matchbreaker | Recollé IC Inbox

[ Tch. ]

... That's my son, Toushiro. That one [ The black hair ] is how he looks now, and how he looked when I adopted him. And that one [ White hair ] is how he looked back when all our hair colors changed because of Retrospec.

He's not on the app anymore.

[Ren is sure she's already gotten more sympathetic responses from those she knows, so any words of the like would be wasted, in his mind. The words and the sentiment behind them are nice, but they're only so helpful.]

You can't decide which you'd rather have?

[Ren has considered it a few times, what it might be like to have close friends or even family to be aware of all this. To have someone to talk with with who could understand the entire situation... or to have them remain happily ignorant.]

Don't put words in my mouth.

[ She hisses that, and then shatters both images more complete. They both explode into lights, and she turns her hard red eyes to the man before him. She...

... It's not like that. ]

Whatever makes the boy safer or happier is better.

[Ren meets her gaze impassively.]

That's what the perfect mother would say. [He tilts his head, as if examining her, though there's not much he's likely to see that he isn't already.] But no one is perfect.

I'm not in many ways. [ And her eyes shift now, the eyes turning catlike and then...

In the nightmare dream space, it intensifies. For a long moment, she seems to have glinting fangs ]

But I'll not have anyone questioning me as a mother, for the record.

[Fangs or not, he's not particularly intimidated, even if he can admit it's an intense look.]

I'm not questioning your actions, only trying to acknowledge what I'm seeing. Why would there have been two of them if you felt no conflict about it?

Why not? He looked different under Retrospec's command and he didn't share memories with me at all. He's got a past that he wants to rediscover. Anyone can fret about that!

But can you even say he's truly better the way he is now, ignorant of Retrospec or any past life? Perhaps it makes him seem safer or happier. But to me, losing all awareness of what's going on is a worse fate than never learning it at all.

[Perhaps it would be easier to live with that sense of normality restored. But easy doesn't mean right.]

He vanished in August, thrown into that other dimension. What, are you shallowing everything?

[ About Retrospec, About all this? ]

He came back in one piece, didn't he?

[He feels she would have mentioned it if not. He shakes his head, though, as he clarifies something.]

I'm not saying what Retrospec does to us is easy. But what about you? Would you be fine with the idea of returning to that fake sense of normality?

[ False sense of...

The nightmare shifts, and suddenly there's a wall of stained glass, probably blinding in the darkness. There's a whole mural of various people that she's know, met through the app, or remembered in her dreams. There's a small tapestry there, and all of them slowly start to change, red eyes gleaming. ]

I... I merely want what is best for my boy.

[ And that's... uncertain now. ]

[Ren has to squint at that, certainly, even as he tries to scan it, but it's a bit much to take in when they've been standing in mostly darkness for a while. In trying to cover his eyes, though, he finds that his hand isn't entirely solid enough to block it.

Hm—he's disappearing around the edges. He merely glances at this phenomenon briefly before turning his gaze back to Elda. He had to leave somehow, anyway, and it's not as if the traditional way was going to work here, was it?]

Then I hope you'll find whatever that is.

[ It's a nightmare. Nightmares are always fruitless.

She attempts to respond to the man, but the minute she does - yes. He fades out of existence (or well, dream-existence) with the sound of shattering glass. ]

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