nibs | {ruby city | ic inbox}

Arnold and I are going out to see the firework show with a friend tonight. I know you're probably not interested in following along with us, but maybe think about going to see it yourself anyway?

It seems like there'll be a lot of people there...maybe you'll meet someone nice to talk to.

Hey...just so you know, I might not be around tonight. Someone I met here is having kind of a hard time, and she's all by herself so I'm going to go keep her company for a while.

Don't stay up too late working, okay?

All signs point to Josuke and Okuyasu being gone. I've looked into it.

[At some point on the 14th of February, a red paper takeout box ends up on an easily-noticed surface at Rohan's place — maybe near his work desk, maybe by his bed, maybe in the kitchen where he's sure to pass through. But either way, it's reasonably unobtrusive: nothing particularly fancy and with no particular fanfare, just there.

Inside, if he chooses to open it, he'll find his Valentine's day chocolate delivered in an equally unobtrusive way, featuring about a dozen chocolate-filled berries and a folded note that reads, in neatly printed Japanese: ]

You used to lecture me about how bad chocolate is for dogs...right before volunteering to eat all of Arnold's share of candy on his behalf. I thought you might not mind volunteering again this year. ~❤~

[It goes without saying that Reimi is patient. True, not every test of her patience is quite as severe as waiting more than a decade for the opportunity to bring her killer to justice, but even in her more everyday ones there's still that inclination to wait. Wait, wait and see, wait and hope, wait it out, wait and watch. Time isn't something she notices all that much anymore — at least not the passage of it. There's no point in measuring out your existence in increments of time when you're dead; once you're already past the countdown clock into overtime, that kind of thing doesn't really matter so much anymore.

So she waits, maybe longer than she should, to talk to Rohan. She hasn't forgotten the crux of her concern, far from it. But there's a saying about time healing wounds, and whether it does or it doesn't, the fact still remains that time changes things like water eroding away a rock. The circumstances now are different than they were before.

Izabel is gone, which means she's taken some of the tension with her, but which also means Reimi is out a confidante and close friend.

She doesn't really know what makes her decide this is the right time. Maybe it's just that she's finally come to the decision that there's no time like the present, and doesn't see any reason to put it off any longer.]

Hey...I know you're probably as busy tonight as you are every night, but do you think you could find the time to take a walk with me, maybe?

[Maybe it's that she's already sad about Izabel, so if this ends up going badly, well. At least she'll consolidate all of her sadness together, instead of stretching it out long over time.]

i hear you're desperate to hear me talk about myself

[She loves technology. She loves the fact she doesn't have to speak to someone in person anymore. She loves the fact that she can have a conversation without fear of it being recorded, because this kind of one-on-one vocal communication is so new that no one has developed a way to listen in yet.

And she loves it because it means she doesn't have to meet her clients in person, which makes it all the easier to sneak the fact she does have clients under her husband's nose.

So: ring, ring, Rohan; it's your patron calling.]

11/5, evening

11/17, evening

12/23

➥ super secret delivery; | 2/14

post-izabel's departure | time is an illusion

december somthin

this isn't late you're late nobody's late and time is an illusion