all your mother's weaves and your father's threads

[flightpen]

Ren hasn't seen the Velvet Room in a while.

There was at time when he was in here every week, fusing Personas to Caroline's acerbic commentary or listening to Yaldabaoth mutter ominous words of praise. It was different in January, like a lot of things, but the point is that it's gone now. He's not even sure Lavenza and Igor survived what happened.

And yet here he is, in what's recognizably the Velvet Room. But it's changed. It's not a prison anymore, even though this would be the best time for it; Ren's heart is in chains. What was it Akechi said to him? Your heart is free. Maybe back then.

Never mind that. Igor, if it is Igor, is unforthcoming. Make bonds—as if Ren can make bonds when people can't even have a meaningful conversation. He'll be returned to the moment he left—as if he wants to go there. His friends are happy, Akechi is alive, and Ren, like Maruki himself, stands outside the world. When he tries to press, Igor gets cryptic and nonsensical, and that's so fucking familiar lately that Ren doesn't bother to keep trying.

You might find him in the following situations:


1: the rockrose and the thistle will whistle as you moan

Maruki has left him alone, mostly. God's favorite. As far as Ren can figure, it's because he knows perfectly damn well that Ren finds his reality repulsive, and he wants Ren to accept it on his own. The implication there is that Maruki also knows deep down that people aren't themselves once he changes their cognition, but that's not a surprise. Maruki talks a big game, but on some level he must know what he's doing. Surely.

Anyway, like we were saying, he's left Ren mostly alone. But he loses time, comes back to himself with the coffee cold or the sun at a different angle or an awful TV show at the end of its saccharine episode. And although he never remembers feeling what preceded it, he knows. Too much despair, too much bleak hopelessness, and Maruki turns him off like a lightbulb until it's gone again. Can't accept the new world if he's too depressed. The stupid self-defeating hypocrisy of it is annoying as hell—is he meant to accept the new reality of his own accord or isn't he? But there was a time when it would've pissed him off a lot more.

He stands in front of Igor's desk, in a place he doesn't recognize, unsure where he is or what's going to happen to him, or where his friends are, or whether this is a new stage of Maruki's reality or something entirely different, and despair swallows him whole. He waits to be shut down.

And waits. And waits, saturated in misery like he hasn't in weeks. For a split second he almost finds himself grateful to Maruki for taking it away, but he flinches back from going down that road. Like this, frozen, waiting to blink and find that his legs hurt from standing too long, he's barely aware of his surroundings.


2: all the pins inside your fretted head and your muttered whens and hows

Having pulled himself together (and not lost any time, as far as he can tell?), Ren decides that the obvious first stop is the conspicuous board that stands in the strange Velvet Room. It doesn't look... Velvet Room-y. It looks like it was brought in from outside, and as he scans its bizarre contents, he realizes he's right.

The business about Akechis and Rens being fated to be together makes him feel a little sick, so he skims it quickly and moves on. Demons, vampires, okay, that's... he'll deal with that when he has to. But as he reads the list of Akechi codenames, his eyes land on one in particular. In the middle of the corvids and the predators, there's Sparrow.

The description leaves him without any doubt. His stomach sinks. Is Akechi okay? Can he even survive in a place like this? How is Ren going to find him?


3: you gently gift it to me 'cause you've no clue how to sew

In a first, helpless attempt to locate his Akechi (different enough from other Akechis, apparently, to be identified on sight... well, that's true enough), Ren decides to head into Tokyo and go looking for places Akechi still enjoys. Kichijoji is an obvious one, with the jazz bar and Inokashira Park and his apartment, the location of which he kept behind his lips the entire time Ren knew him, only to immediately invite him over in February. But instead of taking the train, Ren walks. Travel is strangely quick, and it gives him time to look at the cognitions, which the board claimed were eerie.

The board wasn't wrong. They don't even seem like the brainwashed people Ren is used to—cognitions is definitely the better term. At least the people back home have some variability in how they act, and at least they have some kind of mild reaction if you inconvenience them. Ren steps in front of them once or twice, sticks out his leg to trip one of them even, and they don't even frown at him.

Maruki's reality is still new. Maybe this is where everyone is going to end up; automatons, puppets, walking around like video game NPCs. His skin crawls. He stands to the side of a busy road in Shibuya and watches, stomach churning.


[[ooc: This is the Ren from pheasantboy's universe.]]

Comments

[pheasantboy]

"Yes, that board you mentioned. You'll have to show it to me." There's no way he can not have seen it, as will be obvious; not if he passes through the Velvet Room at all. And he knows something like that must have happened; he wilts.

"What did it say about me? Though I suppose it would be funny, if you read some dreadful description and thought ah, yes, I know him."

[flightpen]

"Uh." Hm. He hesitates.

"It wasn't bad. It's just. I talked to another one of you, and he mentioned you kind of. Check out sometimes? When it comes to certain things. And the description brought up something that was kind of related to that stuff, so I don't know if I can..."

God, this is awkward. At least at home, he could say whatever, and then Akechi would just forget about it. He seems to retain some memory now, which is... good. It's good. Of course it's good, why was Ren even questioning that? Fuck. But it's hurting him.

[pheasantboy]

"I see." It hurts. He manages to wilt further, looking down, tucking away his phone with the joy of moments before forgotten. "Yes, that's, um. It seems it only happens to me, here. But you aren't saying it's only me, are you, Ren?"

Because what would that imply? If Akechi has these episodes that have disturbed everyone so much, and Ren, who is from his same world, who has these same episodes at home—what would it mean if he's just fine?

[flightpen]

Ren's heart drops. If Akechi has to be like this, the least he could be is happy, and Ren always ruins that too.

"Sorry. I shouldn't have brought it up."

[pheasantboy]

"No!" He sits up, a bit too fast. "I have to—I mean, you have to know. Who did you speak to? Was it Crow?"

He can't think of another of him who's taken such a consistent interest in—well, everything. Even Magpie still just glares at him in the corridors.

[flightpen]

"Yeah." He glances at Akechi. "Why did you cut yourself off? Just then?"

I have to know.

[pheasantboy]

He doesn't want to say. Not to complain to Ren, when he's just got here and needs to rest. "It doesn't matter.

"Listen, do you want to come upstairs? You can see my new apartment." New, tee hee. "You should probably eat something, too. Or would you rather stay outside? It is nice here."

Every so often, a cognition or two walks past, blankly smiling. Akechi doesn't seem to notice.

[flightpen]

"Yeah, let's go up." Why does Akechi have a new apartment, if it's in the same area and Ren can clearly see that the building is still there...? "But it matters to me, Akechi."

[pheasantboy]

...oh. Akechi turns to him just as he stands, breaking into a soft—and probably repellent—smile. Even if Ren's not well, it means so much to have him here.

"I'm afraid you'll find it a familiar tale. I'd rather talk of nicer things." Nice this, nice that. "And things that are more interesting, too. Come on." He turns, to head for the park gate, and across the street—which is missing its usual quiet traffic.

[flightpen]

That fucking smile. Ren is going to be used to it someday, he supposes.

"Okay. Then tell me interesting things about this place." He follows behind Akechi, hands in his pockets. Everything's fine now. He's found Akechi, and okay, maybe Akechi is unhappy, but he isn't—torn into pieces by demons or Shadows. So everything will be okay. It will be. It will be. It has to be.

[pheasantboy]

"Interesting things? Ah, let me give you the list. Stop me if I hit anything you already know." From the board, that is. But he smiles back as they walk from time to time; lucky, he thinks, that he doesn't have to walk Ren out of hell.

"First, the business with the parallel universes. Many copies of me. Fewer of you, for some reason, and fewer again of Haru and Futaba-chan. There are a few others around—Takamaki-san is here, though not the one we know, and Sakamoto-kun, too."

They leave the park, and cross the street towards the building.

[flightpen]

Ren makes a listening noise as they approach the building. He has no intention of stopping Akechi, even if Akechi reads off the whole board point by point.

[pheasantboy]

And Akechi, true to type, cheers up as he gets to explain something, unlocking the door into the building and holding it for Ren. "Igor—you met Igor?—has brought us here to form bonds, though I can't say it's been very useful in my case. I've heard that some people have gone home, too, and even texted back from their own worlds."

Stopping by the elevators, he hits the call button for the top floor, just as he did that first time he invited Ren over, as if it was nothing. He skips over the next most interesting thing, which is how everyone has superpowers (that he can't remember) and comes from a world with misery and pain (because something tells him he won't like the look on Ren's face).

Perhaps in this scenario, Ren is aware of something the rest of you are not... Who had said that to him? Was it Crow, too?

[flightpen]

"Really? Those numbers on our contacts stick around, I guess?"

That's kind of interesting. He watches the floor number on the elevator tick higher and higher. This whole thing is like a dream.

[pheasantboy]

"I presume so. You see, nobody who's left has texted me—though perhaps that's a little unfair, as most of them were children, the way I heard it."

The elevator stops, with an annoyingly tasteful ding. Akechi gets out, and heads not for the west-facing apartment Ren might remember, but to the next side of the building where the apartments face north.

[flightpen]

Oh, yeah, that reminds him. "Why d'you have a new apartment?"

[pheasantboy]

"One of my counterparts got there first, I suppose." The door he stops before is at the end of the corridor, and not even locked; he pushes it open to reveal an absurd amount of pine, and far too many suspiciously-alive houseplants.

[flightpen]

That... makes sense, Ren supposes, although he doesn't like it. But he blinks at the sight that greets him when Akechi opens the door.

"Taking up gardening?"

[pheasantboy]

He laughs that haunting little chuckle, stepping out of his shoes. "I wish I could say so. No, the plants came with the apartment, and no matter what I inflict on them, they just don't die."

But he's excited to show the place to Ren. It's a nice apartment, despite it not being the one his father assigned him—or perhaps because of that; it had always been a little awkward. "Come on. The couch is this way."

[flightpen]

Ren follows silently behind him. Maybe he really is dreaming. Everything is taking on a sense of unreality, like it's behind a pane of glass.

He lets it happen because it's exhausting to fight it, and because Akechi won't notice, or if he does, he'll forget about it a moment later.

[pheasantboy]

The sitting-room really is nice, if not very Akechi—other than in the piles of books that already spill from the plant-covered shelves, and the scattered papers and notebooks, covered in Akechi's handwriting, which is rounder than it once was. The view isn't great, lacking the view of the park and the southern exposure that his old apartment had.

And Akechi does notice, of course; his heart twists. "Oh, Ren," he murmurs, grieved, "Come on, let's get you sat down. I know this has been a lot."

He takes Ren's arm to lead him to the couch. Actually, there are a suspicious number of papers and notebooks. Many of them have gathered dust. As if they were put down, and forgotten, and replaced with new ones that were likewise forgotten.

[flightpen]

He stirs a little as they sit. "I'm okay. Sorry." He is visibly not okay, but that's often the case. He forces himself to notice his surroundings, to make a comment.

"What are all the notebooks?"

Maybe that'll distract Akechi. And then later, when Ren can listen better, he can ask again.

[pheasantboy]

"Hm?" What are the notebooks?, he hears; he glances not around the room, but at a couple of the newest-looking books, on the (pine, of course) coffee table. His face sets.

"Ah, that's a long story. I'm not sure we should get into it now. What if I bring you some soup?—I won't insult you with my coffee, of course."

Let him make you soup, Ren; he so desperately wants to help. Plus, if he leaves the room, Ren will be able to get into the notebooks, many of which lie open. They are diaries of his time here, all depressingly short, all ending with increasingly-vague summaries of conversations where he learned something important, and then put down the book, and forgot—not just the conversation, but the book's very existence. He's had the same idea over and over and... how many times?

[flightpen]

That sounds good, actually. Akechi can go and make himself happy making soup elsewhere, and Ren can just. Sit here. Yeah.

"Soup would be good," he murmurs. "Thanks."

[pheasantboy]

He rests a gentle hand on Ren's forearm, and smiles that awful smile, turning on the TV as he leaves. "Back soon."

In the kitchen, he presses the button on the hot water machine, bustling with mugs and sachets for instant soup. It's good to have Ren here, he thinks, glancing worriedly through the door at the back of Ren's head. Even if he's unwell, it will give them something to do. Perhaps they can puzzle out this mystery together, whatever it is.

Only a couple of minutes later, he's back, placing two mugs of miso soup on prissy cork coasters on the table. The mugs in his apartment back home had still had their blue and black banding; these ones, in his new apartment, are patterned with a scatter of stylised green maple leaves.

He takes his seat beside Ren right away, checking him over, and only then glancing to the TV. "There you are. Nice and hot."—he means the soup. "What are we watching?"