ukimiya | we're gonna afterparty and you're GOING TO FUCKING LIKE IT

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we're gonna afterparty and you're GOING TO FUCKING LIKE IT

[Tiki wanders into the great hall expecting company, expecting a full room just like before to abate her loneliness and what she finds instead is...Mahiro, chillin'.

And no one else.

Okay. Cool. Fine. She'll throw a goddamn party herself IF THAT'S WHAT'S HAPPENING, TRY HER.

So she drags one (1) rude teen into the kitchen despite protests that he can't cook, finds Eizen actively in the middle of cooking, and takes full advantage of the situation and also her own cute charm until curry for two turns into curry for twenty four.

Everyone will find notes slipped under their door, courtesy of Tiki's new gopher since he refuses to cook, the first part written in loose, loopy handwriting like an elementary schooler who hasn't quite gotten the hang of the cursive they've been taught:]

Let's meet in the Great Hall together in about an hour and have dinner again this time, so nobody has to be alone.

[aaand under that in a completely different set of handwriting:]

I don't know why we're doing this after someone died from getting poisoned through food but at least there won't be any fucking cake. Don't come if you don't want to.

[hm. well.

in the Great Hall, Tiki's hard at work setting up Eizen's mabo curry for the taking (and she's bullied him into making exactly one plate of non-spicy curry because she loves Hanyuu), and also hard at work into bullying Mahiro into helping her set up silverware and plates and beverages. It's not much, but it's here.]

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[She wonders idly what that real trouble is. Likely a murder, she thinks with the sort of calmness one gets when they've killed themselves, and maybe someday soon she'll ask. But for now, it's much better to settle on her bed, her legs crossed beneath her, and start to drink in earnest.]

How did he die? Not your uncle. The man who betrayed you. Do you know?

Hah.

[ He laughs. He probably shouldn't, given the answer to her question, but this is the kind of guy Nishitani is. Bad people get what they deserve, after all. ]

I killed the fucker. He'd shot me fulla holes but I still snapped 'is damn neck right before I went out.

[ Ah, he tried so hard and got so far.... ]

[He shouldn't laugh and she shouldn't smile the way she does, grim and tight and just a little bloodthirsty, but here they both are.]

Oh, good.

[ Ah, that's always nice to see. Rosalind gets it. Of course you'd kill the guy who tried to kill you. Well, succeeded in killing you. ]

Yeah, fucker got what he deserved. [ Nishitani chuckles. This part of the story always lifts his spirits. ] That was the night I saved Majima, too. I tell ya that yet? How I died for 'im?

[ Only a yakuza would talk about his own death with something like pride, but given that the man he saved is still here today, several decades older than when he first remembered him, Nishitani can't even picture having regrets about the way things went down. ]

You told me you were shot for him.

[But he's more than welcome to tell her the long version of the story, clearly.]

But I haven't been told the specific circumstances, or why you two were being betrayed.

That's a real fuckin' long story.

[ He frowns a bit. Thinking back on it, he didn't have all the pieces himself... ]

Majima might be able ta tell ya more, though he was... kinda different, then. Fuckin' sad. They had 'im workin' a shitty civilian job and he was fuckin' miserable.

[ He takes a long drink... maybe he shouldn't be sharing this without Majima's say so. He is trying to leave the worst parts out, at least. ]

Basically... This asshole from the Tojo clan, a man named Shibusawa, gave me a job ta find this one girl. A girl Majima had a particular interest in, cause 'is boss wanted 'er dead, but Majima was kinda hopin' he wouldn't hafta kill 'er. So we started at odds, ya might say, but both of us wanted the girl alive, so I wanted us ta work together. [ Like most things, he tried to solve this situation with murder. ] Long story short, I liked Majima a lot. Way more than my fuckin' asshole client who got me started on the job. So when I start talkin' ta Majima and offer ta give 'im some info on where the girl was at and who was payin' me, fuckin' Shibusawa didn't like that one fuckin' bit. He wanted this girl, and he figured he didn't really need me or Majima sniffin' around as ta why he wanted ta get ta her so bad.

Next time me an' Majima meet, we're somewhere safe. Least it was fuckin' supposedta be, but I guess the shitty thing about dirty cops is they'll shoot their own fuckin' moms if ya pay 'em enough. So my Uncle B takes Majima ta meet me in a holdin' cell so we can have a nice talk. But the fuckin' beat cop -- this asshole that wasn't even worth enough shit ta light my damn cigarettes -- this fucker who'd been cleanin' my fuckin' ashtrays, some old fart, turns around and pulls a gun on my Uncle B once we were done fuckin' talkin' shop. [ He's getting angrier now. ] Sonuvabitch shoots Uncle B in the fuckin' chest and starts unloadin' on me and tryin' ta get ta Majima. Says he's sendin' regards from Shibusawa, that my "time was up" or some bullshit like that. Well I wasn't gonna fuckin' stand fer that. I sent Majima away -- somebody had ta make it outta there alive -- and I took that fuckin' sonuvabitch down with my bare hands, I didn't give a fuckin' shit that I was fulla holes. I wasn't lettin' him see fuckin' daylight ever again. Fucker can rot in hell, I'll be glad ta give 'im the same treatment twenty times over when I fuckin' get there.

[Good god, what a story. It certainly adds weight to her guess that Majima is the most moral of all three of them, and explains a bit more why he'd so easily taken to rooming with she and Tiki.

It adds to her opinions of both he and Nishitani, too. Majima, for his business with the girl, and Nishitani, for his determination not to die without taking his killer down with him.]

I always found the concept of life after death worse. I'd think it much more satisfying to imagine him resigned to nothing: nothing more, nothing positive nor negative.

Hah, fair enough, Lutece-han. I wasn't exactly plannin' ta have anythin' goin' for me after I died, then I fuckin' showed up here, so who the hell knows.

[ He was mostly expecting a void, too. But the idea of getting to beat the shit out of the asshole that betrayed him is enough to make him smile. ]

Alls I wanted outta life is what I got. I did whatever the fuck I wanted and went out with a bang.

[That makes her smile-- and because she's been drinking, the smile stays, long after Rosalind normally would have forced it away.]

I'm glad, then.

[She'd likely be a lot less glad if she knew all of what he'd done, but thank god for Majima as a tempering influence, am I right.]

I can't imagine living like that. Every single action I ever took in my life was calculated towards an end goal.

[ Ah, the power of booze. Rosalind's got a cute smile, it's a shame she won't entertain Nishitani for even a little while... (No, it's not actually, Nishitani just thinks so.) Really, having Majima around is saving everyone the trouble of having to deal with Nishitani at his worst. ]

Well, it takes all kinds, ya know. I ain't gonna fault ya fer bein' smart! Me, I'm an idiot who likes ta have fun an' do whatever I fuckin' please. Back home I made enough fuckin' money ta do that, and here? Well, I got Majima so I don't need anythin' else!

[ He is. So in love. With Majima. ]

[She snorts.]

That's all it takes, is it?

[Then again--]

I suppose I'd be the same with my Robert. My-- [and there's something odd to her smile now, some twist of her lips that suggests a private joke] --other half.

I liketa take what I can get. An' Majima? He's all that and he's a damn fuckin' sweetheart underneath it all.

[ On anyone else, being kind or caring about people might be a bad look. But with everything Majima's been through, the fact that he can still be so pure only makes him stronger. That's what it's about with Nishitani. ]

Yer Robert, eh? [ He's caught on that there's something more to it, but he's got no clue what she could mean. Plus he's drunk, he isn't going to figure it out just like that. ] Ya said ya'd been together fer how long?

Edited 2017-08-14 05:59 (UTC)

Since we were seventeen. Twenty-one years, now.

[Sort of. Likely more than that, but who counts time when you're dead? Rosalind smiles at nothing for a long few seconds, then glances over at Nishitani.

Here's the truth: she's never gotten to tell anyone about this before. Who could she tell? Everyone in Columbia was too stupid to understand the truth, and you can't go around romantically doting over the man everyone thinks is your twin (or, well, you can, but this isn't Game of Thrones). Those few who knew the truth weren't the kinds of people she ever wanted to talk to. So it's just been her and Robert, and of course that's enough, but it's such a lovely, clever secret, and it's been so lovely to talk about him as her lover . . .]

You remember I told you about parallel universes, don't you? About-- about how one change, one choice, is all it takes to make a new world? So there's universes for each decision one makes. For every variation that occurs. One where you're not a criminal, say; one where your personality is radically different-- one where you aren't clearly eager to fuck me, for example.

[Is that the first time she's cursed in front of him? It's certainly the first time she's said fuck. What wonders alcohol brings.]

Or ones . . . ones where the differences are simpler. Where's things like-- like hair color, or clothing choice, or gender.

[. . . and then, because she has no faith in anyone's intelligence beyond her own:]

Robert Lutece isn't from my world. He's a boy I found when I was seventeen, and spent the next few years working to bring to my side.

[ Nishitani nods along to her story, grinning at all the right times. (Yes, good, she said "fuck.") He's not as dumb as he lets on, honestly. Sure, a lot of it goes over his head, but he can read between the lines pretty well.

He's quite for a moment, mulling the information over. ]

Holy shit. Yer fuckin yerself?

[ I'm splitting this in 2 both for comedic effect and to use different icons because. It's important. ]

[ There is a pause. Not for disgust, mind you, he's only just now thinking of the ramifications here. You've opened a whole new world for him, Rosalind. ]

That's fuckin' awesome!

That's not all we do.

[She says, a slight frown on her face, because she doesn't want him to get the wrong idea, it's not as though they're indecent, it's a romantic relationship, honestly--

But whatever. It is awesome, thanks, and Rosalind is visibly pleased someone else is bright enough to notice.]

But yes. It is. We are.

Sure. An' me an' Majima don't only fuck.

[ I mean, they don't. They also fight. And even sometimes... talk about their feelings. But mostly they fuck. He gets it. It's rad. He's grinning. ]

I never woulda thought of that but now I'm kinda wishin' I had, damn. That's gotta be fuckin' great, yeah? Nobody knows what ya like better than you.

[ Hmmm yes give him a minute because the possibilities are endless. ]

[All right, she is, admittedly, flushing a little, but not a whole lot, because . . . y'know, he's not wrong.]

Mmmmhm.

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