text, un: Shouto

[numbertwohero]

Question for the network. How do you celebrate birthdays here? Do you mark it based on the days back home, or the date here? I guess I'm trying to figure out how I should count.

Also, if anyone has any good names for cats, I guess I'm open to suggestions. She's a girl, if that helps.

[Attached to the message is what's clearly a mirror selfie.]

Comments

[numbertwohero]

It sounds like you miss him. I'm sorry

And yeah

I mean... I'm not doing that kind of thing with anyone. Hugs or holding hands is fine. I don't really think I'm close enough to anyone here to really be thinking about more than that. And I'm either 16 or 16.5 so...

[So that's a whole mood right there. Look before he got here he hadn't even held hands with anyone? It's been an education, and he's perfectly fine with not being a fast learner in this case.]

[inuko]

I do. But that's natural, I think. We all have ones we miss, here or back home.

Yeah, is age of majority for you 20 too? I'm only 18 myself, but by 16 you're already outside of being considered a kid anymore. So there's that much at least. Anyway, being involved with people in a more... involved way like that, if it happens, it happens, if it doesn't, it doesn't. All the important stuff is in those bonds you're making here. Which, uh, you are making friends?

Apologies for lateness!

[numbertwohero]

Yeah. In my Japan most things are 20, although heroes get provisional licenses at 16, and can sign with an agency at 18 after finishing school. So I guess some things are different from other worlds

I am. It helps that a few of my classmates are here, too. Is there anyone from your world here?

sobs and laughs, right back atcha

[inuko]

Heroes? Like from the old stories or something?

No. There hasn't been anyone, before or after I showed up.

[numbertwohero]

Not so old for us, but I guess the word probably has the same meaning, yeah. It's a legitimate job where I'm from. Heroes help protect civilians, subdue villains, perform search-and-rescue ops after accidents and natural disasters--it's a pretty big job no matter what field you go into.

I'm sorry. It's hard being alone, sometimes. Especially if you aren't used to it. Or even if you are.

[inuko]

Do people really get used to loneliness?

[ he said alone, shino, not lonely ]

[numbertwohero]

If you're alone long enough, or don't know there's any other way to be. Or at least you tell yourself you're used to it.

[Says Shouto, who maybe knows more about the subject than any 16-year-old should.]

[inuko]

I don't think I can live on that way. It's not that I am right now, I've made friends here, but being alone like that... I don't think I'd stay okay.

[ he's pretty sure he'd just... let murasame take over. and at that point, what aout him would be human, or perhaps even alive? ]

[numbertwohero]

I don't think I was okay. Not really. It's not the kind of life I want to go back to. It's better, having friends.

I'm glad you have people here. It's important. And not just because of chroma.

[inuko]

... Sounds like a shitty thing to have to grow up with. Which is what I'm assuming, if you're sixteen now. I mean, I didn't grow up with a lot of people around, but I wasn't healthy enough, and every time I did end up around the other kids I tended to get in trouble or end up sick again... but I had my dog, and my brother, and eventually my sister. My dad for a long time, too, but he died in the fire that took out the village.

[numbertwohero]

I didn't really realize until pretty recently. It was just the way things were. I didn't even really start getting to know my siblings well until just before I got here.

I'm sorry about your dad. And your village. Fire isn't a joke.

[He may have noticed the burn scar covering a solid quarter of Shouto's face if he looked at that attached photo.]

[inuko]

You don't know what you don't know until you realise there's something else out there. I'm glad you've had any chance to start knowing them well. Much better to start late than to be too late.

Mm, it's a bit misleading of me to say the fire killed him... he was dead by the time the fire consumed the village, but... I can't say I remember much about that time. It's all a haze, even before I was attacked,

[numbertwohero]

Basically.

I'm sorry. About all of that. It sounds like you didn't really have an easy time as a kid, either.

[inuko]

We don't choose our childhoods. We choose what we do after, when we learn it's not the only way.

[numbertwohero]

You're right. And I want to choose a better way.

You know...I've got friends here, but it's always nice to have more. I'm Shouto.

[inuko]

I'm Shino. Glad to have another friend too, Shouto.