Shun Kurosaki (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
revolutionfalcon) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thenearshore2016-12-01 10:31 pm
revolutionfalcon) wrote in thenearshore2016-12-01 10:31 pm
[Closed] What happens in fight club stays in fight club...
Who: Shun and Ren
What: Card gameassholes antiheroes have a post-fighting-lesson sleepover and talk about their respective dark pasts.
When: May 20th
Where: Nekhbet's Temple
Warnings: Discussion of war and likely PTSD and survivor's guilt at some point, others will be added if they come up.
[Shun and Ren's fighting lessons have become basically routine at this point, every three days like clockwork that's only thrown out of time by the few occasions Shun has to work, in which case it's picked up the next day and the cycle continues. Not even the more brutal lesson on the fourteenth had managed to stop the following one falling in line, and now it's the one after that, and as always, Shun's demanding a rest period afterwards to be sure he doesn't send Ren back out weak enough to make easy pickings.
This time, though, is a little different, because he's not sending Ren back out, and though they discussed this extensively enough a few days ago when Ren suggested it, Shun doesn't really get what the difference between a sleepover and sharing quarters with his allies is. But there is definitely one thing they agreed on when it came to "getting to know each other better", and after coming across from the tiny kitchen with both a jug of water and a pot of the most obnoxiously strong black coffee imaginable, cups already on the little coffee table in the other room, Shun drains a glass of water in about two and a half seconds before he switches to the coffee and gives his guest a level look.]
You did better today than last lesson, but I'd be surprised if you wanted to discuss something that obvious.
What: Card game
When: May 20th
Where: Nekhbet's Temple
Warnings: Discussion of war and likely PTSD and survivor's guilt at some point, others will be added if they come up.
[Shun and Ren's fighting lessons have become basically routine at this point, every three days like clockwork that's only thrown out of time by the few occasions Shun has to work, in which case it's picked up the next day and the cycle continues. Not even the more brutal lesson on the fourteenth had managed to stop the following one falling in line, and now it's the one after that, and as always, Shun's demanding a rest period afterwards to be sure he doesn't send Ren back out weak enough to make easy pickings.
This time, though, is a little different, because he's not sending Ren back out, and though they discussed this extensively enough a few days ago when Ren suggested it, Shun doesn't really get what the difference between a sleepover and sharing quarters with his allies is. But there is definitely one thing they agreed on when it came to "getting to know each other better", and after coming across from the tiny kitchen with both a jug of water and a pot of the most obnoxiously strong black coffee imaginable, cups already on the little coffee table in the other room, Shun drains a glass of water in about two and a half seconds before he switches to the coffee and gives his guest a level look.]
You did better today than last lesson, but I'd be surprised if you wanted to discuss something that obvious.
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He treated me like some attack dog while we were "working together". Those students I attacked, the next time they saw me, thought I'd been their friend and another student for years, because of him. If I tried to get out of his sight, he'd set his employees to follow me. Whenever he wanted me to bite, he'd twist my trauma against me and show me some cheap Solid Vision knockoff of Heartland, then act superior when he couldn't force me to talk about the war because I couldn't talk about it like that. His supposed rallying of Standard amounted to sending unprepared duelists out as fodder against an Academia incursion and seeing who survived to form his first team, then using that as a rally point. And don't get me started on his supposed "leadership" skills.
[He's getting a little too heated about this again, though, and he lets out a sharp breath, trying to find where he'd been in the tale before this.]
That was what the tournament was for, anyway, trying to pick out duelists he thought could fight. There turned out to be two Academia duelists in there anyway - one I defeated, but that guy insisted I not card him so he could be interrogated, then let him escape like an incompetent idiot. That mistake almost killed me later on. But before that...
[It's hard to know how to put this next bit, partially because Shun knows so little of what actually happened. Pained lines set in around his eyes even before he starts speaking again.] The night that Academia soldier escaped, Yuto encountered him, probably trying to get answers from him as well. For a while, it was just those two dueling and Yuya trying to intervene, and Akaba and I were watching from LDS Tower. But the video cut off after the soldier vanished and Yuya and Yuto had put down their arms - and LDS started getting Synchro readings with the kind of power you only get from a duelist using their own dimension's summoning method. I knew who it was, someone we called the "Pawn of Fusion", a Synchro resident we thought was part of Academia. I was about to leave and fight by Yuto's side against him, but that bastard stopped me. Told me that if I intervened, it could ruin everything, as if everything else that night hadn't been noticeable enough. I still had no lead but him to get to Ruri, so I stayed, but I wasn't calm about it. It didn't feel right.
[Fingers digging into the fabric of his pants for a moment, all the bitterness talking about Reiji disintegrates into something more somber in the next moment.] I lost contact with Yuto after that night. I couldn't get any answers out of LDS, and then Yuto's ace monster turned up in Yuya's hands in his next tournament duel. I thought he'd killed Yuto and I almost beat the hell out of him for it twice, but that Academia incursion I mentioned began then. That soldier I defeated came back and defeated me, and would've sealed me if Serena - another one with Ruri's face - hadn't come looking for me. She was the first defect I ever saw from Academia, and she hadn't even been on the front lines, but she wanted to know the real story of the war, not Academia's painted-up version. She carried me out of that, and the survivors of that day became the Lancers. We were supposed to be some kind of vanguard, giving Standard something to aspire to and making allies in other dimensions, and I didn't want to be part of that then. I was still focused on Ruri, and wanted to get to the Fusion Dimension. But Serena convinced me to go along with Synchro first, and then it turned out Akaba had reverse-engineered the dimensional transportation technology. The only place he could've gotten that was Yuto's duel disk, and I assumed Yuya had given it to him after that night. Before I could attack Yuya for it, though, I saw...I think it must have been Yuto's spirit, because I know now Yuya's holding his soul, telling me to trust him. I thought I was hallucinating, but after that I couldn't lash out at him the same way I'd tried to.
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It takes him a moment to remember where he's heard the name "Yuya" before, and he can't quite keep himself from frowning as he finally remembers Yuto's post a week or so ago about losing another god. There was no saying that was the same Yuya, but hopefully that Yuya kept his mouth shut all the same.
As Shun goes on, Ren an't help but feel like that's a little familiar too. What Aichi had done hadn't quite been the same--Ren had at least been aware of what happened and it wasn't like he'd died--but at the time, it had still felt like he was losing him forever. At least Shun had been able to see Yuto again too, even if--
He frowns a little at Shun's tense fingers as he reaches the end. That...wasn't how Yuto had died...? Unless Shun had just been seeing things...but he would know if it was really Yuto's spirit better than anyone...so maybe something had happened to both of them later...?
He isn't really sure what to say to any of that. It's all very confusing, and Shun probably wouldn't appreciate brainstorming the finer details of how Yuto might have come to be here. But this does finally seem like the right time for another response. He finally reaches out take one of his hands and slips his fingers between Shun's]
...I thought I lost one of my friends for a while too. Not because he died, but...it was supposed to be something just as permanent. If I hadn't known what had happened or had a chance to say goodbye...
[Well, it would have been awful and he can't blame Aichi for wanting to spare everyone that awfulness.]
What did you find in Synchro? It seems weird he would want to go there first, unless it was to help give the others more experience?
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The feeling of contact snaps him out of the brief reverie, and his fingers twitch back instinctively at it, the typical slight flinch from contact when it had mostly meant a potential attack for so long. He's not sure enough whether Ren's trying to comfort him or comfort himself to refuse it, though, because after subjecting him to a talk like this it'd be a bit more callous than he prefers to act towards his friends to throw off an attempt to ground himself, even if it is an unfamiliar one.
He doesn't exactly return the gesture, but his hand at least relaxes to rest in the same kind of position, Shun's jaw set as he nods at where Ren's own experience trails off.]
I was furious at the start, but once it wore off, having both Yuto and Ruri gone was like losing everything all over again.
[The admission is quiet, and as restrained as he can make it, because he certainly hadn't felt like being restrained about it then.
After a moment, he lets out a breath and goes on to answer Ren's question.]
He wanted to find allies before we went to Fusion. I don't know if he planned it or not, but we were all split up when we got there. Some of the others apparently turned up in groups, but I was completely alone, so I went underground. I didn't know if the others had been lost between dimensions or what, but I looked for information and played in gambling duels to try and find strong duelists. Everyone I met there was weak, but that was when I first dueled the Lancer who turned out to be the mole placed in Xyz. He claimed to be an LDS exchange student, but he didn't play anything like them. He had the steel, the edge they'd always lacked.
But Synchro itself was disgusting. Imagine a city where everything on the ground is slum, and the single percentage of the rich live literally above everyone else in their ivory towers while corrupt officials maintain that and crush any attempts to rise up. The underground duels were raided - all the Tops residents everyone knew came to watch were gone by then, of course - and all of us there were arrested. I started a fight in the prison and got sent to solitary confinement for it, but by the time I escaped almost all the rest of the Lancers had been brought to the jail too and were breaking out. I saved us from one recapture, but then we ran into the head of security himself, Jean-Michel Roger, smug bastard that he was. The governing council of that city in Synchro wouldn't take a side in the war when they learnt about it, but Akaba came in, after he'd left us all to rot in prison for a few days doing whatever the hell he was doing, to broker a deal. We ended up being forced into the Friendship Cup, one of Synchro's traditions, and if we could prove ourselves against the city's best, they'd join the war effort.
It was basically a gilded cage, being allowed that. We were locked up in fancy rooms, completely isolated from each other, only let out to duel. And my first opponent was that traitor and spy who'd crawled into the Lancers. [His fingers tense and curl again at that, though it's residual anger rather than pain this time.]
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He give a long, skeptical sounding hum at the idea that Akaba had planned on everyone being split up on arrival. Deciding to do it after arrival, maybe, but having no chance to take in the situation together or make arrangements to meet up again...that sounds more like he wasn't familiar enough with the technology he was trying to use.
He rest his chin in his other hand and his elbow on his knee as Shun starts to describe Synchro, and his expression grows more closed off the more Shun talks about it. Especially when he gets to the council and Ren hums again, this time in disapproval. He's unfortunately met a few of that exact type of person--people who wouldn't lift a finger unless it benefited them personally somehow. He tried not to do business with them as much as possible, but there was only so much he and Tetsu could do sometimes.]
That's not surprising. They were probably afraid you might do something they wouldn't like if you could talk to each other and work together.
[The way Shun tenses up again is a little uncomfortable, but Ren still eaves his hand right where it is for now.]
Was that when he told you he was the spy? [Since it didn't sound like it had been that first duel.] How much did you make him regret it?
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I suspected he was a traitor already, so I drove him into a corner until he finally took off his mask and showed himself. I hadn't known exactly who to blame for Ruri or the invasion before that, and when he admitted it I had a target for all my comrades' regrets, all that I'd taken it on myself to become a channel for. I ended the duel with Satellite Cannon Falcon and destroyed half the track with it, but when I tried to seal him into a card I found out my duel disk had been tampered with when I'd handed it over for modification with the others before we left for Synchro. I couldn't use the sealing function anymore, so I tried to beat him down even though he was already semiconscious at best. The security crews dragged me away before I could actually do anything, though.
[He definitely sounds a little bitter about that, because that's one time he considers his blind rage actually justified for.]
I couldn't trust anyone after that. If they weren't from my own dimension, they were an enemy, and if they got in my way I'd treat them like I would any other. I went into my next duel with that in mind, against a Synchro resident called Crow.
[It's pretty clear from the absolute dissipation of negative emotion from Shun's voice at that point that things changed after that.]
We were both furious with our situations - me with the war, Crow with being locked at the bottom of society and the orphaned children he looked after having no future beyond that. He wanted to carve a new path for them, and during our duel, I realised I respected that. That there were worthy things to fight for even outside of the war. But his children were watching the duel, and one of them fell from a bridge across the track onto one of Crow's monsters. I was behind him, so I could see it, but he couldn't, and he wouldn't listen when I told him to stop the duel. He didn't even realise until just before the kid fell off, and at the speed we were going, it'd be a miracle if he lived hitting the track unprotected.
So I took advantage of the autopilot function they use in D-Wheels and rode Revolution Falcon to help him instead. I caught him before he was hurt, but everyone seemed surprised that I'd do something like that to help another person. Even the kid asked me why I did it, so I told him that before the war, I'd had children like him cheering me on as well. [A faintly mournful note creeps into his voice at that.] And I realised that I'd forgotten why I'd started fighting, what had made me so angry about the war in the first place. Those children...they should never have had to live through something like the war, or Synchro's society. Crow and I started that duel as enemies, but we ended it as friends. It was his battlefield, not mine, and it was the first time in a long time I can remember being fine with losing.
Losing in the Friendship Cup meant being sent into what might as well have been the depths of hell, though, so I promised him I'd claw my way out from that and we'd both win our respective battles before I was taken away. [There's that quiet disgust again, as he remembers it being when he learnt what the stakes of that tournament were, hidden behind a name like that.]
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But he is glad that Shun didn't stay in that state of distrust forever, for his own good and everyone else's.
A smile slowly forms on his face as Shun talks about Crow and the children...at least until he mentions the D-Wheels and then Ren spends most of the rest of staring blankly through his face while his smile fades away as he tries to work out what the heck that is. Because he knows what it sounds like, but he's having a really hard time imagining that that's actually what it is.]
...Wait, what's a D-Wheel?
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It's a specialised system they use in the Synchro Dimension. It's something like a motorcycle with a duel disk built in, they use it for Riding Duels, which are a bit like a duel and a race at the same time. Obviously most people don't have the skill to manually use something like that and play at the same time, so they have an autopilot system which maintains your speed and stops you from running into walls or anything stupid like that.
[Not that it saves anyone from actively malicious acts like having someone ram into them, but he supposes it's better than nothing.]
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You're game must be a lot different than mine, because I think it would take a lot of work to get something like that to work for Vanguard.
[Which is pretty much how he feels about the duel disks too. There are just too many cards on the field.]
But that sounds like so much fun! And you helped that kid while you were in the middle of that? That's really amazing. I wish I could have been there to see it.
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That's hardly surprising. I'm not even sure why Synchro came up with them.
[As for it being fun, he has to consider that again, because he's still not nearly as familiar with what can be called "fun" as he should be.]
They were interesting, at least. But I doubt you would've wanted to see that whole duel knowing what was at stake in every match of that tournament.
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And Shun may not seem to know what fun is anymore, but Ren is pretty sure he was having it. If he had fun with that one little race they'd had, he definitely had fun with something like this.
Hmm, maybe a rematch, then. So were you able to claw your way out of it?
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As frustrating as it was, his last experiences in Synchro weren't actually that bad compared to a lot of his others, so he's fairly neutral about it when he goes on.]
I was sent down to the garbage sorting facilities they'd enslaved the losers in until they couldn't work anymore, and for a while I went along with it. The work was easy for someone like me, and breaking out was something that needed to be timed right. But before long, Crow was brought down as well, and he was telling the guards that he'd seen the forerunners of an invasion - he'd heard about Academia from me, so I knew it was them, and that was when I knew it was time to escape. I took down some of the guards, and a few of the other sectors down there started a riot at the same time, and we all managed to get out of there working together. The city was in chaos, and Roger had captured Hiiragi Yuzu - the girl from Standard with Ruri's face - to use as some kind of leverage against Academia. She got a message out to Yuya, and after I met up with some of the other Lancers, I used my Raid Raptors to pull us all out of the riots and conflict in the city and get us back to the duel stadium so Yuya could fight the city's dueling "king".
[As he goes on, he sounds more engaged, reminiscing about the events of that duel.] I hadn't trusted Yuya by anything but Yuto's word before then, but watching him fight to change the city like that, completely firm in his beliefs but adapting what he needed to for the sake of getting that message across...that was when I really knew it hadn't been him who killed Yuto. And after that, I was ready to call the Lancers allies. We headed into the city to break up the fighting between Tops and Commons, but even as the city council finally spoke out to step down and return the city to the hands of the people after Yuya won, Roger was trying to escape with Yuzu. We headed to the Security tower to stop him, but he completely lost it and tried to drag Synchro into the space between dimensions by opening a wormhole. It consumed him and sent him hell knows where, and Yuzu too, and we thought it was over then. But it opened again, and Yuya had been so close from trying to save Yuzu that it started dragging him in. Two of the other Lancers and me tried to stop it, but it just meant we all got pulled in with him.
[There's a short, but deep pause as he finishes saying that, and his next words are full of a difficult-to-read emotion.] When we woke up, it was in Heartland.
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It's also been interesting hearing about all the times Shun seemed to have used his Duel Monsters to physically help people. He had said once that some of their holograms could do real damage, but he hadn't expected it to be quite as complex as what Shun's been describing here.
And good on the council, but it shouldn't have taken something like that for them to actually look after their people.
And there's the moment he'd been waiting for, when this would start being painful again. He was hoping it wasn't going to show up, but if there's one thing he's learned from what Shun has told him, it's that he never seems able to catch a break. Ren lightly squeezes his hand again. Even if Shun hasn't seemed to care the other times, he wants to feel like he's doing something.]
It sounds like you were lucky you woke up anywhere, instead of between dimensions. And better there than Fusion if you were separated again?
[Although that probably depends on whether it had gotten better or worse. He's not sure he wants to ask that.]
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Maybe. But as soon as we got there, I went to meet with the Resistance. Spade Branch had used our school as a base, and I knew how to get there and didn't want to be slowed down trying to lead the others to it.
[His free hand curls in as he continues, fingers eventually digging into his palms, and the one Ren's holding instead curls into what it can, nails hard against the skin.] Everything was gone. Everyone was gone. I found two of Clover Branch's members trying to get back to the other three, but when they took us to the outskirts of the city to the hideout of what was left of the Resistance and civilians who'd been able to escape with them, I found out that I was the last one left of Spade, and Clover wasn't much better off.
[At this point, he's practically forcing himself to continue, and he presses his eyes shut in an effort to stop any more emotion from straining his tone.] Yuto and I were two of the best duelists in the Resistance. After we left, another all out attack started, and without us, Spade was annihilated, and Clover was taken down to maybe a dozen or so people. Because I left for my own interests, everyone I fought with was killed without me even knowing, and I'd been so focused on Ruri I hadn't even considered what could happen when I left.
My old friend and rival from Clover, Kaito, was still alive, but his family died in that attack, so he'd struck out alone and convinced that making allies and friends would only mean he'd lose them. The way he was acting was like looking at myself, how I'd been before, so I dueled him to try and show him differently. I wanted to convince him that we could still be trusted, that I was still his friend and that you fight alongside your friends because you don't want to lose them, but he turned my last attack back on me. He'd said when we started that he'd turn me into a card if I lost, and he would've if Sayaka hadn't begged him for my life. He left, but I still failed him as well.
[There's not much more to the story, anyway, so as painful as it is, Shun decides finishing it here is the best course, carrying on with only a hint less pain in his voice.] After that, Academia came looking for the Lancers, and two sisters playing the same deck crushed Allen and Sayaka, then the other two Lancers in tag duels. Yuya and I stepped in to stop them before they could actually kill anyone, and it turned out they'd been the ones to destroy most of Spade. I could feel Yuto like he was alongside me, wanting revenge like I did, and I told Yuya to heed that wish if he thought he knew Yuto, because by then he'd admitted that Yuto's soul was within him. But they locked us into a cruel trap, and Yuya was the one who had to tell us to follow his way out of it. We won, but more reinforcements came, and we had to keep fighting. I was pulled to this place in the middle of that.
[While he could mention the part where he'd been pulled here after having a building fall on him, he won't, because he's been worrying about that enough himself and doesn't particularly want to pass it on. As he finishes, his eyes open again, but he doesn't make any move to look at Ren. He just looks deeply tired and sad, like a veil set in over his face.]
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In fact, he can't help thinking that it really isn't fair, as Shun goes on and it somehow gets worse. All of the crises in his own world were over, as far as he knew, all their enemies defeated, and everyone presumably reunited the way they should have been. Shun deserves to have that kind of closure too, especially after all that. That he's had to live with knowing that everything at home is still in turmoil and might only be getting worse...that's really awful too.
But it also makes him even more sure of one thing: Shun is really, really amazing.]
For what it's worth, I'm really glad she saved you, because then I was able to meet you.
[He hesitates a moment, but then decides that he might as well and shifts so that he's sitting sideways on the couch, facing Shun and holding his hand with both of his instead of just the one.]
And I really appreciate that you told me all of that. I know it was hard, having to relive some of that, and you didn't have to. [Especially that last bit. That was a lot.] And...I know saying this won't actually help anything and I wish there was something more I could do, but...I'm really sorry, Kurosaki.
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Finally, his fingers curl to properly return the hold, in a gesture of solidarity. He still looks worn, but a little bit of the sadness seems to have lifted.]
You were honest with me. I was just returning that trust. And even if you can't do anything else, being a friend is enough.
[Both in the sense of having been one before this and still being one after hearing that. He knows there are people who would likely think a lot differently of him knowing the kinds of things he's done.]
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You don't have to worry about that. I'm not going anywhere.
[He could probably mention that he's been friends with people who had done things just as bad or worse than Shun and had affected him far more personally, but he's not sure if that would make Shun feel better or worse. Besides which, if he does ever go into his "other stories", Shun's going to hear about them anyway.]
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For the few moments he considers that, his expression slowly returns to something more neutral from the exhaustion and upset. Even if he's failed to do this for others before, he's never let things like that stop him. This time, he's not turning his back on anyone.
With that resolution in mind, in the next second, his mouth curls slightly into a smile.]
Neither am I. [And even if it means he can't make it home, he'll damn well do the best he can here. There are still people to be saved.]
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This one, though, is definitely a nice, genuine smile because he's happy. Ren can't help but squeeze his hand a little again as he smile back. Shun had said a few times that children shouldn't lose their smiles, but Shun should never have lost this one for any length of time either.
And any further sappy thoughts are pushed right out of the way as he feels his stomach rumble uncomfortably.]
Oh, we've been talking for a long time haven't we? Are you hungry? [He doesn't even wait for an answer before he starts getting up.] I'm hungry. What do you think we should do for dinner?
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I don't usually have anything much, but there's a decent stock in the kitchen if you wanted to go through it.
[By "anything much" he usually means leftover stew from the batch he tends to make once or maybe twice a week, but Ren can probably figure that one out himself if he does check given there's still a few containers of it in the fridge.]
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[To be honest, Ren would have been fine with and maybe even expected they might drop by the Near Shore to order out or grab something, so he's a little surprised that Shun is fine with sharing whatever it is he already has. Not that he isn't also happy to, and he'll definitely be heading straight for the kitchen...]
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Why do you think I have a job if not to buy food? [Then again, he's not sure he's mentioned the issue of how much he distrusts Far Shore food leading to that outcome to Ren anyway. He doesn't really mind going out either, but if there's something here they'll both eat then he doesn't see why it's a problem.
While Shun is accurate in saying the kitchen is decently-stocked, it's in a rather specific way. Almost everything in it is either plain, needing to be prepared, or both - there's fruit in a small bowl under the cupboards with a loaf of bread next to it, some uncooked chicken, fish and mince in the fridge along with an almost staggering variety of vegetables, various other necessities like flour and eggs, about four containers of some kind of thick stew split between fridge and freezer, and some less usable things like meat bones. By Shun's standards, it's a lot of food, given what he's used to, but by anyone else's standards it's about average for the amount a kitchen should have in it, not to mention the general spartan feel of the selections.]
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Oh, that's a good point...
[After all, Shun doesn't seem to want it for anything else useful, like more that two sets of clothes, and he definitely wouldn't be saving up to buy anything frivolous.
He doesn't seem to be splurging on food either, from the look of his kitchen, and it's about what Ren would have expected, if he'd expected anything. Just enough to be useful, not so much that he couldn't eat it all before it want bad. That seems exactly right. Ren makes a beeline for the fridge, and that's pretty much more of the same--and then he spots the contains of stew and immediately has to pull one out to look it over.]
Eeeh, this looks good! Did you make this? [It's so hard to tell from the bottom of the container, you know.] It looks like it would go really well with rice, do you have any? [He pauses thoughtfully again, but goes on before shun can answer:] Well, I guess rice might take too long to make even if you do...
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You'd think it wouldn't be that hard for you to remember what I don't spend money on, with how excited you seem to get whenever I do something like change clothes.
[Well, he did buy a shirt the other day, but that was a rare exception. It is starting to get to the point now that he's got rather more than he needs just for food and doesn't have much of an idea what to do with the rest, though.
Admittedly, Shun was half expecting Ren to pass over the containers, so when he pulls one out, he raises an eyebrow slightly...though that might also be at Ren's second question.]
Of course I have rice. [It's one of the things they still had some access to during the war and could keep for a little while, after all.] And I make that every week or so. It's what I eat most of the time.
[As usual, the remark is made without shame, and without even any real sense that that's not normal behaviour.]
I wouldn't care about waiting for rice to cook, but if you're that hungry then I doubt you'd wait for it.
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[It sounds thoughtful and distracted, but also like he's only saying it to mess with him. The innocent smile Shun gets a few moments later probably only makes that more obvious.
And then he goes back to thoughtfully eyeing the container of stew in his hands. He is pretty hungry, but to be honest, the suggestion that they look into doing dinner had been just as much about giving them a break after all the storytelling as it was about his stomach.]
Well, if you don't mind waiting, I don't really mind. We'll need rice in the morning too.
[And with that seemingly decided, Ren stands up again with the stew in hand and lets the refrigerator door fall shut again.]
It must be really good if you don't mind eating it all the time.
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It's not worth remembering, anyway. [His own tone is somewhat dismissive, even if he honestly still doesn't really get why some people take such an interest in the idea of him doing that.
After Ren's apparent decision on the matter of dinner, Shun eyes him for a moment as if to make sure he's being honest about the fact that he doesn't mind waiting, before wasting no time in turning to one of the cupboards and pulling out a bag of rice. It's rather large, definitely the kind of thing that's meant to keep for a while, and probably a strong indicator of how frequently Shun eats rice as well.
While he busies himself with measuring out portions - adding a little extra just in case, since it can be saved if neither of them eats it - turning on the stove and that general area of things, he answers Ren's remark without turning his focus from the food preparation.]
It's fine to me, but I don't make it with anyone's tastes but my own in mind, so by your standards it's probably going to be more bland. [There's a brief hesitation before he says "your standards", like the first word was about to be something else. In any case, given Ren's taken him out to eat before, he figures he knows what he's in for.] You know how low my bar for strong tastes is.
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