[Luna is deep in thought when she wanders into the museum in the late morning, her notebook in hand. Though she takes a glance up at the artifacts from time to time, it's clear it's not what's on her mind, carefully flipping through the pages with a look of tired concentration.
[Akira spent most of his day here yesterday what he is doing back in the museum. . . but anyway, he is too busy focusing on the ouija board (STILL) that he doesn't notice Luna when she enters!]
[and so she bumps into him pretty solidly, sending him stumbling forward a few steps with a surprised yelp. he spins on his heel to face her, an apology ready on his tongue--]
Her breath catches with a startled little choke as she runs right into him. Her notebook hits the floor and slides who knows where goodbye her poor notebook]
Akira...! I-I'm so sorry, I... I wasn't paying enough attention... Are you okay--
[he starts once, gaze flickering back up to her face (he was staring at her dress), very light color appearing on his cheeks. but it's gone in an instant as he catches himself, and he holds both hands up, palms forward in an apologetic gesture]
[W...what was he staring at? Was there something wrong? Why was he blushing???? Aaaaaaaa...
Her eyes fall to the floor with a shy and flustered exhale of breath, a little more self conscious than she'd like to be, a hand shakily brushing stray hair out of her face.]
N-no, I... it's okay. I was so caught up anyway, I... I don't have any room to argue.
...
You're usually so observant... what in the world are you looking at that took all your attention?
[ah. . . well, now that she mentions it. Akira lowers his hands, gaze flickering towards the ouija board]
This whole place sort of gives me the creeps. [he can't shake the feeling that the objects in this museum feel like trophies] But I was looking at this ouija board.
[by now he has figured out that it can contact dead people, so. of course he is standing near it, considering which dead people to attempt to reach out to]
[unfortunately Akira would tell her RIGHT HERE AND NOW what it's for, so in order to avoid retcons we have a convenient memory to share!!]
[Akira nods, then turns towards Luna, opening his mouth to respond. but before he can, he feels a memory creeping its way to the front of his mind, dancing on the tip of his brain, suddenly appearing in his vision like a movie]
[Luna sees it, too. from 5:34 to 14:44. it begins with something exciting; a thief racing through a lavish casino to escape the authorities]
[and it ends with Akira's arrest and his mistreatment at the hands of the detectives who took him in]
[and when it ends, Akira jerks back quite suddenly, hand pressed against his temple and eyes wide as he tries to make sense of what just happened]
It's like watching a car crash in slow motion. First it's confusing, almost fantastical in the shift rome reality to the view another, fleeing the authorities, mind racing with emotions that are not hers. He's caught. He's cuffed. He's beaten. Why doesn't he defend himself...? What... what did he DO? Why doesn't he know??
She stumbles against one of the artifact cases, a hand to her mouth as glassy eyes look right towards Akira, imagining him bruised and drugged and struggling for breath and doing nothing to stop it.]
[and just like that, the memory is gone again, and reality resurfaces around him. . . and all it takes is one look at Luna bracing herself against one of the cases, staring at him with a distant and confused expression, for him to know what happened]
Shit--
[but his first thought isn't about himself, nevermind that the house has decided to share this memory with literally everyone he's spoken to. it's for her, because nobody should have to relive the hell he went through on November 20]
Sorry, I'm-- sorry, I didn't mean to. . . are you okay?
[he reaches out to her, hand extended towards her shoulder, as though trying to steady her or comfort her or something]
[Her normal reaction, to try and tell him she was ok, to calmly talk - it's muted, drowned out by the memory of being hurt, of HIM being hurt...
There's a break in her expression, torn apart, reaching her hand out to brush against his face with shaking fingers, where she knew had once been bruises and blood, as though it might help her remember that he's whole and fine where he stands.]
Why... [She hurts... but it's clearly for him, in a fog of confusion that screams at how wrong that memory is, even as it burns into her mind, her voice choking quietly.] W-why didn't you say anything...
[Akira freezes the moment her fingers touch his cheeks, as though such gentle care and affection was foreign to him. he neither leans into her nor pulls away, caught frozen in stasis, unsure of how he should react. his uncertainty is clear in his expression-- in the way he stares at her, wide-eyed and a bit bewildered, a bit confused. it's certainly not unwelcome, the way she frets over him, the way her fingers ghost over bruises that had long since healed, but it's not. . . typical]
[. . . it's a little warm, actually. warm in a way he can't describe. kind of like. . . the warmth he felt when he had found his home with the Phantom Thieves]
[when he speaks, his voice is weak and a little breathless]
. . . what would I have even said?
[like, really!!]
All that would've done is give them more of a reason to lash out at me.
[Akira doesn't like staying quiet, but even his defiant self knows better than to make things worse for himself in an already shitty situation]
[Except she knows it's likely not that simple. It shows in the utter lack of bite in her tone, not a blame but an unspoken question, her fingers curling against his skin to loosly rest the knuckles against his jawline, face a flurry of conflicting emotions.]
All those things they blamed you for... they couldn't be what you... y-you...
...
Plesse tell me you had a reason. Anything.
[She had seen how he moved, how he ran through the window as though he never wanted to get caught. But... ]
[his face twists at that, brows furrowed and gaze narrowed unpleasantly, a bitter edge to the curl of his lips. she should understand why. . . based solely on their conversation from Sunday]
People like that don't care about the truth.
[it somehow comes out both bland and bitter all at once, a brief resurfacing of the feelings he tended to keep buried underneath layers of collected calm. of lighthearted teasing]
They only care about their own selfishness. About stepping on those who get in their way.
They already knew the truth. They just didn't give a shit about it.
[he'll answer her other question in a moment, he just. . . has to address that part, first]
Ah. That tone is a little familiar. Her touch warily lowers from his face, instead moving to take the hand that he had rested against her shoulder, coaxing the grip off enough to, instead, rest in her palm.]
You... really have been hurt deeply by that part of the world, haven't you?
...
I'm sorry. It seems so unlike you to simply let something like that go with someone else... so I... I'm surprised.
[that gets his expression to soften, gaze flickering down to her hand and the way it is pressed against his own. on instinct. . . his fingers curl around hers, grip loose. when he looks up. . . he has calmed down]
I have.
[god, hasn't he. and it's the reason he tries so hard to make the world better, isn't it?]
And I wasn't letting it go. [even if it seemed like he was] . . . when I got arrested that time, it was on purpose. I needed to be arrested in order to draw out my enemies.
I needed to figure out who owned those cops so I could go after them directly.
Ill give akira another tag or so and then u can suffer
You played stubborn so that you could get to a point of possible escalation, for... the sake of a lead? For personal justice?
[There's a hint of something unpleasant in the implication. To pursue another with a just intent was one thing, but... how easily that could turn into a harmful or murderous intent, an antithesis of her entire being.]
[there's no hesitation in his response, and it's delivered firmly and honestly]
It was.
[fortunately for Luna? Akira's ideals were so fixed that his desire for justice never dipped into something murderous, something unpleasant or opposed to his own entire being. but it isn't as though she would know that. . . after all, he still has yet to tell her about his exploits as a phantom thief]
[. . .]
[maybe it's about time he did]
I can tell you the whole story. It's-- long.
But it'll explain everything.
[including why Akechi had tried to kill him oh-so long ago]
Your interrogator mentioned stealing hearts, correct? I imagine that isn't a, um, literal sense.
...
Could it be that you--
[She suddenly cuts off, an odd loss for words as her mind suddenly turns elsewhere of its own accord, taking Akira's internal view with it. A memory crawls up from 19:16 - 23:28, obedience fighting with an unignorable desire to help instead of harm... and feeling the horrible grip of shame, of helplessness, of fear, all while you do precisely as you are expected. As you are programmed.
...
Luna's gaze instantly falls to the floor, withdrawing her touch as though she thinks she might hurt him with the contact. At least, of all people to see this memory... it was someone that already knew her side of it. But Akane's words so fresh in her mind stings, and it shows on her face.]
[he doesn't know what she's trying to ask. he doesn't learn, either. . . because before she can finish her question, his mind is yanked out of the present and into a world far, far away from his own]
[. . .]
[this memory would be more shocking if Akira wasn't already aware of what Luna was, of what she had been doing before being dragged into the mansion. the struggle between Luna's true desires and the old woman's orders is so crisp and clear that Akira feels Luna's pain, her loss of agency, her inability to do what she wanted to do and help as though it were his own]
[. . .]
[she draws her hand back. . . and he reaches for it immediately, grip tight]
Shit.
[that curse is not at all directed at Luna. and the way his eyes flash underneath his glasses, fire dancing in his irises, says everything that needs to be said about his opinions on the elderly Akane]
[The profanity isn't for her. Logically, she can parse it out. But she still flinches bodily, her body language practically crumpling between Akira and the fixture behind her.
She doesn't pull her hand back... but it shakes noticeably under Akira's fingers.]
...
Please don't.
This is just how things are.
[Her voice is distant and small. How she wishes it were not the case.]
[. . . in this moment, she reminds him so, so much of himself. of how he was immediately preceding his unfair arrest and rigged conviction. she reminds him of every reason he stepped into Joker's persona, leather jacket and red gloves and white mask his only weapons against an unfair world]
. . .
At one point in my life, I had said that, too.
[he says quietly, wrangling the anger in his gut to a more manageable level. he doesn't wish to startle her again]
[so long as she doesn't pull away, his grip on her hand remains]
[. . . oh no. are there tears? because they wrench at Akira's heart violently, forming a lump in his throat and a certain tightness in his chest that makes him want to yank out the heart of every nasty person who has made Luna's life miserable up until now]
[carefully (and with some hesitation), he reaches up to brush his thumb against her cheek to wipe away any tears. he doesn't guide her to look at him, though. . . not yet]
You are a person, Luna.
[he says that quietly, but with a sort of affirmation that makes it clear he believes what he's saying. that makes it clear he'd fight anyone who disagreed]
You think and feel and heart and mourn just like the rest of us. It doesn't matter what your body does, or what your programming says or tells you to do. You're a person.
And people who take advantage of your biological makeup to make you feel and treat you as otherwise-- [or non-biological, as it is] -- are nothing but scum.
[Her face twists, a deep and wrenching hurt. But she doesn't shake his touch away, starting slightly when she feels his fingers against her face. What... what is he...
...
She can't help it. She leans hesitantly into the touch, the comfort needed even as her tears keep coming, an unravelling in her that's hard to contain. Had... had anyone ever treated her like a person? Sigma had tried. But the distance was always still there, vast and unignorable.]
I'm a machine... H-how could you think that about a machine? Why would you...
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
WEEK THREE - TUESDAY
Whoever's doing Luna's wardrobe is being nice, at least.
As it is, she's probably going to walk straight into Akira, so. Oops.]
no subject
[and so she bumps into him pretty solidly, sending him stumbling forward a few steps with a surprised yelp. he spins on his heel to face her, an apology ready on his tongue--]
[and he freezes]
[was he going to say something??? he's staring]
no subject
Her breath catches with a startled little choke as she runs right into him. Her notebook hits the floor and slides who knows where goodbye her poor notebook]
Akira...! I-I'm so sorry, I... I wasn't paying enough attention... Are you okay--
...
[Um.
earth to akira, come in, akira]
...Akira?
no subject
[. . .]
[he starts once, gaze flickering back up to her face (he was staring at her dress), very light color appearing on his cheeks. but it's gone in an instant as he catches himself, and he holds both hands up, palms forward in an apologetic gesture]
Sorry. . .! You startled me.
[sheepish]
I didn't see or hear you approaching.
no subject
Her eyes fall to the floor with a shy and flustered exhale of breath, a little more self conscious than she'd like to be, a hand shakily brushing stray hair out of her face.]
N-no, I... it's okay. I was so caught up anyway, I... I don't have any room to argue.
...
You're usually so observant... what in the world are you looking at that took all your attention?
no subject
This whole place sort of gives me the creeps. [he can't shake the feeling that the objects in this museum feel like trophies] But I was looking at this ouija board.
[by now he has figured out that it can contact dead people, so. of course he is standing near it, considering which dead people to attempt to reach out to]
no subject
[bc i cant retcon wednesday stuff she is still oblivious to this unfortunately]
I think a ouija board is said to be used to bridge between the living and the afterlife. Um... in legend, anyway.
no subject
[Akira nods, then turns towards Luna, opening his mouth to respond. but before he can, he feels a memory creeping its way to the front of his mind, dancing on the tip of his brain, suddenly appearing in his vision like a movie]
[Luna sees it, too. from 5:34 to 14:44. it begins with something exciting; a thief racing through a lavish casino to escape the authorities]
[and it ends with Akira's arrest and his mistreatment at the hands of the detectives who took him in]
[and when it ends, Akira jerks back quite suddenly, hand pressed against his temple and eyes wide as he tries to make sense of what just happened]
no subject
It's like watching a car crash in slow motion. First it's confusing, almost fantastical in the shift rome reality to the view another, fleeing the authorities, mind racing with emotions that are not hers. He's caught. He's cuffed. He's beaten. Why doesn't he defend himself...? What... what did he DO? Why doesn't he know??
She stumbles against one of the artifact cases, a hand to her mouth as glassy eyes look right towards Akira, imagining him bruised and drugged and struggling for breath and doing nothing to stop it.]
...
...Why?
A... Akira...
no subject
Shit--
[but his first thought isn't about himself, nevermind that the house has decided to share this memory with literally everyone he's spoken to. it's for her, because nobody should have to relive the hell he went through on November 20]
Sorry, I'm-- sorry, I didn't mean to. . . are you okay?
[he reaches out to her, hand extended towards her shoulder, as though trying to steady her or comfort her or something]
no subject
There's a break in her expression, torn apart, reaching her hand out to brush against his face with shaking fingers, where she knew had once been bruises and blood, as though it might help her remember that he's whole and fine where he stands.]
Why... [She hurts... but it's clearly for him, in a fog of confusion that screams at how wrong that memory is, even as it burns into her mind, her voice choking quietly.] W-why didn't you say anything...
no subject
[Akira freezes the moment her fingers touch his cheeks, as though such gentle care and affection was foreign to him. he neither leans into her nor pulls away, caught frozen in stasis, unsure of how he should react. his uncertainty is clear in his expression-- in the way he stares at her, wide-eyed and a bit bewildered, a bit confused. it's certainly not unwelcome, the way she frets over him, the way her fingers ghost over bruises that had long since healed, but it's not. . . typical]
[. . . it's a little warm, actually. warm in a way he can't describe. kind of like. . . the warmth he felt when he had found his home with the Phantom Thieves]
[when he speaks, his voice is weak and a little breathless]
. . . what would I have even said?
[like, really!!]
All that would've done is give them more of a reason to lash out at me.
[Akira doesn't like staying quiet, but even his defiant self knows better than to make things worse for himself in an already shitty situation]
no subject
[Except she knows it's likely not that simple. It shows in the utter lack of bite in her tone, not a blame but an unspoken question, her fingers curling against his skin to loosly rest the knuckles against his jawline, face a flurry of conflicting emotions.]
All those things they blamed you for... they couldn't be what you... y-you...
...
Plesse tell me you had a reason. Anything.
[She had seen how he moved, how he ran through the window as though he never wanted to get caught. But... ]
no subject
People like that don't care about the truth.
[it somehow comes out both bland and bitter all at once, a brief resurfacing of the feelings he tended to keep buried underneath layers of collected calm. of lighthearted teasing]
They only care about their own selfishness. About stepping on those who get in their way.
They already knew the truth. They just didn't give a shit about it.
[he'll answer her other question in a moment, he just. . . has to address that part, first]
when u see the bad typo the next day.... woe.....
Ah. That tone is a little familiar. Her touch warily lowers from his face, instead moving to take the hand that he had rested against her shoulder, coaxing the grip off enough to, instead, rest in her palm.]
You... really have been hurt deeply by that part of the world, haven't you?
...
I'm sorry. It seems so unlike you to simply let something like that go with someone else... so I... I'm surprised.
THE WORST. . .
I have.
[god, hasn't he. and it's the reason he tries so hard to make the world better, isn't it?]
And I wasn't letting it go. [even if it seemed like he was] . . . when I got arrested that time, it was on purpose. I needed to be arrested in order to draw out my enemies.
I needed to figure out who owned those cops so I could go after them directly.
Ill give akira another tag or so and then u can suffer
You played stubborn so that you could get to a point of possible escalation, for... the sake of a lead? For personal justice?
[There's a hint of something unpleasant in the implication. To pursue another with a just intent was one thing, but... how easily that could turn into a harmful or murderous intent, an antithesis of her entire being.]
...
Could I ask if it was worth it?
I AM ALREADY SUFFERING
It was.
[fortunately for Luna? Akira's ideals were so fixed that his desire for justice never dipped into something murderous, something unpleasant or opposed to his own entire being. but it isn't as though she would know that. . . after all, he still has yet to tell her about his exploits as a phantom thief]
[. . .]
[maybe it's about time he did]
I can tell you the whole story. It's-- long.
But it'll explain everything.
[including why Akechi had tried to kill him oh-so long ago]
Well here is some more
Your interrogator mentioned stealing hearts, correct? I imagine that isn't a, um, literal sense.
...
Could it be that you--
[She suddenly cuts off, an odd loss for words as her mind suddenly turns elsewhere of its own accord, taking Akira's internal view with it. A memory crawls up from 19:16 - 23:28, obedience fighting with an unignorable desire to help instead of harm... and feeling the horrible grip of shame, of helplessness, of fear, all while you do precisely as you are expected. As you are programmed.
...
Luna's gaze instantly falls to the floor, withdrawing her touch as though she thinks she might hurt him with the contact. At least, of all people to see this memory... it was someone that already knew her side of it. But Akane's words so fresh in her mind stings, and it shows on her face.]
wails
[. . .]
[this memory would be more shocking if Akira wasn't already aware of what Luna was, of what she had been doing before being dragged into the mansion. the struggle between Luna's true desires and the old woman's orders is so crisp and clear that Akira feels Luna's pain, her loss of agency, her inability to do what she wanted to do and help as though it were his own]
[. . .]
[she draws her hand back. . . and he reaches for it immediately, grip tight]
Shit.
[that curse is not at all directed at Luna. and the way his eyes flash underneath his glasses, fire dancing in his irises, says everything that needs to be said about his opinions on the elderly Akane]
Re: wails
She doesn't pull her hand back... but it shakes noticeably under Akira's fingers.]
...
Please don't.
This is just how things are.
[Her voice is distant and small. How she wishes it were not the case.]
no subject
. . .
At one point in my life, I had said that, too.
[he says quietly, wrangling the anger in his gut to a more manageable level. he doesn't wish to startle her again]
[so long as she doesn't pull away, his grip on her hand remains]
It doesn't have to be that way, though.
no subject
[She doesn't dare look at him, but it's obvious she has started to cry, even though her voice stays somewhat steady.]
I'm not a person, Akira. I... just pretend to be one. That's all it is. Pretend.
Why do you think my body shut down on Friday? Or with Akechi? I...
I can't just... decide to be different.
no subject
[carefully (and with some hesitation), he reaches up to brush his thumb against her cheek to wipe away any tears. he doesn't guide her to look at him, though. . . not yet]
You are a person, Luna.
[he says that quietly, but with a sort of affirmation that makes it clear he believes what he's saying. that makes it clear he'd fight anyone who disagreed]
You think and feel and heart and mourn just like the rest of us. It doesn't matter what your body does, or what your programming says or tells you to do. You're a person.
And people who take advantage of your biological makeup to make you feel and treat you as otherwise-- [or non-biological, as it is] -- are nothing but scum.
no subject
[Her face twists, a deep and wrenching hurt. But she doesn't shake his touch away, starting slightly when she feels his fingers against her face. What... what is he...
...
She can't help it. She leans hesitantly into the touch, the comfort needed even as her tears keep coming, an unravelling in her that's hard to contain. Had... had anyone ever treated her like a person? Sigma had tried. But the distance was always still there, vast and unignorable.]
I'm a machine... H-how could you think that about a machine? Why would you...
[She lifts her head, her eyes filled with tears.]
W-why do you trust me so much??
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)