destinystrings | There's a lot more to this place than we thought...

Otonashi, on the other hand, looked just as sleepy as he had when a certain green-haired benefactor (?) left him. However, it's imperative that he have a coffee-fueled discussion with his friends. Since reuniting with the SSS had not gone as smoothly as he wanted, Hinata seems like the most viable option for said discussion.

"Ahh, wh--?!" There's a bright yellow beacon running -

Nevermind, it's just Hinata. "Oh... Hey." He manages a weak laugh. "Nice fashion statement. You're easy to spot in a crowd."

He caught that sarcasm, Otonashi, pulling a face and looking at his sweater.

"You don't like it?" It was form-fitting and thin for a hoodie, good for a warm weather fashion statement, and he'd obviously thought he looked great. Otherwise, why would he have pulled such a face?

"Aaah. C'mon, don't act like that. It has a nice cut...!" His next laugh is a little louder, but more strained.

"I just saw something bright yellow running towards me... haha. S-seriously, keep it. It suits you, sunflower..." He has to tease you a little bit, Hinata. Honestly. Besides, it's not like his fashion statement is much better. Who wears belts on an overshirt?!

Edited 2013-07-07 23:59 (UTC)

These two boys seem to have quite the fashion sense when they aren't restricted to uniforms, who knew? His cheeks went pink with embarrassment as the other boy poked fun at the way his name was spelled, ruffling his own hair a little.

"A-anyway, what's on your mind? You sounded like you had something to talk about."

It almost hurt. He had been without their effortless friendship this long, but he had nobody to blame but himself for that. The redhead hunched forward, folding his hands together, his elbows resting on his knees.

"Y...yeah." He fidgeted, picking at the band-aids on his hand. "I have a lot I need to talk about, but I--I should start with..."

He looks up at his companion through his hair. "... I'm sorry."

Edited 2013-07-08 14:47 (UTC)

[He expects a talk about the infection, about what it was and how it spread. He expects some kind of epiphany about a new God they need to fight. His mind is firmly rooted in SSS, despite their time here.]

[What he doesn't expect, is the apology.]

[There's a moment of stunned silence, recounting the days he spent worrying and wondering if Otonashi would ever come back. He blinked back the sting of tears.]

I-it's alright... [He quickly recovers, pulling a smile across his lips to perpetuate the lie.] You just needed some time to yourself, I get it!

[His hands started trembling, slipping them into the pouch of his hoodie to hide it, doing everything in his power to keep his voice from wavering as he speaks again.]

I-i'm really glad to see you...

Despite the reassurance, he shakes his head.

"I... didn't want to hurt anyone again." The very thought dredged up the old pains again as if they were new. His slouch worsens, and his expression only grows more grim.

"I thought if I worked for a cure, or if I looked for answers, then... maybe I could stop anyone else from going through that. But--"

As nice as it is to be doing something he's rather good at--studying--it only works as wish fulfillment when he actually gets results and helps someone. Thus far, the payoff is lacking.

But he's still so helpless at the end of the day. The threat still exists, and so far he hasn't helped anyone. It chokes him, but he swallows it back.

"Y-you know, I--I'm... glad you don't hate me. F-for what happened."

Edited 2013-07-09 23:13 (UTC)

It... wasn't your fault. You couldn't have stopped it... [He refuses to let Otonashi take the blame for this, nevermind the screaming and fighting and tears that had taken place that awful night.]

[He licked his dry lips nervously, trying to shoo away this haze of regret and discomfort that had fallen over both of them.] Just... try and keep in touch, okay?

"Yuri said the same thing to me," More harshly and without knowing it was him, but it amounted to the same. "But I still did it... I still--I still remember it! It was real, I can't just let it go..!"

Otonashi truly believed that he could find more concrete direction. Leaving it up to the supernatural and "hoping for the best" wasn't his style, and yet he had no choice. None of this is something he can bandage better, talk his way through, or glorify. It isn't hopeless, it's never hopeless, he knows -

But sometimes it feels that way.

"I won't erase it... All I can do is keep--keep going, keep trying to make a difference, and hope people will listen..." He can't manage to look directly at Hinata right away--not when the threat of tears has become a bitter reality--but he nods. "I won't... repeat th-that mistake again. I promise."

It's hard to try and sound like nothing is wrong when your best friend is breaking down in front of you. He wasn't mad about what happened, so couldn't Otonashi just be contented by that? A part of him hoped he could just say it was fine and everything would go back to normal, but he'd kind of known it wouldn't be that easy. Nothing ever was.

Something nags at the back of his mind. Something that makes him a little queasy. Otonashi had done something awful, something he remembered and wished he couldn't, something that made him hurt people and push away everyone that cared about him... It was achingly familiar. The only difference as far as Hinata was concerned? Otonashi hadn't chosen his burden, Hinata had.

He swallowed thickly, nervously picking at the seam in the pouch of his hoodie.

"I-it could be worse." Hinata offered weakly, the liveliness usually present in his voice reduced to a cracked shadow of what it usually was. "Y-you could have... brought it upon yourself. At least this way, you didn't have any control over when it started..."

He honestly didn't know what to say. He couldn't exactly tell Otonashi to get over it, who would release those kinds of awful memories so easily? But at the same time, he couldn't let Otonashi take the blame either, it hadn't been his fault at all! All he could do was be supportive, moving to sit on the bench beside him, gently bumping the redhead's shoulder with his own. "I'm still here, you know?" He managed a weak, forced laugh, trying to lighten the mood. "I-it would... take a lot more than that to get rid of me..!"

Otonashi nodded, grateful for the patience. It would have been so easy to end the conversation there under the pretense of needing space again, but the time for avoidance had come and gone.

Forward-- always forward, he thinks, even if it hurts.

"I tried to kill--ah, no, I don't know," he stammers, barely above a whisper. The whole ordeal is a spiral of blame and helplessness that nobody had chosen. Hinata would never beat on Otonashi. Otonashi would never attempt murder--or succeed at it, in other cases. At least not here, where death mattered. But here they were, victims of the gods' hands.

"It might be better if we had more control over it. T-this could happen again. I don't want any of us--"

He looks over, feeling the warm bump of Hinata's shoulder.

"... Yeah. I know," he answers, trying to laugh in return. It comes wet and choked, sounding more sticky and gross than intended. Though delayed, he bumps back.

"Uhh... hey. W-walk with me?"

Edited 2013-07-14 17:15 (UTC)

[Hinata tries to chase off the lingering feeling of nausea that plagues him, knowing that this meeting wasn't about him. He came here for Otonashi, he had no right to make it about himself.]

[At least they seemed to be making progress.]

Y-yeah... yeah. I'll walk with you. [He forces a small grin, moving to stand. Maybe moving around in the fresh air will help his state of mind some.]

For the most part, the walk is quiet and uneventful. Otonashi stuffs his hands in his pockets and heads toward the fountain, his feet visibly dragging at first. The act is more purposeful and less melodramatic and mopey than he makes it look, truly. And eventually, his toes bump into one of the very things he was searching for.

Someone had come by with a basket of these, there was bound to be some left behind.

Wordlessly, he bends down to pick the object up. There must be more around, he thinks, but the tattered baseball, even with half of its skin hanging off and its stitching in poor shape, will certainly suffice.

"You... a-ah, I have a challenge for you." He looks over the mangled ball and holds it up, putting its charming ugliness on display. "Can you play and talk at the same time?"

He follows behind Otonashi, watching the other boy's feet thoughtfully. He's not so much staring at his feet as just... staring at nothing at all, lost in thought. Of course, because he's not actually paying attention, he continues to walk even after the other boy has stopped, bumping into him.

"Ah, sorry..." He's still trying to shake the feeling of empathy that's weighing him down, glancing at the tattered baseball in Otonashi's hand.

That definitely helped.

"Yeah..! I don't see why I couldn't..." He backs off some, taking his hands out of the pouch of the hoodie. "You don't have any gloves, do you?" Without the cushion of a baseball glove, they'd just have to be more gentle with throwing than he would be ordinarily.

He wraps the skin taut around the ball, shaking his head.

"No, I didn't think to get one..." This whole thing is kind of an afterthought. "What if I threw it like this?"

At first, he follows the motions of an underhand toss without releasing the ball, giving Hinata time to see the intended trajectory. After a few feigned throws, Otonashi gently tosses it over.

As therapeutic as it was to whip a baseball back and forth and exhaust one's arms, just tossing it gently underhand at least offered a small comfort.

"Yeah, that's fine." Out of habit, Hinata crouched very slightly, as if bracing for the impact of the ball. It was totally unnecessary, of course, but old habits die hard.

He caught the ball without difficulty, rolling it around in his hands to get a good look at it. Someone must have hit it with a lawnmower or something. He briefly considered taking it home to repair it, shaking the thought from his head as he tossed it gingerly back to Otonashi.

"So what did you want to talk about..?"

"I... wanted to talk to you about the events," he answered as evenly as possible as the he captured the gnarled ball in his hand. "I don't know what else to call them. It's not limited to Zodiac sickness, but I guess I should start there."

Speaking of, he should probably toss it back. This time, he throws it overhanded and with a bit more energy, seeming to understand the desire for a frustration workout.

"You remember that government announcement that went up... The one about the Taurus-born showing 'symptoms?'" He hesitates. If Hinata were to throw the ball back right then, Otonashi might just miss it.

Hinata's muscles visibly tense as the ball is thrown back with more vigor, one of his hands darting out to catch it.

"Yeah... I remember." Thankfully, he didn't throw it back just yet, picking a few stray threads off the ball to get them out of the way. "Didn't they predict wrong which people would be affected?"

He'd toss it back now, deciding to stick with underhand if he was throwing to Otonashi. At least for now.

"Yeah. They were basing all of their information off a previous Zodiac sickness, six months prior to the Taurus breakout. They didn't know anything at all," Otonashi cuts off to snag the ball, nearly caught off guard by it despite Hinata's gracious pause.

"The last time a Zodiac outbreak happened, it was a group of Visitors like us who cracked the "pattern," not the government. That means that these outbreaks are probably new and came in along with the Visitors. The government may only know as much as we do about them—even though they have to try to calm the masses. That's another thing, this city—"

His grip on that poor, battle-worn ball tightens before he throws it back. It's a little more intense than he intends for it to be, but not so strong that it should be damaging.

"Ah! S-sorry, Hinata..."

"Only six months..? Is it... always going to happen that frequently?" It was a valid question, he figured. Should he expect to have his friends trying to kill him regularly or just sometimes?

"How could the Visitors cause something like that? It doesn't make sense." He reached to catch the ball as it was thrown, wincing as he caught it with bare hands. "H-haha... It's alright..."

He gives himself a minute to let the sting wear off, gently tossing the ball back to the redhead. "...You were saying?"

"Are you sure? I can take a look at it," he offers, recapturing the ball but stepping closer to the other boy to check for marks. "That was stupid, I didn't mean to do that..."

An innocent mistake, he knows, but a mistake nonetheless. The last thing he wants to do is hurt someone he cares about again.

"Ah? Right, uh... This―this city is missing a lot of its history. I've been trying to study it, but there's nothing to find. None of the natives know anything if you ask, only that "something happened" and now there are Visitors coming in. And the breakouts are, uh... we don't know how often yet, but we should... be ready if the pattern is every six months."

In he very gently arcs the ball over to Hinata, watching it fall short and hit the ground. He's trying, he really is, but it's clear that his focus is distant.

"A lot of this isn't right."

He shakes his head quickly, waving his hands to signify that everything is indeed alright. The last thing he wants is to guilt-trip Otonashi so soon after finding him.

"Ah..." None of the inhabitants remembered any of the city's history? That sounded an awful lot like a mecha anime he used to watch, Big D.

He couldn't say he was looking forward to the possibility of his closest friends trying to murder him... again. Having Otonashi try to strangle him to death was already scarring enough, he didn't need it to happen more than once. He's similarly distracted as the ball lands on the ground, rolling and bumping one of his shoes. He comes out of his daze, glancing down and seeing the ball on the ground. His brow knit together some at the sight of it, but he doesn't react beyond that.

"So what do we do? Just... wait for it to happen? Maybe there's some guy with a robot who knows what's going on..."

There's a lot more to this place than we thought...

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