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

[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?"

[flightpen]

When he checks Ren over, he'll see a glazed stare and a faraway expression. He hasn't moved much, if at all, since Akechi left the room. It's not until Akechi talks to him that he blinks and tries to... be around. Be present.

"Thanks. Um." He has no idea what they're watching. He looks at the TV, which gives him very little information. "...A kids' show?"

It isn't, but all the people in the reality show are orbs.

[pheasantboy]

"The orbs, yes." He's sitting very close, hoping to ground Ren with his presence. What are they watching? Well, there's a lot of tinsel, and the orbs are bouncing back and forth singing something in Orbese: the farmorb wants a sporb, the farmorb wants a sporb...

"Uh. Sporb... is that spoon? Sprat? Spouse?" He doesn't recognise any of the orbs. "I'm not sure if this is for the children or not, to be honest. At least they aren't us."

[flightpen]

At least they aren't what...? He makes another questioning noise as he picks up his soup, wrapping his hands around the mug. It's warm in his hands, like Akechi is warm beside him, like the cold air outside (early February air, February 2nd, don't think about it) wasn't.

[pheasantboy]

Akechi has already as good as forgotten that confusion over the dates. He takes up his own mug.

"Sometimes we—the people here, I mean—appear on the TV. Sometimes as orbs, like this. Sometimes in other ways. You were on Featherman, once. Very sparkly."

[flightpen]

"Sparkly...?" Is Featherman sparkly? Why was he on Featherman? In light of everything else, these are tiny questions, but at least he's showing a little interest.

He takes a tentative sip of his soup. It brings him back a bit more, which is probably good. Akechi will be pleased about it, anyway.

[pheasantboy]

Indeed, the light in his eyes becomes more carefree. It seems more likely that the two of them share whatever quirk of reality causes them to come and go. If only Ren wasn't so strangely sad.

"Yes. You know, like those movies with the vampires. You took your helmet off, and"—he laughs, turning a little pink—" tossed your hair, and sparkled. Quite the thing to see, during an afternoon channel-hop."

[flightpen]

The little blush turns Ren's stomach. His Shadow wouldn't blush at the memory of Ren sparkling, that's for damn sure.

"Sounds embarrassing," he mumbles. On the TV, the orbs wearing overalls are bouncing around in some kind of group dance with the orbs in suits and dresses. "This is good, by the way." He lifts his mug a little.

[pheasantboy]

Huh, so that wasn't the right thing to say. "You're welcome. I suppose, with all the free time I've had, I should have started making it from scratch.

"I can probably find it, if I look. Or another example of the genre, that being embarrassing everyone in sight. Or a nature documentary—those are often okay, for some reason."

The dancing orbs aren't without their charm, though.

[flightpen]

"A nature documentary sounds good." Maybe it won't have the orbs. Maybe it'll be normal. ...Probably not, but maybe.

[pheasantboy]

"Hm. Well, let's see what we can find." And he starts to hop through the channels—a couple of men in bear masks breaking into a locked room, the news being read by someone in an Akechi wig (Further Shinjuku Explosions Deemed Unlikely, Inquiry Reveals), a Ren orb having a furious conversation with a cat-eared Morganorb... Akechi pauses on that last one, with a pleased sound, before moving on in a search for nature.

"Do you mind if I tell you something?" After all, maybe he can at least commiserate. If anyone can understand some of what Ren's feeling, surely he can?

[flightpen]

"Huh?" He glances over. "Go ahead."

He has a bad feeling about this.

[pheasantboy]

The little smile fades from his face, as he tries again to catch Ren's eye. "I'm glad you're here," he says, softly. "It's been awful to be alone. A couple of people here try to be patient with me, you know, the way you're patient with old people. I don't like it very much, if you want the truth."

How much is it a distortion of things his former self might have thought? Maybe it's not at all, or maybe it's close. How is Ren to know?

[flightpen]

"Oh," says Ren quietly, thinking of Akechi alone in the whole world, the way Ren is alone back home—except worse, because apparently Akechi is having weird blackouts now. Not that Ren and Akechi live in the same world at home, not really. But at least they're from the same place. Ren understands him better than anyone else here.

"Then I'm glad I came."

[pheasantboy]

And Akechi doesn't question his assumptions. Of course Ren would be glad to be with him, the way he's glad to be with Ren. With his mug in one hand, he rests a hand briefly on Ren's shoulder, rather more innocently than he used to in Sae's Palace.

"We'll get through it. Eventually we'll go home, and we can—" He breaks off, with a pained little laugh, painful in how it is almost familiar. "Well, we can forget the whole business. With a bit of luck."

[flightpen]

"Yeah." He can't muster any enthusiasm about that prospect, but maybe Akechi will dismiss it as general exhaustion.

"I want to ask you some stuff later, though. I know you don't want to talk about it now."

Akechi won't want to talk about it later, either, but Ren is going to have to ask about his episodes of blanking out. And the notebooks piled around them scrape at his nerves.

[pheasantboy]

But Akechi blinks at him—or rather, at the tip of Ren's nose, they're sitting so close.

"I don't mind if you want to ask. I'm just worried about you overdoing it."

[flightpen]

Well, if Akechi says it's okay.

"The notebooks. Not—the ones on the table. The rest of them." He gestures to a few. "What are they?"

[pheasantboy]

... and there it is again, that little glare that's so unlike him now. He hates feeling out of the loop now more than he ever knew he could.

"What do you mean?"

[flightpen]

"Um."

His voice cracks. Akechi hasn't glared at him like that in months. He used to not care, used to even welcome it, but now it makes him want to flinch away and curl up somewhere safe. He really is pathetic now, fuck.

He swallows. "There are a lot of notebooks in here. Some of them look like they've been here awhile. We're kind of... surrounded by them, actually."