Kuon Ichinose (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dollmaxing) wrote2025-04-02 02:29 pm
dollmaxing) wrote2025-04-02 02:29 pm
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Inbox & In-person meetups
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Hiiii! You've reached Ichinose Kuon, head of AI research and development. Leave a message and I'll get back to you!
tw: slight toxic masculinity thoughts but also not really
His skin jumped when he felt her hand make contact, but his expression remained the same. Distant. With the slightest smile on his face.
"It's alright, you don't have to pacify me for the sake of it," he shook his head. What kind of man was he? If he was so weak and helpless in the face of danger like that... "I promised her father I would take care of her," he says. "And, I did try after that. Soon, around the time when her parents' passing was announced, she was admitted to the hospital. Thankfully, she didn't have any physical injuries that would have proven to be fatal- she was always strong like that."
"But her mental scars...they broke her. Her future was stolen from her by some cruel twist of fate and forced to suffer for the rest of her life," he exhaled a shaky breath. "Depression. Anxiety. Catatonia. PTSD. Days and nights in long-term care, barely acknowledging the world around you."
"I would have given up anything in those 15 months for her to smile again. Anything."
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Her hand didn't move, and she scooted just an inch closer. She wasn't pacifying for the sake of it. She felt motivated to do it, so she did.
"Was Azathoth the one who answered your heart's desire?"
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With one hand on his chest, his fingers curled around the ring hanging off the chain, one that couldn't be perceived under the shirt. "The heart is a powerful...wonderful thing."
This time, the grief had reared a different head, making him turn towards her with something like delight in eyes that witnessed and recollected death like colourful shattered glass pieces, sharp edges and all.
"It's funny...I thought I was helping her by being there, but it was actually the complete opposite- I'd become a trigger for her. Her cognition must have linked me to her trauma, with how she lost her parents." He patted his chest. "Meanwhile I made it out mostly unscathed."
"Back then, I didn't perceive Azathoth the way most users do." He explains. "When she begged me to forget it all, recovering from her screams, I hypothesised that if you could alter a subject's cognition by changing their heart, any trauma-related incident can be eliminated."
He practically hung off the bench now- worked up, only slightly, like he was talking to himself just as much as he was talking to Kuon. "Azathoth answered to me."
"I got my wish."
He chuckled lightly, eyes closed as tears welled up within. Moisture threatening to break out.
"She forgot so many things and I..."
"I was one of them."
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Gently, she found his other hand and rested hers on it. Should she be feeling pained, for him? That's probably what an empathetic response would be. But all she feels is... impressed.
"So that's why your heart weighs so heavy. I think I understand, now," she reassured, the hand she had on his back moving to his shoulder and squeezing it.
"I understand now why you must persist. Your miracle, though painful... it will let you grant that miracle to everyone else in agony. To make a world that people have always desired. I see now... that's why you and EMMA came to the same conclusions," Kuon said, somewhat reverently, voice filled with a quiet awe.
"Your love for her meant giving up everything to see her smile, just like you said. And your heart knew the truth of what had to be done to accomplish it. Right there, in that very moment... granting your wish... Azathoth is your heart's miracle"
1/3
Why Rumi?
Why should anyone suffer that fate?
His heart...yes, it's heavy. It's heavy with Rumi's memory. It's heavy with the sight of being able to see her smile for the last time before he had to leave her life forever.
Even if he wished that he could leave with a little kiss to her forehead, to bid her well on her journey ahead of him, rather than simply turn away from her when she looked at him like he was a stranger all along.A sniffle left him. Pain echoed in his throat as he remembered that day like it was yesterday. A tear slipped from his eyes as the memory of Rumi, the cognizant one who called out to his name when he tried to bring her to the velvet room, remained all too fresh in his head.
"...!"
He raised his head, askew glasses and all, as Kuon drew open the curtains that threatened to shut away the sun. A miracle, powerful...even if it were painful. Perhaps that's the cost of it all, isn't it? Rumi, Shibusawa...Akira...all of them will forget about him, too. This is what his miracle must be, and the memories that erode must be the cost. Rumi will go on to make better memories. Shibusawa will never go through what he did. Akira won't be punished for stepping forward to help someone.
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Not strange.
Not malicious.
His inner self wasn't rotten.
A miracle.
The brown in his eyes flickered gold. Tears threatened to break through the surface as his sniffles grew.
"...my heart's miracle."
He grew quiet, closing his eyes shut.
3/3 ♩♫♩♫ (rank up!!)
"...why didn't we meet earlier?"
♩♫♩♫ (mutual rank up!!)
Humans are social animals. Ichinose Kuon knows this. Heart or no, it's ingrained deep in the psyche to notice the silence of an empty room, or scornful furrowed brows, over and over and over again.
It is lonely. It is deeply lonely, and it makes that inner social animal ache.
Gently, Kuon took the hand that Takuto was covering his face, pulling it down so he wasn't hiding, even as messy and tearful as he was. He was raw, flayed himself open just because of how much he trusted Kuon... and if he could trust like that, it was only fair to reward it.
"It is a lonely road, sometimes, seeing what we see. Knowing what we know," she started, lightly moving herself a little closer, lightly pulling his hands towards her.
Moving his hands, she pulled Takuto's shoulders towards her and into a hug, embracing him and offering a shoulder to cry on - what is a doll but a thing of comfort and companionship, when all of the world's humans reject you and scorn you? She can be a doll for his comfort, put to good use, for once.
"You don't have to be alone, anymore. I'm here."
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Why is his vision so blurry? Why do his insides feel like mush all over, destroyed and disintegrated into a hundred pieces in a way he never really let anyone else perceive? Not until today, before this doll who claims not to have a heart and yet, understands him like she has one.
A beautiful, impossible being, delicate and deliberate, who comprehends what it means to try, and try, and try again—only to feel the world fall apart in your hands like ash and saltwater.
She sees him.
All of him.
Maybe it would take a thousand years to count the cost of everything he's lost. Maybe longer.
But somehow... it feels like he could bear it now.
With her.
"I'm here."
With the quiet, gentle warmth from Azathoth-so unlike its usual consuming cold. Even the vast silence in his mind stirs, broken not by terror but by a single, trembling piano note. Something human. Something tender.
A miracle. His heart can create miracles.
And she's...accepting it. All of it. The ruin. The tremors. The vulnerability. She doesn’t flinch from his wreckage. Doesn’t pity him. Doesn’t recoil. She meets his eyes without judgment, as though she’s been waiting to carry this with him all along.
He freezes as her arms come around him-an instinctive disbelief that such grace could be meant for him. Pretence flickers, that old habit to hold himself at a distance. But it crumbles. He lets go.
Like fate had once again fought against him and failed, and he held her like he had hoped he would. Residing in a place inside her chest where he belonged.
He abandoned all pretence. All the walls that threatened to pull him away as he broke into pieces, knowing Kuon would catch him on the other side.
His knee bumped against hers, shoulders broad and open as his arms curled around Kuon's waist. Tall as he is, it takes nothing at all to close the space between them. To let her feel how deeply he wants this.
He holds her with purpose, with promise, with gratitude so large it aches.
And as his breath shudders and the tears fall freely, Rumi’s laughter echoes softer, more distant in his memory.
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"Dolls can also be pretty."
Like a piece of a puzzle falling into place.
She always believed in EMMA's deductions. In what EMMA represented in her success. In the obvious proof that being heartless isn't so bad. But she hadn't made the connection here, before... this is what a doll is for. To be an ever-smiling companion, not blinded by empathy.
Kuon let Takuto sob into her shoulder, hugging him back, a silent gesture to show he didn't need to pull away or stop himself. Lazily, she rested her cheek against his shoulder, closing her eyes and feeling... at peace. She understood herself, now it made sense... and if she was going to be anyone's doll, best be the person who best matched what her EMMA so wisely chose for the future of the world. If she'd throw in her whole lot with EMMA, then obviously she should do the same for Takuto for as long as they share this reality together, right?
Her gentle pats on his back are unpracticed, but no less earnest, and she doesn't complain about her leg feeling a little strained from the angle or her mind getting restless from so long without something to settle on - those weren't important. Though maybe, later, she'll have to ask him how to actually act comforting - that way she can do a better job of it next time. Slowly, almost without thinking, she started humming that tune that could never really leave her head's internal loop for long, just humming along and wondering if it might annoy him or distract him or if it might help in some way she didn't understand.
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Or so she liked to say.
He breathes with her, heaving as he feels her hand on his back. Patting him as he feels the haze clearing and then...the humming. The humming that pulled him from the clutches of when the quiet became all too quiet. When the emotions cleared and the high simmered, what was left of them when the storm cleared?
He waited, listening to her distinct humming.
Once he realised just how damp Ichinose's shoulder had become and she was already resting her head on his shoulder, Maruki moved his arms slightly up; keeping her tucked into him. Hell, even using himself as her rest as he pulls back only just slightly. Just enough to give the signal that she could pull away from him if she wanted to.
"Sorry...I didn't want to let go of you just yet," he whispered shyly. "It's just, it's been so long since someone has held me like this."
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"Looks like you needed it. I'm glad I could be a comfort," she reassured, pulling a hand away from his back to gently wipe at his tear-dampened cheek with a thumb. "You're worth it. A good friend and pleasant company - I am glad I can be a shoulder for you."
Especially since... it was such a far cry from how many people shirked from her, or felt that she was cold or unsettling. Takuto just happened to be a man that needed a doll.
no subject
You're worth it.
How long had it been since he let himself believe that?
And yet... he didn't flinch. Not this time.
He looked at her, and his eyes were still glassy, rimmed red from the storm she had helped him survive. His glasses remained just the slightest bit askew on his nose- slightly fogged up as he reached up and plucked them off his eyes, hooking them onto his collar.
Through the lingering dampness, a small, unguarded smile began to form. Grateful. Gentle. The kind of smile that trembles with how hard it is to find its place against the unfair reality.
It was the kind of smile he offered students or strangers in sterile white rooms. Messy and subtle as it was, it was raw.
He was still reeling from how natural her touch had felt. From how her thumb had so carefully brushed a tear from his cheek, like she’d done it a hundred times in another life.
She shouldn't understand any of this, he thought.
She said she couldn't feel. That she wasn’t made to hold anyone’s pain.
He grasped her hand, the one that was just about to pull away after wiping his tears, to keep it there. Fingers wrapped around her wrist gently as he closed his eyes and leaned against her open palm.
"...Kuon?"
There was a pause as he said with a certain finality. "Thank you."
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Not creepy.
"I think you've needed someone without a heart. Empathy... that would make someone's heart bleed for you. And you... you're always distracted by someone else's pain," she mused, taking in this shaking man... this man who looked like he was just pulled out of the raging sea by his collar.
"When you tell other people about this, that's what happens, isn't it? They hurt for you and Rumi, and then you worry about their pain instead. No one can see through the cloud of their empathy to see you."
1/2
Maruki smile grows sharper, not countering her point nor saying she is wrong as he opens his eyes. "It is my desire." Why should someone else's heart bleed for him? The last thing he wants is to have someone mourn for him and Rumi when...things got better.
Once he's sure Kuon is comfortable, he fixes his glasses on his nose- the foggy smudges dotting the lens like it were a dream. As if Kuon being this close to him was only part of some other ideal reality where he wasn't alone anymore.
Still..."I appreciate their sympathy on the matter, though," he smiles like he means it, still looking at her like he could see her heart bleeding still. "I am...not usually worth the trouble. I am the one who got away from it all. I don't mind it."
The hand still resting on her back carefully started to weave through her hair.
"Rumi is happy now. She's doing so much better, and if forgetting me is the cost of it all, I will do it all over again. People don't understand that." I won't be pathetic anymore. "Her future is bright again, and I want to keep trying. There are so many futures that have been shrouded in the dark- if my treatment brings them to light again...then that's what I want to do."
He nodded determinedly.
A cloudy haze overcomes his gaze, looking at Kuon and far beyond at the same time- his left eye glowing gold. "Perhaps in some other universe...I settled down with her. Perhaps in another world...we grew old together."
2/2
"-I lost everything... so there's nothing more for me to lose anymore. No matter what this place says. I will keep trying. For Rumi."
"I have to be the one to do this."
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He's a human with a normal heart, after all. Building up all of that pain because he can't ignore the pain of others... did he need someone like Kuon this badly?
"But that pain won't stop you - that's admirable. For as long as we're here, as long as you'll have me as a friend, I'll be your support. Just like I was planning to be for EMMA... I'll do what I can to see this miracle through."
1/2 TW: suicidal thoughts
And now Kuon too.
It would be so easy...to die by the hands of the those who suffered by some other Maruki’s hands. It has already happened. Twice.
It really couldn't get worse than that. His death didn't matter.
"I did nearly give up. I lost my perspective so it makes me wonder if what I am feeling right now is..."
"Hope..?"
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"Heh...oh god-! Haha!" He chuckles at their positioning. "...you must be so uncomfortable right now. Can you even feel your shoulders?" He asks, worriedly- pulling away to give her body the movement she needs.
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"How does your chest feel after getting all that crying out? Seems like you were a shaken soda bottle just waiting to burst!"