Wandering in

[flowersearcher]

Jose was pretty sure the guys from the real world did something to reality. The way Mementos shifted and wobbled and fell apart entirely as yet another god-like power shimmered out of existence was kind of a giveaway. Well, it was probably for the best, he decided eventually.

Sadly, that left Jose struggling to find any more flowers. Not that he really needed them anymore, but he enjoyed getting to know the human cognition so directly. He wasn't sure how much time he spent wandering through what was left of the now disorganized and disjointed collective unconsciousness before he stumbled on a strange gap in time and space. Unrecognizable but still somewhat familiar like a shape of an object he had only heard stories of. It didn't feel dangerous, though. So, of course, he stepped in.

Jose swept a curious gaze around, blinking at the blue walls surrounding him, and soon the recognition clicked in. He knew what this place was! A Velvet Room. But he wasn't supposed to be here, it was meant for humans, not him. He probably shouldn't bother the guests. As he turned around to politely exit the room, he realized that the gap that let him in was no longer there.

"Aw..." He mumbled under his noise. "That's not good."

Comments

[fogboundcrow]

It's... a kid. But he looks different from a normal kid. The hair is smooth. His nose feels almost puppet-like. How curious!

So curious that this tween Goro Akechi is approaching straight away, as a matter of fact. "Are you one of those Velvet Room attendants?" Other than Marie, he's never really met one. So he could be! But maybe he's not.

[flowersearcher]

Jose startles and looks up at the boy in front of him.

"Oh!" He does not recognize him but there is something distantly familiar about his presence. "I don't think so? Somebody would've told me if I was, probably."

But he still takes a moment to consider the words. Jose never met a Velvet Room attendant personally, so can he really be sure he's not meant to be one? He knew fate could be funny like that.

More importantly, he has to properly introduce himself if he wants to know who the boy is. "I am Jose! Are you this Velvet Room's guest?"

[fogboundcrow]

"...I suppose? Technically, we're all guests of this Velvet Room." He quickly glances over at his conspiracy board, which will absolutely need some updates later. "It seems that for whatever reason, Igor-san is bringing us all here to cultivate bonds amongst one another, including people from various differing realities."

Will this boy understand that? Akechi isn't too sure. He knows about the Velvet Room, so he's clearly got some supernatural awareness, setting aside his looks. How curious...

[flowersearcher]

Jose follows the boy's gaze to the board and tilts his head as he tries to see it better from where he's standing. That looked peculiar. So there's way more people around than he assumed a Velvet Room was meant to have.

"I see," he nods sagely, which ends up looking rather silly with his childlike face. "That's why it felt strange. This Velvet Room allows a bunch of timelines to cross together so you all can get even stronger!"

It made sense. Except he's still pretty sure he was an accidental intruder, not a guest. "So how do I leave?" He asks. Strangely, he can't sense any trace that would lead him back to his reality.

[fogboundcrow]

He cups his chin in hand. He's taking this all so nonchalantly. How interesting.

"Technically, you can't leave to your home reality, but the doors over there can take you to different locales. Mikage-cho, Inaba, Iwatodai, and Tokyo are just a few examples. That, and there is a way to get to cognitive spaces such as the Metaverse."

[flowersearcher]

"Oh." Jose looks troubled at that but his frown smoothes out almost immediately. "Alright then. If we can't leave on our own then something else will make us leave later, so it's fine."

He smiles up at the boy, noticeably more cheerful. If what he was saying was true, then Jose had a new way to study new humans in a new space. Exciting! "You seem to know a lot about this place! It's all cognitive, right? Then who's giving shape to the Metaverse in here?" He asks, wondering if it's that much different from his version of Mementos.

[fogboundcrow]

"Everything is cognitive here, including the cities. It's sort of... replications? Travel distances are condensed, but key locations are easily recognizable." Still, that raises some curious questions. Someone... giving shape?

For some reason, the idea of such a thing hadn't crossed his mind, and he casts a quiet glance at Igor. "Are cognitive spaces supposed to be maintained, though? Igor-san could be the source, but this is honestly news to me."

Well, setting aside dungeons, and apparently palaces. But those are subspaces in a larger space, he'd thought.

[flowersearcher]

So the boy had no idea? Well, it's ok. Jose didn't know everything in the world, either.

"Somebody must be keeping all these cognitions in here together because it's not natural." He peeks at the figure behind the desk. They seemed powerful enough for sure. "But to shape a cognition, one must be cognizant of it. For example, I can't make an accurate cognition of an ice cream, but most humans can, because they know and believe all sorts of things! Even about themselves. And that's how I study them!" He says preening, a little proud of how much better he became at explaining these things to the real people.

[fogboundcrow]

He nods along, intrigued by this information. So there are powerful beings that maintain cognitive spaces. They don't simply just... exist. He's half-tempted to ask about it until something catches his ear.

"You've never had ice cream." Something as simple as ice cream, and he doesn't know? "Well then. I suppose we'll just have to fix that, won't we? I'm sure it'll make your studies far simpler, too."

[youngestdawn]

There's a new person! Many new people lately...and they look about his age! Aki-chan sedately scampers (which for him is a light jog) up to the new arrival. Hello!

(A five-year-old Akira is rapidly approaching Jose. His face is mostly blank with a hint of curiosity, and his eyes are wide and grey. He's got a large hoodie on and is carrying a well-worn notebook.)

[flowersearcher]

Jose notices the boy approaching him and raises a hand to wave at him cheerfully.

"Hi there! You must be one of the guests?" He asks as the boy closes the distance. There's something extremely familiar about him but Jose is immediately distracted by the fact he doesn't have to look so high up when talking to this person. "Woah, you're really not that tall!"

[youngestdawn]

“He-o,” Aki-chan greets the new person, a little shy. “Nogues. Jussakid. Smol.”

[flowersearcher]

Jose nods thoughtfully at that.

"Not a guest and pretty small. Just like me, then!" He smiles brightly. It was always good to find something in common with others. It helped strengthen the bonds, from what he gathered in his studies. "My name is Jose. I'm new in here."

[youngestdawn]

Yesyes, just like Aki-chan! They have many things in common. He nods.

He opens up his journal and turns it to the first page, an introduction page decorated with washi tape and shows it to Jose. In his five-year-old handwriting, it reads:

"Hi! My name is Kurusu Akira. Call me Akira-kun or Aki-chan. I'm five years old. I have selective mutism, which means I can't talk sometimes, but I can sign. Thank you for your understanding."

[flowersearcher]

Jose leans slightly forward to read the words. Five years wasn't a lot, was it? That would explain the small part.

"Interesting! I know not everyone uses voice to talk, but I don't know how to hear signs. Sorry." He says, genuinely apologetic. "Still, nice to meet you!"

He dug his hands into his pockets to retrieve some kind of trinket, only to find them empty.

"Aw, I don't have anything on me to seal the friendship either..." This was rapidly turning into a disaster.

[youngestdawn]

Oh! Aki-chan can fix that. He opens his journal to the page right behind his intro page. At the top, it reads "Guest Book". It's a place for people to sign so he can carry them with him! Akira-kun holds out his clicker pen to Jose-kun. "Sine?"

[flowersearcher]

The sight of the offered pen makes Jose perk up in an instant. He takes the pen and hovers it over the page.

"I've never signed anything before," he confesses. "It's supposed to represent the person it belongs to, right? Then..."

After a moment deep, serious consideration, Jose draws a big star and, almost as an afterthought, scribbles his name next to it. He tried to make it special and put as much of his good will into the drawing as he could. Gifts were meant to come from the heart.

"Here! Stars make wishes come true, or so I've heard." Jose smiles as he held the pen back to Aki-chan.

[willowandoak]

Ren recognizes Jose on sight, which is lucky; if he'd come here two weeks earlier, he wouldn't have. But the Phantom Thieves took him into Mementos to train him up for Niijima's Palace—which is a hilarious concept, that he'd need training to take on Niijima, but he played along. And that's where he met this... kid, or kidlike being, although he's as obviously inhuman as any Shadow. Akechi claimed that Jose's been been in Mementos as long as Akechi's been going there, but Ren sure as fuck never saw him before he joined the Thieves. Just like Ren never got a magical talking cat, or a team. Go figure.

Anyway! This is probably not his Jose, but it's a Jose. Ren has never trusted him; too mysterious, with his powers and motives unknown. But it should be possible to earn some goodwill, and that might be useful someday. So Ren heads over, hands in his pockets. "Hey, dude."

[flowersearcher]

Jose's face brightens the second he spots who's approached him. He hadn't seen his masked friends ever since they helped him vent his feelings quite a while ago. And while he knew their paths were meant to diverge, he still missed trading with the quiet one, continuing to pick up small trinkets he knew the human liked most even when the Mementos let him know their connection was severed.

The sight of his old friend makes him smile. Sure, he looks a little different now, but he's still recognizable! Humans change all the time.

"Onii-san!" Jose waves up at him. Then his hand falters. That's not how his reality smells. "Wait, that's not right. We haven't met before, have we?"

[willowandoak]

That's that confirmed, then. "Nah. I've met another one of you, though. The you from my world."

He waits to see what response he'll get to that. If anyone is able to take this stuff in stride, it'll be Jose.

[flowersearcher]

That sparks Jose's curiosity. He hasn't stopped to wonder if he had any other versions of himself running around all these different planes of reality. But why not? He had no reason to doubt this stranger.

"Interesting! I think I've met another you too. So, what am I like?"

[willowandoak]

As Ren thought, Jose is fine with it all. Or at least he acts like he is. "Weird," he says bluntly. "Transactional. Curious. Powerful, but you're either friendly or putting on a good act."

[flowersearcher]

"Act?" Jose asks, momentarily confused. Why would he need to act? "I haven't tried acting before. Is me from your world trying to gain something from you?"

The description itself doesn't bother him. It was subjective, and probably not that even all that wrong.

[willowandoak]

"Hard to say. I've only met you once." He tilts his head, remembering watching in bafflement as Akechi chatted familiarly with Jose, exchanging items; remembering Niijima telling him that as far as they knew, Jose had just always been there. "You seemed to have a thing going with my Akechi where he traded you flowers for stuff you found in Mementos. And something about stamps? Still don't know what you get out of that, to be honest..."

[flowersearcher]

"Sorry, I don't know who that is. None of you guys ever told me your names if you had any." He heard his friends use common, although foreign, words to refer to each other, so he just did that too. "But that does sound like me! Except in my world, I traded with you."

Now that the confusion was cleared up a little, Jose smiles again. "It's good to know that you guys are helping the other me too! The stamps were not for me, though. They were for you."