PC: Tama 💀

[resumed]

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[resumed]

[ he shakes his head. ]

No, um. Mika actually mentioned it to me when I talked to her last Friday. It came up in conversation, I didn't think you were withholding it on purpose.

[ballies]

Mm. We were all in Mouse’s dorm on Thursday night. It’d already come up in conversation with her anyway.

[resumed]

Yeah. She didn't realize--well. [ he mumbles: ] I guess maybe that makes more sense now. [ before he continues. ] She didn't realize that the doors locked and said she was staying at Gold Mouse with both of you. She said she'd given Ryuki an open invite to let you stay there whenever, but I'm the one who had to ask why because I had no idea.

[ballies]

We didn’t realise the doors were locked for a while either. Ryuki and I tried to go for a walk and thought it had jammed or something.

[ me and lowe posting long past friday for the shenanigans of ryuki and tama getting defeated by a door. ]

Oh, I just showed up. [ ehe? ] But… [ aw ] … that’s sweet of her to have extended the invite. It would’ve been nice if she could’ve told me herself…

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None of us in the convenience store noticed until one of us tried to leave. So I think it surprised all of us. [ also that's what they deserve tbh. but also he kind of grins a little because that sounds like tama behavior based on what he knows so far.

and the grin fades just as quickly. ]

...yeah. I think there were a lot of things we all wish she could have said or done that she won't get the chance to now. I wish I could change that.

[ballies]

Yeah, it was all very sudden. You don’t expect the doors to just lock on you— we genuinely thought they’d jammed for a bit.

[ she got accused of breaking the door :( ]

… I hope it doesn’t happen again. We don’t even have the guarantee of that, and now there’s that rule about Thursdays. [ she sighs. ]

[resumed]

Yeah. Usually if a trap is sprung we notice right away, but we were busy grabbing snacks for us and the cocoa puff and didn't feel like anything was off.

[ ...yeah, about that. ]

...do you really think we're going to be able to get away without someone following that rule? [ he's interested on her thoughts about murder, it seems. ]

[ballies]

Maybe the first thing we should do this week is keep checking the door…

[ a week of people just rattling the door aggressively. ]

“Being a villain” doesn’t necessarily mean killing. It could be something like theft, or violence without death. Not ideal, but not life ending.

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All of the doors in the city? I guess it can't hurt but do we have time, you think? Thursday's not that far. [ but that's a point, too. ] ...I would really like if that's where the villainy ended, but something tells me that rule five is making it a given thing. "When", rather than "if."

[ballies]

No, just— the room you’re in on Thursday. If it locks then… well. I don’t know what we can do. But maybe you could barricade the door or something? At least make it harder for someone to get inside.

If it’s in the rules, they want it to happen. That’s what it sounds like.

[resumed]

[ that makes more sense, thank you, tama. ]

I wonder if we can prop the door open before we even step inside. That might prevent it from locking at all. Though...the doors unlocked at some point Thursday evening after we were asleep. Rocket was with us before he and Mika went out to play. A barricade might not be a terrible idea either. Harder to get in...and harder to get out.

[ in case you're staying with a killer, you know. ]

There has to be a way to get our phones working again, too. I find it strange that those only malfunctioned during that portion of the night as well. [ but. ] But if they want this to happen, then it sounds as if there are plenty of things we'll have to overcome if we want to stop it.

[ballies]

Jam a chair in there or something? [ she nods. ] But that would leave you vulnerable if something did happen, and the door was just... open like that. Not that it seemed to stop what happened last week.

[ boy. ]

Oh yeah, like something was interfering with them. I didn't hear about network wide outages in the paper or anything -- stuff like that usually gets covered.

[resumed]

I was thinking something a little less bulky than a chair, but I suppose you run into the same problem of leaving yourself vulnerable.

[ he frowns a little at that though. ]

I didn't think to ask any of the citizens of the city or the police if they experienced a network outage, too. Not that I trust them to be honest with us after all of this. But you're right. It was...kind of targeted just to us and then never mentioned.

[ballies]

Yeah... if there's a gap, then it could draw someone's attention. Would you try and break down a closed door, or go for the one that was already slightly propped open?

[ dodgy. ]

It'd be worth asking. Did we ask the leaders at all...?

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You and I both know the answer to that and why, exactly, that's the problem. [ ...but he shakes his head. ]

I didn't think to ask them about that part specifically. And I got kind of busy over the weekend and haven't had a chance. Maybe I'll ask Phoenix if they're not mad at me.

[ballies]

Yuuup.

Hmm. I’ll try and remember to ask them before next week. Especially if this does happen again. [ … ? ] Why would they be mad at you? Because of the jail thing?

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[ the nod is either for acknowledgement of tama remembering to ask a question or because he is agreeing that yeah it's for the jail thing. ]

Maybe mad isn't the right word. I need to text them soon to at least apologize.

[ballies]

…

[ briefly she wonders if the goat jailbird apologised to goat, and decides independently he did not. ]

I don’t think they’d be mad enough to hate you or anything. But it never hurts to apologise.

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No, I don't think they'd hate me either. It's more like...[ he frowns suddenly. ] It's stupid, never mind. I'm going to apologize later and if they don't accept it that's all I can do.

[ballies]

...

Nico, if it's worrying you it's not stupid.

[resumed]

I'm not worried about it. [ he says, worried about it. ] Not when we have a lot of other things to worry about, too.

[ballies]

...

Yeah, but if you're worrying about this, as well as all the other things you're going to burn out. You don't have to do and worry about all this by yourself, you know.

[ binch she has YEARS of experience with dark haired idiots who try and take on everything alone. ]

[resumed]

[ he just. stares at her and raises an eyebrow. that may or may not be the reason they gave him the hero name burnout. and by they i mean me. that is the reason.

anyway he focuses on giving himself a little more of a push to swing. ]

And now you're starting to sound a lot like my doctor. [ faintly amused, and obviously kidding. ] But I know. It's...a thing I'm still working on.

[ballies]

[ good news nico. she pulls her "abis granted" mental health support credentials and smacks them so hard on the table it cracks. she's a pro at taking care of stupid dark haired boys she's fond of in varying degrees.

she does not actually slam her crayon drawn diploma on any table, it doesn't exist.

she does however stare back like yeah? and she's domina and she hasn't tied up a single person the whole time she's been here. break the mould, kiddo. ]

I do have mental health support functions. But good. It's always baby steps.

[resumed]

[ tama your diploma. anyway she says "functions" and he's like starting to figure she's very human-like but more advanced so he lets it slide. if she wants to ever explain she can. right now he hears her and there's a little huff that's half-amused and half-annoyed. ]

Tama, I've talked about my mental health more in the last six months than I have in my entire life. It's kind of exhausting. [ yeah that happens when you have ptsd anxiety depression and etc, nico. ] I don't know if addressing it more here is going to help with what we're trying to fix about our situation. At least when it comes to the small stuff.