Left-Behind Trace [Open]

[standalonehuman]

WHO: Togusa and people!
WHERE: The hospital, oops.
WHEN: January 7th and onwards.
WHAT: Togusa got shot, he's in the hospital, and finally knows how his Other got shot.
WARNINGS: Discussion of violence, medical treatment, and the like.

The news probably didn't take long to reach a lot of people. Togusa got brought to the hospital with a gunshot wound. Togusa's official story is that he got shot stopping an opportunistic mugger trying to steal things in the chaos of the fire. So what actually happened?

Comments

[thesettingsun]

"And if you had the choice between saving a story and saving a person, would you hesitate?"

Shuji certainly wouldn't, and he doubts Togusa would either. There isn't even a reason to state which he would choose.

"People have as much influence on other people as stories do. If not way more."

[standalonehuman]

"No." Togusa even lets out a light chuckle, because the answer is so obvious.

"Let's agree that both jobs are important, then. Because I wouldn't be able to stop a threat like that. Neither would my other guy."

[thesettingsun]

"Most living people can't go inside books. That's why you should leave that up to me and Koutarou."

Or at least, Koutarou when he had access to that kind of power.

"And I'd make a terrible policeman. So Recolle needs both of us."

[standalonehuman]

Togusa can't help it, it gets a smile out of him. "Personally, I think you'd make a good policeman. You care. But okay. We need both jobs, really."

Togusa shifts and sits up more, getting more animated as the conversation goes on. "So where to from here? We both found those doors and found our way out. But do we know what it did?"

[thesettingsun]

Please don't get so animated you hurt yourself, Togusa.

"If you keep opening doors, maybe you'll find the door that goes to the right place... But there's a lot of doors, you could keep going through them for ages and not make any progress. ...Anyway, having a key for a lock behind another lock needing another key is really annoying."

Somewhere, a murdergame mastermind just sneezed.

[standalonehuman]

Togusa reaches up and scratches his head. "I really miss Yoon-sung. Really really miss him. For a lot of reasons, don't get me wrong. But sometimes when this whole thing feels like a game, he'd have the best advice." He shrugs with his arms out to the sides. "And it would just work."

"Even opening any door, if all I did was cross one out, then. Okay, it helped."

[thesettingsun]

"But nobody takes me seriously when I talk about narrative casualty..."

Shuji's only griping a little, not seriously.

[standalonehuman]

That gets another quick laugh before Togusa quiets himself. No more hurting yourself, Togusa.

"Okay, so, from a story perspective? Is that the point? We're eliminating possibilities? Or is there something bigger?" Togusa sounds delighted to discuss this idea.

[thesettingsun]

"Well... I usually don't assign narrative causalty to anything where it would seriously matter if I was wrong." Nothing more important than whether or not you say 'things couldn't get worse than this'. It's basically a fancier way of saying 'don't jinx yourself'. "But after telling my story in that fairy tale cottage, I've been thinking more about people's lives as stories."

[standalonehuman]

"Mm," Togusa can see this, especially because he was there to see Shuji's story. "The stories we tell ourselves about our lives can have more impact than the events, themselves. But life as story? It makes sense with what Retrospec is talking about."

[thesettingsun]

"We're all remembering the stories of our past selves. Jumbled up and confusing stories, but stories."

Sad ones, happy ones, ones with no satisfying ending.

[standalonehuman]

"It's like we got the book unbound with all the pages out of order," Togusa nods in agreement.

"I can start to piece some of it together." An unhappy laugh. "At least I've got a good point to figure out what's happened before and after, now."

[thesettingsun]

"I can usually tell if a memory is while Dazai was alive or dead. Beyond that, don't ask me to put anything in order."

Shuji can at least figure that the childhood memories are first. Everything else gets more complicated.

[standalonehuman]

A pause, as Togusa remembers that Koutarou said something similar. "Is that how it works, then? They got called back to serve, dealing with the Taints, after they had died? That's how you get the difference between Dazai the writer, and Dazai the," Togusa mimics swinging a weapon.

[thesettingsun]

"Ghost, ink spirit, take your pick. That's not exactly how it works, I think, but it's not different in any way that's important, so we'll go with that."

Dazai himself seems to have only had a partial grasp on the process.

"If there are letters floating in the sky, that's definitely after dying. Same if I'm holding a scythe. Those are the easiest ones."