He Ain't Heavy

[nostabbing]

Who: Parker (nostabbing) and Ishimaru (ardent)
Where: Goldenrod City
When: Thursday, January 23
Summary: A couple of not-siblings take advantage of the warm weather to appreciate the out-of-doors. The fact that one of them is virtually comatose is largely irrelevant. Also basically this.
Rating: PG? I'll update the rating if it changes.
Log:

[It's a nice day outside.

It's been a nice day a lot, recently — there've been some mildly cloudy days and maybe the occasional rain shower, but by and large it's been sunny summer afternoons here in the middle of January, and even though Parker's still kind of convinced that the world is ending a little bit as evidenced by it, she has more important things to concern herself with for the duration. Namely, the fact that she's taken it upon herself to spearhead the Keep Ishimaru Doing Stuff So Maybe He'll Start Getting Better effort, which up until this point has largely been founded on such endeavors as putting food into him, walking him around places, and occasionally fleeing from bees.

Today, fortunately, they've largely managed to evade hostile insect encounters, keeping instead to the sparsely-populated streets of the city and wandering around on the sidewalks that will take them past comforting, familiar buildings populated with normal people and normal things. Sometimes they stop and look at the beginning blooms of utterly confused flowers; sometimes they pause to listen to street musicians with their Kricketunes put on a show. Most of the time they make sure to eat something, and Parker always makes extra sure those snacks never involve butter, pancakes, or anything obviously resembling the two.

She's still not sure about that one, but Hagakure said so and Hagakure's a bro, so that's what she's going with.

Today, the snack of choice is street crepes; she'd planned on maneuvering him toward the local donut shop for some delicious fresh crullers, but then the cart and its batter-swirling magic had caught her eye, and she'd been just fascinated enough by the whole business to sort of haul Ishimaru along as she drew near for a closer look.

Street crepes. No butter, no pancakes, and no meat. Also yummy. It's too bad she can't steal one (or seven), but paying isn't so bad when it's for Ishimaru, anyway.]

Comments

[nostabbing]

Don't you have to be the best to do that? To go there, I mean.

[...Hmmm.]

I think we all could've gone. My team, I mean. The first time we all worked together, we were all picked because we were the best. All except Nate; they picked him because he was honest. That's why we all trusted him, too.

[It prompts a rare variety of smile out of her, though — the kind that she's not expecting, where it's just kind of on her face before she quite realizes it — the suggestion that they would've liked her. That's...kind of weird. Kind of nice, too. Not really something people tend to tell her that much.]

Maybe you were the king. I didn't know they even had kings and queens in high school but I guess they have the kind people vote for. At dances...or something.

[ardent]

[He stares at her for a moment, trying to decide what he thinks of all that, before he shakes his head.]

If we did that...voting, I mean, for that sort of thing...it would probably be Naegi-kun. And maybe Maizono-kun for queen.

[He hesitates for a moment before he continues.]

Has anyone told you anything about Maizono-kun...?

[nostabbing]

[Naegi-kun...is Makoto, she reminds herself, and once she does, things start to make a fair amount more sense. Probably he'd get picked for the same reason Sophie got picked; he's either a really good grifter (which is why everybody likes him), or he's just such a decent, honest person in general that he might as well be a really good grifter, because everybody likes him anyway.

It's still weird, though, because she's pretty sure monarchies aren't supposed to be popularity contests. Or even, y'know...democracies. But whatever.]

I don't think so. I don't remember meeting anybody named that, anyway. Is she one of the ones who isn't here yet?

[ardent]

[...welcome to high school, Parker, where the rules are made up and our royalty doesn't matter.

He has to think for a moment before he says anything further; he's not entirely sure what he wants to tell her about Maizono, he just knows that he does.]

...She's an idol - a...pop singer, I guess? She's really well-known for it.

She hasn't come here yet, though.

[nostabbing]

Oh. So not like a...

[She kind of motions with her crepe hand, sketching out something in the air that's roughly a foot tall about about the size of a small statue.

Because, y'know. Idols.]

I guess if she's your classmate she must be the best idol, then. That's kinda neat.

[But then she kind of cocks her head and looks him over a minute, trying to put her finger on something that's nagging at her.]

But you...don't like her too much?

[ardent]

[...Out of all the things he's considered with regards to Maizono in the past, whether he likes her or not has never been one of them.]

...I don't know.

[...]

She...did things...during the incident. Things that weren't very good. But we...

[Mnngh.]

...we all did things then. So I don't know. She's...not bad. I think.

[nostabbing]

[Her hand tightens very slightly around his, almost subconsciously, like she's afraid the agitation of talking too much about school will snuff out his motivation to talk at all, like he'll slip back into his shell if she doesn't keep him tethered outside of it.]

You can tell me about her. If you want.

[Maybe there's something about Maizono that's important. Something she needs to know.]

[ardent]

...Kuwata-kun...he'll take it badly. If she comes here.

[He thinks for a moment about it.]

Maybe Naegi-kun, too. But...he'll be more okay, I think. We've talked about it. He doesn't hate her.

[...]

She's very pretty, though...and she's nice to people. I thought she was all right. We didn't talk very much.

[...oh, right.]

...She died, though. She was stabbed, so knives will probably a bad thing around her.

[nostabbing]

[She'll be bad around knives, because she was stabbed.

...

...so the mark must've killed Mondo with butter.

That's just wrong. Just plain wrong. Who thinks of something like that.]

It's gonna be kind of hard to get rid of all the knives. Maybe we can just not let her in the kitchen.

[She gives him another of those little nudges.]

If you want to let her in the house, I mean.

[ardent]

[He glances at her at that nudging; he doesn't seem bothered, at least. Still sort of off, but that's to be expected by this point, and at least it's no worse than usual.]

...Of course I do. Why wouldn't I?

[nostabbing]

[That earns him a shrug.]

I dunno. I guess just...like, if it were gonna make it really hard on everybody else to move her in, then we'd figure something else out. You know, if Kuwata's going to hate her and Makoto might hate her but maybe not and then she's gonna be weird about the whole kitchen anyway...maybe it's better to just figure out something else instead? Or something.

[ardent]

[It's a little delayed, but she gets a shrug of her own.]

A lot of people hate Celes-kun.

[nostabbing]

But we're still nice to her.

[...]

Because she's ours. Right?

[ardent]

...Right.

[nostabbing]

[ :|a ]

Are we also nice to them because nobody else would be?

[ardent]

Sometimes.

[He settles into another one of those weird, silent periods once that's out there; a bit too long to be a proper pause, but not so long that he's obviously retreated back into his head.]

...I want them to be okay.

They deserve it, too.

[nostabbing]

[Her head tips down a bit, and her mouth is working back and forth again, the way it sometimes does when it's like she's not quite sure what to do with it. She knows what she wants to say; it's just a matter of not being sure if she can get the sentiment to come out right in whatever choice of words she utilizes, and it's the kind of thing where there's a fair amount of pressure not to screw it up.]

I want you to be okay.

[That's the easy part to get out.]

...You're going to. Right?

[And that's the rest of it.]

[ardent]

[His own gaze darts down at that, his eyes eventually sliding closed; he doesn't know what to say. He can't promise her that he will be - both because he doesn't know how true it is, and because no one from that school can really say they will, can they? They'll be okay in some ways, but in others they definitely won't be, and even if he knows that's just how things are there's not much to be done about it.

But he'd also told himself that he would be nothing like his grandfather, and his grandfather had never been okay again, had he? Not after the...everything.

It's something to think about; he's not sure he can right now. Another of those quiet noises leaves him without him really realizing it or deciding to do anything at all; his eyes are still closed.]

...I want to be. Eventually.

[nostabbing]

Sometimes things take a long time.

[They've stopped by now, on Parker's part without realizing it, and she takes the opportunity to look carefully at his face while his eyes are closed. It's not that she's looking for something, precisely, but she could draw his face on a glance if she tried, and yet that's still not the same thing as really taking a minute to just...see him. Who he is. What he looks like.

It's easy to forget he's really just a little kid. Almost as easy as forgetting that he's really not that much younger than her, either.]

They said I was broken. Pretty much everybody, the therapists and the judges and everybody. Even Nate...said that.

Maybe you can still be okay, even if you're not...you know. The way people think you're supposed to be.

[ardent]

[He opens his eyes to look at her at that - actually look at her, without his gaze immediately darting away or shifting around or being completely unable to focus, and even if he still looks a little dead behind the eyes at the very least he seems to actually be seeing what he's looking at for the first time in quite a while.]

...Have you ever heard of kintsukuroi...?

[He doesn't think she has; it takes him a moment to find words, to express what he means to say, and in that brief moment he almost second-guesses himself.

Almost.]

It's a Japanese art...mending things like pottery and ceramics. The repairs are done with gold lacquer, not clear...the idea is that even if something has suffered damage, it has a history and it's more beautiful as a result.

...I don't...know if we're broken or not. But it...maybe it's like that. Not how we're supposed to be, maybe, but...better for it anyway.

[nostabbing]

I think I stole a vase like that once. I thought it was just supposed to be like that, with the gold lines running through it.

[It never occurred to her that the gold might've been for the sake of repair, either; when people try to repair priceless things that get broken, they don't come out beautiful. The thought that people in Ishimaru's country figured out how to do it, and not just figured it out but actually made the ceramic more beautiful because of it...

...

That's pretty profound. And not just because it involves her favorite expensive metal.]

...I'll hold the pieces for you. While you put the gold in. Okay?

[ardent]

...Okay.

[And for the first time since he woke up, it feels like it might be.]

Thank you, by the way. For...everything.

[nostabbing]

[And that earns him another of her smiles, accompanied by a squeeze of the hand.]

Even the bees?

[ardent]

[He doesn't return the smile, though he rarely does that anyway; the hand-squeezing is another story.]

...We should probably avoid doing that to the bees again...

[nostabbing]

We should probably avoid doing that to the us again, too.

[Just sayin'.]