inbox.

[pse]

Inbox

822 - 2762

Voice — Text

"You've reached [ 822 - 2762 ]. Leave a message after the tone."

Note: She will never pick up the phone for calls and all voicemails will only be answered by texts.

CONTACTS

Amos

375 – 3135

@churnback

Astarion

537 - 8661

@sanguineus

Bucky

222 – 7637

@freakymagoo

Charles

478 - 2238

@thetruefocus

Cid

799 - 3797

@judgmentbolts

Furiosa

610 – 2077

@imperatour

Jinu

569 - 8987

@idolatrized

John

986 - 4434

@adrenalines

Laura

678 – 9829

@valle

Logan

326 – 5587

@carcajous

Lucy

[number here]

@sunnygoose

Lune

538 - 7763

@savante

Steve

987 - 6543

@americassed

Verso

222 – 1879

@recreatable

Yelena

612 – 3341

@resplendents

Code Source

Comments

[pse]

[ Lune’s question, in turn, leaves Kimiko a little confused. Why wouldn’t she want Lune’s general opinion on this mess? Obviously, her best-looking and most eloquent friend would have a vast pool of romantic and/or nebulously interpersonal experience to draw a helpful opinion from. Kimiko imagined a situation where Lune would go, ”ah, just like that one time when I—” and provide an impossibly helpful and prescient anecdote.

Not that she flounders for more than a second or two. Her throat moves as she swallows a mouthful of muffin. ]

There’s more. I ran into Shield during the blackout.

[ And that had been… not fun at all. Kimiko describes the argument in quick, couched terms; but she will admit, feeling somewhat small— ]

I hated being yelled at.

[savante]

[ Unfortunately, Kimiko’s friend really doesn’t know anything about how best to wrangle complicated social situations —

However, Lune listens, attentive and solemn. Her mouth twists, dissatisfied at the sound of this fight, vicariously annoyed that this man could help cause such a mess and then simply vanish into the fringes, avoiding her friend.

Although… hadn’t Lune done much the same, once upon a time? Fled her own feelings and abandoned Sciel, refusing to address the messiness of that she’d left behind and didn’t know how to deal with. God, she remembers what that felt like. However, she does like to think that past the age of thirty — older and wiser, more tired, more experienced with grief — she hopefully wouldn’t make the same mistakes again. Is Shield too old for this particular mistake? Hard to tell.

(And she files this other piece of information away for a rainy day, just in case: Kimiko hates being yelled at. A good thing to know, since Lune often doesn’t hold back in an argument; not that she can picture what might drive her and Kimiko into a fight.) ]

Was that your first time talking since it happened? How do you feel about him now?

[ Asked carefully, slowly. Probing for a little more information, trying to get a better sense of it before she even tries to offer a stilted, confused outsider’s perspective on this situation. ]

[pse]

[ And that's the million dollar question, isn't it? It's very rare for Kimiko to be jumbled up by her feelings; in most cases, she knows exactly how she feels. (Sure, she might spend half the time trying to talk herself out of her feelings, but—) In this instance, she's at a loss. She's in a muddle. It's as impossible as her stupid, stoppered voice. Of course, she discussed this with Gloria, didn't she? Back home, exploring the baby steps of therapy after years of turmoil.

Say what comes to mind. Sound it out. No wrong answer.

A pause; only a slight one. ]

I wish I could go back to the way things were before the train.

[ Of course, that was when— ]

I didn't know he was married. He never told me. [ He wore a wedding band on his left hand; she was too dumb to put two and two together. The humiliation sits in her chest like a lump, like a stone, but her hands shape the next words without much thought. No wrong answer. ] Before, he never acted like—

[ Fuck. Fuck. Her hands freeze, pausing. ]

[savante]

That’s on him, not you.

[ Quick, jerky movements cutting in when Kimiko freezes. Lune doesn’t have any personal experience with anything near this, but even if you’re worlds apart from each other— presumably if you have a spouse waiting for you back home, you would at least mention it before anything happened with someone new.

(And that thought is rich, coming from a woman who so habitually omits information of her own, but still.) ]

You can’t blame yourself for what you weren’t told.

[pse]

[ Lune, perhaps fortunately, doesn't quite get to the heart of what Kimiko was on the cusp of. An anxiety skirting around the corners of her awareness, of seeing blond hair, blue eyes, stars and spangles, and—

It isn't fair. It's stupid. She needs to shut it off.

So, something simpler, but no less painful. ]

I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't... fuck someone else's husband. I didn't.

[ — and hoping, desperately, that Lune believes her. ]

[savante]

[ Of course Lune believes her. She doesn’t have any reason not to. ]

There are worse things, even if you had, [ she points out. With the end of the world on the line, she’d had trouble bringing herself to care about social intrigue back home, the few times she’d overheard drama around the academy, some future expeditioner crying into his wine about a girlfriend straying —

(We’re all dead anyway, she’d thought at the time, too-dismissive.) ]

But I wish he had talked to you about it after. It sounds… frustrating.

[ She doesn’t have the exact flourish or fluency of sign to express this beyond ‘frustrating’, but she tries. ]

[pse]

[ Kimiko appreciates the commiseration, although she isn't sure she agrees there are worse things. Why does it need to be a hierarchy? She doesn't want to be a homewrecker; that's the beginning and end of it.

It's helped to talk about it, but she's ready to move on from the conversation. ]

Thanks for listening.

[ For the next little while, the conversation drifts from topic to topic; Lune talks about her work, Kimiko listens easily, offering advice when she can (not terribly often) and support when she can't (much more frequently). When Lune finally rises and bids to head home, Kimiko sends her off with snacks. ]

🎀!!

[savante]