[video] forward dated to 9/13

[appraiser]

Ryoji Mochizuki shared a video.
09/13 near Apprassage

[ The video starts up, dark, silent. A bedroom, if an empty desk and neatly made bed and too many cardboard boxes count as a bedroom, and then the view flips over with a soft ] Oh. [ as the user finds the front-facing camera instead of the rear that he always uses on his phone. ]

Hi... It's been a while.

[ The bottom half of the screen blurs as Ryoji draws his knees to his chest where he sits on bare floorboards, phone in his hands. He doesn't introduce himself— doesn't need to, when his name is up there for people who don't know him, his face right here for people who do: the people he's recording this video for, whispers in an empty room. ]

I'm back. I know there are probably questions as to why, or how... and I can't really explain it well myself. But I'll answer the best I can, if you want to ask, texting or in person.

[ Ryoji sits up a little straighter now, looks a little more serious. This is what he meant to say: a confession. ]

But before that, I want to say that I'm glad to be back, however it happened... a second chance like this. I also want to be more upfront about myself, and there are things I want to say to a lot of people.

There was a time in the past where I was a monster: I'd hurt a lot of people, and I ran from all of that, hid myself away, and pretended it hadn't happened. The memories I've been experiencing, I kept the good ones close, the bad even closer, pretending they weren't real and that they have nothing to do with me. I thought... that it would be better to forget about all of that and return to a simpler time. Unconsciously, I think that's what I did. I went back to before everything happened, to start over, and do better this time. But I got it wrong. I made myself forget, but I wasn't forgotten...

[ He's rambling now, a little, so he turns his eyes away from the screen, staring off at something in the distance- it's the moon reflected in his eyes, only half. ]

There's somebody I still need to say goodbye to, but after that... I want to see so many of you. I owe a lot of "thank you"s and "I'm sorry"s and "I love you"s, and I want to be with people again. I don't want to leave this world or its people ever again.

So... I'll see you guys soon.




( ooc: forward dated to 9/13 to give myself a buffer. replies can be via text, or an in-person if you want to fast-forward to ryoji showing up at your character's house/class/chance meeting at some cafe/hi roommates/he'll be finding people around town somehow. for his cr, please assume he checked up on them, whether it's handwaved or not! )

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[complementing]

[Minako is just getting off a shift at the Confectionary when she feels it. After three weeks of getting used to the silence, the presence in the back of her mind comes as much of a shock as it did the first time, and it's with trembling hands that she covers her ears, squeezes her eyes shut, blocking out everything else in a desperate attempt at hearing Thanatos' quiet murmur again. Or maybe she's trying to block out everything else completely, because whatever is making that sound, it's not really Thanatos. It's not really Ryoji. How could it be, it's impossible, it's a lie, stop getting her hopes up. She doesn't know which one it is. She thought that she'd lost all her optimism, after losing Ryoji. But there's a little flare of heat in her chest, growing and growing the longer she listens, that is proving her wrong. She takes a shuddering breath, and dares to be optimistic again. It hasn't been so long. She remembers how. With all the hesitance and hope of the little girl who had sent off that first letter in the mail, she whispers to him through their connection.] Ryoji? Is that you?

[appraiser]

[ cries ]







[ Okay, no, I'll give you a real tag. But crying is exactly what Ryoji wants to do, when he first hears his name, that voice, whispered in his head and meant just for him. In the past months, his name would be shouted with varying levels of urgency for the hell that his team had been wrung through, and the desperation and exhaustion clings to him even now: he needs to be somewhere, he needs to do something, he needs to be there for someone. In the past weeks, he'd detached himself from all of that, throwing away an identity with all the burdens that it carries, and he'd found himself alone with his thoughts and his self and a little pocket of time that had broken itself off from the past.

Like that, he'd existed as thought, as memory, as guilt and as hope, as somebody who should not exist and had brought only pain to people, simply by existing. That isn't something unique to just Pharos, though; it's how Ryoji came to exist too, closing his eyes and letting himself become the shadow of a little boy, joining with the shadows of the world as he dissolves into the darkness, and existing only for Minako, in her heart, in her mind, his soul nestled next to hers.

Because despite breaking all those promises— "I'll always be here" "I'll never leave you" "I'll be back" "I'll see you tomorrow"— there's still somebody who calls for him, who expects nothing from him except for him to simply exist, and to answer. ]

Minako. It's me. It's Ryoji.

[complementing]

[Hearing his voice, Minako stumbles right there on the sidewalk, hunching over her knees and covering her mouth to stifle the strangled sound in her throat. She'd just started building up her armor this past week-- deliberately numbing herself to the regret and loss so she would stop feeling emotionally and mentally wrung out, so people would stop worrying for her. Piece by piece, with teeth pulling effort, she'd sloughed through her days to return to a tired semblance of normal. She couldn't let herself be destroyed by his passing, even if continuing on was the hardest thing she'd ever done. But one whisper from him has crumbled all of that effort, and she welcomes it, has to wrap her arms around herself to stop her heart from leaping out and getting burnt too quickly from latching back onto bright white hope. She doesn't know how he's back, whether it's the doing of some god or demon or even Retrospec...but if he's back, she doesn't have to protect all her raw, fragile feelings from the world. She doesn't need that unwieldy, unnatural armor, not when she can cast it aside for sundresses and dandelions instead. For more smiles and shared laughter. Anything else that might come after this...no matter what form or face he may take, she will face it with courage. If he's back, he is with her. And Ryoji as he is will always be enough for her. Laughing through her sobbing and not caring that she's attracting a crowd, she whispers into her knees, straining to listen now.] Say it again?

[appraiser]

[ There's only silence.

But not emptiness. He will never let Minako feel emptiness ever again. Even if the source of all his guilt and sorrows is this nonentity of a Shadow that he has become, as a Shadow, he isn't bound by space or time or care: Minako can call Thanatos to her whenever she wants, but Pharos has always appeared at her side at his own whims, as he does now, materializing right out of the air behind her in the crowd.

A child's feet land on the ground— then Ryoji's long strides bridge the gap to where he sees Minako, dropping to his knees behind her and wrapping her up in his arms. Whispers in her ear. ]

Minako.

[complementing]

[Just like the first time they met face to face, he sneaks up to hug her from behind, and in this moment it seems the perfect mirror of their connection-- Minako, whispering to the air to call for him, and Ryoji, appearing as a presence at her back and supporting her quietly from there. Returning to her after a long journey.

She immediately turns around to hug him properly this time, too, burying her face in the crook of his neck and sobbing uncontrollably. Her heart squeezes until she thinks it will burst.]

Ryoji. Ryoji.

[appraiser]

[ Minako turns his name back on him and he smiles bitterly in her hair, remembering not too long ago when that name Ryoji was just a source of frustration and annoyance, a name that he'd rejected just as much as he'd rejected Thanatos. But they're all the same, all these little parts of himself. And while his hatred runs deep for the Ryoji who destroys lives and who lives blindly and selfishly, he loves, and has never stopped loving, being Minako's Ryoji.

"Go tell Minako." "You better have spoken to Mina by now." "Especially Minako, I think you would want to talk to her." "You talk to Mina yet?" "Minako was really upset."

He knows, without everybody having to tell him. Before he was allowed to do anything else, so many people turned him to her; she called for him, and here he stumbled, pulling himself out of that hug, and taking Minako's cheeks in his hands... like his mother would do whenever he came crying to her. She would hold his face like he holds Minako's, angle it up so that they can look into each other's eyes, silent, and know: it'll be okay. ]

[complementing]

[She blinks up at him, tears coursing down her cheeks as she receives his message, and then she lets out a watery laugh, reaching up to cup his cheeks in her hands as well, lightly setting her forehead against his. Last time, she did it to say goodbye. This time, it's a "welcome home", and an "I missed you", and all the other things that have been building up inside her since his death. None are so important as this, what she'd wanted to tell him the most ever since she'd read his last text to her:] Hey. I love you too.

[appraiser]

[ "Too." Ryoji bites back a watery laugh at that, because as much as he says it, he doesn't say it as much as he should, doesn't infuse it in every little gesture he makes, and he wants so bad for Minako to know that. Just how much he loves her. How long he's loved her for. How deeply and widely and intensely that those three words don't encompass the totality of what he feels.

He's already on his knees, so this will do.

His hands slide off Minako's face to fumble around his neck, then he reaches up to take her hands and press two objects into her palms. His glow ring, and the ring of darkness. ]

This is one Happiness. The other is Promise.

[complementing]

I'll keep them safe. [She folds her hands over the rings, clasping them together and pressing her knuckles to her lips. It doesn't feel completely right, taking these from him, but he wants to give them to her, so she will treasure them just as much as anything else he's ever given her. At the very least, she has something she can give back to him.] I want to give you the glow ring I got, too. [She wasn't so lucky as to get the memory of him giving it to her, but maybe with this, she can remember it along with him, so that it won't be just the memory of him saying good bye to her instead.]

[appraiser]

[ He laughs, silent, at the exchange of two rings, so similar they might as well be the same, passed hand to hand. ]

I never imagined that I would get the chance to exchange rings in this lifetime, but I'm glad it's with you.

[ He jokes, but the simple act of handing the rings to Minako was enough for Ryoji's mind to slip into another memory— two, actually, back to back, long enough that his hand rests over Minako's glow ring without taking it.

It's the memory of him as Thanatos, presenting Minako with the black ring that came from his heart; the Promise back then was that he will always be there to protect her from whatever darkness she ever have to face, the same way she took care of him, letting him fight by her side in that Tower, gaining more confidence and learning new skills, fully accepting his role because he had nothing to fear fighting by Minako's side.

It's the memory of him as Thanatos, returning to Ryoji in Minako's bedroom, where she once again accepts him instead of rejecting him and what his role is to be; the Happiness back then was all the time he'd spent as a human, happiness created through being by Minako's side as much as he could manage. Happiness is what he'd wanted to give Minako in handing over the glow ring, happiness that he couldn't be there to give more of, but happiness he wanted her to remember him by.

He couldn't cry back then, but he does now, hot tears that slide down his face and lands on their hands as he blinks himself back. ]

I love you. [ Is what he'd said in that memory, before he had to leave, but this time he doesn't have to. He can lift his eyes and look at Minako and say it as many times as he wants. ] I love you so much.