[OPEN] For me, our friendship was a miracle.

[appraiser]

WHO: Ryoji Pharos/NPCs, OTA
WHERE: Recollé Woods, Recollé General Hospital
WHEN: 8/24 - 8/27
WHAT: Ryoji's death upon returning to Recollé; he loses all his regains and memories, and after 2 days in the morgue, reincarnates into the form of a 10-year-old boy, Pharos. Pharos will not have any of Ryoji's in-game memories (both events and people), and his memories only encompass Ryoji's AU history up to age 10.
WARNINGS: death

[ It felt as if he were falling forever, the darkness overwhelming, the numbness welcoming, the cold, wet ground Ryoji finds himself on being nothing short of a blessing— mud, bugs, grass that itch his nose, but better than the fire that still singes his clothes, wisps of the dead haunting his vision as he closes his eyes and struggles to open them again.

A canopy of leaves, so thick he can't even see the moon behind it.

But he knows this place, has spent so long hidden out here on his own, and his lips part, silent words that can be read but not heard:

"I'm home." ]


A. 8/24, Recollé Woods, NPCs: civilians, paramedics
[ It's a while before he is found. A muffled shout is heard first, and then a scream pierces the air, from a person— two? three? people just trying to escape the monsters, or perhaps they chased them all the way to the woods, now staring down at where a body lies in a crumpled heap. His clothes are torn, both hands covered with blood, glass embedded into the soles of his shoes, black sludge leaking out from his chest— what once was his chest, now a gaping hole where ribs and heart should be, filling up with the black that wells and pools like old blood.

There is a ring on his finger, glowing like moonlight.

"Call an ambulance!" somebody shouts, running forward, stopping, scared to touch. The boy on the ground does not move, but his eyes seek faces, desperate and unseeing. "Hurry!"

Desperate.

An ambulance is called, a helicopter, but the hospital is far and the streets are in turmoil. ]

B. 8/24, Recollé General Hospital, NPCs: physician, nurse
[ The boy should have been pronounced dead upon arrival.

Pulse: 0
BP: 00/00
RR: 0
O2 sat: 0%

There is no heart, but a flat line would not have been unexpected with the state of his body, half gone, still falling apart. The only thing that keeps him in a hospital bed is the black miasma that fills that gaping hole, that moves uncontained like thick smoke, drips to the ground like tar, disappearing when it does and taking a part of him with it. Sometimes, he moves, a finger here, a furrow of the brow there, but they're weak, few and far— increasingly further— in between; he's not dead, but he's dying, fast.

A phone found in his pocket identifies him as Ryoji Mochizuki, and that is the name that can be given to a nurse to find his room, but only for an hour or two before the last of his will gives, and he is moved to the morgue. ]

C. 8/25 - 8/26, Crimson Crest Apartments, NPCs: neighbors, cat
(inbox messages will fail to send; to be queued until 8/27)

> search for user Ryoji Mochizuki
USER DOES NOT EXIST

> search for user Ryoji Mochizuki
USER DOES NOT EXIST

> search for user Ryoji Mochizuki
USER DOES NOT EXIST

[ His apartment is empty, the door ajar and papers scattered about. One of the three pairs of slippers is missing— in her haste, his mother had gone out in them. She hasn't returned. The only sound in the entire apartment is that of a cat, weak cries from somewhere under the futon, hiding whenever somebody enters, and only sticking her nose out if they're somebody she recognizes... or has food. Please feed her. It's been three days. ]

D. 8/27, Recollé General Hospital
> search for user Ryoji Mochizuki
USER IS ONLINE

[ But is nowhere to be found, anywhere around the city. Calls and texts to his phone now go through, and Ryoji's Retrospec account is back online and shows up in his name and picture, but... nothing.

His hospital room has been cleaned out, and there is another boy sitting in it today, around 10 years of age. If you know Ryoji, he looks familiar, wide grey eyes that look up and a ready smile for anybody who walks through the door to visit. He doesn't expect many visitors, a nurse will stop you at the door and say, explaining that the boy was found playing around in the morgue, but must have hit his head because he doesn't remember how he got there.

"I'm not supposed to come back here," he keeps saying. "I don't live here anymore."

Right now, he's simply under observation, but the nurse hopes that visitors would help him remember what happened. In the meanwhile, his only other company are the nurses, and the social worker who's in a tough situation: with his mother having passed from a heart attack three days ago, and his father having passed three years ago, he has no family, no place to live, no possessions to his name aside from a pitch black ring he wears on his finger, fiddling with it when he thinks nobody is looking. ]

----
( ooc: I will reply to prompts A, B, and C with the listed NPCs instead of Ryoji, since Ryoji is kind of dead. Replies to prompt D will come from Pharos. For messages to his inbox, there will be no response until the end of the month when some kind soul gets Pharos his own phone, whereupon he'll be able to access Ryoji's Retrospec account and messages.

Pharos' powers include teleportation (he does not like being touched unless it's on his terms, and will teleport away if somebody tries), and intangibility/telepathy (essentially disappearing into thin air and speaking to your character inside their head; this is only one way, meaning he cannot read minds and your character will have to speak out loud for him to hear. I will not do this unless permission is given, so let me know if this is something you'd like to play)

For any questions or wildcard prompts, contact me via PM or at birdseed )

Comments

A

[cattack]

[Cleo's been fighting monsters as part of her Team Absinthe problems. So, with a bloody sword in hand, she's wandering through the forest, killing all the monsters she can find.

Of course... That doesn't help when she finds a crowd, a clamor for an ambulance, a body- that body?

That body looks... familiar.

No.]

Ryoji!

[She practically screams, charging forward to kneel down next to him. The healing magic she got from Retrospec is weak, it can't fix this, but she has to try, pouring all of her feeble magic power into that healing.]

Ryoji, hang on- Ryoji!

[appraiser]

[ There's too much to heal, too much missing that will never come back, Ryoji already falling apart between unreality and reality and whatever plane of existence one goes to when they disappear from this world.

With the magic, the only thing Ryoji feels is warmth, smothering him like a heavy blanket that covers and protects but cannot heal. The handful of onlookers around them murmur with concern; this girl must be his friend, or acquaintance. It's such a pity. A women puts a hand on Cleo's shoulder, and says, "I'm so sorry." ]

B

[belligerentwarrior]

Don't you dare quit on me, you bastard. [Freya's voice was hoarse and quiet.] You made it this far. Don't you dare ruin it.

[Apprehension and dread was a periphery feeling, haunting the edges of her senses. Freya felt shockingly little for the situation other than raw exhaustion, the chaos of every other emotion restrained by a thin, bleak thread of hope.]

[A hope she had no reason to hold, she knew. Freya couldn't explain what that black stuff was or how he was holding on even now, or where his organs should be. But that was impossible, wasn't it? How could she be faulted for hoping he'd impossibly survive, in the face of that?]

[But his condition was deteriorating, in several sense of the word, before her eyes. Freya refused to leave him, from the woods to this damnable room. She was the highest qualified caregiver in their group, until other help arrived; she promised others everyone would make it out alive; she promised Minako she'd look out for him.]

[He couldn't die. Not now. Not after everything.]

[Bahamut, the ferocious metal beast with his healing magics, wasn't answering Freya's silent pleas; she'd called him too recently. Freya didn't hold Ryoji's hand, for fear it would crumble. But she spoke to him, every few minutes, a kind of desperate encouragement. He didn't deserve this. Minako didn't deserve this.]

[And there was nothing Freya could do but hope, increasingly in vain.]

[complementing]

[She knows. She knows he's here, can only think the worst knowing that this is the place he's in. Trying to call out to him through their connection doesn't get her any answer, and that frightens her even more. He's always answered, always, he promised he always would, so why isn't he answering now?

He's hurt, he's hurt and he needs her, that's the only reason why.

Minako urges herself to go faster and barely bothers to ask the nurse where the room was as she sprints into the hospital. The tingle in the back of her mind, their connection-- it's telling her it's this way,

down the hall,
left,
through the second door
and across another hallway,

this way,

this way, stop feeling like he's slipping away the closer you get, it's not true not true not truenottruenottrue

BANG

She falls to her knees with one hand on the doorknob, the other covering her mouth.]

No. No no, no. Please no. Freya. Freya, he's not--

mostly D

[goen]

[ Yato's return to Recolle has not been nearly as happy or triumphant as he was hoping it would be.

Single-minded perseverence has always been Yato's strongest trait. It served him well while he was away, pushing down his helpless fears, helping him focus on what was in front of him so that he might eventually put his fears to rest. But turning into an animal, escaping a mad surgeon, defying death, battling aliens via mechs in space -- it all seems more pointless with every fear that becomes realized.

Everyone is forgetting. Again. Aki is missing. Because of him, a hard ache in his chest tells him. And the names in Retrospec have depleted. Yato makes the rounds, checking in with his friends, which -- yes, does include Ryoji now, because Yato always means what he says.

The Mochizuki apartment is silent when Yato enters. Strange, since the door is unlocked. It looks like someone left in a hurry, which is not too farfetched considering the state of the city. But it still feels odd. Yato spots the Mochizuki cat, which mewls at him sadly, and he finds a bit of food from the kitchen to feed it before leaving. He'll probably run across Ryoji eventually.

Eventually happens. Kind of. Yato walks by the hospital and glances at its open windows. He sees a boy...

A strangely familiar boy?

Before he knows it, his feet are taking him into the hospital and past the receptionist's desk unchalleneged. He walks until he finds the room he glimpsed the boy in, sees the boy, and then simply stares. Yato has been in Ryoji's apartment more than once, snooped around to look at all the photos framed there out of pure nosiness. This boy looks exactly like Ryoji did when he was younger.

Yato will just keep standing and staring there until the boy notices him, assuming as he often does that he won't be seen. ]

[appraiser]

[ The notice is almost immediate, expectant in the way the boy sits up in his bed, half throwing off his sheets and drawing breath to say something, when his eyes glide over Yato's chest and hip where a hospital employee's badge would normally be clipped and he finds none.

Not a nurse.

Not anybody he knows, either, and he slumps back onto propped up pillows on his bed. ]

Hi! [ he offers Yato after a pause, hesitance palpable and with a smile much more subdued than Ryoji would ever give, he wouldn't even know how. ]

C, cw: mention of self-harm

[esperimental]

"I am the one to blame for the death of Ryoji Mochizuki."

[ The short post has remained unsent in Ritsu's freshly charged phone, apology deleted, reworded, deleted again, staring at the Retrospec application with dead eyes. Type. Backspace. Type. Close eyes. Ignore dinner call. Don't stir when the door opens. Feel cold even under all the covers. People won't believe him at the station if he turned himself in, the city had returned to its illusion of normalcy. He felt sick. He wants to hurt himself. He acts on it, to some degree.

Why was he the one alive? He wants to be punished. Surely everyone would hate him if he posted his confession. But Ritsu's fingers were frozen. Is that what he wanted? Or was it too heartless to post it like just a matter of fact. Maybe he just didn't want to deal with answering questions. Because he didn't understand the human heart. Because he didn't want to deal with this conflict. If only he can pretend it never happened; envying the blissful masses once again.

Coward.

Still, he's not the one who would be the most affected by this, and he knows that. By the dawn of the next morning, Ritsu forces himself away from his bed, dark circles under his eyes, looking for the address Ryoji had once given him. But he had to leap through this small window of bravery before he starts wanting to shut himself away again. Though truth be told, with each heavy step he already does want to turn.

Stubbornness, see him through, so a parent knows not to wait for a dead son. ]

I... is this where the Mochizukis live?

[ Someone happens to be outside today. They should help him find the right apartment. ]

[appraiser]

[ There is a woman standing near the mailboxes outside, numbered without names but word spreads quickly in a closed community such as an apartment building filled with gossipy housewives, and especially recently, it's a good chance that anybody here knows of the Mochizukis even if they have never met.

The gossip is of monsters, how the single mother had flung open the door and ran— she had a heart condition, one of them recalls, she shouldn't have exerted herself. It's such a pity what happened. And through it all, her son hasn't come home to see her or visit her in the hospital.

They don't seem to know yet.

"Yes," she says, although she looks more confused than concerned at somebody so young inquiring about the family. "Although, it isn't a good time to visit. Nobody has been home for almost two days." ]

A

[strawberrypunch]

[The final call was enough to drag him from his home, determined to help even a little in spite of his fears for his grandparents.

It is, perhaps, a mistake to think he could do anything to help.

As he approaches the woods, there's a sense - a pinging in his mind that draws him in, so different from the pull that tugged him there in previous times and yet reminding him of those very instances. He follows the sense... only to forget about it entirely as he sees just what lays waiting for him.]

Ryoji!

[Tatsuma is a soft-spoken person, and it's rare that he ever raises his voice. But he does so now just before sprinting to Ryoji's side, quickly checking him over, quickly realizing this is... far beyond anything he could help. Feeling sick, yet unable to leave his side.

No. No, no, no, no-]

[appraiser]

[ Yes.

It's unmistakably Ryoji who lies there on the ground, recognizable even with disheveled hair, dressed as if for ballroom dance and not a trek out in the woods. There is no weapon around him to be found, no other sound nor set of footprints found anywhere in the woods that suggest something having come and attacked him, he's just... there.

Not dead. Not yet. He stirs at the sound of his name, but it's a feeble movement, head turning away as if Tatsuma were here to wake him up from a much needed sleep— all he wants to do is sleep, inviting the warmth, the comfort, the blissful oblivion where he can stop worrying and fearing and caring. ]

8/25

[erythristic]

[she's called in early, meaning she gets in at sunrise, and despite how her body protests after fighting for so long yesterday, she comes. something strange, she's told, and they wanted her to investigate.

when she comes in, she's not prepared for the face she sees under the sheet. Ryoji Mochizuki hadn't been the name she had heard from him when they'd met, and while her eyes had caught the age on the file and she'd braced herself...it still wasn't something she wanted to see.

she has a job to do. she has a job to do, she tells herself, and one she knows how to do. later, she can be upset over this, and the practiced calm of many years slides back into place. essential, for this.

first things first. identify the body's condition and cause of death.]

[appraiser]

[ The condition is... bad. It's difficult to put the words together in describing it: it's a very similar sort of darkness that had taken over Ryoji's body as with the monsters that were being fought all month, the black substance simultaneously holding together the gaping hole in his chest and dissolving with the smallest motion if Grell were to try and touch it.

The large breach of the thoracic cavity is the obvious cause of death, but there are other signs. There is blood found on his hands that may be traced back to three different people, and the clothes that have been removed and sealed show signs of assault: the cuffs of his pants clearly burnt, hundreds of cuts all along his sleeves, and where his shirt should have been torn where he'd been stabbed though, the cloth is cold and soaked through, but not with blood. ]

D-ish

[prometheanflame]

[Mohammed had not know Ryoji for long. He was a teenager - a boy, even - with a terrible power and a willingness to die for perceived safety of the world. He was a kid that deserved to live like anyone else.

He should have known better than to assume everyone would be alright. The monsters were a glitch on Retrospec's end and they couldn't have put in protections that their precious experiments would live. He had grown too cocky and now someone is dead.

After receiving the news, Mohammed didn't know who to talk to. He didn't know where Ryoji lived, he didn't know how to help, he didn't know how to do anything. He was just as complicit in his death.

And then, on the 27th, he checks Retrospec and sees a green circle by his account. His first thought is someone stole his phone or hacked into his account.]

Who is this?

[There is no reply.

Where can he go? Ask the hospital what happened to Ryoji's phone? Find his mother? He sets out to the beach, near the woods. The place where he and Ryoji showed off their powers, and where Mohammed hoped he would keep himself safe.]

This isn't funny.

[appraiser]

[ There's no answer for another day at the least, with Pharos having no phone of his own and no reason to believe he needs one. His parents, after all, were both gone, and he hadn't lived in this city for over three years and would have no neighbors to ask for. The only person he thinks to call is his home tutor, but when borrowing a phone one of the night shift nurses had snuck to him after hours, it's the Retrospec app that appears on the screen.

Obscuring the profile, notifications for over a dozen messages pop up and sit in the inbox unread, but Mohammed's is the most recent that Pharos opens and reads to himself. He calls for the nurse to inform her that she's got a new text, but when she comes over, she doesn't seem to see the app, telling him that he can have half an hour more but then please go to bed.

He looks back to the phone, starved for somebody to talk to. The nurse wouldn't mind if he wrote back on this app she couldn't see, right? ]

Ms. Joan is busy right now, but my name is Pharos. Is something supposed to be funny?

D

[burningblossoms]

[After Minako had told her, Yukiko had been beside herself. It'd struck her hard, and she'd been utterly unable to go anywhere near the hospital without feeling herself start to hyperventilate, but she winds up there on an unrelated errant. Her parents not really understanding what was going on, they'd sent her to drop something off to a family friend. It takes some doing but eventually she works up the nerve to not only get her task done, but also to wander by Ryoji's room. The nurse had been kind, saying that if she wanted to say some goodbyes, she could.

Surprise flickers across Yukiko's face as she pushes the door open and spots the little boy. Her head tilts, her mouth opens and closes, and she debates saying something. However, something tells her this boy is she walks over and takes a seat next to him.]

Did you know Ryoji, too?

[appraiser]

[ The little boy looks up from the bed, clearly not a visitor with a loose hospital band around his wrist and the way he's lying on the bed on his stomach, bare feet kicking the air. He's got a picture book in front of him— he's too old for a picture book, and it's upside down anyways, and he pauses in his idly idly flipping through the pages backwards to look up at Yukiko when she enters the room.

He's gotten used to that sort of thing in the hospital, the door always been ajar, two knocks or less before somebody simply opens it regardless of what he's doing. The name Ryoji is one he's starting to get used to as well, but his answer is always the same: a shake of his head. ]

He's gone, now. I heard the nurses talking last night when they were cleaning out this room.

D ish

[long_live_the_queen]

[Lucy hated hospitals. The smell of fake cherry and lemon antiseptic spray, the silicone gloves and sterilized plastic—it made her sick, dread coiling horrid knots in her chest. They weren't safe places; there was danger here, foster parents she didn't want to see here. There was death here, though never for her. It was always for people she didn't know, or knew dimly, or didn't understand until years later. Why a nurse shooed her away from a closed door with a pitying frown, why people didn't tell her about a person again when they'd been bragging about them so much before. Why she got so upset when a person important to her vanished and she didn't know where they went.

She knew what death was.

She was starting to trust Ryoji, finally, after a glacial crawl. It wasn't easy for Lucy to trust people. It wasn't something trivial, to form an attachment when she'd done everything in her power not to for years and years.

And then he just...left. Walked out the door and never came back, leaving only words on her phone. He fucking left. Minako was a wreck, Freya was a mess, Koro was upset, and Ryoji had the audacity to...

...reappear?

Lucy hated hospitals. But she needed to know what happened. What is happening.

She was signed in as a visitor, though the employee was a bit dubious. Was this a...relative? A family friend? Very little about this entire situation made sense to the staff; they'd be buzzing about this for weeks. Lucy's appearance was just another detail.

The third door on the left, they said. The young woman with fading dyed hair walked towards it in a straight line, shoulders huddled into a slouch. It was too warm to wear a coat with pockets, or her hands would have been jammed in them. Once in front of the door, there was a pause before she opened it. But it passed.

The lights were on, but the room was featureless outside of a gurney, an empty IV stand, a glove dispenser, and a biohazard disposal box newly replaced. No sign that a patient had been in here, no folders, no flowers, not a scuff on the tile. But there was already someone in here.

Her gaze snapped to the child, brows already furrowing.]

Who are you?

[appraiser]

[ Pharos doesn't like hospitals very much either. He only comes here to accompany his mother, not allowed to stay home on his own, but patient rooms were never for him. He would find a garden, or the children's playground, or a corner of the cafe he can sit at and make himself small over a cup of hot chocolate he would nurse for the hours it took until he could see his mother again.

Being here on his own is lonesome. It's scary, not knowing what's going on, or who is there to take care of you— the nurses promised, but they're needed all over the floor, and could not babysit him all day and he knows it. He sits on a chair pulled up next to the bed, knees drawn to his chest despite now much he wants to lie on the bed and crawl underneath the covers and just close his eyes, because doing so meant he was supposed to be here, that there was something wrong with him, and he doesn't want that. He wants to go home. He wants to see his mom. He wants—

a visitor

unexpected, but not unwelcome. He returns the distrust in her eyes with hope in his, parroting back the exact same question. ]

Who are you?

[ He's the patient in this room, as much as it twists his stomach to admit it. He's supposed to be here. ]

d

[admiringly]

[ Chiyo has pulled up Ryoji's Retrospec account multiple times in the past couple of days. She won't miss when it says it's back online. She calls. She texts. She calls and texts and calls and texts to no avail. It's only after the tenth attempt that she can't take it anymore and rushes to the hospital, to the place Ryoji was last seen alive.

She's out of breath when she arrives, cell phone clutched in her hand. a new bracelet around her wrist. It's fashioned with small gemstones and forget-me-nots. Her heart lodges in her throat when the nurse stops her. She feels the edges of her vision blur when she sees Pharos, who looks so much like Ryoji it hurts.

Is this what happens when he dies, or is she only wishing for the impossible?

He doesn't have memories, they said. There's no way to confirm her wildest thoughts, the only time she wants some crazy Retrospec interference. She forces a smile, bright but flimsy, even as tears fall nonstop from her eyes. ]

H-Hi. You probably don't know me, but I... want to be your friend, if that's okay? If you don't think I'm a scary stranger and creepy for asking that right away?

[ Her ugly crying probably doesn't help either, but at least she's not crying loudly.

Even if Pharos has no connection to Ryoji, she can't not be moved by his story and his appearance. There's no way she can walk away now. ]

[appraiser]

[ It's kind of scary and creepy, and yet...

It's the first time somebody had come to his room, asking for him. Not for "Ryoji," but for him, the little boy who sits still on the bed watching her cry and not knowing what to do when somebody cries— it's always been him who needed comforting, and the only person he had to comfort him was his mom, and she's gone. The finality of that hasn't sunk in yet either, and the thought makes his eyes prick with tears too, compounded by the way Chiyo's smile doesn't match her voice and face- things harder to lie about. ]

It's okay. [ His voice is soft, hesitant, and sounds painfully like Ryoji's in a whisper. ] When I'm sad, a hug always makes me feel better. Can I give you one?

D

[yamagishi]

[While Fuuka might not have known Ryoji for long, it didn't stop her from wanting to say goodbye to him one last time. After all, he was one of the first friends she made here, the least she could do was just come see him. Still, that didn't stop her from feeling anxious as she struggled to open the door.

Did she really want to see him? Maybe, maybe not but she had to be strong. It was for Ryoji's sake.

Although, when she finally entered into the room...?]

Um, did I enter the wrong room?

[appraiser]

[ ...It's not question that Pharos can answer, not knowing what room Fuuka was hoping to find. It's probably the wrong room, because he doesn't recognize her, but a part of him wishes that he were here to see him— that somebody would come and find him, tell him what's going on, and take him home.

He's hopeful, but he keeps it to himself, leaving his bed to slide into the hospital slippers and meet her at the door. ]

Who are you looking for? I know some of the patients on the floor- I'll help you find them.

D

[maskreant]

[ Here he thought the month was ending well—they found some answers, develed more questions, but also brought back the people that were missing. Seeing his childhood friend and everyone else made him think the struggles, the trials, the risks were all worth it. After the fiasco, he wanted to find Ryoji only to get horrible news from those close to him. Akira wasn't even graced with the opportunity to visit. It was all over and he could feel his heart sink with each passing day. That bright aura showed up in his dreams, only taken by the darkness and dawning reality.

Despite that, he continued to live, visiting Ryoji's apartment to feed Katkat who cried every so often. Once he realized that she had been practically abandoned, he took her into his care. During his last visit, he took the time to appreciate everything, especially the family photos that decorated the home. The radiant smile that Ryoji gave even at a young age was infectious, but he could only feel the sorrow overwhelming him. Akira spent most of his free time cooped up in his room browsing the internet, waiting for the school year to start. Though he knew his precious friend had passed, he kept an eye out whenever he checked the list of user on Retrospec.

Being a lurker pays off. The sight of Ryoji's status on the network brings him this fleeting hope, giving him motivation to finally leave his house outside of work and errands. His rational mind drops several realistic expectations: this is a glitch, this is a mistake, this is a bad omen—that's fine. If seeing Ryoji, ghost or not, a second time is a curse, he'll take it on. First, he checks Ryoji's place, then the cafe... His workplace, and finally he's here at the hospital room that he never had the courage to step in.

The nurses reassure him that he has been moved, Ryoji Mochizuki has passed, and so he should move on. The notice that there was a boy hanging around the room and the morgue fall on deaf ears as he beelines in: ]

... Ryoji?

[appraiser]

[ The boy inside looks up at the sound of a voice, not in recognition of the name, and after meeting Akira's eyes for the briefest of seconds, looks back down at the coloring book in his lap because the visitor isn't here for him.

Even with his head bowed, a little frown with the tip of his tongue poking through his lips as he focuses on coloring— not in the lines at all, a black crayon going around and around over the lines to form an image only he can see, until the wax is rubbed down into a nub— the boy still looks so much like the Ryoji that hung all around the apartment. ]

No. Ryoji is dead.

[ Blunt. Like his dad had died. Like his mom had died. Akira isn't the only one who is grieving, and deals with it by shutting himself away. ]

8/29; D

[livingdeadgirl]

[What was she doing here? Ami thought, not for the first time. What was she trying to accomplish?

It was almost surreal, the calmness of the lobby, after everything that had happened. The last time she'd been here, it had been a relief - everyone was very nice, and they gave her sedatives while they set the bones in her wrist, and then for some reason failed to keep her away from her phone, leading to a bunch of no doubt hilarious drugged-up shitposting that she barely remembered the next day. If anything the situation was more dire then than it was now - buildings collapsing, monsters in the streets - but she remembered laughing.

Nobody she knew had died that night.

Today Ami sat uneasily in the lobby, watching a door she wasn't allowed to enter. Minako had been right, of course, you couldn't just wander into the emergency ward if it wasn't an emergency. But at the same time, she wasn't quite willing to leave, either.

Why not? She couldn't go in and see him. She couldn't even pass along a message through a nurse. Tell Ryoji Mochizuki- but there was no patient here by that name, not anymore, and she wasn't allowed into the morgue.

But she didn't want to leave. She was lucky, in a sense, to have any chance at all - to see him one more time, to say things unsaid. She'd be a fool to waste it. Even if she hardly knew him, even if she didn't quite know what to say.

She brought her tarot cards and everything.

So she sits in the lobby, absently shuffling the cards, watching the door that leads into the place where he died. Maybe she could make a distraction, sneak inside...]

[appraiser]

[ While Ami watches the door to the ER, another door opens into the lobby. Pharos' eyes are up at the domed hallway safety mirrors at each intersection of the hallways, one glance allowing him to see the entire area all at once without somebody running into him— and subsequently almost runs straight into Ami. He jumps back with a startled gasp, immediately clamping his hands over his mouth to muffle the sound so he isn't heard, and lowering them just enough to whisper a ] Sorry!

[ He looks as if he wants to run, but the cards catch his attention, and whatever business he had is temporarily forgotten. ]

...What are you playing?

[ You can't play cards with just one person? ]

D. shows up late with starbucks

[secare]

( they make him go to the hospital against his will. yukine continues to insist that his wounds weren't anything serious, wouldn't work anything but the first aid kit lodged in the bathroom closet, but he gets shoved in a car and driven anyway when his side continues to bleed through his bandages. he's mad about it, mad to go through this whole song and dance, but he does what he's told. the sooner he follows through with this, the sooner he can visit ryoji.

he'd heard rumour that ryoji was here and that he had gotten hurt, which was worrying because ryoji has always seemed so gentle. it must be hard on him. yukine doesn't know the details of the situation, doesn't know more than the fact that ryoji had been hospitalised for an injury, s yukine is grateful to have been forced here. at least he can keep ryoji company until the visiting hours are over.

once he's finished getting looked over, bandaged up, and given a proper prescription for painkillers, yukine flits towards the nurse's station to ask for his room number. they don't give it to him easily, offering him strange looks and whispering amongst each other each other before finally giving him a number. maybe it helped that he raised a fuss, insisting he couldn't leave until he saw him, but it was weird.

"this was his room."

was?

yukine doesn't let himself dwell on it, doesn't pay it mind at all, as he makes the journey there.

he's expecting to see ryoji and his tired smile, but—

it's empty. the room's empty. there's nothing there.

nothing but a boy that yukine doesn't know. his mind races. had he been released already? was ryoji already home and resting? had yukine come too late? he wasn't sure how he was supposed to apologise for this one. he should have been here in time to see him, to wish him better, and keep him from being too bored. maybe it's not too late to send a text and ask if he can swing by. he nearly turns heel and leaves as he fishes out his phone, but something gives him pause. )

Hello? Are you here for Ryoji?

y e l l s i untracked this post and missed your toplevel i'm sorry QnQ

[appraiser]

[ Pharos almost doesn't notice him, sitting on the chair next to the bed, with his head bowed over an open notebook that rests on his lap and concentrating so that his letters stay within the lines. But the sound of a voice gives him pause, and when his eyes look up, they're hopeful, the same tired smile but only because it's again and again that he gets his hopes up just to be let down. People keep asking for Ryoji, but that person has nothing to do with him, aside from a shared... what? room. appearance, maybe, but that's all there is. ]

Hello.

[ He sets the book aside, and sits up a little straighter and taller, as if trying to fill in a role people keep expecting him to carry, but he can't. ]

Who is Ryoji?