13 | Closed

[chalicejoker]

Who: Hajime, Lyall, and Bakura
What: Hajime has gone into hiding after the fiasco that was his attempt to watch over two werewolves at once while dealing with his own bugmonster instincts. He needs to be snapped out of it.
Where: Hajime's apartment.
When: Backdated to a few days after the full moon.
Warnings: Mopey bugman.



[For Lyall]

"Terrible" didn't even begin to describe how Hajime had felt after things had settled down at Lyall's. Lyall had trusted him. Reilann had trusted him. And how had he repaid that trust? By letting his crazed bugmonster fight instincts get the best of him. He'd let them out, put both of them in danger, only so he could get the urge to fight out of his system. He couldn't even blame the full moon. Couldn't say that well, at least this sort of thing only happened once a month. Inside, he was a monster all the time. He'd already almost killed Thomas that one time, and now this?

It was for the best, he decided, if he hid in his apartment and never came out again. His usual coping strategy usually involved double shifts at work and working far too long and too hard, but he didn't want to put anyone else in danger. He'd called in sick and was in the process of ignoring phone calls and knocks on the door to the point of lying to his family that he'd caught the flu and didn't want to spread it to anyone else. It was safer this way.

[For Bakura]

Hajime still didn't feel much like leaving the apartment or talking to anyone. He was, at least, doing something other than sleeping and brooding at his two playing cards, even if it was still probably a waste of his time. When he'd first turned into the bug and gotten stuck that way for a couple of weeks, he'd found his old PlayStation tucked away in a closet. Back when he was a kid, he'd been particularly fascinated by MegaMonster World 2, and he still had the game. It had been a rather embarrassing bit of comfort during those two weeks, and now? He was back at it again, carefully breeding teams of monsters and setting out in his MegaTank to save the MegaWorld. He would have died of shame if anyone knew he was still messing with the stupid game, but there was something oddly comforting about watching his team of good monsters defeat and tame the bad monsters, just like he had when he was a kid.

Comments

[professorwolf]

When stopping by the restaurant didn't provide a Hajime to talk to, and a ping on the network resulted in silence, Lyall took the next step: he showed up at Hajime's apartment door and rapped firmly on it. "Hajime. It's me."

Because he had a feeling, if he was lying to his parents about being sick, he'd be ignoring the door, as well. So, he had to at least make sure he knew who it was.

[chalicejoker]

Lyall's sharp hearing likely would have picked up the sound of a TV in the apartment blaring something in Japanese that abruptly shut off at the sound of Lyall's voice at the door. For a moment, Hajime debated whether or not to pretend like he wasn't home. That seemed kind of pointless when dealing with a guy who could scent track him and was also pretty familiar with what a large bug-thing smelled like.

He reluctantly walked to the door and carefully opened it just a crack. He looked tired, like he hadn't been sleeping, but he did not seem as though he were as sick as he'd told his family. Hajime wanted to say something, but he couldn't exactly think of what might be appropriate in this situation. Instead, he just looked guilty.

[professorwolf]

The expression on Lyall's face was merely sober. He didn't necessarily blame his former student-- friend, at this point-- for what happened. Not more than a little tiny bit, and even that he understood, to an extent.

All he said first, of course, was: "May I come in, Hajime?"

[shiromadoushi]

Bakura's first instinct when Hajime hadn't been answering his texts, was to check the resturant. What had been intended to be a quick kidnapping raid turned into an hour long visit with Hajime's family, helping out a touch at the counter while listening to his friend's mother's long winded and worried exasperations with her son.

In the end, a plan had been decided on, and with the blessing and well wishes of the family, Bakura had headed to Hajime's apartment, armed with a secret weapon to worm his way in to haul his friend out of whatever funk he had gotten himself into this time.

"Haaaajime!" he called, knocking on the door. "I know you're in there, so you'd better answer!"

[chalicejoker]

Hajime did not feel much like talking. It was one thing to deal with Lyall, someone who knew what had happened to send him into hiding in the first place. It was another to have to explain the situation all over again. He wondered if he could get away with ignoring Bakura, at least for a little while.

[chalicejoker]

"Yeah." Hajime moved out of the way to let Lyall inside, opening the door up a bit more as he did so. The apartment was fairly neat save for the area around the couch. It looked as though Hajime must have pretty much been living on said couch for the past couple of days and hadn't bothered to clean up the mess. "Don't know why you'd want to..."

[shiromadoushi]

Oh Hajime, you should know better.

There was another knock. "Haaaajimeee~ Don't think you can hide from me, I know you're home~ You can't hide forever, you know~"

[chalicejoker]

No, no, Bakura, he wasn't home. He was just going to keep on doing what he was doing, ignore Bakura, and hope Bakura gave up and went away. That seemed safest.

[shiromadoushi]

So it was going to be like that, huh?

With a quick check back and forth to make sure no one could see, Bakura closed his eyes, invisibly releasing Diabound, fading from view himself before walking through Hajime's closed door.

[chalicejoker]

There was a small twitch of reaction as Hajime's bugmonster senses picked up on the power used to walk through the door. Since he'd been trying so hard to ignore those, he didn't do much beyond look over his shoulder and return his attention to his shameful video game.

[shiromadoushi]

... oh hey. Video game.

Easily distracted, Bakura walked over, peeking over Hajime's shoulder, momentarily forgetting he was invisible.

"Heeeeeh, this game? I remember playing this!"

[chalicejoker]

Hajime had not been expecting that to happen, and he jumped, about fell off the couch, and scrambled to turn the game off. "What the hell, man?! I said I wasn't home!" Sort of.

[shiromadoushi]

...Whoops.

With an embarrassed laugh, Bakura stepped back, returning to visibility. "Aaa-- sorry, sorry! Forgot for a moment I was still..." he trailed off, utterly sheepish. "And your sister said you were home and faking being sick, so I knew something was up."

[chalicejoker]

"I wasn't faking...being..." Quick, quick, think of something...he gave a really pathetically done fake cough as he climbed back onto the couch. It was fooling no one, and he knew it. "Alright, so I just didn't feel like going into work. Is that a crime?"

[shiromadoushi]

"Hajime..." Bakura reached out, putting a hand on his friend's shoulder. "There's 'not feeling like going to work' and then there's what you pull. I'm not going to let you hide yourself away again. That doesn't help anyone...."

[chalicejoker]

Hajime flinched a little at the hand on his shoulder. "I keep going out of control...it's safer if I just stay here by myself."

[shiromadoushi]

"Why, because you can't fuck up?" The hand stayed put. "That won't fix anything. You'll still bug out, only no one will know because you'll have gone mental while holed up in here."

Bakura gently squeezed Hajime's shoulder. "Remember that thing we keep forgetting? We lean on each other."

[chalicejoker]

"And if I'm holed up in here, no one else can get hurt when that happens..." Even if it had only happened when he was around things the bug monster might have wanted to fight.

He sighed. "So much easier to be on the other end of this talk...did Lyall tell you what happened?"

[shiromadoushi]

"No. I didn't ask him. Just what you told me is all I know," Bakura pointed out. "I'm not that much of a dickhead to go around finding out that kinda thing, you know that."

[chalicejoker]

"Yeah, but..." He trailed off in a sigh. "I lost it again this weekend. Lost it bad. Bad enough to let loose two werewolves just because the bug wanted a fight."

[shiromadoushi]

"Which is why you need back up," Bakura pointed out, patting Hajime's shoulder before letting his hand fall to his side. "Someone to stop you when you start bugging out."

[professorwolf]

"Don't be ridiculous." Lyall stepped inside, looking around with some disapproval at the mess. "You're still my friend. And if you can get past this desire to fight with werewolves, you're still my claviger. And likely the only one who can fight me to a standstill." He paused to sniff, and wrinkled his nose. "Have you even had a shower since Monday, Hajime?"

[chalicejoker]

"I don't know if the bug can be stopped." He gave a heavy sigh. "I think I settled down there at the end, somehow got another card back...but still. It shouldn't have happened. I should have expected that somehow..."

[shiromadoushi]

"It can be." Bakura's voice was firm. "Because you're still you. And if it couldn't be stopped, you would have made a much bigger mess than you did."

[chalicejoker]

"Even after what I did?" Hajime seemed grateful to hear that, even if he was still pretty worked up over what he'd done. "I did calm down some near the end. I...kind of have another form I can fight in. It's not perfect, but I don't think it gets set off at werewolves as badly...but still, you'd want to take that chance?"

That question at the end caught Hajime off guard. "Uh..." That he was hesitating so much at answering that question was probably a bad sign. "I'm...I haven't really been doing much besides sleeping and watching TV..."