they were going to talk to you, a guy relatively around your age but a woman stopped him- his girlfriend maybe? “Stop, the less that know the better chance we have.” She said quietly though you still heard just enough. Fear twisted inside you as you took a cautious step back...The...the less you knew?

“Wow, you guys are assholes,” A girl suddenly whistled out, she was sitting in a waiting chair, a cowboy hat on her head paired with distressed jeans and...a bikini top? Strange but you’d roll with it if it meant getting answers. She stood up as she offered a smile, “Akari, nice to meet ya’. You folk must be new to the Borderlands huh?” She jutted her bottom lip a little as you frowned.

“Um I’m Y/n and this is my sister Nanami...?” You introduced yourself despite feeling confused as you raised a brow, “Borderlands…?” You echoed, what was that supposed to be? Other than Tokyo?

Akari gave a nod as she let out a brief chuckle, as if amused by your confusion but you sensed she had no real ill will unlike....your eyes checked to the couple that stood off in the corner on their own, “That’s what they call it here,” She nodded in affirmation as your eyes darted back to her in confusion, “To be frank with ya’, I don’t have a damn clue what's going on. Nobody does. But ever since you crossed the threshold there’s no going back, so I’ll be brief. We’re all considered outsiders here and we participate in games at venues such as this to extend our stay.”

Nanami and you looked at one another confused as Akari waved you over to the table in front of a TV, “Here, you’ll wanna put these on, it’s for the game.” She explained as you carefully picked up the metal bracelet, something about it felt ominous as you reluctantly put it on, jumping at the way it latched together and there was no getting it off now, “Word of advice, just don’t panic and you probably won’t die.”

“What?!” You screeched as Akari smacked your back, panic evident in your voice as you turned around to face her making her laugh again, this girl was insane! She had to be! “You’re…! You’re joking!”

Akari wrinkled her nose as she tilted her head, “Ah shit, I wish I was- Oh…! There’s the last player!” Just on que everyone turned to look at who had arrived, someone heaving breaths with their hands on their knees as if they had sprinted. You were mildly worried at why he seemed so scared but you had a feeling that was the least of your problems right now.

“Y/n what’s going on…?” Nanami frightened grabbed your arm as she hid a little behind you due to all these immensing strangers that looked like they were ready to feed you to the sharks, literally.

The guy walked past you both as he put on his bracelet, your eyes sharp as you watched it latch together automatically, your gaze jumping to everyone's wrists to notice you were all now wearing one. The TV suddenly lit up.

Game

You squinted your eyes a little at the sight of the screen, just what were you about to unwillingly participate in…?

Difficulty: 5♣

“The game you will be participating in is, Monster under the bed.”

A playing card? Monster under the bed? Your brows furrowed as you looked at Nanami who shrugged a little despite her concerned expression, looking just as confused as you. You could’ve made a joke out of this, surely it would’ve been easier. Maybe everyone would bust out laughing and you’d be at the end of a poor joke but...somehow you felt that wasn’t the case. Thus paying very close attention to whatever was on this screen,

“Everyone will be sectioned off into pairs by the number chosen on your bracelet, when the doors to the ward open you will have three rounds ten minutes each to figure out who is the monster under the bed that must be returned to its own, once the ten minutes is up you must hide before you are found. If the selected pair that is the monster is chosen correctly it’s a Game Clear. If the monster is not found by the end of the third round or if the pair fails to hide it’s a Game Over.”

Rules:

Once the doors are open you and your partner must find a hiding spot by the time limit

Both partners must be hidden. If one is exposed to the monster it’s a Game Over for both partners

There will be an X marked on the ground to place the monster of your guess onto.

You will have three rounds of ten minutes each to find the monster.

Any attempt to remove bracelets results in a Game Over

If the monster is not found by the third round a Game Over.

The only Game Clear condition required is for the monster to be returned by the third round.

What…

What!?

“Now the game will commence, you have five minutes to figure out who you have been paired up with before the doors open.”

Your mind was blanking as you watched everyone look down at their bracelet, hurriedly you lifted your arm as your mind blanked 2 looking back at Nanami her lips were already quivering as she sniffled lifting her arm in defeat as your lips dropped open, 5.

“Hey! Guess you’re my partner!” Akari grinned as she wrapped an arm around Nanami who sniffled, “Oh…” She looked between you both, “Oh! Oh don’t worry! We’re not the monster so I’ll make sure your sister lives! You should go find your partner.”

Your hands trembled unsure of what to do before you went to hug Nanami, “Whatever happens just stay calm okay! I need to go find my partner now!” You whispered, kissing her cheek as she sniffled while nodding.

Everybody was shuffling around looking for their partner now, you passed by a few people, 4, 1, 3...did you even have a partner…? You scanned around, your throat tightening a little in panic, there had to be a mistake! There were only 8 people surrounding you- you yelped at the tight grip that suddenly held your arm forcing you to turn around to be met with a white hooded figure, a lollipop handle hanging and earbuds in before sighing, “So it appears I’m stuck with someone useless.” The man concluded as he stood up making you back away a little as your lips parted somewhat indignantly.

How...how rude! You looked up, unable to fully make out his face but you could tell you didn’t like him one bit, “I’ll…! First of all I’m not useless! I’m just trying to understand what's going on! This is insane! We aren’t actually going to die from this, are we!?” Pushing his hood down you were immediately met with a snide gaze and cat eyes that leered at you like you were nothing more then dirt beneath his feet, long blonde hair pushed behind his shoulders and his bangs hanging low, suddenly a viscous side smile appeared on his lips, “Apparently so, otherwise I wouldn’t have watched half my last game get their brains blown out and the other half hung.”

You reeled a little away from the blonde, your face dropped in semi horror, unsure if this was just a sick joke or he was serious. You searched his face a thousand times over, but for the first time in your life, you couldn’t figure out what his goal was. You couldn’t figure out anything about him, except he was exceptionally cold, “Well I don’t suppose I have much choice to doubt you,” He said with an annoying sing song tone as he rattled his wrist that showed the bracelet with a matching 2 on it, “My name is Chishiya, just stay out of my way and we’ll both live.”

How arrogant! You scoffed as he walked past you, not the least bit bothered at your offense as you whipped around, glaring at his back. How come out of everyone you got stuck with the most…! Pompous! Arrogant! Ugh! You crossed your arms as you followed behind him, stilling secretly sending daggers into his back with your eyes as everyone shuffled into the ward.

Hospital beds were scattered around the room, a few closets and one large vent at the bottom right corner of the room ahead.

“Wait, what is this?” The first person to speak was a fair thin older gentleman, he appeared friendly as he observed the room around him, everyone looked around in confusion as you noticed what he meant.

Any possible hiding spot was covered by either sheets of metal or locked tight...How were any of you supposed to hide if…!? The rules mentioned nothing about solving puzzles to gain access to a hiding spot!

“Forget that,” Another man said with a sneer he was broad and a bit older, well into his late twenties at least, perhaps a gym coach? Or maybe a wrestler of some sort? He looked like he could break you and nearly every other person in this room like a twig, “We need to figure out who’s the monster. “ He cracked his knuckles as you leered a little away and nobody spoke for a second.

Of course, who would out themselves as the monster, more importantly, how does one even know they’re the monster? You could immediately feel tension rise as the previous, more patient man spoke, a little more collected, “How about we just check one another's’ watches! If anywhere it would show us on that! One pair should work on solving these puzzles here so everyone has a place to hide”

“Unless the monster is among us and it sabotages us so we all die by the time limit.” The girlfriend crossed her arms as she darted her eyes around. Truthfully you didn’t know what to believe, the wording on the soundbox was rather confusing as to just what were you looking for. Was the monster supposed to be in the group or it’s own entity?

“If that were the case it would’ve showed up on our watches, which it didn’t. So that won’t work.” Chishiya spoke matter of fact, his tone cool as his eyes gazed across the room before he walked away from the group inspecting various hiding spots granted you didn’t think he was about to help anyone but himself, if anything you were at least lucky that him securing a hiding spot meant it was one for you as well.

You looked at everyone in confusion, some arguing while others scattered to look for a hiding spot as the clock ticked down. You breathed in relief at the sight of Nanami and Akari both going for a bed to hide under. Your gaze finally found Chishiya’s form before following him, unsure of what you were supposed to do, if anything outside trying to figure out just what the monster even was.

You glanced up at the digital clock that stood above the entrance you had just come in from, it was already a minute in before you searched the floor where you found a red X in the center of the room, that must’ve been the...what? Offering spot? You cringed a little at the idea. Looking forward you peered behind Chishiya’s shoulder deciding to not think about that, it seemed the metal sheet that had wrapped around the bed and was sealed to the ground was locked by some sort of metal device…? Contraption? Lock?

“Isn’t hiding under a bed a bit obvious…?” You frowned as you crossed your arms, unsure as you looked behind your shoulder once more to where accusations were already being thrown in the group.

“The vent is a decoy to make you waste time, I already checked,” Chishiya replied, his fingers nimble as they rattled the metal, “And even if someone were to accomplish it in the time limit it’s the most obvious spot the monster would first check. Next would be the closet given it’s at eye level and the first thing one is drawn too when they walk into a room.”

Your lips parted a little in surprise at his assessment...obviously he wasn’t just overconfident, “And why this spot?” If he had really thought about all this in less than a minute then...did he have a reason for this spot? You now found yourself, slightly less annoyed and a little more curious as to what was going on in his mind.

“If the monster were to check a bed it would be after his eyes are drawn to the closet. Next in that line of sight would be the vent directly across it, which would be his next place to look if not his first and vice versa. The beds are all staggered throughout the room making them less conspicuous compared to the other hiding places, the bed on the far end of the room would be no good.”

Your brows furrowed in curiosity at his assessment as you watched Chishiya blow a piece of hair from his face, wiggling out one piece of the knotted metal, “It’s too far from the entrance where as the one in the middle is by average the one most people would start with, where as the first? It’s almost too soon in the start to look there thus making it the safest.”

“It’s them! They’re over there conspiring!” You both twisted around to watch the broad man point an accusing finger at you both as your eyes darted from him to the clock on the wall, which read at six minutes. A few other pairs, relievingly so was your sister had started working on a hiding spot while a few others stood around and argued.

Your face coiled a little as you replied, not appreciating the accusation to such a baseless accusation, did they not realize the longer they argued the less time they had to secure a hiding spot? “Someone who’s terrible at playing the minority would often be the first to point fingers. There’s only six minutes left before the first round is over and we need to hide. But if you want to talk about this then sure,”

You stepped closer as you crossed your arms, scanning over him before continuing, “Let’s talk about the chances of you being the monster, ever since you first came in you’ve been all twitchy and acting like something is wrong. Even when we first got paired up, you seemed a little panicked. Anyways,” You turned around as you spoke, “How do we know one pair is a monster and not one single person?”

“Eh,” Akari sat on the bed that her and Nanami chose as Nanami fumbled to work out the puzzle, she had always been good at those! You felt assured as your heart beat frantically at the idea of them not being able to get a hiding spot in time, “Let’s all calm down,” She gave an awkward laugh, “This isn’t a hearts game, we shouldn’t divide our trust. This is a team building after all which means this game should be making us work together, the last thing we need to do is throw that away on our own accord.”

“...Team building?” You frowned as you murmured having not been aware that this was some sort of game category...Hearts? Clubs? The memory of the playing card flashing on the screen appeared in your mind again, right...was that to stand for some kind of game genre? If Clubs stood for team building then...there should be no reason that the monster is any of you. Why would they even suggest that to begin with?

Then...what was the monster?

“One minute remaining.”

The lights suddenly began flickering, “Got it.” Chishiya yanked the last piece of metal undone as he pulled the sheet of metal off, everyone was now scrambling and the few who had not done their puzzle were now panicking. Getting down you crawled under the bed, your back flat to the ground as you inhaled sharply as you noticed the lights beginning to dim, “This is...uncomfortable.” You mumbled, trying to ignore being pressed shoulder to shoulder with a man you didn’t even know besides him having a god complex, “We should’ve went with the vent.”

“By all means, if you want to try and get yourself killed already. Go for it.” You turned to look at him, dark endless cat eyes meeting you as you harshly glared at him, why was he so condescending!?

You were about to snap back something before you realized it was completely dark and the door slammed open causing you to jump. Was your heart always this loud? You could see the heavy boots step against the ground making you unsteadily inhale, swallowing as you closed your eyes. You could only place your trust that Chishiya hadn’t picked a horrible spot.

More importantly your mind was plagued with worry for your sister, you had been so caught up you hadn’t even tried to help her yet...did she even…! You heard a sudden loud scream from two people causing you to stiffen as you looked up at the bed frame lined with wooden planks. You could only cower back down at blood suddenly painting the floor.

Your stomach suddenly churned as you covered your mouth. So he wasn’t lying. Chishiya however looked just as nonpulsed as he did when he first told you himself, his eyes blankly staring up at the bed frame as if this was just a regular game of hide and seek as people screamed as they were torn apart.

Or that’s at least what you assumed it was.

After an agonizing few minutes the doors finally closed and the lights flickered back on making you breath in relief as you waited a moment, could you even bear to face what was waiting on the floor? You winced a little before something caught your eye. What was with all this extra wood stuck in the frame?

Chishiya had already gotten out from under the bed and before you suddenly heard a few girls scream, your sister among them making you puff and breath as you scrambled from beneath the bed.

Standing up your mouth agape at the horrid sight of the female and the broad male that had been too focused on accusing others, they didn’t have...enough time...it looked like they had been completely mutilated, blood pouring on the floor and the smell made you want to gag as you looked away.

“Well, now what do we do.” Akari scratched her head, also not looking phased that two people had just been brutally killed. Your eyes stayed placed on the bodies before they slowly trailed to your hands, the memory of blood staining them still fresh in your mind.

“Well we have to figure out where the monster is?” The girlfriend of the couple spoke up, she looked around somewhat suspiciously, “But I’m not sure where we could find it? Maybe it has to do with the bracelets? Maybe there’s a clue hidden.”

“Oh what about in the cabinets?” The collected man from before offered as he went to search the cabinets, your frown furthered as you glanced around. Everyone was now getting along, still on edge but along at least.

Chishiya only leaned against the wall, his hands in his pocket as he rolled the lollipop in his mouth, his gaze the same steely one it was before as if he had done his job in securing his temporary salvation and was now done.

Or maybe he just didn’t know what to do? It was obvious his strength didn’t lie in teamwork, clearly. But then again, you weren’t sure what was going on, you couldn’t get a read on him. Crossing your arms you stayed beside him, your eyes briefly washing over your sister who was working Akari to dig through a desk together.

“Cabinets and drawers are too obvious.”

Chishiya’s eyes flickered to your figure, his expression just as cold if not...a little smug maybe? He said nothing in return as you continued, “If we’re looking for a monster, it’s obvious it’s a metaphor for something. Inanimate most likely,” Your eyes flickered around the room, inhaling sharply, why did it feel like the answer was right in front of you?

Think…! You glanced at the clock, only six minutes left. The rounds were really short…! “It’d be something small and inconspicuous, something that’s in plain sight….but easy to miss...and the game said it was a pair which means there’s more than likely two.”

“Three,” You glanced at Chishiya as he spoke, pulling the lollipop from his mouth, that permanent smug look on his face as he answered, “Two is what they want you to think and if you spend a round searching for each like they hope it’s game over by three.”

You rubbed your neck as you frowned, “It’s already the second round and we haven’t even found one…” You glanced around before you suddenly perked up, “Wait…!” Getting back down on the floor you laid on your back as you pushed yourself under the bed, “Chishiya! Help me get this thing out!”

Within a moment the blonde appeared as well, his eye sharp and keen as they noticed straight away what you were tugging at, “You think this is the monster?”

You looked at him as you raised a brow, “We have less than four minutes left on our second round, you have a better idea?” Chishiya said no more but helped regardless, successfully with the both of you maneuvering it around from beneath the wooden boards you managed to get it out.

Holding it up you looked at it, “It’s a poppet doll.” You turned to face him as you smiled in accomplishment, “They’re typically used as curses to place upon people in folklore. If anything is a monster, this would be it.”

Excited at your first victory you pulled out from beneath the bed as you waved it up, “Hey guys! We need to start looking for something similar to this! If not a replica.” Everyone huddled around you examining the doll before the microphone sounded, “One minute remaining.”

Everyone had immediately scrambled back to their hiding place as you ran to the red X, placing the poppet on it, that's the reason that had to be there right!? You’d just have to see, hurriedly you ran back to your spot under the bed. Making it just in time as the lights flickered off.

The door slamming open once more as you slowly inhaled, it had to work right? If not...then you were at a loss for what to search for and you were utterly screwed.

The boots stomped against the floor past the bed as you closed your eyes, unable to calm yourself. After a moment you heard a screech and something rip open before screams followed making you jump. Chishiya’s eyes were on the feet that stood by the closet that had been obviously ripped open.

You heard the sound of something wet and a gurgle before a body slumped to the floor and you could hear begging before something got snapped in half causing you to close your eyes once more...Did you make it angry!? Was that not it? Fuck. You had never felt this stressed before as it roamed around, passing in front of your bed as you tensed.

Was this your last moment alive? Truly?

Much to your relief, the door closed once more before the lights followed, flickering on, relaxing a little you sighed as you reluctantly got out from underneath the bed with Chishiya to see what had happened. Much to your horror it was the man who had been so kind this whole game and his partner.

The monster didn’t check anywhere in the first round, yet he did this round? You tried to block out the bodies slumped in the corner as you glanced at the red X, the poppet doll gone.

“Why- why were they killed!” Nanami’s eyes began to water as she grabbed her head, “This makes no sense!”

“If it accepts the doll that means we only need two more. What happened to them is irrelevant.” Chishiya stuffed his hands back into his pocket as you glared at him sideways, not appreciating his careless tone. You could deal with it, but you didn’t want your sister dragged into it.

Grabbing your chin you thought about it for a moment, “Well...the game said to return the monster to its own and…” You glance down at the X, was there some kind of unsaid rule that if you didn’t get all three of them on the first try that it would start hunting down players? “How would a mother feel if they only returned one of its children?”

“This thing doesn’t have feelings,” The girlfriend of the partners replied coldly, her eyes like steel of her own as she clung to her boyfriend, “It’s as he said,” She waved to Chishiya, “It doesn’t matter, we’ll be like them if we don’t figure this out.”

You glanced around the room, “Tell me this, if it doesn’t matter, then why did they give us all these different hiding spots?” Everyone was silent, all eyes on you as if your question didn’t make any sense, your eyes flickered to the clock that was nearing eight minutes, you didn’t have time to monologue, “No think about it. The monster never intended to look for us- that was never stated in the rules. So why did they give us all of these choices if we only needed one per pair? My point being, if we found one poppet in our hiding spot then...You get where I’m going with this? Chishiya.”

He glanced up at you acknowledgement as you curved a brow, your lips threatening to tug into a smile as you tilted your head, “How confident are you in solving that vent?”

He glanced back down and for the first time, you watch a cocky wide smirk twist onto his lips, “You’re lucky to have someone as smart as me here to be able to open it.” You tucked your tongue into your cheek as in annoyance as he sauntered over to the vent already getting to work, “As for everyone else, we need to open up as many of these as possible to find the other two.”

Everyone immediately scrambled to get to work, with only seven minutes on the clock this was...going to be difficult. First Nanami and Akari searched all the opened spots as you worked on another bed. Rubbing your head as muttered, “Shit...I never was good with puzzles.” You awkwardly hung your head in defeat temporarily, briefly letting your eyes shift to Chishiya who was fiddling with several locks, his gaze sharp and you couldn’t even imagine all the calculations going on in his mind. You were somewhat envious of what it would be like to be that perceptive to anything adhering to logic and solution.

“Aha! Found one!” Akari yanked the poppet from the top of the closest as Nanami covered her mouth, looking like she was gonna throw up being so close to so many dead bodies. You ignored the grisly sight at the second victory of the poppet doll. Akari quickly placed it on the X as you began to work on the puzzle once more, looking up at the clock. Oh no...Oh no there was only three minutes left!

“Chishiya! Hows that puzzle coming along.” You called out, trying not to sound alarmed but you could see the clear cut annoyance on his face as he continued working through the locks, “If you’d like to help while struggling on a novice lock feel free.” He replied condescendingly, not appreciating the pressure.

You rolled your eyes with huff as you finally managed to get it undone, feeling triumphant as you searched under the bed but there was no luck, “There’s nothing here!”

“Or here!”

Several people called out as well as you rubbed your head, standing up, “If the only other place that hasn’t been searched is the vent then maybe there’s only two? It did say a pair.” You felt a lump of anxiety well in your chest at the sight of the clock ticking close to a minute and half.

“Should we really take the risk?” The boyfriend asked as he rubbed his neck, concern on his face as he looked around, “If we’re wrong then we’ll all…”

You hadn’t even thought of that…

“...! Hey.” You turned to Chishiya who seemed to be trying to get your attention making you immediately come over, if he was asking for you it’d have to be for something important given there was nearly less then two minute on the clock, “Hold this right here.” He immediately pushed your hand onto the lock right where he wanted it, “This is a two handle mechanism meaning that there needs to be two people unlocking it. Push down and out at the same time.”

“Hide! Everyone needs to hide now!”

The lights were beginning to flicker as everyone scrambled to hide, stress evidently put on your shoulders now more than ever. You could only hope he was right with your life on the line, “Now!” You pushed down on your side, the lock sliding as you pulled out, pulling a piece of metal holding up the lock directly out as Chishiya did the same with his side.

The lock fell off as well as the metal of the gate of the vent, you immediately with no hesitation leaned inside it was dark and hard to make it out anything besides the steep drop off. So he was right, this was a waste of time for a hiding place.

Looking down you caught sight of wood before laughing in relief, “It’s here! Wait shit! Chishiya! It’s too far down in the vent, you’re gonna have to lower me down to reach it. Time?”

“Forty five seconds.” You felt unfamiliar hands on your hips lifting you up as you were lowered down, “We have time.”

You squinted trying to see as you reached down, “Lower me further! I’m not quite in reach,” Your muscles began to ache in your shoulder as you reached harder, growling in frustration, “Time!?” You were lowered a little further, the wooden poppet brushing against your fingers.

“Thirty seconds! Could you go a little faster?”

“Could you lower me a little quicker- Ah! Hey did you almost let go!?” You snarled back, grabbing the poppet doll, giving a good yank as it lodged in between the crevice it was in, “Get me back up! I got it. Time!”

“Twenty seconds.” Chishiya called back, pulling you up as you gasped, pain from the metal jabbing into your stomach evident as you were met with a darkening room. Setting your feet firmly on the floor your eyes flew to the flock fifteen seconds and your spot was all the way across the room….!

“Where are we supposed to hide!? We can’t get all the way there in time!” You hissed out running to the X as you dropped the poppet down. The lights shut off as the final five seconds counted down and before you could do anything you were shoved to the floor as you squeaked. Your body throbbing in pain and your mouth immediately covered as you were met with the coverage of a bed but neither one of you were bold enough to try and scramble beneath it as the doors slammed open.

Fuck.

Your whole body was tense as your eyes squeezed shut, you were just a little ahead of the X here, if this is all the poppet dolls...they’d have no reason to go further into the room...unless...Your hand squeezed tight around the wrist of the hand that covered your mouth as you tried to calm yourself at the loud thudded footsteps.

It was quiet for a moment before you heard more walking before the doors closed.

“Game Cleared”

The lights turned on as you fell limp against the side of the bed, Chishiya’s hand removed from mouth as you pushed your hair from your face, closing your eyes as you breathed in relief, “Holy shit.” Was all you could mutter to yourself, you had never been more grateful to breathe air in your whole life.

“I guess you weren’t that useless after all huh.” Chishiya clacked his tongue as you turned your head to look at him, raising your brows as your face contorted into something between insult and amusement.

You’ve only known this man for a half an hour and yet...something about his words, if you dug down deep past that smug expression of his, was this a compliment? Looking away you pressed your tongue into your cheek, trying to keep from smiling, “Yeah, and you’re still conceited and arrogant but, I guess you have a good reason to be.” You glanced back at him again but you could hardly hold his gaze, something in that brief moment was electrified between you both as you laughed somewhat sheepishly, closing your eyes as you looked away once more.

What the fuck was even wrong with you? If this was back before today you would’ve totally kicked this guy in the balls and went about your day.

“Y/n!” You straightened up at the sound of Nanami’s voice, your expression brightening as you stood up, quickly running to her as you hugged her tight, “I can’t believe that just happened…” She whispered to you as she pressed her face into your neck. You couldn’t either but, you were thankful you had survived this game. Whatever it was.

“Come on, let's get out of this room.” You tugged on her arm, no longer wanting to be in this death room despite knowing it was all over. Pulling her out you paused at the sight of the TV and a...register…? You bracelet unlocked as you took it off, tossing it on the table as you tilted your head.

“Congratulations Game ''Clear ``.''

“...Now issuing visas to those who survived the game…?” You furrowed your brows as you glanced at Nanami who rubbed her head in confusion. You grabbed the receipt as you looked it over with a frown before picking up the 5 of clubs playing card along with it. Odd.

“It’s how many days you’re allowed to stay now! Almost a whole week, that's a good score for a first game!” Akari called out as she patted your back making you jump a little.

Almost a whole week…”Until we have to play again to...continue our stay?” You raised a brow, deciding not to ask what happens if you refused. While you had many questions, you had a feeling you knew the answer to that one.

A part of you couldn’t even believe this had happened, or was it all still a dream.

“Hey…! Sorry for all of that in there,” You turned to see...oh…! It was the boyfriend of the partner, the gifrlfriend stayed behind looking brooding, “I’m Ryu and that’s my girlfriend Hiroko I was...ah…” He faltered a little, rubbing the back of his neck as his gaze flittered to his girlfriend who was glaring him down, “You should stop by the Beach- I...I think you guys would make good additions! Bye!” He hurried not even finishing his original sentence before scurrying off making you furrow your brows at what he even meant.

“The hell?” Akari raised a brow as she watched the guy run off, “Seems to me he wanted to chat more…guess we know who's really pulling balls in that relationship.”

Nanami suddenly snickered, covering her mouth as she giggled, “Hey Akari! Why don’t we stay together! We did really well in the game together!”

“Awh shit, if you guys really want me too!” Akari offered a quirky smile as you laughed, you had no problems with someone staying behind with you. Looking past Akari your smile faded a little at the sight of a white hoodie exiting the entrance.

“Hey- I’ll be right back!” You pushed past the both of them who paid you no mind as you pushed out of the exit and down the stone steps, not sure why your feet were making you chase after such an egotistical man but…!

“Chishiya!” You called out, making the man pause, he turned around, pulling the earbuds out as he glanced up from his hoodie, raising his brows in acknowledgement, “Um…” Why did you even chase after him…? You stepped down the last step as you wrapped your arms around yourself.

It was silent for a moment as you berated yourself internally for why you seemed so speechless all of a sudden. Chishiya however didn’t seem to mind, his eyes absent now as he stared up at the hospital, “I used to do my clinical rotations here.”

You were broken out of your silent thrashing of internal humiliation as you raised your brows, lips parting in curiosity as you asked, “You were a doctor?”

“No,” Chishiya snorted, that amused calico look of his on his face once more as he looked down at you, “I was a medical student. Training to be a doctor but that obviously didn’t happen…” His lips curved into a frown, his eyes cold once more as they looked back up at the building, “I came here tonight to see if anyone I knew would be here.”

“Oh…” You looked away, feeling somewhat awkward and unsure of how to reply to him as silence took over once more beside the occasional rustling of the wind in the tree’s, the urge to speak overtaking you to the point you couldn't resist, “Chishiya...I…” You looked away, feeling somewhat bashful, “We...made a really good team back there.” You forced yourself to look up at him as you offered a bright yet subtly shy smile, “If you want...you could stay with us…?”

Chishiya pulled the lollipop stick from his mouth, letting it drop to the ground as he spoke, “No thanks.” You turned to him in surprise as you frowned a little, you shouldn’t have expected anything less…

“Oh...I understand.” You offered a weak smile as he turned his back on you and began to walk once more, “I just have one more question,” You called out causing him to pause, “...Do you by any chance know about a place called the Beach?”

Note: Whew...! As a lurker in the Alice in borderland fandom I saw a lot of people complaining about the lack of Chishiya fics so I decided to volunteer myself and take on for the team to write a series for this little blonde fucker so PLEASE let me know your thoughts and I hope you enjoy!! Also

#alice in borderland #aib #alice in borderland imagine #alice in borderland x reader #chishiya x reader #chishiya x reader smut #shuntaro chishiya #shuntaro chishiya x reader #aib imagine #aib x reader

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nanaminokanojo · 3 years ago

Text

Play the Game | Nanami Kento X You | Part 7/8

collection masterlist

one - two - three - four - five - six - seven - eight

"Play the Game" Masterlist

"You always hide here when you're down," Geto said, stepping onto the rickety floors of the abandoned wooden gazebo at the far edge of the walled gardens. It was meant to be torn down but for your insistence for it to stay erect.

He took out a cigarette and lit it, taking a long drag when you didn't answer, huddled on one of the corners of the hexagonal structure. "You really shouldn't have done that," he told you, his voice ringing crisp in the still air.

"You should really quit that dirty habit," you muttered in a form of retaliation, not really in the mood to be lectured.

"I could say the same with your games, Y/N!" he said harshly, the first time he ever would. It was more for the fact that he felt frustrated that you kissed him all for the benefit of another man as opposed to merely scolding you for whatever wrongdoing you've committed. He felt all the more frustrated that he was doing it at all.

"I'm sorry if I dragged you into this," you told him sincerely. "I shouldn't have –"

"I am not sorry," he interrupted you. "I wanted that for a while now."

"What?" You stood up and walked towards him, making him turn to face you. "What are you talking about?"

Geto placed a hand behind his neck, exhaling exaggeratedly and throwing his head back, closing his eyes momentarily before meeting your blue gaze. "I understand why Kento is taking this harder than what you're expecting." He sighed. "It probably would have been better if you kissed Yuuji instead."

You just blinked at him, perplexed. "I don't get it."

It's now or never. He wanted you to know at least before you made up your mind, but knowing you, he knew you already did. And he wasn't going to be your choice. "Look, I like you. I wanted you for myself ever since you entered university."

"Huh?"

"And three years ago, I told Kento about how I felt," he droned on. "And maybe he thinks that's still the case, that I am still his rival where you are concerned."

"So are you?" you demanded.

He shook his head, smiling as he blew smoke at the opposite direction. "I know a losing game when I see one, and honestly, I'm rooting for the two of you."

You clutched at his arm. "Suguru..."

He ruffled your hair, throwing his cigarette away and hugging you to his side. "Don't get me wrong, princess. I was hurt that I wasn't your favorite anymore. I wanted to tell you, but you beat me to it and told me you liked Kento instead."

"You'll always be my favorite," you said. "You guys don't get replaced, not to me. I love you all differently, and I have things I share with each of you that I can never have with the other."

Geto's eyes widened slightly at your words. "I'll hold you to that." He snickered then. "Seriously though, where the hell did the two of you get things so wrong? Everything just went to shit in a matter of hours. And I thought Ieiri and I were being very specific with our instructions to you."

"Ieiri?"

"She's been talking to Kento, too. You two are just too dense and slow."

You punched him on the arm, glaring at him.

"Ow!" he grumbled, rubbing at the sore spot. "I'm a model, you know. You're not supposed to mark me."

"Oh, is that what you tell all your girls?" you teased.

He rolled his eyes at you. "Kento already made it back to the house. You should apologize."

You stood on your toes and kissed him on the cheek, hugging him tight.

"You might want to refrain from doing just that, princess," he said but you just giggled and made your way back to the manor. "You're still my favorite!" you called out.

He took another stick if cigarette, chuckling at you, but as he was about to light it, he opted not to.

You've done it this time. You just knew it. You realized that when you sobered up from all the crying you did after the incident at the lake. It was too late to say you should have listened to Yuuji and regret wasn't really something you could relate to. Typically. Now, you wanted him to say, "I told you so." Him and Megumi. Throw in Nobara, too, but you knew you weren't going to forgive yourself if things didn't turn back the way they used to be where you and Nanami were involved. That was all you were hoping for if he really has been put off by the mere idea of you.

Geto was just as much of a trickster as you are, but what you did not foresee was the result and his reaction to you, and you weren’t exactly ready for the his confession. That was a first and after speaking with him, you understood. Nanami was downright outraged. He might have not gone all out on you about the matter but you knew there was something else he wasn't saying. He has always been considerate of your feelings, and you were afraid you've trampled on his. It was regardless of whether you meant it or not. You just crossed the line.

The situation wasn't good, and you knew Gojo would have killed you if he saw just how you were behaving at the lake, and you could just pray to every higher being out there that he never gets to find out or you’ll have no choice but to sit down and listen to his lecture. He may be averse to the idea of you dating any of his friends, and he may be the best brother anyone could have, but he would definitely not tolerate what you have done.

A bigger part of everything that’s been happening was your fault. You knew it, and you weren't afraid to admit it either. Although Nanami may have his faults for being so much of an over-thinker and being indecisive, he was right. Why couldn't you be a normal person for once and just be honest about how you feel? Why couldn't you just tell Nanami you loved him and you have been in love with him for the longest time? Again, you couldn't relate to the idea because you haven’t ever been able to healthily express your opinion, but enough was enough. You were going to do it tonight. It didn't matter what the result was. You wanted him in your life, and you’ll go through lengths to have him.

After tossing and turning on your bed for what seemed like hours and later wearing a path on your bedroom floor while fidgeting on the hem of your silk robe, you finally decided there was no way you were sleeping. You couldn’t if it saves you when the dread of him totally disappearing because of what you do gnawed at you from the inside.

You were worried sick of Nanami who disappeared after the incident. You called him on the phone several times but every attempt went straight to voicemail, and out of your frustrations, you found yourself retreating to that same spot where Geto found you. You were only able to rest easy when he spoke to you, telling you that Nanami already made it back to the manor.

Functioning on instinct, you got out of your room barefoot, the flaps of your robe flying behind you as you marched towards the guest room where he was staying. You even had your fist raised to knock on the door but at that very moment, you stopped. For the first time, you felt vulnerable. You didn't have a clue about what you would say to him the moment you see him. You didn't know how you would approach him or if it was already the right time to do so. It was an unfamiliar feeling.

Digging your nails into your palms, you listened for movement on the other side of the door when you heard the door to the adjoining bath open and close, followed by the quiet padding of bare feet on the carpeted floor. Your breath snagged, thinking of turning away. You decided to do just that but then, the door suddenly opened, making you squeak in surprise, the sight of him dressed in just his navy pajama bottoms causing you to ogle his muscular chest and abdomen.

Well shit, you thought. He was beyond hot.

"Er..."

"What is it, Y/N?" he asked, sounding mostly tired than mad. He didn't look happy to see you, but at least he didn't slam the door to your face. Too much of a violation to his manners, you surmised, tempted to tease him, but you opted not to. You weren't in any position to be playing your little games.

You exhaled in batches before you finally found your voice. "I... n-need to talk to you. Can I...come in?"

He just looked at you for a moment before taking a step back and opening the door wider for you. He then turned his bare back to you as he walked over to the bed, the muscles on his sides and back flexing with each movement. He then motioned for you to sit on the chair situated quite far from him before he himself sat down, waiting for you to talk.

You didn't sit down and instead stood behind the chair, gripping its back. "Look, I'm sorry."

He ran his fingers through his damp, blond locks, looking like a model for an expensive underwear brand as he did so. "Hmm. Are you now?"

Your throat grew dry, wishing you could smack yourself right there and then for thinking of other things when you were supposed to be apologizing sincerely to him. You knew that he was trying to be sardonic but you couldn't help but think how mesmerizing he sounded. Composing yourself, you nodded. "I am. Suguru and I –"

"I don't wish to hear it, Y/N."

"It didn't mean anything!" you finally snapped, breathing heavily and not realizing you've crossed halfway towards him. You stopped, catching yourself just in time. "I just..." You sighed. "I just wanted to make you jealous."

“Well, what the hell, Y/N! You’ve succeeded.” His jaw clenched as he said the words, eyes intent on you and unrelenting. “And guess what, you’ve done more than just make me feel jealous. You made me feel guilty, too, because I can’t help but think that I pushed you to do that because of what I said to you this morning. Are you happy?”

“No…” You shook your head, your breath snagging. “I was being selfish. None of it is your fault so you don’t have to feel that way. You’ve been trying to talk to me all day, and maybe I should have given you the chance, but being me, I relied on my baser instincts and made a game out of things again.”

He stood this time, towering over you. "That's all you know. Games," he told you quietly, his tone at odds to his words. "You never really cared who gets played in the end as long as you're amused." He reached over and picked up a few strands of your hair before flicking them off his fingers in disdain. "Isn't that what it is?"

His words hurt. "No..."

"Unfortunately, I got caught up in it, all the while thinking that maybe you'll spare me because..." He shrugged. "Doesn't matter. I lost again. Congratulations."

"I'm sorry."

"Sure." He scoffed, shaking his head. "I'm tired, Y/N," he said as he sat down on the bed, burying his face into his hands.

This was it, you thought to yourself. You can't miss your chance. It was regardless of the consequences. You told yourself that. You were not going to back down even if it means you get hurt. Even if it means he would reject you.

Without thinking twice, you moved closer to him, settling on your knees directly in front of him just by his feet. You reached for his hands, gently easing them away from his face. You smiled at how big they were compared to yours, his palms rough against your fingertips. He let you pull them away, slowly moving of their own accord to cup your face, his dark, intense eyes searching yours.

"Y/N, I can't do this anymore."

You chuckled even as tears glistened in your eyes. You brushed his hair away from his forehead. "You read minds now?"

"I'm serious."

"Forgive me. I couldn't help it."

"What are you –"

Before he can finish what he wanted to say, you pushed yourself up on your foot and pressed your lips against his. You felt him stiffen against you, his hand tightening over the slope of your hips as you pushed him forward. You placed your left foot on the bed just beside his thigh while your hands took possession of his face, smiling into the kiss when he finally moved and reciprocated in kind. Your toes curled in anticipation.

He pulled you down, mouths enmeshed, breaths in sync, until you were leveled to him. He raised a hand, placing it on the side of your face, making you lean against its warmth. Your eyes flew open when he pulled away and pressed his lips against your forehead, lingering there before he kissed the tip of your nose, then your cheek just beside your mouth. Nanami closed his eyes as he leaned his forehead against yours, his hand soothingly rubbing at your bare thigh.

He was breathing deeply, brows furrowed together. Unable to help it, you started planting butterfly kisses where you could reach, capturing his lips again, hand gently caressing his jawline. Nanami twisted around, laying you on the mattress and hovering over you, continuing to kiss you. His scent had stuck to the sheets engulfing your senses and rendering everything nonexistent but him. You were lost in a world filled with nothing but him and the feel of his hands roaming all over your body in slow, sensuous movements as if he was blindly mapping out your every contour and curve.

"I don't think we should be doing this," he breathed out, chuckling quietly, but in the next moment, he sought entrance to your mouth, his hot tongue finding yours, stealing your breath. You held on tight to him, thinking he was overthinking things again, easing his mind by returning his ministrations in kind, and locking him in place with your arms wrapped around his nape. You moved your leg from underneath him, brushing your thigh between his legs, making his breath hitch when you applied the slightest of pressure, feeling him becoming stiff as you rocked your thigh back and forth against him.

Nanami drew back slightly, cutting the kiss. He opened his eyes, looking at you longingly, fingers tracing your shoulder. He looked at you with uncertainty as he fiddled with the lapels of your robe. "Tell me to stop."

At that, you smirked at him, your fingers also wandering up the expanse of his hard abdomen, slowly trailing fire up his chest to his collarbones. You bit your lip between your teeth as his skin seemed to grow warmer where you were touching him, the way he was unsteadily breathing adding to your thrill, beyond glad you had that effect on him.

"I don't want you to stop, Kento." You rose a fraction on your elbow and pecked him on the tip of his nose. "I want you."

He sighed then. “Y/N, if we’re going to do this, I want you to be certain.”

“Like a hundred percent certain?” you teased. “What’s the legal jargon for that? Do you want me to say, ‘Sustained,’ or ‘No objections, your honor’?” You giggled and he joined in, shaking his head. “Way to kill the mood though.”

“Sorry.” He flashed you a rueful smile.

Reaching out, you cupped the side of his face, eyeing him with as much conviction and certainty as you could. “You should know by now that I don’t do things I don’t exactly want to do. And when I say I want this – I want you – then that’s precisely what I want.”

He nodded slowly.

“You’re still overthinking.”

“I’m just thinking of what to say to Satoru –”

“You chose the wrong time to be talking too much.” You pulled him close, crashing your lips to his in reckless abandon. It was sloppy at best, but you hoped it would convey your certitude and confidence in what you were about to engage in with him. “You’re all I’ve ever wanted, Kento, I could cry just having you this close to me.”

Your words seemed to have unlocked something in him as his pupils dilated and his clear eyes clouded with want, and you couldn’t have been more glad that you decided to tell him how you honestly felt. Nanami lowered his head, claiming your lips with his in a slow, gentle kiss, his lips making love to yours in a seductive rhythm that spoke volumes of what he can’t typically express with mere words. The urgency in his kisses increased and you matched his fervor with yours, slightly rising off the bed to meet him halfway, taking as much as you could as he took from you – your breath, your heart, your soul.

As if a switch flipped, his gentle movements turned careless as he grabbed your shoulder and slid the robe off you, throwing it somewhere behind him, eyes alight with excitement as he further undressed you, pulling your matching nightie down, smirking when he discovered you weren’t wearing a bra underneath.

“You planned this,” he rasped.

You grinned smugly at him. “Maybe I did.”

“You’re beautiful,” he said, attacking your neck with open-mouthed kisses while his large hands took possession of your breasts, kneading them. You gasped when he caught one of your nipples, twisting it experimentally and watching your reaction when he latched his mouth onto the other, licking around it before giving it a particularly hard suck.

“Oh god,” you whimpered, eyes blowing wide when you heard the sound of your silks being ripped off of your body followed by a soft growl as he continued to devour your tender swells of flesh. His hands reached down, covetously taking your thighs, humming against your breast at the warmth and softness of your skin underneath the rough pads of his palms. He drew one hand upwards to the flimsy lingerie you were wearing, ripping it away wildly as well, making you gasp.

“Hey, don’t –”

Any protests you had died in your throat when he reached down the apex of your legs, his fingers immediately teasing your folds and rubbing gently. “Do you feel how wet you are, my love?” he rasped. “You want me this much?” When you didn’t answer, he prompted you by putting more pressure on the sensitive nub, making you buck off of the sheets with a squeaked out, “Yes.”

Your nether lips were slick with arousal and your clit started to become engorged as he touched you there, making you whine in pleasure as you carelessly threw your arms back on the mattress. He spread your legs wider, giving himself full access to your body while you lay there with hooded eyes, watching him have his way around you, his pupils dilated as he drank in every contour of your body.

“So beautiful,” he murmured, groaning in approval when you slightly arched your neck backwards, reveling in his touch. He started rubbing your clit in circles with just enough pressure to have you gripping on the sheets while his free hand took hold of your exposed breasts, kneading the supple flesh between his fingers. Nanami delighted in the way you looked writhing under his mercy, eyes hazy and mouth partly opened as you let out pleasured sounds, wishing to know how he can make you moan and tremble even more.

Nanami withdrew his hand from your chest and traced down the expanse of your belly until he reached your pelvis, securing you in place as he inserted his long digits into your throbbing cunt, going in and out. He chuckled softly at the sight of you taking his fingers in, the lewd sounds coming from your pooling juices as you clenched around him, spurring him on. He pressed down on your clit around and around, over and over again, circling around that sensitive part of you.

“Just like that,” you mewled, your hips lifting off the mattress to grind against his hand, meeting the friction he was creating and amplifying your desire.

He smirked as he hovered over you. “You just love this, don’t you?”

“Y-yeah,” you breathed out, feeling your first orgasm hitting you when he started erratically thrusting his fingers into you, the movement of his wrists quick while every thrust was accompanied by your snagged breaths.

Feeling himself getting harder and more titillated with the way your body tossed and turned beneath him, with his free hand, he shoved down his silk pajama bottoms, tossing it away along with his underwear, releasing his cock from its confines. He was, however, taken aback when you suddenly pushed yourself up, smirking at him as your eyes shifted between his dark orbs and his erection, thick, long and pulsating.

Without a warning, you pushed against him, your hands tight on his broad shoulders until his back was against the mattress. Having successfully turned tables on him, you straddled his lap and claimed his lips for your own, kissing him hard and unrelenting while your hands ran down his pecs, down to his hard abs, one of them racing faster than the other as you reached for his length, wrapping your fingers around it, its heat sending you on a wild rush.

“You’re so hot,” you droned absently, making him smile.

“You’re hotter when you’re trying to dominate me like this,” he responded, chuckling.

“Don’t I always though?” you teased, your grip on him tightening slightly while you ran your thumb over his tip, spreading his precum all over the pinkish head, making him quaver in delight. Whatever response he had in mind died right there and then when you lifted yourself up aligning yourself with him. You grabbed the base of his length, guiding him leisurely inside you, the slow pace driving you both on the edge. Your legs shook slightly as you slid down onto him, using his firm thighs to anchor yourself until you were fully sitting on him, his cock buried deep inside you.

“You feel so good,” he whispered, out of breath, feeling himself nestled in your warmth, fitting tight and snug as if you were made just for him. He sat up slightly, holding onto your hips as he slid out slowly, almost to the hilt, holding you up before very gently easing his way back inside, continuing with that slow pace, building a rhythm you both got used to. You held onto his shoulders, meeting every languid thrust halfway, establishing connection with every movement of your bodies.

“Ah…Kento…” you keen, as you both moved against each other, feeling every part of each other against yourselves, melding in a soft embrace as you rode him up and down. You both couldn’t get enough of each other, your nails digging on his back while his hands held your waist in a bruising grip. Your hips met each other in a steady rhythm, the sounds of your moans filling the room, mingling with skin slapping on skin and distinct squelching as you repeatedly swallowed his cock into your hole, making you crumple in rapture.

He reached up, placing a hand at your nape, making you lean closer to press his mouth onto yours, your tongues meeting in a duel, your whimpers drowned out by the action. He released your lips in favor of your neck, progressing downwards as he nipped on your flesh, all the way to your collarbones until he reached your breast, latching his mouth onto one of your nipples, making your toes curl as his ministrations brought about sensations that hyper-stimulated every one of your senses.

You luxuriated in everything that was him, the feel of his mouth on you, his length filling you up to the brim over and over again, in and out with every push, his smell, his warmth, the excitement leaping in his eyes while he focused on pleasuring you. You were caught in the midst of your love and fondness for everything that made up Nanami Kento, voicing it out by repeatedly saying, “I love you,” or broken parts of it anyway as if a prayer of fragmented pleas and exultation as he made you his.

He paused when he heard you say it, pulling away, his eyes wide as he gazed at you with his cloudy eyes suddenly becoming clearer while his vision focused on you. “Say that again,” he said.

“I love you,” you murmured, feeling your face grow warm at his unabashed scrutiny. Then again, “I love you,” with more conviction this time. “I’m madly in love with you, Kento.”

“You are?” he asked as if in disbelief, his mouth stretching into smile, eyes filling with joy when you nodded. And along with that, he felt himself growing even harder as if a silent affirmation to how he felt about you. “I love you, too.” He kissed you and laid you down on the bed. “So damn much.”

Nanami settled himself between your legs, placing them over his shoulders as he realigned himself with you, pushing in without preamble and pounding into you in a faster rhythm than earlier. He slid so easily inside of you as he pushed forward and pulled out again and again, the new position making your walls grip tighter around him while he fucked you deeper. He relished the way he was spreading you apart, mesmerized by the way you were connected.

“More,” you purred when you felt him hitting you right where you wanted him over and over again, making you see galaxies of stars as he rammed into you. “Right there.”

“Whatever you want, my love,” he panted, dipping himself even deeper. “You like that? You like how daddy fucks you?”

Your eyes shot open when he said that, knowing you were seeing a new facet of him you’ve never encountered before. But you were not able to dwell on that when you were prompted to respond with a rough, hard thrust, saying, “Yes, daddy. I do…so m-much,” when he pulled out all the way and shoved his dick back in, and in that same instant, you found yourself creaming around him. Your essence dripped down onto the sheets as he continued to thrust faster into you, his breath hitting your skin with the rhythm of his movements as he moaned your name, planting butterfly kisses on your neck.

“You’re so good,” he said as you clenched tighter around him. “Give me one more, baby.”

He hastened his pace even more, rising up with one of your legs hanging on his arm while his free hand reached down, playing with your clit, applying pressure and setting the tempo of his movements with his length which slid in and out of you unabatingly. Your moans were getting louder while your brain felt like it would turn to fizz as your heart pounded in your chest, holding onto the build of that familiar pooling of heat in your loins. In a sudden flurry of sensations, your body lifted clear off the bed as you came long and hard.

Nanami rode you through it, going even harder and rougher as groans started to spill out of his mouth, ending in a crescendo of your sensual cries and a dragged out moan from him as he came inside you, his white, hot seed coating your walls and overflowing out of you.

Closing your eyes, you tried to catch your breath, feeling a shiver run down your spine as you came down from your high. Everything felt detached and surreal as your mind started filling with thought after thought, dominated with nothing but the fact that he just made love to you, the idea not quite sinking in despite the panting, boneless mess that you are at that moment.

You gasped when you felt him pulling out of you before hovering over you to place a kiss on your forehead. You forced your eyes open to look at him, cracking into a crooked grin when you finally looked at him, his hands brushing away stray strands of hair from your sweat-matted forehead.

“I love you, Y/N,” he told you in hushed tones, while you were unable to do anything but nod weakly as your body succumbed to exhaustion.

He bet everything on Gojo’s wedding week. And it was all worth it.

The whole matter has not sunk in just yet, so much so that he didn’t get a wink’s sleep trying to make sense of it all, but mostly afraid that he will wake up in the morning and find that everything was just a dream. A very vivid, beyond pleasant dream. But the sun rose in the horizon, and as he lay there awake, he had his proof of everything that happened beside him, asleep and very much real, pressed against his side.

When you came to him the previous night, he was certain things between you would end. If he was being honest, he has had it with your playing. He didn’t know exactly what your aims were the previous night until you made the move. Again, if he was being honest, he was also being a coward, always the one at the end of the rope you were reaching for. He wanted to switch your positions for a change, but when he did, it felt like he was getting nowhere, just pulling the rope without anyone at the end.

He thought he had lost when you kissed Geto in front of him, didn’t know what to do with the information when you said you were doing it to make him jealous. And no matter how low you went just to get his attention or to retaliate to his lack of response to you the previous day, he couldn’t say he didn’t like that you did it, too. He didn’t like it per se, but your motivations behind it spoke volumes of how you felt. He was just too blind to see it.

You were right about certain things, one of them being the fact that he was supposed to know you and understand how you communicated. Another was the fact that it wasn’t too much for you to ask him to be selfish for his sake and yours. He had wanted to act exactly that way for a long time, and when you were giving him the chance, he walked away from it instead. And as per usual, you were the one who fought your way against him for the same aim of having him.

He sighed, shifting to his side to face your slumbering form. He felt his heart melting at the sight of you softly breathing and appearing so serene snuggled against him and wearing his shirt. He could almost laugh when you suddenly fell asleep on him right after he made love to you. He sighed, knowing you wouldn’t wake up any time soon after you closed your eyes, decided to clean you up and dress you up before settling beside you, too.

But out of everything, since the previous night, whenever he would remember you telling him you loved him, his heart just stops for a second only to resume its beating in irregular staccatos. You told him you could almost cry having him that close to you, but he was the one who felt like shedding tears about having you.

He bet his heart knowing there was a possibility that you would just toy with it and break it. In the end, he finally got everything he wanted in your person. He should have already known that in order to get to you, he has to go through everything, have his heart shattered if that’s what it would take. He wanted to peel all your protective layers, but you ended up doing that to him instead, and it was safe to say you succeeded. Still, although he felt like dying when he saw you kissing Geto, he wouldn’t have it any other way. He’d go through it all again if it meant he would get you in the end.

Nanami caressed your cheek with the back of his fingers, smiling when you scrunched your nose a bit, your brows furrowing slightly. Just then, your eyes opened, your ocean-blue irises devouring him in an instant in waves of emotions, the most dominant of them all being gratitude towards whatever higher power brought you to the world to exist and love him when you could have anybody else.

You broke into a sleepy grin the moment you saw him. “Good morning, daddy,” were the first words that came out of your mouth, teasing him the moment you woke up.

He felt heat suffuse his cheeks when you said that, flashing you a pained look. It hadn’t been embarrassing when he suddenly decided he had a daddy kink and wanted to hear you say it, but now that he has sobered up from the feel of you against him, he didn’t exactly want you to say it, not when you were mercilessly ragging him for it first thing in the morning. He didn’t detest it though.

Nanami diverted his gaze from you, his face turning red, but you abruptly rose slightly, grabbing both sides of his face to make him look at you.

“What are you getting all shy around me for?” you cooed. “Don’t you like it when I call you that?” You smirked. “Come to think of it, I was startled when you said that, too.”

“Are you making fun of me?” he said, pouting.

Your eyes rounded and you let go of him, even going to the extent of moving away from him.

“What?” he asked, suddenly panicked as he sat up, grabbing your arm, afraid you’ll walk away.

You clucked your tongue. “D-don’t do that…that p-pouting thing…” you spoke haltingly, unable to talk properly as you pinched the bridge of your nose, looking flustered.

“Do what?” he asked, not quite catching what you were saying.

“Don’t go acting cute so early in the morning. I’m not used to this side of you. Jesus, Kento,” you told him all in one go, your hands flailing about. “You’re messing with me.”

He arched a brow at you and started laughing heartily. You were genuinely distressed and he didn’t know what he would do with you. “I’m sorry, darling. I didn’t know you were not immune to my charms.” He pulled you towards him, making you face him. “How are you feeling by the way?”

“I’m fine.”

“Not sore anywhere?”

You rolled your eyes at him. “Fishing for compliments now?”

He shook his head slowly, not understanding what you were talking about. “I don’t think we’re on the same page.” He started fussing around you then, even lifting his shirt which you were wearing, slightly looking for telltale signs of the possibility that he could have hurt you in any way when he spotted bruises on your hips. “Oh no.”

“Why?” you asked, blinking cluelessly when you saw what he was looking at. To your surprise, he suddenly took you in his arms, his expressions indicating distress. “What’s going on?”

“I hurt you,” he mumbled. “I’m sorry.”

It was your turn to laugh. “You obliterated me, Kento, but I’m not sorry about it.” You pulled away from him and pecked him on the lips. “You were awesome.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“I should go easy on you. I don’t really like the idea of injuring you in any way.”

You narrowed your eyes on him. “You’ve set the bar on how good you can be between the sheets. If you hold back on me, I’ll throttle you. Maybe I’ll ask Satoru for help, too.”

“What –”

“You’ve been warned, Nanamin.” You leaned forward, planting your face on his chest. “Stop worrying. I don’t regret anything, and if you make love to me as well as you did last night every single day, I’ll gladly have my battle scars.”

Nanami cupped your head, rubbing soothingly, his eyes meeting yours while a slight smile played at the corners of his mouth. “You’re so weird sometimes.”

“You love me.”

He kissed the top of your head. “I do. With all that I am.”

“Stop getting into a tizzy then.”

“Okay, Y/N.”

“Okay, Kento.”

“Are you always going to call me by my name now?” he asked, tilting his head to the side. “I like it better than when you call me Nanamin.”

Your brows knit together then. “I’ve kinda gotten fond of that nickname though. But if that’s what you want, I’m down for it, too.” You grinned at him. “Kento.”

Nanami broke into a smile, but then you said, “Can I always call you 'daddy' instead?” He rolled his eyes, feigning annoyance. “I’ll throttle you.”

You chuckled. “My mother would flip!”

“Satoru would flip.”

You laughed, wrapping your arms around him. The two of you stayed that way for a few moments, just enjoying the comfortable silence while you listened to his heartbeat and basked in his warmth, his muscular arms wrapped around you securely. You’ve never felt safer.

You were, however, the first to break it.

“Kento?” you began.

“Yes, my love?”

“What are we now?”

“You’re all mine and I’m yours,” he stated firmly.

“So we’re official?”

He scoffed. “If last night wasn’t enough to make us official, I’d be happy to prove it further to you. You’re the woman I’ll marry. I’m not giving you a choice on that.”

You snickered. “Fine.”

“Fine?” he repeated with inflection, pushing you down on the mattress while he hovered over you. “Why do you sound as if you don’t like it?”

You burst into bubbles of laughter. “I’m not complaining…”

“But?”

“If that’s the case, I want Satoru to know first before the others. Is that okay?”

He nodded. “That’s just fair, I think.”

“Thank you.”

“Anything for you. When do you want us to tell him?”

You held his hand, entwining your fingers together and beaming tenderly at the way yours were engulfed by his. “Soon. Very soon.”

-end of part 7-

Aaaaand we're down to the second to the last chapter. This one's rather self-indulgent and I got carried away with the the "daddy" thing lol. Anyway, I would like to say thank you to everyone who's been reading this fic and looking forward to my updates. You guys make me happy!

*I used “you” here, but since my character is Gojo’s little sister who is established to be his female clone for reasons essential to the plot, she possesses the same blue eyes and white hair. I did not exactly want to create an OC (although technically, I did by describing Y/N), but I opted for the best of both worlds in this fic, leaning more towards the literary aspect of it as opposed to it just being reader/you-oriented. I hope this isn’t iffy to anyone, and yeah, i’m not being exclusive or whatever.

Thank you so much for reading. Likes, comments and reblogs are deeply appreciated! Hope you enjoyed it.

PHOTO/IMAGE/GIF/FANART CREDITS TO THE RESPECTIVE OWNERS.

44 notes · View notes

palms-upturned · 3 years ago

Note

Tell us about the rgu flower language stuff!! If u have the time

OH BOY DO I!!! THANK YOU ANON I WOULD LOVE TO ;_;

well there’s a whole lot of wonderful stuff in the show but i guess a great place to start would be the duelist colors!!

green roses don’t occur naturally (not the kind of roses you would picture, anyway) so they don’t have a strong association in floriography or hanakotoba as far as i know, but green is certainly a fitting color for saionji lol, mr green with envy…

miki’s blue rose doesn’t occur naturally either, but it’s taken on some pretty strong symbolic connotations due to attempts to breed them!! blue roses stand for love at first sight sometimes, but more importantly they stand for unattainable things, like the standards that miki holds women like anthy and (especially) kozue to. and interestingly, kozue’s hair is a much more purple shade than miki’s bright blue, and i think that’s because attempts to breed blue roses resulted often in new shades of purple. so kozue is the failed attempt to raise a prodigy and miki is the success 😔

juri’s orange rose represents an ambiguous love somewhere between a red rose (romance/passion) and a yellow rose (friendship). pretty self explanatory when it comes to this lesbian icon and what happened between her and shiori 😔 also makes it pretty hilarious that anthy keeps trying to offer juri an orange rose in episode seven sjsgsjdhdh [anthy voice] I know your gay

nanami’s yellow rose can represent friendship as mentioned, but also jealousy 😔 another one that’s pretty self explanatory, nanami is a very jealous person when it comes to touga and what he represents to her, without touga she’s “just another fly in the swarm,” so she challenges any threat that would make her question her place in the world with a yellow rose 😔😔😔

and then there’s touga and his red rose, which ofc stands for passion and romantic love. another one that’s pretty self explanatory for mr playboy, but becomes a bit sad and ironic by the end of the show when he starts to realize that the way he lives his life fucking sucks lol and that akio intentionally groomed him into such a pos that when he started to realize that he was actually being victimized, he had already burned all of his bridges and had no one else to turn to (except saionji, which is pretty dire 💀). in saionji’s words, mr red rose has never actually loved anyone and doesn’t realize it until he’s most in need of someone to love him enough in spite of everything to help him escape akio and this hell school

anthy and akio both have purple hair, and purple roses are associated w royalty, mystery, and magic, v fitting for them both. akio also duels with a purple rose in episode 38 iirc

utena duels with a white rose because white roses stand for ideals and devotion! and the ideal that she’s so devoted to is dios as her image of a prince. it’s really dios’s duel color and not hers, because…

in episode 12, when dueling touga to reclaim herself, utena wears a rose of her true color: pink! pink roses stand for trust… happiness… gratitude… you see pink roses often throughout the show, one of my fav examples being that anthy is framed by pink roses the first time utena sees her in episode one 🥺 and in episode two, there’s a vase of them in their shared room!! and ofc, in the finale, the door to eternity is overgrown with pink roses… and when anthy leaves in the final scene of the show, she’s wearing a pink outfit 🥺🥺🥺

anyway this all makes it p fun to rewatch the show and take note of what color the spinning rose frames are during certain scenes and what they’re telegraphing! the red rose during the cantarella scene when utena says “what a coincidence, i poisoned your tea” makes me lose my mind. she really said “oh yeah well im in love with you so there.”

also… this isn’t related to roses but an additional little flower language rant. but the fact that the series never uses forget me nots makes me lose it. they get their name from a german folk tale about a couple walking beside a river when the woman sees some pretty blue flowers on the bank and asks her lover to fetch them for her, but he ends up falling into the river and gets swept away, but tosses the flowers back to his lover and cries, “forget me not!” and with all the different iterations of the tale of the drowning boy in the river and the idea of memories/truths being warped by the narratives that society tells us, i CANNOT BELIEVE that the movie especially never used forget me nots 😭😭😭 it seriously makes me more frustrated than it should LMAO i gotta draw lots and lots of art of rgu characters with forget me nots just to make myself less mad

ANYWAY THANK YOU ANON FOR ENGAGING IN MY SPECIAL INTERESTS W ME IT HELPED ME PASS THE TIME WHILE WAITING FOR A RIDE HOME AND ALSO MADE ME HAPPY :] if you ever have questions abt flowers or other imagery in an utena scene… i got u

#rgu #asks #anon #THANK YOU FOR MY LIFE

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iohourtime · 4 years ago

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Kiokuya (The Memory Eraser) Review - With Spoilers

Since I read the book, sort of followed the filming progress, and read a bunch of interviews (that all sounded the same after a while), I should finish off by writing a review for the movie itself!

Thanks to the pandemic, I was stuck at home watching Netflix for 7 months, so I’ve watched all sorts of movies & TV; sadly most are in the average to crappy category. To me, Kiokuya was probably in the average to slightly above average category. In other words, there are elements I like and there are things I feel the movie can improve on.

The review is a bit long since apparently I have a lot of thoughts about the script.😅 I pretty much summed up my thoughts in the “theme” section. If you are interested in the book / movie differences & things from the DVD visual commentary, I included those in the script & characters section. (Movie Walker included highlights from the visual commentary here.) . If you want to discuss the movie but don’t want to put spoilers on Twitter, leave me a message.

Theme:

The movie’s main theme is obviously about memory. If a memory is making your life miserable, or even stopping you from living, is it better to erase it? Or do all memories, even bad ones, shape you as a human? If someone’s memory of you is gone, are you killed in their minds? If you think someone is better off forgetting you, do you have the right to ask Kiokuya to erase their memories of you? Are the memories gone forever? If you have the power to erase someone’s memory, what are your responsibilities? And to some extent, what are the criteria to evaluate each request and what due diligence should you do before you accept this task? These were the questions the movie wanted you to ask. You know because the movie kept hitting you on the head through the dialogue! That’s probably my main complaint about the movie.

I didn’t study film so I don’t know the theories, but I think being heavy handed at telling you what you should be thinking is like listening to a textbook; it robs the audience of the chance to experience and internalize what they saw, and as a result, they are less able to connect emotionally to the film. That’s not to say people are not moved by the movie and empathize with the characters. I feel that it had more to do with the actors than the script though.

I think the cinematography was generally nice. I liked how they used the drone shots to film the beautiful Hiroshima scenery. The sunset scene was beautiful. The music did not seem intrusive. Other than that, I’m not sure I have more to say. (Fine. Yamada looked good in the plaid shirts and his hair was on point.)

Script vs Book: (Spoiler alert from here on!)

Kiokuya, the movie, was an adaptation of a “horror” novel of the same name. Although there were horror elements, mostly because Kiokuya was kind of a shadowy figure, even the novel itself was focused more on humanity. The original story was divided into 4 parts; the first 3 parts were really 3 separate short stories that explored different reasons people have for wanting their memories erased. The final part was about Kiokuya herself. The Ryoichi character simply served as a bridge between the stories. Here’s a brief description:

Kyoko - A while ago, she was attacked in a dark alley but was saved at the last minute. Even though she was unharmed, she developed a crippling phobia of the dark, so she locked herself inside her home at night and was not able to live a normal life. She and Ryoichi were kinda but not really dating, and Ryoichi, being a typical guy, figured he could fix her. Kyoko tried everything but as a last resort, she asked Kiokuya to erase her memory of the attack. Since her relation with Ryoichi was based almost entirely on overcoming the phobia, she forgot him too. Through this incident, Ryoichi remembered how Maki had her memory erased when she was 5 or 6 - she saw her mom confessing to her dad that she had an affair with her uncle. Kiokuya might have erased Maki’s memory a second time when she was 10-12. Finally, he realized he “forgot” about his year-long investigation of Kiokuya with Takahara & others. It seemed like he was doggedly pursuing Kiokuya because he felt violated more than his undying love for Kyoko. In his own words, he didn’t try to rebuild his relationship with Kyoko again after she forgot about him. There was nothing stopping him, so his feelings towards Kyoko were not that deep.

Takahara - He was a 30 year old ikemen lawyer, though like the movie, he was dying. The chapter focused on his touching friendship with his assistant. Takahara was also close with Nanami, a suicidal, 17-year-old daughter of a client who became very attached to him. When Takahara found out Nanami planned to kill herself after he died, he asked Kiokuya to erase her memory of him so that she would live on.

Misao & Kaname - They were childhood friends and Misao started crushing on Kaname. She confessed and was rejected, but after that, they were not able to be friends like before. She figured if she erased everything about Kaname, they may be able to start over and become friends again without the awkward feelings.

Maki - Ryoichi thought Maki was looking for Kiokuya to erase some unpleasant memories. Then he found out she was Kiokuya, who inherited her ability from her grandfather. In the end, Maki confessed to the burden of being Kiokuya and Ryoichi told her he would support her and that she didn’t have to do it alone. Maki decided to erase anything Kiokuya related in his memory, but their friendship remained intact. Oh, Maki was 17 in the book and also had a crush on Ryoichi. She erased his memories many times before. Like in the movie, she also would like Ryoichi to love her just once, although he never ever saw her as anyone other than his annoying little sister. 😅

The director of the movie, Hirakawa Yuichi, also wrote or co-wrote the script. While the movie stuck to the themes of the novel, the motivations were completely different. Kyoko and Misao were both rape victims, Takahara now wanted to protect his young daughter from the sadness of his death, and Maki was herself kidnapped by a psychopath when she was a kid. I guess Hirakawa needed to pump up the drama and felt the stakes were not high enough for a 2 hour movie? There is always some uneasiness with using rape and trauma to move the story along. I guess there is a difference between this and the usual example of “fridging a female character”, i.e. kill a love interest of the hero to motivate him on some journey. Ryoichi was motivated by being erased and he actually gradually realized he should not push for restoring Kyoko’s memories if it was her wish. He only found out what happened to her at the end of the movie. Considering their relationship in the movie was a lot more serious, they couldn’t really use the phobia of darkness reason. However, it would also take something really big for Kyoko to want her memory erased while not talking to Ryoichi beforehand. Anyway, I really don’t see a way out of this.

For Misao though, I didn’t think they needed to make her a victim of the same serial rapist, especially when they use the same reason as the book for erasing Kaname. I suppose they need to explain why Nanami (and later Ryoichi) was looking into them? But they could just have the doctor referred the case (who appeared to be breaking doctor-patient confidentiality?! Just me?) In fact, the whole Misao / Kaname storyline didn’t really do much other than allowing Ryoichi to find out from Kaname that Kiokuya was a young girl.

Maki’s childhood trauma was also a bit excessive. I can’t see it as anything other than to get Ryoichi out to Hiroshima to talk to Grandpa. While finding out mom was “dealing with” uncle would be traumatic for a young child, it might not be dramatic enough for a movie.

Ryoichi & Maki’s origins were also changed. They were now raised in Hiroshima and moved to Tokyo to attend university. The only reason was to place Grandpa-Kiokuya in Hiroshima after the bombing. While I liked the grandpa scene, was it necessary? They already covered the “Kiokuya after WWII” with the interview with the elderly woman. I think they could still keep Grandpa, since he was Kiokuya (and ironically suffering from Alzheimer’s) but maybe just skip the elderly woman part and use those minutes to build Ryoichi & Kyoko’s relationship!

Upgrading Ryoichi & Kyoko’s relationship to being engaged gave him more incentive to look for Kiokuya, but all we got to see was 1 proposal scene and some snapshots, which made it harder for us to understand the loss Ryoichi experienced when Kyoko forgot him. Ultimately, I feel that more time should be given to the “before” times. They don’t even need that much. If done effectively like the movie Searching with John Cho, 5 minutes or so of clips would be enough to get us to care more. I’m not saying people won’t care, but it’s true that there are people who didn’t quite feel it. Yamada basically had to sell it with longing looks at Renbutsu, so how deeply you feel for them depends on whether you buy it or not.

Takahara’s story might have been changed because of who they cast. Also, Takahara & Nanami’s relationship in the book was kinda weird, considering Nanami actually loved him and she was 17 while he was 30. I definitely cannot agree with how Movie Takahara wanted to erase his daughter’s memory to spare her the pain of losing him. It reminded me of that Black Mirror episode where the mom put in a blocker to shield her daughter from bad things. It ended up messing up the girl & broke their relationship. Young children are resilient and the sadness would eventually change into something else, which would shape their characters. Also, just because she forgot her birth father didn’t mean she would suddenly get along with her stepfather. I won’t even get into the whole consent thing. It was a good thing Maki did not follow through.

Less good was what Movie Maki did to Ryoichi & Kyoko though. When I found out Movie Ryoichi & Kyoko were engaged instead of “pre-dating” like in the book, I was quite worried they would have Movie Maki erase Ryoichi from Kyoko’s mind for selfish reasons. I was hoping that maybe he got erased by mistake, but unfortunately, the script did go with the jealousy angle, which made Maki extremely unsympathetic.

In the visual commentary, they said they rewrote the ending because it didn’t fit. Maki erased her entire existence from Ryoichi's mind as penance for what she did. (I think initially, they were going with the book ending where Maki just erased Kiokuya from his head.) In the end, the actual cut used in the movie was more ambiguous - they “left it to the audience” to decide how much Maki erased and whether Ryoichi & Kyoko got a second chance at happiness. (The director said it ended on a hopeful note. Take it how you want.)

It’s unclear if Movie Maki erased Ryoichi’s memories more than once, but Book Maki had done it many times. Even though Book Maki seemed more responsible with her powers and didn’t slip up like Movie Maki, she did wipe part of Ryoichi’s memories without his consent. Ryoichi said that she didn’t have to do this alone and she could lean on him, so why didn’t she? Also, losing all that memory got to have some long term effect on him, right? In the movie, it was worse because Maki took the “easy” way out by erasing herself. Yes, she was punishing herself, but shouldn’t the more courageous thing to do was to own up to what she had done and work for Ryoichi’s (& Kyoko’s) forgiveness?

Speaking of Ryoichi’s forgiveness, I actually saw some viewers calling Ryoichi a cad for telling Maki that he would always protect her and be by her side to protect her. Apparently they seemed to think he was in love with Maki and forgot all about Kyoko. Well, I think in that moment, there were 3 things going on: 1) Takahara told him that it was better to forgive and that there will be justice in other ways, 2) he understood why it was devastating to Kyoko to remember what happened and 3) Maki was like his little sister. His immediate desire to comfort his friend overrode the anger and betrayal he might have felt. Had Maki not erased his memory around 2 minutes after, who knew if they would have a more substantial talk? He didn’t even have a chance to talk to Kyoko. (I suspect Maki would have tried to “spare him” by erasing his relationship with Kyoko as well. He still ended up at the cafe because he could remember physically going there a lot.)

Overall, I think the movie was a bit unfocused due to some extraneous storylines and having too much exposition, which was a disservice to some of the characters. It failed to show how their relationships build, like Ryoichi & Takahara became buddies over what seemed like a week! I wish they trimmed a couple of the minor stories and used that time to go deeper on the main lines.

Characters / Actors:

Yoshimura Ryoichi (Yamada Ryosuke)

I was watching the movie and halfway through when it hit me… Yamada’s Ryoichi was… normal? I mean obviously quite good looking in the boy-next-door kind of way, but Ryoichi was a regular, run-of-the-mill university student, who was normally an optimistic and forgiving but happened to be dealing with heartbreak at the moment. Seriously, if you’ve watched Yamada’s other works, his characters are usually kind of comedic, sort of pathetic, occasionally brilliant, psychotic, or… non-human. (Very odd roles for a Johnny’s actor.) He probably has not been this normal since the 24Hr drama. He still cried a lot, so that’s familiar.

OK, let’s get back on topic. Since Book Ryoichi functioned more as a character that connects the short stories rather than a real character, I didn’t have hopes for the movie version. Surprisingly, Movie Ryoichi came across as a real person and I did care what happened to him. While we didn’t get to see how Ryoichi & Kyoko were in happier times, he was able to convey the longing and slight awkwardness in their interaction when he tried to talk to her after. Similarly, in the scene where he learned of Takahara’s death, you could tell what was going through his mind even though he said nothing. Same with the final “confrontation” with Maki. Even though he didn’t say much, his eyes conveyed the emotions subtly: the longing, shock, confusion, etc. Overall, he was quite subtle and natural. As the articles say, he managed to “suppress his aura” and played an average guy. I hope he can play more of these subtle types of roles in future. (It is unfortunate that a lot of people have preconceived notions about Johnny’s actors, to put it politely. It’s like the reverse of the “fan blinder” that we sometimes get accused of having.)

Now there are some discussions as to whether he overacted in the crying scenes. The main “crying” scenes were probably 1) confession to grandpa in Hiroshima, 2) in the rain, and 3) reading the letter. I’ve seen people say he overacted in either 1) or 2).

When I first watched the Hiroshima scene, I did feel that his crying may have been a bit much because I was watching the movie with just Japanese subtitles, so I missed an important detail: Ryoichi told his mom he was going to Hiroshima to confront his past. When you consider that Ryoichi had been carrying the guilt for “causing” Maki’s kidnapping for 15 years, it was totally reasonable for him to prostrate himself in front of Grandpa. He would also be relieved when Grandpa told him the statute of limitation was over and he should forgive himself. As an aside, according to the director in the visual commentary, Yamada cried in the first take of the scene. Hirakawa said “Aren’t you crying too much?” Yamada said “OK, I’ll do another take without crying.” However, when the Director was cutting the movie together, he suddenly saw Ryoichi’s mental journey and ended up using the first take because it was the logical conclusion to the closure he got.

In the rain scene, he just learned about Kyoko’s attack. Knowing how much hurt she endured and how he did nothing to support and comfort her, he was still in a state of shock when he got knocked down. Then the dam burst and he cried hysterically. That seemed quite reasonable to me. I was more shocked that nobody checked on the guy who fell on the pavement and was crying. Pedestrians were cold! So I don’t really understand the objection to that scene. Maybe they thought this was something that happened a while ago and/or he didn’t love Kyoko that much, so he wouldn’t be that emotional?

I don’t think people have issues with the letter scene? Narratively, it made the most sense since he was close with Takahara, who was literally speaking to him from the grave via the letter. Oh, they talked about filming the letter scene in the visual commentary. Yamada was just reading the letter in silence and they added in Takahara’s narration in post production. Since he wanted to save the emotional outburst for the real take, he did not dare to look at the letter during the rehearsal.

One last thing, Yamada and Yoshine spoke in Hiroshima-ben when they were talking amongst each other. I have horrible listening skills and while I think he used some slang or phrasing, his accent still seemed mostly Kanto. It’s like if I call a bunch of people “wankers” with a Canadian accent; it doesn’t make me sound English. Maybe someone can tell me just how well (or not) he did.

Kawai Maki (Yoshine Kyoko)

I have only watched Yoshine in the drama Stay Tuned and I liked her there. She played this airhead character who could be super annoying if the balance was off, yet she came across as likeable. I think she portrayed Maki very well in this movie. Of course, I knew she was Kiokuya going in, so even at the beginning, you could see some of her subtle reactions to the Kiokuya discussions. I really liked her chemistry with Yamada - they felt like they could have been lifelong friends. While she played the annoying little sister part quite well, you could also see the pain she felt when she had to make difficult choices like erasing Nanami’s memory. Throughout the movie, you could sense her regret for what she did to Ryoichi. Her emotions in the final scene were also very raw. While Maki’s characterization was problematic, Yoshine was really good at playing that character and you might even be sympathetic towards her. Also, I feel that her Hiroshima-ben might be more on point? Some people didn’t buy that she was in love with Ryoichi the whole time. I thought the flashbacks made it pretty clear but I’ve also read the book, so there’s that.

In the visual commentary, they were talking about their various acting styles. Yoshine said she carried her emotions with her even after the director shouted cut. So when she was shooting the last scene, she was still crying furiously afterwards. Yamada said she was like an acting monster - she could get right into the emotions even during the table read. It was funny how different she is from Yamada and Renbutsu. They are the flip-the-switch type - when the director yells cut, it was like they woke up from a dream into a different world. She also apologized to Yamada when they were watching the scene where she confessed to selfishly erasing Kyoko’s memory of Ryoichi.😅

Takahara Tomoaki (Sasaki Kuranosuke)

I have not seen Sasaki’s other projects, so I had no idea what to expect. His Takahara came across as pretty charming, easy going, and playful, though you could feel his love for his daughter and the hard decision he had to make. He also had a natural chemistry with the other cast and was very believable. While I disagree with what Takahara wanted, Sasaki’s acting as Takahara made sense. I don’t know what more to say. It is probably expected since he is a veteran and is generally well regarded as an actor.

Sawada Kyoko (Renbutsu Misako)

I have only seen Renbutsu in Hagaren. I liked her character there. I also liked how Yamada decided to break the ice with her back then by asking if she has any friends. (She had more friends than him. 😅) To be honest, there wasn’t much for her to do in this movie, although I think she was believable as the very confused Kyoko. She was apprehensive about Ryoichi in the “after” scenes, who was honestly coming across too strong. I don’t think Ryoichi & Kyoko really had crackling sexual chemistry based on the proposal scene, but they seemed like a cute couple. They were pretty cute together in the behind-the-scenes featurette when they took the “dating photos”. I wish those dates were included in the movie.

Conclusion:

As you can see above, I have some general issues about the script but I think the actors elevated the story. The movie could have been better if it streamlined some of the storylines. Right now, it was trying to go for a deeper message but the stories themselves were a bit too superficial to accomplish that. I suppose the problem was that the original novel was more like an anthology of short stories dealing with memory, so it was hard to create a through line for a movie.

#Kiokuya #anata ha wasurenai #yamada ryosuke #yoshine kyoko #sasaki kuranosuke #renbutsu misako #review #spoilers #the memory eraser

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animebw · 4 years ago

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Binge-Watching: Revolutionary Girl Utena, Episodes 31-33

I. Am. Not. Okay.

You Think You’re Any Better?

The case of Nanami Kiryuu is a sad and serious one. You’d never think from a first glance that such a lively, energetic girl was stuck in such a sorrowful predicament. But why would you? After all, Nanami doesn’t even see herself as in a bad spot. To her, being in love with her beloved big brother Touga is the best thing that could have ever happened. She gets to live by the side of someone she cherishes more than anyone or anything else. She gets to feel pampered and spoiled by the love and attention of someone who seems biologically destined to never leave her side. Under those circumstances, it’s so easy for her to imagine herself in a fairy tale world, the beloved princess of her beloved prince charming. As long as they’re siblings, it’s not like they’ll ever really be involved that way, so what’s the harm in dreaming as if it’s true? It takes a particular kind of self-delusion to fool yourself into imagining something you know to be a lie as an eternal truth. But it’s an easier trap to slip into than you might think. When your head’s up in the clouds like that, it’s so easy to overlook the lies that dream conceals. And really, what’s the harm with a little dream?

Unfortunately, dreams that grow as vast as Nanami’s have a bad habit of spilling out into reality. And when reality clashes with that dream, things get ugly. Episode 31 gives us plenty of Evangelion-esque long still shots as we soak in the discomfort of Nanami’s inability to tear her thoughts away from Touga. Whatever dream this might have started as, it’s grown into an obsession, fostered by Touga’s own willingness to play along with Nanami’s fantasies to keep her under his thumb. She imagines herself her brother’s keeper, his last warden, the person he cares for above all else. So when he goes around and hooks up with pretty much every girl in the school, clearly they must be the evil party here. They must be sluts and homewreckers and ugly crones trying to steal her beloved brother away from her, and she must be the one to stand in their way and put them in their place. The problem is that all these girls are trying to steal what’s rightfully hers, and as the queen of the school, it’s her duty to let them know in no uncertain terms just who Touga belongs to.

So blinded is she by this fantasy that she can’t see what’s really going on: that Touga is a two-timing playboy scoundrel. The reason every girl at school falls in love with him is because he’s the one who seeks those relationships out. He’s the one who thirsts for a new girl on his arm every week. And when he’s done with them, he tosses them to the side as if their feelings never mattered. The desperate calls they make to Touga’s phone aren’t the calls of lustful harpies coveting Nanami’s prize; they’re the calls of girls who were abandoned, betrayed, thrown aside and left behind by a man who convinced them they were special to him. They’re girls who thought they could trust Touga, who Touga promised they could trust him, before being left behind like so much abandoned trash on the road of life. And no matter how many times Nanami blocks them one after another, her jealousy growing exponentially, lording her position of power over these poor saps who don’t hold the key to her brother’s heart, she remains blind to the fact that to Touga, she is just as disposable as every voice on the other side of that phone. Just one more meaningless trophy among many, ready to be tossed in the trash can the moment its luster finally dims.

All it takes is a perfectly timed string of bad luck to bring the whole dream crashing down for good.

Forbidden Desire

In retrospect, I probably should’ve guessed that the “we’re not really related by blood” idea was false. Ikuhara’s proven time and again that he considers adopted families to be just as valuable as “biological” families, and Utena even outright brings that point up to Nanami in their duel: ”Whatever the form, as long as those feelings are there...” But Nanami’s enough of a star-struck idiot that the idea of her and Touga not being blood relatives matters to her. And Touga knows that well. Nanami may have come to that wrong-headed conclusion herself, but it ended up being the perfect lie for Touga to destroy her with. After all, if they aren’t blood-related, then there was nothing binding them together at all. Their perfect sibling bond was based on a lie and can never be recovered.

At least, that’s how Nanami parses it initially. But there’s a much darker implication to why this suggestion is so devastating to her. As Touga purrs to Akio when all is said and done, ”But I find the idea of a brother and sister not related by blood so much more romantic, don’t you?” There’s a reason the step-sibling trope is so popular in porn: because it supposedly makes having sex “okay.” On a base level, the disgust surrounding incest comes from not wanting to have sex with someone you’re directly related to, for a whole bunch of complicated socio-bio-cultural reasons we don’t have time to get into. If you’re not actually directly related, though, it feels more, well, permissible. Obviously, it still is incest even if you’re not directly related, blood ties and family ties aren’t the same thing, I’m grossly overgeneralizing here, and so on and so forth. The point is, if Nanami and Touga aren’t blood-related, that means it’s supposedly more possible that Nanami’s romantic feelings towards Touga might actually come to fruition. In other words, while Nanami perceives this on the surface as being something that tears her and her brother apart, I think subconsciously, part of her realizes that this actually brings her closer to her dream becoming reality. This is a step toward her fantasy world no longer being a fantasy, but real.

And she rejects it. She rejects it so violently that she actually moves out of the house she shares with Touga. She’s so terrified by the idea of her fantasy becoming real that for the first time, she tries to distance herself from the person who means the world to her. That’s the contradiction at the core of Nanami as a person: deep down, she doesn’t want to be in a relationship with Touga. She doesn’t want this fantasy to become real at all. As long as it’s solely in her dream, she has complete control over the situation, just as she has complete control over her classmates, her servants, the school, the student council, and everything she puts her mind to. But if it ever became real? She would have to actually live that life, with no safety nets and no escape hatches. She would have to experience “sibling love” in all its messiness, its ugliness, its discomfort, and its pain. No fantasy can survive reality; the moment you set about making your dream real, no matter what that dream is, it ceases to be an ideal and instead becomes something much more terrifying, much more difficult, and much more capable of driving you into despair. Better to keep it locked up in a glass case where it never runs the risk of hurting you. Not being able to touch the thing you love most is a small price to pay if it means you never have to fear its sting.

Among the Refuse

But Nanami could only keep her dream locked away so long as she never had to think about it too hard. As long as it could stay something perfect, pristine, out of reach and untouched by reality defiling aura, she never had to let it go. But that’s not an option now. Not when her sense of what’s even going has been so distorted. Not when she’s driven to actually confess to Touga at last as a way of separating herself from him for good. And just to make sure the glass case really shatters, she becomes privy to Akio and Anthy’s terrible secret. Jesus fucking Christ, I almost screamed aloud when Nanami wandered in on them. There’s no going back from that bombshell dropping. There’s no hitting the breaks now that Akio’s grip on Anthy is no longer a secret kept between them. And you know, as much shit as I gave this show in the past for its over-reliance on incest, this is a moment that absolutely needed to happen. Nanami sees, in no uncertain terms, the realization of the relationship she always thought she wanted with Touga, brother and sister joined in perfect union. And her horrified disgust makes it impossible for her to lie to herself anymore: this isn’t what she wants. This isn’t what she wishes Touga would give her. All she wanted, really, was to feel needed. All her attempts at control, all her hair-brained schemes to put down those she feels are threats, all her jealousy and possessiveness, everything she thought she wanted from the people around her, all of it nothing more than a means to an end. A desire for someone, anyone, everyone, to tell her, through words or actions, that they wanted to be around her. That her presence was valuable. That she wasn’t alone.

That no matter how things played out... she’d always have someone by her side.

But all dreams must one day shatter. The connections Nanami held onto were based on lies, manipulation, coercion, cobbled-together substitutes for genuine affection. And once they start collapsing, the snowball effect brings her entire support system down in a single manic dash. Her brother coldly rejects her and tells her all the love he showed her was just to control her. Her “friends,” whom she used as pawns without the slightest regard for who they were as people, finally snap and break away from her, forcing her to literally beat them up to make them subservient to her once more. Her desperate attempt to recover what she lost by beating Utena- even going so far as to kidnap Chu-chu- comes to nothing. She’s cast out, left behind, shut out from every beautiful, twisted dream she found solace in. And when the dust finally clears, all that’s left behind is a sad, lonely girl, finally realizing she was just as disposable as all the girls Touga used up and threw away. Just one more fly in the swarm, one more voice on the phone begging for him to notice her, one more insignificant speck waiting to be squashed and put out of her misery. Nanami has been stripped bare, and all that remains of her is the loneliness and self-loathing she can no longer hide from.

And no sooner has she been cast aside than a new sacrificial lamb is already being primed for the slaughter.

Light of the False Stars

Which brings me, at last, to the show’s final recap episode. Revolutionary Girl Utena has always done fascinating things with how it frames its recaps, providing insight or actual story progression in the spaces between the “previously on” segments. Episode 33 is no different, putting us in the perspective of... someone. Someone whose eyes we see through without so much as a whisper to tell us who it is. Someone who accompanies Utena to a fancy, spacious apartment somewhere in the city following the show’s classic Prince Prologue being played over establishing shots instead of its usual storybook fantasy. Someone who watches her as she lounges around in the first dress we’ve ever seen her wear in the present, so different from her usual princely attire it’s almost distracting. Someone who eats dinner with her, plays Go with her, listens as she makes casual conversation, all without saying so much as a word. Watching. Waiting.

Night falls.

Our mystery POV lies in bed with Utena.

We linger on a still shot of Utena’s face.

For minutes, Utena’s face is the only thing in frame. For minutes, her expressions are the only thing we see. For minutes, her voice is the only thing we hear. She talks about the day. She talks about tomorrow. She talks about making lunches. She rambles on and on about what she could cook, getting distracted, fumbling over her words, her voice growing breathier and more desperate. As if talking about lunch is the only way she can keep from spinning out of control. As if distracting herself by focusing on something so normal, so mundane, is the only way she can process what’s happening to her. As if she’s desperately trying to imagine herself anywhere else except where she is now. And at this point I was all but watching the screen through my hands, as if trying to shield myself from the dawning realization of exactly what was going on in front of me. As if I, like Anthy, would rather stare at the fake stars of the planetarium than the real ones right before my eyes. As if I, like Utena, wanted nothing more than to shield myself from the truth and disappear into a dream I never had to wake up from.

But all dreams must one day shatter.

All truths must one day come to light.

And a single flash of Akio’s dark-skinned hand entwined in Utena’s, at the climax of her desperation, leaves no room for doubt who’s eyes we’ve been seeing her through all this time.

It’s been a long time since a show has struck me with such visceral horror. It’s been a long time since I’ve been left this raw and trembling by the misfortune visited upon characters I care about. What happened to Nanami, what’s happening to Utena, hurts. It really hurts. And the situation is only getting worse and worse. All the safety nets have been removed, seemingly no one’s left who’s free from this snare, and just about everyone has reached their breaking point. Nanami was only the first to sink to her lowest point. The rest are soon to follow. A cursed eternity waits just around the bend, papering over the night sky in fake stars and trapping everyone in an endless dream they can never wake from. The End of the World races forever into the distance, its sound whistling like the Pied Piper beckoning children to their doom.

There is really and truly no turning back now.

God help us all.

Odds and Ends

-...why are the shadow puppets palling around in Nanami’s paintings. That can’t be good.

-”Isn’t that an Italian saying?” “Oh, do you have some Latin blood in you?” Sure, let’s go with that.

-sdkjfhdskfh why the Greek busts

-NANAMI CALM YOUR TITS YOU’RE GONNA BLOW THE EPISODE’S ENTIRE ANIMATION BUDGET IN A SINGLE FREAKOUT

-”Ran away...” Utena, you, uh, you okay there?

-”Nice putt.” Shut up, Akio, you don’t get to make me laugh.

-”My true dream is to turn the chairman’s residence into a harem.” GOD DAMMIT STOP MAKING ME LAUGH AKIO

-”Uh, do I sound like a total mental case right now?” “Yes.” kjdfhsdkjfh HOLY SIT ANTHY THE SASS

- I can’t help but notice that Nanami is facing away from Utena on the bed, whereas Anthy was always facing towards her. And when we finally see Anthy’s face during her tryst with Akio, she’s facing in the exact same direction she always faced when talking to Utena on that same bed. Subtle.

-”No family resemblance in that department.” “Why, thank you.” sdkjfhsdf Anthy I love you

-”It was really tasty too.” I think that’s the first time we’ve seen Anthy get pissed over something petty like that. I dig it.

-Anthy out here looking more like a serial killer by the second, lol. Also, why is Utena suddenly into handstands?

-”Please, let them enjoy their time together.” ...fuck. Anthy, I’m scared for you.

-”Sorry, it seems work is calling me.” “But we’re on air!” I hate how often Akio is making me laugh. He is good at what he does.

-Thank you for reminding me to stretch, Utena. I needed that.

Two more sessions. Two more chances to escape this nightmare. See you next time.

#anime #the anime binge-watcher #tabw #revolutionary girl utena #utena #shojo kakumei utena

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grlfriends · 4 years ago

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revolutionary girl utena review

ep 1-5

the plot is actually kinda different from what I thought ?? in my mind the plot was: utena was a girl in a princess school who each and every princess would be "conquered" (for a lack of better words rn) in a ceremonial duel by a prince who fancied them, maybe she didnt wanna wanna marry anyone or she liked Anthy already but anyway in my mind utena showed up in the ceremony with duel clothing and then, in a very brave tm like-scene, she would openly declare she refused to be conquered by anyone and tbh I'm not even sure how Anthy would come into the plot... but back into what actually happened in the episodes everything so far is very introductory and just showing what mechanics will be explored further down the line I think?? the op is really good too

also every boy so far reminds me so much of knights of the zodiac?? maybe it's just the design I guess...) and nanami can get these hands, jealousy is a disease and she's the sickest person on earth for all I know

dont ask me why bit I just feel like room of mirrors - gfriend has a very well fitting vibe for it but I'm not exactly sure why hm.... 🤔🤔

ep 6-12

ok so why does this school just have random animals around 😐 I could understand the horse but a bull and a kangaroo?? what ...

touga just says the most random dramatic things and then just casually says anyone who believes in friendship is a fool ?? the guy wouldnt last a day in the naruto universe tbh, he kinda irks me in some way but I'm not sure why so I'll live with this strange feeling for a while I guess

↳ okay so watching ep 10 made me especially kinda creeped out, I know I've watched only 10 eps so far but like can he fall downstairs and break a neck or something already ...

also haha what if I watched that bet on it fmv and gave myself a bunch of spoilers would that be funny or what 😍 this is why i cant have nice things yall.... hope my memory goes to shit when sleep so I dont remember about it this week while I finish it

I feel like the main thing on the episodes are parallels, one way or another I always feel like they're setting up parallels and giving me clues for a bigger picture and a deeper plot arc that is still to come and the bet on it fmv just made this impression stronger, also I wanna say it's done in a good way, one that is both mysterious (??) and "honey you've got a big storm coming" at the same time 🤔🤔 much to think about honestly

↳ just saw ep 11 and even though I already knew this was coming sooner or later it still felt like crap seeing utena lose to dick head, at the end of the episode when he says anthy was always just reflecting utena's own wishes for himemiya (in another way bc I dont remenber the exact words) it felt like 😐 bc yes I knew that (the way she was working her thoughts was simply a copy and paste of what utena was saying) at all time I kept those essays about anthy in my head, I dont think theyll be truly relatable to what I'm seeing rn but yeah anthy rights (even though I know you betray/cheat on utena down the line bc of the bet on it fmv but I'm sure you had your own motivation)

↳ saw ep 12 bc I just couldnt handle being in a cliffhanger and yeah it happened what I absolutely thought it would lmao not that it was that difficult to foresee but yeah, I kinda liked how utena did it for her instead of being like "oh I wanna save anthy from touga" and treating her like a damsel in distress (I know that's kinda her position as the rose bride for what I've been told so far and that this is a subject spoken about in many many essays on tumblr but yeah) bc so far she's been treated as a trophy and a way to get something else, for the green haired guy it was a way to see something eternal, for miki it was a way to hold on into his "shining thing" and for touga it seems (so far) like a way to manipulate (just like he does with nanami) and just mark his position as above everyone else as he seems to view himself?? man I might be saying random stuff rn but it kinda does makes sense in my mind with the information I've had to this point

ep 13-25

honestly 😐😐 through 9 whole episodes I felt like they were trying to make the side characters deeper and show their hidden face and motivations but it felt so shallow...... not even actually shallow, just not deep enough that it would make me care about these characters and the fact there was no actual build to showing us why we're getting to know these characters backgrounds was just kinda meh too, didnt really help that all episodes had all the same formula and the same timing just for the developers made in those episodes be forgotten at the end and also just that pink haired guy could be like "ah failure again", it felt like watching the same episode over and over again, it was really tiring and like?? girl help I do not care about these characters at all, I feel like it could have been done well (like the keiko ep in comparison to the furuba chapter that deals with the yuki appreciation (??) club president graduating.... the way this ep was done and setup didn't really bring me any emotions) overall not to my taste and tbh I feel like I could have skipped all those episodes except for maybe the miki and juri one so 😑

all nanami focused episodes are the worst so far, she's so boring and I cant stand now annoying she is, the diary episode?? the cow episode?? the episode when tsuwabiki fuels with utena?? honestly I know they're trying to show me a better and different side of her but it just doesnt!! work!! bc i feel no sympathy for her, my biggest wish rn is her and touga just disappearing and no more filler episodes🗣🗣

I thought akio was utena's prince?? but apparently he's just anthy's brother and like.. I'm do done with his little talks with utena and yadda yadda, I just wanna see their duel is that too much to ask I'm dying over here (if this lenga lenga continues until ep 25 i will be so mad bc why were so many episodes wasted on such boring and and not necessary side characters backstories?? idc about them at all man aaaaaaaaaa)

↳ ep 25 was good finally we got what we deserve boys 😭😭😭😭😭 can utena just beat up akio already I'm tired of his ass, he exhales both "I'm a feminist I even take women studies classes #herstory" and "if she breathes she's a thot" energy also he has 0 style that mullet is simply horrible I bet there's a hairstylist community who considers him a criminal bc like 😐 it is simply so bad (q bit less when it's tied up but when it's all lose jesus Christ)

also touga thinks he's suuuuch a genius, sooo smart like king, I do not care about you at all can you shut the fuck up please and can we tall about the pink haired guy episode?? wack. honestly thought it would be more emotional or something, I binge watched 12 episodes with his ugly haircut face and did not even feel a thing he can choke I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

ANTHY TAKING A SWORD OUT OF UTENA'S CHEST??? OSCAR WORTHY KINGS❗❗❗and then her lame ass brother being like "oh ho ho idk idk" shut up no one cares no one cares I swear to you no one cares shut uuuuup

ep 25-39

first of all, ep 25 was good but kinda reminded me of the nine episodes (13 until 21) where absolutely nothing interesting happened so I hope I'm wrong also can I just say just seeing the preview of the next episode made me roll my eyes so bad I almsot saw my brain?? bc yeah I'm fucking tired of nanami fosuced episodes she's so annoying oh my god nobody cares about a goddamn egg and much less one coming from her let her die or something pls she's so annoying there's nothing I've learned about her that was not against my own will I'm basically rotting over here 🤒

↳ ep 30 has me thinking Akio has a foot fetish or something 😐 bruh leave utena aloooooone I already know your plans and schemes you're not fooling anyone that's embarrassing for u and also... utena you're not very bright are you.... you start seeing every duelist you face with the same exact car and then when you see akio has the same car you didnt even stop to think about it that 1+1 equals 2 ... girl help yourself 😐

↳ yet again another nanami focused ep 😐😐😐😐😐 even though I do understand her better now I still don't find her particularly enjoyable to watch, call me a woman hater but like. idk she's still a bit annoying to me (but touga is straight up evil and is manipulating her so I feel bad for feeling like that tho.....)

↳ ok last 2 eps to go but listen. I thought the akio duel would have happened much sooner, maybe on ep 33 max but well didn't this age well lmao ngl, it did seem a bit too slow paced for my personal taste but also I feel like there's a certain level of drama that comes with slowing the pace down....

↳ aaaaaa yall I'm kinda 😢😭 over the ending omg........... even though it took the best of me to keep going in some parts I still enjoyed the ending aaaaa I thought i wouldnt really like it bc I just usually dont enjoy this type of ending but stil 😢😢😢😢 wait for me utena 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 girl I cried and then anthy walking in the end god utena and anthy holding hands 😭😭😭😭 akio can suck my dick

there's obviously many things I've missed or that I kinda didnt really pay attendance to so please dont take this serious, I was just writing as I watched the episodes so it's more like a thought compilation than anything, still I can see why there's many essays written about it and why it is held as a masterpiece by so many people

#g.txt

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kimmysfandomblog · 5 years ago

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naegi, komaeda and kiibo for the ask meme!

Thanks anon!!

So like I said before, readmores on mobile are gone for some reason, so I can't hide the text, specifically V3 spoilers so

SOME V3 SPOILERS IN THE KIIBO SECTION

Naegi

How I feel about this character: Admittedly, my love for him has significantly grown over time. I liked him a lot in DR1, was hyped to see him in DR2, was very confused in DR3, and then I had a hard time figuring out again what it was I liked about him in the first place. First of all, he's nice to a fault sometimes, and I gotta relate to that. He's also actually a lot more of a fighter than Hajime, partly due to optimism, and partly due to a.loyalty to his friends. He's kind of blunt about it XD He has some of the most relatable random thoughts in DR1 that I never got just from watching the anime XD I am on the fence about the way he was handled beyond DR1 and the whole thing about being Ultimate Hope. That said, he's just the kind of person you wish was your friend and on your side. I like that about him most.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: Hinata and Kamukura are at the top of the list now, but I'm sure anyone who knows me knows that at this point XD Next it is between Kirigiri or Sayaka. That depends on my mood and which shipper was the most rude that day, basically XD I crack ship him and Junko because that would have been a wild relationship… BUT nothing serious at all.

My non-romantic OTP for this character: Asahina is at the top now due to DR3 XD I wish he interjected with his sister a lot more as well! And everyone I ship him romantically, I also ship him platonically XD I think him and Toko and Syo can also be a really good friendship. Mukuro as well!

My unpopular opinion about this character: He's not that nice and will likely win a fight against Hinata of DR2 and the Reserve course? XD He is actually stronger in character than Hinata was, though that doesn't mean he is the better character. Hinata is still my favorite of the protags, but Naegi was truly quite a fighter from the start, while Hinata was pretty much always insecure, but tried to hide it with denial.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: Where is the one-on-one interaction with Hinata or Kamukura? And especially him picking his sister up from Towa City? I so wish we could have seen how he met the members of Ultimate Despair. Also, apparently he was supposed to have actually been Ultimate Despair, and have that revealed in DR2… now that's something I wish was explored! He can remain a good guy in the end, but I think that if he also forgot having been Ultimate Despair at one point in time, it would have made things really interesting.

Komaeda

How I feel about this character: He used to be my second favorite character of the series! Nowadays I find myself liking him a little less, but he is still very important to me! I hate how he is fan only portrayed to be, when really he isn't deliberately trying to be problematic. He's so misunderstood even by those that call themselves his fans that it hurts sometimes.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: mostly it is Hinata! He had an attraction to Hinata that wasn't necessarily romantic at the start, but he did like being in Hinata's presence. And the more he saw Himata interacting with the others and helping him solve cases, the more he wanted to believe Hinata was something special. I really like that he cared so much about Hinata that he even says that despite coming to know Hinata is a Reserve Course Student, he still can't really dislike him completely. On the other characters, unpopularly, I think he and Nanami would be cute, aesthetically and as a more casual couple. Mostly this is because I ship the three as a trio.

My non-romantic OTP for this character: also Nanami in a hypothetical AU where she focuses more on getting him to join the class more actively than she did in canon, or paid closer attention instead of getting mad that he started the killing game and avoiding him. I also kinda like him and Sonia as friends for some reason that is the fandom's fault, with this idea that they are like distantly related XD

My unpopular opinion about this character: I don't at all disagree that he likes Hinata, but I just don't think that means any other ship with him is not also valid. People like to gatekeep him, maybe claiming he is "canonly" gay to keep people from shipping him with any female, but then also not supporting him with anyone besides Hinata and Kamukura. Also, for whatever reason people like him with Kamukura and… I personally can't see it.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: I wish that he had a better relationship with more of his classmates before the reveal that he is atypical in how he perceives the world. I wish that he was watched more carefully by Nanami in both DR3 and DR2. I wish that it was obvious if he actually got memories of his time as Ultimate Despair. I wish he succeeded in shooting Junko (but maybe she still lives somehow lol). Mostly I wish that someone else tried to interact with him than Hinata… who did so begrudgingly for the most part. Although I guess Mahiru tried, too. She died very shortly after though lol.

Kiibo

Sorry, I am less enthused about V3 and Kiibo is a character I like, but not love 💦

How I feel about this character: I think he's fine. Somehow, he didn't strike me too strongly? He's pretty cute though.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: Iruma because they seem to have a relationship already, if not romantic XD It's a lot of fun mostly, and she can fix his parts. Their personalities clash a lot, but I think Kiibo really missed her when she died.

My non-romantic OTP for this character: besides Iruma, Shuichi and Kaede, mostly because of FTEs!

My unpopular opinion about this character: I don't know? His role as the main character of the video game world's population was weird to me, maybe XD

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: He could have just NOT died. He could have even been a real boy irl of the game world. Like, how'd he still look human in the prologue section then?

#ask meme #mehere

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manabingu · 6 years ago

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Haruka Nanami = soft girl

This has been sitting in my inbox since yesterday MY BAD! I wanted to answer this earlier but got distracted by deadlines of some stuff ANYWAY. Thanks for sending me an ask about Nanami CUZ I BEEN WANTIN TO TALK ABOUT MY HOME GIRL FOR AWHILE BUT NEVER GET THE CHANCE TO! So thanks~*~*~*

THIS GIRL RIGHT HERE. NANAMI HARUKA ^^^^ I WOULD DIE FOR HER.

Honestly, I’m that one person in every fandom that tends to fall in love with characters who I feel get undeserved hate or are either a minor character who gets glossed over. And be like….YALL??? Why you so mean to such adorable, innocent,sweet, hardworking, wouldn’t hurt a fly characters and then say that characters who are LITERAL murderers and criminals are the “precious cinnamon rolls who can do no wrong” only cuz you attracted to them??? yall thas sad. Listen…I’m honestly tired of people who bash on the anime and only play the games cuz they think it’s boring. Yes, you can have your opinion & I respect that, but I’ve seen some people whom have a pretty steadily growing following just bash on Nanami or some of their “not best boys” for reasons that make no sense to me & I been bottling this for awhile but Imma just SPEAK today cuz I’m on fire. ANYWAY BACK TO MY QUEEN.

LET ME HAVE MY NANAMI HARUKA TED TALK. Debunking complaints

Complaint I’ve heard: She’s boring

IN MY PERSONAL OPINION. NANAMI HARUKA IS ONE OF THE BEST LEADS IN ANY IDOL/ REVERSE HAREM ANIME I HAVE SEEN TO DATE.

She’s FAR from boring. She kind of reminds me of one of my other favorite lead heroines of all time. Tohru Honda from Fruits Basket. Both are humble & haven’t really had much in their life. Let’s talk about her story, she is a girl who was born with with bad health so much so that her parents sent her to grow up and live with her grandma in the countryside where the air was cleaner & less polluted than the city where they live. While she stayed with grandma, she learned to play piano by ear & she really didn’t grow up with much technology. She states in episode one that she didn’t even have a TV so anytime anyone in her class makes a reference to a famous celebrity she doesn’t know who they are. If I had to guess she only probably had books, toys, & a record player at grandma’s house AND I think she was home-schooled? Which means that that her only other friend besides her grandma & possibly the local neighborhood kids was grandma’s piano.

I think she’s highly relateable too. I sure have had similar experience (trust me, my immune system is TerRibLe XD so I feel home girl) But I knew the moment I saw that part in episode 1 where she describes how music LITERALLY saved her life, THAT is when I knew I would protect this girl for the rest of my life cuz I just yelled at my screen SAME GURL! SAAAAAAME TTuTT/ In Nanami’s case, she went by herself to the city to visit her parents, she thought since she no longer was a kid, her health wouldn’t be too endangered but she she got there she got REALLY lost & the noise pollution was so overwhelming that her anxiety gave her a panic attack. AND THIS IS WHY I REALLY LIKE UTAPRI. BECAUSE THEY GET HELLA REAL HELLA FAST. THIS KIND OF THING IS NOT SOME KINDA MADE UP THING. LET ME SIT YALL DOWN AND TELL YOU A STORY.

Listen- I remember when I was like 16ish I went to New York with a cousin & as a person who comes from a small town- being in the city BY YOURSELF for the first time, it’s SO SCARY to someone who has anxiety. I was dropped off in Manhattan while she ran a work errand she gave me money for food & encouraged me to explore. As soon as they left, I looked around thinking OH GOD WHAT NOW?? I saw a cathedral close by and I RAN for it. I was so scared being alone I went to a small corner of the cathedral and started crying & tweeting, which got some comforting responses from native NY people that followed me & I texted the friend that was closest to me (if you count Virginia close lol) But he called me & just talked to me & helped me feel better. He encouraged me to not stay in one place & to go find a place I like & perhaps if I was too anxious, to go stay there till I was picked up. IT TOOK ME 30 MINUTES to get courage enough to walk to the Barnes & Noble/Starbucks that was close & I stayed there texting him the rest of the time. So ANYTIME people talk crap about Nanami’s panic attack in the city I’m gonna politely tell them to get out of my face cuz that’s a VERY real emotion. The thing that saved Nanami was hearing a singer in a giant screen singing a soothing song. THE MUSIC HELPED CALM DOWN HER ANXIETY. EXCUSE ME. YALL CAN’T SAY THAT YOU’VE NEVER BEEN SOOTHED BY A SONG IN YOUR LIFE. WE ALL BEEN THERE. WHEN WE WERE SO DOWN THAT LISTENING TO A SONG MADE US FEEL BETTER. I know that happened with me. Just like Nanami, I had a time in my life where I was just ready for death, I had lost hope to live but hearing ONE. SONG by my favorite singer, literally stopped me. So I can relate how she felt about HAYATO in the city. And how afterwards she was so inspired by it that she wanted to try to have a career dealing with music. HER REASON FOR WANTING TO BECOME A COMPOSER IS BECAUSE SHE KNOWS WHAT IT’S LIKE TO FEEL SAD AND SCARED. SO SHE WANTS TO MAKE MUSIC THAT CAN TOUCH PEOPLE’S HEARTS & IF THEY’RE HAVING A BAD DAY, SHE CAN CHEER THEM UP WITH A SONG. IF THAT ISN’T THE GREATEST REASONING TO GO FIGHT FOR A DREAM, I DUNNO WHAT IS.

AND SHE KNOWS THAT THE ODDS ARE AGAINST HER. BUT SHE DOESN’T THROW IN THE TOWEL EASILY. I FREAKING LOVE HER FOR THAT. NANAMI. HARUKA. IS. NOT. WEAK.

Once she was of age, she applied for THE most prestigious music academy in her area. She was nearly late to the entrance exam cuz she helped a lost child find their mom while she was running in a snowstorm to the school. And because she was noticed to have that high moral compass by the principal, she was allowed to take the exam and made it in. And even when she DID get in, she was bullied by all the rich kids for not being able to read sheet music & not being taught by a private piano teacher when she was asked to play in front of everyone. She KNEW that she can play piano but she was self taught & played by ear. ((THIS STRUCK ME HARD TOO. Because I am self taught too- as a singer, I thought that if I didn’t have access to all these things & I didn’t know how to sight read I’d never be taken seriously or that I was less worthy to be called a musician than my peers)) But did she give up??? NO. HOME GIRL RAN TO THE LIBRARY and she studied her ass off to not let her first assignment project partner down. I COULD GO ON FOR HOURS ABOUT THE FIRST SEASON ALONE. SHE WAS THROWN SO MANY CURVE BALLS TO CRUSH HER SPIRIT AND DESPITE HER ANXIETY KEPT FIGHTING FOR HER DREAM.

But you know what? She also showed me THAT IT’S OK TO FALL DOWN TO ROCK BOTTOM. It’s OK to feel like giving up especially when your confidence has been crushed to a pulp by everyone. YALL, I FREAKING BAWLED MY EYES OUT WHEN SHE FOUND OUT THAT STARISH - THE BAND SHE SINGLE-HANDEDLY (and with some magical fate strings pulled by Cecil)) CREATED WAS GONNA DEBUT WITHOUT HER. She was asked by the principal if she thought HER music could compete with pros already established and household names already in the business. She didn’t want her friends to give up their dreams of debuting so she agreed to step down as STARISH’s composer AGAINST their demands for her to not give up. She went home and cried to her grandmother that she felt SO outclassed. And you know what? I’m GLAD Utapri shared this kind of story because I’m sure it has happened to a lot of people.

Nanami is a really kind, compassionate, selfless human being. She does anything and everything so that all her family & friends can be happy at the expense of her own happiness. She takes it to the extreme that she is PUSHED and forced to FOR ONCE think selfishly and do something for herself. Her purity & kindness won the respect of her classmates & teachers so much so that they always want to support her dream of becoming a songwriter. When STARISH came to her house cuz they heard she ran away- she openly admitted IN TEARS that SHE wanted to be STARISH’s composer, she didn’t want anyone else to write for them because she had fun with her friends and she didn’t want that to stop. ((The principal overheard her and said FINALLY! SOMETIMES ITS OK TO BE SELFISH WHEN IT COMES TO YOUR DREAM! Its ok to be kind but also think of your own feelings sometimes too. I think young, budding artists need to hear this. )) SHE GIVES ME HOPE CUZ I BE THE SAME WAY SOMETIMES WITH MY STUFF SO YEAH ;~~~~~;/

SOMETIMES When I watch a show that has harem elements to it, I really judge the protag that everyone is falling for and I think about if the harem people’s feelings are justified enough for them to actually fall in love with the protag. And you know what? In Nanami’s case?? ITS A BIG OL HELL YEAH IT’S JUSTIFIED.

FrICK- I fell in love with Nanami too??? How could I not??? I AM A BIGASS SAP FOR INNOCENT, SHY, CHARACTERS WHO TRY THEIR BEST EVEN THOUGH THEY SCARED AF CUZ OF CONFIDENCE ISSUES.

She’s a wonderful, compassionate, gifted person who just needs love and support and you know she’ll be there for you too and it’s mutual. She works SUPER hard at her job, she’s endearing, she makes you wanna just protect her cuz if she is sad lord I will probably go on a rampage. This girl doesn’t deserve to go through more than she already has. I love and respect Nanami. A female protagonist doesn’t need to be bitchy, slutty, or badass to be considered “interesting”.

HECK, one time I heard someone say “This show would be 10x if Nanami was a guy. UMMMM???? WTF??? Ok, listen, I’m in the lgbt spectrum, & I’m sick of people saying that Utapri would be better if Nanami was a boy. Why is it so bad that she’s a girl?? Like- I would like ONE reasonable explanation that doesn’t involve fetishizing your personal fantasies. When people fetishize an lgbt relationship- you’re causing that type of relationship to not be taken seriously irl. If we wanna make this the norm, we gotta treat it like it’s a natural occurrence. Not force something for the sake of fanservice. There are barely any well written female protags like Nanami out there in the world and if we change her, we are taking out one of the best from the list. I want more shows to write good, memorable female protags like Nanami. I wouldn’t be against her being a boy. But only if the reason was for good reasons and to explore character development dynamics. Cuz I enjoy content that has actual substance. SERIOUSLY- If Utapri was ONLY fanservice, I would despise it. BUT IT’S NOT. It tackles real issues & speaks about people in the industry and they don’t sugarcoat ANYTHING. They show you the harsh realities but they also give you hope to keep doing what you love even if you gotta work extra harder than your peers who might be more experienced than you.

And THAT is what I learned from Nanami Haruka. And I will defend my songwriting princess till I die. Thank you.

#Nanami Haruka #Uta no Prince sama #Utapri #I WILL DEFEND MY PRINCESS WITH MY LIFE #ALSO TOMO CUZ TOMO IS ALSO A QUEEN AND SHE IS SUCH A BOP #Mana Answerz #ivmysterynumbers #Utapri Fandom

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piyoduki · 6 years ago

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izu and hinat for the ask meme *^*

(/-((-\) ... (warning: it got really long... oops-)

Character ask meme:

KAMUKURA

Favourite Food Headcanon: Nothing excites him so maybe he’ll enjoy the sensation of burning his tongue once in a while. But I can see him trying to make the most weirdest combinations of foods to try and tingle his tastebuds or just to watch others make disgusted reactions at them.Favourite Ice Cream Flavour Headcanon: Like with food, he’ll try a weird ice cream flavour each time and it might cause a small reaction on the first bite, but he’ll quickly get used to it and become bored. Poor Kamu, unable to enjoy foods and ice cream :C. A ship I have with said character: I love love Kamuhi a lot!!! That is probably really obvious xD but I love how they contrast with each other, how Kamukura has all the talents Hinata wants but is unable to feel things that make life exciting or unpredictable. I like to think Kamukura predicted that hope would win when he put AI Upupu into the NWP, but was surprised when Hinata chose to ignore both hope and despair and come up with his own answer. The idea that Hinata is the only one who can make Kamu feel things makes me happy and since they’re stuck in the same body afterwards (?), I think they’ll have plenty of time to get to know each other more. In the end, Kamu has a lot of knowledge, but he might not have a lot of experience and even though he’ll probably get bored of them after a few seconds, I think Hinata would be able to share some ‘normal’ moments with him! Although I mostly ship them romantically as different people, I don’t mind if they’re the same person too-A BROTP I have with said character: My guilty pleasure BROTP is with Ishimaru, because I just like them both a lot and the fact that Ishimaru hates geniuses makes it ironic and amusing. Also they have similar hair and eye colours so I like imagining them as brothers xD. And I don’t mind AUs of Kamukura and Hinata as twins/brothers as well, the jealousy and cuteness that might come with it is nice too. I need more wholesome sibling interactions in this series.

But in a more ‘canon’ sense, I think Naegi and Nanami would be able to tolerate him and try to be his friend, or talk to him and try to understand him more. His talent mode event with Akamatsu was really cute and nice too, I can see her trying to get Kamukura to ‘feel’ more. I also like his interactions with Enoshima and Komaeda (more in a one-sided funny way where Kamu just gets annoyed with those two going on about despair and hope respectively, but he can’t quite get them to leave him alone). A NOTP I have with said character: I don’t see him being interested in Komaeda or Enoshima, sorry. :’DA random headcanon: He is really prideful and stubborn and as much as he says he doesn’t feel anything, he dislikes feeling like he lost to someone, or the feeling of someone using him or lying to him (cough), especially if they make a big deal about it, so he’ll try to get them back in some way. Usually he succeeds because he’s so good at reading people and manipulating how they feel. General Opinion over said character: I love him!! He is my second favourite character in the entire series! I did not know what to think of him at first and found the human experiment thing kind of creepy, but I grew to love him a lot after seeing some fanart where his face isn’t half shaded like in the game. His design is really nice and I love his long hair and sharp red eyes a lot, he’s so fun to draw. I think his character is important to Hinata’s as well, and it’s very fun to think about his personality and motivations, since he doesn’t appear a lot.

I understand how he feels, I guess. If you’re too good at everything and can predict everything, than of course life would be really boring. Not just that, he was kept in an empty room for most of his life, probably with nothing to do except take part in some experiments. Even if he may not feel ‘sad’, it’s still a tragic and lonely fate. If you think about it, his personality is a bit like an awkward child. He’s blunt and tactless, doesn’t understand humans’ emotions and doesn’t really care about anything and anyone, is way too skilled at everything, but in his own way, I believe he’s searching for a reason to keep existing. He questions things because he wants to find an answer that satisfies him.

HINATA

Favourite Food Headcanon: Besides kusamochi, I think he’ll also like… hamburg steak! Or steak in general but I don’t think he can afford those too often, poor Hinata (literally).Favourite Ice Cream Flavour Headcanon: I can see him liking dark chocolate or maybe red bean.A ship I have with said character: Besides Kamuhi, I love him with Naegi too! I seem to like protagonist pairings for some reason… But they’re cute. I like their height difference and the fact they both have many similarities and differences. They’re both rather ‘normal’ compared to their friends, so I think they’d be able to relate to each other a lot.A BROTP I have with said character: I think he would get along with Ishimaru (biased). They’ll probably fight sometimes, because Hinata would probably get frustrated with how no matter how hard he works, he still can’t reach the same level as the other Ultimates, but I think Ishimaru would really encourage and motivate him to do better, after he sees how hard he works and realises Ishimaru’s not just saying that because he’s already ‘talented’. Plus I think Hinata would be able to hang out with him, study with him and share some of his hobbies with him once in a while and show Ishimaru the school life with friends he was missing out on (lol).Of course, I love Hinata with Nanami and Komaeda as well! I think he enjoys Nanami’s company, and she’s a really positive and helpful person. And while he gets annoyed and confused by Komaeda sometimes, in a world with no killing games, I think they would eventually settle their differences and be there for each other when they need it.A NOTP I have with said character: Komaeda (sorry again). Mostly because I feel like a lot of people just treat Hinata as Komaeda’s therapist and ignore his conflicted feelings towards Komaeda in the killing game, and the fact that Hinata has issues of his own to deal with. Not to mention I rarely see anyone mention Komaeda’s harsh treatment of Hinata in chapter 4, when he finds out he’s just a reserve course student, and he spends the whole time afterwards mocking his intelligence and lack of talent... I think their conflicting ideologies and how they view talented and untalented people is very interesting and I like their dynamic but a lot of the shippy content doesn’t really touch on that and I’m not really fond of how it seems to be the only Hinata pairing that people care about. :’D A random headcanon: Even though he says he really admires Hope’s Peak Academy, he didn’t actually do a lot of research on it, partially because he was afraid he might find out things about his ‘dream school’ that might ruin his enthusiasm for it, because he was afraid that he might have to find another path in life. He is the type to ignore his problems until they get really bad and he realises he’s messed up badly. Of course, his view on HPA got shattered anyway and he hates feeling helpless and that he might have made the wrong choice, but there’s nothing he can do about it and he’s too prideful to drop out and find another school.General Opinion over said character: I love him!! He’s definitely my favourite protagonist (and I love almost all of them)! I really like how his personality comes off very clearly. He starts out rather confident, trying to act the same around the other students to convince himself he too has a talent and can blend in with the class, to becoming more reserved and less confident after Komaeda reveals the truth about his talent, to becoming all ‘screw what everyone else thinks’ in the last chapter. Even reserve course Hinata feels more resigned to his fate but still quietly fighting. He seems to care more about the opinions of his classmates than Naegi (who kind of just brushes everything off). He feels very relatable - he’s normal, he admires talent and wishes he could be like that, but no matter how hard he tries, he can’t quite reach that level... and he may not want to admit it, but it’s possible he just doesn’t work as hard as some of them. But isn’t that normal? Not everyone can be like Ishimaru and be motivated to work hard 110% of the time. Naturally, Hinata got tired. All he can do is keep dreaming and hope that something will come along and help him achieve his dreams...

Even so, he’s stubborn, and keeps staying in HPA (maybe even out of spite), he doesn’t want to completely give up yet and be like the rest of his reserve course classmates. He has a bit of a superiority complex and inferiority complex at the same time, he can be pretty judgemental and pessimistic, and he seems to put some distance between him and others. He has his moments where he feels all is lost and doesn’t know what to do, he fell into so much despair and helplessness that he decided to undergo brain surgery, and he probably didn’t know his existing personality would be erased. He has a lot of flaws, but he’s not a bad person, he does try to hear out his friends when they have trouble, he tries to understand his classmates that act ‘strangely’, he tries to keep his negative thoughts to himself and puts them aside when his friends need help. Tl;dr he feels very ‘real’, I love his personality and character development, his backstory is interesting and tragic, and I love Kamu too so it’s like two great characters in one.

#Anonymous #thank you anon!!!#this ended up being really long because i love them :'D #sorry for the essay ;w; sweats

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sneakystorms · 5 years ago

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I’m compiling my “reading campbell as an utena fan” reblogs into one post cuz that was getting ridiculous.

Literally no one asked for this but i took Campbell’s hero with a thousand faces out of the library and I’m going to note anything that reminds me of revolutionary girl utena. Here we go

Literally the first thing in the book, a picture of medusa’s head. I’m suddenly reminded of how much emphasis there is on anthy’s coiling locks of hair as well as her eyes. I read in a liveblog that it’s significant kanae was struck by seeing anthy’s eyes when she removed her glasses - the glasses serve as a protective measure meant to conceal anthy’s emotion, but also her power. Reminds me of how modern reimaginings of medusa always wear dark glasses to not turn people to stone.

Page 7, on unsolved childhood issues: “we remain fixated to the unexercised images of our infancy, and hence disinclined to the necessary passages of our adulthood” It’s not very revolutionary to suggest that this is one of the main themes of the show; akip remains in his adolescent state of having left behind his childishly idealistic self (or rather been forced to leave it by anthy) but refusing to progress to true adulthood, choosing rather to fruitlessly chase that childhood state. Other characters are guilty of this too, of course, but it’s less striking because they’re actual adolescents - this is a somewhat expected (though Campbell wpuld argue, not natural) stage in their development, whereas akio is clearly past his due date and dragging everyone down with him.

Page 30, on myths and fairy tales - “typically, the hero of the fairy tale achieves a domestic, microcosmic triumph, and the hero of myth a world-historical, macrocosmic triumph” Not super relevant to rgu itself, but I’d often wonder about the relationship between myth an fairy tale, seeing as rgu relates heavily to both. Utena’s revolution, in the end, is microcosmic - she helped a friend, and achieved a higher degree of self awareness than before.

Page 32, on the world navel: “the torrent pours from an invisible source, the point of entry being the center of the symbolic circle of the universe, the Immovable Spot of the Buddha Legend, around which the world may be said to revolve. (…) the tree of life, i.e., the universe itself, grows from this point. It is rooted in the supporting darkness; the golden sun bird perches on its peak; a spring, the inexhaustible well, bubbles at its foot. Or the figure may be that of a cosmic mountain, with the city of the gods, like a lotus of flight, upon its summit, and in its hollow the cities of the demons, illuminated by precious stones.” WHEW. Where to even begin. In the context of ohtori this would obviously be the gate in the forbidden forest, and the arena itself. There is a spring of sorts at its bottom (even a wall of water), and a bird figure features at the gate. The arena with its staircase resembles a rose, which is close enough to a tree. You could even see the black rose’s basement as the demon hollows.Of course, we eventually find out that it’s all fake, a stage set by akio with anthy’s help, which in this context positions akio as a sort of false god.

Page 35, again on the world navel: “wherever a hero has been born, has wrought, or has passed back into the void, the place is marked and sanctified. (…) someone at this point discovered eternity. (…) the one who enters the temple compound and proceeds to the sanctuary is imitating the deed of the original hero. His aim is to rehearse the universal pattern as a means of evoking within himself the recollection of the life-centering, life-renewing form.” This one mostly caught my attention because of the word eternity, but then i thought of dios’s grave… Since his grave, the arena and akio’s planetarium are really one and the same, it could easily follow that anyone who enters it is seeking to emulate dios, or the prince archetype in abstract. This certainly applies to utena and akio, and perhaps other duelists as well to some extent.

OH WE GETTING TO THE TASTY PART NOW…… ANTHY TIME BITCHHH ITS THE MEETING WITH THE GODDESS CHAPTEROk immediately I’m struck by the phrase “the queen goddess”. I know akio says he thought of anthy as a goddess once, I’m trying to remember if anyone ever refers to her as a queen… she’s mostly seen in context of the princess-witch dichotomy but once you really get down to it it’s more complicated, like is the rose bride basically the epitome of the princess archetype? It does include hyperfemininity, victimhood, obedience, passivity and power that can be obtained by marrying her but which she cannot wield herself… but the rose bride role is also explicitly tied to the witch, since it’s anthy’s punishment for imprisoning dios… It’s also interesting how despised she is - the princess role is supposed to be respectable (especially if we connect the princess witch dichotomy to the Madonna whore complex) but anthy is constantly mistreated and degraded - which, yes, makes her more of a princess in Utena’s (and the viewer’s) eyes, but is also a direct result of her role as the rose bride. If the rose bride position is basically the dragon that the prince has to save the princess from then can the rose bride be synonymous with the princess?Wait I was originally going to talk about something else I think. Well anyway I guess the Ockham’s razor is that the narrative had to make sense somehow and couldn’t JUST be metaphors but. Idk man food for thought. Maybe the rose bride as a role is supposed to be a blend of the princess and witch traits, or maybe it’s meant to showcase how the two are just different sides of the same coin. Anyway I’m one sentence into this chapter and my bedtime is in 7 minutes

Campbell describes the two types of goddesses as representing the good mother - forever youthful, beautiful and kind - and the bad mother - split here into four types but generally cold and distant. I’m tempted to connect the two to the princess and the witch (or the Madonna and the whore) but Campbell explicitly connects the bad mother to Diana and emphasises her chastity, when sexuality is such a big part of both the witch and the whore… hmm

K it’s late so I’ll continue sometime else but I wanted to mention that this whole thing was a result of reading this fantastic essay on anthy and specifically the part about Campbell’s goddess

Page 97, still on the goddess: “woman, in the picture language of mythology, represents the totality of what can be known. The hero is the one who comes to know. As he progresses in the slow initiation which is life, the form of the goddess undergoes for him a series of transfigurations: she can never be greater than himself, though she can always promise more than he is yet capable of comprehending. She lures, she guides, she bids him burst his fetters. And if he can match her import, the two, the knower and the known, will be released for every limitation. Woman is the guide to the sublime acme of sensuous adventure. ” This is the passage quoted in the essay that inspired me… The part about transfigurations is painfully reminiscent of anthy for sure, but the “she can never be greater than himself” sounds more like utena to me, makes me think of that digibro quote about how romantic interests in self insert power fantasy shounen anime (either Sao or asterisk war in this case) are often supposed to be the second best warrior right after the number one hero because they’re a sort of status symbol but of course can’t undermine the hero’s ego. Similarly akio wants utena at her strongest and only wants her because she is the strongest but still wants her beneath him. Also the phrasing of “the knower and the known” is so telling…. Even if a woman is meant to signify great knowledge it’s still in a way that makes her something passive, an object for the hero to consume. This reminds me of the born sexy yesterday video where he remarks on how even if the female character is supposed to be impossibly wise it just means the male hero is the one who gets to “discover” her

Page 99, still on the meeting with the goddess: “and when the adventurer, in this context, is not a youth but a maid, she is the one who, by her qualities, her beauty, or her yearning, is fit to become the consort of an immortal. Then the heavenly husband descends to her and conducts her to his bed-whether she will or no. And if she has shunned him, the scales fall from her eyes; if she has sought him, her desire finds its peace” God, what a creepy and accurate way to portray utena and akios relationship. He sees her as worthy of becoming his bride, he rapes her, he almost has her serve herself to him on a golden platter until she decides to pick up the sword and fight him. He sees himself as her god.

desktop is really fucking this up depending on what device i rb on but alas. lets continue. surprisingly enough i don’t have much to say about the woman as temptress chapter in relation to anthy because now that i think about it, the men of ohtori don’t really see her as one? nanami does, and maybe kozue too, but anthy generally isn’t very proactive when it comes to romance or sex… I guess Miki would be the closest example, since she seems to consciously try and get his attention by playing the piano, but Miki is pretty oblivious to it, so.Trying to think of other characters who might fit that trope… Kozue does act pretty provocative both towards the random dude she flirted with and Miki, but their relationship is one I don’t have much of a grip on tbh. Really the tempting spotlight is pretty firmly on Touga and Akio in this show haha

reading the “atonement with the father” chapter and, like, it’s kind of annoying how much the male hero is the default in this book, with the female hero only an occasional mention, but it does remind me of anthy’s incredibly fucking disturbing line about how akio is “more like her father” since their parents are nowhere to be seen. i don’t really have anything profound to say, but it is pretty interesting that parents are such a non-entity in rgu, given how prominent the mother and father figures are in psychoanalysis and archetype theory. should akio be read as anthy’s father, acting as one in the absence of the real thing, the same way he acts as the chairman? i’m not super familiar with the electra complex theory, but if the resolution to the oedipus complex is letting go of the unhealthy attachment to to mother and reconciliation with the father, i guess the analogous resolution to the electra complex would be letting go of the father? which anthy, in this reading, does do… but then again in rgu it’s akio who rapes anthy and we see him rather than her initiating sex so i doubt the writers had uncritically reproducing freud’s theory in mind

nothing too insightful but in the chapter the magic flight campbell talks about a welsh myth about Caridwen and she seems like a perfect witch character

page 209, on freedom to live - campbell quotes the end of the grimm brothers’ little briar rose, but precedes it with “When the Prince of Eternity kissed the Princess of the World, her resistance was allayed”. the phrasing of course caught my eye, but i’d never really seen anyone go in depth about the similarity between sleeping beauty and utena’s childhood story… the shadow-faced version that sometimes appears at the start of an episode omits utena sleeping in her coffin, but includes the prince kissing her tears away - something that did happen in the ep34 flashback, but was not what made baby utena get up. i suppose i don’t have anything terribly profound to say about the relationship between rgu and sleeping beauty, aside from some similar elements - the sleeping princess kissed awake by her prince, the princess in the grimms’ version being called briar rose, and the unspecified thorny bushes possibly being roses as well… and the witch, of course

page 259, matrix of destiny. “The universal goddess makes her appearance to men under a multitude of guises; for the effects of creation are multitudinous, complex and of mutually contradictory kind when experienced from the viewpoint of the created world. the mother of life is at the same time the mother of death; she is masked in the ugly demonesses of famine and disease. The Sumero-Babylonian astral mythology identified the aspects of the cosmic female with the phases of the planet Venus. As morning star she was the virgin, as evening star the harlot, as lady of the night sky the consort of the moon; and when extinguished under the blaze of the sun she was the hag of hell” campbell continues to insist on tying every female character back to the mother, which doesn’t really seem to be very relevant with anthy, but i’m digging the various aspects of the woman. seems interesting to me how this is at least the second time he’s characterised the woman in myths as someone constantly changing roles and aspects (first time was on page 97) whereas i don’t really see this tendency in male characters. women seem to need to constantly adapt, shift their identity to suit the male character, who is allowed to remain stably himself. also fascinating are the particular archetypes campbell brings up - the virgin (princess), the harlot (rose bride? the position does seem to be given respect on some level, but in practice she doesn’t get much... add to that the design elements tying her to the “scarlet woman”, and possibly even the playboy bunnies, and her duties do seem to include sleeping with every Engaged if the movie is anything to go by), consort of the moon (we all know what akio and anthy’s connection to the moon...) and the hag of hell (witch)

this has very little to do with rgu but reading the Mwuetsi/Massassi myth kinda makes me sick lol!!! not only does it include the first man being given a woman but he symbolically impregnates her with some oil from a horn (subtle, also done without her knowledge since she was asleep) and she gives birth to all the plants on earth. ew

UH OK HE THEN GOES ON TO SLEEP WITH HIS DAUGHTERS.... AND THEN TO RAPE HIS NEXT WIFE.......... MR CAMPBELL CAN I GO like i know it’s old myths so it’s all symbolic or whatever but that doesn’t make it any easier to read lol

page 296, an offhand comment of “The characteristic adventure of the first [type of hero] is the winning of the bride - the bride is life” and my brain automatically supplied “life... eternity... that which shines... the power of miracles... the power to revolutionise the world” LMAO

#shoujo kakumei utena #revolutionary girl utena #utena #s #incest tw #rape tw

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oumakokichi · 7 years ago

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As someone who enjoys reading your DR-related meta and opinions, whether NDRV3-focused or not, what are your feelings on the Impostor? I mean, I feel like I can guess to some degree, but I'm especially interested because it feels like a lot of the Impostor's qualities and actions (the realness of one's identity, having to navigate between telling lies and telling the truth, going to drastic security measures to prevent killing, self-sacrifice) are given major focus and exploration in NDRV3.

Honestly, the Impostor is one of my favorite sdr2characters. His concept is fascinating, his FTEs are solid, and I’ve alwaysfelt that the way they played around with expectations from the first game withhim was really, really fun. On a re-read, so many of his lines read entirelydifferently. It’s perfectly possible to see how easy it would be to tie him inwith the real Togami—but it’s also much easier to see all the foreshadowing andclues about his own past there, too.

Even in dr3 he was extremely enjoyable, despite the muchweaker writing, and the fact that they still didn’t clarify much about him. Butthe fact that he was there at all, and that he took such a prominent role inthe plot, was perhaps one of the few things I actually really did like aboutDespair Arc. It was very, very easy to see how the Impostor’s own desire to be “seen”and to find his own “sense of self” was meant to parallel Mitarai’s tendency tothrow away everything about himself that wasn’t directly related to working onhis anime.

The fact that he was one of those characters who, likeHoshi, initially seemed like he was going to be a “joke character” but thenmanaged to subvert the expectations made me really thankful. They gave him areal amount of depth to his character and made him incredibly interesting,rather than keeping him flat or one-dimensional. Honestly, he’s one of the sdr2characters I would’ve most liked to see make it to the end (although Iunderstand why he didn’t, considering his leadership would’ve been much too effective in later chapters, sohe was the perfect first target all around).

As you said, many of the themes regarding his character tiein perfectly with ndrv3 as a whole. As someone who “lies” to the entire worldand deceives others constantly, that “lie” has become a “reality,” at least forthe people who interact with him. His talent is so impeccable that no one whohe interacts with can tell the difference between him and the real thing unlessboth are standing side by side, which draws fascinating parallels with Tsumugi’sown cosplayer talent.

Unlike Tsumugi, who seems to be able to perfectly replicateappearances, voices, and ideals, but unable to really mimic anyone’s talentsper se, the Impostor’s talent is much less about impersonating the physical appearanceof a person (though he does take those factors into account in order to pass asthem convincingly) and much more about researching them and their talent sothoroughly that he’s literally able to embody it or become it. While Tsumugi’stalent is a blend of “real-fiction,” as she says repeatedly during the Chapter6 trial in ndrv3, the Impostor’s is much more bent on becoming “a convincingstand-in” or “back-up.” But in exchange, he’s never been allowed to be his ownperson even once.

Looking at the Impostor through the lens of some of thethemes in ndrv3 is really fun, honestly, because I feel he would’ve fit rightin with the cast as a character. I wouldn’t even be surprised if Kodaka kind oftook certain elements from his character in sdr2 and decided to recycle them toother uses in ndrv3, considering he definitely did that with other elements andcharacters from both of the previous games (re-playing dr1 I found a line in aMonokuma theater that I’d forgotten, about “Noah’s Ark” being sent off tospace, and I just stared at it for a while before shaking my head).

Ultimately, the Impostor is someone who has had no choicebut to lie in order to survive, and who is extremely tired of it. More thananything, he wants to be able to shed his disguise entirely and live as his ownperson—but he’s afraid that there isn’t any such thing, and that people willonly ever see him through the mask and lens of the people he’s impersonated.Having lived a life exclusively of lies, he wants to begin living a more honestlife with the people who put their trust in him, which is a very sympatheticgoal, in my opinion.

I also find it fascinating how his FTEs/Island Mode confirmthat Togami is the person he wanted to impersonate the most because hisexistence was so “absolute” and “concrete.” Togami’s own backstory as someonewho had to claw his way up and fight for the right to be the heir to the Togamifamily, clearly resonated with the Impostor. Togami is someone who has a veryundeniable, clear presence which is hard to ignore, which is the completeopposite of the Impostor’s own presence as someone with “no name, no birthcertificate, and no family,” who “had nothing.”

By impersonating someone like that, it was an almost liberatingtaste of what it was like to have that kind of “presence.” Despite the factthat he still had to act and talk according to “how Togami would behave,” theImpostor was still allowed to have a very strong and commanding presence in thegroup, and as a result many of his real thoughts and intentions often slipthrough, both in his FTEs and shortly before his death in Chapter 1. As someonewho wanted nothing more than to interact with his classmates and have an “ordinarylife,” it’s fascinating how he manages to experience that through living as someoneelse. But in the end, he still very much considers it “just a lie” and clearlywants to come clean about the whole thing at some point.

His desire to “become Togami” because of Togami’s presencebeing the complete opposite of his own actually reminds me quite a lot of thecharacters’ participation in the ndrv3 killing game. Considering the wholeappeal of willingly participating in Danganronpa was very likely to get a sayin becoming whatever kind of character you could want, and getting to live “withinthe world of Danganronpa,” there’s definitely the same sense of “wanting tobecome someone else,” which we see most clearly in some of the audition videosthat Tsumugi plays during the Chapter 6 trial. Saihara’s eager request tobecome a detective on the show, and Kaede specifically asking to be someone whocould trust and lead others because she’s “never really trusted people before,”are pretty interesting parallels to the Impostor’s desire to be noticed byothers and leave a strong impression on people.

I’d be pretty interested in seeing a take on the Impostor asa participant in an ndrv3-like killing game, actually, maybe in a fanfic orsomething. It’s really interesting to explore the idea of someone who wanted to“become” a previous character entirely, and I wonder if it’s something thatmight’ve happened in any of the other seasons before. Tsumugi’s talent allowedher to make up entirely new “characters” and identities as she saw fit,including the “character of Tsumugi Shirogane.” Anything worked for her as longas it was fictional, but the Impostor is specifically limited to impersonatingpreexisting characters.

In Saihara’s audition video, he makes references to “severaldetective characters” which have been on previous seasons of the show, and howhe “really likes all of them,” but he doesn’t mention any specifically by name(even though we know Kirigiri has to be included on the list). By contrast, I’dimagine that the Impostor in an ndrv3-type scenario might actually ask directlyto “become” one of the characters from a previous show. Togami’s the obviouspick, of course, since that’s “who he’d want to be if he could become anyoneelse.”

As for another point you mentioned, the Impostor’sself-sacrifice and leadership qualities are also part of why I love him so muchas a character. In ndrv3, it’s common for many of the characters to talk about “wantingthe killing game to end,” but many of them fall into the pitfalls of blindtrust and optimism, which is repeatedly lampshaded by the narrative. But whenthe Impostor makes his attempt to “end the killing game” in sdr2, what I findthe most interesting is that he does it specifically by doubting the others andkeeping an eye on them, further emphasizing Nanami’s point later on that “doubtand belief aren’t necessarily opposites.”

In order to truly believe someone and get to know them, youhave to doubt them first. This is exactly what the Impostor tries to do in hisplan to keep watch by throwing a party in Chapter 1. Because of Komaeda’sletter, he knew there would be a murder attempt, beyond a shadow of a doubt. Hedidn’t waste time with naïve excuses or blind trust, but resorted immediatelyto an attempt to keep a close eye on absolutely everyone and devise a scenarioin which it’d be impossible to kill someone. He was extremely careful andthorough, qualities which I’m pretty sure are entirely his own and not just aresult of him impersonating Togami. Honestly, if he’d been going up againstanyone other than Komaeda, whose luck played a huge factor in Chapter 1, Ithink his plan would actually have succeeded.

As someone who has had to lie constantly throughout hiswhole life, the Impostor clearly wants to be trusted and believed in by others,and as a result, wants to believe in people in turn. But, like characters likeKirigiri and Ouma, he was clearly aware that lies, doubt, and suspicion arerequired in a situation like the killing game. His ability to balance both liesand truth, as well as doubt and belief, made him a very ndrv3-like character inmy opinion (or rather, ndrv3 was a very Impostor-like game), and were theprecise reason he was so effective as a leader.

In any case, he’s a fantastic character despite hisrelatively short-lived appearance (though in general, I’d say the Chapter 1victims have a lot more long-lasting presence than most of the Chapter 1culprits). I always love seeing more of him, and his bonus mode events in ndrv3were really fun all around. Thank you for asking, anon!

#sdr2 #super dangan ronpa 2 #ultimate impostor #shsl impostor #twogami #ndrv3 spoilers //#my meta #okay to reblog #heavy ndrv3 spoilers are here mostly because i was comparing him to a lot of the themes of the game #anonymous

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magioftheseas · 7 years ago

Text

The Rabbit of an Endless Day

KomaHina Week: Day 1 - first / hinata centric or KomaHina Week: Day 2 - past Full Title: The Shroud, First Love, and The Rabbit of an Endless Day Rating: T+ Length: ~4.8K Warnings: This is a weird fic, with mental instability and a likely very confusing presentation with how all over the place it is. There’s a scene related to Chapter 2′s bondage? Not to mention there are some unhealthy-ish themes... Honestly I don’t know what I should list the warnings as, sorry. ;; Summary: The Komaeda Retrieval Project is still going underway. Post-SDR2, Island Mode AU. Guest-starring Kamukura Izuru. Additional Notes: I kind of did this idea already but this attempt is definite more...of a thing. Sure is. I included Kamukura as a kind of observer who Hinata interacts with, but all in all, it’s still a minor-ish role. Ahhh, I’m so upset this is late for day 1 but it kiiiiind of fits for day 2 so, uh, I combined them because that’s okay, right? :’D **Alternate Ao3 Link**

He’s just another one of them. (Worthless. Dull. Uninteresting.)

He’s just another face. (He doesn’t stick out that much. Not really.)

He’s bright, like the rest of them. (Putrid and poisonous, just like all the rest.)

He’s... (Boring.)

Calming. (Boring.)

(What is it about him?)

Shouldn’t it be obvious?

“Hey, can you hear me?”

Sounds of the sea and the seagulls. Blinding sunlight.

“Ah, I understand... It’s overwhelming, isn’t it?”

This person is bright and dazzling under the sun, and they are also washed-out and ashen.

“I should introduce myself.” He holds out his hand, and that blinding smile almost overwhelms his fragile face. “And you are?”

“...I’m...”

(This is the 15255th time.)

All the same, he takes that frail hand and squeezes it tight.

(You really are a failure in every way.) “You’re so amazing, Hinata-kun!”

(Just give up already.) “Eh, not...really.”

(Are you even listening?) “You really are! You really, truly are!”

Komaeda’s eyes are sparkling with promise and certainty. Hinata swallows a lump in his throat.

(42 in-game days, 10 in-game hours, 43 in-game minutes, and 33 in-game seconds remain for this session. In reality, the remaining time is—)

“Alright, that should be enough gathering for the day.”

“Yes!”

“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather be cleaning, Komaeda?”

“It’s fine, it’s fine!”

It’s not fine, Hinata thought achingly. How many more times is it going to take?

He scoffed.

“Koizumi-san and Saionji-san took up cleaning today,” Komaeda explained. “And Saionji-san said I’d only be in the way and that she didn’t want to see my face, so...”

“She’s just trying to monopolize Koizumi,” Hinata huffed back. “You know that, don’t you?”

“Saionji-san does really like her,” he hummed. “When you really like someone, I guess other people would seem in the way, huh?”

Komaeda gave that carefree laugh.

“Don’t you think that’s bratty, Komaeda?”

“Well, I wouldn’t know,” Komaeda said easily. “I can’t imagine being so close to someone that I like them that much.”

“...We’re close, aren’t we?”

(Oh. Is that it?)

Shut up. Shut up.

“Eh?” Komaeda blushed at that. “W-What are you saying?! S-Someone like you really shouldn’t be saying something like that to someone like me! Is it a joke?! Are you joking, Hinata-kun?!!?!”

“If you start overheating, you’re going to faint again,” Hinata snapped at him, getting him to stop.

“Ah... Right... I don’t want to trouble you like that again... Ehehe...” Sheepishly, Komaeda rubbed at the back of his neck. “Sorry, Hinata-kuuun...”

In the beginning, you wouldn’t have gotten flustered by a comment like that at all. So that, at least, has changed.

“It’s not really that big of a deal, is it?” he asked. “Saying that we’re close? I spend more time with you than anyone else, and you spend more time with me than anyone else... You’d call that close, right?”

“Ah...” Komaeda quiets for a bit. “I suppose. Although I do wonder why you do spend more time with someone like me... Helping you find your way around is one thing...but you really should have befriended the other worthwhile talented people by now rather than wasting your time with a mite with the worthless not-quite talent of luck...”

They’re not a concern. (Have they ever been?)

“I find you calming,” he answered. “Everyone else is a bit too...loud, I guess.”

“Nanami-san and Sonia-san aren’t that loud,” Komaeda pointed out.

“Not usually, no, but when it comes to talking about their passions, they can be.”

“I have passions, too, Hinata-kun!” Komaeda huffed out, puffing out his cheeks. “I’m not that boring!”

Hinata snorted a bit. “If there’s one thing you’re not it’s boring, Komaeda.”

Komaeda flustered at that, face reddening more and more.

“I just said not to overheat, Komaeda.”

“H-How can I not when you said something so nice that I might just burst into tears?”

“It wasn’t that nice,” Hinata sighed. “Please don’t burst into tears, Komaeda.”

Shakily, Komaeda nodded a few times. He kept his word and didn’t cry, at least. Even if he looked close to it.

Oh, he’s cute.

He didn’t say anything to that, at least.

“You shouldn’t lose hope, Hinata-kun! I’m sure someone like you has an amazing talent!”

“...Do you really think so?”

“Really!” Komaeda’s eyes were positively sparkling. “I really do!”

(He was the first person to be that reassuring, wasn’t he?)

Not the first, no.

“Ah, Hinata-kun, you still look pale...”

“I’m fine, I’m fine... You’re pale too, you know.”

“Ah, but this is how I always look, so it’s not really a concern, Hinata-kun.”

They’re walking together. There’s so little distance between then that Hinata can almost feel the radiating warmth in spite of how considerably cold it was.

“...So you say...”

“I do say, Hinata-kun!”

“Mm...”

Hinata can’t help but shiver, arms wrapping around himself. Again, Komaeda gave him that doe-eyed look of worry, and Hinata speaks up before he can really think about it.

“Hey, Komaeda... Do you think we’ll get out of here alright?”

Komaeda blinked at him, and he answered without hesitation. “Of course I do.”

Hinata swallowed.

“Hinata-kun,” Komaeda goes on. “You are all not just talented individuals but Ultimates. Some ridiculous toy couldn’t possibly gain the upper hand over people who are meant to carry on the world’s hope. We have Togami-kun to lead us, how could we ever lose?”

“I don’t remember what my talent is, Komaeda,” he grumbled. “Hard to be assured in my talent when I don’t remember it at all.”

“Mm, that is troublesome, but...” Komaeda smiled at him so easily. “I know just from looking at you that you’re something special, Hinata-kun.”

Hinata stiffened, and his heart skipped a beat.

(Oh, right, he was the first person to call you special.)

There’s more to it than that.

“You really think so?”

“I know so!”

Komaeda has sparkling assurance within his gaze, the kind that’s stunning and consuming. Hinata took it in, soaked it in, really, and he tried his best to smile back as he nodded.

“Thanks, Komaeda.”

Just like that time before, they’re walking together. This time their sides are brushing against one another.

“The breeze feels really nice,” Komaeda sighed. “Even with how drearily boring the peaceful days are, there’s a pleasance to them, don’t you think?”

“I guess,” Hinata said, stretching out with a yawn. “Are you enjoying yourself?”

Komaeda gave a cheerful nod.

“That’s good, at least.”

Komaeda laughed, the sound light like the breeze. Hinata’s stare narrows a bit, and then, Komaeda turned back to him.

“In a book I read, this is the part where I say I wish days like this could last forever, but,” he pouted. “That’s too underwhelming and carefree! Grander things need to happen, otherwise what’s the point?!”

Hinata hummed noncommittedly.

“Don’t you think so?!” Komaeda demanded, almost impatiently. “If everything just remained as it were until the end, that really would be just the worst luck, Hinata-kun! I’d die so bitter!”

Another hum.

“Aah, but,” Komaeda went on, and gave him a cheeky grin. “Maybe spending the rest of my life with Hinata-kun isn’t so bad. Just kidding! I’d never wish for you to get stuck with someone like me.”

(How ironic.)

“You’re not that bad,” Hinata huffed and ruffled his hair. “It’s not like I don’t enjoy our time together, too, Komaeda.”

Komaeda giggled even as he playfully smacked Hinata’s hand away. “That’s just flattery to collect hope shards.” He stuck his tongue out. “You’re going to have to try a lot harder than that.”

With that, Komaeda skipped up ahead, humming as he did and arms swaying. Hinata watched him, smile twitching before his lips pulled into a straight line.

Try harder, huh?

(Hmm.)

Actually, it wouldn’t be a lie to suggest that Komaeda was the first person he’d been vulnerable with.

“...Komaeda.”

His grip on the other’s wrist was tight and unyielding. He was trembling, just a bit, and Komaeda was blinking those wide eyes back at him.

“Hinata-kun?”

“Let’s...” Hinata swallowed and then, “Let’s spend the night, just tonight. It’s safer this way, isn’t it?”

“Safer?” Komaeda blinked a few times and then softly laughed. “Hinata-kun, are you going to kill me?”

Hinata flinched, but he scowled.

“We’re going back to my cabin. Do you expect me to just stuff your corpse under my bed or something? Drag it out somewhere? That’s way too risky.”

“You thought it through,” Komaeda murmured, making him get flustered.

“I-I’m just trying to be reasonable in a completely unreasonable situation!” Hinata exclaimed and his voice proceeded to rise in hysteria. “Kill each other to leave?! What even the hell is that about?!”

“Who knows,” Komaeda hummed easily, so infuriatingly calmly that Hinata wanted to scream and then Komaeda gave him that usual smile of his. “But you can’t lose yourself now, Hinata-kun! You’re one of the Ultimates, representing the hope of the world—what does that bear have?!”

“Robots,” Hinata replied bluntly. “With guns. Machine guns. We all saw what happened to Usami.”

“Ah, right,” Komaeda agreed, quieting. “We did...” And then he perked right back up. “Still, wit and capability will go a long way! Hope and goodness will win in the end! It has to!”

“What do you think this is, a video game?” he asked, hopelessly irritated.

“It’s...definitely a kind of challenge, don’t you think?” Komaeda asked right back. “One that I know you’ll triumph in, Hinata-kun.”

Oh my god.

“How can you know?”

“Because,” Komaeda said, eyes shining. “I believe in all of you, Hinata-kun.”

Hinata backed off, breath catching, and then...

(Your heart skipped a beat. Weak. Boring.)

Shut up.

“...Let’s go to my cabin,” he ended up saying, squeezing Komaeda’s wrist. All this time and he hadn’t let it go. “It’s...not just safer... But, if you really believe in me that much...” He runs his fingers through his hair, blushing. “I should...at least make sure nothing happens to you.”

“Eh, Hinata-kun...” Komaeda blinked a few times. “Oh, but, if you want to kill me to get off this island, I don’t mind...”

“There’s no way in hell I’m doing that,” Hinata hissed. “Didn’t you just hear me? I just said I’m going to make sure nothing happens to you, Komaeda!”

Komaeda blinked a few more times. His head tilted to the side.

“...That’s impossible.”

“S-Shut up! Aren’t you supposed to be saying something like thank you or how cool?!”

“How cool!” Komaeda exclaimed, eyes sparkling again.

Hinata flustered, and then, he yanked him along.

“C-Come on... We’re definitely going to attract some attention at this rate...”

“Uwah, Hinata-kun’s so cool!!”

“You...don’t need to keep saying it, Komaeda...”

“But, Hinata-kun,” Komaeda chirped, eyes twinkling like the stars with such a blinding smile. “You really are cool, you know?”

Hinata blushed darkly and vividly.

(Boring.)

“Thanks, Komaeda.”

“Eh? Me again?”

“Is that a problem?” He used to hesitate a lot more, but at this point, the words are so commonplace they might as well be instinctive. He knows, regardless, that Komaeda will pluck that pink ticket from his hand as he always does. “I was thinking... Beach or the amusement park, what are you in the mood for? Or maybe the library? I wouldn’t be surprised if you just wanted to relax someplace quiet. Maybe even the park... We can try pushing at the statue to see if there’s a secret entrance.”

“Like to treasure?” Komaeda asked curiously. “Or to Hell?”

“Yeah,” Hinata answered, smile easy. “Something like that.”

Komaeda continued to blink at him, grip still on the broom’s handle. It really was a cute sight, the handkerchief tying his hair back, the handkerchief around his neck, having been pulled down from when it was wrapped around his face.

“Hinata-kun,” Komaeda said, smile strained. “Not that I don’t enjoy spending time with you, but... Don’t you get tired of me? Shouldn’t you hang out with the other Ultimates? Wouldn’t someone like Souda-kun or Nanami-san be better?”

“If I wanted it to be either of them, or anyone else,” he replied, without missing a beat. “I’d be asking them, Komaeda.”

“Ah, I guess...” Komaeda still looked so uncertain. “I’m afraid I’m just too stupid to understand. Do you really want my hope shards that badly? If that’s the case, you don’t have to force yourself, you can just have them, Hinata-kun.”

(Boring. He really is so boring.)

“Oi, who’s the one forcing himself now?” Hinata asked with a light laugh. “Didn’t Usami say hope shards have to come naturally? Didn’t you say it wouldn’t be that easy? I asked you if we could hang out because I wanted to hang out with you. Is it really that hard to believe I like you for your company, Komaeda?”

“Yes,” Komaeda said bluntly. “My personality is terrible; I don’t understand your taste at all.”

“It’s not terrible, Komaeda...”

“It is,” he insisted. “It’s definitely terrible!”

“Komaeda,” he sighed and shook his head. “You’re really too hard on yourself. Listen, I swear it’s true. I do like you...”

(If you like him so much, why don’t you just take him?)

Hinata stiffened for a moment.

“Hinata-kun?”

(It would not be that hard. You desire him, after all.)

Shut up.

“Ah, sorry,” he laughed again, rubbing at his temple. “Ah, where were we?”

Komaeda hesitated, and then, he took the pink ticket from him.

“I wouldn’t mind a quiet day at the library,” he said softly. “I apologize if it’s boring, though, but you’re the one who insisted, Hinata-kun. So if you complain, I’ll be really hurt.”

“I won’t complain,” he promised. “So let’s just going.”

(You’re so boring, Hinata Hajime.)

Shut up, shut up.

“I can sleep on the floor; it’s no problem at all! None whatsoever! Don’t even mind me, Hinata-kun, it’s alright even if I get stepped on!!”

“Komaeda, just get on the bed. There’s plenty of room.”

“...You don’t kick, do you, Hinata-kun?” A soft laugh. “I don’t mind getting kicked out of the bed, but, mm, for something like that to happen in the middle of the night when I’m trying to sleep is just a bit...”

“I-I don’t kick! Don’t worry about that!”

“Ehehe, okay, okay...”

Komaeda crawls under the covers while Hinata’s back is turned. It’s not until the sheets have started rustling that he sees that Komaeda’s turned away from him and all he can see is curly, wild white strands sticking out in all sorts of places.

...Cute.

He almost wants to reach out, to brush his fingers through the unruly strands. Would it be soft? It looked soft.

(It is soft. You know this now.)

“Mm... Hinata-kun?”

Hinata flinched and hurriedly turned back over.

“Ah... Yeah...?”

“Do you really feel safe like this...?” Komaeda sounds even breathier than usual, almost like the words are puffs in the air that dissipate before long. Hinata felt his face heat up, and he swallowed before answering.

“Do you...?”

(He likely did. Must you dwell over such obvious questions?)

“I’m still jittery, if that’s what you mean,” he said.

“Well, I guess even like this, it’s difficult to relax,” Hinata muttered. “Sorry. There’s not much I can do there.”

“It’s okay!” Komaeda exclaimed it so brightly that it was easy to believe, in spite of how very not okay the situation was. “At the end of this, you’ll come out a shining hero, I’m sure of it, Hinata-kun!”

Hinata snorted at that. “Now I know you’re getting ahead of yourself.”

Still, Komaeda had such sincerity to him that even if he, logically speaking, couldn’t believe that happening at all, he still couldn’t help but feel...just a little hopeful.

(This may have also been one of the first times in which you felt as though you could accomplish something great. How also boring.)

“I really do believe it, Hinata-kun,” Komaeda insisted.

“Mm...”

“Hinata-kun,” Komaeda states so sweetly. “You really are something special. Something incredible.”

Hinata flinched at that, eyes going wide.

Ah, wait—

“You’re amazing,” Komaeda goes on, those eyes sparkling, and then, those thin fingers entwining with his own. “So wonderful. So cool...”

This isn’t how the memory went—

“Hinata-kun,” Komaeda said, and then, “You know I believe in you, right? More than anything?”

“...Yeah.” He squeezed back, swallowing as he did. “Of course I do.”

You can stop now. Just... Just stop.

(Is this not what you wanted?)

You’ve made this into nothing more than a fantasy. That’s...not what I want.

(So you say as if you have not been replaying the same fantasies over and over again.)

That’s not the same thing.

(You are right. You lost control here. I suppose that’s the difference. How expectable of you.)

...Just stop.

Another rush of the waves, another lap at the sand, and their castle was once again gone.

“This really is despairingly hopeless,” Komaeda sighed, but he kept smiling. “Hinata-kun, you must be getting bored of this, right? Let’s try fishing or something instead.”

“All you ever catch are boots, Komaeda,” he pointed out.

“I might catch a sandal this time!”

...You’re so cute.

“Wouldn’t you rather a sneaker?” he asked, smile twitching a bit.

Komaeda just shook his head. “I don’t particularly like sneakers.”

Hinata looked down at his red sneakers, and then frowned at the other.

“A-Ah, but they definitely look good on you, Hinata-kun!” he hurriedly exclaimed. “But for someone like me, they’re just not to my tastes!”

“I see how it is,” Hinata said coolly. Komaeda stuck his older lip out.

“Let’s go fish for sneakers,” he sighed simply, and went to retrieve his shoes to carry with him as he walked. His footsteps left behind imprinted in the sand were slighter than Hinata’s own; his feet were thin, pale, and delicate. Just like the rest of him. “Eh, Hinata-kun?”

He immediately snapped out of it, shaking his head. “Ah, yeah, let’s go.”

They walk together, like always, and then sit at the dock to fish. He’s cross-legged, but Komaeda has his feet dangling over the edge, legs folded.

It isn’t long before Komaeda’s amassed a pile of boots while Hinata hasn’t had so much as a nibble. In one of the boots, Komaeda found an oyster.

“...Oh dear.”

“Huh?”

The next wave was high enough to nearly knock them both off the pier and left them both soaking wet and sputtering.

“S-Sorry, Hinata-kun...!”

“I-It’s alright, it’s alright!!!” He coughed out more seawater. He’s pretty sure his throat’s clogged with salt right now, but he’s fine. All things considered, it wasn’t that bad.

But Komaeda’s sniffling, and neither of them have any idea where the fishing poles are. A considerable amount of the boots are missing, but, honestly, he could care less about that. And Komaeda’s grip is still clenched around the oyster.

And then, Komaeda flings it into his hand.

“T-Thank you for hanging out with me today.”

“Oi, Komae...” Komaeda had already scrambled off, rushing in the direction of the cabins. And, really, Hinata couldn’t be surprised.

Instead, he sighed as he pried the oyster open, and was just as unsurprised by the sight of the pearl inside, shining and glimmering in the sunlight.

“...He’s really not that bad, you know,” he said softly. “Honestly, sometimes I don’t get why you aren’t crazy about him, too.”

(You know why.)

“...I guess...” He pocketed the pearl, and tossed the oyster back into the sea.

(23 in-game days, 12 in-game hours, 45 in-game minutes, and 38 in-game seconds remaining in this session. In reality, the remaining time is...)

(It is painfully obvious that you are someone who has a difficult time letting go. It is boring and it is inconvenient.)

It’s always been that way, too.

Yes, he knew that. He knew.

“I’m glad it was you,” he said once upon a time. “I’m glad it was your voice I woke up to, Komaeda.”

“Ehehe.” That bright, blinding, calming smile. “I’m glad, too, Hinata-kun.”

He probably knew from the beginning.

“I thought you of all people would understand, I thought that if anyone would understand, it’d be you.” A sigh, and Komaeda really does look so dismayed. It hurts, it hurts, and yet, Komaeda just crossed his arms. “I was too presumptuous, wasn’t I?”

“What... What even the hell are you saying?!”

“Ahaha...” Komaeda laughed like it was nothing. Carefree like always, but, in a dark place like this, the brightness of that smile only served to make everything even darker. Darkness upon darkness, to the point where it glowed—“You really don’t get it at all, do you?”

He didn’t. At all.

(Your first love and this was how it turned out.)

It wasn’t boring, but it was inconvenient. He knew that. Still. Still.

“Hinata-kun, I know you have an amazing talent!”

“Hinata-kun, let’s do our best!”

“Hinata-kun, are you alright?”

“Hinata-kun, hang in there!”

“Hinata-kun!”

...

“Hey, can you hear me?”

...Still.

Komaeda is resting against his shoulder and drooling on it. It’s familiar and as exasperating as it is endearing. All the same, Hinata smiles at him tenderly, and runs his fingers through the strands with the utmost care.

“...I don’t mind being like this,” Hinata said after a while. Komaeda didn’t so much as stir. “You’re right. There’s a selfishness to all this, too.”

(Of course.)

“But you do get it, don’t you,” he couldn’t help but huff. “Why wouldn’t you, I mean... You’ve spent so much time in my head... I don’t think you’re the kind of guy who stays willfully ignorant to this kind of thing. Unless you are.”

No answer.

“You wouldn’t keep harassing me about this if you didn’t have some investment in this. You wouldn’t keep commenting if you weren’t curious. And it’s fine. I get it.” But. That said. “Komaeda is...”

He hesitated.

“Komaeda...”

Komaeda hummed so softly in his sleep, and then, thoughtlessly, he nuzzled against Hinata’s shoulder. And, of course, his chest ached even as his heart swelled.

“...Komaeda...”

Of course, he had definitely been nervous and apprehensive at the time, but...

(Still.)

Komaeda’s smile was bright and carefree as always, but that hadn’t been the case with his words, or, even, really, with his gaze. In this heavy atmosphere, the lodge feels even more suffocating. In a moment’s notice, both of them could have been crushed.

He wanted to leave.

The more Komaeda spoke, the more he wanted to leave.

And yet, he couldn’t. He just couldn’t.

Why? Just because this might just be the first guy who treated me like I was special...

“Eh, Hinata-kun?” Komaeda blinked up at him with those bright eyes. “Hinata-kun, is something wrong?”

Should you really be the one asking that?

Komaeda was the one tied up, rendered so utterly helpless that he couldn’t even wiggle away if he had to escape somewhere. The chains, rope, the shackles... It was overkill, really, for someone this frail.

Still, Komaeda had proven how dangerous he could be...

And, yet.

“Hinata-kun, are you feeling alright?” Komaeda’s as worried for him now as he was worried when they were just on the beach together. “Hinata-kun...?”

It’s almost like nothing changed except for...everything surrounding them. The tray in his hands, an empty dining hall, the table where underneath someone had died.

Komaeda wiggled a bit, and it looked awkward. It looked painful. It had been...so...long since he was like this. He hadn’t eaten, drank, or...even gone to the bathroom since, has he...? Komaeda was dangerous. Komaeda needed to reflect on what happened.

But Komaeda looked up at him worriedly, head tilted...and shadows under his eyes.

I can’t take this. With a sigh, Hinata set the tray down. And with that, even when Komaeda looked confused, he went over behind him.

“Hi...nata-kun...?”

“What even the fuck is this, Souda?” he grumbled, disgusted with the sight of the chained up stock. “Isn’t this inhumane?”

“H-Hinata-kun...!”

Without another word on the matter, Hinata broke the lock and unraveled the chains. He popped open the stock, and let Komaeda pull his hands free. Komaeda was rubbing at his wrists, and before the other could say anything, he went to cutting and undoing the rope around his legs.

“Hinata-kun...” Komaeda trailed off. “I don’t understand. Are you going to kill me, or...?”

“I’m releasing you because this is bullshit,” he hissed. “You’re crazy and dangerous and a liability but even wild animals don’t deserve this. Don’t look too deeply into it.”

“...I... Oh... The others are going to be mad.”

“I don’t care,” Hinata huffed. Then, he ran his fingers through his hair with a grumble. “Hey... Komaeda... You need to use the bathroom, right? And...you need to eat, right...? I’ll accompany you, stay a while, and then I’ll leave Monomi in here to keep an eye on you. You can’t leave but...staying like this...just isn’t alright, either.”

Komaeda blinked once, twice, and then he nodded brightly.

“Okay!”

Hinata’s face twisted up, but all the same, he nodded back.

“...Alright.”

I had known how hopeless I was from the start.

He did as he said he would, he accompanied Komaeda to the bathroom, waited, and he dragged Komaeda back and proceeded to watch him eat after the other had sent the typical prayer. Komaeda had this weird habit of tearing his bread into bite-sized pieces and dabbing at his mouth with a napkin.

“Ah, thank you for the meal!!”

“It’s just milk and bread,” Hinata muttered, chin digging into his palm and elbow digging into his lap. “That’s not really a meal.”

“Still,” Komaeda huffed, almost like he was offended. Offended, on everyone else’s behalf. “It’s more than I deserve!”

You really sound so sure about that...

Hinata rolled his eyes, humming noncommittedly.

And then, Komaeda spoke up again.

“Ah, Hinata-kun...?”

He perked up, and just like that, Komaeda flashed that dazzling smile of his.

“You really are so kind! So amazing! You really are someone special! Someone wonderful!”

His heart skipped a beat.

And it was just like that.

“...J-Just finish eating. And drinking. You can...stretch your legs a bit... But if you seriously leave this room... I’ll be pissed.”

“Yes!” Komaeda nodded happily. “I won’t let you down, Hinata-kun!”

Do you understand?

“Mmgh...”

Do you get it?

Hinata stood up, and dusted himself off.

“Goodbye, Komaeda.”

“Bye-bye, Hinata-kun!”

How many times do I have to show you before you understand?

(30 in-game minutes and 55 in-game seconds remaining in this session.)

So we’re at the end of another session already.

And they’re on this beach where they met, and Komaeda is talking as he always does. Komaeda is fidgeting with his fingers, looking tense and unsure.

“Good luck, or bad luck...” Komaeda mumbled, looking frustrated. “Which is it, Hinata-kun?”

“Bad luck, right?”

“Right!” Komaeda exclaimed immediately, like he was expecting this answer just as much as Hinata had been. But that was impossible, wasn’t it? “It’s such bad luck! I didn’t even get to die or anything!”

(As if you would have allowed even an attempt.)

“All this time, I...”

(What are you hoping for, this time?)

“But now, it’s different...”

(Ah, but the answer is obvious.)

“The time we spent together...”

(What you want...)

“That’s why... I want to say...”

(...is for Nagito to finally say...)

“Hinata-kun...”

(“I love you.”)

“We’re friends, aren’t we?”

Ah. Hinata stiffened for a moment, he stilled, and he’s sure...everything else stilled, too.

(Until the moment Nagito says those words, will you remain unsatisfied with how things are?)

That’s not true. I’m selfish enough to want more than just that.

“Of course we are,” he said. He takes Komaeda’s hand, squeezed, and he takes in that dazzling smile on Komaeda’s face. Hinata smiled back broadly.

And just like that, the system was prepped for a restart.

Just hearing the words isn’t going to be enough. I want to hear them, but...more than anything, I want his eyes to open and for him to say them to me in the despairing world outside of this carefree island.

Of course you do.

I can’t just hear them. I need... I need to see him.

Of course.

I have to do this, over and over, until he wakes up. I have to do this...for him...

Just for him? Because he’s the first person who looked at you with twinkling eyes?

He’s the only one who’d put me through this much trouble; who’d make this much of a hassle.

Love is such a despairing thing, isn’t it?

It is. Oh, God... It...

Hinata could have laughed until he cried, even as the other remained unmoved.

It really, really is.

“Hey, can you hear me?”

Sounds of the waves and the crying seagulls. Blinding sunlight.

“Ah, I understand... It’s overwhelming, isn’t it?”

This person is glowing and dazzling under the sun, and they are also washed-out and pallid.

“I should introduce myself.” He holds out his hand, and that striking smile almost overwhelms his fragile face. “And you are?”

“...I’m...”

Before he can even finish, he takes that frail hand and squeezed it painfully tight.

#KomaHina #HinaKoma #komahinaweek2017 #nagito komaeda #hajime hinata #Magi Fics #super dangan ronpa 2 #sdr2 spoilers #izuru kamukura #KamuHina #KamuKomaHina #but not really #This is a mess and I apologize

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