jigokulogs | [ OPEN ] sunrise, sunset

Entry tags:

[ OPEN ] sunrise, sunset

Who ⬤ Kim Kitsuragi & YOU
What ⬤ March substories (night parade & babysitting bad trips) & more!
When ⬤ Throughout March
Where ⬤ Throughout Jigoku-cho
Content Warnings ⬤ Drug use for the applicable substory, otherwise n/a

a. high definition.

[ When Kim notices people exiting the drug testing location looking decidedly worse for wear, his first instinct is to simply ignore them. They knew what they signed up for, did so willingly, and evidently did so without having the contingency of planning for a friend to accompany them and keep them safe afterwards. He stands off to the side for a frankly unconsciable amount of time, reasoning that some good samaritan will choose to be helpful. It doesn't have to be him. He's done enough of babysitting people on unadvisable drug trips for an entire lifetime, and he's not keen on repeating the experience.

Except it quickly becomes clear that nobody else is going to step in, even when he's given one or two passer-bys a hopeful glance. Whether it's the blindness, hallucinations, or general revelry that influences people to make terrible decisions, participants in the study are going to wind up being a danger to themselves or others, Kim decides, and reluctantly approaches one of them. ]

Khm. Excuse me. Are you all right?

[ He knows the answer to that question. It's no, because agreeing to be the guinea pig for unknown drugs as administered by some bizarre rabbit creatures is not something you do when you're all right, but he makes the executive decision to err on the side of politeness anyway. ]

b. night parade.

i. decorating.

[ Assisting with the parade seems like an easy way of currying favour with his superiors and to at least put on the pretense of helping out, so Kim gladly accepts the task of hanging up the decorations. He'll be around to help hold ladders, move boxes from point A to point B, or toss a bottle of water to one of his fellow assistants who looks as though they've failed to hydrate through any of their hard labour.

He does, however, become more invested in it than he specifically means to as he stands back, hands tucked neatly behind him, and scrutinizes one of the stalls' decorations, in a very interesting colour scheme. ]

No. I'm sorry, this needs to come down. These colours are... [ There is a polite way of putting this. ] ...very ugly.

ii. eyes needed.

[ Kim, having been deemed a very responsible looking man (probably because he's one of the older people here, he thinks with a sigh), has been tasked with sorting the fireworks and putting them in appropriate storage. Some need to be stored at certain temperatures to maintain the brilliance of their colours, and others need to be put under lock and key in a nearby storage unit because in the wrong hands, they have the capacity to do an awful lot of damage.

Which is fine. Kim is more than capable of handling this. Only he's supposed to be reading the criminally tiny fine print along the sides of the tubes. He holds them away from his face as far as possible in a desperate bid to translate it, but to no avail. He could rely on guesswork, but...

Reluctantly, he turns to one of his fellows, roped into helping with the parade as well. ] Can you make this out?

[ He's secretly hoping the answer is no, which is a possibility. It would be less embarrassing that way. ]
c. sutoku district & housing.

[ Otherwise, Kim can be found wandering around what he's been told is his new home, pausing occasionally to look at the huge, flashy arcades, the blindingly bright department stores, or perhaps dwelling a little too long on one of the vehicles parked along the side of the road. Shopping isn't the most exciting thing, perhaps, but Kim has plenty he needs to get with his first paycheck: groceries (largely frozen and canned foods, specialty-made for the consummate bachelor), a first-aid kit, cigarettes and toiletries, instant coffee, and a pitstop where he inspects a truly tragic looking pot of mint planted in ruinously dry soil.

By the end of the evening, he can be found on the balcony of the long line of depressing apartments that all of the newcomers have been put into, staring out at the night sky with a cigarette dangling from his fingers and a convenience store bag filled with premade food hanging off the crook of his elbow. He's willing to share, if interest is shown -- a cigarette for the adults, or a an extra onigiri for the kids. If he's going to eat a depressing late-night dinner standing out here, he may as well have some company. ]

d. wildcard.

[ want something else? I'd love to make a starter for you! just hit me up at my ooc comment here and we'll figure something out. ]

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Yes, [Matoba tilts his head in a small nod, fingers slipping paper up and over,] Although some have tried. I suppose if you were an independent, or come from a less prolific clan, you may not have accrued as many grudges... In any case, Sight can disappear with age, as well, and if you have no heir to carry on the business then your shiki- ah, that is, your ayakashi servants- may continue to protect you until your death, as part of your contract with them.

Although I have heard of some complications stemming from that...

[Matoba wouldn't have to worry about that. Matoba clanheads never lived long enough for that to be a problem.]

[There is a much longer period of quiet after Kim asks about the Matoba's grudges in particular. Finishing off another set of streamers, Matoba secures the ends, and then sets it aside, turning to face Kim.]

[His hand reaches upward towards the sheet of paper, the spell that covered his right eye, and brushes aside the bangs that usually covered it.] This spelltag... You can see it, right? Normally, you wouldn't be able to.

[He lets his hair drop again, and props his chin in one hand with a lazy smirk.] There is a particularly nasty one for which my family is quite famous. Would you like to hear the story, Kim-san?

Yes, I can. I assumed it was cultural in nature. I was half-right, I think.

[ It's rude to pry, after all. And despite asking so many questions, it's rarely Kim's intention to do so. He likes to know things - he would hardly be a detective if he didn't - but it's rarely personal, and he never wants people to speak on things that make them uncomfortable. Largely because their discomfort makes Kim uncomfortable.

Matoba's odd, blase attitude is something of a blessing in that respect. Kim never feels as though he's emotionally overstepping in any way, and as a result, he never needs to deal with the burden of Matoba's doubtlessly messy emotions about his lot in life. As sympathetic as he maybe, personal conversations are always something that Kim has found difficult to navigate.

But if Matoba's offering to share? He nods. ]

If you're comfortable with sharing, then yes. I would.

Hah. Not far off, no.

[He folds his hands over his lap, eye drifting to the side. How to best discuss this with an outsider....]

Many generations ago, one of my ancestors- the head of the Matoba clan at the time- had made a promise with an ayakashi. Shiki contracts, you see, benefit both the contract holder and the ayakashi who has made the contract. Both increase greatly in power, the ayakashi may get some reward upon the death of the master, and the human receives a loyal servant. But sometimes ayakashi can also be enlisted for one job, casually, for some promised reward....

He promised his right eye. But in the end, for whatever reasons, he did not keep his promise. [There is a long and thoughtful pause.]

Ayakashi take promises and contracts very seriously, Kim-san. [He meets the man's eyes again, with a smile that doesn't reach his own.] That is why I am willing to go along easily enough with our employer's requests. Not that we have much say in the matter, hm?

[His head tilts upwards towards the strange sky of hell- as if seeking something.] Well. Ever since then, that ayakashi has been hunting for the thing it was promised, not caring that the individual who broke their promise is long, long dead. And over the many years, its hatred towards us has grown to a rather significant degree.

--Contracts are not the only way to forge connections with them, by the by. [Matoba smiles to himself, his eye still on the sky overhead.] Malicious hatred, focused and honed over a particular individual over many decades, over centuries... That, too, can forge particularly powerful bonds.

[ Kim listens carefully. He has the presence of mind to realize that writing down someone else's painful family history in front of them would be an uncouth thing to do, but his hand itches for a pen nonetheless; as far as he's concerned, while this is personal to Matoba, it also gives him an indication for how the beings here work, and how Kim might expect deals made with them to backfire.

He'll write it down later. Frankly, it sounds like the fairy tales he'd grown up with, fanciful stories meant to moralize to impressionable children. This sort of story would seem to say: keep your promises, little Kim, or you'll be sorry! A useful tool for any guardian to keep their kid in line -- or in Kim's case, many, many kids in line. But what was a fictional tool to Kim is an uncomfortable reality to the man in front of him. ]

So your occupation isn't your only birthright, [ he translates. Horrible thing, that. ] My condolences. That must be a terrible thing to grow up with.

[ And Kim thought he had it bad with his eyesight. He ruminates on what he's been told. If the case is that hatred can forge a bond, then there are many in Revachol who could have done exactly that. It's something to keep in mind with others he meets as well, he thinks. While he's certain he himself has never harboured a hatred like that for that long (at least towards a single person; groups of people are a different matter entirely) he doesn't doubt that there are others here that had. ]

Has that ayakishi never been successful in taking an eye from one of your clan? [ He did say that its hatred towards them had grown... ] Would that even satisfy them?

[Kim wasn't wrong. It was an excellent cautionary tale, and the rest of the exorcist community looked at the Matoba with varying levels of distaste for their history- and perhaps moreso, the tradition they spun out of it, and passed along (forced upon) their heirs.]

[But in the view of the Matoba clan, that distaste was only a convenient moral high-ground covering for jealousy. Matoba's mouth curls up at Kim's question, thinking of the disdainful words that were spoken behind their backs by their enemies and rivals.] Never. After all, once the eye is taken, the curse would be broken.

That is because that monster's desire for my eye- mine, and all the clanheads that have come before me- is what has made our clan so powerful. And as long as we are chased, and evade its attacks properly, our power will only grow stronger still.

[He meets Kim's eyes again.] That is also why we have not simply exorcised it. It is a malignant being whose hatred has grown its power so much that even other ayakashi do not wish to cross it, and our own power is reflected in that.

And so, [Matoba curls his fingers under his chin, other hand teasing at another roll of crepe paper,] Even the ayakashi here, who do not seem to have heard the reputation of the Matoba clan, can sense that it's unwise to remain around me... So long as that one may appear.

But don't worry, Kim-san. I wouldn't allow you to be caught up by that thing, so you can rest easy. [Reassuring??]

[ Strength isn't worth all of that, Kim privately thinks. What's the use of strength if it comes only from the ability to evade that which chases you? Surely there are better, less traumatic ways of training your skills, even if the youths of his Clan wouldn't have as strong a motivation as not losing their eyes. But he doesn't voice this thought. What good would it do anyway? While strength must be nice, the true reason for hiding from them must be because they don't want to lose their eye. Who would? Kim's barely getting by with two of them. ]

But you are no longer in a human society, where ayakishi are the intruders, yes? Now, you're in their territory. [ He glances around them, at all of the various demons that surround them. He wishes that they weren't in their territory, really. Wouldn't it be nice if they were surrounded with only other Lost Souls? Sure, they'd all be the sorts of assholes that got sent to Hell in the first place - assuming, of course, that that's true - but at least Kim knows how to deal with thieves, murderers and knaves. That hopping umbrella creature? He can't deal with that.

He lets out a breath, pinning a decoration up on the stall. ]

Ah, but think nothing of it. I wasn't worried about that. [ Maybe he should be, but even in this place, it seems too distant of a fantasy for him to even feel real concern about. ] I suspect they'd want little to do with me anyway. I've got nothing to offer them.

[ No burning hatred, no contracts, no particular supernatural skills. He doubts anyone would look at him twice. He's just normal. As he likes it. ]

So I am, [Matoba agrees, cheerfully.] Against my will, in the service of one of them. Well, I can't say it's entirely a bad deal. I have been offered something very appealing.

[Matoba gets to work on another decoration. They insisted on changing the stall up, so it only makes sense for them to be the ones taking charge of remaking them, right? That much, at least, Matoba feels responsible towards.]

...I wonder about that, [Matoba comments. The monster was not particularly concerned what objects got in its way, people included. It was less about being targeted and more about being collateral... But that aside, even as one brought here in the service of an ayakashi clan, what purpose did this man serve?] Kim-san, surely you must have some secret talents that you're not telling me of, haha.

Secret talents...?

[ Kim gives it serious thought for a moment. He's an excellent detective. That's not a secret. He wouldn't be a detective if he wasn't good at his job, not with the disadvantages he's working with. Other than his job-related talents, what can he do, really? He has hobbies, of course, but he knows that in his hobbies, he in no way exceeds a professional. And they are all very ordinary hobbies. ]

Sorry to disappoint you, [ he says flatly, not displeased but certainly not convinced of Matoba's assumption, ] but I'm not in possession of any secret talents. If I were, I certainly wouldn't keep them a secret. I wouldn't benefit from that. [ He shrugs. ] I'm just normal.

No? Not even ones you haven't yet discovered? Perhaps you're simply brimming with potential.

[Matoba grins to himself; he might be teasing the man, but it was all in good fun! He appreciated Kim's straight-forwardness, and he was easy to work with. Who knows... Maybe there was some secret potential the Daitengu was aware of. Only time would tell.]

"Normal" is only a matter of perception, too. To all these ayakashi, we are the strange ones, don't you think? Perhaps even moreso, since you are unfamiliar with their world.

...I do wonder about the lack of human spirits in this so-called 'afterlife'. You've yet to find any evidence of our state either, right, Kim-san?

I'm fourty-three years old, Matoba, [ he says wryly, an amused twist to the corner of his mouth. ] I doubt I'm going to find a new calling at this age.

[ He doesn't consider himself old. Rather, he considers himself to be a fourty-three year old with quite a bit of vitality to him. Nonetheless, he's always been set in his ways, and he has neither the time nor the money nor the energy to pursue entirely new skills.

He becomes more serious as Matoba does, though, tilting his head as he considers his words. He can't comment on the ayakishi feeling that he's the strange one - that may be the case in morphology, but he doubts he's strange in personality or pastimes - but the lack of presence of human spirits has given him great pause. To him, it's evidence that this isn't the afterlife at all. ]

But... yes, I have to agree with that. I was never a great believer in the afterlife, but one usually thinks that they'll be reunited with the dead there. Are we really to believe that out of the trillions of dead humans, we are the only ones who have made our way here? [ He shakes his head. ] Have you found any evidence that there are other cities like this one? The most I've been able to discover is that we simply can't exit the city.

[Faintly, Matoba ponders on that, an age he likely will never reach, but outwardly he just smiles.] I think you sell yourself short, Kim-san, but we'll agree to disagree.

[Perhaps the man undervalued his own skillset; he didn't seem like the type to undersell himself intentionally, but he was also in the Sutoku Alliance, so maybe it was giving too little credit towards his capability for deceit.]

[Matoba shakes his own head, tying off another decoration to hand off to Kim.] No, nor have I. In fact, from what I have gathered, everything outside of this city is a desolate wasteland which even spirits cannot subsist in.

...Hm, are you sure that is not your 'Pale'?

No, no. I went to see it, the first week I arrived. I felt it was important for me to get a lay of the land, even for places I never want to journey to myself. I got as far as the outskirts, but...

[ He crosses his arms, thinking. It had looked like a desert, or what pictures he's seen of desertland in books and in movies back home. There must be more to it, he thinks. The city is well-populated, and filled with towers that fill the sky; why wouldn't they extend city bounds if that was all there was? What dangers are out there? And what lies beyond it?

Kim doesn't know, and he lacks the enterprising spirit to find out. He's cautious by nature, and he would prefer for others to take the risks and for himself to reap the benefits of that investigation. He would not call himself fearful by any measure - you cannot be fearful and still become a cop in Revachol - but he has the common sense to know when certain things should be avoided. ]

Frankly, the Pale is far more intimidating than what's out there. Pale is odourless, colourless -- nothingness, as far as the eye can see. But what's out there looked as though it's simply inhospitable land. There must be more to it, though I don't care to find out for myself.

[Even after Kim's many descriptions of it, Matoba feels that he cannot grasp the true nature of what exactly the "Pale" was- it felt to him like how he imagined the Sightless must feel about describing ayakashi to them. Nothingness, yet containing everything. Something containing knowledge, but unaware.]

[He felt that he would like to see it someday.]

I haven't gone to look, [Matoba finally comments, although now he finds himself curious. Perhaps, when there is something to be..... seen, he will give it a try.] I wonder why it is that they speak in such hushed tones of the wastes. If it's just a desert, it shouldn't be anything that despairing.

There must be a power to it that not even the ayakashi who will dwell in places abandoned by humans will touch, if it's treated as something like capital punishment to be sent there.

My thoughts precisely. When I heard from the higher-ups that we weren't to go there I wondered if it could be a way to escape that they kept from us, but the more I heard from the citizens here, the less likely I thought it was.

[ He frowns, crossing his arms. The whole thing is quite discomforting. Not as discomforting as the Pale, but certainly a good reason to keep their heads down and act as good clanmembers, at least in public; in private, he's certain they can get away with at least shirking the more distasteful duties, or avoiding the feuds between the clans. ]

They seem afraid of it. It makes this city itself odd -- how is an entire city an oasis from what surrounds it? And what are really the dangers out there? They must go beyond the simple lack of food or water or shelter. If it didn't, I imagine they would have already expanded the city itself.

[ He glances over at Matoba. ]

Are there any particularly terrifying ayakishi you haven't seen here that could be lurking out there? What else could they possibly be so afraid of?

[While Kim mentions it- there have to be forms of passage of some sort between the human realm and the ayakashi realm. The Sutoku neighborhoods themselves were proof enough of that- how else would all these very human goods in the Daiso and McDonalds and the Family Mart make it here?? ...Well, he had explained ayakashi paths opening up to Kim before, but to Hell was a little different.] Escaping from Hell by walking out the front gates? You're very optimistic, Kim-san.

The simple fact of where we are should be explanation enough. This city may feel mortal in some ways, but do not forget that we are in the land of the dead. Its entire existence is predicated on it being devoid of life. Although "life" may not be the best word to describe it... [But getting into the nitty-gritty of yin vs yang energies, the differences between ayakashi and human existences, was perhaps a bit granular for someone unversed in the supernatural. Someday, Kim- he's going to give you a whole series of lessons on the nature of ayakashi and the spiritual world.]

...Honestly, I could think of many nasty sorts who might not get along with the... sociable clans of ayakashi that have gathered here in the city. But as to whether even they could survive out in that vast nothingness....

That's not quite what I mean.

[ Kim chooses not to argue that they are or aren't in the land of the dead. He does not believe that this is Hell, but he can't dispute this is some world's afterlife. It's just not his own. He truly believes that. All the same, he doesn't feel the need to argue with another's beliefs if they counteract his own; what difference does it really make in the end? ]

Hell - [ or whatever this place is ] - must be much vaster than this one city. To cross that plain would not be an escape... but perhaps there's another city like this one on the other side? This can't be all that there is.

[ To that point, it's something they've discussed before: if this is Hell, then where is everyone else? ]

I can't say for sure. And I'm not sure that even the authorities here would know for sure. [ After all, they went thousands of years without knowing what lay beyond the Pale. A whole world, waiting to be discovered. ] But I have a hard time believing that this is all there is.

Certainly, this entire realm is "Hell".... This city, as well as what lays outside it. I suppose going by Buddhist teachings, this place supports the system which guides spirits on to their next destination, and what lays beyond its walls is the various forms of purgatory and punishment a soul may face before being reborn.

[Matoba pauses to consider something, hitting him the same as it does Kim.] ....I have wondered where all the human spirits might be, given the population of this city.... So, perhaps.

Perhaps we will find out? [Matoba smiles, cheerfully.] With time.

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[ OPEN ] sunrise, sunset

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