[After spending the first night in this strange new world, Ken found it easy knowing that there was someone from his world here. That said, it doesn’t make things any less awkward as he found himself wondering how he ended up living with Shinjiro.
Which is how he ended up in this situation. As he wanted to bring up dinner, he didn’t know how to go about it. Sitting in his seat, he waited for Shinjiro. He wanted to say something but he didn’t know what. At the same time, he also knew his teammate wanted some space.
[It's really awkward, especially where Shinjiro can't convince himself they're simply uniting over a common goal like they had before in defeating the Shadows. Arguably it's practical to stick together while trapped in a strange place, but that doesn't really require any kind of hanging out, either. There's plenty of well-meaning types that could've taken Amada in and they could've met up from time to time to compare notes or something, but this is more than that.
This is dinner, in his house, in which he has neither offered nor refused to let Amada stay, but which he knows he will not make any move to suggest the kid leave unless he makes the choice to go himself. As it stands, he doubts it -- which is a lot to take in by itself. In his opinion, Amada should've been scrambling for the metaphorical hills the moment he discovered Shinjiro was here.
He has all the time he wants to wring his hands about the situation after dinner, though. Right now, he's got some things simmering on the stove and only a limited amount of time before it burns. So, with all the enthusiasm of a man headed to his gallows, he pops his head out of the kitchen to finally ask:]
[Now that Ken was in his house, he wasn't sure if he should even stay or go afterwards. He didn't mind, he just didn't know what to do afterwards knowing how this relationship would. While Ken was ready to move on and try to befriend Shinjiro again, he knew that was a lot easier said than done. Giving a sigh, he didn't know how to respond.
He could say that he should let the older teen decide but he had a feeling he wouldn't like it. Instead, he had no choice but to respond.]
I guess chicken? If that's easier for you to cook...?
[Because otherwise, he was trying his best to seem as polite as possible. He just didn't want Shinjiro to feel as though he had to put in extra effort just for his sake.]
[He lets out a tired exhale. This is apparently going to be a whole thing, where he has to contend with not only Amada wanting to spend time with him, but also putting in consideration about his effort on the damn meal when the actual hard part is keeping his shit together well enough to make it, under the circumstances?]
I can do either just fine. Which do you want?
[He will be making you say it. Lie for all he cares, it doesn't even matter to him.]
[And so he was right, Shinjiro wasn't going to make this any easier. Perhaps this was the wrong way to go about it. As he gave a small pout, he briefly wondered if he should continue with this but decided against it.]
...I guess chicken?
[Because that was the more easier option, right??]
[There's a part of him that's tempted to go for shrimp just in case the kid's holding back out of some misguided concern about not asking for too much, but that's an unreasonable thought, and so back into the kitchen he goes, to finish his noodles and fried rice with chicken and not shrimp.
He comes back with a couple of pans of food which he sets down carefully on the table.]
[The moment he saw the dishes before him, there was a part of him that felt a little nostalgic. It had been quite sometime since he last had food from Shinjiro and it made him feel that he should treasure this moment.
With a nod, he let them cool down before looking back at the older teen.]
Um....should you go first?
[He knew he was a guest but he had to be polite!!]
[There's an answering sigh on Shinjiro's end, but he finally serves himself without further complaint. He's just gonna eat this rice very slowly so Amada doesn't feel the need to hold back as he eats. There's plenty for them both, but trying to express that verbally seems like entirely too much in this moment.
Five extremely uncomfortable minutes of silence later:]
👻👻👻BOO!👻👻👻 Did I scare you? Well! It's OCTOBER SO! 🎃 SPOOKY SEASON IS UPON US! 🎃 DO YOU WANT TO MAKE YOUR HALLOWEEN WISH COME TRUE?!?!?! 👻🧟💀 SEND THIS MESSAGE TO 5 OTHER PEOPLE IN HALF AN HOUR AFTER READING THIS...🎃🎃🎃 otherwise something awful will happen on OCTOBER 31! HALLOWEEN! PERHAPS DEATH AWAITS YOU! ☠️☠️☠️ Just kidding you'll just have the bad luck of STUBBING THY TOE!🤢🤢🤢 So better beware!! 👻
[He is TRYING but there's trying to keep the peace and then there's holiday gifts, why this!!]
he literally did, moron for a whole month back in japan or did you forget why he joined us
[Not that he doesn't realize that Amada doesn't hate him anymore. That's, frankly, part of the problem. He was never meant to interact with him again after that night, when everything was supposed to have ended, and he truly doesn't know how to cope with Amada's desire to reach out to him now.]
i'm already makin dinner for you guys all the time aint i
yeah and it's been three whole years since then for him. you think he's going to choose to live with you HERE if he really hates you that much? think for a second, jackass.
[He cringes faintly at that reminder that time has gone on without him, just as he'd meant for it to. But it leaves him in a strange, uncomfortable place.]
he doesn't have to hate me for it to be weird especially when i know he thinks what happened to me is on him
[Despite Shinjiro's insistence otherwise, it's come up a few times already, and he still doesn't know what to do about it beyond let the kid continue to set the tone of whatever relationship they're going to have here.]
ain't gonna make him feel obligated to get me something back
the weird restaurants around here can probably make it anyway
why do you think i suggested making fried chicken? then it's just a thing for all of us to eat together instead of a specific thing just for ken, so he doesn't feel obligated to do something back.
come on, you're supposed to be his senior. you can't just do nothing.
Kim had been lost in the fog for an entire month. He can't even tell if it felt like he'd been gone that long or not -- the entire time he spent in the in-between feels strange, vague, as though it had lasted forever, as though it had lasted only a day, fear thrumming in his veins, desperation clawing at his chest. It had been absolutely terrifying. He hadn't even expected to go in; ever since his arrival, he's tried to go beyond the bounds at least once or twice a week, just for the hell of it.
He won't be making that mistake again. He gives himself a day to recover (eat, drink, shower, sleep), but after that... after that, he finds himself stuck in a mental loop of replaying the last month in his head over and over again. Enough is enough, Kim decides. If he's going to be a basketcase, he'll at least be a productive basketcase, which happens to be the sort of mentality that has guided the entirety of his career.
Which is why one Shinji Aragaki may find Kim at the welcome diner at what is frankly an appalling hour with a cup of coffee and a stack of papers laid out in front of him as he combs through the changes in residency since he'd last been here. He looks only a little worse for wear - too rumpled, the bags underneath his eyes too pronounced, something unsteady in the way his foot taps impatiently against the floor - but is otherwise as stoic and poised as he's ever been. You don't put up this front for as long as Kim has without becoming very, very good at it. ]
[His apartment is empty again, save for the dog. The silence is oddly deafening, and for all he'd found himself vaguely irritated when Aki had gone and created an entire living thing wholesale without checking in with the other guy living in that space ... well. He's privately grateful now.
Even so. It's too quiet, the puppy's little whines and yaps notwithstanding. The nights are the most difficult to cope with, silence only broken up by the cacophony inside his own mind, and on this particular night, he has been staring at his ceiling for hours now with no progress toward unconsciousness. Even the network has been quiet of late, which has taken mindless nighttime scrolling off the table as well.
It's around 4 am that Shinjiro finally gives up on sleep for the night and heads to the Diner to feed any fellow insomniacs and maybe tire himself out enough to pass out for a few hours later.
He himself is zoned out enough that he almost doesn't register Kim when he comes by with a coffee pot to top off the man poring over a stack of papers with some apparent agitation -- which of course means that it's only when Shinjiro's coming in close that he recognizes the man. In other words: the worst possible time for a man holding hot coffee to be startled.
To his credit, he jerks back fast, the only casualties on the unfortunate papers and Shinjiro's coat, which has seen much worse days. There's still some distinct swearing to the effect of ow, shit, hot, fuck-- but catastrophe by and large seems to have been averted here.
A little roughly, once he's re-gathered the majority of his wits:]
[ Kim jumps a little, a kick of his heel sending his chair sliding away from Aragaki to avoid getting spilled on himself, though he gives a somewhat baleful look towards Aragaki's poor (and already much-beleagured) coat and the papers he was going through. No matter; they've made sure to make plenty of extras. Still, Aragaki was the last person he expected to see here.
He hadn't really expected to see anyone here, if he's being frank about it. While the denizens of the City tend to be night owls, that doesn't mean that they generally drift towards the Diner of all places. He and Aragaki haven't properly spoken since their last conversation anyway, one that Kim had left underneath the impression that the kid didn't want much to do with him anymore. ]
Home? No. I was stuck in the out of bounds area, I'm afraid. [ He rises to his feet, ripping off a few paper towels to help mop up the mess. He glances over at Aragaki, eyes flitting to where hot coffee had spilled on his wrist. ] You all right?
[It certainly is a little awkward, running into him like this. If not for having worked in the same place for a while, Shinjiro would've simply assumed that the long stretch of not having seen the man meant that Kitsuragi was the one who had grown tired of him. Honestly, he would've been surprised it didn't happen sooner.
Shinjiro's never been especially good at reaching out, is the thing. Their last conversation had been tense and uncomfortable, but he had asked for Kitsuragi's opinion, and he'd gotten it. He's not held anything of a grudge since, but he's also not usually the sort to start conversations simply for the sake of having a conversation, either. Perhaps a misunderstanding was inevitable, under the circumstances.
It's not something he's thinking about now, at any rate; in the past two months he'd lost nearly everyone he'd had any significant connection to at all, as few as those were. He hadn't anticipated having any of them back. And it's -- not nearly the same thing, of course, it'd be insulting to compare the situations, yet ... maybe a part of him understands a little better, how Aki had felt seeing him again.]
The whole month? Damn.
[The perpetual beanie is hiding the acrobatics his eyebrows wanted to do at that particular revelation, but even so he still looks vaguely alarmed. How is that even possible, really? And how would you survive out there without access to food or water or anything? The answer to both of those is likely the city being itself, of course, but there's definitely a moment Kitsuragi's liable to notice where Shinjiro's glance is a little sharper, like he's looking the man over to see if he's really alright or hiding some signs of recent starvation.
The part where he blinks in surprise when Kitsuragi calls attention to his own wrist is probably even more of a giveaway, really; the spot has gone a little red and he hasn't even noticed.]
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Which is how he ended up in this situation. As he wanted to bring up dinner, he didn’t know how to go about it. Sitting in his seat, he waited for Shinjiro. He wanted to say something but he didn’t know what. At the same time, he also knew his teammate wanted some space.
What was a boy to do here??]
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This is dinner, in his house, in which he has neither offered nor refused to let Amada stay, but which he knows he will not make any move to suggest the kid leave unless he makes the choice to go himself. As it stands, he doubts it -- which is a lot to take in by itself. In his opinion, Amada should've been scrambling for the metaphorical hills the moment he discovered Shinjiro was here.
He has all the time he wants to wring his hands about the situation after dinner, though. Right now, he's got some things simmering on the stove and only a limited amount of time before it burns. So, with all the enthusiasm of a man headed to his gallows, he pops his head out of the kitchen to finally ask:]
You prefer shrimp or chicken?
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He could say that he should let the older teen decide but he had a feeling he wouldn't like it. Instead, he had no choice but to respond.]
I guess chicken? If that's easier for you to cook...?
[Because otherwise, he was trying his best to seem as polite as possible. He just didn't want Shinjiro to feel as though he had to put in extra effort just for his sake.]
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I can do either just fine. Which do you want?
[He will be making you say it. Lie for all he cares, it doesn't even matter to him.]
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...I guess chicken?
[Because that was the more easier option, right??]
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He comes back with a couple of pans of food which he sets down carefully on the table.]
Careful, it's hot.
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With a nod, he let them cool down before looking back at the older teen.]
Um....should you go first?
[He knew he was a guest but he had to be polite!!]
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...Doesn't matter to me.
[Please just eat his crops are WITHERING.]
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Your turn.
[He mumbled out as he wondered what else to say. This was getting more awkward by the minute.]
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Five extremely uncomfortable minutes of silence later:]
How is it?
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@DONQUIXOT3, txt
text | username: akihiko
we need to get ken something for christmas
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get him one on your own
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last i checked he had a couple pretty good reasons to feel weird about me
[y'know. corpse-shaped reasons.]
besides i ain't been to school in years, senpai's a bit of a stretch anyway
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you're overthinking this. if ken really hated you he wouldn't be living with you, you idiot
getting him a gift is a nice thing to do, even if it's just making him some fried chicken on christmas
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he literally did, moron
for a whole month back in japan
or did you forget why he joined us
[Not that he doesn't realize that Amada doesn't hate him anymore. That's, frankly, part of the problem. He was never meant to interact with him again after that night, when everything was supposed to have ended, and he truly doesn't know how to cope with Amada's desire to reach out to him now.]
i'm already makin dinner for you guys all the time aint i
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yeah and it's been three whole years since then for him. you think he's going to choose to live with you HERE if he really hates you that much? think for a second, jackass.
[ come on!!! ]
and yeah but christmas fried chicken is special
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[He cringes faintly at that reminder that time has gone on without him, just as he'd meant for it to. But it leaves him in a strange, uncomfortable place.]
he doesn't have to hate me for it to be weird
especially when i know he thinks what happened to me is on him
[Despite Shinjiro's insistence otherwise, it's come up a few times already, and he still doesn't know what to do about it beyond let the kid continue to set the tone of whatever relationship they're going to have here.]
ain't gonna make him feel obligated to get me something back
the weird restaurants around here can probably make it anyway
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why do you think i suggested making fried chicken? then it's just a thing for all of us to eat together instead of a specific thing just for ken, so he doesn't feel obligated to do something back.
come on, you're supposed to be his senior. you can't just do nothing.
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just for the effort
[ignoring that last text outright .... frustration's mutual bestie!!]
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action
Kim had been lost in the fog for an entire month. He can't even tell if it felt like he'd been gone that long or not -- the entire time he spent in the in-between feels strange, vague, as though it had lasted forever, as though it had lasted only a day, fear thrumming in his veins, desperation clawing at his chest. It had been absolutely terrifying. He hadn't even expected to go in; ever since his arrival, he's tried to go beyond the bounds at least once or twice a week, just for the hell of it.
He won't be making that mistake again. He gives himself a day to recover (eat, drink, shower, sleep), but after that... after that, he finds himself stuck in a mental loop of replaying the last month in his head over and over again. Enough is enough, Kim decides. If he's going to be a basketcase, he'll at least be a productive basketcase, which happens to be the sort of mentality that has guided the entirety of his career.
Which is why one Shinji Aragaki may find Kim at the welcome diner at what is frankly an appalling hour with a cup of coffee and a stack of papers laid out in front of him as he combs through the changes in residency since he'd last been here. He looks only a little worse for wear - too rumpled, the bags underneath his eyes too pronounced, something unsteady in the way his foot taps impatiently against the floor - but is otherwise as stoic and poised as he's ever been. You don't put up this front for as long as Kim has without becoming very, very good at it. ]
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Even so. It's too quiet, the puppy's little whines and yaps notwithstanding. The nights are the most difficult to cope with, silence only broken up by the cacophony inside his own mind, and on this particular night, he has been staring at his ceiling for hours now with no progress toward unconsciousness. Even the network has been quiet of late, which has taken mindless nighttime scrolling off the table as well.
It's around 4 am that Shinjiro finally gives up on sleep for the night and heads to the Diner to feed any fellow insomniacs and maybe tire himself out enough to pass out for a few hours later.
He himself is zoned out enough that he almost doesn't register Kim when he comes by with a coffee pot to top off the man poring over a stack of papers with some apparent agitation -- which of course means that it's only when Shinjiro's coming in close that he recognizes the man. In other words: the worst possible time for a man holding hot coffee to be startled.
To his credit, he jerks back fast, the only casualties on the unfortunate papers and Shinjiro's coat, which has seen much worse days. There's still some distinct swearing to the effect of ow, shit, hot, fuck-- but catastrophe by and large seems to have been averted here.
A little roughly, once he's re-gathered the majority of his wits:]
...You're back.
[...]
Did you...go home?
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He hadn't really expected to see anyone here, if he's being frank about it. While the denizens of the City tend to be night owls, that doesn't mean that they generally drift towards the Diner of all places. He and Aragaki haven't properly spoken since their last conversation anyway, one that Kim had left underneath the impression that the kid didn't want much to do with him anymore. ]
Home? No. I was stuck in the out of bounds area, I'm afraid. [ He rises to his feet, ripping off a few paper towels to help mop up the mess. He glances over at Aragaki, eyes flitting to where hot coffee had spilled on his wrist. ] You all right?
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Shinjiro's never been especially good at reaching out, is the thing. Their last conversation had been tense and uncomfortable, but he had asked for Kitsuragi's opinion, and he'd gotten it. He's not held anything of a grudge since, but he's also not usually the sort to start conversations simply for the sake of having a conversation, either. Perhaps a misunderstanding was inevitable, under the circumstances.
It's not something he's thinking about now, at any rate; in the past two months he'd lost nearly everyone he'd had any significant connection to at all, as few as those were. He hadn't anticipated having any of them back. And it's -- not nearly the same thing, of course, it'd be insulting to compare the situations, yet ... maybe a part of him understands a little better, how Aki had felt seeing him again.]
The whole month? Damn.
[The perpetual beanie is hiding the acrobatics his eyebrows wanted to do at that particular revelation, but even so he still looks vaguely alarmed. How is that even possible, really? And how would you survive out there without access to food or water or anything? The answer to both of those is likely the city being itself, of course, but there's definitely a moment Kitsuragi's liable to notice where Shinjiro's glance is a little sharper, like he's looking the man over to see if he's really alright or hiding some signs of recent starvation.
The part where he blinks in surprise when Kitsuragi calls attention to his own wrist is probably even more of a giveaway, really; the spot has gone a little red and he hasn't even noticed.]
Huh? Oh, yeah, it's fine. You?