1806/Drink Your Words Down

Drink Your Words Down
Date of Scene:	25 July 2024
Location:	Penguin Park
Synopsis:	After the argument at the meteor shower, Usagi walked Taro off, so they could talk privately and enjoy the show. A conversation is had, with much revealed (and yet, much kept secret) on both sides.
Cast of Characters:	Usagi Tsukino, Taro Yamada

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Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Usagi pulled Taro some ways away from the gathering at the park, still clutching a plate of snacks piled high for them both in the other hand. She wasn't letting them go hungry just because some chara and her kid started crying after being honestly, pretty bratty. Soon enough, she sees a park bench, and guides them towards it. Over head, the meteors are still falling.

"Hey, I think we're plenty far away from the rest of them. Sit down, okay? Have a snack, take a deep breath."

Taro Yamada has posed:
Overhead, the meteors are falling. They're far enough from the park to be partially lit by street lights - partially lit enough for the remaining yellow-brown bruises on one side of Taro's face and his hand on the same side to be visible. Now that they're far away from people, he finally lets a little of the armor fall -

Crying silently into the arm of his red Sanrio sweater, which he STILL hasn't taken off despite the heat. The frustration from being yelled at for what he thought was pretty reasonable behavior is - a lot, actually?

He thought - he thought it was going to be different in Tokyo.

"Yeah, yeah,' and he sits obediently, scrubbing at his face some more. "Thanks for the food, Usagi-san. I wanted us meeting again to be cooler than this...."

(Especially. Especially after when, as the Slasher, she'd yelled at him as he left. Which was reasonable, sure, he was a man eating monster hanging out in a girl's room, but some bruise on his soul had been smacked again then.)

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"I mean, last time we met, you tried to help me out when a bunch of weird stuff happened at a museum," it actually hadn't been that bad - it was nice, actually. But she'd turned into Princess Serenity-as-a-mermaid, so she'd kind of had to hide her identity. "So as far as I'm concerned, you were pretty cool then."

He's been crying on the walk over, and she digs into her bag for a napkin, finding one with a relieved sigh. "Here, for your face, okay?"

And she's quiet, for a moemnt. "I didn't know you'd tried to help Mamochan. Thank you for that. That is very cool. And you helped me tonight, too. Don't worry about those girls, okay? Trust me, if crying made you right, I would have way better test scores."

Taro Yamada has posed:
"Yeah. I guess you remember all that weird ocean stuff? I hope you didn't get too lost, I didn't see you in there. I did look," and he scrubs at his face with the napkins. "I got to be an octopus. That was kinda cool."

When she mentions what happened with Mamoru, he's quiet for a moment, blotting at his face before staring at his shoes. "...I asked Naru and Adrien not to talk about me being there. Obsideon picked me up as a paperwork guy a month after the museum thing. They don't - I haven't let anyone relevant know I can do enough magic to do anything, but I'm still working for the bad guys, and I still did technically try and kill a coworker when Thetis showed up. I probably ought to quit, I want to quit, but... if they pull my scholarship, I don't know what I'll do."

He's mentioned this a little to Chiyo, to Naru and Adrien - he'd had nothing when Fuyuko had recruited him. He doesn't think she'd pull what was offered, but Beryl had been able to override her for shits and giggles. What if one of Obsideon's other creepos did that? He couldn't even kill one of Beryl's henchmen, much less anyone who could override Fuyuko...

He sighs. Why is he telling her this? (Because when he was homeless, she helped him.) Why can't he stop?

"This happens wherever I go. It doesn't matter what I do. I'm too scary to exist around people. What's the point of trying to be good if no one's going to believe it? I thought Amy would..."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"I remember a lot of things," Usagi says, which is honest, but also evasive, "And I remember that everyone was okay again, in the end, so it was nice of you to look for me."

And then she's quiet, while he explains, and yeah, she can imagine why Naru and Adrien didn't say anything, because - because in the longrun she had a lot more concerns, but that Slasher guy had been there too, and maybe Taro is in danger, but she probably shouldn't mention she knows the Slasher and aaaaargh this is frustrating...

"Well, I think there have been other people who left Obsidian, but stayed in school," Usagi says, thoughtful, "But that doesn't mean it's not a real concern, I mean, those guys are total dicks, even if they pay well. You should probably like... figure out if the school would help you out, and then go. Nurse Meiou can help you make copies of your like, records and stuff, if you need those for identity reasons, and I'm like,,, pretty sure the school has a financial aid division."

She's not entirely sure, because her Mama and Papa handle her tuition, and it's not like they were going to worry about expense if a good school wanted her.

"But, and I know this might sound mean and dismissive so hear me out: you're being silly. They're a pair of silly little girls, and Amy-chan.... yeah, okay, I was disappointed in her, a little, for immediately jumping to asking what you did wrong, I guess anybody can fall for the waterworks, but, you're not too scary too exist around people. That's dumb. That's dumb thinking."

She reaches out, pokes him in the shoulder.

"You're not dumb, so don't go around doing dumb thinking, okay? And besides, the point of trying to be good is that you do good things. What are you going to do, bad things just because people think you will?"

Taro Yamada has posed:
"....I shouldn't pry on how much you know," Taro says quietly. "Magic stuff is weird. I got bit by some weird monster as a kid and now I see stuff other people don't."

He's not going to tell her. He can't. She doesn't like the Slasher, who eats people - as a cat eats a fish, without malice, but consumption is consumption. Eating is eating. He's alive because he's willing to hurt people over and over again, because he does not want to die. People unconcious, people screaming, people afraid. The Slasher will never die, because Taro Yamada is not a good enough person to die with him.

"Well, yeah, that Hinoiri chick did, but apparantly everyone and their mother tried to cut her head off after? I went to tell her to not put anyone in the hospital again or I'd Get Her and she thought it was funny I brought her a cake about it, as if I wasn't gonna try and signal that I'm not an active threat." A thoughtful pause. "I mean, I wouldn't mind fighting my boss to the death, she's cool, but some of those Obsideon people are full on freaks. If I hadn't gotten commissioned to make Sailor Moon a cake, I'd do it for free for taking Beryl out."

...wait. Hm. Pause. He'd established his thing with the Slasher, right? he - had he? "...I knwo you know about the Slasher. I'm his cake guy. I'll feed him human food and that'll keep him from trying to eat people for a bit. I know it's a stupid situation but I"m not telling a seven foot monster with cash to go away, I like cash."

He's done even stupider things in BOTH versions of his life.Ugh.

"...Amy's offered to introduce me to the nurse and I need to take her up on it when she's...not chasing those kids," and his face pinches with hurt. "And Chiyo-chan and Naru-chan offered to help too. I figured I'd wait until the Beryl stuff was done for that."

She pokes him and he rocks a little, face pinching up more - the bruises from fighting Thetis have mostly healed, but they're still a little sore and they take up most of one side of his body. It can't be helped. But he's listening.

"....I scare people a lot. I'm tall and I have a nasty face and I don't know how to act around people. I actually get along with the Slasher who's - a literal urban legend, a monster. I've always seen stuff no one else sees, and I know things no one else remembers, and - even when I try and help people, people get mad at me. Even when I try and be good. I think I want to be good, I was trying to be good, but everyone got mad at me tonight...!"

He's trying not to cry. He's not a crybaby, he's not someone who cries to make people feel bad for him. But -

It aches.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"Enough to know it all sucks," Usagi says, honestly, because it's mostly true. There are beautiful things, and she wouldn't take it back, not now, not when it's too late for her, but, it still sucks, so much of the time. She thinks about what it would be like, to not know what it looks like when someone is dying, to not feel their blood pouring over her hand. What it would be like, to not know her friends would die for her, because they have. What it would be like, to still be an ordinary girl, with an ordinary life, whose worst fear was telling her mother she got another 30% test score in English -

Yeah. It'd be a little nice. She wouldn't trade what she has, but...

"You really shouldn't tell people about Hinoiri-chan," she sighs a little, because somehow she keeps having to be the one to explain this to people, "The bullshit magic situation she had is still her own business. And yeah, I'm mad at her because of what she did to people I care about, but outing someone as magic just encourages them out someone else, you know? People see as like, a big ol' team, just because Obsidian is all a team, but we're not really?" It's important. They don't need people sharing secret identities. It's bad enough Laura and Seiko know she can at least see magic, when she doesn't know nearly enough about either of them to know if they can be trusted with that.

"But since you know about her, you should know she did a ton of damage. More than somebody doing paperwork probably would do," she arches an eyebrow at him. "And she's kind of dumb sometimes. The dumbest genius I know, and I know a weird amount of geniuses."

A pause. A longer one.

"So... because you like your boss... you'd have a fight to the death with her? That doesn't make any sense, but, you do you, I guess. And... I don't know if Sailor Moon would want a cake for helping kill anyone. Even if they were fucked up and evil and ruined people's lives, that's still someone, you know?"

Maybe he doesn't know. Taro's always seemed a little weird, and at least she knows where part of that coems from now, because - "Yeah, okay, I wasn't expecting that at all. Not even a bit. And I mean, yeah, I guess I wouldn't tell a seven foot talll monster guy to go away, but less for the cash." A contemplative little noise.

"Chiyo-chan and Naru-chan are great. And Amy's pretty great too, but she's like... sometimes I think she notices whoever's most upset, or whoever's upset like her, and she doesn't always think about other things. Once that little girl started crying, it was all over, never mind it was her own fault. Her fairy's own fault, whatever."

She's pretty sure they can't keep total control over their chara, the chara bearers, because Gretchen seemed to do whatever she wanted, no matter what poor Madoka-chan said, but it's not like either of them were stupid. How could she not know it was rude to get in someone's face, and badger them? Even actual dumb little kids knew that.

"Yes, you scare people a lot, because you're really tall, and you might not have noticed, but this is a nation of shortys," she doesn't poke him again, because she caught that wince, "But they're being jerks. And tonight they got mad at you, because you like, lost the cuteness race. It's not fair, but, most of the time, if it's a cute girl crying versus a guy, people side with the cute girl."

She would know. She cries a lot, all the time, and she's not ashamed of it, but it definitely has made people get in trouble, and then she's had to explain, and then get yelled at, and -

"I get it, kind of. I mean, I'm really bad at school, because I always had a hard time, and even when I tried really hard, I couldn't do it. So why bother, if I'm going to get a bad grade ansyway, right?"

She pushes an onigiri at him a little insistently, then -

"Do you want a hug? I want to give you a hug. But I don't want to spook you or mess up your bruises."

Taro Yamada has posed:
"It really does suck. Magic sucks. Magic is cool but if I could give it back, I'd do it in a heartbeat."

Being immortal sucks because he feels every second of coming back. Being strong hurts because he has to use it to hurt other people, because Taro Yamada is too afraid of dying to not consume others. Eternal youth is the worst, because his family had to weigh between his unaging, cursed body and his mother's sickness and Taro had run as far as he could to make sure they made the right choice -

Because in the rare moments he lets himself acknowledge the weight of the years, he knows that even if his mother had survived leukemia, she would not have survived the passage of time.

But his train of thought is derailed because - "Wait, people don't know about Hinoiri?" hold on!! "I'm not a snitch, I just - I thought everyone knew? She sent like forty people to the hospital! My boss had third degree burns? After she stuck her neck out for Hinoiri when Beryl was after her head the first time!"

He's good about secret identities most of the time! He just didn't think Hinoiri's was a secret. Since, ah. She BURNT EVERYONE.

"She's a fucking moron. Even I'm smarter than her," Taro huffs, crossing his arms before another sob hits, and he's blotting his face on the napkin again. "Yeah, I'd fight my boss to the death, because she's cool and she earned a cool murder. I can't let a loser like Thetis kill me. I guess that doesn't make any sense, but I know what I mean."

An urban legend had to go down in history. He had to be remembered. It'd be fine, to be another notch on Fuyuko's belt. She had saved him; he'd let her kill him.

"I know Beryl's still someone but she sucks and the only way she'd stop is if she died. She can't hurt Mamoru anymore if she's dead, and everyone lived in the end. That deserves cake. I'm probably an asshole for thinking that, but I don't care. I'm glad she's dead. I'm glad she can't hurt people again. I think Sailor Moon would only kill someone if they deserved it, because I know you wouldn't let her date your boyfriend otherwise. That's probably a bad person thing to think, but I can't think like a good person yet. I want all my friends to be happy even if that means trampling on Beryl."

If he wasn't in Obsideon, if he hadn't almost died himself - but he doubts Sailor Moon would have welcomed help from the Slasher. Even if that let him ladle blood off her hands.

"I like cooking. If I get out of Obsideon, I want to work at Chiyo's place. And the Slasher - ok, yes, he's monster, but he's hungry. I've got enough food stocked up I can feed him. I kind of wonder, if he could be better if he wasn't hungry all the time." If he wasn't always craving blood. Craving attention. Craving, craving, craving things that Taro Yamada can't have.

"She really oughtta have had more control over her little thing - her fairy? There's bad guys everywhere. It'sso EASY for people to hurt other people. If that thing is her dream, why wouldn't she keep it hidden and safe so no one could touch it?"

(Dory the doll remains in his pants in her wooden coffin, listening, so close he can touch, so hidden that no fool would steal his dream.)

"...I dind't mean to make her cry. But it feels like even when I try my best, people still think I'm awful. Even when I mean well," even when he saves a child from a youma, even when he apologizes to the girlfriend of someone he couldn't save.

"I'm not cute. But I...i would really like a hug," and he takes the onigiri, and looks up to her, his face bruised with hopefulness. "The bruises are old, they're almost healed. Thetis is too much of a baja blast bitch to keep me down. I'm kind of shit with people, but I'm really glad you have my back? I - " Oh no, he's tearing up again. "You were one of the first people to welcome me when I moved here, you know?"

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Why does life do this to her, huh? Why does life put her in the position of having to do this and say these things?

"She put like, ten people in the hospital, and I'm not diminishing that because one of those people is the man I love, but, that's different from forty. Plus, there's new people at magic, all the time, clearly, we just met two of them, and I met another one last month, there's people who don't know because they weren't around, and even if she's a jerk who has to figure her stuff out, we shouldn't like, salt the earth and make it so everyone knows about her evil past of being an absolute fucking dickwad."

She takes a bite of her own onigiri, pleased to find that it's stuffed full of fried chicken.

"Don't get me wrong, I have not forgiven her, but there's danger in like, overexaggerating things too... and also, you're right, it does not make sense. Why don't you just try and avoid getting killed altogether? Why do you think murder is cool? Murder is scary! People die, and you have to live with it forever, that you killed someone and its your fault they're not in the world anymore and the look in their eyes is something you see forever - I mean, that's what video games, have taught me, in the video games."

She definitely doesn't have firsthand experience and definitely isn't dreaming about the look on Fem's face and the way her henshin broke before the rose exploded, she's definitely not thinking of the sight of Haruka and Michiru jumping into the lava, the sight of Shokupan's body falling and the sound it made strikign the earth, hahaha. No, she is not. She is Normal.

And normal people don't want cakes to celebrate killing people, she's decided.

"It's good that she's dead, but that's different from celebrating that she died. Sailor Moon is someone who's always trying her best, and she would really want to do everything to avoid killing someone, but even she knew Beryl had to die - but she still had to do it."

"So, don't think of it as bad person thinking or whatever, but instead like... do you think you'd really want to eat cake and celebrate after killing someone? Give her a congratulations on survivng kick, not a great job you killed someone cake, if there's gonna be cake."

There's gonna be cake. But she'd rather celebrate that they lived than celebrate killing, especially when she's still dreaming about it.

"Celebrating that we lived would be great, though. I think... I think everyone would like that a lot. Especially Chiyo-chan."

A hum, "I mean, of course he could, like, no one's... okay, some people are irredeemable, but not most people. If Slasher stopped hunting people, if he was able to cut it out, that would help you know?"

And she huffs, then, "Yeah, she should. I mean, I've seen them before and they kind of do what they want, but they're not stupid. Anyone knows that flying in someone's face is rude. It's... I mean, yeah, it would be better if you hadn't of made her cry, but everyone else made you cry, so. It's not like there's a moral high ground here, you know?"

There really isn't! It just sucked. That'es all it was.

"That girl, apparently, has her own problems. So I don't think you can take all the blame. People always have stuff going on, and... maybe sometimes you're doing the wrong thing. Maybe you're not getting it. But maybe sometimes you just have to keep trying. Like me, with this dumb school thing."

She reaches out, then, and she hugs him - he's ways taller than her, and lanky and skinny, but honestly, so is her boyfriend, so it's not like she isn't used to it.

"Hug time. It's okay. I always stand with my friends," a pause, "As long as they don't attack my other friends, then I end up having to choose."

Taro Yamada has posed:
He listens. He listens to all of it. He listens and considers and - he's not a moron, but a lot of this is stuff he can't put into words. So much of his life has been survival. He bites into his onigiri and finds fried chicken -

When he was little, his aunt would bring home bento boxes like this, rice and chicken. Leftover from her job at the train station. With his father and his uncle dead, everyone at home survived on what his aunt could scrounge up. It's a painfully nostolgic taste.

"...I wasn't trying to over exaggerate. My ma - got badly burned when she was pregnant with me. She was still hurt when I was grown up. I don't want to exaggerate what Hinoiri did, but if it wasn't for the magic healing, everyone there would have the same itchy, painful scars my ma did," Taro says quietly.

"I'm not good at talking about this. Ma almost died when she got burned, and Pa and my grandparents did die that day, and I clawed onto every victory we had after. Beryl being dead means everyone is alive. I want to celebrate everyone being alive."

He leans into the hug. It's - good. She's good. If he talks enough, surely he can explain his feelings.

"....I think, you and Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Guy can talk the Slasher into not eating people. You really made an impression on him," Taro says quietly. "I know he's the worst, but... Please. Help him stop. I think if you made him your friend, he could stop."