a tale of two Harus

[coolcustomer]

All right. Haru's claimed an apartment, had a couple... interesting conversations, and settled in well enough to raid her father's house for some of her gardening projects. It's time to get her rooftop garden back in order. But first: shopping around for other goodies.

Why this led her to the Inaba door, she couldn't articulate - it just... felt like something she should do. But she's glad it did. There are vegetables here that she hasn't seen before, and all of them look like they'd be useful in the Metaverse. Attack blockers, wheat stalks strong enough to function as lockpicks, status ailment cures - where has this stuff been all her Metaverse career?

She reaches for a pack of eggplant seedlings at the same time as someone else, and looks up to find - herself. Sort of. Maybe a little younger, definitely a little gothier - definitely, if Haru is any judge of her own face, a lot more burned by the world.

Her counterpart smiles, too brief and more amused than genuinely happy. "I really should have expected this, after I heard I was here twice."

"I hadn't heard that," Haru says, wondering who they've both talked to (or more likely, which version of Akechi-kun they've both talked to).

"Lucky me, then. Well, at least we can use our code names for clarity - 'Noir' is a little on the nose, don't you think?"

"That - that was the point." Haru's mind is racing. That answers one question, as she doubts Shujin Akechi or the Ren who helped her apartment-hunt would know that detail offhand, and raises about a million more. She decides to start with a simple and useful one. "What did you choose?"

"Rose," her counterpart says, after a moment too long's hesitation.

"No, you didn't."

"There's a half-dozen versions of my only friend here and none of them are mine. Can you blame me for keeping some information in reserve?"

"...No, I suppose I can't." And that answers several of Haru's unasked questions. Yusuke-kun did say once that any one of them could have taken a dark path, if they'd lacked support. She just tries not to think about how close she came to that.

Well, if their meeting place is any indication, at least her love for plants survived whatever hell her counterpart's father unleashed (even in her complicated feelings, Haru has no doubt he was ultimately responsible; there was a time she would have done anything for his approval).

"It's curious." Rose's attention is back on the rack of seedlings. "Why only four varieties of the paprika, when there are eight elements to shield from?"

"You know, that's a good question. Do you... think we could grow the other four?"

Rose grins, sharp and delighted in equal measure. "I don't see why we shouldn't try."

***

With their shopping done, the girls have decamped to the upturned crates outside Souzai Daigaku, the better to compare notes on their respective experiences. Bother?

Comments

[pheasantboy]

"No, it's not like that. It isn't about him. That's just how things are." How to explain it to her?

"Haven't you—I suppose you must have had many unpleasant thoughts. Are you just trapped with them? Don't you find something more pleasant, to make them go away?"

[coolcustomer]

"In my experience, it isn't that simple. Escapism doesn't make the problem go away - it just distracts you for a little while. And if you're forgetting he's there, how is it not like that?"

As unsettling as this conversation is, she wants to try to understand.

[pheasantboy]

"I don't want to forget he's there." It's a tough admission. "If he's there, and he's suffering—I want to do something.

"And you don't understand why I don't, do you?" He rests his chin on one hand, doleful. "Honestly, now that I talk about it. I'm not sure I understand. It's as if there's the world, and all of its people—" he gestures to one side with that hand he was resting on—"and then there's Ren. Alone.

"We can't see him because the world is in the way."

[coolcustomer]

"I understand wanting to make sure your friend isn't suffering alone. That's one of the things that brought my group of friends together to begin with." It's just that the starting point for each of them was so, so bleak.

[pheasantboy]

"I can understand that." It's automatic, more than it's intended; he understands, deep down, that idea of how shared misery can end up bringing people together. But then he thinks about it a little more; a confused crease appears between his eyebrows. How did they all meet?

Well, no point bothering too much about that. He blinks at her. "That's... how you did it, isn't it? Each of you faced a hardship, that drew you together."

[coolcustomer]

"Can you?" It's the things like that automatic response, and the stuff he hesitates around, that suggest his whole world wasn't always like this. The real question is how hard it's worth it to push.

"It is, yes."

[pheasantboy]

"Because—you needed each other, yes? You needed someone to rely on. No matter what." I'm glad you're still normal, even in this bizarre situation... He doesn't remember the words, but he feels sick, abruptly, for no reason he can think of

(we're taking the offer

there's nothing left i can say our deal's off)

His voice drops and sharpens, brittle and, possibly, terribly familiar. "But it's nonsense, isn't it? It can't possibly work that way. You can't build a friendship on nothing but trauma. The whole idea is absurd." let yourself count on someone, trust someone, even for a moment, and when you need them most....

[coolcustomer]

...There he is. Haru suspects she's the least equipped person here to be having this part of the conversation, but she's not going to let the opportunity go just because of that.

Still, this is proof that it wasn't always like that, or he wouldn't be so upset.

"That's because you don't build it on nothing but trauma. You build it on common ground, and sometimes that common ground is a deeper understanding of each other's bad experiences, but you make something good from it. You build happiness for yourself despite what the world's tried to take from you. A little support can make all the difference."

1/2

[pheasantboy]

"Bullshit." He throws himself back on his crate, folding his arms up tight, hurting more than he's hurt since that moment he walked out into the snow for the last time....

2/2

[pheasantboy]

... and then, of course, he fades. It's a bad one; his lips part, and he stares at nothing as he ceases to blink; as the patchwork around that memory is hemmed around, invisibly mended, made not to catch the eye.

He sits for a minute or more before he blinks again, and smiles blandly—only to see the look on her face. "I'm terribly sorry. I was asking about your garden, yes? The paprika?"

[coolcustomer]

Well, that's that, then. She was probably lucky to get that much out of him at all.

"We'd... already talked about that."

[pheasantboy]

"... oh." He deflates. His throat hurts, like he's screamed at the top of his voice. His chest hurts like... like nothing he can remember. Again, he looks worriedly at her face.

"Did I... do something?"

[coolcustomer]

"You just reminded me of someone I know, for a moment."

Yeah, himself.

[pheasantboy]

He can make the connection. "Your version of me, I'm taking it.

"I never asked. Are the two of you friends?"

[coolcustomer]

"Not... particularly. It's a bit complicated."

[pheasantboy]

"... oh." And he sits back. So the other Haru is friends with him—though not with him, clearly—but this one isn't. And again, he can draw conclusions. Something tells him they weren't dating, so the likelihood is....

"It sounds like he has quite a lot in common with me." Just going around upsetting people, like he does.

[coolcustomer]

(Well, Rose's Goro's fan club sure thinks they're dating, whether they are or not. They're both content to let the fan club be terminally confused.)

"How so?" It's an interesting conclusion for him to reach, when it's the dissimilarities that are unsettling everyone (at least, they're upsetting Haru, and when half the remaining population here is variations on the theme of Akechi, she has to assume they're weirded out as well).

[pheasantboy]

"Just that he upsets you. Which isn't how I'd necessarily expect things to be. Your counterpart, after all, got on well with her version of me."

[coolcustomer]

Only a lifetime of etiquette training is stopping Haru from breaking down in hysterical laughter. Of all the possibilities, that's the one he seized on?

"Yes, well, they have... more common experiences to draw from, as I understand it."

Common experiences that don't involve him killing Rose's father. (At least. Not without her involvement, which given her opinion of the man seems a given.)

[pheasantboy]

"Common experiences?" After all, isn't that just the problem? The dividing line between him and everyone else here? "I suppose you're right."

He gets up to go, smile returning, as if he was never hurt. "I should get on. I was thinking of seeing a movie. They're rerunning Who Are You, back in Shibuya."

[coolcustomer]

It's the way he constantly bounces back to that happy state that's the most unnerving.

"Well, I hope you enjoy the movie."

[pheasantboy]

"Oh, I'm sure I will. I saw it back home, you know." And he'd rather liked it, until the end, which had made him want to scream and throw things. But he doesn't remember that. "It was very highly rated.

"I'm sorry again for disturbing you and your friend." But after all, he had to try. "Take care."

[coolcustomer]

"You too." She wants to reassure him he didn't disturb anything, but... that would be a lie, and they'd both know it.