thirteenth dazzle | July 29, after dark | video

[tauborn]

[Takuto doesn't look sad for this appearance on the network, but he doesn't look characteristically happy, either. He just looks... tired. Maybe it's just that the only light is the glow from the communicator's screen itself, but he looks far more tired than a seventeen year old boy obsessed with singing out his youth and being a source of metaphorical radiance has a right to look.

He sighs, turning the video feed away from himself, into what appears to be total blackness.]

...Some of them are missing. [The darkness of the image focuses in and out of a blurry gray before slowly resolving into tiny pinpricks of light. Stars. There's the sound of a heavy sigh once again.]

I know it's not a thing that's particular to this city or this world or the situation we're all in. People can leave for reasons much worse than a magical device's whim. But all this leaving is exhausting me. People coming and going and coming and going.

[He pauses, recollecting his thoughts as the images blurs, refocuses. The stars twinkle, distantly, silently.]

I think life is a string of people coming and going no matter who or where you are, but… but here, this… I’m getting tired of it.

BREW sent Yuugi away.


[text | private to Yako]

I'm on my roof and I would like some company.

Comments

[tauborn]

[Don't worry, he's not even looking at the screen, anyway. Even though the video function is on, the feed is just recording the sky, watching the stars go in and out of focus. Takuto is doing the same, watching the stars as they go in and out of focus.]

...Is that what it means then? If BREW sends them home together?

[He doesn't believe it for a moment. BREW is full of crap.]

[morecowbell]

How should I know? It was just convenient for them in a way.

[tauborn]

Right. Convenient for them. So they don't have to be like the rest of us, missing the people we started to care for. How kind of BREW, to let them go together.

[BREW sucks, okay?]

[morecowbell]

Yeah, BREW is a jerk, what else is new?

[video]

[tauborn]

What's new is that BREW doesn't actually have a clue what it's doing.

[He's stumbled across some information in the past few days that's been destroying his faith in the magical device, along with the fact that BREW seems to have something against him personally by stealing away his closest friends in the past week. So instead of just the usual frustration, there's actually a touch of real anger in his voice.]

Except, that's actually not new, though I suppose it counts as news.

[morecowbell]

Maybe someone should just figure out how to destroy it already or at least work it properly.

Do you want to go home, Takuto?

[tauborn]

[He's about to go off again about BREW, but her question stops him short. And it's a long time before he manages to come up with an answer.]

I... I don't know. I don't think I know where 'home' is anymore....

[morecowbell]

How long have you been here?

[tauborn]

Eight months.

I've been here longer than the place I was right before I came here.

[morecowbell]

[She's just quiet for a moment other than an audible sigh]

I see.

[tauborn]

....

[When he thinks about all the things he could go back to, all he thinks of are his friends. But he has just as many friends here--or, at least, he did until BREW decided to take them away. And Yako... how could he want to leave Yako behind?]

Do you want to go back to your world, Nanami?

[morecowbell]

[she pauses only briefly]

Not particularly.

I suppose I would appreciate having a sun that doesn't drool and a moon that doesn't peak in at night again, though.

[tauborn]

...I think I sort of like it that they have faces. And if the Moon is spying on you, you should make sure your curtains are closed. [The Moon's not the only one who could be trying to be a perv at you, after all! But somehow the subject is bringing a very faint smile to his face. She might be the first person he knows who's admitted to wanting to stay, who thinks of Death City with the mixture of fondness and annoyance that a person reserves for their home.]

[morecowbell]

I do close my curtains at night but it's still unnerving when it's hanging around leering while I'm trying to relax in the hot tub after a hard days work.

[Sadly Nanami doesn't really feel at home in either place at this point but at least here she doesn't have to face certain people or disappointments anymore.]

[tauborn]

He's not really so bad....

[Though Takuto will always prefer the stars. Still, his gaze turns towards the Moon, who is slowly rising with his usual creepy grin.]

[morecowbell]

Let me check. [Nanami glances over at the moon from where she is patrolling] No, still creepy as heck.

[tauborn]

He probably can't help looking that creepy, though. I mean, he doesn't have hands, let alone a toothbrush.

[morecowbell]

... that is just the tip of the iceberg of what is wrong with the celestial bodies around here.

[tauborn]

I would really like to go meet the other stars, though. They can't all be like the Sun.

[morecowbell]

But they could always be worse.

[tauborn]

That's just your pessimism speaking. They can't all be worse, either.

[morecowbell]

I'd rather not find out either way. I'd simply rather have the sun and moon back that I'm used to.

[tauborn]

And I'd rather have some of my stars back.

[But obviously wishing for it isn't going to make it happen.]

[morecowbell]

[Nanami hums a little in reply while glancing up at the stars. She generally avoids this due to the moon and well Akio was a star person and he kind of ruined the night sky for her.]

Well, you still have someone special here you can share the stars with, right?

[tauborn]

I do.

[And she's on her way over, in fact.] So that's something.