I want to break free, but will they break me?

[amajin]

Who: Jin + Yoko Aznable; Beet J. Stag.
When: April 12th, Evening
Where: The Aznable Home
What: Jin's finally echoed back his 14 years of imprisonment in hyperspace, and the reason why his body is still so young. It explains a lot, but it's not a pleasant explanation.



It took him the better part of a day to even comprehend what the echo really meant. Darkly, in the deep well of his heart, he understood immediately. But his brain was full of denial, as always. The denial heaped upon the denial that his past self had, and he managed to function for a few days after the echo without any real trouble. He just ignored it.

But for the first time since the alien trio's broadcast, he's not busy. His higher-ups had told him to stop staying late for work to deal with their charitable work in the aftermath of the Wise Snake battle. So he went home, and he'd just been... sitting there.

"Jin," murmurs his phone. He switched the J app to auto after he found out J had numbers all of a sudden, and was complaining to the network about how lonely he was. "Jin, you have not moved for several minutes. Are you ill, Jin?"

"Go away, J," he says. "I just... I'm fine."

"No you are not."

He groans. "I gotta tell Yoko."

"I can tell her, tell me what to say."

"NO. No. This is the kind of thing I've got to tell her, I mean. Look, I'm just going to... sit here and think until she gets home, all right? Don't... don't get too weirded out. I'm thinking." He sighs and leans wearily forward onto the kitchen table.

J chitters quietly in thought. "Very well," he says, and then lapses into silence.

Comments

are you a monster? signs point to yes.

[sucrosity]

Yoko is - pleasantly surprised, to see her father's car parked in the driveway when she pulls up to the house on her bike. He's been away for what feels like ever between his hospital stay and his half-manic work schedule after he got out. She pulls into the garage, resisting the urge to ask J if something had happened (she doesn't want a robot's AI to fill in between them, not when things are already so weird), and lets herself in through the side garage door into the kitchen.

"I'm home," she calls, peeling her backpack off of one shoulder and digging distractedly through the front pocket for a packet of crackers.

"Dad?" she repeats, as she approaches. This feels like the mood that surrounded her mother announcing she was visiting - only her mom never called him first.