Ayumu Yamazaki [ 山崎 歩 ] (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kagenonadeshiko) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thenearshore2018-07-25 01:39 am
kagenonadeshiko) wrote in thenearshore2018-07-25 01:39 am
[closed] family matters
Who: Ayumu Yamazaki, Ken Joshima, and other Temple of Li Tieguai residents?
When: December 27th
Where: Temple of Li Tieguai
What: After her failed ablution and resurrection as a goddess, Ayumu's trying to broker peace and make amends with her found family.
Warnings: Probable discussion of torture, mental illness (depression and PTSD in particular), and suicide. Potential references to backstory sexual violence.
[Two days after Christmas, a very pensive-looking Ayumu, clad in another winter kimono covered in cat hair, stands uncertainly on Hakkai's doorstep. She's carrying three large tupperware containers nearly full to bursting with different kinds of barbecued meat skewers in them. One's filled with beef, another with pork, and the last one with chicken. Of all the residents of the temple, Ken's the only one she hasn't spoken to yet so she'd wanted to bring him a peace offering in addition to the overdue apology and explanation. After her conversation with Chikusa at the hot springs had gone so badly, she'd been reluctant to risk a repeat with Ken so she'd chosen to wait until she could approach it with a clearer mind and more perspective.
Ayumu's pretty sure it was the right decision. Since then, she thinks she understands how they must have felt better than she did though it's going to take time and repetition for her to truly integrate it into her way of thinking. The talks with Shun and Ginia online have helped, as has the presence of her new shinki. It's been difficult to keep picking at unhealed wounds, old or recent, when there's a child, if a highly unusual one, in her life that needs Ayumu's care, too.
Once she's had a few minutes to just breathe and mentally prepare herself for what might await her on the other side of the door, Ayumu readjusts her stack of skewers so she's free to reach a hand out and knock loudly on the door. Maybe Ayumu should have called or texted first but it hadn't occurred to her until just now.]
When: December 27th
Where: Temple of Li Tieguai
What: After her failed ablution and resurrection as a goddess, Ayumu's trying to broker peace and make amends with her found family.
Warnings: Probable discussion of torture, mental illness (depression and PTSD in particular), and suicide. Potential references to backstory sexual violence.
[Two days after Christmas, a very pensive-looking Ayumu, clad in another winter kimono covered in cat hair, stands uncertainly on Hakkai's doorstep. She's carrying three large tupperware containers nearly full to bursting with different kinds of barbecued meat skewers in them. One's filled with beef, another with pork, and the last one with chicken. Of all the residents of the temple, Ken's the only one she hasn't spoken to yet so she'd wanted to bring him a peace offering in addition to the overdue apology and explanation. After her conversation with Chikusa at the hot springs had gone so badly, she'd been reluctant to risk a repeat with Ken so she'd chosen to wait until she could approach it with a clearer mind and more perspective.
Ayumu's pretty sure it was the right decision. Since then, she thinks she understands how they must have felt better than she did though it's going to take time and repetition for her to truly integrate it into her way of thinking. The talks with Shun and Ginia online have helped, as has the presence of her new shinki. It's been difficult to keep picking at unhealed wounds, old or recent, when there's a child, if a highly unusual one, in her life that needs Ayumu's care, too.
Once she's had a few minutes to just breathe and mentally prepare herself for what might await her on the other side of the door, Ayumu readjusts her stack of skewers so she's free to reach a hand out and knock loudly on the door. Maybe Ayumu should have called or texted first but it hadn't occurred to her until just now.]
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His expression is...complicated, when he sees Ayumu. Relief, happiness, uncertainty, fear, guilt, grief, and a flicker of resentment all flash across his face, in the span of a second or two. His feelings on Ayumu are very much up in the air right now.] Ayumu...?
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These... These are for you. I made them for you. I wasn't sure what you'd like best so I tried to make a whole bunch instead. I hope you'll like at least one of these.
[Ayumu's babbling a bit, nervous, and looking like she might cry. She doesn't want to bungle this as badly as she had with Chikusa but she's so clumsy with words. She has to try though. She has to do her best to apologize and explain. Ken deserves that much.]
I just came by to say I'm really sorry about what happened. All of it. And if it's okay, if you're able to listen... I'd like to explain things to you sometime. If you're ready and want to hear them.
[She'd really hurt them. All of them. In ways she hadn't been able to see or understand. And it hurts her to know that now but it's the price she has to pay for her freedom from her life as a shinki.]
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This Ayumu is quiet, and hurting, and she brought food, and she's apologizing to him even though they couldn't help her and it got her killed.
Ken can smell the meat, and he's definitely hungry - hell, he's always hungry, even more so as a shinki than he was when alive - but some things override the importance of food. He takes the containers from Ayumu's hands, turning and setting them on the nearest flat surface inside he can find without leaving the door(if it's the floor, then so be it). Then he turns back to Ayumu, and throws his arms around her, ducking his head to hide his face against her shoulder.]
We tried to help you, byon. [His voice comes out thick; clearly Ayumu isn't the only one close to tears.] I'm sorry we weren't any good...
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[She hugs him back. For all her doubts and questions about the success rate of the ritual and her criticisms of certain people's choices before and after it, Ken is completely exempt from them. She truly believes that Ken had her best interests at heart and just wanted to help her. And he had started helping her in the end but it was just too late for all of them.]
I'm so sorry. The ritual just wasn't the right way to do it and that's not your fault. There were just things about me you didn't know, that Chikusa didn't know, that I didn't know. It wasn't your fault.
[She's still tempted to assign some blame to Hakkai, given he'd had to have known how she'd died and gone through the ritual himself to know what it was like, but it's not going to change the past.]
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[Really, she can't blame any of them, not even Hakkai or Goku. The former had hoped she'd be strong enough to withstand it; the latter had been in too much pain of his own. It'd been a day she'd always feared would happen someday - the day her endurance would give out at a crucial moment and it'd end with deadly results.
Perhaps it'd been a blessing in disguise that Souji and Toshi hadn't seen her so broken. It scares Souji when she isn't strong and Toshi would have blamed himself for sending her on the mission that'd left her so weak.]
I wasn't in my right mind then. I'm sorry. I wasn't strong enough to survive it.
[There's not much else she can say besides apologies. The ablution had torn open wounds that had only barely begun to start healing at all. It's hard for her think about it without remembering another terrible ordeal that had ended with her death. So instead, Ayumu just holds Ken close, stroking his back with a shaky hand.]
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[It's completely innocent, almost plaintively hopeful. He wants Ayumu to be okay, and happy. He wants things to go back to how they were before. She's alive now, and she remembers them, and she's not riddled with blight anymore; that means things are all right again, doesn't it?]
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Better than I was that night. I don't think I'm a danger to myself or anyone else now.
[At least, not the kind of dangerous she'd been as a shinki. The nightmares still come and they're far worse than they'd been when she couldn't remember their contents but she's not around anyone she could potentially harm while in a sleep-addled state.]
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[She tries to keep her tone gentle but she's not going to lie or make promises she can't keep. Things going back to the way they once were feels like an impossible task to her and time continually moving forward for all of tem, Fallen petals can't return to the branches they've been torn from. Damage was done - serious damage - and wounds have to heal.]
A lot of things happened to me before I came here as a shinki. The life I'd lived was painful, lonely, And I had a terrible violent death. For much of what I went through, I have no words. Sometimes pain is like that. It's too deep, too indescribable, to put into words. It's taking most of my strength to simply hold myself together.
[She's a god now - with her own temple, her own shinki, affairs of her own to tend to. And despite all of that, she still has to tend to her own healing.]
What happened that night held similarities to how I'd died. I... I was captured. A prisoner of war when I did. My enemies.. did things to me. Terrible things before I did. I couldn't do anything. I couldn't stop them. I couldn't make them stop. All I could do was die. But I had people. People back home waiting for me, needing me to stay strong, and I couldn't... My work was important. The lives of thousands depended on me.
[It's hard to speak. But for Ken's sake,she'll try. She owes him that much, given how hard he'd tried for her. She doesn't even realise how pale and strained she looks right now, or the tears starting to stream down her cheeks.]
I came here weakened. Broken. Not knowing how or why I couldn't. I didn't know it was because I was already hurt so badly. None of us knew. And those who did, didn't know what to do.
[She knows Hakkai wasn't deliberately cruel in his handling of it all. She genuinely believes that. She faults Goku even less. And even saying this much is hard, after how Chikusa had responded to her tentative attempt at opening up. Is she stupidly opening up to just get hurt again?]
What happened that night was really complicated. I wasn't the self you know and it was hard for me to not see you all as someone else. And it's still hard not slip away into that thinking.
[It's a lot for a boy to hear and bear but she's trying to take a leap of faith with the hope it won't lead to further heartbreak.]
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Her actual words take longer to sink in, although he tries to absorb them the best he can. He stares at the ground for a long moment after she finishes talking.] ...us trying to save you...felt the same as people trying to hurt and kill you...? We remind you of the people who killed you?