EZMode !iIyIHD.1G6 2009/09/30 (Wed) 07:15 No. 96308 [x] Go visit Youmu, see how she's doing regarding her letter.
Youmu comes to mind, and the business between her and her father. You haven't really talked with her much about it, have you? After how you brought up the subject, only to let it go like that afterwards... Maybe you should just visit her to apologize, though so long after the fact seems a little foolish. In any case, you want to have a word with her. You roll forward off your bed and set out of the room, making your way to Youmu's room to start. She doesn't stay far from Yuyuko's room, which makes it fairly easy to find. As you approach the door, you hear movement from within the room. Seems that you're in luck, you won't have to looking for her. Still, you stop to consider what you're going to say, and the idea of the letter comes back to you. That's right, you could ask about that. Not wanting to just intrude, you knock on the frame of the door.
“Come in,” she calls out. With that, you slide open the door, finding Youmu standing in the middle of her room, holding her sword at her side, dressed only in a pair of bloomers and some bandage wrapped around her chest. After a few seconds for the realization to catch up to you, you look away.
“Uh, sorry, you were probably not expecting me,” you say, trying to sound apologetic. You hear Youmu moving, and glance back to see her picking up a towel from a table nearby. She has a better figure than you thought, though still petite. No surprise though, considering how loose her clothes usually are. You avert your eyes before she turns back to you.
“I don't particularly mind,” she says, dabbing with the towel. “I'm not nude, after all. We'd have a problem then,” she smirks. “What brings you here?”
“I wanted to talk about your father,” you say, looking Youmu in the eyes. She freezes up for a second before turning away.
“I don't really want to talk about that,” she says, walking back to the center of the room and taking up her sword again. Seems she was doing drills. “If that's what you've come for-”
“Look, I know it's a bad topic for you, but I wanted to bring it up because I want to help you,” you say, stepping into the room. “Have you tried writing a letter? It might be possible to bring it to him to get a response.”
“What makes you think that,” Youmu responds, lowering her sword again. “If you even could find him again, after all these years, if he were to receive a letter from his daughter, do you think he'd respond? If he really wanted to hear from me, he'd have made contact on his own.”
“Even if you don't want a response, you could just write a letter to tell him how you're doing,” you say, sensing this topic already falling in to a hard downward spiral. Youmu looks at you for a second, then walks over to a small table and pulls out a pad of paper and a small box. From the box she produces a brush and a small bottle, a calligraphy set of some sort. After a few seconds, she tears the page off the pad, then walks towards you. She hands it over with a straight face, and you read what she wrote. In rough, bold lines is written 'coward' across the entire page.
“This is all I have,” she says flatly, returning to the center of the room again. “Now if you excuse me.” She returns to her drills again, leaving you with the page in your hand. You suppose that could have went a little better, whatever her real issues are, she's going to take some work to get to really open up. At the very least you weren't attacked, so that's something. You can only close the door behind you as you leave. “Be ready for tomorrow, we're having another training session,” Youmu calls to you after the door closes. Well, you have that to look forward to. Right now though, no such plans.
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In going back through the threads past, I somehow feel like I lost something along the way. A shift in my style? The way I wrote a character? Hm.