[She was trying to contain her laughter, even if this was a text message. Sorry, but that message had been entirely too hammy for his own sake.]
The Mystery Club, is it? I must assume your brother is somehow involved in this little venture. I smell the two of you all over it. Ah, but I suspect that you are going to have your hands full with mysteries before too long.
A little. I mostly got my inspiration from those infomercials. Sham Wow is my personal favourite. I'm a little disappointed that I couldn't go MYSTERY WOW during that video.
Lately, yes. It seems like the more we learn, the more questions pop up.
here's yu, coming to sit on the couch beside souji, pressing his back against souji's side and letting his head hang and sighing. like whatever you were doing sorry souji here's a twin now.
[ souji had a pretty good time at prom so he's just chilling on the couch, actually shining his (most likely plastic) crown like the nerd that he is. he slightly turns his head when yu leans against. ]
Some questions. They may sound odd. Don't worry if you cannot answer them.
1) Have any of your hallucinomemories included me, Yukiko Amagi, Yosuke Hanamura, your brother Yu, or a girl named Chie Satonaka? 2) Have you ever heard of the "midnight channel"? 3) Do you have any memories of going inside a television or a world enveloped in fog?
[ It was more than three hours ago that Yu promised to text his brother about where he'd be that night. Telling Souji ad Dan & Bluster's what he'd be doing once they all got back was honestly one of the least nerve-wracking parts of his day, even if Souji kind of ribbed him a little. But, perhaps because he could tell how nervous Yu was, mostly he'd wished his brother good luck.
Yu hadn't had a chance to talk to him once they'd all gotten off the party bus; he'd found Yosuke, and off they'd gone.
Three hours later, a lot of things have changed, but Yu is exhausted and can barely keep his eyes open. So Souji will get two texts, lacking in Yu's usual scrupulousness: ]
We're ok
but we're crashing at yosuke's. I'll see you later today
[ This is about the time that any rational person should be sleeping but Souji is wide awake in their bedroom. How could he fall asleep when his brother is going to finally talk to Yosuke? Even if he's not the one confessing, he still feels anxious on his brother's behalf so his own nervousness keeps him up. It certainly doesn't fade away when the hours pass and Yu still isn't home and Souji finds himself constantly looking up from his model kit (something to pass the time) to glance at the clock. ]
[ When Yu's text comes in, he lets out a breath in relief and he immediately feels a weight off his chest. Then when he reads it, he can't help but be a little cheeky. ]
Staying the night at Yosuke's? That must have gone much better than just "ok" ☆⌒(≧▽° )
[ It's normal for Shin to text Souji at shit hours, regardless of how annoyed he gets if Souji's the one texting him when he finally got to sleep. But rather than the joking nature of their late night texts; just like how Souji suddenly texted Shin with a serious tone, Shin's now texting Souji with a really urgent... tone. ]
[ Souji hasn't been sleeping regularly for the past week so he's been up at all odd hours of the day. He's been trying to pass the time by doing chores around the house or playing with his cats and he was doing the former when he gets Shin's text. Whenever he sees a text from Shin, it normally puts a smile on his face but this time, seeing Shin's messages... it only puts a concerned frown on his face. ]
okay so i was at the electronics store and there was a furby right there in the staff room i was like wtf?? and asked around but they said "it's been here since that incident" spooky anyway i brought it with me manager said it was cool if i did okay that was context now my question is do you care if i take the skin off the furby i want to make him a god once he is free of his sinful flesh he can begin the path towards enlightenment he will take care of Us dude also considering softhacking his circuits u wanna help
[ It hasn't escaped Yu's notice that Souji isn't sleeping lately.
How could he not notice? They share a bedroom. Souji is Souji, and tries to hide it, lying still until he thinks Yu is asleep before picking up his phone or meandering out to the living room, but at some point in the week Yu started deliberately faking sleep to see how often it was actually happening.
That the answer was "every night" was disturbing enough. But worse, honestly, was that he didn't know how to bring it up with his brother. Hadn't they just decided to be more honest with each other? To talk about their problems, their memories? But here's Souji, not sleeping, sneaking around. Not telling him something. Yu knows his twin well enough to know when Souji is keeping secrets.
And it hurts. Hadn't they been making progress? Why had Souji suddenly decided to stop speaking with him again? Had he done something wrong? Something to drive Souji away, to lose his brother's trust?
All these thoughts keep him from saying a word. He doesn't know how. He doesn't know where to begin. So he watches, he sees, and he says nothing.
(If only he knew what was coming. Even 24 hours later he'll be furiously blaming himself for not being brave enough to speak up.)
It's likely he would have left it alone entirely if not for something that happened Thursday afternoon. He'd walked into their bedroom for something unimportant, Souji wasn't even home, but he hadn't expected to see something peeking out from beneath Souji's pillow. He'd frozen in place, torn in two by a mix of guilt and outright anger, but anger had won out enough to get him to move his feet.
That anger disappeared in an icy flash when the hidden object in question turned out to be a picture. A picture of a man, a young girl, and...
them.
The person that they once were.
It's not the only one. Yu turns the room upside down and finds the others, poorly hidden in Souji's exhaustion. Yu sits in the middle of their bedroom floor, chest heaving as he stares at the pictures and objects spread out before him, and then he pulls out his phone.
Driven only by manic vindication, Yu snaps a photo of the set up and texts it to Souji. This is followed immediately by a single short text: ]
[ As hard as Souji wanted to hide it, it's been increasingly obvious that Souji hasn't been sleeping lately. With each passing day that he wasn't sleeping, he was slipping up more than he wanted to and others have noticed. Ardyn has been suspecting that Souji hasn't been completely honest with his feelings or worries. Tatsuma asked why he was up so early during summer vacation. Shin told him to his face that he looked like shit. Yosuke is noticing the pattern and catches him in his lies. Too many people have been catching on and even if Yu hasn't said anything, Souji imagines that he must have been catching on as well. ]
[ They've been making progress lately. He approached Yu to talk about the reincarnation theory and to share whatever memories he had. They've been more open with communicating with each other and even with the small misfortune with their most recent post on the network, things seemed to be going well. ]
[ But then Souji got back all those memories and items and things just fell apart again. ]
[ He knows that he should have told Yu. They literally just discussed this, about how relieving it is to share these thoughts and feelings, and that they shouldn't keep any more secrets from each other. He was the one who first brought up everything so why is he the one to go back to all this secrecy and to put on a strong face and lie about how he's fine? Because if he doesn't talk about these memories, if he doesn't address them, then maybe he can find some kind of comfort in the thought that he could deny them. That maybe they're not true. It's far too cruel, to think that he once had something like a real family back in that universe, in that timeline, and that it was taken away from him just like that. And if he is to accept that these memories are real and that he is just one half of the person in his memories, that Yu is the other half, then it is to accept that these experiences happened to Yu as well and he can't believe that. He can't and he won't, but a part of him knows that this is the truth and refuses to let him sleep. ]
[ He can't bring himself to throw away the photos or the items that Retrospec gave him, almost like they're trying to mock him for the latest memories he got back. It feels like he'd be throwing away her entire existence if he did and so, he holds onto them. At first, he takes greater care at hiding them away in their room, tucking them into books or under the papers on his desk, but as he got less and less sleep, he became clumsy. He became inattentive and he let one photo just barely peek out from under his pillow. The books were not quite put away properly on the bookshelf where he'd normally put them and little corners of a photo or paper medal stuck out from under his papers. In his exhausted state, he didn't notice his mistakes and when Yu finds them and texts him with a picture of all of his secrets laid out before him, Souji has no one but himself to blame. ]
Okay.
[ That's all he texts back before he drops everything (not that he was doing anything important asides from sitting around and pretending that everything's okay) and drags himself back home. It takes everything in his willpower not to hold his right wrist at all during the walk, not to touch the childish paper bracelet worn underneath a thin long sleeve, and he manages to keep both hands by his side all the way back to the dormitories. Silently, he opens the front door and steps in, ready to find Yu and to deal with the consequences of his actions. ]
if you're dead we can't be friends, so stay alive. i hope that is enough motivation for you to hold on and keep going before we crash the party to save all of you.
we ended up underground somewhere and and it's cold and dark i've been using the light from my cellphone, but i'll have to stop soon because i keep draining the battery staring at the lock screen image it's this one
i hear you're worrying people again huh well for all i care you may be six feet under idgaf but you still haven't fulfilled your promise remember i won so you've gotta eat whatever i choose so try not to die yet
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