[He opens his mouth to say something and immediately decides not to reveal one of his kinks and changes the subject.]
And it took me almost two week to learn. Looks like I'm slacking. [He can do quips. That's fine. He's 100% not sure what to do here so he'll follow the beat Dick sets.]
[ share your kinks, coward, dick's feeling a little exposed right now. he huffs a little instead, nudging junpei's foot with his own ]
Yeah, detective. Where's your work ethic at? [ but he won't just fake roast junpei, adding-- ] But I guess we've both been neglecting the "get to know you" part of roommate duties.
[No!! His kinks are staying right where they belong, they can talk about how Junpei's response was about compliments and praise kinks when they unlock new s-links. He nudges back with his foot, a thin smile on his face and still looking unsure where the line of saying things is. ]
Escha's got us both beat by constantly bringing us snacks. [There's an almost fondness to his tone before he frowns.] It's been a while since I've done this. I'm out of practice. And maybe you're not the only one who sucks at sharing.
[Has he bothered asking or concerning himself with Dick's tattoo? Nope. And he's not asking for explanation now.]
I already told her she was my favorite roommate. [ it's said very solemnly, because it is? a fact. Dick tenses a bit at the reminder of his magic tattoo, but doesn't move otherwise, looking wry again. ] I wasn't requesting anything. Talking to a guy with a secret identity, remember? You could always practice sharing to the mirror, dude, we'll probably hear you anyway.
[ because junpei mumbles his thoughts out loud a lot ]
Yeah, well, she deserves that. [Escha is a good girl who did nothing but suffer with these two. He doesn't seem to know what to think, but he at least looks a little embarrassed being called out on that.]
Sorry. Habits are a thing. [He says nothing about talking to a mirror because he thinks of what Hizamaru said a week ago. "If your painting could talk, what would it say?" His would say a lot he doesn't need to hear.] Let me ask you something. What are you requesting?
Nothing. I was joking. [ he sounds amused and-- a little sorry. he'd meant it as a tease, not as an actual call-out. ] I've spent years working with people who don't even know my name, JT. I'm self-aware enough to not actually throw stones from glass houses.
[He raises an eyebrow, not entirely dissuaded. He doesn't seem bothered because it was a real question. He doesn't mind requests and he's good with instructions when it's something he invests in.]
Requests were open for anything, but if you're really sure...[A soft shrug. He won't take the offer back just yet. ] I ruined my chance at a secret ID a while ago. [It has nothing to do with anything but he thinks about codenames and Akane and the nonary game because of course he does.]
I meant including things besides talking. [But okay.] Last year when I woke up on a ship after being kidnapped, I found eight other people. We didn't want the guy watching to know too much in case it was used against us, so we picked code names. But everybody already knew my name by then so I'm the only one who didn't get one. Talk about a rip-off.
[Sometimes you just casually talk about kidnappings. And maybe it's said that way because while it wasn't really a ship, it felt too real back then. This week has been something.]
My mind is way too in the gutter right now for any normal request. [ it's light, as he takes in the rest. it's... a lot. A lot of bad luck, mainly. Dick's used to talking about kidnappings with victims, but not usually in this kind of context. he stays quiet before he asks: ] That why you tried to see if you could jump off?
Like I wouldn't--never mind. [He's also fine with dirty favors right now but that's just him and secretly liking to please. He doesn't ask how Dick knows because he figures it's the same way he knows about things he isn't present for. So he shakes his head. ]
I tried to jump because the building Carlos and I were in before we got here is out there. [A gesture to the horizon ruins.] Or a really good duplicate. Hard to see the full thing but it's hard not to notice.
[ dick is trying to concentrate on that reveal, but he's smirking at that almost slip. ]
Raincheck, remember? [ he's feeling too-- needy to feel comfortable asking for anything right at this moment, so talking it has to be. Dick tries to catch which of the buildings Junpei is gesturing to, a small frown on his face. ] ... The building you were in... Was it a hospital?
[Raincheck. Right. God. But Dick may be able to see Dcom, the strange looking group of buildings, poking out from the waves and the like but Junpei frowns at the mention of a hospital.]
Did you go to see him, too? [He shakes his head.] We were in a bomb shelter. The hospital is...different.
Beck told me she managed to get in contact. [ he doesn't ask anything more about the hospital, instead he looks at the grouped buildings with a thoughtful frown ] They've all got different places. Four of them, four places. So here's the question-- was there anything on that horizon before Polly did the ritual?
[Unsurprising. Beck seems to say a lot.] I've been asking myself the same thing. The worst part is we can't know because we were locked inside. But given a suspicion I have the answer is "no."
The right key? [ its?? a possibility??? but shitty jokes aside, dick leans back a bit, straightening up by reflex as he thinks. ] It depends on what there actually is. Are the buildings physical at all? We're directly transported to them when we request a talk. I've been working under the assumption they're their own... pocket dimensions, but it could also be that they're simply on a different plane of existence, like the Tower of Fate. [ dick does not explain what that is, at all. ]
I don't know. I get the feeling this whole area is a pocket dimension, but if that's true then we need to really find what we're missing to get there. I don't think those are the places we really go when we see them. Then again...I don't have proof.
Yeah, maybe. That ship I told you about was actually a building in the Nevada desert. But everything about the inside looked and felt like a luxury cruiseliner, right down to the flooded floor. So what if it's true? What if inside those buildings are things we can't even predict?
[There's a quirk of his lips.] That's the part that gets you? [He looks at his hands. He hasn't actually told anyone about the Nonary Game, so...give him a sec.]
Like I said, it was a building but at the time we didn't know it. One day last year, I came home after work and a guy in a mask unleashed some sort of white smoke in my apartment and knocked me out. When I woke up, I was in a third class cabin on a ship. The room was locked and the floor I was on started flooding, so...I had to solve a puzzle to find the cards needed to activate the sensor myself.
The entire hall was full of water. D Deck was flooding fast, but when I headed up to B Deck that's when I found everyone else. All of us had the same experience. Guy in a mask, kidnapped, shoved into a room with a bracelet on our wrists and forced to find a way out before the room flooded. Once we were all together, a speaker in the corner started playing a broadcast.
[He pauses, digging into his memory to begin reciting.] "Welcome aboard. I welcome you all, from the bottom of my heart, to this, my vessel. I am Zero, the captain of this ship. I am also the person who invited you here. I mean to have you participate in a game. Some of you, I know, are familiar with this game. The Nonary Game. It is a game where you will put your life on the line. The rules of the Nonary Game can be found upon your persons. The purpose of the game is simple. Leave this ship alive. It is hidden, but an exit can be found. Seek a way out. Seek a door that carries a 9. There is one last thing I must tell you. As you have no doubt surmised, this ship has begun to sink. On April 14th, 1912, the famous ocean liner Titanic crashed into an iceberg. After remaining afloat for 2 hours and 40 minutes, it sank beneath the waters of the North Atlantic. I will give you more time. 9 hours. That is the time you will be given to make your escape."
We split up and started looking around. Five decks, several locked rooms, puzzles behind all of those locked doors. We couldn't get the windows open and the water had completely submerged D Deck. What else were we supposed to think? Everything about that place made us really think we were going to sink.
As it turns out, it was a building that was used as part of the first Nonary Game nine years before. Building Q, designed to look exactly like the Gigantic, a sister ship of the Titanic. We were there to play a game for something really important, and the setting had to be exact.
I don't think any of us were expecting to find the desert and a car waiting for us when we finally reached the surface, but that's how it happened.
[ this is... a lot. dick listens to him speak the whole time with a light frown on his face. he'd known parts of this from junpei talking vaguely about it, but whole story... honestly, from the description alone, it sounds a bit like something the riddler or some other gotham villain would do. dick doesn't mention that, though.
because there are other things on that that strike him as a lot more important. ]
... So, a boat with multiple decks, puzzles with locked doors and nine hours. [ he raises an eyebrow a bit ] Maybe you were right to assume this was similar to what you'd been through. [ that aside-- ] Is that where you had to use the "morphogenetic field" the first time?
Yeah. Ever hear of Dashiell Gordain? Guy was a survivor of the Titanic's sinking, and because of it he ended up being obsessed with just about everything related to it...including the coffin of an ancient Egyptian Queen. Her bought her from the black market in 1912. About four years later, he bought the Gigantic, the sister ship. He hid the queen, All-Ice, or Alice, inside the bowels of the ship. People searched for her for years, but it wasn't until about nine or ten years ago that someone bought the ship and began searching themselves. But the body was gone. Inside the coffin was a drug called Soporil which was introduced to the market and made the buyer's company, Cradle Pharmaceuticals, rich.
[This is still important to explain the main question.] ...nine years before the Nonary Game I played in, the first Nonary Game was run. Nine people were put on the ship itself that was starting to sink, and nine others were in the building we would find ourselves in nine years later. Nine pairs of siblings, all kids. The purpose of the Nonary Game was to test for telepathy using the Morphogenic Field. [...] You need two factors in order to access the field. The first is epiphany and the second is danger. The game itself was meant to introduce danger and force these kids to access the field to save themselves, to see how easily it could be done to transfer information between pairs. It was life or death, and...a girl died during the experiment.
[So?] Nine years later, we played the same game. Zero kidnapped us and put our lives in danger. The killings started not long after we got there, and that's about the time we realized Zero was among us. It was revenge for what had happened all those years ago. [...] But...[He pauses, and he looks like he's going to stop outright because he thought about explaining this to someone else and couldn't get far enough to explain. The Nonary Game was an experience that changed everything he knew about himself and about the people around him, and he's still not sure how to feel about it. So. He stares at his feet.]
The purpose of the game was for me to save her. That girl. [Hm.] She saw a timeline where everything went a certain way, but it was a timeline in her future and my present. So. Schrodinger's Girl went through and recreated the vision as she saw it, changing rules as she saw fit. This girl was Zero, and she brought all of us to that building to help save herself and make sure she would exist instead of burning alive in an incinerator nine years in the past.
Timelines are a weird thing, you know? That girl was Zero, but she was also in the past and she was also in the present. [He frowns.] I saved her. There was something there that connected us in the Morphogenetic Field, so she could guide me to help me save her. Even though she died in that timeline, I was able to help her get out of that room and escape from the ship before it sank. Saving her meant that she could exist in the current one. But by the time we figured out how to escape ourselves and got out of the building she and her brother were already gone and I lost track of them.
[...he looks like he might say something else, but he rubs the back of his neck instead.] ...that wasn't, like, any of what you asked. [There's a quiet, unsure laugh like he's aware he's said too much.] Anyway. That's why.
[ wow! he thought the previous a lot was a lot! this is a lot lot!
there's the detective in dick that's taking everything in, filing it away to understand, to go through, to try and see if there's anything junpei wasn't saying so he can see the patterns and get the full picture. to know everything that makes junpei-- well, junpei. that paranoid part of him that's used to knowing everything about everyone.
but it's not the important part of this. junpei seeming awkward and unsure is, and dick isn't sure what to say. he moves, fluid, so that instead of tucked against him he's rolled sort of on top of him-- he's braced against the deck and not junpei himself, but it's still very close. ]
Nope. [ blunt; he figures lightening the mood is in order ] It's fine. You're doing all the sharing at once so now you never have to again, is that it? [ again, he's trying to joke. he leans back a bit, so he's not crowding junpei as much. the guy clearly wants a subject change, but with that on his mind, dick can only really think of one thing: ] Had a kid time travel back in time to change history not that long ago. Forty years in the past, and I keep wondering how he hasn't erased his own existence yet.
[Yeah he very desperately kind of looks like he never wants to talk ever again, but the thing is that when Dick moves he easily follows and brackets himself neatly under Dick. Even if he's not on top of him directly Junpei's going to stay still and watch him closely.]
She explained it once. I'm not explaining it right now. [But there's a strange grin and time travel isn't something he wants to think about. He misses Akane and he's thinking about her, but he's also accepting that somehow this is comfortable, too.
He's already made enough mistakes today, so he pushes at the side of Dick's face instead. It's more like a playful bat than actually trying to push him further away, because he's keeping things light and shoving all of his skeletons back in his closet, but. An attempt.] But yeah, you caught me. That's the last time I'll share ever again.
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And it took me almost two week to learn. Looks like I'm slacking. [He can do quips. That's fine. He's 100% not sure what to do here so he'll follow the beat Dick sets.]
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Yeah, detective. Where's your work ethic at? [ but he won't just fake roast junpei, adding-- ] But I guess we've both been neglecting the "get to know you" part of roommate duties.
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Escha's got us both beat by constantly bringing us snacks. [There's an almost fondness to his tone before he frowns.] It's been a while since I've done this. I'm out of practice. And maybe you're not the only one who sucks at sharing.
[Has he bothered asking or concerning himself with Dick's tattoo? Nope. And he's not asking for explanation now.]
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[ because junpei mumbles his thoughts out loud a lot ]
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Sorry. Habits are a thing. [He says nothing about talking to a mirror because he thinks of what Hizamaru said a week ago. "If your painting could talk, what would it say?" His would say a lot he doesn't need to hear.] Let me ask you something. What are you requesting?
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Requests were open for anything, but if you're really sure...[A soft shrug. He won't take the offer back just yet. ] I ruined my chance at a secret ID a while ago. [It has nothing to do with anything but he thinks about codenames and Akane and the nonary game because of course he does.]
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he kicks at junpei's foot again like an asshole. ]
Alright, if you're gonna twist my arm about it. [ this is definitely what happened? ] What's that about?
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I meant including things besides talking. [But okay.] Last year when I woke up on a ship after being kidnapped, I found eight other people. We didn't want the guy watching to know too much in case it was used against us, so we picked code names. But everybody already knew my name by then so I'm the only one who didn't get one. Talk about a rip-off.
[Sometimes you just casually talk about kidnappings. And maybe it's said that way because while it wasn't really a ship, it felt too real back then. This week has been something.]
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[ how does he know about that? mystery ]
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I tried to jump because the building Carlos and I were in before we got here is out there. [A gesture to the horizon ruins.] Or a really good duplicate. Hard to see the full thing but it's hard not to notice.
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Raincheck, remember? [ he's feeling too-- needy to feel comfortable asking for anything right at this moment, so talking it has to be. Dick tries to catch which of the buildings Junpei is gesturing to, a small frown on his face. ] ... The building you were in... Was it a hospital?
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Did you go to see him, too? [He shakes his head.] We were in a bomb shelter. The hospital is...different.
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Beck told me she managed to get in contact. [ he doesn't ask anything more about the hospital, instead he looks at the grouped buildings with a thoughtful frown ] They've all got different places. Four of them, four places. So here's the question-- was there anything on that horizon before Polly did the ritual?
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Next question. How do we get there?
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I don't know. I get the feeling this whole area is a pocket dimension, but if that's true then we need to really find what we're missing to get there. I don't think those are the places we really go when we see them. Then again...I don't have proof.
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[ the kaleidoscope dimension, ]
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I'm sorry, can we go back to where a ship was in the middle of the Nevada desert?
[ DICK CANT TALK ABOUT THINGS BEING WEIRD BUT ???? ]
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Like I said, it was a building but at the time we didn't know it. One day last year, I came home after work and a guy in a mask unleashed some sort of white smoke in my apartment and knocked me out. When I woke up, I was in a third class cabin on a ship. The room was locked and the floor I was on started flooding, so...I had to solve a puzzle to find the cards needed to activate the sensor myself.
The entire hall was full of water. D Deck was flooding fast, but when I headed up to B Deck that's when I found everyone else. All of us had the same experience. Guy in a mask, kidnapped, shoved into a room with a bracelet on our wrists and forced to find a way out before the room flooded. Once we were all together, a speaker in the corner started playing a broadcast.
[He pauses, digging into his memory to begin reciting.] "Welcome aboard. I welcome you all, from the bottom of my heart, to this, my vessel. I am Zero, the captain of this ship. I am also the person who invited you here. I mean to have you participate in a game. Some of you, I know, are familiar with this game. The Nonary Game. It is a game where you will put your life on the line. The rules of the Nonary Game can be found upon your persons. The purpose of the game is simple. Leave this ship alive. It is hidden, but an exit can be found. Seek a way out. Seek a door that carries a 9. There is one last thing I must tell you. As you have no doubt surmised, this ship has begun to sink. On April 14th, 1912, the famous ocean liner Titanic crashed into an iceberg. After remaining afloat for 2 hours and 40 minutes, it sank beneath the waters of the North Atlantic. I will give you more time. 9 hours. That is the time you will be given to make your escape."
We split up and started looking around. Five decks, several locked rooms, puzzles behind all of those locked doors. We couldn't get the windows open and the water had completely submerged D Deck. What else were we supposed to think? Everything about that place made us really think we were going to sink.
As it turns out, it was a building that was used as part of the first Nonary Game nine years before. Building Q, designed to look exactly like the Gigantic, a sister ship of the Titanic. We were there to play a game for something really important, and the setting had to be exact.
I don't think any of us were expecting to find the desert and a car waiting for us when we finally reached the surface, but that's how it happened.
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because there are other things on that that strike him as a lot more important. ]
... So, a boat with multiple decks, puzzles with locked doors and nine hours. [ he raises an eyebrow a bit ] Maybe you were right to assume this was similar to what you'd been through. [ that aside-- ] Is that where you had to use the "morphogenetic field" the first time?
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[This is still important to explain the main question.] ...nine years before the Nonary Game I played in, the first Nonary Game was run. Nine people were put on the ship itself that was starting to sink, and nine others were in the building we would find ourselves in nine years later. Nine pairs of siblings, all kids. The purpose of the Nonary Game was to test for telepathy using the Morphogenic Field. [...] You need two factors in order to access the field. The first is epiphany and the second is danger. The game itself was meant to introduce danger and force these kids to access the field to save themselves, to see how easily it could be done to transfer information between pairs. It was life or death, and...a girl died during the experiment.
[So?] Nine years later, we played the same game. Zero kidnapped us and put our lives in danger. The killings started not long after we got there, and that's about the time we realized Zero was among us. It was revenge for what had happened all those years ago. [...] But...[He pauses, and he looks like he's going to stop outright because he thought about explaining this to someone else and couldn't get far enough to explain. The Nonary Game was an experience that changed everything he knew about himself and about the people around him, and he's still not sure how to feel about it. So. He stares at his feet.]
The purpose of the game was for me to save her. That girl. [Hm.] She saw a timeline where everything went a certain way, but it was a timeline in her future and my present. So. Schrodinger's Girl went through and recreated the vision as she saw it, changing rules as she saw fit. This girl was Zero, and she brought all of us to that building to help save herself and make sure she would exist instead of burning alive in an incinerator nine years in the past.
Timelines are a weird thing, you know? That girl was Zero, but she was also in the past and she was also in the present. [He frowns.] I saved her. There was something there that connected us in the Morphogenetic Field, so she could guide me to help me save her. Even though she died in that timeline, I was able to help her get out of that room and escape from the ship before it sank. Saving her meant that she could exist in the current one. But by the time we figured out how to escape ourselves and got out of the building she and her brother were already gone and I lost track of them.
[...he looks like he might say something else, but he rubs the back of his neck instead.] ...that wasn't, like, any of what you asked. [There's a quiet, unsure laugh like he's aware he's said too much.] Anyway. That's why.
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there's the detective in dick that's taking everything in, filing it away to understand, to go through, to try and see if there's anything junpei wasn't saying so he can see the patterns and get the full picture. to know everything that makes junpei-- well, junpei. that paranoid part of him that's used to knowing everything about everyone.
but it's not the important part of this. junpei seeming awkward and unsure is, and dick isn't sure what to say. he moves, fluid, so that instead of tucked against him he's rolled sort of on top of him-- he's braced against the deck and not junpei himself, but it's still very close. ]
Nope. [ blunt; he figures lightening the mood is in order ] It's fine. You're doing all the sharing at once so now you never have to again, is that it? [ again, he's trying to joke. he leans back a bit, so he's not crowding junpei as much. the guy clearly wants a subject change, but with that on his mind, dick can only really think of one thing: ] Had a kid time travel back in time to change history not that long ago. Forty years in the past, and I keep wondering how he hasn't erased his own existence yet.
[ ... time travel is wild, is his point. ]
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She explained it once. I'm not explaining it right now. [But there's a strange grin and time travel isn't something he wants to think about. He misses Akane and he's thinking about her, but he's also accepting that somehow this is comfortable, too.
He's already made enough mistakes today, so he pushes at the side of Dick's face instead. It's more like a playful bat than actually trying to push him further away, because he's keeping things light and shoving all of his skeletons back in his closet, but. An attempt.] But yeah, you caught me. That's the last time I'll share ever again.
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