triggerhappytraitor | Prisma Inbox/index

"Like there was ever any time to think about things like that?" Tachibana returned, tone defensive once more before he yet again reached for his coffee. "You all were trying to kill us, the hell were we going to find out anything about why you could suddenly look like humans?"

He took a sip from his drink, eyes averted before continuing. "...always just assumed it was... some side effect of Human Undead's victory or something," he admitted.

"You've had years after to contemplate it! There were better things to think about while it was happening, I'll give you that much, but... you'd never wondered?" He's about ready to be offended by Tachibana's lack of curiosity, but ah. There's an answer of sorts.

"...not a bad starting point for speculation. But no. Though I will say it is not easy." He takes a moment to look away, himself, betraying some vulnerability. "I'd have a hard time changing it, even if I cared to."

"With every other damned question left unanswered, the hell would I waste any time thinking about something like that?" Tachibana returned, still not making eye contact.

"... Just the one chance to choose, huh?" he acknowledged. Wasn't that just how everything went, when the Fight was concerned?

"You're a scientist, aren't you? Isn't that what a scientist does? Ask impossible questions, and try to find the answers?" Was he misinformed? Did he not understand? He hates not understanding. And Tachibana seems to persist in being incomprehensible in the strangest of ways. Isaka lets out a grumbling sigh, and settles back into his seat.

"More or less. None of us are as... changeable as Joker, but there's some of it to all of us. The effort to do it and get it right is... considerable."

"The things about Undead I study are things like how you heal, how you stay living despite taking damage that would kill someone mortal. Things that could help someone. Wasting time on something like appearance..." Tachibana scowled slightly, feeling... honestly a touch insulted.

Still....

"...The flexibility in Joker's transformation is enhanced by the energy of the Undead that's being used," he pointed out. "Like how the Rider System works. And even that is just a temporary change. That yours seems to be permanent..." He trailed off, tilting his cup back and forth, feeling the weight of the coffee left inside move with it.

"That existence... was not given the same choice as the rest of you were."

"And the cellular processes behind how we alter form isn't of any interest?" If he feels insulted, then good. Isaka feels a little insulted in turn. He takes a longer drink of his coffee and lets Tachibana continue, though, lets him actually spin out a bit of theory. So he's not completely disinterested. Just... defensive. Hm.

"I wouldn't say permanent, but...." He frowns thoughtfully, glances to Tachibana's hands, and finds himself suddenly reminded of how much Chroma the both of them produced while under the influence of those singing dragons. And then he stops himself, and exhales sharply. "...Joker, you mean. Who can possibly be anything, but wants nothing? But that's not correct any more, is it. Hajime knows perfectly well what he wants to be, now."

See, see? He can be polite.

"He had wants. He wanted to understand. He wanted to be something more than just a tool or a pawn in a greater game he had no way to win."

Tachibana finally sets the cup down, letting out a deep breath.

"...sometimes I wonder if the fact that he had nothing of his own made it easier for him to change. Only by losing what little any of you had..." he trailed off again, leaning back in his chair before looking over.

"If you hadn't have wound up here, out of reach of the Sealing Stone... would you have wanted to change?"

It was a soft question, but not an idle one. An important one. In multiple ways.

"I knew him before you did. He didn't have those wants." Does he need to explain? He doesn't think that he needs to explain. What he needs is more coffee, because by the time Tachibana is done saying moody things and asking moody questions, he has drained his cup.

He hesitates, absently tipping the cup back and forth, as though to assure himself that it's actually empty. He knows his answer, and he is quite sure that Tachibana will not like it. And because he is changed from how he once was, that somehow matters.

"Likely not. Something else might have re-framed my way of thinking... but likely not." Why lie? He should be honest. There is still a part of him that aches to return to doing what he was made to do.

There's a difference between knowing of someone and actually knowing them, but Tachibana's not going to push that front.

Instead he simply listens, nodding slightly at Isaka's answer.

"Even though you had to know that the Sealing Stone wasn't acknowledging anyone's victories." Because Isaka had to realize that. That was likely why he had "recruited" a Rider in the first place.

"Yes. Even though." How much he knew and how much he didn't personally want to acknowledge at the time, he'd rather not consider. And here's Tachibana, making him consider that. He frowns deeply, crushes his coffee cup, and drops it to the table.

"A broken battle fight is something that could be understood. Or fixed. Something that requires new strategies. The absence of it entirely.... that's different." He feels resentful of it, all of a sudden. So much time had been spent being lost and confused that it had begun to become familiar. Now there's some space in him to be angry.

Tachibana paused, blinking a few times. "How the hell could you fix something like that?" he frowned before looking down at his cup a moment.

"...I would have thought being free of that sort of compulsion..." he trailed off. Was it really only Hajime and Shima who had wanted that...?

Having to come up with an answer for that question just makes him feel all the more irritated. His frown cannot possibly get any deeper at this point, and so he simply looks away. "...It was a goal. It was a purpose. It was what I was made for, and even if there's no compulsion left, it is what I know."

And what he knows never really existed past the first fight, did it? One of his hands drops to the table, balled tightly into a tense fist.

"...and without anything outside of that Fight..." Tachibana trailed off briefly, not looking up. "..It's hard to know where to even begin, when everything you've known is gone."

He at least had had the ashes of his former life to sit in, the ruins of BOARD to focus on. Isaka had... what, a few months of experience in the modern world?

Tachibana nails it, he does. And that he does seem to get it surprises him. Enough for it to show on his face, albeit subtly. His eyebrows lift over the rims of his glasses, his jaw untenses the slightest bit. And then he gives a half-hearted motion that isn't really a nod. His head moves. His shoulders shift.

"...if I keep coming back into your orbit, perhaps it's because there's nothing else with enough gravity to pull me in."

Tachibana nodded, haven't half seen enough of that shift in posture to understand the significance.

"...that's a lot of the reason Hajime and I became friends, I think," he admitted with a hint of a wry huff. "Just having someone there who knows what happened; someone you don't need to explain things to, because they were part of it."

He idly toyed with his mostly empty cup a bit more, testing it's balance as he lightly held it in place with barely one finger. In a way... Isaka knew more of a lot of things than Hajime did. Other than small snippets of memories when Hajime helped haul him out of the dungeon of his own mind... he hadn't spoken of what had happened to him when he was in Isaka's thrall to anyone. It wasn't something he had ever even wanted to think about, nevertheless let anyone else know of.

"Even if all we ever did during that time was fight," he continued, even as his mind wandered. Was he speaking about Hajime still? Or Isaka? Even he wasn't entirely sure.

Tachibana's explanation is enough to make him glance back over his way. It's... interesting. It is not a concept that he has considered before, the idea of the value of someone who has experienced the same thing, as a reason to stick together. That it's Hajime, though.... it still confuses him that anyone would be that idiot's close friend.

"And now you share an apartment." It is said quietly, so much so that he even surprises himself with how it came out, how the idea of it makes him feel. It ought to be an insult, something dismissive, but he feels... envious? He takes a moment to shake his head and shove the feeling away. "You mostly seem to tolerate each other, from what I've seen..."

"Mostly, yeah," Tachibana agreed. "Hajime wanted an apartment with a 'real' kitchen and couldn't afford it on his own," he explained. "And it means I don't have to spend as much on takeaway," he added with a faint smile.

"It's a compromise, of sorts. Pretty sure neither one of us makes a good roommate, but at least we more or less understand each other enough to make it work."

He paused a moment. "Most of the time," he amended, finally picking up his cup and draining the last little bit of it's contents.

Much of what he's witnessed in regards to Tachibana and Hajime seems to pivot around food. Though admittedly, he hasn't witnessed that much. It is still so, so strange for Joker to be doing things like that...

"You can tolerate each other long enough most of the time to combine forces. I see." Well, no, he's not sure that he really sees, but perhaps he's beginning to see.... one thing he does see is that they've both finished their coffees, and both seem to be in need of something else to occupy their hands with.

"...do you want another drink?"

Tachibana nodded, getting to his feet. "Which one do you get? I'll order for us this time."

It was only courtesy, after all.

Well. That's a pleasant surprise. Pleasant enough that Isaka is just going to accept it and not do anything odd with his eyebrows or make any dramatic faces. He simply nods. "It's called a 'double-double'. Extra large."

He will admit to himself that it does feel nice to have Tachibana doing something for him.

Tachibana nodded. Not a drink he had heard of, but he was the type who normally just drank regular. Or instant. But the cashier would know what he meant. Hopefully.

"Got it," he confirmed before heading over to the counter to order.

It was a few minutes before he returned, with both drinks and a pair of heart-shaped mini muffins on the holder for the cups. "Apparently they baked extra," he explained, setting the cardboard tray down in the center of the table.

Wasn't quite sure why the cashier had felt the need to insist that they should have more than just coffees, but he was not the type to turn down food.

Isaka waits not entirely patiently... after a few moments of glancing around the coffee shop, he pulls his communicator out and starts browsing the network. (Yes, the activity that brought him to this meeting in the first place.) He's quick to set it back aside when Tachibana returns, though the muffins get an uncertain glance.

"...that's a suspicious symbol." An awfully conveniently coicidental one, for all that they'd been talking about Chalice's alter ego.

...still, they look good. He reaches out for one, along with his coffee.

"Suspicious?" Tachibana repeated, an eyebrow raising as he sat down, reaching for his own coffee and muffin.

"Suspicious." He says, casually peeling off the little paper muffin wrapper. "Hearts are Chalice's symbol, aren't they?"

A small, amused huff escaped from Tachibana. "Hearts are probably the most common symbol in existence across multiple worlds," he pointed out, unwrapping his own muffin. "It would be far more strange if it were any other suit."

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