[ It's the exceedingly odd night where they're both in. Between the Dome, Assets Management, and shacking up with Frank, Furiosa and Kimiko can sometimes be a bit like ships passing in the night. It's not in her nature, but Furiosa is at least trying to keep Kimiko appraised of her schedule, a paper schedule with her hours appearing on the fridge without comment one day. Slowly and surely, Furiosa started volunteering information in text if she would or wouldn't be back that night.
The threat of the murderer is part of it. Truthfully, Furiosa is more afraid of what else Kimiko might do to her car.
But even with those busy schedules, they've inexplicably found a night in together. Furiosa is eating a very practical fortified breakfast cereal by the handful right out of the box. ]
[ Kimiko is sitting on the couch that will, in a handful of hours now, become Furiosa's bed... and painting her toenails. It's rather rude, all things considered, but her toes did get eaten off by an eldritch hitchhiker the other day so she needs to redo the colour. Leaning her chin into her knee, she nods, and signs one-handed. ]
You can pick.
[ The remote is... around here somewhere. The basic cable package comes as part of the rent for the unit, and includes a small scattering of movie channels. Kimiko, for her part, doesn't own any tapes or DVDs.
[ So... not the sweet looking one about with a pig on the titled something like Baby. Got it.
Furiosa scrolls past it with the remote, settling on My Uncle Vincent, which she finds a fascinating look into a society that apparently settled their questions of justice in courtrooms. They watch for awhile, but she's unimpressed when no one seems to realize thirty minutes into the movie: ]
There's no way a 64 Buick Skylark made those skid marks. [ Kimiko did not ask and probably does not care, but literally the slightest hint of any indication that she's wondering how Furiosa knows this prompts her to continue. ] The rear axle on a Skylark is solid, so with one up on the curb you'd be riding the side. Those marks are flat and even.
[ Furiosa is indignant. Really, do they pay such little attention to the important details when making a film? Especially when a supposed car expert is supposed to be testifying to assert guilt.
Please find something else, Kimiko, unless you want he to start talking about tire sizes next. ]
[ Kimiko endures this little speech with little patience, with the corners of her mouth turning further and further down, until she picks up the remote. As the screen slips away from My Uncle Vincent, she starts to channel surf. Slowly.
[ Fine. Movie rules: no talking animals, nothing car related. Furiosa cannot suspend her disbelief long enough to tolerate mistakes to minor car details.
Eventually they settle on Armageddoom, and Furiosa doesn't know enough about space travel to argue if it would've been easier to teach the astronauts to mine into the core of the meteor to destroy it or if it really was the more logical decision to send a bunch of coal miners into space. She falls asleep before the scene where one of the miners rides a nuclear warhead. ]
[ Kimiko, who has — by this point — intimately known a space man and therefore considers herself an expert, points out that there were astronauts going with the miners to handle all the specialty space flight and engineering aspects, and all the miners were trained in was the bare minimum of not dying in space.
Once she realises Furiosa is asleep, though, she gently lays a blanket over her, shuts off the TV, turns off the light. She even plugs in Furiosa's phone for her before disappearing into the bedroom with a soft click of the door.
The next morning, they are violently woken up by the localised smoke alarm going off.
There is no smoke in the apartment, or anywhere else in the building. ]
[ It turns out that alarms and someone who very likely has PTSD but doesn't come from a time and society where anyone can actually name what's fucked up in your head don't mix. Furiosa rips into consciousness. She shoots her hand out to grab the table lamp next to the couch, and holds it poised above her head, ready to smack anyone with it.
There is no one in the apartment. Actually, Furiosa has no idea why the alarm is sounding. She sets the lamp back down and signals with kind of sloppy, one-handed signing: ]
[ Kimiko tips her arm upward to indicate a small, plastic spherical device affixed to the ceiling. A red light on it pulses hectically as it continues to shriek and bellow with its synthesised alarm.
A chair skids noisily across the kitchenette linoleum as she drags it over, stepping on it, reaching up... And then, unwisely, punches the alarm. The plastic crumples and breaks, a few sparks jump out.
The noise has stopped, at least. ]
sometime during the night of his and Rumi's 'date' night
[ It takes some days and some nights (where Furiosa is not there), but they eventually move past their biggest flatmate conflict. Things are mostly amicable and Furiosa pays her rent with a surprising amount of ones. (Part of working at a strip club and having a not insubstantial amount of pay from tip-out.)
Even the silence seems to thaw a little, signing with a casual interest in between eating handfuls of cereal from the box tucked up against her side, held in place with her stump. ]
[ Quite a bit will happen, as it turns out, but in the mean time? Kimiko isn't someone who blushes as a matter of course, but there's some sheepishness around her smile. ]
[ Furiosa only shrugs as if to say "maybe" not also "maybe not." Probably one of those things that requires a touch of social grace, and Furiosa knows she's more bullish than ideal. It's not her fault, those things don't matter in the wasteland. Maybe they don't matter here either.
So, after a moment of thoughtful consideration, she throws out a what the hell type suggestion. ]
What's it hurt?
[ To text him now. Be bold Kimiko. That's all Furiosa will offer because Kimiko did not ask, and she needs to get to work. Furiosa brushes cereal crumbs off on her pant leg before she takes a drink of water by sticking her head under the tap. As she goes, she does have one addendum: ]
[ Reaching across the table, over her breakfast plate, Kimiko plucks up her little Nokia-like phone — considers it, his name and number sitting in there with an empty chat window. Tree, Amos. Something flutters in her chest, a consideration. What would she even say to him? Words don't come easy to her in the best of circumstances. Her throat feels like an unswept chimney; all she can offer is smoke.
She puts her phone back down without opening it. Goes back to her cereal.
Later that day, she texts Furiosa. ]
Murder across the hall. Enforcers have blocked off the entire floor. You should stay at your boyfriend's tonight.
[ Kimiko will... figure something out, vis-a-vis her own sleeping arrangements. ]
[ Furiosa fishes her phone out of her pocket. The annoyed groan she makes and tip of her head seems more fitting for someone reading that the landlord shut off the hot water than someone was murdered on their floor. ]
I'll probably just sign up for some late night fights at the Dome.
[ There are a few couches in the fighters' locker room she can crash on after the fact. Besides, they'll always make room for the Unkillable Loudmouth on the roster. ]
[ Furiosa sleeps in her car. Just for one night for old time's sake. Boots and all. She showers at a truck stop before coming back in the morning. Kimiko doesn't have to know.
Eventually, it circles back around to movie night. Furiosa picks at a loose thread on the couch's arm while Kimiko paints her toenails again. Neither of them is really watching Marmot Mania, a film where the protagonist gets stuck in a time loop in a small town continually celebrating a weather-predicting rodent. ]
I didn't talk for... [ Furiosa squints into the middle distance, as if this could help her remember. ] Think it was eight years. Maybe nine. Lost count after awhile
[ Kimiko isn't sure why it's okay for her to paint her toenails on Furiosa's couch but not engage in discretionary time with a handsome, broad-shouldered mechanic, but she knows enough not to ask at this point. But she does tilt her gaze up at the words, turning them over in her head.
It doesn't reconcile well with sure, steady Furiosa. A woman who always knows her mind, economical with her words, holding onto her syllables like they're drops of water in a drought.
For a moment, there's no response. Just the low murmurs of the movie, the crackle of the television set. Then — ]
I daydream about singing sometimes. Maybe on a stage.
[ For realz. And it's hard not to let her expression catch a little, something vulnerable, not quite sad, over signing hands. ]
[ Furiosa considers her answer. She considers the idea of Kimiko singing on stage. Despite having never heard her voice, she can imagine it. Kimiko bright and full of life.
She should get to have that if that's what she wants. Trade performing at the Dome for it.
The question that follows is a natural one. She could say I couldn't hide anymore, but that isn't the whole of it. She and Jack were the only survivors of that brutal day on the road. They could've worked something out, going from mute garage rat to mute apprentice. She could go another route, sentimental and fond, I found someone worth talking to.
But in the end it wasn't about the other people in her story. It was about owning hers. ]
I decided to start taking back what belonged to me.
Kimiko's gaze skims the top of Furiosa's head for a moment, looking for an answer to that unspoken question between the curve of her ear and the apartment's ceiling, before she carefully screws the wand of dark violent nail polish back into its bottle and sets everything to the side.
Fingertips rest gently on the bulge of muscle in her throat, where the knot of vocal cords faintly jut against skin. Where noise creates vibrations, lays itself into the flesh before extending out into the world.
A faint, air-filled wheeze. No vibration.
She thinks of what she could, or would, say — "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." "うちに帰りたいです." "Hello, Furiosa."
But trying to choke out a single syllable only gets her a second wheeze, a panic in her chest to go with the ringing in her ears. Covering up the misery with a frown, she shakes her head. ]
[ It hadn't been a press to try, but Furiosa isn't surprised when Kimiko braces herself, hand over her throat. Furiosa doesn't know how long she's been silent or why. That's Kimiko's story to own and her story to share only if she wants to. Still, Furiosa watches, chin raised attentively.
For Furiosa, her silence was the single piece of her life she truly had control over for many years. She could never be forced to speak.
For Kimiko, it doesn't happen now. That's fine. Furiosa simply nods in a small movement, just the tiniest bob of her head acknowledging the try. She gets up and dutifully fills two glasses with water before placing them on the couch's side tables. She wanted to get something to soothe Kimiko's throat but mask it behind filling up one for the both of them.
Then, she goes back to signing with a blunt, unimpressed: ]
Well, she performs sometimes at local clubs like me. Maybe you can see her perform. She's a pretty amazing singer. She was the other person helping with my dancing lessons.
[ Kimiko accepts the glass of water without making a thing of it. The water might cool her throat from the strain, but at the end of the day her muteness is psychological. The words are there, lodged up in her diaphragm, her chest cavity. Pushing against her lungs, her heart.
And... there they'll stay.
A few more minutes of movie pass by, and Kimiko wholeheartedly concurs. ]
Want to watch Atlantic Trench again?
[ You know, that awesome movie musical about skyscraper-sized robots punching aliens by way of psychic linking of their pilots. In particular, Kimiko appreciates a Japanese leading lady, and gets especially excited when she gets her big solo song. ]
[Delivered to Kimiko is a small giftbox wrapped impeccably with red handkerchief.
It's a little old-fashioned, but he thinks it looks nice!]
Click to unwrap!
A Tiny Music Box that plays Waltz No. 2!
[It's small enough to fit in her palm comfortably. The wooden material is a bit flimsy, so be careful! It does in fact play a version of Waltz No. 2 by Dmirtri Shostakovich. A small piece of paper inside reads: 'The box isn't very fancy, but the music is. Since you like waltzing music.']
[ And while she may try to keep a stiff upper lip the whole time, Kimiko probably recognizes the soft, almost forlorn expression Furiosa has through parts of the movie. Surprising, not just when the protagonist loses his partner, but her hand curls up in front of her mouth each time the abrasive but undeniably talented mother-daughter duo from Australia appears onscreen with their dog Maximus. Their musical goodbye is touching. ]
[ Furiosa will not be with Kimiko on Christmas day, but she leaves a gift for her on the counter. The gift is besides the fact that Fury ran a wire from someone else's satellite dish on the roof to their TV to get the premium movie channels. It was icy, and Furiosa almost slipped off the roof in the process, but Kimiko doesn't need to know that.
In the package is silver hair tinsel — Furiosa only vaguely understands the purpose of this from the pictures on the packaging, but even then she's not totally sure. There's also a handful of butterfly hair clips scattered on top of a speak and spell, modified only to have the dictation functions. At the bottom is a sturdy looking VCR and a VHS tape of a musical called Detroit!, which isn't one that they've watched, but is apparently about a bunch of women who committed murder according to the summary on the back. ]
[ The paper bag is nondescript, the box an old candy tin emptied out. Inside is a round gold-foiled "coin," the kind she once gave to him at the end of their first real talk. It's identical, actually, so he must've snagged another from Sophie. This one's chocolate-free. Rather, a hard material's carved to fit inside so the shell holds its shape, the foil glued around it and a hole poked through the top.
It dangles from a silver ball chain—long enough for her to hang it on her rear view mirror, or wherever she feels like.
He hasn't signed his name, but. It's probably not hard to guess. And the box smells faintly of cigar smoke. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
roomie vignettes
The threat of the murderer is part of it. Truthfully, Furiosa is more afraid of what else Kimiko might do to her car.
But even with those busy schedules, they've inexplicably found a night in together. Furiosa is eating a very practical fortified breakfast cereal by the handful right out of the box. ]
Do you want to watch a movie?
[ She never got to finish Jurassic Park!! ]
no subject
You can pick.
[ The remote is... around here somewhere. The basic cable package comes as part of the rent for the unit, and includes a small scattering of movie channels. Kimiko, for her part, doesn't own any tapes or DVDs.
She adds, after a moment — ]
No talking animals.
[ Those movies give her nightmares. :( ]
no subject
Furiosa scrolls past it with the remote, settling on My Uncle Vincent, which she finds a fascinating look into a society that apparently settled their questions of justice in courtrooms. They watch for awhile, but she's unimpressed when no one seems to realize thirty minutes into the movie: ]
There's no way a 64 Buick Skylark made those skid marks. [ Kimiko did not ask and probably does not care, but literally the slightest hint of any indication that she's wondering how Furiosa knows this prompts her to continue. ] The rear axle on a Skylark is solid, so with one up on the curb you'd be riding the side. Those marks are flat and even.
[ Furiosa is indignant. Really, do they pay such little attention to the important details when making a film? Especially when a supposed car expert is supposed to be testifying to assert guilt.
Please find something else, Kimiko, unless you want he to start talking about tire sizes next. ]
no subject
That's it.
That's the whole tag. ]
no subject
Eventually they settle on Armageddoom, and Furiosa doesn't know enough about space travel to argue if it would've been easier to teach the astronauts to mine into the core of the meteor to destroy it or if it really was the more logical decision to send a bunch of coal miners into space. She falls asleep before the scene where one of the miners rides a nuclear warhead. ]
no subject
Once she realises Furiosa is asleep, though, she gently lays a blanket over her, shuts off the TV, turns off the light. She even plugs in Furiosa's phone for her before disappearing into the bedroom with a soft click of the door.
The next morning, they are violently woken up by the localised smoke alarm going off.
There is no smoke in the apartment, or anywhere else in the building. ]
no subject
There is no one in the apartment. Actually, Furiosa has no idea why the alarm is sounding. She sets the lamp back down and signals with kind of sloppy, one-handed signing: ]
Why noise?
no subject
A chair skids noisily across the kitchenette linoleum as she drags it over, stepping on it, reaching up... And then, unwisely, punches the alarm. The plastic crumples and breaks, a few sparks jump out.
The noise has stopped, at least. ]
sometime during the night of his and Rumi's 'date' night
👍🎉🥳👍🎉🥳👍
no subject
😘 ??
no subject
I'll let you know if I screw the rest up later.
We can still do a pub crawl later either way
But a celebratory one hopefully
no subject
Even the silence seems to thaw a little, signing with a casual interest in between eating handfuls of cereal from the box tucked up against her side, held in place with her stump. ]
What happened to Tree?
no subject
Nothing.
I didn't text him.
Now it's probably too late.
no subject
When do I get to meet her?
[ The most important question. ]
no subject
So, after a moment of thoughtful consideration, she throws out a what the hell type suggestion. ]
What's it hurt?
[ To text him now. Be bold Kimiko. That's all Furiosa will offer because Kimiko did not ask, and she needs to get to work. Furiosa brushes cereal crumbs off on her pant leg before she takes a drink of water by sticking her head under the tap. As she goes, she does have one addendum: ]
But keep him in your room.
no subject
She puts her phone back down without opening it. Goes back to her cereal.
Later that day, she texts Furiosa. ]
Murder across the hall.
Enforcers have blocked off the entire floor.
You should stay at your boyfriend's tonight.
[ Kimiko will... figure something out, vis-a-vis her own sleeping arrangements. ]
no subject
Do you have something lined up?
no subject
[ There are a few couches in the fighters' locker room she can crash on after the fact. Besides, they'll always make room for the Unkillable Loudmouth on the roster. ]
no subject
[ Furiosa sleeps in her car. Just for one night for old time's sake. Boots and all. She showers at a truck stop before coming back in the morning. Kimiko doesn't have to know.
Eventually, it circles back around to movie night. Furiosa picks at a loose thread on the couch's arm while Kimiko paints her toenails again. Neither of them is really watching Marmot Mania, a film where the protagonist gets stuck in a time loop in a small town continually celebrating a weather-predicting rodent. ]
I didn't talk for... [ Furiosa squints into the middle distance, as if this could help her remember. ] Think it was eight years. Maybe nine. Lost count after awhile
no subject
It doesn't reconcile well with sure, steady Furiosa. A woman who always knows her mind, economical with her words, holding onto her syllables like they're drops of water in a drought.
For a moment, there's no response. Just the low murmurs of the movie, the crackle of the television set. Then — ]
I daydream about singing sometimes. Maybe on a stage.
[ For realz. And it's hard not to let her expression catch a little, something vulnerable, not quite sad, over signing hands. ]
What made you start talking again?
no subject
She should get to have that if that's what she wants. Trade performing at the Dome for it.
The question that follows is a natural one. She could say I couldn't hide anymore, but that isn't the whole of it. She and Jack were the only survivors of that brutal day on the road. They could've worked something out, going from mute garage rat to mute apprentice. She could go another route, sentimental and fond, I found someone worth talking to.
But in the end it wasn't about the other people in her story. It was about owning hers. ]
I decided to start taking back what belonged to me.
no subject
Kimiko's gaze skims the top of Furiosa's head for a moment, looking for an answer to that unspoken question between the curve of her ear and the apartment's ceiling, before she carefully screws the wand of dark violent nail polish back into its bottle and sets everything to the side.
Fingertips rest gently on the bulge of muscle in her throat, where the knot of vocal cords faintly jut against skin. Where noise creates vibrations, lays itself into the flesh before extending out into the world.
A faint, air-filled wheeze. No vibration.
She thinks of what she could, or would, say —
"The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog."
"うちに帰りたいです."
"Hello, Furiosa."
But trying to choke out a single syllable only gets her a second wheeze, a panic in her chest to go with the ringing in her ears. Covering up the misery with a frown, she shakes her head. ]
me now triple proofreading every tag to you
For Furiosa, her silence was the single piece of her life she truly had control over for many years. She could never be forced to speak.
For Kimiko, it doesn't happen now. That's fine. Furiosa simply nods in a small movement, just the tiniest bob of her head acknowledging the try. She gets up and dutifully fills two glasses with water before placing them on the couch's side tables. She wanted to get something to soothe Kimiko's throat but mask it behind filling up one for the both of them.
Then, she goes back to signing with a blunt, unimpressed: ]
This movie is stupid.
no subject
Maybe you can see her perform. She's a pretty amazing singer.
She was the other person helping with my dancing lessons.
[he's so down bad, kimiko]
no subject
I'd like to hear her sing, sure
You have to come with me though.
she's furisoa now
And... there they'll stay.
A few more minutes of movie pass by, and Kimiko wholeheartedly concurs. ]
Want to watch Atlantic Trench again?
[ You know, that awesome movie musical about skyscraper-sized robots punching aliens by way of psychic linking of their pilots. In particular, Kimiko appreciates a Japanese leading lady, and gets especially excited when she gets her big solo song. ]
Delivered Anonymously Around Christmas
It's a little old-fashioned, but he thinks it looks nice!]
Click to unwrap!
A Tiny Music Box that plays Waltz No. 2!
[It's small enough to fit in her palm comfortably. The wooden material is a bit flimsy, so be careful! It does in fact play a version of Waltz No. 2 by Dmirtri Shostakovich. A small piece of paper inside reads: 'The box isn't very fancy, but the music is. Since you like waltzing music.']
fury sosa
Always.
[ And while she may try to keep a stiff upper lip the whole time, Kimiko probably recognizes the soft, almost forlorn expression Furiosa has through parts of the movie. Surprising, not just when the protagonist loses his partner, but her hand curls up in front of her mouth each time the abrasive but undeniably talented mother-daughter duo from Australia appears onscreen with their dog Maximus. Their musical goodbye is touching. ]
no subject
I'll be singing too. 😎💖
[sparkle sparkle
The couple that sings together flings together, or something.]
toyotathon gifts
In the package is silver hair tinsel — Furiosa only vaguely understands the purpose of this from the pictures on the packaging, but even then she's not totally sure. There's also a handful of butterfly hair clips scattered on top of a speak and spell, modified only to have the dictation functions. At the bottom is a sturdy looking VCR and a VHS tape of a musical called Detroit!, which isn't one that they've watched, but is apparently about a bunch of women who committed murder according to the summary on the back. ]
xmas
It dangles from a silver ball chain—long enough for her to hang it on her rear view mirror, or wherever she feels like.
He hasn't signed his name, but. It's probably not hard to guess. And the box smells faintly of cigar smoke. ]
no subject
Thank you.