I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.

[keephersafe]

Who: R & you
Where: The beach
When: 21/10
Rating: G for now
Summary: Still trying to keep out of the way of the general population as much as he can help it, R takes himself down to the beach.
The Story:

[The wind ruffles at his hair and tugs his clothes, and R closes his eyes to take a deep, unnecessary breath. He can almost feel the way the salty air should sting the inside of his nose, and he can almost feel the chill from the wind, and that almost is so tantalisingly close that he loses a good hour reaching for it.

He sits cross-legged in the sand, oblivious to the way that the position strains the tendons and joints of his knees. His fingers dig gently into the sand, and he watches the way it slides over his hands with an expression that could only be called curious.

His head tilts slightly as he hears steps behind him, and he glances back over his shoulder. The time he's spent here has done absolutely nothing towards making him look any less Dead, but he's finding that he cares less and less about people's reactions to it. If someone's going to shoot him, then... they're going to shoot him, and there's really nothing he can do about that.]

Um... hey.

Comments

[noreason]

[Naoki nods slowly. He can kind of understand that. He's not in a hurry to get back home--he's in the fortunate position where his future isn't all that uncertain and he can think of his time here as a...vacation, if he could use that word for it.]

That's fair.

[He finally shifts and sits down, bent legs in front of him, his heels digging into the sand.]

I care, but I'm not in a huge hurry, so I'm fine with being here.

[keephersafe]

[Not in a huge hurry? That's something he can relate to. R is rarely in a hurry to get anywhere, like the rest of those like him, though recently he's found that if pressed he can pick up a good amount of speed at a run.

R looks across to his new companion, the way his heels dent into the sand and how it moves around his feet, and he looks down to draw a straight line in the grains in front of him with the tip of his finger.]

Being here... doesn't matter. [Does it? He's worked that much out.] So... why worry.

[He doesn't sound entirely convinced by his own words, but at least he's trying.]

[noreason]

[Naoki looks over at him, then looks at the mark in the sand.]

You think so? A lot of people do.

[He does sometimes, even if he says he's fine with being there. There are a lot of unsettling and sometimes dangerous things about Wonderland, and those are definitely worth worrying over.]

But not worrying...that might save you a lot of stress.

[keephersafe]

[R nods. Stress isn't really a thing he considers very much. There are places he would rather be, and people he would rather be with, but he doesn't feel much of an urgent demand for either... save for one person.

A lot of people hate it here. He doesn't like it here either, but at times - especially times like this one - he much prefers to not think about it.]

Yeah. [He says quietly, picking at a loose thread on his cuff.] It's... not always e-easy.

[noreason]

[Another nod as Naoki looks at R again.]

I'm Naoki. What about you?

[keephersafe]

R.

[He's grown used to introducing himself like that. It feels like a connection to Julie - a name she gave him when he was trying to tell her what he was called. It's the only part of his name he's ever been able to remember, but now it works just as well.]

N-nice to meet you.

[noreason]

R? Heh, nice to meet you. Liv mentioned you to me.

[He smiles, pleased to have met R this way.]

[keephersafe]

S-She did?

[He's never really meant enough to someone to have them talk about him to other people. Briefly, he wonders if Julie would have mentioned him to anyone, when she got home. She never talked about her friends.]

W... what did sh-she tell you?