MCM: Ran and Hikaru talk post-Woodsman

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	It should come as no surprise to anyone that Ran and Hikaru live together, in a run-of-the-mill apartment cluttered with a thousand cute little things Hikaru has brought home on impulse. A sculpted badger watches over the kitchen bench as Hikaru cuts up an onion, his eyes watering because onions are traitors.

	He hears the water boiling, and turns, stepping over to stove. It's not a long trip - the kitchen's kinda small, and probably couldn't fit more than two people comfortably. Good thing they're just two people! "Ran," he calls out as he stirs daishi powder into the water, "can you slice the carrots, thin as you can manage?" He turns down the heat, putting a lid on the saucepan.

	As he turns his attention to another pan, where he heats up some oil, he frowns to himself. "The weirdest thing happened to me today. You know that teacher, Girard? So we were talking, right, and he gets to asking me about why his puppy's tearing up the couch constantly. 'Why would I know anything about dogs?' I ask him. 'You're a psychiatrist, you studied how people work, dogs can't be that different!'" Hikaru, there, effects a surprisingly accurate rendition of Girard's voice. "And I'm just like, whoa, buddy, /first off/ that's not even what I am, and second, there are /several/ differences between people and dogs..."

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=====================<* [LOG: 4704] Ran Itoh has posed  *>======================

	Ran's at the little dinette table jammed into a corner of the living room, reading in a pair of pink pajamas that are painfully adorable to look at. Hikaru is, naturally, immune. "That's 'julienned', right?" she asks, putting down her magazine and washing her hands at the sink. She picks a knife from the block, a wide-bladed santoku, and finds a spot at the counter next to him. It's comfortable to work like this, even elbow-to-elbow, and Ran may not be a surgeon but she's good with a knife anyway. Shuck-shuck-shuck-shuck, go the carrots. "Girard... I think I know him," she muses, paging through her memory for which teacher it is this time.

	She makes steady work of the carrots, showing him a small pile of matchstick slivers. "Like this?" She's pretty sure you can make them thinner, but...!

	"What are you making tonight, anyway?" She'll eat it and like it, regardless, but a girl can be curious!
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	"Yup!" Hikaru chirps affirmatively, as he swirls the oil in the saucepan. As Ran muses about the teacher, he supplies, helpfully: "Kinda portly, goatee, probably somewhere in his forties, always eating cheese in the break room?" Because of course Hikaru notices the sort of snacks people eat.

	When Ran shows him the slivered carrots, Hikaru grins. "Yeah, that's great. Okay, and this is about heated, so..." He moves over to collect the carrots, alongside the onions and some potatos he'd chopped up earlier. He slips them carefully into the saucepan, and begins to stir. "/Tonight/," he declares, theatrically, though it's all in his voice because his hands are occupied right now, but surely Ran can /imagine/ the grand gestures he'd make. "Tonight, we're having curry udon!"

	He stirs the vegetables, waiting for them to soften. "Oh, by the way, I picked up a bunch of chocolate bars for the kids tomorrow night. Don't eat them all before we get to hand them out, okay?" He teases her, smiling. Obviously someone's accidentally muted the skype chat! Hikaru is not very good with computer.

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=====================<* [LOG: 4704] Ran Itoh has posed  *>======================

	"Ohhhhh, the cheese guy!" Ran isn't known for her attention to detail, but sometimes people have weird little habits that just... stick out. Like eating cheese all the time. It's a miracle that Girard doesn't walk around in a cloud of cheddar-smell!! She moves aside, wiping the blade of her knife clean with a kitchen towel before putting it back.

	She can see your hands twitching, Hikaru! She knows you're making grand gestures in your head! /She's seen you practice them!/

	And she'll never tell anybody, because Hikaru Kurosawa is the sort of man that makes curry udon for himself and his roommate and buys chocolate for trick or treaters. "Shouldn't I be telling you that? How many have you eaten already?" she ribs him gently, smiling. The scent of cooking vegetables fills the apartment fairly quickly, and Ran makes sure that bowls and serving things are set out and ready, and that the table is cleared of reading material and paperwork. They share chores according to their strengths, which is why Ran doesn't cook and Hikaru doesn't pay bills.

	"Hey, did you hear? The doctors in Yuna-san's world were able to reattach Janine's arm, and August was discharged. Thank goodness," the blonde sighs quietly. "I'm so glad that she was able to get them moved so quickly. I just couldn't keep up with that much damage..." She'd tried. She'd summoned, and summoned, and summoned, and her hands were red and her pendant was red and her clothes were red, red, red...
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==================<* [LOG: 4704] Hikaru Kurosawa has posed  *>==================

	"Only one! I'm practically guiltless!" Hikaru shoots back with an indignant huff, because he's already in theatrics mode and nothing can stop him now. He's smiling, though. Once the vegetables are properly softens, he transfers the simmering daishi stock to the other pan, pouring it over the vegetables carefully. He brings the heat down to a simmer, leaving it for a moment.

	"Thank god," Hikaru echoes Ran in agreement as he listens to her news, his voice toning down from its previous joviality now they're talking about something serious. And then he hears the subtle change in her voice, and his brow creases, and he turns to put a hand on her shoulder, rubbing at the fabric of her pyjamas with his thumb. "Ne, Ran, you were fucking stellar! Everyone came home alive, and it was because you acted to save them. You're the one always telling me the first five minutes are critical, right? Don't get lost in that head of yours." They probably both have to say that to each other, now and then. Behind them, the vegetables simmer.

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=====================<* [LOG: 4704] Ran Itoh has posed  *>======================

	Despite the memory, Ran's mouth quirks in a little half-smile. Hard to imagine that Hikaru Kurosawa would go from the boy she knew in school to, well... Hikaru Kurosawa, school psychologist and occasional drama llama. It's a nice change.

	"That's right," she nods instead, stifling a laugh. "Only one! Your restraint is an inspiration to us all~" It's thanks to experience and practice (and let's be real, cognitive behavioral therapy) that she can shake it off. "I know. I did everything I could, and it was enough to get them someplace safe. It's just," Ran shrugs a bit helplessly, careful not to dislodge his hand. "Even when I was doing my rounds at Sumaru General, we rarely got in anything even /close/ to that level of intensity. And these were kids I knew."

	She looks down at the clean kitchen linoleum (she'd scrubbed it after spending most of an evening lying there, bottle in hand) for a moment before looking up again, warm brown eyes clear. "I know. If it weren't for you and Fox Sister, too..." Ran tucks her lower lip between her teeth, suddenly reminded of something. "They keep asking, though. Have you decided what you're going to tell them?"
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	"It's a lot to take on," Hikaru sympathises. "It would have been traumatic even if you weren't the one who had to make sure they got to the hospital alive. You need to give yourself some time to process all this, Ran." Even though he knows it's a breach of several different ethics, he can't keep himself from therapisting at his best friend.

	But then she turns it around on him, and Hikaru frowns, patting her shoulder before he turns back to the stove /just because the cooking needs attention, and for no other reason/. He removes the saucepan from the heat and stirs in curry roux, soy sauce and sake. "... I don't know," he says, after a pause which is a little too long. "The Persona Game really cut to the heart of my shit, you know?" He puts the saucepan back on the heat, and puts it on to simmer, covering it.

	"I have no clue what to tell them," he confesses, after another pause, wherein he fills the other saucepan with water and sets it up to boil. "Hey, surprise, local quirky therapist has dark and troubled past? Actually needs therapy himself? No way. There's no way I'd be able to help anyone if they knew that. And that's even granting the Fox Sister's not just a straight-up sign I'm bad news," Hikaru's fingers twitch again, but for a much different reason this time, "and I'm not even sure I'm ready to grant that!"

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=====================<* [LOG: 4704] Ran Itoh has posed  *>======================

	That's the problem with being such close friends with someone. They know your problems and your secrets, so they know when to deflect - and with what. But Ran really is concerned; she'd never bring /that/ up just to spare herself some uncomfortable introspection. "I have to think that Fox Sister is what she is because of how you see yourself, not because of how you really are. You know more than anybody else how malleable reality is between others. How two people can say different things but be describing the same event. Perception."

	She leans back against the fridge and watches him work. He'd actually paid attention to her father's cooking lessons, while she had predictably dozed off or gotten distracted. "Besides, think about the story. She wanted to be human. I think that's the important part, not the whole 'eating her family' thing." Because Hikaru had wanted so very badly, still does, to be a 'normal person'. "You did what you had to do to survive. You never hurt anybody more than you had to. The proof of you being good is that you wanted so badly to /be/ good. ...Does that make sense?" she sighs, shoulders slumping a bit as she gives up on trying to Use Words Good.
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==================<* [LOG: 4704] Hikaru Kurosawa has posed  *>==================

	Hikaru shakes his head. "Sure, you can argue that's subjective, but the Persona Game sure seemed to cut down into an objective truth. I mean - she's a kumiho. I haven't told /anyone/ I'm Korean," he insists, "except for Hiltrude, I guess, but..." But as much as his therapist masterminding all this would be a sinister twist, he sincerely doubts it.

	Hikaru listens to Ran, frowning down at the pot of water as he waits for it to boil. "A monster who wants to fit in," he remarks, quietly. "Yeah, that's me." He shakes his head as the water finally boils, and he slips in the udon noodles, stirring them gently. "... sorry, Ran. I hear what you're saying, I just... god, it's fucking frustrating. I finally get to see the reflection of my soul, and she's - that? Of all stories, she had to be /that/ one? Makes me wonder if she was right," he barks out a bitter laugh, not bothering to specify who he's talking about. Ran knows.

	The noodles set up, Hikaru grabs the wok - there was always a wok, it's a vital piece of kitchen equipment - and heads up some oil, stir-frying strips of pork. "... but I guess you're right, really. I just hope they can see that. I mean... Ainsley did, I suppose, but... shit," he shakes his head again, finishing up the pork and adding it to the the curry mix. Hikaru laughs again, but it's laced with less vitriol this time, as he reaches over to grab one of the bowls and dish the curry up. "Anyway, dinner's ready, yeah? You know the rule, no angst at the dinner table. Let's... let's talk about this later, okay?"

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