open • a catchall

[coolerjunpei]

Who: Junpei and ✨You✨
Where: Obon and also anywhere you want.
What: Junpei Goes to the Festival / Junpei Gets Glitched
Warnings: just his usual cringe

see below. feel free to fling your own starter or hmu to ask for one!

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[coolerjunpei]

[See, this is why his old man expertise is needed. Two whole pipe wrenches, alright, that seems like a lot, but he'll add it to the list with only a little vague mumbling about it.

—And maybe he expected Charles to open the door, but why should he, he thinks as he shoulders it open himself, still looking at the notebook. Charles is off to pick up the box - Mr. Woollie, god, this place is a cartoon - and Tenmyouji loiters by the door.

Well, he means to loiter, but he's talking to a waitress when Charles comes back with the box, and she's in the middle of telling him:] No, we still haven't seen anyone who looks like your boy, Mr. Tenmyouji, but we'll keep asking!

[To which he says with a sigh,] Thanks, [and then, as he turns to see Charles right there,] Oh.

[Uhhhhhhhh—] You ready to go?

[incorrigibles]

[ they're different size pipe wrenches, okay, they're both necessary! maybe. probably. it's a possibility anyway —

the box, as it happens, makes a quite nice, solid thud when charles just drops it on the floor out of sheer surprise. it might be the sound of it, actually, that makes his presence known; he doesn't really manage an answer to the question, seeing how he's currently frozen in place, mouth half-open, eyes wide.

eventually, he manages, ] I knew I'd seen the handwriting before.

[ and then, because the instinct to infuse humour into any situation where he feels out of his depth is so deep-seated it might as well be embedded in his soul, ] Your penmanship still sucks.

[ it's saying that out loud that finally seems to shake him out of his shock; but instead of asking the obvious question — why didn't you say anything — charles just smiles, quiet and sincere. ] You know you could've told me, yeah?

[ it's not an admonishment; the words are a fact stated aloud, less of an accusation and more of a reassurance. ]

[coolerjunpei]

Oh, for— Can we not do this right here?

[This waitress is giving them such looks, please, he's too old to do whatever this is with an audience. To that end he moves to press the notebook against Charles' chest, take this, thanks, while he stoops to get the box himself. Look, now his old bones are in need of getting out of here real quick, come on...

Because he doesn't have much of a reason for not saying anything other than this exact reaction, making it a whole thing, and it doesn't have to be a whole thing. He's either cooking up an explanation that isn't stupid or just annoyed at doors as he shoulders it open again, grumbling at it.

Come on!! He doesn't know where this box is going, or he'd be marching off already.

So...] ...Couldn't have. Didn't want you to make that face you're making right now.

[incorrigibles]

[ he takes the notebook as if on autopilot, tucking it back into his jacket pocket, and then follows along, though this time he steps in to actually help push the door open, using his height to his advantage and reaching the upper part of the door, holding it open before following after, letting the door swing shut behind them.

the comment makes him frown before trying to stop his face from doing whatever it is that it's doing, saying an automatic, ] Sorry.

[ he sighs, starting to direct them towards his flat. ]

I get it, okay, and you've got no obligation to tell me shit. But did it not cross your mind I — that I might wanna know? That you... [ he pauses, searches for the right words, ] Whatever history you're from, that you lived?

[ don't mind the way his voice wobbles, there, right at the end — he's not really vocalised this thought ever before, hasn't seen the need, but... god, based on all the fucking murder games and what he now knows of quantum leaping, how could he not be deathly afraid for him? that maybe, just maybe, he's not safe. that one time he's not going to leap away in time, or him from another timeline will do it instead and get him stuck somewhere else where he'll die, and he'll never make it out of his twenties, and —

yeah. well. ]

[coolerjunpei]

[See, this is what he's talking about, how is he supposed to handle Charles threatening to cry, he's too old—]

You know what history I'm from, [he says without looking at him; he did talk about the literal apocalypse earlier, in his defense. Not that that connects every dot, he knows, but give him some credit for saying some things.

Moreover he doesn't know how to say that his history absolutely isn't the one his younger self is on track to, based on what fuzzy memories this place has muddled in with his own. Charles is worried about him dying - more than usual, anyway - so "no, technically different" probably won't go over well.

To say nothing of the fact that another murder game happened 45 years after the ones Charles knows about... Honestly, Tenmyouji thinks, he was right to say nothing and he deserves more credit for sparing Charles the worst details. He sighs.]

You figured it out eventually. [nope that's not the point, never mind, don't get on him for this—] Sorry. Figured it'd be worse to know everything.

[incorrigibles]

Yeah, [ he says, ] I know. But I meant... well, might not be the same one, yeah?

[ if he's got the whole thing even remotely right — then... it's the same kind of a thing as it was with scott, where the future him that charles had met hadn't necessarily been his future, just a scott instead of this scott.

he waves his hand, then, ] You don't have to confirm or deny anything. I meant it when I said you don't owe me any explanations. It's your life, just... [ a pause, and he smiles, looking maybe two seconds away from crying, but, you know, it's fine. ] Regardless of all the shit you told me about, the apocalypse, whatnot... bloody hell, I'm glad you're alive.

[ he pauses again, and adds like he can't help it, ] You really think it'd be worse? That I wouldn't want to know whatever it is that you might have to say? Hell, I don't care. Whether it's a version of you who remembers me or one that doesn't, whether you're twenty-three or in your sixties or, I dunno, show up here when you're five, I'm not gonna care about you any less.

[coolerjunpei]

[Tenmyouji shrugs and looks away, expression somber. He's been keeping the awful details to himself for so long - so that Clover wouldn't panic trapped in another awful game, so that Quark could have a decent childhood after the end of the world - that he simply doesn't think of things the way Charles is presenting them now. Now he doesn't know what to say at all; other than the obvious, he's laid out the most important things: he has Quark and they're okay. Everything else would probably be worse...

Man. This guy.]

It's not the same history.

[He's about 99.9% sure, anyway; odds are good.]

I know who you are, because of... [with a finger-wiggling gesture next to his own head,] shifter stuff. But that's all.

[Shifter stuff problem #45848: where is the younger Junpei right now, uh oh, can't think about how that works—]

That other stuff... You should tell him that, not me.

[incorrigibles]

[ he can't help but exhale in relief at that confirmation, and then promptly feels terrible for being relieved — really, all he wants is for junpei to be happy, and not being headed towards the end of the world seems pretty significant for that... and yet, he hates the fact there's a version of him who has already lived through that.

with a sigh, charles shakes his head. ]

I'd think he knows. [ he must, right? there's no way he doesn't. and besides — ]

I know you're not — [ my junpei, he very nearly says, before he trips over the words in his own mind, shoving the confusing myriad of feelings they evoke in him aside with practiced ease, ] — him, but... that don't mean I don't care about you, too, yeah? And that's not what I need to tell him, but you.

[ because, if he's been through an apocalypse already, if he's raising a kid alone as it sounds like, based on his genuine distress over having left quark alone in his world... then, has he had anyone express this kind of concern over him, in the past however-many years? and damn if charles doesn't want to be wrong about this, quite badly so, but if he's not... ]

I know it makes no difference, not really. Won't change what's happened, and maybe you've never actually met me before today... but you matter to me.