[ Subaru is well-acquainted with devotion and its shadow, the temptation to pass off curated taste for a wide net of relief, palate dulled. He finds surprise briefly cording that it's taken him this long to find and accept a loophole.
And here they are. Here he is, complicit.
An ashtray joins the table by way of slender fingertips; cheap, plastic, the mainstay of an apocalypse that delights in shattering more refined glassware. Then a pack of cigarettes already picked open, tobacco old, brand long faded off its paper insert. Taken from an international shop in Times Square, one that had long been rendered inaccessible by Charlotte's stage, suddenly reopened by her defeat. Subaru offers him that but keeps the lighter, thumb tracing its sparkwheel in a brief weft of thought. ]
It's more a place of study.
[ — is what he settles on. There was a small library once, its most boring books misshapen by the pages torn from them as a means of kindling or talisman. And in contrast to the emblematic sterility of his Shinjuku apartment, there is dust, ink, scrap, cup rings half-formed. Languages all around him, like Sleep's runes ruptured, Japanese failing, the tabletop stove burning through its meager propane reserves as the water churns toward blessed volatility.
no subject
And here they are. Here he is, complicit.
An ashtray joins the table by way of slender fingertips; cheap, plastic, the mainstay of an apocalypse that delights in shattering more refined glassware. Then a pack of cigarettes already picked open, tobacco old, brand long faded off its paper insert. Taken from an international shop in Times Square, one that had long been rendered inaccessible by Charlotte's stage, suddenly reopened by her defeat. Subaru offers him that but keeps the lighter, thumb tracing its sparkwheel in a brief weft of thought. ]
It's more a place of study.
[ — is what he settles on. There was a small library once, its most boring books misshapen by the pages torn from them as a means of kindling or talisman. And in contrast to the emblematic sterility of his Shinjuku apartment, there is dust, ink, scrap, cup rings half-formed. Languages all around him, like Sleep's runes ruptured, Japanese failing, the tabletop stove burning through its meager propane reserves as the water churns toward blessed volatility.
Subaru doesn't sit yet. ]