[OPEN] moving day!

[watermemory]

Who ⬤ Minato, Eiichi, and anyone
What ⬤ July substories in a get-along “shirt” / knb camera footage / catchall post.
When ⬤ July to August because it’s already middle of the month orz
Where ⬤ Various
Content Warnings ⬤ Substory 2 has the naked guy? The camera threads may discuss elements of violence and horror imagery.

[ Around one of the Sutoku residential buildings, it’s a nice peaceful morning broken by the sound of an argument. What else is new. ]

[ The excuse for Minato’s presence this time (not that anyone in this building is buying it now) is he’s helping Tama with packing and moving. It’s a relatable plight to many others, honestly, after their residences were made uninhabitable after the cursed month. The arrival of their mutual friend Eiichi has only made the move that much more urgent. ]

[ That isn’t the cause of the argument. But it might be easy to guess, considering that for the rest of the day, Minato and Eiichi can be found together. Quite… literally together. Is… that a set of handcuffs…? ]

[ The sight of them makes for an odd mirrored effect, given their similar appearances. The only real difference is their expressions: Minato looks distinctly harassed, Eiichi has a permanent scowl — they do seem to be agreed on one thing: Doggedly go on with their day as if there is nothing weird about the situation. ]

(( All Substory logs below are duo threads with both Minato and Eiichi handcuffed together and trying to play it cool. Though if you’d rather only tag one or the other, it can be handwaved that they’d gotten out of this daft predicament at some point. If there’s something else you have in mind, hit us up or pm watermemory / frogmarched. ))

Comments

[fuckdogramagra]

He almost went to complain about getting hauled in...but given he also wanted to complain that he wanted to just go back and lay down instead of going to the clinic, maybe Kawase had a point. Tama might have sulked as they entered, but didn't show any signs of hesitation until Minakami seemed like he might be trying to avoid the situation still. "O-okay...but don't take too long. I have to tell you something." He could have complained he didn't want to repeat himself, or stay longer than he had to, but that was ruder than he felt like being right then.

Of course, he took in the environment warily- seeing the akabeko did make him feel a little better, but the little room Kawase continued his drag in to was far less charming. Even with Kawase, this stuff still made him nervous, sitting on the little bed-things like a child, because his feet couldn't reach the floor. "You two must have noticed something had happened...is that why you're both upset?" Exhaustion had never stopped him from being a busybody before.

[frogmarched]

Kawase watches Minakami for a moment; but either he didn't care, or was satisfied enough that he wouldn't run out on them. "Sure," he states simply, before continuing to drag Tama into one of the rooms like a ragdoll.

It's not like the clinic had very many supplies, so it wasn't like there was much he could do to ease the awkwardness; but he makes sure the door is mostly closed, leaving it open a crack so that Minakami could find them, but they didn't have to look at too much of the rest of the clinic.

But, Kawase was perfectly content to leave Tamaori's question hanging instead of actually answering it. He grabs a hand towel and uses it to wipe the rest of the smudge from Tama's eyes; he squints at suspiciously, and then looks back up at Tama, but in the end he just places it on the counter as he starts rifling through the cabinet. Something from the eye...

He returns from the cabinet with a bottle of painkillers, shaking two pills out and holding them out to Tamamori. "Take these," he says as simply as the last time. Maybe he could've been more sarcastic, but he's still on edge. "If you need a drink to go with it, I'll have to go get it."

[watermemory]

Minakami murmurs assent, waving the other two ahead as he moves to the supply room. It's only after he hears the footsteps halt and the creak of a door, that he presses his forehead onto the cold metal of one of the cabinets.

It's too much at once. The false alarm. Kawase's eyes being inhabited, however briefly; then the sight of him stricken and dizzy. The evidence of whatever confrontation had occurred at the cafe. The sense that the so-very-humanlike yokai have lulled him into forgetting what some of them could do, if another possessing spirit had gone after Tamamori. How was he supposed to look out for them like this? What could he even do about it?

Nothing, it seems. Minakami wishes he could talk to his father.

He doesn't stay there long, making a detour to pour a glass of cold water before slipping into the room with the other two.

...He blinks at the offered painkillers, but Minakami isn't exactly in the mood to comment on the serendipity, so he just wordlessly hands the cup to Tama, before sitting on one of the patient beds across from him.

[fuckdogramagra]

Not being answered had a potentially-desirable effect of finally getting Tama to stop asking, at least; though it was more likely the effect of the clinic, than the silence itself. He'd already started to hunch in on himself after Kawase wiped at his face, goosebumps peppering his arms when he reached out to take the pills- and nearly jumping from the door opening, despite anticipating Minakami's return. He knocked back the tablets, then the water in quick succession, mostly to keep himself from thinking too much about it. His one eye was still bloodshot, but the other had cleared up significantly now that the hashihime was back where it "belonged".

"...I'm sorry." The second the apology is out of his mouth, Tama hates the sound of it- he's not going to reassure anyone sounding weak and tepid. If he doesn't keep himself under control, then things will just go bad again. They deserve a clear and direct explanation, even if he has to lie to give it. "Matoba-san stopped in, and saw my hallucinations a little bit at the cafe. He wanted to see them more properly, so we stopped by that little lot by my workplace, because I was just getting to my lunch break. I didn't realize anything was wrong until my eyes started to itch, but when I looked up again, the monster was already biting down on Matoba's arm. He banished it before I got a good look at it..." Tama let his hands wedge between his knees, still insecure despite his internal peptalk. "...Matoba-san is upset with himself for not being faster, I think. So, please don't ask after him when he's the one that got hurt."

[frogmarched]

He looks back to the door when Minakami returns, eyebrows going up a bit in surprise when he'd returned with a glass of water. It was a bit uncanny, actually.

Kawase sits down on one of the stools nearby the beds when there wasn't anything else for him to do (he'd have to check if they had soothing eye drops somewhere...), watching the both of them as he listened. Or, it was more like they were easy to look at when his eyes unfocused, but he was still listening. He could see the shapes around where the lies could be; Tama was always reserved in letting other people see his hallucinations, though it made sense Matoba was curious about it. The incident must have been caused by that ayakashi chasing Matoba's eye, so it definitely wasn't him running to the rescue. Between the goop that had been in his eyes, the hashihime being forced out... Apparently Matoba's little companion could possess people.

Well, it's all thoughts that he keeps in his head, but it not likes it makes him any more or less wary of the exorcist. His eyes narrowed in that critical way of his, but he didn't bring up any of his suspicions.

"Whatever. Dyer-sensei can patch up something like that easily, so he'll just have to answer to her instead." Haha idiot. "It doesn't involve me, anyway."

[watermemory]

Even then, Minakami would have been willing to accept Tamamori's version of the events, if only for the sake of how miserable he looks. As he explains, Minakami reaches across silently to take one of his hands. The place still didn't look much like a clinic to him, still more like an office building folks had been dragging extra furniture into, but he knew must have been enough for Tamamori.

At any rate, for Minakami, it's the very last thing Tama says that clinches it: the sound of his friend covering for someone. He glances at Kawase, the expression on his face, and wonders if he's guessed, too.

If he was more suspicious-minded, he'd wonder if the exorcist had been trying to be rid of his curse, but even Minakami has to admit it makes no sense. If he was a different kind of person altogether, he'd be marching off in a fit of ire, but he isn't: he's only what he is. What would he prove by shouting at someone who was dripping blood all the way down the block? Besides distressing Tama and getting kicked out of the clinic.

So all he says is, "Is that so? Lucky that you weren't far from here, then."

He's still looking at Kawase, his narrowed eyes dark and back to normal next to Tamamori's. Even if he knows it was a false alarm now, the prospect of holding this secret hasn't gotten any more appealling now, no more than it did only-- was it only a few minutes ago?

"Tamamori, if you felt it, you may have guessed already. Whatever attacked you two--" he doesn't intend for it to come out like he's trying to catch him in a lie, but he's too drained to pick his words right "--it must have frightened 'her', too. She tried to leap to another host, it..." His grip on Tama's hand tightens, the scrap of calm he'd tried to find in the supply room already dwindling. "I've never seen it happen before."

[fuckdogramagra]

It might be foolish, but Tama finds himself relaxing when neither Minakami or Kawase try to jab holes in his story. He's been as honest as he dares for the sake of not seeming like a liar, and because it genuinely was difficult for him to lie to these two after everything that had happened, but it seems like that had worked out for the most part? It'd take a few days to see if their minds worked out any further details- it's not like Tama has realized only one of his eyes was really bloodshot, given the clinic didn't have any mirrors.

The handhold is a little surprising, maybe moreso because he doesn't feel like he's earned it, with the white lies. But he greedily accepts it nonetheless, focusing on that than dwelling on where he is. Or what that explanation implies for that whole sequence of events.

"...it pushed 'her' out, then." It had 'dripped' out, dashed his illusions so effortlessly- but was that literal, or not, he didn't know. The hand was squeezed as he wondered about how long something like that could have been lingering...in his system, like a cold. It was easier to think of it like a cold. "When Matoba-san asked what I could do, I thought it'd make more sense to show him something I know really well, not...just make up something fantastical. So I made Umebachidou. When I was thinking about that place too much, the- the thing, it attacked." He'd felt 'allergies' even before Matoba had shown up at the cafe, so that was probably fine to admit to. Right? "My eyes have been irritated for a couple days, but when it showed up, they really started to hurt, and I felt empty and dizzy..." No, wait. The more he talks like this, the higher the risk he's going to say the wrong thing, getting stuck at the clinic or getting his co-conspirator in trouble- he wants to help Matoba, not make things worse for him. Tama swallows thick, looking up at Kawase like he's asking permission. "I can just go home, can't I? I'm just exhausted now, and she's back where she should be. Y-you know I can't relax in a place like this..."

[frogmarched]

The suspicious look on his face was clear as day, and after a moment Kawase glances back at Minakami in turn. He looks like he'd be smoking right now, if not for his respect of Emily's rules. Of course, Minakami must have known, too, with a look like that.

But it seemed Tamamori was determined to cover for Matoba, even so. He looks more and more unhappy as Tama explains; Umebachidou held no horror for him, but it surely would've for Tama, a haunted place in more ways than one. But Kawase's thought process is immediately cut off, and his eyes widen a bit as he looked at Minakami again, startled by him bringing up the entire-- everything that had happened before Tamamori and Matoba showed up.

"W-What are you...?!" Well, he's learned not to lie far less than the other two; but he just scoffs, crossing his arms and his legs as he straightens up on his stool. He lets out a sigh through his teeth.

"Yeah, yeah. Go back and rest." He scowls, though at least he's not argumentative. "Your eye's still irritated, so don't go wandering around in a construction zone. I'll find something for dry eyes after I leave today."