[Heart Game - Ed, Maya, Roxy]

[carptricks]

[It's dark. You're trying to move forward, but it feels like your limbs are weighed down by chains and shackles. Still, you push. You push and you pull and those chains are pulled taut and strained until suddenly--]

[Something snaps]

[You tumble forward, wind blowing past your face, until you lose awareness of anything around you. . .]

((another run ran concurrent to this one here))

Comments

[fuhrinkaed]

[Okay before anything else, Ed is checking for the clock hands.]

[carptricks]

[HE STILL HAS THEM]

[also Kaito is sitting next to his side, resting his chin in one hand]

Rise and shin, dummy Sleeping Beauty.

[fuhrinkaed]

[First priority: we cleaning magic the blood off of them.]

H-hey there. Was I out long?

[carptricks]

[sticks his tongue out]

Long enough for me to bandage you up. You cut it pretty close out there.

[fuhrinkaed]

Not the first time. [Trying to... Stand up.]

Sorry to be so deep in here and being all inconvenient all over your heart, but--well, you know why I'm here, right?

[carptricks]

[he can stand up if he wishes! he might feel a little sore, but some of his energy has returned. he's no longer, you know. in danger of bleeding to death]

I know. This is my heart-- I know everything that goes on within it.

[he stands up as well, brushing dust off of his bum as he does so]

Jii-chan really meant for you to climb the vines in the city. The easy pathway to the clocktower is by rooftop.

[fuhrinkaed]

Then he should have said so. Poor communication gets me beat up, y'know?

[carptricks]

Idiiiiot.

[he says in a sing-song voice]

. . . he's always worrying about me. He was probably vague on purpose, so you'd wander your way over here.

[fuhrinkaed]

...Weeh.

Well, should I worry? What is all this?

[carptricks]

. . .

[stuffs his hands into his pockets and glances around]

No. This place is safe. You can take a look around, if you really want to. Now that you're here.

[fuhrinkaed]

[Then I guess we'll study the drawers.]

I'd question why a morgue is safe in your heart, but for all I know mine's even weirder.

[carptricks]

[Each of the drawers is labeled with a different name. There are. . . a ton of them, honestly]

[Aoko. Diamond. Clover. Toichi. Jack Connery. Trick. Toshiya Hamano. Delriza. The robot. The mad scientist. Dahlia. And every team in Kyriakos]

[Kaito just shrugs]

[fuhrinkaed]

So this is a sort of informational room? [Probably? Maybe?]

[Lets see if I can find my name.]

[soulping]

[yep, there's an Ed drawer too]

[fuhrinkaed]

[Rule two: snooping on yourself is ok. LETS PEEKING.]

[soulping]

[there's a mirror shard inside]

[looks an awful lot like the one you shoved into your mirror the other day]

[fuhrinkaed]

[....]

[>TOUCH SHARD.]

[soulping]

[OKAY SO]

[remember when you almost got your soul blown up]

[remember when Kaito fussed at your bedside afterwards]

[this is that memory, only from Kaito's point of view]

[. . . you feel a lot of terror at the thought of losing someone you consider such a close friend-- no, not just a friend, a brother-- when the memory fades]

[fuhrinkaed]

...

So this room is about us dying or getting ourselves hurt.

I guess it's no help if I say I knew what I was doing again, huh.

[carptricks]

. . .

[glances away and shrugs again]

When you lose your old man at such a young age, like I did, that fear kinda. . . sticks with you.

[fuhrinkaed]

...I guess it would.

I wouldn't really... know. Y'know? What with the not knowing mine until well after the fact.

[carptricks]

. . .

But you know what it felt with-- your sister. Right? And how d'you think it'd feel if it were me?

[fuhrinkaed]

...yeah.

I can kinda' understand it. Which is why I don't do things I can't recover from some way or another.

[carptricks]

You just saying that doesn't help that fear in here.

[lifts a hand and clutches at his shirt, right over his heart]

Things can go wrong. Something unexpected can happen. You can lose control over a situation and things can spiral fast.

[he nods at Toichi's drawer]

. . . I've seen it happen.

[fuhrinkaed]

I've made it happen, for someone a heck of a lot smarter than me. [He scratches at his hair looking away.]

I know. But I'm a lot more durable and a lot less impulsive than a lot of people.