retrospec | [video] forward dated to 9/13

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[video] forward dated to 9/13

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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[ The tears, the guilt, the regret, those are punishment enough. It was like that for Ryoji too, so never once does he think anything more needs to be done. He doesn't move where he sits, looking up at Noah like the inverse of the very first time he had met the other boy in person— Noah had been sitting on his front steps, and Ryoji had let him in. Now, it's him sitting- standing, now- feeling like he's being welcomed home.

He holds his hand out, hesitant, but he tries not to let it show. ]

What about the other arm?

[There's a bit of hesitation on his own part, but Noah's always been a bold one, once you got part his defensiveness. So Ryoji won't have to grab for his hand. Instead he'll reach out his right hand, still gloved to match the other, and take Ryoji's hand]

It's fine.

[ It's fine.

Ryoji breaks into a smile when Noah takes his hand, and it widens, then softens, as Ryoji lifts both of his and grasps Noah's hand, pressing it close to his chest. It's fine to be like this, it's fine to be together again. ]

...If you hold you arm out of the way, I think I can hug you without touching it.

[ It'll look ridiculous af, but there's nobody else here, let him try. ]

Tch...and look fucking ridiculous.

[He says...as he holds his arm out of the way like he's told. Whatever you just came back from the dead he can be less tsundere for a little bit. Don't mind that he's blushing slightly from all this, even with the trademark scowl]

[ Yeah, it is and they are, but it works and it's okay and it makes Ryoji laugh out of sheer, overwhelming relief, burying his face into Noah's shoulder and breathing laughs onto the side of his neck like there's no way he can be even more embarrassed. ]

...I'm so glad.

Tch.

[And he's hugged! It's weird and awkward, but comforting at the same time. He won't pull away, and even try to pat him on the back with his one human arm (though the angle's really weird]

...Welcome back, Ryoji.

[ Just a little longer, then, until the hug feels less like a hug he relaxes, and lets go. It's good to be back, standing here in his own home as if the past two months hadn't happened. But so much has. The loss of a mother, a month of deeply buried fears, two weeks where he'd gone and erased his own memories and came back as a child who made so much trouble for so many people. Old fears claw up now, but he pushes them down. If there's one person he needs to be upfront to, it's Noah; they'd promised each other that. ]

I've sort of... been back, Noah. It's been three weeks.

[He steps back when the hug is over, letting his left arm drop to his side. At Ryoji's statement, there's nothing but confusion]

Huh? What do you mean?

[ Being upfront isn't something Ryoji does very often, preferring to dance around things and show instead of tell. But the last time he went ahead and just did whatever, somebody threw herself out of the second story window so... yeah, no, upfront it is. ]

Remember how I said months before that my entire body was "wrong"? [ dead ] And how I'm able to change into Thanatos as well? Then changes don't end there. I can change also change into the form of a child. I can... make body disappear completely; I don't need a body to exist. There's also one more, but for now, I'm going to show you those last two, okay? Disappear, and you'll only hear me in your mind.

[...A child, huh? He hadn't guessed it before beyond a weird sense of familiarity that he found odd, but once Ryoji says it? It clicks. ]

...In other words, you were Pharos.

[It made sense, in a weird sort of way. Especially with Ryoji's bit in the video about forgetting and going back to an earlier time. A thought bubble appears above his head: "Fuck. What is my life if my friend shape-shifting into a kid makes perfect fucking sense to me?"

But no dwelling on that, since Ryoji wants to do show and tell. He crosses his own arms, as if a measure to keep his powers in check]

All right, go ahead and show me.

[ He was Pharos. What brief surge of panic there might have been in remembering how his interaction with Noah had been when he was texting him as Pharos, disappears completely when Ryoji sees that thought bubble: Noah thinks him a friend.

Ryoji steps back to give them both a little space, and closes his eyes. His view of Noah disappears, and on the flipside, Ryoji disappears, fading out and back in as a child half his own age, and in another breath, fades completely into the darkness of the apartment.

Silence.

No words come. ]

[Ya bitch he added you on facebook and everything you're stuck with him.

To give Noah credit, he doesn't get freaked out by Ryoji's little demonstration. Is it weird? Yes. But when you grow up in the circus and routinely get exposed to seeing magic and stage tricks- you get pretty used to weird. Seeing Pharos there only confirmed his theory, and when there's a long bit of silence after Ryoji disappears]

You still here?

Yeah.

[ A voice, somewhere in his head, an intrusive thought. ]

I was thinking of what I should say, but couldn't come up with anything.

[!!!

Yeah that sure is Ryoji's voice in his head. He looks very surprised, as he looks around, even tapping his ear.]

Oh, wow....that's a new one.

[....

A thought bubble appears: "Do I think my responses or do I have to to talk, because talking to yourself is a little fucking weird..." ]

Edited 2017-09-12 23:53 (UTC)

I could do something like this with Minako, as Thanatos. So if you ever see her standing around, staring into space, that might be me.

[ But it's only one-sided in that he hears Noah's words without being able to read his thoughts, or see the thought bubbles at all for not being present, so. Noah will just have to stand in this empty apartment all by himself and talk to himself. ]

Oh. I always figured she was a daydreamer or something...

[He scratches his head. No response to his thoughts. Guess he has to sound like a crazy person]

Any idea why you can do this?

It's inherent to myself as a Shadow, I think.

[ He cuts Noah some slack and reforms himself as Pharos, reappearing a little away from Noah. ]

It's something I can do to anybody while I'm in this form.

[ And in the span of a blink, he disappears, and the voice comes from behind Noah, where Pharos now sits on the top steps. ]

I can appear where I need to be in this form as well. ...This would be pretty useful, but I can't seem to do it while I'm... you know. Me. 19-year-old me.

A shadow...?

[But before he could get that answered, Ryoji appears as a child in front of him-as Pharos. But then- he disappears again, his voice coming from behind Noah.

He'll turn around and look surprised. At first it seems like it's directed at Pharos, but he's not actually looking at Pharos. Instead, he's looking at the creepy girl that's standing behind Pharos, smiling at Noah in a way only a creepy murderer could.]

Ryoji- behind you!

[But if he looks, there's nothing there.]

What—?

[ He stands and turns on the spot— and promptly slips backwards off the stairs. But it's alright because he can do that warping thing and take himself down to the bottom again, right next to Noah as he stares up at where he'd left. ]

What is it?

[He winces when Pharos slips, but before he can step forward to do anything- okay Pharos warped to safety. That's cool.

As for the girl, she seems to smile and put her finger to her index lip like she's telling him a secret or something]

A girl. There's a-

[Except as soon as she came, she's gone. It's no one but Noah and Pharos in the room]

-- Fuck. Did you see her?

[ ...A girl in his home that Ryoji didn't bring over would be a first, and he has to change back to Ryoji in order to ask. ]

What did she look like? Was she a ghost?

You didn't see her?

[That's...creepy. Yes thank you for reducing the creepy child amount in this room by 100%]

I dunno, I can't normally see the ghosts the other see...she was about 12? Spiky dark hair, yellow eyes...brown- no, grayish looking skin. And she had these weird...cross scars across her forehead. Like a crown of them. She looked creepy, honestly.

[ He shakes his head, unnerved. Being Death doesn't make him any more comfortable with the thought of even more dead people hanging around his apartment, especially ones that died as young children. ]

Sounds more like a zombie than a ghost... [ Just going to... shuffle over towards the front door, where it's a little brighter. ] But creepy doesn't mean she's dangerous, necessarily. Yesterday— no, it was a month ago, wasn't it? There were undead children at the mansion, and we played together.

[Yeah he's going to...walk with him. Get away from the creepy dark apartment]

...Of course you played with the zombie children.

[Yeah, that seems like a Ryoji thing to do alright.]

But she didn't look rotting or anything. I dunno...could've been a vision too.

It was a birthday party. There was a piñata, and we played pin the tail on the donkey.

[ Those five minutes were basically the entire highlight of hell month, so he's keen to distance himself from all of that and talk about Noah and his visions instead. He remembers... building snowmen? More confusing memories than scary ones, of the little video recordings Tim showed him so many months ago. ]

Did she do anything besides just stand there?

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