Takane no Hana - 26 On Being Insane in Sane Places
✿ Title: Takane no Hana - 26 On Being Insane in Sane Places
✿ Authors: mpemba_effect
✿ Note: Title is a reference to the Rosenhan study.
"Ah, you must be Kyu-tan and Kazu-chan. Come on in~~✿"
With considerable reluctance, Kyuki followed the psychiatrist back into the strange parts of the building he had never gotten around to seeing. His arm was sore from scraping it but more than that, he felt completely mentally and physically exhausted: so early in the morning, never a good sign. Images of the morning seemed to seep into every little thing that he did, and just standing up was quite a tiresome task. Now that the incident was over, he felt stupid. No, not quite stupid. Admittedly he had enjoyed the look on Dante's face for a little more than just a few minutes. He felt better - almost good - right? And now they just had to ship him off to some dull therapy.
Miaki, and the confused look on her face. He blinked once, rubbed his eyes and it was gone. Dante and his half-gasp, half-yell. That thought elicited a smirk. Yuzuki and her one-hundred-percent yell. Mitsuru.
"Control yourself, Kyuki. Your personal life shouldn't get in the way like this."
He snatched at a wrinkle of clothing, digging into it vigorously with his fingertips. Stupid Mr. Leader Guy, what did he know about anything?
"Follow me~ Don't get lost, now."
Kazue slipped in front of Kyuki, entering the room just ahead of him. As Kyuki entered, he was forced to blink several times. The long hall inside the door was covered in mirrors of all sizes, giving the impression of being inside a giant insect eye. Distracted for a moment, Kyuki glanced sideways at the closest of his many reflections.
Handsome as ever. This room really was designed just for-
"I told you to follow me~✿"
The psychiatrist was a slender young man with a unnatural orange shock of hair tied messily in a ponytail. He seemed possessed by an equally abnormal type of energy, too, and something about his face seemed incredibly familiar - that grin that could provoke fear in the bravest of all men. Well, Kyuki excluded. He stepped forwards to keep pace with Kazue, but as he approached, the stranger turned to give him a crazed stare and-
Whoosh.
Kyuki flinched by instinct. As the projectile - the dart - struck a mirror behind him, striking a cascade of glass to floor, he caught the sharp scent, like smelt metal and something very acidic...The psychiatrist walked on undisturbed, the gun now totally visible in his hand.
"Not too close, though~✿"
"...What were you doing?! What if you had killed me? I mean, not that you could have killed me, but my fangirls would have been upset if you managed to, somehow!"
"Don't be silly. If I killed you, I wouldn't get paid~✿ It's just that I can't stand ugly people. Stay about...Ten feet away?" Frowning for a long moment, the man eyed Kyuki analytically. Then he beamed again. "No, twenty feet for sure. Stay twenty feet away, okay~? ✿"
Ugly? Oh, this guy. He was even more in denial than most - or so he tried to tell himself. At the moment, it felt more like a punch to the gut.
The trio made their way to a dim little chamber that Kyuki had honestly not noticed at first. It seemed wedged, badly fitted, between two long sheets of mirrored glass, marred by what looked like morbid children's drawings. Upon a closer inspection, those revealed themselves to be "guides to the side effects of various medicines~ ❀"
Kyuki then glanced back at the strange psychiatrist. He was still smiling, and in this kind of light, the perky upturned nose and delicate facial bones became extremely apparent in a most disturbing way.
"K-Kotone?"
"Hm. No. Good try, though, Kyu-tan~✿ If you find it helpful to your therapy, you may call me Kotone. It's a lot prettier than my name~~~"
"Kotone, I know you must be heartbroken, but please don't follow me around like that."
"...Never mind, call me by my real name. 'Kotone' is boring~✿ Yo. I'm Kaim Arai~~✿"
Pausing, Kyuki looked the psychiatrist up and down. No, he didn't look that much like Kotone, after all. Which meant...
"Girls sometimes cut or dye their hair when they're heartbroken. But I've never seen anyone change their gender over a guy before."
Kaim stopped and cocked his head, as though thinking about it for a moment. It was apparent that he already had an answer.
"Hey, Kyu-tan~ You wanna know who I really love? It's Ren-chan. ✿"
...
"You can't tell her, though, I've been keeping it a secret for years~~~"
"...Sure."
He really couldn't believe a word this quack was saying. It was a trick of some sort.
"Right, then~ So, let's take a nap, then."
Kyuki frowned, hearing a faint hiss, unmistakably some gas mixture being released. As he looked up instinctively, searching for the source, Kaim pushed him forward into an uncomfortable-looking chair huddled in the shadow of the wall, seating a very disapproving-looking Kazue in an equally unappealing chair across from him. He vaguely recognized the contraption as something similar to the simulators found in the training room - though the lavish curtains of flowers made it extremely unclear. Kaim continued to hum a song - Der Hölle Rache from some Mozart opera - and Kyuki wondered why he was immune to the stupor that affected even Kazue.
"...A nap?"
"Sleep well, my beauties~✿"
* * * *
A mountainload of work.
Certainly, it would have been more intimidating if it was all in paper, nevertheless, the long list of files and deadlines on the computer left Rikuto feeling quite overwhelmed. He cleared off several of the less relevant ones quickly (system cleanup, security check) and turned back to the data analysis that dominated the leftmost screen. The computer was completely stumped on this problem, and none of his reprogramming was doing it any good. And you could only process so many bits of data by hand...
Yuzuki and Ryuu were audible from their side of the wall, arguing fervently about work and schedules and assignments. Or rather, Yuzuki was arguing fervently. Ryuu was eating. In any case, ignoring them was a futile effort.
The discussion closed with slam of the door that probably meant that Ryuu had left for a nap, and a loud huff from Yuzuki. She appeared behind him with a loud rustle of papers and a complaint of wastefulness, but when he turned around, Rikuto found her silent and fully immersed in the upside-down papers.
Hm. Well, he wasn't going to say anything if she didn't. Yuzuki stayed in place for a long moment, mirroring his silence with her own. Impressive, really, that she could yell like that and then calm down. Again, Rikuto looked at her and back again, and saw her eyes flicker, distracted by the movement.
"How was it?"
"I don't have a particular fondness of classical music."
"No, I didn't think you would."
Rikuto entered a line of text into the projected keyboard, extremely conscious of his rival's undisguised staring.
"You know, Kotone's watching you."
"What a surprise," Rikuto snorted, kicking his chair around to face her. "It's your fault, though."
Rubbing an eye, Yuzuki shifted the papers from her face - he glimpsed long rows of numbers; hopefully with no silly addition mistakes this time. "You ought to be more careful, then."
"What do you want?" Rikuto's voice was tart and cold, but his gaze had fallen back uncomfortably to the monitors, tracing out the lines of a graph. "Assassinations happen on a daily basis. You're not worried about me."
"Actually -" Yuzuki cleared her throat, forcing Rikuto to look back, "-I'm worried about myself."
She looked certain, but misguided, and Rikuto found it a little difficult to prompt her forward. He did so anyways, not looking forward to the result. Right about now, he felt as though he was speaking to a spoiled young child. The thought made him strangely sick.
"Get me listed as your coresearcher."
"What?"
It wasn't such a bad idea. As coresearcher, she would be immune to most of the privacy restrictions and rather harsh security measures around the project (though Rikuto thought that more of a threat than a benefit). He wouldn't need to make up excuses for why she knew anything. And if she had something at stake, too, he could certainly use that to his advantage.
"...Rikuto?"
He coughed into the pit of his elbow and stared at the screen.
"I'm changing units tomorrow."
"Huh?"
"...I got demoted. There's no need to 'huh' about it."
Already, she was working her way from surprise to confusion to realization - Rikuto wasn't sure if that's where he wanted her, but he couldn't take it back now.
He refused to turn around and look at Yuzuki, it was enough to imagine what her face must have looked like - the sharp intake of breath, and then the hand clamped down on the back of his seat, quivering there until the rest of her parts reached the same realization. He heard one more shaking long breath, and the hand was withdrawn: total silence.
"You're not going to tell Kotone?"
"No."
There were no cameras in this room - he would have been found out a long time ago if there were - but she had still dodged the words that she must have been thinking.
"...Or Miaki."
"I can't. Don't tell anyone."
"They'll find out eventually."
"That's okay." Rikuto breathed in hard, swallowing down Kotone's angry face. It seemed to come closer with every word he said. Ignoring it, he leaned over to return Yuzuki's papers to her. She took them without response, and he wondered for a moment if he was hallucinating, misreading some understanding into her words. After all, that was the natural response of the doomed.
"Weren't you scolding Ryuu about work earlier?"
"Yeah." Yuzuki gulped something down - he couldn't hear it, but he could see it - and Rikuto felt grateful that this person was good at hiding her surprise at any time, even if she threw a temper at the smallest frustrations. "I'd better get it done; there are a whole lot of deadlines coming up."
"Alright." For the first time in a long while, he smiled. Never mind that it was half-forced. "Good luck with that."
"You moron."
* * * *He's going to die?
Somehow, Yuzuki felt as though it was less a threat to Rikuto than a warning to her. If so, it had worked. She wasn't the sentimental type, and didn't plan on grieving. Still, she had counted on him to be a constant - obstinate and critical, but safe.
Yuzuki spoke to the computer without hearing what she was saying, ordering a few more calculations. It whirred as it worked, quickly but not nearly quickly enough. It felt like nothing was happening quickly enough. Her handset rang - Mitsuru, checking on her again, whether out of concern or suspicion. She ignored that one.
"Go! Work! Or I'll take your cake!"
To Kotone: "GAH."
"You idiot!"
For a moment there, Yuzuki felt just like a well-oiled machine.
She almost slipped once or twice, more out of anger than anything else. My fault. And after that, Mitsuru's, and maybe Kotone's, for always getting into everybody's business.
"You lazy moron!"
Oh, how much she would like to sleep right now...
* * * *
Nine o'clock was usually "late" for Ren, even if she technically worked an around-the-clock job at a most demanding institution. That made ten o'clock exceptionally late.
The mission she finished just today had been a challenge - not quite at the level of a threat, but close. On top of that, they had to send her out again, at the very last moment, because there was some tiny detail that the client had forgotten to mention. At times like this, she felt a little like Yuzuki. Surrounded by idiots.
She wanted to sleep now. The unfortunate thing behind her was preventing that. And it took a great deal of Ren's nearly limitless energy to be polite about it - energy she wouldn't have wasted if Mitsuru hadn't asked.
Oh dear. She really was reminding herself of Yuzuki now.
"Why are you here?"
...That hadn't come out so well, so Ren quickly tagged the "Kirai" and then the "san" to the end - the strange man responded immediately, peering out from behind the corner where she had first seen him. A clumsy job, really, the edge of his shadow didn't quite fit within what was reasonable of a wall. His body looked weaker than before, she noticed, but his face remained static - a little desperate, maybe? She knew it by instinct, if not by words. That was the look of someone who knew he was about to die.
"They're kids. It's a mistake to have twenty-year-old children running around taking care of national security."
It was then that Ren recognized the "creepy wired thing" in his hands as one of Mitsuru's pet cameras.
"Anyways, Ren. Would you do a mission for me?"
-----------------------------------
<--- Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Seven--->
✿ Authors: mpemba_effect
✿ Note: Title is a reference to the Rosenhan study.
"Ah, you must be Kyu-tan and Kazu-chan. Come on in~~✿"
With considerable reluctance, Kyuki followed the psychiatrist back into the strange parts of the building he had never gotten around to seeing. His arm was sore from scraping it but more than that, he felt completely mentally and physically exhausted: so early in the morning, never a good sign. Images of the morning seemed to seep into every little thing that he did, and just standing up was quite a tiresome task. Now that the incident was over, he felt stupid. No, not quite stupid. Admittedly he had enjoyed the look on Dante's face for a little more than just a few minutes. He felt better - almost good - right? And now they just had to ship him off to some dull therapy.
Miaki, and the confused look on her face. He blinked once, rubbed his eyes and it was gone. Dante and his half-gasp, half-yell. That thought elicited a smirk. Yuzuki and her one-hundred-percent yell. Mitsuru.
"Control yourself, Kyuki. Your personal life shouldn't get in the way like this."
He snatched at a wrinkle of clothing, digging into it vigorously with his fingertips. Stupid Mr. Leader Guy, what did he know about anything?
"Follow me~ Don't get lost, now."
Kazue slipped in front of Kyuki, entering the room just ahead of him. As Kyuki entered, he was forced to blink several times. The long hall inside the door was covered in mirrors of all sizes, giving the impression of being inside a giant insect eye. Distracted for a moment, Kyuki glanced sideways at the closest of his many reflections.
Handsome as ever. This room really was designed just for-
"I told you to follow me~✿"
The psychiatrist was a slender young man with a unnatural orange shock of hair tied messily in a ponytail. He seemed possessed by an equally abnormal type of energy, too, and something about his face seemed incredibly familiar - that grin that could provoke fear in the bravest of all men. Well, Kyuki excluded. He stepped forwards to keep pace with Kazue, but as he approached, the stranger turned to give him a crazed stare and-
Whoosh.
Kyuki flinched by instinct. As the projectile - the dart - struck a mirror behind him, striking a cascade of glass to floor, he caught the sharp scent, like smelt metal and something very acidic...The psychiatrist walked on undisturbed, the gun now totally visible in his hand.
"Not too close, though~✿"
"...What were you doing?! What if you had killed me? I mean, not that you could have killed me, but my fangirls would have been upset if you managed to, somehow!"
"Don't be silly. If I killed you, I wouldn't get paid~✿ It's just that I can't stand ugly people. Stay about...Ten feet away?" Frowning for a long moment, the man eyed Kyuki analytically. Then he beamed again. "No, twenty feet for sure. Stay twenty feet away, okay~? ✿"
Ugly? Oh, this guy. He was even more in denial than most - or so he tried to tell himself. At the moment, it felt more like a punch to the gut.
The trio made their way to a dim little chamber that Kyuki had honestly not noticed at first. It seemed wedged, badly fitted, between two long sheets of mirrored glass, marred by what looked like morbid children's drawings. Upon a closer inspection, those revealed themselves to be "guides to the side effects of various medicines~ ❀"
Kyuki then glanced back at the strange psychiatrist. He was still smiling, and in this kind of light, the perky upturned nose and delicate facial bones became extremely apparent in a most disturbing way.
"K-Kotone?"
"Hm. No. Good try, though, Kyu-tan~✿ If you find it helpful to your therapy, you may call me Kotone. It's a lot prettier than my name~~~"
"Kotone, I know you must be heartbroken, but please don't follow me around like that."
"...Never mind, call me by my real name. 'Kotone' is boring~✿ Yo. I'm Kaim Arai~~✿"
Pausing, Kyuki looked the psychiatrist up and down. No, he didn't look that much like Kotone, after all. Which meant...
"Girls sometimes cut or dye their hair when they're heartbroken. But I've never seen anyone change their gender over a guy before."
Kaim stopped and cocked his head, as though thinking about it for a moment. It was apparent that he already had an answer.
"Hey, Kyu-tan~ You wanna know who I really love? It's Ren-chan. ✿"
...
"You can't tell her, though, I've been keeping it a secret for years~~~"
"...Sure."
He really couldn't believe a word this quack was saying. It was a trick of some sort.
"Right, then~ So, let's take a nap, then."
Kyuki frowned, hearing a faint hiss, unmistakably some gas mixture being released. As he looked up instinctively, searching for the source, Kaim pushed him forward into an uncomfortable-looking chair huddled in the shadow of the wall, seating a very disapproving-looking Kazue in an equally unappealing chair across from him. He vaguely recognized the contraption as something similar to the simulators found in the training room - though the lavish curtains of flowers made it extremely unclear. Kaim continued to hum a song - Der Hölle Rache from some Mozart opera - and Kyuki wondered why he was immune to the stupor that affected even Kazue.
"...A nap?"
"Sleep well, my beauties~✿"
* * * *
A mountainload of work.
Certainly, it would have been more intimidating if it was all in paper, nevertheless, the long list of files and deadlines on the computer left Rikuto feeling quite overwhelmed. He cleared off several of the less relevant ones quickly (system cleanup, security check) and turned back to the data analysis that dominated the leftmost screen. The computer was completely stumped on this problem, and none of his reprogramming was doing it any good. And you could only process so many bits of data by hand...
Yuzuki and Ryuu were audible from their side of the wall, arguing fervently about work and schedules and assignments. Or rather, Yuzuki was arguing fervently. Ryuu was eating. In any case, ignoring them was a futile effort.
The discussion closed with slam of the door that probably meant that Ryuu had left for a nap, and a loud huff from Yuzuki. She appeared behind him with a loud rustle of papers and a complaint of wastefulness, but when he turned around, Rikuto found her silent and fully immersed in the upside-down papers.
Hm. Well, he wasn't going to say anything if she didn't. Yuzuki stayed in place for a long moment, mirroring his silence with her own. Impressive, really, that she could yell like that and then calm down. Again, Rikuto looked at her and back again, and saw her eyes flicker, distracted by the movement.
"How was it?"
"I don't have a particular fondness of classical music."
"No, I didn't think you would."
Rikuto entered a line of text into the projected keyboard, extremely conscious of his rival's undisguised staring.
"You know, Kotone's watching you."
"What a surprise," Rikuto snorted, kicking his chair around to face her. "It's your fault, though."
Rubbing an eye, Yuzuki shifted the papers from her face - he glimpsed long rows of numbers; hopefully with no silly addition mistakes this time. "You ought to be more careful, then."
"What do you want?" Rikuto's voice was tart and cold, but his gaze had fallen back uncomfortably to the monitors, tracing out the lines of a graph. "Assassinations happen on a daily basis. You're not worried about me."
"Actually -" Yuzuki cleared her throat, forcing Rikuto to look back, "-I'm worried about myself."
She looked certain, but misguided, and Rikuto found it a little difficult to prompt her forward. He did so anyways, not looking forward to the result. Right about now, he felt as though he was speaking to a spoiled young child. The thought made him strangely sick.
"Get me listed as your coresearcher."
"What?"
It wasn't such a bad idea. As coresearcher, she would be immune to most of the privacy restrictions and rather harsh security measures around the project (though Rikuto thought that more of a threat than a benefit). He wouldn't need to make up excuses for why she knew anything. And if she had something at stake, too, he could certainly use that to his advantage.
"...Rikuto?"
He coughed into the pit of his elbow and stared at the screen.
"I'm changing units tomorrow."
"Huh?"
"...I got demoted. There's no need to 'huh' about it."
Already, she was working her way from surprise to confusion to realization - Rikuto wasn't sure if that's where he wanted her, but he couldn't take it back now.
He refused to turn around and look at Yuzuki, it was enough to imagine what her face must have looked like - the sharp intake of breath, and then the hand clamped down on the back of his seat, quivering there until the rest of her parts reached the same realization. He heard one more shaking long breath, and the hand was withdrawn: total silence.
"You're not going to tell Kotone?"
"No."
There were no cameras in this room - he would have been found out a long time ago if there were - but she had still dodged the words that she must have been thinking.
"...Or Miaki."
"I can't. Don't tell anyone."
"They'll find out eventually."
"That's okay." Rikuto breathed in hard, swallowing down Kotone's angry face. It seemed to come closer with every word he said. Ignoring it, he leaned over to return Yuzuki's papers to her. She took them without response, and he wondered for a moment if he was hallucinating, misreading some understanding into her words. After all, that was the natural response of the doomed.
"Weren't you scolding Ryuu about work earlier?"
"Yeah." Yuzuki gulped something down - he couldn't hear it, but he could see it - and Rikuto felt grateful that this person was good at hiding her surprise at any time, even if she threw a temper at the smallest frustrations. "I'd better get it done; there are a whole lot of deadlines coming up."
"Alright." For the first time in a long while, he smiled. Never mind that it was half-forced. "Good luck with that."
"You moron."
* * * *He's going to die?
Somehow, Yuzuki felt as though it was less a threat to Rikuto than a warning to her. If so, it had worked. She wasn't the sentimental type, and didn't plan on grieving. Still, she had counted on him to be a constant - obstinate and critical, but safe.
Yuzuki spoke to the computer without hearing what she was saying, ordering a few more calculations. It whirred as it worked, quickly but not nearly quickly enough. It felt like nothing was happening quickly enough. Her handset rang - Mitsuru, checking on her again, whether out of concern or suspicion. She ignored that one.
"Go! Work! Or I'll take your cake!"
To Kotone: "GAH."
"You idiot!"
For a moment there, Yuzuki felt just like a well-oiled machine.
She almost slipped once or twice, more out of anger than anything else. My fault. And after that, Mitsuru's, and maybe Kotone's, for always getting into everybody's business.
"You lazy moron!"
Oh, how much she would like to sleep right now...
* * * *
Nine o'clock was usually "late" for Ren, even if she technically worked an around-the-clock job at a most demanding institution. That made ten o'clock exceptionally late.
The mission she finished just today had been a challenge - not quite at the level of a threat, but close. On top of that, they had to send her out again, at the very last moment, because there was some tiny detail that the client had forgotten to mention. At times like this, she felt a little like Yuzuki. Surrounded by idiots.
She wanted to sleep now. The unfortunate thing behind her was preventing that. And it took a great deal of Ren's nearly limitless energy to be polite about it - energy she wouldn't have wasted if Mitsuru hadn't asked.
Oh dear. She really was reminding herself of Yuzuki now.
"Why are you here?"
...That hadn't come out so well, so Ren quickly tagged the "Kirai" and then the "san" to the end - the strange man responded immediately, peering out from behind the corner where she had first seen him. A clumsy job, really, the edge of his shadow didn't quite fit within what was reasonable of a wall. His body looked weaker than before, she noticed, but his face remained static - a little desperate, maybe? She knew it by instinct, if not by words. That was the look of someone who knew he was about to die.
"They're kids. It's a mistake to have twenty-year-old children running around taking care of national security."
It was then that Ren recognized the "creepy wired thing" in his hands as one of Mitsuru's pet cameras.
"Anyways, Ren. Would you do a mission for me?"
-----------------------------------
<--- Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Seven--->