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 Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2023 3:16 pm
Quote: CW: eating disorders & recovery/lack thereof.
Reiki, on the other hand, had to finish orders he had for making someone else’s outfit because he couldn’t leave any of his customers hanging (especially not when several of them were his drag siblings). Had to help get everything at the apartment packed up and moved to Yuki’s (with regular reassurances to Cersei that she was Very Good, she was the Best Girl, and that Her Person was so sorry that everything was so confusing for her right now). Wound up hosting periodic visits for people looking to maybe rent the place (a pair of twins named “Huang” had ultimately won the right to move in once Reiki and Haruhi cleared out).
No one and nothing obligated him to toil away at crocheting, stuffing, and stitching up a quartet of little plush friends that he meant to give to four of the people he cared about with Chaos (Levi, Faustite, Acubens-oneesan, and Albite) before he did what he’d been working toward—but, well. He wanted all of them to have something from him. Even though that had the inherent risk of Faustite setting his on fire, if he wound up taking the advance warning conversation badly (though as he hopped across rooftops near the gayborhood, heading toward the DCU campus, Reiki told himself for the umpteenth time tonight that it wasn’t fair or right for him to decide how Faustite felt for him.
Aside from how objectively bad Reiki could be at predicting anything with Faustite, not wanting to talk over him about his own feelings was a big reason why Reiki had to talk to him, face-to-face, before leaving the Court. If he understood, he understood. If he didn’t, he didn’t. Either way, it had to be on Faustite himself, not on whatever ideas about potential reactions Reiki could make up in his head).
Plus, there was how Reiki would feel like a complete heel if he made Acubens cry while warning her ahead of time. Not enough to make him stay, which would likely make him feel even worse.
And Levi…… Oh, Reiki didn’t think he could face Levi. Not a shadow of doubt lurked in his mind that he would crumble if he tried to tell Levi what he was doing and Levi met him with any resistance. Wouldn’t matter how or why Levi tried to make him stay. Wouldn’t matter that he would only ever ask in a platonic way because—well, obviously, right? Levi was so brave and so outspoken; if he’d ever wanted anything other than platonic friendship with Reiki, he’d had more than enough opportunities to ask for it, and he hadn’t. But even Levi wanting Reiki to stay in a platonic way would break Reiki’s determination to leave.
Immediately, he would crumble, and forget all that he’d reaffirmed for himself recently about not trying to change himself for a boy, and stay indefinitely in a place where his heart would never be happy because he wouldn’t want Levi to feel guilty for bringing him into the Court. Wouldn’t want to fail him or let him down. Would, personal precedent said pretty clearly, place Levi’s feelings ahead of his own, would wither up in Mirrorspace instead of thriving like he could have done by leaving.
Knowing better than to sing while flitting around on a patrol, Reiki kept the song that rushed to his mind pent up in his heart: Every man has his daydreams, every man has his goals. People like the way dreams have of sticking to the soul. Thunderclouds have their lightning, nightingales have their song, and don’t you see I want my life to be something more than long…?
The White Moon aura didn’t give Reiki pause in his patrol. It felt like a Page or a first-level senshi, and they only seemed to get closer because Reiki himself moved toward them. And yeah, he’d run into more than his fair share of aggro jerks among the White Moon senshi and their Knights, but Reiki had met more people among them who were overall chill and decent. So, the odds favored Reiki here.
Rivers belong where they can ramble.…
What did give him pause was a simple sound: vomiting.
Eagles belong where they can fly.…
It came from the alley where he felt the White Moon aura. Not too loud—whoever was doing it probably would’ve avoided too much notice from other people—but unmistakable, to Reiki’s ears.… Even if it hadn’t been his usual method of carving himself into pieces to feel like he had control of <******** something while bullies made him miserable at school and his family teetered on the brink of falling apart in the midst of Aunt Satomi’s drinking problem……? Before shutting up and accepting recovery into his life, Reiki had preferred to starve or beat himself up at the gym, rather than gagging himself on a toothbrush until he heaved.
Nevertheless, he knew the sound of someone puking all too well. He hoped they’d only be ill or upset about something, nothing that Reiki knew all too well and couldn’t let himself forget, lest he lapse back into his bad habits.
I’ve got to be where my spirit can run free. Gotta find my corner of the sky.……
Being quiet about it, Reiki hopped down a fire escape to get off the roof. He took a moment to smooth out his skirts, then moved toward the White Moon aura and the sound of throwing up.
“Hey……?” Reiki called out to them softly, keeping his hands visible out in front so they hopefully wouldn’t assume he was up to something nefarious. “Hey, my name is—” Reiki. Reiki Reiki Reiki REIKI, I don’t care what ******** dress I’m in, my NAME is ******** REIKI. “—Murikabushi. Are you okay?”
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Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2023 11:03 pm
Selenga had gone on patrol shortly after dinner with his spouse. He was mostly still learning how to be a good Page—he should have gone out with Kaifeng, but he deliberately told his cousin-in-law to meet up with him at a later time than he had planned on going out. For this very reason. Escaping right after dinner meant he could throw up without consequence, without anxiety about being caught. He was completely free to take care of himself, to purge the caloric poison from his body, to let the sweet relief and intense pleasure course through him as he finished up— Except the high was ruined before it could really start, when someone interrupted him right as he took his first breath that wasn't going to be interrupted by vomit instead. Feeling the Chaos aura and noticing nothing else other than oh god I've been found out, he looked up, eyes wide with panic, and moved forward, smacking ********, that's a Super Senshi! —in the chest with his hands and flower and pushing, then coming to a terrified stop. "G-Go away," he gurgled, hoarse.
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Posted: Sun Jul 23, 2023 1:03 pm
Almost as soon as the Page turned to face him, Reiki felt struck by two conflicting emotions. Or, at least, two emotions that had very little to do with each other, save that they both involved the Page in question. First of all, came the rush of indignation over being whacked in the chest with……a lotus blossom? (Honestly, between this one, Vesuvianite with his plastic chisel, and Kāifēng with his folding fan, Reiki almost wanted to ask Pendour what she’d had as her magical weapon-adjacent object when she’d first started out. That probably would’ve been rude, but man, Knights and non-senshi Negaverse officers really seemed to get a raw deal in this department, in Reiki’s opinion.)
Secondly, Reiki recognized the symbols on this Page’s uniform.
“Hey,” he snapped, holding up both hands in a gesture of, if not surrender, then at least “Look at how NOT ATTACKING YOU I am right now, idiot” and furrowing his brow in concern. “Don’t be like that. My name is Murikabushi, I’m a friend of your Princess. I heard something that sounded like distress and I came to help, that’s all.”
He still hoped very badly that his intuition would prove wrong in this case, that he’d have the wrong idea entirely and this would all be just a weird misunderstanding. But looking at how out-of-sorts the Page seemed, Reiki didn’t feel like he was all too terribly off-base.
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Posted: Sun Jul 23, 2023 1:21 pm
Selenga pulled back as if burned—oh, that was so much worse. If this—this Dark Mirror Senshi, a being of Chaos, knew Ida—knew that Ida was very much reachable, could talk to her—Selenga's life would be ruined. This very tall Senshi could just— He swallowed, wiping his eyes against the burning tears that erupted so suddenly he didn't have a chance to stop them before they fell. He was panicking, he knew it, but he couldn't stop himself. "Just—Look, take as much energy as you need, okay, you already ruined—don't tell—please, anything."
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Posted: Sun Jul 23, 2023 2:10 pm
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Posted: Sun Jul 23, 2023 10:20 pm
Selenga eyed the Senshi critically, but as the words sunk in, he believed them. He leaned against a wall and started to sink to the ground, eventually sitting there cross-legged as he cried quietly, hugging himself. "I c-can't..." Can't what? He didn't even know how that sentence was going to end. He just knew he felt completely miserable. Taking a shuddering breath, he sniffed hard and said mulishly, "What, are you a therapist or something?"
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Posted: Sun Jul 23, 2023 10:40 pm
For the sake of both the Page and his own neck (which was already feeling the strain induced by standing over a foot taller than somebody, thanks to his heels), Reiki followed the other man’s lead. He sank to the ground, sitting with his legs tucked up to the side so that they couldn’t get in between him and the Page, or otherwise obstruct Reiki’s body language. Listening patiently, he shook his head.
“Definitely not a therapist,” he affirmed, tucking some of his bangs behind his ear. “More like……my parents, my grandparents, my godfather, and my drag mom? They figured out what I was doing, back when I was maybe sixteen? And, y’know, plenty of people didn’t believe them about it because ooooh, no, that never happens to boys, right? Never mind happening to boys who aren’t white. Seeing how long you can go on how few calories, right? That’s a neurotic, skinny, upper-middle class white girl problem, and literally nobody else can do that to themselves ever.
“Can’t imagine why such control-seeking behaviors would ever in a million years manifest in a Japanese-American gay boy who gets bullied day-in and day-out for just being himself, who gets sent to liquor stores without a fake ID because his aunt is trying to detox from alcohol at home instead of somewhere with medical supervision, and who’s the eldest of the bunch, so he always gets to explain to his younger siblings and cousins why Dad and Aunty are fighting again, or why Ojiisan got involved and started crying.…… I mean, he’s not a white girl, so the obvious answer can’t be it, right.”
Ever so maturely, Reiki rolled his eyes and blew a raspberry to indicate exactly what he thought about that logic. “But they found enough professionals who could see what I was making perfectly clear, and who believed them, and then they made me go, because I was only sixteen, so they could do that.……” Reiki sighed and shook his head. “Made things get a whole lot worse for a while, dragging me there before I was ready. That’s not something I’d ever wish or willingly inflict on someone else.”
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Posted: Sun Jul 23, 2023 11:30 pm
Selenga wiped at his eyes and listened, still hugging himself. "Y-Yeah," he said with a shaky sigh. "I'm sorry. That you went through all that. Sucks." He inhaled slowly. "Or... it could never happen to a Chinese-American boy, respectable and definitely not queer (hah), very filial, says all the right things, does all the right things, stays perfectly in line with everything ever asked of him... And is terrified to lose his job because he can't race well enough. Because if he weighs too much, the horse has to work harder to support him, and can't run as fast, and he starts losing and gets fired. Can't lose the job, already have family tensions, can't mess that up and lose all sources of income, need to support my wifesband, I..." He clenched his hands into fists and gave a hysterical giggle. "If I eat and gain any kind of weight, my life goes into the toilet."
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Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2023 10:28 am
Listening to the Ida Page talk, Reiki’s heart ached with empathy, and he nodded along in understanding. Ugh, maybe that hadn’t been his personal experience, but he’d heard plenty of similar stories from the other people at group before. Gymnasts, swimmers, figure skaters and ice dancers—this Page was the first jockey he’d met personally, but Reiki had heard plenty about how terrible things could get for jockeys, and how competitive things could get in the professional horse-racing circuit, and how that competition so easily led people to hurt themselves……
“I’m sorry for everything you’ve gone through too,” Reiki told the Page genuinely, giving him a soft expression and trying to look him in the eye. “I’m sorry for everything you’re carrying with you, and I’m sorry that the people in your life don’t know.” Or if they did know, then maybe they didn’t want him to realize that they knew. Maybe they didn’t know how to approach him about it. Maybe they realized that the situation was delicate and they didn’t want to unwittingly trigger him. Or maybe they just really didn’t know; Reiki couldn’t say, but thinking that this Page’s family were on to him really could’ve made things worse.
“I get it if you don’t want to trust this next recommendation, since it’s coming from a Chaos rat? Or if you don’t want to consider it until I’m out of the Mirror, but……” Reiki held up his hands in the surrender pose again. “There’s a support group at the queer community center. You don’t have to be in recovery to go. I won’t recognize you if you show up powered down now, and you won’t recognize me. And, uh.” With a soft huff, Reiki reached into his subspace and pulled out the note on Kaifeng’s Hello Kitty stationery, then held it up for the Ida Page to see. “If you have a signet ring like this weirdo Saturn Knight? I can’t really message you back until I’m out of the Mirror, but you can write to me, at least.”
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Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2023 10:56 pm
Selenga rubbed his face and looked up again as the Dark Mirror started talking, and only then realized he hadn't shared his name—at least, not powered name. He smiled, tiny and shy and uncertain, but still a smile. "I haven't gotten mine quite yet," he said, "But I know that one. Kaifeng, you idiot." He shook his head, smile becoming wider. "Well, I guess if he likes you... And you said you're... looking to exit the Mirror? It'll be nice to meet you properly. I'm Selenga, by the way. I think... well, you're leaving the Mirror, I..." He swallowed. "I mean, I use Twitter, in those... circles, online. But... Maybe in person will be good for me. Thank you."
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Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2023 3:05 am
There. Things were starting to calm down. Crisis Time was settling down into something much more manageable, and the poor Ida Page—Selenga, apparently—was no longer convinced that Reiki had any desire to hurt him or snitch on him or anything like that. They were talking calmly……and Selenga was laughing, in a way that didn’t sound as hysterical as he had before.
Reiki didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth about this. He really didn’t. But at the same time—“You should be careful with that one. Kāifēng and looking out for him, I mean,” Reiki said gently. “I don’t want to assume too much, since I’ve only met both of you once? But from how you’re talking, you seem to have a really good head on your shoulders, and Kāifēng……” Reiki pursed his lips, trying to consider how to phrase this. “We met in the aftermath of a pretty big battle, right? Lots of people involved. Very dramatic. And during the fray, he tussled with a Negaverse General who I’ve never met?
“And I didn’t see everything that went on between them. First, I focused on getting some teen girls out of there before they got hurt, then someone who I thought had gotten fully youmafied was not actually full youma, and then a Negaverse senshi was kidnapping a friend of mine.” And then Cybele has popped out her Princess wings and Reiki had been trying to shield Amsvartnir even though he hadn’t been even remotely targeted by the Chaos-seeking arrows. That wasn’t the point, though. “But as far as I heard from Kāifēng, two senshi who were helping him, and the Neptune Knight who took him to the ER? He got stabbed by the General, fought back with his fan as much as he could, and sort of made the General have a meltdown by being really upbeat and pleasant while being stabbed.”
Reiki huffed softly, and blew at some loose hair that had wilted onto his face. “One thing I’ll say for Kāifēng and how he handles things like that? In the immortal words of Junior LaBeija from Paris Is Burning: ‘It *do* take nerve.’ But he should be more careful—or maybe you can watch out for him when you work together—because the Negaverse generally doesn’t ******** around, and his nerve will mean a lot more if he sticks around longer.
“As for the rest of it……” Reiki shrugged and sighed softly. “Yeah, unfortunately leaving the Mirror is a whole convoluted process, and on top of that? Doing it as an actual tax-paying adult has so many more bells and whistles than most of my friends who’ve left the Negaverse have led me to expect, based on their own stories. And yeah, I’ve been on ed-twit, too. And blatantly broken all of the Tumblr community safety guidelines about not quote-unquote ‘promoting eating disorders and self-harm,’ but gotten away with it because I put up some disclaimer like ‘I am not promoting or endorsing anything, this is just my vent blog, ooo-wooo-ooo.’”
He felt more than a little ridiculous for trying to vocally pronounce the UWU emoji, but……well. That certainly fit with the utter, inherent ridiculousness of the disclaimer that he’d put on his old tumblr accounts. “But having the group that meets in-person has been a lot better for me than the online community? It feels a lot less lonely, that way.”
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Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2023 11:21 pm
"What."He stared at Murikabushi for a long moment, jaw open. "What the hell? That's how he got hurt? He told us—" He cut himself off with a frustrated noise. "Well, first he told us he got hurt with a gardening tool, and then when we found out about his being a Knight, he admitted it wasn't about a gardening tool but didn't explain—he was taunting the guy that stabbed him??" He rested his head in his hands briefly, shaking it. "I'm going to kill him. He will wish that he was getting stabbed again after my spouse and I tear him apart for being such a careless ******** idiot."
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Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2023 1:07 am
……And there went the calm.
Or, well. Selenga didn’t entirely seem not calm? But apparently Kaifeng was some sort of family to him—or at least that’s how it sounded to Reiki, whether that meant blood family, found family, or something else entirely—and Selenga had every right to get upset about hearing the full story of his family member’s injury from a complete stranger. Especially when the lie that he’d told in the first place sounded so completely asinine, like……? Gardening tools? ******** seriously? Sure, some Negaverse officers did have them……but mostly, they were the Lieutenants and whatnot, whose alleged weapons ranked about as highly as Kaifeng’s fan and Selenga’s lotus blossom.
“……I’m sorry,” Reiki offered, feeling……honestly less than thrilled……about all of this. Not that anything about tonight had been particularly fun, but……still. “He should’ve told you the truth, but…… Ugh, how do I say this without just outright defending the guy who is the clear and obvious ******** in the current situation?” Felt kinda nice having it NOT be Reiki for once, even if he couldn’t entirely enjoy that feeling. “As far as I understand, it was a lot less ‘taunting’ during the actual stabbing? I, uh.……”
He shook his head and waved a dismissive hand. “A couple of other Dark Mirror senshi were there, right? While I was trying to get some unpowered teenagers and then my friend out of harm’s way, Lete and Hybris were sitting by a pond and watching things play out between all the different people there, literally eating popcorn.” At least, they’d done that until Faustite had set those ten youma on everybody but the Negas present and Reiki himself. “According to what Lete saw going down, Kaifeng at first mostly just refused to be anything but pleasant and sunshiny at the General who stabbed him. He didn’t start laughing about it until the General got really upset about how Kaifeng wasn’t showing zem the fear and awe that ze wanted.”
Reiki huffed, letting his shoulders sag. “Which is both not quite as bad as outright mockery, and still really dangerous. So……by all means, please do take him to task about it. It’s not a game out here. People—good people—can and will die if we don’t take this seriously.”
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Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2023 1:19 am
Selenga made a noise like a sigh and a groan put together, slapping his cheeks a little bit. "Okay. Alright, uh.... Thank you. He's not going to be happy, but he damn well shouldn't be," he said, sputtering his lips. "Idiot." He sat up a little and yawned, covering his mouth and blushing. "Ah.... I guess I should head home. Thank you, again. For the..." He cleared his throat. "And for telling me the truth about Kaifeng's injury, even if it was by accident. Someone needs to get it through his thick skull that people care about him."
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