Log; complete

[ephemeric.livejournal.com]

When; August 7, early morning
Rating; PG
Characters; Asuka ephemeric and Tatsuki one_hit_k_o
Summary; if you'd died and woken up in this damn place, you'd be pretty bitchy too.
Log;

Standing up facing the carousel, Asuka was breathing. She concentrated on it as if it were her life's purpose. Asuka felt accomplished at breathing. It seemed to her a task now, not a necessity, and she was doing so well at it.

Then something in her clicked, and she was suddenly aware. Hesitantly, she placed a hand on her neck, searching for her heartbeat. What if? What if? No, it couldn't be; she was never that good in Biology anyway, she was more of a Physics person. She must simply be searching at the wrong place.

Asuka felt fear but she couldn't hear her heartbeat ringing in her ears as she should. Scared that it might prove her speculations right but also dying to know the truth, Asuka held her hand above her heart, eyes wide with fear. But even if she was right, there was no point in living anyway, right? Hadn't she decided that when she opened up her veins in a half-destroyed house?

But if she was right, then she had been defeated. Just as expected, there was nothing Asuka could do, even with the help of her mother. Pathetic. Pathetic. Wait, she didn't know if she was right or not yet. She placed her hand on her chest.

Asuka let out a long scream that echoed off the tall buildings around her.


Tatsuki had set herself a kind of routine.

It began, daily, by dragging herself out of bed at the asscrack of dawn, cursing with some creativity at her clock, dresser, and any reflective surface she passed, and tossing herself into the streets of the City by 6:30 for her morning run. She went at it with set jaw and determination rather than enthusiasm, a discman hooked to her wrist as classic, jarring rock shrieked potentially inspirational things into her ears and made the impression of a beat to follow in the soles of her feet. Tatsuki didn’t follow too much of a path, mixing it up by day to give herself the illusion of something interesting, avoiding the outskirts because she sure as hell didn’t fancy getting lost in the forest.

It was nearing seven when she hit the carousel, beating a loop around it, the discman clicking as it changed songs. Early but not that early, Tatsuki didn’t think too much of the girl standing there, didn’t give her too close a look, only prepared to nod at her in greeting as she passed. Then she screamed.

Even if the discman hadn’t been between, the next song getting a slow and quiet start, she’d have heard. Tatsuki’s swift pace fell; she stumbled and stopped, arms swinging as she fought to maintain balance. Ripping her earphones free, eyes wide, panting, sweat dripping in rivulets down her face, Tatsuki edged nearer to the girl.

"Uh—" the eloquent beginning, "uh, hey, are you…? Okay...?" and frowned. She hated that fucking question, the answer invariably no.


Asuka almost didn't hear the other girl's voice because of her own scream, but soon it subsided as her throat couldn't take more of the strain. She made some kind of sobbing noise as she stumbled back a few steps, but she would never let herself cry. After being so pathetic as to die even with her mother at her side, she wouldn't ever let herself cry. Ever. She bowed her head so that the girl wouldn't see her biting her lower lip to stop the tears.

"Fuck this," she muttered hoarsely, meaning it to be a reply to the girl. Chuckling a little to herself, she looked up and turned to the girl, her eyes glazed with madness. "The afterworld's so fucking ugly."


Her shoulders hitched in a suppressed wince as the scream had gone on, just long enough to make Tatsuki wonder why she bothered. But, annoying as it was, she wasn’t the type who could just ignore someone else in distress, so she waited it out, hands finding damp holds on her hips, looking away as the girl struggled with whatever it was. Tatsuki wasn’t taken aback by the look in her eyes, or even how harsh her words were, but it did occur to her that she looked pretty damn young for it. To look like she’d been through some kind of hell.

"Yeah, well," Tatsuki said, reaching up to rub at the back of her neck, her fingers coming away dripping. "It’s ugly, but it isn’t the afterlife. … Not, uh. Totally." Her eyes rolled up, and after a second her chin following, her sigh bit away as she shot the sky a dirty look. This part sucked. "Geeze, where to begin… This is the City. Not everyone here’s dead."


Asuka would have felt more grateful to her about staying around had she been in a better state of mind, but all she could feel now was anger. But the worst part was that she didn't know who or what she should be angry to, so it simply pulsed through her violently, waiting for her to open her mouth and spew it over to someone else. She knew that she should keep the girl from all the anger, but she felt like otherwise.

"Hmph," she snorted at the girl's answer. Asuka would have laughed again, but she didn't really want the girl to think that she was crazy; although considering the way she had acted a few moments ago, the girl probably came to that conclusion already. "It's still the afterlife for me, isn't it?" It was all too funny that she couldn't help but let out another chuckle.

Looking the girl up and down, she assumed that she had been jogging, "So you're alive," her words were acidic, filled to the brim with jealousy. She wouldn't be caring about her health had she been dead, after all.


"I guess so, if you’re dead," Tatsuki agreed, tone neutral but blunt. Lucky for Asuka, crazy was pretty much a given in the City. Not long after she herself had arrived, Tatsuki’d been kicking down doors and hollering for a piece of Ichigo. But this girl was an odd one; physically young but looking old, acting old, something about her was well beyond, what, fifteen? Not much younger than Tatsuki herself was. And she was dead, obviously and self-affirmed, which was always hard to know how to handle, because everyone took it differently.

Clearly, this one wasn’t too pleased. Tatsuki could sympathize, though not empathize. She had to fight a defensive rise of her hackles at that look, at her tone, and told herself that if she’d just died—as she assumed the girl had—and woken up in this damn place, she’d be pretty bitchy, too. Understatement.

"Good guess," she said, and didn’t bother to hide her grimace. Now her hand dug into her hair, finding outlets for the displace energy of groping, awkwardly, for a method. Finally, she shrugged it off, clapping her hands together and pummeling the point of it.

"I’m Arisawa Tatsuki. Like I said, this is the City. Sorry, but it isn’t heaven or hell, maybe something in-between—and since you’re dead, you might just be stuck here. Sounds crazy, it’ll sound crazier when I get into the fine points, but you’ll figure out soon enough that I’m not even close to kidding."


She knew it. Asuka had been sufficiently educated in manners to know that she ought to lower her voice, say thank you, be nicer, but she couldn't. It was too much. If anyone was up there, they must have a very sick sense of humor. They should have been sufficiently educated in morals to know that they ought to give her a break this time. After getting the short end of the stick all her life, shouldn't this be her happy ending? The break she had been waiting for?

Asuka narrowed her eyes suspiciously at Tatsuki, knowing deep down that she was telling the truth but not wanting to believe it. She whipped her head round, facing away from her and clenching her fists in anger. "This is fucking unfair," she spat out the words. But what could she do? What could anyone do for her?

She had taken all the short end of sticks given to her and tried to make a life with purpose. Then the idiot and the doll came along and destroyed it all, now this? What was she supposed to do with this? She let out a snort before turning back to Tatsuki. "Tell me then," she commanded her sternly, "tell me the fine points."


Birds were chirping, somewhere, overhead, and Tatsuki could hear the low throb of some song from her discarded earphones—had it really been that loud? It was sick, in a way, standing sticky with sweat and humid, City air with a dead girl, the carousel spinning around and around, bright, like some twisted amusement park. Which, she figured, was probably accurate. It was unfair, but Tatsuki didn’t imagine she needed to confirm that, or that she even knew the half of it. Her muscles ached, for oxygen, to sit, to get going again. She thought about suggesting they sit down or she could get the girl a croissant or something from a café, but thought better of it within the second. Better to get down to the grit, get it done with.

Please didn’t matter too much to her, so she didn’t ask for it. "You and me, we’re probably from different worlds," Tatsuki began, unable to keep from sounding annoyed with the very explanation. "There’s a lot of that, here. I’m not sure how to explain, except, some people are from a world where there wasn’t ever a Tokyo, or a Japan, or electricity, and some of us are from Tokyo, but different Tokyos. Alone, you’d notice a ticking, which they say’s some kind of countdown to the end of all worlds. That might be bullshit, I wouldn't know. The carousel’s a kind of centerpoint, and there’re twelve buildings all around, which look like a clock mapped. Guess they think it’s funny. Uuh.. You just grab a free apartment in one of them. If it’s empty it’s yours—get a roommate if the ticking’ll drive you nuts. Nothing costs anything here. Y’can buy anything at the shops for anything."

Tatsuki took a pause, evermore disgruntled with the very thought of curses. "The real fine points are the ones you’ll be noticing soon enough. The City’s got these deities in charge, and they’re fickle weirdos, basically, who’ll make deals. I hear it’s not a good idea to do it. Worst of all are the curses. There’s one every few days, lasts for about twenty-four hours, and… they do all kinds of fucked up stuff. They make the "citizens"… taste like ice cream or fall in love with random people or objects, or, handcuff people together for a day, like yesterday, or make everyone think they’re in seventeenth century France, or they have to sacrifice things to a cherry tree. Weird shit. It’s random."

Another break, and Tatsuki scratched her chin. "I think that’s the gist of it. People try to get out. We fail. It sucks."


It all sounded like an April Fools' prank to Asuka. It was as if Tatsuki was trying to find out just how ridiculous a story can get before Asuka would finally figure it out as a lie. But she also knew that Tatsuki wasn't lying. In a strange way, it all sounded believable; right, perhaps, but most of all believable. It fitted with her beliefs anyway; that if anyone was up there, then they must be weirdos at the least. Asuka did think however, that if she were a deity, those curses would be funny to her. Perhaps she had no right to complain after all, she was just the same as those deities. A sick sense of humor ought to be punishable by law.

She ran through Tatsuki's explanation again in her mind, picking out details that seemed important. Free lodgings. Free everything. At least the afterlife was accomodating. Asuka contemplated asking the girl if she could help her find a roommate, but decided against it. She could live alone, what can hearing the sound of ticking do to her anyway?

Asuka couldn't care less about the curses by now, thinking that they seemed like harmless pranks. "Then," she stopped herself, going over her decision again in her mind. She didn't want to get herself into another bout of misery again. Enough was enough. She looked directly at Tatsuki to affirm her decision, "I'll be off then." There was nothing else Tatsuki could do for her, nothing that Asuka would let her do anyway. With that, she looked up at the tall identical buildings surrounding the place, mentally picking one at random and turning away to walk towards it.

Stopping, she thought for a moment, as if she had forgotten the words she wanted to say, then said to Tatsuki over her shoulders, "thanks."