interstellar5555 | Sometimes you just gotta talk [Closed]

Entry tags:

Sometimes you just gotta talk [Closed]

Who: Rei Hino & Koumei, possibly others.
What: Rei talks to some people? Sort of a catch-all
When: February
Where: Vista City
Warnings: None except maybe language.

The news was difficult, a text and then nothing. It didn't matter if they'd split up before then, it still hurt seeing it and knowing he was gone. Somewhere, presumably home. A bitter pill, but one she had to swallow for the moment. Of course she wasn't about to leave it at that. A quick call and a few curt promises and Rei was out and about to meet someone. Sitting in the lot of a favorite cafe, her little car idling, she waited for that walking mop of red hair. When it appeared, she beeped lightly, not wanting to get out into the cold.

((ooc: Closed catch-all for a few scenes. If you want to catch Rei, poke me on Plurk and we can discuss a scene.))

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"Boys are weird, probably." Rei said with a smile.

Once he was inside, she started rolling off down the street at an easygoing pace, not fast, not slow, just...driving. There wasn't any particular place to be, and it was better to just go and not worry. Security wouldn't bug them too much.

"What I wanted to talk to you about, I guess, was the circumstances around Pride. Have there been a lot of firings? And did my...well...ex-boyfriend get into trouble recently?"

--An interesting line of questioning, and one that he hadn't fully expected. Koumei glanced sideways at her to study her face while they drove, forming his responce carefully and concisely.

"...two members of my band were fired in recent weeks, including Nariko, and Terry was missing for a few days. There have been other firings too...including Yosuke, unfortunately. But, none of us really know the circumstances why for him-- he was a popular member of a very popular band.

"What's going on, Rei? Did something happen?"

"I heard about Nariko as well," Rei nodded, keeping her jaw set and eyes on the road. However, his question? That was a big one.

"Did some members of your band or Pride disappear for a few days, after that haunting stuff happened? I know Mai did, but anyone else?"

"Terry did," he replied. "He disappeared for about three days-- and he's not telling us anything about what happened."

"Just like Luce," Rei said quietly, a shiver running down her spine.

"They got to Luce too?"

The surprise was clear on his face and in his tone-- but, it did so much to provide some clarity for why Luce had been strangely quiet in recent weeks.

"She snuck into their laboratory, yes. And she was caught doing that," Rei answers, tone hushed. Even if it was safe, she was still sort of afraid.

"No wonder she's been so quiet...I've been worried about her."

Without further contacts on Virgo's side of affairs, he found that his information base was lacking. Such situations were worrisome, enough to send a spike of anxiety through his chest, but he knew that he needed to keep a neutral front. Causing undue worry for others wasn't worth it....especially when everyone had worries of their own.

"You should call her. We're all in this together."

Rei keeps driving silently for a few moments, trying to think of something else to say.

"We think we figured out what Blanche and Lesedi did to us."

"You do?"

That was news; he had been so wrapped up in keeping his bandmates in a stable place, while wrestling with his own visions and dreams to sort through the data, to really pay terribly much attention to what the CEOs were doing. Even his work with assisting in a break in was mostly to keep Garnet from getting herself in over her head.

"Brainwashing."

Rei said that word, simply and with no preamble or follow up. She wanted to see how Koumei reacted, see if he made the same leap of logic.

He froze, as if hearing that phrase fall from someone else's lips solidified everything that he had suspected and thought that he knew. In that moment multiple things clicked into place-- and he dropped his head, thick hair obscuring his face.

"Kouen was right," he murmured, no longer referring to That Man by the name he had forced into believing was his. "He was right all along-- and I think that's why he was fired."

His heart fell like a frozen rock into his stomach as he thought of that man once again, and he found himself praying to whatever gods were listening that his brother and king was all right.

She stops at a light, looking over at her passenger with concern. Had Kouen suspected that all along? The mysterious Yan she'd never met. That...was troubling.

"He guessed it ages ago, didn't he? That something was wrong, I mean. I had it confirmed for me by a man claiming to know Luce. He called himself Reborn. And other people...who said they knew me."

"Yeah, though I kept disputing him because something like would take a lot of resources and effort for something this large scale. But he was so vocal about his discontent that they actually took him into surgery, and he confided in me that he didn't think it worked like they had planned."

He shook his head, looking up at Rei now with tired eyes.

"He was fired not too long afterward, too. They probably realized that he'd be too much trouble to keep in the long term...and I understand why, now.

...I haven't had anyone recognize me, but for him. There were too many similarities between our stories from the start, which is probably why we were brought in to separate labels. It'd be too dangerous for them to have us together."

Listening to all of that is hard, her left foot hopping up and down somewhat anxiously. She was never very good at hiding her own anxiety, and his feelings are mirrored in her.

"It would be. Yes. But the thing is, Luce found labs recently. After the hauntings she and some others broke into them with the help of ghosts...to free ghosts. I know it sounds outlandish, but it's true. Mai corroborated that happened for Pride, as well. They've done something...and a lot of us seem to have supernatural power. Why they'd go through with this, I don't know, but that's what's happened.

And there are people...from somewhere else...here to take us away."

"People trying to take us away?"

This was the first he had heard such information. The rest of Rei's story made sense with what he's observed around Pride HQ, but there were always other details that he knew were missing.

"What sort of things are they telling you? Why are they getting us?"

"Because we were stolen away. We aren't meant to be here. These people are people from our lives, before all this."

Rei rather firmly believes at this point that Serena and Di and Alex are. Alex had all but confirmed it.

He opened his mouth to say something before quickly snapping it back shut, recalling the conversations he had with Squalo in between duets and more private activities. The visions and dreams, they had determined, were too realistic to be anything but memories from another life-- a fact that was corroborated by his scattered interactions with Kouen before he departed.

"...I've already suspected that," he admitted. "But I've been keeping it quiet, and I've been more focused on putting the puzzle together than finding the root cause.

Kouen-- Hongyan Lian as you would have known him. He's my brother...and my king."

"It's a good theory to keep quiet. It sounds insane, but with the ghosts, and with people I know showing up in town and being so...hurt...that I don't know them? It's disturbing. And it makes me feel sick, being around at least one of them."

Turning a corner, she aims for a small park that's relatively out of the way. Nothing fancy, but one that has a number of driveways.

"I am somehow not surprised by that. I feel like, maybe...I've got a king waiting for me, if these visions indicate anything. It's an awful feeling, isn't it? Knowing you've been forced to forget something."

A quiet nod-- he appreciated Rei's understanding.

"Honestly? I've been wrestling with that idea for a while. It's been hard to tell whether these visions are just dreams or memories, but some of them are far too vivid and detailed to be anything but a dream.

"I hate not knowing, and I hate feeling lost....I just wish we knew why all this is happening."

"Because we're not supposed to be here, Koumei."

Rei's answer was sharp, a firmness and subtle hint of wrath in her voice. She hated the idea of being stolen away. It was infuriating.

"We were kidnapped. Our friends...at least some of them...are here to help. And we need to be ready to help them. They seem fond of Brad's Diner, too."

"I'm aware of that much," he replied coolly, an odd glint in his eyes. "But knowing that fact doesn't mean that we have a better understanding of our 'enemy'. And we won't, until we can find a way of getting information that won't nearly get us killed in the process."

His thoughts strayed to Xanxus, and Lesedi's lack of regard for the man's very life after the party fiasco in December. As much as he wanted details, he didn't particularly wish to become more dead than he already was in the process.

"...but Brad's Diner, you say? The place with the milkshakes? Now that you mention it, the place has been busier lately."

He had figured it was the influence of that new waitress and her friends, although he had written off as something of a coincidence. But, he should have known better-- there was no such thing as coincidences in this or any world.

"We'll figure it out. We have to."

Rei turns again, and fixates on the other question. She's not sure...but she thinks she can trust him enough to say:

"The new waitress. Di. She's one of the people from my other life. I know next to nothing about her, but I know that much."

His lips are sealed-- even if it is good to know who a potential ally on the outside is.

"Di? Hm...I'll need to look for her the next time I drop in, if that's the case. It must be nice, having someone around to help you solve your own puzzles."

"There's two others. Alex and Serena."

Rei just...drops those.

"And they aren't as helpful as all that. Frankly they're downright cagey."

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