snyaiper | Balance: Inbox

[She knows plenty of people wanted to know about this on the post. And she's tried to understand what Ogata said about it in public, but for someone like her it's difficult to wrap her mind around.

Though her stomach churns with the knowledge of what he did to Alex, she sounds remarkably composed for someone who comes off as a total airhead the majority of the time. There's sadness, of course, but it's hard to detect much else.] Did you know that people lose parts of themselves when they come back?

[Well, this is easy enough to answer. Even with it coming from Sayori.]
I didn’t know about that, no. I was informed after the fact.

[He could just stop there. It perhaps casts his choice in a very slightly better light. But is there really any point trying to salvage anything? Sayori is a normal person. Surely any good will will have dried up regardless of the circumstances of his crime.]

I can’t say knowing would have stopped me. Whatever he lost, it doesn’t seem to have broken him. I’ve seen people lose far more of themselves without even dying. That’s just what being alive is like sometimes.

[If she had any expectations at all for this conversation, she can't recall them now. Does it make it better? I dunno if I'd ever do what Monika did, she'd said to Alex, and he said that she didn't have to think about it, because whatever it was didn't really happen. Whatever Ogata would have done didn't really happen, so is it worth thinking about? The way he words it, he doesn't know for sure. Maybe it would have changed something. Maybe it wouldn't have.

She's quiet for a moment. This is clearly not her conversational forte, and she has to consider her words carefully before she says them.] ...you're right. Humans are really strong. Alex— he's really strong.

But we shouldn't try to make it harder on each other just because life is like that. [After a beat, she amends:] Especially because life is like that.

[It's a similar line of thinking to what Alex keeps throwing at him, he thinks. He'd always assumed positive people were that way because they didn't know any better. Because they'd always had it easy. This alternative he's now been given is in some ways more irritating. Honestly, he wasn't expecting this from Sayori. She'd struck him as the blissfully ignorant type.

For some reason it makes the weird feeling he can't find a name for worse. More painful. It doesn't get any better when he starts talking;]

I don't know what it is that lets you and Alex think like that. Maybe it's strength. Maybe you're just both insane. I don't pretend to understand.

If you came here hoping to find some good excuse, let me make it clear for you; I'm not a good person and I like hurting people. There isn't anything you people can do to change that.
[It's strange. He doesn't sound smug or annoyed or anything much at all. Dejected, like he's resigned to it. He didn't mind Sayori, he thinks. It was confusing and strange, but as much as he'd felt the urge to push it away, it had been nice, for a while, to have someone smile at him. But of course, it had to stop. It'd only been able to continue because she didn't know what sort of person he was. That was fixed, now.]

[She strikes everyone as the blissfully ignorant type. In some ways, she is. But she knows a lot more than she tends to let on, and even though Ogata has been more difficult to get a read on than most other people she's met here, anything real that would chase her away is missing from his voice.]

I wasn't looking for that. There's no good excuse for what you did. [There's no good excuse for what Monika did, either.

But that's not the point.] But I don't understand, and I want to, because I like you. If you just liked hurting people because you think it's fun then you'd have hurt a lot more people here by now. You probably would have hurt me.

[He's had plenty of opportunities to; she's very trusting, and it's not like she has Mista or Sans or Wash at her side at all times. But he's been nice to her. And she knows that doesn't make a good person all on its own, but it does mean there's something here that's missing. Something he isn't saying.]

[Like????

No, no he can’t have heard that right.]

[No, he definitely heard her right. He has excellent hearing.

...

He doesn’t understand how this has occurred. How it’s even still relevant. Surely killing Alex would have rendered that null and void. But no, she hadn’t said it in past tense. He wonders if Asirpa would have said the same. He never had the chance to find out. He’d never hurt her either.]

I didn’t, because you’ve never given me a reason to. That could change easily. There’s nothing about me to like that’s worth that risk.

[He pauses, before adding,]
There’s nothing about me that someone like you has a use for.

[A use?

That phrasing wipes everything else he's just said from her mind like a slap in the face. She has to pause, blinking down at her bracer like it's personally offended her, and mentally play all that back to even begin to absorb the rest of what he's said.

And there's a lot jumbled up in her brain. Scattered things; whether something or someone might hurt her isn't a risk, isn't even a consideration; the real risk is upsetting the people who, somehow, love her dearly. But all the stuff he said still doesn't indicate that he hurts people just for fun. And she thinks he might have just threatened her?

A use.

Her tongue sticks to the roof of her mouth for a moment, but eventually she finds the words, though they aren't as well thought out as her previous attempts.] I don't like people just because they're useful, y'know.

But you did teach me to waltz, so...

Edited (just noticed i skipped like three words. good RP) 2019-11-08 09:52 (UTC)

[Ah, that’s right. He had done that. Perhaps that concession had been his first mistake. Even though he hadn’t actually minded it. Even though he’d hated being at thise parties where he’s learned it. The artifice. The status. People who could afford to care about frivolous things purely because society decided they were allowed to. That they were somehow better.

Though, he also had a vivid memory of First Lieutenant Tsurumi smiling at him warmly. You’re doing an excellent job, Hyakunosuke, he’d leaned in to whisper. Through the haze of drink that had been forced upon him, Ogata had thrilled at it and thought that maybe this was how it felt to have a father.

Of course, that version of Tsurumi had died long before the Hunger consumed the madman that had replaced him. No, he’d probably never even been real in the first place. Ogata had just been young and stupid and taken in by a role the man had played.

Finally, Ogata just sighs.]

I don’t know. I don’t understand. That’s how it’s always worked for me before. People keep saying that here, that people don’t need to be “useful.” Normally I’d just assume you were lying the way people always do, but it’s the only way your behavior makes sense.

[That's a terribly cynical thing to say, but she's not really in a place to dispute it. She is a liar. Hell, her entire existence is practically one big lie. But she doesn't need to lie about this.

She makes a soft thoughtful noise. If this is how it's always been for him, he clearly came from a very messed up situation back home. Maybe a whole messed up world. She can relate to that, at least.

Suddenly, a question occurs to her.] If that's how it is for you, what's my use? I'm not very useful.

[It's not an attempt to trap him in his own logic. It's genuine curiosity—appropriately subdued for the conversation, but straightforward in its intent nonetheless.]

[It's a good thing this is over the bracer because Ogata absolutely has a deer in headlights sort of moment when faced with that question.

Sure, he could just say he doesn't have a use for Sayori and why should he anyway?? What stops him is what she said earlier. That she likes him, for some inexplicable arcane reason he can't hope to understand. It's not like he's been nice. Or well, maybe for him, he has been.

It addresses some sort of need Ogata can't really articulate because it's not one he ever really interfaces with. The need to be cared about. So neglected is it that he's generally most comfortable when people clearly don't want him around, or at least don't care one way or another, purely out of familiarity. Being faced with the opposite is alien and the uncertainty makes him want to avoid it. He doesn't want to be tricked and used again.

Sayori smiled at him. She taught him about poetry. More than anything, she refuses to hate him even now that she knows what he's really like. The irrational, scared animal part of his brain wants to kill her for that. To remove the inconsistency from the way he sees the world. But there have been too many challenges to that world lately. Besides, he's positive he wouldn't survive the aftermath. It's not like he could run away the way he normally does. The bracers have trackers on them.]

You're absolutely terrifying.
[Ogata what the FUCK does that mean.]

[And then, right after, as if it's intentionally done as a distraction;]

I almost forgot
I did write... something. I'm still not sure if it counts as a poem
[And attached is an image of the poem Ogata wrote.]

[????????????]

[hey quick question: what the fuck]

[okay well that's an alarming statement that he has absolutely not given her the opportunity to react to on purpose! Great! And she's torn between responding to that and commenting on the poem.

Unfortunately, it's almost like being drawn to poetry is in her programming or something. And maybe it will give her some answers for that completely baffling sentence he just said.

So she reads it. And it's...well, again, she didn't really know what she expected. But as before, she has no reason to lie about this.]

it looks like a poem to me
its really good! id never know you hadnt written like that before!

did it help?

[Ogata was fairly certain she'd say it counted as a poem. But... to actually be told it was good? Entirely unexpected. It gives him that soft, thrilling feeling he gets whenever someone compliments his marksmanship. Praise for a skill. He can understand that. He likes that.]

I'm not sure yet.
Maybe I need to write more.
As far as hobbies go, I suppose I don't mind this one.

i think you should! writing is good for u and youll get even better at it if you do it more!

[Though she'd encourage any non-violent hobby at this point given what she now knows about Ogata. But she does sincerely believe that writing might help him work his way through...

...well, the strange loss and emptiness present in the poem he just shared. And whatever else has caused him to decide that she's something to be scared of.]

[There's a long pause as Ogata ruminates over things, over his own feelings.

He think he will write more. That's not the problem. The problem is part of him feels the need to say something else. He has been jerking her around a bit this conversation. Trying to get her to lose her patience with him. Decide he's not worth the trouble. Take back the nice things she said. She hasn't, though. At a certain point, there can't be a reason to maintain a pretense. At a certain point, the only explaination left is that it's all genuine.

Yeah, that's what's so terrifying about her. But, still. She said she liked him. That's going to stick with him for a while.]

Thank you
[For what? For a lot of things. It was a monumental effort just to send even that. Case in point;]

If you tell anyone about this I won't forgive you

[She can be patient while he figures out what to say. She's got some thinking of her own to do. Lucretia rescues people with the potential to do something amazing; really, everyone is capable of doing something amazing, so she knows that's inside of Ogata too. But he is pretty different from most of the other Reclaimers she's met... It's like no one's ever been nice to him or something.

If he often shoots people he disagrees with, Sayori can't really blame people for giving him a wide berth, but. If nobody's ever nice to him that's all the more reason to try.]

(＾◡＾)

[There, that one is simple, surely he will be able to see that his gratitude has made her smile.]

dont worry im great at keeping secrets!
but you already told a bunch of people u wrote a poem so theyre probably gonna figure out were friends at least

[Now she has also said they are friends. Perish, Ogata.]

[Now hold on HOLD ON. Liking is one thing. People like lots of things. Or so he's led to believe, he mostly only likes a select few things. In any case. That's one thing.

This is a whole new tier of confusion. No one has ever sincerely called him their friend. He's been associates, co-conspirators, comrades in arms. Those all come with some level of professionalism. Some level of necessity. Not this.]

What are you talking about
[SURELY THERE MUST BE SOME MISTAKE]

[There are a few things that could be in reference to here, and call her crazy for not immediately assuming it's because the concept of friendship is foreign to Ogata.]

???

are u surprised im good at keeping secrets? i know i dont seem all that smart but i can be super sneaky i promise! (･ω<)☆

[Sayori wasn’t programmed to know how to deal with borderline sociopathic sniper cats, shockingly.]

No
You said we’re friends
?
[He would have just thought he’d misheard except this is text and he can see the previous message clear as day]

[Yeah that was a little outside the scope of her canon, go figure.]

oh
yeah!

[...after a moment, she realizes that this may not be a sufficient explanation.]

friends help each other even when they dont have to you know? theyre people you like! so it seems like were friends to me

[Ogata is torn because on the one hand there’s something vaguely insulting about the assumption that he doesn’t know what the word friend means but on the other hand the truth really isn’t that much more charitable.]

I know what the word means.

It’s just that no one has ever called me their friend before.
[So like... are you sure.]

[..............

She types thats really sad and then deletes it before sending it because she figures he would not appreciate that.

But wow, that is really sad. No wonder he's so...like this.]

well now i have!!! (=^`ω´^=)

(thats another cat)

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UNREAD E-MAILS (--)	UNOPENED VOICEMAILS (--)	ONLINE STATUS: [ INVISIBLE ] TEXT [ YAMANEKO ]

voice, shortly after ogata's post; un: dearsunshine

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