JULY CATCH-ALL

[aceslow]

Who ⬤ Kim Kitsuragi & YOU
What ⬤ Various July activities! I'll be writing up custom starters throughout the month -- I'd be happy to whip them up for anyone who's interested, so feel free to hmu on plurk or on the CR meme HERE.
When ⬤ Throughout July
Where ⬤ Throughout Jigoku-cho
Content Warnings ⬤ Adult language and subject matter, likely some discussion of the blood rain's traumafest.

Comments

[aceslow]

[ Kim is fully prepared to debate the matter - if Shin were one of those, he would have damn well said so, and besides, it doesn't stop him from treating Kamui like a fresh-faced twenty-five year old - but he's thoroughly distracted by some unexpected common ground. ]

I've gotten better with them, [ Kim says, more sheepish than he is defensive. He balances them between his fingers, not talking, just thinking. ] But it doesn't come naturally to me, no. Frankly, I wish everyone would just use forks and get on with it already.

[ But that's culturally insensitive. To himself. Which is very aggravating. ]

So... you're not one of the many here who were born and raised in Japan, I take it?

[mindthebass]

... I've been living in Japan for a few years now, but a lot just... Doesn't stick.

(language, customs, wardrobe, expectations, all things that shin sees, but they don't stick. instead of truly absorbing it, it's much more like he mirrors his surroundings, and poorly at that. it's hard to be something when you have been shamed for not being it enough and not taught it through his life.)

... I'm European. I'm... Still learning. You're European too, aren't you? I wasn't sure, but your accent...?

[aceslow]

[ It's... an oddly vulnerable thing, talking about this. He hasn't spoken about it with anyone since his arrival. Not really. This doesn't count as talking about it either, per se, but it's more than he's done before; in a country where everyone who looks like him was born and raised in a society much like this one, what will they know of looking the part but not knowing any of it? Of knowing everything, but never looking the part? He had always craved some proximity to whiteness, clung to the half of his genetic makeup that was the same as everyone else's, thinking that he would far prefer being somewhere where everyone looked like him.

Now he's here, and all he wants is to go back. Desperately. Odd that he's met the one kid here who seems like he may know a thing or two about that. ]

Ah, yes. Europe does not exist where I'm from. I'm from a city called Revachol -- but people here have told me that I have what they call a French accent, so I think it's as close an analogue as any. [ He pauses, unsure as to whether or not he ought to elaborate. Then he decides that it's okay to, just this once. ] I have Seolite heritage, which is why I look like... [ He gestures at his own face, his sloping Suresne nose the only clue that he's anything but. ] But I'm a Revacholiere, through and through. I know none of the culture. None of the language. I certainly wasn't ever taught how to use these.

[ He gestures with the chopsticks, held clumsily in his right hand. ]

It's annoying, isn't it?

cw suicide and parental neglect.

[mindthebass]

... C'est vrai. You do sound French to me.

(one wonder of being a swede is the intake of languages. the average one speaks three, four, and shin's no exception, albeit his language skills all go to swedish, english and japanese - everything else is poor conversational he's learned in school, which feels like such a lost past at this point.

but he gets kim like no one else could, as of the people he knows. while the other speaks, shin's eyes fall to the chopsticks that just feel wrong in his hands.)

... It is. I know how you feel, even if my experience is a little different.

(here are things he hasn't spoken about as openly before. a deep breath, and it goes.)

My mother killed herself after I was born in Sweden, and I don't know who my father is. I used to live with my stepfather and my stepbrother, but they aren't very fond of me, because of that situation. They're all Japanese, but because they barely spoke to me, they taught me practically nothing, so when I ran away to Japan, I didn't even know how to read it. It's complicated, and if you show you don't know something, you can get advantage taken of you, so I try my best to fit in... It's very difficult, though.