Week 3.

[trustfellowship]

WEEK 3 Grace and Doug are dead. It seems that there isn't anything more to do but mourn your losses and try to move forward. The Transmitter's rules still hang in every room, a reminder of the only means of escaping this place. But surely no one else will give into them, right? Saturday is given to regrouping and rest; the static blares out early on Sunday, but at least there are no bodies to find today - it seems you're safe for now. The night before wasn't necessarily a peaceful one, however; you'll probably feel a bit groggy when you wake up, and it seems you've regained something that you didn't realize you'd lost... Once again, however, it seems your efforts won't go unrewarded; another set of corridors have opened up, much in the same fashion as the other new area did last week. With them come new rooms to explore; maybe some of them will be to your liking. Or perhaps it's better to say that hopefully some of them will; after all, if the Transmitter gets her way, you may be here for a very, very long time. PATIENTS REMAINING: 26

SUNDAY | MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY
[OOC: Welcome to week three of Trustfell! Feel free to make as many top levels as you'd like and tag out to other characters! This post is for all of your interactions this week... at least until the weekend. Don't forget to save those threads for coins and the activity check!

If you'd like to get in contact with the Transmitter, you can do so through text or the phone in your room!]

Comments

[carnivorously]

I'll follow you back to your room. We can talk there.

[His voice is stern and more sure this time. Trying to give off that he knows, but also maybe to play off that maybe he wants to discuss his secret. Whatever floats his boat.]

[doctorize]

... Very well.

[That's good actually because Danny absolutely doesn't want to talk about his secret, especially out in the open for other people to hear, so back to our room we go. It's still the same as it was Saturday, save for the desk being a little cluttered with papers, which Danny walks over to straighten and organize once they are inside.]

I take it that this is about their newest incentive this week, right?

[carnivorously]

[This time Kogami wastes no time closing the door behind them and sitting on his bed. He's not here for a consult, he's here to consult. It's backwards, but not the first time he's played consultant, either.]

Yeah it is. Specifically, your reaction to it.

[His face is stern and serious.]

Want to talk about it?

[He's not gonna waste time at all.]

[doctorize]

[... ahaha...]

You know, usually it's the therapist that would be asking that here.

[also he has almost never been on this side of the conversation, what the fuck is talking about our feelings??]

[carnivorously]

[Sit the fuck down, they're talking about Danny's feelings now.]

It would be if it weren't so damn obvious you're bothered by your secret. [He smirks.] I won't make you tell me, however, you heard me out when I needed someone to hear me out. Let me return the favor-- and I promise to do it without judgement either way.

[Besides, it's not like he can judge given his background.]

[doctorize]

[The look that Danny gives Kogami at this is a rather narrow-eyed judging one, as if trying to detect some sort of lie in the other man's words. After a stretch of silence, Danny sighs.]

Well, most people here already know about half of it. Regardless, I'll ask you anyway: do you remember the glass eye I had in my pockets at that last trial?

[... Has he even noticed that Danny's right eye has been a different color than the left one at all this whole time?]

[carnivorously]

[Kogami honestly has. He just didn't question it ever.]

I recall that.

[There's a 'what of it?' attached to that, but he's honestly trying to be as gentle as he can to not sound demanding and interrogating right now.]

[doctorize]

Well... um, to tell you the truth, one of my eyes is made of glass. This one, to be exact. [He indicates his right eye here, a blue one... the same blue one that he had in his pockets at the trial. The green one he had been using before then is sitting on the desk.] I was born with only one eye, so I've only ever been able to see with my left.

[carnivorously]

And...?

[Maybe it's a bit forceful, but he's assuming this isn't what Danny wants to potentially kill over.]

I'm assuming this is pretext to your secret.

[At least to say he's listening, that he's not just trying to get this secret out. Then again, sometimes patience isn't his best quality-- unlike the amount of people that have been patient with him.]

tw: angels of death spoilers, suicide mention

[doctorize]

[Danny actually manages a slight laugh at that.]

Indeed: the secret itself requires a bit of context in that regard, you see.

Anyway, the point is it's something I've had to deal with for a very long time, and as a result, it causes people to form certain opinions about you, even when you're a kid. [Danny scratches his cheek in an awkward fashion.] Other children would beat me up because of it, and adults thought it was creepy. My mother used to worry herself sick as a result... just worried, and worried...

[He frowns now]

Until one day, she stopped concerning herself with it. Or really anything else for that matter. Those peepers of hers... they became something dark, only sparing a glance at me fleetingly... and yet, I thought that this was fine. I still loved her. It didn't matter that everyone despised me and my missing eye, because I was the son of someone who had such beautiful peepers by comparison...

... Well, until my existence finally killed her, that is.

[And here, he looks at the secret in the envelope, reads it out loud.]

"Daniel Dicken's mother, once she could no longer stand to look at her son's missing eye anymore, took her own life and..."

[There's a sudden pause as he stops reading... and then he calmly places the piece of paper back into the envelope and begins tearing it in half.]

... Well, not that I blame her, really. It's only natural that someone would be disgusted eventually when looking at the real me. Even when that someone is the person who brought you into this world.

[carnivorously]

[Kogami quietly listens to Danny's story. The pretext about his eye makes sense and to be forsaken by society because of that-- He knows how it feels yet he doesn't. To be forsaken by those who were supposed to love you because of a flaw that's not even their fault.

He can't even begin to think what that much feel like. The emotional trauma of a secret like that, he can't even begin to understand. He thinks that Sibyl would have intervened a long time ago if that were the case. Given Danny a fake eye that maybe he could see out of. Helped his mother. Sibyl, for as much as he hates it, could have saved them.

No words really come to him initially. However, it's not disgust and it's not judgement. It's actually Shinya Kogami thinking how to be a comfort in a situation like this. Usually he resorts to jokes and has a lack of tact, but that's not going to be useful here. ]

A mother should care for her child. It's not your fault she took her life. Unless there's more you're not telling me.

[His voice is gentle, but goading. His own mother still loves him despite the fact that... he had a fall from grace.]

[doctorize]

... What more is there to say, Kogami? I already have to live with the fact that the last time I ever made eye contact with her was when I found her hanging by a noose after coming home from school.

[There is a pause though, as he considers something that causes a strange sort of smile to cross his features.]

Though... at the time, I couldn't help but think that they were still beautiful, even in death... [Ha... ha ha...] Isn't that funny? A dead person's peepers were less ugly to look at than my own by comparison...

[carnivorously]

[He won't prod him in that any further. The trauma of seeing a parental figure who had taken their own life. To live with that... Kogami doesn't even begin to want to try to understand. It's somewhat amazing Danny managed to attempt to live a normal life. Maybe. Kogami's not even sure anymore.

Still, that smile, that look. His mother had something he never had. Everyone else had something he never had. Two eyes. Something that's taken for granted more often than not.]

Thus began your obsession with eyes.

[It makes sense. Optometry was one of his likes-- his only like. For a therapist that seemed strange, but now not so much.]

And why you have those glass eyes.

[doctorize]

Got it in one!

[He laughs a little, sounding... well, not okay actually, a tad on the verge of hysterics, before he suddenly stops all at once.]

So, now you know. Do you have any questions? Outstanding remarks before you judge me like most everyone else that has known that about me?

[... Well. Aside from Rachel, perhaps. Rachel hasn't rejected him. He can live with Kogami and everyone else here deciding that he's too creepy or disgusting to be around since he still has Rachel.]

[carnivorously]

Is that why you're a therapist? So you can help those who may have been in your shoes?

[Kogami has no right to reject a person. Nor would he reject anyone. Before his fall from grace, he accepted those around him. He wasn't a latent criminal back then, but he adored the ones he worked with. Perhaps in becoming one, he felt it was okay because he could accept it. Because he accepted them before.]

[doctorize]

... To an extent, yes: because of my profession, I end up meeting a lot of patients with similar problems... people who sometimes have peepers that look like how my mother's were before she died...

[People that are in despair and are thinking about whether or not if life is worth living. Like how she probably had been before...well. She decided that it wasn't.]

[carnivorously]

Are you obsessed with that look, then? The despair in people's eyes?

[Maybe it's a far-fetched theory, but he keeps talking about their peepers-- their eyes. He can only wonder. Did he enjoy that look even though it probably killed him inside? Did he truly want to help? Or is it just the eyes?

He's not sure, but the man has an unnatural obsession with eyes so.]

I'm not here to judge, and the trauma and obsession you have, I want to understand it.

[Not to say that he can't understand it-- just his experiences aren't as traumatic as the Doc's.]

However, I choose to believe you won't kill for that, despite the fact that you don't want that to get out. It all stems to your self-worth. You helped me last week, and I don't like debts, so allow me to return the favor.

[doctorize]

[He neither confirms nor denies that first question, though the silence might be an answer in itself, depending on how you choose to look at it.

However, at the last part, Danny appears genuinely taken aback for a moment. It's clearly not the response he was expecting here.]

Really?

[carnivorously]

I may be a latent criminal, however, I wouldn't lie about something like that.

[He'll let that silence pass for now. That can be a discussion for another day. For now, he'll focus on... being a friend. Or something.]

[doctorize]

[... He shouldn't trust a guy he's only known for three weeks in this godforsaken hellhole, let alone be happy to hear them say something like that to him, but...]

... I'll hold you to that, then.

[carnivorously]

Of course. Should I leave you be for now, then?

[He's not sure if he should stay, but at this point, he's really not sure what to do. He'll let Danny make that decision.]

[doctorize]

[He almost says no. It scares him a little that he even considers asking someone to stay.

Instead, what comes out is--]

If you don't mind. I think I need some time to rest and think about some things on my own.

[carnivorously]

Understood. I'll come check on you later.

[Which is something he'll do. For now, he'll make his leave.]

[doctorize]

... Thanks.

[And that's all he says for when Kogami leaves. They can talk again later.]