[week three - sunday]

[ceded]

[ It probably makes her a horrible person that all she can feel about Lissa's horrible death is a lingering sense of cold lodged in her gut. No screaming, no crying, no horror. Just ... empty, stinging cold.

She's a different person than she was yesterday and Friday. The past two days she's walked around expressionless, and when she hasn't been that, she's been screaming. One or the other, with no fair middle ground. But today there's just ... exhaustion. Her emotions are muted, but they're there.

A few hours after the execution finds her on the hotel's porch, her broken foot extended in front of her and Pluto at her side. She pets her dog's head slowly and mindlessly while she stares out at the little town, thinking everything and nothing at once.

It's only when she sees someone ... well, someone that matters that she pulls herself out of her reverie. ]

... hey, Shinnosuke.

[ She doesn't smile for him, no. But there is a softness on her face that suggests maybe the opposite of the ill will he's probably been hoping to see. ]

Comments

[ceded]

If we win, we have three choices.

[ Says this ... very casually. ]

You've heard about it, haven't you?

[insincerely]

[He shrugs.]

Refresh my memory.

[ceded]

[ Kind of makes a face at him, her nose wrinkling, then holds up a hand with three fingers raised. She'll tick them off one by one. ]

You can send everyone home, send yourself home, or restart the game.

[insincerely]

Hmm... well, whatever I feel like at that time, I guess.

[HAHAHAHA um]

[ceded]

[ Quiet, for a moment, staring at him.

And then the shape of her face changes, subtle shifts of her eyes and the corners of her mouth. It's probably nothing he wants to or expects to see.

Without thinking -- apparently -- she'll lift the hand she's been using to pet Pluto all this time. She doesn't seem to quite realize what she's doing until her fingers brush his.

At which point she snaps her hand back, blinking in surprise. Flustered and giving her head a small, quick shake, she draws her hand all the way back to rest on Pluto's head again. ]

... Shinnosuke, what's your home like?

[ let's

change the subject from whatever happened just now ]

[insincerely]

Wha—!?

[Likewise, Shinnosuke's hand snaps back as if Xion had just set it on fire. What was that about?

???

?????

You know what, he doesn't want to think about it, so yes, let's change the subject??]

... It's okay. [He hates it.] Mostly shitty, but probably better than some other places out there. Depends on who you are and where you live, I guess. Ever heard of "Earth"?

[At this point, he doesn't know what to assume about the worlds that others are from.]

[ceded]

[ hAHA THAT DIDN'T ... HAPPEN!! that didn't happen. let's never speak of it again.

she doesn't know the name of this feeling.

Still trying to shake it off, Xion just tries to focus on what he's saying. It gets a thoughtful look, but she shakes her head. ]

No. Are there a lot of people there?

[ Genuinely curious. ]

[insincerely]

[THAT DEFINITELY DIDN'T HAPPEN]

Yeah, a few billion. People die constantly [especially thanks to the Labyrinth Disease] but new people are also being born constantly, so humanity isn't going to disappear anytime soon.

[Except maybe until Shinnosuke accidentally causes the apocalypse, but shhhh, that hasn't happened to him yet—]

[ceded]

[ That number is so big it shocks her in stages. Her surprise just grows and grows as she tries, and fails, to process it. Eventually she looks away, a little dazed. ]

That's hard to picture...

[ To say the least. ]

When we all got here, I remember thinking that there was a lot of people. It was a little overwhelming.

[ She tilts her head thoughtfully, with a tiny, considering frown. ]

I guess my world must have been really small.

[insincerely]

Seems like it. No wonder you suck at dealing with people.

[Sorry but also not sorry.]

Though I mean, Earth is a big place. The city I come from takes up just a tiny percentage of the world's total population.

... With that said, by most standards, forty people is a pretty small number for a town.

[ceded]

[ She just kind of takes that in stride because, well, yeah. ]

I guess I wouldn't know. The castle I lived in only had fourteen people in it, but I don't even really remember when it was like that. Mostly I remember there being just nine of us. I lived there all my life, and when I got to leave, I had to avoid other people.

[ She's aware of the small deception of "all my life." It's the factual truth, but also misleading to a human. That is one secret she isn't positive she wants to share, though. ]

[insincerely]

[Castle? Well, he won't ask. Her situation sounds complicated enough as it is.]

Welcome to your first experience dealing with more than nine people, then. Ain't it grand?

[ceded]

[ Xion pulls her good leg up to her chest and hugs it, giving another of those deeply self-deprecating smiles. ]

It's nothing like what I expected. I always thought interacting with other people would be...

[ she struggles for a word, and then says, like a question: ] more?

[ No, that's not right. Her mouth twists, and for a strangely long moment she's quiet. Finally: ]

I thought humans would be different.

[ So there's major admission of the day #2. She was more reluctant about this one, but it's almost impossible to explain her confusion without it. ]

[insincerely]

[His first experience dealing with a sentient nonhuman was Ash on the first day, including Ash basically trying to kill him, so really, he takes this admittance in stride.

After the initial blink and moment of silence, during which he registers and files away this bit of information (honestly, things about Xion are making more and more sense; also, he should probably be a bit more careful with talking about humans as a generalization, huh?), before:]

Surprise, we're a very weird bunch beyond comprehension.

[But seriously, why is Xion confessing everything to him?]

[ceded]

[ That makes her laugh again, a startled sound. The look she gives him is a crooked not-quite-smile. ]

It's not that. It's that ... humans feel the same as the Organization. Everyone in it wasn't human, and our leader told us over and over that ... we were incomplete. So I thought humans would be...

[ A pause. ]

But actually, everyone just seems kind of like people to me. We're not as different as I thought we'd be.

[insincerely]

[Whatever Xion's going through right now is something he can't really empathize with, as a human who's always been surrounded by humans. He listens to her explanation neutrally—again, not fully understanding what she was expecting or what she thinks she's like—before responding.]

Well, humans are still in development too, you know? While I don't really know what you mean by "incomplete", we're horribly imperfect ourselves.

[ceded]

... yeah, [ she says, with this little smile that thoughtfully tips her lips up beneath a pinched brow. ] That's what I've been learning. If humans are incomplete too, then ... maybe everything I always believed was wrong.

[ She knows she's still different from humans in a fundamental way that probably can't be bridged. But everything Xemnas ever told them about not having "hearts" ... she knew, in the end, that it was lies meant to manipulate them, that he had a larger scheme he'd never told them, but his deception ran deeper than she ever thought. ]

I wish ... I'd gotten to meet humans in different circumstances. I think it might have been fun. I wish... I'd gotten to meet you somewhere else. [ She looks at him with a slightly different smile now, small and laughing and doubtful and sincere and knowing. ] Do you think it would've been different?

[insincerely]

[... That, he might be able to understand, in a different context. Even as a human himself, perhaps he has difficulty understanding his own people—or at least how to treat them in the world that he's accustomed to.

If nothing else, even if he's been starting since before arriving here, he's familiar with having to rethink one's previous beliefs. (That maybe the world isn't as cruel as he made it out to be.)

A pensive look on his face might give away a hint about his thoughts, but when Xion asks her question (he won't think about her statement just before that, he won't), it morphs into a deadpan expression.]

Nope. I'm trash no matter where I am.

[ceded]

[ She was watching him, so she does see it, that look of thoughtfulness. It registers somewhere in her chest as a feeling she still doesn't understand, so she files it away, to look at later and try to figure out.

Does she actually want to figure it out?

His deadpan look, and what he says, gets the same kind of crooked smile he's been getting all along. At least, until it blooms into the first, the only, true smile she's given anyone since Wednesday. That she probably will give anyone for some time. ]

Me too.

[insincerely]

[... There is something so very wrong with this picture, starting with the reminder in the back of Shinnosuke's head that he's completely failing at making Xion hate him.

Damn it all.

It shouldn't be him here. It should be Yuna, or Milla, or someone Xion can call a friend that doesn't sound utterly bizarre.]

... You're not supposed to agree with that, you know.

[ceded]

[ Completely failing. Well done. Especially because this is a nice, neat reversal of what he tried to do to her at the General Store. (She knew that was all an act.)

She laughs, rubbing a hand over her face and kind of ... shrugging? She doesn't know how she feels. That hand moves to simply rest on her cheek as she looks up at him. ]

... sorry?

[ .... #notsorry

With a sigh, her smile dims into something very faint, but warm. ]

I won't make you stay any longer. But, Shinnosuke...

[ Xion's smile leaves her as she looks up at him, perfectly inscrutable. ]

.... live. Please?

[insincerely]

...

[Damn her. Damn her for asking that of him, because there isn't a truthful answer he can give her that will make her happy. (Not that her happiness should be any of his concern.)

Anyone can die in this place. Her, him, someone else. Knowing that, this conversation is pointless. Forming cozy relationships is pointless. He's aware of that. He's painfully aware of his own idiocy here—his own weakness.

It's not just Xion, in the end.

He turns away to enter the hotel.]

That's what I plan on.

[But no promises.]