Work Text:
46°: && Reason
When the conglomeration of many of her brother's friends—Neku, Shiki, Rindo, Fret, Nagi, Shoka—yelled happy birthday! the moment Rhyme walked through the door, she found herself smiling, her hand reaching up to touch her cheek in delight. When her brother swept her up into an embrace, she hugged him back just as tightly, nearly choking him for the force of her joy. When the party wound down and her brother's friends waved the Bito siblings good night, and Beat asked Rhyme if she'd wanted anything else for her birthday celebration, Rhyme smiled and earnestly told him that she couldn't possibly ask for anything more.
Good food, good threads, good friends. What more could she have asked for?
Beat had outdone himself with the curry, the fish as delicious and fatty as Rhyme liked it. She could tell he'd splurged out. Higher quality meat than they could really afford. Maybe Shiki, Neku, and the gang had finally convinced him to let them throw in a couple yen. Not in charity, they must have insisted, but as a present to Rhyme.
Nagi had shelled out for many meal vouchers from a variety of locations, mostly to Donburi Town and other seafood-meat-heavy restaurants. She had defended her gift, unprompted, by explaining that she had selected the neutrality and versatility of food, and Rhyme had taken the attempt at tact with the best of grace she could.
Fret had given her a stylish pair of jet-black jogging pants with pink trim. She recognised that he'd gone to have it dyed—and the MONOCROW label removed—at her favourite alterations shop, especially when the second half of the gift consisted of a gift card to said alterations place. HT knew his stuff. So did Fret.
Shoka had opted for what she'd called a care package. Just because she'd run out of freaking ideas, she had claimed, passing over the box full of socks, undergarments, tees, and new trainers. Shoka had apologised for getting Rhyme something so boring. Rhyme had caught her gaze: the knowing nature, the personal understanding. She'd never pried into Shoka's past and she wouldn't now. Instead Rhyme had smiled at her; out of everyone's presents, this box had felt the warmest. For having run out of ideas, she'd replied honestly, Shoka knew just what Rhyme had needed pretty well. And the Don had passed along free tickets for whatever curry she wanted.
Rindo had gotten her a fancy new headset along with the receipt in case she didn't like the gift or in case it didn't end up compatible with her system or in case—she had thanked him for it, and he had nodded, cutting himself off from listing his anxieties.
She'd insisted on opening Neku and Shiki's gifts later, just in case they had gotten her things that would rub Beat the way of charity, as though the Wicked Twisters' presents hadn't already whispered of the same.
And she had already gotten some of her gifts earlier, from other friends.
Assorted goodies from shopkeepers and net café owners where she frequented. Kaie had sent over his well-wishes and his own present: a box of brand-new computer parts to upgrade her machine. Expensive from the look of them, but if a word worthed one coin, silence worthed two. Kariya and Uzuki, of all people, had had something delivered to her door, a crate she'd pop open after Beat had gone to bed. Maybe to atone; she doubted it. That pink Reaper friend of Neku's, too: a fluffy pink beanie she couldn't ever imagine wearing that she'd given away to Fret.
Yep yep! Good food, good threads, good friends. One oughtn't look a gift horse in the mouth.
Rhyme wished Beat good night early. The festivities had tired her out. Ruffling her hair, Beat gave her a one-armed hug and wished her the best night, the sweetest dreams, the most booyaka year possible. Their shitty parents might've told her that she'd never end up in college if she went to live with Beat, he crowed with the proudest grin she'd ever seen on him, but she would outdo herself. He just knew it. The acceptances would roll in in the next couple of weeks, and then she'd pick what college, and then she'd keep on keepin' on for the rest of her life.
When she had first announced her intent to live with him, choosing him over the family, Beat had worried that he'd screwed up her entire life. And she could see it in the slight near-wringing of his hands, how he still feared it.
But right then, when he ruffled her hair, he meant it.
Retiring to her cramped room—the trio of monitors took up almost the entire desk; she ended up falling asleep in the comfortable chair most days, so she had long since folded up her bed to give her at least a little bit of walking space. The chair's once-fluffy cushion had started to sag under her weight. It could survive another year, until her next birthday, and then she'd ask for a new one as a gift. A gift: Rhyme glanced at the still-unopened boxes. The mere thought of checking the contents wore her out like nothing else. She'd do it tomorrow.
Besides, she still had one more gift tonight. A gift she had chosen for herself, sort of. She would have to wait until Beat started snoring, first.
Then she could quietly slip out the door and meet Sho near Neku's café. Or she could opt to stay in her room. She'd texted Sho only that she would consider letting him sight-read her Soul, as he called it, not that she would actually show up.
It usually took Beat a few minutes to get himself comfy and go to sleep. In the span of that time, she'd choose.
Letting Sho read her Soul, huh. The anomaly he'd seen in some parallel world version of her that could translate to her own. Rhyme had dragged him on outings day after day, seeing how patiently he could endure, and he had, accepting arcades, karaoke, escape-the-room games, computer parts examinations, visits to the tattoo parlour to chat with her friend, jaunts to the different establishments where she practised stand-up, dinings at every animal restaurant in Harajuku. Nearly every time he saw her he shared more details on why he wanted to read her Soul. But he always firmly told her that she'd have to go into it knowingly.
He'd taken the Taboo knowingly, he'd said, eyes dark and gleaming, teeth sharp and bared. Not bared in threat, but bared in truth. As bared as her Soul would be in his hands. If she wanted to walk the left-hand path against the interference that had sealed away her entry fee, she would have to choose to climb down into the depths of the well herself.
When he'd first brought up the idea, she'd stared at him. Something that he said could hurt painfully, something that he wanted to do just to test a theory, something that he had explained using what sounded like video game programming—'but first we need to talk about parallel universes' and all—and she couldn't have fathomed a reason that she would possibly say yes. She'd let him accompany her on these outings because he made the time spent zetta fun. He acted weirdly, but in a good way, the kind of weird she could soak up, his language all his own and yet perfectly understandable with just a pinch of imagination, his thought processes their own kind of wonderful. But she had neither rhyme nor reason to actually acquiesce to such folly.
Yet he'd persisted. Explanation by explanation. Bit by bit. Integer by integer. Piling the justifications one by one so high until, when she craned her head to find the peak, she felt could climb the heap and almost grasp the sun.
If the anomaly in her Soul were hurting those who had 'overlaps with her Soul'—the other versions of herself in parallel worlds, many QPUs away—didn't she have some kind of ethical obligation to at least see whether she could do something about it? And if the anomaly in her Soul were somehow attracting the lingering cognitive energy of Soul Pulvis scattered away—and where had she heard of that before, consciousness in the form of dust associated with Angels—didn't she have some kind of moral pressing to shake it off, since her exploration with Kaie had suggested the problematic impacts of memory leaks and Soul Pulvis gathering? And if the anomaly in her Soul had to do with her brief stint into the form of a Noise, didn't she have some identity Soul-searching of whether or not she could really call herself fully human if she didn't get it excised out?
And if the anomaly in her Soul really came down to her revival as a human despite having lost the Game...
And if the anomaly in her Soul really came down to Angelic interference forcibly keeping her from accessing her dreams or feeling new ones...
And if the anomaly in her Soul could be...
Sho could do many things. But he didn't seem like the type to lie about anything. He'd call it miscalculating on purpose and scoff at it. And he hadn't appeared to want to harm her, either, not when he obsessed over her zetta interesting case study. Nagi had cautioned her of the same: Sho believed firmly in the proverb no pain, no gain, but also believed firmly in the proverb, a skillful artist keeps his tools acute. So had Coco: it would hurt, but Sho wouldn't intentionally cause her permanent harm.
She could bear a little pain. That wasn't where the bulk of her hesitation lay.
Intentionally: the key word. He'd never done this before, he had admitted, even as he'd claimed he never needed practise tests.
But he'd died before, against the Composer. And he'd apparently overestimated his abilities in controlling Soul Pulvis in the past.
Yet.
If the anomaly in her Soul could be changed, could be removed, could give her back her entry fee—
Maybe androids could dream of electric sheep. But since she'd brushed paths with the Game run by Ovis Cantus, she hadn't dreamed of anything.
No future.
Just like her brother had faked wanting to become the world's best skater for her, she...had focused on his dream of putting his sister through college. Of seeing his sister succeed where he considered himself to have failed. Of watching his sister take on the world with a respectable degree for a respectable profession leading to a respectable dream.
She could hang onto the dreams of others. But her own—
No matter how much she tried to cope by gazing at others' futures and trying to find the negative space in the picture, trying to figure out where her own future might fit amongst theirs, like charting a black hole by seeking out the shape where the light had vanished—
But if she could get them back—
Between songs at karaoke and bites of desserts, between his shogi turns and his dart throws, Sho had supplied the reason, if she would supply the Rhyme.
In the quiet of her own breathing and the computer's idle hum, Rhyme heard her brother's gasping snore. The clock had turned to midnight. The carriage would become a pumpkin again; the horse, mice; and Rhyme, Soul.
"Sorry, bro," she whispered into the stillness of the dark, "but God helps those who help themselves, right?"
She locked the door behind her when she left, the moon heavy and ripe as it observed from above.