IC Inbox

[midnightmaiden]

Hi! This is Kasumi Yoshizawa. It looks like you just missed me, but feel free to leave a message, and I'll get back to it as soon as possible!

[ooc: IC inbox for P4kechi AU Sumi at personavelvetroomdr.]

Comments

[midnightmaiden]

But why would he tamper with my awakening? It's one thing if I ask for help, but he's never forced his powers on me the way he has with the targets from Shido.

And he's only changed them because he had to.

[shakenit]

What if the parts you can't remember distressed you so much he thought he had to, to make it less fraught? Gods know the accident is painful enough to recall. [And was even when Sumire was deep in Dr. Maruki's fog, even if half the time his meddling rerouted her thoughts to 'no one misses Sumire anyway.']

He means well, maybe better than anyone I've ever met. If he already felt guilty about putting you in danger or something, I could definitely see him trying to help ease the burden. But meaning well doesn't mean he always has good results.

[midnightmaiden]

...

But if that's the case, is there really a problem? I still have Cendrillon. I can still fight.

[shakenit]

You can, yes. [For now, anyway, until her Palace really kicks in properly.]

But not being able to trust your own memories is a pretty big problem, and sooner or later it's likely to cause you trouble. It certainly did for me.

[midnightmaiden]

[Hm.

Midnight isn't sure she likes the implications here, but...]

How so?

[shakenit]

I didn't think my life was worth living unless I could be my sister. Dr. Maruki took me at my word.

I ended up with a Palace about it. It's gone now, but only because I made friends who noticed something was wrong and helped me work through it. But even before that, I could tell something was wrong. The final straw was my sister's friends snapping at me for continuing to act like everything was 'normal,' when in reality I was the only one who couldn't see what was wrong.

[midnightmaiden]

You had... a Palace?

[Why? Why is her head spinning? It's not like she has a Palace! She's fine. She's perfectly fine. Nothing is wrong.]

That sounds

[Friends...? Have her friends acted more distant lately? Maybe, but...]

I'm sorry.

[shakenit]

I did.

[midnightmaiden]

That must have been

[Her head's spinning. Why is her head spinning?]

difficult.

[shakenit]

It was. Even knowing something was wrong couldn't have prepared me for the actual depth of the problem, and I'm still working on

Futaba-senpai calls it the Survive To The Next Day Challenge.

But I'm glad I let them help me tackle it. They actually reached a point where they couldn't continue without me going along. Even my own Shadow wanted to help me. That's when I ended up awakening.

...Have people been giving you a lot of grief about things? Because if my friends had taken that approach, I probably would have tried to double down on the wrong idea. And

Whatever the circumstances were, you still lost your sister. And... I couldn't see my sister missing me at all and that factored into how Dr. Maruki's influence made me act, but even then I convinced myself that using 'my sister's' busted phone was some kind of twisted memorial, so - I don't know, maybe she would have. And I certainly won't try to say you don't miss your sister.

That would be a lot to cope with even without all the other stuff you've been pulled into.

[midnightmaiden]

Everyone acts like they know me better than me. They're so

pushy.

The only ones who really respect me are Dove-san and Sparrow-san.

And... it was difficult to cope with, but Dr. Maruki helped me through it. No one seems to understand that.

cw: suicide discussion

[shakenit]

[...The only people who take her at her word that she is Kasumi have also been badly scrambled. That doesn't surprise Sumire, but it is going to make dealing with all of this much more difficult.]

He may have helped, but that doesn't and shouldn't mean you're completely over everything. That's not how it works. Futaba-senpai made a point of telling me that I would still have bad days, even after dealing with my Palace. And even when I couldn't see things clearly and thought I was over everything, the grief and depression were still there. They'd pop up in my head and I couldn't understand why I was having those thoughts.

I can't even say Dr. Maruki didn't help me. I was 'go out and buy the pills' away from another attempt, so his interference kept me alive long enough that I could choose to live. And now I have to figure out how to actually do that, but that's another story.

Even though he helped me, my head was still really messed up.

[midnightmaiden]

[A splitting headache overtakes her.

She leaves Violet on read for quite some time, truthfully.

Just reading the message is dizzying. It's too much. It's too much.

All she can really say is:]

I'm not messed up.

I'm fine.

[shakenit]

[Suuuuuuure she is.

The good news is that Sumire knows better than to fire back with 'no you're not.' The bad news is she's not really sure what to say instead.]

Do you have someone here that you can talk to if you do have a bad day? ['Someone who's not Dr. Maruki' is heavily implied.]

I'd offer, but I really don't think that would do either of us a bit of good at the moment, given the circumstances.