» TEST DRIVE #001

[reveriemod]

TEST DRIVE #001

( 0 0 1 ) » WAKE UP

Were you asleep or were you unconscious? It doesn't matter: when you come to, there's an odd taste in your mouth and there's a low-level mechanical hum in the air. Your head hurts and you feel nauseous. You aren't anywhere you know: everything around you is metal, from the floor you lie on all the way to the ceiling. You are dressed in a jumpsuit you definitely weren't wearing before.

"We tried to save the world. I think— I think we did the opposite."

The message repeats on a loop. If you look for its source, you find a comms device on the floor next to you. The logo on its wallpaper says REVERIE TERMINAL. Upon closer inspection, you find the same logo on your jumpsuit.

Welcome to your new home. What choice do you have but to explore your surroundings?

( 0 0 1 . 1 ) » WAKE UP WHERE?

When you wake up, you find that you're not alone. But more importantly, you find that you're in a closet. An empty closet, bar you and your new companion. It's small, cramped, and there is no door that you can see. The ceiling is low, there is barely any lights, only some coming from the tiny flashlight clipped to your suit's shoulder. You cannot be sure that there is any air coming in to the room.

Are these grooves in the wall supposed to mean something?

( 0 0 2 ) » OBSERVATION DECK

There were no windows in the corridor you woke up in and no windows in any of the crew quarters you might have checked for occupants — but there are plenty of windows on the uppermost level of the station, deck 1. In fact, there are windows from floor to ceiling all along the circumference of the station's circular deck, and it's possible to walk along it all. What it shows is a strange solar system you've never seen before and a planet that might resemble one you know, but certainly isn't the same.

You're in space. You don't know where you are. Neither does anyone else.

( 0 0 3 ) » BAR

On deck 3, you find the bar. Tucked away from the crew quarters, it's dimly lit, there are bar stools thrown down on the floor and what looks like some very old drink spills, crusty and dark against the bar top. But there is alcohol here, or at least, what you think is alcohol, in bottles with faded labels, most of them indecipherable. Take a drink, get drunk, start a fight, or start a party? You're stuck on this station, might as well make the most of it, right?

( 0 0 3 . 1 ) » VIRTUAL

But the alcohol isn't even the most interesting part of your discovery (depending on who you are, of course). No, what catches your interest is a second, smaller room off from the main bar room, which looks to be some kind of arcade. There are a few VR sets lined up against one of the walls, and surely, they can't be working, right? Nothing is on this rust bucket. And yet, if you put it on, the display comes to life.

It's a pretty simple HUD, and when you move around in reality, you move around in the virtual world you've just entered. It's a luxurious world, full of brightly, saturated colors, making it just a little obvious that it isn't real. Ahead, there is a jungle, a temple, and a city. You can play around, slay some monsters, have some fun, but you can feel yourself growing hot, like the VR helmet is burning your forehead.

And when you try to take it off, you find that you can't. The HUD glitches, the sound cuts off to a blaring alarm, and an error message appears, in glowing, blinking red letters: FINISH THE MISSION. Will you, despite not knowing what the mission even is, or will you fight to get the helmet off?

( 0 0 4 ) » MALFUNCTIONS

(cw: body horror, bodily functions, gore, blood, death)

The fabricators function well enough, until they don't. One day, one moment, everything's all right — the food doesn't generally taste amazing and sometimes downright awful, but it's nourishing and filling no matter what your dietary needs — and the next, things go a little haywire.

In short, the fabricators are malfunctioning.

Oh, they're still producing food that looks and tastes much the same as before, but now there are some unexpected side effects.

NB: Characters may experience any of the following side effects: nausea ranging from slight to debilitating, the sensation of being happily and affectionately — but not overwhelmingly — drunk, bone-deep exhaustion and weariness that makes it hard to move, or repeated hallucinations of loved ones screaming for help, reaching out to characters and leading them down abandoned corridors or being killed by unseen forces.

The extent to which characters are affected is up to players, as is whether you'd prefer to play this more lightheartedly or tackling more serious themes. If the latter, please provide warnings in subject lines where necessary.

( 0 0 5 ) » NETWORK

The comms device you found next to you when waking up connects to a station-wide network, REVERIE NET. You have the option to post video, voice or text messages.

What will you share?

( 0 0 5 . 1 ) » NETWORK USERNAME

When you first turn on your communication device, it requests for you to pick a username to identify you on the network. It can be anything you want. However, as you try to input a username in your wristband to access the network, you get the following message, along with a small, but irritating, warming sound:

this username is already in use.

What does this mean? Is there other people around? Were there other people around?

( 0 0 6 ) » WILDCARD

The station features a variety of locations, from sleeping quarters free for the claiming to a dirty swimming pool and a bar that still holds alcohol (though some of the bottles seem to have been opened a while ago).

Go wild, but don't wreck the place. It's your home for the foreseeable future, after all.

Comments

[luciformis]

[ He can and he will (fail).

He never really attempted to condescend to anyone, well, at least to Akira. It was just his manner of speaking, the way he interacted with the world at large. It was too difficult to allow the mess of emotions to disrupt his every thought, the kind that would come to him in moments he didn't keep himself busy. It was easier to compartmentalize, to focus upon what the truth of the matter was. He'd wanted to find the truth even back home, but the truth was an ever-shifting target; it evaded the tips of his fingers, no matter how he tried to grasp it. Like Tantalus, Ryo's attempts to obtain inscrutable fact was forever a mock. There was no "maybe this time," because the truth was as disconnected as his head and his heart — at least, that was what he told himself.

Akira had always stirred up more sediment in Ryo than he could possibly account for. Now, after a decade apart, it becomes all the more impossible to settle as he sits across from him and smiles more with an edge than not — something that would have been missing once. ]

For survival, [ Ryo says, as if stating the weather. He blinks once against the tease, as if blinking against the bright of some sun. Akira is, but Ryo doesn't dare let those thoughts come up for examination. ] If you're able to see what might happen, you're more able to avoid harm.

[ But, the perception that he might be just trying to convince himself is sure to remain. Sure, that might have been the real reason humans came upon imaginations in the first place, but Ryo's imagined plenty that had no place within logic no matter how much he attempted to deny it.

He pauses, eyes crinkling almost imperceptibly at the corners. ]

I might find another reason to complain, [ he says, his voice deceptively even.

Is it a joke? Yeah. It is. ]

[dvmn]

[This has been a constant facet of their relationship, though Akira's position towards it has changed a bit; when they'd been kids, he'd immediately wrap himself up in whatever information Ryo would give him to whatever inane question had crossed his mind (not that Ryo had ever made them feel inane; no, he'd always been ready with an answer and Akira had never felt a breath of judgment from him). He'd supplemented facts with his surplus of heart, worried for how the rabbits would survive on the moon without atmosphere, trying to feel for the gaps between the hard-lined facts of reality and the more ephemeral tapestry of fanciful belief that stretched out beneath it.

He'd grown up, and now he thinks that, as smart as Ryo is, it just makes him dumber about certain things. It shows in the way he answers the question. Akira doesn't really pull punches; he laughs directly, one corner of his mouth tugging into a crooked, toothy grin as he reaches out to softly flick Ryo in the center of the forehead. He makes a buzzer sound as he does so, as if he'd gotten the question wrong on Jeopardy.]

How much're humans even fighting for survival nowadays, really? ...No, no, before the whole "demon invasion" thing. [He retrieve his hand, a smile verging on smug still sticking to his expression.] People have imagination because there's more to life than just surviving. Because it'd be dull as shit without it.

[But he wouldn't push the subject more than that. Ryo could be a bit of a brick wall sometimes, and Akira was just smart enough to know when to best pick and choose his battles.]

Ohhh, of course you would. [He sighs, turning to sit on the couch in the correct way again, legs stretched and sprawled in front of him, reaching up to clasp his hands together behind where his head rested against the back cushion. He knows Ryo's joking, but it's in the Ryo sort of way, where the joke is built more upon the truth than anything else. What a nerd.]

So, what. Documentaries? Is that the only thing we can watch around here that'll keep your commentary track down to a minimum?

[He feels about ready to doze off just thinking about it.]

[luciformis]

[ People always chance uncertainties. For Ryo, though he was not aware of it, he'd always found a certain comfort in the consistency of fact. If not fact, then the ability to question it and reassess it. He'd laid out endless theories on humanity before, only to tear them apart from the ground up. There'd been no reason to suspect there were rabbits on the moon, because he knew that was something parents told their children. It was lore, a means to explain the world when the world was still young and humans had no means to untangle the complex web of why nature worked as it does.

But, Akira might not be wrong. For all of Akira's emotional brilliance, Ryo was a faint match struck in the dark. He'd always rejected holding his own vulnerable heart in his hands, knowing without knowing what was contained within. Yet, Akira's heart was for the world to survey and to judge. And Ryo could not comprehend how one could manage the strength to be put on such display at all. ]

Humans always fight for survival. Politics, religion, wealth — that battle isn't solely waged with teeth and claws, Akira. [ He may or may not have gone cross-eyed trying to follow Akira's hand. He crinkles his nose up in a wince reflex as Akira flicks him, only to raise a hand to rub the spot gently with his fingertips, mouth dipping into a smaller (and poorly kept) frown. Still, he maintains his current position with no more than a faint exhalation, less of a sigh and more a measure of something else. ] Even before the "demon invasion."

[ He watches Akira stretch with with lazy observance, his hand lowering again to his lap after a moment's thought. It seems so long since they were able to have a conversation like this at all. The world had torn away any decent opportunity of it alongside their nights and days. It was an ever present reality now, one that they carried the sole burden of.

He lifts his eyebrows minutely. ]

That's unlikely too. Many documentaries are too biased to enjoy. [ It's like Akira to pick up on the core of his joke, as much as he's certain Akira will pick up on it here. While that statement is objectively true, Akira knows him well enough to know he'd likely sit quietly through the majority, only to spear any such inconsistencies at length later. ] You may be better off taking a gamble.

[ That much is definitely true. ]

[dvmn]

[To many their friendship would have made little sense, because how and why could a kid with so much heart and empathy put up with one that seemed to feel little of either? How could a child so brilliant and unchallenged by anything put before him in school never get bored or irritated when saddled with the endless questions paraded out to him by the kid who knew so little in comparison? It was the wrong way of looking at it, though, and that's why they'd never figured it out. He couldn't speak on Ryo's behalf, but he knew that people were wrong when they assumed the worst of his friend; Akira could see his heart more clearly than anyone else, and he knew that there was something beneath the layer of logic and careful distance, beyond still even the sense of uneasy loneliness he could catch between the seams. There was something gentle and caring but it also was something that had been - he isn't sure, like he'd been punished for being such? So he tried his best to pretend he wasn't, like how Akira wouldn't reach for sweets before dinner after one good admonishment from his mother (or he would simply be much more surreptitious the next time).

He recognized that in Ryo, and he could see the glimpses of it sometimes, hesitant and wary like an animal whose flight distance was yet too large to fully approach. But that was enough for Akira, and so he remained close to him, inseparable now as if they had never been apart.

It's... not to say that he doesn't frustrate him, though, sometimes.

Akira heaves a (heavily over-exaggerated) sigh, shaking his head in the cradle of his linked hands. At a certain point, he knows continuing to fight is useless. In addition to everything else, Ryo was one of the most stubborn people he knows, especially when he figures he's got the facts on his side (which Akira does recognize he does, but he's not really looking on that scale, you know?).]

I guess if you wanna look at it that way, Ryo. [He doesn't. Sure, politics were hell, religious people could be nasty, and any shithead on the street could do something fucked up for some money they felt was more important than their shred of moral code. But none of that was on the same level as what he'd seen in the last few days, watching the civility of modern life crumble around their ears.]

Most people don't go to work with a knife in their hand, though, y'know.

[That's probably different now, though. His eyes become downcast a moment, hidden by lashes, before he shrugs the topic off and moves on.

When Ryo continues, he just outright groans.]

Ryooo! Come on. You basically make it impossible to have fun. [And of course he's joking, but like any good comedy, it has a kernel of the truth at its very core. He does enjoy spending time with his friend, even if he acknowledges he could be a unique case of "stick in the mud" sometimes. But the kind that's fun to make fun of, and doesn't take it personally.

He snorts, kicking back a little bit more on the couch. He sinks a little further into the cushion against the back.] Sure, sure. Even though you usually end up winning whenever we bet something.

[Blah, blah, probability is just another form of mathematics, blah.]

[luciformis]

[ Ryo had never acknowledged that piece of himself. At least, he had attempted not to. He'd sunk each and every hope for it off the shore of his thoughts, knowing himself to be neither good nor bad — only righteous. To him, to look upon his own weaknesses, it would me he'd given up on something. It'd mean that he'd allowed him to go soft, to forget whatever it was he was placed upon the Earth to do to begin with. It always seemed to evade him, like a shimmering spot on the horizon. Before he could step into it, it would vanish. It would vanish, just like the quiet and idyllic days he'd spent with Akira in that small and isolated town — a town he returned to often in his memory, even with Akira by his side after their extended separation.

For Ryo, Akira had always been something he did not have. He was each, tiny splinter of division from man that Ryo cradled in his chest like a wound he could not fix. No matter Akira's efforts, Ryo knew that without him such a pursuit of connectivity would be purposeless — pointless. Akira was the only one who innately understood the emptiness in him, as much as he understood its inverse in Akira. Even if he could not hold and understand that sensation in his own two hands, he could see it. He knew its look. And he knew that, despite any reasons contrary to what Ryo believed, Akira seemed to need him as much as Ryo needed him.

But, Ryo had always warred. Akira makes points that humans are peaceable, but Ryo has never known peace without him. And for that, though he listens, he knows that most go to work with the metaphorical knife held to their breast and wait for the opportunity to use it.

To him, Akira was too gentle and forgiving of the world. And yet — that was what also drew Ryo to him. It is a paradox that others had never quite solved about them, but Ryo never paid mind to it. It was just as they were and always had been. And perhaps, in the end, because Ryo also knows that Akira is as stubborn as he is, he allows the topic to slide.

Instead, Ryo slants him a look that borders the edges of "pleased" or perhaps "smug" at Akira's theatrics. It's clear, but there's no bite in it. It lingers at the corners of his eyes, makes the blue of them somehow more blue. It is not muted even under the frame of his lashes as his gaze narrows in ways both obvious and imperceptible. ]

I can't recall the last time you won, [ he hums. He sweeps his legs with a practiced grace from the top of the coffee table before them, shifts to tuck them up closer to his body. He rests his hands across his knees, ankles pressed against the lip of the couch's cushions. Curled like this, he somehow looks smaller — more settled than he'd once been. ] Remind me?

[ He tips his head, the blond crown of his head pressing against the back of the couch. ]

[dvmn]

[Akira was unhurried. It was, in a way, like gaining the trust of an animal that at first wasn't familiar with you; to force such a thing would only widen the gap, but remain unobtrusive and close-by and eventually the amount of time without a negative experience would override in-born wariness and caution and curiosity would get the better of them. The current quiet flaw that existed between them was that the two of them were convinced of their correctness when it came to their views of the world and their situation, and they also believed intrinsically that the other would one day come to see things their own way. It was, in essence, a recipe for disaster, because they were both far too stubborn to budge from any manner of convincing that wasn't world-shattering.

Akira had seen people do some truly terrible things throughout his life, and yet still he believed. It was because often the worst elements of certain people brought out the best in others; it disobeyed the laws of physics, as sometimes a moderate bad deed could elicit a benevolent and considerate reaction which vastly outweighed the original in strength and magnitude. Perhaps it was just how reality warped in his own personal lens, but he'd always seen the truth of it that way.

Perhaps he had simply not seen as many situations where there were fewer heroic people to stand up against what went wrong.

When Akira turns to face Ryo again after having weighed his (quite leading) question, he looks all for all the damn world like the cat who'd eaten the canary. And when he internally remarks upon it by commenting on how he was a smug little shit, it was done so only with the utmost of affection.] Uhh. [He scratches the side of his face, frowning, digging deep into his memory banks. After a moment something clicks into place, and he regards his friend with a wide smile.]

Winter. Back when we were... five? Six? [As he continues speaking his eyes soften, warmed by the reminiscing of happier days gone by.] We bet who would be able to sled down the hill faster. And I beat you. I'm pretty sure that's the last time.

[Now, the thing was, Akira had tricked him. Ryo had been so positive that he would win that they had bet on it, and then Akira asked him why he was so sure, and he'd been mid-way through an explanation of a certain aspect of aerodynamics when Akira had scooted off on a head-start. Ryo simply hadn't been able to catch up after that.

But hey, a win's a win. Starting with a countdown or something hadn't been a part of the bet, or so Akira had insisted. He'd won their wagers so rarely back in those days that he'd cling to whatever win he could record.]

[luciformis]

[ Ryo's curiosities had always gotten him into trouble. Since the time he could remember, there had always been something hungry and insatiable in him. As if he were preparing for the inevitable, he'd filled his mind with all the knowledge it could contain. To himself, it had always been a way to make sense of what lay around him. To seek understanding was, in essence, undeniably human — but, he'd heard the whispers of those he'd grown up around. He'd heard their talk. He'd heard, more times than he could count, that intelligence never saved a soul from being rejected, despised. And to others, even now, that admiration and adoration was mixed with the film of envy and disgust. How could someone so young be like he was? How could someone so young correct the years the of work set out by professionals? How could Ryo, in all of his existence, do anything at all that was worth the salt of any academic, much less adult? And to his peers, how could he possibly relate? Who cared what else was available within him, beside his successes and his money?

Ryo had seen the underbelly. He'd encountered it in seedy bars, in American alley ways. He'd seen it in form of drugs, wealth exchanging hands with illicit rapidity. He'd seen humans tear down other humans for no reason at all, environments upended for profit, for gold. And for what? Humans were limited by their own desires, as much as they were limited by their own physiology. In the end, even their greatest weapons couldn't save them without destroying them all. And still, Akira looked at humanity as though they held an innate goodness. And still, Ryo watched him struggle to cultivate that belief as he fought for them. Ryo, for his own part, fought for them only because he too was human. He only fought for them because, he knew — knew what?

But, Akira's attention is a warmth upon him and it draws him to focus again. It draws him to catch the softer tonality, the easy way he recounts after a moment's consideration. Ryo remembers, of course, but he remembers it differently. He never called it a win — a holdover of his continual stubbornness. He remembers his childhood indignation as Akira zipped off down the hill, the smell of fresh powder. He remembers he couldn't quite catch him no matter how hard he'd tried, like the endless summer nights where Akira had once insisted that he could catch fireflies with an open palm and patience. In the end, Ryo had shared his efforts in a clear jar, assuring that the little things could breathe with the ventilation he'd provided for them at the top.

There's something soft and fond that catches at corners of his lips. It skims away any residual gloating, but it isn't something he takes into awareness. Instead, he narrows his eyes in mock of judgement, one hand lifting to wave his fingers dismissively. ]

I remember, [ he says, lightly. He recalls all of their childhood. It's something he's been forever keen on keeping. ] You always said you won, even though you cheated.

[ But, he'd let him have that win every time. It was sneaky, clever. It took him off-guard. But, Akira had forever done that in one way or another.

He lets out a little huff, almost a laugh. It's soft. ] I almost caught up.

[dvmn]

[Ryo had been a wonder to him. He had always had an answer to whatever question he managed to pose him, even if the answers didn't always make sense to him - unlike the way his parents could shape information into something that he could understand (sometimes something that wasn't entirely true, but captured the essence of childish fantasy), Ryo's explanations were dense and confusing, full of terminology he could scarcely puzzle out. It had never deterred him, however; it had never alienated them or been a wedge between them. It had just increased his appreciation for Ryo, feeling as though no matter what they came across, he would have the answer for it.

Such a feeling had persisted in him to this day.

And it's all exactly why Akira is so dogged in his determination to cling to what small, inconsequential victories he'd managed to claim throughout their childhood. Ryo, having been both bigger and smarter than himself, had usually claimed victory in small contests with ease, but the few times Akira had managed to get ahead...

Well, even a few of them were still in contention. He sits up a little bit, eyes bright, the smile dragging across his lips both slow and sharp. He knows he'll never be able to change Ryo's mind, but the argument was in good fun.]

I didn't cheat. [He rocks a bit in his seat.] I never said there'd be a countdown, right? Just that it was whoever reached the bottom first. You could'a started down the hill as soon as I said that, but you didn't. So I won.

[It'd still been fun, though. He remembers being totally breathless, both from the exhilaration of the race but also from laughing and arguing once they'd both reached the finish line at the bottom of the hill. Ryo'd thrown a snowball into his face at one point.]

Yeah, see! You did, even despite that.

[He sighs, expression resolving into a kind of wistful fondness.]

Too bad it can't snow here. And we don't have a hill. We could settle this.

[luciformis]

[ Akira had something unique, indescribable. For all he thought that he was inconsequential, Ryo had found him a marvel in flesh and bone. Though perhaps not in the full of admittance, Akira had presented something to him that he had never considered before since the very beginning. Amid the noise and the pallor that cast across the whole of society, Akira was sensitive and compassionate. He held in him all the things that Ryo did not. Ryo's wins were only that. Akira, however, had more than enough that he would succeed over him at. Even if he did not recognize it, even before the demon that gave him the strength to repel most any force — Ryo struggled to relate to others, to feel any warmth for much of anyone.

And that was something that Ryo could not master no matter the time given to him. At least, for so he thought. ]

I didn't, [ he concedes, but there's something bright in the blue of his eyes. Where Akira rocks in his seat, Ryo curves his fingers to rest beneath his own chin. The implication of that same smile still rests at the corners of his lips. ] Then again, the rules of racing are typically implied.

[ Even with all of his childhood fuss, Ryo'd been fine enough with the results because Akira had lit up like a Roman candle, mouth split into a grin so wide that Ryo often found himself thinking that it must hurt. It'd been on the same day where Akira had shown him how to make a snow angel, but Ryo was contented instead to watch with his cheek pressed to the white and the cold. Part of him had always wondered why those days felt precious and fleeting, but he supposes it was answered soon enough. It'd taken all these years to see him again and so little had changed and so much had become different. Still, those memories were the precious few points of consistency in Ryo's life. It was what he had.

But still, there's something just as soft that flits at the corners of his expression. It's a wonder for anyone else to catch, but he knows there's no point in disguising this. Akira had found him already on the Observatory Deck. It was a place that said just as much without needing to say anything at all. ]

We could have, [ he says, after a moment. One corner of his mouth lifts a little. It isn't sharp. ] But, even with a proper countdown, I doubt I'd win now.

[ It's no secret that mass impacts velocity, Akira. Ryo's a whip of a thing in comparison. ]

[dvmn]

[An overabundance of heart and compassion was something more likely to be lauded in a storybook than in real life; children were cruel to compassion, harsh to the onset of unexpected tears, and so Akira had only ever really had a dishearteningly "realistic" outlook of his own construction. He had never tried to change. Even ten years ago he had his own sort of stubborn streak, the kind of individual radicalism which steeled him to remaining as he was, in defiance of what others might think or say. It was if Akira burned with a radiance that was harsh on the eyes of everyone else, so used to the sanitized dimness of polite society, and he staunchly denied requests to capitulate to the greater whole simply because he knew that there were others, such as Ryo, who lived in an even darker place - who needed the additional light to find their way out.

They were all given strengths and weaknesses which interlaced, so that they could cover and augment one another. He had simply been using what little he had been given.

Akira snorts, waving a hand in a dismissive gesture. That's rich, coming from Ryo.] Yeah, but why would you care about those? [Ryo had always seemed more conscientious of the laws of nature than the laws of society; he had pushed at their bars enough to make adults wary and nervous, speaking in hushed undertones as how to deal with the situation. Akira had always complied, ever the mild-natured child, which had been what assured him that one, fleeting victory. But it wasn't something he had made a habit out of.

But it had been one way he had pushed back at Ryo, and the uncharacteristic surprise that had been evident on his face had been reward enough. It had grown worn and soft and warm with age, pressed into the pages of wistful nostalgia. The atmosphere was almost enough to make him drowsy, full of a sort of rose-tinted ease.]

Hmmm...

[He considers it for a moment before shrugging, even though the action is a bit swallowed up by the cushions at the back of the couch.] Depends how much time I gave you. Too much, and you'd figure out some way. [He says it with such a blithe tone, one which perfectly believes the meaning folded into the words. Akira only ever has what he has in the moment, the burst of kinetic energy which could force with its own hands a change in paradigm. But Ryo was equipped with everything he could conceive of, which he could plan and build, changing not only the form of a situation but the structure in which it was contained.

Strength can only carry one so far, after all.]

Doesn't really matter, though. I only needed to beat you that one time. [A slow, lazy smile spreads across his face. He'd just had to make sure that he could, and that was enough for him.]

[luciformis]

[ It was peculiar.

To Ryo, had only believed in the absolutes of strength and stamina, Akira's perceived vulnerabilities and weaknesses had fortified and loosened in turn the construction of Ryo's own. In that respect, couldn't the true be said of Akira? Ryo's perception of the world was not soft. It did not include such terms as "sorrow" or "love," but Akira had always been the one and only person he could trust. He was the only person Ryo would ever think to follow after, his footsteps falling after his. What reason did Ryo have to believe that, one day, the world would skim mercy over them? Akira was the only mercy he'd ever found. Akira, who had suffered as much as he had the impinging of societal standard. Akira, who was so kind and so gentle in what ways Ryo could not duplicate — to Ryo, it had always just been them. It was even now, back at home, the entirety of civilization shambling toward the end.

But, he'd anticipated the dismissal. He doesn't take offense to it. Instead, there's something else that creeps into his expression, something amid the gestures at fondness. He had never been made aware of the way that he'd look at Akira, but that look is here — a meld of something that extends beyond the confines of what he's come to admit over the years. His eyes brighten, flicker in that crosses into mischief. He knows he's been caught out. ]

I wouldn't have had a way of knowing, beyond the explanation you gave to me, [ he says, lightly. He isn't serious in the slightest and he knows that Akira knows that he's never been one to follow any rules. He just got one over on Ryo that day, who hadn't thought of it first. He'd been too interested in reciting something back to Akira, who took off without him.

His lips quirk without his ever knowing it, expression warmed. ]

That could be, [ he admits, tucking his feet a little more underneath himself. He leans more into the back of the couch, his cheek resting against the fabric. ] You'd have to do the calculations yourself.

[ He wouldn't tell him, after all. But, Ryo's just as certain he'd find a way to take him off guard again. He'd always managed that, somehow. No matter how much Ryo thought he knew, Akira always presented something Ryo would have never thought of himself. ]

I suppose. Like you said, there's no way to replicate that here, [ he hums, certainly not at all as reluctant to admit he won that time as he pretends. After all, Akira's joy at winning had been worth the declaration of "defeat" as he'd put it. ]

[dvmn]

[Akira is both aware and not aware of the type of attention that Ryo lavishes upon him. Naturally he picks up on something, the sensitivity of his empathetic heart too strong to do otherwise, but there's a kind of internal deflection that he does upon comprehending it, systematically informing whatever impression he might have drawn that it was most likely biased, colored by Akira's own thoughts and feelings on the matter. They are two people so intricately connected in their lives that they shaped the other in their own inverse, but Akira only allows himself to wear the bright-eyed gazes and faint smiles as what they were at surface-value, perfectly undermining the only gift he came by naturally. It was human, in a sad sort of way — they were naturally predisposed towards being paradoxical and hypocritical.

He should've expected such a line of reasoning from Ryo. Mostly because, well. It's so reasonable, so rational. He always seemed to think that those sorts of rules were the way to properly categorize the world when the world itself was wild and chaotic, only playing by its own natural laws when it best suited it.

Or maybe that's the argument Akira would give, to justify himself. Or maybe not. Did he really need to argue anything? It wouldn't change the past, and as far as he's concerned, it's a win enshrined well enough in memory that he won't allow it to be taken away just by the sway of words.]

Yeah, sure. [The words are blithe, dismissing. He sits up on the couch, looking sidelong at his friend with a sly sort of smile.] You can say that, but whatever. You know everything.

[Another easily-presented defense. One that might not be perfectly right, but it's close enough that Akira feels emboldened by it.

He grows still, thinking, a low hum in his throat as he seems to consider Ryo's suggestion.]

Hmm. Nah. Pass.

[Calculations? What is he, a computer? Akira doesn't need numbers to confirm what he feels to be true in the pit of his gut.

He stands, turning to face Ryo with one hand on his hip.] Maybe not exactly, but, [and before he could to much to react, he reaches out to lightly flick Ryo in the center of his forehead,] maybe we'll figure out some way to settle the score some other way.

[And he decides to marry together his desire to seem cool and also his burgeoning sense of wanderlust, turning on his heel and beginning to stroll out the door without another word having been said.]