Post #1822463 in Our Second Selves, a roleplay on RPG

She laughed at him when he said that butterflies were also envious of his hair. . . . Really, it was a really silly statement to hear anyone say! Much less a guy who was in his upper teens. . . . He really . . . really hadn’t changed. Had she? Maybe she had, but probably only in the way of becoming more of a prissy know-it-all thing driven by her pride and stuck up views. Thinking about it like that . . . what she had become was sort of pathetic, nineteen, and living like she was, it bordered on being pitiable. The last ten years of her life hadn’t taken her anywhere grand, they hadn’t been interesting, and they had been rather lonely in hindsight. While this was a fact Kiku would dare not mention aloud, deep inside she knew this was the truth.

Since she was nine years old, her life had not been anything noteworthy, instead it was just a simple existence. She never claimed unhappiness, nor did she ever say she wanted anything more in that timeframe, but, still. She lived from nine to nineteen clinging onto the vestiges of an innocent childhood promise that probably had little merit to it at the time it was made. . . . Even ill, Kiku realized that promise between her and Ryu as probably just a ploy to keep her from tears upon their farewell, when he claimed he was ‘moving.’ With that promise though, Kiku had grown up, and became bitter toward everyone around her because they never seemed to genuinely care for her, at least, that was how she perceived matters. Eventually, her bitterness surfaced as her sour behaviour toward others regarding appearances.

If they didn’t live up to her standards, they weren’t worth the time, and that more or less meant everyone around her since no one but herself, and her idealized version of Ryu, could actually stand that high in her mind. It was shallow, and lonely, living like that. Living ten years focusing solely on outward appearance to express her resentment for people, that really was her life. Even if Ryu had come back . . . did it mean anything was different for her now? Of that, Kiku really wasn’t sure. The brunette opened her eyes when she felt Ryu poke her cranium, smile leaving her face, a dazed expression over her features. She was getting a little out of it thanks to her fever. With a questioning look, she stared up at the violet-haired man and blinked when she felt him quickly tighten the returned hug before letting go of her, she doing the same. "You better eat up soon; the soup's cooling down."

Her expression was rather idle at this point, but she nodded in agreement as Ryu set the bowl on her lap. A rather small yawn escaped the sickly girl’s lips, forcing her to shut her eyes for a moment before actually starting to eat, as she was instructed. Not really minding her manners, Kiku simply grabbed onto the sides of the bowl, holding spoon in place, and sipped at it like that. It seemed to more or less be a broth with boiled down herbs in it anyway. Sure, there was a bit of a random vegetable in there, but it was diced up so finely that there was no real reason to be concerned about having to actually chew. . . .

Truthfully, Kiku didn’t really care what it was she was ingesting now. Food was food, and whatever Ryu had made tasted fine. This . . . had to be the strangest day of her life. I have no doubts about that . . . today is the oddest day of my life. she told herself, bringing the bowl down and away from her lips with a soft breath. Sighing a bit, she stared forward rather blankly. The last twenty-four hours were the most bizarre of her nineteen years—even stranger than when she has first met Ryu as a child, easily. She didn’t understand it still, how it was possible for him to actually exist, no one remembered him in her childhood but herself. Even the other children who she swore had seen him at some point in time, as she grew up, no one could recall him at all . . . even her own memory of him had faded to the point of forgetting his name and face.

How much longer would it have taken her to completely forget his existence then. . . ? A rather dull expression still on her face, Kiku blinked quietly as she thought about this, about everything. That promise, the very thing which kept Ryu alive in her memories at all, she understood easily now that it was simply something Ryu had used to keep her from being upset when she found out he had to leave. But, where did he leave to? That’s all it ever was, while Kiku didn’t doubt that the boy had indeed really cared about her when they were children, the promise had always just been a simple exchange of words. It was never love, or anything of the sort. What Kiku had felt regarding that promise was a desire to have someone to attach herself to, to have a person in her life that she could call a friend again. The memory of a childhood friend who had cared about her, that’s what it had always been. . . . I don’t know what love is, how could I? she chided herself, a tiny forlorn smile coming over her lips as a bit of a sad look shined through her deep red eyes.

Yes, she would be a very different person come the morning . . . but as she felt now, Kiku Kurosawa was able to admit things to herself that she normally never even would think about. Such as the fact that she never understood the concept of ‘love’ at all. I made myself think I understood it, that promise, it was something I was probably meant to forget as I grew up. It wasn’t a gesture of affection, just a tactic to keep me smiling. . . . Sighing to herself, Kiku raised the bowl back to her lips and continued on ingesting the lukewarm broth. Ryu was as deeply embedded in her memories as her hatred of sweets. She could remember his presence even back when there were no visual memories to accompany the things she knew. . . . How? How was that even possible?

If she could remember him being with her that far back, then why was she the only person to ever . . . ever know that he existed? Yes, she remembered him saying some nonsense about being her second personality or something earlier, but that made no sense to her still. As far as Kiku understood, Ryu was still her childhood friend. . . . What did that mean to her now anyway? Understanding that the promise made between them so long before was just a simple exchange of words with no real meaning behind them . . . what did Ryu’s presence in her life now mean to her?

What did her future hold for her. . . ? Was she going to continue on living as she had been before, just . . . passing her days reading, and shopping online while being alone? No, it wasn’t that simple now. Ryu’s sudden emergence in her life again meant that things weren’t going to just be as they had been before, with him back in her life, Kiku knew that there was going to be more to her existence then what there had been before. There was going to be something more at the very least. Perhaps not what she had anticipated for the last decade in the ways of what their promise had entailed, but at least, Kiku understood there was going to be more to her life than just idly going on by. Things were going to change, and that was out of her control . . . but there were still a few things that would be in her grasp and realm of rule.
Maybe I’ll even try to get along with Sterling and that Nikolas. . . . she thought, swallowing the last bits of the soup from the bowl quietly as she pulled it away from her lips.

"I think. . ." Kiku looked at her childhood-friend when he began to speak again, staring at him with a blank look on her face. "I think my hair would look pretty weird in blue." Ryu finally said, sighing. At hearing this weird vocalization, Kiku tilted her head to the side in confusion. So . . .weird to say that, even for Ryu. Besides that, Kiku had an inkling that he wanted to say something else, speak of a topic not regarding his weird hair color. The tone in his voice is what made her think that.

She just stared at him for a little while, as he went off into his own little world. Her face still flush with fever, eyes still dazed from her illness, Kiku looked upon her second self with no inkling of what he really was. The only things she could even think about regarded where her life was now headed and what all of it meant. Blinking with an almost confused look on her face, Kiku opened her mouth to speak, “D-Did you want to say something else Ryu. . . ?” she said kind of quietly. “It almost seemed like you were going to say something else before your comment on dying your hair blue . . . but opted out of saying it. . . .” Kiku moaned softly though as she finished that last bit up, and idly rubbed at one of her eyes.

Everything was getting very confusing wasn’t it. . . ? So . . . so very perplexing. With this thought in mind, Kiku’s vision blurred in and out as she yawned, body lolling to the side rather peacefully as she fell into a rather soft and yielding slumber while mumbling a quiet “G’night.” to Ryu. The small girl’s body hit her mattress with a bit of a ‘thump,’ the empty soup bowl still in her hand as she began to completely fall under sleep’s spell.

☼☼☼☼☼

Evande found herself waking up when Nikolas had kissed her forehead after leaving her apartment. Rather dazed and confused though, she didn’t quite realize who it was that had done that. The otaku’s eyes didn’t full even open until sometime after Nikolas had left, and even then she didn’t realize where she was or what was going on. It took a ‘meow’ and a sudden weight on her stomach to jolt the woman back into awareness. As Kiseki hopped onto his owner’s belly, Evande let out a grunt in response, eyes opening completely at last as she questioned her whereabouts. “Uhh . . . what happened?” she mumbled quietly, looking up at her dimly lit ceiling confusedly. There was another meow from her stomach though, which caused the pink-haired woman to cast her gaze downward at her cat.

Spotting the feline perched on her diaphragm, eyes staring intently upon her face, Evande blinked as everything began to register in her brain, “Kiseki. . . ?” With this, Evande looked around her, still rather dazed, and realized she was back in her own apartment. Were the last two days . . . a dream? At this very thought, the otaku’s heart sprang to life and a wave of panic set in upon her. A jolt shot through her, and she found herself instantly awakened. Eyes wide, and mouth sealed shut, she found herself questioning whether everything had been a dream; Nikolas and Ryu that is. Oh God, it can’t have just been a dream. she thought, sitting herself up straight, Kiseki moving himself with a mewl to Evande’s lap. At even the mere notion of everything she had been through in the last two days simply turning out to be a dream, Evande found herself afraid, very afraid, even teary-eyed over it.

Heart skipping beats in her chest, and herself shaking, Evande just looked around, unable to think completely straight. What was the day? She didn’t know . . . she had to know in order to be certain that what had happened to her, that Nikolas, had not been something she had simply imagined. It couldn’t be like that, could it? No, no, no, it couldn’t! But, she had locked herself out of her apartment hadn’t she? And before, she’d sort of passed out after drinking tea with Nikolas. . . . So how had she wound up back in her own domicile, on her couch? No, it can’t just have been my imagination. she thought, letting out an exasperated breath as she began fighting to get out of the blankets placed over top of her. At realizing that there were two blankets placed over her person, Evande’s eyes went a little wide and she froze. “W-Wait. . . .” she murmured quietly, looking down at the sheets bunched up around her stomach, noting that there were two distinct colors present there. Her own white bedspread . . . and a black one. That’s definitely not mine. Evande thought, sighing quietly in relief as she realized that the sheets were her alter’s from earlier.

That was enough proof for her to fully realize that everything in the last two days was not of her imaginings. “Too bad that can’t include those damn H-rated memories though. . . .” she mumbled, face reddening. Breathing out softly, Evande looked down to Kiseki who was still upon her lap, looking at her. He meowed and tilted his head to the side when she made eye contact with him.

Evande smiled at her cat and sighed again, before reaching her hand up and scratching the feline’s head. “You ought to pity your mommy Kiseki; her life’s been turned upside down in the last twelve hours, completely, and she’s also been cursed with rather icky, icky memories too.” The cat responded to her words by licking her hand. The otaku laughed at this and drew her hand back to her side with a smile upon her blushing face. Well, I know that everything that’s happened to me in the last two days was real enough, but one question remains . . . how did I get back inside my apartment?

She wasn’t really sure of that one, and in her head there was no explanation for it. Either Nikolas knew how to pick locks, or she’d been dim-witted enough to assume she had actually locked herself out of her apartment when in reality she had just left the door unlocked while leaving her keys inside. . . . Deciding to give Nikolas the benefit of the doubt though, Evande assumed the latter of the two because it didn’t seem too far-fetched for her to have gone and left her own door unlocked. Yeah, that’s probably what I did. . . . Nikolas probably just decided to see if that was the case after I zonked out on him.

Whatever, it didn’t matter. . . . She was back inside her own place now, right? “I don’t feel like sleeping though. . . .” Evande thought aloud, staring blankly ahead before reaching her hand out and flipping a light switch on the wall behind her, turning the overhead light on. Her eyes shut to the sudden brightness, but they adjusted quickly enough. It was late, it was late and Evande knew that, yet still, she didn’t want to sleep anymore. So . . . what was she suppose to do? She didn’t feel like getting on her computer, nor did she even feel like indulging herself in anime or manga. “Maybe I’ll go ahead and sketch something, I haven’t done that in a while.”

Saying that, the otaku gently moved her cat from her lap, who protested with a mewling noise, and got to her feet before heading to her room to pick up what it was she even used to draw pictures. . . . A sketchpad, and a container of pencils used for shading and shadowing things in black and white.

Making her way back out to the couch, the pink-haired woman sighed quietly before dropping back down into the piece of furniture and digging out what it was she sought from her container of pencils. Flipping her sketchpad open to a fresh page, she set the pencil down on the paper and got to work . . . what it was she was even beginning to draw, Evande herself didn’t actually know. . . . This particular picture was something that was just beginning to form itself, where it was going to end up, even the artist herself didn’t know.

Well, that’s not entirely true, Evande did have a vague feeling about this particular picture. Within the matter of a minute; something coherent was already forming, the most basic shape of a person, and the otaku was receiving a familiar vibe from what she was getting down on the paper. I’m . . . drawing Nikolas? she questioned herself, her eyes slightly wide as she continued to work. . . . I guess, I guess I am drawing him. she realized, expression softening as she went on drawing, not slowing down one bit. Exactly how she was drawing her alter, and from what lifetime of his this picture would represent . . . Evande didn’t know, but she could only hope that whatever came from her, it was something good, hopefully a pleasant image for the boy.

The last thing Evande wanted to happen was for her to wind up sketching out one of Nikolas’ lives that drudged up bitter recollections. . . . Well, whatever she may wind up getting down, only time would tell.

Snippet #1822463

located in Japan, a part of Our Second Selves, one of the many universes on RPG.

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