noasark | Ryslig IC INBOX

It's the truth after all.

The goal of talking about this isn't to forgive past crimes it's to make coexisting in the same vicinity more tolerable.

Shot in the dark but I suspect you don't enjoy being angry simply because he's there.

The goal in other words is peace. For you. At best this will probably mean being indifferent to him being here at all.

I don't like being angry at anything. It's not the way I am, it's honestly so tiring to be upset, but there's so much to be upset about around here.

I've tried to coexist peacefully though. I promise...we've spoken sharply, but I had never attacked or threatened him before

[Wait. No. No no no.]

I mean, I didn't do it on purpose I would never try to hurt someone on purpose he just made me so angry and I couldn't take it anymore he doesn't take anything I say as mattering or serious I really didn't want to but it just happened

[Nodding, nodding, sounds g-

hey back up a sec]

I was about to say 'exactly', but then we managed to take a pretty incredible detour.

Good news is coexistence doesn't mean regularily interacting.

Bad news, I think we might have to talk about that entire bottom bit.

I already know what I did was wrong. I didn't want to discuss it, why the hell I mentioned it is beyond me.

[The short answer is: nerves. Being validated is cool but also Ryou's been nervous this whole conversation, which had now come to a head, given his mild cursing. He should have just bid Noa a good night after thanking him for his understanding. But no. Gotta dig that hole.]

I don't want you to think I really am a mindless creature.

No, that is precisely why it needs to be talked about.

Because while those thoughts are not mine, the fact that you think they would be tells me they might be yours.

Which is for a fair number of reasons bad.

[Noa you need to quit activating the logic card. Ryou hates it, because the young Kaiba is right, and it hurts hearing it said back to him.

What choice does he even have...?]

Fine. You want to know what I did, right?

We met at the museum and he asked me why I even bothered to meet him at all. When I told him I was trying to pay back a kindness, he didn't believe me, I suppose, or it wasn't a good enough reason. He wouldn't listen and he kept calling me landlord.

I tried to tell him not to do that. I'm not his 'landlord' and I don't want to argue. But he seems to like arguing. It wasn't a good time for arguing for me, but he doesn't get it. Whether he meant to or not he pushed it too far, and I just

[There's a large, uncomfortable pause.]

He kept going in circles, trying to tell me why I was doing things, why I felt the way I do...and I couldn't take it. I attacked him. I wrapped him up in my shadows and told him terrible things that I wish I could take back because it isn't the way I am.

Noa I threatened to take his soul from his body and he just laughed about it and egged me on.

I couldn't take it. I let him go and I left and of course he almost called my name he probably thinks I didn't hear him. But I left.

My first query- is the 'landlord' matter some sort of hold over from prior interactions, I take? [Come to think, the Ring Spirit didn't actually explain much of that. Hm.]

The first point you should perhaps take from this then is that you didn't- that, you need to keep in mind. You're focusing on what you did.

Try to focus on what you didn't do, in this situation.

Regarding the latter bit- Given the 'landlord' matter I take it he never used your name before?

[Of course the Ring-Spirit didn't explain much of that, why would he?

Aside from that, Ryou finds that Noa's levelheadedness contrasts with his anxiety pretty starkly. It's...not a bad thing. One of them has to be less emotional.]

He calls me "landlord" because he used to reside in the Millennium Ring, and I was the bearer. He possessed me, and the whole landlord thing began because he swore that stealing the souls of my friends and putting them in Monster World figures was him "paying rent" for use of my body.

Even if I didn't want to be possessed, that never really mattered. I'm not sure whether to be surprised this never came up or not.

[Maybe it was the Ring-Spirit trying to save face? He can't be sure. Said spirit was very capricious.]

I know that I didn't do the worst thing in that situation, but the fact that it escalated makes me wonder if him living in my head had an effect on who I am as a person. So...it's hard not to focus on it.

Ah, a habit then.

And I suspect a rather twisted sense of gratitude; keep my words in mind when I remind you that you owe him nothing, and are not expected to feel pity for him when I tell you this, but let's put a few pieces together.

We have someone who isn't operating on human logic. We have someone who therefore isn't following that logic when it comes to anyone's desires, his, yours, so on so on. In other words, he very likely did assume he was doing something of worth if you consider what he himself determines to be 'good'.

[And well, shot in the dark, but the guy who has half his head overtaken by 'heck yeah, souls, for me, to eat' Probably thinks that stealing souls for a buddy really IS positive attitude! It's how he's piecing this all out anyway.]

Which is definitely where confusion will come in. For that matter, on your end, since it obviously Wasn't a good thing well of course it's going to have had an effect on you. Specifically a traumatic one. Just the word, used as a name, would likely trigger a negative response.

I understand that you're trying to make it make sense. I appreciate that you're going through the effort to talk about this and listen to me Noa. I need you to know how much I appreciate that.

But I told him something that day that I am going to repeat here, and that is that what he thinks, and what actually is, are not the same. I spent years with him in my life. I can show you the scars I've obtained. The friends I've lost. The bonds that have wavered.

I don't...think I care if he's confused anymore. I tried, okay? I really tried. What if I don't want to try anymore? Maybe...not ever?

[Is he bad? Was he just trying to protect himself here? What's right? Noa is trying to rationalize the Ring-Spirit's decisions and Ryou only finds himself frustrated with the thought, because he doesn't want it rationalized. He wants it to stop being a problem.]

And you'll recall I said as much. You shouldn't be expected to try. You shouldn't be expected to care.

What explanation offers is closure to an understanding, and that is all. Something to keep the ever nagging sense of 'why' and 'how dare' from following when you just want to not think about it at all. Understanding why something happened doesn't add a righteousness (frankly it lessens it), it closes the book.

Of course if working through that makes it worse it's pointless. It's simply the angle ~~I used for mys~~

It's simply an angle.

I don't think it's possible to close the book though. Not really. Not while we still live on the same peninsula. I ended up going to a house party where he lives, and that wasn't even on purpose. I just didn't know he lived there.

[Ryou almost writes more but then...wait.]

I'm sorry, the angle you used for yourself? Do you have some kind of experience with things like this?

[Not to flip the situation or anything but you can't just almost say that and pretend you didn't. The network's a little too janky to allow for such mistakes to go unnoticed.]

[EUGGGGH]

Tch, here I thought I'd fixed that issue with the delete key...

First of all, the problem is that unless you can give yourself some closure on this, you are going to damn yourself to nothing but bitter, resentful stress for the entire time that he's here. I suspect you would like to at least go to the corner store without having those sorts of thoughts nagging at your mind. And to be clear this isn't 'and then you won't be upset if you end up at the same house party'. Frankly in your shoes I would be plenty upset as well. It's more about not becoming so entangled in the emotion that you can't even enjoy some of that party, or anything else in this place.

To keep my end of it short, I am Gozaburo Kaiba's biological son, deceased prior the adoption of the brothers; if you can imagine the environment that would have created Seto, perhaps you can take a guess at what I needed to reconcile against. Not that we were treated the same by any means, but acknowledging that it was the same person who acted a certain way between us took some time.

[Ok ok ok. This is a lot.

But.

Ryou wasn't present for like. Most of any Kaiba backstory, never mind Noa's. So he's still a little hazy on all this.]

I'm afraid I don't know half as much about Seto as I'd like. But he seems like he had a stressful childhood.

[Ryou doesn't need a high perception roll for that. Kaiba literally oozes overcompensation.]

I'm guessing that your father was not the best? We don't have to discuss it if you don't want to though, I was just wondering about the whole...relevance.

[Noa is free to discuss but he is also free not to discuss. So in a show of general good faith, Ryou goes back to the subject that is definitely not what he wants to talk about.]

Also you're right. I'd like to do normal things without being upset he's there. Kind of wish that he wasn't upsetting though. It'd make things easier but that's wishful thinking, and we can go in circles with that all night.

Mmm. That puts it lightly but yes.

I'll keep it vague- it...isn't something to talk about lightly. To my father in life, I was the perfect son; I listened, I learned, I enjoyed learning more importantly, and for that matter looked forward to inheriting what was his.

Namely the largest arms company in Japan.

Seto was adopted after my death. Seto, who looked identical to myself.

Seto, who for that matter not only did not measure immediately to the standards I had followed, but did not want to go into war-mongering.

I'll leave the rest there to your imagination, but frankly while I knew one kind of man, Gozaburo Kaiba was the sort to sell weapons to both sides no matter the battle taking place. So he wasn't good, no.

I just failed to realize that for a very long time.

[That aside.]

It's good to wish that he wasn't 'upsetting' to you, but, aside from the fact that the consequences of his actions are unavoidable, it wouldn't help you to set that as a goal- so, we need to focus on coping with his existence in general.

[Ryou takes a little time to process that all. He's never been the one to know much about the Kaiba family, and it's weird to think that there's a person who looks almost identical to you in the world, except that their hair is a different color, perhaps.

You know.

Unless you're Ryou, who has an identical twin with wild eyes and gravity-defying hair living on a cursed peninsula with him. The only thing that makes them different is their species at this point, and Ryou would have almost preferred being a harpy to being a shade.

...But thinking about that is probably rude. Noa's sharing information with him. He should respond to it, right?

What does he even say...?]

That's pretty bad.

[Fuck.]

I mean, about your father. I wish I had something better than that to say, but...it's not my place, really.

[Mostly he's unsure what to say to that, and also he's avoiding the topic of the Ring-Spirit. Not because Noa's wrong just because...that's something he isn't sure how to respond to either. Because Noa's making sense.]

There doesn't have to be anything to say. I'm about as 'over it' as I can be, and ultimately we weren't talking to deal with my problems.

We're here for yours, which are frankly more immediate anyway.

Say something, if what I'm saying isn't helping though. I'd rather take some time to research a better way, than push something that makes things worse.

It's helping, but

I don't know how to explain this. I don't feel sorry for him anymore. He's wrong, and I don't want to give him the time of day anymore.

But I know that eventually I won't be able to stop myself backtracking into that behavior, because I don't want to be angry and resentful, like you said, and I think my response to that is simply to try accepting things over and over.

[There's a pause here, because he's ruminating over what he is going to divulge to Noa here.]

You aren't going to talk about this to anyone else, right?

[He has to ask. It's more for his assurance than anything else. He's put so much of his trust into everyone, including the Ring-Spirit...and that continues to not work out, over and over, because everything feels as if it's geared towards hurting him, and maybe...maybe that's just the whole malevolence of the Ring itself, given sentient form. He's not sure...

But if Noa's listening, he may as well confirm.]

You're not used to having a third option of indifference.

That's understandable, actually.

And obviously not, I might not be a trained professional but I know better than that. Anything this personal stays between us.

[He does mean that, actually- on the personal matters. Honestly he probably won't even mention that he's having these talks at all. Better to leave the Ring Spirit in the dark on that, he thinks.]

I'm sorry, I know it's a rude question to ask. But thank you for telling me that anyway.

It's difficult to talk about some things regarding my relationship with the Ring. Indifference is very difficult when someone's been in your head for years, and when they committed a murder in your body while you were...

I think I was...twelve.

I struggle with that memory. It was never something I wanted to remember, so I told a different story for a long time, but I think it was more than that. I think I simply pushed it away until it wasn't real anymore. I think that anyone would want to forget killing someone, right?

That's not the point though, the point I wanted to make is that the spirit has a habit of rationalizing his behaviors, and becoming frustrated when you don't understand them. Or...he's told me things with, shall we say, explicit motivations.

[So basically what he was beating around the bush to say was that the Ring-Spirit was an adept manipulator, of him especially, and that he was afraid to continue extending an olive branch to someone like that. But at the same time...Ryou wouldn't feel right staying away entirely. Because he'd spent so many years with that presence in his head, to the point that he, like Yugi, felt attached.

It's hard. This is hard. He's mad and will stay mad and probably if they talk again, Ryou will still always be a sarcastic jerk to the Ring-Spirit. But not talking has had an effect. Noa wants him to have closure? But he can't.]

You're traumatized.

There's baggage and you're traumatized. And I'm not surprised that's the case- if you've ever argued with the Fog, you'll find the mental path is the same. It doesn't justify it, but at the very least there's a beacon of hope that now that he's sorely human he'll figure out that he needs to stop rationalizing certain behaviors.

More to the point of what's important though- of course they would. Especially at that age.

...

Ugh, I wish we had a proper therapist here.

I've never actually gone to a therapist.

Actually I've never spoken to anyone about this really, and I wouldn't have known about it if not for Aigami showing it to me. I pushed it away pretty completely, but...

Demons have a way of crawling out of the closet, I suppose.

[He's...not sure how to respond to the assertion that he's traumatized. It doesn't feel as if that term is for him. As many times as he'd reclaimed the Ring, for whatever foolish reason...did he deserve to feel as if he was "traumatized" at all?]

But traumatized is a bit too strong a term for it, don't you think?

Likewise. Honestly I have no idea how a therapist in your world would have taken it. Professionalism would say 'seriously', but bad therapists still exist.

[.......................

ryou,]

I'll pose a short question to answer yours. If anyone else described to you, the things the spirit did to you, in full, and explained they had troubles with their emotions and so on, so forth, regarding the topic of said spirit, would you say they weren't?

I

I guess that's true.

[Noa stop being right.]

Exactly.

In any case, eventually this will...hopefully be something you can resolve. At the very least I'll do what I can on my end I suppose.

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softspokenlandlord - 2021-06-08 06:45 (UTC) - Expand

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noasark - 2021-06-10 13:32 (UTC) - Expand

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