vipmix | week 1, Friday

Don't go.

[The words come out quickly - maybe too quickly. That's it, isn't it? Yona's wandered off on her own to get here, but she's never really had to deal with fear like this alone before. She always had someone there.]

...please.

[She'd take Josh cracking jokes at her expense over being alone right now.]

[MOTHERFUCKER

part of joshua wants to just fuck off anyway, but he's the one who made the mistake of offering. he can ... own up to it.]

Wow. You must be pretty desperate for company if you're asking me that. [i mean he's not gonna be comforting but--] Though I think I can guess why. Was that your first death?

[murder, he should say. but even josh hadn't expected the game to be quite that brutal on the first death-- and it was super gory and gross. he is not about gory and gross. unappreciated.]

...if you didn't want to stay, you didn't have to answer when I asked.

[It pales in comparison to the spirit she had earlier, back when they first met, but - grumbly is probably better than mopey. It even gets her to raise her head, if only to shoot him a Look.]

My mother died when I was small, but this feels... different.

[It's the first murder she's been up close and personal for.]

I can still leave, if you want.

[don't sass him!!! anyway]

You didn't have the same capacity of understanding as a child as you did now. And... unless I'm mistaken, I doubt you were this involved in the process when your mother was murdered.

I already asked you not to leave.

[she'll sass him all she wants thanks

But she shakes her head slowly - a little uselessly, because she feels useless just remembering it - and looks back down.] I wasn't... I found out that she was killed by insurgents, but I didn't... know the details. Not like this.

[It had been bad enough with the little she did know. How much worse would it have been if she'd known everything? Feeling like she does now - having found the body parts of someone she wasn't acquainted with - she can't help but think it's beyond her imagining. It would have been much, much worse.]

And now we're supposed to figure out who did it...?

So don't complain when I don't.

[sass aside-- he listens to her and in the end just ... shrugs]

That's how the "game" is meant to be played, yes. You don't technically have to help if it feels like too much... Though if we get the wrong person, we are condemning someone innocent to death.

[this is, like, the opposite? of helping? thanks josh]

...I already spent the entire week not helping.

[She's painfully aware of that. So many of the things she's been complaining about seem so petty now that someone is actually dead. Yona knows that there is nothing she, personally, could have done to stop it, but...

Maybe this wouldn't come as such a shock now if she hadn't kept her eyes firmly shut to reality.]

I don't want that! I don't want more innocent people to die... she didn't deserve that.

[For now, she's not touching on the topic of Haru's partner, or the partner of whoever they end up condemning, and that's mostly because it hasn't sunk in yet. Give it time.]

We have to figure it out. Somehow.

Are you planning on figuring it out by sitting down, wallowing on a beach?

[it's dry-- deserve or didn't deserve is up to someone else to judge, as far as joshua is concerned, so he's got nothing to say to that.]

...I'm trying to get all my gloominess out now so I don't waste time with it tomorrow.

[That's not how it works, Yona.]

Is that how you think it works? [lmao] You know, it is possible to have feelings and be useful. It sounds impossible, but it's true.

...but I'm not-

[Ugh.]

I haven't... done anything to help yet. I don't know how to do that yet. [She pouts.] So until I figure out how, I have to try this.

A valiant effort, if woefully misguided. Do you think everyone else here who reacted in some way is doing what you're doing? [he's not even hiding his amusement, the dick] When it comes to tomorrow, you're on the same level as everyone else here. No one knows exactly what to expect quite yet.

...mrrr...

[If nothing else, Joshua has at least snapped her out of her funk. Yay, antagonism?]

What are you going to do tomorrow?

[This Is Helping, clearly]

Whatever I want to. [speaking of helping--] I'd rather not have to deal with our killer on a separate day, so I suppose I'll help solve a crime. That's the long and short of what a trial usually is, isn't it?