dollmaxing | Inbox & In-person meetups

"You're welcome," she replied softly, her own smile quirking just a little more broad as he leaned his cheek into her palm. Found her comforting.

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."

And you...you're always distracted by someone else's pain.

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."

Edited 2025-06-29 17:30 (UTC)

"But not this one. This research...this cure, this is my tribute to her and-" he chuckles lightly, but it breaks at the end.

"-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."

Edited 2025-06-29 17:25 (UTC)

"Exactly. Sacrifices are supposed to hurt, aren't they? So of course you miss her."

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."

Edited 2025-06-29 23:01 (UTC)

"I did, though," he admits- shaking his head at Kuon's insistence. He doubted himself so so much and well, he made mistakes. He can admit that but he can also admit that things can only look up from here. For himself. For Rumi. For the Yoshizawas. For Morning.

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..?"

He leans in a little as he tries to adjust himself, his nose bumping against her- even through his clumsiness as he finds himself laughing.

"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.

Edited (pfp change) 2025-06-30 00:22 (UTC)

"Oh, I'm not bothered at all, I hardly sit normally in the first place," she laughed, but figured she would at least adjust to slide closer, sitting hip-to-hip with him before leaning against his shoulder.

"How does your chest feel after getting all that crying out? Seems like you were a shaken soda bottle just waiting to burst!"

"True. I swear I saw you sitting upside down on my couch a few days earlier," he grins teasingly at the fond memory.

Once again, hip-to-hip, he adjusts his glasses before just removing it from his face- wiping away the smudges on his lens with his shirt as he feels her head against his shoulder.

He smiles softly, blush showing on his face again.

"Oh no, don't remind me..." His throat is so parched from all the crying and sobbing it would almost be embarassing if Kuon wasn't here. "What I would kill for some actual soda right now. I am exhausted. "

He says that but there is a sealed can he had bought caught between them.

He placed his glasses back on his nose, satisfied with the much clearer vision.

"But...I'm relieved," he says quietly like he was unsure how much peace would he lose against the relentless nature of this place.

"Good thing you had a doll to curl up with," she hummed in amusement, sitting up for just a moment to reach for that soda he'd brought and pass it to him before tucking herself against him again. It was a bit of a muggy night, but for some reason, the warmth of him didn't bother her at all.

Dolls can be pretty.

People make dolls to be the companions that they lack. The companions that are always there for them.

Happily, Kuon started humming again, her feet swinging just a little bit. She was feeling... good. Certain, for once, a certainty that only comes from really understanding oneself for the first time. Resolute.

She can't be a loving girlfriend. She can't be a fun coworker, or a charming daughter, or anything like that. But she can be someone's doll, their support, there to comfort them and help them succeed.

Just like she was ready to do for EMMA. She'll do it for Takuto Maruki.

A doll...Maruki wasn't sure how to feel about that yet. She didn't find any offense to it- holding that title and cradling it in her hands with the wonder to cherish it. So much of what he had said had been blurred by lines that were caught in his throat that he wasn't even sure if he had spilled something unsavoury in the midst of his cries.

Still.

A miracle...

He held onto that, the same way she did to her own.

"Oh-! Thank you!" He beamed at her as she passed him the soda he had bought.

So much of her presence next to him felt freeing. Like he had finally found his own anchor after sinking for so long. Her humming warmed his heart in ways he had...missed.

He missed Rumi so much.

With her place next to him, Takuto popped open the can without really checking the label.

Which served to be a mistake.

His eyes widened as hd sputters after the first gulp.

"Pfft- ugh, oh no that's not-" he coughs as he turns his face away from Kuon. "Is that- toothpaste?!"

And sure enough, the label on the can read Mint Choco soda.

The sputtering did have Kuon jumping and sitting upright, just in case a very drunk Takuto was about to throw up - but laughed in pleasant surprise when he held out the soda, grimacing at it and the flavor.

Mint choco...

"Oh no, I hate chocolate sodas! Hahaha! They're vile."

Still giggling, she turned and rummaged through her takeaway bag and pulled out the last melonpan, tearing open the packaging.

"Melonpan to the rescue!"

A pitiful little whine slipped out of Maruki as he stared down at the can in betrayal, grimacing once more at the mint-choco label. Of course, it had to be mint-choco soda. Because the universe, clearly, had a sense of humor.

"Chocolate sodas... seriously? Nothing's going according to plan tonight, is it?" he muttered, shaking his head as he leaned down and set the cursed drink aside with dramatic care.

He perked up almost instantly at the sight of the melonpan in her hands. "Hurray for melonpan! You really can't go wrong with that."

Finally, finally, he settled next to her—less flustered and fidgety, more still.

Felt pretty healing, honestly.

A nostalgic sigh passed through him as he looked out toward the streetlights blinking through the muggy air. "Still... I doubt anything can live up to Shujin's melonpan. I used to grab them all the time back then. They sort of became my emergency breakfast on busy mornings. Just... rushing, always rushing, never time for anything proper."

He chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck—then paused when he noticed the way she was holding the melonpan out to him.

"For...me?" he asked, blinking.

Then: a soft, earnest smile. "My hero," he said with a kind of playful reverence. "No, literally—you’re saving me from my tragically bad impulse purchases. I swear, I’m working on it. But between the soda and the, uh, alcohol... the memo clearly got lost somewhere."

Edited 2025-07-02 00:01 (UTC)

Despite the joke, there was nothing but warmth in his eyes as he accepted the melonpan. Instead of diving in immediately, he turned the pastry in its wrapper with surprising care. Carefully, almost ceremonially, he folded it in half—custard peeking slightly from the top portion—before gently peeling the wrapper down around the still-intact lower half.

Then, with a little grin and childlike brightness, he held that second half out to Kuon.

"Share?"

"Hah! That's the school the Thieves are from, isn't it? Say, there's not much saying we can't sneak in and grab a few sometime," she snickered, delighting in taking the offered half of the treat.

She got a 'my hero', too... heh heh. With how much lighter Takuto looked, messy from crying but like a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders, she did kind of feel like one.

"We make a perfect little best friends duo. Perfectly planktonic."

"A nostalgia trip...I will show you around in the nurse's office then. That's where I counselled most of them, save for Kitagawa-kun. His was...more impromptu." And does he know exactly how he was confronted.

It's a little funny thinking over how Yusuke had tried to poke holes into his plans. Guiding others rather then letting them heal...now that he really thinks about it, he was one of the first few who pointed that out in his logic.

Still, that wasn't his worry right now.

He continues to nibble away on his melonpan.

The planktonic term makes him blush a little. A little out of sheer fondness, the other out of embarrassment.

"I am sensing a pattern with how you talk about things. There's this...endearing aspect to it." He comments. "And it feels right somehow...talking to you about things I wouldn't talk about otherwise."

With his other clean hand, he reaches behind her and runs his fingers through her hair before settling on her shoulder. "Stay with me," he says. "Let's work through this together so I can support you and look after you too. If you would allow me."

"I am nothing if not a creature of habit!" Kuon cheerfully replied to Takuto's comment about sensing a pattern in her. She can't help it, she can only spare so much thought to modulating and adjusting the way she talks - at least he finds it endearing. That's a load off her shoulders.

She didn't flinch or balk at the second attempt at combing fingers through her hair.

Stay with me.

He wants her. He wants her around, and not even for her technical abilities. Though that probably sweetens the pot, this is different from how they first met.

She wants him too. Finally someone she fits with, who isn't disturbed by her. The first time since her parents died. The first time someone wanted to look after her well-being since EMMA.

"Let's do it. Let's look after each other. No taking it back when you're sober!"

"Just slap me back to sense if I spout nonsense," he chuckles, joking clearly, but his hand lowers anyway, cradling her arm in his own. Fingers tracing the area around her wrist, specifically the green smudge that had started to fade.
His pinky, the point where most of Azathoth's powers that helped him recover from his injuries were concentrated, glowed the slightest shade of gold when it traced that skin.

His mouth tasted sweet. His mind buzzed pleasantly, and his insides felt warm.

"I wouldn't take this back for the world anyway."

Those minutes had slowly turned into an hour. In the quiet of the night, with the easy buzzing of the cicadas. It didn't take long until Takuto reached for her hand again and they both decided to walk home again. A home that others would call the lab of sorrow but it was where they found their solace.

Takuto left Kuon's washroom, face cold with water, while droplets collected and collapsed in a quiet rhythm from the tips of his bangs. The heat was...really something, even against his own palace that had a built-in air-conditioner. Maybe it was the alcohol's effect, still lingering in his system as he yawned into his hand before scratching his forehead.

Stretching his arms over his head, his shirt scooted up a bit as he adjusted it.

He unbuttons the first two buttons that practically hugged his neck in the heat.

The summer heat, the cognitive expectation of summer heat, alcohol and a long walk... all of that definitely compounded to the AC being a massive relief, but not an instant cool-down. But Kuon knew the route to take for that.

While Takuto excused himself to wash his face, Kuon had stepped out and done a little walk to one of the staff rooms with convenient vending machines to get them both some water and, after getting caught up chatting a shadow (wherein she was the one that caught the shadow, since they were usually milling about and not quite social), she even got a bag of mixed veggies for them to snack on since they'd already snacked so much on rich foods and sugary snacks.

And what did she see once she was back? Why, Takuto sitting and unbuttoning his shirt, looked like - and there was something on his neck.

"Wait a minute-- you have a tattoo?"

He didn't seem the type! Curiously, Kuon approached and tugged down his collar to look at it. Huh... "An eye...?"

Ah, she's back. Takuto is just about to make himself comfortable on a corner of Kuon's bed- looking still at his phone and groggily checking his chats for any updates and activities, mostly through blurred eyes since his glasses were on his lap, water lining the lenses.

"Hey, hey- you don't mind if I sit here, do-" he cuts himself off when he suddenly senses her coming close. His eyes flicker gold as he drops his phone on the bed, "Ah-! Wha-"

The exposed air on his neck made his shoulders jerk. "Kuon, hey- what are you doing? What are you seeing-?"

"A tattoo of an eye... it's really intricate... it looks a little like Azathoth's eye," she mused, tugging the collar down a bit more and gently running her finger around the oblong shape of the eye.

Huh?

Maruki's eyes widen in sheer horror, shoulders hunching together in tension as he wants to move and check for himself but Kuon clearly decided to take matters into her own hands, literally if he could add as he feels the slightest prick of pins when he feels her finger hovering close.

She's not even touching him and yet-

~~Use me...however you like.~~

The eye beneath his skin shuddered.

A glowing pupil cracked open in a web of luminous blue, like light breaking through a frozen lake. It split across his upper back and shoulder, illuminating delicate fault-lines through skin like stained glass. A strange, cosmic fractal that writhed softly under Kuon’s finger.

"Ah—ah~!"

A sound escaped him—shocked, breathy, unfiltered. His body jolted as pleasure surged through his spine in a ripple. His head tipped back involuntarily, a low, strangled moan spilling from his throat. It wasn’t pain. It wasn’t even fear. It was so goddamn overwhelming.

Like the veins that threatened to snake up front.

His left hand shot out to brace himself, fingers sinking into the bed beside him, trembling. Water from his damp hair clung to his cheek, strands falling over his face as he leaned forward—half curling around the sensation like he couldn’t decide whether to flee or chase it.

"What—what is this...?" he gasped, voice hoarse, disoriented. "It feels... I-I don’t know why it feels like that—"

His shirt clung to him, now slightly hiked up from where he’d been stretching, just enough to conceal the glowing lines before they slowly faded again—veins receding like ink drawn back into a pen.

Takuto panted softly, stunned, his chest rising and falling as he tried to process what had just happened.

And somewhere deep inside, nestled in the edge of his consciousness, something ancient stirred. Watching. Waiting.

Azathoth smiled.

Of all of the possible reactions or overreactions, this would have never been what Kuon would expect from Takuto getting a marking touched. She removed her finger and held onto Takuto's shoulders, keeping him steady and watching what was still showing of the mark.

It moved. The eye - it had opened. That was... a sign of Azathoth, directly.

"It spread. I think this is a mark from Azathoth, Takuto," she said gently, giving his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "I'll take a photo to show you, just catch your breath."

Takuto had sounded... well. She'd only heard a few men make that sort of noise. ...She'll keep that to herself for a few minutes.

Edited 2025-07-03 00:03 (UTC)

"What?"

The hand on his shoulder was something he didn't even realize he needed until now- shaking in disbelief as he felt her presence crowding him from behind.

"Why would I have...?" He screwed his eyes shut with his other hand flew to his back- something like horror showing on his bare face as he patted his neck.

Okay. Calm down.

"I don't really feel anything???" Panic threatened to break through as he tried to remain still under her squeeze.

Right. She will get her phone out.

Azathoth had remained quiet, the veins around the eye only subtly glowing.

He unbuttoned his shirt a little more, holding up the front with his left to conceal his chest- straightening up a little bit to let her get a better view while his shirt only sunk further to his elbows.

"Okay, here. Get a good angle, please."

"You'll be okay, Takuto," Kuon reassured. After all, if this was Azathoth, then this was a part of him. She'd never heard of traits of a Persona manifesting, but... Azathoth certainly was more powerful. And special.

Without touching the mark again, Kuon kept her hand steady on his shoulder as she got out her not-bugged phone, getting the camera in focus before taking a picture of the subtly glowing mark.

Once checking that it came out properly in the image, she passed the phone over Takuto's shoulder to him so he could put on his glasses and see the picture himself.

Inbox & In-person meetups

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slight nsfw undertones from here tbh

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