Inbox (Forestcovered)

[be_acknowledged]

Hello! This is Levant! Please feel free to leave a message for me here, and I'll get back to it as soon as possible! That's about how it should sound, right?

Comments

[be_acknowledged]

Eh?

[Definitely some alarms. He enters and closes the door behind him.]

What did he do this time?

[standingonmyneck]

What he usually did. I don't know how else to describe that.

[She moved on over to where she kept her stuff. There, she seemed to grab a small sack.]

I couldn't go to Yotsuba for this since they're always at war, so I was hoping you could help me make sense of this.

Something happened this time.

[She opened the sack in front of him, inside were a bunch of shiny blue glass shards.]

Know anything about this? They were all around Larix before he made a break for it.

[be_acknowledged]

Eh?

[He picks up the glass, frowning.]

Really? That's so weird.

[He pulls out a few more. It occurs to him they're curved. Huh.

...Curved.]

Er, so you're saying they weren't there before he made a break for it?

[standingonmyneck]

I got sick of his act, and I let him know it. I heard something break, and all of this appeared on the floor.

Then he ran off.

[It sounded so...stupid. It also sounded really, very bad to her. Even if she laid it down thick, blunt, and harshly; it was like she actually hoped it wouldn't end up like that. No matter how impulsive she got in the moment, it shouldn't have been this way.

It felt literal to say this, as well as crazy.]

I think I broke your brother.

[be_acknowledged]

[A hit to his pride, shattering glass... hmm. He idly looks at the pieces. The more intact ones are definitely curved.

...You can't be serious.]

Okay, I'm going to admit I don't entirely get this myself, and I've never actually SEEN it in person, but...

Call me crazy, but I think you broke his self-awareness.

[standingonmyneck]

[That got a bit of a glance. That just sort of added to the confusion.]

You might need to follow that up with detail. Last time I checked, self-awareness wasn't sentient or physical.

[Larix HAD self awareness? News to her, but now that she thought about it...

[be_acknowledged]

It doesn't make a lot of sense to me either! But apparently it's a thing where we come from. Like, uh...

[Ugh, he's like the worst of the brothers to explain this. Whatever.]

So basically, I guess there's a certain physicality to our self-awareness where we come from. The way it's shaped, how bright and shiny it is, how heavy it -- it varies from person to person. The only other ones I've seen personally have been Kuzu's and Abies's. And mine but, uh, I don't really like to talk about it.

[Which probably just made it bigger. Whatever.]

But I mean they're always vaguely spherical in shape. Which might explain why these pieces could have fit into a ball at one point.

[He pauses, turning one of the larger pieces around.]

...I'm almost impressed, actually. I always assumed it would be super dense.

[standingonmyneck]

I feel a bit better knowing it makes as much sense to you as it does to me.

[She never wanted to visit this place, too weird and too crazy for her. Okay, Riye, take this outlandish logic and turn into the sane kind. At least try to.

Alright, here it went.]

So, they're spherical representations of what you perceive yourself to be, or how aware of yourself you are?

[She looked inside the bag again.]

Shiny and showy, but a facade to what he felt was on the inside. Which he felt like was nothing.

Glass.

[She got a little softer again, guilt swelling again.]

[be_acknowledged]

[Empty, huh...

Something about that twigs something in his mind, something about his brother's name. It's there, and then it's gone again, which is frustrating, because he feels like it was important.]

I don't think it's such a bad thing you did. I'm not really sure HE even realized how much of a facade he'd built for himself. We always just assumed it was narcissism.

[He pauses, thinking.]

Did he tell you about our childhood at all?

[standingonmyneck]

[She seemed to go into a thought of her own until Levant spoke again. His words seems to swirl around, trying to connect. Finally she would speak.

Hollow, and fragile. The metaphors were making themselves as it went along.]

A little but I owe you some context with it.

[Coming clean, starting from the beginning. Then maybe, just maybe, everything would begin to make sense. She took a seat though on her made up futon. Levant was welcome to sit, he came all the way here. Now that Levant proved more trustworthy, he...he earned this.]

That play you saw? I wrote that for him.

[be_acknowledged]

Eh? Really?

[He thinks about the play a bit. He'd mostly seen some sort of apocalyptic self-reflection scenario. So he wonders who the man in the mirror really was?]

He probably embellished on it a bit, though. Uh... what'd he tell you?

[standingonmyneck]

He wanted to write an autobiography and I, uh...I write. He asked for my help.

But he didn't give me anything to work with instead of just that. An autobiography. An idea. I wrote the play to maybe inspire him. With a fee.

[Important things. Get to it.]

So we met up again and I tried to get him to talk about what he could possibly write in it. He talked a bit about how he used to feel like an extension of Kuzu. Just following the leader.

[be_acknowledged]

Ah, well, truth be told... that was all of us.

[He rubs the back of his neck.]

When we were younger, we might as well have been a unit. The only one of us anybody ever seemed to bother to remember was Kuzu because he was the "eldest" brother. The rest of us had our little quirks, but otherwise nobody could tell us apart.

[He leans back on the seat.]

We didn't start really becoming different people until high school. Except, well, Kuzu never really did. And I don't know if it's ever occurred to him that we're all different people now. We're just "his brothers." He still treats us like we're his appendages.

[He mulls things over in his mind a bit more before shaking his head.]

Larix didn't used to be a total showoff type. A bit aggressive, maybe occasionally a bit full of himself, but nothing like today. Then he got painful, and I don't think any of us really bothered to TRY to get to know him because we didn't want to be associated with him. I mean, can you blame us? You've seen him! But I mean, if what you're saying is true, then I guess we should have tried harder. We could see through him, but we didn't KNOW him.

[He looks down, feeling an immense wash of guilt.]

If he only saw himself as an extension of Kuzu, then maybe he spent so much time trying to stop being an extension that he didn't develop anything else.

[He grits his teeth.]

I just... I just wish they all didn't seem to be in some point of time before me. That he remembered the one time he actually came through for me. Maybe he'd...

Never mind. I guess it doesn't matter at this point. All I know is that I wish I'd figured this out sooner.

[standingonmyneck]

Seeing as what happened, "not blaming you" would be an understatement.

[She didn't mean for this to go this way either. Levant seemed to take this more internally. She expected him to be upset with her, even a little. But she didn't know who else to go to with this. Riye wanted to understand and to maybe fix the situation.

But now Levant seemed to also take it to heart himself.

She finally did understand. Riye understood that this whole family had deeper rooted problems than she thought.

Riye didn't like shallow minded people, people who didn't think for themselves. Hollow minded morons who thought of nothing but themselves.

If what Levant said is true, then they all grew up not having an identity that wasn't attached to their oldest brother. Riye and Quinn were different enough, they were their own people. They weren't identical at all, they weren't multiplied by THREE.

They were that way until a rather crucial age.]

He said he found the stage, theater, drama, so he seemed to latch on to it. That was it. The stage became him, and he became the stage wherever he went. The spotlight right over his head and everyone had to stop and look.

So it was easier to show off than look in.

[Now...on to Levant. She didn't want him feeling guilty, she really didn't. One of the few decent people she knew around here.]

You shouldn't blame yourself too much. As much as he shown himself off, he made himself so unapproachable. You said so yourself. He drove people away with his own behavior.

It's what I told him. If he wrote a book all about fancy cushion words and nothing else, showering himself with words of praise hoping people would listen. There would no substance, nothing he could relate to others for, nothing people could see themselves in. No dents in his life, no thought that didn't involve himself showing off; and showing off completely nothing.

Hollow. Shallow. He wouldn't ever be able to write that book and sell it.

I meant everything I said to him, because it was frustrating knowing there were times he thought of someone other than himself.

[Yotsuba. Herself. Levant.]

You lived with that for years. If anything, maybe being here is good for each of you. You can be your own people.

[That last remark though. Huh.]

You briefly mentioned that at the play. Somewhat.

[Fine, she'll ask it.]

What do you mean?

[be_acknowledged]

[How could he blame her? She'd managed to do something in one night that none of them had managed to do for years. She'd finally gotten Larix to listen to somebody other than his internal narrative.]

Maybe good for us... but I wonder if Kuzu would see it the same way.

[He fidgets a bit. It's weird opening up this much to a woman. He never really did, did he? Because they never asked, and he never provided. But... maybe talking to somebody would be nice.]

We live kind of a weird existence. It's... hard to explain to someone without getting way too deep about it, but the point is we're practically a gag comic. Nothing changes, everything stays the same, everything goes back to normal. Except one time, it nearly didn't.

[A deep breath.]

Have you ever been a fan of something? Like, a really really big fan? And then that thing you're a fan of suddenly ends, or moves on, and you realize you don't have anything proper to fill the gap with, so you might as well move on yourself?

That happened to me. An... uh, idol I was a fan of retired. I don't know why, but for some reason that was the kick in the pants I needed. I finally put my money where my mouth was, used Dad's connections, and got a job. Like, a real job. Everybody was really happy for me! They threw a party, and gave me a lot of stuff (mostly useless junk) and everything. Except, well... Kuzu. He was in a bad mood all evening, and Jinmeiju brushed him one too many times, and he just blew up. He's hit us before, but comically, you know? But he hit Jinmeiju, and it was dead serious. I was in shock.

And... well, here's where it probably gets hard to believe: Larix punched him right back. Right in the jaw! And he dragged him out of the room without bringing any attention to himself. He just took action, and took responsibility, and cleared the air. I still don't know what happened out there with them, but I think it's the only time where...

[He fiddles with his hands.]

...where I've ever seen him act like a big brother. Except apparently I'm the only one who's actually lived through all this, and nobody believes me. And then way too soon, everything went back to the status quo anyway, and he was painful again. But it's hard to forget something like that.

[standingonmyneck]

[She sat there, absorbing every single word. She just spoke with someone about time. Her fellow librarian. She was from fourteen years into the future. Everyone was talking about more modern technology than where she was from.

Time difference wasn't a huge stretch, not even different time periods. It was Levant's context that made it hard to swallow.

Levant saw what none of them did. He saw the ugly side of his eldest brother, and the better side of the second eldest. Then they all just went back?

Levant said something about being held back. Idols. Nerd things. She felt like...she could relate. Except it wasn't a person that held her back, not a DIFFERENT person. It was herself and her cynicism. People pointed this out to her, but she admitted that it was what she knew. What she felt safe with. Logic and experience would prove her wrong and she would rethink her actions.

But with Riye...her family was there to tell her it was okay. They understood her.

They looked at her intellect, and said that with an intellect like hers...she couldn't find it easy to fit in. They loved her, and they never stopped believing in her. They saw her perception, her maturity, her brightness, they supported her.

Levant had that for a brief time, and then it was gone. Now that he was here, it probably made it WORSE.

This turned into wanting to fix what she thought was wrong, help Larix. But now here was Levant. Well...and.

What a Sick Sad World.]

There's a show where I'm from called, "Sick Sad World". Yours would fit right in.

[In seriousness now.]

Sanity of hometowns aside, now that you're here; then that means that it doubly shouldn't matter what Kuzu thinks. If he wants to hold on to his leader title so badly, he obviously doesn't have your best interest.

He can't hold on to any of you. He shouldn't. You're your own people now, no matter what you may think, you all are adults. It's not your problem if he doesn't see that.

Maybe now that everyone's here, he should learn that again. Much like how you don't have whatever felt like had held you back before. Or how Larix doesn't have all of the brick walls to run into anymore before some lasting effect occurs.

It's not impossible.

[be_acknowledged]

Not impossible, just nearly so. Kuzu's stubborn.

[He purses his lips, a look crossing his face that seems to indicate something else going on.]

Always has been. I don't even think he realizes he's doing anything bad. That would require admitting he's wrong.

[He looks at the shard in his hand.]

Um, do you mind if I keep this? I think maybe I should have a talk with Larix myself at some point.

[standingonmyneck]

[Noticed. Of course, Riye never prodded this sort of thing. Levant was an adult, but he was free to come to her at this point.

He kind of proved himself even more by now. She can most certainly see herself not hating this kind of conversation with him.

Because he was receptive, he listened.

That was...cool.]

Go on ahead. Despite everything, I think I got what I needed to talk to him again. There's a lot I could maybe say now.

[There wasn't a bright confidence with that, but maybe some slight determination. At least a lot more in contrast to her confused state a few minutes ago.

Now to fix this up, and move on. Now that she knew. So that left with Levant.]

If Larix can turn this around, you can't get more nearly impossible than that.

[be_acknowledged]

[It's a lot easier to talk to people when they're not your brothers. Or when your brain hasn't shut down because of hormones. He's still kind of amazed about that.]

That's still an "if," but we'll see about that I guess.

[He gets up.]

Hah... th-thanks for listening. I don't... talk with a lot of people outside of my family back home.

[standingonmyneck]

Fair enough.

[She also got up, she'll show him out. Riye thought about it for a moment before she decided she can make a rather genuine remark his way.

This wasn't a wasted effort, on either of their parts. Levant should know that.]

It was no problem, for what it's worth, you helped me out a bit. So, thanks to you back.