[ agent choi's demeanour stays casual, even with 'subaru' radiating some sense of urgency. choi glances over to him, ever smiling, and says honestly: ]
I don't like it.
[ tethers. even if he doesn't say the word aloud, subaru might know this—might have guessed through his reluctance, or perhaps read into it with that sharp insight of his. he could even feel it, if he tried. that vulnerability and uncertainty. the association choi holds between it, and risk. the risk of playing into sleep's very desires for them. the risk of losing himself. the risk of becoming contaminated, just like so many hosts before him. ]
But have you noticed?
[ even as he says it, it's still a mess. he can't direct it well, blindly grasping for whatever amongst the stack of scattered memories he can identify as his.
the images flicker through their connected consciousness. first, a striped, blackened arm that ends in what might be better described as a set of claws than fingers. something that subaru can see plainly in the place of the hand opposite of the one he's holding. contrasted against it: children. they stick close to you, an adult, with faces and bodies covered in pus-filled ulcers, infected mermaid 'tails' dragging behind them as they shuffle forward. it's contamination. the recognition is shared between the two of them.
but contamination has never been a solely physical change.
red. red, like the moon that hangs overhead. red, like the blood that stains his teeth and his tongue. red, as it poured from his wrist, and from that person's, and their shoulder, and—and while shame surrounds the memory, it's absent from the scene itself. euphoria. relief. it transitions back to third person—to a smiling, used-to-be-civilian clerk in a supermarket chain that shouldn't exist. they pull a still sane survivor closer, forcing a struggling arm into a blender with blades sharp enough to gut through skin, through muscle, through bone. and they're no different from those children: slowly dying, unable to so much as wish they could leave the sparkling ocean palace they see projected over the ruined remains of a city. in reality, it's little different from their own manhattan.
at least agent choi can still wish to leave. that thought is grasped tightly in his hand. it squeezes around subaru's as if it's his very last lifeline. as if this tether were the only thing that remains between himself and ruin. it might just be.
because maybe... that caution of his was unwarranted, just this once.
he leans back on the bench, his smile fallen and expression thoughtful. disasters, they tend to have a kind of narrative component to them, don't you think? they play on words, on emotions, on memories and experiences and tropes. they're never entirely baseless, or else there would simply be no way to combat them at all. it's the very thing that allowed their destruction king rookie have earned that name in the first place. with excellent logic, you can see what the ending to that story is—you can close that book.
agent choi isn't kim soleum. neither does he want to be. he can't close this book, not yet, but... maybe he can find a meaning in it.
maybe "connection is what makes us human".
he remembers struggling clearly. he remembers the too large moon and the instincts and impulses it's tried to force on him. he remembers the moments the sun sets, not once or even twice, but every night, and the paranoia it brings. he remembers a cautious comfort at sundown, reluctant but trying. holding his hand out to the person beside him. and he remembers, most of all, a sense of clarity and purpose—a weight lifted from his shoulders, a renewed vigor, as he'd stepped back onto charlottes stage.
he remembers feeling human, more so than he has during any of his time here. in that now so far away moment, he rests his head against subaru's shoulder beside him.
no subject
I don't like it.
[ tethers. even if he doesn't say the word aloud, subaru might know this—might have guessed through his reluctance, or perhaps read into it with that sharp insight of his. he could even feel it, if he tried. that vulnerability and uncertainty. the association choi holds between it, and risk. the risk of playing into sleep's very desires for them. the risk of losing himself. the risk of becoming contaminated, just like so many hosts before him. ]
But have you noticed?
[ even as he says it, it's still a mess. he can't direct it well, blindly grasping for whatever amongst the stack of scattered memories he can identify as his.
the images flicker through their connected consciousness. first, a striped, blackened arm that ends in what might be better described as a set of claws than fingers. something that subaru can see plainly in the place of the hand opposite of the one he's holding. contrasted against it: children. they stick close to you, an adult, with faces and bodies covered in pus-filled ulcers, infected mermaid 'tails' dragging behind them as they shuffle forward. it's contamination. the recognition is shared between the two of them.
but contamination has never been a solely physical change.
red. red, like the moon that hangs overhead. red, like the blood that stains his teeth and his tongue. red, as it poured from his wrist, and from that person's, and their shoulder, and—and while shame surrounds the memory, it's absent from the scene itself. euphoria. relief. it transitions back to third person—to a smiling, used-to-be-civilian clerk in a supermarket chain that shouldn't exist. they pull a still sane survivor closer, forcing a struggling arm into a blender with blades sharp enough to gut through skin, through muscle, through bone. and they're no different from those children: slowly dying, unable to so much as wish they could leave the sparkling ocean palace they see projected over the ruined remains of a city. in reality, it's little different from their own manhattan.
at least agent choi can still wish to leave. that thought is grasped tightly in his hand. it squeezes around subaru's as if it's his very last lifeline. as if this tether were the only thing that remains between himself and ruin. it might just be.
because maybe... that caution of his was unwarranted, just this once.
he leans back on the bench, his smile fallen and expression thoughtful. disasters, they tend to have a kind of narrative component to them, don't you think? they play on words, on emotions, on memories and experiences and tropes. they're never entirely baseless, or else there would simply be no way to combat them at all. it's the very thing that allowed their destruction king rookie have earned that name in the first place. with excellent logic, you can see what the ending to that story is—you can close that book.
agent choi isn't kim soleum. neither does he want to be. he can't close this book, not yet, but... maybe he can find a meaning in it.
maybe "connection is what makes us human".
he remembers struggling clearly. he remembers the too large moon and the instincts and impulses it's tried to force on him. he remembers the moments the sun sets, not once or even twice, but every night, and the paranoia it brings. he remembers a cautious comfort at sundown, reluctant but trying. holding his hand out to the person beside him. and he remembers, most of all, a sense of clarity and purpose—a weight lifted from his shoulders, a renewed vigor, as he'd stepped back onto charlottes stage.
he remembers feeling human, more so than he has during any of his time here. in that now so far away moment, he rests his head against subaru's shoulder beside him.
...
maybe he did know. would subaru blame him? ]