15strangers week 2 wednesday

[exequte]

CW: Extreme 999 Spoilers

[She's still holding an edge of fabric, though her grip is very weak, breakable, like everything about her. Tissue paper skin stretched over glass bones, brittle twig body ready to go up like kindling, fwosh.

She squeezes her eyes shut for just a moment.

No. No, she would not die like this. Like she had before. Like she was now.

Briefly, her fingers trembled.]

Comments

[unpossibilities]

[Kaito's eyes widen. He listens, and he looks, and he swallows dryly. Something stopped when she was taken. Akane is locked within an endless cycle of life and death. She's always on the verge of disappearing - this is what she meant. Her fevers aren't medical, she's not normally sick at all, she's just in...stasis.]

You have to be here for a reason. If you're here, then there's a reason for it. You didn't die if you're here - there...there's a way. I just know it. Things don't just happen at random. You wouldn't exist if there wasn't a way for you to exist.

Somewhere, in that catbox, there's...there's a place to open and get free. I don't know where, but...at the very least, I can promise you this.

[He swallows.]

I'm a stubborn bastard. No matter what happens--there will be someone who remembers you. Me. I don't forget people, not when they're my friends, not when I'm so goddamn determined to remember, not when...not when it's you, especially.

You will live on, always. Somewhere. Somehow. I know it. Because you're here.

[exequte]

[That does make her start to cry, and then she laughs a little, wetly, and sniffles.]

I can remember it. Dying. And sometimes it doesn't even feel like a memory, it feels like... like it's happening.

But thank you. I wish... I wish it was that simple. I don't want to die. But I'm already dead, right? Just as much as I'm not. It's... confusing.

[unpossibilities]

I believe in you more being here than you dying--you just...have to make your presence stronger, I think. Maybe? Just...establish you're here, and you're gonna keep existing, and no one's gonna forget that.

You're only as dead as you think you're dead. That problem is--it's about the power of belief, too. Whichever one you believe in most is the one you're gonna walk away thinkin' about. So...

I don't think I could consider the pretty girl next to me dead and gone. She's here with me. And, y'know, that makes us both lucky.

[exequte]

[Well. That's the end of that. Akane is moving--carefully, because she is still weak, but with great determination until she's next to Kaito, where she leans against him, eyes closing, tucking her head against his shoulder.]

I'm... really glad I met you, Kaito.

[Softly, a little hesitantly, she takes his hand.]

[unpossibilities]

I'm glad I met you too, Akane.

[It only takes him a second to think on it - before he decides somewhere in his mind that this is right, all of this feels right, this is the right action to do - before he gently raises her hand to his lips and kisses it.

It's soft. Sincere. He means it with all of his heart.]

[exequte]

[She goes red, but this time it's just a blush and not a fever; her temperature is slowly falling, true to her word.

A few moments after he brushes his lips against her hand, she shifts and reaches up to brush a kiss against his cheek, then lays her head against his shoulder.]

[unpossibilities]

[And now his face entirely heats up. His heart thumps in his chest. Well. That...seemed like an unspoken thing.]

...

I'm gonna make sure we're both okay, we're gonna get outta this, and then, um--

We can have a picnic under the stars. Together. Just you and me.

[exequte]

[She giggles at that, just a little, but shes not laughing at him, or not really.]

Okay.