luckless | [RYSLIG] IC Inbox

[He doesn't expect this message, like, at all.]

What made you think I hate the ocean?

[Denial: engaged]

you got all wiggy when steve brought it up at the rooftop grill thing. your tail grabbed me. either you hate the ocean or you were having the world's weirdest seizure.

[................]

i just figured somebody should know before we go, if you're still going.

[#caring?]

[Stupid tail. It's simultaneously harder and easier to maintain the mask over text.]

I see. You scared me when you kicked me.

[............]

[...]

You know how... when we were in that other world, I told you about the dream I had?

[She's about to call bullshit. But . . . maybe she doesn't have to.]

yeah

just like you remember mine.

[A reminder: he's got leverage on her, too. They're even.

Before coming to Ryslig, I was forced to participate in a... game.

[It's weird being this blatantly honest. Not in a way like he was with the other Yugi. The last time he talked about this it was a lot more casual, he didn't go into the details. He doesn't like it. It all feels too raw, like squeezing lemon juice on an open wound.

But he... can trust Lila right? He wants to trust her.]

It was a mutual killing game. It took place on a tropical island, where myself and my classmates were pit against each other.

[Whatever she was expecting, it wasn't that.]

[It doesn't quite fit with what he told her before, everything about the bombs and traps and spectacles. Anger. Then again, it doesn't exclude those things, either. Either of these, the bombs and rage and the killing game, could be part of a greater whole. And she doesn't think he's lying to her.]

is that when you killed yourself?

[It's not the question she means to ask, but once she's typed it out, she does send it. The answer isn't necessary; the question is sentimental. She hasn't lost the fear of her other self at the prospect of losing one of the few people she genuinely cares about.]

[Whatever goes through Lila's head, Komaeda can neither confirm nor deny any of it. All he sees is that simple line of text, and despite the phantom feelings of another person within him urging that he wouldn't do it again, he doesn't feel bad in responding truthfully.]

Yeah.

[There's no need to get into the details, not unless she asks for them.]

[. . . Okay.]

okay

[Okay.]

[She takes a second. She's feeling something, but she's not completely sure what it is, so she just has to let it go in the end. Deal with it later.]

you don't have to do something that makes you uncomfortable just because somebody you like wants you to. if you're gonna feel like shit the whole time, you can just not go.

but if you want to go and need an emergency eject i can come up with one. just in case.

[A part of him is relieved she isn't pressing further.

And a part of him is disappointed, too.

He ignores that latter part.]

I want to re-write those memories. Not completely, because I shouldn't forget the things I've done, but I think it will be good if I make some nice ones at the ocean.

I didn't get the chance to, before I came here.

[So an emergency eject? That would be nice, he thinks.]

[He can't tell, but she's smiling a little on this end.]

good. that's the right choice.

[Beat your own fears or die trying. It's not her motto, but it's pretty fucking close to it.]

you come up with a signal then, whatever you want as long as it's not weird enough to stand out, and i'll be ready to fake a shark attack. [just kidding? or not?]

[He's smiling, too. Lila is nice (biased).]

Don't joke like that... knowing my luck, I really will get attacked by a shark.

Or be the only merperson to ever drown.

[But as for signals...]

Do you mean like a bird call? I can whistle, sort of. It's a bit pathetic, but it's something. Or I could just tell you I want to leave.

[Lila is nice (derogatory).]

no way, the shark would attack somebody else. whoever's annoying me that day.

[Reluctantly, she realizes that. He has a point. Damnit.]

i guess it would be fine to just tell me, i'll probably be right next to you anyway. how do you know how to do a bird call? what bird? [Probably one of those ones that can imitate a chainsaw.]

[Can Lila command sea creatures? Does she control the sharks?

Can she control him, since he's technically a sea creature now??]

Did you know Barn Owls are one of 3 types of animals that have a call that sounds uncannily like someone screaming?

[Tanaka told him that. It was an interesting conversation.]

So if I scream, you'll know to come rescue me!

[No, no, and probably.]

thank god you told me, otherwise i'd have just heard you screaming and assumed you were fine.

[Of all the people she's ever met, he seems the most likely to just scream out of nowhere for shits and giggles. She can't put her finger on why, but the vibe is real.]

hey, btw. thanks for being honest. i know there's more, but it's not my business unless you want it to be. so if you want it to be [. . .] scream then too, i guess?

Yeah, my cries of distress are pretty easy to ignore, honestly!

[He kinda pauses though, because he's... not really sure about what to do with that gratitude.

He's also not sure about telling her everything—mostly because he wouldn't even know where to start. After the last time he saw her, in her apartment, things have been a little different. He feels like he can trust her, but he's also not used to trusting people. He didn't get the chance to explore that further with Hinata.]

[.....]

How do you scream through text?

asshole.

[It's barely even an insult. She barely even registers the hesitation. It's harder to recognize the difference between Komaedaisms and actual issues over text. That, and she's trying pretty hard not to think about other stuff at the moment. For once, she's trying to focus on helping, which comes so unnaturally to her that she's shutting off other parts of her brain.]

uh i guess you could go AAAAAAAAAAA or [scream] or something. i don't know. i never really thought about it. i don't do a lot of screaming personally.

oh, or one of those ugly emoji things.

I don't really use emoji. I wonder if I can get it to work?

[Well now he's going to try, because she put that thought in his head.

His next reply comes after a few minutes of finagling:]

[○･｀Д´･○]

oh shit. i didn’t mean like that. i didn’t even know that was a thing. i was talking about one of these

😱

but yours is way better. it looks like the painting

[Does it??]

How were you able to use that emoji with these old clunky laptops? The one I used is a Japanese emoji...

[But anyways, now they're getting side-tracked.]

Lila-san.

[He's not really the forward type, when it comes to talking.]

Thank you for looking out for me. I'm not used to people caring about someone like me. If you have any questions... or anything... I don't mind answering them.

idk i just found it. there's a dropdown somewhere

look

[Ugh. She's not good at talking about this shit. The fact that she's even considering trying is evidence of the fact that he's important to her, especially considering the last time she talked about her feelings with fucking anybody, they were pulled out of her without her consent, and she's still not even sure they were her feelings.]

[Just because she's trying doesn't mean it's gonna come out right. She just can't guarantee that. It scares her.]

the fact that i know anything about your life at all isn't because you decided it was okay. it's because this place cheats. stuff you want to keep secret gets thrown out for people to pick over whether you like it or not. you couldn't stop that other version of yourself from telling me shit, because it didn't feel real to him. that's cheating.

i just

[ugh]

if it had to happen i'm glad it was me, because i'm not like some of these people who think it's only fair to spill your guts to whoever happens to be sitting next to you on the bus. i wouldn't have EVER brought it up if you hadn't gone all weird and quiet when we were talking about it.

so — do you want to tell me? like actually want to. if you do, then i want to hear it. but i don't want you to tell me just to satisfy my curiosity. that's not what [caring about someone means] i want.

Edited 2021-04-30 04:41 (UTC)

[It's alright if what she says isn't perfect, because neither of them are perfect people. Far from it. But Komaeda recognizes her efforts, even if he can't see the way she frowns or how the white holes for her eyes go squinty—he can still feel it in her words—and that's more of an encouragement than she understands.

Still, this moment, even if it's over text, it feels right. Not like when he was in the grape house with Hinata, where starvation and imminent death meant if he didn't tell someone beforehand then his legacy (pathetic as it is) would die with him. He would only be remembered for what he did, and not who he was.

This time feels different, because he wants to share it with her without some looming threat over their heads.]

Well, yeah, we weren't ourselves there. But I had plenty of chances to tell those dreams to other people and I didn't. You were the only one.

[Because regardless of what names they bear and what lives they live, Lila is important.]

Because of this luck of mine, I've always been alone. Either people around me died because of it, or people avoided me because their luck would always go bad when I was around. I got used to it, I always expected to be alone, but a few people in my life have been persistent about getting close to me despite all of this bad luck that follows me.

Despite me being a guy like this... you make me feel less lonely. So... I want to tell you things. I want you to know me.

[Oh.]

[It's . . . a lot to take in. Overwhelming enough that it's fortunate she's sitting on the couch with her feet up, because by the time she's finished reading all of this her laptop has fallen through her legs. She picks it up and puts it on the coffee table instead, and reads the whole message over.]

[The thing is, she didn't know he hadn't told anyone else about the dreams. That's new information. And nobody's ever said that to her, that they wanted her to know them. Back home, you don't say that to anybody, and you certainly don't expect it. So it's disorienting, but not . . . bad.]

[She doesn't tell him it's true for her too, that she feels less lonely with him. She can't do that yet. Maybe she won't ever be able to. The impulse is there, but if she thinks about actually doing it, she feels like she's being strangled. She just has to hope he knows already. She's pretty sure he does, given all the shit he said when they were high.]

[No, she's putting that away. Okay—]

i think guys who get followed around by bad luck follow me around. you're the least annoying so far, though. you haven't done anything awful to me or whatever. [Mm, no, that's not right either.] i don't really care about bad luck anyway. definitely not worth avoiding you over.

. . . all i know is what you told me there and what you told me just now. so i guess the game happened first, and then things went bad — worse — and you killed yourself after. when we were in the other place and you were telling me about it, you said you felt good. confident i think is the word you used. but i don't know why, and i don't know what happened before.

i honestly don't know that much about you except how you've been around me. i don't usually ask people a lot of questions.

[It's definitely a lot to unpack, and Komaeda isn't really sure where to start even if he did. So maybe it'll be easier to just... start at the beginning. Or at least the beginning of what he told her in that other world.]

When we were trapped within the killing game, a lot of things happened. Before, during, and even after I died. First... our memories were wiped before the game started, so we didn't even know each other entering the game, despite having been classmates for years beforehand.

[It's kind of fucked up, and he doesn't even know if that makes sense to Lila, but he continues.]

I... found out the reason behind the killing game. I found out who we were, who I was, before that game took place. And with that information, I decided to create an unsolvable mystery to stop the game.

The game worked on a system of murders followed by murder trials. If the killer survived the trial, well, everyone else would die. But if the killer was discovered, they would be executed.

So, I devised a plan where I would use my Ultimate Luck to get someone to unknowingly kill me. I suppose it was more of an assisted suicide, but it worked. It worked too well, and my plan actually failed, because my classmates were able to figure out how my luck works, and guessed the killer correctly.

[She reads two sentences of this calmly, and then the lights go out.]

[Which is actually probably a really bad way of describing it. Maybe it's more like: the second she reads our memories were wiped, an arc of static shoots from every pulse point into the closest available socket. Something pops, there's a bright light behind her, and then dark.]

[She blinks in it, steaming mad and now inconvenienced on top of it. There's a bland humming noise, and the power cuts back on.]

[Uhhhh.]

hey you still there

sorry, i think i did that. reading the rest of this now

[??????? the fuck]

[The lights go out, and suddenly, Komaeda's heart rate shoots up. He remembers to breathe, because he's not on Jabberwock island anymore. He's not in the simulation right now. He's alone, in his room, with Mukuro and Celeste asleep in the next one over. They likely didn't even notice the power outage.

But then the lights flicker back on, and Komaeda exhales the breath he hadn't realized he held.]

I didn't know shades could do that.

Are you okay?

[Something he asks, instead of thinking about his own past memories.]

WELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE CHANNEL, NAGITO KOMAEDA. FOR SECURE COMMUNICATION, USE 004.28.777.00 * MrBrightside has joined 004.28.777.00 <MrBrightside> Hello there! This is Komaeda. <MrBrightside>** I'm grateful that you want to talk to me.

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cw suicide mention

cw: suicide mention

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cw emotional abuse

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cw suicide (again)

cw: memory loss mention, manipulation, assisted suicide mention

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