Ghosts [Day 5, LA, Closed]

[Kuni Koyuki]

Down in the mall there was some kind of tournament being played, a game of sorts that Koyuki never got into as a child and never had time for in her adult life. It was interesting, sure, but there was something bugging her. Tugging her back to this obscenely wealthy place with a woman whom she simply couldn't ignore. So, she returned. Not first without sending a message to check, but Koyuki's messages were short as a victim of her work. Simple questions, "Meet now?" was all that was sent, and it was all that was really needed. Still, a part of her nagged at her like that wasn't proper to do somehow all the way here.

Standing alone in the elevator which raced her up toward Yakumo's floor she had only time alone to herself to wonder. Eyes eventually coming across a metal surface which satisfied well as a mirror. Her reflection looking back at her, she could hardly recognize the woman. It wasn't new. No, she hadn't been able to recognize herself for years now. It was like... the elevator doors opened with a ping. Spike of anxiety warming a path from her neck down midway along her spine. Koyuki exited the elevator with intent, there wasn't anything left to do but face the challenge ahead.

Standing beside the door, she casually rested her hand on her hip just above her sidearm. Communicator in hand, she sent along that final damning message:

"Here."

[Susumu Yakumo]

Koyuki got an answer to the first message after a couple of minutes.

Sure, come over to my place.

After the second message, Yakumo opened the door. "You can knock, you know," she remarked with some dry humor. The Spider had her hair wrapped up in a towel, and she was in fact wearing a bath-robe and slippers. A hand concealed within the big sleeves of the robe beckoned her inside as she stepped back to let Koyuki in.

"Is something wrong?"

[Kuni Koyuki]

At the humored chide, she gave a slight shrug of her shoulders with a look that almost certainly conveyed an understanding that she was used to doing things a certain way, and so simply hadn't considered that as an option. Stepping inside Koyuki took another glance around the room naturally a bit more dismissive about it all this time. It was no longer a new thing to gawp over anymore. So, she maintained her focus. Turning to meet Yakumo she met her gaze head on, direct.

"You wanted to talk," the words came out strict.

Koyuki bit her tongue, shaking her head. "No. Uh.. I wanted to talk. We- you- I wanted to talk. But you look.." now it was a bit more of her time to gawp, much as she didn't let it overtake her for more than a second or two. There was a permission in the presentation, and prior relationship, that she hadn't actually sought and so following a moment of weakness straightened herself out.

"Is now a good time, or- should I come back?

[Susumu Yakumo]

"I wouldn't have said you could come over if it was a bad time now, Koyuki-chan, but I won't be able to stay here this evening with you. My apologies," she did look sincere in her apology. "And your message seemed of an urgent kind...?" Mostly because to her such curtness meant it was more serious or immediate.

"But sure, we can talk." Yakumo nodded to the seating area from before. "Can I get you anything to drink, or snack on?"

[Kuni Koyuki]

Koyuki nodded on the first point, looking around the room a moment. Only if to give Yakumo the benefit of some privacy she might not have wanted. Shaking her head at the second, an incidental, "No. Not particularly urgent, sorry." response before she finally looked back to her, offering a bare and brief twitch of the upper lip that almost looked like a smile for its short existence.

Koyuki starts toward the seating area, "No, just your time. I don't want to take anymore than I might need from your preparations in leaving. Who are you going to see?" she pauses in her step with the question asked.

[Susumu Yakumo]

Chuckling, she tucked her hands into the big pockets at the front of her bathrobe. "I assure you, I can dressed ready quickly." On a second look, she already seemed to have her makeup in place. It had probably been missed at first glance as she preferred an understated style, so-called "natural-look".

"I'm invited to have dinner with the Lord Magistrate," she explained as she slid down into the cushions. "Not an official meeting though, but you don't strike me as the type to gossip." And Koyuki also seemed like the type of person she wanted to know where she was in case it was indeed some kind of strange trap laid for her.

"How are you doing today, my dear? Did you miss me?" Yakumo easily pivoted the conversation away from her impending date.

[Kuni Koyuki]

Sitting beside Yakumo, Koyuki revealed an almost instinctual comfort with a particular brand of closeness. Sitting just beside her, easily within reach, and certainly close enough that even the far less pronounced scent Yakumo would be familiar with that Koyuki wore could be noticed. Craning her neck, she leans in a little bit just for that private, "Yes," to have a little more impact. A glance toward the other woman's lips. Yet, she leaned away without even entertaining the thought. By no means in fear of the magistrate, but Yakumo, as risking such a thing with her own makeup smudging would certainly ruin the few moments she has.

"I met him, Bayushi Mineichi," she said, not a woman to let herself be steered away when she didn't want to be. "Seems a friendly sort. We sparred, and he's rather skilled with a blade. Has a respect for the Crab. Not the kind of man I would ever want as an enemy, and so I am rather glad we're allies. I hope you enjoy your night, Yakumo-chan," she says with a slight tease. There was a foreignness to the -chan on her tongue like she'd never actually used it before. There was a military clip to the way Koyuki spoke that invited the idea that she was reporting what she knew about him, and nothing more. Offering Yakumo cards to place within her hand when the two met.

Yet, Yakumo was the boss far as she cared. And so, she redirected back away herself, "I have been thinking. About our first day together, we spoke of a topic, the end of your time as an idol and-" she didn't have the words for it, but looked Yakumo in the eyes, figuring she was a smart enough woman she continued, "Can I ask you that again? What comes after all of this for you?"

[Susumu Yakumo]

Yakumo didn't like it much when she couldn't control the conversation somehow, because it usually meant going into topics she couldn't or wouldn't discuss. And she wasn't wrong when Koyuki steered it into her least favorite topic; the future.

There was a heavy sight and she removed the towel around her head so she could more comfortably lean back. The hair was mostly dry any way and she just liked to keep it out of her face as she got ready. In the time it took, Koyuki could see parts of her hands. Unnaturally pale discoloration, purpleish skintone...

"I hate thinking about the future," she said first after a moment of silence. "Because I don't think I will live long enough to see the time I have outflived my stardom. Or so I hope."

There was no point in holding that secret now, as they were leaving the cards on the table, and her perpetually concealed hands was shown, with one held up for Koyuki to see. The fingernails and the tips were pale yellow as if there was hardly any blood left in them, and up towards the knuckle they turned a painful purple like some sort of permanent bruise.

[Kuni Koyuki]

Koyuki's eyes narrowed, at first with the air that one might have expected was suspicion. Yet, on that closer inspection or understanding could be seen as concern. For a brief time she regards the other woman's hand, and her condition, with a sort of careful detachment as to not cause harm. Leaning heavily on one of her own arms for support to keep herself as close to Yakumo as she was, she reaches up with the other and holds it just below Yakumo's own.

"Does it hurt?" she asks, voice soft, a softness it almost never was. As opposed to the stone, it was alike gravel and had a gentle washing roughness to it. A small shift of her hand, palm up, as to invite Yakumo to place hers there.

[Susumu Yakumo]

Seeing as there was no light-show of the green variety being thrown her way, Yakumo let out a breath of relief. It was one of the many reasons Crab always made her wary.

"Not as such... the joints are stiff and sore in the morning, when they haven't moved for a while. But it doesn't hurt as such. I might also just be used to pain," she laughed dryly at her own mortality staring her in the face as she allowed herself to take Koyuki's hand. Still there was a stifness to the gesture, as if she was unused to touching others directly with her bare hands. "Just the feeling of my body deteriorating before my eyes."

[Kuni Koyuki]

Shifting herself with no lack of focus and effort, Koyuki moved so that she could free her other hand from it's anchor point. Now sat flatly before Yakumo with her hand in Koyukis. Holding that hand with a fair deal of care she looks at it closer, understands it. Looking up to meet her eyes once there was a searching there, a permission being sought, as Koyuki's other hand came up to hold the other side. Gingerly, at first, she pressed her thumbs into the joints of the fingers. One hand to hold Yakumo's hand steady, while the other carefully and directly worked at the joints. Not overstaying welcome, as the joint wouldn't need a lot of work with it being so small, but doing what little she could to relieve it a moment.

Eyes shifted downward, to Yakumo's hands as she focuses on her task. Making she she hits each finger in slow, methodical, and careful succession. Conversation drifted away for a moment while Koyuki found the rhythm of the action.

"Better it be your body than the soul," she says, almost absently.

[Susumu Yakumo]

Her breath tensed for a moment, then slowly relaxed as she let Koyuki tend to her stiff and sore joints. Mostly the challenge was to relax enough with being touched in this way, but she was working her way towards that.

"My soul is safe, Koyuki," she assured the woman, even to the point of being so direct as to not use any suffix to her name. It was her way of being honest in her communication, and how she felt about someone. A certain level of closeness that didn't need charades or etiquette.

Still there was a touch of something else to her demeanor. Disappointment? Sadness? Yakumo knew she'd probably never receive the "final rites" on her deathbed. Either because she had been married out, or because she was deemed weak in the eyes of the Spider. At some point in her life, that had been a sore spot, but in the past year, she wasn't sure anymore...

"... Do you worship the Dark Fortunes too, if I may ask?"

[Kuni Koyuki]

Koyuki doesn't shift her demeanor, that caring focus remaining the sole visual of the one. Save for the moment that Yakumo simply calls her Koyuki on that elegant voice of hers there is a stutter in the image. A sharp breath, a paused intake, a rise to her shoulders. Even, slightly, a quake felt in her hands and yet just as suddenly as it arose she pushed past it and continued her act of what could only sensibly be described as love if the word wasn't so scary or seemed so unfitting for such a chance meeting of only a few days.

Which is what you're afraid of, isn't it?

"I do not," she answered, a shake of her head. Sighing as a preamble, "I am not so sure I would pause to venerate the other Fortunes anymore either."

You're only handing her the knife. Why test if she'll use it to cut you? You know she could, and it'll only hurt more now. After all..

"Toma, did. Younger twin to the man I mentioned when we met, Tatsunosuke. Hida both. Toma believed that Benten would bring him his one true love, the person who would make the rest of his days gleaming excellence in comparison to all that preceded it," she said, her tone detached as if she weren't even there.

.. anyone could.

[Susumu Yakumo]

That did come as a surprise to her. To her, the Kuni were like the Kuchiki - mostly religious zealots, the spiritual guidance of their respective clans, experts on worship and making sure everyone paid the respects nescessary.

"Sounds like something that could be nice if it happened," she murmured in a soft tone, this time putting her other hand over Koyuki's in a tender gesture. "But why don't you venerate the Fortunes at all? You... I would have thought that a Kuni would..." there was a sense of slight confusion to her words.

[Kuni Koyuki]

Koyuki's ministrations come to a pause as Yakumo gives her reason to pause, the hand held over her own. Eyes rising to meet those of the other woman it was like there was a terrible distance to those eyes. They lived and yet held so very little of the woman before her in them. Picturesque, perhaps, but they held no vibrancy of life to them wherever Koyuki was now.

"Perhaps I have misspoken," she says. Gaze cast down to Yakumo's hand, examining it as it lay there with some intent that even she didn't quite focus on enough to matter. A warmth rose in her chest that almost made her vomit but she held fast. It was too much to say, and yet she felt if she didn't that something important would be lost. Yet, to push forward caused her so much pain as a lump formed and caught in her throat. "It is not that I do not venerate them but-" her lip twitches, trying to find the right words- "I do not believe they care to hear my prayers. Whatever great evil I have done to them in a past life, it must surely have damaged my soul."

What now, Koyuki? You've dug your grave. One way or the other, whatever she says, it only leads to pain now. You can't stop what you've started. You foolish, impudent, idiot.

Pathetic.

[Susumu Yakumo]

Now it was Yakumo who was holding Koyuki's hands in hers, squeezing them with a tender gentleness. "Koyuki..." she said at first, letting the pause between her name and the next words drag out.

"We are all damaged souls, in some form or other, as we're still here. Or, at least I seem to recall from my lessons that we are reincarnated again and again until we have become worthy of ending the cycle of rebirth and reincarnation." Her uncle hadn't been the most patient of teachers, so her own knowledge was a tad limited. "Sorry, I'm not a priest or anything, but... what I'm trying to say is, I don't think you're someone who is being punished. You don't seem the type to deserve it."

[Kuni Koyuki]

Koyuki focuses on that shift with narrowed eyes, a well of disbelief souring the taste in her mouth. Hands tensing within the gentleness of that squeeze. Gentle touch that felt like a hastily dotted signature on the decree of her own death. A desire to lash out only corralled by that very same gentle touch. To remind Yakumo of how little she knew because she knew nothing. This time she bit her lip hard until it drew blood and mixed that dark maroon color of blood with the vibrant crimson of her lip. Staring down at Yakumo's hands like they'd transgressed dearly, and yet there was overwhelming guilt that poured from the way she looked at them merely the blink of an eye later.

"I must deserve it, somehow. No other answer makes any sense. Not one," she said, her voice was harsh but undirected. As if she was holding herself back as much as she could, and yet there was so much hate there but Yakumo didn't seem to be the target. She didn't seem aware of the tears until they touched her chin, and dripped freely. Yet, they'd started before she'd even considered biting her lip.

"Fuck," she exclaims, upon the realization. Breaking eye contact fully away from Yakumo she looks almost anywhere else. Sliding her hands away from Yakumo she quickly tries to brush away the tears but it only smudges her makeup more than anything. Shifting her body with her slightly, as to focus on tending herself more than anything else.

[Susumu Yakumo]

Yakumo watched what seemed like a breakdown, and felt unsure of what she could do, other than to just... be there. She was not used to being the one offering comfort, and so rarely was comfort given to her, but her soul did ache for seeing what seemed like a deep pain in Koyuki.

Silently, she offered the towel to the woman, so she could at least use that to wipe her eyes (and possibly face too), and she kept a hand on her shoulder. Not overbearing or smothering her, but instead letting Koyuki know that she was there and she wasn't alone.

"I'm sorry for bringing it up..." she said eventually, feeling bad that she had asked the question she did that seemed to have hit Koyuki so deeply.

[Kuni Koyuki]

Taking that towel in hand, avoiding touching it with the thumb that had paint smeared across it. Koyuki only absently folded it back up politely as she sat there, the stream was mostly stuck to her face and the tears had stopped flowing but they did their damage in passing. Setting the towel down, she avoids looking directly at Yakumo. Feeling that warmth, the static-like jolting around in her chest like she'd make some kind of terrible mistake if she did.

"Don't. You did no wrong," her voice was edged with that anger, but softened considerably for Yakumo. Using her hands to help get herself to her feet quickest she kept turned away when she asks, "May I borrow the bathroom?"

What an idiot.

[Susumu Yakumo]

Her lips pressed together as she clearly seemed to be considering it for different reasons.

"Of course. Hm... should I find you some makeup, perhaps?" with some hesitation, Yakumo pointed vaguely to Koyuki's face. "If you need, I can help you. Or, mm, maybe you can show me how you do it?"

She was trying her best to be supportive, even if it was awkwardly supportive.