On the fourth day of Christmas
Dec. 29th, 2013 09:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tallulahgsmy true love sent to me
four mysterious keys
[Title] Relating to Children
[Fandom] Akira (manga)
[Rating] PG
[Mysterious Key] A small psychic child, the existence of whose personality is debatable
Kaori is shy around most people, and she's often shy around little kids (especially if they seem more confident than she is despite being half her age) and she's definitely shy around people who rule the city and have magic powers. At first she didn't know how she was meant to act around Akira. It felt silly being super-worshipful. (Okay, deep down it felt more than silly, it felt really bad because of all the stuff the Great Tokyo Empire did, but she couldn't afford to think about that.) It felt silly, but at the same time he was such a quiet kid, and he watched everyone and didn't say anything or laugh or run about, so acting like you would with a regular child didn't feel right either.
But now it's been a good few days and no one is laughing at her, he isn't laughing at her, and the point is a lot of the time it's just the two of them eating soup together or her watching him play, and you have to sort of pick a way to act in the end, even if it's wrong. She doesn't like talking and talking, and she thinks he wouldn't like that either, so mostly they're just quiet, but sometimes she says something like, “Look at the birds!” or “It's cold today, isn't it?” or, like now, “I'm sorry it's mushroom. I know you don't like it. I don't think anyone does, really.”
(Of course, most people have stopped caring about the taste of food, they just want to make sure they actually have some. Kaori wonders if Akira knows about that sort of stuff. If he understands it. Most little kids wouldn't, but most little kids aren't supposed to be ruling the city.)
(Tetsuo definitely knows. But Kaori is really making sure not to think too deeply about Tetsuo.)
Akira looks if she points something out, but otherwise he's silent. Of course, he might not even understand, some kids don't. But he doesn't look confused. Just... watchful. (Tetsuo snapped at her once, I wouldn't bother being too nice to him. He's too far gone, he's just the power and nothing else. He sounded angry, but Kaori couldn't tell if he thought it was a bad thing to have happened or if he was jealous.)
(Not thinking about Tetsuo.)
But even as she thinks about not thinking, he's there suddenly, in the doorway, shoving through the tattered curtain. He doesn't stop to look at them, just prowls past to stand by the drop to the sunlit water below. Akira's eyes move, just a little, to glance at him. Kaori keeps looking at her soup. Tetsuo doesn't hang around, though. He's moving quickly, like they're all being too dull and slow for him; already turning back the way he's come. “That soup smells like shit. What is it, fucking mushroom? Makes me want to puke.” Kaori glances over at Akira, and sees him smile, just a little. She smiles back – quickly, if Tetsuo thinks they're laughing at him then she'll be the one in trouble. But she'll risk it. Akira's listening to her, he understands what she says. And, actually, it's quite nice to maybe know something Tetsuo doesn't.
[Title] Key Evidence on the Kira Case
[Fandom] Death Note
[Rating] G
[Mysterious Key] A black notebook which kills anyone whose name you write in it
Matsuda can't stop looking at the notebook – picking it up – flicking through it. He even sniffs at the pages a couple of times and Aizawa yells at him to stop smelling the evidence and L sighs and rolls his eyes as if he's never sniffed at things like a weirdo before.
“I'm sorry!” Matsuda says, and hastily puts the thing down. “I just wanted to see if it smelt any different from like a notebook in a shop, that's all!”
“And does it?” Aizawa snaps.
Matsuda shakes his head. Black cover mottled under his fingers, the smell of paper and leather, the way the lines on each page make a zigzag along the edge of the book. The only weird thing is the way the Death Note on the front hangs there in white letters (who has a white pen?) and how black the inside of the cover is (no printed pages in a stationery store come out that dark). Apart from that, it really does look like something you'd pick up at the start of the new school term, or to scribble reminders in at work.
“It concerns me too, Matsuda-san,” L says round a mouthful of toffee. “One feels instinctively that it should feel other-worldly in some respect. Of course, things very rarely match up with one's emotional response to them – wouldn't you agree, Raito-kun? - but it's a very human instinct to try and reconcile things. However, I would recommend you refrain from sniffing the notebook again. It's agitating Aizawa-san.” He picks the Note up again, thumb and forefinger, and studies it, head on one side. Matsuda thinks that actually, they're equally as baffled. Which should be pleasing – that he and the great L are for once on the same level – but actually is just kind of scary. He thinks that really, L didn't expect Kira's murder weapon to be so normal either.
[Title] Bootleg
[Fandom] Jet Set Radio
[Rating] PG
[Mysterious Key] A record that may or may not have the power to summon a demon
Note: some of the dialogue and situation in this was inspired byglossological. She knows why ^^
Cube leans against the sun-warmed doorframe and squints into the tiny shop. It's so dark in there she can barely see the walls, never mind the people. “Are you done in there? It's a day for catching air, not buying second-hand bootlegs that smell of mould.”
“It is always a day for buying second-hand bootlegs,” Coin says, appearing out of the darkness with his arms round a large plastic bag of vinyl-shaped objects. “And besides, aren't you supposed to hate the sun and love Satan or whatever? Why am I the one lurking in a dark room when the sun's out?”
“Because you have a problem,” Cube says, grabbing at the bag. Coin quickly holds it away from her: “Hey, hey, I spent less than ten dollars on this little lot, it's a bargain, you can't call me on it -”
“How many?”
Coin grins, looking shifty. “You know how I said I'd try and keep it to fifty-two records in one year?”
“I do.” Cube folds her arms.
“That may have been sort of optimistic.”
“How many records do you have in that bag? Tell me or I'm going to chase you down and spray I Heart The Backstreet Boys on your shirt.”
“It may be sort of around the... twenty-one mark.” Coin starts to skate down the street, whistling. Cube hurries round to face him, skates backwards, and fixes him with her best glare. “It's April.”
“Yup.”
“You've already bought nearly half of your allowance of vinyl.”
“That... may be the case.”
“I would upgrade your plan from optimistic to completely beyond the realms of probability.”
“That's hurtful, but accurate.”
Cube keeps the glare up for another moment or two before dashing round and trying to get another look in the bag. “So, what'd you get that I'd like?”
Coin laughs. “Knew you'd see things my way. Not so much of your screamo thrash hardcore this time -”
“Loser -”
“I mean this one -” He stops, scrabbles in the bag, holds up a sleeveless record with a jagged red demon zigzagging round the grooves. “Looks like it might be your type of thing, but hell if I know what's on it. Could be some shitty teenyboppers trying to be edgy. Could be someone's art project got mixed in with a garage sale and it won't even play. But it looked -”
“It looked interesting, so I decided to pay good money for it? Money my starving gangmates could've spent on paint and pizza?”
Coin slides the weird record back into the bag. “Pizza tastes way better when you have a good soundtrack to eat it to. C'mon, race you back to the loft. I got an electronica-punk mash-up in this little lot I think you'll really dig, and I reckon I could overlay it with the new J-5 track so that'd keep Combo happy...”
“And distract him from the spending-too-much-cash-on-music thing...”
“I told you, it was an amazing deal...”
Down the sunlit street, the trains rattling above them. Cube's already pretty much forgotten about the demon-y record.
[Title] Symbol of the Revolution
[Fandom] Portal
[Rating] PG
[Mysterious Key] A woman with a Portal Device and abnormally high tenacity scores
She'd understood it when it was just words on the walls. Hell, she'd been grateful, seeing as a lot of the time it had been this way or arrows or crosses in useful places. Okay, the poems about cubes and the help help help had been a little unsettling, but god knew she'd been wanting to go help help help for a while now and if she didn't, it was just because she never let other people make her speak when she didn't want to. And perhaps if she could remember any poems, she'd have said them, just to make herself think about something that wasn't all this.
And the teeth and screaming faces and dying stick-men – sure, they were disturbing, but it'd have been a hell of a lot more disturbing if it had been all kittens and flowers and, yeah, cake. This place pretty much was teeth and screaming and deaths of people you'd never known. A noticeable taste of blood.
But the drawings of her weren't like that. They weren't screaming. They were...
On the wall, she was a neat curved figure in orange, clutching the portal gun. An icon. A symbol. Everyone else was scrawled and blotchy, faceless (or screaming). On the wall, she was the hero. The angel.
She wondered if he had any idea how scared she was, or how tired, or that her mouth was constantly dry and she could really use a shower and maybe she just wasn't talking because she was terrified nothing she could say would help. She wondered if he'd be angry that his mysterious, defiant escape route was just as patched-together and barely-holding-up as everything else.
four mysterious keys
[Title] Relating to Children
[Fandom] Akira (manga)
[Rating] PG
[Mysterious Key] A small psychic child, the existence of whose personality is debatable
Kaori is shy around most people, and she's often shy around little kids (especially if they seem more confident than she is despite being half her age) and she's definitely shy around people who rule the city and have magic powers. At first she didn't know how she was meant to act around Akira. It felt silly being super-worshipful. (Okay, deep down it felt more than silly, it felt really bad because of all the stuff the Great Tokyo Empire did, but she couldn't afford to think about that.) It felt silly, but at the same time he was such a quiet kid, and he watched everyone and didn't say anything or laugh or run about, so acting like you would with a regular child didn't feel right either.
But now it's been a good few days and no one is laughing at her, he isn't laughing at her, and the point is a lot of the time it's just the two of them eating soup together or her watching him play, and you have to sort of pick a way to act in the end, even if it's wrong. She doesn't like talking and talking, and she thinks he wouldn't like that either, so mostly they're just quiet, but sometimes she says something like, “Look at the birds!” or “It's cold today, isn't it?” or, like now, “I'm sorry it's mushroom. I know you don't like it. I don't think anyone does, really.”
(Of course, most people have stopped caring about the taste of food, they just want to make sure they actually have some. Kaori wonders if Akira knows about that sort of stuff. If he understands it. Most little kids wouldn't, but most little kids aren't supposed to be ruling the city.)
(Tetsuo definitely knows. But Kaori is really making sure not to think too deeply about Tetsuo.)
Akira looks if she points something out, but otherwise he's silent. Of course, he might not even understand, some kids don't. But he doesn't look confused. Just... watchful. (Tetsuo snapped at her once, I wouldn't bother being too nice to him. He's too far gone, he's just the power and nothing else. He sounded angry, but Kaori couldn't tell if he thought it was a bad thing to have happened or if he was jealous.)
(Not thinking about Tetsuo.)
But even as she thinks about not thinking, he's there suddenly, in the doorway, shoving through the tattered curtain. He doesn't stop to look at them, just prowls past to stand by the drop to the sunlit water below. Akira's eyes move, just a little, to glance at him. Kaori keeps looking at her soup. Tetsuo doesn't hang around, though. He's moving quickly, like they're all being too dull and slow for him; already turning back the way he's come. “That soup smells like shit. What is it, fucking mushroom? Makes me want to puke.” Kaori glances over at Akira, and sees him smile, just a little. She smiles back – quickly, if Tetsuo thinks they're laughing at him then she'll be the one in trouble. But she'll risk it. Akira's listening to her, he understands what she says. And, actually, it's quite nice to maybe know something Tetsuo doesn't.
[Title] Key Evidence on the Kira Case
[Fandom] Death Note
[Rating] G
[Mysterious Key] A black notebook which kills anyone whose name you write in it
Matsuda can't stop looking at the notebook – picking it up – flicking through it. He even sniffs at the pages a couple of times and Aizawa yells at him to stop smelling the evidence and L sighs and rolls his eyes as if he's never sniffed at things like a weirdo before.
“I'm sorry!” Matsuda says, and hastily puts the thing down. “I just wanted to see if it smelt any different from like a notebook in a shop, that's all!”
“And does it?” Aizawa snaps.
Matsuda shakes his head. Black cover mottled under his fingers, the smell of paper and leather, the way the lines on each page make a zigzag along the edge of the book. The only weird thing is the way the Death Note on the front hangs there in white letters (who has a white pen?) and how black the inside of the cover is (no printed pages in a stationery store come out that dark). Apart from that, it really does look like something you'd pick up at the start of the new school term, or to scribble reminders in at work.
“It concerns me too, Matsuda-san,” L says round a mouthful of toffee. “One feels instinctively that it should feel other-worldly in some respect. Of course, things very rarely match up with one's emotional response to them – wouldn't you agree, Raito-kun? - but it's a very human instinct to try and reconcile things. However, I would recommend you refrain from sniffing the notebook again. It's agitating Aizawa-san.” He picks the Note up again, thumb and forefinger, and studies it, head on one side. Matsuda thinks that actually, they're equally as baffled. Which should be pleasing – that he and the great L are for once on the same level – but actually is just kind of scary. He thinks that really, L didn't expect Kira's murder weapon to be so normal either.
[Title] Bootleg
[Fandom] Jet Set Radio
[Rating] PG
[Mysterious Key] A record that may or may not have the power to summon a demon
Note: some of the dialogue and situation in this was inspired by
glossological. She knows why ^^Cube leans against the sun-warmed doorframe and squints into the tiny shop. It's so dark in there she can barely see the walls, never mind the people. “Are you done in there? It's a day for catching air, not buying second-hand bootlegs that smell of mould.”
“It is always a day for buying second-hand bootlegs,” Coin says, appearing out of the darkness with his arms round a large plastic bag of vinyl-shaped objects. “And besides, aren't you supposed to hate the sun and love Satan or whatever? Why am I the one lurking in a dark room when the sun's out?”
“Because you have a problem,” Cube says, grabbing at the bag. Coin quickly holds it away from her: “Hey, hey, I spent less than ten dollars on this little lot, it's a bargain, you can't call me on it -”
“How many?”
Coin grins, looking shifty. “You know how I said I'd try and keep it to fifty-two records in one year?”
“I do.” Cube folds her arms.
“That may have been sort of optimistic.”
“How many records do you have in that bag? Tell me or I'm going to chase you down and spray I Heart The Backstreet Boys on your shirt.”
“It may be sort of around the... twenty-one mark.” Coin starts to skate down the street, whistling. Cube hurries round to face him, skates backwards, and fixes him with her best glare. “It's April.”
“Yup.”
“You've already bought nearly half of your allowance of vinyl.”
“That... may be the case.”
“I would upgrade your plan from optimistic to completely beyond the realms of probability.”
“That's hurtful, but accurate.”
Cube keeps the glare up for another moment or two before dashing round and trying to get another look in the bag. “So, what'd you get that I'd like?”
Coin laughs. “Knew you'd see things my way. Not so much of your screamo thrash hardcore this time -”
“Loser -”
“I mean this one -” He stops, scrabbles in the bag, holds up a sleeveless record with a jagged red demon zigzagging round the grooves. “Looks like it might be your type of thing, but hell if I know what's on it. Could be some shitty teenyboppers trying to be edgy. Could be someone's art project got mixed in with a garage sale and it won't even play. But it looked -”
“It looked interesting, so I decided to pay good money for it? Money my starving gangmates could've spent on paint and pizza?”
Coin slides the weird record back into the bag. “Pizza tastes way better when you have a good soundtrack to eat it to. C'mon, race you back to the loft. I got an electronica-punk mash-up in this little lot I think you'll really dig, and I reckon I could overlay it with the new J-5 track so that'd keep Combo happy...”
“And distract him from the spending-too-much-cash-on-music thing...”
“I told you, it was an amazing deal...”
Down the sunlit street, the trains rattling above them. Cube's already pretty much forgotten about the demon-y record.
[Title] Symbol of the Revolution
[Fandom] Portal
[Rating] PG
[Mysterious Key] A woman with a Portal Device and abnormally high tenacity scores
She'd understood it when it was just words on the walls. Hell, she'd been grateful, seeing as a lot of the time it had been this way or arrows or crosses in useful places. Okay, the poems about cubes and the help help help had been a little unsettling, but god knew she'd been wanting to go help help help for a while now and if she didn't, it was just because she never let other people make her speak when she didn't want to. And perhaps if she could remember any poems, she'd have said them, just to make herself think about something that wasn't all this.
And the teeth and screaming faces and dying stick-men – sure, they were disturbing, but it'd have been a hell of a lot more disturbing if it had been all kittens and flowers and, yeah, cake. This place pretty much was teeth and screaming and deaths of people you'd never known. A noticeable taste of blood.
But the drawings of her weren't like that. They weren't screaming. They were...
On the wall, she was a neat curved figure in orange, clutching the portal gun. An icon. A symbol. Everyone else was scrawled and blotchy, faceless (or screaming). On the wall, she was the hero. The angel.
She wondered if he had any idea how scared she was, or how tired, or that her mouth was constantly dry and she could really use a shower and maybe she just wasn't talking because she was terrified nothing she could say would help. She wondered if he'd be angry that his mysterious, defiant escape route was just as patched-together and barely-holding-up as everything else.
