Scene #5376:

Owner	Pose
Ran Itoh	There's something to be said for good old fashioned first aid. Smear some antibacterial goop on a cut, slap a bandage on, call it good. But ever since the Rabbit came to her, Ran's been very, very grateful for the new kind of healing mojo she can bring to bear when necessary. Especially when so much damage was done in so little time. Especially when Janine... when August is... She turns her key in the lock and shuffles inside, toeing out of her shoes by habit and padding into the living room. Despite the clean change of clothes she's got on, Ran looks pretty beat - a bit physically overworked and emotionally drained. "I'm home," she calls, shuffling over the sofa to fwump down on it face-first.
Hikaru Kurosawa	Hikaru is in the kitchen when Ran arrives, and he puts a lid on the rice he's been cooking and turns the heat off before he steps out to see Ran. (It's all been mixed up already - he's just keeping it warm.) "There's dinner when you need it," he says, as he goes over to crouch next to the couch. It's obvious that she's gone through hell, and Hikaru's concern is reflected in the frown which knots his brow. He hestitates for a moment, biting gently at his bottom lip. "Do you want to talk about it, or do you just wanna watch a movie?"
Ran Itoh	Ran would be pretty happy to just lie here on the couch for the rest of her life. It's soft, it smells pretty good, and if she's really careful she can smother herself in the cushions and it'll look like an accident!! "Bwuh," she complains eloquently. "I'm good. Sorry, just tired." She rolls over to smile at him, and even if it's a bit subdued it's still genuine. Just... a little wry, a little apologetic, a little designed to put him at ease. It's okay. I'm okay. /We're/ okay. Ran swipes some hair out of her face and grabs for one of the obnoxiously cheerful throw pillows he'd brought home (they were so CUTE and ON SALE and she couldn't fault him because they're SO SOFT). "I want to talk. It's about you, kinda, so I want to." She told them. Well, she told Janine, who knows if anybody else heard, but... Ran scrunches herself up, folding her legs so he can join her on the sofa if he wants. "Janine's worse than we thought. Her Persona changed. It was so..." It was bad enough to make her retch. "...So awful. And... ugh, I'm getting the sequence messed up."
Hikaru Kurosawa	Just tired, Ran says, and it's the understatement of the year, but Hikaru lets it slide, smiling back to her. He's concerned, but he's not going to push the issue; she'll talk about it if she's able. There's something in her expression which makes him worry, though he's not sure whether it's just because of what he knows she went through. It feels incongruent, the hint of apology mixed in. She explains, a moment later, in a fashion; she wants to talk about him. In the back of his head, sirens wail, a bright red warning light flashing to an epileptic beat. It shows in the way his frown deepens slightly, the way he cants his chin down to hide his neck - and that's all the alarm that shows through, because as soon as her statement made him wary, the walls went up in his mind and he put on another mask. To Ran, it's painfully obvious. He picks himself up and sits down on the couch, grabbing another of the throw pillows - this one is shaped like a novelty toucan, with a big plush beak which hangs off the side. Worry shows on his face as he listens to Ran's account, and he reaches over to pat her arm. "It's okay," he says, even though nothing is okay if Ran is this screwed up. "Take your time, Ran." There's no honorific there, and there hasn't been for many years. "You've got time, you don't have to rush through what happened."
Ran Itoh	Watching another wall go up makes her heart ache, even though she knows that it's just his way of preparing, just a little bit of the skinny, bruised-up Hikaru that she'd run into that summer day years ago. She could swear he still looks out from behind Hikaru's grownup eyes sometimes. Ran inhales deeply, counting the seconds, and lets the breath out in a gusty sigh that takes some of her tension with it. "Okay." They have plenty of time, but Ran doesn't want to wait, because she's seen how he panics underneath the therapist's understanding smile. A fox mask, indeed. "Janine was in worse shape than I've ever seen her. I.... kinda sorta shadowed them through the Forest, because I didn't trust what she might do." And even though Hikaru will surely know what she means, Ran wants to explain it anyway. "She was saying things like it would be better if she just died, and why didn't she go ahead and hurry up, and..." Ran rubs her cheek against the soft couch fabric. "Like when you were still messed up from your mom. The things you believed. She was... my god, she was even worse." Her arm is warm underneath his hand. She's just Ran, the same as she's always been. No matter how they change and grow, they'll still be Ran-chan and Hikaru-kun underneath it all, right? Older, closer, stronger, better. "Her Persona, it... it became half a Shadow, maybe? Just, fly wings and bug legs and one of those gross mosquito-nose things, all exploding from under Biancabella's dress."
Hikaru Kurosawa	Ran knows that Hikaru knows that Ran knows what he's doing, and Hikaru knows that Ran knows, because that's just the kind of complicated Matryoshka which happens when you've known someone for so long. Everyone knowing makes it easier for Hikaru to try to relax his pretenses, though he can't quite stop his wariness. It's a defense mechanism he's still working on. You can know that your car is about to crash, and still be unable to stop it, after all. You've just gotta brace yourself and deal with it as it happens. (Or jump out of the car, but he wouldn't do that to Ran, not these days.) "I understand," Hikaru says, frowning as Ran goes on to point it all out explicitly. He knows it's weighing on her by how she tries to make it so clear, leaves nothing to assumptions. And there's one thing she says at the end - 'she was even worse' - which makes it painfully crystal clear just how poorly Janine was doing, because Ran knows exactly how bad it was for Hikaru, and has the context to be able to confidently say if something /was/ worse than that. His fingers curl slightly against her arm, holding it in a grasp which he's sure to deliberately keep gentle. (He wasn't always able to do that. It was a skill he wanted to learn early, because Ran would let him cling to her anyway, even if his grip was tight.) He's quiet as she finishes, waits for a moment to be sure she's not going to add anything else, but his lips are pressed in a thin line and he's holding the pillow to himself with his other hand. "Half a shadow," he echoes, eventually, breathing out in a sigh. "I... had occasionally thought it might be possible, if that world really did follow Jungian logic, but I'd hoped..." Hikaru's using keigo, and that's always worrying, because he loves so much to be informal and familiar. It speaks to how deeply her account unsettles him, how much it takes him back. "I am sorry, Ran. I should have been there. Is she all right?" Unsaid, left implicit: are you all right?
Ran Itoh	It's strange to anybody else but them. For Ran, even as complicated as their tangled 'everything' may be, she'll never think of it, as /him/, as anything but her one constant. And she's proven more than once that she'll just Ran right out of the car after him, so he's stuck with her! Hikaru is right, too. It's /because/ she knows so much - that she was there for so much of the fallout and the purging and the healing - that she's being so clear. When his fingers curl against her skin, she just shifts gently until she can slip a hand into his. It's a far sight from the way his skinny fingers used to grasp like she'd blow away on a gust of wind and leave him alone again. She's so fucking proud of all the work he's done. "I'm glad you weren't there," she nearly interrupts him, craning her neck to stare up at him with all the seriousness her soft eyes can muster. "I'm so glad you didn't have to see that. Even if..." She twists her mouth in a frustrated 'mffff' shape. "I told her. I wanted it to be you, because it was your story to tell. But we were going to lose her, I was so afraid we'd lose her, and I couldn't stand it. So I told her. That she was wrong, that the things she was feeling weren't her fault, because you'd been disowned too and it just... it wasn't your fault, and it wasn't hers either."
Hikaru Kurosawa	She slips her hand into his, and Hikaru grasps it, gently. They understand. They both understand, and that's why this is so hard. Hikaru bites at the inside of his cheek as Ran twists around, hastens to reassure him. He knows she's right, even though he wishes she were wrong; seeing that would have broken his heart, he might not have been useful at all. He can keep professional distance when he's dealing with clients, but all the people who gather together at that shack have become so much more than clients and associates over the months. They've gotten involved in some outrageous paranormal activity together, he's come to know them more personally, and his worry far exceeds his professional duty. He keeps telling Ran they're too close to this, now, they can't do their jobs properly when they're wrapped up so heavily in all of this. But his perfectionism still insists that he could do it if only he tried, he could somehow overcome everything and be what these kids need him to be. She's right to tell him he's wrong, but his brain still insists, from the dark corner of his mind he hasn't quite managed to tame: you could have done better, you could have been better. But Ran is still talking, and Hikaru frowns. He didn't want them to know. He didn't want any of them to know that he had been in a dark place, because he's trying so hard to move past it. He doesn't want to make it their responsibility, and he doesn't want to have to answer for the person he had to be. That's the entire conflict of the Fox Sister, isn't it? His Persona reflects what keeps him safe, even though he wants so badly to be a better person. He'd told Bella that, even though she hadn't believed him. And now Ran says that she's told Janine, she's spoken the words which still feel so undeserving of light. As his brain tears at the concept, his grip tightens slightly, his teeth moving to bite at his lower lip instead. It takes him some time to answer, lost in his thoughts and unwilling to speak out of turn and alarm Ran with his worries. He takes a breath in, finally, and lets it out in a long sigh. "... did it help her? Then it's fine. None of my secrets are worth anything if they get people killed, you must know that. I wish I had been there, but I do not - I don't blame you, Ran," he says, forcing himself to return to his normal pattern of speech when he notices he's speaking strangely.
Ran Itoh	And maybe she's wrong, and maybe he could have done something nobody else could... but they're too close, as he's said so many times. She couldn't shield both of them. And god damn her, she would pick Hikaru every time and never, ever regret the choice, even if the guilt consumed him. Ran expected Hikaru would forgive her. Not because she /deserves/ that forgiveness, but because that's who he is, and he knows the things that would make her break his confidence. Still, when he tells her it's okay, she lets out the breath she'd been holding. "It did. I think it did. I don't think anybody else heard, but..." She can't let it happen again. Even when it's not her business, even when she doesn't particularly /like/ Janine all the time - because you don't have to /like/ somebody to care about them - Ran can't let it go. "Thanks, Hikky," she smiles, letting her eyes close briefly. Just because she expects something to happen doesn't make its occurrence any less important. "Are /you/ going to be okay?"
Hikaru Kurosawa	Janine is a hard girl, all sharp edges, but Hikaru would still fight for her, because he knows what it's like to have to curl yourself up and expose your spikes to the world. He knows Ran would, too, because he learned how to fight for people from her in the first place. And that's why she told her, all the best intentions and not wanting anyone else to go through that. He relaxes his grip, consciously, smoothing a thumb over the back of her hand. "I'm... I'll be okay," he says, after a moment's pause. "It's hard to accept that the truth's out there without me saying it, but it's okay. I'm glad you did it, really. Because if it helped, if it can help her with... what she's dealing with, what she must be going through..." Hikaru trails off, looking down at his toucan cushion. "... we've gotta help her, Ran. It can't happen again."
Ran Itoh	They're okay, right? Ran sighs quietly, hugging her own cushion to her chest. "Good. I don't think I could live with myself if something I did..." She doesn't have to finish, because as with so many other things between them, Hikaru knows. She wouldn't have done it if she'd felt there was /any/ other choice. She gives his hand one last squeeze to reassure him, still curled up on the sofa like she doesn't plan to leave it for the rest of the week. "We'll stop it this time. We're older now. We aren't kids anymore. And there's something there that isn't /normal/. I'll never believe that the woman who kicked us out and called the cops was the same one who /hugged me/ because she thought I was seeing to Janine's medical needs. Even if it /were/ just about Personas and that kind of thing... You felt it. Something's wrong there." Ran sighs and pushes herself up, setting her cushion aside to get up to peek into the rice pot (because emotional turmoil doesn't mean she's not hungry). "So we'll fix that first. And then we'll fix everything else. Because that's what we decided to do." She gets two bowls down and looks at him across the kitchen counter. "We fix stuff." Yeah. They're okay.